Li Folk Songs
01 · Historical Records
In 1984 the local government decided to hold a Li song festival every year on the third day of the third lunar month, promoting the further development of Li folk songs.
02 · Core Techniques & Process
The Li are one of the Lingnan peoples of China, living in Tongshi Town, Baoting, Ledong, Dongfang, Qiongzhong, Baisha, Lingshui, Changjiang, Huan County and other places on Hainan Island. Li folk songs lay stress on rhythm and metre, are easy to pick up, and are mostly sung in solo and antiphonal forms, accompanied by the characteristic Li folk instruments. The singing of folk songs is often bound up with music and dance: the song sets the tune, the tune carries the words, song and dance form one body, and an antique style is full of the air, presenting a distinctive ethnic character. Li folk songs have a long and far-reaching origin; they arose and are current in the areas where the Li live on Hainan Island, and the traditional Li folk songs of Qiongzhong Li and Miao Autonomous County, situated in the heart of the Wuzhishan mountains, and its surrounding areas are the most representative. The entire musical form of Li folk songs presents a free, ancient and simple appearance; its structural characteristic is the free form in which "the tune does not fix the phrase and the phrase does not fix the words", its modal scales take the gong, shang, jue, zhi and yu as their structural tones with many stepwise motions, and its rhythms and beats are characterised by metrical free rhythm and triple metre, embodying a distinctive ethnic musical style. Over a considerable historical period, Li folk songs were the main content of the cultural life of the Li people; men and women, old and young, everyone could sing them.
Luo-ni tune
One of the tunes of Li folk song named after a refrain.
Si-qin tune
One of the tunes of Li folk song named after a refrain.
Hong-mao and Shui-man tunes
Tunes of Li folk song named after localities, current respectively in the Hongmao and Shuiman areas in the heart of the Wuzhishan mountains.
Slash-and-burn and mourning tunes
Tunes of Li folk song named after their subject matter, used respectively for slash-and-burn labour and for funerals.
Spirit-invoking and Tiao-niang tunes
Tunes of Li folk song named after their subject matter, associated with the folk belief activities of the Li.
Dialect-named tunes
Tunes of Li folk song named after dialects, corresponding to the different dialect branches of the Li.
Free-form structure
The entire musical form of Li folk songs presents a free, ancient and simple appearance; its structural characteristic is the free form in which "the tune does not fix the phrase and the phrase does not fix the words", its modal scales take the gong, shang, jue, zhi and yu as their structural tones, and its rhythms and beats are characterised by metrical free rhythm and triple metre.
03 · Regional Records & Related Items
According to their form of expression, Li folk songs are divided into ancient folk songs sung in the Li language and folk songs sung in the Hainan dialect of Chinese; the former concentrate the ethnic traditions of the Li, while the latter reflect the profound influence of Han culture. More than three hundred kinds of Li folk song have now been collected, of which thirty are representative; according to their subject matter they can be divided into work songs, love songs, songs about current affairs, life songs, narrative songs and the like. These include tunes named after refrains — Luo-ni Diao, Si-qin Diao, Shaozhongwa Diao and Duduli Diao; tunes named after localities — Hongmao Diao, Shuiman Diao, Sanping Diao and Fanyang Diao; tunes named after dialects — the Ha dialect song, the Qi dialect tune and the Run dialect tune; tunes named after subject matter — Kanshan Diao, Kusang Diao, Qiushen Diao and Tiaoniang Diao; and tunes named for the length of the tune — the long tune and the short tune.
04 · Cultural Value & Contemporary Safeguarding
Li folk songs are the crystallisation of the collective wisdom of the Li people, and are of important reference value in the study of Lingnan local music and minority culture. At present, under the impact of popular culture, Qiongzhong Li folk songs have been neglected and face the crisis of disappearing altogether; effective measures for rescue and protection must be adopted so that this fine form of traditional ethnic music can continue to be transmitted. Wang Yanda (official archive entry of the associated inheritor): She loved folk songs from childhood and began to learn them from her cousin's husband Wang Renfu at the age of ten; at fourteen she was already somewhat known locally. She has always been keen to learn from local folk singers, has mastered more than thirty tune types and knows by heart over a thousand folk songs. She is able to fill in lyrics to a given tune, composing and singing Li folk songs herself according to different occasions. From the 1950s to the early 1960s she composed more than ten widely loved new Li folk songs, including "Jiao Nong Chang Ge Nong Jiu Chang" and "You Ge Bu Chang Liu Zuo Mei". A woman of the Li ethnicity, born in December 1923 and deceased in April 2018, native of Qiongzhong Li and Miao Autonomous County, Hainan Province. Representative inheritor of the Li folk songs (Qiongzhong Li folk songs) national-level intangible cultural heritage project of the third national-level batch. She trained such renowned Li folk singers of Hainan as Dayu Mei and Xiaoyu Mei. Since the reform and opening up she has also trained a number of provincial and county-level folk song inheritors such as Wang Qurong and Wang Yuying. In 2007 she was awarded the title of Outstanding Transmitter of Chinese Folk Culture by the China Federation of Literary and Art Circles.
05 · Associated Representative Bearers
Representative bearers recorded under this item, organized by national nomination batch:
- Wang Fouda 03-0869
- Wang Qurong
06 · Authoritative Sources & Bibliography
Sources
China Intangible Cultural Heritage Network (ihchina.cn)
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