Tujia Folk Songs
01 · Historical Records
In the 1880s, a group of veteran folk artists such as Tian Jingheng came to know a large body of Tujia folk songs, and passed them on to folk artists such as Wang Chunsun, who had them collated into volumes.
02 · Core Techniques & Process
Tujia folk songs are the songs by which the Tujia people convey historical memory, ethnic feeling, folk customs and information about production and daily life within their long-term mountain environment. Yanhe Tujia Autonomous County lies in the north-east of Guizhou Province, in the north of Tongren City, on the lower reaches of the Wujiang River, bordering the Chongqing Municipality and close to the Hunan and Hubei borders; it stands at a crossroads of three provinces and one municipality. This place is the gateway to north-east Guizhou and a strategic point on the Wujiang River, and has been a Tujia settlement since ancient times. The Tujia folk songs of Guizhou have a strong flavour of everyday life and ethnic colour. Their lyrics are emotionally sincere, rich in content, drawn from varied sources, ingeniously conceived and fresh in language. Their melodies are beautiful, plain and unadorned, bold in style and high in pitch. Great tunes and small tunes are the most numerous, there are many interpolated syllables, the compass is wide, the melodic development is expansive and there are many pure-octave leaps; the pitch commonly extends around e3, the singing is mainly in the chest (true) voice, and the highest note is often freely prolonged as a closed tone. Over thousands of years Tujia folk songs have been continually created and accumulated by one generation after another of Tujia folk singers, and have been handed down generation by generation through teaching by word of mouth and by example among the Tujia people. Tujia folk songs are the crystallization of the collective wisdom of the Tujia people and an important cultural vehicle by which they record history, express emotion, educate their descendants, judge society and reproduce life. They have positive significance for harmonious communities and for promoting cultural exchange between ethnic groups, and they are a vivid witness to the diversity of ethnic cultures and to human cultural creativity.
Work-themed categories
The Tujia folk songs of Guizhou fall by labour subject into haozi (work chants), field songs, tea songs and the like.
Custom-themed categories
The Tujia folk songs of Guizhou fall by custom into Tima spirit songs, dance-sang songs and crying-on-marriage songs and the like.
High, plain and low registers
By vocal register they fall into high-register mountain songs, plain-register mountain songs and low-register mountain songs, with high-register mountain songs as the main type and plain- and low-register ones as supplements.
Great and small tunes
The tunes of the Guizhou Tujia folk songs are mostly great tunes and small tunes, with many interpolated syllables, a wide compass and many pure-octave leaps; the singing is mainly in the chest (true) voice, and the highest note is often freely prolonged as a closed tone.
Compilation lineage
In the 1880s, a group of veteran folk artists such as Tian Jingheng came to know a large body of Tujia folk songs and passed them on to folk artists such as Wang Chunsun, who had them collated into volumes; the contemporary inheritor Wang Bo has collected Tujia folk songs since 2003 and compiled them into an anthology of Tujia mountain songs.
03 · Regional Records & Related Items
Tujia folk songs are widely transmitted in Guizhou Province in every township of Yanhe Tujia Autonomous County; the core area of transmission is the Wujiang River basin within Yanhe County, radiating to places such as Guanzhou Town and Heping Town. The Tujia folk songs of Guizhou have been continually improved as they have been passed down the generations; their content covers production and daily life, clothing, food, dwelling and transport, and the joys and sorrows of life. By labour subject they fall into haozi (work chants), field songs, tea songs and the like; by custom into Tima spirit songs, dance-sang songs and crying-on-marriage songs and the like; by vocal register into high-register mountain songs, plain-register mountain songs and low-register mountain songs, with high-register mountain songs as the main type and plain- and low-register ones as supplements; by performing form into solo, antiphonal singing and the like. The historical origins of the Tujia folk songs of Guizhou are closely bound to the development of the local Tujia people. They have been influenced by Bayu culture and Jingchu culture and have blended with the cultures of other local ethnic minorities, giving them a marked regional character.
Other submitting regions for the same item: Tujia Folk Songs.
04 · Cultural Value & Contemporary Safeguarding
In recent years, with the wide participation of the relevant departments and all sectors of society, Tujia folk songs have received good protection. Wang Bo (official archival record of the associated inheritor): Male, of Tujia ethnicity, born in December 1966, a native of Yanhe Tujia Autonomous County, Guizhou Province. He grew up in a Tujia mountain village, was nurtured by Tujia mountain songs from childhood and was born with a fine voice; under the teaching of local folk masters he gradually mastered the singing techniques of Tujia mountain songs and learned more than a thousand of them. The mountain songs he sings have rich variation of tune, a high pitch and strong expressiveness, and are much loved by the local people. From 2003 he began collecting Tujia folk songs and compiling them into an anthology of Tujia mountain songs. He has actively advanced programmes bringing traditional culture into schools, playing a linking role between past and future in the transmission and development of Tujia traditional culture. Representative inheritor of the fifth national-level batch intangible cultural heritage project Tujia folk songs.
05 · Associated Representative Bearers
Representative bearers recorded under this item, organized by national nomination batch:
- Xiang Hanguang 05-2171
- Wang Bo 05-2172
06 · Authoritative Sources & Bibliography
Sources
China Intangible Cultural Heritage Network (ihchina.cn)
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