Xibe Folk Songs
01 · Historical Records
The ancestors of the Xibe originally lived in north-east China; during the Qianlong reign of the Qing dynasty part of the people migrated west to garrison Ili, and the eight niulu of the Chabchal area became the core singing place of Xibe folk songs. The tunes have a simple formal structure, built mainly from a single musical period, which makes them easy to improvise and sing, and has also allowed them to circulate widely in the collective life of frontier garrison and land reclamation.
02 · Core Techniques & Process
Xibe folk songs are a traditional music form of the Xibe people, transmitted widely among the Xibe population of Chabchal Xibe Autonomous County in the Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region and also influential among Xibe people elsewhere. Xibe folk songs have a simple formal structure, built from a single musical period, which makes them easy to transmit and sing. By genre and content they may be divided into folk songs, fishing and hunting songs, shamanic songs, narrative songs, field songs (love songs), customary songs, admonitory songs, maxim songs, children’s songs and new folk songs. Xibe folk songs have fixed melodies but no fixed lyrics; the singer improvises words on the spot for different audiences, addressees and occasions, and pays attention to analogy and imagery. Many sets of lyrics require the opening, the middle and the ending to rhyme. They are flexible and changeable, strongly creative, and continually develop and enrich with the times, displaying the folk singer’s superb skill, creativity and talent. Xibe folk songs have a long history; their origins can be traced back to the musical culture period of the Xibe ancestors, the Xianbei people. In every period of historical development, a large number of folk songs rich in content have appeared. In particular, over the more than two centuries since the migration west from north-east China, Xibe folk songs have fully absorbed the finest elements of the folk songs of neighbouring ethnic groups, have taken on the characteristics of a plural culture, and have grown steadily richer and more varied in genre and content, becoming an art form intimately bound to Xibe social life.
Wedding Song
One of the representative works of the Xibe folk song inheritor Tong Limei, used for wedding occasions.
Field Song
One of the representative works of the Xibe folk song inheritor Tong Limei, belonging to the field song (love song) category.
Matchmaking Song
One of the representative works of the Xibe folk song inheritor Tong Limei.
Genre categories
By genre and content, Xibe folk songs may be divided into folk songs, fishing and hunting songs, shamanic songs, narrative songs, field songs (love songs), customary songs, admonitory songs, maxim songs, children’s songs and new folk songs.
Improvised lyrics
Xibe folk songs have fixed melodies but no fixed lyrics; the singer improvises words on the spot for different audiences, addressees and occasions, pays attention to analogy and imagery, and many sets of lyrics require the opening, the middle and the ending to rhyme.
03 · Regional Records & Related Items
Xibe folk songs reflect every aspect of the ethnic group’s historical memory and social life, express the thoughts and feelings of the Xibe people and their pursuit of truth, goodness and beauty, and display Xibe customs, cultural psychology and character. They have regional and ethnic characteristics, and play a positive part in transmitting the national spirit, promoting ethnic unity, cultural identity and social harmony, and enriching the spiritual and cultural life of the people.
04 · Cultural Value & Contemporary Safeguarding
Xibe folk songs have always been handed down generation by generation among the Xibe people by oral transmission. At present, in the Xibe residential areas of the Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region, particularly in the eight niulu of Chabchal Xibe Autonomous County, Xibe folk song performances are held regularly, and folk songs are also sung on the spot whenever needed at all kinds of folk celebrations. Numerous inheritors have emerged, and the popular base for singing, dissemination and transmission is very solid. Tong Limei (official archival record of the associated inheritor): Female, of Xibe ethnicity, born in February 1929, a native of Chabchal Xibe Autonomous County, Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region. A third-generation transmitter of Xibe folk songs, she began to study at the age of twelve, and by the age of twenty had already formed a singing style of her own that stood distinctly apart; she can sing more than a hundred folk songs. Her voice is rounded and rich, and is much loved by audiences. Her representative works include “Wedding Song”, “Field Song” and “Matchmaking Song”; she has considerable local influence and has taken part many times in national folk song recording projects. Representative inheritor of the fifth national-level batch intangible cultural heritage project Xibe folk songs. In 2011 she was awarded the title of “Chinese Xibe Folk Song Queen” at the first Xibe folk song competition in China. She actively trains successors and has trained a group of Xibe folk song inheritors.
05 · Associated Representative Bearers
Representative bearers recorded under this item, organized by national nomination batch:
- Tong Limei 05-2176
06 · Authoritative Sources & Bibliography
Sources
China Intangible Cultural Heritage Network (ihchina.cn)
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