Lisu Achimugua
01 · Historical Records
The costume of the dancers of “Achimukua” is highly distinctive. According to the Record of Things Seen and Heard in Weixi by Yu Qingyuan of the Qing dynasty, when performing “Achimukua”, “the men coil their hair into a topknot and wear a hairpin, weave wheat straw into tassels and string them among their hair, and when going out and about they always carry a sharp blade.
02 · Core Techniques & Process
Weixi was historically inaccessible, the Lisu people had little contact with the outside world, and their mode of production was basically at a stage of part farming and part herding. The goat was a livestock animal that every household kept, and sheep were bound up very closely with the life of the Lisu people of Weixi. “Achimukua” is likewise connected with the goat; it is a vivid expression of the traditional production, life, thoughts and feelings of the Lisu people of Weixi. The women coil their hair and bind it, wear a round-collared gown and tie an apron over their trousers”. The dance form of “Achimukua” is ardent and unrestrained, with a style all its own, and it basically retains the traditional shape of folk art. Achimukua takes the bleating and bounding of the goat as its basic vocabulary of movement; its vocal style is high-pitched and drawn out, with one voice leading and the rest joining in, while the steps combine the steps of the circle dance with turning of the body, and the formation is mostly a circle. The way it is organised for rehearsal in the slack season, for festivals and for weddings and funerals has not changed to this day, and there are established conventions for the positions and the gestures of men and women within the line.
Tongle and Xinle villages
The dance belongs to Tongle and Xinle near Yezhi in Weixi county, a traditional entertainment form that keeps its folk shape.
The Weixi record and the straw headdress
Yu Qingyuan's Qing record describes the men's straw tassels and knives and the women's coiled hair; only Yezhi's Lisu still wear the straw tassels.
Achi Guodou, the bellwether
Li Biqing studied under the old artist Heige from 1989 and is acknowledged locally as the dance's bellwether.
Song and dance of the goat
The name means the goat's song and dance; with goat-keeping universal in semi-pastoral Weixi, the form expresses everyday life and feeling.
Xiong Ziyi's troupe of eighty
Xiong Ziyi, born in 1941, is central to festivals and family rites in the neighbouring villages and has organised an eighty-strong troupe.
03 · Regional Records & Related Items
The Lisu song-and-dance “Achimukua” means “the song and dance of the goat” or “the tune in which one learns the goat's call”. It is transmitted around Tongle and Xinle in Yezhi Town, Weixi Lisu Autonomous County, Diqing Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture, Yunnan Province, and is the traditional self-amusing folk song-and-dance of the locality.
04 · Cultural Value & Contemporary Safeguarding
Today this distinctive costume is seldom to be seen, and now among the performers of “Achimukua” only the Lisu people within Yezhi Town still preserve the practice of “weaving wheat straw into tassels and stringing them among the hair”. At present some traditional dance routines are still danced only by a few elderly people, and the practice faces a crisis of transmission. Xiong Zhiyi (as recorded in the official file of the associated inheritor): male, Lisu, born in 1941, native of Weixi County, Yunnan. He inherited the ancient folk culture of the Lisu people and became an indispensable central figure in the neighbouring villages at festivals or at weddings, funerals and marriages. In recent years he has also organised an Achimukua performance troupe of 80 people which rehearses in the slack season, so that the younger generation in the village can all master this traditional Lisu dance. Representative inheritor of the Lisu Achimukua, second batch of national-level intangible cultural heritage projects. Li Biqing (as recorded in the official file of the associated inheritor): male, Lisu, born in July 1968, native of Weixi Lisu Autonomous County, Yunnan Province. He was immersed in traditional song and dance from childhood and studied with the elders of the village. In 1989 he took the old artist Hei Ge as his master, and, by virtue of his innate talent for song and dance and his own painstaking effort, mastered the singing and dancing techniques of Achimukua, formed a rugged and unrestrained dance style, won the affection and recognition of the masses, and became the locally acknowledged “Achimukou (leading ram)”. Many young people from the surrounding villages who love Achimukua have come from far away to learn from him. In order to preserve and transmit Achimukua better, he has insisted on collecting and excavating its traditional vocal styles, song texts and dance passages, and has trained a group of outstanding young artists. The troupe he leads has appeared many times on stages at national, provincial, prefecture and municipal level, presenting the Lisu Achimukua to audiences in various places. Representative inheritor of the Lisu Achimukua, fifth batch of national-level intangible cultural heritage projects.
05 · Associated Representative Bearers
Representative bearers recorded under this item, organized by national nomination batch:
- Xiong Ziyi 02-0394
- Li Biqing 05-2240
06 · Authoritative Sources & Bibliography
Sources
China Intangible Cultural Heritage Network (ihchina.cn)
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