Hani Music

Hani music grows from terrace farming, with transplanting songs, choral polyphony, the bawu and the mouth harp.

Related

BawuKouxian (jaw harp)

Time and place

The Hani live in Honghe, Pu'er, Xishuangbanna and Yuxi in Yunnan, mainly in Yuanyang, Luchun, Honghe, Jinping and Jiangcheng. Villages sit among the Ailao Mountain terraces, and transplanting, weeding and harvest follow the seasons. Hani belongs to the Tibeto-Burman branch of Sino-Tibetan, with strong dialect differences and no widely used traditional script. Songs are sung in terraces, villages, weddings and festivals; polyphonic songs are concentrated around Honghe and Jianshui.

What happened

Hani oral music is tied closely to rice farming. At transplanting time people sing in the fields, one voice starting and others answering, with phrase lengths stretching or shortening to the work. Hani Haba is narrative song, telling migration, creation and family genealogies, usually led by elders at weddings and festival nights. Polyphonic songs were documented by researchers in the late twentieth century; a lead voice overlaps with a sustained low part to make textures of four or more parts. Published accounts differ on the exact number of parts and local practice, so this entry gives the common description.

Musical features

Melody has a pentatonic frame, a modest range and falling phrase ends. Transplanting-song rhythm follows feet and hands, with the strong beat on the planting stroke. The polyphony is not functional harmony: parts enter by their own phrasing, a low voice often holds one note, and upper voices ornament. The bawu uses a metal reed and a soft tone, often for love songs; the mouth harp is quiet and selects overtones with the mouth; straw reeds and leaves are everyday instruments.

What to listen for

Hear how the lead and answer offset each other, then how upper parts ornament over a held bass. Chinafolk-003944 is a transplanting song where the work-song phrasing is audible; chinafolk-001366 is a Yunnanese question-and-answer song, useful for hearing how an answer picks up a question. Essen-008777 is Bai antiphonal singing and essen-000032 is a Midu mountain song, regional references from western and central Yunnan, not Hani recordings.

Common misunderstandings

Hani music is often reduced to a few shouts in the terraces, or polyphony is assumed to exist in every Hani village. Polyphony is localised, and transplanting songs, Hani Haba, love songs and children's songs have separate occasions. Nor is every Hani song accompanied by the bawu; unaccompanied singing and the mouth harp are equally common. These songs are still sung at work and in ritual, not staged folklore for a studio.

Sources

• 《中国音乐词典》编辑部编，中国音乐词典（人民音乐出版社）— 哈尼族民歌与多声部条目核对，未引用
• The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians, 2nd ed., entry "China" — framework checked, not quoted

Used for fact-checking only; all prose is original.