Tujia Music

Tujia music turns village ritual and farm work into song and dance through baishou songs, wedding laments and percussion.

Related

SuonaGong

Time and place

The Tujia live in Xiangxi in Hunan, Enshi in Hubei, Shizhu, Pengshui and Youyang in Chongqing, and Tongren in Guizhou. Tujia belongs to the Tibeto-Burman branch of Sino-Tibetan; most people now speak Chinese, and only a few villages keep the language. The baishou festival falls in the first or third lunar month, wedding laments are sung the night before a wedding, and weeding gong-and-drum music is played in summer. Daliuzi percussion is shared with neighbouring Han communities.

What happened

Baishou songs carry the baishou dance, telling creation, migration, farming and love, led by a ritual specialist or song master with a responding chorus. Wedding laments are sung by the bride and her companions, covering parental care, parting from sisters and married life; the longer the singing, the greater the affection shown. Weeding gong-and-drum music is led by a song master who beats a drum and gong, urging the work on and recording events. Daliuzi uses a small gong, large gong and two cymbals in a quartet. From the late twentieth century these forms entered stage and tourism, while village rites continue.

Musical features

Baishou songs are mostly pentatonic with even phrase lengths, alternating lead and unison, the footfall matching the strong beat. Wedding laments use a crying tone with falling, trembling phrase ends, improvised words and repeated address formulas. Weeding music is tight, the drum leading and gongs following, with short sung lines. Daliuzi depends on the contrast of four bronze timbres, the small gong sharp, the large gong deep, the cymbals split between lead and answer, sections linked by named patterns. The dudongkui is a small bamboo flute with a narrow range, used for children's songs and love songs.

What to listen for

Hear how a wedding lament falls at the phrase end, then how address formulas repeat. Essen-001137 and essen-001167 are explicitly Tujia, showing the phrasing of a respect song and a harvest song. Chinafolk-008305 and chinafolk-008306 are separate lament sections where the crying tone and repetition are audible. The bronze sound of daliuzi is hard to separate in a recording; listen for the density of gong and cymbal alternation.

Common misunderstandings

Wedding laments are often taken as literal weeping, and Tujia music reduced to the baishou dance. The laments are ritual songs with words and tunes, while baishou songs, weeding music and daliuzi each form a system. Language loss does not mean music loss; Chinese-language verses still circulate in villages and on stage. Nor does every Tujia area sing the same tunes; Xiangxi, western Hubei and southeastern Chongqing differ.

Sources

• 《中国音乐词典》编辑部编，中国音乐词典（人民音乐出版社）— 土家族音乐与打溜子条目核对，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.