A Brief History of the Tujia — Tujia Culture and Customs in the Early Feudal Period (I)
Section 3: Tujia Culture and Customs in the Early Feudal Period — As early as 1122 BCE, the Ba people were renowned for "subduing the Yin people with song and dance" while participating in King Wu's campaign against Zhou. The Huayang Guozhi records: "The Ba troops were fierce and brave; they subdued the Yin people with song and dance, and the front ranks turned their weapons around. Thus it was said: when King Wu attacked Zhou, there was singing and dancing before and after." In battle, the Ba...
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Section Three: Tujia Culture and Customs in the Early Feudal Society
As early as 1122 BCE, in the war in which the Ba people participated in King Wu's campaign against Zhou, they were renowned for "driving back the Yin people with song and dance." The Huayang Guozhi records: "The Ba troops were keen and brave; with song and dance they drove back the Yin people, and the front ranks turned their weapons around. Thus the world said, 'King Wu's campaign against Zhou was preceded by song and followed by dance.'" In battle, the Ba people sang war songs loudly, shouted to boost morale, wielded weapons, and made various thrusting movements—recorded in historical texts as "singing in front and dancing behind." This charging method of the Ba people not only displayed their "keen bravery" in battle but also demonstrated their characteristic ability to sing and dance well, exerting a certain influence on Han culture. At the same time, the Great Martial Dance performed on major sacrificial occasions was directly connected to Ba song and dance; it can be said to have originated from the Ba people's "singing in front and dancing behind" during King Wu's campaign against Zhou. During the Warring States period, Ba songs, rich in the flavor of daily life, were renowned in history for their broad popular character.
The vigorous and powerful Ba song and dance had a tremendous influence on the court music and dance of the Han Dynasty, as also recorded in the Taiping Yulan: "In the Yu River, the Cong people were keen-spirited and fond of dancing. Emperor Gaozu delighted in their fierceness and keenness, and had musicians learn it, hence it was named the Bayu Dance." Emperor Gaozu of Han, Liu Bang, sent musicians to learn Ba song and dance; after processing and arrangement, it became a component of court dance music and was entered into the Han court's Music Bureau. This court orchestra was composed of thirty-six drummers from the Ba and Yu peoples, who performed according to the Bayu dance score to accompany the dance. During the Wei and Jin, in the second year of the Huangchu era of Emperor Wen of Wei (221), the Bayu Dance was renamed the Zhaowu Dance. The court dance music "Xuanlie Dance has the Nian Crossbow," which is "the Han Bayu Dance." The Tang scholar Du You records in the Tongdian, Volume 145: the Bayu Dance "has dance pieces Mao Yu, Antai, Nu Yu, and Xing Ci; the original song had four sections, but their lyrics are so ancient that no one can understand their phrasing." This shows that the Bayu Dance was ancient in origin; although the lyrics are now difficult to understand, its dance music still survived in the court.
The ancient Ba people loved song and were good at dance. During the reign of Emperor Jing of Western Han, among the Ba and Yu common folk, "clans would perform in succession, with metal and drums rising one after another," using instruments such as drums and chun to produce pleasing, harmonious melodies to accompany the dance. Ba folk songs were rich and varied. The Han Dynasty literary giant Yang Xiong lived in the Badong Kuixia area in his childhood and was thoroughly familiar with Ba songs; in his Shu Zhi, he pointed out that the "songs" of Kui and Gui were songs of the Ba people. In Zuo Si's rhapsody "Mingfa er Yao Ge," Li Shan's commentary states: "Yao means songs; they are the songs of the Ba native people. He Yan said, the Ba people sing, pulling one another by the hand and dancing to the song." He Yan, a man of the late Eastern Han, not only heard Ba songs on the spot but also watched performances of Ba people singing and dancing. From the Wei, Jin, and Northern and Southern Dynasties through the Sui, the Five Streams Man, including the natives of Youxi and Shidi, "when father or mother died... beat drums and sang while stepping, and relatives feasted and danced for more than a month." The custom of funeral drumming and the stepping-crying dance music still prevailed among the people. In the Tang and Song, records were even more abundant. For example: "The Ba clan sacrificed to their ancestors, beating drums in sacrifice; they are descendants of the White Tiger." "The Ba people are fond of stepping and crying... they beat drums for sacrifices, shouting and howling to express grief, so people called the 'Ba songs' 'stepping and crying.'" From Han through Song, this never declined.
After the mid-Tang, Liu Yuxi absorbed the rich nourishment of Tujia folk songs and created the uniquely styled "Bamboo Branch Lyrics," which shook the poetry world and added new content to the development of Chinese poetry. The "Bamboo Branch" originated from the Ba people's stepping-crying songs; it is a seven-character poetic form of the Ba people, with a four-then-three rhythm following the harmony, hand in hand stepping and crying, melodious and graceful, full of the elegant charm of the Tujia. Even before Liu Yuxi, Tujia folk songs had already been known and recorded by Han Chinese. During the Northern and Southern Dynasties, Li Daoyuan, one of the annotators of the Shui Jing, served as prefect of Eastern Jingzhou under the Northern Wei, roamed the Kuixia region, and recorded in Chinese one of the Ba songs as:
The Three Gorges of Badong—the Wu Gorge is the longest,
Three cries of the gibbon, and tears soak the garments.
Rich in poetic sentiment and song-like charm, simple yet free and easy in style, and widely recited and admired, it truly opened the way for Central Plains scholars to record "Zhuzhi" songs. During the Tang dynasty, Gu Kuang, Bai Juyi, Liu Yuxi, Li She, Sun Guangxian, and others all lived in or passed through Tujia settlements, and composed many Zhuzhi ci reflecting Tujia local customs. Gu Kuang's "Zhuzhi Ci"—"...after the Ba people sing Zhuzhi at night, the heart breaks as the dawn apes' cries gradually fade"—formally proposed the tune title "Zhuzhi Ci." When Liu Yuxi was demoted and exiled, he heard local Tujia people singing Ba songs. The more than ten new Zhuzhi lyrics he composed came from the Hu, Xiang, Kui, and Gui regions. The Langzhou where he was banished was an area "mixed with Man and Dan peoples," where "Man customs favor shamanism; at every licentious song and drum dance, vulgar lyrics must be sung. Yuxi sometimes took part in these, and then, following the poets, made new lyrics to teach the shamans. Therefore, among the Yi songs in the Wuling streams and caves, many are (Liu) Yuxi's lyrics." Liu Yuxi wrote a large number of "Zhuzhi song lyrics," not only further introducing Ba songs to the Central Plains and enriching the complete Tang poetry corpus; at the same time, these refined and elevated new Ba songs were also spread among the Tujia, so that "the Wuling Yi and Li all sang them," naturally also promoting the further development of Tujia culture. For example, one of Liu Yuxi's poems:
The willows are green, green; the river is calm,
I hear my love singing on the river.
The sun shines in the east while rain falls in the west,
You say he is heartless, yet he still has feeling.
Even today among the Tujia, similar lyrics are still preserved; truly they are "full of lingering thought, with the beauty of the Qi and Pu rivers."
By the Song dynasty, poets such as Huang Shangu and Lu You also composed many Zhuzhi ci. For example, when Huang Shangu lodged overnight at Geluo Station (in present-day Xuan'en), he dreamed of Li Bai staying at Geluo and hearing the cuckoo, and wrote three Zhuzhi ci; in both metrical pattern and style they are directly in the same line as the Tang people's Zhuzhi ci.