The Legacy of Indigenous Music: Asian and European Perspectives (Sinophone and Taiwan Studies, 4) 9811644721, 9789811644726

Table of contents :
Preface
Contents
Editors and Contributors
Stage Performance and Music Inheritance of Taiwan’s Indigenous People: A Case of Series Concerts “Sounds from Across Generations”
1 Introduction
2 Overview of the Concert’s Events
3 A Brief History of Staged Taiwanese Indigenous Music
3.1 Economic-Based Tourism Performances
3.2 Cultural Declarative Performances
3.3 Production for This Series of Concerts
4 Indigenous Sounds from Across Generations
4.1 The Concept of “Five Generations on One Stage”
4.2 Staging Process and Inheritance
5 Conclusion
References
“Imagined” Indigenous Music as Materials in Music Education in Taiwan (1950–2000)
1 Introduction
2 Contact and Understanding of Indigenous Music
2.1 Musicians and Choreographers in the Early Post-WWII Period
2.2 Seminar on Improving Shandi Songs and Dances
2.3 A New Perspective of Academic Research
3 Indigenous Music in Music Textbooks
3.1 Imagined Songs and Legends
3.2 New Lyrics in National Language
3.3 Limitation on Perspectives and Research Method
3.4 A Controversial Song
4 Conclusion
References
Musicking as a Way of Connecting with the Ancestral Home: Preserving and Inventing Traditions in Papulu, Taiwan
1 Semimusimuk: Legacy and Celebration
2 Taiwanese Indigenous Peoples and Related Studies
3 Pinuyumayan Group and Papulu Village
4 Mangayaw, Pairairaw, and Tremilratilraw
5 The Legacy and the Semimusimuk
6 Musicking as a Way of Connecting with the Ancestral Home
References
Fate and Value of Musical Traditions in a Globalising World
1 Socio-Economic Conditions and Political Constellations
2 Political Dimension
3 Reality of Musical Traditions—Context—Understanding
4 Tradition—Form of Existence, Change, and Variability
5 Preserving Tradition—Museum Existence
6 Globalisation—Technical Development
7 Copyright
8 Pop Music
9 The Global Threat to Musical Traditions
9.1 Destruction
9.2 Perpetuation of a False Image of Foreign Music Cultures: The Own and the Foreign, the Other
9.3 Replacement of the “Outdated” Traditions of the Others
9.4 Addition to One’s Own “Native” Traditions
10 Exclusions
11 Yemen
12 Gender Segregation
13 Upheaval—Renewal—Medialisation
14 Egypt
15 Historical Depth
16 The Aiyai Genre
17 The Caliphate
18 Fund of Intellectual and Cultural Achievements
19 Conclusion: Humane Globalisation
References
Re-sonating Voices, Sounds, and Memories: The Repatriation of 60-Year-Old Field Recordings from Sagada, Mountain Province in Northern Philippines
1 Introduction
2 Sagada
3 The ReCollection Project
4 A Brief Description of Music in Sagada
5 Conclusion
References
Study of Polyphonic Music of National Minorities Through the Historical Perspective
1 Georgia as a National Minority and National Minorities Living in Georgia
1.1 Georgia
1.2 East Georgia
1.3 Western Georgia
1.4 Svaneti
1.5 Racha
1.6 The Urban Music in Georgia
2 Minorities Living in Georgia
2.1 Abkhazians
2.2 Ossetians
3 State of Study of Traditional Music of National Minorities
3.1 Russian Researchers
3.2 Georgian Researchers
3.3 Policy of Studying Minority Music in Georgia
4 Some General Issues of Study of Polyphonic Traditions of National Minorities
4.1 Distribution of Polyphony Among Indigenous National Minorities
4.2 Stratification of Traditional Polyphony in the Light of the Origins of Polyphony
4.3 Polyphony, Indigenous National Minorities and State Borders
5 Conclusions: What Does This All Mean for the Study of the Polyphonic Traditions of Indigenous Peoples?
References
The Indigenous Music of Sarawak and Its Transmission Over the Last 60 Years with a Special Focus on the Music of the Kenyah and the Lun Bawang
1 Introduction
2 Literature Survey of Research on Traditional Dayak Music in Sarawak
3 Music Education in Sarawak and Transmission of Indigenous Music
3.1 Sarawak Music Education in the 1960s and 1970s
3.2 Music Education in Malaysian Elementary Schools After the 1980s
3.3 Music as a Subject in Malaysian Secondary Schools
4 Kenyah Music from the Longhouse to the Urban Classroom
4.1 Belian Dado’
4.2 Songs Associated with Instrumental Music
4.3 Appeal of the Songs to Different Age-Groups and Ethnicities
4.4 Instrumental Music
4.5 Recontextualization (Adaptations for the Classroom and Stage)
5 The Lun Bawang People and Their Musical Culture
5.1 Vocal Music
5.2 Instrumental Music
5.3 Influence of the Church
5.4 The Lun Bawang Bamboo Band, Lawas, Sarawak
5.5 Instrumentation and Harmony
5.6 Repertoire and Role in Society
6 Sape in the Wider Society
6.1 Resurgence in Popularity
6.2 Transmission of Sape Skills
6.3 Changing Repertoire
7 Conclusion
References
Minority Versus Majority—Phrase or Reality?
1 Life Systems and Origins of Roma and Sinti
2 Documentation and Forms of Representation
3 The Roma and Sinti Minorities in Europe
4 Research Programs on Roma and Sinti in Slovakia
5 The Starting Research on Roma, Sinti or the Olav Society
6 Research Projects and Encounters with Roma
7 Some Closing Aspects on the Practice and Research of the Roma
References
Indigenous People and Traditional Music in the Historical Context of the Czech Lands
1 Coexistence of Majority and Minority as a Historical Fate
2 Czech, German, Polish, Slovak, or European Heritage
3 Teacher—Cantor: Care for Language and Music Education
4 First Attempts to Collect and Publish Folk Music
5 Hymn Books, Songbooks: A Repertoire Source of Rural and Urban Singing
6 Modern Songbooks and Their Influence on the Song Repertoire of 20th Century Society: Research Results
References
503482_1_En_10_Chapter_OnlinePDF.pdf
Correction to: The Indigenous Music of Sarawak and Its Transmission Over the Last 60 Years with a Special Focus on the Music of the Kenyah and the Lun Bawang
Correction to: Chapter “The Indigenous Music of Sarawak and Its Transmission Over the Last 60 Years with a Special Focus on the Music of the Kenyah and the Lun Bawang” in: Y. Lu and O. Elschek (eds.), The Legacy of Indigenous Music, Sinophone and Taiwan Studies 4, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-16-4473-37

Citation preview

Sinophone and Taiwan Studies 4

Yu-hsiu Lu Oskar Elschek   Editors

The Legacy of Indigenous Music Asian and European Perspectives

Sinophone and Taiwan Studies Volume 4

Series Editors Shu-mei Shih, National Taiwan Normal University, University of California, Los Angeles, CA, USA Henning Kloeter, Humboldt University of Berlin, Berlin, Germany Jenn-Yeu Chen, National Taiwan Normal University, Taipei, Taiwan Nikky Lin, National Taiwan Normal University, Taipei, Taiwan

This book series aims to stimulate and showcase the best of humanistic and social science research related to Sinophone communities and their cultures in Taiwan and around the globe. By combining Sinophone and Taiwan Studies in one book series, we hope to overcome the limitations of previous methodologies to explore the many aspects of Sinophone communities and Taiwan from expansive perspectives that are comparative, transnational, and relational. The foci of the book series include, but are not limited to, the complex relationship between locality and globality, the interrelations among various categories of identity (national, cultural, ethnic, racial, gender, linguistic, religious, and sexual), the states of multiculturalism versus creolization, the politics and economics of culture, diasporic and anti-diasporic practices and expressions, various forms and processes of colonialism (settler colonialism, formal colonialism, postcolonialism, neo-colonialism), as well as indigeneity. Series Editors: Shu-mei Shih (University of California, Los Angeles) Henning Kloeter (Humboldt University of Berlin) Jenn-Yeu Chen (National Taiwan Normal University) Nikky Lin (National Taiwan Normal University)

Editorial Board: Yao-ting Sung (National Taiwan Normal University) Christopher Lupke (University of Alberta) Sung-Sheng (Yvonne) Chang (University of Texas at Austin) Ann Heylen (National Taiwan Normal University) Edward Anthony Vickers (Kyushu University) Kuei-fen Chiu (National Chung Hsing University) Ping-hui Liao (University of California, San Diego) Shuo-Bin Su (National Taiwan University) Chu Ren Huang (The Hong Kong Polytechnic University) Margaret Hillenbrand (University of Oxford) Cheun Hoe Yow (Nanyang Technological University) Jia-Fei Hong (National Taiwan Normal University)

More information about this series at http://www.springer.com/series/16251

Yu-hsiu Lu · Oskar Elschek Editors

The Legacy of Indigenous Music Asian and European Perspectives

Editors Yu-hsiu Lu National Taiwan Normal University Taipei, Taiwan

Oskar Elschek Slovak Academy of Sciences Bratislava, Slovakia

ISSN 2524-8863 ISSN 2524-8871 (electronic) Sinophone and Taiwan Studies ISBN 978-981-16-4472-6 ISBN 978-981-16-4473-3 (eBook) https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-16-4473-3 © The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. 2021, corrected publication 2021 This work is subject to copyright. All rights are solely and exclusively licensed by the Publisher, whether the whole or part of the material is concerned, specifically the rights of translation, reprinting, reuse of illustrations, recitation, broadcasting, reproduction on microfilms or in any other physical way, and transmission or information storage and retrieval, electronic adaptation, computer software, or by similar or dissimilar methodology now known or hereafter developed. The use of general descriptive names, registered names, trademarks, service marks, etc. in this publication does not imply, even in the absence of a specific statement, that such names are exempt from the relevant protective laws and regulations and therefore free for general use. The publisher, the authors and the editors are safe to assume that the advice and information in this book are believed to be true and accurate at the date of publication. Neither the publisher nor the authors or the editors give a warranty, expressed or implied, with respect to the material contained herein or for any errors or omissions that may have been made. The publisher remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations. This Springer imprint is published by the registered company Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. The registered company address is: 152 Beach Road, #21-01/04 Gateway East, Singapore 189721, Singapore

Preface

The purpose of oral tradition as well as music education is the perseverance of the musical legacy. The study of transmission methods has a long history, but one that is constantly discussed due to the ever-changing objectives and methods. The purpose of this book is to examine the means and forms of music transmission in modern society. This book is a volume of the Sinophone and Taiwan Studies series that explores the inheritance of indigenous music culture. Taiwan, with an area of 36,000 km2 , is home to approximately 2% of the indigenous population, which consists of 16 tribes with different tribal personalities and song genres. In the early times, the invaders put great constraints on the transmission of Taiwanese indigenous knowledge, culture, and music. These constraints were first implemented for the sake of economic interests and continued during the political hegemony under the invaders. It was not until 1987 that this situation improved when martial law was lifted in Taiwan. The first three articles are about Taiwanese aboriginal music. Yu-hsiu Lu’s “Stage Performance and Music Inheritance of Taiwan’s Indigenous People: A Case of Series Concerts “Sounds from Across Generations”” contains a series of modern Taiwanese indigenous stage music performances. This work explores the possibilities and problems of the stage as a means of transmitting musical and cultural characteristics. Chun-yen Sun’s ““Imagined” Indigenous Music as Materials in Music Education in Taiwan (1950–2000)” focuses on how the indigenes in Taiwan were distorted when they had no voice in the mainstream hegemonic culture in the second half of the twentieth century. The questions of how they were presented in the compulsory education textbooks and were turned into a tool for cultural propaganda by the rulers are also investigated. Chun-bin Chen’s “Musicking as a Way of Connecting with the Ancestral Home: Preserving and Inventing Traditions in Papulu, Taiwan” looks at the revitalization of traditional tribal cultures in modern society. In addition to the three articles on the inheritance of indigenous music culture in Taiwan, some Asian and European perspectives have also provided examples and observations on the transmission of indigenous music around the world as a way of showing how the music culture of indigenous groups, which may be demographically disadvantaged, economically weak, or politically weak, has been passed on through different means and methods. v

vi

Preface

In Jürgen Elsner’s “Fate and Value of Musical Traditions in a Globalising World,” the impact of globalization on the transmission of indigenous music is elucidated from an economic perspective. In LaVerne David de la Peña and Alma Louise B. Bagano’s “Re-sonating Voices, Sounds, and Memories: The Repatriation of 60-Year-Old Field Recordings from Sagada, Mountain Province in Northern Philippines,” they suggest bringing early recordings back to the tribe for re-investigation. Additionally, Joseph Jordania’s “Study of Polyphonic Music of National Minorities Through the Historical Perspective” describes the process of young tribal people becoming ethnomusicologists in which the development of local traditional music is a way of transmitting traditional indigenous music. Chong Pek Lin and Lim’s “The Indigenous Music of Sarawak and Its Transmission Over the Last 60 Years with a Special Focus on the Music of the Kenyah and the Lun Bawang” uses the example of Kenyah and Lun Bawang in Sawarak, Malaysia, to examine the impact of the educational attitude of the rulers on the inheritance of indigenous music. Oskar Elschek’s “Minority Versus Majority—Phrase or Reality?” concentrates on the theme of the Roma and Sinti in Slovakia, and how Slovakia preserved their music. As for Lubomír Tyllner’s “Indigenous People and Traditional Music in the Historical Context of the Czech Lands,” it shows that indigenous people, who are the majority of the population but politically disadvantaged at the border of two countries, have been able to pass on their traditional music from generation to generation through traditional songs. This sharing of examples and experiences of indigenous music inheritance around the world should serve as a good reference for all indigenous people regardless of whether they are in the minority or in the majority within a certain country or are politically and economically disadvantaged, so that the world’s diverse music cultures can be protected and passed on from generation to generation. I would like to thank the contributors of this book, whose research enriched the inheritance theme, for their hard work and interesting contributions. In particular, I would like to thank Vice-President Dr. Yao-Ting Sung of National Taiwan Normal University, who always encourages and supports the process of writing this book. Also, warmest thanks to Annette Chen and Shura Taylor for their assistance. Taipei, Taiwan

Yu-hsiu Lu

Contents

Stage Performance and Music Inheritance of Taiwan’s Indigenous People: A Case of Series Concerts “Sounds from Across Generations” . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Yu-hsiu Lu

1

“Imagined” Indigenous Music as Materials in Music Education in Taiwan (1950–2000) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Chun-yen Sun

27

Musicking as a Way of Connecting with the Ancestral Home: Preserving and Inventing Traditions in Papulu, Taiwan . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Chun-bin Chen

47

Fate and Value of Musical Traditions in a Globalising World . . . . . . . . . . Jürgen Elsner

69

Re-sonating Voices, Sounds, and Memories: The Repatriation of 60-Year-Old Field Recordings from Sagada, Mountain Province in Northern Philippines . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 119 LaVerne David de la Peña and Alma Louise B. Bagano Study of Polyphonic Music of National Minorities Through the Historical Perspective . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 143 Joseph Jordania The Indigenous Music of Sarawak and Its Transmission Over the Last 60 Years with a Special Focus on the Music of the Kenyah and the Lun Bawang . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 165 Chong Pek Lin and Connie Keh Nie Lim Minority Versus Majority—Phrase or Reality? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 199 Oskar Elschek Indigenous People and Traditional Music in the Historical Context of the Czech Lands . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 215 Lubomír Tyllner vii

viii

Contents

Correction to: The Indigenous Music of Sarawak and Its Transmission Over the Last 60 Years with a Special Focus on the Music of the Kenyah and the Lun Bawang . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Chong Pek Lin and Connie Keh Nie Lim

C1

Editors and Contributors

About the Editors Yu-hsiu Lu is the chair and professor of the Institute of Ethnomusicology, National Taiwan Normal University. She completed her Ph.D. at the Institute of Musicology, University of Vienna. Her primary research area is on the indigenous music in Taiwan and Southeastern China. Her publications include History of Taiwan Music (2003), Tao’s Moonlight Concert (2007), The Melody in Light Shadows (documentary film, 2003), A Rolling Age: Falangaw Farming Songs (2011), Searching for Polyphony: Recollecting the Lost Old Songs of Taitung Amis (2013) which won the Best Traditional Music Album in “25th Golden Melody Awards for Traditional Arts and Music” (2014). Oskar Elschek is an ethnomusicologist, has done much to influence the course of ethnomusicological research in Eastern Europe, and in connection with the political and ideological transformations of 1989–1991, his efforts were of singular importance in the rapprochement between scholarly communities in the Western and Eastern Europe. His primary contributions have been to the study of folk music in Slovakia, the Carpathians, and the Pannonian Basin of East-Central Europe; to instrumental folk music; and to the emergence of systematic musicology as an international field of research. In addition to his extensive publications, he has produced numerous documentary films, ethnographic videos and audio recordings. He has focused considerable attention on the history of European folk music scholarship and ethnomusicology, and his monographs on the theories and methods of modern systematic scholarship have since become standard works. In 1997, he received the Herder Prize for his lifetime contributions to ethnomusicology.

Contributors Alma Louise B. Bagano Diliman Quzon City, Philippines ix

x

Editors and Contributors

Chun-bin Chen Taipei National University of the Arts, New Taipei, Taiwan Chong Pek Lin Independent Researcher, Kuching, Sarawak, Malaysia Connie Keh Nie Lim Universiti Malaysia Sarawak, Kota Samarahan, Sarawak, Malaysia LaVerne David de la Peña University of the Philippines, Diliman Quzon City, Philippines Oskar Elschek Slovak Academy of Sciences, Bratislava, Slovakia Jürgen Elsner Emeritus Professor, Humboldt University Berlin, Berlin, Germany Joseph Jordania The University of Melbourne, Melbourne, Australia Yu-hsiu Lu National Taiwan Normal University, Taipei, Taiwan Chun-yen Sun Chinese Culture University, Taipei, Taiwan Lubomír Tyllner Czech Academy of Sciences, Praha, Czech Republic

Stage Performance and Music Inheritance of Taiwan’s Indigenous People: A Case of Series Concerts “Sounds from Across Generations” Yu-hsiu Lu

Abstract The concert series “Sounds from Across Generations” embodies the intangible cultural heritage of Taiwan’s indigenous music. This article aims to analyze the problems which occurred during the curating process and to explicate the effect these concerts have on indigenous music inheritance of Taiwan. In order to gain a better understanding of this concert series, this article will first present an outline of the events which it encompasses. A brief description on the development of the staging of Taiwan’s indigenous music will then be provided. Ultimately, the concert series will be elucidated in which two main aspects of the performances will be scrutinized. The first aspect will be the concept of “five generations on one stage”, in which the theory and practice as well as the concomitant issues of this concept will be explained. The second aspect will focus on the staging process of these concerts and the arising issues on inheritance of the songs and dances performed. Scholars usually view “stage performance” with a negative lens. Their argument is that stage performance detaches the musicians from their natural musical environment, thus taking away important cultural aspects of their music. I would like to argue that, because of the nature and requirements that came along with this project (about one hour of required music), many tribes used this opportunity to recover tribal songs that were near extinction or have recently stopped being sung. It has served as a new model of how indigenous music can be passed down through generations. Keywords Taiwanese indigenous music · Stage performance · Music inheritance

Y. Lu (B) National Taiwan Normal University, Taipei, Taiwan e-mail: [email protected] Present Address: No. 162, Sec. 1, Heping East Rd., Taipei 106, Taiwan © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. 2021 Y. Lu and O. Elschek (eds.), The Legacy of Indigenous Music, Sinophone and Taiwan Studies 4, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-16-4473-3_1

1

2

Y. Lu

1 Introduction In 2017, the Taiwan Music Institute began a series of concerts called “Sounds from Across Generations” under the authority of The National Center for Traditional Arts. Rung-shun Wu, former director of the National Center for Traditional Arts as well as researcher of Taiwan indigenous music, and I aspired to promote indigenous music of Taiwan in order for the mainstream public to learn about the musical undertones of an ethnic group that is different from the mainstream Taiwanese in lifestyle and ways of thinking. Through my discussion with him, the outline of this series of concerts emerged and was further implemented as I curated the first musical concert. Such an event has not only promoted the themes of “Connecting and Resurfacing the History of the Land and Memories of People” (Ministry of Culture, 2016) and “Reconstructing Music History in Taiwan”, respectively advocated by the Ministry of Culture in 2016 and 2017, but has also allowed the organization of the Taiwan Music Institute, a subordinate unit of National Center for Traditional Arts, to continue the work of earlier musicologists to collect Taiwan’s indigenous music through field research in the hope of recollecting and indexing the music from each of the indigenous tribes that preserves and archives this batch of precious intangible cultural heritage.

2 Overview of the Concert’s Events On October 27, 2017, the National Center for Traditional Arts—Taiwan Music Institute presented the musical performance, Ata, Taila kita I O’mah—Musical from the Amis People in the Falangaw Village, a performance event showcasing the music of the Falangaw Village of the Amis tribe. This performance was the first of a series of events from the “Sounds from Across Generations—The Series of Authentic Ethnic Music in Taiwan”. Statistics show that by the end of 2019, there had already been 21 music concerts (see Chou, 2019: 3) of which there were a variety of performances on Taiwan’s an traditional music, Chinese music brought from China to Taiwan, Taiwan’s contemporary composition and pop music. 11 of those 21 concerts included Taiwanese indigenous music. These 11 indigenous music concerts included performances presented by tribal groups as a whole or performances by a village from larger tribes. As part of this initiative, the performances which follow the Falangaw Village of the Amis tribe and Djineljepan Village of the Paiwan tribe in 2017 are the Strengan Village of the Sediq tribe, Ray’in Village of the SaySiyat tribe, Sinevaudjan Village of the Paiwan tribe, the Atayal tribe, Naihunpu Village of the Bunun tribe, and Miling’an Musical Theater of the Paiwan tribe performed in 2018; the Ita Thao Village of the Thao tribe, the Tao tribe, and the Hla’alua tribe in 2019 (Table 1). Some of the performances in 2018 attempted to incorporate contemporary Western music compositions into indigenous music but were abandoned in the next year.

Falangaw Amis

Djineljepan Paiwan

Sediq

Ray’in SaySiyat

Sinevaudjan Paiwan

Atayal

Naihunpu Bunun

Paiwan

Ita Thao Thao

Tao

Hla’alua

Oct 27, 2017

Oct 28, 2017

Mar 9, 2018

Mar 16, 2018

Mar 17, 2018

Oct 26, 2018

Oct 27, 2018

Dec 22, 2018

Jun 15, 2019

Jun 22, 2019

Sep 29, 2019

AmuBwiy Puing Culture Arts Group

Sinevaudjan Traditional Song Class + Pupils + Temporary Group Organized for Event

Temporary Group Organized for Event + Pupils

Sediq Traditional Culture and Arts Group

Djineljepan Cultural Music Troupe + Pupils

Chu-yin culture and arts troupe

Performance group

Ming-Chieh Chou

Yu-hsiu Lu

Xin-yi Wei

Chian Hu

Temporary Group Organized for Event

Temporary Group Organized for Event + Pupils

Temporary Group Organized for Event

Miling’an Musical Theater

Kuo-ching Wang, Ming-fu Chin & Nantou County Bunun Cultural Hsiu-lan Chuan Association

Kwang-po Cheng & Chih-hsang Kuo

Shan-Hua Chian

Yu-hsiu Lu

Yuh-Fen Tseng

Ming-chieh Chou

Yu-hsiu Lu & Shu-chuan Kao

Curator

18/18

21/2

21/3

14

28/13

9

21

17/7

12

20

24/4

Number of songs performed/ceremonial songs performed

Holy Shells Ceremony miatungusu

13 songs of different ceremoniesa

Dwarf Ceremony paSta’ay

Harvest Ceremony kiluma’an

Tribal ceremonial song and dance incorporated into performance

Sources: Lu & Kao, 2017; Chou, 2017; Tseng, 2018; Lu 2018; Chian, 2018; Cheng & Kuo, 2018; Wang, Chin & Chuan, 2018; Hu, 2018; Wei, 2019; Lu, 2019; Chou, 2019 a The following 13 songs were listed as “ceremonial songs” on the program booklet and performed throughout the entire second half of the performance: “Millet Seeding”, “Prayers for Plentiful Millet Harvest”, “Shaman’s Declare”, “Sacrifice for the Gun before the Hunt”, “Millet Brewing”, “ Messenger’s song”, “Hunter’s Return”, “ Headhunting Song”, “Ceremony Song of Headhunting”, “Meritorious Report”, “Drinking Song”, “Song of Loneliness”, and “Returning Home” (see Wang et al., 2018)

Village and tribe

Performance date

Table 1 “Sounds from Across Generations” series—performance groups and numbers of songs performed (See performance program booklets)

Stage Performance and Music Inheritance of Taiwan’s Indigenous … 3

4

Y. Lu

As curator for this series of indigenous concerts, I conducted the three concerts of Falangaw Village Amis tribe, Ray’in Village SaySiyat, and Tao, accompanied each performance, and asked for students’ and non-indigenous music researchers’ opinions after the performances. In addition, I also interviewed the Taiwan Music Institute’s performance promotion assistant researcher, Jiuan-reng Yeh, who undertook this series of events. The institute also provided me with feedback surveys which the audience completed as data for this study. Therefore, this study was conducted mainly based on the data collected from the three performances I curated with additional data from the other performances. Through analyzing each of the music-centered concerts and discussion of the interactions and effects of the indigenous music inheritance generated by this series of performances presented by the tribes and villages, I hope to reveal the problems encountered by the Taiwanese indigenous people and to promote the perpetual inheritance of this intangible cultural heritage.

3 A Brief History of Staged Taiwanese Indigenous Music When it comes to singing and dancing in early indigenous music, an absolute distinction between performers and audience did not exist. The audience could join the performers whenever they wanted, and in turn, the performers could become the audience, creating a union between both roles. Since the performances were not located on a stage but in nature, considerations regarding stage appearances did not have to be taken into account (Chen, 2018: 151; Sun, 2001: 32). However, during the Japanese Colonial Period (1895–1945), indigenous music performed for touristic and economic purposes was documented in which the performers and audience became two separate entities. Hereby, a stage-like condition was created even though the performances were still situated in nature. In the Post-Japanese Colonial Period, performances were also presented indoors without an actual stage. In the 1990s, there was a rise in awareness of indigenous people which led to communal acceptance by the Taiwanese. Performances of such music, thus, were located on the national stage and emphasized on the declaration of indigenous culture. The following discussion will elucidate the economic and declarative aspects of this series of performances.

3.1 Economic-Based Tourism Performances As mentioned above, the places where the performances of indigenous music were delivered during the Japanese Colonial Period was outdoors. After this period ended, performances were given both indoors and outdoors albeit not having a “formal” stage. Examples of performances on “informal” stages can be traced back to the period when Taiwan was under Japanese ruling, where the Thao’s pestle-pounding performance, a well-known tourist attraction among “Eight views of Taiwan” at the time for tourists visiting the Sun Moon Lake (Taiwan Daily News, 1922); as well as the

Stage Performance and Music Inheritance of Taiwan’s Indigenous …

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performance for Prince Hirohito—the crown prince of Japan, by an indigenous group from Eastern Taiwan at the Taipei New Park Sports Field on April of 1923 (Taiwan Daily News, 1923). After World War II, a few cultural areas were established where indigenous performers were gathered to present tourist-specific performances that had deviated from the original artistic style. This included the Qingliuyuan Cultural Village of the Mountain Tribe established in Wulai in 1952 (Hsyu et al., 2019: 54– 57), the Amis Cultural Village in Hualian in 1965, the Taiwan Indigenous Peoples Cultural Park established in Makazayazaya, Pingtung in 1985, and the Formosan Aboriginal Culture Village established in 1986. Furthermore, there were performers who travelled further away from their own cultural sites in order to gain a more diverse audience. For instance, Tsang-Houei Hsu travelled with an indigenous group to Europe in 1988 to attend the “Festival Pacifique” (Sun, 2008b: 139). On the other hand, there were numerous tourism-based displays held in the name of Field Day or Harvest Festival (Hu, 2003: 304).

3.2 Cultural Declarative Performances At the beginning of the 1990s, musicologist Li-kuo Ming planned the “Taiwan Indigenous Singing and Dancing Series” performances at the National Theater to bring indigenous singers onto the national music stage. These singers included the Amis in 1990, Bunun in 1991, Puyuma in 1992, and the Tsou in 1993 (Department of Ethnomusicology, Nanhua University-Ming Li-kuo, n.d.). By including these tribes, these performances introduced indigenous songs and dances to the national stage and displayed the acceptance of indigenous culture as an artistic performance by the mainstream public. However, Shih-chung Hsieh criticized this series of performances for being led by elitists and national policies: The introduction of tribal ceremonies to the national stage symbolized the interconnection between the highest cultural level of a country and the most basic level of tribal cultures. The producer repeatedly modified the performance, which was initially delivered in nature, to fit the needs of the modern stage and allowed it to demonstrate the characteristics of one of the national representative cultures. From the producer to the tribe-organized tribesmen, the performance was refitted into a mold accepted by the city elitists…guided together by the state apparatus…who identify with the government’s cultural policies. (Hsieh, 2004: 121)

The Formosa Indigenous Dance Foundation of Culture and Arts organized the performances in a different manner. Performers from this foundation, which is formed by a group of indigenous aspiring youth from different tribes, were led by anthropologist Hu Tai-li who acted as instructor and performance administrator. In the 1990s performance, they presented indigenous songs and dances such as, “The Landscape” in 1991, “Remember Yearly Ceremony” in 1992, “Dwarf’s Admonition” in 1994, “Song of Vuvu” in 1996, “Holding Ina’s Hand” in 1997 etc. (The Formosa Indigenous Dance Foundation of Cultural and Arts Annual Events Documentary, n.d.). These vivid staged performances in the 1990s differ from the periodical, densely packed, short and repetitive music demonstrations put on by the tourism-driven

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cultural parks. Instead, performance on the theatre stage allowed indigenous cultural music to reach a state of refinement. Each show was elaborately choreographed and produced. In addition, there were fewer sporadically scheduled performances. They not only aspired to demonstrate their indigenous culture but also attempted to declare to the audience the meaning and value of indigenous culture. The Formosa Indigenous Dance Foundation of Culture and Arts gathered young tribesmen from different tribes in an effort to inherit the fading cultural traditions. It worked with scholars to learn songs from various tribes which were presented on staged performances. Tribesmen spontaneously voiced their own ambitions to demonstrate their own musical culture from their perspectives. These included the “Taipei City Cultural Group” founded by Chun-chih Tien of the Amis tribe of Hualien in 1989, the “Taiwan Yuan-Yuan Indigenous Culture Trouper” founded by Li-mei Ke of the Paiwan tribe of Pingtung in 1990, the “Composed Artists in Taiwan Indigenous” founded by Ching-Mei Lin of the Pinuyumayan tribe of Taitung in 1991, and the “Chu-yin Culture and Arts Troupe” founded by Shu-chuan Kao of the Taitung Amis tribe of Taitung in 1997. Even though these founders had often participated in the coordination of performances, had organized events with other groups, or had participated in performances by earlier founded groups, the official registration of the group still held an indicative significance. It shows these founders’ intentions to register as a performance group in the mainstream culture and to put on performances meeting the national standards. By doing this, they were able to command control in how to interpret and demonstrate elements of their own ethnicity and features of their tribal values towards the audience.

3.3 Production for This Series of Concerts For “Sounds from Across Generations”, choosing a suitable curator was the first and most important step in the organizer’s operation of the entire performance series. The organizers required that the curator had expert knowledge of the tribe or village they would be working with, a certain degree of understanding of their music and culture, and to be able to gain the tribesmen’s trust for the benefit of communication. In addition, regarding performance production and stage preparations, the curator must encompass a good sense of aesthetics in order to be able to balance between traditional culture and staged performance (interview of Yeh, Jiuan-reng on June 13, 2020). Thus, the curator’s primary role was to study the findings of previous researches in regards to the history and music development of the indigenous tribes and act as a communicator to provide references in order to allow the tribesmen to fully display the diachronic and synchronic characteristics of their music. After the curator was finalized, he/she would contact the tribal personnel. Since many curators are non-indigene ethnomusicologists, co-curators from each tribe were contacted. They worked together with the organizer to search for one or more performance groups in order to plan the program for the entire concert. Since there were

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already a number of culture and art groups founded by tribes, for instance, 34 indigenous performing groups were registered with the Cultural Affairs Department of the Taitung County as of June 17, 2020 (Taitung County Cultural Affairs Department Performing Group Registration List, n.d.), a strong ethnic identity was evidently formed in each tribe. In comparison with the curators/producers of the 1990s performances—who had to act as the planner and leader—the curators for this series of concerts were to support and to inform the tribesmen regarding their music history. The organizer invited the curators to hold a guided lecture called “The Voice of Taiwan” two to four weeks prior to the actual performance, aiming to provide the audience with related background information to avoid an “exotic sensory experience” from the viewers. The duration of these lectures were 45 minutes to one and a half hour in which the characteristics of these tribal music were explained. In this way, the audience gained a profound understanding of the music of the respective tribes, enabling them to appreciate their beauty. During the actual performance, lyrics and commentaries were not only projected on the two sides of the stage during the performance but also included in a program booklet in order to facilitate the audience’s assimilation and enjoyment of the show.

4 Indigenous Sounds from Across Generations Practical intention and demonstration of ideas for indigenous singing and dancing has progressed from the economic orientation and anthropological culture concepts in the past to a new form showcased by the “Sounds from Across Generations” on the 2010s present-day stage. Existing literature has explored staged and performed Taiwanese indigenous music from the perspectives of anthropology and sociology-related topics, including those by scholars Tai-li Hu and Shih-chung Hsieh, etc. As for research by musicologists, Chun-bin Chen explored the Taiwanese indigenous musical performance issues by referencing Christopher Small’s “musicking” concept: To music is to take part, in any capacity, in a musical performance, whether by performing, by listening, by rehearsing or practicing, by providing material for performance (what is called composing), or by dancing. We might at times even extend its meaning to what the person is doing who takes the tickets at the door or the hefty men who shift the piano and the drums or the roadies who set up the instruments and carry out the sound checks or the cleaners who clean up after everyone else has gone. They, too, are all contributing to the nature of the event that is a musical performance. (2018: 168)

Chen also referenced Stuart Hall’s “articulation” concept from three perspectives of text: composing, music composing, and practical performance (2018: 155–158). However, this article will not focus on the live performance itself but on the feasibility and influence caused by stage performance on traditional music inheritance of the tribe and view the inheritance status in today’s indigenous music. The following paragraphs will discuss the point of views of “five generations on one stage” and the staging process of traditional music.

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4.1 The Concept of “Five Generations on One Stage” One of the features of this event is the concept of the concert which consists of “five generations on one stage”. Through the concert, it is hoped that the audience can appreciate music performances by five generations within a tribe on one stage, including the elders, the middle-aged, young adults, teenagers, and children. Additionally, music by earlier ancestors were also included in the introductory film. This concept, as the former director of the National Center for Traditional Arts Rung-shun Wu declared, … shows that it has historical depth and inherits meaning. By means of that, bonds between different ethnic groups are strengthened, and we advanced the public’s knowledge of the culture of traditional music from each ethnic group in Taiwan. (see Lu and Kao, 2017: 2).

The concerts began with a film which displayed the early tribal music “through old recordings, photographs, and interview footage, aiming to bringing out a retrospective look at the culture of ethnic music in every historical period” (ibid.). It was then followed by live singing from the different generations such as “the elders, the middle-agers, and the young adults [who] lead their teens and children” (ibid.) to sing the songs of their tribes and daily lives. This concept differs from the practice of only selecting purely traditional music in the sensational “Folk Song Collection Movement” of the 1960s, which was criticized as displaying “anti-pop (commercial) music values” by Fan (1994: 46–47). Instead, the purpose of this concert was to make efforts to preserve indigenous music of different eras with the nicks and scratches caused by the political and social patterns. This is also related to the overall trend of ethnomusicology, which took a turn in the 1970s from the investigation on the oral traditions of primitive tribes in the early eras, to scholars beginning to heed to the changes and problem of popularizing traditional music in the urban environment (see Nettl, 1978).

4.1.1

Four Performance Interpretations

In total, there were four ways of performance interpretations observed for “five generations on one stage”, a concept proposed by the organizer in which five generations perform on a single stage. (A) Singers from different generations respectively sang the “most popular” song from their time; (B) Singers from different generations sang the song that “should be sung” in their time; (C) Singers from different generations performed the same song “with different interpretations”; (D) The new generation tried to “learn” or “reconstruct” songs from the earlier times. After examining the 11 performances of the “Sounds from Across Generations” series, it was discovered that each performance group choose to perform in a different style, and the organizer did not strictly limit the interpretations of the groups (Interview of Yeh, Jiuan-reng on June 13, 2020). Therefore, for these 11 performances, the first way of performance interpretation was: the singers singing the “most popular” song of their time. For example, during the 1950s, Christian music began to infiltrate

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into the tribes and church hymns were what the tribesmen heard and emulated. Hence, the 3 hymns from the “Christianity period” were on the program of the performance by the Djineljepan Paiwan. Much to the same can be found during the Kuomingtang’s (KMT) ruling period. For instance, Mandarin songs intended to encourage labor and production “Production and Labor Song[s]” were the common memory of indigenous people in that epoch. This was how the program of Djineljepan Paiwan was arranged and determined. The second way of interpretation was to sing songs the way how they “should be sung” according to specific age groups. For example, children songs should be sung by children, love songs should be sung by young adults etc. This way of interpretation was seen in the performances from the Djineljepan Paiwan, SaySiyat, Ita Thao Thao, and Tao tribes. The third way of interpretation, in which singers of different generations sang the same song with “singing styles according to their age group”, demonstrating the differences in how each generation performs and melodically decorates the same song. An example of this would be the performance by the Falangaw Amis where different generations took turns singing what is known as the anthem of the Amis, the “Song of Happy Drinking”, demonstrating the significance of inheritance. The fourth way of interpretation, the “reconstruction” of music from previous times by the new generation. This was exemplified by the young adults of Hla’alua, who did not know how to sing their own songs and chose to revive song from the miatungusu (Holy Shells Ceremony) passed down by their ancestors. This is similar to the previous example of interpretation on demonstrating their inheritance. Each group of the 11 performances presented group members from different age groups on the same stage, but the performances of each group differed in the degree of diversity. Regarding the first way of interpretation, the hope was that each tribe could sing the most popular song of their times under the concept of “five generations on one stage”. However, if all groups performed under this concept, then the following problems could occur. According to the interview with assistant researcher, Jiuan-reng Yeh, during the second performance by the Djineljepan Paiwan, singers presented church hymns from the 1950s when the tribes were influenced by Christianity and performed Mandarin songs from the 1960s when the tribes were influenced by the KMT government, etc. (ibid.). However, the assumption that the entire society was under the same influence at the time would lead to the possibility that every tribe would produce similar songs since the influence from Christianity or the KMT government was similar for the entire indigenous society regardless of time period or region. Therefore, all tribes would sing similar songs from these two periods, especially the songs generated under the KMT government’s powerful political influence. In addition, the concept that each generation sings the most popular songs of their time could run into the problem of the singers of different age groups likely to absorb songs from other age groups, leading to an inability to define themselves to a certain generational group. From the perspective of the second way of interpretation, to sing songs that “should be sung” in a specific age groups, there is a lack of significant difference between the songs presented by the different age groups from some of the tribes. The Encyclopedia of Taiwan Music (2008) offers a few ways to categorize indigenous music. One way

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is to categorize according to the differences in how the tribal music is performed. This common method of categorization for indigenous music usually adopts the dichotomy of comparing ceremonial/celebratory songs to non-ceremonial songs, often also called songs of daily life or general songs. This can be observed in the song repertoire of the Tsou (Pu, 2008: 160), Pinuyumayan (Lin, 2008: 24), Tao (Lu, 2008b: 31), and Thao (Wei, 2008: 119). Some tribes though, have more than two categories. For example, a larger number of children songs along with the 2 types mentioned above, can be found in the songs of the SaySiyat (Lu, 2008a: 116), Bunun (Wu, 2008: 26), and Paiwan (Chou, 2008a: 94). Moreover, some tribes, such as the Pinuyumayan and the Tao, in addition to the above, also categorizes their music by gender, which is associated with singing occasions and song types. For example, Tao tribe was divided into male and female songs in their concert. Scholars also categorize the song of some tribes by content, such as Paiwan’s children songs and songs of daily life, including love songs, marriage songs which are sung in crying sounds, and warrior’s dance songs (Chou, 2008b: 95). Another example is songs from the Falangaw Village (of the Amis tribe), which can be categorized into ceremonial songs, elder’s songs, children songs, dancing songs and modern songs (Sun, 2008a: 9–10), or Atayal’s recited epics, traditional small tunes, songs composed in modern times, and children songs (Yu, 2008: 129). This way of categorization of songs not only demonstrates differences in age (elder/children) but also mingles with traces of change in time (traditional/modern creation) in addition to the difference between static singing songs and dynamic dancing songs (warrior’s dance songs, dancing songs). Therefore, Jiuan-reng Yeh, who is part of the organization, hoped the “five generations on one stage” concept could be demonstrated via the aforementioned third or fourth possibility. That is to highlight the significance of this concept through the inheritance of traditional music by the five generations.

4.1.2

Generation’s Succession

Although the organizer provided a broad interpretation for “five generations on one stage”, the tribal performers often wanted to focus on displaying their own typical traditional music which shape their tribal identity in contrast to today’s younger indigenous generation whom mostly sing mainstream pop songs. Traditionally, young adults and teens in the tribes would learn through hearing the songs on a daily basis in order to obtain the necessary musical skills. Now with this performance opportunity, the elder and those with lofty ideals could actively train the middle-aged and younger generations to sing traditional songs, on the other hand, younger adults and children gained the opportunity to be taught systematically and methodically the tribal language and traditional songs, which in return enabled them to display the aforementioned concept of “five generations on one stage”. For example, the SaySiyat and Falangaw Amis adopted similar approaches which required practicing once or twice a week with everyone in the group. This kind of situation was maintained for three to four months prior to the performance.

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Periodic and densely packed singing rehearsals allowed younger generations to learn new songs. For example, the SaySiyat people rarely practice traditional songs other than those for the paSta’ay (Dwarf Ceremony). The paSta’ay is an elaborated ritual that requires 4–5 h of uninterrupted performances (Lu, 2003: 246). The tribesmen would only sing the paSta’ay songs during the second half of the concert, therefore, a sufficient number of daily life songs were needed to fill the first half of the concert. As the curator of this event, I strived to search songs for them and thereby, suggested the children song “Adopt the Tail” (also called “Children’s Song”, “Children’s Play Song”, “At the Cliff”, see Lu, 2008c: 85–87) that was prevalent in the collected recordings from various time periods (e.g. 1967, 1978, 1986, and 2008). The meaning of “Adopt the Tail” is to take the last syllable of the previous line and use it as the next line’s starting syllable. This type of anadiplosis singing often takes only a partial syllable(s) and not a complete word from the previous line, so the meaning of the last word of the previous line will not be the same as the opening word of the next line. Although “Adopt the Trail” is a children song, it contains complex vocabulary which makes it difficult to learn (Example 1). Due to the gradual disappearance of the language from the SaySiyat tribe, an 80-year-old tribal language teacher called ‘oemaw a ‘oebay tawtawazay (Mandarin name: ShanHe Chao) was invited to translate the lyrics. However, the language is inherently complex and contained words which do not exist in Chinese, thus making it difficult to translate. This is also a primary reason for why children nowadays do not know how to sing these songs. When this song was collected and recorded during a field research in 2008, the elders were the only ones remaining who still knew how to sing this song (Lu, 2008c). Nonetheless, by chance of this event, the children were able to relearn through instructions of their elders. The children worked hard in memorizing the lyrics in order to get the chance to participate in this event. Finally, as of March 16 2018, the children were able to revive this song which is suitable for their age. Furthermore, the SaySiyat have a large number of farewell songs (talesiwa:en) and chatting songs (kiSba:aw) that can be sung in specific tunes with innovative lyrics. Although the younger generation did not have the ability to write their own tamkil tamki tolay kitolay kito lalapa lalapa lalapowhi pawhi' pawhiloka hiloka hiloka tayoe' ka tayoe' ka tatiw may tiwmay tiwmaysi' maysi' mays yako siyako siyakoys koy sinabak koys sinabak sinaba siyak

There are stairs and flat slates By the flat slates grows a raspberry full of ripe fruit strawberries to pick They are of many kinds and look alike The place is so trodden that people slip easily Wilted weeds rot and make the way there slippery I almost slip on my way there I slip when passing by, grabbing on a wild ramie in the critical situation someone told me Someone slipped there and almost fell off the deep cliff

Example 1 Anadiplosis lyrics of “At the Cliff” (the repeated syllables are in bold)

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lyrics (Lu, 2008c: 6–7) and lost the ability to utilize the tunes of these songs, the younger generation in the group that performed in this event were able to seize this opportunity to relearn them, understand the structures and forms of the lyrics through singing and memorizing, and gradually acquire the skill set to create their own lyrics. There was generally a lack of middle-aged and young adult singers during rehearsals for the “five generations on one stage”. One of the reasons was that some of them worked in other cities and could not participate in the periodic rehearsals. Some of the Tao people complained that the rehearsal times before the concert were during the fishing season which was the time for tribesmen to stock up on food for the rest of the year. Many male members whose family’s livelihoods depended on this fishing activity therefore could not participate in this performance (interview of Syaman Rapongan on May 29, 2019). Another reason for the lack of young performers was that the younger generation had already distanced themselves from their mother culture. Hence, the numerous songs for performance that would require a regular and dense rehearsal time was simply too difficult for those to practice and perform who worked or sought education afar and lacked connection with their mother culture back in the rural areas. Nonetheless, the concept of “five generations on one stage” offered the younger generation the opportunity to value their tribe and traditional tribal music. With the requirements set by the organizer for the performance groups, some middle-aged and young adults participated. Taking the three performance groups involved in the performance that I curated as an example, there were far fewer singers from the aforementioned two generations in comparison to elderly and child singers, especially for the SaySiyat and the Falangaw Amis, where there were only three and six singers respectively who sang on stage that were between the ages of 20 and 50 years old. Moreover, for the Tao performing group, there was only one performer from the 20 to 50 age range who participated, whom was not a singer but an instrument player. People from other groups who fall into this age range mostly took charge of administrative and management work, but their identity with their own tribes and villages was also strengthened through this performance.

4.1.3

Requirement for Numbers of Repertoire

For every one-and-one-half-hour concert, the different generations in the group needed to prepare an approximately one-hour performance with the remaining time filled with films and an intermission. This proved to be a difficult task. As TsangHouei Hsu once stated, “Most indigenous music in Taiwan is vocal; instrumental music plays a secondary role.” (Hsu & Lu, 2001). This is especially difficult for a series of concerts centered around music which requires an immense amount of stamina to perform. This type of performance is not comparable with the song and dance performed by the indigenous people in other facilities where singing can be replaced with recordings, and the performers only need to concern themselves with the dance moves. Nor is it like when performing in musicals, in which a large number of dialogues are intertwined within the entire performance, decreases the number of

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occasions for the more exhausting act of singing. In other opening ceremonies, the groups were only invited to wear the traditional clothing and perform one or two songs as embellishment to the entire event. Co-curator for the Tao performance group, Syaman Rapongan, mentioned that when the Tao were invited to the main island of Taiwan for performance, they only had to sing one or two songs. However, the Tao performance group would have to sing a repertoire for this complete concert that is several folds longer than what they had previously performed on the main island or even overseas (interview of Syaman Rapongan on November 12, 2019). Since this series of performances took the form of concerts, the repertoire would also need to be expanded. Almost all the performance groups strived to search for all their tribe’s songs from all generations or genders. Some tribes had a plethora of songs to perform such as the Naihunpu Bunun who performed a total of 28 songs; the Falangaw Amis 24 songs, the Sinevaudjan Paiwan, the Ita Thao Thao, and the Tao groups 21 songs each, while other tribes such as the Atayal and the Sediq only performed nine and twelve songs respectively (see Table 1). “Tminun—Atayal Music and Dance” consisted of only nine songs according to the program, and it was intended to be centered on the tribe’s historical development. However, a few of today’s study of tribal music does not pay sufficient attention and consideration to the relationship between historical depth and the time of creation. There was a lack of opportunity for each generation to demonstrate its distinguishing features of music in these concerts. A possible reason was that the Atayal tradition lacks the type of ceremonies where a number of songs are sung together, such as that of the Amis’s kiluma’an Harvest Ceremony, the SaySiyat’s paSta’ay Dwarf Ceremony, or the Paiwan’s marital festivals (Lu website, n.d.). Thus Atayal music cannot be collected in large numbers at a single time. Furthermore, the curator Kwang-po Cheng is not a musicologist himself but an Atayal Lmuhuw (long recited epics) researcher (Cheng and Kuo, 2018: 14). Lmuhuw are long recited epics and the most ancient and representative of Atayal music. They contain profound language written in metaphors and analogies and possess literature and philosophical depth (Yu, 2008: 130). Although the curator was a renowned scholar in the most important Atayal Lmuhuw, he was not able to collect more songs of other categories from the tribe. In fact, during the Folk Song Collection Movement in 1966, collectors Cheh-yang Li and Wu-nan Liu were able to collect 24 Atayal songs from the Qingquan region of Taoshan Village in Wufeng Township, Hsinchu County alone (Taiwan Music Institute—Open Museum—[cultural relics]—Atayal and SaySiyat music, 2020; nonpublished reel to reel tape data from 1966 shows 24 collected Atayal songs). This does not even include the 12 songs collected in 1967 by the Folk Song Collection team from Hanxi Village in Datong Township, Yilan County, and the 8 songs collected from Lunshan Village and Gu Village in Zhuoxi Township, Hualien County (Taiwan Music Institute—Open Museum—[cultural relics]—Atayal music, 2020). In addition, in 2005, Jin-Fu Yu conducted a general survey of Atayal music with tribe members living in different places of Taiwan and found nearly 80 singers and collected 262 songs (Yu, 2005: 13). Overall, the tribes themselves possess adequate traditional music volume, but lacked the opportunity to re-sung the songs over time.

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4.2 Staging Process and Inheritance When Li-kuo Ming was planning the “Taiwan Indigenous Singing and Dance Series” in 1990, he mentioned that the indigenous people lacked confidence to perform on stage: “In the past, many people, including tribesmen themselves, when bringing their music and dancing onto the stage, wanted it to be “entertaining” and “lively”, which I think stems from their lack of confidence.” (Interview by Tsai, 1992). On the contrary, today’s indigenous people show more confidence which enables them to produce more serious content for their performance. The Taitung Falangaw Amis group “Chuyin Cultural and Arts Troupe” was recognized as an Excellent and Outstanding Group by the Department of Cultural Affairs of Taitung County and was also nominated for the 14th Taishin Arts Awards. Their leader, Shu-chuan Kao, has her own ideas about the plays that she created, songs that she wants to perform, and knows how to display the features of their tribal music on stage (Interview of Kao, Shu-chuan on June 15, 2017). There are also other long-established groups that often have the opportunity to perform outside of their establishments, have their own expectations of performance delivery and actively plan their performance contents. New modes of inheritance can hence be seen in this series of concerts.

4.2.1

A Change in Mode of Inheritance

The traditional inheritance via visual, auditory and oral transmissions must change into a new mode of inheritance if traditional music is to be passed down in the ever-changing social pattern differing from their original situation and environment. For this performance series, Tao performance chose their female singers by standards of song and language proficiency as well as singing and lyrics creating abilities (Interview of Sinan Rapongan on May 27, 2019) which led to generally older group members. The “Hair Dance” (meyvalacingi) song is one of the few songs that combines singing with dancing in this tribe. Because Tao’s songs are mostly performed by sitting with no additional body movement, I was hoping that the singers could swing their hair while singing the “Hair Dance” so that the audience were able to see dynamic dances interwoven into the otherwise mostly static singing performances. However, the older female singers often suffered from degeneration in their knees which made it difficult for them to repeatedly squat and swing their hair when performing the “Hair Dance”. Therefore, a compromise had to be made where the group members sat when singing the songs. In pre-performance communication, it was first believed that the young performers from the Yayu Elementary School of the Tao tribe who came to perform could dance while the older women sang, but this was met with great opposition. The women thought that the “Hair Dance” song and lyrics sung by the children were different from those sung by the older females, and hair swinging must be done with rhythm so that the knee-bend-knee-extension hair swing matches the song meters. If the lyrics for the women and children are different, then the women worry that the children

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would not be able to swing to the tempo of the adults’ singing. However, at rehearsal on the day before the concert, the women agreed to collaborate with the children, who latched quickly onto the women’s singing (Interview of Syaman Rapongan on November 12, 2019). On the day of the performance, the women’s singing of “Hair Dance” was accompanied with the children’s hair swinging on stage. This experience gave us the lesson that in traditional Tao “Hair Dance” performance, the singers are simultaneously the dancers. Although each village of this tribe had its own dancing formations when entering and exiting the stage, the children were able to cooperate with the singers even if they were from different villages during hair swinging. This shows that there is no difference in the cooperation of hair swinging and singing between villages or among different age groups. In addition, it was also discovered that there are certain differences between traditional and modern training methods of the hair swinging movements. Traditionally, the singer would also be the dancer; hence, she would learn to sing the song first and then coordinate hair swinging to the singing tempo. However, since the Yayu Elementary School teacher, Tzu-yu Yen of Han ethnicity, was in charge of training for this performance, he had a different training method prepared for the children, which did not begin with singing the lyrics. He first played a recording of the “Hair Dance” song and let the children swing their hair to the meter. This was followed by practicing humming to the melody and then finally learning the lyrics (telephone interview of Yen, Tzu-yu on August 3, 2020). Through this method, the children were quick to grasp onto the relationship between the faster or slower meter and hair swinging motion which enabled them to align with the singing tempo of the adults and swing their hair to the rhythm without needing to consider the lyrics. In the traditional Amis farming society, the singers often worked and sang together afterwards when learners could study through visualization and listening over time. However, in today’s society, where machines have replaced human labor, the traditional scenes where everyone gathered to listen, sing, and learn together no longer exist, which led to the fading of traditional tribal music (Lu and Kao, 2011). Transformation in learning methods has become an important mode of modern inheritance. The first performance for this series by the Falangaw Amis in October of 2017 also functioned as an assessment of this new mode of inheritance. The group members used modern cellphone recordings to replace sheet music and cellphone music playing to replace repeated live listening. This was coupled with weekly group rehearsals and competitions in which the tribesmen learned what the scholars call ‘free counterpoint’, which is a nearly lost singing form (Lu and Kao, 2016). At first, they could only sing to the predecessor’s version and lacked individual free-styling of the free counterpoint. However, practicing overtime led to each singer developing different melodies and freely elaborated improvisations began to emerge. The results were revealed in the revival of traditional polyphonic music in today’s Falangaw Amis.

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Single Song Duration

A concert is limited to a certain time length. Take the example of the lengthy paSta’ay songs where three days of entertaining spirits with endless singing throughout the nights was required for the tribesmen to exchange their exhausted bodies and minds for forgiveness from the dwarves which were exterminated by the SaySiyat. However, this could not be fully demonstrated in a performance environment. The kiluma’an Harvest Ceremony is another ceremony that would require several hours of endless singing. During performance, even the length of each song would have to be strictly controlled. Such a situation is similar to that experienced by the early record industry which suffered from limitations in time length of the portable devices. This led to the “longer forms of music like epic songs which are often excluded from the media.” (Malm, 1992: 359). There are also songs of which the melody stays the same, with the lyrics changed. However, to the majority of the audience that could not understand the lyrics even with the assistance of captions, there is no major auditory variance to the melody, and the tribesmen worried about impatience from the audience. Therefore, most groups did not allow a song with recurring melodies to last for too long. The Tao’s “Song of a Four-Door House” (avvwavuyit) was the longest song performed out of the eleven performances held for the “Sounds from Across Generations” series (see also performance live recording in Taiwan Music Institute collections). The entirety of the song lasted five minutes and forty seconds performed in melisma. The lyrics do not contain too much content and was sung in a very slow tempo. Before performing this song, tribesmen will first recite it in a relatively faster raod melody to allow the audience to understand the meaning of the lyrics, after which they began the traditional “Song of a Four-Door House” melody. Since this song is not accompanied by any body movements, the singers performed the scarce lyrics while sitting, and the only visual changes within the song duration for the audience were those from the slideshow created by the team. The live audience appreciated the song quietly and applauded after it finished. General audience who are not music majors and did not have any ethnocultural background were interviewed after the performance. The audience stated that the song was lengthy, but expressed that the overall concert was very well arranged. They also excitedly described the unforgettable songs they had heard during the concert (Interview of audience 1 on August 19, 2019). Even though the “Song of a Four-Door House” performance did not especially ingratiate the audience, the co-curator Syaman Rapongan insisted on the performance of this song, which was considered “the most unfamiliar melody by the tribesmen” (Lu, 2019: 11), on stage as an opportunity for the tribesmen to learn and inherit it. This performance also allowed the audience to experience the Tao’s most dignified form of performance sung at the completed construction of the supreme house of four doors.

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The Ideal Sound

During the music transcription, researchers have to make a decision regarding the transcription of this one-time sound. Similar to transcription of orally passed down music in ethnomusicology, the recording can either be transcribed with descriptive or conceptual notations. The former indicates that the sounds are transcribed as it is whereas the latter requires rigorous research on and understanding of the piece of music in which the transcription then follows (Ellingson, 1992: 141). All situations of accidental off-keys or off-beats will be presented on descriptive notations but will be revised on conceptual notations. Similarly, how do we determine whether the sound made is intentional by the singer or group or whether it was an accidental and erroneous one-time sound? Since the “Sounds from Across Generations” series contains performances based on music, observations could be made via this series of events on the differences between the music sounds performed in their establishments and on stage. Although the singers had to adjust to the limited space on stage by taking the singing away from the original environment due to the addition of dances, on-stage movements and formations, the concert allowed the singing to become the major point of interest for the singers. In its original environment, singing was a type of social behavior (Merriam, 1964). For example, the Tao celebrated all kinds of completed construction, ceremonies, and celebrations with a great number of songs and the host would invite his relatives and friends to participate in these events (Lu, 2007). However, these relatives and friends would often vary in their singing abilities and levels. Even though the site of singing portrayed a realistic environment and situation for singing, it could not demonstrate how songs were sung and considered as a piece of work in the tribesmen’s hearts. Through this concert, the group leader searched for singers and they rehearsed many times prior to the concert in an effort to present a better performance. Therefore, despite the change of the singing environment, the necessity for singers to focus on their own voices and singing performances allowed the singers to truly portray a satisfactory voice, melodies, and rhythms within their hearts in these performances. Hence, the ideal sound demonstrated in the songs performed should be regarded and adopted as the template for future inheritance of these songs.

4.2.4

The Stage and the Holy

The scheduled 2020 performance by the Pinuyumayan tribe, Pinaski Village was postponed to 2021 due to the effects of COVID-19. In the conversation with the tribesmen regarding my next curation, they discussed that after returning to the village from the last performance in Taipei, presumably the 1992 event curated by Li-kuo Ming, some of the elders successively passed away. Therefore, they were not willing to sing the holy song of “The Great Sacrifice” (mangayaw), even though the performance by the Pinaski in 1992 was about the millet weeding ceremony and the completion of work mugamut, while “The Great Sacrifice” was performed by the

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Puyuma Village. Nonetheless, the deceased members of the tribe left a shadow in the hearts of the remaining tribesmen and they refused to perform the tabooed “The Great Sacrifice” at the performance. Tai-Li Hu discussed a similar event which happened after the performance of “The Dwarf’s Admonition: paSta’ay singing and dancing by the SaySiyat” on April 16–17, 1994 at the Taipei National Theater. After the performance, some elders in the village had passed away, and similar events have happened when groups, regardless from the south or north group of SaySiyat, traveled to perform the paSta’ay (Hu, 2003: 438), leaving fear in the tribesmen to bring the paSta’ay ceremony away from its original site. Tai-li Hu believed that requesting agreement from the dwarves and informing the other group of SaySiyat were prerequisite to decrease the fear of losing members in the tribe during or after performances (Hu, 2003: 426–439). In 2018, elementary students from Penglai Elementary School of the Ray’in Village SaySiyat banded together to form a group, in addition to middle-aged and elderly adults from the tribe, to participate in the “Sounds from Across Generations” performance. For the SaySiyat, paSta’ay songs are a large part of the tribal music, which tribesmen performed for the second half of the concert. When being asked about the holiness of the song, Penglai Elementary School principal En-Hui Lin expressed that the inheritance of the lengthy ceremonial songs has been difficult, this is the reason why the southern officiant Zhu had acquiesced the school students to perform the ceremonial songs in an attempt to revive their traditional music. Local representative Chiou-rong Pan added in explanation that the performance group had chosen the holy songs that have less taboo regarding performance location, and more entertaining of the 16 paSta’ay songs, rather than all chapters of each song. The paSta’ay songs were lengthy and hard to be accommodated in performance time; therefore, at many events where paSta’ay was performed on stage, only the first section of lyrics for each song would be sung. For example, of the ceremonial songs performed in this event, the group performed the first five lines of the lyrics from the second section of the first song, the first four lines from the first section of the second song, the first two lines from the third section of the fourth song, the third melody of the eighth song, song sung “When Cutting Hazel Trees”, and the first melody of the eighth song with revised lyrics (Fig. 1). In addition, the performance group also made changes to the lyrics they sang either by revising the lyrics completely or by repeating only one line of lyrics. In this way, the performances would take the form of paSta’ay but only in segments, with paSta’ay melodies but alternated lyrical meanings. The stage performance at this event was also displayed in this form in order to minimize the taboo of the paSta’ay ceremony in the hearts of the performers. Representative Chiou-rong Pan was contacted again one year after the performance to report on the wellbeing of the tribe and whether the event had caused any discordant friction among the tribesmen. Pan replied that the tribe was doing well and that only a few of the tribesmen who lived in cities raised questions about the intellectual copyrights (telephone interview on March 5, 2019). The initial holiness issue that was brought up when ceremonial songs were performed away from the ceremonial grounds in the early periods seemed to have been replaced by the issue of the intangible cultural heritage ownership rights

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Fig. 1 SaySiyat performers performed PaSta’ay (Dwarf Ceremony) on stage which was once taboo for tribal people. Photo Ean Chen, March 16, 2018

today. The subject on the indigenous people’s exclusive traditional intellectual copy rights for performance was also brought up for discussion after the 2018 “Sediq Bale, let’s dance together” performance curated by Tseng (2020: 115–148). The ancient “Song of a Four-Door House” performed by the Tao in this event is also a song with religious meanings. The holiness of the song stems from the particularity of the singing time and site, which was at the completed construction of their home and when the father sets a rattan chain (mapazaka) on his son. The construction of the house is difficult and requires wood from about 200 trees (Lu, 2019: 10) in addition to the hard labor of cutting and building. This kind of traditional house is rarely built by today’s tribesmen, which explains why Syaman Rapongan believes these songs are “the most unfamiliar melodies for tribesmen” (ibid. 11). When I conducted a general music survey at Lanyu (Orchid island where Tao people live) in 2004, there were also some singers who expressed that they still knew how to sing this song, but would never sing it at home. The singer was only willing to sing the song after bringing our audio and video recording team to the church. However, the tribesmen’s performance of this song in this event in 2019 was encouraged by the inheritance of this nearly vanished song that carried many singing taboos, and also by having left the holy site, as well as singing time occurrence which allowed the tribesmen to temporarily leave behind the spiritual shackles when singing the song on the Lanyu in the traditional home. On the contrary, the 2019 performance of the Hla’alua holy ceremony miatungusu was not only performed solely by young people but was also performed in its entirety

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on stage, including the singing, dancing, and contents. When tracing the reason for why the tribesmen were willing to perform the holy miatungusu without reservation, one possibility was that maybe the tribe had not performed the ceremony for many years and the ceremony’s holiness had gradually faded and has been replaced by the urgency of inheritance (described in the introductory film of this concert). Therefore, holiness was not the tribesmen’s primary concern when rehearsing in the tribe, and the introductory film of the concert showed that the tribesmen worked hard on rehearsing. On the day of performance, they displayed the miatungusu in its entirety which showed the urgency for reviving the tribal culture for a holy song rarely sung in a long period of time. Thus, the tribesmen’s recovery of the song temporarily places aside the holiness issue. Just as what Jonathan H. Shannon once said, “Often the performance frame more than musical content determines the classification of musical genre” (2003: 22). The groups constructed within the performance frame the holiness of the ceremonies by using many assistive props such as projected images, hip bells (kapangaSan) and gigantic decorated ceremonial hats (kilakil) used in the paSta’ay, and a plot identical to that of the ceremony, but reduced in its holiness brought via the music by preemptively informing the dwarves of the ceremony, leaving the original performing site and changing the lyrics and singing styles. In turn, the performers could assimilate into the performance and allow themselves to break free from the spiritual taboos and shackles in their hearts. The modern tribesmen are beginning to understand that music inheritance requires copious practice, and with more frequent contact between the different ethnicities, many of them were able to put aside some of the strict taboos. For some tribes, such as the Amis, SaySiyat and Tao whose performances I curated, treated this event as a great opportunity to revive traditional music. The traditional SaySiyat were unwilling to take paSta’ay away from its original site of performance. If it were to be performed away from the original site, they would have to receive approval from the paSta’ay officiant and other tribesmen. However, for this performance, officiant Zhu of the Nanzhuang ceremonial site, which the Ray’in village belonged to, acquiesced to the group members to rehearse and perform paSta’ay songs on stage even if it was not time for paSta’ay. Therefore, the performance group was able to temporarily put aside the taboos that comes with the holiness, work hard in rehearsals, and display the ceremony to a non-tribal audience in this concert.

5 Conclusion The inheritance of an intangible cultural heritage such as music can be best described in the concept that “[h]eritage is created in performance, and performance gives heritage new life” (Cooley, 1999: 40). This article discussed the point of views on “five generations on one stage” in relation to the staged process and inheritance. Through this discussion, it has been discovered that during the current era of increasing value towards indigenous culture and under the requirements of “five

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generations on one stage”, although there were fewer singers who were middle-aged and of younger generations because many had left the tribes for education or work, the participation of the few people in each tribe showed that they could become the backbone for future inheritance of the tribal traditional music. In addition, the onehour music performance required an abundant repertoire of songs and the tribesmen were active in excavating from the early scholars’ field collections and learning songs for different age groups in order to indirectly provide the young and the children with the opportunity to learn the tribal language and their own culture before the singing performances were presented on stage. However, under the “five generations on one stage” concept, the difference in song types and numbers for each tribe made it difficult to present an equal number of songs from each generation. The requirements by the organizers on generations and songs for the performance groups promoted the replacement of traditional inheritance methods with modern inheritance methods and paved way for this new opportunity of traditional singing and dancing inheritance. Whether there was a need to shorten some of the lengthy epic poems or descriptive songs, it was up to the expectation and attitude of the tribe as to the way in which the performance is to be presented. In the three performances I curated, the SaySiyat’s paSta’ay and the Amis’s Harvest Ceremony, songs were shortened while the Tao’s tribesmen insisted on inheritance over stage presentation, thus performing the longest single song of the entire series concert. The singers, through densely-scheduled rehearsals over a period of time, were able to concentrate on singing for the concert, and their cohesive voices on stage presented the ideal sound of the tribe or ethnicity in an attempt of reproducing the original site of performance and thus established the template of these songs for inheritance. On the issue of the stage and holiness, methods such as changing the lyrical content, deleting or swapping sections of songs, and moving away from the original site of performance, all aided in reducing the ceremonies’ holiness. The current situation for the traditional music of each tribe has proven the importance of inheritance urgency of traditional taboos and the tribesmen’s attention is placed instead more on the conflict between stage performance and indigenous people’s intellectual copyright. Stage performance provides a new method for music inheritance. The “Sounds from Across Generations” series of performances provided the tribes another possibility of inheritance on a number of songs and people of different generations under professional planning and requirements. In spite of common criticisms on stage background, performance content, and even dance refinement for bringing traditional music to the stage, these had little effect on the music itself. The overall acceptance of different tribes and ethnicities of a nation, both politically and socially, allowed voices from the indigenous people—who only accounts for approximately two percent on this land of Taiwan—to not only be heard in our time, but also be heard by the coming generations through inheritance.

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Thao People by Sun Moon Lake on a summer night]. Program booklet. Executive Producer: Chen Chi-Ming. Taiwan Music Institute. Wu, R. (吳榮順). (2008). Bunongzu yinyue 布農族音樂 [Bunun Music]. In Y. Lu, et al., (Eds.), Encyclopedia of Taiwan music (pp. 25–26). Yuanliu. Yu, J. (余錦福) (Principal investigator). (2005). Taiyazu yinyue wenhua ziyuan diaocha’an 泰雅族 音樂文化資源調查案 [Project of cultural resources of atayal music]. Project of National Center for Traditional Arts. Unpublished. Yu, J. (余錦福). (2008). Taiyazu yinyue 泰雅族音樂 [Atayal Music]. In Y. Lu, et al., (Eds.), Encyclopedia of Taiwan music (pp. 129–130). Yuanliu.

Newspapers Gakufu to natte hozon saruru suisha no shosei Fukin bansha no kazukazu no uta mo mata Chan Fu shin shi kushin no tama mono 樂譜となつて保存さるゝ 水社の杵聲 (上) 附近蕃社の數 々の唄も亦 張福興氏苦心の賜物 (1922, March 17) [Pestle-pounding sound was preserved in the form of notations. The collection of a number of songs created by neighboring aboriginal villagers was also the results of Chang Fuhsing]. Taiwan Daily News, p. 7. Shin kouen no banjin buyou kanshu goman 新公園の蕃人舞踊 觀衆五萬 (1923, April 24) [Dance of Primitives in Taipei New Park. Fifty thousand audience]. Taiwan Daily News, p. 8.

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Interviews Interview of audience 1 on August 19, 2019. Interview of Kao, Shu-chuan on June 15, 2017. Interview of Sinan Rapongan on May 27, 2019. Interview of Syaman Rapongan on May 29, 2019. Interview of Syaman Rapongan on November 12, 2019. Interview of Yeh, Jiuan-reng on June 13, 2020. Telephone interview of Pan, Chiou-rong on March 5, 2019. Telephone interview of Yen, Tzu-yu on August 3, 2020.

Yu-hsiu Lu is the chair and professor of the Institute of Ethnomusicology, National Taiwan Normal University. She completed her Ph.D. at the Institute of Musicology, University of Vienna. Her primary research area is on the indigenous music in Taiwan and Southeastern China. Her publications include History of Taiwan Music (2003), Tao’s Moonlight Concert (2007), The Melody in Light Shadows (documentary film, 2003), A Rolling Age: Falangaw Farming Songs (2011), Searching for Polyphony: Recollecting the Lost Old Songs of Taitung Amis (2013) which won the Best Traditional Music Album in “25th Golden Melody Awards for Traditional Arts and Music” (2014).

“Imagined” Indigenous Music as Materials in Music Education in Taiwan (1950–2000) Chun-yen Sun

Abstract The relationship between Taiwanese indigenous people and the majority population in Taiwan, who are descendants of immigrants from China, has always been complicated and multifaceted. However, mainstream Taiwanese society has a limited understanding of the indigenous people, and stereotyping is common. This article focuses on music textbooks, and attempts to discover the views of indigenous cultures held by the mainstream society and education authorities by examining the indigenous songs included in textbooks. Sources of these songs consists of field recordings and transcriptions of folk musicians and ethnomusicologists. A song and dance seminar held by the authorities to promote the Mandarin speaking encouragement policy in indigenous communities also played an important role in forming stereotypes. As for the indigenous songs that were included in music textbooks, they were often used as a propaganda tool used by the government in attempts at “civilizing” the indigenous people in the post-World War II period. In the 1990s, after Taiwan’s political atmosphere opened up, the proportion of indigenous songs in textbooks increased, and the content became more diverse. However, due to the knowledge background of the music textbook editors, some indigenous songs were sometimes inappropriately presented. The indigenous songs used in some textbooks have also caused controversy. Keywords Music textbooks · Taiwanese indigenous people

1 Introduction Because of its geographically critical location and complex history, although Taiwan is an unremarkable small place on the map, it is home to people with different cultures. According to the consensus of the general public today, Taiwan’s main population can be divided into four major groups according to their origins. These include the Hoklo and Hakkas from the provinces along the southeastern coast of mainland China C. Sun (B) Chinese Culture University, 55, Hwa-Kang Rd., Taipei 11114, Taiwan e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. 2021 Y. Lu and O. Elschek (eds.), The Legacy of Indigenous Music, Sinophone and Taiwan Studies 4, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-16-4473-3_2

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about 400–100 years ago, as well as the so-called “Mainlanders” who came from other provinces in mainland China after the end of World War II in 1945. These three groups mainly use Hokkien, Hakka and Mandarin among the Chinese languages, and are generally referred to as “Han people.” The fourth group is not part of the Han culture. This fourth group, the indigenous people of Taiwan, accounts for only about 2% of the total population and belongs to the Austronesian ethnic group. They are the 16 officially recognized indigenous ethnic groups of Taiwan. In addition, there are indigenous groups who have been Sinicized due to long-term contact with early Han immigrants. The early Han people called foreigners as well as Taiwansese indigenous people fan, a word which originally referred to animal feet (Xu, 1991: 28). Calling others fan clearly implied that they were regarded as non-human or barbarians. In 1945, the Chinese Kuomintang (KMT) government took over Taiwan after WWII, fan was changed to “shandi people.” The term shandi means “mountain”. However, this term is actually a bit weird, because although many of the indigenous communities reside in mountainous areas of Taiwan, there are still numerous groups, such as the Amis, Pinuyumayan, and Yami people living near the coast. In any case, the term shandi could be regarded as an equivalent concept of “indigenous people” at the time. The Hoklo, Hakkas and the so-called Mainlanders were generally referred to as pingdi (plains) people, as opposed to “shandi” people. On the surface, the term shandi seemed to only refer to the geographical environment, however, in the context of the language use by most Taiwanese people at that time, it implicated a somewhat backward and uncivilized derogatory meaning. It was not until 1994 that the government changed the official name to yuanzhumin, the “indigenous people.” Although the four major groups have had many interactions with each other, due to the disparity in power and population ratio, the indigenous people have been a neglected minority suffering under colonial oppression. The mainstream Taiwanese society knows little about indigenous people, and the knowledge is mostly biased. For instance, when “indigenous people” are mentioned, most people’s impression has been “they like to sing and dance”, which is still the impression people tend to have nowadays. In the early postwar period, the so-called “shandi songs and dances” started to appear sporadically in elementary and middle school courses. With the political opening up of Taiwanese society in the 1990s, the lifestyles, customs and arts of the various ethnic groups were officially and systematically incorporated into the compulsory elementary and middle school education system. Folk songs and dances of the indigenous people, which were always attracting attention, were also added to the elementary and middle school music curricula to serve as a critical element of multicultural education. However, although the experts and scholars in charge of compiling the music textbooks and teaching materials were all leading professionals in the field of music, they were mostly Han people who studied Western art and music. Therefore, it is worth exploring what kinds of “indigenous” cultures were presented in the textbooks. The purpose of this article is to explore the impressions of indigenous people shaped by the indigenous songs and dances selected for use in elementary and middle

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school music textbooks after WWII, and the cultural interpretation that was made of those songs and dances in these textbooks. The time period this research covers is limited to the fifty years between 1950 and 2000. The reason for choosing this period is that the understanding of indigenous singing and dancing established during this period still has a great influence on the present. On the other hand, the political and social atmosphere of Taiwanese society has changed drastically during this time, and the understanding of indigenous people have changed greatly as well. The reason for limiting this discussion to elementary and middle school education is because they fall within the scope of compulsory education in Taiwan. Compulsory education is the necessary channel for the general public to receive knowledge. Therefore, the first impressions many people have of indigenous songs and dances come from compulsory education. This article aims to discuss the presentation of indigenous culture in music textbooks, even though some of the songs in the textbooks did not originate from the indigenous people, the content involves indigenous people, and so they are included in the scope of discussion.

2 Contact and Understanding of Indigenous Music Before discussing indigenous content in music textbooks, this section will explain the ways in which mainstream Taiwanese musicians were first exposed to indigenous songs and dances after the war. Their research on indigenous music later became the main sources of indigenous content in music textbooks. It will be helpful to understanding how indigenous music is presented in the textbooks if we understand their methods and viewpoints beforehand. In the Japanese colonial era (1895–1945), a few Japanese anthropologists, linguists and musicians did systematic research on the folk songs, music instruments and dances of Taiwanese indigenous people. Their work laid the foundations of research on indigenous music. However, from the end of WWII to the 1960s, their work did not have much impact on mainstream Taiwanese society’s understanding of indigenous songs and dances. It can be deduced that the reason for this was the hostile attitude of the KMT government towards Japan after WWII. As a result, the academic achievements of Japanese scholars were naturally ignored by those in power. For the KMT government that just arrived in Taiwan, understand the songs and dances of indigenous people was not an important task with regards to their governance of Taiwan, as the indigenous population only made up a small percentage of the population. Mainstream Taiwanese society’s understanding of indigenous music after WWII came mainly from a few musicians and choreographers from Taiwan and mainland China. They collected songs and dances from several major and well-known indigenous residences in Taiwan, and later on contributed to the larger-scale collections and compilations of indigenous songs and dances directed by the authorities. This further affected the understanding of indigenous music among Taiwanese people.

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2.1 Musicians and Choreographers in the Early Post-WWII Period The first noteworthy musician was Lu Chuan-sheng. He was born into a Christian family in a small town in central Taiwan during the Japanese colonial era. At the time, there were few Christians in Taiwan, but they tended to have more opportunities than other Taiwanese to be exposed to Western music. In 1936, Lu Chuan-sheng went to Japan to study piano, vocal music and composition theory, and since then devoted himself to writing songs and conducting chorus. By the time of his death in 2008, he has composed nearly 400 songs and choruses, a considerable contribution to music education in Taiwan. During WWII, Lu returned to Taiwan from Japan and found a job at a radio station in Taipei, where he was in charge of the station’s music programs. Due to the large number of music required for the show, Lu not only composed music himself, but also started to collect and adapt folk songs (Sun Zhijun, 2002). The two well-known choruses “Happy Together” and “Millet Festival” were songs adapted by Lu from indigenous folk songs he collected. On the other hand, there were a number of musicians and choreographers from China who moved to Taiwan with the KMT government after WWII ended in 1945. In 1947, the Hualien Normal School was founded. Hualien, located in eastern Taiwan, is home to many indigenous groups. Many of the students at this school were indigenous people. One of the teachers at the time was Zhang Renmo, a composer and violinist from China (Liu, 2014). Zhang seized the opportunity to collect indigenous folk songs while teaching at the Hualien Normal School. Outside of class, he often asked his indigenous students to sing songs for him, and he would notate them down as musical scores. Using what he collected, Zhang published two volumes of song collections titled Selection of Songs of the Taiwan Shandi People (1951), and used the songs to adapt and publish his two representative works: the choral collection Amis Chorus (1952) and the cantata Hualien Journey (1952). The ruling situation of the KMT in China was getting more difficult as its civil war with the Chinese Communist Party escalated. In the autumn of 1948, the choreographer Li Tianmin came to Taiwan to escape the war. Li had close connections with the military, and had been the head of the recreational troupe in the army. After he arrived in Taiwan, he accepted a request from the military and visited several indigenous communities in southern and eastern Taiwan to record their folk songs and dances to provide material for military recreation activities. In the process, Li also established good relationships with the local indigenous people (Wu Xiangzhi, 2004; Li and Yu, 2005). Another choreographer, Gao Yan, came to Taiwan about the same time as Li Tianmin. She learned dancing when she was in Nanjing, China as a student. During WWII, she collected dances from ethnic minorities of China in Mongolia, Xinjiang and Tibet. When Gao came to Taiwan in 1949, she accepted a request from the Taiwan Association of Education and collected songs and dances in many indigenous villages with the help of a local music teacher named Lin Shuxing (Jiang, 2004).

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Whether it was Lu Chuan-sheng, Zhang Renmo, and Lin Shuxing on the one hand, or Li Tianmin and Gao Yan on the other, they all received Western educations, and their studies consisted of knowledge and theory of Western music and dance. Prior to the work of collecting songs and dances of the indigenous people in Taiwan, they didn’t receive any training in anthropology or ethnology to cope with the relatively foreign cultures of Taiwanese indigenous people. In other words, they could only use theories and tools of Western music and dance to record indigenous songs and dances when they conducted their work. Doubts inevitably arise when looking at the records of indigenous songs and dances these musicians and choreographers left behind as to whether there was unintentional bias, or whether they used imperfect tools and couldn’t properly present the “authenticity” of indigenous songs and dances. Of course, since at the time the fields of ethnomusicology were not yet mature, from today’s perspective we cannot be overly demanding, but rather have to appreciate their enthusiasm and persistence. However, the one thing we cannot ignore is that, although the musicians and dancers had good intentions, they would inevitably use Western points of view to evaluate the indigenous songs and dances. All of them gave high praises to Taiwanese indigenous singing and dancing cultures, but they also criticized the indigenous songs and dances as being too simple, repetitive, lacking in development and variety, and the lyrics as being too vulgar and lacking in concrete meanings (Li and Yu, 2005: 285), and suggested that the indigenous songs and dances could use a certain degree of “improvement.” This idea of improving indigenous songs and dances was brought into realization in a grand and influential governmentheld event in 1952.

2.2 Seminar on Improving Shandi Songs and Dances The Seminar on Improving Shandi Songs and Dances (referred to below as the “Seminar”) was held by the Taiwan Provincial Government in Taipei City in the summer of 1952. The participants of the “Seminar” were 72 indigenous young women from different groups and villages all over Taiwan. They were skilled in singing and dancing, and their ages fell between 15 and 25 years old (Li and Yu, 2005: 285– 6). They were selected by the people of their village under the orders of the local administration. Speakers at the “Seminar” included Li Tianmin, Gao Yan, and Lin Shuxing. During the Seminar’s one month of training, the indigenous participants had to learn Western music theories, modern dancing knowledge, and Mandarin Chinese (the KMT government’s official language). On the other hand, the participants sang songs from their home villages to Lin Shuxing. Lin notated down the melodies and slightly edited them, compiled them into pamphlets and had the students learn songs from each other. It is worth mentioning that some writers and lyricists also took part in the “Seminar,” who introduced Mandarin Chinese lyrics into Lin’s adaption of indigenous songs. Therefor the songs that the participants learned to sing were new

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Fig. 1 A participant in the seminar on improving Shandi songs and dances. Source Wang Jiesheng, Central Daily News, 20 Aug 1952, p. 3

versions of indigenous songs (Li and Yu, 2005: 288). Moreover, many of the songs were accompanied by new and modern dance moves created by Li and Gao (Fig. 1). The “Seminar” ended with a public performance which contained entertaining group dances, dances portraying rural lives, solo love songs, and musicals about soldiers and hunters, and was deemed a “huge success” (Li and Yu, 2005: 291). As the title of the seminar suggests, the purpose of the “Seminar” was to reform the indigenous songs and dances in order to fit the aesthetic preferences of the authorities (Li and Yu, 2005: 286). However, this was not the only goals. In 1951, a year before the “Seminar,” the Taiwan Provincial Government released the Procedures on Promoting Mandarin Chinese in the Shandi Areas of All Counties in Taiwan Province, according to which a variety of measures aiming to promote Mandarin Chinese were introduced, including: Hold seminars on reforming songs and dances to implement language education (Taiwansheng Zhengfu Minzhengting, 1954: 231).

As it can be seen, the real background purpose of the Seminar on Improving Shandi Songs and Dances was not focused on the songs and dances themselves, but an effort to coordinate with the promotion of Mandarin Chinese education among indigenous people. Learning a new language is not an easy task, and the authorities thought that better results could be obtained by merging Mandarin Chinese education into the singing and dancing that they were already very good at. In such circumstance, the songs and dances became the medium for Mandarin Chinese education. This was the reason why the organizers of the “Seminar” invited not only musicians and choreographers, but also writers and lyricists to write new Mandarin Chinese lyrics to indigenous songs. Documents connected with the “Seminar” clearly specified that

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it was intended to integrate the cultural spirit of the “Chinese nation”, to cultivate anti-communism among indigenous people, and to “eliminate the negative influences of Japanese colonization” by adapting indigenous songs and dances with Mandarin Chinese lyrics (Li and Yu, 2005: 286). After the Seminar on Improving Shandi Songs and Dances was over, the young female indigenous students who participated brought the “reformed” indigenous songs and dances back to their home villages and became “seed teachers.” The indigenous districts later held many local seminars. Hence, the “reformed” songs and dances were spread out among the indigenous communities. Nowadays, indigenous dance steps among the different indigenous groups are similar to each other, this is because they more or less absorbed the so-called “shandi dancing” and “national dancing” (minzu wudao) created by choreographers such as Gao Yan and Li Tianmin. In later decades, the authorities in charge of indigenous affairs held many similar activities, organized under the “Shandi Touring Cultural Work Team” (referred to below as the Cultural Work Team). The Cultural Work Team copied the methods of the 1952 Seminar, and also had representatives chosen by the villages sent for training in the city. They toured indigenous villages to carry out the so-called “cultural work”, with songs and dances taken and further expanded from materials of the “Seminar” in 1952. New forms of media were added into the work, such as stage plays, movies, speeches, pictures and books. The missions of the Cultural Working Team was not only to promote Mandarin Chinese education and improving the songs and dances, but also cultural education and political propaganda. There were even indigenous members of the Provincial Council who claimed that the Cultural Working Team contributed a great deal to stimulating the shandi cultures and propagating anti-communism (He, 1955). The Seminar on Improving Shandi Songs and Dances not only affected the languages and the culture of song and dance of indigenous people, it also opened up a window for mainstream Taiwanese society with regard to getting to know indigenous songs and dances. Because of Li Tianmin’s military background, the new “shandi dances” and “shandi songs” composed in the “Seminar” became important components of military recreational activities. Taiwanese college students used to attend the recreational activities held by the China Youth Corps (a semi-governmental youth organization providing military training and entertainments) during winter and summer vacations. This became one of the main ways for Taiwanese to be exposed to “shandi songs” and “shandi dances.” In the 1960s, Gao Yan established the first official institution of dance in the higher education system, and included “shandi dances” in the professional dance education. Of course, elementary and middle schools textbooks included not only “shandi songs” from the “Seminar,” but also those collected by Lu Chuan-sheng and Zhang Renmo. In conclusion, the indigenous songs the Taiwanese public got to know in the early post-WWII era were mostly adaptations or derivative creations by dance and music professionals from around 1950.

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2.3 A New Perspective of Academic Research Beginning in the mid-1960s, the Taiwanese music field entered into a new era of understanding indigenous folk songs. There was a shift from stressing collecting elements of the music for adaption to musicological research that aimed to preserve and record traditional folk songs. There was not only a broadening, but also a deepening of the understanding of indigenous music research. The changes, whether in terms of concepts or of practical actions, happened in the academy, and the pioneers were musicians studying abroad in Europe and Japan. On June 21st 1962, Shih Wei-liang, a young musician who was studying composition in Vienna, Austria, sent a letter to a Taiwanese newspaper. He asked eagerly in his letter, “Do we need our own music?” He asked the question because he had observed a clear preference for Western music among Taiwanese music circles, and that Taiwanese had lost their own national spirit. His letter quickly received a positive, public reaction from another musician. Shih Wei-liang was born in China. He was a young man with strong nationalist sentiments, and even had a legendary identity as an intelligence agent when China was fighting against Japan during WWII. After WWII, Shih started studying music in Beijing, China. In 1949, he transferred to Taiwan to continue his education. In 1958, he went to study abroad in Madrid and Vienna, which he did until 1964 (Wu Jiayu, 2002). The youth who responded to Shih in the newspaper was Hsu Tsang-houei, who was a few years younger than Shih. Hsu was born in a town in central Taiwan during the Japanese colonial era. He was sent to Tokyo, Japan to study violin when he was in elementary school. Although he was an artist, he was forced to work in an arsenal during the war. In 1946, he returned to Taiwan to continue with his music studies. He left again to study in France in 1954, learning violin, music history, and composition. In 1959, he finished his studies and returned to Taiwan (Chen, 2008). These two young people belonged to two different sides during the war, but destiny had brought them together after the war. Both of them had acquired new ideas about openness during their years in Europe and had reflected on Taiwan’s close-minded, foreign-worshiping, and local music culture-neglecting environment. After their dialogue in 1962 in the newspaper, they became friends due to their similar philosophies, and started their journey searching for the national spirit in folk music. Their ideas were put into realization in the mid-1960s. They established a music library and a research center to lay the foundations for music research. They then recruited like-minded people and formed a research team. The research, which was called the “Folk Song Collection Movement,” was officially launched in 1966. By the end of this movement in 1968, the team collected over 2000 pieces of folk music from all the ethnic groups in Taiwan, and over 80% of these were from the Taiwanese indigenous people (Liao, 2004). In 1977, Shih Wei-liang passed away, and Hsu Tsang-houei continued his research on folk music. Shih and Hsu had good connections with government officials, the military, and the art community, so it was easier for them to receive administrative help. Hsu

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took an important position in academia for a long time, and was a leading figure in music academic circles. Although Hsu’s views and research methods were sometimes criticized, he had a major influence on Taiwanese music research through the end of the 20th century. He cultivated generations of students who directly devoted themselves to ethnomusicological studies, and therefore consolidated the foundation of Taiwanese folk music research, producing abundant research results. His work also attracted interest in indigenous music among the Taiwan public, and even got attention on the international stage. Through his fieldwork, Hsu discovered many Taiwanese folk artists. Hsu often invited them to perform in Taiwanese cities and abroad. In 1988, Hsu took a group of indigenous artists including the Amis farmers/singers, Difang and Ingay, to France, Switzerland, Germany and the Netherlands. This tour led to the German new age band Enigma sampling one of Difang and Ingay’s performances and mixed it into their song “Return to Innocence” of the album The Cross of Changes (1993) which resulted in an international lawsuit over copyrights. “Return to Innocence” gained substantial fame in the Western world, and it was even used in a promotional advertisement for the 1996 Atlanta Olympics (see Tan, 2008). One of Shih and Hsu’s main purposes in initiating the “Folk Song Collection Movement” was to discover new elements in folk music, and to compose “New Chinese Music” (Liao, 2004: 271). Compared to the previous era, when Lu Chuansheng and Zhang Renmo only did new arrangements of original indigenous melodies, Shih Wei-liang and Hsu Tsang-houei adopted the ideas and approaches of the Hungarian composer Bela Bartok, which was to discover new composition theories and material from folk music. However, if we compare Shih and Hsu, Shih was more interested in so-called “traditional” folk songs, and he would exclude folk songs that were “polluted” by the outside world or popular culture (Qiu, 1997: 331). Because of this, Shih had also had conflicts with other members of the movement. Regardless, Shih started to think about using Amis folk songs for compiling music teaching materials (Liao, 2004: 53). This idea was not implemented because of his death. However, since the 1980s, the indigenous folk songs collected by musicians like Shih Wei-liang and Hsu Tsang-houei started to be included in elementary and middle school music textbooks. Besides Shih Wei-liang and Hsu Tsang-houei, there were a few other Taiwanese scholars who had ethnomusicology training abroad and conducted the research on Taiwan indigenous people in the 1960s and 1970s. However, if we look back from the standpoint of the current day, they were less influential than Hsu Tsang-houei. Some of their more academic achievements will not be elaborated here. But it’s worth mentioning that the Presbyterianism priest and composer Loh I-to conducted ethnomusicology research work in Taiwan and other countries in Asia for over a decade, and he completed his doctoral dissertation in 1982 on the topic of the polyphonic folk songs of Taiwanese indigenous people. His work has affected many indigenous missionaries who have devoted themselves to the work of recording folk songs of their home villages.

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3 Indigenous Music in Music Textbooks According to the music textbooks published from 1962 to 2000 collected by the National Academy for Educational Research, comprising 51 editions and 335 volumes by different publishing companies, less than 80 indigenous folk songs were included. Several of them appeared frequently, but over half of them only once. The statistics reveal the degree to which individual songs were popular or valued in Taiwan. Besides, the way the songs were presented in the textbooks could imply the perspectives of textbook editors towards them as well. The inclusion of indigenous songs in textbooks can be divided into two stages based on developments over time. The first stage was before 1988, when indigenous culture was not valued in the society and Taiwanese people, including indigenous people, were all treated as “Chinese people” by the educational and cultural policies of KMT government. Very few indigenous songs were included in textbooks during this period. The chosen songs were limited to a certain few songs such as “Millet Festival” (collected and arranged by Lu Chuan-sheng), “Moon-Watching Dance” and “Fishing Song” (collected by Zhang Renmo), and a few songs from the Seminar on Improving Shandi Songs and Dances. This shows how little the Taiwanese society at large then knew about indigenous people. The second stage was from 1989 to 2000. During this time, the Taiwanese social and political environment had begun to change. This was also the time when Taiwan had its first direct presidential election and the first change of the ruling party. Taiwanese society began to pay more and more attention to local culture, as a result, more indigenous songs were included in textbooks. Still, songs included in textbooks from the first stage still appeared frequently during the second stage.

3.1 Imagined Songs and Legends Among the 80 indigenous songs that have been used in textbooks, the one appearing with the highest frequency is “Gaoshan Qing (High Green Mountain)” (see Table 1). This is a song that every Taiwanese can sing. For an extended period of time, it was regarded as a representation of Taiwan’s indigenous songs. Sometimes even Taiwan indigenous performing groups would sing this song when they go abroad to perform. Ironically, “Gaoshan Qing” is not actually a “real” indigenous song, but a song from the soundtrack to the movie Alishan Story shot in 1949 in Taiwan by a Chinese film company from Shanghai (Shen, 2013: 26). “Gaoshan Qing” was later arranged to become “Song of Alishan” by the art song composer Huang Youdi. The tune and lyrics of the two songs are actually the same. The original song and the adapted art song version have both appeared in textbooks many times. “Alishan” is a famous tourist site of a mountainous area in central Taiwan. The movie Alishan Story takes a fictional love story and conflict between the indigenous

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Table 1 Frequency of common indigenous songs included in middle and elementary school music textbooks Songs

1950–1988

1989–2000

Origin of sources

Gaoshan Qing/Song of Ali mountain

9

11

Film score composition

Moon-watching dance

7

10

Collected by Zhang Renmo

Fishing song

6

10

Collected by Zhang Renmo

Millet festival

6

5

Collected by Lu Chuan-sheng

Song of the ocean

2

8

Seminar on improving Shandi songs and dances

Farming song

4

5

Collected by Yang Zhaozhen

Fishing

4

4

Collected by Shih Wei-liang

The Maiden of Malan

0

7

Collected by Hsu Tsang-houei/popular song

peoples and the government officials as its theme. How the Chinese and Taiwanese viewed the aborigines at that time can be seen from the lyrics of “Gaoshan Qing”: The high mountain is green, the mountain stream is blue. The young women of Alishan are as beautiful as water. The young men of Alishan are as strong as a mountain.

Using “water” to describe the tenderness of young women and “mountain” to describe the strength of young men are actually not customs of the indigenous peoples themselves, but a case of the Han Chinese people applying their ideas about beauty onto the indigenous peoples. There is another example similar to that of Alishan in the textbooks of the 1960s that is worth mentioning. Although there were barely any indigenous songs in the music textbooks of that period, there were two songs about the indigenous people that stood out. These two songs were both called “Wu Feng Song”, composed by two different composers. Wu Feng was a real person from about 250 years ago. He worked as an official translator between the Qing government (the authority in Taiwan before Japanese colonial rule) and the local Tsou ethnic group in Alishan. Wu Feng was also a character in the 1949 movie Alishan Story. In the history books written by Han Chinese, Wu sacrificed his life to make the Tsou people give up the “savage” practice of headhunting. Therefore, whether it was the Qing, the Japanese or the KMT government who came to Taiwan after 1945, they all portrayed Wu Feng as a hero. In the lyrics of the two “Wu Feng Songs”, Wu was described as a divinity of the sun and the moon worshipped by all the people. The inclusion of “Wu Feng Song” in the elementary school music textbooks is obviously propaganda about how the government “educated” the indigenous people. Not only did it appear in music textbooks, Wu Feng’s story also appeared in Mandarin Chinese and history textbooks.

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However, the Tsou people have a completely different attitude towards Wu Feng. In the oral history of the Tsou people, Wu Feng was a profiteer. He often bullied the Tsou people when he traded with them, and therefore the Tsou people killed Wu Feng. At the end of the 1980s, the ethnic consciousness of the indigenous people rose, and many social movements for indigenous rights were initiated. Destroying the superstitions surrounding Wu Feng became one of the goals of the movement, and finally won the government’s approval. Since then, Wu Feng’s story no longer appears in textbooks.

3.2 New Lyrics in National Language During the Japanese colonial era, the official language spoken in Taiwan was Japanese. Besides Japanese, the mother tongues of the general populace were Hokkien, Hakka, and different indigenous languages. Mandarin Chinese, the official language spoken by the KMT government, was rarely used during the Japanese era. Therefore, after WWII when the KMT took over Taiwan, one of its most significant education policies was the National Language Policy (He, 1948). Hence, it is not difficult to understand why most of the indigenous songs included in the textbooks in the earlier period were given Mandarin Chinese lyrics. The most representative songs were those produced at the “Seminar”, whose original purpose was to help the indigenous people learn Mandarin. Thus all the groups in Taiwan no matter what their language could all understand the meaning of these songs in textbooks. However, a large proportion of indigenous songs originally had no specific lyrics. Instead, the songs are sung with vocables which have no literal meanings, such as ho-hay-yan, he-ha-hay, and na-lu-wan. Their songs usually don’t have titles, and the meaning of a song is expressed through the context in which it is used. The same song can be sung while working in the field or drinking with friends, and a song can therefore have different meanings depending on the occasion. This concept is sometimes not so easy for outsiders to understand. Therefore, determining the meaning of a song through the actual meaning of Mandarin lyrics has become a common method for Han peoples to learn about indigenous music. “Song of the Ocean,” an Amis song that appeared frequently in music textbooks, is a very good example. The original “Song of the Ocean” was sung with meaningless vocables. The vocable hay-yan sounds very close to “ocean” in Mandarin Chinese. It is speculated that this is why the literary experts at the “Seminar” replaced the original vocables with Mandarin lyrics related to the ocean, so the song became “Song of the Ocean.” “Song of the Ocean” Lyrics by Zhao Youpei The great ocean surrounds us on four sides. With its broad chest, We are nurtured by it.

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We entrust our boundless new hopes to the ocean. (Guoli Bianyi Guan, 1977: 60)

For those indigenous songs whose lyrics originally had actual meaning, when they were converted to songs with Mandarin lyrics, they also need to undergo a certain kind of “censorship” rather than through direct translation. A song produced by the “Seminar” titled “As If in Heaven” was also included in music textbooks. Its Mandarin lyrics depict life in Taiwan—A Free China—as being as beautiful as if it were heaven in comparison to the miserable life of people in mainland China under the Communist Party’s rule. “As if in Heaven” Lyrics by Shen Xianheng The fragrance of flower blossoms fills the spring wind, like a brand new world. The fragrance of flower blossoms fills the spring wind, the future is bright. We happily grow with luxuriant vigor in Free China. We have sufficient food and clothes. We have vehicles and have no worries about housing. Compared to the miserable life in Mainland China, it is truly as if we are living in heaven. (Guoli Bianyi Guan, 1971: 87-8)

The melody of “As If in Heaven” also originated from the Amis people and initially had Amis lyrics to go with it, but they said something totally different. The Amis version was about two poor deserted children living in peril and envying other people’s lives. The original lyrics comprise several verses. Here is the first one: nengnengan ku kami a tatosa

Take a look at us!

misawadan no wina ato wama kami a tatosa

We two were deserted by our parents

sasiliku sai pawti han yuma cicihay han o matapiday han

My clothes were made from torn fabric bags

nenghan ku no tao sevilu

Look at other people wearing western suits (Lu and Gao, 2011: 60)

Such lyrics could not be translated directly into Mandarin and performed at the “Seminar” held by the government, otherwise they would only imply how miserable people were living under the KMT government’s rule. Thus, the new Mandarin lyrics turned a song which originally told of a dreary life into a propaganda ode which praised the brilliant rule of the government and the heavenly life of the people.

3.3 Limitation on Perspectives and Research Method After 1989, the indigenous song materials included in various publishers’ music textbooks were more and more rich and varied. A very interesting phenomenon emerged in the textbooks at this time: there were a great number of children’s rhymes

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from various ethnic groups such as the Bunun people’s “Birds Sing Gaga,” “Playing with a Bamboo Spear” and “A Rooster Fighting an Eagle”; the Amis people’s “Old Man Carrying a Shoulder Bag,” “Stomping Feet Song,” and “Mischievous Kids”; the Paiwan people’s “Qili Baba” and “Salubibi,” and the Rukai people’s “The Sun Rises and Shines.” Most of the collectors of these songs worked in indigenous communities at middle or elementary schools or in churches as missionaries, and most of them were indigenous people. The elementary school music textbooks of this period showed a diversity that catered to children’s tastes. Unfortunately, although the music textbooks of the 1990s included more indigenous songs, not all of them could properly present the life and culture of the indigenous people through these songs. Sometimes the role of these songs in textbooks was just to serve as examples of basic music theories such as tonality, rhythm or dynamics. By the year 2000, more indigenous songs had been included in textbooks. The sources of songs had become much richer. During that time, Taiwan’s music academic research on indigenous music had already reached a certain scope. The editors of textbooks began to incorporate the contributions of ethnomusicologists. Most of the songs were ritual songs of the indigenous groups, such as the Bunun’s Pasibutbut, “Praying for the Millet Harvest,” the Tsou people’s La’lingi, “Ode to the Gods of War” for war ceremony, and Raraol, the “Song of Welcoming Spirits” of Saisiyat’s Ritual to the Short People. The Amis song “Elders’ Drinking Song,” which became famous because of Enigma’s song “Return to Innocence” and the 1996 Atlanta Olympic Games, was also included in the textbooks. However, attempts to introduce indigenous music into textbooks still encounter some difficulties. Sometimes the limitations are due to the tools themselves, and sometimes due to the perspectives of researchers or textbook editors. According to the regulations of Taiwan’s Ministry of Education, understanding the Western staff notation is an important learning goal of music education. In music textbooks, music has to be presented using Western notation. Like in other East Asian countries such as Japan and Korea, number notation is more popular for nonprofessional occasions in Taiwanese society. Most people don’t have much difficulty in reading numbered notation, but many people can’t read music written in staff notation—even though everyone has taken music lessons in elementary school. In the traditional music life of the indigenous people, there is no form of notation at all. Traditional songs have been passed down completely by oral transmission. When songs were included in textbooks, they were forced to be written using the musical staff. In cases where an indigenous musical system did not match the system of the staff notation, there would be huge gaps between the transcription and the original music. The most obvious examples are the Tao traditional songs. Tao people live in Lanyu (Orchid Island), an island southeast of the main island of Taiwan. The ocean is the center of the Tao people’s lives. Their music uses extensivel large-scale vibrato, portamento, unstable pitches and free rhythm, their traditional songs are like wavy ups and downs and shimmering reflections of the waves. These very unique sounds cannot possibly be notated using the staff notation system where pitches and rhythm are

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regulated. Here is one example, a Tao song called “Rowing a 10-Person Boat to Little Lanyu,” showing the limitation of the staff notation. The compulsive trascription in staff notation resulted in the distortion of the actual melody (see Xu, 2003: 21). For indigenous folk songs, especially traditional ones, improvisation is a very important singing principle and the most attractive characteristic of the music. The singer has to improvise and change the melody every time around. Therefore, the same song may sound a little different each time it is executed. Transcribing such improvised music can only be a case representation of one specific performance and cannot express the actual principle of the singing. How the Amis traditional folk song, “Elders’ Drinking Song,” which was the original song sampled by the German band Enigma, appears in music textbooks is an example of such cases (see Wu, 2005: 8). A little more explanation in the music textbook could lead students to understand better the concept of improvisation. The way the Bunun song Ana nade do o introduced in one textbook is a very good example. Bunun people live in the high mountains in central Taiwan. Their society does not have a strict hierarchical structure like some other Taiwan aborigines and therefore has a relatively larger emphasis on “equality.” (Wang, 2010: 107) This concept is also reflected in their musical activities. Most of the Bunun songs are practiced collectively. They use a three-note scale of “do-mi-sol” (with occasional “re” served as passing note from “mi” to “do”). When singing, the singers are spontaneously divided into four parts, accompanying the main melody freely using “do”, “mi” or “sol.” A homorhythmic chorus is formed, and it sounds very similar to the chorales in western churches. In the case of Bunun song Ana nade do o, the music score presents the main melody along with a description explaining the principles of vocal accompaniment, so that students are able to understand the Bunun concept of music through actual singing (see Xie, 2004: 43).

3.4 A Controversial Song In Taiwan, there are certain procedures and regulations for the production of textbooks. The Ministry of Education has established the “Curriculum Standards,” based on which private publishers compile the textbooks. Textbooks could only be published with the Ministry of Education’s approval. In 1994, the Ministry of Education promulgated a new version of the Curriculum Standards for music courses in middle school. This new version was the first big-scale revision following the lifting of martial law in Taiwan in 1987 when the political and social atmosphere gradually opened up. Compared to the previous Curriculum Standards, the most significant change in the 1994 Standards was that local history, geography and cultures were incorporated. According to the Curriculum Standards, private textbook publishers are free to choose appropriate music as content of their courses. However, the Curriculum Standards also specifies a set of so-called “common songs,” which are songs that must

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be included in textbooks by every publisher. In other words, the officially specified “common songs” in the Curriculum Standards are equivalent to songs that the authorities say every student must learn or recognize. Before 1994, the “common songs” required by the music Curriculum Standards were all songs with political propaganda purposes or so-called “patriotic songs,” such as the national anthem or songs that praised the national rulers. However, starting with the 1994 Curriculum Standards, patriotic songs were no longer included among the “common songs,” and they have been replaced by folk songs from different cultures in Taiwan. Regarding the “common songs,” the 1994 music Curriculum Standards explain as follows: There are required common songs for each academic year, chosen based on the standards of being representative of the cultural characteristics of our country and being easy to sing. Each textbook should include common songs for memorization, and the principle for choosing these teaching materials is that the songs are commonly known and representative [...]. (Guomin Zhongxue Kecheng Biaozhun Bianjishencha Xiaozu, 1995: 899)

Among the common songs included under the 1994 Curriculum Standards is an Amis contemporary popular song widely known in Taiwan called “The Maiden of Malan.” Obviously, it means that this song was officially “recognized” as a representative of the indigenous culture. On the other hand, being officially selected in the textbook strengthened its special status among indigenous songs. “The Maiden of Malan” is a love song. Its lyrics are a first-person narrative of a girl asking her parents to agree to her having a future with her beloved: Ina’aw, ama’aw, solaling kako, ina

Mother, Father! Please agree to let us get married

Matini similicayay ko wawa no tao to tireng ako, ina

We two are in love

Ano ca’ay kamo pisolol to tireng ako, ina

If you do not agree,

U ma’an ko pinang toni kapatay malikatolo, tolo’ay no kasolin

I will lie on the train tracks and let the train run me over and cut me into three pieces

The “Malan” in the title of the song is a large Amis village in southeastern Taiwan. Therefore, the general public usually thinks that this song originated in the village. The same idea is written in the music textbooks. However, judging from its lyrics, which are not in the Malan dialect, it is probably from Hualien. In any case, the general public often doesn’t care about such details as to the song’s origins. If this song did not originate from Malan, one may wonder why it got the title. The reason is related to the popular culture in Taiwan’s Han society. The original Amis version of this song did not have a title. Around 1960, this Amis song started gradually spreading out from Hualien because it was performed for tourists, and it was soon covered in Hokkien and Mandarin in Taiwanese pop music circles. In 1964, Taiwan’s only TV station of the time produced a drama called “Malan Romance” that told a story of a Han young man falling in love with an indigenous girl who was the daughter of the head of Malan village. The theme song of this drama was a new Hokkien version of this Amis song. The TV drama and its theme song were

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both quite successful. Thus, many movies with similar plots appeared in succession, as well as a large number of other Hokkien and Mandarin cover song versions. The numerous cover versions of the song show its great popularity in Taiwan, far more than other indigenous folk songs. In 1974, Huang Youdi, a respected art song composer, adapted this song into a choral work, accompanied by more artistic Mandarin lyrics, and entitled the song “The Maiden of Malan.” This was the first time this song title appeared (Sun, 2013). If this Amis song is regarded as a representative of indigenous music, and thus selected as a “common song” for textbooks, it would be hard to separate the fact that it is likely because of the influence brought by the popular cover versions and even Huang’s art song arrangement of this song that gave “The Maiden of Malan” its fame. To this day, “The Maiden of Malan” still appears in the music textbooks of middle schools. However, the use of “The Maiden of Malan” in music textbooks has caused moral controversy. Despite the pleasant melody, the fourth line of the lyrics tells that the heroine threatens her parents with her own life. Such lyrical content is considered not suitable for middle school students who are in their adolescence. Some Amis people claim that the content of the lyrics of “The Maiden of Malan” could mislead the outside world about the cultural ethics of the Amis. In order to avoid the controversy over the lyrics, some music textbooks only translate the first two lines of the lyrics when introducing “The Maiden of Malan,” and deliberately avoids the fourth line. Other textbooks, instead of giving a literal translation, chooses to only describe “The Maiden of Malan” as a lyrical song, depicting a young girl eager for love. Further explanation of this song in the textbook focus on the traditional gender relationship of the Amis. For example, there is a version of a textbook that says: The Amis is a matrilineal society, and the status of women is more prominent. This song is a profound manifestation of women’s persistence and determination to love. (Hanlin Chuban Shiye Gufenyouxiangongsi Bianji Weiyuanhui, 2011: 159)

This passage connects the courageous expression of love of the heroine and the power of women in a matrilineal society of the Amis. The problem is that the Han people often apply the way that their patrilineal society operates to the matrilineal society, imagining that in the Amis society, mothers dominate and women have a higher status. In fact, this is not the case of Amis society, and there is no proof that Amis women have higher social power or status than men (Huang, 2005: 45). Interpreting “The Maiden of Malan” from the perspective of a “matrilineal society” can only be said to be a misunderstanding of Amis society by the Han people.

4 Conclusion Affected by the political atmosphere and the emphasis on local culture, the inclusion of indigenous content in post-war Taiwan music textbooks can be roughly divided into two stages using 1988 as the boundary.

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Before 1988, most Taiwanese people knew very little about the indigenous people, and very few indigenous songs were included in music textbooks. The sources of the songs were mainly folk musicians and the officially organized Seminar on Improving Shandi Songs and Dances; the latter being the product of the National Language Policy of the indigenous people implemented by the KMT government. At this stage, the indigenous people were placed in the context of the nationalistic mode of thinking and were regarded as members of the “Chinese nation.” The indigenous music presented in music textbooks had newly written Mandarin lyrics added, reflecting the stereotypes that Han people had for indigenous people and their limited knowledge about them. The appearance of these songs in textbooks were also used as a political and educational propaganda tool. After 1989, indigenous songs included in music textbooks became more diverse. In addition to children’s songs and ritual songs, contemporary popular songs were also included. Many of these songs were collected by ethnomusicologists or teachers and missionaries serving in the indigenous areas. However, it is not easy to present the characteristics of indigenous music in textbooks by using staff notation. Textbook editors should also consider the suitability of the songs as teaching materials. If only popularity is considered as the criterion for selecting teaching materials, and the cultural background of the songs is ignored, it may lead to misunderstandings among the public. The interaction between the indigenous people and the Han people in Taiwan has long been complicated and multi-faceted. In this article, music textbooks have been chosen as the object to observe how mainstream society and those in power in the educational system have filtered or shaped perceptions of indigenous people. Even as we enter into the 21st century, where Taiwan’s society has gradually opened up and has become more and more able to accept indigenous society, there are still some cognitive biases left over from the past which needs to be considered in the future.

References Guoli Bianyi Guan (國立編譯館) (Ed.). (1977). Guominzhongxue Yinyue (國民小學 音樂) (Vol. 5). Guoli Bianyi Guan, Taipei. Guoli Bianyi Guan (國立編譯館) (Ed.). (1971). Guominzhongxue Yinyueke Jiaokeshu (國民中學 音樂科教科書) (Vol. 6). Guoli Bianyi Guan, Taipei. Guomin Zhongxue Kecheng Biaozhun Bianjishencha Xiaozu (國民中學課程標準編輯審查小組) (Ed.). (1995). Guominzhongxue Kecheng Biaozhun (國民中學課程標準). Ministry of Education, Taipei. Hanlin Chuban Shiye Gufenyouxiangongsi Bianji Weiyuanhui (翰林出版事業股份有限公司編輯 委員會). (2011). Guominzhongxue Yishu yu Renwen (國民中學藝術與人文) (Vol. 2). Hanlin, Tainan City. He, J. (何金生), et al. (1955). Qing Shengzhengfu jixu juban shandi xunhui wenhua gongzuodui bing bianlie yusuan an (請省政府繼續舉辦山地巡迴文化工作隊並編列預算案). Taiwansheng Linshi Shengyihui Gongbao (臺灣省臨時省議會公報) 5, no. 13, 3641. He, R. (何容), Tiehen, Q., (齊鐵恨) & Ju, W. (王炬) (Ed.) (1948). Taiwan zhi Guoyu Jiaoyu (臺灣 之國語教育). Taiwan Bookstore, Taipei.

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Huang, S. (黃宣衛). (2005). Images of others, regional variations and history among the Amis (異族觀、地域性差別與歷史: 阿美族研究論文集). Institute of Ethnology, Academia Sinica, Taipei. Jiang, Y. (江映碧). (2004). Gao Yan: Wu Dong Chunfeng Yi Jiazi (高棪: 舞動春風一甲子). Xingzhengyuan Wenhua Jianshe Weiyuanhui, Taipei. Li, T., (李天民) & Guofang, Y. (余國芳). (2005). Taiwan Wudao Shi (臺灣舞蹈史). Dajuan Wenhua, Taipei. Liao, P. (廖珮如). (2004). ‘Minge Caiji’ yundong de zai yanjiu (「民歌採集」運動的再研究). Master thesis of National Taiwan University. Liu, M. (劉美蓮). (2014). Bailang taotao wuo bupa faidie: buyu ge yu zao feiji de gushi (白浪滔 滔我不怕匪諜: 捕魚歌與造飛機的故事). Zhuanji Wenxue (傳記文學) 104, no. 5, 80–83. Lu, Y. (呂鈺秀), & Gao, S. (高淑娟). (2011). A rolling age: Farmer’s songs in Malan (移動的 腳步 移動的歲月:馬蘭農耕歌謠風). Booklet of CD Album. Chuyin Culture and Arts Group, Taidong. Qiu, K. (邱坤良). (1997). Zuo Zi Haishang Lai: Hsu Tsang-houei de Shengming zhi Ge (昨自海 上來:許常惠的生命之歌). Shibao Wenhua, Taipei. Shen, D. (沈冬) (Ed.). (2013). Musical Recollection in Formosa: The Legend of Zhou Lan-Ping and Four Seas Records (寶島回想曲: 周藍萍與四海唱片) Library of National Taiwan University, Taipei. Sun, C. (孫俊彥). (2013). A mountain love song between cross cultural couples: a study of the origin and imagined identity of ‘The Maiden of Malan’ (原漢共譜的「山地」戀曲 談馬蘭 姑娘的可能源流與認同想像). Journal of Chinese Ritual, Theatre and Folklore (民俗曲藝), 181, 265–319. Sun, Z. (孫芝君). (2002). Lu Chuan-sheng: Yi Ge Zhumeng de Rensheng (呂泉生:以歌逐夢的人 生). Shibao Wenhua, Taipei. Taiwansheng Zhengfu Minzhengting (臺灣省政府民政廳). (1954). Taiwansheng Shangdi Xingzheng Fagui Jiyiao (臺灣省山地行政法規輯要). Taiwansheng Zhengfu Minzhengting, Taipei. Tan, S. E. (2008). Returning to and from ‘Innocence’: Taiwan aboriginal recordings. The Journal of American Folklore, 121(480), 222–235. https://doi.org/10.1353/jaf.0.0005 Tchen, Y. (陳郁秀). (2008). Hsu Tsang-houei (許常惠). In Tchen, Y. (Ed.), Taiwan Yinyue Baike Cishu (臺灣音樂百科辭書) (pp. 777–779). Yuanliu, Taipei. Wang, S. (王嵩山). (2010). Taiwan Yuanzhumin: Renzu de Wenhua Lucheng (台灣原住民 人族 的文化旅程). Yuanzu, Taipei County. Wu, J. (吳嘉瑜) (2002). Shih Wei-liang: Hongchen zong de Kuxingseng (史惟亮:紅塵中的苦行 僧). Shibao Wenhua, Taipei. Wu, W. (吳望如). 2005. Guoxiao Yishu yu Renwen (國小藝術與人文), vol. 8. Taipei: Renlin Wenhua. Wu, X. (伍湘芝). (2004). Li Tianmin: Wudao Huangyuan de Kentuozhe (李天民: 舞蹈荒原的墾 拓者). Xingzhengyuan Wenhua Jianshe Weiyuanhui, Taipei. Xie, W. (謝婉妮) (Ed.). (2004). Guoxiao Yishu yu Renwen (國小藝術與人文) (Vol. 7). Renlin Wenhua, Taipei. Xu, R. (徐瑞華) (Eds.). (2003). Guoxiao Yishu yu Renwen Keben (國民小學藝術與人文課本) (Vol. 3). Nanyi, Tainan City. Xu, S. (Han Dynasty) ([漢] 許慎). (1991 reprint). Shuowen Jiezi (說文解字). Tianjin Guji, Tianjin.

Chun-Yen Sun is an associate professor in the Department of Chinese Music, Chinese Culture University, Taipei. He received his Ph.D. in Ethnomusicology from the University of Paris 8, France. His research interests include the music of Taiwanese aborigines, with a focus on the polyphony of the Amis tribe, and the musical theory of Chinese qinmusic. He has also been serving as a vice-director of Taiwan Qin Society since 2018.

Musicking as a Way of Connecting with the Ancestral Home: Preserving and Inventing Traditions in Papulu, Taiwan Chun-bin Chen

Abstract Papulu is a Taiwanese Indigenous village belonging to the Pinuyumayan group, established in the 1930s after it was separated from the old Puyuma village. After leaving their former village for nearly a century, the villagers are still connecting themselves with the vanished ancestral home. In this chapter, I will examine how Papulu villagers remain connected with their ancestral home by maintaining Pinuyumayan’s age-set system through musicking. The examples that I will explore center around the pairairaw chant in the mangayaw (the Great Hunting Ritual) and the semimusimuk (a door-to-door singing event by the village’s youth performing group). The former is related to the men’s house while the latter the boys’ house, both of which are associated with the age-set system that has served as a cornerstone of Pinuyumayan society. The process of preserving the at-risk pairairaw tradition shows how Papulu villagers have strived to keep their traditions alive. The process of constructing an invisible boys’ house through young villagers’ singing and dancing show how Papulu villagers have sought balance between their tradition and the changing world. Papulu Village has not built a boys’ house since its establishment. “The Legacy,” the Papulu youth performing group established in 1998, has been partly fulfilling functions of a traditional boys’ house, mainly through the group’s year-end door-to-door singing that initiates the village’s annual ritual and demarcates the village’s territory beyond its physical borders. These examples together demonstrate that through musicking Papulu villagers may find ways to return to their old Puyuma Village virtually. Keywords Taiwanese Indigenous music · Papulu · Pinuyumayan · Indigenoug diasporas · Musicking On the evening of October 6, 2017, a group of about 40 Indigenous people performed on an outdoor stage at Taipei National University of the Arts (TNUA) for the opening of the 2017 Kuandu Arts Festival. This 12-min-long performance, titled “Semimusimuk: Legacy and Celebration,” showcased the annual events of Papulu Village. Papulu is an Indigenous village belonging to the Pinuyumayan group, one C. Chen (B) Taipei National University of the Arts, New Taipei, Taiwan © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. 2021 Y. Lu and O. Elschek (eds.), The Legacy of Indigenous Music, Sinophone and Taiwan Studies 4, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-16-4473-3_3

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of 16 Austronesian-speaking ethnic groups in Taiwan. This village was established in the 1930s after villagers moved out from the old Puyuma village, Pinan Puyuma. After leaving their former village for nearly a century, villagers are still connecting themselves with their vanished ancestral home by different means, such as singing and dancing in rituals inherited from ancestors. For the Indigenous people of Papulu, their ancestral home is associated with the people (their ancestors) and a place (Pinan Puyuma Village) that no longer exists, but to connect to the ancestral home does not mean a mere return to the past. Rather, the connection is a form of articulation in which the past/present/future, the traditional/modern, and insiders/outsiders encounter. Indigenous peoples’ “ancestry” is “not simply genetic ancestry” as TallBear Kim points out, “but biological, cultural, and political groupings constituted in dynamic long-standing relationships with each other and with living landscapes that define their people-specific identities and, more broadly, their indigeneity” (2015: 131). To respond to Kim’s remark, I take the musicking of Papulu people as an example to explore how they define “ancestry” and “indigeneity” in their musicking. The term “musicking” was coined by Christopher Small, who considered “music” a verb, rather than a noun. “To music,” he pointed out, “is to take part, in any capacity, in a musical performance, whether by performing, by listening, by rehearsing or practicing, by providing material for performance (what is called composing), or by dancing” (1998: 9). The musicking events on which I focus are the semimusimuk and mangayaw, two annual events associated with the age-set organization of Papulu Village. The age-set organization is the fundamental basis of the Pinuyumayan social structure, and the semimusimuk and mangayaw embody principal values and a sense of ideal relationships in Papulu Village. With a description of the performance of the Papulu people at TNUA as a starting point, I will depict the semimusimuk and mangayaw briefly. I then sketch Taiwanese Indigenous Peoples, the Pinuyumayan group, and Papulu Village from both historical and cultural perspectives. By discussing the semimusimuk and mangayaw in detail as the focal point of this chapter, I examine how Pinuyumayan people of Papulu Village maintain a connection to their former village and ancestry, accommodate to social and cultural changes in the contemporary world, and communicate and negotiate with a settler society.

1 Semimusimuk: Legacy and Celebration “Semimusimuk: Legacy and Celebration,” the 12-min-long performance at the opening of the 2017 Kuandu Arts Festival at TNUA is composed of six sections, representing Papulu Village’s annual events that last two weeks at the end of each year. These sections were semimusimuk (the door-to-door singing of happy songs), kiputabu (seeing the hunters off), mangayaw (the hunting), laluwanan (the glorious return of the hunters), kitubangsar (the ceremony in which boys become men) and amiyan (the coming of the New Year).

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The first section, semimusimuk, was performed by boys and girls of Papulu Xinchuan Shaonienyin 巴布麓薪傳少年營 (the Legacy, the youth performing group of Papulu village). The Semimusimuk is an event that takes place around midDecember, in which members of the Legacy go from house to house singing happy songs. It is the prelude of the Annual Ritual, which includes the semimusimuk and mangayaw. The mangayaw is a ritual passed down from generation to generation, in which the pairairaw, the exclusive chant of this ritual, is sung only by members of the men’s house. Different from the traditional mangayaw ritual, the semimusimuk is a newly invented tradition, and during this event the boys and girls of the Legacy sing eclectic and hybrid songs that incorporates Indigenous and non-Indigenous elements. The songs that the Legacy sang in the semimusimuk section of the TNUA performance, however, were picked from the repertoire of the boys’ house of Puyuma (also known as Nanwang) Village, a Pinuyumayan village closely related to Papulu Village. The use of songs of the Puyuma boys’ house in the TNUA performance indicated that the Legacy was an imitation of the Puyuma boys’ house. Furthermore, this imitation suggests the intention of Papulu villagers to approach their ancestral home through performance. I will later discuss the imitation and their intention in detail. The sections following the semimusimuk section are related to the mangayaw, of which members of the men’s house were in charge. The kiputabu (seeing the hunters off) section depicted men’s preparation for hunting: while men were preparing their hunting and camping gear, women and girls sent food and beverages as gifts to these men. While the gear was being prepared, the hunters, one by one, crossed a sorcery barrier set by the village shaman, and then departed for their hunting ground. In the mangayaw (the hunting) section, the hunters used guns, arrows, or traps to shoot or ensnare wild game, which was represented by stuffed toys in the performance. When the hunters were sorting out their game on one side of the stage, women and girls appeared on the other side, using bamboo canes to demarcate a semicircular space. This space, surrounded by bamboo canes, was called laluwanan (roughly meaning “the arch of triumph”), from which the title of the laluwanan section was derived. In the place where women and girls constructed the laluwanan, they welcomed the hunters, and when the hunters arrived, they helped the hunters put on traditional costume and replaced the hunters’ muddy clothes. The elder hunters entered the laluwanan, the place they are supposed to sing the pairairaw chant at an actual ritual, but skipped the singing in this particular performance. After a very brief stay, the elder hunters walked out from the laluwanan and led all performers around the stage and stopped at the stage’s center, symbolically leading all participants to return to their village. All performers then held hands to form a semicircle and danced around the village shaman, starting the kitubangsar (the ceremony in which boys become men) section. They began with a four-step dance, and after a round of this type of dance, a senior male escorted a junior male to stand in front of the line. At this moment, the village shaman sang the tremilratilraw chant, and the others danced to respond to the chant. After dancing the tremilratilraw, the boy standing in the front of the line, who had completed preparatory training for the men’s house, was now recognized as a man. The final section was the amiyan (the coming of the New Year),

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Fig. 1 Papulu villagers dancing with audience members at the TNUA performance. Photo: Chunbin Chen, October 6, 2017

in which performers sang and danced like they normally would to celebrate the New Year in their village, and audience members were invited to dance with them to end the performance (Fig. 1). Even though this performance presented the semimusimuk and mangayaw in a superficial manner, it displayed important components in music, dance, rituals, and the traditional social structure of Papulu Village. Before examining these components, I will provide descriptions of the Papulu Village and the Indigenous group it belongs to. Papulu is one of the ten Pinuyumayan villages, and the Pinuyumayan group is one of Taiwan’s 16 Austronesian-speaking ethnic groups. To start with these descriptions, I will explain the connotation of “Indigenous” in Taiwan.

2 Taiwanese Indigenous Peoples and Related Studies Taiwanese Indigenous Peoples are Austronesian-speaking people, constituting two percent of Taiwan’s population of over 23 million. The geographical region of the Austronesian language family includes insular Southeast Asia and the Pacific

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Islands.1 Taiwan, on the northernmost part of this region, was an independent territory owned by the Austronesians before Chinese immigration in the 17th century.2 After multiple outside powers (the Dutch, the Chinese, and the Japanese) successively ruling the island and each making impacts on the Austronesians, these Indigenous people are now citizens of the Republic of China. According to current governmental categorization, Taiwanese Indigenous Peoples are composed of 16 groups, namely, Amis, Atayal, Bunun, Hla’alua, Kanakanavu, Kavalan, Paiwan, Pinuyumayan, Rukai, Saisiyat, Sakizaya, Sediq, Thao, Truku, Tsou and Yami (Tao). Without a written history of their own, the history of Taiwanese Indigenous Peoples has been written by outsiders, who often see the history of Taiwan as beginning with the Dutch rule in the 17th century. Under this schema, the history of the Indigenous Peoples before the Dutch rule is “prehistory,” a subject of archeological studies. Official histories of Taiwan are usually divided into several periods in accordance with the changes of ruling powers. These periods are the Dutch Era (1624– 1661), the Era of Koxinga (General Zheng Chenggong of Ming Dynasty, 1661– 1683), the Qing Era (1683–1895), the Japanese Era (1895–1945) and the Republican Chinese Era (1945–present). The Han anthropologist Hsieh Shih-chung has proposed another historical periodization according to ethnic contacts of Taiwanese Indigenous Peoples. Hsieh divides the history of Taiwan into four stages: the Indigenous Peoples “(1) being the only masters, (2) being one of the masters, (3) being conquered, and (4) ready-to-disappear” (Hsieh, 1987: 14–25, 1994: 404–405). The end of the 20th century nonetheless witnessed not only the survival of Indigenous populations, but also their cultural resurgence, and the term “yuanzhumin” 原住 民 was proposed by Indigenous activists to emphasize that the Indigenous Peoples were the original owners of Taiwan. This term was officially recognized by the government in 1994, replacing derogatory terms referring to the Indigenous peoples, such as the term “shanbao” 山胞 [mountain compatriots] imposed by the Republic of China’s government. Before the ROC government used the term shanbao, Han people and officials called the Indigenous Peoples “fan” 番, meaning “savages” or “foreigners,” for centuries (Teng, 2004: 43). They even divided the “savages” into the “cooked savages,” who lived in the western plains and were Sinicized to some degree, and the “raw savages” inhabiting the central mountain ranges and the southern and eastern coasts. Those who were called “raw savages” were not directly controlled by any government until the Japanese rule, and they officially became the current recognized Indigenous groups. Although the “cooked savages” are now classified

1

According to the linguist Robert Blust’s analysis, nine out of the ten subgroups of the Austronesian language family are spoken exclusively by Taiwanese Indigenous Peoples (Diamond, 2000: 709). Linguists and archaeologists have thus proposed that “the common ancestral language, ProtoAustronesian, was spoken in Taiwan” (Bellwood, 2001: 340). They have further speculated that the descendants of Taiwan’s Proto-Austronesian-speaking people “emigrated to still other islands, to become ancestral to all living Austronesian peoples outside Taiwan” (Diamond, 2000: 709). 2 Some scholars argue that ancestors of Taiwanese Indigenous Peoples migrated from China, IndoChina, the Philippines and the South Pacific to Taiwan in different periods, starting from 3000 B.C.E (Loh, 1982: 54–55; Chen, 1992: 6–9).

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as “Plain Indigenous Peoples,” they are not legally recognized by the government because they are considered Sinicized. Anthropological and ethnomusicological writings about Taiwanese Indigenous Peoples did not appear until the Japanese Era, and the establishment of Indigenous studies had the goal of fulfilling the needs of the colonial administrations. Travel accounts by colonial officials, missionaries, professors, and doctors have provided depictions and imaginaries of the Indigenous populations since the 17th century. These travel accounts showed that before Japanese rule, the largest political unit in Indigenous society was the village, and the territory and constitution of an Indigenous village was fluid rather than fixed. Based on fieldwork, eyewitness reports of Japanese colonial officials and existing literature, such as travel accounts and Qing gazetteers, Japanese scholars had proposed several frameworks for classifying Indigenous peoples as “tribes” since around 1900, by distinguishing characteristics of their languages, family histories, material cultures, and so on. After WWII, the Taiwanese scholar Wei Hui-lin synthesized previous categorizations and based on geographical, historical, and social aspects, grouped nine tribes into five sections (Hsu et al., 1995: 6–8). The Republican Chinese government accepted Wei’s categorization of the Indigenous Peoples, but later added seven more groups, which were originally classified as branches of the existing “nine tribes.” The 16 groups can still be grouped into five sections as follows (the groups in parenthesis were added after 2001): North: Atayal, Saisiat, (Sediq, Truku) Central: Bunun, Tsou, (Hla’alua, Kanakanavu, Thao) South: Paiwan, Rukai East: Amis, Pinuyumayan, (Kavalan, Sakizaya) Outer Island: Yami

The classification of Taiwanese Indigenous Peoples as tribes is a colonial legacy, and the notion of “tribe,” as Fred Chiu notes, was constructed “for the purposes of administrative expediency or academic convenience” (Chiu, 2000: 119). However, it has become a keystone for settlers to understand and imagine the Indigenes and for Indigenes to define and express themselves. The typology of Indigenous music in writings by researchers is based on anthropological taxonomy. The anthropological taxonomy of Indigenous Peoples helps to gain a bird’s eye view of diverse cultural aspects among Indigenous groups, even though it is not sufficient for researchers to understand nuances of their cultural practices. A recent study by Patrick E. Savage and Steven Brown exemplifies correspondence between anthropological taxonomy of Taiwanese Indigenous Peoples and the typology of Indigenous music. In their study, the five “cantogroups” (stylistic song-types), including Island, Southern, Western, Central, and Eastern, parallel to the above five sections. They list musical features of these groups, based on a comparison of elements of music, such as rhythm, melody, and texture. For instance, the musical features of the “Eastern” cantogroup, to which Pinuyumayan music belongs to, are described by Savage and Brown as “regular—iso-metric, moderately dense

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(4–5 note) scales, large melodic range, some responsorial and/or polyphonic (Amis only)” (Savage & Brown, 2014: 142). Taiwanese scholars often emphasized two features of Taiwanese Indigenous music: the various musical textures, and the close relations between Indigenous music and Indigenous life. In their writings, Taiwanese scholars usually put emphasis on the variety of musical textures, especially on multipart singing, in polyphonic, harmonic, or heterophonic formats. Scholars also categorized Indigenous music based on the role and contexts musical pieces involve. For example, in Loh I-to’s dissertation “Tribal Music of Taiwan” (1982), he divides musical examples into several groups, such as “epic and myth,” “religious rituals,” “nature, scenery and village,” “military and hunting,” “occupational,” “social and recreational,” etc. Through this categorization, he stresses that “musicmaking encompasses nearly all aspects of human activities” (1982: 108) and suggests that one can understand Aboriginal culture by examining their music (1982: 109–110). Most studies on Indigenous music conducted by Taiwanese scholars are concerned with traditional music. Beginning in the 1920s, Tanabe Hisao and Kurosawa Takatomo, along with other Japanese musicologists, employed Western technology and techniques to record, transcribe, and analyze Indigenous music. The sound of Indigenous music was thus preserved and reproduced, and through the preservation and reproduction, scholars defined “traditional” Indigenous music. Japanese legacies are found in writings and recordings by most Taiwanese ethnomusicologists, such as Hsu Tsang-houei and Lu Bing-chuan. Those writings and field recordings together comprise an academic tradition, reconfirming the boundaries of “traditional” Indigenous music set up by the Japanese. How to preserve traditional Indigenous music culture has been a major concern of most Taiwanese ethnomusicologists, while issues about how Indigenous music culture transforms in the contemporary world have not yet been fully explored. These ethnomusicologists acknowledge that Indigenous music has undergone dramatic transformation in contemporary contexts and often attribute this transformation to cultural contacts and modernization. Presuming that Indigenous music culture will disappear due to outside forces, they have made efforts to salvage traditional music. However, as James Clifford points out, the late 20th century witnessed a “native resurgence,” which is “a complex process of continuity through transformation” (2013: 240). Native resurgence is obvious in Taiwan, for example, there have been revivals of Indigenous rituals and a proliferation of Indigenous music products since the 1990s. The native resurgence or “indigenous presence” urges scholars to consider not only how social change causes “traditional” musical forms to change, but also how Indigenous Peoples harness agency in negotiations with the dominant mainstream society. In order to explore Indigenous music in the contemporary world, this chapter will consider both dimensions.

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3 Pinuyumayan Group and Papulu Village The term Pinuyumayan refers to an Indigenous group made up of ten villages in southeastern Taiwan. The ten villages are Papulu, Danadanaw, Mulivulivuk, Alripay, Tamalrakaw, Likavung, Katratipulr, Kasavakan, Pinaski, and Puyuma. Puyuma, a sub-group of the Pinuyumayan, dominated other Pinuyumayan villages for about two centuries before Japan took over Taiwan. Puyuma village was so mighty, not only among Pinuyumayan villages, but also in eastern Taiwan, that the term Puyuma was used as the pars pro toto term to refer to the group (now called Pinuyumayan) until this new term was proposed in recent years. Close kin relationships and cultural affinity have been maintained among members of Papulu Village and that of Puyuma Village, even though the two villages were separated from Pinan Puyuma Village in the 1930s when the old village was abandoned. Most of the Indigenous people of Pinan Puyuma Village moved to the current location of Puyuma village, which is also called Nanwang in Chinese, while another group of Pinan Puyuma villagers established Papulu Village in the Baosang area inside Taitung City. To distinguish Pinan Puyuma village from the current Puyuma village, I use the term Puyuma to refer to the old one and call the current one Nanwang in the following description. Scholars have debated on the cultural characteristics of Pinuyumayan people and the formation of this group; most of them agree that the Pinuyumayan group was made up of clans and families from different origins. One legend indicates that the common ancestors of the Pinuyumayan villages came from somewhere outside of Taiwan, landing on a seashore in southeastern Taiwan called “Ruvuahan” or “Panapanayan” about 3000 years ago (Sung, 1998: 4). Those who landed in Ruvuahan/Panapanayan became ancestors of not only the Pinuyumayan people but also of some families of Indigenous groups near the Pinuyumayan area, including Paiwan and Amis. The term “Puyuma,” meaning “to unite,” appeared when ancestors of the Puyuma people established Panglan Puyuma Village, which was comprised of several matriarchal families (Sung, 1998: 19). Scholars have observed cultural similarities among Pinuyumayan, Amis, and Paiwan groups. In the early 20th century, some Japanese scholars considered Pinuyumayan a sub-group of Paiwan because of their cultural similarities. The anthropologist Raleigh Ferrell uses the term “Littoral Culture” (1969: 27) to refer to cultural similarities among Pinuyumayan, Amis, and Paiwan groups. Because of noticeable similarities between this Littoral Culture and cultures of the southwestern Pacific area, Ferrell speculates that the Littoral Culture represents “a more recent arrival of elements (not necessarily large numbers of immigrants) from the south to Taiwan’s east coast, from whence they spread around the northern and southern ends of the island, absorbing (or being absorbed by) peoples already established there” (1969: 27). Interactions with settlers have made significant impacts on Pinuyumayan people since the 17th century. Among the Pinuyumayan villages, Puyuma, once the mightiest regional power in eastern Taiwan from the 17th century to the 19th century,

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had consciously maintained friendly relationships with outside powers and took advantage of these relationships in order to secure a favorable position. In the Dutch period (1624–1662), the Dutch East India Company (VOC) supported this village to become the mightiest power broker in eastern Taiwan. Even after the VOC lost control of Taiwan, this village maintained its status as “the capital of East Formosa” (Taylor, 1888: 150–151), until the onset of Japanese rule. When the Qing government ceded Taiwan to Japan in 1895, the Puyuma submitted after negotiating with the new regime. The Japanese government soon established a school in the Puyuma Village, and through education, the Puyuma people were incorporated into the modern system of states. To limit Puyuma’s influence over neighboring villages and control Pinuyumayan villages, the Japanese government relocated Pinuyumayan people from their former places of residence to the current locations in the 1930s. Papulu Village was established by a group of Puyuma villagers who were not willing to move to Nanwang Village during this relocation period. They first moved to a street block near Taitung Hospital, led by Sising Katadrepan, who was the first Indigenous Taiwanese receiving Western medical training and worked at the Hospital. Soon after, the Japanese forced them, with a group of Amis people, to move to the Baosang area, which was once a territory of Pinan Puyuma, but was gradually occupied by Han settlers during the Qing period. The Pinuyumayan and Amis people co-established a village, but the village was later split into two. Spanning only about 0.04 square kilometers, Papulu Village, also called Baosang Buluo 寶桑 部落 in Mandarin, occupies four street blocks of Baosang Village (Baosang Li 寶桑 里, in Mandarin). Within Papulu, there are less than 40 Indigenous families (about 200 residents), whose houses are surrounded by that of Han-Taiwanese. Since there is no significant distinction between houses of the Indigenous people and those of the Han people in this village, when entering Papulu village for the first time, an outsider would be unlikely to notice that it is an Indigenous village. Pinuyumayan people of Papulu Village have been struggling for identity since the village was established. They strive to maintain their cultural characteristics to distinguish themselves from the Han majority around them and to obtain recognition from other Pinuyumayan villages for the status of a full member of the Pinuyumayan group. They persist in conducting traditional rituals, especially the mangayaw ritual (Great Hunting Ritual), to maintain their age-set system and to promote solidarity among village members. They also actively participate in pan-Pnuyumayan events, such as the Pinuyumayan Biennial Festival in order to make sure that their village sits on equal footing with other Pinuyumayan villages. As a small village with close connections to Nanwang Village, Papulu had been considered subordinate to Nanwang for a long time. In 1995 when Papulu hosted the Biennial Festival, Papulu villagers created a theme song of the event by setting Pinuyumayan lyrics to a Japanese song to list ten Pinuyumayan as follows (village names in bold): mulaudr i meredek i Papulu (Eastward towards Papulu), mudraya i Danadanaw Mulivulivuk (Westward towards Danadanaw, Mulivulivuk), Alripay Tamalrakaw Likavung (Alripay, Tamalrakaw, and Likavung), mutimul i Katratipulr i Kasavakan (Southward towards Katratipulr and Kasavakan),

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C. Chen an muami i Pinaski Puyuma (Northward towards Pinaski and Puyuma), mutubatibatiyan ta bulay nanta i Pinuyumayan (We are the beautiful Pinuyumayan group).

Through the circulation of this song, which is now called the “Song of the Pinuyumayan Territory,” among Pinuyumayan villages since the 1995 Festival, a form of pan-Pinuyumayan consciousness is promoted, and the status of Papulu as a full Pinuyumayan member is recognized. As the example of the “Song of the Pinuyumayan Territory” shows, musicking is an important means for Papulu villagers to explore, confirm, and celebrate their identity. To further examine their musicking, I discuss music making in the mangayaw and semimusimuk in the following section.

4 Mangayaw, Pairairaw, and Tremilratilraw The mangayaw (the Great Hunting Ritual) is the most important ritual of Pinuyumayan people. As a ritual unique to the Pinuyumayan people, all Pinuyumayan villages observe this ritual. Nonetheless, to conduct the mangayaw, each of these villages has their own ritual procedures, articulation of ritual chants, and movements of dances. Traditionally, the mangayaw, of which the men’s house takes charge, and the basibas, or “Monkey Ritual,” of the boys’ house, constitute the Pinuyumayan Annual Ritual, although nowadays not all Pinuyumayan villages observe the basibas. For example, between the two villages splitting from Pinan Puyuma, Nanwang Village still observes the mangayaw and the basibas, while Papulu only observes the mangayaw. A mangayaw contains several components, and each one fulfills specific objectives. As sketched in the description of the TNUA performance by Papulu villagers, the kiputabu, in which females send food and beverages as gifts to the men who are preparing for a hunt, is a prelude of the mangayaw. In Papulu village, the ritual takes place from December 29th to January 2nd, beginning with men hunting outside of the village from the 29th to the 31st of December each year. After hunters return to the village, all villagers sing and dance at the village center. Then the elders will sing the pairairaw chant for the bereaved, the hunting champion, and the fastest runner of the year at these villagers’ houses respectively (Fig. 2). One of the most significant functions of the entire ritual is to sweep away the sorrow and misfortune brought on by the deaths of villagers which occurred during the year. All village members are supposed to participate in the mangayaw, especially those who lost their family members in the preceding year. Pinuyumayan people alleviate bereavement through a series of ceremonies and gatherings, with the mangayaw concluding those events. Besides the wakes and funerals which are essential elements, the post-funeral events such as the puadrangi and mangayaw significantly mark the particularity of the Puyuma’s way of dealing with death. The mangayaw is a village-wide event, and the puadrangi is a family-based one, in which relatives and close friends of the bereaved take turns hosting gatherings at their own

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Fig. 2 Papulu elders leading the pairairaw chanting at the laluwanan (the arch of triumph). Photo: Chun-bin Chen, December 31, 2005

houses on different days to relieve the sadness of the bereaved. All puadrangi gatherings should be completed before the mangayaw takes place, signifying that at the mangayaw, the treatment of death has become an affair of the entire village, not only that of a specific family. For Pinuyumayan people, death is such a severe loss that an individual cannot bear the bereavement alone, and therefore all community members should be involved in mitigating the bereavement. Another important function of the mangayaw is to confirm that the boys who have completed preparatory training are now recognized as men. Only after they are recognized as men can they be accepted as true Pinuyumayan, qualifying for marriage, starting a family, and participation in village affairs. Traditionally, to become a Pinuyumayan man, one needs to receive Pinuyumayan character education and training in hunting and fighting at the boys’ house during puberty. An adolescent completing education and training at the boys’ house will request a male elder to act as his mentor, and then becomes a miyabetan, an interim member of the men’s house. After participating in three consecutive years of the mangayaw, he will become a kitubangsar, a new member of the men’s house. One may draw a parallel between the headhunting-related ritual of Pinuyumayan people and that of other Austronesian-speaking peoples. For example, the two major functions of the mangayaw are to bring “an end to public mourning for the deceased” and to turn boys into men, like the functions of the headhunting ritual

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of the mappurondo community in upland Sulawesi, Indonesia, described by George (1990: 12). The ritual chant pairairaw and the chant-and-dance tremilratilraw play an important role in the fulfillment of the above functions. For example, after dancing the tremilratilraw in the mangayaw ritual, the bereaved and the new members of the men’s house are reincorporated into the village after phases of separation and liminality, in terms of van Gennep’s stages of rites of passage. The mangayaw marks a liminal point between the new year and the passing year. Those who have lost family members in the passing year and those boys who were in the final stage of the initiation into manhood were separated from the village by the restrictions on wearing wreaths and dancing. In the mangayaw, after returning to their village, the hunters and other villagers hold hands to form a semicircle and dance around the campfire set in the center of the village square. They begin with a four-step dance, and the bereaved are invited to stand in the front of the line. Friends and relatives will put wreaths on the heads of the bereaved while they are dancing. After a couple of rounds of four-step dance, they perform the tremilratilraw dance. After the completion of this procedure, the bereaved are now considered “clean,” meaning that the whammy and misfortune brought by death of their family members has been swept off. Following the same procedure, boys who have completed the preparatory training are recognized as men, but only after their mentors have brought them to dance the tremilratilraw. The mangayaw serves as an essential basis for Papulu villagers to define and confirm that they are Pinuyumayan people and Papulu villagers. Through females sending food and beverages to the male hunters at the kiputabu and through parents seeking mentors for their boys who will become interim members of the men’s house, connections between males and females and that between families are enhanced. Through all community members’ involvement in mitigating the bereavement by means of chanting, singing, and dancing, a sense of solidarity among them is promoted. The mangayaw has such important functions that Papulu villagers strive to keep the ritual alive, even though they have been facing dramatic social changes in the contemporary world. The chanting of the pairairaw and tremilratilraw is based on a similar frame: parallelism in lyrics and call-and-response forms of singing. The couplets of these chants represent principles of parallelism, and by means of alliteration and synonymous words, the couplets show both unity and contrast in form and content. The following couplets from the pairairaw chant for the bereaved exemplify the use of synonymous words and alliteration: dra sulray; dra pitawun (at the entrance of the house; at the door of the house) kane asin/manasaw/maidrang; kane bulay/bangsar/maladram (the women/men/elders; the females/males/elderly) na misareksekan; na miareetran (at the place of sorrow; at the place of sadness) dra tu aeluwan; dra tu aungeran

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(crying for the deceased; shedding tears for the deceased) may lepedan; may trabuwan (covered with the dirt of the bereaved; covered with the dust of the widowed) benanaban mi; benakakebak mi (we are here to mitigate the bereavement; we are here to relieve the sadness)

Only men can chant the pairairaw, and they are divided into three parts: the temgatega and the temubang parts are sung by elders, and the dremiraung part by junior members of the men’s house. In the chanting, the “call” of the vocal part temgatega is followed by the “response” of the temubang part and supported by the dremiraung part. The chant is non-metric and sounds solemn. There are two sets of melodic phrases for the chant. Each set repeats several times to set couplets. The scale of its melody features five tones with intervals of a major second or minor third, and the chant has a range of a perfect tenth. Although the chant of the tremilratilraw is only sung by an elder, those who participate in the dancing respond to the elder’s “call” with body movements to form a special form of call and response between voice and body. The tremilratilraw dance always follows rounds of four-step dance, bringing the end to a dance session. Senior male members take turns serving as leading dancers in each session, and they will escort those who they want to show their support or respect to the front of the line. Led by a male member, both male and female dancers crouch, jump and kick to punctuate melodic phrases of the chant sung by an elder standing by the dancers. Based on the principles of parallelism, the lyrics of the tremilratilraw chant are usually composed on an ad hoc basis. In the chanting of a couplet, vocables are sung in the first musical section, and the two lines of lyrics interspersed with vocables appears in the second and third sections. Each musical section contains four phrases, and the melodic line of the first section is repeated and elaborated in the other ones. A set of dance movements are repeated four times to “respond” to the “call” of the chant, resulting in a sense of irregularity in the “call and response” between the voice and body. Because of the sense of irregularity and because the chant is non-metric, the chanter, the leading dancer, and other participants must collaborate closely to move in unison, and to give them a sense of solidarity. A form of emotional power of togetherness is fostered as a result. Participants thus use the power of togetherness to explore, affirm, and celebrate relationships among themselves and to support or honor certain members. The ways Pinuyumayan people chant and dance the pairairaw and tremilratilraw differ from village to village. Differences in chanting and dancing them between Pinuyumayan villages are so sharp that Pinuyumayan people of Papula village are unable to chant and dance the pairairaw and tremilratilraw together with their Pinuyumayan fellows from other villages, except with those from Nanwang Village. Even though Pinuyumayan people of Papulu and Nanwang village can chant and dance together, there are still nuanced differences between the ways of chanting in the two villages. As the mangayaw that is commonly observed in every Pinuyumayan village distinguishes Pinuyumayan groups from other Taiwanese Indigenous

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groups, differences in chanting and dancing the pairairaw and tremilratilraw among Pinuyumayan villages distinguishes one from the other. The chants of the pairairaw and tremilratilraw have been transmitted orally and aurally from generation to generation, but in order to preserve the at-risk pairairaw tradition, in recent years Papulu elders have begun to rely on a xeroxed chant book when they have had to perform the pairairaw chant. In 2014, two elders of Papulu Village, who had led the chanting of the pairairaw for decades, passed away. Without the elders’ chanting of the temgatega part (call) and the temubang part (response), villagers feared that the pairairaw would no longer be chanted. Reckoning with this crisis, Seze Pakawyan Katadrepan, the then chairperson of the Association for Papulu Culture, began to compile and edit texts of the pairairaw, when the elders were critically ill. Based on late elders’ manuscripts that dated back to the 1980s, Seze Pakawyan Katadrepan edited a chant book titled “irairaw i Papulu” (the irairaw chant of Papulu Village). The xeroxed copies of the chant book began to circulate in the village near the end of 2014. Seze Pakawyan Katadrepan describes the process of editing “irairaw i Papulu” in the preface of the chant book. There is no musical transcription in this chant book, only chant texts, juxtaposing Romanized Pinuyumayan words with Mandarin Chinese translation and Japanese katakana characters used as phonetic symbols for Pinuyumayan words. The manuscripts Seze Pakawyan Katadrepan collected were written in Japanese katakana. Pinuyumayan intelligentsia learned katakana during the Japanese rule and had been using the syllabary to transcribe the Pinuyumyan language. Those Pinuyumayan people who were born after the Japanese rule, like Seze Pakawyan Katadrepan, cannot read these kinds of katkana-Pinuyumayan texts. With the assistance of Alisayan Dalising, an elder of Nanwang Village, the texts were transcribed into Pinuyumayan Romanization. The Nanwang elder found out that the chant texts recorded in the Papulu elders’ manuscripts belonged to the Gamugamut men’s house in the old Pinan Puyuma Village. Both Nanwang and Papulu have only one men’s house now, but in the Pinan Puyuma Village there were six, each of which had their own pairairaw chant texts. The pairairaw chant texts of the Gamugamut men’s house disappeared in Nanwang Village, but have been circulating in Papulu Village and had been recorded with katakana characters. One year or so after Seze Pakawyan Katadrepan circulated the chant book, she attempted to “improve” it by transcribing chant melodies to sheet music and asked me for assistance. Adding sheet music to the chant book didn’t sound practical to me, since almost no Papulu villagers are able to read music, and Western staff notation would fail to transcribe the nuances of the intonation of the pairairaw chant. After our discussion on transcription, she gave up the idea of adding sheet music to the chant book. Instead of learning the chant through sheet music, Papulu villagers continued using a traditional, face-to-face approach, but with the aid of outside assistance. For example, at the end of year 2017, they received a subsidy from the Taitung City Government for organizing workshops on the pairairaw chant and invited elders of Nanwang village to teach members of the Papulu men’s house to chant. The efforts Papulu villagers have made to preserve the pairairaw chant show just how important the pairairaw chant is to maintain their Pinuyumayan identity.

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They cannot imagine what a mangayaw without the pairairaw would be like. Can the mangayaw still fulfill its functions? Or will the mangayaw still be observed? They cannot imagine what their village without the mangayaw would be like either. Without the mangayaw, how can a boy become a man, and how can the life of the bereaved return to normal? Without the mangayaw, they probably wouldn’t be able to draw an analogy between phases in life and seasons of the year, so it would be more difficult for them to bear the suffering brought on by birth, aging, sickness, and death. Furthermore, if the rituals that embody connections between families and the village were to disappear, Papulu Village as an Indigenous community would likely become just an empty title.

5 The Legacy and the Semimusimuk As I have described, the semimusimuk is the prelude to the Papulu Annual Ritual, and it is a newly invented tradition. While the mangayaw is associated with the men’s house, the semimusimuk is associated with the Legacy (i.e. the youth performing group of Papulu Village). The Papulu semimusimuk is considered an imitation of the Puyuma alrabakay, a prelude event to the monkey-killing ceremony, in charge by the boys’ house (trakuban), and the Legacy an imitation of the trakuban. Lin Na-wei, the director of the Legacy, described the establishment of the Legacy in a conference paper (2016). Under the encouragement of her mother, Lin, who was born in the 1960s, along with two friends, called about 20 children of the village together in 1997 and taught them traditional songs and dances. Most of the songs and dances were drawn upon from the repertoire of the Puyuma boys’ house. Since Papulu had no boys’ house, the children did not have their own events to perform this repertoire until the Legacy had been established. The aim of the Legacy, therefore, is to “allow those children who originally had no opportunities to participate in village rituals and to wear traditional costume an initial contact with ancestral spirits through singing and dancing” (Lin, 2016: 330). The Legacy made their debut on New Year’s Day 1998 and performed within and outside Papulu Village. However, two years later, the group was shut down due to disagreements about the operation of the group among villagers. The operation of the Legacy was resumed around 2004, and the semimusimuk became the annual event of the Legacy at that time. While the Legacy started over, Lin Na-wei and instructors of the Legacy began to conceive of an event, where Legacy members could present the songs they had leant to all villagers. Borrowing the framework of the alrabakay of the Nanwang boys’ house and that of singing Christmas carols, they designed a door-to-door singing event. They call this event “baojiayin” 報佳音, borrowing the Mandarin term for carol singing, but later they use the Pinuyumayan term “semimusimuk.” The term “semimusimuk” means “frolic, joke.” Particularly, it refers to the frolicking of Puyuma boys when they pass through back doors of houses in the village after the alrabakay in order to repel or remove misfortune (Lin, 2016: 341) (Fig. 3).

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Fig. 3 Semimusimuk. Photo: Chun-bin Chen, December 25, 2005

Although the Papulu semimusimuk is an imitation of the Nanwang alrabakay, they differ in several aspects. In the Nanwang alrabakay, boys visit families door-to-door, while completely baring their upper torsos. Arriving at each house, the older boys enter first and face the door outwards in order to supervise the other boys. The other boys follow, and after entering the house, they lie prone on the floor. The leaders of the team shout “alrabakay ta” and then the others repeat this phrase. After the boys shout several times and the hosts of the house give them candy, the boys go on to visit another house. The most significant difference between the alrabakay and the semimusimuk is that the boys in the alrabakay do not wear shirts, nor do they sing, but both boys and girls in the semimusimuk wear T-shirts and traditional skirts3 while singing. The boys and girls of the Legacy sing in the semimusimuk, and they sing a lot. When they approach a house that they plan to visit, they sing to notify the hosts of the house. They are accompanied by a guitar, a drum, and other percussion instruments. Lin Na-wei plays the guitar, and she is the one who decides what songs will be performed. When a song is finished, Lin announces the title of the next song or gives the children a hint by loudly playing the prelude to the next song. The songs they sing 3

The boys wear skirts too. A short skirt in deep blue is a part of traditional costume for a Pinuyumayan boy. Only after becoming a member of the men’s house, he is allowed to wear a pair of colorful chaps.

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include Pinuyumayan, Amis, and Paiwan songs, and non-Indigenous songs that are sung in Mandarin or Taiwanese Hokkien. At each house they visit, they sing at least two songs, including a “theme song” that is the hosts’ favorite or something related to the hosts’ occupation(s) or their notable deeds. They clap or move their arms, and make movements of touch and step with alternating feet while singing in unison. Usually, the hosts will sing along and make movements in response to them. After the children’s singing, the hosts give the children snacks and beverages in return, and the instructors ask the children: “Whose house is this?” After the children answer, the instructors say, “Let’s offer blessings to this family.” The children move their arms up and down rhythmically, shouting, “Wish you good health, good luck in everything, Merry Christmas, and Happy New Year! I love you!” Then they continue to the next house. Unlike the alrabakay, in which Puyuma boys only visit houses inside the village, in the semimusimuk the Papulu children visit houses both inside and beyond the village. The semimusimuk lasts two days: on the first day, the children walk through the village, and on the second day, adults will drive them to houses outside of their village. In the village, the children not only visit Indigenous families, but also nonIndigenous ones who have invited them. Outside of the village, they visit relatives’ houses, stores, temples, and charities. By performing inside and beyond their village, the Papule villagers demarcate boundaries of their territory and make alliances. The territory demarcated through the Legacy’s performance is much larger than the physical territory of the Papulu Village. The semimusimuk not only enlarges the Papulu territory metaphorically, but also connects the present with the past, through the Legacy’s singing traditional songs and visiting relatives whose ancestors might have once lived with ancestors of Papulu villagers in the same houses. Besides the semimusimuk, the children of the Legacy participate in performances in different venues and on various occasions. Their singing in the semimusimuk starts the Papulu Annual Ritual. In the mangayaw that follows the semimusimuk, they provide sideshows for entertaining elders, although they are not allowed to sing and dance in formal sessions. In these sideshows, they do not sing, but dance to music played over audio equipment. The music played in these sideshows is not necessarily Pinuyumayan music; rather, Amis music is preferred, because it sounds more cheerful. Sometimes, they play the latest Mandarin popular songs or even K-pop pieces, as a sign that they keep up with mainstream popular culture. They do not hold hands to form a semicircle as Pinuyumayan people do in their social dances, but stand in several rows facing the audience. Although traditional Pinuyumayan dance patterns are included in the sideshows, most dance steps in this kind of performance look like a mixture of aerobic dance moves and folk dance. The Legacy also performs at weddings, celebrations, and festivals within and outside of the village, in a manner similar to that of the sideshows described above. Still, they participate in “cultural shows” like the performance at Taipei National University of the Arts, which showcase traditional rituals, songs, and dance. In these kinds of cultural shows, the Legacy does not perform alone, but collaborates with other members of Papulu Village.

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The Legacy is a performing group, and it is the substitute for the boys’ house in Papulu, although it does not perform the same functions of rituals as the boys’ house does. Because Papulu has not had their boys’ house since the founders of the village moved out from the old Puyuma Village, many Papulu villagers consider the Legacy a substitute for the boys’ house and the semimusimuk for the basibas, “Monkey Ritual” of the boys’ house. For example, Lin Na-wei points out, like the basibas as a part of the Nanwang Annual Ritual, the semimusimuk has become a part of the Papulu Annual Ritual, and the semimusimuk allows each Papulu child to have an invisible trakuban (the boys’ house) in his/her mind (2016: 342). For Papulu villagers, the Legacy plays an important role in the preservation of their cultural heritage and age-set systems, because the Legacy performs similar functions as the boys’ house. Trakuban, the Pinuyumayan term for the “boys’ house,” refers to the building where trakubakuban (members of the boys’ house) congregate as well as the name of the age set of these boys. In Nanwang Village, the trakuban and palakuwan, the boys’ house and men’s house, have together been the landmark of this village and the venue for village-wide events. The trakuban has a distinctive look. It is elevated on pillars, and the house, accessed through a bamboo ladder, is raised about three yards from the ground. In the past, the Puyuma males spent most of their time in the boys’ house or men’s house, depending on their age sets, but now Nanwang males only stay inside during the Annual Ritual period (Fig. 4). The most sacred event of the boys’ house in Nanwang Village is the monkeykilling ceremony. In the past, the aim of the monkey-killing ceremony was to prepare boys to become members of the men’s house by killing a monkey in imitation of hunting a human’s head in the mangayaw of the men’s house. Nowadays, the monkey-killing ceremony has been changed to accommodate contemporary conditions, although it still performs functions of ritual. I describe a monkey-killing ceremony in Nanwang as follows, based on my fieldnotes taken in 2002: The monkey-killing ceremony happens on December 21, the day after the alrabakay. In the morning, the boys depart from the trakuban and jog in single file back and forth between their village and the monkey-killing site. In the front of the procession, two boys hold two ends of a bamboo stick, on which hangs a “monkey.” This monkey is not a real monkey, but one made of grass and leaves. After an hour, they arrive at the monkey-killing site. Upon their arrival, two mentors from the men’s house struck the buttocks of the two oldest boys with a stick. The two boys then struck the other boys in turn. After the buttocks-beating, all boys run for a while and then stand around the area where they will kill the monkey. The boys sing the ritual chant for the monkey-killing ceremony in unison before they kill the monkey. The two boys, who have brought the monkey to this site, hold the stick on which they hang the monkey, and swing the stick in accordance with the rhythm of their chanting. After chanting, the two boys place the monkey in the center of an area enclosed by bamboo sticks. The older boys then stand around the monkey, raise their spears, and stab the monkey while shouting “pua!” The spear poles are made of bamboo, each of which is about 2.5 yards long, decorated with about eight bundles of white plastic fringes throughout. Nonetheless, there are no sharp metal points attached to the ends of the poles. They repeat the stabbing and shouting three times to conclude the monkey-killing, and then all the boys return to the trakuban. The monkey-killing ceremony ends when the boys throwing the “corpse” of the monkey around a bridge near the village border. They sing the ritual chant again, with

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Fig. 4 Nanwang boys in front of the trakuban (the boys’ house) at the beginning of the monkeykilling ceremony. Photo: Chun-bin Chen, December 21, 2002

another set of lyrics, and then throw the monkey, symbolizing that all misfortune has gone with the dead body.

The above description shows that the Nanwang boys’ house differs from the Legacy in several aspects. The boys’ house has their own building and ritual, but the Legacy does not (the semimusimuk is not a ritual). Only teenage boys can become members of the boys’ house, but members of the Legacy include males and females ranging from toddler to teenager. Aside from the basibas, the boys’ house is not involved in singing and dancing events, but the Legacy participates in various forms of performances. In recent years, Papulu villagers have made attempts to grant the Legacy the status of a “quasi-boys’ house.” Without a boys’ house, Papulu operates the age-set system in a different way than Nanwang does. In Nanwang, males must complete the education and training in Pinuyumayan manhood at the boys’ house in order to qualify for membership of the men’s house. In Papulu, an adolescent can become an interim member of the men’s house without completing education and training at the boys’ house and become a new member of the men’s house after participating in three consecutive years of the mangayaw. A member of the Legacy can qualify for membership of the village’s youth association when he/she enters high school, but not to that of the men’s house. In recent years, the role the youth association plays in rituals and in village-wide affairs has become of greater importance, and the

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association has been responsible for training the Legacy. Just as the Legacy performs some functions of the boys’ house, the youth association performs some functions of the men’s house, and the Legacy and the association together keep the age-set system operating in Papulu. To compensate for the Legacy’s lack of its own ritual, Papulu villagers created an event called the masalrak, meaning “the celebration for the accomplishment of a task” in the Pinuyumayan language, weeks after the semimusimuk. In the masalrak, children of the Legacy and villagers dine together, and villagers give presents to the children. In turn, the children deliver performances where they design dance steps and choose accompanying musical pieces by themselves. Members of the youth association perform as well. The children who are planning to leave the Legacy and enter the youth association are praised during this event, thereby making the masalrak a promotion ceremony. As Lin Na-wei points out (2016: 342), with the masalrak as a quasi-ritual and the connection between the Legacy and the youth association, the children of the Legacy can thus imagine an invisible trakuban in their minds.

6 Musicking as a Way of Connecting with the Ancestral Home The examples of the Papulu semimusimuk and mangayaw I have discussed in this chapter show how the Indigenous people of this village connect with their ancestral home through musicking. Acts of connecting with the ancestral home can be associated with forms of returns. In the returns, they do not go back to their old village physically, but “a complex process of continuity through transformation” (Clifford, 2013: 240) can be observed. The process of preserving the at-risk pairairaw tradition that I have described in the mangayaw section shows how Papulu villagers have strived to keep their traditions alive even though they’ve done so with the aid of colonial legacies and from settler society. In this process, they reconfirm the connections between their village and the old Pinan Puyuma Village when they found out that they have inherited the chant texts from the Gamugamut men’s house of their ancestral village. By establishing the Legacy and inventing the semimusimuk, Papulu villagers have kept their age-set system operating. With the operation of the age-set system, the village connects to the ancestral village again, even though the Legacy and the semimusimuk are an imitation of the Nanwang boys’ house and the alrabakay event. In the various forms of performances in which the Legacy participate, the children also connect traditional songs with contemporary songs, and blur boundaries between their village and the outside world, and that between rituals and everyday life. To explore notions of indigenous returns and indigenous experiences in the contemporary world, one cannot ignore a special form of indigenous diaspora, as

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James Clifford reminds us. The indigenous diaspora is not only about “displacement, loss, and deferred desire for the homeland” but also “[t]he feeling that one has never left one’s deep ancestral home” (Clifford, 2013: 83–84). Clifford notes: People who identify as First Nations, aboriginal, or tribal share histories of having been invaded and dispossessed within fairly recent memory. Many currently dwell either on reduced parcels of their former territory or nearby. The feeling that one has never left one’s deep ancestral home is strong, both as a lived reality and as a redemptive political myth. This affects the ways space and time are experienced, distances and connections lived (2013: 83–84).

The relocation of Papulu villagers from the Pinan Puyuma to the current location explains why for Indigenous people “[t]he feeling that one has never left one’s deep ancestral home is strong.” The history of the Papulu relocation is the epitome of the history of Taiwanese Indigenous people becoming foreigners in their own lands. The examples of Papulu villagers’ acts of connecting with their ancestral home thus may help to understand notions of diaspora and returns in other Indigenous communities within and beyond Taiwan. The examples in this chapter may also help us consider what “Indigenous music” means in the contemporary world. I argue that one cannot understand the music that Papulu villagers perform simply by exploring the contents and structure of their songs; rather, one should also pay attention to temporal, spatial, and human relationships in their musicking. Some forms of Pinuyumayan music such as ritual chants and dances have special meaning to Papulu villagers, and convey a sense of authenticity to outsiders, but their meanings do not merely exist in the lyrics, melodies, and dance steps. The concept of “we are family” conveyed and conceived by means of singing, dancing, listening, and talking during the process that they make music together may be more important. This concept has been iterated, interpreted, and re-interpreted whenever Indigenous people make music, so that when they music (in Small’s terms), they may find ways to connect the present to the past. By so doing, even though they use non-Indigenous elements in their musicking, it is possible for them to indigenize the hybrid music and keep their tradition alive with new looks.

References Bellwood, P. (2001). Formosan prehistory and Austronesian dispersal. In D. Blundell (Ed.), Austronesian Taiwan: Linguistics, history, ethnology, and prehistory (pp. 337–365). SMC Publishing inc. Chen, C. (陳奇祿). (1992). Taiwan tuzhu yanjiu 台灣土著研究 [A study on Taiwanese Aborigines]. Lianjing, Taipei. Chiu, F. Y. (2000). Suborientalism and the subimperialist predicament: Aboriginal discourse and the poverty of state-nation imagery. Positions, 8(1), 101–148. Clifford, J. (2013). Returns: Becoming Indigenous in the twenty-first century. Harvard University Press. Diamond, J. M. (2000). Linguistics: Taiwan’s gift to the world. Nature, 403, 709–710. Ferrell, R. (1969). Taiwan Aboriginal groups: Problems in cultural and linguistic classification. Institute of Ethnology, Academia Sinica, Taipei.

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George, K. M. (1990). Felling a song with a new ax: Writing and the reshaping of ritual song performance in upland Sulawesi. Journal of American Folklore, 103(407), 3–23. Hsieh, S. (謝世忠). (1987). Rentong di wuming: Taiwan yuanzhumin di zuqun bianqian 認同的污 名: 台灣原住民的族群變遷 [Stigmatized identity: Ethnic change of Taiwan Aborigines]. Zili wanbao she, Taipei. Hsieh, S. (謝世忠). (1994). “From shanbao to yuanzhumin: Taiwan Aborigines in transition.” In M. A. Rubinstein (Ed.),The Other Taiwan: 1945 to the Present (pp. 404–419). Armonk, New York/London, England: M.E. Sharpe. Hsu, M. (許木柱), et al. (Eds.). (1995). Chongxiu Taiwan-sheng tongzhi 重修台灣省通志 [Revised common history of Taiwan Province]. Historical Research Commission of Taiwan Province, Nantou. Kim, T. (2015). Genomic articulations of indigeneity. In S. N. Teves, et al. (Eds.), Native studies keywords (pp. 130–155). University of Arizona Press, Tucson. Lin, N. (林娜維). (2016). “Papulu buluo xinchuan shaonianying: Wenhua fuyu jihua” [The Legacy, the youth performing group of Papulu Village: A project for cultural resurgence] 巴布麓部落薪 傳少年營: 文化復育計畫. In Beinanxue ziliao huibian di 2 ji: Pengzhuang yu duihua: Guanyu “Beinanzu de xiangxiang yu buluo xianshi jiyu [Proceedings of the Pinuyumayan study vol.2: Collision and conversation: On imaginaries and reality of Pinuyumayan villages] 卑南學資料 彙編第二集—碰撞與對話: 關於「卑南族」的想像與部落現實際遇》 , 329–343. Yielu, New Taipei City. Loh, I-to. (1982). Tribal music of Taiwan: With special reference to the Ami and Puyuma Styles. Ph.D. dissertation, University of California, Los Angeles. Savage, P., & Brown, S. (2014). Mapping music: Cluster analysis of song-type frequencies within and between cultures. Ethnomusicology, 58(1), 133–155. Small, C. (1998). Musicking: The meanings of performing and listening. Wesleyan University Press. Sung, L. (宋龍生). (1998). Taiwan yuanzhumin shi: Beinanzu shipian 台灣原住民史:卑南族史 篇 [The history of Formosan Aborigines: Puyuma]. Historical Research Commission of Taiwan Province, Nantou. Taylor, G. (1888). A ramble through southern Formosa. The China Review, 16, 137–161. Retrieved on October 16, 2001, from http://academic.reed.edu/formosa/texts/Taylor1888.html Teng, E. J. (2004). Taiwan’s imagined geography: Chinese colonial travel writing and pictures, 1683–1895. Harvard University Press, Cambridge, MA, and London.

Chun-bin Chen is a professor of Musicology at Taipei National University of the Arts, Taiwan. He earned his Ph.D. at the University of Chicago. His research interests include music and identity, music and indigenous modernity, folk and popular music, and Taiwanese music. He has published several articles and books on Taiwanese Indigenous music, including On the Road to the National Concert Hall: Highway Nine Musical Stories (2020, in Chinese). He is currently conducting a project titled “Sound Alliances: A Comparative Study on Musical Modernity Among Indigenous Peoples of North America and Taiwan” which is sponsored by Fulbright Program (the USA) and Ministry of Science and Technology (Taiwan).

Fate and Value of Musical Traditions in a Globalising World Jürgen Elsner

Abstract Caused by socio-economic developments musical traditions are subdued to changes of different kind. Functions handed over are questioned and aim and meaning of musical heritages are changing in connection with the transition from local to regional, national and finally global socio-economic systems. Beside own dynamics the change is essentially coined by influence and acquisition of foreign musical outputs. New bodies of hearers and claims arise and are more and more managed industrially. Away from local places and regions the corresponding centralised production has taken the character of monopoly. The global snatching aims at all cultural objects customary in the market as well at the formation of corresponding needy customers. Contrary to the enormous efficiency of the modern, medially controlled industrial society the musical production and reproduction traditionally tied to functioning communities are subjected to special conditions in order to warrant going on and new attempts of the music practice that has come down. The changes within the music culture of the Yemen may serve as an example for this as well as the peculiarities of the genre Aiyai of Algeria going down to mediaeval influences. An universal example presents the great music culture of the rising Arab-Muslim Empire with all its locally and regionally formed particularities. These traditions represent a historically developed irretrievable fund of spiritual achievements of social communities or even more general—of mankind. The capitalistic “sausage-cuttering” (“Verwurstung”) of the music creations of the peoples as well as the hotch-potch of an alleged “multiculturalism” doesn’t render satisfaction to this great cultural common property of the peoples. The problem doesn’t consist in creating distraction to pass the time but in fulfilment by acquiring comprehension of the historically grown and determined meaning of music cultures. To respect and take in entirely its particularity is the aim of this appropriation without expropriation (Knepler). Keywords Neo-liberal and humane globalization · Socio-economic conditions and culture/music · Self-development and interrelations · Music as a commodity · Pop music · Preservation of traditions · Technical development and globalization · J. Elsner (B) Emeritus Professor, Humboldt University Berlin, Berlin, Germany © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. 2021 Y. Lu and O. Elschek (eds.), The Legacy of Indigenous Music, Sinophone and Taiwan Studies 4, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-16-4473-3_4

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Exclusions · Yemen · New developments · Egypt · Historical dimension · Aiyai · The Arab-Muslim Empire · Maqam · Value of spiritual-cultural achievements The contemplation of the particularities and conditions of existence of musical traditions on our planet and their future opens up a huge complex of questions. Without doubting the social significance of musical practice, the immense mass and diversity of the given practices and traditions and their respective experienced or prospective fates give rise to fundamental considerations. This is alarmingly true in the present in view of the brutal power and expansion and above all the dangers and uncertainties of the almost Janus-faced globalization of all conditions. It should not be overlooked that even in times preceding our globalizing epoch, i.e. in earlier exploitative societies including their enslaving and colonizing outgrowths, the musical practice of the exploited as well as of the subjugated or simply of strangers was rarely considered interesting and noteworthy, but mostly unremarkable. In the “Occident” usually reflected and misunderstood as primitive, archaic, and primeval, the presentation of folk music and exotic musical ensembles was still primarily understood as a sensation at the turn of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries (World’s Fairs in Paris in 1889 and 1900). Nevertheless, it is noteworthy that the European artistic tradition, which was suffering from exhausted material and a lack of creative ideas, drew refreshing inspiration from direct encounters with original musical practice from North and Sub-Saharan Africa and especially from the highly developed traditions of the Eastern and Southern regions of Asia. And it was not yet foreseeable that here slumbered a spring from which enormous pecuniary profit could be drawn with the technology developed in the twentieth century.

1 Socio-Economic Conditions and Political Constellations The development and history of cultural traditions, including musical traditions, is inseparably linked to socio-economic and political conditions and their development. They reflect the respective state of development of the underlying socio-economic formation to whose conditions and demands they are subjected. If the socio-economic basis, which can take on many different forms historically, and with it the ideal characteristics change, this is reflected in the musical production as well, without prejudice to the fact that music sometimes also gains the power to question the general conditions and to promote their transformation. The reactions and effects, however, vary greatly according to the respective socio-economic and political situation and cannot be considered in general terms. Material-economic developments break down local boundaries and create both regional or national interconnected systems. The inclusion or takeover of small social units in larger, more complex units (regions, federations, states, confederations of states) on the one hand, enables an expansion of the radius of action of those included. On the other hand, they mean great demands on their self-understanding and the

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foundations and rules of their previous socio-economic organisation and also ideal existence. Not only the general adjustment to the new conditions, but also the concrete evaluation, future position and possible preservation or even development of outdated or hitherto valid institutions and traditions must be dealt with practically and ideally. These are processes and tasks of historic dimensions. They require time. Careless handling of the circumstances and conditions of associations or even their disregard threatens stagnation, fading, insignificance, or oblivion. Even more devastating are the consequences of the occupation of smaller ethnic groups, tribes and peoples by means of war, or of politically induced assimilation. With the suppression or eradication of cultural traditions, not only is an important lifeblood of the affected social communities destroyed, but also an important historical testimony to the cultural achievements of humankind. Emerging transformations and innovations in traditional music-making can be of internal origin or prompted by external influences, as long as there is no general break or even standstill. In such cases, traditional functions or even tradition are called into question to varying degrees. The meaning and significance of musical legacies may fade and be lost if they are not changed, transformed and developed in interaction with economic and social movements, or if they are gradually displaced by surrogates or more or less forcibly eliminated. With the improvement, expansion and increasing profitability of production on an international scale, which also radiates into individual life, local and regional musical traditions come into a changed socio-economic field of reference, the boundaries of which extend beyond the usual ones and make clear the limitations of the traditions that have come down to us. Attitudes towards and demands on life are changing, supported by the possibilities of the expanded offers. The mental reflection of conditions is changing, questioning old forms. The function of every music production is closely related to the socio-economic development of the respective community, its content as well as its articulation correspond to it. Basically, its reach testifies to the economic power of a community. In stratified societies, different levels of mental production usually prevail depending on the position of social groups, strata, classes in material production and the share in its outcome. If one disregards local or even functional confinement of music-making, beyond which some large-family and egalitarian tribal communities of self-sufficiency have not progressed or in which they find satisfaction, musical-cultural developments on a larger scale are not solely due to the creative potential of the community in question, but also as a rule to interrelations and exchanges with other communities or cultures. They usually arise in connection with the effects of the economic strength of other communities and the simultaneously awakened interest in their cultural achievements, which can have a stimulating effect on their own musical production. Depending on the dimension, this can be seen in the objects and contents taken up as well as on the stylistic-creative level and can even lead to structural changes. With the increase in economic potential and the differentiation of the social organization of the relevant societies based on it, a need for corresponding musical uses

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and purposes emerges historically that is interpreted in different ways, e.g., differentiation of special social reassurance, education and entertainment according to different social classes, representation, exploitation for political purposes, for the suggestion and distraction of the subjects (see Knepler, 1961: 492) etc., up to the development of musical mass entertainment as a commodity. The incorporation of small, formerly economically highly independent communities (tribes, ethnic groups) into larger alliances does not necessarily lead to the abandonment or even dissolution of their cultural traditions, unless there are political reasons. Cultural traditions of local and also regional communities have a significant social bonding potential and support the historical reassurance of those included. The specificity of the integrated community articulated in them strengthens and motivates its position and performance in the extended socio-economic field of activity, to whose cultural activities a new relationship opens up… An example from German history is provided by the West Slavic Sorbs, who settled areas east of the Saale more than 1000 years ago. Their subjugation by Germans began in the tenth century (under Henry I). Two hundred years later, the Sorbian territory began to be more heavily populated by Germans, mainly peasants, with whom the majority of the Sorbs merged. In the sixteenth century, the Sorbian language area was limited to the then Bohemian margraviate of Upper and Lower Lusatia. In the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, the linguistic tolerance under the subsequent Saxon rule, which was determined by political considerations, led to the development of the Upper and Lower Lusatian written language. After the Franco-German War of 1871, Germanisation efforts were intensified with the result that the Sorbs became a minority even in their core area. In the German Democratic Republic (1949–1990), the Sorbs, as a national minority, enjoyed legally guaranteed rights equal to those of the German population. The Sorbs, who originally worked mainly as farmers and who became involved in the economic and cultural life of the whole country, have preserved much of their time-honoured customs, traditional costumes and handed-down artistic practice. In order to preserve their cultural heritage, especially their language, they received considerable state support in addition to being integrated into the economic and cultural life of the country (Völkerkunde für Jedermann, 1966: 123).

2 Political Dimension In addition to the socio-economic conditions, the material and technical conditions are essential for the survival and development of musical traditions. This is unmistakably evident in the potentials and radiations that the highly industrially-developed countries have progressed in the course of the last century. After the Second World War, concerning culture, it was the rapidly developing and expanding music industry, whose enormous profits rivalled those of the large industrial companies. In particular, it has pushed popular music into the global market with “resounding success”, which is knitted according to the exoticizing trick of digital sampling drawn from

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the musical traditions of others. It has thus exerted a considerable influence on the existence and future of foreign musical cultures. The author of “Evolution of the Music Market” puts it this way: If the Western classical music usually permeates the non-Western cultures “from the top down”, the Western popular music always penetrates “from the bottom up". Yet the impact of Western popular music on the world is by far greater, constituting its own pattern of Westernization of local musical tongues. (Anonymous: 73)

The West’s technological lead in the production and distribution of music that is oriented towards and attracts the masses has not only economic consequences, but also political ones. In its mass effect, it removes from the public influence of the communities involved an important segment of the shaping of the spiritual-moral world, which falls into the power of surplus-makers. Our Anonymous explains this as follows: The transnational media corporations make their services, such as radio or satellite transmissions, accessible beyond any local government control. The services come with phonogram and videogram electronic hardware, as well as software, designed for widespread use by virtually anyone. (Anonymous: 74)

A whole new, ominous constellation that may amount to a “collective orientation disorder". In the literature, the parallel effect of adopting the products of the transnationally operating music industry and the expansion and deepening of the influence and dominance of the leading capitalist countries in the world is rightly thematised. The dominion over sub-areas of culture, education and upbringing, which is taken away from the countries due to developed communication technology, not only fosters an illusory idea of the masses of a “free” or even “liberating” inclusion in the world community, but also disconnects them more or less from local, regional or national circumstances.

3 Reality of Musical Traditions—Context—Understanding The value of musical traditions lies in the fact that music in general—irrespective of different socio-economic sensitivities—has an extraordinarily strong social bonding power and stimulating effect. It is mental in nature. Concerning emergence, development and continuance, these traditions are integrated into the concrete living conditions of the communities that support them. This means that they are not simply a set of sound creations, but that the musical productions supporting them have meaning, contain significance. For this meaningfulness of the relevant musical productions, the respective function is important, whose purpose and context are embedded in the content of the respective concrete forms. The semantic field that arises in this way is of existential weight for communication and social understanding in the community concerned. It is precisely this semantic aspect that has provoked extensive discussion and criticism around so-called “world music” and the “world beat”, even though they are

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actually a consequence and creation of commercial access. And this is done under completely different rules and objectives. The product, consciously calculated, only has to be attractive according to its commodity character and appeal to a large clientele. Even if the mix produced from the sonorities and with structural elements, quotations, excerpts, and set pieces from the musical culture of distant communities on the basis of “occidental” musical ideas with electronic processes is meaningshifting, it fulfils its commercial purpose, as long as it is accepted and enjoyed as successful and valid by the intended addressees. It has nothing to do with the knowledge and understanding of the music of the others. It sounds like it and is claimed to be so. Without knowledge of the meaning of the original sound form, however, simulated World Music remains mere phantasmagoria. It continues to mean foreign behaviour towards other communities and peoples, which is unmistakably understood in literature as a continuation of the colonial-postcolonial line of tradition. The colouring half-truth of exoticisms, their misconstruction of nature, meaning, and character of distant sources—Steven Feld rightly understands the various manipulations as schizophonic mimesis and, more broadly, schismogenesis—contribute little to understanding cultures and their bearers. But even if it is not about “cloned” World Music, but about the “musical cultures of the world”, about the musical traditions of the world themselves and their presentation in places far away from them, similar conflicts or problems of understanding arise. This already begins with original music performed in concerts by native musicians in foreign countries. It may well arouse amazement, fascination, and enthusiasm because of its uniqueness, its sound stimulus, its wonderful design and enchanting performance. But what is missing is the ambience, the context according to time, space, circumstances and internal relationships, which only help the sound envelope to its full meaning. The problem appears much more urgent, more drastic, when a musically equipped ritual is transformed into a show in which the esoteric character of the ritual is lost, or when a religious musical tradition is transformed into a product of uninformed, mass consumption. The question immediately arises as to whether it is possible at all to appreciate such reduced offerings in a meaningful way when only parts of the associated components are accessible. What is left of the sense and understanding of complex rituals developed in historical dimensions if their external performance on a stage has to be reduced from 24 to one and a half to two hours and thus dances and long-lasting chants of mythical descriptions of the deities are reduced to a few minutes, if no trance takes place, processions and animal sacrifices are omitted, fire dances and torches are not allowed for safety reasons? If, furthermore, the changed spatial constellation, the reduction of the action space and the installations, the presentative relationship to the audience instead of the actually interactive one and more contribute to the further alienation of the original ritual? But all of this only names the actions and installations; on the part of the “voyeurs” involved, the underlying ideal and mental knowledge and state of mind of the original ritual, which socially supports the whole action in the first place, remains outside. In short, much remains open, unrecognised, misunderstood, not to be perceived. (see Aubert, 2007: 23seq.)

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4 Tradition—Form of Existence, Change, and Variability Musical traditions, viewed worldwide, present themselves as diverse historical phenomena. According to Laurent Aubert, however, they are not to be regarded as museum-like places of preservation, but represent “ like a spoken language... a living organism in constant mutation”, which at the same time implies “both a normative setting and a chain of transmission” (Aubert, 2007: 10). Far from any idea of “any original purity” or “intact musical past”, they “like any organism” always give expression to ideas or needs of the present (Aubert, 2007: 22). This is certainly true, but not enough. Traditions encompass the totality of tradition, i.e., what has been created or articulated by the ancients, as well as what is new and present, developed on the basis of the heritage. Acceptance or criticism, as well as the continuation of what has gone before and its reformulation or even replacement, are important components of the process of tradition. They ensure a certain stability of the meaning-bearing moments whose connotation is not changed per se. The normativity, the permanence of images, characters, attitudes, moods, etc., the ethical values, feelings, sensitivities, the inclusion in the general, the cohesion, etc., which carry the traditions, as the case may be, must not be ignored. The changes, on the other hand, are peripheral at first, changing the colouring, precision, tinting, details, features of images, and figures. But each new take-up gives them new strength and freshness, until a new quality of the stream of tradition emerges from the multitude of suggestions. The image “of constant mutation” is also slightly misleading. In relation to the historical flow, it may have some justification because of the abstraction from the facts and processes. “Everything flows” was already the opinion of the ancient philosophers. Objectively, however, there is temporary validity to the creations and their concrete relationship to real life in history and the present. The creations form stopping points in social life. The musical traditions developed in accordance with the socio-economic formations are therefore not in perpetual motion. This is a misconception. They unfold their respective meaning or effect in specific periods of time and countless creations. Their existence and development have very complex conditions, stations and courses. They are therefore not steadily transient, as some researchers would like to make them seem in general overview. Even more in contrast to the shapes and forms belonging to them, the systems and basic features underlying them are designed for relative duration or sustainability. But even the shapes and forms are no ephemera; they, too, articulate their mental message in specific periods of time and social contexts. Their validity depends on their ability to articulate the respective historical circumstances and mental states and aspirations. The formulation of “created or articulated by the ancients” was deliberately intended to draw attention to the fundamental difference between written tradition and memorialised tradition. It separates the occidental tradition in general from tribal and folk traditions and essentially from other advanced cultures. In contrast to the clearly written musical form, which can only be creatively reproduced to a limited extent by the performer, the production of music in the memory tradition is essentially different.

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On the basis of my research on Algerian classical music, I have been able to observe that although the musical realisations also present forms, they have a temporary character. They are committed to a melodic form, but they do not reflect a definitive version. They are always momentary realisations of a memorised figure from and in a stream of tradition. They may more or less convincingly capture the general features of this figure, but they are not identical with it. They present themselves as a temporarily concretely perceptible clue in the process of transmission. What has been handed down does not correspond to the “opus perfectum” of the European coinage, nor does the respective execution stipulate such a gestalt. It has a charmingly fleeting presence and must be held in the mind and memory of the individual and/or community. Otherwise, it disappears. The facts and the way of thinking of this kind of musical tradition are fundamentally different from classical occidental music. Nevertheless, the figures are clear and definite, but on a different level of thought and action. It is a special permissiveness that is inherent in the memory-bound production, preservation, reproduction and adoption of Algerian classical music. It goes far beyond the differences in the interpretation of occidental music. Its mode of existence follows the principle of variability. This distinguishes it essentially from the occidental tradition. This difference is omnipresent and effective in many ways. It affects the free realisation of music transmitted by memory to a significant degree. It appears in the individual shaping of the melodic form (which is an abstract value) through ornamentation and inner enrichment, through structural and formal interventions and inventions, through intonational and systemic changes, through the type of articulation, and so on. This variability characterises solo music-making as well as music-making in groups. But it not only appears in active music-making, i.e. in the actual realisation of the musical heritage. The tradition itself proves to be variable in its historical dimension. Basically, the storage in different media (record, tape, CD, and video) does not change this. In each case, they merely record one and the same version of the performance of a piece of music preserved in memory. The fact that these materially stored versions can be repeated many times does not change the fundamental fact. They remain temporary versions. However, there is the possibility, or even the danger, that the exclusive repetition of a particularly cherished version may give rise to the idea of its identity with the traditional form. This, however, would mean the end of the traditional transmission of music as well as of creative performance practice (see Elsner, 2018). The mode of existence of music transmitted by memory described above reaches far back into history and is widespread throughout the world in various stages of development. It also contains, which is important because of the fundamental understanding, a different relationship of the respective community and its individuals to the social integration and meaning of musical expression. Produced by individuals or groups, it aims at collective, not subjective, states of mind and behaviour, it has the welfare and success of the social community in mind. This is what Plato associated with politics and social conditions in his time and what Laurent Aubert takes up when he talks about the convergence of music and society as one of the main goals of ethnomusicology. But after his enumeration of the components, the

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means and functions, the effectiveness and the role of musicians and listeners, and finally the reference to learning and dissemination of a musical production, Aubert misses in Plato the aspect of the individual in the process of musical creation. In typical Western understanding, he criticises this alleged reduction of “music to its social role, assimilating its work or production to a merely utilitarian, social, ritual and symbolic function.” This “negation of the autonomy of the individual, seems to predominate in numerous traditional societies and is opposed to the modern ideology of art, which is fundamentally individualistic and libertarian. (Aubert, 2007: 1). He saw this correctly, but misinterpreted it. The situation is historically substantially different. The relevant societies are not individualistic, subjective, egocentric ones, but see themselves as a unanimous community. Their existence and way of thinking is of a different kind. The individual belongs to it, but does not act in “subjectivity". The individual as a subject only emerges from the community with the historically developed possibility of relative socio-economic independence. The process begins with the dissolution of egalitarian communities and the formation of classsocial relations, which goes hand in hand with the segregation of socio-economically prominent strata and classes. It is profiled and specialised over long periods of time.

5 Preserving Tradition—Museum Existence The existence of a musical tradition depends on the development or changes in the living conditions of the community that supports it. If the community and its livelihood remain undisturbed, it will be taken up by its descendants and continued in a meaningful way. In the case of fundamental changes in the socio-economic conditions of a community due to far-reaching processes or events such as changes in the mode of production or peaceful or hostile external influences, a musical tradition or parts of it can be called into question and disappear. The fate of the tradition also depends on the respective customary value of the particular tradition. If, for example, it is tied to concrete but obsolete and therefore abandoned work processes, it is deprived of its decisive material basis. The associated genres are lost unless they are “stored up”. This can happen in different ways and with different justifications, for historical-museum reasons or aesthetic discretion, sometimes also in living tradition. What appears problematic is ordered or forced adoption, which lacks meaning and understanding. The situation is different in the case of an attachment to a ritual act. Here, it is the ideal goal on which the material settings depend or are determined. They are irrelevant for the justification of the musical components of the ritual. The ideal nature of the ritual binds the associated musical articulations to the ideal sphere from the outset, which means a different starting point for tradition according to its nature and design. Furthermore, those components of tradition that are directly connected with the daily life and sociability of the community are dependent on the specificity of the activity and interaction and its change. Depending on their function

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and equipment, they are used and handed down for a longer or shorter period of time, but are also often subject to fashionable trends. To return to the changes also in the vernacular music tradition: A prerequisite for the continued existence and development of folk music is historical space. Change or development takes time. This is not simply a matter of varying what already exists or inventing new melodies or rhythms in the tradition, but rather of developing the foundations of a tradition, such as the system on which the music-making is based, the social and ideational connections, the sound style, the material prerequisites, etc. It is a process that quantitatively accumulates new, non-traditional articulations and contents until the quantity is reflected in a fundamentally new quality. In view of the diversity and change in the function of musical traditions, the question arises as to what can and should be done with the traditional material that has lost its current use value for whatever reason or is in danger of losing it. In view of the complexity of the matter, the answer must be ambiguous. First of all, musical creations can basically exist separately from their real functional binding. However, their ideal value is different. Music that is functionally bound to material production (work-bound, production-oriented) has essentially regulating, organising, stimulating as well as toil-facilitating and stupidity-overplaying tasks that do not necessarily combine with narrativity and aesthetic enjoyment. In themselves, they are only interesting or maintainable outside their function under certain conditions or for certain purposes. However, musical heritage can also be formed in such a way that it is understood as a precious legacy of the ancients to be treasured. Through the ideal values (ethical, mental, narrative, and aesthetic) handed down in it, its further use is self-evident. More generally, however, it also makes sense to include the articulated knowledge and insights of previous generations as teaching material in music practice and history teaching. In contrast to these possibilities or activities that take up and continue musical traditions, there is the alternative of a decline in the value or usefulness of musical productions of the past, of the questioning of musical legacies in the historical aspect. They are important and indispensable documents in the history of the development of the respective community and, beyond that, of human society. And if they have already lost their topicality, they must not be left to oblivion, but should be preserved in museum-like preservation for the access of historical reassurance.

6 Globalisation—Technical Development A fundamentally new challenge arose for the world’s musical cultures after the Second World War. With and after the overcoming of the enormous damage to people and property caused by the insane war initiated by German fascism, the capitalist system acquired a new quality of organisation, rationalisation, centralisation and productivity and thus of increasing profit. Industrial production with its meticulously planned and calculated products reached economically enormous dimensions with the consequence of the expansion and liberalisation of the international market.

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Economic and political power, which increasingly extended to cultural goods, was concentrated in the leading industrialised countries. In the field of music, it was the technical possibilities of sound recording, storage, arrangement, reproduction and distribution developed during this period that opened up new possibilities of action for this branch of intellectual and social life, and brought industry, finance and business onto the scene. Regardless of the earlier storage possibilities of music, which could still be called modest in their broad effect, the new media and modes of transmission and the apparatus accessories were ideally suited to give music the character of a commodity. The legal consequences of marketing, however, were different. With regard to Western art and popular music, legal regulations have prevailed for a long time. Open, however, was the treatment of the musical reservoirs outside the Western legal sphere, which were particularly important for the booming sector of popular music in the postwar period. The increasing information provided by musicologists specialising in ethnology or anthropology on tribal and regional cultures far from the West gave the music industry, with the increasing interest in the world, not least among young people, sufficient stimulus and reason to develop the exoticizing sector of the music business. The result was a variety of rungs in the pop world called World Music, World Beat, Multiculti and so on. After a not so distant phase of buccaneering, which was discussed and criticised in many ways in the specialist literature, capitalist “order” moved into the giant business. In the “time-honoured tradition”, the bearers of collective-usual knowledge, who provide the material, and the “owners of intellectual property rights” (intellectual property) are carefully separated. The reason is simple: while the latter, the shareholders, profit from any kind of sound manipulation, those anonymous bearers of tradition are promised alms by funds or are offered a sham in order to attract public attention (see Feld, 1996, 2000; Zemp, 1996).

7 Copyright In the relevant academic literature, the question of “cultural property” and foreign appropriation is hotly debated from the perspective of copyright. It necessarily arises within the framework of capitalist social relations. In the course of globalisation, however, the question is more topical, more urgent than ever. David Hesmondhalgh summarises the problem in the following way: “... there is a considerable difference between the issues involved in the exclusion of a cultural tradition in a hegemonic legal system and the ownership of a sample by another independent company” (Hesmondhalgh, 2000: 292). The interest in foreign musical culture may, on the one hand, arise from mere cosmopolitan curiosity or, in a better sense, longing for knowledge and orientation or, in the special case, from creative need. It may also be the result of overindulgence, ignorance, a lack of understanding or a more or less justified blockade of one’s own

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cultural traditions. There are other reasons. In its grip on foreign musical cultures— and this is of serious effect—the burgeoning music industry has treated them in the most diverse ways, tapped them, plundered them and thrown their well-calculated products based on them, among other things, into the market in a highly profitable way. Accordingly, the motif of the market and marketing plays a special role in recent literature (see, among others, Anonymous, also Aubert, 2007). This refers in particular to the virtually bursting sector of exoticizing popular music. However, as is the case with Anonymous, the great historical and factual difference in the use of the term “market” is not always sufficiently taken into account. It also seems exaggerated to elevate the market, even if under certain circumstances it can do much to nourish its artist, to the source of artistic creativity. The globalising capitalist market has a completely different, new quality. As an organ of distribution—in our case of the huge music industry these days—it has to organise and guarantee the supply and sale of the light but quickly and mass-produced commodity worldwide. It is a special commodity. As a global article, this animating sound product cannot be bound to local or regional traditions, nevertheless, must have echoes of the native worlds of the addressees in order to arouse curiosity on the one hand and to make the passage into the new environment easier on the other. There is something radical and brutal about the process. Without being of the same kind, half-foreign but seductive, the product is supposed to strike everywhere and take the place of the familiar without any thought or understanding of local traditions. The irony is that with an apparently philanthropic gesture, everything that is found to be original and usable in the traditions of the world and transformed into profitable “World Music” is passed off as a labour of love for the inherited, who are then also made victims, customers of their own sold traditions. And yet, in perspective, it is nothing other than a monstrous global synchronisation.

8 Pop Music With the new possibilities of producing and distributing immaterial, ideal goods, designed to be as attractive as they are profitable as commodities, a new dimension has entered world traffic opening up undreamt-of new fields of action for capital in transnational relations and market conditions. They are not only of an economic nature. Apart from brilliant profits from the distribution of “entertainment software”, the ideal goods transported in various ways also prove to be messengers of ideological, cultural and political messages, orientations and behaviour. The effects are phenomenal, as can be seen from relevant feedback. They are able to reverse the traditional conditions, to break up closed communities, and so it is foreign forces, monopolies, that increasingly take over and determine or dominate parts of the way of life of a growing mass of foreign, socially insecure individuals. It is an essential part of the unequal capitalist-globalising appropriation of the world. The enormous influence of the music industry, which essentially stands for popular music, has created an increasing one-sidedness in the development of art. in the shaping of interests, in the tastes of those concerned. The mental demands have

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been narrowed, reduced, misdirected by the capitalisation of the music business and market orientation. This has a destructive effect on normal life, its social and ethical content and bonds. With its limited but also leveled claim to art, aimed especially at the younger generations, the music industry is in a sense usurping parts of the educational monopoly, which, with the global dispersion of products, has a negative effect on the socio-cultural education and constitution of the coming generations worldwide. The dangers of mental impairment through the actions of the music industry are similar to those to which the US philosopher Michael Sandel has recently drawn attention with reference to the large social media companies. They already dominate large parts of the mental sphere of society. The huge and constantly renewed stream of information leads to a “collective attention disorder”, he says, which has a destructive effect on social life. For this requires a certain level of attention, consideration, listening, learning, reasoning, the ability to draw logical conclusions. It is about a certain presence of the human being, not about distraction (Sandel, 2018). In the light of historical experience or fate under colonialist and capitalist systems of domination, the cultural traditions and in our case the musical traditions of the Other and the Lower suffer a treatment of a whole new quality. From disregard, disrespect or contempt, they have fallen into the purgatory of fundamental questioning. This is not so much about the musical traditions developed over centuries by former African slaves in both Americas, the usurpation of which the emerging music industry has been engaged in since the beginning of the twentieth century. Nor is it a consequence of the serious terrain work of those ethnomusicologists or anthropologists who sought to impart knowledge of the peoples’ music to the Western world in writings and via records. The critical thought that Steven Feld formulated in this regard in 1996 is honourable, but does not get to the heart of the problem. Namely, he writes: Ethnomusicologists and anthropologists could once claim innocence about the activities of recording and marketing what was variously called tribal, ethnic, folk, or traditional music. Now there is little doubt that this whole body of work, since the time of the invention of the phonograph, has been central to complex representations and commodity flows that are neither ideologically neutral, unfailingly positive, or particularly equitable. (Feld, 1996: 13)

Hugo Zemp also points out with experience the “commercial implications” that have to be considered “in documenting and disseminating traditional music” (Zemp, 1996: 53). The linking of the facts is true, but it does not justify the industrial abuse of the transmission or extension of knowledge and the apportioning of blame. As if the primeval inventor of the hammer were to be called to account in the modern murder case by being beaten to death with a hammer. Incidentally, Feld (and Zemp) know this too, as can be seen from his exemplary descriptions of the doings and perceptions of the entertainment industry. There are quite different forces at work here. And they have almost the entire globe in their grip. The fundamental questioning of traditions is threatened by the technical development of the twentieth century in combination with the globalisation that has been going on for several decades, which is understood and pursued in a purely economic neo-liberal way. Of course, it is not the globalisation of the exchange of products,

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techniques, ideas, knowledge, traditional goods, etc. that poses a danger, but rather the continuing and increasing imbalance of the opponents as a result of economic and power relations that have developed over centuries. The sciences concerned with the cultures of the world also reflect this. Steven Feld (1996: 1) reports of his teacher, the anthropologist Colin Turnbull, that he “was deeply moved by the need to chronicle the experiential ravages of change in a world of rapidly escalating inequalities.” But he himself also knows how to name it comprehensively and precisely when he formulates, for example: “The primary circulation of several thousand, small-scale, low budget, and largely non-profit ethnomusicological records is now directly linked to a secondary circulation of several million dollars’ worth of contemporary record sales, copyrights, royalty and ownership claims, many of them held by the largest music entertainment conglomerates in the world. Hardly any of this money circulation returns to or benefits the originators of the cultural and intellectual property in question. It is this basic inequity... that creates the current ethnomusicological reality: discourses on world music are inseparable from discourses on indigeneity and domination.” (Feld, 1996: 27) “As elsewhere, this means increasingly that aesthetic practices and choices are being deeply felt and portrayed as markedly political ones.” (Feld, 2000: 274).

He therefore considers the altruism of the producer, which is displayed on the cover text of the highly profitable Pygmy Pop CDs, to be “a fantasy, lightly floating above the realities of nation-states who marginalise their remote others in harmony with global capitalist expansion”. The conclusion of the cover text of “Heart of the Forest”, which lightly supplies him with argument, states: African governments crippled by debts owed to Western development banks are forced to “mine” their natural resources, such as the Baka’s rainforest homeland, to get badly needed foreign capital. This short term financial gain does not reach the Baka, and the long term effects on their culture of this loss of habitat will have destructive and far-reaching consequences. Proceeds from the sale of this album will go back to the rainforest and go a small way to reversing the flow of resources exploitatively removed from the South to the North. (Feld, 1996: 24)

Laurent Aubert draws attention to another aspect when he points out the paradox of the chances of survival of some genres that are performed outside their tradition in new venues and are thus economically dependent on “countries that have the means to support the luxury of a subsidised culture.” And immediately, he expresses his doubts: “Can this interaction alone provide the necessary conditions for a rebirth of musical traditions which are currently fragile due to the haste and brutality of ongoing change?” (Aubert, 2007: 32). The quoted statements indicate, from quite different perspectives, the enormous processes that emerged from an absolutely new quality in the level of production and marketing of music on a world scale in the second half of the twentieth century. The productive and expansionary power of modern, transnationally-oriented corporations is enormous. They grab at everything that can be “exploited”, including knowledge and culture. Anthony Seeger sums up this fact in these words (Seeger, 1996: 87): Many forms of knowledge and wisdom have become ‘intellectual property’. While farms and factories continue to be an essential part of our lives, knowledge is a commodity that

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is bought, sold, smuggled, sabotaged, stolen, and above all consumed. The ownership of knowledge is not shared equally among human beings any more than the ownership of land, raw materials, or factories have been. Inequality, and the relationship between ‘knowledge providers’ and ‘intellectual property rights owners’ often resembles that found in earlier relations between developed countries and colonies.

In the present context, the activities of the music industry are of particular interest, as it has immense influence with the pop music it produces, which increasingly draws on foreign traditions. The various varieties of schizophonia, the splitting of sound, as Steven Feld calls it, which underlies hybrid musical forms, “mark the historical moments and contexts where oral performance and cultural participation are transformed into material commodity and circulable representation.” (Feld, 1996: 13). The large offer of the digitally controlled music sector of modern industrial society, like certain media whose production is oriented solely towards sold numbers or quotas, can certainly cause irritation and misorientation, especially since the centralised production far from the regions of origin and destination has long since taken on the character of a monopoly. The profits drawn from the pop sector are fabulous. Steven Feld reports of the standard-setting pygmy pop CD “Deep Forest” that 2.5 million copies have been sold worldwide in the three years since its release in 1992. In addition, numerous TV commercial licences were granted to interested parties, some of whom were far removed from the cause. But as far as the royalties were concerned, which were supposed to go to the villages of the Ewe through a fund, the producer, as enquiries revealed, hardly transferred anything despite his huge profits. (Feld, 1996: 25seq.) A far more comprehensive insight into the true nature of pop-commercialism is given by Aubert in a chapter obviously called “The Great Bazaar. From the Meeting of Cultures to the Appropriation of the Exotic”. In this chapter, he does not attempt, as the anonymous author of the study “Evolution of the Music Market: how Western Music Canon Relates to Westernisation of the World” does, to ascribe to the economically distributive part “market” the starting place in the creative stimulation and development of modern musical culture: And music here just followed the same historical process as the political economy: Once the marketplace was formed, it started expanding over new territories in variety of ways, from military conquest to colonialism, until the modern global market has been established. Just as most of the world’s states have been engaged into the global market by the banking system, industrialization, Western technologies and commodities, their cultures have been permeated to various degrees by the Western music culture. (Anonymous: 1)

Rather, he makes a point of providing insight into the engine of the modern music business, which in the age of globalisation no longer has anything to do with the more or less staid business activities of the publishers, editors and printers of earlier centuries. Here, calculations are hard as nails; balance sheets are drawn up. Usable material from all over the world, which according to its sources has nothing to do with each other, is unconscionably thrown together, sound-technically manipulated and offered as World Music.

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Initially, driven by the idea of humanistic respect for the other, a spontaneous movement towards universal brotherhood would have begun. Paradisiacal conditions seemed to be in sight, under which everyone would share in cultural enrichment through the recognition of the difference of others. At the same time, however, the economic potential of World Music was discovered, and interest was directed towards developing a profile that corresponded to the tastes and expectations of a primarily young, open and malleable audience. World Music, also known as Ethno-Pop, opened up an enormous field of activity for the music industry. About 300,000 titles are on offer in Europe, and 10,000 more are added every year. In 1996, 12% of discs sold in France were in the World Music sector, almost as many as European art music and twice as many as jazz.

9 The Global Threat to Musical Traditions The global threat to musical traditions arising from the “market relations” linked to the music industry is multiple: 1. Destruction, termination and replacement of musical traditions by the influence and products of the transnational music industry. 2. Perpetuation of a false image of foreign music cultures: The Own and the Foreign, the Other. 3. replacement of the “outdated” traditions of the Others and 4. Addition to one’s own “native” traditions.

9.1 Destruction As far as technical development is concerned, it is the modern recording, reproduction, editing and transmission possibilities of music that have unimaginably expanded the turnover and distribution of music and thus the profit from its production. In addition, the deregulation of the media, their increasing privatisation and satellite broadcasting have given entrepreneurs and managers increasing international influence on the existence, shaping and development of regional cultures. The replacement of local and regional traditions happens practically and usually with their replacement by music of “western” production, which has elements of foreign traditions, but especially suggests a better modern life through its “western” version. Roger Blench gives a very concrete account of the threatening blackout of a regional tradition in his article “The traditional Music of the Jos Plateau in Central Nigeria: an overview”. According to him, “the traditional music of the rural areas of the Jos Plateau is... more threatened than the languages. The forces that are changing the nature of the music of this region very rapidly: Christianity, the proximity to

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Jos (the capital, E.) and in particular the gradual spread of electricity. Television, radio, recorded music and simply the perception that acoustic performances are ‘old-fashioned’ has led many performers to give up their instruments and to discard traditional song-repertoires. Another aspect of change is education; schools transmit a very patronising attitude to traditional music and pupils are encouraged to imitate urban, Hausaised styles and to perform on non-traditional instruments” (Blench, 2005: 3). The impact of modern national, commercial and global music depends very strongly on electricity. Until recently, few settlements outside Jos had power, and although generators have been used since the 1970s for occasional events... acoustic music was the norm. But the collapse of musical performance can be very rapid, once power lines begin to function. In Ganawuri, a large rural settlement of the Eten people… electric power began to flow in 2002. Since the introduction of electricity, a video shop has opened up in the village and it plays continuous urban pop music at extremely loud volumes, often on a 24-h schedule. On Wednesdays and Saturdays there are large-scale parties with drinking, dancing and recorded music. Many houses and beer-drinking places have ghettoblasters; the moonlit dances of a few years ago are rapidly being replaced with amorphous shuffling to Nigerian pop or American rap… As a consequence, all types of traditional Eten music have been very rapidly sidelined. When there are ‘cultural festivals’ such as the New Year Festival, following the horse races, there are displays of ‘cultural dancing’. These are usually managed by the police, who control the crowd with whips and threaten performers who overstep their two-minute allotted slot. The chief performers are given microphones with highly distorted amplification. As a consequence, the experience is highly unsatisfactory to many groups and ‘traditional’ performers have begun to boycott these events. (Blench, 2005: 9f) ... Language death usually occurs slowly… But music dies rapidly, as instruments are destroyed and not replaced … and the boom of global music drowns out the weaker timbre of a grass-stem zither… (Blench, 2005: 10).

Blench’s description names essential points that cause the threat and destruction or loss or simply forgetting of many local, regional and even national musical traditions and that are thematised and discussed in many publications on the topics of “World Music”, “Music of the Others”, etc. In addition to ideological alienation in past times (in the context of colonisation, through missionisation, Islamisation,) modern technical inventions play a decisive role in the orientation and servicing of the correspondingly generated musical demand. “Old-fashioned music” gives way to internationally disseminated, industrially produced music that plays with “echoes of foreign traditions” and presents itself as transcultural and transnational. The violence and power of the globally operating music industry and its regional offshoots with the popular music they produce, which in its worldwide search for production stimuli has long since been grazing tribal, local, regional traditions for stimuli (stylistic devices, sound characters, melodies, rhythms, etc.), is all-round. Particularly interesting and enlightening in this regard are the reports based on extensive terrain work provided by Steven Feld and Hugo Zemp. Medially mediated pop music with roots in Saharan Bedouin singing formed the topical background of an interview I was able to conduct with the Algerian “Caruso” Mahieddine Bachetarzi in 1983. The anti-colonial liberation struggle of the Algerian people that unfolded in the first decades of the twentieth century and brought national independence in 1962

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had not only brought new social forces into the light of public life, but had also permanently changed the cultural interests. Mahieddine Bachetarzi (1897–1986), who was involved in this development as a highly talented singer, actor and organiser, described it in the following way (Elsner-Bachetarzi, 1983): For large weddings, groups of musicians were hired to perform music of the classical tradition in the courtyard of the wedding house in front of the invited relatives, friends, neighbours. The concert began in the evening hours with the performance of n¯ub¯at, at midnight there was lighter fare (inqil¯ab¯at and h.auz¯ı), which was followed by n¯ub¯at again until the morning hours. The festive guests followed the rare event with rapt attention and perseverance. This was a time when the musical enjoyment of the listeners was not yet irritated by a growing media offering of the most diverse genres and varieties. As a result of this development, Bachetarzi saw an increasing lack of devotion and perseverance in listening to classical music, which he found alarming. It was the 1980s that, after prolonged resistance from the administration, brought official acceptance to the newly conceived pop genre of Raï (with guitar and synthesiser) developed in Western Algeria. At the same time, the French music industry took up the genre, which processed regional sources and international trends, and brought it international attention. “The awarding, during Victoires de la Musique 1997, of the trophy for the ‘best French song of the year’ to ‘Aïcha’—composed by Jean-Jacques Goldman and sung by the raï star Khaled”—makes this clear, even if not only the artistic aspect but understandably also political reasons promoted the award (Aubert, 2007: 67).

9.2 Perpetuation of a False Image of Foreign Music Cultures: The Own and the Foreign, the Other If one disregards the scientifically founded offers of sounding music from foreign cultures and correspondingly appropriate treatises on their fundamentals and peculiarities, the sounds and information practically offered by the majority of the music industry are anything but “authentic”. What is supposed to conjure up musically distant worlds under the term “World Music” in allusion to global horizons, quickly reveals itself on closer inspection to be a well and professionally prepared hotchpotch of western musical basic substance and fragments of local or regional musical traditions picked up from all over the world using the most modern electronic techniques. To the unsuspecting but open-minded and interested music lover, the message sounding from the loudspeaker may be proof of musical universality that embraces the whole of humanity, even though it is based on a sensory splicing, a result of the sampling of different components from different countries. What it can and should do under these conditions is to delight, to disperse, to create illusions as an imaginary sound event, but not to actually trace the distant reality, distant life, the foreign, the other.

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Laurent Aubert is resolutely critical of the unreal assessments of producers and supporters of so-called World Music, who regard it as humanistic, permissive and even revolutionary and consider it the crucible of a new age, a regained paradise. For him, this humanism is merely a technocratic one and the permissiveness one smothered in mercantilism. To support his judgement, he quotes Ross Daly (1992), who illuminates the bourgeois-illusory misinterpretation with glancing historical retrospection and methodological reference: The western attitude, marked for centuries by unparalleled political, military and cultural barbarism and arrogance towards other cultures, cannot pretend that equal values and interests exist with regard to the planet’s countless individual regional cultures simply because one aspect has suddenly been opened up. (Aubert, 2007: 55)

Steven Feld goes further, not stopping at the cultural aspect. In his commentary on the facts surrounding the successful CD Deep Forest, he not only draws attention to the continuation of outdated images and ideas of the other, the foreign, the distant, inherited from colonial times. He basically criticises “cultural imperialism” (Feld, 1996: 14), which he understands as political according to history and the present, and whose principle of “taking without asking” as the “musical right of the owners of technology, copyrights and distribution networks” continues the old asymmetrical practices. (It is interesting that Feld published his 1996 study “pygmy POP. A Genealogy of Schizophonic Mimesis” four years later in a modified version under the title “The Poetics and Politics of Pygmy Pop. Western Music and Its Others. Difference, Representation, and Appropriation in Music”). Feld’s account focuses on the “practices that link colonial and postcolonial Africa to worlds of music, particularly via the new ubiquitous global pop sales genre: ‘world music’”. (Feld, 2000: 255) However, he does not share the misjudgement of “fans and marketers” based on ignorance of the real background, who consider these hybrid creations to be “contemporary, vital, and profoundly transcultural” (Feld, 1996: 27). Despite all the differentiation of global development, which also questions the special position of individual musicians, their “musical-political-industrial habitus” in the appropriation and splitting of foreign music and, under certain circumstances, considers it “politically and culturally acceptable” with special moral justification, the basic problem of the appropriated and split foreign tradition remains. It is about the relationship to and the understanding of the musical traditions of the Others, whose splitting is being driven further and further against the background of one-sided globalising music commerce. “This escalation—of difference, power, rights, control, ownership, authority—politicizes the schizophonic practices artists could once claim more innocently as matters of inspiration, or as a purely artistic dialogue of imitation and inspiration.” (Feld, 2000: 264). Although social communities have encountered or confronted each other in different constellations—good and bad—since time immemorial, modern world traffic has created inter-social relations of a very different dimension. In the ethnomusicological literature, this has been reflected in general topoi such as “Western Music and the Other”, “The Own and the Foreign”, “Music of the Others” etc.. The opposition of two different in some respects but increasingly contacting musical

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landscapes of the globe has given rise to numerous interesting studies that reveal important aspects and contribute significantly to clarifying the problems currently facing this field. The music of other countries and continents and foreign traditions, or what is spent on them, has become present for the “Occident” less through the growing flow of immigrants or the worldwide tourist urge of “Westerners” and the activities of concert agencies than through the technically highly equipped media with its many possibilities. There is a great deal of music that has been adapted to the acquired listening habits, the musical way of thinking and articulating that has been ingrained in us from childhood onwards. Only a few of them convey authentic sound events. Usually dressed in the garb of the various stages of popular music, it comes across as snappy and light-hearted. Fifty years ago, Alain Daniélou already pointed this out in his writing “The Music of Asia between Disdain and Appreciation” (1973: 129ff.). It creates the impression as if in the countries of origin of its exotic coat of paint, as if all over the world there is always merrymaking or carnival, and belly dancing, as it is presented in Middle Eastern nightclubs as the “pinnacle of indigenous art” and is advertised in countless canned sounds, is the be-all and end-all of exotic high life. Of course, there is nothing wrong with taking inspiration from foreign music for musical productions in one’s own tradition, with adopting observed principles, peculiarities of sound and form. Historically, this has happened many times. It is also not important whether the borrowing from foreign sound worlds is merely aimed at colouristic embellishment or whether one believes to have really captured the essence of the foreign, the other, with the form that transcends tradition in articulation and expression. As a rule, this is hardly successful and probably not intentional, as the Orientalisms of European classical music show or the works of a Debussy who was fascinated and stimulated by the appearance of Javanese gamelan musicians at the Paris World’s Fair in 1889. Musically, it seems even more difficult to achieve what Goethe already considered almost unattainable with regard to poetry, namely to lead the uninitiated but interested person via the “approach of the foreign and the native, the known and the unknown” to an understanding of the original, to an interest in the basic text (Goethe, 1965: 310). Everyone knows how little putting on a kimono transforms a European woman into a Japanese woman, or how little plucking a vina means Indian music. Ravi Shankar, one of the world-famous symbolic figures for the Other, for other thinking, including musical thinking, has spoken out sharply against such illusions. And rightly so. For, according to him, the introduction of the sitar into popular music opened up a new sound colour for this genre, but by no means Indian music, and the interest in and understanding of this was, due to false approaches, rather artificial and borne by false ideas and expectations than genuine and true (Shankar, 1970: 139ff.). Nevertheless, the history of music in the world is essentially marked by interethnic, inter-regional and inter-social influence or by the knowledge and appropriation of foreign musical achievements, and even the music historiography, which has refrained from much, is still full of news of borrowings, adoptions and exchanges in both regional and trans-regional dimensions. It is undeniable that hardly any musical

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culture has ever developed entirely on its own, without intercultural relations to other regions, countries and continents. Which society can meaningfully claim to possess a completely autochthonously developed musical culture? Such claims are presumptuous, far removed from history and reality, and usually spring from economically based hegemonic aspirations and nationalist zeal. Whatever musical interests and practices the various communities of Europe, which vary greatly in terms of genesis, social catchment areas and profit-oriented needs and which have developed different levels of musical standards of thinking and listening, have pursued in their behaviour towards foreign musical cultures, they have essentially remained within the framework of stimulation and exploitation. They have merely integrated new, hitherto unthought-of sounds (Aubert, 2007: 24 speaks of “new sonic universes” in a special case), rhythmic effects, colours, instruments, combinations and effects into the traditional musical mode of production, sometimes using them to try or find new approaches. But they have not actually opened up to foreign cultures. Only rarely has justice been done to them, and this especially in recent decades within the framework of ethnomusicological efforts, even though the approaches to this go back much further and they have been pursued with seriousness since the beginning of the last century. However, it cannot be overlooked that a meaningful and useful offer of literature and sound documents has nevertheless remained rather timid and narrow, rather than already fully meeting the demands of the time. The situation described makes clear a decisive shortcoming of the apparently cosmopolitan and universally interested West in the field of music and culture. Foreign music was and is more or less perceived and also accepted by the various musical spheres or production areas, but the relationship is appropriating, arbitrary, cannibalising. In the productive sphere, isolated effects and elements are selected as stimuli, as initial impulses, in order to be transformed in a colouristic sense into detailed or stylistic characteristics and to be ethnocentrically assigned new meanings. The sound image that is historically anchored and specifically meaningful in every foreign music, the actual inherent creative principles and the meaning articulated according to these principles in current forms are ignored in the process, but also obstructed for the potential listeners. One should therefore not be under any illusion that no more than a mere acoustic source of material has been tapped here, which, although internally musically processed and thus more specifically designed than any natural sound to which the composer’s need for inspiration listens, has nonetheless not been consulted as music “invested with meaning”.

9.3 Replacement of the “Outdated” Traditions of the Others In the opinion of the anonymous author of the study “Evolution of the Music Market”, “Western classical music” is not merely any music, but the most significant available multi-cultural and international tradition relevant to the development of global music

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culture. It was elaborated by many musicians from all over the world over many centuries in Europe, but had its roots in the Middle East and Africa. It is based on a “music system most optimal for the needs of people of the world community. There is no other music system comparable in its impact over world over time.” (Anonymous: 72seq.) However this assessment is to be evaluated—many authors point to the imperialist influences of highly industrially developed Europe on nonEuropean countries—it is, moreover, in contrast to the classical music of Europe, the popular music of the “West” that exerts the greatest influence on the music cultures of the other worlds. However, it cannot be overlooked that essential principles of its design are rooted in the classical European musical tradition. Popular music, which has been developed since the end of the Second World War, with its various varieties, is likely to displace or replace the indigenous traditions of distant countries. Its spread, generally promoted by the productivity gap between North and South, happened quite quickly. It was greatly accelerated by the technical innovations that affected not only the production of music but also the possibilities of its consumption. Electronic reception and playback devices spread to remote areas of the world in a very short time and enabled access without limits. The technical advantage of the “West” and the “ingratiating” musical offer suggesting a different, better life, creepingly but quickly, inconspicuously but efficiently accomplished the supplementation, if not the replacement, of traditional values. This repression or even the replacement of foreign traditions by imported, marketable musical goods that impose themselves by technical, barrier-free means and seem to have been freely accepted continues the old relations of dominance in a new form. It is by no means the result of free development, but the result of cleverly engineered coercion under the compulsion of capitalist rules of production. If one notices repeated statements in literature, a guilty conscience seems to be stirring in the face of this situation. A reversal of movement, an apparent benefit of the Others from this kind of globalisation is recognised or assumed, perhaps as a kind of ideological reassurance. Laurent Aubert, for example, formulates that the internationalisation of musical forms of expression does not only impose the global on the local, but above all means the appropriation of the global by the local. The use and adaptation of modern distribution technologies and processes serves purposes determined by the needs of each culture, each group of people. (Aubert, 2007: 7) Even more fantastical is the idea that globalisation, which amounts to Westernisation, is a kind of distorting mirror in which the Other would send back the altered likeness of our changing identity. (Aubert, 2007: 53) It is strange logic to blame the plundered, i.e. the victim, for the denigration and manification of his tradition and for the distorted image created elsewhere, whereas he is precisely the victim of the act. A misjudgement of the actual basis of the play of forces from which globalisation springs can also be seen in the formula of “globalisation from below”, which Simon Frith defines as the joint production of popular music by musicians from several countries. (Frith, 2000: 319) It would be nice if this were the crux of the matter, that is, if it were not a neoliberal fruit. However the “below” is meant, whether we are talking about the “lower” Westerners blessed with World Music or the disinherited Others who are considered and treated as “below” according to colonial legacy, it

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seems that the violence of capitalist appropriation is misjudged or trivialised. Pop does not come from below, it is for below. The “global capitalist expansion” knows the direction and the ways. Its interest is not the sublimation of culture as a characteristic and necessity of human existence and development, but the market and profit. The consequences are particularly precarious because of its global reach.

9.4 Addition to One’s Own “Native” Traditions The sensual appeal of popular World Music, its melodic turns, repetitions, ostinati and sound mixtures that create wanderlust by means of digital sampling and evoke dull suspicions of spirituality, nature, earth-connectedness, inner peace and timelessness radiate a great attraction. The global grasp of the music industry is directed at all cultural objects capable of being marketed, or set pieces thereof, and at recruiting or shaping the correspondingly needy clientele. This kind of purely economically oriented exploitation and utilisation of musical traditions from all over the world according to taste, claim and customary musical expression of the Western world basically damages the inner context of the plundered objects and thus their inherent historical-socially developed semantics. The product produced, breathing exoticism or the wide world, therefore reflects the “foreign excellence” (Goethe, 1965: 307), according to Goethe, merely “in the midst of our national domesticity, in our common life” (Goethe, 1965: 161–325), without seriously conveying anything of its actual essence and meaning. An understanding of the matter that would contribute something to the understanding of the more or less strangers, the Others, cannot be achieved in this way. It may remain open to what extent this is even intended, because the economic-political part of capitalist globalisation pursues a completely different, even opposite goal. The profits from the global business with predominantly popular music are fabulous and amount to many billions of dollars. The extent of the educational and cultural damage cannot be estimated. Of course, global capital has also opened up entirely new potentials and perspectives of encounter with foreign music, which have opened up reasonable possibilities for the cultural experience of the world. In any case, however, the culture-destroying effect of its global search for new objects, markets and customers for the sake of profit is enormous and highly detrimental to the development of the human community. Under its pressure, ideal world traffic has basically remained a one-way street, which, moreover, has been flattened as if by a steamroller. The historical and social value as well as the integrity and meaning of the plundered foreign cultures are of no interest. Daniélou rightly spoke of “cultural genocide” in reference to the destruction of foreign cultures (Daniélou, 1973). The basic mistake of globalised music production is its purely economic market orientation, since it not only has huge pecuniary consequences, but also precarious ones. It does not merely produce products that are bought and enjoyed in large quantities without further intervention. It promotes them to an unsuspecting clientele without having done anything for their musical education and culture. It relies

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on the apparently natural musical sense of man, his interest in entertainment and the satisfaction of psychic longings. Who asks what ideas about the world and the social behaviour of its inhabitants are generated by these products? Thus, Thomas Mann’s Settembrini from “The Magic Mountain” comes to mind, who considers music “politically suspect”: “Art is moral if it awakens. But how, if it does the opposite? When it numbs, soporifies, works against activity and progress? Music can do that too, it also understands the effect of opiates thoroughly. A diabolical effect...! The opiate is of the devil, for it creates stupor, inertia, inactivity, servile stagnation …. There is something alarming about music... ”(Mann, 1965: 163). Due to neoliberal international exploitation and due to the thus growing but unequally distributed general wealth internationally as well as nationally, occidental society (the rich North) faces growing problems. The promised gain in freedom and individual self-determination (arbitrariness and individualism), the pretence of an easy, carefree life are vain deceptions. Social cohesion has become more fragile, the behaviour of individuals towards each other harsher and more ruthless, which, following Michael Sandel’s term of media-generated “collective attention disorder”, can perhaps be usefully understood as “collective socialisation disorder”. The reflection of social lies manifests itself in a tendency to change attitudes, especially among the younger generations. The tendency to break out of the constraints of the Western world, to break with traditional values and ties, to be reckless in the face of obligation and responsibility, but also to articulate critically, is developing. New “ideals” and longings are born and pursued. Salvation seems to be offered in other worlds and drugs. An important role in this context is played by pop music, which is distributed worldwide by the music industry under various names such as World Music, World Beat, etc. Because of its exotic sources, it is also treated in many ways in ethnomusicological and anthropological literature. It relies on new objects and the exhaustion of the possibilities of perception and sensation (exoticism, electronisation of the production and reproduction of music titles, loudness and brutalisation, coarsening of sensations by reducing the social-mental component and increasing the sensual-physical appeal).

10 Exclusions In the course of history, different socio-economic formations with a differentiated radius of influence have emerged, each producing special systems of musical articulation. Relatively self-contained, secluded communities of people with a muted potential for development are able to shape their needs according to their own time scales and creativity due to their seclusion and relative undisturbedness from the outside. They are more or less at rest within themselves. This applies, for example, to large family and egalitarian tribal communities, such as the inhabitants of the world’s tropical forests, who have recently been disturbed and endangered by the global exploitation of natural resources. In this context, it is useful to refer to the work of Steven Feld

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on the Central African Pygmies living in relatively egalitarian and non-hierarchical relationships (see Feld, 1996, 2000). Steven Feld, who ideally refers to his teacher Turnbull, is concerned, among other things, with the foreign and misuse (schizophonic mimesis) of elements of Pygmy music culture in Pygmy Pop. His noteworthy conclusion, drawn at the end of his contribution to Born-Hesmondhalgh’s anthology, is: “... readers of Colin Turnbull’s ethnographies are now inevitably forced to consider a more nuanced, ironic, or cynical reading of his exegesis of the Mbuti saying akami amu ndura, ‘noise kills the forest.’” (Field, 2000: 275). In some ways similar to the egalitarian tribal communities of self-sufficiency are the socially relatively distinct traditions of the underprivileged classes and groups in hierarchical societies. The social status of these classes is determined by their direct relationship to material production in the face of disadvantage in access to its outcome, or by political classification. The latter applies, for example, to minorities in superior state units. Regardless of the recurring interrelationships with the traditions of the ruling classes, the musical practice of the underprivileged population groups is usually functionally occupied, i.e. closely tied to the manifold life processes and stations. In historical reality, however, the conditions are extremely diverse, depending on whether we are dealing with tribal class societies, societies based on slavery, feudal or capitalist conditions. On the whole, however, they are characterised by the fact that the musical traditions are essentially carried and handed down by the bearers themselves as well as by their associated specialists in self-sufficiency. Here, Herodotus’ statement about the conditions in ancient Egypt comes to mind as an early report. He says: “If the father was a flute-player, cook or herald, the son will also be a flute-player, cook or herald, and not because of the loud voice, others who are better suited for it, are made heralds, but as the father was, so the son will be again. This is how it is.” (Herodotus, 1967. 6th Book-Erato 60: 13seq.) This ancient tradition has survived in many regions of the Orient to the present day. But recent findings open up a more precise, more differentiated picture. Although Herodotus’ laconic report obviously concerns specialised activities, the exact circumstances of the communicated “golden rule” remain obscure. They could be very different. Was the aim at the time merely to ensure the training of specialists, or should the cobbler stick to his last, even if he had no aptitude for it? Were there not other reasons? The recent findings not only reveal rules for the appropriation, execution and safeguarding of the services of specialists. Rather, it can also be observed that special perceptions have developed in connection with music and those who practise it, which, among other things, have led to segregation as an expression of social differentiation, demarcation, exclusion and discrimination, or have been used. Thus, on the one hand, familial linear transmission may be a convenient method of maintaining the specialisation needed, but on the other hand, it can be used as a means of assigning social position in stratified exploitative societies, as has also happened historically. This is the case in Yemen, for example.

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11 Yemen Roughly speaking, Yemeni society was divided into three social strata, namely. 1. 2. 3.

The Sada and Fuqaha (religiously and legally based aristocracy) The Gabayel (the mass of the sedentary and militant free village population) and The Bani ‘l-Khums or Ahdam (people rendering service, formerly servants, slaves, who are denied a verifiable origin and assigned all “impure” work. cf. Maltzan, 1872; Serjeant, 1976; Dostal, 1985; Lambert, 1989, 1997; Yammine, 1995).

In connection with the locally or regionally differently developed socio-economic conditions is the variety or diversity in music use and perception of the relevant social strata. They are characterised by a particular discrimination and social exclusion resulting ideologically from class rule, with a religious-moral background. As far as functionally bound music production is concerned, which covers the lion’s share of social needs, it is carried by representatives of the third, socially under-valued class. It is the business of the Mzayyinin and Ahdam respectively. For the two higher social groups, music is generally tainted. Because of their understanding of origin and class, the aristocracy raises religious and moral objections to it. The aristocratic Sada and Fuqaha in the San’a area generally renounce the services of the Mzayyinin. They are content with the religious chants of the Nashshad (singers of religious hymns) for the ritual parts of their festivals and hire at most one or more singers (Mughanni) of classical San’an chant for the evening socials at weddings. Only when they participate in a Gabayel festivity do they occasionally join in the Bar’a male dance accompanied by Tasa and Mirfa (Yammine, 1995: 23). Unlike the aristocratic classes, the musicians of the “third estate” are requested by the middle classes of San’a and the Gabayel in the villages for the festivities in the circle of life. They are necessary and indispensable to pass through the important stages of life with prospects of prosperity and success, although the Gabayel and the San’an Manasib who are their equals also share the disdain that the aristocrats have for those performing the necessary but defamatory service. But this does not prevent them from compensating those treated disparagingly with sometimes princely rewards, but always amply (Maltzan, 1872; Yammine, 1995: 58 et al.). The musicians accompanying the dances are assigned to the Bani ‘l-Khums, the common name for the lower social class in the San’a region. In the Tihama and also in the Hadramaut they are assigned to the Ahdam, and in some local–regional areas there are other designations for this restrictive stratification with different scopes (masakin, muzayyinin, ha’ik etc.). These terms are used to describe the social groups whose work or trade is considered “impure”. Depending on the region and situation, the assignment under such a rubric appears more or less extended. As a rule, potters, blacksmiths, butchers, tanners, shoemakers, weavers, barbers, bathers, etc. are assigned to it, and musicians are also classified here. The social hierarchy is occasionally supplemented by another group on the lowest level, from which even

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the Ahdam try to distinguish themselves and to which the Dawshan, the wandering singers, are counted (see Dostal, 1985: 192; Maltzan, 1872: 1024). In the San’a area, professional musicians are concealed under the name of Muzayyin, dialectally Mzayyin (literally—the adorning, beautifying one), which also covers the craft of barber and circumciser. (Lambert, 1997: 175) Depending on the local situation, they also fill other functions or trades. (Yammine, 1995: 28seq.) The growing urbanisation and the onset of medialisation in the last century also brought the vernacular music tradition into certain distress, which was not only noticeable in the large cities such as San’a and Aden, but also touched the flat countryside. Nevertheless, this tradition, whose great social bonding and mediating power is indispensable for the organization of public festivals and celebrations, tribal receptions, festive occasions in the life cycle and the course of the year, etc., is still prevalent in the cities and especially in the flat countryside. No wedding festival with its ritual procedures and entertaining evening events can do without them. Without Bar’a and Le’ba with real music, no real wedding has taken place according to the opinion of the celebrants. Media substitutes are perceived as inadequate and rejected. In Yemen, currently deprived of people and their culture by a criminal war, in the last century the essentially functionally determined musical custom of the underprivileged classes was still entirely in the tradition of specialised self-sufficiency. This is due to the fact that there is no other social institution to train specialists for function-bound music-making. It continues to take place at the family or trade level and imparts the necessary skills and knowledge for the service involved. Music making in general, and so also drumming, is learned from scratch. According to their information, some musicians have been introduced to their family’s trade at a tender age. As a rule, the learning practice begins with being present, watching and listening, participating from a very early age and soon practising lightly (learning by doing). The stroke sequences on the Mirfa’ are simple. But that is not all. In addition to routinising the beating of the Mirfa’, it is important to follow the rhythmic play of the Tasa and to memorise the rhythms of the dances, i.e. to adopt or learn the repertoire. For Yemen, it can be stated that the traditional old attachment of the musical profession to the family and its transmission within a family framework is still generally valid and is subject to the constraints imposed on all socially lower-ranking trades. (cf. also Serjeant, 1976: 140) The musicians I interviewed in this regard were also all in the professional family tradition (see Table 1).

12 Gender Segregation In the Islamic-influenced world of the Orient, the musical public sphere is largely a male-dominated one. Although female musicians were held in high esteem in the preand early days of Islam and in the realm of the feudal aristocracy, this says nothing about their social position and status. In modern times, it is the urban centres and the media that have opened up new opportunities for women musicians to make an impact

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Table 1 The traditional familiar attachment of the musical profession Name

Age (at Place the time of the interview)

Instrument

Profession (for how many years)

Family tradition

Muhammad 65 al-Hamami

San’a

Tasa

Drummer (50)

Father

Humadi al-Hamami

San’a

Tasa

Drummer

Father

Hani al-Hamami

San’a

Mirfa’

Drummer

Father

Mizmar player (~45)

Grandfather, father

‘Abdallah ‘Aqil

50

Ibb

Mizmar

‘Abdallah Mus’id

30

Ibb

Tasa/Mirfa’ Drummer (14)

Friends

‘Abdallah al-Wuraish

70

Ibb

Tasa

Drummer (55)

Family tradition

Salih ‘Ayyash

45

Turba

Mizmar

Carrier/Mizmar player Grandfather, father (20)

Sa’id Salih

Turba

Mirfa’

worker/Drummer

Grandfather, father

Muhammad 34 Yami

Zabid

Mirfa’

Dancer/Dance teacher/ Drummer

Grandfather, father

Muhammad ~75 ‘Ayyash

Zabid

Mizmar

Mizmar player

Family tradition

‘Ali Daliqa

~45

Zabid

Mirfa’

Carrier/Drummer

Family tradition

Sulaiman Zutt

~38

Zabid

Dumduma

Carrier/Drummer

Family tradition

‘Iyas Zutt

40

Zabid

Tabl Mu’asta

worker/Drummer

Family tradition

‘Ayyash Drain

~50

Zabid

Marad

carrier/Drummer/ Family tradition teacher of Marad play

‘Ayish Dirba’

Bait Tabl al-Faqih

Drummer

Grandfather, father

Bait Tabl al-Faqih

Drummer (27)

Family tradition

Muhammad ~30 Nasir

Mukha’ Mirfa’

Tinsmith/Drummer

Grandfather, father (Tinsmithes/Drummer)

Muhammad 35 ‘Ali Dabr

Mukha’ flute

worker/flute player

Father

‘Abduh ‘Awwad

Mukha’ Gohal (a kind of Mirfa’)

Barber/Drummer

Grandfather, father

Juma’i Mubarak

32

38

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and break free from old discriminatory bonds. In Yemen, where the revolution and the medialisation that followed it have made new approaches possible, the traditional double restriction of their sphere of action essentially continues to weigh on women musicians. On the one hand, they are on a low level within the social hierarchy, just like the professional musicians who are committed to the functional practice of music. As a Mzayyna, she shares the fate of being used and at the same time socially disregarded like her husband, the Mzayyin. She helps the families prepare for the wedding, she prepares the bridegroom and bride and also performs the invocatory ritual acts. And she acts as a musician (singing and playing the drum and Sahn), assisted by female family members or colleagues, at ceremonies and to accompany the women’s dances (Yammine, 1995). On the other hand, female musicians, like women in Muslim countries in general, experience a further confinement imposed on them by gender in this patriarchally constituted society. Women are largely excluded from the public sphere; they are not allowed to act there and are restricted to acting in the home. Only in two ritual acts does the Mzayyna enter the patriarchal public sphere, in the ritual intercession for the groom and in the bridal procession. In the Hadramaut, whose social constellation differs in many ways from the conditions on the plateau (for example, there exists still a strong connection to Bedouinism), the traditional separation of the sexes has become even more clearly and institutionally established. The drum ensembles engaged for large weddings and other festivities, for example, are staffed exclusively by women or men, who are each subjected to the time-honoured duty of playing in turn, the so-called “noba”, for their separate part. The noba term has survived to this day in the old residential city of Shihr, including the naming of a women’s ensemble, the Noba al-Na’imat. This ensemble includes two women from a local musical family, two of whose male members are in the male ensemble Firqa al-Zirbadi al-sha’biya. But such family ties do not seem to be universal in relation to the women’s troupes. At least from the lists of names of the women’s ensembles I documented in Sei’un, no family accumulation can be seen. However, my surveys in Sei’un show that there is also a certain differentiation among the women’s ensembles, which obviously has to do with social demands. For example, the Firqat al-Hadriya, which has four members, stands for upscale music-making (Sharh rayyad), while the three-member Firqa Tarbiya offers lighter fare (Raqs ’adjal). The differentiation of music troupes by gender provides the rationale or explanation for other peculiarities of women’s music-making. In the context of their respective functions, the repertoires of men’s and women’s ensembles differ considerably. The repertoires also differ according to social structure and regions (Elsner, 1993 and 2003 respectively). The seclusion of women, who entertain themselves with song and dance at weddings in the houses, is justified, among other things, by the shyness of the seductive effect (fitna) of the female sex. (Yammine, 1995: 172) At the same time, however, the equipment of the women’s musical troupes makes it clear that other aspects are at work, such as the symbolism associated with instruments. It is noticeable that the

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women only use percussion instruments, drums, gongs, percussion woods, but no melody instruments. Melodies are performed vocally alone, solo or as group singing. The wind instruments Mizmar and Qasaba, which are the only instruments used in the functionally bound music of Yemen, are taboo for women because of the sexual meaning associated with them since ancient times, which is also transferred to the music produced. Even the Gabayel have reserves against the Mizmar, which is necessary for the Le’ba, but who they refuse to play because of the shame associated with it (Yammine, 1995: 33seq. and 172).

13 Upheaval—Renewal—Medialisation Until the middle of the last century, Yemen was one of the most economically backward and communicatively hardly developed countries in the Arab world. The cities remained essentially rural towns whose economic activity, apart from handicrafts and trade, depended largely on production in terraced agriculture and in the surrounding oases, as well as nomadic cattle breeding. Socially, tribal relations prevailed until modern times, even in San’a, with a rich internal division and caste formation, which also affected crafts and trade. A fundamental economic and social awakening did not begin until the revolutionary events of the 1960s, in which foreign influences and aid had a not insignificant impact. It also increasingly led to innovations in musical culture. By the 1930s at the latest, despite the major impediment of the restrictive, antiprogressive policies of the orthodox imamate in the north and the colonial interests of England in the south, changes in Yemen’s musical culture were on the horizon. To all appearances, they took off in the foreign-dominated but ideologically not so fettered south. According to the particular regional conditions, they led to different results and were initially concentrated in the liberal manors and the cities. Serjeant (1951: 17seq.), who himself visited the Hadramaut at the end of the 1940s, reports that in the 1930s the old Yemenite Qambus was no longer the leading melodic instrument of aristocratic musical practice in the Hadramaut, as it still seems to have been at the turn of the century according to Landberg (1895). Rather, the sonorous Egyptian ‘Ud had already begun to outstrip the skin-covered lute. Christian Poche attributes the victory of the Egyptian lute over the Qambus to the musical clearcutting that took place under Imam Yahya out of religious extremism (1984, 169). Even today, musicians remember the martial public punishments for making music and possessing musical instruments in the past. An important step towards change and renewal of Yemeni musical culture was the appearance of the violin in Yemen. It also falls into the 1930s at the latest, without the process being reflected in literature. Understandable from the orientation of Yemeni art music, which generally relies on singing and lute accompaniment, the violin is initially used inconspicuously to support singing. Interesting evidence of the early use of the violin in Yemen can be found, among other things, in a record from 1938, which is one of the many pressings of Yemeni music by English companies since

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the early 1930s (see the lists in Ghanem, 1987; Nagi, 1983). The violin appears here among other instruments to accompany the qaside “Bata sahi t-taraf” (The gaze was absent) in the performance of the well-known Aden singer Ibrahim Muhammad al-Mas (Odeon PLA 46). Similar to other Arab countries, but more temporally abbreviated, the change in the material basis of musical production took place in Yemen. The aforementioned introduction of new instruments, especially in the suspicion-free sphere of functional music practice, the distribution and use of records and gramophones that began in the English South (cf. Serjeant, 1951: 17), the installation of radio in 1947 (see El Zine, 1978: 117) characterise it, even though the conservative forces in the South as well as in the North repeatedly attacked the innovations with arguments and bans, as they did music in general. The bigotry of the ban on radio listening and gramophones in San’a is particularly evident insofar as the imam himself owned radios, gramophones and film projection equipment in his summer residence in Ta’iz and of course used them for himself or in the family circle. As far as instruments are concerned, the changes and innovations in Yemen’s musical culture, which began in the 1930s and spread very quickly with the fall of Imam rule in the north and the liberation from British colonial rule in the south, have an omnipresent effect. Reference has already been made to the replacement of the Qambus in aristocratic musical practice by the ‘Ud, a process that is probably almost complete today. However, the change has not affected the function of the lute instrument. It is still in the hands of the singer, who continues to be the soul of the music-making and the groups. In the vernacular music practice, on the other hand, which has been considerably expanded by the founding of vernacular ensembles of the Egyptian type, renewals or changes are taking place in three main ways: 1. 2. 3.

New instruments are being incorporated The traditionally small ensembles are enlarged, and The composition of the ensembles is changing.

Re 1: However, it is necessary to draw a differentiated picture. The innovations and the developments driven by them do not have the same impact everywhere and not in every local or regional music practice. For example, many instruments used in ritual or other traditional musical contexts have essentially remained in use to this day. This is true of the traditional melodic instruments Madruf , Shabbaba, Nay and Qasaba (rimblown open flutes with different numbers of finger holes) and the Mizmar (double clarinet with 5 finger holes each) as well as the Tambura and the Simsimiya (different types of lyre). A new position, however, has been conquered by the violin, which does not retain the subordinate rank that the record example indicated. In a short time it developed with the newly formed ensembles, used chorally according to the Egyptian model, to become the leading melodic instrument alongside the ‘Ud. In the ensembles of the 1960s, other melodic instruments also appeared, mediated through various channels: the Qanun, the accordion, the cello, occasionally the double bass and, more recently, the electronic organ. The accordion and organ are defined as sharqi (eastern, oriental), which means that their tuning is adapted to oriental music.

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Rich in types and styles since ancient times, and although highly developed in terms of playing techniques and tonal design, the rhythmic instruments of Yemen have also undergone innovations. Three percussion instruments were introduced, including two that are now commonly used in Arab countries, namely the cup drum Darbukka (also Darbuka) and the Riqq (tambourine), as well as the Latin bongos. Although a cup drum was available in regional tradition in the form of the Dumbuq, made of clay, which was beaten by fishermen and African slaves to the play of Simsimiya or Tambura, musicians spurned its adoption and resorted to the more delicate and socially unencumbered Darbukka. The replacement of conventional drums by bongos represents a strange paradigm shift that is hardly musically justified. Not as sonically productive as the percussion instruments Mirwas (flat cylinder drum), Mirfa’ (very flat cylinder drum in Hadramaut) and Tasa (kettle drum, bowl shape), which have been set aside—when asked, the musicians confirmed this—their popularity and increasing use is perhaps due to their technical comfort and ease of use. However, the traditional drums have by no means been completely pushed aside in the larger ensembles and functionally bound groups. Most of the time they are used side by side or one after another as the genres change. The traditional women’s group Firqat al-Hadriya from Sei’un, which plays at weddings, practices this. The female musicians perform the ritual parts of their obligation at the wedding with the traditional drums, but when they make music for the entertainment of the guests, which is also stylistically more flexible, they interchange the two Marawis (pl. to Mirwas) with Dumbuq (in Sei’un designation for the Darbukka) and Duff (in Sei’un designation for the Riqq). In a recording I was able to make in Mukalla of the ancient Bedouin dance Habish with the Firqat al-raqs al-sha’bi (folk dance ensemble), an interesting case of changing or re-setting the performance of traditional music is revealed. Originally performed by Mizmar and handclaps, the young members of the urban folk art group realised the dance with the instrumentation of Mizmar, Hagir, Mirwas, bongos and Riqq. Re 2: The example just mentioned shows not only the use of instruments, both indigenous and foreign, which were neither present nor used in the Bedouin tradition, but also an expansion of the number of instruments. Like the general older tradition in Arab countries, the traditional music groups of Yemen were also relatively small. In certain traditions and even in the practice of art music, they were already content with the accompaniment of a melodic or rhythmic instrument, which was often even played by the singer, e.g. in the one-man combination of song and lute or of song and Sahn (metal bowl, gong) in San’a. In the Hadramaut and the Tihama, the number of instruments did not exceed five or six. With the beginning of the 1960s, first in the south, then also in the north, large ensembles were created with different tasks, comprising up to fourteen musicians. Gabir ‘Ali Ahmad reports on this in detail in his article “Present and Future of Song in Yemen” published in the Dirasat Yamaniya in 1988. He lists eleven major ensembles for the south and four for the north. Together with the findings I was able to make during my stay in Yemen in 1979/80 (cf. Elsner 1990 and 2002), there have been at least twenty large music ensembles founded since the beginning of the 1960s.

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Some of them, whose instrumentation, but also the multiple uses of the musicians, are informative, are listed below: Large ensembles in Yemen, selection (according to Gabir 1988 and Elsner 1979/80 [cf. Elsner 1990 and 2002]). 1.

Firqat al-Musiqa al-Haditha (Aden 1961) Instrumentation

2.

al-Firqa al-‘Arabiya lil-Musiqa (Aden 1961, from 1967 San’a) Instrumentation

3.

9 violins 1 accordion 1 Qanun 2 Iqa‘ 1 Riqq.

al-Firqa al-Musiqiya (San’a 1965–1967) Instrumentation

4.

9 violins 1 cello 1 accordion 2 Iqa‘ 1 Riqq.

4 ‘Ud/violin/vocals/composition 1 ‘Ud/violin/vocals/ (traditional chants) 2 ‘Ud/vocals/composition 1 violin 1 Qanun 3 Iqa‘.

al-Firqa al-Musiqiya (at the Nadi al-Funun in Hodeida 1965–1967) Instrumentation:

1 ‘Ud/violin/vocals/omposition 1 ‘Ud/violin/Qanun/vocals 1 ‘Ud/violin/vocals 2 ‘Ud/vocals/composition 2 violins 1 Nay/accordion 1 Iqa´ /vocals 1 vocals.

Other ensembles were formed in the south after 1967 5.

Firqat al-Thaqafa al-Musiqiya at the Muhafaza Lahig (12/1979). Instrumentation

2 ‘Ud/violin/vocals/composition 1 ‘Ud/violin/Qanun/composition 1 ‘Ud/violin/composition 1 ‘Ud/violin/vocals

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1 ‘Ud/violin 1 ‘Ud/vocals/composition 1 violin/contrabass 1 vocals 2 Iqa‘ 1 Bongos/Duff 1 Riqq. 6.

Firqat al-’Amil al-Musiqiya (Zingibar 12/1979) Instrumentation

7.

Firqa (Dali’ 12/1979) Instrumentation

8.

1 ‘Ud/violin/vocals/composition 2 violin(beginners)/vocals. 1 violin(beginner)/Iqa‘ 1 ‘Ud/vocals. 1 Iqa‘ 1 Duff.

Firqat al-Raqs al-Sha’bi (Shihr 1/1980) Instrumentation

9.

1 ‘Ud/violin/vocals/composition 1 ‘Ud/violin/accordion. 2 ‘Ud/violin/composition. 2 violins/vocals. 1 vocals. 1 Iqa‘

Mizmar Nay Hagir Mirwas Mirwas/accordion Mirwas/bongos Dumbuq Duff .

Firqat al-Funun al-Sha’biya of the Administration for Culture and Tourism in the 5th Muhafaza(Mukalla 1/1980) Instrumentation

Mizmar Hagir 3 Mirwas bongos Riqq.

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Re 3: The third important aspect of instrumental change in Yemen’s musical practice concerns the composition of ensembles, i.e. the choice of instruments and how they are put together. This happens in two ways: 1. 2.

Traditional groups alternatively use new instruments (see above). New ensembles are formed with a new choice of instruments and instrumentation.

For the first case I would like to give two examples. The already quoted, very mobile ensemble of young musicians from Shihr used an accordion, Nay, Dumbuq and bongos or an accordion, Nay, Hagir, Mirwas and bongos to perform the fisherman’s dance al-Bahriya with its two parts al-Darbuka and al-Sharhi instead of Simsimiya, singing and 3 Danabiq (pl. to Dumbuq) in the first part and instead of singing, Hagir and Mirwas in the second part. But the women’s ensembles of the Hadramaut, as already mentioned, also know alternative instrumentations. The Firqat al-Hadriya from Sei’un, which traditionally uses Hagir, Mirfa’ and two Mirwas for the wedding song, uses Mirfa’, Duff and Dumbuq for the Saut al-Musamara (Nightly Entertainment). Judging by their instrumentation and their use, the large ensembles formed in the 1960s represent something new. At their heart are the violins. The first group formed in Aden in 1961, the Firqat al-Musiqa al-Haditha, had 9 violins, according to Gabir ‘Ali Ahmad. A cello and an accordion were also involved, and three musicians played drums. The Firqa ‘Arabiya lil-Musiqa, founded a little later, also had 9 violins, plus an accordion and Qanun, and also 3 drummers. But the instrumentation of these groups was certainly more flexible than Gabir ‘Ali Ahmad indicates. My survey of the Firqat al-Thaqafa al-Musiqiya in Lahig at the end of 1979 revealed a somewhat different picture. Almost every musician played a second and sometimes even a third instrument or acted as a singer. Thus, with only 13 ensemble members, the ‘Ud and the Kaman (violin) could be used seven times each, the Qanun and the double bass once each, the rhythm section had five variations and, in addition, five members acted as singers. All in all, there were 26 possible uses for only 13 people. But it is not only in the material conditions of musical practice that changes and innovations can be observed, but also in the production of music itself. For although traditional music basically persists and continues to have an effect with the structures and construction principles set in it—I would only like to refer to the popular classical eleven-beat rhythm Das’a ( 3 + 3 + 2 + 3) that has been handed down to us to this day—new stylistic elements are increasingly coming into use in melody formations, rhythmic formulae, formal developments, sound design and articulation. Their source is especially the more recent developments in Egypt. Yemeni musicians (evidence from Zingibar) have recently spoken of a “laun misri” (Egyptian style, Arab. Laun—colour, style), which is characterized by a corresponding melodic formation and especially by its “New Egyptian” orchestration and a special instrumental articulation. Thus, with the newly founded large ensembles based on the Egyptian model, which were characterised by their novel instrumentation and the massing of one type of melodic instrument, namely the violin, the sound produced shifted considerably. In contrast to the sonorous rhythm of the traditional ensembles,

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whose volume drowned out the vocal or instrumental melody, the melody came to the fore in the new ensembles. This change or new orientation can be seen relatively easily in two interesting examples that were put on the market in Yemen as music cassettes. These are two parallel music recordings of the well-known Yemeni singer and ‘Ud player Ayyub Tarsh ‘Absi, made in Ta’iz in 1988. In the first version of the song “Mahla hawak”, Ayyub Tarsh accompanies himself on the ‘Ud in the traditional manner, while the second version is arranged in a modern way and has an orchestral accompaniment and choral interjections that reveal Egyptian models.

14 Egypt In contrast to the socially stigmatised professional music practice in Yemen, the tradition of music practice in Egypt does not seem to be determined to the same extent by ideologically occupied social exclusion or marginalisation. There is no comparable class discrimination among the peasant population, although there are certainly serious differences and different musical customs due to different social conditions. However, the old patriarchal form of handing down the musical trade, which is often still family-bound, has persisted in Egypt to this day. Here, the professional practice of music in the countryside, which, as a result of the rural exodus, radiates with its most important institutions all the way to the capital, is based on the passing on of musical skills and knowledge from the ancients to the successors. So if the situation of musical culture in Egypt today is basically not different from that in Yemen with regard to the general separation of the sexes, it is all the more different with regard to an emancipatory tendency in the practice of music. But this does not emerge in the functional music practice in the big cities nor in the flat countryside, whose traditional constitution continues to be largely effective and still relegates women to the domestic-family sphere. Attention is focused on the species of female singers who were hired in the cities of the nineteenth century for family celebrations or to entertain the wives of the wealthy, but whose music-making was relegated to the women’s chambers (cf. Lane, 1835 II: 65seq.). In their succession, since the beginning of the last century, highly celebrated and famous female singers have moved from the shadows of the harem into the public sphere of the large urban centres, where they represent a newly emerging popular tradition with a socially mixed clientele. Some of them have achieved international fame. In contrast, in the functional practice of music, both in the cities and in the countryside, the old, often family-bound, but gender-segregating version has survived to this day. The patriarchal form of handing down the musical craft that works in public has persisted until recent days. Whether performed as a soloist or in small ensembles, the musical accompaniment to the aristocratic horse dances or the popular stick dances as well as certain ritual sections of wedding festivities etc. is performed by musicians. The same is true of the processions of the brotherhoods or of the Hilaliya epic, which is performed as a solo.

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These function-bound traditions not only attract the public’s attention through their sometimes vociferous offering of musical performances, but also possess great show value and herald social prestige. In this respect, there are several aspects that justify and perpetuate their existence. While public functional music-making in the countryside is male, women’s musicmaking is assigned to “home and hearth”, so to speak. It is no less bound to concrete functions, although its nature has much more to do with daily life, with events in the life cycle and above all with social and spiritual processes. It is essentially singing, solo and more often in groups, responsorial or antiphonal. Singing accompanies work processes (grain grinting, sifting, bread baking), gives voice to the important events of life (birth, wedding, death), celebrates joyful social processes (farewell and reception of the Mecca pilgrims). During my research on Egypt’s musical culture in the 1960s, I was able to register numerous corresponding examples. In Upper Egypt as well as Lower Egypt, I documented the most diverse examples of public music-making. In many cases, the patriarchal-familial transmission of music-making practice and repertoire could be observed. A prominent position in this respect is occupied by the troupes called Mizmar Baladi or Tabl Baladi, which are widespread and popular throughout Egypt. They are usually composed of several oboes (mizmar), large cylindrical drum (tabl) and small timpani (nuqqara). With a Mizmar Baladi group from Akhmim, in which father and son played Mizmar and two brothers from a second family created the rhythm part, stick dance combat games (tahtib) and solo stick dance could be recorded. In the ensemble that accompanied stick dance combat games in alTulaihat, father, son and nephew played the Mizmar, while the brothers of another musical family operated Tabl and Nuqqara. The young members of the Mizmar Baladi group accompanying the horse dance in Arabat al-Madfuna, who came from different families, collectively invoked family lore from grandfather through father. It is also worth mentioning, even if not performed professionally, the singing and instrumental playing of the fellahs during their various activities in the open countryside and also on certain ritual occasions of folk life, when working the fields, drawing water with the Shaduf or Tambura, during harvesting work, threshing with the threshing sledge, etc., at weddings and more. But also personal states of mind, joys and sorrows, as well as social problems offer occasion to make music, often even instrumentally. All these musical pronouncements in public are male. Compared to the easy accessibility of music produced in public, the musical sphere of women is more difficult to grasp. Among my Egyptian recordings, recordings of antiphonal female chants from Upper Egypt (Siflaq) for the farewell and return of Mecca pilgrims are particularly interesting. This is because it is usually the men who organise the celebrations for the departure and return of the pilgrims. Furthermore, I was able to document lamentations (nawah) about the death of loved ones, performed solo or by two or three women, whose high emotionality is very touching.

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15 Historical Depth Looking at the world’s musical practices and traditions in their diversity requires a historical approach. This is true in general, even if some musical cultures of human communities in areas of retreat have not yet been explored, or the time-honoured musical practices of particular ethnic groups or minorities within state entities have not yet entered the general field of vision. In view of the enormous processes of cultural shifts, changes, displacements and developments triggered by globalisation, historical reassurance is of great importance. The cultures that have grown over large historical periods and are bound to specific (of course also changeable) communities, and which continue to have an effect into the present, as relatively independent, highly complex systems, are witnesses of human creativity and history that cannot be neglected. Not only that the cultures developed by the peoples of the world in their history are much richer in content than previous scientific efforts have revealed to us. Far too little—and this has to do with the insufficient degree of exploration and perception—has the inner richness, the differentiation, the mental and practical contents (sociability, communication, social attunement and orientation, involvement in social community, preparation and execution of actions, etc.) been communicated, taken note of or even intellectually enriched.

16 The Aiyai Genre A special perspective that sheds light on the historical dimension of tribal musical tradition is offered by the Aiyai singing of the nomads in the area of the Algerian Sahara Atlas. The genre belongs to the poetic-musical tradition of the descendants of the Arab tribal units of the Hillal and the Sulaim, who invaded North Africa in several spurts in the eleventh century (Benmoussa, 1989; Elsner, 2002). Their third contingent left its mark on central Algeria in particular, whose tradition lives on in the tribal associations of the Larba and the Ouled Nail. These nomads did not settle down for the most part until the twentieth century. The Aiyai genre is mainly associated with the Ouled Nail. In its time, Aiyai singing played an important part in the organisation of various indigenous festivals and for a long time occupied a place in the evening prime time slot on Algerian television. Only a knowledge of the many personal and local traditions of the Aiyai makes it possible, in addition to the poetic component, to understand its musical structure and historical roots and to appropriate the “peculiar” (Goethe, 1972c: 274–286 /II/) articulated in it. In the 80s of the last century, Abdelhamid Benmoussa, during his terrain work in the said area, identified about 35 different species of the Aiyai genre with over 100 subspecies or variants. (Benmoussa, 1989) They represent a variety of personal, local and also regional versions. According to the sources, however, the history of the Aiyai chant accompanied by one or more Gasbas (open longitudinal flutes) in the

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mediation of the Hillal and Sulaim rooted in Arabia goes back far into pre-Islamic times. Its structural features and design principles generally correspond to ArabicOriental musical thinking, in the founding and shaping of which the music of the Bedouins was significantly involved. It is of great importance for the understanding of Arabic music-making. The Aiyai chants, performed in the traditional manner, are structurally based on thirds, fourths and fifths. The melodies built on the basis of such small-scale structural nuclei have a relatively small range from a fourth to a sixth. For their position in the system to which they are related, the fourth and the fifth are important as framework intervals. These are the same intervals that played a fundamental role in the formation and development of the Arabic tonal system and also determined the system permutations in the history of Arabic music. I outlined these system permutations as historically significant events in the development of the music of the Muslim world years ago in a study on the maqam Sikah. They marked decisive upheavals, shifts, dislocations and also separations in the musical cultures of the Near and Middle East and North Africa. As early as in the seventh century Syrian-Byzantine and Persian influences had superseded the old Arabian second-fourth structured tone system the traces of which are to be found still today in instrumental tunings and performing practices of Algeria and Morocco. It was replaced by a new complex structure fixed on the fourth. The new system found its theoretical reflection in different forms (Khalil, Ishaq al-Mausili, al-Kindi, al-Farabi, Ibn Sina etc.; cf. among others Neubauer, 1995) and reached its peak in the systematic description of Safi ad-Din in the thirteenth century. Certainly, in the fourth-fifth construction of his cycles the development of an important new change of the system was already announced, in which the fifth played the first fiddle. The shift of emphasis from the fourth below to the fifth above started at the latest in lifetime of Safi ad-Din. In the days of ash-Shirazi (1236–1311) the fourth degree of the system was acknowledged already explicitly as the most important note instead of the lowest degree. It took the central position of the permuted system and keeps this until today (Elsner, 2006: 76). As a result of the strong influence of Persian musical practice around 1300 the “most prominent note” of the system was shifted to the fourth (Wright, 1992: 484). This had serious consequences. The fifth-fourth structure as a new system reference created problems for the melodic material with a fourth structure, which was still held as the norm for a long time by subsequent treatise writers. At the time, the fourth shaped the melodic structure of many regional traditions, which is especially true of the classical traditions of Central Asia, for which Abdurashidov emphasises “the fourth as the most characteristic interval” (Abdurashidov 1992: 13). But even in today’s traditions of the Near East and North Africa, there are numerous melodies with a fourth structure. It is important to keep this aspect in mind. The systemic permutation created a new constellation for the traditional tonal-melodic structures. Not all of them fitted easily into the new fifth-fourth system. Musicians and theorists, confronted with the new system conception—provided they were not far from the centres of innovation and were bound to a strong tradition at peace with itself—found an alternative in a practical way. They shifted the traditional

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repertoire of melodies, which were committed to the old fourth-second structure, not by a fourth from the system keynote G to c, the keynote of the permuted system, but by a fifth to d. This solution represents a compromise between the new system with its fifth-fourth structure and the essentially fourth-oriented repertoire of, among others, Central Asia. On the one hand, it accepts that the fourth-determined system (on G) has been transformed into the fifth-determined system (on c). This transformation, however, caused the structurally second-ranking octave g of the old system to move into the position of the fifth, which structurally and tonal-melodically advanced to a central supporting tone of the new system. On the other hand, however, the old fourthfourth structure adapted to the new situation only insofar as it was simply moved up a fifth without any inner change. This paid respect to the important supporting tone g of the new system, with which the fourth of the old system, which functioned as a second framework tone, coincided without damaging its own structural characteristics or those of the new system, or without changing the pitch to an extreme degree. We will not go into the problems that arose with the arrangement of parts of the former repertoire with regard to the tonal stock of the pentachord, which is based on Rast (c), and which made it necessary to adapt or expand the tonal stock or to adapt the melodies to it. In the present context, it is important to point out that the aforementioned systemic permutation has had historical effects as far away as North Africa. However, this did not happen without abatement. Through the mediation of the Ottomans, Egypt and Tunisia adopted the systemic permutation in practice and in theory, and Algeria too, but without the change taking full effect in all local traditions (cf. Elsner, 1997: 71–72). What is interesting about the latter case is that the contradiction between the changed system structure and parts of the ancestral melodic repertoire has been preserved in the reflections of Algerian musicians and is still clearly tangible in some tubu‘ pointing to the medieval East. These include the tubu’ Rasd fixed on d’, the old counterpart to the newer tab’ Rasd ed-Dil fixed on c’, then the tab’ Djarka with its fixed double-fourth structure, which is difficult for the fifth-fourth system, as well as the tab’ Sika marbouta (bound Sika), which, in contrast to the newer Sika matlouqa (free Sika) finalising on the third degree of the system, also starts on d’ (Elsner, 2018). It is interesting to note that the double position of the system approach not only occurs in the classical music of Algeria, but has evidently become effective even in the nomadic Aiyai. It does not, however, affect the Aiyai species with a fifth structure, such as Teryash and Qats, whose position corresponds to the new modified system and does not change structurally even when extended by one tone. This group, which fully fills the system fifth with its fifth frame work, shows analogies to the development of the high culture already described, which began in the thirteenth century. The double approach, on the other hand, occurs in the fourth-structured Aiyai species Srudji, Gsuri, Sa’ihi and Baburi. It varies from place to place. To distinguish them, the musicians use the terms “habet” (descending, falling, sinking, low) and “tali’” (rising, ascending, increasing, high). The addition of “habet” after the Aiyai name indicates the basic form of the Aiyai species, which starts with the fundamental of the system fifth. The suffix “tali’”, however, covers two different possibilities of

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realisation. In the first case, the melodic nucleus of the given Aiyai type begins one tone above the fundamental, in accordance with the late medieval transposition of the fourth-structured melodies by a fifth. The included whole tone between the fundamental of the system and the melodic fourth completes the latter to the systemappropriate fifth. In the second case, the melodic nucleus rises with the fundamental of the system fifth and is filled up to the fifth by a tone added to the framework fourth above. It is obvious that the Aiyai tradition has absorbed impressions, information, suggestions, structural patterns in whatever way it has been conveyed along its historical path. The result is that the Bedouin musicians, with great creative potency, considerably expanded and enriched the fourth-oriented music of their tribes, which had its roots in pre-Islamic times, by referring to the fifth structure that had been preferred regionally since the late Middle Ages. Given the traditional fourth orientation of music-making, this was reflected in the acceptance of the fifth as a structural interval and system basis. The Aiyai species with a fifth structure mentioned above belong to this context. A particular creative achievement of the Aiyai musicians, however, is the processing of the structural problems stirred up by the late medieval systemic permutation, or rather their echoes. In addition to the system-compatible Aiyai types with a fifth structure, they retain on the one hand the fourth-bound melodic models of the Aiyai in their basic state (habet versions). On the other hand, strong in tradition and cleverly, they get to the bottom of the problems of the systemic change with two different locally used tali’ versions (by transposing or fitting in). On the one hand, they reproduce a fictitious “identity-preserving” fifth transposition of fourth-coined melodies in the new fifth system, and on the other hand, they adapt such melodies with fifth expansion to the constellation of the fifth system. The two situations captured by the term tali’ thus result in two differently structured fifths: the first is composed of whole tone + fourth, the second of fourth + whole tone. Altogether, the following four system structures in fifth space result from the Aiyai material: Fifth Fourth Whole tone + fourth Fourth + whole tone. In this way, the Bedouin musicians tapped into the late medieval redefinition of the system in continuation of their ancestral, venerable tradition, without breaking with it. Insofar as the analogies pointed out between peculiarities of the Aiyai repertoire and the classical Arabic-Oriental musical tradition, whose theoretical reflections were primarily referred to for understandable reasons, can be considered accurate, with all due restraint, they provide a glimpse into the historical life or stages of development of this highly interesting genre. It unites productions whose construction points genealogically to the pre-Islamic period, the heyday of Arabic-Islamic music in the central Middle Ages and the Persian-Turkish influenced period since the end of the Middle Ages. The great wealth of forms and creative principles that characterize the recent tradition of Aiyai singing can be understood in its manifold

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structure and differentiation as the work and result of a tradition of Bedouin musicmaking in Central Algeria that is deeply rooted in history and has remained vital until modern times. This may be suitable for sharpening the view for historically developed qualities in musical productions that have been handed down in memory. The presentation of modern changes and developments in Yemen should provide not only a regional insight into the compatibility of tradition and renewal, but also into the musicians’ ability and willingness to expand and change their traditional repertoire and activities. Circumstances and a comprehensible interest on the part of the musicians in the potential effects of their socially directed activities lead to a meaningful change in the traditional practice of music, to open up new possibilities for it. The presentation of the Bedouin Aiyai pursued a different perspective. It aims at the historical integration of a genre. Although it is also about the refinement and the expansion of the traditional, the focus is on the effect of a historical system upheaval that happened centuries ago far away, and the processing of its suggestions with the result of the system-generated interesting expansion of the traditional repertoire, which is much older in its roots. Finally, a look at the development of the musical culture of the Muslim-Arab empire should make it clear that the rising development of central economic and political power can also develop completely new potencies in matters of musical culture through the incorporation of moments of the most diverse musical traditions, without overriding, pushing aside or even destroying the locally or regionally existing traditions.

17 The Caliphate With the rise of Islam as a powerful ideology that brought half continents under the rule of Arab rulers in the blink of an eye, a new species of musical culture also came on the scene. It developed on the basis of the musical traditions reaching far back into the history of the Arab tribes and early states on the Arabian Peninsula and in the Middle East, and had good starting chances through the musical culture of Yemen and Hadramaut, which is still praised today, as well as the famous cultural centres in the Hidjaz and in the south of Iraq (al-Hira in particular). With the absorption and adoption of the music of the conquered or newly neighbouring and culturally advanced states of the eastern Mediterranean to the Middle East, of Byzantium or Persia and their satrapies, the musical culture of the new empire gained validity both in the Near and Middle East as well as in the Mediterranean region across North Africa to Spain. Even in the third century of the Muslim era, after Arabic music had reached a brilliant peak with musicians like Ishaq al-Mausili (d. 850), to name but one name, and radiated out into the world, the awareness of its sources was still alive. Influenced by the horizons of the Arab feudal empire, al-Farabi (d. 950), as can be seen from his Great Book of Music, regarded it as the result of normal musical competence and therefore placed it on an equal footing with Arabic music. In the same context, however, he also pronounced a condemnation of the music of certain peoples. He considered the way of life to be anomalous, including the food, the clothing and also

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the music of the tribes living beyond the southern and northern borders of the Arab empire, such as the inhabitants of the Sudan and Ethiopia, the Turkic peoples and the Slavic tribes, not to mention the peoples of Central and Northern Europe (al-Farabi, 1930: 38seq.). The core and starting point of the great development of Muslim-Arab musical culture is the concept of tonally and melodically determined tone groups (djins) and their combinations (shadd, tarkib), which can be traced back to the ancient Arab musicians and which was taken up by the theoreticians and which since ash-Shirazi (thirteenth century) has been known as maqam. This complex term has remained valid to the present day despite considerable and often contradictory changes and developments in its content. In order to be able to grasp and relate the different potentials of tone group-based musical thinking and articulation developed through several periods of history and scattered over two continents, I proposed at the time, in abstraction of the maqam concept of modern times as the most complex stage of development of this type of melodically oriented musical production, the working term “maqam principle” (Elsner, 1989: 11seq.). It allows us to consider not only highly developed, complex musical productions but also simple productions originating from tribal or folk music practices. Although these are far inferior in complexity, they nevertheless belong to the same type of musical thinking and articulation and probably preceded them. The maqam principle as a general expression for a universal musical production model has developed in a multitude of different historical stages of development and regional traditions from Central Asia to Northwest Africa. On the firm foundation of tonal-melodically characterized tone groups, a highly specialized musical production according to maqamat finally developed. It is prefigured in the music of the ancient oriental states and empires, as evidenced by the seven “royal melodies” (turuq almulukiya) of the ancient Persians (probably the ancient Persian system of the seven parda-ha [pl. to parda—pers. for sound, also maqam], of which Djumaev speaks [Djumaev, 1992: 146–147]; see also Neubauer, 1998: 4) or the melodic designation “Khusraw¯an¯ı". It reached its zenith with the establishment of the Muslim-Arab world empire as well as in the period of its particularisation and developing rivalry of different centres of power. It is characterized by the increased absorption and amalgamation of personal, local and regional traditions (which was reflected, among other things, in maqam designations with reference to persons and tribes as well as to places and regions) and the canonisation and codification and, in particular, the joining of the same and different tone groups. Safi ad-Din was the first to systematise the available tone groups having an extent of a fourth or a fifth, and from this he constructed 84 different octaves (7 × 12) called daur (pl. adwar), the lower fourth of which is the central, dominant structure, to which a fourth extended to a fifth with an additional tone is tied toward the height. In the practice of the time after him, the compound maqamat and the branches (murakkab, tarkib, shu’ba) gain increasing importance. The apparently irresistible influence of Persian classical musical practice in the late Middle Ages caused a drastic reshaping of this system (system permutation) and initiated a new, characteristic line of development of melody formation according to the maqam principle. The subsequent influence of the Turkic peoples

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and the period of Ottoman rule eventually, building on this, significantly shaped the modern development of maqam. Until the present day, the formation of melodies according to the principle of tone groups plays a fundamental role in the Orient.

18 Fund of Intellectual and Cultural Achievements The musical traditions of peoples represent a historically developed, irretrievable fund of intellectual achievements of social communities, or more generally—of humanity. In spite of all commercial exploitation, says Laurent Aubert, “they remain above all human values, in the noblest sense of the term. (2007: 68) The assessment of music as an irreplaceable treasure is based on the realization that every musical culture has a special meaning that is closely linked to the history and fate of its bearers. It is unmistakable and represents a part of the activity, the identity, the cohesion, the perspective of the respective community. It is lost when it is deprived of its reference and its inner coherence. Created as part of the perception, management and shaping of the natural and social world of its bearers in a historical dimension and handed down in change and development, it requires not only a strong awareness of its bearers for its dynamic-creative continuation and effectiveness under present conditions. First and foremost, it needs time that allows for renewed self-reflection and self-determination in the enormous daily flood of intrusive and often irresistible, externally determined flows of goods and information. Otherwise, from one generation to the next, from one day to the next, there will inevitably be damage, mutilation, reversal or even destruction of tradition, with which the meaning, the uniqueness of a musical culture will be more or less lost. This loss, however, is not only a loss for those directly affected, even if they think they have made a profit with the replacement, but equally and even more a loss for a humanizing humanity, which absolutely cannot be compensated for by the gain of one of its members in the market and power. Although not comparable in substance, the process has something in it like the deforestation of tropical forests, which is profitable for some, but devastating for humanity and its future, the waste of natural resources, the extinction of animal and plant species, etc. The opening up of foreign music for those outside of tradition is in question when societies develop and release forces of expansion from internal dynamics and expand their sphere of influence beyond themselves. Historically, this has happened in many ways, albeit for different reasons and with different motivations. In addition to trade and peaceful exchange, imperial developments and conquests have played a special role, and even our current situation is still shaped by them. Depending on the cultural status of the opponents and the aspirations and ideas of power of the expanders or conquerors, these upheavals have been favourable to the continuation, the takeover, the opening up of the culture of the inferiors, or they have brought them disdain and even destruction.

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The alternative to the globalized selling off of the world’s musical cultures is their perception based on profound knowledge and recognition. This requires efforts and is exhausting, but enjoyable. It means understanding the historically determined and evolved musical culture of a community. Respecting its particularity and absorbing it completely, immersing oneself fully in the spiritual world of the other, is the key to its knowledge for the distant listener. The intimate understanding of the peculiarities and merits of foreign music, i.e. its spiritual appropriation, brings with it an immense enrichment of the seeker. But not in the material sense, but in terms of competence, horizon and experience of the world, in the sense of spiritual-cultural existence and enjoyment. It is an appropriation without dispossession, as Georg Knepler has so aptly pointed out (Knepler, 1977: 226seq.). On the other hand, the broadening of horizons that accompanies this appropriation can contribute significantly to placing one’s own musical culture, inherited from childhood, in a completely new light, to better perceiving its wonders and glories. But it also allows us to suspect or even recognize where its specificity, which has a limited definiteness, stands in the way of the articulation of dormant or even sidelined impulses and movements. The gain in competence and self-knowledge that comes from understanding access to the traditions of others is joined by another benefit worth considering. The access to foreign musical traditions, coming from outside and aiming at the acquisition of profound understanding, not least produces an effect that goes beyond the initial motif and is favourable to and promotes the originator. Through the action, the source and its bearer, which rightly plays a not insignificant role in today’s ethnomusicological argumentation, can generally experience a revaluation and even a reassessment in its domestic circle. Goethe had already noticed with regard to the “approach without affectation”, i.e., the sensible, original transmission of foreign folk and national poetry, that the “Ausheimische”, as he calls the foreign that is taken up and transposed for us natives, can be used to convey a beneficial repercussion (Goethe, 1972c /II/: 286). He proves this, among other things, with the “pleasing anecdote” that Serbs staying in Vienna, who at first hesitated to fix these songs for fear of an unfavourable comparison between their Gusle songs, which were reviled at home, and German poetry. However, after taking note of his “Klaggesang von der edlen Frauen des Asan Aga” (Lament Song of the Noble Women of the Asan Aga) recognised the serious intention and renounced their refusal (Goethe, 1972c /II/: 283seq.; see also Goethe, 1972d /I/: 274). The overarching aspect thus has a certain altruistic component that prevents the foreign musician from being degraded to a mere supplier for one’s own needs, to a victim of egoistic addictions and satisfactions, but instead makes him a brother and combatant in overarching efforts for human interests that cannot be postponed today, through common cultural objects and understanding. However, this should not be done in the Hegelian sense of the general human, which is seen as effective only where it is able to break through the barrier of the particular, the peculiar and make itself comfortable to our understanding (Hegel, 1965: 419 and 483), but in the sense of the more far-sighted Goethe, whose understanding was to “recognize the poetic talent in all expressions and to notice it as an integral part looping through the

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history of humanity” (Goethe, 1972a /III/: 287). Hegel’s pervasive graecocentrism, which constricts the understanding of art, is abolished with Goethe. His view is cosmopolitan and demands a thorough engagement with the foreign: “Such national poems,” he says, “are not to be regarded appropriately as individuals, out of context, and are even less to be judged, least of all to be enjoyed in the right sense. What is generally human is repeated in all peoples, but under a foreign costume, under a distant sky, it gives no real interest; but what is particular to each people only alienates, it seems strange, often repugnant, like everything peculiar that we have not yet grasped in a concept, have not yet learned to appropriate: For this reason, one must see such poems en masse before one, since then wealth and poverty, narrowness or broad-mindedness, profound origins or shallowness of the day can be more readily perceived and judged” (Goethe, 1972c /II/: 276). This touches on another decisive aspect of access to foreign music, namely the true immersion in it, the intimate understanding of its special features and advantages, its historically determined and evolved meaning. It means nothing less than perceiving, accepting and overcoming the difference between two ways of thinking, mine and the other’s, but not by approximating mine, whereby the actual sense of the foreign original is distorted, but by fully grasping the spiritual world of the others, their feelings and pleasures (Goethe, 1972b /IV/: 290). The boundaries must be transcended by not only opening up the principles and elements of the foreign musical system of thought and articulation and the repertoire that supports them with its intonations, figures and images, but also by acquiring them intellectually in a comprehensive way. The foreign only reveals itself fully when one is able to live in it completely, when it has become second nature. This crossing into a foreign musical world does not require a conversion that presupposes denying and eradicating one’s starting point or own origin. Rather, it means an expansion of one’s own musical experiences through wisdom of life acquired under other suns and thus not a loss, but an enrichment in the perception and contemplation of the world. With reference to the much-discussed question of identity in the relevant literature, we are not dealing here with the dilution, endangerment or a “clash” (Deschênes, 2005: 9seq.) of individual or community identities, but with their expansion and enrichment (enrichissement). After all, both cultures and “identities” not only have differently extended time frames and characteristics, but also different potentials for development. In this sense, a reasonable relationship to foreign cultural traditions can contribute significantly to sublimating the understanding of the historical diversity of human development. But it must remain clear that the understanding of the foreign art product, the enjoyment of the sense sunk into it, cannot be had at half price. Without penetrating the underlying way of thinking and intonation, the foreign sound structure remains a sounding shell, “the spirit that blows through and through” disappears (Goethe, 1972b /IV/: 290). No matter how pleasant and fascinating the offer may be, such as the virtuoso two- and three-part solo throat singing of the Mongols and Tuvinians, or Indonesian gamelan music, etc., being absorbed by something does not mean truly appropriating it. Only the full absorption of even the unprecedented subtleties of construction and the subtly differentiated and yet characteristic and unmistakable intonations opens up the deep content of these musical traditions and invites us to their

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enriching enjoyment. It is therefore not only a matter of taking note of foreign music, but of immersing oneself completely in the sphere of foreign music, of opening up its own “cognitive universe” (Alvarez-Pereyre/Arom, 1993: 25), of becoming more and more familiar with its attitudes and ways of thinking, and finally of fraternizing with it completely (Goethe, 1965: 309).

19 Conclusion: Humane Globalisation Globalization, as the battering ram and steamroller of capitalist economy, is not designed for the sharing of profits by all people, but rather for their removal from the account. With this violent dictatorial reduction of winners, pretending to be free and democratic, globalizing humanity, if it does not realize it, is blindly severing its own lifeblood. The end of resources, the minimisation of producers as consumers inexorably conjures up the end of this strange world order. In spite of all current clash with the world development, the preservation of humanity’s cultural wealth in its relative integrity is an essential component of a very complex, but precisely humane globalization process and a condition for survival in general. In a sense, it is about the preservation and sublimation of human existence. Just as in the history of humankind cultural development has basically only taken place in the dialectical interrelationship of personal achievement and exchange, the existence of difference and diversity and their interplay will probably also be of fundamental importance in the future for the continued existence and progress of a cultivated way of being. The highly developed conditions and requirements of world society cannot be satisfied by reducing the musical cultures of the world to a few paradigms that allow the mass production of an easily and unconditionally absorbed and therefore quickly marketable commonplace music with the help of purposefully picked-up building blocks and set pieces from foreign musical cultures. Instead of the plundering of musical cultures for mere exploitation and their subsequent desolation or even destruction by cheap market products, the only viable alternative is the complete and actual exploration and appropriation of the foreign. If such appropriation takes place in the sense of mutual recognition and respect, it does not lead to the damaging inheritance, dispossession or even destruction of the other, but to their understanding. It is an enrichment of the appropriator, but not in the sense of possessing and having, but in his own spiritual-cultural existence, in his ability to know and enjoy the world. It is an expansion of the horizon into the global, but not a narrowing of the global to the horizon of the beneficiary. It is the true globalization of human culture instead of the globalisation of commodity culture.

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Poche, C. (1984). “Qanbus”. In The New Grove’s Dictionary of Musical Instruments III (pp. 168– 169). MacMillan. Sandel, M. (2018). The rise of populism is a reaction to the impoverishment of public discourse. Neue Zürcher Zeitung (Feuilleton), interview Markus Ziener. April 4, 2018, online April 30, 2018. Seeger, A. (1996). Ethnomusicologists, Archives, Professional Organizations, and the Shifting Ethics of Intellectual Property. Yearbook for Traditional Music, 28, 87–105. Serjeant, R. B. (1951). Prose and Poetry from Hadramawt. Taylor’s Foreign Press. Serjeant, R. B. (1976). Social stratification in Arabia. In R. B. Serjeant (Ed.), The Islamic City (pp. 126–147). UNESCO. Shankar, R. (1970). Musique ma vie. Editions Stock. Völkerkunde für Jedermann (authors’ collective). (1966). Gotha/Leipzig: VEB Hermann Haack, Geographisch-Kartographische Anstalt Gotha/Leipzig. Wright, O. (1992). Segah: an historical outline. In J. Elsner & G. Jähnichen Regional maqam traditions in history and the present, Materials of the 2nd Workshop of the Study Group “maqam” of the International Council for Traditional Music, 23–28 March 1992, Gosen near Berlin (pp. 480–509). Humboldt University Berlin. Yammine, H. (1995). Les hommes des tribus et leur musiques (Hauts-plateaux yéménites, vallée d’al-Ahjur). Thèse présentée en vue du grade de docteur de l’université de Paris X. Zemp, H. (1996). An Ethnomusicologist and the Record Business. Yearbook for Traditional Music, 28, 36–56.

Jürgen Elsner studied music theory, musicology, and Arabic and undertook research trips to Egypt, Algeria, Iraq, Uzbekistan, Azerbaijan, Yemen, Syria, and Kuwait. In 1975, he was appointed to the chair of ethnomusicology at the Humboldt University of Berlin. He founded together with H. Powers/USA and F. Karomatli/Tashkent the ICTM Study Group “maqam” and organized nine workshops and published books and articles on new German music history (Hanns Eisler, Ernst Busch), the musical culture of the Arab countries (maqam, North Africa, Yemen) and on conceptual questions of musicology. He is currently working on an edition of the classical instrumental music of Algeria and on a study of the musical culture of Yemen.

Re-sonating Voices, Sounds, and Memories: The Repatriation of 60-Year-Old Field Recordings from Sagada, Mountain Province in Northern Philippines LaVerne David de la Peña and Alma Louise B. Bagano Abstract In 2014, the University of the Philippines Center for Ethnomusicology (UPCE) began a music repatriation program with the aim of reintroducing recordings from its archives back to the communities where they were collected from. With the goal of enabling communities to reconnect with voices, sounds and memories, repatriation would at the same time allow present-day researchers to collect new data. Digital copies of around 40 tracks recorded by Lester Brooks in 1954 and Jose Maceda in 1960 were returned to the municipality of Sagada in Northern Philippines, and distributed among various sectors, including local government offices, schools and community leaders. This chapter contemplates repatriation as experienced by an institution as it endeavors a redirection of its mandate from the collection and protection of artifacts towards a model of cultural conservation that seeks and promotes the active involvement of source communities. It is in this spirit that the succeeding discussion presents the voices from the institution (de la Peña) and from the community (Bagano). Keywords Music repatriation · Archive · Field recording · Transcription

1 Introduction Lancefield defines musical repatriation as the conveyance of sound recordings from archives to people who feel that the sound is part of their heritage (Lancefield, 1998). Seeger goes further by qualifying repatriation as the “return of music to circulation in communities where it has been unavailable as a result of external power differences” (Seeger, 2019). Deposited in archives as scholarly documents, these sound objects are virtual snapshots of the past; they have accrued symbolic value among scholars and source communities as “traces” of ephemeral moments L. D. de la Peña (B) University of the Philippines, Diliman Quzon City, Philippines e-mail: [email protected] A. L. B. Bagano 49 A. Mabini St. UP Campus, Diliman Quzon City, Philippines © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. 2021 Y. Lu and O. Elschek (eds.), The Legacy of Indigenous Music, Sinophone and Taiwan Studies 4, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-16-4473-3_5

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from a world that has been lost. In post-colonial states like the Philippines, the past is highly idealized and regarded as deeply connected to a national identity—one that is uncontaminated by colonizing forces and thus revered as presenting a truer image of a people. Pioneering ethnomusicologists like Jose Maceda (1917–2004) were driven by the quest to uncover, understand and preserve the traces of this old world. Maceda’s lifework is encapsulated in the monumental venture titled as An Ethnomusicological Survey of the Philippines, a succession of groundbreaking field research expeditions intended to cover the entire archipelago spanning approximately four decades. This enterprise would end up amassing around 2500 h of field recordings, 421 containers of field notes and around 800 containers of related paper documents, 10,000 photographs and 1000 musical instruments. The Jose Maceda Collecton (JMC) as the compendium is called, is now ensconced as the core holding of the UPCE archives.1 In 2007, the collection gained international recognition by virtue of its inscription into the UNESCO Memory of the World Registry. A decade after Maceda’s death, a new generation of workers at the UPCE took on the task of maintaining and preserving his valuable collection. To reactivate field research, they adopted a research agenda dubbed as the ReCollection Project that proposed to revisit the sites that Maceda surveyed from the 1950s. A key component of this agenda was to repatriate copies of field recordings to the places where they were collected from, conceived as an act of restoring back to the community the dislocated memories embedded in the tracks. In doing so, the center intended to affirm the conviction that the source communities are the rightful owners of the artifacts and are thus entitled at the very least access to them. At the same time, there was hope that repatriation would propel conversations with and within the community which will bring to light the present status of the music. It will enable the center to update existing data, gather new knowledge, and perhaps foster a rekindling of interest in the music within the community. Repatriation then is to be both a goal and a methodology; it is not just an “ancillary applied or advocative work” but also “doing ethnomusicology in the most classic sense” (Iyanaga, 2019). The first site selected to implement the project was Sagada, a mountain town in Northern Philippines and the source of the earliest recordings in the UPCE archives. On the chapter titled as Reflections On Reconnection, Daniel Reed contemplates on two types of memory—human and archival. According to him, the former is fluid, oral, messy and selective, while the latter is static, mediated, tangible and often authoritative (Reed, 2019). He goes further by stating how repatriation is the intersection of archival and human memory, an encounter that can be deeply meaningful. The repatriation of 60-year-old recordings to a remote village was perhaps premised on the assumption that this was simply the right thing to do for an institution that has benefitted from possessing these objects in the first place. In this endeavor, the center nevertheless conveys a deliberate effort on the part to move forward and beyond from 1

Aside from the JMC, the center’s holdings also include materials donated by different institutions, researchers and private individuals. UPCE continues to accept materials for inclusion to their collection, given that the data contents of the materials are relevant to UPCE’s mandate; that it contains research or analytical data on ethnomusicology, musicology, folklore, linguistics, and anthropology; and that the general physical condition of the donated materials is at least in stable condition.

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being mere caretakers of objects that are highly valued but estranged from the people who produced them to becoming co-facilitators of cultural conservation (see Landau, & Fargion, 2012). Furthermore, the exercise has stimulated the act of remembering not only by the receiving community but by the center itself as it gets re-acquainted with the artifacts and the institutional memories that these elicit.

2 Sagada Nestled in the Cordillera mountains in Northern Philippines some 5000 feet above sea level, the municipality of Sagada is home to about 11,127 residents who belong to the Kankanay ethnolinguistic group.2 With its cool climate, forests, limestone rock formations, cave networks and rice terraces, Sagada has become a growingly favored destination for local and foreign backpacking tourists. Apart from the relatively unspoiled natural environment, travelers see the quaint village setting and the apparent well-preserved life ways of the locals as the ideal escape from city life no longer found in places such as Baguio City which is dubbed as the summer capital of the country. This image of a pristine paradise as immortalized by the local photographer Eduardo Masferré in his panoramic landscapes and iconic portraiture of the Igorot3 natives in black and white (Masferré, 1999) have been effectively employed by the tourism industry. The main thrust of the region’s master plan for tourism development is anchored on nature and culture, also known in the industry as ecotourism. Thus, the aim is to “preserve, conserve and enhance the area’s natural environment and its rich tribal culture for people and visitors to appreciate, enjoy and learn from (Dulnuan, 2005).” It is this branding that beguiles the traveler into a world untouched by the troubles of the modern society (see Bulilan, 2007). Tourist arrivals have slowly increased since the 1970s and exploded in the last decade, aided by free publicity from travelers’ postings on social media and popular movies shot there on location.4 In reality, the i-Sagada (people of Sagada) have had a long and close interaction with the outside world. American missionaries made early inroads and established an Anglican faith community in 1902 that continues to play a central role in the community today (see Jones, 2002). The Church of Saint Mary the Virgin, was built in 1904 under the auspices of the Episcopal Church in the United States. Its iconic building remains, till today, as the most photographed spot in town. In the same year, the American missionary Rev. Fr. John Staunton founded the St. Mary’s School where he taught such skills as typing and shorthand writing. Dubbed by William 2

Based on the 2015 Census of the Population, Philippine Statistics Authority. Igorot is the common term given to the people in the Cordilleras of Northern Luzon comprising of about 8 distinct linguistic groups. 4 In 2018, Sagada logged in a total of 104,475 overnight visitors, allowing Mountain Province to be a top destination for tourists next only to Baguio City which received 1.76 M visitors in the same period, and surpassing Banue, Ifugao famous for its rice terraces. http://www.tourism.gov.ph/tou rism_dem_sup_pub.aspx. 3

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Henry Scott as “Sagada’s Christian civilizar (Scott, 1962),” his professed mission was “to maintain at Sagada a school for boys and another for girls to produce a permanent impress on native life through the products which we turn back in the pueblos (Scott, 1987).” Along with the school, Staunton established a hospital, a local post office and the first printing press in the Cordilleras. Today, the i-Sagada straddle two worlds adeptly balancing the ways of the past (ugali id kasin) with lifestyles accepted from the outside. Devout Christian observances coexist with animist ritual practiced throughout each year. Traditional leaders (amam-a) as well as elected politicians share the role of managing community affairs. People continue to consult with native healers (mensip-ok) as they do health professionals in the St. Theodore of Tarsus Hospital (est. 1903) for their well-being. Locals engage with trappings of modern life—cable TV cellular phones and the internet—as they employ age-old beliefs and practices in their daily lives. From the time of the US Colonial government in the Philippines, Sagada life has been well documented for readers in the outside world. Missionary reports to the mother church in the US by Rev. Charles Henry Brent (Bishop of the Philippines) and Rev. Staunton among others were printed in publications such as the Monthly Episcopalian Journal, Spirit of Missions, from 1903 to 1936 as well as in the Sagada Postboy, the school newsletter that began in 1952 and continues to the present. The historian William Henry Scott (1921–1993), appointed by the church as a lay missionary and teacher, arrived in 1954 and wrote voluminously about Sagada which became his adopted home until his death in 1993. Some of his works were co-authored with the anthropologist Fred Eggan (1906–1991) who conducted fieldwork for a year in Sagada in 1954. His work, along with those of many other anthropologists such as Roy Franklin Barton, Francis Lambrecht and Harold Conklin, provided the scholarly gaze for the Cordillera region as a whole (Scott, 1961, 1964; Eggan & Scott, 1965). Scotty, as he is popularly known among locals, was also partly instrumental for attracting the interest in Sagada by researchers who visited over the years. Accounts by foreign observers were augmented and enhanced by the emic views of local born individuals (see Quintero, 2016). As mentioned earlier, Eduardo Masferré (1909–1995), regarded as the “father of Philippine photography”, produced thousands of black and white images that documented not only the spectacular terrain but the daily life of i-Sagada which captured the imaginations of viewers all over the world, in effect, helping structure the ways native life could be viewed (Gonzales, 2009). Alfredo Pacyaya (1912–1978), on the other hand, was a teacher at St. Mary’s who later studied with Egan in Chicago and with whom he collaborated to conduct research and publish on various aspects of Sagada culture (Pacyaya & Egan, 1953). In 1956, Pacyaya recorded several Sagada chants in the US which were deposited at the University of Chicago. These recordings were subsequently transcribed and analyzed by the pioneering Filipino ethnomusicologist Maceda (1958a, 1958b). Prior to Pacyaya’s recordings, however, what is probably the earliest extant set of field recordings from Sagada, were done by Brooks in 1954 and deposited in the archives established by Maceda at the University of the Philippines (presently the UP Center for Ethnomusicology). Maceda himself visited Sagada and nearby sites in 1960 to conduct his own field recordings of vocal and instrumental music. These

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recordings by Brooks and Maceda comprise the tracks repatriated by the UP Center for Ethnomusicology to Sagada in 2013.

3 The ReCollection Project In 1963, soon after earning his Ph.D. in the US to become the first Filipino ethnomusicologist, Jose Maceda returned to teach at the University of the Philippines. There, he mounted the epic An Ethnomusicological Survey of the Philippines, an enterprise that began in the early 1960s and continued well into the 1990s. The field recordings, notes and instruments that Maceda and his team of researchers would amass through the years became the foundation of the archives that is now part of the University of the Philippines Center for Ethnomusicology (UPCE). It is here where the Sagada recordings of Lester Brooks would end up and be rediscovered by current workers at the center. After the death of Maceda in 2004, the UPCE underwent a major reorganization under its next director, Ramon Santos who recruited a new staff, including an archivist, a librarian, and administrative personnel. The center would soon adopt as part of its research agenda the revisitation of the sites where Maceda and his research associates conducted fieldwork since the 1950s. In retracing the path that Maceda took, the center hoped to reactivate field data gathering, regarded the sine qua non of the ethnomusicology. At that point, fieldwork had been neglected for some time due to Maceda’s failing health in his last years as well as the urgency of the preservation of the collection which preoccupied the center after he passed on. In the meantime, the Jose Maceda Collection gained immense recognition for being inscribed into the UNESCO Memory of the World Registry in 2007. This prestigious and exceptional designation allowed the center to access grants and other funds for its regular operations and special projects. The most urgent of these tasks was the conservation of the JMC and other holdings of the Center via digitization. By the time the staff felt that they had already substantially accomplished the protection of the deteriorating collection, they decided it was time to go back to the field. Thus, the ReCollection Project commenced, its name alluding to remembrance and a return to field data gathering. ReCollection was envisioned to be a long-term agenda; it signalled a fundamental shift in the center’s vision of cultural conservation from a custodian of valuable artifacts to one that actively engages the source communities. To begin the work, the center decided to select some of the earliest recordings deposited in its archives and evaluate the feasibility of revisiting their sites of origin. This led to the discovery of the Brooks tapes which comprised of four reels of tape recorded in 71/2 ips containing a total of 41 tracks with the duration of 2 h, 6 min and 33 s. On the face of the box, the label “1969–11” was jotted down by Maceda which suggests that the recordings were deposited in the archives sometime in 1969. (see Fig. 1). Accompanying the tapes were two sets of typewritten field notes which listed down the track titles, including descriptions and summaries of the song texts and some text

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Fig. 1 One of four boxes containing the Brooks recordings labelled by Maceda as 1969–11

translations (see Fig. 2a and b). It appears that the first set, which bore no heading, was prepared by Brooks and which included on the margins Maceda’s hand note— “Recordings made in Sagada” written in ink on the top left of the page and “by Albert Bangsail Holy Trinity Ch,5 by Brooks, 1953—April or May” written with pencil on the top right corner. The other set, presumably prepared by Maceda, was typewritten on a different type of bond paper and contained the heading “EXPLANATIONS OF MUSIC RECORDINGS MADE IN SAGADA BY LESTER BROOKS IN APRIL, 1953. TRANSLATIONS ARE BY ALBERT BANGSAIL.” Albert Bangsail, who graduated from St. Mary’s School was at that time preparing for admission at the St. Andrew’s Seminary in Manila, the same campus where the Holy Trinity Church was located. He later pursued a career as a teacher in Baguio City. By all indications, Lester Brooks was the American radio officer who served in World-War 2 under Gen. Douglas MacArthur and in the 1950s was employed by the United States Information Agency (USIA) and stationed in the Philippines. Brooks (1924–2009) may have also been associated with the Voice of America radio station and could have been conducting the field recordings as part of his assignment there. Brooks was also an author who wrote books related to WW2 Japan (Brooks, 1995, 2019) as well as African history (Brooks, 1971). His wife, Patricia, was a journalist who contributed articles on Philippine weaving (Brooks, 1954) and the Voice of America station in Poro Point, La Union (Brooks, 1953), today a five-hour drive away from Sagada. Although it was earlier suggested that Brooks’ Sagada recordings were deposited in the center in 1969, it is clear that Maceda knew about these recordings prior to 1958 since he cites these in the Chants of Sagada article (Maceda,). More significantly, as far as we know, these are the earliest surviving audio recordings made in Sagada. 5

The Holy Trinity Church was the main Anglican church in Manila in the 1960s.

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Fig. 2 a and b Typewritten notes accompanying the Brooks recordings

In 2013, the ReCollection Project commenced with the repatriation of the Brooks recordings along with Sagada tracks from Maceda’s fieldwork in 1960. All these comprised of 44 tracks, mostly of chants and a few tracks of gong and flute music. The center prepared a special limited-edition DVD compilation and distributed these to various sectors in the community, including the Mayor’s office, schools, the community museum and descendants of the recorded performers. Sessions were organized where culture bearers and experts in the community were asked to listen to the tracks and comment on these. Following Ruth Stone’s method of “feedback interview” (Stone, 2013), these sessions yielded new data for the archives (see Fig. 3). The

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Fig. 3 In a “feedback interview”, UPCE archivist David Guadalupe plays the recordings while local leaders Mr. Soto Colabot (wearing red) and Mr. Manuel Kimayong (in cowboy hat) give their comments. Photo by UPCE

listeners were able to identify the specific towns where the tracks where recorded and were all very familiar with each type of chant, which, according to them, continues to be performed. The same is not true, however, for the instrumental tracks since only gong music survives today. The center also identified individuals who can assist in the text transcription and translation of the recordings. Figure 4 shows the complete list of tracks repatriated. In 2020, I had the opportunity to revisit Sagada just before the Covid-19 outbreak. I took the occasion to check on what possible outcome the repatriation, after seven years, might have been. Since the earlier efforts to transcribe the Sagada recordings did not materialize as planned, I was also there to look for another person willing to continue the work. Most of the people I met this time, including the new set of local government officials, were not even aware of the recordings turned over to the community in 2013 which were somehow misplaced after the local elections. For this reason, I turned over a new set of copies of the recordings, this time in USB thumb drives. Since 2013, CD and DVD players have gone in obsolescence, which is perhaps one reason why the recordings were previously misplaced. During this visit, I had the chance to meet Mrs. Alma Louise Bagano, a retired dentist who also taught at St. Mary’s School, her alma mater where she supervised the school paper, the Sagada Postboy. Today, she uses her extensive knowledge of Sagada history and culture to give lectures to students and local tourist guides as a volunteer. Given her deep interest in Sagada lifeways, it did not take much

Re-sonating Voices, Sounds, and Memories: The Repatriation … Lester Brooks (Kn 1-3 1954) Kn 1 1954 Side A (Brooks) 1. Da-ing (leader-chorus) 2. Lew-lewa (vocal) 3. Segcadoyan (vocal) 4. Dai-eng (vocal) 5. Lewliwa (vocal) 6. Kadagong (vocal) 7. Dek-lanas (vocal) 8. Sos-wa (vocal) 9. Da-ing (vocal) Kn 1 1954 Side B (Brooks) 1. Sap-sap-pet (vocal) 2. Dek-lanas (vocal) 3. Ogayam (vocal) 4. Baya-o (vocal) 5. Leo-liwa (vocal) 6. Baya-o (vocal) 7. Ogayam (vocal) 8. Dangilay (vocal) 9. Ogayam (vocal) 10. No title (vocal) Kn 2 1954 Side A (Brooks) 1. Dai-eng (vocal) 2. Sapo (vocal) 3. Ayeng (vocal) 4. Leo-liwa (vocal) 5. Alas-san (vocal) 6. The earrings, the anitos, etc (story narrated by Pascuala) (vocal) 7. Kaleleng Nose Flute (instrumental) 8. Diw-as mouth flute (instrumental) 9. Interview (vocal)

Kn 2 1954 Side B (Brooks) 1. Interview (vocal) 2. No Title (vocal) 3. My Darling Clementine (in local dialect) (vocal) 4. Auld Lang Syne (in local dialect) (vocal) 5. Narration of a story (vocal) 6. Salidom-may (solo-chorus) (vocal) 7. Narration of a story which tells why dead people do not live again (vocal) 8. Sagui-wi (vocal) 9. The living and the dead story narrated by Pascuala (vocal) 10. Sap-sap-pet (sung and narrated) (vocal) 11. Baya-o (vocal) 12. No title (vocal) Kn 3 1954 Side A 1. No title (vocal) (continued from Kn 2) Jose Maceda (Kn 5 1960) Kn 5 1960 Side A (Maceda) 1. Ayeng: sung by 4 men (vocal) 2. Kanaínaw: chorus (vocal) 3. Toítog: chorus (vocal)

Fig. 4 List of tracks repariated to Sagada in 2013

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convincing for her to agree to transcribe and translate the 1954 and 1960 recordings. Alma was able to correct certain mistakes in the notes that accompanied Brook’s tapes. Furthermore, she was able to provide important contextual information, such as the conversations captured in the recordings, allowing insights on the dynamics that transpired between the researcher and the community. Through her help, we were able to identify key persons involved in the Brooks tapes, such as Albert Bangsail and Pascuala Cadiogan. Her text transcription allowed the center to proceed with the music transcription. Alma’s active involvement in the project made possible a close collaborative research between the center and the community, albeit mostly done via the internet, since, by then, the Covid-19 pandemic had started and travel restrictions had been imposed. The next section shows her description of the music, including excerpts of the text transcription and translation done by her with the corresponding music transcriptions by the center. Here, she classifies the chants into four types: those performed in festivities, those associated with death or sickness, those used for entertainment or courtship, and prayer chants performed in various rituals, all of which, she confirms, still form part of the regular repertoire of the community today. She then relates her personal knowledge of the social context of the music based on her own experiences.

4 A Brief Description of Music in Sagada The daing, yogga, saggiwwe, and allasan, are chants for festive gatherings like weddings. The text of these are not prescribed; chanters compose extemporaneously, sometimes led by a mangi-pangu and followed by the others, or one group sings their lines and the other group responds in an entertaining discourse. Usually, the performers are divided into all male and all female groupings6, 7 (Examples 1 and 2). The dongyasan and baya-o are sad chants performed during sickness and when there is death. The chants are memories and eulogies for the person who is sick or dead, and prayers for their healing or for an uneventful journey to the other world. See Examples 3 and 4. The dai-eng, deklanas, sapsappit, and dad-at are chants that function as entertainment during courting or storytelling, or to overcome boredom and tiredness while working in the fields. The stories are random or at times recycled versions heard from other storytellers. Sometimes, other members of the group may interrupt in the middle of the narrative when they want to change how the story will end. These stories are also based on life experiences (Examples 5 and 6). 6

The leaves here most likely pertain to tobacco leaves that Sagada villagers used to barter for mined minerals such as gold in the Ilocos region. This line could mean doing menial work for the Americans was sometimes rewarded with other things like bottled products such as alcohol instead of tobacco. 7 ‘Loco refers to the Ilocos region—or the lowland region—which Sagada frequently traded with.

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a

b

Example 1 a Daing (excerpt). Text transcription and translation by Alma Louise B. Bagano. b Daing (excerpt). Music transcription by UPCE

The liw-liwa, totog, kananao, sus-owa, and ayeng are prayers chanted during rituals when an animal sacrifice is offered to the unseen. These prayers are memorized accounts of how the rituals were first performed by Biag, a historic figure recognized as the one who introduced most of the cultural and spiritual practices that have since become a tradition in Sagada. Biag founded the oldest dap-ay (village tribunal) in Sagada where he performed the rituals, said the prayers, and taught the people to do the same. All these are still being practiced today. Biag’s influence brought about

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Example 2 a Alas-san (extranscription and translation by Almacerpt). Text transcription and translation by Alma Louise B. Bagano. b Alas-san (excerpt). Music transcription by UPCE

different stories of his exploits in the local folklore. Although similar in general, there are slight differences in the accounts, depending on who you ask, which is understandable as these are passed down through oral tradition (Examples 7 and 8). The rituals are led by the mang-ipangpangu /, one who is chosen among the elders to lead the tribe in a ritual, such as the Begnas performed following the agricultural cycle from sowing to harvesting. The term also refers to the one who leads in the chanting of mangipangu prayers or songs. The male elders are called am-ama (plural: amam-a) while the female elders are the in-ina (plural: inin-a).

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Example 3 a Dongyasan (excerpt). Text transcription and translation by Alma Louise B. Bagano. b. Dongyasan (excerpt). Music transcription bu UPCE

The dap-ay is the village tribunal, an institution for social gatherings, for community meetings, the settling of disputes, and the venue for spiritual rituals and cultural practices following the agricultural cycle. It is maintained by the amam-a or the male elders of the community. It is also where an i-Sagada boy begins his social life outside the home and experiences his initiation into the community of men. It is where the boy is prepared to be an am-ama when his time comes, ensuring that the tradition lives on to the next generation, which are essential for the survival of

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Example 4 a Baya-o (excerpt). Text transcription and translation by Alma Louise B. Bagano. b Baya-o (excerpt). Music transcription by UPCE

the tribe. Although there are other requirements for a man before being vested as an am-ama, it is through the prayer of the elders that every boy achieves this status or honor. An i-Sagada boy leaves the house as young as 10 years old to sleep in the dap-ay quarters where other boys of the same age or older are dormers. They sleep in the dap-ay when there is no longer enough space in the family’s cogon hut as the family

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Example 5 a Dai-eng Kadayawan. Text transcription and translation by Alma Louise B. Bagano. b Dai-eng Kadawyan (excerpt). Music transcription by UPCE

becomes bigger. During the day, they go back home to help in the farms and do other chores like gathering firewood, feeding animals, and carrying garden and rice produce from the fields. In the evening, the amam-a would go to the dap-ay to socialize where they unwind and talk of idle stuff as they assess the day around a small bonfire. The boys do “dagdagay” on their feet, a traditional foot massage where two sticks are used to scratch the soles and toes. While the boys do the dag-dagay on the elders’ feet, the amam-a

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talk about the life and responsibilities of a boy as he grows older. The boys listen to the virtues of responsibility, respect, honesty and integrity. They are told about body changes during puberty and what happens during sex. Although the storytelling is very informal in context, the learning is serious and the boys are quick to understand. Punishments are given to truant boys or other misdeeds. Sometimes the men would throw puns, and give riddles and play mind games. The penalty for losers includes gathering wood for the bonfire and being assigned to tend the fire through the night. Before going to sleep after the amam-a have gone home, the boys practice chanting, mimicking the way they heard it from the elders or making up their own lyrics. This is how they entertain themselves to overcome boredom. Although the boys hear chanting in almost every ritual or social gathering they participate in, they still need to learn the basics from the amam-a. Private rehearsals and practice are done while they are working in the fields and at the dap-ay quarters. As they grow older and are finally allowed to participate in rituals and cultural events, they join the chanting with the amam-a, getting their skills honed until they are able to lead. On the other hand, girls are sent to an ebgan (dormitory for young girls) for the same reason that there is not enough space in the hut for their growing families. An ebgan is an abandoned house of a spinster. The girls sleep there and go back home during the day to help in the house and in farm work. The older girls, who are teenagers and ready for marriage, sleep in one corner and the young ones in the opposite corner. Before sleeping, the younger girls are asked to scratch or massage the backs of the older ones to sooth them after a tiring day in the fields. The older girls make it their responsibility to braid the long hairs of the younger ones and remove their lice. While doing this, they talk about body changes as a girl reaches puberty and their experience during their menstrual period, while the younger ones listen. As the night progresses and the younger girls are put to sleep, the older ones wait for the gentlemen from the dap-ay who come to serenade them. Usually, a young man is escorted by the other boys who help him win the heart of the woman he is interested in. They coach him on what to say, mostly in the form of chanting, performing with him to boost his confidence. The woman who is being courted will respond by chanting, coached by the other girls. The courtship continues in the field while they work and in the house of the girl with the gentleman helping her family in

a

Example 6 a Deklanas (excerpt). Text transcription and translation by Alma Louise B. Bagano. b Deklanas (excerpt). Music transcription by UPCE

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a Eyya dak kanana’y men liwa haayeh Maseg-ang ka Apo’d daya Ta sumika din ba… (unintelligible) Ay pinupugan da Ay nan nagapu’d daya Ah wa pa’y endas engnga Bayawak nan men kapa Dapay kanan en siya Inamun nan mabaa Awet baga-enda

This is what I will say in the liwa Have mercy, Lord up above That this (unintelligible) will be enough Which they prayed on Those who came down from the sky They will give to the child That the people who work Just agree on what they say Usual for errand people They will tell later

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Example 7 a Liw-liwa. Text transcription and translation by Alma Louise B. Bagano. b Liwliwa (Excerpt). Music transcription by UPCE

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a Totog matotogan di onga Ata ma adu adu da Sob-oy somangguyo sob-oy baab oy katumtumboy Kasi idudugineyda ta enyu manginumen na saad sinan susukkot Nasusus-ukan si dodo-otdot Ta en yu painnomen nan sa dikamay

Totog, make totog to this child/children So that there will be many aŌer them Sob-oy make this sob-oy prayer very smart (archaic – meaning unclear) There the feathers are inserted So that blessings flow of having

b

Example 8 a Totog (excerpt). Text transcription and translation by Alma Louise B. Bagano. b Totog (excerpt). Music transcription by UPCE

the chores and bringing firewood for them. Serenading and courting continues until both agree that they like each other and have finally decided to get married. Things have changed from the dap-ay nights for boys and ebgan nights for girls since the time cogon huts were replaced by galvanized iron houses that can accommodate big families. The last cluster of cogon huts to go was in the 1980’s. At present, there are only two remaining cogon huts still being used in the entire Sagada community. But the change in topography of the place did not stop the cultural and spiritual practices. When I listened to the tracks, it seemed like it had been recorded only yesterday. Although none of us in our family, including our mother, experienced ebgan life, our father was raised in the ways of the dap-ay since we lived in Dagdag,

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which is in the heart of the cultural village. Through the influence of the village amam-a, he was vested as an am-ama himself, and thereafter participated in almost all cultural and spiritual practices. It was from him that I first heard folklore and prayers done through chanting. My knowledge about the cultural history of my tribe and Sagada was enriched when I entered high school at St. Mary’s School. When Foundation Day of the school is celebrated, there is a “Mountain Night” where every student participates in re-enacting the cultural practices through chants and songs, dances and games, in full Igorot regalia. Student may choose to perform the chants spontaneously or scripted with texts that are based mostly on the realities of life. We practice with the amam-a and inin-a, seriously listening to their coaching because the show is a competition and prizes are at stake. In a sense, we make the community an extension of our non-academic lessons.

5 Conclusion The devotion and determination of a scholar to systematically document the musics of an entire country resulted in the establishment of a center mandated to safeguard the assemblage of research data, which will eventually be recognized for its invaluable contribution not only to national patrimony but as a legacy to all humanity. Traces of fleeting voices and sounds from distant times and places, these artifacts detached from their sources gained new value and lent stature to its host institution. The UPCE’s ReCollection Project, with repatriation as its key component, signals a fundamental shift in the center’s model for cultural conservation. Where before, the center took on the role as custodian of endangered cultural artifacts within a safe haven, it now distinguishes its role in reconnecting these artifacts with their source communities. In essence, this constitutes an expansion of the conservation process from the preservation of objects to the fostering of attitudes and behavior towards the maintenance of cultural practices. More importantly, by the repatriation of music recordings, the center recognizes the true ownership of these sound artifacts. It constitutes an attempt towards a more proactive conservation of music cultures by acknowledging the rights of culture bearers and communities to the artifacts and recognizing the centrality of their role as primary stakeholders in sustaining cultural heritage. How does one measure the success of such a repatriation program? UPCE’s ReCollection Project was intended in part to generate interest within the community in the preserved sounds, perhaps a simplistic but nevertheless reasonable expectation. Seven years after the distribution of tracks to Sagada, we learned that these copies were mostly misplaced by the receivers. Were these traces of the past not as important to the community as imagined by the archivists, a circumstance that Seeger points out as common (Lancefield, 1998)? Evidently, there is an uneven appraisal of the value of such recordings between the donors and the recipients. The archivists, who have invested time and effort in order to preserve the recordings see them as a precious

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resource—a vital part of the acquisitions that enabled the institution to gain prestige and, to an extent, power. As it turns out, the music captured 60 years ago is still widely practiced in Sagada today, rendering perhaps the recordings as commonplace for the receivers, except for the relatives of some of the recorded performers. The family of Pascuala Cadiogan, for instance, identified as the voice relating a narrative in the tapes, was very moved and grateful to hear her voice (Kn2 1954 Side A Trk 6). This instance of nostalgic reconnection was perhaps not the primary expected outcome of the project proponents but nevertheless deeply meaningful. Secondly, in carrying out repatriation, the type of the carrying medium for distribution should be of primary consideration if recirculation within the community is the goal. The CD and DVD formats which have for a long time dominated the consumer market found their way to obsolescence just around the time of the Sagada repatriation. The alternatives available, whether via online streaming or external hard drive storage, are still impractical choices for remote areas. It is important to note that the items being returned are copies of the actual objects (reel tapes) deposited in the archives since it is impractical to return the latter, and this has been rarely demanded for by the source communities (Lancefield, 1998). Formats and standards of technological products are constantly changing, particularly if these are market-driven such as those relating to recorded media. This highlights the need for the donor to evaluate which medium is most ideal, based on the receiving community’s ability and preparedness to make the repatriated recordings accessible to their members. Furthermore, local governments, as these are run by elected administrators whose terms of office are limited and whose operations are always informed by political priorities, are not the most ideal receivers of repatriated artifacts, compared to schools or independent civic entities. Not all municipalities in the country have offices for cultural affairs and in many cases, these double as the local tourism authority. This could clearly be inimical to conservation. Unfortunately, the village elders (amam-a) are also ill-equipped to keep the recordings for the benefit of the community, unless they run a school of living tradition8 of which there is none established in Sagada. Private schools like St. Mary’s would be better alternatives than public schools which are generally less able to manage libraries and similar resources efficiently. In fact, plans are currently ongoing to set up archives either at St Mary’s or at the Church of St. Mary the Virgin which already have sizeable paper documents in their possession in need of conservation. What then did the center accomplish in this repatriation program? The primary goal of updating archival data had been more or less accomplished using repatriation as a research methodology. Most significantly, text transcription and translation as well as the music transcription of the tracks would not have been completed without the involvement of key persons that the center met in the community during the project. These new documentations could be distributed as well to key sectors in the community. Additionally, repatriation enabled a further understanding of the music 8

The School of Living Traditions (SLT) is a program established by the National Commission for Culture and the Arts (NCCA) with the aim of the transmission of indigenous skills and techniques to the young by specialists and masters in the community.

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culture of Sagada through the commentaries gathered during the listening sessions and through the extensive interviews with the elders and culture bearers. Errors in the original descriptions accompanying the tapes were corrected. Key persons involved in the recording and documentation in 1954 and 1960 were identified, allowing yet a clearer picture of music documentation and archiving practices in the country during the mid-twentieth century. In the end, the most important learning in the whole experience may be summed up in the realization that effective repatriation cannot be realized in a one-time encounter between donors and recipients. Instead, this must be attended by a sincere commitment to a long-term engagement between the archives and the community. At present, discussions are ongoing on how the community can establish and manage their own archival collection and the center has offered assistance towards this goal. There is also an interest in locating and accessing artifacts similar to Brooks’ and Maceda’s recordings in other parts of the world and perhaps securing copies of these for the community. A community-based archive, managed by and readily accessible to its members would ensure a type of cultural conservation program that addresses the needs and aspirations of the people of Sagada before those of the outsiders.

References Bulilan, C. M. R. (2007). Experiencing cultural heritage and indigenous tourism in Banaue. Philippine Quarterly of Culture and Society, Special Issue: Critical Heritage, 35/1-2, 100–128. Brooks, L. (1967, ©1968, 1995). Behind Japan’s surrender: The secret struggle that ended an empire. McGraw-Hill. Brooks, L. (1971). Great civilizations of ancient Africa. Four Winds Press. Brooks, L. (2019). História secreta da rendição japonesa de 1945 – Fim de um império milenar Gleuber Vieira Brizida (Translator), Joubert de Oliveira (Translator) Publisher: Globo Livros; 1st edition (December 21, 2019) Brooks, P. K. (1953). Diplomat in dungarees. The Department of State Filed Reporter, II/1, 2. Brooks, P. K. (1954). Philippine experiment in handweaving. Craft Horizons, 14(3), 35. Dulnuan, J. R. (2005). Perceived tourism impact on indigenous communities: A case study of Sagada in Mountain Province. In R. Benedicto & A. (Eds.), Alampay sustainable tourism challenges for the Philippines, 161. The Philippine APEC Study Center Network (PASCN) and the Philippine Institute for Development Studies (PIDS). Eggan, F., & Scott, W. H. (1965). Ritual Life of the Igorots of Sagada: Courtship and marriage. Ethnology, 4(1), 77–111. Gonzalez, V. V. (2009). Headhunter Itineraries: The Philippines as America’s dream jungle. The Global South, Special Issue: THe United States South and the Pacific Rim, 3(2), 144–172. Iyanaga, M. (2019). Musical repatriation as method. In F. Gunderson, R. C. Lancefield, & B. Wood (Eds.), The Oxford handbook of musical repatriation (pp. 311–330). Oxford University Press. Jones, A. W. (2002). A view from the mountains: Episcopal missionary depictions of the igorot of northern luzon, the Philippines, 1903–1916. Anglican and Episcopal History, 71(3), 380–410. Jones, A. (2013). Pragmatic anti-imperialists? Episcopal Missionaries in the Philippines, 1933– 1935. Anglican and Episcopal History, 82(1), 1–28. Retrieved February 27, 2021, from http:// www.jstor.org/stable/43051381. Kahunde, S. (2012). Repatriating archival sound recordings to revive traditions: The role of the klaus wachsmann in the recordings in the revival of the royal music of Bunyoro-Kitara, Uganda.

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Ethnomusicology Forum, August, Special Issue: Ethnomusicology, Archives and Communities: Methodologies for an Equitable Discipline, 21(2), 197–219. Lancefield, R. C. (1998). Musical traces’ retractable paths: The repatriation of recorded sound. Journal of Folklore Research, Special Issue: International Rites, 35(1), 47–68. Landau, C., & Fargion, J. T. (2012). We’re all archivists now: Towards a more equitable ethnomusicology. Ethnomusicology Forum, Special Issue: Ethnomusicology, Archives and Communities: Methodologies for an Equitable Discipline, 21(2), 125–140. Maceda, J. (1958a). Chants from Sagada Mountain Province, Phillippinces. Ethnomusicology, 2(2), 45–55. Maceda, J. (1958b). Chants from Sagada Mountain Province, Philippines (Part II). Ethnomusicology, 2(3), 96–107. Masferré, E. (1999). A tribute to the Philippine Cordillera Edited In De Villa, J. G.(Eds.), Brier Projects. Pacyaya, A., & Eggan, F. (1953). A Sagada Igorot ballad. The Journal of American Folklore, 66(261), 239–246. Quintero, W. (2016). Mengangsa: Sounding men in motion in Sagada, Mountain Province, Northern Philippines. Pusat Kebudayaan, Universiti Malaya. Reed, D. B. (2019). Reflections on reconnections: When human and archival modes of memory meet. In F. Gunderson, R. C. Lancefield, & B. Woods (Eds.), The oxford handbook of musical repatriation (pp. 71–84). Oxford University Press. Seeger, A. (2019). Archives, repatriation, and the challenges ahead. In F. Gunderson, R. C. Lancefield, & B. Woods (Eds.), The Oxford handbook of musical repatriation (pp. 193–208). Oxford University Press. Scott, W. H. (1961). Sagada legends. The Journal of American Folklore, 74(291), 57–62. Scott, W. H. (1962). Staunton of Sagada: Christian civilizar. Historical Magazine of the Protestant Episcopal Church, 31(4), 305–339. Scott, W. H. (1964). The legend of biag, an igorot culture hero. Asian Folklore Studies, 23(1), 93–110. Scott, W. H. (1987). Looking into the purpose of St. Mary’s school in St Mary’s school first grand alumni homecoming and diamond jubilee celebration, Souvenir program, December 27, 1987. http://sagada.org/stmarys/

LaVerne David de la Peña is the dean of the University of the Philippines College of Music and the director of the UP Center for Ethnomusicology. He received his Ph.D. in Ethnomusicology from the University of Hawai’i at Manoa as a degree fellow of the East–West Center. He has conducted extensive fieldwork in the Northern Philippines and the Southern part of Luzon. He has published papers and chapters on various aspects of Philippine music, including popular and contemporary music. He teaches undergraduate and graduate courses in musicology and occasionally composes music for various media. Alma Louise B. Bagano is a retired dentist who has taught at St. Mary’s School of Sagada, her alma mater where she supervised the school paper, “Sagada Postboy,” the bulletin that started in 1952 and continues publication to date, focusing not only on school matters but news about and around Sagada, the Episcopal Church in the Philippines, and the nation at large. She gives voluntary lectures on the history of Sagada to students and local tourist guides. She is presently working on a book of children’s stories from the local folklore, inspired by the handwritten stories by her father, and stories she heard from her grandmother when she lived with her for some time.

Study of Polyphonic Music of National Minorities Through the Historical Perspective Joseph Jordania

Abstract In many countries, minorities occupy geographically isolated regions. When big states established borders, they naturally chose geographically isolated regions, like mountain ranges. The indigenous peoples of mountain ranges often with polyphonic traditions are isolated from each other and are politically united with unrelated peoples living in the plains. This forced isolation from their historical relatives and unification with big states is an important source of instability in several contemporary countries, such as Basques living in mountain ranges between Spain and France; or Caucasian peoples living in mountains between Russia, Georgia, and Azerbaijan or the Balkan peoples with ethnic/religious/linguistic identities. Keywords Polyphony · Indigenous peoples · Minorities · History · State borders Study of musical traditions of national minorities is an increasingly important and sometimes complex issue of the contemporary ethnomusicology. In this article, I will discuss a few problems associated with this issue in my native country, Georgia, and then I will touch on several aspects of the study of polyphonic traditions of national minorities in general. There are two somewhat different scenarios of the existence of polyphonic traditions among national minorities: (1) polyphonic traditions of national minorities exist among the polyphonic traditions of the prevailing culture, and (2) polyphonic traditions of national minorities exist among the monophonic traditions of the prevailing culture. The examples of the cases, when polyphonic traditions of national minorities live among the polyphonic traditions of prevailing culture, can be found among some European and African countries. For example, Abkhazians, Ossetians, Russian and Ukrainian groups, living in Georgia, or various ethnic groups living together in several countries of the Balkan Peninsula. The same situation can be found in several subSaharan African countries, where the case of polyphonic traditions of Central African Pygmies in various African countries is particularly interesting. J. Jordania (B) The University of Melbourne, Melbourne, Australia e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. 2021 Y. Lu and O. Elschek (eds.), The Legacy of Indigenous Music, Sinophone and Taiwan Studies 4, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-16-4473-3_6

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As for the examples of carriers of polyphonic traditions of national minorities living among the monophonic traditions of the prevailing culture, such cases are more prevalent in Asia, but also exist in some European countries, for example, in France and Romania. Very often such minorities live in geographically more isolated regions and often represent the aborigines of the region. Before we discuss several general issues concerning polyphonic traditions of national minorities, let me discuss the problems of the study of polyphonic traditions of national minorities on the example of Georgia.

1 Georgia as a National Minority and National Minorities Living in Georgia Georgia, the country of my birth, might serve as a good example to discuss various problems related to the study of the musical traditions of minorities, as during the last couple of centuries Georgia actually experienced being in both roles: (1) (2)

Georgia as a minority: While Georgia was incorporated within the Russian Empire in 1801–1918, and then as a part of the USSR from 1921 till 1991 and Georgia as an independent country with a number of ethnic minorities living there—First for a brief period of independence in 1918–1921, and finally since the breakup of the USSR in 1991.

Before discussing the situation with the traditional music of Georgia and associated problems of peoples living in Georgia, let us have a short review of the general situation of the tapestry of musical cultures of the country known as “Georgia” today. Like most contemporary “nation-states” at a closer look, Georgia reveals a complexity of ethnic elements that comprises Georgia today.

1.1 Georgia Georgia (in Georgian “Sakartvelo”) shows an array of important signs of unbroken cultural ancestry. Aborigines of Transcaucasia, Georgians still speak the Georgian language, which survives from the epoch of the pre-Indo-European languages. Geographically Georgia is part of the region known as “Transcaucasia”, situated on the southern slopes of the Great Caucasian mountain range, stretching from the Black Sea to the Caspian Sea (more correctly—the Caspian Lake, the world’s biggest lake). Being surrounded by the highest mountains of Europe (reaching at several points above 5000 m), the Caucasian mountain gorges represent the ideal “hiding spot” from outer influences for isolated populations. Even today, for a big part of the year, the only way to reach some of the populated regions of mountainous Georgia is by helicopter. From the East and the West, Transcaucasia is protected by the waters of the already mentioned Black and Caspian seas, and even the southern approach is not

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a very easy route because of a number of other (although smaller) mountain ranges, known as “lesser Caucasus”. Despite their long history of living at the seaside (at the east coast of the Black Sea), Georgians have never been great seafarers and most Georgians still live in Georgia. Most Georgians are Christians, more precisely Eastern Orthodox Christians, being one of the first countries to declare Christianity as a state religion in 337. The SouthWest corner of Georgia, known as Achara, is predominantly Muslim, and this is the legacy of three centuries of domination by the Ottoman Empery. Unlike many countries in Europe, where the tradition of polyphonic singing is represented only in some of the regions, the whole Georgia is one big group of closely related polyphonic traditions. Ethnomusicologists noted from the nineteenth century that traditional Georgian monophonic songs are always performed by an individual singer. More so—monophonic singing occurs only when the performer is alone (during agricultural work in a field, or on a road, or putting a baby to sleep, or lamenting alone). If, for any reason, the singer is not alone, then even the traditionally monophonic songs can easily turn into polyphonic ones. So, there are polyphonic versions of lullabies, dirges and field working songs recorded by the generations of Georgian ethnomusicologists. Very important for the topic of our discussion, as many other nation-states, at a closer look, Georgia reveals a number of ethnographic regions, with various ethnographic details and spoken dialects, and even languages. Musical traditions also have interesting differences. Georgia is usually divided into fifteen ethnographic regions (see Fig. 1). Some of them are very big, such as Kartli, Kakheti, Samegrelo, or Imereti, but some of them are very small—particularly in the northeastern part of Georgia.

Fig. 1 Ethnographic map of Georgia (Tsitsishvili, 2004. Used with permission)

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Let me first briefly discuss the common characteristics of Georgian polyphony and then we will mention the main stylistic features of the major regions. • Two-, three- and four-part singing is spread through different regions of Georgia, with two-part singing mostly in the mountainous Northeastern regions of East Georgia, and four-part singing in the Southwestern part of Georgia. Three-part singing is the most widespread throughout Georgia; • There are more than a hundred terms indicating the names and the functions of different parts of the polyphonic texture (Jordania & Gabisonia, 2011). There has been controversy over the traditional terminology of such names as the “first”, “second” and “third” parts. Later it became clear that the middle part of the song (second tenor) is traditionally known as the “first part”, as it is the main melodic part of the song (as in many other traditional polyphonic cultures). The “second” part is the top part and the third is the bass (Jordania, 1972); • The individual singers always sing the main melodic parts, and the group usually sings the bass. In the tradition of “trio” songs (only in western Georgia) the bass is also performed by the solo performer. In four-part western Georgian harvest songs, there are actually two basses—one is a pedal drone in the middle of the texture and another is a melodically active low bass; • Drone and ostinato are the two most important principles of polyphony in all regions of Georgia; • Sharp dissonant chords are in high esteem in Georgian traditional polyphony. Georgia is traditionally divided into eastern and western parts.

1.2 East Georgia East Georgia consists of two of Georgia’s biggest ethnographic regions—Kakheti (the South-eastern part) and Kartli (the central part) and five (some maintain six) small mountain regions in the Northeastern part of Georgia: Khevsureti, Pshavi, Tusheti, Khevi, and Mtiuleti, and cccording to some classifications, Gudamakari as well. (Garakanidze, 1991). The plain regions of eastern Georgia—Kartli and Kakheti - have always been historically central for Georgia. State unity started here and the capital city (Tbilisi) has been the center of Georgia for the last 1500 years. The best-known feature of eastern Georgian traditional singing is the presence of long “drawn-out” table songs from Kartli and particularly Kakheti. These songs are performed by the two melodic lines singing against a background of a steady pedal drone on “O”. The leading melodies are always performed by individual singers and the drone by all the others. The leading melodic lines have a wide range (about an octave or wider) and of these two melodies, one is usually a bit higher than the other. The lower melody is considered to be the leading part of the song (mtkmeli, “the speaker” or the “first voice”), who usually starts a song followed by the higher “second voice” or modzakhili (“the one who follows”). The main task of both lead singers is to

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ornament their melodic lines. The tempo is usually slow and the songs are mostly performed in free time. Some major sections of eastern Georgian table songs are performed in two parts, as the leading singers sometimes alternate with each other. Although the bass is a pedal drone in eastern Georgian “long” table songs, it does move, leading to key changes (modulations). These occasional bass moves are extremely important for the overall form of a song. These key changes or modulations make up the main tonal body of the table song. These modulations are one of the most fascinating elements of East Georgian table songs, as they are relatively rare among traditional polyphonic cultures (see Aslanishvili, 1954/1956, 1970; Jordania, 1981, 1982). Polyphonic singing traditions in the north eastern ethnographic regions are not as developed as in Kartli and Kakheti. Two-part singing dominates here. The northeastern dialectal regions are usually united into two groups: Tusheti, Pshavi and Khevsureti in one group, and Khevi and Mtiuleti in the second group. Khevi and Mtiuleti are considered to be more advanced. The singing traditions of Khevsureti are particularly interesting, as they were traditionally regarded as the most archaic survivor of the ancient Georgian singing tradition (Arakishvili, 1905, 1916; Chkhikvadze, 1948, 1961, 1964), even though this idea was challenged during the last few decades (see Jordania, 2015a, 2015b: 246–248). Pshavi could be the classical representative of this small group with two-part drone singing, antiphon between the two soloists, major second moves of the drone, and the typical cadences on the unison. Tusheti is known as the region of the seasonal shepherd-travelers with interesting ties to the neighboring North Caucasian peoples and some features of their musical traditions, which is unusual among other Georgian regions. Khevi and Mtiuleti represent a more advanced region, where two-part singing is well-established and songs with three-part singing plays an important role. Interestingly, in Khevi and Mtiuleti three-part singing traditions, there are obvious links with Svanetian traditional polyphony from the highest mountain region of western Georgia (Garakanidze, 1991). One more region, which we have not mentioned so far, is Meskheti in the southern part of central Georgia. This is the only region of Georgia where (mostly due to demographic reasons) the tradition of polyphonic singing began disappearing during the twentieth century and was finally lost in the 1970s. According to the last survivors of the local polyphonic tradition, the Meskhetian polyphonic style was close to the eastern Georgian (Kartlian and Kakhetian) style, with the drone (both pedal and rhythmic) and with “long” table songs of ornamented melody (Magradze, 1986; see also Chkhikvadze, 1961: XXII–XXIII). Georgians also live outside of Georgia, in the district of Kakhi, in neighboring Azerbaijan, where they represent a national minority. This region is also known as Saingilo. The Georgian population of Saingilo is partly Christian and partly Muslim. According to the results of short fieldwork in 1988, the tradition of polyphonic singing (in harvest songs) was still alive at least in the village of Alibeglo in the 1920s and 1930s. Some of the melodies (both vocal and instrumental) recorded during the fieldwork combined (in one part) the elements of the melody and the bass as well (Jordania, 1988: 56–57). The group of young local patriotic males was singing new

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songs in the traditional Georgian style of drone three-part polyphony. During the last decades, Georgian ethnomusicologist Giorgi Kraveishvili collected more materials from this region (Kraveishvili, 2020).

1.3 Western Georgia Western Georgia consists of six (according to some views—seven) so-called musical dialects. Unlike eastern Georgia, where we have two asymmetrically big plain regions and several much smaller mountainous regions, the differences between the regions are not as large in western Georgia. The musical differences from eastern Georgia are also quite obvious. • Rhythmically western Georgian polyphonic songs are always well defined (no free meter songs); • Melodic lines never use rich melismatic ornamentation, common for eastern Georgia, particularly for the genre of ‘long’ table songs (exception is some table songs in Racha); • Instead of two- and three-part singing we are now in the world of three- and four-part polyphony; • The drone is present, but it is mostly a rhythmic drone. Besides, in some of the most complex “Naduri” songs, the drone is in the middle of the four-part polyphonic texture (higher than the main melodic voice, instead of being in the bass in eastern Georgia); • Unlike East Georgian drone and ostinato bass, the bass part in some West Georgian regions can be extremely active melodically; • The yodel (absent in eastern Georgia) adds another important element to the sound of the western Georgian singing style; • The tradition of “trio song” (sung by three individual singers) is also unique in some regions of western Georgia; • Triple meters ¾ and 3/8 very popular in eastern Georgia (particularly in certain round dances), are rare in some regions and completely absent in other regions of western Georgia. The best-known tradition from western Georgia is the highly developed tradition of contrapuntal polyphony in Guria. For example, in four-part Naduri songs from Guria and Achara, we usually can see (1) Krimanchuli (yodel, “distorted falsetto voice” or according to the other version, “distorted jaw”)—a western Georgian yodel that was admired by Igor Stravinsky, (2) shemkhmobari (“the sound that accompanies”—a specific pedal drone in the middle of the texture and) (3) mtkmeli (lit. “the one who speaks”), the leading voice, who starts the song, which is the only part that recites the text and (4) Bani (“the bass”), the lowest voice, which is melodically very active, and mostly sings a perfect fifth below the pedal drone of shemkhmobari. Out of these four parts, two of them

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(shemkhmobari and the bass) are traditionally performed by groups of singers, and the two other parts. (krimanchuli and mtkmeli) are performed by individual singers. The tradition of “trio” (“three singers”) is considered by many to be the climax of Georgian traditional polyphony. This is not to be sung by everyone present. All three parts are sung by individuals, including the bass part. This feature (solo bass) is unique to a few western Georgian dialects (Guria, Achara, Imereti, Samegrelo). Unlike eastern Georgia, where the bass is mostly a drone or ostinato and is always performed by a group of singers, in western Georgia, the bass can be the most melodically active part of the song (Jordania, 1985, 1986). This is a result of the widest improvisational possibilities for the bass part to create new exciting dissonant harmonies. These possibilities of the bass part, melodic and harmonic versions in trio songs, attracted the most talented Gurian singers and for this reason most of the well-known Gurian singers were known as bass performers (Jordania, 1985). Interestingly, although well-known Gurian singers could sing all of the parts of trio songs, when they meet, the most experienced singer is usually suggested to sing the bass as a sign of respect and acknowledgment of his expertise. This must be the reason why in western Georgia, the bass also can start songs (unlike eastern Georgia where only the top melodic parts start a song). Unlike European professional polyphony, Georgian polyphony does not use the principle of imitation. Each part of western Georgian counterpoint polyphony uses melodic phrases from the existing melodic and rhythmic “vocabulary” of their own parts. As a matter of fact, most of the traditional polyphonic cultures of the world do not use the principle of imitation (among notable exceptions are Ainus from North Japan, Sutartines from Lithuania, and San people from South Africa). Different western Georgian dialects also feature elements that give them a special place in the tapestry of Georgian polyphonic tradition. The Imeretian dialect (the biggest region in western Georgia), for example, is famous for its riders’ songs and for the flourishing tradition of European-style urban polyphonic songs; the Megrealian dialect is known for its combination of sharp dissonances with a very soft manner of singing (Megrelians also speak their own language and sometimes there has been mildly expressed nationalistic sentiments among Megrelians); the Acharian dialect (the only region with Muslim Georgians in western Georgia) has two very different styles: (1) the so-called Kobuletian region is very close to the Gurian style of complex three- and four-part polyphony (according to some scholars, residents in this part of Achara are Gurians, who were under Turkish rule and changed their religion), and (2) the so-called Shavsheti region with a two-part polyphonic singing tradition (the only region with two-part singing in western Georgia. Garakanidze, 1991). And of course, there are two very important mountain regions in western Georgia apart from the plain regions discussed above: Svaneti and Racha. Some researchers also separate the Lechkhumi dialect (for example, Garakanidze, 1991).

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1.4 Svaneti Svaneti (particularly the so-called “upper Svaneti”) holds a special place in Georgian ethnographic literature. This is the most mountainous region of Georgia (the mountains here are over 5000 m high), that for most of the historical past, was completely cut off for a good half of the year from the rest of the world. Svanetians are the tallest people in Georgia (and one of the tallest in Europe) with their own linguistically very archaic Svanetian language, archaic non-rhythmic poetry, impressive 8th–12th century family towers, and a fiercely egalitarian society—they have never been under the rule of any country, including any of the local noblemen. Together with this variety of archaic features, Svanetians have quite outstanding polyphonic traditions (Arakishvili, 1950). The following set of features will give the reader a general picture of Svanetian vocal polyphony: (1) (2) (3) (4) (5)

(6)

(7)

(8) (9) (10)

All Svanetian songs are three-part (except for a few solo monophonic genres, sung mostly by women); The great majority of Svanetian traditional songs are (or grow into) rounddances; Starting relatively slowly, Svanetian song-dances usually get faster by the end, and the key rises (so-called “dynamic modulation”); Unlike many other traditions of Georgian dialects, the melodic range of Svanetian songs is very narrow (usually within the fourth); Although dissonances are one of the most characteristic features of all regional styles in Georgia, they play a particularly important role in Svanetian polyphonic songs; Ostinato formulae and the parallel movement of the voices (“chordal unit polyphony”) are important in Svanetian polyphony, although a rhythmic drone is also important; Unlike most other Georgian singing traditions, where the men’s and women’s singing is gender-segregated, in Svaneti the men and women often sing and dance together; The singing volume in Svaneti is extremely loud; Most Svanetian songs are performed as the antiphon alternation of two choirs, sometimes competing with each other in loudness and endurance; Syllables and words that do not have any meaning are very widely used in Svanetian songs and some songs are completely built on nonsense syllables.

If we add here that some of the geographical names from the Upper Svanetian region and mythology that does not have any current meanings, are mentioned in written sources from the ancient Sumer from Mesopotamia (creators of the first written language in the history of civilization, a language which has already been dead for four millennia), the range of archaic features of Svanetian culture will be clearer for the reader.

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1.5 Racha Racha, neighboring Svaneti, is another very interesting region, although archaisms are not as deep in Racha as in Svaneti. Rachian men and women also often sing together like Svanetians (and unlike people from most of the other Georgian regions), and melodies of the so-called “mountain Racha” group (geographically and ethnographically closest to Svanetians) also have a small range. But, unlike Svanetian singing, at least some Rachian songs have obvious influences of the eastern Georgian singing style (pedal drone, mildly ornamented melody and specific modulations). Unlike Svanetians, who still widely use dialects of their own mostly unwritten Svan language, Rachians use the Georgian language. And finally, we must mention a small but potentially sensational addition to this short review of regional styles of western Georgian polyphony. In recent years, a formerly unknown new style of Georgian two-part polyphony was discovered by young Georgian ethnomusicologist Giorgi Kraveishvili. This style was found in the Klarjeti region (part of historic Georgia, today in Turkey, neighboring to the Georgia region). This two-part polyphony is based on drone and constant use of dissonant seconds, and displays amazing similarity to Balkan (and Baltic, and Nuristani) style dissonant polyphony (Kraveishvili, 2020).

1.6 The Urban Music in Georgia Let us move now to the singing traditions of Georgian cities. The urban music in Georgia is particularly important for our subject, as cities, as a rule, are more cosmopolitan than rural populations. Tbilisi became the capital of Georgia in the fifth century, and from the eleventh century up to the first half of the twentieth century became the economic and cultural capital of Transcaucasia with its multicultural and cosmopolitan population. Being on the crossroads between Asia and Europe, Tbilisi harbored an array of extremely talented musicians from different backgrounds (mostly of Middle Eastern ethnic origin, and particularly Armenian musicians, including the famous Sayat-Nova). As a result of this interaction with Middle Eastern music, eastern melodies with ornamented melodies and augmented seconds appeared in Georgian cities. Part of these traditions remained very close to the Middle Eastern original style and had a somewhat smaller circle of admirers, but part of this new musical style became very popular among a wider range of Georgians. These Middle Eastern songs, originally monophonic melodies, became polyphonic (three-part) when performed by feasting Georgians. This style was (and still is) distributed in Tbilisi and a few other cities of eastern Georgia. Besides this style, known under the name of the “Eastern branch of Georgian urban music”, there was another urban singing style in Georgia, influenced by European professional music. This style appeared much later, with the first contacts of Georgia with European music with the guitar-accompanied Russian romance and

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performances at the Opera House, which opened in Tbilisi in 1850 and became very popular almost overnight. Georgians from both the eastern and western parts of Georgia became very enthusiastic about this new music and new harmonies. Many of the popular arias of much-loved Italian operas were rearranged in three-part urban a cappella style and are still sung (with Georgian lyrics) as a part of the Georgian urban tradition. Two sub-types of the western branch of urban music became popular very quickly: (1) guitar-accompanied lyrical songs, and (2) a cappella choral songs. Both of these traditions are mostly three-part (sometimes the fourth part can be added as well). The two top parts move mostly in parallel thirds (and sometimes sixths), with the main melody in the middle part, and the bass mostly follows the European TSD harmonic system. Arakishvili wrote at the beginning of the twentieth century that the urban singing tradition was having a negative influence on century-old Georgian traditional polyphony. This influence was mostly felt in the increase of parallel thirds between the two top melodic parts, instead of the traditional, more adventurous and often dissonant coordination between the melodic parts. Summary To conclude this section about Georgian music, I would like to say that despite the huge amount of research still needed in different areas of Georgian traditional music, Georgian traditional polyphony is perhaps among the best-researched polyphonic traditions in Europe. Several generations of Georgian musicologists and ethnomusicologists from the end of the nineteenth century, as well as non-Georgian scholars, contributed to this process. Almost 40 years of scholarly tradition of organizing international conferences and symposia on traditional polyphony, held in Georgia (from 1984 onwards) and the establishment of the International Research Centre for Traditional Polyphony (with the help of UNESCO) in 2002–2003 greatly contributed to the flow of finances, technical equipment, and renowned international scholars and experts in traditional polyphony, to Georgia. An increasing number of Western scholars are actively working on the rich traditions of Georgian folk and religious polyphony (from the recent decades: Susanne Ziegler, Simha Arom, Polo Vallejo, Frank Scherbaum, Frank Kane, Andrea Kuzmich, Lauren Ninoshvili, John Graham, Matthew Knight, to mention a few of them).

2 Minorities Living in Georgia Apart from Georgians, few other ethnic groups often considered as national minorities with polyphonic traditions also live in Georgia. We will discuss two of them, Abkhazians and Ossetians, both rich in traditions of vocal polyphony in more details. Their story reminds us of the complexity and even tragedy of interactions of the central ethnic element of the state with other ethnic elements considered as national minorities.

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2.1 Abkhazians Abkhazians call themselves Apsua. There are various estimates of their population size. Different sources indicate that by 2003–2005 the population was between 70 and 90 thousand people. Abkhazians are the only people among the group of North Caucasian peoples who live south of the Caucasian range. Abkhazians are autochthonous (aborigines) of Caucasus. Ethnically and linguistically, they are close to Adyghes (often known among westerners as Circassians) and together they form the Abkhazo-Adyghean branch of the Caucasian language family. In the world of linguistics, Abkhazo-Adyghean languages are known by having one of the largest number of consonants known today among the languages of the world. Traditional Abkhazian culture retains many archaic genres and rituals. Abkhazian and closely related Circassians were decimated by the Russian Empire’s Caucasian Wars during the nineteenth century (1817–1864). Many of the ethnic Circassians and Abkhazians were forcibly relocated and many left native lands in Caucasia and went to Muslim countries, chiefly to Turkey. For several of the last decades, Abkhazia has been a breakaway region of Georgia, with all the political, social, and economic consequences. Polyphony plays a crucial role in Abkhazian traditional music. Polyphony is present in all genres where the social environment provides more than one singer to support the melodic line. Abkhazian two- and three-part polyphony is based on a drone, sometimes a double drone. Two-part drone songs are considered by Abkhazian (and Georgian) scholars the most important indigenous style of Abkhazian polyphony. Two-part drone songs dominate in the Gudauta district, the core region of ethnic Abkhazians. Millennia of cultural, social, and economic interactions between Abkhazians and Georgians in this territory resulted in reciprocal influences, and in particular, the creation of a new, so-called “Georgian style” of three-part singing in Abkhazia, unknown among Adyghes. This style is based on two leading melodic lines (performed by soloists—akhkizkhuo in Abkhazian) singing together with the drone or ostinato base (argizra). The indigenous Abkhazian style of threepart polyphony uses double drones (in fourths, fifths, or octaves) and one leading melodic line at one time. Abkhazians use a very specific cadence: a tetrachordal downwards movement, ending on the interval fourth. The first scholarly works about Abkhazian music appeared at the beginning of the twentieth century and belonged to a founder of Georgian ethnomusicology and a composer Arakishvili (1916). A few other important works followed during the twentieth century (Akhobadze & Kortua, 1957; Ashuba, 1986; Khashba, 1977, 1983; Kovach & Dzidzaria, 1929, 1930; Shamba, 1986), although none of them were published in Western European languages. The only available source in traditional music of Abkhazia to Western readers is an article in the Garland Encyclopedia of World Music (Jordania, 2000: 851–854).

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2.2 Ossetians About 300,000 Ossetians (Iron in Ossetian) occupy the central part of North Caucasia. They live on both (northern and southern) sides of the Caucasian range, respectively in Russia and Georgia. They are the only representative of the Indo-European languages in North Caucasia and the only Christian (more precisely, mostly Christian) people in North Caucasia. Ossetians were traditionally considered the descendants of the Medieval Alans, carriers of the Indo-Iranian language. Later archaeological and physical anthropological studies revealed that despite the fact of the change of the indigenous Caucasian language into an Indo-Iranian branch of the Indo-European family of languages, the newcomers (Alans) did not have much influence on the indigenous population of Ossetia (Alexeev, 1974: 197–200). Musically also, Ossetians are very close to other North Caucasian peoples, sharing most of their characteristics with them. Most importantly for us, the polyphonic tradition is as important to Christian Ossetians, as to their Muslim neighbors. Ossetian polyphony is based on the wide use of drones (and double drones). Songs with a drone mostly represent two-part polyphony. In the case of double drones, these drones are the intervals of fourths, fifths, or octaves apart. In such cases, (together with the main melody, which is always sung individually) the result is three-part drone polyphony. There is another type of three-part polyphony in Ossetia as well (in southern Ossetia, within Georgia), with only one drone but two individual singers, singing together two top melodies on the background of the drone. This type of three-part singing is considered by Ossetian and Georgian scholars as the result of the influence coming from Georgian polyphonic music. The name of the bass part in Ossetia is kirnin, or sometimes, fersag. Male singing dominates. Besides the drone, Ossetians widely use ostinato formulas in the bass part. Rhythmically, Ossetian songs are not very strict. Quite often they use complex meters and free rhythm, mostly following the reciting style of the singer of the main melody. Cadences quite often finish at the interval of a fourth. Arguably the most important musical legacy that medieval Alans left in Ossetian traditional culture is the tradition of epic songs about the Nart heroes. Interestingly, these songs (called here kadeg) are performed arguably in the original Indo-European performance style by a solo male performer (kadeganag), accompanying himself on a string instrument. Epic songs about the Nart heroes became very popular among Ossetian’s neighbors and have currently spread throughout the whole North Caucasia, although in all other North Caucasian cultures (apart from Ossetians), epic songs about Narts are performed by a group of singers in a traditional polyphonic style with a drone. In contrast to most of the other North Caucasian polyphonic traditions, which were mostly unavailable to European scholars, Ossetian polyphonic tradition became known among European scholars quite early (Lach, 1917, 1931). Before that, still in the 1880s, Russian composers Mikhail Ipolitov-Ivanov (the author of one of the earliest studies on Georgian music) and Sergei Taneev made transcriptions of Ossetian songs (in 1883 and 1888), unfortunately remaining unpublished. The

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1964 volume “Ossetian Folk Songs” (Galaev, 1964) is still the best published source of Ossetian traditional songs. The collection presents 100 songs and instrumental melodies, supplemented with texts and ethnographic materials. Ossetia, like Abkhazia, is in a complex political, social, and economic situation, as it currently represents another breakaway region from Georgia (supported by Russia), and possibly for this reason, the study of their musical traditions declined during the last decades.

3 State of Study of Traditional Music of National Minorities Apart from these two aboriginal Caucasus ethnic groups living within the official boarders of Georgia, many more ethnic groups living here should be mentioned. Owing to its position between the East–West and North–South crossroads, Georgia has always been rich with diverse populations from various ethnic, cultural, and religious backgrounds. Several dozen nationalities lived and still live here, some from the neighboring countries (like Armenia, Azerbaijan, or peoples from North Caucasia) and some from more distant regions (like Russians, Ukrainians, Greeks, or Jews). Some of them lived in Georgia for millennia (like Greeks and Jews) and some are relatively recent migrants (like Russians and Ukrainians).

3.1 Russian Researchers The situation with the state of the study of traditional music of all these groups varies to a great extent. If we have a look at the earliest period of studies of musical traditions of Georgia (before 1918), while Georgia was part of the Russian Empire, we can see that some of the earliest writings about Georgian traditional music belonged to Russian musicians: Grozdov (1894) and Ipolitov-Ivanov (1895). It is widely accepted in Georgian musicology that these Russian authors, despite the noblest intentions, were not sufficiently informed (let alone understanding of Georgian language) to make valid conclusions. For example, Ipolitov-Ivanov, a brilliant musician, composer (student of Rimsky-Korsakov in composition), and a person with generous personality, in his 1895 article, proposed that vocal polyphony in Georgia could have been brought by Russian troops positioned in Georgia. Later Ipolitov-Ivanov gracefully accepted the criticism of this idea by Dimitri Arakishvili, admitting that when writing his article, he was unaware of rich village traditions of vocal polyphony and was familiar only with the late urban singing traditions (see the “foreword” written by Ipolitov-Ivanov for the book of Dimitri Arakishvili, “History of Georgian Music”, 1925). Before the abovementioned two articles of Russian authors, there were also earlier articles by Jambakur-Orbeliani (1861) and Machabeli (1864), as well as a few minor collections of Georgian folk songs published, chiefly for children (for example, collections by Mikheil Machavariani and Zakaria Chkhikvadze).

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Despite some interests toward the folk traditions, most of the activity in this first period (before 1918) was directed to the survival of Georgian liturgical music, as it was banned by Russian political and religious authorities and was facing extinction. Several thousand liturgical hymns were recorded in that period, but this is a separate big topic that we are not going to discuss in this article. From the beginning of the twentieth century, still within the Russian Empire, educated (mostly in St. Petersbourg) ethnically Georgian professional composers and collectors of traditional music became active. Dimitri Arakishvili and Zakaria Paliashvili took the lead. They are widely considered as the two most important composers of the new Georgian composition school and were also the most important collectors of the field recordings. They started using the gramophone and published transcriptions of hundreds of songs recorded from villagers (see Arakishvili, 1905, 1908, 1916, 1925; Paliashvili, 1909). Sadly, their original gramophone recordings are still missing, possibly residing anonymously in some dusty archives in Russia. It is important to remember that the new higher level of study of Georgian traditional music was achieved after professionally educated Georgians started to study the cultural legacy of their native country.

3.2 Georgian Researchers The brief and turbulent period of independence (1918–1921) brought two positive changes for the future of Georgian musical culture: Tbilisi State University and Tbilisi State Conservatory were established and generations of locally educated Georgian professional musicians and musicologists started to operate. 1921–1991: Seventy years in the Soviet Union. After three years of independence, Russia came back, in the shape of the communist USSR. We might discuss and not agree with the statement that Georgia should be considered as a “minority” within the USSR, as it was considered an independent republic (incorporating itself several official “national minorities”), but the political and ideological dictate from Moscow was so strong that it left very little space for the local initiatives. For example, study of religious music was totally banned; instead of naturally existing small local ensembles, the creation of big regional choirs was encouraged, with the subsequent loss of improvisation; a great number of songs about the Communist Party leaders and the communist ideology were hastily created, recorded, and promoted. All peoples of the Soviet Union, from dominating Russians to the smallest national minorities, were to follow the same ideological lead. The USSR cultural policy was very aggressive. The new movement of creating a united “socialist culture” took place and all of the peoples were supposed to “reach” the common level of “socialist musical culture” with operas, ballets, and other complex musical forms composed. Most importantly for the topic of our discussion, vocal polyphony became one of the central features of the new common “socialist musical culture.” A lot of resources and finances were spent to create new polyphonic traditions in a huge communist empire. Conservatory-trained musicians were sent

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from Moscow to various places of the USSR (to the carriers of monophonic singing traditions) in order to do polyphonic arrangements of local melodies and teach them to the newly created local choir. In this atmosphere of aimed “mass polyphonization” of the huge country, Georgian traditional polyphony was regarded as a positive example for others to follow. After the breakup of the Soviet Union in 1991, all 15 republics went (more or less) their own ways, maintaining with Russia very different relationships, from close friendship to open hostility. None of the former monophonic cultures acquired polyphony in their traditional music and state choirs were disbanded. Since 1991 Georgia also became a fully independent country, incorporating a number of national minorities with various official status and various degrees of relationship with the Georgian state and culture.

3.3 Policy of Studying Minority Music in Georgia Now we approach the central question of our discussion: How well the musical traditions of various peoples, living in Georgia, were (and are) studied in contemporary Georgia? If we compare the level of study of Georgian musical traditions to the level of study of the music of minorities, as it would be expected, this latter is studied much less. Also, interestingly, the archival recordings of musical traditions of minorities made by Georgian ethnomusicologists are relatively numerous, but on the other hand, the actual research output is very small. There are objective reasons for this scarcity of research activity. The two central reasons probably are: (1) the linguistic difference and (2) insufficient knowledge of the culture of these peoples. We need to remember that one of the most important factors leading to the reluctance (and even fear) of Georgian scholars to do research of the music of national minorities are the long-established scholarly traditions of ethnomusicological research in Eastern Europe. Unlike the widespread model of Western ethnomusicology, where traditional music of many countries from around the world is often studied by scholars from another cultural/linguistic background (usually by European and American western-educated scholars), in Georgia and former USSR Republics (and to a certain degree in the countries of Eastern Europe), musical traditions were (and are) expected to be studied by the representatives of these cultures, native speakers of the language/dialect, with an intrinsic deep knowledge of the cultural norms and traditions of the society. Therefore, as the representatives of many national minorities among ethnomusicologists are a big rarity, the gap between the study level of the music of the dominating culture and national minorities remains considerable. As positive examples of a relatively rich study of the music of minorities, I can point to the serious scholarly studies of Abkhazian and Ossetian musical traditions that were discussed earlier. Can we make any methodologically valid conclusion based on the example of these two cases? I believe we can.

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The most productive (in the long run) policy for the successful and adequate study of the traditional music of national minorities, in my opinion, is to finance the professional education of young scholars from these minorities. With their deep intrinsic knowledge of their own language and culture and academic education, a new generation of scholars from national minorities will do justice to their own musical traditions. For example, in the case of Abkhazians, the major positive development was achieved after the appearance of a number of collections and studies of their rich polyphonic traditions by local scholars and enthusiasts (see Ashuba, 1986; Shamba, 1986; Khashba, 1977, 1983). This seems to me to be the most prolific way to achieve the adequate study of musical traditions of national minorities. The only serious study of minority musical traditions that I am aware of by a Georgian scholar is the article by Nino Naneishvili, dedicated to the liturgical music of various denominations of Christianity in one of the regions of East Georgia (Naneishvili, 2012) and the Ph.D. dissertation of the same author dedicated to liturgical music of Tbilisi during the last two centuries (Naneishvili, 2020). Unfortunately, not all groups living in Tbilisi are researched in the study. Chiefly because of linguistic reasons, only Georgian-speaking religious minorities are discussed. And keep in mind that this study concerns religious, rather than traditional music. As I have already mentioned, there are relatively rich archival recordings from a number of minorities living in Georgia, but scholarly studies are absent, and probably will be absent until the professionally educated representatives of these minorities pay serious attention to their own musical traditions. Only after achieving this, will the rich recorded materials that are currently sitting idle on archival shelves become the source of serious cultural studies.

4 Some General Issues of Study of Polyphonic Traditions of National Minorities In this part of the article several general topics, concerning polyphonic traditions of the national minorities will be discussed.

4.1 Distribution of Polyphony Among Indigenous National Minorities If we have a look at the world distribution of traditional polyphony, it is easy to notice that a big part of polyphonic traditions, in general, is distributed among national minorities. As a rule, these are the indigenous (meaning older, autochthonous) populations, preserving their traditions in geographically isolated regions—mountains, islands, continental fringes, and large forest massifs. Let me mention several examples. Polyphonic traditions of Ainus in northern Japan, of Tibetan and 25 other

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national minorities in south-western China, of Nuristanis in Afghanistan, of Flores Island in Indonesia, of minorities living in Taiwanese mountains, of aboriginal tribes in Papua New Guinea, of indigenous American Indian tribes living in the mountains of North Argentina, are among them (for a more detailed discussion of such cultures see Jordania, 2006, 2015a, 2015b). The fact of the distribution of polyphony among national minorities in many countries leads to unfavorable conditions of the study of many polyphonic traditions of national minorities. Sometimes even the fact of the presence of interesting forms of polyphony is not mentioned when discussing their musical traditions, even in the most prestigious professional publications. See, for example, the special article on Vietnamese national minorities in the Garland Encyclopedia of World Music (Nguyen, 1998) or an article on musical traditions of Basques (see Laborde, 2000). Unfortunately, this neglect is more or less a general trend, although there have been positive changes in the world during the last few decades. For example, Corsican polyphonic traditions were gradually disappearing, but with the change of cultural policy of France, the vocal polyphony in Corsica has been experiencing great recognition and resurgence during the last several decades. Fortunately, there have also been positive exceptions when polyphonic traditions of national minorities received decent scholarly attention and research, with academic articles and books published. China is among such countries where the polyphonic traditions of national minorities received substantial attention from ethnomusicologists (see a monographic study of polyphonic traditions of Chinese peoples by Yin, 1994).

4.2 Stratification of Traditional Polyphony in the Light of the Origins of Polyphony It is very important to remember that the distribution of polyphony all over the World is very fragmental and, in most cases, does not have a national (or tribal) character. On the contrary, in many regions, several polyphonic cultures create “international polyphonic clusters.” Think of the number of polyphonic cultures of Caucasia (Georgians and North Caucasian peoples), Balkans, or the minorities in South-West China. This peculiar geographic stratification can be explained by the origins of the phenomenon of vocal polyphony. In my previous books (Jordania, 2006, 2011), I proposed that, contrary to popular belief, polyphony is not a late cultural invention that was developed on the basis of the development of initial monophonic singing. All the existing information strongly supports that polyphony is gradually disappearing all over the world. According to the proposed model, polyphony was created by the forces of natural selection during the earliest period of the evolutionary development of our hominid ancestors as a part of the human defense system from predators. Loud rhythmically united sound, full of dissonant harmonies, accompanied by the synchronic body movements of the group

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was putting our ancestors in an altered state of consciousness, which I call the “Battle Trance.” In this state, participants did not feel fear or even pain, group interests and saving their family and tribe members were becoming more important than their own survival (Jordania, 2011; see also Nettl, 2015a, 2015b). The psychological state of the battle trance was a crucial tool for our ancestors in order to defend themselves from predators and obtain food. This is the reason why participation in ritual dancing and singing sessions before the military and hunting sessions is universally spread in traditional societies. The tradition of the ritual dances before military sessions has such deep roots that it is still alive today amongst the most contemporary, well-equipped western combat forces. As an example is the tradition of American soldiers often engaging in vigorous group singing and dancing sessions before their military missions. You can read about this interesting phenomenon in the insightful book by Jonathan Pieslak “Sound Targets: American Soldiers and Music in the Iraq War” (Pieslak, 2009). I am happy that despite the slow start, this new theory of the origins of polyphony in the context of human evolution gradually received international recognition in the highest international award in ethnomusicology, the Fumio Koizumi prize in 2009 (see Nettl, 2015a, 2015b). So, in order to explain the correlation between the distribution of polyphony and national minorities, let us recall again that vocal polyphony is gradually disappearing throughout the world. This idea naturally leads us to the fact that vocal polyphony is mostly surviving in the most geographically isolated regions of the world. This is the most natural feature for the oldest layers of cultural traditions, ancient languages, or the relict biological species of plants and animals. Such ancient survivors are found in the most inaccessible isolated places, often geographically very far from each other, but stylistically still close to each other. Nettl (2015a: 324) and Sachs (1940: 63–64) have written on the importance of geographic isolation, and how it helps the older population and their musical traditions to survive for a longer period of time. A prime example of this thesis in ethnomusicology is the great number of vocal polyphonic traditions from very different regions of the world (Balkans, Baltic region, Polesie, Caucasia Nuristan, North Japan, some islands of Indonesia, Melanesia, North Vietnam and south-west China, Taiwan) based on dissonant seconds and the use of drones (Jordania, 2006, 2011). The famous confusion of Jaap Kunst, that led the scholar proposing the unlikely migration of Balkan peoples to faraway Indonesia (Kunst, 1954) would become more significant and probably different if Kunst was aware of so many isolated regions of the world harboring very similar specific dronedissonant type of vocal polyphony (see Jordania, 2015a, 2015b).

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4.3 Polyphony, Indigenous National Minorities and State Borders Here is one more general issue affecting many aboriginal peoples of the world. While living in the pockets of hard-to-access territories, indigenous carriers of polyphonic traditions are gradually isolated from other related groups, and many of them lose their languages, but they often retain their singing traditions longer, as music shows greater stability in such situations of isolation and admixture than language (Jordania, 2015a, 2015b: 243–251). Later, with the process of formation of contemporary nation-states, a new complex and sometimes painful process takes place: drawing state borders. All nation-states need stable and well-defined borders. The most natural places of putting such borders between the nations naturally are the hard-to-access and isolated regions between the countries. These are the regions, as we remember, that are often populated by the descendants of the older, indigenous populations, often carriers of polyphonic traditions. So, as state borders run on the top of the mountain ranges and the middle of the major forest massifs, the older, culturally and ethnically related populations that live in such isolated regions suddenly find themselves divided and belonging to different states. For example, when France and Spain put a border between the two states, the border went through the Pyrenees, the natural living space of the pre-Indo-European Basques. As a result, today Basques live both in France and in Spain. The same processes were active in the Alps. Neighboring Germany, Italy, Austria, and France divided the mountainous range and the once ethnically and culturally related populations found themselves divided in different countries. For this reason, populations of southern Germany and northern Italy are culturally and ethnically closer to each other than the populations of northern and southern Italy, or northern and southern Germany. Similar processes were in place in the Caucasus as well. The same has happened in the largest forest region of Europe, Polesie, which is today divided between the Ukraine, Belarus, Poland, and Russia.

5 Conclusions: What Does This All Mean for the Study of the Polyphonic Traditions of Indigenous Peoples? Promoting national interest and supporting the idea of unique features of the national culture is a natural desire of national scholars and artists. Vocal polyphony has been more than once at the center of such sentiments of uniqueness. Vasil Stoin, for example, was considering Bulgarian polyphony a unique phenomenon (Stoin, 1925), even though later it became apparent that similar polyphony was present among most of the peoples of the Balkan Peninsula (and not only). Georgian musicology for decades was also championing the idea that Georgia was a polyphonic island in the sea of monophonic traditions (Javakhishvili, 1938, 1998). It turned out that

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virtually all of the peoples of North Caucasus, (including Turkic language speakers of Balkarians and Karachaevis as well as Indo-Iranian language speakers of Ossetians) have vocal polyphonic traditions that are stylistically similar to Georgian polyphony. From a contemporary perspective, it is relatively easy to see that the distribution of vocal polyphony often crosses boundaries between the states and represents a wider international and regional phenomenon. Therefore, if we want to study the vocal polyphony of a certain culture deeper, we should not restrict ourselves with the research of traditional polyphony of one region or even one country. Ideally, we need to check the neighboring countries and the possibility of the presence of vocal polyphony in these countries and incorporate the study of other neighboring traditions of vocal polyphony of the whole region, despite the existing state borders and possible linguistic differences. A collaboration of scholars from various countries would be very fruitful. And finally, after a discussion of this complex issue, here are three simple practical conclusions-suggestions about the study of vocal polyphonic traditions of indigenous national minorities: (1)

(2)

(3)

To bolster the adequate study of musical traditions of national minorities, the most fruitful long-term strategy might be to educate young musicians from these minorities and encourage them to research their own musical traditions; To achieve a higher level of study of the polyphonic musical traditions of indigenous national minorities, scholars should try to look at the musical traditions of these minorities wider, not only as a single culture on its own, but in the context of neighboring (and particularly stylistically similar) musical traditions; Therefore, I propose that cooperation between the ethnomusicologists representing various national minorities should be encouraged and this trend might become a fruitful strategy of the ethnomusicology of the twenty-first century.

References Akhobadze, V., & Kortua, I. (1957). Abkhazian songs. Gosudarstvennoe Muzikalnoe Izdatelstvo. Alexeev, V. P. (1974). Origin of the peoples of the caucasus. Nauka. Arakishvili, D. (1905). Short review of the development of georgian (Kartlian and Kakhetian) folk songs. Moscow Commission of Music and Ethnography (Vol. 1). K. Menshov. Arakishvili, D. (1908). West georgian folk songs. Moscow Commission of Music and Ethnography, 2. (G. Lissner and D. Sobko). Arakishvili, D. (1916). Georgian Folk-musical Culture. Moscow Ethnographic and Anthropological Commission, 5 (G. Lissner and D. Sobko). Arakishvili, D. (1925). Georgian music: Short historical review. Mecniereba Sakartveloshi. Arakishvili, D. (1950). Svanetian folk songs. Khelovneba. Ashuba, V. (1986). Abkhazian folk songs. Muzfond. Aslanishvili, S. (1954/1956). Essays on georgian folk song. (Vol. 1 (1954) and 2 (1956)). Khelovneba.

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Aslanishvili, S. (1970/1950). Harmony of the kartlian and kakhetian folk choir songs. 2nd ed. (First ed. 1950). Ganatleba. Chkhikvadze, G. (1948). Ancient Musical culture of georgian people. Muzfond. Chkhikvadze, G. (1961). Georgian folk songs (Editing and Introduction). Sabchota Sakartvelo. Chkhikvadze, G. (1964). Main types of georgian polyphonic singing. In (Text of the paper given at the 7th International Congress of Anthropological and Ethnological Sciences). Nauka. August, 1964. Galaev, B. (1964). Ossetian folk songs. Muzgiz. Garakanidze, E. (1991). Musical dialects of georgian traditional music. Ph.D., Tbilisi Theatrical Institute. Grozdov, K. (1894). Mingrelskie Pesni [Megrelian Songs]. In Sbornik Materialov dlya opisaniya Mestnostey i Plemen Kavkaza (In collection of materials describing the regions and peoples of the caucasus), (Vol. 18, pp. 6–22). Izdanie Upravlenia Kavkazskogo Uchebnogo Okruga. Ipolitov-Ivanov, M. M. (1895). ‘Gruzinskaia Narodnaia Muzika i ee Sovremennoe Sostoianie’ [Georgian folk music and its contemporary state]. Artist (#45) (in Russian). Jambakur-Orbeliani, A. (1861). Iverianelebis Galoba, Simghera Da Ghighini (The chanting, singing and Ghighini of the Iberians. Journal Tsiskari, N1, 141–160. (in Georgian). Javakhishvili, I. (1998). First edition 1938. the basic questions of the history of georgian music. In I. Javakhishvili (Eds.), Works in 12 volumes. (Vol. 9). Edited by Gulbat Toradze and Joseph Jordania. Metsniereba. Jordania, M. (1972). On the problem of ‘Modzakhili’—High Base. In A. Shaverzashvili (Ed.), Collection of articles of tbilisi state conservatory (pp. 103–126). Tbilisi State Conservatory. Jordania, J. (1981). On Peculiarities of ‘Chakrulo’ and ‘Long Kakhetian Mravalzhamier.’ Sabchota Khelovneba, 12, 44–50. (In Georgian with Russian summary). Jordania, J. (1982). Modulation in east georgian drone songs. Ph.D., Tbilisi Theatrical Institute. Jordania, J. (1988). The first results of observation of musical folklore of Saingilo Region, In P. Zandukeli (Eds.), Proceedings of the 27th conference of coordinative council of folklore at the academy of science of Georgia (pp. 56–58). Mecniereba, 1988. Jordania, J. (2000). North Caucasia. In T. Rice, J. Porter, & C. Goertzen (Eds.), The Garland encyclopedia of world music (Vol. 8, pp. 850–866). Garland Publishing. Jordania, J. (2006). Who asked the first question? The origins of human choral singing, intelligence, language and speech. Logos. Jordania, J. (2011). Why do people sing? music in human evolution. Logos. Jordania, J. (2015a). Choral singing in human culture and evolution. Lambert Academic Publishers. Jordania, J. (2015b). New interdisciplinary approach to the study of the origins of traditional polyphony. MUSICOLOGY: Journal of the Institute of Musicology of SASA (Serbian Academy of Science and Arts), 18, 77–98, Belgrade 2015. Jordania, J., & Tamaz, G. (2011). Georgia: Traditional vocal polyphony and folk terminology. In A. Ahmedaja (Ed.), European voices II: Cultural listening and local discourse in multipart singing traditions in Europe (pp. 335–374). Bohlau Verlag Wien. Jordania, N. (1985). Role of the base in gurian polyphonic songs. Sabchota Khelovneba, 9, 36–42. (in Georgian). Jordania, N. (1986). Trio form in vocal tradition of Western Georgia. In J. Jordania (Ed.), Problems of folk polyphony, materials of the international conference (pp. 48–49). Khashba, M. (1977). Abkhazians’ work and ritual songs. Alashara. Khashba, M. (1983). Genres of Abkhazian folk songs. Alashara. Kovach, K., & Dzidzaria, K. (1929). One hundred one abkhazian folk songs. Izdanie Narkomproma Abkhazii. Kovach, K., & K. Dzidzaria. (1930). The songs of Kodorian Abkhazians. Izdanie Narkomproma Abkhazii. Kraveishvili, G. (2020). Problems in the study of folk music in Georgia’s historic regions and of the georgians exiled in the 17–19th centuries. Academic Book. Kunst, J. (1954). Cultural relations between the Balkans and Indonesia. Royal Tropical Institute.

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Laborde, D. (2000). Basque music. In T. Rice, J. Porter, & C. Goertzen (Eds.), The Garland encyclopedia of world music. Vol. 8, Europe (pp. 309–318). Garland Publishing. Lach, R. (1917). Vorlaeufiger Bericht ueber die im Auftrage der Kaiserlichen Akademie der Wissenschaften erfolgte Aufnahme der Gesange russisher Kriegsgefaengener im August und September 1916. Mitteilung der Phonogramm-Archives-Komission Wien, 46, 62–78. Lach, R. (1931). Gesange Russisher Kriegsgefaengener, Aufgenommen und Berausgegeben von Robert Lach. Abteilung Mingrelische, Abchasische, Svanische und Ossetische Gesange 3, 2. Vienna and Leipzig. Machabeli, D. (1864). Kartuelta Zneoba (Morals of the georgians). Tsiskari, N5(May), 49–73. Magradze, V. (1986). Meskhetian folk songs. Khelovneba. Naneishvili, N. (2012). Religio-cultural conglomerate in Dedoplistsqaro (Kakheti). In R. Tsurtsumia & J. Jordania (Eds.), Materials of VI international symposium on traditional polyphony (pp. 333– 338). Naneishvili, N. (2020). Christian liturgy in Tbilisi in 19th–21st centuries. Doctoral thesis from Ilia State University. https://iliauni.edu.ge/uploads/other/57/57015.pdf Nettl, B. (2015a). The study of ethnomusicology: Thirty-three discussions. Third extended edition (First edition—1983). University of Illinois Press. Nettl, B. (2015b). What are the great discoveries of your field? Informal comments on the contributions of ethnomusicology. Muzikoloski Zbornik. UDK 784.4, 008 https://doi.org/10.4312/mz. 51.1.163-174 Nguyen, P. T. (1998). Minority musics of vietnam. In T. E. Miller & S. Williams (Eds.), The Garland encyclopedia of world music, Vol. 4, Southeast Asia (pp. 531–536). Garland Publishing. Paliashvili, Z. (1909). Georgian folk songs. Georgian Philharmonic Society Press. Pieslak, J. (2009). Sound targets: American soldiers and music in the Iraq War. Indiana University Press. Sachs, C. (1940). The history of musical instruments. Norton. Shamba, I. (1986). Abkhazian folk songs. Muzfond. Stoin, V. (1925). Hypothese sur l’origine Bulgare de la Diaphonie. La Bulgarie D’aujourd’hui, 8, 3–44. Tsitsishvili, N. (2004). National unity and gender difference in georgian traditional song-culture. Ph.D., Melbourne, Monash University. Yin, F. Z. (1994). Introduction to Chinese polyphonic folk songs. People’s Music Publishing House.

Joseph Jordania born in 1954, Ph.D. (1982), Dr. Mus. (1991), is an Australian/Georgian ethnomusicologist and evolutionary musicologist from the University of Melbourne. He is one of the founders of the International Research Center for Traditional Polyphony in Georgia and currently is the head of the Foreign Department of the Center. He is the author of over 160 publications, including several books on the origins of traditional choral polyphony. In 2009, he was awarded the Fumio Koizumi Prize in Ethnomusicology in Tokyo, Japan.

The Indigenous Music of Sarawak and Its Transmission Over the Last 60 Years with a Special Focus on the Music of the Kenyah and the Lun Bawang Chong Pek Lin and Connie Keh Nie Lim

Abstract The East Malaysian state of Sarawak lies on the island of Borneo, the center of maritime South-east Asia. Sarawak’s ethnic profile of 27 different indigenous groups, differs considerably from the rest of Malaysia. This chapter describes Sarawak’s indigenous music and its transmission through informal and formal means over the last 60 years. In the 1960s, while Sarawak was still under strong British influence, Western music was predominant in the public sphere, but indigenous music culture also received considerable support from educationists. Several years after becoming part of the Federation of Malaysia, it was largely ignored in the school curriculum. Music and dance were only transmitted through communal based activities after school hours. With the growing awareness of the value of local culture as a tourist attraction since the 1990s, the state’s music heritage has been showcased during numerous festivals and public events. Over the last 20 years, research into the music of specific groups especially those of the Kenyah and the Lun Bawang has enhanced the role of indigenous music in formal education. This chapter is divided into several different sections. Following a literature survey on Dayak music, Sect. 3 presents an overview of music education in Sarawak, Sect. 4 discusses the music of the Kenyah and its integration into the music education while Sect. 5 focuses on the music of the Lun Bawang. Finally, Sect. 6 traces the changing role and repertoire of the sape (boat-lute indigenous to Borneo) which has gained international prominence. Keywords Sarawak indigenous music · Borneo culture · Kenyah songs · Lun Bawang music · Malaysia music Education The original version of this chapter was revised: The author name has been corrected in the reference part of this chapter. The correction to this chapter is available at https://doi.org/10.1007/978-98116-4473-3_10 Chong Pek Lin Independent Researcher, Kuching, Sarawak, Malaysia C. K. N. Lim (B) Faculty of Applied and Creative Arts, Universiti Malaysia Sarawak, 94300 Kota Samarahan, Sarawak, Malaysia e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. 2021, corrected publication 2021 Y. Lu and O. Elschek (eds.), The Legacy of Indigenous Music, Sinophone and Taiwan Studies 4, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-16-4473-3_7

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1 Introduction Borneo, the center of maritime Southeast Asia, abounds with rich musical traditions. Yet, the glamour associated with mainstream Asian court music has bypassed the world’s third largest island. None of its musical ensembles have found a place in international ethnomusicology departments. Influenced by a plethora of adventure novels, many conceive of Borneo only as the last bastion of twentieth-century headhunting. In world music publications such as Anderson and Campbell (1996), the section on Southeast Asia emphasizes Indonesian (Javanese and Balinese) gamelan and the music of mainland South-East Asia. The music of Borneo is not even mentioned. This results in an imbalanced perspective, as, in contrast to the cultures described in the book (Thai, Vietnamese, Cambodian, Javanese, and Balinese). Bornean ethnic groups display a performing arts tradition relatively free of the influence of Chinese, Indian and Islamic civilizations. In this chapter, we hope to rectify this disparity by describing selected indigenous music traditions of Sarawak (situated in Northwestern Borneo), their transmission within specific communities and educational institutions, and their dissemination to mainstream society. Borneo island is made up of four political entities: the East Malaysian states of Sarawak and Sabah, the Sultanate of Brunei, and Kalimantan (Indonesian Borneo, formerly colonised by the Dutch). Malaysia was formed in 1963 when Sarawak, Sabah, and Singapore, all former British protectorates, merged with the Federation of Malaya (now known as West Malaysia, or Peninsular Malaysia). Singapore subsequently left the new federation in 1965. After joining the federation, Sarawak gradually lost its autonomy in various spheres, including education and health services. With the formation of the new country, the ethnic balance also changed. While the West Malaysian populace comprises three major racial groups (Malays, Chinese and Indians), Sarawak and Sabah have a much wider spectrum of ethnicities with Bornean indigenous groups making up a major proportion of their populations. In Malaysia ‘indigenous’ is synonymous with the official Malay term bumiputra (literally ‘sons of the soil’), a category which includes the Malays and all the Bornean indigenous groups, but excludes ‘immigrant groups’ such as the Chinese and Indians. Bumiputera are accorded exclusive privileges such as preferential enrolment in institutions of higher learning and special access to business licences. Sarawak, with a population of 2.6 million, is home to 27 different ethnic groups, many of which are also found in Kalimantan (Indonesian Borneo). The major groups, in order of numerical dominance are: Iban, Chinese, Malay, Bidayuh, Melanau and ‘Orang Ulu’ (a collection of over 20 different groups living in the interior, among which are the Kayan, Kenyah, Lun Bawang, Kelabit, Penan and Bisaya). Apart from the Chinese, Malay and Melanau, the other mentioned groups are commonly referred to as ‘Dayak’ (a term used for centuries to refer to all non-Muslim indigenous groups in Borneo). Based on the 2010 census, the combined Dayak population constituted 43% of Sarawak’s population. Each Dayak group has its own language, from among a hundred other Austronesian languages identified in Borneo (Smith, 2017). There

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are some broad similarities in culture such as clothing and body-decoration (such as earrings and tattooing). Although most of their traditional religious practices involved numerous spirits and omen animals, the majority now identify as Christian. Except for the Penan, who still live nomadically as hunter-gatherers, Dayak communities traditionally dwell in longhouses (a longhouse consists of a set of adjoining private family apartments which open out into a common veranda) and practice swidden rice agriculture, supplemented by hunting and fishing. Over the last fifty years, they have also ventured into the cultivation of commercial crops such as rubber, pepper, and oil palm. For brevity, this chapter focuses only on the music traditions of the Dayak groups within Sarawak. In-depth discussion will be devoted to the music traditions of two ethnic groups, the Kenyah and the Lun Bawang. Section 4 (Kenyah music from the longhouse to the urban classroom) draws on material from Chong’s research on Kayan and Kenyah songs and dance in the Baram (1995–1997) and subsequent investigations (1998–2020) of Kenyah recreational songs and instruments, and their integration into the classroom (Chong, 1998, 2006, 2013, 2020; Chong & Anne Anthony Lajinga, 2011). Section 5 (The Lun Bawang and their music culture) discusses Lun Bawang culture and music style, with a special focus on the bamboo band, based on Lim’s research in Lawas district (2005–2006). In Sect. 6 (Sape in the wider society) the changing role of the sape, an instrument of Kenyah origin which has gained practitioners among skilled exponents both within Borneo and around the world, is then reviewed in detail. This includes a discussion on the development of a contemporary style, drawing from Lim’s research in this area (Lim & Mohd Fadzil Abdul Rahman, 2017; Lim et al. 2020).

2 Literature Survey of Research on Traditional Dayak Music in Sarawak Gong and drum ensembles predominate among many Bornean groups such as the Iban, Bidayuh and Bisaya. Their main function is to accompany dance and specific festivals. As described in Matusky and Tan (2004), the Iban engkerumong ensemble consists of four main instruments, the engkerumong (gong-chime consisting of five to eight small, knobbed gongs, placed horizontally in a wooden box resonator), the ketebung (long, waisted drum) the bebendai (medium-sized gong) and the tetawak (large, bossed gong). Each instrument has its own characteristic rhythm patterns, generally duple, and these combine polyphonically in an interlocking style. Using ascending and descending contours, the engkerumong player improvises melodies built from several common rhythm patterns recognized by both dancers and musicians. Although the engkerumong is pitched, there is no standard tuning, and the number of gongs also varies from village to village. Ng (2002) describes Bidayuh “hanging gong” ensembles as consisting of two ketawak (large gongs), two canang (small gongs), two indie gong (medium-sized gongs) and a gendang (drum). The

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Bisaya boast a nineteen-piece ensemble consisting of various sized gongs (agung, tawak, bebandil, bandil, teretik, kelentangan) and a drum (dumbak) (Davis, 1960; Sylvester Sarnagi Punchak, 1989). There are also non-gong ensembles such as the Bidayuh perunchong ensemble which consists of a set of bamboo idiophones of varying but indefinite pitch. (Chong, 2007; Ng, 2002). Music of all these ensembles is primarily rhythmic, characterized by the interplay of cross-rhythms among the instruments. Pitch is not emphasized, and melody is subservient to the rhythm. Among the Iban, vocal music is exemplified by timang (a chant) sung by a lemambang (a bard) to invoke spirits during feasts (gawai) while striking a walking stick on the floor in steady rhythm. The texts of these chants have been studied extensively by James Jemut Masing (1997) who translated the complete text of the timang gawai amat into English. According to Matusky (2006), who studied their musical characteristics, timang are sung in a syllabic style using characteristic melodic motifs to begin a textual line, and then establishing two main chanting tones a perfect 4th apart in each verse. Unlike the above-mentioned groups, the music of the Kayan and Kenyah is predominantly melodic, often with multipart textures, as in the repertoire of the kedire’ (mouth organ, also known as keluri or keledi), sape (boat-lute) and jatung utang (wooden xylophone). Now almost obsolete, the kedire’ was widely described and photographed as part of the Kayan-Kenyah tradition in the 19th and early twentieth centuries [Myres (1914: 302)]. It consists of 6–7 bamboo tubes bound together in a circle and enclosed in a gourd wind chest. In 1997, the late Imang Ajang (one the last few known exponents) demonstrated to Chong (2013: 114) how he would lead the hivan joh (Kayan group dance), while playing a pentatonic melody sounding simultaneously over a drone on the tonic. The kedire’ has since faded from the scene, but the sape (boat-shaped lute) has seen a resurgence in popularity among both groups within the last twenty years. The Kayan and Kenyah are also well-known for their choral music, featuring communal a capella singing in two to four-part harmony. The unusually high quality of choral singing among both groups has amazed writers such as Morrison (1957: 266) who wrote: … their music, songs and dances are all far more highly developed than those of the other Bornean peoples … No one who has ever heard Kayans and Kenyahs singing will ever forget it … the whole house, singing in harmony, comes in with a great full chested chorus …

Although greatly impressed by these songs, earlier writers seldom described them in specific musical terms, except that they were melodious and multipart. Sets of lyrics were carefully translated by Galvin (1962: 501–510) and Rubenstein (1973: 1196–1250) but no transcriptions were included. Detailed descriptions and musical transcriptions of Kenyah songs only began to emerge in the 1990s based on research by Gorlinski (1995) and Chong (1997, 2006, 2013). Both Kayan and Kenyah possess different categories of songs, such as the belian tekena (takna’ in Kayan) which relate the deeds of mythic heroes, and the belian burak (wine-songs, sung while offering wine to guests) led by gifted soloists, and joined in multipart choral response (kerahang in Kenyah, habe in Kayan) by the whole gathered community.

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3 Music Education in Sarawak and Transmission of Indigenous Music Prior to the formation of Malaysia in 1963, Sarawak was a separate political entity. From 1841 until 1941 it was administered by the ‘White Rajahs’, a dynastic monarchy of the British Brooke family to whom the Brunei sultanate had ceded the territory. During World War II, it was occupied by the Japanese, after which it became a British crown colony in 1946. During this century of British influence, Western music was introduced to the Sarawak populace. Western classical music thrived through individual instrumental instruction, activities of the Sarawak Music Society and public performances such as those of the Sarawak Constabulary Band. Indigenous instrumental music repertoire such as that of the Iban and Kenyah ensembles were only transmitted at the village level. In urban areas, in tandem with traditional dance, they were promoted through the activities of cultural associations such as the Orang Ulu Association and Rumah Dayak in the Sarawak state capital of Kuching. In 1989, realizing the value of traditional music and dance in the tourist industry, the state-owned Sarawak Economic Development Corporation (SEDC) set up the Sarawak Cultural Village (situated 35 km from Kuching), which features realistic traditional dwellings representative of the major ethnic groups of Sarawak. Daily music and dance performances are conducted, while group dance and music classes can also be arranged on request. In 1992, the privately funded Dayak Cultural Foundation in Kuching began conducting classes in Iban, Bidayuh and Orang Ulu dance and music which continues until today. These classes, mainly for the benefit of youth of Dayak descent, focus on dance and the playing of instruments in ensemble such as engkerumong, jatung utang, sape and perunchong. Vocal music is not taught except for a few Kenyah songs.

3.1 Sarawak Music Education in the 1960s and 1970s Education officer Gloria Smith formulated a syllabus for the Sarawak lower secondary schools (Smith, 1964), incorporating references to local instruments. However, as music was an optional subject, and there were few qualified music teachers, it was never effectively implemented. Smith also published a set of songbooks “Malaysia sings” (1965a, 1965b) which included several Sarawak folk songs. Chong, who attended secondary school in Kuching from 1967 to 1971, recalls that although her school was among the few which offered music lessons, the aforementioned syllabus and books were not used by her teacher. A series of six songbooks for primary schools compiled by Mullen (1961a, 1961b, 1961c, 1961d), a music lecturer at Batu Lintang Teacher’s College, now known as Institute of Teacher Education Batu Lintang (ITE Batu Lintang) was more widely utilized, mainly by graduates of Batu Lintang College. These consisted mainly of Western folksongs but incorporated lyrics with local context.

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Unfortunately, initiatives to incorporate local culture such as those described above died out with the departure of influential expatriate officers. Sarawak gradually lost its autonomy over the school curriculum as education came under federal control. At first, Sarawak schools continued to follow the state-sanctioned curriculum and students sat for exams such as the ‘Cambridge Overseas School Certificate’ while West Malaysian schools followed the national curriculum and students sat for the ‘Malaysian Certificate of Education’. By the late 1970s, however, all schools were nationalized, and Sarawak’s education came fully under federal control, and music was not included in the national curriculum.

3.2 Music Education in Malaysian Elementary Schools After the 1980s Music only became an official part of the Malaysian school curriculum in the 1980s. Although begun with the best of intentions, implementation has always been problematic. The Kurikulum Bersepadu Sekolah Rendah (Integrated Primary School Curriculum, KBSR) songbooks (Kementerian Pendidikan Malaysia, 1982, 1991(1984) and 1992) were written by groups of captive music teachers in sporadic, rushed sessions. Lacking resources and time, they produced songs with sterile, moralistic lyrics and formulaic tunes which did not reflect the melodic or rhythmic characteristics of local cultures (Abdullah, 1993; Chan, 2002; Chong, 1997). Although the lyrics of the songs are in the national language (Malay), the tunes often reflected Western European tonalities and rhythms. At that time, Malaysian music educators were unaware of philosophies of music education based on the development of musical concepts in children. For instance, music pedagogues Zoltán Kodály and Carl Orff both emphasized sequenced solfege learning, beginning with the falling minor third, so mi, and progressing through a repertoire of folksongs in the anhemitonic pentatonic scale. Instead of basing their choice of songs on a logical sequence of melodic patterns and focusing on folksongs, the Malaysian team composed numerous songs in major pentachords and major scales. There was a deluge of songs in the major scale (85.9%), a small percentage in the minor scale (a common scale in Malay music) and an almost negligible number in pentatonic modes (3.7%) (Chong, 1997). Other related phenomena commonly found in the folk song of many cultures, such as the presence of vocables (Chan, 2002), the use of alliteration, metaphors, and allusion to folk literature, are conspicuously absent. These common ingredients of folk song, which contribute greatly to their musical and poetic appeal are sadly lacking in the composed songs. Notably only one song from Sarawak, had been included, the Lun Bawang ‘Busak pakui’. Since 1993, however, there has been a renewed interest in music education, leading to nationwide reforms in the primary school curriculum and a move to introduce music as a subject in secondary schools. Among the innovations introduced was the

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implementation of international music education approaches, specifically those of Kodály, Orff and Emile Jaques-Dalcroze, and a new emphasis on the use of traditional music as teaching material. This was a challenge as there were few books with Malaysian folksongs and limited materials on traditional music.

3.3 Music as a Subject in Malaysian Secondary Schools Music was eventually included as an optional subject in the secondary school curriculum (Kurikulum Bersepadu Sekolah Menengah, KBSM) in the late 1990s. It was initially implemented at only 20 pilot schools for several reasons, among them the high cost of purchase of gamelan (tuned gong-chime ensembles, originating in Java) and caklempong (gong-chime ensemble originating in Sumatra) sets. The Education ministry deemed it should be compulsory for music students to play the instruments in these two traditional ensembles (in addition to keyboard and recorder skills) as they were considered symbolic of ‘Malay culture’. It could be argued that the gamelan was actually adopted from Java (brought to the Terengganu and Pahang royal courts in the late nineteenth century) and the caklempong from Sumatra (from the Minangkabau, a Sumatran ethnic group with a sizeable community in Negeri Sembilan). The education officers in the KBSM panel upheld this policy, feeling the need to champion ‘Malay’ culture to justify the very existence of a ‘frivolous subject’ like music in the school program. In 1994, as part of a panel to develop the KBSM syllabus, Chong argued that rather than make compulsory the expensive gamelan and caklempong sets which would have to be imported from Indonesia or West Malaysia, it would be more economical and representative of ‘Malaysian culture’ to offer the engkerumong and jatung utang/sape ensembles from Sarawak as an alternative. This met with resistance from some West Malaysian panelists unacquainted with these genres, while others pointed out that there were few reference books and resources available. Admittedly, logistical problems would arise in acquiring instruments which would have to be commissioned from skilled instrument makers in Sarawak. This East–West cultural divide needed time to bridge, but considerable progress has been made. After considerable lobbying by Chong and other colleagues, significant progress was achieved during an eye-opening week-long workshop on East Malaysian music in 2005. Organized by ITE Batu Lintang, the course participants were music lecturers from the 27 teacher’s institutes throughout Malaysia. Many West Malaysian lecturers purchased sape and sompoton (a mouth-organ from Sabah) as well as books on Kenyah songs. Subsequently, East Malaysian music topics have been incorporated into the music curriculum for all the Teacher Education Institutes in the country and the jatung utang ensemble was listed, among others, as an alternative to the gamelan or caklempong (Institut Pendidikan Guru, 2006: 23).

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4 Kenyah Music from the Longhouse to the Urban Classroom According to their oral history, the ancestral home of the various Kenyah subgroups was in the highlands of Central Borneo, on the (now uninhabited) Usun Apau plateau in Sarawak or the Apo Kayan plateau in Kalimantan. Kenyah settlements are now mainly concentrated on the upper reaches of the Baram and Balui rivers of Sarawak, the Apo Kayan plateau and along the Mahakam and Kayan rivers of East Kalimantan. Significant numbers have also moved to urban areas such as Miri in Sarawak and Samarinda in Kalimantan. Sarawak’s Kenyah population is 23,167 based on the 2010 census (Department of Statistics, Malaysia, Sarawak, 2015) compared to an estimated 44,000 in Kalimantan. Since 1996, Chong has documented Kenyah music and dance culture in ten villages. Of these, she derived the richest repertoire from the Lepo’ Tau village of Long Moh, Baram. The Lepo’ Tau, one of 35 Kenyah subgroups, are acknowledged by many researchers as having developed the most refined versions of Kenyah music and dance (Harrison, 1966: 287; Whittier, 1973). Until today, there are close cultural ties between Long Moh residents and the Lepo’ Tau of Long Nawang in the Apo Kayan. Musicking usually takes place on the veranda of the longhouse, where villagers gather in the evenings. In the past, belian tekena (mostly free meter and in hemitonic pentatonic mode) sometimes lasting for several consecutive days, were frequently performed. These were led by gifted singers, while the whole gathered community joined in the kerahang (responsorial chorus). These songs are characterized by intricate formulaic verse (ipet in the Lepo’ Tau dialect), for example, the subcategory kerintuk described in detail by Gorlinski (1995). With the advent of television, interest in these longer songs has waned, but shorter songs such as belian kale (humorous songs) and belian tu’ut (songs sung prior to solo dance) are still popular among the older residents. Until today, it is customary for visitors to be serenaded with belian burak (wine-songs) before being offered a glass of rice-wine, followed by an informal musical program lasting until the wee hours of the morning. An evening’s program typically begins with belian dado’ (long-dance songs, in which everyone present is encouraged to participate) followed by group and solo dances accompanied by instruments such as sape, lutong (zither) and jatung utang. Unfortunately, this rich culture is being displaced by the influence of the mass media and the hegemony of Malay and Western popular music. The transmission of repertoire and skills is also hindered by several other factors. Firstly, there has been a drastic rural–urban drift for economic gain, leaving many villages half-deserted. Kenyah urban living conditions (often small, isolated houses) are not conducive to communal music-making. A second factor is the implementation of education in the interior. As travel to most Kenyah villages involves navigating boats through hazardous rapids, upriver children are sent to boarding schools from the age of seven. Thus, “village children” are away for most of the school year and have little exposure to Kenyah songs. When Chong tried to cajole Kenyah children to sing their favorite

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songs, most of their repertoire consisted of Malay or English songs. A third factor is the government policy of building large hydro-electric dams to harness the power of Sarawak’s rivers, necessitating the flooding of villages and the mass relocation of thousands of people. In 1998, the Bakun dam was built in the Balui, displacing 10,000 people, mainly Kenyahs and Kayans. Fortunately, the planned Baram dam (which would affect another 20,000 people) has been staved off for the time being, following protests and blockades by the affected groups. Due to the remote location of Kenyah villages, most of their vocal repertoire is unknown to the public, and when Chong began her fieldwork, little had been documented. Chong has endeavored to preserve this repertoire through documentation (transcription of songs, publication of books) and dissemination efforts (teaching the songs through workshops, incorporating them into classroom lessons, and presenting them on stage). Financial aid came through two sponsored projects: From Upriver Longhouses to the Modern Classroom, funded by the United States Department of State (2004–2006) and Introducing Traditional Musical Ensembles and Folk Songs of East Malaysia to Schoolchildren (2007–2011) with funds from the ISME-Gibson award. She also commissioned Kenyah, Iban, and Bidayuh instruments for ITE Batu Lintang and brought students on field trips to Kenyah and Iban villages to witness the original music cultures first-hand. Over the last twenty years Kenyah music has been introduced into teacher-training institutes and schools, particularly these genres: (i) (ii) (iii)

Belian dado’ (dance songs) Songs associated with instrumental melodies The instruments jatung utang and sape.

Older categories of songs characterized by free meter and a narrower pitch range were considered less applicable to music education.

4.1 Belian Dado’ Belian dado’, also known as badi, badek tiang, or kendau kancet, are sung a cappella while performing a group dance the tu’ut dado’ (literally ‘long-dance’) along the veranda of the longhouse. These consist of a basic step, shuffle and stamp sequence with additional movements associated with specific songs. There are different opinions on the origins of belian dado’, although it is generally believed to have originated on the Indonesian side of the border. Citing descriptions by Dutch explorer Niewenhuis, who spent two months in the Apo Kayan in 1900, Seeler (1975) suggests that there is evidence of belian dado’ being performed there since the beginning of the twentieth century, while one of her Sarawak informants dates its first appearance in his village (Long Sobeng) in the 1930s. Gorlinski (1995: 45) describes them as relatively recent songs for recreational group dancing, adopted from the Lepo’ Tau of Indonesia in the 1940s (Fig. 1).

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Fig. 1 Belian dado’, Long Semiyang, Upper Baram, 2004 (Chong, 2013)

Differing distinctly from ‘Western-influenced’ contemporary songs which are based mainly on diatonic scales, belian dado’ are overwhelmingly pentatonic. Belian dado’ are regular metrically, often in 4/4 time, unlike older categories of Kenyah songs which display free rhythm. They consist of a fixed number of phrases of irregular length and have a strophic structure. Analysis of over fifty belian dado’ reveals that melodies built on the anhemitonic pentatonic scale predominate (75%), with a minority in the major scale (14.6%) and la-tetratonic, hemitonic pentatonic, so-hexatonic and re-hexatonic scales (combined value of 10.4%). Multipart choral singing is a common feature, observed in at least 44% of the songs. A unique characteristic is that the kerahang (chorus) of belian dado’ is melodic, generally following the contour of the melody. The following table shows the tonal structures and meters of a selection of these songs (Table 1). Apart from the tonal variety of the melodies, the lyrics of the songs colorfully depict Kenyah culture. Many songs focus on welcoming guests to the longhouse and emphasize the joy of being together. They also feature nostalgic sentiment, reminiscence, and longing for absent friends. Two examples of belian dado’ are given below: the first, Mudung Ina (‘That Mountain’), consists of a pentatonic melody sung in unison with lyrics and accompanying movements reflecting life in the interior of Borneo. while the second, Lan-e (Truly so) illustrates typical Kenyah multipart choral texture (Fig. 2).

The Indigenous Music of Sarawak and Its Transmission Over the Last … Table 1 Tonal structure of Belian dado’

Title of song

Tone set

Mode

1

Along

M: so, la do re mi so H: so la do’

Do-pentatonic

2

Are Ruti

M: la, do re mi so la do’ H: do so la do’

Do-pentatonic

3

Bampa Lale

do re mi so la do’ re’ Do-pentatonic mi’

4

Belabau Alih Silon M: la, do re mi so la H: so la do’

5

Iko Kenai

la, do re mi fa so la ti Major do’

6

Ilun Kuai

M: mi, so la do re mi So-pentatonic H: la do re

7

Kun Nelan-e

so, la, do re mi so la

8

Lari-e version 1

M: so, la, do re mi so Do-pentatonic la H: re mi so la do’ re’

9

Mudung Ina

10 Ule Kun Along

Fig. 2 Transcription of Mudung Ina (Chong, 2006)

MUDUNG INA Tone-set: la do re mi so.

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Do-pentatonic

Do-pentatonic

la do re mi so

Do-pentatonic

la do re mi

La-tetratonic

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KenyahLyrics 1 T iang mo mudung ina T iang nga linget mata T iang mo ta  at lesan Chorus: Oi mo nelan londe T iang mo mo−on tawai U yan me

Translation Friends behold that mountain Though clouds block our view We can see through clearly Chorus: Truly dear friends, We long for times gone by

2 T iang mo pabat piboi T iang mo adang toi T iang mo payun peman

Friends let s chase and run Like hornbills we flock together With our arms around each other

3 T iang mo piboi pabat T iang mo kulong kuyat T iang mo mecum da  an

Friends let s run and chase We are like pet monkeys Treading on and rattling the branches

4 T iang mo madong juong T iang mo kusun lesong T iang mo mecat siai

Friends we squat down together With mortar and pestle We pound rice and smoke meat

Actions Verse 1: Point to a distant mountain (mountains are visible from the verandas of most Kenyah longhouses). Chorus: Stretch hands and flick wrist up; cross wrists and place hands over heart. Verse 2: Run in single file in a circle, flapping arms like a bird. Turn to face inwards, place arms around each other’s shoulders. Verse 3: Run in single file in a circle; Stamp on the floor, while lifting shoulders in an ‘ape-like’ manner (imitate monkeys treading on branches to startle predators). Verse 4: Squat down and ‘pound padi’ with mortar and pestle. This song portrays life in a rural setting, featuring different scenes or activities in each verse, and is enacted by the singers in unison with simple movements. The lyrics and accompanying actions make this an attractive song for class-teaching. In addition, the melody, with its limited number of tones (la dore mi so) and slow tempo is especially amenable to solfege hand signs. Many will also appreciate the underlying wistfulness of the song as reflected in its sentimental melody. The second example Lan-e (Truly so) illustrates a typical Kenyah multipart choral texture (Fig. 3).

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Fig. 3 Transcription of Lan-e version 1 (Chong, 2020)

LAN-E Tone set: Melody: so, la, do re mi so la do; Harmony: re mi so la do’ re’.

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Lyrics Mencat kena N e lo iko tiang metik Lan sungai Metik sungai limun kanan

Translation Seldom do you come Friends you have travelled upriver This river Up this great river

Chorus: Ah nelan, nelan − e N elan − e

Chorus: Ah true, truly so, Truly so

The leader sings the first phrase, after which everyone present joins in (transcribed as chorus/kerahang, in Fig. 3), singing in two to three-part homophonic harmony. The melody is anhemitonic pentatonic (so, la, do re mi so la) as is the upper voice (re mi so la do’ re’). The contour of the accompanying part imitates that of the melody, resulting in a succession of parallel fourths and fifths, alternating with thirds, sixths and octaves. The result is a pleasing consonance, although based on conventions differing from the Western classical norm. The Kenyah aesthetic seeks to maintain melodic interest in the accompanying voice, a characteristic which makes the songs especially suitable as teaching materials, as the subsidiary voice is easily taught and remembered by rote. Chong found this characteristic to be extremely valuable in coaching singers with no previous experience in part-singing.

4.2 Songs Associated with Instrumental Music Traditionally, Kenyah vocal and instrumental music are performed separately. However, when asked whether there were songs associated with the tunes they played, musicians have obliged with witty lyrics referencing local culture, set to the basic motifs of popular sape and jatung utang melodies. One such song is Sai Ulai, which means “paddling home” (Fig. 4).

Fig. 4 Transcription of Sai Ulai (Chong & Anne Anthony Lajinga, 2011)

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SAI ULAI Tone-set: so, do re mi so. Lyrics Sai ulai alut laiee Uyau Along nai ule kuli Tai leto nyat sugi Nyat pabet gosok gigi

Translation Paddling the boat home Uyau Along returns from his coolie job The woman asks for tobacco She also wants a toothbrush

Sape player Bilong Lupah also demonstrated to me a set of accompanying actions, which Chong and her students have introduced during countless workshops and music classes to the delight of numerous adults and schoolchildren. The small tone-set and straightforward rhythm, accompanied by simple rhythmic actions, reminiscent of boat-rowing, makes this attractive material for the early stages of a Kodály program. The lyrics paint an interesting portrait of Kenyah economic activities and customs. In the past, many Kenyah men travelled far downriver to sell their labor, returning in boats laden with goods for their families (Fig. 5).

Fig. 5 Kenyah instrumental ensemble, Uma Baka’ 2004 (Chong, 2013)

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4.3 Appeal of the Songs to Different Age-Groups and Ethnicities Over the last 20 years, Chong has introduced Kenyah songs to different groups of people, of varying ethnicities and educational backgrounds. The wide appeal of the songs is supported by her research on the teaching and learning process of the songs (Chong, 2013: 233–280). With the help of ITE Batu Lintang students as facilitators, these songs were introduced to groups of teachers and secondary school students in dissemination workshops from 2006–2009 and taught to primary schoolchildren in actual school contexts from 2011–2012. Data in the form of personal experience, direct observation, oral feedback, and written responses to questionnaires confirmed that selected examples from the various categories of songs mentioned were viable materials for the music classroom. The hypothesis that the songs would be appealing to children as well as adults was borne out by the enthusiastic participation of schoolchildren aged from 8–11 years of age, and of adults during dissemination workshops. Written responses to questionnaires from schoolchildren and workshop participants clearly indicated that the songs had a strong melodic appeal, and that there was a genuine appreciation for specific musical characteristics of Kenyah songs. Belian dado’ songs such as Lan-e were described as having “attractive melodies with easy to learn harmonies”. Others, such as Sai Ulai, were popular for their “lively rhythms” and associated movements, while sentimental numbers such as Mudung Ina brought out affective responses reflected in descriptors such as: “melody arouses sadness”, “song is wistful” (Chong, 2013: 258–278) A class of 11-year-olds, taught by Chong, favored the song Ilun Kuai for its gentle tune and mysterious lyrics revolving around an endangered bird, the argus pheasant.

4.4 Instrumental Music 4.4.1

The Jatung Utang

Is a wooden xylophone consisting of 9–13 keys made of bars of light wood, strung together with rope and suspended on top of a trough. The player uses a pair of wooden mallets to hit the keys which are tuned to the anhemitonic pentatonic scale. A common tone set for nine keys is so, la, do re mi so la do’ re’. There is no fixed standard pitch. At ITE Batu Lintang, the jatung utang are in C-do, and E-flat-do. It is an appealing instrument to students with no prior training in music. With its pentatonic toneset, it is an ideal instrument for use in elementary music classrooms, presenting an effective alternative to Orff instruments. Played with two hands, students instinctively produce harmony from the pentatonic scale (do with mi, re with so, la with do), thus learning by ‘discovery’ and natural reinforcement rather than by prescription. By picking out simple pentatonic tunes with one mallet, later adding the other mallet at a fixed interval (or by playing a drone on do), consonance can be achieved. It

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Fig. 6 Excerpt of Det Diet as played by jatung utang (Chong, 2013)

can also be employed to accompany pentatonic songs with ostinato or improvised countermelodies. Although beginner students can play simple melodies with ease, it would take years of playing for them to achieve virtuoso skills. A partial transcription of Det Diet (a melody to accompany the group dance Datun Julud) as played on the jatung utang by Kasa Jok of Long Mekaba is given below. The innovative musician, finding himself without a partner (jatung utang is often played in duet), used a forked ‘doublestick’ in his left hand to play ostinato chords, and his right hand to play the melody, rendered at the impressive speed of = 160 (Fig. 6).

4.4.2

The Sape

(Sambe’ or sampe’ in Lepo’ Tau) is a short-necked, plucked boat-lute with a hollow body carved from a single block of wood. Sambe’ means ‘to brush lightly with the fingers’ in Lepo’ Tau, which is an apt description of the technique often used by sape players to produce the highly ornamented melodies characteristic of the repertoire. The older form of the instrument is referred to as sambe’ asal (“original sape”). This instrument, now almost extinct, has only two strings, tuned a third apart with only three frets (nden). The repertoire consists of both secular and sacred categories. The sacred repertoire (related to the Kenyah traditional belief system and involving communication with spirits) is referred to as sambe’ bali dayong (“singing

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spirits sape”). One of the last remaining exponents of the sambe’ asal, the late Lian Langgang of Long Moh demonstrated both sacred and secular repertoire to Chong in 2009. To the delight of all present, while playing some of the pieces, he artfully manipulated, with a thin string attached to his fingers, a dancing cork puppet (uyat piping). From this original two-string version, the sape evolved into the present four-string version. At the head of the instrument, the strings (made of nylon fishing line, bicycle brake wire or guitar strings) are attached to tuning pegs. The intervals between the strings are fixed with the first two strings unison while the third and fourth strings are a fifth higher (do do so so), but they are not tuned to a standard pitch. When part of an ensemble, each sape is tuned to that of the fixed-pitch instruments. At ITE Batu Lintang, it is often tuned to E-flat do to match the best jatung utang. The first or lowest string serves as the melody string, while the other strings are employed for harmony. Positioned beneath the first string is a series of movable frets (nden) made of rattan or bamboo, glued to the surface with udep (a type of beeswax). The number of nden also varies, normally twelve to sixteen, encompassing 2½ to 3 octaves. Depending on the piece to be played, the nden are adjusted by the player to form different pentatonic scales. Sape melodies for datun julud (group dance) are anhemitonic pentatonic (do re mi so la). These are the only tunes which can be played in an ensemble with the other instruments. In an ensemble, the main melody is usually played by the lead sape accompanied by melodic variations on one of the jatung utang, while the other instruments play ostinatos, chords, or improvise countermelodies. Sape repertoire for kanjet laki (men’s solo dance), played solo or in duet, utilize a combination of both anhemitonic pentatonic and hemitonic scales appearing in different registers. Melodies for kanjet leto (women’s solo dance) are mainly hemitonic pentatonic (do mi fa so ta), with do re mi confined to the higher register, as depicted in the transcription in Fig. 7. which shows an excerpt of the sape melody Ilun Jebut (this can be played either as a solo or as a duet with one sape playing the melody, while the other plays the drone). Unfortunately, nowadays, the repertoire for male and female solo dance is often dispensed with to enable greater participation by the whole ensemble and to avoid the hassle of resetting the frets. The sape requires some aptitude and perseverance to master, besides considerable skill in tuning, replacing strings and dropped nden. Thus, it is only utilized by the teacher for instrumental accompaniment in the classroom or by the more talented students in specialized ensembles outside the classroom situation. Chong has successfully nurtured many such ensembles at Batu Lintang who have taken part in various performances, mostly in accompaniment of Kenyah songs. These include choir performances and musical dramas.

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Fig. 7 Excerpt of sape tune Ilun Jebut for kanjet leto [transcribed by Chong Pek Lin]

4.5 Recontextualization (Adaptations for the Classroom and Stage) 4.5.1

Language

As the Kenyah language is unfamiliar to most Malaysians, some of Chong’s students were skeptical about teaching the songs in school during practicum. Although they were confident that the melodies would be well-received, they were doubtful if their pupils could cope with lyrics in an unfamiliar language. Surprisingly, many later reported that their pupils enjoyed the novelty of singing in another language and learnt the lyrics quickly. One way to overcome the barrier of language was through preparing singable translations (in addition to literal translations), which provided the option of singing in Malay. Purists may object, as much of the beauty of a song is lost in translation. Nevertheless, these offered a way for learners to familiarize themselves with the melody first, without simultaneously having to master the lyrics in an unfamiliar language. In public performances of the songs, wherever possible, the original Kenyah lyrics were retained and translated versions given in the program notes. During functions where program notes were not practical, the choir would sing a translated version in Malay, alternating with verses in the original Kenyah. For occasions such as choir competitions which stipulated that all songs had to be in either Malay or English, only translated versions were used, but movement and props were added to emphasize Kenyah culture.

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Cultural Familiarity

Another barrier to overcome was familiarity with the context of the songs. 70% of the schools involved in the research were Chinese-medium schools in Kuching. Most of the children involved had never heard of the Kenyah and were unable to name the indigenous groups of Sarawak. As Bresler (1995: 10) expressed, We cannot love music we do not know. In folk society, love of the society’s traditional music grows out of the learner’s interrelated experiences not only with the sounds of the music, but with the people and contexts in which those sounds emanate. Therefore, the teacher in non-traditional teaching and learning contexts must find ways to provide these interrelated experiences to assure the necessary aesthetic gratification. Strategies thus had to be devised to familiarize them with the culture to spark the children’s interest. Successful approaches included showing video-clips of Kenyah dance, bringing costumes and musical instruments to the classroom, teaching dance movements and dramatization of the songs.

4.5.3

Accompaniment

Kenyah songs are traditionally sung a capella. The only accompaniment is their very audible, rhythmic stamping on the wooden longhouse floor. In the classroom and on stage, stamping is not always practical, and without accompaniment, singers go out of tune. During their teaching practicum, Chong’s students often used accompaniment such as keyboard, guitar and sape. For public performances, the team employed a mix of Western classical instruments (piano, cello) and traditional instruments (sape, jatung utang, lutong). Some scholars have taken exception to the utilization of piano accompaniment, arguing that a Western diatonic instrument was unsuitable and did not sound authentic. There are two objections being raised here; firstly, the use of a ‘Western’ instrument and secondly, that it is diatonic. The second objection should more accurately be directed at the arrangement, perhaps the application of diatonic harmonies rather than at the instrument itself. We concur that the songs may sound more ‘authentic’ if accompanied by ‘Kenyah instruments’ (although authenticity is debatable, as the songs are traditionally a capella). Kenyah instruments, unfortunately, can only play in one fixed key. A sape would need to be retuned, or the nden reset to play in another key or tonality. Thus, the choir would only be able to sing in a single key. It takes considerable time for a sape player to readjust the pitch of the strings, impossible to execute in the middle of a performance. In recent performances, a balance was struck by using traditional and contemporary instruments for separate songs, or different sections within a piece (Fig. 8).

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Fig. 8 ITE Batu Lintang students performing Kenyah songs in conjunction with an ethnic music conference, Kuching, 2004 [personal collection, Chong Pek Lin]

5 The Lun Bawang People and Their Musical Culture The Lun Bawang are found in all four political states on the island of Borneo with an approximate total population of 42,000. There are approximately 15,754 Lun Bawang in Sarawak (Department of Statistics Malaysia, Sarawak, 2015) while the rest reside in East Kalimantan (Kapupaten Bulongan), Brunei (Temburong District) and Sabah (Sipitang District). 90% of the Sarawak Lun Bawang dwell in the Lawas District of Limbang Division, concentrated in the Trusan and Lawas Damit valleys and the Merapok area.

5.1 Vocal Music In traditional Lun Bawang culture, the main purpose of singing is for entertainment while relaxing on the veranda at night or while working in the paddy fields. During the long working hours in the paddy fields under the hot sun, music helps to combat boredom and tiredness. Lun Bawang vocal music may be considered synonymous with their oral literature. Similar to those of other indigenous groups such as the Kelabit, Kayan and Kenyah, Lun Bawang epic songs narrated legends and sang praises of folk heroes related to their genealogical history. These songs are valued by Lun Bawang elders as they memorialize the origins and history of their community, besides serving as a catalogue of their customs and traditions, their norms and values,

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their social mores, and their ethos. In the past, before radio and television became available in the village, singers were highly respected for their ability to entertain and educate. Among the categories of oral tradition are the buek (stylized mythologies) which are long chanted text, normally requiring eight or more hours to narrate. The telling may span over several days, as each time only a short portion is being told (Deegan, 1970: 279). Subtypes of buek include mumuh, arin, adui na’ and ada’ ilan (Ipoi Datan, 1989; Deegan, 1970) and upai semaring (Jayl Langub, 1994). The chants are sung in archaic vocabulary with elaborate metaphor and syntax. Both Deegan and Ipoi Datan mention nawar mengai and nawar ada’ as omen chants directed to deities and spirits before beginning a journey or undertaking a project. Other categories of oral tradition include the benging, “… which are songs composed about courtship and are humorous in intent, telandi which are songs composed for wedding feasts and natadawa, and tidum or children’s lullabies” (Deegan, 1970: 268). Ipoi Datan (1989) mentions, in addition, the tulu’, described as songs composed for wedding feasts in accompaniment to the ‘alai karur’ (long dance).

5.2 Instrumental Music Instrumental music is commonly played for personal entertainment and recreation. During her field research in Long Semadoh, Lawas, Lim was told that in every village there would be several acknowledged ‘musically talented individuals’ and that 1 in 10 adult villagers can play at least one musical instrument such as the pek bu (tube zither), ruding (jew’s harp), telingut (end-blown flute) and tapi (two-stringed lute). Traditionally, each music instrument was associated with a specific gender. Only the men played the pek bu, tapi and telingut. Even until today, the instrumental performer is often the artisan who makes the instrument, and it is common for such an individual to be able to play every type of instrument found in the Lun Bawang community. There are no music teachers in the Lun Bawang community. Lun Bawang society has no system for notating its music nor is there a proper written record of their traditional songs. If a child is musically inclined, he or she will learn by imitation. During a break in any performance, children pick up the instruments and imitate what they have heard. This is encouraged by the adults who will then guide the children briefly on the instruments.

5.3 Influence of the Church Christianity has had a great impact on Lun Bawang musical culture. James Brooke, the Rajah of Sarawak from 1839–1868, encouraged the expansion of Christianity in Sarawak, as he believed that the missionaries helped the government in developing the state. Their contributions included the setting up of missionary schools, providing

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minimal health care services and introducing a modern agricultural system. Today, the Lun Bawang are predominantly Christians belonging to the Sidang Injil Borneo (SIB) Churches founded by the Borneo Evangelical Mission. The solfege system was introduced to the Lun Bawang by the Protestant Missionaries. Their main reference was a hymn book, Nani Lun Dayeh, comprised of Western hymns translated into the Lun Bawang language by Mrs. Alan Belcher in the 1960s. Melodic structure, musical phrasing, rhythm with simple time signatures such as simple duple (2/4), simple triple (3/4), simple quadruple (4/4) and compound duple (6/8) were introduced to the community through this hymn book.

5.4 The Lun Bawang Bamboo Band, Lawas, Sarawak The Lun Bawang are well known for their unique Bamboo band ensemble, a genre which developed 80 years ago (Lim, 2007). The ensemble, which involves a sizeable number of people in the village has played an important role in social bonding. Both men and women are involved in the ensemble. The women play the suling (the side blown bamboo flute), which is played horizontally, while the men play the bas (bamboo trumpet), tubung (the small drum and the big drum) and angklung (bamboo xylophone). The wide repertoire of the band includes Western hymns, Indonesian hymns, native hymns, local and Western folksongs, and Malaysian patriotic songs. The bamboo band was introduced to the Sarawak Lun Bawang in 1942 by two Indonesian Lun Bawang pastors, Labo Tai in Long Beluyu and Riong Betung in Ba Kelalan. In 1946, Labo Tai’s successor, Bonel Pantulusang, continued his work in promoting the bamboo band at Long Beluyu and Long Semadoh. When J.G. Anderson, the Lawas Assistant District Officer visited Long Beluyu in 1947, he was extremely impressed by the band, writing “Guru Pantulusang has taught them to make and play bamboo flutes (suling). The effect is most pleasing, and they play together in the school band, from ear.” (Anderson, 1947: 226). Anderson also described how a 30-member bamboo band honored his arrival with a rendition of the Malaysian National Anthem and continued to entertain him with other performances during his stay there. He opined that the band served as an incentive for the villagers to send their children to school. In the 1950s and 1960s, the bamboo band spread to neighboring Lun Bawang villages, and later to the Kelabit people at Pa’ Main. The Daring family from Long Semadoh played a prominent role in the propagation of the band. While George Udan Daring and his sister Alice introduced it to four other villages, their brother, schoolteacher Jerry Samuel Daring promoted the modified six-hole flute which is still used today.

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5.5 Instrumentation and Harmony From 1945 until 1965, the bas instrument for the bamboo band only had two notes, do and so, produced by inserting a smaller bamboo tube into a larger one with two holes. The playing mechanism resembled that of a trombone. By pushing the smaller tube in and out, the player could produce two different notes. In 1966, Yohanes Sakai, another Indonesian Lun Bawang pastor, introduced modifications so that each of the seven different bas instruments (named as bas do, bas re, bas mi, bas fa, etc., corresponding to the seven tones in a major scale) could produce three pitches (as they do today). For instance, the bas do produces the do, fa and so sounds, the Bas mi produces the mi, fa and so sounds and the bas so, the so, la and do sounds. The notes are produced by covering specific holes, for instance, playing the bas do, do is produced by covering two holes (the top, and bottom ones), while low fa is produced by uncovering the top hole and low so by uncovering the bottom hole (Fig. 9). The concepts of Western harmony, diatonic scales and primary chord structures were introduced to members of the bamboo band through the church. Previously, bamboo band instrumental skills were taught as a subject in the Buduk Aru Theology School in Ba Kelalan. During her research in Long Semadoh, Lim observed that the suling plays the melodies of various traditional and modern songs, while the bas players respond by providing the harmony and rhythm. The rhythmic patterns played by the bas throughout the piece are the same. The creativity in arranging the pieces

Fig. 9 Bamboo band, 1950 (Source: Sarawak Museum Archive)

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Fig. 10 Excerpt of Hymn Melody ‘Na Melalit Tuhan Macing’ (transcribed by Connie Lim Keh Nie)

depends on the conductor of the bamboo band. The bamboo band players learn to master a piece through aural and oral skills, rather than by notation. Each player knows which notes to play to accompany the melody. Referring to the music transcription shown in the key of G Major (see Fig. 10), if the melody note falls on do, mi and so, the bas do, bas so, bas la and bas ti will play do. Meanwhile the bas re, bas mi and bas fa, will play mi, thus resulting in a tonic (I) chord. If the melody note falls on re and ti, the bas do, bas so and bas mi will play so, while bas ti and bas la, will play ti, and bas re will play re resulting in a dominant (V) triad. If the melody note falls on fa and la, the bas do, bas mi, bas fa and bas ti will play fa, while bas so, bas re and bas la, play la resulting in the subdominant (IV) chord. To illustrate this, Fig. 10 shows the first 16 bars of the transcription of a hymn melody as played by a bamboo band ensemble. The melody in the treble clef is played by the suling, while the chordal accompaniments, based on the principles of Western harmony, are provided by the bas shown in the bass clef. The harmony used to accompany the piece is centered on primary chords of a particular diatonic major key. Based on the transcription, the chords used are Tonic chord (I), Subdominant chord (IV) and Dominant chord (V). During a bamboo band rehearsal at Long Semadoh Rayeh, Lim asked if they could play the Swedish hymn “How Great Thou Art”. As their ensemble had never played it before, the conductor, Agong Baru, sang the melody of the song to them in solfege. The ensemble members joined in, singing along in solfege. The conductor then guided the bas players to master the accompanying rhythm pattern, which they executed on their respective instruments. The band players quickly succeeded in playing the hymn. Their ability to pick up these tunes by ear (with the aid of solfege) can be related to their frequent communal singing. While attending Sunday church services, Lim was amazed at their singing abilities. During a typical church service, the congregation sings around 20–30 hymns, all from memory. They sing hymns so regularly that the repertoire has become a part of their daily life. The lyrics and

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melodies are ingrained in their memories, enabling them to reproduce the tunes easily while playing in the band.

5.6 Repertoire and Role in Society Today, the bamboo band plays an important role in the church, resembling a church orchestra. The suling and bas are played in ensemble during worship services in the SIB church, and accompany the church choir during special occasions such as the Easter celebration (Irau Easter) and wedding ceremonies. Since 1945, bamboo bands have been performing in public in the presence of other communities during auspicious occasions. In the 1970s, the bamboo band became a contested event during the annual Irau Aco Lun Bawang (Lun Bawang Festival) held in Lawas with the aim of preserving Lun Bawang culture heritage and its unique music. The judging criteria for participating bands consist of three aspects, namely ‘playing’, ‘tuning’, and ‘conducting’. In the aspect of ‘playing’, they are judged according to their tone quality, harmony and balance. In the aspect of ‘tuning’, players are judged on their ability to pitch match while playing in unison or in chords. Finally, the criteria for conducting skills includes ‘accuracy in giving indication of the beat and tempo’, ‘execution of clear preparations’ and ‘skills in listening and shaping the sound of the ensemble’. In 2005, three bands from Long Tuma, Long Semadoh Rayeh and Lawas respectively, competed during the Irau Aco Lun Bawang. The Long Semadoh Rayeh band with 74 members won the contest and have gone on to perform at various district, state and national level functions. These include the National Level Arts Festival in Kuala Lumpur in conjunction with the 1992 Visit Malaysia Year, the National Day Celebration in Lawas, the Coronation of the Sultan of Brunei and the National Level Unity Day in Kuala Lumpur.

6 Sape in the Wider Society Over the last 50 years, efforts by government agencies to promote Sarawak’s indigenous culture have helped to raise the prominence of the sape on the world stage. The Sarawak Tourism Board began sending musicians and dancers for promotional tours abroad in the 1970s. Lepo’ Tau sape maestros Irang Lahang and Jalong Tanyit from Long Mekaba performed at the Asian Traditional Performing Arts week in Tokyo 1976, while the renowned Tusau Padan (originally from Long Nawang, Indonesia, now resettled in Sarawak) appeared with a group of dancers in a series of tours to Los Angeles and Tokyo in 1986. Despite these efforts, by the early 1990s, the sape had declined in popularity and was rarely seen in urban Sarawak. Even in the Kenyah-Kayan heartland, skilled practitioners were confined to a few musical families in specific villages. Kenyah and Kayan youth thought it far trendier to strum the latest hit songs on a guitar rather

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than to pluck ancient tunes on a sape. When Chong began fieldwork in 1996, she noted that many Kenyah villages did not have a single resident sape player, relying instead on cassette tapes to provide dance accompaniment.

6.1 Resurgence in Popularity With the turn of the century, the sape experienced a resurgence in popularity within Sarawak and grew substantially in international standing. This could be attributed in part to changing global trends, especially those linking world music and tourism. Randy Raine-Reusch, a Canadian musician working as a producer in the world music field, played a pivotal role in the promotion of the instrument. Fascinated by the timbre of the sape, Raine-Reusch came to Sarawak on a project to document the state’s traditional instruments. He made extensive recordings of performances by Tusau Padan, from which he produced (for Pan Records) a compact disc Masters of the Sarawakian Sape. In 1997, he convinced the Sarawak Tourism Board to sponsor four Kenyah sape players (Uchau Bilong, Irang Lahang, Tegit Usat and Asang Lawai) and a dancer (Mary Dau) to the World Music Expo (WOMEX) at Marseilles, where they captivated both the international media and hardened festival directors, some of whom were moved to tears. The audience realized that they were fortunate to have the opportunity to watch this unique traditional performance. The melodious sape music accompanied by graceful Orang Ulu dance contrasted sharply with the energetic drum music and vigorous dance of the African team. The Sarawak team was interviewed by radio stations from France and Germany as well as the BBC World Service. At the request of the media, they gave an impromptu performance in a nearby park. This was recorded by a French crew and later broadcast on French television. Building on the momentum of this surge of international interest, the Sarawak Tourism Board established the Rainforest World Music Festival (RWMF) in 1998. Raine-Reusch, aided by Society Atelier Sarawak, acted as their initial consultant for the project. The main aims of the RWMF are: To promote and preserve the unique culture of Sarawak, to run an international festival where local artistes could stand side-by-side with international artistes, and to present a new context for the traditional music of Sarawak. (Sarawak Tourism Board, 2007)

Ever since, it has been held as a major government-supported tourist event which has proved immensely popular. The annual three-day festival, consisting of daytime workshops and night-time concerts, has provided a platform for local traditional musicians, challenging them to play in new ways alongside international world musicians. Riding on the success of the festival, three fusion bands showcasing the sape, Tuku Kame’ (from Sarawak Cultural Village), MITRA (from the Ministry of Social Development) and Sayu Ateng (from Ibraco Housing Development), established themselves. As described by Tan (2014: 363), these fusion bands.

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… combine various types of traditional music and instruments to portray a harmonious image of Sarawak. Texts portray aspects of life in Sarawak, celebrate the splendor of the rainforest, mountains, and rivers, and remind listeners to respect nature.

The festival’s icon has always been the sape. Now it features one of Malaysia’s premiere sape masters, Matthew Ngau Jau of Long Semiyang, who has appeared in numerous promotional tours and music festivals in North America and Europe. More recently, other festivals and competitions have established themselves as major catalysts for the revival of sape skills. These include the “Baram Regatta”, an annual gathering in Marudi for the Orang Ulu of the Baram featuring boat-races and cultural performances, Borneo Youth Sape festival in Sibu and the “Baram Sape Master Kuala Lumpur” competition (originally held in the Baram, the venue subsequently shifted to the national capital of Kuala Lumpur, reflecting the instrument’s growing stature). There is now an increasing demand for sape teachers, and the mastery of this traditional instrument, once considered old-fashioned, is now seen as a worthy pursuit leading to a respectable career. Established professional players now include representatives from various communities. Well recognized names in the sape circuit include Jerry Kamit, Saufi Aman, and Alena Murang (from the Iban, Malay and Kelabit communities respectively). There are also successful players from other countries, for instance French musician Julien Cottet, who credits Matthew Ngau as his teacher. Alena’s success highlights the fact that many women are sape afficionados, breaking the male-only taboo long upheld within Kenyah-Kayan society. Jalong Tanyit’s daughter Beatrice once remarked in exasperation how her father refused to teach her the sape, though he had no qualms about passing on his skills to non-Kenyah women such as American researcher Virginia Gorlinski (Personal Communication, 2002).

6.2 Transmission of Sape Skills The transmission and mastery of skills has taken different routes, as illustrated by the experiences of several established players. The first case illustrates transmission within a Kenyah community. Edmund Ngau Bilong from the Lepo’ Tau village of Long Moh, Baram, is a sape master who has performed for various events, including a folk music festival in Beijing in 2019. Like many other sape exponents, he is a skilled craftsman who makes his own sape. In addition, he makes jatung utang, an instrument which he also excels at playing. Born into a musical family (his father a proficient sape player) and living only two doors away from the late Lian Langgang (an exponent of the sambe’ asal), his skills were honed by observation and imitation. Besides teaming up with better known musicians and dancers for performances in urban areas, Edmund recently formed a village ensemble with aspiring young musicians. During practices, he nurtures the skills of the team, comprising three young men and his own sister. The ‘syllabus’ for his pupils includes classic Baram sape repertoire such as Det diet for datun julud (group dance), followed by challenging pieces such

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Fig. 11 Matthew Ngau leading a sape workshop for music education lecturers, Kuching, 2005 [personal collection, Chong Pek Lin]

as Gut Garut (for men’s solo dance) and Ilun Jebut (for women’s solo dance). New repertoire is imparted by rote through demonstration, supplemented by recordings of Lepo’ Tau maestros such as Jalong Tanyit and Irang Lahang (Fig. 11). Matthew Ngau Jau and Henry Anyie Ajang represent Kenyah/Kayan sape exponents who became established teachers in urban areas, passing on their skills to pupils of various communities. Matthew, who credits Tusau Padan as his own teacher, grew up in Long Semiyang, in rural Baram, and later worked as a teacher in urban Sarawak. He resigned from his government job to pursue a fulltime career performing, making and teaching sape, and was recently bestowed the prestigious ‘Living Legend of Malaysia’ award. Responding to the growing interest in sape in urban areas, he started his own private sape classes in Kuching and Bau. Among his pupils was Alena Murang, of mixed Kelabit/European descent, who began weekly lessons at the age of 14, together with six cousins. The classes were arranged by their parents who were concerned that they would lose their cultural identity while growing up in modernized Kuching. The seven Kelabit girls soon became adept at sape under his tutelage. Matthew’s classes consisted of demonstration, observation, careful listening, and imitation. He also provided recordings on cassette tapes for their reference between lessons. Besides standard dance tunes, they learnt to sing Kenyah (belian dado’) songs such as Leleng, the melodies of which they would then play on the sape. By 2003, they were ready for their stage debut as Anak Adi’ Rurum Kelabit (Young Children of the Kelabit Rurum Association) the first all-girls sape group at the RWMF. Through the ensuing years, although schooled in the Kenyah tradition with Kenyah

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repertoire, the group, now known as Kan’id (‘cousins’ in Kelabit) began incorporating Kelabit culture into their repertoire, with modern adaptions of chants, stories, children songs, lullabies and dance tunes. Alena, now a full-time professional, has continued her advocacy in promoting Sarawak through sape. Her style is described as traditional, as she strives to maintain the pure, spiritual sound of the instrument emphasized by her teacher. Whereas traditionally instrumental and vocal music were always performed separately, Alena often features vocal and instrumental music simultaneously. Alena’s debut EP, entitled Flight features five folksongs from both Kelabit as well as Kenyah traditions. Henry Anyie, a former headmaster from the Kayan village of Long Bemang, picked up his skills from Kenyah sape masters during his numerous postings in the Baram. He initially taught sape privately before he was employed by the Dayak Cultural Foundation to give group lessons. Besides traditional rote learning, Henry’s pupils were taught to associate the frets with solfege and to hum basic sape tunes based on solfege. One of Henry’s former pupils at the foundation, Lesli Eli, of Iban heritage who had begun lessons at the age of 12, is now a successful professional player. A permanent member of the Malaysian Traditional Orchestra, he has performed in Korea, Japan and Thailand. Leslie’s sape is modified to be able to play the full chromatic scale, to accommodate the ‘modernized’ repertoire of the orchestra which includes many diatonic pieces as opposed to the traditional pentatonic repertoire.

6.3 Changing Repertoire With the transition from a quiet longhouse environment to the festival concert stage, amplification became imperative, and the sape has been modified to include guitar pickup fixtures added onto its soundboard. The instrument evolved further into what is known as the ‘contemporary sape’ (Lim et al., 2016, 2020; Lim & Mohd Fadzil Abdul Rahman, 2011, 2016, 2017). Narawi Haji Rashidi, the music director of Sarawak Cultural Village and band leader of its resident band Tuku Kame’, has developed a modern contemporary sape through the replication of the electric guitar. Additional strings and frets were added and the traditional palm fibre or rattan string was replaced with steel guitar strings. The craftsmanship was modified to enable standardizing the tuning to 440 Hz and, in imitation of the guitar, applying equal tempered tuning to the now permanently fixed frets. With standardized tuning, the sape is able to play in ensemble with other modern musical instruments. The additional frets and strings enable a full diatonic scale, allowing music arrangers to explore new creative music compositions using materials from Sarawak musical tradition. The new contemporary style is exemplified by Jerry Kamit, the premiere sape player of Tuku Kame’ band which represented Malaysia in the 12th World Championship of Performing Arts in Hollywood in 2009. Other established bands associated with the contemporary style include At Adau, Meruked and Sada Borneo.

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7 Conclusion This chapter has featured descriptions of selected instrumental and vocal genres of Borneo as practiced by the original culture bearers, and their transmission beyond the original communities. Vocal genres are disappearing within increasingly scattered minority communities, but efforts to document and disseminate Kenyah songs, especially belian dado’ have been fruitful. These melodious, multipart songs are amenable to performance on the urban stage and incorporation into school music education programs. From the perspective of music education, the songs are invaluable as the lyrics harbor a wealth of cultural information, while the melodies display a variety of tonalities (as opposed to the overwhelmingly major tonality of songs in Malaysian school music books). A major advantage of the songs is the fact that they are recreational songs, with context acceptable to all students, regardless of ethnicity or religion. One barrier to overcome in their dissemination is lack of familiarity with the Kenyah language. Also, in bringing the songs to the urban stage, recontextualization and adaptations, such as the addition of instrumental accompaniment seem inevitable. The bamboo band is still thriving within the Lun Bawang community. As this ensemble is intricately connected with the church, an institution to which the Lun Bawang are steadfastly loyal, its continued existence seems assured. Their repertoire thrives on the codependent relationship between the players. Unlike the Kenyah sape and jatung utang, which combine in ensemble, but also perform separately as solo instrumentalists, the instruments of the Bamboo Band always perform together. Dissemination beyond the community may be difficult to achieve at present due to the challenges of craftsmanship and the unique community support on which this genre thrives. The jatung utang was found to be an attractive instrument for use in the classroom and for ensemble playing on stage. Its spread within and beyond Sarawak however has been slow. This is due in part, to the lack of promotion, the shortage of skilled craftsman, and the difficulty in obtaining suitable wood. Unlike the sape, it still has a low profile, and is thus unable to garner investment for large-scale production. As the sape has gained an international following, and there are a sizeable number of skilled practitioners, it is likely to remain the most prominent Bornean instrument for some time to come. The evolution of the instrument was also discussed, beginning with the original two-string sambe’ asal, leading to the ‘traditional’ four-string version, and the latest innovations with the contemporary sape. The two more recent versions of the sape now coexist with different repertoire, catering for different audiences. The contemporary sape style as exemplified by Jerry Kamit and the various fusion bands is at the forefront of newly curated music and experimentations with new media. Meanwhile, the ‘traditional sape’’ style as exemplified by Matthew Ngau continues to celebrate the repertoire inherited from the ancient masters, with some subtle changes (e.g. although Matthew retains the original sape with movable frets, he keeps extra frets which can be added on to play diatonic melodies). Besides continuing to teach sape in the conventional way, many sape

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exponents now disseminate their techniques and repertoire through educational talks, recordings and streaming through social media platforms such as YouTube, Instagram, Spotify and iTunes. Perhaps these modern ‘hi-tech’ methods of dissemination, if applied to other traditional genres, could help to raise their profile.

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Chong Pek Lin (D. Mus, University of Pretoria) served as a lecturer with the Institute of Teacher Education Batu Lintang, Kuching, for 21 years. Her research in the ethnic music of Borneo has won international recognition including the 2006 ISME-Gibson award for outstanding music educators. She recently published her fourth book, Folk songs of Sarawak: Songs From The Kenyah Community (2nd edition, 2020). Through her efforts, Bornean folk songs have been introduced to schools, featured in stage performances and in international paper presentations including the ISME world conference (2008), ICTM symposiums (2016, 2017, 2018), and International Kodály symposium (2019). Connie Keh Nie Lim is a music lecturer at the Faculty of Applied and Creative Arts, Universiti Malaysia Sarawak (UNIMAS). She graduated with a Ph.D. (Music) from Universiti Putra Malaysia (UPM) with her thesis entitled “Alternative Modernities in the History of Iban Popular Music from 1950s to 1970s. She was appointed in 2017 and currently still serving as a panel member for the Intangible Culture Heritage (Performing Arts) committee under the Department of National Heritage. She currently serves as a President of Friends of Sarawak Museum, a Sarawak-based NGO, with a mission to promote Sarawak’s heritage through its museums.

Minority Versus Majority—Phrase or Reality? Oskar Elschek

Abstract The question of minorities or majorities is the relationship between different types of social groups, which are usually characterized by their different characteristics and social status. They are the result of different developments by which individual social groups have undergone a shorter or longer development. They determined their properties and social status. It is a global process of how individual social groups are formed in different countries, states, continents or cultures. How they live and have been formed, strengthened, gained their position, or became disintegrated. From this point of view, they have a powerful relations and importance in their given previous wider society in which they live. One of the most important ways of controlling life, changes in culture and the existence of minorities has been the use of European and other majority languages and religions. In particular, well organized new educational and religious organizations suffered at the expensed original minority tradition. From an historical point of view it is a long-term process the foundations of which lay in the time of long-term movement of individuals and currents from the formation of human communities. The most extensive trials took place during Colonialism, when the European states colonized and took control of the countries of America, Africa and Asia, which fell victim to them, in a relatively short process. Not only immediately as Indians, but also, for example, millions of slaves transferred to America. Their relations between minorities and the majority last to the presence. As we deal with Europe, their internal conditions have shaped their development. As one of the tendencies, determined especially in the so-called “Drang nach Osten”, especially the Germans (Germans and Austrians), with some successes, but also a general inability to assert their ideas in Central and Eastern Europe, as was the case in the two world wars. This concerned the communities, on their way especially to Eastern and Central Europe. They fought with the idea of their complete power control, as was and is the case with the Hungarian tribes. On their long way to Eastern and Central Europe while occupying long-inhabited areas. In all those processes, we must realize that the individual power units by force and their idea of their “permanent” control, as the so-called minority or minorities. They are a permanent and partially open process as to our days. In our case, these are O. Elschek (B) Slovak Academy of Sciences, Slovensk akadémia vied. Štefánikova 49, 81438 Bratislava, Slovakia © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. 2021 Y. Lu and O. Elschek (eds.), The Legacy of Indigenous Music, Sinophone and Taiwan Studies 4, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-16-4473-3_8

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similar processes of changing countries with a process of their permanent control. In the case of my contribution, the problem is the incoming social groups of the Roma and Sinti, who have formed in all European countries by their arrival since the late middle Ages in individual European states and minority areas. However, they developed over the centuries but remained in the position of a memorial, ruled in all proportions as a minority existing under the majority, as is the case today. Keywords Roma · Sinti · Minority · Gypsy music The minority problem is as old as the human society. They are based on a dual function of the minority and the majority, between the dominant and dominated part of the society. It is a social system that still characterize the world of today. This worldwide kind of differentiation took place, with its ranging from the smallest to the largest centers of the continental states. They were and are an indispensable part of the colonial practices by the Europeans, be its inside or outside Europe (Pelizaeus, 2008). These formed the basis of their economic existence. This includes minorities, with their economy, culture, religion, language, traditions, socio-cultural characteristics, their education and way of life, as the basis of their development. In addition to these relationships there are differentiating characteristics, skin color, type of person and extreme juxtaposed racist terms, social, national, nationalistic characteristics and their corresponding classifications. The minorities reach the extreme years of fascism, the extermination camps in the 20th century, being permanently declassified. This development is still insurmountable as today which affects the Roma and Sinti in Europe. It is a long-term development and differentiate societies, whatever their origin.

1 Life Systems and Origins of Roma and Sinti The first specific area of our investigations is that of immigrated social groups from the Southeast Asian cultural area. Their area of origin is Panjab, from which they came. The second topic we dedicate is independent of the social classification listed, dedicate to their music. For more than a millennium they have been part of the migrations wave that spread throughout Europe from the Balkans, Southwest Europe and as to England. It is the Roma and Sinti community that belongs to a large, uniformly formed minority. It does not belong to any of the European countries, states or peoples. They live in ethnically separated groups in the individual states and countries of Europe. They form the largest migrant minority in Europe, with 10–12 million people living in communities and clans, in small, divided groups and closed settlements. They live in simply built settlements, often with mobile facilities in order to be able to shape their freedom, independence in their way of life, independent of a fixed environment—in order to be able to leave it and relocate if necessary.

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Not all the less do they form a linguistic and behaviorally divided cultural unit, a free-living society, having an obvious linguistic and communicative fellowship. They form groups of minorities that are not united to form a large state unit. They rely on various pan-European regional institutions, some of which have been recognized by the European Union.

2 Documentation and Forms of Representation The complexity of life of the European Roma and Sinti has been documented also in numerous films. One of the best, which characterizes its complexity and peculiarities, was created in 1990 by the Slovak ethnologist and filmmaker Martin Slivka. His film captures the most important groups as they live in the individual European countries. The film documents and records the Roma and Sinti in the European area between southern Spain as well as Russia, also as to the European part of the minority. The movie is divided into 13 independent areas of their life in different groups of the Roma. They record their most important skills, behaviors and areas of work with which they can live relatively independently in Europe according to their abilities. They live as blacksmiths working on iron, the special types of their woodwork, in the sense of their old traditional division of labor. They are tinkers, grinders and traders. They are known as healers with supernatural powers, as fortune tellers, have magical powers, form trained families of acrobats and theater actors. With these qualities and skills, they maintain their clans, families and communities in their way of life. They conveyed their customs and festivals, especially their musical and dance skills, with metric-rhythmic variable presentations. These mark their customs which they practiced with great propriety. The film had the insights reflecting the tradition of Roma and Sinti in field research. It uses their language, music, dance, religion, the type of education practiced, as the preservation and continuation of their vision of life. It is their wanderings as dealers and agents that have been documented. The film was particularly well received in its European distribution, in numerous events. In the presented documents the decisive life phases of the different Roma groups came to light. Special events gave a deeper insight into their way of life in almost all European areas where they live. In addition to the usual festival events that characterize the individual Roma and Sinti cultures, there were comprehensive professional events, as organized by Max Peter Baumann in the year 2000. The reason was that those Roma living in Europe were treated poorly and without dignity. Baumann summarized this critical view in his introduction to the edition as follows: Numbering approximately eight million, the Gypsies, Roma, Sinti and Gitano’s represent the largest minority of Europe that is not territorially defined. Between the two extremes of romanticism through the cliché of “Gypsy music” in the 19th century and persecution during the Holocaust of the 20th century, European history has been marked by its sheer inability to confront this cultural minority in an unprejudiced and differentiating way. The careless

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use of concepts such as “Zigeuner” or Land-fahrercontinuedso betray how stubbornly old prejudices have survived. (Baumann, 2000: 7)

Regardless of the difficulties and discrepancies mentioned that the Roma and Sinti minorities persecuted for millennia, their music, especially from the 70s and 80s of the last century, known or hidden was an important part of their everyday life. This particularly affected east-central Europe as well as those of south-west Europe. They have been divided into different musical genres, e.g. as dance music, as the well-known Andalusia music of the Gitanos, who had their own validity (Faustino, 2000: 445–451). For Central Europe, some musicians from the realm of serious music were guiding and explored as arts of the musical style of the Roma. Franz Liszt escaped from this space and the music of the Roma, which was a music that accompanied his life from his youth. This is the content of his article, which he published in Budapest in French (because he did not speak the Magyar—“Hungarian” language) in 1859: “Des Bohemians et de leur musique en Hongrie.” It is a deep personal statement on the music of the Roma on which he writes: Many things did not touch us so vividly in our earliest youth, such as the riddle of the ‘cigeuners’, how they received alms on the threshold of every palace and hut, alms for some words softly whispered in their ears or some dance tunes played aloud, for some Songs that none of the educated, with whom lovers immerse themselves in bliss and which they understandably cannot invent themselves ... (Zima, 2010)

Although Liszt was not a poet, but a musician, interpreter and composer, his music reflects a deep expression of the human soul that he attributes to the power of Roma music. This can hardly be described more poetically and impressively, as Liszt puts it. All his life connected with this understanding of music, although he expressly reproduced these musical principles worldwide, especially in his “rhapsodic” named compositions. Liszt expressed it in his poetic statement. Of course these characteristics history, behavior in life and work of the Roma become in his music a special meaning. In this sense, Liszt’s rhapsodic piano and concert works are more a picture of musical stylistics and musical presentations of Roma music than a supposed and as such named “Hungarian” belonging herself to the Slovak minority. The quoted work deals in particular with Roma music in the Gemer area in Slovakia. It was also for Béla Bartók of great importance at the beginning of his meeting with folk music in Slovakia. Even if Bartók followed Liszt as the idol of his youthful works, he looked for and did not find any contact with the music of the Roma. He focused primarily on Hungarians, Slovak and Rumanian folk music, as the music of their farmers. At that time, however, the peasants as creators and bearers also belonged to the under-privileged and exploited part of the social classes, like the Roma. This led Bartók from this point of view, to understand these coined works. They became as a rather unaccepted music of his time, especially in some views in Europe, being as such interpreted. For the research that was building up, it had one major difference. The native folk music cultures were initially concentrated on the area of folk songs and examined them as such as a special language. The music of the Roma was a foreign culture in

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the individual countries where they lived (in the vowels as well as in the instruments area), with the corresponding language barriers. Its essential part consisted in instrumental music. The instrumental music required a much more demanding recording through their transcription. Most of the song cultures were unanimous; the instrumental music of the Roma and Sinti was polyphonic and have been more variable, like the instrumental music in general, and was as such structured. It was also the lineup that was particularly focused on improvisation. There was also a more essential aspect in their arrangement of instrumental music consisted of several instruments, being practiced more or less polyphonically, according to the musicians taking part on the performances as shown by Elschek (1983: 245, 2020: 300), Leng and Elschek (1984), Matúšková (2006: 171–176). It was usually practiced as a multipart music by 3–4 Musicians, or by a larger instrumental ensemble. The connection between the so understood art and the music of the Roma, was part of its conception, concerned in the Central European area. It was practiced in places as in Austria-Germany, by Johannes Brahms. It was an immediate relationship and Brahms undoubtedly had no relation to such types of folk music, much less to the Roma as such. His series of “Hungarian” dances were the result of his collaboration with the violinist Eduard Hoffnung, be renamed as Reményi to change his name (as usual into the Hungarian language). He was the violinist, whom Johannes Brahms accompanied on several piano concerts in the years 1849–51, with his repertory. It was during the time he learned his Hungarian repertoire—how the music was played and influenced by the Roma musicians in the salons with the practiced dances. They were called as “Hungarian”, how this fashion was practiced in the multi-ethnic Hungarian society. Just as Liszt had previously understood them in this sense as the practicing Roma style and performed it in the multicultural country of Hungary.

3 The Roma and Sinti Minorities in Europe The Roma and Sinti are the object of our research. In order to better understand their position in the European area, let us briefly and comprehensively consider and compare its general problem of minorities in Europe. They have plaid in central Europe an especially individual role. Therefore let us concentrate our view on their musical and socio-cultural aspect. The Roma and Sinti community are in different European countries, and in each of them in a different cultural environment. Europe countries have different relationships with their minority or minorities. They are differently structured with their minorities who migrated to a large extent throughout Europe. Among them settled by the Slavs and Germans, and much later appeared the migrating Hungarians. Most of the minorities are usually migrating from neighboring areas or as a kind of cultural border crossing, also for different political reasons. They have to be adapted gradually, intentionally or unintentionally. They often maintain relationships with their neighboring regions, mostly by their different country of origin. They are more or less good relationships and forms of adaptation based on languages, behavior and

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cultural relationships. In this context, are minorities changing especially from the end of the 19th century. We have to different and mention also the variable minorities that had come to Europe in the last 50 years as consequences of war and changed social and national reasons. The Roma and Sinti came to Europe much earlier, and they settled to Europe no later than the Middle Ages and the early Renaissance. They formed a wide range that spreads from south to north. Internal European differences played a role in how they accepted these new minorities or respected them only hesitantly and made their settlement possible. How the Roma and Sinti were able to maintain their culture and special access to the society in the new environment? It was a wide range of how they could perceive this process. In addition, it must be stated that the European countries had hardly noticed the gradual infiltration of minorities’ seriously. To reflect these changes, were the Europeans too busy with their Intra-European wars and discontinuities. The result of the changes of the Roma and Sinti were recorded in very different ways in the individual countries. If, in addition to these aspects, we consider centuries of European music history and music research from the 1880s, traditional (or even unrecorded oral) music, i.e. as folk songs, were part of its history and not part of its history accepted. The minorities as one of their parts had hardly been worth mentioning for centuries and if so, then hardly anything more than about their music. The 19th and 20th centuries brought significant changes. Not all areas of history have accepted this music. Ethnomusicology and their parts on historic research have subjective aspects not only in the traditional genres but also by those concerning the minorities as well as on comparative music studies. It is the area that after the relatively unsuccessful UNESCO project, had ambitions, especially in the 1970s to capture the music of the world, and their different parts, as the different music of the continents. The mentioned UNESCO project was replaced by the new, so-called World Music volumes project, with a broad global coverage of the relevant topics and a wide range of international authors. The 8th volume is especially about Europe. In its outline, the minorities are dealt with in two parts in an extent that is hardly comparable to the previous mentioned publication. Apart from the general overview of the areas of European musical cultures, their traditional cultural areas with their styles are highlighted. Then there are minority cultures, and between them an independent chapter on the Roma (Gypsy Music, pp. 270–293), with an extensive list of writings and audio files. They are structured according to the individual European countries in which the Roma are settled. In Part 3 of the edition the regions of Europe follow, in which their minorities are given special treatment in the individual countries (Rice et al., 2000). In addition to these manifold aspects, we consider centuries of European music history and music research from the 1880s, traditional, or even unrecorded oral music, i.e.—folk songs, became accepted as an independent part of its history and not part of the general history as such. The minorities as one of their parts had hardly been worth mentioning for centuries and if so, then hardly anything about their music, not to mention some specialists of ethnomusicology as Nettl and Bohlmann (1991). We

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have to return to some aspects which influenced the public situation in Europe in general, especially to and by some audiovisual important new events. It was in the time when the movie mentioned before the similar actions took place. In the House of Cultures, a project with non-European musical cultures has been realized over many years, by the International Institute for Traditional Music, by their leader Max Peter Baumann. That of the Roma and Sinti, was a multi-week. As a special musical and cultural event, a festival in 1992, from 2nd to 11th, October 1992. On the event taking part with Roma and Sinti groups of singers, musicians and dancers. The participants came also from India and the countries in South Asia whose settlement and preparation areas extended to Europe. Roma music from all genres and countries, alongside with those from Europe, also took part. The entire program was entrusted to the entire scope of the film and sound documentation. It was realized as a complete audiovisual documentation by the Department of Ethnomusicology of the Institution of Musicology of the Slovak Academy of Sciences Bratislava. In the same audiovisual program as is was realized of 4 times before on specialized festivals. They took place in the House of Cultures in Berlin. The result was the largest and most comprehensive audio-visual music and dance collection of the Roma and Sinti, which is being developed in the Slovak Academy of Sciences—in the Department of Traditional Music—Pro Musica and as copes have been postponed also to the Berlin Institute. After the long festival became the problem of the Roma a much greater interest that it was before. Also the general problem of the Minority got in Europe a much greater importance as before. From the perspective of the clarification and development of the minorities, the 1990s were a time of general change. In politics and alongside it dedicated to the state and minority issues, in their new position, in their changing society. Their cultural and existential questions were given a new meaning and opportunity for clarification. Form the musical point of view, but the Minorities especially in Central Europe. Not only concerning their music but also in their socio-cultural and political views in general. A conference that endeavored to get such ideas encompassed a wide range of unfinished and unworked questions. In Vienna they started uneq vocall-msicy conferences, even if they were primarily dedicated to music, as they were formulated in their general meaning: The minority problem has a political, ideological, ethnic, linguistic and cultural dimension. Without their overall understanding, musical questions can hardly be grasped to the required extent, let alone subjected to a successful scientific investigation ... If you look at these great movements that are taking place in Europe, you come to the conclusion that there is always a striving for power, economic submission -social interests, intolerance and simple anti-human political objectives that determined the relationship with the minorities, which does not mean that there were not intermittent phases in which a certain relaxation of the contradictions occurred, especially when it was organized socio-political and ethnically clearly articulated movements were based. But the socio-political and ethnic clearly articulated movement was based - until today, on racist concepts - objectives which hardly changed in their essence in the long term. (Elscheková & Elschek, 1996: 17–18)

Even though statements and special programs followed in further contributions at the conferences, related to the music performed, its repertoire, the styles and genres

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of music of the Roma; the existing socio-political background that sounded in many other contributions at the conference was still unable to be hide. In the last decades attempts have been made to improve the understanding of the minorities. Since music is a part of life in their inner circle, and playing music becomes an important part of their existence. The external part of day-to-day work plays an important role in times of the cultural and politic crisis. Their own traditional work productions play today a limited role, although it belongs to their tradition. What influences the minorities is their different number of individual region—the question of whether they are accepted by the majority. This often depends on the relationship between the majority and minority in the society as it was also years before. We can easily read the extent of their existence from the statistical data in the different countries. We have to see especially if they have a chance to live in their community, as well as beside that in the majority. I will confine myself to Slovakia on this question and what follows. In Slovakia they represent 9% of the society. In the surrounding states the numbers are much lower. That is the reason that the Roma have here a much larger living space available. They emigrated also from other countries.

4 Research Programs on Roma and Sinti in Slovakia In general, it can be stated that the Roma community was not united in Slovakia, as was the case with the Roma in other countries. The Roma formed at least two groups: those from the city and those from the rural environment. They were in a way privileged by their social status, their way of life and their income. To put it simply, they were poorer in the rural community and still open in some way to migrate, which forced even their way of life. They continued to be the bearers of traditions through their work, continuation and habits, and their daily life process. They kept all their traditions strong, which they even shaped for a long time. In the city, the Roma have more or less abandoned their traditional way of life, without, however, losing their inner ethnic, linguistic and socio-cultural feeling. We had to mention these aspects briefly so that we could also differentiate the Roma’s own research to the extent indicated in terms of the diversity of their research, which corresponded to their life path. Since our theme is the music of Roma minorities, we must first acknowledge that there are differences in their path. The Roma of the city had their significantly privileged way of life in which they moved. They were part of the creation of the preferred music of the “higher” society to which they submitted in a certain way, its taste and socio-cultural requirements, to whom, what and how to play the required, albeit Roma music. In both groups that practiced music, however, it is significant that they did not abandon their “Roma” music and their musical feelings. It continued to be subject to a special understanding of Roma music, which they had passed down for generations, to their inner feelings. In this case no matter which group traditional or less traditional, implemented it. It can be stated that they realized their music, which even its listeners expected from them.

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Although simplistic in a way, they did not play and did not want to or even know how to play music that did not correspond to their feelings and the usual music practice. It is also the opposite in a way, but only in this way did the Roma keep their music. Even for centuries, for which their surroundings “domestic” or foreigners valued it for centuries until today. Although it seems a mystery how often music in every society or in every period is still here, we can characterize the Roma in a way with a number of distinctive individual and general features that are a permanent part of them. There are several elementary properties of general nature: (a) (b)

(c)

(d)

Freedom of its variability (which I also call encryption-decoration); A formed and stereotypically almost untraceable rhythmic-metric feeling in relation to dance and movement, because this is the basis of Roma music— directly or indirectly; It is a constant return to certain tonal elements in a regular or irregular change in their special melodic course. It is, in a way, a peculiar tonal system after all, European music theory called it the “gypsy scale” (Laborecký, 1997). And this is also its presentation, as we find it also in the compositions of Franz Liszt. He especially introduced these tonal elements into music and its theoretical system; Roma music, which is basically instrumental music, characterizes some instruments and their function. It includes beside the leading violins also the so-called cymbal, which has many forms in the interplay of the Roma bands and has a highly virtuoso character (Elschek, 2000: 214; Herencsár, 2019). This is the case when applying their production route without the direct Roma or “Hungarian” participation. They also had different jobs outside of their musical practice, especially during the Turkish occupation in South Hungary. The most important, if not the most important instrument is the violin (Szabó, 2008), since their arrival into Slovakia was documented in 1377, and especially since the 16th century. Later especially in Slovak with regions well known in the Tatra regions and made violins of good quality produced in the 19th century in the village of Behárovce, with good sale also in whole Hungary. The Roma tradition of playing the violin in string music ensembles is in the leading position of the “primas”, as the well known and highly appreciated position of the Roma players. They are represented by a series of well-known musicians from the beginning of 18th centuries as today.

5 The Starting Research on Roma, Sinti or the Olav Society We have two research traditions, an old one, which goes back to the 17th and 18th century connected with the violin playing Roma musicians, in which were active among the Roma themselves in characterizing their own playing tradition. It does not mean that other people searching that subject were not interested to clarify the socio-cultural background of the Romas, with their otherwise related

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music (Szabó, 2008). The Roma were a relatively large and special group in the national background and in the state of their music. They were not limited in the music ensembles with their special technical abilities and expression connected with the traditional Slovak instrumental music, which were interpreted in the villages of Slovakia. The special research started much later. It was not only a group of interests but also those which have realized their work in institutions and specialized research groups. It was very late, not before the 19th century, practiced by some groups with special working possibilities also in the area of Roma music. Within different fields of ethnology, languets, poetics, music and dance, to mentions only some of the areas studying. Different disciplines had a special subject, with rather simple programs but also complicated questions, concerning the instrumental analysis. The documentation stands on the rather complicated technical background with audio, film, and audiovisual means and in the last years using digital technologies. In no case it was directed exclusively to the questions concerning the Roma culture. The Institute for folk music research was established in 1961, with the program concentrated on Slovak folk music, folk songs, musical instruments, instrumental music and folk dance, having in mind a wide area of different regions. Two single projects have been started, as the first editing folk songs and the second one started with folk dances and instrumental musical companies in different types of dances. In cooperation with the Slovak film company started the second project. Both were finished successful. The film was made in different areas throughout Slovakia. It incorporated 10 villages with music and dance, including 2 Roma ensembles in Eastern Slovakia by interpreting Slovak folk music but in their special style of music making. It was followed by the edition of the types of Slovak folk dance and the edition folk songs and further areas of folk music research directed to their editions. Four projects had to be finished by the mentioned programs: 1. music and dance was realized in a movie (1951–1952, led by Fr. Poloczek and the Filmmaker D. Plichta); 2. A special dance writing system was made and edited by Št. Tóth in 1952; 3. A never view on folk dance types was included in the edition Slovak folk dances by Kovalˇciková, J., Poloczek Fr., in 1955, 4. The edition Slovak Folk Songs was led by K. Hudec and realized by Fr. Poloczek in four volumes in the years 1949–1964, including 2000 songs (Elscheková, 2005: 211–214). The four research areas created opened up further opportunities for minority research. Among them were Hungarian, Ukrainian and Ruthenian minorities, who have their own cultural facilities and their research system. We have only briefly mentioned the situation of research and care for the largest Roma minority. Some of the activities are carried out by the Roma groups themselves with a small share and their own communities. It is not my aim to list all areas of research on life and cultural activities; I will remain to them as fare will be shortly characterized their specific musical parts. The way of meeting the music of the Roma, their knowledge and analysis is the starting point as it did not take place in the form of specially planned and prepared research. Some of their peculiarities and abilities met very earlier with their admiration but also with the problems that characterize their migratory way of life. Music

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research in Slovakia was usually carried out in the form of regional larger or smaller groups of musicians. The reason was that Slovakia is characterized by a relatively large stylistic diversity, which usually affects the entire range of their characteristics. Among their significant ones are e.g. dialects, costumes and its individual parts. Work habits and in general derived life habits, differentiating them into small and larger settlements that divide or unite them. These include also several significant river systems. Their foundations connect some with the distinctive mountain and foothill areas, the geographical division of Slovakia. More than 40 1000–2000 m represent high mountain peaks of the Western Carpathians, which meet the Alps, stretch from West to East throughout the territory of Slovakia. There are areas where the temperature drops to negative 20°–40° in winter although in central Europe. Apparently, however, there are other internal and other characteristics that divide the lifestyle, traditionally extensive mining areas since the immemorial of time. It covers many characters that affect the way of life, artistic and character traits. The arrival and long-term retention of migrating Roma is unusual. How and whether it affects their overall life and its musical activity and ability which will be the subject of our next encounters with them, in artistic and character differences. They were part of the dance-music performances. In Slovakia, they have preserved their language and learn a language where they are a minority (different to the situation in Hungary, without such possibilities to support and preserve their language).

6 Research Projects and Encounters with Roma Coincidentally or purposefully, it was one of the longest and most demanding research projects in central Slovakia, the area in the so-called Horehronie as the Upper area of the Hron River. From the geographical point of view, this region is divided into the Low and High Tatras, which took over this role to the 2000 m high of the King’s Mountain. In the program the processing of 6 villages below its lower part, which in total were not 2–5 km apart from each other. Despite the small distances, they differed in a variability of dialect, in traditional costumes and other characteristics, which was especially important to us due to the differences also found in their song repertoire, special music and dances. The research affected team work in different ethnographic, cultural, as well as ethnomusicological research areas, which were later joined by labor, economics and other areas of research. After field research lasting from 1952 into the 1980s, the 3rd volume was completed. Its content touched our subject of research (Gašparíková, 1988). More than three institutes were involved in this lengthy research. The general editor of the whole project throughout the years was J. Podolák in close cooperation to the realized research, the part of which was also the mentioned edition. He characterizes the results mainly in the field of ethnomusicology with the words: The Department of Musical Folklore of the Institute of Musicology of the Slovak Academy of Sciences has been intensively researching folk songs, dances, music and musical instruments since the 1950s, as well as studying theoretical and methodological issues of musical folklore.

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It includes more than 10,000 recordings of folk songs, 7,000 on instrumental music, 40,000 photographs – negatives and positives (with musical instruments, but also general ethnology and folklore themes). It is one of the largest and at the same time ethnological collections, to which must be added an archive of 900 films. (Podolák, 2000)

It was especially this time when the mentioned projects started also in surrounding areas with the comparative task in central Slovakia. From the musical point of views we were interested not only in the real-time situation in the Upper area of the River Hron, but also to try clarifying its historical development, especially concerning instrumental music. It was during this time that solo instruments were enlarged to fit in greater musical ensembles. In the 1860s and 1870s, farmer’s music by 2–3 players built up their musical activity with their families. At the beginning of the later 80s Roma players filled up their solo by 2–3 players, on the basis of good known families. Music became for them a new and very important part of the playing practice. Often, they cooperated also with the farmer musicians, as a chance of their “band” to better apply their music. Good musicians were enlarging their chance in music in their repertoire and functional types. Beside the local music and their enlarged groups in the villages of Šumiac and Polomka, with large groups of musicians with a larger repertory of music types visited often neighbore villages. This was a usual a practice in grater popular villages during festivals. The important part of the music was their special repertory. The possibility of playing with a larger technical level, their musical ability of the single musicians, were analyzed (Elschek, 2000: 193–225). The mentioned project in Central Slovakia were followed with some several areas in Northwest and Northern Slovakia with less complicated Roma musical styles, as was the style of the traditional farmers and shepherds in the Orava and Kysuce regions. In the time when in central Slovakia the traditional lives and position in the society were studied, an overview was published by Horváthová (1964), having in mind a greater diapason concerning the place of Roma in Slovakia, also with some music notes. This was the starting moment of a wider and more profound research in Slovak ethnology, taking into account the Roma as an important cultural and socio-cultural problem of Slovakia, concerning also their political and human rights. Since a rather limited interest in Roma research is directed to their musical view and activities, and a short outline should be given in the notes of the book on the Olah group of the Roma, written by Šusterová (2017). The main studies on the music or music making of the Roma are today a problem, which in general does not contribute to solving on the central problems of their life and their position in the society. Understanding them as the general problem of the society in which they are living in Slovakia (but not only in Slovakia), which does not solve the problem of minorities, such as their social lost in general. For example, in “grate” or “reach” societies. We are not closer to clarify them as in the past. One part as although mentioned is connected with music, or part of their society which is connected with music, understand it, be able to make and practice music as a part of their society in the past as well as today. Their music is by others, partly accepted by the majority. It is not only a problem of the Roma, Sinti or Olah. We know that also those of African origin in the United States and worldwide, have such ability and chance to overcome with their music and be accepted.

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How this is handled today or practiced in Slovakia we have shortly described in the villages they live more or less cooperating with the majority. We have the problems described in villages where the Majority and Minority are living in a distance, not very far but isolated. Music is a part of their coexistence, as we have seen and practiced it concerning the ability of their actual music. Today we have two possibilities in clarifying their practice. One is the mentioned village surrounding to uniting them. The other one is an easier, but in its way also connected, with some ledges. It needs a special live basis of the Roma musicians in the towns, where they have a greater independence. They established little or large music groups, for their own community but also with the commercial aspects directed to a larger community in towns. It was a long development especially after the 80s. When the 19th century music became partly outside of their Roma community it became to be as a commercial part of their live. Music of the Roma grew up as an accepted part of the national music for the society. The commercial Music of the Roma was much more followed as a part of the living part of popular music.

7 Some Closing Aspects on the Practice and Research of the Roma In general it can be stated that the music of the Roma gained a better position today than it had it in the past, in the villages as well as in the towns. Two aspects have to be pointed out as their consequence: At first: Music as such became today by performed music and the living music as well as in the media with a much better position as in the years before, especially in the media (Elschek, 2005). Secondly: the music produced by the Roma is practiced in a much higher quality of performance, as a consequence of their professional education, gained also in the schools and higher music educational learning they achieved. What was the increasing process in the live of the musicians was not followed by the general position of the Roma, especially in the villages. The essential position remained in their social position, segregation and quality of life continued as before. It is somewhat excessive but in their basic right, without essential changes. In spite of the official or in-official views on the situation, it continued as before (Jantoš, 2000), with few changes. They are the continuation of the social situation at large-not only by the Roma and against all the analytical and research results which were described and published. Much deeper views on the situation have been shown in edition, as those in their special issues, and presented in a long term as well as by the actual research. Their names have been shown and presented in publication as mentioned before (Zima, 2010). Some aspects played an important position in the Roma research, as the ability of their integration into the general social system. It is related on the learning and teaching ability, the language in the whole related system of life, with all the special abilities of the Roma. The changing history was the subject of the books of Anna

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Jaurová, comparing in a long period their position. From her view it was possible to understand the place of Slovakia, its 2nd–the 3rd place, between the European States. The Roma problem in European countries incorporates many aspects regarding the different manners and ways of how they were handled. Also from the point of view more minorities in one country have their specific demands and practices. The central problem was the language for the communication inside of the group as well as the communication with the majority. In Slovakia was not the program to remove the Roma by their own language. In comparison, with Hungary’s handling of their minorities was as such—forced by them as Hungarians (“Magyars”), without the chance to save and keep their aborigine language. This refers also to the Slovak minority in Hungary, after a long process the Slovaks, as far as they were living in the country, before the Hungarians entered into the territory, where they are living now. That is a fundamental changing process, because it influences the process of not only their communication but also the manner of life and their existence. Therefore, it was not the vision in Slovakia to change the language of the Roma, but only to fill up their ability to communicate in the greater community as such by learning the Slovak language. When such an aspect was applied on music it is not only the logical deduction, but also the consequence that their practice of music is in Hungary Hungarian music and not understood as Roma music. Beside all these aspects in research they have one of the best written books on the Roma published by Bálint Sárosi (born in Rumania and living in Hungary), who had a great understanding and feeling to the Roma, on their life and music (Sárosi, 1977). Concerning the musical activities of the Roma in Slovakia, we have mentioned that there are two aspects and forms connected: the first one was the music of their own lives and what it played in terms of tradition in and for their community; the second was their ability to adapt and make music for the others, in and for the society they were living in. In general, we have in our research programs music and film which documented them in different systems and programs of transcriptions in the publication mentioned (Gašpariková, 1988). Their original sound is included in the film by Slivka (1990). It is an amazing music by the trio, quartet and larger combination performed by Roma musicians. The music starts with the prime violin, the second contra supplements their harmonic a metric background, and the rhythmic and metric part completed the contrabass. Some of the combinations are published in the mentioned editions, realized also by one of the best of their analysis. The music they are “producing” belongs to the oral music and is therefore difficult to realize. One of the best sound document and its transcription was made by Leng (1971: 25– 140). One the edition is centered on the function, style and variability, the analysis of the leading prime players, was edited in the voluminous issue: Variable technique of the prime players (Leng & Elschek, 1984). A special edition using all the technical and digital systems with their scores and in detail as variable sound technologies prepared by the younger generation of ethnomusicologists, concerning also special combination in the future as less the used techniques and music combinations. It was one of the last such editions in the Institute of Musicology of the Slovak Academy of

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Sciences led and edited by Matúšková M.: Style and Sound Analysis of Traditional Music (2006). At the beginning of the 20th century a wide area of music and special styles were opened in the frame of the socio-cultural global development. Different musical genres have been influenced among them concerning the traditional music and their parts in the music of the Roma. It was worldwide practiced as an area of international music research. The music of the Roma received a wider meaning concerning their music in the European context, as starting and resumed in 2003, on an international conference in Prague (Jurková). Such conferences and meetings play an important role in the expansion and understanding of one of the living music culture of their minorities throughout Europe.

References Anna, J. (1993). Vývoj rómskej problematiky na Slovensku od roku 1945. Goldpress Publishers Bratislava. Baumann, M. P. (Ed.). (2000). Music, language and literature of the Roma and Sinti. Preface (p. 7). VWB—Verlag für Wissenschaft und Bildung. Berlin. Elschek, O. (1983). Handbuch der europäischen Volksmusikinstrumente. In Die Volksmusikinstrumente der Tscheslowakei Teil 2. Die slowakischen Volksmusikinstrumente. Ensemblebildungen (p. 245). VEB Deutscher Verlag für Musik, Leipzig. ˇ Elschek, O. (1988). Ludové hudobné nástroje a nástrojová hudba. (Volkmusic instruments and instrumental music). In V. Gašparíková (Ed.), Horehronie. Note16–17., p. 192a (pictures) text (pp. 193–225). Veda. Vydavateˇlstvi Slovenskej akadémie vied. Bratislava. Elschek, O. (2020). Slovenské ˇludové hudobné nástroje vˇcera a dnes. (Slovak folk music instruments ˇ in the past and today) ÚLUV Bratislava. ˇ Elschek, O. (Ed.). Ludové hudobné nástroje a nástrojová hudba. In Dejiny slovenskej hudby od najstarších cˇ ias po súˇcasnosˇt (Folk Music Instruments and Instrumental Music. in A history of Slovak music.) VEDA. Bratislava: 2003; pp. 412–430, 458–480. Ústav hudobnej vedy SAV, ASCO Art & Science. Bratislava: 1996, 2003. Elschek, O. (Ed.). (2005). Multimediálna spoloˇcnosˇt na Prahu 21. Storoˇcia (Multimedial Society at the Door to the 21st Century), Its Culture and Music). Bratislava: Centrum mediálnej kultúry pri Ústave hudobnej vedy Slovenskej akadémie vied. Asco art & science. Bratislava. Elscheková, A., & Elschek, O. (1996). Theorie und Praxis der Erforschung der traditionellen Musik der Minderheiten. In U. Hemetek (Ed.), Echo der Vielfalt der Diversity. (Traditional Music of Ethnic Groups—Minorities) (pp. 17–18). Wien Böhlau. Faustino, N. (2000). Die Kunst der Flamenco und die andalusische Gitanos. In M. P. Baumann (Ed.),Music, language and literature of the Roma and Sinti (pp. 445–451). VWB, Verlag für Wissenschaft und Bildung, Berlin. ˇ Gašpariková, V. (Ed.). (1988). Horehronie.3. p. 173 Folklórne prejavy v živote ˇludu. Ludové hudobné nástroje a ˇludová nástrojová hudba, pp. 171–246. Picters plaers 192–193–255. Veda Slovenská akadémia vied, Bratislava. Herencsár, V. (2019). Svet cymbalu. (The world of cimbals) U. fond na podporu umenia Slovenská cimbalová asociácia. Zvolen, Banská Bystrica. Horváthová, E. (1964). Cig áni na Slowensku. Historicko-etnografický náˇcrt (The Roma in Slovakia. An historic view). Vydavateˇlstvo Slovenskej Akadémie vied Bratislava. Horváthová, E. (1964). Cigáni na Slovensku. Historicko-etnografický náˇcrt. The Roma in Slovakia an Historical and Ethnographicview. Vydavateˇlstvo Slovenskej Akadémie vied. Bratislava.

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Jantoš, J. (Ed.). (2000). Integrácia rómov na Slovensku. Ethnologia actualis Slovaca. 1–2. Univerzita sv. Cyrila a Metoda. Jurková, Z. (Ed.). (2003). Romská hudba na prelome tisícletí. (Roman Music at the Turn of the Millennium). Sborník referátov z etnomuikzologickej komferencii Studio poduction Saga s.r.o. ve spolupráci s Katedrou humanistických štúdií Univerzity Karlovej v Praze. Laborecký, J. (1997). Hudobný terminologický slovník. Bratislava: Slovenské pedagogické nakladateˇlstvo; Ako sústava tónového systému: Stala sa známou cez skladby Fr. Liszta: To see also on: https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zigeuner tonleiter. Slovenské pedagogické nakladateˇlstvo. Bratislava. ˇ Leng, L. (1971). Ludová hudba Zubajovcov (The folk music making bey the Zubaj family). Musicologica Slovaca 2. Slovenská akadémia vied (pp. 25–140). Bratislava. Leng, L., & Elschek, O. (Ed.). (1984). Variaˇcná technika predníkov oblasti Západného, Stredného a Východného Slovenska.(The techniques of variation by the leading violinists in the regions of East, Central and West Slovakia) (3rd edn.). Osvetový ústav. Bratislava. Matúšková, M. (Ed.). (2006). Štýlová a zvuková analýza tradiˇcnej hudby (Style and Sound Analysis of Traditional Music). Roma music on pp. 171–176. Ústav hudobnej vedy Slovenskej akadémie vied. Bratislava. Nettl, B., & Bohlmann, P. V. (Ed.). (1991). Comparative musicology and anthropology of music. Essays on the history of ethnomusicology. The University of Chicago Press, Chicago and London. Pelizaeus, L. (2008). Der Kolonialismus. Geschichte der europäischen Expansion Marix. Podolák, J. (2003). Etnológia na Slovensku v 20. storoˇcí. Etapy jej vývoja. In Ethnologia actualis Slovaca (Vol. 3, p. 25). (Ethnologické a folkloristické inšttitúcie na Slovensku). Universitas SS. Cyrilli Et Methodii Tyrnaviae. Sárosi, B. (1977). Zigeunermusik. Corvina Verlag. Slivka, M. (1998). Kinder des Windes. 13 teilige TV Dokumentarserie. (Children of the wind in three parts) Slowakische Fernsehen und Schwarzwald Film 1990 (Documented 1988). Šusterová, I. (2017). Život Olašských Rómov. Bratislava: Ústav etnológie Slovenskej akadémie vied. Also: https://is.muni.cz/el/1421/jaro2017/ETBB34/um/_Olasski_Romovia.pdf ˇ Edícia Szabó, I. (2008). Príbehy primášov. (The Bratislava: Vydavateˇlstsvo humoru, satiry atd. Návraty. Zima, Š. (Ed.). (2007). Nehmotná ˇludová kultúra Rómov na Slovensku z oblasti Gemer-Malohont a Novohrad. Svedkovia Minulosti. (The nonmaterial cultur of the Roma in Slovakia). Národné osvetové centrum. Bratislava.

Oskar Elschek is an ethnomusicologist, has done much to influence the course of ethnomusicological research in Eastern Europe, and in connection with the political and ideological transformations of 1989–1991, his efforts were of singular importance in the rapprochement between scholarly communities in the Western and Eastern Europe. His primary contributions have been to the study of folk music in Slovakia, the Carpathians, and the Pannonian Basin of East-Central Europe; to instrumental folk music; and to the emergence of systematic musicology as an international field of research. In addition to his extensive publications, he has produced numerous documentary films, ethnographic videos and audio recordings. He has focused considerable attention on the history of European folk music scholarship and ethnomusicology, and his monographs on the theories and methods of modern systematic scholarship have since become standard works. In 1997, he received the Herder Prize for his lifetime contributions to ethnomusicology.

Indigenous People and Traditional Music in the Historical Context of the Czech Lands Lubomír Tyllner

Abstract The geographic location of Czech lands was the reason for permanent cultural confrontation of the Czech and German ethnic groups. Czech lands were a minority compared to the German population of Europe but they were at the same time a majority compared to the Germans within their state territory. This has brought on (as a result of the contact between the two ethnic groups) remarkable cultural outcomes as well as the danger of acculturation which was on its rise in times of the political superiority of the Germans (especially after 1620 and to some extent, during the world wars in the 20th century). Traditional culture, especially folk songs, played an important role in the mutual coexistence of the majority and minority ethnic groups. The folk song was able to preserve the language and was a valuable compensation for the lack of national poetry, literature and music. Integration and differentiation cultural tendencies are shown using examples of folk songs, poetry, literature and national music. This will also point to the meaning of traditional music in terms of preserving national identity in the media-open world. Keywords Czech lands · German minority · Traditional music · Folksong · Songbooks · Cantor Traditional (indigenous, folk) music in the territory of today’s Czech Republic has not been paid attention to for many centuries, neither by music artists nor musicologists. The songs lived on the fringes of society, mostly in the mouths of the lower strata of the population, who—for a long period of time—did not know how to write, much less write musical notation. Songs, however, formed a deeply rooted and indispensable part of their everyday routine, and their social and cultural life. They were heard during the rituals of nature’s cycle, at family ceremonies such as weddings, funerals, field work, children’s games, and as part of entertainment regularly associated with dance and instrumental music. It fulfilled a social function as well as an aesthetic function, especially in the period before the creation of the printed book (1448), before the birth of poetry and literature in Czech, and also before the origin L. Tyllner (B) Czech Academy of Sciences, Praha, Czech Republic e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. 2021 Y. Lu and O. Elschek (eds.), The Legacy of Indigenous Music, Sinophone and Taiwan Studies 4, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-16-4473-3_9

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of national art music in the 19th century. An important feature of this culture is the multi-ethnic and multicultural profile, whose long-term coexistence and confrontation exist not only within different ethnic groups and languages, but also within different denominations and the timeless traditions associated with them. Minorities, i.e., a community of people living separated from their mother nation, were bound in the Czech state by place, language, material and spiritual culture, production methods, customary institutions, denominations, food, clothing, oral culture, music, songs and dance, etc. They lived here as “foreigners in their country.” Their task was to preserve their internal integrity and, at the same time, respect the different traditions with which they were confronted in their coexistence with the majority. Coping with the political culture of the state, and at the same time respecting the requirements of one’s own cultural identity, was to be the norm and everyday reality necessary for peaceful coexistence in a common state unit. If there is to be no conflict, differences must be respected or even requited. It is a boundary that pluralism must not cross. Even under these conditions and over time, the relationship between the majority and the minority may change. The process of sharing or reciprocating, figuratively speaking, is not “free.” “The more successful multiculturalism is as a shared way of life for members of a society, the less likely it is that different cultures would remain different. Communicated differences are shared differences and they do not divide but unite” (Petrusek, 2006: 202). Thus, in ancient times, it happened that, for example, the expansion of the Vikings spread faster in the cultures of countries more developed than those originally belonging to the Vikings. In more modern times, the nation of Lusatian Serbs, assimilated into the Germanic majority, has almost disappeared before our eyes. The causes of the reversal of originally complementary relationships are various and represent a topic for historians, sociologists, and culturologists. If political considerations enter into relations between the majority and the minority, the situation can change quickly and fundamentally to the detriment of the hitherto majority population. Thus, the “Czech problem” was born, whose milestones became: the preference of the Habsburgs over Czech interests in the election of Ferdinand the First as the King of Bohemia (1526), brutal suppression of the anti-Habsburg uprising of the Bohemian Estates (1620), the annexation of historical Czech territories with a predominantly German population to Hitler’s Germany, and subsequent occupation of Czechoslovakia (1938–1939). On the other hand, and as a reaction in fact, the displacement of the German population following the end of World War II (after 1945) led to a fundamental change in the demographic profile of the state. The brutal suppression of national sovereignty also took place in 1968 with the occupation of Czechoslovakia by Warsaw Pact troops. The Marxist-Leninist ideology brought a new perspective to the issue, legitimizing any military-political intervention in the spirit of the proletarian internationalism, the dictatorship of the proletariat and the associated role of the hegemonic leader, especially the Soviet Union as a superpower, which gradually developed into the leader of the communist movement both in theory and practice. The political program and the basis of the communist identity were Marx’s and Engels’s theses embodied in the conclusion of the Communist

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Manifesto, Workers of the World, Unite (1848), regardless of the ethnic and cultural differences of the nations and cultures which the wave of communist ideology has engulfed. The process of assimilation could thus have started on a different principle than the one which followed the natural political and demographic development brought about by the industrial revolution and also, by colonialism (with all consequences experienced to this day) or contemporary globalization. Political ideas and programs overcame ethnic antagonisms and ignored the decline of the cultural traditions of the arts, social sciences, and even the most fundamental traditions of faith and religion of any kind. This political reality continues to survive, although its power and protagonists are changing. Under different circumstances and in different environments, tradition became the impediment of the alliance of proletarians around the world and the impediment of assimilation and cultural diffusion to which Marx’s and Engels’s “great philosophy” pointed the way. The power of social cultural memory, the authority of belonging, rituals, customs, law, and patterns of behavior in long-established societies, prevented the manipulations of communist regimes from marginalizing the importance of local communities, individuals, and, eventually, also minorities. That is why there was such a radical rejection of tradition and traditional symbols in many countries under authoritarian regimes controlled by German National Socialists as well as Communists. However, even these regimes eventually called for it, but in their own way, in an albeit manipulated and ideologically twisted form.1 Both regimes were also characterized by their identical behavior towards national minorities, arbitrarily decimated in such a way that they were later incapable of any revitalization.2

1 Coexistence of Majority and Minority as a Historical Fate Communities living in the territory of today’s Czech Republic have gone through phases of ethnic self-confidence or, contrastingly, the lack of it or retrieval, since the first historically documented reports of its existence. The definition of the indigenous population and thus, the indigenous musical culture was first associated with a mysterious group of tribes—the Celts. Discovering Celtic musical traces in Czech ethnicity has now become fashionable, despite the fact that the oldest monuments of music culture in Bohemia and Moravia date back to the eleventh century, and as for the earliest historical times, “we either have no written historical material or only its fractions” (Sláma, 1956: 168). In addition, the character of the preserved material musical artefacts points to their general cultural basis, which comparative

1

This affected, for example, the cult of the Czech saint Wenceslas and its interpretation in the hands of fascists and communists. 2 The fate of the Jewish minority in the Czech lands under both dictatorships is a typical example of this. The Romany minority was forced, by the communist regime, into cultural assimilation, which, contrary to the original assumptions, failed to materialize.

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musicology, archaeology or ethnology perceives as a consequence and manifestation of generally prevailing conditions, which usually comprise acoustic principles common to all cultures of the planet. Although genetic engineering does not exclude the Celtic-Slavic basis of the Czech population,3 a direct cultural link to the later Slavs is actually more than hypothetical. There are many ideas about Celtic music and smaller groups of musicians with various types of bagpipes and other reproductions of original instruments strive to perform it. However, it is only a fiction representing a marginal stream of contemporary Czech pop culture. The continuity of settlement lasting to this day is historically proven only by the arrival of the Slavs in the middle of the first millennium. Rather than the surviving Celtic tradition, we can discuss long-standing pagan cults and rituals. The chronicler Cosmas talks about the sacrifice to the idols that the locals carried “on their shoulders” which they brought from their homeland to the newly settled territories (Kosmova kronika cˇ eská: 1972: 12). The treatise of Jan of Holešov, dealing with Christmas Eve (Havránek, 2009: 112) at the beginning of the 15th century, mentions the worship of the pagan god Baal, during which pagan priests “went around the houses every first day of the month (i.e. calends) with the idol Bál singing (in Czech) the song Beli, Beli, dubec stojí prostˇred dvora and through the words Beli, Beli, preceding each subsequent verse, they asked Bál to ensure success in the following month.”4 ˇ ek Zíbrt (1894) gathered a number of testimonies about persistent In particular, Cenˇ pagan customs and rituals: in 1092 Bˇretislav II issued a ban on pagan songs performed in masks at burials, forests and fields, or in the 12th century, Homiliáˇr Opatovický urged priests to ban devilish songs that the people sang over the dead (Zíbrt 1896: 17). Thanks to the Romantics, mainly, the concept of the early Slavs as a nation was born, which was characterized by a moral character (J. G. Herder) or even a “dove-like nature” (J. A. Komenský). A more realistic characterization speaks of an affection for agriculture and a certain social equality (P. J. Šafaˇrík). These circumstances seem to be significant for the gradual dynamics of the development of a society characterized by the stability and permanence of production methods until the second half of the 19th century (e.g. agricultural management has not changed for centuries), the character of material and spiritual culture. The socio-political composition of the population and the world outlook also remained stable.5 Colonization waves, taking place in Europe mainly between the 9th and 14th centuries, also affected the Slavic territories. The Bohemian and Moravian territories were sparsely populated; in the mountain border zones they were surrounded mainly by the German-speaking population, into whose territorial profile the Czech lands formed a visible wedge. In the processes that have taken place since the 12th

3

Available at http://camelot.lf2.cuni.cz/funkovai/ublg/pdf/kelticz99.pdf. Largum sero vel Septem consuetudines populares. A treatise written between 1397 and 1405. 5 “… the dynamics of the people’s own history is gradual, showing admirable stability and permanence in certain areas of life until the second half of the 19th century, when there was rapid movement and change in the basic constant signs of folksiness.” (Kutnar, 1948: 15). 4

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century, some German settlers crossed hitherto unclearly defined territorial boundaries, fertilized the soil by grubbing and grubbing-up, and established a dense network of settlements, especially in the higher-lying areas. The spread of not only peasants and miners, but also burghers, brought with it German law, which contributed to the formation of free peasantry and burghers. A community was born, which in its essence has been preserved until recently. And so, for almost a thousand years, the Czechs lived in contact with the territory of the Germans, or more precisely, the Germans not only settled in the border areas, but eventually within the cities of the emerging Bohemian state. However, these processes in some Slavic territories led to the assimilation and inevitably to the extinction of the original, especially Western Slavic tribes in favor of the German ethnic group. From the 10th century onwards, Jews, mostly merchants, came to the principality of Bohemia, and even in this area where they were not spared, fluctuations between minority tolerance and anti-Jewish pogroms. However, the diffusion of the Jewish population and culture into the Bohemian environment was not as significant as the intersections of the culture from the German minority. This ethnic-demographic “great turning point” was completed in the 13th century, and its final form was essentially preserved until the beginning or end of World War II (Žemliˇcka, 1999: 101–111). At the same time, however, it caused a millenniumlong permanent confrontation and national controversy between the Czech majority and the German minority within the state, and at the same time the Czech minority within the European dominance of the German ethnic group. Less massive, yet clear interethnic contact also marked the territory of Moravia, with the arrival of Wallachian Colonization advancing along the ridges of the Carpathians in approximately 13th–17th century, and contacts with Polish national culture as well as Slovak and Hungarian (or neo-Hungarian) cultures. There had been an established opposing view regarding the mutual cultural enrichment, especially between the Czechs and the Germans, but the current, basically objective view, enables a more realistic and rational evaluation of those ethnic relations in terms of original folk (national) music, where these relations are clearly manifested. The growing influence of the German minority was further contributed to by the practice of mixed marriages adopting other religions, the predominance of German as the language of proceedings, and the political pressure caused by the subordinate position of the Czech lands in the Habsburg monarchy after 1526 (the death of the Bohemian and Hugarian king Luis II Jagiello in the battle of Mohács against the Turks and the election of Ferdinand of Habsburg as Czech king), especially after the defeat at the Battle of White Mountain in 1620. Collections of folk songs and dances from the early 19th century contain a third of their material in German, which means that the proportion of Czech songs to German is the same as the proportion of the Czech and German population. Conditions for gradual assimilation, or rather fusion of cultures, were fairly convenient for the bilingual competence of the population, but also due to the permanent societal and work-related contacts of both ethnic groups. Thus, not only in the border areas, but also in the urban environment, musical and dance performances common to both nations or directly imported from the outside, especially from neighboring cultures, were gaining popularity.

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2 Czech, German, Polish, Slovak, or European Heritage A particularly significant example of the imported and, at the same time, common cultural heritage, are the songs accompanying dances with mixed meter, referred to in the Czech language as Mateníky, in German Zwiefachen. Their origin was most likely conditioned by the “play” of dancers changing their dance steps and the “play” of musicians with the musical meter. The change of the meter can also be caused by declamation, mutual adjustment of the linguistic and musical components of songs, i.e., alternation of accents at the beginning of two-syllable and three-syllable words. In Czech ethnomusicology, Mateník was considered “a specific Czech genre of folk dances” (Zich, 1916: 30). Today we know that this judgment of Otakar Zicha (1879– 1934) was not accurate. Research using the cartographic method on both sides of the Czech-German border revealed that the center of occurrence (concentration) of these dances lies in the German Upper Palatinate with centers in the urban areas of Cham and Schwandorf, and that the dance originated here and spread to Bohemia. The directional spread of these dances can be derived from their names. In western Bohemia, in the regions bordering Germany, the dances are named after geographical or urban names: Bavorák or Baborák, and further east Klatovák or Latovák.6 Because regional names often point to the location or region where the dance came from, the direction of spread of these names (and dances) is evidently from west to east. Some names are even the same for both ethnic groups (Talian—Italiener). In Bavaria, on the other hand, the name of a dance with a mixed meter called Böhmischer Wind (Czech wind) appears, which indicates a reflection of this type of dance in the Czech environment. In Germany, there are also names of dances derived from towns or cities where they were popular: Schweinau/Schweinauer, but most often Bayern/Bayrischer—Bavorák. The significance and entrenchment of these dances in the tradition of both ethnic groups is proven even in well-known works by famous composers: in Bohemia, for example, in the compositions of Antonín Dvoˇrák (1841– 1904), in Germany by Carl Orf (1895–1982), a native of the Bavarian city of Munich. Dvoˇrák used the alternation of time measures in a number of compositions, in its pure form in the third movement of Symphony No. 6. Metric scheme: 2/4, 2/4, 2/4, 3/4, 3/4 Carl Orf used Zwiefachen in the sixth part of the famous cantata Carmina Burana: Metric scheme: 2/4, 2/4, 2/4, 2/4, 3/4 2/4, 2/4, 2/4, 2/4, 3/4, 3/4

A more ethnically intense debate arose in connection with a dance of a similar nature, called Furiant. It was especially popular with the Czech ethnic group, and Czech composers also contributed to its general popularity. Bedˇrich Smetana (1824– 1884) included it as a separate part in his most famous opera The Bartered Bride and in the piano cycle Czech Dances. Antonín Dvoˇrák used dance as the eighth 6

Bavorák named after the neighbouring federal state of Bavaria, Klatovák (shortened to Latovák) derived from a town (Klatovy) in the neighbouring region of Bohemia.

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Fig. 1 Furiant dance (circa 1825)

number of the equally famous Slavonic dances.7 But the oldest musical record in the collections of folk songs comes from the German part of the collection of folk songs Czech National Song/Böhmische Volkslieder (1825: 57), preceding the younger Czech record by almost forty years (Erben 1862: 51) (Fig. 1). Moreover, the word Furiant appeared at the beginning of the German text, after which the dance is named, and in terms of the relationship between the text and the melody, the German notation was declaimed more precisely than the Czech one. It seemed that the symbol of the Czech musical tradition, the “national jewel” of the Furiant dance, was not of Czech origin. However, according to the latest source of discovery of the Czech notation of the dance, Furiant (Kunz, 1995: 20), a version from the same period as the German was brought, also precisely declaimed (Kunz II, melodies: 20), and thus the dispute over the origin and ethnicity of this popular dance did not escalate any further. The dance performance is very similar for both ethnic groups, characterized by the alternation of dance steps and the corresponding music meter (2/4, 3/4). The scheme of alternating steps in Czech literature is denoted by the abbreviations S (3/4 = Sousedská dance) and O (2/4 = Obkroˇcák dance), in German W (3/4 = Walzer dance) and D (2/4 = Dreher dance). Combinations of steps can create different schemes. The names of dances of the same step character, however, may differ regionally or locally.8 The table shows selected examples from the total number of several hundreds of Czech recordings of the dances with variable time signatures (Table 1). Although these songs and dances are the cultural heritage of two ethnic groups, they still play a role in the Czech national consciousness (although not quite accurately) as autochthonous, national, and Czech dances. In the east of the territory, the occurrence of this musical-dance genre is delimited by the Morava River, and it has never crossed the border of the neighboring Slovakia. By way of changing the meter and the dance step, these melodies differ from Balkan culture (e.g., Bulgarian, Greek, Albanian), whose compound metric units (so-called aksak) are welded together by

7

They were not the only ones in Europe, however, to elevate folk provincial musical expressions to the level of world concert or opera art. From a long list of names, let us mention at least: Fryderyk Chopin, Johannes Brahms, Edward Hagerup Grieg, Leoš Janáˇcek, Béla Bartók, George Enescu, Zoltán Kodály, Karol Szymanowski, Bohuslav Martin˚u, etc. 8 The most comprehensive collection of German Zwiefachen is stored in the archives of the Bavarian Academy of Sciences in Munich (Bayerische Akademie der Wissenschaften, Munich). Most Czech Mateníky dances are archived by the Institute of Ethnology of the Academy of Sciences of the Czech Republic, Prague).

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Table 1 Sample of Mateník dance types Name

Region

Year

Type

Number of bars (measures) barsPoˇcet takt˚u

Bars (measure)/scheme

Furiant

ˇ Cáslavsko

1819

OOOSS

16

4444

Furiant

Klatovsko

1819

OOOSS

16

4444

Latovák

Kouˇrimsko

1819

OOSS

24

444,444

Loketsko

1819

OOSS

16

4444

Klatovsko

1819

OOSS

16

4444

Latouník, (Latouvák)

Boleslavsko

1819

OOSS

24

444,444

Baboráky

Berounsko

1819

OOSS

16

4444

Vosˇnák

Kouˇrimsko

1819

OOSS

24

444,444

Klatovsko

1819

OOSS

16

4444

Bydžovsko

1819

OOSS

22

44,444

Klatovsko

1819

SSOO

16

4444

Klatovsko

1819

SSOO

16

4444

Klatovsko

1819

SSOO

16

4444

Loketsko

1819

SSOO

16

4444

Latovák

Bydžovsko

1819

SSOO

16

4444

Loketsko

1819

SSOO

16

4444

Talián, Masur

Kouˇrimsko

1819

SSOO

16

4444

Loketsko ˇ Cáslavsko

1819

SSOOOO

17

42,425

1819

SSOOS

20

5555

Vosˇnák

Kouˇrimsko

1819

SSOOSS

22

4,242,442

Sedlák

Bydžovsko

1819

SSOOSS

22

4,242,442

Vosˇnák (kozel)

Boleslavsko

1819

SSOOSS

22

4,242,442

Kozel

Talián

Klatovák (Vosˇnák, Kozel, Zouvák)

an accent at the beginning of these units or are divided within by other, less distinct accents. While the occurrence of dances with variable time signatures was defined by the ethnocultural circle of the two nations, the cultural exchange on a much wider scale is represented by sword dances (dances in armour, Morris dance, Schwerttänze, Kumpanija, Moreška).9 They usually take the form of a epic theatrical story (on the island of Korˇcula Croatia), guild dance (miners in Böckstein, Austria, or Scotland), as well as carol errands (Bohemia, Moravia, and Slovakia) on the anniversary days of the Catholic calendar. In terms of geographical dispersion, they do not represent a single territorial space. They appear over a long period of at least six centuries in the area 9

The 21st symposium of the ICTM study group on Ethnochoreology 2000, Korˇcula, Croatia (Dunin & Zebec, 2001) was devoted to the study of sword dances.

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stretching from southern Europe to England and Scotland. In Moravia and Slovakia, they are geographically linked to the western promontory of the Carpathian arch. In southern Bohemia in the Doudleby region, sword dances (similarly to Mateníky) are a common cultural property of the Czech and German ethnic groups. In Bohemia, Moravia, Slovakia, and additionally in Scotland and Styria, these dances, in various forms, are embodied in the customary spring cycle and bear the characteristics of rituals, which include formalized, identically repeated, and stereotypical behaviour, in a fixed sequence of events—the so-called ceremonial sequence (Gennep, 1997: 19). An important characteristic is to go inside and give gifts to carollers. Dance and musical performances, which are especially rich, for example, in the village of Strání on the Moravian-Slovak border, create an intertwined dance-song cycle [t]here (Tyllner, 2016). Key features of this dance formation include a circle, as well as crawling, intertwining, and going under swords or sword gates. Swords are made of metal or wood, so their hitting each other or hitting the ground creates a distinctive sound effect. Musical accompaniment is provided by small instruments common in the region. Some parts of dancers’ clothing are very similar, even in faraway regions. The garments reflect biblical themes or regional craft traditions, often rich in symbols and allegories. The holiday suit and highly decorated hats of dancers from the South Bohemian Doudleby region are very similar to the dancers’ clothes around the Styrian Murau region (Austria). The performance of the pyramid, with the lifting of the dancer and the waving banner, can be seen both in Scotland and in Böckstein, Austria (in both cases it is part of the mining ceremonies) or on Korˇcula island, where the pyramids are usually the highlight of the performance (Figs. 2 and 3).

Fig. 2 Hats of carnival dancers in St. Georgen (Styria, 2020)

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Fig. 3 Hats of carnival dancers in Dobrkovská Lhotka (South Bohemia, 2005)

Although sword dances (in places of their occurrence) have many elements in common, their musical components are different. This proves the difficulty of transferring the musical elements (or musical thinking in general) that different ethnicities, regions or localities retain as their own. For example, the carnival ritual of dancers in the Slovak village of Borský Mikuláš requires two basic melodies (one for sword dancing, and the other for the marching of carollers from house to house), but the carnival ritual in the nearby village of Strání on the Moravian side of the MoravianSlovak border uses, musically, a very rich cycle of 22 songs. For a related carnival procession in the south of Bohemia in Dobrkovská Lhotka, only three waltz songs are sufficient, and the sabres from the dance have completely disappeared. Moreover, in Styria, swords were replaced by wooden sticks. A number of other music and dance elements entered the cultural tradition of the Czech lands from the outside; however, the takeover was not mechanical—their musical content was especially adapted to the national or regional tradition. The name of the Mazur dance already appears in the collection of songs and dances from Bohemia by Tomáš Antonín Kunz (around 1825, no. 318 from the Kouˇrim region), and its name suggests a relationship with the Polish national dance of the same name. The meter-rhythmic base of the Mazur dance can also be found in several other songs and dances from Bohemia and Moravia. The poet, Václav Hanka (1835), expressed his interest in Polish folk songs by translating the texts of Polish dances, or Krakováˇcky (1835). Especially in the north of Moravia, in Silesia, triple meter walking dances of a polonaise character were popular. A dance of this type, called Starodávný, even repeatedly appears in the cycle of compositions by Leoš Janáˇcek’s

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(1854–1928) Lachian dances (1890). The song U našeho jezera, stojí lipka zelená (There Is a Green Little Lime Tree Standing at Our Lake) with the same lyrics but different tunes, is popular in Poland, Moravia and Bohemia.10 However, the same song is also proof of the wider interconnectedness of musical-typological structures within the European environment. The Moravian version of the song, in its form and harmonious structure, is identical to the song used by Ludwig van Beethoven (1770–1827) as the basis of Six Variations on a Swiss Song for Piano or Harp (1790–1792).11 The publication devoted to the typology of Czech folk songs (Tyllner, 2017; Tyllner & Vejvoda, 2019) presents other song and dance types, revealing inspiration from traditional music of the surrounding nations or European music in a broader sense. The common origin with Baroque court dances can be seen in a musicdance lendler type, characterized by a T/D harmonic structure, moving melodies, and interval jumps. Lendler came to the Czech lands from Austria at the turn of the 18th and 19th centuries and is abundantly represented in the oldest collections of songs and instrumental music from the early 19th century.12 The Minet (Menuet) type is a popular response to the French minuet of the 18th century (Fig. 4). The arioso type is characterized by arched melodies of a larger tonal range, mostly in the form of a, b, a, drawing inspiration from Italian art music of the Caldara type or even from work—very popular in Bohemia—by W. A. Mozart. Moravian tunes are often a manifestation of a modern style layer, the so-called NeoHungarian music culture, forming a circle extending from Hungary through Slovakia to Eastern Moravia. Their melody structure is characterized by four melodic phrases, the second of which is the quint transposition of the opening melody, and by dotted and Lombard rhythms and acceleration of tempo.

Fig. 4 Peasant Menuet in the collection of T. A. Kunz (circa 1825)

10 Karel Jaromír Erben wrote a note to this song in his collection Ceské ˇ prostonárodní písnˇe a rˇíkadla (1864: 193): “This song, undoubtedly, has been brought here by Polish soldiers.” 11 Professor Dušan Holý of Masaryk University, Brno, noted this similarity. 12 In addition to the aforementioned collection of T. A. Kunz (circa 1825) or the so-called Rittersberk collection (1825), we can also find plenty of ländlers in Jiˇrí Hartl’s Partibus (1801–1822) from the ethnically mixed environment of the Podkrkonoší Mountains (manuscript of the Institute of Ethnology of the Academy of Sciences of the Czech Republic, without signature).

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Fig. 5 Musical instruments of dulcemer music bands (2006)

Czech traditional music not only received, but also gave impetus to the neighbouring nations and Europe in general. Cimbál (dulcimer, hackbret) contributed to the popularity of neo-Hungarian culture. Originally a small portable dulcimer carried on a strap or placed on a table, the Czech instrument-maker Josef Václav Schunda (1845–1923) perfected it. He equipped this instrument with feet, a pedal, and extended its tonal range with chromatic string tuning. He transferred the production to Budapest, where, as early as 1896, the dulcimer was produced by forty Hungarian music instruments companies, exporting it not only to European countries, but also to America, India and Australia. Its expansion was mainly due to itinerant Roma dulcimer bands,13 who performed neo-Hungarian music in the cafes of all major ˇ cities (Kurfürst 2002: 453). In Moravia and Slovakia, the couples dance Cardáš and the male solo dance Verbuˇnk 14 are associated with this culture (Fig. 5). Around the year 1835, in the Czech patriotic society in the vicinity of the town of Hradec Králové, a folk dance, or more precisely polka ballroom dance was born,15 and quickly became an overnight sensation. It is a couples dance in 2/4 measure of a medium fast tempo, based on a variable step. In 1840 it entered Parisian society, whence it spread farther through Europe and overseas. Polka became the duple meter 13

Usual cast of dulcimer music band: violin (prim, terc), backing violin and viola (kontry), clarinet, bass. 14 Inscribed on the UNESCO World Heritage List in 2005. 15 The origin of the name Polka has not yet been reliably explained. It may be derived from the word “p˚ulka” (half) or perhaps it reflects the sympathy of Czech patriots for the political movement in Poland in 1831.

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opposite to the triple meter Vienese waltz and also an independent composed piece penetrating artistic music (Bedˇrich Smetana, 3rd movement of the string quartet in E minor From My Life). The polka (Škoda lásky) of the Czech composer, Jaromír Vejvoda (1902–1988), became especially popular. In 1938, it won recognition in Germany under the name Rosamunde, and in 1939, under the name Beer Barrel Polka, in America too. Paradoxically, in World War II, the song accompanied the troops of both enemy armies and General Eisenhower allegedly said that it had helped American troops win the war. It has maintained its popularity to this day, and in America the term polka also means, a broader genre designation for entertaining dance music performed by wind instruments and accordion. The Christmas song Narodil se Kristus pán/Freu´dich, Erd´und Sternenzelt, whose oldest written form can be found in the Litomˇeˇrice Hymn-book from 1520, migrated from Bohemia to the west in the early modern period, and with small adjustments, it won popularity with the Germans (Weber-Kellermann, 1982: 220). It entered the German language tradition and became very popular, especially in Austria, with the Christmas song Nesem vám noviny/Kommet, ihr Hirten. Shortly after it became the basis for a contrafact whose German text was created by Carl Riedel (1827–1888), a Leipzig professor of music (Weber-Kellermann, 1982: 85–86). The legend of King Wenceslas was brought from Bohemia to England, and this became the basis of the lyrics of one of the most popular English Christmas songs, Good King Wenceslas. At the end of the 1750s, the composer Josef Haydn worked in the service of Count Morzin in western Bohemia at the Lukavice chateau. Here, he came into contact with Czech folk music, and this is probably where the Czech folk dance Obkroˇcák influenced his tunes. It later appeared in Haydn’s Symphony in D major, The London symphony, in its Finale. The movement begins with a delay reminiscent of a bagpipe bordun, above which the main theme of the final movement is exposed. Both the melody of the dance and the imitation of bagpipes are a feature of the traditional music of Western Bohemia, where Haydn once lived. And the only entry of this dance in the collection of K. J. Erben (1862: Tune No. 451) comes precisely from this region. The number of examples showing musical and cultural stimuli that came to traditional Czech music from the outside and, conversely, those that went from there to the surrounding world, can be expanded many times over. In any case, the sample I chose above shows that traditional Czech music is an integral part of the wider Central European or European music space. Measured objectively, there were quantitatively more stimuli entering the Czech environment than those migrating in the opposite direction. The question arises how these stimuli were absorbed in the Czech environment, or whether—in the end—the processes of diffusion and assimilation did not cause the loss of ethnic uniqueness or originality at the expense of extinction in a kind of mainstream European musical tradition. The reasons for such an assumption were indicated at the very beginning of this article and consisted mainly in the geographical and demographic confinement of the culture of German-speaking nations, or other nations. After 1620, a new foreign nobility, a German-speaking nobility, entered the Czech lands, and it was not easy to face the onslaught of fashionable influences, often merging with Germanization efforts in the Austrian Empire. In the economic field,

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there was competition with foreign capital (German and Jewish manufactories and factories); in the sphere of culture, aristocratic music institutions gradually disappeared in the form of chateau theatres and musical ensembles in favor of music in the open air with less operational demands. In addition, brass bands have been formed since the 19th century as an effective advert for newly established associations and professional organizations. These heterogeneous and especially resonant ensembles survived well as an accompaniment to dance parties, outdoor professional parades, and military festivities at the time of loosened rules and political life after 1860. The stylistic periods which we call Baroque and Classical and further until the establishment of the free state in 1918, undoubtedly were times of national political decline. However, the life of the rural people of these centuries cannot be unambiguously described as the Dark Ages, a phrase coined by the important Czech novelist Alois Jirásek (1851–1930), (1913). Re-Catholicization brought with it the diversity of the Baroque Catholic year, along with many customs and festivities. The fellowship, supported by the Church and conditioned by the rules of religious conduct, also created a breeding ground for the development of spiritual and secular folk singing. National, political, and cultural consciousness gradually strengthened, and in historical terms a number of stimulating factors contributed to this, many of which were important from the point of view of our issue as well: • the cult of St. Wenceslas, the patron saint of the Czech lands • handed-down awareness of Czech statehood, Czech princes and kings • tradition of university learning, Charles University, later Charles-Ferdinand University in Prague (1347) • the Czech Reformation (one hundred years before Luther), the Hussites, the democratization of culture and the subsequent development of singing in the national language • Kralická Bible (Bible of Kralice), a translation by Bohemian Brethren from the original languages (1579–1593) • traditional musicality confirmed by music travellers (Ch. Burney) or famous musicians (W. A. Mozart) • publishing of Czech newspapers (1789) • the importance of the rural population as the bearer of the national language, the source of its continuity and the nationally representative form • Prague Conservatory (1808) • codification of Czech in the grammar book of Josef Dobrovský (1809) • Czech Museum 1848 • the origin of literature growing from folk sources and the Czech language (mid19th century, B. Nˇemcová, K. J. Erben etc.) • the origin of Czech national music and the worldwide response of musical works by Czech composers (2nd half of the 19th century, B. Smetana, A. Dvoˇrák etc.) • establishment of the sports organization Sokol (1862) • division of Charles-Ferdinand University into Czech and German (1882) • National Theatre (1881/1883) • activity of burgher and patriotic associations

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• Czech Academy of Sciences and Arts (1890) ˇ • ethnographic Journal Ceský lid (1891) • the success of the Provincial Jubilee Exhibition of 1891 and the extraordinary response to the Czechoslovak Ethnographic Exhibition with a rich presentation of traditional music (1895)—working committees for folk song in Bohemia and Moravia (1905).

3 Teacher—Cantor: Care for Language and Music Education A particularly important phenomenon of Czech education and culture is represented by the school and the teacher or cantor. He is credited with the main contribution to the cultivation of the language and music of the nation. The centers of education of the Bohemian lands in the beginning were monastic and cathedral schools. With the founding of the University of Prague (1348), the influence of university education on education in general grew, and cities often retained their influence over the school as opposed to the previous church hegemony. From the 16th century, rural schools gradually appeared, the establishment of which depended on the generosity of the nobility. Education in Latin and the seven liberal arts was provided by particular schools (Winter: 1901). Their headmaster was the rector and teaching was provided by praeceptores; teachers, according to their education, were divided into higher and lower categories. The teacher in charge of teaching music was called a cantor. He taught students music theory and singing, important for the singing of Gregorian chant and other forms of liturgical singing. Future teachers prepared for their profession at the Faculty of Arts, which already provided a full education (lower trivium—grammar, rhetoric, and dialectic— was studied for a bachelor’s degree; higher quadrivium—arithmetic, geometry, astronomy, and music—for a master’s degree). Although music was not directly represented in the lower trivium the bachelors were also able to receive a good education in music. These skills were appreciated by the city authorities when hiring a new cantor. It was the teacher who was able to cultivate the music of the temple’s literary fraternities of which he was often in charge (Konrád, 1893). Fraternities, lay associations of church singers, who usually professed Utraquism, set the rules and regulations regarding the care for the church music culture, especially for Latin singing. This process began in the 14th century, but later, in the Hussite period, it took a back seat, and it was not until quieter times that the care for liturgical singing fully redeveloped. Before the middle of the 15th century, literary fraternities were already documented in many Czech towns, and in the second half of the 15th century, there were dozens of them. Therefore, the Czech Renaissance nobleman, Petr Vok, from Rožmberk, could state that there were only a few places where “those who are trained in literary art and singing, to sing in the service of the Holy Mass did not meet.” Fraternities were also accessible to the lower strata of the population, and although

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their main task was to take care of the Latin liturgical text, men of letters were also allowed to sing in the national language. As a result, the fraternity contributed to the preservation of the Czech language and the cultivation of folk singing in largely Germanized areas. Through the 17th to the 19th century, the work of a teacher was characterized by its connection of teaching duties to church service. Numerous reports in local, parish, or school chronicles prove this. For example, The Sluhy Chronicle (Pubal, 1911: 18–19) lists the cantor’s duties in connection with the temple: to play the organ and sing with choir singers during church service, to organize Passion singing during Holy Week, to sing in processions, to organize musicians playing in the choir on a pilgrimage and to provide them with strings as well as lunch, to serve as a bell ringer, a churchman, and to assist with funerals and baptisms. Practicing compositions for the performance of figural masses was a matter of course, as was obtaining the necessary church repertoire, or its creation. The choirs of large cities as well as the countryside were a source of information about the latest music, and the cantor became a representative of the “personal union” connecting the church, school, and pub, where he provided entertainment with local musicians, playing at weddings and dance parties.16 At other times, the cantor was also a composer and was invited to the castle as a music teacher or assistant during various music productions. The atmosphere of the Czech school was described in the 1770s by the music historian Charles Burney: I came to a school that was full of school children, boys and girls from the age of ten or eleven. The children read, wrote, played the violin, oboes, bassoons, and other instruments. The organist had four clavichords in his room, and a little boy practiced on each. His son was a good pianist. (Burney, 1966: 277)

Entire cantors’ families and lineages used to carry on the musical tradition. They worked, for example, at the chateau and in the church choirs in Citoliby, the Nˇemeˇcek family established themselves in Sadská u Podˇebrad, the Hartl family in Stará Paka, and the Lakmayer family in Hluboká n. Vltavou and Hosín, and several generations of the Rzounek family in Kondrac, and the Hataš family in the east of Bohemia. Most of them were cantors dedicated to the teaching profession, and on top of that, they were also skilled composers. Taking care of the choir music usually led them to compose works needed by the church, but many of them did not remain isolated from the still-living folk music tradition. In particular, the musical language of Christmas pastorales (Berkovec, 1987), cantata-type of compositions, is imbued with elements of musical tradition to such an extent that many of their melodies returned to the folk environment where they originally gained popularity. Jakub Jan Ryba (1765– 1815) became a well-known and respected symbol of a teacher-cantor, whose music with clear features of folk melody, especially his Czech Christmas Mass (1796), still appeals to the whole nation. 16

However, this was not looked favourably upon by the authorities: “There are frequent mentions of cantors performing with city musicians at weddings and dance parties. Playing in pubs used to be forbidden to teachers” (Trojan, 2000: 187).

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The role of teachers has also come to the fore in the new social situation in Europe brought about by the advent of the Enlightenment and pre-Romanticism. Jean Jacques Rousseau (1712–1778) focused on emotion, nature and a return to a simple way of life. According to him, the basis of the nation is the countryside, the farmer, not the weakened urban man. Creations of folk culture, songs, and music as manifestations of national traditions, began to be appreciated for their aesthetic value, and became the subject of collectors’ interest. The respected philosopher, Johann Gottfried Herder (1744–1803), declared that every nation has a rich tradition of folk poetry, which he pointed out in the collection of the Volkslieder (1778–1779). He was also the first to use the term folk song (Volkslied).

4 First Attempts to Collect and Publish Folk Music In 1819, Josef Sonnleithner, the influential chairman of the Society of Friends of Music in Vienna (Gesellschaft der Musikfreunde in Wien), gave a courageous impetus to the collection of indigenous music to the Habsburg government. Subsequently, through the government apparatus, an order was issued to collect folk music, songs and dances in the Austrian lands, including Bohemia, Moravia, and Silesia. The uniqueness of this initiative lay in writing songs together with their melodies and recording dance instrumental melodies. Such a task was undertaken by intellectuals, priests, and additonally, teachers who knew music notation. In Bohemia, in Sadská it was, for example, the aforementioned Nˇemeˇcek family,17 as well as the Lakmayers in southern Bohemia; in Zbraslav, there was a cantor named Jan Heš, and in the Moravian part of the collection, Jan Trojan (2000: 159) counted dozens of them (Fig. 6). This first state-organized collecting event, called the gubernial collection in Bohemia,18 not only had cultural, historical and documentary significance, but also showed the artistic value of the lyrics and melodies of the songs. Almost at the same time, other collections were created by scholars, teachers, priests or even poets, who found in the texts of folk poetry a source of topics for so-called, echo poetry. ˇ These particularly included František Ladislav Celakovský (1799–1852), the author of three volumes of Slavic National Songs (1822, 1825, 1827) and Karel Jaromír Erben (1811–1870), with his collection Common National Czech Songs and Rhymes (1862–1864). Inspiration from traditional music later resulted in the compositional movement of neo-folklorism, whose origins are also connected with the names of Czech composers Leoš Janáˇcek (1854–1928), Vítˇezslav Novák (1870–1949), and later Bohuslav Martin˚u (1890–1959). The echo of the musical tradition in art music 17

František Xaver Nˇemeˇcek (1766–1849), a philosopher, music and literary theorist, came from this family. Professor at the University of Prague and Vienna, he was a friend and the first biographer of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (1798). 18 In Austria, according to the initiator of the collection, it is called Sonnleithner Sammlung. Outcomes of the Czech and Moravian collections were published by Jan Rittersberk (1825), Jaroslav Markl (1987), Lubomír Tyllner (Kunz, 1995), Vetterl & Hrabalová (1994).

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Fig. 6 So called Rittersberk collection of songs and dances (1825)

at the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries was not a short-lived episode. It even appears regularly in today’s Czech art music. The adaptations of folk songs for pupils of music schools have long proved to be the most suitable instructive musical material for the elementary level of teaching instrumental music and singing education at basic art schools throughout the Czech Republic. It was primarily a concern about the fate of folk music culture that escalated into the intense collecting movement during the 19th and 20th centuries. The collection of the Slavia student association (1869–1880) had an institutional character; a number of collections were created on the occasion of the Czechoslovak Ethnographic Exhibition (1895). Less than a hundred years after the gubernial collection, another centrally organized collection called Folk Song in Austria (1905) was born. A year after the establishment of independent Czechoslovakia, it was transformed into an independent institution, the State Institute for Folk Song (1919), collecting thousands of recordings of folk songs and music, as well as Czech and German dances.19 The overview of Czech collections alone (excluding Moravia and Silesia) comprises almost 1500 source units, some of which contain several thousand registration units (Tyllner et al., 2015). 19

After the expulsion of the German population after 1945, an extensive collection of songs and other material, especially verbal folklore, remained in Czechoslovakia. It is archived at the Institute of Ethnology of the Academy of Sciences of the Czech Republic.

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Records, which have been made since the early 19th century, also provide insight into the mentality of our ancestors, and into the reality of everyday life centuries ago. By being recorded and later published (the Czech part of the gubernial collection as early as in 1825), the older repertoire could be preserved, but also updated and reintroduced into the modern national singing tradition. The collections also contain hundreds of records of folk dance music from the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries, including specific descriptions of dance performances. To this day, they form the repertoire basis of folk song and dance ensembles, where they are artistically and amateurly adapted, repeatedly recorded and spread by media on new audio devices. Remarkable evidence of the form of folk music of the last century is provided by sound recordings on the wax cylinders of Edison’s phonograph from 1909. On Czech recordings you can even hear a bagpiper, who was 87 years old at the time of recording. If we consider that the folk musician acquired the basis of his repertoire as a youth, when he mastered the style of playing, and his musical instrument comes from the same period, his play de facto represents a live broadcast from the first half of the 19th century.20 Today, these recordings enable the reconstruction of the musical tradition and, through historically informed interpretation, the possibility of returning to the original form of folk music of the Czech ethnic group of previous centuries (Fig. 7).

5 Hymn Books, Songbooks: A Repertoire Source of Rural and Urban Singing The tradition of songbooks or hymnbooks is much older than the collections of folk songs from the early 19th century. The oldest songbooks are connected to the invention of printing and the Czech Reformation. These were mainly the prints of Bohemian Brethren in the second half of the 16th and first half of the 17th century, and the following Baroque Catholic hymnbooks, containing thousands of songs of religious content. Despite this basic feature, their lyrics and melodies show the interconnectedness of the spiritual and secular spheres. Many texts were taken from Latin, German, and Slovak, and it is clear that these linguistic and cultural areas were far from isolated from each other, and many of the songs appeared among the people in their regular singing repertoire for centuries. They were printed in the Czech language and thus available to a wider community capable of reading the script, or musical script. The practice of the so-called general tune, i.e., melodies known to all (very often of folk origin), however, could eliminate the lack of knowledge of musical notation. In this way, it was enough to add the name of a folk song to the songbook’s spiritual song. The singer safely remembered the folk song’s melody which was identical to the spiritual song. This information on singing in the mother tongue was provided by Musica (1558), the work of Jan Blahoslav (1523–1571), which was born 20

Wax cylinder-recordings were digitized in collaboration with the Phonogram Archive of the Austrian Academy of Sciences in Vienna (Tyllner & Spurný, 2001).

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Fig. 7 The oldest records of traditional music in Bohemia (1909/2001)

in the environment of Bohemian Brethren, and was intended for ordinary cantors used as an aid during basic lessons in music and singing. The power of artificial and folk singing was also recognized by the respected “teacher of nations,” the last bishop of Bohemian Brethren, Jan Amos Komenský (1592–1670), when he called for singing “with all your heart” in the so-called Amsterdam Hymn Book (1659) containing 606 songs. Repertoire anthologies or songbooks in the national language were created and used again in school practice mainly by Czech and Moravian teachers. The aforementioned Jakub Jan Ryba became an iconic cantor/teacher personality, but not only for his mass cycle Czech Christmas Mass. His pioneering deeds also included setting Czech verses to music which were mainly intended for children—Twelve Czech Songs (1800) and especially Little Hymn Book for Czech schoolchildren (1808). Several other intellectuals, poets and composers of the period of Czech musical classicism and romanticism, took Ryba’s path, and the idea of creating and promoting a new Czech song was born. The repertoire of the village people and farmers was captured in the first collections of folk songs. Their counterpart, however, art songs in the Czech language, was still absent. This gap was bridged by the social song created

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by a bourgeois society. It was intended for its social and cultural use. The new genre also included folk songs, which served as a model for social songs, and—to some extent—came to life in these new pieces. The bourgeoise took over elements of folk songs from the peasant class at a time when those—in their initial existence—were already slightly in decline. In the end, there was a mutual repertoire exchange, as the social song, becoming “popular,” re-entered the rural singing repertoire. Social songs in oral tradition were reminiscent of the character of folk songs, they went through several variation processes, and were frequently transmitted orally and later their parodies occurred. The pioneer of this vocal culture was the song collection Wreath of Patriotic Songs (Vˇenec ze zpˇev˚u vlasteneckých), published in Prague by Josef Krasoslav Chmelenský (1800–1839) and František Škroup (1801–1862) as a monthly magazine between 1835 and 1844 (new edition: Plavec, 1960). Given the reasons that contributed to the preservation of indigenous musical culture, these composed art songs intended for urban patriotic society (more specifically for “patriotic girls” for another 100 years), significantly contributed to the development and promotion of the Czech art song and helped to balance more developed vocal works of German romantics. The authors of the songs were Czech poets and composers who could never be a match for Schubert’s and Schumann’s work; nevertheless, their work was extremely popular. Among the most frequent topics were: historical, patriotic-lyrical, moralizing, educational, celebrating nature, satirical or humorous. Translations of foreign texts, such as German, were also provided, but Romanesque languages were preferred. The artistic value of the social song was not its greatest advantage. The main significance lay in the overall influence of the social and political development of the Czech nation (Václavek & Smetana, 1945) at a time, when the Czech language was fighting for equality with the officially dominant German. The significance of the wreath also lay in its legacy, in the mighty publishing wave of social songbooks, of which more than 300 were created in one century and were repeatedly published at great expense with a considerable number of songs. Gradually, their repertoire was defined thematically (e.g., estate songs, associations/club songs, Sokol songs, military songs, vocational songs, craftsmen songs; the national anthem or the anthems of other Slavic nations were also included). Some of the songs gained such popularity that they appeared in the orally passed-on repertoire, even in the second half of the 20th century.

6 Modern Songbooks and Their Influence on the Song Repertoire of 20th Century Society: Research Results The topicality of social songbooks ended with the arrival of officially published school songbooks and textbooks on music education. They became part of the curriculum and changed the song repertoire at various intervals. Research conducted ˇ in the 1980s at the University of South Bohemia in Ceské Budˇejovice showed that

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the first textbooks after 1918 contained many songs from popular social songbooks of the 19th century, especially the most popular folk songs (Loveˇcková, 1988). The mere printing and taking over of songs among songbooks from different periods, however, did not confirm their fixation in the live singing repertoire. The research was, therefore, to determine which of the songs really stuck in the people’s memory. The survey was based on universally used school songbooks published after 1920, and the target group of the research was four generations of former pupils educated with these textbooks. Using the beginnings of songs, the respondents’ task was to sing the songs and test their memory. The evaluation of the answers was classified on the following scale: I know well; I know partially; I do not know. Research has shown that of the wide repertoire range of songbooks and hundreds of songs contained in them, it was mostly folk songs, or national songs21 that survived in the memory of the respondents. More specifically, among the first 36 songs most stably fixed in the memories of the respondents, there were folk songs—mostly those that had previously appeared in social songbooks of the 19th century. This means that, by contrast, art songs did not remain fixed in the people’s memory for very long, and people usually did not keep them in their lives as songs of a permanent repertoire. In any given survey, the songs of the young songbook generation, represented by the regime-enforced socialist songs, which praised historical or contemporary political celebrities or a bright socialist future, utterly failed. After the political coup in 1948 and the subsequent period of building socialism, a parallel culture of underground (for ideological reasons unpublishable) manuscript songbooks developed in addition to the official school songbooks. Research carried out at the same university (Nývltová & Vacková, 1991) at the time of the political changes of 1989 revealed an extraordinary number of these songbooks, as well as personally representative artifacts acquired by the members of different generations, and their genre richness. Traditional folk songs ceased to play a dominant part, although they also appeared in them. The research was conducted across generations and showed a different type of repertoire including mainly tramp songs, suitable for singing and guitar accompaniment at campfires: classic Czech songs and popular foreign music (the Beatles, Elvis Presley, Czech band Spiritual Kvintet, etc.), country and western songs, and those referred to as traditional. Texts were almost exclusively, and for practical reasons, supplemented by chord marks. These songbooks captured a new wave of folk music, of authors defining themselves against the prevailing political regime, as well as songs whose composers, persecuted for political reasons, went abroad after the occupation of the Warsaw Pact troops in 1968. The collections were supplemented by verses, quotations, collages or original illustrations, and became a kind of imprint of the personal and cultural-political profile of their authors. The great familiarity and popularity of the songs contained in these anthologies spontaneously manifested itself in moments of political upheaval in 1989, when the repertoire of officially non-existent authors was sung by hundreds

21

National in the Czech environment is the equivalent of folk, traditional, indigenous.

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of thousands of people gathered in the squares. The statistics of this research showed the songs of emigrants as the most recurring and therefore the most popular.22 Even so, the folk songs prevailed in the euphoria of the political changes of 1989, and the concerts from improvised podiums and the revolution itself received the name “singing.” After all, the proclamation of the declaration of an independent republic in 1918 was already referred to in the newspaper with the words: “It was not a coup, but a concert,” because brass bands took to the streets of revolutionary cities and helped eliminate anti-Austrian violent actions. At the beginning of the 21st century, a time when almost everything is changing and when transience, temporality and absence of identity are the hallmarks of the time, the question is which way traditional music will take. The previous lookback has suggested that over the centuries, cultures clashed, influenced, and enriched each other, but also disappeared. It has turned out that traditional indigenous music could create hindrance when faced with assimilation and extinction. The common denominator of the process, which helped to overcome the merging with the majority or subsequent mass culture or mainstream music, was tradition passed on from generation to generation, long-term sharing of values, and firm historical grounds or continuity. The defense of the language also went hand in hand with the care of indigenous music. The Czech cantor and the rural population, significantly less affected by the city’s culture, were both helpful in this. Later, the collecting of folk songs and dances, showed the richness and aesthetic quality of the traditional music preserved by the rural people and the lower strata of the urban population. Today, traditional music lives mainly in folklore ensembles, at song and dance festivals, whose number in the Czech Republic grows from year to year, in the media and also in schools, with it being most common in specialized basic art schools. Contemporary school songbooks have a universal and international character, at the same time we find in them representatives of traditional folk music.23 Since 1997, the Ministry of Culture of the Czech Republic has been successfully organizing special education for those interested in traditional music and dance at The School of Folklore Traditions. High-quality scientific care and archiving of sources of traditional music is ensured by the Institute of Ethnology of the Academy of Sciences of the Czech Republic and in addition, by the Departments of Ethnology, Sociocultural Anthropology and Musicology of Prague, and Brno and Olomouc Universities (Fig. 8).

22

These are mainly songs by Karel Kryl, working for Radio Free Europe in exile, or Jaroslav Hutka, in exile in the Netherlands. In the new political situation, when this repertoire is published and thus commonly available, this kind of “subculture” is gradually disappearing. 23 The most popular is the five-part songbook series I, the Song, which has been released repeatedly since 1994.

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Fig. 8 Graduation picture of The School of Folklore Traditions (2009)

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Lubomír Tyllner, Ph.D. graduated in French Horn and Piano performance at the Prague Conservatory and graduated from Charles University, majoring in ethnology and musicology. He worked as an associate professor at the University of South Bohemia, Charles University Prague, and as a visiting professor at the University of Passau in the field of ethnology and ethnomusicology. He works at the Ethnological Institute of the Academy of Sciences of the Czech Republic where he became the director and founder of the Ethnomusicology Department. He specializes in the traditional music of Europe, compiling editions of traditional songs, and is the author of comprehensive surveys in the field of ethnomusicology and folkloristics.

Correction to: The Indigenous Music of Sarawak and Its Transmission Over the Last 60 Years with a Special Focus on the Music of the Kenyah and the Lun Bawang Chong Pek Lin and Connie Keh Nie Lim

Correction to: Chapter “The Indigenous Music of Sarawak and Its Transmission Over the Last 60 Years with a Special Focus on the Music of the Kenyah and the Lun Bawang” in: Y. Lu and O. Elschek (eds.), The Legacy of Indigenous Music, Sinophone and Taiwan Studies 4, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-16-4473-3_7 The original version of this chapter was published with incorrect author name in the reference part. The erratum chapter has been updated with the changes.

The updated version of this chapter can be found at https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-16-4473-3_7 © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. 2021 Y. Lu and O. Elschek (eds.), The Legacy of Indigenous Music, Sinophone and Taiwan Studies 4, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-16-4473-3_10

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