The slender men nodded their heads to the ground and arched their backs to the sky, so that the boat could move forward in the countercurrent, so the fiber horn is also called the hand trumpet, and it is necessary to work hard. A protection of Baojing Rong Media
In order to hear the original Youshui boatman's horn, we have been searching for it on both sides of the Baojing Youshui River.
The villagers of Xinglong Village, Bier Town, were originally the aborigines of Longtou Wharf, but they moved ashore after the construction of the Wanmipo Hydropower Station. Villager Zhang Guankun is the provincial inheritor of the Youshui boatman, but when we found the village, we heard that his old man had passed away a few days ago, which was very sad.
Later, I heard that there was a 92-year-old retired manager from the shipping company in Baojing County, the old man was named Zhang Guoming, and he collected a lot of lyrics for the Youshui boatman's horn, so he went to visit. The old man was very excited and walked down from the 3rd floor to greet him. He found the lyrics of the Youshui trumpet that he had filled in by hand from the drawer, and he could shout out a few paragraphs at any time. His wife is 88 years old and has some asthma, but she is a woman who can operate a big boat to go to Hankou under Changde and keep her driver's license, which is very remarkable.
From the old man's still loud voice, I seemed to feel the waves of the unitary water again, and walked back into the wild river beach.
Each beach section has its own "local sound"
Zhang Guankun left a Youshui boatman performance team in Xinglong Village, and Zhang Changfu, who is in his 50s, is one of them. His ten fingers were thick and short, his figure looked powerful, and his face had a few horizontal lines scraped in the river. Mr. Zhang said he had been running on boats since he was 18 years old, and that his ancestors had been boatmen for generations, and that he had lived on the water for 30 years. He is very affectionate about the boat, and he capsized the boat naked in the water in the winter, and it was not too cold for 3 hours, and it was the water that tempered his physique. Talking about the Youshui boatman's horn, Zhang Changfu said that he was on the ship in 1989 and has been changed to a mechanical ship, but when he goes to the beach, he has to pull the fiber, and he has sung the fiber horn with the older generation, others lead the singing, and he helps, but he can't sing the complete number without lyrics.
After several turns, we chased from Baojing to Jishou, and met Zhang Mingsong, the state-level inheritor of the Youshui boatman in Baojing County, at the Jishou Wuling Mountain Ethnic Literature and Art Xi Center, and only then did we really listen to a piece of the original Youshui boatman's number.
Zhang Mingsong's voice is loud, he has the foundation of singing Tujia folk songs, and has the title of "Prince of Tujia Folk Songs" in the Wulingshan Ethnic Literature and Art Xi Center. He started with a section of the Youshui trumpet, introducing the dangerous shoals and scenery from Yuanling to Baojing. Born in Baojing, he has a natural understanding of the Youshui Boatman, he said that the Youshui Boatman has its own "local sound" in the section from Baojing to Liye, and each beach section has its own "local sound", and he can probably imitate it, but this very subtle difference is no longer distinguishable to me as a foreigner.
The Youshui boatman's horn was produced in labor, and many people on both sides of the Baojing Youshui River can sing it. Zhang Mingsong said that he was influenced by his grandfather. At that time, from Baojing back to Longtou, my grandfather shouted as soon as he got on the boat, and everyone was excited, especially when pulling fiber, no matter how hot or cold, they had to walk naked on the rocky beach and shout the trumpet, cheer and cheer, and work together.
Zhang Mingsong said that the Youshui boatman's horn is divided into oar horns, oar horns, penny horns, fiber horns, etc., and one person sings, and everyone helps. The lyrics sung by the lead singer are of a commanding nature, playing the role of directing and coordinating the rhythm of labor, and the other shipwrights mostly sing with some foils and shouts. The oars and oars are sung tactfully and melodiously, and they are beautiful and swimming, because they are rowed and sung in deep pools, and people will be more relaxed. The sound of the trumpet was dull, as if it had burst out of the ribcage, because the person who pulled the fiber had to exert force.
Zhang Mingsong said vividly: "The head is on the ground, and the back is arched to the sky, so that the boat can move forward in the countercurrent, so the fiber number is also called the hand trumpet, and you have to work hard." Its lyrics are short, such as "Hey, hey, hey!" There are few words, but the change in the rhythm of the voice is large, and if you use less force, you will be low, and if you use more force, you will shout. The trumpet shouted like a ghost, very wild.
There is also a kind of boatman's horn that is sung at home during rest, which is full of legends of the Tujia people. In Xiangxi, the people who run the boat are the people who have seen the world through the wind and waves, their life on the water, has accumulated the richest life experience, each old boatman is a collection of stories, like to sing with the trumpet singing.
After singing a few passages in the dance studio of the Jishou Wuling Mountain Ethnic Literature and Art Xi Center, Zhang Mingsong suggested that we should go to Phoenix with him at night to watch the performance, there will be a complete Youshui boatman horn performance, and then we may feel it more deeply. At 7:40 p.m., we picked up our tickets at the Border City Cultural Pedestrian Street in the ancient city of Phoenix. Ten minutes after the opening of the folk performance, Zhang Mingsong took a group of people on the stage, and vividly reproduced the danger encountered by the boatmen crossing the beach and pulling the fiber with dance movements.
As soon as the Youshui horn is sung, the old people become vigorous and even burst into tears with excitement. Photo courtesy of Baojing Rong Media
Like a survival guide for boatmen
The trumpet came from a long time ago, and there was a trumpet about the time when the water could sail. The people who run the boat, take the river as their home, and save the danger countless times in the rapids and dangerous waves, and the boatman's horn is their song of life. Life on board was hard, but it was a glorious and beautiful memory. As soon as the trumpet of Youshui was sung, some old people became vigorous, energetic, and even burst into tears with excitement. Before there were no locomotive boats, they drove wooden boats, with more than a dozen people in each boat, and a few people at least, all driven by oars, rows, and sails. Some went to work on boats in their teens and did not wash their hands until they were in their sixties or seventies. Some of their brothers and companions lost their lives in the waves of Youshui and Yuanjiang. The hardships and hardships, the bitterness of honor and disgrace, how can it not make people cry when the horn of the Youshui boatman sings?
Fiber drawing in Youshui is very hard work. The slender men wore a type of crotchless shorts, similar to a woman's skirt. Because the slender men are working in the water, the pants are dry for a while, wet for a while, and the crotch will be burned after a long time when wearing wet pants to pull the fiber, and when the fiber is pulled by the gravity of the legs, the eggs will be torn off the skin, and people will be injured. Sometimes, in a pinch, some slender men even take off their pants and go naked. In Xiangxi, there is a saying that "the eggs of the big river are unattended", which is what is said.
The life of a boatman is very dangerous. The trumpet describes a dangerous shoal called the Iron City Wall, which is located in the section of the Baojing River up the Yuanling. Here, like a wall of the city wall, a fiber road was carved out, equipped with iron chains, and the person who pulled the fiber had to step on the rock nest with his feet and pull the iron chain by hand to cross it. Therefore, it is said in the trumpet, "Youshui River, beach and beach, ten boats pass by and nine ships overturn." The famous dangerous shoals include Feng Beach, Chicken Coop, Sanmen Beach, Tiger Beach, etc., among which Sanmen Beach is the place where Shen Congwen took a boat from Changde to Baojing in 1922 and ran atop the reef and capsized here, almost drowning.
The boatmen's horns not only mark the location of the dangerous shoals, but also explain the techniques of crossing the beach, like a survival guide for the boatmen.
"There is a fierce one in Hengshi Jiuji, and the rudder of the ship should not be relaxed", which is to remind people not to relax in the two dangerous shoals of Hengshi and Jiuji. "The small high is short and the big high is short, and the tail really can't be shaken off", which means that the two rapids of the small high and the big high are missing, and the stern of the ship must be snatched above the waterway when going down, and once it is thrown below the waterway, there is a danger of touching the rock and destroying the ship. "Our bamboo locks, it's not easy to get, the boat has to drag 300 holes", it is said that when it comes to our bamboo locks, there are many karst caves on both sides of the strait, the beach is long and the water is urgent, and the slender worker must focus on both feet and hands, and it takes a long time to drag the boat to get out of trouble.
The journey is difficult, but it is also picturesque. "Wangcun Wharf is high and high, and the rock hall is spread halfway up the mountainside", "Baojing City, three pings, Tiankai Wenyun is at the opposite door" and so on, and the beautiful scenery along the way is written. The scenery of various places is also in the trumpet at a glance, in Yuanling can be "Chuan'er Bay on the North Pass, called the meat and wine iron furnace lane", to Baojing to find "four taels of wine, half a catty of meat, two pieces of tofu do not weigh". Even the "gas station" in the middle of the way was recorded, such as "the green vegetables come out of the yellow grass tail, the radish comes out of the river and rises", "the two word rocks, throw over the river, the wine stall in Wangcun laughs, the rich brother drinks the wine, and the rich brother rubs his hands".
The life of the unitary boatman, the laughter and scolding are all revealed in the trumpet.
It's like hearing "Lisao" more than 2,000 years ago
The lyrics of the Youshui horn are more than 30,000 words long, and the historical legends of the Tujia people in the upper and lower reaches of the Youshui River are also recorded, such as the creation story of the Tujia people, the ancient heroes of the Tujia people, the Babu King and Nurigaba. One of the records about Baojing Nanmuxi leads to a legendary past between Baojing Tusi and the Ming Dynasty.
The trumpet sang: "Nanmu Creek, Jin Si Nan, support Jin Luan in the imperial city", which is the story of Baojing and Yongshun Tusi who contributed more than 1,000 golden silk Nan to the Ming Dynasty successively, which were transported to Beijing by water for the construction of the Forbidden City in the Ming Dynasty.
Historical records, in the ninth year of Xuande of the Ming Dynasty (1434), the Ming court built a palace, picked up big trees, and Baojing Xuanwei made Peng Tunan cut down the Nanmu trees in Nanmu Creek (now the cross street of Baojing County) in front of the Ming Dynasty, and offered 288 Nanmu trees that are two feet eight feet long and five feet seven inches long. Zhu Zhanji of Ming Xuanzong therefore named Peng "General Huainan" and named "Nanmu Chu". Several subsequent toasts also followed suit, offering nanmu every time the Forbidden City was overhauled, and there were more than 1,000 roots before and after.
During the Jiajing period of the Ming Dynasty, the southeast made trouble with the Japanese invaders, Baojing and Yongshun Tusi each brought thousands of people to prepare their own food and ordnance, ran thousands of kilometers, fought dozens of bloody battles with the Japanese in Suzhou and Songzhou, and beheaded more than 4,000 enemies, which was known as "the first in the southeast war" in history. The Tujia people in the Youshui Basin have always participated in the process of China's great history in their own way, and these historical memories are recorded in the Youshui boatman's horn, which has become the pride of their descendants.
Due to the antiquity of the ballad, the Youshui boatman's horn retains the original melody and rhyme, and some words can even be traced back to Qu Yuan's "Chu Ci". There is a lyric in the boatman's horn: "The two sides and the two rivers are old and the local family, and the local dialect is spoken." When I meet two good sisters, I just have to be separated." "Lisao" is pronounced "Shali" in Tujia language, which means self-description and speaking from the heart. The Youshui River Basin was the border of the Chu State in ancient times, and it is likely that the ancient sound of the Chu people was retained. If we interpret Qu Yuan's "Lisao" according to this discovery, the first topic is actually a self-statement, and the meaning of what is in the heart is very suitable for the original intention of the article. There is much more evidence of this. So it can be said that because of the existence of the Youshui boatman, we seem to have heard "Lisao" more than 2,000 years ago.
The splendor of the Youshui boatman's horn surpasses its own as a carrier of folk songs. Its value is diverse, it is a song full of feelings and memories, which makes many old shipwrights cry when they hear it, and the life march of the dance of their hands. It is high-pitched, tragic, playful, laughing and scolding, it is a treasure mine of Chinese culture in the folk, which is worth studying, excavating and inheriting.
It's worth a visit
Xinglong Village
Xinglong Village is located on a plateau on the south bank of Youshui, and is home to immigrants who moved up from the river after the completion of the Wanmipo Power Station. Longtou used to be a large wharf, where the Cheche River of Longshan County flows into Youshui, and the trade of local products in the entire county enters and exits from here. Most of the villagers here have walked by boat, and they are witnesses of Youshui shipping, and many of them can sing the Youshui boatman's horn.
The village is 7 kilometers away from the small town of Biel, and although it is an immigrant village, the village is decorated with many elements of the unitary boatman's horn, and the walls are painted with colorful paintings. Find a random person over the age of 50 here, and you can talk about the past of the beach, arranging, and pulling fiber for a while. In the village, there is a performance team of Youshui Boat Songs, and when there is a major festival, they will organize a group performance. The villagers who participated in the performance were themselves boatmen, and they were witnesses to the history of the past. The oranges produced in the small village are the famous "unitary oranges" in Bier Town, and are picked at the end of November every winter.
References: "Youshui Boat Song" Jia Shaoxing Zhang Guoming's handwritten "Youshui Boatman's Trumpet", "Baojing County Chronicles" (1990 edition) and "Pursuit of Youshui Trumpet" Fan Cheng