Cover of a Yugur music tape of the famous singer Yins'ingjis
(Click on the cover to see a picture of Khorangat Yins'ingjis)
 

Western Yugur Folk Songs

 

According to Mannerheim, one of the earliest travelers who visited the Yugur area, the Western Yugur 'have no musical instruments, no dancing and very seldom any chorus singing. Now and then, you hear a monotonous song sung in the fields'. The lack of musical instruments was also noted by the Russian linguist Malov, who stayed with the Yugur several times during the years 1910-1913. But instead of 'a monotonous song', he wrote down many songs from a rich song repertoire.

The musical instruments mentioned in the sources on Western Yugur are mainly the ones used in Buddhist ceremonies, such as the pïra, a conch used as a wind instrument, the ïghlïñghu, a bamboo flute, the ïrjalïñ, a zurna, and the ïmtahrse, a rattle-drum. Except for the word pïra, which is of unclear etymology, these names are all loanwords from Tibetan.
      Beside these ceremonial instruments, the Western Yugur sources mention but few names for musical instruments. There is an Eastern Yugur loanword for drum, kheñkehrke, and a word for flute, phutish, derived from the verb phuti-, to blow or whistle.
      Furthermore, Malov recorded the word qoñïs, the name of a stringed instrument, in the folktale of The Idler's Adventure, but he also stated that at the time of the recording of this folktale, the Western Yugur did not have such an instrument anymore. The word qoñïs is related to the old Turkic word kopuz.

According to an article of the Chinese Internet Information Center, Protection Urged for Ethnic Folk Songs, knowledge of Yugur song texts is dwindling. Tapes with Yugur folk songs are often sung in Chinese or partly Yugur and Chinese. The name of the song mentioned, Huangdaichen, is a Chinese rendering of Khuandylchyn.

Huangdaichen, a beautiful folk song sung for generations by the Yugur people, an ethnic group living in northwest China's Gansu Province, is in danger of dying out since the recent death of its last singer, Tuo Yuyue.
      Tuo was believed to be the only person in the ethnic community who could sing the song completely in the Yugur language.
      Huangdaichen is only one of a range of Yugur folk songs on the verge of vanishing.
      Studies show that in terms of melodies and form, Yugur folk songs incorporate characteristics of songs of the ancient Hun people and of the Tibetan, Mongolian, Hui and Tu ethnic groups.
      Descendants of the ancient Ouigour people and Mongolians, Yugur people have lived at the foot of the Qilian Mountains and along the Hexi Corridor for more than 600 years. Their folk songs have been passed down orally as no written forms exist.
      Owing to neglect of the Yugur language and songs, currently only a few young Yugur people intend learning their national songs. Even older people are able only to hum fragments of them.
      Dismayed by Tuo's death, Huang Jinyu, a researcher on folklore and vice chairman of the Gansu Folk Literature and Art Association, has called for setting up a program to save the Silk Road folk culture, including Yugur folk songs.
      Huang hopes the local governments of Gansu and the ethnic peoples in the province will raise awareness of the need to preserve folk cultures.
      In July and August this year, a team of Chinese researchers into folk literature and UNESCO specialists on East Asian and Chinese cultures made a field inspection of folk songs in the regions inhabited by ethnic groups in Gansu and Qinghai provinces, northwest China.
      (Xinhua News Agency, September 5, 2002)
 

Listen to some song samples:

 

Songs

Back to the Western Yugur Steppe