The Lisu folk poem "Kuo Shi Mu Gua"

Yunnan
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The long narrative poem "Kuo Shi Mu Gua" is widely circulated in the Lisu-populated areas of Yingjiang County, Dehong Dai and Jingpo Autonomous Prefecture. "Kuo Shi Mu Gua" is a Lisu language, and its Chinese name is "Spring Festival Tune". It is a narrative long poem in the form of duet. The original poem has 5 words per line, with a total of nearly 10,000 lines, and the Chinese translation has 5,700 lines. "Kuo Shi Mu Gua" is the tune sung by the Lisu people during the New Year "Kuo Shi Festival", which is usually sung on the ninth and tenth day of the first lunar month. During the festival, the Lisu people dressed in their best clothes gathered in the square, held hands in a circle, and danced "Ga" (three-step dance) to celebrate. The tune of "Kuo Shi Mu Gua" was sung at this time. The singing form is similar to duet, using the main singer (i.e. the lead singer) and the supporting singer, with men asking and women answering or women asking and men answering. The singing is rough and passionate, and full of rhythm. The content is mostly about production, life, love, and friendship. When dancing the Ga, the Gatou (leading dancer) leads the singing. The lyrics have a fixed word order and strict parallelism. The main sentence and the supporting sentence form a group, and twelve groups form a section. The Gatou leads the singing of the first sentence of each group, and the accompanying singer follows the singing of the second sentence. Then the ending sentence is sung. The ending sentence has no fixed lyrics, only fixed syllables. Generally, the first sentence led by the male Gatou is "Adiba", and the first sentence led by the female Gatou is "Ami Ma": "Adiba (Ami Ma), come and celebrate the New Year, pass it down from generation to generation, and sing it from generation to generation for the New Year's greetings." The crowd sings along: "When spring comes, all flowers bloom, and all birds sing once a year." When the crowd stops, the leading singer starts again and sings in turn until the entire "Kuo Shi Mu Gua" is sung. "Kuo Shi Mu Gua" enriches the content of the Lisu New Year. It is highly group and entertaining. It not only imparts knowledge of production and life, but also promotes the moral norms of the Lisu people. It is an important part of the Lisu New Year activities. There is no fixed way to pass on the Kuo Shi Mu Gua, but it has a good mass base. At present, Cao Darong of Yingjiang County Cultural Center has collected, sorted and published the text of Kuo Shi Mu Gua.

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