It is the spring equinox, the sun is about to set, Panzhou City, Guizhou Province, Yangchang Township after the big tree sounded a crisp and melodious song, a day of hard work of buyi men and women gathered together, with songs to relieve fatigue, expressions of satisfaction, a song of depression, melody of beautiful love songs, wine songs, as if from the treetops, the sound of nature floating from the mountains, let people truly experience the folk music created and sung in the Buyi language of the vast and remote charm. This is the "Buyi Pan Song" that was included in the second batch of national intangible cultural heritage list in 2008.
Wu Tinggui, a 76-year-old national non-hereditary inheritor of the "Buyi Pan Song", with his unique vigorous and majestic voice, sometimes sings the ancient songs of The Humble Dunhou in a shallow and low voice, and sometimes tells the long history and legend of the Buyi people with a poignant and melodious melody. He told us that every Buyi people are natural singers, and they use their voices from the depths of their hearts to sing the Songs of the Buyi People about historical legends, marriages and funerals, production and labor, and love, inheriting the ancient national culture in this unique way, generation after generation, endlessly.
The "Buyi Pan Song" is spread in the Buyi villages in the Beipan River Basin and has a long history. In the long years of national development, because the Buyi people do not have their own writing, they can only express their emotions and inherit culture through singing, and the ancestors of the Buyi people have sung in labor, in life, and in festivals, forming various versions, multiple tones, and different lengths of the "Buyi Pan Songs", which have become important tools for the Buyi people to record history, inherit civilization, express emotions, educate their children, judge society, and reproduce their lives.
The Buyi Qin used to be called "Puyue", the Two Han and Six Dynasties were called "Pu Yue", the Tang, Song and Yuan dynasties were called "barbarians" and "fans", and the Ming and Qing dynasties were called "Zhongjia" in the last years of the Republic of China. In 1953, the state was identified by the nation and, according to the will of the nation, unified with "Buyi" as its ethnic name.
Because the "Buyi Pan Song" has been sung in the Buyi language, plus the Buyi people have no writing, almost no one can sing except for their own ethnic group, with the death of many old singers, coupled with the increase in young people going out to work in recent years, there are only a few people in the village who can completely sing the "Buyi Pan Song", and the rescue and protection work is imminent.
Qujing Daily reporter Yang Xuerong