chinese ritual music under mao and deng

7/21/2019 Chinese Ritual Music Under Mao and Deng

1/41

British Forum for Ethnomusicology

Chinese Ritual Music under Mao and DengAuthor(s): Stephen JonesSource: British Journal of Ethnomusicology, Vol. 8 (1999), pp. 27-66Published by: British Forum for EthnomusicologyStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/3060851.

Accessed: 13/07/2011 01:33

Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of JSTOR's Terms and Conditions of Use, available at.http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp. JSTOR's Terms and Conditions of Use provides, in part, that unless

you have obtained prior permission, you may not download an entire issue of a journal or multiple copies of articles, and you

may use content in the JSTOR archive only for your personal, non-commercial use.

Please contact the publisher regarding any further use of this work. Publisher contact information may be obtained at .http://www.jstor.org/action/showPublisher?publisherCode=bfe..

Each copy of any part of a JSTOR transmission must contain the same copyright notice that appears on the screen or printed

page of such transmission.

JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of

content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms

of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact [email protected].

British Forum for Ethnomusicologyis collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to

British Journal of Ethnomusicology.

http://www.jstor.org
http://www.jstor.org/action/showPublisher?publisherCode=bfehttp://www.jstor.org/stable/3060851?origin=JSTOR-pdfhttp://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsphttp://www.jstor.org/action/showPublisher?publisherCode=bfehttp://www.jstor.org/action/showPublisher?publisherCode=bfehttp://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsphttp://www.jstor.org/stable/3060851?origin=JSTOR-pdfhttp://www.jstor.org/action/showPublisher?publisherCode=bfe


2/41

STEPHEN

ONES

h i n e s e

r i t u l

m u s i

u n d e r

Mao and

Deng

Studying

how

musicians in

Chinese

villages

have

maintained

their

local

traditions over the

turbulent

course

of

the

twentieth

century

may

illuminate

the

relation

of

music and

politics.

While the

rural

revolution in

China,

and

central

cultural

policy,

are

well

documented,

the

fate

of

village

music-making

is

not.

The revival of traditions in China since the 1980s may seem like some

miraculous

survival or

a

re-imagination

of

the

pre-Maoist

past.

This

article

shows

different

assaults

faced,

throughout

three

major periods

in

their

modern

history, by

ritual

associations

serving

funerals

and

calendrical

rituals in

north

Chinese

villages. By

contrast with some

other

traditions

which

were

erased

under

Maoism,

these

associations were

maintained

sporadically

throughout

the

Maoist

period

Despite

profound

social

upheavals,

the

meanings

offunerals

in

rural

society

have

remained

constant

enough for

the

associations

to retain their relevance.

"Music

Music

Is it

nothing

but the

sounds of

bells and

drums?"

-

Confucius

(Analects 17,

v.

11, my

translation)

"There

is

no

such

thing

as art

that

is detached

from or

independent

of

politics."

-

Mao

Zedong

(Mao

1942:86)

"I

have

not been

able

to

change

[China]

-

I

have

only

been

able

to

change

a

few

places

in

the

vicinity

of

Beijing."

-

Mao

Zedong

in

interview with

Richard

Nixon,

1972

(Kissinger

1997:31)

"The

mountains are

high,

the

emperor

is

far

away."

-

Chinese

proverb

1

Introduction

This

article

focuses on a

living

ritual

tradition

in

northern

Chinese

villages,

that of amateur ritual groups locally known as "Music Associations"

BRITISH

JOURNAL OF

ETHNOMUSICOLOGY

VOL. 8

1999

pp.27-66


3/41

28

BRITISH

JOURNAL OF

ETHNOMUSICOLOGY

VOL.8 1999

(Yinyue

hui).1

As the

citations

above

reveal,

both Confucian and Maoist

thought

support

a

basic tenet

of

ethnomusicology:

that

musical culture is

intimately

related

to

the

society

which nourishes it.

However,

while

the

rural

revolution

in

China is well documented,2the fate of village

music-making

is not. Both in

China

and

abroad,

studies have

been

constrained

by

political

factors.

In

China,

scholars have been

discouraged

from

writing candidly,

and

traditional

expressive

culture is

often

described

in

something

of

a

timeless historical

present,

with scant

material on its local maintenance

through

different

phases

of

twentieth-century

history. Foreign

scholars

have

until

recently

had

little access.

As with Chinese

society

as

a

whole,

at least three

major

periods

may

be

defined

in

the

modem

history

of the

associations:

the "old

society"

before the

Communist

"Liberation"

of 1949

(or

before

the

Japanese

invasion

of

1937);

the

years

of Maoist

campaigns

and the commune

system

until

1979;

and the era of

liberal reforms since 1980. Note that around20

years

have

already

passed

since

the

dismantling

of

the Maoist commune

system.

Indeed,

this makes the

documenting

of

the

period

all

the

more

urgent,

so

we

can

interpret villagers'

memories

before we all

succumb

to shallow

myth.

1.1

Musical

background

On

the

central

Hebei

plain

south

of

Beijing3

most

villages

have,

or

had,

some

kind

of amateur

ritual

association

performing

for

funerals and calendrical

rituals

for the

gods, notably

the

Chinese New Year.

Some

are

"Buddhist

Affairs

Associations"

(Foshi

hui)

consisting

of a

group

of vocal

liturgists

accompanying

themselves

on

ritual

percussion,

while

many

more

are "Music

Associations"

adding

a

para-liturgical

nstrumentalensemble.

In

fact

the

folk

religion

still

practised

by

these

village

associations is

an

age-old

synthesis

of

Buddhism and

Daoism,

whereby

the

protection

of

a

range

of

gods

is

sought

in

order

to

guarantee

abundant

harvests,

good

health,

and

1

While

documenting

their condition

since the

1980s,

I have made

a

relatively

detailed

historical

ethnography

of

an association

in one

village,

Gaoluo

(Jones, unpublished

manuscript).

The

material

presented

below

is

a

mere

summary

of

more

superficial

and brief

interviews

in over

a

hundred

villages

in

a

dozen

counties,

yet

I

believe

it shows some

consistent

patterns

which will

be refined but not refuted

by

more

probing

fieldwork.

Mv

1989 fieldwork

with Xue

Yibing

on the

Music

Associations

was

reflected

in an

introductory

article

(Jones

and Xue

1991);

see

also

Jones

1998:181-212.

From

1993 to

1997,

aided

by

a research

grant

from the Leverhulme

Trust,

I collected

data

on the associations

on

a

project

with

Xue

Yibing,

Qiao

Jianzhong,

and

Zhang

Zhentao

of

the Music

Research

Institute

(MRI)

of the Chinese

Academy

of

Arts in

Beijing,

to

all of whom I am most

grateful.

In the

text,

"'we"

refers

to this team.

Sources are our

fieldnotes

since

1989,

copies

of

which are held in

the

MRI;

some

have been

published

in Chinese in

Zhongguo yinyue

nianjian

1994,

1995,

and 1996. Also

in

Chinese,

note

Qiao

et

al. 1997 and

Zhang

1998.

2 Of many fine social studies by Western authors, in which expressive culture hardly

features,

see

e.g.

the

works

of Hinton

and the

Crooks;

and

more

recently,

Chan,

Madsen

and

Unger

1992,

Friedman

1991,

Huang

Shu-min

1989,

Seybolt

1996,

and Gao

1999.

3

For

a

map

see

Jones and Xue

1991:5.


4/41

JONES

Chinese

ritual

music under Mao

and

Deng

29

Figure

1

The

Music

Association of Kaikou

village, Xiongxian county, performing

or

a

temple

fair

in

the

village,

1995. This association

restored

only

in

1994,

to serve the

village's

newly

refurbished

emple.

In the

centre,

two frames of

yunluo, played by

one

musician.

Figure

2

The vocal

liturgists

of

the Matou

Music Association

performing

or a

funeral,

1995.

Wei

Guoliang (centre, playing

hand

bell)

learnt

vocal and instrumental

ritualmusic

from the Daoist

priests

of the

Houshan

mountain

temple

in the

1930s;

others studied

during

both the Mao

and

Deng

eras.


5/41

30

BRITISH

JOURNAL

OF

ETHNOMUSICOLOGY

VOL.8

1999

proper

relations

with

the

ancestors.

Though

some associations claim

"Buddhist"

or

"Daoist"

transmission,

their

pantheons

are

syncretic,

and even

the names

Fo

("Buddha")

and

Dao are

often used

interchangeably. Important

artefacts of such

groups

include

gongche

scores and ritual

manuals;

pantheons

and other

god

paintings,

as well

as

donors'

lists,

are

displayed

for rituals.

In

this area

temples

are

now rare

except

in the

larger

towns.

Though

both the

music

and

ritual

have

long

been

associated

with

priests,

there

have been no full-

time

priests

in

the area

since the

1950s,

and the

amateur

ritual

practitioners

of the

Music

Associations are

now the main

intermediaries

with

the

spiritual

world

of

gods,

ghosts

and

ancestors.

The

ritual and

music

have a

certain

local

prestige,

representing

the

"old

rules"

(lao

guiju)

of

"civilization"

(wenming),

but the

musicians are

ordinary

peasants.

Membership

has

remained

exclusively

male.

Most Music

Associations

have,

or

should

have,

three main

musical

components,

chui-da-nian:

wind

music,

percussion music,

and

vocal

liturgy.

Apart

from

vocal

liturgy,

Music

Associations are

famed

for

their solemn

music

for

a

large

wind

and

percussion ensemble,

often

known as

sheng-guan

music

after its

leading

instruments.

An

ensemble

commonly

consists of

around

twenty

musicians.The

instrumentation is

strict.

Apart

from

sheng

(free-reed

mouth-

organ)

and

guan (or

guanzi,

a small

pipe

with a

large

double-reed),

the other

melodic

instruments aredi4

(or

dizi,

transverse flute with

kazoo-membrane)

and

yunluo (frame

of

ten

pitched

gongs).

Their

melodies are

accompanied

by

large

barrel

drum and small

cymbals.

The

musicians also

perform

majestic

music for

percussion

ensemble,

led

by

two

types

of

large cymbals (bo

and

nao)

and

also

using

dangzi (single

gong

in

frame).

Villagers

here

use

the

word

yinyue (the

standard erm for

"music")

to refer

not

to music

generally,

but

specifically

to the

sheng-guan

music

performed

by

the

Music Associations as

a ritual

duty

for

funerals and

gods'

days.

In

contrast

to

some

other

types

of

Chinese

music,

such as

folk-song

and even

opera,

or

some

more

youthful

urban entertainment

genres,

this

para-liturgical

music,

inherited

from

the

temples

of

imperial

times,

and

strictly

transmitted

by

means of

an

unvarying

score

in

gongche

notation,

resembles a

classical

tradition

of art

music.

Apart

from

the solemn and

conservative ritual

music of the

Music

Associations, ritual associations have evolved in some villages since early in

the twentieth

century,

which

perform

a

style

called

"Southern

Music"

(Nanyue),

led

by

a

larger guanzi

oboe and also

using

a

small shawm

and a bowed

fiddle,

and

playing

more

popular

modem

pieces,

often

based

on

folk-song

or

local

opera.

Most have

remained

amateur,

performing only

for

funerals

and not for

weddings,

like the

Music Associations

from which

they

evolved.

In

most

villages

with

a

ritual ensemble

there is

only

one

group,

which

performs

either

"Music" or

Southern Music. Some

converted from

the

traditional

style

to Southern

Music

between

the

1920s

and

1960s. Few

villages

have

more

than one

ritual

association,

though one,

Shenshizhuang,

has four

Music Associations all

performing the

more

traditionalstyle, and the adjacent

villages

of

North and South Gaoluo each have

both

types.

4

Throughout

this

area,

as in

Beijing,

many

words

are rounded off with an

'r',

thus

guan

and

di

sound like

gwar

and

deer.


6/41

JONES Chinese ritual music under

Mao

and

Deng

31

,

04,

T w o

7a

0.

-

-

[.

Figure

3

The

pantheon

of

the

Liujing

Music

Association,

displayed

for

calendrical

rituals.

To

the

right

s

a

paper

envelope,

later burnt n

order to

beseech

the

goddess

Houtu.

?r

,

'it Y'r

i

?---

s~?

~

.J

r

?I

'

1~1L i

-

~ -?sr ? ~ d

9

.?~r "??~

c

?: ? ..?

I

?r

;F' `?:

r'

;f:

..

~f _~F~~v:

I'

?~ib YI.~

IP~E ~C Y~'u~l

k

d

)Dlr

;'

? R

r

.,r I??

~I :??,-

:r

:li

?J

Figure

4 The

Ten

Kings

scroll.

Manyvillages

in the area still

preserve "precious

scrolls"

(baojuan)

from the seventeenth to nineteenth

centuries

such as this one to the

ten

kings

of the

underworld,

recited for funerals.


7/41

32

BRITISH JOURNAL OF

ETHNOMUSICOLOGY

VOL.8 1999

Other

genres

are also

performed

in the

same area. The

most common

type

of instrumental ensemble

throughout

rural China is the

wind-and-percussion

band

(chuidaban)

of

"blowers-and-drummers"

(chuigushou),

who

perform

shawm-and-percussion music for a wide range of ceremonial contexts,

including

not

only

funerals but also

weddings,

taboo for the

Music

Associations.

They

are further

distinguished

from the

Music Associations

in

that

they

are

professional;

they

often

belong

to

a

single

family.

Their

repertory

includes

many

"classical"

(Jones

1998:75-6)

melodies

in

lengthy

suites,

but

they

are less

limited

by

tradition than the

Music Associations and

incorporate

modem

pieces

freely.

Indeed,

a strict

social

hierarchy

has been inherited from

imperial

times: the

blowers-and-drummers,

with their

mercenary

outlook and

readiness to

adapt,

are often social

outcasts,

while

ritual musicians

are

considered

superior (Jones 1998:154ff.).

Also common

today

are other less

explicitly

ritual associations for

activities

such

as

stilt-walking, lion-dancing, yangge dancing

and martial arts.

They

perform

mainly

for

the New

Year,

and

occasionally

for

other

calendrical

festivities. Until the

early

1960s

many villages

in

the area had an

amateur

troupe performing

the

local

traditional

bangzi opera;

after

an

interlude as Mao

Zedong

Thought

Propaganda

Teams

during

the

Cultural

Revolution,

few

troupes

were

successful

in

reviving

in the

1980s. As to less

formal

music-

making,

solo

and

group

singing

(such

as love

songs

or work

songs)

seems to

have been

quite

rare

in

this

area,

and

narrative-singers

reciting

stories

from

popular

fiction

to the

accompaniment

of

sanxian

banjo

declined

after the 1950s.

The main survival of

folk-song

in

this area

may

be the ritual

songs

of shamans.

Since the

mid 1980s

Chinese

pop

music

has

been

dominant

in

towns

in

the

area,

and in

the

villages

is heard

daily

on

television.

1.2

Perspectives

So our

focus

here is

the maintenance

of

the

sheng-guan

music

and vocal

liturgy

of

the Music Associations

and Buddhist Affairs Associations.

These

groups

have

served,

maintained

their

relevance

through,

or

been

insensitive

to

imperial, republican, communist

and

capitalist societies, surviving

the traumas

of

warlordism,

banditry,

Japanese

invasion,

civil

war,

Maoist

campaigns,

the

new

capitalism,

and even

visits from

musicologists,

with

little

apparent

change

in

either

context

or musical

sound. While

society,

and some other musical

genres,

have

been

changing quite

radically,

these

ritual associations

have

remained

intrinsically

conservative,

maintaining

their

social and musical

core

-

in

context, instrumentation,

and

repertory.

We

may

observe

a certain

*impoverishment"

(Nettl 1983:349-54),

and some

temporary

adaptive

strategies,

but

little innovation.

In line with

sinology,

we need to

"break

through

the

1949

barrier"

(e.g.

Friedman 1991:xvii, citing

Paul

Cohen). Study

of local realities

-

not

just

policy

documents

or

state-sponsored

urban

troupes

-

in

"Red

China"

(and

other countries

where

an

image

of state socialism

may

overshadow

reality)

may

correct some facile conclusions.

Traditional ritual

and musical cultures


8/41

JONES Chinese

ritual

music

under

Mao

and

Deng

33

were not eradicated

under Maoism

or

replaced

by

the

modem

secular

"conservatory style".

Nor

can we

accept

the

bland

competing

propaganda

that

typically

claims

"after

Liberation,

the

Communist

Party

esteemed folk

musicians, who were able to turn over a new leaf and create new works".

Genres

surviving

or

reviving

since the

1980s are

not

"living

fossils"

miraculously

and

marginally

preserved

in

a

society

somehow

isolated

from

social

change

or

cushioned

from new and

"revolutionary"

culture;

the

musicians have taken

part

actively

in

social and

political

campaigns.

Yet

Communist cultural

policy

and its

urban

professional

embodiment

have

remained

largely

irrelevant to the

musicians and their

audiences.

Nor is

this

a

kind

of isolated

preservationism (cf.

Nettl

1983:351-2),

such

as

has been

described

for

Japan

and

Korea,

where

the

central

state

steps

in

to

preserve

an

ancient culture

under artificial

conditions.

Our fieldwork material shows that the associations have weathered

different

problems

throughout

all three

periods.

The

pre-Liberation

period

was

no

golden

age

for

expressive

culture:

banditry,

warlordism,

invasion and

civil

war

threatened

social

disintegration.

During

the

following

Maoist

period,

despite

frequent

political

assaults,

ritual

associations

often

survived

with the

support

of

village

cadres

and the

community;

brief

but

significant

revivals

were

staged

soon after

Liberation and

from

1962

to

1964,

and the

worst

excesses of the

Cultural

Revolution were

over

by

1970.

For

the

reform

period

since

1980,

such

groups

may

be

more

seriously

threatened

by

capitalism

than

they

were

by

Maoism.

Communism is

widely

believed to

have

transformed

culture

as well

as

society.

Given the

close

identification,

revealed

by

our

fieldwork,

of

the

village

elite with their

Music

Associations both

before

and since

Liberation,

the

mediation

of

the

tensions between

modernizing

leadership

and

traditional

culture is

remarkable. One

analysis

comments

appositely:

Although

the

Communist

Party,

in

trying

to

improve

life,

both

adapted

to and

transformed

peasant

values and

social

relations,

Chinese

villagers

-

including

Party

members

-

kept

to

their own

agenda.

Even

when

the

Party brought

economic

gain

and

cultural

healing,

centre and

hinterland were frequently at odds ... Villagers and their allies and

patrons

among

officials

also

tried,

as

they

had

for

many generations

under

various

regimes,

to

dodge, deflect,

and

blunt the

impact

of

demands

detrimental to

local

interests

and values.

Those

negative

impacts

gradually

eroded the new

state's

popular

legitimacy.

(Friedman

991:xv)

If

within

China

it is still

difficult

to

frankly

assess

political,

social

and

economic

problems

under

Maoism

-

apart

from the

Cultural

Revolution

-

some

Western

historians,

with

detailed

analyses,

portray

the

whole

period

as

one of

unrelenting

trauma and

suffering,

both

personal

and

collective,

with

political

persecution

and

economic

deprivation,

implicitly

inflicted

by

an evil

and

apparently

alien

state

machine

(Jing

Jun

1996;

cf.

Friedman

1991,

Chan


9/41

34 BRITISH

JOURNAL

OF

ETHNOMUSICOLOGY VOL.8 1999

1992).

Such an

interpretation

implies

traumatic

cultural

disruption: Jing's

study

of a

Confucian

temple

in

Gansu

province

shows

convincingly

how

tradition

was

systematically

destroyed

there

under Maoism. Hence

scholars

of modem China often

qualify

the "revival" of tradition since the reforms of

the 1980s as a

re-imagination

of the

pre-Maoist

past

under

transformed

social

conditions.

Our material

suggests

a somewhat

different

situation. Neither the

musical

form

nor the social context

of these

ritual

associations were

extinguished

under Maoism.

Many

musicians

straddled

all three

periods,

from the old

society

through

Maoism

to the

reforms,

facilitating

authentic

transition.

Further,

I

suggest

that the

nature

and function of the

funerary

and

calendrical

rituals

of the

Music

Associations have

changed

little

qualitatively

since at

least the

1940s.

An obvious

explanation

for this resilience is the

persistence (again,

rather

than

reappearance)

of the

social,

economic and

ideological

conditions

which

support

the

associations.

Economic

conditions have

improved

intermittently

since

the

1940s,

notably

since

1980,

but

transport,

supplies

of

electricity

and

water,

health-care,

and

industry

remain

backward

in

rural areas.

Villages

have

continued to

depend

on

agriculture

and to

perceive

the need for

funerary

and

religious

observances

venerating

the

ancestors and

seeking

peace

and

prosperity.

If

central

Chinese

policy

claims

that these

conditions have

been

transformed since

Liberation

(just

as

it

claims

that traditional

culture has

been

improved"),

Chinese

officials

as

well as outside

observers

are well able to see

respects

in

which

they

have

been

unable to

change

society.

Even

Mao's

disclaimer

to

Nixon now

seems

quite exaggerated:

even

communities

so near

Beijing

remained

untouched

by

the

revolution

in

significant

respects,

both

economically

and

culturally.

This

may

be

neither

typical

nor

atypical

of

other forms

of

expressive

culture under

Maoism,

regionally

and

nationally.

Ritual has remained

a

pervasive aspect

of

expressive

culture

in

rural

China.

In

some

places

cultural

impoverishment

seems

to have been severe

not

just

from

1966

to

1976

but from

about

1956

to

1980;

we even

have to

entertain

the

possibility

that

some

places

lost

their

traditions

abruptly

before

Liberation,

never to reclaim

any expressive

media

as

their

own,

but

this

too would need

demonstrating

in

detail.

Indeed,

some Music

Associations

in

this area have never revived

since

the warfare

of

the

1940s;

many folk-singers,

performers

of

narrative-singing,

and

opera

groups

also

gave

up

soon after Liberation.

Conversely,

many

more remote areas

of

southern China seem to

have retained their

traditions with less

disruption

than

here.

It

may transpire

from

further research that some other

types

of

musician

in

China,

such as

narrative-singers

and shawm

players,

may

be

more

"marginal",

ess

represented

in

the

village power

structure,

and thus both more

vulnerable to

central decrees and more

tangential

to

major

events;

but their

history

too will

be that

of

modern

China,

with

all

its

complexities.

Only

detailed

material

will

enable

us

to

judge.


10/41

JONES Chinese

ritual music

under Mao and

Deng

35

2 Before

Communism

Before

surveying

the modem fortunes

of

the

Hebei

ritual

associations,

a

summary

of material on their

early history

is

apposite.

2.1

Early

history

and transmission

Clues to

the

early

history

of the Music

Associations

are

sparse. Imperial

sources

mention

village

associations

largely

in

the context of folk

religious sects,

and

then

only

when

they

were

persecuted

for

rebelling against

the

government.

The

history

of "White Lotus" sects

(Naquin 1985)

should be

highly

relevant,

but

provides

little

specific

data.

In

general

Music

Associations

doubtless

represented

a

more

public,

conformist

village-wide organization

than the

"heterodox"

sects,

but local

reality

was

complex.

Even the

imperial period

before

1911

was

not one of

uninterruptedpeace

for such associations. Civil unrest was common

through

the

Ming

(1368-1644)

and

Qing (1644-1911)

dynasties.

The

Qujiaying

association tells of a crisis

in

1853,

and the

Liujing group

also became

inactive,

having

to

relearn

from

a

nearby

village

on the eve of

the twentieth

century.

Government

persecution

of

"heterodox" sects

was fierce

until the mid

nineteenth

century.

Though

these

sects

can

rarely

be identified

directly

with the Music

Associations,

ritual

manuals

and even instruments must have had to be

replaced

after confiscation

(e.g. Ma and Han 1992:501-3, 542).

Villagers

describe two common

means

of

transmission of their

ritual

sheng-

guan

music

and

vocal

liturgy:

a

group

of

would-be musicians

learnt

either from

Buddhist or Daoist

priests

in

local

temples,

or

by inviting

a musician from

another

village

association.

An

instrumental score

in

the

traditional

gongche

solfeggio

was

usually

copied

for the

apprentice

association.

Full-time

priests

have become fewer

since the

nineteenth

century;

laymen

have

long

acquired

a

certain

ritual

knowledge,

but the

vemacularization

of

ritual has

been

necessitated

in

modem

times

by

the

greater

efficiency

of

forced

secularization,

since

early

in

the

twentieth

century

and

especially

since

1949.

Since the 1950s villagers could only learn from former priests; with village

temples empty,

very

few

priests

in

the

remaining

town

temples

still

play

the

sheng-guan

music.

Mostly

the music seems

to have

spread

south from the

temples

of

Beijing

and

Tianjin,

whose

repertories overlap

substantially

with those

of the

village

associations. With more

data,

we

could

discern

different

levels

of

transmission:

first from

the

major

temples

of

Beijing

and

Tianjin

to

minor

temples

there;

then to

larger

temples

in

county-towns;

then to

villages,

and

from

village

to

village.

Apart

from

musical clues

and

oral

traditions,

some

associations

preserve

datable artefacts. A few instruments said to bear Ming dates have survived

(Guo

1991:3,

5,

Zhao

1987:49).

Another

type

of

clue comes from

scores

in

the

gongche

solfeggio-type

notation,

which are

often dated. The

great

majority

we

have

inspected

were

copied

since the

early

twentieth

century,

but

some older


11/41

36

BRITISH

JOURNAL

OF

ETHNOMUSICOLOGY

VOL.8 1999

scores survive

(Qiao

et al.

1997).

Most

celebrated is the

1694

score of

the

Zhihua

temple

in

Beijing

(Jones 1998:304-5),

whose

repertory overlaps

substantially

with that

of

village

Music

Associations. Several

village

scores

in

eastern Xiongxian attribute the transmission of sheng-guan music there to a

Chan

(Zen)

priest

called

"WondrousTones"

(Miaoyin)

in 1787

(Figure

5).

Despite

the

Qing government's

hostility

to

sects,

villagers

often

possess

firm

traditions

that their Music Association

was founded

or

supported by

Qing

emperors.

We cannot assume that all such claims

are

spurious,

though

since

1980

a few associations have been

fabricating

histories

as

visiting

fieldworkers

influence

them

in

seeking

impressive

historical

pedigrees.

Several Music

Associations

claim a

tradition

that the

Qing

emperors

Kangxi

(r. 1662-1722)

or

Qianlong

(r.

1736-95)

favoured them

with a

"dragon placard"

(longpai)

or an

imperial

draft after

hearing

them

perform.

We

can trace

several

Music

Associations back to the mid

eighteenth

century,but to

go

back even as far as

Kangxi's

reign

is still

speculative.

In

contrast

to our

rudimentaryknowledge

of

sectarian

or Music

Association

activity

over

several

centuries,

the brief and

cataclysmic

Boxer

uprising

of

190()

was

thoroughly

documented.

Distinctive

features

of

the

Boxer

movement

were

their

invulnerability

rituals,

spirit-possession,

and martial arts.

None of

these is

directly

related to the

practices

of

the

typical village

ritual

association.

However,

more

generally

their

domain

-

communication with the

gods

-

was

identical,

and

both

perceived

the

foreign

intrusion

of

Catholicism as a threat.

In

one

village

the Music Association even

performed

as the

Boxers went

into

Figure

5

Page

from the

gongche

score of West

An'gezhuang village, copied

in

1947,

with a

history

of

copying going

back to 1787.

This

is

the

opening

of the third

suite,

showing

the

prelude

Hesi

qianpai

and

the

opening

of

Qi

Yanhui.


12/41

JONES Chinese

ritual

music

under

Mao and

Deng

37

battle

with the

Allied

troops.

In Gaoluo conflict between the Catholic

minority

and

the

village

ritual association

led

to

the

gathering

of

Boxers

to massacre

Catholics.

2.2 After the

fall of

empire (1911-37)

Western

social

scientists

and Chinese scholars and

musicians alike subscribe to

the

notion

that

the

period

before the

1949

Liberation,

or before

the

1937

Japanese

invasion,

was a

golden age

for

Chinese

folk

culture.

Given

what

we

know about the

period,

this

would

seem

implausible.

The

horrors of

the

long

period

of

anarchy

before Liberation are

genuinely

recalled

by

older

villagers,

and

recognized by

Chinese and Western scholars. For

most

poorer villagers,

the

early days

of

Liberation were

surely

characterized

by

a

feeling

of

relief,

as

during

the

preceding

decades

insecurity

and cultural

disintegration

must have

been more

prominent

than

any

sense of

prosperity

or

freedom;

in

most

villages,

promises

of

modernizing

rationalism

against

the

chronic

social

problems

which

they

faced

were

largely

absent until the Communists

brought

hope.

If in

the

1990s

people

identified

migration

as a

factor

in

discouraging

the

transmission

of

the

music,

for several decades before

Liberation

too

it

had been

a

common

response

of

young

men

seeking

to

escape banditry,

invasion,

kidnapping,

conscription,

and

famine.

Yet

we

must take older

villagers'

nostalgia seriously.

Our material

gives

rather rare

glimpses

of

what

must have been

a rich ritual culture

punctuatedby

frequent

calendrical and

life-cycle

rituals,

but data

from

other

areas of

China

reveal

the

riches of ritual culture

based on a

busy

annual

programme

of

temple

fairs and

customary

observances

(see e.g.

Johnson

1994

for

Shanxi),

which

were never to revive on such a

large

scale. Before

1949

cultural

traditions were

perhaps

one of the few areas which

offered

embattled

villagers

any stability.

Even

in

the midst

of

chaos,

there were no

alternatives to or

ideological

attacks

upon

traditional culture:

villagers

remained

committed to the

values which the

Music

Association

represented,

even

if

temporary

conditions made them

impracticable.

The

associations

were

part

of a

complex

network of

religious

and customary life.

After two

millenia

of

imperial

rule came

to

an end

in

1911,

the

Republican

period

was

marked

by

state

attempts

to

increase

control over local

communities

(Duara

1988,

1991).

But central

campaigns

did not

always

filter down as far

as

the

villages.

The

May

Fourth

Movement of

1919

was a

decisive

awakening

of

urban intellectuals

in

favour of

modernity,

but

villagers

in

Gaoluo,

not far

south

of

Beijing,

never heard of

it

-

they

knew

1919

only

as the

year

of a

serious

epidemic

in

the

village.

Still,

the

central attack on

traditional

systems

may

have

undermined

village

associations. This was

in

large

measure

a

struggle

for

property,

resources and

power. From the 1920s the Nationalist government attempted several rural

reforms

which affected

local,

and

especially religious,

culture.

Republican

campaigns against gambling

were

in

harmony

with the traditional moral

ethic

of

village

ritual

associations,

and arereflected

in

a name

adopted by

at least one


13/41

38 BRITISH JOURNAL OF

ETHNOMUSICOLOGY VOL.8 1999

Music

Association,

Tongle

jiedu

hui

("Shared

pleasure anti-gambling

association").

Other

campaigns,

however,

put

government

in

potential

conflict

with ritual associations.

Religion

now came under more

sustained

attack from

modernizing ideologues

than from Confucians under the

Qing

empire, just

as

later

under

Communism,

superstition

was

viewed as a

major

obstacle

to

modernization and

progress.

Temples

were

converted into

schools,

offices or

factories,

or were

demolished.

Apart

from

the

struggle

between

villages

and the new

invasive

state

power,

local warfare

between rival

warlords

and

banditry

must

have

affected

expressive

culture

and

religious

practice.

In

Yixian

county,

bandit

chief

Liu

Guitang

kidnapped people

for

ransom.

Daoist

priests

in

the

Houshan

mountain

temple

and

villagers

at the foot of

the

mountain were

threatened.

The

loss of

ritual manuals was

not

always

political:

in

Beihou,

the

village

copy

of

the

Houtu scroll was lost

during

the time of the bandits in the

early

1930s.

Catholic

missionaries

from

Italy

arrived

in

Yixian

in

1926

seeking

to

re-

evangelize

the

area

(Martina

and Stefanini

1956).

At New

Year

1931,

they

reported,

after

several

years

of

unrest,

with

fighting

between

the

troops

of

a

local

warlord,

the

Nationalists,

and

local

bandits,

parades

of

performing

associations

once

again

emerged,

such as

had

not been seen for

many years

previously.

"In

recent

years

there

has been

war,

which

has

suspended

everything.

Now

it

is some

time

since

war has been

spoken

of,

and the old

traditions have been able

to be revived"

(Per

il Bene

1931:113-15).

But

by

1933

soldiers had

again

arrived

in

Yixian

and

people

were

afraid.

The

missionaries remained for a

turbulent

20

years.

Overall

they

found

it

very

hard to

gain

a

footing,

but

in

villages

where

they

did

succeed

in

evangelizing,

the

impact

on

indigenous

religious

culture

must have been

considerable.

The

imminent

building

of a

large

Catholic

church

in

South

Gaoluo,

scene of a massacre

of Catholics

in

the 1900

Boxer

uprising,

produced

a

defensive

flurry

of

activity

in

the

village

ritual

associations,

whose

donors'

lists

from

1930

list

the

commissioning

of new

ritual

paintings.

Despite

their

suspicion

of

the

foreign

religion,

the

associations

still

found

it

appropriate

to

build

diplomatic bridges

by performing

formally

for the

benediction of

the

church

in

1931. The

peaceful

nature of this

religious competition

was short-

lived, however,

as

the

Communists were even

more hostile towards

Catholicism than

towards native

"superstition".

Chinese

Catholics maintained

their faith

clandestinely through

Maoist

persecution,

and have revived since the

1980s while

remaining

vulnerable

(Madsen

1998).

Besides

campaigns,

warlords and

bandits,

natural disasters were

frequent

and

debilitating.

Summer

floods could be

catastrophic,

but more

common was

drought,

necessitating

rain

processions,

in

which ritual

associations

participated.

Severe famine

struck north

China

in 1920-21

(Friedman

1991:10)

and

recurred

throughout

the

Japanese

occupation.

Ritual

contacts were maintained

or

expanded. Villagers

from North Ruhe

learnt

sheng-guan

music soon after the

Boxer

uprising by

inviting

the

South

Gaoluo association to teach them.

By

the

1930s,

membership

was

declining,

with a lack

of

regular

new recruits.

So,

not

long

before the

Japanese

invasion

in


14/41

JONES

Chinese

ritual music under

Mao and

Deng

39

1937,

they

taught

a second

generation,

then

mostly teenagers; eight

or

ten

stayed

the course. Several

associations were founded

in the

early

twentieth

century by

learning

from another

village

or from a Buddhist or Daoist

priest.

A distinctive new musical feature of the

Republican period

was the rise of

the more

popular

style

of

sheng-guan

ritual music called Southern Music.

However,

while some

Music Associations

converted to

the new

style, many

others retained their traditional

style

even

throughout

the

years

of

Maoism,

and

still

do

so

today.

2.3

The war

against

Japan (1937-45)

The "7th

July

incident"

in 1937

finally

confirmed the

full-scale

Japanese

invasion of China and

the

outbreak of war. This was

a decisive moment

in

modem history

for

the

whole nation.

It

was

during

the war that the

Communists

gained support throughout

rural northern

China.

While

the towns were

contested,

by

1939

most

villages

in

our area were under

Communist control.

Though

the

Japanese

made

only

occasional

raids,

Chinese

collaborators

and

bandits

struggled

with

the

emerging

Communist

underground;

with

kidnapping

and

conscription

rife,

an

atmosphere

of fear

prevailed.

Villagers

often

periodize

their

cultural

impoverishment

by

the

Japanese

invasion

in

1937,

ratherthan

by

"Liberation"some ten

years

later.

Many

Music

Associations said that ritual activities

became less

frequent;

elderly

villagers

were

nostalgic

about the

days

before the

invasion.

But when

they say

their

traditions were

destroyed

after the

invasion,

this is

surely

at

least

partly

a

discreet

message identifying

the

Communists as

offenders.

Many

religious

buildings

and

practices

were

destroyed

in

this

period, perhaps

less

by

the

Nationalists and

the

Japanese

than

by

the 8th

Route

Army

and

the

new

Communist cadres.

In

some

places

the last

processions

to

pray

for

rain were held

in

1938,

after

which such

major public

observances became

impossible

because of the

fighting.

Pilgrimages (for

rain

or for

temple fairs)

certainly

became

more

difficult:

many

ritual

associations

stopped making

the

3rd-moon

Houshan

pilgrimage after the invasion, and few resumed once the Communists finally

brought peace,

due to

ideological

restrictions.

The ten ritual tents

and lanterns

of

Yishangying,

of

great

value,

were lost

after the

Japanese

invaded. Before the

Japanese

descended

upon

Fuxin,

the

musicians

wrapped

their instruments

in

oilskin

bags

and

hid

them

down the

wells.

In

one

village they

had to demolish their

temple

to sell the

wood

to meet

the demands

of

the

Japanese

and

collaborators;

temple

bells

were

also melted

down

to make

hand-grenades.

The South

Yi'an

Music

Association was founded

only

two

years

before a

notorious

massacre

in 1937.

But

usually

the

Japanese only passed

through,

and

senior village representatives (often including the leaders of the Music

Association)

were at

pains

not to offend them.

Moreover,

the

Japanese

respected

the local

rituals,

being

Buddhists themselves. In

East

Zhangfeng

musicians said the

Japanese

had

actually

organized

the collection of

donations


15/41

40

BRITISH JOURNAL

OF

ETHNOMUSICOLOGY

VOL.8 1999

to restore

the

village

Dragon Kings

temple.

Japanese

troops

entered

Lihezhuang

while the

Music

Association was

burning

incense and

practising

score-reading.

One

of those

men

studying

the

music

recalled:

"They

were

very pleased

we

were

learning

the

[ritual]

music and

worshipping

the Buddhas."

Some

villagers joined

the

resistance,

or

went into

hiding.

Still,

many

claimed

that musical life went

on

largely

undeterred

by

warfare.

Associations

trained new

members

in

the

early

1940s.

Some musicians

even

practised

their

instruments

in

the

tunnels built

by

the

guerrillas

to combat

the

Japanese.

Villagers

concur with

the

official claim

that

membership

of "secret"

sects

such as

the

DaFojiao

and

LaoFomen,

soon to be

branded as

anti-Communist,

increased

during

this

period

because of the

insecurity

and

need for

protection.

Indeed,

in

many

villages

the

great

majority

of the

population

belonged

to such

sects.

If

they

were

usually

distinct

from

the

more

public,

ascriptive

rituals

which the Music Association

served,

the distinction must

sometimes

have been

lost on

zealous Communist

cadres with

limited

local

knowledge.

In

Beihou

in

1945,

the

8th

Route

Army

burnt a whole

stack of

scriptures

and

paintings

belonging

to the

village

Music

Association,

believing

them

to

belong

to the

DaFojiao

sect.

2.4 The civil war

and

land reform

(1946-8)

By

the time

of the

Japanese

surrender in

1945,

most

villages

in

the

area had

been under

the control of the

Communists for some

years. By

contrast

with

propaganda, many villagers

simply hoped

to

escape

warfare and

longed

for a

quiet

life,

having

scant

sympathy

for either side. And

as

in

religious

worship,

villagers

are

by

necessity

opportunistic, serving

different

masters

in

order to

survive.

However,

many

ritual musicians were

staunch

fighters

for the

Communist

cause. As

amateur charitable

organizations,

Music

Associations claim to

serve

anybody

in

need

of

funerary

ritual.

They

must often

have

performed

for

relatively

well-to-do

households,

who were later

to be considered

"class

enemies";

but

since

the

musicians

themselves

came

mainly

from

poor

families,

they may

have had

cause to be gratefulto the new regime, gaining from landreform.

Music

Associations

were

periodically

recruited for

public

campaigns,

and

sometimes

played,

or were made

to

play,

"new

pieces",

right

until

today;

but this

was so

sporadic

as

to

be

entirely

incidental

to

their

main

activity.

In

1946

the

Zhaobeikou

Music

Association was

one

of several

summoned to

the

county-town

to

perform

at a

big

Peace

meeting

for the

short-

lived

Communist-Nationalist

collaboration.

They

played

new

pieces

such as

The Great Rear

(Da

houfang),

and

gained

an award.

Communist

songs

made a

passing

mark

on some other

associations.

In

Beihou

after

the

8th

Route

Army

took over

in

1947-8,

villagers

heard them

singing "revolutionary songs". Musician Cheng Yi picked them up on the

guanzi

and

taught

them to the Music

Association

by

means

of

the

traditional

gongche

solfeggio

-

the new

cipher

notation

officially espoused

has never

taken root.


16/41

JONES

Chinese

ritual music

under

Mao and

Deng

41

As

the Communists

consolidated

their control

of

many villages, they

were

able

to demand

the destruction

of

temples

and laicization

of

priests.

The

temples

of

Gaoqiao

village

were

destroyed

in the 1945-6

"Campaign

for the

elimination

of

superstition

in the Liberatedareas". Folk

religion

had

long

been

under

attack,

and

many village

temples

were

decrepit

and

neglected,

all the

more

so

with chronic

warfare;

still,

faith remained

strong,

and the renewed

affront to

tradition caused

anxiety.

The Communists

began

to

implement

the

first

stage

of

land reform

by

1946,

organizing

villagers

into Peasants'

Associations.

But as the

Nationalist

armies made a

brief sortie

from

Beijing,

the Communist

leadership

had to

retreat,

and

villagers

were

left

to

face local

groups

of "Retum-to-the-District

troupes"

(Huanxiang

tuan),

organized

by vengeful

dispossessed

landlords and

others with

a

grudge against

the

Communists.

Two

neighbouring villages

with

Music Associations suffered traumas.

Return-to-the-District

troupes

descended on

North Baibao and

killed

18

leaders

of the Peasants'

Association,

with the

support

of the

collaborationist

government.

In

South

Gaoluo,

Communist

resistance

leader and

ritual

specialist

Cai

Fuxiang

was

spiritually

broken when

his whole

family

was

murdered on the

orders

of

a rival

village bully,

who had

gone

over to the side

of the Retum-to-

the-District

troupes.

After

Liberation,

Cai retreated

from

political

life,

though

he continued

taking part

in the

vocal

liturgy

of

the Music Association.

Land reform

was a

long process,

from

at least

1946

to

1952.

In 1951 in

Tianhou,

North and

South

villages

were combined

and their land

shared,

whereupon

their

two Music

Associations also

combined,

with over

70

members.

Most associations

owned some

land,

as well as

hiring

out

equipment

such as

pots

and

bowls,

tarpaulins

and a

wall-pounder.

Such land was not

confiscated

for

the

commune

until the

1958

Great

Leap

Forward.

In

many

villages

ritual

musicians were

on the land reform committee.

As

villagers

sought

to flee

warfare,

kidnapping

for ransom and

conscription,

there

was considerable

mobility.

Several musicians

sought

refuge

in

urban

temples

where

they

became folk Daoists

performing

for

rituals,

returning

to their

home

villages

after

Liberation.

In

such cases

migration

consolidated ritualexpertise. However,

in

Yishangying

the old association head

Liu

Fuyou,

who

learnt

the music

in

1935,

observed

that

if

he

had

not

gone

off to

join

the

army

in

1938,

the Music Association

would not have

lost so

many

of

their

old

sheng-guan

suites.

In

Gaoluo

fighting

made

it

impossible

to observe

the New Year's rituals

from

1946

to

1948,

but

many

other

village

associations

remained active.

The

Zhaobeikou

association

claimed to have

been

largely

unaffected

by

either the

war

against

Japan

or

the

civil

war.

In

Fuxin

there

was no other

entertainment,

and a

lot of

boys

would come

along

even

if

they

were not allowed to

study

the music.

In Mawuzhuang, the village organized 60 or 70 young men to take up the

ritual

music

in

1945,

since

they

were afraid it would be lost

-

there were still a

dozen or so senior

masters then.

Anyone

who wanted to

learn had their food

taken care

of,

a further incentive. After those

who couldn't

figure

the

music out


17/41

42

BRITISH

JOURNAL

OF

ETHNOMUSICOLOGY

VOL.8 1999

("couldn't

crack

it"

[baibuguo],

as

they

said)

were

let

go,

over

20

students

stayed

the

course.

They

studied the

sheng-guan

music for the first

three

years;

in the

fourth

year they

would have

gone

on to

learn the

scriptures,

but

the

plan

was

disrupted by

the outbreak of

major

fighting

in the area.

The

musicians'

nostalgia

for this

traumatic

period

seems to

reflect all the

more on the

restrictions after

Liberation.

From

now

on,

violence

against

traditional culture was

to be

continued

by

other

means;

yet

even these

new

forms of

violence were unable

to

eradicate ritual

traditions.

3

Maoism

"The Communist Partydoesn't believe in Heaven or Earth." villagers

"Although

our music

wasn't

superstitious,

it was

treading

the same

path

as

superstition."

-

village

leader

describing

the

early

1950s

"Religious

life was

exactly

the same

before and

after

Liberation."

-

village

musicians

"There is a

policy

but

it

isn't

implemented;

one

eye

open,

one

eye

closed."

-

common

expressions

3.1

Liberation

The

Communist revolution of 1949

may

seem to

have been a

fundamental

dividing

line

in

the

transmission of

traditional culture

in

China.

Yet there was

no

sudden

change

in

1949,

and Liberation

was

(indeed,

is )

a

long process:

the

Communists controlled

many

areas from

early

in

the

1940s,

but still

struggled

to

gain complete

control of others into the

mid

1950s.

Still

more

basically,

the

degree

of

control was

constantly negotiated

at

local level. The

citations above

give a succinct impression of the complexities of the situation.

One reason

why villagers

rarely

describe the

period

soon after the

official

"Liberation"of

1949

as one

when traditions

were

destroyed,

is

surely

because

villages

had

in

some senses

already

been

in

the

process

of

transformation

since

at least 1939.

Indeed,

despite

common

nostalgia

for

the

days

before

Liberation,

when ritual

practice

had

continued

despite

constant

warfare,

the

more

peaceful

conditions

of the

early

1950s seemed

to

many

to mark

something

of

a

restoration of tradition.

Stability encouraged

cultural

revival.

We

gain

a sense

of this from the

accounts of both

Chinese and

foreign

observers. Belden

gave

a

rosy

picture:

The

Communists,

in

encouraging

the

revival of

dancing,

satisfied a

great

and heartfelt need

of the

people

for artistic

expression.

It is a

curious fact

that most

people,

especially

in

times of

world-shaking


18/41

JONES Chinese

ritual music under

Mao and

Deng

43

doubt,

have a desire to be

inspired,

to start their

lives over

again,

to

become

young

once more

... The

yearning

to

dance,

to

sing,

to

forget,

to

dream,

to

become once

more like

children,

became

as

much a

part

of

the revolution as did the land

reform.

(Belden 1973:132)

Even some less

revolutionary

commentators have

called it

a

honeymoon

period (Friedman 1991:111-22;

cf.

Jones

1998:42-3).

The

cultural

revival was

general.

After

many

years

of

insecurity,

amateur

bangzi

opera groups

revived,

now

recruiting

substantial

numbers

of

women.

Both traditional

and new

operas

were

popular

in

the

villages.

In

many

places

traditional

opera

declined

severely

by

the

time

of the

Great

Leap

Forward,

though

the

South

Gaoluo

opera

troupe

went

against

the

political

tide

and

revertedto the traditional

style

in 1958.

Many

villages

with

existing

ritual

associations enrolled

new

students

around

1950: a

large

number

of senior

musicians

today began

learning

then. In

the winter

of

1951

the

North

Dayang

association,

which had

stopped

performing

during

the

constant

warfare of the

preceding years,

recruited

over

30

boys

to

study

the

sheng-guan

music. But

by

1957

the

association had

to

stop

under the

pressures

of

collectivization. In

Tianhou the

association had

eight

new

sheng mouth-organs

made.

The

notated

gongche

scores

of

village

Music

Associations

make an

interesting

index

of their

life-force.

While we

have

found

many

scores

from the

troubled

Republican

period,

we

also noted the

great

energy

since 1949 in

maintaining

the

tradition.

Many

scores were

recopied,

in

the teeth

of

new

pressures,

in

the

early

'50s,

the

early

'60s,

and

throughout

the

'80s

and

'90s.

Brief

histories were

even

written,

often

on

donors' lists

commemorating

villagers'

support

for

the

buying

of new

instruments

or ritual

paintings.

If

the

early

1950s

were a

period

of

optimism

and

renewal for

some

associations,

many

others

must

have fallen

silent.

Under

Communist

deology,

the

status of

village

Music

Associations was

now

ambivalent.

Many

stayed

intact

in

the

early

1950s,

but

"though

the

music wasn't

superstitious,

it

was

treading

the

same

path

as

superstition",

so

activity

was

always sensitive. Yet the supportof

village communities,

and

village

cadres,

often

deflected

central

policy.

Which

ritual

associations

stopped

practising,

or

failed

to

revive,

after

Liberation,

and

why?

Most

of those

still

practising

now,

of

course,

kept going

then,

only

being

severely

restricted

from

about

1964

to the

late

1970s.

Even

where

villagers

wanted to

keep

their

association

going,

in

the

face

of the

prevailing

ethos of the

new

central

regime

they

sometimes

felt

unable

to do

so.

Such

restrictions since 1949

are

often

expressed

by

the

term

"we

didn't dare

play"

(bugan

chui).

Note the

natural

expression

of

conflict with

the

central

authorities

-

we

heard

no trace of

any

rhetoric

about

"no

longer

wanting

to

practise superstitionnow that the Partyhad liberatedus", such as one finds in

official

sources.

Some

associations

ceased

practising

without

any specific

prohibition.

The

decline was

sometimes

casual or

personal,

not

explicitly political.

The

Guanyin


19/41

44

BRITISH

JOURNAL

OF

ETHNOMUSICOLOGY

VOL.8

1999

Hall

association

of

South Gaoluo

stopped performing

vocal

liturgy

not so

much

because

of

official

disapproval,

but rather

because their

senior ritual

specialist

died

in 1950

before

youngsters

had

had time

to learn

properly.

In

East

Laoping

after 1950 no one interferedwith ritual activity, but "life was no good", so they

didn't

feel

like it

any

more.

The

Lihezhuang

association,

despite

having

a

venerable

history

going

back

to

the

eighteenth

century

and

some

fine

musicians,

ceased

practising

for

ever

in

1953:

despite

senior

villagers'

insistence

that

the

association

was the

only

diversion

(wanyi'er)

in

the whole

village

(cf.

Jones

1998:59)

and that

they

must

not be the

generation

to let

it

die,

the

village

leaders,

although

not

against

it,

felt

unable to

risk

supporting

it.

Still,

many

Music Associations

practised

relatively

untroubled until

about

1956.

Itinerant

sheng-repairer

Qi

Youzhi could

not find

any

more work

in

Beijing

after

1949,

since the

temples

had

all

closed down

and

sheng-guan

music was now rare

there,

but he still found

plenty

of work

mending

sheng for

village

Music

Associations.

But with

temples

and sects

disappearing,

the ritual

activities

of the Music

Associations

were

increasingly

isolated.

Temple

life

was

becoming

tenuous

after

the

mid 1940s. As we

saw,

temples

had

already

been

under attack

from

many

angles

for

half

a

century,

and

from

the

Communists

since

at least

the late

1930s.

Priests

were

laicized,

seldom

willingly.

Campaigns

against

"secret"

sects,

fierce

in

1950-51,

continued

intermittently

throughout

the

1950s,

even into

the Cultural

Revolution.

In

some

villages up

to

80%

of

people

were

members

of

sects;

ringleaders

were

executed

or taken

off to

labour

camps,

but

few musicians

or

ordinary

members seem

to

have

been

implicated.

In

Hanzhuang

in

the

early

1950s

the

Music

Association

practised

without

problems,

supported

by

the

village

leadership.

Xie

Yongxiang,

a

staunch

Party

member and

educated

village

leader,

himself a

member of

both the

Music

Association

and

the "Tea-leaves

teachings"

sect,

took

responsibility

for

getting

the

sect to

stop

activity.

In

most

villages

people

realized

they

had

no

choice,

that

"the nail

was

positioned

on the

plank"

(banshang

dianding)

-

a

proverb

expressing

unspoken

political

pressure.

Villagers

remind

us that

the sects

did

not

perform

the

same ritual

as the

village-wide associations;

the

loss of sectarian

leaders

was

no loss for the

public

ritual.

However,

the

Music

Association

was,

and

is,

an

important

agent

of

village

solidarity.

It

had as

much

popular

support

in the new

society

as in

the

old:

many

members

were stalwarts

of the Communist

revolution.

One

strange

side-effect

of the

policies

of the

early

1950s

is that the

very

fact

of

closing

down

temples

and

returning priests

to

the

laity

acted as

a

stimulus

to

the transmission

of

sheng-guan

music

and

ritual

from

priests

to

lay

villagers.

Several

Music

Associations

were

established

only

in

the

early

1950s;

priests

who had

previously

held a lucrative

monopoly

over

the vocal

liturgy

and

sheng-guan

music

now

felt

obliged

to

hand

them

on to

ordinary

villagers.

All

too soon

after

Liberation,despite

the

revival which

peaceful

conditions

encouraged,

some

village

musicians

were

"volunteered"

o serve

on the

Korean

Front.

Many

deserted

long

before

they

arrived,

but

Liu

Zhenjiang,

from

the

Yishangying

association, stayed

the

course.

Like

many

new

students,

he

only


20/41

JONES Chinese ritual music under

Mao and

Deng

45

started

learning

the music in

1950. He now took his

guanzi

with him

to the

front

so he could

practise

Religious

belief was evident even

in

the

new

People's

Liberation

Army:

the local

goddess

Houtu

is

widely

believed to

have

rescued

a

troupe

in the Korean War- and

again

later in the Vietnam War.

3.2

Collectivization and

the

Great

Leap

Forward

(1954-9)

If

the initial

period

after Liberation had been

relatively

tranquil, by

the mid

1950s collectivization

led

to the

establishment

of

people's

communes,

and to

the militarized

labour and communal canteens

of the

Great

Leap

Forward.

These

campaigns

soon caused

immense social

disruption.

As

campaigns.

mass

meetings

and

forced labour

intensified,

people simply

had less free

time for

cultural

pursuits.

Music Associations were

severely

damaged;

several

had to

suspend

activity.

Notwithstanding

the

brief

"honeymoon"

after

Liberation,

as

collectivization

began

to

be

enforced,

cultural life

was "watered

down".

Villagers

commonly

apply

this

image

of

dilution or

depression

to

politically

sensitive

periods;

other common

descriptions

of

the influence of

collectivization

on

culture are

"we

got

by"

(couhe)

and

zaotale

(something

like

"things

went to the

dogs").

Compare

the

comment of

a

Bulgarian

shepherd

recalling

how

in

the 1950s he

no

longer

played

the flute: "There is

no

life,

little

cousin"

(Rice

1994:35);

interviews

with

folk-singers

in

southern

Jiangsu

villages suggest

a similar

picture (Schimmelpenninck 1997:135).

Yet the

history

of

the

Hebei

ritual associations is more

complex. They

seem

to

have survived more

obstinately

than some more

secular,

individual,

and

entertainment

traditions,

since

they

have

continued to

serve

a social

function

which has

never been

replaced.

One

basic

change

chinese ritual music under mao and deng

Documents