เพลงชาวเขา - มูเซอ | Hill Tribe Music: Lahu

เพลงชาวเขา - มูเซอ | Hill Tribe Music: Lahu

If you guys are interested in the (potential) lyrics 🎵🎶 - I will manually copy the following on my blog, from a book titled: Gender Unity And Equality Among The Lahu Of Southwest China "Chopsticks Only Work In Pairs" 🕮 - Those lyrics are probably very similar to the recordings of this tape 📼

Three sets of lyrics in the book 🪧

(to make it exact: I'm putting excerpts of the lyrics, including the prefix to the lyrics - to make it more comprehensible)

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(Pg. 72) Xeul Sha has constituted the central theme of almost all the important Lahu rituals, including weddings, funerals, healing, and the seeking of blessings.  A married couple is expected to function as a joint entity to relate to Xeul Sha (Lei ad Lui 1999:124), as exemplified by the following verses from a ritual performed to improve the well-being of the household co-headed by the husband and wife Cal Yawl and Na Meiq (Cal Yawl 1989:184-185).

1️⃣

Ties the festival string [to his wrist] / It is the ritual of Xeul

Ties the festival strings [to his wrist] / It is the principal of Sha . . .

A pair of sticky-rice cakes makes the festival gift / Brings the offering of Cal Yawl

Seeking blessing seeds from Xeul Sha / Bring blessing seeds to sow in the fields

Use a pair of beeswax candles as festival flowers / Bring the offering of Na Meiq

Seeking longevity seeds from Xeul Sha / Planting longevity seeds to hearts.

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(Pg. 83-84) Traditional Lahu courting songs aesthetically romanticize the extraordinary care of a husband for his pregnant wife, as shown by the following typical versus sung by a male to his love:²

2️⃣ (Part 1)

When you carry a burden inside you / I am responsible for that burden.

When we weed the field / you only need to weed

Three handfuls of grasses at the top of the field,

Three handfuls of grasses at the end of the field,

Three handfuls of grasses at the left side of the field,

Three handfuls of grasses at the right side of the field,

You may take a rest afterwards / I will finish weeding the rest.

After the weeding is finished / all the credit will be yours

Because you have weeded the field / at the top and the end

At the front and the rear / At the left and the right.

What I have done is just patching the details in the middle . . . .

At harvest time / you only need to carry the sickle.

I will carry the threshing stick and three pieces of mat,

The mat I have spent three days weaving from bamboo strips.

You harvest at the top and the end of the field / The left and the right of the field,

You will harvest with such a little effort / You were merely counting the rows.

On our way home / You only need to carry the light pig food.

You will carry the grain on my back,

You will hold the gourd-and-pipe [a musical instrument] in my hands,

I will play the music while carrying home the grain.

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(Pg. 104) Corresponding to such a committed loving offer, the young woman also assures her lover of her commitment to work together as an inseparable pair even during her future imagined pregnancy:

2️⃣ (Part 2)

I will carry our child within me for ten months / Within these ten months³

I will carry the child up to the mountains / Five months and ninety-nine times,

I will carry the child down to the rivers / Five months and seventy-seven times.

But I will not blame you for the arduous task,

The task to carry the child even before its birth.

Although my body will be heavy,

I will be with you all the time / I will not be separate from you in our work

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Typically, two lovers sing such songs antiphonally to each other in anticipation of their future marriage, depicting their imagined spiritual journey to attain ritual materials and to perform rituals to seek blessings from Xeul Sha.  The following versus are some extracts from a version of "chasing bees" in which the couple acts as a team in all tasks described in the nearly five hundred versus (Cal Yawl 1989:235-246),

3️⃣

Two of us join heart and strength / high mountains and steep rocks cannot deter us.

You hold a long knife in your right hand / I hold a chopped knife in my left hand

Fell silver bamboo at one end of the valley basin,

Fell golden bamboo at the other end of the valley basin.

The silver pole is as long as seventy-seven joints

The golden pole is as high as seventy-seven joints.

You raise a hand to the honeycomb / I raise a hand to reach the beeswax. . . .

You use a steel knife / I hand a steel axe,

Cutting trees in a pair / Felling a tree to make drums. . . .

We arrive at the place where many rivers converge / Begin to chop the tree.

Each stands on each side / Each chops one at a time. . . .

Tasks of blacksmith and carpeting / You and I learn to do,

[Learning] the skills of blacksmith / [Learning] the craft of carpeting. . . .

It took three nights take make the male drum / It took three nights to make the female drum,

Finished the male-female drums / [We] need to get animal skins to cover the drums. . . .

You led a yellow dog / I led a black dog. . . .

With hard bows and arrows in hands / Go to hunt barking deer and red deer.

You shoot an arrow / Kill a barking deer,

I shoot an arrow / Kill a red deer.

Stretch the skin of the red deer on the male drum,

Stretch the skin of the barking deer on female drum.