Buch, Englisch, 250 Seiten, Format (B × H): 163 mm x 243 mm
Music, Memory and Ritual Among the Sibe of Xinjiang
Buch, Englisch, 250 Seiten, Format (B × H): 163 mm x 243 mm
Reihe: British Academy Postdoctoral Fellowship Monographs
ISBN: 978-0-19-726297-9
Verlag: Oxford University Press
The Sibe are an immigrant group, Qing dynasty bannermen who made a three-year "long march" from Manchuria in the 18th century to serve as a border garrison in the newly conquered Western Regions of the Qing Chinese empire. They preserved their military structure and a discrete identity in the multi-ethnic region of Xinjiang and are now officially recognised as an ethnic minority nationality under the People's Republic. They are known in China today as the last speakers of the Manchu
language, and as preservers of their ancient traditions. This study of their music culture reveals not fossilised tradition but a shifting web of borrowings, assimilation and retention.
Singing the Village is a readable, anthropologically interesting and musically informed account of culture and performance in the Chinese region of Xinjiang. The book approaches musical and ritual life in this ethnically diverse region through an understanding of society in terms of negotiation, practice and performance. It explores the relations between shamanism, song and notions of externality and danger, bringing recent theories on shamanism to bear on questions of the structural and
affective powers of ritual music. It focuses on the historical demands of identity, boundary maintenance and creation among the Sibe, and on the role of musical performance in maintaining popular memory, and it discusses the impact of state policies of the Chinese Communist Party on village musical and
ritual life.
Singing the Village draws on a wide range of Chinese, Sibe-Manchu language sources, and oral sources including musical recordings and interviews gathered in the course of fieldwork in Xinjiang. It includes musical transcriptions, glossaries of Sibe-Manchu and Chinese terms, and is accompanied by a free CD which includes 30 original field recordings.
