The mysterious Millennium bronze drum in the south "rings" again.

The first issue: May 24th "Xinhua Daily Telegraph" Grass Weekly Author: Xinhua Daily Telegraph reporters Dong Zhenguo and Huang Yaoteng found a bronze drum in the Hongshui River basin. Although the drum head is worn, the handwriting is still clearly visible. It has been passed down for 20 generations and is now in the folk collection of Guangxi Donglan bronze drum. Xinhua News Agency reporter Zhang Ailin photo ""There are many stars in the sky and many bronze drums on the ground; Stars and bronze drums give us happiness. "Guangxi Zhuang people have sung this bronze drum song handed down from generation to generation. In Guangxi, every major festival, wedding, funeral and other activities, Zhuang, Yao, Dong, Shui and other ethnic minorities have to knock bronze drums. The bronze drum is the most representative cultural relic of ancient southern minorities in China and Southeast Asia. Historians have the saying that "the drum is in the north and the drum is in the south". According to Jiang, former president of China Ancient Bronze Drum Research Association, in the development process of more than 2,000 years, bronze drums have been closely linked with the social, economic and cultural life of local ethnic groups, forming a unique bronze drum culture. The bronze drum is one of the most convincing evidences of cultural exchange between China and Southeast Asia. As far as we know, nine countries including Vietnam, Thailand, Laos, Myanmar, Cambodia, Indonesia, Malaysia, Singapore and Brunei have cast or used bronze drums, and some countries and ethnic groups still use them today. " Jiang said to him. The bronze drum culture in Southeast Asia has a long history. The main decorative patterns on the bronze drum, such as sun pattern, bird pattern and feather pattern, are very similar or identical to those on the bronze drum in southern China, which shows that China has had exchanges and contacts with the people of Southeast Asian countries for a long time. In the long historical period before the founding of New China, owning bronze drums was often a symbol of power. In recent years, with the state's attention and protection of intangible cultural heritage, the bronze drum culture has flourished again. In southwest areas such as Guangxi and Guizhou, many people began to buy bronze drums and put them at home. In case of major festivals and festive family affairs, they have sounded bronze drums. As a national musical instrument, bronze drums have also begun to enter the campus to cultivate students' artistic accomplishment. In Baying Village, Bachou Township, Donglan, Guangxi, ethnic minority compatriots took part in the "Ma Huai Festival" with bronze drums. Xinhua News Agency reporter Lu Boan photographed the bronze drums in China and Myanmar, the carrier of ancient culture in Southeast Asia, with a long history. Liu Gao's Records of Different Ridges in Tang Dynasty recorded: "There are jade snails in Zhenyuan and bronze drums in Jin State." We were founded by ancient Burmese. According to historical records, in 802 AD, the Queen Mother of the West sent a prince to visit China and presented music with bronze drums in Chang 'an. Bai Juyi, a famous poet, also wrote a song "Lu Guole" for this purpose: "The jade snail blows the ridge, and the bronze drum hits the tattoo a thousand times." Viet Nam is the second largest bronze drum country after China. The bronze drum unearthed from the Dongshan cultural site in Kyohhwa province, Vietnam, is considered by experts to be the earliest bronze drum in Vietnam. /kloc-in the 0/4th century, there were myths and legends related to bronze drums in Vietnamese Chinese manuscripts, such as Yue Dian Ji Gui and Ling Nan Guai. /kloc-in the 0/4th century, the ancient Thai book Sanjie Jing also mentioned bronze drums: "gongs and drums report to the sky, the faluohao rings, the golden bell jingles, and the bronze drums are in winter and winter." "In the early days of Ayutthaya, the bronze drum was once again mentioned in the court decree issued by Boromo Dalgana and regarded as one of the court musical instruments. Of the ten ASEAN countries, except the Philippines, all the other nine countries have bronze drums. The bronze drums in China are highly similar to those in Southeast Asian countries in shape, style and decorative patterns. 1979, Japanese scholar Kyle Imamura published an article about the first I-type bronze drum in the research summary of the Archaeological Research Office of the University of Tokyo, and put forward the proposition that the first Hegelian I-type bronze drum was the earliest bronze drum classified by China scholars, which was found in both Viet Nam and Thailand. Some scholars believe that the early Dongshan bronze drum in Vietnam was developed on the basis of Wanjiaba bronze drum in China. The 80-year-old Jiang, a native of Xing 'an, Guangxi, has been engaged in bronze drum research for more than 30 years. He has been to Vietnam several times. By comparing the shapes and patterns of bronze drums, he found that Dongshan bronze drum was similar to China Shizhaishan bronze drum and cold water bronze drum: "The early Dongshan bronze drum was influenced by Wanjiaba bronze drum, and developed in parallel with China Shizhaishan bronze drum, with similarities and differences. In the late Vietnam, Dongshan bronze drum in turn influenced the development of Chinese bronze drum and created a new type of cold water washing bronze drum. This early civilization exchange promoted each other, which made the bronze drum culture reach a peak. Scholars at home and abroad have different classifications of bronze drums, but whether it is Huang Xia drum, Guangchang drum, Hanoi drum, Uban drum in Laos, Battambang drum and Tosta drum in Cambodia, Eight Banners drum in Myanmar, or magistrate drum in Thailand, these bronze drums in different countries and at different periods are similar to a certain type of bronze drum in China. In recent years, the friendly relations between China and ASEAN have developed rapidly, and the economic, trade and cultural exchanges between the two sides have deepened. China-ASEAN Expo permanently settled in Nanning. The similarities in language and culture between the ethnic minorities in southwest China and the ethnic minorities in ASEAN countries provide a foundation for promoting the rapid development of China-ASEAN relations and deepening economic, trade and cultural exchanges. Tonggu culture is a good proof that cultures of different countries and regions can influence each other, promote each other and prosper together through mutual learning. Bronze drums on display in Guangxi National Museum. Xinhua News Agency reporter Lu Boan photographed legends and totem worship in Vietnam. It is mentioned in myths and legends that when an ancient leader went out to war, he dreamed of mountain gods at night and asked to bring bronze drums to help the army. Finally, with the help of the bronze drum, he won. The ancestor of Zhuang nationality is called Buluotuo. In Zhuang language, "Buluotuo" means "the old man in the mountains" or "the old man who knows everything". In the oral literature of Zhuang ancestors, Buluotuo was the god of creation and morality. It is said that Buluotuo has made great achievements in opening up heaven and earth, repairing everything, making fires, opening the Red River, making grains, making cattle, breeding birds, building houses and shooting the sun. Bronze drums are also made of Buluotuo. After Buluotuo created man from heaven and earth, he made his home in Zaitian An, but sometimes he flew down from the sky to listen to the voice of the world and see what the world lacked before he created it. Once, people on the earth said, "Everything on the earth is fine except the lack of stars." Gibraltar said, "Yes, there should be stars on the ground." So Buluotuo led people to use three-color mud as molds, collect malachite, cut green steel and wood, and burn stone to make copper. After three days and three nights, an object with two big ends and a small middle, a covered end and an empty end was made. There is a big and bright star at the top, and there are some small stars around it. Buluotuo hit the big star with his fist and made a sound of "throwing people and running". Buluotuo said to people, "These things are called Jean Valjean, and they are the stars on the earth. The word "Arun" in Zhuang language is a bronze drum, and "throwing people and running" is the homonym of "protecting villages" in Zhuang language. Legend has it that since then, the Zhuang people have had bronze drums, and the songs of bronze drums have been passed down from generation to generation. According to Yao's legend, the bronze drum was made by his ancestor Maitreya who sent his son. According to Buyi legend, the bronze drum was sacrificed by the ancestor Jeb to make the old Buyi people immortal on the 12 floor after their death, and was obtained from the gods. According to the legend of the Yi people in Napo, Guangxi, bronze drums were cast by their ancestors Polo and Luo Lifen. Every time the Yi people jump into the bow on the first day of the fourth month of the lunar calendar, The Book of Songs, King of Bronze Drum, sung in the festival, tells the story of the couple's experience in casting bronze drums. All ethnic minorities regard the bronze drum as an artifact of heaven, and believe that the sound of the bronze drum can communicate with the gods in heaven. Jiang said that in some ethnic minority areas where bronze drums are used, foreigners can't play bronze drums or even touch them, otherwise it will be regarded as disrespect for God. Bronze drums are sacred objects, often used to live in towns and houses, or as an indispensable artifact in sacrificial activities. In the Zhuang villages of Donglan, Bama, Tiane and Nandan on both sides of the Hongshui River in Guangxi, the "Frog Festival" is held every year from the first day of the Lunar New Year to the second day of February to pray for good weather and good harvests. "Frog Festival" is also called "Mahuai Festival" in the local area, and knocking on bronze drums is an important link in sacrificial activities. Cold water bronze drums, Lingshan bronze drums, Beiliu bronze drums and Ximeng bronze drums basically have frogs or three-dimensional decorations on the drums. The Zunyi bronze drum, which was developed on the basis of punching holes in cold water, has traces of frog's claws, although there are no frogs. According to the legend of Zhuang, frogs are children, and they are the messengers of communication between the human world and Thor. Dancing frog dance, beating bronze drums and singing frog songs at the frog festival is to tell Raytheon in the sky that people are offering sacrifices to frogs and expressing their respect for Raytheon. In the Wa nationality area of Ximeng, Yunnan province, where Ximeng bronze drums are used, it is said that the bronze drums were made by the children of a frog couple who had worked in the mountains. Frogs are cast on bronze drums to commemorate the ancestors of frogs who have been cultivated into adults. Besides frogs, cows and horses and other three-dimensional decorations, there are some Yun Leiwen decorations on the bronze drums, which reflects that ethnic minorities regard the bronze drums as sacred objects, hoping to pray for the blessing of the gods by beating the bronze drums, good weather and good rice harvest. Therefore, the bronze drum has become the totem of the national worship of rice on both sides of the Hongshui River. Where is the real birthplace of the bronze drum full of myths and legends? How did it spread from its origin? With the continuous evolution of more than two thousand years of history, I like Zhuang culture. In the center, the bright sun shines brightly. Portrait of Zhou Tianchen 12, the number of overlapping lines in the clouds. On the edge, squatting frogs are in pairs, serving cattle and horses. Find a path and grow; The path is close at hand, exquisite and elegant. Not all the same. Ma Yuan of the Eastern Han Dynasty once saw this, and the title of Daoguang was just below it. Come to think of it, it is wrong to build a cellar. 1in March, 963, Guo Moruo, a famous historian, visited the bronze drum exhibition of Guangxi Museum in Nanning and was amazed at the artistic styles of bronze drums with different shapes and exquisite production. He wrote this song "Man Jiang Hong". The earliest record of bronze drums in the official history originated from Ye Fan's Biography of Ma Yuan in the Southern and Northern Dynasties: "A good rider can be called a horse, and the bronze drum in Luoyue site will be cast as a horse and returned. "In the tomb of Wanjiaba in Chuxiong, Yunnan, the most precious unearthed cultural relics are five bronze drums. According to the determination of "C 14", the tombs where these bronze drums are located are about 2700 years ago, which means that the earliest bronze drums have appeared in the Spring and Autumn Period and the Warring States Period. This confirms that Chuxiong, Yunnan is the birthplace of bronze drums, which has put an end to the debate on the origin of bronze drums. " Jiang said to him. Jiang Shi graduated from the famous archaeologist Su, 1964 in Peking University. He recalled his first "encounter" with the bronze drum: 1962, 1 In June, Su took the students to visit the Chinese History Museum. In the frontier minority culture exhibition area, Jiang first saw the bronze drum unearthed in Cenxi, Guangxi, and felt cordial, and formed an indissoluble bond with it. Jiang has been engaged in bronze drum research for more than 30 years, and has edited or participated in the compilation of more than 20 monographs on bronze drums. Bronze drums were originally used for cooking. Jiang believes that bronze drums evolved from copper pots. Kettle is mainly used for cooking and cooking. The ancients turned it over and knocked it after dinner to get a sound with certain musical effect. Over time, the copper pot gradually evolved into a special percussion instrument. There are traces of fire at the bottom of the bronze drum unearthed in Wanjiaba, which can confirm this view. "How did bronze drums spread from Yunnan to such a vast area? Jiang believes that bronze drums are mainly circulated along the river. Geographically, the Hongshui River, which runs through the whole territory of Guangxi, originates from Maxiong Mountain in Qujing City, eastern Yunnan Province, and has many tributaries in Guangxi. Beipanjiang, the largest tributary of Hongshui River, flows through Yunnan and Guizhou, and tributaries in Guizhou include Sanglang River and Mengjiang River. The lower reaches of Hongshui River are Liujiang-Qianjiang-Jiang Xun-Xijiang River, and finally it flows into the sea through the Pearl River. Wanjiaba, Chuxiong, Yunnan, the birthplace of bronze drums, is located on the west bank of Qinglong, a tributary of Longchuan River, a first-class tributary of Jinsha River in the upper reaches of the Yangtze River. The distribution of these rivers is consistent with the appearance of bronze drums in only nine provinces in China: Yunnan, Guangxi, Guangdong, Hainan, Guizhou, Sichuan, Chongqing, Hunan and Hubei. At present, more than 60 large murals have been found on some rock walls along the Zuojiang River, which is more than 200 kilometers long in Guangxi. According to textual research, these murals were left by Guluoyue, the ancestors of Zhuang nationality who lived and multiplied here more than two thousand years ago. The most famous is Huashan Rock Painting in Ningming County, Guangxi. Its cliff is more than 270 meters high and 350 meters long from north to south. There are more than 300 painted images/kloc-0, including people, boats, horses and bronze drums. These rock paintings probably recorded the activities of the ancient bronze drum god Saijiang. In the long process of communication, the shape, modeling and decoration of bronze drums are constantly changing. Its function has gradually changed from cooking copper pots and percussion instruments to a symbol of the power and wealth of the ruling class, and finally became a ritual vessel and sacrifice for ethnic minority leaders or nobles. Although the bronze drum originated in Yunnan, it developed and prospered in Guangxi. Jiang said that no matter the number of bronze drums found, the distribution range of bronze drums, the strength of folk collection, the frequency of using bronze drums now and the richness of information, Guangxi is undoubtedly the highest in the country and even in the world. The Lost Craft and the "New Life" of the Millennium Bronze Drum Some people in the United States, Japan, Britain, Vietnam, Laos, Thailand and other countries are doing bronze drum research. There is some lack of stamina in the study of Chinese bronze drums, and young people are not interested in studying bronze drums. Jiang is quite worried about this. The bronze drums, which were once popular in many provinces of China, are still used only in northwest Guangxi, Guangxi, Yunnan and Guizhou. The research on bronze drums in academic circles started earlier in foreign countries than in China. It is Austrian scholar Francie Hegel who really studies bronze drums systematically with modern scientific methods. At the end of 19, with the help of sinologist Friedrich Hirth, he studied China's ancient books, combined with the bronze drums and materials collected by the Vienna Museum, and completed the book "Ancient Metal Drum in Southeast Asia". In Viet Nam, the research on bronze drums has a long history, and even has a close relationship with China. In Japan, bronze drums have also attracted the research interest of some scholars. Jiang said that when he was invited to visit Japan in 1995, he saw the bronze drum collection at the University of Tokyo. The Southeast Asian Society in Tokyo, Japan also held a conference on "Archaeology and Bronze Drum Research" and a special branch on "Bronze Drum Research in Geography". Jiang was deeply moved to hold a bronze drum research conference in a country where people do not circulate and use bronze drums. When foreign scholars argued about bronze drums in full swing, it was not until 1930s that some scholars in China realized the necessity of collecting and studying bronze drums. After the founding of New China, the research and collection of bronze drums entered a new stage of development. During the Daoguang period of the Qing Dynasty, especially after the Opium War, the casting of bronze drums basically stopped, and correspondingly, the casting skills of bronze drums were slowly lost. Jiang said that the process of casting bronze drums has not been recorded in any historical documents so far. The site of casting bronze drums still exists, but there is no casting mold left. In the late 1950s, some surviving bronze drums were destroyed or destroyed in iron and steel smelting, and the number of bronze drums decreased sharply. In addition, the lost manufacturing technology makes this "living fossil" of minority culture face great crisis. In May 2006, the custom of bronze drums of Zhuang nationality was listed in the first batch of national intangible cultural heritage lists, and the customs and festivals related to bronze drums, such as the frog festival of Zhuang nationality, the bronze drum dance of Bai Ku Yao in Nandan and the Twelve Tunes of Buyi nationality, were listed in the national intangible cultural heritage list one after another. Under the repeated experiments of folk bronze drum lovers, bronze drum casting ushered in a "new life". Now, Donglan and Huanjiang Maonan Autonomous County have factories to make bronze drums. Now almost every village in Donglan has bronze drums, sometimes the villagers buy them themselves, and sometimes the whole village chips in to buy them. Jing, the founder of Donglan Heritage Folk Bronze Drum Factory, said that in recent years, more and more people have bought bronze drums. In Donglan, Nandan and other counties, the habit of knocking on bronze drums is restored at festivals, opening ceremonies, weddings and funerals. Last year, in Donglan alone, 500 sets of bronze drums were sold. If it is sold to Guizhou, Yunnan, there are about 2,000 sets. " A set of bronze drums with four different tones is commonly used in northwest Guangxi. During the Spring Festival, all the bronze drums here are out of stock. Ya Yunyong, the founder of another bronze drum factory, said that most of the bronze drums originally used as gifts are now sold to villagers for their own use. Yayun played a piece of music with 12 bronze drum, which was loud and exciting. Scenes of ancient ancestors beating bronze drums, celebrating dances or praying for heaven seem to emerge in front of us, and the sound of drums for thousands of years has echoed in historical time and space for a long time. Producer of previous articles: Yi Yangang | Editor: Zhang Hui | Proofreader: Zhao Cen