A Study On "Kuang Bong",Dai’s Musical Instrument In Dehong Prefecture

"Kuang Bong"(it’s called "Big-and-Small-Head Drum" or "Double-Face Drum" in Chinese) is Dai’s traditional drum, it’s only popular in Shina Village, Yingjiang County, Dehong Prefecture, Yunnan Province, and it’s widely used in local religious rituals and folk activities there. It’s a folk art combined with religion and entertainment in one, and also a cultural sign and symbol. On the base of full field investigation on Kuang Bong and analyzing field surveys with the combination of theories of Musicology and Folklore and so on, the dissertation consists of five parts to give the full descriptions of Kuang Bong in deep-depth.Chapter Ⅰ discriminates the name of "Kuang Bong" by researches of literatures, oral literatures, and comparative research."Kuang" in "Kuang Bong" should be interpreted as "Kuang" in Dai’s pronunciation, meaning "a drum"; and "Bong" in "Kuang Bong"is an onomatopoeia which imitates the sound of striking this kind of instrument, sounding "Bong, Bong";"Kuang Bong" means a drum which sounds "Bong, Bong". This part also discusses the origin of Kuang Bong, and draws an conclusion that "Kuang Bong", a Dai’s musical instrument in Shina Village has evolved from Dai’s traditional musical instrument called "Kuang Nung"(It’s named "Double-face Big Drum" in Chinese), its evolutionary motive arises from Dai’s pioneers in Shina Village Who wanted to establish a life room.Chapter Ⅱ gives detailed descriptions and records of the course of making Kuang Bong, keeping Kuang Bong, and music score of Kuang Bong. Through discussing the reasons of similarities and differences of Kuang Bong’s rhythm style in16sites of Shina Village, the author concludes that Dai in Shina Village chose special geographic space to form a big cultural circle which contains a survival pattern of three relatively isolated small cultural circles, which makes three relatively closed circles have some prerequisites of producing new things, and to make Kuang Bong’s rhythm style in three cultural circles become different and form three styles of rhythm. Moreover, when performers who play Kuang Bong in three cultural circles in Shina Village recreate Kuang Bong’s rhythm style which is approved and loved by villagers, it triggers imitation of t village people, which forms the reason of the same rhythm style in the same area.Chapter III Under the rapid change, variation, even extinction of ethnic groups’ art and culture, the tradition which it depends on and inherits and its closed pattern have broken, ethnic groups’art and culture faces more survival difficulties and challenges. But Kuang Bong in Shina Village continues to be widely used in local on the influence of the life attitude for sticking to their own traditional culture. This part gives descriptions in detail of the religious rituals of striking Kuang Bong in Buddhism Temple on the Spring Festival before and welcoming new Buddhist to the Buddhism Temple and so on, also describes usages of folk field of visiting relatives, Paying a New Year Call, greeting new homes, bidding farewell to friends, sacrificing the dead old, which constitutes a cultural refraction and reproduction on local knowledge of the research.Chapter IV As an instrument, Kuang Bong’s function is that some a part of activities plays a role in the whole activity mentioned. Kuang Bong is used in a particular way in Dai’s society in Shina Village, practices different functions in different specific situations. The dissertation places the descriptive facts in a broader context, and it concludes Kuang Bong has functions of social construction, emotional expression, symbolizing and communicating.Chapter V This Chapter studies Kuang Bong’s successors and the status of inheritance, analyzes deeply the refraction and reproduction of the social gender theory in ethnic minorities’real life is the real reason of not allowing the female playing Kuang Bong. The dissertation gets that the reason that Kuang Bong can be inherited very well in the contemporary context is functions of the religious inspiration of Kuang Bong’s sound, the mode of inheritance with customs activities, the simple and easy playing skills and cross-border performance incentives. Meanwhile, After comparing ethnic group’s folk music inside and outside with Kuang Bong, this part concludes a view that only folk music art which develops in the ecological patterns of inner humanistic culture context can be inherited very well under self-conscious drive of ethnic group’s culture. And this part analyzes three evolutionary levels of Kuang Bong’s inheritance, and proposes that re-creation of ethnic folk art should follow local culture’s original culture background.