Study On Vicissitudes Of Filial Song Custom In North Of Guangxi

Filial song custom is a special ritual among traditional customs, featuring demonstration of ritual events as well as entertaining people. Boasting a long history,the filial song custom has been handed down with the steady spread and heritage of traditional culture of funeral ceremony. The academia, however, has not paid much attention to this field. Domestic studies basically focus on"dance at funeral", a custom maintained by Tujia ethnic group in Hubei Province while filial song customsin other areas catch little attention. Over the years, there have been very few achievements, except for a couple of papers, in studies on other areas other than someresults regarding"dance at funeral"of Tujia ethnic group. No greater achievements have been seen at all.In order to reflect the existing regional condition and characteristics of spread and heritage of areas where filial song custom is present, the dissertation choseHaiyang, Lingchuan County, Guangxi, a hot spot for study on the custom, for its fieldinvestigation. This is because filial song custom is widespread in Haiyang. Inaccordance with the theory of"theory of culture circle", Haiyang is, located in the northeast of Guangxi, on the edge of Hunan Culture dissemination where moretraditional factors may be kept. In addition, choosing this area for study can not onlyreflect features and current situation of this folk-custom in North of Guangxi, but, to a larger extent, make up for insufficient areas relating to study on filial song custom inChina. The dissertation bases its study on perspective of activities of the singer,individual who sings filial songs. This is done aiming to demonstrate current situationand heritage characteristics of filial song custom, thus analyzing the justifiable core ofthe custom so that it can be made use of in community development in thecountryside.To make real the goals above, the dissertation, starting from looking into life offilial song singers, presents vicissitudes of the custom based on changes of thesingers'living conditions. Description of the singers'living background and currentsituation is realized mainly by literature research and field investigation. The study,surrounding the dimension of time, reflects combination of individual life and filialsong custom. Further more, field investigation is adopted to describe and analyzesocial activities of singers from the dimension of space, thus reflecting existingsituation of the space for filial song spread and heritage. Characteristics of thedissertation lie in combination of the two.In general, the dissertation consists of two large portions. The first portion is theoutline of study on filial song custom and behavior and activities of filial song,including preface, review of current research, source, characteristics, distribution areas of filial song custom, etc. The second portion is descriptive study of cases. Specific description of the singer's life is comprised of his hometown, current residence, modes of communication, and so on. In terms of the singer's social life, principally observed are his economic activities and literary and art activities somewhat related to filial song custom. In the process of observing and describing different circles of the singers, vicissitudes and existence of custom are reflected.It is conclusion at the end of the dissertation, stating that description of individual object of study specifically reflects the endangered filial song custom which is a precious heritage of folk culture deserving protection.