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Traceability of English songs

English songs are a popular folk dance form in Puning, with a history of more than 300 years. They are regarded as symbols of encouraging positive pressure and evil, good luck and peace, deeply loved and respected by the masses, and have a broad mass and social foundation.

Puning Ying Ge has a history of about 400 years. It originated from people's interest in practicing martial arts (learning fists) after work to eliminate fatigue and enhance physical fitness. On the basis of practicing martial arts, according to the story that Liang Shanbo, a hero of the Song Dynasty, attacked Daming Mansion, he created "Singing English Songs", which was passed down from generation to generation and developed into an excellent traditional folk dance of the southern Han nationality. (During the Qianlong period of the Qing Dynasty, Gantang people created Song and Dance to preach to the people. During the Xianfeng period of Qing Dynasty, Xu Yamei of Tieshan and Chen Niangkang of Dachanglong practiced martial arts in the name of singing heroes, preparing for the revival of righteous teachers. They were also famous descendants of the earlier Puning Ying Ge.

In Puning, every Spring Festival, Lantern Festival and happy celebration, songs and dances will be performed. This kind of singing and dancing performance is called "singing English songs" by the masses. Most villages in Puning have English singing groups, and many villages have five English singing groups. People call Puning "the hometown of English singing".

There are many legends about the origin of Puning English songs, and there are mainly two kinds. One is: More than 300 years ago, Waijiang Opera (Han Opera) came to Puning to perform the story that Liangshan heroes in the Song Dynasty attacked Daming Mansion and rescued Lu Junyi. Among them, singing and dancing were called singing English songs at that time. After that, the "singing" part was gradually deleted and the dance part was retained. Secondly, in the late Ming and early Qing dynasties, class contradictions were sharp, feudal landlords and bureaucratic gentry brutally oppressed farmers, and the masses practiced martial arts in the name of singing English songs in order to resist oppression. According to legend, the earliest farmers in Gantang Township went to Shaolin Temple to learn martial arts on foot under the arrangement of their father in order to resist the oppression of feudal landlords in their hometown. When I came back, because I was afraid of feudal forces, I dared not set up a museum to preach martial arts, so I adapted my learned martial arts into songs and dances and spread them to five gates in the east, west, south, north and middle schools. Over time, it has developed into a folk art form-song and dance.

Puning has many kinds of English songs. Some basic movements are to lift the stick and straighten your eyebrows, buckle the stick on your chest, bend your arms flat, March forward with a horse stance, and use more side steps to be magnificent and powerful; Have a plenty of buckle stick chest, high arm, single jump, full of verve; Some have sticks at the bottom, bottom-up, arms, single kick, big step, beautiful mallet flowers.

Song and dance performances can be performed in the streets and lanes, while dancing, or in squares or empty fixed venues. When singing and dancing, there are front sheds and back sheds (that is, front and back). The front shed is an English song, which is the main part of English song performance, and the back shed is a performance of folding opera and martial arts horse. The props performed in the front yard of English songs are mallets and tambourines. About half the performers dance mallets, half play drums, and some all use short mallets. The number of performers is not fixed. Excluding snakeheads, there are roughly 16 people, 24 people, 32 people or 36 people, 72 people, flexible and mobile. The dancer plays Liang Shanbo, the hero of the Song Dynasty, so the makeup of the dancer depends on Liang Shanbo's character image and personality characteristics. For example, Guan Sheng (or Yang Zhi) blushed with a beard, and jy had a black beard full of cheeks and barbs, dressed as a monk, with a white face. Clothing is similar to the "tight bunt" in Beijing opera, with a vest on the upper body and a "human"-shaped leg wrap on the feet. In the past, everyone hung small cards with the names of heroes in the Water Margin. No matter how many people are there during the performance, each performer's face and costume represent a hero of water margin. Song and dance performances are magnificent, sometimes as steady as Mount Tai, sometimes as a snake, sometimes as an eagle overlooks, and sometimes as a tiger goes down the mountain. The movements are: street washing, New Year greeting, field battle, back mallet, foot hook, crossing, sitting lotus, wheat ear blooming, figure 8, keel joining, killing four gates, and Ssangyong going to sea, which vividly shows the unity of heroes and heroes. English songs, gongs and drums, with bright rhythm and sonority, are even more majestic with horns and dancers' shouts. The back shed of English songs is a folding opera and a plastic surgery performance of martial arts horses. "Playing a horse with cloth" is a riding posture in which the waist and lower body are dressed with cloth, wearing an official hat and a moustache, and one performer fights with another who plays a monk and holds a long stick with a double mace. Finally, the people beat the officials. The story originated from the legend of Fentouan Temple in Puningli Lake. The whole performance procedure of English songs is complex, large-scale, with various characters and strict requirements, but it is constantly changing. At present, most English songs are performed only in the simple English song forecourt (that is, the dance part).

In those days, the God offered by the English Song Team was Marshal Tian. It is said that English songs begin to be practiced, and at the end of each performance stage, you have to worship God once. In the eyes of the masses, singing and dancing are images of heroes, symbols of good fortune and magical powers to drive away evil spirits. Every young man who is lucky enough to be chosen as an English singer will feel that he has no honor, so singing and dancing can be passed down from generation to generation.

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Puning Ying Ge's outstanding spiritual value, social value and artistic value have attracted the attention of relevant experts, winning the reputation of "Ansai waist drum in the north and Puning Ying Ge in the south", and Puning has also been rated as "the hometown of ethnic folk art in Guangdong Province".

At present, due to the unbalanced development of rural economy, the aging of inheritors and other reasons, the team of Ying Ge in Puning is out of touch, shrinking gradually and in an endangered state, which is in urgent need of rescue and protection.

The state attaches great importance to the protection of intangible cultural heritage. On May 20th, 2006, Puning Ying Ge was approved by the State Council to be included in the first batch of national intangible cultural heritage list.

A preliminary study on folk customs of Hakka mountain village in Puning

[size=4] Houxi Township has five administrative regions: Pulou, Radius, Kenglou, Mine and Pingyang. I want to briefly introduce the gods here. The mining area is dedicated to Guandi and the Five Show Huaguang Emperor. The radius is five emperors. Pit buildings are heavenly teachers, gods and heavenly teachers, and some small villages have their own western paradise. Kenglou, Pulou and Pingyang are basically the same, that is, the Seven Saints. The latter two places are connected, and the intersection point is where the Seven Sacred Palaces are located. In addition, like the Hakkas in other places, they still hold the worship of the king of heaven, earth and three mountains. At the same time, it also retains the worship of ancestors, who are regarded as protectors and sacrificed every year. At the end of New Year's Eve, the first day of the first month or the second day of the first month, sacrifices are mainly made by the same ancestors of the village. Qingming, on the other hand, is a ritual activity based on surnames, with families as the unit, and with families as the unit to worship ancestors of the previous generation or two.