Arts & Culture

Paiwan folk singers keep culture alive through music

Camake Valaule, instructor at the Taiwu Elementary School Folk Singers, passes on Paiwan culture through music.

• Publication Date：04/22/2012
• Source： Taiwan Today
• By  Grace Kuo

“Come, ancestors! Do not worry about the insufficient preparation of meat and wine
For there is plenty of food this year
Do not forget to bring us favorable weather when you come, grandparents.
Come, ancestors!”

These are the lyrics to “Song for Welcoming Ancestral Spirits,” one of the many Paiwan folk songs sung by the folk singers at Pingtung County’s Taiwu Elementary School, where the majority of the students are from the indigenous Paiwan tribe partly distributed in Jiaxing and Taiwu villages of southern Taiwan. Titled “Gelu gelu” or “Idu,” depending on whether the song is performed prior to festivals or when sorcerers are treating someone, the original lyrics are:

Idu sakanangjljan ne maya sase kakezan vuvu
U lja qacaniyavinarur
Kacu kacu wanamen ne tuvusame tutjaljayane
Idu sakanangiljan

To the children, the songs are like an umbilical cord linking them to their ancestors. Indeed, this is the kind of effect that Camake Valaule, a physical education teacher with the school, wanted when he founded the choir in 2006, after a student he instructed—Lumasan—won first prize at the 2003 Nationwide Local Folk Songs Competition.

Although Lumasan’s triumph was pleasing to Camake Valaule, it also saddened him, because Lumasan did not win by singing a Paiwan song. To Camake Valaule, who does not read music but knows many melodies and ballads taught to him when he was young, the bonds between the younger generation and their villages seemed pitifully weak.

“They could not speak their mother tongue, and were not involved in traditional festivals,” he said. “They did not even know our tribal legends.

“As the Paiwan are a tribe without writing, knowledge of our culture—from festivals and historic legends to our class structure—is passed down orally through folk songs. So I thought maybe learning songs would be a good way for the children to understand their cultural inheritance.”

After the establishment of the Taiwu Elementary School Folk Singers, Camake Valaule conducted field studies of folk songs from the two villages. “The seniors were very willing to help, passing on to me all they knew. I would tell them whether it was a children’s ballad or a folk song that I was looking for, and they would sit together, discuss and try to recall which song appeared in which festival in what kind of tune. I would then record it, note down the meaning of the lyrics, practice the song over and over again and then teach it to my students,” he said. About 50 festival, folk, love and wedding songs, as well as children’s ballads, have already been collected in this way, he added.

Using “Puljega,” a traditional wedding song, as an example, Camake Valaule said there are 35 lines to the ballad, which takes 40 minutes to sing. “It tells the story of a chieftain, his birth and family background such as the places he lived in before his migration, the number of lands he possesses and the families he controls. As the song is owned by the chief, he is the only one who can sing all 35 lines, while the deputy chief has permission to sing 20.

“The Paiwan put a lot of emphasis on the right person singing the right song at the right place,” Camake Valaule pointed out. “This is one lesson I am teaching the children.”

Restrictions are not as strict for other types of music such as love songs, he added. “People can sing according to their emotions, except they must pay attention to the words they use. For instance, commoners cannot use glass beads or rainbows to describe the beauty of a female, because the nobility are the only ones in possession of such objects.

“Although a Paiwan song may have only two to three words or lines, it tells a story, so when teaching the tunes to the children, not only the lines are taught, but also the cultural meaning that the words point to. This is why a lot of time is needed to collect the ballads.”

According to Camake Valaule, the singing styles of residents from Taiwu and Jiaxing are different. The former uses the abdomen singing method, while the latter employs the unison singing technique. “We are lucky to have students from both villages because they can learn various songs and different ways of singing from one another.”

Although his fieldwork has gone fairly smoothly, Camake Valaule said, he did encounter resistance, especially during the first few years of his project. The village elders would say to him: “Those children are not from our village, why should they be allowed to sing our song?” The seniors only gave way after Camake Valaule explained to them that his plan was to pass on their culture.

Camake Valaule’s hard work over the years has paid off. In 2009, the Taiwu Elementary School Folk Singers were invited to perform in Belgium, France, Germany and Luxemburg. In 2011, they were voted one of the world’s top five performance groups by audiences of Japan Broadcasting Corp.’s Amazing Voice program.

Recalling the group’s first tour in Europe, Camake Valaule admitted that he felt very nervous. “People say Europe is the center of the arts. I was worried that the audience would fall asleep as most of our 75-minute performance was a cappella. The students were also anxious, especially after listening to bands that performed bel canto before us. They even thought the way we sang was weird and different from the others.

“Surprisingly, the audience listened with full focus and high spirits,” Camake Valaule said. “They told me afterward that through our performance, they had a vision of our country, our village, without having to visit it. This experience greatly boosted our confidence.”

According to Camake Valaule, singing traditional ballads has allowed students and their parents to re-understand their culture. “It used to be that the only ones who could sing these songs were tribal elders aged between 50 and 60. Now with the children able to perform the pieces as well, parents are beginning to ask, ‘Why do we not know how to sing the ballads?’ Many times nowadays, it is the children who teach the songs to their parents, putting back the pieces of a blurred memory.”

To Camake Valaule, his original intention of forming the choir was not for the kids to perform, but to preserve and pass on their culture. Referring to the relocation of Taiwu Elementary School and Taiwu Village due to Typhoon Morakot in August 2009, he said, “We could not take the forest or our houses in the mountains with us; but we were able to bring our culture along. As long as the children are willing to sing, I will always be there for them, singing with them and leading them to experience the meaning of the ballads.” (HZW)

Write to Grace Kuo at morningk@mail.gio.gov.tw