Long time ago, ethnic minority compatriots in Phu Yen mountainous area always consider gongs a precious asset, an object representing the strength in material and spiritual life of national communities. It is an indispensable object in the ethnic minority compatriots’ cultural life.
A gong-performance at a festival in Phu Yen province
Gongs manifest wealth of each family, clan, village. The sound and tone of gongs with timbre-standard and high-artistic value are confirmed the identity soul of each ethnic people. Along with owning “chum choe”, cattle, rice fields … gongs have also born materialistic values. From ancient times, gongs have possessed extremely precious values because they have been intimately linking with ethnic minority compatriots and having a particular role in the spiritual life of the ethnic people in the Central Highland in general and Phu Yen provincial mountainous peoples in particular. Gongs also gather many folk-art forms like dancing, singing, visual arts, architecture, sculpture … especially to music, gongs are sonorous with a completed chord of melody, harmony and polyphony.
Especially, during the Festival, festive atmosphere and rites are clearly revealed gongs’ appearance. In other words, gongs and festival have an organic connection, without gongs, festival would fail. In any of the ethnic people’s festivals, gongs always play a key role, attracting people into the festival; stirring festive space full of joy, everyone immerses in frantic dances. When the village is entering the quiet night, people surround the fire, with some places echoing a deep gong-tone, bringing people closer together; all of which means that, gongs have a particularly important position, not only the meaning in lives but also the “voice” human and divine – with the animism concept.
The mountainous ethnic compatriots in Phu Yen province commonly use types of gongs: EDe or BaNa people’s Arab gongs usually use the normal type of 3 gongs with knob and 8 flat-chiengs. A full Arab has from 18 to 20 units – this is the type of gongs with two ends, carried by peoples and played by a musician simultaneously, which is a favorite and popular musical instrument among Phu Yen mountainous peoples. However, to the ethnic peoples of ChamHroi, BaNa in Dong Xuan mountainous district, orchestra instruments most commonly used are gong 3, gong 5, double-drum. Although all of them are percussion, harmony of gong 3, gong 5 and double-drum creates characteristic timbres showing national identity. Gong 3 expressing bass creates the reverberating, deep, resonant sound; gong 5 expresses the gentle tone; double-drum with quickened tempo making jubilant atmosphere for festive space. With the features, gongs of ChamHroi, BaNa, Ede peoples are often chosen representatives to attend the national great festival and participate in cultural exchange festival in the region and nation.
Today, with “the Central Highlands gong-culture space” having become an oral-masterpiece and intangible cultural heritage of humanity, which plays a role and asserts the value of community-cultural identity for the Central Highlands’ ethnic peoples, their gong instrument of the ethnic compatriots in Phu Yen’s mountainous areas is also a part for making rich, colorful, polymorphism and unique, which enriches folklore for Vietnamese peoples in general and Phu Yen’s ethnic peoples in particular.
Source: Phu Yen Newspaper
Translated by TRINH THUY
Đăng ký: VietNam News
