Tu Liang's story

235 views · Organized by 关谷奇迹 on 2022-03-11

Tuliang is one of the oldest folk musical instruments of Jingpo people. It is widely used in Jingpo people. Its timbre is crisp and melodious, and it has strong national characteristics. Artistic musical instrument. There is such a story about Tu Liang.

Tu Liang's story

A long time ago, one morning in the golden autumn, in the beautiful Jingpo cottage, Jingpo man Jin Hang Laren carried a soil gun to inspect his own Baogu field. Laren was very happy to see a bumper harvest of Baogu in the mountains. Suddenly, he saw a rustling sound on the ground of the baogu in the distance. Laren walked in quietly and saw that it was a group of monkeys stealing the baogu. All over the place, Laren cried out in distress, but the monkey still ignored it, took a few bites and then threw it away. After the monkey was injured, he cried and ran to the woods, "circling, circling, circling...", leaving blood marks on the ground. Laren hated the monkeys who stole the buns, and followed the monkey's cries into the forest. When he chased after about 500 meters, he found that the shot monkey was on a tall wild chestnut tree. His intestines were exposed outside his stomach, dripping with blood. He was holding the baby monkey to breastfeed, and his mouth kept wailing "too, too, di".

Before chasing the monkey, La Ren originally thought that he would make up for it once, and hit the monkey until it could not move until it died, so as to relieve the hatred in his heart, but now seeing the sad and pitiful scene of the monkey mother and son, he immediately dismissed the previous one. Thought, and regretted that he had hurt the monkey indiscriminately, he quietly exited the forest....

La Ren, who returned home, was uneasy, thinking all day whether the monkey who was shot would die, and whether the monkey would still be alive in the future? Self-blame, remorse, heart-wrenching...all kinds of feelings came to my mind.

Early the next morning, La Ren didn't bother to eat breakfast, and ran to the forest in one breath, only to see that the female monkey who was shot yesterday was lying motionless and upright under the tree. Sorrowing, he kept shouting "round toot, round toot, beep", when the little monkey saw someone coming, he ran quickly into the woods...

La Ren sadly returned to Baogu, but could not see the monkeys stealing the Baogu, heard the rustling of the monkeys, and thought of the poor little monkey. At this time, Laren could no longer control the surging heart. Emotions, weeping.

In order to calm down the uncontrollable mood, Laren cut a piece of wild bamboo on the side of the road, and the cry of a monkey, either sad or long or sad, resounded in the Jingpo cottage. Since then, this instrument has been called "Tuliang". Since then, Jingpo people have discovered that the monkeys are skimming the valley, and they no longer hit the monkeys with guns, but chase them or use slingshots to intimidate them. Tuliang has gradually become an indispensable musical instrument for Jingpo people to guard the valley and herd cattle and sheep for leisure and entertainment.

Reference materials and contributors
传承保护景颇族传统乐器吐良的思考

Involving musical instruments

Turen (pinyin: tǔ rèn), also known as Tuliang, Teling, and Laku in Jingpo language, is a fringe musical instrument of Jingpo, Lisu, Lahu and other ethnic groups. It is popular in Dehong Dai and Jingpo Autonomous Prefecture of Yunnan Province and Nujiang Lisu. Autonomous Prefecture and Lincang area.

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