UPSI Digital Repository (UDRep)
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UPSI Digital Repository (UDRep)
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| Abstract : Perpustakaan Tuanku Bainun |
| This study investigates the Jiahe accompanying marriage songs of the Han ethnic minority in southern China, focusing on their ritual, performance, and gendered dimensions. These songs, traditionally performed by women during marriage rituals, function as both expressions of sorrow and blessings for the bride. Previous Chinese research has largely emphasized preservation and documentation, while international ethnomusicology has highlighted music as a social and performative practice. However, little work has critically examined Jiahe marriage songs through a gendered ethnomusicological lens. Drawing on twelve months of ethnographic fieldwork, this study employed participant observation, interviews with singers and community members, and musical analysis of recorded performances. The analysis demonstrates that Jiahe marriage songs are not merely ritual laments but complex performative acts that negotiate women's identities and agency within a patriarchal society. The songs create a liminal space in which women express both conformity to cultural expectations and subtle resistance to gendered restrictions. The findings extend existing scholarship by showing how ritual music operates simultaneously as heritage preservation, emotional expression, and social negotiation. The study contributes theoretically by bridging Chinese folkloristic approaches with international theories of ritual, performance, and feminist ethnomusicology. Empirically, it provides the first in-depth ethnomusicological account of Jiahe marriage songs. Practically, it offers insights for cultural preservation policies, emphasizing that such traditions should be valued as dynamic, living practices rather than static relics. |
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