|
Chinese Academy of Social Sciences
Background
Mongolian oral epic singing has been a vast tradition.
Being the most important genre of folk arts, the tradition
can be traced back to long ago. Some scholars believe
that the Mongolian epic emerged in about Chinghis Khan's
time. And the Mongol steppe aristocracy played a decisive
role in supporting, inspiring and transmitting the stories
of their heroic deeds and their social ideals.[1] It
is fairly hard to tell the exact amount of epic stories,
not to mention the epic texts, since it has been a living
tradition; some stories die out, while new compositions
emerge. Roughly speaking, today, except the huge epic
cycles like Jangar and Gesar, more than 550 epics and
variants of smail and medium epics have been recorded.
They are mostly small-yolume epics that consist of several
hundreds of lines in singing, each, however, telling
a complete story. Medium-volume epics number in the
dozens, each with thousands of lines, and some can have
more than ten thousand, in the form of written text.
In addition, the large-volume Jangar recorded among
the Oirat people in China. Mongolia and Russia consists
of 200 cantos, totaling as long as approximately 200,000
lines. Within China, a 12-volume Jangar Material Collection
appeared in succession. A photocopy of Jangar manuscripts
was published in 1996, and four versions of Chinese
translation have been published during the second half
of the 20th century. Singer Arimpil¡¯s individual libretto
was recorded by the young scholar Taya and printed in
1999. This 17-conto Jangar was another landmark of the
tradition, since the Kalmuck singer Eelee Oflaa's 10-canto
Jangar had appeared in St. Petersburg in 1910.
Within China, there are three areas where Mongolian
epics flourished, they are: Bargu, Horchin and Oirat[2],
and we may say that they represent the three epic evolutional
stages respectively. Bargu epics reveal the epic tradition's
infantile stage; they are normally short, with a simple
story line. and they are filled with archaic motifs,
like family or clan revenge, or bride-capture. The Oirat
epics, centered on the famous Jangar, were the mature
stage. Highly developed singing skills, large group
of professional perforrners, and complicated story structures,
all indicate their maturity. As for Horchin epics, they
demonstrate the fall of this old singing tradition.
The epics changed greatly, they gained features and
narrative techniques from other folk genres, like folk
tales and folk ode ("Bensen ¨¹liger" and "holboo"
in Mongolian). The epic singers had to perform other
genres to make a living, since the audience changed
their interests to" "historic event"¡ª¡ªthe
tradenlark and attraction of the Bensen ¨¹liger, rather
than the exaggerated description of gigantic heroes.
As for the epic distribution, we found the epic Jangar
cycle sung only among the Oirat peoples both in tile
Tian Shan Mountains in Xinjiang and in Kalmuck Republic
on the bank of the Volga River in Russia.
A German traveler Benjamin Bergmann collected the first
Jangar in the beginning of the 19th century among the
Kalmucks in Russia.[3] There was a tradition to keep
and treasure the epic text in written form in Mongolian
families, especially in high-ranking families. Still,
Mongolian epic singing has been primarily a living tradition.
Singers play an extremely important role in its transmission.
According to various resources, most of the singers
in history were illiterates. They normally were born
and grew up in the milieu of epic performing, and took
advantage of the privilege to start learning in their
childhood. They also were regarded as smart and possessing
excellent memory by the society. The skill of performing
epic could be their hobby and let them win respect among
their community. Some of them, on the other hand, became
professional singers and made a living through their
singing. A few of those professional singers even won
certain titles and were invited to stay in Mongol princes'
palaces or yurts. However, the declining process was
still underway. There were fewer and fewer singers,
and they had fewer skills: so far most of them were
not able to play musical instruments like the tobshur
and the choor to accompany their singing. And majority
of the singing was in prose, instead of the original
verse form. During the past two decades, about 80% of
the Jangar singers passed away. And the most of the
survivals were poorly trained, have limited repertoire,
and seldom have the opportunity to polish their singing.
Formula
In hearing and reading the Mongolian epic singing, we
found that certain expressive units have high a density
of recurrence. The epic motifs are organized in certain
sequences, the plots have similar resolution, and a
large quantity of fixed phrases with certain meaning
and rhyming used in wide range of narrative situation.
In fact, those fixed units, like the scheme of developing
a story, like the common phrases, for instance, ornaments
and epithets, were widely shared by signers of different
times and different regions. Here we will deal with
phrasal formula, so as to make a perspective on the
Mongolian epic singer's rhetorical technique in epic
composition. Because of the limit of space here, we
will make our analysis very briefly and localized in
one canto of one singer's Jangar. This canto is H¨¹nd¨¹
Gartai Sahar In B¨¹l¨¹g (Canto of Mighty Arm Sabar). sung
by singer Arimpil (1923-1994). The recording was taken
in July of 1991 in Xinjiang, China. We all agree with
the observation that the more skillful the singer is,
the larger amount of formulas he would use in singing.
Arimpil was no doubt one of those distinguished performers.
Having about 20 cantos of Jangar epic in his repertoire.
Arimpil was the most prominent illiterate jangarchi
(Jangar singer) in our time.[4]
The following factors should be mentioned before entering
the analytical procedure, so as to make a sketch on
the Mongolian epic versification:
(1) head rhyme;
(2) verse line is normally short, with an average of
4 to 5 words in each line, but not strict tetrameter;
(3) formulas usually occupy a whole line, if not more
lines;
(4) if go with other words to form a line, formulas
normally at the beginning;
(5) enjambement is not used.
Our sample H¨¹nd¨¹ Gartai Sabar In B¨¹l¨¹g is a 652--line
poem. We found that Arimpil used an incredible number
of fixed phrases and epithets in depicting characters,
steeds, weapons, palace or localities, numerals and
directions, and etc and etc. Since we cannot analyze
all the formulas, our job will center on epithet. We
have three reasons to work on epithet: first, epithets
cover 173 lines, which occupy 26.5% of the entire poem.
Some of the epithets have the highest recurrence of
any formula in the text; second, epithets here have
remarkable features that distinguish them from some
other epic traditions: third, as far as we know, scholarship
on the Mongolian epic epithet still remains a grey area;
last, epic epithet was deeply explored by the school
of Oral Formulate Theory (or Parry-Lord Theoty) and
its followers with different backgrounds, the models
and procedures they used inspired us a great deal.
Someone may ask: is the epithet a proper sample for
our purpose of demonstrating singers' traditional techniques?
We understand that ONE performance is the intertext
of the entire singing tradition. We have only two options
to make our analysis reasonable, either the examples
are infinite, or they are highly molded into typology.
Since the singing tradition is enormous, through drawing
examples to cover the tradition is in some sense not
proper method; on the other hand, they are highly typological,
via a sample to make analogy is not only reasonable,
but also exercisable.
Epithet
Arimpil¡¯s epithets are close to the epithets we know
in Homer and some epic traditions in Yugoslavia in their
nature and function. They are combinations of adjectives
and figure's names. The adjective words or phrase are
in connection with the figure¡¯s nature or characteristics.
In our text, we have the following epithets:
| Epithet in Latin transcription:
|
English translation: |
Aldar noyan Janggar
|
Great famed governor Janggar |
| Dogsin sira manggus hagan |
Atrocious yellow mangguskhan(monster king) |
Asar ulagan Honggor
|
Giant red Honggor |
| hiindii gartai Sabar |
Mighty--arm Sabar |
Dogsin hara Sanal
|
Atrocious black Sanal |
| Altan Chegeji Babai Abaga |
Alatan chegeji babai abaga |
| Agai Shabdala Gerel hatun |
Agai Shabdala Gerel noblewoman |
Note: underlined
parts are figures' names. Manggus hagan (monster king)
is not a name. In Jangar tradition, monsters do not
usually possess names. Altan chegeji Babai Abaga and
Agai Shabdala Gerel hatun are formed with name and honorific
titles, abaga used for aged man and hatun for noblewoman.
These two epithets are somewhat different from others,
but they have highly fixed form. thus can be seen as
special epithet.
In this 652--line poem tile epithet
"Asar Ulagan Honggor" appeared 33 times! In
quite some cases this epithet goes with noun--declension
and other grammar appendants. Still, we can see it as
whole-line-epithet. And we also found this epithet goes
sometimes with another lille to form a "couplet"--
aguu yehe h¨¹ch¨¹tei very
great slrenglh
asar ulagalr Honggor giant red Honggor
This is not the only case that the epithet takes the
form of couplet; the following are other samples with
exactly the same structure:
H¨¹m¨¹n nu nachin (eagle among mass)
H¨¹nd¨¹ gartai Sabar (mighty--arm Sabar)
Or:
Bolinggar tin h¨¹beg¨¹n (Bolinggar's offspring)
Dogsin hara Sanal (atrocious black Sanal)
We can see the ornamental part (normally the first line)
as affiliation, and the line with characters name a
core epithet. Thus we have tile following structure:
¡¡¡¡¡¡¡¡ ornamental affiliation
¡¡¡¡¡¡¡¡¡¡¡¡core epitliet
We also noticed that tire affiliation does not always
goes with the core. In other words, in the couplet-epithet
of Honggor, the core appeared 33 times, while the affiliation
appeared 16 times. And in another Couplet-epithet H¨¹m¨¹n
nu nachin/H¨¹ud¨¹ gartai Sathar, the recurrence is 16
versus 23. This feature is common in the tradition.
It seems the singer is not satisfied with depicting
his hero only in one or two lines, in some cases lie
wanted to add a few more lines to stress his hero's
power or strength. Thus we have a group of lines to
describe a hero. And the group is also highly fixed
and only goes with the couplet epithet. Here are some
examples:
(A) Ama tai h¨¹m¨¹n (people who have mouth)
Amalaju bolosi ¨¹gei (dare not to gossip [about him])
Hele tei yagurna (creatures that have tongues)
Helej¨¹ bolosi ¨¹gei (dare not to talk about [him])
H¨¹m¨¹n nu nachin (eagle among mass)
H¨¹nd¨¹ gartai Sabar (mighty--arm Sabar)
(B) Ireh¨¹ yeren yis¨¹n jili ([things] of the future 99
years)
Ailadchu mededeg (would know by surmise)
?nggeregsen yeren yis¨¹n jil i ([things] of the past
99 years)
Tagaji mededeg (would know by guess)
Altan Chegeji Babai abaga, (Altan Chegeji Babai abaga)
(C) agchim tm jaguar du (the moment eyes blinking)
arban gurba hubildag (make transfiguration for 13 times)
amin beye d¨¹ni ¨¹gei (anima is out of the body)
aguu yehe h¨¹ch¨¹tei (very great strength)
asar ulagan Honggor (Giant Red Honggor)
In our text, the first four lines of example (A) appeared
4 times, and it goes with the couplet-epithet in each
time. In example (B) the first four lines collie only
once. But we know that it is a fixed formula, since
it appears in Arimpil's other cantos for many times
without changing, and in other singers' texts also,
As a matter of fact, this four line is a standard ornament
for Janggar's counselor and brainpower Altan Chegeji
Bahai. It is very rare to see this ornament applies
to other heroes. In our example (C), the same rule works
again, the first three-line ornament conies once here,
but it is no doubt a standard ornament for hero Honggor.
Now we can conclude that the ornamental group of lines
here does not go with the core epithet each time, and
it can be applied to other characters in some cases,
thus we may name it a semi-dependent ornament. Therefore,
we now have the following schcnle:
Semi-dependent multi-line ornament
Ornamental affiliation
Core epithet
According to our observation, to bring out a hero, our
singer has a few options: in most cases, he only uses
the core epithet. Some times he would adopt the form
of couplet. In a few cases, he uses a multi-line ornament
to fulfill the description. On the other hand, our singer
would never allow himself to mention a hero's name without
using any ornament. He would make adjustments, like
adding or reducing certain parts of the epithet so as
to match the meter. For example, aldar noyan Janggar
(great famed governor Janggar) is the basic form of
Janggar epithet. But we also have other forms. If we
gather all the lines that start with "aldar",
we could then find out that the epithet is not a firmed
word combination, but rather a flexible solution, for
example:
aldar bogda noyan Janggar Great famed Saint governor
Janggar
aldar noyan Janggar ni tologailagad Great famed governor
to be the head
aldar Janggar un haihirugsan [when] Great famed
dagu ni Janggar's yell
In short, the singer' has privilege to change the epithet,
so as to match the narration and melody.
Density
Now we know in part how a traditional singer composes
his poem. First, he will repeat ready-made formulas
time and again; and those formulas may be used in a
large area, and may have a long tradition. When there
was a pre-existing formula, he would not trouble himself
in creating a new expression instead. Second, when the
verse meter needs a shorter or longer metrical arrangement,
the singer would make adjustments to meet it. In our
examples above, for instance, the singer added bogda
(saint) to lengthen the line, or took out noyan (governor)
to shorten it, so as to link verbs like tologailagad
(to be head), or helegsen d¨¹ (when said), so as to fit
in with the melody and narration. Third, we could not
figure out an approximate epithet density of a specific
singer, not to mention of a certain poem, the reason
is that we could not tell at what time the singer chooses
to introduce a whole set of epithet like "Semi-dependent
multi-line ornament + Ornamental affiliation + Core
epithet," or at what time he only uses the core
epithet. According to my fieldwork experience and knowledge
of the epic singing in the Mongolian world, it depends
on the singer's mood and inspiration at the composing
moment, and also depends on the audience's reaction
to his ornamental depicting. The more the audience show
their appreciation, like giving him loud applause, the
more he will demonstrate his stored formulas, and thus
lengthen his performance. We have different "versions"
of Arimpil's certain story. Yes you can tell they are
the same ONE story, but on the other hand, they have
different beginnings, and some quite different plots,
and different formulaic density as well. For this reason,
we can hardly tell the normal length for a certain poem
as well. The epic density is no doubt high, and also
varies widely.
The same rule applies to not only epithet, but to other
formulas as well. For instance, when introducing the
hero Honggor's steed, in our text, the singer may say:
ochin h?he haljan h¨¹l¨¹g (Mars grey steed with white
spot on forehead), and he also may say:
tonjir ud un ¨¹re (accipiter's descendant)
tonggag geg¨¹¨¹ ni unagan (the marc's first pregnancy)
naiman minggan aranjai jegerde (eight thousand Aranjal
chestnut
horses)
adugun dotora yabugsan (had been among the herd)
agula biJgdi, ireme manggus (the manggus with strength
to
carry a mount)
ugchi gi ergime hurdun (quick move around a hill)
ochin h¨¹he haljan h¨¹l¨¹g ni (Mars grey steed with white
spot on forehead)
It is obviously a whole set of describing Honggor's
steed. But it does not come out each time with the same
format. In fact, like what we have seen in epithet,
the core ochin h¨¹he haljan h¨¹l¨¹g appeared six times,
while twice it goes with the neighboring two-line ornament,
and one it goes with the whole set. Ornaments of weapon,
saddle, flag, and lots of other things share exactly
the same rule in the singing. The same rule governs
also the narration of a king's territory, his palace,
his maiden, his herds, etc. Through our analysis on
syntactic repetition, the formula's two contrary natures
are revealed: it is fixed, in some sense, certain meaning
combines with certain rhyming; and it is also flexible,
can be lengthened or shortened to meet the meter and
melody, and also can be full-loaded or predigested,
to meet singer's own mood, skill and inspiration.
ENDNOTES
1 B. Ya Vladimistsov, The Oirat-Mongolian Heroic Epic,
Mongolian Studies, Journal of the Mongolia Society,
Vol. VIII, (1983-84). pp.5-59. Though the time of Mongolian
epic's emergence is still a disputable question, since
lacking of direct evidence, his hypothesis, I believe,
is still most close to the historical reality.
2 See Rinchindorji, The Development of Mongolian Epic
Plot-Structure, Studies of National Literature, (1989:5),
P. 11-19. And also Chao Gejin: "Mongolian Oral
Epic Poetry: An Overview," Oral Tradition, Slavica,
12/2, (1997): 322-36.
3 Riga. C. J. G Hartmann Benjamin Bergmann's nomadische
streifereien unter den Kalmuken in den jahren 1802 und
1803. vol 4. ,( 1804-1805).
4 Arimpil was born in 1923 in a family belonged to Torgud
Tribe, now the Hobagsair Mongolian Autonomous County
of Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region. He had learned
epic Jangar singing from famous signers like Bayar and
Aliya. With about 20 cantos Jangar in his repertoire,
he was the most famous illiterate singer in our time.
5 Manggus: normally means monster, here means with ferocious
nature, or with great strength.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Chao Gejin. Mongolian Oral Epic Poetry: An Overview.
Oral Tradition, Slavica, 12/2, 1997.
Hartmann, Riga. C. J. G. Benjamin Bergmann's nomadische
streifereien unter den Kahnuken in den jahren 1802 und
1803. 1804-1805, vol 4.
Rinchindorji. The Development of Mongolian Epic Plot-Structure.
Studies of National Literature, 1989:5
Vladimistsov, B. Ya. The Oirat-Mongolian Heroic Epic.
Mongolian Studies, Journal of the Mongolia Society,
Vol. VIII, 1983-84.
|
