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The Poya folksong collection is a microcosm of the ancient and modern Youjiang River Basin Zhuang society,a reflection of the Zhuang people’s agricultural production methods,customs and rice-based culture.These love songs not only reflect the traditional courtship rituals of young people,but also reflect agricultural production,living customs,aesthetic tastes and social values of the Zhuang.The following illustrations demonstrate the value of these songs as subject matter for the study of Zhuang society,history and customs.

First,the songs reflect the unique marriage customs of the Zhuang.The Poya songs describe the“free love”characteristic of Zhuang marriage,that is,spouses choosing each other rather than being chosen via arranged marriages,via the medium of singing to each other.Just like the following record from the The Hand Mirror of Daily Inspection of the Noblemen’s Hall(Junzi Tang Rixun Shoujing):

On the first day of a new year or the second day,a young man in the village would tear cloth into a handkerchief.The young man would sing to a young woman,throwing the handkerchief to her,and the woman would offer her shirt to the man.On the thirteenth day of the year,the man would go to the woman’s home with the shirt and the woman’s parents would welcome him happily.The man would sit on the left and the woman would sit on the right in the room,and they would sing to each other.All the villagers would come to watch.If a family has more girls,they would receive the other young men one by one until the sixteenth day of the year.

Although the Zhuang tradition and this account from this Han Chinese book use singing as the medium of courtship,there are significant differences between the two cultures in their customs.For example,an ax is mentioned in the sixty-fourth song and a shoulder pole is mentioned in the sixty-fifth song.The young man first sings:

The young woman sings:

The carrying pole and the axe handle mentioned in the song are chopped up at will.As Zhu Kuangding says in his work,Stories of the Yao and Zhuang:

Zhuang women take pleasure in singing in the Spring.Young Zhuang men respond by singing.If their songs match,they will stay and give gifts to each other.They will carve the song on a shoulder-carrying pole using small figures,and paint color birds on it and then coat with lacquer so that it will not fade.So,the shoulder-carrying pole becomes a witness to their love.The young woman offers an embroidered bag and belt as gift made by herself.They promise to become couple,inform their parents,and ask a matchmaker to arrange their marriage.Upon their marriage,the young man’s and woman’s families accompany them on their way and sing to them.At the wedding,the groom beats the bride symbolically three times on the back.The woman uses the shoulder pole to carry water,then she goes back to her parents’ house and does not meet her husband until she becomes pregnant and then she passes the news secretly to her husband… then she returns to her husband and they begin to live as a family.

Therefore,in these songs the shoulder pole and the ax are more than just labor tools,they symbolize married life.

Secondly,these songs reflect the distinctive characteristics of the life style of a rice-paddy farming culture,for example,in the tenth and eleventh songs.The imagery of maple leaves is used to reflect the regular cycles of the rice-padding agriculture.The emergence of the maple leaves at the beginning of the year indicates that it is time to plant the rice seedlings and when those new maple leaves turn green,it is time to transplant those seedlings.

Thirdly,these songs reflect the distinctive characteristics of the lodging and clothing of this culture.In the fifteenth song,the woman complains that no one loves her and that she sits alone in her“penthouse”,a special room built on the drying porch on the second floor of the vertical,wooden houses built by various Taic(Baiyue)people groups.This kind of“penthouse”has its own door not leading into the parents’ house and is usually used to house unmarried adults.In some Zhuang dialects,this kind of penthouse can be called“En Ciang”when it is used as a special room for singing.The forty-first song,entitled“Skirts”,and the seventyseventh song,entitled“Three Trips”,reflect the ancient Zhuang clothing custom of blouses and long skirts which has already disappeared in Funing.

The songs also reflect the traditional cuisine,funeral customs and religious practices and beliefs.The seventy-eighth song,entitled“The Field”,the eighty-first song,entitled“A Pair of Bamboo Shoots”,and the twenty-eighth song,entitled“Bleeding Hands”,reflect these aspects.

All in all,the Poya folksongs provide a significant area of further study,worthy of further study by philologists and ethnologists.