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In the feudal-slave society of the past, serfs were required to both pay taxes and perform curve labor. This system earned the great hatred and resistance of the unfortunate serfs, and their discontent surfaced in the form of biting satire and violent accusations in their songs. The following verses express this very clearly:
The snow-white tsampa of the lords
Is ground crimson with the blood of serfs;
The magnificent mansions of the lords
Are built from the bones of serfs.
Military tax and horse tax I pay to the county,
Person tax and land tax I pay to the lord;
On a scrap of land, no bigger than the palm of my hand,
Taxes I pay as many as the hairs on my head.
These songs are a direct denunciation of the taxes imposed by the feudal authorities and show that the wealth of the serf-owners was squeezed straight from the poor.
Folk songs also show a spirit of resistance and criticism of the evils of society. For example:
O Tsering Lhagyal, the vulture,
Who lives on the slopes of Shelday Hill,
Beware when you gulp down the corpses
Lest the bones catch in your gullet.
As I till my tiny patch of land,
Should anyone dare to cross and trace a track,
Though born a woman was I,
I must draw my dagger and think of defense.
The moral values of the laboring people are also reflected in a number of folk songs which criticize evildoing and commend merit, while other songs show a longing for a new life and heap praise upon their beautiful native land. Hope shines through these verses:
The dark clouds in the sky
Are not stitched in place;
One day the clouds will part,
And the sun behind will shine out on all.
When two hearts unite as one,
Parents can but leave well enough alone;
When three hearts unite as one,
Landlords should leave well enough alone.
With no other outlet in their miserable lives, serfs and slaves poured out all their aspirations and dreams into songs to their beloved and beautiful land:
U is land of beauty,
Saplings sway to and fro,
The calls of flocks of cuckoos
Sound more melodious than ever.
For centuries feudal serfdom and a theocracy jointly controlled Tibet, and religion remained paramount for five to six hundred years. Although not numerous, several folk songs criticize the rulers’ parasitic existence under the pretext of religion. This wry verse expresses it well:
Heavenly Paradise above
Seems far from perfect,
For holy lamas glance down
From time to time.
The Eighteen Layers of Hell below
Can’t be as bad as they say,
For sinful noblemen
Rush in one after the other.
A large proportion of folk songs are love songs, which mainly deal with tragedies of parted lovers- a sharp criticism of the yoke of the feudal ethical code which denied freedom of marriage. The songs express the feelings of young lovers fighting for their right to choose their own sweethearts. Romantic tragedies and the fight for freedom within the ruling classes are also chronicled in song; excellent examples are the love songs written by Tsangyang Gyatso, the Sixth Dalai Lama at the end of he seventeenth century. These verses reveal the true feelings of young Tibetans of the time:
The love between you and me
Is like a pair of yellow ducks;
But in this beautiful Lotus Flatland
There is no freedom to live as one.
The love we share between us
Is like a torrent deep within a gorge;
The roaring reaches the ear
But the sight remains veiled from the eye.
Following the great changes in Tibetan society after the Peaceful Liberation in 1951 and especially after the events of 1959, folk songs too have undergone a transformation. The content and style of the modern folk songs, as songs form this are called, strikingly reflect the atmosphere of the new period. The new songs are a declaration of a new age. Modern folk songs such as My Native Land Takes On a New Look, The Big Dipper Shines Over The Plateau, A Dewdrop In My Heart and No Ending to My Song of the Heart are popular with everyone. They are a sign of the changes in people’s living conditions and have enriched the repertoire of Tibetan folk songs. |
