Wa folk songs can be roughly divided into labor songs, narrative songs, lyric songs, ritual songs, etc. Labor songs are sung in farming, hunting and other labor occasions. They are generally improvised and sung with regular rhythms and simple tunes.
Narrative songs are mostly about the myths and legends of the beginning of the world and the origin of mankind. The most famous one is Xigangli. The Wa word Xigang means gourd, so it can be translated as "Song of the Gourd". It tells the story of ancient mankind in the flood era.
Lyric songs are mainly love songs. Gathering in the public rooms of villages or going to girls' homes to "string girls" is the main way for Wa youth to socialize and fall in love. Love songs are mainly sung in the communal rooms or when they are stringing girls.
Entertainment songs are mostly sung during festivals, religious rituals and daily play, and there are two kinds of songs: the "singing tune" which is sung but not danced, and the "jumping tune" which is sung and danced. The entertainment song of the Wa ethnic group in Ximeng, "Jiang Sanmu Luo", is named after the liner notes "Jiang Sanmu Luo" that are often sung at the beginning and the end of the song.
The ritual songs are characterized by "pulling wooden drums" and "plagiarizing cows". The Wa believe that the wooden drum is a divine instrument that can reach the sky. The month of December is set as the month of pulling wooden drums. When pulling the wooden drums, the headman or shaman fires a gun and gathers people on the mountain, cuts down the big trees and cuts off about two meters of the trees to make the wooden drums. The men, women and children of the villages sing and dance while pulling the wooden drums.
"Plagiarism" has a stronger primitive religious color. Wooden drums pulled to the wooden drum room, or the end of the fall harvest, or cover the house before a voluntary donation of cattle or several, the village crowd around the cattle sing a rough song, dance wildly, singing and dancing in the cattle in public with a pike dart stabbed to death, and then cut off the head of the cattle, in the bonfire on the roasted leftover beef and ate it, the whole process of song and dance accompanied by the scene is very simple and plagiarized.