The Lisu people first lived in the Jinsha River basin on the Sichuan-Yunnan border, and then gradually migrated to settle in the Nujiang River area in western Yunnan. They mainly live in Nujiang Lisu Autonomous Prefecture and Wisi Lisu Autonomous County in Yunnan Province. The rest are distributed in Lijiang, Baoshan, Diqing, Dehong, Dali and Chuxiong, Xichang, Yanyuan, Muli and Dechang counties in Sichuan Province. The Lisu have their own language. The Lisu language belongs to the Yi branch of the Tibetan-Burmese language family of the Sino-Tibetan language family.
The Lisu people like singing very much. They can't eat without salt. "Say don't sing the song. Folk songs are simple and touching, rich in tunes. Traditional dances are mostly group dances. Some imitate animals and some show productive life. The Lisu people often use songs as spokesmen in their daily lives and answer questions with songs, forming a tradition of loving folk songs. The Tangquan concerts held every year in Lushui, Bijiang and Yunlong are places where singers give full play to their talents and their songs can be heard for days. Young Lisu people like to sing traditional and improvised love songs, all of which are sung at clip. There are long love songs and short love songs.
There are many kinds of Lisu folk songs for young and old alike. The average person goes out, goes to the mountains, takes a walk, feels the scene, and sings at random. This kind of aimless, rambling folk songs can be heard at any time during the day in the fields, fields, mountains, highways, but the tunes are mostly the same, only the speed is different. This speed is expressed between words and sentences, or between sentences. Different speeds are used to express inner happiness and joy or frustration and sadness.
Lisu folk songs include papaya, stone lion and tree leaves. It is one of the most popular and important Lisu folk songs circulating in the Lisu community of Nujiang Lisu Autonomous Prefecture in Yunnan Province. Papaya used to refer to all songs and tunes in the Lisu language in general, and later became the proper name for ancient narrative songs. Other songs and tunes belonging to the category of wood scraping usually start with the content, such as "Archie's Papaya" and its "Ben Papaya". Wood scrapers are mainly used in traditional narrative poems with serious content and solemn atmosphere, and are often sung on occasions such as national festivals and gatherings. The representative performances such as, "Papaya", "Genesis" and "Production Tune" are ancient, deep, bleak and old.
The Lisu people honor singing exchanges. In the Lisu multi-part a cappella, Lisu folk songs "stone", "floating leaves", "papaya" enjoy the reputation of "the sound of the canyon". 2006 May 20, Lisu folk songs approved by the State Council included in the first batch of national intangible cultural heritage list. Nujiang Cultural Bureau of Social Arts Director Yun Dong said that in the past two years, Nujiang has been committed to organize and protect the Lisu folk songs. 2008, the provincial and state levels invested more than 400,000 yuan to organize and protect the Lisu folk songs, published 650 Lisu folk songs. The protection of Lisu folk songs has begun to bear fruit.
It is understood that since the organization of the Lisu folk song special protection work in 2007, Nujiang Prefecture set up a special project team, set up a special post in the state and county cultural halls, assigned special people to collect and organize the Lisu folk songs. The staff interviewed more than 60 old Lisu artists in Quanzhou, collected more than 170 Lisu folk songs of various types, recorded nearly 1,200 minutes, recorded more than 1,000 minutes, and took more than 1,600 photos. Based on the survey, 87 manuscripts of Lisu folk songs, 87 finished Lisu folk songs and 130 single Lisu folk songs were formed.
In recent years, Nujiang Prefecture has promoted the protection and inheritance of traditional ethnic cultures by organizing cultural and artistic performances for rural peasants, supporting folk cultural and artistic groups, and funding ethnic cultural heritage. As of 2008, there were more than 160 rural art groups in Quanzhou***, including dozens of folk art groups that carry on traditional ethnic culture. in early 2009, Nujiang Prefecture also gave a one-time subsidy of 3,000 yuan to 22 provincial-level intangible cultural heritage bearers. during the 2009 "Cultural Heritage Day", Nujiang Prefecture will also give a one-time subsidy to two national cultural heritage bearers who will be awarded the "Cultural Heritage Day". Nujiang Prefecture will also be two national intangible cultural heritage representatives will be given 8,000 yuan each.