Ritual Functions of Suona Performance in Contemporary Northern Dong Weddings in Tianzhu, Guizhou

This article examines the ritual functions of suona performance in contemporary Northern Dong weddings in Tianzhu County, Guizhou Province, China. It asks how the instrument helps wedding participants recognise and coordinate important ceremonial moments. The study draws on ethnographic participant observation at six weddings between 2021 and 2025, while the present analysis uses two weddings, held in October 2023 and December 2024, as its principal cases. Supplementary observations from two other weddings are used only to confirm recurring functions. Data include fieldnotes, interviews with wedding participants and a suona player, photographs, and audiovisual recordings. The findings show that suona performance serves three closely related purposes. First, it prompts dispersed relatives to gather, collect ceremonial objects, and form a procession. Second, its projecting sound announces departure, approach, and arrival before visual contact is possible. Third, locally recognised wedding diaozi help listeners identify the event as a proper wedding occasion and give experienced performers authority over musical timing. The discussion argues that these effects cannot be attributed to loudness alone. They depend on the relationship among acoustic projection, appropriate repertory, placement within the wedding sequence, and knowledge acquired through repeated participation. Suona performance works alongside verbal instructions, mobile phones, firecrackers, vehicles, and family organisation rather than replacing them. The instrument therefore reinforces and publicly marks actions that participants already partly anticipate. The study concludes that the suona remains important because it offers a flexible and widely recognisable means of coordinating movement across changing village and county-town wedding settings. The claims are limited to the observed cases and do not represent a comprehensive survey of Northern Dong suona repertory.

suona, Northern Dong, wedding music, ritual function, ethnomusicology

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