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Lun'gu Huntuo/Rinko-kodatsu : An early Central Asiatic Drum Dance?

Chapter · February 2008

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Rembrandt Wolpert
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 lun’gu huntuo/rinko-kodatsu 輪鼓褌脱:
an early central asiatic drum dance?
Rembrandt F. Wolpert
Center for the Study of Early Asian and Middle Eastern Musics
J. William Fulbright College of Arts and Sciences, University of Arkansas.

No, in this title lun’gu 輪鼓 does not refer

to the break-drum of a car, and also not
to ‘break drumming’ as in 20th century
popular music. It is a term descriptive
of drum-swirling music1 originally
accompanying some Central Asiatic event
– probably a special sort of drum juggling
dance. A short tune with this title survives
in the Tōgaku/‘Tang Music’ 唐樂 section
of the early Sino-Japanese biwa 琵琶 (lute)-
compendium (in 12 scrolls) Sango-yōroku
三五要錄, compiled by the late Heian 平安
nobleman Fujiwara no Moronaga 藤原師
長 (1137–1192). The tune is interesting not
only because of its strange title, suggestive
of a dance in which the whirling is done on
the spot, 2 but also because it is contained
in the taishiki chō 大食調, ‘Tajik’ mode-key
section. 3 This classification for a piece
which, as it turns out, is not really in this
mode-key (our manuscript itself even
names it internally as a piece in hyōjō 平
調) suggests a choice of designation for

1 The possibility of technical naming of instruments must been borne in mind, however,
in these contexts.
2 Compare the description of ‘The Whirl-Around’ Tuanluanxuan/Toraden 團亂旋 in Picken
et al., Music from the Tang Court 2, vol. 2, pp. 7-43.
3 Chinese dashi diao.
 r. f. wolpert

locality’s sake, namely that we may indeed have preserved in Japan a Central Asiatic
tune – maybe a dance-tune that accompanied some festivities involving whirling of
drums and bodies. The term huntuo 褌脱 4 has been discussed by Serruys, ‘Hun-t’o:
tulum, floats and containers in Mongolia and Central Asia’, and reconsidered in
connection with the musical pieces Jianqi huntuo 劍氣褌脱 ‘Sword huntuo’5 and
Caoniang huntuo 曹娘褌脱 ‘The huntuo of the girls of Cao’ and their relation to some
annual rites from Central Asia in Wolpert, 504, fn. 34. The following transnotation
of the tablature includes the modally significant ornamentation as notated in the
primary variant (item 38 in scroll 8 of Sango-yōroku). 6

Lun’gu huntuo 輪鼓褌脱

百 百

 

1, 2 火 引
火 二反
4 3 1 1 1 1
1 3 4 3 4 4 3 4
4 0 0 0

二反

百 百

  



















火 火 3 火 二反
1
2 1 2 2 2 1 2 1 2 2 2 1 0 0
2 0 4

二反

百 百






引 火
1 1 0
0 4 3 4 4 3 4 1 4 1
4 0 0

4 In the Japanese version 渾 is written 褌, a lexigraph not in use in this context in Chinese
sources.
5 The obvious writing mistake 氣 for 器, reflected in the translation as ‘Sword vapours’ in
Marett, ‘Tunes Notated in Flute Tablature from a Japanese Source of the Tenth Century’,
24, is corrected in Wolpert, ‘Frogs, more Frogs...’, 503, fn. 23.
6 The glosses with alternate readings have been omitted in this transnotation.

2
 lun’gu huntuo/rinko-kodatsu

百 百

 





















火 火 4 火 火

1
2 4 3 4 2 1 0 0
0 2 2 1 2 1 2 4 2 1 0

百
百






5 引 火 火 火 火

1 1 1 1
4 3 4 2 1 0
0 2 2 1 2 1 2

百 百

 







火 一反 火 火
1 1 1
0 2 1 2 2 2 1 2 1 2 2
4 2 1 0

一反

百 百

 



















火 6 火 火
二反
2 1 0 0 2 1 2 2 2 1 0
2 0 4 4 2 1 2

二反

百 百

 






火 7 火 火
1
0 2 1 2 2 1 2 2 2 1 0
4 1 0 4 2 1 2


引 一反

0 0 0
4 4

一反

3
 r. f. wolpert

References
Marett, Allan J. ‘Tunes Notated in Flute Tablature from a Japanese Source of the Tenth
Century’. Musica Asiatica 1 (1977): 1–59.
Picken, Laurence E. R., Rembrandt F. Wolpert, Allan J. Marett, Jonathan Condit,
Elizabeth J. Markham and Yōko Mitani. Music from the Tang Court: A primary
study of the original, unpublished, Sino-Japanese manuscripts, together with a survey of
relevant historical sources, both Chinese and Japanese, and a full critical commentary.
Vol. 2. 1984. Reprint, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2009.
Serruys, H. ‘Hun-t’o: tulum, floats and containers in Mongolia and Central Asia’.
Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies 44 (1981): 105–119.
Wolpert, Rembrandt F. ‘Frogs, more Frogs...’. In XXIV. Deutscher Orientalistentag:
Ausgewählte Vorträge, edited by Werner Diem and Abdodjavad Falaturi,
vol. Supplement VIII, 497–506. Zeitschrift der Deutschen Morgenländischen
Gesellschaft. Stuttgart, 1990.

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