Published On

2017-10-30

Page Range

pp. 207-232

Print Length

25 pages

4. The Song of the Dildima Bird

Chapter of: Long Narrative Songs from the Mongghul of Northeast Tibet: Texts in Mongghul, Chinese, and English (pp. 207–232)

Dildima Xau is a lament, sung by a woman after marrying into her husband’s home. She describes her miserable existence—her decrepit appearance and the poor treatment she is receiving—to a bird, the eponymous dildima, asking the bird to carry her message back to her parents in her natal home.

Contributors

Li Dechun

(author)

Li Dechun (李得春, Limusishiden) is a native Mongghul from Huzhu Tu (Mongghul) Nationality Autonomous County. He currently works in Qinghai University Affiliated Hospital, Qinghai Province, as a chief surgeon. He has been researching and writing about Mongghul traditional culture since 1989.

Gerald Roche

(author)
Discovery Early Career Research Award Fellow at University of Melbourne
https://orcid.org/0000-0002-2410-351X

Gerald Roche is currently a Discovery Early Career Research Award Fellow at the University of Melbourne's Asia Institute. He is an anthropologist, and researches linguistic and cultural diversity in Tibet. Gerald's publications include Introduction: The Transformation of Tibet's Language Ecology in the Twenty-first Century. International Journal of the Sociology of Language, 245 (2017): 1–35. The Mangghuer Nadun: Village Ritual and Frontier History on the Northeast Tibetan Plateau, in The Silk Road: Interwoven History, Vol. 1: Long-distance Trade, Culture, and Society, ed. by M. N. Walter and J. P. Ito-Adler (Cambridge: Cambridge Institutes Press, 2015), pp. 310–47.