Bo People Live 波族尚在

Over the past week I have been working closely with several members of the Qin Silk Consort, musicians who teach world music at UMass and Amherst College. Two of them are originally from China and staying in the Amherst area through the holidays, so they were eager to dive into something meaningful and new. We ended up talking about an anthropology article that caught our attention, and those conversations opened the door to a new piece we have now shaped into a finished song.

The article describes the Hanging Coffins of Southwest China, the wooden coffins placed high along vertical limestone cliffs. Some rest in natural alcoves, others sit on narrow ledges or on wooden stakes driven into the rock. For generations people wondered who placed them there and why the tradition seemed to end so abruptly. Much of the mystery centered on the Bo people, thought by many to have vanished during the Ming Dynasty. The difficulty of placing such heavy coffins so high up fed the idea that their makers had disappeared completely.

A new genomic study published in Nature Communications challenges that old story. By comparing DNA from ancient individuals at the Hanging Coffin sites in China and Log Coffin sites in Thailand with thirty modern Bo genomes, researchers argue that the Bo people did not vanish at all. Their genetic lines and cultural continuity carried forward even as the written record fractured.

We spent an evening reading through the research, talking about what it means for a tradition to survive even when history goes quiet. It struck all of us that the cliffs themselves hold the memory, and that the people endured in ways that were quieter than the archives. That idea became the heart of the song.

The melody came first, shaped slowly to feel as steady as those cliff faces. The accompaniment grew from simple textures that suggest wood, stone, and time. Everyone involved contributed musical ideas from their own traditions, and the blend formed naturally. The lyrics followed afterward, built around the idea that the Bo people continued on in ways the older story did not acknowledge. Nothing exaggerated, just a calm recognition of endurance.

We titled the song Bo People Live. A natural Mandarin rendering is 波族尚在, which means the Bo people remain. It felt right to include it since two of our collaborators are from China and connected deeply with the subject.

The work sessions were relaxed and thoughtful, exactly the kind of winter collaboration that brings something unexpected to life. The result is a piece that honors both the new research and the long thread of culture behind it.

Listen and buy a copy here: Bo People Live