Betel Nuts Brothers - Hunters Who Lost Their Lands- CD Home Page | Newest Releases More music from China

Search for music Need Help?

Betel Nuts Brothers
Hunters Who Lost Their Lands (Trees Music and Art)

The Brothers (Docdoc, Budu, Abi and Wushin plus cousin Huegu) are an bboriginal band of the Amis tribe of Taiwan (they prefer to be called Pangcah people) play acoustic guitars, conga drums and Amis wooden and bamboo drums, sing songs of life, love and trouble in their Amis community. There are notes on the lyrics in English to keep you in tune with their decidedly western-influenced bluesy folk-rock approach.

Listen:
Welcome Song
Na lo wan

More by Betel Nuts Brothers

"A few years ago I did an interview with Christopher Roberts who sent me a CD called Betel Nuts. It was field recordings he had made of string bands in Papua New Guinea and Taiwan; the connection was the migration of people and betel nut. The Taiwanese half of the CD was music played by two identical twins Huegu and Api, their father 'Mui, and Valah Udai, who are all indigenous Amis people. These two new CDs, one of which to my shame I've had on my table for ages, continue to follow the musical adventures of Huegu. Previously, I couldn't have told you who Docdoc was, because the sleevenotes to Bura Bura Yan are all in Taiwanese. Suddenly, to my rescue, appeared a new CD by the Betel Nuts Brothers with English sleevenotes. Now I can tell you that the Betel Brothers are four brothers and a cousin Huegu, Docdoc, Budu, Abi and Wushin; a truck driver, a surgeon, a dance company assistant, a leader of a traditional Amis dance company and a grocer. All five we are told are hunters who have lost their land and traditional livelihood and adapted to the new ways in order to survive in the cities. Their music is their final stand to protect the last traces of Amis culture and dignity. These are protest songs, love songs, harvest songs, songs sung at the dismissal of a husband from when Taiwan was a matriarchal society, dance songs, songs of place, folk songs; all played on acoustic guitar, mostly strummed, no fancy finger picking, small percussion; and vocal melodies often bearing traces of what we Europeans would know as pentatonic South East Asian folk and pop tunes, of course. - Mike Cooper, fRoots "Musically, acoustic guitars, conga drums and Amis wooden and bamboo drums form the backbone of the the band's music, added to the Brothers' unadorned voices, often in call-and-response segments, sometimes with funny lyrics... Huegu and Docdoc are the two key figures in Betel Nuts Brothers. They are cousins who grew up playing baseball together in a village in Hualien. Docdoc now work as a surgeon at a Hualien hospital and Huegu is a truck driver, who sometimes takes up temporary jobs as a construction worker. After work, they play guitar and percussion instruments to recount their youthful days." - Taipei Times