Bahinabai's oviAhirani
Farming labour, the mind, poverty, motherhood and old age, in short unrhymed lines of concrete image and no abstraction. Composed orally by a woman who could not write, transcribed by her son and published after her death in 1951.
कब गाया जाता है: Composed at work — grinding, threshing, cooking. The collection is taught in Marathi schools, which means most of India's exposure to Ahirani is through one illiterate woman's verse.
Jatyavarchya ovyaAhirani
Brothers, natal homes, marital households and the grind itself, sung in a fixed short metre by women working in pairs.
कब गाया जाता है: At the hand quern before dawn.
Kanbai ganiAhirani
Invitation, welcome and farewell addressed to the goddess installed in the house for a day or two, and to the rot bread offered to her.
कब गाया जाता है: Shravan, at the Kanbai installation.
Gher songsPawri and Bhili
Courtship, boasting, village rivalry and the movement between villages, sung over large drums by lines of dancers who walk between hamlets for days.
कब गाया जाता है: Holi week, on the Satpura slope.
LagnageetAhirani
Praise, teasing and ritual abuse exchanged between the two households across each stage of the ceremony, with a fixed sequence tied to specific rites.
कब गाया जाता है: Weddings.
Akhaji ganiAhirani
Songs addressed to the household's dead as they are offered aamras, puran poli and water from a new pot — the region's principal ancestor observance.
कब गाया जाता है: Akshaya Tritiya, at the start of summer.
Palna and angaiAhirani
Cradle songs sung by women of the household when a child is first laid in the palna.
कब गाया जाता है: Cradle rites and naming.
Powada and Varkari abhangaMarathi
Marathi-language repertoire circulating in an Ahirani-speaking region — the clearest evidence of the valley's incorporation into a Marathi cultural sphere that its everyday speech sits outside.
कब गाया जाता है: Fairs, Shivjayanti, wari dindis.