AbangAdi
Origin, migration and clan genealogy, recited in an archaic register by a miri. It is the historical record of a society that kept no written one, and the reason clan relationships across widely separated villages can still be traced.
कब गाया जाता है: Ritual, at Solung and at rites of passage. Performed continuously for hours; different sections belong to different ritual occasions.
Ponung songsAdi
The agricultural year and the myths attached to it, sung by a central miri and answered by a circle of dancing women.
कब गाया जाता है: Solung.
NitomAdi
Everyday life — the field, the river, absence, attachment. The category rather than a single song, and still composed in.
कब गाया जाता है: Work, courtship, mourning.
Oi nitomMising
Love and longing in short couplets. Included here because it is the same genre and the same language family, sung by the community that carried Tani speech down out of these hills onto the sandbars — the clearest audible evidence of the corridor.
कब गाया जाता है: Sung across the floodplain, all year.
Ja-jin-jaAdi
Welcome, hospitality and good-humoured challenge, sung as call and response with improvised lines against a fixed refrain.
कब गाया जाता है: Gatherings and the close of festivals.
Mopin songsGalo
Invocation of Mopin Ane, the goddess the festival addresses, and petitions for a good crop and freedom from illness.
कब गाया जाता है: Mopin, early April.