Andaman Islands · Island Realms
Sung around a karam branch planted in the village ground, by Chota Nagpur Adivasi settler communities. The songs came with the labour recruitment of a century ago and are still sung in island villages.
Sung at: The Karma festival, in the monsoon.
Baptist hymnody in four parts, sung in Karen at Webi and the neighbouring villages. The community's strongest surviving oral tradition, and the one that carried its language forward.
Sung at: Church and community gatherings.
Boatmen's songs carried from East Bengal by refugee settlers, sung in a country where the boats now go out onto open sea rather than up a river.
Sung at: On the water and at settlement gatherings.
Harvest and devotional songs kept up by Tamil settler families, largely unchanged from the mainland forms.
Sung at: Pongal and temple festivals.
Songs of the Great Andamanese have been recorded by linguists working with the community's remaining speakers, and archived material exists in academic collections. It is documented here as existing rather than described, because its contexts belong to a small living community and not to a visitor's itinerary.
Sung at: Not for public listing.
The folk songs of Andaman Islands — what they are about, who sings them and when. (5)