Bisahari geetAngika
Bihula's journey down the river with her husband's body to recover his life from the snake goddess Mansa — sung over several nights with painted panels displayed in sequence.
Sung at: The Bisahari puja, Bhadra.
Anga & Seemanchal · Middle & Lower Gangetic Plain
Folk songs
Sohar and vivah geetAngika
Household life-cycle songs, with a gaari repertoire of ritual abuse at feasts.
Sung at: Births and weddings.
Chhath geetAngika and Hindi
Offerings to the setting and rising sun, sung on the way to the Ganga ghats.
Sung at: Chhath.
Bol Bam songsHindi, Angika, Maithili
Devotion to Shiva, chanted and sung by pilgrims covering 105 km on foot. The repertoire now turns over yearly with the recorded music industry.
Sung at: Sawan, on the Sultanganj–Deoghar walk.
Surjapuri geetSurjapuri
Love, migration and the seasons, in a language of the Bihar-Bengal-Nepal meeting point with several million speakers and almost no institutional recognition.
Sung at: Weddings, harvest, and everyday.
JhumarAngika and Khortha
Work and courtship, sung in circling dance form across the Bihar-Jharkhand border.
Sung at: Monsoon and harvest.
Bhatiyali and kirtan of the eastern beltBengali
Boatmen's songs and Vaishnav devotional singing, ordinary in the Katihar and Kishanganj districts and unheard of a hundred kilometres west.
Sung at: On the water, and at Vaishnav gatherings.
The folk songs of Anga & Seemanchal — what they are about, who sings them and when. (7)