Arts and artisanal heritage

DhamailFolk

The defining performance form of the Surma–Barak plain. Women stand in a ring, sing and clap on the beat and move sideways with a bent-knee dip, with no instrument required beyond the clap and no stage. The repertoire is largely Radharaman Dutta's and is Vaishnav in subject, but it is sung at Hindu and Muslim weddings alike and is learnt entirely by ear. It is the clearest evidence that the valley's cultural axis runs downstream.

Performed by: Women, in a circle. Occasion: Weddings, and the nights before them

Manipuri Raas LeelaClassical

The Krishna cycle danced through the night in the potloi and veil, with the slow circular grammar and the pung drum of the Imphal valley tradition. It has been performed continuously in the Cachar settlements since the nineteenth century, and the Cachar performance calendar is set independently of Manipur's.

Performed by: Manipuri communities of Cachar. Occasion: Kartik Purnima and Vasanta

Pung cholomClassical

Drummers who play the barrel pung while leaping and turning, the drum strapped to the body and never silenced by the movement. Performed as the opening of a Raas.

Performed by: Manipuri male drummers. Occasion: Raas, temple festivals

JhumurFolk

The circling line dance of the Adivasi tea-garden population, with madal drum and a call-and-response couplet form in Sadri. It arrived with the labour migration of the nineteenth century and is now a settled Assam form with no living link to the villages it came from.

Performed by: Tea-garden communities. Occasion: Karam, weddings, estate festivals

Bishnupriya Manipuri Dhap KirtanRitual

Devotional singing to the flat dhap frame drum, performed standing and in procession, distinct from the Meitei nata sankirtan though both are Vaishnav and both are at home in the same valley.

Performed by: Bishnupriya Manipuri communities. Occasion: Vaishnav festivals

Dhamail gaan

The song half of the dhamail — short strophic Vaishnav lyrics in Sylheti, sung antiphonally by two halves of the circle. Radharaman Dutta of Sylhet is the composer most of the standard repertoire is attributed to.

Baul, marfati and murshidi

The Sufi and Baul devotional streams of the Surma plain, sung solo to a dotara or an ektara. Marfati and murshidi are the Muslim mystical registers; the words cross freely between the traditions and the tunes more freely still.

Padmapuran and Manasa mangal gaan

Night-long sung recitation of the snake-goddess narrative, performed by a lead singer with a chorus during the Manasa season. In a plain this waterlogged the snake cult is not folklore but risk management.

Jari gaan and bicchedi

Jari is the sung Karbala lament of the Muslim villages, performed in a standing circle; bicchedi is the song of separation, the register a great deal of the valley's non-devotional singing works in.

Nata sankirtan

Meitei Vaishnav congregational singing with pung and cymbals, performed in the Manipuri settlements. Its Manipur form was inscribed by UNESCO in 2013 as intangible cultural heritage.

Jatra

Open-air Bengali musical theatre played on a bare square stage with the audience on all four sides, touring the valley's towns and estate grounds in the dry months.

Kabigaan

A contest between two poets improvising verse against each other before a crowd, each with a small chorus. Now rare, and kept alive mainly at fairs.

Cane and bamboo work GI-worthy Cachar, Hailakandi, Karimganj

The largest craft employment in the valley, and almost entirely a household activity rather than a workshop one. Sitalpati mat weaving from murta cane is the most refined branch of it — a mat split so fine it is cool to lie on — and it is shared with the Tripura and Sylhet plains rather than owned by this valley.

Material: Muli and jati bamboo, cane. Technique: Split-and-plait weaving, and steam-bent framing for furniture. The valley makes the whole domestic inventory in bamboo — sitalpati mats, fish traps, grain baskets, winnowing fans, room screens and the racks the shutki dries on.

Manipuri weaving GI-worthy Cachar

Worked at home by women in the Manipuri and Bishnupriya Manipuri villages of the Cachar plain, on looms brought across the hills after the Manipuri displacement of the 1820s. The tradition is unbroken; the market for it is thin.

Material: Cotton, mulberry and endi silk. Technique: Loin loom and fly-shuttle frame loom, with supplementary-weft border motifs.

Terracotta and clay work Cachar, Karimganj

Kumhar households making water pots, storage jars and the sealed pots that hidol is fermented in, plus votive figures for Manasa and Kali worship. The fermentation pot is the piece that keeps the trade alive.

Material: River clay. Technique: Wheel-thrown and hand-modelled, open-fired or kiln-fired at low temperature.

Tea processing Cachar, Hailakandi

The valley is Assam's second tea district, distinct from the Brahmaputra belt and generally producing a lighter, less malty liquor. Planting began here in the 1850s; the Assam Orthodox geographical indication covers Assam-grown orthodox tea and is not a Barak-specific mark.

Material: Camellia sinensis, assamica variety. Technique: Withering, rolling, oxidation and firing, mostly to the crush-tear-curl method that produces small granular leaf for strong milk tea.

Boat building Cachar, Karimganj

A trade that exists because a third of the year is spent on water. The flat-bottomed nouka of the haors is built to be poled through standing paddy, not rowed in a channel.

Material: Local timber. Technique: Plank-on-frame construction, sewn and pegged, for shallow-draught country boats.