Brahmaputra Valley · Eastern Himalaya & Brahmaputra Belt
Spring, the kopou phool orchid, the cuckoo, and courtship conducted almost entirely in metaphor. Sung antiphonally between young men and women, and traditionally frank in a way the rest of the year is not.
Sung at: Rongali Bihu, April.
Blessing songs sung by a troupe that goes from courtyard to courtyard through Bihu week, singing for the household's prosperity and being fed and given a gamosa in return.
Sung at: Bohag Bihu.
Devotion to Krishna in a form Sankardev built specifically so that ordinary people, not Sanskrit scholars, could sing it.
Sung at: Daily prayer in namghars and sattras.
The unity of God and the vanity of worldly attachment, expressed in Assamese village imagery — the boat, the river, the harvest.
Sung at: Sufi gatherings, and community singing.
Devotional and moral ballads, sung solo to a two-string drone, often by a singer moving between villages.
Sung at: Sung by wandering singers with a tokari lute.
Sung by the women of the household through every stage of an Assamese wedding, from the bath to the departure, with a separate song for almost every ritual.
Sung at: Weddings.
Rowing songs whose metre sets the stroke, from a valley where the boat was the road.
Sung at: Boat racing on the Brahmaputra.
The songs of the western districts — including "Hastir kanya", the mahout songs about elephant handlers and the women who wait for them, brought to national attention by Pratima Barua Pandey.
The folk songs of Brahmaputra Valley — what they are about, who sings them and when. (8)