Mortuary feast songsNicobarese
Sung through the night with the circle dance while the feast runs. The songs are part of the rite that closes a death, not a performance attached to it.
Sung at: The ossuary or pig feast.
Nicobar Islands · Island Realms
Folk songs
Canoe and launching songsNicobarese
Work and departure songs tied to the boat, which is the most valuable object a village makes and the one it competes with.
Sung at: Building, launching and racing a hodi.
Nicobarese hymnodyNicobarese
Christian hymns sung in Nicobarese, often to guitar. Because the Bible was translated into Nicobarese and published in 1970, hymn singing became one of the main channels through which the language is used in a written, standardised form.
Sung at: Church, Christmas, community gatherings.
Welcome and feast-giving songsNicobarese
Songs of hospitality and obligation, in a society where feast-giving between villages and tuhets is the main way status is settled.
Sung at: Receiving visitors, inter-village feasts.
The folk songs of Nicobar Islands — what they are about, who sings them and when. (4)