Sikkim & Darjeeling Hills · Eastern Himalaya & Brahmaputra Belt
Courtship exchanged in improvised verse between the two halves of a dance line, each side answering the other's image. The best singers are the ones who can extend a metaphor for a dozen turns without repeating.
Sung at: Dhan nach gatherings after harvest.
Devotional and celebratory verse sung to the naumati ensemble while the maruni dancers turn.
Sung at: Tihar and weddings.
House-to-house blessing songs — Bhailo sung by women on the night of Laxmi Puja, Deusi by men the next night — in which the party praises the household and is paid in coin, sel roti and rice.
Sung at: Tihar, over two nights.
Short strophic songs of love, journey and hardship carried on the damphu's off-beat. The form absorbed twentieth-century subjects — labour migration, the road, the town — faster than any other local genre.
Sung at: Social gatherings and Sonam Lhosar.
Work songs sung ankle-deep in a terrace, timed to the rhythm of planting, with teasing and mud-throwing built into the occasion.
Sung at: Paddy transplanting in Asar (June–July).
Origin of the world, the ancestors and the proper order of ritual, recited from memory by a priest in an archaic register. It functions as scripture, genealogy and legal precedent at once.
Sung at: Birth, marriage, death and seasonal rites.
Address to Kanchenjunga, to the rivers and to the first ancestors Fudongthing and Nuzaongnyu, said to have been formed from the pure snow of the peak. Almost entirely oral, and the least documented repertoire in the region.
Sung at: Healing, house rites and Chu Faat.
Verse duelling between two singers or two parties, extended until one side runs out of answers. It is competitive, improvised and often runs all night.
Sung at: Fairs, weddings and long journeys.
The folk songs of Sikkim & Darjeeling Hills — what they are about, who sings them and when. (8)