Nabokov, Nicolas [Nikolay]

III. Traditional music outside the Kathmandu Valley

Hardly any of the music cultures of the 30 or so ethnic groups living outside the Kathmandu valley have been studied. Religious rituals, oral narratives and festivals have been investigated as if they were silent, ignoring music which plays an essential part in them.

The mountainous topography has kept local cultures relatively isolated from each other. The caste hierarchy (officially banned in 1951) into which ethnic groups are included as castes (jāti) has supported the distinctiveness of music cultures. In an attempt to raise their status, people belonging to a lower caste may, however, adopt songs, among other cultural practices, from upper castes. The development of mass media, particularly Radio Nepal with its nationalist politics, has been one of the major factors in musical change in rural areas. Authentic recordings of minority musics are not played on the radio. Nepalese and Hindi popular tunes are adopted into local repertories, and songs in a similar style are composed.

Among the northern Sino-Burman ethnic group, anhemitonic pentatonic melodies sung with slight variations in a heterophonic and sometimes melismatic manner dominate. In the south, among the dominant Indo-Aryan group, melodies are based on heptatonic scales, and singing may be more unified but also more melismatic. The rhythmic accompaniment is rich and varied, and most of the music is combined with dance. These generalizations, however, do not give justice to the vast variety of local musics.

In addition to the music of mass media adopted by rural people, some musical genres, such as the jhyāure dance, are known all over Nepal. A song duel, dohorī gīt, in which individuals or groups compete in invention of new verses, is also popular. The improvised verses are usually followed by refrains sung by people listening to the competition.

Most of the music in villages is made by ordinary people during their leisure time and while working it is conceptualized as being collective and reciprocal. Only singing and playing in a group for an audience (visible or invisible) is regarded as music: songs sung alone or in groups while working are not regarded as music but as an inseparable part of the work at hand. Musical roles are divided according to gender, and even though women take part in some musical genres (such as the rateulī dance at weddings), their music-making is limited after they marry.

Religious beliefs relate to much of the music; religious authorities have their own repertory connected with rites after death and other rituals. Music performed both by shamans and laymen is used as a medium to communicate with the gods, local deities and ancestors. The beating of drums accompanies the spiritual journeys made by shamans and by the spirit possessions of ordinary people. Various animistic, Buddhist and Hindu rites (for purifying the house, blessing the first-born son etc.) and numerous religious festivals consist of, or at least include, music; perhaps the best known is the mānī-rimdu festival of the Sherpas. The singing and dancing of Hindu epics belongs to some ethnic repertories (such as the Gurung version of the story of Lord Krsna, and the nachang of the Magars, based on the Hindu epic of Rāma and Sītā).

Musical instruments include a wide range of membranophones, most popular of which is the wooden cylindrical drum (the mādal), bamboo flutes (basurī), cymbals (jhyālī), trumpets made of animal horn, oboes and jew's harps, while string instruments are more rare. The harmonium is also used in villages. Many of the instruments originate from India. A variety of names and pronunciations for the same kind of instrument and the same kind of music are used; the same name may also be used to describe different kinds of musical practices.

The most traditional dances may imitate working movements (such as the wass dance of the Khaling, connected with earth worship in May), or animals (for example the Limbu dance ke-lang, the parts of which are named after various animals that were originally imitated). Men may dance female roles, and women dancing in male costumes may perform in contemporary dances.

Music-making, and to some extent the musical repertory, is related to the agricultural cycle of the year. The gods are honoured with music in the hope of a good crop and to celebrate the auspicious occasion of eating from the new harvest (such as chhonam of the Chepang). When work in the fields allows leisure time, musical performances are arranged.

The musical repertory of the Gurung of mid-Nepal consists of traditional genres, such as the ghāmtu and sorathī, more recent genres relating to the Hindu tradition (the Krsna carītra), popular pan-Nepalese dances and contemporary music in adopted popular styles. The latter are performed in the dance theatres and ‘cultural clubs’ of the young, as well as in the rodī, an institution for the evening gatherings of young people. Nowadays only old people in a few villages know secular songs in the Gurung language. Almost all Gurung music (excluding singing while working) is combined with dancing.

Most of the music made by the local shamans (poju, khlevri) and lamas relates to death rites. The funeral/cremation ceremony, as well as the guiding of the soul to heaven, include dances and songs (such as the serga) performed by laymen to the soul of the deceased. The older genres of the Gurung repertory, the ghāmtu (the ghāmtu of the Magars differs considerably from that of the Gurung) and the sorathī are shamanic. The gods are asked to bless the performances, sensitive listeners may fall into a trance owing to the gods' presence, and in the kusundā part of the ghāmtu, the dancers become possessed by the spirits.

The most traditional genres are based on pentatonic melodies that are slightly varied through heterophonic singing technique, possibly embellished with undulating voice formation produced by vibrating the jaw. The result is a continuously flowing complex musical texture. Performances other than those of the shamans are accompanied by mādal drums. The drum accompaniment is based on rhythmic patterns called parka (also called tāls), which are varied. Newer music, including the Krsna līlā, is diatonic and sung in a unified manner to the accompaniment of mādal and harmoniyam.

The political changes of 1990, when King Birendra relinquished absolute power following pro-democracy demonstrations, altered the status of ethnic groups. The promotion of diverse ethnicities is now officially allowed, and minority musics have gained new roles in maintaining and supporting minority cultures and identities. However, the impoverishment of rural areas reduces the frequency of long-lasting, costly musical performances. Gradual modernization has decreased the importance of musical genres related with the shamanic belief system and traditional way of life.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

and other resources

general

GEWM (‘Music in Nepal’, P. Moisala)

A. Campbell: ‘Notes on the Musical Instruments and Agricultural and Other Instruments of the Nepalese’, Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society of Bengal, vi (1837), 953–6

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A. Vajracarya: Mallakālīna Gã Pyākhã [Gã dance of the Malla period] (1982)

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newar music

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G.-M. Wegner: ‘Anruf der alten Götter: Notation und Analyse einer newarischen Trommelkomposition’, Formen kulturellen Wandels und andere Beiträge zur Erforschung des Himalaya, ed. B. Kölver (Sankt Augustin, 1986), 312–40

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L. Aubert: ‘Les musiciens dans la société newar’, Bulletin de la Musée d'Ethnographie, xxx (1988), 31–67

G.-M. Wegner: The Nāykhĩbājā of the Newar Butchers (Wiesbaden, 1988)

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D.N. Gellner: Monk, Householder and Tantric Priest (Cambridge, 1992)

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indo-nepalese music

M. Helffer and A.W. Macdonald: ‘Sur un sārangī de gāine’, Objets et mondes, vi/2 (1966), 133–42

M. Gaborieau: ‘Les récits chantés de l'Himalaya et le contexte ethnographique’, The Anthropology of Nepal, ed. C. von Fürer-Haimendorf (Warminster, 1974), 114–28

M. Helffer and M. Gaborieau: ‘A propos d'un tambour du Kumoan et de l'ouest du Népal: remarques sur l'utilisation de tambours-sabliers dans le monde Indien, le Népal et le Tibet’, Festschrift to Ernst Emsheimer, ed. G. Hilleström (Stockholm, 1974), 75–80, 268–72

A.W. Macdonald: ‘An Aspect of the Songs of the Gāine of Nepal’, Essays on the Ethnology of Nepal and South Asia (Kathmandu, 1975), 169–74

M. Helffer: ‘Une caste de chanteurs-musiciens: les gaine du Népal’, L'ethnographie, no.73 (1977), 45–75

C. Tingey: Heartbeat of Nepal: the Pañcai Bājā (Kathmandu, 1990)

C. Tingey: ‘Musical Instrument or Ritual Object? The Status of Kettledrums in the Temples of Central Nepal’, British Journal of Ethnomusicology, i (1992), 103–9

C. Tingey: ‘Sacred Kettledrums in the Temples of Central Nepal’, AsM, xxiii/2 (1992), 97–103

C. Tingey: ‘Auspicious Women, Auspicious Songs: Mangalinī and their Music at the Court of Kathmandu’, British Journal of Ethnomusicology, ii (1993), 55–74

C. Tingey: Auspicious Ensembles in a Changing Society: the Damāi Musicians of Nepal (London, 1994)

traditional music outside the kathmandu valley

J.T. Hitchcock: The Magars of the Banyan Hill (New York, 1966)

I.S. Chemjong: History and Culture of the Kirat People (Kathmandu, 1967)

I. Toba: ‘Folk Art and Culture as Observed in a Khaling Village’, Kailash, v/1 (1977), 22–7

M. Mikame: ‘A Note of the Phaguwaa Festival of Chitwan Tharu’, Kailash, vii/3–4 (1979)

G.M. Gurung: The Chepang: a Study of Continuity and Change (Kathmandu, 1986)

D. Holmberg: Order in Paradox: Myth, Ritual and Exchange among Nepal's Tamang (Ithaca, NY,1989)

P. Moisala: ‘An Ethnographic Description of the Madal-Drum and its Making among the Gurungs’, Suomen antropologi, iv (1989), 234–9

P. Moisala: ‘Gurung Music and Cultural Identity’, Kailash, xv/3–4 (1989), 207–22

P. Moisala: Cultural Cognition in Music: Continuity and Change in the Gurung Music of Nepal (Jvyäskylä, 1991)

P. Moisala: ‘Gurung Music in Terms of Gender’, Etnomusikologian vuosikirja, vi (1994), 135–47

recordings

Musik der Nevārī-Kasten, rec. F. Hoerburger, Berlin Staatliche Museen KM003 (1971) [incl. notes by F. Hoerburger]