Damaha
Damaha ( Nepali दमाहा , damāhā ) is a kettle drum with a body made of copper or clay and a membrane made of buffalo skin, which is used by the socially low-ranking Damai professional caste in central Nepal and beyond in other parts of the country at celebrations of the life cycle, especially at wedding parties, and played at Hindu ceremonies. The Damai took their name from the damaha . The Damai ensemble, which is indispensable for many secular and religious occasions (such as Dashahara and the rice planting festival Asar ), is panche baja ("five musical instruments"), which consists of five, often nine, different instruments. The damaha is usually played in pairs by one or two musicians.
Origin and Distribution
Drums have had a special ritual and other meaning in South Asia since ancient Indian times, as can be seen from the Sanskrit and Tamil literature since the 1st millennium BC. Chr. Emerges. The numerous traditional names for membranophones sometimes refer to a drum type, in other cases to the function or other property of the drum. The name dundubhi , which occurs in Vedic texts , was interpreted as "a kind of large kettle drum" ( Monier-Williams : Sanskrit-English Dictionary, 1872), but a war drum was probably meant, regardless of its shape, which according to the texts produced loud, terrifying tones, when beaten with sticks. A word to be equated with dundubhi is bheri . In the great Indian epics Mahabharata and Ramayana , these are the names of the large kettle drums for use in war. The very large kettle drum bher with a body made of metal, which is used in Sufi ceremonies in the Pakistani province of Sindh , refers to the old Indian name bheri .
Kettle drums, especially small types made from a clay pot whose opening is covered with a membrane, are so numerous in Indian music tradition that they must have been present before the Arab-Persian conquests of the subcontinent in the Middle Ages. Clay pot drums with a narrow opening have come down to us on several representations from ancient India. A relief with a row of standing musicians from Gandhara (1st / 2nd century AD) shows a rare illustration of a kettle drum with a large membrane diameter (like the ghumat in Goa ) that a musician holds between his knees and with both Hands beats.
For Nepal, Licchavi inscriptions have come down to us from the empire that ruled the Kathmandu valley from the 4th century to the middle of the 8th century . According to an inscription from 605 and another from 699, music was made at the temples, but it is unclear what type this music was. Another inscription from the 7th century, in which the payment of employees at the ruling house is listed, proves that there were snail horn blowers and, depending on the translation, either “drummers” or “player of a ritual instrument”, for their use as courtly or ritual musicians were paid. An ensemble of snail horn and drum may have been widespread in Nepal in the early Middle Ages.
A new generation of kettle drums reached South Asia probably as early as the first Arab advance into the Sindh in 712, along with other instruments of the military bands, especially long trumpets ( nafīr and karna ) and cone oboes ( surnā ). In India, since the founding of the Delhi Sultanate in 1206, the Arabic-Persian name naqqāra (in India nagārā and similar) has been handed down for a pair of kettle drums, which were used by all Muslim rulers as an important instrument for military bands and representative orchestras. Curt Sachs (1923) explains practically why the Muslim cavalry armies carried kettle drums and not double-headed tubular drums . The riders were able to beat two kettle drums hanging on the side of the horse's neck without being impeded when riding. Namely derived are the large kettle drums nagara in Nepal and nagra in northeast India.
According to the Āʾīn -i Akbarī Chronicle, completed in 1598, the largest kettle drum in the Mughal period was the kurga ( kurka ). They were used in pairs in ruler's ceremonies. In each case one musician struck one of the drums with two sticks, which are said to have been as high as a man. According to the exact list, a number of other drums belonged to the palace orchestra of the Mughal Emperor Akbar , including the large pair of kettle drums damama (or kuwarga ). The name of the kettle drum pair tabla (from Arabic tabl ) comes from the Persian region .
Regardless of their ancient Indian or Near Eastern-Persian origin, the drum types in South Asia predominantly have a ritual function and are used at secular or religious-magical festivals. In Rajasthan , the drummer caste of Damami uses the boiler drum damama in folk music. The Rajput Damami, a subgroup of this caste, trace their ancestry back to the warlike Rajputs , where they performed as military drummers. Duggi is a small pair of kettle drums in North Indian folk music. The traveling musicians from Baul in Bengal play a single duggi to accompany their religious songs. The dhamsa , which is often used by Adivasis at religious annual celebrations in eastern northern India, is the largest kettle drum in the north and has a body made of sheet iron. In the northwestern Indian state of Uttarakhand musicians play professional caste Bajgis the flat boiler drum damau at ceremonial occasions outdoors (ritual theater and weddings).
Throughout Nepal, kettle drums are part of the musical accompaniment of the daily sacrificial rituals at temples for Shiva and the mother goddess (for example in the form of Durga , Kali or Mahadevi ). In central Nepal, this temple music group called nagara bana consists essentially of the single kettle drum nagara , the cone oboe rasa and the long trumpet karnal . The nagara bana as the ensembles around the damaha also played exclusively by the Damai. In the west and east of the country, only a single nagara is used in temple rituals , sometimes supplemented by the ghanta handbell . The nagara is met with most of the appreciation of all the drums in Nepal. The nagara bana temple music is played exclusively by the Damai caste. Ballinger / Bajracharya (1960) found the largest kettle drums, almost two meters in diameter, known as damaha or nagara , on the main squares of the three ancient royal cities in the Kathmandu valley : on the Durbar square of Kathmandu ( Basantapur ), Patan and Bhaktapur .
The Damai also play the kettle drum tamar, made of clay or copper, at weddings and other celebrations. Similar boiler drums in the Himalayan region are the pairs played boiler drums damama with metal body in the district Chitral (North Pakistan), which involves a strip of skin small boiler drum pair DA-one in Ladakh and the medium individual boiler drum zanga with a body made of copper, which in Buddhist monasteries in Sikkim used becomes.
Other drum types in Nepal that are used at annual festivals and ceremonies are the double-skinned double konun drum pashchima , the small hourglass drum damaru , the flat stemmed drum dhyangro and the roughly cylindrical tubular drums dha, dhimay , donga, dholak , dhyamaya and madal (language related to the Indian maddale ).
A reference to the magical-religious significance of the drums in Nepal is provided by a mythical story about the origin of the madal barrel drum and a second story, with which the madal- playing Badi caste justifies its origin: When the king of the gods Indra wanted to organize a festival for the gods, it was missing an entertainment program. Indra asked the angels to sing and dance, which would not work without musical instruments. So the people were commissioned to make them, but failed at the task. A man eventually made a madal . Because it was not making any sounds, he furiously tossed the drum down the hill. As he rolled down he heard something, took the drum back, prepared the two eardrums and with their beating the angels began to sing. In the second story with a differently justified task, the man making the drum wins the goddess Parvati, who appeared as a singer, as his wife, from whose offspring the Badi emerge.
Design
The damaha has an approximately hemispherical body made of sheet copper and, on older and smaller instruments, partly made of clay. Copper is considered a sacred material for drums, which in this capacity is only surpassed by the pancha dhatu alloy of literally "five metals". The five metals (copper, tin, zinc, silver and gold) are considered "pure", only special ritual drums nagara are made from this alloy .
The top of the damaha is covered with a membrane made of buffalo skin, which is stretched with Y-shaped strips of skin that run straight to the center of the bottom. The player hits the damaha with a thick wooden stick; when used in place of the great nagara in temple rituals, he strikes it with two sticks. Usually a strap made of a strip of skin is tied to the lacing, with which the standing player can hang the drum around his shoulder. For the desired deep sound, the membrane must be moistened with water from the inside and outside before playing.
The membrane diameter varies from region to region. It is 29 to 34 centimeters in the Gorkha district and elsewhere in central Nepal. In eastern Nepal the diaphragm diameter reaches up to 43 centimeters and in the far west of Nepal similar sized damaha are used. The damaha is played individually or as an unconnected pair of drums ( jor damaha ).
Style of play and cultural significance
Like Indian society, Nepalese society is strictly structured according to castes . The craftsmen form the low castes and within these are the professional musicians on the lowest social level ( Dalit , also "untouchables"). These musical castes include the Damai, the Gaine (also called Gandharva after the heavenly musicians , beggar musicians and singers who accompany each other on the sarangi ), the Hudki (in western Nepal, players of the hourglass drum hudka , which corresponds to the North Indian hurka ) and the Badi (in general and also despised by other Dalit groups as - former - musician prostitutes). Despite their status as an "untouchable" caste, the Damai with their religious music are considered indispensable for the well-being of the Hindu society in Nepal.
Panche baja
Some Damai are tailors, the majority are musicians. This professional connection in a caste also applies to the Kusle (or Jogi) who are at the bottom of Newar society. The Damai are known for playing the kettle drum damaha as well as other instruments that form the ensemble panche baja ( pañcai bājā, Nepali पञ्चे „," five musical instruments ") for the Indo-Nepalese ( Nepali speakers). In addition to the damaha , which is usually played in pairs, these are the cone oboe sahanai (in India shehnai ), the small kettle drum tyamko or the double-headed tubular drum dholaki (in India dholak and dholki ), the hand cymbals jhyali or jhurma , the trumpet narsinga , which is curved in a semicircle, and the straight long trumpet karnal . This ensemble is indispensable in central Nepal for all processions, transitional celebrations (weddings, there songs for the kidnapping of the bride beuli magne ) and religious sacrificial rituals on public holidays. The larger ensemble naumati baja (“nine musical instruments”) consists of the same instruments, supplemented by another damaha and sahanai and two narsinga or karnal . This ensemble is also often referred to as panche baja . The panche baja is known to Indo-Nepalese population groups throughout Nepal from the lowlands ( Terai ) in the south to the foothills of the Himalaya, only it does not occur in mountain peoples (such as Sherpas and Tibetans ).
The five is a significant number for an ensemble of ritual music in South Asia, because in the Indian epic Mahabharata , which was written in the centuries before until after the turning point , a military band of five is made up of five before the decisive battle of Kurukshetra , which is described in the Bhagavadgita various instruments, which include the snail horn and drum ( bheri ). In a Buddhist Jataka , participants in a royal tour group include an ensemble with five instruments, including a snail horn and drum. The "five great sounds" ( pancha maha shabda ) are often mentioned in Indian myths as a distinction that the king accords his most worthy subjects. They are made up of the nagara and other drums, various wind instruments, gong and cymbals . In the southern Indian state of Kerala , the panchavadyam is a ceremonial drum orchestra with drums, cymbals ( elathalam ) and the curved trumpet kombu .
For the instruments of the panche baja , the Damai tell an origin legend that is based on the Indian myth of the buffalo demon Mahishasura . He was able to conquer the sky and drive the gods from there. The goddess Durga only managed to kill the invulnerable man in a duel with a trick . Among the Damai, the goddess Kalika killed a demon and made musical instruments out of his body. The membrane and lacing of the damaha and dholki emerged from the skin of the demon, the trumpet narsinga from the bones, and the cone oboe sahanai from the nose . According to another version, the demon had killed many people and fed on their flesh until Mahadev ( Shiva ) managed to kill him. Kalika made musical instruments from the bones of one of the victims. Thus, it was from the skull of a dead human body of the damaha and out of the ribs, the narsinga (cf. the produced. Skull of shells used for Tibetan Buddhist rituals pellet drum damaru ).
According to its different occasions, the repertoire of a panche baja includes a large selection of pieces of music for annual festivals, weddings, folk songs and modern pieces. With the latter, western instruments ( ben baja, corresponds to English band ensemble ) can also be used.
An ensemble with nine instruments is considered ideal for wedding celebrations. At the old royal palace Gorkha Durbar in Gorkha , a panche baja ensemble with six instruments is used for the temple rituals : damaha, tyamko, dholaki, sahanai, karnal and the pair of cymbals jhyali . The Damai perform with this ensemble all year round on Gorkha Durbar at the annual festivals for the goddess Kalika and at other religious festivals. In the past, their employment was heritable and they were given land at their disposal for their services; today they receive a monthly salary (and in addition ritual gifts, bheti ). The ensemble at Gorkha Durbar only plays seven pieces of music, which are fixed to the ritual context. One piece belongs to Asar (e) , the festival of the Nepalese farmers at the beginning of the rice planting, and one piece ( chasore mangal , "auspicious six-tone") is played all year round in Hindu worship rituals ( puja ).
Five of these pieces are performed exclusively at the Hindu annual festival Dasai ( Dashain, in India corresponds to Dashahara and Durga Puja ), according to the fixed course of the fifteen-day festival. During the first seven days, which are still part of the preparatory phase, the panche baja ensemble plays malashri ( malshree dhun ). This music style of the Indo-Nepalese is based on the principles of raga and tala according to the classical north north Indian music . The eighth day ( ashtami ) of the festival, which is mainly dedicated to Durga , is called Mahashtami (also Durga Ashtami ). Thirty days before the ensemble performs malashri in a complete version for the only time , when the director of Gorkha Durbar invites all priests and other participants. The malashri forms that were played several times in the first seven days of Dasai are shortened versions. For the sacrificial ceremonies in the following days, the ensemble plays music that is only used for this purpose: navaga and satar katne bakya . On the tenth day, the third phase and the four-day joyous festival begin. Then the ensemble plays phagu (music of the Hindu month Phagun). On the fourteenth day ( chaturdashi ) there is another animal sacrifice, which is accompanied by the sacrificial music navaga . The final rites on the last day ( purnima ) include the common ritual music chasore mangal .
Jor damaha
During Dasai, in addition to the ensembles panche baja and nagara bana, the Damai also play the kettle drums damaha and nagara at temples , occasionally individually, but more often in pairs than jor damaha . The pair of drums can be operated by one or two musicians. On the first seven days of Dasai, two musicians in the Gorkha Durbar beat a pair of drums damaha five times a day at fixed times, but independent of rituals. Carol Tingey (1997) reports that in the Nuwakot district during Navratri a musician plays a pair of drums several times a day at temples and other holy places. In the district of Gorkha, sacrificial rituals are practiced daily at the mountain fortresses of Upallokot and Tallokot on the same occasion. The animal sacrifices carried out there at fixed times are also accompanied by a damai who beats a damaha with two sticks. The musicians themselves express themselves differently about the purpose of their drumming. For some, their game is the homage to the goddess Kalika and the others beat the drum to signal to the population that everything is in order at the Gorkha Durbar palace. On the seventh day of Dasai ( phulpati , meaning “day of flowers”), the pair of drums jor damaha precedes the ensembles panche baja and nagara baja on the procession to Durbar Square . Once the bundle of nine different flowers, leaves and edible plants (called phulpati ) brought to its destination on the Durbar, the drummer no longer beats the jor damaha independently , but integrates into the playing of the panche baja ensemble.
Western nepal
In the far west of Nepal, the Damai play a large variant of the damaha in orchestras with up to 36 drums, which are led by a master drummer. Further instruments are the bowling oboe sahanai , the curved natural trumpet narsinga and the hand cymbals jhyali . The musicians are dressed in white robes and wear white turbans. While they are drumming, they perform circular dances. With the pieces of music, the master drummer provides a rhythmic pattern to which the other drummers respond. This Damai orchestra, like the smaller panche baja, resembles the large palace orchestra naqqāra -khāna of the Mughal emperor Akbar in the 16th century.
The orchestra performs at funerals and other occasions, which - according to popular belief - are particularly threatened by demonic forces while they are taking place and must therefore be kept away by the loudest possible music that acts like a magical protective wall. This is usually based on the idea that funerals and animal sacrifices are associated with blood and death and thereby attract evil spirits.
literature
- Thomas O. Ballinger, Purna Harsha Bajracharya: Nepalese Musical Instruments. In: Southwestern Journal of Anthropology, Volume 16, No. 4, Winter 1960, pp. 398-416
- Ganga B. Gurung: Understanding the Dichotomy of Auspicious and Untouchability: An Ethnographic Study of Damai Musicians of Nepal. In: Contemporary Voice of Dalit, Volume 10, No. 2, SAGE Publications 2018, doi : 10.1177 / 2455328X18785453
- Mireille Helffer, Gert-Matthias Wegner, Simonne Bailey: Damāhā. In: Laurence Libin (Ed.): The Grove Dictionary of Musical Instruments. Volume 2, Oxford University Press, Oxford / New York 2014, p. 10
- Carol Tingey: Sacred Kettledrums in the Temples of Central Nepal. In: Asian Music, Volume 23, No. 2, Spring-Summer 1992, pp. 97-103
- Carol Tingey: Auspicious Music in a Changing Society: The Damāi Musicians of Nepal. Heritage Publishers, New Delhi 1994 (= Musicology Series, Volume 2) SOAS, London 1994
- Carol Tingey: The Pancai Bajā: Reflections of Social Change in Traditional Nepalese Music. In: Kailash - Journal of Himalayan Studies , Volume 17, No. 1, 2, 1995, pp. 11-22
- Carol Tingey: Music for the Royal Dasai . In: European Bulletin of Himalayan Research, No. 12-13, 1997, pp. 81-120
Web links
- Damaha. The Metropolitan Museum of Art
Individual evidence
- ↑ Walter Kaufmann : Old India. Music history in pictures. Volume 2. Ancient Music . Delivery 8. Deutscher Verlag für Musik, Leipzig 1981, p. 32
- ↑ P. Sambamoorthy: Catalog of Indian Musical Instruments Exhibited in the Government Museum, Chennai. (1955) The Principal Commissioner of Museums, Government Museum, Chennai 1976, p. 21
- ↑ Alastair Dick: Bher. In: Grove Music Online , January 13, 2015
- ↑ Walter Kaufmann, 1981, p. 138
- ↑ Carol Tingey, 1997, pp. 104f
- ↑ Alastair Dick: Nagara. In: Grove Music Online, 2001
- ^ Curt Sachs : The musical instruments of India and Indonesia. At the same time an introduction to instrument science. Association of Scientific Publishers, Berlin / Leipzig 1923, p. 59
- ^ Henry George Farmer : Reciprocal Influences in Music 'twixt the Far and Middle East. In: The Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society of Great Britain and Ireland, No. 2, April 1934, pp. 327–342, here p. 337
- ↑ Bigamudre Chaitanya Deva: Musical Instruments. National Book Trust, New Delhi 1977, p. 46
- ↑ Mandira Nanda: Damami. In: KS Singh (ed.): People of India: Rajasthan. Volume 2. Popular Prakashan, Mumbai 1998, p. 292
- ↑ Carol Tingey (1997, p. 100)
- ^ Carol Tingey: Musical Instrument or Ritual Object? The Status of the Kettledrum in the Temples of Central Nepal. In: British Journal of Ethnomusicology, Volume 1, 1992, pp. 103-109, here pp. 103f
- ↑ Thomas O. Ballinger, Purna Harsha Bajracharya, 1960, p. 408
- ^ Music of Chitral. Professionals. site-shara.net
- ↑ Mireille Helffer: Da-man . In: Laurence Libin (Ed.): The Grove Dictionary of Musical Instruments. Volume 2, Oxford University Press, Oxford / New York 2014, p. 10
- ↑ Azalea Birch: An Introduction to the Lepcha Musical Instruments and Songs. In: Bulletin of Tibetology , Volume 49, No. 2, 2013, pp. 45-62, here pp. 56f
- ↑ Thomas O. Ballinger, Purna Harsha Bajracharya, 1960, pp. 408-413
- ↑ Yam Bahadur Kisan, Gopal Nepali: Badi of Nepal. (= Ethnographic Research Series, Volume 13) Central Department of Sociology / Anthropology, Tribhuvan University, Kathmandu 2014, pp. 20, 51
- ↑ Carol Tingey: Sacred Kettle Drums in the Temples of Central Nepal, 1992, p 98
- ↑ Mireille Helffer, Gert-Matthias Wegner, Simonne Bailey, 2014, p. 10
- ↑ Cf. Pirkko Moisala: “Nobody should be forced to make a living by begging”: Social exclusion and cultural rights of Gāine / Gandharva musicians of Nepal. In: Yearbook for Traditional Music , Volume 45, 2013, pp. 13-27
- ↑ Carol Tingey: Sacred Kettle Drums in the Temples of Central Nepal, 1992, p 97
- ↑ Ganga B. Gurung, 2018, p. 139
- ↑ Carol Tingey: The Pancai Baja: Reflections of Social Change in Traditional Nepalese Music, 1995, p 11
- ↑ Carol Tingey, 1997, pp. 105f
- ^ Arthur Henry Fox Strangways: The Music of Hindostan . Clarendon Press, Oxford 1914, p. 77
- ↑ Carol Tingey: Sacred Kettle Drums in the Temples of Central Nepal, 1992, p 98f
- ↑ Pirkko Moisala: Nepal . In: Alison Arnold (Ed.): The Garland Encyclopedia of World Music. Volume 5: South Asia: The Indian Subcontinent. Routledge, London 1999, p. 700
- ↑ Carol Tingey, 1997, pp. 96-99
- ^ Carol Tingey, 1997, p. 102
- ↑ Carol Tingey: Nepal, Kingdom of. II. Indo-Nepalese Music. In: Grove Music Online, 2001
- ^ Felix Hoerburger : Folk Music in the Caste System of Nepal . In: Yearbook of the International Folk Music Council, Volume 2, 1970, pp. 142–147, here p. 144
- ^ Richard Wolf: Music in Seasonal and Life-Cycle Rituals. In: Alison Arnold (Ed.): The Garland Encyclopedia of World Music. Volume 5: South Asia: The Indian Subcontinent . Routledge, London 1999, pp. 272-287, here p. 286