Hurka (drum)

Hurka ( Hindi हुड़का ) also hudka, hurki , is a two-headed hourglass drum that is used in Indian folk music in the Garhwal and Kumaon regions in the northern Indian state of Uttarakhand to accompany epic songs, dances and ceremonies of possession ( jagar ) in closed rooms together with the flat gong thali is used. Daunr has a similar form and function in Garhwal , but its handling is different.

In Uttar Pradesh and among the ethnic group of the Gonds , which are also scattered in central India , this type of drum is called huruk (also awaj ). For the Gonds, it is an integral part of rural popular music.

Design

Hurka and huruk belong to the hourglass drums, whose membrane, which is roughly the same size, consists of an untanned animal skin, which is pulled over circular rings and tied there. The ring diameters are slightly larger than the final diameter of the wooden body. The skin is pulled onto the bamboo membrane rings and glued on. Then the stretched skins are placed on the body openings and tensioned in a V-shape with a circumferential cotton cord drawn through six holes in each ring or a strip of skin. The Garhwal hurka has a wooden body about 38 centimeters long, made on a lathe, with a diameter of typically 17 centimeters on both sides. The membranes protrude up to 1.5 centimeters over the edge of the body. In Garhwal, they are cut out from the skin of a goat stomach, which makes up to four membranes.

The drum is held in place with a carrying strap ( holan ) made of a 3 centimeter wide strip of fabric, which consists of a small loop placed around the center of the drum and a large loop. The musician hangs the drum from his left shoulder with the large loop; with his left hand he grips around the waist of the body and only hits the upper eardrum with the fingers of his right hand. The flexible lacing is centralized by a transverse carrying loop. If the musician now stretches the drum with his left hand, he tensions the string system and thus increases the tension of the membranes, which enables him to produce beats that sound several note values ​​higher.

origin

Hourglass drums have had a religious significance since their first mention in the ancient Indian music theory Gandharva Veda , as it was collected in the work Natyashastra , which was written around the turn of the century, and has been preserved in many of the instruments played today, especially in South India and in Tibetan music . At Buddhist places of worship ( stupas ) found v from the 2nd century. Chr. Stone reliefs with images of hourglass drums. In Natyashastra , the drums, usually shown in the hands of gods ( devas ), are called panava or alingya in Sanskrit . The best known is the damaru , with which Shiva in the form of Nataraja performs the cosmic dance ( tandava ).

The ancient Indian panava is 24 centimeters long, 12 and 7.5 centimeters in diameter for the two membranes and 6 centimeters in diameter for the waisted center of the body. According to the illustrations from the 3rd to 7th centuries, this hourglass drum had a cord tension between the eardrums, so that presumably, as with many today's instruments, especially the South Indian idakka , the pitch could be changed by pressing or pulling the tension while playing. The music theorist Sharngadeva described in his work Sangita-Ratnakara in the 13th century the larger hourglass drum hudukka , the length of which was 36 centimeters, with an outer diameter of the two membrane discs of 42 centimeters and a mean drum diameter of 13.4 centimeters. According to another measurement, the medieval hudukka (also avajna or skandavaja ) was 53 centimeters long with membranes that were stretched on a metal ring 63 centimeters in diameter and a central diameter of the body of 13 centimeters. The wall thickness of the wooden body was 2 centimeters.

At the court of the Mughal Emperor Akbar I (r. 1556–1605), Mughal painting developed , which became an independent style through the fusion of Persian and Hindu art. The official Akbarnāma ("Book of Akbar") chronicle from the 1590s, commissioned by the ruler , contains a miniature depicting a music scene with the instruments commonly used in courtly light music. The musicians are grouped around a male sword dancer and a female dancer with cymbals ( tala ) in their hands and play several drums in addition to the double reed instrument shehnai , the longitudinal flute nai and a string lute. A man beats the double kettle drum naqqara with sticks , two women hold up the frame drum daira and a male musician plays the hourglass drum huruk . By their clothing and in comparison with contemporary literature, the musicians can be identified as members of the hurukiya community from Rajasthan , named after the hourglass drum , who are in the tradition of the Rajputs . As Hindus who do not belong to the Mughal court, they are shown in the picture on the lower left, as far away as possible from Akbar, who is sitting on his throne in the upper right.

The hudukka is the starting point of a series of hourglass drums with a related name, which, apart from the hurka in Uttarakhand and the huruk in Uttar Pradesh, are predominantly found in southern India today. These include the drums hudukka, hurukka, huruk, hurka, hudki and the south Indian temple drum udukkai . A differently named hourglass drum is the tudi , which is played in the villages of Karnataka and Kerala to accompany songs and dances. There are stories according to which it has been assigned a magical meaning. With a length of eight centimeters (measured on a specimen from the end of the 19th century), the budbudiki is a very small hourglass drum that does not require any tensioning cords . In the state of Karnataka, street musicians with the same name as the drum go with her as fortune tellers from house to house. The most revered South Indian hourglass drum is the idakka , which is played in Kerala during Hindu processions and temple festivals. The dhadd in Panjab is used by the Dhadis, a caste of musicians belonging to the Sikhs, together with the string sarangi to accompany religious chants. Small hourglass drums with rattles of the damaru (also damru ) type have their distribution center in the Indian part of the Himalayas , in Nepal and in Tibet ( Tibetan gcod-dar ), where they are mostly used in religious music. In the rest of India they often use showmen who move around with monkeys or, in rare cases, with dancing bears .

In western Nepal the hourglass drum hudka gave its name to the Hudki ethnic group who played it, a sub-caste of the Damai. The Damai form a caste of music-making tailors who are in demand as professional musicians at parties and family celebrations, but are at the bottom of society.

Style of play

Hurka

Shiva, worshiped as Golu Devata in the folk religion of Kumaon. Temple in the village of Udaipur near Binta, about 50 kilometers by road northwest of Almora

In the regions of Garhwal and Kumaon with the city of Almora in the center, which are located in Uttarakhand on the southern foothills of the Himalayas, a special tradition of orally transmitted epic verses has been preserved, dealing with legends and events from history. In addition to the fantastic proportions, the sung stories also contain historical facts, which in many cases have withstood an archaeological examination and some with relief scenes at temples from the 12th / 13th centuries. Century match. Some stories, the Shiva puranas , belong to the myths about Shiva and his divine companions, others deal with mythical figures who are assigned magical powers and explain the cosmogony of the world or the origin of humans.

These stories are told by the hurkiya . These are professional singers who accompany each other on the hourglass drum hurka and mostly, but not necessarily, come from the social group of the same name, which belongs to the lowest caste of the Doms. The doms are among the long-established residents ( Dalits ), who are divided into professional groups; in Uttar Pradesh among others in blacksmiths ( lohar ), skinner ( chamar ) and fur and leather fabricators ( hurkiya ). The ethnomusicologist Marie-Thérèse Dominé-Datta first examined the narrative tradition of the hurkiya in Almora in the 1950s .

The singer and drum player is occasionally supported by two men called hewar , who add a sung drone and thus fill in the pauses between two musical units. Instead of the drum, the audience can also set the beat with small hand cymbals ( manzira ), clapping hands or clicking their tongues. If the narrative is heading for a dramatic climax, viewers sometimes improvise dances with economical movements. The dancers always act independently of one another, even if they appear in groups. The epic songs are usually performed on the nights of the winter months.

In addition to the hourglass drum hurka , the small kettle drum damau (also dhamu or damaung ) with a metal body 25 centimeters in diameter are played in the Kumaon area . When this drum is wrapped in a band of bells, it is called kamchini (from Sanskrit kanchi , "bell belt "). The double-skinned barrel drum dhol , which is called " dholki " here , as a smaller barrel drum is called elsewhere, is larger. Damau and dholki are always played together by members of the dholak caste, whose social position is still below the hurkiyas . The action areas of the two musicians are strictly separated. The dholaks , musicians of the auji caste, perform especially at weddings with the drum pair dhol-damau and with the bagpipe mashak bin . The hourglass drum daunr is shorter than the hurka struck with the right hand ; it is struck by hand on the left eardrum and with a thin stick on the right.

In the valleys of the southern Himalayas, growing wet rice is women's work. Women plant the plants together by hand in larger groups. A hurkiya can set the pace and entertain the workers by reciting the stories in front of the group. Field work songs are called hurkiya bol ( hudkiabaul , "words of the hurkiya "). The hurkiya always has to be a man, he should sing well and know a large repertoire of stories by heart. Early in the morning, shortly after the women have started their work, the hurkiya sings a morning prayer. The gods addressed in the supplication should ensure a good harvest. Each verse is repeated by the women's choir until the next song follows. If the harvest is plentiful, the singer promises that the rice growers will make an offering to the god Mahadev. The stories sung in the course of the day are taken from the great epics Mahabharata and Ramayana , or regional historical events are brought to mind in the form of love songs with poetic images of language. The hurkiya in the rice fields can also act as an overseer.

A popular folk dance in Kumaon, the men and women to courtship is listed, which is chhapeli . Several couples, who do not necessarily have to be lovers, dance together in a way that is supposed to symbolize beauty and romance. The woman, whose part can also be played by a boy, holds a mirror in her left hand and a colorful cloth in her right hand. Your male partner strikes a hurka , which he has slung around his left shoulder, and sings in a choir with the other men. Other musicians, who stand in a semicircle behind the dancers, play the flute and beat hand cymbals ( manzira ).

The possession ceremony for the worship of a deity ( devta ) and for the expulsion of spirits ( bhūtas ) in Garhwal and Kumaon is called jagar (from the Sanskrit root jag- , "awaken"). If the ritual, which is only held at night, is private, it takes place in the client's house; in a public ritual, the villagers meet on the forecourt of the temple. At a private event, together with the singers, a hurkiya on the hourglass drum and on a flat gong ( thali ) provides the rhythmic accompaniment, alternatively a daunriya (player of the daunr ) and a thali player act together. In public rituals outdoors, one man plays the barrel drum dholki and another the kettle drum damau . The bhutas are evoked by the music. To do this, at the beginning the leading singer and ritual healer ( jagariya ) hits a large animal skin with two sticks. The beats get louder and faster, in the occasional interruptions helpers ( dangariya , also paswa ) act as mediums , who breathe in jerks and move their upper body violently. After a period of time, a medium reaches a state of trance, suddenly jumps up from a crouched position and begins to shout the name of a bhuta. This is a sign that the corresponding spirit has entered him and is now speaking through him. The singer then recites a certain invocation and speaks freely to the bhuta, as required in the appropriate situation and for the individual mind being evoked, while playing either hurka or dholki . Other participants in the all-night ritual may become possessed by a bhuta and behave in an extraordinary way. They often hold their hands over a fire without being injured. Usually the Bhuta demands the sacrifice of a goat or a bird, whereby he can be appeased and ultimately retreats to the Himalayas from where he came.

Since Uttarakhand split off from the state of Uttar Pradesh in 2000, there has been an increasing interest in the area for its own tradition and for regional political groups in order to demonstrate cultural independence and autonomy from the rest of the country. Along with this, the number of possession ceremonies has increased steadily since then, and these are now increasingly being disseminated via video films. A jagar event is a particularly suitable means of emphasizing the independence of the region, because the three socially different, main castes, the Brahmins , Rajputs and Dalits as well as a non-Hindu minority also take part.

Hurray

Gond is a collective term for ethnic groups in central India, which are referred to as caste or tribal groups ( Adivasi ) depending on their social position or proximity to the Hindu majority society . With different religious beliefs and social obligations, they share the memory of a common treasure trove of myths and historical legends. In Andhra Pradesh , the Gonds engage musicians from the Pardhan caste for entertainment and religious festivities, which are an integral part of their cultural life. The Pardhan musicians perform with the fidel kingri (similar to the pena ), the cone oboe pepre , the curved natural trumpet kalokom (generally shringa ) and the barrel drum dhol . Her own musical instruments include the huruk , which is played at weddings and is particularly valued because of its connection to Shiva. The wedding customs correspond to the requirements of the Hindu caste society.

Folk dances, on the other hand, are part of the Adivasis culture and are preferred by the rural communities of the Gonds. The most popular dance of the Gonds in Bihar at family celebrations and celebrations is called mer . The musicians play huruk , the natural trumpet turhi (corresponds to the shringa ) and the cymbals manjira . The huruk is the characteristic traditional musical instrument of the Gonds, which spread as it migrated from the central Indian Dekkan plateau to Uttar Pradesh and other areas further north.

literature

• Andrew Alter: Dancing with Devtās: Drums, Power and Possession in the Music of Garhwal, North India. (2008) Routledge, Abingdon / New York 2016
• Anoop Chandola: Folk Drumming in the Himalayas. A Linguistic Approach to Music . AMS Press, New York 1977
• Alain Daniélou : South Asia. Indian music and its traditions. Music history in pictures . Volume 1: Ethnic Music . Delivery 1. Deutscher Verlag für Musik, Leipzig 1978, pp. 48, 86–89
• Alastair Dick: Huḍukkā . In: Grove Music Online , 2001
• Keywords: Huḍukkā and Huruk . In: Late Pandit Nikhil Ghosh (Ed.): The Oxford Encyclopaedia of the Music of India. Saṅgīt Mahābhāratī. Vol. 2 (H – O) Oxford University Press, New Delhi 2011, p. 435

Web links

• Hurray . The Metropolitan Museum of Art (illustration)

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Andrew Alter, 2016, p. 74
2. ^ Alain Daniélou: South Asia , p. 86
3. ↑ Walter Kaufmann : Old India. Music history in pictures. Volume 2. Ancient Music . Delivery 8. VEB Deutscher Verlag für Musik, Leipzig 1981, p. 33
4. ↑ Emmie Te Nijenhuis (Ed.): Saṅgītaśiromaṇi: A Medieval Handbook of Indian Music. EJ Brill, Leiden 1992, notes on the translation, pp. 549f
5. ↑ Huḍukkā . In: The Oxford Encyclopaedia of the Music of India , p. 435
6. ^ Bonnie C. Wade: Visual Sources. In: Alison Arnold (Ed.): Garland Encyclopedia of World Music. South Asia: The Indian Subcontinent . Vol. 5. Garland, New York / London 2000, pp. 305f
7. ↑ Budbudiki . The Metropolitan Museum of Art (illustration)
8. ↑ Promode Kumar Misra, Chennkeswara Ramanuja Rajalakshmi, Isaac Verghese: Nomads in the Mysore City. In: Anthropological Survey of India. 1971, pp. 12-14
9. ↑ Bigamudre Chaitanya Deva: Musical Instruments . National Book Trust, New Delhi 1977, p. 41 f.
10. ^ Gert-Matthias Wegner: Nepal. In: Ludwig Finscher (Hrsg.): The music in past and present . (MGG) 2nd edition, Sachteil 7, 1997, Col. 60
11. ↑ Cf. Marie Thérèse Dominé-Datta: Himalaya: The epics of Kumaon. In: The World of Music , Volume 18, No. 1, 1976, pp. 57-60
12. ^ Alain Daniélou: South Asia , p. 88
13. ↑ See Andrew Alter: Garhwali Bagpipes: Syncretic Processes in a North Indian Regional Musical Tradition. In: Asian Music , Volume 29, No. 1 Fall / Winter 1997/1998, pp. 1-16
14. ↑ Shiva Darshan Pant: The Social Economy of the Himalayans . Mittal Publications, Delhi 1988, pp. 113-115
15. ^ Music of Kumaon. Welcome to Almora
16. ^ Alain Daniélou: South Asia , p. 48
17. ^ Stefan Fiol: Dual Framing: Locating Authenticities in the Music Videos of Himalayan Possession Rituals. In: Ethnomusicology, Vol. 54, No. 1. Winter 2010, pp. 28–53, here pp. 28–33
18. ↑ S. Harpal Singh: Lend your ears to music in wilderness. The Hindu, January 27, 2013
19. ↑ Sachchidananda: Tribe-Caste Continuum: A Case Study of the Gond in Bihar . In: Anthropos, Volume 65, Issue 5/6. 1970, pp. 973-997, here pp. 989, 993