Pena (lute instrument)

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Pena , also tingtelia , is a single-stringed, bow-struck skewer lute that is used in the folk music of the northeast Indian state of Manipur for song and dance accompaniment. In addition to the drum pung, the pena characterizes the music of the classical Manipuri dance style. Singers recite epic stories and accompany each other on the pena . The centuries-old, highly regarded string instrument was and is used in ritual music in the traditional pre-colonial religions of Manipur.

Design

Pena with bow

The pena heard how the one-stringed plucked Ektara to the principle simple to produce sound instruments in which a stringed support bar by two opposite holes of a sound box is plugged. The string carrier ( Meitei : pena cheijing ) consists of a bamboo tube with a diameter of 2.5 to 3 centimeters, which protrudes about 30 centimeters from the coconut half -shell with a diameter of about ten centimeters, which serves as a resonance body ( penamasa ). In the case of more elaborate instruments, the string holder is made from a wooden stick, which is decorated with turned notches over a third of its length and the end, which is slightly tapered in this way, is inserted into the coconut shell. A membrane made from animal skin is glued over the opening of the coconut shell. In addition to the two holes that hold the string carrier, there is a small sound hole on the underside that remains open. The distal end of the rod can be designed by a circular upwardly curved and pointed piece of wood.

The string is usually made of horse hair, but fibers from a sago- like plant are also used. From the attachment point at the lower exit end of the string support, the string runs over a bridge placed in the middle of the membrane to a lateral wooden vertebra . Instead of a saddle , a string tied around the rod just before the peg limits the effective length of the string. The coating sheet is 76 cm total length, a wooden or bamboo stick handle end and an attached, semi-circular curved metal tube is significantly greater than the instrument. Dozens of brass bells are attached to both sides of the asymmetrical curve of the pipe. The player holds the pena in a similar way to the Indian violin with the sound box against the crook of the left arm pointing forward and down. With the fingers of his left hand he presses the string onto the stick, the bow he wields in his fisted right hand.

Style of play

The pena is used at funerals, weddings and in the ritual music of the traditional Meitei religion, in which, among the numerous gods, the male god Sannamahi and the goddess Leimarel are worshiped in many households. The instrument played in the earlier royal courts on official occasions and to invoke the gods is so closely linked to the ancient religion that it could not find its way into the ceremonies of the Vishnuit Hinduism, which is predominantly practiced today . Pena players used to be healers at the same time and magical abilities were ascribed to the instrument itself. Today the courtly musical tradition is preserved from being forgotten at cultural events.

The high reputation of the pena has been preserved to this day thanks to their commitment to the Manipuri dances. Manipuri is the generic term for five dance forms ( rasa ) in Manipur, which deal with the ritual connection with the full moon. In Ras lila of are Hindu god Krishna , his beloved Radha and their accompanying cowherdesses ( gopis ) worshiped. There are solo, double and group dances performed by both sexes. The obligatory invocation to the gods is followed by a scene with several pung players and dancers ( nata sankirtana ). This forms the prelude to the sung invocation ( sankirtana ) and a series of songs ( padavali ). In the rasas narrative ( nritya ) alternate with rhythmic ( nritta ) sections. At the nritta , the dancers play the double-conical tubular drum pung with the pena . The dances are rhythmic; In addition to the pena, other melody instruments include a flute, a snail horn, a natural trumpet , the Bengali string lute esraj and a tanpura as a drone instrument .

A traditional ensemble can consist of a pena , a bamboo flute ( banshi ), a drum ( pung ) and a snail horn ( shankha ). Folk songs in Manipur are divided into work songs that are sung during sowing, harvesting and fishing ( khullong ishei ), love songs with erotic allusions ( lai haraoba ishei ), lamentations, religious songs, wedding songs ( nat ) and children's songs according to their purpose and mood . Pena ishej ("song with pena") refers to songs that are accompanied by the pena . Her subject is the epic stories Khamba Thoibi Seireng , by the poet Hijam Anganghal, which deal with Prince Khamba and Princess Thoibi from Moirang (city in the south of Manipur). A singer who plays pena himself dresses the stories in poetic verses. The khuba ishei also refer to the type of accompaniment : Instead of the usual cymbals ( karthal, mandira ), the singers accompany each other with clapping hands.

The Nagas of Manipur call the same fiddle tingtelia . An ethnic subgroup of the Nagas are the Tangkhul speakers, who also call themselves Hao and live in the eastern Ukhrul district , which borders Myanmar . Rewben Mashangva (* 1961), who comes from this region, is considered to be the most important musician and innovator of the Hao folk music tradition. He improved the playing techniques on the tingtelia and adapted the tone intervals to the western notation so that he can use the fiddle together with acoustic and electric guitars and with the harmonica . Furthermore, he and his accompanying musicians play the longitudinally blown bamboo flute yankahui and, along with other percussion instruments, hit a yak horn with a mallet . Rewben Mashangva is called the father of today's Naga Folk Blues , and he draws his inspiration from his own folk music, American blues and Bob Dylan .

Origin and Distribution

References to string instruments have been found in ancient Indian literature since the 7th century. The earliest images can be seen on stone reliefs at Indian temples of the 10th century in central India. In the West Indies, temple reliefs contain images of the box-shaped sarangi , while in Bishnupur in West Bengal the round, inwardly curved body of the sarinda appears. Speculation about the spread of Indian string instruments is based on an origin with the Mongols , who brought fiddles with horse hair strings and bows from their nomadic culture in the 12th century. This would result in a relationship from the Chinese erhu to the Ugandan endingidi .

Sarangi and sarinda are mainly played in classical North Indian music . The ancient Indian Sanskrit word vina for string instruments originally referred to bow harps , only in the Middle Ages lute instruments and staff zither . The simple string instruments with one to three strings, which are almost nationwide and are composed of a coconut shell or a hollowed-out piece of wood as a body and a straight string bar, form a separate group belonging to folk music. Related to Sanskrit vina (also bin ) via Bengali bina , apart from the pena, the bana played in Bangladesh and the three-stringed banam in Odisha .

The kingri is a typical three-stringed string instrument in this group with a rectangular resonance body that is bowed with a straight wooden bow. The Pardhans in Andhra Pradesh , a caste of musicians whose members are hired by the Gonds for entertainment and religious celebrations, play the kingri and also the double reed instrument pepre , the curved long trumpet kalokom (generally shringa ) and the barrel drum dhol . In Madhya Pradesh the three-stringed skewer lute with which Pardhan's epic chants accompany is called bana . The ravanahattha (also Ravana hasta vina ) from Gujarat and Rajasthan represents a possible link between the simple fiddles of folk music and the more complex sarangi . Like the pena, its body consists of a coconut shell and a bamboo stick inserted as a string carrier. In addition to the two melody strings (one made of steel, the other made of horsehair) there are about a dozen sympathetic strings. Further east, there are several bowed spit violins with coconut resonators: including the two-string yehu in China and its descendants, the sor u in central Thailand and the tro u in Cambodia, as well as the rebab , the leading melody instrument in Javanese gamelan . It is not known what the tayaw (Burmese for "string instrument"), presumably existing in central Myanmar since the 12th century, looked like.

literature

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Seram Neken: Pena: The Royal Court Music of Manipur: The government must frame a policy for preserving the valuable indigenous art forms of various communities in Manipur. Hueiyen Lanpao, January 20, 2013
  2. ↑ Kapila Vatsyayan, Maria Lord: India IV, § IX, 2 (i) a. In: Stanley Sadie (Ed.): The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians . Vol. 12. Macmillan Publishers, London 2001, p. 265
  3. ↑ Mekhala Devi Natavar: India. Music and Dance: Northern Area . In: Alison Arnold (Ed.): The Garland Encyclopedia of World Music. Volume 5: South Asia. The Indian Subcontinent . Garland, New York 2000, p. 494, ISBN 978-0824049461
  4. ^ 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, p. 104
  5. ↑ Manipuri Folk Tales: Khamba Thoibi. ( Memento from January 4, 2013 in the Internet Archive ) My World Stuff
  6. ↑ T. Raatan: History, Religion and Culture of North East India. Isha Books, Delhi 2006, pp. 134f
  7. ↑ Sangeeta Barooah Pisharooty: Say yes to Hao! The Hindu, April 6, 2012
  8. ↑ Aiyushman Dutta: Reuben Mashangva - a Wandering Minstrel from the Hills of Manipur. Ishani, Vol. 4, No. 1, 2011
  9. ↑ Bigamudre Chaitanya Deva: Musical Instruments. P. 101
  10. ↑ Roderic Knight: The "Bana". Epic Fiddle of Central India. In: Asian Music, Vol. 32, No. 1: Tribal Music of India . Autumn 2000 - Winter 2001, pp. 101–140, here p. 106 (JSTOR)
  11. ↑ S. Harpal Singh: Lend your ears to music in wilderness. The Hindu, January 27, 2013
  12. ↑ Bigamudre Chaitanya Deva: Musical Instruments. Pp. 101-103
  13. ^ Robert Garfias: The Development of the Modern Burmese Hsaing Ensemble . In: Asian Music, Vol. 16, No. 1, 1985, pp. 1–28, here p. 3