Pung (drum)

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Pung cholom: dancers and drummers

Pung ( Meitei , also manipuri mridang ) is a double-headed double-cone drum that is played in the northeast Indian state of Manipur . The slender drum with a wooden body , which is related to the South Indian mridangam , is highly valued in Manipur as a national cultural tradition and is mainly used in the classical Indian dance style Manipuri , which focuses on the expressive drum dance Pung cholom .

origin

The pung belongs to a group of double-cone drums , a special form of tube drums that occur almost exclusively in Indian culture and are played in classical and folk music. They represent one of about ten Indian drum types, of which there are countless variants. In addition to the mridangam , from which the pung received its honorable nickname, this design includes the slightly larger, north-east Indian khol with a body made of clay, the pakhawaj , which is played mainly in the north Indian dhrupad style, and the Nepalese pashchima , which is similarly asymmetrical as the pakhawaj and the maddale, limited to Karnataka . The widely used dholak is just as flat as the pung.

The Indian drums have a tradition that goes back to the time of the Rig Veda, when the name for the percussion instruments used in the cult was dundubhi. According to the manipuric tradition, as recorded in the official Chronicle of the Kings ( Cheitharon Kumpapa ) written at Meetei in the ancient script Meetei Mayek, the pung is said to have been introduced during the reign of King Khuyoi Tompok, whose reign was in 154 AD . started. To do a pung , they first prepared a deer skin, which after it had dried sounded like a roe deer. The next spread skin of a tiger made the sound of a tiger. Only when a cowhide was used on the third attempt did it produce the typical sound of a pung when hit .

In the chronicle mentioned, the word pung denotes both "drum" and a certain measure of time that was determined by means of a water clock. An empty vessel with a tiny hole in the bottom was placed in a larger vessel with water. The unit pung corresponded to the time until the smaller vessel was completely submerged in the water. Pung is the short form of punglup luppa , which means "complete immersion".

Design and style of play

The body of the pung is carved out of a trunk of Gmelina arborea (meitei: wang ), a yellowish, soft and light wood that is elastic and does not tear. The shape of the pung is narrow and elegantly curved. In contrast to the other double-cone drums, both membranes have about the same diameter at the pung and consequently emit tones at almost the same height. Both membranes made of untanned bovine hide are pulled over rings and mutually braced by parallel skin strips running close together. The drum hangs on a wide shoulder strap around the player's neck, the larger head is on the player's left, as is the case with the other double-cone drums. He beats both skins with his hands.

The pung is the focus of most of Manipur's dances. There are solo double and group dances performed by both sexes. The repertoire of the Manipuri performed on stage includes five classical dance forms ( rasa ), which thematically deal with the veneration of Krishna , his lover Radha and the other gopis (accompanying cowherdesses). The performance begins with an invocation to the gods, played on a pung , 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, in the latter the drum plays together with the single-stringed, fretless fiddle pena , on whose bamboo neck a coconut is attached as a resonator.

In the tandava, which is only performed by men, and in the ras lila , which is also performed by trained women, the dancers play pung at the same time . The dances are rhythmic, as melody instruments a flute, a snail horn , a natural trumpet and as string instruments in addition to the aforementioned pena the Bengali string lute esraj and as a drone instrument a tanpura . The most important talas (rhythmic structures) are tamchep with four beats ( matras ), menkup with six and rajniel with seven beats.

The best known is the pung cholom . The male dancers perform fast dance movements on stage and at annual festivals on the streets with their pung hanging around their necks , which appear powerful and elegant, whereby they incorporate acrobatic jumps. The performances held for Holi (spring festival) at Govindji, the main temple of Imphal dedicated to Krishna, offer a special spectacle . A similar dance that uses cymbals ( khartal ) with long red tassels instead of drums is called khartal cholom or pala cholom .

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Saroj Nalini Arambam Parrat: The Court Chronicle of the Kings of Manipur: The Cheitharon Kumpapa: Original Text, Translation and Notes. Vol. 1, 33-1763 CE. (Royal Asiatic Society Books). Taylor & Francis, New York 2005, p. 22 f., ISBN 978-0-415-34430-2 ( online at Google Books )
  2. ↑ Parrat, S. 154th
  3. ↑ 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
  4. ↑ 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, pp. 503f, ISBN 978-0-8240-4946-1