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:: Tamu Cultures
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Songs and Dances |
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i) Dohori Songs:
Gurungs are traditionally well known for their humour, valour
and singing and dances and therefore fond of merry making
and enjoyment. Singing of Dohori geet (song) are very poplar
among the Gurungs. It is a folk tune sung in duet between
males and females at fairs and festivals, either as part of
competition or just as a form of entertainment. In the earlier
days in the villages, it used to can carry on days on end
if the competition did not end and when it ended, the loser
had to surrender one self to the winner. But these days, this
custom is not practiced but singing of dohori geet is still
very popular among the Gurungs, accompanied by dances. It
has been so widely promoted that these days that dohori songs
are sung in a commercial environment in restaurants and hotels.
This negative practice has damaged the image of the Gurungs
along with its traditional costumes. |
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Dohori
Song at Ramadi Village, Kaski |
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ii) Ghanto Dance:
The Ghanto nach or dance festival takes place in the month
of Magh Panchami in Magh (towards end of January) and ends
on Baisakh purnima which falls around the end of April or
beginning of May. This final performance lasts from morning
to evening for three days. Not a single episode must be omitted;
if a mistake is made it is believed that the dancing girls
will become sick and may die. |
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Saati
Ghanto Dance performed at Ramadi Village, Kaski |
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Young girls around the ages of 12 (pre-pubertal)
perform the ghanto and are called ghansaris or ghatonis. They
wear typical ghanto dress comprising of traditional Gurung dress,
jewellery and special headgears. They dance trance-like and
it is extremely graceful, twisting, rising, and sinking and
then turning in a squatting position with the hands just touching
the ground, with eyes closed, in a story that is sung by a group
of men, a slow chant to the rhythm of a double-ended drum. The
language of the ghanto chant does not appear to be either modern
Gurung or Nepali, perhaps archaic Nepali. It is even unintelligible
even to the ghanto gurus who can only say what each part is
about generally.
The story tells a long story of a legendary King Parsuram
and his queen, various events in their lives including the
death of the king and the immolation (sati) of his queen and
her subsequent return to life. This is the most important
part of the ghanto. It is said that if a ghansari cannot be
resurrected after she swoons when the part about the self
immolation is sung, then she is liable to die. The rest of
the story depicts a long and eventually successful hunting
venture followed by a gambling spree.
There are three types of ghanto dances that are performed
are the sati, baramasye & Kusunda ghanto. The former is
performed at a fixed time as described above, whereas baramasye
can be performed at any time and is not rigid following strict
adherence as the sati ghanto dance.
A distinctive Gurung institution, ghanto is fading away,
as the old men who sung the songs die; young girls have less
time from their school work; and the rich soldiers who paid
for performances no longer come to the village. Yet, one can
still find ghanto being performed in Kaski,Lamjung and Gorkha
districts. |
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iii) Sorathi Dance |
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A sorathi dance is a typical Gurung dance which
is a re-enactment of an ancient legend about a king who had
7 wives and no children. It relates the story of the youngest
queen who at last bears a daughter and the other queens out
of jealousy hatch a plan to murder the child. The child is thrown
into the river but gets saved by a fisherman who rears the child
as his own. At the end, the plot is revealed and the mother
and daughter are reunited while the guilty ones are punished.
This dance is held for sixteen days and falls between Dasain
and Tihar. |
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Shorathi
Dance performed at Ramadi Village, Kaski |
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iv) Maruni Dance: |
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Maruni dance is one of the traditional dances
of Gurungs performed in the month of Shrawan (July-August) and
lasts up to month of Poush (December-January). Various Hindu
male and female deities are worshipped and offered ten varieties
of flowers, among which, one kind of the flower is set aside
for Goddess Saraswati of arts and learning. At the end of the
dance, the flower is offered to the Goddess and tika and presumes
to receive blessings from her. The dancers’ bodies move
in a peculiar but yet exhilarating grace in their own traditional
costumes, the rest of them play mandal (drums) and sing in high
falsettos arousing feelings from everyone present there to watch
the dance. The dance is near to extinction and efforts are being
made to revive and preserve it, especially by the Ghale Gurungs
from Barpak of Gorkha. |
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Generally Gurungs enjoy merry making and usually
such socio-cultural-religious functions provide opportunity
for entertainment and interactions among all the villagers of
all ages. They especially serve as meeting points for the young
Gurung youth as some of these functions take the shape of melas/fairs
lasting from a day to several days. The young people interact
freely and get to know each other, enjoy each other’s
company and also choose their life partners. Sometimes love
affairs may result from such encounters. |
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v) Chudka Dance: |
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The Chudka Dance is another typical cultural
dance which have been performing in the Gurung villages &
Magar villages in different places of Nepal. Group of men
sing a song with playing Khainjandi(a typical musical instrument)
while as group of young girls dance twisting with the rythms
khainjadi & songs. Generally, this dance starts from Phagu
Purnima in the 2nd week of March. |
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Chudka
Dance performed at Ramadi Village, Kaski |
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