Music.
Besides songs, of which some account has been given in the section on language, the operations of reaping, threshing and carrying up the crop are accompanied by simple wordless chants. Only the proper chant which tradition sanctions may be sung. Were a man to use the wrong one, the reaping chant while threshing, for instance, the listening spirits of the fields (Rangsi) would be displeased and refuse him their blessings.
Three varieties of musical instrument are used. Of these the simplest is the trumpet (phupphu), consisting merely of a bamboo tube about sixteen inches long, from which a bellowing noise can be produced. A more elaborate type of phupphu has a tube about four and a half feet long of light wood from which the pith has been removed, terminating in a trumpet-shaped piece of gourd. The Lhota has an accurate ear for music, and with this he can give wonderful imitations of bugle calls. But the instrument upon which he is most expert is the flute (philili or phiphili). This consists of a thin bamboo tube about forty inches long, open at both ends, with a small square mouthpiece cut about two inches from the thick end.[40] The player either sits down or lies on his back, with his right wrist resting on the ground. With the palm or one of the fingers of his left hand he stops up the broad end, and using the mouthpiece like that of a flute, produces a rather pleasing tootling tune by opening or closing the small end with the middle finger of his right hand. This instrument is a favourite one with young bucks, who lie on their backs in the “morung” and tootle the names of their lady-loves in simple tunes. In [[86]]every village a particular combination of notes represents the name of each fair one, and strange though it may seem, no one listening ever seems to have any doubt as to what lady’s fame is being celebrated.
Daily Life.
The family get up before dawn, the wife being the first to blow up the fire, set the pot on to boil and open the door. After a meal all go down to the fields, taking with them “madhu,” cold rice and some cooked meat or vegetables. This the family eat while they take a short rest in the middle of the day in the field-house. The evening meal is eaten when they come back from the fields. After that it is soon time for bed. When the harvest is in there is less work, and men go away on short trading tours, or make up hunting parties, while the women stay at home and weave and gossip. [[87]]
[1] It may be noticed that while the Lhota word for “morung,” champo, seems allied to the vocabulary of the north-east (e.g. in Chang chăm = house, and some Konyaks use the same word), the word for “house,” oki, is that of the western Naga vocabulary (Sema aki, Angami ki).
The Bachelors’ House is an institution common to most of the tribes in Assam, and is also found among the Oraons of Chota Nagpur, a Kolarian (or Mon-Khmêr) tribe. Cf. S. C. Roy, The Oraons of Nagpur (Ranchi, 1915), p. 211.—J. H. H. [↑]