Anthropology of Oraon Music

The Oraon, a Dravidian speaking tribe has a long history of migration from the Karnataka region finally settling in the Chotonagpur region of the present Jharkhand State of India. It is observed that for the Oraon Deccan has been the area of their physical characterization, the valley Son the area of their economic, social, moral and mental characterization and the Chotonagpur Plateau area originally the place of their consolidation and subsequently of their disintegration and degradation.

Despite these facts the Oraon evolved rites and ceremonies, religious, magical practices to ensure their safety, they also evolved music and dances appropriate to each different festive occasion.

The present work, Anthropology of Oraon Music is an attempt at substantiating this view-point by covering their musical forms, preparing their musical notations, analyzing them structurally and understanding by putting them in their ritual context.

Apart from the introduction the data collected on music have been arranged into six more chapters such as on Xaddi or Khadd songs associated with their fertility and prosperity and Benga, the marriage songs related to besides human beings to paddy seedlings, fruit trees, tanks and wells. Other four chapters are each on Jhumuri and Karam associated with rain making celebration of the new birth order, Fagu adopting it from their neighbouring Hindus in a mutilated form and summary analysis of the Oraon melodies with some concluding remarks respectively.

The Oraon musical forms analyzed from the aesthetical point of view and the song texts not only reflect the acculturative influence on them they are a manifestation of their living nature and conjuring images of its interaction with the supernatural world.