Honeywind - Sounds from a Santal Vill [CD]

The Santals live in the north-eastern part of India in the provinces of Bengal, Bihar and Orissa. Numbering about four million people, they constitute the second largest tribal community of India. Their belief in "bongas" (nature-spirits) sets them apart from their neighbours, and they have always strictly refrained from mixing with the surrounding population. In spite of economic difficulties, the majority of the Santals still live in their own villages, with agriculture as their main source of livelihood. The Santals have their own and very original conception of sound. They consider their acoustic environment as consisting of three categories: "sade" (produced by striking together different objects), "rak" (which is made up of the calls of animals) and finally "aran" (human sounds) which are again subdivided in "ror" (speech) and "rar" (song). Sounds are always an important indicator of anything going on in or outside the village, a means of ritual and practical orientation in time and space. The recordings were taken in November 1994 as part of a research project devoted to the Santals by the Indira Gandhi National Centre for the Arts (New Delhi) in some villages in the neighbourhood of Santiniketan (Birbhum District of West Bengal). They contain not only music but also the daily activities of these villages, arranged in the form of a soundwalk through a Santal village, lasting from early morning until night.