Important Notice

Wood

20th century
Santhal, Eastern India

Height: 34 in (86.4 cm)
Width: 4 in (10.2 cm)
Depth: 3 in (7.6 cm)



Music and dance are very important elements of traditional Santhal life. Apart from percussion and wind instruments, Santhal songs are accompanied by string instruments like the 'banam'. Similar to a lute or the short-necked Indian string instrument known as 'sarangi', the Santhal 'banam' is a bowed instrument that has both one-stringed and multi-stringed variants. These instruments are carved from a single piece of wood from the gula cin tree, and often have figurative features like anthropomorphic heads, which face the listener. Musicologist Onkar Prasad, who has researched Santhal music traditions, "...notes that the Santal believe the musical instruments to be a gift from supernatural forces. With the assistance of these instruments, they can communicate with entities from other worlds. They believe that they are physically related to the dhodro banam and consider the instrument to be a human being. This analogy appears to be rooted in both the instrument's anthropomorphic form and its sound, which is reminiscent of the human voice to the Santal people" (Bengt Fosshag, "The Lutes of the Santal", www.bengtfosshag.de, accessed February 2013).

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