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| Ishmeet Kaur Chaudhry |
Abstract
The present paper attempts to bring
out complications in the collection and translation the of folkloric songs of
Kunbi tribes of the Dangsdistrict in Gujarat. Along with pointing out at these
complications, the significance of folklore, its importance as a storehouse of
alternate knowledge-systems, understanding of environmental concerns and
preservation of socio-cultural concerns and relationship of the community to
language has been studied with an example from a song from the Gavarai festival celebrated by the Kunbi.
Such ethnographic studies of the folklore are crucial in reviving the oral
cultures of the natives of India and indigenous people across the world. They
provide an exposure to the world that has faced exclusion from the main stream
for centuries together.
With globalization and
cosmopolitanism at an increasing pace, the traditional spaces are being
compromised at large. The conflicting dilemma faced by the indigenous, Adivasi
or native communities regarding modernization and tradition is alarming. On one
hand, the claim for universal uniformity in terms of education, laws and
language is unable to justify the indigenous or local concerns of these
communities, and on the other hand, non-involvement with the majority trends
and new technological tools or advancements is widening the distance between
the old and the new. The situation is so precarious that people belonging to
such communities would tend to stand “no-where” neither “here” nor “there”,
thus the in-between-ness for such communities is a dangerous proposition. It is
also important to understand as to why are such communities more threatened in
comparison to other communities? The reason for this is that such communities
are deeply rooted in their past owing to the richness of their folkloric tradition
that is embedded within their daily routines and festivities observed by them.
The modern transition and changes incurring the society fails to address the
nuances of these communities. Also, the relationship that they share with their
language goes totally ignored in the lure of accepting standardized regional
languages or English that are becoming a centralized force. Language, therefore
is the most important factor in uniting these people to their culture and
community. In fact, they share a deep psychic relationship to their language as
the language is orally transmitted from generations to generations. Many of
these communities don’t have written scripts and are dialectic and oral in
nature. Rout, relevantly comments:
Oral
tradition performs various functions. Myth explains the universe and provides a
basis for rituals performances and religious belief systems. Folk tales instead
are of secular character. The folktales are regarded as unwritten records of
tribal history. These tales serve to maintain a sense of group identity and
unity. (Rout 339)
This paper focusses on one such
concern of documenting the folk songs of the community of the Kunbi tribes of
Dangs district in Gujarat, India,collected by Hemant Patel. The complications
faced have been in terms of selection of script while writing the songs; issues
of translation of such works; untranslatability of certain words whose meanings
have been lost in the parlance of time; and finally, whether writing as a means
of documenting is sufficiently an accurate method of preserving or would
recording serve as a preferred mode?
Most of the native communities in
India have remained rooted to their culture through language. As a part of
anthropological linguistics, ethnolinguistic as a discipline is a “study of the
interrelation of language and the cultural behavior of those who speak it.” (Britannica) Particularly India, a
country which is polyglossic, the communities can be defined through a study of
these languages. Particularly with regards to tribal languages, Ganesh Devy
brings out the varied availability of them as follows:
The
number of languages in which Indian tribal communities have been expressing
themselves is amazingly large. Though, there are the usual problems associated
with determining the mother tongue in a multilingual society, the successive
Census figures indicate that there exist nearly ninety languages with the
speech communities of ten thousand or more. When one speaks of Indian tribal
Literature, one is necessarily speaking of these.(Devy, Introduction XV)
The languages also at times have
been important connecting points for several communities that witnessed mass
migrations and dispersed to different regions. Such communities could identify
each other through a common language. For example,the speakers of Balti
language mostly around Jammu and Kashmir in India identified with the people of
their tribes across Sino-Tibetan, Tibeto-Burman, Western Tibeto-Burman, and
some Pakistani regions only through their language. (Colleen Ahland and Michael Ahland)
The linguistic content also
determined the cultural nuances of such people. Therefore, certain pivotal
concerns arise. Is language central to culture? How does language support
culture? Can culture be understood with language and vice versa? The challenge many
communities faced in India pertaining language is how the technological
transition and globalisation led to transformation of language which endangered
several folkloric languages and hence also began influencing their culture. It
may seem to be a chicken and egg situation if debates regarding language first,
or culture first, emerged. Both are interdependent as language tends to
register cultures and cultures are often spelled out through languages. The
symbols contained within languages accrue into the cultural assembly of signs
within it. Ismael Silva-Fuenzalidaexplains this by elucidating that a speaker of any
language participatesin representing the ways of life as experience is
communicated by means of language and “there are verbal symbols that co-ordinate
by means of a system to express mutual relations.” She clearly states that
Language
is thus the regular organization of series of symbols, whose meanings have to
be learned as any other phenomenon. The implication of this is that as each
culture has its own way of looking at things and at people and its own way of
dealing with them, the enculturation of an individual to a foreign body of
customs will only be possible as he
learns to speak and understand the foreign language and to respond with new
selection and emphasis to the world around him-a selection and emphasis presented
to him by this new culture. (Silva-Fuenzalida 446)
Therefore,
in the study of folk cultures, the study of language, signs and symbols are
equally important to preserve and identify the cultural nuances of a community.
The indigenous communities have been occupants of the land for centuries and
are considered to be the oldest occupants of this earth. Unfortunately, a sense
of exclusion is gripping them with the paradigm changes in the mainstream
societies and cultures. Narugopal Mukherjee quotes Andrew M. Greeley, who
suggests that “one of the most extraordinary events of our time has been the
resurgence of tribals in a supposedly secularized and technocratic world.”(Mukherjee
235) At
the same time, these communities are the storehouse of the older and the
ancient knowledge systems and beliefs. As the world is advancing towards a more
generic and uniform lifestyle, the indigenous communities are also presenting
an alternate life-system based on their belief and knowledge systems available
to us through their language and way of life. Since the paper focuses on the
folk songs of theKunbi
tribe of the Dangs district, Gujarat, it is evident these songs depict a close
relationship to language, nature and environment. Where the world is facing a
great challenge in preserving its environment, cultural practices of the Kunbi
tribes, makes it evident that how this community has been seminal in preserving
the close-knit relationship between nature and community through language
system particularly through the songs accompanying festivals of nature. It is
interesting to note that the dialect of the people of this tribe is apparently
a mix of two languages, particularly Marathi and Gujarati as Dangs is situated
in between the border of Maharashatra and Gujarat. Hemant Patel in his thesis
“Oral Cultural Expressions: A Study of Folk Songs of the Kunbi Tribe of the
Dang’sDistrct” the only source for these songs [1],
suggests that the dialect is close to Gujarati language in terms of vocabulary
and therefore they have been scripted in Gujarati Language. According to Patel,
“The Dangs include 94% Adivasi people including the tribes like Kunbi, Bhil,
Varli, Gamit and Kotwaliya.” The Kunbi tribe particularly have more than 51%
population. (Patel 1-2)
Hemant
Patel introduces that the tribes are farmers by occupation and the culture of
farming is evidently available in the folksongs of this community. Also, G.N.
Devy suggests thatthere is a special importance in “tribal imaginative
transactions” of these songs as they connect to every aspect of life.(Patel 9) (Devy, Painted Words 151) Patel brings out the
significance of the songs as follows:
The
people are forgetting their culture with globalsization; urbanisation and
technology. The songs of the Kunbi people are the sketch of the Dangs culture.
Sometimes they also represent the Dangi mythologies, history and societal
matters of the Dangs district. They are instrumental in the revival of the
culture of the Dangs people. Hence, there is a need to relocate the culture.(Patel 9)
For
example, the Kunbi Tribes celebrate a festival called ‘Gavarai’. Hemant Patel suggests that:
(‘Gavarai’
is a festival named after the grown seeds of five kinds of grain) having
depicted the agricultural relevance … The use of these metaphors depicts the
literariness of the folk songs and the culture of the Dangi people. Women are
compared to ‘Gavarai’ (five kinds of grain), depicting the importance of
women in society just like the fertile seeds that are productive and symbolic
of growth.(Patel 10)
Hence, the metaphors though
embedded within the language depict the socio-cultural aspects of the
community. The several Gods are also associated to the festival. The festival
revolves around the God of grain ‘Kanasra’
who in return will make sure that the community remains prosperous in every
season therefore, the God is worshipped at every stage particularly before and
after harvesting. Along with the God of grain, other village Gods are also
worshipped. (Patel 14) Patel
explains the procedure before the festival and also how the songs themselves
describe the procedures of cultivation as follows:
These
people offer a hen before Gods to please them for a good grain in the following
season and also promise them to offer more offerings if grain is good. These
songs tend to describe their procedures of cultivation; and rituals and
offerings before gods and goddesses in order to please the deities as their faith
is all visible in the festival songs.(Patel 15)
The fauna
and flora is also widely visible in these songs as God Tiger is worshipped in
the festival of Waghbaras, similarly, Cobra is also considered as God and
worshipped. The practices around Gavaraialso
help predict the seasonal rains and adequate environment for the farming
seasons etc. Patel suggests that based on the signs received from these
practices the community takes its decisions for example “if the prediction is
of scanty rain they cultivate crops that require lesser rain and vice versa.For
example, they may cultivate ‘Nagli’ (a kind of grain) and ‘Udid’
(Phascolies) which are cultivated in slopes and do not require much rain. Thus
the ‘gavarai’ (five kinds of seeds cultivated in baskets) is helpful in
forecasting rain.” (Patel 16)
The songs are centric to these
practices and they accompany every practice as is carried during the festival.
For example, the festival begins with the following song:
Time for
ploughing; start ploughing the farm women, start ploughing the farm.
Come women,
sow the seeds here and there, sow the seeds.
Come
women, sprinkle the ‘Ganga water’on the seeds, sprinkle the seeds.
New shoot
sprout from the seeds, sprout a shoot;
Those
plants have leaf, women, a leaf.
Those
plants have two leaves, women, two leaves.
Those
plants have three leaves, women, three leaves.
Those
plants have four leaves, women, four leaves.
Those
plants have five leaves, women, five leaves.
Those
plants have six leaves, women, six leaves.
Those
plants have seven leaves, women, seven leaves.
Those
plants have eight leaves, women, eight leaves.
Those
plants have nine leaves, women, nine leaves.
Those
plants have ten leaves, women, ten leaves.
Those
plants have eleven leaves, women, eleven leaves.
Those
plants have twelve leaves, women, twelve leaves.
Those
plants have thirteen leaves, women, thirteen leaves.
Those
plants have fourteen leaves, women, fourteen leaves.
Those
plants have fifteen leaves, women, fifteen leaves.
Those
plants have sixteen leaves, women, ‘sixteen leaves’.
The plants
keep growing.
A ‘minde
cow’ eats the ‘Gavarai’, women, eats the ‘Gavarai’.
The ‘minde
cow’ becomes pregnant, women, the cow becomes pregnant.
There is
swaying a ‘harda’to ‘chilarikati’, women, to a ‘chilarikati’.
Take a
white horse and keep holding the mane, women, keep holding the mane.
And run
with a force as the white horse do women, as the white horse do. (Patel
32-33)
It is clearly evident from the song
that it is about the ploughing season. Embedded within the flora, the ecological
concerns are main focus in the song. The beckoning of women who are also
symbolic of fertility and growth are the main proponents who carry out this
practice. There is a reference to “Ganga
Jal” but in the footnotes Patel clarifies that though the literally Ganga Jal has been mentioned in the
song, practically water from any river can be poured. There is no bounding on
pouring water from river Ganga alone. Therefore, it is important to understand
that the song does not offer any religious affiliation. The repetition of the
words is linked with the increasing number of leaves indicating step by step
growth and prosperity. The repetition of words is also an important folkloric
element essential to preserve the tonality and the rhythm in a song. Along with
the flora, the fauna is also visible in the song. The Gavaraicrop leads to fertility as the ‘minde cow’ having consumed the Gavaraicrop
becomes pregnant and thus the whole process supports the ecosystem.
Patel mentions the limitation in
not being able to connect certain words and the mention of the white horse in
the last five lines of the song. Interestingly, the culture remains alive in
the songs despite the lost connections or loss if meaning with the progression
of the times. Therefore, it is important to note the several complications in
the study of folklore as follows:
First and foremost, the choice of
the medium in which the folk needs to be preserved is crucial. Since folk is
oral in its content and has been passed on for several centuries through the
word of mouth. The conflict between the standardised language and the dialect
seems widening with script writing and new digital advancements as well as
technological advents. Though many of these songs are still alive in the
cultural practices but urbanisation is also endangering these languages and
traditions. Cecile Sandten observes that “Central to this [large scale widening
of the metropolitan and the urban] development is also the fact that the
social, territorial, and cultural reproduction of group identity has
dramatically changed.”(Sandten 118) A
seminal attempt to preserve these songs (whatever remains of them) in the
present form has been recorded by Prachi Dublay[2]
inorder to preserve them but a linguistic understanding and preserving of these
words and their referential context is equally important lest they lose their
meaning with the widening gaps. Many a times, the songs are never dictated but
only sung. They are transcribed after recording them and then duly translated.
Secondly, the scholars in this
field are confronted with the choice of script in which the songs should be
documented. Since, the dialects lack a written script, many sounds and vowels
remain missing in the standardised scripts, therefore no matter what script the
scholars chose to write in, there are always concerns of matching the right
pronunciations and sounds. For example, Patel chose to document the Kunbi songs
in Gujarati rather than Marathi (as the dialect is in between both the languages)
owing to the closeness of vocabulary and words of the dialectinto Gujarati.
Patel’s expertise lies in the fact that he had knowledge of all the three
languages Gujarati, Marathi and the Kunbi dialect. At the same time, it is very
important to preserve the cultural words from the dialect itself as the
standardised language many a times tendsto dominate the dialect. Referring to
Ngugi waThiongo’s opinion that language is disruptive as it has the “power to
upset, to uproot, and to shackle…” (Thiong'o Homecoming, 41) suggesting elsewhere
that the dominant linguistic group tends to implant its “memory on the top of
another memory, their linguistic layer on top of the smaller layer.”(Thiong'o Decolonising, 19) The only way to save
the dialect from the dominance of the standardised language is to retain the
cultural words and nuances and provide a detailed glossary of words with the
text.
Thirdly, since the insiders who are
acquainted with the language, the subject (meaning people of the community) and
who can adequately transcribe and translate the folklore with the modern
education are able to carry out such complex study. The major concern here is
that of representation. As to who represents whom? Therefore, it is also
understood that at certain level subjectivity is bound to have influences in
the such a field of research that is based on experience.
Fourthly, translation itself poses
difficulty of equivalence of words and meanings as much words don’t have
equivalent words in the targeted language. Also, sometimes the meanings or
contexts are found missing as is the case with the Gavarai song that has been
taken as a case study for this paper. Since the context is lost in the scripted
language which in itself is foreign to the oral culture, the translation
appears to be doubly removed from the original at times.
Nonetheless, such ethnographic
studies of the folklore are crucial in reviving the oral cultures of the
natives of India and indigenous people across the world. They provide an
exposure to the world that has faced exclusion from the mainstream for
centuries together. Nilanjana Deb also points out that the “writing of local
and culture-specific histories of aboriginal literatures is one of the ways in
which alternate discourses on aboriginal literature and cultural theory can
develop.” (Deb 47)
Therefore, along with that these cultures provide alternate belief systems that
remain substantial in providing guidelines to sustain environmental concerns
which has become the dire need of the urbanised world today.
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[1]It is for the first time that these songs have
been documented in writing and translated into English. Therefore, this thesis
is the only source available on the Kunbi Tribes.
Setu, January 2020
