| Description |
A treasure trove of both natural and cultural diversity, India is home to innumerable rural and indigenous communities dotting its varied geographical landscape. One such community—the Manganiyars—is a clan of hereditary professional musicians residing in the villages of the Thar desert in western Rajasthan. Their oral legends say that these communities settled in different villages of Barmer and Jaisalmer around a thousand years ago.
The Manganiyars hold a vast repertoire of folk songs integral to their ways of life and significant to their social systems. For centuries, their music has been supported by their traditional patrons, called Jajmans, who usually live in the same or nearby villages and engage the Manganiyars to sing at various life events and celebrations of their families in exchange for money, land, and gifts. A distinctive feature of this patron-server relationship is the Manganiyars’ exclusive and vital role as genealogists of their patrons’ families that can go back to fourteen or eighteen generations, such record keeping being entirely oral. The Manganiyars belong to the Mirasi (entertainers) community. They are Muslims but sing for both Hindu and Muslim patrons, performing songs of Hindu gods and goddesses as well as Muslim Pirs and
Fakirs (Sufi saints or spiritual guides). The melodic structure of their music resembles classical traditions, but in reality, is very different in terms of the raagas (combination of notes) and associated time theory. The Manganiyars believe that their children are born with an inherent sense of music that is naturally transmitted to subsequent generations through some magical non-formal framework that is undefined and innate. Unlike many other indigenous communities, they themselves have kept their tradition alive, believing that music is fundamental to their ‘being.’ |
