Small art and crafts of Santals

There are a lot of arts traditionally prctised by santal folks. Their way of building the houses, thatching the roof , decorating the floor, carving the doors and painting the walls tell a lot about the artistic skills of santals.

The santals lifestyle and culture is full of arts, you will be surprised to see a woman carrying multiple waterpots with full of water, one holding at the left waist, one at the head and another on right hand.

It is pleasant to see the women making leaf plates out of 7 sal leaves, a bowl made of 2 or 1 leaves. Brooms and mats made in different types of grass with the help of some braiding technique.

Santals make rice beer with rice and particular  root powder added to it. Another drink made out of mahua flowers which is sometimes 85% concentrated alcohol. They dilute it with adding some normal water to it.

There are many more things to be documented about the art of santals. Some of which are vanishing in their day to day practice like removing the husk of rice in the traditional Dhinki. Making of gungu(leaf made rain coat-image  shown on the top ), which was being used by the Santal women during working in the paddy field in rainy season. Now a days it has been replaced by the plastic rain coats.

Santali Dance Forms

The Santal traditionally accompany many of their dances with two drums: the Tamak‘ and the Tumdak’. The flute (tiriao) was considered the most important Santal traditional instrument and still evokes feelings of nostalgia for many Santals.

Baha Enej: Baha enej is performed during the eve of Baha festival. Literally 'baha' means flower in santali. So this is the festival in the beginning of spring season. The people sing and dance to welcome the new season.

•Dang Enej:

Their courtship and marriage dances are typical. The young men come forward taking strides with drums and lilting songs on their lips, and then the dance commences in two rows, their arms interlinking in pairs. The rows surge forward like rhythmic waves and then recede with supple footwork and swaying heads and bodies. The boys in the row opposite play on flutes, drums, and large cymbals and sing songs in perfect harmony. After the dance the boys and girls mingle and have a good chat.

•Lagne Enej:                           

Lange are exclusively confined to women. The Lagne has many forms and variations according to the occasion, be it a marriage, a festival or social gathering.

•Jhika Enej:

Then there are the Jhika dance in which men and women dance together. Men form the outer ring and the women the inner circle.

•Dahar Enej:

Dahar is danced at day and during the festival of Gamha parab.

•Karam Enej:

Assar, Shravan and Bhadrav that is June to September. They worship the karam tree to protect the village from bad evils.

All these dances reflect their collective nature, cohesion, community feeling and social awareness. They are great spontaneous collective singers and dancers.

•Danta:

The martial dances - Golwari and Paikha are marked with a lot of jumping and leaping in the air. They carry bow and arrows while doing martial dances and perform mock fights and attacks. This shows their bravery and skills and knowledge to use their weapons.

•Dassai:

They have their hunting and sowing dances. On Dassai men-folk dance from one locality to another. The people put on make ups and colorful costumes during this dance. Generally they wear the sarees in the form of skirts by folding them as bottom accompanied by a vest as a upper garment. The dancers wear turbans also made of sarees. The turbans sometimes fall till their knee or anlke length at back.They hold the props like sword and musical instrument called Bhuang and Ghanti.

There is a story behind the purpose of dance, there was a Santal King who possessed a good amount of wealth and food grains for his people. The king had a daughter who was charming and good in behaviour. Once the princess was kidnapped by the kings enemy and not found any where when searched. Then the kings sent a group of warriors to search for the princess. The warriors dressed up themselves like dance performers, used their weapons like musical instruments and props for dance. They behaved like normal people,visited every house of the villages and asked for water, rice or grains in a hope to get any clue about the princess.They got pleasant reception by the village people hence realized that not only the king but also the people in his empire are rich with food grains and living happily. After many days of searching, they found the enemies, fought with them and saved the princess.The king got back his daughter and praised the bravery of the warriors. To remember this incident the people generally the young men travel many villages followed by dance and songs about sawing and hunting.

The Santal women and girls can be seen singing and dancing while engaged in their daily chore like sowing, plantation, journeying to and from the forest. They work and sing simultaneously and in between pause for a round of dance. They use song and music as a convenient tool of dancing.

Santali Jewelleries

                                                              Jewelleries of Santals

Along with the evolution of clothing the change in jewelleries has been seen. In earlier days back in many years, Santal women wore bangles made of terracotta which was called hasa sakam (hasa-mud and sakam-bangle). They also used hasa mala (necklace made of terracotta beads). The beads were made by hand and dried after making it hollow. Then they were put in a sequence with a thread and used as necklace. The hasa sankha and the mala were worn by the women only. The males also wore a bangle the difference was that the female bangle had motifs on the body where as the male bangle had no motifs. In both the bangles the joineries were made more interesting by making the heads of animals and birds on it. The accessories were popular but it was brittle, so it was worn during special days or when there is less physical work to do.

Later on people started using the ornaments of bronze when they became able to afford for it. A distinct anklet worn by Santal women in this period was itil paini. On a top view it looks like a rhombus. It was solid and had some floral motifs on it. It was being made in very small size as compared to the actual size of the foot of the Santal women. So it was a difficult job to put on the itil paini. They put it on with the help of applying oil on the foot which make it little easier to complete the job. Once it is put on then never taken out in life. That stays permanent. If it is urgent to take it out then they cut it by any means.

Melhed Sakam(iron bangle):

This is a very significant bangle in the Santal Community. It is worn by the married women in the left hand. It is supposed to be removed when a woman becomes widow. In normal days the married women do not put vermilion(sindur) on their partition on head. So it could have been difficult to differentiate a married and an unmarried lady without this bangle.

Then the time was for the silver and gold jewelleris though most of the people preferred silver jewelleries as it was more affordale to everyone. The gold jewelleries were limited to the jamindari people only.

There were a lot of Santal jewelleries. There were ornaments for each and every body parts. The list of the jewelleries are given below-

On sides of the bun: sud pashi

For hair bun: pan kanta

Above ear on hair: silha

Ear: pagra

Nose: phuli

Coin Necklace : puisa mala

Arm: Baju

Hand: Bala sakam( bangle)

F. ring: mudam

Waist: danda jhinjri

Ankle: khadu(anklet with solid structure)

: Paini (anklet without ghungroos)

:pajap (anklet with ghungroos on it).

Though many jewelleries in silver came into market, all people were not able to wear them because of cost factor but atleast a khadua, a pair of bala sakam, ear and nose rings were affordable to almost all people.

These are the ornaments used by the females. The males were not into using ornaments in day to day life but in marriage or dance ceremonies a heavy long silver chain was being worn by the young man of the rich families. It was worn across the left shoulder to right waist.

During dance programs males used to be bare bodied or wear a vest and gamchcha in hand. They were wearing kacha on bottom.

 

Santali Musical Instruments

Santali Musical Instruments:

The life of Santals in always associated with music and dance. A social or a cultural event is always welcomed with the rythm of music accompanied with dance. There are a lot of musical instruments used by Santal people. The instruments are either made by them or some times purchased from the local market. The main instruments include Tiriaw(flute),Banam,Tamak and Tumdah. The brief description about the instruments is given below.

•Tiriao:

The instrument most favoured by Santals, is bamboo flute with seven holes. It is viewed as a symbols of love and seduction. A flute is made of narrow hollow bamboo. Its best size can be 45cm-65cm length and 2-2.5cm of diameter best known in Santali- ‘bar langa mat’. It consists of 4-5 holes of about 0.8 to 1 cm diameter on the body to use four fingers and one for blowing air by mouth. One end may be open and other closed. It can be played alone or with songs of other. Play can match any rhythm of song and play of harmonium etc.

•Banam:

According to legend, at one time there were seven brothers who conspired to kill and eat their sister. But the youngest brother was so overcome by

guilt that he could not bring himself to eat his portion. He surreptitiously buried it in an ant hill. Upon that spot, a beautiful tree grew. A stranger passing the tree, hears a beautiful sound emanating from it. He cuts a branch off the tree and fashions the first banam. There are two types of banam, Dhodro banam and Tendar banam.

Head of the 'Derenj' Banam

'Deren'j Banam

•Dhodro Banam:

 is a bowed instrument carved out of a single log of wood of a tree. It consits of a belly(laj) covered with an animal skin on which rests the bridge(sadam, lit, horse), an open chest( koram), a short neck(hotok)and a head( bohok) which is oftenbeautifully carved in the shape of a human head, a couple or whole groups of humans or of animals.

Jhadar Tamak (the leather sheet loosely covers the top, which gives a low pitch sound)

•Phet Banam:

is a fretless stringed instrument with three or four strings. The waisted belly is completely covered by animal skin.

•Tamak:
Tamak is a bowl shaped kettle drum. Its body is made of thin metal sheets and the shape is like half globes of various sizes. covered by bullock hide and beaten by a pair of sticks. Some tamaks are used to be lifted by two men. Those tamaks are used in sendra or mass hunting. Others are drummed in time of lagne, dong, baha, dahar and at most of all dance. The deep and loud sounds coming out of the Tamak and tumdah combined at once attracts the Santals from across the localities, even from distant places.

•Tumdah:

It is a two faced drum with a body of burnt clay. It is tapered cylindrical in shape and one end is tight, covered with untannedleather of bullock and other end by goat skin. The part covered by bullock skin is beaten with left hand and and the other by right hand. The whole is covered with strips of bullock hide. This instrument is used in all the occasions of dancing and merrymaking.

These are their ethnic instruments connected with their life. About 10,000 Santals, were organized during the great Santal Hul (Rebellion) of 1855-56 under Sidhu, Kanhu, Bidu and Chandan Murmu against the oppression of the British and local money-lenders with the call of these drums. The instruments have become symbols of their ethnic identity.

•Singa:

Singa is a half S-shaped wind instrument played in pairs in weddings. Made of brass or copper, it is usually constructed in the three pierces with mouthpiece at the blowing end and a conic opening at the other.

• Sakwa:

Sakwa is a an instrument made of buffalow horn or clay specially used during the offerings to Bongas(same as the use of sea cronch in of Hindu Poojas)

•Bhuang:

This is made out of a shell of ground. This instrument is exclusively used at dasain dance performed during the month of dasain(aswin- bhadrav).

Other instruments used at the time of group dancing are chor chuli, dhak, kortal, ghanti etc. Girls dance keeping hand in hand moving forward with rhymes. Boys beat tamak, tumdah, chor churi in front of dancing girls and lead them in circular line. With them the other men-folk and the women folk dance through-out the night maintaining full discipline. Others watch and enjoy the rhythmic dance.

Clothing of Santals

Me serving handi to my (L)-father's paternal aunt, (R)- Father's cousin brother 

Santal people are very simple in nature and behavior. Their lifestyle is  The santals have their own  clothings and distinctive draping styles. Now days people wear the sarees and dhotis what ever available in market. How ever they prefer cotton material for daily use and synthetic sarees with good drape for occasional use.Women wear petticoat,saree and blouse. But the old ladies rarely wear blouse as everyday clothing. children wear shirt, pants  what ever is available in the market. There is no such traditional garment existing for children now a days. In earlier days children wore Langot a loin cloth to cover their private parts. Male wear a lungi- a rectangular cloth at bottom and a vest or shirt on top. Usually men hold a gamchha almost all time. Either they tie the gamchha on the head or on waist.

•Clothing History of Santals:

In earlier days Santals used to wear very simple cotton clothes. For women there was a two piece cloth called palhand (on bottom) and panchi(top). It was being used without petticoat and blouse. Though there was difference in the length of the materials according to the requirements.
It is said that in earlier days santals cultivated cotton along with rice and some other grains. They were aware of spinning yarns in takli. They used to spin yarns and give it to the local weavers to weave loin cloths.
In earlier days the women were going to dense jungle to bring fruits and leaves. It was kind of a daily routine for them. It is easier to move forward if you wear small and tight cloth. So the women wore the palhand and panchhi for better comfort.
The palhand had a width of  3ft just to wear below the knee and length of 5ft. the panchi was of 4ft long and 2 ½ ft wide. Neither palhand nor the panchi had colored borders on it even though there was selvedge on both edges.
 The palhand was wrapped on the waist tightly and folded from one side of the waist to another in the front with the excess length. The panchhi was tucked on the waist inside the bottom wear in the front then moved around back and put on the left shoulder. The extra fabric was again pulled to the front and tucked on the left side waist. The panchhi was being used more functionally. That time people did not carry bags to keep stuffs in it, they make a pouch of the panchhi by tucking it both the sides on waist and keep stuffs in it. When they return from the jungle they just tie knots to close the pouch during returning to home. The panchhi gets dirty more quickly as it is used as a bag and also can be washed separately likewise. Some times the cloth gets stains because of the fruit juice which does not get clean easily.  This context made it logical to wear a two piece cloth, because it was not affordable for them to buy new cloths frequently. The men wore the kachha which was 5 ½ ft long and 3ft in width. They wore the kachha in the same style as it is worn today.
With gradual improvement of economical condition women started using saree supplied by the weavers. The length was then 12ft and width 3 ½ ft.  For few time the women wore the white saree with no coloured borders until they know the colouring of yarn. When they knew about dyeing the yarn they either spun it them selves or bought it from the local market, then dyed it and gave the colored yarn to the weavers. They used aal as the main ingredient for dyeing with harida and danguapaan.

Here are some terms used to calculate the yarn length/bundle during purchasing in local market:

1 lati = 20rounds of yarn with 1 1/2ft fold= 60ft
1 fandi = bundle of 5 lati=300ft
1 machad = 12 fandi=3600ft = 1098m
And the prices were 
20s count- Rs4/ machad
40s count- Rs6/ machad
60s count- Rs10/ machad

The Aal tree is seen almost all forests of Tamilnadu,Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka, Orissa, Jharkhand and West Bengal. The bark and root of the tree is being used as textile dye stuffs from long years in most of the places of tamilnadu, Gujarat, Jharkhand and Orissa. In Jharkhand and Orissa it is mostly practiced by the tribal people of santal and Munda.

From past 120 years the santals of Orissa are in practice with this work but from the current young generation no one carried on the techniques. One more problem is that every family had their own recipe and proportion of dyestuffsfor the dye bath and it was kept secret in the family members. They did not do it for commercial purpose but for the family. Even though their process was different they were all doing the same dark maroon color which have become quite significant among todays santal culture.

after the use of dyeing process, the clothing of santals came with a distinct check pattern and wide borders. Bassed on these patterns there are some sarees and dhotis specially used in marriages. The sarees and dhotis vary in sizes ,they are described below in detail.

a: Khanda Lugli – width 3 1/2ft. length- 16,17,18ft as per order.
This saree is offered to the mother of the bride.
Dyed yarn pattern- 2 ½ inch border on both side of the saree in warp direction and in pallu 3 wider stripes of 2 ½ inch.

Khanda Lugli

b: Gagla Lugli: width 3 ½ ft and length 17/18 ft.
Dyed yarn pattern: 2 ½ inch border in both the selvedges and 1 ½ inch line next to the wide borders and pallu same as the khanda lugli.
This is offered to the bride’s aunt(father’s sister).

c: Hele Lugli: width- 3 ½ ft. length 11 to 12 ft.
Dyed yarn pattern same as khanda lugli only the length differs. Hele lugli is offered to the mother’s mother of the bride during marriage.

d: Sindur lugli: male- width 3 ½ ft and length 6 ft
                     Female- width 3 ½ ft and length 9ft.
These are plain dhotis and sarees. They are dyed with turmeric and dried in sun just before one day of use. Worn by the bride and the bride groom during the main ritual of the marriage. It is also available with 1/2” red border at sevvedge and 1/4” line at both ends.

Sindur Lugli

e: Turban for male: width 2 ft and length 6ft. it comes with 1 ½ inch red border in both selvedges.this is a solid white cloth and turmeric is not applied to it before use. It is used by the bride groom.

f: sada kacha: width 3 ½ ft and length 6ft.
I does not have any colored borders. This is offered to the village head man and two members of the higher authority in the village of the bride’s side.

g:Phuta kacha: male: width 3 1/2ft and length5½ ft.
It has the typical Santali check on the body.This is offered to the match maker of the marriage and rest of the family members of the brides family if any.
Other than marriage offerings, it is worm during many festivals and social gatherings like Guru Mahit, bejha tunj during Sakrat and Punei parab. and In earlier days the kachas were available only in white base and dark maroonish check pattern but now a days some more colored yarns like red, blue and green are used both in warp and weft directions.

Phuta. Kacha

h:Jha.lah: Female: width 3 ½ ft and length 15ft.
This also has the Santali check on the body, some stripe work on the pallu. This saree is offered to the wife of the match maker and the female members of the bride side.
It is also worn by the Santal women in many other occassions same as phuta kacha.In special occasions male and female wear phuta. kacha and jha.lah respectively.Now a days people are  more conscious about their community. So when ever there is a community meeting, awareness camp or some other social gathering they make it a point to wear these specific clothing.

Jha.lah

Differenes and similarities between phuta kacha and jhalah:
The phuta kacha is vertically symmetric as it has both the ends designed with same motifs, it can be worn in both the ways where as the jhalah is asymmetric with one end generally ending with stripe patterns or three close stripes and the other end(pallu) heavily embelished with floral motifs and grids.The check pattern in both the phuta. kacha(dhoti) and the jha.lah(saree) are same  but the length differs. Initially there were no motifs on the sarees and dhotis.But now a days  both the sarees and dhotis come with some motifs of birds,fishes,flowers,leaves and animals. The motifs are derived from the matters surrounding them. Generally the sarees have motifs on the pallus and sometimes on the borders. The dhotis have very rare motifs on the body but both the end are designed with colorful motifs now a day.The pallu of the sarees have floral motifs and wider stripes in the width of around 2 1/2 ft. where as the phuta. kacha has srtipes with comparatively  narrow width. The jha.lah has prominent wide border on both the selvedges where as in futa kacha the check pattern continues till the selvedges.

•Draping
Draping is the process of hanging generally the textile materials from a fixed position giving a proper fall to it. In clothing the terminology is used as the process of wearing a loin cloth around ones body with the ease of comfortability.
In ancient days the people draped two piece of loin cloth to cover their sensitive parts. They fixed the cloths on the waist and chest with some bones and strings as the fasteners.This is supposed to be the oldest use of draping.With change in time size of the loin cloth has but not the concept of draping. Now we call the loin cloths as sarees(worn by women) and dhoti(worn by men).There are various types of draping sarees followed in India varies from state to state. A marathi woman drapes the same  length of saree completely different from a Bengali woman does. Draping most of the time varies according to the daily work of a wearer. More the physical work tighter the drape. Even a single person changes the drape of the single saree many a time in a time according the work she performs in a day. Here we have shown the typical drapes followed by Santali men and women with step by step illustration.

8 Step Santali saree draping

8 Step Santali Kacha draping

•Wash and Care of clothings:
The people in the village are very conscious about the neatness of their clothes.now a days they clean clothes with  detergent but when they clean their bed spreads, kanthas and heavy cotton materials they use ash. Generally the people clean their clothes and take bath in river or ponds. During washing with ash, water is first boiled with ash powder in it and stirred for some time.

Sarees hung on wire to dry after washing

Cloths put on wooden fencing to dry

 Then the clothes are put in it and again stirred and left some time to soak. Then the clothes are washed in river water, squeezed and layed flat the on river bank to dry under the sun. The drawback of using ash for cleaning is that it fades the color of the clothes.  In earlier days most of their clothes were white. So there was no issue washing with the ashes. But now a days they wear synthetic cloths also. The synthetic clothes can not be washed with boiled water. You will get to listen funny stories of their attempt to wash synthetic clothes with ash and tragic consequences of that when they were new to this material.




To protect the clothes from moth, people keep some pieces of camphor in the box of clothes. In earlier days they used to keep their clothes in bamboo made boxes called ‘pitaree’. Now a days they use wooden and tin boxes to keep the good clothes and other valuables.

Village women in traditional jha.l saree drape

Village men in traditional phuta. kacha drape