Music.
Besides songs, of which some account has been given in the section on language, the operations of reaping, threshing and carrying up the crop are accompanied by simple wordless chants. Only the proper chant which tradition sanctions may be sung. Were a man to use the wrong one, the reaping chant while threshing, for instance, the listening spirits of the fields (Rangsi) would be displeased and refuse him their blessings.
Three varieties of musical instrument are used. Of these the simplest is the trumpet (phupphu), consisting merely of a bamboo tube about sixteen inches long, from which a bellowing noise can be produced. A more elaborate type of phupphu has a tube about four and a half feet long of light wood from which the pith has been removed, terminating in a trumpet-shaped piece of gourd. The Lhota has an accurate ear for music, and with this he can give wonderful imitations of bugle calls. But the instrument upon which he is most expert is the flute (philili or phiphili). This consists of a thin bamboo tube about forty inches long, open at both ends, with a small square mouthpiece cut about two inches from the thick end.40 The player either sits down or lies on his back, with his right wrist resting on the ground. With the palm or one of the fingers of his left hand he stops up the broad end, and using the mouthpiece like that of a flute, produces a rather pleasing tootling tune by opening or closing the small end with the middle finger of his right hand. This instrument is a favourite one with young bucks, who lie on their backs in the “morung” and tootle the names of their lady-loves in simple tunes. In [86]every village a particular combination of notes represents the name of each fair one, and strange though it may seem, no one listening ever seems to have any doubt as to what lady’s fame is being celebrated.