Rongali Bihu: Assam Dances Its Way Through Spring’s Mating Rituals

Songs and dances at this time often reflect sexual overtones symbolising the desire for union between man and woman.

The graceful Bagurumba folk dance.

(Photo Courtesy: Ranjita Biswas)

Spring is in the air. You can feel it in the pulse of the breeze, in the sudden appearance of new shoots peeping from winter-dry branches, and the lovely blooms – red gulmohars and yellow sonajhora.

Celebrating the advent of spring is prevalent among all communities across the world in various forms of festivals and rituals. Whether it is Bihu in Assam, Baisakhi in Punjab or May-Queen celebrations in the West, their central focus is the awakening of the earth from the slumber and fruitlessness of the winter.

This is also the beginning of the season for the farmer community to plough the land and prepare to plant the crops. The folk dances and songs that celebrate spring’s advent are reminiscent of the times when it was the most important time of the year for the primarily agrarian society.

Songs and mudras of dances in folk tradition during the spring festival often reflect sexual overtones symbolising the desire for union between man and woman, as if to propitiate the earth mother in this season of creation and mating.

In short, it is a homage to fertility.

One of the best examples is the vigorous and beautiful Bihu dance performed during Rongali Bihu (also known as Bohag Bihu), the biggest festival of Assam held at the advent of ‘Bohag’ (Baisakh). To make the earth ‘pregnant’ with crops, overtones of piriti (love) between man and woman formed the main theme for the lyrics.

Thus the woman sings, “How do I swing my body and mind/ How do I swing my slim waist/ O’ my dear lover/ how do we dance ‘bihu’/so that young shoots sprout again” and the man counters with, “Bohag breeze is blowing/ Bohag breeze is blowing/ Hasn’t Bihu touched your body yet?” – as a form of verbal flirtation. Then, again, the man sings, “The tingling sun rays with the smile in your face/intoxicate me, make me restless and promises, The way the rice field sways in the breeze/You’ll sway in my embrace in the same way”.

Bihu dancers in Muga mekhela-chador.(Photo Courtesy: Ranjita Biswas)

The red colour motifs in the traditional two-piece Muga mekhela-chador Assamese women wear while dancing the Bihu, according to pundits, is a symbol of menstruation or fertility.

Scholar Sivanath Barman of Assam in his book, Lokokrishtir Utsha (root of folk culture) points out that all the tribes of the North East celebrate the spring festival in their own way – but a common theme that prevailed was free mixing of men and women while dancing together in the open that also, often, led to choosing a life partner.

The Bodos (tribe) call their spring festival Baisakhu and the Rabhas “Baikhu” both of which etymologically translate into Vasundhara. One of the most graceful folk dances is their Bagurumba which only maidens dance to, dressed in yellow dakhna and ornai as they float like butterflies. One of the songs goes like this: Jump and dance/ oh, Jump and dance/ Dance in vigorous jumps/ Had you not been a youth of our same family/ I would have caught hold of you/ And taken you in my lap.

In the primitive society, untouched by the mores of later-day Sanskritisation, free mixing in the season of mating (as spring symbolised even for the animal world), was not castigated, Barman writes. In fact, some communities encouraged it in the belief that it could augment fertility of the earth.

Listen to this Karama song from Chhattisgarh where the woman sings invitingly, The time for sowing is approaching/ The paddy in the granary are for eating/ The seeds are hidden in an inside room (that only I know of).

The preoccupation with fertility and its symbolic presentation in rituals as integral to folk traditions have amply been illustrated by anthropologists and folklorists.

Renowned anthropologist R. Briffault had observed: “...the beliefs that sexual act assists the promotion of abundant harvest of the earth’s fruits and is indeed indispensable to secure it, is universal in the lower of culture.”

Maini Mahanta, editor of Nandini magazine, Guwahati explains how, during the British colonial days, a section of the Assamese gentry – steeped in Victorian mores – found the dance ‘vulgar’:

They even appealed to the administration to ban it. As a result for quite sometime, Bihu dance was looked askance by the so-called sophisticated people who considered it as a preoccupation of the lower class. Thankfully, those days are over. Having said that, it’s also true that some of the original lyrics are too ‘raw’ to be accepted in a public performance today, particularly those which are  not gender sensitive. The dance groups generally avoid them these days keeping with modern sensibilities. I think it’s a responsible step.

In India, the ritual of worshipping Mother Nature, the Great Mother, by pre-Aryan agricultural communities was later taken into the fold by the Hindus as an inspiration behind the Shakti cult, scholars opine.

Kamakhya temple of Guwahati.(Photo Courtesy: Ranjita Biswas)

Kamakhya temple in Guwahati, a venerated centre of Shakti cult, is well-known for the Ambubachi festival during the month of ashar (in monsoon) when the temple is shut down for four days with the belief that the goddess menstruates – an interesting melding of a goddess image with that of an ordinary woman. As per custom, Kamakhya becomes off-limit for those four days.

There are scientific explanations as to why red earth mixes with heavy downpour and red-coloured rivulets stream down from the Kamakhya hill, but from ancient times this was the belief.

Sadhus during Ambubachi at Kamakhya temple in Guwahati.(Photo Courtesy: Ranjita Biswas)

Interestingly, the Khasis of the neighbouring Khasi and Jaintia hills now named Meghalaya, have always claimed that she was their goddess whom the Hindus took into their fold later. The Khasis are of Austric origin and follow a matrilineal social system. They say that Kamakhya is a Sanskritised version of Ka Mei-kha signifying the mother from the father’s side and highly respected.

Today in the North East, as elsewhere, folk dances and songs are more a part of stage performances – or organised in open fields as entertainment items. Hence it is quite likely that the inherent meanings lay undiscovered – not the least because urbanites have little scope to be in close proximity with nature’s many hues as the seasons change.

Be that as it may, ‘looking back’, as nature unravels the fertility drama every spring, can open up another world of possibilities.