Evolution Of Bihu Festival

Many changes came in Bihu due to the present socio economic conditions ad relative life style changes of the general people. Modern bihutolis are established as big mandaps with lighting in urban areas. This has become a craze in Assam. Different bihutolis are competing with each other. Many Shops are opened around the bihutolis in these days. There are commercial viewpoints behind modern day Bihu. Original rituals of Bihu are performed only in villages. Middle class people of urban areas are happy with the bihu dance of bihutolis mandap. This became gradually a song and dance festival. Some cassettes of songs are released. The songs are based on filmy pop music. Present folk poets also write bihugaans on moder lifestyles, present needs and demands of the people. Previously men and women did not dance together, but now days they performed all together. Today Bihu is performed on stage and day y day it is becoming a show business. Some groups also performed in the mandaps in the urban areas. In the middle of the 60’s skilled dancers performed together for the first time ad got instant popularity. The bihukumari competition came in 1970 or 1971. The most efficient dancer is awarded with the title of bihukumari or bihukumar. Assamese film songs have a strong influence in the presence of bihu dance and songs formats. Bihu is a folk festival which is a symbol of peace and harmony. Bihu festivals are an integral part of Assam life and culture. Bihu geet or Bihu songs constitute an important part of Assam’s rich heritage and literature. The festivals are true community festivals and promote a spirit of love, brotherhood and sense of oneness among the people. It is therefore, the duty of every Assamese to preserve theses national festivals in their original form and grandeur. 

Choice Of The Life Partner

Earlier in Assam, Bihu was an occasion for the choice of the life partners, and English observer, as early as 1905 recorded that “this is the season of the year when run-away matches are most common.” Another observer Major John Buttler wrote in 1955 thus: “An unfortunate youth having failed to receive the consent of the parents of the girl he has selected to be his wife, he has resources to a stratagem to effect his object. He lays in wait in the road till the dismal passes by to the fair or festival with her female relatives, when, with the aid of his companions, he carries off the feigning reluctant bride, and immediately marries her privately; when in few days the parents are obliged to be reconciled and the consent to a marriage.” It is however customarily to regularize these matches by offering a feast to or otherwise securing a sanction from the community.  Secondly to forestall relationships which were not sanctioned y society there was also the taboo that young men and women of the same village were not to dance together. Under the ordinary circumstances it is usual for the peasantry to seek a bride which does not belong to the same village as the groom’s.

However life partners may have been chosen may be learnt from the songs themselves-

‘Rustlings does the wing below,

The Sali paddy has opened its ears

Our parents have not sought our pairing

The pairing has been effected by god.’

‘My brother heard me singing among the trees,

He drove me out of my home,,

I stayed night and a day among the trees,

Eating the areca-nut which my lover split.’

Caste sometimes stands in the way of union, but it has already been observed that caste was not as rigid in Assam as in other parts of India. Bride-price had also to be taken into accounts. Even then elopements were frequent, as is evidenced in this song-

‘I would dance the whole day, O friend,

I would dance the whole day,

Only do not carry me off while I dance

For heavily you will have to pay.'

Songs For Bihu

Bihu songs are secular original literature. These songs express different content matters like – natural beauty, story of older days, beauty of the youth and their natural characteristics. It also contain the matters of the past, the beauty of the Assam’s mountains trees, plains, rivers, colorful stones etc. Bihu songs are basically agriculture based songs. The racial and economic discriminations, praise of Karpas, tribal sects, social and family relations and many things are motioned through songs.

Baisavism has also its influence o Bihu songs. Shankarcharya is the fore runner of the Baishnab religion in Assam. The religion is liberal where lower caste tribes like “Boro”, “Kachari” people took shelter. Bihugan is also known as Bihuam where the stories of Sri Krisha Leela are performed at Naamghar.

The Bihu dance has fixed patterns and seems to have a sexual basis, thus indicating its association with some spring time fertility cult of ancient times. Along with both male and female teenagers, even married women may sometimes dance as is indicated in the following song-

‘The dust flies up as they dance

the husband looks peering

if his one has arrived’

This also suggests that though the exchange of hearts may go on all the time the dance for all its sexual suggestions is ceremonial or ritualistic in character. An interesting aspect of Bihu songs is its oral tradition. Generations of Assamese men, women and children have been signing these songs and dances.

The Bihu songs celebrate in enchanting melody the first showers of the rain falling in rhythms on a parched land and filling the arid landscape with fresh green leaves and flowers of flaming colors. Such themes always have an abiding interest especially for the rural Assamese folks. The Bihu songs attempt to depict this renewing of nature, the changing of the reasons making field’s resplendent with flowering creepers and greenery.

‘ Eibeli bihute ramak oi jamak oi

nahar phul phulibar batar

nahar phular gondh pai laharir tat nai

gacaki bhagile jatar’

The handloom has been so closely related to the life and thought of women that they have inevitably drawn upon this institutions for imagery to express some of their deepest feelings. In fact a lot of things may happen to a girl as she sits in her loom. The poor hardworking girl may be deep in her work, but her thoughts and feelings may be somewhere else for her special person. This last situation is beautifully described in a song-

‘Saru hai achilo garu rakhicilo

danger hai lagalo tat

Olotai obhotai, ako marichilo

Mor dhane lagale mat.’

Husori

Husori is carol singing and dancing in a group consisting of only men, led by an elderly one. The term Husori remains unexplained, though there have suggestions as regards its derivation. Some says Hari ucchari after taking the name of Hari (Crying Hari) while some use the term Hachari and explain it to mean moving over land: ha(land) char (to move). This may e also know as folk- etymology.

A village may have more than one band of Husori signers. Each band visits first villages not contiguous to its own village. It is custom to first dance and sing in the yard of the village Namghar, then visit houses of the respectable persons, very old persons, not necessary to be rich or poor. In older days the feudal lords and monastic heads had the first honour from these Husori signers. People take Husori as a respectable way since it is related to religion.

The Husori bands of young ad middle aged men are the symbols of the Raji or community and it is obligation to secure their blessings.

The Husori dance is a ring dance, in which the men move in a shuffling manner, with a leader in the middle, who starts the songs while the others take up the refrain. Husori looks like a Hindu institution, where the songs are completely innocuous, for example 

‘Krishi murote okul phul epali

niyor pai mukoli hol

oi Govidai Ram’
They sometimes echo the language of Bihu songs, sometimes which of Vaishavatie scriptures sometimes even ballads are made use of, while at other times the verses sung are almost nonsensical.

Dressing For Bihu

The energetic dance steps and quick hand movements define the Bihu dance of Assam. But that is not all as any folk dance is incomplete without its costume and jewelry and the performers of Bihu’s traditional Assamese attire. This dance is performed usually by the young males and females to show their joy and merriment on the arrival of spring season. A lot of vibrancy can be seen in the dance outfit of Bihu and that is what depicts the genuine spirit of this dance form. The male performers of Bihu are dressed in Dhotis and Gamosa.

Dhoti

A Dhoti is primarily a long and thin piece of cloth that is worn around the waist and it covers the lower part of the male body.

Gamosa

Gamosa on the other hand is for the head, and both the Dhoti and the Gamosa are bright in colors and have beautiful embroidery in different styles and patterns on the two ends. 

The female who perform Bihu usually wore traditional Assamese attire for the performance. They are dressed in Chador and Mekhela.

Mekhela

Mekhela is cylindrical in shape and is worn on the lower half of the body.

Chador

Chador on the other hand is like a drape which is used for covering the upper portion of the body. The women wears a blouse beneath the chador and the common fabrics used for making the attire are pat silk, cotton and muga silk. Women team up their outfits with gaudy and heavy jewelry and they also decorate their braids were copau flowers that perfectly match the color of the attire worn by them.

The dance is a part of the Bihu festival that starts in mid-April, when harvesting work of farming is over pregnant with the essence, feelings of youth and energy. The dance covers topics such as nature, dreams and feeling of young lovers, fields of crops, trees, season of the year etc. The dance is performed in an open space during daytime but there is a clear distinction of separate sexes. The youths perform this dance accompanied by songs of sentiment, loud beating of the Dhol, soft strains of Pepa, manjira and tokka (bamboo clappers) and many more indigenous musical instruments. In a course of dancing, the dancers commonly form a circle or parallel rows. The dance has been noted for maintaining authenticity and at the same time displaying the traditional Assamese handlooms and handicrafts in their glory and beauty by the dancers.

Bihu Dace Of The Plains

The artistic Bihu is a dance of the plains performed throughout the length and the breath of Assam by both boys and girls on three occasions during the year.  Every ceremony is ritualistic and backed by some form or other of the mythological themes. Art and religion in rural life cannot be separated from each other. The word Bishu takes its birth from the famous historic king Bishwa Singha.

The Gods enjoy intelligible delights, landscapes, music, dancing, offering of flowers and fruits, those incredibly beautiful offerings made out of the simplest elements into the utmost elaboration. One will see them moving smoothly on the heads of women, winding over invisible paths above the tall green rice, and later forming high walled narrow streets in the temple, a festival of brilliant colour, the walls a mosaic of patterned offerings of great ingenuity and variety of designs; golden –flowered aureoles towering above. There will be rice cakes on various shapes and colours, thin round wafers, white and brown, dried snow white, compressed grains; sweetmeats, bananas green and yellow, oranges and innumerable kinds of fruits.

On the “Bihu” day the Assamias does the Cow’s Bath ceremony. The cattle are tied with new ropes, and are garlanded with brinjals and pumpkins. While doing it the cow is blessed with the following words like:

Lau Kha, (Eat Pumpkin)

Bengena Kha, (Eat Brinjals)

Basare Basare Barhi Ja, (Be Big Year After Year)

Mar Saru, (Your Mother Is Thin)

Baper Saru, (So Is Your Father)

Tui Hobi Bara Bara Goru. (Thou wouldst be a sturdy cow)

According to the custom Til Pithas must be cooked in every home. One kind of sweets is prepared by a mixture of Bara Chaul (a kind of special rice), Til and Gur. Another kind of sweets is Ghila Pitha.

The day previous to the one on which Bihu is falls is called Uruka. The Baisakhi Bihu is a much singing and dancing ad exchanging gifts among friends. Songs in chorus are being sung in praise of Krishna and Hari. 

The famous song is: “Sri Krishner murate Bahul phul apahi nior pai mukali hayane oi Govindaye  Ram” (which means Om Ram and Govinda, the “Vakula” bud on the head of Sri Krishna blossomed with the falling of dew drops.) 

During the Baisakhi and Magh Bihu the boys and girls organize dance parties in the fields, Bihu Tali ad experience the usual freedom of being allowed to dace together. The most remarkable ad rhythmic element in their performances is their clappings which is very pulsating and throbbing. Even Mahatma Gandhi was moved by their clappings and said a few words in appreciation when he visited the Sarania Hills at Gauhati.
In the night to watch these dances from a distance seems to e an unforgettable treat being the soothed by the rows of lighted torches. On this spot, “Bihu Tali” thousands of people coverage from far outlying districts, treading their ways over tortuous mountain passes weaving the paths of the dense forest, and sometimes hilly separation ways amidst the tea-plantations.

Reference;
The Folk Dance Of India - Projesh Banerji

Magh Bihu or Bhogali Bihu

Celebration Of Magh Bihu 

In the Magh Bihu, there is again much revelry and merry – making happens in the middle of January.  The word Bhogali Bihu is derived from the word Bhog or handiness of rich food. Bhogali Bihu represents a festival of food. Bhogali Bihu is celebrated at the time when all the cultivation works get over and everyone has got the time to celebrate and enjoy.

Meji

Harvesting over, the festival begins on the last date of Pousa. A meji is put by each group in a village: that is the high temple like structure of firewood piled up and help together by bamboo poles from the four corners. To stay for the night also known as Uruka Night, people build temporary houses called as Bhela Ghar which are made of hay. All night long the festivity goes on with singing, dancing and merry making. In the morning, on the first day of the Magh, after taking the ceremonious bath, the meji is lit by an old member of the society or village to the chanting of mantras and prayers. The fire over, the people go back to their field with pieces of burnt wood as auspicious tokens. It is believed that the fire of meji burns the winter out.

Cock Fight

The Magh festival is like the Lai Haroba provides immense scoop bull-fights, javelin throws and swords, egg- fight, cock-fight,

Buffalo Fight 

Nightingale-fight and other games and sports. 
The dances had got more similar with Bahag Bihu but these are more vigorous in character. The ladies of the 

Nightingale Fight

society prepares for this Bihu for many days. They cook various snacks, sweets for this day. Jolpan and pitha are served to everyone. Magh Bihu is one showing the respect to the elder one with Gamosa and also greeting exchanged among friends and relatives.

All the three bihus are an occasion where all differences are forgotten and people unite to celebrate the occasion in a good manner.

Sweets

References;

http://onlinesivasagar.com/lifestyle/magh-bihu.html
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bihu
Traditions Of Indian Folk Dance - Kapila Vatsyayan.