Indian Performative traditions documented by Rohit Dutta Roy
Artify is a repository of Indian performative traditions.
This is a traditional folk dance performed by the Santal/Santhals of Bankura. The Adivasi group resides throughout the Chota Nagpur Plateau region of India, which includes parts of Jharkhand, West Bengal, Bihar, Orissa and Assam.
Lars Olsen Skrefsrud, a Norwegian Lutheran Missionary and Linguist, was the first to attempt a Santhali dictionary. He, however, could not complete it, and handed over his life’s work to fellow missionary Paul Olaf Bodding in 1903. Bodding continued the monumental work, and finally the dictionary, 69 years in the making, was published over eight years, between 1929 to 1936.
This video is as much a tribute to Skrefsrud and Bodding, as to Khudu, Biram Hansdak, Sagram Murmu and Mongol, Skrefsrund’s Santhal collaborators.
Let us leave you with the words of Bodding, one of the compilers of A Santal Dictionary, in praise of the Santhali dance.: “It often happens, that Europeans who have no idea of this, and who enjoy the plastic movements of the people, call for Santals to dance before them…”
We hope the rhythms and movements would be as immersive an experience for you, as it was for us.
Rohit Dutta Roy
Rohit Dutta Roy is a Doctoral scholar at the Faculty of History, University of Cambridge. He began his doctoral research at Cambridge after completing an MPhil in Modern History from the Centre for Historical Studies, Jawaharlal Nehru University. Rohit has First Class BA and MA degrees in Comparative Literature from Jadavpur University, and a First Class Master’s in History from the University of Delhi. His stories on politics and policy have appeared in The Wire, Newslaundry and The Citizen. Rohit writes on the everyday political, policy history, identity formation and governmentality.
