Dāman- A musical drum of Ladakh INTRODUCTION Lying in the north western part of India, Ladakh comes under the state of Jammu and Kashmir. The Laddakhis, who are predominant in the region, occupy the highest social postion while Gara, Mon and Beda are the other groups living together in a hierarchical system. Traditionally, the Mons and Bedas are professional musicians and the Garas work on blacksmithy from many centuries. The present exhibition sets out to give an insight in to the traditional life style of the Mon and Beda people who live in the rugged terrain of the Himalayan Mountain in Laddakh. Inspite of a complex social hierarchical system among these ethnic groups, there are tremendous amount of interdependence and cohesiveness existed in this region. A great deal of reciprocity in terms of services and rewards address a high degree of social solidarity.1 Presenting here is a pair of traditional musical drum called Dāman from the Museums permanent collection. The object is deeply associated with the socio cultural and religious life of the people of Ladakh especially the Mon people who traditionally give their service as Dāman player to the royal court and noble families relate their identity this musical profession. Dāman, Surna and Piwang are main musical instruments of Ladakh. Although, Dāman and Surna are simple instruments, they are accompanied almost in all kinds of folk music and dance performances. Knowing Dāman The drum which carries heavy sound represents male and the one with low sound as female. Although, this pair of drum looks similar, the one which enacted as male counterpart has to be filled with some quantity of water inside the body from a small passage called Bhiyam, so that it can produce a heavy sound. The body is made up of copper (Jans) and these are mostly prepared by the local metal worker who are known as the Garas.2 Mostly the hide of Cow or Bull is used to cover the body as resonating membrane and lacing element as well. Sometimes hide of Yak is also used for preparing large and massive Dāman. It is tightened by pinching the membrane and stretching it to the ring attached on it. These inter-weaving patterns of lacing element gives a beautiful open-weave structure called Khana. The number of Khana classifies three different categories of Dāman. The drum with seven Khana is used only in the palace of the King and the one who plays it is called Kharmon. Dāman with five Khana is played by Gonmon and it is used in the Monasteries while the one with three Khanas are used by the villagers. There are 360 variants of tunes reported to have existed in earlier times but today only a few of them are preserved and played by the people.
Posted on: Wed, 31 Dec 2014 11:48:09 +0000