Chanted Narratives of Indigenous People Context and Content

This article treats narratives in the text of songs as a cultural script by which indigenous people organize experience and make sense of their lives. The essay is subtitled "context and content" to emphasize a perspective that treats song and music as a way of thinking and mode of being in the world. It explores the context of the Santhal (the largest indigenous community in the Bengal, Jharkhand, and Orissa belt in the Indian Subcontinent) narratives by delving into the symbols and cognitive pattern enfolded in them. The concern is also with exploring how contexts constrain narratives in indigenous communities and developing a framework within which the context and content of chanted narratives of the indigenous People may be pursued together meaningfully.