In the Forbidden Land/Chapter XVI
- The Rambang—Shoka music—Love-songs—Doleful singing—Abrupt ending—Solos—Smoking—When marriage is contemplated—The Delang—Adultery—Punishment.
ONE Shoka institution, surprising in a primitive people, but nevertheless, to my way of thinking, eminently sensible and advantageous, is the Rambang, a meeting-place or club where girls and young men come together at night, for the sake of better acquaintance, prior to entering into matrimony. Each village possesses one or more institutions of this kind, and they are indiscriminately patronised by all well-to-do people, who recognise the institution as a sound basis on which marriage can be arranged. The Rambang houses are either in the village itself, or half way between one village and the next, the young women of one village thus entering into amicable relations with the young men of the other and vice versâ. I visited many of these in company with Shokas, and found them very interesting. Round a big fire in the centre of the room men and women sat in couples, spinning wool and chatting merrily, for everything appeared decorous and cheerful. With the small hours of the morning, they seemed to become more sentimental, and began singing songs without instrumental accompaniment, the rise and fall of the voices sounding weird and haunting to a degree. The Shoka men and women possess soft, musical voices, and the sounds which they utter are not simply a series of notes emitted through the throat, but, as it were, the vibration of impressions coming from the heart, and transmitted by means of their voices to others. Eastern in its character, the Shoka music is pleasing to the Western ear, not because it possesses quick progressions, flourishes, or any elaborate technicalities, but because it conveys the impression of reality and feeling. The responsive duets, sung by a young man and answered by a girl, pleased me most. All their songs are plaintive, and contain modulations of the voice so mysteriously charming in effect, and so good in tone, that they really affect one profoundly. They only sing when the mood takes them; never with a view to please others, but always simply to give vent to their emotions. Their love-songs generally open with a sentimental recitative, and then change into actual singing, with frequent modulations from one key into another. The time is irregular, and though certain rhythmical peculiarities recur constantly, yet each performer gives to what he sings so strong a personality of execution as to make it almost an individual composition. Any one hearing Shokas sing for the first time would imagine that each singer was improvising as he went along, but on closer comparison it will be found that musical phrases, certain favourite passages and modulations in the voice, constantly recur not only in each song, but in all songs. They seem all of them based on the same doleful tune, probably a very ancient one, and only the different time in which it is given, and the eccentricities of the singer, give it a separate and special character. One characteristic of Shoka songs—as of so many other Oriental tunes—is that they have no rounded ending, and this, to my ears, rather spoiled them. A similar abrupt break is a feature of their dances and their drum-beating. The song suddenly stops in the middle of the air with a curious grating sound of the voice, and I could not obtain any entirely satisfactory explanation of this: the only answer given me was that the singer could not go on for ever, and that as long as he stopped it did not matter how he did it. Further, they considered an abrupt ending most suitable to music (or dancing), as it immediately brought you back to your normal state, should your mind have been carried away. One pleasant feature was that their songs were never sung in a loud tone of voice, nor did they aim at notes too high or too low for their voices, but kept themselves well within their compass.
The only difference between solos given by men, and those sung by women, was that the former showed more plaintiveness and sentimentality, and greater mutability of thought, whereas the latter were more uniform, more lively, and less imaginative in their representation of feelings. The words of the love-songs, nearly always impromptu, can hardly be set down in these pages. From our standard of morality, and away from their own special surroundings, they might seem almost lewd, while in their place they certainly did not impress me as offensive. When singing, the Shokas usually raise the end of their white shawl or dress, and hold it by the side of the head.
Smoking was general, each couple sharing the same pipe. A few burning sticks of pine stuck in the rough wall formed the only illumination, save the fire in the centre of the room slowly burning out. Signs of sleepiness became evident as morning came, and soon they all retired in couples, and went to sleep in their clothes on a soft layer of straw and grass. There they slept peacefully in a row, and I retraced my steps to my diggings amidst a deafening barking of pariah dogs. At these gatherings every Shoka girl regularly meets with young men, and while she entertains the idea of selecting among them a suitable partner for life, she also does a considerable quantity of work with her spinning-wheel. Eventually, when a couple consider marriage advisable, the young man, dressed in his best clothes, proceeds to the house of his intended father-in-law, carrying with him a pot of chökti (wine), dried fruit, ghur (sweet paste), miseri (sugar-candy), and grilled grain. If the bridegroom is considered a suitable match, the parents of the girl receive the young man with due consideration, and partake heartily of the food and drink proffered by him. The marriage is there and then arranged, the bridegroom further disbursing to the father a sum of not less than five rupees and not more than one hundred. This is the etiquette of good Shoka society, and of all people who can afford it, the payment being called "milk-money," or money equivalent to the sum spent by the girl's relations in bringing her up. The marriage ceremony is simple enough. A cake called Delang is baked, of which the friends of the two families partake. If either the bridegroom or bride refuses to eat a share of the cake, the marriage is broken off; if they both eat some of the cake, and later any dissension arises between them, all those who assisted at the function are called as witnesses that the marriage took place. Often even this primitive ceremony of eating cake is dispensed with, and Shoka marriages begin and continue as happy and faithful unions, without any special form of service or rite to solemnise the tie.
They not only visit adultery on the guilty man himself by beating him, but the men proceed en masse to the house of his parents and denude it of all furniture, stores of grain, and merchandise. They confiscate the sheep, goats, yaks, and all their valuable saddles and loads, and present the whole proceeds to the man whose wife has been seduced—a recompense for the shame suffered. Frequently the unfortunate and innocent relations of the evil-doer are bound and even beaten to death by the villagers. These severe measures are resorted to in order to maintain a high standard of morality and honour, and there is little doubt that, primitive as these methods may seem, the good results obtained more than justify them. There are very few illegitimate births, with the exception of occasional Rambang children, and their arrival is a matter of such disgrace that they cannot be looked upon as seriously discrediting the social value of the Rambang.