Published Paper Details:

Printed collections of Santal songs in the original Santali are listed in the Bibliography the chief collections being Hor Soren and Don Soren, published jointly by Gopal Gamaliel Soren and myself in 1943. Hor Seron comprises 1676 songs which are sung at festivals or dances, Don Soren 1824 songs which are sung at weddings. A further 129 cultivation songs are included in the second volume. The majority of these songs are ancestral but it is part of the vitality of Santal poetry that new songs are sometimes made up on the spur of the moment. There is no special class of poet, singer or bard, and the songs are accordingly communal in origin and inspiration. Songs connected with the induction ceremony of Caco Chatiar and with the ritual of Karam are given in Stephen H. Murmu's Karam or Caco Chatiar (published 1945). The special songs, known as Bir Soren, which are sung in the privacy of the forest, are as yet unpublished. A manuscript collection amounting to almost one thousand is with me and I hope in due course to deposit it in the India Office Library, London.