Salle, Dhading--a village in Nepal's middle hills.

Many years ago when people in the villages wanted to celebrate auspicious occasions there was no one to play instruments. One day a villager needed to celebrate a festival in his home. He really wanted to have music at his festival, so he had a copper damaha made. On top of this damaha he placed two wooden sticks. After that, in front of all his family, friends and neighbors, he said, "Look, whoever is the first to hit this damaha with a stick will forever after be the musician for our society." That day there was a large crowd assembled in his house for the festival. His daughter was there with her young son. It turned out that it was this small boy who first hit the damaha with the stick. And because he did this, he became Damai. When the daughter cried, "Please, don't make my son Damai," her older brother said, "Don't worry, you will always be given enough food to eat, you will make new clothes to wear, you will walk in the front of the procession at weddings and vratabandhas. My nephew will not be made to plow or dig in the fields, he will be brought close to the thresholds of the gods, and always walk ahead of the king." After this his sister was satisfied. This is how it is said that they became Damai.

Bam, Motiraj. Karnalika Paikelahruko Bharat. Paper presented at Royal Nepal Academy, June 12, 2005.

Hanuman Dhoka--the Kathmandu ritual seat of today's monarchy

Wives and daughters of Damai musicians look on as the men prepare for a performance in Salle, Dhading

Historically an auspicious, yet untouchable occupational caste of professional musicians and tailors, the Damai are best known for their musical traditions, which include, among others, the Panchai Baja and Naumati Baja festival/ritual ensembles, the Nagara Bana temple ensemble, and the Hudke tradition of dancing, drumming and ballad singing. The Damai's origins as a caste are concomitant with the development of their musical traditions. The name Damai is said to come from the kettledrum damaha, used in the Panchai and Naumati Baja ensembles. Though Damai musicians have traditionally performed several kinds of music, their festival ensembles are the most widely known and well documented. This historical introduction thus focuses on these ensembles. In keeping with colloquial usage, the term “Panchai Baja” used here refers both to the strictly five-instrument version, to the larger Naumati Baja, and to still larger combinations of the same instruments.

Scholars Carol Tingey and Ram Saran Darnal, who is himself from the Damai caste, trace the Panchai Baja, Naumati Baja and Nagara Bana to the Middle Eastern-Central Asian kettledrum ensemble called the tabl khana, which preceded the naubat and naqqara baja ensembles that were used by the Rajputs from northern India who fled to the Himalayan foothills during the period of Muslim conquest, from 1303 to 1568 C.E. These migrant nobles went on to rule principalities in what is now far western and central Nepal, and it was one of these principalities, the house of Gorkha, which led the campaign that unified Nepal in the 1770s. According to Tingey, it is likely that migrant Rajput nobles brought musicians with them during their 14th century migration, or possibly introduced them after establishing their rule. Their kettledrum ensembles developed as important traditions in both court and temple, and eventually took on popular roles as well. The large kettledrum, called the nagara, is the major instrument of the Nagara Bana, a court and temple ensemble that also continues to be played by Damai musicians.

Map of Nepal with Regions where Damai Musical Traditions are Most Prevalent

The Damai caste and their musical traditions are part of what has been called the Parbatiya or Gorkhali society-the social structure and practices inherited and developed from those of the rulers of the principalities in Nepal's western and central middle hills. With Gorkha's conquest of the smaller Himalayan kingdoms and the creation of Nepal, this society, its language, and its customs came to dominate the region. The Damai's caste position was written into law in the Civil Code (Muluki Ain) of 1854, in which the three major caste systems of the western middle hills, the terai, and the Kathmandu valley were combined and applied to all peoples throughout Nepal. As the middle hill culture has been dominant in Nepal for the past 200 years, the Damai and their musical traditions have come to be found throughout Nepal, though concentrated in the middle hills. While their original patrons were probably Rajput rulers, it has long been common practice for people of all castes and ethnic groups to employ Damai musicians in celebrating important events. It is worth noting that the Newar occupational castes known as Kusle and Jogi have historically performed a similar function of providing ritual music with similar ensembles within the Newar society of the Kathmandu Valley, though this practice is less well documented.

Both Nagara Bana and Panchai Baja have ritual significance, and are considered auspicious. The Panchai Baja also performs a large non-ritual, entertainment repertoire. The evolution of the popular Panchai Baja traditions is not documented, but the history of the Nagara Bana in the courts and temples sheds some light on both ensembles' roles as auspicious parts of seasonal and life cycle rituals. A pair of nagara was given to Gorkha Darbar around 1609, and Bhaktapur and Kathmandu received nagara in 1690, 1727 and 1825. The nagara of Bhaktapur and Kathmandu were both dedicated by the ruling monarchs to be used in the worship of the goddess Taleju. Ram Saran Darnal mentions the following rhyme attributed to the period of Gorkha's expansion:

Dang dang ra dung dung darlagdo baja

Rati rati hidne gorkhali raja.

(dang dang and dung dung terrifying instrument, the fearless Gorkhali king who walks in the night).

Tingey notes that during the reign of the Shah kings of Gorkha, the nagara-nisana "kettledrum and standards" were "honors that could be bestowed on senior servants of the crown." Thus the nagara and its sound have ritual significance, and have historically been associated with kings, their relationship with the divine, and their military might and ruling power-all auspicious elements. This auspiciousness, then, has also come to apply to the Damai who are responsible for the music, and to the instrumental ensembles that accompany ritual functions in the lives of common people.

The Nagara Bana today is performed in temples as sacred music, and the Damai who perform at the temples have traditionally been compensated by the temple associations (guthis), with proceeds from the harvest of the temple-owned land. Panchai/Naumati Baja groups play in weddings, births, rice-feeding ceremonies, funeral processions and religious family services. Their repertoire is mostly secular (pieces do not have specific sacred associations), but the contexts in which they perform, such as these life cycle rituals, often have both sacred and secular functions. Panchai Baja music includes seasonal songs, ritual music, popular folk dances, and popular modern folk songs, and the repertoire continues to grow as new songs are added. In ritual settings, the Panchai Baja's main role is often to lead a processional-from house to shrine, from groom's house to bride's house, or vice versa. Thus the Damai musicians who perform this music create an auspicious environment for a space of transition-from one place, one stage of an individual's life, or one season of the year, to another.

Traditionally, playing in the Panchai Baja and Nagara Bana has been an exclusively male occupation. According to Tingey, Damai women were not supposed to play instruments and, in central Nepal, were not allowed to sing in public. In far western Nepal, there is a tradition of Damai women (Damini) singing auspicious songs (mangal git) at weddings, where the Panchai Baja is also played. In central Nepal during Tingey's research in the late 1980s, the prevailing attitude viewed Damai women's public performance as equally degrading as prostitution. Women's music has traditionally been confined to certain contexts: during rice-planting, the all female wedding party at the groom's home (rateuli), the women's festival teej, and all-night vigils at shrines during religious festivals. Darnal says that he, a Damai man and scholar of music, has never heard Damai women's music; while he lived much of his life in a Damai community, this music was always performed privately among women. However, the proscriptions for women do have exceptions: Tingey notes that women sang dohori duets with men at Damai weddings, and describes one woman, Deomaya Pariyar, who plays in a Panchai Baja. Darnal mentions another woman who is a master of the dolakhi, and suggests that there are probably many more like her across Nepal. Currently several Damai women are enjoying successful careers as singers, outside the realms of specifically Damai musical traditions.

In addition to the Panchai Baja and Nagara Bana, Damai musicians in the far western region of Nepal perform on the hudke drum, an hourglass-shaped drum whose pitch can be adjusted while playing. Important in the hudke repertoire is a tradition of ghata, or ballad singing, performed along with a dance called the hudke nach. This ballad tradition celebrates the lives of heroes, often of the far-western region, much as the Gandharva karkha tradition often memorializes heroes of the western and midwestern districts. Darnal states that many women are now becoming involved in performing the hudke repertoire. Many Damai traditions of far-western Nepal that have yet to be documented in detail; these include several other dance traditions as well as the art of playing the large, two-headed dhol. The Damai dhol is no relation to the Punjabi drum of the same name; in fact, according to Darnal, several South Asian musical traditions have given the name dhol to their biggest drum. The social status of the Damais, and the continued performance of their traditional musics, is dependent on many interrelated factors. For information about the current situation of Damai musical practices, please visit the Current Status and Profiles pages