Lebang Bomani

Another interesting harvest dance of Tripura is Lebang Bomani. The dance is named after the distinctive bamboo clapper with a drone. While playing the clapper the drone wire is also plucked rhythmically: The sound of the drone attracts a kind of grasshoppers. They come in large numbers hearing the droning sound. The dancers gather the grasshoppers and put them in a bamboo bag which is a part of the costume the dancers wear. The dancers are all girls. The grasshoppers are eaten with relish and it is believed that if the catch is sizable then a bumper crop will be harvested. The grasshoppers coming in large numbers attract birds. To drive them away a bamboo made idiophone called ‘Tak-dutreng’ is sounded rhythmically: Besides the idiophone and clapper, the percussion music is provided by a drum called Pung. The melodic content of the accompanying music is provided by a simple string instrument called Sarinala. At rimes, men also join the dance. The choreographic pattern changes from time to time. When both men and women are dancing, women invariably dance in the inner circular formation and the men in the outer ring.

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