Dumka Santhal Banam Violin Folk Instrument

The banam is the Santhal tribe's bowed fiddle, carved from a single block of wood into a figure with a carved human face at the scroll, strung with two or three strings of horse hair, and played with a bow during ritual singing at sohrae cattle-worship and baha spring festivals. Banam makers in Dumka's Santhal villages carve the instrument from sal or arjun wood, sometimes adding decorative tribal motifs on the sound box. The banam's association with specific Santhal ritual contexts — it is played only at certain festivals and by men — makes it a sacred object as well as a musical instrument, and master banam makers are respected as both craftsmen and ritual specialists in Santhal villages of Dumka and Godda districts.