NATIVE POETRY

Press, Volume LXXII, Issue 21732, 14 March 1936, Page 19

NATIVE POETRY

Songs of this Forest. The Folk Poetry of the Gongs. By Shamrao Hivale and VfflTlcr Elwin. Allen and Vnwhu ll&vp. (6/-net.) A society working for the forest tribes of the £entral Provinces collected 1500 s6ngs. The selection published in ''Songs of the Forest" was translated by a group of enthusiasts—a Gond magician, a Pardhah dancer, the village blacksmith, the editors named, "and from time to time the local cowherd or the Baiga priest co-opted as. advisory members." The 18,000,000 jungle tribesmen are tne remotest from enlightenment of the inhabitants of India. Cpnquest and shrewd neighbours have deprived them of material prosperity, and their songs reveal a spare, unvaried existence in which only the most elementary pleasures and refinements are known. This poetry, however respectfully it is regarded, is obviously of greater interest to the ethnologist than to the man of letters. Certainly all these verses can claim two merits not always conspicuous in the writings of more cultured poets: clarity and simplicity. But when admiration has marked the bare directness of the lines, there is little else to ponder or study. Food, love, thieves, domestic cares, rain, birds, fish supply subjects, and every phase of the jungle-dweller's life is covered by a few lines of almost childish description. Thus the poem "A Conceited Man," runs: He is walking in the read, As proud as any King. He looks down on everyone, For his house is full of riches. If you don't bow down to someone God Himself will humble you. Occasionally a baffling verse is come upon: I sat with my mother to cook the dinner. ' > A hyena came'and carried off the dead man's leg. I sat with my mother to cook trie dinner. . . ._.. A crow flew down and plucked off the nose- . ... .. -it. - I stirred the rice In the pot with a spoon. The language of some riddles quoted is more poetical and full of imagery than most of the verse. Thus— In a dry tank dances a white crane. Parched rice in the pan over a fire. He visits us once in a year, the sadhu with one leg and a big hat. A toadstool.