FolkloreOral tradition
Knowledge type: folklore and oral tradition. Anonymous, undatable, textually unstable by nature.
ਲੋਕ ਗੀਤ لوک گیت Folk song forms
Punjabi folk song is organised by occasion, not by author. A song is not something a person wrote and other people then performed; it is something that gets sung at a particular moment — when the bride's father is addressed, when the mare is saddled, when the two families finally sit down opposite each other. The words change from village to village. The moment does not. Learn the moment and you have most of the song.
The series
The songs of the wedding
A Punjabi wedding is, more than it is anything else, an occasion for singing — and the singing is organised. There is a genre for the bride's house and a genre for the groom's; a genre for insulting the in-laws and a genre for welcoming them; a genre improvised in the street at midnight. Almost all of it is anonymous, unwritten, and composed and carried by women.
Her house · 1 of 4
ਸੁਹਾਗ سہاگ suhāg
Sung in the bride’s house, in her voice, before she leaves it.
His house · 2 of 4
ਘੋੜੀਆਂ گھوڑیاں ghoṛīāṅ
Sung in the groom’s house, by his sisters, as the mare is readied.
The two sides meet · 3 of 4
ਸਿੱਠਣੀਆਂ سٹھݨیاں siṭhṇīāṅ
Sung when the two families meet — licensed, comic, mutual abuse.
The giddha circle · 4 of 4
ਬੋਲੀਆਂ بولیاں bolīāṅ
One voice recites, faster and faster; the circle takes the last line away and throws it back. The ṭappā, the short and long bolī, the rhyme-slot that opens them — and three verses in full.
Also coming to this section
Named here so the shape of the section is honest before it is finished. These are forms, not pages — there is nothing to link to yet, and no promise about when there will be. Tap any of them to read the word.
— the short love-verse of west Punjab, the bolī's closest relative across the border · — the long unaccompanied verse of the bār · — the lullaby · — the songs sung to receive the groom's party.
Ṭappā is no longer listed here: it is the base unit of the bolī and is taught on the Boliyan page, so a separate page for it would be a promise this section does not intend to keep.