CHARMED SNAKES & MUSIC SCALES:
A deeper look into the musical side of snake charming
The art of snake-charming apparently took birth in Egypt, but as you all might have guessed, its current form is firmly rooted in India. It’s wrong to even use the word ‘current’ for it, as many hereditary snake-charmers are slowly dying out like other Indian street arts.
Still, even with a few of these ‘reptilian Pied Pipers’, the sight of a snake dancing to a sapera never fails to amaze. Thanks to countless Indian movies and TV shows cheap visual effects, a particular tune (called the naagin dance music) has become the go-to tune of many a snake-charmer.
The trusted instrument which these snake musicians play for this is the pungi. The pungi’s can be anatomically divided into the top and bottom. The top is made of dried bottle gourds and it’s’ the part from where the snakecharmer hisses in his music. This is connected to the other end, which has two pipes made of reed. One of these jivalas (pipes) has a few holes in it and plays the melody.
As can be seen in their performances, snakes do seem to get hypnotised with this music and follow the directions of the pungi. But do these slithering creatures actually hear the music?
Folk stories might agreesnakecharmersbut science gives a solid no in answer. Snakes do have senses to pick up sounds but any layperson can tell you no snake has distinct outer ears like us. This is why they might do the ‘naagin dance’ but it’s not them grooving their heads (or hoods) to the music.
The snakes simply follow the snakecharmer’s hand movements with the pungi. As herpetology (the science of reptiles and amphibians) expert Robert Drewes puts it simply, ‘He sways, the snake sways.’.
Some even suggest that the captive creatures see the pungi as a potential predator. This might explain why sometimes, a snake might tend to bob its head aggressively towards the wind instrument as if it’s in ‘attack mode’.
The relationship between snakes and Indian music isn’t just limited to charming them. In fact, there’s a local instrument called nagphani which is a serpentine horn. Yes, it’s a horn designed in the body of a snake and it even sounds roughly like a snake!
Played in local festivals in Gujarat and Garhwali dramas in Uttarakhand, it’s usually made of brass and copper. Unsurprisingly, it’s associated with the Hindu god, Shiva, a deity so snake-obsessed that even his jewellery comprised of snakes coiled around his neck.
For this reason, some sages in the Kumbh Mela also play the nagphani to welcome visitors. With a hooded snake-like edge and a wavy structure, it is clearly one of the most bizarre and distinct music instruments.
Today, both the nagphani and pungi are on the verge of extinction (although you can find some manufactured pungis on Amazon) like many species of snakes. But in some way or other, their legacy needs to be preserved for this snake music is a totally swadeshi art which wouldn’t be found in any other corner of the world.