Musical Instruments and Sound Objects of Manipur

The tribal people in the hills use a wide range of wind musical instruments made of bamboo. Almost all the tribal groups use a musical instrument made of four to five bamboo tubes of uneven sizes that are joined together, the smaller tubes partly inserted into the bigger tubes. The instrument is played like a  bugle, with the mouth.

Flutes and Bugles

• The Lambang tribals cut tubes from a small variety of bamboo to make a flute-like-wind musical instrument called Puleh. This instrument has 4 to 7 holes.
• The Lambang tribals use a peculiar musical wind instrument called Relru which is a one meter long hollow bamboo tube with an attached projection in the middle, through which one blows with the mouth to produce musical The Lambang tribals make use of both the hard outer layer or skin of the  bamboo  and  the  pulpy inner layer to make a musical instrument. The  necessary lenght of both the layers is 30 cm. Many of the tribal groups configure fine bamboo splits or Paya to make an Interesting musical instrument that Is played with the mouth.The paya must be 15 cm long and 1.5 cm broad.
• Tingtou Lamgang bamboo musical Instrument made of paya or fine bamboo split Length 27cm.
• The Maring tribals use a similar musical instrument called Toutri, which is approximately 36cm, in length.
• Pengkult is a Maring bamboo musical instrument The diameter of the mouth is 13cm. The Korns call it Theibe.
• The Thadou make a musical instrument is called Theiphit, which consists of three tubes of different lengths cut from the same bamboo These tubes are blown separately with the mouth to produce different musical notes.
• The Aimols have a flute like instrument  called  the rotchem, which sounds similar to a  The  Mao tribals call it Khetsh and the Tangkhuls, marao.

String Instruments

Ubo is a chordophonic instrument of the Kacha Naga group. Ubo is manipulated with both the hands. The resonating chamber is formed by a half-cut gourd with a hole, and covered with pig’s bladder or goat-skin, stretched over with bamboo pins. The bridge is of a piece of wood or just a piece of a raw bark. The single string comprises a sago palm fiber or of a metal, fastened at one end to  a spike and on the other end, tightened by a peg twisted accordingly on the neck-hole.

Pena is a chord phonic fiddle. It is a bowing  instrument without frets consists of a bamboo neck inserted into a half cut coconut  resonating sound  box. Horse tail  is used as Instrumental string and as bow string or Cheijing. Small bells are tied to the end of the bow in order to create an ensemble of jingling rhythms. Bow handle is made of wood. The top end of pena beautifully decorated with embroidered cloth and tassels.

The Kom use musical instruments like siramdar (a string instrument), rushem (a  wind  instrument), sum (metal gong), khang (drum) and dar (small gong).