Whistling village pins hope on Unesco tag

Each person in the village of

Kongthong

, 65 km from

Shillong

in

Meghalaya

, has two names — one in words, the other as a whistled tune. For centuries, the village has nurtured the whistling code, Jingrwai Iawbei. Now, down to the last 700, the

community

is pinning its hopes on a long-promised Unesco heritage tag and a school to help preserve this

oral tradition

.

“Every child who is born is assigned a tune at birth by the mother. When we have to call one another, we whistle those tunes,” said Rothell Khongsit, 36, a community leader at Kongthong. First, the mother composes a tune — when the baby is conceived, or when she is recovering from childbirth — by which the baby will be identified. Then, the tune is taken to the elders of the community. It must not sound too similar to someone else’s. As the children grow into men and women, they carry the tune as an identity marker. When they die, the tunes die with them.

Meghalaya has long been trying to get the whistling nomenclature system on the Unesco’s list of Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity. ‘The

New York Times

’ in February documented the whistling language of Silbo Gomero in the Canary archipelago, which was included in the list in 2013. In 2017, Turkey’s “bird language” was also recognised. Last month, South Shillong MLA Sanbor Shullai wrote to the Centre again, seeking the heritage tag for Meghalaya’s oral tradition that has just 700 surviving practitioners now, unlike Silbo Gomero’s 22,000 and the Turkish bird language’s 10,000. Also unlike the two languages, Jingrwai Iawbei is not being taught in schools.

Jingrwai Iawbei, as the older generation knows it, has been a part of everyday life at Kongthong. In practice, it is a form of paying respects to the root ancestress, Dr Piyashi

Dutta

, a researcher who has worked on the system, explained. “Every clan has a root ancestress. Each time a tune is created for a child, respects are being paid to her. Jingrwai Iawbei is a melody (Jingrwai) sung in respect of the root ancestress (Iawbei). There are matrilineal implications attached to this tradition.”

The tradition is alive, but the community is concerned. “ When the younger generation leaves the village, they don’t have to engage with others using whistles and tunes. They tend to forget their culture,” Rothell said. “Maybe if we had better education here, children would not have to leave too soon.” The village, perched on the

East Khasi Hills

, has one school up to Class VIII. At a village 3km away, Ksrang, is a secondary school. For studies beyond that, Shillong is the only choice.

Archiving Jingrwai Iawbei is also a challenge. Dutta said, “There is not necessarily a lyric or a tune with a proper scale … It’s a floating sound. How does one document a floating sound?”