All the time they are dancing they also sing in unison, the
men sometimes singing one line and the women the next, or both
together. The songs are with few exceptions of an erotic character,
and a few specimens are subjoined.
a. Be not proud of your body, your body must go away above
(to death).
Your mother, brother and all your kinsmen, you must leave them
and go.
You may have lakhs of treasure in your house, but you must leave
it all and go.
b. The musicians play and the feet beat on the earth.
A pice (1/4d.) for a divorced woman, two pice for a kept woman,
for a virgin many sounding rupees.
The musicians play and the earth sounds with the trampling of feet.
c. Raja Darwa is dead, he died in his youth.
Who is he that has taken the small gun, who has taken the big bow?
Who is aiming through the harra and bahera trees, who is aiming
on the plain?
Who has killed the quail and partridge, who has killed the peacock?
Raja Darwa has died in the prime of his youth.
The big brother says, 'I killed him, I killed him'; the little
brother shot the arrow.
Raja Darwa has died in the bloom of his youth.
d. Rawan [92] is coming disguised as a Bairagi; by what road will
Rawan come?
The houses and castles fell before him, the ruler of Bhanwargarh
rose up in fear.
He set the match to his powder, he stooped and crept along the
ground and fired.
e. Little pleasure is got from a kept woman; she gives her lord
pej (gruel) of kutki to drink.
She gives it him in a leaf-cup of laburnum; [93] the cup is too
small for him to drink.
She put two gourds full of water in it, and the gruel is so thin
that it gives him no sustenance.
f. Man speaks:
The wife is asleep and her Raja (husband) is asleep in her lap.
She has taken a piece of bread in her lap and water in her vessel.
See from her eyes will she come or not?
Woman:
I have left my cow in her shed, my buffalo in her stall.
I have left my baby at the breast and am come alone to follow you.
g. The father said to his son, 'Do not go out to service with
any master, neither go to any strange woman.
I will sell my sickle and axe, and make you two marriages.'
He made a marriage feast for his son, and in one plate he put
rice, and over it meat, and poured soup over it till it flowed
out of the plate.
Then he said to the men and women, young and old, 'Come and eat
your fill.'