Folk shows mark Indigenous Peoples' Day

Indira Gandhi Rashtriya Manav Sangrahalaya under the celebrations of International Day for World's Indigenous Peoples organised diverse programmes and activities at its premises in Sunday.The day commenced with a colloquium on 'Understanding Indigenous Question: History, Politics and the Future'. The colloquium began with introductory lecture by Professor, Indian Institute of Forest Management Amitabh Pandey on 'Indigenous People: History, Politics and Future'. Pandey said "The word 'Tribal' was first used by the Europen colonisers for the Indian Indigenous people. They didn't know that tribal's were rulers as well". He further added "The tribes were defined on the basis of mode of subsistence, technology, culture, remoteness and nature related to life style".

The key speaker of this colloquium SM Patnayak (Deptt. of Anthropology, Delhi University) informed that Indigenous people are called by different names in different countries like Natives in Africa, Aboriginals in Australia, Minority in China, Indians in latin America and Tribals in India. 

Prof. Patnayak divided his lecture in five parts, he commenced with giving incidents occurred during field research works of great anthropologists like Claude lévi-Strauss, Robert Redfield, SC Roy, Verrier Elvin etc.During the discussion, a student of History at DPS, Samaira suggested that a chapter on Indigenous People should be inculcated in the school curriculum, on that Prof Patnayak explained the system followed in Britain and insisted that Indigenous People should be inculcated in curriculum.

Charing the colloquium, Prof Sarit Kumar Choudhuri Director, IGRMS summarised the discussion and answered the queries of the audience by citing examples from his field work in north-east.In the afternoon, museum organised live demonstrations of various tribal and folk traditional techniques at museum's Traditional Technology where traditional artisans from Manipur, Andhra Pradesh, West Bengal, Chhattisgarh and Bihar presented demonstration. The demonstration of traditional technology included Salt Making (Mainpur), oil from Mustard seeds (Chhattisgarh), traditional technology of irrigation (Andhra Pradesh), making lime(Andhra Pradesh), Husking lever (Chhattisgarh), Iron Smelting Technology (Manipur), lost Wax Tecnique for making idols of copper (West Bengal), Processing of Makhana (Bihar).

Exhibition-Observing the Indigenous Peoples’ Day, a special exhibition 'Deshaj' on The Traditional Technological Knowledge of India was inaugurated by Prof SM Patnaik at Veethi Sankul indoor Building. The Indigenous Technological Knowledge which is filled with astounded wisdom of sustainability has always been a basis of modern discovery. From simple household tools to a wide range of ingeniously fashioned hunting and fishing gears and from creatively devised agricultural and constructions implements to the aesthetically designed traditional machines, the tribal and folk communities have a wide knowledge of simple science to offer to the world. This exhibition is an attempt to showcase the traditional technological knowledge of the tribal folk communities of India from the collections of the Indira Gandhi Rashtriya Manav Sangrahalaya.