The Visual Texts in Timeless Tradition : A. K. Das

A significant but little known aspect of the lifestyle of the tribal people is the manifestation of ‘art’ in multiple forms. The concept ‘art’ has a very undefined expression in the modern context. It is undefined because of its overwhelming functional attributes rather than the perceptive overtones – that is “art for arts sake” in urban value judgement. The tribal textiles with symbolic patterns, meaningful wall-decorations, wood-carvings, terracottas and numerous dances and performances belong to the whole network of semiotic code all woven together in the fabric of tribal culture.

Most of the tribal art materials, whether found in remote tribal dormitories, traditional temples, sacred sancturies, cemetries, memorial-structures could hardly be identified with an individual artist. Tribal art is such a collective creation of the whole people. No art form in tribal society emanates from the individual fads. It is the requirement of the society, which gives impetus for the creation and as much governed by the social and ritual obligation and that is why confined to a standardized expressive design. As a result it is possible to identify some of these art forms with a particular region and even the ethnic group who created it. To some extent the very artstyle could be specified and co-related to a particular village by gauzing the excellence in workmanship. As for example in Arunachal Pradesh, the bead work created in the Banfera village of the Noctes could be easily distinguished from that of other villages.

Tuensang wood carvings are distinct because of the powerful, vigorous motifs showing monumentality in form. Adi textiles, Saora pictographs, Warli wall-decorations, Rathawa terracotta figurines and many other such examples could be cited here to show that distinctiveness is a collective criteria which overshadows individuality.

Because of the collective creation, the tribal art at times serves as multi-media documents of their cultural history. Except for the Buddhist tribe, no other tribes had their own script in the past. Their myths, belief, rituals were passed down by oral traditions as well as through performing arts such as dances and pantomimes. It was also frozen in time in the form of visual arts such as wall decorations, carvings, wood work, textile patterns tattoing designs etc. These visual ‘texts’ are the metaphorical expression for the unwritten non-verbal communication hidden from the world view. Since all these art forms are interwoven with the contextual situation, they serve as relevant document of tribal life-style. The tiger figure, for instance, signifies the new Wangham (Paramount-chief). Pichavi, symbol in Warli wall painting, refers to the collective celebration of nagpanchami and its pichavi as such, is a holistic text, which stands for the man and his cosmic realities in a primal conceptual frame work.

The tattoing patterns, mostly geometrical, worn by the Konyak or Nocte women signify the different stages of life from attainment of puberty, marriage, pregnancy and motherhood.

The funerary images of dead persons created in a designated sanctury of a Chodhri village in Gujarat, called vetra or bhuta respectively, for man and woman, are not just inanimate memorials. The very term vetraand bhuta represents the spirit of the dead and thus they signify something lively.

The skull mask fashioned and used by the Monpas in Arunachal Pradesh while performing the thototdam – the pantomime enacting the passing of the departed soul to the other world, creates a liason between living and the dead and stand as a metaphorical expression of the moratality of the human being.

Among the Ao Naga, in the past, every man wore a body cloth (shawl) having numerous patterns. Some fifteen different shawls, each having a distinct name, had been noticed among two clans chongli andmongsen. The distinctiveness of these clothes is not because of the artistic fad of the weaver but because of social compulsion.

In another plane the tribal art serves as a visual record of myths. This is a unique experience one may encounter in a Rathwa village in South Gujarat. The marriage ceremony of the God pithoro with Goddesspithori is enacted by the villagers by preparing a wall-painting in the accompaniment of real life incantations, music dance and offering of food. This wall painting depicts a whole myth with character which could be identified. In fact after completion of the painting, each and every character is examined by the bhavda, the priest in his trance. In case there is any defect he points out for its rectification. The Pithora painting on the wall of Rathwa house is a living legend with all the paraphernalia for the divine congregation.

Many such examples in different contextual situations could be cited in an universal frame-work. These visual art forms, whether sacred or secular, serve a semiotic code or text in the tribal society. They are in fact non-verbal language, a simplistic media for understanding of culture, which continued its timeless journey with the beginning of man’s intellectual capability to reorient his immediate cosmos and to express it in terms of his “primal sight” (Adi Drsya). This holistic expressive design whether visual or oral is a timeless manifestation created and re-created in different contextual situation in different cultures.

 

 

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