OK! I found this media release made some years ago on the internet. As a Naga I am totally amazed by this. Has any of you -- Nagas in Nagaland -- seen or know of the exhibition?
From the page, this is what they've written about us:
The Naga people, who number approximately 30 different
ethnic groups, live in a mountainous region
on the border between Northeast India and Myanmar (Burma). Once, they used to
be feared as fierce warriors, even resisting British colonial rule tenaciously
for a long time. Not only anthropologists and travellers but also
colonial administrators were fascinated by this proud and status-conscious
culture with its elaborate feasts of merit and its practice of head-hunting
HISTORY OF THE COLLECTIONS
The Berlin collection dates back to Adolf Bastian (1826—1905), the founding father of German anthropology, who was one of the first to conduct research among the Naga in 1878/79, in what was then known as the Assam District. The Munich collections goes back to the year 1911 when the German anthropologist Lucian Scherman (1864—1946) visited various Naga tribes on the Burmese side of the border. The collection is exceptional because of its special regional focus. The Basel collections are more recent but cover a longer time span: in 1936/37 the Basel museum commissioned the German anthropologist Hans-Eberhard Kauffmann (1899—1986) to put together a collection of ethnographic objects from the Naga-Hills District in Assam. Shortly later, in 1939, the museum purchased a small collection from the Basel anthropologist Paul Wirz (1822—1955) who had travelled in the Naga territory the year before. Finally, in 1989, the Museum der Kulturen acquired a unique Naga collection owned by the Czech-Indian anthropologist Milada Ganguli (1913—2000). Being an Indian citizen she had the exceptional privilege to travel to the Naga territory several times between 1963 and 1992, during a period when the area was officially strictly closed to visitors. Hers is therefore the only representative collection of Naga objects from the roughly 50-year period following Indian independence (1947)
RELICS FOR THE FUTURE
The collections shown in the Museum der Kulturen under the title «Naga — A Forgotten Mountain Region Rediscovered» bear testimony to a bygone era, making them one of the few remaining sources on the traditional culture of the Naga people. This means that the collections held in Western museums have become important cultural archives which not only help to explain the present situation in Nagaland, but also serve as an invaluable resource for the Naga people to analyze and understand their own history
When I was in Zurich in Dec 2008, there was an exhibition about the Nagas at the Anthropological Museum there. It showcased traditional artefacts and footage of all sorts of things from traditional games to recent beauty pageants.
ReplyDeleteQuite interesting this. There's even a 'dine like in Nagaland'. wow. I wondered who cooked axone! :)) Hutton mentions about Hans-Eberhard Kauffmann writing about the agricultural rites of the Semas, maybe be you can check it up in your library? Don't have any here so... :O)
ReplyDeleteDear person who has written this and those who have commented. I was one of the curators and resource person for this exhibition. While the exhibition was of collections in Ethnological museums in Berlin, Munich and Basel dating from 1870s to present times. The contemporary aspects were presented through films by Naga filmamkers, book readings by Naga writers (Temsula Ao and Easterine Kire) , installlations by Naga artists (Temsuyanger Longkumer) and by giving a tiny taste of Naga style food adapted to all food safety etc regulations which are very strict in Switzerland. It was cooked and taught to the Indian restaurant cooked by Mr Leo Ovung from Nagaland who was at the time in UK training to be a chef. We had Naga co authors who contributed in the book that we published , Director of Nagaland State Museum, and Minister of Art nad Culture and Tourism Naga as gusets at the inauguration of the exhibition in Basel. Plans were to bring the exhibition to Nagaland but the Director of Nagaland state museum had changed by the time the exh finished in Basel and the new director had other priorities. Alas! If you want to see the book (PDF) that was published along with the exhibition, then please message me.
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