Tribal museums nearing completion
Source: The Sangai Express

Imphal, June 24 2021: In a positive development, construction of 32 tribal museums as assured by the Chief Minister last year on December 25 as Christmas gifts are nearing completion.

Speaking to The Sangai Express regarding the construction of 'Tribal Heritage Museums', a key member (Thouburel) of Meetei Leepun, Mayengbam Promotchand said that Meetei Leepun had facilitated a meeting of leaders of 32 different tribal communities with the Chief Minister last year on May 27 .

The main agenda of the meeting was to discuss the strategies to effectively fight COVID-19 and surprisingly the matter for bringing up 'Tribal Heritage Museums' was introduced towards the end of the meeting, he said.

The Chief Minister announced this on December 25, 2020 and related funds (Rs 10 lakh each) for construction in some districts were released, he said.

The construction work of the museums is supervised by the Department of Art and Culture and executed by committees of tribal communities constituted by DCs concerned, he said.

The construction work is also partly supervised by the Engineering Cell of DRDA, Promotchand said while adding the design of the museum (same for all communities) was developed by Khuraijam Temba, Chief Engineer of PWD.

Tribal museums nearing completion

Although the fund released was not much, the vision of the Chief Minister is to develop the museums which can be extensively used for mass gathering and meeting, he said.

As each proposed museum will fall short of storing all items related to history, religion and culture of the particular tribal community, more extensions are very much likely to come up in the near future, he maintained.

He was of the opinion that the Chief Minister may also be considering preparing projects to draw funds from the Ministry concerned in order to facilitate extension of the museums.

The Maram community took up from what the Chief Minister arranged and each family contributed a sum of Rs 150 to help construct the museum a bit more extensively with additional facilities such as toilets, he remarked.

With spontaneous response and participation of all stakeholders, the construction works of the said museums are underway smoothly and are expected to be completed very soon, he said.

Even as progress for construction is in advanced stage for many of the museums, the construction for Liangmei, Kabui and Poumai communities are trailing behind a bit due to some factors such as involvement of hill cutting for site preparation, restrictions due to pandemic etc, he said.

The Chief Minister is also expected to inaugurate all the museums at once via video conferencing, he said.

Speaking to The Sangai Express, president of Purum Riem (Tribe) Council, Momsokam Bapui maintained that the Tribal Heritage Museum for Purum Likli Community is built at the Purum Likli village within Kangpokpi district.

Maintaining that the construction of their dedicated museum is in a very advanced stage, Momsokam Bapui said that smaller items and whatever fit into the museum will be stored inside while the bigger objects will be stored outside the museum.

Purum Likli ancestors have left a collection of historically and culturally significant items, he said while citing some of the examples such as Khuong (drum), Rosem (top), Sum (sembung/gong), Sarangdar (violin like instrument), Cori-Conpak (copper plate), Am-Pon (Mayeknaibi cloth) etc.

The community still possesses Nasot-Tang-Khat (a type of gong) which is believed to be an inseparable part of the community from the very early time and when they used to dwell in caves, he said.

More importantly, the community has been preserving the copper plate presented to the community during the 1723-1743 era by King Pamheiba, he added.

He also acknowledged the selfless role of Mayengbam Pramotchand in helping indigenous tribal communities construct their respective tribal museums and help bolster the idea of brotherhood and oneness among all.