(Subtheme:
Indigenous Knowledge System and Practices)
K.C. Lalmalsawmzauva Ph.D
Department of Geography & Resource Management
Mizoram University
Abstract
This paper is an attempt to understand about Mizo past lives from
indigenous calendar with special reference to their knowledge and understanding pertaining to
environments and agricultural practices. There are two broad objectives: One is
to explore Mizo indigenous knowledge about weather and climate from Mizo
indigenous calendar. Another objective is to examine about their agricultural
practices, which laid the foundation of Mizo culture and identity from
indigenous calendar. An attempt has also been made to highlight the intrinsic
relationship of indigenous people and surrounding environment, particularly the
significance of flowers and fruits as natural indicators of seasons. Present
study will focus on calendar months in which different types of agricultural
practices unfolding throughout the year that ultimately is responsible for the
formation of Mizo cultural identity that expressed in the form of calendar.
Key words: Indigenous, knowledge, calendar, agriculture, identity,
weather, climate, culture, environments
Introduction
Understanding indigenous knowledge and practices is crucial for
realizing the identity of any society as it forms the basis wherein indigenous
calendar appears to be one of the best study materials. Though, living in an
internet world today, the foundation of modern knowledge built upon simple
indigenous knowledge and value system, which always incline towards human
development. Re-visiting one own indigeneity and origin strengthen modern
technology and sometime it provides better option particularly for long term
perspective and sustainability.
Indigenous knowledge (IK) is the local knowledge – knowledge that is
unique to a given culture or society. IK contrasts with the international
knowledge system generated by universities, research institutions and private
firms. It is the basis for local-level decision making in agriculture, health
care, food preparation, education, natural-resource management, and a host of
other activities in rural communities (Warren 1991). Indigenous Knowledge is
the information base for a society, which facilitates communication and
decision-making. Indigenous information systems are dynamic, and are
continually influenced by internal creativity and experimentation as well as by
contact with external system (Flavier et al. 1995: 479)
In the study of traditional knowledge and practice system, indigenous
calendar play extremely significant roles as it acts as an epitome of all the
indigenous knowledge and identity. Though, indigenous calendar may not fully cover
all the indigenous way of lives, it may capture more than half of the root of
it and genesis of the so-called cultural identity.
The word calendar derived from calendae, the term for the first day of
the month in the Roman calendar, related to the verb calare "to call
out", citing to the "calling" of the new moon when it was first
seen. In Latin word it is called as ‘ calendarium’ which means "account
book, register" which later adopted by French as calendier and from there
in Middle English as calender by the 13th century and today we spell it as
calendar.
According to Wikipedia ‘a calendar is a system of organizing days for
social, religious, commercial or administrative purposes. This is done by
giving names to periods of time, typically days, weeks, months, and years. A
date is the designation of a single, specific day within such a system. A
calendar is also a physical record (often paper) of such a system. A calendar
can also mean a list of planned events, such as a court calendar or a partly or
fully chronological list of documents, such as a calendar of wills’.
WordWeb also define that ‘calendar is a system of timekeeping that
defines the beginning and length and divisions of the year’ Before the
introduction of the widely used today’s calendar generally known as Gregorian
calendar/ Western calendar or Christian calendar in 1582 by Pope Gregory XIII,
many country or society had their own contextual calendar.
It is therefore very clear that calendar is originated from ‘sun’ and
‘moon’ as well as associated with festival, weather and climate, which
eventually determine human lives and understanding of times and events.
There might be a variety of way to examine one own particular
indigeneity to understand their cultural identity in the context of space and
time. Inter alias, indigenous/traditional calendar acted as a treasure of
knowledge about the past lives of any particular tribe or indigenous people if
they have. It symbolizes their way of living, practices, understanding about
their surrounding and their socio-cultural and geographical knowledge too.
Indigenous calendar mostly records cultural events, agriculture practices,
which generally associated with festivals and celebrations. Thus, indigenous
calendar might be treated as one of the best study materials to understand
history of any society or culture. Calendars in the past were not merely acted
as for counting times and scheduled rather it worked like a diary of events and
seasonal changes which unfolds along with their agricultural practices.
Even though the Mizo have indigenous/traditional calendar, its
significance for tracing Mizo identity and system of practices has not yet
explore. Present paper tries to deal with this unexplored area of indigenous
knowledge and practice system by using contextual calendar which is fully
furnished by Mizo historical past. It appears that indigenous Mizo calendar had
more significant and deep sense to the whole gamut of the Mizo at least in
their local context than today’s Gregorian calendar. Thus, this paper tries to
unfold these challenges.
Objectives
1.
To examine significance of agricultural practice system for
understanding indigenous knowledge and the evolution of Mizo identity that
reflected in the indigenous calendar
2.
To explore Mizo indigenous knowledge about weather and climate from the
indigenous calendar
3.
To highlight indigenous understanding about environment particularly how
they utilized flower and fruits as natural indicators of seasons.
Material and Methods: Present study
mainly rely on secondary sources like- books, E-Journal and Mizo literatures.
Consultation of old aged people and expert on Mizo literatures has also been
made.
Background of the study area: Mizoram, located
in the northeastern part of India is surrounded by Myanmar (Burma) in the east
and the south, Tripura in the north-west half and Assam and Manipur in the
north. The geographical location of Mizoram lies between 21°58' to 24°35' N
latitude and 92°15' to 93°29' E longitude. Covering a total area of 21,087
square kilometers, the state is blessed with rich forest resources. The terrain
of Mizoram is rough and tough with steep slopes dominating the whole
geographical areas. There are 21 major hills ranges or peaks of different
heights run through the length and breadth of the state, with plains scattered
here and there. The average heights of the hills to the west of the state are
about 1,000 metres (3,300 feet).
These gradually rise up to 1,300 metres (4,300 feet) to the east. Some
areas, however, have higher ranges which go up to a height of over 2,000 metres
(6,600 feet). As a result, the main agriculture practice is shifting
cultivation or slash and burn agriculture system.
Mizoram experiences pleasing climates with moderate temperatures
throughout the year. The summers are not very hot as the temperature remains
between 20° to 35° C while the winter temperatures are ranging from 21° to 10°
C. Mizoram witnesses heavy rainfall in all parts of the state during the rainy
season. Monsoon starts from May and lasts till the month of September. An
annual average rainfall of about 250 cm is recorded in the state. People of
Mizoram had community land holding system and used to shift their cultivation land
from one area to another and that form a cycle. It is commonly known as
Shifting cultivation or Jhum cultivation. Their agricultural practices are
fully depending on monsoon.
Literature Review: Literature review covered briefly of almost all
calendar used before and after de facto international standard of Gregorian
calendar. All these can be clubbed under the solar calendar and lunar calendar.
In many cases both solar and lunar (lunisolar) calendar were used since ancient
Romans, Babylonian, Zoroastrian and Hebrew.
Islamic calendar was mainly based on synchronized to the motion or cycle
of moon (lunar) whereas Persian calendar was based on seasonal changes
synchronized to the apparent motion of the Sun. Traditional calendar of China,
Hindu and Hebrew are based on Lunisolar (sun and moon) while Egyptian used a
calendars synchronization to Venus. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Calendar)
In India, there are many indigenous or traditional calendars which still
plays extremely important role in religious ritual, festival and celebration.
Even among the Northeast tribes, the Khasi of Meghalaya too has their own
calendar which deeply associates with their festival and practice of
agriculture system. The Khasi tribe has 8 months in a year which are
intrinsically linked with their festivals
(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meghalaya).
The Nagas generally followed lunar calendar indicating some kind of
astronomical prowess. This calendar invariably had 12months, each with 28-30
days. Some like the Angamis even had a 13th month. All festivals in Nagaland
initially followed the lunar months, usually the phase between a new moon and a
full moon. They have been rescheduled today to fit the Gregorian calendar (http://hornbillfestival.co.in/tribe.html)
Among the Northeast tribes, Arunachal tribal indigenous calendar was
much similar to Mizo indigenous calendar. Gupta (2005), wrote in the ‘Journal of
Indian Traditional Knowledge’ that tribal of Arunachal Pradesh have 12 months
in a year in which agriculture practices dominate the whole calendar months and
there are three birds used as natural indicators for felling of tree, slash and
burn of felling trees and time for sowing of seeds.
Discussion: Traditionally, the Mizo used to observed and count motion of
the moon that forms their indigenous calendar in the true sense. Counting the
moon when it first appear in the skies till it becomes full moon took 14 days
and they also thought that since from its full moon stage, the moon took
another 14 days to completely fading away. They thought that the 15th night of
the moon is not on neither side of the starting nor the fading; therefore,
there were 29 days in a month and 348 days in a year (Dokhuma, 2004).
There were 12 months in the Mizo Indigenous calendar, which were chiefly
associated with agriculture practice system; their knowledge on weather,
climate and surrounding environments has been clearly revealed. Indigenous
calendar is shown in the following table:-
Table-1. Mizo
Indigenous calendar months and its relationship with climate, agriculture,
environment and associated activity
|
Sl.No
|
Month
|
Relationship
with Climate/Agriculture/Environment/ Festival
|
Main
activities
|
|
1
|
Pawlkut thla/January
|
Agriculture/Festival or festive season
|
Celebration of new year
|
|
2
|
Ramtuk thla/February
|
Agriculture/Dry month
|
Selection of new plot for jhum and start feeling of trees for
new year
|
|
3
|
Vau thla/March
|
Flower and Fruit
|
Appearing new flowers particularly Vaube (Bauhinia
variegata)/Time for burning of slash dry trees
|
|
4
|
Tau thla/April
|
Flower and Fruit
|
Ripening of some local berries, particularly hmutau (Rubus
ellipticus)
|
|
5
|
Tomir thla/May
|
Weather and Climate
|
Starting of monsoon season means time to star sowing of seed
|
|
6
|
Nikir thla/June
|
Weather and Climate
|
Returning of the sun from its peak position. Cultivation in the
jhum land
|
|
7
|
Vawkhniakzawn thla/July
|
Weather and Climate
|
Heaviest rainfall season
|
|
8
|
Thi tin thla/August
|
Spiritual/ Sacred season
|
Forbidden of marriage &Merry making
|
|
9
|
Mim kut thla/September
|
Agriculture/ Festival
|
Harvesting of corn
|
|
10
|
Khuangchawi thla/October
|
Agriculture/ Festival
|
Ideal festive season with brightest moonlight season
|
|
11
|
Sahmulphah thla/November
|
Weather and Climate
|
Starting of winter season
|
|
12
|
Pawltlak thla/December
|
Agriculture
|
End of the year and harvesting of rice
|
Table-1, clearly shows the inter-woven of climate, agriculture,
environment and festival-all together form Mizo cultural identity. It can also
be identified that the Mizo are indigenously aware of their surrounding
environments-weather and climates. They are systematically counting seasons
based on natural indicators like flower, fruits, dry and cold season which were
useful for their survival.
Therefore, the Mizo Indigenous knowledge may be divided into three broad
categories based on their practices and understanding of environment, even
though they are intrinsically related with one another. These broad divisions
are:-
1.Indigenous Knowledge about Agriculture practice: It is
interesting to observed table-1 which shows that Indigenous Mizo calendar can
be claimed as ‘agricultural scheduled’. Agriculture practice played central
role in the indigenous lives throughout the year. They were fully aware of jhum
cultivation with common occurrences of weather and climate. Agriculture
practices were associated with festivals and celebrations too. Agriculture
practice became the foundation of Mizo culture. Since they spend most of their
times in the jhum land, they have deep attachment to it and its surrounding
environments. There were times when men and women stayed over in their jhum
land for weeding and harvesting for many days that triggering men’s courting
and wooing of girls in the jhum land during night time. Many stories,
sensational and romantic songs are also borne out of jhum fields. Thus,
agriculture practice can be said as the origin of Mizo songs and literatures as
many of them are having jhum land background.
Shifting agriculture practice system actually dominates the whole scene
of Mizo tradition and culture. Tribal communities like Mizo are close knit
society with strong family and clan network. Each village communities devised
institutional way for mobilizing the necessary labour at the community and even
at family level. While the men folk look after the heavier and more laborious
work like felling of trees, slashing, burning of forest, removal of stumps and
logs; women on the other hand, look after sowing, weeding, husking, threshing
and storage of the crops. In addition, children are also not spared; they used
to draw water from the available stream around the jhum land. Besides, they
were trained in early age by parents so that they can cope up with the system
and this has been passing down from generations to generations. Thus, agriculture
practice system is where the division of labour evolves in Mizo traditional
society. As a result, common agriculture practice systems have been evolved in
Mizo society as a whole. As mentioned earlier there were three prominent
sections in the society based on division of labour, such as Man, Women and
Children while old age people are generally expected to work on crafting and
sharpening of agricultural tools and implements.
Out of 12 months/seasons in a year, 5 months are identical with
agriculture related seasons, such as Pawlkut thla (January), Ramtuk thla
(February), Mim kut thla (September),
Khuangchawi thla (October) and Pawltlak thla (December).
Pawlkut thla or January, was the starting of the year. ‘Pawl’ means
‘straw ’; ‘kut’ means
‘festival’ and ‘thla’ means ‘month’. It seems that Mizo generally
celebrated sometimes during
the end of January and the beginning of February; before they start
felling of trees for new agricultural field. ‘Straw’ or ‘Pawl’ still found i n
the fallow land.
Ramtuk thla or February was the time when community decides for site
selection of the new jhum. ‘Ram’ means ‘Forest/Jungle’; ‘tuk’ means ‘cut’/
felling of tree’. After selection of sites for jhum, they start cutting down
the trees, which was mainly the responsibility of men folk.
Mim kut thla or September was the season of celebration of harvesting
corn. ‘Mim’ means ‘corn’; ‘kut’ means ‘festival’. It can be und erstand from
this calendar that corns seems harvested earlier than rice, which is invaluable
information in the study of cultivation of corn under the climatic condition of
Mizoram.
Khuangchawi thla or October was the time of festivities and celebration
of natural beauty. ‘Khuangchawi’ need detail explanation but we might briefly
put it that ‘the time when wealthy and respected persons in the society (in
terms of assets like domestic animals, agriculture products or number of
killing of wild beasts) make celebrations by hosting community feast. Rich
people were respected and look upon mainly because they shared their wealth to
the community, which is why they were in a distinguished class in a society.
This is extremely critical to understand indigenous value system of the Mizo.
During this season, they finished the third stages of weeding the jhum land and
people were feeling free to enjoy. Moreover, this was the brightest moonlight
season of the year and under which, Khuangchawi or celebration has been done.
Pawltlak thla or December was end of the year. ‘Pawl’ means ‘straw’;
‘tlak’ means ‘complete’ or ‘finish’. Harvesting crops especially rice/paddy was
completed which indicates end of the year and time to start New Year
celebration. Even though there was no fix date for New Year like today, Mizo
generally celebrated sometime in January every year.
2.Indigenous Knowledge about Weather and Climate: Traditionally,
farmers used traditional knowledge to understand weather and climatic patterns
in order to make decisions about crop and irrigation cycles. This knowledge has
been gained through many decades of experience, and has been passed on from
previous generations. The knowledge is adapted to local conditions and needs
(R.Rengalakshmi, 2009). Understanding the local perception on climate is
critical for effective communication of scientific forecast. Since it is
learned and identified by farmers within a cultural context and the knowledge
base follows specific language, belief and process. The local weather and
climate is assessed, predicted and interpreted by locally observed variables
and experiences using combinations of plant, animal, insects, and metrological
and astronomical indicators (R.Rengalakshmi, 2009).
As shown in table-1 there are four months/seasons indicating the
knowledge of weather and climate by the Mizo. They were keen in the observation
of surrounding weather and climatic condition, which played exceedingly
important roles in their agriculture practice system.
Tomir thla or May is the season they first experience monsoon in the
state. ‘Tomir’ means ‘rain or rainfall’ generally accompanied by w inds
indicating the time for sowing seeds of different crops. When the rain comes,
they know that it’s time for seedling. So, rain act as natural indicator for
their agricultural activities.
Nikir thla/June is another significant indicator of the indigenous
knowledge about climate. ‘Nikir’ literaly means ‘returning of the s un’ from
its existing position. They indigenously knew that 21 June is the longest day
of the year (Summer solstice). They called it “Lalmanganu lawmrawih ni’. The
story goes that ‘the re was one widow, name Lalmanganu, who knew this
particular day and invariably asked friends to work in her jhum land on this
particular day every year so that she could benefit maximum labour input in her
field’. The Mizo thought that after Lalmanganu lawmrawih ni (21 June) the sun
will return or go back and then the day will start shorter day by day. This
explicitly indicates keenness of the Mizo in observing movement of the sun.
Vawkhniakzawn thla/July is also another season that reveals the
indigenous knowledge about weather and climate. In order to showcase that there
exist maximum rainfall during this period, they name it Vawkhniakzawn thla.
‘Vawkhniakzawn’ literally means ‘footsteps of pigs’ to say that there used to
be a contiguous footsteps of pigs left behind in the streets and courtyards due
to incessant rainfall during this time. So, everybody knows that there used to
be regular daily rainfall during this period.
Sahmulphah thla/November is also exposing indigenous knowledge about
weather and climate. ‘Sahmul’ means ‘fur’ and ‘phah’ means ‘lay or lay down’
indicating that winter is coming and time to lay down the fur to warm one. Fur
was the common sort of clothes used during winter season and when winter comes
they suggested that ‘well, it’s time to lay down the fur onto the floor’.
3.Indigenous knowledge about significant of flower and fruit: Mizo
indigenously understand about surrounding environment and used as natural
indicators of seasons. Two months/seasons are purely named after flower and
fruit.
Vau thla/March is one example that Mizo knowledge about importance of
flower or flowering. Vau is the name of one flower (Bauhinia variegate) that
start flowering at this particular periods of time. If this Vau start flowering
they understand that new season arrive, so they name the season after this
flower.
Tau thla/April is another example that expresses indigenous knowledge
about fruit. Tau (Rubus ellipticus) is a local variety of wild berry, which
start ripen in this particular season and which is why they named the months
after it. At this time they start clearing the remnants of slash burned logs,
stumps and prepares the jhum lands to sow the seeds.
Besides these months, there was one sacred month known as Thi tin
thla/August.
Traditionally, it was believed that when people died, they did not go
directly to paradise rather they stayed back for awhile in and around the
villages and when August or Thitin thla comes, they start leaving for paradise
or Mithi khua. ‘Thi’ means ‘die’ ‘tin’ means ‘leaving or left’. They treated as
a sacred month and a time of mourning for family members who had passed away. It
may be said that this month is the only month for religious or ritual among the
Mizo. They forbid any merry making and even marriage at this time.
Conclusion: It can be concluded that in order to understand indigenous identity of
the Mizo, it is pre-requisite to know their agriculture system of practice. All
the Mizo festivals and sacred months are the product of agriculture practice
system in the past. Way of living, formation of Mizo identity is originated
from jhum or shifting agriculture practice in the hilly topography of Mizoram.
It is also worthwhile to mention that Mizo were keenly observing their
surrounding
environment. Moreover, they were kind of local meteorologists. Monsoon
arrival, summer solstice and heaviest rainfall periods are also properly
documented in the form of calendar. If one want to trace how division of labour
has been evolves in Mizo society, he/she need to understand agriculture
practices of the Mizo. One need to know lives around agriculture system to
fully equipped with Mizo literatures and roots. One might not wonder why Mizo
are transformed into Christianity merely within a span of century if he/she
fully understand Mizo value and attitude toward Thangchhuah Pa- who used to
distributed his wealth to the village community, or Pasaltha, who used to
sacrificed even their lives to protect the community from enemy and from wild
beasts. It is so similar with Jesus Christ who sacrifices his life for man. It
is so easy for Mizo to obey the teaching of Christianity. Lastly, the
interplayed of agriculture practice, festival, surrounding environment and
understanding about weather and climate are the soul of Mizo identity
formation.
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http://www.unep.org/maweb/documents/bridging/papers/raj.rengalakshmi.pdf)on24,November,2015
(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Calendar)
http://www.webexhibits.org/calendars/year-history.html
(http://hornbillfestival.co.in/tribe.html)
(It has been
presented at the International Seminar on Indigeneity: Expression and
Experience held on 25th -26th February, 2016 at Mizoram University.
Organized by Department of English, Mizoram University, Aizawl)