JOURNAL OF CRITICAL REVIEWS

ISSN- 2394-5125 VOL 7, ISSUE 06, 2020

THE TRADITIONALFOOD PRESERVATIONSYSTEMOF MISING TRIBES: A FIELD BASED STUDY

1.Bhagyashree Gogoi

Junior Research fellow, Dept. of Assamese, University,,.

2. Lakshyajit Hazarika

Research Scholar, Dibrugarh University, Dept. of Assamese, Assam, India,

Abstract The Mising tribe is a one of the major tribes of Assam. Mising people have very rich culture. They are very close to nature. Their food habit is very unique and nutritional. They have some specialty in food processing and food preservation system. They preserve seeds, foods items some traditional ways. They made their traditional drinks from natural elements. Rice is their staple food. They also include fish, meat, leafy vegetables in their foods habits. The food preserving methods dependent on natural products. All the processing reflects their way of scientific thought, who can be able to keep their food items in good way. In the paper going to discuss about the traditional food preservation method of Mising tribes. Keywords: Mising Tribes, Traditional, Food Habit, Preservation.

1.00 Introductions: The Misingtribes are a one of the major tribes inhabiting parts of the Indian states of Assam and . In Assam, They lived in mainly Tinisukia, Dibrugarh, Dhemaji, , Sonitpur, and Lakhimpur districts. Simen Chapari is a versatile area of . Boro, Rabha, Ahom, Nepali, Bengali, Mising etc. various community, tribal groups are lived here. Lamajan Mising gaon is a Mising tribal area village. From 1980, they lived here permanently. First time they came the areas for mustard cultivate. Now the population of the village is 339. Many years ago, they doing shifting cultivate. But now days for the lack of place and land they avoided the shifting cultivation system. Their earn of living depended on cultivate, domestic animals, birds. Traditionally theybelong to join family, but now its transfer into nuclear family. They worship the Donyee-polo (god of Sun and Moon). Food is the basic needs of people. From the food habits an area, we can understand the productivity, availability of goods, test of the people etc in the area. Rice is the staple food of Mising people. Fish-meat, ‘Apong’ (traditional wine), ‘Namching’ (fish preservation), wild life vegetables. The people want to save some goods for future use. It has different methods, styles and names. The Mising people also traditionally preserve some food items. Its helps to deal in crisis of food. In the paper going to discuss the traditional food preservation system of Mising tribes in the area of Lamajan Mising gaon.

2.00 Objectives : The chief objective of the paper is reflects the traditional food preservation methods of Mising tribes and folk-belief related to food. 3.00 Scope of the study : There are different aspects of study the Mising culture. In the paper, going to discuss only food preservation system of Mising tribes.

4.00 Importance of the study : Food habits significant a lots of things. How tribes traditionally try to preserve food items, seed collections, their food habits etc. is very important. Because it’s their own identity. So, the paper tries to analysis preservation methods of Mising tribes.

5.00 Methods of study : For the study, Filed based study and critical analysis methods are used in the paper.

2471

JOURNAL OF CRITICAL REVIEWS

ISSN- 2394-5125 VOL 7, ISSUE 06, 2020

6.00 Sources of data : For the study of the research papers, primary data is collect from filed study. Data also collect from particular area’s people. In this paper, taking some authorized information from various books take as a secondary source.

7.00 Food Preservation system of Mising tribes : Seeds are the main elements of foods. Traditionally Mising people keep seeds in authentic way. Rice is the main food of the Mising tribe. So they dependent on paddy. They store paddy seeds in straw container. First they select the good seeds and clean it, then keep it straw made container. The straw container will be very tight. Otherwise it may harm for wind, bacteria. The straw container keeps the seeds dry. Some people storage the seeds in seeds house. They called it ‘kumchu’. After the cutting paddy, they storage the paddy line by line different styles. In the Lamajan area, Which the paddy keep for seeds, it harvest by legs. They believed that the leg harvesting process is very fruitful for earn good seeds. Whenever they storage the black gram pulse as a seeds, they preserve the whole black gram pulse tree. Some people mixed the black gram pulse with burning pile and after that they keep seeds in long bags or pottery. Same process is followed in potato seeds. They keep it well in straw made container. Pumpkin, Bottle guard, Bitter guard’s seeds are covered with cotton cloth or keep in bottle. They think plastic bags harm the seeds growing. Pumpkin seeds they didn’t clean, its preserve as it is. Some vegetables seeds are just keep it as well as. They archive the whole white guard for seeds. After the cleaning mustard seeds, they store in fiber bags. Taro is kept in cool place. They give importance also sari culture. They used sari eggs for it.

Photo 1 : Seeds Store in Straw Made Container

2472

JOURNAL OF CRITICAL REVIEWS

ISSN- 2394-5125 VOL 7, ISSUE 06, 2020

Photos 2 :Sari Preserving

Photo 3 : The Mising Lady Busy with Keen of Sari.

Photo 4 : Traditional fire place of Mising Tribes.

7.01 Fish Preservation : Mising people give importance in fish preservation. Their fire place has four categories. ‘Moram’, ‘porab’, ‘Rabbang’ and ‘Rapte’. Moram is the fire place, where cooking the foods. Other three slides are making for storage things and all it is above the fire place. They dry the fish in fire place. Which fishes dry in fire place, it has great

2473

JOURNAL OF CRITICAL REVIEWS

ISSN- 2394-5125 VOL 7, ISSUE 06, 2020 tests. Other method like drying in sun light process is not suitable for good test. After the totally drying fish, they keeps it in bags, pottery, bamboo items. ‘Namching’ is a very useful preserve method of Missing tribes. After the heat drying, Varnish the all dry fishes and mixed with shunk vine, curry leaf, Asiatic pennywort, leaf of ginger etc. Namching storage in bamboo items and pottery. They covered it with some leafy herbs. The herbs help to prevents harmful instincts. Namching can suitable for minimum one year.

Photo 5: Fish Drying

7.02 Meat Preservation : Mising people also like to eat pork, duck, chicken etc meats. When they want to preserve the meat, they cut the meat. They dry it in fire place. Roasting processing is another method of drying meats. 7.03 Preservation of Traditional Drinks and Others : The Mising tribes making mainly two drinks. One is called ‘Nagjin apong ‘(traditional white wine) and another is ‘Poro apong’ (A kind of drinks). They not only use it daily necessary, but also used in different times. The drinks used in their religion rituals, birth-marriage-death related rituals, the drinks devoted to their Gods. They believed that the drinks give immense energy to people. Because, the drinks making from different types of natural elements. Nagin or Nagjin apong (white wine) prepare from rice and wild leafy herbs. The number of herbs may be above one hundred. The herbs like black paper, leaf of sugar cane, leaf of pineapple, leaf of jackfruits, turmeric etc. They varnished the all herbs in their traditional harvesting machine ‘Ural’. The varnished herbs mixed with rice flour and make some small balls. If needed, can be added a little water. The balls dry in direct sunlight and keep it very well. The herbs mixed balls is the main source of traditional wine. So, they always store the balls. For the making drinks, they first prepare rice and mixed with the balls and keep it pottery. After five days, a fragrance came from the storage items and then it can ready for serve. Another drink is called poro Apong. It’s made from peel of paddy and straw. The burning items mixed with rice and storage in pottery, plastic bags or any kind of utensils, who can storage the goods well. For the purify of drinks they used ‘Tasuk’. It’s made from bamboo and look like triangle shapes.

2474

JOURNAL OF CRITICAL REVIEWS

ISSN- 2394-5125 VOL 7, ISSUE 06, 2020

Photo 6 : Traditional Drinks Storage. Photo 7 :Traditional Drinks Keep in Utensils.

Photo 8 & 9 : Items for Filter Traditional Drinks.

7.04 Traditional AcidicPreservation : The Mising people highly used acid making from black gram pulse. They burn the black gram tree in evening time and collect the fire appendixes at dawn. They believed that dew mixing burning pile tests is awesome. From the banana peel, they also can make acid. A kind special banana burning well and mixed with water. Then it canready for eat. They preserve the banana peel in top of fire place.

Photo 10 : Traditional AcidicPreservation Making From Black Gram Pluse.

2475

JOURNAL OF CRITICAL REVIEWS

ISSN- 2394-5125 VOL 7, ISSUE 06, 2020

7.05 Fruits Preservation : The Lamajan area’s Mising people not so aware to preserve fruits. But they used a lots of battle nuts. They preserve the battle nuts in soils. Dig the soil and keep the battle nuts in hole and covered again with the soil. Some Mising people packing the battle nuts in bags and keep in pond. This method is also fruitful. Earlier time, they not interested in making pickles, but now a day they give importance to it.

7.06 Preservation of Vegetables : Missing people very close with nature. They dependent on wild leafy vegetables. They storage potato, white guard, pumpkin, dry chilies etc. Lamajan areas mising people making two kinds of bamboo shots. One is called ‘Ekung’, another is ‘Youg’.They prepare bamboo shoots basically in the months of May-June-July. After the cutting bamboo shoots, its drop down in the water. The mising people liked to eat the bamboo shot with dal. There something specialty in their traditional dal. On the other hand, they made dry bamboo shoots also, its preserve in container. There traditional dal name is ‘Mising dal’. It’s making from rice.

Photo 10 : Chilies Drying.

7.06.1 Turmeric Preservation : Turmeric is an essential product of cooking. Its use in daily purpose. So, mising people try to made turmeric powder in their traditional way. After the collect raw turmeric, they cut the turmeric in small size and dry it the sunlight. Varnished it their traditional harvest machine. The process going three or four times and find out the turmeric powder. In the field study we notice that they use seven years preserving turmeric powder. They didn’t boil the raw turmeric. People think that boiling turmeric not given good tests.This proves that mising people has very conscious about the food tests.

Photo 11: Turmeric Preserving

7.06.2 Mustard sauce : Mising people added mustard sauce in their food habits. It’s made from mustard seeds and acid of black gram pulse.

2476

JOURNAL OF CRITICAL REVIEWS

ISSN- 2394-5125 VOL 7, ISSUE 06, 2020

8.00 Preserve of folk medicine and others : The Mising tribes are very rich in their folk medicine. Most of the Mising people preserve Bonduc nut. It helps prevents pneumonia. But, the raw bonduc nut can affect brain stress. The people aware to eat it after boiling. They prefer black paper in heavy menustrational problems. They preserve Indian soap nut in Tonsil times. They used different kinds of leafy herbs for different disease. In headache time, they use Asiatic pennywort past with salt. Asiatic pennywort help to disease of eyes. Black basil is usage in ear disease. Who is suffering high blood pressure, they give advised to eat East Indian glory bower. For dyria, they prefer to eat elephant apple.

Photo 12 :Preserving Bonduc Nut as a Folk-Medicine.

9.00 Folk belief related to foods : The Missing people not so aware about food. But they have some spiritual belief and rules. They believed that eating bitter in night is not good for health. Especially who suffer in high blood pressure problem they should avoided it in night, otherwise it will be danger for their health. In earlier times, when their family member wasdied, they have not eaten plum, fish, meat etc. Time has changing in their life styles and food habits. ‘Poro apong’ (traditional drink) not good for who has synastic or gastric problems. Chicken and leafy vegetables good for mother. But pork meat is not good for newly born baby’s mother.

10.0 Conclusion : Lamajan Mising gaon people are not very conscious about preservation. They highly dependent to nature. They earn their vegetables, wild medicine form nature. New social system changes their social life. Though the changes coming in their social life styles and also their food habits. they try to keep their tradition dimensionally. After the discussion we can find the some findings-  For the seeds preservation Mising people used straw made container. Like potato, paddy seeds storage in straw container.  Missing people preserve fish. ‘Namching’ is their traditional process. It has unique test.  The Mising people’s fire place is very important. In the top of fire place they keep their products or preserve anything.  For the some vegetables seeds, they preserve whole the vegetables.  They not preserving meat, but roasting meats can preserve some days.  Every Mising home prepares traditional drinks. All the elements are very natural and it is good for health also.  They preserve some products as a folk medicine. Example- Indian soap nut, bonduc nut, black paper etc.  Bamboo shoots are their favorite preserving food items.  They have some folk belief related to food.  Mising foods items has very great tests and it’s very natural and nutritional.

Reference Kuli, Jawaharjyoti.Mising sanskriti , Koustav prakashan, 2003

2477

JOURNAL OF CRITICAL REVIEWS

ISSN- 2394-5125 VOL 7, ISSUE 06, 2020

Gogoi, Lukeshar.Akhomr Lokosankriti (Ditio khondo)Krantikal prakashan, 2011 Gogoi, Leela. Akhomar sanskriti, 9th edition, Banlata, 2012 Tamuli, Jugen, and Amulaya Hazarika (edt.).Akhomar loko-oukhad aru lokokhaidya, Bihpuriya College, prakshan, 2017

Informant: 1. Gamin Doley-53 years 2. Jayamayawatee Narah-56 years 3. Devashing Narah-26 years 4. Dipalee Doley Narah-20 years 5. Rupowati Doley-50 years 6. Indreswaree Doley-20 years 7. Silka Doley- 28 years 8. Ponchiram Doley-85 years 9. Uttam kumar Doley-37 years

2478