The Traditionalfood Preservationsystemof Mising Tribes: a Field Based Study
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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, Dibrugarh University,Assam,India. 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 Arunachal Pradesh. In Assam, They lived in mainly Tinisukia, Dibrugarh, Dhemaji, Sivasagar, Sonitpur, Jorhat and Lakhimpur districts. Simen Chapari is a versatile area of Dhemaji District. 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.