Session 65 summary
Hazaribagh is a very important landmass and a very rare gem of a place, because it is the last end of the African rift valley. So, in Hazaribagh there is a plateau which is the end of the African rift valley, the Aldo Vayu Gauge which continues through the Narmada, Amarkantakinto the headwaters of river Damodar. Being the headwater of the river Damodarand an 1100 sq. kilometer of valley, it is a virgin rift valley where early emergence of humans took place which people were completely unaware of. It was way back in 1991 when an Australian elderly couple thought that they had to visit a lantern school and in those days there were Jesuit Missionary School(lantern school) in a remote village called Isko. They visited this village to see the lantern school where the children would study under a lantern and the next day they went to see the rock art sight in the hills which was very close by. That was the first reporting of a rock art sight in Bihar in 1991. The Australian couple took pictures of the rock art sights, printed them and handed them to the Jesuit priests. The Jesuit priests then handed those pictures to Justin Imam’s father Balu Imam, who was the convenor for INTACH. So Bulu Imam together with his sons explored those rock art sights and subsequently found that the entire valley was a rift valley and the sight which was Isko had a huge Palaeolithic cave which can be dated back to 25,000 years ago. During the ice age when the entire earth was completely covered in ice and when it receded forming rock shelters like Isko, where in the early Mesolithic period and Neolithic period the early humans emerging out of those caves painted with haematite. Haematite is iron ore or the dust of the iron ore, so the ancient humans in Hazaribagh would rub it, make a pigmentation out of it and paint on the rock shelters. The Imam family slowly started to take people to these rock art sights and they became explorers and found 20 such rock shelters in Hazaribagh which resulted in a book called ‘The Rock Art of Jharkhand’. While visiting these rock art sights in the early 1991, on the way they used to see houses painted in black and white. On questioning what those plants, birds and other things painted on the walls were and the people would reply that those were Khovar which was painted for marriages. It was so enamouring for them (explorers)because the Khovar word was used to refer to the rock shelters. So, they came to an understanding that ‘Kho’ is a cave and ‘var’ is a bridal couple and ‘Khovar’ was a pronunciation which may have taken place in the Mesolithic as an enactment for the marriages to take place in rock shelters which later continued in the mud house tradition. This Khovar tradition is important because when humans first wanted to settle down, the first activity they did was the enactment of marriage- it was the first social institution. So, this ancient aspect of having a marriage in a rock shelter and its continuation in the present day in the contemporary tribal house was very intriguing and the most intriguing were the process. They would paint the whole wall of the house black with manganese black, then they would put kaolin white and before the kaolin is dried they would scrape it with broken pieces of comb or with fingers to reveal the design and patterns. The group found that the scarification or the tattoo marks on the body is a very similar thing to this type of paintings.
Sohrai/Harvest Art
Sohrai is celebrated during the months of winter.When the grains are ripening, the cattle have to be venerated and the annual veneration of cattle takes place together with the worship of cattle as Goddess Laxmi. The Sohrai art is a stencil art, for which they paint the walls of the houses black first, then white, then they would make a stencil and with a three-inch wide cloth soaked or dabbed in earth colour, they would fill in the colours of red and white. The image on the doorway with a huge animal and a rider on top of it, known as the ‘Pashupati’ the lord of animals is often seen on the walls of the houses. The Khurmitribals have a very special technique of painting with small little cloth swab-size of a finger ring, they would dip that clotheswab into the red haematite colour and draw straight lines or sometimes make the lines with chewed toothpick. Another common design of theirs is the ‘Kamala Baan’ or the forest of lotus which the women would usually make before the image of Pashupati. Then there is Ganju Sohrai- the Ganju community lives in Saheda village. The Ganjuart is highly aggressive and one can always find aggression in the art, e.g.either the snake is drinking milk from the cow or the jackal running away with the village cock bird or a mongoose chasing a snake etc. The most famous Ganjuartist is Putli Devi who has visited several international art residency programs in Australia, Italy, Germany and of late in 2019 went to National Art Gallery of Canada where they painted large murals for Australian government and the project was called ‘Abadakone’ or ‘The Fire Within’ where 40 indigenous nations had sent about ahundred artists to make art installations. Then there is the art of the Daujinagar, by the Agaria tribe. Agaria’s are the iron smiths- they have very small houses and they paint their houses mostly in the same style of the village called oria which is stencil style using a large stencil on the wall and filling in red, white and yellow earth colours. In the Village of Isko, which is inhabited by the Munda tribes, earlier when the group used to visit the village (1991-2000), they used to find a lot of finger painting- the walls of the houses was painted black, then they painted the white with the kaolin and while the kaolin was wet they would scrape the white with their forefingers and then with corn cobs dabbed in brightly coloured earth, they would make the decoration part of it and further beautify the images and put the hand stamping to protect and safeguard the houses from the evil eye. The Munda style of painting and finger painting is still being done but a very few houses still practise it because they don’t have that amount of time. But now they have been painting their houses with the natural earth colours that Justin’s group has been providing them because they found that the houses were not being painted.Their organization Virasat and Sohrai Samite from 2010-2011 have been distributing the red oxide earth colours to the villages to motivate them and to provide them an incentive so they paint their mud houses for the festival. For this reason a lot of artists in the villages have painted a lot of plant-life, they would paint with their fingers and the ‘teen-patia’ is a small plant/weed which is seen a lot of paintings. It is important to know the reason behind it because even in the Indus Valley seal/figure of the king’s room is full with ‘teen-patia’ design all over. So this shows that tribal art has a lot of connections with the Indus valley in the sense that the rock art of Hazaribagh has revealed 93-94 characters of the Indus valley seal but apart from that the Indus valley seals have depicted bisons and buffaloes with a feeding trough (when cattle are eating they have to be given a big stone feeding trough) and the images of cattle feeding though the trough is seen a lot in Sohrai art especially in the village of Jorhat. A village of the Santhal tribe, the Santhals of East Singhbhumand in Ghatshila and other places in Amadubiand into West Singhbhumand Chaibasa, have a style of santhal art which is highly geometric and colourful and that type of geometric and colourful art is not so visible in theHazaribagh. The santhals who are in Hazaribagh are a manjhisanthal whereas the santhals of santhalparagna or in pakudh are different type of santhal than the santhals of Hazaribagh. For some reason Hazaribagh santhals have always remained as the manjhi santhals or the hill santhals (as they call themselves) and they have large houses and sometimes small houses which have very beautiful geometric designs painted and they have designs of waves and patterns of diamonds and flowers and sometimes they even have birds but they do not have a lot of animal paintings and they would usually paint on a beautiful doorway and have a beautiful doorway decoration pattern and most of the triangles that they make is basically said to be pahad (hills). The organization has found that there are 2-3 interesting villages in Hazaribagh where the women artist continue to paint that art still. Art of Nano- the Sohrai festival is the veneration of cattle which is an annual occasion once in the year. Some women have said that Sohrai is more important than Durga Puja and Dussherafor the women in the villages because during this festival they worship the cattle as the goddess of wealth. Durga Puja, Dusshera and Diwali are the festivals of eating, joy and enjoyment but Sohrai is a festival where they clean their houses like cleansing their soul and every floor, wall and ceiling is repaired and two day before the festival when the walls are prepared they start painting the walls- it takes them about three weeks to prepare and repair the house and then then two days before Sohrai they paint the house. On the day of festival they make aripans or floor paintings. In Bengal and Puruliathe floor painting continues from the inner courtyard of the house to the extreme outside courtyards and even on the roadsides. But in Hazaribagh area they make these elaborate courtyard paintings which also lead outside the house and one day after the Sohrai festival they have the bull fight which is the cattle festival. The cattle is tied to the pole and taunted which is one way of merry-making for enjoyment and festivities, for the children and women in the village. So the bull fight is a fun time or enjoyment time in the village. So, the first day they have the worship of the cattle and on the second day they have the bull-fight. In the Sohrai season, it depends on the woman’s personal resources and energy to visit the areas where she can collect the kaolin clay or where she can collect the haematite clay and bring it to her house and after having spent all her energy for two weeks repairing her own house, and then take the energy out to decorate the house for the harvest festival. It is her innermost expression- just like when a woman gets married and she visits her new house, she is given a place to stay and slowly she discovers different rooms and spaces there, she comes from her own house to a new house and over the years she embodies herself into it. So, by every year constantly repairing the cowshed, kitchen area, where they store their grain, where they store their wood, where they store their food, where they feed their cattle/chicken, where they invite guests to sit, every part of the household becomes her own body.So, when she is cleaning it for the annual Sohrai festival she takes a lot of love and labour and if she gets her earth colour and a little motivation then she paints the whole place in a beautiful way otherwise there will be a sparse quaint little painting or a small sketch of an art but that is her inner expression. Ghatwasare the cattle keepers, their art comprises of white lines, so the resources of the women is enough to let herself to take a cloth rag made black border and make the art inside it. So, the tree of life is very visible, the pashupati is on the very extreme right. Likewise the other paintings are very sparse and quaint.
The Samite which was formed 2018 (Justin formed Virasat in 2008) 10 years down the line having brought the women into the urban centres to paint murals, they had to apply for the GI tag. Justin created his own organization in 2008 and since then the organization has been bringing women artist to various urban centres, firstly to make them participate in art camps along with Lalit Kala and Department Of Tourism, the other is to nurture the art in the villages by providing them the earth colours and the third is to create revenue through the exhibitions which they conduct in different venues like international galleries. They started Virasatwith painting of the boundary wall of the Ormanjhipark which brought forth the art for the first time to a large audience in Ranchi and others who use the national highway. Then they started to paint the army war memorial and further they got the opportunity to paint and make some installation at the Ranchi Airport. In 2015 they got the opportunity to paint the Hazaribagh railway station. At that time they didn’t know that after PM’s radio talk-‘mannkibaat’ the art would get a lot of importance and get highlighted at a regional and national level. Till 2015 Bulu Imam had already conducted several international exhibitions so the art was quite well known in Autralia, in Europe, (France, Germany, Switzerland, Italy,, England, Canada and America)so, those countries had already accepted and there were large audience in national art galleries who have seen the art of Hazaribagh Khovar and Sohrai. But at a national level when the ‘mannkibaat’ programme brought the art into the prominent imagination of the government, then they slowly started to have the administrative offices take some cognizance of their art which was being nurtured by an organization in a very small regional level in Hazaribagh. That is why in 2018 when they got the proposal that they form an organization or a samite to apply for a GI tag- it took them one year to form a cooperative called the Sohrai Kala MahilaSahyog Samite and they applied for the GI tag and in one year’s time the Sohrai and Khovar art had to be given the GI tag because it had already gained a lot of international prominence and recognition. The organization painted large panels of cement boards- about a 100 cement boards with Sohrai art and it was exhibited in a building- Asian heritage foundation is a four storey building of a museum and library and the entire building wall and all the ventilation areas was actually first painted on the ground on the 100 cemented boards. It took them about 4 months to paint them with 6-8 artists and then the cement boards were cut by the carpenter and bolted with nuts and bolts all over the exterior of the building. The building is an enormous museum belonging to Rajiv Sethi in Mehruli. In the Sohrai Kala Mahila Samite they have nearly 500 women artists in about 14 villages of Hazaribagh and the committee is constantly working with 40-60 artists on a regular basis and when the September season comes they visit all the other women artists and distribute the earth colours. They regularly get a lot of foreign visitors to see the painted houses. The organization decided to create a tribute for the Sohrai artist because not many know who are behind the art- they have Parvati Devi (Village-Dhelwara), Late Jasoda Devi, Subhiya Devi (her house was one the first to be documented for Khovar painting).
About the Speaker
Justin Imam
He is a live member of Indian National Trust for Art and Cultural Heritage (INTACH Hazaribagh Chapter) and has been associated with the Sanskriti Museum and Art Gallery since its inception in 1995. He assisted his father Bulu Imam Padmashri in the 1990s in research and documentation of the pre-historic rock art and traditional tribal mural arts known as Khovar and Sohrai. Khovar and Sohrai are timeless artistic traditions which are intimately related to the social and religious life of the tribal people of Jharkhand. Khovar is associated with the annual marriage season and Sohrai marks the harvest cycle and celebration, this custom is considered to be the most original and significant among the Oraon, Santhal and Munda tribal group in Hazaribagh. In 2008, organization Virasat Trust was formed to promote the traditional art of Hazaribagh district.
