Editor,
When I recently spoke with my mother, who is in her early 60s, she was rushing to buy brass items in Silapathar, Assam. When I asked, she said she had to purchase brass objects (adam/ame) to give to my aunts and sisters as a gift in exchange of the things they would bring. “What is the use of such a custom which puts an old woman like you into a burden?” I asked my mother bluntly. She responded: “Higi ngunuk Adi ge ribeh nammeh,” meaning that it has long been customary for us to give brass objects to daughters.
I have nothing against our customs, but the days of having supposedly original or antique brass objects in use are long gone. These days, we purchase brass objects from neighbouring Assam towns to use in marriage, rites, and gifts to conform to social conventions. To fit in with society, one must meet this need, regardless of status.
It is of enormous value to preserve our centuries-old customs, but if we follow them with reason and logic, we are just helping the shopkeepers in our adjacent state to enrich themselves. We are easily tricked by the shopkeepers, and we have observed that the products in the market are crassly designed to look antique.
These things have little worth outside of our cultural circles, even after we have spent thousands, lakhs, or even crores of rupees on them. No insurance company would cover our traditional brass artefacts or beads, and no bank would lend a single penny against them. Why are we all in a wild rush to purchase these unusable goods that are worthless in the actual market?
Without going so far as to make us lose our wits, there ought to be a method to continue our custom of giving gifts to daughters and visitors. Instead of giving so many brass objects and beads, we might give our locally produced and handmade products, like gale/galuk and dao, or local scarf, which we can use for everyday activities.
Another way to find a solution is to work with grameen/rural banks or set up indigenous centres in every district headquarters where our people may archive, trade, and mortgage their brass items and beads in times of need.
For the advancement of local communities and the generations to come, our intellectuals, community-based organisations, elite members, officers, and those at the helm of affairs must consider this matter. We should be proud of our traditions and rituals, rather than feeling impoverished.
Yiri Kamcham,
Kamcham,
Lower Siang district