A Three week long Animation Workshop is taking place in Imphal, Manipur. The event is supported by the Government of Manipur, Department of Art and Culture and the Secretary of the Adivasi Arts Trust, Ms. Tara Douglas is visiting Manipur for the duration to share experiences in animation film making with young participants from the Meitei community. Two additional resource people have also come from the National Institute of Design in Ahmadabad, Post-Graduate animation students, Sephin Alexander and Rahul Laishram.
At the end of the second week of the workshop, the Indian festival of Holi has brought the workshop to a standstill. Holi, also known as Yaoshang in Manipur is very popular, and all government institutions are closed for several days. During the Holi festival, Tara and Sephin from the animation team were invited to visit a Kom tribal village by Guru Achon Kom.
The Kom are mainly found in Manipur in Northeast India where they are a minority scattered over all districts. Kom, Kuki and Hmar have cultural and linguistic similarities. As nomadic people before reaching Manipur approximately 200 AD, their origin remains unclear, though it is believed that they came to Manipur from Tripura. According to their folklore, their clan names come into existence when the Kom came out of a cave believed to be somewhere in the borders of China. The majority of Kom are Christian and their stories have been passed down orally through generations.
To reach Achon’s village, Khoirentak, one must first go to Moirang Lamkai in Churachanpur district, about 40 km from Imphal. During Holi, the trip is slow as it is the fashion in Manipur for the youth to stop vehicles on the road and try to extract money during the festive period. From Moirang it is about five miles on to Khoirentak, along a rough road that leads straight towards the hills. Khoirentak is nestled in the foothills, and on taking a short walk out of the village onto the hill behind, Lotak Lake is seen shimmering on the hazy horizon.
The Kom are farmers and rice is their staple crop. Guru Achon Kom is also a cultural activist, and in 2005 he established a small Ethnological Museum in Khoirentak village. In the same year he also became active in the Kom Dance and Cultural Research Centre and he has organised many programmes and workshops for promoting Kom culture in his village and in other parts of India too. His eldest son, Hmungamchung (Jamchung) is studying Anthropology at DM College of Science in Imphal. “If I study it, it will be very good for my culture and I will be helpful to my community. My cousin brothers in Delhi advised me in this; without gaining such awareness it is difficult for us to know what to do in the village”, he explains. “Before studying anthropology, I knew very little about our culture. We believe that through the folktales we can find out about our ancestors. We have about 20-30 folktales, and in some, we have a joker character called Bingpu. He is a really foolish one! We had one person here who was very interested in animation. He was good in sketching, but now he has gone to Shillong to study Theology.”
At this prompt, Sephin Alexander decides to demonstrate how stop motion animation is done using his camera and laptop, with a frame capture software. A ball of dough is made by mixing flour and water, and the basic principles of animation including anticipation and exaggerated movement are explained to the youth that have gathered in curiosity.
(Click here to see a video clip of this short workshop in Khoirentak).
Jamchung also tells us that Kom women are expert weavers. “Kom never studied anything in the past, they just looked and then they created something. For example, a man in a respectable position in the community wears a cloth that is woven with the patterns of a python: Well this cloth was first woven by looking at a real python. In our culture we believe in transformation between animals such as tigers and pythons, even the rhinoceros – and man. There is a story about a python that was only a snake in water but on land he was a man. Once he fell in love with a very beautiful Kom maiden and he courted her. The girl’s mother began to wonder about this handsome suitor - why soon he would become her son-in-law, so where did he come from?
On the way back from the girl’s house, the man had to cross a pond, and as soon as he entered the water, he became a snake again. We also believe that the python is afraid of turmeric, garlic and some other spices. The girl’s mother ground up some turmeric into powder and kept it wrapped in a packet of leaves on the beam inside the house. When the man entered the kitchen, she pierced the packet and the turmeric poured down on him and he entered his python body and slithered away, never to be seen again.”
At the end of the second week of the workshop, the Indian festival of Holi has brought the workshop to a standstill. Holi, also known as Yaoshang in Manipur is very popular, and all government institutions are closed for several days. During the Holi festival, Tara and Sephin from the animation team were invited to visit a Kom tribal village by Guru Achon Kom.
The Kom are mainly found in Manipur in Northeast India where they are a minority scattered over all districts. Kom, Kuki and Hmar have cultural and linguistic similarities. As nomadic people before reaching Manipur approximately 200 AD, their origin remains unclear, though it is believed that they came to Manipur from Tripura. According to their folklore, their clan names come into existence when the Kom came out of a cave believed to be somewhere in the borders of China. The majority of Kom are Christian and their stories have been passed down orally through generations.
To reach Achon’s village, Khoirentak, one must first go to Moirang Lamkai in Churachanpur district, about 40 km from Imphal. During Holi, the trip is slow as it is the fashion in Manipur for the youth to stop vehicles on the road and try to extract money during the festive period. From Moirang it is about five miles on to Khoirentak, along a rough road that leads straight towards the hills. Khoirentak is nestled in the foothills, and on taking a short walk out of the village onto the hill behind, Lotak Lake is seen shimmering on the hazy horizon.
The Kom are farmers and rice is their staple crop. Guru Achon Kom is also a cultural activist, and in 2005 he established a small Ethnological Museum in Khoirentak village. In the same year he also became active in the Kom Dance and Cultural Research Centre and he has organised many programmes and workshops for promoting Kom culture in his village and in other parts of India too. His eldest son, Hmungamchung (Jamchung) is studying Anthropology at DM College of Science in Imphal. “If I study it, it will be very good for my culture and I will be helpful to my community. My cousin brothers in Delhi advised me in this; without gaining such awareness it is difficult for us to know what to do in the village”, he explains. “Before studying anthropology, I knew very little about our culture. We believe that through the folktales we can find out about our ancestors. We have about 20-30 folktales, and in some, we have a joker character called Bingpu. He is a really foolish one! We had one person here who was very interested in animation. He was good in sketching, but now he has gone to Shillong to study Theology.”
At this prompt, Sephin Alexander decides to demonstrate how stop motion animation is done using his camera and laptop, with a frame capture software. A ball of dough is made by mixing flour and water, and the basic principles of animation including anticipation and exaggerated movement are explained to the youth that have gathered in curiosity.
(Click here to see a video clip of this short workshop in Khoirentak).
Jamchung also tells us that Kom women are expert weavers. “Kom never studied anything in the past, they just looked and then they created something. For example, a man in a respectable position in the community wears a cloth that is woven with the patterns of a python: Well this cloth was first woven by looking at a real python. In our culture we believe in transformation between animals such as tigers and pythons, even the rhinoceros – and man. There is a story about a python that was only a snake in water but on land he was a man. Once he fell in love with a very beautiful Kom maiden and he courted her. The girl’s mother began to wonder about this handsome suitor - why soon he would become her son-in-law, so where did he come from?
On the way back from the girl’s house, the man had to cross a pond, and as soon as he entered the water, he became a snake again. We also believe that the python is afraid of turmeric, garlic and some other spices. The girl’s mother ground up some turmeric into powder and kept it wrapped in a packet of leaves on the beam inside the house. When the man entered the kitchen, she pierced the packet and the turmeric poured down on him and he entered his python body and slithered away, never to be seen again.”
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