a mizo culture map

   
"Mizoram has the most variegated hilly terrain in the eastern part of India. The hills are steep (avg. height 1000 metres) and separated by rivers which flow either to the north or south creating deep gorges between the hill ranges. The highest peak in Mizoram is the Phawngpui (Blue Mountain) with a height of 2210 metres." (from Wikipedia)

I've been working on a mental map of mizo(-ram, -ness) for a while now. The idea was to make a visual representation of what it meant to be Mizo. The first part was easy- I sent out a mail to the Mizos I know, asking them for the top-of-the-mind associations they made with Mizoram/Mizo identity. A little harder was getting responses, thanks a heap to those of you that did. The hardest part was translating the variety (wow!) of data I got into a comprehensible visual. 

I knew that I wanted to represent it as hills (obviously) and was playing with various adaptations of contour maps, but couldn't come up with anything that made sense. I'd almost abandoned hope of ever getting anywhere when it suddenly struck me last night that I was looking at the whole thing from the wrong angle. A pre-occupation with maps had me thinking contours, so looking *down from above. A much more natural position is to look at it from the side! And what better way to do that than in a graph!

Here are the results, then. I have clubbed a few things together, such as grouping all the various vegetable names under Mizo Chawhmeh, Synod and Church under Church etc. The results are fairly interesting. The top five mentions are:

1. Mizo chawhmeh. Chawhmeh literally means eaten with rice, the staple, and refers to various herbs, vegetables and fermented things we like to eat)

2. Church. This is not surprising, considering how much of Mizo social life is centered around the church and church-related activities.

3. Things. Ok, ok, this is hardly a coherent label. Under this, though I have grouped items of material culture that are familiar to most Mizos, like ar-bawm (a woven box where chicken are kept), chem (a machete-type knife) and em (a basket used to carry things).

4. Vawksa (pork). There were so many mentions of this it deserved it's own category. Of 10 responses, 8 were for vawksa-rep(smoked) and 2 for vawksa-chhum boiled). We are obviously a culture obsessed with food, eh?

5. The 5th place is tied between funerals, puan and singing.
     

• Funerals: Not surprising either, considering how the community gets together in times of bereavement, and give the bereaved family tremendous support.
• Puan: Mizo garment, like a sarong, still very popular with the women, though the men have sadly abandoned it in daily life. The puan is the most obvious element of Mizo visual culture. While there are traditional and festive designs, contemporary weavers have come out with new designs and these change with the change in fads and fashions.
• Singing: Mizos love to sing. We sing when we are happy and when we are sad, and most often as a group. There are all-night sings held most commonly when some one had died or in the weeks preceding Christmas. 

Surprises: I expected the YMA to be a lot more in people's consciousness than it is. It comes a distant #10. The most interesting response was "stale fish from Silchar". 

Please remember, NONE of this is REMOTELY scientific. This is an art project, not an anthropological one. My subjectivity is probably showing, right from the people I asked (most live outside Mizoram) to the way I grouped data. This is also a rather shallow approach to understanding culture, and I hope this is treated as an *entry point to introspection/exploration rather than a result of it.

I got the hills I wanted, though, and am happy!


EDIT: I didn't mean the lines of text under the 'hills' to be read. For me, they signify the rivers/streams of Mizoram. On hindsight, they also look like a mirror image in water. I'll leave you to your own interpretation though!

resistance maps

Maps have a subversive potential that is often ignored and overlooked. They have been used by rulers, whether kings or ‘elected’ governments to name and signify, telling us what places are called and why they are significant. There is a power in naming places, as those who fought for Bangalore to be called Bengaluru and those who call New Zealand by its Maori name- Aotearoa, can attest. It is never 'just' a name as the resistance to both changes shows!

While singularly unimpressed by Google Corporation’s dream of taking over the internet world, the potential of the maps application amazes me. Here is a chance to take back our world, so to speak, to name and signify in resistance to dominant forces, whether governmental, colonist, corporate or any other interests one would like to resist. The effectiveness of this resistance, however, is not so much in launching attack on the ‘enemy’, but in defending one’s position, maybe in helping one understand where one stands.

Much like the Maori Pa.

Maori Pa are earthenwork fortifications, sometimes with a wooden stockade on top. They were typically built in locations that overlooked possible attack points, and were known to be effective against the English settlers. The Pa was also used to store food and was a centre of learning and crafts. With the over running of Aotearoa New Zealand by the English, these Pa structures have mostly been lost, though the memory of their location remains.

While I knew two locations of Paa in Hamilton, it is thanks to an exhibition at the Waikato Museum that I can now see all the locations in the area. With thanks to Te Winika Gallery of the Waikato Museum and in response to this supressed history, here is another map.

View Hamilton Pa in a larger map

Update: Here is another intersting read on maps!

...information wants to be free

View Waikato Region Public Libraries in a larger map

I love libraries. Not just that they have books, I love the fact that they lend them out, letting you read books you could never afford and (when functioning properly) are a beautiful slap-in-the-face for big business publishing. I particularly love the public libraries in Hamilton, with the free internet on wi-fi and fairly decent collections of music and video. Yes, yes, that means you can listen to music without always having to buy it. And no, that is not equivalent to piracy. The 'shhh' law is also sparingly applied, making it much more people friendly. They even have a blog, though I will not bother with a link as they are yet to figure *that one out yet. For almost the first time in my life, I feel no particular need to buy books. And I am happy.

Hamilton Op Shops

View Hamilton Op Shops in a larger map

Op (opportunity) shops are *brilliant places where you can

get second hand clothes, furniture, cutlery and almost anything

that people are willing to give away. People give the op shops

things they no longer want/need, and the shop then sells it cheap,

using the money generated for the charities they are part of.

They are usually staffed by volunteers.

Op shop shopping is brilliant because

1) you are reducing waste and helping the environment

2) you are challenging the consumerist mindset

3) you are saving money

4) money spent goes to a good cause

5) you find very interesting things

Op shopper for life!

UPDATE: .pdf file available for printing. write to feddabonn AT gmail DOT com to get a copy.