Rediscovering the Jaunsari Tribe through Play

Session 100 summary

Kartik did his earlier schooling in Ghaziabad, then in Uttarakhand and then in Pune he did his bachelors in design (animation). After that he worked in Mumbai for a while and currently he is in Bangalore pursuing his master’s in design.

Kartik’s main focus is on Uttarakhand and various regions of it. When he was in Uttarakhand, his 6 years had been spent in Vikas Nagar on the boundaries of Dehradun which is very close to the Lakhwar region where the Jaunsari people live. So, his younger years were spent with them and the idea for the NID open elective came from there.

During the open elective, the question popped up: “why the Jaunsar-Bawar tribe?” His answer to that is; “mostly because of the music”. It was back in those Bluetooth music sharing eras where people would huddle up together and share songs and Kartik used to listen to a lot of Jaunsari music just because he was living in a colony/environment where there were a lot of Jaunsari families and they used to celebrate their festivals and play their own music which Kartik used to enjoy. The exposure to that music helped him to reconnect to his music ‘gadhwali songs’ in a way that its effects have been massive. Nowadays he listens to himachali-gadhwali-jaunsari music – all of them, major part of it attributed to his earlier experiences. Second reason is the first-hand experience gained by living among them. At first he hadn’t paid any mind that those people were a part of the Scheduled list, he didn’t even know it and when he was going through the Scheduled list and spotted the jaunsari there, he realised that since he had been living with them in his earlier days then why doesn’t he take them as the required community and also take the chance to explore more about them.

Geographically the Jaunsar-Bawar are based in the Chakrata region and it is a valley. The flora is not widespread i.e. it is not a very habitable region for growing crops. Historically jaunsari have tended to sheep-herding but since the winters are harsh there so people even have to shift. Main things that caught Kartik’s attention were the architecture of the jaunsari and the festivals and he further explored these two factors in the open elective. The community share the architecture with the gadhwali, paharia and himachali and they have a certain method of construction known as the Kath-kuni. Kartik used to hear about the festivals from his friends who used to tell him stories when they came back from the villages. Some festivals were shared with gadhwal but had another name with the same concept. They don’t have an official language but what they speak is very closely related to Sirmauri (Himachal region’s language). They have very rich folklore and traditions. Through research Kartik found out that they also had polyandry and polygamy but it is largely extinct now. Kartik thinks that it was based on the economic factors. Their music is very similar to the pahari traditional music but still very different in its own light. They have many different dance forms and many different regions have their own dances. Their dances include Harul and Raso which is comprised of forming a circle and performing some steps which is very pleasant to look at.

For the open elective, the first thing the group did was the basic brainstorming exercises and research on some tribes and how games are made. After that they came to the jaunsari tribe and Kartik came up with a concept for Snakes and Ladders, a toy- similar to a doll house. In this he tried to explore the architecture of the jaunsari, who have a very unique method of constructing their houses; the ground floor of the house is where the cattle is kept- which actually acts as an insulation, it saves the rest of the house from the cold and it also provides a shelter for the animals. So, if they want to tend to their animals they don’t have to leave their houses. Through his own personal experience of visiting his friend’s grandmother and seeing that her house had a very interesting construction: the ceilings were low, there were a lot of entrances-trapdoor entrances which would take a person to different floors, etc. The Jaunsaris when constructing houses keep the slope of the mountain and the cutting of the slope is done minimum so that erosion doesn’t happen much. The materials used are usually stone, timber, and the Kath-kuni method of construction includes small openings and low heights and they also have their kitchen and the hearth at the centre of the house for proper distribution/dispersion of heat. Kartik made sure to try and represent all of that. Hence, the board game basically represents the snakes and ladders but the elements have been changed to represent the jaunsari culture. The rules of the game board was simple- the player starts at the starting point and the objective was to reach the end of the game i.e. the smallest building and each player would have two pawns. The objective of those pawns would be to roll the dice and make their way from starting point to eventually the temple. The story which follows is that the player has to reach the temple. There are several checkpoints in the game and there is the concept that the player could get stuck somewhere on the map. This is acquired by the presence of cattle on the board and if one pawn gets stuck on the cattle then the other pawn has to roll a certain number to move to the grass which is then fed to the cattle and freeing the stuck pawn and letting it move from the cattle. For this Kartik also made a dollhouse which could come apart and then one could see the different floors and trapdoors and understand how it is made – the intricacies and evolution of the design.

Another game they built was the ‘Memory Game’ concept which helps them to introduce the tribe to people who are not of that community. It is a “where is waldo” styled game which has the image of the normal jaunsari village including the different elements; the temples, water source, apple trees etc. using these visuals the children will be given the information and this would enforce learning. The jaunsaris were very prominent goat herders but due to the changing climate and various other factors there are lot of normal practices and so it has become rare and goat herding has been taken over by apple farming, these kind of information can be shared through this game.

The final board game Kartik made, a two way board system in which the player does a dice roll and play in the outer ring and then with the other chance move on to the inner ring. Since he was fascinated with the architecture of the community and explored it in Snakes and Ladders, this time he focused on the cultural aspect – the festival aspect of it. There is an event which takes place where Kartik’s group of friends used to go to their village’s certain temple named ‘Mahasu Devta’ temple situated in the Hanol village. It was something which the friends used to do every year. The board game is based on that setup: a Mahasu Devta event and in that the person has to go from the base of the village to the temple. All the players would be having their own pawns and they all start with one pawn in the outer ring and the other inside the board at the base of the village. For moving inside the board there are a number of resources required which one gets from the outer ring like giving five stones or two food which represents the village in a way that it includes the village elements. Moving upwards there are different apple trees and different abandoned shelter that the sheep herders use to stay at during summer days (they would come down during winters). This would help the player picture how the village is without even reading a book about it.

Kula- a board game design made by a team of three. The theme, basis and focus was tribes of India. When the team did a research on the theme, even they were surprised to know that India is home to the largest tribal population in the world, something they had no idea of. They knew that India has a population group that is rural but they had no idea that it had a tribal population. So, this became something which they wanted to share with other people who would play their game. Their focus with this project was not to act as an encyclopaedia and tell everything about every tribe but to let people know that there are tribes in India and there are a lot of avenues that can be explored. The Hexagons on the board each represent a different tribe found in India and they named it and included certain attributes which would help players to know that if they land on a certain tribe then they would have to read the name of that tribe which would then implant in their brain that there is a certain tribe which lives in a specific region. The goal of the game is to know the most number of tribes while giving them resources and the player who completes this task for the most number of tribes, wins. There are also tribe cards which contain one liners about each tribe to pique the curiosity of people. The resources required were based on the history of the tribe. The hexagons are replaceable i.e. one can change the playing field every time.

In Jaunsar and hilly tribes, the women are the farmers in the villages. Since the worth of the women is a lot so in earlier times the women used to marry multiple husbands because in one household if there are multiple males then they could marry a single female and if a divorce happened then they had to (sort of) compensate the lady’s family for the divorce.