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 Anthropology
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Introduction
The life of
ancient man in India is depicted in the Pre-history Gallery of the Chennai Museum by a wealth of
artifacts, stone, copper or bronze and iron ages. In 1878, Surgeon General G.Bidie, the then
Superintendent of the museum, made Ethnology a museum subject to be illustrated by pre-historic
antiquities and ethnographic materials. World famous collections of Palaeolithic and Neolithic
tools, ancient pottery, ornaments of beads, weapons, agricultural implements and utensils and
other ritual objects of the early iron age associated with urn burials and stone monuments or
megaliths help us in understanding the culture of the ancient South Indians.
The Pre-historic antiquities of
the museum are exhibited in the ground floor of the front building. It includes the large
classical collections made and catalogued by the pioneers of prehistoric studies in India,
J.W.Breeks, Robert Bruce Foote and Alexander Rea. The objects from Mohenjo-Daro and Harappa are
exhibited partly in the first floor of the New Extension at the entrance of the museum. The Breeks
collection together with the collections of Cardew, Rea and others were catalogued in 1901 by
R.B.Foote. The Government Museum, Chennai acquired the Foote's collection of prehistoric and
proto-historic antiquities for this Museum in the year 1904 at a cost of Rs. 40,000. It was
catalogued by Foote himself in 1914. The finds from the Adichanallur burial urns and the Perumbair
megaliths were catalogued by A.Rea in 1915.
Among the burial urns, the
four-footed urns from the rock-cut tombs of Malabar, the ram-shaped sarcophagus from Sankavaram
in Cuddapah are notable.
Around the front building, a
number of cannons captured at Manila, Mysore and Tranquebar are on
display. There is a large series of matchlocks, musketoons and hand guns, used by the East
India Company are exhibited. A large collection of gauntlets, daggers, elephant goads and
swords from the Tanjore armoury are noteworthy exhibits. Among the cannons exhibited here
are two very old ones represent the earliest method of cannon manufacture. The mail armour from Tanjore,
Spanish plate armour, spikes and spears form part of the collection.
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Ethnographic collections
The ethnographic
collections were first acquired by Dr.Edgar Thurston. These collections represent the material
culture of South Indian Tribes such as Todas, Kotas, Mannas, Kanikar, Chenchus, Lambadis,
Savaras, Khonds and Gadabas. The tribal collection include hut models, implements of hunting,
agriculture and cult objects.
Decorative ornaments of the Todas,
Kadar, Lambadis; tribal weapons,fire making implements, writing materials are other
ethnographic collections in the Ethnology Gallery.
Among the representative collection
of south Indian musical instruments, the Pancha Mukha Vadyam is a rare and unique exhibit.
The votive offerings, offered to gods and goddess at Christian, Hindu and Muslim shrines; sorcery
figures, Meriah sacrifice post, shadow-play figures are other important exhibits.
During 1960's new modernised showcases
were set up and the ethnographic collections were reorganised in the Ethnology Gallery. At
present, the Anthropological galleries extend over nine halls in the Front Building. In the ground
floor galleries, exhibits pertaining to pre-history, arms, puppets; in the first floor galleries
exhibits pertaining to folk arts, Physical Anthropology, Musical Instruments and Ethnology are on
display. Among the special features, Slide shows have been exhibited in the following web-pages,
for the Musical Instruments and Ethnology Galleries. This enables to view the objects with
descriptive materials. |
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Republication of rare oral traditions of the
Madras Presidency circa 1922 AD
A very important
task taken up this year has been the recording of the 126 - 78 RPM old gramophone records recorded
in 1922 AD of the Languages and Dialects of the Madras Presidency as Sample Records by the
Gramophone Company of India (HMV), Calcutta. We got a very rare old player to decode the records
through the help of the Station Director, All India Radio, Mr.B.R.Kumar. The studio eliminated the
noise 'wow' and 'flutter', which characterises these old type records and digitally recorded the
sounds on CDs. These gramophone records the spoken form of the Languages and Dialects of the
Madras Presidency till 1922. To correlate with this, we have published a book 'Gramophone Records
of the Languages and Dialects of the Madras Presidency - Text of Passages' of these records.
Therefore any anthropologist who buys this book with CDs can have complete access to the data
collected up to 1922 AD of the oral traditions of South India. This work was done by the Curator
for the Zoology Section in a record time of 5 days. The CDs are available for sale along with the
book. They are a collector's dream come true. |
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Go to Galleries :
01.
Musical Instruments
02. Ethnology
03. Physical Anthropology
04. Arms
05. Pre-History
06. Folk Arts
07. Indus Valley Materials
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Rev. A.W. Brough’s Kanchikoil Collection
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Rev.
Anthony Watson Brough of London Missionary Society collected objects of ethnic interest from
Kanchikoil, a village near Erode in Tamil Nadu about eighty
years ago (1894 - 1934). Later, his niece, Mrs. Ruth Mckenzie, inherited these objects and
bequeathed them to Australian Museum, Sydney, Australia. The authorities of the Australian Museum
were kind enough to repatriate thirty-three selected items out of the Brough’s collection to
India and were repatriated to the Government Museum, Chennai. On 28th February, 2000 Australian
High Commission to India His Excellency Rob Laurie A.M. handed over 33 artefacts to the Special
Secretary to Government, Tamil Development-Culture, Hindu Religious Endowments Department, Thiru
S. Ramakrishnan, I.A.S., who in turn handed over them to Dr. R. Kannan, I.A.S., Commissioner of
Museums. Some of the artefacts are shown here. |
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