Henry Glassie, the eminent folklorist, had once said in an interview that people everywhere invest artefacts with historical meaning, often unconsciously. History, in this sense, is not merely a chronology of events but a lived, local, and moral construction, grounded in objects, places, and practices. (Grassic and Truesdell 2008) Folk Culture and Folk Artefacts: Contexts and Continuities brings together interdisciplinary perspectives on the material and intangible dimensions of folk traditions in India. The volume highlights how folklore and artefacts present before us an opportunity to decode how people construct history. In folk culture, history is often organized not by chronological sequence but by place. What matters is not a universal timeline, but the events that occurred in their locality. In this sense, history becomes less about dates and more about patterns that give meaning to lived experience.
Komal Kothari, widely known as encyclopaedia of folklore of Rajasthan, said "My grandmother could identify ninety-five colours; today we can name about twenty." (Kothari 2004: 15) His words speak to the deep ecological and cultural knowledge embedded in folk practice and what is at risk of being lost. "Accepting the challenge of folk history and opportunity of the artefact, we have a chance to cooperate in the construction of a history that will entail the truth in all histories, that will embrace multitudes." (Glassie 1990) It is a disservice to history to relegate folk culture and its artefacts to the realm of subjectivity and imagination while history strives for objectivity.
As the academic disciplines, including history, inquire social mores and folk communities, valuable resources can be culled from the folk cultures. (Chaturvedi 2021) The study of folk culture and artefacts in India remains a richly layered and inherently interdisciplinary field, engaging historians, anthropologists, folklorists, museum professionals, and cultural theorists. Yet, as scholars have observed, the material forms of folk arts have often been side-lined in mainstream academic discourse, despite their significance in sustaining cultural memory and identity. This volume is an attempt to bring together both the tangible and intangible aspects of folk culture in the academic discourse.
The essays presented here explore folk artefacts not merely as objects, but as carriers of meaning, identity, and memory. From ornaments, textiles, and tools to performative practices, oral traditions, and rituals, the contributions underscore the ways in which artefacts embody both continuity and transformation. They highlight the interdependence of tangible and intangible heritage, showing how material culture is inseparable from the lived worlds, narratives, and social practices of communities. Interdisciplinary in nature, the volume brings together perspectives from history, anthropology, folklore, archaeology, muscology, and cultural studies. Collectively, the chapters demonstrate that folk culture is not static or peripheral but a dynamic and evolving sphere of human creativity, deeply implicated in negotiations of tradition and modernity.
The volume opens with material heritage associated with social practices and community identities. Ramyani Sengupta's article on Dasahabatr Ganjifa Tash of Bishnupur, West Bengal illustrates how folk artefacts embody cultural identity and communal traditions while serving as vehicles of storytelling. Sustained through generational transmission by the Fauzadar family, this craft highlights both the resilience and vulnerability of folk heritage in the face of modernization.
In the landscape of Indian folk art, which is most often understood as a collective practice, the clay dolls of Jaynagar Majilpur stand out as a rare case centred on the creativity of a single artisan. Located in southern West Bengal near the Sunderbans, Jaynagar Majilpur is home to the tradition pioneered by Manmathanath Das, who was posthumously awarded a national honour in 1986. His repertoire of nearly thirty-five types of dolls ranged from Hindu and Islamic figures to regional deities, from Calcutta's nineteenth-century Babus to everyday rural life, drawing subtle influence from the Kalighat style. After his death, his family continued the practice, inheriting his moulds and sustaining the distinct style of painting and brushwork. Today, these dolls embody a layered symbolic identity that reflects both continuity and cultural hybridity. As Guruprasad Dey and Shatarupa Thakurata Roy argue in this chapter that the Jaynagar tradition can be read through a post-colonial lens as a synthesis of artistic idioms and as a living example of how folk art negotiates changing contexts of meaning and appreciation.
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