The Idu Mishmi community is unwavering in its commitment to preserving its ancestral stories and folktales, which hold the answers to various life curiosities. These oral traditions are robust repositories of rich traditional knowledge, meticulously detailing the origin of the Idu people and other life forms. They emphatically emphasize the moral relations between people and animals and underscore the crucial importance of maintaining cultural and reciprocal relations. With only a few elders remaining in the community, the Idu Mishmi are deeply concerned about the endangerment of their language. They have decisively initiated the Taju-Taye program to address this pressing issue, resolutely aiming to use storytelling as a powerful tool to preserve the Idu Mishmi language. This is especially important as children are often sent to schools far away from their homes, leading to an unfortunate loss of connection with the Idu culture. The program emphatically seeks to ensure that the mother tongue is used in schools by narrating stories in both Idu Mishmi and Hinglish.
Taju Taye
We conduct monthly storytelling sessions in local schools, to trial our methodologies. Stories of varying detail and complexity are being narrated to different grades with the help of visual aids, multimedia, and art. Scientific knowledge on species, conservation status, and indigenous worldviews, struggles, and histories are added wherever appropriate. The teaching aids and art have been created by Idu Mishmi artists. This program begins the process of placing Traditional knowledge on par with formalized Western education. The plan is to tell stories orally like they always have been passed on from one generation to the next.
Experience it!
This storytelling program takes the rich and fascinating Idu traditional stories to Idu youth where they currently spend most of their time – the modern schools.
Let's march!
Art Exhibition
Our Process
Story Collection & Transcription
Each member is responsible for collecting stories from the elders and transcribing them.
Artworks & Lesson Packages
Each collected story is then divided into scenes, which are drawn by local artists. These scenes are part of carefully designed lesson packages for each class and school in Anini.
Storytelling
Sessions
Following the carefully designed lesson packages, the sessions take place outdoors. These locations are chosen based on their relevance to the stories.
Documents & Reports
After the sessions are complete, all details are then documented.
