Painting
This is a depiction of a religious festival known as Charak Puja. The rituals seen being performed here were acts of penance, in a very real sense bloodletting was done to appease and honour the Hindu God Shiva (in Bengal) or the Mother Goddess Marriamam (if further south).
At the time this mica painting was painted the practice would be as follows: a large pole was erected by the village and a man from a low caste would be selected. He would literally have the flesh from his back hooked (which can be seen in the painting) and he would be swung around in a circle (charak means circle in Bengali).
This would have been a useful image to have in a European’s collection. Firstly, it would have enabled colonial officers to identify those people of low caste, allowing them to classify those under their jurisdiction. Secondly, it was a source of information for the British who wished to outlaw acts such as this and also sati (the burning of a wife on her husband’s funeral pyre) and bring a Christian influence to local populations.
At the time this mica painting was painted the practice would be as follows: a large pole was erected by the village and a man from a low caste would be selected. He would literally have the flesh from his back hooked (which can be seen in the painting) and he would be swung around in a circle (charak means circle in Bengali).
This would have been a useful image to have in a European’s collection. Firstly, it would have enabled colonial officers to identify those people of low caste, allowing them to classify those under their jurisdiction. Secondly, it was a source of information for the British who wished to outlaw acts such as this and also sati (the burning of a wife on her husband’s funeral pyre) and bring a Christian influence to local populations.
Object Summary
- Accession Loan No.
- 128/1998/9
- Category
- Ethnography
- Collection Class
- Archives and images
- Collection Area Region
- S
- Material
- mica | pigment (oil-based) | | |
- Common Name
- painting
- Simple Name
- painting
- Production Town
- Thanjavur
- Production County
- Tamil Nadu
- Production Country
- India
- Production Person Initials
- Production Person Surname
- Production Year Low
- late 19th century
- Production Year High
- early 20th century
