Bhubaneswar: Visitors can visit the Dharua Textiles and Dhokra Craft during the virtual tour to State Tribal Museum on 13th December by opening the Twitter and Facebook page @scstrti, @stscdev.
The Dharua community mainly resides in Malkangiri, Nawarangapur, Bolangir districts, Their major occupation are cultivation, forest collection, basketry and agriculture labour. They observe festivals like Lendipanda, Ghia Panda, Goesendia Hia. The Dharua are one of the Gondid Tribe and otherwise referred to as Dharua Gonds. They are polytheists and their pantheo includes a number of tribal deities such as Estipal, Gramsiti, Garam, Ramkin, Barapahar, Buradeo etc. and Hindu deities like Jagannath, Laxmi, Mahadev, Kali, Durga, Sital and Manasa. The Dharua community attire themselves in distinctive red and white textiles, that
are woven by the weaver communities of Kotpad, Odisha.
In another video, the visitors can see the Dhokra Craft, Craftsman of Odisha at work. The wax technique of metal casting in Dhokra is a primitive technique. Earlier the metal work was performed by the nomadic groups, exercising traditional technology for manufacturing of Dhokra craft. In course of time these groups are settled in tribal concentrated region viz:
Andhra Pradesh, Odisha, Chhattisgarh, Bihar, Madhya Pradesh and West Bengal. In our State Dhokra artisans both tribal and non-tribal districts viz: Rayagada, Kandhamala, Nayagada, cuttack, Dhenkanal and Mayurbhanj.
For making Dhokra Crafts the essential raw materials are brass, wax, bitumen, resin, clay, paddy, husk, sand and wood. Wax, resin and bitumen are taken proportionately (1Kg: 250 gm: 10 gm) in a container and pour water and heated to make semi solid. The paster is poured on a porous cotton gauge to remove the residual matter. The proportion of water and brass in an artifact is 1:10. Hand knife is used for cutting wax, a wooden implement called Tesa aided with a sieved metal plate called Chaki are used for making wax threads. Different sieves are used for making threads of various diameters as required to put designs on the craft. The wax
threads are kept on a wood board. The mould is given a shape using a typical stick (Kathi), Tongs(Chimuta) are used for putting the moulded craft in the furnace and remove it from the furnace, Hammer (Hatudi) is used for shaping the wax and breaking the mould after baking the furnace.
In the video the visitors can know the making process of Dhokra items in details. The Dhokra Craftsmen make a range of decorative crafts and utility items of various designs and requirements. These includes elephant, horse, tortoise, crocodile, cow, buffalo, fish, peacock, ornaments, decorative items like wall hangers etc, miniature statues of Dongaria men and women, idols of Ganesh, Krishna, Shiva, Laxmi etc, Utility box and personal adornments like hairpin, ear-pin etc.
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