THE TRANSITION OF ASSAMESE SOMATIC CULTURE IN THE CIRCUMSTANCES OF MODERNISATION

Abstract

Time is constant. The fluid movement of time is bringing the change to the human society of the world too. The Assamese society of Assam is not an exceptional too. The era that we are living is called modern age. The reason of it is that the different changes come to the prevalent society. According to ‘Yandaboo Treaty’ of 1826, the ruling power of Assam goes to the hands of the British. From that time when the British started to rule in Assam the industrialization and the townified process had brought an unimaginable change to the town and city and also of the village life of Assam. Including this transition, the changes come to the folk-culture is a notable one. By the term of folk culture it implies to the form of composition of different task behaviour that has been going on in ancestral way traditionally among the rural and economically educated person. In this composition, from food, clothing and shelter to songs, tales, dance and drama are all included. Folklorists had divided the Assamese folk culture into four different parts. They are-

• Oral folk study or folk literature: In folk story, folk poem, folk epic, folk speech and folk language are included in here.


• Social folk custom or folk principle: festivals, functions, recreational programmes and sports, traditional medicines, folk religion etc. are included here.


• Somatic culture: Folk art, folk crafts, folk architecture, folk dress, traditional cooking methods are included here.


• Folk performance art: Folk dance, folk songs and folk drama are included here.

From the above mentioned four divisions, somatic culture is one of the exceptional elements. In relating to the somatic culture, many changes have come to it from different perspective. In our research paper, under the influence of modernism what kinds of changes have arrived to the inclusive facets of somatic culture of Assamese traditional social life, is particularly attempted to make an analysis through this paper in a descriptive methods.