A view of the new museum at Mawlai

Shillong, Aug. 20: If you think breathtakingly beautiful scenery is all there is to Shillong, think again.

The Don Bosco Centre for Indigenous Cultures, one of the largest anthropological and cultural museums of Asia, has become one of the major tourist attractions of the Scotland of the East.

Located at Mawlai, the centre is a storehouse of information on almost everything: dances, festivals, arts, artefacts, people and places of the Northeast. The collection has been built over a period of eight years and at an expenditure of several crores of rupees.

S.R. Sorkar, a retired deputy director of the Indian Museum in Calcutta, teamed up with Fr Sebastian Karotunprel and Fr Abraham Kanattu to set up the museum.

The culture centre’s director, Fr Joseph Puthenpurakal, said tourists from across the world had found the depiction of different tribal cultures interesting not only because of its diversity, but also for the attempt to combine culture and research.

“It is a boon for people who want to study different cultures,” he said. The centre even provides financial support to research scholars in anthropology, sociology and museology, and those specialising in culture photography and documentation.

But what has perhaps made the biggest impact is the attempt to bring the Northeast under “one roof”. The seven-storeyed building has about 17 galleries showcasing a unique collection of traditional weapons, fishing implements, baskets, crafts, textiles and musical instruments of different tribes.

“The centre provides an overview of the cultural richness of the different tribes of the Northeast, and the library has some 8,500 volumes on anthropology, sociology, linguistics, museology and culture, especially indigenous cultures,” Fr Joseph said.

The management is now toying with the idea of making the museum “a place of learning”. Also in the pipeline are training in animation and a “young talents’ gallery” to encourage students of fine arts and traditional music.

Visitors agree that a tour of the galleries at the centre is like visiting all the northeastern states in a day. “It will become a really important centre for research in future,” a Scottish researcher said.

“Magnificent, wonderful and such words may not express my feelings. Congratulations on the conceptualisation and execution of the project that is DBCIC,” Anthropological Survey of India director (Calcutta) V.R. Rao said during his visit to the centre last year.