Woollen shawls used by the Apatanis during the 1940s. (Photo courtesy: British Museum)

Guwahati, Dec. 11: For Londoners whose brush with the “exotic East” begin and end with the Taj Mahal, the British Museum has put on display the tapestry of tribal life in Arunachal Pradesh, complete with shawls, jackets and headgear.

An exhibition titled “Between Tibet and Assam: Cultural Diversity in the Eastern Himalayas”, showcasing the culture of two tribes of Arunachal Pradesh, opened recently at the museum and will continue till April 13, 2009.

“The exhibition is featuring a mixture of fascinating historical objects from the British Museum’s collection, most never before displayed,” Hannah Boulton, head of press and public relations at the British Museum, wrote in an e-mail.

The show is part of “Tribal Transitions”, a collaborative project of the School of Oriental and African Studies, the British Museum, Arunachal University, the government of Arunachal Pradesh and the Centre for Cultural Research and Documentation and the British Council in New Delhi, with funds from the Economic and Social Research Council.

The two tribes in focus are the Monpas who practise Tibetan Buddhism and the Apatani, who are animists.

“Ritual textiles such as hand-woven woollen shawls, jackets, headdresses as well as Buddhist monastic dance clothes have been displayed,” Boulton added.

“These objects illustrate the fact that these cultures have been influenced for many centuries by both the Assam plains to the south and the Tibetan plateau to the north.”

The project has also documented contemporary culture through fieldwork, photography and film.

“Until recently, the place was little known or studied and access to the region was restricted but the collaborative project has thrown new light on this area of great cultural diversity,” Boulton said.

Apart from artefacts, there are rare photographs from the archives of the famous anthropologists, Christoph von Furer-Haimendorf and Verrier Elwin.

“In the Apatani section, there is a sequence of objects relating to the sacrificial ritual of murung, with both contemporary and older items as well as rare archival and exceptional new photographs. Also in this section is the transition from block-printed to computer-generated Buddhist ritual texts. This demonstrates change and continuity,” Boulton said.