From jute, fibers are collected in
special way. Hollowed jute sticks are used in roof manufacturing of traditional
house. Fibers of jute and flex are raw material of clothe and sitting mattress
(dhokra). Indigenous looms are generally used. Sona and tita are two important
verities. Leaves of later variety are consumed as vegetable for their bitter
taste and medicinal importance. Fibers of the second type are generally used
for making of mattress and such other rough products. The jute sticks are
submerged in stagnant ditches with the help of floating trunks of banana
inflorescence. Then those jutes are washed with clean water of little streams
and easily fibers are extracted leaving the hollow sticks (pat kathi). Both the
products are dried: sticks are used in roof construction: they are
light in weight and capable of air conditioning. They are also good source
fuel. Fibers of sona variety are used in making clothes. Short and harsh fibers
of tita variety are used for rough use. Jute and flex are cultivated during
rainy season in lowlands submerged under flood water. And in late monsoon season
when raining is being reduced, fibers are collected. Jute fibers are hanged at
first and then thread is manufactured. The entire process is called panjipara.
A slate stone chip of 9 inches diameter with a hole at the center is taken and
a bamboo stick is pierced in through that hole. That tool is called as takuri.
The stick is used as liver and by rotating this stick clockwise torque is
created and it actually works as a spinning machine. visit www.voiceofrajbanshi.blogspot.com
Rice is consumed in various ways,
such as, boiled rice with salt, rice with pulses, vegetables and other
non-vegetable items. They stored the rice in dry preserved condition. They
first wet the rice, then fry it hot, and press in chham (husking machine) with
gyin (leaver/handle) manually so that the rice portion comes out from the seed
coat; the seed coat is used both as manure and fodder; whereas the pressed
rice, chura, is served with card which is till the most auspicious item for any
kind of religious ceremony or festival for the Rajbanshis. The community is fond
of card/dahi, and unsaturated fat, i.e.,ghee. Fresh milk from the cow is
immediately kept in earthen pot in cold place and in this way they prepare the
card (goleya dahi). So, dahi-chura was one of the most delicious items for
them. Foktoi is a pulse-like dish prepared from mixture of fried dust of chura
and garlic which is cooked in boiled water with mustered and chilly. They also
prepare vapa, another exclusive rice item with some specific economic attribute
to the Rajbanshi society. Here, they take some rice dust and prepare a soft
watery lye of it, then give shape of disk-like cakes that they cook on
steam one by one. For steaming, they again take a handi (earthen cooker) on
fire with boiling water inside and the vapor coming out of the single pore at
the center of the lid automatically bakes the rice cakes into delicious vapa
cakes. Till now they fry their home-made soft rice and take this fried rice (chal
bhaja) with tea in the early morning. They boil rice in water which is their
main food item (bhat) and also consume the nutritious watery emulsion of the
boiled rice, fen or telani, with garlic. Husked rice in home in chhum-gyin is
only decoated but the nutritious cotyledon part remains attached. Rajbanshis
pour slight water over cooked rice and preserve this for the whole night which
becomes another item (panta bhat) for the breakfast meal. Watery cooked rice
could be further fermented so as to prepare alcoholic substance added with
sucrose and dust of rice coat (kind of fodder). Rajbanshi females used to
engage in preparation of dahi, ghee, chura, muri, salted muri, husked rice and
vapa within homestead whereas the males go to the field and participate in the
process of crop-cultivation. Females generally prepare the vapa at night and
then early in the morning go outside for selling the cakes at the exchange of
other goods- a typical barter system. They collect rice by selling the vapa.
And from these collected rice, they feed their family and again produce the
rice cakes for next day selling. Prosperous families do not let their women to
go into the field, maintain joint-extended families to meet the manual labor
and generally apply day labors on temporary basis.
From the dried straw of the paddy,
the Rajbanshis prepare sitting blocks and cautions, shade their roves, produce
guard rings of round-shaped earthen pottery, and arrange good quality of fodder
and fuel. They use paddy straw on the fishing net with cow dung and
superfluity; it helps
in quick fishing in village ponds.
Airy and hollowed straws in bunches over the roves are good for controlling the
home temperature in both hot summer and cold winter.
The slopes of uplands are often
found covered with ferns of numerous types, some being highly edible and
nutritious. Women are involved in collection of the newly grown leaves which
they cook as their daily vegetable. These Rajbanshi womenfolk have the
capability to use their fingers very swiftly with the very consideration that
the leaves do not have sores. Such capabilities are highly required in tea
gardens so as to collect the young tea leaves with buds. But still now, no one
of Rajbanshi womenfolk is interested in accepting the job of leaf collection in
tea gardens. They prepare delicious dish of fern with young tips of new bamboo
shoots; for the latter, they cover the out-coming shoot from subterranean
rhizome under an earthen pot.
The next most important vegetation
is of bananas. Sweet bananas of chinichampa variety with small and dark spots
on their body are essential in religious ceremonies. Anaji is the green banana
used in curry. Sabri, Madna, Fans and Martaban are some of the sweet varieties.
Banana local variety with seeds, daya kela or bichia kela (bichia= seed;
kela=banana) at the green condition used in medicinal purpose (curing abdominal
diseases and constipation). The banana fruit inflorescence in the good variety
of malvog grows to the optimum level and therefore riches up to the soil. They cook
the banana fruit inflorescence. The ‘trunk’ leaf inflorescence is also cooked
as a food item. They use banana leaves as plates for serving food and also for
packaging of various types. Bichia kela is with medicinal importance: seeds are
curative for worms, a glass of fresh water coming out of a young leaf
inflorescence helps in stomach problems and it is the main item for the preparation of
traditional food item chheka. The filtered water of sun-dried dust of
subterranean rhizome of the plant coming out from the hole at the bottom of
coconut shell provides waxy nature in the vegetables. Small lafa leaves grown
in spring-winter are tastier and with this chheka the dish prepared is called
pelka- it reduces body temperature and prevents the germs and dust to enter
into the lungs through nostrils during thrashing the paddy throughout the
weather-changing season of Hemanta. Sun-dried fresh pieces of local varieties
of small fishes in ponds and streams (shutka) are dusted in chham-gyin with
waxy leaf-base of certain aurum varieties (mann/kala) locally propagated.
Mustered oil, garlic, chilly and turmeric are used to prepare fish-balls from
this waxy fish dust (sidal). Balls are then fermented in tightly closed earthen
pots filled up with chheka dust. After 5/7 days, seal is broken up to release
the balls then baked (autha) or cooked with curry and water of chheka.
For washing the clothes, Rajbanshis
use soda which they produce from the base of the banana tree (this base is the
actual portion from where the leaf inflorescence comes out as “the tree” from
the underground rhizome). They submerge this trunk base for long in water and
when it started to be rotten out, the waxy extract they collected and used as
soda.
Edible soft inflorescence of ferns
(dheki) is a good source of food. Rajbanshis eat non-vegetable items also:
fish, hen, duck and goat are domesticated, bartered and reciprocated. Rajbanshi
women are also aware of agro-forestry, kitchen garden, sacred groove, medicinal
plants and fencing.
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