BHOPAL: Baksa, a wooden box of Himachal Pradesh is the first ëExhibit of the Weekí of this month on the website and social media pages of Indira Gandhi Rashtriya Manav Sangrahalaya (IGRMS), Bhopal.
This is the 50th exhibition under the ëExhibit of the Weekí. The museum collected the wooden box from the folk community of Himachal Pradesh in 1979.
Baksa is a rectangular wooden box made of local seasoned wood and its outer surface is covered with deerskin. The beautifully designed metal plate fittings at the corners make the Baksa more appealing. It was used to store clothes and other precious belongings. The decoration of household objects among the folk communities is purely personal taste.
Director of the museum Praveen Kumar Mishra said in past decades skins of animals, including wild animals, were used to fulfil multiple necessities like clothing, shoes, furniture, household decorations etc. Nowadays, the uses of wild animal skins are limited due to the ban on poaching of wild animals. Therefore, such objects are now rare and unique and can mostly be seen as a part of a museum collection, he said.
Mishra said that the exhibition series is focusing on the masterpieces from the collection of the IGRMS, which delineate the cultural history of a particular ethnic group or area.
