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Before Jimmy Nelson's book “Before They Pass Away” and Aman Chotani's “The Last Avatar”. Nelson's
The beauty of the Drokpas people, along with many other indigenous tribes, was captured in

ambitious series photographed 35 indigenous tribes across the world and became a testament to the sheer
Theyre diversity of Earth's now fast-disappearing ethnic communities. Chotani's book aimed to document the
'
culture of 16 traditional ethnic communities in India before they vanished and is a chilling reminder of

Forgotten the devastating effects of urbanization on culture in our modern world.

Traditional art forms are also an important part of a culture that has been slowly eroding over

time, and the loss or disappearance of Indian art heritage is a strong testament to this. Rogan craft, for
Written by Sofea Chang example, is an art form that has over 300 years of history and is the art of painting on fabrics using paint

T made from boiled vegetable dyes and oil. Once an art practised all over Gujarat in India, Rogan art is
o some extent, everything that now on the cusp of being forgotten, as the Khatri family in Kutch of Gujarat is believed to be the last

we do is for the sake of being remembered.
family practising it as of 2020. Heartbreaking as it is, there are many other endangered art forms in India,
Why else did palaeolithic people draw on the
including Parsi embroidery, Naga handicraft, Manjusha painting, and Thanjavur painting, just to name a
walls of caves using pigments from plants,
few.
just to illustrate their daily lives, even though
it was utterly of no use to their survival? Why
To find out more about the impacts of urbanisation on the endangerment of culture, look no
else did Gustav Mahler continue to write his
further than Malaysia's endangered minority languages. Malaysia is a melting pot of culture, but many
symphonies, even though he didn't gain public
languages in our country run the risk of going extinct due to their underrepresentation in our society.
comprehension or recognition for them? Why
These include languages from Sabah and Sarawak, Orang Asli languages, and other minority languages
else do humans yearn for a sense of belonging,
such as Baba Melayu; existing speakers of these languages are either dying out or switching to mainstream
and seek out friendships and relationships?
languages. An even more glaring example of this
is the rapid decline in fluent speakers of Chinese
Humans, inherently, don't want to be lost in the mists of time. dialects in Malaysia, as Chinese education systems
globally shift away from dialects and focus only
In Disney's Coco, this concept of death and remembrance was brought to life, where dead spirits on standard Mandarin.
entered an afterlife called the “Land of the Dead”, and only truly “died” after being completely
forgotten by living people. The movie presented the abstract idea that in order to have truly lived, you So, what can be done to reduce cultural

need to be remembered by following generations. In reality, the most effective way to preserve our loss? Governments can prevent cultural erosion
ancestors' memories and ideas is much simpler — inheriting culture. and promote cultural heritage by setting up

institutions such as museums and galleries, while
As a character from my favourite game would say, "Art never plays an essential part in the survival simultaneously promoting the tourism industry.
of humanity, so it's destined to wither and vanish." Inheriting culture may sound simple at first thought, From an educational point of view, texts about
but humanity is already at risk of losing or forgetting many existing cultures. traditional culture should be incorporated into
textbooks so that these art forms and ethnic tribes
Take the Drokpas of Ladakh, India, for example. An indigenous tribe consisting of only about aren't forgotten by future generations (you may

3000 members today, the Drokpas is one of the few purely Aryan tribes in the world, and are thought to recall reading about batiks, songkets, and Iban
be the descendants of long-lost soldiers from Alexander the Great's army. Public displays of affection and people in our Malay textbooks!). Optional classes
wife-swapping are common and often encouraged in the Drokpas community, and fashion is an integral should also be provided in schools for students to

part of their culture — the women wear goatskin capes and adorn themselves with headdresses made of learn about minority languages or dialects.
fruits and flowers, while the men wear wool dresses and headpieces with flowers.
Picture Source:
27 https://www.jimmynelson.com/people/brokpa 28