About Mising Culture
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Du:lod-daglod (Mising life and culture)
Housing
Misings live in thatched platform dwellings, the stilted floor, constructed usually with split or flattened bamboo, being raised about four to five feet from the ground on an average. People, who can afford, may use wooden planks also for the floor. The posts, beams and rafters are usually wooden, but poorer people may use bamboo also. Traditionally, such houses have five layers (i.e. structural components) up to the platform from the ground, forming the support
structure for the platform and five layers above the platform, forming the support structure for the roof. The dwelling space, enclosed with walling reeds, is a hall without any partitions inside, only fireplaces and bars, used as cloth-stands, dividing the hall into portions used by different nuclear families (in the case of a joint family) or by different members of a nuclear family. A large joint family living in the same house means a very long house with several fireplaces within. A part of the platform is left open in the front, which is used as a verandah. The platform of the house often has one or more roofed spaces extended toward the side legside (i.e. the side to which the legs are stretched when sleeping), used for the purpose of cleaning utensils, straining rice beer, etc. apart from the two doors, one at the front and the other at the back, there may be one or more doors, usually on the head-side (as opposed to the leg-side, already mentioned), opening to an uncovered platform or platforms, used for drying paddy grains, sitting or lying down in the evenings, etc. Nowadays, one can see changes in housing patterns here and there in Mising villages, some amongst the well-off preferring to live in bungalow-type non-traditional houses. There was a time when large extended families lived jointly under the same roof, but the system is gradually weakening these days. |
