Exhibition celebrates 'lost' Peranakan culture
They offer food to the dead like in Chinese ancestral worship, but they mainly practise Hinduism.
They speak a creole that is largely based on bazaar Malay but also has elements of Tamil and the Hokkien dialect.
For instance, the term for grandmother is nenek (Malay), grandfather is thatha (Tamil) and uncle is mama (Tamil).
They also feature the hantu tetek - a voluptuous female ghost - from regional folklore for their annual Hindu procession. They believe she crushes evil with her giant breasts.
The Chetti Melakans, who originated from Melaka, have a diverse and colourful culture that has been largely undocumented and "lost" for decades.
But an exhibition, which opens today at the Indian Heritage Centre, showcases the different facets of the community.
Chetti Melaka of the Straits: Rediscovering Peranakan Indian Communities features some 175 artefacts and photographs. Most of the items have never been exhibited before and are on loan from the Chetti Melakan community here.
They include a pair of miniature hantu tetek figures, documents and portraits of the community's pioneers, jewellery as well as everyday household items.
The Chetti Melakans form a small but significant community of early migrants who have made Singapore their home over the years.
They moved here because of job opportunities during the colonial era.
Their ancestors were Tamil traders who first settled in Melaka in the 15th to 16th centuries and married local women of Malay and Chinese descent.
In Singapore, there are around 5,000 Chetti Melakans.
Mr Ponno Kalastree, 69, president of the Peranakan Indian (Chitty Melaka) Association Singapore, said it is important to safeguard the community's legacy and pass it on to future generations.
"We hope that through this exhibition, we can help generations of Chetti Melakans to re-connect with their roots, and also share our very special heritage with others," he said.
Curator Nalina Gopal, 34, said the community here only started actively documenting their history in the late 2000s following the launch of the book, Peranakan Indians of Singapore and Melaka: Indian Babas and Nonyas - Chitty Melaka, by historian Samuel S. Dhoraisingam.
The exhibition will run till May 5 next year.
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