Indian museum for Waterloo

This museum will have on display old items such as rare musical instruments, agricultural objects, cooking utensils, clothing, ancient photographs and historical books. Some objects of historical and aesthetic value include a sapat (wooden slipper), jata (grinding stone), boli (gourd bowl), hassawa (grass knife], and aluminium scoop.

According to Dr Kumar Mahabir, the museum’s ground is a huge copper (‘cuppa’) basin used for boiling cane syrup in the factory up to the 1930s, but was afterwards adapted as water troughs for animals and water tanks for household use.

There is also a dhekhi a wooden contraption used for pounding cocoa and coffee beans as well as corn and rice grains.

This museum is a preservation of the material history of over one million descendants of East Indians/South Asians in the Caribbean. The first Indian immigrants came to the Caribbean from India to work as indentured labourers from 1838 to 1917 after the abolition of slavery.

The museum’s large collection has been obtained through field trips by administrators of the institution. Most items have been acquired as gifts, bequests and loans from individuals, families, priests, historians, scholars and collectors of the island community. The Indian Caribbean Museum also houses an art gallery, a reference library and a computerised genealogical database.

Soon to be established in the museum’s outdoor space is a botanical garden with some of the rare endangered plants of Indian origin like the satputiya (angled loofah), poi bhaji (Indian spinach), urdi (mung bean), and khakri (wild cucumber).

There is a large permanent screen in a recessed wall of the museum for the screening of historical films and documentaries.

The museum is a non-profit organisation with affiliation to the Tourism Development Corporation (TDC) and The National Museum and Art Gallery. The staff at the museum work full-time and part-time and their primary responsibilities are is the acquisition, care and exhibition of objects for the benefit of the public.

Although the museum exhibits artifacts of a specific historical origin, and is owned by an individual organisation, it is committed to serving the general public.