Ethnomathematics: Geometry and architecture of the tharu's traditional houses at Chakhoura museum

Abstract

Tharu is one of the indigenous research communities having their distinctive culture and practices. They have their own mathematical ideas and practice concepts to perform everyday activities. The study of mathematical ideas and knowledge practice in a particular group of people which is generally ignored by the formal curriculum is known as ethnomathematics. This study is intended to uncover the mathematical concepts embedded in the construction of traditional Tharu houses at the Chakhoura Museum. For this purpose, this study has carried out the observation and documentation analysis method for data collection. The resketching of the image of the traditional houses obtained in the field is carried out to facilitate the art, structures, and designs of construction systems of the traditional house. Most of the local knowledge developed by Tharu communities regarding the architecture of traditional houses is usually based on intuition, estimation, observation, and practice handed down from generation to generation closely related to their local culture. Therefore, emic ethnomodeling is used to explore the mathematical ideas embedded in the architecture of traditional houses. The result showed that the architecture of Tharu's traditional houses demonstrates sophisticated geometrical objects, namely, angles, lines, parallel lines, triangles, rectangles, squares, pentagons, circles, cylinders, and so on. The result also showed that the geometrical ideas contained in the Tharu's traditional houses include a prism. Thus, the result of this study exhibits the diversity and sophistication of mathematical practice in traditional houses made by Tharu communities that have a strong foundation in popular scientific understanding, such as geometric shapes in arts, crafts, architecture, and design.