The Importance Of Knowledge Capturing

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Knowledge capturing is a process by which the experts thought process and experience are captured (Award & Ghaziri, 2013). Knowledge regarding mask carving is heavily driven on the practice based perspective where tacit knowledge is superior. Therefore knowledge capturing tools tend to be on practice and technical aspects rather than capturing knowledge through codified sources.
Observation is a main source of knowledge capturing technique in mask carving. Sons observed their father from early childhood. Their socialization process was characterized based on the observations of the family who were into mask carving throughout the life time. Sons observed how their father selected an appropriate Kaduru tree to get wood for the mask and father …show more content…

Even the effort made on codifying knowledge has been very poor. Codified sources are considered as family secrets and are protected with high level of confidence. This is a major barrier for the progression of the mask industry. Below are some sources of knowledge codification

4.2.4.1 Ola Leaf books

There are few ola leaf books available for reference written by the pioneers of their family organization. These books include chanting during performances, order of performing dances, auspicious dates and time to cut the Kaduru wood etc. Some of them are displayed at Museum in Ambalangoda and Colombo National Museum which includes AC14- Yakun Natanawa, 7/ K 5- Yakun natanawa Kolan natanawa. (Amarasekara, 2002)

4.2.4.2 Handwritten scripts of the generation

Different families maintain kolam scripts inherited to the family written on special techniques relating to carving, painting etc. Paper was used to write handwritten scripts only during the recent years replacing the ola leafs used by ancestors. Scripts written in ink are preserved at their mask museums.

4.2.4.3 …show more content…

Companion trust is visible where passing the father’s knowledge to the son. There were no issues of loyalty, but when passing the knowledge to someone outside the family that person needed to win the trust of the gurus. Competency trust gained by master where he observes how the student is doing the carving, to ensure that he has the competency of learning the skills and then only he will share his knowledge with the student. Commitment trust is seen where master observes how committed the student is to learn the skills and his passion to decide whether to pass the knowledge to the student or

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