This matchlock gun preserved in the Indian Museum, Kolkata, is a significant specimen of earlier firearm technology extending up to the Arunachal Pradesh in India in the Shan tribe. It was carved out of wood and iron and showed how indigenous knowledge integrated with weaponry introduced during historical trading and warfare periods.The gun consists of a long iron barrel that is fixed firmly into a hollowed wooden stock that serves itself as a body. Below this barrel, a long narrow iron rod runs parallel to it, more likely for cleaning or loading purposes. The obvious use of matchlock technology-the method where a slow-burning match ignites the gunpowder in the barrel-confers upon it the greater historical value, for it belongs to that phase when weapons were still premodern by the standards of tribals in India.
The Shan population would use these with hunting or even defense, especially among those bordering Myanmar. Now totally obsolete, they are still culturally important and indeed represent the time when indigenous tribes had to change their war- and hunting methods.