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Reflections of India

~ by facing my shadows

Reflections of India

Category Archives: Tribal India

Adivasi and the fulfilment of life

05 Thursday Mar 2015

Posted by opus125 in Tribal India

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Adivasi, Ho, Janau suku, Jaydas, Jharkhand, Joseph Marianus Kujur, Kharia, Martin Tapno, merkha, Mullick, Mundhu, Mundu, Parom disam, parum disumreka, Santhal, Sauros-Prbhu, Singbonga, Sirma Disum, Umbul Ader, Uraons, vanvasi

"Women in tribal village, Umaria district, India" by Yann (talk) - Own work. Licensed under GFDL via Wikimedia Commons

“Women in tribal village, Umaria district, India” by Yann (talk) – Own work. Licensed under GFDL via Wikimedia Commons

We all long for fulfilment, we all seek some promise in our life. To enjoy a spiritual transcend our selves.

So religions offer their own answers and paths, but liberation and accomplishment have both sacred and profane dimensions. Adivasi meaning is linked inextricably to the land. Whether racially proto-Austaloid (Munda, Uraon, Ho, Gond, Khond etc, Himalayan Mongoliod, Negroid of Karela or the Andamanese Islands, the Adivasi people long for the land that is both critical for their existence and their spiritual encounter with the supernatural. Without land the Adivasi do not exist. They are linked to the land, and for many tribes state of Jharkhand offered some hope and challenge to make sat-patt- raji a concrete manifestation for their people and the afterlife or parum disum or merkha (heaven). Jharkhand mean “forest tract” and was carved from Bihar, after 50 years of agitation across areas that included districts of Orissa, Madhya Pradesh and West Bengal. The Adivasi value simplicity, truthfulness, contentment, hard work, hospitality, generosity, hard work, independence, egalitarianism love of peace and a care free attitude. The agricultural Adivasi see fulfilment in having plenty to eat, drink cattle, crops land and children. Sins is a violation of these priorities. When their connection to the land is threatened they can fight back!

Dongria Tribswoman

Dongria Tribswoman

For Adivasi existential longing is both personal and communal determined by a collective faith experience. Its two dimensions are this word and the other world: relationship with being on this earth and secondly a synthesis of human and divine relationship both personally and for the ethos of the group. Key to liberation is happiness. For happiness in this world is a criteria for the next world. Happiness is collective, and uts achievement gives direction to the individual. For the Oraon tribals, this is measured by Cattle, Crops and Children in the prosperity of the family. Heaven reflects his world. The afterlife has fields to plough, cattle in abundance, and a bumper crop. The more agricultural tribes, the Mundhu, Kharia, Ho and Santhal, long for land and a rich harvest and children to perpetuate the family. The Kharia have a great respect for cattle.

adivasidance52374

D.P.D.,A14bCOMMUNITY PROJECT CENTRE, RANCHI (BIHAR)Jitia dance by Oraon Adivasi young boys and girls.

“Without land they simply do not exist. In absence of land, there is no space for their social, cultural, economic and ecological life. Sanjay Bosu Mullick opines that “identity and indigenous peoples rests on two vital elements, space and speech”. Spatial habitat or the geographical territory of their ancestors is their birthright. That part of “Mother earth” has been passed on to them by their fore-parents. Therefore, the rationale for their struggle for a separate land can be justified in terms of three Js, namely, JAMIN (the land), JAL (the water) and JUNGLE (the forest) which belong to them from time immemorial[1].”

The call for Jhakhand was therefore an emotional call for life. “Land is their altar of sacrifice to god and to the spirits” adds Kujur, which is why they protect land and produce.

“A part of the virgin forest is preserved since the settlement of the village as the sacred grove, the abode of the Mother earth, to be propitiated regularly. The spirits of all the natural objects are also propitiated as benevolent ones. The spirits of the ancestors are believed to be residing in the household itself who protect the family from all kinds of evils.” –          Basu Mulllick[2]

In twined with the tribal system and religious life is the preservation of sizable sacred groves that include isolated forest specimens of peepal (ficus religiosa) often without reference to a god. Symbiotic is life’ relationship to nature and performing arts. Earth and water belong to Mother earth. We have their use, but they are not bought, sold or privatised. Adivasi stewardship of the land offered by each tribes respective gods is an open secret challenged by modernity. Since 1970 every major dam and wildlife sanctuary and 90% of National Park, are carved from Adivasi land. 50% of India’s mineral wealth of coal, bauxite and mica is mined from Adivasi land, yet 85% live below the poverty line, and while only 8% of the population they represent 50% of people evicted from their homeland for National Development Projects[3]. No government ever created land so how can they own what god has made? And is an intimate companion, a source of great knowledge to live with harmoniously. In both East and West, as W J T Mitchell reminds us, landscapes are part of a ‘process by which … identities are formed”[4] But Western thought defines landscape in terms of the Enlightenment: landscape controlled and commanded.

“The English word landscape comes from landscaef , an Anglo-German word that meant “a clearing in the forest with animals, huts, fields, fences. It was essentially a peasant landscape carved out of the original forest or weald, out of the wilderness[1]” . The English ‘land‘ means earth from the older Gothic for ‘a ploughed field’. Scape implies the shape of similar objects or shaeth , a buncle or sheath of similar plants.”

Landscapes change slowly to our minds, but they erode and shape. To those in the forest daily, their movement is like the breath of lungs. Do we command ecology through the science and technologies of architecture? Landscape is certainly sublimated or modified by mans interference. But now, the ideological imperative to remake the land is losing ground to environmental fears.

Adivaso girl by Scalerman

Adivaso girl by Scalerman

Personhood is rooted in the land. This experience is not only true of the Adivasi, but also the Australian Aboriginee, and other native people. The alienation of the Adivasi so often reminds me of the loss felt by my Aboriginal brothers and sisters. The late Australian naturalist writer Eva Palmwood notes “ in earlier puritan times, nature was pushed away and seen as an evil animal realm in which civilised rules and practices were abandoned in favour of wholesale licence” Nature was wild, feminine and threatening; to be domesticated by “this suspicious, civilizing and crusading culture” into a house garden. So we stay away from the uncomfortable, lock ourselves away from even a mosquito.

“The dualistic Christian/Western framework of alienation and material denial has erased our connecting narratives” she writes. We desperately lack stories that transparently link us to nature. Gaia stories: “the real meaning of ecological literacy, to have stories that speak of the culture/nature boundary and of where the two cultures meet.”

Palmwood touches on what I see in both Advasi India and Aboriginal Australia.

“Our conviction that ‘we’ live in culture and ‘they’ live in nature is so strong that all that is left is a passionate story about consciousness, history and freedom—about us—and another story about fiercely uninvolved causation and clockwork—a story about them.”

To be separate from nature – to be distinct from the pain of animals other humans better In some ways India has grate sensitivity to animals – stray dogs are often de-sexed and not euthanized. However, I suggest Australia fares better in treating other humans. In each action there are exceptions. Australia had a social security system but hides from facing its obligations to refugees and forgets Aboriginals in the outback. A similar argument is made by environmental ethicist and seed saving campaigner Vandana Shiva. Shiva laments the scientific urge since Roger Bacon to conquer rather than coexist with nature. The nature divide is also expressed in our attitude to women. For nature is feminine. A point made by Marilyn Frye “argues that it is necessary to move beyond a concept of woman as ‘deficient male’ to the idea of woman as ‘positively-other-than’.” We see this in Colonial Britain’s criticism of Indians as feminized, over sexed, in reference to early marriage, and weak minded. Then Vivekananda masculinised the Nationalist agenda, and it seems that Hindi nationalist movements have since moved from feminine sensitivity to nature to a post colonial, almost colonization, raping of the land.

Tribal land is to the Adivasi what Mecca is to Muslims and Jerusalem is to Jews. It is sacred. Their cosm-centric worldview is nature-linked. There is no “I”/ “other” dichotomy; nature-human-spirit are an integrated whole.

Land gives dignity, pride and identity. Without land the Adivasi is “helpless, subservient and subjugated like a bonded laborer without any dignity[5].” Which is why peace loving Adivasi can dangerously resist some development projects. It is not my purpose to rehash history, suffice to remember many anti British struggles, mixed with the fire of the Bhakti movement, were agrarian and tribal. Threatened by being overwhelmed by outsiders, others or diku, there was the Santhal struggle of 1860’s and 1870’s, the 1895 Bhagat movement among the Oraons, Madhta Pradesh Gond movement in the 1930’s.

‘Mining happiness’ Vedanta is stripping all that the Dongria Kondh tribals hold sacred. (Photograph by Sandipan Chatterjee)

‘Mining happiness’ Vedanta is stripping all that the Dongria Kondh tribals hold sacred. (Photograph by Sandipan Chatterjee)

Without land Adivasi truthfulness and simplicity has been lost to indebtedness, alienation, drinking, displacement and migration. The loss of identity finds many apologetic for their race, dropping their clan names. Unlike their caste divided and status conscious contemporaries, economics is secondary in egalitarian villages. Within the Parha, the village confederations that resolved inter village disputes, all have equal standing. Accountability is to the tribe and family offer fulfilment, but Colonial structures still remaining have crushed their land and encourage the biggest obstacles to human fulfilment: greed, pride and disobedience. These vices according the Genesis myths of Oraon, Khartia and Munda cause Rain of Fire and Deluge. Ecological imbalance caused by smelter pollution by the Asur polluted the cosmos stopped by the merciful intervention of the Supreme being sending messages: a crow, crane and then the Supreme himself disguised as a boy.

Damage to the cosmic harmony is hoped to make human defaulters to become aware of life communitarian nature. The tribal dream is always harmony with the other.

In the Oraon Genesis tradition Dharmes made man “in a mold like tiles” and gave food to all creatures. Happiness is the realisation of Gods care for all “sinners, enemies in all” God walks with human beings, he is not aloof in heaven. Fulfilment is this God experience. But the continuation of the cosmos requires rectifying the corruption and injustice. Evil, such as an evil eye is neutralised by the bhakh khandna ceremony. For life is focused on communal prosperity” crops, cattle marriage and children.

Sorice: Bengal Adivasi Blog

Sorice: Bengal Adivasi Blog

Unless there is a radical social change, will they have to accept Singbonga’s will and find liberation with their ancestors in Purom Disum, the afterlife, imagined by the Uraons as ploughing fields?

“This parom disam is looked upon as a world separated from our world by some mighty barrier such as is formed by an impossible chain of mountains or an unfordable river or a boundless ocean “ writes Martin Topno. It is indescribable in terms of height, distance, or depth “for the parom disumreko (those of the world across) are not thought of as living in far away places, since they dwell in the huts of their nearest relatives, in streams, rivulets, field and mountains of their village and Singhonga, the Lord of all, is explicitly declared to be everywhere and to see everything. These two worlds are rather conceived as co-penetrating each other, and yet as not possessed of any means of direct communication.”

The afterlife, and the rituals of death, will be discussed elsewhere, along with the influence of Christian conversion. However, benevolent spirits are guardians of those on earth, but they are not worshipped, unlike Singbonga. In the Mundu region the Christian concept of ‘salvation’ is understood as communion with Singbonga in the afterlife. Singbonga is the centre of life now and in the future and Janau suku, eternal happiness is possible only through Sigbonga and the ancestors, Communion is achieved through sacrificial ritual of Umbul Ader, lirerally entering into spirit, achieved in the abode of Singbonga in Sirma Disum, or heaven. nagesiya-household-kerang-village-in-lohardagga-district-jharkhand-photo-anumeha-yadav1 Meanwhile tribal hopes and frustrations inspired in Jharkhand include liberation from jagirdars, jaminders, money lenders and other exploiters. The reality of poetical life is less promising. While India’s Constitution protects the Adivasi, they continue to be harassed. Adivasi are still looked down on as inferior, pre-literate and vanvasi, or forest dwellers. Perhaps India could learn from them. I agree with Sauros-Prabhu[6] that tribal solidarity with nature and egalitarianism should be an example to modern competitiveness and individualism. [1] Joseph Marianus Kujur, Human longing and fulfilment: An Adivasi perspective, Disputatio Philisophica, and referencing Mullick 1993:13 [2] Mullick S. E. Ed 1993:14 Indigenous Identity: Crisis and its Re-awakening, Nanin Prakashan Kendra. [3] Jaydas, E., 1993, 34 The Adivasis and the Land, in Indigenous Identity: Crisis and its Re-awakening, Nanin Prakashan Kendra. [4] Mitchell WJT, (1994) ‘Landscape and Power’, Chicago University Press, Chicago. [5] Joseph Marianus Kujur: 19 [6] Sauros-Prabhu, G., 1994 85ff Tribal values in India, in Ijeevadhara, 24 (March)85-88

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Tribal India has an extensive Pharmakia

20 Monday Oct 2014

Posted by opus125 in Religion & Spiritualty, Tribal India

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bhil tribe, Bhl medicine, gayan, herbalism, tribal herbal medicine, tribal pharmacy

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India’s Bhil Tribals believe disease is caused by the displeasure of the Gods. A cure may require a gayan lasting 24 hours to exorcise the offending illness. However, tribal India also has an extensive Pharmacia of much quicker cures.

From the Ethnomedical knowledge of plants used by Kunabi Tribe of Karnataka, the 40 most important herbs used by the Korku of Betul District, Madhya Pradesh,  tribal medicine is simple to prepare and convenient they are affordable by tribal’s and rural poor.

In Satna district, Madhya Pradesh, plant medicine cures gastrointestinal problems that western medicine only relieves[1].

Loose stools are prevented by 20 mil of fresh Arjun bark juice in 400 ml of curd water. For infants  the leaf extract of chotti dudhi is used.
Garlic is antiseptic and excellent for intestinal inflammation.
Four or five fruits of Shivalingi are fried in fresh cows butter and taken twice a day for  colitis.
Four or five teaspoons of saunf are bought to boil and steeped for 15 minutes. It is cooled and strained then sipped to relieve colic.

Not just a random collection of herbal cures, ancient Indian medicine goes back to the Vedas.

medi_3

For example western trained Darshan Shankar was amazed to how Maharashtran Thakar, Mahadev Koli and Katkari tribals enhanced the breast milk of lactating mothers with Ipomoea mauritiana, reduced swollen testicles with Calantropis gigantean and could draw out deeply imbedded thorns with a latex from the same plant.  Dry cough was cured with the fruit of Terminalia bellinica roxb, dysentry by Holarrhena pubescens, uterine bleeding was stopped by Minosa pubica.

The range of Indian medicinal skill , both tribal and Ayurvedic, is inspiring. It is also a little angering to realise that the futuristic deal f heath in your hands is already promoted in the village. However, the migration of youth to city opportunity risks the loss of  great body of knowledge.

There are many Indian centres seeking to preserve these ancient skills.  For example, Madhya Pradesh promotes commercial herbal production. The methods of preparation are extremely diverse and sophisticated.

Badwais and Bhils confirmed that they use different parts of the same plants for different diseases and mixture of several parts of same plants or different plants for different diseases. The different parts of plants used as medicines are whole plant (usually in herbs), leaves, flowers, fruits, roots of herb, shrubs, trees, climbers, stem, root, root bark, resins, and latex, rhizome, tuber, bulb, tender, seed, petiole and latex. In some cases only one part of the plant has medicinal value. Usually the different parts of plants were made into paste, juice, powder, decoction and raw form. In most of the cases people use fresh plant as a medicine. The doses of the medicine depend upon the form in which it is used. The dose differs with different plants.

Generally, the ‘Badwai’ are very secretive about the medicinal uses of herbs and it is almost impossible to extract information, but by developing closer contacts they revealed certain vital information about the indigenous system of medicine practiced by them.

Folk traditions are not only rooted in the community but usually community supported. Traditional Birth Attendants are paid through rural communities.

Folk medicine knows over 8000 plant species, several hundred animals, minerals and metals. There are an estimated traditional formulations, knowledge of drugs, diagnostic and therapeutic techniques both physiological and mind-body based.

But unless the tribal communities and their plat based ecology, are revitalised we may lose the opportunity.  Shankar observed that outside of the tribe, respect for the vaidu tradition was low. He observed that the self confidence of vaidyas, hakims and siddhas was also low.

bild5

It seems the forces eroding these traditions are not medical inefficiency, but result from economic, cultural and political pressures.  These included reduced demand, and the irrational lexpectation that all tribal ideas must match western parameters.  Because, the indigenous Adivasi system of medicine has been handed down orally from generation to generation, there are no written records. As youth rush to the cities in hope of opportunity, traditional knowledge is not being passed on.

I find it sad that the while Western science criticised religion, especially the Western church, for disrespecting human diversity , science has unwittingly an undermined respect for traditional medicine.  Also, I have previously written of IGRMS efforts to keep medicinal traditions alive .  In  Ponicherry. Guruji P. Srinivasaraju  and a group of Adivasi have been spreading the word  of traditional medicine.

Because“Bhils believe that illness is caused by the displeasure of the spirits, they are indifferent to practitioners of modern medicine. That being said, there are a number of allopathic dispensaries that have been established by the State Government and people are encouraged to avail of the services provided by trained Medical Practitioners and auxiliary nurses.”

Traditional and Western medicine are complimentary not enemies. Most tribals know the bhopa cannot cure all disease. Many herbs are remarkable, others cure only partially. At times custom ignores the importance of hygiene for maintaining good health.  So together the availability of Western and eastern cures have space for each other.

[1] S. N. Swavedi, Sangeeta Swavedi and P. C. Patel ,Medicinal plants used by the tribal and rural people of Satna District, Madhya Pradesh or the treatment of gastrointestinal disorders and diseases,Department of Botany, Janata,, P. G. College, APG University, Rewa, Madhya Pradesh, India.

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Healing the sick Bhil: Why Tribal healing should matter to you

15 Wednesday Oct 2014

Posted by opus125 in Tribal India

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bhil, Chokhala Bhoot, james hillman, mind-body medicine. gayan

Group of Bhils vintage postcard obverse

When a Bhil tribesman falls ill he believes the deities will cure him if they are properly worshipped. They believe disease is seen as a sign of the god’s displeasure.

So the Badwa is called. The Badwa is highly respected elder and chief physician with considerable social power.

The Bhils, like India’s other Adivasi tribes, do have an access to a pharmacea that Western medicine is only beginning to understand.

After examination, if it is considered a normal disease he recites mantas and blows air into her with the leaves of a neem tree. Occasionally herbal medicines are used.

Historically

The myths and legends of the tribal people reveal that they suffered from a wide range of ailments – endemic as well as epidemic – in the past. Before the 1880s, they were left largely to their own devices when ill. In a few cases, they may have sought herbal and faith based cures from wandering mendicants – such as sadhus and pirs – who resided in forest tracts. Most healing was by relatives and neighbours using herbal and other folk remedies. Tribal specialists who used herbal remedies, cauterisation, divination and exorcism, treated the more intractable cases.
– Vibrantbhiltribe.com

Song and group dancing are inseparable in Bhil culture with even tempo, and regular rise and fall. However, songs sung with a faith to cure the sick both physically and mentally  are the exception.

Unlike the daily hawen offered by Hindus, Tribals do not worship gods, but only propitiate or appease them.  Ritual is left for the priest or tribal  Badwai,who may be open to explain the ritual of sacrifice, but will refuse to explain the mantras used.

If the sick are confined to bed, or with a long fever, a Gayan may be advised.

bhil postcard

 The Gayan

The stuff required for gayan are -cardamom, clove, dry dates, almonds and lemon, all nine in number, lobhan and incense sticks.

Beginning about eight P.M. the gayan lasts until sunset next day. Three others accompany the badwa. The badwa brings a musical instrument called Bahari which makes a sound when rubbed

One of his assistants keeps a branch of sindh, called Jhadna. it’s leaves are torn with a thick needles so it turns into a fan to blow air on the sick. The Badwa holds in his had a Kharkisya.

The badwa does the Gayan depending on the ghost the person is suffering from. The badwa plays Khakiswa and his friend beats a brass plate. If the person is possessed by a Chokhala Bhoot or Chokahli Bhotani then the badwa and his friends do not drink wine a tthe time of Gayan. But if the ghosts or hags are not Chokhala then wine is drunk.
Chokhala Bhoot or Chokahli Bhotani are good people killed prematurely by someone doing evil known as Ghayandha.

The gayan begins by invoking the earth, stars and sun. The sun is called satpudi being described in seven pages. Each is invited to a mandal for their worship prepared on the East, North and south, where is kept an urn, and items including beetle nut and cloves.
They meditate and call on Ram-Lakshman.
They meditate then call on God Shankarji and Saat Bhahuvani Mata. In song they are called on to heal the sick person.

“My God, we call you, please do come.”

Hunamanji is last called to heal the sick.  As the sick person hears the gods been invoked, they sing of Teetya Jasi , Teetya Jasi, a famous past badwa of the Gayan,  finding medicinal herbs in the jungle. Teetya Jasi has taken a pick-axevand a broken pawadi to dig herbs.

Peepli refers to the sick person.

“You have to come and blow a healing wind, you have to blow wind with fan of gold and silver to cure the sick.”

The Bhil people believe Hunamanji bought sanjeevani with Badrisillla fo the god Badrinaath in the Himalays and he will do the same to heal the sick person.

The Brahmin devta is called to “see his calendar” (horoscope) to find disease and blow wind.

“The sick person is in trouble and is crying desperately, but the Brahmin guruji comes and blows the windwith the result  that the sick person becomes cheerful.”

Next Mahadev is called. He has not come and his place lays vacant.     As expert in the arts he is called to find what the disease is and to blow wind to cure. It is believed Mahadev came and has blown the amar jhada on the sick then the sick person bursts out in laughter.

Parvati is called to give jhada of silver and gold on the edge of her sari.

Next Kandi Paladev is called to be rebuked. How can a disease enter the village when he is there to protect it?

The gayan lasts until sunset next day. Prays are offered to Kalika Mata, Narmada Mata, Beheema-Arjun and Seeta Mata.

“There is a pool midstream In the Bikaner in Dhar District, about which it is believed that it cures any disease in one takes a bath in it on seven Tuesdays.”

Why does a Bhil healing ritual matter to you?

Tribal beliefs remind me that life is not a clean idea, tragedy death are all  part of  our experience..  Where Westerners  hide from illness and death behind clip boards, tests and protocols.

Observing both tribal and Hindu belief I realize the West has become  detached from life because ignore death and illness.

Consider the Western rise of alternative psycho social healings as Western science is making great discoveries. People want meaning beyond the machine of the body. Mind body medicine is much a part of the Indian tradition, as it was once in the West, but ignored and denigrated as unscientific in the modernist world. Abstrctions seem divirced from nature.

In India every possible human experience, even those frowned on socially, are expressed in the divine realm. This polytheism of the human soul gives expression even  to what is forbidden.

Just as , research on the placebo effect and hypnosis demonstrate the incredible power of the mind to heal. the experience of Tribal healing,  allows release of illness inducing emotions

This is more than the quaint acceptance of social relativism. Tribal healing is connected to the earth, and health is more than fixing the broken parts of the human machine. Most of us want to believe we are part of something beyond our self. The Hindu philosophy, as well as Abrahamic mysticism, recognizes all creation as part of the infinite divine. In that view we have all universal possibilities as part of us, as a hologram expresses the whole.

However, those parts of our self that we deny become shadows that we seek to admit to in the lovers we pursue and the enemies we despise.

The nuance of illness is largely derived cultural meaning , so healing  is influenced by the beliefs and customs of a culture. This is especially true of the  meaning given to illness: in this case to exorcised with divine

In many traditions the answers are dormant within, and healing comes from awakening them up .
Like Jacob struggling with the angel, to heal we must wrestle with the demons within to reconnect to our ‘earthiness’.

Understanding our tribal brothers and sisters is a window to understanding the primitive earthiness of humanity within us all. From admiration, to misunderstanding, to praise and sadly angry criticism, reveal unrecognized component parts of our self we must recognize if we are to have health and peace with ourselves.

As Archetypal psychologist James Hillman explains “The power of myth, its reality, resides precisely in its power to seize and influence psychic life. The Greeks knew this so well, and so they had no depth psychology and psychopathology such as we have. They had myths. And we have no myths as such -instead, depth psychology and psychopathology. Therefore… psychology shows myths in modern dress and myths show our depth psychology in ancient dress.”

Myths are  sounding boards employed “for echoing life today or as bass chords giving resonance to the little melodies of life.”

Reference: Bhil Devlok, Adivasi LokKala Evam Boli Vikas Academy, Madhya Pradesh Sanskriti Parishad, Governmment Press, Bhopal.

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Who am I with the tribe?

23 Tuesday Sep 2014

Posted by opus125 in Indian Art, Tribal India

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Adivasi, Mashe, Tribal

Jivya Soma Mashe detail

Jivya Soma Mashe, acrylic and cowdung on canvas, detail [jivya-soma-mashe.blogspot.in]

I have always wanted to know who I truly am.With individuality so prised in the West, it may seem this is a self evident but hard to define reality.

But moving to India forced me to see myself a new n a different situation. Then moving to Bhopal I soon began to experience the tribal life of Madhya Pradesh. I also began to reflect on the Aboriginal people of Australia.  My assumptions of identity – and how that played out in todays world – simply did not match.

Consider the Warli artist. In every tribal village, the artist is known as savashini, the woman whose husband is alive.

Her painting is a fertility act. Trained by observing others from childhood she knows the riti or conventions of the art and the cosmic laws they symbolise.

warli painting

warli-art-india.blogspot.in

They have hatachi kesab, innate skill with the hands, and perform wedding ceremonies accompanying the groom on the circumambulation of the rice -hole in the ground where rice is pounded.

The actual ceremony is performed by a wedding priestesses or dhavleries who animate the paintings through song. The dhavleries are chosen because dreams have given them songs.

So few are chosen.

“The dream came – I had fever – Ganga Gauri, Mahadeva’s wife (Mahadeva is the universal father) – she told me – like that it came suddenly. Therefore I can sing the whole song.” ((Jivya Soma Mashe: A sense of self in other masters: Five contemporary folk and tribal artists of India’ edi by Jyotindra Jain.p35).

In the past urbanised India  art was of completed by a guild an the stages – a rough sketch, filled in in one colour, later another, each in stages. This may have included collective apprentices and a master in the process.Then around the city of Mathura individual artists (Gomitaka, Dasa, Shivarakshita, Dharma, Rama, Sanghadeva) were named  beginning in the Christian era.

It took until the 1970’s that the Tribal tradition was transformed by a need for individual artistiic expression.

The catalyst was brown paper and white paint. Soon artists like Jivya Soma Mashe began to paint lively field work, digging ploughing sowing .

Mashe was also the first male Wari painter which in Itself was an isolating experience. It asks of a culture what does it mean to be a Wari man.

“For a man to begin practicing what for centuries has been a woman’s art form is surprisingly unorthodox. No ordinary man could have attempted this, without fearing the loss of status among his fellow men. But then Jivya Soma Mashe is not an ordinary man. The history of his life is as unusual as his bold decision.  ”

Three years old when his mother died, his father remarried but because new wife did not want hs children.  So they were given to a farmer far from home to look after his cows. Too young to work he was poorly fed his older siblings ran away but he was to young to follow them.

Shocked he could not speak until after his 4th year. He retreated and drew signs in the and. Although he later married accepted in the community he remained an outsider.

So he began seeking something new and began to examine the field to see each stalk in the paddy field as distinct with an undulating rhythm interspersed with animals like ants drawn with great precision. A fishing net that swells and fills a fishing net while a minute human holds the other end.

His community awareness of the wholeness of unity is amtched with an awareness that difference makes the whole.Mashe’s art suggests he sees himself as different and yet part of larger unified reality.

slide0001

“A Walking and Running Circle”, Richard Long, work in progress [http://long-mashe.blogspot.in]

In the west a master is unique but primitive art somehow seems assumed to be anonymous.

We imagine a singular elitist versus a collective art form.  Perhaps we imagine a clown figure, playing bison horn or cobra hood headgear.

Jyotindra Jain reports how MP artist Jangarh Singh Shyam a Pradhan Gond  asked if he she should strip to his loin cloth for a photo – it was so expected by media that to be tribal you must be a stereotype.

Similar story is said of Aboriginal playwright who realised she was always photographed with stereotype images of poverty or struggle.

“In such a set-up the tribal artist is not an identifiable individual but a part of an amorphous passive collective. He is expected to permanently dwell in timeless tradition. When he does not even have an individual status as artist, independent of his community identity, how can he ever be a ‘master’.”

We imagine Tribals as a  timeless people  possessing an innate urge for magi. Do we imagine their women as bare breasted beauties  in mud homes and faces exuding  religiosity?

A Tribal artist may be expected to retain his ‘primitive’ tradition but is usually forced to move to an industrial environment to pursue his art.

Yet, if he develops his art in response to the world it is accused of artistic degeneration.

Tribals are not isolated and their contemporary art merges new technologies into their world view. Traditional art has never been static, but as always adapted with new technologies and materials.

But that is not what we expect.

Mashe’s art reminds me that history is complex always making the present, myths, stories give us a perspective altering the linearity and insularity.

The new idiom of the money lender blends with the charcoal maker neighbouring tribe.  To us they appear modern because they have a do not have a naturalistic feel. A bird is suggested by fleeting lines of motion, the sun as a series of revolving lines he called chakma chak  flashing light.

He symbolises somethings essence rather than its form.

Cowdung and mud on paper. Train station - Jivya Soma Mashe

Cowdung and mud on paper. Train station – Jivya Soma Mashe

A wall of smeared geru or  red clay over which paint reeds in white paste. A mountain gives way to forests from which a river flows under a bridge with a train that reveals a polyphony of  activities of the people within it and gun toting police on the platform.

Jugen Habermass suggests his art is forward moving like life becoming new, much as modernism glorifies in the present or ‘nostalgia of true presence’ ( ‘Modernity: An Unfinished Project’ The Post Modern Reader, edited by Charles Jencks (London, 1992) .

His art inspires me since I have never quiet felt I neither fit in either India”s collective family  (yet) or Australia’s individualism.

Mashe’s art heroically merges the individual and the collective.  Multiple events occur simultaneously both part of community but also alienated from it.

When brown paper released Warli art from its religious foundations “human beings were no longer miniscule against the large celestial deity” instead they “engaged in forms of activity they were predominate on the canvas.” (35, 36).

“There are human beings, birds, animals, insects, and so on. Everything moves, day and night. Life is movement” he said (Tribals Art magazine, September 2001).

Mashes art seems to me a dialogue between community and self. The very struggle I have continued in my life on two continents.

To quote Hervé Perdriolle “The Warli, adivasi, or the first people, speak to us of ancient times and evoke an ancestral culture. An in-depth study of this culture may give further insight into the cultural and religious foundations of modern India.”

I see sights as far more personal. As a natural isolationist – a lover of Australian spacious outback – India forces me to be confronted by its community of contradictions , traditions and meaning.

india forces me to discover the essence within the flux of the moment.

logo 2

Shantaram Tumbada, acryliques sur papier, 1997, 28x25cm [shantaram-tumbada-warli.blogspot.in]

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The Myth of Dumadev

20 Saturday Sep 2014

Posted by opus125 in Indian Art, Indian Festivals, Religion & Spiritualty, Tribal India

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Dokridev, Dorkradev, myth of Dumadev, Pendravandin Mai

dumadev

Mural, by artists Shri Sahadev Rana and Shri Tulsi Rana showing the sad Adivasi girl sitting on the steps surrounded by plants and animals.

In the village of Pendravand it is said there was a love so pure between a young man and a girl that it permeated all men, women, plants and animals of the region of Bastar, Chhattisgarh.
But one day something happened between them that the girl sat weeping on the steps. He people tried to cheer her without success. Even the animals of the forest tried and failed.
Finally, she jumped into a pond and died.
Then, so distraught, the boy, the girls parents and even the animlas of the jungle gave their lives to the pond.
The spot is called the Shrine of Dumadev, or ‘Deity of the drowned’.
To this day the Adivasi girl is worshipped as Dokridev or Pendravandin Mai and the boy as Dorkradev.
A votov terracotta of Bendri, the pensive she monkey, holding her face in her hands, is offered at the shrine at the time of the Pola festival.

This mural, by artists Shri Sahadev Rana and Shri Tulsi Rana showing the sad Adivasi girl sitting on the steps surrounded by plants and animals. It is part of the Mythological Trail of Manav Sangrahalaya in Bhopals IGRMS, Museum.

dumadev2 IGRMS

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The Tamarind Tree

16 Tuesday Sep 2014

Posted by opus125 in Religion & Spiritualty, Tribal India

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Lakshmana, Ramayana, tamarind tree

tamarind

A man set out on a long journey, but his wife did not want him to go. So she asked the local guru how she might hasten his return. “Make him promise” said the guru, “to sleep every night under a tamarind tree on the outward journey, and to lodge beneath a neem tree every night on the way home.” The man kept his promise. But tamarind trees exude toxic vapours (or so it is claimed) and make you feel ill; while neem trees are restorative. So the farther the man travelled, the worse he felt; and as he got nearer to home again he felt better and better.

-ColinTudge The Tree – a natural history of what they are, how they live and why they matter, 2005, Tree Rivers Press, New York.

“[sleeping under or near trees] is not that much danger, but you will feel body pain. If you sleep under a Tamarind tree, you will feel such a heavy pain. Since the villagers of south India know about this truth, they always avoid to sleep under big trees unless there is a good wind flow through-out.”

-JegaNathan.

I remember the first time I ever saw a tamarind tree. I was in Pune, visiting the Empress Gardens. With an agility of half his age, an old gardener surried onto a shed roof to throw fresh tamarind fruit into our waiting hands. It is one of my favourite Pune memories, eating fresh the fruit I had only used as a paste in cooking. Yet, I now know there are deeper about the Tamarind. 

plants_spiritual_1

The ancient In Sanskrit texts call tamarind the tintrini tree. According to legend, it is connected with Parvati’s daughter Usha. In her honour, tamarind replaces salt in the month of Chet.

In north India, tamarind is commonly called asimli, and Imli-tala (shade of the imli) and is sacred to Krishna. Considered an incarnation of Vishnu, Krishna with Radha personifies ideal love. When apart from Radha, it is said Krishna sat under a tamarind tree where he experienced her spirit permeating him. Later the 15th century saint and reformer Chaitanya, who some believe is an incarnation of Krishna, also meditated upon Krishna seated under a tamarind tree.

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The Ghosts of Night

However, the tamarind has a more haunting reputation from evening. At night, the evergreen leaflets fold, and are believed to be haunted. Perhaps this is because it’s acid content eaves the ground barren of other foliage. People avoid it at night, and believe sleeping under it causes pain.

The strong, subtle and wind resistant tree is grown in the precincts of temples to the Mother Goddess who it is believed fights evil spirits at night. People avoid walking near tamarind trees in the dark.

sitaramalk

Lakshmana’s arrows

Tamarind leaves are many of tiny and delicate leaflets, and they make a beautiful tracery against the sky. There are many myths to explain its feathery foliage. For example, the leaves were split by arrows shot by Lakshmana, according to the Hindu epic Ramayana.

Shri Rama, Lakshmana and Sita had vowed to live as sannyasin in exile from Ayodhya for fourteen years. Clothed in garments of bark, they lived on stream water, and the roots and berries of the forest.

They had vowed to sleep upon no bed but green grass and fallen leaves and under no roof save that of the sky.

One night, as they slept under a tamarind tree. a great storm arose, howling like raging demon. But under the tamarind tree, they slept peacefully, since the rain could not reach them through the thick leafy roof overhead.

A crash of thunder woke Shri Rama who realized that, although the storm raged, under the tamarind tree they were as sheltered as in a house. So Rama woke his brother concerned that they were breaking their vow not to take shelter.

However, Rama had no heart to wake beautiful Sita sleeping peacefully.

‘She is asleep; I have no heart to wake her up. what can we do, my brother? If we remain here, we shall break our vow. And if we move, we must take her with us.’

‘My brother,’ he said. ‘I know a way.’ And rising, he took his bow and with carful aim he shot his powerful arrows upwards at the thick leafy roof overhead.

The arrows of Lakshmana went one by one through each tamarind leaves shattering them into a thousand tiny leaflets and the rain poured through them so that the ascetics were no longer sheltered sheltered and fulfilled their vow.

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Dura and Ganga fight Adivasi style

13 Saturday Sep 2014

Posted by opus125 in Indian Art, Tribal India

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durga, Ganga, Manimala Chitrakar, patua painters

Durg and Ganga fight

Durga and Ganga fight 

According to Adivasi legend the conflict between  Durga and Ganga was a verbal but fond abuse between two village women.

Why is Ganga perched in Shiva’s head, Durga wants to know.

“It is Shiva himself who has folded me into his long tresses” says Ganga but Durga demands to know why Ganga qualifies for the honour.

“My water is supposed to be purifying”, Gaga replies. This only makes Durga furious to hear “That Old windbag”, muttering “So Mahadevi, the god of gods, needs her purifying touch. is it?”

“Who am I to talk of pure and impure? Why don’t you go and ask your husband?’

“Hold it” shouts Durga “you think I should bother Shiva over such trifles?”‘

“Well, bless yourself that I have not begun to sing your praises!” says Durga

Durga retorts “Killing eight new born’s, a blot on motherhood, that is what you are, don’t you question my reputation”

“The infants tat were born to me from king Shantanu were Ashta vastu and I had to kill them to lift the curse of them, otherwise which mother would do such a thing? So easily you abuse me, yet the world knows me as Triok-tarini. What about you?”

“None can equal my virtue” says Durga. “The world trembles at my power.”

“Well done, virtuous lady, married your own son? In the beginning you alone as Primordial energy permeated the world. Shiva himself was born of you. With this knowledge, how could you take him as your husband?”

“Your dumb, how would have creation happened otherwise?”  replies Durga. “Besides, I had already taken 108 births and rebirths before I married Shiva.”

…..  And so back and forth the debate continues unravelling the many myths of Durga and Ganga until each must admit the power and virtue of each other that strikes the chord of friendship.

Here the myth is painted and sung by the Patua painters of Bengal. The artists Manimala Chitrakar and Shri Gurupad Chitrakar are from the Midrapur region of Bengal. The art work is painted on a sora, or terracotta plate.

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The first Patua painter

09 Tuesday Sep 2014

Posted by opus125 in Indian Art, Religion & Spiritualty, Tribal India

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Midnapur, patua painting, Smt. Manimala Chitrakar, West Bengal

Patua Painting Myths

Patua Painting Myths

In the Midnapur region of West Bengal it iis said that the primordial god, Maranf-Burung, summoned the crab, the tortoise and snake from the netherworld.
He asked them to restore earth to the surface of the water and put them to work.
Then he created first two cows Ain gaye and Bain gaye. The cows created two birds from their saliva who laid eggs from which came the first man and woman, Pichu Haram and Pichu Burhi.
Pichu Haram and Pichu Burhi had seven sons and seven daughters who married each other against the concerns of their parents. So feeling guilty and ashamed the parents departed the world.
The oldest son, Jadab Guru painted his parents portraits and performed Chokkhudan, the ritual of making eyes on the faces of a painting, or offering of the eyes.
Thus the first Patua painter was born and the tradition of Patua painting began.
Here the artist Smt. Manimala Chitraker paints two myths on either side of a 15 foot stone slab.

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Could Holika Dahan damage the environment?

08 Monday Sep 2014

Posted by opus125 in Indian Festivals, Tribal India

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Holika Dahan, kapokk tree, Rajasthan, semal tree

Holika Dahan-II (Burning of Holika) By: Sonali De

Holika Dahan-II (Burning of Holika)
By: Sonali De

At a bus stop across from the Nashik shrine Sai Baba of Shirdi, a fire tree reminded me of Australia. The deciduous Red Silk Silk cotton tree, bombax ceiba, is commonly called Semal, or the Indian Kapok tree, or shalmali in Sanskrit.  Mentioned in the Mahabharata  mixed into old myths and traditions, it is also found in Africa.

In Ayurveda it is admired for its healing properties, and for the strength and elasticity of its wood, the Semal is essential for the ecology and Tribal culture.  Called Holi-Danda by tribals, it’ is the thorny tree of Yama, and is burned as Wicked aunt Holika during Holika-dahan in numbers that threaten the trees existence in Rajasthan

In Ayurveda almost every part of the plant is used.

However, in medicine mostly the roots and flowers are used as a stimulant, astringent, haemostatic, aphrodisiac, antidiarrheal, cardiotonic, emetic demulcent, anti-dysenteric, alterative, antipyretic, anti-inflammatory, antibacterial, antiviral, analgesic, hepato-protective, antioxidant, and hypoglycaemic.

It is also used in agro-forestry for livestock feed. The wood is strong, elastic and durable for ship building. The Kathodi tribe of Rajasthan uses wood for musical instruments such as the Dholak and Tambura. The Bhil use it to make kitchen spoons.

The edible oil is also a substitute for cottonseed for soap making and illumination. The fibres isolated from the fruits are used to make padded surgical dressings.

In myth bombax ceiba is the tree of the infernal imposition.

With its thorny appearance (kantakdruma), it is the tree of Yama , or Yamadruma. It is believed if the person dreams it, he will become ill and will soon die. In the Dungarpur district bombax ceiba  is considered inauspicious because the hooting owl nest in it. The Bhil of Udaipur believe the silk cotton from its fruit is not to be used in bedding because its plumed seeds are said to cause paralysis.

Also the ancient Brahamavaivarta Purana prohibits using it to clean teeth.

From Vedic times it was the Nakshatra tree of people in Jvestha constellation. It has been considered the home of the yakshis and was worshipped by women for the gift of children. For the semilia clan of the Bhil in Rajasthan it is a totem tree. The Garasia tribe in Bosa village near Sirobi district Rajasthan protect a tree in a sacred grove called Maad Bavasi and it is praised in song. They identify the tree with themselves.

Holika Dahann

Holika Dahann

 

Religious ritual and overuse

However, in Rajasthan the tree is under threat because of overuse, especially in tribal religious tradition.
The Kopak tree is popular among Tribals ritual, especially in Holika-dahan has caused a loss of trees loss of trees in Udaipur and Rajasthan.
Many know that during holika –dahan the flowers to develop eco-friendly colour. How ever in north India, especially Rajasthan , Madhya Pradesh, and Uttar Pradesh, there is a tradition – believed essential – of burning the tree.
The ritual of burning is considered as virtuous Prahlad . Poles are planted a month before the festival and an effigy of Prahlad and Holika are tied over the prepared Holi.
The whole silk cotton tree or a large branch is tied with sacred thread, coconut or vermillion and dry grass and fixed to the ground on Magha Purnima (the full moon day preceding the month of Holika-dahan) after the cleansing and worshipping of the land.
Among the Bhils, before cutting a pole, a coconut is tied on a bough. Liquor is trickled and vermillion applied. The tree is cut to have head and two arms and the pole is removed from the burning pile. The traditional two armed Holi is still prepared and planted.
In the Bhil villages of the Banswara district bamboo is also painted with red cloth tied to it representing Prahlad whereas the Bombax ceiba tree considered is the wicked aunt Holika. Amongst the Kathodi tribes five poles of five different species.
Whatever the tradition the focal point is the fall and destruction of the semal tree.

Need for sustainable use

A community in Manipur conserve it and Madhya Pradesh and Chhattisgarh have conservation strategies to ensure the plant collected for medicine. However, those determined to perform the ritual have used songs to warn of upcoming forest guards.
In Udaipur city 1500-2000 trees were cut in 2007. The gravity of the situation listed 2351 villages in Udaipur district with an average 2300 young semal trees or twigs sacrificed.
Tree population has declined to the extent that other trees have been sold to a younger customer largely ignorant of the correct species.
The loss of the Kopak tree is damaging the environment, ecosystem and potentially loss of a very useful medicine and I wonder if the loss of the tree could have profound social implications. The Garasia tribe identify the tree with themselves in song. The moon and clouds are sung as father and mother, the village chief and his wife, brother and sister as the tree is praised as a relative.
Sadly, this same song is sung to warn the tree cutters of approaching forestry workers. As the Nakshatra tree of people in Jvestha constellation, a plantation of combex ceiba is something people expect. But if the tree is to continue to be honoured, then communities must be involved with in situ and ex situ conservation of the semal tree to preserve both the environment and this ancient tradition for future generations.

For further information:

Vartika Jain, S. K. Vernia, S. S.  Katewa,  Myths, traditions and fate of the multipurpose Combax ceiba L. – An appraisal  in the 2009 Indian Journal of Traditional Knowledge Vol 8(4), Oct 2009, pp636-644

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Split Ply thread for the ships of the desert

15 Tuesday Jul 2014

Posted by opus125 in India, Tribal India

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camel girth, Indian Textiles, John Gillow, split ply camel girth

Working a split-ply Camel girth thread

The simplest textile in India is found where the camel is the ship of the desert. The camel is essential in the Thar desert of Rajasthan and strong ply-split camel girths are needed for camels to plough, draw well water, pull carts or simply ride through dry sand.

Specially prepared goat hair, or cotton cord, are made into two ply yarn usually black or white, folding it into four and twisting it into a four ply yarn.

There is also a method a twisting of half black half white yarn. Two white two-ply thread is twisted with two two-ply black into a tight   four ply. Yarns are soaked in water then sun dried to un-kink, open and thicken the yarn, setting the overtwist.

Once dried they can be slipped into a spindle.

John Gillow in his masterful Indian Textiles (p 83, 84), describes Ishwar Singh Bhatti of Jaisalmar binding 52 strands, who claimed any more is too difficult to work with.

He splits open the chord with the eye end of large wooden needle, pulled back a quarter turn and the next thread is threaded through the eye and pulled back through the first strand. The process continues down the row with each chord reaching accross the fabric in a diagonal course ending at the selvedge.

Whether a chord splits or is split by an opposite diagonal decides the pattern.

The technique uses four basic patterns  either monochrome (usually black) black and white diagonal checks. The half while half black four ply yarn can be used to make intriguing designs, where the chord is untwisted in the chord splitting  process, so that two plys of the same colour are on the surface. A diagonally interlaced layer of one colour on top of another coloured diagonally interlaced beneath.

Then the twist can be restored to the chord and the colours counter changed and free floating layers  linked together.

split-ply Camel girth thread

split-ply Camel girth thread

Reference: Thanks should be given to John Gillow for his valuable detailing the split-ply process in Indian Textiles, 2008 Thames & Hudson, London.

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