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The Hindu
7 days ago
- Lifestyle
- The Hindu
Toda community members in the Nilgiris sensitised to the need to preserve their culture
More than 20 members of the indigenous Toda community took part in a project aimed at the 'Revitalisation of the Toda language in prose, song and cultural ecology.' As part of the initiative, the members were given an overview of their traditional dress and rituals and how over time, many techniques are being lost. Speaking at the event, held with the involvement of the Adi Dravidar and Tribal Welfare Department of Tamil Nadu's Tholkudi scheme, Dr. Tarun Chhabra, founder of the Nilgiris Kuttawady Center, said that the scheme by the government was launched to preserve the culture and tradition of indigenous communities from across Tamil Nadu. 'There are four major distinguishing features that characterise each community, their physical characteristics, their language, dress and culture,' he said, emphasising the importance of preserving the traditional Toda language. Mr. Chhabra, who is the author of the book, 'The Toda Landscape : Explorations in Cultural Ecology,' is an eminent expert on the Toda community, and spoke of the need for the community to take pride in their language. 'I also see that Todas are now adopting non-Toda second names to fit in with the mainstream. Each of you is named after a mountain, peak, temple, stream or other facet that comprises Toda life. It is important that the community takes pride in its culture, traditions and its languages,' he said. He then made a presentation about Toda dress and their rituals and spoke of the different embroidery techniques used in traditional Toda garments such as embroidered cloaks, known as poothkull(zh)y and kefehnaarr in the Toda tongue. The workshop, which will give the Todas a training course on their traditional embroidery techniques, was also used as a tool to speak about quickly disappearing Toda practices such as body-tattooing. Also present at the event was Nilgiris Collector, Lakshmi Bhavya Tanneeru. Speaking at the event, the Collector told members of the community that it was imperative that their culture and traditions were passed down to future generations. 'Despite the huge changes that are transpiring, the Todas are an ever-present entity in the Nilgiris,' said Ms. Tanneeru, adding that it was the responsibility of the community to help in its preservation. She appealed to the community to bring their children to future workshops so that they too would learn about their culture and traditions.
Time of India
15-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Time of India
Stalin inaugurates flower show in Ooty
Udhagamandalam: Chief minister M K Stalin on Thursday inaugurated the 127th edition of annual flower show and the renovated Fern House at the govt botanical garden in Ooty. Established in 1894, the Fern House was renovated at a cost of Rs24.6 lakh. Stalin visited all the floral structures, mostly made of roses, carnations and chrysanthemum, across the garden. Themed around royal, the highlight of the show is the replica of a royal castle that is 25ft tall and 75ft long feet long, and made of two lakh roses and carnation flowers. Other attractions include floral structures of a divine swan, an elephant, a throne and Kallanai, among others. At least 40,000 flower pots with various varieties of bloom are on display. The flower show will conclude on May 25. Stalin visited all the stalls put up by various govt departments and interacted with the people incharge of them. He also witnessed tribal dances by Todas, Kotas and Badagas that were part of the inaugural function. "The flower show is spectacular and a treat to the eyes and the mind," said Kumarakurubaran, of Salem. Ahamed Yusuf, another visitor from Calicut in Kerala, said the show was worth a visit. by Taboola by Taboola Sponsored Links Sponsored Links Promoted Links Promoted Links You May Like Book Your Daily Profit By 11 AM With This Superclass By Mr. Bala TradeWise Learn More Undo Ministers M R K Panneerselvam and M P Saminathan, TN chief whip K Ramachandran, Nilgiris MP A Raja and Nilgiris collector Lakshmi Bhavya Tanneeru were present at the event. Earlier, during a road show from Thamizhagam to the govt botanical garden, Stalin accepted greetings from the DMK party cadres, workers and the public.
New Indian Express
03-05-2025
- General
- New Indian Express
The buffalo roams our mythscape
Says Asko Parpola, 'Early Harappan cultures started moving toward the east and south in about 3,000 BCE. That the Harappan water-buffalo cult had reached peninsular India by the late Harappan or Chalcolithic times is suggested by the large bronze sculpture of a water buffalo discovered in 1974 at Daimabad in Maharashtra. Throughout south India, village goddesses have been worshipped through water buffalo sacrifices.' The Vindhyas still have buffalo-totem worshippers like the Marias and Gonds, pastoral herders who wear buffalo horns on festive occasions and were gradually pushed into the forest by food-producers, probably goddess-worshipping Dravidians. The Marias also worship Danteshvari Devi—they worship both the victorious goddess and the defeated deity. Mysuru, formerly Mahisha-ur, is named after Mahisha. A huge statue of a moustachioed figure of Mahisha holding a sword and a snake stands at the foot of the Chamundeshwari Hill, at the top of which stands the temple of Durga as Chamundi. There is a sub-caste called Mahishi in Karnataka, whose followers still worship the buffalo and goddess Chamundi. Less than 100 km from Mysuru are the Nilgiri Hills, home to the pastoral buffalo-worshipping Toda tribe, whose origins are shrouded in mystery. The vegetarian Todas venerate the buffalo, whose horns adorn their temples. So sacred are buffaloes to them that no other nearby tribe was allowed to own any. The cairns of the Nilgiris, deserted by the Todas, are called moriarumane or house of the Morias (Marias). Mahishamati, south of river Godavari where the Gonds live, is also named after Mahisha. Founded by King Mahishmat (meaning rich in buffaloes), the region was ruled by Nila of Dakshinapatha, whose subjects were called Mahishakas. In Maharashtra, the demon Mahsoba (Mahisha+baa or father), killed by Parvati, is venerated by some castes. Both Mahishamati and Mahsoba are situated in the Vindhya region. The Van Gujjars are a vegetarian Muslim tribe who never eat their buffaloes or sell them for slaughter. Buffalo milk is their main source of income and a staple food. Caring for the water buffaloes is the axis around which the tribe's world revolves. Bhils worship the buffalo as Bhainsaasur, who lives in the agricultural fields. It's projected that the gentle buffalo god-king of the indigenous tribes was demonised by the food-producers who worshipped the mother goddess. The two came into conflict over land. The Karnataka communities who worship the buffalo were for centuries compelled by landlords to kill the buffalo and drink its blood as revenge-punishment, till the high court stopped the practice. Before killing, the Devi drank wine. She is described as anarya, or non-Aryan, indicated by her appetite for wine and blood. Durga was a non-Vedic goddess of a non-Vedic people. She is aligned to Kali and the Matrikas, who are wild, bloodthirsty and fierce. She is a warrior who excels in battle. Mother goddess worship is popular in Dravidian cultures, whereas Vedic gods were mostly male. Durga and Mahisha were deities of agricultural and pastoral peoples. Their mythic fight probably signified that of their followers. (Views are personal) Nanditha Krishna Historian, environmentalist and writer based in Chennai
The Hindu
26-04-2025
- General
- The Hindu
Toda tribe of The Nilgiris rethatch their sacred temple with a rare grass
Recently, members of the Toda tribe, the oldest and indigenous tribes of The Nilgiris, gathered at Melgaa(r)sh, an ancient Toda hamlet above the Ooty Botanical Garden for a sacred ritual. The Manajakkal Mund, also called the Garden Mund in recent times, is the principal hamlet of the patriclan. The men, dressed in the ceremonial embroidered shawls, bundled swamp grass called avful, endemic to the wetlands of The Nilgiris and found nowhere else on the planet. 'A re-thatching ceremony of a Toda temple which happens every 15 years is in progress,' says Tarun Chhabra, a retired dentist and an expert on the indigenous Toda culture and local ecology. He is also the author of The Toda Landscape: Explorations in Cultural Ecology. Todas live on the highest reaches in hamlets called munds made of bamboo-vaulted homes shaped like a rainbow and patched with mud and straw, believed to tackle the wind velocity at high altitudes. While the Todas have largely shifted from these traditional homes to modern concrete buildings, the temples are still built with cane, bamboo and avful. Once common in swamps in the main Toda heartland of the Wenlock Downs, this grass has nearly disappeared from the wet grasslands of the mountains. Thin bamboo reeds called theff are bent together in bunches, while still green, to give the temple the typical barrel-vaulted shape. These are fastened with peeled rattan cane. This bamboo reed, seen in many shola pockets of the Nilgiris, is now restricted to some dense jungles on the south-west slopes. Similarly, rattan cane, plentiful on the Nilgiri slopes and some sholas, has virtually disappeared. Todas go into the dense rain forests on the slopes beyond the western catchment and Mukurthi to gather rattan cane. 'When they decide to rebuild a dairy-temple, there will be a minimum of three ceremonies at different stages. When they bend theff and tie it in bunches, it is known as 'kwehll (zh) g-vheell- pattyt' ceremony where only Toda communities take part, especially a particular clan, in this case the Melgaa(r)sh. They understood that the thin theff bamboo has high tensile strength and hence bent it to give the structure its characteristic barrel-vaulted shape. There is also 'waadr-ofst' ceremony where they put horizontal bamboos. And during 'poll(zh)y-veihhst' thatching ceremony, they use the avful to thatch the dairy temples. These structures can last for decades provided the occupant has lit the fire within the building regularly, thus exposing it to smoke,' explains Tarun who is also the founder of Toda Nalavaazhvu Sangam that works with preserving the culture and welfare of the Todas. The front facade of the temple is thatched in an intricate way, a job that is reserved for elderly men of the clan. Before starting this, they make 'toott', a ring-like structure around which they thatch the grass and braid it with stripped cane. This is called 'podhaarr-thittyt' and is done a few days earlier. 'It's an an important occasion, a prelude to the main ceremony,' explains Tarun. Once Toda men start thatching from either sides, they will carry on singing songs till they meet at the the top of the half moon structure. 'In certain places where the focus of divinity is going to be placed, there will be special kind of cross patterns which I have hypothesised as what evolved into the embroidery and many other things,' says Tarun who, along with Ramneek Singh, has also established the Edhkwehlynawd Botanical Refuge (EBR) to further emphasise on conservation and ecological restoration, inspired by traditional Toda knowledge. After thatching, they also put a pointed 'kwakhzh-vheell (zh)' on the 'toott' and clamp it. Once the priest brings a milk churning stick and a bamboo vessel, prayers begin. The shola forests and the grasslands are intertwined with the lives of Todas as they believe that several peaks, slopes, shola thickets, trees, rivers, swamps, paths, streams and caves are sacred. They sing 'konn-ezht', sacred couplets in an impromptu oral poetry form, assemble in a circle and have 'pochazhky' balls made with mashed little millet with a dollop of ghee in the middle that is served on 'kawkwehdd' leaf. The Toda tradition easily dates back to 4000 years, says Tarun as he elaborates on Avful. 'When a study was initiated on this grass, flowering specimens were sent to an expert in the Royal Botanic Gardens at Kew for necessary identification. Todas, on the other hand, can readily distinguish specimens from other similar-looking species even at a distance . Elders can identify and name close to 400 floral species in the hinterland. In the olden days, where Todas lived, avful flourished on the west side of the wetlands. When the dams came in, the wetlands got flooded, and eucalyptus, pine trees, plantations, sprung up on the sides,' he says, adding, 'Then everything changed.'
Khaleej Times
24-04-2025
- Khaleej Times
From UAE to India: Get a glimpse into the vanishing world of the Todas
At the dawn of time, there was man — and buffalo. The two species forged an everlasting bond that survives even today in the jewel-toned Nilgiris in South India. The Todas, the first indigenous settlers in the Nilgiris (among the highest mountains in the Western Ghats chain), live companionably with these semi-wild bovines who hold iconic status in their community. The mighty horns of these Asiatic water buffaloes glint in the sun-soaked grasslands and gentle rolling hills as they graze. 'Without our buffaloes, we are nothing,' says our Toda guide, P. Thorthey Gooden, who takes us around Thorri village, an hour's drive from our idyllic hotel, Willow Hill in Ooty, located on a serene leafy hillock. The Todas, at one time, were pastoralists, following their buffaloes as they grazed in search of new and more succulent grasslands. They are said to have lived under the vast blue skies of the Nilgiris for anything from 1,500 to 4,000 years. However, the winds of change are wafting across the settlements of these unique tribals and their environment that they had so carefully nurtured for centuries. Today, the Todas number around 1,500. 'Our vast grasslands have shrunk,' says Thorthey, elbowed out by pine and eucalyptus forests and luxuriant tea estates that cover the hills like a green checkerboard quilt. 'My grandfather used to say that the world had become dark,' rues Thorthey. At one time, the tribals could gaze across the glistening green grasslands and shola (indigenous forest of stunted evergreen trees) under the canopy of a cloudless sky and keep a watch over their buffalo herds. 'Today, our people live in 125 hamlets in the Nilgiris and there are 14 clans.' Way back in time, the Todas were as much a part of the landscape as the mountains, clad in their signature white wrap-arounds with a richly embroidered shawl thrown over their shoulders. The older women would dress their hair in long ringlets that trailed over the shoulders and onto the colourful shawls embellished with motifs from nature and their mythological stories, spending long hours embroidering their shawls. And they are as comfortable in the forest as by a stream or even in the gentle patter of rain, which falls like confetti. While the village that we explored had low-slung brick-and-mortar homes, a beehive-shaped temple with a low entrance recalled their ancient dwellings. Even today, a love for nature, 'whether a blade of grass, flower, a mountain, river…is grafted into our DNA', says Thorthey. Indeed, their deities live in the mountains, and the people chant their name in prayer, and their stories and songs reflect their deep understanding of the world and the wisdom of the ages. By sniffing the fragrance of a flower in their munds (settlements), they can tell when the monsoons will arrive and how long the spell would last. The Thorri hilltop village commands a view of the smooth-as-silk undulating Wenlock Downs and in the distance, are low hills where trails flutter down like ribbons. We stroll into the village and young Toda girls in ankle-length dresses and cardigans pose shyly for our cameras; their faces glow with an inner serenity. It is a village of about 20 families and about a hundred people, trying to adapt to a modern world. Many of the men have jobs in Ooty while the women embroider traditional shawls, runners, bags, and purses, which are retailed to the outside world. 'We love living amidst nature,' says Thorthey. His forefathers followed their buffaloes and lived off the forest. Time was never of the essence nor was money. As the sun rose, they would wake up, milk their buffaloes, set them loose to graze, and herd them into a pen at night. 'In the past, the monsoons were so heavy, our buffaloes that would be left outside would have fungi growing on their horns. But not any longer,' he says. The rains are unpredictable and scanty. His ancestors would live off the forest, feasting on berries and plants that they picked in the fertile Nilgiri jungles as well as buffalo milk, butter milk and ghee. 'The Todas are vegetarians even today, which distinguishes them from other tribes who were generally hunter-gatherers,' says Ashwin PK, who owns and runs a professional advertising company in Bengaluru and is also working on a portrait series, A visual memoir of a bygone era. 'My passion is to showcase tribal cultures that are fast vanishing,' he says. Ashwin's portraits focus on older community members whose eyes are pools of ancient wisdom and faces resembling a collage of tobacco leaves. Considering the fact that till not too long ago, a kind of barter economy existed, the world of the Todas is a happy melding of tradition and modernity. So much so, the long-horned mountain water buffalo remains central to their religion and culture, and every task associated with them is wrapped in ritual and an aura of magic. The herds are divided into domestic and temple buffaloes. Men who look after temple buffaloes double as priests and have to observe ritual purity. The dairy-man priest who looks after the half-barrel style temples, aglow with a single lamp, remains a priest for a minimum of two months. He cannot go home during the time, but may walk in the grasslands and forests and must never step on plastic. He has to have a ritualistic purifying bath in a stream whose water he must sip from a leaf nine times. The Todas invaded our dreams on our last night at our nine-room boutique retreat, Willow Hill. When we woke up at the crack of dawn, the blue smudge of the Nilgiris was visible in the distance. Beyond the French windows, unspooled lush flower-embroidered lawns bordered by ancient trees. We imagined the song of the Todas wafting on the wind like a bird in flight, resonating with the secrets of the past and a way of life untouched by time.
