South Asia’s largest biennial gathering of Tribals: Conferring sacredness upon their ancestors during the Sammakka Saralamma Jatara – Telangana

ARRIVING IN DUSTY, sun-scorched Medaram in Telangana at the end of a six- hour ride on a special state bus service from Hyderabad, you are acutely aware of entering a vast non-dimensional space. As you walk the raucous grounds hosting the Sammakka Saralamma Jatara, woodsmoke, dirt and warbled music swirling all around you, the broad strokes of … Read more

Ethnomedicine: Discoveries through follow-up research of folk or ethnomedical amounting to 74 per currently in use worldwide – Jharkhand & Kerala

How Adivasis of one Jharkhand village are trying to preserve ethnomedicine With ‘civilisation’ and ‘modernity’ having made inroads into India’s tribal areas, its heritage of traditional tribal systems of medicine is increasingly under threat […] “‘Ethnomedicine’, as defined by George Foster and Barbara Anderson in their 1978 essay Medical Anthropology, is the totality of health, … Read more

Tip | Santal cultural heritage: Audio and video gallery by Daricha Foundation – West Bengal

[…] Conceived by Ratnaboli Bose, Project Daricha traces the roots of performing arts like Jhumur and Raibneshe, crafts like kantha and lac dolls, art forms like alpona and patachitra and more. Bose was working with ITC Sangeet Research Academy when she realised there was very little about the traditional art, craft and music of Bengal and … Read more

Chenchu music: “Kinnera” stringed music instrument – Telangana

The instrument uses bamboo for the neck, dried and hollowed gourds for resonators, human hair or animal nerves for strings, and pangolin scales for frets which are fixed using honey-wax. According to Mr. Rao, visiting faculty at the Centre for Dalit and Adivasi Studies at the UoH, Chenchus lost the instrument half a century ago … Read more

Tribal customs, homes and ornaments in South India: Videos and photographs

The Halakki people are scattered across several Taluks of Uttara Kannada district namely Karwar, Ankola, Kumta, Gokarna and Honnavar. Despite exposure to people from the world over some characteristics of their traditional ways are still evident. Contact: +91-9741216491youmailvicky@gmail.comhttps://www.facebook.com/vicky.lakshmanan