Let’s Rewind To Our History Classes
When was the last time you read or talked about the “Tribal People”? We have definitely studied about these people in our history classes but never wanted to know about them, where do they come from or how is there lifestyle and way of earning. Today we will sneak peak into two such tribes, “GONDS and BHILS”.
Gonds are the people who belong to India’s Deccan Plateau and also call themselves ‘Hill people’.They live all over central India, specially in the hilly region of Maharashtra and Orissa. They belong to Dravidian family and is related to Tamil and Kannada, many Gonds also speak Hindi, Marathi, or Telegu. Most of them today are mainly farmers and some Gond communities have risen to the status of landowners and landless laborers. Gonds grow tobacco for smoking and one would be surprised to know that they make the very liquior from the Mahua Tree (associated with the name of Liquior MAHOU) for the celebration.
Apart from that they have a rich art and craft tradition which includes pottery, basket making, body tattooing and floor painting. They paint design on their house walls with red and black colour. Their painting reflect the close relationship of human’s closeness with the nature. It is drawn out of the lines, as line conveys sense of movement.
Bhil is derived from the word bil or vil which means ‘BOW’ . Bhil tribes is also said to mentioned in the Epic “Ramyana”, it is believed that bhil women offered fruit ber to Lord Ram when he was in the jungle for Vanvas. They are mostly from Rajasthan and are divided into two groups central or pure bhils. Their religious practices differ from place to place. Their main source of Income is Agriculture, Animal Husbandry and Poultry Farming. Mostly they are engaged with agricultural activity but sell products at haats and markets.
They are also good at art work, Bhil folk decorated their wall with clay of their village homes and would paint with the neem stick, twigs and natural dyes. Natural use of product like turmeric, flour, vegetables , oil and leaves were used to create excellent colours. When looking to Bhil painting, dots are not random they create art what artist wish to depicts. Bhil art is unique and has its own signature style.
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