World India Orissa Jeypore

Break From the Law

Visit to Gadaba Tribal Homestead & Dhuruba Tribal Market in Orissa Apr 18, 2009

It is around 10:30 in the evening. I'm writing this entry by headlamp from inside my tent. My dry tent, I should add, as we experienced a torrential rainstorm which hit us as we were putting up our tents earlier tonight. The rains thankfully came and went, so hopefully we will not experience any additional heavy rainfalls tonight.

This morning - day 2 of our tour of Orissa's adivasi areas - we visited the homestead of a Gadaba tribal family. The home appeared not unlike others I have seen in rural parts of Africa, Asia and Latin America. Interestingly, the elderly matron of the homestead wore a thick metal bracelet around her neck. Our Orissa guide explained to us that this neck bracelet has been worn for centuries here for security purposes by women in these parts. Bengal tigers and leopards typically kill their prey - which include humans from time to time - by attacking them in the neck. The neck piece, in addition to serving an ornamental purpose, also serves to provide some physical protection from the jaws of feline predators.

As we walked away from the Gadaba homestead, several women from another adivasi tribe, the Bonda - clad in their traditional regalia - materialized seemingly out of thin air to become photographic subjects for our group. Obviously our Orissa guide had arranged for the costumed ladies to appear for us. While I am by no means a fan of this type of staged tourism, I suppose it somewhat incentivizes some of the indigenous peoples to retain aspects of their traditional culture, even if only for the sake of tourist dollars. Maybe it’s a win-win situation for all parties, though I don’t have an answer to this question, one better answered by the anthropologists.

After our visit to the Gadaba tribe, we drove for several hours to a village market of the Dhuraba tribe. This was not a market for tourists, and the locals at the market simply went about their business of buying and selling produce and wares, virtually oblivious to our presence. The local women - who looked more Burmese than Indian in origin - wore beautifully colored outfits, and I bought various foodstuffs from photogenic vendors. After making my purchases, I would smile, motion to ask if I could take a picture, and then show them the photograph I had just taken. How I wish I had a Polaroid instant camera so I could give them a photo as well! I suspect many of these villagers have no photographs of themselves or their family members, so this would certainly be a nice gesture. Nevertheless, I would hardly describe these villagers as camera shy.

After taking leave of the local market, today's unexpected highlight occurred as we drove through a local village this afternoon. In the street in front of us, a group of girls from the village, colorfully dressed in traditional costumes, sang and danced to the music of a 3-person male band. In the middle of the girls stood a middle-aged male villager whose role appeared akin to that of a conductor of an orchestra, directing the girls in their song and dance moves. I found this a fascinating and beautiful spectacle to witness. Our guide explained that these types of dances are often done in the period immediately subsequent to the harvest and are done to give the local village men a chance to see the young women of the village “in action”, so to speak.

These unexpected observations and encounters are my favorite part of travel. Here in the rural back roads of Orissa, we are not trying to see any particular world-renowned sight. Rather, we are trying to get a sense as to how these traditional adivasi peoples live while simultaneously interacting with their rapidly modernizing world.

We eventually continued our drive, making our way back through Jeypore and to the countryside outside of town. Here we stopped to set up camp for the evening. As we began to set up our tents, an ominous wind blew, dark clouds moved in and within minutes, the skies opened up with a vengeance. I had just finished setting up my tent when the torrential rains started to fall, but continued to help some of the others with their tents in the pelting rain. Thankfully, while I did not stay dry, the insides of my tent did.

Tomorrow we are off to check out more adivasi areas, in particular the village of the group who is reputed to be the oldest Dravidian tribe here in Orissa.