Badagas of the Blue Mountains

On the unique BADAGA community of the Nilgiris in Southern India…their origin, language, culture and customs !!

Website of Wing commander Bellie Jayaprakash that is regularly updated and more info added

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Sunrise seen from the author’s home ‘Dhoddi’in Hubbathalai Village

Indu K Mallah, a well known Badaga writer who has many publications [ including a novel] to her credit, writes about :

“ The Origin of the Badagas “

The Badagas are one of the important indigenous peoples, and the largest single community in the Nilgiri Hills which nestle at a point where the rugged beauty of the Eastern Ghats merge with the wooded verdancy of the Western Ghats, in Tamilnadu. Since the Badagas have no script, their history has been documented in other languages (mostly English) by non-Badaga historians and anthropologists (mostly westerners). Since the Nilgiris formed part of the Mysore state domains till 1799, the question of the migrations of the Badagas to the Nilgiris, does not arise.

The Badagas are a unique community living mainly in the Nilgiris District in Tamil nadu in South India. They are also the single largest community of the Nilgiris. Though classified backward, a significant factor is the high status of their women……….says Indu K Malla in her article ” The myth of Badaga origin & migration “

Indu K Mallah at her home in Ooty

It is said that during the reign of Tipu Sultan, seven brothers and their sister were living in a village called Badagahalli on the Talaimalai Hills near Mysore. One evening as the sister, who was a ravishing beauty, was busy making preparations for the milking of the cows as usual, one of the calves broke loose from the tree to which she had tied it . Not finding anything handy with which to tie it again, she uncoiled her long, luxuriant hair and held the calf back with it, while her brother milked the cow.

Legend has it that Tipu Sultan was riding in the vicinity and was witness to this sight. He was captivated by the sister and wanted to marry her. The brothers, who were staunch Hindus, disguised themselves and their sister, and fled by night to the Nilgiris. Legend has it too, that when they reached River Moyar, which is the northernmost limit of the Nilgiri District, their pursuers started to close in on them. The family is said to have placed a ‘Shivalingam’ on the ground, and prayed before it. The river Moyar is then said to have parted, and the refugees to have crossed over, while their pursuers were drowned by the closing waters.

The distinctive dress of the Badaga women is said to be the disguise adopted by them in flight, and the tattooing on their fore-heads and fore-arms, a measure taken to make them unattractive.

Legend also has it that in their hurry, they forget to pickup a baby asleep in a cradle, and even today, as a reminder of that lapse, the more orthodox Badagas will not use a cradle for a baby. The brothers are said to have settled down near the present village of Bethelhada. After a short stay there, they separated and dispersed in different directions. The oldest brother told one of his younger brothers to follow a deer and build a village where it stopped. The younger brother followed his instructions and settled down in Kinnakorai, where the deer stopped. Another brother settled down in Koderi, yet another in Hubbathalai. These brothers where the founders of the Porangad division of the Badagas.

Read all about SEEME/SEMAI divisions and hattis here ->>>

badaga hattis

or here ->>>

Badaga Hattis & the SEEME they belong to

The establishing of three other ‘semais’ or divisions have interesting histories behind them. It is said that as one group of Badagas or Gowdas reached the Nilgiris, they took shelter in a forest and in their hurry to leave, left a baby behind, which crawled into a cave. A Toda who happened to pass by glimpsed the baby, and enticed it to came out, but it would not. He then went and brought his own child and sprinkled some roasted amaranth grains in front of it. As the Toda child started picking the grains, the Gowda baby joined him, and the Toda father brought him up and it is said that he is the founder of the ‘Thothanad’ division of the Badagas.

According to another account, two Gowda brothers arrived from Mysore and reached Nunthala. They were very hungry. The younger brother is said to have shot a pigeon, and to have roasted and eaten it, while the elder brother abstained. It is said that the vegetarian brother is the ‘Hethappa’, or ancestor of the Kundah Division of the Badagas, while the non-vegetarian brother, the founder of the Mekunad Division of the Badagas.

Badaga Henno, Sathiyada Manno
(Badaga Woman or Earth Mother)

The Badagas are a unique community living mainly in the Nilgiris District in Tamil nadu in South India. They are also the single largest community of the Nilgiris. Though classified backward, a significant factor is the high status of their women.

The title is only a rough translation of Badaga woman-hood, for there is no exact English translation for Sathiya – the nearest words are blessed or divine. (‘Mannu’ means soil). The Badaga woman is the epitome of ‘Shakthi’, and many of their festivals, legends, ballads and folk – tales are centred around women. In fact, the chief festival of the Badagas, Hethai Habba, is centred around ‘Hethai’, a woman imbued with divine powers, and who was subsequently deified. It is significant that though the Badagas are a patriarchal society, their women are held in high esteem. The high status of Badaga women perhaps derives from three main factors – the absence of a dowry – system, divorce by mutual consent, and widow-re-marriage. There is no stigma attached to widows; in fact they are part of the mainstream community, and in the fore – front of auspicious functions like engagement and wedding coremonies. Also, there is the practice of ‘hengava nadathodu” – a tradition of giving a daughter / sister material, emotional and moral support throughout her life.

Traditional Badaga women are very hardworking, and are the mainstay of the family and the community. They till the soil, harvest the produce, collect fire – wood and water, and tend the cows, in addition to looking after their families. Since the Badagas have been mainly agriculturists, the Badaga women’s ethos is closely connected to the soil. In fact, even the proverbs of the Badagas evoke this ethos – for e.g : “Hennogiri, mannogiri” (A daughter’s / sister’s curse will turn the soil barren).

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SCAPE-GOAT

photo from the net

(During the olden days a calf was let off into the woods after transference of sins of a dead person (‘Karu Harachodu’ - Funeral Rites. This beautiful poem is based on that – JP)

Yesterday, you were a care-free calf
Tugging teasingly at your mother’s teats.
And gamboling gaily
In an abandon of joy.Today, you are weighted with garlands, mantras, and the
collective sins of the community.
The pujari extols the benefits of ‘karu puja’.
He compares your eyes to Surya and Chandra.
Your ears to Usha and Pratyusha,
Your body to the abode of Mahalakshmi, Saraswati and Raudri,
Your horns to Sri Devi and Bhu Devi,’
Your nose to Vaishnavi,
Your forehead to Maheswari,
Your feet to the four Vedas
And your teats to Dharman, Jnanam, Aishwaryam and Vairagyam
(Righteousness, Knowledge, Auspiciousness and Detachment)

But…………..no one notices the tears in your eyes.

They feed you with rice and sambar, deceit and betrayal,
And wonder that you turn your head away distastefully.
They smear you with kum-kum and manjal,
Chandan and ceremony,
They pay obeisance and lip-service,
They offer incense and incantations,
Oblations and silver coins;
They tie an angavastram, a length of silk
Or noose?
Around your innocent neck;
They deify you and prostrate themselves
In front of your bewildered body.
No one notices your head heavily touching the ground,
Under all these trappings.
What can I do to ease your burden?
I reach out, and try to wipe out that hunted look in your eyes,
And you tremble at my touch.
The puja over,
They rush to restaurants;
Serving their favourite dishes.
The atmosphere rife with irony
And orders for chilled beer and brandy
Mutton biriyani and chilli chicken,
Interspersed with sounds of
“Punya puja and prayaschittam.”
They gorge themselves with food, drink, and self-delusion,
Until they are bloated with complacency and self-righteousness
Before they return to their old ways of
Slothfulness, and sinfulness,
Superstition and self-indulgence, Until the time comes around
To find another scape-goat.

A WOMAN’S TEARS
(Hengada Kannaneeru)

A daughter’s tears will water the fields,
And wither all the crops,
And cause a famine in the land,
Or so the legend goes. A sister’s sobs will swell the stream
And turn it into a river of blood,
Which will wipe the entire village out,
Or so the folk-tale says.A mother’s heart-break will pace the road
That leads to the ancestral home,
With splinters of her broken heart,
And the men who tread on them
Will be turned to stone,
Or so the elders say.A woman’s curse will turn cows to snakes
And blight the prosperity of the place,
For when the ‘Lakshmi’ of a place is destroyed,
What else can survive?
`
Daughter, sister, mother, woman,
Hurt her he who dares.
“Hennogiri mannogiri” *
The spirit of Hethai still reigns supreme in this land,
And the wheel of Sathyam will turn
Full circle.* – A Badaga woman’s curse will cause the soil to become barren (Since the Badagas have mainly been an agricultural people, this is the worst curse that can befall them).- Hethai is the most important deity of the Badagas.

SONG OF THE HILL-PEOPLE

What myth informs you
That your god is greater than ours?
Which fairy tale tells you
That your god is the only one?
Which god gave you the right to brain-wash our vulnerable, guileless people
With a brush dipped in guilt?
And who gave you the right to maul our culture?
You justify your self and say
That religion is different from culture,
But one is the warp, and the other, the weft of the fabric of our credo,
Which has the texture of the trees,
The flow of the mountain – stream
The scent of the earth,
The melody of bird-song,
And is in tune with the music of the cosmos.It is the age-old story of exploitation,
And it will take ages for us to recover from the wounds
You have inflicted on our souls
In the name of saving them.
But you have reckoned without
Our God of Satyam
We will wait——
Tomorrow is time enough for your exploitation.

[In the 'Song Of The Hill People', Ms.Indu K Mallah has beautifully brought out the mindless and meaningless (religious) conversion of hill people especially, Badagas. What used to be an unforgivable act  a couple of decades ago, has become a routine affair now. I am yet to meet a 'converted' Badaga who could give me atleast one convincing reason for the change. I know of many Badagas who say 'I am a proud HINDU and have no problems in praying/ keeping pictures of other religious deities also in my puja room'. Hats off to them!! Badagas have been a very closely knit community. Let not"religion" divide them.]

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Badaga Origin

[From wikipedia.org, the free encyclopedia]

The badagas have been considered to be of dravidian origin due to the fact that the language spoken is Dravidian but it is also disputed that their customs, cultural aspects are distinct and not closely related to other Ethnic Groups hence their origins are in debate.

Natives of the Nilgiris

Of late the theory put forth by leading scholars have strongly criticised the migration theory and have said that the badagas are natives of the Nilgiris. Philology states that in the beginning languages existed without scripts and only later scripts were developed. Hence this seems to be a justification that the badagas were completely an indegenous people due to the absence in their script, but an ancient indegenous group would have a higher population or would have been completely extinct which questions the validity of this theory.With regard to religion, prior to converting to Hinduism the badagas were nature worshippers, even today worship stones with nature being a central theme can be found in the Nilgiris, Nature worship suggests that the badagas like the ancient Greeks and the Egyptians were an ancient ethnic group.

The European Connection

Others state that the badagas have migrated from Central/East Europe. It is justified that the Badaga ethnic group from Central/East for survival had to accept the local language after migration to southern India and then to the Nilgiri Hills (the Nilgiris then belonged to the Vijayanagara Empire), hence the dialect of Kannada. The badagas hence adopted the language for verbal communication and did not accept the Script as it was foreign to them. The date of the second migration from present Karnataka is probably said to be around 1500 AD – 1600 AD. The population vs time graph indicates that the original badagas were just a handful of about 15 – 30 persons. However the European migration theory has no credible evidence but still under debate.
Genomic Studies i.e a Y-chromosome DNA marker test on the badagas have resulted in the badagas belonging to the broader R1a and specifically R1a1 Haplogroup. A good percentage of people in Central Europe, East Europe, Scandinavia and the people of Punjab also belong to this R1a1 Haplogroup. Hence this has been suggestive of the fact that the badagas are of an Eurasian origin.
The other Ethnic group from southern India which belongs to the R1a1 haplogroup are the Kodava whose customs and cultural aspects for centuries have been said to be related to the Badagas.
Nevertheless, the origin of the Badagas is still under question. But, their economic growth has been well documented.

Read the complete entry here

{ Note: EBHARI writes in badaga.org “that one can post verifiable(?) information which may or may not be absolute(ly correct) in wikipedia.org (..related to Badaga community). One can create his/her own article and post in this encyclopaedia which is free for all” }

Bellie Jayaprakash adds (28 Feb,2007) that wikipedia has brought in some restrictions to restrict spamming or adding wrong info

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No articles, images and other material in this website can be reproduced without the written permission of

Wing Commander Bellie Jayaprakash B.E.(GCT,Madras Univ).,M.B.A (FMS, Delhi Univ)

Contact : bjaypee@gmail.com

belliejayaprakash©2008

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