Bade Pinjodi has 8 villages

"Poverty" & "Tribes"

Bade Pinjodi has 8 villages

main population of Bade Pinjodi GOND Tribes.

Bade Panchayat (village office) in state Chhattisgarh comprising 8 villages with population of 1373 people, most of them are gond tribes Most adults are illiterates but they have initiation of sending their children to school so most of them go to school nearby.

Their main food apart from forest foods is rice and drink is Salfi extracted from a type of palm tree (you can see the picture of tree and when you click you will view video climbing on the tree) this drink is intoxicated used in all occasions. When I tasted this it was good and fresh and felt very fresh even during hot day. This has got nutritional value so is good for health also provided taken limited quantity. Both women and men drink.

Their main occupation is agriculture, hunting, gather forest plant, fruit and roots; they have good knowledge of ayurvedic medicine value from roots and forest plants, practice in their village. Women are mostly busy with home work, agriculture and collection of forest plants and food. Women enjoy better status and rights in the society than our modern society. Men on the other hand more relaxed, busy hunting, agriculture, drink, eat and help increase population. Most men do not work it is women who play important role running daily life of tribes. Status of women is much-much better in tribal society, they have rights and privileges in all sense as compared to modern civilized society.

Situation is changing as limited resources of forests forcing them to become poor and poorer. This entire village is without electricity but Government did a good job providing hand pumps for water and schools for their villages. Their traditional employment is vanishing due to lack of demand and not fit for modern employment. In the same time they are unwilling to come out for modern employment. They want to be happy in their culture, tradition and society. We need to understand this value and explore the system of education that can help them to maintain their traditional value and in the same theme they are economically comfortable. Average earning of a family in this village is Rs.300-500 (US$ 7-12) per month, not even enough to meet clothing and other basic requirements.

Bade Pinjodi village office

click to view enlarged

click to view process extracting

click to view dancing

dance and drums Bade Pinjodi Gond tribes

Little information of Gond tribes

They have traditional history of long back as Dravidians; they had to leave main lands when Aryan invaded, to settle down in far interior forests and some settled down accepting inferior services for Aryans.

Gond calls themselves as Dravidians and speaks same still in forests with their strong social bindings. The main tribe is the Gond, which includes subtribes like Marias, Murias, Abhujmarias, Dhurwa and Dorla. The non-Gond tribes include the Bhatra and Halba. Both sexes have own responsibility to perform. Education they have is how to survive in forests and follow social obligations. Make optimum use of forests for daily life right from hunting, agriculture, collection forest produce to traditional arts and crafts.

Have own way of praying god. Each home has a deity which is in the form of a stick. During festivals, these deities are taken to the place where the god of the subtribes resides. The gods of the subtribes are in the form of two thick, round and long sticks. They look like a plough joined together by two smaller sticks. The head of each subtribe carries these smaller gods to the highest god of the Gond tribe. After all the gods of the subtribes have assembled, a report is presented orally by the heads of the subtribes about the condition of their respective villages. If it is seen that there has been much suffering in a particular village, the god of that subtribe is imprisoned for abandoning of duty. This way show that even the God is accountable.

Marriages are preferred within blood relation. Their men have to pay a bridal price to the father of the bride. In case a man is unable to afford a particular woman, he can negotiate the price. Some prefer to work in the brides home for sometime till the time it is equivalent to the bride price. In case of death of the husband she can marry his younger or elder brother but has to be unmarried. Gond tribals of Bastar have their own system Ghotul in which unmarried boys and girls can live together in separately made huts where others are not allowed. During this time can change their partners for their best gratification. They dance, sing, drink and exchange knowledge. If they want they can leave and go for marriage.