“Occupation” of Mudugar

Anthropologists would say that occupation of a community distinguishes the community from others. But could there be a community with no occupation and still have a distinct cultural identity? Mudugar is such a community with no specific occupation but skilled in many work.

They are a tribal community who lived in the forest of Nilgiri biosphere. But it could not have been more than 50 years since they were out of the forest and gained relationships with the outside world. This exposure gave them new life-possibilities, but buried their indigeneity.

Occupation and Work

By occupation, the general idea is that a community possesses a special skill for doing a particular work, professionally. It could be carpentry, agriculture, cattle-rearing, bamboo-art work, for examples. The occupation of the community would also mean that the community as a tradition confirms to this work for generations. Such an occupation usually has origin-myths, stories and so on told by the elders to keep the younger generation committed to the occupation. However, it should not be said that the community does only their occupation but involve in a variety of work for their sustenance. The “work” mentioned above may turn out to be an important income for the family, but certainly not an occupation because it would not be practiced by the whole community, traditionally.

Occupation is also an idea that is closely attached to the economical status of the community. However, in caste system, occupation of communities determine their social status. But here, we are talking about a tribe and not a caste. A tribe did not usually have close connections with other tribes in the place, generally, and did not belong to a social ladder created by the State, Central Governments or kingdoms. This made them self-sustainable and self-reliant in many respects. They are also culturally entirely different from the communities belonging to caste-system.

Mudugar, though did not have an occupation to separate them from other communities, did a variety of work in the forest to keep their life vibrant. Lack of occupation for the tribal communities could be one reason for the tribal communities living in similar landscapes to have, more or less, the same cultural-patterns and lifestyles.

What work did Mudugar do?

Mudugar did every thing for their necessity. They built houses with split bamboo poles, hunted animals, trapped rodents, first gathered food and later resorted to shifting-cultivation, reared their children, collected honey, made clothes from tree-bark, fed their pets, sang and danced. They did this giving due respect to the land and its elements in the place.

Slowly and steadily, people from other cultural backgrounds began settling in the place and Mudugar and other tribal communities in the place were losing their command over the forest. Gradually, the tribal people learned a lot of new things. They tried them out. Now, Mudugar have, more or less, lost their forest identity in their lifestyles. Forest identity exist as specimens in bits and pieces of their cultural aspects and predominantly in their oral-literature.

What do Mudugar do now?

Since they are chased out of the forest, the community has resorted to main-stream agricultural practices, almost discarding shifting-cultivation.

Land being prepared for sowing seeds

Cultivated Lands of Mudugar

Prepared Land for Cultivation

Some Crops of Mudugar

Coconut Trees

Plantain Trees amidst Aracanut Trees

Tapioca Cultivation

Pepper Creepers

Children Play when men and women work in the field

Women in the field

Cattle Rearing

Felling Bamboo poles for making cattle shed and houses

Kathaari (trap) for trapping rodents and rabbits (made of bamboo)

Bamboo wall of a Mudugar house

Making of mud-brick houses plastered with clay

An old bamboo-house of Mudugar

Honey collection

Searching honey combs in rock-split

Honey combs collected in turmeric leaves

Honey collection: A spiritual ritual

Collecting tubers

Digging tuber called Noore kaangu

Noore kaangu

FishingChildren and women are involved in fishing. A cloth is used to trap fish. Crabs are caught carefully by hands, identifying the holes in which they are in. As soon as the crabs are caught their legs are broken to make them harmless.

Crabs caught

It should be said that all the work that Mudugar do are a community activity, which shows their tribal identity.

Children helping their father in planting ginger

Mudugar-Kurumbar Research Centre has done a video-documentary on the work-culture of Mudugar. The 20-minuite documentary is done by Justin Raj, Raghu and Sachindev. P.S. The trailer of the documentary is uploaded on <www.mkrcentre.blogger.com>.

Slideshow Prepared by:

Rayson K. Alex

and

Anand Thomas Mathew

(Mudugar-Kurumbar Research Centre, Kalkandy, Attappady)18 July, 2010