A Prehistoric Cave and Indian Tribals

Saturday we left around seven in the morning and drove out of urban Vizag, through rural Vizag, and into India's Eastern Ghats. It was an incredibly beautiful drive, through steep hills covered in lush jungle. My camera needed to be charged that day, so I didn't really take any pictures. I'll borrow a few from Megan, and maybe sometime later I'll get some more from other people. It was a day for pictures. This one must have been taken over some sort of overlook when the vegetation was not on that side. It might give you some kind of idea how gorgeous it was.



We went to the Borra Caves, which has a very impressive entrance. We hiked around through that cave and lots of pictures were taken, but only by a few of us, since we had to pay to take cameras in. Perhaps someday I'll put up some of those if I ever get them and if anyone's interested.

After visiting the cave we drove to a place called NATURE, an agency to promote the well-being of Indian tribals. When I first heard the term "Indian tribals," I wasn't really sure what that meant, but Rammohan, who is getting his PhD on an aspect of these cultures, explained a bit about them to us. They are people who are outside mainstream Hinduism and Indian culture, with their own dialects, traditions, and ways of life. They don't look quite like other Indians, they wear their saris differently, and they just generally are different. They live in small villages and farm. There are fourteen tribes in this general area, (as in, within a few hours drive), and over four hundred tribes in India. The Indian government has set aside land for these people in order to stop encroachment and exploitation from the population at large. I think he said that 28% of India's land is set aside for these people, who are about 8% of the population. Their population does not grow much because of very high mortality rates.

The NATURE people gave us lunch, showed us around their facilities, and explained what they do to us. They sang us a really beautiful song and demonstrated deemsa for us. Deemsa is, I think, the name of the dance the tribal women do. The men beat drums and use tambourines, and the woman in front of the line starts doing a step which the other women copy. When she wants to she changes it, and when the men want to they switch up the rhythm. This song from Nuvvostantate Nenodantana has the heroine doing this dance for a few seconds, about 2:47 to 2:54. The scenery during her part of that song is very like the area we were in later that day.



Most of the workers at NATURE were guys, but they demonstrated it to us anyway. Then they grabbed Kelly and put her in the middle of their line and encouraged the rest of us to join in, too. It was so much fun. I love love love folk dancing, and this kind is a kind I especially like. In the course of that dance I damaged a bangle, broke my sandal, and mostly unattached my big toenail, but it was so worth it.



After that we drove out to a tribal village, or at least as close as we could get by car. We walked the rest of the way, and since my shoe was broken I did it barefoot. It was an incredibly scenic walk.




The people at the village were very shy. Rammohan says they're shy with them, the mainstream Indians, and they had never seen white people before. One of the little girls giggled and hid when I waved at her, and we played peek-a-boo for a while from a distance of twenty yards or so with her giggling all the time. After we'd been there for a bit more people slowly came out to see us.



They also performed deemsa for us, and again we joined in, with less mishaps this time (not that it was the guys' fault before; it wasn't). These are the guys playing the drums for us, and us dancing with the women.




When we left, the little kids followed us for quite a ways waving and yelling at us to turn around and wave back, (at least I assume that's what they were saying). When a couple of the girls tried to go back a little closer to catch a picture of it, they ran, but they came back and continued waving at us almost until we had reached the car.