Badagas
The Badagas (Tamil: படகா, Badaga: ப:டகா:, Badaga, Kannada: ಬಡಗ ) are an indigenous people inhabiting the Nilgiri Hills of Tamil Nadu, southern India. Their language is Badaga.
Traditional Attire
In olden days the Badagas used to wear distinctive dresses. The traditional Badaga man wore a white mundu - dhoti and a white shawl called seelay, which is a long piece of thick special weave of cotton with distinctive borders in black and zari, and a white turban. The Badaga woman's attire consisted of white thundu, mundu and pattu. The thundu is a piece of white rectangular cloth wrapped around the body and reaching a few inches below the knees. The mundu is a piece of finer cotton cloth worn like a shawl over the shoulders. The pattu is a scarf-like piece of white cotton cloth, worn square across the forehead, and tucked in at the back of the head, very similar to the headgear worn in Himalayan pahadis. The traditional Badaga dress is only in white.
See also
Further reading
- J. W. Breeks (1873), An Account of the Primitive Tribes of the Nilgiris; Nilgiri Manual, vol. i. pp. 218–228; Madras Journ. of Sci. and Lit. vol. viii. pp. 103–105; Madras Museum Bulletin, vol. ii., no. i, pp. 1–7.
- Hockings, P. (1988). Counsel from the ancients, a study of Badaga proverbs, prayers, omens and curses. Berlin and New York: Mouton de Gruyter.
- Hockings, P. (1989). The cultural ecology of the Nilgiris District. In P. Hockings (Ed.), Blue Mountains: The ethnography and biogeography of a South Indian region (pp. 360–376). New Delhi and New York: Oxford University Press.
- Hockings, P. (1999). Kindreds of the earth: Badaga household structure and demography. New Delhi and Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.
- Hockings, P. (2001). Mortuary ritual of the Badagas of Southern India. (Fieldiana, Anthropology, n.s., 32.) Chicago: Field Museum of Natural History.
- Jayaprakash.B. Wg.Cdr.(2009). Badagas of the Blue Mountains [1]
- Balasubramaniam,B. (2009). Paame - the history and culture of the Badagas of the Nilgiris. Elkon Press,Bangalore [2]
- Badaga Social Network (2010). Badagas of The Nilgiris and the World over [3]