Warli
The Warlis or Varlis are an indigenous tribe or Adivasis, living in Mountainous as well as coastal areas of Maharashtra-Gujarat border and surrounding areas.They have their own animistic beliefs,life,customs and traditions,as a result of acculturation they have adopted many Hindu beliefs. The Warlis speak an unwritten Varli language which belong to the southern zone of the Indo-Aryan languages.<ref name=lang /useful
Demographics
Warlis are found in Jawhar, Dahanu and Talasari talukas of the northern Thane district, parts of Nashik and Dhule districts of Maharashtra, Valsad, Dangs, Navsari and Surat districts of Gujarat,[1] and the union territories of Dadra and Nagar Haveli and Daman and Diu.[2]
Language
The Warli speak in Varli language, their own Indo-Aryan dialect, which is mixture of Khandeshi Bhili, Gujarati and Marathi. They eat spicy food. Warlis also speak Marathi and Gujarati, and use them from written communication.[3][4]
Warli painting
In the book The Painted World of the Warlis Yashodhara Dalmia claimed that the Warlis carry on a tradition stretching back to 2500 or 3000 BCE. Their mural paintings are similar to those done between 500 and 10,000 BCE in the Rock Shelters of Bhimbetka, in Madhya Pradesh.
Their extremely rudimentary wall paintings use a very basic graphic vocabulary: a circle, a triangle and a square.Their paintings were monosyllbic. The circle and triangle come from their observation of nature, the circle representing the sun and the moon, the triangle derived from mountains and pointed trees. Only the square seems to obey a different logic and seems to be a human invention, indicating a sacred enclosure or a piece of land. So the central motive in each ritual painting is the square, known as the "chauk" or "chaukat", mostly of two types: Devchauk and Lagnachauk. Inside a Devchauk, we find Palaghata, the mother goddess, symbolizing fertility.[5] Significantly, male gods are unusual among the Warli and are frequently related to spirits which have taken human shape. The central motif in these ritual paintings is surrounded by scenes portraying hunting, fishing and farming, festivals and dances, trees and animals. Human and animal bodies are represented by two triangles joined at the tip; the upper triangle depicts the trunk and the lower triangle the pelvis. Their precarious equilibrium symbolizes the balance of the universe, and of the couple, and has the practical and amusing advantage of animating the bodies.
The pared down pictorial language is matched by a rudimentary technique. The ritual paintings are usually done inside the huts. The walls are made of a mixture of branches, earth and cow dung, making a red ochre background for the wall paintings. The Warli use only white for their paintings. Their white pigment is a mixture of rice paste and water with gum as a binding. They use a bamboo stick chewed at the end to make it as supple as a paintbrush. The wall paintings are done only for special occasions such as weddings or harvests. The lack of regular artistic activity explains the very crude style of their paintings, which were the preserve of the womenfolk until the late 1970s. But in the 1970s this ritual art took a radical turn, when Jivya Soma Mashe and his son Balu Mashe started to paint, not for any special ritual, but because of his artistic pursuits. Warli painting also featured in Coca-Cola's 'Come home on Diwali' ad campaign in 2010 was a tribute to the spirit of India’s youth and a recognition of the distinct lifestyle of the Warli tribe of Western India. [6]
Its a Tribal Cultural Intellectual
Warli Art is cultural Intellectual property of Tribal community. Today urgent need of preserving huge traditional knowledge in tribal communities across globe. By understanding need of Intellectual property right, Tribal youth initiated registration process in 2011. Now its in final stage of registration. This is community right of Tribals. With use of technoogy & concept of social entrepreneuship Tribals establish Warli Art Foundation, Non Profit company dedicated for warli art Related activities
References
- ↑ Census of India 2001, The Scheduled Tribes of Gujarat
- ↑ Census of India 2001, The Scheduled Tribes of Dadra and Nagar Haveli
- ↑ Masica, Colin P. (1993). The Indo-Aryan Languages. Cambridge University Press. pp. 1597 pages. ISBN 81-7991-106-3, 9788179911068 Check
|isbn=value (help). - ↑ Kumar Suresh Singh, Rajendra Behari Lal, Anthropological Survey of India (2003). Gujarat, Part 3. 1597 pages (see page:1431-1438): Popular Prakashan. ISBN 81-7991-106-3, 9788179911068 Check
|isbn=value (help). - ↑ Tribhuwan, Robin D.; Finkenauer, Maike (2003). Threads Together: A Comparative Study of Tribal and Pre-historic Rock Paintings. Delhi: Discovery Publishing House. pp. 13–5. ISBN 81-7141-644-6.
- ↑ http://www.business-standard.com/article/press-releases/coca-cola-india-celebrates-ancient-warli-folk-art-form-launches-110101200123_1.html
External links
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Wikimedia Commons has media related to Warli paintings. |
- Warli art home page Warli Art is Tribal Cultural Intellectual Property
- History of the Warli community and their art
- The Warlis and the Dhangars: The Context of the Commons
- Warli Folk Painting Summary of Warli art by the Indian government
- The Warlis by K. V. Save
- Warli Art on Social Network by Tribal Intellectuals to Promote Art & Culture
Further reading
- Dalmia, Yashodhara, (1988). Painted World of the Warlis: Art and Ritual of the Warli Tribes of Maharashtra, New Delhi: Lalit Kala Akademi.
- Dandekar, Ajay (ed.) (1998). Mythos and Logos of the Warlis: A Tribal Worldview, New Delhi: Concept Publishing Company, ISBN 81-7022-692-9.
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