The Kotagiri-based Nilgiri Documentation Centre (NDC) has released a picture claiming that it probably could be the first ever picture of a Badaga woman.
Explaining the circumstances under which the portrait had become part of the collection of the NDC, honorary director of the centre Dharmalingam Venugopal said that James Cowles Prichard, an English Physician and Ethnologist, had written two books, ‘Researches into the Physical History of Man’ in 1813 and ‘The Natural History of Man: Comprising Inquiries into the Modifying Influence of Physical and Moral Agencies on the Different Tribes of the Human Family’ in 1843.
For the latter, he had commissioned the pictures of a Toda man and woman. There seemed to have been a mistake and the pictures sent from here were of a Badaga woman.
This print of a hand-colored aquatint engraving of a Badaga woman was published. He said that an original of the engraving was obtained by the NDC, thanks to the support of Colin Sullivan, the great grandson of John Sullivan (founder of Ooty), who visited The Nilgiris recently.
