Carrying her five-month-old baby girl on her waist, 35-year-old Kilo Rasmu of the Kondh tribe guards her tiny piece of land located between a hill range and a dense forest on the Andhra Pradesh-Odisha border.
Braving the frequent spells of rain that discomforted the baby in her lap, she takes up the task of safekeeping the paddy seeds sown on her family’s field from birds, since the commencement of kharif this year.
In Mettagudem village of Y. Ramavaram mandal in the Alluri Sitharama Raju district, every Kondh woman takes up the responsibility of protecting the paddy seeds on the fields for at least two weeks until the seeds germinate.
Women of the Kondh tribe seen wearing the traditional nose ring. | Photo Credit: T. Appala Naidu
This is because, unlike in the plains, paddy in the hilly areas is grown using the direct sowing method wherein the seed is planted directly into the land. Contrastingly, in the plain areas, paddy cultivation is done by planting the saplings raised in the nurseries.
Ms. Ramsu, a few years ago, lost her only boy to health complications. She is now raising her two daughters. “Our family owns three land holdings in which we cultivate paddy in kharif. All the holdings are near our village and my sole task is to guard all of the seeds planted from the birds trying to prey on them,” says Ms. Ramsu while breastfeeding her baby under the cover of an umbrella as it drizzles.
The Mettagudem village was formed with Kondh and Porja tribes. The Kondh families own small holdings of less than 20 cents each. A few decades ago, the Kondhs converted the forest cover into cultivable land. The migration of these two tribes in Mettagudem was ‘internal’ as they migrated from the Araku Valley region to settle along the Sileru river on the Andhra Pradesh-Odisha border during their search of land for agriculture.
Post-1970s, many such settlements were also formed along the Sileru River with the tribes that migrated for work in the hydroelectric projects across the Sileru.
The entire Y. Ramavaram mandal is identified as affected by Left-Wing Extremism and falls in the region where ganja is being cultivated and traded, as per police records.
“Every day, I should shuttle among all the three land holdings till sunset to drive away the birds. Sometimes, we make noise to disturb the birds. We guard our seeds throughout the day,” narrates Ms. Rasmu.
During kharif, the Kondh women are made responsible for sowing the seed and guarding it until germination which takes about a month. They also care for the saplings for two weeks.
In another family in Mettagudem village, Kilo Anu, 17, and her mother Kilo Birma share the task of guarding their three land holdings from birds.
“Our three holdings are located within a few hundred meters. My mother guards one field while I take care of the other two. I have to keep an eye on all the three holdings when my mother goes home for lunch,” says Ms. Anu.
During kharif, the Kondh women also guard the holdings of their neighbouring lands whenever the owners fail to attend to them in the event of any emergency. Every Kondh woman is seen guarding their paddy field along with their children during this time.
“Paddy is the prime food crop which we cultivate only to meet our food needs. We do not use fertilizers and pesticides. In our village, no family sells the paddy harvest. We also grow millets and vegetables in our small land holdings. We preserve the seeds of all our crops in traditional methods,” says Kilo Sabita who guards seven land holding her family. The Kondh tribal families also share the seeds of all their crops with their fellow families in need. Even in 2024, however, the Kondhs still live in mud-walled houses.
The Mettagudem village has 24 families including 20 Kondh families and four Porjas. The village population is nearly one hundred and the entire land under paddy is estimated to be around 20 acres.
Step farming method
The Kondh tribe has adopted the ‘step farming’ method to tap, divert, and manage rainwater for their irrigation needs due to the absence of robust irrigation infrastructure in the dense forest covers on the Andhra-Odisha borders. The tribes inhabiting the Araku Valley have been practising step farming for generations now and have mastered this system.
The land holdings are nestled between the dense forest and the hills and the rainwater flows down through the fields which were converted for agriculture purposes by removing the forest that once existed.
“We develop the land holdings by building embankments with stone boulders which are collected from nearby streams. The stones would strengthen the embankment to arrest the erosion of the soil due heavy inflow of rainwater that is allowed to pass through the agriculture field to irrigate the field,” said Ms. Kilo Anu. The land holdings are now protected by the embankments whose maximum height is five meters. The stone embankments would protect the land for some decades.
In a stretch of cultivable area, each land holding is at a lower level than the next one, enabling every piece of land to get access to irrigation. Every land holding will have a small drain channel passing through it to let the rainwater out once the land is irrigated. The land that is being cultivated by the Kondh tribe is connected to the waterfall or stream flowing from the adjacent hill or in the forest.
Perrenial water supply
“We do not store the rainwater water for agriculture purposes as we are blessed with the water round the clock. However, the inflow of water from the streams is less during summer. In summer, we go for crops, primarily maize, which require less water,” said Ms. Rasmu.
The Kondh tribe also entrusts women with the task of irrigating the field. Many Kondh women engaged in agriculture between Donkarayi and Mettagudem claim that they also play a decisive role in the management of the irrigation channel in their fields and the sharing of the rainwater.
“In agriculture fields, we spend more time with our fellow women and discuss issues of the village, crops and family matters,” says an elderly Kondh woman Ms. Birma of Mettagudem. Unlike other tribes on the Andhra-Odisha border, the Kondhs are vegetarians and are comparatively more religious and aggressive in agricultural practices and innovations.
The Kondh women prefer to be adorned with more jewellery which is unique among the other tribes in Andhra Pradesh. The nose ring they sport is a signature ornament of the Kondhs. All Kondh females, irrespective of their age, are wearing a nose ring, mostly made of gold. The design and size of the noise ring depend on the tastes and prosperity of the family. In recent decades, the Kondhs had migrated and settled along the Godavari, Sabari and Sileru rivers to prosper in agriculture and cattle rearing.
Turmuric producers
Unlike the other tribes that migrated from different parts of Andhra Pradesh and Odisha to the Govadari valley, the Kondhs do not engage in non-agricultural activities.
In the Godavari Valley, the Kondh tribe is engaged in the organic cultivation of turmeric and they go the extra mile for turmeric cultivation by signing ‘tenancy for land’ with their fellow tribes. Turmeric is the major source of income and they trade it for cash to meet their other financial needs including medical expenses and savings.
The Kondh tribe’s dependency on local shandies for food materials is lesser than that of other tribes like the Koyas and Konda Reddis which largely depend on the shandies.
However, weekly shandies are the prime marketplace for the Kondh tribals to sell their turmeric yield.
Published - August 17, 2024 07:58 am IST
