The Bondha are the most primitive and fascinating tribe in
Orissa.The approximately 6000 Bondha live in the higher hills of Koraput
district near the state border between Orissa and Andhra Pradesh. It is an
isolated area which explains why their culture is not yet influenced by the
modern world. The "Bondha" or naked people are a conspicous tribe because
they hardly wear any clothes.
They are a fiercely independent and stubborn tribe. Years
of isolation, poverty and fear of witchcraft have made them suspicious. The men
are notorious for being extremely aggressive and their internal rows often lead
to manslaughter. They are also known for robbing nearby villages.
A Bondha village extends the whole surface of a hill. Most villages are surrounded by mango- and jackfruittrees. Houses are built crisscross near each other. The Sindibor, a platform of large stones, is the centre of each village where people hold their religious ceremonies and gather to chat and relax. A Bondha house is made of bamboo, clay mixed with straw and wooden pillars to support the roof. Grass is used to cover the roof. Most houses have two rooms, one for cooking and another one for storing grain.
The Bondha also have separate dormitories for single boys and girls. In the past the girls had a dormitory outside their village. Boys and girls are allowed to meet and intermingle, but sexual intercourse before marriage is strictly prohibited. When a boy wants to marry, he gives the girl a bracelet in her hands. A boy cannot marry a girl from the same village. An interesting feature of the Bondha marriage is that Bondha girls prefer to marry younger boys, so they may have some one to earn for them in their old age. Many men though have a liaison with their younger sister-in-law which causes trouble within their family.
The Bondha are farmers living on shifting cultivation. In origin they are also hunters, but because of deforestation and dense population there is not much game left. They keep a livestock of goats, pigs and chickens. The Bondha are selfsufficient. In the nearby market they only trade some articles like forestfruit and palmwine (solap). They still practise the barter system, exchanging the produce of their fields for articles of daily use.
The Bondha women weave their own textile in contrast to other adivasi tribals. The textile is made of threads which they spin from the fibres of a sialli tree. It is woven with some coloured cotton threads which they get on the local market. The bark of the sialli tree is soaked in water and thrashed to pulp with a wooden pad until the substance reveals its fibre structure. Then the fibres are unraveled and contorted into threads. The women weave their textiles on a simple handloom. They sit on the ground with their legs stretched underneath the loom.
The Bondha men only have a loin cloth alongside a bow and arrow. The Bondha women wear a short loin cloth attached to the right hip only, which leaves the left hip uncovered on the front and the back side. A taboo forbids them to wear anything else but these selfmade cloths. According to one of their legends the prime mother once saw how a female ancestor was surprised by her brother while she was taking a bath. The lady could not hide her nudity which caused the prime mother to laugh at her situation. Ever since then her descendants only wear a short loin cloth which shows the convexity of their buttocks.
Another legend explains the naked appearance of the Bondha women in a different way. It is told that the Bondha women were cursed in the Mahabharata period when Rama and Sita travelled through the Bondha hills during their exile which lasted fourteen years. Some Bondha women laughed at Sita when she was taking a bath after a menstruation. Sita condemned them: they had to be naked and laughed at ever since - a sentence which still angers them. The Bondha women wear big and heavy metal rings around their neck to distract any attention from their naked body. They cover their breasts with large and colourful bead necklaces to cover their pubes. They are condemned to cut their hair as well and cover it with palm lacings.