Virtual tour of Bonda tribe at Odisha State Tribal Museum

Bhubaneswar, Oct 30: ST & SC Development Department has taken up a virtual tour to Odisha State Tribal Museum on every Sunday. Visitors can visit the Bonda of Malkangiri on Sunday by opening the Facebook and Twitter pages @stscdev, @scstrti, said Director SCSTRTI Prof. (Dr.) A. B. Ota. The Bonda hills are a remote highland, part of the Kondakamberu range of Eastern Ghats in Malkangiri. Living amidst rolling hills, the Bonda are an agrarian community who supplement their income with animal rearing and the collection of seasonal forest produce. The Bondas' unique style of personal appearances differentiates them from rest of the world. Bonda men wear a narrow strip of lion cloth. It is the women's attire that is so remarkable. A taboo backed by legends prevents them to cover their upper bodies. They make up this deficiency by wearing heavy necklaces of beads and brass. The only short strip of lion cloth women use is called as 'Nadi'. The Bondas live in small thatched huts. Their livelihood supplemented by animal domestication and seasonal forest collections. The Bonda villages are traditionally autonomous. Social orders is maintained by a set of traditional functionaries –Naik- the village chief, Challan-the organizer of village meetings, the Barik-the village messenger. The Bondas are polytheists. They worship mostly the deities of nature. The village priest performs worship. In sharp contrast to their aggressiveness, the Bonda have finer aspect of life that finds expression in their age-old tradition of dance and music.