Badaga ethnic (aboriginal) fashion as a local strength

Abstract

The Nilgiris in India has a fantastic history, tradition and culture. Badagar is a unique community inhabiting the Nilgiris and the people are commonly referred to as “Badagas”. The badagas have their own distinctive and unique ethnic cultural practices. The customs governing their marriage, function, funeral and other events are exclusive to them. Poverty never existed among the badagas because of their sharing and caring social system. There was no need for the badagas to move out of the Nilgiris in the past, but in recent years a few badagas have moved from their villages (hattis) and migrated to other places in India and abroad to seek education, business and employment. The ethnography details about badagas were reported mainly by non-badagas in the past but, with recent technological progress, publication of research reports, books and documents is being arranged by native badagas. Badagas give importance to their past culture and are very keen to sustain it. As practiced by their ancestors, “Hethey” and “Hiriodaya”, badagas are still preserving and practicing the traditional style of attire by wearing white dresses. The present chapter showcases the unique badaga system with special reference to the attire that has been followed over centuries as fashion. Irrespective of age, all badagas tend to wear traditional attire in the form of thundu, mundu, dhuppatti, seelai, mandarai, mandepattu, etc. on almost all social occasions and perform traditional badaga dances as a local strength and an ethnic fashion.