The Jenu Kurubas

As a part of our Cultural Studies course, we went for a field trip to H.D. Kote off Mysore. As a team we visited the National Folklore Support Centre's Digital Archive centre and also many tribal settlements or haadis. Our professor, M.D. Muthukumaraswamy had already given us an overview of the Jenu Kurubas or the 'honey gatherers', a forest tribe, who lived in the forests/ the forest peripheries of Karnataka and northern Kerala.

Before we started on the field trip we read a book written by Mr. Ksheerasagar, who had worked extensively with the Jenu Kurubas. The book was titled, 'Playing with the Children of the Forest'. It talked about how the children of this forest tribe had various games and toys which were intertwined with the forest itself. Their life and outlook on life was deeply rooted in the forest itself.

We were introduced to Dr. Peter Claus an anthropologist and folklorist from the Fulbright Academy. He showed us a short film called the Rabbit Proof Fence, with the tagline 'If you were kidnapped by the government, would you walk the 1500 miles back home?', as a mood setter for our trip to H.D. Kote.

Once we reached H.D. Kote, we spent our days meeting tribal leaders and members of the Jenu Kuruba community. These people were originally forest dwellers till the Government passed the Forest Act. After that they were forced to vacate the forests and live in the forest periphery and in the villages. They still struggle as they have been uprooted from their natural surroundings. They crave to go back to their forests. They face an identity crisis as there is an inevitable clash of living conditions. They have been given box like constructed houses by the government and the children go to village schools, while the elders are still itching for the forest.

The children took us to the forest periphery one day and showed us wild roots, and different tricks and games with plants, flowers and leaves. They cooked the wild roots and served it for us. It was quite yummy with its smoked taste. We were also given black tea with jaggery.

Somanna was another stunning character we met. He is a powerhouse of knowledge about herbs and animals. He is a tribal leader who contested in the MLA elections only to be defeated by a fake tribal candidate. He is a very simple and humble person who spent days with us explaining things to us and accompanying us on our trips to the various haadis.

Prof. Kikkeri Narayan is another expert on the Jenu Kurubars. We were honoured to have him as well with us for a few days. He showed us many documentaries and gave scholarly inputs on the Jenu Kurubars, their rituals and practices, their language composition and their beliefs.

We spent one night at a Girijan school near another haadi, where we stayed in one of the classrooms. It was a one night halt, as that particular haadi was quite a distance away from the dormitory where we were staying on the other days. We got to interact with the school going Jenu Kurubar kids the next day morning.

At the end of the 5 days, we had collected some 'life experience narratives' or 'oral history' of the Jenu Kurubars. Ours was an academic trip there, so all we did was to document what we observed, heard and experienced there. We did make a presentation and a contribution to the NFSC digital archive before we left. As we left, we realised that the Jenu Kurubars had touched our hearts in a manner that's very unique and extremely difficult to verbalise. There was one amongst our group who actually had tears in her eyes as she said bye to Somanna.