People of the Forest: A Study of the Bonda Community of Odisha

- Indrani Chakraborty & Soumya Mukherji

It is nearly midday by the time we reach Mudulipada. The winding road gained elevation at each turn and looking out from the car window we could see the valley below and small hills dotted across the landscape. The last half hour of the drive felt as if I was travelling into a forgotten world - not a person in sight. A CRPF camp on top of a hill with a lone cell tower, is the only sign that civilization might exist here.

We are deep in Odisha's Koraput district, heading to a small hamlet older than modern maps, a place nearly isolated before modern road connectivity. We are accompanied by Sambari, a young girl who is an active voice in the Bonda Community and wants to bring positive change to the villagers' lives. Finally, we come across a group of houses. Leaving our car we walk into the village, Sambari taking the lead. We sit down outside a beautiful traditional mud house, slowly being engulfed by modern concrete houses on either side courtesy Indira Awas Yojna. Seeing Sambari, a few men walk towards us, hesitant of our presence but curious as well. Sambari translates for us saying that we have come from Bhubaneswar and want to learn more about their village and culture. After a lot of animated discussion amongst themselves, we are happy to see that a few of them relax and plant themselves in front of us in a makeshift circle. At 69, Kandra an elder talks in a measured tone, his voice low and steady as monsoon rain on clay roofs. As our conversation meanders through a variety of subjects, we gather that even today when grief strikes, when a soul departs, the village halts as one, labour pausing mid-stride, hearts heavy with sorrow is not a solitary burden but a collective tide. Weddings are celebrated with equal fervor: no villager sits idle; every home contributes rice, cloth, or song and makes merry until the night dissolves into laughter echoing off mud walls and silent trees.

Kandra remembers when the forest pressed right up against the village. “It was dense,” he says, almost as if describing a person who has slowly moved away. “We did not have to go far.” Today, the walk is longer. The village itself is said to be nearly 200 years old, formed when three Bonda families descended from the hills and made a settlement here.“For generations, the forest has been both a provider and an omniscient presence. Women like Simari Sisa, 62, begin their mornings walking into the forest, collecting firewood, tubers, or mushrooms depending on the season. In summer, they return with crabs and fish from forest streams. There is a certain ease in the way they speak about the forest, not as a resource, but as a space they belong to. “It feels good inside,” Simari says simply.

Much of what defines Bonda life is not written down but worn on the body, in layers of metal, bead, and fibre. Older women in all the villages we visited speak of ornaments not as decoration, but as identity. Dema Kirsani, 64, touches the thick metal rings around her neck as she talks about them. “This is who we are,” she says. The Usunga, a rigid neck ring, sits close to the skin, encircling the neck with a sense of permanence. Along the arms, Sungarae bangles stretch from wrist to elbow, worn especially by married women. Folklore ties these ornaments to fertility and harvest, suggesting that the body itself is not separate from the land but participates in its cycles. Earrings like Thinkodit, Surkoda, Jinb jinglo, frame the face in loops of aluminium, while headbands like Turuba and Lubiedak crown the head. Together, they create a striking visual identity, one that immediately sets Bonda women apart. The ornaments are also believed to protect. The heavy neck rings known as Khagla, along with long bead necklaces called Mali, are said to guard women against injury and even wild animal attacks while working in the forest. But perhaps the most distinctive element of Bonda attire is the Ringa, a short, handwoven skirt made not from cotton or silk, but from the bark of the Kerang plant.

In Katanguda, a few older women still remember the process. The bark is stripped, dried, beaten, and soaked repeatedly until it softens into fibre. It is then dyed, spun, and woven into cloth with bold horizontal stripes, deep reds, blacks, and earthy tones that echo the forest floor and the ash of burnt fields. “The colours,” says Sumi Sisa, 36, “are like the forest.” Once, every woman wore the Ringa. Now, many younger women have shifted to sarees and nightgowns, a change that has come quietly but steadily. The fibre itself is harder to find, and the labour of making the cloth no longer fits easily into lives that are slowly changing.

Talking to many villagers, what I gathered is that change here is not abrupt. It comes in layers. In interior villages, elders speak of a time when they grew their own traditional grains, Sudi, Sikalkoli, Osakodia, Banda, Machhakantha dhan, Pathanagarda, seeds that were saved year after year. Today, these have largely been replaced by government-supplied varieties like Lalat, Mansuri, and Khandagiri. “The old rice was sweet,” says Dinabandhu Badanaik, 38. “And strong. No need for fertilizers.” But the market has its own logic. The newer varieties fetch better prices, and slowly, the fields have changed. Food, however, still carries the imprint of the forest. Mandia jau, a porridge made from ragi, remains the staple. Around it, a wide array of foods fill the plate, tubers, mushrooms, bamboo shoots, pulses, and seasonal fruits. Meat comes from pigs, goats, and occasionally wild animals, though hunting has reduced as wildlife has declined. There are also foods that surprise outsiders. Sindhri Poko, a type of bee larva, is considered a delicacy. Crabs, dry fish, and forest greens form a regular part of meals. Even medicine comes from the forest. Though many now visit hospitals, the knowledge of the Dishari, the traditional healer, still lingers. Remedies made from bamboo shoots, roots, bark, and leaves are used to treat everything from insect bites to body aches.

At the heart of this way of life is a calendar shaped by land and season. In April, during Chaitra Parba, the village changes rhythm. Men gather with bows and arrows, preparing for the annual hunt. Rituals are performed, offerings made, and then they leave together for the forest. Women stay behind. For those days, the village feels different emptier, quieter. Outsiders are not allowed. Other festivals mark the sowing of seeds, the first eating of mango, the harvest of crops. In Bandapun Parab, the earth goddess Bursung is worshipped. In Kumbuguda, a sword representing Patkhanda Mahaprabhu is brought down from a banyan tree, washed, and offered prayers. These rituals do not separate the sacred from the everyday. Farming, eating, hunting, worship are all part of the same cycle. And yet, change is gnawing away the traditional fabric. When asked why the forest is decreasing, there is no single answer. People acknowledge that it is happening, but the reasons remain scattered- more houses, more fields, more people, less time. “It is going,” says Ghasi Kirsani, 22, quietly. There is a sense, too, that the forest has always been there, and will somehow continue to be there. Daily concerns like illness, income, government schemes now take precedence. In villages schemes such as Indira Avas Yojana have brought new houses, but also new pressures. In Andrahal, some villagers speak of outside organizations that once came to help, and the expectation that help will come again. What is less visible is collective action from within.

In the evenings, as the light fades over the hills, the villages settle into a quieter rhythm. Smoke rises from cooking fires. As we leave in the fading light, the metal of a neck ring catches the last of the sun. In that glint of aluminium, of bead, there is a story that has endured across generations. Not written, not archived, but worn, lived, and remembered. A story of a people whose identity still rests, quite literally, on their skin.

Indrani Chakraborty writes, campaigns, and investigates — often where the three overlap. Soumya Mukherji works across writing, editing, photography, and video, bringing alive the visual story.

This commentary is one of many rural visits, part of the project DAOLAT (Digital Archive of Odisha's Living Arts, Crafts and Traditions), supported by the Common Ground Initiative.