Living with Nature

Session 63 summary

Living with Nature: the Irular of Northern Tamil Nadu

Manjula started her career working with the Irular people of the Tamil Nadu, more specifically the Northern part of it. In this era of globalised world there is hardly any community which can completely depend on nature but to some extent tribal communities are still living the way that their forefathers used to live. Raymond Dasmann stated that ‘Conservation as if People mattered, Development as if Nature mattered’ and hence it should be looked as such and there has to be a balance between the two. Dasmann talked about two types of people; Ecosphere People and Biosphere People. Of course one cannot segregate anybody into these whether they are ecosphere or biosphere but tribal people or indigenous communities would buy n large fall into this group. As to who are they; Ecosphere People depend on the local ecosystem or a few closely related ecosystems, where their ecosystem provides for all their needs. Their food or materials are from that ecosystem, though they have some limited trade with other ecosystem groups. They know that the ecosystem needs to be balanced because there is some kind of destruction happening in the ecosystem, it is not just the ecosystem which ceases to exist but the people- the communities themselves who depend on this ecosystem will cease to exist. This balance is therefore achieved through religious beliefs and social custom where they look at the rhythms of nature, phases of the moon, changes of seasons, flowering and fruiting of plants, movements and reproduction of animals. In this way they are able to look at the bio-resources in a very sustainable manner. This group of people have a very intricate knowledge of their environment, how each flora and fauna can be used for food, fibre, medicine. In their world none of the species are of any waste and everything is interconnected. But on the other hand there are Biosphere People who comprise most of the population. They use resources of many eco-systems or the entire biosphere, through networks of trade and communication. Their dependence on any one ecosystem is partial, since they can rely on others if any one fails e.g. someone needs an apple and if they don’t find an apple from Shimla in the market they would get the one from Washington there. The planetary resources, great amounts of energy and materials to bear on any one ecosystem, people can devastate it, degrade it, totally destroy it and then move on. And all those who are tied in to the global network of technological society are biosphere people.

There is a huge knowledge among the tribal people about the natural resources in the field of agriculture, fisheries, health, horticulture, forestry and environment management, this is known as Traditional Ecological Knowledge. Tamil Nadu has 36 tribal groups with a population of 794,697 people (2011 census). Out of these communities, the Malayali, Kurumba, Kanikkar, Kammara, Kota and Toda communities are notified with area restrictions. The Malayalis, Irular, Kattunayakan, Kuruman and Konda Reddi together constitute 85.3% of the ST population of Tamil Nadu. Malayalis with 310,042 (47.60%) are the largest group, followed by the Irular with 155,606 (23.9%). Kattunayakan, Kota, Kuruman, Irular, Poniyar and Toda are recognized as Particularly Vulnerable Tribal Groups (PVTG) in Tamil Nadu. The Irular of Tamil Nadu are the second largest ST of Tamil Nadu and to some extent in the states of Kerala. In Tamil Nadu the Irular are known by other regional names such as Urali, Villiyan, Velliyan, Vedan, Kattukkaran and Pusari. The term Irular has been linked to the Tamil word irul for darkness. Though disputed by few other researchers that it was because they went out hunting during the night (Irul). Manjula segregates the Irulars into two groups but genetically she is not sure whether they are different or same. For her convenience Manjula has based them according to certain things into Irular of Plains and Irular of Hills. They resided in the northern part where there are no thick jungles but scrub jungles, scrawny forest, short trees which actually withstand the cyclonic storms. The place is called Tropically Dry Evergreen Forest and the Irulars would be residing in those places, hunt in those landscapes, and there are huts around the water bodies. Manjula and her team did a painting showing the activity of a tribal family who goes as a family for everything- for hunting and migrating from one place to the other. But what happens when they are put into conventional sector form of lifestyle? It obviously changes and some of their traditional knowledge is also forgotten. One of their traditional knowledge which is recorded in the old English texts is about collection of herbs from the wild and their traditional healing. They have a vast knowledge of how to use the plants and to some extent even the animals for treating diseases. Another occupation closely associated to the Irulars of the northern region is snake catching. There are community groups in UP, India who are snake charmers but the Irulars are not charmers but catchers of the snakes. During the British era there was a big need for leather and the snakes’ skin was used for that and because the Irulars used to live in an ecosystem close to snakes, it was easier for them to understand the ecology of snakes, catch them without getting bitten and even if they got bitten they had a vast number of herbs through which they can cure themselves. Another thing that they used to do was catching field rats from paddy fields, they would enter the fields with the permission of farmers, smoke out the rat holes, catch the rats, dig out the paddy from the holes and use them, and the catchers and the farmers were quite happy getting rid of the pest without poisoning the field. During the months of June and July, there are a lot of winged termites so they went to the termite mounds, smoke them out and the winged termite was and is still eaten as a delicacy. For both the rat catching and collecting winged termites they use herbs.

In 1972, the government was very keen to conserve the wild animals and wild areas and plants in the wild, so it enacted the Wildlife Act (1972), in this people were prohibited to hunt wild animal and one of the things prohibited was the hunting and killing of snakes which was a major source of livelihood for the Irulars. So, they lost a major source of income. Around 1960s and 1970s Romulus Whitaker, who was seen a lot on the National Geographic working with the snakes, was already working with the Irular people and they started ‘Irular Snake Catcher Industrial Cooperative Society’ (ISCICS) which looked at how one can extract the venom from the four major venomous snakes and that resource could be used to make the anti-venom. The snake bite deaths in India was 40,000 in 2014 which increased to 58,000 in 2019 and so the question arises, what is the solution for snakebites? Some of them include; traditional uses of herbs, ligatures, and bloodletting which may or may not work due to dry bites but the only solution is the anti-venom shots. This anti-venom is produced by the mixture of the venom from the four most venomous snakes that India has got.It is a Polyvalent i.e. the mixture of all the four venom. The Big Four snakes are Saw Scaled Viper, Russels’ Viper, Indian Cobra and Common Krait. When the Wildlife Act came into the picture, Romulus Whitaker along with the Irulars and some other people started a co-operative society in 1976 with about 26 members. They were granted license from the Wildlife department to catch the Big Four snakes and from those four snakes the venoms are extracted, the snakes are released back into the wild and the venom is sent to the farms of companies which make the anti-venom which is used throughout the country in hospitals to treat snakebites. Currently there are 343 members between the ages of 18-60. Each season they are allocated the number of snakes that they can catch. In 2018-2019 it was about 8,000 snakes and currently it is 4,000 snakes due to stock of venom in the co-op. one snake is kept in the co-op for 3-4 weeks and the venom is extracted once a week. Their scales are clipped and they are released back in the wild. The venom quantity depends on the species. It is a win-win situation for Biodiversity Conservation because it is a sustainable use of a bio-resource (snake venom). It is an innovative use of traditional knowledge (art & skill of the Irular in Northern Tamil Nadu in catching snakes). It is an application that is very much needed in a country like India (venom used for anti-venom). All biodiversity are protected (snakes are not harmed and human beings have a safe recourse to venomous snake bite). ABS (Access and Benefit Sharing) for the Irula members with the industries using the bio-resource.

Another traditional knowledge of the Irulars are knowledge about plants and how they use the plants for healing. There are priests/pujaris for their community, who have a deity which is the mother goddess(like most other tribal communities they believe in mother deity rather and seven virgin goddess), that goddess blesses the priest who not just does healing but is also the priest for the communities and sometimes for others also. There are vaidyars, who are the healers who use the plants, animals and minerals for treatment and sometimes diagnose through pulse reading. There are also the traditional birth attendants called Thaiammas who take care of the pre and post-natal care and also child care till the child’s age of 14 years. But this is not practised a lot at present times. The healing practitioners acquire the knowledge for the healing system from their parents, forefathers and other relatives. There is also some form of shamanism which is called Kuri, where the priest goes into a trance and tells whether the person needs to take a couple of medicine or they need to go to the hospital.

The Irulars have about 386 species belonging to 290 genera from 96 families. There are 78 families, 247 genera and 334 species of dicot plants and 16 families, 41 genera and 52 species of monocot plants and 2 Pteridophytes. The tribal knowledge is thought to be confined to what the fathers and forefathers know, but that is not the case, any new plant which are found are also used. After discovering them, they will check it on themselves and if it works then it is shared with others, so apart from the 386 species, 63 species are alien plants which were recently discovered. The way they use these plants are that 37 are used for sociocultural purposes, 37 for utility, 38 for veterinary, 94 are edible and 341 are used for medicines. They also find uses from different parts of the plants; flower/ inflorescence of 11 species, seed of 15, gum/resin/latex of 15, whole plant/ young shoots of 32, stem/stem bark of 32, fruit of 40, root of 96 and leaf of 209 species. All this comes under the traditional medicine system, they are all used in the maintenance of health, as well as in the prevention, diagnosis, improvement or treatment of physical and mental illnesses. The traditional medicine refers to health practices, approaches, knowledge and beliefs incorporating plant animal and mineral based medicines, spiritual therapies, manual techniques and exercises, applied singularly or in combination to treat, diagnose and prevent illnesses or maintain well-being. It can be an alternative/ complementary to other allopathic medicine (modern medicine) people use. In India there are already the presence of healing traditions like Ayurveda, Siddha, Unani and AYUSH which are coded/written. But there is a huge amount of non-codified healing traditions that are indigenous knowledge, ethno-medicine, folklore and traditional (ecological) knowledge which is passed on orally from generation to generation and it is dynamic and completely immersed in culture.

The current situation in the community (for Irulars but can be applied on other tribal communities in India) is; there is erosion of knowledge, lack of interest amongst the youth, the average age group of resource persons is >50 years but a rich repertoire of knowledge of local ecosystem and low value of traditional knowledge from within communities and no recognition from authorities which may change to some extent but it is happening very slowly. The way forward could be (only about traditional knowledge related to plants and animals); proactive in protecting the knowledge of indigenous communities and not merely document, enhancement of knowledge to stem erosion, livelihood options through cultivation/collection of medicinally important plants through end to end approach from credit, skill training, value addition, marketing of raw materials, both social and economic improvement of people, explore possibilities of testing efficacy of plants used for skin problems and antidotes, concentrate on nutritional aspects of greens and tubers, look at/ initiate ethno-zoological, bio-cultural, ethno-pharmocognsy research, and create awareness of laws related to tribal communities.

Manjula worked for about 7-8 years as a part of a NGO, her project was completely on medicinal plants, livelihoods, value additions, etc. about 25 years back they used to do herbals powders and teas. Manjula soon realized that she needed to do something more concrete so she did a PhD and after many years she decided to publish her book ‘The Irular of Northern Tamil Nadu’. One of the thing that she is very particular about is that she has seen a lot of Irular youths don’t know anything about what their grandparents do. She thought that it was much better if she published her book in Tamil also which she did. This is her way of helping the community stem the erosion of knowledge.