Cultural Festivals
Tribal festivals have religious origins and entwines cultural and...
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A PVTG of Odisha.
Location : Gajapati, Rayagada (Eastern Ghats Region)
Language: Austro-Asiatic / Munda
Occupation: Icon (wall painting), Wood carving, Stone Terracing & Water management, Cashew plantation & processing
Techno-Economic Stages: Shifting Cultivators
Socio-Cultural Features
Lanjia Saora constitute one of the primitive section of Saora tribe. They are called so by their neighbours for their distinct dressing pattern which is a loin cloth hang in fron and tail like tails (Lanja). The traditional dress of a Saora women is a traditional coarse waist cloth. In chilly weather they cover their upper body with another cloth. Saora women do not use too many ornaments. The women greatly enlarge their ear lobes to wear wooden ear plugs and have a characteristic tattoo in the middle of the forehead. The Lanjia Saoras have a shattered type of housing pattern in the hill slope. They install the village guardian deities represented by wooden posts in the entrance of the village. They pursue shifting cultivation and ingeniously prepare stone bounded terrace fields with inbuilt water management systen for paddy cultivation. They have no clans but lineage organisation called as Birinda. They have their male and female samans to fulfill their magico-religious needs. They are famous for their attractive wall painting called idital.
A. B. Ota & S.C. Mohanty, pp 28, 2008, Rs 90/-
