Oh, honey!

Wishing everyone a happy, healthy and delicious 2014!

2013 for me ended on a high note – quite literally: I spent the last few days of the year at 6000 feet above sea level, in a small town called Kotagiri in the Nilgiri Hills of Tamil Nadu. I went to visit an NGO called Keystone Foundation, which helps the indigenous peoples of the Nilgiris to sustain traditional forms of livelihood at a time when many of them are being forced to move away and take up “mainstream” jobs.

On 22^nd December evening, I took off from Bangalore. Destination: Kotagiri, via Ooty, a two-stage bus journey. 

Can’t say much for the first stage as it was a night trip and I slept through most of it. And after two cups of steaming hot tea at Vishnu Tea Stall at 7 am in foggy, frosty Ooty, the second stage to Kotagiri began.

I recalled descriptions of nerve wracking journeys that I had read, about buses hurtling down precarious, narrow roads and around sharp hairpin bends with a scary view of the steep valley below… but my journey was the complete opposite. All along were gently rolling hills with tea bushes and fields of tiny frost-covered ferns. And when the sun finally started peeking out from over the hills, I actually witnessed the phenomenon called temperature inversion, with clouds hanging low in the valley and us on the road above!

Kotagiri is a small hill town, moving along at its own leisurely pace, tiny houses dotting the slopes, and the smell of eucalyptus rising gently in the air. 

The Nilgiris have been designated as a Biosphere Reserve under UNESCO. The largest indigenous group in this area are the Badagas. This area is also home to probably the largest number of indigenous tribes in the country.

Keystone Foundation largely works with the Toda tribe and their embroidered textiles, the Kota tribe and their pottery, and the Kurumba tribe and their practices of gathering NTFPs (Non Timber Forest Products).

I was most interested in the food related NTFPs, especially honey!

Wild honey has long been harvested by the tribes of the Nilgiris. Amongst the most prominent harvesters are the Kurumbas, dubbed ‘Honey Hunters of the Nilgiris’.

The honey that the Kurumbas harvest is mostly from wild hives located on steep rock precipices. These honey hunters nimbly climb down the rock faces on ladders made of forest vines and plant fibers. There, hanging a few hundred feet above the forest below, unperturbed by the buzzing, stinging swarms all around them, they break off chunks of hives with long wooden spears and collect the honey that drips out in hand-woven baskets lined with leaves. After the harvest, they leave the base of the hive attached to the rock, so that the bees will return and nest on the same rock in the following season.

Honey harvesting is integral to the culture of the Kurumbas, and many of their songs, prayers and rituals are based around it. Harvesting is done once a year by a designated group of males from each Kurumba hamlet, all related by blood or by marriage. (Traditionally, the role of securing and guarding the ladder from the top of the cliff belongs to the brother-in law of the hunter descending the rock face; the belief is that he will be extra vigilant because carelessness on his part could leave his sister a widow!)

Earlier, the Kurumbas would keep as much honey as they needed, and barter the rest with other tribes in exchange for foods or artifacts. With the decline of the barter system, they started selling the crude honey at whatever price they could get at the local markets or by the roadsides.

Over the past 20 years, the Keystone Foundation has been helping the Kurumbas to make this traditional form of livelihood viable and sustainable; their teams of experts have been training the Kurumbas to improve product quality and yield. Keystone also buys the honey from the tribals, cleans and packages it properly, sells it through its own outlets in larger cities, and ensures that the producers get a fair price for their efforts.

My humble contribution to this effort was to buy about 8 or 9 jars of different varieties of honey from Keystone’s Green Shop in Ooty on my way back! :)

It is heartening to know that organizations like Keystone are working tirelessly to keep such indigenous food-centric traditions alive. I hope that some day I get to go and spend more time at Keystone, visit some of the Kurumba hamlets, and maybe even witness the harvesting of the honey!