A Journey to the Tribes of India, a Disappearing World • Part One: The Ruler's Regret

The journey to India is something that is not easy to quantify. For me it was an intense experience, a month among ancient cultures that still exist in the state of Orissa in eastern India. Images of a world that is disappearing. They say that India is a mother and Orissa is her soul. They say that if you have not visited India, you have not seen the world and if while in India you have not visited Orissa, you have not seen the mysteries of India. In Orissa live most of the tribes that still preserve the ancient culture and we found the guides who took us there. People from the West hardly ever come to the areas we reached, there are no luxury hotels or resorts there nor restaurants with Western food.

And as anyone who has ever visited India knows, the degree of spiciness of their "it's just a little spicy, not spicy at all" burns the mouth and tongue. But we manage. Fresh vegetables from the market, eggs, fish, baked goods made from lentil flour, and there's something to eat. A modest room, a hard mattress and a clean sheet, and we can sleep. After all, we didn't come for a vacation, but for an almost anthropological journey of observation, a kind of research experience into a world that is disappearing.

When my sister, who initiated, planned, organized and produced the trip, suggested that I join, I hesitated. Traveling to remote areas that very few Westerners visit, the conditions are not indulgent and the weather is hot and humid. My husband immediately said that he would not join for work reasons and a dog that needed to be looked after. After internal calculations, mainly from the thought that most of my life was dedicated to the well-being of others with love, and I am allowed to do the same for myself, I chose to join. It came at a good time for me, because I felt that I needed to get away from here a little in order to get closer again.

My only and dear sister, Smadar Meir, who formulated the itinerary, initiated and organized everything, is known for the excellence in which she works, which ensured that it would be a successful journey. Looking back on the amazing journey she put together, arriving at sites and places with magical uniqueness of characters and cultures, natural spaces that were discovered in their wonder, I am happy about the choice to join and am blessed to have had my sister. I will try to recount the experience, even if I cannot tell about all the places we were and all the wonderful things I was exposed to, I will try to convey the best.

A journey is about meeting people and places. To experience with a different intensity, to be present in every moment. In India, this happens. This is the magic of India, where everything happens together: the sounds, the colors, the smells. Sometimes it's busy and sometimes it opens the chakras. There, among the tribal people, in the open landscapes, in the jungles, in the colorful markets, there is no stopping for self-judgment but an experience of observation, absorption of a world completely different from anything we've known before. A world that seems to have remained in previous centuries, and the experience is exciting with an unfamiliar intensity.

The young people already have motorcycles, Vespas, and smartphones, and selfies, but they still live with the tribesmen. The old women still walk around in tribal clothing, telling stories and experiences that will never be repeated, life processes that were and are doubtful if they will be preserved. The younger generation prefers a different path. For me, it's to see and be amazed. I know that in a few years this culture will only remain in museums. The Orissa Museum is trying to collect the knowledge and images so that they are not lost. The elders who preserve the tradition and customs of the tribes will finish their part, and the young people who are looking for the modern world will not continue the tradition of the tribes. The energy is changing.

Our journey began in Uttara, not far from the capital of Orissa, Bhubaneswar, near one of the stones with ancient inscriptions left by Emperor Ashoka. A few words about this emperor: Until proven otherwise through discovered documents and inscriptions, Ashoka was thought to be a mythological figure. But no. He really was. Ashoka is the third heir to the imperial dynasty of ancient India (272 BC) who came from Bihar, and it was he who repelled the last of Alexander the Great's Macedonians from Kalinga - which is today's Orissa - and founded the vast Maurya Empire.

Maurya, named after the founder of the dynasty, whose name was Maurya. The war was extensive and many regions were conquered. The cost of the conquest was tens and hundreds of thousands of Kalinga deaths. Ashoka, who was considered one of the most cruel rulers, had difficulty enduring the terrible suffering inflicted on the Kalinga people and the animals that participated in the battles – horses and elephants.

He deeply regretted all the murder and suffering he had caused during the years of war and became a Buddhist. As a result, the empire was at peace for many years, and Ashoka carved inscriptions on stone in which he spoke of his repentance and of the path of Dharma, the Buddhist path he had chosen. The inscriptions, by the way, are in ancient Indian combined with Greek that became part of the language after Alexander the Great spent several years in the region with his soldiers. There are 14 stones in India with inscriptions that Ashoka left behind, and two more in Afghanistan, which was part of Ashoka's Mauryan empire. The inscriptions were translated in the early 19th century.

Later, more writings signed by Ashoka were discovered and his figure emerged from mythology into the pages of history. As a Buddhist emperor, Ashoka spread Buddhism and the principles of meditation, non-harm to animals, respect for the elderly and purity of speech, and other Buddhist ideas throughout Asia, and marked the path that Siddhattha took until he became the Buddha. (The word Buddha means the awakened, the enlightened one).

To this day, the symbol of India is based on a column header with lion statues that Ashoka created to symbolize the place where Buddha began to speak about the Buddhist way of life. The wheel depicted on the Indian flag is also actually the Wheel of Law, which was Ashoka's symbol. At the ancient site from the days of Ashoka that we visited, there stood a huge banyan tree, the same tree that Buddha is said to have sat under when he attained enlightenment, as well as the remains of a statue of an elephant, which symbolizes Buddhism. Why an elephant? Because Siddhartha's mother dreamed that she had a white elephant in her womb before her son, who later became the Buddha and the founder of Buddhism, was born.

The Kandajiri Caves on the hills outside Bhubaneswar recall the story of Rabbi Shimon Bar Yochai and his son Elazar who hid for 13 years in caves, becoming ascetic and studying Torah. Jain monks lived in the Kandajiri Caves, also abstaining from bodily pleasures. Some of the caves are natural and others were carved into the rock around the first century AD. Most of the caves lack any decoration and only the entrances of a few caves have stone carvings in the form of elephants and geese, or figures carrying flowers. There are also elephant statues, but it is said that these were added later, when Buddhism arrived in the area. Jainism is a religion from the sixth century BC.

Its followers are devout vegans who maintain that nothing alive, including insects and bacteria, is harmed. Modesty, restraint, abstinence from possessions and bodily pleasures are just some of the principles, but this explains their stay in the small caves, where there is only a diagonal stone surface for sleeping and everything else is a flat stone for sitting on for meditation. Jainism is extreme in its relationship with nature. They do not plow the land but scatter the seeds, they do not bury the dead so as not to harm the land. Today, no monks live there anymore and the historical site is reserved for visitors. The view from the hills is magical and at sunset the golden hues of the sun bathe the temples.  

We are on our way to the tribal villages. Monkeys, cows and buffaloes roam freely on the roads. We pass by rice fields and then reach the forest area, where the population is thinner. Most of the tribal people are animists, meaning people of nature who believe in the sacredness of nature, in the soul of nature. They attribute a soul to all things, including the plant and inanimate world.

The earth, the water and the fire, the insects and the plants, everything has a soul and everything is sacred. They bring offerings to the mud towers of the termites – a type of ant-like insect – that destroy the trees, and do not spray them because they are part of nature. They sanctify the trees and eat the fruit, respect nature but hunt the birds on the trees. They sanctify the earth and make the bricks for their dwellings from it, but do not plow it so as not to hurt it.

They sanctify the water and bathe in the lakes. Berries are a significant part of the tribesmen's diet, and they also hunt birds with bows and arrows. The Moria tribe danced the hunter's dance in our honor, and then showed us their bows. They are not really organized for tourism, and this dance is to the beat of drums; they dance mainly on holidays and important occasions. The men wear headgear made of buffalo horns, bird feathers, and beads made of shells and metal beads, and the women wear red dresses and gold crowns.

Since a significant portion of the tribal people converted from animism to Hinduism, and you can see wooden plows and oxen even in villages that were animists. Animists do not have gods with human forms. At first they only had Bohram, the god of the jungle. Then Jagannath, who is a kind of tree trunk with big eyes, and then when a significant portion of the animists became Hindu, several gods were accepted, such as Shiva and the lingam, Ganesha with the elephant's head, Hanuman the monkey god, and when the church sent representatives to distant places, some animists also accepted the cross. By the way, there are signs of ancient animism in the Book of Genesis, which tells of the serpent in the Garden of Eden, an animal from nature that was attributed with supernatural powers of persuasion and speech.

Each tribe has a characteristic appearance. Some tattoo their faces and various body parts, others wear huge earrings and metal hoops around their necks, the Dorba tribe wears bracelets on their feet, others have many nose piercings on their noses and mouths, and some tribes go naked except for a small piece of cloth on their private areas, and the women cover their chests with chains and their waists with cloth when they go out to the market area.

The Bonda tribe (Bondo means naked) cover themselves with a ringa, a small cloth, when they go to market. The Langiya Sora tribe lives on the mountain. Langiya means tail. The tribe members wear a cloth around their waists that falls down in front like a front tail. The mountain people are animists who believe in the Ramayana, without any other influence. Until a few years ago they went around naked, now they wrap themselves up a little to hide their modest parts. Why naked? Because their ancestors glanced at Sita, the Great Mother, the wife of the god Rama, when she was bathing.

She was very angry and ordered them to be naked and not to wear clothes. Nudity in ancient culture is part of nature, and sex life is part of the cycle of life. There is no hiding. In the animist tribes, premarital sex is accepted, and there is monogamy, one woman and one man. The women are present. They do not hide behind the utensils. They speak, sometimes shout, they allow themselves because they know that the power is in their hands. They are the ones who work, they give birth, they wear the gold, which is their property, on their bodies as jewelry. And at the same time, men have a place of leadership and respect, as the tribal culture demands.