WARLI TRIBE

IntroductionThe Warlis are Indian indigenous people, who live mostly in Dahanu and Talasari talukas of the northern Thane district, parts of Nashik and Dhule districts of Maharashtra, Valsad District of Gujarat, and the union territories of Dadra and Nagar Haveli and Daman and Diu.

Customs of Marriage

Marriage is the most important ceremony in the community. The Warli marriage last for 45 days and many minor rites are scrupulously performed. For Warlis marriage is a contract or an agreement and not a sacrifice.

Girls are married at the age of 7 or 8 and boys at 12. Marriage within the clan is prohibited. Parallel cousin marriages on both paternal and maternal sides are prohibited. Grown-up boys erect their own huts and live with their wives separately from their parents. Polygamy is allowed but has been stopped due to local influence. Divorce is granted by an assembly of a few influential men.

Origin of Warli Art

Warli Art was first discovered in the early seventies. While there are no records of the exact origins of this art, its roots may be traced to as early as the 10th century AD. Warli art is the vivid expression of daily and social events of the Warli tribe of Maharashtra, used by them to decorate the walls of village houses. This was the only means of transmitting folklore to others who were not acquainted with the written word.

Theme of Warli Art

These paintings do not depict mythological characters or images of deities, but depict social life. Images of human beings and animals, along with scenes from daily life are created in a loose rhythmic pattern. Painted white on mud walls, they are pretty close to pre-historic cave paintings in execution and usually depict scenes of human figures engaged in activities like hunting, dancing, sowing, harvesting, going out, drawing water from well, drying clothes or even dancing.

It basically consists of The typical subjects on whom geometrical patterns Warli Art is Circle: represents sun done are: and moon. Festival Triangle: depicts Harvest mountains and pointed Folk story trees. Square: depicts a Celebration sacred enclosure or a Temple piece of land. So the Marriage central motive in each ritual painting is the square.

Subjects of Painting

Materials of Warli Paintings

The colours used by Warlis are not permanent but the paintings were made again on different occasions. Typical Warli paintings background colours are Henna, Indigo, Ochre, Black, Earthy mud and Brick red. Typically Warlis paintings are simply painted on mud, charcoal and cow dung treated surfaces with rice paste for white colour.

Warli Art at GlanceA day in a warli village

Weekly bazar

Cultivation

A river

Bibliographyhttp://warlipaintingsart.blogspot.com/ http://www.indianart.in/category/warliart http://ignca.nic.in/cd_07013.htm http://www.indian-art.net/indianart/warli-art-paintings-of-india.html http://www.indiacrafts.com/trivia/religion-of-thewarlis.html

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