RAYAGADA: Even as the State Government wants a Geographical Indication (GI) tag for the exquisite Kapdaganda shawl, designed by women of Dongria Kondh community, the original off-white coarse base cloth on which the designs are woven is no longer available. The shawl is a part of the rich heritage of cultural and ethnic identity of the particularly vulnerable tribal group Dongrias, who live in the Niyamgiri hills of Rayagada and Kalahandi districts.
While women of the community weave the shawals, the off-white coarse cloth used as raw material for Kapdaganda was originally procured from the Domb, a local schedule caste community in Jhigidi village under Bissamcuttack block. In fact, the village had eight Domb weaver families that had been supplying the off-white cloth and threads used to weave designs onto the shawls to Dongrias for weaving Kapdaganda for several years. In the last four decades, seven weavers of the village died and their families refused to carry on weaving as it was labour intensive and did not fetch much profit.
The only weaver left is Ram Hial who had learnt the craft from his father Kamala Hial. Due to old age, the weaver who is in his late 70s is not able to work throughout the year now. “Preparing the raw coarse cloth is time-consuming and labour intensive. Besides, the money earned is very less and there is no Government support. This is why the next generation is not showing interest in weaving it,” said Ram, who since last year is providing only eight pieces of base cloth to Dongrias in 15 days.
Ram gets raw materials for the coarse cloth from Vijayanagram in Andhra Pradesh now but earlier, he used to source it from Ganjam and Western Odisha. In wake of the scarcity of the base cloth and demand for the shawl increasing among domestic and international tourists, the district administration had started a training camp of women in weaving the base cloth in the tribal interpretation centre at Chatikona under Bissamcuttack block five months back. However, the training camp did not help much.
Project Administrator of Gunupur Integrated Tribal Development Agency (ITDA), Gorachand Gomango said a tender was also floated for the supply of base cloth of Kapdaganda before the General Elections but there was no response. “With no other way out, we sought a similar variety of base cloth from Mayurbhanj through the Textile Department,” he said, adding 50 pieces of white base cloth and as many pieces of off-white cloth were provided to Dongria women for weaving. However, the women said cloth supplied from Mayurbhanj weavers does not match the ones provided by Hial.