About Jenu Kuruba community:
- Jenu in Kannada means honey and kuruba is the caste. As the name suggest Jenu Kurubas are honey gatherers.
- They are traditional honey gathering tribe and are among the original inhabitants of the forests of the Western Ghats that stretch over three States – Karnataka, Kerala and Tamil Nadu.
- They live in small settlements called Hadi.
- Occupation: The main occupation used to be food gathering in the forests, collection of minor forest produce in the forests, collection of minor forest produce including honey
- They practice shifting cultivation, leading to a nomadic lifestyle.
- Social life: People of this community live a semi-nomadic lifestyle which is not maintained by rulers, police, centralized visible forces or religious monasteries; but by the technique of its own discipline and diffused power.
- The pattern is that it is maintained at each settlement level with a head-man (yajamana) and a ritual head / shaman (gudda).
