Amid the COVID-19 outbreak, the indigenous Toda artisans from the Nilgiris are producing thousands of masks with exquisite embroidery for local residents, police, and sanitary workers.
About:
Toda people are a Dravidian ethnic group who live in the Nilgiri Mountains of Tamil Nadu.
During the 20th century, the Toda population has hovered in the range 700 to 900.
The Toda traditionally live in settlements called Mund, consisting of three to seven small thatched houses. The Toda huts, called dogles, are of an oval, pent-shaped construction built of bamboo.
Their economy was pastoral, based on the buffalo, whose dairy products they traded with neighbouring peoples of the Nilgiri Hills.
Fraternal polyandry - a practice in which a woman marries all the brothers of a family - in traditional Toda society was fairly common; however, this practice has now been totally abandoned, as has female infanticide.
Since the early 21st century, Toda society and culture have been the focus of an international effort at culturally sensitive environmental restoration.
The Toda lands are now a part of The Nilgiri Biosphere Reserve, a UNESCO-designated International Biosphere Reserve; their territory is declared UNESCO World Heritage Site.
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