Warli House

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Tribal House

A typical tribal house consists of: Angan an open court in front of the house, a Mandapa purgola of bamboo and bullies on wooden posts, and enclosed kitchen garden, a shed with lean-to-roof for firewood and a large room divided by partition which is a house itself. The inner part of the room is a kitchen and for confinement. Outer part of the room is a living room, and animals goats, bullocks etc. share a part. During summer the Mandapa is place for haystack, and during monsoon support for vegetable creepers. The houses cluster or are at a distance from each other in the individual farms. At times, the distance is about a quarter kilometres. A lonely house in a farm or a forest does not cause agoraphobia to a tribal. The areas of houses vary. Area of Warli houses is about 400 to 700 sq ft. The Katakari house is 200 to 400 sq ft. The Thakars, who keep animals, have houses that extend to 600 sq ft area. The Houses of Bhils are much larger, up to 1500 sq. ft. area. Occasionally one may find an abandoned house in a Katakari settlement, just as a bird abandons its nest, as one moves in search of work and food (forest)! However humble a tribal hut may be, one cannot be equate it with the hutments in the urban slums. In the latter case, a city turns into a concrete jungle, with automobile beasts, which is an alienated phenomenon, unlike forest, for the displaced and migrated poor in the slums. The city cannot become an extended house of a slum dweller, as the relationship is that of hostility, besides lack of sense of community. This is particularly visible in a city likeBombay, which is evident from the cases of large-scale fires by the people with stakes in the land occupied by the slum dwellers, and demolitions by authorities consider slums are illegal settlements. We have observed that the tribal reach cities in search of work during off seasons and lives on the pavement, only to return.

Warli House
Warli house is stylized and well organized, and has reached to a technical excellence. However, originally a thatch roof house, because being systemized, it could easily adopt to Mangalore type roofing tiles in recent times. It is a frame structure, and has a core around with a curtain wall of Karvi to enclose the house. The core typically measures 7 hands by 9 hands to 9 hands by 11 hands (one hand equals 1 6). It consists of nine wooden posts having one Dharan in the centre. The central pillar that supports the ridge of size, which is usually 11/2 to 2 hands long. The house expands around the core to about 6 ft. distance whereby it accommodates a veranda, kitchen and areas for animals. The height of the core is usually five hands (76), on the top is an attic used for storage. As the house expands on the sides of the core, adding a frame of wooden beams and short posts raises the height of the core. The two posts over a beam that spans across the central post of the core carry the ridge. The house faces preferably east, west or north. People consider South is inauspicious direction for house to face or enter. It is interesting to note that north is inauspicious in Himachal Pradesh. The house is sacred. They worship it at different times during the construction: at the time of foundation, the corner pillar of the kitchen; the Chaukhat the doorframe at the entrance, and then the ridge when it is placed in position.

There is one door to the house, which is front door. If animals remain in the house, there is an additional door. Occasionally there is third door, called rear door. Within this framework of structural system, a Warli exercises his freedom in planning the interior and exterior spaces with innumerable variations, which is spontaneous. Due to the building materials, the economic status of a household, however, is subdued. Now due to various external forces: market, political, mass education, and the contact with the urbanites, the Warli disposition is slowly showing a change. They still follow organic farming, though hybrid seeds, chemical fertilizers and with these, the crop diseases are finding their way into their settlements. Aluminium utensils, synthetic clothes, nylon threads for fishing nets etc. are some of the other things. Say Shri. Lahanu Sutar, Mangalore tiles imported from Morvi town in Gujarat, usually of substandard and third grade quality have penetrated even into interior areas. 70% houses have changed to the tiles. Warli people are politically aware. One has to acknowledge the awakening brought among them by Smt. Godawari Parulekar against the system of bonded labour. The Warli are now afraid of new landlords who might take over their land with money power. Yet the Warli culture prevails.

Building Materials
All building materials are organic, which are either replenished by the, or are reusable, or recycled, or go back to earth as nutrients. They do not use non-renewable high fossil energy materials in the building. The major building materials are paddy straw, thatch grasses, fibres of Sisal or Ambadi (Hibicus canibinus Kenaf), bamboo, Karavi, wood, mud, cow dung, stones etc. The recent experience, however, of various housing projects and programmes initiated by instruments such as, RLEGP, Jawahar Yojana, Indiara Awas Yojana, foreign aids etc. through GOs and NGOs show that the building materials are brought from the city markets which are forest products for example, wood and bamboo, as well as industrial products.. One wonders if there is hidden agenda to plough back money through these projects, meant for tribal and the rural poor. The laws, which entitle tribal to take timber from forest for, their houses usually remain on the paper. Wood The tribal use selected wood from matured trees. The preferred species are teak, Ain (Terminalia tomentosa), Khair (Acasia catechu), Hed (Adine cordofolia) etc. The cut wood and bamboo during waning period of moon in month of Bhadrapada, i.e. around September, and are kept in water for a few weeks. Some people add sea salt or rock salt to the water. The wood and bamboo thus seasoned could last for generations. Traditionally they use wood in a lump form, or log form, after naturally seasoning and drying. They take this action in advance for years for the future house. This planning for house is part of tribal culture. The married young couple separates from the parents and builds a new house.

The tribal do not use any chemical preservatives, paints or industrial process except treating wood naturally. Due to its log form the rings are least disturbed and hence its natural strength is preserved. The urbanites view of such wood is uneconomic use. The modern methods of chemical treatment of wood, or wood preservatives, especially and typically pentchloro-phenol or indene containing products can cause lever damage, bone marrow atrophy, skin diseases, and allergies.[5] While various wood-dust have range of toxic, immunological and carcinogenic properties, installed and in lump timber presents no problem to health.[6] The lead based paints are most important factor in severe lead poisoning in children. On external agricultural surroundings, flaking lead paint is also a hazard to the livestock.[7] The urbanites that look for quick profits and the fast results that fall pray to the modern technologies, which advocate, for example, chemically treated small timbers from immature trees for mass housing for the poor. Such short-term gains are not only detrimental to the forestation programme but prove environmentally disastrous, if not checked in time. It is not that the tribal are aware of the health hazards in the modern building materials and household equipment; even the urban elite may be equally ignorant. The major hazard the tribal should be aware of, however, comes from looking up to the urbanites for their urban lifestyle as a model or ideal to be imitated, particularly the do-gooder urbanites who bring their life-style to the tribal areas, and who exert their influence because of their goodwill for the people. One learns from example for the delight of do-gooders. Mud Mud is major material used for plinth, flooring, mortar, plaster, handmade country roofing tiles, bunds, hearth, built-in seats etc. They select soils carefully. It is usually yellow, red, clay or Murum. They avoid black soil. Depending upon the soils quality, particularly to increase its plasticity, a heap of soil, called Gara, is kept wet with water for about two to seven days. To improve its plasticity they sometimes add finely cut paddy straw. While using it for the plaster, addition of fine sand modifies soil plasticity. Mud is the universal building material; its applications are unlimited in human life. Gandhiji used to apply it on the stomach as naturopathy treatment. Warli uses certain type of mud from underground to wash hair. They do not use shampoo. In the country of 844 million people, a large majority continues to use mud as a major building material. Yet mud has not found its way to the curriculum of graduate studies of architecture. It may be worth a while to find direct and indirect cost of architects education and its returns and benefits to the society beyond the privileged few. We are aware that the policies and programmes of planning, developments, and governance need periodical evaluation. The same is true of education. Cow dung Some time ago the Indian Petro-Chemicals Limited (IPCL), Baroda came out with a chemical for waterproofing treatment of mud walls. The offer came through CAPART,Delhi to use it on experimental basis, at 90% subsidy on its cost, on the first 50 houses built for the tribal,

under RLEGP. Being sceptical about such industrial products about its cost, economy, and the after-effects etc. we declined. Instead, we suggested using traditional cow dung wash on the walls. The chemical was highly toxic. Thankfully, IPCL had a good sense of withdrawing entire stock from the market, perhaps in good time. Traditionally the tribal and villagers use cow dung for finishing the mud floors and mud walls. They also use it for the grain silos made of mud, or apply it on bamboo silos. People must have observed that pest does not affect the grain stored in such a condition. From the Vedic times, Agnihotra a ritual with fire uses cow dung, which is believed to purify environment. Are these superstitions? Perhaps IITs and IPCLs could divert some of their resources to understand cow dung. We should not be surprised, though, with use of chemical fertilizes and pesticides even the cow dung may found to be fouled! Karvi (Strobilantes callosus Ness) Karvi belongs to the family of Adulasa (Adhatoda vasika Nees). It grows two to three meters height. It has a straight stalk of 25 to 35 mm thickness. It is fibrous and light in weight. It is a medicinal plant. Its leaves are medicine on malaria. It flowers once in five years, and gives plenty of honey a favourite of honeybees. It could also be cultivated in the plains.[8] If contact with water is avoided it could last for more than 10 years. Internal and external walls use Karvi panels, and as battens in the lofts and roof. Karvi is protected from moisture by applying cow dung plaster. It is a most used plant as building material in the Western Ghats and south Gujarat by the tribal and other villagers. It now finds market in the slums of north Bombay as the displaced and the jobless migrate to the city. There is also a major market in Nashik Cityfrom where Karvi goes to the vineyards. Now that it has reached a city, a time may not come when the tribal may have to buy it from Dalal commission agent in the city market. Karvi is a bush and not a tree by definition like bamboo is not a tree but a giant grass. If a bright boy in the department gets an idea to issue an ordinance, whereby the tribal may not forfeit his access to the plant, which may find its legal way to the market, as other forestproducts: water, bamboo, timber, electricity etc. After years of persuasion, the author failed to motivate some of the NGOs to propagate this plant on their own. Perhaps Karvi, being a bush, cannot be part of their forestation programme. Perhaps there is no funding for Karvi for not being a tree? Bamboo Bamboo the most familiar plant has known to be poor mans timber, is now becoming scarce and expensive for housing. City people may recognize it as a decorative garden plant, but its major consumer is paper. Just imagine if remaining 65% out of 1000 crore people become literate and educated! Then, perhaps, a strict rationing may have to come into force. Will it be in the interest of the elite class, which has been major obstacle in eradicating illiteracy in this country not to go beyond populist slogans? A five-year consistent programme of planting and growing bamboo will ease housing problem in rural and slum areas in the cities.

We have heard: A certain NGO in the rural area used bamboo for all of their buildings. In less than ten years, the dry rot affected entire bamboo. They therefore replaced bamboo with concrete. This is not a parable. It has many dimensions though. It is still economical to throw away or replace bamboo every ten years, as it is a fastest growing plant. The tribal do plant bamboo on their own without motivation from the GOs or NGOs, or without waiting for decades to collect bamboo seeds. Natural Fibres Adivasis the tribal use organic fibres as building material extracted from Sisal and Ambadi (Hibiscus cannabinus kenaf) using their traditional technology, which is labour intensive. They also plant Ambadi for their consumption. Gujarat government has happily carried out a large-scale plantation of Sisal and bamboo on the barren hills besides teak. Here again we notice mass-mono-culture coming up. Contrary to this, whether farming or kitchen garden or hedges, the tribal go for mixed crop. It also helps wild life to sustain. Synthetic fibres are in use more and more in the cities, cause health hazards. Synthetic clothing, furnishings and especially rugs can cause high voltage electrostatic charging closer to our bodies. Detrimental effects of manmade fibres have been detected mainly on the nervous system, endocrine (ductless glands), cardio vascular and haematological (blood building) systems and immune systems.[9]

Enclosure: Roof
Thatch roof They commonly use paddy straw for thatch roof. There is a layer of teak leaves over bamboo or Karvi battens, over which they spread and tie 6 to 9 thick thatch. The slope of the roof is at 30oangle. At higher altitude, where wind velocity is high, the eaves are as low as 4ft. to 5 ft. above the plinth. They replace paddy straw every year. The old thatch goes to farm as manure. The roof does not leak in spite of heavy monsoon. It gives good thermal insulation. As the roof breaths, the comfort value increases compared to other roofing materials. Though it is not fireproof, we have not heard of any disaster due to fire. Now the electricity a symbol of progress and modernization has reached to some of the tribal settlements. However, are not given to the houses with thatch roof are not provided with electricity for chances of fire by short circuits.[10] Would one call thatch roof, a sign of poverty? Its counterpart in Europe is found to be owned by the wealthy. The cost of thatch roof in England, for example, is two and a half times than that of reinforced cement concrete roof.[11] It may be because the West respects manual labour by monetary compensation. During the cyclone on July 1989 in Raigad district of Maharshtra State, even at higher altitude, the houses of Katkari and Thakar tribes were safe. Central Building Research Institute (CBRI), Roorakee, has developed a technology of waterproofing a thatch roof by applying plaster of mudtarkerosene, and claimed to last for five years. We, however, do not see its application by people. Rural people do not get kerosene regularly even for cooking.

Some of questions affordability, recycling, and the effects on the environment after its destruction, etc., remain. Gandhiji went to the extent of advising people to use vegetable oil for lighting instead of kerosene. Now the studies reveal that the use of electrical and electromagnetic appliances and gadgets creates electro-smog. Evidence is beginning to emerge that high exposure to radar, radiation from television masts television sets, VDUs, Computers, and even the kitchen microwave is causing metabolic malfunctions, skin cancers and even miscarriages.[12] The use of electricity produced even by benign wind energy is possible threat to health. Now the tribal sell grass to buy the Mangalore roofing tiles. The unseen tentacle of market economy spreads across the globe. It does not even spare half-naked tribal in the hills. Country Roofing Tiles Besides thatch, the tribal use half-round-country roofing tiles. These are universally used. The Chinese practice is to fix country-roofing tiles over a layer of mud over the roof scantlings. [13] Among the tribal in Gujarat State it is a homemade product. The entire household knows how to make it as much as they know how to farm, cook, make a flute, bow and arrow, and build house They use simple hand tools; bamboo strips, a string, a wooden plank and a mould; a simple method of firing: a trench in the ground and grass leaves, brushwood; and work of eight person-days shared by the entire household men, women and children. Just as the thatch roof, the country tile roof also breaths. (For more see: Tribal Skills) Government intervention To have a roof over the head is vital. The government authorities consider the thatch or country tile roof Kachcha or temporary. Governments may be are concerned about such temporary roofing systems, and about the waste of time and labour after their maintenance by the poor and jobless householders in the forests and villages. We find that in some places Mangalore type roofing tiles manufactured by industry initially were supplied free, then at subsidised price to the tribal. No efforts, however, made to give them the skills, or to set up the tile making industry on cooperative basis. We have witnessed inGujarat, Jesuit Missionary the late Fr. Samada S.J. trained the tribal in diamond polishing trade, on cooperative basis. However, while supplying the tiles to replace thatch roof and country tile roofing, the authorities did not pay attention to various relevant aspects. Among them are: the need to replace the scantling, the relative cost of the product, the peoples self-sufficiency and selfreliance, and sustainability, traditional skills and education, consumption of energy in manufacture and transport, besides the tribes management of time and resources to say the least. Above all, they ignored the tribals concept of time, which is linked to their culture. It is interesting to note, now, the financial budget of 1992 of the Government of India wants to dump Asbestos Cement Roofing Sheets and other asbestos products for cheap housing and give boost to the industry. Asbestos products stand atop the list of most hazardous building materials. People of many western countries have discarded this material. However, they have not stopped the production. It may continue, perhaps, until the mineral is fully excavated and exhausted; such is the wisdom of Industrial Culture!

Enclosure: Walls The house has a frame structure of wooden posts firmly placed in the ground, and wooden beams, and curtain walls of Karvi panels. The wooden frame supports the roof, attic, and wall panels. Panel walls are made of Karvi, bamboo mat or stalks of wild Jovar. Mudcow dung plaster covers the panel walls. The curtain walls are made of bamboo mats where it is available in plenty. When Karvi is not available, they use stalks of Jovar. It grows to 2.0 to 2.5 m. height. True to the saying, house is mans third skin, the roof and walls here breathe just as our skin breaths. The modern building technology progressively tends to produce and supply harder materials, and encourages sealing interior spaces in building designs. To study the effects of modern materials and technology on the physical, mental and social levels of an individual and the society are in itself a huge task, and remains to be investigated. The people, however, have started slowly realizing effects, after-effects and side effects of modern medicine, processed foods, mechanised farming, and now the sick building syndrome (SBS) and New Town Neurosis. Architecture and planning, as always, is last to wake up. Openings As mentioned earlier, the Warli house has one, two or three doors. There are no windows in urban sense. There are fenestrations in the walls in the cooking area: a slit of 2 x 12 or 12 x 12, by removing alternative stalks from the wall, and the area is without plaster. At top level of the wall, a clear space 6 to 10 near the eaves is without plaster. It brings in the filtered and reflected light from the tropical sun. It provide cross ventilation even while wind direction changes during the day and night, and during different seasons. It also prevents direct draught of cold or hot winds at a body level. In the area for the animals, a hole in the wall at floor level for the disposal urine and washed out dung that drains either to kitchen garden or to a compost pit. The door shutters are made of wood and bamboo with wooden pivots made out of styles of the shutter. Floor, Plinth and Foundation The mud floor is a labour intensive product, executed by self-help. It is made of selected soil from fields, screened, added with water, pulverised, spread on the stone bed, compacted and smoothened with simple wooden implements called chopane. A cow dung wash either by hand or by broom covers the finished floor. It leaves grey-green pattern of curvilinear lines on the floor. It absorbs spilled water without leaving the floor soggy. The hard core of stones below the mud floor prevents from dampness during monsoon. In the area for the animals, the floor has a slope of 1:7 for drainage. The raised plinth a height of 12 to 18 above the ground, and is projected beyond the Karvi wall panel by about a foot as an apron. It protects the Karvi from dampness rising from the ground as well as from the splashing water that falls from the roof. The house has no foundation trenches except the pits for the posts. The foundation of the posts is about 5ft. deep. While repairing or rebuilding the house, they reuse the posts by removing their rotten part that was lying in the ground.

On the slopes of the hill, they raise the plinths to a required height by stepping, rather than levelling by digging the ground. The high plinths have dry rubble masonry retaining wall, which allow drainage of ground / subsoil water during monsoon. Indeed, they use very little soil in the entire production of the house. Rarely there is any effort to change the elevation of the ground; it is minimum required. In the hilly area, the earth is scarce and precious. Earth is sacred. Interior As one enters the house, the interior is dark. After some time one adjusts to the light inside and the interior becomes visible. Paintings and objects on the walls, pillars and beams emerge as in the ancient caves. The interior seems darker, particularly to the urbanite that continuously live and work during the day and night in bright light. The adivasi aborigine spends the day in the scorching heat and glaring tropical sun. The house is not merely a shelter to him. It is sacred too. It is where one grows, gets educated. I wonder if in the dark interior of his abode, the Warli has a sense of returning to womb. Does the outer world and the inner world symbolise day and night, light and darkness, and the door in between as symbol of death and final desolation into the source of being but also the exit into life?[14] Among the Warli tribe there is worship of Fertility goddess. They carve the sun and the moon on the statue of Vaghdev tiger god , which reminds day and night, of cyclic nature of time, and of regeneration. Perhaps there is another dimension besides such metaphysical concepts. We have not seen a Warli wearing eyeglasses. The so-called dark interior facilitates exercise of the iris. The brightly lit interiors of the modern houses hardly think of this part of the health. They are more oriented to aesthetic of visuals than health of vision, whether architecture or urban design. How could a Warli walk in the dark of a night in the wilderness! Dr. Deepak Chopra prescribes certain exercises to recover eyesight: sunlight exercises and long and short distance reading are some of them. The tribal prescribe the same with little difference: to look at early morning sun through a fine sieve used for flour.

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