A Study on Socio Economic Condition of Narikoravar Community in Villupuram District of Tamil Nadu

The Narikoravar community is known as the gypsies of Tamil Nadu. Nomadic in nature, the communitys temporary settlements are found all over Tamil Nadu. However, settlements are concentrated in the northern and central districts of Tamil Nadu. Living as hunters and gatherers, the Narikoravar are also known for skills with basketry, fortune telling and making of bead necklaces. Highly disadvantaged due to the peculiarities of their language, nomadic and abject poverty, the community has suffered continuously from negative representations in the popular media and television. Government efforts to house them permanently in one or two settlements have failed miserably. Missionaries and other charities working with this community have educated a few members. Those that have received collegiate education rarely return to work for the development of the community. Ethnographic studies of this community reveal the immense ecological and medicinal knowledge that the communitys elders possess. Community leaders agree that establishing a digital community archive would enhance the communitys ability to access its own rich oral traditions and knowledge and help improve its relations with the outside world. These frontier migrants who settled in the Tamil region several centuries ago possess rich ecological wisdom. As knowledge is the communitys stock-in trade, a digital community archive for the Narikoravars would seek to gain a closer approximation of their perception towards empowerment and self-development. Though Narikoravars were essentially hunters and gatherers for the past several decades, now they have taken up different economic options. Though their occupations have diversified, they still exhibit the characteristics of a nomadic way of life. Their primary occupations include hunting and gathering, sale of spurious jackal teeth, hawking varieties of needles and glass beads, advocating and selling herbs and medicines, tattooing and begging. They also do a variety of subsidiary occupations that include selling various types of traps and nets, selling feathers of peacocks and other rare birds, trapping rats in paddy fields on contract,. For the establishment of this archive, Culture, The archive has been set up at the Ashakulam settlement in Villupuram district. (Suresh Sharma)