Baduga Rituals

dē haua

Baḍugaru always seek oneness with nature by worshipping the elements. To the ancients of Baḍugaru, the elements earth, water, air, fire, and wood were supposed to be the foundation of everything.

Of these elements, the wood has a special significance to their culture. They believed that it is the wood that caused the wind to favour them with rain-bearing clouds that sent down rain to restore the green of the earth, to replenish the streams, to cause the grass to grow that fed the herds of buffaloes that gave plenty of milk, and to cause the fruit-bearing and the millet plants to yield abundantly.

In Baḍugu, the word dē means a hillock and haua means a jungle. dē haua means a jungle on a hillock. For Baḍugaru, worshipping the jungle on a hillock ie the element wood is a primitive tribal ritual. This ritual involves an annually repeated series of actions centered around placing an earthen lamp in the hollow (in Baḍugu, bogaṭṭe) of a tree and lighting it.

For making the lamp, they use earth or clay and this is one of a series of actions performed in this ritual. The element earth is worshipped before making the lamp. For making a fire, they rub together sticks of a kind of tree (in Baḍugu, nelikōlu kaḍavadu) and this is another of a series of actions performed in this ritual. The element fire is worshipped before lighting the lamp. Fresh buffalo-ghee is used as fuel for the lamp and the fibres of a certain plant is used as the wick.

When there is no hollow in the tree to shelter the lamp, a tiny hut is constructed with building materials like mud, millet-grass, bamboo-cane, etc to shelter the lamp and is repaired or renovated, if necessary, each year. The building materials are carried to the site where this ritual is performed.

Pouring out milk into a stream as an offering (in Baḍugu, haḷḷaga hālu buḍōdu) is another of a series of actions performed in this ritual to worship the element water. Fresh ears of corn are strung on a line and hoisted between two poles and tied to them (in Baḍugu, hari kaṭṭōdu) as a tribute to the element air. This is another of a series of actions performed in this ritual.

Fresh grass, fresh buffalo-milk, fresh buffalo-ghee, fresh millet-seeds, etc are placed inside the hollow or the hut as offerings to seek the blessings of nature for the next cycle. The offerings such as milk and ghee are carried in bamboo-containers (in Baḍugu, hoṇe).

Burning logs of wood on a small rise (in Baḍugu, mandda kiccu ākōdu) and fatiguing yourselves to keep vigil over what is considered to be sacred the night before the final day of the ritual (in Baḍugu, sautte ibbadu) and paying obeisance to your ancestors (in Baḍugu, maṇḍe daṇḍa kaṭṭōdu) on the final day of the ritual are other things of the series of actions performed.

From the foregoing, it is evident that Baḍugaru are indeed a primitive tribe and nature worshippers!