Digital art print of the original artwork. 
Media: Giclée print on archival paper.
Size: A5
 
Wayanad is home to sixty-six major tribal communities. Many have been absorbed into mainstream life. But their ties to the forest remain strong. They live in small colonies just inside the forest or close to the jungle, where the boundary between human life and wilderness is thin.
Ayyappan, in his forties, is the head of the Kattu Nayakan community in Vaduvanchal. The tribe has distinct physical features. Dark skin. Stocky bodies. Prominent foreheads. They speak a dialect that blends Tamil, Kannada and other sounds I cannot fully decipher. I catch familiar words. The rest moves past me.
The Kattu Nayakars respect and worship almost everything that comes from nature. “The forest and everything in it is our life,” Ayyappan said. Their rituals are rooted in this belief, in the idea that humans exist in relationship with the land. They worship a formless goddess, represented by a simple stone, in a shrine high up in the hills of Neelimala.
The Kattu Nayakan community is known for its traditional medicine. When I met Ayyappan, he was recovering from his second snake bite. Both times, the snake had bitten him on the forehead. He spoke of it without fear or complaint. It had been his fault, he said. He had startled the snake while pruning bushes behind his house. Among the Kattu Nayakars, there is a firm belief that animals do not harm humans unless they feel threatened. It is a belief shaped by long coexistence, not superstition.