Excess, starchy water from boiling rice was poured into a kanji kala (large earthenware pot with a base) that was usually placed on the floor...
A wooden bracket fixed on a wall, for placing lamps. — From the collection of BP Appanna and Ranu Appanna
Woven basket, made from wotae, a variety of bamboo, suspended on a wooden slat over the cooking fire. It was used to store jaggery, smoked,...
Stone weights and measures were used for weighing grain, and also fresh food such as pork. In the image, anticlockwise from upper right: kalle mana,...
As the okka (patrilineal descent group) prepares to bring in the harvest, a newly woven palm leaf mat is spread on the floor, the puthari basket placed...
On puthari (rice harvest festival) night, before the harvest, decorating various implements and sacred spaces with wet rice paste to welcome the new crop is an...
Led by a young woman bearing the taliyatakkibolcha (bell metal platter heaped with rice on which a lit lamp is placed) the dudipatkaras, once again, sing...
During puthari (rice harvest festival), celebrations are spread over several days, with dances and songs for different occasions. This is when many symbolic stories are revived...
One of the taliyatakkibolchas from the kitchen is carried by a young woman of the okka, who leads the way to the rice fields, followed...
Puthari, Kodagu’s annual harvest festival, the most important celebration across Kodagu, takes place at the end of the year on a full moon night in...
Chittani putt is a small, rounded putt made from soaked and ground raw rice, cooked rice and flavourings such as cardamom and an egg. The vessel is...
Vintage wooden press for making chakkuli, a savoury deep-fried snack popular across several cultures, made of rice flour, gram flour and spices kneaded into a dough....
Recorded on 24th February 2021 Bacharanianda Ranu Appanna is a retired lecturer and writer, with a deep knowledge of Kodava language and culture. She was...
Recorded on 27th July, 2022 Kodavada Ain Mane is composed and sung by B.P. Appanna, a poet, writer and acknowledged authority on Kodava takk. Author...
Recorded on 27th July, 2022 This system of transliteration for the Kodava thakk and published in her book, A Place Apart – Poems from Kodagu,...
The Kodava language has been listed by UNESCO as one of the ‘definitely endangered’ languages of the world on the basis of its diminished use...
Mor kuthi, buttermilk churn crafted from a cross-section of bamboo. The long-handled dasher known as mand kol has a perforated coconut shell at the end,...
Otti maria, a wooded platter for kneading dough for akki ottis (unleavened rice flatbreads). A mixture of rice flour and cooked rice is kneaded into...
Pandi curry chatti, a large terracotta pot used for cooking up to 10 kilos of pork for pandi curry, a celebratory dish that was often cooked...
Possibly two of the earliest examples of wooden noolputt wara, these very plain versions contrast with the later carved, decorated and more sturdily constructed press....