Pardhi
names 33objects 19ISO 639-3 pcl
Spoken in fourteen Pardhi villages of the Amravati and Yeotmal districts, Vidarbha, Maharashtra, surveyed 2016-2018.
tribal 33
See the Pardhi sky on the chart →
The sky in Pardhi
| Name | Object | Meaning | Register |
|---|---|---|---|
| Sukar | 'Star' as a word | Tabled by the paper as its last astronomical term, against the bare description 'a star'. | tribal |
| Dondo futi gyo, Dondo futyo, Igan Tara | Comets | 'the tail has burst out'; 'star having tail' Recorded in eleven villages, and read as a bad omen in seven of them. | tribal |
| Dongari, olau, dongarau | Directions taken from the sky | 'of the hill' Glossed with Marathi uttar. ḍoṅgar is the hill or mountain. | tribal |
| Suryasambar, Khuryakhambar, Hetlyawai, vand, Vandh, nikalato | Directions taken from the sky | 'the sun's post'; 'it comes out' Glossed by the paper with Marathi pūrva. Six words for one direction, of which two name the sun's pillar and one is a verb of emerging. | tribal |
| rakshasbaku, Dakhani, dakhanau, Mahuri, Hetawas | Directions taken from the sky | 'the demon's mouth' Glossed with Marathi dakṣiṇ. The paper's vocabulary table gives baku for 'mouth'. | tribal |
| upalyawai, Dubato, baend | Directions taken from the sky | 'it drowns', 'it sinks' Glossed with Marathi paścima. Dubato is the ordinary verb for sinking or drowning. | tribal |
| Giran | Eclipses | Glossed with Marathi grahaṇ. Solar and lunar eclipses were reported in ten villages each, a story about them in six, and an omen — bad in eight villages, good in three — in eleven. | tribal |
| Holagi, Hilagoi | Figures with no secure modern identification | the Ring Dove, Streptopelia decaocto decaocto The paper places it only as somewhere in the Pleiades-Taurus-Auriga region. | tribal |
| Sukari, Sukkari | Mars | Recorded in nine villages, as was the conjunction of Venus and Mars. | tribal |
| Taro tutyo, Tara tuti gi, Channi tuti | Meteors and shooting stars | 'the star has broken' Recorded in all fourteen villages and read as a bad omen in eleven — the most consistently ominous thing in the Pardhi sky. | tribal |
| Bo kutrya, Don kutre | Orion | 'two hunting dogs' Recorded in one village. | tribal |
| pardhi, Bawari, Waghari | Orion | 'a person of the Pardhi tribe' The hunter of the Orion hunting-scene. Bawari and Waghari are the tribe's own names for itself: the paper records that in the Pardhi language they call themselves Waagharis. | tribal |
| Tira harine, Tin haran, Taran Haranya, Tran Haranya | Orion's Belt | 'three deer' Reported in seven villages. The Spotted Deer is the one animal in the paper's hunting table important enough to reach the sky. | tribal |
| Trirkandu | Orion's Belt | Reported in eight villages, more than the deer. The paper gives no gloss; tri- is 'three' and the Pardhi vocabulary table gives taran and tran for the numeral. | tribal |
| Sapani fani, Fano nikalyo, Naganu fanu, Naganu fan, Nagani fani | Scorpius | 'the cobra's hood'; 'the hood has come out' Reported in twelve villages. The vocabulary table gives hambel and kavadata for a cobra or snake, so the sky word is the Sanskritic nāg rather than the everyday Pardhi one. | tribal |
| Sukar, Sukkar, Shukrar Channi | Sirius | The paper tables these names against Sirius with the qualification 'sometimes' — the same words the Pardhi use for Venus, applied on occasion to the brightest fixed star. | tribal |
| Mangari | The Hyades | 'the triangular net used for trapping small birds' Reported in seven villages. Mangari is a real object, photographed in the paper: a triangular net used to catch Ring Doves and Jungle Babblers, shown both folded for transport and laid out. It sits in the sky immediately beside the flock of babblers it is used to catch. | tribal |
| Khagar, Sadak, Rasta, Dandi, Javanu Dandi | The Milky Way | 'a path'; 'the path for going' Reported in ten villages. The paper's introduction notes that Indian tribes generally make the Milky Way a pathway for animals or for human ancestors. | tribal |
| Chand, Chandar | The Moon | Recorded in all fourteen villages; a halo round the moon in five, and used to forecast the weather in two of those. | tribal |
| khau, khalu | The Moon | Glossed with Marathi khaḷe. Seen in five villages and used for weather forecasting in two. | tribal |
| Ba inda | The Pleiades | 'two eggs' (ba, two; inda, eggs) Reported in six villages. | tribal |
| Lawadanu khalu, Lawadani khadu, Lawadanu khadu, Lawadani zund | The Pleiades | 'a flock of Jungle Babbler birds' (Argya striata) Reported in thirteen villages, as widely as the cot. The authors ask why the Jungle Babbler and not a meatier bird, and answer from its behaviour rather than its value: it is gregarious, noisy and conspicuous, and goes about in flocks of seven to ten — which is why in Indian English it is the 'seven sisters' and in Hindustani sāt-bhāī, the seven brothers. | tribal |
| Chand, Dadaji, Wado | The Sun | 'grandfather'; 'the big one' Recorded in all fourteen villages. | tribal |
| Chalan | The turning of the sky | 'movement' Glossed by the paper with Marathi tārakābhramaṇ, the wheeling of the stars. | tribal |
| Bater | Ursa Major (the Big Dipper) | the Black-breasted Quail, Coturnix coromandelica | tribal |
| Khodyaryo, Pimplajyo | Ursa Major (the Big Dipper) | A man of the Gaon Pardhi with the surname Solanke, who worshipped the goddess Pimpalaj or Khodyar Devi. | tribal |
| Lawada | Ursa Major (the Big Dipper) | the Rock Bush Quail, Perdicula argoondah | tribal |
| Melela manas, Taran chor | Ursa Major (the Big Dipper) | 'dead men'; 'three thieves' Recorded as three dead men in one village and as three thieves in six. | tribal |
| Teetar | Ursa Major (the Big Dipper) | the Grey Francolin, Francolinus pondicerianus One of the birds the Pardhi net most often; the paper's Table 7 lists it as hunted frequently, in a net called khandari. | tribal |
| budinu khatalu, budhinu khat, budinu gathalu | Ursa Major (the Big Dipper) | 'the old lady's cot' Reported in thirteen of the fourteen villages surveyed — the most widely held belief the authors recorded, and the only one shared by every Pardhi village whether hunting or farming. | tribal |
| chavandeyo | Ursa Major (the Big Dipper) | A man of the Gaon Pardhi with the surname Chauhan, who worshipped the goddess Chavanda. | tribal |
| korobyo | Ursa Major (the Big Dipper) | A man of the Gaon Pardhi with the surname Pawar, who worshipped the goddess Korobyo. | tribal |
| Sukar, Sukkar, Shukrar Channi, Padari Channi, Payatani Channi, Hagarya Tara, Jagin Tara | Venus | 'Shukra's star'; 'the waking star' Recorded in all fourteen villages, as were the sun and moon. The paper tables it as both morning and evening star under one set of names. | tribal |
Sources
- Ganesh Halkare, Purushottam Dahedar, Wayne Orchiston and M.N. Vahia, 'Astronomy of the Pardhi tribe of central India', Journal of Astronomical History and Heritage, 22(1), 179-194 (2019), Table 5, pp. 184-185 link
- Ganesh Halkare, Purushottam Dahedar, Wayne Orchiston and M.N. Vahia, 'Astronomy of the Pardhi tribe of central India', Journal of Astronomical History and Heritage, 22(1), 179-194 (2019), Table 4, p. 184 link