The Warlis or are an Indian indigenous people, who live mostly in Dahanu and Talasari talukas of the northern Thane district, parts of Nashik and Dhule districts of Maharashtra, Valsad District of Gujarat,[1] and the union territories of Dadra and Nagar Haveli and Daman and Diu.[2] They have their own beliefs, life, customs and traditions, which is the part of the Composite Hindu Culture. The Warlis speak an unwritten Varli language which belong to the southern zone of the Indo-Aryan languages, mingling Sanskrit, Marathi and Gujarati words. The word Warli is derived from warla, meaning "piece of land" or "field". Anand niketan school of ahmedabad in gujrat, india has done a play of a girl of the warli tribe, " Niyati". She is not real but they made this girl come into life.
Their oral tradition tells us that the Warlis moved southwards in search of lands for shifting cultivation to the foothills of the Sahyadri (also known as the Western Ghats), where they live now. With a view to putting an end to what they considered the wasteful practice of shifting cultivation, the British evicted Warli villages deep into the forests, and resettled them on the fringes.
Warli Culture
The Warli culture portrays one of the best examples of man - environment interaction. Their indigenous practices are proof of how the tribals, though illiterate, had the mechanism to preserve the environment.
Life of the Warlis begins with the cradle ceremony by which a child is admitted into the tribe. The next is the lagin (initiation into adulthood with marriage); and the third is the maran and the dis (rites of death and ancestor-ship). The fourth is the zoli ceremony which has two parts: 'empowering' the child to face life in the forest and introducing the child to the community, which is the basis of Warli life.
RECORD
LARGEST WARLI ART OF INDIA CREATED BY "VENUS ACADEMY OF FINE ARTS BARODA"PROVED BY LIMCA BOOK OF RECORDS INDIA.
