Bigger than this earth,
Higher than the sky,
Deeper than the waters,
Is this (my) love for the man,
of the mountain slopes,
where bees make rich honey,
From the black-stalked Kurunji flowers.
(Tevakulattar, Kuruntokai 3, 100 – 200 CE)
This 2000-year-old Tamil poetry is about the honey of the Kurunji flowers that blossom only once every 12 years.
The year is 2024 and the hills of the Nilgiris in Tamil Nadu are once again engulfed in the blues of the famed Neela Kurunji flowers. The people of the mountains will now seek the treasures of this elusive flower in a time-honoured ritual. Known as ‘liquid gold’, the greenish-yellow honey of the Neela Kurunji is one of the most sought after due to its high antioxidant properties. Twenty-five-year-old Sasikumar from Sengal Puthur village in South Nilgiris describes it as “a heady mix of sweetness and bitterness.” He belongs to the indigenous tribe of Alu-Kurumbas who are renowned for their traditional honey-hunting skills. Apart from the famed Kurunji honey, he tells me that the sweet kozhi poo (coxcomb) honey and the bitter naval palam (jamun) honey are popular among wild honey enthusiasts.
A Wild Treasure
Honey hunting or harvesting is one of the oldest professions known to mankind. In fact, the earliest record of humans harvesting honey was discovered in an 8000-year-old cave art in Valencia, Spain. In India, the oldest record of honey collection dates back to the Indus Valley civilization, around 2500 - 1900 BCE, with seals from that period featuring images of honeycombs. Even as Europe and United States have moved on to depend on apiculture or domestic beekeeping for their agricultural pollination and honey production, India is still heavily dependent on the wild Apis dorsata (rock bee) for the same. Here, in the Nilgiris Biosphere Reserve spread across the South Indian states of Tamil Nadu, Kerala and Karnataka, several indigenous tribes continue to harvest wild honey. Traditionally, the Kurumbas, Kaatunaiyakars, Irulas and Sholigas are renowned for their honey-hunting skills in this region. But cultural anthropologist Rev. Philip K. Mulley informs us that other tribes like Todas and Badagas (who are pastoralist and agriculturists respectively) also drew out honey from the tree holes and stored it in bamboo tube containers. "In Nilgiris idiom, the practice was called jenu kaavadu or drawing out honey. Whereas, the Kurumbas and others cut the honeycomb and the practise was called jenu koovadu," he says. To this day, most of these tribes follow various ancient practises that allow co-existence of bees and humans.
Mariappan, also known as Yogamari, from Kodaikanal (situated in Upper Palani Hills) has taken it upon himself to document such practices through his Instagram page. He belongs to the Paliyar tribe, who were originally nomadic hunter-gatherers. “Our ancestors consumed honey and tubers as food. Now-a-days we also eat other local produce based on the seasons. While people from the plains normally use fire to burn the honey combs, we have always had the practice of only smoking out (to sedate) the bees to harvest honey,” he says.
It is breathtaking to watch Mariappan climb up a mammoth tree that is a few hundred feet tall, armed with just a bouquet of burning herbal leaves that smoke out a large hive of bees. He stands unperturbed, waiting patiently for the bees to scatter and then collects honey without disturbing the brood. “Sometime, we wait for up to three months after spotting a hive so that the brood can mature. We have to protect the babies,” he says. “It also means that we get more honey,” he adds.
Be it pere thaen (big honey) that is found in the cliffs of the Palani Hills or adukku thaen (layered honey) that is stacked up like books in a shelf, within a tree hollow or crevices of a rock, Mariappan finds and harvests them with the ease of an expert. He claims that in the past, honey was even found in the large horns of wild cows (referred to as bovine horn nesting). Honey harvested from the carcasses of such cows was termed as kombu thaen (horn honey). Currently, this type of honey hive can be found in the branches of trees.
The names of honey and stories of its origin vary from region to region. Maasi, an Irula from Masinagudi in the Nilgiris shares his views that kombu thaen (horn honey) is called so because the hive is shaped like a horn. He tells me that it is the malai thaen (hill honey) or the honey that is found in the cliffs that is the most sought after, even though harvesting it is a highly dangerous task. “We get close to 10 -15 litres from a hive in the cliffs, whereas in kuchi thaen (stick honey, found in small tree branches), we get just around 200 grams of honey.”
The Harvest
So, do they mark honey harvesting zones for each tribal community, I ask.
“No, we share,” says Maasi’s friend, Masanan, who is also an Irula. “When we find a cliff where a hive is built, we inform the other tribes that we plan to strike it soon and we also inform them about spots that they could work on. There are some cliffs that are considered sacred and all of us leave them completely untouched.”
Sasi, a young Kattunayakar tribal from Coonoor chimes in, “The process of honey harvesting is very sacred to us and we always pray before we begin our journey. And even if we spot 50 hives in a place, we harvest only 10 -15 for our needs and leave the rest.”
Almost every honey gatherer we spoke to followed the practice of leaving some hives untouched. “We want the bees to come back to our hills so we take only what is necessary,” says Sasikumar. Describing the collection process, he says animatedly, “We watch and listen to the honeybees closely to figure out when to strike. For instance, when the bees are busy collecting nectar, we wait patiently. After sometime, they’ll be empty-handed when they visit their hives, and that is a good time for harvest.”
The Alu-Kurumbas pray to their Kula Deivam (folk deity) before each harvest and usually work in the night. “The bees are less likely to sting at night. We do not kill them, we use herbs from the forest and create a torch. If the hive is in a tree, the people standing below the tree light up the torch and try to smoke the bees out, and two of us climb up to harvest the honey once they scatter. During the harvest, we sing our traditional songs - praising and thanking the bees - so that they forgive us for taking their honey,” shares Sasikumar.
Click here to listen to the honey harvest song, honoring the bees and asking their forgiveness.
While Kurumbas use simple bamboo ladders to access trees, they say harvesting from cliffs is a tougher process. “We take a forest vine and secure it to a boulder on top of the cliff. Two of us stand guard as a third person takes the vine and hangs from the edge of the cliff. He moves towards the hive with a torch and smokes the bees out. There are few others who stand below and help by generating more smoke from beneath the hive,” says Sasikumar. Within minutes, the bees desert their home and the Kurumbas harvest part of the honey for their own use as well as for sale.
Rev. Mulley tells us that there have been several fights over the bounty in the past and hence it is customary for most honey hunters in the region to harvest with their machans (wives’ brothers) so that they can safeguard the hunters at any cost.
Changing times
Some of these traditions have stood the test of time, while some have been adapted to make the job easier. Mariappan tells us that the Paliyars now use sturdy nylon ropes instead of vines while the Irulas tells us that sometimes they use beedi to smoke out the smaller hives. There are some changes that are beyond their control as well. “We see extremely less bees in the forest fringes now,” sighs Mariappan, “The pesticides in nearby farms are killing them. We often see hordes of dead bees. We should realise that without bees, it is not just about us losing honey; our entire food system would be disturbed.”
Climate change too plays spoilsport as unpredictable and heavy rains change flowering and bee foraging patterns, making honey harvesting in the wild much more difficult than before. During heavy rains, bees cannot forage for their food (nectar) and try to survive with what they have stored in their hive. “We find that there is very less honey during heavy summer showers. I had once harvested around 18 litres of honey in a single go. Now, we are hardly able to harvest less than half of it," rues Mariappan.
However, for most honey-harvesting tribes, honey and forests are not merely a means of livelihood. Sasikumar elaborates, “We have a very close relationship with the forests. From foraging food to building our homes, we depend only on what the forest gives. Even our Gods and temples lie within the forests.” He points to grasses found nearby and tells us they use such native species for their roofs or as brushes to paint their walls. He tells us that they also trust in nature’s pharmacy for most of their medical needs from cuts to colds. "This is our home," he says in conclusion.
Bees vs food
In India, crops grown in as much as 50 million hectares are dependent on bees. Recently, India’s limited research on bee statistics has given alarming results – with a 2017 study showcasing that the bee population in Odisha has reduced by over 80 per cent. In neighbouring China, the bee situation has deteriorated enough to opt for hand pollination and even phasing out of fruit crops like apples. If India doesn’t study its bee population and take the necessary steps, it might be detrimental for both our agriculture sector and food security as bees pollinate around 70 - 80 percent of our crops, including fruits, vegetables and spices.
As for the indigenous tribes who have managed to protect the fragile ecosystem around them for centuries, conservationists strongly believe that they could be part of the solution.
*Photographs by Ramya Reddy from the chapter "To the Source of Nectar" from her book Soul of the Nilgiris
*Edited by Sheema Mookherjee
*Inputs by L Lakshmanan and M Saravanan
