Decorate Your Wall with Tribal Paintings

Wall paintings and floor painting, apart from serving ritualistic purposes, are believed to create a harmonious atmosphere in the house. A broad border painted around the house along its base lends a grandeur to the dwelling. The front wall of the house separates the withing from without, the familiar from the foreign, the known from the unknown and must therefore be safeguarded. Any such decoration on the outer walls of the house is meant either to seek the protection of the Goddess or to ward off evil. The entrance of a house is also an important site for relief work in some tribal communities, such as the Agarias and Gonds. Simple decorations of ochre and mud on the platforms for keeping earthen pitchers, and on the four sides of the windows add color and charm to the surroundings.The decoration of the house, whether painting or relief work, is the responsibility of the women. Bas relief work is usually done on the inner walls of the house, around the central courtyard. It is usually done during the construction of the house when the wall is still wet. The wall rubbed clean so as to obtain a smooth texture. Dowels or pinches of clay are auickly and deftly applied directly on the mud walls to form ridges, lines, curves and dots, i order to produce the desired shapes. The motifs are the same as those found in painting: geometric patterns, foliate forms, lotuses, elephants, horses, other animals and human figures. Similar relief work also appears on grain storage bins. These bins of clay and husk made by women are quite massive. As opposed to the wall paintings, the bas relief work is a permanent fixture and lasts as long as the wall does.