Badaga Origin – the big mystery ?!

The origin of Badagas is a big mystery.

What is the origin and how old is the history of Badagas?

How long have they been in the Nilgiris – the hills known to Badagas as Naakku Betta [though literally Naakku Betta means four mountains it actually refers to many surrounding mountains]? When researchers and anthropologists on a scholarship [or funded by universities] in the west can stoutly claim that tribes like Todas and Kothas [Thodhamaru and Kotharu to Badagas] are original inhabitants of the Nilgiris and termed as PTGs [ Primitive Tribal Groups], why are they hesitant to offer the same classification to Badagas whose language, customs, traditions, rites and rituals are unique, is a big mystery!?

[ the link to above – http://www.bl.uk/onlinegallery/onlineex/apac/photocoll/t/019pho0000974s1u00001000.html ]

Because, apart from some explorers, especially Europeans and ‘trained’ anthropologists along with some local ‘well informed'[ should it not be ill informed?] Indians including Badagas have come to the conclusion that since the predominant meaning of Badaga is northerner and hence they have migrated from the north – Mysore plains. Yes, just based on the name Badaga and it its meaning.

Even if the theory of migration is to be accepted [with not a pinch but a handful of salt], the ‘so called researchers’ seem to overlook the fact that north of the Nilgiris does not end at Mysore plains but stretches much beyond. One researcher, to whom I have plenty of respect, goes to the extent that Badagas, themselves, had told about this migration in 1603 to  Finicio.

How clever, can one get? Badagas are divided into many groups. One such group, Lingyats who still have matrimonial connections with other Lingyats in the Mysore plains, may have migrated. Only of late, they have started marrying into other groups like Gowdas . That does not mean that all Badagas are migrants. In 1603, people in any remote village surrounded by thick forests and jungles and generally cut off from rest of the world, couldnot be expected to give correct answers about their ancestry to wandering missionaries

In early 1603, Giacomo Finicio, a Jesuit priest in the service of the Roman Catholic church in Malabar, was assigned to undertake a journey to Todamala (as the Nilgiris was known then) with a mission to bring the long-lapsed Christians (mistakenly believed to be Todas) back to the Christian fold

http://www.thehindu.com/thehindu/mag/2004/02/22/stories/2004022200130200.htm

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[The Badagas are the only ones with turbans – called mandarey]

The information given above by British Library – does it not convey a big ‘fact’

[More to follow..]