Indian traditions: Warli art

I love art projects, so choosing to teach the girl's about the Warli tribe and their traditional art wasn't even a question during our Indian term.

The Warli people are from the state of Maharashtra, mostly located on the northern outskirts of Mumbai. Rather than depicting deities, their art tells a story of moments in everyday life such as hunting, dancing and harvesting. Warli art was traditionally painted on the inside walls of mud huts, usually for a celebration such as a marriage.

Have a look at this Indian Warli Art website for more information.


Our meeting began as you may have guessed, with a discussion and photo slideshow. Why mess with something that is working well? It gives me a chance to share information with the girls and they love to see the real-life examples on the computer screen. It has worked wonders for imparting the "learning material" this term!

Here is some Warli art painted on the wall at Sangam's entrance.

After looking at examples of and discussing Warli art, we moved onto the practical portion of the meeting. 

I demonstrated to the girl's how to draw different people and objects in the Warli style. We began with the basic person standing and then worked our way through a variety of poses - walking, running and sitting to name a few.

My photo, not my drawings.

As I drew on the whiteboard, the Brownie's followed along, drawing on pieces of paper. Other objects we drew included: 

• trees
• sun, moon, clouds, stars
• campfire
• line of people dancing
• musical instruments

Some Brownie drawings. It's merely a coincidence that I only took photos of drawings that used blue texta. The was a rainbow of colour used, I just didn't capture it.

Once everybody had learnt the basics, it was time to move onto the painting. Each girl had a 12x12 inch piece of calico on which to paint. I had purchased thin-tipped paint brushes to make painting the fine details easier.

While traditionally, the Warli tribe used white for their painting, calico was the easiest and cheapest material for us to paint on and so we painted with black paint. If I had more time at my disposal, I would have liked to paint the calico beforehand to imitate the red ochre walls of the Warli mud huts.

I asked the girl's to plan their paintings before touching the paint and to think about the story that they wanted to tell.

Here are some of the final designs:

This was a meeting where we could have easily kept going for another hour. The Brownies were completely enthralled the entire time, and I think they really enjoyed the simple tricks used to easily recreate the Warli designs. An A+ meeting!

Indian food

We learnt about many things in our half term studying India for the Other People badge, but the girls were most excited to learn about and experience the cuisine.   

During our meeting we:

• looked at photographs of different meals
• discussed food preparation and ingredients
• how to eat using only one hand
• learnt about tiffins (Indian lunch box)
• ate Indian food

Unfortunately, cooking during or before the meeting was not an option and so I had to resort to what I could pick up pre-made from the local supermarket. Not completely authentic, but great for a first taste of India. The Brownies devoured all the food and insisted that we eat Indian meals at our future camps!

Our menu consisted of:

• rice
• butter chicken
• chapattis (cut into quarters)
• mini papadams 
• vegetable dhal

We sat on the ground, chatting and eating the food using only our right hands. It was a lovely relaxing way to end the night. I'm especially grateful for paper plates so we could skip the washing up for once!

As usual, I forgot to take photographs until it was too late. Here is a plate with the scraps of leftover food.

Games from India

Each week as we worked on the Other People create-a-challenge badge, we would play a game or learn some basic language from India. Sometimes both, as you will see in one of the games below! Every game was fun (and successful). It is always a lovely surprise when new games go over well! 

Image credit

Bulbul Volleyball

Source: World Sangam Day Activity Pack

Equipment: Balloons

How to play:

1. Players sit in two lines facing each other, feet out in front of them touching the feet of the person opposite. 
2. The leader stands at one end of the line and throws a balloon into play. 
3. The players have to bounce the balloon around, trying to keep it from going behind their own line while getting it to land behind the opposite line - and players must keep their behinds on the floor at all times! 
4. Teams score one point each time the balloon lands behind the opposing line.

Hindi Colour Game

Source: World Sangam Day Activity Pack

Equipment: 

• Hindi colours written on coloured paper. Eg. Lal (Red) written on red paper.
• Youtube video to assist with pronunciation.

How to play:

1. The Leader calls out a colour in Hindi.

2. The girls must all run to touch something that colour.

Elimination: The last girl to touch the colour or someone that touches as incorrect colour is out. Or alternatively, can lose a life.

Added difficulty: The Leader can call out two or three 
colours all at once and the girls have to find a way of touching all of the colours at once.

Hindi Colours

Lal = Red

Narangi = Orange

Pila = Yellow

Hara = Green

Nila = Blue

Gulabi = Pink

Zambla = Purple

Kala = Black

Safed = White

Elephant, Giraffe, Eagle

Source: "International Game for Brownies", Trefoil New - April 2006 

How to play:

1. Everyone stands in a 
circle with one person in the middle. This person points at one girl and says either ‘elephant, giraffe or eagle’.

2. The girl they are pointing at and the girls on either side must act out whichever animal was chose.

3. If any of these three girls gets their action incorrect (or do it too slowly) they sit down. 
4. The game continues skipping over the girl that is sitting down so the person being pointed at may have a new neighbour to work with.

5. The last person standing is the winner.

Actions:

Elephant – The middle girl holds arm out in front of face as trunk. The girls on each side, hold up their arms to the middle girl, creating a half circle. These are the ears. 

Giraffe – The middle girl holds her arms above her head to be the long neck and head. The girls on either side have their hands and arms pointing down to the ground away from centre person to be the legs.

Eagle – The middle girl makes a beak shape with her hands in front of her face. The girls on each side, use one arm (away from the centre girl) to make moving wing motions.