Clicked this picture on the last Sunday at the Karwar vegetable market. Normally on Sundays, vegetable sellers/growers gather in Karwar, from surrounding vegetable growing towns, to sell their wares. And on that day the people of Karwar, make purchases to last them a week.
The cheerful lady in this picture was also in Karwar, in the Sunday Vegetable market to sell home-grown plaintains, from Joida/Kumbharwada, approx 65 km from Karwar. This is a unique tribe to Karwar district, and are known as Siddhis.
The Siddhis of Karnataka (
Kannada: ಕರ್ನಾಟಕದ ಸಿದ್ಧಿಗಳು) are a tribe of
African descent that has made
Karnataka their home for the last 400 years. There is a 50,000 strong Siddhi population across India, of which more than a third live in
Karnataka. In Karnataka, they are concentrated around
Yellapur,
Haliyal,
Ankola,
Joida,
Mundagod and
Sirsi taluks of
Uttara Kannada and in
Khanapur of
Belgaum and
Kalagatgi of
Dharwad district. Their language is a mixture of
Siddi Konkani and
Siddi Marathi. They also speak
Kannada.
SourceThe origins of the Siddhis seems to be a disputed issue as per this
ReportThe Siddhis are the only Konkani speaking people of African origin. Stranded on the West Coast following a shipwreck some 700 years back, they were soon absorbed into the local culture. They speak a distinct dialect of Konkani and even today retain their phyiscal African features.
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