At a time when metropolis are spending a fortune on buying protective equipments to curb the spread of coronavirus, tribes in Andhra Pradesh and Telangana have taken their own steps to ensure the safety of their communities.
The tribals, who inhabitate the thick dense forests of Andhra and Telangana, have made personal protective equipment to prevent one another from infection by making masks from leaves. These masks are not only cost effective, but also contain many medicinal value. To make a mask, all you have to do is pluck out a number of timber and create a facial covering with the help of its leaves.
While Andhra and Telangana remain the worst hit states by covid, the tribals of the very same states have recorded no instances of the novel virus that has claimed thousands of lives in the country.
S Balaraju, director of Nature, an NGO, said that round 15,000 individuals are utilizing leaf masks in numerous tribal pockets of north coastal Andhra, Times of India reported.
“Lots of them belong to the primitive susceptible tribal teams of the Japanese Ghats,” TOI quoted him as saying.
The revolutionary concept was introduced by the tribals living in the thick forests of Bhadrachalam on the AP-Telangana border. The hack was then passed on to the tribals dwelling in the Nallamala, Yerramala and Araku in Andhra Pradesh and within the forests of Adilabad, Khammam and Warangal in Telangana.
Chenchus, Konda Reddys, Gonds, Gutti Koyas, Bondas, Parangiporaja, Muliyas, Kodhu, Gadabas, Savaras and Yanadis are among the tribes who were seen donning the leaf masks.
The number and type of leaves used in making the masks vary from place to place. Some use palm and teak, while others make masks of sal and pongamia leaves.
“The normal leaf masks are primarily made out of Pongamia. Historically, Pongamia leaf bowls are popularly used right here. The bowls are transformed to masks after attaching them to pure fibre strings,” Nadala Butki, Iragai, Araku Valley mandal, was quoted as saying by TOI.
In contrast to metropolitan cities, the tribal communities don’t depend on the federal government for their safety and needs.
Korra Addu, a tribal youth chief from Ganella said, “Although the federal government distributed masks, we switched to the leaf masks after exhausting them. Every of us obtained three masks from the federal government.”
