Times of India | 3 weeks ago | 04-09-2022 | 04:27 am
Keri: Ganesh Chaturthi is characterised by the tradition of ‘matoli’. Varied seasonal fruits and flowers, mostly wild, are tied onto this wooden frame, through which villagers display their knowledge of the seasonal floral wealth found in nature around them.“Today, with development in the fields of science and medicine systems like allopathy, homeopathy, etc, it helps people get rid of various ailments. But in the past, they heavily relied on their ethnobotanical heritage and hence our ancestors considered it important to transmit this traditional wisdom through the matoli,” said 56-year-old tribal Satyavati Karmalekar from Karmale, Ponda.Since 2005, the government has been organising the All Goa Matoli Competition and this has helped in revival of the folk tradition. “The competition brought to the notice of educated Goans this system of informally handing over knowledge of ethnobotany and its potentiality and utility to future geneations,” said Govind Shirodkar, a retired officer of the art and culture department.Datta Naik from Gauthan-Priol, Ponda, who takes part in the matoli competition, said that he and his family members participate wholeheartedly in decorating the matoli as it has helped them to connect with nature. “We collect a variety of floral elements from the forests of Western Ghats and neighbouring areas. At my house, I have a small nursery where I develop the saplings and propagate threatened species of plants,” he said.Krishnanath Naik, 75, from Priol, told TOI, said, “During our childhood, herbs, shoots, shrubs, medicinal plants required for day-to-day uses were available in the nearby forests, but now it has become cumbersome to search and collect many of these plants, due to increasing deforestation.”“Every year along with decorating the matoli, I also put up signboards and photos to help to transmit ethnobotanical knowledge,” said Shrikant Satarkar from Curti-Ponda.
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