In Bastar ‘Haat-Bazaars’ weekly markets are traditional platform which not only fulfil their daily needs but also provide them opportunity to sell their forest produce, the main source of livelihood.
And on the other hand rural sports like ‘Kharkhariya’, ‘Murga ladai’, ‘Gudiya Khaja’, ‘Gudchura’, ‘Sharbat’, juice of Salfi and ‘landa’ are sources of their entertainment from the time immemorial.
To keep their flock together, tribal people come to these ‘Haats’ with drums called ‘Mandal’ in local parlance and dance and sing in groups giving an enthralling ambience to the occasion.
In this sense, these innocent tribals are living hundred years behind present day modernity and the successive Governments have tried to improve their lot.
But in terms of deep knowledge of the treasure of herbal medicinal plants, the Bastar plateau holds in, and their usage for healing even the chronic diseases they are far ahead of the modern generation.
This rare knowledge does not get buried with the passing off of the older generation of tribals is the responsibility of Government in which it virtually failed miserably as neither any effort was made to extract knowledge of herbal medicinal plants from tribal elders nor any research centre was established in Bastar area even if there was urgent need to encourage innovation in the field of preparing Ayurvedic medicines with the knowledge of tribals and thereby turning Bastar in a global herbal medicine centre from which tribal people as well as the State could have been enriched.