Detail view latches

The handles come from Niyamgiri hills, the home of Dongria Kondh, one of the Adivasi communities in Rayagada district of Odisha, lndia.

The Dongria Kondhs exhibit their distinctiveness in their clothes, adornments and hairstyle. One of the Dalit communities is the jewellery artisan of the Dongria Kondhs, but the designs are given and values are added on them according to the Dongria cultural imperatives. The pieces of jewelry are made from brass, white metal, copper and silver. Dongria Konahs not only decorate their body with different ornaments but also use them for theirself-defence. They also make some of their omaments by using raw materials collected from the forest sand some ornaments are purchased from local weekly hats/ markets.

Their relationship with their hills and jungles forms a core part of their identity and spirituality and is deeply rooted in their culture, language and history," "Kondhs have a rich history of resistance to the British and now extractive industry. The British too wanted to mine the bauxite. Lord Clive had come to this region. But he was barricaded by Dongrias. It is unfortunate how urban people have stereotyped Adivasis as backward."

The decade long struggle of Dongrias against bauxite mining in Niyamgiri has been held as an organic, grassroots resistance movement, of a people and their way of life pitted against a model of exploitative development in the form of a major multinational extractive corporation. The struggle stands in line with many such contemporary struggles including the Bontok peoples against the Chico River Basin Development Project in the Philippines, the Guarani peoples against commercial plantations on their territories in Brazil, the Wajan and Jagalingou peoples against coal mining in Queensland, Australia, and several others.