While I browse through the voluminous literature on our exercise of interpreting cultures, past and present, I consider it worthwhile to share some of my experiences from close interaction with native peoples in the state of Andhra Pradesh, India. I am using the word native as a general term to refer to such social groups which are treated as scheduled tribes, scheduled castes, backward castes, and so on, in the Indian constitution.

I began my academic career as a Palaeolithic archaeologist with an orientation towards lithic typologies and variability, and site formation and preservation processes, and stratigraphy. But the eye opener for me in understanding the archaeological record, and in the interpretation of past human behaviour was in the 1970s, during an excavation at the Kurnool caves. The cave I excavated was about an hour-and-a-half walk (about 8 km), one way, from the village where I was camping, and the path went through rugged karst terrain. The people who worked with me in the excavation were the Boyas and Yerukulas. These two tribes are indigenous, and they figure in historical inscriptions from c.700 AD and in late medieval literature. To kill the monotony of walk, and as our relationship grew closer, we started indulging in gossip, in which everyone participated (twelve of them including four women). These gossip sessions covered village caste structure; caste hierarchies, subordination and antagonisms; patron-client relationships; use of wild plants for food, structures, implements, livestock fodder, and medicine; habits and habitats of big and small game in that region; practices of tracking the game by following pug marks; hunting, fishing, and foraging (e.g. honey collection) technologies and strategies; soil types, agricultural seasons, and crop rotation; impotent husbands and promiscuous wives (including herbal medicines to cure impotency); local gods and goddesses (folk deities), sacral topographies, and propitiation rituals with animal sacrifices; sympathetic magic; and witchcraft. Fortunately, I made notes of the important aspects of our discussions, for my record of vernacular terms and local usages with which I was not at all familiar. Soon I realized that the knowledge possessed by indigenous peoples is a vast mnemonic system of information, and I started recording similar conversations on tape, in addition to making notes, during my fieldwork in other parts of Andhra Pradesh.

During my cave excavation at Kurnool (Upper Palaeolithic to Late Mesolithic occupation (c.15,000 to 1,800 BC), I found that the Boya and Yerukula participants were experts in animal anatomy, the knowledge of which they gained while processing the game they hunted. They identified animals (e.g. antelope, deer varieties, wild boar, porcupine, and civet cat) from dental remains; identified the butchery practices from the cut marks on bones; and explained how meat foods were processed, by looking at the charred bones. The living traditions of Boyas and Yerukulas provided cues for interpreting past adaptive strategies, and links with the present. It was around that time that my friend, the late Professor G.D. Sontheimer (South Asia Institute, University of Heidelberg, Germany) enquired about the shepherds of my region, as he was then involved in a cross-cultural comparison of shepherds (Dhangars) in Maharashtra and Andhra-Karnatake (Kurubas/Kuruvas and Gollas). He explained how important the oral epics and rituals of these communities are for understanding the socio-cultural ecology of their pastoral cultures. This was the inspiration for me to pay attention to the Kuruvas, through whose transhumant camps we were walking to the cave site. I developed an interest in the pastoral domain, and Sontheimer and myself did extensive fieldwork among the Kuruvas and Gollas of Andhra. I am continuing that study of sheep/goat pastoralists with focus on the pastoral cult centres as ritualised landmarks and symbolic complexes, and the oral epics and rituals of their gods as commemorative festivals of the pastoral realm in which the past is mediated in the metaphysical present, through narrative art. As a corollary, I became involved in the study of folk religion and the mother goddess cults in Andhra (e.g. Ankalamma, Poleramma, Peddamma, Yellamma, Maisamma, and other such cognates). The mother goddess, in the local belief system, is the primordial supreme female power. She is a goddess of vegetation and fertility, and needs propitiation with blood sacrifices to protect the village and bestow rewards. She wards off epidemics, cattle pestilence, ensures good rains and crops, bestows health, gives children to the childless, helps people in crisis, and in overcoming misfortunes. Most places of her worship are associated with sacred trees like pipal (Ficus religiosa), fig (Ficus glomerata), banyan (Ficus bengalensis) and neem (Azadirachta indica); termite mounds; dolmen-like structures; and her power is enshrined in a stone, which is the axis mundi of the village. In her propitiation rituals, a he-buffalo sacrifice is most important. The he-buffalo represents Mahisha, the demon killed by the goddess. She is identified with Mahishasura Mardini or Durga-Kali of the Hindu pantheon. The slaying of the demon by the great goddess Durga-Kali is celebrated in India during the nine-day Navaratri festival (September - October). However, in the classical tradition, the village goddesses are treated as impure, meat-eating, dangerous and erotic. Yearly or cyclical rituals are performed to satiate the goddess, in which the village, cutting across caste barriers, becomes a 'whole,' and the priests in the sacrificial rituals are of lower castes. Some men and women get possessed and if she is not satisfied with the ritual, she speaks through the possessed and makes demands, which need to be obeyed. Otherwise, the goddess may turn malevolent and harm the village. Families or individuals, who have taken vows, fulfill them during the ritual by sacrificing fowls, sheep and goats.

Finally I would briefly draw attention to the shifting cultivators of the lower Godavari valley (Konda Reddi, Konda Dora, Koya, Savara, Bhagata, for example) in the dry deciduous woodlands. Within the range of their settlements, there are Late Palaeolithic and Mesolithic sites with component heavy-duty lithic tools. Adaptive patterns among the present inhabitants of this area are helpful for speculating about the prehistoric strategies, especially tuber crop horticulture and rice exploitation (wild Oryza nivara is extant in this region). For the communities of shifting cultivators, fire is a most important tool for forest clearance. Forests are cleared to raise settlements and to prepare fields for shifting cultivation, which is called podu. In the ecotones manipulated by fire, several varieties of local rice (landraces) grow on their own, and are harvested. It is possible that this area is a secondary centre of rice domestication, but we must wait for archaeobotanical data to test this conjecture. The tuber crops (about 34 species, some being toxic) are dug up in the forest and are stored for three to six months. Some of them sprout, and the sprouts are planted in the kitchen gardens and podu fields. One would expect such practices in the prehistoric context of this region, in the light of recent discoveries in other parts of the world. Also, the present communities have expert knowledge of their biological environment. Most of their forests are being heavily degraded by commercial use, which destroys the fauna and flora on which the people have traditionally depended. Their knowledge of foods, medicine and other forest products is gradually being obliterated. It is possible to use their knowledge, in combination with scientific technologies, for afforestation with plants of traditional value. The local communities and the Government can benefit by involving the former in participatory management, and by depoliticising social environments. To conclude, in the late medieval literature of this region the natives were referred to with esteem, in various contexts their knowledge and life-styles were acclaimed, and their cultures were already recognized as a rich heritage.