Kilina Penga- short stories and songs of the Paniya tribe.

Kilina Penga is a book of Paniya stories and songs for children. The Paniya tribal community lives mainly in the Gudalur Taluk of the Nilgiris district of Tamilnadu and in the Wayanad District of Kerala. This book is a collection of 10 stories and 10 songs, presented in two languages- Paniya and Tamil. The first is the story of their origin. Although all the songs are in Paniya and Tamil, only two of the stories could be presented in both the languages due to limitations of space.

Work on this book began in the year 1996 when the script for the Paniya language was developed. Resource persons from the Paniya tribe and linguists from the Central Institute of Indian Languages, Mysore, together created the script. We have now used this script in the book. It is a modified Tamil script where three letters not required for Paniya have been omitted and three new letters required for the Paniya sounds (not needed for Tamil) have been included.

The stories and songs, along with other cultural factors, were recorded by the Documentation section of ACCORD, Gudalur, all of whom were from the Adivasi community. People from the Paniya community took time out to provide these stories and songs. The illustrations have been done by the tribal children of Vidyodaya Nursery & Primary School after these stories were narrated to them. Three of the pictures (front & back cover pictures and the origin story) were done by an artist from Australia called Anne Best, who worked on similar projects with the aboriginals in Australia.

We feel that the use of the Paniya script has helped in adding to the sense of pride and dignity the Paniya community has in their culture. It also ensures that the language is nurtured and thus kept alive in the minds of their children.

The book also gives a brief write-up with pictures about the changes in the lives of the Adivasis in Gudalur and their institutions.

This publication has been possible with the financial assistance from the Sir Ratan Tata Trust, Mumbai.

To view or download the slide show of this story, Click Here.