Why a Gond Adivasi Community Remembers 2 Tigers as Protectors of the Household

For generations, a story about two tigers has travelled through Gond households in Madhya Pradesh’s Kanha landscape. They were called Ram and Laxman. 

According to the oral tradition remembered by Dayal Singh Kusre, a Gond Adivasi who worked as a cook in different parts of Kanha, the tigers once shared a household with people. People fed them, treated them with respect, and regarded them as protectors.

The story survives in community memory, along with a practice of making offerings to tigers. It is not a scientific account of tiger behaviour.

For Kusre, the story is inseparable from a larger understanding of nature. “Forests and wildlife are not something to be protected from a distance. Both are part of a shared landscape, where people must learn how to live alongside other species”, Kusre tells The Better India.

But can cultural memory really help people negotiate their place alongside wild animals? 

When tigers were part of the household

Kusre recalls a Gond tribal story in which Ram and Laxman occupied a place within the household’s collective memory. 

According to the Gond folklore, family members were instructed not to encounter the tigers when they first entered the household. A newly married bride, in particular, was told not to open a particular locked room or door. 

The restriction was associated with the belief that the tigers would not recognise a new family member, much as traditional households have sometimes maintained rules around interactions between younger women and senior male relatives.

In the story, one daughter-in-law eventually opened the door without knowing or following the instructions. She saw the tiger’s face, and the animal left the household.

Kusre recounts the tiger’s message to the family’s eldest man: he would now stay in the forest and receive his food there.

The room and its closed door represent a boundary that members of the household were expected to respect. The tiger was part of the story, but so was the responsibility of people to recognise that a relationship with wildlife came with limits.

The tradition also carries an idea of reciprocity. 

Kusre says, “The family believed that if people had food, they should ensure that the wildlife around them was fed, too”

He also describes a practice of making an offering of a goat or a hen to the tiger in the forest once a year, with the belief that the animal would continue to protect the family.

‘Nature is our all’

For Kusre, reverence for Ram and Laxman is part of a wider relationship with nature.

“For us, nature is our all; we bow at her feet,” he says. “If we have to cross 10 km of forests also, then we pray to nature, and the Adivasis feel confident. They trust nature for protection.”

He also recalls what he describes as older Gond beliefs about encounters with tigers.

“Our ancestors used to cross paths with tigers normally, but in reality, tiger spotting is difficult,” he says.

Tigers are elusive, and their presence in a landscape does not necessarily mean that people regularly see them.

These details belong to Kusre’s account of Gond oral tradition, but it does not suggest that people should approach, feed, or attempt to house wild tigers today. 

Its relevance lies in what the narrative reveals about the values through which tribal communities understand the natural world.

What communities learn from living alongside wildlife

Conservation biologist Shivangi Bendre, whose work focuses primarily on the Central Indian landscape, and mitigating human-wildlife conflict, says it is important to understand the everyday practices through which communities adapt to the presence of wild animals.

“I think it is important to look not just at the living practices of communities, but also at their livelihoods and the different, sometimes ingenious, ways they have developed to live alongside wildlife. These practices emerge from generations of experience of sharing landscapes with wild animals,” she tells The Better India.

Bendre points to communities living alongside sloth bears in Hampi as an example. Drawing insights from Wildlife Conservation Society India’s report “A relational perspective of Sloth Bear – Human Relations in Hampi region of Karnataka”by Mohammed Hisham K, she says, ‘when sloth bears enter an area, people may light fires, clap or make sounds to alert the animals to their presence.”

“The idea is to communicate, in a way the animals can recognise, that people are present. Rather than reacting when an encounter happens, community members use these practices to signal their presence and reduce the likelihood of a surprise encounter,” she explains.

These practices or stories should not automatically be treated as universally effective or safe. Their usefulness depends on the species, local conditions, and the circumstances of an encounter. 

Still, Bendre says that the knowledge developed by people who live alongside wildlife deserves consideration in conservation planning.

Their experiences can help researchers understand how encounters happen, what people fear and which locally developed responses may help reduce risks.

When a feared animal becomes part of culture

Bendre also points to Pilivesha, a traditional tiger dance practised in Karnataka, as an example of how cultural expression can shape the way people relate to wildlife.

In Pilivesha, performers portray tigers through dance and elaborate body painting. The animal becomes part of a public cultural expression, represented through movement, performance and artistic skill.

“What is interesting is how such cultural practices can shape the way people relate to an animal that might otherwise evoke fear,” Bendre says.

In the context she describes, the tradition has helped make the tiger more familiar as a cultural symbol, with some reduction in the fear associated with its presence. 

Research by Rohan Sharma of WCS India, “Celebrating Nature-Culture Relationships: Documenting Cultures and Traditions of Tiger Folklore in Coastal Karnataka through the Annual Pilivesha Celebrations”, also offers context to this relationship. The research explores how the tradition does not mean that it necessarily reduces conflict with wild tigers, or that cultural familiarity can substitute for practical safety measures. It shows how an animal’s place in community life can extend beyond the risks associated with encounters.

Dikesh Chaudhary, project officer at The Corbett Foundation, stresses the importance of preserving such traditions as part of community history.

“The idea is to save the tradition. It is a challenge, the cultural part. It is part of the history of the Gond and Baiga communities, and it is thus important,” he says.

For Chaudhary, these traditions also offer a response to a question that can arise in conservation discussions: why should tigers be protected?

“There are people who still may have questions: ‘Baagh kyun bachana hai?’ (Why should we save the tiger? This is the answer to that question. We should know why we need to save the tiger.”

Cultural traditions cannot, on their own, explain every ecological reason for conserving a species. Tigers play a role in forest ecosystems, and their protection is connected to the wider conservation of habitats and biodiversity. 

But the meanings communities attach to an animal can also influence whether its continued presence is regarded as valuable.

Are all traditional beliefs good for conservation?

Respecting cultural memory does not mean accepting every traditional belief without question.

Some beliefs may discourage the killing of animals or encourage people to regard wildlife as worthy of protection. Others may have little direct bearing on conservation. 

And some can create risks for people, particularly when a belief influences decisions during a medical emergency.

Bendre talks about this distinction through an example she encountered in studies in Kanha, where a belief about snakebite can influence how people respond after being bitten.

“The belief is that there’s this one particular jari-booti(medicinal herb)  that, when the person who’s been bitten consumes it, the snake, wherever it is, will die and split into two halves,” she says.

According to Bendre, people who believe in this remedy may turn to traditional healers rather than take the person who has been bitten to a hospital.

The problem, she explains, is not that the belief exists. It is that following it may delay treatment and put the person’s life at risk.

“They’re not really directly attacking the snake, but at the same time, that superstition may cause the person’s life to be in danger,” she says.

A belief that does not directly encourage people to kill a snake may have a different conservation implication from one that delays potentially life-saving medical care.

The question, therefore, is not whether traditional beliefs should be accepted or rejected wholesale. It is how to recognise their significance while addressing practices that create risks.

Awareness is only part of the answer

“Education and awareness and primary healthcare is also something that needs to be addressed in parallel with whatever awareness that we do on the conservation front,” 

Bendre says.

Communities need reliable information about animal behaviour, practical guidance on reducing encounters and access to appropriate support when incidents occur. Where wildlife-related risks affect livelihoods or safety, conservation efforts must also take those everyday realities seriously.

The story of Ram and Laxman cannot tell us how tigers behave, whether they recognise people as family or whether feeding an animal will make it a protector. Those questions require evidence, and the story should not be treated as a guide to interacting with wild tigers.

In Kusre’s telling, the tigers’ departure from the household does not end the relationship. The story continues through remembrance, reverence, and the belief that the forest remains their place. Its central idea is not that wild animals should live with people, but that people must recognise their place in a landscape they share with other species.

Coexistence does not mean eliminating every boundary between humans and wildlife. It means finding ways to live alongside animals while respecting their ecological needs and protecting human lives.

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