Tribes and Textile Handloom of Odisha: With Special Reference to Koraput

The three basic needs of humanity are clothing, food, and shelter. In this context, the origins and development of tribal handloom textile can be traced to the evolution of man from a basic hunter-gatherer to a civilized species. According to the 2011 census, 8.6% of the overall population of the country was made up of Scheduled Tribes, as seen from the perspective of the various tribes. Almost half of the tribes in our nation live in the states of Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh, Maharashtra, Orissa, Jharkhand, and Gujarat. Over 23% of Odisha’s total population is made up of tribes, which are a backward, neglected, and impoverished group. Like all tribal cultures around the world, Kotpad’s worldview has evolved into an elegant creativity that draws inspiration from nature. As a result, Kotpad’s fabrics are an example of this creativity because they are entirely chemical-free, have withstood the test of time, and continue to leave their irreparable marks on the history of textiles. The prominent role played by tribes in Kotpad block in the development of textiles in a tribally dominant area of Koraput has been depicted in the current research, which is based on secondary sources of data.