The Banjaras are a tribe of north Indian origin, who moved south into the Deccan plateau during the seventeenth century as carters in the baggage train of the Mughal emperor Aurangzeb. The Banjaras had to abandon their ancestral profession as carters, due to the British railway building during the nineteenth century. They now live in small villages called ‘ tandas’ throughout the Deccan plateau, and work mainly as casual laborers. Banjara women always wear their finest cloths and jewelry, even when doing hard manual labor on building sites or breaking up stones for public roads.
Banjara embroidery is noted for its lively decoration- cowrie shells, coins, cotton and woolen tassels weighted with lead and glass beads and mirror work are all used to adorn their textiles. The Banjara women of Andhra Pradesh wear gaghras, cholis and odhnis in bold appliqué and mirror work; more subtle is the work of the
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