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FIELD CARDNo. 20 / 32

DESTINATION: Chatikona
REGION: Odisha · Rayagada · Wednesday market
ALTITUDE: ~350m
FROM JAGDALPUR: ≈ 220 km (reported)
CLUSTER: Uncharted Bastar
ACCESS: Base in Rayagada. Chatikona is approximately 39km (1 hour 20 minutes) via the Rayagada-Bhawanipatna road.
SEASON: The market runs every Wednesday year-round. October to February for the most comfortable travel conditions.
PERMITS: No special permit required for the market itself. Visiting actual Dongria Kondh villages should be arranged through eco-friendly homestays or registered local guides — always ask permission before entering villages or photographing rituals.

FILED · CLUSTER E · UNCHARTED BASTARVERIFIED

About

n 2013, the people who shop at Chatikona market on Wednesdays defeated a billion-dollar mining company in India's Supreme Court. Then they came back the following Wednesday, and bought turmeric, exactly as they always had. This is the most understated detail about Chatikona: a community capable of stopping a multinational corporation treats their weekly market with the same unremarkable routine as everyone else on Earth treats grocery shopping.

The Dongria Kondh and Desiya Kondh converge here from villages across the Niyamgiri hills, trading produce, handwoven cloth, and the specific rhythms of a life built around these forests for centuries.

What Nobody Tells You

The Desiya Kondh wear enormous handwoven reed hats that double as full-body rain protection.

Used during the monsoon, these oversized hats — lined with natural waterproof material — cover the wearer's entire body while they work in the fields. They are both deeply practical and, by most accounts, striking to see in person.

Hand-rolled cigars are tucked into hair knots as casually as anyone else might carry a pen.

Desiya Kondh women carry their own hand-rolled cigars, often kept tucked into elaborate hair knots decorated with flowers, and smoke them openly through the course of the market day.

This market is not just commerce — it's where relationships form.

Beyond shopping, Chatikona functions as the place where community members meet friends, catch up, drink, and look for partners. The entire week builds toward this one gathering point.

The Dongria Kondh worship a mountain, and in 2013, the law agreed they were right to.

Niyam Raja — the King of Law — is believed by the Dongria Kondh to reside in the Niyamgiri hills. When mining company Vedanta sought to extract an estimated 73 million tonnes of bauxite from those same hills, the Indian Supreme Court ruled that the gram sabhas (village councils) of affected villages would have the final say. All twelve villages voted no. The mining project was rejected.

A young Dongria Kondh student was shot and killed in 2016, and the circumstances were never fully resolved.

In February 2016, a 20-year-old student named Manda Kadraka was shot dead during what was described as an anti-insurgent police operation in the Niyamgiri hills. A Supreme Court-appointed team investigated allegations that the killing was staged to intimidate the community. This is a documented, serious incident in the area's recent history, and it sits alongside the legal victory as part of the honest record of what this community has been through.

THE MOMENT

You watch a Dongria Kondh woman set down her basket of forest produce and start talking with someone she clearly knows well — not a transaction, just two people catching up in the middle of a market day, the way people everywhere do.

It is an entirely ordinary moment. And it strikes you, standing there, that this is the same community whose villages — all twelve of them — stood unanimous against a multinational mining company and won, in the Supreme Court of India, the right to keep their sacred hills intact.

Nobody at this market is performing victory. Nobody is wearing the moment like a badge. They came on a Wednesday, the way they always have, to buy turmeric and see their neighbours, because that is what Wednesdays are for here — regardless of what they had to fight to keep being able to do exactly that.

The Uncharted India letter

Most stories about indigenous communities and corporate mining end with the mine.

This one didn't.

The Dongria Kondh — roughly 8,000 people, classified as a Particularly Vulnerable Tribal Group — fought a $2 billion mining project for over a decade and won. Twelve villages voted, unanimously, against handing over the hills where their god Niyam Raja is believed to reside. The Indian Supreme Court upheld that vote, more than once, against repeated challenges. The bauxite is still in the ground. The hills still stand.

That victory came at a cost that the headlines about it rarely mention. A 20-year-old was shot dead in those same hills in 2016, in circumstances that remain disputed. The struggle did not end cleanly, and the community's relationship with the state remains complicated.

What you witness at Chatikona on a Wednesday is neither triumph nor tragedy performed for visitors. It is simply life — turmeric, hand-rolled cigars, reed hats against the rain, conversations between neighbours — continuing in the specific, unglamorous way that life continues after a fight that mattered, win or lose.

It was here before you arrived. It will be here after you leave.

— Almanac Field Notes
Uncharted Bastar

Before You Go

BEST FOR: Travellers interested in tribal culture and recent indigenous rights history, those willing to approach Niyamgiri with informed respect rather than casual tourism.
AVOID IF: You're not prepared to engage thoughtfully with a community that has a real, recent, and at times painful history with outside interests.
PERMITS: No special permit required for the market itself. Visiting actual Dongria Kondh villages should be arranged through eco-friendly homestays or registered local guides — always ask permission before entering villages or photographing rituals.
HOW TO GET THERE: Base in Rayagada. Chatikona is approximately 39km (1 hour 20 minutes) via the Rayagada-Bhawanipatna road.
BEST MONTHS: The market runs every Wednesday year-round. October to February for the most comfortable travel conditions.
BUDGET: Budget hotels and eco-lodges in Rayagada, ₹1,000-2,500/night. Niyamgiri trekking trails available separately — arrange with a local guide.
RESPECTFUL TRAVEL: Always seek permission before photographing people or entering villages. Hire local guides where possible. Purchase handmade goods directly from artisans rather than commercial vendors.

Where This Leads

--- ---

Niyamgiri Hills: the sacred range itself, accessible for trekking with proper local guidance.
Onkadelli: a different tribal market, Thursdays, near the Andhra border.
Rayagada: the practical base town for this district.

ALMANAC · INNER CIRCLE

Chatikona is one of 32.
The rest are waiting.

almanacindia.com

← All 32 destinations

ALMANAC · INNER CIRCLE

Chatikona is one of 32.
The rest are waiting.

almanacindia.com

FIELD ALMANAC · No. 20

Chatikona

Odisha

A L M A N A C

UNCHARTED BASTAR · CLUSTER E

FIELD CARDNo. 20 / 32

DESTINATION: Chatikona
REGION: Odisha · Rayagada · Wednesday market
ALTITUDE: ~350m
FROM JAGDALPUR: ≈ 220 km (reported)
CLUSTER: Uncharted Bastar
ACCESS: Base in Rayagada. Chatikona is approximately 39km (1 hour 20 minutes) via the Rayagada-Bhawanipatna road.
SEASON: The market runs every Wednesday year-round. October to February for the most comfortable travel conditions.
PERMITS: No special permit required for the market itself. Visiting actual Dongria Kondh villages should be arranged through eco-friendly homestays or registered local guides — always ask permission before entering villages or photographing rituals.

FILED · CLUSTER E · UNCHARTED BASTARVERIFIED

— 2 —

About

— 3 —

What Nobody Tells You

The Desiya Kondh wear enormous handwoven reed hats that double as full-body rain protection.

Hand-rolled cigars are tucked into hair knots as casually as anyone else might carry a pen.

Desiya Kondh women carry their own hand-rolled cigars, often kept tucked into elaborate hair knots decorated with flowers, and smoke them openly through the course of the market day.

This market is not just commerce — it's where relationships form.

Beyond shopping, Chatikona functions as the place where community members meet friends, catch up, drink, and look for partners. The entire week builds toward this one gathering point.

The Dongria Kondh worship a mountain, and in 2013, the law agreed they were right to.

A young Dongria Kondh student was shot and killed in 2016, and the circumstances were never fully resolved.

— 4 —

THE MOMENT

— 5 —

The Uncharted India letter

Most stories about indigenous communities and corporate mining end with the mine.

This one didn't.

It was here before you arrived. It will be here after you leave.

— Almanac Field Notes
Uncharted Bastar

— 6 —

Before You Go

BEST FOR: Travellers interested in tribal culture and recent indigenous rights history, those willing to approach Niyamgiri with informed respect rather than casual tourism.
AVOID IF: You're not prepared to engage thoughtfully with a community that has a real, recent, and at times painful history with outside interests.
PERMITS: No special permit required for the market itself. Visiting actual Dongria Kondh villages should be arranged through eco-friendly homestays or registered local guides — always ask permission before entering villages or photographing rituals.
HOW TO GET THERE: Base in Rayagada. Chatikona is approximately 39km (1 hour 20 minutes) via the Rayagada-Bhawanipatna road.
BEST MONTHS: The market runs every Wednesday year-round. October to February for the most comfortable travel conditions.
BUDGET: Budget hotels and eco-lodges in Rayagada, ₹1,000-2,500/night. Niyamgiri trekking trails available separately — arrange with a local guide.
RESPECTFUL TRAVEL: Always seek permission before photographing people or entering villages. Hire local guides where possible. Purchase handmade goods directly from artisans rather than commercial vendors.

— 7 —

Where This Leads

--- ---

Niyamgiri Hills: the sacred range itself, accessible for trekking with proper local guidance.
Onkadelli: a different tribal market, Thursdays, near the Andhra border.
Rayagada: the practical base town for this district.

— 8 —

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What Nobody Tells You

The Desiya Kondh wear enormous handwoven reed hats that double as full-body rain protection.

Hand-rolled cigars are tucked into hair knots as casually as anyone else might carry a pen.

Desiya Kondh women carry their own hand-rolled cigars, often kept tucked into elaborate hair knots decorated with flowers, and smoke them openly through the course of the market day.

This market is not just commerce — it's where relationships form.

Beyond shopping, Chatikona functions as the place where community members meet friends, catch up, drink, and look for partners. The entire week builds toward this one gathering point.