Poothukuli (புத்துக்குளி)
Toda embroidery is the sacred textile tradition of the Toda people, a small pastoral tribal community of the Nilgiri Hills (Blue Mountains) in Tamil Nadu. The Toda embroider a single type of garment — the putkuli (shawl) — in a counted darning stitch worked on coarse cotton or linen cloth using red and black thread only. The geometric pattern vocabulary is entirely abstract: concentric squares, chevrons, triangles, and lozenge forms, worked in dense horizontal bands. The putkuli is both everyday dress and ritual object — specific patterns are prescribed for specific ceremonies. Toda embroidery is exclusively a female practice; the knowledge, the pattern names, and the ritual associations are held by women. With a total Toda population of approximately 1,500–2,000 people, this is the most demographically fragile tradition in the entire CRAFT database. UNESCO inscribed Toda embroidery on the Representative List of Intangible Cultural Heritage in 2013.
Risk level: Critically Endangered · Inscribed on Representative List of Intangible Cultural Heritage, 2013
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