The Nilgiri Tribe Keeping A 3,500-Year-Old Embroidery Alive, By Counting Threads Alone

The Toda are believed to have moved into the upper Nilgiri plateau in the Western Ghats at least 3,500 years ago, according to recent sediment-based climate research from the Indian Institute of Science, a timeline that pushes their presence in the region back over a millennium earlier than previous historical estimates. A pastoral community whose entire religion centres on the buffalo, the Toda lived in relative isolation until British administrator John Sullivan explored the region in 1819, after which colonisation reshaped much of their world. Today, fewer than 2,000 Toda remain. What has survived alongside them is Pukhoor, an embroidery technique made without a frame, a sketch, or a printed guide, practised now by fewer than 500 women in the world.

What Pukhoor Is

Toda embroidery is locally called Pukhoor, meaning flower in the Toda language. It uses red and black thread worked onto plain white or off-white handwoven cotton, without a frame to hold the fabric taut and without any drawn template to follow. Embroiderers count the threads of the base cloth itself and build geometric patterns stitch by stitch, a method that leaves no room for correction partway through. Done correctly, the underside of the finished cloth looks identical to the front, and both faces are considered wearable. The craft received Geographical Indication protection in March 2013.

Fifteen Patterns, One Vocabulary

Each motif carries a fixed name and place within Toda symbolism, drawn from the tribe's buffalo-centred religion and its relationship with the landscape. Documented patterns include meettoofykonn pukhoor for peacock, pat pukhoor for vulture, kopaan pukhoor for butterfly, and pob pukhoor for snake, alongside sun, moon, and sacred buffalo horn motifs. Linguist Murray Emeneau documented nine distinct designs in a 1937 academic paper, one of the earliest outside records of the craft's visual vocabulary. More than 15 traditional motifs are known today. The finished cloth, called puthkuli, is traditionally worn as a shawl by both men and women during religious ceremonies.

A Shrinking Number Of Hands

Toda embroidery is taught from mother to daughter, practised in small hamlets called munds, done communally over a few unhurried hours rather than to production quotas. That structure is now its greatest vulnerability. Embroiderers reportedly earn around Rs. 100 a day, since the work continues to be treated as a two to three hour daily activity, and a complete, intricate piece can take a month to finish for a total payment of around Rs. 3,000.

From Household Cloth To Retail Shelf

A small number of labels have worked directly with Toda artisans to bring the embroidery beyond the Nilgiris, among them Shalom Ooty, which began as a household goods outlet in 1992 before becoming a dedicated social enterprise for Toda work by 2005, alongside Coonoor and Co, Last Forest, Jaypore, and Tribes India. Much of this work has involved adapting the craft to softer bases like linen, since the technique itself remains unchanged. Production capacity is bound entirely to how many Toda women are actively embroidering in a given year, a number that has not been growing. What has changed is visibility: the craft has moved from Nilgiri handicraft emporiums into design exhibitions and occasional fashion collaborations, carried there by a technique whose entire foundation remains a woman, a needle, and a count of threads that exists nowhere written down.