1595.3.9 Hoḍe ka:nu
The above two terms therefore differentiate between riverine forests on the basis of
the fl atness of the land on which they are found. In the second elicitation session,
however, BG volunteered the term hoḍe ka:nu , immediately after having defi ned the
words doḍḍa ka:nu and saṇṇa ka:nu (see below for saṇṇa ka:nu ). The presence of
the morpheme ka:nu in hoḍe ka:nu indicates that this forest type is conceptually
linked to the high-altitude evergreen and shola forest s. Beyond this, it is diffi cult to
determine from the available data (Extract XIX) what the differences, if any, are
between hoḍe ka:nu and koḷḷa ka:ḍu. Unlike koḷḷa , the Kannada word hoḍe can be
glossed as ‘border, edge...’ etc. [ 199 ], and it is possible that hoḍe forests are prefer-
entially mentioned in discourse in which the actual ‘body’ of a mountain is the
topic, whereas the term koḷḷa forest is used more when the low- lying region between
two mountains needs to be highlighted. At this stage, however, my data suggest that
these two terms are nearly synonymous.
Extract XIX (S)
(BG) Idondu beṭṭada no:ḍdale sariya:da hoḍeve. Ittaka hoḍeve, attaka hoḍeve,
ettaka ho:ga:ge uwe da:ri ille. Adakka hoḍe ka:nu.
(If you look at a mountain, there’s clearly a hoḍe. There’s a hoḍe on one
side, there’s a hoḍe on the other side. You can’t go forward on either side.
That’s a hoḍeka:nu .)
(AS) Hoḍe andare?
(What does hoḍe mean?)
(MRM) Hoḍe ka:nu endare, i:ga madyadalli doḍda sampige aḷḷa baratte.
( Hoḍe ka:nu means, (for instance) the doḍḍa sampige stream fl ows
through the middle.)
(BG) A: kaḍeka guḍde, i: kaḍeka uwe guḍḍe.
(There’s a hill on that side, there’s a hill on this side.)
(BG) I: eraḍu guḍde se:ri hoḍe a:gottu... hoḍe ka:ninalli hoḍe bidiru uwe ade.
(Put the two hills together, and you get a hoḍe ... you fi nd hoḍe bamboo
growing in a hoḍe ka:nu .)
5.3.10 Saṇṇa ka:nu
A habitat type peculiar to the southern Western Ghats, where the Solega live, is the
much-celebrated ‘ shola forest ’. These are small patches of evergreen forest (often
described in the conservation literature as ‘stunted’) that are found on high hill- and
mountaintops, and are surrounded by large expanses of treeless grassland. These
directly contrast with the doḍḍa ka:nu described above in that they form isolated
clumps of trees, whereas the doḍḍa ka:nu is regarded as a continuous stretch of
evergreen forest.
5.3 Landscape/Forest Types in Solega