Identify the incorrect statement about Warli paintings.

A) Warli paintings are traditionally painted with rice flour.
B) The central motif of Palaghat is surrounded by scenes of lavish urban life of Mumbai.
C) A bamboo stick, chewed at the end, is used as the paintbrush.
D) Warli paintings are painted to bring disease to the enemy population.

B and D

Statements B and D are incorrect:

B) The central motif of Palaghat is surrounded by scenes of lavish urban life of Mumbai.
D) Warli paintings are painted to bring disease to the enemy population.

The Warli community inhabit the west coast of Northern Maharashtra around the north Sahyadri range with a large concentration in the district of Thane. Married women play a central role in creating their most important painting called Chowk to mark special occasions.

Closely associated with the rituals of marriage, fertility, harvest and new season of sowing, Chowk is dominated by the figure of mother goddess, Palaghat, who is chiefly worshipped as the goddess of fertility and represents the corn goddess, Kansari. She is enclosed in a small square frame decorated with ‘pointed’ chevrons along the outer edges that symbolise Hariyali Deva, i.e., the God of Plants. Her escort and guardian is visualised as a headless warrior, riding a horse or standing beside her with five shoots of corn springing from his neck, and hence, called Panch Sirya Devata (five-headed god). He also symbolises the guardian of the fields, Khetrapal. The central motif of Palaghat is surrounded by scenes of everyday life, portraying acts of hunting, fishing, farming, dancing, mythological stories of animals, where the tiger is conspicuously visible, scenes of buses plying and the busy urban life of Mumbai as people of Warli see around them.

The Warli paintings are traditionally painted with rice flour on earth-coloured walls of their homes. They are painted to promote fertility, these paintings avert diseases, propitiate the dead, and fulfill the demands of spirits. A bamboo stick, chewed at the end, is used as the paintbrush.