THE Son Kolis are an ancient maritime hunter-gatherer group living along the Konkan coast of Maharashtra. They are fisherfolk whose lives even today revolve around boats, nets and an uncertain sea.

According to Kirti Jain, a researcher in Deccan College in Pune, the word koli possibly originates from kul, Sanskrit for clan, and implies that the Kolis are clanspeople.

The traditional occupation of the Kolis is constructing boats and weaving nets. Boats are always made of teak because it is durable, buoyant and does not corrode easily. Planks of wood are clamped together with wooden pegs. Iron is shunned because of the belief that it will be affected by the earth's magnetic field. The boats range in size from the trawler-sized galbat to the small shimpli, which means shell.

Net-making is solely a male prerogative, while the women sort and dry out the catch. The nets are made of cotton, twine and hemp. The katal, which is a small knife that is used to make and repair nets, is worn around the neck and bears the insignia of the tribe.

The fisherfolk observe unspoken and informal territorial rights. The seafarers of Satpati village, for instance, scrupulously make a detour of about 10 km when going to Bombay to avoid intruding into the territory of the fisherfolk of Vasai in Thane district.