The term ‘Dongr’ signifies a ‘field on mountains’. Unmarried Dongria girls spend their time sitting at ‘Dongr’, embroidering intricate geometric patterns onto plain handwoven shawls for their future husbands. This labor of love takes over a month to produce a single shawl. The triangles embroidered onto the shawls represent the Niyamgiri Hills, the ancestral home of the primitive tribal community of Dongria Kondhs.

Subsequently, Nuapatna and Sambalpuri weavers incorporated this traditional design into full-length sarees made of both cotton and silk, which are now known as ‘Dongria Sarees’. The weavers carefully create geometric shapes on the anchal and borders of the sarees using dobby, jaala, and buti handwork techniques, requiring considerable effort and attention to detail.