14 Classifications and Distribution of Tribes

Prof.A.K. Kapoor

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Content of this unit

 

1.      Introduction

 

2.      Definitional Issues

 

3.      Tribes in India

 

4.      Classification and Distribution of tribes

 

5.      On the basis of Economy.

 

6.      On the basis of Culture.

 

7.      On the basis of Language.

 

8.      On the basis of biogenetic criteria.

 

9.      Concept of PVNT.

 

10.  Concept of DNT.

 

11.  Conclusion.

 

12.  Objective Questions

 

13.  References.

 

Learning Objectives

  • To determine the concept of tribe
  • To understand the classification and distribution of tribes in India.
  • To understand different concepts which enlightens the tribal concept more prominently
  • To understand the contribution of different anthropologists to determine the tribal milieu.

 

Introduction

  1. Tribes are the indigenous or autochthonous population of Indian sub-continent.
  2. They often referred to as ‘PRIMITIVE SOCIETY’ or ‘pre-state society’ or ‘folk-society’.
  3. From this, one can conclude that they are BACKWARD CLASSES as compared to civilized social groups.
  4. To DEFINE THE “TERM”; there are three approaches, one has to keep in mind, which are as follow;
  5. Concept of Isolation (given by Britishers)
  6. Concept of Assimilation (shouldn’t be deprived of urban lives, benefits’ they are assimilated).It can be detrimental.
  7. Concept of Integration (instead of assimilation, they should be integrated).

 

Definitional Issues

  1. In medieval English: ‘a primary aggregate of people claiming descent from common ancestor’.
  2. In Indian context: – Adivasi, Vanya–jati, Janajati, Jana-jamity etc.
  3. Difficulty among the context of India, many of the Tribes identification is associated, with various types of Social Groups, in which Caste is the Primary Factor. However, Tribal Society is Primitive Society whereas Caste is a part of Hindu Society.

 

In 19th century:-

  1. Lewis Morgan (1877):- referred these societies as those which persists social institutions but not political.
  2. Henry Maine:- showed differences in legal terms.
  3. Both the Anthropologists mainly focussed on kinship basis of tribal societies instead of territorial distinction.
  4. According is Marshall Sahlins; tribes can be defined as an “ORIGINAL AFFLUENT” society.

 

In 20th century:-

 

The concept of evolutionism defined the term tribe in modern way as compares to the earlier one, as follows;

 

Tribes:-

  • Homogenous Ethnic Group
  • Has A Sense of Identity Based On Common Language & Culture
  • Primitive Level of Technology
  • No System of Writing
  • Division of Labour
  • Definite Territory
  • Definite Political Boundary.
  • Andre Beteille (1977); tribe is large enough to be visible group & small enough to be mobilised for common action.

 

TRIBES IN INDIA IN PERCENTAGE (AT NATIONAL LEVEL)

 

Note (Source: tribesindia.com)

  • Classification and Distributions of Indian Tribes
  • It is divided on the basis of four aspects;

 

1.    On the basis of Economy.

 

2.    On the basis of Culture.

 

3.    On the basis of language.

 

4.    On the basis of biogenetic criteria.

  • Indian civilization is the product of numerous cultures where tribes developed its own niche.
  • Along with Africa, India has the largest concentration of tribal population.
  • Different scholars with difficulties tried to categories Indian tribes on the basis of different criteria, which distinguish tribes from each other. This can be explained as follows;

 

1. On The Basis Of Economy (Occupational Specialization)

 

  • Tribe has its own definite economy which can be ranged from food gathering – hunting to settled plough cultivation via shifting hill cultivation. But a tribe usually practice some other occupations as subsidiary occupation. Different occupational specializations found in Indian tribes are as follows;

 

Food Gatherers

  1. Most of the tribes in India mainly depend on forest; their whole life revolves around the forest. They collect; fruits, edible roots, honey etc. from the forest and also practice hunting.
  2. They are (confined to remote corners of India.)
  3. It is distributed on the criteria of different zones of India i.e.
  • North – Eastern Himalayas: Raji, Boka, Kukis, Nagas.
  • Central India: Birhor, Kharia, Korwa, Jung, Maria.
  • Andaman Islands: Jarawa, Onge, Sentinelese.
  • South India: Kadars, Malapantarams, Puliyans, Paniyan, Chenchu, Yanadis, Aranadans

 

Tribes; who live on outskirts of village selling products on nearby market like wood, wild fruits, honey etc. Like; Chenchus of Hyderabad, Yanadi of Chennai, Kurumba of Tamil Nadu, Katodi of Baroda.

 

Pastoralism

 

  1. Some of the tribes in India practices domestication of animals i.e. they are pastoralists in nature.
  2. They directly or indirectly depend on their animals for foods & other unusual settings. Example; Bhotias of Almora & Todas of Nilgiri hills.
  • Pastoral Communities as following according to geographical zone;
  • North – Western Himalayas: Gujjar, Bakarwals, Gaddis, Jadhs.
  • Western India: Bharwads, Raisipotras, Raberis.
  • South India: Gallas, Kurumbhadis.

 

Shifting Hill Cultivation

 

  1. Different names are given for shifting hill cultivation in different regions. It is an ancient type of cultivation.
  2. Cutting, drying, burning of plant in same plot of land enhances fertility of soil, & after some time when new crops are cultivated, the production becomes better.
  3. This cultivation is primarily practised or found in seven states of India – Arunachal Pradesh, Assam, Meghalaya, Mizoram, Nagaland, Tripura, Nagaland. Also; Bihar, Orissa, Andhra Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh, & Kerala.
  4. TRIBES: Maler, Kharia, Korwa, Parahiya, Savara, Khond, Baiga, Maria, Gonds.
  5. Popular among Mongolian tribes living in North – western border of India).

 

Agriculture

  1. Today, agriculture plays a central role in the economic activity of tribal people.
  2. Mostly practise wet cultivation by transplanting method.
  3. TRIBES: Santal, Oraon, Munda, Bhumij, Ho, Gond, Baiga, Kharwar, Majhwar; are expert cultivators.
  4. However, they are aware of the fact that irrigation and compost manure are beneficial but they always use their traditional primitive skills & implements.

 

Manual Labour

  1. A consider able number of tribal has become a landless labourers i.e. they have to work on other land for wages.
  2. In one hand, they have no right (lease or contract) on land they work; on the other hand, they are free from all risks and problems in cultivation.
  3. They usually migrated to neighbouring regions reasonably, for manual jobs.
  4. Like Santal, Oraon, Bhumij, Ho etc. migrated to towns likes Durgapur, Jamshedpur etc; and some even have settled down there.
  5. In tea plantations of Assam; migration of tribes like Santals, Khonds, Gonds migrated had taken place.
  6. Most of the tribals suffer from exploitation. Most of them converted into BONDED LABOUR instead of manual labours. For instance; Gonds of Rohtas and korwas of Palamau.

 

Handicrafts

  1. Some of tribes still confined to their original occupation. They practice crafts as subsidiary occupation.
  2. Tribes and their creativity as follows;
  3. Assam: Cloth is manufactured from cotton threads & then dying with vegetable.
  4. Nag as & Khasis: Handloom products.
  5. Bhotias: spinning& weaving of wool.
  6. Korwas of U.P: Agarias of M.P, Asur: Iron smelters.
  7. Doms & Mahalis of West Bengal: Baskets with thin bamboo strips.
  8. Birhors: Monopoly of producing straw ropes & leaf- cups.
  9. Khonds, Gonds, Savara: metal working, weaving, cave working & pottery.
  10. Tharurs of U.P: utensils, baskets, music in strum ends, weapons, rope, & mat.
  11. *As a conclusion; Tribes of North eastern India is seen as on Agriculturists. Shafting cultivation is prevalent in central India. Whereas, food gathering activities are more prone in south India.

 

On The Basis Of Culture

 

  1. ‘The Aboriginals’ Written by V. Elwin classified Indian tribes on the basis of cultural development into four classes.
  2. It is classified on the basis of assimilation/association of majority of tribes into its neighbouring groups against the minority groups who are scattered in hills & forests ; which are as follows:-
  • CLASS (I): original forest habitat.
  • CLASS (II): Contact with the plain and subsequent changes.
  • CLASS (III): Tribal’s migrated to modern industries &   vocations.
  • CLASS (IV): Minority groups and culture contact.

 

(a)      Class (I)

  • They are the original forest inhabitance.
  • They are the class of primitives as purest of pure, according to Elwin.
  • They are communally and economically strong.
  • Geographical conditions tend to reduce the contact with neighbouring cultures.

 

TRIBES: -Hill Marias of Bastar state, Juangs of keonjhar, Gadabas & Bondos of Orissa, Baigas & korwas of Pandarias, and a section of Chenchus in Andhra Pradesh.

 

(b)   Class (II) 

  • This group of tribes made the contact with the plain & undergoes subsequent changes.
  • Although; they are communalistic, individualistic but they now proceeded to practice Agriculture and allied occupations instead of their traditional activities like Axe – cultivation.

 

(C)   Class (III) 

  • It comprises of tribes which shows the phenomenon of acculturation with modern industries and vocation.
  • Adoption of modern cultural traits to join larger plural societies, state of transition in these societies weakens the stronghold on the original culture, religion & social organisation.
  • Some of them become part of Hindu society and some of them as Christians.

 

Tribes:-Santals, Oraon, Ho & few other tribes.

 

(D)   Class (IV)

  • They are the minority groups which are largely experienced the phenomenon of culture contact
  • But in spite of adopting modern culture trait or follows the transition from one religion to another; they are successful to retain their old tribal names and clan identity.

Tribes: – Gond kings, Naga & Bhil Chieftains, and Bhuiya landlords, Oraon leaders & high cultured Mundas.

 

*As a conclusion; out of four classes, two are real tribes

 

In order to understand cultural development, one has to know its     consequences.

 

Culture contact: Its Consequences are;

  • Easy and increased means of communications
  • Urban contacts disorganize primitive life
  • Economic and political policies of British bring out the peace –loving tribal into the circle of colonial capitalist profit making system in India.
  • Deterioration of tribal identity.
  • A change of direct as tribal transformation (bilingual).
  • Culture contact leads to the spread of disease.

 

On The Basis Of Language

 

(Linguistic classification)

  1. Language can provide us the ethnic affinities of tribal people & also it is primary factor to trace them.
  2. Dr. Grierson (1905-1931), surveyed in India and found four major language such as Indo-European (Indo-Aryan & and Dardic sub-family), Dravidian, Austric & Sino-Tibetan (Tibeto-Burman sub-family).The tribes of India, linguistically, divided in to three groups;

 

Austric-Speaking Group

  • It can be seen in two division; (i) Mundari& (ii) Mon-Khmer.
  • Tribes (mainly in central India); Santal, Munda, Kol, Ho, Bhumij, Lodha, Kharia, Savara, Juangs, Bhil & other speak in Mundari language. Mon-Khemer is spoken by Khasis of Meghalaya, Nicobarese of Nicobar Islands.

 

Dravidian-Speaking Group

  • This group is popular in Central & South India. Principal language of South India such as Tamil, Telegu, Malayalam & Kannada.
  • Tribes: – Gond (speak Gondi)
  • Khond (speak Khond)
  • Oraon (speaks Kkurukh)
  • Mal Paharias (speaks Malto)

 

Other tribes: – Maler, Polia, Saora, Koyas, Paniyan, Chenchu, Toda, Kota, Bagada, Irula, Kadar, Malser, Malakurwan etc.

 

Tibeto-Burman Speaking Group

  • This group belongs to Mongoloid racial elements.
  • Geographically, it is spoken along the southern slopes of Himalayas, from northern Punjab to Bhutan, northern & eastern Bengal & Assam, and whole north-eastern belt of India.
  • Tribes: Nagar,kuki,abor,dafla,miri,mikir,lepcha,bhotia,bodo,garo,rabla,toto,rpang etc.

 

Note:

 

Unclassified Languages:- Speakers of Andamanese, Onge, Jarawa of Andaman Islands.

  • Tribes who have acculturated with advanced people speak Indo-Aryan language such as Bengali, Hindi, Oriya, Bihari, Assamese, Marathi, Rajasthani, Gujarati etc. in accordance with the influence of neighbourhood.
  • Tribes converted to Christianity speak English

 

On The Basis Of Biogenetic Criteria

 

Different anthropologists conducted different studies to understand the relationship between different tribal groups in India.

 

(I.) BLAKE et.al (1981):- He studied the geographical proximity Of 11 major tribal populations from South India-Andhra Pradesh, (Chenchus- two groups, Kolam, Savara, Jatap, Koya, Rajgond, Pradhan, Konda Reddi, and Lambadi & Yerukula).

 

A.He observed consistency of Andhra tribal population with their geographical positioning except for certain aberrations.

 

(II.) PINGLE (1984):- He reported the analysis of anthropometric and genetic distances between five Gondi speaking populations of central India (Rajgonds, Kolams, Manne, and Koyas & Plains Maria Gonds).

 

A.  He concluded that, closer the geographical distance between populations the closer is the morphological similarity between them.

 

B. It is founded more in those populations which adopted a settled agriculture and are less mobile lesser thus mobility results in small marriage distance thus restricting the spatial distribution of genes to a smaller area.

 

(III.) SAHA et.al. (1988):- He studied the relationship of Oraons (veddoid) of Eastern India with eight Australoid tribes of Central & Southern India (Bhils, Malyalam, Kodar, Kota, Toda, Irula, Kurumba & Chenchus).

 

A.    He concluded that (Oraons and Bhils are nearest to Kurumba & Irula tribes of Nilgiri hills; whereas the Kota of Nilgiri & Chenchus of South India are the most distant tribes).

 

(IV.) GHOSH et.al (1977):-

 

A. He studied the Kota of Nilgiri Hills (South India)

 

B. He found a closer relationship between Kota & Toda as compared to Kota & any other tribal population in Nilgiri Hills.

 

(V.) BHASIN et.al (1985):-

 

A.  During his study,

 

B. He observed that there is no inter group differences in the same ethnic group i.e. Scheduled tribes (Vasava, Kotwalia, Choudhary & Gomit) from same region (West India Surat district of Gujarat).

 

(VI.) MAJUMDAR et.al (MtDNA ANALYSIS):-

 

A.  Irrespective of their geographical location, or linguistic affinity, the sharing of one or two haplotypes across population groups within India show a harmony of mtDNA lineages in India along with the cultural and linguistic diversity. MtDNA is maternally inherited, hypothesized that female may be the founder of the lineages in India.

 

B.For the purpose of generating the data, many genetical processes have been done using standard molecular genetics protocols (PCR Amplification, restriction digestion, fragment visualization under UV transillumination, DNA sequencing), also raw DNA was also used.

 

C. Segment of the mtDNA, known as the hyper variable segment 1 (HVS1) {fast-evolving, 400 nucleotides} has proved to be useful in the study of short-term evolution. Majumdar carried out DNA sequencing of HVS1 in 115 individuals belonging to various linguistically distinct tribal populations of India.

 

D.    Based on mtDNA HVS1 sequence data, we find that the Austro-Asiatic tribals show a higher diversity than Dravidian tribals.

 

E. The tribal groups were (i) Austro-Asiatic (AA) speakers: Santal (SA), Munda (MU), Lodha (LO); (ii) Dravidian (DR) speakers: Muria (MR), Kota (KT), Kurumba (KR), Irula (IR); and

 

(iii) Tibeto-Burman (TB) speakers: Tipperah (TR). These tribal communities inhabit the eastern (SA, MU, LO), southern (KT, KR, IR), central (MR) and northeastern (TR) regions of India. Among the 115 individuals, there were a total of 104 mutations at 94 polymorphic sites.

 

F. Individuals within the same population exhibit maximum number of sharing of sequences than the populations belonging to different language groups.

 

G. On the basis of RSP (Restriction Site Polymorphism) data, they classified individuals into 8 Haplogroup.

 

Table; Haplogroup frequencies among 8 tribal population of India

 

HAPLOGROUP FREQUENCIES

 

ALSO *On the basis of this table, we conclude that The Tibeto-Burman speaking Tipperahs exhibit the maximum number (12 out of 13) of haplotypes. In the pooled sample, only one haplotype was present in about 60% of the individuals.

 

Concept of Pvtg

 

(Particularly Vulnerable Tribal Groups)

 

The concept was arisen in 1975 in which those tribal groups are included which are most underdeveloped under Scheduled Tribe Group; those who doesn’t able to take advantages of different schemes of Government and eventually dominated by different influential group.

 

This concept was arisen in which 75 communities are identified on the basis of demographic criteria (stagnant& declining populations).

 

These tribal groups have pre–agricultural mode of livelihood like pastoralist, shifting cultivation.

 

They are primarily “vulnerable” (declining).

 

Earlier, it was called Primitive Tribal Group (PTG) but in Draft National Tribal Policy, 2006, the term changes into Particular Vulnerable Tribal Group by Government of India.

 

It is created with the purpose of enabling improvement in conditions of certain communities with particularly low development India.

 

Tribes:–

  • Baigas, Saharias & Bharia of Madhya Pradesh.
  • Araam in Manipur.
  • Juang, Kutia Kondh, Birhor, Lodha.
  • PVTG accounts 1% if a state tribal’s populations.

 

Concept of DNT (Denotified and Nomadic tribes)

 

The social category generally known as Denotified and Nomadic tribes of India covers a population comprises approximately. Some of them are included in the list of scheduled tribes, which find place in other backward classed(OBC).but there are many of the tribes, which find no place in the above groups.

 

They ate (often referred to as “criminal tribes” (given during British colonial times).

 

Some of the Denotified tribes in Maharashtra; Berad, Bestar, Bhalma, kalkadi, Katabu, Lamani, Raj-Pardhi, Rajput-Bhatma, Yadav, Waghari.

 

Nomadic tribes: Bawa, Beldar, Bharadi, Bhuti, Chalwadi, Garudi, Ghisadi, Golla.

 

Conclusion

  • Classification can be used as a method and a tool to understand the different character sticks of tribes.
  • Although a perfect classification lies at present beyond individual’s grasp
  • Most of tribal societies of today show less continuity and more change. Some positive as well as negative elements have been expressed in tribal consciousness.
  • They begin to search out commodities and comfort by forgetting the old identity.
  • Interests of tribes have been shifted to other directions causing a total cultural breakdown.
  • But, somehow, most of the tribes are still lying to maintain their identity which manifested the struggle to maintain its cultural identity.
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References Books

  • Indrani Basu, ANTHROPOLOGY: THE STUDY OF MAN, Chapter: TRIBES, 2008 ( P. Chand Publications)
  • M.K. Bhasin and H. Walter, Genetics of Castes and Tribes of India, 2001(K R Publishers).