7 Racial Elements among the Tribes

Dr. Temsumongla

    1. Learning outcomes

This module entitled racial elements among the tribes will help one to know the concept of race, history, and how human races are developed. It will help one to learn the meaning of race and how it should not be confused with people, nationality, religion, culture, etc. This module also talks about the different views regarding racial categories, whether they are socially constructed or biologically defined. As the emphasis is on the racial elements of the tribals in India, this study will broaden one’s knowledge on the tribal people of India who form an integral part of the Indian sub-continent. Because most of the past studies on the racial classification of India are based on the physical morphology of the population, it can help one to understand and identify the tribals from a scientific approach. However, it can also be open to further researches on the cultural and social significance of race.

2. Introduction

The term “race” meaning common descent entered the English in about 1580 that has been derived from the old French word rasse and from Italian word razza, which initially may have derived from the Arabic word ras meaning the head of someone or something. It can further be traced back to Latin word gens and Arabic genat meaning clan, stock or people and genus meaning birth, descent, origin, stock, or family, and Greek word genos meaning race, kind and gonos meaning birth, offspring, stock. Race is a concept. It should not be confused with people, nationality, religion, culture, etc. The concept of race has a long and complicated history that dates back to the time when the Europeans explored the world. History has it that race was first recognized when the Europeans came to America and noticed the Native Americans. Initially, the term race was associated with language that was used to refer to speakers of a common language and then to denote national affinities. By the 17th century, it was associated with physical traits phentoypically. And from the 19th century onwards, race was used to refer to the classifications done genetically among different human populations that were defined by phenotype. However, in the 20th century, there was a decline in racial studies due to the politicization of this field under the concept of racism.

Many scholars are of the opinion that racial categories are socially constructed and not biologically defined. Carl Linnaeus, a Swedish naturalist, was among the first to classify human species based on some mental traits. However, most of the anthropologist refuse to believe in the theory that human races are classified taking into consideration their mental characteristics and one of the most prominent scholar defying this theory was Klinberg who found no relationship between race and psychology. According to Gunthers (1927) “race shows itself in an individual human group, which in turn only produces it’s like”. By individual human group, he meant a human group marking itself off from other human group through its own peculiar combination of bodily and mental characteristics. His explanation on race was based on the determination of five European races and on their skull measurement. Hooton, an American anthropologist, defined race as “a great division of mankind, the members of which, through individually varying are characterised as a group by certain combinations of morphology and metrical features, principally, non-adaptive, which have been derived from their common descent.” He recognised three primary races in 1931 namely, Caucasoid, Negroid, and Mongoloid which was later modified. Franz Boas (1858-1943) precisely studied the physical characteristics of different population and concluded that the cranial capacity and brain size differ widely within the races. This anthropological research work led to the finding that there can be no race that is either superior or inferior to the other.

The first attempt to classify human races dates back to 1684, where, Bernier tried to classify the people he came across on his journey to the old world. Many other scientists such as Blumenbach (1775), Deniker (1889), Dixon (1923), etc. classified race based on the physical morphology such as skin colour, hair form, nose form, etc. In the 19th century, attempts were made to change the concept of race from a taxonomic to a biological concept such as using anthropometrics that were invented by Francis Galton and Alphonse Bertillion. In the recent time, in the field of anthropology, the studies concerned with physical morphology are somatometry, somatoscopy, and some physiological characters. Somatometryis a measurement of the human body including face and head, a major tool in the study of human biological variability including morphological variations. Somatoscopy refers to the examination of the human body through observation, which is also an important tool in studying human variation and similarities. Physiological studies, on the other hand, include certain traits such as ABO blood grouping, MN blood grouping, Rh system, etc. Ottenberg (1925) was the first to classify race based on the ABO blood grouping. Lahovary (1946), on the other hand, made the classification based on M and N genes, besides ABO blood grouping. Likewise, various other scientists and anthropologists attempted to classify race based on both physical and mental traits at different times. However, three major races have been recognised namely Negroid, Caucasoid and Mongoloid. A fourth race namely Australoids has also been considered by anthropologists. These major races have been classified into various other subgroups.

There are a number of races in the human population, each differing from one another. Scientists and scholars are interested in studying the differences and similarities among the various racial groups and the nature of it. Some of the reasons that clearly explain the formation of race are mutation, natural selection, accidental or chance fluctuations, migration, isolation, hybridization, sexual and social selection. Since time immemorial, admixtures in the human population have been taking place among different races giving rise to racial groups. On the flip side, it is also the reason for extinction or absorption of racial groups.

3. Tribal India

According to Reich et al. (2009), the modern Indian population is composed of two genetically divergent and heterogeneous populations who intermixed in ancient times, known as the Ancestral North Indians and the Ancestral South Indians. Since time immemorial, various ethnic groups have entered the Indian subcontinent making the population even more diverse. Many anthropologists are of the view that the Indian populations present a mixture of all the major races namely Caucasoid, Mongoloid and Negroid. In the past several pre-historic studies in India through the remains of human skeleton shows that there are about three racial groups present in the Indian subcontinent namely Proto-Australoid, Mediterranean and Alpine Armenoid. Proto-Nordic type is also added by some scholars to the classification. The first racial classification of India was made by Herbert Hope Risley who classified the population of India into seven types namely, Turko-Iranian, Indo-Aryan, Scytho-Dravidian, Aryo-Dravidian, Mongolo-Dravidian, Mongoloid, and Dravidian. Many other scholars such as Eickstedt, Guha, Haddon, Majumdar, Sarkar, etc. also attempted to classify the people of India based on scientific knowledge.

India with its diverse culture comprises of many ethnic groups, each of them differing from one another. Tribal populations in Indian are an integral part of the Indian civilization that forms a huge percentage of the Indian sub-continent who are scattered all over the country. In fact, according to Richard Lannoy, all India were tribally organised and that the de-tribalization began simultaneously with the process of urbanization. According to 2011 census, the tribal communities constitute about 8.61 percent of the total population of the country and cover about 15 percent of the country’s area. Each tribe have their distinct culture, tradition and language. In the history on India, the tribals are referred to as Jana, Adivasis, etc. who differs in their physical appearance, culture, tradition, religion and are isolated from the others and live in rugged terrains. These tribal communities can be classified according to their geography, language, race, and economy.

Basically, the tribes in India are divided territorially into three main zones namely Northern and North-Eastern zone, Central zone and Southern zone. The tribes of these three zones speak languages and dialects belonging to different speech family. According to Guha, the South Indian tribes have a Negrito origin, the Central Indian tribes the Proto-Australoid, and North-North Eastern tribes the Mongoloid origin.

In the Northern and North Eastern zone, places such as Eastern Kashmir and Punjab, Himachal Pradesh, Northern Uttar Pradesh, and the seven North-Eastern states constitute this zone. The North-Eastern states of India have a high percentage of tribal population. The major ethnic groups are Mikir from Assam; Ao, Sema, Angami, Lotha, etc, from Nagaland; Garo and Khasi from Meghalaya; Chakma from Tripura; Abor and Apatani from Arunachal Pradesh; Lushai from Mizoram; Kuki from Manipur and parts of Nagaland, etc. The tribals form this zone speaks the Tibeto-Burman speech family except for the Khasis who speak the Mon-Khmr, Austric speech. They basically belong to the Mongoloid racial element.

About 85 percent of the total tribal populations of the country are found in the central zone. States such as Bengal, Bihar, Southern Uttar Pradesh, Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh, Maharashtra, Chhattisgarh, and Orissa fall under this zone. In Chhattisgarh, popularly known as the “rice bowl of India”, Bastar is the largest tribal district and the Gonds are the most prominent tribal group in Central India and is one of the largest tribal groups in the world. They are also widely spread in the Chhindwara district of Madhya Pradesh and in the parts of Maharashtra, Andhra Pradesh and Orissa. The people of Gondi tribe speak languages related to Telugu and other Dravidian languages. Other major tribes in Madhya Pradesh are Bhil and Baigas. Bhils are the most widely distributed tribal group in India and form the largest tribe in the whole of South Asia. They are divided into central Bhils found in the mountain regions of Madhya Pradesh, Maharashtra, Gujarat and Rajasthan and eastern Bhils found in the north eastern part of Tripura. The word Bhil is derived from “villu” or “billu”, meaning “bow” in Dravidian language and therefore, they are popularly known as the bow men of Rajasthan.

The major tribes in Orissa are the Kondhs, Koyas, Gadabas, Oraon, Juangs, and Santals. The Santals are known to be the third largest tribe in the country and they speak Santali, a member of the Munda language family. The Santal and Munda tribes mostly inhibit areas in West Bengal, Bihar, Orissa, Jharkhand, Chhatisgarh and Assam. Juang tribes also belong to the Munda ethnic group mostly inhabiting the Gonsaika hill range of Keonjhar district of Orissa. A huge percentage of the Oraon tribals are also found in Bihar. They are also one of the largest tribes in South Asia. They speak the Kurukh language belonging to the Dravidian language family. The Oraon and Munda tribes are closely related. In the state of Jharkhand, Kharias are one of the most important tribes. Other tribes such as Baiga, Asur, Santals, Oraons, Mundas, and Hos are also found in the state.

It is thus seen that the tribals from Central zone generally speak the Austro-Asiatic speech family except tribes like the Oroan, the Khond and the Gond, who speak Dravidian language. They are mainly Proto-Australoid in their racial classification.

The four southern states namely Andhra Pradesh, Tamil Nadu, Karnataka, and Kerala form a part of Southern zone. The Chenchu tribeis mainly found in the districts of Mahabubnagar andNalgonda in the Telangana state and in the dense forest of Nallamala in Andhra Pradesh. They are known to be the aboriginal tribe who speak the Chenchu language, a member of the Dravidian language family. In Kerala, Wayanad has the highest tribal population and the Paniya tribe primarily inhabits Wayanad, Kozhikode, Kannur, and Malappuram districts. The other five tribal groups in Kerala with diminishing population and very low or little literacy rates are Cholanaikkans, Kurumbas, Kattunaikans, Kadars, and Koragas. The Todas, Kotas, and the Irulas are some of the popular tribes found in the state of Tamil Nadu.

Another zone has been added by C.B. Mamoria namely the Andaman and Nicobar Island in the Bay of Bengal. This zone consists of certain tribes namely the Jarawa, the Andamanese and the Nicobarese.

The tribals from Southern zone speak the Dravidian speech family like Tamil, Kannada, and Malayalam. As for their racial element, the Kadar tribal group of the South and the Andamanese of the Andaman Island belong to the Negrito racial group.

4. Classification of racial elements in India by different anthropologists

Numerous classifications on the racial elements of tribal India based on their physical trait have been made by various anthropologists. This classification of racial elements has been in debate from the very beginning of its study that dates back to as early as the nineteenth century when De Quatrefages made his opinion about the presence of Negrito element in the Indian sub-continent. According to him, they made remarkable contribution towards the substratum of the Dravidian in certain tribal groups in the country. Anthropologists like Lapicque, Iyer, Guha, Hutton, etc. supported the view that certain tribes in India, especially the central and South Indian tribes belong to Negrito element. Guha was of the opinion that the Negritos were the original inhabitants of India while Risley believed the Dravidians to be the first comers to India. However, many other anthropologists did not accept the presence of the Negrito element in India although, as Das (1997) has mentioned, one cannot completely rule out the possibility of penetration of Negrito traits into certain parts of Indian population as the Negroid population must have entered the country and came in contact with people from certain parts of the country and as a result, admixture must have taken place giving rise to certain Negrito traits among the population. According to many anthropologists who disagreed on the presence of Negrito elements, one reason why they did not accept the other view was perhaps, because they felt that many investigators failed to clearly distinguish the type of hair form, a form of racial criteria, which defines the Negrito element.

Anthropologists like Sarkar and Majumdar believed the Australoid elements to be the autochthones of India. Various skeletal remains discovered from different parts of India also justify the presence of Australoid element in prehistoric India. The best representatives of this racial element are the tribes in South India namely Urali, Kannikar, Muthuvan of Travancore; Panyan of Malabar; Irula, Kurumba and Chalaga of Niligiri area; Chenchu of Hyderabad; Malachar and Kadar of Cochin. They are also present among the north Males of Rajmahal Hill, Pahira of Manbhum, and among various central Indian tribes like Oraon, Gond and Khond. Australoid element is characterised by physical features such as short stature, dark skin colour, dolichocephalic head, platyrrhine nose and wavy hair.

Based on the physical characteristics of the tribal population in India, various anthropologists attempted to classify them into various racial elements some of which may be mentioned as follows.

According to A.C.Haddon (1924), some of the tribes in central India namely Bhil, Gond, Oraon, Santal, etc are classified under Pre-Dravidian racial element. They are characterised by physical features such as dolichocephalic head, short stature, platyrrhine nose, and dark brown to nearly black skin colour. On the other hand, the tribesin Assam belong to Mongoloid origin where he observed certain racial elements such as Pre-Dravidian characterised by dolichocephalic and platyrrhine type represented by the Khasi, Kuki, Manipuri, and Kachari tribes; Nesiot element characterised by dolichocephalic and mesorrhine type represented by the Naga tribe, etc.

H.H.  Risley (1915) also classified the tribals in Assam under mongoloid type characterised by physical features such as broad head, fine to broad nose, short to below medium stature, oblique eyes with epicanthic fold, dark with yellowish tinge skin colour, scanty face and body hair. On the other hand, the Paniyans of South India and the Santals of Chota Nagpur, central India are classified under Dravidian type characteristic by short stature, long head, broad nose, very dark skin colour, dark coloured eye and hair, and plentiful hair that tend to curl. According to Risley, the Dravidians are the true aborigines of India.

Eickstedt (1934) classification of the human race is based on both physical and cultural factors. According to him, the Weddid or Ancient Indians are known to be the primitive people who live in jungles. Under this division, the Gondid type is represented by tribals such as Juanga, Bhils, Oraons, and Gond and the Malid type represented by Kurumber and Weddah tribes. The tribal people under these two types are found to have dark brown skin colour and curly hair form. As for their cultural trait, the tribes under Gondid type shows matriarchal influence, use mattock, and believes in totemism. The Malid type represents an ancient culture with some foreign influence among them. The other division made by Eickstedt is the Melanid or Black Indians. Under this is the Southern Melanid who is represented by the Yanadis who show dark skin colour with a matriarchal influence among them. The other type is the Kolid represented by Mundas, Hos and Santals who inhibit the North Deccan forests showing black brown skin colour and culturally, shows a strong belief in totems and matriarchal influence.

The presence of the Negrito element in the Indian population was strongly advocated by B.S.Guha (1937). According to him, tribes such as Kadars, Pulayans from Cochin and Travancore, Irular and some diminishing tribes with low literacy rate popularly known as the primitive tribes of the Wynad, belong to the Negrito racial element. They are found to have small, round, medium and long head; straight, flat and broad nose; very short to pygmy stature; dark brown to dark skin colour; wooly hair; bulbous forehead; and smooth supra orbital ridges. On the other hand, tribes such as Chenchu, Kannikar, Khond, Bhil, Santal, and Oraon are classified under Proto-Australoid element who are characterised by dolichocephalic head, markedly platyrrhine nose with depressed root, short stature, dark brown skin colour, wavy to curly hair, less developed forehead that are slightly retreating, and prominent supra orbital ridges. Further, the Mongoloid element comprises of Palae-Mongoloid and the Tibeto-Mongoloid type. The palaeo-Mongoloid is divided into long-headed type represented by the Sema Nagas who were present in Assam characterised by medium nose, medium stature, prominent cheek bones, dark to light brown skin colour, short and flat face, and faintly developed supra orbital ridges. The broad-headed type is characterised by broad head, round face, dark skin colour, medium nose, obliquely set eyes with marked epicanthic fold found among the Chakmas and the Maghs present in the hill tribes of Chittagong. The true representative of this type is the Lepchas of Kalimpong. The Tibeto-Mongoloid is another element classified by Guhu whose true representatives are the Tibetans of Bhutan and Sikkim. They are characterised by having broad and massive head, long and flat face, tall stature, medium to long nose, oblique eyes with marked epicanthic fold, scanty body and facial hair, and light brown skin colour.

S.S.   Sarkar (1961) advocated the theory that the Australoids were the earliest substratum of the Indian population who were widely scattered all over the country. According to him, some South Indian tribes,in some ways, are preserving the original form of Australoids and are represented by tribes such as Urali, Kannikar, Malapantaran, Paniyan, and Kadar. Other tribal groups in the north-eastern part of India and the foothills of the Himalayas fall under the Mongoloid element characterised by having yellowish skin colour, sparsely distributed hair on the face and body, and Mongolian eye fold type. The Mundari-speaking people from Choto Nagpur, Orissa hills, and Madhya Pradesh are also seen to have some affinities with the Mongoloid. According to him, they have short stature, long head, and skin colour that is lighter than the Australoids, and hair that are thick and straight similar to the Mongolians.

5. Summary

• The term “race” has been derived from the old French word rasse and from Italian word razza, which initially may have derived from the Arabic word ras meaning the head of someone or something. It can further be traced back to Latin word gens and Arabic genat meaning clan, stock or people and genus meaning birth, descent, origin, stock, or family, and Greek word genos meaning race, kind and gonos meaning birth, offspring, stock.
• The concept of race has a long and complicated history that dates back to the time when the Europeans explored the world. History has it that race was first recognized when the Europeans came to America and noticed the Native Americans.
• Initially, the term race was associated with language. By the 17th century, it was associated with physical traits phentoypically. From the 19th century onwards, race was used to refer to the classifications done genetically among different human populations that were defined by phenotype. In the 20th century, there was a decline in racial studies due to the politicization of this field under the concept of racism.
• Many scholars are of the opinion that racial categories are socially constructed and not biologically defined such as Carl Linnaeus while many other refuse to believe in this theory such as Klinberg.
• Hooton first recognised three primary races in 1931 namely, Caucasoid, Negroid, and Mongoloid which was later modified.
• Franz Boas (1858-1943) concluded that the cranial capacity and brain size differ widely within the races. There can be no race that is either superior or inferior to the other.
• The first attempt to classify human races dates back to 1684 by Bernier. Blumenbach (1775), Deniker (1889), Dixon (1923), etc. classified race based on the physical morphology.
• Some of the reasons that clearly explain the formation of race are mutation, natural selection, accidental or chance fluctuations, migration, isolation, hybridization, sexual and social selection. Since time immemorial, admixtures in the human population have been taking place among different races giving rise to racial groups. On the flip side, it is also the reason for extinction or absorption of racial groups.
• Many anthropologists are of the view that the Indian population present a mixture of all the major races namely Caucasoid, Mongoloid and Negroid. In the past several pre-historic studies in India through the remains of human skeleton shows that there are about three racial groups present in the Indian subcontinent namely Proto-Australoid, Mediterranean and Alpine Armenoid. Proto-Nordic type is also added by some scholars to the classification.
• The first racial classification of India was made by Herbert Hope Risley who classified the population of India into seven types.
• Tribal population in Indian are an integral part of the Indian civilization that forms a huge percentage of the Indian sub-continent who are scattered all over the country. Basically, the tribes in India are divided territorially into three main zones namely Northern and North-Eastern zone, Central zone and Southern zone. The tribes of these three zones speak languages and dialects belonging to different speech family. According to Guha, the South Indian tribes have a Negrito origin, the Central Indian tribes the Proto-Australoid, and North-North Eastern tribes the Mongoloid origin.
• According to De Quatrefages, Negrito element is present in the Indian sub-continent who made remarkable contribution towards the substratum of the Dravidian in certain tribal groups in the country. Anthropologists like Lapicque, Iyer, Guha, Hutton, etc. supported the view. Guha was of the opinion that the Negritos were the original inhabitants of India while Risley believed the Dravidians to be the first comers to India.
• According to Das (1997), Negroid population who must have entered the country and admixture must have taken place giving rise to certain Negrito traits among the population.
• Anthropologists like Sarkar and Majumdar believed the Australoid elements to be the autochthones of India. Various skeletal remains discovered from different parts of India also justify the presence of Australoid element in prehistoric India.
• Based on the physical characteristics of the tribal population in India, various anthropologists attempted to classify them into various racial elements some of which are mentioned above.

    Based on the racial classification propounded by these various scholars in the past, it is made rather difficult to decide which of the elements should be considered as the original inhabitants of India. The closest we can conclude is that the three basic elements namely the Negrito, the Proto-Australoid, and the Mongoloid constitute the tribal population.Also, as diverse as the Indian society is, there has been a lot of intermixture during the past decades and that there can be no race in the country that is pure. As Das (1997) has mentioned “it is an established fact that race crossing has been taking place from the prehistoric past. And as such there is no so-called pure race, all are more or less admixtured groups”.

    References and suggested readings

• Lieberman, L. 2001. How “Caucasoids” got such big crania and why they shrank: from Morton to Rushton. Curr Anthropol. 42:69–95
• Das, B.M. 1997. Outlines of physical anthropology. Kitab Mahal, Allahabad
• Kachroo, J.L. and Kachroo, V. 1998. Society in India. Cosmos Bookhive (P) Ltd., Gurgaon.
• Mevorach, K.G. 2007. Race, racism, and academic complicity. American Ethnologist. 34 (2): 238–241.
• Reich, D., Thangaraj, K., Patterson, N., Price, A.L. and Singh, L. 2009. Reconstructing Indian population history. Nature. 461: 489-494.
• Scupin, R and DeCorse, C.R. 2009. Anthropology. A global perspective. PHI Learning Pvt. Ltd., New Delhi.