12 Tribes: Nomenclature –Emicand Etic differences

Sangeeta Dey

Contents:

1. Introduction

2. Tribal Nomenclature

3. The Indian Constitution about Tribal Identity

4. Differences in Emic and Etic Approaches

5. Summary

Learning objectives:

– Students will be able to learn about the concept of tribe.

– Students will be able to justify the thoughts of various authors about tribes.

– Students will be able to know about the various nomenclature used for tribes.

– Students will be able to know about Emic and Etic approaches.

– Students will be able to differentiate between Emic and Etic views.

1. Introduction

After the partition of the country in 1947, the tribal population, as determined by the Constitutional Order 1950, was reduced from 2.47 crore in 1941 to about 1.79 crore. As per the Census report of 1951, the tribal population was about 1.91 crore, which was 5.36 % of the total population of the country. In 1971, their strength rose to 3.8 crore i.e. 6.74% of the total population. In 1981, the total tribal population was 5.38 crore which worked out to 7.85% of the total general population of about 68 crore. In 1991, the population of tribal population was at 6.7 crore which is about 8.08 % of the total population. According to the 2001 census, the total Scheduled Tribe population stood at 8.4 crore about 8.2 % of the total population.

About 350 tribes speaking more than 100 languages and dialects have been specified as the Scheduled tribes in 21 States and 4 Union Territories. The States where the Scheduled Tribes have been specified are Andhra Pradesh, Arunachal Pradesh, Assam, Bihar, Gujarat, Himachal Pradesh, Karnataka, Kerala, Madhya Pradesh, Maharashtra, Manipur, Mizoram, Nagaland, Orissa, Rajasthan, Sikkim, Tamil Nadu, Tripura, Uttar Pradesh and West Bengal. The Union Territories are Lakshadweep, Dadra & Nagar Haveli, Andaman and Nicobar Islands and Daman & Diu.

Tribes are not socially a part of Hindu social organisation. They are distinct based on kinship, wealth and power, rituals, marriage, customs and culture. They have been exploited economically and socially by the non – tribals of the country. They were referred as “Backward Classes” which include Scheduled Tribes (STs), Scheduled Castes (SCs), Denotified Tribes and Other Backward Classes (OBCs). These classes of Indian population have laboured under different and distinct disadvantages in the Indian social system. They have suffered from social and economic disabilities and have come to be known as Backward Classes. The SCs and STs are identified as a result of different lists revised and issued under the scheduled castes and scheduled tribe lists modification order, 1956. Tribes were given different names by different scholars on the basis of economy and also on the basis of geographical distribution.

2. Tribal Nomenclature

What is a tribe? What exactly are the criteria for considering a human group, a tribe?

Interestingly but sadly the anthropologists, sociologists, social workers, administrators and such people who have been involved with the tribes and their problems either on theoretical plane or on practical ground are still not on the same wave length regarding the concept and the definition of their subject matter.

From 1917 to 1931 Census, for instance, the nomenclature referring to tribes underwent successive modifications, involving primarily changes in descriptive adjectives such as “aboriginal” or depressed classes”. By the 1941 Census, these qualifying adjectives were dropped, a practice continued after independence with the adoption of the notion of Scheduled tribes or as they are commonly called, Adivasi. Such standardization did not however, remove all ambiguity.

No doubt with the passage of time, the differences on the concept of a tribe have certainly narrowed down to an appreciable extent, but a theoretical discussion seems imperative to understand their nomenclature in proper perspective.

Few Definitions of tribe given by various authors:

– According to Imperial Gazetteer of India: A tribe is a collection of families bearing a common name, speaking a common dialect, occupying or professing to occupy a common territory and is not usually endogamous, though originally it might have been so.

– In the Oxford dictionary tribe is a group of people in a primitive or barbarous stage of development acknowledging the authority of a chief and usually regarding themselves as having a common ancestor.

– Ralph Linton in its simplest form describe tribe as a group of bands occupying a contiguous territory or territories and having a feeling of unity deriving from numerous similarities in culture, frequent contacts and a certain community of interest.

– Lucy Mair said that a tribe is an independent political division of a population with a common culture

– G.W.B. Huntingford in his terms define tribe as a group united by common name in which the members take pride by a common language, by a common territory and by a feeling that all who do not share this name are outsiders, „enemies in fact‟.

– D.N. Majumdar said a tribe is a social group with territorial affiliation, endogamous with no specialization of functions, rules by tribal officers, hereditary or otherwise united in language or dialect, recognizing social distance with other tribes or castes, without any social obloquy attaching to them, as it does in the caste structure following tribal traditions, beliefs and customs, illiberal of naturalization of ideas from alien sources, above all conscious of homogeneity of ethnic and territorial integration.

The above discussion shows that it is not easy to define a tribe or a tribal society conclusively and any standardization in this regard is very difficult to obtain.

In the Indian Context T.B. Naik 1960 present his own criteria for tribe which are as follows –

1. A tribe to be a „tribe‟ should have the least functional interdependence within the community (The Hindu Caste System is an example of high interdependence).

2. It should be economically backward, which means:

– the full import of monetary economics should not be understood by its members;

– primitive means of exploiting natural resources should be used;

– the tribe‟s economy should be at an underdeveloped stage; and

– it should have multifarious economic pursuits.

3. There should be a comparative geographic isolation of its people from others.

4. Culturally, members of a tribe should have a common dialect, which may be subject to regional variations.

5. A tribe should be politically organized and its community Panchayat should be an influential institution.

6. The tribe‟s members should have the least desire to change. They should have a sort of psychological conservatism making them stick to their old customs.

7. A tribe should have customary laws and its members might have to suffer in a law court because of these laws.

The tribal India lives in hills, forests and isolated regions. The largest concentration of tribal communities if anywhere in the world except perhaps Africa, is in India. They are known as „Vanyajaati‟ (Castes of forests), „Vanvasi‟ (inhabitants of forests), „Pahari‟ (hill dwellers), and „Adamjati (original communities). „Adivasi‟ (first settlers), „Janjati‟ (folk people), „Anusuchit Janjati‟ (Scheduled Tribes) and so on.

Various authorities have described them by different names. Sir Herbert Risley and Lacey, V. Elwin and A.V. Thakkar called them “aboriginals”. Sir Baines included them in the category of “Hill Tribes”. Grigson regards them as “hill tribes or wilder aboriginals”, while shoobert called them “aborigines”. They have been regarded as “animists” by Tallents. Sedwick, Martin and Hutton call them as “primitive tribes” and Baines calls them “jungle people, forest tribes or folks”. Elwin calls the Baigas (tribes) the “Original owners of the country”. The eminent Indian anthropologists and sociologists, G.S. Ghurye calls them “Backward Hindus”. Dr. Des and Das renamed them as “Submerged humanity”. The tribal groups are presumed to form the oldest ethnological section of the national population hence the term “Adivasis” (original inhabitants) has recently become current to designate these groups.

3. The Indian Constitution about Tribal Identity

The Constitution of India under Article 342 (1) states that the President may with respect to any State or Union Territory and where it is state, after consultation with the Governor thereof, by public notification, specify the tribes or tribal communities which shall for the purposes of the Constitution be deemed to be Scheduled Tribes in relation to that State or Union Territory as the case may be. Once these lists have been promulgated, inclusion therein or exclusion there from can be made only by Parliament [Art. 342 (2)].

The Criteria evolved by the anthropologists to characterize an ideal tribal community for theoretical purpose, however do not appear to be empirically related to communities that have been included in the list of Scheduled Tribes. The logical implication seems to be that communities which do not satisfy these criteria should not be considered as tribes, still they are included in the list of „Scheduled Tribes‟. The anthropological definition of tribe is a very useful tool for the labelling of social processes. But a „Scheduled Tribe‟ is a concrete ensemble of persons recognised as such for operational purposes.

The conception of tribe for the theoretical purpose of study of social processes and the recognition of Scheduled Tribes for operational purposes of integration need not be identical and under certain circumstances cannot be identical. For operational purposes many people who are tribals according to theoretical – anthropological conception may not be considered as Scheduled Tribes. Other people who are tribals according to theoretical conceptions may be considered also as Scheduled tribes.

The main purpose of the recognition of tribal and semi – tribal population under the Constitution is to bring such population on par with other section of population and integrate them with the mainstream of national life. It therefore logically follows the communities which are considered to be such as would require special measures for being integrated and for being brought on par with other sections of populations for operational purposes be recognised as “Scheduled Tribes”. Accordingly, certain communities are included in the Schedule of tribes. This administrative action makes each community a “Scheduled Tribe” and entitles it to special protection and proviledges.

Notwithstanding the controversies among the social scientists regarding a universal definition of „tribe‟ and mode of their scheduling, the terms “Scheduled Tribes” as they are known and described in the Constitutional and Administrative uses of the country, have been taken into account for the purpose of this study. These tribes are declared to be such by the President of India by the Constitution (Scheduled Tribes) order, 1950 and by the Constitution (Scheduled Tribes of Union Territories) Order, 1951, as amended from time to time. Moreover, the words like tribes, tribals, tribal communities, STs etc., whenever they occur, are used to mean the “Scheduled Tribes” as notified under these orders.

4. Differences in Emic and Etic Approaches

Harris in his book The Nature of Cultural Things and more explicitly in his Rise of Anthropological Theory (1968) deals with the contrast between Emic and Etic approaches. The term Emic and Etic are coined by Kenneth Pike (1954) utilizing the last part of the word phonemic and phonetic. In linguistics, phonetics is the description of all speech sounds as they are produced by the human speech organs, while phonemics is the sorting out of these sounds in order to arrive at their distinctive differences. Phonetic systems are universally applied, because human organs of speech are similar everywhere but phoenemic systems differ from language to language, because sound combinations and distinctive differences are unique to every linguistics groups. In terms of cultural behaviour, Etic would provide a set of criteria capable of classifying all data into single system, while Emic would attempt to discover the meaningful cultures. Etic is classificatory and non – structural, Emic reflect the internal structural relationship found in specific cultural systems.

According to Harris, the Emic statements refer to logico – empirical systems, whose phenomental distinctions or things are built up out of contrasts and discriminations significant, meaningful real accurate or in some other fashion regarded as appropriate by actors themselves. As Emic statement can be falsified if it can be shown that it contradicts the cognitive calculus by which relevant actors‟ judge that entities are similar or different, real, meaningful, significant, or in some other case appropriate or acceptable.

Etic statements depend upon phenomental distinctions judged appropriate by the community of specific observers. Etic statements cannot be falsified if they do not confirm to actors notion of what is significant, real, meaningful or appropriate. Etic statements are verified when independent observers using similar operations agree that that a given event has occurred. An Ethnography carried out according to Etic principles is thus a corpus of predictions about the behaviour of classes of people. Predictive failures in that corpus require the reformulation of the probabilities or the description as a whole.

Emic studies deal with inner psychological states and assumes that an actor knows his own inner state better than observer does, and that is also essential for the observer to know the actor‟s inner states. This is impossible, because the actors meaning will not generally coincide with social meanings and the essential structural features of a culture are generally unknown to informants. Moreover human thoughts is sometimes rational and logical, sometimes, irrational and illogical again human thought occurs on conscious, unconscious and preconscious levels. Inner psychological states are poor and unreliable guides. Thus Emic research will lead to unscientific results which are ideographic, idealistic and particularistic. Etic is nomothetic, materialistic general and scientific.

5. Summary :

you can view video on Tribes: Nomenclature –Emicand Etic differences

References:

Fuchs, Stephen, The Aborginal Tribes of India, Mac Millan Co. India, New Delhi, 1973.
Furer – Haimendorf, Cristoph Von. Tribes of India. Delhi: Oxford University Press, 1982.
Hasnain, Nadeem, Tribal India Today, Harnam Publication, New Delhi, 1983.
Lung – Tan Lu. 2012. Etic or Emic? Measuring Culture in International Business Research, Canadian Center of Science and Research, 5(5): 109 – 115.
Majumdar, D.N., The Affairs of a Tribe, Universal Publishing Ltd., 1950.
Mathur, H.M. (ed.), Development Administration in Tribal Areas, HCM Institute of Public Administration, 1976.
Singh, K.S. (ed.) Tribal Movements in India, Vols. I and II, New Delhi: Manohar Publications, 1982.
Singh, K.S. (ed.), Tribal Situation in India, Simla: Indian Institute of Advanced study, 1972.
Singh, Parmanand. Equality, Reservation and Discrimination in India. New Delhi: Deep and Deep publications, 1982.
Verrier, Elwin, The Baigas, Oxford University Press, London, 1950.
Vidyarthi, L.P. The Tribal Culture of India. New Delhi, Concept Publishing Company. 1980.

Additional Readings

http://isites.harvard.edu/icb/icb.do?keyword=qualitative&pageid=icb.page340911
http://study.com/academy/lesson/etic-and-emic-world-views-in-anthropology.html
http://www.columbia.edu/~da358/publications/etic_emic.pdf
http://www.gial.edu/documents/gialens/Vol3-2/Franklin-Etic-Emic-Stories.pdf
http://www.radford.edu/~jaspelme/minoritygroups/past_courses/Etic%20&%20Emic%20Appr oaches_%20ch1%20lec_f05.pdf
http://www-01.sil.org/~headlandt/ee-intro.htm
https://www.google.co.in/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=4&cad=rja&uact=8& ved=0CDAQFjADahUKEwjioc6NmZzJAhWEc44KHW6UAAE&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.ccsenet.org%2Fjournal%2Findex.php%2Fibr%2Farticle%2Fdownload%2F16640%2F11091&u sg=AFQjCNFlxEDc5ZPb2DBSYU0uiyZfdqGFJQ&sig2=fk2cq8SJYWIM9-Tpq3HIrQ&bvm=bv.107763241,d.c2E