Category Archives: Anthropology

“[F]olklorists, anthropologists and sociocultural experts have intensified efforts to trace the imprints of myths, legends, ballads, songs and folk narratives in the weaves of the North-East. Each pattern is a little capsule of information—containing tales of ancestors, social values, clan practices, and more. Sangma cites the example of the dakmanda, a modern Garo wrap.” – Ramona Sangma quoted by Avantika Bhuyan in Livemint (1 December 2017)
https://www.livemint.com/Leisure/FR23TDZqwz1hDYOlB5mRSN/Folklore-myths-and-handloom.html
https://indiantribalheritage.org/?p=23691

“[I]ndigenous people in India also feel the claustrophobic confines of their identity which has been imposed on them by others, be it the colonial administrator, the colonial anthropologist […].” – Ivy Imogene Hansdak in “Inaugural Speech for the National Conference“ (Tribes In Transition-II” 2017)
https://indiantribalheritage.org/?p=23032

“[E]ngaging with the writing of anthropologists writing about tribes is a call to tribal conscience to address these [writers] head-on, without fear, as a way of setting records straight and challenging the primitivism they’ve thrown at us as exotic uncultivated people. This is finally exercising our agency to assert our true identities; a way to liberate the image and reputation of our ancestors and ourselves that has been chained to dehumanization by these writings’ imposed impressions of us.” – Ruby Hembrom (founder-director of Adivaani—a publisher of Adivasi writing), quoted by Richard Kamei (doctoral candidate at the Tata Institute of Social Sciences in Mumbai) in “Uncivilising the Mind: How anthropology shaped the discourse on tribes in India” (Caravan Magazine, 1 March 2020)
https://caravanmagazine.in/books/anthropologists-tribes-india
https://indiantribalheritage.org/?p=8415

“[I]t is very important for anthropologists and other social scientists in contemporary world to study understand and explain the status of tribal youth with respect to its participation and acceptance to the wave of development and modernization and further related changes.” – Subhendu Kumar Acharya & Gautam K Kshatriya in: “Social Transformation, Identity of Indian Tribes in Recent Time: An Anthropological perspective“ (Afro Asian Journal of Anthropology and Social Policy Volume-5, Issue-2 2014)
https://www.academia.edu/9963906
https://indiantribalheritage.org/?p=20371