The concept tribe has evolved from the Middle English term ‘tribuz’ meaning the three divisions into which the early Romans are grouped. For the Romans, the tribe is a political division. But for others it is equated with geographical divisions. The Irish history conceives the term as families or communities of persons having the same surname.
The Oxford Dictionary defines it as “a race of people, now applied especially to a primary aggregate of people in a primitive or barbarous condition under a headmen of chief”.
Nihar Ranjan Ray (1976) has taken attempt at finding out the indigenous essence of the particular group which is analogous to what is called tribe. He discovers the term Jana which is prevailed in ancient Indian languages including Sanskrit and Prakrit. It refers to the communities of people like the Savaras, the Kullutas, the Kolias, the Bhillas and a countless others whom today we call tribe. “Jana, therefore, seems to have been, to my mind, the term for what we have been taught to know as ‘tribe’, and “Jati‘, the socio-religious cum economic organization that was supposed to sustain the Jana and keep the given community of people together (ibid 1972 : 9)”. […]
[Bold typeface added above for emphasis]
Source: CHAPTER – IV, THE CONCEPT OF ADIVASI : IN THE GENERAL CONTEXT OF ETHNIC IDENTITY (1990). p. 124-127
URL: https://shodhganga.inflibnet.ac.in/bitstream/10603/159043/9/09_chapter%204.pdf
Date visited: 4 April 2019
Title: A tribe in an industrial milieu the Orams in Rourkela and adjoining villages
Researcher: Rath, Govinda Chandra
Guide(s): Sinha, Surajit C
Keywords: Industrial
Orams
Rourkela
Tribe
Villages
University: University of Calcutta
Completed Date: 1990
Abstract: Abstract not available
Pagination: viii, 310p.
URI: https://hdl.handle.net/10603/159043
Appears in Departments: Department of Sociology
Read or download the full PhD thesis here: https://hdl.handle.net/10603/159043
Find publications on these issues by reputed authors including Open Access (free download): Worldcat.org >>
Related posts
- Adivasi (Adibasi)
- “Adivasi”, “Tribals” and “Denotified tribes”: Usage in legal and historical records, in textbooks, scholarly papers and the media – Classifications in different states
- Anthropology | Irish Journal of Anthropology | The Johar Journal | Folio Special issue
- Colonial policies | History | Indus Valley | Mohenjo Daro
- eBooks, eJournals & reports | eLearning
- eBook | Background guide for education
- Ekalavya (Eklavya)
- Forest Rights Act (FRA) | Hunter-gatherers | Nishad (Nishada, Sanskrit Niṣāda, “tribal, hunter, mountaineer, degraded person outcast”) | Vanavasi (Vanvasi, Vanyajati)
- India’s Constitutional obligation to respect their cultural traditions
- Jawaharlal Nehru’s “five principles” for the policy to be pursued vis-a-vis the tribals
- Remembering Birsa Munda: The charismatic tribal leader who shook the British Empire – Jharkhand
- Rights of Indigenous Peoples
- Scheduled Tribes | Classifications in different states
- Tagore and rural culture
- Video | Adivasi Academy & Museum of Adivasi Voice at Tejgadh – Gujarat
- Video | Tribes in Transition-III: “Indigenous Cultures in the Digital Era”
- What is the Forest Rights Act about?
Who is a forest dweller under this law, and who gets rights?