Customs

“We have a song for every situation. We feel money takes away from the enjoyment of life. But to earn a livelihood, people have to learn other languages.” – Santal teacher Pada Murmu interviewed by Nandini Nair (OPEN Magazine, 13 January 2017)
https://openthemagazine.com/features/dispatch/santali-talking-time/
https://indiantribalheritage.org/?p=21581

Garo winter harvest festival: creating cultural awareness, generating employment – Meghalaya

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The Garo tribe of Western Meghalaya celebrates the winter harvest with a three-day festival. Pheroze L. Vincent watches the Garos climb oiled poles, burst into war cries, and perform dances inspired by crabs and swaying plants. Appearances are deceptive. The mobile phones of bus conductors play Bob Dylan and Eminem booms in the Mi Dokan … Read more

Voices from the forest: poetry inspired by the Irula way of life – Tamil Nadu

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 On first sight, says Lakshmanan, he was appalled at their condition. “They had nothing. The education and health conditions of the people were very bad. They had no community certificates,” he says. Lakshmanan left with a heavy heart, only to come back again and again. He accompanied members of the Tamil Nadu Pazhankudi Makkal Sangam, … Read more

Collaborative lifestyle, women’s inheritance have contributed to our uniqueness as humans – Tamil Nadu

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 Should I stay or should I go? JANAKI LENIN, The Hindu, October 26, 2012 […] Traditionally, women of these communities — the Nair and Mappila of Kerala, the Khasi and Garo of Meghalaya, and the Nicobarese of the Nicobar Islands — stay at their parents’ home and inherit property. S. Anvar, a chronicler of South Indian … Read more

Romanticising ‘indigenous peoples’ in the West just as in urban India

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The impulse to romanticise ‘indigenous peoples’ is still a powerful force in scholarship and public debate, and not only in the West but also in urban India, where ‘tribal’ (adivasi or ‘first-inhabitant’) textiles are fashionable, tribal dances grace government parades, and publishing on tribal cultures is big business. Most large-format photographic books of tribal life in India (Baldizonne 1999), for example, only perpetuate images of tribal people as guardians of static culture by conflating historical and contemporary contexts. Read more >>

Source: Tribal Transitions at SOAS – Research Description
Address : http://www.soas.ac.uk/tribaltransitions/description/
Date Visited: Thu Dec 20 2012 11:10:31 GMT+0100 (CET)

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Tribes more modern and efficient than modern factories – relieving stress with “tribal meditation” techniques

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The Times of India, 27 October 2012 Stress is increasing in everyday life due to multiple social and economic factors but an expert assures a remedy through ZeNLP – the science of creating structured change in behaviour using simple “tribal meditation” techniques like clapping or chanting. Internationally acclaimed ZeNLP trainer Murli Menon, a stress management … Read more