Worship & rituals

“Bomman thatha told me that our gods live in stones, big rocks and trees. We won’t cut aal maram (Ficus religiosa) because gods will be in that tree. Even the water in the area around the tree should be used neatly and not destroyed. In our community our god Ajji (grandmother) lives in Ellamalai mountain. She is also called Thrithri Eributham. […] Before fishing or taking tubers, we will pray to god and only then we will take it.” – Wildlife conservationist Ramesh in “Bomman thatha and his forest”, a conversation with his grandfather on “bonding between adivasi people and the forest” (At the Edge of Existence, 29 October 2014)
https://cultureandconservation.wordpress.com/2014/10/29/bomman-thatha-and-his-forest/
https://indiantribalheritage.org/?p=8262

Methods of education that create enthusiasm for learning and reduce the school dropout rate: A success story – West Bengal

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Challenges The issues in tribal education are the conflict between the state’s policy of assimilating minorities into the mainstream culture and the tribal people’s reluctance to abandon and insistence on maintaining their identity. Rural tribal children face a severe dilemma when they are forced to reject their own culture and accept the schools’ middle-class values. … Read more

“Kocharethi calls upon us to ethically engage with it, to question our complicity” – First novel by an Adivasi in Kerala

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Source: “Cultures in transformation”, Review by Pramod K. Nayar, The Hindu, 3 April 2011URL: https://www.thehindu.com/books/Cultures-in-transformation/article14669586.eceDate visited: 9 May 2020 A winner of the Kerala Sahitya Akademi, Narayan died on August 16, 2022, at the age of 81 Writings of protest Though Narayan wrote several novels and almost a hundred short stories, his most famous work … Read more

Absence of a dowry-system, divorce by mutual consent, and widow-re-marriage: On the high status of women in Badaga communities (Nilgiri) – Tamil Nadu

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The Badagas are a unique community living mainly in the Nilgiris District in Tamil nadu in South India. They are also the single largest community of the Nilgiris. Though classified backward, a significant factor is the high status of their women says Indu K Malla, a Badaga writer of distinction, in her article ” The myth … Read more

Usage of ‘tribe’ traceable to colonial census authorities

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The term ‘tribe’, as is widely known, subsumes enormous complexities—both anthropological and historical. However, the British India Censuses used to enumerate tribes as Animists until the 1931 Census, in which they were categorised as those practicing ‘Tribal Religion’. Thus, up to the 1941 Census, the criterion of primitive or tribal religion enabled the British census … Read more

Madia and Madia Gond communities – Maharashtra & Chhattisgarh

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Learn more about the Madia community, locate it on a map, view a series of photos and watch a series of videos >> Lalsu Nogoti is an independent elected member of the Zila Parishad in the district of Gadchiroli, Maharashtra. He is also the first lawyer from the Madia Gond Adivasi community in that district. … Read more