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PTG BIRHOR
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Birhor Primitive Tribe: A Socio – Cultural and Historical
Perspective
Government of India has identified 75 tribes across the country as
primitive tribes. Among them, Birhor is one of the primitive tribe
groups who trace their origin in Jharkhand and reside for ages in
different parts of the state. Birhor in Jharkhand belong to the
Proto-Australoid stock; linguistically, they originate from the
Austro-Asiatic group. The word "Birhor" is derived by
combining two Mundari terms: "Bir" means forest while "hor"
means man. Thus Birhor means ‘forest man’ or ‘people living in the
forest. It is interesting to note that the Birhor tribe of Jharkhand
consider themselves as the descendants of the Sun. It is believed
that the Birhors are related to the Kharwar tribe, also said to have
descended from the Sun.
In Jharkhand, the Birhor tribe is divided into two major sub-tribes,
namely Jaghis Birhor and Uthalu Birhor. These tribes in Jharkhand
portray a distinct pattern of socio-economic lifestyle. In fact, the
Jaghis Birhor and the Uthalu Birhor tribes in Jharkhand are known
for their agro-based economy. The Jaghis Birhors are nomads who keep
moving from one jungle to the other. These tribes practice shifting
cultivation: when the food supply of a particular forest is
exhausted, they head towards another forest.
The Birhor settlement is known as Tanda which consists of at least
half a dozen huts. The huts are of a conical shape. They are erected
with the help or leaves and branches. The settled Birhor have
erected house with the help or mud wall, bamboo and wood thatched
with phus or hand made tiles which they have learnt from their
neighbour. |

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The family is the
smallest unit of the Birhor society. The family is patrilineal. The
authority of family is the head of the household that is father. The
Birhor have organizations of families called Band. The head of the
band is called Naya. All heads of the family of the Birhor Tanda or
Band work under the leadership of the Naya. In the Birhor, kinship
relation is established on the basis of blood and marriage. They
believe that parentage creates blood relation. The blood relation
continues from generation to generation through the marriage and
reproduction of children. An individual has paternal kin, maternal
kin (related through blood) and affinal kins (related through
marriage). Thus, the kinship system of the Birhor is a model of
relationship based on parentage and marriage. |
The Birhor economy
presents a mixture of forest economy, agriculture and labour. For
Birhor, forest is the still main means of stay. They do the
collection of food materials available in the form of root, shoot,
flowers, seeds, etc. in the forest. They also do the trapping of
monkey, rabbit, mouse, titir etc. in the forest. They prepare rope
from the forest grasses and chop and now a day they use plastic
strips from cement bags to make rope. They make rope carpet, Ashani,
Machia, Sikka and baskets and sell in the market. They also prepare
baskets, brooms and winnowing tray from the forest grasses, leaves,
etc.
For Jaghi Birhor, agriculture is the main means of stay; however,
they do collect forest produce from the neighboring forest. The
forest produce supplements their family income. Each Jaghi Birhor
family owns house, house lead land and some plots of agricultural
land. Adhered to the house, they have Bari Land in which they grow
vegetables and maize. |

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The Birhor religion
presents a mixture of animism, animatism, naturalism, anastral
worship and belief in Bhuta-Preta and witchraft. They offer worship
to their dieteis on different occasions and celebrate festivals.The
singbonga is their supreme deity and Dharati Maa is his consort.
These two deities are responsible for good health, harvest and
happiness in the Birhor society some Birhor worship mahadeo, kali
mai, or Burha and Burahi. Buru Bonga and Banga are the deities of
clans. |
The Birhor Tanda is a
collection of different families of different clans for the purpose
of good collection, hunting, rope making etc. Each Birhor Tanda has
a head. The head of the Tanda is known as Naya. He is social,
political and religions head of the Tanda. He has an assistant
called kotwar or Diguar. The main work of the Diguar is to inform
the people about the day and time of the occurrence of the Panchayat.
The heads of the families of Tanda take part in the Panchayat. The
Panchayat looks after the customary laws. Those who do not obey the
customary laws are declared as guilty. They are punished as per the
decision of the Panchayat. The cases related to rope, adultery,
divorces, cruel behavior, etc. are decided in the Tanda Panchayat. |
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