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Chapter 12 Tribal and nomadiC

CommUniTies

A tribe can be defined as a community living in hilly forest or well demarcated areas
having its own culture, religion, language and strong ethnic identity. Anthropologists have
explained tribes as a social group with territorial affiliation, endogamous in nature, with
no specialisation of functions, ruled by tribal chiefs, hereditary or otherwise, united in
language or dialect, recognising social distance with other tribes or castes, following tribal
traditions and beliefs and customs.

Indian tribal people play a key part in constructing the cultural heritage of India. They
occupy a major part in the history of India as they are
considered as the true habitants of India. The tribal
people are scattered indifferent part of India and

they form a considerable number of the population of
India. The traditional and cultural heritage add colour
and variation to the Indian culture as a whole and
form a compact culture. Indian tribal people reside in
approximately fifteen percent of the country’s area.
They primarily live in various ecological and geo-
climatic conditions ranging from plains, forests, hills
and inaccessible areas that perhaps lie dotted in the
panoramic Indian terrain. Some of the Major Indian Tribes

Tribes and Tribal sOcieTies

A tribal society consists of close knit clans (groups of related families) that are led by chiefs
and are governed by the tribe’s own laws and traditions. The medieval Indian tribes generally
practised primitive cultivation, herding and hunting-gathering. While some tribes were nomads,
others lived settled lives in remote regions such as hills, forests, deserts and waste lands.
Tribal societies were not divided on the basis of wealth or caste. A tribe collectively owned
land, cattle, forests, etc. and shared the yields equally among its members. There was
interaction between the tribes and the general society, to meet mutual needs. Trade
between tribals communities was usually through barter.
The tribal communities did not develop any script. Tales of their ancestors, their heroes
and their past sorrows and joys have come down in the form of songs and ballads passed
down orally over generations. These provide rich historical material.

oCCuPations
The tribal people were engaged in agriculture, herding and hunting gathering. They mostly

depended on the natural resources of the region they lived in. Some tribes settled down
in an area permanently while others led a nomadic lifestyle and moved from one place to
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