History of Tribal Society and Culture

On the issue of relationship between the tribal people and the caste-Hindus in India, we find two different views. One is that many social and cultural traditions of the Hindu great tradition have organic links with the tribal society and culture. On the other hand, some maintain that the tribal and the Hindu traditions are separate; tribal people do not have more than casual contacts with the caste-Hindus. Papers in this book reveal the fact that caste-Hindus have been substantially influenced by the tribal people in India throughout the history and neither Sanskritisation nor Tribalisation is exclusively found to be helpful in explaining and understanding a social our cultural item in a society or community. Also, attempts have been made in this volume to study myths associated in different walks of life and how history is carefully blended with the tradition to construct a picture of the past. Thus, papers in this volume unfold downward devolution of cultural elements of the great tradition and their integration with the little traditional elements. Following issues are discussed in this volume: Oral tradition of human and legitimisation of Chauhan rule; Hindu mode of absorption of a tribal deity and state formation during medieval period in Sambalpur; Oral narrative and Hindu method of assimilation: a case study; Oral narrative, social reality and social formation: from struggle for existence to state formation during medieval period; Oral narrative and tribal-non-tribal interaction: a study; Myth and reality in little tradition: a study; Oral narratives as localised versions of universal folklore: re-examined in the tribal-non-tribal context of Orissa; Political economy of medieval West Orissa as reflected in Oral tradition.