Birhor

Abstract

This book is mainly a visual portrayal of the Birhors. It reveals an ancient tribal culture under change with depiction of the Birhors habitat, economic way of living, social organization, religion, political council, lifestyle, development and change. The Birhors are basically very simple, sober and culturally vibrant tribal people. They are a wandering, simple, shy and god fearing and little known forest dwelling tribal community. The Birhors live in bands and are a semi nomadic and hunter-gatherer group of people, who represent the early stage of human life in the forest environment. The scenic Chortanagpur plateau is said to be their place of origin. From there they are said to have migrated to other places of Odisha and live in temporary settlements around the hill and forest tracts. Currently they are found in Chhattisgarh, Jharkhand, West Bengal, Madhya Pradesh, Maharashtra and Odisha. They wander in forests in small bands, live in temporary leaf hutments, which they call ' Tanda '. They form small groups, each group composed of 10-15 families, having close kinship ties. They move from place to place in search of mature siali creepers and monkey for marketing of siali ropes and for selling the skin of the monkey to eke out their living. In Odisha they are found moving in small bands from place to place in the districts of Angul, Balasore, Deogarh, Dhenkanal, Jajpur, Keonjhar, Mayurbhanj, Sudergarh and Sambalpur, but principally their temporary settlements are dispersed in and around Similipal forest and hills and even close to these areas bordering forests in Balasore, Keonjhar and Sundergarh districts. Government of Odisha since 1987 has set up a Micro Project in Jashipur and have given them Particularly Vulnerable Tribal Group (PVTG) status and extending number of developmental activities for their all-round development.SCSTRTI has endeavored a photographic documentation of this colourful PVTG. Hopefully, learned readers will benefit from this work.