Bhuyan

Abstract

The Bhuyan is one of the important and numerically major tribes of Odisha. The tribe is in various stages of socio-economic development from the almost primitive Pauri Bhuyans of Keonjhar, Bonai, and Pallahara to the Hinduized Khandayat Bhuyan families of Sundergarh district. They are largely concentrated in the districts of Keonjhar, Mayurbhanj, Sambalpur, Bargarh, and Sundargarh. Though the tribe has several endogamous sections territorially, it is dichotomized into two sections. The Bhuyans living in the plain area are called Plain Bhuyan and those living in the hilly area are known as Hill Bhuyan or Pauri Bhuyan. They have a number of clans playing an important role in regulating their marital alliances. The term Bhuyan is derived from the Sanskrit word 'Bhumi' meaning 'land'. They consider themselves to be children and the owners of the land and hence are known as Bhuyans. They are more or less an acculturated tribe as a whole and have adopted the languages of the regions they inhabit. They speak Oriya. The most important characteristic feature of the Bhuyan society is that like that of their brother tribe Juang, they have their traditional organization of youth dormitory centered around the multi-faceted traditional community institution of Mandaghar found in each and every Bhuyan and more particularly in Paudi Bhuyan villages especially in Keonjhar and Anugul districts. Unmarried boys and girls of the village become the members of this organization not only to sleep in their respective dormitories in the night but also to learn the facts of life under the guidance of their seniors and strict supervision of elders. Now, this age-old organization is breaking down under the impact of modernity. Another important characteristic feature of the Bhuyan is that like the Juang, in every Bhuyan village there is a traditional panchayat that meets at the darbar or mandaghar. The village headman - pradhan presides over the panchayat. A group of villages form a confederation called a pirha. The panchayat at this level is called the Pirha panchayat, and the traditional headman who presides over it is called the Sardar. The economic life of the Bhuyans mainly centers around shifting cultivation, which is the primary source of their livelihood. To a large extent, this is supplemented by wet and dry cultivation, collection of minor forest produce, hunting, fishing, and wage-earning. Being a backward tribal community, the Bhuyans are facing a lot of difficulties in the economic front. Due to the ban imposed on shifting cultivation, the scarcity of wetland in the valley bottom for paddy cultivation and the rapid extinction of forest wealth, the people are forced to become wage earners and indebted in the absence of alternative means of livelihood. Although various anti-poverty and income-generating schemes are now being implemented for the socio-economic development of the Bhuyans through agencies like the block, DRDA and ITDA as well as micro-projects for Pauri Bhuyans it is still felt necessary that for the Paudi Bhuyans, the most primitive section of the tribes, at least two micro-projects, one each at Bhuyan Pirh of Keonjhar District and the other at Koida block of Sundargarh District, should be established to look after their development exclusively.