A losing heritage

Aradhika Sharma

While telling the stories of six isolated tribes that hail from various parts of India, Kundalia has used the mechanism of following one individual from each tribe who narrates his story, and includes therein, the social-cultural-geographical and economic milieu of his/ her people. The stories of the tribes that she chooses are not a complete research on their sociology but certainly offer fascinating vignettes of their lives.

This is Kundalia’s second book after The Lost Generation: Chronicling India’s Dying Professions. The stories of these adivasis in India, who are still sustaining themselves in the forests and hills of the country follow rituals, cultural and religious norms and economic pastimes that are so removed from what we know, that their lives offer a wealth of anthropological resources that should be valued and preserved at any cost, lest we lose whatever of our tribal heritage that still remains.

Mani, the protagonist of The Kurumbas of the Nilgiris, for example, is the “son of Moopan, the limping old sorcerer”. The forest-based Kurumba tribe is supposed to be practitioner of magic. “They could, apparently, turn into bears and kill people, just as they knew how to counter other spells, to remove or prevent misfortune.” The poverty-stricken Kurumbas dwell in the hamlets of Nilgiris. The villages of the area are inhabited by Badagas, an educated, prosperous tribe that had migrated to the Nilgiris in the early 12th century.

Another documented tribe is the Halakkis of Ankola (Uttara Kannada district of Karnataka) who were subject to years of antipathy by the mainstream society. Here, Kundalia follows the life of Sukri, now called the “nightingale from the Halakkivokkaliga community”, who brought fame to her tiny village by singing ancestral songs of her ‘Singing Tribe’. The Halakkis sing on everything, from birth to death — marriage, festivals, and even daily chores like fetching water, or farm work like harvesting.”

The Kanjjar tribe of Rajasthan has always evoked fear and fascination. Traditionally, dacoits of Chambal, “whose fathers and grandfathers were known to survive on lizards in jungles”, they are now reduced to petty thievery or mainstream labour. This story narrates the life of young Hoonkar Singh, son of the fabled dacoit, Lala Singh, of the Bhatus caste. Now, however, the tribes have moved out of jungles, but live as nomads in separate, dirty encampments outside villages, where they are perceived as threat to the safety and security of the village.

The Khasis of Shillong are a matrilineal society, where the youngest daughter is the khadduh, or the custodian of the ancestral property. The protagonists of this story are two sisters, Wansuk and Syrpai Rynjah, who have been watching Shillong change for more than 80 years, and for the sake of ‘development’, compelled to give up their beloved familial home.

Other accounts include the Marias of Bastar and the Konyaks of Nagaland. Kundalia has tried to include information about the histories of the tribes, often connecting them with the changes that modern times have brought about. She has populated her accounts with descriptions of local flora, fauna, food and the traditional occupations of the tribes and textured it with local jargon to add flavour to the narrative.

These are but glimpses of the rich sociologies that the tribes have transfused over centuries. A fascinating read, the book red-flags the imperative need to preserve the rich heritage of tribal culture, most of which has already been lost to us.