The Koyas who are found in Malkangiri are the only tribe that
depend on cattle breeding and animal tending for their livelihood and the lack of
sufficient pasture land is now a heavy pressure on them for which they are adopting other
ways of living.
The Mahalis and Kol-Lohars
are simple artisans depending on basket-making and blacksmithy respectively; The Lohars
produce iron and wooden tools and other articles for the use of other tribes with their
primitive technology. That prevents them, however, from successfully competing with the
other communities who produce similar goods of a higher standard.
The economic life of the Adivasis exhibits different stages of development. There
are the practitioners of subsistence economy, of food gathering, hunting and fishing
(Birhors, Hill Kharias). Some tribes like the Juangs, Hill Bhuiyans, Kondhs, and Lanjia
Saoras continue hunting and food gathering along with shifting cultivation Even the
regular agriculturists like the Santals supplement their income by hunting and gathering.
In a few tribes the economic unit is the family: such tribes are the Kharias: Mankidi,
Mankirdia, Birhor and they are usually found in the forests of Mayurbhanj, Keonjhar and
Sundargarh. They are very poor and live in isolated small bands and groups and their
economy is confined primarily to the forest.
The Koyas who are found in Malkangiri are the only tribe that
depend on cattle breeding and animal tending for their livelihood and the lack of
sufficient pasture land is now a heavy pressure on them for which they are adopting other
ways of living.
The Mahalis and Kol-Lohars
are simple artisans depending on basket-making and blacksmithy respectively; The Lohars
produce iron and wooden tools and other articles for the use of other tribes with their
primitive technology. That prevents them, however, from successfully competing with the
other communities who produce similar goods of a higher standard.
However it is
the hill and shifting cultivation or Podu
cultivation that is the most prominent occupation of about 90 per
cent of the Adivasis. Tribes like the Kondh, Saora, Koya, Parenga, Bonda, Didayi practise
it predominantly. The practiceentails a cycle of activities consisting of the selection of
a patch of hill slope on forest, its distribution to intending cultivators, worship of the
associated deities and making sacrifices, cleaning the patch before summer, accumulation
of logs, bushes, ferns on the patch, bunting of the same on a suitable day fixed by the
priest, cleaning the patch before the rainy season, hoeingand sowing of seeds, lending and
wedding, keeping a watch on the crops against destruction by wild animals and other
intruders, and gathering the crops, threshing and storing the grains and merrymaking by
the participants in the operations under the guidance of the head of the family who
distributes work according to the strength and ability of the participants. After using a
patch of land for sometime, it is abandoned and another sought out. This practice leads to
soil erosion and ecological degradation, but being a part of a total way of life efforts
to change their practice have not succeeded much. It is hoped that with tire spread of
relevant education and raining in other productive occupations the system will wane.
Adivasis are now migrating to industrial and mining areas for skilled and unskilled jobs
and the principle of job reservation for them 23% in Orissa is helping them to
modernize themselves and improve their economic standards. This trend is prominently
noticed among the advanced tribes like the Santal, Oraon, Ho, Munda and Kisan. nut this
modernization process has not succeeded in their uprooting them from the simple, deeply
cohesive pattern forests and hills or in alienating them from the simple, deeply cohesive
pattern of life that is so natural to them. If modernization has to be done, the process
has to be carefully thought about and such approaches have to be made as will not
produce cultural disorientation.
However it is
the hill and shifting cultivation or Podu
cultivation that is the most prominent occupation of about 90 per
cent of the Adivasis. Tribes like the Kondh, Saora, Koya, Parenga, Bonda, Didayi practise
it predominantly. The practiceentails a cycle of activities consisting of the selection of
a patch of hill slope on forest, its distribution to intending cultivators, worship of the
associated deities and making sacrifices, cleaning the patch before summer, accumulation
of logs, bushes, ferns on the patch, bunting of the same on a suitable day fixed by the
priest, cleaning the patch before the rainy season, hoeingand sowing of seeds, lending and
wedding, keeping a watch on the crops against destruction by wild animals and other
intruders, and gathering the crops, threshing and storing the grains and merrymaking by
the participants in the operations under the guidance of the head of the family who
distributes work according to the strength and ability of the participants. After using a
patch of land for sometime, it is abandoned and another sought out. This practice leads to
soil erosion and ecological degradation, but being a part of a total way of life efforts
to change their practice have not succeeded much. It is hoped that with tire spread of
relevant education and raining in other productive occupations the system will wane.
Adivasis are now migrating to industrial and mining areas for skilled and unskilled jobs
and the principle of job reservation for them 23% in Orissa is helping them to
modernize themselves and improve their economic standards. This trend is prominently
noticed among the advanced tribes like the Santal, Oraon, Ho, Munda and Kisan. nut this
modernization process has not succeeded in their uprooting them from the simple, deeply
cohesive pattern forests and hills or in alienating them from the simple, deeply cohesive
pattern of life that is so natural to them. If modernization has to be done, the process
has to be carefully thought about and such approaches have to be made as will not
produce cultural disorientation.
However it is
the hill and shifting cultivation or Podu
cultivation that is the most prominent occupation of about 90 per
cent of the Adivasis. Tribes like the Kondh, Saora, Koya, Parenga, Bonda, Didayi practise
it predominantly. The practiceentails a cycle of activities consisting of the selection of
a patch of hill slope on forest, its distribution to intending cultivators, worship of the
associated deities and making sacrifices, cleaning the patch before summer, accumulation
of logs, bushes, ferns on the patch, bunting of the same on a suitable day fixed by the
priest, cleaning the patch before the rainy season, hoeingand sowing of seeds, lending and
wedding, keeping a watch on the crops against destruction by wild animals and other
intruders, and gathering the crops, threshing and storing the grains and merrymaking by
the participants in the operations under the guidance of the head of the family who
distributes work according to the strength and ability of the participants. After using a
patch of land for sometime, it is abandoned and another sought out. This practice leads to
soil erosion and ecological degradation, but being a part of a total way of life efforts
to change their practice have not succeeded much. It is hoped that with tire spread of
relevant education and raining in other productive occupations the system will wane.
Adivasis are now migrating to industrial and mining areas for skilled and unskilled jobs
and the principle of job reservation for them 23% in Orissa is helping them to
modernize themselves and improve their economic standards. This trend is prominently
noticed among the advanced tribes like the Santal, Oraon, Ho, Munda and Kisan. nut this
modernization process has not succeeded in their uprooting them from the simple, deeply
cohesive pattern forests and hills or in alienating them from the simple, deeply cohesive
pattern of life that is so natural to them. If modernization has to be done, the process
has to be carefully thought about and such approaches have to be made as will not
produce cultural disorientation.
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