Narratives On Tribes In Transition

Adivasis have principally been studied in the context of rebellion, environmental history and the politics of identity. However, preoccupations with definitions and notions of identity, while important in themselves, tend to shift attention away from the inner lives of these communities. This book deals with different aspects of the histories of adivasi communities -- from Rajasthan in the west to Bengal and Orissa in the east. The essays in this book discuss a range of issues affecting the socio-economic and cultural life of adivasis and explore the long term continuities and discontinuities between different political regimes. They also reflect some of the new concerns that have come up relating to methodology and sources, historiography and colonial concerns, the impact of missionaries, gender issues, the agrarian situation, famines and migration. Some of the issues addressed in this volume are the genesis and development of 'tribal' studies in India during the colonial period; the peasantization of adivasi groups and their assimilation within the Hindu caste fold as reflected in Tulsidas' Ramcharitmanas; the work of the Protestant missions among the Santals of Chotanagpur; the social and ritual relations between the Bhils and the Rajput ruling dynasties of Dungarpur in southern Rajasthan; the aspect of agrarian change among the Hos of Singhbhum; the factors behind the migration from Chotanagpur, its nature and organization and its impact upon the adivasi village community; the question of women's agency in colonial Chotanagpur; and an exploration of land rights, witchcraft, employment patterns and how women challenged patriarchy in their everyday lives; and the impact of globalisation and liberalization upon adivasis in contemporary India. The book will be of use to students and scholars of history, anthropology and sociology and also to policy-planners.

"In traditional tribal creation myths, the earthdiver brings up dirt form the primal water to form the earth ... Now they dive in unknown urban areas connecting dreams to earth in the same way that these stories connect metaphor to realities."--Jacket.

A Saudi Tribal History, the fourth volume of the author's series Oral Poetry and Narratives from Central Arabia, presents and analyses the oral traditions of the Dawāsir tribal confederation in the area of Wādi ad-Dawāsir, south of Riyadh. The introduction focusses on the tribe's self-image and its symbiosis of Bedouin and sedentary strains; its internal social relations and its place in the surrounding tribal world; the impact of the Wahhābi movement and the Saudi state's historical efforts to control the tribes; and the store of legends that continues to shape its collective consciousness. It is followed by the Arabic text of the poems and narratives in transcription, based on taped records, with the English translation on the facing page. This is complimented by an extensive glossary, cross-referenced to the Arabic text.

These narratives compare earthdivers in myths who brought dirt up from the watery earth to form land, with present-day earthdivers, mixed bloods, who dive into urban areas connecting dreams to the earth

This book, in two volumes, breathes fresh air empirically, methodologically, and theoretically into understanding the rich ceremonial lives, the philosophical-religious knowledge, and the impressive material feats and labor organization that distinguish Hopewell Indians of central Ohio and neighboring regions during the first centuries CE. The first volume defines cross-culturally, for the first time, the “ritual drama” as a genre of social performance. It reconstructs and compares parts of 14 such dramas that Hopewellian and other Woodland-period peoples performed in their ceremonial centers to help the soul-like essences of their deceased make the journey to an afterlife. The second volume builds and critiques ten formal cross-cultural models of “personhood” and the “self” and infers the nature of Scioto Hopewell people’s ontology. Two facets of their ontology are found to have been instrumental in their creating the intercommunity alliances and cooperation and gathering the labor required to construct their huge, multicommunity ceremonial centers: a relational, collective concept of the self defined by the ethical quality of the relationships one has with other beings, and a concept of multiple soul-like essences that compose a human being and can be harnessed strategically to create familial-like ethical bonds of cooperation among individuals and communities. The archaeological reconstructions of Hopewellian ritual dramas and concepts of personhood and the self, and of Hopewell people’s strategic uses of these, are informed by three large surveys of historic Woodland and Plains Indians’ narratives, ideas, and rites about journeys to afterlives, the creatures who inhabit the cosmos, and the nature and functions of soul-like essences, coupled with rich contextual archaeological and bioarchaeological-taphonomic analyses. The bioarchaeological-taphonomic method of l’anthropologie de terrain, new to North American archaeology, is introduced and applied. In all, the research in this book vitalizes a vision of an anthropology committed to native logic and motivation and skeptical of the imposition of Western world views and categories onto native peoples.