Munda people

This article is about the Mundari speaking ethnic group. For a list of all ethnic groups using Munda languages, see Munda peoples.

The Munda people are an Austroasiatic speaking ethnic group of India. They predominantly speak the Mundari language as their native language, which belongs to the Munda subgroup of Austroasiatic languages. The Munda are found mainly concentrated in the south and East Chhotanagpur Plateau region of Jharkhand,^[7] Odisha and West Bengal.^[1][8] The Munda also reside in adjacent areas of Madhya Pradesh as well as in portions of Bangladesh, Nepal, and the state of Tripura.^[1][9] They are one of India's largest scheduled tribes. Munda people in Tripura are also known as Mura.^[10]

Munda people

Horoko, Horo
Munda men, Dinajpur district, Bangladesh
Total population
2,233,661 (2011)
Regions with significant populations
India  Bangladesh    Nepal
India	2,228,661^[1]
Jharkhand	1,229,221
Odisha	584,346
West Bengal	366,386
Chhattisgarh	15,095
Tripura	14,544
Bihar	14,028
Madhya Pradesh	5,041
Bangladesh	60,191 (2021)^[2]
Languages
Mundari^[3]• Panchpargania • Sadri • Odia • Bengali • Hindi
Religion
Hinduism (41.3%) Sarnaism (28.1%) Christianity (27.4%) ^[4]^[5]^: 327^[6]
Related ethnic groups
Munda peoples Bhumijs Hos Kharias Juangs Santhals

Etymology

Munda means headman of village in Munda-Makni system to govern villages in South-east Chotanagpur.^[11] They call themselves hodoko or horo means men.^[12] Robert Parkin notes that the term "Munda" did not belong to the Austroasiatic lexis and is of Sanskrit origin.^[13] According to R. R. Prasad, the name "Munda" is a Sanskrit word means "headman". It is an honorific name given by Hindus and hence became a tribal name.^[14] According to Standing (1976), It was under British rule, the term Munda started to used for the tribal group.^[15]

History

See also: Munda peoples § History

According to linguist Paul Sidwell, Munda languages arrived on the coast of Odisha from Southeast Asia about 4000–3500 years ago.^[16] The Munda people initially spread from Southeast Asia, but mixed extensively with local Indian populations.^[17] They are genetically closely related to Mah Meri and Temuan people of Malaysia.^[18]

According to historian R. S. Sharma, tribals who spoke the Munda language occupied the eastern region of ancient India. Many Munda terms occur in Vedic texts that were written between 1500 BCE and 500 BCE. Their presence in texts compiled in the upper Gangetic basin late in that period suggests that Munda speakers were there at the time.^[19] According to Barbara A. West, the Mundas claim origin in Uttar Pradesh, and a steady flow eastward in history as other groups moved into their original homeland; she suggests they inhabited a much larger territory in ancient India.^[20] Recent study suggest that Munda languages spread as far as Eastern Uttar Pradesh but not beyond that and impacted Eastern Indo-Aryan languages as some group such as Musahar have munda genetic lineage. The claim of Munda presence in Upper gangetic plain have no linguistic and genetic basis.^[21]

In the late 1800s, during the British Raj, the Mundas were forced to pay rents and work as bonded labourers to the zamindars. During Kol uprising in 1823-1833, some Manki Munda revolted due to their disposition and attacked Thikedars, other Mankis, plundered and destroyed villages. This insurgency was suppressed by Thomas Wilkinson.^[22] During 19th century, Munda freedom fighter Birsa Munda began the protest marches calling for non-payment of rents and remission of forest dues. He led guerrilla warfare to uproot British Raj and establish Munda Raj. He caught by Company forces along with his supporters and died in Jail. He is still revered in Jharkhand.^{[23][better source needed]}

 

Birsa Munda rebellion in 1800s

Nomadic hunters in the India tribal belt, they became farmers and some were employed in basketwork. With the listing of the Munda people as Scheduled Tribes, many are employed in various governmental organisations (particularly Indian Railways).^[24]

Kinship patterns

Munda are divided into number of exogamous clans. Clans among Mundas are known as Killi which is similar to Sanskrit word Kula. Munda are patrilineal and clan name descends father to son. According to tradition, people of same clan are descendant of same forefather. Clan among Mundas are of totemic origin. Some clans are:

• Baa (a fish)
• Baba (rice)
• Bodra
• Balamchu (fish net)
• Barla
• Bhengra (horse)
• Bulung (salt)
• Dang, Dungdung (a fish)
• Gudia, Hans (swan)
• Hemrom/Hembram (a tree)
• Herenz (a Specific Bird)
• Horo (turtle)
• Hundar (hyena)
• Jojo (tamarind)
• Kauwa (crow)
• Kerketta (a bird)
• Kula (tiger)
• Nil (bull)
• Mus (mouse)
• Nag (cobra)
• Oreya (Bammboo Basket)
• Pandu (cobra)
• Sandil (a bird)
• Purty
• Runda (wild cat)
• Sanga (a type of root)
• Surin/Soren/Soreng (a bird)
• Tiru (a bird)
• Tuti (a type of grain)^[25]
• Topno (red ants)
• Kongari (a rare specie of bird: white crow)^[26]

Culture and tradition

Festival

Involved in agriculture, the Munda people celebrate the seasonal festivals of Mage Parab, Phagu, Karam, Baha parab, Sarhul and Sohrai. Some seasonal festivals have coincided with religious festivals, but their original meaning remains. Their deity is singbonga means Sun god.^[27]

Music

They have many folk songs, dances, tales and traditional musical instruments. Both sexes participate in dances at social events and festivals. The naqareh is a principal musical instrument.^{[citation needed]} Munda refer to their dance and song as durang and susun respectively. Some folk dances of the Munda are Jadur, Karam Susun and Mage Susun.^[28] Mundari music is similar to the music of Sadan. Mundari Mage song (winter) rhythm is similar to the Nagpuri Fagua song (winter, spring) rhythm.^[29]

 

Mundari dance

Ritual

The Munda people have elaborate rituals to celebrate birth, death, engagement and marriage.

Munda practice clan exogamy and tribal endogamy. Mongamy in norm. Bride price is prevalent. Marriage ceremoy started with Sagai and end with Bidai. Munda enjoy this occasion with feast, drinks and dance.^[30] According to Sarat Chandra Roy, Sindurdaan ceremony and turmaric use in marriage clearly reflect hindu elements borrowed in munda tradition.^[31]

Munda people of Jharkhand also follow the old age tradition of Patthalgari i.e. stone erection in which the tribal community residing in the village buries a large inverted U-shaped dressed headstone on the head side of grave or entrance of village in which is inscribed the family tree of the dead persons.^[32] There are some other types of patthalgari also:-

• Horadiri - It is the stone in which family tree is written.
• Chalpadiri or Saasandiri - It is the stone in remarking boundary of any village and its limits.
• Magodiri - This is the headstone of a social criminal who committed polygamy or unsocial marriage.
• Ziddiri - This is the stone placed over burial of placenta and dried naval part of a newborn.^[33][34]

 

Munda House at "State Tribal Fair- 2020", Bhubaneswar

 

Munda Lady

Administrative system

Munda-Makni governing system was prevalent in Kolhan region of Jharkhand. Munda govern their villages by Munda-Makni system. Head of village is called Munda, The informant of village is called Dakuwa, village priest called is Deori, assistant of Deori is called Yatra Deori, head of 15 to 20 villages is called Manki, assistant of Manki is called Tahshildar which collected taxes.^[11] The priest "Deori" is also prevalent among Hos, Bhumij, Bhuyan, Sounti, Khonds tribe of Odisha and Chutia people of Assam.^[35][a] In Chotanagpur division, Munda have adopted Pahan as their village priest.^[37]

Economic condition

In a 2016 research paper on subsistence strategies of Mundas in a village of Sunderbans in West Bengal, it was found that many people migrate out of their residences because of poor economic conditions and landlessness. This rural to urban migration has followed a greater trend within India. Men and women engage in forest product collection, cultivation, small business and agricultural as well as non-agricultural jobs. A person or a family may be engaged in multiple occupations, often undertaking risky visits to the forests and rivers. It was also found that younger generation preferred to engage as migrant workers outside the village and often outside the district and the state.^[38]

Literature and studies

 

Part of John-Baptist Hoffmann's 15-volume Encyclopaedia Mundarica

Jesuit priest John-Baptist Hoffmann (1857–1928) studied the language, customs, religion and life of the Munda people, publishing the first Mundari language grammar in 1903. With the help of Menas Orea, Hoffmann published the 15-volume Encyclopaedia Mundarica. The first edition was published posthumously in 1937, and a third edition was published in 1976. The Mundas and Their Country, by S. C. Roy, was published in 1912. Adidharam (Hindi:आदि धर्म) by Ram Dayal Munda and Ratan Singh Manki, in Mundari with a Hindi translation, describes Munda rituals and customs.^[39]

Genetics

According to genetic study on the Indian population in 2007, Mundari speaking people of East India carry around 55% Haplogroup O, 25.4% halpogroup H, 4.9% Haplogroup R2, 4.4% Haplogroup J and 3.3% Haplogroup F.^[40]

Notable Mundas

• Dayamani Barla (active 2004–2013), journalist
• Puna Bhengra, Politician
• Niral Enem Horo, Politician
• Amrit Lugun (born 1962), Ambassador to Greece,^[41] South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation director^[42]
• Anuj Lugun (born 1986), poet who received the 2011 Bharat Bhushan Agarwal Award^[43]
• Munmun Lugun, football player
• Arjun Munda (born 1968), politician
• Birsa Munda (1875-1900), freedom fighter, religious leader
• Jaipal Singh Munda (1903-1970), politician, hockey player
• Kariya Munda (born 1936), politician
• Laxman Munda, politician
• Nilkanth Singh Munda (born 1968), politician
• Ram Dayal Munda (1939-2011), scholar in languages & folklore
• Sukra Munda (active 2016 to 2020), politician
• Tulasi Munda (born 1947), social activist
• Rohidas Singh Nag (1934-2012), creator of "Mundari Bani" script
• Masira Surin, hockey player
• Rajeev Topno (born 1974), Private Secretary to the prime minister of India, Senior Advisor to the Executive Director at World Bank

See also

• Christianity in Jharkhand
• Korku people
• Munda peoples
• Kolarian

Notes

1. "All these Bodo tribes had their own respective priests called Deoris".^[36]

References

1. . www.censusindia.gov.in. Office of the Registrar General & Census Commissioner, India. Archived from the original on 25 December 2021. Retrieved 18 November 2017.
2. "Table 1.4 Ethnic Population by Group and Sex" (PDF) (in Bengali). Bangladesh Bureau of Statistics. 2021. p. 33.
3. Osada, Toshiki (19 March 2008). "3. Mundari". In Anderson, Gregory (ed.). The Munda languages. New York: Routledge. ISBN 978-0-415-32890-6. ...the designation Munda is used for the language family. Mundari, on the other hand, refers to an individual language, namely the language of Munda people.
4. "ST-14 Scheduled Tribe Population By Religious Community". Census of India. Ministry of Home Affairs, India. Retrieved 15 October 2017.
5. Srivastava, Malini (2007). "The Sacred Complex of Munda Tribe" (PDF). Anthropologist. 9 (4): 327–330. doi:10.1080/09720073.2007.11891020. S2CID 73737689. Retrieved 22 October 2017.
6. "Tribals who convert to other religions will continue to get quota benefits: Jual Oram | India News". The Times of India. Retrieved 10 July 2021.
7. Gupta, Satya Prakash (1974). Tribes of Chotanagpur Plateau: An Ethno-nutritional & Pharmacological Cross-section. Government of Bihar, Welfare Department. p. 12.
8. "Adivasi Volume 52, Number 1&2" (PDF). Web Archive. December 2012. (PDF) from the original on 8 November 2016.
9. "Mundari Language". Ethnologue. SIL International. Retrieved 20 October 2017.
10. "Homepage".
11. "Munda Maanki Administrative System". okworldguru. Retrieved 20 October 2022.
12. "History of Munda Tribe Language : Mundari". mundariuniversity. Retrieved 20 October 2022.
13. Parkin, Robert (1993). "Second Reply to Pfeffer" (PDF). University of Oxford. p. 161. Retrieved 18 December 2020. The term 'Munda' is of Sanskritic origin and therefore not original in any sense to Austroasiatic speakers, although it has come to be used by one tribe as an alternative to their own term 'Horo' (Le. Roy's group; cf. Pfeffer above, p. 154; also Parkin 1990: 17, 23).
14. Prasad, R. R. (1996). Encyclopaedic Profile of Indian Tribes. Vol. 1. p. 186. ISBN 978-81-7141-298-3.
15. Alpa Shah (2003). "An Anthropological Study of Rural Jharkhand, India" (PDF). p. 88. Retrieved 8 November 2022.
16. Sidwell, Paul. 2018. Austroasiatic Studies: state of the art in 2018. Presentation at the Graduate Institute of Linguistics, National Tsing Hua University, Taiwan, 22 May 2018.
17. Schliesinger, Joachim (2016). Origin of the Tai People 3: Genetic and Archaeological Approaches. Booksmango. p. 71. ISBN 9781633239623. Retrieved 20 September 2019.
18. "Scientists solve genetic puzzle surrounding Mundas". down-to-earth.org. 12 March 2019. Retrieved 1 October 2022.
19. Sharma, R. S. (2005). India's Ancient Past. Oxford University Press. pp. 2, 118–119. ISBN 978-0-19-566714-1.
20. West, Barbara A. (2010). Encyclopedia of the Peoples of Asia and Oceania. Infobase Publishing. p. 564. ISBN 9781438119137. Retrieved 20 September 2019.
21. John Peterson (October 2021). "The spread of Munda in prehistoric South Asia -the view from areal typology To appear in: Volume in Celebration of the Bicentenary of Deccan College Post-Graduate and Research Institute (Deemed University)". Retrieved 1 September 2022.
22. Ansari, Tahir Hussain (20 June 2019). Mughal Administration and the Zamindars of Bihar. ISBN 9781000651522.
23. Pandey, Prashant (18 September 2017). "Jharkhand: Amit Shah launches scheme for villages of freedom fighters". The Indian Express. Retrieved 21 October 2017.
24. . Ministry of Social Justice and Empowerment, Government of India. 2011. Archived from the original on 23 September 2014.
25. "आदिवासी गोत्र". vikaspedia. Retrieved 18 September 2019.
26. Roy, Sarat Chandra (1912). The Mundas and their Country. Asia Publishing House.
27. "Mundas, Munda Tribe in Jharkhand India, Occupation of Mundas". www.ecoindia.com. Retrieved 26 March 2016.
28. Prasad, R. R. (1996). Encyclopaedic Profile of Indian Tribes. Vol. 1. pp. 188–191. ISBN 978-81-7141-298-3.
29. Blum, Stephen; Bohlman, Phillip Vilas; Neuman, Daniel M., eds. (1993). Ethnomusicology and Modern Music History. University of Illinois Press. p. 215. ISBN 978-0252063435.
30. Prakash Chandra Mehta (2005). Marriages in Indian Society. Discovery Publishing House. p. 116. ISBN 9788171419210.
31. Sarat Chandra Roy. "Munda and their country". Retrieved 22 October 2022.
32. Poyil, Manjula (2006). "Death Customs In The Tribal Context: Concluding Observations" (PDF). Death funeral and the ancestors Cult of the dead and the malabar tribes (PhD). University of Calicut. hdl:10603/20515. Retrieved 21 February 2022.
33. "Menhirs and cultural diffusion: megalithic practices in Central-eastern India | Antiquity Journal". www.antiquity.ac.uk. Retrieved 22 December 2019.
34. "The Constitution set in stone: Adivasis in Jharkhand are using an old tradition as a novel protest". Scroll.in.
35. Prasad, Hem Chandra. Bihar. 1983/2003, pp. 36, 67, 159, 162, 184. National Book Trust, New Delhi. ISBN 81-237-0151-9
36. Dutta, Sristidhar (1985). The Mataks and their Kingdom. Allahabad: Chugh Publications. p. 50. OCLC 13959339.
37. Sanjay Nath (2015). "Pages from the Old Records: A Note on 'The "Kols" of Chota-Nagpore' by E.T. Dalton". academia.edu: 19. Retrieved 25 October 2022.
38. Bandyopadhyay, Ayan (November 2016). "Subsistence strategies of the Mundas in a village of Sundarban, West Bengal". Journal of the Indian Anthropological Society. 51 (3): 128–144. Retrieved 30 March 2020.
39. "Mundari: The Language of Munda Tribe".
40. Kumar V, Reddy AN, Babu JP, Rao TN, Langstieh BT, Thangaraj K, et al. (March 2007). "Y-chromosome evidence suggests a common paternal heritage of Austro-Asiatic populations". BMC Evolutionary Biology. 7: 47. doi:10.1186/1471-2148-7-47. PMC 1851701. PMID 17389048.
41. "Amrit Lugun has been appointed as the next Ambassador of India to Greece". www.mea.gov.in. 3 October 2019. Retrieved 11 March 2022.
42. . saarc-sdmc.nic.in. Archived from the original on 3 April 2015. Retrieved 23 January 2015.
43. Ganguly, M. +date=11 Aug 2011. . in.news.yahoo.com. Archived from the original on 12 November 2014. Retrieved 26 March 2016.

Further reading

• Parkin, R. (1992). The Munda of central India: an account of their social organisation. Delhi: Oxford University Press. ISBN 0-19-563029-7
• Omkar, P.(2018). "Santhal tribes present in India" like Jharkhand, Odisha, and West Bengal... Belavadi.
• Omkar, patil.(2018). "Kola tribes"...

External links

 

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Munda people.

• Sarna – A case study in religion On the religion of the Munda tribals
• Sinlung – Indian tribes
• "Mundās" . Encyclopædia Britannica. Vol. 18 (11th ed.). 1911. This article is a discussion of the related family of languages.
• RWAAI | RWAAI, Lunds universitet RWAAI (Repository and Workspace for Austroasiatic Intangible Heritage)
• http://hdl.handle.net/10050/00-0000-0000-0003-A6AA-C@view Mundari language in RWAAI Digital Archive