Abstract
Interdisciplinary trend in contemporary academics has brought in expanding scope of conventional disciplines beyond their core area. The emerging phase is characterized by discipline’s critical engagement with new subject areas or topics covered in other disciplines by employing suitable methodologies drawing from cross-disciplinary sources. Consequently, comprehensive insight develops in understanding the phenomena of investigation in the discipline. Alternatively, when two or more disciplines engage in a particular field of knowledge, a distinct branch or discipline like ethno-history, ethno-linguistics, environmental studies, development studies, social work etc. emerges. Under the backdrop of the above theoretical position, the growth of tribal studies as a distinct branch of knowledge and the possibility of presenting it as a discipline, in view of the fact that several disciplines take interest in the study of diverse tribal issues, is explored in this chapter with reference to expanding frontiers of perspectives in the disciplines of history, archaeology and anthropology.
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- 1.
It is difficult to define cultural studies and discern the nature of approach. However, Sparks’ remark is useful to appreciate interdisciplinary nature of cultural studies. He remarks, ‘It is extremely difficult to define “Cultural Studies” with any degree of precision. It is not possible to draw a sharp line and say that on one side of it we can find the proper province of cultural studies. Neither is it possible to point to a unified theory or methodology which is characteristic to it or of it. A veritable rag-bag of ideas, methods and concerns from literary criticism, sociology, history, media studies, etc., are lumped together under the convenient label of cultural studies’ (Sparks 2005: 14).
- 2.
The bamboo culture of the Adis of Arunachal Pradesh and the Khasis of Meghalaya resembles to a great extent. But linguistically they are different, thereby denying their common origin. The Adis belong to Tibeto-Burman family while the Khasis to Mon-Khmer family of languages.
- 3.
The history of migration can be useful to trace common origin of dispersed tribes.
- 4.
A study of language affinity of tribes could be a means of tracing their common origin.
- 5.
The concept is coined and conceptualized in Behera (2016).
- 6.
Radcliffe-Brown and other functionalists were aware of this fact. Radcliffe-Brown, for example, has discussed historical process in his book The Andaman Islanders (1933).
- 7.
See Thomas (1989). Nicholas Thomas has argued that the approach of investigation adopted by Boas was concerned with particularity rather than historical or current social change (Thomas 1989: 18). Compare it with Guha (1987: x) who argues that Franz Boas was not ignorant about historicity while studying cultures.
- 8.
In Antiquity section, unit-1, namely, ‘Ancient History and its Scope’, Burckhardt’s (1958) remark may be considered the representative view of the time about historicity of non-literate people. ‘As regards the scope of our subject, this may be observed: Only the civilized nations, not the primitive ones, are part of history in a higher sense… Primitive peoples, however, interest us only when civilized nations come into conflict with them, as in the cases of Cyrus with the Massagetae and Darius with the Scythians. The ethnographic is thus to be confined to its essentials’. Available at http://oll.libertyfund.org/titles/burckhardt-judgments-on-history-and-historians
- 9.
Nicholas Thomas’ (1989) argument is instructive to understand historian’s viewpoint on the convergence between historical and anthropological perspectives. He argues that historical perspective cannot simply be added to conventional anthropology, which systematically takes ethnography ‘out of time’. Also see Evans-Pritchard (1961) and Clifford and Marcus (1986) for a critical understanding of the relation between anthropology and history.
- 10.
See the position of Evans-Pritchard in this regard and Malinowski’s reflection on his failure to include historicity in the study of Trobriand culture as discussed in Schapera (1962: 143–144).
- 11.
For details on oral history and concept of ethnohistory, see Lummis (1987), Trigger (1982), Cohn (1968), Thompson (1988), Vansina (1965), Abrams (2010) and Fenton (1962). Trigger in his work of 2003 uses an integrated theoretical approach covering history, archaeology and culture to look at the meaning of similarities and differences in the formation of complex societies in ancient Egypt and Mesopotamia, Yoruba of Africa, Shang of China, Aztecs and Classic Maya of Mesoamerica and Inka of the Andes. In another work of 1978, he has discussed theoretical issues with regard to understanding of prehistory as an integral aspect of scientific investigation of human behaviour.
- 12.
Mention may be made of the edited volumes of M.N. Srinivas (1955) and McKim Marriott (1955). M.N. Srinivas’s edited volume under the title of India’s Village has included 16 papers from 13 contributors with no less authority on the subject than Alan R. Beals, M.N. Srinivas, E. Kathleen Gough, F.G. Bailey, McKim Marriot, Marian W. Smith, Jyotirmoyee Sarma, Colin Rosser, G. Morris Carstairs, Eric J. Miller, W.H. Newell, David G. Mandelbum and S.C. Dube. Mc Kim Marriott’s edited volume, which is entitled Village India, includes contributions from Alan R. Beals, Bernard S. Cohn, M.N. Srinivas, E. Kathleen Gough, Gitel P. Steed, Oscar Lewis, McKim Marriot and David G. Mandelbum. S.C. Dube’s (1955) monograph entitled Indian Village also reveals a sense of history, more explicitly in The Changing Scene chapter.
- 13.
To Axtell, ‘ethnohistory is essentially the use of historical and ethnological methods and materials to gain knowledge of the nature and causes of change in a culture defined by ethnological concepts and categories’ (Axtell 1979: 2).
- 14.
Tani (Thanyi) groups of tribe believe that Tan had wives from all species – plants, animals and human.
- 15.
Haimendorf uses the appellation ‘Sulu’ and ‘Sulung’ interchangeably.
- 16.
That the Puroiks don’t have language affinity and cultural similarity can be ascertained from a scrutiny of their cultural life and study of earlier works even though they have a long record of subordinate status in their relations with the Nyishia and Miji tribes (see Haimendorf 1946/1950: 7; Stonor 1972; Behera 2004; Deuri 1982). For Bangru’s myth of a separate origin, see Ramaya (2011).
- 17.
- 18.
Depending on the situation, an individual introduces himself in terms of his father, lineage, clan, phratry or ancestor. During a field study in 2004 at Damro, it was observed that a Pertin person used to introduce himself as Pultin, Rapul, Tinrang, Paaper and Kepang in different contexts and places. These are forefathers starting from the lineage head to the community head (Kepang) – the person whose descendants are Padams.
- 19.
Refers to division of a tribe into different tribes through migration on the basis of social units like clan or lineage.
- 20.
The Khampti tribe has three social divisions, namely, Phanchau at the top hierarchy, Paklung in the middle and Phan-e-on at the bottom. The Wancho, Tangsa, etc. are socially divided into chief and commoner clans. On the basis of dialectic variation, the Galos are divided into three groups: Lare, Pogo and Niji-Karka. The constituent tribes of the Naga are different on the basis of dialect, settlement and ancestry variations. Even moiety division of a tribe reveals status differentiation.
- 21.
Also see Vaiphei (2015: 186). He informs that in the case of southern hills, it was not British colonialism that brought Christianity but rather the local natives themselves who wanted to adopt Christianity.
- 22.
See Cameron (1993) for the debate on the use of the principle of uniformitarianism in archaeology.
- 23.
The argument can be substantiated with reference to Nathan Porath’s study (2016: 75–102). Porath has delineated the forces in the process of state intervention and through contacts with other outside forces in Sakai community and the resultant change in the frame of their Shamanic healing complex.
The Shamanic healing complex is an intervention, an exercise of ‘making medicine’, by which the shaman establishes and brings the boundary between the ‘patient’ and the ‘spirit’ disturbed by external forces in order by means of composing songs. Sakai have songs characterizing Arab presence, Chinese presence, Japan’s relation, advent of consumerism and the presence of modernity when the Sultan drives a car and so on in their healing complex. We learn cultural absorption to historical forces, and therefore, a study of synchronic tradition gets comprehensive meaning with reference to historical process.
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Behera, M.C. (2020). Tribal Studies: Emerging Perspectives from History, Archaeology and Ethnography. In: Behera, M. (eds) Tribal Studies in India. Springer, Singapore. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-32-9026-6_1
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