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Archaeology Through Ethnography: An Academic Treatment with the Study of Human Past

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Tribal Studies in India

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Abstract

This chapter introduces to the growing scope of the discipline of archaeology in terms of the emergence of ethnoarchaeology as one of the growing sub-discipline; and aims at developing better explanatory models of past human culture through engagement with living societies; recording observable behaviour and consequent residues. It conceptualizes theoretical paradigm of ethnoarchaeology as it rests on the construct of ethnographic analogy and the principles of uniformitarianism; with a premise that living ‘premodern’ indigenous population acts as proxies for the people in the past and are deemed appropriate to be compared with archaeological contexts; and thereby forms important sources of interpretative information for the archaeologists. In view of this; the chapter is designed to throw light on the significances of pursuing such an endeavour on the indigenous tribal populations; particularly of Manipur and their counterparts of other northeastern India in general; as one of the immediate agenda of prehistoric archaeologists well before the life ways of these people are totally corrupted owing to the extraneous influence; such as globalization and the like.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    Earlier works are connected with those of the towering evolutionary thinkers such as Tylor (1865), who tried to trace the history of civilization with the help of the knowledge of living primitive societies, and Morgan (1963), who on the strong emphasis on American Indian and Australian ethnography and that of other primitive societies proposed to devise stages of savagery, barbarism and civilization. Sir John Lubbock utilized general analogical research to ‘throw some light on’ (Lubbock 1865: xiii, 1) prehistoric peoples. Sven Nilsson (1866:27f.) also attempted to compare prehistoric material culture (stone axes, etc.) to contemporary South-American cultures. Sollas (1911) also tried to draw parallelism between the Mousterian culture and the Australian aborigines, the Aurignacian and the Bushman, and the Magdalenian and the Eskimo. Subsequent attempts (see Clark 1951; Thomas 1972; David 1973) also use ethnographic evidences in reconstructing the archaeological remains.

  2. 2.

    Lewis Binford (1981) placed ethnoarchaeology under the so-called actualistic studies. However, it ‘differs from other actualistic studies (such as taphonomy or experimental archaeology) in that it includes the systematic observation of living societies. We can distinguish this sub discipline from other types of ethnographic research by its explicit focus on material culture and its interactions with social and cultural dynamics, and because it keeps archaeological research problems in mind’ (Politis 2015:43–44).

  3. 3.

    Sacred fire at Andro, a Chakpa village to the east of Imphal valley, is posited at the shrine of the Nongpok Ningthou (a village deity) and has archaeological significances in view of the peoples’ construct that it is both a consecrate and sacred object of the past; and its continual burning has been kept uninterruptedly since time immemorial and is one of the oldest of its kind in the world. Members of every household of the 13 Andro hamlets (leikai) comprehend the task of maintaining its continuation though a routine feeding of firewood by rotation on every morning. And such an act is strictly observed by the people. It is to the astonishment of the people that the quantity of the ashes caused by continual firing does not increase but remains as it was.

  4. 4.

    The age-old tradition among the Meiteis to expose oneself to the kindling fire (people called such act as mei-okpa) before entering the residential gate after some days of his/her leaving home has symbolic significances. The world view of such an act lies with the warding off of evil spirits that might have afflicted or accompanied with that particular individual. And such an act is also seen among the mother of small babies (ManiBabu 1994a). The protection of small babies from malevolent spirits and the evil eyes of hingchabi (a female possessed by evil spirit) is manifested with this means of mei-okpa. A mother exposes herself to the fire before hugging her child and also the clothes of the child; and mothers that are made dry after washing, etc. are to go through such a mei-okpa.

  5. 5.

    Chakpa or Loi ‘very closely resembles the Meitheis’ (Hodson 1908: 3) but is ‘not recognized as pure Manipuri (and) appear to be descendants of the former inhabitants of Moirang. They were one of the original tribes though formerly independent but were subdued ages ago (Brown 1975: 14). According to G.H. Damant (1880), the term Loi means ‘slave or dependant’. The rule of degradation by the Meitheis into the Loi group was common practice as a punishment (Allen et al. 1984: 618; Brown 1975: 14; Hodson 1908: 10). The Chakpa society is a microcosm of the larger Meitei society, for there exists a parallelism in respect of social organization of the two.

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  1. Department of Anthropology, Manipur University, Imphal, Manipur, India

    Mayanglambam ManiBabu

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  1. Arunachal Institute of Tribal Studies, Rajiv Gandhi University, Itanagar, Arunachal Pradesh, India

    Maguni Charan Behera

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ManiBabu, M. (2020). Archaeology Through Ethnography: An Academic Treatment with the Study of Human Past. In: Behera, M. (eds) Tribal Studies in India. Springer, Singapore. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-32-9026-6_8

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