Panel 11 papers
Representing `Tribal Life in India’: Divergent Perspectives

1. Debating the Tribe
Georg Pfeffer
Sahlins’ (‘Tribesmen’. Harmondsworth 1968) leads to the following controversial issues:

(1) Production vs. morphology. Is the domestication of plants and animals basic to tribal society? (TS), or would elaborate kinship organisation among hunter/gatherers suffice? (2) Politics vs. morphology. Should the state be absent or distant?. (3) Morphology vs. Ideology. Can Muslims or Christians organise TS, or should society worship the divine along its segmentary lines?. (4) Warre & Peace. Is insecurity basic to TS or to any society? (5) Morality & Bias. Is relativism basic to tribal - or to any - morality? (6) Kinship. Is the Band or the Bureaucracy categorically excluded from TS? (7) Exchange. Does Reciprocity exclude, dominate or go along with Redistribution and Market mechanisms? (8) Mode of Production. Is the Household Mode of Production augmented or challenged by other modes? (9) Boundaries. Is the tribal boundary insignificant or invisible? (10) Multiplexity. Is kinship the only institutional order?

Irrelevant as such, the concept of TS is constructed out of empirical studies to be confronted again with given cases. Such abstraction and comparison is to improve our analytical capacities.

2. The Garos of Bangladesh: Constructing images of a ‘tribal people’
Ellen Bal

The Garos of Bangladesh’ are one of the country’s dozens so-called tribes. Until this very day they are - like other tribes - generally perceived and presented as a rather primitive, isolated people without history. Here, I refer to this typical way in which this tribal image has been reproduced (by scholars, South Asians, and even tribes themselves) as tribalist discourse. Even though historical scrutiny refutes the very notion of a tribal category in South Asia, South Asian perceptions of tribe have remained remarkably uncontested.

In my paper I shall explore this tribalist discourse, its origin and its remarkable persistence. I shall demonstrate how it is firmly rooted in colonial perceptions of the Indian subcontinent and show how tribalist discourse is still manifest in academic and popular representations of the Garos. Secondly, I shall explain how dominant discourse influences social reality. I shall demonstrate how close scrutiny of Garo (emic) discourse of Garo-ness reveals that their perceptions and presentations of collective Self reflect a number of elements of tribalist discourse. Even backstage or private Garo perceptions of Self have included aspects of the dominant tribalist discourse. Thirdly, I shall argue that a historical review clearly reveals the fluidity and dynamics of social categories and refutes this adequacy of tribal discourse in the South Asian context.

Concretely, the history of the Garos of Bangladesh shows that their contemporary notions of ‘Garo-ness’ are by no means a reflection of ‘a primitive people without history’ but the recent outcome of the convergence of colonial (etic) and indigenous (emic) categorisations through a complex of interacting processes such as colonisation and resistance, decolonisation and state-formation, ethnicism, Islamisation, Christianisation, and modernisation. The history of East Bengal’s Garos helps us to unmask the apparent timeless quality of these social catego­ries and shows that tribalist discourse needs critical evalu­ation.

3. The Image of the Khasi as a Tribal Matriarchy
Judith Dick

This paper addresses the representation of the Khasi in Meghalaya, India, as a matriarchal tribe with special reference to the legal discours. My hypothesis is that an analysis of this representation as matriarchy shows that gender is a crucial point. To focus on the gender issue is also helpful in the analysis of the representations of tribal life. For my analysis I will go through legal, political and some anthropological texts.

First I will examine the image of the Khasi as "matriarchy" in the indian and western discourse: who is declaring the Khasi to be "matriarchal", with what interests and in which contexts. Based on this analysis, I will discuss the various usages of the image of the Khasi as matriarchal tribe. This implies exploring which specific interests and which self-representations in terms of gender are at the bottom of these usages. My hypothesis is, that the representation of the Khasi as "matriarchal" is used by the different groups to gain power in the field of gender relations. Deconstruction of the term "matriarchal" is useful to clarify its divergent perspectives and to discover subordinations.

Secondly I will investigate the representation of the tribal in judgements and legal texts, with special reference to texts concerning the Khasis. What is the focus of this representation as tribal? Further the connections, similarities and differences of the representations as tribal and matriarchal will be examined. Gender relations are an important analytic level which can be fruitful for the review of the representation of "tribal life". Deconstruction of the term "tribal" helps analysing the hidden perspectives. The representation of the Khasi as "martriarchal tribe" is an example.

Selected Literature:

Dick, Judith, Die Balance der Geschlechter bei den Khasi in Ostindien, in: Forum Recht 1/97,
p. 27

Nakane, Chie, Garo and Khasi - A Comparative Study in Matrilineal Systems, 1967

Nongbri, Tiplut, Khasi Women and Matriliny: Transformations in Gender Relations, in: Gender, Technology and Development, 2000, p. 359

4. Brian Houghton Hodgson and the beginnings of colonial ethnography in South Asia
Martin Gaenszle

Brian Houghton Hodgson (1800-1894) is known as an eminent scholar in numerous fields: he was a pioneer of Buddhist studies, a restless naturalist, a linguist and, last but not least, an “ethnologist” (as was the term still prevalent in the British world at that time). During his time as British Resident in Kathmandu from 1825 to 1843 this extraordinary polymath employed a large team of local assistants who helped him to gather “materials”, which have been seminal for Himalayan scholarship. The paper looks at Hodgson’s contribution to ethnography, which was influenced by scholars such as Max Müller, James Cowles Prichard, and Robert Gordon Latham, but also developed a distinctive style of its own. It is examined how these writings, which depicted and classified the ethnic groups (e.g. “military tribes”) of the Himalayas, were influential in the development of colonial ethnography in South Asia.

5. Mirroring identity : the Jhoria Poraja case
Raphael Rousseleau

The Jhoria "tribe" (mainly present in Koraput distr., Orissa), along with the Parenga, have been sometimes included in the larger group of the Poraja. Just recently, in a specific area, some members of the Jhoria asked to be recognized as "Scheduled" tribe, in order to beneficiate special governmental support. This article is an attempt to trace the historical process which determinate the recognition of this group as a "tribe". For this purpose, we made use of a number of British reports (Gazetteers, Census, etc.) as well as post-Independence Indian documents. From the analysis of such data, it has been possible to identify some criteria which were adopted to define a "tribe". At present, the Jhoria Poraja unity appears to be the synthesis of several dynamics which include local strategies, kinship relations and appropriation of stereotypes.

6. Tribe as caste? An analysis of social relations in the Niamgiris of Orissa
Roland Hardenberg

Based on his fieldwork among the Kond of Orissa in the 1950’s, F. Bailey postulated a continuum between ideal types of caste and tribe. Since the publication of Bailey’s writings, international anthropologists focused more on the ‘caste’ side of the continuum while they left the ‘tribe’ to Indiananthropologists. The latter dealt with ‘their’ tribes (an administrative category) mostly from the perspective of social development. This presentation takes up again Bailey’s sociological question and his emphasis on tribe rather than on caste and presents new ethnographic data on Kond society collected during my fieldwork among the Dongria Kond of Orissa in 2001-2. In contrast to Bailey, whose analysis is mostly based on political and economic factors, I intend to give a more multidimensional picture by including data on the religious foundations of Kond society. In my conclusion I will discuss the usefulness of the distinction between caste and tribe as an analytical tool.

8. Rules, Negotiation and Garo Songsarek Death Rituals
Erik de Maaker (Leiden University)

Garo ethnography considers kinship as the main organizing principle of society. Kin relations are thought to evolve around localized matrilineages. Marriages between members of distinct localized matrilineages create Houses that are, ideally, continued over many generations. On the death of a spouse, negotiations are executed relating to the continuation of Houses. These are primarily conducted through strategic exchanges, which are guided by niam (‘custom’). Niam is a body of orally transmitted rules, ideas and values. Since ethnographies focus mostly on normative niam, instead of exchange practice, it appears as if neat regularity is the norm. However, recent fieldwork in rural West Garo Hills, on which this paper is based, shows that the application of niam is always subject to interpretation, debate and change. It allows for strategic contestation between Houses. The fluidity that characterizes this applied niam even allows for the accommodation of paradigmatic differences between Songsareks (animists) and Christians. Consequently, the continuation of Houses is a much more cumbersome process than normative niam makes it appear to be.

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