West Medinipur- Tribal Communities-2

Munda Tribal Festival Dance

Munda Tribal Group-These kind of tribal communities is Non-Aryan and are the original inhabitants of ancient India. According to history, their origin was from Jharkhand and thereafter they were spared in various parts of Bengal, Bihar and Orissa and also other parts of the country.

The Munda tribal community had great contributions to India's independence.At the time of India's freedom movement, entire Munda tribal group were involved indirectly in such freedom movement and some of them were took direct part in freedom movement;Birsa Munda was one of them. In Munda tribal groups, Birsa Munda is a respected name as they worship him as their god. In 1900 Birsa Mundas had died in Ranchi Jain suspiciously; then his was nearly 25 years. He had dedicated his life for India's independence. His dedication is still acknowledged with honor not only by the Munda people but also by the Government of India.

Munda Women Wearing Colorful Dresses

Munda group has their own religion called Singbonga; Singobonga means Sun God. They fully rely and believe that Singbonga is the supreme power and such Singbonga is always protecting them from all evils' power and also give punishment of their sins. After established of British rule for India, most of the Christian Missionaries were come to India and they mostly started their work to do well for common people and converted mostly poor people and tribal class to Christianity; thus the major portion of the Munda group is to christens.

The cultural side of this tribal group is very strong. They have their own dance form and songs by which they can be identify separately. The Nupur dance is one most popular form of dance of them; they wear Nupur in their ankles and dance in various festivals of joy.

The work culture of this tribal group is also similar like Santali tribal group . It is the fact that the occupational life of the tribal communities is majorly depending upon the forest. Since from the ancient time, tribal communities' lives was nature dependent. Since from the ancient time they are collecting woods from the forest and selling those woods in the local market and earn money which leads their families. As the time passed, their work culture is changed like earth cutting, labor works at various construction sites, and also land cultivations.

Earlier they had no enough knowledge of cultivation as their food habit was very peculiar; they are generally animal flesh eaters; as per their need they would go forest and haunt animal and arrange their food. Thereafter, in the long run, government preserved forests and separated them from their nature-life and rehabilitated them in other places with some cultivation lands with knowhow of cultivation.

The society of Munda community has their own identical arrangement; there has sub-group of Munda tribe community and the name of those sub-groups is Patar, Mahali, Kampat etc. among those sub-groups, some subjects are common; Gotiora- is common in every Munda village, where the traditional cultural songs, dance and also music are practiced by the young Mundas under the guidance of experienced seniors. Another common thing is Panchayat heading of a surpanch or group of surpanch who controlled the entire society and every villager is bound to obey the decision of the Panchyat. Another common thing is Akhra ; this kind of Akhra is the place of entertainment of Munda tribes. All festivals of the Munda tribes are celebrated together.