Content area
Full text
INTRODUCTION
Odisha is the homeland of as many as 62 tribal communities. Of these, 13 are primitive and the Bonda highlanders are considered as the most backward among all these. They are referred to as Bonda highlanders or hill Bonda with the connotation of Ghati Bonda in the local parlance. They are referred in such terms because they live in high hills; about 3000-4000 feet above the sea level in the Eastern ghat ranges. Their population is confined to only 32 villages in the ghat, each surrounded by dense forests with wild creatures. These villages come under the jurisdiction of Khairiput C. D.Block of the district of Malkangiri, Odisha.
The lifestyle and culture of these people is queer, and they have largely remained unaffected by the outside world to any visible extent. Thus, they still continue with their core practices of archaic beliefs and socio-cultural values. This is mainly due to their detachment from the main-plains-land, and the geographical barriers separating them from the mainstream since remote past, as also their impassive nature.
In this context Varrier Elwin writes,
"Their country is the wild and mountainous region north west of the Matchkund river, and they have preserved them comparatively unaffected by the march of civilization. In fact by the plains men and the officials, the Bondos are regarded as entirely savage, almost as the classic savage type; the strange dress and appearance of their women, their violent homicidal ways, their unfamiliar tongue and the inaccessibility of their abode, separate them from the rest of Orissa" (1950:1). He further writes that "the influence of geographical factors in the development of Bonda character must not be ignored, for they are far reaching and important. The remote and elevated plateau on which these highlanders live has isolated them from the corrupting influence of the plains; its open windswept height has infected them with its own strength and freedom," (ibid: 4). Thus, the Bondas can be termed as an allopatric community that has been cut offfrom the mainstream since time immemorial; and even after seventy years of the study by Elwin in 1943, on approaching their abode, one finds their culture still persisting almost in its core form (cf. Mohanty, 2007:90). On the contrary, these people pride themselves as...