A Sociocultural Study of Folktalkesof ‘Ho’

Author: Laxmi Kumari (Indian Institute of Technology, India)
Speaker: Laxmi Kumari
Topic: Textualization Contextualization Entextualization
The (SCOPUS / ISI) SOAS GLOCAL CALA 2020 General Session

Abstract

India is a land of indigenous language and culture. Six hundred forty-five tribal communities have been recognized in India under ‘Schedule 5’ of the constitution. ‘Ho’ is one of the distinct tribe of Jharkhand largely located in Chota Nagpur Plateau of Jharkhand. Scanty and scattered groups also inhabit in Northern Orissa as well as in parts of West Bengal, Bangladesh, and Nepal, areas near the northeastern side of India. The language spoken by ‘Ho’ belongs to Austroasiatic language family closely knitted to Mundari and distantly related to languages of Southeast Asia such as Khmer and Mon. The aim of the present paper is to study the tribal culture, history and life of the tribe which is manifested through their folktales. It discusses the sociocultural aspects through the folktales of the tribe. The history and life of such rich culture has been amassed in its oral traditions. These oral traditions have hoarded all their stories of their evolution to development from past to present. There is a need to give emphasis on such unexplored areas and to highlight them to direct the position and importance of ‘Ho’ among Indian culture. The tales are studied from sociocultural approach and they are taken from the written sources available. Earlier few scholars have tried to collect the tales and have made it available in written form, but they are not revisited nor have been explored further. Thus, through the analysis one discovers the origin, life and culture of the tribe and can revive the dying culture. The earlier study has been done on the morphology and on the Grammar of the language, but the study of the oral tales has remained unidentified by the scholars. This piece of work shall add a new dimension to this area of research.

References

Project, Joshua. “Ho in India” Joshua Project, joshuaproject.net/people_groups/16944/IN.

Sinha, A. P., Dr. (2012). Ho Bhasha aur Sahitya ka Itihaas (3rd ed.). Delhi: Vikalp Prakashan.
Sinha, A. P., Dr. (2014). Ho Lokkatha Ek Anushilan. Delhi: Vikalp Prakashan.
 

Keywords: Ho, Folktales, Sociocultural