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| The Santal of Puniyasasan : A Study of Techno-economic Adaptation to Hill-forest Environment |
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Reference |
| Chakraborty, Falguni: 1986 "The Santal of Puniyasasan : A Study of Techno-economic Adaptation to Hill-forest Environment", Journal of Indian Anthropology 21(1) pp 36-56 |
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Introduction to the Institution |
| The Santals are recognised as a scheduled tribe in the states of Bihar, Orissa, West Bengal and Tripura.The present case study describes a Santal tribe from Puniyasasan village who consider their own ethnic group as "Hor"(men) and others as "Diku"(non-men, foreigners).They consider themselves as people of hills(Pahar) in contrast to the people of the plains. There are 24 families/households and 157 persons in Puniyasasan(refer Table 1).The villagers broadly prepare three kinds of agricultural land:Bargey (homestead land); Gora (highland field), and Khet (kinds of wet rice).The cultivated lands are situated around their settlements.It is mainly for resisting wild elephants and wild pigs which destroy crops that the villagers prepare their cultivable land in an area which could come under their close supervision.For this reason they do not try to possess any land within the jurisdiction of other village |
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Rules for Management
of the Institution |
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(a) Boundary Rules |
| Spatial:The village is situated on top of the Ajodhya village in Purulia district.In the south-western part of Purulia dist. Ajodhya range forms the main highland region of the dist.It acts as an watershed between the Kangshabeti and Subarnarekha rivers.The top soil of the range is composed of hard,dry, ferruginous gravel and many of the lower levels in between the valleys are filled with good alluvial soil and produce a fine rice crop.The hill covering an area of about 320 sq km, have an average elevation of 540 metres
Social:Most of the agricultural lands of the people of Puniyasasan village were prepared by illegally reclaiming the forest areas belonging to the Govt.,hence there is a wide gulf between the extents of land recorded in the Land Revenue Office of Baghmundi and the lands which are actually cultivated by the villagers and are in their traditional possession.The villagers measure their lands in terms of the amount of seeds sown.Although they are aware of the amount of seed sown in each plot, they are unable to describe the real amount of land
All the families in Puniyasasan do not own plough harnessing bullocks.Those who do not have, hire bullocks usually from their own kins(both within and outside the village, otherwise non-kins on contract basis in lieu of specific negotiable amount of paddy, this sort of contract is locally termed "Bahicha" |
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(c) Resource Allocation |
| During peak period of cultivation, the villagers, in need employ agricultural labourers who do not belong to their own families.Generally, this labour force is hired from the same village.Mostly the labourers are collected on the basis of reciprocal exchange from outside their village.The payment of never done in cash.The transactions are made through specific amount of paddy, maize or millet.This type of arrangement becomes easier for the labourers to have the goods obtained; otherwise tey would have to collect the food crops from the distant markets
After paying the labourers and offering gifts to the servicing castes in the occasion of various festivals of the year, the rest are preserved by the villagers for their family consumption.
A considerable amount of forest resources are consumed by the Santals which can be categorised as follows: 1)selling processed forest products for buying essential commodities 2)self consumption as food 3)to make agricultural implements 4)fuelwood and fodder for domestic animals 5)hunting and fishing purposes 6)ritual and recreational purpose |
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Conflict Resolution Mechanism |
| Not reported in the text |
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Problems Faced by Institution |
| Not reported in the text |
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Other Features of Institution |
| The Santals have two important rituals based on hunting gathering in the forest.one of them is "Baha" which is celebrated in full moon night of the month of Falgun, during this festival the Santals worship four flowers.The other one is"Disam Sendra", which is a symbolic hunt to define the disham(country) of the Santal, it is observed in the full moon night of the month of Baisakh |
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Purpose |
| Management of Forest Resources for Survival |
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Country |
| India (West Bengal) |
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Region |
| Puniyasasan(Dist:Purulia) |
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Date Of Publication |
| RS-2/04/96 |
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