Ho

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Posted on: 2007-04-10

Also called Larka Kol, tribal people of the state of Jharkhand in India, concentrated in the area of Kolhan on the lower Chota Nagpur Plateau. They numbered about 1,150,000 in the late 20th century, mostly in Jharkhand and Orissa states of northeastern India. They speak a language of the Munda family and appear to have moved gradually into their territory from farther north. Their traditional social organization includes features common to those of other Munda-speaking tribes, including the institution of girls’ and boys’ dormitories, an elaborate system of village offices, and a territorial organization into quasi-military confederations. They trace their descent through the paternal line, and young people are expected to marry outside the paternal clan, but there is a prevalent custom of marrying one’s cousin on the maternal side. Marriage by elopement and by abduction are also traditionally common. The Ho worship spirits, some of which they believe to cause disease; they approach them through divination and witchcraft.

The traditional economy of the Ho was hunting and a primitive, shifting agriculture. These pursuits have declined in favour of settled agriculture and livestock raising. Many of the men also work as labourers in mines and factories.

“Ho” tribe is one of the 30 different tribal groups found in the population of Bihar, now concentrated in the newly created state of Jharkhand. Its origin is related to the Proto-Australoid, who speaks Austric. The Hos are virtually confined to Singhbhum district. They have taken to settled cultivation as their mode of life and are gradually getting the benefits of the employment available in the mineral and industrial undertaking scattered over the plateau region
The Hos still preserve two features inherited from an earlier stage of civilization. They excel in clearing forests and show considerable skill in converting jungle and wastelands into fertile rice fields. Their harmonious flutes sound sweeter; their drums find deeper echoes and their bows and arrows utilized effectively.
The primary unit of social organization among the tribes is the family, which is made up of their unmarried children. Descent is reckoned in the male line, daughters being deprived of the right to patrimony. The women in tribal culture do not possess the right to landed property. They are entitled to the possession of all kinds of moveable property that they can dispose of whenever they like. They also have the right to participate in the proceedings of tribal councils. Divorce and widow re-marriage are permissible according to the tribal law. They will call for the approval of the panchayats.
Hos are different from “kharias” of Dhalbhum and the wandering Birhors, who live principally by hunting and collecting wild produce. The great similarity exist between the Hos, the santhals, the Bhumijs and the Mundas who live a settled agriculture life.
The village or hatu, is a single block of settlement or it may be divided into a number of hamlets (tolas or sahis ) situated within the village boundary. The size of the village settlement varies from twenty to even more than two hundred houses.
The pattern of the houses of these people has undergone considerable change. Formerly, the houses were two sloped and thatched with wild grass walls being made of upright sal logs placed side by side. Now, the wild thatched grass has given way to paddy can you buy prescription drugs online without a prescription straw or country tiles (Khapra) and the walls are principally built of mud. The houses are kept clean by regular plastering with mud and cow dung solution; the walls are painted with broad bands of yellow, black or white, giving a very colorful appearance.Very often these broad bands are decorated with geometric drawings and occasionally animal figures. The colours are made from locally available materials; the red and yellow are obtained from red and yellow ochre; the white made from soapstone and the black from burnt straw. The houses have a rectangular ground plan with sizes varying from about 18 to 20 feet in length and 12 to 18 feet in width. The height at the top varies from 10 to 12 feet; in the dwelling houses, a partial portion wall divides the kitchen portion and the kitchen, which is also the sacred seat of ancestral spirits variously, termed as ading or bhitarghar.
In economic life they have to be dependent on a number of artisan communities for essential manufactures. Formerly, trade was conducted through barter but today all transaction takes place through money, though with regards to local products circulated locally the barter system still prevails to some extent.
There are a number of weekly markets throughout the districts, where various local communities make their purchase and sales while merchants from outside, mostly marwaris and muslims, have also came in to ply their own trade. These outsiders, known as ‘Dikkus’ in local parlance, have exploited socio-economically to the tribals.
With regard to agriculture, fragmentation of holding and pressure on land are gradually growing more acute. The population has now become divided into roughly four classes: the wealthy Mankis and Mundas, substantial cultivators, poor cultivators and landless labourers.
Earlier, the tribals were classified as animist, but now the aboriginal population of Singhbhum is being gradually adopting the hierarchical system of Hindu castes. The Hos, living comparatively isolated for a long time, have as yet resisted this process, but with the rapid growth of communication and the development of mining centre, they are also moving in the same direction.
The essential features of tribal religion of this area may be summed up as follows: -
• Belief in a Supreme Being, creator of the world and life, Sing Bonga or Dharam residing in the sun.
• Natural spirits.
• Belief in ancestral spirits- Oa Bonga or Burha Burhi.
• Belief in a presiding deity of the village -(Dessauli and his consort Jahira Buri) living in the sacred grove or sarna.
• Malevolent sprits cheap cialis soft cause disease.
• Absence of idolatry.
Belief in witch is very extensive among the Hos. There are professional witch finders, khonses, sokhas, who divine the name of the witch responsible for a particular case of disease or ill-luck. In 1838, in his famous dispatch Wilkinson mentioned that there must be spread of education to put down witchcraft and the institution of Sokhas who make divination and indicated some as the witch that led to her murder. He waned it to be declared a crime for any person to practice as a Sokha or for any person to employ a Sokha. But sokhaism and witchcraft have not yet been stamped out. There are still dozens of murders every year due to the belief in witchcraft.

Contrubuted by Arjun Mundiya