Tribal Non-Tribal Divide
Subtitle: Myth and Reality
By: Chitrasen Pasayat
Publisher: Sarmistha Barik, 152-Vijay Vihar, Nuagaon Road, PO: Sishupalgarh, Bhubaneswar-751002
Published: 2007
Place of publication: Bhubaneswar
Language: eng
Subjects: Sociology-Folklore-Anthropology-Ethnology; Tribal History-Tribal Culture-Folk Culture
Description: This book is a scholarly and first ever attempt to reorient the discourse on the treasure trove of folk literature, oral narratives and folklores etc. as an unworthy while loose ends of subaltern culture to building blocks of genes, forming the socio-cultural history of ancient India. The mutated genes of Great Civilizational Tradition/Hindu Tradition and the ethnic tradition are dissected with all the precision and care driven study through the institutionally rooted shrines, deities and the folk tales, myths and tradition that surround them as that of egg white to yolk for centuries together to establish the underlying linear progression of anthropocentric values and civilization. When the oneness of cultural progression is established - the conjured up dualism between tribal and non-tribal ethos and values, the artificial division of superior and inferior culture get dissolved. The author of this book uses the folkloristic mechanism in his analysis to explain how Brahminical domination and all its ruse and subterfuge became instrumental to gobble up the Little Traditions and thereby make little society as vassal to their mainstream culture. They do not like to integrate them ensuring their exclusive identity. On the other hand, they use all the weapons of dominant culture to eliminate the Little Tradition, though unsuccessfully. The author has pointedly stated the long lost fact of tribal - non-tribal continuum and traces the influence of tribal culture in shaping the Hindu values and ethos contrary to the view of exclusiveness of two cultures. The author uses the hub of ancient ethnic culture of West Orissa and the later evolve of Hindu culture to prove his point in the essays of this book.
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