|
Ranchi Catholic Archdiocese His Holiness Pope John Paul II Ranchi Visit |
|
PLATINUM
JUBILEE |
|
THE LAND "Beautiful hills, sparkling rivers, Hymn:"Chotnagpur matribhumi...." WE speak of Jharkhand taking the whole area of 70,335 square miles as being one vast tableland rising from 2120 feet above sea-level, which is the height of Ranchi, to 3750 feet, its highest point, known as Neterhat. This vast tableland lies between 20º 21" and 23º 43" North Latitude; and between 84º 0" and 85º 43" East Longitude. The height of the plateau gives Jharkhand its mild salubrious climate, where the mercury seldom rises above 105º F in summer, and keeps to a steady 50.5º F for most of the year. The rainfal throughout the district of Ranchi has been given as 58.34", with an average of 80 days of rain in a year. There are occasional thunderstorms and nor'-westers, with light showers of winter, spring and autumn rain. All the land between 2120 feet and 3750 feet is made up of rich alluvial fields suitable for the growing of dry and wet rice, for the cultivation of pulses, maize, for oilseed. Isolated hills with rocky escarpments, and boulder-strewn slopes dot the land. Large areas of the plateau are covered with sal forests, bamboo clumps; the lower sections with miscellaneous forests. There are mango groves in most villages. Here and there, towering above every other trees you can pick up groves of sal, which serve as SARNAS or places of worship for the tribes who inhabit the Chotanagpur Plateau. Chotanagpur is no more the hunter's paradise it used to be when the Royal Bengal Tiger and the Gaur or Indian bison, the Sambhur, the Spotted Deer, the Four-horned Antelope, even the diminutive Mouse deer showed up in many a beat. Today the most common of the big cats is the leopard. The Muntjac or Barking deer is still heard in the depths of the jungle. Porcupines are trapped by the Tribals for food, as are hares pea fowl and jungle cock, partridge and quail. The Sloth bear is still a nuisance to unwary villagers going to visit their traps at dawn. The little Red Bengal fox is common, as is the jackal and hyena. Wild pigs raid standing crops of maize and wheat, sugarcane, more so in fields bordering the jungle. Most of the 400 species of birds found in India can be spotted on the Chotanagpur Plateau which, strange to say, serves as a meeting place for the Himalayan and Peninsular species. The rivers of Chotanagpur are frequented by Resident and Migratory Wildfowl, as are the "jheels". The Tribes on the Plateau still fly Hawks, if not falcons. You will find these tribal austringers in Biru, the southernmost part of the Archdiocese of Ranchi. The most common of these hawks is the Goshawk (Astur badius), known to the Tribes as CHECHAN. The Sparrow hawk (Accipiter nisus) is another species that finds favour with the local austringer. All the flowers and vegetables grown in Europe are cultivated successfully in Chotanagpur. If any one flower can be said to thrive abundantly, it is the rose. If the forests of Chotanagpur are no more the hunting grounds they were, the 12 thousand odd square miles of forests still remain a source of immense wealth in timber, lac, "bidi" leaves, bamboo, and a variety of seeds used in the tanning and ink-making trades. Incidentally the Plateau is the greatest producer of lac in the world. Besides the wealth from its forests, Chotanagpur is rich in minerals. Coal, good quality asbestos, immense deposits of bauxite, limestone, graphite, and building material in the form of gneiss, granite and epidioite are mined and worked on the Chotanagpur Plateau. Gold is still panned in minute quantities in some streams and rivers. As for the diamonds that lured the Moguls to Jharkhand, "the wild land" as they knew it, there is no trace. There remains the land, of which only 39 per cent is cultivated. It is fast being splintered up among brothers of the same families, and becoming too small to be worked economically. Fortunately, the fallow fields of winter are being made to produce a second crop of wheat, sugarcane and oilseeds. The fact is that there is not enough land to go around to make cultivation an economic concern. Industry has also absorbed some of these productive paddy lands, and in a way, worsened the situation of unemployment for the displaced peasants. The Tea Gardens of Assam and West Bengal have no more the attraction for easy employment and congenial work that they were for the Tribes emigrating from Chotanagpur. Where are those beautiful hills, those sparkling rivers, those fragrant-filled forests, the peace and contentment that was once Jharkhand? THE PEOPLE "In the turbulent mass of Indian civilization, INDIA. Sunday Times World Library THEY call themselves ADIVASI, the first dwellers of this land, the people from the beginning. Where they came from, nobody knows for sure. Some came from the East through Assam; others from the North-West by way of the Khyber Pass through Baluchistan. These latter were the Dravidian speaking tribes, one branch of which found final refuge in the wild country that was Jharkhand. These were the Oraons. The former include the Munda, who claim they were the very first settlers in Chotanagpur. Today the Munda, the Oraon, the Kharia, Ho and Santhal, the five largest groups of tribes on the Plateau, are included among the 29 Scheduled Tribes listed by the Government of India. They have found "a lodging place in the turbulent mass of Indian civilization". These three tribes - Munda, Oraon, Kharia - speak their own dialects, have their own racial features, follow customs peculiar to themselves, withal living together on the Chotanagpur Plateau. They have many things in common: a lingua franca known as Nagpuria or Sadri; Sacred Groves of Sal; ritual Hunts, Sacrifices, Festivals, Witchcraft Practices. All three Tribes are made up of exogamous septs, forbidding marriages between the same septs. Among the Tribes marriages are endogamous, restricting marriages within the tribe. The centre of their culture is the village, depending on which members of what tribe are in the majority. Each village has its own Sacred Grove, thje SARNA, consisting of five or more Sal trees that are left standing when the forest was felled to give place to huts and fields to form a new village. In the village is the AKHARA or Dancing Square meant solely for the young men and women of the village. In the fields of the village is the original water-hole, the DANRI, whose water is necessary for marriage rites and for divination. If the clans do not meet at the Jatras or fairs as they used to do in times past, the confederacy of certain villages gather together on the high fields of Murma and Lohardaga every year, there to sing and dance the live long day and the long night through. Animists, believing in the existence of spirits, worthy of respect as SINGBONGA or DHARMES, "the OLD ONE", who is the origin of every thing; the tutelary spirits, who guard their villages; the spirits of their ancestors, also known as the household spirits, the Tribes also believe in "wandering spirits" who are not worthy of respect and reverence. Such spirits are the shades of people who have suffered violent deaths. And being evil in origin, they are ever bent on harming men and cattle, bringing blights to crops, sowing jealousy and rancour. Another belief that the Tribes share with many other people in India is "The Evil Eye", attributed to persons, men and women, whose looks and words can bring sickness, wither crops, mar what is good and beautiful, prosperous, promising. And just as in every village there is a CULT PRIEST, or PAHAN, who offers sacrifice in the name of the community to which he is accredited; there is also a sorcerer or witch-finder who claims power over the "wandering spirits", who can neutralize the power of the Evil Eye and the poisonous praise. Implicit faith binds the Tribes to their sorcerers. Every village has its quota of BAIDS, or herbalists, versed in the curative properties of root, bark, leaf and fruit. Many of these BAIDS are sincere; some are quacks hoping to achieve results by magical means such as "blowing", "sucking", "sweeping". Marriages are still arranged by intending in-laws. Brides are no more bought for heads of cattle or money, however small a sum. The Tribes in Chotanagpur have no need of a presiding priest at their marriages. They marry following a specific ritual, under a Sal arbour known as MARWA, erected for the occasion, in the courtyard of the bride's house, and often also in the courtyard of the groom. The Tribes bury their dead. After death-rites deal with the re-entry of the spirit, or shade of the deceased, into the house in which the person lived. Such spirits become household shades commanding the respect and reverence of the family members. Only the shades of those who have died natural deaths are eligible for re-entry into their homes after death. Those who have died violent deaths are consigned to trees, ant-hills, thorny bushes. The Mundas have recourse to a second burial, exhuming part of the skull, submitting that piece to a nominal cremation, then interring the charred bone under the clan burial stone known as SASAN DIRI. There are other stones - BID DIRIKO - which take the form of menhirs commemorating the memory of great men. There is one such commemorative stone in front of the Catholic Cooperative Bank Office on Purulia Road raised to the memory of Fr. J.B. Hoffmann, S.J. I will not be wrong if I say that the ADIVASIS are among the happiest people on this sub-continent. Their festivals are days and nights of song and dance; their temples are Sacred Groves of SAL; they live their lives close to nature, eking out their livelihood from the fields their ancestors wrested from the jungle, from the fields their ancestors wrested from the jungle, from tigers and snakes; they live in huts from the clay they have kneaded for the walls; they are devoted to their children, faithful to their wives; they are an affable, friendly, lovable people. From
Rosner, Fr. Victor S.J., RANCHI ARCHDIOCESE, 1979 |