Tribal Habitat and the Characteristics of Their Houses: A Case Study of Oraon, Munda and Santal Tribes in Jalpaiguri District, West Bengal

Abstract

The present paper deals with the three major scheduled tribes of Jalpaiguri district who were brought to this region during the last half of 19th century and the first half 20th century. These once migrated tribes now contribute 67.44% of the total tribal population of the district (according to 2011 Census): they are Oraon, Munda and Santal. They are also the major scheduled tribes of the state West Bengal. In the district Jalpaiguri, these three tribes were brought by the British to work mainly as labourers in the newly formed tea gardens, railways and in the reserved forests. Tribes from Santal Parganas were brought to settle as agriculturists in this district. In the later stages, after the British left this region, the ownership of the tea gardens changed but these tribes didn’t leave the region and lived here permanently. The work attempts to understand the present habitat and characteristics of their houses. For doing this work, extensive fieldwork was done based on an interview schedule. Altogether, 650 households were chosen from all the 13 blocks of the district on the basis of random stratified sampling. The study reveals that the major concentration of these tribes is still found in the tea garden villages and few in the forest and non-forested plain areas.The Oraon and Munda tribes are largely found in the tea gardens but Santals are predominantly marked in nonforested areas, sustained on agriculture. In the tea gardens, besides, the garden provided semi-pucca houses, kaccha houses and informal houses are also common while in the forest areas and non-forested plain areas, kaccha houses are mainly observed made by earth, plant stalk and bamboo.