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Birhor Documentation
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The People, Population and Geography
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The word Birhor finds its meaning in Mundari Language where it can be seen as a
compound of two meaningful words –'Bir' meaning 'forest' and 'Hor'
meaning 'the man'. Therefore, Birhor means the men of forest. The Birhors belong
to the Proto-Australoid stock. By appearance they are dark-skinned, short-statured,
long-headed, wavy-haired and with a broad-nose. Birhor is one of the eight primitive
tribes inhabiting in the districts of Hazaribagh, Giridih, Ranchi, Lohardaga, Palamu,
Garhwa, Dhanbad, and East-West Singhbhum in Jharkhand. According to 2001 Census,
Birhor population in Jharkhand is 7514.
The Birhor tribe in Jharkhand is divided into two sub-tribes, Jaghis and Uthlu Birhor.
These two sub-tribes live a distinct pattern of socio-economic lifestyle. In fact,
the Jaghis are nomads who keep shifting from one place to the across forests of
Jharkhand. They make their living by hunting, wood cutting and rope weaving. The
Uthlu Birhor is comparatively well settled group; they own agriculture land and
grow various types of crops. These tribes practice shifting cultivation i.e. when
the food supply of a particular forest is exhausted, they head towards another forest.
They are also the domiciles of some districts in Odissa and Chattisgarh, however,
the majority of the population is found in Jharkhand.
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Religion
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The Birhors do not follow any religion in its strict sense. However, they have developed
some indigenous worshiping patterns in which a mountain (Buru) is treated
as god (Bonga). A yearly congregational worship is performed in which black
feathered hens are slaughtered under a Sal tree and hymns are sung to appease Buru,
the Mountain god. In their indigenous culture the rituals like Birth ceremonies,
Marriages and Death ceremonies are unique. They bury their dead.
However, some Uthlu Birhors are now Christians and Hindus as well. Interestingly,
the Uthlu Birhors are the only Hindus in India who bury their dead. But the majority
of Jaghis are still following their own indigenous, ethnic worship patterns.
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The Language
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Birhor belongs to Austro Asiatic language family. It does not have a script and
is performed orally. Birhor is listed among the endangered languages in India. It
is quite close to Mundari and Santali in its vocabulary. It is difficult to distinguish
Birhor from other neighbouring tribal languages such as Santhali, Mundari or Ho
languages. Birhor displays an SOV word order. There is a dialectal variation found
among Jaghi and Uthlu Birhor. However, diglossic variations are not obvious. Some
of the significant work in Birhor includes The Birhor: A little known jungle tribe
of Chota Nagpur by S. C Roy (1925) and The Birhor, A. K Adhikary
(1999).
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The Present Work Status
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It has been an attempt to complete the documentation of the language. Presently,
making of digital tri-lingual dictionary, A Grammar of the language and Eco-semantic,
Ethno-linguistic analysis of the language is in progress.
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