PEOPLE
Since
prehistoric days the land of Orissa has been inhabited by various people. The earliest settlers of Orissa were primitive hill tribes.
Although prehistoric communities cannot be identified, it is well known that
Orissa had been inhabited by tribes like Saora or Sabar from the Mahabharata
days.
Saora in the hills and the
Sahara and Sabar of the plains continue to be an important tribe distributed
almost all over Orissa. Most of the tribal people have been influenced by Hindus and
have adopted Hindu manners, customs and rituals. Bonda Parajas of Koraput
district are the best example of these
tribes.
 Most of the
tribal people and much of the population in Orissa
belong to the Australoid group in racial history, while most of the general
population belong to the broad-headed Alpinoid type. Besides this, a
sprinkling of Mediterranean type is found in the general population.
Orissa had a high percentage of scheduled castes and tribes which together make
9.78 million. The scheduled tribes are concentrated in two belts. The northern
belt comprises the district of Mayurbhanj, Keonjhar and Sundargarh. The
southern belt consist of the district of Koraput, Ganjam and Phulbani. A
large percentage of the tribal population in these districts have their own oral
tribal languages and they do not know Oriya. The most important of these
languages are Mundari, Santali, Saora and Kui / Kuvi.
There
are four cultural regions within the present boundaries of Orissa. The
north-eastern areas bordering on Bengal have been influenced in dress, food,
habits, languages, social customs and festivities of Bengali culture and
language. The southern parts of Ganjam and Koraput districts have a sizable
Telugu-speaking population and have been influenced in language, food habits,
dress and marriage customs by the Andhra culture and language. The western
districts of Sambalpur, Bolangir and Kalahandi may be said in many ways to be a cultural and to some extent, linguistic continuum with the region of Chhatisgarh
of Madhya Pradesh just belong the border where many Oriya-speaking castes live
even at present. The fourth region may said to be the distinctive or typical or
at least the tone-setting one, in both cultural institutions, social
customs and linguistic and literary sophistication. This region comprises
roughly the coastal districts of Balasore, Cuttack and Puri and portions of
adjoining districts. Some of the tribes like the Kond and Saora have developed
internal social differentiations along occupational specialisations as potters,
weavers and basket makers. Some of
these tribes like the Bhuiyan, the Bathudi, the Gond and the Binjhal (Binjhawar)
of northern and western Orissa have been very much Hinduised.
(washer-man), the Kumbhar (potter),
the Chasa (farmer), the Tanti (weaver), the Keuta (flattened-rice-maker or fisherman),
the Barhai (carpenter), the Kamar (blacksmith), the Teli (oilman) and the Chamar
(shoemaker), Karana (writer), Guada (cattle keeper), Khandeita (Swordsman) and the
Paana (untouchable weaver). Each caste practically had its own cultural world
and
social milieu, with its peculiar festivals and rituals, its own tutelary deities
and sacred centres, its peculiar marriage, funeral and other customs, and its own
level and limitations of social interaction with members of other castes and
religious communities in the village society. These inter-caste relations were
usually limited to social necessities. Some cementing bonds were established
through a peculiar social institution called ritual Kinship and friendship (Mahapatra
1968).This institution ensured a semblance of social interaction between
the families of persons so related.
Language
Oriya is the regional language of Orissa.
It belongs to the Aryan
family of languages and is closely related to Assamese, Bengali and Maithili as
a direct descendant of eastern Magadhi. Under the influence of
neighbouring regional languages of the Aryan and Dravidian families, as also that
of the Austric group of languages current among the tribal groups, Oriya has
developed many linguistic variations, such as Baleswari (Balasore), Bhatri (Koraput),
Laria (Sambalpur), Sambalpuri (Sambalpur and other western
districts), Ganjami (Ganjam and Koraput), Chhatisgarhi (Chhatisgarh of Madhya
Pradesh and adjoining areas of Orissa) and Medinipuri (Midnapur district of West
Bengal). Besides, hilly regions of north and south Orissa have their own local
versions of Oriya with many linguistic peculiarities. The first dated,
inscription in Oriya goes back to 1051 AD discovered at Urajang. But
recent discoveries of Sanskrit inscriptions with Oriya words thrown in, reported
from Orissa and Andhra Pradesh areas of the ancient Kalinga empire, push back
its lineage to the 6th century AD. During the Surya dynasty(1435-1523), Oriya
literacy activities were remarkable and the great epics and almost all the
Puranas and some Upanishads were translated and often reinterpreted. The Oriya
script, descending from Brahmi script, has been given the round or Dravidian finish, probably during the
reign of the Ganga kings. The shape was admirably adopted to writing on
processed palm leaves with an iron stylus.
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