44-554: The Munda people are an Austroasiatic -speaking ethnic group of the Indian subcontinent . They speak Mundari as their native language, which belongs to the Munda subgroup of Austroasiatic languages . The Munda are found mainly concentrated in the south and East Chhotanagpur Plateau region of Jharkhand , Odisha and West Bengal . The Munda also reside in adjacent areas of Madhya Pradesh as well as in portions of Bangladesh , Nepal , and
88-507: A Dalit community found in the eastern Gangetic plain and the Terai . They are also known as Rishidev , Sada , Manjhi , Banbasi . The other names of the Musahar are Bhuiyan and Rajawar. Their name literally means 'rats-ridder' due to their main former occupation of catching rats, and there are many who are still forced to do this work due to destitution and poverty. In Bihar, the word Musahar
132-701: A Scheduled Tribe , citing their claimed tribal roots that they saw in tribals from other areas of the country as well as the perception that richer Dalit castes like other Scheduled Castes were the only ones with access to reservation benefits. Mushahars from the Chota Nagpur Plateau were transported by the British to the Sylhet region where they were made to work in tea plantations. They can still be found in areas in Habiganj such as Teliapara and Rema where they continue
176-556: A lexicostatistical comparison of 36 languages which are well known enough to exclude loanwords, finds little evidence for internal branching, though he did find an area of increased contact between the Bahnaric and Katuic languages, such that languages of all branches apart from the geographically distant Munda and Nicobarese show greater similarity to Bahnaric and Katuic the closer they are to those branches, without any noticeable innovations common to Bahnaric and Katuic. He therefore takes
220-625: A "much larger territory" in ancient India. Recent studies suggest that Munda languages spread as far as Eastern Uttar Pradesh but not beyond that, and impacted Eastern Indo-Aryan languages , as some groups such as Musahar have Munda genetic lineage. The claim of a Munda presence in the Upper Gangetic plain has no linguistic or genetic basis. In the late 1800s, during the British Raj , the Mundas were forced to pay rents and work as bonded labourers to
264-535: A 2016 research paper on subsistence strategies of Mundas in a village of Sunderbans in West Bengal, it was found that many people migrate out of their residences because of poor economic conditions and landlessness. This rural to urban migration has followed a greater trend within India. Men and women engage in forest product collection, cultivation, small business and agricultural as well as non-agricultural jobs. A person or
308-670: A Vieto-Katuic connection is worth investigating. In general, however, the family is thought to have diversified too quickly for a deeply nested structure to have developed, since Proto-Austroasiatic speakers are believed by Sidwell to have radiated out from the central Mekong river valley relatively quickly. Subsequently, Sidwell (2015a: 179) proposed that Nicobarese subgroups with Aslian , just as how Khasian and Palaungic subgroup with each other. Munda Khasian Palaungic Khmuic Mang Pakanic Vietic Katuic Bahnaric Khmer Pearic Monic Musahar Musahar or Mushahar ( Nepali : मुसहर जाति ) are
352-431: A family may be engaged in multiple occupations, often undertaking risky visits to the forests and rivers. It was also found that younger generation preferred to engage as migrant workers outside the village and often outside the district and the state. Austroasiatic languages The Austroasiatic languages ( / ˌ ɒ s t r oʊ . eɪ ʒ i ˈ æ t ɪ k , ˌ ɔː -/ OSS -troh-ay-zhee- AT -ik, AWSS- ) are
396-580: A few specialized exceptions in other Austroasiatic branches. The Austroasiatic languages are further characterized as having unusually large vowel inventories and employing some sort of register contrast, either between modal (normal) voice and breathy (lax) voice or between modal voice and creaky voice . Languages in the Pearic branch and some in the Vietic branch can have a three- or even four-way voicing contrast. However, some Austroasiatic languages have lost
440-530: A large language family spoken throughout Mainland Southeast Asia , South Asia and East Asia . These languages are natively spoken by the majority of the population in Vietnam and Cambodia , and by minority populations scattered throughout parts of Thailand , Laos , India , Myanmar , Malaysia , Bangladesh , Nepal , and southern China . Approximately 117 million people speak an Austroasiatic language, of which more than two-thirds are Vietnamese speakers. Of
484-513: A number of exogamous clans. Clans among Mundas are known as Killi , which is similar to Sanskrit word Kula . Munda are patrilineal, and clan name descends father to son. According to tradition, people of the same clan are descendants of the same forefather. Clans among Mundas are of totemic origin. Some clans are: Munda-Manki governing system was prevalent in Kolhan region of Jharkhand. Munda govern their villages by Munda-Manki system. Head of village
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#1732852180922528-479: A stressed, full syllable. This reduction of presyllables has led to a variety of phonological shapes of the same original Proto-Austroasiatic prefixes, such as the causative prefix, ranging from CVC syllables to consonant clusters to single consonants among the modern languages. As for word formation, most Austroasiatic languages have a variety of derivational prefixes, many have infixes , but suffixes are almost completely non-existent in most branches except Munda, and
572-751: A taxon altogether, making it synonymous with the larger family. Scholars generally date the ancestral language to c. 3000 BCE – c. 2000 BCE with a homeland in southern China or the Mekong River valley. Sidwell (2022) proposes that the locus of Proto-Austroasiatic was in the Red River Delta area around c. 2500 BCE – c. 2000 BCE . Genetic and linguistic research in 2015 about ancient people in East Asia suggest an origin and homeland of Austroasiatic in today southern China or even further north. The name Austroasiatic
616-438: A year. Children work alongside their parents in the fields or as rag-pickers , earning as little as ₹25-30 ($ 0.35-0.40) a day. The Musahar literacy rate is 3% overall, and falls to an abysmal 1% among women. By some estimates, as many as 85% of some villages of Musahars suffer from malnutrition and with access to health centres scant, diseases such as malaria and kala-azar are prevalent. The Government of Bihar operates
660-588: Is a principal musical instrument. Munda refer to their dance and song as durang and susun respectively. Some folk dances of the Munda are Jadur , Karam Susun and Mage Susun . Mundari music is similar to the music of Sadan . Mundari Mage song (winter) rhythm is similar to the Nagpuri Fagua song (winter, spring) rhythm. The Munda people have elaborate rituals to celebrate birth, death, engagement and marriage. Munda practice clan exogamy and tribal endogamy. Monogamy
704-579: Is better preserved in the Katuic languages , which Sidwell has specialized in. Linguists traditionally recognize two primary divisions of Austroasiatic: the Mon–Khmer languages of Southeast Asia , Northeast India and the Nicobar Islands , and the Munda languages of East and Central India and parts of Bangladesh and Nepal . However, no evidence for this classification has ever been published. Each of
748-491: Is called Munda , informant of village is called Dakuwa , village priest is called Pahaan , assistant of Pahaan is called Pujhar , head of 15 to 20 villages is called Manki, assistant of Manki is called Tahshildar , which collected taxes. The priest "Deori" is also prevalent among Hos , Bhumij , Bhuyan , Sounti , Khonds tribe of Odisha and Chutia people of Assam. In Chotanagpur division, Munda have adopted Pahan as their village priest. Involved in agriculture,
792-541: Is said to be derived from the Bhojpuri mūs+ahar (literally rat eater ), on account of their traditional occupation as rat catchers. According to a local legend, Lord Brahma created man and gave him the horse to ride. The first Musahar decided to dig holes in the belly of the horse to fix his feet as he rode. This offended Lord Brahma, who cursed him and his descendants to be rat-catchers. Herbert Hope Risley , in his 1881 survey of castes and tribes of Bengal, speculated that
836-407: Is the norm. Bride price is prevalent. Marriage ceremony starts with Sagai and ends with Bidai. Munda enjoy this occasion with feast, drinks and dance. According to Sarat Chandra Roy , Sindurdaan ceremony and turmeric use in marriage clearly reflect Hindu elements borrowed into Munda tradition. Munda people of Jharkhand also follow the age old tradition of Patthalgari , i.e., stone erection, in which
880-535: The British Raj and establish Munda Raj. He was caught by Company forces, along with his supporters, and died in jail. He is still revered in Jharkhand . Nomadic hunters in the India tribal belt , they became farmers and some were employed in basketwork. With the listing of the Munda people as Scheduled Tribes , many are employed in various governmental organisations (particularly Indian Railways ). Munda are divided into
924-833: The Chamic languages of Vietnam, and the Land Dayak languages of Borneo (Adelaar 1995). Diffloth 's widely cited original classification, now abandoned by Diffloth himself, is used in Encyclopædia Britannica and—except for the breakup of Southern Mon–Khmer—in Ethnologue . Peiros is a lexicostatistic classification, based on percentages of shared vocabulary. This means that languages can appear to be more distantly related than they actually are due to language contact . Indeed, when Sidwell (2009) replicated Peiros's study with languages known well enough to account for loans, he did not find
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#1732852180922968-616: The Khunti , Ranchi , Simdega , Paschim Singhbhum , Gumla , Purbi Singhbhum , and Ramghar districts of Jharkhand; the Sundargarh and Sambalpur districts of Odisha; and the Jalpaiguri , Paschim Medinipur , and North 24 Parganas districts of West Bengal. They are also sporadically distributed in the neighboring states of Chhattisgarh and Bihar . Additionally, they live in the northeastern states of Assam , Tripura , and Mizoram , largely in
1012-461: The zamindars . During the Kol uprising in 1823–1833, some Manki Munda revolted due to their disposition and attacked Thikedars, other Mankis, plundered and destroyed villages. This insurgency was suppressed by Thomas Wilkinson. During the 19th century, Munda freedom fighter Birsa Munda began the protest marches calling for non-payment of rents and remission of forest dues. He led guerrilla warfare to uproot
1056-654: The Austroasiatic languages, only Vietnamese , Khmer , and Mon have lengthy, established presences in the historical record. Only two are presently considered to be the national languages of sovereign states: Vietnamese in Vietnam, and Khmer in Cambodia. The Mon language is a recognized indigenous language in Myanmar and Thailand, while the Wa language is a "recognized national language" in
1100-819: The Mahadalit Mission, which partially funds some programs to expand education and other social welfare programs for the Musahar. The 2011 Census of India for Uttar Pradesh showed the Musahar population as around 250,000. The same census also showed around 250,000 Mushahars in Bihar. However, Musahar activists have disputed this figure, claiming the Mushahar population in Bihar is over 4,000,000. Over 230,000 Musahars live in Nepal, most in conditions similar to their counterparts in India. Some Musahars in Uttar Pradesh wish to be listed as
1144-587: The Munda language occupied the eastern region of ancient India. Many Munda terms occur in Vedic texts that were written between 1500 BCE and 500 BCE. Their presence in texts compiled in the upper Gangetic basin late in that period suggests that Munda speakers were there at the time. According to Barbara A. West, the Mundas claim origin in Uttar Pradesh , and a steady flow eastward in history as other groups moved into their original homeland; she suggests that they inhabited
1188-416: The Munda people celebrate the seasonal festivals of Mage Parab , Phagu , Karam , Baha parab , Sarhul and Sohrai . Some seasonal festivals have coincided with religious festivals, but their original meaning remains. Their deity is Singbonga . They have many folk songs , dances, tales and traditional musical instruments . Both sexes participate in dances at social events and festivals. The naqareh
1232-754: The Musahars were an offshoot of the hunter-gatherer Bhuiya from the Chota Nagpur Plateau who migrated to the Gangetic plains approximately 6-7 generations prior to his survey, around 300–350 years before present. It is now believed that this theory is generally correct. Modern genetic studies have found Musahars cluster very closely with Munda peoples like the Santhals and the Hos , and demonstrate similar haplogroup frequencies for both maternal and paternal lineages. Some Musahars have claimed that they once had their own language but it
1276-535: The conservative view that the thirteen branches of Austroasiatic should be treated as equidistant on current evidence. Sidwell & Blench (2011) discuss this proposal in more detail, and note that there is good evidence for a Khasi–Palaungic node, which could also possibly be closely related to Khmuic. If this would the case, Sidwell & Blench suggest that Khasic may have been an early offshoot of Palaungic that had spread westward. Sidwell & Blench (2011) suggest Shompen as an additional branch, and believe that
1320-590: The de facto autonomous Wa State within Myanmar. Santali is one of the 22 scheduled languages of India . The remainder of the family's languages are spoken by minority groups and have no official status. Ethnologue identifies 168 Austroasiatic languages. These form thirteen established families (plus perhaps Shompen , which is poorly attested, as a fourteenth), which have traditionally been grouped into two, as Mon–Khmer, and Munda . However, one recent classification posits three groups (Munda, Mon-Khmer, and Khasi–Khmuic ), while another has abandoned Mon–Khmer as
1364-653: The families that is written in boldface type below is accepted as a valid clade. By contrast, the relationships between these families within Austroasiatic are debated. In addition to the traditional classification, two recent proposals are given, neither of which accepts traditional "Mon–Khmer" as a valid unit. However, little of the data used for competing classifications has ever been published, and therefore cannot be evaluated by peer review. In addition, there are suggestions that additional branches of Austroasiatic might be preserved in substrata of Acehnese in Sumatra (Diffloth),
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1408-502: The first Mundari language grammar in 1903. With the help of Menas Orea, Hoffmann published the 15-volume Encyclopaedia Mundarica . The first edition was published posthumously in 1937, and a third edition was published in 1976. The Mundas and Their Country , by S. C. Roy, was published in 1912. Adidharam (Hindi:आदि धर्म) by Ram Dayal Munda and Ratan Singh Manki, in Mundari with a Hindi translation, describes Munda rituals and customs. In
1452-505: The internal (branching) structure below. Diffloth compares reconstructions of various clades, and attempts to classify them based on shared innovations, though like other classifications the evidence has not been published. As a schematic, we have: Remo Savara Kharia – Juang Korku Kherwarian Khmuic Pakanic Palaungic Khasian Vietic Katuic Bahnaric Khmer Pearic Nicobarese Aslian Monic Or in more detail, Paul Sidwell (2009), in
1496-578: The most marginalised castes in India, even among Dalits. The Musahar are Hindu, and celebrate most local Hindu festivals like Holi and Diwali , They also believe in a number of tribal deities, including Dinabhadri and Buniya Baba . Musahars also have their own rituals like the kul pooja , in which participants bathe in boiling milk to worship ancestors. They also offer liquor during poojas and weddings. The Musahar are found throughout eastern Uttar Pradesh, southern Nepal and Bihar, and are employed in Bihar's stone quarries. Many have also emigrated to
1540-490: The reconstruction of Proto-Mon–Khmer in Harry L. Shorto 's Mon–Khmer Comparative Dictionary . Little work has been done on the Munda languages , which are not well documented. With their demotion from a primary branch, Proto-Mon–Khmer becomes synonymous with Proto-Austroasiatic. Paul Sidwell (2005) reconstructs the consonant inventory of Proto-Mon–Khmer as follows: This is identical to earlier reconstructions except for *ʄ . *ʄ
1584-411: The register contrast by evolving more diphthongs or in a few cases, such as Vietnamese, tonogenesis . Vietnamese has been so heavily influenced by Chinese that its original Austroasiatic phonological quality is obscured and now resembles that of South Chinese languages, whereas Khmer, which had more influence from Sanskrit, has retained a more typically Austroasiatic structure. Much work has been done on
1628-469: The same livelihood. They are an ethnic minority with a mere population of 3,000. They are divided into 6 clans; Trihutia, Maghaiya, Ghatwar, Darwar, Khairawar and Rikhian. The 2011 Nepal census classifies the Musahar within the broader social group of Madheshi Dalit . At the time of the Nepali census of 2011, 234,490 people (0.9% of the population of Nepal) were Musahar. The frequency of Musahar by province
1672-592: The state of Tripura . They are one of India's largest scheduled tribes . Munda people in Tripura are also known as Mura . In the Kolhan region of Jharkhand the Munda people are often called Tamadia by other communities. Munda means headman of a village in the Munda-Manki system to govern villages in South-east Chotanagpur . They call themselves horoko or ho ko, which means men . Robert Parkin notes that
1716-443: The states of Punjab and Haryana as agricultural labourers, with many Nepali Musahars working as migrant labourers for 6 months at a time. They speak Bhojpuri, Magahi and Maithili but many now have working knowledge of Hindi. Almost all Musahars live in rural areas, with a mere 3% living in the city. In the rural areas, Musahar are primarily bonded agricultural labourers, but often go without work for as much as eight months in
1760-645: The tea valleys of Assam, where they migrated to work as tea garden workers during colonial India. Apart from India, they also reside in neighboring countries such as Bangladesh and Nepal . According to linguist Paul Sidwell , Munda languages arrived on the coast of Odisha from Southeast Asia approximately 4,000 to 3,500 years ago ( c. 2000 – c. 1500 BCE). The Munda people initially spread from Southeast Asia, but mixed extensively with local Indian populations. They are genetically closely related to Mah Meri and Temuan people of Malaysia . According to historian R. S. Sharma , tribals who spoke
1804-521: The term "Munda" did not belong to the Austroasiatic lexis and is of Sanskrit origin. According to R. R. Prasad, the name "Munde" is a Ho word that means "headman". It is an honorific name given by Hindus, and hence became a tribal name. According to Standing (1976), it was under British rule that the term Munda started to be used for the tribal group. The Munda primarily inhabit the eastern states of Jharkhand , West Bengal , and Odisha , specifically in
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1848-399: The tribal community residing in the village buries a large inverted U-shaped dressed headstone on the head side of a grave or at the entrance to the village, in which is inscribed the family tree of the dead persons. There are some other types of patthalgari also:- Jesuit priest John-Baptist Hoffmann (1857–1928) studied the language, customs, religion and life of the Munda people, publishing
1892-667: Was coined by Wilhelm Schmidt ( German : austroasiatisch ) based on auster , the Latin word for "South" (but idiosyncratically used by Schmidt to refer to the southeast), and "Asia". Despite the literal meaning of its name, only three Austroasiatic branches are actually spoken in South Asia: Khasic , Munda , and Nicobarese . Regarding word structure, Austroasiatic languages are well known for having an iambic "sesquisyllabic" pattern, with basic nouns and verbs consisting of an initial, unstressed, reduced minor syllable followed by
1936-679: Was lost when they migrated. This process has been observed in another tribal population, the Baiga , who also once spoke a Munda language but shifted to an Indo-European language in the distant past. However, unlike the Musahar, the Baiga remained isolated from Brahminical society at large and so were seen as a tribe rather than a caste . The Musahar consists of three endogamous clans: Bhagat , Sakatiya and Turkahia . They are now mostly landless agricultural labourers and sometimes still have to resort to rat catching to survive during lean times. They are one of
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