Tribal Societies and Early Humans in India

 The Balochis were large and powerful tribe in the north-west. They were divided into many smaller clans under different chiefs. 

The Negritos were the first of the racial groups that came to India. They got settled in the hilly areas of Kerala and the Andaman Islands.

Many societies in the subcontinent did not follow the social rules and rituals prescribed by the Brahmanas. Nor were they divided into numerous unequal classes. Such societies are often called tribes.

The societies which did not follow the societal rules prescribed by the Brahmanas were called as the Tribes. The members of each tribe were united by Kinship bonds.

Contemporary historians and travellers give very scanty information about tribes. A few exceptions apart, tribal people did not keep written records. But they preserved rich customs and oral traditions. These were passed down to each new generation. Present day historians have started using such oral traditions to write tribal histories.

Members of each tribe were united by kinship bonds. Many tribes obtained their livelihood from agriculture. Others were hunter-gatherers or herders. Most often they combined these activities to make full use of the natural resources of the area in which they lived.

Tribal cultures are characterized by unique and distinct traditions, which encompass their specific languages, musical styles, and artistic expressions.

Fire used to keep off wild animal by early people.Natural fires caused overwhelmingly by lightning are highly evident on many landscapes. Birds such as hawks, and some other predators, are alert to opportunities to catch animals including invertebrates disturbed by such fires and similar benefits are likely to underlie the first human involvements with fires. Early humans were certainly familiar with the heat of the sun. They must have observed lightning flashes. The human control of fire likely required a cognitive ability to conceptualize the idea of fire.

The early farmers needed to clear forests by cutting trees and branches. They developed a new kind of stone tool which is called neolith by archeologists. It is after this new kind of stone tool that this period of early agriculture is called Neolithic Period.

Today we use machines, tractors and tools made of steel etc. The earliest people also used tools; but these were made of stones, bones and wood. Initially, large stones were given sharp edges by very careful breaking with another stone. This gave the people a tool which enabled them to cut flesh, dig the earth for tubers and hunt animals.

The earliest people made fine, small pieces from hard stone. These pieces were called Microliths. They were fixed to wooden or bone handles which then served as knives, arrows, sickles etc. These weapons were used to dig soil, chop the trees for the bark, remove the skins of animals, clean the skins, stitch clothes out of the skin, cut meat and bone, chop fruit and roots and hunt the animals easily.

Anthropological studies have identified the presence of Alpine, Dinaric, and Armenoid racial elements among the populations of Punjab and surrounding northwestern regions of India.

In many pastoral nomadic tribes, men are traditionally responsible for leading large herds of animals to find new pastures. This is a cultural and historical observation rather than a mathematical problem.

In many traditional tribal societies, women are the primary contributors to agricultural labor, particularly in subsistence farming and crop maintenance. While roles vary by culture, this is a standard sociological observation regarding tribal labor divisions.

Khokhar is a agricultural tribe of Punjab and north-western India. Kurichayyas or Malai-Brahmins are a matrilinear tribe of Kerala. The Gonds are the largest tribal group of India and originally belongs to Madhya Pradesh but spread all over the Deccan's penninsula. Koli is a fisherman tribe of Maharashtra.

Under the Gond Community, the Patla act as the representative and leader of the secular affairs. He maintains cooperation within the community people and settle quarrels among the villagers. He has the right to one day's free labour on the part of all the villagers.

Members
of  a tribe follow occupations such as hunting, gathering, farming,
herding and fishing. Usually, women do most of the agricultural work,
including preparing the ground, sowing seeds, looking after the growing
plants and harvesting grain.

Baiga is a tribe found in Madhya Pradesh and population 250,000, Uttar Pradesh, Chhattisgarh and Jharkhand states of India. The largest number of Baigas is found in Baiga-chuk in Mandla district and Balaghat district of Madhya Pradesh.

Nomadic tribes move to find resources like water and pasture for their livestock, which are subject to seasonal changes. Their mobile lifestyle and socio-economic background are also contributing factors.

The Chenchus are Adivasi, a designated Scheduled Tribe in the Indian states of Andhra Pradesh, Telangana, Karnataka and Odisha. They are an aboriginal tribe whose traditional way of life has been based on hunting and gathering. The Chenchus speak the Chenchu language, a member of the Dravidian language family.