TRIBES OF INDIA

Andamanese Tribe

The Andamanese people are the various aboriginal inhabitants of the Andaman Islands, a district of India located in the southeastern part of the Bay of Bengal.

The Andamanese have been classified as Negritos, together with a few other isolated groups in Asia by raciologist theories. They are pygmies, and are the only modern people outside Africa with steatopygia. They have a hunter-gatherer lifestyle and appear to have lived in substantial isolation for thousands of years. This degree of isolation is unequaled, except perhaps by the aboriginal inhabitants of Tasmania. The Andamanese are believed to be descended from the migrations which, about 60,000 years ago, brought modern humans out of Africa to the Indian subcontinent and Southeast Asia.

The Andamanese are a designated Scheduled Tribe.[1]

Two Great Andamanese men, circa. 1875

Kolam Tribe

Kolam are a designated Scheduled Tribe in the Indian states of Andhra Pradesh, Chhattisgarh, Madhya Pradesh and Maharashtra.[1] They belong to the sub-category Particularly vulnerable tribal group,[2] one of the three belonging to this sub-category. The others being Katkari and Madia Gond.[3]

They are a Hindu community and common in the Yavatmal, Chandrapur and districts of Maharashtra. They speak the Kolami language.[4] They are an agricultural community.[5] They have a high rate of returning positive to the Naked eye single tube red cell osmotic fragility test (NESTROFT) test, making them prone to high incidence of Thalassaemia.[6] The Kolam are an endogamous group. They consist of twelve exogamous sub-groups called pedi

A woman in Kolam Tribe

Andh Tribe

The Andh are a designated Scheduled Tribe in the Indian states of Andhra Pradesh and Maharashtra.[1] They seem to have originated in southern India in the vicinity of Madras which was once ruled by the Andhra dynasty. However the identification is only used for the people who by the start of the 20th century had a long history of residence in central India.

The Andhs live primarily in the hills of the Adilabad district in Andhra Pradesh. They are further subdivided into the Vertali and the Khaltali. The Vertali consider themselves a superior people and avoid marrying the Khaltali.

According to the Anthropological Survey of India, there are over 74,000 Andhs in Maharashtra These Andhs speak Marathi. The Andhs are primarily Hindus.[2]

About 100,000 Andh speak the Andh language.

A woman in Andh Tribe

Gondi Tribe

The Gondi (Gōndi) or Gond people are a Dravidian people in central India, spread over the states of Madhya Pradesh, eastern Maharashtra (Vidarbha), Chhattisgarh, northern Andhra Pradesh (Telangana), and Western Odisha (majhi or gan community). With over four million people, they are the largest tribe in Central India.[2] They are a designated Scheduled Tribe in Andhra Pradesh, Bihar, Chhattisgarh, Gujarat, Jharkhand, Madhya Pradesh, Maharashtra, Odisha and West Bengal.[3]

Gond or Rajgond are same tribes. The term Raj Gond was widely used in 1950s, but has now become almost obsolete, probably because of the political eclipse of the Gond Rajas.[4]

The Gondi language is related to Telugu and other Dravidian languages. About half of Gonds speak Gondi languages while the rest speak Indo-Aryan languages including Hindi.

 

Gondi Tribe

Khonds Tribe

Khonds or Kandhs (Oriya: କନ୍ଧ) are an ethnic group of India. They are a designated Scheduled Tribe in the states of Andhra Pradesh, Bihar, Chhattisgarh, Madhya Pradesh, Maharashtra, Odisha and West Bengal.[1] Traditionally hunter-gatherers, their main divisions are the Kutia, or hill Khonds and plain-dwelling Khonds; the landowners among them are known as Raj Khonds. The Khonds speak Kui language, which belongs to the Dravidian family.

A Kutia Kondh woman in Odisha.

Kattunayakan Tribe

Kattunayakan are a designated Scheduled Tribe in the Indian states of Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka, Kerala and Tamil Nadu.[1]

The word Kattunayakan means the king of the jungle in Tamil. The Kattunayakan are one of the earliest known inhabitants of the Western Ghats, who are engaged in the collection and gathering of forest produce, mainly wild honey and wax.[2]

The members of this community are short, have black skin, and have protruding foreheads. The men wear short dhotis and half sleeved shirts. The women attach a long single piece of cloth round their body just below the neck, leaving the shoulders and arms bare. Child marriages were common before the 1990s, but now the girls marry after attaining puberty. Monogamy is the general rule among the Kattunayakan community.

Kattunayakan believe in Hinduism and have a language, which is a mixture of all Dravidian languages. The main deity of the tribe is Lord Shiva under the name of Bhairava. They also worship animals, birds, trees, rock hillocks, and snakes, along with the other Hindu deities.

Dance of Kattunayakan

Chenchu Tribe

The Chenchus are a designated Scheduled Tribe in the Indian states of Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka and Odisha.[1] 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 Telugu branch of the Dravidian language family. In general, the Chenchu relationship to non-tribal people has been largely symbiotic. Some Chenchus have continued to specialize in collecting forest products for sale to non-tribal people. Many Chenchus live in the dense Nallamalai forest of Andhra Pradesh.

A government primary school for Chenchus

Hill Reddis

The Hill Reddis or Konda Reddis are a designated Scheduled Tribe in the Indian state of Andhra Pradesh.[1] They are entirely unrelated to the Hindu caste also known by the name Reddi.[2] They tend to live in the Godavari district as it was called during the British Raj. Today the area is known as the Khammam district. There are also a small number in West Godavari district and East Godavari district.[3]

The Hill Reddis normally speak in Telugu with outsiders.

The 1991 Census of India counted 432 Hill Reddis

Konda Reddi primitive tribal group at Chintur

Sentinelese Tribe

The Sentinelese (also Sentineli, Senteneli, Sentenelese, North Sentinel Islanders) are an indigenous peoples of the Andaman Islands, in the Bay of Bengal. They inhabit North Sentinel Island, which lies westward off the southern tip of the Great Andaman archipelago. They are noted for resisting attempts at contact by outsiders. The Sentinelese maintain an essentially hunter-gatherer society subsisting through hunting, fishing, and collecting wild plants. There is no evidence of either agricultural practices or methods of producing fire.[1] Their language remains unclassified.

The Sentinelese are a designated Scheduled Tribe

A Family of Sentinelese Tribe

Nicobarese Tribe

The Nicobarese people are a Mon–Khmer-speaking people of the Nicobar Islands, a chain of 19 islands in the southeastern Bay of Bengal. Only 12 of the 19 islands are inhabited. The largest and main island is Great Nicobar. The term Nicobarese refers to the dominant tribes of the Nicobar Islands. On each island, the people have specific names, but together they are the Nicobarese. They call themselves Holchu, which means "friend".[citation needed]

The Nicobarese are a designated Scheduled Tribe.[

A Family of Nicobarese Tribe

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