Ho Tribe

Ho Tribe Latest News

Recently, adivasis from the Ho tribe staged a protest in Jharkhand’s West Singhbhum district against district administration for interfering in their traditional self-governance system called Manki- Munda system.

About Ho Tribe

• The Ho or Kolha people are an Austroasiatic Munda ethnic group of India.
• They call themselves the Ho, Hodoko and Horo, which mean ‘human’ in their own language.
• Distribution: They are mostly concentrated in the Kolhan region of Jharkhand, Odisha, West Bengal and Bihar.
• Language: Ho people speak the Ho language, an Austroasiatic language closely related to Mundari.
• Occupation: The majority of the Ho tribe is involved in agriculture, either as land owners or labourers, while others are engaged in mining.
• Women have higher status among the Ho than they do in most tribes.
• Most villages have a dedicated dancing ground, called akhra, usually consisting of a cleared space of hard ground under a spreading tree.
• Traditional Ho music incorporates native instruments including a dama (drum), dholak, dumeng (mandar), and the rutu (flute).

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Belief system of Ho Tribe

• Over 90% of the Ho practices the indigenous religion Sarnaism.
• They have a village priest called a deuri.
• They have a spirit doctor called a deowa who makes sacrifices to these spirits and gods. Much of this happens in a sacred grove outside the village.

What is the Manki- Munda system?

• The Munda, or the head of the village, was responsible for resolving socio-political disputes at the village level.
• Each village had one Munda, appointed hereditarily.
• The Manki headed the pidh, which generally consists of 8 to 15 villages. If cases were not resolved by the Munda, they moved upwards to the Manki.
• The Manki and Munda had no responsibilities for revenue or land-related issues.
• The system was purely an internal, self-governing mechanism, with no sovereign authority outside or the concept of paying taxes.

Source: IE