Major Tribes of India

Read about the Major Tribes of India found in every state of India with their religion, customs, arts, beliefs, dance forms and Music forms etc.

Particularly Vulnerable Tribal Groups (PVTG)

Earlier known as a Primitive tribal group.
Sub-classification of Scheduled Tribe.
Vulnerable Group.
Resides in 18 States and 1 UT.
Total of 75 groups were identified as PVTG.
Dhebar Commission (1960-1961) found that within the Scheduled Tribe classification an inequality existed in the rate of development of certain tribes over others.
- As a result in the fourth Five Year Plan the sub-category “Primitive tribal group” was created within the grouping of Scheduled Tribe to identify groups considered to be especially lacking in modern development.
- PVTG list was created by the Indian Government with the purpose of better improving the living standards of endangered tribal groups based on priority.
Features of this tribe
- Pre-agricultural system of existence,
- Practice of hunting and gathering,
- Zero or negative population growth,
- Extremely low levels of literacy in comparison with other tribal groups.

Shompen Tribe

About Tribe
- Indigenous people of the interior of Great Nicobar Island.
- Designated as a Particularly Vulnerable Tribal Group (PVTG).
- They practice a hunter-gatherer subsistence economy.
- The traditional attire for men is a short, thin loincloth made of bark cloth, covering only the genitals without a ‘tail’ of cloth in front.
- Women wear a knee-length skirt of bark cloth, occasionally with a shawl of bark cloth covering the shoulders.
- Decorations include bamboo ear plugs (ahav), bead necklaces (naigaak) and armbands of bamboo (geegap).
- The main weapons are the bow and arrow.
- Numerous types of spears, spear throwers, fire drills and a hatchet are the main tools.
- A polling station was set up in their area for election of 2014. Shompen people for the first time participated in the democratic process.
Threat to tribe
- Due to proposed Great Nicobar Development Plan, hectares of land on Great Nicobar Island will be reclaimed and may impact 1,700 people including many Shompens.

Warli Tribe

News – Warli tribe in Mumbai objects to construction of Shivaji museum.

Indigenous tribe of western India.
Have their own animistic beliefs, life, customs and tradition and thus, have adopted many Hindu beliefs.
Warli speak the unwritten Varli language which belongs to the southern zone of the Indo-Aryan languages.
Have sub castes such as Murde varli, Davar varali.
Found in –
- Jawhar, Vikramgad, Mokhada, Dahanu and Talasari talukas of the northern Palghar district and parts of Nashik and Dhule as well as Navapur taluka of Nandurbar of Maharashtra,
- Valsad, Dangs, Navsari and Surat districts of Gujarat,
- UT of Dadra and Nagar Haveli and Daman and Diu.
Warli painting is the cultural intellectual property of the tribal community.
They were traditionally semi-nomadic. They lived together in small-scale groups with a headman leading them.
However, recent demographic changes have transformed the Warli today into mainly agriculturists. They cultivate many crops like rice and wheat.
Warli women wear toe-rings and necklaces as a sign of being married.
Some Warli practice polygyny.

Gond Tribe

Group of aboriginal peoples.
Designated as Scheduled Tribes.
Refer to themselves as “Kōītōr” (Kōī, Kōītōr).
Found in the states of
- Madhya Pradesh,
- Maharashtra,
- Chattisgarh,
- Telangana,
- Andhra Pradesh,
- Bihar,
- Odisha.
Speaks Gondi, an unwritten language of the Dravidian family.
- Gondi is claimed to be related to the Telugu language.
- Some Gond have lost their own language and speak Hindi, Marathi, or Telugu, depending on which is dominant in their area.
No cultural uniformity.
Religion of all Gond peoples centres in the cult of clan and village deities, together with ancestor worship.
- Many Gond people practice their own indigenous religion, Koyapunem (), while some follow Sarnaism.
- The Gonds worship ancestral deities known as Angadevs, which Brahminical Hindus claim are a representation of the goddess Mahakali.
A typical Gond reaction to death has been described as one of anger, because they believe death is caused by demons.
- Gonds usually bury their dead, together with their worldly possessions, but due to partial Hinduization, their kings were occasionally cremated, as per Vedic practices.
- Hinduization has led to cremation becoming more common.
The most developed are the Raj Gond, who once had an elaborate feudal order. Local rajas, linked by ties of blood or marriage to a royal house, exercised authority over groups of villages.
- The Raj Gond continue to exist outside the Hindu caste system, neither acknowledging the superiority of Brahmans nor feeling bound by Hindu rules such as the ban on killing cows.
The highlands of the Bastar region in southern Chhattisgarh are the home of three important Gond tribes –
- Muria –
  - Known for their youth dormitories, or ghotul, in the framework of which the unmarried of both sexes lead a highly organized social life.
  - They receive training in civic duties and in sexual practices.
- Bisonhorn Maria –
  - Bisonhorn Maria, so called for their dance headdresses, live in less-hilly country and have more-permanent fields that they cultivate with plows and bullocks.
- Hill Maria –
  - The last, who inhabit the rugged Abujhmar Hills, are the most isolated.
  - Their traditional type of agriculture is slash-and-burn (jhum) cultivation on hill slopes; hoes and digging sticks are still used more than plows.
  - The villages are periodically moved, and the commonly owned land of each clan contains several village sites occupied in rotation over the years.