The Mahua is a flower

In jhum cultivation, why is a field left fallow for many years after being cultivated once?

Vaishnavs are __________

The method of sowing seeds in jhum cultivation is known as___________

The tribal chiefs got ___________ titles in Central India under the British land settlements.

Tribals went to work in the of________ Assam and the__________ in Bihar.

Cocoons were bought from the Santhals and sold by the traders at five times the purchase price.

Birsa urged his followers to purify themselves, give up drinking liquor and stop believing in witchcraft and sorcery.

The British wanted to preserve the tribal way of life.

On what charges was Birsa convicted?

Which groups of people were referred to as dikus by the tribals?

Describe the land settlement introduced by the British.

Why did the British favor settled cultivators over jhum cultivators?

Choose any tribals group living in India today. Find out about their customs and way of life and how their lives have changed in the last 50 years.

Have you ever noticed that people living in different types of societies do not share the same notion of work and time? The lives of the shifting cultivators and hunters in different regions were regulated by a calendar and division of tasks for men and women. Verrier Elwin, a British anthropologist who lived among the Baigas and Khonds of central India for many years in the 1930s and 1940s, gives us a picture of what this calendar and division of tasks was like. He writes: In Chait, women went to clearings to ... cut stalks that were already reaped; men cut large trees and go for their ritual hunt. The hunt began at full moon from the east. Traps of bamboo were used for hunting. The women gathered fruits like sago, tamarind, and mushroom. Baiga women can only gather roots or Kanda and mahua seeds. Of all the adivasis in Central India, the Baigas were known as the best hunters ... In Baisakh the firing of the forest took place, the women gathered unburnt wood to burn. Men continued to hunt, but nearer their villages. In Jeth sowing took place and hunting still went on. From Asadh to Bhadon the men worked in the fields. In Kuar the first fruits of beans were ripened and in Kartik kutki became ripe. In Aghan every crop was ready and in Pus winnowing took place. Pus was also the time for dances and marriages. In Magh, shifts were made to new bewars and hunting-gathering was the main subsistence activity. The cycle described above took place in the first year. In the second year, there was more time for hunting as only a few crops had to be sown and harvested. But since there was enough food the men lived in the bewars. It was only in the third year that the diet had to be supplemented with the forest products. Adapted from Verrier Elwin, Baiga(1939) and Elwin's unpublished 'Notes on the Khonds' (Verrier Elwin Papers, Nehru Memorial Museum, and Library). look carefully at the tasks that Baiga men and women did. Do you see any pattern? What were the differences in the types of work that they were expected to perform?

Find out from your parents, friends or teachers, the names of some heroes of other tribal revolts in the twentieth century. Write their story in your own words.