History of Santals

(Dr Dhuni Soren)

The Santals are the largest group of indigenous people in the Indian sub- continent. They are found in the central and eastern states of India in Jharkhand, Bihar, Orissa, Chhattisgarh, West Bengal and Assam and beyond in Bangladesh, Nepal and Bhutan. But they had no written history until the British colonialists and western missionaries came to India in the 18th century. Before that, they have passed on their history, customs and traditions orally through their stories, songs and legends as they did not have their own script. But they have kept their language SANTALI alive even to the present day which is one of the sources of tracing their origin, migration, past history and glories.
The documentation of their origin, customs and traditions were started by the Europeans when they came in contact with them in Bengal and Chotanagpur plateau. Then the Indian authors, historians, anthropologists and linguists became interested and started to write about them. Most of the initial writings are based on the stories told by local Santal elders and their understanding of them. The rest are based on their opinions and perceptions and not on any firm evidence and different original authors have come to different conclusions.
To this effect the quoted extracts from SANTAL PARGANAS, BENGAL DISTRICT GAZETTERS by L.S. S. O’ Mulley (1910 and 1984) makes interesting reading.
“On the basis of traditions several theories have been put forward to account for the origin of Santals. The Rev. L.O. Skrefsrud has conjectured that they lived successively in Persia, Afghanistan and Chinese Tartary, and entered India from the north-west, that they settled in the Punjab and made their way thence to Chotanagpur plateau (Introduction to Grammar of Santali Language, 1873).
On the other hand Colonel Dalton believed that the Santals came from North-East India, and found their way to the Chotanagpur plateau and the adjoining highlands by the line of their sacred stream, the Damodar River. In support of this theory he cited certain remarkable coincidences of custom and language between the Santals and some of the aboriginal tribes on the north-eastern frontiers of India, from which he inferred a connection in the remote past. This theory of a north-eastern origin was also accepted by Sir William Hunter in the Annals of Rural Bengal.
Colonel Waddell, again, regards the Santal tradition of their wanderings “as a record of actual tribal progress from the central alluvial valley of the Ganges south-westward to the hills, under pressure of the Aryan invasion of the valley from the north”.
With reference to this theory Dr. A. Campbell writes;-“The theory which seems to me capable of proof is that Santals, or rather the people of whom they are a portion, occupied the country on both sides of the Ganges, but more especially that in the north. Starting from the north-east, they gradually worked their way up the valley of the Ganges till we find them in the neighborhood of Benares, with their headquarters near Mirzapur. Here the main body which had kept the northern bank of the river, crossed and heading southwards, came to the Vindhya hills. This obstruction deflected them to the left, and they at length found themselves on the tableland of Chotanagpur”. Dr. Campbell further believed that the traditions point to a remote past and not to the recent migration inside the Chotanagpur plateau.
“Efforts,” he wrote, “have been made to identify the countries, rivers, forts, etc. mentioned in the traditions of the Santals with those of similar names in Chota Nagpur. Localities have in many instances been found bearing traditional names, and the inference has been drawn that it was here that the traditions of the Santals took their rise, and that their institutions were formed. But only a slight knowledge of these traditions is necessary to show that they belong to a much more remote period than the location of the Santals in Chota Nagpur, and to countries separated from it by many hundreds of miles”.( A. Campbell, TRADITIONAL MIGRATION OF THE SANTAL TRIBE, Indian Antiquary, 1894, pp. 103-4.)
This theory is not accepted by Sir Herbert Risley, in whose opinion the legend of the Santals does not appear to deserve serious consideration as a record of actual wanderings. “ A people whose only means of recording facts consists of tying knots in strings, and who have no bards to hand down a national epic by oral tradition, can hardly be expected to preserve the memory of their past long enough or accurately enough for their accounts of it to possess any historical value. If, however, the legends of the Santals are regarded as an account of recent migrations, their general purport will be found to be fairly in accord with actual facts.” The same authority then proceeds to point out that it is clear that there was once a large and important Santal colony in parganas Chai and Champa in the Hazaribagh district, and that there is some evidence that a fort of theirs was taken by the Mohammadans who came to India long after the Aryans. “If the date of the taking of this fort by Ibrahim Ali were assumed to be about 1340 A.D, the subsequent migrations of which the tribal legends speak would fill up the time intervening between the departure of the Santals from Chai Champa and their settlement in the present Santal Parganas.
Speaking generally, these recent migrations have been to the east, which is the direction they might prima facie have been expected to follow. The earliest settlements which Santal tradition speaks of, those in Ahiri Pipiri and Chai Champa lie on the north-western frontier of the tableland of Hazaribagh and in the direct line of advance of the numerous Hindu immigrants from Bihar. The influx of Hindus has in fact driven the Santals eastward is beyond doubt, and the line which they are known to have followed in their retreat corresponds on the whole with that attributed to them in their tribal legends.” (Tribes and Castes of Bengal. Vol. 11, pp. 225-6).
On this subject Rev. P.O. Bodding writes;-”It is as yet very difficult to say anything definite as to the origin of Santals, or rather of the race to which they belong. They have had no written records of their own. To come to a conclusion, therefore, we have to examine and rely upon other materials. These are their traditions, their customs, their language, their anthropological features and what may be found in foreign records. As to their traditions, it is possible to accord them too high a value; but I feel sure no one who has got a true knowledge of them will be inclined to despise them. It is true they contain much phantastic stuff, apparently borrowed from foreigners. When you hear part of the story of the creation, you are reminded of myths of the same kind prevalent, e.g., in Southern Burma (Myanmar). Much is childish. But, on the other hand, it is difficult to avoid the impression that below the surface there are remnants of true facts.
“The traditions have been handed down from GURU to CHELA from generation to generation. They differ in minor details, but all have certain fragments of songs in common, which record the main events. The traditions have a practical interest for the people; they are repeated by the GURUS on certain occasions, of which I shall only mention the so-called CHACHO-CHHATIAR, the ceremonial feast when a young person is formally taken into the tribe and given the rights of a Santal. One indispensable part of the ceremony is that a GURU recites the traditions, beginning with the creation and ending with how they came to their present home. It will be seen that in this way the traditions are always kept up to date, and that they possess a real living interest for the people, enough to give more than a mythological value.
“I am inclined to believe that the Chai and Champa mentioned are to be found in Hazaribagh and Chota Nagpur plateau, and from this point it is not difficult to verify the wanderings of the people as told by the traditions. As to what lies before that time and those places, it is difficult to pronounce an opinion. It cannot at best be anything more than a dim recollection, the more so when it is borne in mind that the Santals, shortly after leaving Champa, deliberately gave up old and adopted new social customs. I am inclined to think that the skeleton of the first part of the traditions refers to the remotest antiquity, but that the facts have possibly been mixed, so that details belonging to a later period may have been fitted on to an earlier one. That part of the traditions refers to the people’s existence outside India seems beyond doubt.
“Before leaving the traditions I may mention three statements found in them. They may mean nothing or hide the solution of the problem of the origin of this race.
1. The first is the very beginning of the traditions, which says;-‘Towards the rising of the sun is the birth of man’.
2. The second is the statement (mythology) that after the pair of swans (Hans and hasil) had got a boy and girl out of their eggs, and had fed and kept them for sometime, they became very anxious as to where they should place them. They implored GOD to help them, and he recommended them to fly out and seek a place for the two human beings. They went forth towards the setting of the sun and found HIHIRI PIPIRI, reported this to GOD, and were ordered to take the boy and girl there, which they did carrying them on their backs.
3. The third is that the old traditions say that man was born on the ocean. The traditions elsewhere declare or imply that the migrations have been towards the east, excepting perhaps the wanderings to Khoj-Kaman and Sasan-beda.
As a rule the customs and institutions of the people will give some hints as to their previous connections, and this is also the case with the Santals. But as already mentioned, they have at certain time (probably in our 15th century) deliberately discarded some old social customs and adopted new ones, doubtlessly under Hindu influence, and got some Aryan social customs altered to suit their convenience. I should not be surprised to find that they have at some time had regular Hindu teachers. Still a great many of the original customs are preserved, and the handling of the adopted ones also is original. It is quite true that many of their customs point to the east, much further even than Assam and others perhaps to north. The matter has, however, not been sufficiently investigated as yet to give us a right to base more than hypothesis on what we know.
“Another source of knowledge is the language, and a careful study yields wonderful results and brings to light impeccable facts. The Santali language has a pure non -Aryan skeleton, with very few exceptions a pure grammar, and an often rich vocabulary of words denoting everything which can in any way be observed with the senses, names of the body and parts of it, etc., in short, all of which is their own by nature. But when it comes to words which denote most things that appertain to civilization, complex states of mind, abstract thought, etc., or names for social functions and relations brought about by marriage, not to mention law terms, we find most of them have been borrowed from their neighbors. All these additions with very few exceptions are of Aryan origin, and belong to one or other of the Aryan vernaculars of North India. The most recent additions come from Bengal or even Assam, being importations by returned tea garden coolies; previous to that we have appropriations from Bihari and other forms of Hindi. A good many words must have been borrowed far to the west; their peculiar form is a sure sign that the ancestors of the santals must have been living much further west than Chota Nagpur.
“On the other hand, there are few linguistic features in the santali language which may perhaps find an explanation in trans-Himalayan languages. As far as I know, some phonetic peculiarities of the santal and other Munda languages are not found further west than the present habitat of these races, but are, on the contrary, met with eastwards. The linguistic relatives of the Santals are at present to be found to the east, specially in Southern Burma (now Myanmar) and on the Malay Peninsula (Mon-Khmer and other languages); and a conviction is gradually establishing itself that these people, belong to a large race living now eastwards so far as the Pacific islands, and having their western-most ‘friends’ in India. It is not as yet more than a hypothesis; but what is known distinctly points in that direction. There is, of course, a possibility that what is found common in all their languages is borrowed from a now unknown common source.
“We then come to the anthropological question. The Santals have been classified as belonging to the Dravidian race, and this classification has been based on anthropological measures; linguistically there is absolutely no connection between the two, except a few words borrowed. The features are very much alike, and the anthropological measurements give very similar results. But a good many races in this world would in that case have to be classified as Dravidians. Both may have a common origin in the unknown past; but apart from these measurements we know nothing to connect the races with any certainty. Besides, the Dravidian type, although the prevalent one, is by no means the only one found. Several Aryan types are met with, and a Mongoloid one is not very uncommon. Other types may be found, but too few to be taken into account. All this proves mixture of blood at some time or other. What I would especially draw attention to in this connection is the Mongoloid type, and types resembling what is found in Assam, Burma and further on. To obtain sure results, however, it is necessary to have exact measurements of all types, not only of the Dravidian one. There is a possibility that they may have been a Dravidian tribe, which for some reason or other gave up their old language and adopted a new one; we find instances of a similar nature even among the Kharwarian tribe. But there is no trace of this having happened, and I think it is safest to await further investigations before adopting such a theory.
“Finally, we have what outsiders have recorded and connecting points in the history of other better known races. There is not much more than what is mentioned in Sir H.H. Risley’s excellent work (Tribes and Castes of Bengal), and what has been recorded here further down in this chapter. It all refers to a recent or comparatively recent time. I think it may be ascertained that the ancestors of these races were living west of Benares about the commencement of our era. I am accepting the theory that the Cheros originally belonged to the Kharwara. The fact that the RAMAYANA tells us about the help of Hanuman should not be overlooked, but be compared with the statement of the traditions that the Kharwars helped Rama.
When all this is summed up, the result is rather meager. We may be fairly sure that the ancestors of the race to which the Santals belong were living on the Chota Nagpur plateau about six hundred years ago, and that they had at that time been living there for many generations. Their traditions and their language make it likely that they have reached this place from the west (south-west); and it is not improbable that about two thousand years ago they were on both sides of the Ganges west of Benares. “If we are to accept the traditions of the people, these either affirm or presuppose that, since the time when the human race was split up into nations, they have always been wandering in a more or less easterly direction, a direction which now-a-days also is followed by them in all their migrations. This would imply that they came into India from the north-west. I must confess that I personally was long of this opinion, and I have not given it up altogether; but I am more and more getting my eyes opened to the fact that the Santal and Munda peoples have their connections towards the east. It is possible that the Santals and other Munda tribes have come from the east into India that they were forced by the invading Aryans to retrace their steps; but it is also just as possible that they are the last remnants and laggards of a race which came from the west and has spread to the east and south. As far as I can see, it is not possible to pronounce a more definite opinion at present.”
Whatever may have been the original habitat of the race, there is no doubt that within historic times they were settled in the Chota Nagpur plateau and the adjoining districts of Midnapur and Singhbhum, and that they began to make their way northwards towards the close of the 18th century. The earliest mention of them appears to be contained in an article entitled “Some Extraordinary Facts, Customs and Practices of the Hindus” by Lord Teignmouth (Sir John Shore), which was published in the Asiatic Researches of 1795.
All these accounts confirm that that Santals (indigenous people) were in India long before the arrival of Aryans in spite of different opinions and conclusions by different authors and historians.
It is also accepted that Santals have been living in Chotanagpur plateau and Hazaribagh areas for some time but not long enough to go back to the pre-Aryan era.
As regards the possible remnants found of some forts and Chai Champa garh in Hazaribagh areas, they could not have been possibly of the original place.
It is quite possible as is the common custom and practice of these people to name the new places after the old places of glory and importance as they migrate from one place to another. They have similar custom and tradition of naming their children and grand children after their grand parents, near relatives and ancestors.
They observe these customs and traditions even to the present day to preserve and maintain continuity of their culture and past history of their heritage. Apart from these, they have stories, songs and legends repeating the past glories. All these have been used over the generations to pass on their history.
On the basis of the above customs and traditions it can safely be assumed that the Chotanagpur plateau and Hazaribagh areas are not the original places of excellence and glory of Santals but named after fondly remembered places of excellence and glory of the past. If this theory is accepted, then one has to look for the original places of excellence and glory of Santals in the ancient India before the arrival of Aryans.
It is generally accepted with archeological evidence that findings of Harappa and Mahejadro are the remnants of Indus Valley Civilization which predates the arrival of Aryans and their culture.
The ethnic composition of the people involved in these various cultures was not identical. Ethnological studies have revealed six main races in the Indian sub-continent. The earliest was apparently the ;
(1) Negritos and they were followed by the
(2) Proto-Australoids or Austrics, then
(3) Mongoloid, the
(4) Mediterranean or Dravidians, and later those associated with the Aryan culture
(5 &6) Western Brachycephals and Nordics.
There is evidence of Proto-Australoid, the Mediterrenean, Alpine, and Mongoloid in the skeletal remains at the Harrappan sites. Presumably by this time the first five of these races mentioned above were well settled in India. The Proto-Australoid was the basic element in the Indian population and their speech (language) was of the Austric linguistic group, a specimen of which survives in the Munda speech (language) of certain primitive (indigenous) tribes. (A history of INDIA, volume-one. Page 26 by ROMILA THAPAR).
The Negritos from Africa were the earliest people to inhabit India. They are survived in their original habitat in the Andaman and Nicobar Islands of India. The Jarewas, Ognes, Sentelenese and Great Andamanis are the examples. Some hill tribes like Irulas, Kodars, Paniyans and Kurumbas are found only in patches among the hills of south India on the mainland. Studies have indicated that Ognes tribes have been living in the Andaman for last 60,000 years or more.
Pro-Australoid or Austrics;
This group was the next to come to India after Negritos.
The Munda, Ho and Santals belong to the Austric group of indigenous peoples. They all speak the similar Austric language. The Santals are one of the largest of the indigenous groups of people in India and their language Santali is still widely spoken by them. They are spread over the eastern part of India mainly in the states of Bihar, Jharkhand, Orissa, Chhattisgarh, West Bengal, Assam and Meghalaya. They are also found in the neighboring countries of Nepal, Bhutan, Bangladesh, Myanmar and islands of South East Asia. The Austric tribes are said to “form the bedrock of the people” and were the main builders of the Indus Valley Civilization. They cultivated rice and vegetables and made sugar from sugarcane. Their language has survived in the Kol or Munda (Mundari), Ho and Santals (santali) (culturopedia.com/tribes/the races of INDIA and Dr. B.S. Guha).
The Mediterrenean race is generally associated with Dravidian culture and has spread to the whole of India supplanting Austrics and Negritos alike. Dravidians comprises three sub-types Paleo-Mediterrenean, the true Mediterranean and Oriental Mediterranean. This group constitutes the bulk of the scheduled castes in the north India.
The concentration of Mongloid people was in the north-Eastern and northern fringes
of the sub-continent and their Language conforms to the Sino-Tibetan group.
The last to come were the people commonly referred to as Aryans. Aryan is in fact a
linguistic term indicating a speech Group of Indo-European origin and is not an
ethnic term. It was against this background of peoples and cultures of Indian
prehistory that the Aryan speaking people arrived in the north and made their
contribution to Indian civilization. There is evidence of the proto-australoids,
Mediterranean, Alpine and mongoloid in the skeletal remains at Harrappan Sites.
This suggests that these races were well settled in India Before the arrival of Aryans.
The inhabitants of Mahenja- Daro civilization that existed in Pakistan and parts of
India might originally be Proto-Australoids as may be Inferred from their sculptures,
inscriptions and statues of the dancing girls and others.
This theory was supported by Arun Pathak I.A.S and N K Verma, the then district
transport officer posted at Bhagalpur in Bihar in 1980s. He was a scholar deciphering
the writings on the seals of Mohenjo-Daro and Harappa. In their book ECHOES OF
INDUS VALLEYS, they state “Till 1985 we could only establish links between the
people In Damin-E-Koh with the land of Mohenjodaro and Harappa”. This was
possible from references found in the songs of the land of the seven rivers (Eyay Nai
Disam) garnering salt and to camels amidst the deserts. Yesterday’s Damin-E-Koh is
today’s Bhagalpur and Santhal Parganas. They also discovered “Folklores in the
forms of songs, rites and rituals that tell us about how the tribal people living in the
Santhal Parganas who carried with them their traditions when they migrated from
the distant lands” EYAY NAI DISAM, the land of seven rivers. They transposed to an
extent, their way of life, their tales and stories of the beautiful land that they left
behind very long time ago. Mr. Verma in his book tried to discover the significance of
the KHOND inscription at the altar of worship which was the same as those
appearing above the seals of Mohenjodaro and Harappa and appeared on a slab of
stone in a Hazaribagh mountain cave.
N. Hembram’s Austrio Civilisation of India states that the study of human skulls found in Mohenjodaro revealed that Indus Valley people were predominantly of Proto-Australoid group and the Harappans were cosmopolitan to an extent that traces of races like Mongoloid, Mediterranean and Alpinoid were found amidst Australoid race and that the cities belonged to them. The present day tribal people (santal) of India is an integral part of Indus Valley Civilisation.
If so, the fondly remembered Chae-Champa garh and other places of importance in
their golden era are more likely to be around these areas rather than in
Chotanagpur plateau as suggested by some European authors.
The historical sequence of events seemed to have been as follows;
The Indus Valley Civilization declined in the second Millennium B.C and had almost
completely disintegrated by 1500 B.C when the Aryans entered the north-west of
India. The cause of disintegration of this ancient civilization is not clear.
There are two probabilities;
1. Natural calamities or
2. Invasion by subsequent migrants.
But there is archaeological evidence that there was an advanced and prosperous civilization long before the arrival of the Aryan people in India.
Having accepted the hypothesis that the Austric Ancestors of Santals were in the
Indus Valley areas, it is more likely than not that their fondly remembered places in
their customs, traditions, songs and legends like CHAE-CHAMPA garh were in these
areas.
The remnants found of them around modern day Hazaribagh is therefore likely to be
the replica of the original monuments of Santals in the Indus Valley areas. Next, we
try to trace, how and when they came to this area and established themselves.
It is generally agreed by the authors and anthropologists that the Proto-Australoid
were the second wave of people who came to India after Negritos. The Negritos
from the very name appears to have come from the African continent which was
joined with the land mass of the Indian subcontinent before the melting of the Ice
age.
The Proto-Australoid were a race of hunter-gatherers in the beginning. But according
to Indian literature they formed the first stable small scale agricultural communities
in India and south –east Asia, in contrast to the predominantly beachcombing
Negritos cultures that preceded them. Recent anthropological evidence indicates
that they may be descendents of a very early wave of ‘Out Of Africa’ migrants via the
red sea shorelines and southern (Hadramati) Yemen. Much of the evidence of such
migration is believed to be buried undersea on the narrow continental shelf around
the southern Arabian and southern Makran coasts.
Dr. B.S.Guha has distinguished six main types among the races who inhabit India. The
Santals belong to his second “main race”, the Proto-Australoid, which he considers
arrived in India soon after the Negritos. The name is given because of the similarity
of racial type with Australian tribes. ”We have no precise information as to when this
race first came into India. It is found among the prehistoric skulls in Tinnevelly
district, and from references in early Sanskrit literature to “Nishads”, where they are
described as Noseless (anash) with dark skin colour and peculiar speech and habits,
there can be no doubt that the Proto-Australoid Tribes were meant”. (Dr B.S.Guha,
Chapter 1 The making Of a people, Tribal Heritage A study of the Santals by W.J.
Culshaw).
Studies have indicated that the Ongnes tribe, descendents of Negritos have been
living in the Andamans for the last 60,000 years. The Austric people came next. The Santals and the Mundari Group of language speaking people are their descendents.
Mongoloids;
These tribal groups are found in the Northeastern part of India in the states of
Assam, Nagaland, Mehghalay and also in Ladak and Sikkim. Their features are
common to those of the people of Mongolia, China and Tibet.
Mediterranean or Dravidian;
This group came to India from south west Asia and appear to be people of the same
stock as the people of Asia Minor and Crete and the pre-Hellenic Aegeans of Greece.
They are reputed to have helped build the city civilization of Indus Valley, whose
remains have been found at Mohenjodaro and Harrappa and other Indus cities. They
spread to whole of India supplanting Austrics and Negritos alike.
Nordics;
The Nordics or Indo-Aryans were the last immigrants into
India. They were branch of Indo-Iranians, who had originally left their homes in Central Asia, some 5000 years ago, and had settled in Mesopotamina for some centuries. The Aryans must have come into India between 2000 and 1500 BC. Their first home in India was western and northern Punjab, from where they spread to the Valleys of Ganga and beyond.
The peace loving Austric language speaking people like Munda, Ho, Santals and others moved on under the pressure from the newer incoming immigrants. They moved on further to north east until they reached the Chotanagpur plateau and re-established their civilization there and built monuments and forts and named them after the ones they had left behind in the old place of civilization in Indus Valley areas and beyond.
The Santals moved on from Chotanagpur plateau and Hazaribagh areas to the place of their present home land in Santal parganas which was named after them after the SANTAL HUL of 1855.
But they have not stopped moving eastwards. Normally they go for a period to Bengal and across the river Ganges to look for temporary work after finishing their own harvest. Most people return but some have lived on and have made their homes. Some people moved on farther to Assam, Orissa and Nepal and have made their own places and homes.
But they still call Santal Pargana, their old country (mare disam). They have love and affection for the old country and have carried their language, customs, traditions, songs and legends with them to their new countries. Similarly, the people of old country have fond memories of their golden age of glory which have been passed on to them by their ancestors and renamed their new places after the old left behind at their original place of civilization at Eyay-nae-disam (the land of seven rivers).