19.0 Introduction
In historical times, the communities known as simply tribes, or some of which are now designated as Scheduled Tribes in administrative parlance inhabited forests, hills, and other inaccessible terrains.
They developed themselves into self-reliant socio-economic and political units through their interaction with their immediate physical environment. Practically, they lived in relative isolation except for limited economic interaction through trade with neighbouring communities. It is worth mentioning that not only socio-economic and political systems, but their religious worldview was also shaped in isolation through interaction with nature - forests, hills, rivers, and so on. It is evident from the fact that each tribe has its culture specific religious worldview - its faith, beliefs, and practices; its deities and other supernatural beings; its mode of engaging with supernatural powers in nature, house, etc. and ancestor spirits. Though nature, belief in life in animate and inanimate objects, and belief in supernatural power including the souls of dead ancestors underlie the religious worldview of the tribes, each tribe has shaped its faith, belief, and practices within its cultural perspective by which the community stands distinct from those of other tribal communities.But tribes have not remained in isolation throughout; they have been exposed to different historical forces in different degrees and have come in contact with other communities, particularly the Hindu communities during the early period of exposure. One of the reasons of exposure is found to be economic and encroachment majorly by the Hindu communities on tribal land (Bose 1953:164). During the colonial period, many traders, moneylenders, and other peasants started to penetrate into their area. The new trend disrupted the old system of the tribals due to contact and colonial regulations.
The initial contact, however, points to a situation where tribal culture stands distinct from the culture of the Hindus; gradually, the contact also points to emergence of an intermixed tribal space. The very process of culture contact and emergence of an interactive space is seen in almost all tribal pockets in India and has always been an interesting area of academic engagement. Studies on the new situation have introduced dichotomies like little/great, urban/rural, elite or urban/folk, or popular traditions in academics. The initial
DOI: 10.4324/9781003516415-25
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dichotomies in the course of time present an interactive space about which scholars differ in terms of its conceptualisation. Particularly in the Indian context, scholars have attempted to explain the emerging pattern of cultural space between dichotomies by offering a number of concepts such as tribe-peasant-caste continuum, assimilation, acculturation, syncretism, hybridity, change and continuity, and so on. Some of these concepts are popularly used to study the emerging religious worldview of the tribes consequent upon the contact.
From the above discussion three significant but interrelated implications emerge; that tribes encounter outside forces; that in the field of religion (along with other fields) an interactive space emerges; and that scholars attempt to conceptualise the emerging interactive religious space in the context of the tribes.
Keeping in this line of argument, the present chapter intends to examine the space of religious interaction using the concept of ‘liminality’ coined by Arnold Van Gennep (1960), and extended by Victro Turner (1991), with the Sahariya tribe of Rajasthan as a case study. The chapter also argues that the Sahariya came in contact with Hindu culture in search of alternative economic pursuits consequent upon decline in natural resource base, i.e. forests.
The main objective of this chapter is to understand the phase of transition that is impending in the Sahariya’s life with foremost focus on their religious aspect. The major questions are: What are religious practices of neighbouring Hindu communities finding place in the sphere of tribal religion? What are the push factors responsible for this transition?
19.1