Tribal Myths of Orissa

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Harry Verrier Holman Elwin (29 August 1902 - 22 February 1964) was a British-born Indian anthropologist, ethnologist and tribal activist, who began his career in India as a Christian missionary. He first abandoned the clergy, to work with Mahatma Gandhi and the Indian National Congress, then converted to Hinduism in 1935 after staying in a Gandhian ashram, and split with the nationalists over what he felt was an overhasty process of transformation and assimilation for the tribals. Verrier Elwin is best known for his early work with the Baigas and Gonds of Orissa and Madhya Pradesh in central India, and he married a 13 year old member of one of the communities he studied. He later also worked on the tribals of several North East Indian states especially North- East Frontier Agency (NEFA) and settled in Shillong, the hill capital of Meghalaya.

In time he became an authority on Indian tribal lifestyle and culture, particularly on the Gondi people. He served as the deputy director of the Anthropological Survey of India upon its formation in 1945. Post-independence, he took up Indian citizenship. Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru appointed him as an adviser on tribal affairs for north-eastern India, and later he was Anthropological Adviser to the Government of NEFA (now Arunachal Pradesh). His philosophy towards the north-east was partially responsible for it's disconnect from the modern world.

This book contains nearly a thousand stories collected in tile tribal areas of Orissa. They have been arranged in the same way as the rather similar stories in my Myths of Middle India, by subjects, a plan which has the advantage of emphasizing the relation of the myths to every possible detail of tribal life. 1 had considered an alternative arrangement, by which the stories would be grouped according to their origin, but I decided against this because, although the Kond and Saora stories are sufficiently distinctive, many of the others show little trace of the particular tribe from which they came. Except in a few instances, the Gadaba stories might just as well be Parenga, or with the change of a few names-the Koya stories might be Didayi. Moreover, while it will be comparatively easy, as it is, for the reader who is specially interested in, say, Saora mythology to, go through the book reading only the Saora stories (there are catalogues in the appropriate sections of the Introduction), it would have been on the other arrangement-less convenient to pick out all the tales connected with, for example, the origin of death or the discovery of tobacco. And where variants exist, they can be found on this arrangement-side by side.

It has not been easy to decide how much explanatory and critical apparatus should be provided. It would have been possible to have doubled the size of the book if I had given all the notes which the stories deserve and perhaps require. A book of this kind, like a medieval cathedral, is never finished; I could go on working at it for years. But I am a field-worker and I think it is more important for me to collect new material from the sources which are now so rapidly disappearing, than to spend my time on comment which I may leave to others or my own old age. This book should be regarded, not only as a successor to Myths of Middle India, but as in some ways a supplement. The two volumes should be studied together. Each contains a Motif-Index which supports the other; the first has elaborate essays on many aspects of the folk-lore. In this book I have given brief accounts of the tribes from which the myths have been recorded and I have tried to discover the special qualities of the mythology of each tribe.

'I am inclined', says Boas, to consider the folk-tale primarily and fundamentally as a work of primitive art." Long ago Tylor suggested that myth was primitive ethnology expressed in poetic form. And in the opinion of a recent American writer, myth is motivated, not by subjective, wishful thinking, but rather by the quest for an understanding of the significance of nature and life. Hence, unlike fairy tales, myths are taken with "religious seriousness" either as historic fact or as mystic truth... Whereas fairy tales are held to be the expression of wishful thinking and personal gratification, myth at its best is to be regarded as a recognition of the drama of human existence. Its ultimate aim is not the wishful distortion of the world, but rather serious comprehension and envisagement of its fundamental nature. Myth is regarded as representing metaphorically a world- picture and insight into life generally and may, therefore, be considered as primitive philosophy or metaphysical thought." Myth, in fact, to quote Tylor again, is 'the history of its authors. not of its subjects' From this point of view, the stories in this book are of great importance, for they are the readiest way by which the rather inarticulate Orissa tribesman can tell us what he is thinking about the great problems of the origin and meaning of life. His mind always shrinks from the abstract and does not easily philosophize, and one can sense the relief with which the tribal theologian escapes from attempting to describe general ideas when he clothes them in concrete form.