The Santal are a non-Hindu people. In fact, they make a clear distinction based on race between themselves and Hindus and are classified as a "Pre-Dravidian" tribe. They are the largest group of the Munda people, a proto-australoid group whose ancestors are believed to have migrated from Australia some ten thousand years ago.
Their language, Santali, belongs to the Munda (or Mundari) branch of the Austro-Asiatic language family. There are dialectical variations in Santali, but it is claimed that there is almost complete mutual intelligibility throughout the population, a factor that has contributed to their social cohesion, despite the fact that the Santal as a whole have never been politically unified.
Today, the Santal are predominantly cereal agriculturists, growing rice as their chief crop, and further supplementing this with millet, sorghum, maize, and some vegetable crops. Cotton is grown for textile use. Santal agricultural methods are primarily of the slash-and-burn variety, with little knowledge or application of crop rotation, irrigation, or fertilizers.
Cattle are raised to some extent: sheep, goats, pigs, oxen, buffaloes, cows, cats, and dogs. These animals are used as supplementary sources of protein in the diet, as well as for other purposes (e.g., rodent control). They also rear cocks for cock-fighting, one of their favourite past times.
The Santal trade extensively with neighbouring Hindu peoples for the bulk of their everyday goods except for foodstuffs and a few forest products.
Santal social organization is characterized by a lack of the caste cleavages so prominent in Hindu society, a patrilineal kinship system, and a relatively low level of political integration. The entire society seems to be divided into 9 (or 12) exogamous but non-corporate patrilineal clans. Each clan is connected to the other 8 (or 11) clans through marriage. These clans are divided into sub-clans, which in turn are subdivided into local patrilineal lineages.
The basic family unit is the extended patrilocal family. Each village is usually composed of a number of lineages.
The village is evidently the key political unit, but the largest formally organized territorial unit is the pargana, a loose confederation of approximately a dozen villages bound together to settle certain judicial questions and headed by an official called a parganath who is supposed to be a descendant of the founder of the village.
Villages consist of a long street with a single row of neat, clean and well-built dwellings on either side with outside walls painted with exquisite designs.
The woman has a high status among Santal: she runs the household and can hold moveable property like money, goods and cattle. However she does not have religious or political rights.
Santal have many gods with ill-defined attributes but whose festivals are strictly observed. Marang Buru, the Great Spirit, is the deity to whom sacrifices are made during the harvest festival of Sohrai. For some, Sing Bonga, the sun, is the supreme deity.
They also worship nature and ancestral spirits, including two specific to each family. Worshipping takes place in a sacred grove near by the village with the help of a priest.
Santal believe that spirits of the dead are employed in grinding the bones of past generations into dust from which the gods may recreate children.
Although magic and witchcraft have also figured prominently in Santal religious practices, these concepts were probably borrowed from the Hindus. The Santal strongly believed in the existence of witches in the society, who, motivated by envy and operating through the medium of the "evil eye" or other magical practices, spread sickness, death, and other calamities upon members of the village community.
By means of divinatory practices exercised through the offices of the witch-finder and the Ojha (a kind of exorcist), the causative agents of the disease were determined and ritually removed, and the identity of the witch revealed. Once the name of the witch was known, that person was often beaten, fined, driven from the community, and not infrequently killed. Witches in Santal society were inevitably female, while the Ojha and the witch-finders were male.
Today, many Santal have adopted Hinduism or Christianism.
Santal marriages exclude children. They are mostly based on love matching and follow several systems among which the buying of the bride through a dowry is the most widely accepted. Marriages are strictly clan-exogamous.
Santal burn their dead and ashes are taken to the holy Damodar River for immersion, the current of which takes them to the Ocean, which is the mythical origin and resting place of the Santal.
The legend goes that one day a wild goose came from the sea and laid two eggs giving birth to the first Santal man and woman named Pilku Hadam and Pilku Budhi.
Little research has been done about the art of this Indian tribal group which is however very rich in expression: wood-carving, wall and scroll painting are some their most outstanding art forms.
They excel in carving in wood a wide range of objects of mundane day to day or ritualistic use such as: masks, marriage litters, music instruments such as the lute.
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Source:http://www.adikala.com/main/main.asp?page=about&ga=Santal
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very good,I liked it very much.It is really a great help for Santhal Society and Others who are interested in.
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