Tribes Nomads and settled Communities

Originally, the Ahoms worshipped their own tribal gods. But gradually they adopted the Vaishnava faith, then prevailing in the Brahmaputra valley. The kings granted land to the temples and Brahmanas. In the reign of Sib Singh (1714-1744), Hinduism became the predominant religion. But the Ahom kings did not completely give up their traditional beliefs after adopting Hinduism and kept a harmonious balance by also preserving their ancestral religion.

The main characteristics of the tribal societies are as follows:

• Tribal societies are united by kinship bonds.
• There is no hierarchy among men and groups in tribal societies.
• Strong, complex, formal organisation are absent in tribal societies.
• Tribal societies have communitarian basis of land holding.

Mongols were the best-known pastoral and hunter-gatherer tribe in history. The basis of military and administrative systems of Mongols was the support of different ethnic and religious groups

The Ahom society was divided into different clans or khels on the basis of their specifically assigned occupation and their hereditary status. The Khels were assigned to different officials at different orders of gradation. Membership to a particular khel signified that they were the descendants of a common ancestor. A khel often controlled several villages. The smallest unit of khel contains 20 paiks. This smallest unit is controlled by an officer known as Bora.

The early Ahom state had a simple economy. The primary occupation of the Ahoms was agriculture. They introduced new methods of wet rice cultivation. During wars almost most men served in the army. In normal situations, they had to indulge themselves in the construction of embankments, irrigation systems and other public works.

Trees and bushes in a forest area are first cut and burnt. The crop is sown in the ashes. When this land loses its fertility, another plot of land is cleared and planted in the same way. This is called shifting agriculture

Nomadic pastoralists are the people who travel long distances with their animals in search of fodder. They live on milk and other pastoral products. They also exchange wool, ghee etc. with settle communities for grain, cloth, utensils and other products.

The Gonds comprise the largest tribal group in India. The large Gond kingdom was divided intogarhs. A particular Gond clan controlled each garh. Each garh was further divided into units of 84 villages called chaurasi. The chaurasi was subdivided into barhots which were made up of 12 villages each.

Suhungmung is considered as one of the real builders of the Ahom state. He undertook the first population census of his kingdom and brought different classes of craftsmen from outside his state and established them in his kingdom.

The Gonds refer to the tribal people who lived in the vast forests of Gondwana. They were found in large numbers across the present-day states of Chhattisgarh, Madhya Pradesh, Maharashtra and Andhra Pradesh. In the fourteenth century Gonds were the ruling class in many parts of central India. During this time several small Gond kingdoms were consolidated by Gond kings to form a Gond dynasty. The Gond kingdom of Garha Katanga that had 70,000 villages is mentioned in Akbar Nama

The Ahom kingdom of medieval Assam was based on a type of forced labour system known as the Paik system. The paiks rendered direct service to the king. The paik rendering service was rotated. Each village had to send a number of paiks by rotation. People from heavily populated areas were shifted to less populated places, which led to the break up of the Ahom clans.

The nature of the Gond society changed with the emergence of large states.

1. It weakened the clan identity. There was a gradual division of Gond society into unequal social classes.
2. Brahmanas became a dominant class in the society as they received land grants from the Gond rajas.
3. The Gond rajas desired to be recognised as Rajputs. They began forming marital relation with the Rajputs.

It earned much wealth by trapping and exporting wild elephants to other kingdoms.

Buranjis are a class of historical chronicles written in the Ahom and Assamese languages.

Pastroralism or Pastoral farming is the branch of agriculture concerned with the raising of livestock. It is animal husbandry; the care, tending and use of animals such as camels, goats, cattle, yaks, sheep etc.

There are three types of Nomads.

1. Hunter Gatherers:- Moving between hunting grounds
2. Pastoral Nomads:-Moving between pastures
3. Peripatetic Nomads:- Moving between Customers

Garha Katanga was a rich state. It earned much wealth by trapping and exporting wild elephants to other kingdoms. When the Mughals defeated the Gonds, they captured a huge booty of precious coins and elephants. They annexed part of the kingdom and granted the rest to Chandra Shah, an uncle of Bir Narain

The societies that didn't follow the rules laid down by Brahmins were called Tribals or Adivasis. They were the original/indigenous people living in an area. Their life styles were passed on from generation to generation. Many ruiling Indian dynasties draw their origin from these tribal groups. One such example is 'Rajputs'. Sultans & Mughals also belonged to tribal communities of Central Asia. The tribals were mainly hunter gatherers or agriculturists. They settled in hills/forests and other such difficult to reach places. Some tribals were Banjaras (Nomads) who moved from place to place

The Indian subcontinent is an area of great ecological and ethnic diversity. Its characteristic features in the early ages were various kinds of political features:-

• The centralized bureaucratic state.
• The kin-based tribe headed by autocratic chief.
• The tribal confederacy.
• The extended empire.

Transhumance is a practise followed by pastoral nomads. It is a kind of mobility zone in high mountains associated with pastoralists. During Summer these communities take their flock of sheep and cattle to higher mountains for gazing. During Winter they come down to lower reaches of mountains where they grow grass.