The document summarizes several tribes of India, including:
- The Andamanese tribe, who are indigenous to the Andaman Islands and have lived in isolation for thousands of years.
- The Kolam tribe, who are designated as a particularly vulnerable tribal group in parts of central India and speak the Kolami language.
- The Khonds tribe, who are traditionally hunter-gatherers divided into the Kutia and plain-dwelling subgroups and speak the Kui language.
- The Sentinelese tribe, who inhabit North Sentinel Island and maintain an isolated hunter-gatherer society, resisting all contact by outsiders.
- The Nicobarese tribe, who are the dominant tribes
2. Andamanese Tribe
The Andamanese people are the various aboriginal inhabitants of the
Andaman Islands, a district of India located in the southeastern part of the
Bay of Bengal.
The Andamanese have been classified as Negritos, together with a few other
isolated groups in Asia by raciologist theories. They are pygmies, and are the
only modern people outside Africa with steatopygia. They have a
hunter-gatherer lifestyle and appear to have lived in substantial isolation for
thousands of years. This degree of isolation is unequaled, except perhaps by
the aboriginal inhabitants of Tasmania. The Andamanese are believed to be
descended from the migrations which, about 60,000 years ago, brought
modern humans out of Africa to the Indian subcontinent and Southeast Asia.
The Andamanese are a designated Scheduled Tribe.[1]
4. Kolam Tribe
Kolam are a designated Scheduled Tribe in the Indian states of
Andhra Pradesh, Chhattisgarh, Madhya Pradesh and Maharashtra.[1] They
belong to the sub-category Particularly vulnerable tribal group,[2] one of
the three belonging to this sub-category. The others being Katkari and
Madia Gond.[3]
They are a Hindu community and common in the Yavatmal, Chandrapur
and districts of Maharashtra. They speak the Kolami language.[4] They are
an agricultural community.[5] They have a high rate of returning positive to
the Naked eye single tube red cell osmotic fragility test (NESTROFT) test,
making them prone to high incidence of Thalassaemia.[6] The Kolam are
an endogamous group. They consist of twelve exogamous sub-groups
called pedi
6. Andh Tribe
The Andh are a designated Scheduled Tribe in the Indian states of Andhra Pradesh and
Maharashtra.[1] They seem to have originated in southern India in the vicinity of Madras
which was once ruled by the Andhra dynasty. However the identification is only used
for the people who by the start of the 20th century had a long history of residence in
central India.
The Andhs live primarily in the hills of the Adilabad district in Andhra Pradesh. They are
further subdivided into the Vertali and the Khaltali. The Vertali consider themselves a
superior people and avoid marrying the Khaltali.
According to the Anthropological Survey of India, there are over 74,000 Andhs in
Maharashtra These Andhs speak Marathi. The Andhs are primarily Hindus.[2]
About 100,000 Andh speak the Andh language.
8. Gondi Tribe
The Gondi (Gōndi) or Gond people are a Dravidian people in central India, spread over
the states of Madhya Pradesh, eastern Maharashtra (Vidarbha), Chhattisgarh, northern
Andhra Pradesh (Telangana), and Western Odisha (majhi or gan community). With over
four million people, they are the largest tribe in Central India.[2] They are a designated
Scheduled Tribe in Andhra Pradesh, Bihar, Chhattisgarh, Gujarat, Jharkhand, Madhya
Pradesh, Maharashtra, Odisha and West Bengal.[3]
Gond or Rajgond are same tribes. The term Raj Gond was widely used in 1950s, but has
now become almost obsolete, probably because of the political eclipse of the Gond
Rajas.[4]
The Gondi language is related to Telugu and other Dravidian languages. About half of
Gonds speak Gondi languages while the rest speak Indo-Aryan languages including
Hindi.
10. Khonds Tribe
Khonds or Kandhs (Oriya: କନଧ are an ethnic group of India. They are a
୍)
designated Scheduled Tribe in the states of Andhra Pradesh, Bihar,
Chhattisgarh, Madhya Pradesh, Maharashtra, Odisha and West Bengal.[1]
Traditionally hunter-gatherers, their main divisions are the Kutia, or hill
Khonds and plain-dwelling Khonds; the landowners among them are known
as Raj Khonds. The Khonds speak Kui language, which belongs to the
Dravidian family.
12. Kattunayakan Tribe
Kattunayakan are a designated Scheduled Tribe in the Indian states of Andhra Pradesh,
Karnataka, Kerala and Tamil Nadu.[1]
The word Kattunayakan means the king of the jungle in Tamil. The Kattunayakan are one of
the earliest known inhabitants of the Western Ghats, who are engaged in the collection and
gathering of forest produce, mainly wild honey and wax.[2]
The members of this community are short, have black skin, and have protruding foreheads.
The men wear short dhotis and half sleeved shirts. The women attach a long single piece of
cloth round their body just below the neck, leaving the shoulders and arms bare. Child
marriages were common before the 1990s, but now the girls marry after attaining puberty.
Monogamy is the general rule among the Kattunayakan community.
Kattunayakan believe in Hinduism and have a language, which is a mixture of all
Dravidian languages. The main deity of the tribe is Lord Shiva under the name of Bhairava.
They also worship animals, birds, trees, rock hillocks, and snakes, along with the other
Hindu deities.
14. Chenchu Tribe
The Chenchus are a designated Scheduled Tribe in the Indian states of
Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka and Odisha.[1] They are an aboriginal tribe
whose traditional way of life has been based on hunting and gathering. The
Chenchus speak the Chenchu language, a member of the Telugu branch
of the Dravidian language family. In general, the Chenchu relationship to
non-tribal people has been largely symbiotic. Some Chenchus have
continued to specialize in collecting forest products for sale to non-tribal
people. Many Chenchus live in the dense Nallamalai forest of Andhra
Pradesh.
16. Hill Reddis
The Hill Reddis or Konda Reddis are a designated Scheduled Tribe in the
Indian state of Andhra Pradesh.[1] They are entirely unrelated to the Hindu
caste also known by the name Reddi.[2] They tend to live in the
Godavari district as it was called during the British Raj. Today the area is
known as the Khammam district. There are also a small number in
West Godavari district and East Godavari district.[3]
The Hill Reddis normally speak in Telugu with outsiders.
The 1991 Census of India counted 432 Hill Reddis
18. Sentinelese Tribe
The Sentinelese (also Sentineli, Senteneli, Sentenelese, North Sentinel
Islanders) are an indigenous peoples of the Andaman Islands, in the
Bay of Bengal. They inhabit North Sentinel Island, which lies westward off
the southern tip of the Great Andaman archipelago. They are noted for
resisting attempts at contact by outsiders. The Sentinelese maintain an
essentially hunter-gatherer society subsisting through hunting, fishing, and
collecting wild plants. There is no evidence of either agricultural practices
or methods of producing fire.[1] Their language remains unclassified.
The Sentinelese are a designated Scheduled Tribe
20. Nicobarese Tribe
The Nicobarese people are a Mon–Khmer-speaking people of the
Nicobar Islands, a chain of 19 islands in the southeastern Bay of Bengal.
Only 12 of the 19 islands are inhabited. The largest and main island is
Great Nicobar. The term Nicobarese refers to the dominant tribes of the
Nicobar Islands. On each island, the people have specific names, but
together they are the Nicobarese. They call themselves Holchu, which
means "friend".[citation needed]
The Nicobarese are a designated Scheduled Tribe.[