Book

Culture change in two Garo villages

Anthropological Survey of India, Govt. of India (42)Published In 1978 • Pages: xi, 188 , plates

By: Majumdar, Dhirendra Narayan.

AbstractBrief abstract written by HRAF anthropologists who have done the subject indexing for the document
This is a study of the effect of economic change on basic Garo institutions. Majumdar compares two villages from the Ambeng sub-tribe. Because of increased population in the region and land scarcity, both villages have reached the limits of shifting cultivation. One village continues to practice shifting cultivation, supplemented by outside wage labor. The other village has reclaimed marshland to form permanent paddy and grow cotton on their shifting plots. The author discusses how these changes have impacted differently on social relations within the household, village, and clans in each village. One finding is that the increased importance of a money economy and decreasing importance of landed property in the one village has significantly undermined the corporate nature of the household, and the authority structure of the village and lineage. Whereas in the other village traditional social institutions have been able to accommodate the change over to permanent agriculture. The author also looks at respective changes in religion, inheritance, dispute resolution, and settlement patterns. Also, he gives a good account of the property relations of shifting cultivation.
SubjectsDocument-level OCM identifiers given by the anthropology subject indexers at HRAF
Acculturation and culture contact
Agriculture
Land use
Real property
Exchange and transfers
Household
cultureCulture name from the Outline of World Cultures (OWC)
Garo
HRAF PubDateThe date HRAF published the document
1999
RegionThe area the document pertains to
Asia
Sub RegionThe more specific area the document pertains to, which is located within the Region
South Asia
Document TypeMay include journal articles, essays, collections of essays, monographs, or chapters/parts of monographs
Book
Evaluation
Creator TypeThe type of person writing the document, e.g. Ethnographer, Missionary, Archaeologist, Folklorist, Linguist, Indigenous Person, and so on.
Ethnologist
Document Rating A ranking done by HRAF anthropologists based on the strength of the source material on a scale of 1 to 5, as follows: 1 - poor; 2 - fair; 3 - good, useful data, but not uniformly excellent; 4 - excellent secondary data; 5 - excellent primary data.
4: Excellent Secondary Data
5: Excellent Primary Data
AnalystThe HRAF anthropologist who subject indexed the document and prepared other materials for the eHRAF culture/tradition collection
Ian Skoggard ; 1998
Field DateThe date the researcher conducted the fieldwork or archival research that produced the document
1953-1965
Coverage DateThe date or dates that the information in the document pertains to
1953-1965
Coverage PlaceLocation of the research culture or tradition (often a smaller unit such as a band, community, or archaeological site)
Matchakolgiri and Wajadagiri, Garo Hills Autonomous District, Meghalaya State, India
NotesAdditional notes
Dhirendra Narayan Majumdar
Includes bibliographical references (p. 182-188)
LCCNLibrary of Congress Control Number
79906248
LCSHLibrary of Congress Subject Headings
Garo (Indic people)