FEATURES OR CHARACTERISTICS OF TRIBE
The chief characteristics or features of a tribe are the following:
Definite common topography:
The tribe inhabits and remains within a definite and common topography. In the absence of a common topography, the tribe would also lose its other characteristic features such as community sentiments, common language, etc. For this reason, a common habitat is essential for a tribe.
Sense of Unity:
Unless and until a group living in a particular area and using that area as a common residence does not possess a sense of unity, it cannot be called a tribe. A sense of unity is an invariable necessity for true tribal life. The very existence of a tribe depends upon the tribe’s sense of unity during times of peace and war.
Common Language:
The members of a tribe speak a common language. This also helps to generate and evolve a sense of communal unity among them.
Endogamous group:
The members of a tribe generally marry into their own group but now, due to increased contact with other tribes, the consequence of an increase in the means of transportation, the system of marrying within the tribe is also changing.
Ties of blood relationship:
A major cause of the sense of communal unity in the tribe is the tie of blood relationships between its members. The members of the tribe have faith in their descendants from a common, real or mythical ancestor and hence believe in blood relationships with other members.
Political organization:
Each tribe has its own political system. The tribal chief normally exercises authority over all the other members. The chieftainship is normally hereditary. In this way, each tribe has its own political organization which maintains harmony and avoids notes of discord among its members and protects them.
Common Name:
Every tribe has its own name. Each tribe is known to other tribes by its distinctive name. Examples of some Indian tribes: Garo, Khasi, Khasa, Naga, Limbu, Santal, Munda, Gond, Kota, Badaga, Urali, Todas, etc.
Common territory:
A tribe is a territory community. It means the tribe has a definite territory in which its members reside. For example, the Naga, Rengma Naga, Sema Naga and other tribals reside in Nagaland; Garos, Khasis, and Khasas live in Assam; Bhils in Madhya Pradesh; Soligas in Mysore; Todas in Nilgiri Hills of Tamil Nada, and so on.
Common Culture:
Each tribe has a way of life of its own. Each tribe has its own way of behaving, thinking, feeling and acting. Each has its own customs, traditions, morals, values, its own peculiar institutions in belief, its own culture. The very peculiarities of a tribe reveal that it has a distinctive culture of its own.
It remains a great job for the State and Central Government to bring tribes into confidence, educate them, clad them, take health care and arrange their living by developing skills.
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