The "Latecomers”
The fact that the Gadaba do not form a homogeneous tribal group occupying a similarly homogenous tribal territory, but instead share their territory with other Desia, has already been emphasized in the introduction. It appears beyond doubt that the Gadaba, Bondo, Parenga, and other Adivasi of the region occupied this part of the Eastern Ghats at an earlier period than the Goudo or the Mali, but historical documentation of the migrations from the plains is lacking, and speculation about the process can add little to our knowledge (cf. Pfeffer 1997a, 7). Except for the workers who have been drawn to the highlands by government industrial projects over the last sixty years (cf. Strumpell 2001, 2007), it can be assumed that the different Desia groups found in Gadaba villages today have lived in the highlands long enough to form an autonomous cultural constellation (cf. Pfeffer 1997a). This applies especially to the Dombo, who in some areas are more or less the only settlers among the Adivasi and who have developed very specific forms of interdependence with the “earth people” in each location. In what follows, I will examine these forms of social relationship with special reference to the village of Gudapada, although I will also bring in data from other villages. It will become clear that the relationship between the village founders and the earth also structures their relationship to other groups and embeds their “economic” transactions in a ritual context. The different affinal groups of the Gudapada village founders are “latecomers” (upria) just like the other Desia and are contrasted as such to the “earth people” (matia). A story told by the Sisa (Chamru Gor) recounts the village’s development.
When the Gadaba came from the Godabir [Godavari], an old married couple (Kukudi Dokra and Kukudi Dokri) were the first to settle here, and the hill still bears their name today, Mount Kuku. Two sons were born to them and were nursed by a tiger. They were named Kalu and Kelu, and the older one founded Gudapada, the younger one Sisaput [a hamlet of Gudapada]; at each of these places, they initiated a hundi. Back then, there were no fields of any kind, just forest, no Rona, no Mali, and no Dombo.
Later, there was a drought (mordi), and many people left the village. The ancestors of the Garsa Gor kutum went to Lenjiguda, others to Bilaput, to Polkaput, or to Kodomguda. Only the Chamru Gor people (Sisa) stayed: “We’re not afraid, it’s our land, where should we go?” they said to themselves. They were plowing right when a man from Odrugor, on the other side of the Machkund, passed by. He was Dombo, he said, and was not headed anywhere in particular. Actually, he was a Rona who had married a Dombo woman and been expelled from his community. Since they didn’t have any Dombo or any bank yet, they said that he should stay in the village. They found a wife for him [his first wife had apparently not come with him?], gave him something to eat, and wanted to give him land also. But he preferred to get a share of the harvest for his work. The Sisa fed him tsoru, and so they became tsorubai.
Little by little, the other Gadaba came back, and their fields were also given back to them, although there weren’t many back then. The Mundagoria (from Mundagor) were called in as witnesses (sakibai) to the land distribution, to avoid disputes. Later, the Messing (from Cheliamenda) and the Ruda’i (from Ridal) came as well. We’re just wanderers (bu- liba lok), and people don’t send them away, but instead give them some land.[1] [2]
The story describes the immigration of the Dombo. However, the “calling” (dak- bar) of the affinal groups leaves others, such as the Goudo, Kamar, and Rona,“6 unmentioned. I will first briefly introduce the affinal groups, then the Dombo, the Goudo, and the Kamar.
- [1] This story is also told by the other groups in the village (Kirsani, Dombo), although withslight variations. In a version told by the affinal Mundagoria in Gudapada, a new hundi shrinewas established after the various groups returned (according to this version, the Mundagoriaremained in the village with the Sisa during the drought). Blood from the sacrificial animals is infact still sprinkled today at the location where the old shrine once stood.
- [2] In the past, there were also a larger number of Sundi (liquor distillers) in Gudapada. At thetime I resided there, there was one young Sundi widow still living in Gudapada, where she soldliquor that her brothers distilled in her home village. Since then, she has moved to the city. Inaddition, one other Sundi family lives in the village and has now married Gadaba women for twogenerations, so that they are rather considered affines of the village founders.
