The Manjhi Santals of Hazaribagh

The Manjhi's are the forest dwelling tribe of the Santals on the Hazaribagh plateau and they call themselves by this name. They are an agricultural people who are also partly a hunting tribe who live alongside the jungle in the midst of fertile agricultural settlements in which their large mud houses with tiled roofs are built. They use their little brown dogs for hunting and these have been of great interest to me for the past four decades and this is a chapter in this book. The Hunt Rules of their annual ritual hunt called the Deson Sendra during the first half of May had never been documented before and this book is a special account of this unique event. Since I have also documented a large number of their songs and ethnological practices space is given to this work here. In this volume I am sharing my observations. Today the tribal has lost his proper ancestral place in the environment because everywhere the clash of elite interests with his resources is taking place, and these forest dwelling people along with their environment of minerals, forests, hills, rivers and wildlife are victims of development.