Research Scholar, Department of Anthropology, University of Calcutta
Online published on 23 March, 2018.
Spirituality is a feeling or sense or belief that there is something greater than myself, something more to being human than sensory experience, and that the greater whole of which we are part is cosmic or divine in nature (Spencer, 2012). From this viewpoint, human spirituality is an attempt to understand and connect to the unknowns of the universe or search for meaningfulness in one‘s life (Adler, 1932; Frankl, 1959) and it is considered as an inherent property of all human being (Helminiak, 1996; Newberg et, al. 2001). Among tribals, the concepts of spirituality and traditional beliefs and practices are as varied. Whereas, belief is a set of customs, emotional attitude and practices by means of which a group of people attempt to cope with ultimate problems of human life. Among the tribal groups of India, Bhumij is one of the major adivasi people concentrated primarily in the Indian states of West Bengal, Orissa and Jharkhand. They speak the Munda language (holo bhasa, holo rajot) of the Austro-Asiatic language family who has adopted Bengali as their second language due to their contact with the Bengali-speaking people. Etymologically the term ―Bhumij‖ means one who is born from the soil. The Bhumijs are a dolicocephalic and platyrrhine people with wavy hair and dark complexion (Risley, 1891). According to the census of India 2001, the Bhumij is the fourth largest tribal community in West Bengal comprising of 336, 436 (7.6% of the ST). The present paper is an intensive empirical study of a Bhumij village in the district of Bankura, West Bengal.
