Korwa tribe

In the present study the author concentrated on the present condi tion and way of life the Korwa. He did not work on cultural change, only though he made some remarks on it.

The Korwa is one of the least known tribes of Chotanagpur living both in the plains and on the hills. Scholars like Dalton, Risley, Crook, Rowney, Majumdar and Vidyarthi have called them primitive. Materials on this tribe are scanty. We are not in a position to know them in detail. The author developed interest in the Korwa tribe while working on their economic life during his postgraduate study. He found during that study and also later on, when he made a pilot survey that the Korwas occupy two ecologi cal zones (plain and hill), and have two economies (agriculture, and food gathering and basketry) and many more striking differences in their social and religious life. It seemed that originally the Korwas were shifting cultivators. The hill Korwas were practising shifting cultivation only about 22 years back. They migrated from one place to another, in the course of shifting cultivation. Due to historical and economic force some of them settled in plains and adjusted with local, people.