Bhubaneswar: This Sunday visitors can visit the Bhumij tribe of Odisha by taking a virtual tour to the Odisha State Tribal Museum through the ST and SC Development Department.
Visitors to take the virtual tour need to open the Facebook and Twitter pages @stscdev, @scstrti and Director, SCSTRTI, Prof Dr AB Ota, said an official press release.
Living in Assam, West Bengal, Odisha, and Jharkhand, the Bhumij are an agricultural community.
Within Odisha, they reside primarily in the districts of Mayurbhanj, Keonjhar, Balasore, and Sundargarh.
Tracing their origin to Tamulia in Jharkhand, the Bhumij live alongside other tribal groups in multi-ethnic villages.
The attire of Bhumij is influenced by their Hindu neighbours.
Men wear a dhoti with an upper cloth gamchha on one shoulder. A shirt may be used to cover the upper body when leaving the village.
The women wear a saree and a blouse called a jacket. Traditionally these have been made of coarse cotton, white with red or blue lines. In appearance, the cloth was similar to that of the neighbours, the Oraon but with less prominent use of red in the form of thinner borders.
Nose rings, bead necklaces, armlets, and bangles are purchased by the women from local markets. Many of these are made from precious metals, particularly silver.
The Bhumij are not easily distinguished from other tribal communities in terms of attire.
A distinct socio-religious belief system however governs this community, internally divided into 15 totemic clans Horse, Lotus, Snake, and Earth.
For the Bhumij these totems representing flora, fauna, and celestial bodies connect them to the natural world inhabited by ghosts, spirits, and invisible Gods.
Singbonga is the supreme deity and each clan observes several taboos related to their totem and maintains marital contact across State boundaries.
