214 Okkaliga Okkaliga ETHNONYMS: Gangadikira Okkalu, the peasant caste, Vokkaliga, Wokkaliga The Okkaligas are the dominant landowning and culti- vating caste in the multicaste population of southern Karnataka State in southwestern peninsular India. Among the hundreds of villages in which Okkaligas live is Rampura (population 1,523, 735 of whom are Okkaligas, ca. 1955), which is the focus of this entry and which displays many of the features typical of Okkaliga villages in India. The village of Rampura is located on the Mysore-Hogur bus road about 32 kilometers from Mysore. The village is a cluster of houses and huts with thatched or tiled roofs; nar- row, uneven winding streets running between the rows of houses. Surrounding the village are numerous plots owned by individual landowners. Rampura is an interdependent unit, largely self-sufficient, having its own village assembly (panchayat), watch, ward, officials, and servants. In the multicaste village of Rampura the relationship of castes ap- pears to be determined more by the economic positions of the various members than by tradition. As agriculture is the pri- mary way of life the peasants are the dominant caste. The he- reditary headman (patel) and hereditary accountant (shan- borg) are both peasants. The headman's responsibility is to represent the village to the government and vice versa. The accountant keeps a register of how much land each head of a family or joint family has and the amount of tax on the land. The elders of the dominant caste are spokespersons for the village and owe their power not to legal rights derived from the state but to the dominant local position of their caste. The elders of the dominant peasant caste in Rampura admin- ister justice not only to members of their own caste group but also to all persons of other castes who seek their intervention. Agriculture dominates village life. The cultivation of rice is the main activity in the village. Meticulous attention to and irrigation of the rice is necessary throughout the period of cul- tivation, the rainy season from June to January. The conclu- sion of the harvest is marked by the festival of Sankranti. Dur- ing the dry season other social activities such as weddings occur. Each of the seventeen castes living in Rampura has a dis- tinctive tradition with strong ties with the same caste in vil- lages nearby. The village has a vertical unity of many castes whereas each caste has a horizontal unity through alliances beyond the village. Other major castes and their traditional occupations include the Kuruba (shepherd), the Musalman (artisan and trader), Holeya (servant and laborer), and the Madiga (Harijans). Although paddy and millet grain were principally used in trade, money is used more frequently today. Maintenance of caste separation was achieved through ideas of purity and pollution. Beliefs and behaviors including diet, occupation, and ritual distinguish higher from lower castes. Two examples of this are the rules governing the ac- ceptance of water or cooked food between castes and the rule of caste endogamy. At one time it was customary for two families, one be- longing to an upper caste and the other to an Untouchable caste, to be linked in a master-servant relationship (jajmani). Independence has begun a process of social change in which many of the traditional forms and orders have been replaced. The regional language is Kannada and the principal reli- gion is Hindu. The principal temples in Rampura are the tem- ples of Rama, Basava, Hatti Mad, and Kabbala Durgada Man. These are endowed with agricultural land. The kin group is agnatic with preference for cross-cousin marriage. Traditionally the Okkaligas live in joint families with the wife joining the home of her husband's family. Since Independence the joint families have tended to become smaller. There is a fairly strict sexual division of labor with few women working outside the home. Boys work on the land early, while girls work in and around the house. An Okkaliga is buried on his or her ancestral land; and the land is an im- portant part of one's life from an early age. Bibliography Banerjee, Bhavani (1966). Marriage and Kinship of the Gan- gadikara Vokkaligas of Mysore. Deccan College Dissertation Series, no. 27. Poona: Deccan College. Nanjundayya, H. V., and L. K. Ananthakrishna Iyer (1930). 'Gangadikira Okkalu." The Mysore Tribes and Castes 3:175- 185. Mysore: Mysore University. Srinivas, M. N. (1963). "The Social Structure of a Mysore Village." In India's Villages, edited by M. N. Srinivas, 21-35. Bombay: Asia Publishing House. Srinivas, M. N. (1976). The Remembered Village. Berkeley: University of California Press. SARA J. DICK Oraon ETHNONYMS: Dhangad, Dhangar, Dhanka ("farmworker"), Kisan, Kuda, Kurukh, Kurunkh, Orao, Uraon The Oraons are one of the largest tribes in South Asia, numbering 1,702,663 persons at the 1971 census. About half of them live in Bihar, mainly on the Chota Nagpur Plateau; the remainder are in Madhya Pradesh, Orissa, and West Bengal. They speak a Dravidian language known as Kurukh. Oraons are closely related to the neighboring Munda tribe, and the headman of an Oraon village is called munda. Although there are no subcastes among the Oraons, the Kudas ('navvies") and Kisans ("cultivators"), having their distinct occupations, tend to marry among themselves. Be- yond this, Oraons observe village and clan exogamy. The pat- rilineal extended family is the ideal residential unit, but nu- clear families are nearly as common. On the average a family contains five to seven coresident members. Oriya 215 Boys and girls marry after puberty, boys usually at 16-20 years. This follows a period in which both sexes sleep in a youth dormitory (dhumkuria). Boys are branded on the arm before being admitted to this institution. The dormitory pro- vides a pool of agricultural labor that can be hired when nec- essary. Most Oraons are farmers, and in the past they prac- ticed shifting cultivation. Hunting, formerly of major importance, has been reduced during the present century to the status of a ceremonial event; there is even a women's hunting ceremony, held every twelve years. Although a small minority of the tribe are Christians, the great majority follow a Hindu form of worship. Their main de- ities are local, non-Sanskritic ones, such as Chandi, Chau- thia, Dadgo Burhia, Gaon Deoti, and Jair Budhi, names one does not encounter elsewhere in India. A remarkable feature of Oraon society is that it is one of the very few on earth (along with the neighboring Mundas and Marias) that practices human sacrifice (called otanga or orka by Oraons). Although extremely rare, evidence suggests the phenomenon is most prevalent in Ranchi District, Bihar. During the nineteenth century, British officials reported a much broader incidence, occurring among the Munda, Oraon, Gond, Kond, and Santal tribes. Police records show that even as late as the 1980s there were a couple of sacrifices a year among the Munda, Maria, and Oraon tribes, and perhaps slightly more if one assumes that not all cases reached police attention. These sacrifices are of course illegal and are treated as homicide under Section 302 of the Indian Penal Code. Detection of culprits is made very difficult by the fact that some villagers believe the sacri- fices are essential for the fertility of their fields, and hence they are not forthcoming with any information. The human sacrifices usually occur in remote places around the begin- ning of the sowing season and the associated festival of Sar- hul. The reasons police can distinguish these sacrifices from other forms of murder are several: (1) the timing, to coincide with the sowing ceremony; (2) the victim is often an orphan or a homeless person, someone who will not be missed; (3) usually no personal animosities can account for the kill- ing; (4) the victim's throat is cut with a knife; (5) signs of puja (worship) are normally found near the corpse; and (6) part of one little finger has been cut off and is missing. This last item is presumably a part of the human offering that the sacrificer (otanga) will bury in his field. Sometimes blood of the sacrificial victim is mixed with seed grain before it is sown. In earlier centuries the entire body was probably cut up and parceled out to the various fields around a village. The danger of detection now makes this too difficult. The sacrifice is nor- mally offered to a vindictive goddess thought to control the fertility of the soil. If a human victim cannot be caught in time for the sowing ceremony, it is said that hair, sputum, or some other human bodily leavings are mixed with hen's blood as a token offering to this goddess. See also Munda Bibliography Hermanns, Matthias (1973). Die Oraon. Die religios- magische Weltanschanung der Primitivstamme Indiens, no. 3. Wiesbaden: Franz Steiner Verlag. Roy, Sarat Chandra (1915). The Oraon of Chota Nagpur. Calcutta: Brahmo Mission Press. Roy, Sarat Chandra (1928). Oraon Religion and Custom. Ranchi: Man in India Office. Russell, R. V., and Hira Lal (1916). 'Oraon." In The Tribes and Castes of the Central Provinces of India, edited by RV. Russell and Hira Lal. Vol. 4, 299-321. London: Macmillan. Reprint. 1969. Oosterhout: Anthropological Publications. Sachchidananda (1963). "Some Recent Evidence of Human Sacrifice." In Anthropology on the March: Recent Studies of In- dian Beliefs, Attitudes, and Social Institutions, edited by L. K. Bala Ratnam, 344-351. Madras: The Book Centre. Sachchidananda (1964). Culture Change in Tribal Bihar: Munda and Oraon. Calcutta: Bookland Private Limited. PAUL HOCKINGS Oriya ETHNONYMS: Odia, Odiya; adjective: Odissi, Orissi (Orissan in English) Orientation Identification. In Orissa State in India, the Oriya consti- tute the regional ethnic group, speaking the Oriya language and professing the Hindu religion, to be distinguished from an Oriya-speaking agricultural caste called Odia found in central coastal Orissa. Some Oriya live in the adjoining states. The Oriya language and ethnic group are presumably derived from the great Udra or Odra people known since Buddhist and pre-Buddhist Mahabharata epic times. Location. The state of Orissa is located between 17°49' and 22034' N and 81029' and 87029' E, covering 155,707 square kilometers along the northeastern seaboard of India. The large majority of the Oriya live in the coastal districts and along the Mahanadi and Brahmani rivers. Orissa falls in the tropical zone with monsoon rains from June-July to September-October. Western Orissa is afflicted with recur- ring drought. Demography. The last national census in 1981 records the population of Orissa as 26,370,271 persons, with a popu- lation density of 169 persons per square kilometer as com- pared to 216 for India as a whole. Of the total population of Orissa, 84.11 percent speak Oriya. Although rural, Orissa's urban centers with 5,000 or more persons rose from contain- ing 8.4 percent of the population in 1971 (81 towns) to 11.79 percent in 1981 (108 towns). Most of the ninety-three Scheduled Castes, which constitute 15.1 percent of Orissa's population, speak Oriya. Of the 23.1 percent of Orissa's pop- ulation categorized as Scheduled Tribes, many speak Oriya as 216 ut J their mother tongue. With 34.23 percent literacy in 1981 compared to 26.18 percent in 1971, Orissa trails behind many Indian states, especially in female literacy. linguistic Affiliation. Oriya belongs to the Indo-Aryan Branch of the Indo-European Family of languages. Its closest affinities are with Bengali (Bangla), Assamese (Asamiya), Maithili, Bhojpuri, and Magahi (Magadhi). The Oriya spo- ken in Cuttack and Puri districts is taken as standard Oriya. The Oriya language has a distinctive script, traceable to sixth- century inscriptions. It has thirteen vowels and thirty-six con- sonants (linguistically, spoken Oriya has six vowels, two semivowels, and twenty-nine consonants). History and Cultural Relations Orissa has been inhabited since prehistoric times, and Paleo- lithic, Mesolithic, Neolithic, and Chalcolithic cultural re. mains abound. By the fourth century B.C. there was a central- ized state in Orissa, though the hill areas often nurtured independent princedoms mostly evolving out of tribal poli- ties. In 261 B.C., Orissa, then known as Kalinga, was con- quered by the Emperor Ashoka after a bloody Kalinga war, leading to the conversion of the king into a nonviolent Bud- dhist who spread Buddhism in Asia. In the early second cen- tury B.C. Emperor Kharavela, a Jain by religion and a great conqueror, had the famous queen's cave-palace, Rani- gumpha, cut into the mountain near Bhubaneswar, with ex- quisite sculptures depicting dancers and musicians. Both eastern and western Orissa had famous Buddhist monaster- ies, universities, and creative savants. Starting in the first cen- tury A.D., according to Pliny and others, there was extensive maritime trade and cultural relations between Orissa (Ka- linga, Kling) and Southeast Asian countries from Myanmar (Burma) to Indonesia. Orissa was ruled under several Hindu dynasties until 1568, when it was annexed by the Muslim kingdom of Bengal. In 1590, Orissa came under the Mogul empire, until the Marathas seized it in 1742. In 1803 it came under British rule. As early as 1817 the agriculturist militia (Paik) of Orissa revolted against the British in one of the first regional anticolonial movements. In 1936 Orissa was de- clared a province of British India, and the princely states with an Oriya population were merged into Orissa in 1948-1949. The cultures and languages of south India, western India, and northern India-and also those of the tribal peoples-have enriched the cultural mosaic and the vocabulary of the Oriya. Settlements In 1981, 88.21 percent of the people of Orissa lived in vil ages. In 1971, 51,417 villages of Orissa ranged in population from less than 500 persons (71.9 percent), 500-900 persons (18.8 percent), 1,000-1,999 persons (7.5 percent), to more than 2,000 persons (1.78 percent). The Oriya villages fall into two major types: linear and clustered. The linear settle- ment pattern is found mostly in Puri and Ganjam districts, with houses almost in a continuous chain on both sides of the intervening village path and with kitchen gardens at the back of the houses. Cultivated fields surround the settlement. In the cluster pattern each house has a compound with fruit trees and a kitchen garden. The Scheduled Castes live in lin. ear or cluster hamlets slightly away from the main -settlement, with their own water tanks or, today, their own wells. In the flooded coastal areas one finds some dispersed houses, each surrounded by fields for cultivation. In traditional Orissa, two styles of houses (ghara) were common. The agriculturists and higher castes had houses of a rectangular ground plan with rooms along all the sides (khanja-ghara), leaving an open space (agana) in the center. Mud walls with a gabled roof of thatch made of paddy stalks or jungle grass (more durable) were common. The more affluent had double-ceiling houses (atu ghara) with the inner ceiling of mud plaster supported by wooden or bamboo planks. This construction made it fire- proof and insulated against the summer heat and winter chill. The entrance room was usually a cowshed, as cattle were the wealth of the people. Men met villagers and guests on the wide front veranda. Poorer people had houses with mud walls and straw-thatched gable roofs, without enclosed courtyards or double ceilings. The smoke from the kitchen escaped under the gabled roof. The Oriya had, in common with east- ern India, a wooden husking lever (dhenki) in the courtyard for dehusking paddy rice or making rice flour. Nowadays houses with large windows and doors, roofs of concrete (tiled or with corrugated iron or asbestos sheets), walls of brick and mortar, and cement floors are becoming common even in re- mote villages. In the traditional house, the northeastern cor- ner of the kitchen formed the sacred site of the ancestral spir- its (ishana) for family worship. Economy Subsistence and Commercial Activities. Subsistence cul- tivation of paddy is ubiquitous as rice is the staple food. Double-cropping, sometimes even triple-cropping in irrigated fields, and single-cropping in drought-affected or rain-fed areas are all common. Large-scale farming with heavy agricul- tural machinery is still uncommon. Plowing with two bullocks or two buffalo is usual, with a wooden plow. Only recently have iron plows been coming into use. Cash crops like sugar- cane, jute, betel leaves on raised mounds, coconuts and areca nuts (betel nuts) are grown in coastal Orissa, and pulses and oil seeds in drought-prone areas. Recently coffee, cocoa, car- damom, pineapples, and bananas have also been raised on a commercial scale. Fish are caught in traps and nets from vil- lage tanks, streams, rivers, coastal swamps, and also in the flooded paddy fields. Fishing boats with outboard motors and trawlers are nowadays used at sea. The domestic animals in- clude cows, goats, cats, chickens, ducks, and water buffalo among the lowest castes, as well as pigs and dogs among the urban middle class. Industrial Arts. Most large villages had castes of artisans who served the agricultural economy in former times. Car- penters, wheelwrights, and blacksmiths were absolutely nec- essary. Some villages had potters with pottery wheels and weavers with cottage looms (cotton was formerly grown and yam spun). Today, industrial products are displacing the vil- lage products except for the wooden plow and cart wheels. Some cottage industries, especially the handloomed textiles (including the weaving of ikat, cotton textiles that are tied and dyed), are producing for export. Brass and bell-metal utensils and statues and silver and gold filigree ornaments have a wide clientele. Oriya 217 Trade. In villages, peddling and weekly markets were the usual commercial channels. Since World War 11 ration shops have sold scarce essential commodities. Division of Labor. Men plow, sow, and carry goods with a pole balanced on the shoulder, whereas women carry things on their head, weed, and transplant the fields. Harvesting is done by both sexes. While men fish and hunt, women per- form household chores and tend babies. Traditionally, among higher-caste and higher-class families, women did not work outside home. Nowadays men and some women are en- gaged in salaried service, but only lower-caste and lower-class women undertake wage labor. Land Tenure. Before Independence land under agricul- ture had increased substantially. However, because of the high rate of population growth and subdivision of landhold- ings, the number of marginal farmers and the landless in, creased sharply thereafter. Following Independence some land above the statutory ceiling or from the common property resources was distributed among the landless, weaker sections of society. Large-scale industrial and irrigation-cum-power projects displaced people and added to the ranks of the landless. All of this has resulted in various categories of ten- ancy and contractual lease ofland for subsistence cultivation. Kinship Kin Groups and Descent. Traditionally and currently, three patterns of family organization have obtained: (1) the multihousehold compounds where the separate families of the sons of the common father are housed as an extended family; (2) joint families with all the brothers living together, with a common kitchen, with or without the parents living (more common in villages than towns); (3) several families belonging to a patrilineage among whom kin obligations con- tinue, residing in neighboring villages. Descent is patrilineal. Kinship Terminology. The social emphasis on seniority in age and differentiation by sex and generation are observed. Kinship terminology follows the Hawaiian system. Fictive or ritual kin terms are used widely and are expressed in respect and affection and also in meeting appropriate kin obligations. Marriage and Family Marriage. Although polygyny was practiced earlier, most marriages today are monogamous. Most marriages even now are also arranged by parents, though some are based on the mutual choice of the marriage partners. Only in western Orissa and southern Orissa is cousin marriage practiced. Marriage partners must not belong to the same gotra (mythi- cal patrilineal descent group). Bride-price among the lower and middle castes has been replaced by a more costly dowry for the bridegroom among all classes and castes. After mar- riage, residence is patrilocal, with the bride assuming the gotra of the husband. Nowadays residence tends to be neo- local near the place of work. The Hindu marriage was ideally for this life and beyond, but since 1956 divorce has been per- mitted under legal procedures. Domestic Unit. Living in a family is considered normal and proper. Most families today in both villages and towns are nuclear, though some are joint families. Members working and living outside usually visit the residual family and shrines occasionally. Often land is cultivated jointly by sharing the farm expenses. Recently there has been a tendency to reduce the size of the rural household through family planning. Inheritance. Traditionally only sons inherited land and other immovable properties. The eldest son was given an ad- ditional share (jyesthansha). Since 1956 the widow and daughters have been legal cosharers in all property. Socialization. Parents, grandparents, and siblings care for infants and children and provide informal-and, recently, formal-education before school. Education of girls is still not common beyond primary school. Physical punishment to discipline a child is common, though infants are usually spared and cuddled. Respect for seniors in all situations and the value of education are emphasized, especially among the higher classes. Sociopolitical Organization Orissa is a state in the Republic of India, which has an elected president. The governor is the head of Orissa State, and the chief minister is the elected head of the government of Orissa. Social Organization. Traditional Oriya society is hierarchi- cally organized primarily on the basis of caste (and subcaste) and occupations and secondarily on the basis of social class. The highest castes, Brahman, are priests and teachers of the Great Tradition. Below them in descending order of status are: the Kshatriya, warriors and rulers; the Vaisya, or traders; and the Sudra, or skilled and unskilled workers and service holders. The occupations involving manual and menial work are low in status, and polluting occupations like skinning dead animals or making shoes are associated with the lowest castes, the Un- touchables. Ascriptive status in the caste system is sometimes checked now by acquired status in the class system. In rural Orissa patron-client relationships are common and social mo- bility is difficult Political Organization. Orissa is divided into thirteen dis- tricts (tilla), and each district is divided into subdivisions (tahsils) for administrative purposes, into police stations (thana) for law-and-order purposes, and into community development blocs (blok) for development purposes. There are village-cluster committees (panchayatj with elected mem- bers and a head (sarpanch) for the lowest level of self. administration and development. The community develop- ment bloc has a panchayat samiti or council of panchayats headed by the chairman, with all the sarpanch as members. Each caste or populous subcaste in a group of adjacent vil- lages also had a jati panchayat for enforcing values and insti- tutional discipline. The traditional gram panchayat, consist- ing of the leaders of several important castes in a village, was for maintaining harmony and the ritual cycle. Social Control and Conflict. Warfare between adjacent princedoms and villages came to a stop under British rule. The police stations (thana) maintain law and order in the rural areas. Religion and Expressive Culture Hinduism of various sects is a central and unifying force in Oriya society. The overwhelmingly important Vaishnava sect have their supreme deity, Jagannatha, who lords it over the re- 218 Oriya. ligious firmament of Orissa. Lord Jagannatha's main temple is at Puri on the sea, where the famous annual festival with huge wooden chariots dragged for the regional divine triad- Jagannatha, Balabhadra, and Subhadra (goddess sister)- draws about half a million devotees. The famous Lingaraja temple of Lord Shiva at Bhubaneswar, the famous Viraja god- dess temple at Jajpur, both in coastal Orissa, and Mahi- magadi, the cult temple of the century-old Mahima sect of worshipers of Shunya Parama Brahma (the absolute soul void) at Joranda in central Orissa, are highly sacred for the Oriya people. Religious Beliefs. The people of Orissa profess Hinduism overwhelmingly (96.4 percent), with Christianity (1.73 per- cent), Islam (1.49 percent), Sikhism (0.04 percent) and Bud- dhism (0.04 percent) trailing far behind. Obviously many tri- bal groups have declared Hinduism as their religion. Apart from supreme beings, gods, and goddesses of classical Hindu religion, the Oriya propitiate a number of disease spirits, vil- lage deities, and revered ancestral spirits. Religious Practitioners. In the villages each Brahman priest has a number of client families of Kshatriya, Vaisya, and some Sudra castes. There are also magicians (gunia) practicing witchcraft and sorcery. Kalisi or shamans are con- sulted to discover the causes of crises and the remedies. Ceremonies. A large number of rituals and festivals mostly following the lunar calendar are observed. The most important rituals are: the New Year festival (Bishuba Sankranti) in mid-April; the fertility of earth festival (Raja Parab); festival of plowing cattle (Gahma Punein); the ritual of eating the new rice (Nabanna); the festival worshiping the goddess of victory, known otherwise as Dassara (Durga Puja); the festival of the unmarried girls (Kumar Purnima); the solar-calendar harvest festival (Makar Sankranti); the fast for Lord Shiva (Shiva Ratri); the festival of colors and the agri- cultural New Year (Dola Purnima or Dola Jatra); and, finally, the festival worshiping Lord Krishna at the end of February. In November-December (lunar month of Margashira) every Thursday the Gurubara Osha ritual for the rice goddess Lak- shmi is held in every Oriya home. Arts. The ancient name of Orissa, Utkala, literally means 'the highest excellence in the arts." The Oriya are famous for folk paintings, painting on canvas (patta-chitra), statuary and sculptures, the Orissan style of temple architecture, and tour- ist and pilgrim mementos made of horn, papier-miche, and applique work. Classical Odissi dance, the virile Chhow dance, colorful folk dances with indigenous musical instru- ments (percussion, string, and wind) and also Western in- struments, dance dramas, shadow plays (Ravana-Chhaya) with puppets, folk opera (atra), mimetic dances, and musical recitation of God's names are all very popular. Orissi music, largely following classical ragaa) tunes, and folk music, are rich and varied. Medicine. Illness is attributed to "hot" or "cold" food, evil spirits, disease spirits, and witches; and mental diseases to sorcery or spirit possession. Leprosy and gangrenous wounds are thought to be punishment for the commission of "great" sins, and, for general physical and mental conditions, planets and stars in the zodiac are held to be responsible. Cures are sought through herbal folk medicines, propitiation of super- natural beings and spirits, exorcism, counteraction by a gunia (sorcery and witchcraft specialist), and the services of home- opathic, allopathic, or Ayurvedic specialists. Death and Afterlife. Death is considered a transitional state in a cycle of rebirths till the soul (atma) merges in the absolute soul (paramatma). The god of justice, Yama, assigns the soul either to Heaven (swarga) or to Hell (narka). The fu- neral rites and consequent pollution attached to the family and lineage of the deceased last for ten days among higher castes. The dead normally are cremated. Bibliography Das, Binod Sankar (1984). Life and Culture in Orissa. Cal- cutta: Minerva Associates. Das, K. B., and L. K. Mahapatra (1979). Folklore of Orissa. New Delhi: National Book Trust India. 2nd ed. 1990. Das, M. N., ed. (1977). Sidelights on History and Culture of Orissa. Cuttack: Vidyapuri. Eschmann, A., H. Kulke, and G. C. Tripathi (1978). The Cult of Jagannath and the Regional Tradition of Orissa. New Delhi: Manohar Publications. Fisher, E., S. Mahapatra, and D. Pathy (1980). Orissa Kunst und Kultur in Nordost Indien. Zurich: Museum Rietberg. Ganguly, Mano Mohan (1912). Brissa and Her Remains- Ancient and Mediaeval (District Puri). Calcutta: Thacker, Spink & Co.; London: W. Thacker & Co. Mahapatra, L. K. (1987). "Mayurbhanj, Keonjhar, and Bonai Ex-Princely States of Orissa." In Tribal Polities and Pre- Colonial State Systems in Eastern and Northeastern India, ed- ited by Surajit Sinha. Calcutta: K. P. Bagchi. Marglin, Fridirique Apffel (1985). Wives of the God-King: The Rituals of the Devadasis of Puri. New Delhi: Oxford Uni- versity Press. Orissa, Government of. Revenue Department (1990). "His- tory" and "People." In Orissa State Gazetteer. Vol. 1. Cuttack: Orissa Government Press. L. K. MAHAPATRA . 214 Okkaliga Okkaliga ETHNONYMS: Gangadikira Okkalu, the peasant caste, Vokkaliga, Wokkaliga The Okkaligas are the dominant landowning and culti- vating caste in the multicaste population of southern Karnataka State in southwestern peninsular India. Among the hundreds of villages in which Okkaligas live is Rampura (population 1,523, 735 of whom are Okkaligas, ca. 1955), which is the focus of this entry and which displays many of the features typical of Okkaliga villages in India. The village of Rampura is located on the Mysore-Hogur bus road about 32 kilometers from Mysore. The village is a cluster of houses and huts with thatched or tiled roofs; nar- row, uneven winding streets running between the rows of houses. Surrounding the village are numerous plots owned by individual landowners. Rampura is an interdependent unit, largely self-sufficient, having its own village assembly (panchayat), watch, ward, officials, and servants. In the multicaste village of Rampura the relationship of castes ap- pears to be determined more by the economic positions of the various members than by tradition. As agriculture is the pri- mary way of life the peasants are the dominant caste. The he- reditary headman (patel) and hereditary accountant (shan- borg) are both peasants. The headman's responsibility is to represent the village to the government and vice versa. The accountant keeps a register of how much land each head of a family or joint family has and the amount of tax on the land. The elders of the dominant caste are spokespersons for the village and owe their power not to legal rights derived from the state but to the dominant local position of their caste. The elders of the dominant peasant caste in Rampura admin- ister justice not only to members of their own caste group but also to all persons of other castes who seek their intervention. Agriculture dominates village life. The cultivation of rice is the main activity in the village. Meticulous attention to and irrigation of the rice is necessary throughout the period of cul- tivation, the rainy season from June to January. The conclu- sion of the harvest is marked by the festival of Sankranti. Dur- ing the dry season other social activities such as weddings occur. Each of the seventeen castes living in Rampura has a dis- tinctive tradition with strong ties with the same caste in vil- lages nearby. The village has a vertical unity of many castes whereas each caste has a horizontal unity through alliances beyond the village. Other major castes and their traditional occupations include the Kuruba (shepherd), the Musalman (artisan and trader), Holeya (servant and laborer), and the Madiga (Harijans). Although paddy and millet grain were principally used in trade, money is used more frequently today. Maintenance of caste separation was achieved through ideas of purity and pollution. Beliefs and behaviors including diet, occupation, and ritual distinguish higher from lower castes. Two examples of this are the rules governing the ac- ceptance of water or cooked food between castes and the rule of caste endogamy. At one time it was customary for two families, one be- longing to an upper caste and the other to an Untouchable caste, to be linked in a master-servant relationship (jajmani). Independence has begun a process of social change in which many of the traditional forms and orders have been replaced. The regional language is Kannada and the principal reli- gion is Hindu. The principal temples in Rampura are the tem- ples of Rama, Basava, Hatti Mad, and Kabbala Durgada Man. These are endowed with agricultural land. The kin group is agnatic with preference for cross-cousin marriage. Traditionally the Okkaligas live in joint families with the wife joining the home of her husband's family. Since Independence the joint families have tended to become smaller. There is a fairly strict sexual division of labor with few women working outside the home. Boys work on the land early, while girls work in and around the house. An Okkaliga is buried on his or her ancestral land; and the land is an im- portant part of one's life from an early age. Bibliography Banerjee, Bhavani (1966). Marriage and Kinship of the Gan- gadikara Vokkaligas of Mysore. Deccan College Dissertation Series, no. 27. Poona: Deccan College. Nanjundayya, H. V., and L. K. Ananthakrishna Iyer (1930). 'Gangadikira Okkalu." The Mysore Tribes and Castes 3:17 5- 185. Mysore: Mysore University. Srinivas, M. N. (1963). "The Social Structure of a Mysore Village." In India's Villages, edited by M. N. Srinivas, 2 1-3 5. Bombay: Asia Publishing House. Srinivas, M. N. (1976). The Remembered Village. Berkeley: University of California Press. SARA J. DICK Oraon ETHNONYMS: Dhangad, Dhangar, Dhanka ("farmworker"), Kisan, Kuda, Kurukh, Kurunkh, Orao, Uraon The Oraons are one of the largest tribes in South Asia, numbering 1,702,663 persons at the 1971 census. About half of them live in Bihar, mainly on the Chota Nagpur Plateau; the remainder are in Madhya Pradesh, Orissa, and West Bengal. They speak a Dravidian language known as Kurukh. Oraons are closely related to the neighboring Munda tribe, and the headman of an Oraon village is called munda. Although there are no subcastes among the Oraons, the Kudas ('navvies") and Kisans ("cultivators"), having their distinct occupations, tend to marry among themselves. Be- yond this, Oraons observe village and clan exogamy. The pat- rilineal extended family is the ideal residential unit, but nu- clear families are nearly as common. On the average a family contains five to seven coresident members. Oriya 215 Boys and girls marry after puberty, boys usually at 1 6-2 0 years. This follows a period in which both sexes sleep in a youth dormitory (dhumkuria). Boys are branded on the arm before being admitted to this institution. The dormitory pro- vides a pool of agricultural labor that can be hired when nec- essary. Most Oraons are farmers, and in the past they prac- ticed shifting cultivation. Hunting, formerly of major importance, has been reduced during the present century to the status of a ceremonial event; there is even a women's hunting ceremony, held every twelve years. Although a small minority of the tribe are Christians, the great majority follow a Hindu form of worship. Their main de- ities are local, non-Sanskritic ones, such as Chandi, Chau- thia, Dadgo Burhia, Gaon Deoti, and Jair Budhi, names one does not encounter elsewhere in India. A remarkable feature of Oraon society is that it is one of the very few on earth (along with the neighboring Mundas and Marias) that practices human sacrifice (called otanga or orka by Oraons). Although extremely rare, evidence suggests the phenomenon is most prevalent in Ranchi District, Bihar. During the nineteenth century, British officials reported a much broader incidence, occurring among the Munda, Oraon, Gond, Kond, and Santal tribes. Police records show that even as late as the 1980s there were a couple of sacrifices a year among the Munda, Maria, and Oraon tribes, and perhaps slightly more if one assumes that not all cases reached police attention. These sacrifices are of course illegal and are treated as homicide under Section 302 of the Indian Penal Code. Detection of culprits is made very difficult by the fact that some villagers believe the sacri- fices are essential for the fertility of their fields, and hence they are not forthcoming with any information. The human sacrifices usually occur in remote places around the begin- ning of the sowing season and the associated festival of Sar- hul. The reasons police can distinguish these sacrifices from other forms of murder are several: (1) the timing, to coincide with the sowing ceremony; (2) the victim is often an orphan or a homeless person, someone who will not be missed; (3) usually no personal animosities can account for the kill- ing; (4) the victim's throat is cut with a knife; (5) signs of puja (worship) are normally found near the corpse; and (6) part of one little finger has been cut off and is missing. This last item is presumably a part of the human offering that the sacrificer (otanga) will bury in his field. Sometimes blood of the sacrificial victim is mixed with seed grain before it is sown. In earlier centuries the entire body was probably cut up and parceled out to the various fields around a village. The danger of detection now makes this too difficult. The sacrifice is nor- mally offered to a vindictive goddess thought to control the fertility of the soil. If a human victim cannot be caught in time for the sowing ceremony, it is said that hair, sputum, or some other human bodily leavings are mixed with hen's blood as a token offering to this goddess. See also Munda Bibliography Hermanns, Matthias (1973). Die Oraon. Die religios- magische Weltanschanung der Primitivstamme Indiens, no. 3. Wiesbaden: Franz Steiner Verlag. Roy, Sarat Chandra (1915). The Oraon of Chota Nagpur. Calcutta: Brahmo Mission Press. Roy, Sarat Chandra (1928). Oraon Religion and Custom. Ranchi: Man in India Office. Russell, R. V., and Hira Lal (1916). 'Oraon." In The Tribes and Castes of the Central Provinces of India, edited by RV. Russell and Hira Lal. Vol. 4, 29 9-3 21. London: Macmillan. Reprint. 1969. Oosterhout: Anthropological Publications. Sachchidananda (1963). "Some Recent Evidence of Human Sacrifice." In Anthropology on the March: Recent Studies of In- dian Beliefs, Attitudes, and Social Institutions, edited by L. K. Bala Ratnam, 34 4-3 51. Madras: The Book Centre. Sachchidananda (1964). Culture Change in Tribal Bihar: Munda and Oraon. Calcutta: Bookland Private Limited. PAUL HOCKINGS Oriya ETHNONYMS: Odia, Odiya; adjective: Odissi, Orissi (Orissan in English) Orientation Identification. In Orissa State in India, the Oriya consti- tute the regional ethnic group, speaking the Oriya language and professing the Hindu religion, to be distinguished from an Oriya-speaking agricultural caste called Odia found in central coastal Orissa. Some Oriya live in the adjoining states. The Oriya language and ethnic group are presumably derived from the great Udra or Odra people known since Buddhist and pre-Buddhist Mahabharata epic times. Location. The state of Orissa is located between 17°49' and 22034' N and 81029' and 87029' E, covering 155,707 square kilometers along the northeastern seaboard of India. The large majority of the Oriya live in the coastal districts and along the Mahanadi and Brahmani rivers. Orissa falls in the tropical zone with monsoon rains from June-July to September-October. Western Orissa is afflicted with recur- ring drought. Demography. The last national census in 1981 records the population of Orissa as 26,370,271 persons, with a popu- lation density of 169 persons per square kilometer as com- pared to 216 for India as a whole. Of the total population of Orissa, 84.11 percent speak Oriya. Although rural, Orissa's urban centers with 5,000 or more persons rose from contain- ing 8.4 percent of the population in 1971 (81 towns) to 11.79 percent in 1981 (108 towns). Most of the ninety-three Scheduled Castes, which constitute 15.1 percent of Orissa's population, speak Oriya. Of the 23.1 percent of Orissa's pop- ulation categorized as Scheduled Tribes, many speak Oriya as 216 ut. Puri and Ganjam districts, with houses almost in a continuous chain on both sides of the intervening village path and with kitchen gardens at the back of the houses. Cultivated fields surround the settlement. In the cluster pattern each house has a compound with fruit trees and a kitchen garden. The Scheduled Castes live in lin. ear or cluster hamlets slightly away from the main -settlement, with their own water tanks or, today, their own wells. In the flooded coastal areas one finds some dispersed houses, each surrounded by fields for cultivation. In traditional Orissa, two styles of houses (ghara) were common. The agriculturists and higher castes had houses of a rectangular ground plan with rooms along all the sides (khanja-ghara), leaving an open space (agana) in the center. Mud walls with a gabled roof of thatch made of paddy stalks or jungle grass (more durable) were common. The more affluent had double-ceiling houses (atu ghara) with the inner ceiling of mud plaster supported by wooden or bamboo planks. This construction made it fire- proof and insulated against the summer heat and winter chill. The entrance room was usually a cowshed, as cattle were the wealth of the people. Men met villagers and guests on the wide front veranda. Poorer people had houses with mud walls and straw-thatched gable roofs, without enclosed courtyards or double ceilings. The smoke from the kitchen escaped under the gabled roof. The Oriya had, in common with east- ern India, a wooden husking lever (dhenki) in the courtyard for dehusking paddy rice or making rice flour. Nowadays houses with large windows and doors, roofs of concrete (tiled or with corrugated iron or asbestos sheets), walls of brick and mortar, and cement floors are becoming common even in re- mote villages. In the traditional house, the northeastern cor- ner of the kitchen formed the sacred site of the ancestral spir- its (ishana) for family worship. Economy Subsistence and Commercial Activities. Subsistence cul- tivation of paddy is ubiquitous as rice is the staple food. Double-cropping, sometimes even triple-cropping in irrigated fields, and single-cropping in drought-affected or rain-fed areas are all common. Large-scale farming with heavy agricul- tural machinery is still uncommon. Plowing with two bullocks or two buffalo is usual, with a wooden plow. Only recently have iron plows been coming into use. Cash crops like sugar- cane, jute, betel leaves on raised mounds, coconuts and areca nuts (betel nuts) are grown in coastal Orissa, and pulses and oil seeds in drought-prone areas. Recently coffee, cocoa, car- damom, pineapples, and bananas have also been raised on a commercial scale. Fish are caught in traps and nets from vil- lage tanks, streams, rivers, coastal swamps, and also in the flooded paddy fields. Fishing boats with outboard motors and trawlers are nowadays used at sea. The domestic animals in- clude cows, goats, cats, chickens, ducks, and water buffalo among the lowest castes, as well as pigs and dogs among the urban middle class. Industrial Arts. Most large villages had castes of artisans who served the agricultural economy in former times. Car- penters, wheelwrights, and blacksmiths were absolutely nec- essary. Some villages had potters with pottery wheels and weavers with cottage looms (cotton was formerly grown and yam spun). Today, industrial products are displacing the vil- lage products except for the wooden plow and cart wheels. Some cottage industries, especially the handloomed textiles (including the weaving of ikat, cotton textiles that are tied and dyed), are producing for export. Brass and bell-metal utensils and statues and silver and gold filigree ornaments have a wide clientele. Oriya 217 Trade. In villages, peddling and weekly markets were the usual commercial channels. Since World War 11 ration shops have sold scarce essential commodities. Division of Labor. Men plow, sow, and carry goods with a pole balanced on the shoulder, whereas women carry things on their head, weed, and transplant the fields. Harvesting is done by both sexes. While men fish and hunt, women per- form household chores and tend babies. Traditionally, among higher-caste and higher-class families, women did not work outside home. Nowadays men and some women are en- gaged in salaried service, but only lower-caste and lower-class women undertake wage labor. Land Tenure. Before Independence land under agricul- ture had increased substantially. However, because of the high rate of population growth and subdivision of landhold- ings, the number of marginal farmers and the landless in, creased sharply thereafter. Following Independence some land above the statutory ceiling or from the common property resources was distributed among the landless, weaker sections of society. Large-scale industrial and irrigation-cum-power projects displaced people and added to the ranks of the landless. All of this has resulted in various categories of ten- ancy and contractual lease ofland for subsistence cultivation. Kinship Kin Groups and Descent. Traditionally and currently, three patterns of family organization have obtained: (1) the multihousehold compounds where the separate families of the sons of the common father are housed as an extended family; (2) joint families with all the brothers living together, with a common kitchen, with or without the parents living (more common in villages than towns); (3) several families belonging to a patrilineage among whom kin obligations con- tinue, residing in neighboring villages. Descent is patrilineal. Kinship Terminology. The social emphasis on seniority in age and differentiation by sex and generation are observed. Kinship terminology follows the Hawaiian system. Fictive or ritual kin terms are used widely and are expressed in respect and affection and also in meeting appropriate kin obligations. Marriage and Family Marriage. Although polygyny was practiced earlier, most marriages today are monogamous. Most marriages even now are also arranged by parents, though some are based on the mutual choice of the marriage partners. Only in western Orissa and southern Orissa is cousin marriage practiced. Marriage partners must not belong to the same gotra (mythi- cal patrilineal descent group). Bride-price among the lower and middle castes has been replaced by a more costly dowry for the bridegroom among all classes and castes. After mar- riage, residence is patrilocal, with the bride assuming the gotra of the husband. Nowadays residence tends to be neo- local near the place of work. The Hindu marriage was ideally for this life and beyond, but since 1956 divorce has been per- mitted under legal procedures. Domestic Unit. Living in a family is considered normal and proper. Most families today in both villages and towns are nuclear, though some are joint families. Members working and living outside usually visit the residual family and shrines occasionally. Often land is cultivated jointly by sharing the farm expenses. Recently there has been a tendency to reduce the size of the rural household through family planning. Inheritance. Traditionally only sons inherited land and other immovable properties. The eldest son was given an ad- ditional share (jyesthansha). Since 1956 the widow and daughters have been legal cosharers in all property. Socialization. Parents, grandparents, and siblings care for infants and children and provide informal-and, recently, formal-education before school. Education of girls is still not common beyond primary school. Physical punishment to discipline a child is common, though infants are usually spared and cuddled. Respect for seniors in all situations and the value of education are emphasized, especially among the higher classes. Sociopolitical Organization Orissa is a state in the Republic of India, which has an elected president. The governor is the head of Orissa State, and the chief minister is the elected head of the government of Orissa. Social Organization. Traditional Oriya society is hierarchi- cally organized primarily on the basis of caste (and subcaste) and occupations and secondarily on the basis of social class. The highest castes, Brahman, are priests and teachers of the Great Tradition. Below them in descending order of status are: the Kshatriya, warriors and rulers; the Vaisya, or traders; and the Sudra, or skilled and unskilled workers and service holders. The occupations involving manual and menial work are low in status, and polluting occupations like skinning dead animals or making shoes are associated with the lowest castes, the Un- touchables. Ascriptive status in the caste system is sometimes checked now by acquired status in the class system. In rural Orissa patron-client relationships are common and social mo- bility is difficult Political Organization. Orissa is divided into thirteen dis- tricts (tilla), and each district is divided into subdivisions (tahsils) for administrative purposes, into police stations (thana) for law-and-order purposes, and into community development blocs (blok) for development purposes. There are village-cluster committees (panchayatj with elected mem- bers and a head (sarpanch) for the lowest level of self. administration and development. The community develop- ment bloc has a panchayat samiti or council of panchayats headed by the chairman, with all the sarpanch as members. Each caste or populous subcaste in a group of adjacent vil- lages also had a jati panchayat for enforcing values and insti- tutional discipline. The traditional gram panchayat, consist- ing of the leaders of several important castes in a village, was for maintaining harmony and the ritual cycle. Social Control and Conflict. Warfare between adjacent princedoms and villages came to a stop under British rule. The police stations (thana) maintain law and order in the rural areas. Religion and Expressive Culture Hinduism of various sects is a central and unifying force in Oriya society. The overwhelmingly important Vaishnava sect have their supreme deity, Jagannatha, who lords it over the re- 218 Oriya. ligious firmament of Orissa. Lord Jagannatha's main temple is at Puri on the sea, where the famous annual festival with huge wooden chariots dragged for the regional divine triad- Jagannatha, Balabhadra, and Subhadra (goddess sister )- draws about half a million devotees. The famous Lingaraja temple of Lord Shiva at Bhubaneswar, the famous Viraja god- dess temple at Jajpur, both in coastal Orissa, and Mahi- magadi, the cult temple of the century-old Mahima sect of worshipers of Shunya Parama Brahma (the absolute soul void) at Joranda in central Orissa, are highly sacred for the Oriya people. Religious Beliefs. The people of Orissa profess Hinduism overwhelmingly (96.4 percent), with Christianity (1.73 per- cent), Islam (1.49 percent), Sikhism (0.04 percent) and Bud- dhism (0.04 percent) trailing far behind. Obviously many tri- bal groups have declared Hinduism as their religion. Apart from supreme beings, gods, and goddesses of classical Hindu religion, the Oriya propitiate a number of disease spirits, vil- lage deities, and revered ancestral spirits. Religious Practitioners. In the villages each Brahman priest has a number of client families of Kshatriya, Vaisya, and some Sudra castes. There are also magicians (gunia) practicing witchcraft and sorcery. Kalisi or shamans are con- sulted to discover the causes of crises and the remedies. Ceremonies. A large number of rituals and festivals mostly following the lunar calendar are observed. The most important rituals are: the New Year festival (Bishuba Sankranti) in mid-April; the fertility of earth festival (Raja Parab); festival of plowing cattle (Gahma Punein); the ritual of eating the new rice (Nabanna); the festival worshiping the goddess of victory, known otherwise as Dassara (Durga Puja); the festival of the unmarried girls (Kumar Purnima); the solar-calendar harvest festival (Makar Sankranti); the fast for Lord Shiva (Shiva Ratri); the festival of colors and the agri- cultural New Year (Dola Purnima or Dola Jatra); and, finally, the festival worshiping Lord Krishna at the end of February. In November-December (lunar month of Margashira) every Thursday the Gurubara Osha ritual for the rice goddess Lak- shmi is held in every Oriya home. Arts. The ancient name of Orissa, Utkala, literally means 'the highest excellence in the arts." The Oriya are famous for folk paintings, painting on canvas (patta-chitra), statuary and sculptures, the Orissan style of temple architecture, and tour- ist and pilgrim mementos made of horn, papier-miche, and applique work. Classical Odissi dance, the virile Chhow dance, colorful. 214 Okkaliga Okkaliga ETHNONYMS: Gangadikira Okkalu, the peasant caste, Vokkaliga, Wokkaliga The Okkaligas are the dominant landowning and culti- vating caste in the multicaste population of southern Karnataka State in southwestern peninsular India. Among the hundreds of villages in which Okkaligas live is Rampura (population 1,523, 735 of whom are Okkaligas, ca. 1955), which is the focus of this entry and which displays many of the features typical of Okkaliga villages in India. The village of Rampura is located on the Mysore-Hogur bus road about 32 kilometers from Mysore. The village is a cluster of houses and huts with thatched or tiled roofs; nar- row, uneven winding streets running between the rows of houses. Surrounding the village are numerous plots owned by individual landowners. Rampura is an interdependent unit, largely self-sufficient, having its own village assembly (panchayat), watch, ward, officials, and servants. In the multicaste village of Rampura the relationship of castes ap- pears to be determined more by the economic positions of the various members than by tradition. As agriculture is the pri- mary way of life the peasants are the dominant caste. The he- reditary headman (patel) and hereditary accountant (shan- borg) are both peasants. The headman's responsibility is to represent the village to the government and vice versa. The accountant keeps a register of how much land each head of a family or joint family has and the amount of tax on the land. The elders of the dominant caste are spokespersons for the village and owe their power not to legal rights derived from the state but to the dominant local position of their caste. The elders of the dominant peasant caste in Rampura admin- ister justice not only to members of their own caste group but also to all persons of other castes who seek their intervention. Agriculture dominates village life. The cultivation of rice is the main activity in the village. Meticulous attention to and irrigation of the rice is necessary throughout the period of cul- tivation, the rainy season from June to January. The conclu- sion of the harvest is marked by the festival of Sankranti. Dur- ing the dry season other social activities such as weddings occur. Each of the seventeen castes living in Rampura has a dis- tinctive tradition with strong ties with the same caste in vil- lages nearby. The village has a vertical unity of many castes whereas each caste has a horizontal unity through alliances beyond the village. Other major castes and their traditional occupations include the Kuruba (shepherd), the Musalman (artisan and trader), Holeya (servant and laborer), and the Madiga (Harijans). Although paddy and millet grain were principally used in trade, money is used more frequently today. Maintenance of caste separation was achieved through ideas of purity and pollution. Beliefs and behaviors including diet, occupation, and ritual distinguish higher from lower castes. Two examples of this are the rules governing the ac- ceptance of water or cooked food between castes and the rule of caste endogamy. At one time it was customary for two families, one be- longing to an upper caste and the other to an Untouchable caste, to be linked in a master-servant relationship (jajmani). Independence has begun a process of social change in which many of the traditional forms and orders have been replaced. The regional language is Kannada and the principal reli- gion is Hindu. The principal temples in Rampura are the tem- ples of Rama, Basava, Hatti Mad, and Kabbala Durgada Man. These are endowed with agricultural land. The kin group is agnatic with preference for cross-cousin marriage. Traditionally the Okkaligas live in joint families with the wife joining the home of her husband's family. Since Independence the joint families have tended to become smaller. There is a fairly strict sexual division of labor with few women working outside the home. Boys work on the land early, while girls work in and around the house. An Okkaliga is buried on his or her ancestral land; and the land is an im- portant part of one's life from an early age. Bibliography Banerjee, Bhavani (1966). Marriage and Kinship of the Gan- gadikara Vokkaligas of Mysore. Deccan College Dissertation Series, no. 27. Poona: Deccan College. Nanjundayya, H. V., and L. K. Ananthakrishna Iyer (1930). 'Gangadikira Okkalu." The Mysore Tribes and Castes 3:17 5- 185. Mysore: Mysore University. Srinivas, M. N. (1963). "The Social Structure of a Mysore Village." In India's Villages, edited by M. N. Srinivas, 2 1-3 5. Bombay: Asia Publishing House. Srinivas, M. N. (1976). The Remembered Village. Berkeley: University of California Press. SARA J. DICK Oraon ETHNONYMS: Dhangad, Dhangar, Dhanka ("farmworker"), Kisan, Kuda, Kurukh, Kurunkh, Orao, Uraon The Oraons are one of the largest tribes in South Asia, numbering 1,702,663 persons at the 1971 census. About half of them live in Bihar, mainly on the Chota Nagpur Plateau; the remainder are in Madhya Pradesh, Orissa, and West Bengal. They speak a Dravidian language known as Kurukh. Oraons are closely related to the neighboring Munda tribe, and the headman of an Oraon village is called munda. Although there are no subcastes among the Oraons, the Kudas ('navvies") and Kisans ("cultivators"), having their distinct occupations, tend to marry among themselves. Be- yond this, Oraons observe village and clan exogamy. The pat- rilineal extended family is the ideal residential unit, but nu- clear families are nearly as common. On the average a family contains five to seven coresident members. Oriya 215 Boys and girls marry after puberty, boys usually at 1 6-2 0 years. This follows a period in which both sexes sleep in a youth dormitory (dhumkuria). Boys are branded on the arm before being admitted to this institution. The dormitory pro- vides a pool of agricultural labor that can be hired when nec- essary. Most Oraons are farmers, and in the past they prac- ticed shifting cultivation. Hunting, formerly of major importance, has been reduced during the present century to the status of a ceremonial event; there is even a women's hunting ceremony, held every twelve years. Although a small minority of the tribe are Christians, the great majority follow a Hindu form of worship. Their main de- ities are local, non-Sanskritic ones, such as Chandi, Chau- thia, Dadgo Burhia, Gaon Deoti, and Jair Budhi, names one does not encounter elsewhere in India. A remarkable feature of Oraon society is that it is one of the very few on earth (along with the neighboring Mundas and Marias) that practices human sacrifice (called otanga or orka by Oraons). Although extremely rare, evidence suggests the phenomenon is most prevalent in Ranchi District, Bihar. During the nineteenth century, British officials reported a much broader incidence, occurring among the Munda, Oraon, Gond, Kond, and Santal tribes. Police records show that even as late as the 1980s there were a couple of sacrifices a year among the Munda, Maria, and Oraon tribes, and perhaps slightly more if one assumes that not all cases reached police attention. These sacrifices are of course illegal and are treated as homicide under Section 302 of the Indian Penal Code. Detection of culprits is made very difficult by the fact that some villagers believe the sacri- fices are essential for the fertility of their fields, and hence they are not forthcoming with any information. The human sacrifices usually occur in remote places around the begin- ning of the sowing season and the associated festival of Sar- hul. The reasons police can distinguish these sacrifices from other forms of murder are several: (1) the timing, to coincide with the sowing ceremony; (2) the victim is often an orphan or a homeless person, someone who will not be missed; (3) usually no personal animosities can account for the kill- ing; (4) the victim's throat is cut with a knife; (5) signs of puja (worship) are normally found near the corpse; and (6) part of one little finger has been cut off and is missing. This last item is presumably a part of the human offering that the sacrificer (otanga) will bury in his field. Sometimes blood of the sacrificial victim is mixed with seed grain before it is sown. In earlier centuries the entire body was probably cut up and parceled out to the various fields around a village. The danger of detection now makes this too difficult. The sacrifice is nor- mally offered to a vindictive goddess thought to control the fertility of the soil. If a human victim cannot be caught in time for the sowing ceremony, it is said that hair, sputum, or some other human bodily leavings are mixed with hen's blood as a token offering to this goddess. See also Munda Bibliography Hermanns, Matthias (1973). Die Oraon. Die religios- magische Weltanschanung der Primitivstamme Indiens, no. 3. Wiesbaden: Franz Steiner Verlag. Roy, Sarat Chandra (1915). The Oraon of Chota Nagpur. Calcutta: Brahmo Mission Press. Roy, Sarat Chandra (1928). Oraon Religion and Custom. Ranchi: Man in India Office. Russell, R. V., and Hira Lal (1916). 'Oraon." In The Tribes and Castes of the Central Provinces of India, edited by RV. Russell and Hira Lal. Vol. 4, 29 9-3 21. London: Macmillan. Reprint. 1969. Oosterhout: Anthropological Publications. Sachchidananda (1963). "Some Recent Evidence of Human Sacrifice." In Anthropology on the March: Recent Studies of In- dian Beliefs, Attitudes, and Social Institutions, edited by L. K. Bala Ratnam, 34 4-3 51. Madras: The Book Centre. Sachchidananda (1964). Culture Change in Tribal Bihar: Munda and Oraon. Calcutta: Bookland Private Limited. PAUL HOCKINGS Oriya ETHNONYMS: Odia, Odiya; adjective: Odissi, Orissi (Orissan in English) Orientation Identification. In Orissa State in India, the Oriya consti- tute the regional ethnic group, speaking the Oriya language and professing the Hindu religion, to be distinguished from an Oriya-speaking agricultural caste called Odia found in central coastal Orissa. Some Oriya live in the adjoining states. The Oriya language and ethnic group are presumably derived from the great Udra or Odra people known since Buddhist and pre-Buddhist Mahabharata epic times. Location. The state of Orissa is located between 17°49' and 22034' N and 81029' and 87029' E, covering 155,707 square kilometers along the northeastern seaboard of India. The large majority of the Oriya live in the coastal districts and along the Mahanadi and Brahmani rivers. Orissa falls in the tropical zone with monsoon rains from June-July to September-October. Western Orissa is afflicted with recur- ring drought. Demography. The last national census in 1981 records the population of Orissa as 26,370,271 persons, with a popu- lation density of 169 persons per square kilometer as com- pared to 216 for India as a whole. Of the total population of Orissa, 84.11 percent speak Oriya. Although rural, Orissa's urban centers with 5,000 or more persons rose from contain- ing 8.4 percent of the population in 1971 (81 towns) to 11.79 percent in 1981 (108 towns). Most of the ninety-three Scheduled Castes, which constitute 15.1 percent of Orissa's population, speak Oriya. Of the 23.1 percent of Orissa's pop- ulation categorized as Scheduled Tribes, many speak Oriya as 216 ut