About Ho Tribe:
- The Ho or Kolha people are an Austroasiatic Munda ethnic group of India.
- They call themselves the Ho, Hodoko and Horo, which mean 'human' in their own language.
- Distribution: They are mostly concentrated in the Kolhan region of Jharkhand, Odisha, West Bengal and Bihar.
- Belief system of Ho Tribe
- Over 90% of the Ho practices the indigenous religion Sarnaism.
- They have a village priest called a deuri.
- They have a spirit doctor called a deowa who makes sacrifices to these spirits and gods. Much of this happens in a sacred grove outside the village.
- Language: Ho people speak the Ho language, an Austroasiatic language closely related to Mundari.
- Occupation: The majority of the Ho tribe is involved in agriculture, either as land owners or labourers, while others are engaged in mining.
- Women have higher status among the Ho than they do in most tribes.
- Most villages have a dedicated dancing ground, called akhra, usually consisting of a cleared space of hard ground under a spreading tree.
- Traditional Ho music incorporates native instruments including a dama (drum), dholak, dumeng (mandar), and the rutu (flute).
What is the Manki- Munda system?
- The Munda, or the head of the village, was responsible for resolving socio-political disputes at the village level.
- Each village had one Munda, appointed hereditarily.
- The Manki headed the pidh, which generally consists of 8 to 15 villages. If cases were not resolved by the Munda, they moved upwards to the Manki.
- The Manki and Munda had no responsibilities for revenue or land-related issues.
- The system was purely an internal, self-governing mechanism, with no sovereign authority outside or the concept of paying taxes.
