Dhangar, Chota Nagpur

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Dhangar

This section has been extracted from THE TRIBES and CASTES of BENGAL. By H.H. RISLEY, INDIAN CIVIL SERVICE, OFFICIER D'ACADÉMIE FRANÇAISE. Ethnographic Glossary. CALCUTTA: Printed at the Bengal Secretariat Press. 1891. .

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In Chota Nagpur Proper an agricultural labourer, usually non-Aryan, engaged by the year, who receives, if hired by anative, alump. sum varying from Rs. 4 to Rs. 6, at the time of hiring, besides monthly wages in grain and a cloth at the end of the year. Labourers of this class are also largely employed by European tea-planters on the Lohardaga plateau. In this case they get Rs. 9 on engagement, and Rs. 9 more in three instalments, besides a blanket and an umbrella. On the origin of the term there has been some discussion. "It is," writes Colonel Dalton, " a word that from its apparent derivation (dang or dhang, 'a hill ') may mean any hillman ; but amongst several tribes of the Southern Tributary Mahals the terms Dluinga,1' and Dluingal'in mean the youth of the two sexes both in highland and lowland villages, and it cannot be considered as the national designation of any particular tribe." So Mr. Oldham says in a note on Some Historical and Ethical Aspects of the Burdwan district that the Male Paharins call their men of fighting age Dhangar or Dhangaria. The Male nre cognates of the Oraons, the typical Dhangar labourers of Chota Nagpur, so that on this showing the word may well be nothing more than the Omon for an adult. According to another interpretation, the name has reference to the fact that. persons working as dhangars receive the bulk of their wages indhan, or unhusked rice. Rabi or cold weather crops are not largely grown in Chota Nagpur Proper; and during the slack season, from December to the end of March, large numbers of Dhangars leave their own country in search of agricultural work in the central and eastern districts of Bengal, where the harvesting of the winter rice creates a great demand for labour. The dhangar system of payment is so general in Chota Nagpur that the term is virtually synonymous With labourer, and these nomadic labourers describe themselves, and are known throughout Bengal as , Dhangars.' When they settle, as they frequently do, they acquire the name of Buna, which is sometimes prefixed to their tribal name, thus Buna-Oraon Buna-Munda. '