Chore Pari
Santhal
At a glance
- Called a
- Pari
- Community
- Santhal
- Found in
- Jharkhand, West Bengal, Odisha, Bihar, Assam
About
Chore, also written Chonre, Chorey or Core, is one of the twelve paris, the totemic clans of the Santhal, and one of the five junior paris. Its totem is the lizard. Less is written about it than about most paris. The Santhal are a Scheduled Tribe with their own religion, Sarna dharam. A pari is not a gotra, and the Santhal are not described here as a Hindu caste.
What “Pari” means for the Santhal
A pari (plural paris) is one of the twelve totemic clans of the Santhal. Each has a totem, a Santhal does not marry within their own pari, and the pari name is carried today as the surname.
Every pari of the Santal, with how the clan system works: the Santal page.
Name and Origin
Risley (1891) tells that at a famous hunt of the whole tribe the men of this pari killed nothing but lizards, and so were named after the lizard; Bonnerjea (1930) repeats the story. Sarma and Mukherjee (2019) and the 2018 list of Lea Schulte-Droesch also give the lizard as the totem. The guru Kolean, whose account of Santhal tradition Skrefsrud recorded in 1871, names Core fourth of the five paris added after the original seven.
Historical Journey
Little is recorded of the Chore beyond the name and the totem. Risley's 1891 list puts the pari eleventh of twelve, and he gives no pass-words for it, as he does for the first nine. Kolean remembered no calling for the Chore in Champa and said he had forgotten the names of the Chore and Pauria bongas. Sarma and Mukherjee write that other paris once avoided marrying the Besra and Chore, and that this way of thinking is no longer held. Bonnerjea (1930) counts ten Chore sub-clans, among them Jihu, Mal, Dantela, Naeke-Khil, Nij and Sada, and Bodding's dictionary also has a Sada Core.
Migration and Diaspora
Kolean's account follows the ancestors from Hihiri Pipiri to Sasan Beda, where the paris were formed, then through Jarpi to Chae and Champa, and from there east to the present Santhal country. The books checked do not say where Chore families live today.
How the Pari Is Kept
No Chore marries a Chore, and a man does not marry into his mother's sub-clan (Risley, 1891). Older accounts say members of the seven senior paris did not marry into the five junior ones (the 2018 list of Schulte-Droesch gives this rule); Sarma and Mukherjee (2019) write that marriages now take place between all paris. Sarma and Mukherjee say the Chore once did not marry the Besra or the Tudu, for a reason drawn from the totems, and that this too is no longer followed. Members avoid harming lizards.
Stories and Legends
The lizard and the birds
Sarma and Mukherjee explain some old marriage bars from the totems. The hawk of the Besra hunts the pigeon, the lizard of the Chore eats rice with the pigeon, and the owl of the Tudu hunts the lizard. For this reason, they write, the Chore at first did not marry the Besra or the Tudu, though today marriages take place between all paris.