Toppo Gotra
Oraon
At a glance
- Called a
- Gotra
- Community
- Oraon
- Found in
- Jharkhand
About
Toppo is a clan of the Oraon (Kurukh) of Chota Nagpur, and Topo is one of the nine original clans of the Dudh Kharia. In both its totem is a bird: Roy (1915) gives the Oraon totem as 'Toppo or Lang toppo, a species of long-tailed bird', and Roy and Roy (1937) gloss the Kharia Topo simply as a bird. It is not a Vedic gotra. Toppo is a different name from Topno, a Munda and Kharia clan.
What “Gotra” means for the Oraon
Oraon families call their clan a gotra (Roy 1915, pp. 325, 335): a totemic clan passed from father to children, within which no one may marry. It is not a Vedic gotra and names no rishi. The Munda call the same kind of clan a killi, and Roy and Roy write the Kharia clan as gotra or gotar.
Every gotra of the Oraon, with how the clan system works: the Oraon page.
Name and Origin
The clan is named after a bird. Roy does not identify the species beyond 'a long-tailed bird' (1915, p. 325); a modern list on Wikipedia gives the woodpecker. Roy's list of Oraon plant totems also has an Angal toppo, 'a kind of bush' (p. 327); he does not say how it relates to the bird clan. The Dudh Kharia account of their nine clans says an old Kharia and his nine sons survived a great flood in a cave, and that each son met a different creature or thing at a pool; the son who saw a topo bird began the Topo clan (Roy and Roy 1937, pp. 137-139).
Historical Journey
No written history of the Toppo clan is known; the books record where the name appears. Among the Oraon, Roy found that the Bhuinhars, the first-settler families, of Kinbitha in Mandar thana belonged to the Toppo bird clan, and that the village carried to the jatras, as its badge, a tengra khutta: a bamboo pole with three bamboo umbrellas set one above the other and covered with birds' feathers (1915, p. 341). Among the Kharia, Roy and Roy list Topo as one of the nine original clans of the Dudh section (1937, p. 131), and record that its first village in Chota Nagpur was Barwe Dairgaon and that the clan later founded Padaria (pp. 139-140). The books do not say whether the Oraon and Kharia clans of this name share an origin.
How the Gotra Is Kept
In each people members of the clan do not marry each other, and the clan passes from father to children; Oraon clan names are now used as surnames. Roy gives the Oraon rule that members of a clan should not eat, keep, kill or hurt their totem (1915, p. 330), and Roy and Roy give the same rule for the Kharia (1937, p. 142). Whether an Oraon Toppo may marry a Kharia Topo is not addressed in the books checked. No family deity is tied to the clan in these sources.
Presence Across Regions
Mandar, Ranchi district, Jharkhand
Tribal - Oraon
Roy (1915, p. 341) found that the Bhuinhars of Kinbitha village in Mandar thana belonged to the Toppo bird clan; their jatra badge was a feathered triple umbrella.
Ranchi district, Jharkhand
Tribal - Kharia
Topo is one of the nine original Dudh Kharia clans; its first village was Barwe Dairgaon (Roy and Roy 1937, pp. 131, 139).
Stories and Legends
The nine sons at the pool
In a Dudh Kharia legend recorded by Roy and Roy (1937), a flood swept the land and an old Kharia and his nine sons survived in a cave. Later the sons killed a deer, cut it into nine shares and went separate ways to look for water. At a pool each met something different: a kerketa bird, an eel, a tortoise, a topo bird, salt, paddy, a tetetehoin bird, a tiger, a block of rock. When they opened their bundles at home, each son's share of venison had turned into the thing he had seen, and the father ruled that each son's line should take it as its clan name.