Tudu Pari
Santhal
At a glance
- Called a
- Pari
- Community
- Santhal
- Found in
- Jharkhand, West Bengal, Odisha, Bihar, Assam
About
Tudu is one of the twelve paris, the totemic clans of the Santhal, and the last of the seven senior paris. In the old accounts the Tudu were the drummers and ironworkers of Champa. Recent accounts give its totem as the owl; the older books give none. 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
The guru Kolean, whose account of Santhal tradition Skrefsrud recorded in 1871, names Tudu last of the seven paris formed at Sasan Beda among the descendants of the first couple, and Risley's 1891 list also puts it seventh. Sources differ on the totem. Sarma and Mukherjee (2019) and the 2018 list of Lea Schulte-Droesch give the owl, while Risley gives no totem and Bonnerjea (1930) marks the name's meaning as unknown.
Historical Journey
In Kolean's account the Sim fort in Champa belonged to the Tudu, and Risley's pass-words for the pari include Simgarh and Sukrihutup. Kolean says the Tudu beat the dancing drums and kettle-drums, and that they made all kinds of iron tools. Other traditions noted by Bodding call them mandaria, drummers who play the dancing drum, and Sarma and Mukherjee describe them as musicians. These are traditions about Champa, not rules of present-day life. A note added to Kolean's account by Skrefsrud and Jugia in 1887 says the Tudu and Besra became enemies in Champa and did not intermarry. Bonnerjea (1930) counts 19 Tudu sub-clans. Among the early Santali authors, Majhi Ramdas Tudu published his book on Santhal rites in 1894.
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. Today Tudu families live wherever Santhals live: mainly in Jharkhand, West Bengal, Odisha and Bihar, with communities in Assam, Bangladesh and Nepal.
How the Pari Is Kept
No Tudu marries a Tudu, and a man does not marry into his mother's sub-clan (Risley, 1891). Besides the old Tudu and Besra bar, Sarma and Mukherjee tell of a bar among the three birds of the sky, the owl, the hawk and the pigeon, and say the Chore once did not marry the Besra or the Tudu; they write that these restrictions are no longer followed. Sub-clans named by Risley include Agaria (charcoal-burners), Chigi, Dantela, Lat, Manjhi-Khil, Naiki-Khil, Roh-Lutur and Sung, besides Nij and Sada. Members avoid harming the totem. Kolean's account says each pari has its own abge bonga and house bonga, that they differ even within a pari, and that their names are passed from father to eldest son and not told to others; they are not named here, and no kuldevi or kuldevta is given for the pari.
Notable Personalities
Majhi Ramdas Tudu
About 1854 to 1951
Santali writer and teacher who wrote Kherwal Bongso Dharam Puthi (1894), an early book on Santhal rites; the University of Calcutta gave him a D.Litt. His Wikipedia biography records his life.
Stories and Legends
Drums and iron
Kolean described the old life in Champa: the people pressed their own oil, made salt from saline earth and wove their own cloth, and the people of the Tudu pari made all kinds of iron tools. When the Santhal danced, it was the Tudu who beat the dancing drum and the kettle-drum, which is why other gurus called them mandaria, the drummers.