Vanavasi

Banan women wearing traditional attire in Margachala, Arthakhand.

Vanavasi is a collective term applied to tribal groups within Satria, particularly within Arthakhand. It refers to Autochthonous peoples who live either as hunter-gatherers or within sedentary communities and who have through intentional or accidental isolation been sheltered from wider Satrian society.

Due to the collective nature of the term, Vanavasi covers a diverse range of different ethnocultural groups. It includes Sataro-Euclean peoples, Purvan peoples, and several other groups including isolated peoples. While Vanavasi populations are present across Satria, their presence is most significant in Arthakhand where they make up 13% of the total population. Vanivasi presence is especially prominent within the states of Margachala, Pattinnarana and Macha Pradesh, where this figure is closer to 30%. Exact numbers of Vanivasi are hard to quantify due to the difficulty with censusing such communities which are often geographically isolated, illiterate, and where there can exist both distrust of outsiders and language barriers.

As a result of their separation from wider Satrian society, Vanivasi groups have developed their own unique cultural and religious practices unlike those practiced by the urban majority. This separation has brought with it issues in the modern era, as the Vanivasi are often perceived as savage peoples and subjected to either forced urbanisation or violence. Much of this has come due to the pressures of agriculture, forestry and mining concerns which have forcibly taken Vanivasi occupied land for economic exploitation. Urbanised Vanivasi also face cultural and economic discrimination.

Name

The name Vanavasi is derived from the Parbhan "vanavāsi" (forest dwellers), a compound of vana meaning forests and vāsin, meaning dweller or inhabitant. The term girijan (mountain people) has also been applied to tribal peoples in hilly our mountainous areas, but has not received the same level of official recognition. During Etrurian rule, the Vanavasi were known as aborigeni (aboriginals), while in Estmerish the term Satrian aborigines was archaically used before the adoption of the term Vanivasi.

The use of the term Vanavasi has received criticism from Vanavasi rights activists and several modern anthropologists as being a product of the pejorative view of such peoples taken both by the colonial administration and post-independence governments, dismissing their rich cultural heritage and labelling them as forest peoples in a way which implies concepts such as "primitiveness" and even savagery. This has led to a promotion of the term aboriginal peoples to describe Vanivasi peoples, which recognises their status as original inhabitants of Satria and is seen to be less negatively charged.

History

Origins

The origins of the Vanavasi are varied between the different cutural groups that share the label, but generally can be traced back to the fall of the Sattar Valley Civilisation and first migrations of Sataro-Euclean peoples into the Sattar valley. The SVC, which is generally believed to have been genetically related to the modern Purvan peoples, is believed to have collapsed as a result of both environmental factors such as drought and manmade factors such as warfare. While other proto-Purvan civilisations are attested, this breakdown of the large urbanised culture is believed to have precipitated a regression in much of Satria to hunter-gatherer and nomadic-pastoralist lifestyles. When Sataro-Euclean peoples arrived around 1800 BCE, they would settle by conquest as well as assimilation and form new settlements within Satria. Other groups were also present in the area during this period.

Ancient Satria

The migration of nomadic Sataro-Euclean warrior-aristocracies from modern day Zorasan brought with it a new social structure and belief system, Bhaga. The Vanavasi remained relatively separate from this belief system, living in isolated areas and rarely interacting with the new states. When they did, it usually came in the form of warfare, with subjugated Vanavasi people typically occupying a low rank within society. The emergence of Ashrama as a religious movement in opposition replaced Bhaga as the dominant belief system, bringing with it the ideas of Jati. Under the criterion of Jati, the Vanavasi were initially regarded as being second-tier beings as they were not in a state of formal bondage. This theological classification allowed the Vanavasi to be left alone for much of the Ashramic period, and facilitated the emergence of Vanavasi statelets which often coexisted with the dominions of Ashramic rulers. While the Vanavasi often practiced communal land ownership and lived within more egalitarian societies than the urbanised Satrians, in some areas Vanavasi aristocracies were present. Some such states, such as Tiduakkanan in modern day Madhya Pradesh, even counted among their dominon non-Vanavasi subjects.