Context:
Totos, one of the smallest tribes in the world, lives in Totopara off West Bengal but are fighting for identity and suffering from infrastructure woes.
Relevance:
GS II: Tribes
About the Toto Tribe:
- It is an aboriginal Indo-Bhutanese tribe which specifically dwells in the Totopara village of Alipurduar district in West Bengal.
- The Totopara village lies within the vicinity of Jaldapara Wildlife Sanctuary.
- It lies just to the south of the border between Bhutan and West Bengal, on the bank of the Torsa River.
- The Toto tribe anthropologically comes under the Tibetan-Mongoloid ethnicity.
- The most threatened tribe is the one whose number of over 1600 members survive. The Toto tribe has often been described as ‘a dying tribe’ facing extinction.
- Classified as a Particularly Vulnerable Tribal Group (PVTG).
- Toto Language: It is a Sino-Tibetan language spoken by the Toto and has Bengali script.
- Totos are exogamous and are divided into 13 exogamous clans; among them, they choose their wife.
- This is a belief special to their tradition; they believe a man should have only one wife, and they work very hard for the anti-dowry system-a dissident notion from other tribal customs prevailing in their neighboring areas.
- Their houses are only bamboo huts with attap roof structures.
- Religion: Toto people practice the form of Hinduism but, unlike the people of other traditions, they do believe in nature worship.
Economy:
- In the past, Totos were primarily food gatherers and followed slash and burn types of cultivation.
- Along with this, the Toto families earn a good amount of money by working as porters for carrying oranges from the different gardens of Bhutan to Totopara
With the passage of time, occupational diversification has taken place. At present, they became settled agriculturists.
-Source: Indian Express
