Hattee Community : Scheduled Tribe Status
The Himachal Pradesh state government has finally issued notification to give Scheduled Tribe (ST) status to the Hattee community of Trans-Giri area of Sirmaur district.
- Hattee community are a close-knit community who got their name from their tradition of selling homegrown vegetables, crops, meat and wool etc. at small markets called ‘haat’ in towns.
- Their homeland straddles the Himachal-Uttarakhand border in the basin of the Giri and Tons rivers, both tributaries of the Yamuna.
- This community’s men generally don a distinctive white headgear during ceremonies, is cut off from Sirmaur by two rivers called Giri and Tons.
- Tons divide it from the Jaunsar Bawar area of Uttarakhand.
- The Hattees who live in the trans-Giri area and Jaunsar Bawar in Uttarakhand were once part of the royal estate of Sirmaur until Jaunsar Bawar’s separation in 1815.
- They are governed by a traditional council called Khumbli.
- The two Hattee clans, in Trans-Giri and Jaunsar Bawar, have similar traditions, and inter-marriages are common.
