Saora Tribe:
With Saora tribals of Gajapati district getting habitat rights over their ancestral lands recently, Odisha has become the only state to provide such rights to the highest number of particularly vulnerable tribal groups (PVTGs).
- Saora is one of the ancient tribes of Odisha, which is also mentioned in the epics Ramayana and Mahabharata.
- They are called by various terms such as Savaras, Sabaras, Saura, Sora, etc.
- Though Odisha is the mainland for the tribe, a small number of people are also found in the states of Andhra Pradesh, Jharkhand, Madhya Pradesh and Assam.
- They have their own native language called Sora, which is a Munda language, and they are one of the very few tribes of India that have a script for the language, Sorang Sompeng.
- The Saoras show their racial affinity to the Proto Australoid physical characters, which are dominant among the aborigines of Central and Southern India.
- Saoras follow an ingrained and intricate religion, having faith in and worshipping a number of gods and spirits, who they believe are the supreme controllers of their regular lives.
- They have unique art practices, religious customs, as well as a dying tattooing tradition called ‘Tantangbo’.
- The Saoras can be divided broadly into two economic classes:
- The Saoras of the plains (Sudha Saora) depending on their wet cultivation or wage earning and selling firewood.
- The Hill Saoras (Lanjia Saora) practice shifting and terraced cultivation on the hill slopes.
- Saora villages do not conform to any particular type of settlement pattern.
- Houses are scattered and megaliths erected to commemorate dead kin are located close by.
