Oraon Tribes
The Kurukh or Oraon, also spelt Uraon, or Dhangar are a Dravidian speaking ethnolinguistic group.
Inhabiting Chhotanagpur Plateau and adjoining areas - mainly Jharkhand, Odisha, Chhattisgarh, and West Bengal.
They predominantly speak Kurukh as their native language, which belongs to the Dravidian language family.
In Maharashtra, Oraon people are also known as Dhangad or Dhangar.
Traditionally, Oraons depended on the forest and farms for their ritual practices and livelihoods.
But in recent times, they have become mainly settled agriculturalists.
Many Oraon migrated to tea gardens of Assam, West Bengal and Bangladesh as well as to countries like Fiji, Guyana, Trinidad and Tobago and Mauritius during British rule, where they were known as Hill Coolies.
They are listed as a Scheduled Tribe for the purpose of India's reservation system.
According to the Indian Anthropological Society, Konkan is said to be the original home of the Kurukh tribes from where they migrated to the Chota Nagpur Plateau.
During the British Period, Kurukh people rebelled against the British East India Company authority and local Zamindars against tax imposition.
The Budhu Bhagat led the Lakra rebellion which is also known as the Kol uprising in 1832.
The Kurukh celebrate all traditional festivals of the Chota Nagpur plateau: Sarhul, Karma, Dhanbuni, Harihari, Nawakhani, Khariyani etc
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