Literature of Dungri Bhil Tribes and Their Forms

Abstract

This paper focuses on the literature and its forms of Dungri Bhil tribes.
Few years back, the situation of tribal literature in academics was moribund. Yet the traces can be found with the publication of Oriental Memoirs by James Forbes in 1834. He has produced four volume of which in the third volume we find the writings about Gujarat and its cultural aspects, their customs, beliefs and ritual practices. In 1984 a mammoth task was taken in hand by a person from Gandhinagar/Ahmedabad. By 2010 he, Bhagvandas Patel has documented four major epics titled Rathore Varta which came in 1992, Gujarat no Arelo in 1993, Rom Sitma ni Varta in 1995, Bhilo nu Bharat 1997. Among others, there are many short oral narratives too. So far there had been disgust for tribal literature or they were considered taken as marginalised and illiterate people. But after the emergence of fictional myths writings, tribal literature also drawn the attention of scholars. Their myths and narratives are studied with many Indian and western approaches. To name the few approaches are archetypal criticism, psychoanalytical criticism and cultural criticism. The question is how come the people from whom the four epics and considerable other narratives have come out can be considered illiterate. Perhaps they require different measurements or standards. Not only oral narratives but they are the owner of very rich song genres too. This paper focuses on various types of the literature of Dungri Bhil tribes. Paper will also try to brief about what are the forms and structures of these literature, when and how are they practiced and beliefs bound with them if any.