North Bengal Anthropologist, Vol. 04

Permanent URI for this collectionhttps://ir.nbu.ac.in/handle/123456789/5293

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Start date: 2016Subject: search.filters.subject.Assam

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    Fertility and Mortality Differential among the Dibongiya Deori of Lakhimpur District, Assam
    (University of North Bengal, 2016) Borah, Juri; Sengupta, S.
    An attempt is made in this paper to look into the fertility and mortality differentials among the Dibongiya Deori of Assam. Apart from these, distribution of women according to age group, age at marriage, age at first conception, age at first child birth are also taken into consideration for the present study. The analysis demonstrates that the Dibongiya Deori women married at relatively younger age exhibits moderately higher conception and higher reproductive wastages.
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    Turmoil of Alcoholism: An Exploration of Alcoholics in Gauhati Medical College and Hospital of Assam
    (University of North Bengal, 2016) Medhi, Birinchi K.; Sharma, Hemanta
    From time immemorial alcohol is used for refreshment and to prevent and cure diseases by different populations of the world. Preparing country liquor is an age old skill in a good number of societies which is handed down from one generation to the next principally through the process of enculturation. Country liquor is indispensable to the socio-cultural system of innumerable societies of the world. Such communities generally produce this type of alcohol from different floral parts utilizing their indigenous knowledge. In such societies country liquor is used in different contexts of life, even to appease the Gods and spirits. At present alcohol is less used as medicine and mostly used as addictive material. Consumption of excessive alcohol has created a kind of irreversible turmoil in the modern world causing physical, mental, economic and social degradation. It should be noted that alcohol is consumed even by the members of those societies, who do not have the pristine system of making this drink. When a person cannot resist his or her intense desire of alcohol consumption and take it frequently, which ultimately destroys his or her physical and mental abilities partially or to a great extent, additionally harming in his/her social and occupational arenas, then this anomaly of the person is known as ‘alcoholism’. Alcoholism is an alarming disease and the person suffered from is known as ‘alcoholic’. Today alcoholism is a devastating problem throughout the world. In this endeavour an intricate attempt has been made to evaluate some dimensions of the alcoholics treated in the Gauhati Medical College and Hospital (GMCH) of Guwahati, the capital city of Assam and the gateway of North East India.
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    Health Seeking Behaviour among the Migrant Tribal Workers of Tea Plantation in Assam: Some Observations
    (University of North Bengal, 2016) Kar, R.K.
    In anthropology, emphasis is generally put on the group; and on the study of human beings within the framework of a culture. Every culture has its own notion regarding health and health seeking behaviour; and this is often referred to as Health Culture. The health of any community, particularly of a tribal community is a function of the interaction between cultural and biological practices, the genetic attributes and the environmental condition. It has long been recognized that Health Culture is a suitable field for ethnographic research in anthropology. In the paper, an attempt has been made to have an understanding of the health culture of the migrant tribal worker in Assam tea plantation with special reference to their health seeking behavior. The people generally subscribe to their own understanding of health, disease and disease etiology, as defined by their tradition and culture. With regard to disease etiology, they believe in both supernatural and natural forces. Some diseases are believed to be the outcome of the wrath of supernatural powers; and some are caused by natural factors. Their prolonged contact with the modern medicare system for around sixteen decades does not seem to have the desired impact on their overwhelming subscription to the traditional sub-culture of medicine. Despite the availability of modern medicare services at the door step, the people usually give priority to traditional or folk medicine. The inability of folk medicine to cure some ailments sometimes may compel them to avail of the services of the hospital or some other modern health practitioners. Sometimes, however, they continue both the treatments simultaneously. On the whole, till date, the migrant tribal tea workers in Assam are by and large, relatively more tradition-oriented with regard to their health seeking behaviour. Sometimes, however, both the traditional and the modern health care systems have been found to complement each other; and the people use both the systems apparently without any reservation or any feeling of contradiction.
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    A Newly Constituted Autonomous Council of Assam: The Case of the Deoris
    (University of North Bengal, 2016) Arifur, Zaman
    Autonomy, the concept itself reflects the rights of indigenous groups of people, the right to self determination of a community or a region to bestow it substantial financial, administrative powers for their social upliftment, which is also referred to as self legislation. The sixth Schedule of the constitution of India provides the formation of the local institution or the Autonomous District Councils for the tribal communities of North East India. These are created to give concrete shape to the religious ethos and social customs in administrations of various spheres of tribal life. These local self governance councils are provided with legislative, judicial, and executive powers so that good tribal institutions, its culture and identity could be preserved through measures of self governance. In Assam a contemporary development among the tribe is the formation of the Autonomous Councils. At present there are six autonomous councils in Assam among which Deori Autonomous Council meant for the restoration and betterment of self identity of the Deoris, one of the scheduled tribe of Assam, is one. In this paper a humble attempt has been made to delineate about the different laws and rules of the Deori Autonomous Council for administration among the Deoris of Assam.