It was early morning; the winter was almost set in the Jashipur town. After reaching the place on same morning we plan to visit the Durdura village to have interaction with the Mankirdia, PTG community. I have heard about this primitive tribal community earlier who are popular for their monkey eating habit and nomadic life style. The term Mankirdia was derived from monkey eating habit, the Mankirdia believe that by eating monkey they will be spiritually pure throughout their life. Although the Mankirdia population is the smallest population amongst the rest of the PTGs in Odisha. We came to know from the villagers that these tribal communities are seen in various other parts of the Mayurbhanj district such as Kendumuidi, Baniabasa, Uthania, Chatani, Malibasa village etc.
After reaching Durdura village on that day we could see some women busy stitching leaf plates, the time spent on stiching the leaf plates should not be going worthless as many earn their livelihood by selling them in the weekly market or hatt. The houses in the colony were seen scattered all over the village, cemented houses with advestor roof which was abundant in the entire village. My conscious mind was wondering, is it Mankirdia people who have built those houses? If so how did they get such an ideas of living pattern? As we walked through the village road we could see pucca road, cemented houses, a community hall, school building, and a small poultry farm house at the backyard of the village which appears to be shut for long time now. Those modern equipments were supposedly provided by the Government, but I could still see the old pattern houses made up of leafs next to every cemented houses known as Khumba.
The village appears to be quite on that day not many people were seen roaming around, when we enquired from the villagers we revealed that most villagers are gone out for the hunting & gathering popularly known as ‘Basa’. I stopped at a house where a women was busy stitching leaf plates, as I start enquiring the money she make out of these plates, to this she replied ‘muie 100 patra dele 10 tanka mile’ (I get Rs 10 per selling 100 pieces) as we start walking little further we saw some more women either busy drying up the sala leafs on the floor or stitching 2-3 leafs together. There were many trees in the colony bearing Ambeda, the Ambeda fruits were seen boiled in a big container by most villagers, I was wondering why a large container full with Ambeda fruit is boiled by the villagers, latter I came to know from the villagers that those fruits apart from eating, the seeds are used for making cork & sold to middle man which is another source of livelihood for the villagers in Durdura. The Khadia & Mankedia development agency have provided cemented houses, mend the roads of the village, provided goats to each household, poultry farm for livelihood. The Mankirdia of Durdura who used to have their temporary shelter near Durdura hata (Durdura Market) 25 years back has now been provided with a settled colony, the Government wanted to settle this nomadic community at one place. A colony was constructed by the Government with basic facilities of tube well, school building, community hall etc. now the colony is popularly known as ‘Mankedia sahi’ the Mankedia colony now have 25 household, as per villagers some changes were seen amongst the Mankirdia people like having intercommunity marriage, manual labor work, change in dressing, cultivation. However, the age old practice of collecting Siali bark for making tupa (small basket) & eating monkey still persist amongst the Mankirdia people.
We all waited for the villagers to come back from the forest but due to late hour we started to make our way back to the town, on our way we could see few Mankirdia tribals returning back from the forest, on their hand we saw a sack carrying dead monkey's for the night feast. The net which they use for catching monkey's were seen used & hanging on their arms. Although they were hesitating to reveal the fact that they have hunted animals but we could easily guess from their tired eyes & sweating body. The experience I had spending few hours in the Mankirdia colony was noteworthy. The innovative way of living & making best use of the available resources for generating livelihood by the Mankirdia's should be acknowledged by Anthropologist and social scientist in the course of their research
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