Folklore and Ethno-Rock Art Studies in the Kaimur Region of India: The Story of the Oraon Tribe RESEARCH PAPER SACHIN KUMAR TIWARY PANCHANAN DALAI OM PRAKASH *Author affiliations can be found in the back matter of this article ABSTRACT CORRESPONDING AUTHOR: Dr. Sachin Kumar Tiwary The present work engages with a comparative study of the Oraon Folklore and their Department of Ancient Rock Art for assessing how both these genres seemingly record the geo-cultural history Indian History, Culture and of Oraon origin, their forced migrations and their current state of habitations in another Archaeology, Faculty of Arts, Indian state Jharkhand. It attempts to establish a relation between archaeological data Banaras Hindu University, Varanasi 221 005, Uttar available in the form of rock art supplemented by written accounts and local traditions Pradesh, India wherever possible. Based on field works, personal interactions with local inhabitants,
[email protected] especially on important events like, marriage, festivals, rituals etc., and archeological scrutiny of rock art available in the Oraons’ previous habitation, i.e., the Kaimur Region in current Indian state of Bihar, the paper attempts to expose the historical value and cultural parallelism of Oraons’ folk narratives and rock art. The paper strongly believes TO CITE THIS ARTICLE: Tiwary, SK, Dalai, P and that both these genres conspicuously display the cultural history of a marginalized Prakash, O. 2021. Folklore tribe that has undergone several historical and cultural ordeals. Besides this, the paper and Ethno-Rock Art Studies in also offers, for the first time, an English translation of Oraons’ oral folklore, adhering the Kaimur Region of India: to the interdisciplinary approach of this paper.