Indian Journal of Research in Anthropology

 All culture have involved some system of explanation regarding conception, pregnancy, and childbirth and all have developed sets of beliefs and techniques for dealing with these mammalian and human processes. All societies have been able to connect the act of sexual intercourse to the onset of pregnancy, its outcomes and their survivals. Various cultures of the world, primitive as well as civilized, are sufficiently acquainted with the fact of biology to relate the pregnancy of a given women to the act of sexual intercourse. Culture influences not only how individuals are treated for their reproductive health problems within given systems of medicine, but also how individuals living within local communities define and experience their reproductive health. Reproductive health has emerged as an organizational framework that incorporates men into maternal and child health programs. For several decades, medical anthropologists have conducted reproductive health research that explores male partners’ effects on women’s health and the health of children summarizes exemplary research in this area, showing how ethnographic studies by medical anthropologists contribute new insights to the growing public health and demographic literature on men and reproductive health.  The contributions of cultural anthropology, with its ethnographic tradition of in-depth, field based research and its central concept of culture. Cultural anthropologists have argued that gender is a key organizing principle of social relations, influencing both sex and reproduction. In this paper it is try to understand the wholistic characteristics and dimensions of the research in the reproductive health and involvement of men.

 The Deoris are one of the scheduled tribes of Assam inhabiting mostly in the Plain areas of Upper Assam. The entire Deori tribe is divided into four broad divisions or khel on the basis of their places of origin. They are – Dibangiyas, Tengapania, Borgoyan and Patorgoyan. Of all the four divisions of the Deoris, the Dibangiyas have preserved their socio religious organisations almost along with their indigenous dialect known as duan. The Dibangiyas mainly propitiate Kundi-Mama also known as Burha-Burhi or Gira-Girachi as their chief parochial deities. They have a common place of worship known as Midiku,, also called it as Deoshal or Deoghar,Kundiku , which means the abode of the supreme deity, Kundi-Mama. The Dibangiya Deoris observe various rites and rituals in connection with the principal events of life as well as for the welfare of the community as a whole and to propitiate their different pristine God and Goddesses. But at contemporary times due to the influences of other religious beliefs, specially the influence of great traditional Hinduism of neighbouring caste Hindus, some impinging factors have been percolated in their indigenous belief system. In this present endeavour an attempt has been made to know about the traditional belief system of the aforesaid ethnic group in a rural context.

 The adivasi right on forest was not recognized during colonial period neither was it ensured after India got freedom. The conflict between the state and communities over the use of forest resources was started with the passing of  Indian Forest Act, 1865. The passing of the Scheduled Tribes (Recognition of Forest Right) Bill as Forest Right Act  was considered as victory of indigenous people. Under the Forest Act, 2006 the forest dwelling scheduled tribes receive ownership rights over land and forest. But the conservationists, wild life activist and forest department remained opposed to the provision of Forest Right Act in the National Parks and Sanctuaries. In 2008 the Forest Right Act enacted with a provision to create wild life habitat for conservation of wild life and denying the right of forest dwelling tribal communities within critical wild life habitat. As per provision of the Act, under section 4 sub-section 2 of chapter-iii, the forest department has begun widespread evictions across the country. Now the question arises what extent Recognition of  Forest Right Act is useful to enjoy their right over forest. Therefore the paper aims to examine the  conflict between the right of the tribal people and conservation of forest resources in relation to Forest  Policy and Recognition of Forest  Right Act.

 Phenylthiocarbamideor PTC (or Phenylthiourea) is a chemical compound which has the ability to categorize people into two classes, tasters and non-tasters irrespective of age, sex  and  race (Fox, 1932). Blakeslee and Salmon (1935) concluded that the taste sensitivity (to PTC) is controlled by a single pair of autosomal gene ‘T’ and ‘t’ with tasting  ‘T’ gene being dominant over non-tasting ‘t’ gene. Inability to clearly identify different colours of the spectrum is widely known as colour blindness. The difficulties can be mild to severe.  Colour blindness exhibits a sex-linked inheritance.

 Oraon is a predominant tribe of Northern part of  Chhattisgarh state. Chhattisgarh  accounts  for 2% of the total population of the country but it contributes more than 16% of the total malaria cases. For the present investigation two development blocks were selected from Jashpur district in order to report the precise knowledge of local epidemiological features of malaria among the Oraons.Outs of 243 households selected for the purpose  10.7% were affected  with Malaria. Females of reproductive age  showed a higher occurrence of malaria in 20-44 years age group as compared to males. Correlation of malaria with type  of house, animal domestication, excreta disposal, drainage system showed non significant results. Only toilet facility showed significant results .

 The purpose of this study was to evaluate the abilities of WC, WHR,  BMI and WSR as anthropometric indices to assess and predict hypertension in immigrant Tamil women. A total of one hundred adult immigrant Tamil women from  Kolkata, West Bengal, India were evaluated in the present cross-sectional study.  Bio-social data (age and ethnicity), anthropometry (stature, weight, minimum waist circumference and hip circumference)and blood pressure (systolic blood pressure and diastolic blood pressure) measurements were obtained. Body mass index (BMI), waist hip ratio (WHR) and waist stature ratio (WSR) were subsequently derived.  Statistical analysis includes receiver operating characteristics curve and logistic regression. The results revealed that apart from the WHR and BMI, area under the ROC curves of waist circumference (WC) and WSR were significantly higher. However, area under the ROC curve for WSR (AUC 0.630, 95% CI 0.515 to 0.745, p<0.05) was slightly larger than WC (AUC 0.629, 95% CI 0.516 to 0.742, p<0.05) in assessing hypertension. Odd ratios of BMI and WHR were also lower than that of WC and WSR. Odd ratio associated with a 1 cm increase in WC was 1.80 (95% CI: 1.09 to 2.98, p<0.05) and a 0.1 unit increase in WSR was also 1.80 (95% CI: 1.07 to 3.03, p<0.05). The result of the present study showed that both WC and WSR had similar efficacy and were superior to both BMI and WHR. Among different anthropometric indicators of obesity WSR could be a useful screening tool for predicting hypertension. 

 The traditional knowledge prevailing among the tribes as well traditional herbal healers/ Baigas/ Guinias in Bastar district of Chhattisgarh regarding use of various plants for different ailments. Ethno-medicine developed gradually having its origin in the indigenous medicinal practices. The main purpose of the study was to make survey of plants that have ethno-medicinal value and investigate the uses and management practices. 

 India is a developing country struggling hard to reduce the rate of infant mortality but yet to gain success because it is a country of numerous tribal and non-tribal groups with unique cultures and world-views which affect  the prenatal,  antenatal and post natal developments differentially. The study attempts to highlight the infant morbidity that lead to infant mortality in two linguistically cognate tribes, namely, the Mising of Assam and Minyong of Arunachal Pradesh. Many scholars state that the Mising tribe of Assam have migrated from the hills of Arunachal Pradesh and originally inhabited the same ecology as that of the present Minyongs.  At present; Misings are concentrated in the Brahmaputra riverine areas of Assam and these areas are perennially affected by floods; which is a new stress for them after migration from the hilly terrains. The decadal growth rates have proved that the Mising population has increased and at present they are the second most populated scheduled tribe (plains) of Assam. The number of survivors upto the reproductive age is an important indicator of biological adaptation as well as the outcome of natural selection in the particular stress (flood) and the indices of selection intensity show that the number of survivors is quite more among the Misings than that of the Minyongs. In this point, the number of surviving and healthy infants plays a significant role and its an urgent need to highlight the morbid conditions of these two tribes.