The correct answer is Option (1) → Paharias
'Paharias' were dwellers settled in and around Rajmahal Hills practicing shifting agriculture.
Hill folk were known as Paharias. They lived around the Rajmahal hills, subsisting on forest produce and practicing shifting cultivation. They cleared patches of the forest by cutting bushes and burning the undergrowth. On these patches, enriched by the potash from the ash, the Paharias grew a variety of pulses and millets for consumption. They scratched the ground lightly with hoes, cultivated the cleared land for a few years, then left it fallow so that it could recover its fertility, and moved to a new area.
From the forests, they collected mahua (a flower) for food, silk cocoons and resin for sale, and wood for charcoal production. The undergrowth that spread like a mat below the trees and the patches of grass that covered the lands left fallow provided pasture for cattle. They lived in hutments within tamarind groves and rested in the shade of mango trees. They considered the entire region as their land, of their identity as well as survival; and they resisted the intrusion of outsiders. |
