The Personality of India: Pre- and Proto-historic Foundation of India and Pakistan c10.39

c10.39

Ethnographic studies in India based on modern methods have not yet made sufficient progress. But one can see the close relation between the thick jungle and tropical forests and the main centres of the so called primitive tribes. There is a harmonious adjustment of their physical and cultural environment, which has enabled them to survive. (Fig. 5). The significance of these belts of jungles and hills cannot be exaggerated. Depending on the depth of these belts they have managed to survive the expansion of the people from the plains. A series of studies, carried out by the Sociology Department of the M. S. University of Baroda, have shown the remarkable difference in settlement patterns between the plains and the uplands still sheltering the tribal communities. While the villages of the plains are generally nucleated, we get the dispersed type of settlement in the uplands.¹