IOSR Journal Of Humanities And Social Science (IOSR-JHSS) Volume 22, Issue 9, Ver. 5 (September. 2017) PP 24-29 e-ISSN: 2279-0837, p-ISSN: 2279-0845. www.iosrjournals.org DOI: 10.9790/0837-2209052429 www.iosrjournals.org 24 | Page Understanding Santal Identity through their Architecture Amit Kumar Kisku 1* and Arghya Santra 2 1 Assistant Professor, Department of Anthropology, Vidyasagar University, Midnapore – 721102, West Bengal, 2 Research Scholar, Department of Anthropology, Vidyasagar University, Midnapore – 721102, West Bengal, Corresponding author: Amit Kumar Kisku Abstract: We discuss in this paper how the architecture of the houses of Santals helps to understand the distinct identity of the community. Santals are one of the largest tribal communities of India and expanse over the eastern Indian states such as Assam, Bihar, Jharkhand, Odisha, and West Bengal. They mainly live in villages in the hill-forest regions of these states and subsist on practicing agriculture. They build their houses employing traditional methods and with locally available resources instead of industrial built hard materials. The community is renowned for the craftsmanship, plastering, decorating, and precision in their built. They learn the craftsmanship through direct experiences and without any textual training. This totality of the architecture of their houses is distinct from that of other communities and thus become the markers of their distinct identity: such a technique, with which Santals build their houses, in recent years has come to be known as ‘vernaculararchitecture’ in the language of architectural research. Keywords: Santals, Identity, House, Vernacular Architecture --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Date of Submission: 14-08-2017 Date of acceptance: 08-09-2017 --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- I. INTRODUCTION In recent years, several scholars of social science and humanities disciplines have taken an intense interest in questions concerning ‘identity’. The word ‘identity’ has different meanings and definitions in different disciplines and school of thoughts. Scholars, thus, also have presented different definitions over time. The word ‘identity’first academically appeared the book ‘Identity and Life cycle’ by psychologist Erik Erikson (1959). In his previous book Childhood and Society(1950), he developed a periodically analysis table of psychological development of child and youth, and described the process of identity formation. According to him, identity of is human being developed throughout the span of whole life. According to the Oxford English Dictionary, identity means ‘the characteristics determining who or what a person or thing is’. In philosophical terms, the word ‘identity’ refers to the nature, appearance, and the type of physicalism of existent. It also refers to the nature with distinction (Moin 2002). Identity can also be defined as a set of material, biological, cultural, and psychological symbol, which expresses a kind of uniformity, solidarity, and persistence, integrity of a particular society or a group (Moharami, 2004). In 1988, Hogg and Abrams gave a definition – Identity is “people’s concepts of who they are, of what sort of people they are, and how they are related to others”. However, ‘identity’ isnot onlysignified through human being but also through materiality. In The Materiality of Stone, Chris Tilley (2004) argues that prehistoric stone and tool express the symbolic view of particular community or civilization and reflect social identities in various ways.In this sense, particularly of houses, exhibit the identity of the community, which carry the concept and characteristics attributed to a community (Buchli 2013; Torabi and Brahman, 2013). According to Rapoport (1969), forms of house and location of the house represent the social status of the dwellers. People personalize their home and workplace with decoration, so that their home and workplace reflect who they are. (Despres1991; Csikszentmihalyi &Rochberg-Halton 1981; Nasar & Kang 1999; Rapoport, 1982). Under the above background, with particular reference to the one of the largest tribal community of India Santals, this paper attempts to show how the architecture of their houses helps to understanding the distinct identity of the community. This research paper has been written by analysing the available literature written on the houses of Santals; thus, the data sources are mainly secondary. Similar researches done elsewhere in the world and on other communities have also been taken into consideration for comparative understanding on particular issues. Besides, both the authors have first-hand experience on Santal architectures. The first author is himself a Santal and was born and brought up in a uni-ethnic Santal village of Paschim Medinipur