The present paper studies an event of annual pilgrimage and congregation of the Santal at Luguburu hill in Jharkhand along with associated performative practices of dance, song, speech events and rituals. Lakhs of Santals, the largest tribal community in eastern India, assemble at this place to offer worship to Lugubaba during the full moon day in the Santal month of Sohrae corresponding to October-November in English calendar. Pilgrimage is a new phenomenon in Santal culture. The earlier monographs on the Santal did not give any reference to this phenomenon. Martin Orans’ celebrated study on the Santals in search of a great tradition of their own has no mention of this event. The present study has discussed and analyzed the emergence of the phenomenon of pilgrimage. The study has argued that the search for tradition is actually linked to new cultural inventions in changed contexts as well as socio-political milieu. The new ‘cultural enactments’ draw elements from own as well as neighbouring cultures as the present case has exhibited. The rituals and associated activities built upon a ‘prior discourse’ leads to performative practice that is directed towards a celebration of identity of a community.

Durgāpūjā is the largest popular public event in Bengal. It has also become a feature of identity of the Bengali Hindus. The complex form of divinity with the goddess Durgā at the centre with her 10 arms holding different weapons respectively and slaying the buffalo demon invokes a deep sense of devotion and condenses many symbolic meanings. The author, an insider of the Bengali culture describes in brief the contemporary practice of worship of the goddess in Bengal. Then he passes on to uncover the multiple layers of meanings and functions of Durgāpūjā in Bengali culture with a substantial review of a large number of previous works on this topic. At the end he has tried to understand why Durgāpūjā has become the most important festival of the Bengalis. He attributes this to the semiotic association between Indian categories of culture and the worship of the goddess with an emphasis on collective ethos of life. The study links the post-modern and post-colonial theoretical understanding of space, power, authority, identity, culture industry, public sphere, public and popular culture, simulacra with the more traditional understandings of the economy, polity, hierarchy, Mauss' total prestation and Durkehim's idea of religion.

West Bengal, one of the eastern states of India has the oldest museum in the country apart from housing probably the highest number of museums in India. These museums are showcases of the rich cultural heritage of the country and its development during prehistoric and historical times, artistic and innovative skills of the people, colonial connections and national sentiments. In spite of such a glory and apparent prosperity, the museums in the state are facing a number of problems. It is revealed that many of the museums exist only in name being seldom visited by the common people barring a few connoisseur and researchers. These are run by individual effort and financial support leaving little scope for proper maintenance of objects through appropriate methods of conservation and display. The state neither has a definite policy for the museums, nor does it have any up-to-date data on the number of the museums in the state. It may be said that there is an apathetic attitude and lack of awareness on the both sides of the state and the people residing there. This situation leads to the virtual death of museums when it fails to run its business. What are the reasons behind this situation in which so many museums exist but cannot function up to expectation? How can the interest or involvement with the museums be inspired or inculcated or at least be generated within the people in general? The present paper attempts to find an answer to these questions touching the frames of Foucauldian concept of power and cultural heterotrophy. The discussion deals with numbers, distribution and typology of museums in the state, their historical development and the factors that have contributed to the development of museums in the state, the multifarious roles museums perform and people's engagement with museums. By way of this discussion, the paper tends to focus on how people conceive of museum and how the cultural artifacts of museum become a site for anthropological study of ontology of culture. The paper ends with a pragmatic note suggesting a museum-policy for the state.

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The present paper is a salvage Linguistic Anthropology, in which attempt has been made to document a nearly-extinct language known as māṅgtā bhāsā, and to suggest appropriate measures for saving it from complete extinction. The word māṅgtā is said to have been derived from māṅā, which means ‘to ask for’ or ‘to beg’. The language is spoken by a few groups of the Bedia, which is a Scheduled Tribe (ST) in India with a population of 88,772 as per Census of India, 2011(Risley [1891]1981; Bandyopadhyay 2012, 2016, 2017). Bedia is a generic name for a number of vagrant gypsy like groups which Risley has divided into seven types. They live by a number of professions such as snake-charming, selling of medicinal herbs, showing chameleon art or multi-forming. Almost all of them have become speakers of more than one language for interacting with speakers of different languages in the neighbourhood for the sake of their survival. Even the present generation has almost forgotten their native speech, and their unawareness of the language becoming extinct is of concern to us. Elders still remember it and use it sometimes in conversations with the fellow members of their community. The ability to speak this language is construed with regard to the origin of this particular group of Bedia. In fact, the language had given them the identity of a separate tribal community while they demanded the status of ST in the recent past. Thus, socio-historically, the māṅgtā language has a special significance. In spite of being a distinct speech, there has been almost no study conducted on this language. This is one of the major motives for taking up the present endeavour. This project conducts morphological, phonological, syntactical and semantic studies on the māṅgtā language. Sociolinguistic aspects of this language have also been considered. The language has its roots in the Indo-European language family with affinity to the Austro-Asiatic family. The paper interrogates whether māṅgtā can be called language or speech. The study required ethnographic field work, audio-visual archiving, and revitalization, along with sustainable livelihood protection of speakers of the language.