Quite a handful of
West Bengal, the Bhuiya tribe deserves to be special mentioning. These Bhuiya tribes have a rich origin. The popular belief is that they were born out of the womb of Mother Earth. Numerous other myths are poplar amongst these Bhuiya tribes.
According to one of the legends, the deity chose the primitive Bhuiya tribe to be the owners of land. Just like any other tribes of India , these Bhuiya tribes too are farmers by profession. As per another mythological story, these Bhuiya tribes belong to a regal family. They enjoyed the same status of a king.
However a few of them lost the sanctity of their royal blood and were degenerated to a lower status. That they have undergone social mobilization is quite explicit from this fact. In order to rise higher in social ladder, some of these Bhuiya tribes go to the extent of discarding their tribal designation and claim names indicative of higher social status. Not only that, there are few members of other tribal communities of India, especially northeastern states, proudly take up the Bhuya names and status. Most of these tribes have different culture and tradition. Even some of them belong to high castes of Hinduism and they are `titular Bhuiya`.
