Amongst several tribal communities who have resided in the heartland of the state of Madhya Pradesh, the name of Kolam tribes deserve special mentioning. There are quite a number of people who also identify these Kolam tribes in different names like Kolamboli, Kulme and Kolmi. The main concentration is on the plains and mountainous region.

In order to carry on conversation, maximum of these Kolam tribal community use the beautiful language of the Kolami. This language belongs to the famous Dravidian language family. Quite a handful of these Kolam tribes even speak other languages like Marathi, Telugu or Gondi quite fluently. For writing, this Kolma tribal community uses the famous Devnagari script. As per the Census report of the year 1981, these Kolma tribes have got the literacy rate of 26.18 percent. What is also interesting is to note that these Kolam tribes have a preference of the homemade medicines. As far as occupations of this Kolam tribal community is concerned, they adapt to cultivation and farming. Shifting cultivation is also prevalent. . In the earlier times of 1940 and onwards, these Kolma shifting cultivators observe subsistence farming. Till date, this system is dominant amongst people of the distant areas.

Some of the members of this Kolam tribal community are also there who work as laborers in lieu of daily wages. Other occupations include animal husbandry, hunting and also food gathering. The Kolam food gatherers mainly produce various producers from the forest areas and also sell them in the markets. Evidences are also found where it has been seen that many of these Kolma tribes even worked as priests in the 12th century. Change came to them in the first decades of the twentieth century, when outsiders acting as agents of the wider money economy penetrated into tribal regions, and governments with their Societal structure of this Kolma tribal community too follows the norms and practices of any of the other tribal communities of the Indian subcontinent.

The Kolma society is exogamous. It mainly follows the patriarchal norms. Amongst these Kolma tribes, there has been an increasing trend to follow the nuclear family organization. Dowry system is prevalent, though there has been increasing trend to adapt to the practice of paying bride price amongst the Kolam tribes. Nowadays, since many of these Kolam tribes are maintaining contacts with the people of the modern day society, they also get involved in to services of other communities also. However, their interaction with them is still quite limited.

Although these Kolam tribes use to share very good relation with the other tribal communities, these Kolma tribes use to keep an individual burial land. Also in order to administer the society more efficiently, these Kolma tribes creates a council comprising of all the chiefs of the village families in order to solve social and economic conflicts. The Kolam tribes chose a council comprising of members for a period of 5 years and this council carries on the responsibility for maintaining social order.