Entre village et royaume. La « divinité du hundi » des Joria Poraja (Orissa, Inde)

Abstract

This article aims to clarify the identity of a divinity existing in numerous villages in South Orissa, in India. This divine being is commonly interpretated, by ethnologists, as a local kind of “tribal earth goddess”. On the contrary, we try to show that it is a sort of miniaturized village pillar, in the Joria Poraja case, materializing the link between the soil or the locality, the sky and the inhabitants. This internal perspective is, nevertheless, complementary to an external one, according to which the village divinity refers also to the former regional kingdom, if not to a pan-hindu goddess like Durga.

Keywords

• Poraja
• Orissa
• India
• tribe
• kingdom
• hinduism