The Malto or Maler people, also known as Pahariya, are a Dravidian tribal group from the

Rajmahal Hills The Rajmahal Hills are located in the Santhal Pargana division of Jharkhand, India. They were located on the northern margin of the Gondwana supercontinent, and its hills are today inhabited by the Sauria Paharia people whilst its valleys are do ...

in the northeastern

Chota Nagpur Plateau The Chota Nagpur Plateau () is a plateau in eastern India, which covers much of Jharkhand state as well as adjacent parts of Chhattisgarh, Odisha, West Bengal and Bihar. The Indo-Gangetic plain lies to the north and east of the plateau, and th ...

. They are divided into three subgroups: Mal Paharia, Sauria Paharia and Kumarbhag Paharia. All three are listed as Scheduled Tribes in

Jharkhand Jharkhand (; ) is a States and union territories of India, state in East India, eastern India. The state shares its border with the states of West Bengal to the east, Chhattisgarh to the west, Uttar Pradesh to the northwest, Bihar to the north ...

Bihar Bihar ( ) is a states and union territories of India, state in Eastern India. It is the list of states and union territories of India by population, second largest state by population, the List of states and union territories of India by are ...

and

West Bengal West Bengal (; Bengali language, Bengali: , , abbr. WB) is a States and union territories of India, state in the East India, eastern portion of India. It is situated along the Bay of Bengal, along with a population of over 91 million inhabi ...

. They speak Malto, related to the nearby

Kurukh language Kurukh ( or ; Devanagari: कुँड़ुख़, ), also Kurux, Oraon or Uranw (Devanagari: उराँव, ), is a North Dravidian language spoken by the Kurukh (Oraon) and Kisan people of East India. It is spoken by about two million peopl ...

, and Mal Paharia, variously classified as an

Indo-Aryan language The Indo-Aryan languages, or sometimes Indic languages, are a branch of the Indo-Iranian languages in the Indo-European language family. As of 2024, there are more than 1.5 billion speakers, primarily concentrated east of the Indus river in Ba ...

belonging to the Bengali-Assamese branch. When the British first encountered them they were nomadic. They practised ''jhum'' cultivation, as well as hunting and gathering, and would often also raid the plains of Bihar to the north or Bengal to the east, and would then retreat back into the forest. If there was a crop failure, death or other disaster, they would move to a new spot. Due to the remoteness of their territory they were never conquered by any of the many empires that claimed to rule the region. When the British induced Santals to cultivate the Rajmahal Hills, the Maltos fought back, but were eventually driven out. The Mal Paharia and Kumarbhag Paharia subgroups combined have a population of 182,560, while the Sauria Paharia subgroup has a population of 51,634, making the total Malto population 234,194. Today they still practice ''jhum'' cultivation, called ''kurwa'' in their language, and collect minor forest produce. They are plagued by many problems, including high levels of poverty and extreme malnutrition. For this reason they are classified as a

Particularly Vulnerable Tribal Group A particularly vulnerable tribal group or PVTG (previously known as a primitive tribal group), in the context of India, is a sub-classification of Scheduled Tribe or section of a Scheduled Tribe, that is considered more vulnerable than a regular ...

. However some are now settled cultivators. They fish in summer, and many now work as daily wage labourers. A few have government jobs. Among the Sauria Paharia, their traditional marriage ceremony is known as ''bedi'', that takes place in a house. Their society has no restrictions on premarital sexual relations, and children not born out of a marriage can still live with the mother. Another type of common marriage is marriage by capture. The Malto practice animism and revere a court of spirits known as ''Gosain''. The main Malto god is ''Dharmer Gosain'', a sun god, while their priests are known as ''demano''. The men wear a small loincloth, known as ''bhagwan'', while the women wear two garments: ''panchi'', an upper garment, usually an unstitched cloth, and ''pardhan'', a cloth around the waist.

References

Dravidian peoples Ethnic groups in Bangladesh Ethnic groups in India Adivasi {{Asia-ethno-group-stub