Ho Tribals

The Ho people are an ethnic group of India. They are an Austroasiatic ethnic group concentrated in the state of Jharkhand and Odisha where they constitute around 10.5% of the Scheduled Tribes. With a population of approximately 700,000 in the state in 2001, the Ho were the fourth most numerous Scheduled tribe in Jharkhand after the Santhals, Kurukhs, and Mundas. Ho territory also extends to adjacent areas in the neighboring states of West bengal, where there are approximately 80,600 Ho, Chhattisgarh and Bihar.They also live in Bangladesh and Nepal The ethnonym "Ho" is derived from the Ho language word hō meaning "human". The name is also applied to their language which is an Austroasiatic language closely related to Mundari. According to Ethnologue, the total number of people speaking the Ho language was 1,040,000 as of 2001. Similar to other Austroasiatic groups in the area, the Ho report varying degrees of multilingualism, also using Hindi and English.[8] Over 90% of the Ho practice the indigenous religion Sarnaism. The majority of the Ho are involved in agriculture, either as land owners or laborers, while others are engaged in mining. Compared to the rest of India, the Ho have a low literacy rate and a low rate of school enrollment. The government of Jharkhand has recently approved measures to help increase enrollment and literacy among children