Orissa People & Lifestyle

Ancient
Orissa was a confluence of racial streams. History tells us that the Aryans
entered Orissa from the north-east, subjugated the primitive people living
there and imposed on them their language and culture. The story could not
be so simple; for the people then living in the land were not perhaps all
of the primitive type, nor were they subjugated culturally. What might have
happened in all Probability was a racial and cultural amalgamation.

Geographically Orissa stands as a coastal corridor between the northern and
southern India cut off by the intractable Vindhyas. It is natural therefore
that an assimilation of the races and cultures of the Aryans and the Dravidians;
must have taken place here in the days of gore.

At the same time successive racial and cultural tides might have surged up from
the different sides, rolled in and broken over this Bound culminating in the
indo-cultural synthesis.

Orissa, which is largely rural, the traditional values are still kept alive.
In general the values have no doubt
weakened but they are not lost. Among die innocent Advisees dwelling in the
wooded hinterland and forested hill slopes, India's earliest civilization is
retained in its pristine form.

Not only in their secluded hamlets, bet also in the countless thousands of villages
in the country sides one can catch a glimpse of the dwindling horizon of humanity,
through the innocent and benign outlook of tile villagers.

A sensitive person who happens to be a prisoner of the modern society with its
stress and strain will not, while in a typical village, fail to mark the relationship
of its common people with God, nature and their fellow men.

An article from orissatourism.net