Hand clasping and Armfolding among Dhankut of Bahraich district of U.P.

Hand clasping and Armfolding among Dhankut of Bahraich district of U.P.
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Dr. Alok Chantia
Lecturer (Anthropology)
J.N.P.G. College
Lucknow
In India, many workers have reported the distribution of hand clasping and Arm folding
in certain populations, but majority of them has surveyed the caste populations and very
little work has been done on tribal groups. In view of this the present paper reports the
data on the distribution of hand clasping and arm folding among the Dhankut of Bahraich
district of Uttar pradesh State.
Dhankut is an endogamous group and they are living in the disytrict Bahraich. Bahraich
district lies between the latitude 270 04’ and 280 24’ north and longitude 810 03’ and 820
13’ east. The territory of Nepal, from the village of Bandrahiga Gaurhi near the Bharat
pur in the north to the boundary of district Gonda bound it on the north and northeast.
The total no. Of population of the Dhankut is 2687. 1373 males and 1314 females
including male and female children are in the total population.
It is a migrated group from an unknown place. Their specific marriage pattern (cross
cousin marriage and parallel cousin marriage) shows their association with a tribal group.
The sign of marriage is use of Lakh bangles in the hands of a married woman. Absence of
Gotra makes their position specific. They have 36 lineage. At the level of lineage they are
exogamy. It is an occupational group, who is searching their identity in the social
structure of independent India.
The present paper based on the data collected from 210 Dhankuts (150 males and 60
females) inhabiting the Dhankutty pura of Bahraich city(U.P.) DURING January-
February 2000. These Dhankuts are basically engaged in different occupation. The
individuals were classified as “R” or “L” hand claspers and arm folders on the basis of
the superior position of thumb during interlocking of the fingers and crossing of the arm
over the chest respectively.
The analysis of table indicate that “R” hand claspers show a higher frequency than “L”
hand claspers, which is inconformity with most of the finding(Bhatnager and Tyagi
1976). The sexual variation in the present study is very little and is statistically non
significant (x2 = 0.04999 d.f. 1 90>P> 0.80). this is in line with other studies (Tyagi
1969), although Freire-Maia etal.(1958) have reported a significant sex difference in
some of the populations.
In the present study “L” arm folding was found to be more common than “R” arm
folding. Chattopadhyay(1968, 1970), and others have also observed the same situation.
But Tyagi(1969) and few others found a reverse picture. Meaning there by the females
show a higher frequency of “L” arm folding than the males, which is also reported by few
workers, such as Pons( 1961). But in the present study found a different picture among
*Alok Chantia, Lecturer(Anthropology), J.N.P.G. College,
124 Shekheiyapura, Bahraich-271801 (U.P.)
the Dhankut. They show a higher frequency of “R” arm folding in females than males.
Thus it seems that there is no general rule about the distribution of arm folding in the two
sexes. It varies from group to another. The sex difference was found to be statistically
no9n significant in the present study (x2= 0.0100; d.f. 1 ; 95>P>0.90).
From the above analysis it can be said that there is no general rule regarding the
distribution of these two traits in the populations i.e. it is not necessary that “R” or “L”
arm folders dominate the other in all the populations. The same thing can be said for hand
clasping, since we find “R” hand clasping more common than “L” in most of the studies,
as is the case in this study also. Further investigation is also required because it is a
matter of chance, which should be confirmed by more investigators.
Table
Hand clasping and Arm folding among Dhankut of Bahraich district
No. Hand clasping(%) Arm folding (%)
Tested R Type L Type R Type L Type
Male 150 60.00 40.00 39.33 60.67
Female 60 61.67 38.33 38.33 61.67
Male& 210 60.47 39.52 39.04 60.95
Female
Reference
Bhatnagar, B.R. and D. Tyagi, 1976, Hand clasping in India population.
Chattopadhyay, P.K., 1968, Mode de Croisemet des main et des bras droiterie et
comptodetulie Chez Les Bengalies, “L” Anthropo. 72: 317-324
1970, Some physical studies among Gujars of Delhi, Man in India,
50: 185-188.
Freire-Maia, N.A. Duelec-Salgado and A. Freire- Maia, 1958 Hand clasping in different
ethnic groups. Human biology, 30: 281-291.
Pons, J., 1961, A contribution to the genetics of Hand clasping and arm folding, Second
international congress on Human genetics, Rome.
Tyagi, D. 1969, A study of bilateral variation : Handedness, handclasping and arm
folding among the Muslim of Uttar Pradesh. The florida Anth., 22: 24-29