Forum Pakistan

A people inhabiting India and Pakistan. Their population is approximately 40 milIion people, out of which one milIion live in Pakistan and the rest in India. Gujaratis belong to the Indo-Mediterranean race of the larger Europeoid race. Their native tongue is *Gujarati. The overwhelming majority practice Hinduism, but there is a significant number of Muslims and Jains.
The ancestors of present-day Gujaratis (Gujar or Gujara tribes) are believed to have come to Gujarat in the beginning of the first millennia AD and were partly assimilated by the local tribes of Bhil and *IndoAryans. In the Middle Ages the Gujaratis reached a high level of ethnic consolidation. They constituted the bulk of the population in the states of Valabha, Chalukya, and Gujarati sultanate. During the colonial period Gujarati principalities formed part of the Bombay Presidency. Their traditional occupations include ploughed farming (jowar, bajra, wheat, com, peanut, rice in irrigated areas), and cattle breeding (buffalo, zebu, sheep, goat). Also well-developed are silk and cotton weaving (brocade-kamkhab, chundari), pottery painting, wood and stone carving, embossing, and jewellery making. The traditional urban architecture is of the western Indian type. The houses are built of brick and stone with covered galleries and inner yards. Gates, windows, and doors are often decorated with rich carvings.

Gujarati villages are usually large, often with more than 1,000 inhabitants. A traditional village dwelling is a single or two-room adobe or stone house, in some places gypsum is used, with a tiled roof. Traditional clothes for men consists of wide pants gathered at the shins and narrowing below the knee, shirts with gathers from under the neckband, narrow long sleeves, dhoti, and long shirts. In town, men wear European clothing. Women dress in wide solid coloured skirts, embroidered along the hem, with embroidered blouses and shawls that cover the head and shoulders. In towns they often wear saris with the upper end thrown over the shoulders from the back to the front. Wearing jewellery is common. The staple diet-in accordance with consists of flat bread, called chapati, with peas and vegetables, rice, fish, poultry and goat meat. Families are monogamous and patriarchal. Gujaratis are famous for their arts including literature, music, dancing, drama, architecture, and particularly the Gujarati school of miniature painting.

BIBLIOGRAPHY: 'Ethnic Processes in South Asian Countries', Moscow, 1976 (in Russian); Hasmukhal D. Sankalia, 'Studies in the Historical and Cultural Geography and Ethnography of Gujarat', Poona, 1949; N. Shah, 'Some Facets of Industrial Development of Gujarat', Bombay, 1979.

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