Santali Culture | Art, Stories, Facts & Way of Life.

Santhali Culture


The Cultural values of Santal leans towards their ethnic identity, a harmony of the individual with the community, the community with the land and the land with the spirit of universe.

As stated in Wikipedia, "Culture is an umbrella term which encompasses the social behavior and norms found in human societies, as well as the knowledge, belief, arts, laws, customs, capabilities and habits of individual in these group ".

The 'Culture' of Santals is a common 'expression' of their community lifestyle, this expression has various forms like singing, dancing, paintings, storytelling, wall painting and while practicing, it imparts this to their next generation.
On every occasion of joy the community gathers and celebrate this. This values are not forgotten or left behind in case of crisis among them. Rather it is taken up as moral duty of it's people , it's common law.

The folk songs remind them of their history, events and ancestry wisdomStories guide it's people how to look towards life, dancing is to learn the rhythm of life and playing music instruments while singing songs the common emotion bridges their soul to spiritual wisdom of universe.


Ghunghoo santal creativity
Women wearing 'Ghunghoo'

1.Culture : Artistic Creativity 

Ghunghoo is used by men and women while working on field.Its hand made natural raincoat made up of leaves.  Art is an integral part of Santal's life. Whether be it building houses, painting it or making bowl, plate out of ‘Sal’ leaf. 
Read Now

2.Wall Painting

A distinguishing characteristic of Art. The colours and drawings depict their simplicity and portray their stories, history & artistic creativity. Read More

3.Santal Village

The community life of Santal centers at it's village.To better understand their culture one can start knowing from their villages. Read More

4.Festival : Where people bring joy to nature.

If we talk about festivals, Santhals have mainly two festival which flaunts its rich culture. The first is: Sohrai and other is: Baha . These festivals are either related to Nature or Agriculture. The celebrations of these festival extends over number of days and include folk dance,  which are accompanied by respective folks songs and music of Tamak, Tumda or Traditional Musical Instrument.  Read More.
  • 1
  • 2
  • 3
  • 4
  • 5
  • 6
  • 7
  • 8
  • 9
  • 10

5.Kudum : Santali Riddle

Kudum is a Santali term for 'Riddle'. It expresses the symbolic idiomatic reference to understand the way of life to Santal . The common speech, riddles and proverbs reveal the kind of personality structure and emotional pattern of their common behavior. Riddles are taken as 'play' among them in leisure time.Read More

6.Folk Dance

A distinguishing characteristic of Art. The colours and drawings depict their simplicity and portray their stories, history & artistic creativity. Read More...

7.FolkTales

The community life of Santal centers at it's village.The 'Oral Tradition' is not just the stories. Instead, its a worldview. Check this out to better understand the culture Read More...
Kudum Santali Riddles


8.Ethnic Wear Phuta & Panchi, | Traditional Food habits.

One of the more interesting feature that characterizes the Culture of Santal is 'dressing' or traditional attire of Santals, though the dressing of cloth have gone massive changes over the years but it still depicts the cultural beauty, We've separate article regarding to this topic Read More.....
                                                                          Santal food habit is as simple as their lives, it is important to know about their food habit while knowing about their 'Culture' .Cultivation of rice is the primary source of food in their diet but the way of cooking and eating rice is different by Santals. Also, Be it having food or traditional drink 'Rice Beer', they always offers it first to their ancestors . To know such more interesting facts related to Santal Food & Cuisine.Read More..


  • Santhali Photography
  • Santali Jewelry,Ornament
  • Santhali Traditional dress
  • Santali Traditional dress
  • Santali Cultural dress
  • Santhali Attire

We hope this article could get you some insight about Santali Culture, If you haven't read our article on 'Tradition' of Santal where it contains brief introduction of their Traditional Institution, Marriage, Customary Laws, Event of life, Annual Hunt, Music Instruments, Symbol for communication, Clan Organisation and Traditional Wisdom then check this out !!!!.


Resources Courtesy: Shakuntala Mandi,Rashmi R Hansda and Galang Gabaan .

eDisom Team

Santhaledisom.com is an Online Publisher of contents related to Santhals. This website was started in 2014 with the soul aim of upbringing contents related to Tradition, Culture, Customs and Literature of Santhal Community by collecting and documenting them in form of our researches and writings, and publishing them on Internet . At present, the website is the largest knowledgebase of Santhal Community available on Internet having more than 100+ Articles, 1000+ Santhali Songs.

2 Comments

  1. ᱟᱰᱤ ᱱᱟᱯᱚᱭ ᱠᱟᱢᱤ ᱵᱚ ᱩᱨᱜᱮᱞ ᱟᱠᱟ ᱥᱟᱱᱟᱢ ᱠᱚ ᱟᱰᱤ ᱟᱰᱤ ᱥᱟᱨᱦᱟᱣ ☺👌🙏
    ...

    ReplyDelete
  2. yeah i like this article but i need some thing about Santhals dress
    please?

    ReplyDelete