Which of the following is NOT correctly matched ?
(Tribe) — (Place)

Question

UnlockIAS · Accepted Answer

Correct — D, 'Khirghiz — Sudan' is the pair that is NOT correctly matched. Khirghiz is simply an older spelling of Kyrgyz, a Turkic people of Central Asia. Their homeland is Kyrgyzstan and the surrounding high country of the Tien Shan and the Pamir–Alay, with communities also in China's Xinjiang, the Wakhan corridor of Afghanistan and eastern Tajikistan. They are the classic textbook example of high-altitude pastoral nomadism — felt yurts, herds of sheep, horses and yaks, and a seasonal move up to the summer pastures called jailoo. Nothing about them belongs to Sudan, whose own peoples are the Beja, Nubians, Nuba, Fur and Baggara. The other three pairs are all correct, so (d) is the mismatch the question is asking for.

Why the other options are wrong — (a) This pair IS correct, so it cannot be the answer. The Pygmy peoples — Mbuti of the Ituri forest, Aka and Twa among them — are hunter-gatherers of the equatorial rainforest of the Congo basin, the standard example of forest-dwelling adaptation.  (b) This pair IS correct. The Angami are one of the major Naga tribes, concentrated in and around Kohima in Nagaland, and are well known for terraced wet-rice cultivation on steep hill slopes.  (c) This pair IS correct. The Ainu are the indigenous people of Hokkaido in northern Japan, historically also of Sakhalin and the Kuril Islands; Japan enacted a law recognising them as an indigenous people in 2019.

Concept: 'Tribe and place' questions test whether you can put a named people into the right physical environment, because each of these groups is a textbook case of adaptation to one biome. Pygmies stand for the equatorial rainforest, where short stature, hunting and gathering suit a dense, closed forest. The Kirghiz stand for the Central Asian high steppe and mountain pasture, where nothing but herding is possible and the household must be portable. The Ainu stand for the cool northern forests and coasts of Hokkaido, historically living by hunting, fishing and gathering. The Angami stand for the terraced hill agriculture of the Naga uplands. Once you attach each name to a biome, the geography follows.

State PCS 2019 Q119 — Geography PYQ with Answer

State PCS 2019 Q119 — Geography PYQ with Answer