AESTHETIC SYMBOLS AND CULTURAL IDENTITY: A STUDY OF RAIKA COMMUNITY

The uniqueness of a community lies in its language, ethnicity, myths, religious beliefs, history, art and traditions that constitute its cultural identity.The concept of cultural identity has been explored in fields as diverse as Anthropology, Sociology, History, Psychology and Literature, in order to get a better understanding of the key elements, shaping the individual and collective identity of the people residing within the community. Focus of the current paper lies in the exploring and analyzing aesthetic symbols, prevalent in the myth and oral tradition of the Raika community. These symbols not only act as the carrier of social,traditional and religious beliefs of the community,but also play a vital role in creating and recreating the identity of the community, in this rapidly changing world. They prove instrumental in allowing individuals, sharing the same beliefs, to identify with each other based on their common experience of the ritual, customs and tradition . By exploring these symbols in great detail, this paper intends to unravel the underlying general patterns of the culture,constituting the psychological,social and behavioral functioning of the Raika community, which is further reflected in its cultural identity.