This research is founded on brief fieldwork, extensive archival research, and rare, unpublished primary sources gathered through meetings and correspondence with key informants. The investigation is historical, anthropological, and institutional in nature. It begins with an in-depth analysis of the ancestral religious and cultural systems, as well as perceived “traditional” socio-political institutions, of the Mundas of Chota Nagpur, Jharkhand (at that time still Bihar), to identify and interpret the social, religious, cultural, and political changes resulting from interactions with different cultures over the centuries. This thesis has received numerous awards. I owe a huge debt to my two supervisors, the late Prof. Enrico Fasana and Prof. Detalmo Pirzio-Biroli, for igniting my thirst for knowledge and teaching me to explore beneath the surface of things to quench that thirst! The thesis is written in Italian.