According to the essayist G. N. Devy, the tribal arts display many distinctive features.
One of the distinctive features of tribal arts is their distinct manner of constructing space and imagery, which might be described as 'hallucinatory'. In both oral and visual forms of representation, tribal artists seem to interpret verbal or pictorial space as demarcated by an extremely flexible 'frame'. The boundaries between art and non art become almost invisible. In a tribal Ramayana, an episode from the Mahabharata makes a sudden and surprising appearance; tribal paintings contain a curious mixture of traditional and modern imagery.
The tribal arts follow strict convention. Every tribal performance and creation has, at its back, another such performance or creation belonging to a previous occasion. The creativity of the tribal artist lies in adhering to the past while, at the same time, slightly subverting it.
Playfulness is the soul of tribal arts. The tribal arts rarely assume a serious or pretentious tone. The tribal arts are relaxed and never tense.
The tribal oral stories and songs employ bilingualism in a complex manner.
