The Tribes and Castes of the Central Provinces of India | Page 2

India, Mr. V.
Ball's Jungle Life in India, Mr. W. Crooke's Popular Religion and
Folklore of Northern India, and Things Indian, Captain Forsyth's
Highlands of Central India (Messrs. Chapman & Hall), Messrs. Yule
and Burnell's Hobson-Jobson (Mr. Crooke's edition), Professor
Hopkins' Religions of India, the Rev. E.M. Gordon's Indian Folk-Tales
(Elliot & Stock), Messrs. Sewell and Dikshit's Indian Calendar, Mr.
Brennand's Hindu Astronomy, and the late Rev. Father P. Dehon's
monograph on the Oraons in the Memoirs of the Asiatic Society of
Bengal.
Ethnological works on the people of the Central Provinces are not
numerous; among those from which assistance has been obtained are
Sir C. Grant's Central Provinces Gazetteer of 1871, Rev. Stephen
Hislop's Notes on the Aboriginal Tribes of the Central Provinces,
Colonel Bloomfield's Notes on the Baigas, Sir Charles Elliott's
Hoshangabad Settlement Report, Sir Reginald Craddock's Nagpur
Settlement Report, Colonel Ward's Mandla Settlement Report, Colonel
Lucie Smith's Chanda Settlement Report, Mr. G.W. Gayer's Lectures
on Criminal Tribes, Mr. C.W. Montgomerie's Chhindwara Settlement
Report, Mr. C.E. Low's Balaghat District Gazetteer, Mr. E.J. Kitts'
Berar Census Report of 1881, and the Central Provinces Census
Reports of Mr. T. Drysdale, Sir Benjamin Robertson and Mr. J.T.
Marten.
The author is indebted to Sir J.G. Frazer for his kind permission to
make quotations from The Golden Bough and Totemism and Exogamy
(Macmillan), in which the best examples of almost all branches of
primitive custom are to be found; to Dr. Edward Westermarck for
similar permission in respect of The History of Human Marriage, and
The Origin and Development of the Moral Ideas (Macmillan); to
Messrs. A. & C. Black in respect of the late Professor Robertson
Smith's Religion of the Semites; to Messrs. Heinemann for those from
M. Salomon Reinach's Orpheus; and to Messrs. Hachette et Cie and
Messrs. Parker of Oxford for those from La Cité Antique of M. Fustel

de Coulanges. Much assistance has also been obtained from Sir E. B.
Tylor's Early History of Mankind and Primitive Culture, Lord
Avebury's The Origin of Civilisation, Mr. E. Sidney Hartland's
Primitive Paternity, and M. Salomon Reinach's Cultes, Mythes et
Religions. The labours of these eminent authors have made it possible
for the student to obtain a practical knowledge of the ethnology of the
world by the perusal of a small number of books; and if any of the
ideas put forward in these volumes should ultimately be so fortunate as
to obtain acceptance, it is to the above books that I am principally
indebted for having been able to formulate them. Other works from
which help has been obtained are M. Emile Senart's Les Castes dans
I'Inde, Professor W. E. Hearn's The Aryan Household, and Dr. A.H.
Keane's The World's Peoples. Sir George Grierson's great work, The
Linguistic Survey of India, has now given an accurate classification of
the non-Aryan tribes according to their languages and has further
thrown a considerable degree of light on the vexed question of their
origin. I have received from Mr. W. Crooke of the Indian Civil Service
(retired) much kind help and advice during the final stages of the
preparation of this work. As will be seen from the articles, resort has
constantly been made to his Tribes and Castes for filling up gaps in the
local information.
Rai Bahadur Hira Lal was my assistant for several years in the taking of
the census of 1901 and the preparation of the Central Provinces District
Gazetteers; he has always given the most loyal and unselfish aid, has
personally collected a large part of the original information contained
in the book, and spent much time in collating the results. The
association of his name in the authorship is no more than his due,
though except where this has been specifically mentioned, he is not
responsible for the theories and deductions from the facts obtained. Mr.
Pyare Lal Misra, barrister, Chhindwara, was my ethnographic clerk for
some years, and he and Munshi Kanhya Lal, late of the Educational
Department, and Mr. Aduram Chandhri, Tahsildar, gave much
assistance in the inquiries on different castes. Among others who have
helped in the work, Rai Bahadur Panda Baijnath, Diwan of the Patna
and Bastar States, should be mentioned first, and Babu Kali Prasanna
Mukerji, pleader, Saugor, Mr. Gopal Datta Joshi, District Judge,

Saugor, Mr. Jeorakhan Lal, Deputy-Inspector of Schools, and Mr.
Gokul Prasad, Tahsildar, may be selected from the large number whose
names are given in the footnotes to the articles. Among European
officers whose assistance should be acknowledged are Messrs. C.E.
Low, C.W. Montgomerie, A.B. Napier, A.E. Nelson, A.K. Smith, R.H.
Crosthwaite and H.F. Hallifax, of the Civil Service; Lt.-Col. W.D.
Sutherland, I.M.S., Surgeon-Major Mitchell of Bastar, and Mr. D.
Chisholm.
Some photographs have been kindly contributed by Mrs. Ashbrooke
Crump, Mrs. Mangabai Kelkar, Mr. G.L. Corbett, C.S., Mr. R.L.
Johnston,