| Summary, etc. |
The Santals are the largest homogeneous tribe in India. They are in fact the largest of the tribes of Bihar and Bengal. They are also to be found in large numbers in Assam, Meghalaya and Orissa, in Nepal and Bangladesh.Though they have no written records of their own, very few other tribes have had so much written about them by Indian and foreign scholars. Unfortunately most of their literature has remained unsystematized and relatively unknown.<br/>This volume is the first comprehensive annotated bibliography of books, monographs, articles and reports on the tribe in English, Italian and Santali. Fruit of four years' research, it covers whatever was written on the subject starting from the earliest mention of the Santals in Asiatic Researches in 1795 till the end of 1974. It contains 487 annotated items, with, as far as possible, accurate and complete data on each one of them. The text classifies general works, Census Reports, District Gazetteers, District Census Handbooks, Surveys, Settlement Reports and other governmental reports, reports of missionary societies and missionary journals. Other items classified and annotated are studies relating to Santal physical characteristics; religious beliefs and practices, religious functionaries, festivals, witchcraft, magic, ancestor worship, superstitions, totemism, human sacrifice and ghosts; folk-tales, songs, dances and riddles; kinship and marriage, ritual friendship, family size and fertility; material culture; social organisation, tribal polity, social movements and social change, education, and language. |
