Ethnographic Notes in Southern India / Edgar Thurston

It has been well said that "there will be plenty of money and people available for anthropological research, when there are no more aborigines. And it behoves our museums to waste no time in completing their anthropological collections.''Under the scheme for a systematic ethnographic survey of the whole of India, a superintendent for each Presidency and Province was appointed in 1901, to carry out the work of the survey in addition to his other duties. For many years the author has been engaged in bringing together the scattered information bearing on'Manners and Customs ' in South India, surviving, moribund, or deceased, which lies buried in official reports, manuals, journals of societies, and other publications. The information thus collected has been supplemented by correspondence with district officers and private individuals, and by the personal wanderings of the author himself and his assistants, Mr. K. Rangachari (from whose negatives most of the illustrations have been made), Mr. V. Govindan and Mr. C. HayavadanaRao, in various parts of the Madras Presidency, Mysore, and Travancore, in connection with the work of the survey, which demands the writing of a book on lines similar to Risley's 'Tribes and Castes of Bengal.' The author may add that the chapter devoted to omens, evil eye, etc., is intended only as a mere outline sketch of a group or subjects, which, if worked up in detail, would furnish material for a very bulky volume.