The Kamar

by S.C. Dube

S.C. Dube's classic work The Kamar was written at a crucial juncture in Indian history - the end of colonial rule and the arrival of Indian independence. It is an important ethnography o an exploited and marginalized tribe in transition and a formative text in the history of Indian anthropology. Based on careful fieldwork and enlivened by ethnographic sensitivity related to the author's long familiarity with region and subject, the study presents a pioneering portrait of the Kamar, an adivasi community of hunter-gatherers and shifting-cultivators of Chhattisgarh and Orissa. Combining brevity of style, economy of expression, and simplicity of structure, in the book, Dube discusses key themes in anthropology and economic life, social organization, and customary law, myth, legend and ritual; rrligion, magic, and witchcraft; and questions of 'cultural contact' and 'tribal adjustment'.

This third edition comes with a new Prologue by Saurabh Dube.

272 pages, Paperback

First published December 18, 2003

About the author

1922-1996