574 



NA TURE 



[October io, 1901 



p. 205, the proposition " the circumference of a circle 

 is less than the perimeter of any enveloping hne " has 

 no special reference to a circle — it is true of any oval 

 figure whatever, and no special property of the circle is 

 employed in the proof. We think that it should be struck 

 out as misleading. Finally, we must point out that the 

 Socratic method of teaching the pupil by a system of 

 questioning — the most efficient of all teaching methods 

 — is adopted throughout the book. The limited space 

 at our disposal has not by any means allowed of such 

 an exhaustive exhibition of its merits as this work 

 deserves. George M. Minchin. 



NATIVE LIFE IN SOUTHERN INDIA. 



Oicasional Essays on Na/ive South Indian Life. By 



Stanley P. Rice, Indian Civil Service. Pp. vi + 223. 



(London : Longmans, Green and Co., 1901.) Price 



\os. (yd. net. 



THESE sketches of south Indian life are concerned, 

 not with any of the districts, like Madura or 

 Tanjore, in the extreme south of the peninsula, but with 

 Ganjam, which while politically connected with the 

 Madras Presidency, is by the race, language, and 

 customs of its people more closely linked with the 

 Bengal Province of Orissa. This political separation 

 from his northern kinsfolk has worked evil to the Uriya 

 of Ganjam. The ordinary Madrasi looks on him as an 

 inferior creature, "not merely low in the rank of civilisa- 

 tion, but incapable of better things'' ; and he is carefully 

 excluded from the official employment which is monopo- 

 lised by his Telegu neighbours in the south. Hence, as 

 might have been expected, he has no ambition to develop 

 his own language or literature, and he remains a boor, 

 slovenly in his mode of life, and with little love for the 

 foreign native officials who manage his affairs. But he 

 is not quite destitute of good qualities. He is a hard- 

 working farmer ; he is not given to drink, like the Telegu ; 

 and Mr. Rice vouches for the fact that, when addressed 

 in his own tongue by one who understands and appre- 

 ciates him, he is courteous and hospitable. But still there 

 is a vein of savagery beneath his boorish exterior, as is 

 shown by the graphic account given by Mr. Rice of the 

 so-called Rebellion of Parlakimedi, which plunged the 

 land in ruin and anarchy during the early years of last 

 century. As usual in such cases, it arose from the apathy 

 and ignorance of the early officials ; and it was not till 

 many years had passed in maladministration that a 

 strong man was found at last in Mr. George Russell, one 

 of those little-known heroes of our Indian services, who 

 gave the land peace which has never since been 

 disturbed. 



Mr. Rice, though a careful and sympathetic observer 

 of native life, seems to have little knowledge of Indian 

 anthropology and folklore. This is perhaps not an un- 

 mixed disadvantage. He does not come, like some of 

 our Indian officials, ready to apply book learning to the 

 study of savage life ; nor is he primed with that modicum 

 of acquaintance with comparative anthropology which 

 leads him to see a totem in every bush, or a tree-god in 

 all rural ceremonies. But had he possessed a wider 

 NO. 1667, VOL. 64] 



acquaintance with some of the problems which anthro- 

 pology attempts to solve, his studies could have hardly 

 failed to gain in precision and interest. 



We have in Ganjam an excellent example of three ' 

 overlapping races. The Uriya of the plain cou ntry is a 

 Dravidian with a certain amount of Aryan intermixture. 

 His language is not "a blend of Sanskrit and Hindus- 

 tani," but a form of Bengali affected by the Telegu or 

 other South Indian tongues. .\ wider study of linguistics 

 would make it clear to Mr. Rice that the word Ponda 

 for a priest, which puzzles him, is merely the Sanskrit 

 panda, "a learned man." 



Next on the lower hills come the Khonds or Khands, 

 who seem here to have preserved no tradition of the 

 Meriya sacrifice through which they are best known to 

 ethnologists. They are a race of half savages already 

 half ruined by the trickery of the Uriya Shylock, and 

 deprived of their old mode of livelihood in the jungles 

 by the repressive rules of the Forest Department. 



Still further back in the more remote hills are the 

 Savaras or Sauras, who enjoy a free savage life, periodi- 

 cally burning down the jungle to sow their scanty crops, 

 but living mainly on the fruits and roots which the forest 

 supplies. But they possess some traditions of a more 

 settled life, because it is their law that the dead man 

 must be cremated with the wood of the mango, and this 

 must be done " in the portion of ground — one cannot 

 call it a field — which he last occupied." Of course this 

 may be a sign of Hindu influence, but Mr. Rice does 

 not say so, and Mr. Risley's account of the race in 

 Bengal does not support the suggestion. 



Of the marriage rites of these jungle people Mr. Rice 

 gives some interesting details, but he misses the point 

 of some of their practices because he has not grasped the 

 fact that they indicate a reaction against the early custom 

 of " Beena " marriage, in which the bridegroom is adopted 

 into the clan of his wife. This still prevails among the 

 Savaras, where if the bride's father agrees to the alliance, 

 "he and the bridegroom elect to go into partnership and 

 cultivate for two or three years." 



The religion of these races is, as usual, of the animistic 

 type, but it has been largely influenced by the Orissa cult 

 of Jaggannath. Witchcraft, of course, and the custom 

 of rendering the witch harmless by knocking out the 

 teeth, prevail widely. Special respect, which may be 

 totemistic, but is more probably the survival of some 

 animal cult, is paid to the bear, "as they have a curious 

 fancy that the souls of their ancestors inhabit the bodies 

 of bears after leaving their human prison. ' Mr. Rice 

 has never been able to discover why, when building a 

 house, they plough up the site and sow some grain after 

 consulting a priest or seer. This is a common form of 

 mimetic magic, performed with a view to ensure the 

 prosperity of the household. 



We trust that if Mr. Rice has the good fortune to be 

 again posted to such an interesting district as Ganjam he 

 will continue his studies among those wild races about 

 whom he displays such a sympathetic interest. But he 

 would come better prepared for such inquiries if he 

 mastered Mr. Risley's account of the tribes of Bengal 

 and other equally accessible works on Indian ethnology 

 and folklore. 



