1900.] Annual Address. 37:* 



the probable origin of tlie practice. Totemism survives over larpje areas 

 among' stroii<( and well organised tribes who show no signs of dying 

 out and on occasion assert themselves wifch inconvenient vigour. As 

 for taboo, which is usually considered to be one of the distinctive 

 characters of primitive man, the whole countrj^ is alive with it ; and 

 the caste system itself ma}' be plausibly described as nothing more than 

 a highly specialised and complicated application of the same principle. 



Before leaving this branch of the subject I should like to make 

 mention of the very admirable ethnographic work that has been done 

 in the series of Caste Hand-books for the Indian Army, by Major 

 Vansittart, Captain Bingley and Captain Nicholls, and to express a hope 

 not only that that work may be continued so as to give us a complete 

 account of all the tribes and races represented in the Indian Army, but 

 also that officers with a taste for such studies will pursue them on the 

 lines laid down in 1885 at the Lahore Conference on Ethnography by 

 Mr. Ibbetson, Mr. ISTesfield and myself and will send us from time to 

 time for publication in the Journal notes or monographs giving the 

 results of their inquiries. 



Having reviewed in a rather summary fashion the work done by 

 our Society and by others during the year I shall now take a dip into 

 the future and sketch what I think ought to be done and might be 

 done, at no great cost and without putting any undue strain on existing 

 machinery, to open up and render accessible to the world the great 

 store of ethnographic facts which India still offers to those who are 

 willing to seek for them. In doing this I shall take as my text the 

 following letter (the substance of which wns published in the Times 

 some months ago) which my friend Sir George King informs me has 

 ])een addressed by the Council of the British Association to the Secre- 

 tary of State for India. 



" At the meeting of the British Association for the Advancement of 

 Science at Dover, attention was called to the special opportunity offered 

 by the Census about to be taken in India for collecting valuable ethno- 

 graphical data concerning the races of the country ; and the Council 

 of the Association having taken the matter into consideration, and 

 being impressed by its scientific importance, have requested me, on 

 their behalf, to bring to the notice of Her Majesty's Government the 

 valuable scientific results which might be obtained hj means of the 

 Census. 



"The results of the Census itself constitute, of course, by their 

 very nature, an ethnographical document of great value ; and my 

 Council feel that, without overburdening the Officers of the Census or 

 incurring any very large expense, that value might be increased to a 



