Contents: Acknowledgements. Structure and exchange in tribal India and beyond. An introduction/Georg Pfeffer and Deepak Kumar Behera. I. Giving and reciprocating. 1. Structure and exchange an overview/Paula G. Rubel and Abraham Rosaman. 2. Kingship, tribal society and fertility in Koraput: different aspects of the ritual bali jatra/Tina Otten. 3. The buffalo sacrifice of the Kond and the creation of society/Roland Hardenberg. II. Affinal patterns: categories and rules in middle India. 4. Brotherhood and otherhood in Bastar: on the social specificity of "Dual organisation" in aboriginal India/Chris Gregory. 5. Delayed sister-exchange in Middle India: a preliminary sketch of co-sister-in-law and granddaughter marriage among the Aghriaa and neighbouring communities/Uwe Skoda. III. The whole and the individual. 6. Conceptualizing and creating society in highland Orissa: descent, territory and sacrificial communion/Peter Berger. 7. Village relations: descent, sacrifice, and territory in the highlands of Orissa/Roland Hardenberg. 8. The "lost" South African tribe : rebirth of the Koranna in the free state/Piet Erasmus. IV. Descent patterns: Middle and North East India. 9. The segmentary lineage system among the Saoras of Andhra Pradesh/M. Suryanarayan. 10. The Naga segmentary social system/N. K. Das. 11. Orissan tribal societies : commonalities and variations/Georg Pfeffer. V. Administrative "tribes" or anthropological types. 12. Social evolution: history of ideal types?/Georg Pfeffer. 13. Community-society : models of social life in tribal India/Ulrich Demmer. 14. Gatherer-hunter Chenchu of Nallamalai forests, Andhra Pradesh/V. Gangadharam. 15. Social structure of the Yerukala: emigrant tribe of Andhra Pradesh/S. Narahari. 16. Beyond the tribal society: to be or not to be a tribal in India/S.N. Ratha. 17. Tribal society in India and the world: meeting the undead dead/Georg Pfeffer. Notes on contributors. Index.
"Documentation of various facets of tribal social reality is very much essential before they are totally eclipsed by the rapid process of globalization of the world economy. While examining the current literature on tribal societies, we notice a curious absence of scientific studies based on intensive fieldwork among a large and important section of the world population. This ongoing series, Contemporary Society: Tribal Studies, tries to fill in this gap and thereby attempts to remove our ignorance about many aspects of tribal world.
This volume, containing seventeen papers, addresses the key issues concerning structure and exchange in tribal India and beyond. Analysing the different aspects of the Bali Jatra, the contributors deliberate on the buffalo sacrifice of the Konds, brotherhood and otherhood in Bastar, sister exchange in Middle India and the concept of society in highland Orissa. They also present an elaborate discussion on village relations, the segmentary lineage system and the models of social life in tribal India. The issue of 'to be or not to be a tribe' in India has also been addressed." (jacket)
