DOI Seite / Zitierlink:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.16243#0011
PREFACE TO THE NEW EDITION
Soon after the death of her husband, Lady Risley entrusted to
me a large collection of papers connected with Anthropology,
which he had brought with him from India. He intended to
prepare new editions of the present work and of his Tribes
and Castes of Bengal, and to write an account of the people of
Eastern Bengal. But his health failed soon after his retirement
from the Indian Civil Service, and he was unable to do any
work in connection with these projects. It was therefore
decided to issue a memorial edition of The People of India,
the preparation of which was entrusted to me. On examining
his papers nothing in the shape of notes for this revised edition
could be discovered. Under these circumstances it was decided
to reprint the text as it stood in the first edition, which was
issued in limited numbers and had fallen out of print soon after
publication. Accordingly, no attempt has been made to revhe
the text, except by bringing the statistics up to date, securing
uniformity in the transliteration of vernacular terms, and adding,
in square brackets, some notes and references mainly collected
from the Reports of the Census of India and its Provinces which
was carried out in 1911 by Mr. E. A. Gait, C.S.I., CLE. The
publication of this edition has therefore been postponed until
the arrival in England of a full set of the Census Reports.
I have also added an Introduction containing a short
memoir of Sir H. Risley, confined to his official life and his
work in Anthropology, with some remarks on questions
connected with this book which have been raised since its
publication, and a bibliography of his Anthropological writings,
so far as I have been able to trace them.
The illustrations of the original edition consisted of repro-
ductions from the late Colonel E. T. Dalton's Descriptive
Ethnology of Bengal. These were confined to the tribes of
Bengal and Assam. In order to render the book more
interesting and useful to Anthropologists, in the present
edition these have been supplemented by a collection of
Soon after the death of her husband, Lady Risley entrusted to
me a large collection of papers connected with Anthropology,
which he had brought with him from India. He intended to
prepare new editions of the present work and of his Tribes
and Castes of Bengal, and to write an account of the people of
Eastern Bengal. But his health failed soon after his retirement
from the Indian Civil Service, and he was unable to do any
work in connection with these projects. It was therefore
decided to issue a memorial edition of The People of India,
the preparation of which was entrusted to me. On examining
his papers nothing in the shape of notes for this revised edition
could be discovered. Under these circumstances it was decided
to reprint the text as it stood in the first edition, which was
issued in limited numbers and had fallen out of print soon after
publication. Accordingly, no attempt has been made to revhe
the text, except by bringing the statistics up to date, securing
uniformity in the transliteration of vernacular terms, and adding,
in square brackets, some notes and references mainly collected
from the Reports of the Census of India and its Provinces which
was carried out in 1911 by Mr. E. A. Gait, C.S.I., CLE. The
publication of this edition has therefore been postponed until
the arrival in England of a full set of the Census Reports.
I have also added an Introduction containing a short
memoir of Sir H. Risley, confined to his official life and his
work in Anthropology, with some remarks on questions
connected with this book which have been raised since its
publication, and a bibliography of his Anthropological writings,
so far as I have been able to trace them.
The illustrations of the original edition consisted of repro-
ductions from the late Colonel E. T. Dalton's Descriptive
Ethnology of Bengal. These were confined to the tribes of
Bengal and Assam. In order to render the book more
interesting and useful to Anthropologists, in the present
edition these have been supplemented by a collection of