DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.16243#0014
xii
INTRODUCTION
Rev. P. Dehon, S.J., compiled his valuable monograph on the
Oraons.*
In 1869 Sir W. W. Hunter had commenced the Statistical
Survey of India, the results of which were embodied in the
first edition of the Imperial Gazetteer published in 1881.
The survey of the Province of Bengal was undertaken by
Hunter himself, and the interest displayed by Risley in the
anthropology, linguistics, and sociology of India led to his
appointment on the staff of the Survey, as Assistant Director
of Statistics, early in 1875. The volume on the hill districts
of Hazaribagh and Lohardaga was compiled by Risley. His
wide knowledge of rural life and the lucidity of his literary
style displayed in this book marked him out for further
promotion. After little more than three years' service he
began to act as Assistant Secretary to the Government of
Bengal, and in 1879 he officiated as Under Secretary in the
Home Department of the Government of India. " It was at
this period of his career," writes Mr. Anderson, " that he met
and married the accomplished German lady, whose linguistic
attainments aided him in his wide reading on anthropology and
statistical subjects in foreign languages." In 1880 he once more
returned to district work among his old friends the jungle
folk of Chota Nagpur; and after an interval again spent in the
Bengal Secretariat, he was placed in charge of an enquiry
into the Ghatwali and other primitive forms of land tenure
in the district of Manbhum.
In 1885 Sir Rivers Thompson, then Lieutenant-Governor
of Bengal, decided that it was advisable to collect detailed
information on the castes, tribes, and sociology of that Province.
Risley was naturally selected as the officer best qualified to
undertake the work. At the beginning of this investigation,
which extended over some years, he had the good fortune to
meet Dr. James Wise, then retired from the Indian Medical
Service, who during ten years' occupancy of the post of Civil
Surgeon of Dacca, had collected much valuable information on
the people of Eastern Bengal. A summary of this was published
privately by him in 1883 under the title of Notes on the Races,
Castes, and Trades of Eastern Bengal. On the sudden death
of Dr. Wise in 1886, his widow made over his papers to Risley
" on the understanding that after testing the data contained in
•"Religion and Customs of the Uraons," Memoirs Asiatic Society of Bengal, 1906,
p. 121 et sea.
INTRODUCTION
Rev. P. Dehon, S.J., compiled his valuable monograph on the
Oraons.*
In 1869 Sir W. W. Hunter had commenced the Statistical
Survey of India, the results of which were embodied in the
first edition of the Imperial Gazetteer published in 1881.
The survey of the Province of Bengal was undertaken by
Hunter himself, and the interest displayed by Risley in the
anthropology, linguistics, and sociology of India led to his
appointment on the staff of the Survey, as Assistant Director
of Statistics, early in 1875. The volume on the hill districts
of Hazaribagh and Lohardaga was compiled by Risley. His
wide knowledge of rural life and the lucidity of his literary
style displayed in this book marked him out for further
promotion. After little more than three years' service he
began to act as Assistant Secretary to the Government of
Bengal, and in 1879 he officiated as Under Secretary in the
Home Department of the Government of India. " It was at
this period of his career," writes Mr. Anderson, " that he met
and married the accomplished German lady, whose linguistic
attainments aided him in his wide reading on anthropology and
statistical subjects in foreign languages." In 1880 he once more
returned to district work among his old friends the jungle
folk of Chota Nagpur; and after an interval again spent in the
Bengal Secretariat, he was placed in charge of an enquiry
into the Ghatwali and other primitive forms of land tenure
in the district of Manbhum.
In 1885 Sir Rivers Thompson, then Lieutenant-Governor
of Bengal, decided that it was advisable to collect detailed
information on the castes, tribes, and sociology of that Province.
Risley was naturally selected as the officer best qualified to
undertake the work. At the beginning of this investigation,
which extended over some years, he had the good fortune to
meet Dr. James Wise, then retired from the Indian Medical
Service, who during ten years' occupancy of the post of Civil
Surgeon of Dacca, had collected much valuable information on
the people of Eastern Bengal. A summary of this was published
privately by him in 1883 under the title of Notes on the Races,
Castes, and Trades of Eastern Bengal. On the sudden death
of Dr. Wise in 1886, his widow made over his papers to Risley
" on the understanding that after testing the data contained in
•"Religion and Customs of the Uraons," Memoirs Asiatic Society of Bengal, 1906,
p. 121 et sea.