DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.16243#0143
SOCIAL TYPES
109
our view the ages of pre-historic evolution, it does not seem
unreasonable to suppose that here and there some half-
accidental circumstance, such as the transmission of a physical
defect or an hereditary disease, may have given primitive man
a sort of warning, and thus have induced the particular kind of
variation which his circumstances required. Conquest again
may have produced the same effect by bringing about a beneficial
mixture of stocks, though it is a little difficult to see, as Mr.
Lang pointed out long ago, why the possession of foreign
women should have disinclined people to marry the women of
their own group. At the same time it is conceivable that the
impulse may have been set going by some tribe from which all
its marriageable women had been raided and which was thus
driven by necessity to start raiding on its own account.
I have elsewhere given instances, drawn from the Kandhs and
Nagas, which lend themselves to this view ; but I am not sure
that we need travel beyond the tendency to accidental variation
which appears in all living organisms and may be assumed to
have shaped the development of primitive man.
In a country where the accident of birth determines
irrevocably the whole course of a man's social and domestic
relations, and he must throughout life eat, drink, dress, marry,
and give in marriage in accordance with the usages of the
community into which he was born, one is tempted at first
sight to assume that the one thing that he may be expected to
know with certainty, and to disclose without much reluctance,
is the name of the caste, tribe, or race to which he belongs. As
a matter of fact no column in the Census schedule displays a
more bewildering variety of entries, or gives so much trouble
to the enumerating and testing staff and to the central offices
which compile the results. If the person enumerated gives the
name of a well-known tribe, such as Bhil or Santal, or of a
standard caste like Brahman or Kayasth, all is well. But he
may belong to an obscure caste from the other end of India ;
he may give the name of a religious sect, of a sub-caste, of an
exogamous sept or section, of a hypergamous group ; he may
mention some titular designation which sounds finer than the
name of his caste ; he may describe himself
by his occupation or by the province or ClaSScfstes10n °f
tract of country from which he comes.
These various alternatives, which are far from exhausting the
possibilities of the situation, undergo a series of transforma-
tions at the hands of the more or less illiterate enumerator
109
our view the ages of pre-historic evolution, it does not seem
unreasonable to suppose that here and there some half-
accidental circumstance, such as the transmission of a physical
defect or an hereditary disease, may have given primitive man
a sort of warning, and thus have induced the particular kind of
variation which his circumstances required. Conquest again
may have produced the same effect by bringing about a beneficial
mixture of stocks, though it is a little difficult to see, as Mr.
Lang pointed out long ago, why the possession of foreign
women should have disinclined people to marry the women of
their own group. At the same time it is conceivable that the
impulse may have been set going by some tribe from which all
its marriageable women had been raided and which was thus
driven by necessity to start raiding on its own account.
I have elsewhere given instances, drawn from the Kandhs and
Nagas, which lend themselves to this view ; but I am not sure
that we need travel beyond the tendency to accidental variation
which appears in all living organisms and may be assumed to
have shaped the development of primitive man.
In a country where the accident of birth determines
irrevocably the whole course of a man's social and domestic
relations, and he must throughout life eat, drink, dress, marry,
and give in marriage in accordance with the usages of the
community into which he was born, one is tempted at first
sight to assume that the one thing that he may be expected to
know with certainty, and to disclose without much reluctance,
is the name of the caste, tribe, or race to which he belongs. As
a matter of fact no column in the Census schedule displays a
more bewildering variety of entries, or gives so much trouble
to the enumerating and testing staff and to the central offices
which compile the results. If the person enumerated gives the
name of a well-known tribe, such as Bhil or Santal, or of a
standard caste like Brahman or Kayasth, all is well. But he
may belong to an obscure caste from the other end of India ;
he may give the name of a religious sect, of a sub-caste, of an
exogamous sept or section, of a hypergamous group ; he may
mention some titular designation which sounds finer than the
name of his caste ; he may describe himself
by his occupation or by the province or ClaSScfstes10n °f
tract of country from which he comes.
These various alternatives, which are far from exhausting the
possibilities of the situation, undergo a series of transforma-
tions at the hands of the more or less illiterate enumerator