Folk-Lore/Volume 31/Review/A Glossary of the Tribes and Castes of the Punjab and North-West Frontier Province
A Glossary of the Tribes and Castes of the Punjab and North-West Frontier Province, by H. A. Rose. 3 vols. Lahore, 1911-19. Price 22s.
Mr. Rose, the author of a valuable Census Report of the Panjab in 1901, has now completed his great work on the ethnography of the Province. It professes to be based on the Census Reports of his predecessors, Sir Denil Ibbetson and Sir E. Maclagan, who were in charge of the Census in 1881 and 1891, but he has added a large amount of material collected by himself. The first volume is of special interest to students of folklore, as it contains a large mass of novel material in connection with the orthodox and local cults and usages, with a long account of the Saints and practices of the followers of Islām which here, as in other parts of India, has been greatly modified from its original standard by the assimilation of the beliefs of the people. Space does not allow of the consideration of this work in detail, but it will be indispensable to all who are interested in these subjects. A book of the same type by the late Mr. R. V. Russell on the Tribes and Castes of the Central Provinces was judiciously entrusted by the Local Government to a firm of English publishers, and it was issued in an attractive style with useful illustrations. Mr. Rose’s work was left to the mercy of the local Panjab presses, and the result is far from satisfactory. But with this reservation his untiring labours in the collection of facts may be cordially commended.