"The Tribes and Castes of the Central Provinces of India Vol. 2" by R.V. Russell is a comprehensive anthropological study of the various tribes and castes that inhabit the Central Provinces of India. The book is divided into two parts. Part I provides an introduction to the region and its people, including a brief history of the Central Provinces and an overview of the various social and cultural groups found there. Part II is the largest section of the book and provides detailed information on the various tribes and castes of the region. Russell describes each group's physical features, language, religion, customs, and economic activities, as well as their social structure, marriage customs, and beliefs about illness and death. Some of the tribes and castes covered in this volume include the Ahir, Bania, Brahman, Chamar, Dhimar, Gond, Kalal, and Korku. Russell provides a wealth of information on each group, including their history, customs, and social organization. Overall, "The Tribes and Castes of the Central Provinces of India Vol. 2" is an important work for those interested in anthropology and Indian history, providing valuable insight into the diverse social and cultural landscape of the Central Provinces.
R. V. Russell was a British civil servant who lived from August 8, 1873, to December 30, 1915. He was best known for his job as Superintendent of Ethnography for what was then the Central Provinces of British India, where he oversaw the production of books about the people who lived there. During the 1901 Census of India, Russell was in charge of how the census was done. Charles Robert Tilden Russell, Russell's father, was an officer in the Royal Navy. He went to Winchester College for schooling and then to Trinity College in Cambridge. In 1893, he joined the Indian Civil Service Russell put together The Castes and Tribes of the Central Provinces with the help of an amateur archaeologist named Rai Bahadur Hira Lal. It was similar to his other works of the same type, but it was different in that it relied more on Vedic literature than on the anthropometric methods and theories of Herbert Hope Risley and his supporters to find out where caste comes from in terms of race. Russell died on December 30, 1915, when the SS Persia was hit by a torpedo and sank off the coast of Crete.
