The Reddis of the Bison Hills

Abstract

DR. CHRISTOPH VON FURER-HAIMEN-DORF'S volume appears very appropriately, now that far-reaching changes in the administration of India are foreshadowed. For although this is the second volume of a series dealing with the aboriginal tribes of H.E.H. the Nizam of Hyderabad's dominions, the problems considered are shared by a large number of primitive tribes in British India, most of whom are less fortunate than those in Hyderabad in that they have never had their problems examined by a trained anthropologist of the same standing. The whole volume is testimony to sympathy, insight, and a power of careful and resourceful analysis of a high order, as well as to the authors' ability to arouse interest in a humble and even humdrum tribe which has none of the spectacular attributes of those on the Assam frontier, for example, though its problems in a rapidly changing environment are, of course, no less urgent. The plentiful illustrations are typical of the brilliant photography which we have learned to associate with Dr. Furer. The Reddis of the Bison Hills A Study in Acculturation. By Dr. Christoph von Furer-Haimendorf., in collaboration with Elizabeth von Furer-Haimendorf. (The Aboriginal Tribes of Hyderabad, Vol. 2.) Pp. xvii + 373 + 84 plates. (Bombay and London: Macmillan and Co., Ltd., 1945.) 20 rupees ; 35s. net.