Ethnography of a Nomadic Tribe: A Study of Yanadi

Ethnography, the backbone of social anthropology, enjoys privileged position in social science research. But often it suffers from inadequate theoretical framework, and the current shift to post-modern writing on culture demands a treatment hitherto different from that of the classical kind. This book carefully considers the two requirements; it provides the ongoing theoretical debates on South Indian kinship and social organisation as also on ethnography which allows the reader to examine the facts against various theoretical perspectives. The ethnography here concerns with the life of Yanadi, a scheduled tribe inhabiting Sriharikota Island. It must be pointed out that there is no dearth of ethnographic literature on South Indian tribes and castes but certainly there is scarcity of material on nomadic tribes. The medieval history reveals a number of roving tribes which eventually settled down and assumed caste status. But their social structural features and their transformations largely remain unknown. The attempts made here fill this gap to some extent. Further, as it deals with the kinship and social organization of a Dravidian tribe it is an addition to the existing classical anthropological literature on South Indian social organisation.