The Kamar

C Dube's classic work The Kamar, originally published in 1951, was written at a crucial juncture in Indian history -- the end of colonial rule and the arrival of Indian independence. It is an important ethnography of an exploited and marginalized tribe in transition and a formative text in the history of Indian anthropology.
- This study is based on careful fieldwork and enlivened by ethnographic sensitivity related to the author's long familiarity with region and subject
- It presents a pioneering portrait of the Kamar, an adivasi community of hunter-gatherers and shifting-cultivators of Chattisgarh and Orissa
- Combining brevity of style, economy of expression, and simplicity of structure, in the book, Dube discusses key themes in anthropology and sociology: economic life, social organization, and customary law, myth, legend, and ritual religion, magic and witchcraft and questions of 'cultural contact' and 'tribal adjustment'.
- Nandini Sundar's insightful introduct ion situates Dube and his work in the current preoccupations of the discipline. Leela Dube, in a prefact to the new edition talks about the writing of The Kamar.

This is a reissue of the classic work first published in 1951. This new edition retains the text (including photos, maps and illustrations) of the first edition and has an additional editor's preface by Leela Dube. An introduction by Nandini Sundar serves to make the work more firmly integrated into the current preoccupations of the discipline.