Tribes of Andaman and Nicobar Islands (Ethnography and Bibliography)

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The literature on tribes is extremely scattered through count- less books, articles, news items etc. The author has heavily drawn on these divergent sources. There- fore, an attempt has been made to document the literature on the tribes of Andaman and Nicobar Islands under a single roof.

The present work aims to achieve some ambitious goals. It presents not only a comprehensive view of the literature but also enhances the knowledge of researchers, scholars, planners etc. who are willing to delve deeper into different aspects of the tribes of Andaman and Nicobar Islands.

Being an important book, it gives an ethnographic information of the tribes along with a brief description of the islands, and includes 1996 statistical figures. It also highlights the tribal distribution of the Negritos in South East Asia through both text and maps. Useful data has been provided in form of numerous tables, through which one can get a glimpse of the Indian tribal situation. This document is of immense value as an in- dispensable reference tool. It covers almost all facets of tribals of Andaman and Nicobar Islands.

SUMEDHA NASWA is a Librarian in Anthropological Survey of India. Educated at Chandigarh, Delhi and Dehradun, she holds a masters degree in Sociology, Diploma in Library Science, Rural Development, and certificate in Environmental Studies.

She has contributed some articles in various journals of national repute, both in Hindi and English. Her literary pieces of stories and poems, articles etc. have been published in reputed magazines and dailies. She has also given talks on All India Radio. She is a life member of IASLIC, AGLIS and UPLA. Besides many short bibliographies her main contributions includes a Bibliography on Andaman and Nicobar Islands (1981), Bibliography on Himalayas (1990). Her forthcoming publications are: 1. Scheduled Tribes of Uttar Pradesh. 2. Socio-Economic study of a Himalayan village.

Bibliographies are one of the important reference tools for researchers, planners etc. who are working on a particular area or subject. The literature on Tribes is extremely scattered inspite of the fact that there are countless books and articles etc. available. Hence an urgent need was felt to bring together such literature on the Tribal Studies of Andaman and Nicobar Islands.

There are good number of bibliographies on the literature of Islands which meet the general needs of the researchers. One such bibliography on the literature of Islands was compiled by me (jointly with T.N. Pandit) which was published in 1981 by Anthropological Survey of India. The bibliography covered all the aspects of the Islands. Whereas the present work is first of its kind which aims to cover the literature of the Andaman and Nicobar Tribals.

In this Bibliography an attempt has been made to cover the literature upto mid-1996 which had been an uphill task. It is always good to go through the literature physically but limitations and constraints are also there. However, I have tried to make the bibliography as comprehensive as possible. Inspite of my sincero efforts, some shortcomings might be there, for which the responsibility is entirely mine.