Nature Man Spirit Complex in Tribal India  (Hardcover, R.S. Mann)

This third volume in the Ranchi Anthropology Series is based on a concept first enunciated by L.P. Vidyarthi in his study of the Maler. Briefly put, the nature-man-spirit complex analyses the close interaction of man and nature in primitive societies and the belief in the supernatural and the spirit world arising out of this.

Ten of the articles contained in this volume are empirical studies of widely scattered tribal communities in India ranging from the Maler, Parahaiya, Ho, the Soliga and the Kinner to the Negrito hunters, the Onge and the Nicobarese. The eleventh one is a mathematical computation of the concept itself—a novel method of analysis which goes to establish that in spite of changes the nature-man-spirit complex remains constant.

The cultural ecological methodology used in the essays provides a deep insight into tribal life and culture. The hills, the forests and the sea provide the tribals with the means for their livelihood. Their animistic religion and their belief in spirits both benevolent and malevolent provide the third link in the trinity: nature, man and spirit.

This excellent collection of articles explains the intimate relationship and interaction between social organisation and the religious complex and ecological conditions of these communities whose Rousseauesque state of innocence is yielding to the onslaught of “civilization”.

Anthropologists as also sociaologists, economists, those interested in the tribals and others looking for the off-beat will find the book of absorbing interest.