The Tribes and Castes of the Central Provinces of India, Volume 1 opens R. V. Russell’s monumental ethnographic survey of the peoples of central India. This first volume sets out introductory material on the religion, social structure, and customs of the region before the detailed descriptions of individual communities that follow in later volumes.
Compiled during the colonial period from official inquiry and local informants, the work is a vast and systematic record of Indian society as administrators understood it. It must be read with awareness of its colonial framework, yet its detail has made it a standard reference. For students of South Asian anthropology, caste, and social history, Russell’s survey remains a major and frequently consulted source.