A glossary of the Tribes and Castes of the Punjab and North-West Frontier Province By H.A. Rose Vol II/Preface to Vol II
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[Page-i]: This glossary of the Tribes and Castes found in the Punjab, the North-West Frontier Province and the protected Territories on the North-West Frontier of India, is based upon the works of the late Sir Denzil Charles Jelf Ibbetson, K.C.S.I., Lieutenant-Governor of the Punjab and its Dependencies, and of the Hon'ble Mr. Edward Douglas Maclagan, C.S.I., now Secretary to the Government of India in the Revenue Department. Sir Denzil Ibbetson's Report on the Punjab Census of 1881 was reprinted as Punjab Ethnography. Volume III of the present compilation will include the rest of this Glossary, and Volume I will comprise the valuable chapters of Sir Denzil Ibbetson's Report which deal with the Physical Description of the Punjab, its Religions and other subjects, supplemented by the matter contained in the Hon'ble Mr. Maclagan's Report on the Punjab Census of 1891, and from other sources.
This Glossary embodies some of the materials collected in the Ethnographic Survey of India which was begun in 1900, under the scheme initiated by Sir Herbert Risley, K.C.I.E., C.S.I. , but it has no pretensions to finality. The compiler's aim has been to collect facts and record them in the fullest possible detail without formulating theories as to the racial elements which have made the population of the modern Punjab, the growth of its tribes or the evolution of caste. For information regarding the various theories which have been suggested on those topics the reader may be referred to the works of Sir Alexander Cunningham1, Bellew2 and Nesfield3.
The Census Report for India, 1903, and The Races of India may also be referred to as standard works on these subjects.
It is in contemplation to add to Volume III, or to publish as Volume IV, a subject-index to the whole of the present work,
- 1. Archaeological Survey Report. : more especially Vols II, V and XIV for the Punjab. Also his Ancient Geography of India, The Buddhist Period, 1871.
- 2. Races of Afghanistan and Yusufzai.
- 3. Brief view of the Caste System of the North-Western Provinces and Oadh : Allahabad, 1885.
[Page-ii]:together with appendices containing exhaustive lists of the numerous sections, septs and clans into which the tribes and castes of these Provinces are divided.
A few words are necessary to explain certain points in the Glossary. To ensure brevity the compiler has avoided constant repetition of the word "District" e. g., by "Lahore" the District of that name must be understood thus "in Lahore" is equivalent to the "in the District of Lahore," but by "at Lahore" is meant "in the city of Lahore."
The printing of the name of a caste or tribe in capitals in the text indicates that a reference to the article on that caste or tribe is invited for fuller information. References to District or State Gazetteers should be taken to indicate the latest edition of the Gazetteer unless the contrary is stated. References to a Settlement reeport indicate the standard Report on the Regular Settlement of the District in the absence of any express reference to an earlier or later report.
Certain recognised abbreviations have also been used, e.g.,
- J.R.A.S., for the Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society.
- J.A.S.B., for the Journal of the (Royal) Asiatic Society of Bengal.
- P.N.Q., for Punjab Notes and Queries, 1883-85.
- I.N.Q., for Indian Notes and Queries, 1886.
- N.I.N.Q., for North Indian Notes and Queries, 1891-9G.
- E.H.I., for Elliot's History of India.
- T.N., for Raverty's Translation of the Tahaqat-i-Nasiri.
In certain districts of the Punjab lists of agricultural tribes have been compiled by District Officers for administrative purposes in connection with the working of the Punjab Alienation of Land Act (Punjab Act XIII of 1900), and these lists have been incorporated in the present Glossary for facility of reference.
The two following extracts from an Address delivered by the late Sir Denzil Ibbetson on the Study of Anthropology in India to
[Page-iii]: the Anthropological Society of Bombay in 1890 are re-printed here as of permanent interest and value : —
- "Another scheme which suggested itself to me some years ago, and met with the approval of Sir Charles Elliot, would, I think, greatly simplify and lighten the labour of recording customs, but which I unfortunately never found leisure to carry out. It was to publish typical custom-sheets printed with a wide margin1. The printod portion would give a typical set of, say, marriage ceremonies, divided into short paragraphs, one for each stage. The inquirer would note opposite each paragraph the departures from the typical ceremonial which he found to obtain among the people and in the locality under inquiry. The main lines of these and similar ceremonies are common to many tribes over a considerable area, and the system, which is of course capable of indefinite expansion, would save a deal of writing, would suggest inquiry, would be a safeguard against omissions, and above all, would bring differences of custom into prominence.
- " And now I have come to the fourth and last head of my discourse, and you will, I am sure, be relieved to know that I shall be brief. What is the use of it all ? I must premise that no true student ever asks himself such a question. To some of you, I fear, I shall appear profane, but I take it that the spirit which animates the true scholar is the same in essence as that which possesses the coin-collector or the postage stamp maniac. He yearns for more knowledge, not because he proposes to put it to any definite use when he has possessed himself of it, but because he has not got it, and hates to be without it. Nevertheless, it is a question which, if we do not ask ourselves, others -will ask for us, and it behoves us to have our answer ready. In the first place, it is impossible to assert of any addition, however apparently insignificant, to the sum of human knowledge, that it will not turn out to be of primary importance. The whole fabric of the universe is so closely interwoven, mesh by mesh, that at whatever out-of-the-way corner we may begin unravelling, we may presently assist in the loosening of some knot which has barred the progress of science. What Philistine would look with other than contempt upon the study of the shapes of fancy pigeons, of the markings of caterpillars and butterflies, and of the respective colourings of cock and hen birds. Yet from these three sources have been drawn the most vivid illustrations and the strongest proofs of a theory the epoch-making nature of which we are hardly able to appreciate, because it has already become an integral part of the intellectual equipment of every thinking man. But Ave need not trust to the vagueness of the future for evidence of the value of our studies in India. They have already cast a flood of light upon the origin and nature of European tenures, and they have even modified the course of British legislation. I do not think it is too much to say that, had we known nothing of land tenures in India, the recognition of tenant right in Ulster would have been indefinitely postponed."
The scientific spirit which inspired the above remarks laid the foundations of all anthropological research in the Punjab and
- 1. This method was adopted in carrying out the Ethnographic Survey in these Provinces. H. A. R.
[Page-iv]: North-West Frontier Province. The practical importance of an intensive study of the minutest data in the popular religion, folk-lore, traditions, survivals and superstitions cannot be easily exaggerated, and the present writer is convinced that nothing but a closer study of them will, for example, reconcile the apparently hopeless inconsistencies of the Punjab customary law.
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