Ethnography Historiography and North- East India

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The Asiatic Society after its inception paid attention to some initial publications on Assam and its far-flung hilly areas in the form of small ethnographic notes on diverse subjects. Over the years some systematic attention was paid to a few substantial publications. To cite a few examples, one may refer to J. H. Lorrain's Dictionary of the Lushai Language in 1940 and at a later date to Kirata-jana-krti authored by Dr. Suniti Kumar Chatterji in 1951 and a few others.

After an interregnum, the Society has again taken up studies on North-East India by way of undertaking research projects, organising workshops, seminars, endowment lectures, special lectures spread over certain areas of North-East India which cover eight states at present. The state of Manipur may be identified by its multiple diversities in the areas of language, culture, ethnicity as well as topography. The state is evolving and has been passing through cognizable social and political transformations. The Asiatic Society, Kolkata as part of its outreach programme had organised a collaborative seminar with the Department of History, Manipur University for two days during 26th and 27th October, 2017 on a theme entitled "Ethnography, Historiography and North-East India". A number of scholars contributed their valuable papers out of which the present volume has been prepared. Dr. H. Sudhir of the Department of History, Manipur University has taken pains of editing the volume and writing the introduction. I sincerely hope that this valuable publication of the Asiatic Society will be of much help as a reference to the scholars of the country in general and North-East India in particular.

This present volume is an outcome of a two-day national seminar organised by the Department of History, Manipur University in collaboration with The Asiatic Society, Kolkata on 26-27 October, 2017. The seminar has been a success with the academic collaboration and financial assistance of the Asiatic Society, Kolkata. Coming to this volume, it is an organised body of selected papers presented in the seminar but after due necessary update and revision. Admittedly, some papers of considerable relevance, however, not presented in the seminar but submitted later, are also incorporated to enrich the volume. Based on inter-disciplinary framework and multi-dimensional method, the papers in this volume, sticking to one way or another in the broad sense, touch upon a plethora of themes glued together in the ethnographic studies in North-East India. I felt joy editing the papers which was also painstaking. However, opinions articulated, facts provided and conclusions drawn in the papers are entirely of the authors.

For the entire journey, it is really tough for me to single out to pay my gratitude to a particular one for the simple fact that many hands have joined together in one way or another from the time of inception of its idea till the successful conduct of the seminar as well as its final production of the volume. In brief, I thank one and all for the support and co-operation. However, I sincerely felt that it is my duty to pay my sincere gratitude at least to some persons in precise for without their co-operation this progress might not have been achieved at all.

**Contents and Sample Pages**