Tribal Health Care System: A Tribute to P. O. Bodding

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The book is a tribute to Rev. Paul Olaf Bodding, a Norwegian missionary to India, who came to this country in the year 1889, when he was 24 years old. He was a well-known scientist of his time. In India his headquarters was the town of Dumka in the erstwhile district of Santal Parganas of the present day Jharkhand state. He lived in India for 44 years. He was a linguist, ethnographer and a folklorist. Bodding created the first alphabet for the Santali language and wrote the first grammar for the Santali-speaking people of eastern India. Most of his works were presented before the Asiatic Society during his stay in India. Asiatic Society published his famous work Studies in Santal Medicine and Connected Folklore in 1925-40, Memoirs of The Asiatic Society, Vol. X. Subsequently it was reprinted in 1986, 2001, 2011 and 2016.
The book is an outcome of a seminar, which aimed at looking into the works on indigenous health care system by inviting scholars who have taken up research in the similar line as Bodding. However, the seminar did not restrict in Santal or other tribes only but delved in to the concept of health care, disease, cure and remedies both at the tangible and intangible levels with a wider span.

Professor Ranjana Ray has edited this book as the Anthropological Secretary of the Asiatic Society and convener of the seminar, "Tribal/ Indigenous Health Care System: A Tribute to P. O. Bodding", held on February 23 and 24, 2017. Dr. (Mrs.) Ray is Professor Emeritus (UGC) of the Department of Anthropology, University of Calcutta. She had her education in the United Missionary Girls' High School, Lady Brabourne College, University of Calcutta and Hawaii University. She has won several prestigious Fellowships and awards both in India and abroad. Her research covers all branches of Anthropology and Women Studies. She has published a large number of research papers, which came out both in the national and international journals and has edited ten books. She is a Member of the Permanent Council of the International Union for Prehistoric and Protohistoric Sciences, a body of the UNESCO and of "the International Forum for Archaeological Heritage Policies and Management Strategies.

The present volume on the title being published is the product of an International Seminar which was organised at the Asiatic Society during February 23-24, 2017. While discussing tribal health care system it is but natural that the name of P.O. Bodding would certainly figure in there. In the fitness of things, therefore, the seminar was dedicated as a tribute to P. O. Bodding. The history of tribal study in India by and large, carries with it a legacy of a number of stake holders such as the Colonial Administrators, the Missionaries and the Anthropologists. While the concern of earlier Anthropologists and the colonial administrators was to study the indigenous knowledge in the field of health and health care system, the missionaries were actually instrumental in extending the health care system to the so-called backward groups of population in phased manner. P. O. Bodding was one such Missionary who had taken keen interest as a Linguist as well as Folklorist to study the problem of health care system in-depth, specially among a formidable tribal group of eastern India, namely the Santal. The volume being introduced here does not necessarily concentrate on the Santal tribal people alone but also covered a good ground bringing into relief other case studies on numerous tribes in our country.

Paul Olaf Bodding was a Norwegian missionary to India, who came to this country in the year 1889, when he was 24 years old. He studied theology at the University of Oslo. He was a well known scientist of his time. In India his headquarter was the town of Dumka in the erstwhile district of Santal Parganas of the present day Jharkhand state. He lived in India for 44 years. He was a linguist, ethnographer and a folklorist. Bodding created the first alphabet for the Santali language and wrote the first grammar for the Santali-speaking people of eastern India. In 1914 he also completed the translation of the Bible into the Santali language. He is still well-remembered in the Scandinavian countries, among the Santals living in the states of Jharkhand, Bihar and Assam and in Bangladesh. In November of 2015 at Oslo a symposium entitled, "Belief, Scholarship and Cultural heritage: Paul Olav Bodding and the Making of a Scandinavian-Santal Legacy" was held for commemorating the 150th anniversary of his birth. This was considered to be the first-ever to address comprehensively the diverse and enduring legacy of the scholar-missionary Paul Olaf Bodding. The International seminar is arranged to pay homage to Bodding. Most of Bodding's discourses were presented at the Asiatic Society and published by the Asiatic Society.