Life Among Indian Tribes: The Autobiography of an Anthropologist.

• Author: Korom, Frank J.

Anthropological autobiography is an interesting genre for a number of reasons. For example, it provides the reader with interesting facts and accounts about the host society that often do not find their way into the "scholarly monograph," and offers insights into the fieldworker's own subjective view of the people he is studying. In the heyday of the social sciences, not much literature of this sort was published and disseminated to the public because many felt that emotional and intimate accounts would somehow skew the "scientific" nature of anthropological research, making epoche an impossibility. Fortunately, more and more personal accounts are beginning to appear due, perhaps, to a renewed methodological interest in alternative modes of writing culture.

In the case of von Furer-Haimendorf's large corpus of writings, however, the fine line between observer and participant is not really drawn. Since he never disguised his life-long goal of improving tribal living conditions in India, the author probably did not feel the need to distinguish between his role as researcher and advocate. Indeed, his impressive position as "Adviser to His Exalted Highness the Nizam's Government for Tribes and Backward Classes" allowed him to voice his personal opinions whenever and wherever possible. Reading through this book enabled me to appreciate the author's dedication to the study of man, yet it also forced me to reconsider the role of the discipline during the colonial era.

Christoph von Furer-Haimendorf, one of the doyens of South Asian anthropology, was born into an aristocratic Viennese family in 1909. As a child, he used to hear fireside tales about other adventurous characters in his family, such as Christoph Furer von Haimendorf (1479-1537), who wrote a book about his wanderings in Egypt, Palestine and Arabia. These stories, coupled with his childhood preoccupation with opera, facilitated his entry into the realm of exotica. Perhaps it was his interest in Madame Butterfly and Wagnerian mythology that prompted him to study religion under one Herr Langhammer and write his final thesis at the Theresianum on the "unusual topic" of The Religions of the Most Primitive Tribes. Von Furer-Haimendorf quickly abandoned his new-found interest in religion and registered for his first anthropology course in 1927 at the University of Vienna. There he received his first exposure to the Kulturkreise school of ethnology under the guidance of R. von Heine-Geldern...