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Ethnographic Notes on the Mru and Khumi of the Chittagong and Arakan Hill Tracts

Ethnographic Notes on the Mru and Khumi of the Chittagong and Arakan Hill Tracts

A Contribution to our Knowledge of South and Southeast Asian Indigenous Peoples mainly based on field research in the Southern Chittagong Hill Tracts

Lorenz G. Löffler

ISBN 9780674066861

Publication date: 08/27/2012

This book is a “thick” description and interpretation of the ethnography of the Mru and Khumi, who live in the Chittagong/Arakan Hills straddling Bangladesh, India, and Burma. They are Tibeto-Burmese speaking horticulturalists practicing swidden agriculture. The work is the outcome of several periods of fieldwork dating back to 1955–1957, 1964, and 1990. Lorenz G. Löffler describes in great detail the material and spiritual culture of these populations: from dwellings and implements to life cycle and social structure, from folklore to religious rituals. All the important local terms are given in Mru and English. The book includes a number of Mru texts along with their translations. It is illustrated by nearly a hundred color photographs and some thirty drawings and designs.

Author

  • Lorenz G. Löffler is Professor Emeritus in the Department of Social Anthropology at the University of Zurich.

Book Details

  • 690 pages
  • 7 x 10 inches
  • Harvard University Department of South Asian Studies

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