Abstract:
Anthropology and history are intertwined in many cultural domains in general and
in the domain of ethnohistory in particular. Both these disciplines have strong
inter-related dimensions in popular and local history that stress the study of particular
caste or ethnic group from bottom rather than the history that is shaped by
interpretations based on ideological impositions emanating from dominant classes
(Smith and Smith 1987). Ethnohistory has particular focus in understanding folk
genres that preserve variety of historical sources. Jan Vansina, who belongs to
British anthropological tradition, in Oral Tradition: A Study in Historical
Methodology (1965: 144) tries to reconstruct “folk” or “local” history through
folklore materials. While historical sources available through epigraphy, documents,
copper plates, coins or other archaeological evidences come under “hard” materials,
folklore sources are termed as “soft” materials since they carry less definite and
indirect sources. Though ethnohistory is not a distinctive discipline, it is a distinctive
process of understanding. In the same way it is not exactly a rigid discipline, but
divulges into figures inter-related disciplines on the basis of people’s own
presentation and representation in tracing their history and culture that are always
embedded in their oral tradition (Uddin 2001).
