The Folklore of Bombay by Reginald Edward Enthoven

About the The author has prepared the text of The Folklore of Bombay painstakingly. The Presidency of Bombay, which included parts of the Deccan, Konkan and Gujarat are the subject of this book. The book is a full of synopsis of the folklore of the Bombay area. He has gathered together a vast mass of items which he has classified under subject headings—such as worship of natural objects, tree-and snake-worship, spirit-possession, totemism and animal-worship, evil-eye, dreams and omens, etc. Under each category he cites a large number of beliefs and practices, the material having been partly collected by him and partly derived from the works of other scholars. It is also full of fascinating customs, manners and rites of the people who resided there. Each chapter deals with a different subject covering the religious, mythological, mythical, super-natural, social, health, feminine and agricultural perspectives of this past society. The compilation of this material must have involved much labour and search. The value of such a “corpus” of facts is evident, and the volume will prove an important reference-work. It was first published in 1924. About the Edward Enthoven CIE (1869–1952) was an administrator in the Indian Civil Service of the British Raj and an author of publications related to India, including the three volumes entitled The Tribes and Castes of Bombay that formed a part of the Ethnographic Survey of India. Initially appointed in Bombay as an Assistant District Collector and Assistant Magistrate, as well as an Inspector of Factories, by June 1896 he was promoted to Second Assistant. From 1900 until 1902 he served as First Assistant and Under-Secretary, being a Provincial Superintendent in Bombay for the 1901 census of India. Thereafter he was appointed to superintend the revision of the Imperial Gazetteer and was Director-General of Statistics. He was elected a Fellow of the Royal Statistical Society in 1904. Enthoven was appointed a