Art for Tribal Rituals in South , A Visual Anthropological Survey of 1969 Eberhard Fischer & Haku Shah A spectacular tribute to tribal ritual leaders of A visual record of ritual practices of the tribal people of Gujarat, by two eminent Western India anthropologists. Art for Tribal Rituals in South Gujarat, India, is the outcome of extensive Features over 800 images of icons and fieldwork carried out by Eberhard Fischer and Haku Shah in South ritual objects captured in minute detail. Gujarat in 1969. After an initial survey tour to locate village shrines and sacred pilgrimage sites, as well as specialists in rituals and crafts, the two Records the accomplishments of Adivasi art-anthropologists stayed in the field to observe as silent participants ritual leaders, healers and craftspeople oracle and spirit-healing sessions, a death ceremony and the worship of of the past. local deities by the village communities. Fischer and Shah documented their experiences in unprecedentedly detailed photographic sequences, and as well, took precise notation of what they observed. In addition, they spoke to the specialists and carefully noted their comments, which are reproduced in this book as individual ‘indigenous voices’. This book of 528 pages and 823 photographs thus presents painted stones, large wooden stone-slabs and figures – representations of bodies for otherwise unsettled souls of the dead – but also monumental wooden crocodiles, revered with piles of terracotta votive offerings. They also documented the production, installation and worship of these icons and ritual objects. This publication is a tribute to the artistic and ritualistic accomplishments of Adivasi ritual leaders, healers and craftspeople of the past in a once remote area of Western India.

Eberhard Fischer (born 1941) is a cultural anthropologist and art historian. He was Director of Museum Rietberg Zürich, the Swiss museum of non-Western art, from 1972 until 1998. He received his Ph.D. with field studies documenting tribal mask-carvers in West Africa, before he first went to India in 1965 on a one-year teaching assignment at the National Institute of Design (NID) in . Since then, he has continuously enjoyed documentation work in India– from Kerala to Himachal Pradesh, from Gujarat to Odisha, always collaborating with distinguished Indian scholars including–besides Haku Shah–Jyotindra Jain, Dinanath Pathy, B.N. Goswamy, V.C. Ohri and , Balan Nambiar, G. Venu and Amit Dutta on joint publications as well as exhibitions.

Haku Shah (1934 – 2019 ) was a painter, cultural anthropologist, photographer, curator and a Gandhian. An author of international repute on folk and tribal art, he established a tribal museum in Ahmedabad at the and Shilpgram, a crafts village near Udaipur MAY - JUNE 2021 in Rajasthan. He cooperated with Eberhard Fischer in 1965 / 66 at the National Institute of Design, in and again in 1968–70 in District as well as in Kutch. He also has films and several children’s books ILLUSTRATED NON-FICTION to his credit. He received several awards including the Padma Shri ART | HERITAGE | CULTURE in 1989. `4,000 | £70 | $95 ISBN: 978-93-89136-80-7 Size: 300mm x 228mm; 528pp 130gsm Art paper (Matt) All colour; 823 photographs Email: [email protected] Hardback with dust jacket Website: www.niyogibooksindia.com