Highland Fisher-Folk and their Superstitions.

Studies on the history of folkloristics in colonial India during the second part of the nineteenth century have been hampered by excessive focus on European folklorists who published extensive collections of Indian folklore. The role of the indigenous folklorists and their agendas, as well as their ways of knowing and constructing folklore, has been ignored. The present article examines the contributions of the indigenous scholar V. N. Narasimmiyengar, an Indian civil servant in Mysore. It seeks to trace, examine, and analyse his active contribution to the making of folklore studies. The case of Narasimmiyengar may be regarded as representative of an engagement with modernity that led to a view of folklore as traditional, rural, and in need of the touch of civilization.