Territory, caste and chieftain: An Ethnohistorical study of Kongu Nadu

Abstract

Ethnographical research the hall mark of social anthropology shares an important complementarity with historical research. The coming together of the methods of history and ethnology is defined as ethnohistory. However, research combing the two remained in nascent for long. Bernard Cohn (1987, 1996), deserves much credit for popularizing the significance of history in anthropological research. With reference to south India, the works of Nicholas Dirks (1987) and Pamela Price (1996) have been significant in bringing this to fruition. This paper is a preliminary attempt in that direction, in using ethnohistory for understanding the formation and recognition of territorial boundaries with reference to the Subregion, Kongu Nadu in present Tamil Nadu state, India.