Folk Lore Notes. Vol. I—Gujarat

This volume preserves a vanishing world. Compiled in the early twentieth century through direct fieldwork in Gujarat's villages, these notes capture the living faith of rural communities: local deities whose powers are tied to specific rivers and hills, spirits that dwell in trees and crossroads, rituals that bind agricultural cycles to sacred time. Jackson recorded what he saw and heard directly from practitioners, creating an invaluable document of traditions that have since transformed beyond recognition. The collection encompasses caste customs, festival observances, spirit-worship practices, and the mythology that gave ordinary places their extraordinary significance. What emerges is not a museum exhibit but a window into a world where the sacred permeated the landscape, where every grove and boulder had its story and its supplicants. For readers interested in the deep history of Indian folk religion, the anthropology of regional tradition, or the preservation of endangered knowledge, these pages offer something rare: the voice of a culture speaking to itself, preserved for those who would come after.