In the Sylvan Shadows by Abdus Sattar

An ethnographic survey of the hill and forest peoples of what was then East Pakistan, written by Abdus Sattar, who came to know these communities as a revenue officer. In his foreword, Professor A. K. Nazmul Karim of Dacca University calls it “in fact the Social Anthropology of East Pakistan”.

The book describes the social customs, institutions, beliefs and ways of life of the indigenous peoples of the Chittagong Hill Tracts and other parts of the region, drawing on the author’s own observation and the earlier literature listed in its bibliography. It was followed by his The Sowing of Seeds (1978) and Tribal Culture in Bangladesh (1975). A key early source for the anthropology of the region, read today alongside later critiques of how such works represented hill peoples.