Portrait of a Swiri man and boy, an aboriginal tribe of Bihar, photographed at Baijnath. 1003456

A photograph a Swiri man and boy, an aboriginal tribe of Bihar, taken at Baijnath by Henry Baily Wade Garrick, c.1881-82, from the Archaeological Survey of India Collections. Garrick's first attempt to obtain photographs of these people was unsuccessful, since his prospective sitters fled the area on his approach, 'I, however, kept some Brahmans in communication...and since heard favourable news, and on my arrival in Vaidyanath a second time, with considerable trouble and expense to myself, I succeeded in getting a most characteristic example of this timid clan, who, bearing out their traditional love of obscurity, shrink most provokingly from any notice being taken of them...[his Brahman contacts] fetched me a headman, or sirdar of the small community, and his child, so that, after so many trips failing on my first visit, the affair having matured during my absence, I obtained plates of the Swiris and much information that my paper previously lacked.' H.B.W. Garrick, Report of a tour through Behar, Central India, Peshawar, and Yusufzai 1881-82 (A.S.I. vol. XIX, Calcutta, 1885), pp. 36-39

Photographer: Garrick, Henry Baily Wade

Medium: Photographic print

Date: 1881