The book “Folk-Customs in Tamil Nadu” reveals the customs of different community people of (old) South Arcot district and (old) Thanjavur district. The book consists of two parts: first is the analysis part and second is collection part. The first part of the book consists of five-chapter, viz., Folk-customs - Sociological point of view; Anthropological point of view; Caste variation; Regional variation; and Rural and Urban area differences. Second part of the book contains the collection of Folk-customs from different community people and consists of the seven chapters, viz., introduction, customs connected with child birth and childhood days; customs regarding ‘Sacred Thread Ceremony’ and ‘Puberty Rituals’; Marriage customs; Customs during first pregnancy; ‘Sashtiyapthapurthi’ and ‘Sadhabhishegam’; and Death customs. Different customs and habits are collected in the field. More than fifteen community people’s customs are collected by primary data collection through direct interview method using Questionnaire. Respondents gave full co-operation during the data collection. All the collected data are given in the second part of this book with full details. I hope that this book will provide the full and proper details about different community people for the younger researchers in this field.

About the Author

Born in Annamalai Nagar, Dr. (Mrs.) G. Shanthi is the Professor and Head in the Department of Folklore, Tamil University. Her father, Dr. V. Ganapathy Iyer (D.Sc.) was a well-known Mathematician, worked as the Head of the Department of Mathematics, Annamalai University for 22 years. This made the author for undertaking Mathematics in her degree level. She completed B.Sc. (Mathematics) in Annamalai University during 1972. Then she continued her Master’s degree in the Department of Linguistics, Annamalai University. She did her doctorate in the same department during 1977 under the topic “Linguistic Analysis of Tamil Folksongs”. This Ph.D., degree made her to continue her future work in Folklore. She completed two Post-doctoral works in various topics of Folklore in the Department of Linguistics, Annamalai University. Also completed one post-doctoral work and one research associateship work in Tamil University. She was appointed as Lecturer in the Department of Folklore, Tamil University during August, 1987. She has eight books in English and Tamil and more than eighty papers in Regional, National and International journals in the disciplines Linguistics and Folklore to her credit. She has completed nine projects in different aspects of Folklore in English and Tamil.