\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tBilder til Aftenposten Historie, oktober 2016. Santal. Bodding. Tekst av Johanne Ostad.\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t
<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t<\/div>\n\t\n\n\n
About the Santali manuscripts<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
Here, the term Santali manuscripts refers to documents that Santali sources created, as opposed to foreign texts Bodding translated to the Santali language and documents that he wrote about the Santali people and cultural heritage. The Santali manuscripts contain information about Santali language, grammar, worldview, customs, folklore, and folk medicine. These include a wide range of materials, such as folktales, vocabulary lists, and folk medicine recipes, descriptions of customs, religious practices, and cosmology, among other aspects of cultural and social life.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Santali language and grammar<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
The manuscripts include numerous vocabulary lists and papers related to Santali language and grammar. These documents were the basis of works, such as Bodding\u2019s Santal Dictionary <\/i>(1932).<\/i><\/p>\n\n\n\nCulture and folklore<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
The handwritten manuscripts about Santali culture and folklore range from folktales to narratives about daily life, customs, and beliefs about cosmology and religion. The Santali sources recorded most of the twenty-five manuscripts (Ms.fol. 1687) that focus on Santali daily life, as well as most of the 800 folktales that depict and explain aspects of Santali thought, customs, and oral history.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Folk medicine<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
The archive contains several manuscripts that describe Santali knowledge of nature and its medicinal uses, such as the remedy for foot and mouth disease. This material also includes Bodding\u2019s notes about Santali folk medicine. Thus Santali intangible heritage, served as data for Santali ethnobotany, such as Bodding\u2019s Studies in Santal Medicine and Connected Folklore<\/i> (1925).<\/p>\n\n\n\nThe private archive of Paul Olaf Bodding (1865\u20131938)<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
Paul Olaf Bodding was a young Norwegian missionary priest. He traveled to India in January 1890 to join the Norwegian Santal Mission, and lived there 44 years. In addition to missionary activities, he devoted much of his time to ethnographic study and documentation of Santali language, culture, and oral history. The Bodding archive consists of Santali handwritten manuscripts and Bodding\u2019s notes. The manuscripts that Santali sources recorded by hand, together with Bodding\u2019s notes, served as the basis for several of Bodding\u2019s publications, such as the Santali translation of the Bible and \u00abThe Santal Dictionary.\u201d Bodding personally delivered large sections of the archive to the National Library (then the University Library). After his death, Christine Larsen Bodding, Bodding\u2019s widow donated additional manuscripts to the National Library. In 1999, Santosh K. Soren published Santalia: Catalogue of Santali Manuscripts in Oslo<\/i>, a detailed review and description of the manuscripts in the archive.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":107,"featured_media":0,"parent":0,"menu_order":0,"template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"nb_hide_title":false,"nb_breadcrumb_title_override":"","sub_navigation_option":"auto","sub_navigation_custom_items":[],"card_link":[],"savage_label":"manual","savage_label_text":"","savage_title":"","savage_link_title":"","card_background":"default","savage_image_type":"featured"},"categories":[],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-152","research","type-research","status-publish","hentry"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nSantali manuscripts and cultural heritage - National Library of Norway<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.nb.no\/en\/research\/santali-manuscripts-and-cultural-heritage\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_GB\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Santali manuscripts and cultural heritage\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.nb.no\/en\/research\/santali-manuscripts-and-cultural-heritage\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"National Library of Norway\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2026-05-04T09:38:04+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/www.nb.no\/content\/uploads\/sites\/26\/2022\/08\/Unge-Bodding-1200x1900-1-647x1024.jpg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Estimated reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"4 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.nb.no\/en\/research\/santali-manuscripts-and-cultural-heritage\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.nb.no\/en\/research\/santali-manuscripts-and-cultural-heritage\/\",\"name\":\"Santali manuscripts and cultural heritage - 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