John-Baptist Hoffmann

Johannes Baptist Hoffman (21 June 1857 – 19 November 1928), anglicized John-Baptist Hoffmann, was a German Jesuit linguist and missionary to the Mundas in India.

While in Germany he had studied the "Raffeisen Bank system", which he introduced in the Chota Nagpur Division in order to save the tribals from the clutches of the moneylenders.

For them Hoffmann started the Chotanagpur Catholic Cooperative Credit Society (1909), which grew out of the small monthly savings gathered in the "village circles" of the area.

Much like the modern Grameen Bank of Mohammed Yunus,[dubious – discuss][citation needed] the system was based on village solidarity: the members themselves during a monthly meeting were deciding to whom loans should be given; they were also making sure that reimbursements were made by all.

A forced semi-retirement in Calcutta, because of poor health, gave him time to carry on collecting information, making studies on the Munda language, religion, culture, as well as its traditional social and political organization.

His Encyclopaedia Mundarica whose publication started soon after his death (18 November 1928 in Trier), is a monumental work of love: 15 volumes encompassing in its pages the whole culture and civilization of the Munda people.