List Group 11

Korku - Korwa - Korwa - Korwa - Korwâ - Kuramwâr - Kurarias - Kîrkî - Kuruba - Kuruman - Kurumba (Kurumba)

Korku.:- A Munda or a Kolarian tribe [1] akin to the Korwas, with whom they have been identified in the India Census of 1901. They number about 150,000 persons in the Central Provinces and Berâr, and belong to the west of the Satpîra plateau, residing only in the Hoshangâbâd, Nimâr, Betîl and Chhindwâra Districts. About 30,000 Korkus dwell in the Berâr plain adjoining the Satpuîras, and a few thousand belong to Bhopâl. The word Korku means simply 'men' or 'tribesmen,' koru being their term for a man and kî a plural termination.

[1] See Russell. This article is largely based on a monograph contributed by Mr. H. R. Crosthwaite, Assistant Commissioner, Hoshangâbâd, and also extracts from a monograph by Mr. Ganga Prasâd Khatri, Forest Divisional Officer, Betîl, and from the description of the korkus given by Mr. (sir Charles) Elliott in the Hoshangâbâd

Settlement Report (1867 ), and by Major Forsyth in the Nimâr Settlement Report (18680-69 ).

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The tribe have a language of their own, which resembles that of the Kols of Chota Nâgpur. The language of the Korwas, another Munda tribe found in Chota Nâgpur, is also known as Korakî or Korkî, and one of their subcastes has the same name. [1] Some Korkus or Mowâsis are found in Chota Nâgpur, and Colonel Dalton considered them a branch of the Korwas. Another argument may be adduced from the sept names of the Korkus which are in many cases identical with those of the Kols and Korwas. There is little reason to doubt then that the Korkus are the same tribe as the Korwas, and both of these may be taken to be offshoot of the great Kol or Munda tribe. The Korkus have come much further west than their kinsmen, and between their residence on the Mahâdeo or western Satpîra hills and the Korwas and Kols, there lies a large expanse mainly peopled by the Gonds and other Dravidian tribes, though with a considerable sprinkling of Kols in Mandla, Jubbulpore and Bilâspur. These latter may have immigrated in comparatively recent times, but the Kolis of Bombay may not improbably be another offshoot of the Kols, who with the Korkus came west at a period before the commencement of authentic history. [2] One of the largest subdivisions of the Korkus is termed Mowâsi, and this name is sometimes applied to the whole tribe, while the tract of country where they dwell was formerly known as the Mowâs. Numerous derivations of this term have been given, and the one commonly accepted is that it signifies 'The troubled country,' and was applied to the hills at the name when bands of Koli or Korku freebooters, often led by dispossessed Râjpît chieftains, harried the rich lowlands of Berâr from their hill forts on the Satpîras, extracting from the Marâthas, with poetical justice, the payments known as 'Tankha Mowâsi' for the ransom of the settled and peaceful villages of the plains. The race, however, that the Korkus found in Chota Nâgpur are also known as Mowâsi militates against this supposition, for if the name was applied only to the Korkus of the Satpîra plateau it would hardly have travelled as far east as Chota Nâgpur. Mr. Hislop derived it from the mahus tree. But at any rate Mowâsi meant a robber to Marâtha ears, and the forests of Kalíbhít and Melghât are known as the Mowâs.

Tribal Legends.

Mahâdeo [3] sent his messenger, the crow Kâgeshwar, to find for him an ant hill made of red earth, and the crow discovered such an anthill between the Saolígarh and Bhânwargarh ranges of Betîl. Mahâdeo went to the place, and, taking a handful of red earth, made images in the form of a man and a woman, but immediately two fiery horses sent by Indra rose from the earth and trampled the images to dust. For two days Mahâdeo persisted in his attempts, but as often as the images were made they were destroyed in a similar manner. But at length the god made an image of a dog and breathed into it the breath of life, and this dog kept off the horses of Indra. Mahâdeo then made again his two images of a man and woman, and giving them human life, called them Mîla and Mulai with the surname of Pothre, and these two became the ancestors of the Korku tribe. Mahâdeo then created various plants for their use, the mahul [4] from whose strong and fibrous leaves they could make aprons and head-coverings, the wild plantain, whose leaves would afford other colthing, and the mahus, the chironji , the sewan and kullu [5] to provide them with food. Time went on and Mîla and Mîlai had children, and being dissatisfied with their condition as compared with that of their neighbours, besought Mahâdeo to visit them once more. When he appeared Mîla asked the god to give him grain to eat such as he had heard of elsewhere on the earth. Mahâdeo sent the crow Kâgeshwar to look for grain, and he found it stored in the house of a Mâng named Japre who lived at some distance within the hills. Japre on hearing what was required besought the honour of a visit from the god himself.

[ 1] Risley's Tribes and Castes of Bengal, Appendix V. Korwâ.

[ 2] See also art. Kol.

[ 3] The term for the God Siva.

[ 4] Bauhinia Vahlii .

[ 5] Bassia latifolia , Buchanania latifolia , Gmelina arborea and Sterculia urens

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Mahâdeo went, and Japre laid before him an offering of 12 khandis [1] of grain, 12 goats and 12 buckets of water, and invited Mahâdeo to eat and drink. The god was pleased with the offering and unwilling to reject it, but considered that he could not eat food defiled by the touch of the outcaste Mâng, so Pârvati created the giant Bhímsen and bade him eat up the food offered to Mahâdeo. When Bhímsen had finished the offering, however, it occurred to him that he also had been defiled by taking food from a Mâng, and in revenge he destroyed Japre's house and covered the ruins of it with debris and dirt. Japre then complained to Mahâdeo of this sorry requital of his offering and prayed to have his house restored to him. Bhímsen was ordered to do this, and agreed to comply on condition that Mîla should pay to him the same honour and worship as he accorded to Râwan, the demon king. Mîla promised to do so, and Bhímsen then sent the crow Kâgeshwar to the tank Daldal, bidding him bring thence the pig Buddu, who being brought was ordered to eat up all the dirt that covered Japre's house. Buddu demurred except on condition that he also should be worshipped by Mîla and his descendants for ever. Mîla agreed to pay worship to him every third year, whereupon Buddu ate up all the dirt, and dying from the effects received the name of Mahâbissum, under which he is worshipped to the present day. Mahâdeo then took some seed from the Mâng and planted it for Mîla's use, 2 and from it sprang the seven grains-kodon, kutki, gurgi, mandgi, barai, râla and dhân [2] which the Korkus principally cultivate. It may be noticed that the story ingeniously accounts for and sheds as it were an orthodox sanction on the custom of the Korkus of worshipping the pig and the local demon Bhímsen, who is placed on a sort of level with Râwan, the opponent of Râma. After recounting the above story Mr. Crosthwaite remarks: "This legend given by the Korkus of their creation bears a curious analogy to our own belief as set forth in the Old Testament. They even give the tradition of a flood, in which a crow plays the part of Noah's dove. There is a most curious similarity between their belief in this respect and that found in such distant and widely separated parts as Otaheite and Siberia. Remembering our own name 'Adam,' which I believe means in Hebrew 'made of red earth,' it is curious to observe the stress that is laid in the legend on the necessity for finding red earth for the making of man." Another story told by the Korkus with the object of providing themselves with Râjpît ancestry is to the effect that their forefathers dwelt in the city of Dhârânagar, the modern Dhâr. It happened one day that they were out hunting and followed a sâmbhar stag, which fled on and on until it finally came to the Mahâdeo or Pachmarhi hills and entered a cave. The hunters remained at the mouth waiting for the stag to come out, when a hermit appeared and gave them a handful of rice. This they at once cooked and ate it as they were hungry from their long journey, and they found to their surprise that the rice sufficed for the whole party to eat their fill. The hermit then told them that he was the god Mahâeo, and had assumed the form of a stag in order to lead them to these hills, where they were to settle and worship him. They obeyed the command of the god, and a Korku zamíndâr is still the hereditary guardian of Mahâdeo's shrine at Pachmarhi. This story has of course no historical value, and the Korkus have simply stolen the city of Dhârânagar for their ancestral home from their neighbours the Bhoyars and Panwârs. These castes relate similar stories, which may in their case be founded on fact.

Tribal Subdivisions.

As is usual among the forest tribes, the Korkus formerly had a subdivision called Râj-Korkî, who were made up of landowning members of the caste and were admitted to rank among those from whom a Brâhman would take water, while in some cases a spurious Râjpît ancestry was devised for them, as in the story given above. The remainder of the tribe were called Potharia, or those to whom a certain dirty habit is imputed. These main divisions have, however, become more or less obsolete, and have been supplanted by four subcastes with territorial names, Mowâsi, Bâwaria, Rîma and Bondoya.

[1] Nearly 3,5 tons.

[2] Paspalum scrobiculatum, Panicum psilopodium, Coix Lachryma , Eleusine coracana, saccharum officianarum Setaria italica. Oryza sativa .

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The meaning of the term Mowâsi has already been given, and this subcaste ranks as the highest, probably owing to the gentlemanly calling of armed robbery formerly practised by its members. The Bâwarias are the dwellers in the Bhânwargarh tract of Betîl, the Rîmas those who belong to Bâsim and Gangra in the Amraoti District, and the Bondoyas the residents of the Jítgarh and Pachmarhi tract. These last are also called Bhovadâya and Bhopa, and this name has been corrupted into Bopchi in the Wardha District, a few hundred Bondoya Korkus who live there being known as Bopchi and considered a distinct caste. Except among the Mowâsis, who usually marry in their own subcaste, the rule of endogamy is not strictly observed. The above description refers to Betîl and Nimâr, but in Hoshangâbâd, Mr. Crosthwaite says: "Four-fifths of the Korkus have been so affected by the spread of Brâhmanical influence as to have ceased to differ in any marked way from the Hindu element in the population, and the Korku has become so civilised as to have learnt to be ashamed of being a Korku." Each subcaste has traditionally 36 exogamous septs, but the numbers have now increased. The sept names are generally taken from those of plants and animals. These were no doubt originally totemistic, but the Korkus now say that the names are derived from trees and other articles in or behind which the ancestors of each sept took refuge after being defeated in a great battle. Thus the ancestor of the Atkul sept hid in a gorge, that of the Bhîri Râna sept behind a dove's nest, that of the Dewda sept behind a rice plant, that of the Jâmbu sept behind a jâmun tree, [1] that of the Kâsada sept in the bed of a river, that of the Tâkhar sept behind a cucumber plant, that of the Sakum sept behind a teak tree, and so on. Other names are Banku or a forest-dweller; Bhîrswa or Bhoyar, perhaps from the caste of that name; Basam or Baoria, the god of beehives; and Marskola or Mawâsi, which the Korkus take to mean a field flooded by rain. One sept has the name Killíbhasam, and its ancestor is said to have eaten the flesh of a heifer half-devoured by a tiger and parched by a forest fire. In Hoshangâbâd the legend of the battle is not known, and among the names given by Mr. Crosthwaite are Akandi, the benighted one; Tandil, a rat; and Chuthar, the flying black-bug. In a few cases the names of septs are Hindi or Marâthi words, these perhaps affording a trace of the foundation of separate families by members of other castes. No totemistic usages are followed as a rule, but one curious instance may be given. One sept has the name lobo, which means a piece of cloth. But the word lobo also signifies 'to leak.' If a person says a sentence containing the word lobo in either signification before a member of the sept while he is eating, he will throw away the food before him as if it were contaminated and prepare a meal afresh. Ten of the septs [2] consider the regular marriage of girls to be inauspicious, and the members of these simply give away their daughters without performing a ceremony.

Marriage Betrothal.

Marriage between members of the same sept is prohibited and also the union of first cousins. The preliminaries to marriage commence with the bâli -dîdna or arrangement of the match. The boy's father having selected a suitable bride for his son sends two elders of the caste to propose the match to her father, who as a matter of etiquette invariably declines it, swearing with great oaths that he will not allow his daughter to get married or that he will have a son-in-law who will serve for her. The messengers depart, return again and again until the father's obduracy is overcome, which may take from six months to two years, while from nine to twelve months is considered a respectable period. When his consent is finally obtained the residents of the girl's village are called to hear it, and the compact is sealed with large potations of liquor. A ceremony of betrothal follows at which the daij or dowry is arranged, this signifying among the Korkus the compensation to be paid to the girl's father for the loss of her services. It is computed by a curious system of symbolic haggling. The women of the girl's party take two plates and place on them two heaps containing respectively ten and fifty seeds of a sort used for reckoning. The ten seeds on the first plate represent five rupees for the panchâyat and five cloths for the mother, brother, paternal aunt and maternal uncles of the girl. The heap of fifty seeds indicates that Rs. 50 must be paid to the girl's father.

[1] Eugenia jambolana .

[2] Makyâtotha, jondhrâtotha, Dharsíma, Changri, Lobo, Khambi, Dagde, Kullya, Bursîma and Killíbhasam.

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When the plates are received by the boy's party they take away forty-five of the seeds from the larger heap and return the plate, to indicate that they will only pay five rupees to the girl's father. The women add twenty-five seeds and send back the plate again. The men then take away fifteen, thus advancing the bride price to fifteen rupees. The women again add twenty-five seeds and send back the plate, and the men again take away twenty, and returning the remaining twenty which are taken as the sum agreed upon, in addition to the five cloths and five rupees for the panchâyat . The total amount paid averages about Rs. 60. Wealthy men sometimes refuse this payment or exchange a bride for a bridegroom. The dowry should be paid before the wedding, and in default of this the bridegroom's father is made not a little uncomfortable at that festival. Should a betrothed girl die before marriage, the dowry does not abate and the parents of the girl have a right to stop her burial until it is paid. Bur if a father shows himself hard to please and refuses eligible offers, or if a daughter has fallen in love, as sometimes happens, she will leave her home quietly some morning and betake herself to the house of the man of her choice. If her young affections have not been engaged, she may select of her own accord a protector whose circumstances and position make him attractive, and preferably one whose mother is dead. Occasionally a girl will install herself in the house of a man who does not want her, and his position then is truly pitiable. He dare not turn her out as he would be punished by the caste for his want of gallantry, and his only course is to vacate his own house and leave her in possession. After a time his relations represent to her that the man she wants has gone on a journey and will not be back for a long time, and induce her to return to the paternal abode. But such a case is very rare.

The Marriage Ceremony.

The marriage ceremony resembles that of the Hindus but has one or two special features. After the customary cleaning of the house which should be performed on a Tuesday, the bridegroom is carried to the heap of stones which represents Mutua Deo, and there the Bhumka or priest invokes the various sylvan deities, offering to them the blood of chickens. Again when he is dressed for the wedding the boy is given a knife or dagger carrying a pierced lemon on the blade, and he and his parents and relatives proceed to a ber [1] or wild plum tree. The boy and his parents sit at the foot of the tree and are tied to it with a thread, while the Bhumka again spills the blood of a fowl on the foot of the tree and invokes the sun and moon, whom the Korkus consider to be their ultimate ancestors. The ber fruit may perhaps be selected as symbolising the red orb of the setting sun. The party then dance round the tree. When the wedding procession is formed the following ceremony takes place: A blanket is spread in the yard of the house, and the bridegroom and his elder brother's wife are made to stand on it and embrace each other seven times. This may probably be a survival of the modified system of polyandry still practised by the Khonds, under which the younger brothers are allowed access to the elder brother's wife until their own marriage. The ceremony would then typify the cessation of this intercourse at the wedding of the boy. The procession must reach the bride's village on a Monday, a Wednesday or a Friday, a breach of this rule entailing a fine of Rs. 8 on the boy's father. On arrival at the bride's village its progress is barred by a rope stretched across the road by the bride's relatives, who must be given two pice each before it is removed. The bridegroom touches the marriage-shed with bamboo fan. The nest day the couple are seated in the shed and covered with a blanket on to which water is poured to symbolise the fertilising influence of rain. The groom ties a necklace of beads to the girl's neck, and the couple are then lifted up by the relatives and carried three times round the yard of the house, while they throw yellow-coloured rice at each other. Their clothes are tied together and they proceed to make an offering to Mutua Deo. In Hoshangâbâd, Mr. Crosthwaite states, the marriage ceremony is presided over by the bridegroom's aunt or other collateral female relative. The bride is hidden in her father's house. The aunt then enters carrying the bridegroom and searches for the bride. When the bride is found the brother-in-law of the bridegroom takes her up, and they are then seated under a sheet. The rings worn on the little finger of the right hand are exchanged under the sheet and the clothes of the couple are knotted together.

[1] Zazyphus jujuba .

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Then follow the sapta padi or seven steps around the post, and the ceremony concludes with a dance, a feast and an orgy of drunkenness. A priest takes no part in a Korku marriage ceremony, which is a purely social affair. If a man has only one daughter, or if he requires an assistant for his cultivation, he often makes his prospective son-in-law serve for his wife for a period varying from five to twelve years, the marriage being then celebrated at the father-in-law's expense. If the boy runs away with the girl before the end of his service, his parents have to pay to the girl's father five rupees for each year of the unexpired term. Marriage is usually adult, girls being wedded between the ages of ten and sixteen and boys at about twenty. Polygamy is freely practised by those who are well enough off to afford it, and instances are known of a man having as many as twelve wives living. A man must not marry his wife's younger sister if she is the widow of a member of his own sept nor his elder brother's widow if she is his wife's elder sister. Widow marriage is allowed, and divorce may be effected by a simple proclamation of the fact to the panchâyat in a caste assembly.

Religion.

The Korkus consider themselves as Hindus, and are held to have a better claim to a place in the social structure of Hinduism than most of the other forest tribes, as they worship the sun and moon which are Hindu deities and also Mahâdeo. In truth, however, their religion, like that of many low Hindu castes, in almost purely animistic. The sun and moon are their principal deities, the name for these luminaries in their language being Gomaj, which is also the term for a god. The head of each family offers a white she-goat and a white fowl to the sun every third year, and the Korkus stand with the face to the sun when beginning to sow, and perform other ceremonies with the face turned to the east. The moon has no special observances, but as she is a female deity she is probably considered to participate in those paid to the sun. These gods are, however, scarcely expected to interest themselves in the happenings of a Korku's daily life, and the local godlings who are believed to regulate these are these are therefore propitiated with greater fervour. The three most important village deities are Dongar Deo, the god of the hills, who resides on the nearest hill outside the village and is worshipped at Dasahra with offerings of cocoanuts, limes, dates, vermilion and a goat; Mutua Deo, who is represented by a heap of stones within the village and receives a pig for a sacrifice, besides special oblations when disease and sickness are prevalent; and Mâta, the goddess of smallpox, to whom cocoanuts and sweetmeats, but no animal sacrifices, are offered.

The Bhumka. The priests of the Korkus are of two kinds-Parihârs and Bhumkas. The Parihâr may be any man who is visited with the divine afflatus or selected as a mouthpiece by the deity; that is to say, a man of hysterical disposition or one subject to epileptic fits. He is more a prophet than priest, and is consulted only on special occasions. Parihârs are also rare, but every village has its Bhumka, who performs the regular sacrifices to the village gods and the special ones required for disease or other calamities. On him devolves the dangerous duty of keeping tigers out of the boundaries. When a tiger visits the village the Bhumka repairs to Bâgh Deo [1] and makes an offering to the god, promising to repeat it for so many years on condition that the tiger does not appear for that time. The tiger on his part never fails to fulfil the contract thus silently made, for he is pre-eminently an honourable upright beast, not faithless and treacherous like the leopard whom no contract can bind. Some Bhumkas, however, masters of the most powerful spells, are not obliged to rely on the traditional honour of the tiger, but compel his attendance before Bâgh Deo; and such a Bhumka has been seen as a very Daniel among tigers muttering his incantations over two or three at a time as they crouched before him. Of one Bhumka in Kâlibhít it is related that he had a fine large sâj tree, into which, when he uttered his spells, he would drive a nail, and on this the tiger came and ratified the compact with his enormous paw, with which he deeply scored the bark.

[1] The tiger-god.

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In this way some have lost their lives, victims of misplaced confidence in their own powers. [1] If a man is sick and it is desired to ascertain what god or spirit of an ancestor has sent the malady, a handful of grain is waved over the sick man and then carried to the Bhumka. He makes a heap of it on the floor, and, sitting over it, swings a lighted lamp suspended by four strings from his fingers. He then repeats slowly the name of the village deities and the sick man's ancestors, pausing between each, and the name at which the lamp stops swinging is that of the offended one. He then inquires in a similar manner whether the propitiation shall be a pig, a chicken, a goat, a cocoanut and so on. The office of Bhumka is usually, but not necessarily, hereditary, and a new one is frequently chosen by lot, this being also done when a new village is founded. All the villagers then sit in a line before the shrine of Mutua Deo, to whom a black and a white chicken are offered. The parihâr, or if none be available, the oldest man present, then sets a pai [2] rolling before the line of men, and the person before whom it stops is marked out by this intervention of the deity as the new Bhumka. When a new village is to be founded a pai measure is filled with grain to a level with the brim, but with no head (this being known as a mundi or bald pai), and is placed before Mutua Deo in the evening and watched all night. In the morning the grain is poured out and again replaced in the measure; if it now fills this and also leaves enough for a head, and still more if it brims and runs over, it is a sign that the village will be very prosperous and that every cultivator's granaries will run over in the same way. But it is and evil omen if the grain does not fill up to the level of the rim of the measure. The explanation of the difference in bulk may be that the grains increase or decrease slightly in size according as the atmosphere is moist or dry, or perhaps the Bhumka works the oracle. The Bhumka usually receives contributions in grain from all the houses in the village; but occasionally each cultivator gives him a day's ploughing, a day's weeding and a day's wood-cutting free. The Bhumka is also employed in Hindu villages for the service of the village gods. But the belief in the powers of these deities is decaying, and with it the tribute paid to the Bhumka for securing their favour. Whereas formerly he received substantial contributions of grain on the same scale as a village menial, the cultivator will now often put him off with a basketful or even a handful, and say, 'I cannot spare you any more Bhumka; you must make all the gods content with that.' In curing diseases the Parihâr resorts to swindling tricks. He will tell the sick man that a sacrifice is necessary, asking for a goat if the patient can afford one. He will say it must be of a particular colour, as all black, white or red, so that the sick man's family may have much trouble in finding one, and they naturally think the sacrifice is more efficacious proportion to the difficulty they experience in arranging for it. If they cannot afford a goat the Parihâr tells them to sacrifice a cock, and requires one whose feathers curl backwards, as they occasionally do. If the family is very poor any chicken which has come out of the shell, so long as it has a beak, will do duty for a cock. If a man has a pain in his body the Parihâr will suck the place and produce small pieces of bone from his mouth, stained with vermilion to imitate blood, and say that he has extracted them from the patient's body. Perhaps the idea may be that the bones have been caused to enter his body and make him ill by the practice of magic. Formerly the Parihâr had to prove his supernatural powers by whipping himself on the back with a rope into which the ends of nails were twisted, and to continue this ordeal for a period long enough to satisfy the villagers that he could not have borne it without some divine assistance. But this salutary custom has fallen into abeyance.

Magical Practices.

The Korkus have the same belief in the efficacy of imitative and sympathetic magic as other primitive peoples [3] Thus to injure an enemy, a clay image of him is made and pierced with a knife, in the belief that the real person will suffer in the same manner.

[ 1] The above passage is taken from Mr. (Sir Charles) Elliott's Hoshangâbâd Settlement Report written in 1867. Since that time the belief in the magical powers of the Bhumka has somewhat declined.

[ 2] A small measure for grain.

[ 3] Most of the information in this paragraph is taken from Mr. Ganga prasâd Khatri's Report.

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If the clay can be taken from a place where his foot has made an impression in walking, or the image wrapped round with his hair, the charm is more efficacious. Or an image may be made with charcoal on some stolen portion of his apparel, and similarly wrapped in his hair; it is then burnt in the belief that the real person will be attacked by fever. Sometimes the image is buried in a place where it is likely that the victim will walk over it, when the same result is hoped for. In order to produce rain, a frog, as the animal delighting in the element of water, is caught and slung on a stick; the boys and girls then carry it from house to house and the householders pour water over it. If it is desired to stop rain a frog is caught and buried alive, this being done by a naked boy. Another device for producing rain is to yoke two naked women to a plough who are then driven across a field like bullocks and goaded by a third naked woman. This device may possibly be intended to cause the gods to send rain, by showing how the natural order of the world is upset and reversed by the continued drought. In order to stop rain an unmarried youth collects water in a new earthen pot from the caves and buries it below the hearth so that the water may disappear by evaporation and the rain may cease in the same manner. Another method is to send a man belonging to the Kâsada sept--Kâsada meaning slime-- to bring a plough from the field and place it in his house. He also stops bathing or washing for the period for which a break in the rains is required, and the idea is perhaps that as the man whose name and nature are mud or slime is dry so the mud on the earth will dry up; and as the plough is dry, the ploughed fields which have been in contact with it will also become dry. In order to produce a quarrel the quills of a porcupine are smoked with the burnt parings of an enemy's nails and deposited in the eaves of his house. And as the fretful porcupine raises his quills when angry with an enemy, these will have the effect of causing strife among the members of the household. If a person wishes to transfer his sickness to another, he obtains the latter's cloth and draws on it with lamp-black two effigies, one upright and the other upside down. As soon as the owner puts on the cloth, he will fall a victim to the ailment of the person who drew the effigies. In order to obtain children, the hair of a women who has borne several is secured by a barren woman and buried below her bathing-stone, when the quality of fertility will be transferred to her from the owner of the hair. In order to facilitate child-birth a twisted thread is untwined before the eyes of the pregnant woman with the idea that the delivery will thus be made direct and easy; or she is given water to drink in which her husband's left leg, a gun barrel, a pestle, or a thunder-bolt has been washed; it being supposed that as each of these articles has the quality of direct and powerful propulsion, this quality will be conveyed to the women and enable her to propel the child from her womb. The Korkus also trust largely to omens. It is inauspicious when starting out on some business to see a black-faced monkey or a hare passing either on the left or right, or a snake crossing in front. A person seeing any of these will usually return and postpone his business to a more favourable occasion. It is a bad omen for a hen to cackle or lay eggs at night. One sneeze is a bad omen but two neutralise the effect and are favourable. An empty pot is a bad omen and a full one good. To break a pot when commencing any business is fatal, and shows that the work will come to naught. Thursdays and Fridays are favourable days for working, and Mondays and Tuesdays for propitiating one's ancestors. Odd numbers are lucky. In order to lay to rest the spirit of a dead person, who it is feared may trouble the living, five pieces of bamboo are taken as representing the bones of the dead man, and these with five crab's legs, five grains of rice and other articles are put into a basket and thrust into a crab's hole under water. The occasion is made an excuse for much feasting and drinking, and the son or other representative who lays the spirit works himself up into a state of drunken excitement before he enters the water to search for a suitable hole. The fat of a tiger is considered to be an excellent medicine for rheumatism and sprains, and much store is set by it. The tiger's tongue is also supposed to be a very powerful tonic or strengthening medicine for weakly children. It is cooked, pounded up, and a small quantity administered in milk or water. When a tiger has been killed the Gonds and Korkus will singe off his whiskers, as they think this will prevent the tiger's spirit from haunting them. Another idea is that the whiskers if chopped up and mixed in the food of an enemy, it will poison him. They frequently object to touch a man who has been injured or mauled by a tiger, as they think that to do so would bring down the tiger's vengeance on them.

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And in some places any Gond or Korku who touches a man mauled by a tiger is put temporarily out of caste and has to be purified and give a feast on readmission.

Funeral Rites.

The dead are usually buried, two pice being first thrown into the grave to buy the site. The body is laid on its back, naked and with the head pointing to the south. The earth is mixed with briars and thorns while being filled in so as to keep off hyenas, and stones are placed over the grave. No fixed period of mourning is observed, but after the lapse of some days, the deceased's family or relatives go to the burial-place, taking with them a piece of turmeric. This they cut into strips, and, placing them in a leaf-cup, pour water over them. As the water falls on the tomb, a god is called to witness that this day the dead man's spirit has been sent to live with the ancestors. The pieces of turmeric are then tied in a cloth which, after receiving an oblation of fowl's blood, is suspended from the main beam of the house, this being considered the dwelling place of the departed. This ceremony, called Pitar Miloni, is the first rite for the admission of the deceased with the spirits of his ancestors, and is preliminary to the final ceremony of Sedoli which may be performed at anytime between four months and fifteen years after the death. But until it is complete, the spirit of the deceased has not been laid finally to rest and has the power of sending aches and pains to molest the bodies of its living relatives. Each sept has a place in which the Sedoli rites must be performed, and however far the Korku may have wandered from the original centre of his tribe, he must return there to set his father's spirit at rest and enable it to join the ancestral ghosts. When the Sedoli is to be performed an unblemished teak or salai [1] tree is selected and wrapped round with a thread, while seven circuits of it are made and a bottle of liquor and two pice are offered as purchase money. It is then cut down and brought home, and from it a smooth stake called mînda is fashioned, 24 to 30 inches high and squared or pointed at the top, often being arrow-headed. On it are carved representations of the sun and moon, a spider and a human ear, and below these a figure representing the principal person in whose honour the stake is erected, on horseback with weapons in his hand. The proper method is to have one mînda for each ancestor, but poor persons make one do for several and their figures are then carved below. But care must be taken that the total number of figures representing the dead does not exceed that of the members of the family who have died during the period for which the Sedoli is performed. For in that case another person is likely to die for each extra figure. The little bags of turmeric representing the ancestors are then taken from the main beam of the house and carried with the mânda to the burial-place. There a goat is sacrificed and these articles are besmeared with its blood, after which a feast is held, accompanied by singing and dancing. Next day the party again go to the burial-place and plant the mînda in it, placing two pice in the hole beneath it. They then proceed to the riverside, and, making a little ball from the flesh of the sacrificed animal, place it together with the bags of turmeric on a leaf platter, and throw the whole into the river saying. 'Ancestors, find your home.' If the ball sinks at once they consider that the ancestors have been successful, but if any delay takes place, they attribute it to the difficulty experienced by the ancestors in the selection of a home and throw in two pice to assist them. The pith of a bamboo may be substituted for turmeric to represent the bones. The dead are supposed to inhabit a village of their own similar to that in which they dwelt on earth and to lead there a colourless existence devoid alike of pleasure and of pain.

Appearance And Social Customs.

The following description of the Korkus is give by Major Forsyth in the Nimâr Settlement Report of 1868-69, with the addition of some remarks made by other observers. The Korkus are well built and muscular. The average Korku has a round face, a nose rather wide but not flat like a negro's prominent cheek-bones, a scanty moustache and his head shaved after the Hindu fashion. They are slightly taller then the Gond, a shade darker and a good many shades dirtier.

[1[ Boswellia serrata .

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In the wilder parts one may come across some quite awful Korkus, from whom an intervening space of fifty yards is an insufficient protection, though strange to say there are no less than six words in their language which mean 'to wash'; one to wash the whole body, one for the limbs, one for the face, one for the mouth, one for the hair and one for the clothes, besides a word for scouring the body with a stone and another word for bathing in a stream. They build their villages of a close bamboo wattle-work and with almost Swisslike neatness, a picturesque site being usually chosen, and plan being one long street with a wide open roadway, or several such parallel with each other. The villages are kept remarkably clean, in striking contrast to the habitations of other aboriginal tribes. The average village contains about twenty huts, and it is custom to bind these so closely together that forest fires often sweep through a whole village before a hut can be removed to check their course. The average hut is about fifteen feet square with a rather flat roof covered with loose grass over a layer of leaves and pressed down by outside poles. No nails are required as the posts are bound firmly together with bamboo or creeper fibre. The inmates generally sleep on the ground, and a few low stools carved from teak wood serve them for pillows. Every village has a few pigs and fowls running about both of which are eaten after being sacrificed. The Korku is an adept in the crude process of distillation in which the only apparatus required consists of two gharas or earthen pots, a hollow bamboo, some mahua flowers, water and a fire. By this means the Korku manages to produce liquor upon which he can effectually get drunk. They are by no means particular about what they eat. Fowls, pork, fish, crabs and tortoise are all consumed, and rats are eaten in some localities but not in others. The Rîma and Bondoya Korkus eat buffaloes, and the latter add monkeys to an already comprehensive dietary. The lowest caste with whom they are said to eat are Kolis. They do not eat with Gonds. Gonds, Mângs, Basors and a few other low castes take food from them and also, it is said, Bhíls. The Korkus will freely admit members of the higher castes into the community, and a woman incurs no social penalty for a liaison with a member of any caste from which a Korku can take food. But if she goes wrong with a low-caste man she is permanently expelled and a fine of Rs. 40 is exacted from the parents before they are readmitted to social intercourse.

Language. The Korkus have a language of their own which belongs to the Kolarian or Munda subfamily. Dr. Grierson says of it: "The Munda, sometimes called the Kolarian family, is probably the older branch of the Dravido-Munda languages. It exhibits the characteristics of an agglutinative language to an extraordinarily complete degree." In the Central Provinces nearly 90 per cent of Korkus were returned as speaking their own language in 1911. Mr. Crosthwaite remarks: "The language is in a state of decay and transition, and Hindi and Marâthi terms have crept into its vocabulary. But very few Gondi words have been adopted. A grammar of the Korku language by Drake has been printed at the Baptist Mission Press, Calcutta.

Korwa.: -a Dravidian tribe of Sarguja, Jashpur and Palamau [1], who claim to be the original inhabitants of the country they occupy, and whose claim is in some measure borne out by the fact that the priests who propitiate the local spirits are always selected from this tribe. The hill Korwâs of Sarguja have the singular legend that they are descended from the scare-crows set up to frighten wild animals by the first men who raised crops in Sarguja, which were animated by the great spirit to save his votaries the trouble of continually making new ones. The male Korwâs are described by Colonel Dalton as short of stature, dark-brown in complexion, strongly built and active with good muscular development. Their foreheads are narrow, and the lateral projection of the zygomatic arches very marked. Some of the wilder specimens have black skins, flat faces and projecting lower jaws, while their matted hair has acquired a tawny shade from constant neglect. "The women," says Colonel Dalton, "appear ground down by the hard work imposed on them, stunted in growth, black, ugly, and wretchedly clad, some having only a few dirty rags tied round their persons, and in other respects untidy and unclean.

[1] See Risley.

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On them falls the double task of labour in the fields and of providing the daily bread for the miserable household. They have all the burdens, but none of the privileges of women. The man may follow his instincts as a hunting animal, and bow and arrow in hand search the hills of for the meat that his soul loveth; but he, day after day, returns unsuccessful, and in the meantime the woman has been hunting for and digging up wild roots, or cutting wild vegetables, hewing wood, and drawing water, and woe betide her if she has not been more successful than her lord."

Internal Structure.

The Korwâs appear to be divided into four sub-tribes, the Agaria-Korwa, probably a cross with the Agarias, the Dand-Korwa, the Dih-Korwa, who are settled in regular villages, and the Paharia-Korwa, who live in the hills, and are the wildest branch of the tribe. Colonel Dalton mentions that he failed to find among them any tribal distinctions by which restrictions on intermarriage were imposed such as are observed by cognate stocks. I am indebted to Mr. W.H.P. Driver, of Ranchi, for the interesting list of septs given in Appendix I. Most of these, it will be seen, are totemistic. Among the totems we find the tiger, the snake, the parrot, the wild goose, two kinds of eel, a fish, the kerketa bird, the mango, myrabolam, unhusked rice, ploughs and pestles used for pounding grain, also a curious group called Muri, alleged to derive its name from the fact of its ancestors having made a chulha, out of four skulls, and cooked their dinner on this uncanny sort of fireplace. This is clearly a sept of the nickname type such as are common among the Tibetans, Limbus and the people of the Chittagong Hill Tracts. To what extend the totems mentioned above are taboo to the septs which bear their names is a point on which no certain information is as yet forthcoming. The general tendency is for such prohibitions to fall into disuse.

Korwas, says colonel Dalton, are considered formidable as bowmen, but he was not stuck with the accuracy of their aim. Their bows are surprisingly strong, and they use arrows with barbed heads, nine inches long by an inch and a half wide. The feathers are arranged in a spiral, which is supposed to give great steadiness to the flight of the shaft. They make battle-axes from iron of their own smelting, and are very expert in the use of this weapon.

Agriculture.

Their system of agriculture is primitive. They cultivate only virgin soil, resorting freely to fire for the purpose of clearing away the jungle, and changing their homesteads every two or three years as the land becomes exhausted. Rice, vetches, millets, pumpkins, yams, chillies and arrowroot are their standard crops, and they eke out the scanty yield of their fields with a variety of jungle products. Grain they store underground done up in small packets of leaves, and thus packed they say it will keep for years. They also trade in honey, bees-wax, arrowroot, resins, gum, stick lac and iron.

Religion.

Of their religion little is known. According to Colonel Dalton the Korwas of Sarguja sacrifice only to the spirits of their ancestors, and as this must be done by the head of each family, they have no priests. In Jashpur, on the other hand, Baigas serve them as priests, and the Khuria Rani, a bloodthirsty goddess, dwelling in a cave overhanging a stream, is worshipped with offerings of slain buffaloes and goats. The families of the Dewan of Jashpur and the Thakur of the Kallia estate-- the only Korwâs who now hold any considerable landed property-- affect to have adopted Hinduism and "spurning alliances with the ordinary Korwâs have continued inter-breeding for several generations," although "they dare not altogether disown the spirits of the hills and forests that their ancestors adored, and they have each their head-quarters a Korwa Baiga or pagan priest to propitiate the gods of the race."

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Korwa.: -A Dravidian tribe [1] found in the part of Mirzapur south of the river Son and along the frontier of Sarguja. They assert that they have emigrated from Sarguja within the last two or three generations. They appear to be the aborigines of Sarguja, Jashpur, and Palâmau, and this "claim is in some measure borne out by the fact that the priests who propitiate the local spirits are always selected from this tribe." [2] Among the offshoots of the original tribe now residing in Mirzapur there appears to be to no trace of the singular legend that they are descended from the scare-crows set up to frighten wild animals by the first men who raised crops in Sarguja, which were animated by the spirit to save his votaries the trouble of continually making new ones. [3] There seems little doubt that they are in name and origin closely connected with the Kîrs, whose name Mr. Hislop connects with Kol, and describes as "found on the Mahâdeva hills and westward in the forest on the Tâpti and Narbada until they come in contact with the Bhíls. On the Mahâdeva hills, where they have been much influenced by the Hindus, they prefer the name of Muâsi, the origin of which I have not been able to ascertain, unless it be that the word is derived from the mahua tree." [4] Like the Kîrs, the Korwas of Chota Nâgpur have some traditions connections them with the Mahâdeva hills as the first seat of their race.[5] The word Korwa seems to be another form of Kol. Herr Jellinghause interprets the word Kol to mean "pig-killer," [6] but the better opinion seems to be that it is a variant for horo, the Mundâri for "man." The Khariyas of Chota Nâgpur call the Mundas Kora-- a name closely approaching Kol. [7]

Tribal Organization.

No trace can be found in Mirzapur of the sub-tribes of Agariya Korwa, Dand Korwa, Dih Korwa, and Pahariya Korwa found in Bengal, [8] nor of the Birhor and Kisân Korwas mentioned by Mr. Driver. [9] There is again, no trace of the interesting series of totemistic sub-divisions recorded from Rânchi by Mr. Risley.[10] The Mirzapur tribe say that there are two sub-tribes, Korwa and Korâku, both of whom are mentioned by Colonel Dalton. [11] The former live in Pargana Dudhi, the flat country north of the Sarguja plateau, and the latter in the Sarguja hills. The former have almost abandoned the use of the bow and arrow, which is said to be habitually used by the latter. Among themselves the Mirzapur Korwas call the males Korâku and the women Koriku.

Appearance.

Colonel Dalton's description applies very well to the Mirzapur tribe. He describes them as "short of stature and dark-brown in complexion, strongly built and active, with good muscular development, but, as appeared to me, disproportionately short-legged. The average height of twenty Sarguja Korwas whom I measured was five feet three inches, and of their women four feet nine inches only. In feature the characteristic types are not very prominent: a breadth of face from the lateral projection of the zygomatic arches and narrowness of forehead are the most remarkable traits: the nose, chin, and mouth are better formed than we generally find among the rude tribes of the Dravidian stock; and, notwithstanding the scarecrow tradition, the Korwas are, as a rule, better looking that the Gonds and Orâons.

[ 1] See Crooke.

[ 2] Risley, Tribes and Castes, I., 511.

[ 3] Dalton, Descriptive Ethnology, 226; Risley loc. cit., II., 511; Driver, Journal Asiatic Society of Bengal, 1891, page 25.

[ 4] Papers, 25. A scattered tribe with a very similar name, Mahwaiya, are found in some of the jungles in Pargana Barher of Mirzapur and seem now to be disappearing by amalgamation with the Kols.

[ 5] Driver, loc. cit., 24.

[ 6] Kola in Sanskrit means "a hog."

[ 7] Risley, loc.cit., II., 101.

[ 8] Risley, loc. cit., I., 512.

[ 9] Loc, cit., page 25.

[ 10] Loc., cit., Appendix, 83.

[ 11] Descriptive Ethnology, 230, 231.

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The males, I noticed, were hairier than the generality of their cognates, many of them cultivating beards-- or rather not interfering with their spontaneous growth, for in truth in their toilettes there is nothing like cultivation. They are as utterly ungroomed as the wildest animals. The neglected back hair grows in matted tails which fall behind like badly frayed ropes or is massed in a chignon of gigantic proportions, as preposterous as any that the present tactless period has produced, sticking out behind sometimes a foot from the back of the head. The women appear ground down by the hard work imposed upon them, stunted in growth, black, ugly, and wretchedly clad, some having only a few dirty rags tied round their persons, and in other respects untidy and unclean. [1] Dr. Ball noticed particularly "the unkempt condition of their matted locks of hair, in which they commonly hitch the shafts of their arrows." [2]

Tribal Organization.

They have a tribal council (bhaiyâri), in which, degraded as they are, they are superior to the Cyclopes Homer's type of a "a forward and lawless folk." [3] This is summoned by invitation (neota) when necessary. The leader of all the Korwas in Mirzapur is Somehand Korwa of Bisrâmpur in Pargana Dudhi. Every adult male has a right to sit on the council, which deals with cases of adultery, etc. Only clansmen are accepted as witnesses. No one is sworn in. The sentence is usually to give a feast, and if any offender disobeys the order, he is excommunicated and remains outcaste until he obeys.

Marriage Rules.

There are in Mirzapur no exogamous sub-divisions. The family of the mother's brother (mâmu) and that of the father's sister's (phîpha) are barred: and when a family lives together the members do not intermarry within four or five degrees. [4] As a rule, they have only one wife and do not indulge in concubinage or polyandry. The marriage age is twelve for males and ten for girls. The marriage is usually arranged by the brother-in-law (bahnoi) of the bridegroom. The bridegroom has, however, generally a voice in the matter. There are many runaway marriages. In selecting a wife working capabilities are more regarded than beauty. The bride-price is five rupees and one or two maunds of rice. After the betrothal the appearance of any physical defects is not a ground for breaking off the match, nor are idiocy, lunacy, importance, or mutilation a sufficient cause.

Divorce.

Sufficient grounds for divorce are eating from the hands of, or intriguing with a Dom, Chamâr, or Dharkâr. The only ceremony is the announcement of the fact before the council; but the council will put a man out of caste if he maltreats his wife, and she can complain against him the council and get him fined. A divorced woman cannot re-marry.

Widow Marriage.

Widows may be married again by the sagâi form. They generally marry widowers, and it seems unusual for a bachelor to take a widow to wife. The man has to give the relations of the widow a rupee and a quarter and then takes the woman home. The levirate is permitted under the usual restriction that it is only the younger brother of the husband who can take his widow: and if he chooses to claim her she cannot marry an outsider. If she has a child at the breast, she takes it with her to her second husband. Other children remain with their paternal uncle.

[ 1] Descriptive Ethnology, 226.

[ 2] Jungle Life, 661.

[ 3] Odyssey , IX., 112.

[ 4] In Chota Nâgpur, according to Mr. Driver, "Korwas are divided into several families, each of which is known by its gotra , and no two people of the same gotra are allowed to marry."- Journal Asiatic Society of Bengal , 1891, page 26.

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Relationship.

The family into which his son marries or into which his daughter is married are relations. They call a father apa; grandfather, tatang; great-grandfather, dâdi; a son is hopon; a grandson, kurin; a great-grandfather, bahotu. The following is their system of relationship: This is not the place to attempt systematic analysis of these records of relationship. It may merely be noticed that there is no term for a great-grandfather or great-grandfather; that the names for the grandmother and grandfather's brother's wife are the same; that the term for the father's younger brother and his wife ae purely Hindi, as is the case with the wife of the younger brother. sister's son, sister's daughter, and for the father and mother of the son's wife. This illustrates the vagueness of the marriage tie among these people.[1] Among themselves they call the sister aya; their own wife, Bâbu kai inga; elder brother's wife bhavoh; mother's brother, mâma; mother's father, tatang; sister's husband taiyân; wife's brother, saranu; father's sister's husband, mâma; father's sister, mâmi; a woman's father-in-law bîrha ("old man"); wife's sister's husband, saddhu; wife's brother's son, dangeru; son's wife bâi; son's or daughter's son, kurin.

Birth Ceremonies.

The woman delivers whilst sitting on the ground. Some old woman of the tribe cuts the cord with a sickle, and throws it outside the house. The Chamâin midwife is not employed. The moment the child is born a fire is lit in the house and kept burning for twelve days. The husband does not enter the delivery room for five days. On the sixth day the old woman bathes the mother and child, and two or three of the clan are fed on pulse and rice. The woman's clothes are washed, and she goes back to the delivery room (saur). On the twelfth day the mother goes and bathes in a stream, washes her clothes, and comes home and cooks for the family. On the twelfth day the child is named by the father or grandfather, and is generally called after some deceased ancestor, who is understood from a dream to be re-born in the baby. [2] There appears to be no trace of the couvade. These people have the intense fear of pollution from the menstrual or parturition discharge which is characteristic of all primitive races. [3]

Marriage Customs.

The boy's father goes and inspects the girl; when he approves of her, the maternal uncle (mâmu) of the boy completes the negotiations. If the girl's father approves of the proposal, he feeds the envoy. On the marriage day, which is fixed by mutual arrangement, the bridegroom goes to the bride's house with some of his relations.

[1] For a discussion of the system of nomenclature see McLennan, Studies in Ancient History and the Patriarchal Theory; Morgan, Systems of Consanguinity, passim. Starcke, Primitive Family, Chapter V.; Lubbock, Origin of Civilization, Chapter IV.

[2] Mr. Driver notes in Chota Nâgpur that children are named a month after they are born. "They are only named after their grandparents, when the mother dreams of a visit from the said ancestors. If a girl is to be born, the woman dreams that either her own or her husband's mother came with an offering of târpât earrings or beads; but if a boy is expected she dream that either her own or her husband's father came with an offering of a dibi or batua (small brass pots for cating cut of ). The child is then called its grandparent's embodiment (ântar ) and is named after the said ancestor. A big feast is always given at a christening. Boys are preferred to girls."-Journal Asiatic Society of Bengal , 1891, page 28. Mr. Campbell (Notes 4) remarks:- "Another ground for the belief in the return of ancestors was the likeness of children to the dead. The Konkan Kunbis, and even Brâhmans, believe that the dead ancestors sometimes come in children, and so in many cases children are named after their grandfathers or grandmothers. Among Gîjarât Musalmâns, if a child is naughty or peevish, its mother or nurse says-'Its kind has come on its head.' It is the belief of the Khonds that an ancestor comes back in a child (Macpherson, 56). Among the American Indians when a man dies the medium puts his hands on the head of one of the mourners, and the spirit of the dead enters him, ready to appear in his next offspring (Bancroft, III., 517). Among the Laplanders of Europe an ancestral spirit tells the mother that he has come into the child, and to call the child by is name.- Tylor, Primitive Culture, II. 4."

[3] Frazer, Golden Bough, II., 233, sq.

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Once the procession starts, neither party can withdraw from the match; and if either objects, he is forced to consent by an order from the council. At the marriage the oldest man present calls the bride and says to her, "We have made you over to the son of so and so. You must never leave him, no matter what trouble you undergo. Don't disgrace your family by an intrigue with a man of another caste." After this exhortation the bridegroom rubs red lead on the girl's head. This is the binding portion of the ceremony. After this the clansmen are fed on goat's flesh and rice, and next day the bridegroom brings the bride home and feasts his clansmen. There is no trace of the professional match-maker, the best man and bridesmaids, and the knotting of the garments of the pair which are part of the ritual in Chota Nâgpur. [1] When a girl is married a piece of jungle is assigned to her as a hunting ground where she can dig roots and collect wild fruits. No one else dares to interfere with her domain, and the right is strictly enforced by the council. [2]

Death Customs.

The dying person is taken into the open air before death.[3] The tribe is in a transition stage between burial and cremation. [4] Some families practise one form and some the latter. Those that bury the dead have regular, tribal, or family, burial-grounds. Even among those who cremate the dead, young children and those who die of epidemic diseases are buried. When they cremate, they take the corpse to a place northeast of the village. It is laid on its back, with the feet to the south. Wood is piled over it, and the son of the deceased (or if be has no son, his brother or other male next of kin) walks five times round the pyre with a grass torch and fires it. When it is well alight they leave it, bathe, and return home. Next day the chief mourner goes to the pyre and collects the ashes. Then a message is sent round to the effect that the funeral ceremony (kheiya, khaur) will take place on a certain day. The clansmen 5 collect and shave themselves. [5] A barber is not employed. Then they wash their clothes and have a feast at the house of the deceased. From that day they are all pure. They have, as far as can be ascertained, no ceremony to propitiate the spirits of the dead. When they burn or bury a corpse, they place with it the ornaments and cloths of the deceased, and an axe, none of which are broken. These are to be the support of the deceased in the afterworld, but as to any abode of happiness or retribution they no idea. All they know is that the spirit goes to Paramesar, but this is the case with the souls of trees and animals as well as men.

Religion And Superstitions.

They do not even pretend to be Hindus, and have no connection with the Brâhmans. They worship as their tribal god Râja Chandol in the month of February (Phâlgun) with an offering of a cock, some red lead (sendîr), and flowers. This offering is made by the Baiga, many of whom are found in the tribe. [6] They are much beset by malignant ghosts(bhîl), particularly those of strange villages, who are excluded by the Baiga, who goes round the village circuit once a year dropping a little liquor as he walks, and thus forming a magic line over which foreign ghosts are unable to cross. When the Baiga is a drunken rascal, as is often case, this performance takes a considerable time, and the heavy charges for liquor are received badly by his parishioners. When Bhîts attack people and bring disease, particularly fainting or epileptic fits, an Ojha is called into exorcise the Bhât, or if the patient is a young woman, she is taken to a local shrine and thrashed by the Baiga with his heavy iron magic chain (gurda). [7]

[1] Driver, Journal Asiatic Society of Bengal , 1891, page 27.

[2] See similar cases in Lubbock, Origin of Civilisation, 455, and compare Bhar, para. 10.

[3] Tylor, Primitive Culture, I., 453.

[4] There is a good note on this fact among the Greeks in Blackie's Iliad on VII., 328.

[5] On this ceremonial shaving after a death compare Homer, Iliad , XXIII., 135; Odyssey, IV., 198.

[6] This is also the case with the Bengal Division of the tribe, Dalton, Ethnology, 130, 221. For the worship of Râja Chandol, see Majhwâr, para . 40.

[7] See Majhwâr, para . 25.

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Korwa will sacrifice a goat in the name of his late father or mother. They do not consider any more remote ancestors deserving of any propitiation. When they make an offering of food to the dead they throw a morsel on the ground. They do not appeal to any deity when eating. They believe in the local gods (dih) which live in the tree over the village shrine (mânrar). They respect the house and will not bathe inside it. They will not touch the threshold on entering or coming out. When there is small-pox or cholera in a Korwa village, the Baiga makes a daily burnt of offering with sugar and butter. When cholera appears, he goes to the village gods and says, "If you remove this pestilence, we will do extra worship to you." In cases of fever, which are regarded as of demoniacal origin, the Baiga prays to the local gods and prescribes a decoction of various jungle roots for the patient. Thursday and Friday are their lucky days, and the north and east the auspicious quarters of the sky. When a snake hisses rain is near; when the bees swarm it is an omen of good rain, but when they abandon their hive famine may be expected. Their only oath is to swear by their mothers and this is the strongest oath which the Korwa can take. A man will not touch the wife of his younger brother or his sister. They sow, if possible, on the first Friday in Asârh. At sowing time the Baiga first makes an butter and molasses in his field, and he is paid to make a similar offering at the village shrine (mânrar). They count the new year from the beginning of February (Phâlgun), when they give the Baiga a sieve full of grain, a contribution known as kharwan.

Food And Social Customs.

They will not eat the flesh of the snake, tiger, hyaena, jackal, iguana, tortoise, house lizard, and similar animals. Among birds they do not eat the vulture. They will not eat locusts. They will eat the flesh of the bear, monkey, pig. ox, buffalo, and all kinds of deer. They also on occasions eat carrion. They use liquor, hemp, and tobacco as intoxicants, but not gânja . Liquor, they believe, keeps off malaria. Most of their food is, however, jungle products, such as the mahua (Bassia latifolia), the piyâr (Buchanaria latifolia), the tend (Diospyros ebenum), sarai (Boswellia thurifera), ber (Aegle marmelos). They also eat a number of seeds, leaves, stems, roots, and fungi, some of which are bitter or poisonous and require special treatment to make them wholesome. [1] Roots are dug with a special instrument called a khanta or "digger," which Korwa carries. [2] It consists of a stick, on the end of which is fastened a long iron spike. They procure what they want in the way of food by exchanging forest products, such as bahera (myrobalan), lac, silk cocoons, and various jungle dyes and seeds. The young salute the elders by pâélagi or bending the left hand on the hollow of the right elbow: the right hand is then lifted up to the face with the word pâélagi; "I touch your feet," in reply to which the senior says "Jiyo pîta !" "Live long, my son!" They are considered so degraded that they will eat and smoke with Doms. The clothes of both sexes are disgracefully scanty. Bu† the women wear brass rings (churla) on the arms and pewter anklets (pairi). A few have now taken to working as ploughmen, but as a rule they pick up their living as best they can in the jungle and do practically no cultivation. The women are worked hard and roughly used at times. The tribe certainly does not do any iron work, as would seem to be the case in Bengal.[3] They are very expert in the use of the axe (tângi bhalua), and some can shoot fairly well at short distances with the bow and arrow. They are also expert in making fire by the friction of two pieces of dry bamboos. They smoke tobacco out of leaf pipes made of the leaves of the sâl (Shorea robusta). [4] The Korwas, on the whole, are much the most primitive and miserable tribe to be found in these Provinces.

[ 1] A full list of jungle products used by the Dravidian tribes is given by Dr. Ball in Jungle Life , 694 sqq.

[ 2] This is exactly like the gadahla or gahdal which Mr. Nesfield, Calcutta Review, LXXXVI, 23, describes as the distinctive weapon of the Musahars, q.v.

[ 3] Risley, Tribes and Castes, I. 512.

[ 4] Of some of these pipes recently sent to the Pitt Rivers Museum, Oxford, Mr. Balfour writes that he smoked one nine times, and that it drew excellently and was little burnt.

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Korwa.: -A Kolarian tribe of the Chota Nâgpur plateau [1] In 1911 about 34,000 Korwas were returned in the Central Provinces, the great bulk of whom belong to the Sargîja and Jashpur States and a few to the Bilâspur District. The Korwas are one of the wildest tribes. Colonel Dalton writes of them:[2] "Mixed up with the Asuras and not greatly differing from them, except that they are more cultivators of the soil than smelters, we first meet the Korwas, a few stragglers of the tribe which under that name take up the dropped links of the Kolarian chain, and carry it on west, over the Sargîja, Jashpur and Palâmau highlands till it reaches another cognate tribe, the Kîrs (Korkus) or Muâsis of Rewah and the Central Provinces, and passes from the Vindhyan to the Satpîra range. "In the fertile valleys that skirt and wind among the plateaus, other tribes are now found intermixed with the Korwas, but all admit that the latter were first in the field and were at one time masters of the whole; and we have good corroboratory proof of their being the first settlers in the fact that for the propitiation of the local spirits Korwa Baigas are always selected. There were in existence within the last twenty years, as highland chiefs and holders of manors, four Korwa notables, two in Sargîja and two in Jashpur; all four estates were valuable, as they comprised substantial villages in the fertile plains held by industrious cultivators, and great tracts of hill country on which were scattered the hamlets of their more savage followers. The Sargîja Korwa chiefs were, however, continually at strife with the Sargîja Râja, and for various acts of rebellion against the Lord Paramount, lost manor after manor until only one or two villages remained. The two Jashpur thanes conducted themselves loyally at the crucial period of the Mutiny and they are now prosperous gentlemen in full enjoyment of their estates, the only Korwa families left that keep up any appearance of respectability. One of them is the hereditary Diwân of Jashpur, lord of the mountain tract of Khîria and Maini, and chief of perhaps two-thirds of the whole tribe of Korwas. The other holds an estate called Kakia, comprising twenty-two villages.

Physical Appearance.

"The hill Kakia are the most savage-looking of all the Kolarian tribes. They are frightfully wild and uncouth in their appearance, and have good-humouredly accepted the following singular tradition to account for it. They say that the first human beings that settled in Sargîja, being very much troubled by the depredations of wild beasts on their crops, put up scarecrows in their fields, figures made of bamboos dangling in the air, the most hideous caricatures of humanity that they could devise to frighten the animals. When the great spirit saw the scarecrow he hit on an expedient to save his votaries the trouble of reconstructing them. He animated the dangling figures, thus bringing into existence creatures ugly enough to frighten all the birds and beats in creation, and they were the ancestors of the Korwas." This legend is not peculiar to the Korwas, but is also told by the Halbas, Lodhis, and other castes, and is a favourite Brâhmanical device for accounting for the existence of the autochthonous tribes. "The Korwas," Dalton continues, " are short of stature and dark brown in complexion, strongly built and active, with good muscular development, but, as appeared to me, disproportionately short-legged. The average height of twenty Sargîja Korwas that I measured was 5 feet 3 inches and of their women 4 feet 9 inches only. Notwithstanding the scarecrow tradition the Korwas are, as a rule, better-looking than the Gonds and Oraons. The males, I noticed, were more hirsute than the generality of their cognates, many of them cultivating beards, or rather not interfering with their spontaneous growth, for in truth in their toilets there is nothing like cultivation. They are as utterly ungroomed as the wildest animals. The neglected back hair grows in matted tails which fall behind like badly-frayed ropes, or is massed in a chignon of gigantic proportions, as preposter as any that the present tasteless period has produced; sticking out behind sometimes a foot from the back of the head "The women appear ground down by the hard work imposed on them, stunted in growth,

1 . See Russell. This article is based on Colonel Dalton's account of the tribe and on notes by Mr. N. T. Kunte, Jailor, Sargîja, and Mr. Marbed Dhanu Sao, Assistant Manager, Uprora.

2 . Ethnology of Bengal, p. 221.

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black, ugly, and wretchedly clad, some having only a few dirty rags ties round their persons, and in other respects untidy and unclean."

It is noticeable that the Korwas have a subtribe called Korâku, and like the Korkus of the Satpîra range they are called Muâsi, a term having the meaning of raider or robber. Mr. Crook thinks that the Korwas and Korkus are probably branches of the same tribe, but Sir G. Grierson differs from this opinion. He states that the Korwa dialect is most closely related to Asuri and resembles Mundâri and Santâli. The Korwas have the honorific title of Mânjhi, also used by the Santâls. The Korba zamíndâri in Bilâspur is probably named after the Korwas.

Subdivisions.

The principal subdivisions of the tribe are the Diharia or Kisân Korwas, those who live in villages (dih) and cultivate, and the Pahâria Korwas of the hills, who are also called Benwaria from their practising bewar or shifting cultivation. Two minor groups are the Korâku or young men, from kora, a young man, and the Birjias, who are probably the descendants of mixed marriages between Korwas and the tribe of that name, themselves an offshoot of the Baigas. The tribe is also divided into totemistic exogamous septs.

Marriage Customs.

Marriage within the sept is forbidden, but this appears to be the only restriction. In Korba the Pahâria Korwas are said to marry their own sisters on occasion. The ordinary bride-price is Rs. 12. In Bilâspur there is reported to be no regular marriage feast, but the people dance together round a big earthen drum, called mândhar, which is played in the centre. This is bound with strips of leather along the sides and leather faces at the ends to be played on by the hands. They dance in a circle, holding hands, with men and women being placed alternately. Among the Pahâria Korwas of Sargîja, Mr. Kunte states, the consent of the parents is not required, and boys and girls arrange their own weddings. Men who can afford the bride-price have a number of wives, sometimes as many as eight or ten. After she has had a child each wife lives and cooks her food separately. but gives a part of it to her husband. The women bring roots and herbs from the forest and feed their husbands, so that the man with several wives enjoys a larger share of creature comforts. Among these people adultery is said to be very rare, but if a woman is detected in adultery she is at once made over to the partner of her act and becomes his wife. Divorce and the remarriage of widows are permitted, and a widow usually marries her late husband's younger brother, though she is not obliged to do so. A husband divorcing his wife is obliged to feed the caste for five days.

Funeral Rites.

The tribe bury the dead, placing the corpse in the grave with the head to the south. A little rice is buried with the corpse. In Bilâspur the dead are buried in the forest, and the graves of old men are covered with branches of the sâl [1] tree. Then they go a little distance and make a fire, and pour ghí and incense on it as an offering to the ancestors, and when they hear a noise in the forest they take it to be the voice of the dead man. When a man dies, his hut is broken down and they do not live in it again. The bodies of children under five are buried either in the house or under the shade of a banyan tree, probably with the idea that the spirit will come back and be born again. They say that a banyan tree is chosen because it lives longest of all trees and is evergreen, and hence it is supposed that the child's spirit will also live out its proper span instead of being untimely cut off in its next birth.

Religion.

The Korwas worship Dîlha Deo, the bridegroom god of the Gonds, and in Sargîja their principal deity is Khuria Râni, the tutelary goddess of the Khuria plateau. She is a bloodthirsty goddess and requires animal sacrifices; formerly at special sacrifices 30 or 40

[1] Shorea robusta

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buffaloes were slaughtered as well as an unlimited number of goats. [1] Thâkur Deo, who is usually considered a corn-god, dwells in a sacred grove, of which no tree or branch may be cut or broken. The penalty for breach of the rules is a goat, but an exception is allowed if an animal has to be pursued and killed in the grove. Thâkur Deo protects the village from epidemic disease such as cholera and smallpox. The Korwas have three festivals: the Deothân is observed on the full moon day of Pîs (December), and all their gods are worshipped; the Nawanna or harvest festival falls in Kunwâr (September), when the new grain is eaten; and the Faguwa or Holi is the common celebration of the spring and the new vegetation.

Social Customs.

The Korwas do not admit outsiders into the tribe. They will take food from a Gond or Kawar, but not from a Brâhman. A man is permanently expelled from caste for a liaison with a woman of the impure Gânda and Ghasia castes. Women are tattooed with patterns of dots on the arms, breasts and feet, and a girl must have this operation done before she can be married. Neither men nor women ever cut their hair.

Dancing.

Of their appearance at a dance Colonel Dalton states: [2] "Forming a huge circle, or rather coil, they hooked on to each other and wildly danced. In their hands they sternly grasped their weapons, the long stiff bow and arrows with bright, broad barbed heads and spirally-feathered reed shafts in the left hand, and the gleaming battle-axe in the right. Some of the men accompanied the singing on deep-toned drums and all sang. A few scantily-clad females formed the inner curl of the coil, but in centre was the Choragus who played on a stringed instrument, promoting by his grotesque unbounded hilarity, and keeping up the spirit of the dancers by his unflagging energy. Their matted back hair was either massed into a chignon, sticking out from the back of the head like a handle, from which spare arrows depended hanging by the bands, or was divided into clusters of long matted tails, each supporting a spare arrow, which, flinging about as they sprang to the lively movements of the dance, added greatly to the dramatic effect and the wildness of their appearance. The women were very diminutive creatures, on the average a foot shorter than their lords, clothed in scanty rags, and with no ornaments except a few tufts of cotton dyed red taking the place of flowers in the hair, a common practice also with the Santâl girls. Both tribes are fond of the flower of the cockscomb for this purpose, and when that is not procurable, use the red cotton."

Occupation.

Of their occupation Colonel Dalton states: "The Korwas cultivate newly cleared ground, changing their homesteads every two or three years to have command of virgin soil; millets, pumpkins, cucumbers-- some of gigantic size-- sweet potatoes, yams and chillies being cheifly grown. They also grow and prepare arrowroot and have a wild kind which they use and sell. They have as keen a knowledge of what is edible among the spontaneous products of the jungle as have monkeys, and have often to use this knowledge for self-preservation, as they are frequently subjected to failure of crops, while even in favourable seasons some of them do not raise sufficient food, and much of it is neither palatable nor wholesome. They brought to me nine different kinds of edible roots, and descanted so earnestly on the delicate flavour and nutritive qualities of some of them, that I was induced to have two or three varieties cooked under their instructions and served up, but the result was far from pleasant: my civilised stomach indignantly repelled the savage food, and was not pacified till it had made me suffer for some hours from cold sweat, sickness and giddiness." [3]

[1] Dalton, loc. cit. p. 229.

[2] Ethnology of Bengal, p. 228.

[3] Ethnology of Bengal, pp. 228, 229.

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Dacoity.

The Korwas in the Tributary States have other resources than these. They are expert hunters, and to kill a bird flying or an animal running is their greatest delight. They do not care to kill their game without rousing it first. They are also very fond of dacoity and often proceed on expeditions, their victims being usually travellers, or the Ahírs who bring large herds of cattle to graze in the Sargîja forests. These cattle do much damage to the village crops, and hence the Korwas have a standing feud with the herdsmen. They think nothing of murder, and when asked why he committed a murder, a Korwa will reply, 'I did it for my pleasure'; but they despise both house-breaking and theft as cowardly offences, and are seldom or never guilty of them. The women are also of an adventurous disposition and often accompany their husbands on raids. Before starting they take the omens. They throw some rice before a chicken, and if the bird picks up large solid grains first they think that a substantial booty is intended, but if it chooses the thin and withered grains that the expedition will have poor results. One of their bad omens is that a child should begin to cry before the expedition starts; and Mr. Kunte, who has furnished the above account, relates that on one occasion when a Korwa was about to start on a looting expedition his two-year-old child began to cry. He was enraged at the omen, and picking up the child by the feet dashed its brains out against a stone.

Folktales.

Before going out hunting the Korwas tell each other hunting tales, and they think that the effect of doing this is to bring them success in the chase. A specimen of one of these tales is as follows: There were seven brothers and they went out hunting. The youngest brother's name was Chilhra. They had a beat, and four of them lay in ambush with their bows and arrows. A deer came past Chilhra and he shot an arrow at it, but missed. Then all the brothers were angry with Chilhra and they said to him. "We have been wandering about hungry for the whole day, and you have let our prey escape." Then the brothers got a lot of mâhul [1] fibre and twisted it into rope, and from the rope they wove a bag. And they forced Chilhra into this bag, and tied up the mouth and threw it into the river where there was a whirlpool. Then they went home. Now Chilhra cried out to the sâmbhar to pull his bag ashore and save him. The sâmbhar took pity on him, and seizing the bag in his teeth pulled it out of the water on to the bank. Chilhra then asked the sâmbhar after he had quenched his thirst to free him from the bag. The sâmbhar drank and then came and bit through the mâhul ropes till Chilhra could get out. He then proposed to the sâmbhar to try and get into the bag to see if it would hold him. The sâmbhar agreed, but no sooner had he got inside than Chilhra tied up the bag, threw it over his shoulder and went home. When the brothers saw him they were greatly astonished, and asked him how he had got out of the bag and caught a sâmbhar, and Chilhra told them. Then they killed and ate the sâmbhar. Then all the brothers said to Chilhra that he should tie them up in bags as he had been tied and throw them into the river, so that they might each catch and bring home a sâmbhar. So they made six bags and went to the river, and Chilhra tied them up securely and threw them into the river, when they were all quickly drowned. But Chilhra went home and lived happily ever afterwards. In this story we observe the low standard of moral feeling noticeable among many primitive races, in the fact that the ingratitude displayed by Chilhra in deceiving and killing the sâmbhar who had saved his life conveys no shock to the moral sense of the Korwas. If the episode had been considered discreditable to the hero Chilhra, it would not have found a place in the tale.

The following is another folk-tale of the characteristic type of fairy story found all over the world. This as well as the last has been furnished by Mr. Narbad Dhanu Sao, Assistant Manager, Uprora: A certain rich man, a banker and moneylender (Sâhu), had twelve sons. He gots them all married and they went out on a journey to trade. There came a holy mendicant to the house of the rich man and asked for alms.

[1] Bauhinia Vahlii.

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The banker was giving him alms, but the saint said he would only take them from his son or son's wife. As his sons were away the rich man called his daughter-in-law, and she began to give alms to the saint. But he caught her up and carried her off. Then her father-in-law went to search for her, saying that he would not return until he had found her. He came to the saint's house upon a mountain and said to him, 'Why did you carry off my son's wife?' The saint said to him, 'What can you do about it?' and turned him into stone by waving his hand. Then all the other brothers went in turn to search for her down to the youngest, and all were turned into stone. At last the youngest brother set out to search but he did not go to the saint, but travelled across the sea and sat under a tree on the other side. In that tree was the nest with young of 1 the Raigidan and Jatagidan [1] birds. A snake was climbing up the tree to eat the nestlings, and the youngest brother saw the snake and killed it. When the parent birds returned the young birds said, "We will not eat or drink till you have rewarded this boy who killed the snake which was climbing the tree to devour us." Then the parent birds said to the boy, 'Ask of us whatever you will and we will give it to you.' And the boy said, 'I want only a gold parrot in a gold cage.' Then the parent birds said, "You have asked nothing of us, ask for something more; but if you will accept only a gold parrot in a gold cage wait here a little and we will fly across the sea and get it for you." So they brought the parrot and cage, and the youngest brother took them and went home. Immediately the saint came to him and asked him for the gold parrot and cage because the saint's soul was in that parrot. Then the youngest brother told him to dance and he would give him the parrot; and the saint danced, and his legs and arms were broken one after the other, as often as he asked for the parrot and cage. Then the youngest brother buried the saint's body and went to his house and passed his hands before all the stone images and they all came to life again.

Korwâ.: -The Korwâ dialect is closely related to Asurí, [2] and is spoken by about 20,000 individuals.

Name Of The Language.

The word for 'man' is hor i.e. har as in Santâlí. The name Korwâ does not therefore appear to have anything to do with that word, which in the west has the form kór . It is perhaps connected with names such as Kherwâr. We do not, however, know anything about the original meaning of either of those words. The Korwâs use the same honorific title to denote themselves as the Santâls, viz ., Mâñjhí. The Korwâs are sometimes also called kórâ -kî, young men, from kórâ, a boy. The use of this denomination has given rise to much confusion. In the first place the Korwâs gave been confounded with the Kîrkîs, the most important Mundâ tribe of the Central

Provinces. Moreover, kórâ -kî is also the plural of kórâ, another form of kódâ, a digger. Now the Kódªªâs are a different tribe, but Korwâs and Kódâs are constantly confounded, and it is not always possible to say if the speakers returned from the districts in reality apeak Korwâ of are Korwâ or are Kódªªâs have been separately dealt with above. See pp. 107 and ff.

Area Within Which Spoken.

The Korwâs are found in various parts of Chota Nagpur, especially in Palamau, Jashpur, and Sarguja. They also occupy a tract of country in Mirzapur, to the south of the river Son, and along the Sarguja frontier. The Mirzapur Korwâs assert that they have come from Sarguja within the last two or three generations. Some korwâs are also found in Hazaribagh. The number of speakers in that district was originally estimated at 2,950. The local authorities have, however, since then reported that there are no speakers of Korwâ in Hazaribagh. Korwâ was also returned from Burdwan and Manbhum. At the last Census of 1901, the corresponding figures have been shown under Kódâ.

[1] Believed to be some kind of vulture.

[2] Linguistic Survey of India.

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In the case of Manbhum this agrees with information kindly supplied by the Rev. A. Campbell, who further remarks that the Kódâs of Manbhªªum speak Mundârí. I have therefore given the figures for both districts under Kódâ. It is probable that the 395 speakers of Korwâ who were returned from the Sonthal Parganas at the last Census of 1901, in reality speak Santâlí. The principal home of the Korwâ tribe is, accordingly, Palamau, and the tributary States of Jashpur and Sarguja. In Palamau, they are almost exclusively found in the south; on the Sarguja frontier, and in Jashpur most of them reside in the table land of Khuria.

The hill Korwâs of Sarguja believe that they are descended from a scare-crow set up to frighten wild animals by the first men who raised crops in the State. The same tradition is also current among the Asurs. The Korwâs claim to be the original inhabitants of the country they occupy.[1] Mr. Risley remarks that their claim "is in some measure borne out by the fact that the priests who propitiate the local spirits are always selected from this tribe." Mr. Driver, on the other hand, states that they have other traditions about the Mahadeo Hills. According to the latter authority, "they are in various states of civilisation, from the Birhor-Koroa of the jungles to the cultivator on the plains, who prefers to call himself a Kisân." In palamau they call themselves Korea-Mundas rather than Koroas, and in Sirguja and Jashpur they like to be called Paharias, the name Korea being looked upon as a term of reproach. The Koroas are divided into several sub-tribes, the Pahariâ or Bor-koroas, the Birinjia-koroas, the Birhor-koroas, the Koraku-koroas, and the Korea-Mundas. All live amongst the hills and jungles and speak dialects of the Kolarian language. The Dand-koroas or Dih-koroas and the Agaria-koroas live on the low lands, and speak only a dialect of Hindí. The so-called Kórâ-kî Korwâs are sometimes also called Kór-kîs. Two hundred and seventy-five speakers of Kór-kî have been returned from Sarguja. They will be included in the Korwâ figures from the State. According to Mr. Crooke, the various sub-tribes of the Korwâs do not appear to exist in Mirzapur. The Korwâs of that district state that there are only two sub-tribes, viz ., Korwâ and Kórâ-kî.

Dialects.

The language of the Korwâs is not the same in all places. Many Korwâs now use a form of speech which is very closely related to Mundârí and Santâlí. They are apparently gradually abandoning their old speech. Specimens of that more refined form of the language will be given below on pp. 158 and ff. The most idiomatic Korwâ is spoken in Jashpur and Sarguja, in the south of Palamau, and in Mirzapur. In the latter district the dialect is known under the name of Korwârí. The Ern••gâ sub-tribe of the Jashpur State use a slightly different dialect which is known as Erngâ or Singlí.

[ 1] The hereditary Díwân of the State of Jashpur is a Korwâ.

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Number of speakers.

According to local estimates and the returns of the Census of 1891, Korwâ was spoken as a native tongue in the following districts:

Bengal Presidency- Ranchi 5,016

Palamau 2,000

Jashpur 5,000

Sarguja 6,536

Udaipur 358

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Total Bengal Presidency 18,910

United Provinces- Mirzapur 33

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Grand Total 18,943

At the Census of 1891 Korwâ was further returned from Jalpaiguri and from Assam, where it

was spoken by non-resident immigrants from Chota Nagpur. The details were as follows:

Jalpaiguri 603

Assam 181

-------

Total 784

The estimated number of speakers of Erngâ in Jashpur was 500. by adding all these figures

we arrive at the following estimated total for Korwâ:

Korwâ spoken at home 18,943

Korwâ spoken abroad 784

Erngâ 500

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Total 20,227

At the last Census of 1901 Korwâ was returned from the same districts, and also from the 24-Parganas, Dinajpur, and the Sonthal Parganas. The figures returned from the two former districts were small and the speakers are probably non-resident immigrants from Chota Nagpur. From the Sonthal Parganas 395 speakers were returned. There are no corresponding returns in the caste table, and it is therefore probable that the language figures are due to some misunderstanding. The number of speakers of Korwâ returned at the last Census were then as follows:

Bengal Presidency- 24-Parganas 49

Dinajpur 14

Jalpaiguri 83

Sonthal Parganas 395

Ranchi 841

Palamau 6,647

Orissa Tributary States 7

Chota Nagpur Tributary States 7,746

--------

Total Bengal Presidency 15,882

United Provinces- Mirzapur 308

Assam 79

-------

Total 387

Erngâ dialect 173

Grand Total 16,442

Language. It has already been remarked that some Korwâs use a form of speech which is closely related to Mundârí and Santâlí.

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Kuramwâr.: -The shepherd caste of southern India [1] , who are identical with the Tamil Kurumba and the Telugu Kuruba. The caste is an important one in Madras, but in the Central Provinces is confined to the Chânda District where it numbered some 4000 persons in 1911. The Kuramwârs are considered to be the modern representatives of the ancient Pallava tribe whose kings were powerful in southern India in the seventh century. [2]

The marriage rules of the Kuramwârs are interesting. If a girl reaches adolescence while still single, she is finally expelled from the caste, her parents being also subjected to a penalty for readmission. Formerly it is said that such a girl was sacrificed to the river-goddess by being placed in a small hut on the river-bank till a flood came and swept her away. Now she is taken to the river and kept in a hut, while offerings are made to the river-goddess, and she may then return and live in the village though she is out of caste. In Madras, as a preliminary to the marriage, the bridegroom's father observes certain marks or 'curls' on the head or hair of the bride proposed. Some of these are believed to forecast prosperity and others misery to the family into which she enters. They are therefore very cautious in selecting only such girls as possess curls (sîli) of good fortune. The writer of the North Arcot Manual, [3] after recording the above particulars, remarks: "This curious custom obtaining among this primitive tribe is observed by others only in the case of the purchase of cows, bulls and horse." In the central Provinces, however, at least one parallel instance can be given from the northern Districts where any mark resembling the V on the head of a cobra is considered to be very inauspicious. And it is told that a girl who married into one well-known family bore it, and to this fact the remarkable succession of misfortunes which has attended the family is locally attributed. Among the Kuramwârs marriages can be celebrated only on four days in the year, the fifth day of both fortnights of Phâgun (February), the tenth day of the second fortnight of the same month, and the third day of Baisâkh (April). At the marriage the bride and bridegroom are seated together under the canopy, with the shuttle which is used for weaving blankets between them, and they throw coloured rice at each other. After this a miniature swing is hung up and a doll is placed in it in imitation of a child and swung to and fro. The bride then takes the doll out and gives it to the bridegroom, saying: 'Here, take care of it, I am now going to cook food'; while after a time the boy returns the doll to the girl, saying, 'I must now weave the blanket and go to tend the flock. The proceeding seems a symbolic enactment of the cares of married life and the joint tending of the baby, this sort of symbolism being particularly noticeable in the marriage ceremonies of the people of Madras. Divorce is not permitted even though the wife be guilty of adultery, and if she runs away to her father's house her husband cannot use force to bring her back if she refuses to return to him. The Kuramwârs worship the implements of their calling at the festival of Ganesh Chaturthi, and if any family fails to do this it is put out of caste. They also revere annually Mallana Deva and Mallanil Devi who guard their flocks respectively from attacks of tigers and epidemics of murrain. The shrines of these deities are generally built under a banyan tree and open to the cast. The caste are shepherds and graziers and also make blankets. They are poor and ignorant, and the Abbe` Dubios [4] says of them: "being confined to the society of their woolly charge, they seem to have contracted the stupid nature of the animal and from the rudeness of their nature they are as much beneath the other castes of Hindus as the sheep by their simplicity and imperfect instruction are beneath the other quadrupeds." Hence the proverbial comparison 'As stupid as a Kuramwâr.' When out of doors the Kuramwâr retains the most primitive method eating and drinking; he takes his food in a leaf and licks it up with his tongue, and sucks up water from a tank or river with his mouth. They justify this custom by saying that on one occasion their god had taken his food out of the house on a leaf-plate and was proceeding to eat it with his hands when his sheep ran away and he had to go and fetch them back.

[1] See Russell. This article is compiled from notes taken by Mr. Híra Lârl and by Pyâre Lâl Misra, Ethnographic clerk.

[2] North Arcot Manual, vol. i. p. 220

[3] Vol. i. p. 224

[4] Hindu Manners, customs and Ceremonies

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In the meantime a crow came and pecked at the food and so spoilt it. It was therefore ordained that all the caste should eat their food straight off the leaf, in order to do which they would have to take it from the cooking-pot in small quantities and there would be no chance of leaving any for the crows to spoil.

The story is interesting as showing how very completely the deity of Kuramwârs is imagined on the principle that god made man in his own image.

Kurarias.: -They live in West Bengal, catching and selling birds. They were listed as a criminal tribe.

Kurku -The Kurku are the westernmost Mundâ tribe.[1] Their dialect is spoken by about 100,000 individuals.

Name Of The Dialect.

The word Kurku is the plural of kóró, a man, which word is identical with Mundârí hara, Santâlí har, a man. The dialect is occasionally called Kóró pârsí, the Persian (i.e. non-Indo Aryan language) of the Kórós .

Area Within Which Spoken.

The home of the Kurku are the Satpura and Mahadeo Hills. Proceeding from the west we find them in the south of Nimar and in the Kalibhit and Rajaborari forests in the south-west of Hoshangabad, and further in the district of Betul, where they are most numerous in the western portion on the Tapti. Farther east they are found in the Mahadeo Hills in the north of Chhindwara. From the south-eastern corner of Betul the frontier line crosses into Berar, where Kurkus are thinly scattered in the Morsi Taluka of Amraoti, while they are found in considerable numbers in the Melghat Taluka of Ellichpur and the adjoining parts of Akola. There are only very few speakers found outside this area. Some Kîrkîs were originally returned from the Sarguja State in Chota Nagpur under the name of Kórkî. It has already been mentioned that Kórkî is, in this case, a miswriting for Kórâ-kî, one of the names used to denote the Korwâs.

Dialects.

There is only one sub-dialect of Kurku, the so-called Muwâsí, spoken in Chhindwara. It does not differ much from ordinary Kurku. The Nahâlí dialect of Nimar is now a mixed form of speech. There are, however, some indications which point to the conclusion that the original base of the dialect was related to Kurku, and Nahâlí will therefore be dealt with in connexion with this this language. It is different from Nâharí, a broken form of Halbí spoken in the Kanker State, and from Naharí, a Bhíl dialect spoken in Nasík and Sargana. Number Of Speakers. The number of speakers of Kurku has been estimated for the purposes of this Survey as follows:

Number Of Speakers.

The number of speakers of Kîrkî has been estimated for the purposes of this Survey as

follows:

Central Provinces-

Hoshangabad and Makrai 25,300

Nimar 5,700

Betul 13,400

Chhindwara 8,360

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Total Central Provinces 70,760

Berar-Amraoti 480

Akola 1,434

Ellichpur 35,010

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Total Berar 36,924

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Grand Total 107,684

The Nimar figures include the speakers of Nahâlí.

[1] Linguistic Survey of India.

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Kuruba.: -Though plucky in hunting bears and leopards, the Kurubas [1] at Hospet were exceedingly fearful of myself and my methods, and were only partially ingratiated by an offer of a money prize at one of the wrestling combats, in which they delight, and of which I had a private exhibition. The wrestlers, some of whom were splendid specimens of muscularity, had the moustache clipped short, and hair clean shaved at the back of the head, so that there was none for the adversary to grip. One man, at the entreaties of an angry spouse, was made to offer up the silver coin, presented by me in return for the loan of his body for measurement, as bad money at the shrine of Udachallama, together with two annas of his own as a peace-offering to the goddess. The wives of two men (brothers), who came to me for measurement, were left sobbing in the village. One, at the last moment, refused to undergo the operation, on the principle that one should be taken, and the other left. A man was heard, at question time, to mutter "Why, when we are hardworking and poor, do we keep our hair, while this rich and lazy Sâhib has gone bald?" Another (I believe, the tame village lunatic) was more complimentary, and exclaimed "We natives are the betel leaf and nut. You, Sir, are the chunam (lime), which makes them perfect."

Many of the Kurubas wear charms in the form of a string of black sheep's wool, or thread tied round the arm or neck, sometimes with sacred ashes wrapped inside, as a vow to some minor deity, or a four anna piece to a superior deity. A priest wore a necklet of rudrâksha (Elaocarpus Ganitrus) beads, and a silver box, containing the material for making the sacred marks on the forehead, and a pendent from a loin string. His child wore a similar necklet, a copper ornament engraved with cabalistic devices, and silver plate bearing a figure of Hanumân, as all his other children had died, and a piece of pierced pottery from the burial-ground, to ward off whooping-cough, suspended round the neck. In colour-scale the Kurubas vary enormously, from very dark to light brown. The possessor of the fairest skin, and the greatest development of adipose tissue, was a sub-magistrate. At Hospet, many had bushy mutton-chop whiskers. Their garments consisted of a tight fitting pair of short drawers, white turban, and black kambli (blanket), which does duty as overcoat, umbrella, and sack for bringing in grass from the outlying country.

Some of the Kurubas are petty land-owners, and raise crops of cholam (Andropogon Sorghum), rice, Hibiscus cannabinus, etc. Others are owners of sheep, shepherds, weavers, cultivators, and stone-masons. The munufacture of coarse bleakest for wearing apparel is, to a very large extent, carried on by the Kurubas. In connection with this industry, I may quote the following extracts from my "Monograph on the woollen fabric industry of the Madras Presidency" (1898).

Bellary

In the Bellary Manual (1872), it is stated that "cumblies are the great article of export, and the rugs made in the Kîdligi tâluk are in great demand, and are sent to all parts of the country. They are manufactured of various qualities, from the coarse elastic cumbly used in packing raw cotton, priced about six annas, to a fine kind of blanket, priced Rs. 6 to 8.

[1] See Thurston.

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In former times, a much finer fabric was manufactured from the wool of the lamb when six months old, and cumblies of this kind sold for Rs. 50 or Rs. 60. These are no longer made." Coarse blankets are at present made in 193 villages, the weavers being mostly Kurubas, who obtain the wool locally, sun-dry it, and spin it into thread, which is treated with a watery paste of tamarind seeds. The weaving is carried out as in the case of an ordinary cotton cloth, the shuttle being a piece of wood hollowed out on one side. Inside the ruined Marâtha fort at Sandîr dwells a colony of Kurubas, whose profession is blanket weaving. The preliminary operations are performed by the women, and the weaving is carried out by the men, who sit each in his own pit, while they pass the shuttle through the warp with repeated applications of tamarind paste from a pot at their side.

Kurnool.

Blankets are manufactured in 39 villages. Sheep's wool is beaten and cleaned, and spun into yarn with hand spindles. In the case of the mutaka, or coarse cumblies used by the poorer classes, the thread used for the warp is well rubbed with a gruel made of tamarind seeds before being fitted up in the loom, which is generally in the open air. In the case of jadi, or cumblies of superior quality used as carpets, gruel is not used before weaving. But, when they are taken off the loom, the weavers spread them out tight on a country cot, pour boiling water over them, and rub them well with their hands, until the texture becomes thick and smooth.

Kistna.

Both carpets and blankets are made at Masulipatam, and blankets only, to a considerable extent, in the Gudivâda tâluk. The Tahsildar of Nuzvíd, in several villages of which tâluk the blanket weaving industry is carried on, gives me the following note. The sheep, of which it is intended to shear the wool, are first bathed before shearing. If the wool is not all of the same colour, the several colours are picked out, and piled up separately. This being done, each separate pile is beaten, not as a shoal, but bit by bit, with a light stick of finger thickness. Then the cleaning process is carried out, almost in the way adopted by cotton-spinners, but with a smaller bow. Then the wool is spun into yarn with the help of a thin short piece of stick, near the bottom of which a small flat, circular or square weight of wood or pot-stone (steatite) is attached, so as to match the force of the whirling given to the stick on the man's thigh. After a quantity of yarn has been prepared, a paste is smeared over it, to stiffen it, so that it can be easily passed through the loom. The paste is prepared with kajagaddalu, or tamarind seeds, when the former is not available. Kajagaddalu is a weed with a bulbous root, sometimes as large as a water-melon. The root is boiled in water, and the thin coating which covers it is removed while it is still hot. The root is then reduced to a pulp by beating in a mortar with frequent sprinkling of water. The pulp is mixed with water, to make it sticky, and applied to the yarn. Tamarind seeds are split in two, and soaked in water for several hours. The outer coating then becomes detached, and is removed. The seeds are beaten into a fine flour, and boiled until this acquires the necessary consistency. They are then made into a paste with water, and applied to the yarn.

Madura.

Coarse blankets are manufactured to a small extent by Kuruba women in twenty-two villages of the Mélîr, Dindigul, and Palni tâluks.

In the province of Mysore, parts of Chitaldrîg and the town of Kolar are noted for the manufacture of a superior kind of blanket, of fine texture like homespun, by Kurubas. The wool is spun by the women.

By one section of the Kurubas, called Sunnata or Vasa (new) only white blankets are said to be made.

The personal names of Kurubas are derived from their gods, Basappa, Lingappa, Narasimba, Huliga, etc., with Ayya, Appa, or Anna as affixes. An educational officer tells me that, when conduction a primary examination, he came across a boy named Mondrolappa after Sir Thomas Munro, who still lives in the affections of the people.

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"It has," Mr. H. A. Stuart writes, [1] "been suggested that the name Kuruba is a derivative of the Canarese root kuru, sheep (cf. Tamil kori); but it has been protested that the Kurumbas were not originally a purely shepherd tribe, and it is contended that the particular kind of sheep called kori is so called because it is the sheep of the Kurumbas. Again, the ancient lexicographer of the Tamil language, Pingala Muni, defines Kurumban as Kurunila Mannar, or petty chieftains. But the most common derivation is from the Tamil kurumbu, wickedness, so that Kurumban means a wicked man. With this may be compared the derivation of Kallan form kalavu, theft, and the Kallans are now generally believed to have been closely connected with, if not identical with the original Kurumbas. On the other hand, the true derivation may be in the other direction, as in the case of the Slavs. The language of the Kurumbas is a dialect of Canarese, and not of Tamil, as stated by Bishop Caldwell. It resembles the old Canarese." Concerning the affinities of the Kurubas, Mr. Stuart states that "they are the modern representatives of the ancient Pallavas, who were once so powerful in Southern India. In the seventh century, the power of the Pallava kings seems to have been at its zenith, though very little trace of their greatness now remains; but soon after this, the Kongu, Chóla, and C¡hâlukya chiefs succeeded in winning several victories over them, and the final overthrow of the Kurumba sovereignty was effected by the Chóla King Adondai about the eight century A.D., and the Kurumbas were scattered far and wide. Many fled to the hills, and, in the Nílgiris and Wynâd, in Coorg and Mysore, representatives of this ancient race are now found as wild and uncivilised tribes." Let me call anthropometric evidence, and compare the Kurubas of Mysore and Bellary with the jungle Kurumbas to the Nílgiris and the allied Kâdirs and Mala Védars, by means of the two important physical characters, stature and nasal index.

Statu. Statu. Statu. Nasal Nasal Nasal

Aver. Maxi Mini index. index. index.

cm. mum. mum. Aver. Maxi. Mini.

cm. cm.

Kurubas, 163.9 176.4 155 73.2 85.9 62.3

Mysore

Kurubas, 162.7 175.4 153.4 74.9 92.2 63.3

Bellary

Kurumbas, 157.5 163.6 149.6 88.8 111.1 79.1

Nílgiris

Kâdirs 157.7 169.4 148.6 89.8 115.4 72.9

Mala

Védars 154.2 163.8 140.8 84.9 102.6 71.1

In this table, the wide gap which separates the domesticated Kurubas of the Mysore Province and the adjacent Bellary district from the conspicuously platyrrhine and short-statured Kurumbas and other jungle tribes, stands out prominently before any one who is accustomed to deal on a large scale with bodies and noses. And I confess that like to regard the Kurumbas, Mala Védars, Kâdirs, Paniyans, and other allied tribes of short stature with broad noses as the archaic existing inhabitants of the south of the Indian peninsula, and as having dwelt in the jungles, unclothed, and living on roots, long before the seventh century. The question of the connection between Kurubas and Kurumbas is further discussed in the note on the latter tribe.

The popular tradition as to the origin of the caste is as follows. Originally the Kurubas were Kâpus. Their ancestors were Masi Reddi and Nílamma, who lived on the eastern ghâts by selling firewood, and had six sons. Taking pity on their poverty, Shiva came begging to their house in the disguise of a Jangam, and gave Nílamma some sacred ashes, while promising prosperity through the birth of another son, who was called Undala Padmanna.

[ 1] Manual Of the North Arcot district.

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The family became prosperous through agriculture. But, unlike his six brothers, Undala Padmanna never went out to work in the fields. They accordingly contrived to get rid of him by asking him to set fire to some brushwood concealing a white-ant hill, in the hope that the snake within it would kill him. But, instead of a snake, an innumerable host of sheep appeared. Frightened at the sight of these strange black beasts, Undala Padmanna took to his heels. But Siva appeared, and told him that they were created for his livelihood, and that he should rear them, and live by their milk. He taught him how to milk the sheep and boil the milk, and sent him to a distant town, which was occupied by Râkshasas, to fetch fire. There the giants were keeping in bondage a Brâhman girl, who fell in love with Undala Padmanna. They managed to escape from the clutches of the Râkshasas by arranging their beds over deep pits, which were dug for their destruction. To save her lover, the girl transformed him into a lizard. She then went with him to the place where his flock was, and Undala Padmanna married a girl of his own caste, and had male offspring by her as well as the Brâhman. At the marriage of these sons, a thread kankanam (bracelet) was tied to the wrist of the caste woman's offspring, and a woollen kankanam to that of the Brâhman girl's son's. The sons of the former were, therefore, called Atti (cotton) Kankanadavaru, and those of the latter Unni (woollen) Kankanadavaru. The latter are considered inferior, as they are of hybrid origin. A third sub-division is that of the Andé Kurubas, named after the small vessel (andé) used in milking goats. In a note on the Kurubas of Álîr, Thikka, meaning a simpleton, is given as the name of an important division. It is noted in the Mysore Census Report, 1901, that the Kurubas have not taken kindly to education, and are by nature so simple that Kuruba has, in some places, become a byword for a simpleton.

The Kurubas are also known as Hâlu Mata, or milk caste, as they believe that were created out of milk by Révana Siddéswara. In Hindustani they are called Dhangars, or rich people. Some, in spite of their poor dress and appearance, are well-to-do. At the Madras census, 1901, Kâvâdiga Kumpani, and Râyarvamsam (Râja's clan) were returned by some members of the community. In Mysore, the Kurubas are said [1] to be divided into Handé Kurubas and Kurubas proper, who have no intercourse with one another. The latter worship Bire Dévaru, and are Saivites. According to another account, the Hâlu Kurubas of Mysore have sub-divisions according to the day of the week, on which they offer pîja to their god, e.g., Aditya Vârada (Sunday), Brihaspati Vârada (Thursday), Sóma Vârada (Monday).

"The Kurubas," Mr. H.A. Stuart writes, "are again sub-divided into clans or groups, each having a headman or guru called a gaudu, who gives his name to the clan. And the clans are again sub-divided into gótras or septs, which are mostly of totemistic origin, and retain their totemistic character to this day. The Arlsana gótram is particularly worthy of notice. The name means saffron (turmeric), and this was originally taboo; but as this caused inconvenience, the korra grain has been substituted, although the old name of the sept was retained."

Exogamous septs:

Agin, fire.

Alige, drum. Andara, booth.

Áné, elephant.

Arashina or Arisana, turmeric.

Árathi, wave offering.

Ari, ebony.

Ariya, noble.

Ávu, snake.

Bendi, cart.

Banni (Prosopis).

[1] Mysore Census Report, 1901.

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Basalé (Basella rubra).

Batlu, cup.

Belata (Feronia elephantum).

Belli, silver.

Bélu (Aegle Marmelos).

Bendé (Hibiscus esculentus).

Benisé, flint.

Bévu or Bevina (Melia Azadirachta).

Bínu, roll of woollen thread.

Bola, bangle.

Chandra, moon.

Chélu, scorpion.

Chilla (Strychnos potatorum).

Chinna or Sinnata, gold.

Déva, a tree.

Emmé, buffalo.

Gâli, devil. Gauda, headman.

Gulimi, pick-axe.

Hâlu, milk.

Hatti, hut.

Honnungara, gold ring.

Ibâbire, tortoise.

Irula, darkness.

Iruvu, black ant.

Jelakuppa, a fish.

Jírige, cummin.

Jívala, an insect.

Kalle, bengal gram.

Kanchu, bell-metal.

Kavada, coloured border of a cloth.

Kombu, stick Kori, blanket.

Mânâ, measure.

Malli, jasmine.

Menusu, pepper.

Minchu, metal toe-ring.

Míse, moustache.

Mugga, loom.

Muttu, pearl.

Nâli, bamboo tube.

Nâyi, dog.

Othu, goat.

Putta, ant-hill; snake hole.

Ratna, precious stones.

Sâmanti or Sâvanti (Chrysanthemum).

Sâmé (millet: Panicum miliare).

Samudra, ocean.

Sankhu, conch-shell.

Sarige, lace. Sîrya, sun.

Thuppa, clarified butter.

Turaka, Muhammadan.

Ungara, ring.

Uppiri, earth-salt.

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The titles of members of the caste are Gauda or Heggade, and the more prosperous go by the name of Kaudikiaru, a corruption of Gaudikiaru. Many, at the present day, have adopted the title Nâyakkan. Some are called Gorava Vândlu.

According to Mr. Stuart, "each community of Kurubas, residing in a group of villages, has a headman or Gaudu. He acts the part of pîjâri or priest in all their ceremonies, presides over their tribal meetings, and settles disputes. He is paid four annas, or, as they call it, one rîka per house per annum. He is a strict vegetarian, and will not eat with other Kurubas." The headman or guru of the caste in Bellary goes by the name of Révana Siddéswara, and he wears the lingam, and follows the Lingâyat creed. Sometimes he dines with his people, and on these occasions, new cooking pots must be used. He exercise the power of inflicting fines, excommunicating those who have had illicit intercourse with Bóyas, Muhammadans, and others, etc. The Kurubas in Bellary and Anaírarpîr are said to pay three pice to their guru for every blanket which they sell. Among both Kurubas and Bédars, a special building, built by public subscription, and called the katta-illu or châvadi, is set apart for council meetings, at which tribal affairs are discussed and decided.

Puberty rites

When a girl reaches puberty, she is kept in a corner of the house for eight days. On the ninth day she bathes, and food is taken to her by an old woman of the house. Kuruba women are invited to be present in the evening. The girl, covered with a blanket, is seated on a raised place. Those assembled throw rice over her feet, knees, shoulders, and head, and into her lap. Coloured turmeric and lime water is then waved three or five times round her, and râvikes (body-cloths) are presented to her.

Marriage rites

The following account of the marriage ceremonial was recorded in Western Bellary. When a marriage has been settled between the parents of the young people, visits are exchanged by the two families. On a fixed day, the contracting couple sit on a blanket at the bride's house, and five women throw rice over five parts of the body as at the menstrual ceremony. Betel leaves and areca-nuts are placed before them, of which the first portion is set apart for the god Bírappa, the second for the Gauda, another for the house god, and so on up to the tenth. A general distribution then takes place. The ceremony, which is called sâkshi villya or witness betel-leaf, is brought to a conclusion by waving in front of the couple a brass vessel, over the mouth of which five betel leaves and a ball of ashes are placed. They then prostrate themselves before the guru. For the marriage ceremony, the services of the guru, a Jangam, or a Brâhman priest, are called into requisition. Early on the wedding morning, the bridal couple are anointed and washed. A space, called the irâni square, is marked out by placing at the four corners a pot filled with water. Round each pot a cotton thread is wound five times. Similar thread is also tied to the milk-post of the marriage pandal (booth), which is made of pípal (ficus religious) wood. Within the square a pestle, painted with red and white stripes, is placed, on which the bride and bridegroom, with two young girls, seat themselves. Rice is thrown over them, and they are anointed and washed. To each a new cloth is given, in which they dress themselves, and the wrist-thread (kankanam) is tied on all four. Presents are given by relations, and ârathi (red water) is waved round them. The bridegroom is decorated with a bâshingam (chaplet of flowers), and taken on a bull to a Hanumân shrine along with his best man. Cocoanuts, camphor, and betel are given to the priest as an offering to the god. According to another account, both bride and bridegroom go to the shrine, where a matron ties on their foreheads chaplets of flowers, pearls, etc. At the marriage house a dais has been erected close to the milk-post, and covered with a blanket, on which a mill-stone and basket filled with cholum (Andropogon sorghum) are placed. The bridegroom, standing with a foot on the stone and the bride with a foot on the basket, the gold tâli, after it has been touched by five married women is tied round the bride's neck by the officiating priest, while those assembled throw rice over the happy pair, and bless them.

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According to another version, a bed-sheet is interposed as a screen, so that the bride and bridegroom cannot see each other. On the three following days, the newly-married couple sit on the blanket, and rice is thrown over them. In Western Bellary, the bridegroom, on the third day, carries the bride on his waist to Hanumân temple, where married women throw rice over them. On the fifth morning, they are once more anointed and washed within the irâni square, and, towards evening, the bride's father hands her over to her husband, saying "She was until this time a member of my sept and house." On the night of the sixth day, a ceremony called booma idothu (food placing) is performed. A large metal vessel (gangâlam) is filled with rice, ghí (clarified butter), curds, and sugar. Round this some of the relations of the bride and bridegroom sit, and finish off the food. The number of those who partake thereof must be an odd one, and they must eat the food as quickly as possible. If anything goes wrong with them, while eating or afterwards, it is regarded as omen of impending misfortune. Some even consider it as an indication of the bad character of the bride.

Concerning the marriage ceremony of the Kurubas of North Arcot, Mr. Stuart writes as follows. "As a preliminary to the marriage, the bridegroom's father observes certain marks or curls on the head of the proposed bride. Some of these are believed to forebode prosperity, and others only to the family, into which the girl enters. They are, therefore, very cautious in selecting only such girls as possess curls (suli) of good fortune. This curious custom, obtaining among this primitive tribe, is observed by others only on the case of the purchase of cows, bulls, and horses. One of the good curls is the bâshingam found on the forehead: and the bad ones are the péyanâkallu at the back of the head, and the edirsuli near the right temple. But widowers seeking for wives are not generally particular in this respect. [As bad curls are supposed to cause the death of the man who is their possessor, she is, I am informed, married to a widower.] The marriage is celebrated in the bridegroom's house, and if the bride belongs to a different village, she is escorted to that of the bridegroom, and is made to wait in a particular spot outside it, selected for the occasion. On the first day of the marriage, pîrna kumbam, a small decorated vessel containing milk or ghí, with a two-anna piece and a cocoanut placed on the betel leaf spread over the mouth of it, is taken by the bridegroom's relations to meet the bride's party. There the distribution of pân supâri takes place, and both parties return to the village. Meanwhile, the marriage booth is erected, and twelve twigs of nâval (Eugenia Jambolana) are tied to the twelve pillars, the central or milk post, under which the bridal pair sit, being smeared with turmeric, and a yellow thread being tied thereto. At an auspicious hour of the third day, the couple are made to sit in the booth, the bridegroom facing the east, and the bride facing west. On a blanket spread near the kumbam, 2,5 measures of rice, a tâli or bottu, one cocoanut, betel leaf and camphor are placed. The Gaudu places a ball of vibhîti (sacred ashes) thereon, breaks a cocoanut, and worships the kumbam, while camphor is burnt. The Gaudu next takes the tâli, blesses it, and gives it to the bridegroom, who ties it round the bride's neck. The Gaudu then, throwing rice on the heads of the pair, recites a song, in which the names of various people are mentioned, and concluding with 'On! happy girl; Oh! prosperous girl; Basava has come; remove your veil.' The girl then removes her veil, and the men and women assembled throw rice on the heads of the bridal pair. The ends of their garments are then tied together, and two girls and three boys are made to eat out of the plates placed before the married couple. A feast to all their relations completes the ceremony. he Gaudu receives 2,5 measures of rice, five handfuls of nuts and betel leaf, and twelve saffron's (pieces of turmeric) as his fee. Even though the girl has attained puberty, the nuptial ceremony is not coincident with the wedding, but is celebrated a few months later." In like manner, among the Kammas, Gangimakkulu, and other classes, consummation does not take place until three months after the marriage ceremony, as it is considered unlucky to have three heads of a family in a household during the first year of marriage. By the delay, the birth of a child should take place only in the second year, so that, during the first year, there will be only two heads, husband and wife.

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At a marriage among the Kurubas of the Madura district, a chicken is waved in front of the couple, to avert the evil eye. The maternal uncle's consent to a marriage is necessary, and at the wedding, he leads the bride to the pandal. A Kuruba may, I am informed, marry two sisters, either on the death of one of them, or if his first wife has no issue, or suffers from an incurable disease. Some twenty years age, when an unmarried Kuruba girl was taken to a temple, to be initiated as a Basavi (dedicated prostitute), the caste men prosecuted the father as a protest against the practice.

Birth In the North

Arcot district, according to Mr. Stuart, "the mother and child remain in a separate hut for the first ten days after delivery. On the eleventh day, all the Kuruba females of the village bring each a pot of hot water, and bathe the mother and child. Betel and nuts are distributed, and all the people of the village eat in the mother's house. On the next market day, her husband, with some of his male friends. goes to a neighbouring market, and consults with a Korava or Yerukala what name is to be given to the child, and the name he mentions is then given to it." In a case which came before the police in the Bellary district in 1907, a woman complained that her infant child had been taken away, and concealed in the house of another woman, who was pregnant. The explanation of the abduction was that there is a belief that, if a pregnant woman keeps a baby in her bed, she will have no difficulty at the time of delivery.

Remarriage of widows is permitted. The ceremony is performed in a temple or dark room, and the tâli is tied by a widow, a woman dedicated to the deity, or a Dâsayya (mendicant) of their own caste. According to another account, a widow is not allowed to wear a tâli, but is presented with a cloth. Hence widow marriage is called Siré Udiki. Children of widows are married into families in which no widow remarriage has taken place, and are treated like ordinary members of the community.

In Western Bellary I gathered that the dead are buried, those who have been married with the face upwards, others with the face downwards. The grave is dug north and south, and the head is placed to the south. Earth is thrown into the grave by relations before it is filled in. A mound is raised over it, and three stones are set up, over the head, navel, and feet. The eldest son of the deceased places on his left shoulder a pot filled with water, in the bottom of which three small holes are made, through which the water escapes. Proceeding from the spot beneath which the head rests, he walks round the grave, and then drops the pot so that it falls on the mound, and goes home without looking back. This ceremony is a very important one with both Kurubas and Bédars. In the absence of a direct heir, he who carries the pot claims the property of the deceased, and is considered to be the inheritor thereof. For the propitiation of ancestors, cooked rice and sweetmeats, with a new turban and cloth or petticoat, according to the sex of the deceased, are offered up. Ancestors who died childless, unless they left property, do not receive homage. It is noted, in the Bellary Gazetteer, that "an unusual rite is in some cases observed after deaths, a pot of water being worshipped in the house on the eleventh day after the funeral, and taken the next morning and emptied in some lonely place. The ceremony is named the calling back of the dead, but its real significance is not clear."

Of the death ceremonies in the North Arcot district, Mr. Stuart writes that "the son, or, in his absence, a near relative goes round the grave three times, carrying a pot of water, in which he makes a hole at each round. On the third round he throws down the pot, and returns home straight, without turning his face towards the direction of the grave. For three days, the four carriers of the bier are not admitted into their houses, but they are fed at the cost of the deceased's heir. On the third day, cooked rice, a fowl and water are taken to the burial-ground, and placed near the gave, to be eaten by the spirit of the dead. The son, and all his relations, return home, beating on their mouths. Pollution is observed for ten days, and, on the eleventh day, sheep and fowls are killed, and a grand feast is given to the Kurumbas of the village.

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Before the feast commences, a leaf containing food is placed in a corner of the house, and worshipped. This is removed on the next morning, and placed over the roof, to be eaten by crows. If the deceased be a male, the glass bangles worn by his wife on her right arm are broken on the same day."

The patron saint of the Kurubas is Bírappa or Bíradévaru, and they will not ride on horses or ponies, as these are the vehicles of the god. But they worship, in addition, various minor deities, e.g., Uligamma, Mallappa, Anthargattamma, Kencharâya, and have their house gods, who are worshipped either by a house or by an entire exogamous sept. In some places, Mâriamma and Sunkulamma are worshipped on Tuesday and Friday, and the sheep and other offerings are the prerequisite of Bóyas, Mâlas, and Mâdigas. Some families of Kuruba Dâsaris reverence a goddess called Hombâlamma, who is worshiped secretly by a pîjâri (priest) at dead of night. Everything used in connection with the rite is buried or otherwise disposed of before morning. The Kurubas show reverence for the jammi tree (Prosopis spicigera) and sahwatham (ficus religiosa) by not cutting them. It was noticed by Mr. F. Fawcett that, at the temples of the village goddesses Wannathamma and Durgamma in the Bellary district, an old Kuruba woman performs the daily worship. In the mantapam of the temple at Lépâkshi, in the Anantapur district, "is the sculptured figure of a man leaning his chin upon his hands, which is said to represent a Kuruba who once acted as mediator between the builder of the temple and his workmen in a dispute about wages, The image is still bathed in oil, and worshipped by the local Kurubas, who are proud of the important part played by their casteman."[1] In Mysore, the Kurubas are said to worship a box, which they believe contains the wearing apparel of Krishna under the name of Junjappa. One of the goddesses worshipped by the Kurubas is named Kélu Dévaru or Mané Hennu Dévaru, the pot or household deity. She is worshipped annually at the Dasara festival, and, on occasions of marriage, just before the tâli is tied. The pot is made by kumbâra (potter), who is well paid for his work. During its manufacture, he has to take only one meal daily, and to avoid pollution of all kinds. The clay should be kneaded with the hands, and wetted with the milk of tender cocoanuts, and water. When at work on it, the potter should close his mouth with a bandage, so that his breath may not defile the pot. The Kurubas who are settled in the Madura district reverence Víra Lakkamma (Lakshmi) as their family deity, and an interesting feature in connection with the worship of their goddess is that cocoanuts are broken on the head of a special Kuruba, who becomes possessed by the deity.

The Kurubas are ancestor worshippers, and many of them have in their possession golden discs called hithâradha tâli, with the figures of one or more human beings stamped on them. The discs are made by Akasâles (goldsmiths), who stamp them from steel dies. They are either kept in the house, or worn round the neck by women. If the deceased was a celebrity in the community, a large plate is substituted for a disc.

Concerning the religion of the Kurubas, Mr. Francis writes as follows. "The most striking point about the caste is its strong leaning towards the Lingâyat faith. Almost everywhere, Jangams are called in as priests, and allegiance to the Lingâyat maths (religious institutions) is acknowledged, and in places (Kâmalâpuram for example), the ceremonies at weddings and funerals have been greatly modified in the direction of the Lingâyat pattern."[2] "In the North Arcot district, the Gaudu is entrusted with the custody of a golden image representing the hero of the clan, and keeps it carefully in a small box filled with turmeric powder. There are also some images set up in temples built for the purpose. Once a year, several neighbouring clans assemble at one of their bigger temples, which is lighted with ghí, and placing their images in a row, offer to them flowers, cocoanuts, milk, etc., but they do not slay any victim. On the last day of their festival, the Kurumbas take a bath, worship a bull, and break cocoanuts upon the heads of pîjâris who have an hereditary right to this distinction, and upon the head of the sacred bull. Some Kurumbas do not adopt this apparently inhuman practice.

[1] Gazetteer of the Anantapur district.

[2] Gazetteer of the Bellary district.

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A pîjâri or priest, supposed to have some supernatural power, officiates, and begins by breaking a few nuts on the heads of those nearest to him, and then the rest go on, the fragments belonging by right to those whose skulls have cracked them, and who value the pieces as sacred morsels of food. For a month before this ceremony, all the people have taken no meat, and for three days the pîjâris have lived on fruits and milk alone. At the feast, therefore, all indulge in rather immoderate eating, but drink no liquor, calling excitedly upon their particular god to grant them a prosperous year. The temples of this caste are usually rather extensive, but rude, low structures, resembling an enclosed mantapam supported upon rough stone pillars, with a small inner shrine, where the idols are placed during festival time. A wall of stone encloses a considerable space round the temple, and this is covered with small structures formed of four flat stones, three being the walls, and the fourth the roof. The stone facing the open side has a figure sculptured upon it, representing the deceased Gaudu, or pîjari, to whom it is dedicated. For each person of rank one of these monuments is constructed, and here periodically, and always during the annual feasts, pîja is made not only to the spirits of the deceased chiefs, but also to those of all who have died in the clan. It seems impossible not to connect this with those strange structures called by the natives Pândava's temples. They are numerous where the Kurumbas now found, and are known to have been raised over the dead. Though the Kurumbas bury, they do not now raise their monuments over the resting place of the corpse. Nor can they build them upon anything approaching to the gigantic scale of the ancient kistvaen or dolmen."[1] It was noted by a correspondent of the Indian Antiquary [2] that in the Kaladgi district, he came across the tomb of a Kuruba only four years old. It was a complete miniature dolmen about eighteen inches every way, composed of four stones, one at each side, one at the rear, and a cap-stone. The interior was occupied by two round stones about the size of a man's fist, painted red, the deceased resting in his mother earth below. In the open country near Kadîr in Mysore, is a shrine of Bíradévaru, which consists of four stone pillars several feet in height surmounted by flat slabs as a cap-stone, within which the deity is represented by round stones, and stones with snakes carved on them are deposited. Within the Kuruba quarter of the town, the shrine of Anthargattamma is a regular dolmen beneath a margosa (Melia Azadirachta) tree, in which the goddess is represented by rounded stones imbedded in amount of earth. Just outside the same town, close to a pípal tree (Ficus religiosa) are two smaller dolmen-like structures containing stones representing two Kuruba Dâsaris, one a centenarian, who are buried there.

"The village of Maliar, in the Hdagalli tâluk of the Bellary districts, contains a Siva temple, which is famous throughout the district for an annual festival held there in the month of February. This festival has now dwindled more or less into a cattle fair. But the fame of the temple continues as regard the Kâranika, which is a cryptic sentence uttered by a priest, containing a prophecy of the prospect of the agricultural season of the ensuing year. The pîjâri of the temple is a Kuruba. They feast in the temple for ten days. On the last day of the feast, the god Siva is represented as returning victorious from the battlefield after having slain Mall with a huge bow. He is met half-way from the field of battle by the goddess. The huge wooden bow is brought, and placed on end before the god. The Kuruba priest climbs up the bow as it is held up by two assistants, and then gets on the shoulders of these men. In this posture he stands rapt in silence for a few minutes, looking in several directions. He then begins to quake and quiver from head to foot. This is the sign of the spirit of the Siva god possessing him-- the sign of the divine afflatus upon him. A solemn silence holds the assembly, for the time of the Kâranika has approached. The shivering Kuruba utters a cryptic sentence, such as Ákâsakké sidlu bodiyuttu, or thunder struck the sky. This is at once copied down, and interpreted as a prophecy that there will be much rain in the year to come. Thus every year, in the month of February, the Kâranika of Mailar is uttered and copied, and kept by all in the district as a prophecy.

[1] Manual of the North Arcot district.

[2] W.F.S. Ind. Ant., VI, 1877.

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This kâranika prognostication is also pronounced now at the Mallari temple in the Dharwar district at Nerakini in the Álîr tâluk, and at Mailar Lingappa in the Harapanahalli tâluk." [1] The rule of inheritance among the Kurubas is said [2] to differ very little from that current among Hindus, but the daughters, if the deceased has no son, share equally with the agnates. They belong to the right-hand factions, and have the privilege of passing through the main bazârs in processions. Some Mudalis and 'Naidus' are said to have no objection to eat, drink, and smoke with Kurubas. Gollas and some inferior flesh-eating Kâpus will also do so.

Kuruman.: -See Kurumba

Kurumba: -or Kuruman.[3]- As being on the disputed question of the connection between the Kurumbas who dwell in the jungle, and the Kurubas (shepherds and weavers) who live in the plains and open country, I may quote the evidence of various witnesses: Madras Census Report, 1891: "The Kurumbas or Kurumbas are the modern representatives of the ancient Kurumbas or Pallavas, who were once so powerful throughout Southern India, but very little trace of their greatness now remains. In the seventh century, the power of the Pallava kings seems to have been at its zenith; but, shortly after this, the Kongu, Chóla, and Châlîkya chiefs succeeded in winning several victories over them. The final overthrow of the Kurumba sovereignty was effected by the Chóla king Adondai about the seventh or eighth century A.D. and the Kurumbas were scattered far and wide. Many fled to the hills, and in the Nígiris and the Wynâd, in Coorg and Mysore, representatives of this ancient race are now found as wild and uncivilised tribes. Elsewhere the Kurumbas are more advanced, and are usually shepherds, and weavers of coarse woollen blankets." "Kuruman.- This caste is found in the Nílgiris and the Wynâd, with a slight sprinkling in the Nilambîr and Attapâdi hills in Malabar. Their principal occupations are wood-cutting, and the collection of forest produce. The name is merely another form of Kurumban, but, as they differ from the ordinary Kurumbas, it seemed better to show them separately. I think, however, that they were originally identical with the shepherd Kurumbans, and their present separation is merely the result of their isolation in the fastnesses of the Western Ghâts, to which their ancestors fled, or gradually retreated after the downfall of the Kurumba dynasty. The name Kurumbranâd, a sub-division of Malabar, still bears testimony to their once powerful position." Madras Census Report, 1901--"Kurumba; Kurumban.-- These two have always been treated as the same caste. Mr. Thurston (Madras Mus. Bull. II, I) thinks they are distinct. I have no new information which will clearly decide the matter, but the fact seems to be that Kurumba, and that the two terms are applied to the same caste according to the language in which it is referred to. There was no confusion in the abstraction offices between the two names, and it will be seen that Kuruba is returned where Canarese and Telugu are spoken, and Kurumban where the vernacular is Tamil. There are two sharply defined bodies of Kurumbans-those who live on the Nílgiri plateau, speak the Kurumba dialect, and are wild junglemen; and those who live on the plains, speak Canarese, and are civilised." Mysore Census Report, 1891-"Kâdu Kurumba or Kurumba.- The tribal name of Kuruba has been traced to the primeval occupation of the race, viz., the tending of sheep. The Uru or civilised Kurubas, who are genuine tillers of the soil, and who are dotted over the country in populous and thriving communities, and many of whom have, under the present 'Pax Britannica,' further developed into enterprising tradesmen and withal lettered Government officials, are the very antipodes of the Kâdu or wild Kurubas or Kurumbas.

[1] Madras Mail, November 1905.

[2] Manual of the North Arcot district.

[3] See Thurston.

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The latter, like the Iruligâs and Sóligâs, are the denizens of the backwoods of the country, and have been correctly classed under the aboriginal population. The Tamilised classed name of Kurumba is applied to certain clans dwelling on the heights of the Nílgiris, who are doubtless the offshoots of the aboriginal Kâdu Kuruba stock found in Mysore." W. R. King. Aboriginal Tribes of the Hills.-"Kurumbas.-This tribe is of another race from the shepherd Kurumbas. The Nílgiri tribe have neither cattle nor sheep, and in language, dress, and customs, have no affinity whatsoever with their namesakes." G. Oppert. Original Inhabitants of India-- "Kurubas or Kurumbas. However separated from each other, and scattered among the Dravidian clans with whom they have dwelt, and however distant from one another they still live, there is hardly a province in the whole of Bharatavarasha which cannot produce, if not some living remnants of this race, at least some remains of past times which prove their presence. Indeed, the Kurumbas must be regarded as very old inhabitants of this land, who can contest with their Dravidian kinsmen the priority of occupation of the Indian soil. The terms Kuruba and Kuruba are originally identical, though the one form is, in different places, employed for the other, and has thus occasionally assumed a special local meaning. Mr. H.B. Grigg appears to contradict himself when, while speaking of the Kurumbas, he says that "in the low country they are called Kurubas or Cîrubâru, and are divided into such families as Áné or elephant, Nâya or dog, Mâle or hill Kurumbas." [1] Such a distinction between mountain Kurumbas and Kurumbas cannot be established. The Rev. G. Richter will find it difficult to prove that the Kurubas of Mysore are only called so as shepherds, and that no connection exists between these Kurubas and the Kurumbas. Mr. Lewis Rice calls the wild tribes as well as the shepherds Kurubas, but seems to overlook the fact that both terms are identical, and refer to only the ethnological distinction." The above extracts will suffice for the purpose of showing that the distinction between the jungle Kurumbas and the more civilised Kurubas, and their relationship towards each other, call for a 'permanent settlement.' And I may briefly place on record the results of anthropometric observations on the jungle Kurumbas of the Nílgiris, and the domesticated Kurubas of Mysore and the Bellary district, whose stature and nasal index (two factors of primary importance) are compared with those of the jungle Paniyans of Malabar and Kâdirs of the Ánaimalai mountains: A glance at the above table at once shows that there is a closer affinity between the three dark-shinned, short, plathyrrhine jungle tribes, than between the jungle Kurumbas and the lighter-skinned, taller, and more leptorhine Kurubas. The domesticated Kurubas rarely dealt with the jungle Kurumbas of Mysore and are divided into "(a) Betta or hill Kurumbas, with sub-divisions called Áné (elephant), Bevina (ním tree: Melia Azadirachta), and Kolli (fire-brand)- a small and active race, capable of great exertion, who are expert woodmen;(b) Jénu or honey Kurumbas, said to be a darker and inferior race, who employ themselves in collecting honey and bees-wax." [2]

Domestic customs

For the following note on the Kâdu Kurumbas I am indebted to the Mysore Census Report, 1891. "There are two clans among them, viz., Bettada and Jénu. The former worship the forest deities Nârâli and Mâstamma; eat flesh and drink liquor, a favourite beverage being prepared from râgi (Eleusine Coracana) flour. Some of their habits and customs are worth mentioning, as indicating their place of civilization. They have two forms of marriage. One is similar to the elaborate ceremony among the Vakkaligas, while the other is the simple one of a formal exchange of betel leaves and areca nuts, which concludes the nuptials. The Kâdu Kurubas can only eat meals prepared by members of the higher castes. During their menstruation, the females live outside the limits of the Hâdi (group of rude huts) for three days. And, in cases of childbirth, none but the wet nurse or other attendant enters the room of the confined woman for ten days. In cases of sickness, no medical treatment is resorted to; on the other hand, exorcisms, charms, incantations, and animal sacrifices are more generally in vogue.

[1] Manual of the Nilgiri district.

[2] Mysore Census Report, 1901.

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The male's dress consists of either a bit of cloth to cover their nudity, or a piece of coarse cloth tied round the waist, and reaching to the knees. They wear ornaments of gold, silver, or brass. They are their own barbers, and use broken glass for razors. The females wear coarse cloth four yards long, and have their foreheads tattooed in dots of two or three horizontal lines, and wear ear-rings, glass bangles, and necklaces of black beads. Strangers are not allowed to enter their hâdis or hamlets with shoes or slippers on. In case of death, children are buried, whilst adults are burned. On the occurrence of any untoward event, the whole site is abandoned, and a new hâdi set up in the vicinity. The Kâdu Kurubas are very active, and capable of enduring great fatigue. It is said that they are revengeful, but, if treated kindly, they will do willing service. The Jénu Kurubas live in small detached huts in the interior of thick jungles, far away from inhabited places. Their habits are no less wild. The male dress consists of either a woollen kambli or coarse cloth, and a skull cap. The female's sâdi is white coarse cloth, their ornaments being a pair of brass ear-rings, strings of black beads tied round the neck, and glass bangles on the wrist. These people do not allow to outcasts and Musalmans access to their premises, or permit shoes being brought into their houses or streets. They eat flesh, and take meals from Vakkaligas, Lingâyats, and other superior castes. They subsists on wild bamboo seed, edible roots, etc., found in the jungle, often mixed with honey. They are said not infrequently to make a dessert out of bees in preference to milk, ghí (clarified butter), etc. They are engaged chiefly in felling timber in the forests, and other similar rude pursuits, but they never own or cultivate land for themselves, or keep live-stock of their own. They are very expert in tracking wild animals, and very skilfully elude accidental pursuits thereby. Their children more than two years old move about freely in the jungle. They are said to be hospitable to travellers visiting their place at any unusual hour. They are Saivites, and Jangams are their gurus. The ceremonial pollution on account of death lasts for ten days, as with the Brâhmans. Children are buried, while adults, male or female, are cremated. A curious trait of this primitive race is that the unmarried females of the village or hâdi generally sleep in a hut or châvadi set apart for them, whilst the adult bachelors and children have a separate building both under the eye of the head tribesman. The hut for the latter is called pundugâr châvadi, meaning literally the abode of vagabonds." The Jénu Kurumbas are said to eat, and the Betta Kurumbas to abstain from eating the flesh of the 'bison' (Bos gaurus).

Jénu and Betta Kurumbas

In a note on the Jénu and Betta Kurumbas of Mysore, Mr. M. Venkatanarnappa writes as follows. "The Betta are better clothed and fed than the Jén Kurumbas. Their occupation is kumri (burning and shifting) cultivation. Their women are clever at basket-making. They can be distinguished by the method of dress which their women have adopted, and the way in which the men wear their hair. A Betta woman covers her body below the shoulders by tying a long cloth round the armpits, leaving shoulders and arms bare, whereas a Jén woman in good circumstances dresses up like the village females, and, if poor, ties a piece of cloth round her loins, and wears another to partially conceal the upper part of her body. Among males, a Betta Kurumba leaves his hair uncut, and gathers it from fore and aft into a knot on the crown of the head. A Jén Kurumba shaves like the ryots, leaving a tuft behind, or clips it, with a curly or bushy growth to protect the head from heat and cold. The Betta and Jén Kurumbas never intermarry." The Betta Kurumbas are, I am told, excellent elephant mahauts (drivers), and very useful at keddah (elephant-catching) operations.

Of the Kâdu and Betta Kurumbas, as they were at the beginning of the nineteenth century, the following account is given by Buchanan. [1] "The bad Curubaru are a rude tribe, who are exceedingly poor and wretched. In the fields near the villages, they build miserable low huts, sexes stands out matted like a mop, and swarms with vermin. Some of them hire themselves out as labouring servants to the farmers, and receive monthly wages. Others, in crop seasons, watch the fields at night, to keep off elephants and wild hogs.

[1] Journey through Mysore, Canara, and Malabar, 1807.

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In the intervals between crops, they work as daily labourers, or go into the woods, and collect the roots of wild yams (Dioscorea), part of which they eat, and part exchange with the farmers for grain. Their manner of driving away the elephant is by running against him with a burning torch made of bamboos. The animal sometimes turns, waits till the Curubaru comes close up; but these poor people, taught by experience, push boldly on, dash their torches against the elephant's head who never fails to take to immediate flight. Should their courage fail, and should they attempt to run away, the elephant would immediately pursue, and put them to death. The Curubaru have no means of killing so large an animal, and, on meeting with one in the day-time, are as much alarmed as any other of the inhabitants. During the Sultan's reign they caught a few in pitfalls. [I have heard of a clever Kurumba, who caught an elephant by growing pumpkins and vegetable marrow, for which elephants have a partiality, over a pit on the outskirts of his field.-E.T.] The wild hogs are driven out of the fields by slings, but they are too fierce for the Curubaru to kill. These people frequently suffer from tigers, against which their wretched huts are a poor defence; and, when this wild beast is urged by hunger, he is senseless to their burning torches. These Curubaru have dogs, with which they catch deer, antelopes, and hares; and they have the art of taking in snares, peacocks, and other esculent birds. They believe that good men, after death, will become benevolent Dévas, and bad men destructive Dévas. They are of such known honesty that on all occasions they are entrusted with provisions by the farmers, who are persuaded that the Curubaru would rather starve than take one grain of what was given to them in charge. The spirits of the dead are believed to appear in dreams to their old people, and to direct them to make offerings to a female deity named Bettada Chicama, that is, the mother of the hill. Unless these offerings are made, this goddess occasions sickness. In cases of adultery, the husband flogs his wife severely, and, if he is able, beats her paramour. If he be not able, he applies to the gaudo (headman), who does it for him." The Betta Curubaru, Buchanan continues, "live in poor huts near the villages, and the chief employment of the men is the cutting of timber, and making of baskets. With a sharp stick they also dig up spots of ground in the skirts of the forest, and sow them with râgi (Eleusine Coracana). The men watch at night the fields of the farmers, but they are not so dexterous at this as the Cad Curubaru. In this class, the Cutigas are women that prefer another man to their husband, or widows, who do not wish to relinquish enjoyment. Their children are not considered as illegitimate."

Of the casual system of clearing the jungle in vogue among the Kurumbas. I may quote the following description.[1] "In their search for food, this wild tribe naturally prefers a forest cleared of all undergrowth, in which to move about, and the ingenuity with which they attain this end, and outwit the vigilant forest subordinates, is worthy of a better object. I have heard of a Kurumba walking miles from his hâdi or hamlet, with a ball of dry smouldering elephant dung concealed in his waist-cloth. This he carried to the heart of the forest reserve, and, selecting a suitable spot, he placed the smouldering dung, with a plentiful supply of dry inflammable grass over it, in such a position as to allow the wind to play upon it, and fan it into a flame with the pleasing certainty that the smoke from the fire would not be detected by the watchers on the distant fire-lines until the forest was well alight, the flames beyond all control, and the Kurumba himself safe at home in his awaiting the arrival of the forest subordinate to summon the settlement to assist in the hopeless task of extinguishing the fire."

Of the Kurumbas who are found in the Wynâd, Calicut, and Ernâd tâluks of Malabar, the following account is given in the Gazetteer of that district. "They are sub-divided into Mullu (bamboo) Kurumbas, Jén or Tén (honey) Kurumbans also called Kâdu or Shóla Nâyakkans (or Jénu Koyyo Shóla Nâyakas, i.e., honey cutting lords of the woods), and Œrali or Bét Kurumbans; of which the first-named class, who consider themselves superior to the others, are cultivators and hunters; the second wood-cutters and collectors of honey; and the third make baskets and implements of agriculture. The Mullu and Tén Kurumbans have headmen with titles of Mîppan and Mudali respectively conferred by their janmis (landlords).

[1] Asian, 1902.

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The Kurumbans, like many of the other hill-tribes, use bows and arrows, with which they are expert. The caste deity of the Tén Kurumbans is called Masti. It is perhaps worth remarking that the Œrali Kurumbans of the Wynaad differ from the other two classes in having no headmen, observing a shorter period of pollution after a birth than any other Malabar tribe and none at all after a death, and in not worshipping any of the Malabar animistic deities."

The chief sub-division of the Kurumbas on the Nílgiris, and in the Wynâd, are said, in the Madras Census Report of 1891, to be "Mullu (thorn), Betta or Vetta (hill), Œrâli, (Œr, a village), Tén (honey), and Tac'chanâdan Mîppan (carpenter headman). Of these, the first and last speak Malayâlam, and wear a lock in front of their head in the Malabar fashion. The rest speak Canarese. Œrâli Kurumbas work in metals." The villages of the Kurumbas on the Nílgiri hills are, Mr. Grigg writes , [1] called mottas. They consists generally of only four or five huts, made of mud and wattle, with thatched roofs. The front of the house is sometimes whitewashed, and ornamented with rude drawings of men and animals in red earth or charcoal. They store their grain in large oval baskets, and for bottles they use gourds. They clear a patch round about the village, and sow the ground with râgi (Eleusine Coracana), tenne(Setaria italica), or kiri (Amarantus). They dig up roots, (called gâsî) for food, and collect the jungle produce, honey, resin, gall-nuts, etc., which they barter with low country traders, and they are clever in catching game in nets, and dispose of the flesh in a surprisingly short time. Kurumbas occasionally take work on coffee plantations, and some earn a livelihood by officiating as priests to the Badagas. They are also employed as musicians at wedding feasts and funerals of the other tribes, where they play on clarionets, drums, and tambourines, as well as the bîguri. They make baskets of rattan and milk vessels out of a joint of bamboo, as well as nets of a thread called oilhatti. Their women confine themselves to the limited work of their households, fetching water, cooking, etc. The following extract embraces all that can be said of the religion of the Kurumbas. "Some profess to worship Siva, and occasionally women mark their foreheads with Siva spot. Others, living near Barliar, worship Kuribattraya (lord of many sheep) and the wife of Siva under the name of Musni. They worship also a rough stone under the name of Hiriadéva, setting it up either in a cave, or in a circle of stones like the so-called Kurumba kóvil of the Badagas, which the latter would seem to have borrowed from the Kurumbas. To this they make pîja, and offer cooked rice at the sowing time. They also profess to sacrifice to Hiriadéva a goat, which they kill at their own houses, after sprinkling water, and eat, giving a portion of flesh to the pîjâri (priest). Others say that they have no pîjâri; among such a scattered tribe customs probably vary in each motta."(Breeks). It is recorded by Dr. Rivers, in connection with the Toda legendary stories of Kwoten, that "one day Kwoten went with Erten of Keadr, who was spoken of as his servant of Poni, in the direction of Polkat (Calicut). At Poni there is a stream called Palpa, the commencement of which may be seen on the Kundahs. Kwoten and Erten went to drink water out of stream at a place where a goddess (teu) named Terkosh had been bathing. Finally, they came to Terkosh, who said to Kwoten, "Do not come near me, I am a teu." Kwoten paid no heed to this, but said "You are a beautiful woman," and lay with her. Then Terkosh went away to her hill at Poni, where she is now, and to this day the Kurumbas go there once a year and offer plantains to her, and light lamps in her honour."

It is further recorded by Dr. Rivers that "two ceremonial objects are obtained by the Todas from the Kurumbas. One is the tall pole called tadri or tadri, which is used in the dance at the second funeral ceremonies, and afterwards burnt. Poles of the proper length are said to grow only on the Malabar side of the Nílgiris, and are probably most easily obtained from the Kurumbas. The other is the teiks, or funeral post at which the buffalo is killed." Besides supplying the Badagas with the elephant-pole required at their funerals, the Kurumbas have to sow the first handful of grain for the Badagas every season. The ceremony is thus 2 described by Harkness. [2] "A family of the Burghers (Badagas) had assembled, which was about to commence ploughing.

[1] Manual of Nílgiri district.

[2] Aboriginal race of the Neilgherry hills, 1832.

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With them were two or three Kurumbas, one of whom had set up a stone in the centre of the spot on which we were standing, and, decorating it with wild flowers, prostrated himself to it, offered incense, and sacrificed a goat, which had been brought there by the Burghers. He then took the guidance of the plough, and, having ploughed some ten or twelve paces, gave it over, possessed himself of the head of the sacrificed animal, and left the Burghers to prosecute their labours-- the Kurumba sowing the first handful, leaves the Burgher to go on with the remainder, and, reaping the first sheaf, delivers it with the sickle to him, to accomplish the remainder of the task. At harvest time, or when the whole of the grain has been gathered in, the Kurumba receives his dues, or proportion of the produce." The relations of the Kurumbas with the Badagas at the present day, and the share which the former take in the ceremonies of the latter, are dealt with in the account of the Badagas.

I am informed that, among the Kurumbas of the Nílgiris, it is the custom for several brothers to take one wife in common (adelphogamy), and that they do not object to their women being open to others also. There is said to be no marriage rite. A man and woman will mate together, and live as husband and wife. And, if it happens that, in a family, there has been a succession of such wives for one or two generations, it becomes an event, and is celebrated as such. The pair sit together, and pour water over each other from pots. They then put on new cloths, and a feast is partaken of. Among the Shóla Nâyakkars, a feature of the marriage ceremony is said to be for the bride to roll a cheroot of tobacco leaves, which both parties must smoke in turn.

Writing concerning the Irulas and Kurumbas, Mr. Walhouse says [1] that "after every death among them, they bring a long water-worn stone (devva kotta kallu), and put it into one of the old cromlechs sprinkled over the Nílgiri plateau. Some of the larger of these have been found piled up to the cap-stone with such pebbles, which must have been the work of generations. Occasionally, too, the tribes mentioned make small cromlechs for burial purposes, and place the long water-worn pebbles in them. Mr. Breeks reports that the Kurumbas in the neighbourhood of the Rangasvâmi peak and Barliar burn their dead, and place a bone and a small round stone in the sâvu-mane (death-house)-- an old cromlech." The conjecture is hazarded by Fergusson [2] that the Kurumbas are the remnant of a great and widely spread race, who may have erected dolmens. As bearing on the connection between Kurumbas and Kurubas, it is worthy of note that the latter, in some places, erect dolmes as a resting-place for the dead. (See Kuruba.)

It is noted, in the Gazetteer of the Nílgiris, that the Kurumbas "trade largely on the extraordinary dread of their supposed magical powers which possesses the Todas and the Badagas-- the latter especially. Stories are told of how they can summon wild elephants at will, and reduce rocks to powder merely by scattering mystic herbs upon them."

Sorcery

"The Kurumbas," Harkness writes, "have a knowledge of herbs and medicinal roots, and the Burghers (Badagas) say that they limit knowledge thereof to those which are noxious only, and believe that, with the assistance of their magic, they are able to convey them into the stomachs of those to whom they have any dislike. The violent antipathy existing between the Burghers and the Kurumbas, and the dread and horror which the former entertain of the preternatural powers of the latter are perhaps not easily accounted for; but neither sickness, death, nor misfortune of any kind, ever visit the former, without the latter having the credit of producing it. A few years before, a Burgher had been hanged by the sentence of the provincial court for the murder of a Kurumba. The act of the former was not without what was considered great provocation.

[1] Ind. Ant., VI, 1877.

[2] Rude Stone Monuments.

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Disease had attacked the inhabitants of the hamlet, and murrain their cattle. The former had carried off a great part of the family of the murdered, and he himself had but narrowly escaped its effects. No one in the neighbourhood doubted that the Kurumba in question had, by his necromancy, caused all this misfortune, and, after several fruitless attempts, a party of them succeeded in surrounding him in open day, and effecting their purpose." In 1835 no less than forty-eight Kurumbas were murdered, and a smaller number in 1875 and 1882. In 1900 a whole family of Kurumbas was murdered, of which the head, who had a reputation as a medicine-man, was believed to have brought disease and death into a Badaga village. The sympathies of the whole country-side were so strongly with the murderers that detection was made every difficult, and the persons charged were acquitted. [1] In this case several Todas were implicated. "It is," Mr. Grigg writes, "a curious fact that neither Kota, Irula, or Badaga will slay a Kurumba until a Toda has struck the first blow, but, as soon as his sanctity has been violated by a blow, they hasten to complete the murderous work, which the sacred hand of the Toda had begun." The Badaga's dread of the Kurumba is said to be so great that a simple threat of vengeance has proved fatal. Mr. Toda's guide-- a stalwart representative of his tribe-- expressed fear of walking from Ootacamund to Kotagiri, a distance of eighteen miles along a highroad, lest he should come to grief at the hands of Kurumbas; but this was really a frivolous excuse to get out of accompanying me to a distance from his domestic hearth. In like manner, Dr. Rivers records that, when he went to Kotagiri, a Toda who was to accompany him made a stipulation that he should be provided with a companion, as the Kurambas were very numerous in that part. In connection with the Toda legend of On, who created the buffaloes and the Todas, Dr. Rivers writes that "when On saw that his son was in Amnodr (the world of the dead), he did not like to leave him there alone, and decided to go away to the same place. So he called together all the people, and the buffaloes and the trees, to come and bid him farewell. All the people came except a man of Kwodrdoni named Arsankutan. He and his family did not come. All the buffaloes came except the Arsaiir, the buffaloes of the Kwodroni ti (sacred dairy). Some trees also failed to come. On blessed all the people, buffaloes and trees present, but said that, because Arsankutan had not come, he and his people should die by sorcery at the hands of the Kurumbas, and that, because the Arsaiir had not come, they should be killed by tigers, and that the trees which had not come should bear bitter fruit. Since that time the Todas have feared the Kurumbas, and buffaloes have been killed by tigers."

On the Nílgiri hills, honey-combs are collected by Jén Kurumbas and Shólagas. The supply of honey varies according to the nature of season, and is said to be especially plentiful and of good quality when Strobilanthes flowers. [2] The Kurumbas are said to have incredibly keen eye-sight, gained from constantly watching the bee to his hive. When they find a hive not quite ready to take, they place a couple of sticks in a certain position. This sign will prevent any other hillman would meddle with it on any account, for fear of being killed by sorcery.

Fortified by a liberal allowance of alcohol and tobacco, the Kurumbas, armed with bamboo torches, will follow up at night the tracks of a wounded 'bison' (Bos gaurus), and bring back the head and meat to camp. A European sportsman recounts that he often seen his Kurumba shikâri (tracker) stop, and, with the one word "honey," point to the top of an adjacent tree. "How do you know?" he asked, "Oh! I saw a bee" was the answer given with the greatest nonchalance. On one occasion he found himself close to a swarm of bees. The Kurumba, seeing him hesitate, thrust his stick clean through the swarm, and, with the bare remark "No honey," marched on. The District Forest Officer, when out shooting, had an easy shot at a stag, and missed it. "There," said the Kurumba, pointing to a distant tree, "is your bullet." His trained sense of hearing no doubt enabled him to locate the sound of the bullet striking the tree, and his eyes, following the sound, instantly detected the slight blaze made by the bullet on the bark. The visual acuity of a number of tribes and castes inhabiting the mountains, jungles, and plains, has been determined by Dr. W.H. R. Rivers and myself, by means of the Cohn letter E method.

[1] Police Admn, Report, 1900.

[2] Agricult, Ledger Series, No, 47, 1904.

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And, though the jungle man, who has to search for his food and mark the tracks or wild beasts, undoubtedly possesses a specially trained keenness of vision for the exigencies of his primitive life, our figures show that as regards ordinary visual acuity, he had no advantage over the more highly civilised classes. "The Kurumbas of the Mysore forests," Mr. Theobald writes, "make fire by friction. They follow the same method as the Todas, as described by Mr. Thurston, but horizontal piece of wood which is held down by their feet, or by a companion. The fine brown powder, formed during the rotation of the longer vertical vertical piece, gives sufficient tinder, which soon ignites, and is then placed on a small piece of cotton rag, rolled loosely, and gently blown until it is ignited. The vertical stick is held between the palms, and has a reciprocal motion, by the palms being moved in opposite directions, at the same time using a strong downward pressure, which naturally brings the palms to the bottom, when they are at once raised to their original position, and the operation is continued till the naturally formed tinder ignites." In his report on Forest Administration in Coorg, 1902-1903, Mr. C.D.A. McCarthy writes as follows concerning the Kurumbas, who work for the Forest department. "We experienced in connection with the Kurumbas one of those apparent aberrations of sense and intellect, the occurrence of which amongst this peculiar race was foreshadowed in the last report. The Chief Commissioner is aware that, in the interests of the Kurubas themselves, we substitute for a single cash payment distributions of each. Now, seventy years ago, before the annexation of Coorg, the Kurubas and similar castes were praedial slaves of the dominant Coorgs, receiving no other remuneration for service than food and clothing. In fact, this institution, nothing less than real slavery, was not entirely broken up until the great demand for local labour created by the opening up the country for coffee cultivation so late as 1860-1870, so that the existing generation are still cognisant of the old state of affairs. Last year, during the distribution of rewards for the successful protection of the reserves that season from fire, it seems that the idea was put into the heads of these people that our system of remuneration, which includes the distribution of food and clothing, was an attempt to create again at their expense a system of, as it were, forest slavery; with the result that for a time nothing would induce many of them to accept any from of remuneration for the work already performed, much less to undertake the same duties for the approaching season. It was some time, and after no little trouble, that the wherefore of this strange conduct was discovered, and the suspicions aroused put at rest." In his report, 1904-1905, Mr. McCarthy states that "the local system of fire protection, consisting of the utilisation of the Kuruba jungle population for the clearing of fire lines and patrolling, and the payment of rewards according to results, may now be said to be completely established in Coorg. The Kurubas appear to have gained complete confidence in the working of the system, and, provided the superior officers personally see to the payment of the rewards, are evidently quite satisfied that the deductions for failures are just and fair." The Kurumbas are said to have been very useful in the mining operations during the short life of the Wynâd gold-mines. A few years ago, I received the skulls of two Kurumbas, who went after a porcupine into a deserted tunnel on the Glenrock Gold-mining Company's land in the Wynâd. The roof fell in on them, and they were buried alive. 1 In a note on the 'Ethnoge`nie des Dravidiens,'[1] Mr. Louis Lapicque writes as follows. "Les populations caracte`ristiques du Wainaad sont les Panyer, les ne`groides les plus accuse`s et les plus homogenes que j'ai vus, et probablement qui existent dans toute l'Inde. D'autre part, les tribus vivant de leur cóte` sur leurs propres cultures, fortement ne`groides encore, mais plus me`lange`es. Tel sont les Naiker et les Kouroumbas."

Indice nasal. Indice cephalique Taille.

54 Panyer 84 74 154

28 Kouroumbas 81 75 157

12 Naiker 80 76.9 157

[1] Comptes rendus des Se`ances de la Socie`te` de Biologie, T. LVIII, 1019.

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