The Koeri (1,204,884), called also Muari and Murao, are the beg spade husbandmen, and largely engage in poppy cultivation and the manufacture of opium, with other garden produce.
Kol is a term said to be of Sanskrit origin, and to have a derogatory meaning, but applied by Hindus to aboriginal tribes of Chutia Nagpur, of two distinct families, the Kolarian and the Dravidian, whom Colonel Dalton thus classed :— Kurmi are largely occupied as gardeners and husbandmen. They number 4,065,075 in Northern India, and of these 1,213,422 are in Bengal.
Mal, 125,238 in Bengal, and 16,876 in Assam, are supposed to have long occupied the districts near the Ganges and bordering on the Bay of Bengal. Pliny writes of Gentes Calingm proximi mari, et supra Mandel Malli, quorum Mons Manus, finisque ejus tractus est Ganges.' Also, Ab its (Palebothris) in interiore situ Monedes et Suari quorum Mons Maleus.' Mr. Beverley thinks that the Mal take their name from the Dravidian word Mallai, a hill, and that they were driven eastward over all Bengal, where they fell into their present position of society.
Mech (9288) stretch along the base of the mountains of the Sikkim, Bhutan, and Nepalese Hills, from the Kauki river to the Brahmaputra. The malaria of the forest, so deadly to strangers, has no effect on them. Their features are of a strong Mongolian caste. They call themselves Bodo or Boro.
Mugh are in the south of Chittagong and in the hill tracts, and they settled in the Sunder bans about A.D. 1780, when they fled from their homes on war breaking out between the king of Burma and the rajas of Arakan, but they love to revisit their homes in the fair weather season of the year. Their general physique is strongly Mongolian. They are Buddhists. The term Mugh was applied to the fire-worshippers of Persia by the Arabs, and to any non-Muham madan.
Nat (26,560) are a vagrant, wandering race, with habits and occupations assimilating to those of the gypsies of Europe.
Oraon (45,638) call themselves Khurnkh, and the younger men of the tribe Dhangar. They are honest, industrious workers, are a merry, light hearted people, excessively fond of dancing, which is their great national amusement. They are known to Europeans as part of the Kol, but they are not Kolarians. Oraon have a Dum kuria, or Morang hall, in which the unmarried men and some of the married sleep. Any absentee is fined. In this hall are kept all the flags and instruments used in their dances. In some Orson
villages also there is a sleeping - house for the unmarried girls, with an elderly woman to look after them. The names of the Oraon clans are taken from animals, which are sacred to the particular tribe.
Pasi, 164,595 in Bengal, and 1,033,184 in the N.W. Provinces, are watchmen, fowlers, swine herds, labourers, and agriculturists, and spread throughout the N.W. Provinces and Behar, but they too, like the Bhar and the Cheru, were formerly rulers in the land. They were owners of the pargana of Khyrabad in Oudh, in the time of Prithi-raj in the 12th century, and they fought on the side of the Chandal against the Chauhan. Since then they have been highly predatory.
Duran of Orissa assert that they and another race were produced from a peafowl's egg,—the Puran from the white, and the Kharria from the shell.
Rajwar have many clans, some of them cul tivators, others predatory. They are of mixed origin, but chiefly aborigines.
The Santal (in Bengal 1,128,190, and in Assam 7744) say of their origin that a wild goose came from the great ocean, and alighted at Ahiri-pipri, and there laid two eggs, from which issued the first parents of the Santal. The Santal have twelve clans, one of them is the Murmu, which is their name for the Portax pictus antelope, and the elan must not kill it, nor eat its flesh.
The Santal parganas are 140 miles N.W. of Calcutta, in a wild and sparsely populated country. For revenue and administrative purposes, these are arranged into four sub-districts. The Santal and Paharia have regular village institutions, with a manjhi or headman, and similar to the Munda and Maniki among the Kol and Ito. Over the Santal manjhi are headmen of hundreds called parganas. The Santal have no written language of their own ; very few of them can write either Hindi or Bengali, and they aided in the census operations by tying knots on strings of different colours to distinguish males from females, and children from adults. In Bengal proper, Santals are mostly in the Midnapur and Baneoorah dis tricts, others are in Orissa. They have six domestic ceremonies, viz. (1) Admission into the family, (2) into the tribe, (3) into the race, (4) betrothal. (5) cremation, (6) placing three fragments of the skull into the Damodar gods and demon. They are exogamic.
Dosadh are constitutionally brave. A number of them fought in Clive's army at Plassey.