KHARRIA, a tribe in Singbhuni in a very wild state, living much in backwoods and on the tops of bills apart from the Ho and Bhumij, who are somewhat in dread of them, as these isolated Kharria have the reputation of being great wizards. They are found also, under the same name, in the Manbhum Hills. The Kharria are also seen in villages with other tribes as farm labourers, but in the Chutia Nagpur estate they are far more civilised, living near the southern Koel river, one of the streams that rise on the Chutia Nagpur plateau, the principal source of the BmInani. This river the Kharria venerate as the Santal the Damridar, and into it they throw the ashes of their dead. .Their ancestors, they say, were formerly settled between Rohtas and Patna. They quarrelled with their relations, and wandered away to the Koel. Part of them seem, however, to have reached the Koel from the south. They worship the sun under the name of Bero, and whom in prayer they address as Parm eswar. Every head of a family should, in his life time, make not less than five sacrifices to this divinity ; the first of fowls, the second of a pig, third of a white goat, fourth of a ram, and fifth of a buffalo. Their sacrificial altar is an ant-hill,
which was also formerly used by the Ho and Mundah. They are said to have no word for marriage, but after certain festivities the bride and bridegroom are left to themselves, and the following morning are carried to the river to bathe, and the bride conveyed to her husband's home by her own friends. A dance is then got up, and the bride and her groom are carried through it seated on the haunches of two of their companions. Like all Kolarian races, they are fond of dancing. The women have three parallel lines tattooed on their foreheads, with marks on their temples. Those of Manbhum are said not to eat sheep. They burn their dead, and place the ashes in a pot, which they throw into the river. It is said that they do not allow their women to cook. —Dalton, Ethn. Beng. p. 161.