SANTAL PARGANAS form a British dis trict in Bengal, lying between lat. 23° 48' and 25° 19' N., and between long. 86° 30' and 87° 58' E. Area, 5488 square miles ; popuLation, according to the census of 1872, 1,259,287 sottls. In the east a belt of hills stretches for about 100 miles from the Ganges to the Naubil river. West of this is a rolling tract of long ridges with intervening depressions, covering an area of about 2500 square miles. The third type is exemplified by a narrow, ahnost continuous, strip of flat alluvial land about 170 miles in length, lying for the inost part along the loopline of the East Indian Railway. The Ganges forms the northern and a largo part of the eastern boundary of the Santal Parganas, and all the rivers of the district even tually flow either into it or into the Bhagirathi. The Santal people have been known to the British since the latter part of the 18th century. In 1832 two Government officiate were deputed to demar cate with solid nutsonry pillar! the present area of the Daman-I-Koh or skirt of the hills. The permission to Santale to settle in the valleys and on the lower slopes of the Damn stimulated Santal immigration to an enormous extent. Sittce the beginning of the 19th century they have in truded themselves into some of the Itajinaltal districts, which therefore now contain two rxspu lations, allied to each other, but speaking lan guass,es said to lie mutually unintelligible. And, in 1855-56, in attempting to revenge themeelves on tho Hindu money-lenders, who had taken advant age of their simplicity and improvidence, the Santals rose in arms. The insurrection was not repressed without bloodshed,—indeed, half their numbers perished ; but it led to the establish ment of a form of administration congenial to the Santa! immigrants; and a land settlement has recently been carried out on condition/5favour able to the occupants of the soil.
The Goalas, cowherds and milkmen (of whom there are 74,529), form by far the most numerous caste in the Santal Parganas ; the artisan castea nutnber altogether 83,722 persons, of whom 27,954 are Telis (oilmen). The total number of
persons belonging to aboriginal tribea is 557,277, of whom the great majority (455,513) consist of Santals. The Paharias number 68,336. The other principal aboriginal tribes represented in the district are Naiyas (9179), Kols (8894), and Mats (8820). The total number of Santals through out the whole of the Bengal Provinces is returned in the census report of 1881 at 210,661, of whom 203,264 are found in the districts of Bengal. 3Ianbhum comes next with 132,445 ; Midnapur has 96,921 ; the Native States of Orissa, 76,548 ; Singbhurn, 51,132 ; Hazaribagh, 35,306. The Santals form 3 per cent., or more than one third of the total nutuber of the aboriginal races under the Lieutenant-Governor of Bengal, and are the best known to Europeans.
The Sautal, Mmulall, lThumij, and llo races speak languages nearly identical. The Santa! are a simple, industrious people, honest and truthful, tractable,. free from caste prejudices, and tus, much sought after and prized as labourers by the Bengal indigo planters, end. on the railways and other works of Western Bengal, and in the Assam tea plantations. The Santal ere a branch of the Mundah Kol. They seem to have separated when the Mundah fell back on Chutia Nagpur from the Damuda river, which the Santa] call their sea, and they preserve the ashes of their dead until an opportunity occurs of throwing them. into that stream or burying them on its banks. Lieutenant Colonel Dalton thinks that they left their chief settlements on the Danitada river front havinr, been pressed by the Kurmi. The Santal, Iitunnij, and Mundah tribes have long been known to be intimately connected, and they have affinities with the wild clan of the Korewah of Sirguja and Jushpur, the Kheriah tribe of Chutia Nagpur, and the Juanga of the Cuttack tributary mallets.