The Santal and Bhumij races have suffered in esteem in consequence of the human sacrifices offered, up to 1835, at the shrine of Kali, as Runkini ; but these races personally do not much care for this goddess, at whose shrine the establish ment and ritual am essentially Brahmanical. The Santal and Paharia or Rajmahali are markedly different in habits, appearance, manners, and national characteristics, and on the Chutia Nagpur plateau these differences are very marked. The Santal are a very ugly race, with flat, broad-nosed features. They are a more simple, mild, and in dustrious race than the Rajmahali, Gond, or Khond, are truthful aud kind-hearted.
In 1881 they again became uneasy, the cause having a religious mixed with a political element. The movement is said to have been started in 1875 by one Bhagrit Mangi, who gave out that he was commissioned by heaven to deliver the Santals from British rule. He acquired great influence, his orders were implicitly obeyed, and lie himself received both royal and divine honours, being crowned as king of the Santals, and having a shrine set up for his worship. Eventually he was convicted and imprisoned, and his shrine demolished, but his religion continued to spread, being preached throughout the country by his disciples, the Kherwar. The most influential of these, Dhubia Gosain Babagi, was arrested, a,nd sent to Lucknow as a state prisoner about 1881. The Kherwar stirred up an agitation against the 1881 census, using it for their own purposes, and spreading wild tales as to the intentions of the Government, which were readily believed by the credulous Santal. The Santal believes in
Chandabung,a, to whom, once in three or five years, he sacrifices a goat on a Sunday. They have four gods of the woods (Dryads), called Jaihirira, Monikoh, Marungburu, and Gosaira, represented by four stones buried in a clump of trees called the Jairthan, and no Santal village can be settled till the Jairthan is established. Manjiharam, a deity in the shape of a stone, is buried in the centre of the village in a small open shed called Buddhathan, for Manjiharam is also called Buddah Manji, a Manji and Santal being synonymous. The panchayets of the Santal assemble here. In the months of April and May, when the leaves are bare, 2000 to 4000 Sautals assemble with bows and arrows, for their great Seudra or hunting expedition, during which they make wide circles to enclose and kill all the smaller game. They eat the flesh of every animal. Their most solemn oath is taken when touching a tiger's skin. They dance in bodies of one or two hundred to the monotonous music of flutes and drums. The men go round one way, -while the women circle the other. The men step in time without much action, but the women drop their heels and toes in a double shuffle, and bend their bodies forward to a half-kneeling posidon, as though paying homage to the men. The houses of the Santal are in enclosures made with the green boughs of the Sakua, planted in the ground and tied together ; they keep each family distinct from its neighbours.—Dalton, p. 154 ; Campbell, p. 33 ; Travels of a Hindoo ; Lubbock, Or. of Civil.