URAON is alike the name and the language of a race. Theirs is an uncultivated idiom, and contains so many Dravidian roots of primary importance, that it 18 considered by Dr. Caldwell as having originally been a member of the Dra vidian family. The Uraon vocabulary of Colonel Onseley (Hodgson's series) has so much resem blance to the 3fale that it may safely be set down as a dialect of the same language. It frequently agrees with the Male where it differs frotn the co dialects with which it is now in contact in Clutha Nagpur. This tnay be considered as confirming the tradition of the Uraon that their original country was Rotas and parts of Rewah, or the bills along the northern bank of the Sone (to the south ward of Benares). According to the tradition, they were driven across the Sone by the intrusion of Gangetic Hindus into their native land, and ultzmately settled in Chutia Nagpur, the country of the Kol tribe of Munda or rife. At a later period, Hindus pushed into this territory, re duced the more civilised Uraon to slavery, drove the wilder Kol into revolt, and eventually forced them to migrate to the southward and eastward into the land of the Bhuiyan. The more northerly
of the eastern emigrants passed out into the low country, and, mixing with the Bhutnij and Bhuiyan natives, formed the class of Tatnaria. The more southerly moved into Singbhum and Kolehan, living at peace with the Bhuiyan pre-occupants until the iutrusion of Hindus from 31arwar, who first leagued with the Bhuiyan against the Kol and then with the Kol againstthe Bhuiyan, and finally appropriated Singbhum, leaving Kolehan or Ho desam to the Kol or Ho, as this southern tribe call themselves. Remnants of the Kol are still found to the northward nearer Chutia Nagpur, and they appear to be also spread to the northward towards Rajrnahal. The Male are now confined to the N.E. extremity of the Vindhya, where the Ganges washes and bends round the chain, and are separ ated from the south Dravidian nations by the Kol. The explanation is probably to be found in the circumstance of the Uraon and Male originally forming an uninterrupted extension of the Gond tribes and dialects that extended from the Goda very to the north extremity of the Vindhya.