1. General notice. Strength of the Kols in India.
Kol, Munda, Ho.—A great tribe of Chota Nāgpur, which has given its name to the Kolarian family of tribes and languages. A part of the District of Singhbhūm near Chaibāsa is named the Kolhān as being the special home of the Larka Kols, but they are distributed all over Chota Nāgpur, whence they have spread to the United Provinces, Central Provinces and Central India. It seems probable also that the Koli tribe of Gujarāt may be an offshoot of the Kols, who migrated there by way of Central India. If the total of the Kols, Mundas and Hos or Larka Kols be taken together they number about a million persons in India. The real strength of the tribe is, however, much greater than this. As shown in the article on that tribe, the Santāls are a branch of the Kols, who have broken off from the parent stock and been given a separate designation by the Hindus. They numbered two millions in 1911. The Bhumij (400,000) are also probably a section of the tribe. Sir H. Risley[1] states that they are closely allied to if not identical with the Mundas. In some localities they intermarry with the Mundas and are known as Bhumij Munda.[2] If the Kolis also be taken as an offshoot of the Kol tribe, a further addition of nearly three millions is made to the tribes whose parentage can be traced to this stock. There is little doubt also that other Kolarian tribes, as the Kharias, Khairwars, Korwas and Korkus, whose tribal languages closely approximate to Mundāri, were originally one with the Mundas, but have been separated for so long a period that their direct connection can no longer be proved. The disintegrating causes, which have split up what was originally one into a number of distinct tribes, are probably no more than distance and settlement in different parts of the country, leading to cessation of intermarriage and social intercourse. The tribes have then obtained some variation in the original name or been given separate territorial or occupational designations by the Hindus and their former identity has gradually been forgotten.