Linguistically they are divisible into two distinct groups, the Dravidas proper, and the Mundas. To the former belong the Tamuls, the Telugus, the Canarese, the Malayalas, the Todas, the Khonds, and other tribes of less importance. The skin of all these is brown, the hair curly, the head tending to dolichocephaly. The Todas of the Neilghery hills are regarded as of unusually pure blood. They are tall, with full beards and prominent noses, the hair black and bushy. Undoubtedly many of the Dravidas partake of Aryac blood through the long domination of that stock.
Most of the Dravida nations are cultured, possessing a written language and a literature. They are pastoral and agricultural in habits, and usually the women are well treated, and enjoy a certain degree of freedom. Monogamy is the prevalent custom, but polyandry (see p. 53) is frequent, and infanticide, particularly of female children, is looked upon with approval. Their religion is a nature-worship of a low order, consisting principally of conjurations against evil spirits and divination by sorcerers.
The Munda tribes include the Kohls, the Santals, the Bhillas and others, dwelling on the highlands of the interior, northwest of Calcutta. They are hunting and agricultural peoples, having a better reputation among the Europeans than their Hindoo neighbors. The physical type among them is variable, natives of the same village differing in color and hair, indicating frequent crossings with the Aryac and other foreign stock.
Ethnic Chart of Hindostan.
The languages of the Dravidians, though of the type called agglutinative, have no demonstrative connection with those of the Sibiric (Altaic) stock, and the efforts to connect them historically are visionary. The original roots are monosyllabic, which are modified by the addition of suffixes. These suffixes often show the same “vocalic harmony” to which I have referred in some of the Sibiric idioms (above, p. 212); but its action is reversed, as while in Turkish, for example, the vowel of the suffix alters the vowel of the root, in Telugu it is the latter which controls the former.
Although all the Dravida tongues have borrowed more or less from the Sanscrit, it has been in words only, and their peculiar structure stands as ever wholly apart from all Aryac speech. There is something that looks like inflection in them, but the case-endings are merely particles referring to place, and not true grammatical cases. They are still in that stage of growth where the distinction of verb and noun is ill-defined, and relative pronouns are absent.
The literature which has been developed in these tongues is of respectable extent. That of the Tamils of southern Hindostan and northern Ceylon stands in the front rank. It is in both prose and poetry, special forms of expression being characteristic of the latter. Everywhere it reveals Aryac inspiration, and illustrates the general traits of the Dravidian intellect, ready facility in imitating and adapting the forms of a higher civilization, but limited originality and independence of thought.