FIG. 128.—Santal of the Bhagalpur hills.
(Coll. India Museum, London.)
From the somatological point of view it may be affirmed to-day, after the excellent works of Risley, Crooke, Thurston, Sarasin, Schmidt, Jagor, Mantegazza, etc., that the variety of types found in the country is due to the crossing of two indigenous races, Indo-Afghan and Melano-Indian or Dravidian, with the admixture here and there of foreign elements: Turkish and Mongol in the north, Indonesian in the east, Arab and Assyroid in the west, and perhaps the Negritoid element in the centre. The Indo-Afghan race, of high stature, with light brown or tanned complexion, long face, wavy or straight hair, prominent and thin nose, dolichocephalic head, predominates in the north-west of India; the Melano-Indian or Dravidian race, also dolichocephalic but of short stature, with dark brown or black complexion, wavy or frizzy hair, is chiefly found in the south. In it two sub-races may be distinguished: a platyrhinian one, with broad flat nose, rounded face, found in the mountainous regions of Western Bengal, Oudh and Orissa, also at several points of Rajputana and Gujarat, then in Southern India, and in the central provinces to the south of the rivers Narbada and Mahanadi. The other sub-race, leptorhinian, with narrow prominent nose, and elongated face may be noted in some particular groups, especially among the Nairs, the Telugus, and the Tamils.[454]
1. Melano-Indians or Dravidians.—This group, at once somatological and linguistic, includes two sub-divisions, based on differences of language: the division of Kolarians, and that of Dravidians properly so called.
a. Kolarians.[455]—The numerous tribes speaking the languages of the Kol family and belonging to the platyrhinian variety of the Melano-Indian race, more or less modified by interminglings, occupy the mountainous regions of Bengal and the provinces of the north-west. Certain of these tribes, of the purest type, like the Juang or Patua of Keunjhar and Dhenkanal (Orissa), are distinguished by very short stature (1 m. 57), zygomatic arches projecting outwards, and flat face, as well as by certain ethnic characters; they go nearly naked, live on the products of the chase and the fruits and roots gathered; they also practise a little primitive cultivation by burning the forests, etc. The Kharia of Lohardaga (Chota Nagpur), who resemble the Juang in type, language, and tattooings (three lines above the nose, etc.), are partly civilised; some cultivate the ground with a plough, have a rudimentary social constitution, etc. The other Kols are, for the most part, still further advanced. Such are the Santals or Sonthals (Fig. [128]) of Western Bengal, of Northern Orissa, and of Bhagalpur, who call themselves “Hor”; the Munda or Horo-hu of Chota Nagpur; the Ho or Lurka-Kols of the district of Singbhum (Bengal); lastly, the Bhumij of Western Bengal, all probably sections of one and the same people, formerly much more numerous.[456] The Kols of the north-west provinces (height 1 m. 64; ceph. ind. 73.2, according to Risley and Crooke) are closely allied to the groups which I have just mentioned. The Savaras or Saoras, scattered over Orissa, Chota Nagpur, Western Bengal, and as far as the province of Madras, speak a language which Cunningham, Cust, and Fr. Müller consider Kolarian, while, according to Dalton, it belongs to the Dravidian family properly so called. Physically, they resemble the Malé Dravidians, and exhibit the tolerably pure type of the platyrhinian sub-race of the Melano-Indians.[457] The same doubt exists in regard to the linguistic affinities of the Bhils of Central India and the north-west provinces.
b. Dravidians properly so called.—They may be divided into two groups, those of the north and those of the south.
Dravidians of the North.—These are in the first place the Malé (plural Maler) or Asal Paharia of the Rajmahal hills (Bengal), probably one of the sections of the Savara people (see above);[458] the Oraons (523,000 in 1891), several tribes of which are also found in the north-west of Chota Nagpur; lastly, the Gonds (three millions) of the Mahadeo mountains and part of the central provinces situated farther south, between the rivers Indravati and Seleru, tributaries of the Godavari. To the east of the Gonds dwell the Khands and the Khonds (600,000), who have spread into Orissa.
All these tribes have scarcely got beyond the stage of hunters or primitive husbandmen, who set their forests on fire in order to sow among the ashes. In this respect the Korwa of Sarguja, of Jashpur (Bengal), and Mirzapur (north-west province) resemble them, if they are not even more uncivilised. They are unacquainted with clothes of any kind, obtain fire by sawing one piece of wood with another, and have an animistic religion much less developed than that of the Gonds or Oraons.[459]
Dravidians of the South.—To the south of the Godavari dwell five black, half-civilised peoples, having a particular form of writing, professing Brahmanism, and showing an intermingling of two varieties of the Melano-Indian race. Side by side with them, and among them, are found a number of small tribes more or less uncivilised and animistic, having somatic types of considerable variety.