KOL

[This article is based mainly on Colonel Dalton’s classical description of the Mundas and Hos in the Ethnology of Bengal and on Sir H. Risley’s article on Munda in The Tribes and Castes of Bengal. Extracts have also been made from Mr. Sarat Chandra Roy’s exhaustive account in The Mundas and their Country (Calcutta, 1912). Information on the Mundas and Kols of the Central Provinces has been collected by Mr. Hīra Lāl in Raigarh and by the author in Mandla, and a monograph has been furnished by Mr. B. C. Mazumdār, Pleader, Sambalpur. It should be mentioned that most of the Kols of the Central Provinces have abandoned the old tribal customs and religion described by Colonel Dalton, and are rapidly coming to resemble an ordinary low Hindu caste.]

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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.

2. Names of the tribe.

“The word Kol is probably the Santāli hār, a man. This word is used under various forms, such as har, hāra, ho and koro by most Munda tribes in order to denote themselves. The change of r to l is familiar and does not give rise to any difficulty.”[3] The word Korku is simply a corruption of Kodaku, young men, and there is every probability that the Hindus, hearing the Kol tribe call themselves hor or horo, may have corrupted the name to a form more familiar to themselves. An alternative derivation from the Sanskrit word kola, a pig, is improbable. But it is possible, as suggested by Sir G. Grierson, that after the name had been given, its Sanskrit meaning of pig may have added zest to its employment by the Hindus. The word Munda, Sir H. Risley states, is the common term employed by the Kols for the headman of a village, and has come into general use as an honorific title, as the Santāls call themselves Mānjhi, the Gonds Bhoi, and the Bhangis and other sweepers Mehtar. Munda, like Mehtar, originally a title, has become a popular alternative name for the caste. In Chota Nāgpur those Kols who have partly adopted Hinduism and become to some degree civilised are commonly known as Munda, while the name Ho or Larka Kol is reserved for the branch of the tribe in Singhbhūm who, as stated by Colonel Dalton, “From their jealous isolation for so many years, their independence, their long occupation of one territory, and their contempt for all other classes that come in contact with them, especially the Hindus, probably furnish the best illustration, not of the Mundāris in their present state, but of what, if left to themselves and permanently located, they were likely to become. Even at the present day the exclusiveness of the old Hos is remarkable. They will not allow aliens to hold land near their villages; and indeed if it were left to them no strangers would be permitted to settle in the Kolhān.”