[3] Sir C.A. Elliott’s Hoshangābād Settlement Report, p. 70.

Oraon

[Authorities: The most complete account of the Oraons is a monograph entitled, The Religion and Customs of the Oraons, by the late Rev. Father P. Dehon, published in 1906 in the Memoirs of the Asiatic Society of Bengal, vol. i. No. 9. The tribe is also described at length by Colonel Dalton in The Ethnography of Bengal, and an article on it is included in Mr. (Sir H.) Risley’s Tribes and Castes of Bengal. References to the Oraons are contained in Mr. Bradley-Birt’s Chota Nāgpur, and Mr. Ball’s Jungle Life in India. The Kurukh language is treated by Dr. Grierson in the volume of the Linguistic Survey on Munda and Dravidian Languages. The following article is principally made up of extracts from the accounts of Father Dehon and Colonel Dalton. Papers have also been received from Mr. Hīra Lāl, Mr. Balārām Nand, Deputy Inspector of Schools, Sambalpur, Mr. Jeorākhan Lāl, Deputy Inspector of Schools, Bilāspur, and Munshi Kanhya Lāl of the Gazetteer Office.]

List of Paragraphs

1. General notice

Oraon, Uraon, Kurukh, Dhangar, Kūda, Kisān.—The Oraons are an important Dravidian tribe of the Chota Nāgpur plateau, numbering altogether about 750,000 persons, of whom 85,000 now belong to the Central Provinces, being residents of the Jashpur and Sargūja States and the neighbouring tracts. They are commonly known in the Central Provinces as Dhāngar or Dhāngar-Oraon. In Chota Nāgpur the word Dhāngar means a farmservant engaged according to a special customary contract, and it has come to be applied to the Oraons, who are commonly employed in this capacity. Kūda means a digger or navvy in Uriya, and enquiries made by Mr. B.C. Mazumdar and Mr. Hīra Lāl have demonstrated that the 18,000 persons returned under this designation from Raigarh and Sambalpur in 1901 were really Oraons. The same remark applies to 33,000 persons returned from Sambalpur as Kisān or cultivator, these also being members of the tribe. The name by which the Oraons know themselves is Kurukh or Kurunkh, and the designation of Oraon or Orao has been applied to them by outsiders. The meaning of both names is obscure. Dr. Halm[1] was of opinion that the word kurukh might be identified with the Kolarian horo, man, and explained the term Oraon as the totem of one of the septs into which the Kurukhs were divided. According to him Oraon was a name coined by the Hindus, its base being orgorān, hawk or cunny bird, used as the name of a totemistic sept. Sir G. Grierson, however, suggested a connection with the Kaikāri, urūpai, man; Burgandi urāpo, man; urāng, men. The Kaikāris are a Telugu caste, and as the Oraons are believed to have come from the south of India, this derivation sounds plausible. In a similar way Sir. G. Grierson states, Kurukh may be connected with Tamil kurūgu, an eagle, and be the name of a totemistic clan. Compare also names, such as Korava, Kurru, a dialect of Tamil, and Kudāgu. In the Nerbudda valley the farmservant who pours the seed through the tube of the sowing-plough is known as Oraya; this word is probably derived from the verb ūrna to pour, and means ‘one who pours.’ Since the principal characteristic of the Oraons among the Hindus is their universal employment as farmservants and labourers, it may be suggested that the name is derived from this term. Of the other names by which they are known to outsiders Dhāngar means a farmservant, Kūda a digger, and Kisān a cultivator. The name Oraon and its variant Orao is very close to Oraya, which, as already seen, means a farmservant. The nasal seems to be often added or omitted in this part of the country, as Kurukh or Kurunkh.

2. Settlement in Chota Nāgpur

According to their own traditions, Mr. Gait writes,[2] “The Kurukh tribe originally lived in the Carnatic, whence they went up the Nerbudda river and settled in Bihār on the banks of the Son. Driven out by the Muhammadans, the tribe split into two divisions, one of which followed the course of the Ganges and finally settled in the Rājmahāl hills: while the other went up the Son and occupied the north-western portion of the Chota Nāgpur plateau, where many of the villages they occupy are still known by Mundāri names. The latter were the ancestors of the Oraons or Kurukhs, while the former were the progenitors of the Māle or Saonria as they often call themselves.” Towards Lohardaga the Oraons found themselves among the Mundas or Kols, who probably retired by degrees and left them in possession of the country. “The Oraons,” Father Dehon states, “are an exceedingly prolific tribe and soon become the preponderant element, while the Mundas, being conservative and averse to living among strangers, emigrate towards another jungle. The Mundas hate zamīndārs, and whenever they can do so, prefer to live in a retired corner in full possession of their small holding; and it is not at all improbable that, as the zamīndārs took possession of the newly-formed villages, they retired towards the east, while the Oraons, being good beasts of burden and more accustomed to subjection, remained.” In view of the fine physique and martial character of the Larka or Fighting Kols or Mundas, Dalton was sceptical of the theory that they could ever have retired before the Oraons; but in addition to the fact that many villages in which Oraons now live have Mundāri names, it may be noted that the headman of an Oraon village is termed Munda and is considered to be descended from its founder, while for the Pāhan or priest of the village gods, the Oraons always employ a Munda if available, and it is one of the Pāhan’s duties to point out the boundary of the village in cases of dispute; this is a function regularly assigned to the earliest residents, and seems to be strong evidence that the Oraons found the Mundas settled in Chota Nāgpur when they arrived there. It is not necessary to suppose that any conquest or forcible expropriation took place; and it is probable that, as the country was opened up, the Mundas by preference retired to the wilder forest tracts, just as in the Central Provinces the Korkus and Baigas gave way to the Gonds, and the Gonds themselves relinquished the open country to the Hindus. None of the writers quoted notice the name Munda as applied to the headman of an Oraon village, but it can hardly be doubted that it is connected with that of the tribe; and it would be interesting also to know whether the Pāhan or village priest takes his name from the Pāns or Gandas. Dalton says that the Pāns are domesticated as essential constituents of every Ho or Kol village community, but does not allude to their presence among the Oraons. The custom in the Central Provinces, by which in Gond villages the village priest is always known as Baiga, because in some localities members of the Baiga tribe are commonly employed in the office, suggests the hypothesis of a similar usage here. In villages first settled by Oraons, the population, Father Dehon states, is divided into three khūnts or branches, named after the Munda, Pahan and Mahto, the founders of the three branches being held to have been sons of the first settler. Members of each branch belong therefore to the same sept or got. Each khūnt has a share of the village lands.