[33] P. 91.

[34] P. 67.

[35] P. 100.

[36] Orphéus (M. Salomon Reinach), p. 316.

Turi

List of Paragraphs

1. Origin of the caste

Turi.—A non-Aryan caste of cultivators, workers in bamboo, and basket-makers, belonging to the Chota Nāgpur plateau. They number about 4000 persons in Raigarh, Sārangarh and the States recently transferred from Bengal. The physical type of the Turis, Sir H. Risley states, their language, and their religion place it beyond doubt that they are a Hinduised offshoot of the Munda tribe. They still speak a dialect derived from Mundāri, and their principal deity is Singbonga or the sun, the great god of the Mundas: “In Lohardaga, where the caste is most numerous, it is divided into four subcastes—Turi or Kisān-Turi, Or, Dom, and Domra—distinguished by the particular modes of basket and bamboo-work which they practise. Thus the Turi or Kisān-Turi, who are also cultivators and hold bhuinhāri land, make the sūp, a winnowing sieve made of sirki, the upper joint of Saccharum procerum; the tokri or tokiya, a large open basket of split bamboo twigs woven up with the fibre of the leaves of the tāl palm; the sair and nadua, used for catching fish. The Ors are said to take their name from the oriya basket used by the sower, and made of split bamboo, sometimes helped out with tāl fibre. They also make umbrellas, and the chhota dali or dāla, a flat basket with vertical sides used for handling grain in small quantities. Doms make the harka and scale-pans (tarāju). Domras make the peti and fans. Turis frequently reckon in as a fifth subcaste the Birhors, who cut bamboos and make the sīkas used for carrying loads slung on a shoulder-yoke (bhangi), and a kind of basket called phanda. Doms and Domras speak Hindi; Turis, Ors and Birhors use among themselves a dialect of Mundāri.”[1]