Feb., 1912. Jade. 77 



are now in the Berlin Museum, and have been compared by Grun- 

 wedel with the Indian types in the article quoted. P. O. Bodding 1 

 brought together more material from the region of the Santal, a branch 

 of the Colarian or Munda group, and combats the view meanwhile 

 set forth by S. E. Peal that these implements have been used as hoes. 

 Peal, 2 when in 1893 at Ledo and Tikak, villages of the Naga tribe, 

 east of Makum in Assam, secured two small iron hoes used by women 

 in weeding the hill paddy. They are full-sized instruments, yet the 

 blade measures only two inches square, and the shoulder less than one 

 inch; they have handles of split cane a foot long, the cane being firmly 

 bound round the shoulder. Peal assumes that these hoes are simply 

 the Kol-Mon "shoulder-headed celts" made in iron, and that hence 

 we see not only the meaning of the peculiar "shoulder," but the office 

 of the complete implement as a miniature hoe. Bodding 3 objects to 

 this conclusion on the ground that, if these celts should originally have 

 belonged to the ancestors of the Mon-Khmer and Munda peoples, 

 one would expect, if Peal's deductions are correct, to find an iron hoe 

 of the same shape used by these peoples also; but no such implement 

 is found, at least not among the Santal, who, of agricultural tools, 

 know only a stick with a flat piece of iron attached to the end for the 

 purpose of digging roots, or making small holes in the ground. This 

 objection is, in my estimation, not very weighty. We must always 

 be mindful of the overwhelming sway of history and historical events. 

 The Colarian group, who we are bound to suppose migrated in a remote 

 period from Farther India, where it was in close touch with the Mon- 

 Khmer peoples, into their present habitats, have had a long and varied 

 history. Their own traditions carry their migrations back into a period 

 when they were settled in the country on both sides of the Ganges. 

 Starting from the north-east, they gradually worked their way up the 

 valley of the Ganges, until we find them in the neighborhood of Benares 

 with their headquarters near Mirzapur. Here the main body which 

 had occupied the northern bank of the river, crossed and, heading 

 southward, struck the Vindhya hills, until they at length reached the 

 tableland of Chhota Nagpur. 4 These events, however, present only 



'Ancient Stone Implements in the Santal Parganas (Journal Asiatic Society of 

 Bengal, Vol. 70, Part III, No. 1, 1901, pp. 17-22, 4 Plates) and Shoulder-headed and 

 other Forms of Stone Implements in the Santal Parganas (Ibid., Vol. 73, Part III, 

 No. 2, 1904, pp. 27-31). 



2 On some Traces of the Kol-Mon-Annam in the Eastern Naga Hills (Ibid., 

 Vol. 75, Part III, No. 1, 1896, pp. 20-24). 



3 L. c, p. 29. 



4 Compare L. A. WAddell, The Traditional " Migration of the Santal Tribe 

 (Indian Antiquary, Vol. XXII, 1893, pp. 294-296) and A. Campbell, Traditional 

 Migration of the Santal Tribes (Ibid., Vol. XXIII, 1894, pp. 103-104). 



