MANUAL OF THE NiLAGIRI DISTRICT. 249 



consist for the most part of these races; nor can the tale be satis- CHAP. XI. 



factorily told until the historical material of each of these ^ 



provinces has been fully recorded and analysed. That of Histoby. 



Mysore has hitherto engrossed the greater share of attention; 



that of Coimbatore and of Malabar has not as yet been pieced 

 together. 



In the two preceding chapters I have endeavored briefly to 

 narrate the most important known facts regarding the tribes 

 residing on the Nilagiris and the existing monuments thereon. 



From these data three important conclusions may, perhaps, be 

 derived : firstly, that these hills were once occupied by a race, 

 the builders of the cairns and barrows, who spread themselves 

 more completely over their surface than any of the existing 

 tribes, but whether their occupation was prior to, or contempo- 

 raneous with, that of one or more of the extant tribes, or whether 

 they were or were not Dra vidians, is uncertain ; secondly, that at 

 least one race exists, the Todas, who migrated thither without 

 being subjected in any way to Brahmanical religious influences, 

 but whether they are of the same stock as the rest of the Dravidian 

 races of the peninsula cannot be said to be absolutely proven, 

 though it is highly probable ; and lastly, that the race which has 

 exercised the longest and most powerful influence on the Nila- 

 giris, and which first tilled the soil extensively, is the Kanarese. 



At the dawn of Indian history we find the greater portion of 

 India, south of the Vindya mountains and of the Nerbadda river, 

 occupied by races who probably spoke dialects of one language 

 — Dravidian — whilst to the east and west in Orissa and North 

 Konkan the inhabitants already spoke dialects of the tongue of 

 their Aryan conquerors. Among these Dravidian races there 

 probably was at least one race difiering in religion and possibly in 

 language from the aborigines, known as the Ndgas,^ said to be a 

 Scythian people who worshipped the serpent and took it for their 

 national emblem. These Dravidian ^ races are now represented 

 by the Tamils, the Telugus, the Malaydlams, and the Tulu and 

 Kodugu-speaking peoples, and by the more or less uncivilized 

 races whose idioms are known as Toda, Kota, Grond, Kliond, Or^on, 

 and Rajmahal, who occupy mainly the highlands of the Deklian. 

 These hill people are all regarded as Dra vidians as opposed to Kola- 

 rians, — the generic appellation of tribes speaking dialects allied to 

 the language of the Kols, — in great measure by reason of the 

 proved Dravidian nature of their speech and the absence of any 



I • The Yd-vanas appeared in the south much later. See the delightful account 

 of these strangers in Dr. Hunter's Orissa, Vol. I, Chapter V. 



* See Dr. Caldwell's ijrammar of Dravidian Languages in Introduction. 



32 



