OF NORTHEASTERN BENGAL. 97 



During an insurrection in 1854 against the Hindoo and 



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other money-lenders, who were rapidly obtaining posses- 

 sion of their lands, they found themselves arrayed against 

 the English ; the insurrection was suppressed after much 

 bloodshed, and they were colonized in their present lo- 

 cality, the Santhal Pargana district, under a better admin- 

 istration, and with a partial restoration of their old form of 

 self-government. Fond of the forest and the virgin soil 



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in their wild state, they remove from a cultivated region 

 to the woods again ; hence their traditions, though point- 

 ing to remote antiquity, are rather obscure and incoherent. 

 Modified by intercourse with surrounding tribes, and re- 

 cently by Christianity, they still have many old practices, 

 and preserve the language which probably prevailed about 

 the Ganges in pre- Aryan times. 



They came to their present localities about one hundred 

 and twenty-five years ago, harassed and driven from place 

 to place by the Hindoos, who, it is said, gave them in deris- 

 ion the name of Santhals, from the word sandal, afoot sole, 

 implying that they were fit only to be trodden under foot, 

 which has truly been their fate for many a day. Another 

 derivation of their name is that, in their wanderings they 

 settled for a time at Saont, the present Silda, and hence 

 were called Saonthals, Santhals. 



As tribe after tribe invaded India, some from the north- 

 east and some from the northwest, at last came the Hin- 

 doos, thoroughly hated by the Santhals, who subjugated 

 all the others until they themselves had to submit to the 

 English, now the masters of the country, who entered 

 India from the sea, enriching themselves enormously with- 

 out exhausting this wonderfully favored laud which, though 

 almost as large as Europe, forms only a small part of 

 the vast continent of Asia ; its inhabitants number some 

 200,000,000, for the most part Buddhists, Brahraanists and 



