1865.] Notes of a tour in the Tributary MehaJs. 5 



The appearance of the Bonai Kolitas reminded me very much of the 

 Assam Kolitas, and I may mention that Ram Chunder, the seventh 

 Avatar, is the favourite object of worship with both. 



Of the mineral and other resources of Bonai, I have not much to 

 say. Iron is produced, but the hills are for the most part quite unex- 

 plored, and their riches, if they possess any, unknown. The popula- 

 tion, with so much room for expansion, does not increase. There are 

 83 deserted village sites, and what are now small hamlets appear to 

 have been at one time large villages. The cause is not apparent, as 

 the people of the more civilized class are well to do and content, and 

 rent is very low, and as in all the Tributary Mehals, fixed. It is 

 Bs. 2-8 for a hull of 17 khundees. Nevertheless the chief tells me 

 he is obliged to grant all manner of extraneous indulgences to his 

 ryots to induce them to remain. 



Wild beasts are very numerous, and in their ravages lies one great 

 difficulty that villages bordering on or in the jungles have to cont'^d 

 ao-ainst — the iyots complain not of loss of life but of the destruction of 

 crops. They say they have to raise grain for the beasts of the forest 

 as well as for then - own families. On this account very little cotton 

 is cultivated, though the soil is well adapted for it. 



The store of Sal timber in Bonai is immense, but the isolated and 

 almost inaccessible position of the forests will prevent their being 

 utilized for years to come, except for the resin, to obtain which, so 

 manv noble trees are girdled and killed. Together with the Sal, are 

 found vast quantities of the Asan tree on which the tusser silk-worm 

 feeds and a considerable quantity of the wild tusser is exported from 

 Bonai but it is not much cultivated as the mass of the population 

 look upon it as an impure or unorthodox occupation, and none but 

 people of the lowest castes, the Domes, Ghassees, Pahans and Oonds 

 practice it. (The Oonds are out of their element in Bonai and are 

 thus classed.) 



"We meet with no Bajpoot or Khettree family except that of the 

 chief. Nothing can be more absurd than the tradition handed down 

 to account for this possession of power by one Khettree family over 

 an alien population. The Nagbungsi family of Chota-Nagpore admit 

 that they are sprung from a child found by and brought up in a 

 u Moondah"* family, and that this child was made chief of the whole 



* Kole. 



