1865.] Notes of a tour in the Tributary Mehals. 17 



are to be found in the identity of many of their customs. Their 

 sacrifices in cases of sickness, their songs, their dances, their mode of 

 disposing of the dead — all these shew them to be of kin to the ' Ho' 

 or Lurka of Singbhoom, the Moondahs of Chota-Nagpore, and to 

 the Sonthals. It is not possible to trace the similitude through all the 

 relations of life. The Singbhoom Coles live in large communities 

 and have an organization unattainable by the hill Korewahs, who prefer 

 to dwell apart. Except on great occasions, when there is a ' gathering 

 of the clan,' the Korewah has only his own family to think of and 

 associate with. The head of the family is chief and priest — the god 

 to whom he sacrifices, the spirit of his father. 



The Korewahs are found also in the wildest parts of Sirgoojah, and 

 in the ranges of hills between Sirgoojah and Palamow. Many of them 

 have abandoned their free mountain life, and have formed settlements on 

 the skirts of hills, near villages ; and where this is the case they appear 

 to be losing their own language and peculiar habits, and becoming 

 Hinduized. 



The Hill Korewahs live in wretched little detached huts, in the 

 midst of the patch of hill forest they have partially cleared and are 

 then cultivating, shifting every three or four years as the ground be- 

 comes exhausted. They cultivate very little rice. Their crops con- 

 sist of pulses, millet, pumpkins, cucumbers,* melons, sweet potatoes, 

 and yams. They also grow and prepare arrow-root, and there is a wild 

 arrow-root which they use and sell. The grain they store for winter 

 use is secured in small parcels of the leaves of a plant called ■ muhoo- 

 lain,' sown together by fibres of the same, and these parcels they 

 bury. The grain thus preserved remains for years unimpaired. They 

 have no prejudices in regard to animal food, and they drink freely 

 of an intoxicating beverage prepared by themselves from millet. 

 They are as devoted to songs and dances as the Moondahs and Son- 

 thals, and have the same steps and melodies. They bury or burn their 

 dead, whichever they find most convenient, but the practice of mark- 

 ing the spot where the body or ashes are deposited, is common to both. 



The Khooria Korewahs resort in large numbers to an annual fair 

 held at Muhree on the borders of Sirgoojah, and give in barter for salt 



* They have a gigantic cucumber about a foot and a half in length and 

 ten inches in diameter ! 



