98 The Ethnology of India. 
and that in short it is the word generally applied by the Northern 
Indians to the Aboriginal tribes, most of whom they reduced to the 
condition of Helots. 
There seems to be good reason to suppose that the original form of 
the word was ‘ Kola’ or ‘ Kolar.’ In fact, India seems to have been 
known to the ancients (who approached it coastwise from the West) as 
Colara or Coolee-land (Asiatic Researches, Vol. IX.) and the people as 
Colaurians. If Kolar be the original form of Kolee, it would seem 
not improbable that, as in the mouths of some tribes by dropping the ‘ 7’ 
it became Kola or Kolee, so in the mouths of others, by dropping the 
‘?’ it would become Koar, Kaur, Koor, Khar or Khor, a form which 
would embrace a large number of those tribes as now designated. I 
propose then to call the northern tribes Kolarian or Coolee Aborigines. 
One may see frequent allusion to Kolarees or Colleries in the south 
of India. It appears that the word there used is properly ‘ Kallar,’ 
In the Canarese language, the word ‘ Kallar,’ it seems, simply means a 
thief or robber, and hence some of the predatory Aborigines of the 
hills, are designated Kallars or robbers, just as the thieves of Central 
Asia are*called ‘ Kazaks’ or ‘ Cossacks.’ The word is applied so 
differently from that of Coolee, that there may fairly be doubt of its 
being the same. But the subject is worthy of farther inquiry, and if 
it prove that in fact the two words are identical, the term Coolee or 
Kolarian must be applied to the Aboriginal tribes generally, not to one 
division of them. Meantime, however, I apply it to the Northern 
tribes only, but I confess I have misgivings whether the more general 
sense may not prove to be the true one. 
Beyond the difference of language, I am unable to state with con- 
fidence any very marked features distinguishing the Dravidian and 
Kolarian groups of tribes (each taken as a whole) from one another. 
But a marked difference in habits, manners, and national characteristics, 
has been found to exist where the two classes are in the closest conti- 
euity. The Santals and Rajmahalees are known to present a marked — 
contrast, and on the Chota-Nagpore plateau I am told that -“ the 
difference is so great, that they appeared to be quite another nation,” 
and ‘their customs, appearance, even manners, are very different.” 
Of these differences we have not the details, but I hope that they may 
be furnished in Col. Dalton’s promised paper on the Coles, 
