52 The Ethnology of India. 
in races and in language. The Bhooyas in the west seem to be 
numerous. They appear to be the original occupants of much of the 
lower country to the south of the Chota-Nagpore plateau, great part of 
Singbhoom and Bonai, and the borders of Orissa. From a portion of 
their country they have been partly driven and partly they are dominated 
over by Coles, themselves probably impelled south and east by pres- 
sure from the north and west. They are still very numerous in all 
the districts and petty states hereabouts, and are found more or less 
all the way across the lower hill-country to the borders of Behar. 
Col. Dalton calls them a dark complexioned race, with rather high 
cheekbones; but not otherwise peculiar. They have no language of 
their own, but speak Oorya on the Ooriah borders, Bengalee on the 
borders of Bengal, and Hindee farther north. They are now some- 
what Hinduised, but have still priests of their own and traces of an 
old religion, which seems even down to recent times to have included 
human sacrifices. Major Tickell speaks of the Aboriginal Bhooians 
who preceded the Coles in lower Singbhoom as ‘an inoffensive 
simple race, but rich in cattle and industrious cultivators.” The 
descriptions of Col. Dalton and Major Tickell seem to suggest a 
resemblance in appearance to the Ooryahs, among whom high cheek 
bones seem to prevail with good features and straight hair. The 
Bhooyas whom I have seen in the hills towards the Bahar border 
seemed to have a larger dash of the black Aboriginal type. Seeing 
how far these Bhooyas are spread to the west, I was curious to know 
whether they might be related to the Buis, a tribe of Telengana and 
Central India who serve all over the centre, south, and west as 
palanquin bearers and domestic servants, and from whose name is, I 
believe, the most authentic derivation of the widespread word 
‘ Boy’ as applied to a dark servant. Travelling from Nagpore towards 
Jubbulpore I observed that I changed the Buis of Central India for 
the Kahars of Hindoostan. Col. Dalton did not know whether there 
was any connection between Bhooyas and Buis. But quite recently, 
making a trip through a part of the Chota-Nagpore country, I found 
that the palanquin was carried by Bhooyas there and below the hill 
country till T got close to Gya, and I ascertained that they had no 
connection with the Hindoostanee Kahars by whom they were then 
reheved, but were consilered to be a wholly different race. I cannot 
