158 The “ Kols” of Chota-Nagpore. 
this Journal* a brief notice of a tribe called “ Coour Gooand,” and 
a vocabulary which proves them to be not Gooand at all, but 
another branch of the great family we are describing, occupying the 
Gavilghur range of hills near Ellichpore. Dr. Latham mentions 
in connection with them another tribe which he calls Chunah, but I 
have no further information about them. If the investigation is 
carried out, we shall, no doubt, find connecting links in the intervening 
ranges of hills. 
Thus we have in the Coours of Ellichpoor, the Korewahs of 
Sirgoojah and Juspore, the Moondahs and the Kheriahs of Chota- 
Nagpore, the Hos of Singbhoom, the Bhoomij of Manbhoom and 
Dhulbhoom, and the Sonthals of Manbhoom, Singbhoom, Cuttack, 
tributary mehals, Hazareebagh and the Sonthal Pergunnahs (the author 
of the introduction to the Sonthal lauguage, the Rev. J. Phillips, 
adds ‘‘Nakales and Kodas,” I do not know where they are to be 
found,) a kindred people sufficiently numerous, if united, to form 
a nation of several millions of souls. They were, in all probability, 
one of the tribes that were most persistent in their hostility to 
the Arian invaders, and thus earned for themselves the epithets oi 
“‘ worshippers of mad gods,” ‘haters of Bramins,” ‘ ferocious 
0 66 
lookers,” “‘ inhuman,” “‘ flesh-eaters,” “ devourers of life,” ‘‘ possessed 
” “ changing their shape at will.”+ To this day, 
of magical powers, 
the Arians settled in Chota-Nagpore and Singbhoom firmly believe 
that the Moondahs have powers as wizards and witches, and can 
transform themselves into tigers and other beasts of prey, with the 
view of devouring their enemies, and that they can witch away the 
lives of man and beast. It is to the wildest and most savage of the 
tribe that such powers are generally ascribed ; and amongst the Kols 
themselves the belief in the magic powers of their brethren is so 
strong, that I have heard converts to Christianity assert they were 
first induced to turn to our religion, because sorcery had apparently 
no power over those who were baptized! The upper classes of the 
Moondahs, those who aspire to be Zemindars, have assumed. the 
“* noita”’ and taken to Bramins and Kali, but the mass of the people 
adore their “‘ mad gods” still, after their own primitive fashion. The 
great propitiatory sacrifices to the local deities or devils are carousals 
# As, Soc. Journal, Vol. XIII. p. 19. + See Muir's Sanserit texts. 
