The “ Kols’’ of Chota-Nagpore. 197 
*all events, a fact that illegitimate births are rare. Out of her own 
tribe, a Ho girl is hardly ever known to go astray, though from the 
freedom allowed to her and, for a tropical climate, the ripe age at which 
she is likely to be sought in marriage, she must have to pass through 
many temptations. 
The Hos are acutely sensitive under abusive language that at all 
reflects upon them, and may be and often are driven to commit 
suicide by an angry word. If a woman appears mortified by anything 
that has been said, it is unsafe to let her go away till she is soothed. 
The men are almost as sensitive as the women, and you cannot offend 
them more than by doubting their word. It has often seemed to me 
that the more a statement tells against themselves, the more certain 
they are to tell the exact truth about it. It frequently happens that 
aman is himself the first person to bring to notice that he has com- 
mitted a crime; he tells all about it, and deliberately gives himself up 
to be dealt with according to law. 
The Oraon is, I think, less truthful, he is more given to vagabondis- 
ing, and wandering over the face of the earth in search of employment ; 
he soon loses all the freshness of his character. He returns after an 
absence of years, unimproved in appearance, more given to drink and 
self-indulgence, less genial and truthful than before, with a bag of 
money that is soon improvidently spent. Those who have never left 
their own country have far more pleasing manners and dispositions, than 
those who return to it after years spent in other parts of India or 
beyond the seas. The fact is, they are not an improvable people. 
They are best seen in their wild state. 
There is no more pleasing trait amongst all these tribes than their 
kindly affectionate manner one towards another. I never saw girls 
quarrelling, and never heard them abuse each other. They are the 
most unspiteful of their sex, and the men never coarsely abuse and 
seldom speak harshly of the women. ‘This is remarkable on this side 
of India where you seldom pass through a bazar without hearing women 
screeching indecent abuse at each other across the street, whilst the 
menlookon. A Kol girl’s vocabulary is as free from bad language of 
this kind as a Bengalee’s is full of it. 
The young Oraons of both sexes are intensely fond of decorating 
their persons with beads and brass ornaments. These they entirely 
