1856.] Notes on a forest race called Puttooas or Juanga. 295 



Notes on a forest race called Puttooas or Juanga, inhabiting certain 

 of the Tributary Mehals of Cuttack. — By E. A. Samuells, Esq. 

 B. C. S. Superintendent of the Tributary Mehals. 



In the 248th Number of the Journal, there appeared an interesting 

 memorandum by Mr. Piddington on two individuals of an unknown 

 forest race, supposed to inhabit the jungles south of Palamow. I 

 think it not improbable that the persons who are there described 

 may have belonged to the forest race, called Puttooa, which inhabits 

 the jungles of the Tributary Mehals to the South of Singbhoom, 

 and that the female had, from motives of convenience or from fear 

 of pursuit, abandoned the peculiar dress, which ordinarily distin- 

 guishes the women of the tribe. 



These Puttooas are very little known even to the inhabitants of 

 Cuttack. Mr. Sterling does not notice them in his History of 

 Orissa, and the only mention I have found of them in any publica- 

 tion is contained in a short paragraph of a Report by Mr. Mills on 

 the Tributary Mehals of Cuttack, which was published in the 3rd 

 Vol. of the " Selections" of the Bengal Government. Some account 

 of this peculiar people will not therefore, I presume, be unacceptable 

 to the members of the Society. 



I first met with the Puttooas at the Killah of Dhekenal in 1854. 

 I saw another large party of them in the Hindole Killah last year, 

 and a few weeks ago I visited a Puttooa village near Bhapore, on 

 the Ungool road, in company with my friend Major Strange of the 

 Trigonometrical Survey, to whose graphic pencil the Society is 

 indebted for the spirited and life-like sketches which accompany 

 these notes. My information regarding the habits and customs of 

 the tribe is derived chiefly from the Puttooas themselves, but to 

 some extent also from the Dhekenal Rajah, to whom I sent a paper 

 of queries last year on the subject. 



The Puttooas are scattered over the Tributary Mehals (or Killahs 

 as they are frequently called) of Keonjur, Pal Leyra, Dhekenal and 

 Hindole. In Dhekenal, they are said to number one thousand and 

 five persons of all ages and sexes, inhabiting fifty-eight different 

 localities. Their numbers in the other Mehals I have not been able 



