1865.] Notes of a tour in the Tributary Mehals. 3 
the Bhooya aborigines, and when a succession to the Raj takes place 
in any of these districts, the acknowledged head of tho Bhooya clan 
goes. through a ceremony of making over to the new chief the country 
and the people. The person who claims this prerogative in Bonai is 
titularly called “ Sawunt.” He holds, at the very trifling quit-rent of 
Rs. 18 a year, twelve villages with their hamlets, and claims to be the 
hereditary Dewan of Bonai, but the chief neither employs nor acknow- 
ledges him as such. There are two other similar tenures with the 
titles of ‘ Dhunput’ and ‘ Mahapater,’ and subordinate to them are 
certain privileged heads of villages called Naiks. Under the Sawunt, 
Dhunput, or Mahapater, the subordinate officers of the Bhooya militia, 
—all the able-bodied males of the tribe are bound at the requisition 
of the chief or of the Government, to turn out for service fully 
armed and equipped. There are no military tenures in the hands of 
people of any other caste. The Bhooyas thus have great power in the 
little state. Nor is it only in consequence of their being thus orga- 
nized as a military body; I find they have also charge of the oldest 
temples and shrines, and discharge the duties of Levites to the exclu- 
sion of Brahmins. Yet the temples are dedicated to Hindu gods. 
Whatever their origin may be, the Bhooyas are now completely Hin- 
duized. They have no peculiar language or customs of their own. 
In Bonai and the southern parts of Gangypore they speak Ooriah. In 
the northern parts of Gangpore and Jushpore, Hindi, They are a 
dark-complexioned race, with rather high cheek-bones, but with 
nothing else in feature or form to distinguish them as of extraneous 
origin. According to their own traditions, they were once a great peo- 
ple in Hastern India and had a king of their own, but were dispersed 
by invasion from the west. They are now found in all the districts 
between Cuttack and Behar, but they are most numerous in this and 
the adjoining estates, and here may be found the most civilized and 
respectable and the most primitive of the family. While in the low- 
lands, they dwell in villages, clothe themselves decently, and otherwise 
follow the customs, adopt the manners, and, I may add, the intriguing 
nature of the more civilized Brahminical races. In the hills of Bonai 
they are found as naked, as simple, as truthful and unsophisticated as 
the wildest of the Cole tribes. There are a great number of Bhooyas 
in the Singbhoom district, and it is said that they were driven out of 
the west portion of it, by the advance and spread of the Lurka Coles. 
