The Ethnology of India. 29 



The Kolarian Santals are a very ugly race, and I gather that their 

 neighbours, the Dravidian Rajmahalees, have rather the advantage of 

 them in this respect, but these latter have probably kidnapped a good 

 many Arian women from the plains. I have fancied that I have noticed 

 in some of the ' Dhangar' labourers in and about Calcutta, a peculiar 

 little ' pique' ' retrousse' sort of nose, as distinguished from the flat 

 broad-nosed features of the Santals, but this scarcely amounts to an 

 observation. It may be noticed that in the passages which I have 

 quoted in regard to the general type of the Aborigines, the African 

 style was more especially attributed to Dravidian Oraons, Gonds and 

 Chenchwars, &c. The Kolarians, Kaurs, Khairwars and Koors, are 

 also represented as only one degree less ill-favoured ; so, on the whole, 

 I imagine that in point of personal appearance there is not much to 

 choose between the two groups. Ethnographers seem to distinguish 

 the Negritoes of the Southern Seas into two groups, a woolly or curly- 

 haired group, and a straight-haired group ; perhaps there may be found 

 to have been some such division in India. 



The Santals and most of their immediate congeners, are certainly 

 a more simple, mild, and industrious race than the Rajmahalees, Gonds, 

 Khonds, and Southern Kallar tribes ; but again the Lurka Coles seem 

 to be warlike, and the hill Khorewahs are described as wild savages, 

 armed with battle axes and bows and arrows. On the whole, I should 

 rather imagine that the Kolarians are more frequently good Coolees, 

 and the Dravidians oftener troublesome Kallars. 



The descriptions of the Aborigines as a good-natured people, ever 

 dancing and singing (in a way that reminds one of the pleasanter 

 descriptions of the Negroes,) I find to be applied to the Kolarians, — . 

 Santals, Moondahs, Khorewahs, &c. — more than to the Dravidian tribes # 



As respects religion, although the indications are too slight for any 

 confident generalisation, the accounts of the Kolarian creed seem 

 pleasanter than those of the Dravidian beliefs and rites. The latter 

 seem to deal in demonology, fetishism, frantic dances, bloody and 

 even human sacrifices, in a way which reminds us of the Avorst African 

 types'; while several different accounts of Northern Aborigines, in widely 

 different parts of the country, represent them as reverencing in an 

 inoffensive way the sun, moon, and Lord of tigers, and mild and innocent 

 Bhoots or household spirits. The superstitious belief in tigers' claws 



