The " Eols" of Chota-Nucjpore. 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 

 a man 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 

 men look on. 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 



