CRANIOLOGY OF PEOPLE OF INDIA. 65 



Ordon. Table I. 



The Oraons, or Uraons, are a Dravidian tribe in Chiita Nagpiir, especially in the 

 tributary states of Sirguja and Jashpur, but scattered also in Singbhum, Manbhum, and 

 Hazaribagh. The tradition in the tribe is that they migrated from the west coast of 

 India. Dalton states that the skin is a dark brown approaching black ; the hair is 

 long, black, coarse, and inclined to be frizzy ; the jaws are projecting ; the lips are 

 thick ; the forehead is low, narrow, and not receding ; the eyes are bright but not 

 oblique ; the expression is pleasing ; and the upper face displays intelligence. Dalton 

 gives the height of a young man as 5 feet 2 inches, and that of four girls between 12 

 and 16 years as ranging from 4 feet 7 J inches to 5 feet |- inch. The dress of the men 

 is a long strip of cloth adjusted about the middle of the body, but giving free play to 

 the limbs, and a girdle of cord is about the waist. The hair is gathered into a knot at 

 the back of the head, in the knot are combs and ornaments of brass and glass ; bright 

 brass chains dangle from the ears. The women wear a waist-cloth, and when more 

 civilised, a cotton dress, and ornament themselves with beads and copper or brass rings. 

 They have tattoo marks on the brow and temple, and on the arms and back. The 

 unmarried men sleep in a bachelor house, the Dhumkiiria, and it is probable that the 

 young women have a similar arrangement. Adult marriage is practised, and widows 

 may remarry. The dead are cremated, and the ashes are collected in an earthern vessel, 

 which for a time is suspended to a post in front of the house of the deceased, but is 

 subsequently buried. They eat flesh as well as vegetables. They worship a supreme 

 being as represented by the sun. In the General Report on the Census of India, 1891, 

 it is stated that 368,222 speak the tribal language, but that the numerical strength of 

 the Oraons is 523,258. 



Three skulls in the Indian Museum, obtained from the neighbourhood of Eanchi, 

 are marked Onion or Uraon : No. 601, from the village of Chandoa, 30 miles from Ran- 

 chi ; No. 606 from Konka village; and No. 610 marked Jura from Lalpur village. 

 They were presented by Mr W. H. P. Driver. They are all adult ; I regarded two as 

 males, but the sex of the skull from Chandoa was more doubtful. 



In their general form they were elongated and ovoid, and with vertical sides, and 

 resembled in general form the skulls of the Miinda race, also from Ranchi, to be 

 described in a subsequent section. One was hyper-dolichocephalic, and the parietal 

 longitudinal arc greatly exceeded the frontal and occipital ; another was dolichocephalic 

 with the frontal arc a little the longest ; the third slightly exceeded the upper numerical 

 limit of the dolichocephalic, and in it the parietal and occipital arcs could not be pro- 

 perly differentiated. In two specimens the basi-bregmatic diameter was less than the 

 parieto-squamous, but in the hyper-dolichocephalic skull it was greater. The face was 

 orthognathous. In two specimens the nose was platyrhine ; in the third it was lepto- 

 rhine. In two skulls the orbital proportions were microseme, in the third just within 



