82 PROFESSOR SIR W. TURNER ON 



Bhumij. Table IV. 



The Bhumij is a non- Aryan tribe living in the Manbhiim and Singbhum districts of 

 Chiita Nagpur as well as in Western Bengal. They are regarded as the original inhabi- 

 tants, and are located by Dalton in the country between the Kasai and Subarnarekha 

 rivers. They have been classed on linguistic grounds as Kolarian ; most authorities 

 regard them as closely allied to, and probably identical with, the Miindas, with whom 

 they associate and intermarry. Dalton says that their appearance is inferior to that of 

 the best of the Miindas and to the Hos of Singbhum. They are short, but strongly 

 built. The skin ranges in colour from a light brown to a dark chocolate. They build 

 commodious houses and practise adult marriage. The divisions of the tribe are totem- 

 istic, and the marriage of adults is exogamous, as amongst the Miindas ; widows may 

 remarry. The dead are cremated, and the body is laid upon the pyre with the head to 

 the south ; the ashes are buried under gravestones, which are sometimes of large size. 

 They are agriculturists, but they eat fowls and drink fermented liquors. They worship 

 the sun as well as minor deities. Their numbers do not appear to have been separately 

 recorded in the General Report on the Census of 1891, but in the special census of the 

 lower provinces of Bengal and their Feudatories, Mr C. J. O'Donnell gives a total of 

 306,473. 



I have examined two skulls of the Bhiimij tribe, both adult males, collected at Man- 

 bhum. One in the Indian Museum, No. 18, is named Aunundo Bhoomiz ; in the list 

 supplied to me he is said to have been 40 years of age, 5 feet 3 inches in height, hair and 

 eyes black, whiskers small. The other, a male named Karnai, aged 30, was presented 

 to me by Dr J. J. Hedley Wood. 



In both specimens the cranium was long, relatively narrow, and roof-shaped in the 

 sagitto-parietal region. The parietal eminences were well in front of the occipital point 

 which projected behind the inion ; the side walls of the cranium were almost vertical. 

 In one skull the length-breadth index was 727, in the other 70'9 ; both were dolicho- 

 cephalic. In one the frontal and parietal longitudinal arcs were equal and in excess of 

 the occipital ; in the other the frontal arc was the longest. In one the basi-bregmatic 

 diameter was less than the greatest breadth ; in the other it was slightly longer. The 

 glabella and supra-orbital ridges were moderately projecting ; the forehead slightly 

 receded ; the antero-posterior curve of the vault rose gradually to the vertex, and then 

 sloped gently downwards to the occipital squama. In neither skull was any sign of 

 parieto-occipital flattening. The nasion was somewhat depressed ; the nasal bones were 

 short, concave forwards, and orAy feebly projecting. The nasal spine of the superior 

 maxillae was moderate, and the floor of the nose was separated by a slight ridge from the 

 incisive surface of the jaw. 



The nasal index in both specimens was in the higher mesorhine group ; the gnathic 

 index in both was orthognathons ; one skull was mesoseme, the other megaseme ; the 



