192 Proceedings of the Asiatic Society. [Aug. 



edible plants which I described to the Society on a previous occasion,* 

 I do not repeat them here. 



Besides these, however, the Kheriahs eat rice, which they obtain in 

 the villages in exchange for several jungle products, such as honey ? 

 lac dhona (from the sal), tusser cocoons, sal leaves, and bundles of 

 bamboo slips called khurki, wherewith the leaves are stitched into 

 plates. 



That the rice which they thus obtain in exchange, though small, is 

 an important element in their daily food seems apparent from the fact 

 that a large number of them are said to have died in the famine. 

 I can only explain this by supposing that they lost heart on being 

 deprived of what had been a regular source of supply, and failed to exert 

 themselves in the collection of an extra quantity of roots. An explana- 

 tion somewhat similar to this was given to me by a Sonthal who said, 

 speaking of his own race, that those who underwent the labour of 

 searching the jungles escaped, while those who sat in their houses 

 wishing for better times, as a matter of course, died. 



The roots which they obtain in the jungle are dug up with consi- 

 derable labour from the rocky ground, by means of an instrument 

 called Jcuntlii. It consists of an iron spike, firmly fixed in a wooden 

 handle. The point of this, as it is natural it should, frequently be- 

 comes blunted ; to avoid the necessity of taking it to be sharpened 

 perhaps half a dozen miles to the nearest kumar, the Kheriahs have 

 invented for themselves a forge, the blast for which is produced by a 

 pair of bellows of the most primitive construction. They consist of a pair 

 of conical caps about eighteen inches high, which are made of leaves 

 stitched together with grass ; these are firmly fixed down upon hollows 

 in the ground whence a pair of bamboo tuyers convey the blast 

 produced by alternate and sudden elevations and depressions of the 

 caps to a heap of ignited charcoal ; in this the iron spikes are heated 

 until they become sufficiently soft to be hammered to a point by a 

 stone used as a hammer on a stone anvil. 



The Kheriahs never make iron themselves, but are altogether 



dependent on the neighbouring bazars for their supplies. It is to this 



point that I wish more particularly to draw attention. Had they 



at any period possessed a knowledge of the art of making iron, con- 



* J. A. S. B. 1867, Parfc II., No. II. p. 73. 



