Religion and Customs of the Uraofis. 



By the late Rev. P. Dehon, S.J. Communicated by E. A. Gait, I.C.S. 



[ Read July 5th, 1905.] 



[Owing to the sudden and lamented death of its author, this paper has not received revision in proof at 

 his hands. It is published, but for the addition of a table of contents and for very slight omissions, as he left 

 it. No one was better qualified to speak of the Uraons than Father Dehon. *Born in Belgium in 1856, he 

 came to India in 1883 as a member of the Society of Jesus. He was ordained priest in 1888, and commenced 

 his career as a missionary shortly afterwards. He was in charge of the work in the Noatolli district for 

 about three years, and in 1895 founded the station of Mahuadand in the Chechharri, where he laboured for the 

 remainder of his life. It was while returning to this station, in spite of poor health, that he died at Rajhara 

 on June 27th, 1905. — Ed.] 



Introduction. 



The Uraons or Oraons, or, as they call themselves, Kurukh, are a Dravidian cultivat- 

 ing tribe of Chota Nagpur. Their traditions say that their original home was in the 

 Carnatic, whence they went up the Narbada river and settled in Bihar on the banks of the 

 Sone. Driven from Shahabdd by the Muhammadans, the tribe split into two divisions. 

 One of these followed the course of the Ganges and finally settled in the Rajmahal Hills, 

 where their descendants are now known as Ma-le ; while the other ascended the Sone into 

 Palamau, and, turning eastward along the Koel, took possession of the north-western 

 portion of the Chota Nagpur plateau. They still speak their own tribal language, a 

 dialect of the Dravidian fami'y which, according to Dr. Grierson, is more closely allied 

 to Canarese than to any other Dravidian language spoken in the South of India. 



The number of persons enumerated in Bengal under the head Oraon at the census of 

 1 90 1 was nearly 600,000, of whom about half were in the district of Ranchi ; and there 

 were in addition nearly 60,000 Christian converts of Oraon origin. About 20,000 

 members of the tribe were found at the same census in Assam, whither they had gone to 

 work as coolies on the tea-gardens. 



A general account of the Oraons will be found in Dalton's Ethnography of Bengal, 

 and they are also described by Mr. Risley in the Tribes and Castes of Bengal. The fol- 

 lowing interesting notes by the Rev. Father Dehon deal mainly with their religion and 

 customs and contain much information on these subjects that has never previously been 

 published. 



E. A. Gait. 



* [These particulars are derived from the Catholic Herald of India for July 5th, 1905.] 



