122 THE LATE REV. P. DEHON ON 



Contents. 



Page. 



I. The name and origin of the Uraons . 122 



II. Religion 124. 



The worship of Dharmes or God 125 



Baranda, the avenging angel 132 



The cult of ancestors 135 



Different kinds of spirits . 138 



Medicine-men 14.7 



III. Social customs 154 



IV. Marriage • 161 



V. Character 166 



VI. Villages and houses 170 



VII. Miscellaneous customs and beliefs . 171 



Etymology of the Name. 



The etymology of the name is most obscure. Can it be derived from Rawana whom 

 they consider their first ancestor ? They call themselves Kurukh. Some say that they 

 emigrated from the Konkan, with which they connect the term Kurukh ascribing the 

 divergence between the two words to their own partiality to guttural sounds. It seems, 

 however, that the original meaning of the word was " hill man." 



The emigrants to Assam, Bhutan and Calcutta are called Dhangars, which simply 

 means "contract labourers," as will be seen in the explanation of the word later on. 



The Hindus and Muhammadans among whom they live, give them the nickname 

 Kol, though they are of Dravidian origin. 



Origin of the People. 



All that they know about their origin is that the name of their first ancestor 

 was Rawana, a famous king who lived in the South. One of their legends which they 

 recite when offering a kind of sacrifice to Dharmes (God) (see Pal-khansna) seems to be 

 only a mutilated fragment of the old Hindu legend about Ram, Lachman, and Sita, when 

 Rawana, the King of Lankapur runs away with Sita, Ram's wife. This might perhaps 

 throw some light on the subject, though it is a very doubtful hypothesis. The only more 

 or less general tradition they have is, that, after much wandering they at last settled at 

 Ruidas, where they built a fort to protect themselves against the attacks of the Hindus 

 or Muhammadans (they don't know exactly which), but they are convinced that the fort 

 was built by them. They were victorious in several encounters, but once on a feast day 

 they all got drunk. At night the enemy came, captured the fort and cut them to pieces. 

 Some, however, managed to escape, and as they were pursued divided themselves into two 

 parties. Some fled towards Palamau, whilst the others directed their course towards the 

 Rajmahal hills and now form quite a separate tribe, the Male. The first party, most 

 probably finding Palamau too hot a place for them, did not settle there but crossed the 



