No. 33. — 1886.] the veddAs of ceylon. 



481 



plateaus of the Amarkantak, who have become known under 

 the names of Djangals, Puttuas, and Juangas. Curiously 

 enough these are precisely such tribes as Sir E. Tennent 

 and Mr. Bailey had already brought into comparison 

 with the Veddas. But with regard to the Juangas 

 (Dschuangs), Colonel Dalton states that they belong to the 

 Kolarians ; that their hair is rough, curly, and of a reddish 

 brown colour, their cheek-bones prominent, faces flat, noses 

 depressed, brows vertical but low. He gives the average 

 height of the men as below 5 ft. and that of the women as 

 about 4 ft. 8 in.* This description contains quite as many 

 Mongolian as Negritian characteristics. 



If I have many doubts, therefore, about admitting the dis- 

 tinctions of Mr. Eousselet, especially with regard to the 

 assumption of a veritable Negrito race as the aboriginal race 

 of India, I yet in nowise oppose the idea that the tribes of 

 " black-skins " which the Aryans found established in the 

 valley of the Ganges were mixed. How much Mongolian, 

 Turanian, or Negrito blood flowed in their veins must 

 remain for the present undecided. But it is certainly not 

 improbable that a part only of the Dasyu were Dravidians, 

 and that, even before the proto-Dravidas of Mr. Rousselet, pre- 

 Dravidian tribes inhabited the land. Neither the Mongols 

 nor the Turanians satisfactorily explain the stunted growth 

 of the tribes of " black-skins," to whom even Plinyt alludes 

 as " the pigmies inhabiting the mountains in the country of 

 Prasiae." All the information we have of them is unfortu- 

 nately so imperfect as to permit of its being turned to account 

 for every sort of opinion. 



The Messrs. de Qutrefages J an d Hamy have collected 



* The young women wear even now nothing but green leaves held together 

 by a girdle. In so far they resemble the Wanni Veddas. But according 

 to Mr. F. Jagor the women of the Korogars, some of the G-ond groups, 

 and the Chauchra in Hindustan, likewise wear no covering but leaves. 



f Plinius. Nat. Hist., lib. VI., c. 22. 



% A. de Quatrefages et Ernest T. Hamy. Crania Ethnica. V., p. 181). 



