183S.3 



Notes on Goomsoor, 



13f 



piece of iron by which they rest the instrument in the ground. Every 

 Khond is armed either with a battle axe or bow; at home or at the 

 plough, asleep, or busy in the chase, they are always at his side. The 

 bows are either made of bamboo, or of a hard wood they call Koaly 

 (the tree of which I did not see). The string is made of a strip of the 

 hard outer rind of the bamboo. The women have no pretensions to 

 beauty ; the mouth is large, and lips protuberant, the nose flat and 

 broad, and cheek-bones high, and the face is tattoed all over with long 

 streaks, three or four parallel, in each place where there is room. The 

 ears stick out and are pierced round the edge with holes, in each of 

 which a piece of stick is inserted. They wear a profusion of different 

 coloured small beads round the neck, principally black; those I saw 

 were scantily clothed, with a checquered cloth. 



The Khonds are absorbed in the grossest ignorance and superstition ; 

 and practice that most horrid and ancient of rites, human sacrifice, 

 by the perpetration of which they consider they propitiate the earth, 

 the great object of their wild and frantic adoration, and procure fertility. 



This rite, almost of itself, serves to point out the very ancient origin 

 of these people ; but when a fuller vocabulary of their language shall 

 be collected, then ail doubts on the subject will be cleared up, and 

 those learned in oriental and classic lore will be able to trace the his- 

 tory and origin of these wild mountaineers. 



The description of some of the tribes of the Polynesian isles, as given 

 by Marsden in Pritchard's History of Man, nearly answers for the 

 Khond tribe. He says — " They are rather below the middle stature, 

 their bulk is in proportion. The limbs are, for the most part, slight and 

 well shaped. The women flatten the noses, and pull out the ears of 

 their infants." Whether the Khonds have these practices I know 

 not — but their noses and ears correspond in a certain degree to the 

 description, and are, no doubt, considered marks of beauty. Anderson's 

 account of the New Zealanders, in Pritchard's History of Man, vol. 1st 

 page 417, Sec. iii. would likewise nearly answer for the Khond tribe. 



Regarding the exact extent of country belonging to Khondistan, 

 or in which this language is spoken, I am not prepared to speak. It 

 is evident that they have been encroached on by the people that sur- 

 round them, and that inter-marriages have likewise taken place, as well 

 as the adoption of forms and customs not originally appertaining to 

 them. 



