SG An Account of the Tribe of Mhadeo Kolies, [Jan. 



five generations back, received a Bunjara boy into his family, and 

 adopted him as his son, the boy taking the name of Memany. This 

 circumstance has been the cause of much strife and quarrelling among 

 the members of the family, the descendants of the Bunjara claiming the 

 Patellship, while the lineal descendants deny their right, and upbraid 

 them with the nature of their origin. 



It appears that nineteen of the original names of the persons who 

 were the founders of the different Kools of this tribe, have in the course 

 of time become extinct : yet the numerous clans who have respectively 

 sprung from each of them, carefully retain and cherish the name of 

 their original founder. The Mhadeo Kolies are peculiarly tenacious of 

 the Hindoo usages, of adhering strictly to established rule in forming 

 their matrimonial connexions. For it is only persons of different Kools 

 that can be united in marriage. Those of the same Kool, or original 

 family stock, are prohibited intermarrying. It is a common observa- 

 tion, that, were persons of the same Kool to marry, the circumstance 

 would entail much unhappiness and misery on the parties, and that 

 their offspring would never thrive. I know an instance of such an 

 irregular marriage, and it is rumoured that the couple are very unhap- 

 py and have no children. The mistake occurred by the parties omit- 

 ting to institute the necessary enquiries at the proper time. 



The estimated number of the tribe— their Patells— the Revenue system, and grains culti- 

 vated by them. 



It is said, the Kolies were much more numerous about seventy years 

 ago than they are at present; that many of them were destroyed dur- 

 ing the various disturbances that have taken place since then, and by 

 the famine that occurred in 1803-4, and, latterly, by the cholera morbus. 

 To afford a better idea of the amount of the Koly population at present, 

 and to show how they are dispersed over the hilly tract, I will give the 

 estimated number of their houses in each valley and glen. 



There is reason to suppose that they were more numerous in former 

 times, around Poona and the valleys south of Loghur fort. But, in the 

 valley of the Moossa Khora, they have only thirty houses, and in the 

 Mootah Khora they have also thirty houses, and forty in the Puwun 

 Mawill; all of these are Oopry* cultivators and labourers, there being 

 no Koly Thullkuries or Wuttundars so far south at present. 



In the Andur Mawill there are sixty Koly houses; they are the 

 Patells of two villages and share the Patellship of two others with 

 the Koonbies. 



* Oopry— a tenant, or one having no property in the soil ; whereas Thullkury means 

 one that has a right in the lands he cultivates. 



