1847.] 



Neilgherry Hills, S^c. 



1^9 



aborigines, have numerous words found in the Tamul and other 

 tongues of the low country* Hamilton writes — in this district 

 (Raj-Mahel) there is a great extent of waste and mountainous terri-^ 

 tory, inhabited by a wild race of people extremely different from 

 those of the plains, and apparently of an aboriginal stock." We are 

 thus furnished with an additional proof that the various races of the 

 mountaineers in India are branches from one aboriginal stock of the 

 plains, from whom the first Hindu borrowed much of their language* 

 That the Khonds and Thautawars are not of Hindu extraction is 

 clear, in the fact of their sacrificing calves and buffaloes ; such rites 

 and the customs of infanticide being vestiges of Druidism, " though" 

 jsays Mr. Stevenson " a few ideas may have been borrowed from the 

 Hindus." 



Figures of elephants, peacocks, fishes, and so forth are kept by the 

 Khonds in their houses : these images strongly resemble what we 

 -find in the cairns on the Neilgherries. 



I subjoin a few Thautawar and Tamul words in illustration. 



Thautawar Etymons, 



Tamul DerivativeSt 



English. 



Modgh, 



Moggul. 



Clouds. 



Meer, 



Mire, 



Hair. 



Kuk, (girl) 



Ukka, 



Sister. 



Kovil, 



Veril, 



Finger. 



Voh, 



Va, 



Imperative Come, 



Put, 



Paity, 



Fool. 



Elp, 



Elemboo, 



Bones. 



Kin, 



Chinna, 



Small. 



In a former chapter, speaking of the Thautawar language, I sug« 

 gested a comparison of it with the Celtic, and Gothic tongues, for the 

 following reasons. 



In the remotest periods of the historical era a tribe of Scythians 

 called Getaj, the same probably as the Massagetae I have previously 

 alluded to, inhabited a part of Central Asia. Some of their descen- 

 dants under the same name located themselves in the regions overlook- 

 ing the plains of India. In the same direction lay another Scythian 

 tribe, who were Celts and from whom sprung the Parthians. I am 

 induced to think that the first inhabitants of India were a mixed peo- 

 ple from those races, and they entered it on the North-west. Epi- 

 phanius writes that the Thracians exercised the rites of Scythicism, 

 and Strabo identifies the Thracians with a tribe of Getae. Some of 



