36 
W. H. P. Driver —The Sohors. 
[No. 2, 
morning. Parly in the morning the bridesmaids appear to wash the 
feet of the newly-married couple, the man receiving their attentions first. 
Sohors are permitted to marry as many wives as they choose, but 
do not usually have more than one. 
Customs relating to children .—After childbirth the mother is consi¬ 
dered unclean from six months to a year, and the husband has to live and 
eat apart from his wife, not even being allowed to drink water from her 
hands ; and if there are no female relatives in the house, he has to do 
all the cooking. To effect a purification an official called ‘ Pardhan ’ has 
to give some drinking water first to the mother and then to the father, 
and finally to drink some himself, each one drinking out of his or her 
own hand. Just previous to this ceremeny the mother has to bathe. 
Before the purification, neither the father nor the mother can eat 
meat. After the purification they have a big dinner to which relatives 
and friends are invited. In Chutiya Nagpur the ‘ Pardhans ’ are a sub¬ 
tribe of the Kheroars or Bhogtas. The Sobors do not usually burn 
‘ sika ’ marks on the boy’s fore-arms, as is customary amongst the 
aboriginal tribes of Chutiya Nagpur. Girls are tattooed chiefly on the 
biceps. The Kol custom of tattooing on the forehead is practised by a 
few ; but I noticed only old women with these marks, and I therefore 
presume the custom is dying out. The tattooing is done by the women 
of the Temna or brass-working caste. Amongst Sobors all property 
descends to male heirs only. The ‘ Dhamkuria ’ or bachelor’s hall of 
Chutiya Nagpur villages is not known amongst the Sobors. The Sobors 
usually bury their dead and put stones over the graves. The clothes, 
ornaments and sometimes the weapons of the deceased are buried with 
them. They believe in the existence of the spirits of the dead and also 
that they haunt their own homes ; therefore at meals it is customary to 
put aside a pinch of food and some liquor to show the spirits they are 
not forgotten. Sobors are very superstitious ; they believe in sorcery, 
and people suspected of practising the black art are hated, feared and 
often ill-treated. A grim sect of these people, known as ‘ Bisuals,’ are 
the officials whose duty it is to offer sacrifices to the dead. They get 
paid for their services, and the office is hereditary, so that the Bisuals 
will doubtless become a sub-tribe in time, just as the Baigas have done 
amongst the aboriginal tribes in the Western Native States of Chutiya 
Nagpur. The Bisual sacrifice consists of rice and the gum of the Sarai 
tree. 
Language .—The following list of words show r s where the Sobor and 
Saonda differ most from other Kolarian languages. 
