Indische Palaographie von circa 350 a. Chr. – circa 1300 p. Chr. c48.s6.13

c48.s6.13

§ 86. There remains the Savara tribe, of which the greater portion is now found in the Orissa hills and the adjacent wild country, under the Central Provinces and Madras. It has been already pointed out that assuming this tribe to represent the ancient Suari or Sabarae, they once possessed a considerable dominion in the south Ganges valley. It is curious to find even in the present day small communities bearing this name in the very north of the Central Provinces and Bundēlkhaṇḍ, with no traditions of migration or former supremacy. The alternative designation of the Mālē of Rājmahāl, Saurīā, has also been ascribed to some connection with the Savara. Be this as it may, the detached body of the north-west has lost all trace of its primitive religion and language, and is simply a low caste of the ordinary Brāhmanic type. Similarly, an offshoot of the main Savara body which has settled in western Bengal, is gradually detaching itself from the hill-dwellers of the tribe and employing Brāhmans. It is worthy of note that whereas the Savara in their native haunts seem to be without exogamous subdivisions, those who have left the hills establish them upon both totemistic and Brāhmanic lines, borrowing the former, probably, from some neighbouring tribe which preceded the Savara in the valley. The wilder Savara have functional classes, such as the agricultural, the metal-working, the weaving and the cane-working, but information is not yet available as to the social distinctions implied in this distribution. The Savara of the southern outskirts seem to be inclined to branch off from their hill-comrades as they have done on the Bengal side of the hills, and to gradually incorporate themselves with the Kāpu, or peasantry.