Indische Palaographie von circa 350 a. Chr. – circa 1300 p. Chr. c48.s6.5

c48.s6.5

in speech they fall into two different categories, the Kōl and the Dravidian. In the case of most of the southern tribes this distinction is obviously attributable to the contiguity of the Āndhra or Telugu population of which they form the northern fringe. As regards the detached communities further north, however, there are traditions of immigration, and it is remarkable to find tribes like the Orāon, of the south of Cūtiā Nāgpur, and the Mal-Pahāṟiyā and their neighbours of the hills bordering the Ganges speaking tongues which support their assertion that they reached their present localities from a tract as far distant as the Karnatic, especially when to do so they must apparently have outflanked the Gōṇḍ, a still more powerful tribe, which itself is said to have come from the same home. It must be noted that the Mālē, or northern section of the inhabitants of the Rājmahāl hills, are also called Sāvariyā, or Sābar, a title which appears to link them to the Savara, or Suari, of the ancient European geographers, Pliny and Ptolemy. These were once undoubtedly in possession of a considerable territory south of the Ganges, but now the only large tribe known by their special designation except the Brahmanised Sahariyā, mentioned above, is located far to the south, and isolated amongst a population speaking either Oṛiyā or the hill-vernaculars of the Dravidian type. On linguistic grounds, the Savara of today are grouped amongst the Kōl-Khervāri peoples, whereas the Mālē use a tongue nearly akin to that of the Orāon. It is possible, therefore, that an ancient and wide-spread title has been applied to two different and distinct communities, and that the southern Savara like their neighbours, the Gadabā, are Dravidian by race, modified by the influence of more powerful alien surroundings. Thus, it may be generally put that the Dravidian element is indigenous in the south-east, immigrant in the south, centre and a portion of the north-east; and that the north, west, and most of the plateau, appertain to the Kōl-Khervāri tribes.