Indische Palaographie von circa 350 a. Chr. – circa 1300 p. Chr. c48.s6.8

c48.s6.8

Muṇḍā for many generations, they have dropped a good many of their own customs and adopted those of the indigenous tribes. In regard to their worship, however, they keep themselves apart, erecting some symbol of their gods, whilst the Muṇḍā abstain from anything of the sort. The Orāon employ no Brāhmans of course, and their priests are Nāya, very like those of the Muṇḍā. According to tradition, the Orāon introduced the plough into the plateau and were the first to take to regular cultivation. They regard the Muṇḍā as their predecessors, however, and where the two are in the same place, the Orāon yield precedence to the elder tribe. The advance of settled government and systematic land administration has not conduced to the prosperity of the Orāon, who lose ground before the more cunning castes which follow those symptoms of civilisation, and prey upon the less educated, gradually dispossessing them of their lands. As to the other branch of the Orāon, who are still entrenched in the hills of Rājmahāl, it appears that two sections have been formed, one, of the Mal-Pahāṛiā, the lower and more Brāhmanised community, and the other, called, for want of a more definite title, the Mālē, or Hillmen. There seems to be little doubt but that in spite of the antagonism between the two in the present day they belong to the same race, using closely allied dialects of the Orāon-Kanarese language. The Southern community, though more civilised than the Northern, is still more or less in the jungle stage, and worships the Sun, Earth and Tiger, through the mediation of the headmen of the villages. One subdivision is considered by the outside world to be a trifle purer than the rest, as in the matter of diet it draws the line above rats and lizards, which enter into the daily meal of the others. They cultivate on the wasteful system of jungle-burning, which entails the occupation of an abnormally large tract of land to allow of the frequent fallows necessary for the recuperation of the vegetation. The Mālē of the upper hills, are far less affected by Brāhmanic contact than the others, and are said to be homogeneous to the extent of not having even exogamous subdivisions. They share with the Mal-Pahāṛiā the worship of the Sun, but differ from the latter in setting up a post to symbolise that luminary. The only semblance of a priest amongst them is the Demano or Diviner, and even he gives place to the headman at the more important ceremonies. The Mālē gave a good deal of trouble in the early days of British rule in Bengal, as they had managed to preserve their independence of all government against the attempts of the Muslim to coerce them. The judicious handling of them by a popular local official, late in the 18th century, pacified them into the abstention of raids upon their neighbours, but his attempts at inducing the tribe to take to industrial pursuits were not successful.