Page:Adam's reports on vernacular education in Bengal and Behar, submitted to Government in 1835, 1836 and 1838.djvu/97

Rh uncivilized, and their chiefs are grossly stupid, barbarous, debauched, tyrannical, and enslaved to the most grovelling superstition. The paiks or landed militia of these districts combine, with the most profound barbarism and the blindest devotion to the will of their chiefs, a ferocity and unquietness of disposition which render them an important and formidable class of the population of the province.

Exclusive of the regular Ooria population of the Brahmanical persuasion, there are three remarkable races inhabiting the hilly region, viz., the Coles, Kunds and Sours. The Coles are divided into thirteen different tribes. Their original country is said to be Kolaut Des, but they are in possession of parts of Chota Nagpore, Jaspur, Tymar, Patcura and Sinbhoom, have made encroachments upon Mohirbunj, and are found settled in the back parts of Nilgiri. They are a hardy and athletic race, black and ill-favored in their countenances, ignorant and savage, but their wooden houses are neat and comfortable, and they carry on a very extensive cultivation. They own none of the Hindoo divinities, but hold in high veneration the sahajna tree (hyperanthera moranga), paddy, oil expressed from the mustard seed, and the dog. The Kunds are found in great numbers in all the hill estates south of the Mahanadi. They are small in stature and are so wild that every attempt made to civilize them has proved ineffectual. The Sours are found chiefly in the jungles of Khurda. They are in general a harmless and peaceable race, but so entirely destitute of all moral sense, that at the orders of a chief, or for the most trifling remuneration, they will as readily and unscrupulously deprive a human being of life as any wild beast of the woods. In ordinary times they clear the woods and provide fuel for the zemindars and villagers. They also collect the produce of the woods for sale to druggists and fruiterers. They are of small stature, mean appearance, and jet black color, and always carry in their hand an axe for cutting wood, the symbol of their profession. Some are fixed in small villages, and others lead a migratory life. They worship stumps of trees, masses of stone, or clefts in rock. Their language little resembles that spoken by the Oorias, the latter being like the Bengalee, a tolerably pure dialect of the Sanscrit.

This view of the different classes of the population of Orissa would seem to justify the inference that there is no district of those whose condition I am now examining, that more needs both the elevating and restraining moral influences of education.

Orissa Proper, or the second of the three divisions above mentioned, contains 11,915 villages and 243,273 houses, exclusive of the towns of Cuttack, Balasore, and Puri, an enumeration which yields an average of about twenty houses to a village. Mr. Stirling, from data prepared with much care and accuracy, infers