Page:Castes and Tribes of Southern India, Volume 3.djvu/396

KONDH in understanding the Kui spoken in other parts. There are two principal dialects, one eastern, spoken in Gumsur and the adjoining parts of Bengal, and one western, spoken in Chinna Kimedi. In the north, Kui has come under the influence of the neighbouring Aryan forms of speech, and a specimen forwarded from the Patna State was written in Oriyā with a slight admixture of Chattisgarhī. The number of Kandhs returned at the census of 1891 was 627,388. The language returns, however, give a much smaller figure. The reason is that many Kandhs have abandoned their native speech."

It has been noted that "the character of the Khonds varies as much as their language. Where there has been much contact with the plains, it is not as favourable as elsewhere. As a rule, they may be taken to be a bold, and fitfully laborious mountain peasantry of simple, but not undignified manners; upright in their conduct; sincere in their superstitions; proud of their position as landholders; and tenacious of their rights. The Linepada Khonds affect manners like Uriyas, and, among other things, will not eat pork (the flesh of wild pigs excepted). The Khond villages have quite the appearance of Uriya villages, the houses are built with mud walls, a thing unknown with Khonds in other parts of the Māliahs; and there is also much neat garden cultivation, which is rare elsewhere, probably because the produce thereof would be appropriated by the Uriyas. In 1902, the Linepada Muttah (settlement) presented the unusual spectacle of a Khond ruler as Dolabēhara, as well as Moliko, with the Uriya Paiks really at his beck and call. In. some places, the most valuable portions of the land have passed into the possession of Sondis and low-country sowcars (money-lenders), who have pandered to the Khonds by advancing them money, the greater