Page:Castes and Tribes of Southern India.djvu/30

xxviii shut up in the mountains of Central India under the name of Bhils, Mahairs, Ghonds, and Khonds; and in the south under that of Yenadis, Kurumbas, etc. Its primitive characters, apart from its black colour and low stature, are difficult to discover, but it is to be noticed that travellers do not speak of woolly hair in India. The second has spread over the plateaux of Central India by two lines of way, one to the north-east, the other to the north-west. The remnants of the first invasion are seen in the Dravidian or Tamil tribes, and those of the second in the Jhats. The third more recent, and more important as to quality than as to number, was the Aryan." In speaking further of the Australian type, characterised by a combination of smooth hair with Negroid features, Topinard states that "it is clear that the Australians might very well be the result of the cross between one race with smooth hair from some other place, and a really Negro and autochthonous race. The opinions held by Huxley are in harmony with this hypothesis. He says the Australians are identical with the ancient inhabitants of the Deccan. The features of the present blacks in India, and the characters which the Dravidian and Australian languages have in common, tend to assimilate them. The existence of the boomerang in the two countries, and some remnants of caste in Australia, help to support the opinion."

Of the so-called boomerangs of Southern India, the Madras Museum possesses three (two ivory, one wooden) from the Tanjore armoury (PI. II). Concerning them, the Dewan of Pudukkottai writes to me as follows. "The valari or valai tadi (bent stick) is a short weapon, generally made of some hard-grained wood.