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Rh ports having railway connexions are Reconquista, Santa Fé, Colastiné, Coronda, Puerto Gomez, San Lorenzo, Rosario and Villa Constitucién. The capital is Santa Fé, and other important towns are Rosario, Esperanza (pop. 1904 estimated 10,000), San Lorenzo (7000), Rafaela, Ocampo, Galvez, Canada de Gomez and Villa Casilda.

 SANTA FÉ, a city of Argentina and capital of the province of that name, on the Santa Fé channel of the Paraná near the mouth of the Salado, about 299 m. N.W. of Buenos Aires. Pop. (1895) 24,755, (1904 estimated) 33,200. It is built on a sandy plain little above the river level. It is regularly laid out and contains a cathedral, bishop's palace, Jesuits' college and church dating from 1654, the cabildo or town hall facing on the principal square and provincial government buildings. The town is less modern in appearance than Rosario, and has a number of old residences and educational and charitable institutions. It is a port of call for small river steamers and is in ferry communication with Paraná on the opposite bank of the Parana. Its shipping port for larger steamers is at Colastiné, on a deeper channel, with which it is connected by rail. Santa Fé also has railway communication with Rosario, Cordoba, Tucuman and the frontier of the Chaco.

Santa Fé was founded by Juan de Garay in 1573, and was designed to secure Spanish communications between Asunción and the mouth of the La Plata. It has been the centre of much political intrigue, but its growth has been very slow. In 1852 a constituent congress met there, and in 1860 a national convention for the revision of the constitution.

SANTAL (or ) PARGANAS, THE, a district of British India, in the Bhaglalpur division of Bengal. Area 5470 sq. m. In the east a sharply defined belt of hills stretches for about IO m. from the Ganges to the river Naubil; west of this a rolling tract of long ridges with intervening depressions covers about 2500 sq. m.; while there is a narrow strip of alluvial country about 170 m. long, lying for the most part along the loop line of the East Indian railway. The Rajmahal hills occupy an area of 1366 sq. m.; they nowhere exceed 2000 ft. There are several other hill ranges which with few exceptions are covered almost to their summits with dense jungle; they are all difficult of access. There are, however, numerous passes through all the ranges. Coal and iron are found in almost all parts, but of inferior quality. The alluvial tract has the damp heat and moist soil characteristic of Bengal, while the undulating and hilly portions are swept by the hot westerly winds of Behar, and are very cool in the winter months. The annual rainfall averages 52 in. In 1901 the population was 1,809,737, showing an increase of 3% in the decade.

The Santals, who give their name to the district, are the most numerous aboriginal tribe in Bengal; they work the coal-mines of Raniganj and Karharbari and migrate to the tea-gardens of Assam. In 1832 officials were deputed to demarcate with solid masonry pillars the present area of the Daman-i-Koh, or “ skirts of the hills.” The permission to Santals to settle in the valleys and on the lower slopes stimulated Santal immigration to an enormous extent. The Hindu money-lender soon made his appearance among them, and caused the rebellion of 1855-56. The insurrection led to the establishment of a form of administration congenial to the immigrants; and a land settlement has since been carried out on conditions favourable to the occupants of the soil. The Church Missionary Society and the Scandinavian Home Mission have been very successful, especially in promoting education. The district is traversed by both the chord and loop lines of the East Indian railway. It contains the old Mahommedan city of Rajmahal and the modern commercial mart of Sahibganj, both on the Ganges; and also the Hindu place of pilgrimage of Deogarh, which is important enough to have a branch railway. The administrative headquarters are at Dumka, or Naya Dumka: pop. (1901) 5326.

See F. B. Bradley-Birt, The Story of the Indian Upland (1905).

SANTALS, an aboriginal tribe of Bengal, who have given their name to the (q.v.). Their early history is unknown; but it is certain that they have not occupied their present home for longer than a century, having migrated from Hazaribagh, and they are still moving on into Northern Bengal. Their total number in all India is nearly two millions. They speak a language of the Munda or Kolarian family.

The Santals as a race care little for permanent homes. They are not true nomads, but they like to be “ on the move.” In the lowlands they are agriculturists; in the jungles and on the mountains they are skilful hunters, bows and arrows being their chief weapons; on the highlands they are cattle breeders. But if fond of change the Santals like comfort, and their villages are neat, clean and well built, usually in an isolated position. Their social arrangements are patriarchal. In every village is a headman supposed to be a descendant of the founder of the village. A deputy looks after details; a special officer has charge of the children's morals, and there is a watchman. Physically the Santals are not prepossessing. The face is round and blubbery; the cheekbones moderately prominent; eyes full and straight, nose broad and depressed, mouth large and lips full, hair straight, black and coarse. The general appearance approximates to the negroid type. They are somewhat below the average height of the Hindus. They are divided into twelve tribes. In character they are a bright, joy-loving people, hospitable and seizing every chance of a feast. “ They have neither the sullen disposition nor the unconquerable laziness of the very old hill tribes of central India,” writes Sir W. W. Hunter in Annals of Rural Bengal (1868). “ They have carried with them from the plains a love of order, a genial humanity, with a certain degree of civilization and agricultural habits. Their very vices are the vices of an oppressed and driven-out people who have lapsed from a higher state, rather than those of savages who have never known better things." Each village has its priest who has lands assigned to him; out of the profits he must twice a year feast the people. At the Sohrai feast-the “ harvest-home "—in December, the headman entertains the villagers, and the cattle are anointed and daubed with Vermilion and a share of the rice-beer is given to each animal. The Santals have many gods whose attributes are ill-defined, but whose festivals are strictly observed. Marang Buru, the great spirit, is the deity to whom sacrifices are made at the Sohrai. Among some Santals, e.g. in Chota Nagpur, Sing Bonga, the sun, is the supreme deity to whom sacrifices are made. Generally there is no definite idea of a beneficent god, but countless demons and evil spirits are propitiated, and ancestors are worshipped at the Sohrai festival. There is a Vague idea of a future life where the spirits of the dead are employed in the ceaseless toil of grinding the bones of past generations into a dust from which the gods may recreate children. In some villages the Santals join with the Hindus in celebrating the Durga Puja festival. In the eastern districts the tiger is worshipped. For a Santal to be sworn on a tiger-skin is the most solemn of oaths. The Santals are omnivorous, but they will not touch rice cooked by a Hindu. Santal parents undergo purification five days after childbirth; Santals have adopted as a rite the tonsure of children. Child marriage is not practised, and the young people make love matches, but the septs are exogamous as a rule. Santals seldom have more than one wife and she is always treated kindly. An open space in front of the headman's house is set apart for dancing, which is very elaborate and excellent. The flute, upon which they play well, is the chief Santal instrument. The Santals burn their dead, and the few charred bones remaining are taken by the next of kin in a basket to the Damodar, the sacred river of the Santals in Hazaribagh district, and left where the current is strongest to be carried to the ocean, the traditional origin and resting place of the Santal race.

See E. Tuite Dalton, Descriptive Ethnology of Bengal (Calcutta, 1872); F. B. Bradley-Birt, The Story of an Indian Upland (1905).

SANTA MARIA, an inland town of Brazil, in Rio Grande do Sul, 162 m. by rail W. of Margem do Taquary, the railway terminus for Porto Alegre (1908), about 80 m. by water N.W. of that city. Pop. (1900) 13,628. Santa Maria, which lies 382 ft. above the sea, is the commercial centre of a rich district on the slopes of short mountain ranges, one of which, the Serra do Pinhal, forms the water parting between the eastern and western river systems of the state. There are prosperous colonies in its vicinity, including one founded by the Jewish Colonisation Association under the provisions of the Hirsch Fund. The industries of this region include the cultivation of wheat, Indian corn, rice, mandioca, beans, grapes (for wine), nuts, olives and tobacco, and stock-raising. The town derives its chief importance, however, from its becoming the junction of the Porto Alegre to Uruguayana, and the Santa Maria to Passo Fundo railways. In 1905 the national and state governments leased to the “ Compagnie Auxiliaire de Chemin de Fer au Brésil ” the Rio Grande to Bagé, the Porto Alegre to Uruguayana, the Santa Maria to Passo Fundo, and the Porto Alegre to Nova Hamburgo railways, with their branches and connexions, and it was decided to establish the general administration offices for the whole system at Santa Maria. The shops and offices of the Porto Alegre to Uruguayana line had been removed to that place in 1902.