Page:The People of India — a series of photographic illustrations, with descriptive letterpress, of the races and tribes of Hindustan Vol 1.djvu/85

 THE KOEEWAHS.

T is believed that no writer on the Hill races of India has ever noticed the Korewahs, a very wild tribe occupying a portion of the water-shed of Central India, near the sources of the Soane and its tributaries, the sources of the Nurbudda, and the sources of the Eeb and other tributaries of the Mahanuddee. They are found in the hills between Palamow and Sirgoojah, on the Sirgoojah plateaux, the hills between Sirgoojah and Jushpore, and are heard of in Ruttunpore; but they probably most abound in a pergunnah of Jushpore galled Khorea.

The Korewahs live in wretched little detached huts in the midst of the patch of hill forest ground they have partially cleared, and are then cultivating, shifting every three or four years, as the ground becomes exhausted.

A very small proportion of rice is cultivated or consumed by them. Their crops consist of pulses, millet, pumpkins, cucumbers, melons, sweet potatoes, and other edible roots; they grow and prepare arrowroot, and there is also a wild arrowroot which they use and sell. The grain they store for winter use is issued in small parcels of the leaves of a plant called "Muhoolan," sewn together by fibres of the same, and these parcels they bury. The grain, so preserved, remains for years uninjured. They have no prejudices in regard to animal food, and they partake freely of an intoxicating beverage prepared by themselves from the grain of the millet. The language spoken by the Korewahs shows at once that they are near of kin to the Sonthals and Moondahs, or Coles of Chota Nagpore and Singbhoom; and, like their kindred races, they are greatly devoted to songs and dances. The songs and dances of all these races have a close resemblance to each other, and this is an additional proof of their affinity. In customs there appears but little difference between them and the Moondahs, but those of the Korewahs, from their isolation, are uncertain. They burn their dead, or bury them, as they find most convenient, but the practice of marking the spot where the body or ashes have been deposited, by a large flat stone, is common to them and the Moondahs.