Page:The People of India — a series of photographic illustrations, with descriptive letterpress, of the races and tribes of Hindustan Vol 3.djvu/257

 A CHARCOAL CARRIER. (171)

HIS man is a resident of Gurliwal, by caste a "Kolee," one of the lowest classes. Kolees eat from anybody's hands. The better caste men will take nothing to eat from them; but, curiously enough, they will smoke from their hookah while out in the fields, though not when they have returned to the village. The hill Kolees are ignorant and superstitious to a degree.

In the plains Kolees are tenned Chumars, or leather dressers, and they call themselves indifferently Chumareys or Kolees. They are a race altogether distinct from the Kuveyts, who regard them as outcasts, and will neither eat nor intennarry with them. They have a language of their own, essentially Hindi in character, mixed with some Arabic and Persian terms, for which it is difficult to account, but have, no doubt, been derived from Mahomedans whom they may have served or been otherwise in contact. In the Himalayas the tribe practises Polyandry, but it is unknown elsewhere among them. Some few hold lands directly from Government, and are otherwise on the same tennis as Kuveyts; but in native Hill States they are the first pressed as porters, and many of them are common labourers and weavers of coarse cloths. Eveiy Kanawar village contains a proportion of them, and they act as the village musicians, playing upon the pipe and tabor. They have no written music. What they play is entirely traditional, and each piece is named; many of the tunes—then- marches, pieces played at weddings, rejoicings, and funeral ceremonies—have, in every case, a marked character of their own, which is spirited and plaintive by turns. Their pipes, with the drone played separately, have, as nearly as possible, the sound and effect of bagpipes; and some of the musicians are no mean performers. Among their mountains the effect of their music is melodious, and often very striking, as marriage and other processions pass from village to village.

The Kolees are undoubtedly an aboriginal race, and may be classed with the Bheels, the Goands, the Coles or Kolees of Bengal, the Santals, Bedurs, and other distinct tribes of India. Of all, the Kolees are the most numerous and wide spread,