Page:The People of India — a series of photographic illustrations, with descriptive letterpress, of the races and tribes of Hindustan Vol 8.djvu/103

 KURUBAR, OR KURUMBAR. (430–1–2)

HE Photograph represents Madeo, and Kali, his sister, five feet and four feet eight inches respectively. They belong to the Betra or Botra Kurumbars, who live on the northern slopes of the Neelgerries, adjoining Coorg. Their occupation is the manufacture of baskets, mats, and umbrellas. They worship Kali, and live in the densest forests. Their appearance is very wild, their features broad, with high cheek bones and protruding lips; their complexion dark brown to black. Another portion of the tribe are Jena Kurumbars, who also live in wild jungles, and wander from place to place. Their chief occupation is gathering wild honey.—Official Report.

We find a more detailed account of these tribes—several other divisions being mentioned—in a forthcoming volume on the aboriginal tribes of the Neelgerries, or Nilagiris, by the late Mr. Breeks, Commissioner of the Nilagiris, proof of which have been obligingly supplied to us. The total number of four divisions of Kurumbars residing on the slopes of the Nilagiris was, according to the last census, 613, belonging to six divisions, of which 330 are males and 283 females, and they do not eat or intermarry with each other. Dr. Shortt, in his Tribes of the Nilagiris, p. 46, thus describes the Kurumbars:—"They are small in stature, and have a squalid and somewhat uncouth appearance, from their peculiar physiognomy, wild matted hair, and almost nude bodies. They have a stunted and spare form of body, with a peculiar wedge-shaped face and a thin facial angle, with prominent cheek bones, slightly pointed chin, eyes moderately large and frequently bloodshot, colour of inches dark brown (No. 1 of Paul Broca's tables). The nose has a deep indentation at the root about one and three-quarter inches in depth, which is general, and when contrasted with the profile, or line with the ridge of the nose and os frontis, it gives them a very peculiar expression of feature. Distance of growth of hair from root of nose to scalp, two and a quarter inches, length of nose one and three-quarter inches; also widened nostrils, exposed breadth of nostrils one inch five lines, ridge slightly depressed. The hair is