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ABORIGINES OF THE NILGIRIS, WITH REMARKS ON THEIR AFFINITIES.

In the autumn of last year I forwarded to the Society a series of Nilgirian vocabularies. This paper was printed soon after in the Journal, but without the accompanying prefatory remarks, which seem to have been accidentally mislaid and omitted.

I now forward some corrections and additions to that paper, and shall take the opportunity to mention what, in substance, those prefatory remarks contained.

The Nilgirian vocabularies were prepared for me by the German missionaries at Kaity, particularly Mr. Metz, and were then examined and approved by the venerable Schmid, who is now residing at Utakamund, and who added some remarks, partly referring to his own valuable labours in Indian Ethnology, and partly consisting of corrections of my Ceylonese series of vocables. The latter are appended to the present paper.

When the Nilgirian vocabularies reached me, I immediately perceived that the verbs were not uniformly given in the imperative mood as required; and I therefore wrote again to Utakamund desiring that this anomaly might be rectified, and also supplying some further forms, the filling up of which might furnish me with some few essentials of the grammar of the tongues in question.

The subjoined paper exhibits the result, and from it and from some further remarks furnished by Mr. Metz and others I derive the following particulars relative to the people, and to the grammar and affinities of their speech.

The

The form and countenance of the Nilgirians, and especially of the Todas, have now been spoken of for years as though these people differed essentially in type from the neighbouring races, and had nothing of the Tartar in their appearance. like has been said also of the Hó or Lerka of Singhbhum. I have always been inclined to doubt both these assertions, and I have lately had opportunity to confirm my doubt. My

friend Sir J. Colvile, our Society's able President, having lately visited the Nilgiris, I requested his attention to the point, desiring him to procure me, if he could, some skulls* and photographic portraits. Of the latter he obtained for me two, which are herewith transmitted, and which Sir James sent me with the following remarks:-"I am not much versed in these matters, and I confess I was at first insensible (like others) of the Tartaric traits you speak of, the Roman nose and long beard of the Todas more especially making me fancy there was something Semitic in their lineage. But when I showed the passage in your letter to Dr. M'Cosh, he said you were right, and that, in spite of the high nose, there were strong Tartaric marks, particularly in the women. The Badagas, who are considered to be of as old date in the hills as the Todas, have a very uniform cast of countenance, not easily distinguishable from the ordinary inhabitants of the plains below the hills." These last are of course Dravidian or Tamulian, and the comparison drawn is therefore instructive, and doubly so when we advert to the indubitable evidence of language, which leaves no doubt as to the common origin of the highland and lowland, the uncultivated and the cultivated, races of Southern India, as we shall presently see.

Upon the origin and affinity of the highlanders Sir James observes, "People who know a good deal of the Todas say, that wherever they may have originally come from, they have less claim to be considered aborigines of these hills than the Kotas, not more than the Badagas, and are thought not to date higher than some four hundred years in their present abode." Mr. Metz, the resident missionary, who furnished the vocabularies, observes on this head, "The Kotas have so much intercourse with the Badagas that they are often not conscious whether they speak Badaga or their own language. Their original home was Kollimale, a mountainous tract in Mysore. The Kotas understand the Todas perfectly when they speak in the Toda tongue, but answer them always in the Kota dialect, which the Todas perfectly understand."

* Neither Sir James nor any of the other parties I applied to could obtain for me any skulls.

"A Toda tradition states that the Todas, Kotas, and Kurumbas had lived a long time together on the hills before the Badagas came. I know places on the hills where formerly Kurumba villages existed, but where none are now found. It is well known that the Kurumbas were driven down from the healthful summit to the malarious slopes of the hills, and I have strong reasons for believing that the cromlechs and cairns of the hills were made by the ancestors of the Kurumbas, and not by those of the Todas, as is generally supposed by Europeans." In entire conformity with those views of the aspect and origin of the Nilgirians is the evidence of language, which palpably demonstrates the relationship of the highland races to the lowland races around them. The amply-experienced and well-informed Schmid has no doubt of that relationship, which indeed he who runs may read on the face of the vocabularies formerly and now submitted.* And it is well deserving of note that whilst that vocabular evidence bears equally upon the question of the affinity of the cultivated. tribes around the Nilgiris, this latter affinity is now maintained as an unquestionable fact by the united voices of Ellis, Campbell, Westergaard, Schmid, Elliot-in short, of all the highest authorities.

We may thus perceive the value of the evidence in question with reference to the uncultivated tribes, as to whose affinity to each other and to the cultivated tribes Mr. Metz writes thus, "When I came up to the hills, the Badagas told me that the language I used, which was Canarese, was the Kurumba language." This reminds us of what we are told by another of that valuable class of ethnological pioneers, the missionaries, who reports that "Speaking Tamulian of the extreme south, he was understood by the Gonds beyond the Nerbudda." Nor can one fail to remark how this latter observation points to the great fact that Turánian affinities are not to be circumscribed by the Deccan, nor by the Deccan and Central India, nor, I may here add, by the whole continent of India, but spread beyond it into Indo-China, Himálaya, and the northern regions beyond Himálaya, irrespectively of any of those * See the Tamulian proper, the Ceylonese and the Nilgirian proper.