The tribes and castes of the North-Western Provinces and Oudh, Volume 2 (of 4)Crooke, William
History
The tribes and castes of the North-Western Provinces and Oudh, Volume 2 (of 4)
Crooke, William
Caste -- India -- History; Hindus -- India; Tribes -- India -- History
Mr. Risley, remarking on the wide area over which the name Bhuiya has
spread, thinks we should “hesitate and demand some independent evidence
of affinity before we pronounce it to be an original tribal
designation, and accept the conclusion that all tribes which bear the
name at the present day are sprung from a common stock.” He adds that
“the advanced guard of the Aryan immigrants, pressing forward in quest
of land, and seeking a name for the alien races whom they found in
possession of scanty clearings in the forest-clad tract of Central
India, whither they had themselves been driven, would naturally ignore
the tribal names of the groups with which they came in contact, and
would call the strangers Bhuiyas or children of the soil” [79] (bhûmi).
[Physical characteristics.] 3. Colonel Dalton describes the Bhuiyas of
Gangpur and Bonai as “a dark brown, well proportioned race, with black,
straight hair plentiful on the head but scant on the face; of middle
height, figures well knit, and capable of enduring great fatigue, but
light framed like the Hindu, rather than presenting the usual muscular
development of the hillman. The features are very much of the same cast
throughout. The cheek and jaw-bones are projecting, so as to give a
breadth and squareness to the face. The nose is but slightly elevated,
still neither so depressed nor so broad at the root as the generality
of Turanian noses, and rather of a retroussé type: mouth and teeth well
formed, and the facial angle generally good. The eyes well shaped and
straight, but never very large or deep set.” [80] On the other hand he
describes the Keonjhar Hill Bhuiyas “as rather of an exaggerated
Turanian type: very large mouths, thick and somewhat projecting lips,
foreheads narrow and low, but not receding; eyes dark but well shaped,
hair plentiful on the head, though rather frizzly and generally scanty
on the face; but to this there are notable exceptions. Short of
stature, averaging about five feet two inches, round shouldered, and
many of them with a lump that is produced by the displacement of the
muscles in carrying loads bhangy fashion. The colour of the skin varies
from a deep chocolate, the predominating tint, to tawny.” [81] This
last description seems to answer more closely than the former to the
tribe as found in Mirzapur. They are distinguished with very great
difficulty from the Bhuiyâr, with whom they are doubtless very closely
connected, but are much less robust and active than the Korwas or
Parahiyas.
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