the Mela-ghar in which I found a few earthen vessels for the brewing of rice beer, two bamboo umbrellas with handles and one umbrella made of siāli leaves and having no handle, two brooms, some chop (Bahinia scandens) fibres, some ropes, a few empty bamboo baskets, a small purā or straw-rope receptacle containing rice for supplying rasad or provisions to public officers visiting the village which the headman collects from contribution by the villagers, one winnowing basket, three pumpkin gourds, one palmleaf mat, one earthen jar of ghee (clarified butter) also meant for the rasad of public officers, one bisāh or weighing beam with a small bamboo basket suspended with strings at one end of the wooden beam on which notches have been cut to indicate a seer (two pounds) and fractions of a seer. There were also in this room one rope sling (ghür pūni) for discharging stones at small birds that eat up grain put out to dry in the sun, one kotrā or curved axe for cutting undergrowth in the jungle, one axe (būdiā or tāngi), one ploughshare (lohā), one bow and four arrows, and one bugle made of a gourd for scaring away elephants in the jungles. This hut has also a door made of planks of wood joined together and moving on a socket. In this hut are sometimes accommodated relatives of the family, such as a married daughter and her husband, when they come on a visit. The bachelors of the village also sleep in it when the Manda Ghar is occupied by guests. In front of these huts are two other huts, one used as a cattle-shed and the other as fowl pen and dhenki ghar where rice is husked with a mortar and pestle. The cattle-shed has a floor made of logs of wood placed side by side over the earthen floor. These two huts have doors made of split bamboo. The average Pabri Bhūiyā has no separate dhenki ghar, and only a few Pabris own cattle and require a cattle-shed, only one, two or three men in a big settlement own cattle and plough, and the others who require the occasional use of a plough borrow it from some neighbour. A hole for husking grain with the wooden pestle is usually made in the floor of the compartment used as the kitchen. The average Pābri has no separate storeroom and the bhitar or inner compartment also serves as the store or lumber room. Decorations to the houses or drawings on the wall are practically unknown, but the walls are sometimes coated over with a kind of yellowish earth with which the Pabri's scanty clothes are also dyed. III.-Physical Features and Mental Characteristics. Men and women are well-proportioned, of medium height, and rather light build. The hair is black and Physical Feaplentiful on the head, but generally scanty on tures. the rest of the body, though men with good beards and whiskers are occasionally seen. The hair is ordinarily straight but sometimes it has a tendency to curl, and I met one or two men with distinctly curly or rather woolly hair. The mouth and teeth are well formed and the eyes are straight and of medium size, sometimes small. Their heads are dolicocephalic, their noses are broad but not so broad nor so depressed at the root as among most other aboriginal tribes of Chōtā Nāgpur and Orissa. The skin of the Pabri Bhuiya also shows a much lighter brown tint than that of the average Dravidian and Munda-speaking aborigines. This is a trait which at once strikes the observer. The women are even fairer than the men. But the Pabris are mostly prognathous, the projecting cheeks and jawbones giving a certain squareness to the face. The lips are generally rather thick. Both sexes are very agile and can stand fatigue well and travel great distances. The weekly market held every Saturday at village Khutgaon on the westernmost extremity of the Pabri country where the Hill Bhuiyas exchange grains and vegetables for salt, tobacco and cloth with the lowlanders is attended by women as well as men from the end of Pabri Parganā, a distance of twenty miles. And I have seen several Pābri Bhūiyas bearing heavy loads on carrying poles slung across their shoulders walk at a fair pace across the jungles and hills of the Kuira and Pabri parganas a whole day with only a couple of hours' rest on the way. The Pabri Bhuiya is cheerful, lighthearted, and even gay Mental Char- in the presence of acquaintances, although shy acteristics. and timid before strangers. At my first visit to the Khutgāon bāzár a number of Pabri women and some young men fled at sight of the stranger, and it was with ditficulty that a few could be induced to allow me to photograph them. On a closer acquaintance with them I found them frank, friendly and hospitable. Although they are respectful to people in authority and to those they consider worthy of respect, they are not servile, and an air of equality comes natural to them in their intercourse even with the highest authorities they know. They assume an air of superiority to the Kolsas they call the Mūņdā, Oraon and other immigrants from Chōtā Nagpur and elsewhere. These "Kols" who have settled in the Pabri villages with the permission of the headmen have to carry burdens and render certain other services at their bidding. The Pābri Bhūiyās are an industrious people. Both sexes bathe daily and they keep their houses clean and tidy. In intelligence they compare favourably with most other hill tribes. The Dihuri or priest of one of the Pabri villages I visited impressed me as exceptionally intelligent. On certain points about which a Pabți Bhūiyā decided to withhold information from me, he remained firm even when in a state of drunkenness, though he was otherwise extremely voluble and talkative. Like aboriginal tribes not spoilt by contact with a superior civilization, the Pabri Bhuiyas are on the whole simple, truthful, and honest but timid, stubborn, and easily excitable. They value chastity in the married of both sexes. A male or a female, married or unmarried, going wrong with a person of a different tribe is regarded as a heinous social offender and is punished with excommunication. The men are addicted to drink but women abstain from it. IV:-Dress and Ornaments. The dress of the Pabri Bhūiyas is of the simplest. At home most men wear only a very short loin cloth round the waist, and the poorer men wear only Dress. a strip of perineal cloth kept in its place by a string round the waist. Boys and girls up to the age of twelve or thirteen almost invariably wear such perineal cloths which the girls change for a longer cloth only when strangers visit the village or when they dance in the evenings. Young men at their dances and festivals wear long loin cloths with one end hanging down below the knees. Except the poorest, each man has two full-sized cloths, one worn round the waist and another as an upper garment. These however are used only on special occasions and during visits to other places. The cloths of men and women are all dyed a light yellow with a kind of yellowish earth which is abundant in the country. An adult Pabri female uses a cloth about twelve cubits long which is worn as a combined skirt and shawl. Poorer women have each only one such cloth, which is used while going out, whereas a smaller waist cloth is worn in the house. Women have generally a separate bathing place a little apart from that of the men. As most women have only one cloth, they take it off before entering the water. Girls and young women wear a number of thick brass bracelets (berā) on both arms, brass rings (mudi) on Ornaments. the fingers, a larger number on the left hand than on the right, a number of toe rings (jhutia), one brass anklet (pahur) on each leg, one or two wristlets (tar) on each wrist, and one or more bead necklaces (māri) made of brass or lac (pahura), or both. Most young men wear bead necklaces. Neither tattooing of the body nor cicatrization is practised. The headmen of villages use no head-dress and are not distinguished by any particular insignia of office. But the Pabri Garh-Nack of village Kuira, the headman appointed by the Raja for the whole of the Kuira Pargană consisting of twenty-nine villages, has been presented by the Rajā of Bonai with a costly silk dress consisting of paijama, chapkan, turban, belt, sword and shield, and the Pabri Mahā-Nāek or headman appointed by the Rājā for the whole Pabri Parganā has also been presented with a robe of honour by him. These men are not the recognized social or religious headmen for their respective parganās but they wield great influence as the intermediary between the people and the Rājā. V-Daily Life. The daily life of the men is largely devoted to the production of food by the koman and the dahi system of cultivation. The dahi process of clearing land is as follows: A portion of a hill slope is selected for clearance and all the trees on it are cut down and arranged in rows and a large number of bushes. and shrubs are also cut down and placed round the trees. These are left for some time to dry and then they are set fire to. When the trees are all reduced to ashes the land is dug up and made ready for the cultivation of upland (gōrā) rice. The komān process of preparing lands for cultivation is as follows: A plot of hill slope is selected for the purpose and all bushes and shrubs growing on the site are cut down and placed in heaps at the foot of each tree on the selected plot, and left to dry for a month or so. If in the meanwhile other bushes or shrubs have sprouted they are also cleared, and fire is set to all these heaps of bushes and shrubs so as to burn all the branches and twigs of the trees. The ashes are now spread all over the plot, and the kōman is ready for cultivation. Generally on one portion of a kōman, upland rice is sown, and on another such crops as makā (maize), marua (Elessine corocana) and kangu are grown, and on the ashes at the feet of the standing trunks of trees, vegetable creepers such as sim (beans) and dhuk are planted so that the creepers may go up the trees. Wet cultivation of paddy is rare in the Pabri parganā which is full of hills and jungles. In a few villages at the foot of the hills a little wet cultivation of low-land paddy, known as Bil dhan, is now practised. From the month of Magh (January) to Baisakh (April), men are engaged in the preparation of dahi and kōman fields. Between Falgun (March) and Baisakh (May) both men and |