The Kol people referred to tribals of Chotanagpur in Eastern Parts of India. The

Mundas The Munda people are an Austroasiatic speaking ethnic group of India. They predominantly speak the Mundari language as their native language, which belongs to the Munda subgroup of Austroasiatic languages. The Munda are found mainly concent ...

Oraons The Kurukh or Oraon, also spelt Uraon, or Dhangar ( Kurukh: ''Karḵẖ'' and ''Oṛāōn'') are a Dravidian speaking ethnolinguistic group inhabiting Chhotanagpur Plateau and adjoining areas - mainly the Indian states of Jharkhand, West Benga ...

, Hos and Bhumijs were called Kols by British. It also refers to some tribe and caste of south-east

Uttar Pradesh Uttar Pradesh (; , 'Northern Province') is a state in northern India. With over 200 million inhabitants, it is the most populated state in India as well as the most populous country subdivision in the world. It was established in 1950 ...

. They are mostly landless and dependent on forest produce to make a living, they are Hindus and are designated a

Scheduled Caste The Scheduled Castes (SCs) and Scheduled Tribes (STs) are officially designated groups of people and among the most disadvantaged socio-economic groups in India. The terms are recognized in the Constitution of India and the groups are designa ...

under India's system of positive discrimination. The tribe has several

exogamous Exogamy is the social norm of marrying outside one's social group. The group defines the scope and extent of exogamy, and the rules and enforcement mechanisms that ensure its continuity. One form of exogamy is dual exogamy, in which two groups c ...

clans, including the

Brahmin Brahmin (; sa, ब्राह्मण, brāhmaṇa) is a varna as well as a caste within Hindu society. The Brahmins are designated as the priestly class as they serve as priests (purohit, pandit, or pujari) and religious teachers (guru ...

‚ Barawire,

Bhil Bhil or Bheel is an ethnic group in western India. They speak the Bhil languages, a subgroup of the Western Zone of the Indo-Aryan languages. As of 2013, Bhils were the largest tribal group in India. Bhils are listed as tribal people of the s ...

Chero The Chero is a caste found in the states of Bihar, Jharkhand and Uttar Pradesh in India. History and origin The community claims to have originally been tribal people. The Chero are essentially one of many tribal communities, such as the Bhar ...

, Monasi, Rautia, Rojaboria‚

Rajput Rajput (from Sanskrit ''raja-putra'' 'son of a king') is a large multi-component cluster of castes, kin bodies, and local groups, sharing social status and ideology of genealogical descent originating from the Indian subcontinent. The term Ra ...

and Thakuria. They speak the

Baghelkhandi Bagheli (Devanagari: बघेली) or Baghelkhandi is a Central Indo-Aryan language spoken in the Baghelkhand region of central India. Classification An independent language belonging to the Eastern Hindi subgroup, Bagheli is one of the ...

dialect. Around 1 million live in

Madhya Pradesh Madhya Pradesh (, ; meaning 'central province') is a state in central India. Its capital is Bhopal, and the largest city is Indore, with Jabalpur, Ujjain, Gwalior, Sagar, and Rewa being the other major cities. Madhya Pradesh is the seco ...

while another 5 lakh live in

. Once spelled "Cole", the swaths of land they inhabited in the 19th-century were called "Colekan".

Etymology

Kol was generic term for non-Aryan people in Chotanagpur such as Oraon and Munda. The term Kola mentioned in Rigveda. According to legend,

Yayati Yayāti ( sa, ययाति, translit=Yayāti), is a king in Hindu tradition. He is described to be a Chandravamsha king. He is regarded to be the progenitor of the races of the Yadavas and the Pandavas. He is considered in some texts t ...

, the son of Nahus divided his kingdom for his five sons. Then after ten generation, India was divided among four brothers; Pandya, Krala, Kola and

Chola The Chola dynasty was a Tamils, Tamil thalassocratic Tamil Dynasties, empire of southern India and one of the longest-ruling dynasties in the history of the world. The earliest datable references to the Chola are from inscriptions dated ...

. According to

Markandeya Purana The ''Markandeya Purana'' ( sa, मार्कण्डेय पुराण; IAST: ) is a Sanskrit text of Hinduism, and one of the eighteen major Puranas. The text's title Markandeya refers to a sage in Hindu History, who is the central char ...

, the Aryan princess Suratha was defeated by some unclean tribe called ''Kolabidhansinah'' means slayer of Pig. According to Herr Jelinghans, Kolarian tribes who eat pig were considered unclean by the hindus. Another meaning of Kol is Pig.

History

Colonel

Edward Tuite Dalton Edward Tuite Dalton CSI (1815 - 1880) was a British soldier and anthropologist. He was posted in Assam, then became commissioner of Chota Nagpur Division. He was posted in Chotanagpur for two decades. Later he became major general of Bengal Lancer ...

has refferd to non-Aryan

Kolarian Kolarian is a word first used by George Campbell. He described it as one of the three non-Aryan language families of India, which he made up, along with the Tibeto-Burman and the Dravidian. It is group of Munda languages of Austro-asiatic languages ...

and Dravidian tribal of Chotanagpur as Kol such as Munda, Oraon, Ho, Santal, Bhumij, Juang etc in his writings in 1867. According to him the word is epithets of abuse applied by the Brahmin races to the aboriginals who opposed their settlements. In Chotanagpur, the term kol generally applied to Munda and Oraon. Although Oraon and Munda celebrate same festivals, but they don't intermarry among themselves. Later, Colonel Dalton classified Oraon as Dravidian and Munda and other Kol such as Ho, Bhumij as

after observing their customs and traditions which were distinct.

References

{{India-ethno-stub Scheduled Castes of Uttar Pradesh Scheduled Tribes of Odisha Scheduled Tribes of Madhya Pradesh Scheduled Tribes of Chhattisgarh