The remarks of Mr. Hodgson on the Kooch, Bodo, and Dhimal, along with
some of Dr. Bird's on the monosyllabic affinities of the Tamulian
languages have an important bearing on this question. So have the
accounts of the Chepang and Garo tribes. The phenomena are those of
transition.
We have a practical instance of this in the doctrine laid down by
Mr. Hodgson in his valuable monograph. In this, he makes the Bodo a
Tamulian _i. e._ a member of the same family with the hill-tribes
of India and the Dekhan; meaning thereby the aborigines of India,
contrasted with the populations to which he ascribes the Sanskrit
language and the Hindu physiognomy. In the Tamulian form there is "a
somewhat lozenge contour, caused by the large cheek-bones"--"a broader
flatter face"--"eyes less evenly crossing the face in their line of
picture"--"beard deficient"--"with regard to the peculiar races of the
latter" (_i. e._ the Tamulians) "it can only be safely said that the
mountaineers exhibit the Mongolian type of mankind more distinctly than
the lowlanders, and that they have, in general, a paler yellower hue
than the latter, amongst whom there are some (individuals at least)
who are nearly as black as negroes.--The Bodo are scarcely darker than
the mountaineers above them--whom they resemble--only with all the
physiognomical characteristics softened down.--The Kols have a similar
cast of face."
This is the evidence of a competent observer to the fact of the Bodo
&c. being, more or less, what is called Mongol; all the more valuable
because he had not, then, recognized their language as monosyllabic.
Meanwhile he never separates them from the Kols &c. but always
connects the two. In other words, he gives us so much evidence to the
fact of the Kols &c. being, more or less, Mongol also. But the Kols are
the aborigines of India; whilst the Bodo are Tibetan.