"The colour of most Oraons," Sir H. Risley states, "is the darkest
brown approaching to black; the hair being jet-black, coarse and
rather inclined to be frizzy. Projecting jaws and teeth, thick
lips, low narrow foreheads, and broad flat noses are the features
characteristic of the tribe. The eyes are often bright and full,
and no obliquity is observable in the opening of the eyelids."
"The Oraon youths," Dalton states, "though with features very far
from being in accordance with the statutes of beauty, are of a
singularly pleasing class, their faces beaming with animation and
good humour. They are a small race, averaging 4 feet 5 inches, but
there is perfect proportion in all parts of their form, and their
supple, pliant, lithe figures are often models of symmetry. There
is about the young Oraon a jaunty air and mirthful expression that
distinguishes him from the Munda or Ho, who has more of the dignified
gravity that is said to characterise the North American Indian. The
Oraon is particular about his personal appearance only so long as he
is unmarried, but he is in no hurry to withdraw from the Dhumkuria
community, and generally his first youth is passed before he resigns
his decorative propensities.
"He wears his hair long like a woman, gathered in a knot behind,
supporting, when he is in gala costume, a red or white turban. In the
knot are wooden combs and other instruments useful and ornamental,
with numerous ornaments of brass. [364] At the very extremity of the
roll of hair gleams a small circular mirror set in brass, from which,
and also from his ears, bright brass chains with spiky pendants dangle,
and as he moves with the springy elastic step of youth and tosses his
head like a high-mettled steed in the buoyancy of his animal spirits,
he sets all his glittering ornaments in motion and displays as he
laughs a row of teeth, round, white and regular, that give light and
animation to his dusky features. He wears nothing in the form of a
coat; his decorated neck and chest are undraped, displaying how the
latter tapers to the waist, which the young dandies compress within
the smallest compass. In addition to the cloth, there is always round
the waist a girdle of cords made of tasar-silk or of cane. This is
now a superfluity, but it is no doubt the remnant of a more primitive
costume, perhaps the support of the antique fig-leaves.
"Out of the age of ornamentation nothing can be more untidy or more
unprepossessing than the appearance of the Oraon. The ornaments are
nearly all discarded, hair utterly neglected, and for raiment any
rags are used. This applies both to males and females of middle age.