_Turi._--A non-Aryan caste of cultivators, workers in bamboo, and
basket-makers, belonging to the Chota Nagpur plateau. They number about
4000 persons in Raigarh, Sarangarh and the States recently transferred
from Bengal. The physical type of the Turis, Sir H. Risley states,
their language, and their religion place it beyond doubt that they are
a Hinduised offshoot of the Munda tribe. They still speak a dialect
derived from Mundari, and their principal deity is Singbonga or the
sun, the great god of the Mundas: "In Lohardaga, where the caste is
most numerous, it is divided into four subcastes--Turi or Kisan-Turi,
Or, Dom, and Domra--distinguished by the particular modes of basket
and bamboo-work which they practise. Thus the Turi or Kisan-Turi,
who are also cultivators and hold _bhuinhari_ land, make the _sup_,
a winnowing sieve made of _sirki_, the upper joint of _Saccharum
procerum_; the _tokri_ or _tokiya_, a large open basket of split
bamboo twigs woven up with the fibre of the leaves of the _tal_
palm; the _sair_ and _nadua_, used for catching fish. The Ors are
said to take their name from the _oriya_ basket used by the sower,
and made of split bamboo, sometimes helped out with _tal_ fibre. They
also make umbrellas, and the _chhota dali_ or _dala_, a flat basket
with vertical sides used for handling grain in small quantities. Doms
make the _harka_ and scale-pans (_taraju_). Domras make the _peti_
and fans. Turis frequently reckon in as a fifth subcaste the Birhors,
who cut bamboos and make the _sikas_ used for carrying loads slung on
a shoulder-yoke (_bhangi_), and a kind of basket called _phanda_. Doms
and Domras speak Hindi; Turis, Ors and Birhors use among themselves
a dialect of Mundari." [713]