The Kol legend of origin is that Sing-Bonga or the Sun created a boy
and a girl and put them together in a cave to people the world; but
finding them to be too innocent to give hope of progeny he instructed
them in the art of making rice-beer, which inflames the passions,
and in course of time they had twelve sons and twelve daughters. The
divine origin ascribed by the Kols, in common with other peoples,
to their favourite liquor may be noticed. The children were divided
into pairs, and Sing-Bonga set before them various kinds of food to
choose for their sustenance before starting out into the world; and the
fate of their descendants depended on their choice. Thus the first and
second pairs took the flesh of bullocks and buffaloes, and from them
are descended the Kols and Bhumij; one pair took shell-fish and became
Bhuiyas, two pairs took pigs and were the ancestors of the Santals,
one pair took vegetables only and originated the Brahman and Rajput
castes, and other pairs took goats and fish, from whom the various
Sudra castes are sprung. One pair got nothing, and seeing this the Kol
pair gave them of their superfluity and the descendants of these became
the Ghasias, who are menials in Kol villages and supported by the
cultivators. The Larka Kols attribute their strength and fine physique
to the fact that they eat beef. When they first met English soldiers
in the beginning of the nineteenth century the Kols were quickly
impressed by their wonderful fighting powers, and finding that the
English too ate the flesh of bullocks, paid them the high compliment
of assigning to them the same pair of ancestors as themselves. The
Nagvansi Rajas of Chota Nagpur say that their original ancestor was a
snake-god who assumed human form and married a Brahman's daughter. But,
like Lohengrin, the condition of his remaining a man was that he should
not disclose his origin, and when he was finally brought to satisfy
the incessant curiosity of his wife, he reverted to his first shape,
and she burned herself from remorse. Their child was found by some
wood-cutters lying in the forest beneath a cobra's extended hood,
and was brought up in their family. He subsequently became king,
and his seven elder brothers attended him as banghy-bearers when
he rode abroad. The Mundas are said to be descended from the seven
brothers, and their sign-manual is a kawar or banghy. [545] Hence the
Rajas of Chota Nagpur regard the Mundas as their elder brothers, and
the Ranis veil their faces when they meet a Munda as to a husband's
elder brother. The probable explanation of the story is that the Hos
or Mundas, from whom the kings are sprung, were a separate section of
the tribe who subdued the older Mundas. In memory of their progenitor
the Nagvansi Rajas wear a turban folded to resemble the coils of a
snake with a projection over the brow for its head. [546]