The Mundari language has no words for the village trades nor for
the implements of cultivation, and so it may be concluded that prior
to their contact with the Hindus the Mundas lived on the fruits and
roots of the forests and the pursuit of game and fish. Now, however,
they have taken kindly to several kinds of labour. They are much
in request on the Assam tea-gardens owing to their good physique
and muscular power, and they make the best bearers of dhoolies or
palanquins. Kol bearers will carry a dhoolie four miles an hour
as against the best Gond pace of about three, and they shake the
occupant less. They also make excellent masons and navvies, and are
generally more honest workers than the other jungle tribes. A Munda
seldom comes into a criminal court.