Korwa. [607]--A Kolarian tribe of the Chota Nagpur plateau. In 1911
about 34,000 Korwas were returned in the Central Provinces, the great
bulk of whom belong to the Sarguja and Jashpur States and a few to the
Bilaspur District. The Korwas are one of the wildest tribes. Colonel
Dalton writes of them: [608] "Mixed up with the Asuras and not greatly
differing from them, except that they are more cultivators of the
soil than smelters, we first meet the Korwas, a few stragglers of the
tribe which under that name take up the dropped links of the Kolarian
chain, and carry it on west, over the Sarguja, Jashpur and Palamau
highlands till it reaches another cognate tribe, the Kurs (Korkus)
or Muasis of Rewah and the Central Provinces, and passes from the
Vindhyan to the Satpura range.
"In the fertile valleys that skirt and wind among the plateaus other
tribes are now found intermixed with the Korwas, but all admit that
the latter were first in the field and were at one time masters of the
whole; and we have good confirmatory proof of their being the first
settlers in the fact that for the propitiation of the local spirits
Korwa Baigas are always selected. There were in existence within the
last twenty years, as highland chiefs and holders of manors, four Korwa
notables, two in Sarguja and two in Jashpur; all four estates were
valuable, as they comprised substantial villages in the fertile plains
held by industrious cultivators, and great tracts of hill country on
which were scattered the hamlets of their more savage followers. The
Sarguja Korwa chiefs were, however, continually at strife with the
Sarguja Raja, and for various acts of rebellion against the Lord
Paramount lost manor after manor till to each but one or two villages
remained. The two Jashpur thanes conducted themselves right loyally at
the crucial period of the Mutiny and they are now prosperous gentlemen
in full enjoyment of their estates, the only Korwa families left that
keep up any appearance of respectability. One of them is the hereditary
Diwan of Jashpur, lord of the mountain tract of Khuria and Maini,
and chief of perhaps two-thirds of the whole tribe of Korwas. The
other holds an estate called Kakia comprising twenty-two villages.