Adam's Reports on Vernacular Education in Bengal and Behar/Report 1/Section 3

Section III.

The District of Orissa Proper or Cuttack.

Population.— According to Mr. Stirling this province or district is divided into three regions, distinguished from each other by climate, general aspect, productions, and institutions. The first is the marshy woodland tract which extends along the sea-shore from the neighborhood of the black Pagoda to the Sabanrekha, varying in breadth from five miles to twenty. The second is the plain and open country between that tract and the hills, the breadth on the north being ten or fifteen miles and never exceeding forty or fifty. The third is the hill country. The first and third are the country occupied by the ancient feudal chieftains of Orissa; the second is that from which the indigenous sovereigns and the Moghul conquerors of the country derived the chief part of their land revenue, and which at present pays a rent to the British Government, whilst the two others yield tribute. The first and third divisions are said not to contain a single respectable village, and in the second or Orissa Proper, the only collections of houses that deserve the name of towns are Cuttack, Balasore and Jugunnauth. The Oorias of the plains are the most mild, quiet, inoffensive, and easily managed people in the Company’s provinces; but they are deficient in manly spirit, ignorant and stupid, dissolute in their manners, and versed in the arts of low cunning, dissimulation, and subterfuge. The inhabitants of the hills and of the jungles on the sea-shore are more shy, sullen, inhospitable, and uncivilized, and their chiefs are grossly stupid, barbarous, debauched, tyrannical, and enslaved to the most grovelling superstition. The paiks or landed militia of these districts combine, with the most profound barbarism and the blindest devotion to the will of their chiefs, a ferocity and unquietness of disposition which render them an important and formidable class of the population of the province.

Exclusive of the regular Ooria population of the Brahmanical persuasion, there are three remarkable races inhabiting the hilly region, viz., the Coles, Kunds and Sours. The Coles are divided into thirteen different tribes. Their original country is said to be Kolaut Des, but they are in possession of parts of Chota Nagpore, Jaspur, Tymar, Patcura and Sinbhoom, have made encroachments upon Mohirbunj, and are found settled in the back parts of Nilgiri. They are a hardy and athletic race, black and ill-favored in their countenances, ignorant and savage, but their wooden houses are neat and comfortable, and they carry on a very extensive cultivation. They own none of the Hindoo divinities, but hold in high veneration the sahajna tree (hyperanthera moranga), paddy, oil expressed from the mustard seed, and the dog. The Kunds are found in great numbers in all the hill estates south of the Mahanadi. They are small in stature and are so wild that every attempt made to civilize them has proved ineffectual. The Sours are found chiefly in the jungles of Khurda. They are in general a harmless and peaceable race, but so entirely destitute of all moral sense, that at the orders of a chief, or for the most trifling remuneration, they will as readily and unscrupulously deprive a human being of life as any wild beast of the woods. In ordinary times they clear the woods and provide fuel for the zemindars and villagers. They also collect the produce of the woods for sale to druggists and fruiterers. They are of small stature, mean appearance, and jet black color, and always carry in their hand an axe for cutting wood, the symbol of their profession. Some are fixed in small villages, and others lead a migratory life. They worship stumps of trees, masses of stone, or clefts in rock. Their language little resembles that spoken by the Oorias, the latter being like the Bengalee, a tolerably pure dialect of the Sanscrit.

This view of the different classes of the population of Orissa would seem to justify the inference that there is no district of those whose condition I am now examining, that more needs both the elevating and restraining moral influences of education.

Orissa Proper, or the second of the three divisions above mentioned, contains 11,915 villages and 243,273 houses, exclusive of the towns of Cuttack, Balasore, and Puri, an enumeration which yields an average of about twenty houses to a village. Mr. Stirling, from data prepared with much care and accuracy, infers that an average rate of five persons per house would not be too high. The entire population is thus made to stand as follows

Village inhabitants (243, 273 × 5)	. . .	1,216,365
Population of the town of Cuttack	. . .	40,000
Population of the town„ of Puri	. . .	30,000
Population of the town„ of Balasore	. . .	10,000
Total	. . .	1,296,365

Of this number not more than an eightieth part would appear to be Musalmans, foreigners, and casual residents, and Mr. Stirling, adopting the average suggested by the returns most to be relied on, estimates the number of children under ten years at about one-third of the whole population.

Indigenous Schools.—Mr. Stirling, in the elaborate account of this district, from which the preceding details are abridged, gives no information whatever on the state of education as conducted by Natives, either in elementary schools or schools of learning. In the description of the town of Puri Jugunnath, it is stated that “the principal street is composed almost entirely of the religious establishments called maths” a name applied in other parts of the country, both in the west and south, to convents of ascetics in which the various branches of Hindoo learning are taught. It may be inferred that they are applied to the same use in Jugunnauth Puri.

In November 1814, the Collector of Cuttack submitted to the Governor General in Council several documents, relative to a claim set up by Maulavi Abdul Karim to a pension or payment of one rupee per diem, which had been allowed by the former Government for the support of a madrasa in the village of Burbah, near Futtaspore, in the Mahratta Pergunnahs of Hidgelee. After a careful examination of the documents, the claim appearing to be valid, the Government authorised the payment of the pension with arrears. This allowance has since been paid annually, Sa. Rupees 365; but I have not been able to learn any thing of the madrasa for the support of which the grant is made.

The only other reference I have observed, connected with education in this district, is in the answer made by the local agents to Government to the inquiries of the General Committee of Public Instruction in 1824, to the effect that they knew of no endowments or funds applicable to the object of public education in the district.

Elementary Schools not Indigenous.—The Missionaries of the General Baptist Missionary Society have, under their superintendence, twelve elementary schools, supported partly by that Missionary Society, and partly by benevolent individuals, friends of education. In these schools about 219 children are taught their Native language, principally by reading the Christian scriptures and religious tracts that have been translated into Ooria. The Missionaries have begun to employ masters capable of understanding the English alphabet, but still retaining the Native method of teaching by writing upon the floor when learning the letters, and thus preparing the scholars for reading books and for writing on paper or the palm-leaf. These schools are scattered over the town of Cuttack and neighborhood; and there is also another school at Bhyreepore near Cuttack, which is attended by most of the children in the village, but the number of scholars attending this school is not stated by my informant, who is himself the superintendent of the schools.