upled with the Bhils and Kolis in old
Hindu accounts.

The Savars, Sawaras or Saonrs are also a widely distributed tribe,
being found as far west as Bundelkhand and east in Orissa and
Ganjam. In the Central Provinces they have lost their own language and
speak Hindi or Uriya, but in Madras they still retain their original
speech, which is classified by Sir G. Grierson with Gadba as a Munda
or Kolarian dialect. The name occurs in Vedic literature, and the
tribe is probably of great antiquity. In the classical stories of
their origin the first ancestor of the Savars is sometimes described
as a Bhil. The wide extension of the Savar tribe east and west is
favourable to the hypothesis of the identity of the Kols and Kolis,
who have a somewhat similar distribution. The Gadbas of Ganjam, and
the Mal or Male Paharia tribe of Chota Nagpur seem to be offshoots
of the Savars. The Khairwars or Kharwars are an important tribe of
Mirzapur and Chota Nagpur. There is some reason for supposing that
they are an occupational offshoot of the Kols and Cheros, who have
become a distinct group through taking to the manufacture of edible
catechu from the wood of the _khair_ tree. [71]

Another great branch of the Kolarian family is that represented by the
Bhuiya and Baiga tribes and their offshoots, the Bhunjias, Bhainas and
Binjhwars. The Kolarian origin of the Bhuiyas has been discussed in the
article on that tribe, and it has also been suggested that the Baiga
tribe of the Central Provinces are an offshoot of the Bhuiyas. These
tribes have all abandoned their own languages and adopted the local
Aryan vernaculars. The name Bhuiya is a Sanskrit derivative from _bhu_,
earth, and signifies 'belonging to the soil.' Bhumij, applied to a
branch of the Kol tribe, has the same origin. Baiga is used in the
sense of a village priest or a sorcerer in Chota Nagpur, and the office
is commonly held by members of the Bhuiya tribe in that locality,
as being the oldest residents. Thus the section of the tribe in the
Central Provinces appears to have adopted, or been given, the name of
the office. The Bharias or Bharia-Bhumias of Jubbulpore seem to belong
to the great Bhar tribe, once dominant over large areas of the United
Provinces. They also hold the office of village priest, which is there
known as Bhumia, and in some tracts are scarcely distinguished from
the Baigas. Again, in Sambalpur the Bhuiyas are known as Bhumia Kol,
and are commonly regarded as