Kol

Clans and Kinship

The Kol are divided into endogamous divisions called baenk or kulhi: Rautia, Rautel, Dassao, Dahait, Kathotia, Birtiya and Thakuria in the Encyclopedia of World Cultures, which notes that Griffiths (1946) counted about twenty-two. In Jabalpur most Kols are Rautia or Thakuria, and in Nagpur mostly Rautia. The baenk were held to differ in rank and did not intermarry, though some, such as Rautel and Kathotia, have begun to. Within these, Russell and Hira Lal (1916) found in Mandla exogamous septs with totemic observances, and marriage within the sept was forbidden. Each village has a council of three elders, the mukhobar, including a headman, the malik, chosen by the villagers.

The septs of the Mandla Kols as Russell and Hira Lal (1916, vol. 3, pp. 510-511) give them, in their order, then some of a separate group reported from Raigarh (which also included the names of the Kawar, Gond, Dhanuhar and Birjhia tribes). This is a list of 1916 from Mandla and Raigarh; no recent list of Kol septs from Rewa or Uttar Pradesh was found.

In the Official Lists

• Scheduled Tribe

  Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh, Maharashtra, Jharkhand, Bihar, Odisha

  Listed as: Kol

  Odisha also lists 'Kolah Loharas, Kol Loharas' as a separate entry, not counted here.

• Scheduled Caste

  Uttar Pradesh

  Listed as: Kol

  Listed as a Scheduled Caste, not a Scheduled Tribe, in Uttar Pradesh (2011 census table of Scheduled Castes).

The Kol are a Scheduled Tribe in Madhya Pradesh and five other states and a Scheduled Caste in Uttar Pradesh. Checked against the 2011 census tables for Scheduled Tribes and for Scheduled Castes and Wikipedia's compilation of the ST order; amendments after 2011 were not checked. The 'Kol' entries of Jharkhand, Bihar and Odisha are small and may cover groups that share the name rather than the Kol of Madhya Pradesh.

Checked on 2026-11-07 against the sources below. The lists are amended from time to time and can differ by district; for a certificate, the current order or the state's list is what counts.

Name and Origin

The Kol of central India consider themselves descendants of Sahara Mata, of the Savaras of epic story, whom they call the mother of the Kol (Encyclopedia of World Cultures). The Kols of Jabalpur and Katni hold that they once lived in the hills of Mewar and fought beside Rana Pratap with the Bhils. Russell and Hira Lal (1916) record a story in which Sing-Bonga, the Sun, made the first boy and girl and their twelve pairs of children chose different foods, from which the different peoples descend. The name Kol was used in older writing for many Munda-speaking peoples of eastern and central India; Russell thought the Kols of the Central Provinces had come from Chota Nagpur.

History

Russell and Hira Lal (1916) counted about 85,000 Kols and Mundas in the Central Provinces in 1911, some 52,000 of them in Jubbulpore district. The Encyclopedia of World Cultures notes that the word Kol was long applied to a whole group of peoples, and that the 'Kol' rising of 1831-32 in Chota Nagpur was the work of the Ho and Munda, after which the old general name dropped out; today it belongs to this people of Madhya Pradesh and Uttar Pradesh, and to a small group in the Nagpur area of Maharashtra. Observers in 1946 thought the Kol close to becoming a caste; the same encyclopedia notes that they have kept an identity of their own.

Faith and Worship

The census of 1961 to 1981 recorded almost all Kols as Hindus (Encyclopedia of World Cultures). The Kol keep their own priest, the panda, who also acts as exorcist and leads the worship of Desai Dur in April and of Sorokhi Devi for the welfare of Kol villages. Family deities are Babadeo Baba and Marhi; village deities include Shankarji, Kherdai, Hardola Baba, Hanuman and Bhainsaur. Kols go on pilgrimage to Allahabad, Bandakpur and Maihar.

Deities named in the sources: Babadeo Baba, Marhi, Sorokhi Devi

Customs

In the Encyclopedia of World Cultures, marriage between cross cousins and between parallel cousins is forbidden; a bride-price, chari, of money, a calf or goat and ornaments was paid, and has been giving way to dowry. Vermilion and bangles mark a married woman. The dead are usually cremated, with pollution ending on the thirteenth day. Festivals include Ramnavami, Dasahra, Raksha Bandhan, Holi, Diwali, Janmashtami and Shabari Jayanti. Russell and Hira Lal (1916) noted that the Kols of Jabalpur and Mandla had adopted the regular Hindu wedding.

Festivals

Stories and Legends