Kurukh

The Kurukh, known to their Munda neighbours as Oraon and as Dhangad in Maharashtra, are a Dravidian tribal people of the Chota Nagpur Plateau, concentrated in what is now Jharkhand with adjoining settlements in neighbouring states.

Their mother tongue, Kurukh, belongs to the northern Dravidian branch alongside Malto and Brahui, and many communities have also adopted the local Sadri and Odia tongues. Kurukh traditions trace their ancestors to the Konkan coast and Coorg in southern India, and the people are said to have reached Chota Nagpur by around 100 CE; another oral account recorded in the nineteenth century describes them holding Rohtasgarh until driven out under the Mughal emperor Akbar.

Long settled as forest farmers around Ranchi and Palamau, the Kurukh joined the Kol uprising of 1832 against the East India Company and local tax lords.