Santal Hound

Santal Hound

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The Santal Hound is named after the Santal tribe among whom it is found in the Hazaribagh district of northern Jharkhand. It is used by these tribals exclusively for hunting which is in both a survival economy as well as in a ritual context as the annual hunts of the tribe called Desom Sendra which has an association with the forest goddess Chandi (and similar to the Arcadian huntress Diana with her hunting dogs),. Over here upto a thousand dogs gather in one forest area in the eastern Hazaribagh district. The dog has been subject of an extensive research and documentation through the Author at the Sanskriti Centre, which is also the office of the Hazaribagh Chapter of INTACH.

The Breed Standard with photos appear Muriel Sanders-Cooke’s work Dogs of All Nations, Vol.II “Wild and Semi-Wild Varieties”. The Breed Standard was developed by the Author and will be given higher on in this Note. The dogs used for DNA testing by the Author have been all carefully selected standard Santal Hound type. A reddish-brown colour is the standard , with short coat; the eyes are almond-shaped and of a yellow to dark brown color.

Male dogs stand seventeen to eighteen inches, females an inch less. It has been observed in dogs of this type found in Bangalore and Mysore that they are heavier in build and one inch higher. Similar dogs among the Bender tribals in Mysore are of lighter build. It would seem that feeding and hunting life affect the dogs’ conformation. The tail is generally clean but sometimes shorter and bushy, carried in a gay curl over the back, the curl increasing when approaching one of their own kind. Though a bark is rarely heard the dogs when hunting only yap, and packs are known for “yodeling” to the moon, which is a polyphonous wailing as in the New Guinea Singing Dog .

The Santals call the dog seuta and kukur, and sometimes affectionately tuio which means jackal. The mixture of black or white in the breed may be taken as an ad-mixture and is absent in the true type found in the jungle villages. The dog is an affectionate inmate of the Santal household in Hazaribagh. The Santal hunts are not associated with agriculture (as with Mundas) and the dogs which take part are treated as hunters since in the ritual distribution of meat from the hunt they receive an apportioned share, according to custom. The dog gets a share along with the hunter of an animal, as well as a special share equal to that given to the widow of a hunter. So he gets a double share

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