Analysis of information sources in references of the Wikipedia article "Musahar" in English language version.
In Hazaribagh the tribe again gathers strength and in Southern Behar we meet with Bhuiyas in large numbers bearing the opprobrious name of Musahar (rat-eater) but invariably calling themselves by their original tribal designation, which in Behar at any rate is not associated with any claim to hold land on privileged terms. The present distribution of the tribe seems, in fact, to accord fairly well with the hypothesis that the south of the Chota Nagpur country may have been the original centre of distribution. Spreading from that point, their social fortunes seem to have been determined by the character of the people with whom they came in contact. The stronger non-Aryan tribes—Mundas, Hos, and Santals—cut like a wedge through the line of the Bhuiya advance towards the north. A small number successfully established themselves in Hazaribagh, beyond the range of Mundas, while those who travelled furthest in this direction fell under the domination of Hindus in Behar and were reduced to the servile status which the Musahars now occupy. Travelling southward from the assumed centre, the conditions appear to have been more favourable, and the tendency has been for the Bhuiyas to rise rather than to decline in social status. Some of their leading families have come to be chiefs of the petty States of Orissa and have merged their identity in the claim to quasi-Rajput descent. The main body of the southern colonists furnished the tribal militia of Orissa and have now sunk the Bhuiya in the Khond or Swordsman—a caste of admitted respectability in Orissa and likely in course of time to transform itself into some variety of Rajput.
Nesfield used the word 'Mushera' to describe the native population inhabiting the eastern part of the Gangetic Plain near present-day Mirzapur. He preferred the word 'Mushera' based on an old folktale, which signifies "flesh-seeker" or "hunter," derived from the word masu meaning flesh and hera meaning seeker. Their struggle for existence in the face of the growth of towns and villages forced them to scatter all over. A few of them even penetrated into Assam, where, according to the Census of 1881, they numbered some 4,000 in the districts of northern India between Assam and Rohilkhand
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