Máris. Tax- huts on the approach of a stranger. Once a year a messenger gathering among the came to them from the local Rájá to take their tribute, which consisted chiefly of jungle products. He did not, however, enter their hamlets, but beat a drum outside, and then hid himself. The shy Máris crept forth, placed what they had to give in an appointed spot, and ran back into their retreats. The Juángs or wearers' Hill Govern ment. Farther to the north-east, in the Tributary States of Orissa, there is a poor tribe, 10,000 in 1872, of Juángs or Patuas, literally the 'leaf-wearers,' whose women wore no clothes. The only covering on the females consisted of a few strings of beads round the waist, with a bunch of leaves tied before and behind. Those under British influence were, in 1871, clothed by clothed by order of the Government, and their Chief was persuaded to do the same work for others. The English officer called together the clan, and after a speech, handed out strips of cotton for the women to put on. They then passed in single file, to the number of 1900, before him, made obeisance to him, and were afterwards marked on the forehead with vermilion, as a sign of their entering into civilised society. Finally, they gathered the bunches of leaves which had formed their sole clothing into a heap, and set fire to it. It is reported, however, that many of the Juáng women have since relapsed to their foliage attire. A relic of the Stone Age. This leaf-wearing tribe had no knowledge of the metals till quite lately, when foreigners came among them; and no word existed in their own language for iron or any other metal. But their country abounds in flint weapons, so that the Juángs Juáng form a remnant to our own day of the Stone Age. 'Their dwellings. huts,' writes the officer who knows them best, 'are among the smallest that human beings ever deliberately constructed as dwellings. They measure about 6 feet by 8. The head of the family and all the females huddle together in this one shell, not much larger than a dog-kennel.' The boys and the young men of the village live in a building apart by themselves; and this custom of having a common abode for the whole male youth of the hamlet is found among many aboriginal tribes in distant parts of India. Himálayan tribes. Proceeding to the northern boundary of India, we find the slopes and spurs of the Himalayas peopled by a great variety of rude tribes. Some of the Assam hillmen have no word for expressing distance by miles nor any land measure, but reckon the length of a journey by the number of quids of tobacco or betel-leaf which they chew upon the way. As a rule, they are fierce, black, undersized, and ill-fed. They eked out a wretched MORE ADVANCED NON-ARYANS. 57 subsistence by plundering the more civilised hamlets of the Assam valley; a means of livelihood which they have but slowly given up under British rule. Some of the wildest of them, like the independent Abars, are now engaged as a sort of irregular police, to keep the peace of the border, in return for a yearly gift of cloth, hoes, and grain. Their very names bear witness to their former wild life. One tribe, the Akas of Assam, is divided into two clans, known respectively as 'The Akas of eaters of a thousand hearths,' and 'The thieves who lurk in the Assam. cotton-field.' advanced non Many of the aboriginal tribes, therefore, remain in the same More early stage of human progress as that ascribed to them by the Vedic poets more than 3000 years ago. But others have made Aryan great advances, and form communities of a well-developed tribes. type. It must here suffice to briefly describe two such races; the Santáls and the Kandhs who inhabit the north-eastern edge of the central plateau. The Santáls have their home among the hills which abut on the Ganges in Lower Bengal. The Kandhs live 150 to 350 miles to the south, among the highlands which look down upon the Orissa delta and Madras coast. Santáls. govern The Santáls dwell in villages in the jungles or among the The mountains, apart from the people of the plains. They numbered about a million in 1872, and give their name to a large District, the SANTAL PARGANAS, 140 miles north-west of Calcutta. Although still clinging to many customs of a hunting forest tribe, they have learned the use of the plough, and settled down into skilful husbandmen. Each hamlet is governed by its own head-man, who is supposed to be a Santál descendant of the original founder of the village, and who is village assisted by a deputy head-man and a watchman. The boys of ment. the hamlet have their separate officers, and are strictly controlled by their own head and his deputy till they enter the married state. The Santáls know not the cruel distinctions of Hindu caste, but trace their tribes, usually numbering seven, to the seven sons of the first parents. The whole village feasts, hunts, and worships together; and the Santál had to take his wife, not from his own tribe, but from one of the six others. So strong is the bond of race, that expulsion from No castes, the tribe was the only Santál punishment. A heinous criminal but strong was cut off from 'fire and water' in the village, and sent forth feeling. alone into the jungle. Minor offences were forgiven upon a public reconciliation with the tribe; to effect which the guilty one provided a feast, with much rice-beer, for his clansmen. tribal The six cere monies. The chief ceremonies in a Santál's life, six in number, vary in different parts of the country, but are all based upon this strong feeling of kinship. The first is the admission of the newly-born child into the family,—a secret rite, one act of which consists in the father placing his hand on the infant's head and repeating the name of the ancestral deity. The second, the admission of the child into the tribe, is celebrated three or five days after birth,—a more public ceremony, at which the child's head is shaved, and the clansmen drink beer. The third ceremony, or admission into the race, takes place about the fifth year; when all friends, whatever may be their tribe, are invited to a feast, and the child is marked on his right arm with the Santál spots. The fourth consists of the union of his own tribe with another by marriage, which does not take place till marriages. the young people can choose for themselves. At the end of the ceremony, the girl's clanswomen pound burning charcoal with the household pestle, in token of the breaking up of her former family ties, and then extinguish it with water, to signify the separation of the bride from her clan. The Santáls respect their women, and seldom or never take a second wife, except for the purpose of obtaining an heir. The fifth ceremony consists of the dismissal of the Santál from the race, by the solemn burning of his body after death. The sixth is the reunion of the dead with the fathers, by floating three fragments of the skull down. the Damodar river (if possible), the sacred stream of the race. Santál Santál religion. The Santál had no conception of bright and friendly gods, such as the Vedic singers worshipped. Still less could he imagine one omnipotent and beneficent Deity, who watches over mankind. Hunted and driven back before the Hindus and Muhammadans, he did not understand how a Being could be more powerful than himself without wishing to harm him. 'What,' said a Santál to an eloquent missionary, who had been discoursing on the Christian God—' what if that strong One should eat me?' Nevertheless, the earth swarms with spirits and demons, whose ill-will he tries to avert. His religion consists of nature-worship, and offerings to the ghosts of his ancestors; and his rites are more numerous even than those of Race-god; the Hindus. First, the Race-god; next, the Tribe-god of each Tribe- of the seven clans; then the Family-god, requires in turn his god; Familygod; Demons. oblation. But besides these, there are the spirits of his forefathers, river-spirits, forest-spirits, well-demons, mountaindemons, and a mighty host of unseen beings, whom he must keep in good humour. He seems also to have borrowed from the Hindus some rites of sun-worship. But his own gods THE SANTALS UNDER BRITISH RULE. 59 dwell chiefly in the ancient sál trees which shade his hamlets. Them he propitiates by offerings of blood; with goats, cocks, and chickens. If the sacrificer cannot afford an animal, it is with a red flower, or a red fruit, that he draws near to his gods. In some hamlets, the people dance round every tree, so that they may not by evil chance miss the one in which the villagespirits happen to be dwelling. British forth from Until nearly the end of the last century, the Santáls were The Santhe pests of the neighbouring plains. Regularly after the táls under December harvest, they sallied forth from their mountains, rule. plundered the lowlands, levied black-mail, and then retired. with their spoil to their jungles. But in 1789, the British Government granted the proprietary right in the soil to the landholders of Bengal under the arrangements which four years later became the Permanent Settlement. Forthwith every landholder tried to increase the cultivated area on his estate, now become his own property. The Santáls and other wild tribes were tempted to issue from their fastnesses by high wages or rent-free farms. Every proprietor,' said a London newspaper, the Morning Chronicle, in 1792, 'is collecting hus- They come bandmen from the hills to improve his lowlands.' The English the hills. officers found they had a new race to deal with, and gradually won the highlanders to peaceful habits by grants of land and 'exemption from all taxes.' They were allowed to settle disputes among themselves by their own customs,' and they were used as a sort of frontier police, being paid to deliver up any of their own people who committed violent crimes. Such criminals, after being found guilty by their countrymen, were handed over for punishment to the English judge. The Santáls gained confidence in us by degrees, and came down in great numbers within the fence of stone pillars, which the British officers set up in 1832 to mark off the country of the hill people from the plains. táls sink The Hindu money-lender soon made his appearance in their The Sansettlements, and the simple hillmen learned the new luxury into debt of borrowing. Our laws were gradually applied to them, and to the before the middle of this century most of the Santál hamlets Hindus. were plunged in debt. Their strong love of kindred prevented them from running away, and the Hindu usurers reduced them to a state of practical slavery, by threatening the terrors of a distant jail. In 1848, three whole villages threw up their clearings, and fled in despair to the jungle. In June 1855, the southern Santáls started in a body, 30,000 strong, with their bows and arrows, to walk 140 miles to Calcutta and Santál rising, 1855. The Breaking up of the race. Kandh patriarchal government. Kandh wars and punish ments. lay their condition before the Governor-General. At first they were orderly; but the way was long, and they had to live. Robberies took place; quarrels broke out between them and the police; and within a week they were in armed rebellion. The rising was put down, not without mournful bloodshed; and their wrongs were carefully inquired into. A very simple form of administration was introduced, according to which their village head-men were brought into direct contact with the English officer in charge of the District, and acted as the representatives of the people. Our system of justice and government has been adapted to their primitive needs, and the Santáls have for years been among the most prosperous of the Indian races. The Kandhs, literally 'The Mountaineers,' a tribe about 100,000 strong in 1872, inhabit the steep and forest-covered ranges which rise inland from the Orissa delta, and the Madras Districts of Ganjám and Vizagapatam. They form one of a group of non-Aryan races who still occupy the position assigned to them by the Greek geographers 1500 years ago. Before that early date, they had been pushed backwards by the advancing Aryans from the fertile delta which lies between the mountains and the sea. One section of the Kandhs was completely broken up, and has sunk into landless low-castes among the Aryan or Hindu communities at the foot of the hills. Another section stood its ground more firmly, and became a peasant militia, holding grants of land from the Hindu chiefs in return for military service. A third section fell back into the fastnesses of the mountains, and was recognised as a wild but free race. It is of this last section that the present chapter treats. The Kandh idea of government is purely patriarchal. The family is strictly ruled by the father. The grown-up sons have no property during his life, but live in his house with their wives and children, and all share the common meal prepared by the grandmother. The clan consists of a number of families, sprung from a common father; and the tribe is made up in like manner from a number of clans who claim descent from the same ancestor. The head of the tribe is usually the eldest son of the patriarchal family; but if he be not fit for the post he is set aside, and an uncle or a younger brother appointed. He enters on no undertaking without calling together the heads of clans, who in their turn consult the heads of families. According to the Kandh theory of existence, a state of war might lawfully be presumed against all neighbours with |