CRUSHED TRIBES; PREDATORY CLANS. 71

In the North-Western Provinces, Their

races in

nearly 60 distinct tribes.1 16 tribes of aborigines were enumerated in the Census of 1872. principal In the Central Provinces they numbered 1 millions (1872); the 1872. ancient race of Gonds, who ruled the central table-land before the rise of the Maráthás, alone amounting to 1 millions. In British Burma, the Karens, whose traditions have a singularly Jewish tinge, numbered 330,000 in 1872, and 518,294 in 1881.

In Oudh, the nationality of the aboriginal tribes has been Crushed buried beneath waves of Rájput and Muhammadan invaders. tribes. For example, the Bhars, formerly the monarchs of the centre and east of that Province, and the traditional fort-builders to whom all ruins are popularly assigned, were stamped out by Ibráhím Shárki of Jaunpur, in the 15th century. The Gaulis or ancient ruling race of the Central Provinces, the Ahams of Assam, and the Gonds, Chandels, and Bundelas of Bundelkhand,2 are other instances of crushed races. In centres of the Aryan civilisation, the aboriginal peoples have been pounded down in the mortar of Hinduism, into the low-castes and out-castes on which the social fabric of India rests. A few of them, how- Gipsy ever, still preserve their ethnical identity as wandering tribes clans. of jugglers, basket-weavers, and fortune-tellers. Thus, the

Náts, Bediyas, and other gipsy clans are recognised to this day as distinct from the surrounding Hindu population.

tribes on

The aboriginal races on the plains have supplied the Aboriginal hereditary criminal classes, alike under the Hindus, the criminal Muhammadans, and the British. Formerly organized robber the plains. communities, they have, under the stricter police of our days, sunk into petty pilferers. But their existence is still recognised by the Criminal Tribes Act, passed so lately as 1871, and still enforced within certain localities of Oudh and Northern India.

hill races.

The non-Aryan hill races, who appear from Vedic times down- Predatory wards as marauders, have at length ceased to be a disturbing element in India. But many of them figure as predatory clans in Muhammadan and early British history. They sallied forth from their mountains at the end of the autumn harvest, pillaged and burned the lowland villages, and retired to their fastnesses laden with the booty of the plains. The measures

1 1 Among them may be noted the Santáls, 850,000 under direct British administration, total about a million in 1872; Kols, 300,000; Uráons or Dhangars, 200,000; and Mundas, 175,000-within British territory. In Assam-Cacharís, 200,000; Khásis, 95,000. These figures all refer to

1872.

See for the origin of the Bundelas, Mr. J. Beames' Races of the NorthWestern Provinces, vol. i. p. 45, etc. (1869).

Character

of the non-Aryan tribes.

The non

tribes as

by which these wild races have been reclaimed, form some of the most honourable episodes of Anglo-Indian rule. Cleveland's Hill-Rangers in the last century, and the Bhils and Mhairs in more recent times, are well-known examples of how marauding races may be turned into peaceful cultivators and loyal soldiers. An equally salutary transformation has taken place in many a remote forest and hill tract of India. The firm order of British rule has rendered their old plundering life no longer a possible one, and at the same time has opened up to them new outlets for their energies. A similar vigilance is now being extended to the predatory tribes in the Native States. The reclamation of the wild Moghias of Central India, and their settlement into agricultural communities, has been effected by British officers within the past five years.

The hill and forest tribes differ in character from the tamer population of the plains. Their truthfulness, sturdy loyalty, and a certain joyous bravery, almost amounting to playfulness, appeal in a special manner to the English mind. There is scarcely a single administrator who has ruled over them for any length of time without finding his heart drawn to them, and leaving on record his belief in their capabilities for good. Lest the traditional tenderness of the Indian Civil Service to the people should weaken the testimony of such witnesses, it may be safe to quote only the words of soldiers with reference to the tribes with which each was specially acquainted.

'They are faithful, truthful, and attached to their superiors,' Aryan hill writes General Briggs; 'ready at all times to lay down their soldiers. lives for those they serve, and remarkable for their indomitable courage. These qualities have always been displayed in our service. The aborigines of the Karnatik were the sepoys of Clive and of Coote. A few companies of the same stock joined the former great captain from Bombay, and helped to fight the battle of Plassey in Bengal, which laid the foundation of our Indian Empire. They have since distinguished themselves in the corps of pioneers and engineers, not only in India, but in Ava, in Afghánistán, and in the celebrated defence of Jalálábád. An unjust prejudice against them grew up in the native armies of Madras and Bombay, produced by the feelings of contempt for them existing among the Hindu and Muhammadan troops. They have no prejudices themselves; are always ready to serve abroad and embark on board ship; and I believe no instance of mutiny has ever occurred among them.' Since General Briggs wrote these

HIGH QUALITIES OF NON-ARYANS.

73

sentences, the non-Aryan hill races have supplied some of the bravest and most valued of our Indian regiments, particularly the gallant little Gurkhas.

Dixon

on the

Colonel Dixon's report, published by the Court of Directors, Colonel portrays the character of the Mhair tribes with admirable minuteness. He dilates on their 'fidelity, truth, and honesty,' their Mhairs. determined valour, their simple loyalty, and an extreme and almost touching devotion when put upon their honour. Strong as is the bond of kindred among the Mhairs, he vouches for their fidelity in guarding even their own relatives as prisoners when formally entrusted to their care. For centuries they had been known only as exterminators; but beneath the considerate handling of one Englishman, who honestly set about understanding them, they became peaceful subjects and welldisciplined soldiers.

work

among the

Sir James Outram, when a very young man, did the same Outram's good work for the Bhíls of KHANDESH. He made their chiefs his hunting companions, formed the wilder spirits into a Bhil Bhils. battalion, and laid the basis for the reclamation of this formerly intractable race. (See also THE DANGS, Imperial Gazetteer of India.)

the hill

races.

Every military man who has had anything to do with the aboriginal races acknowledges, that once they admit a claim on their allegiance, nothing tempts them to a treacherous or disloyal act. 'The fidelity to their acknowledged chief,' wrote Captain Fidelity of Hunter, 'is very remarkable; and so strong is their attachment, that in no situation or condition, however desperate, can they be induced to betray him. If old and decrepit, they will convey him from place to place, to save him from his enemies.' Their obedience to recognised authority is absolute; and Colonel Tod relates how the wife of an absent chieftain procured for a British messenger safe-conduct and hospitality through the densest forests by giving him one of her husband's arrows as a token. The very officers who have had to act most sharply against them speak most strongly, and often not without a noble regret and self-reproach, in their favour. was not war,' Major Vincent Jervis writes of the operations against the Santáls in 1855. 'They did not understand yielding; as long as their national drums beat, the whole party would stand, and allow themselves to be shot down. They were the most truthful set of men I ever met.'

'It

Ethnical distribution of Indian

We have seen that India may be divided into three regions— the Himalayas on the north, the great River Plains that stretch races.

southward from their foot, and the Three-sided Table-land which slopes upwards again from the River Plains, and covers the whole southern half of India. Two of these regions, the Himalayas on the north, and the Three-sided Table-land in the south, still afford retreats to the non-Aryan tribes. The third region, or the great River Plains, became in very ancient times the theatre on which a nobler race worked out its civilisation.

CHAPTER IV.

THE ARYANS IN ANCIENT INDIA.

STOCK.

THIS nobler race belonged to the ARYAN or Indo-Germanic THE stock, from which the Brahman, the Rájput, and the English- ARYAN man alike descend. Its earliest home, visible to history, was in Central Asia. From that common camping-ground, certain branches of the race started for the east, others for the west. One of the western offshoots founded the Persian kingdom ; another built Athens and Lacedæmon, and became the Hellenic nation; a third went on to Italy, and reared the City on the Its Seven Hills, which grew into Imperial Rome. A distant European colony of the same race excavated the silver-ores of prehistoric Spain; and when we first catch a sight of ancient England, we see an Aryan settlement fishing in wattle canoes, and working the tin mines of Cornwall. Meanwhile, other Its branches of the Aryan stock had gone forth from the primitive Eastern home in Central Asia to the east. Powerful bands found their way through the passes of the Himalayas into the Punjab, and spread themselves, chiefly as Bráhmans and Rájputs, over India

branches.

branches.

their

We know little regarding these Aryan tribes in their early The camping-ground in Central Asia. From words preserved in Aryans in the languages of their long-separated descendants in Europe primitive and India, scholars infer that they roamed over the grassy home. steppes with their cattle, making long halts to rear crops of grain. They had tamed most of the domestic animals; were acquainted with a hard metal, probably iron,' and silver; 2 understood the arts of weaving and sewing; wore clothes; and ate cooked food. They lived the hardy life of the temperate zone, and the feeling of cold seems to be one of the earliest common remembrances of the eastern and the western branches of the race. Ages afterwards, when the Vedic singers in hot

1 Sanskrit, ayas, iron or, in a more general sense, metal, including gold but not copper in Sanskrit; Latin, aes, aeris, copper, bronze; Gothic, ais, eisam; old German, er, iron; modern German, eisen.

* Sanskrit, kharjura, silver; Latin, argentum; Greek, äpyupos, apɣúpiny.