Bhil people

“ The pure Bhil is to-day much what he has always been, a savage forest dweller. The Bhils are a stunted race, but well built, active and strong, of a black colour, with high cheek-bones, wide nostrils, broad noses and coarse features. Like all Dravidians the hair is long and wavy. The lowland Bhils are not now easily distinguished from the low-caste Hindus. Surgeon-major T.H. Hendley writes:—“The Bhil is an excellent woodman, knows the shortest cuts over the hills; can walk the roughest paths and climb the steepest crags without slipping or feeling distressed. ”

“ Yet almost within sight of this city are to be found tribes of Bhils, living now as they lived long before the Christian era. They are not agricultural, hardly pastoral, but live chiefly by the chase. With their bows and arrows they hunt the wild game as their forefathers did from time immemorial. They never cared to learn to read or write, and have no literature of any sort, hardly any tradition. Yet the Bhil was there before the Brahmin ”

“ These ceremonies being ended I returned to the ship. Such of the natives as I conversed with about the institution of so extraordinary a society as the Arreoy asserted that it was necessary to prevent an overpopulation. Worrow worrow no te mydidde, worrow worrow te tata. We have too many children and too many men was their constant excuse. Yet it does not appear that they are apprehensive of too great an increase of the lower class of people, none of them being ever admitted into the Arreoy society. ”

“ One of the duties of this official is to know the village boundaries and keep watch and ward over them, and it was supposed that the oldest class of residents would know them best. The Bhīls worked in the office of Mānkar, the superior village watchman, in Nimār and also in Berār. Grant Duff states7 that the Rāmosi or Bhīl was employed as village guard by the Marāthas, and the Rāmosis were a professional caste of village policemen, probably derived from the Bhīls or from the Bhīls and Kolis. ”

“ From Mewár the Bhil tribes reach west to the confines of Gujarát and south to the Deccan plateau. Their status varies as the land they occupy is more or less open and cultivated. In the forests they are independent and self-sufficient, ruled by their own tribal custom, rough perhaps and uncultured, but merry, equal one to the other, not unprosperous. In the civilized tracts, where economic forces of competition have free-play and Hinduism has prevailed, they have sunk to the position of a proletariat, supporting themselves on labour such as they can get and by theft whenever possible. ”

“ Ali Bey, my father-in-law, replied he, often observed there was never such a people as the English; no other nation on earth could be compared to them, and none had so many great men in all professions by sea and land: I never understood this till now, that I see it must be so, when your king cannot find other employment for such a man as you, but sending him to perish by hunger and thirst in the sands, or to have his throat cut by the lawless barbarians of the desert. ”

“ On succession to the Gaddi or headship of the house, representatives of these families are marked with a tīka or badge on the forehead and sometimes presented with a sword, and the investiture may be carried out by custom by the head of another house. Bhilāla landholders usually have the title of Rao or Rāwat. They do not admit that a Bhilāla can now spring from intermarriage between a Rājpūt and a Bhīl. The local Brāhmans will take water from them and they are occasionally invested with the sacred thread at the time of marriage. ”

“ Billy thus becomes one of the main instruments of Providence whereby our hero is set upon his journey and these pages written.
We close this chapter with a saying of the late explorer’s that expresses his views on a somewhat mooted point: “The true definition of civilization, it seems to me, is a state of social unselfishness, combined with useful learning. Knowledge and works that are antagonistic to this state of society, I do not believe to be properly designated as civilized.” ”

“ The shepherd class must remain a shepherd class forever; they could never rise superior to their own surroundings. So, too, in Babylon and India. There was, indeed, a slight variation from the caste system in Egypt and in Babylon, but in India it settled down from the earliest times, and the people and their customs were crystallized; they were bound by the chain of fate in the caste system forever. We shall see, then, that the relation of the population to the soil and the binding influences of early custom tended to develop despotism in Oriental civilization. ”

“ You always told me that I was your bibi, your own dear wife, that you would never leave me, and now you are going and will throw me away as the skin of the mango you have eaten, or as an old coat that you have worn out. You will leave me and go to Wilayat, where you will marry a young mem sahib as all the sahibs do, and she will never know that I am your wife. O Allah! Why did I ever listen to your soft words and become your pyari? Pyari, I have been and true to you in all things. Will you go away and leave me to be called a kusbi by all these people? O Allah! ”

“ What have tales from the south, where the jungly Bhils live, to do with drilled men?”
“When Jan Chinn wakes is no time for any Bhil to be quiet.”
“But he has not waked, Bukta.”
“Sahib”—the old man’s eyes were full of tender reproof—“if he does not wish to be seen, why does he go abroad in the moonlight? We know he is awake, but we do not know what he desires. Is it a sign for all the Bhils, or one that concerns the Satpura folk alone? Say one little word, Sahib, that I may carry it to the lines, and send on to our villages. Why does Jan Chinn ride out? Who has done wrong? ”

“ Yet another tale is current on the Indus, intended to perpetuate the wit and wisdom of Bīrbal.
One day the Emperor begged of his minister to solve the problem of there being so many religious sects in the 117Kingdom, such as the “Roshan.” [5] Bīrbal, it is said, took the Emperor to a large hall, supported by many pillars all similar, but one of which only was of fine gold. There was but a dim light in the hall, and without it, was a large concourse of people. Bīrbal addressed them and said, “You know that all the pillars are much of a shape, but one is of gold; who shall discover this? ”

“ The Ballarat blacks were a scaly lot, to talk of them like ill-fed hogs, as men were wont to do. They dwined and dwindled, as natives will before the resources of civilisation: the bloodthirsty ones got killed out; the rumthirsty ones died out; the wild corroboree was reduced to a poverty-stricken imitation of its former glory. King Billy’s authority grew less with the increase of his clothes. ”

“ In crossing the Indus one comes upon the relics of ancient races in the dark-complexioned, diminutive, but powerfully athletic natives of Guzerat, many of whom are now the coolies or porters of Bombay. Again, scattered over the Vindhyan and Satpurah mountains and the banks of the Nerbudda and Tapti are other tribes of a very peculiar race called Bheels or Bhils, probably from the Sanskrit word "bhil," which signifies "separate" or "outcasts." The legends of these tribes, one and all, trace their origin to the union of the god Mahadèo with a beautiful woman met by him in a forest. ”

“ In 1901 the population of the old single district was 1,427,382, showing an increase of less than 1% in the decade. Of the aboriginal tribes the Bhils are the most important. They number 167,000, and formerly were a wild and lawless robber tribe. Since the introduction of British rule, the efforts made by kindly treatment, and by the offer of suitable employment, to win the Bhils from their disorderly life have been most successful. Many of them are now employed in police duties and as village watchmen. The principal crops are millets, cotton, pulse, wheat and oilseeds. ”

“ Similar alliances have taken place among other tribes, as the Korku chiefs of the Gāwilgarh and Mahādeo hills, and the Gond princes of Garha Mandla. The Bhilālas generally resemble other Hindus in appearance, showing no marked signs of aboriginal descent. Very probably they have all an infusion of Rājpūt blood, as the Rājpūts settled in the Bhīl country in some strength at an early period of history. The caste have, however, totemistic group names; they will eat fowls and drink liquor; and they bury their dead with the feet to the north, all these customs indicating a Dravidian origin. ”

“ Some Bhīls now refuse to take the skins off dead cattle, but others will do so. The Bhīls will take food from any caste except the impure ones, and none except these castes will now take food from [292] them. Temporary or permanent exclusion from caste is imposed for the same offences as among the Hindus.
12. Appearance and characteristics.
The typical Bhīl is small, dark, broad-nosed and ugly, but well built and active. The average height of 128 men measured by Major Hendley was 5 feet 6.4 inches. The hands are somewhat small and the legs fairly developed, those of the women being the best. ”

“ As meaning is always contextual, the inhabitants of the Indian sub-continent in general and the Bengali people and also those who belong to the marginalized nationalities in particular must recognize the central fact that the acknowledgement of situationally unique otherness is indeed unrepeatable. ”

“ Such manners and such characters it would be difficult to find elsewhere in India. With the general Hindu ideal of service, chastity, and effacement they have no common ground. Yet it cannot be doubted that here is a life which makes for happiness and, in its own way, for self-realization. The Bhils are wild and uncultured, of course, and they have to suffer from the fevers of the forest and from wild animals. Of luxury they know nothing and their pleasures are primitive and rather coarse. ”

“ Even in India, the proposal to divide Bengal has suddenly discovered among the Bengalese, the most submissive part of the population, the part which has seemed most devoid of national spirit, the existence and the importance as a political factor of the idea of the Bengalese as a people and of sentiments centred upon that idea. ”

“ On the rolling upland of the Nilghiri Hills in the Presidency of Madras, I saw one of these tribes, the Todas, not a feeble race, for the men are tall and handsome. There are to-day not 2,000 of them all told. But they are wholly unlike all their neighbours, not only in speech, but in appearance, in customs, in their pastoral way of life—a tiny nation, standing alone in the world, and likely in a few generations to vanish for ever. The same thing is happening over most of the earth. Every decade sees some little race or tribe engulfed in the rising tide of the great peoples. ”

“ You have no right to bask in the warmth and glory of a borrowed halo, no right to be proud of your class, be they bourgeois or apaches, unless you conform with—shall we call them?—the duties, the privileges, the customs of your class."
"I am Bibi the—"
"The Killer! So you told me. But, my poor friend, whom do you kill, hein? Are you assassinating people by giving them too much of this salad dressing—which is exquisitely blended, though perhaps a suspicion of garlic would not hurt it? ”

“ The Bhats and Charans, the bards and genealogists of these tribes, are remarkable for their power of reciting from memory whole epics describing the birth, exploits, and death of the various Bhil chiefs. They will also devote themselves to death or to receive the most cruel mutilations in order to keep a promise, accomplish a vow, recover a debt, or to obtain any end which might be secured by inspiring others with superstitious reverence and dread. ”

“ They have started this agitation by vilifying our leaders and attacking both the ideal and the method of the Home Rule movement of this country and I charge that the result of that is racial rancour which I say, it ought to be the endeavour of every honest citizen, be he Indian or be he European, or be he Anglo-Indian, to avoid. Gentlemen, I desire to give you just one or two specimens of that. This is how Sir Archy Birkmyre speaks of the activities of the people. ”

“ Such survivals of old beliefs are common in all the religions of India. The main social impulse of the people was implanted on their minds at the distant epoch of the Aryan settlement, the sense of social and racial inequality which has now hardened into the caste system. ”

“ The Indian arose, shaking his head solemnly, then said softly, "Hudson's Bay boys, eh? Good boys! You good boy to bring him here to trees. We make camp! Your brother's ankle is broken."
"But we must get him home," urged Billy. "We ought to have a doctor. He'll be lame all his life if we don't!" And poor big Billy's voice shook.
"No. No lame. I doctor him," said the Indian. "I good doctor. My name
Five Feathers—me."
"Five Feathers!" exclaimed Billy. "Oh, I've often heard father speak of you. Father loves you. He says you are the best Indian in the whole Hudson's Bay country." ”

“ He said that in his travels into the Caffre country he had met with a native who described to him that there was a white woman among his countrymen who had a child, and that she frequently embraced the child and cried most violently. ”

“ No white man’s eye could have detected the slightest sign of the track that Billy now commences to follow, but to an aboriginal it is a fairly clear one. Here and there an overturned stone, a broken twig, or a crushed leaf make it patent to the young man that some one has passed this way towards the village only a short time before. This is a cheerful sign for Billy, knowing as he does that so great is the fear that his friends the villagers have of being discovered by the neighbouring squatters, that it was highly probable they might have shifted their camp upon his leaving for the station. ”