Khonds

“ Always we must be wary! A very pleasing example of inconsistency in reports about the same race may be found in a comparison of the account of the Khonds in the thirteenth volume of the Royal Asiatic Society with the account given by General Campbell in his Personal Narrative, The inquirer in the former case did not know the Khond language, and trusted to interpreters, who were later expelled from the public service. ”

“ More or less under Hindu influence, the Khonds have a fourfold division, as follows: the first soul is that capable of beatification or restoration to Boora the Good Deity; the second is attached to a Khond tribe on earth and is re-born generation after generation, so that at the 435birth of each child the priest asks who has returned; the third goes out to hold spiritual intercourse, leaving the body in a languid state, and it is this soul which can pass for a time into a tiger, and transmigrates for punishment after death; the fourth dies on the dissolution of the body. ”

“ It is rather remarkable that although the Khonds avail themselves of the services of the Pannoos, and are very glad to purchase victims, they bear an intense hatred and contempt toward them, and, except in the way of business, will have no dealings with them. ”

“ It is a very old city and the see of a bishop, and has an archaeological museum for church antiquities.
KHONDS, or Kandhs, an aboriginal tribe of India, inhabiting the tributary states of Orissa and the Ganjam district of Madras. At the census of 1901 they numbered 701,198. Their main divisions are into Kutia or hill Khonds and plain-dwelling Khonds; the landowners are known as Raj Khonds. Their religion is animistic, and their pantheon includes eighty-four gods. They have given their name to the Khondmals, a subdivision of Angul district in Orissa: area, 800 sq. ”

“ The marriage ceremonies of the Dēsa Pānos are closely allied to those of the Dandāsis and Haddis, whereas those of the Khonda Pānos bear a close resemblance to the ceremonies of the Khonds. Like Khond girls, unmarried Khond Pāno girls sleep in quarters (dhangadi) specially set apart for them, and, as among the Khonds, wedding presents in the form of gontis are given. It is noted with reference to the Khonds, in the Ganjam Manual, that "the bride is looked upon as a commercial speculation, and is paid for in gontis. A gonti is one of anything, such as a buffalo, a pig, or a brass pot ”

“ A similar rule applies among some of the other groups, a man being relegated to his wife’s division when he marries into one which is lower than his own. The Dal Khonds may probably have been soldiers, the word dal meaning an army. They are also known as Adi Kandh or the superior Khonds, and as Bālūsudia or ‘Shaven.’ At present they usually hold the honourable position of village priest, and have to a certain extent adopted Hindu usages, refusing to eat fowls or buffaloes, and offering the leaves of the tulsi (basil) to their deities. ”

“ A narrow cloth is bound round the loins, [364] with Tartan ends which hang down in front and behind, and a coarse long-cloth is wrapped round the figure when the weather is cold. The war dress of the Khonds is elaborate, and consists of a leather cuirass in front, and a flowing red cloak, which, with an arrangement of ‘bison’ horns and peacock’s feathers, is supposed to strike awe into the beholder’s mind. Khond women wear a red or parti-coloured skirt reaching the knee, the neck and bosom being left bare. ”

“ Except in the Goomsur Māliahs, paddy (rice) cultivation is not extensively carried on by the Khonds; elsewhere it is chiefly in the hands of the Uriyas. The Khonds take little trouble in raising their crops. The result is that, except in the Goomsur Māliahs, where they grow crops to sell in the market for profit, we find a poverty-stricken race, possessing hardly any agricultural stock, and no signs of affluence. ”

“ The Khonds never sacrifice a criminal, or a prisoner captured in war. It must always be purchased—the price paid is from 60 to 200 Rupees, and the price is paid either in brass vessels, cattle, or coin, or partly in each.
The Janee or priest (who may be of any caste) officiates at the sacrifice, but he performs the pooja offering of incense, flowers, &c. to the idol, through the medium of the Toomba, who must be a Khond child under seven years of age. This child is fed and clothed at the public expense, and eats with no other person, and is not subjected to any act deemed impure. ”

“ The Khonds use neither temples nor images in their worship. They cannot comprehend and regard as absurd the idea of building a house in honour of a deity, or in the expectation that he will be peculiarly present in any place resembling a human habitation. Groves kept sacred from the axe, hoar rocks, the tops of hills, fountains, and the banks of streams, are in their eyes the fittest places for worship. ”

“ A man of the Panua tribe was once seen to load a Khond with curses, and finally to spit in his face, because the Khond had sold for a victim his own child, whom the Panua had wished to marry. A party of Khonds, who saw this, immediately pressed forward to comfort the seller of his child, saying, "Your child has died that all the world may live, and the Earth Goddess herself will wipe that spittle from your face." ”

“ Even the Khonds, who will be presently described, ready as they are to fight among each other, and skilled as they are in the use of the bow and the battle-axe, stand in awe of the Sowrahs, and do not like to be drawn into a quarrel with them. They are especially afraid of these enemies, because the favorite mode of attack with the Sowrahs is to make a raid under cover of night, and, after securing all the plunder they can seize, and doing all the harm in their power, to return to their hill fastnesses as rapidly as they issued from them. ”

“ Campbell describes how the miserable victim is dragged along the fields, surrounded by a crowd of half intoxicated Khonds, who, shouting and screaming, rush upon him, and with their knives cut the flesh piecemeal from the bones, avoiding the head and bowels, till the living skeleton, dying from loss of blood, is relieved from torture, when its remains are burnt, and the ashes mixed with the new grain to preserve it from insects. ”

“ A Khond has been known to ruin himself for the sake of his friend. He willingly sacrifices all that he has, and even his life, to protect the interests of his friend. The friends have nothing but affection for each other." * [29]
It is noted, in the Gazetteer of the Vizagapatam district, that "the Khonds steal cattle, especially those belonging to Brinjāri gangs, in an open manner, for the sake of their flesh. ”

“ The Khonds dislike marrying among themselves, and seek their wives among distant tribes, alleging as a reason that they can purchase them at a cheaper rate. But General Campbell tried to show them that if they were to rear their own female children, they would find them much cheaper as wives, and recommended them, as a beginning, to marry their Meriah women, for whom a high price had already been paid. ”

“ The inhabitants mostly belong to the aboriginal race of Khonds. A murderous outbreak against Hindu settlers called for armed intervention in 1882. The chief, Raghu Kishor Deo, was murdered by a servant in 1897, and during the minority of his son, Brij Mohan Deo, the state was placed in charge of a British political agent. ”

“ The citizens of Madras or Calcutta would feel themselves greatly scandalized if they knew that they were classed with these degraded tribes, whom they view as we do the American Indians or the South Sea Islanders; and they would revolt at the idea of the atrocities of the Khonds being considered a part or a representation of their system and acts.
The cultivation of the Erulars consists in scratching the earth with a stick, and throwing in the seed. When the grain is ripe, they take up their abode in its neighbourhood, and live upon it until it is gone. ”

“ Their profession is weaving or brass work, the monotony of which they vary by petty trading in horns, skins and live cattle, and occasionally enliven by house-breaking and theft at the expense of the Khonds, who have an incautious trick of leaving their habitations utterly unguarded when they go off to the hills to cultivate. [In the Madras Census Report, 1901, the Sitras are said to be supposed to be the progeny of a Khond man and a Haddi woman, who manufacture the brass rings and bangles worn by the Khonds.] The Pānos are drunken, immoral, and dirty in their habits. ”

“ Villages nearer civilization, however, exhibit curiously the transition which is occurring. In Chollapadam in Párvatípur taluk (to give only one instance) are simultaneously worshipped the Khonds' ancient Kondadévata, nameless mountain spirits who dwell in a cave on the hills; Jákara, the aboriginal Khond deity, to whom a Khond janni is priest; Pólamma, a village deity imported from the Telugu country whose priest is a Játapu, or civilized Khond; and Kásivisvésvara, an orthodox god of the Hindu pantheon, at whose shrine a Jangam (Lingáyat) officiates and who has a festival at Sivarátri. ”

“ There is no restriction of age, sex, or caste, but adults are thought more acceptable because they are more costly, and the healthy more likely to propitiate the gods than the [1390] sick or feeble. That the Meriah should be sacrificed is thought an absolutely necessary condition for the prosperity of every undertaking, but especially for the growth of the crops, and the Khonds therefore use every endeavor to secure a succession of victims. ”

“ The huge bamboo pole, with its crown of red and white cloth and peacock's feathers, and incongruous shreds of dried pig's flesh, was now erected in the centre of the village. The comparative quiet in the village did not last long, for on a sudden the air was rent with a succession of shrieks. With the sound of the beating of Māliah drums, and the blowing of buffalo horns, a party of Khonds came madly dancing and rushing down a steep hillside from some neighbouring village. ”

“ Their superior intelligence enables them to lead the Khonds by the nose, their talent for cattle-theft (see p. 204) makes them not only hated but feared, their supposed powers over devils and witches result in their being consulted when troubles appear, and their skill in weaving and petty trading is rendering them well-to-do. Some of them are cultivators.All the native Christians of the Agency are recruited from this caste.
The Dombus seem to consist of six subdivisions; namely; Mirigáni and Kobbiriya, who live round Kótapád and with whom the others will neither dine nor intermarry ”

“ The members of the Sitra sub-division are workers in metal.” It is further noted, in the Census Report, 1901, that the Pānos are “an extensive caste of hill weavers found chiefly in the Ganjam Agency. The Khond synonym for this word is Domboloko, which helps to confirm the connection between this caste and the Dombas of Vizagapatam. They speak Khond and Oriya.” In a note on the Pānos, I read that “their occupations are trading, weaving, and theft. They live on the ignorance and superstition of the Khonds as brokers, pedlars, sycophants, and cheats. ”

“ In Asia, the Samoyed’s little spirits that are bound to his little fetishes, and the little elves of wood and stream, have greater beings above them, the Forest-Spirit, the River-Spirit, the Sun and Moon, the Evil Spirit and the Good Spirit above all. [599] The countless host of the local gods of the Khonds pervade the world, rule the functions of nature, and control the life of men, and these have their chiefs; above them rank the deified souls of men who have become tutelary gods of tribes ”

“ In Orissa, the most northern of the hill-tribes [140] are the Kól of Cuttack. South of these come the Khonds best studied in the neighbourhood of Goomsoor. The following is a list of their gods, and as n seems to stand for d, Pennu is but another name for Bedo, and Gossa Pennu for Bedo Gosaik:—
1. ”

“ They cannot but admit that the man was killed, but attribute his death to accident, such as being carried off by a tiger, or bitten by a snake.
Pride forms a great element in the Khond character. The people are fond of their land, and nothing can induce a Khond to sell one yard of ground to a foreigner, nor even to part with a single tree that grows on that soil. Generally, they are too proud to barter, but leave that business to the Pannoo tribes, by whom, as may be remembered, the Meriah victims are generally furnished. ”

“ The Khond sets up the iron arrow of the War-god in a basket of rice, and judges from its standing upright that war must be kept up also, or from its falling that the quarrel may be let fall too; and when he tortures human victims sacrificed to the Earth-goddess, he rejoices to see them shed plentiful tears, which betoken copious showers to fall upon his land. ”

“ In Kālāhandi a lamb is sacrificed every year, and strips of its flesh distributed to all the villagers, who bury it in their fields as a divine agent of fertilisation, in the same way as the flesh of the human victim was formerly buried. The Khond worships his bow and arrows before he goes out hunting, and believes that every hill and valley has its [474] separate deity, who must be propitiated with the promise of a sacrifice before his territory is entered, or he will hide the animals within it from the hunter, and enable them to escape when wounded. ”