Page:Castes and Tribes of Southern India, Volume 2.djvu/205

Rh which he is guarding. In No. 12 we see the sun rising, its first ray marked with a sort of fork, and the meeting of the king and queen."

It is recorded, in the Gazetteer of the Vizagapatam district, that "throughout the Jeypore country proper, the Dombus (and some Ghāsis) are by far the most troublesome class. Their favourite crime is cattle-theft for the sake of the skins, but, in 1902, a Dombu gang in Naurangpūr went so far as to levy blackmail over a large extent of country, and defy for some months all attempts at capture. The loss of their cattle exasperates the other hill folk to the last degree, and, in 1899, the Naiks (headmen) of sixteen villages in the north of Jeypore tāluk headed an organized attack on the houses of the Dombus, which, in the most deliberate manner, they razed to the ground in some fifteen villages. The Dombus had fortunately got scent of what was coming, and made themselves scarce, and no bloodshed occurred. In the next year, some of the Naiks of the Rāmagiri side of Jeypore tāluk sent round a jack branch, a well-recognised form of the fiery cross, summoning villagers other than Dombus to assemble at a fixed time and place, but this was luckily intercepted by the police. The Agent afterwards discussed the whole question with the chief Naiks of Jeypore and South Naurangpūr. They