Page:Castes and Tribes of Southern India, Volume 3.djvu/397

Rh portion of which has been expended in drink, the repayment being exacted in land. 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. In Kimedi, however, they are beginning to follow the example of Goomsur, and doubtless their material prosperity would much increase if some check could be devised to save them from the Uriyas and Sondis, who are steadily acquiring all the wet land, and utilising the Khonds merely as cultivators."

It is noted by Mr. F. Fawcett (1902)* that "up to within fifteen years ago, the Khônds of the Ganjam hills would not engage in any ordinary labour. They would not, for example, carry even the smallest article of the district officer's luggage. Elephants were accordingly provided by Government for carriage of tents and all camp luggage. But there has come a change, and, within the last ten years or so, the Khônds have taken to work in the ordinary way. Within the last few years, for the first time, the Khônds have been emigrating to Assam, to work in the tea-gardens. Accurate figures are not available, but the estimate of the best authority gives the number as about 3,000. This emigration is now stopped by edict. Of course, they do not set out, and go of their own accord. They are taken. The strange thing is that they go willingly." It was enacted, in an order of Government, in 1901, † that "in