Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 3.djvu/442

426 timid, quiet, docile race, and although addicted to drinking are not quarrelsome. They inhabit the densest jungles, and are very shy, avoiding contact with strangers, and fly ing to the hills on the least alarm ; but they bear a good character for honesty and truthfulness. They are very scantily dressed, wear a variety of trinkets, with a knife, hatchet, spear, bow and arrow, the only weapons they use. Their hair is generally shaved, excepting a topknot ; and when not shaved it gets into a matted, tangled mass, gathered into a knot behind or on the crown. The Marls, a class of the Mariils, live in still denser jungles, and have little or no communication with the outside world. The Marias and the Jhurias are supposed to be a subdivision of the true Gond family. All the aboriginal tribes of Bastar worship the deities of the Hindu pantheon along with their own national goddess Danteswari.

{{11fine|The eastern part of Bastar is a flat elevated plateau, from 1800 to 2300 feet above the level of the sea, the centre and north-west portions are very mountainous, and the southern parts are a mix ture of hill and plain. On the plateau there are but few hills; the streams run slowly, and the country is a mixture of plain and undulating ground covered by dense sal forests. Principal moun tains of the district (1), A lofty range which separates it from the Sironcha district; (2), a range of equal height called the Bela Dila lying in the centre of the district ; (3), a range running north and south near Narayanpur ; (4), Tangri Dongi i range, running cast and west; (5), Tulsi Dongri, bordering on the Sabari River and the Jaipur state. There is also a small range running from the River Indravati to the Godavari. The Indravati, the Sabari, and the Tal or Talper, are the chief rivers of the district; all of them affluents of the Godavari. The soil throughout the greater portion of Bastar consists of light clay, with an admixture of sand, suited for raising rice and wet crops. Rice, sugar, and a little wheat and gjram are the agricultural products cf Bastar. In the jungles the Marias and Maris rear kosra (Panicum itnlicum} and other inferior grains. The aboriginal races generally follow the migratory system of tillage, clearing the jungle on selected patches, and after taking crops for two or three years abandoning them for new ground. Man s do not use the plough; nor do they possess buffaloes, bullocks, or cows; their only agricultural implement is a long-handled iron hoe. Lac, resin, wax, galls, horns, rice, a red dye called scndri, wild arrow-root, molasses, teakwood, and tasar-silk cocoons, are the chief staples of export. The imports, which considerably exceed tho exports, consist of salt, piece-goods, brass utensils, cocoa-nuts, pepper, spices, opium, turmeric, cotton, wheat, &c. Iron-ore is found towards the eastern portion of the state, but is not much worked; gold is also found in certain places. Bastar is divided into two portions that held by the Raja or chief himself, and that pos sessed by feudatory chiefs under him. There is not a single made road within the principality. The climate of Bastar is unhealthy fever, smallpox, dysentery, diarrhoea, and rheumatism being the prevailing diseases. Jagdalpur, Bijapur, Madder, and Bhupalpatnam are the only places of any note in the dependency, the first-named being the residence of the Raja and the chief people of the state. The grossest ignorance and superstition prevail, and the people live in constant fear of being bewitched or ruined by malicious magicians. The family of the Raja of Bastar claims to be of the purest Rajput blood, and traces its origin to Warangal in the Dakhin, about the commencement of the 14th century. The revenue of Bastdr is supposed to be 3610; the tribute paid by the chief to the British Government is 305, 12s.}|undefined}  BASTARD is a person born out of lawful wedlock, i.e., whose parents have not been married previous to his birth. The rules by which legitimacy is determined vary chiefly as to the effect to be assigned to the subsequent marriage of the bastard s parents. The law of Scotland, and of most Continental countries, following the rules of the civil and canon law, legitimizes the bastard whose parents afterwards marry. The same principle was at one time advocated by the clergy in England, but summarily rejected by the famous statute of Mertou (20 Hen. III. c. 9). The English law, however, takes no account of the interval between the marriage and the birth ; provided the birth happens after the marriage, the offspring is legitimate. The presumption of law is in favour of the legitimacy of the child of a married woman, and at one time it was so strong that Lord Coke held that &quot; if the husband be within the four seas, i.e., within the jurisdiction of the king of England, and tbe wife hath issue, no proof shall be admitted to prove the child a bastard unless the husband hath an apparent impossibility of procreation.&quot; It is now settled, however, that the presumption of legitimacy may be rebutted by evidence showing non-access on the part of the husband, or any other circumstance showing that the husband could not in the course of nature have been the father of his wife s child. If the husband had access, or the access be not clearly negatived, and others at the same time were carrying on a criminal intercourse with the wife, a child born under such circumstances is legitimate. If the husband had access intercourse must be presumed, unless there is irresistible evidence to the contrary. Neither husband nor wife will be permitted to prove the non-access directly or indirectly. Children born after a divorce a mensa et thoro will be presumed to be bastards unless access be proved. A child born so long after the death of a husband that he could not in the ordinary course of nature have been its father is illegitimate. The period of gestation is presumed to ba about nine calendar months ; and if there were any circumstances from which an un usually long or short period of gestation could be inferred, special medical testimony would be required. A marriage between persons within the prohibited degrees of affinity was before 1835 not void, but only voidable, and the ecclesiastical courts were restrained from bastardizing the issue after the death of either of the parents. Lord Lyndhurst s Act declared all such existing marriages valid, but all future marriages between persons within the pro hibited degrees of consanguinity or affinity were made null and void, and the issue illegitimate. (See .) By 21 and 22 Viet. c. 93, application may be made to the Court of Divorce and Matrimonial Causes (in Scotland to the Court of Session by action of declarator) for a declaration of legitimacy and of the validity of a marriage. The law relating to the maintenance of bastard children is governed by a considerable number of statutes passed during the present reign, the Acts of 1872 and 1873 being the last. The mother of a bastard may summon the putative father to Petty Sessions within twelve months of the birth (or at any later time if he is proved to have contri buted to the child s support within twelve months after the birth), and the justices, after hearing evidence on both sides, may, if the mother s evidence be corroborated in some material particular, adjudge the man to be the putative father of the child, and order him to pay a sum not exceed ing five shillings a week for its maintenance, together with a sum for expenses incidental to the birth. No such order is to be valid after the child is dead or reaches the age of thirteen, but the justices may in the order direct the payments to be continued until the child is sixteen years of age. The putative father may appeal to Quarter Sessions. Should the child afterwards become chargeable to the parish, the sum due by the father may be received by the parish officer. When a bastard child, whose mother has not obtained an order, becomes chargeable to the parish, the guardians may proceed against the putative father for a contribution. The mother of an illegitimate child is entitled to its custody in preference to the father. The rights of a bastard are only such as he can acquire ; for civilly he can inherit nothing, being looked upon as the son of nobody, and sometimes called filius nullius, sometimes filius populi. This, however, does not hold as to &quot;moral purposes, e.g., he cannot marry his mother or bastard sister. Yet he may gain a surname by reputation though he has none by inheritance, and may even be made legitimate and capable of inheriting by the transcendent power of an Act of Parliament. All other children have their primary settlement in their father s parish ; but a bastard has his in ths parish where he was born, unless 