Page:The Imperial Gazetteer of India - Volume 10 (2nd edition).pdf/486



474 ORISSA TRIBUTARY STATES. the hills when they themselves were pushed backwards by the Aryans from the plains. The Kandhs have many deities–race gods, tribe gods, family gods, and a multitude of malignant spirits—each one of whom must be appeased with blood. But their great divinity is the Earth-god, who represents the productive energy of nature. Twice each year, at sowing time and at harvest, and in all special seasons of distress, the earth-god required a human sacrifice. The duty of providing the victims rested with the lower race of out-castes attached to the Kandh village. Brahmans and Kandhs were the only two classes exempted from being sacrificed ; and an ancient rule ordained that the offering must be bought with a price. Men of the lower race, attached to the villages, kidnapped victims from the plains; and it was a mark of respectability for a Kandh hamlet to keep a small stock in reserve, as they said, 'to meet sudden demands for atonement.' The victim, on being brought to the hamlet, was welcomed at every threshold, daintily fed, and kindly treated, till the fatal day arrived. He was then solemnly sacrificed to the Earth-god; the Kandhs shouting in his dring ear, 'We bought you with a price; no sin rests with us.' His flesh and blood were distributed among the village lands, a fragment being solemnly buried in each field in the newly turned furrows. In 1835, the Kandhs passed under British rule, and these sacrifices had to cease. The proud spirit of the clans shrank from compulsion ; but after some hostilities and many tribal councils they gave up their stock of human victims, as a present to their new suzerain. Care was take British Government that they should not obtain fresh ones. A law was passed declaring kidnapping for human sacrifice to be a capital offence ; and the Kandh priests were led to discover that buffaloes did quite as well for the Earth-god, under British rule, as human sacrifices in the old times. The practice ceased under the firm supervision of the tribes by English officers, who established hill-fairs, made roads, and brought this wild isolated people into mercantile relations with the rest of mankind. For further details regarding this interesting tribe, see the article KANDHS, ante, vol. vii. pp. 400-405. Occupation.—The Census of 1881 distributes the adult male population of the Tributary States of Orissa into the following six main groups :-(1) Professional class, including State officials of every kind and members of the learned professions, 18,371; (2) domestic servants, inn and lodging-house keepers, 5983; (3) commercial class, including bankers, merchants, carriers, etc., 9608 ; (4) agricultural and pastoral class, including shepherds, 250,379; (5) industrial class, including all inanufacturers and artisans, 87,84+; and (6) indefinite and unproductive class, comprising all male children and persons of unspecified occupation, 370,381. Throughout the whole 17 Tributary States of Orissa, covering an