Page:The Imperial Gazetteer of India - Volume 2 (2nd edition).pdf/397

 BHERI—BHIL TRIBES.

387

Bheri. — Petty State or jagir in Bundelkhand, Central India Agency. — See Beri.

—Town

tahsU Dalmau, Rai Bareli District, Oudh. Rai Bareli town, on the road to Cawnpur. Population (1881) 4226. Bi-weekly market. Annual fair in honour of the goddess Ananda Devi, the tutelary deity of the place, attended by

Bhetarg^On.

in

12 miles from

Situated

Government school. Sehwan Sub-division of Karachi (Kurrachee)

about 5000 persons.

Bhian.

—Village

District, Sind,

in the

Bombay

Distant 23 miles north of Kotri. No particular trade or manu-

Presidency.

Police station and staging bungalow. factures.

Bhidanwala. 75°

—Ahllage

in Sirhind,

Punjab.

Lat. 31° 10' n., long.

Situated on the bank of a large offset of the Sutlej (Satlaj),

E.

issuing from that river a short distance below

Beas

junction with the

its

(Bias).

Bhikorai.

—Village

71° 50'

long.

in

On

E.

Jodhpur

State,

Rijputana.

Lat. 26° 30' n.,

the route from Pokharan to Balmer, 32 miles

About 100 houses; population

south of the former.

chiefly

Chauhan

Rajputs.

—

Bhil Tribes, The. A pre-Aryan race inhabiting the Vindhyd, S^tand Satmala or Ajanta Hills. The Bhils were apparently the chief of the large group of tribes that at one time held most of the country now distributed among the Provinces of Mew^r, Malwa, Khandesh, and Gujarat. Colonel Tod states that the earliest people of Mewdr were Bhils, and Hamilton mentions that the Bhils were specially strong in the south of Mdlwa. Ousted by later invaders from the richest of their old possessions, the Bhils still hold (to the number of three-quarters of a million) the wilder and outlying of the tracts named above, in the Vindhya, S^tpura, and SatmaH or Ajanta Hills. They do not pass east into the Gond country, nor south into the Konkan. Bishop Caldwell is of opinion that the Bhils belong to the family of pre-Aryan races, who, like the Kols and Santals, entered pura,

India from the north-east.

The popular legend

of the origin of the

descended from Mahadeo, who had intercourse with a female he met in the woods, and by her had many children. One of them, ugly and vicious, killed his father’s bull, and was His descendants have since banished to the mountains and forests. Bhils

is

that they are

that time

been called Bhils or outcastes.

believed to be derived from the Dravidian

In

many

the

toe

brow

Bhils

Bhil

is,

however,

bow.

Malwa, and Gujarat, when a Rajput marked by blood taken from the thumb The Rajputs say that this blood - mark is

of a Bhil.

is

a sign of Bhil allegiance, but

The

Billu,’ a

States of Rdjputana,

chief succeeds, his or

The name ‘

are

it

seems to be a

relic

of Bhil power.

very persistent in keeping alive this practice.

The