Page:The Imperial Gazetteer of India - Volume 2 (2nd edition).pdf/400

 BHIL TRIBES.

390

wear a coarse tattered robe. When they cannot get grain, they feed on wild roots and fruits, on several kinds of vermin, on animals that have died a natural death, and probably in remote places on the flesh

The lowland Bhils wear a turban, a coat, and waistcloth women a robe with or without a bodice. Both the men and women wear brass or silver ear-rings and anklets. They are in many respects Hinduized, and now constitute a low caste of the Hindu of the cow.



their

community. They give caste dinners at births, betrothals, marriages, and deaths, and are particular as to what they eat. The opening of the Rajkumar College at Indore now affords a new chance to the young Bhil chiefs, several of whom show fair promise. Lieutenant Mildmay remarks In villages inhabited by cultivators, there are seldom more than two or three families of Bhils who have originally owed their settlement to a small grant of land given to one of their number entertained as a indnkar or tracer of thieves, whose duty, in consideration of his holding this land rent-free, and of levying a small due on the crops of cultivators, is both to track robbers from his own village, and to take up any such track brought by the mdnkar of any neighbouring village, and either to produce the robber or carry the trace beyond his own boundary, in default of which he or the Bhumia who may be responsible for the village is held answerable for ‘



the stolen property.

There are some oaths and ceremonies which no Bhi'l will venture One is swearing by the dog the Bhil, placing his hand on the head of the dog, prays that if what he says be not true, the curse of the dog may fall upon him. Another oath is sworn by taking a small quantity of jodr into the hand and holding it up, praying that the grain he eats may bring curses and destruction on him, should he speak aught but truth. A third oath is sworn by placing the hand on ‘

to break.



the head of his son.

In

many

instances

when

these oaths are

made

by which the person swearing agrees that, should any serious or extraordinary injury happen to himself or his family within a certain time, he will consent to be held guilty, or to have stated a falsehood. They believe strongly in witchcraft, and also in the power of the Btirwds or witchflnders to point out who may be the witch who has inflicted any injury on them. Should any of their relations die without use

of,

written agreements are given

‘

Burwd, who,

generally a shrewd, beforehand what ugly, disagreeable old woman may live in the enquirer’s village, and then he proceeds, Witches with the apparently oracularly, to describe this old witch. Bhils are tried much in the same way that they were in civilized England two centuries ago. They place the woman in one side of a

apparent cause, they consult clever fellow,

manages

bullock’s pack sack,

the

to find out

and three dry cakes of cow-dung

in the other,

and