Page:The People of India — a series of photographic illustrations, with descriptive letterpress, of the races and tribes of Hindustan Vol 4.djvu/30

SUMNEUS KHAN. In the year 1351 the Emperor Feroze Toghluk ascended the throne, and commenced a brilliant and memorable reign, in which many instances are recorded of his suppression of local rebellion, and forcible conversion of his prisoners to Mahomedanism. Among others, were some of the Rajpoot clans of Hissar, who, on embracing the creed of Islam, were termed Ranghurs, the meaning of which has not been defined. The person depicted in the plate is one of these Ranghurs, and a Mahomedan. It is a strange circumstance in their history, that the converted portions of the Hissar Rajpoots never left their territory, and continued, as they still continue, to live with their Hindoo brethren in perfect amity. For many generations the Ranghurs received daughters in marriage from the Rajpoots, and gave their own; their forcible conversion was held not to have affected the purity of their Rajpoot descent; but in process of time the Ranghurs began to eat beef, and to kill cows for the purpose, which rendered them utterly impure in Hindoo estimation, and the mutual alliances were discontinued. The Ranghurs, however, continued to marry exclusively among themselves, and thus their large predominance of Rajpoot feature and character has been maintained.

The Ranghurs are agriculturists, though not very skilful ones; but they have the deepest attachment to their native villages and hereditary lands. They have tost, according to a local report, all but ninety-five of these villages, or one-fourth of their original possessions; but they have still a distinct remembrance of the whole, so much so that, when in the confusion of the rebellion of 1857, they availed themselves of the opportunity to dispossess the existing owners of the soil, no two clans ever claimed the same portions. The Ranghurs are a proud, turbulent, and domineering class of men; given to robbery, but not to theft; careless of money, and jealous of honour; and they are brave, and more to be depended upon for good or ill than most castes. Instances of their persistence in war are not wanting. More than one of their chief towns (Bhowani of Rajpoots, and Bulleah of Ranghurs) had to be taken by storm in the war of 1819; and their quarrels with the Puar, Chundrabunsi, Rajpoots of Rohtuk, were only stayed by the construction of a great dyke between their possessions, which can still be traced for thirty-five miles. The Ranghur Rajpoots are Soorujbunsi, or children of the solar, the Chundrabunsi of the lunar race, and their feud and rivalry is as old as the tribes themselves.

Notwithstanding the difference of creed which is gradually placing the Ranghurs and their Rajpoot brethren more and more apart in social customs, there is still, as the local report informs us, "as little difference between the parties as the difference of faiths, Mahomedan and Hindoo, will allow. The ceremonies and limitations for marriage are the same with both." It is, however, worthy of remark, that formerly a Hindoo would give his daughter to a Mahomedan of the same "gote," or original division, though not to a Hindoo. The Ranghurs now follow the ^Mahomedan law