Page:The People of India — a series of photographic illustrations, with descriptive letterpress, of the races and tribes of Hindustan Vol 5.djvu/101

 JADOONS. (247)

HE Jadoons are not British subjects, though they inhabit a portion of the district called Hazara. They inhabit a portion of the frontier below, that is south of the Hussunzye tribe, lying on the right bank of the Indus, and opposite to the British town of Torbeyla. Westward their territory extends till it meets the higher ranges of the Hindoo Koosh. The Mahabun mountain, with its dense forest, lies within their boundary, and the whole tract is wild and rugged in an almost inconceivable degree. The Jadoons are, however, peaceable people as far as the British and their subjects are concerned; they have never molested those tribes protected by us, and have made no raids upon lands within our frontier. Hence the Jadoons bear a better official character than their neighbours.

Though the Jadoons accompanied the Yoosufzyes when they descended from Kabool in the fifteenth century, and conquered and occupied the valley of Peshawur, they claim to have an independent origin, and are separate from the Yoosufzyes. The Jadoons were, at first, small in number, and, as they increased, they spread into the neighbouring district of Hazara, and now form one of the strongest tribes of that province, occupying the central portion; their villages lying from 1,500 to 6,000 feet above the plains of the Indus. The Jadoons subsist by agriculture and grazing flocks of sheep. They are described to be "hospitable, industrious, bold, and simple in their manners, and make good soldiers; they are, perhaps, less haughty than other Pathans, but they are untruthful, revengeful, and rapacious, and their turbulent spirit, repressed by a strong government, finds vent in petty contention and chicane among themselves."

The Jadoons are a fair complexioned tribe, many of them having brown hair and beards, and ruddy colour, with grey or hazel eyes, and they are, for the most part, fair, with strong, athletic forms, extremely active, and capable of enduring great exertion and fatigue. They are Mahomedans of the Soonnee sect, and follow the ordinary precepts and customs of the Mahomedan faith; but are bigoted and ignorant to a degree. Their costume is not remarkable for any peculiarity, and