Page:The People of India — a series of photographic illustrations, with descriptive letterpress, of the races and tribes of Hindustan Vol 6.djvu/183

 A MHAR. (317)

HE Mhars inhabit the skirts of the desert south of Bhawulpoor, and are a very ancient tribe, originally Hindoos. Their period of conversion is not known, but it may have been among the earliest of Sind; and the tribe are Soonnees, though ordinarily very ignorant. They are for the most part peaceable cultivators and herdsmen, breeding camels and sheep; and though probably not free from a taint of violence, yet do not appear in the reports of the frontier tribes as engaged in predatory warfare, either independently or in connection with others. Of the Mhars, Captain Goldsmith's report on Shikarpoor affords the following particulars:—

In the year 1541 there were seven brothers of the tribe in Oobara, near the present Bhawulpoor frontier, one of whom, by name Jaisur, separated from his kinsmen, and went to Bukkur, then occupied by Mahomed, the governor on behalf of Shah Beg Urghoon, then ruler of Sind. At that period the Jettooees, a tribe of Belochees, held the country between Boordeka and the Larkhana district, on the west bank of the Indus, including the city of Lukkee, then a flourishing place. Jaisur crossed the river, and took up his abode there; but the Mhars and their new comrades disagreed, and Jaisur having a friend and clansman at court, Moosa Khan Mhar, obtained from him the assistance of some hundreds of the tribe, by whom the Jettooees were subjugated, and the country divided among the conquerors.

Some time afterwards a sore feud arose between the Mhars and the Daoodpootras, a race of weavers, but of a martial character, who intruded upon the Mhars hunting grounds. The dispute appears to have been referred to the decision of Peer Sultan Ibrahim Shah, a local saint or holy personage, whose tomb still exists. The Mhars and Daoodpootras were among his disciples, and he resided at Lukkee. His decision was in favour of the Daoodpootras; but the Mhars would not abandon their pretensions or their trespasses, and as the saint could do no more, he cursed the Mhars, and left the parties to decide the quarrel by the sword.