Page:The People of India — a series of photographic illustrations, with descriptive letterpress, of the races and tribes of Hindustan Vol 7.djvu/106

BHEELS OF THE VINDHYAN RANGE. uninhabited wastes and jungles, telling him he might cultivate where he chose. Subsequently twenty-two Sons were born to Nishad, who supplied themselves with wives from the surrounding population, and each son assumed the name of the caste to which his wife belonged. Thus there are at present many tribes of Bheels in the Vindhyan range, and in the districts of Ali Rajpoor, Jhabatia, Banswara, and Rutlam, such as the Wania, said to be descended from the Bunnea, the Rath ore from the Rajpoots, the Banwa from the Brahmins."

According to popular tradition, the Bheels are said to be descended from a son of Mahades, remarkable from his infancy for his ugliness and vice, who, having slain his father's favourite bull, was expelled to the woods and mountains, and his descendants have ever since been stigmatized with the names Bheels and Nishada, terms which denote outcasts. From the tradition it also appears that they were first settled in Marwar, or Jodpoor, but being driven thence by other tribes, chiefly the Rajpoots, they emigrated southwards, and settled among the mountains that form the western boundaries of Malwah and Khandesh, in the lofty ranges of the Vindhya and Satpoora, where, protected by the strong and difficult nature of the country from the oppression which had driven them into exile, they have since dwelt, subsisting partly on their industry, but mainly on the plunder of the rich in the vicinity of their haunts. This account is further confirmed, as corroborated by the history of the Rajpoot chiefs of Joudhpoor and Oodeypoor, which state that those countries were conquered from the Bheels, and in this respect ethnological inference is confirmed by tradition; the Rajpoots were the Aryan invaders who drove the wild tribes into inaccessible fastnesscs.

Bheels are divided into three classes—village, cultivating, and wild. The first class consists of families who have settled in villages near the mountains, and belong to the village community and its service in the capacity of watchmen. They have a portion of village land assigned to them, and certain dues in grain from the harvest. They preserve few of the characteristics of their wild brethren. The second have either voluntarily, or perforce, adopted cultivation as a means of subsistence, and have settled in hamlets. Thus they possess a partial civilization, but are by no means reformed, being addicted to robbery and to excessive indulgence in spirituous liquors. The mountain Bheels retain their original condition of savage freedom. They subsist by the chase, live on wild roots, fruits, and the sale of forest produce, and by plunder. They are, however, a wretched looking, diminutive race, and the poverty of their food, the precarious, unsheltered condition of their lives, forbid their improvement in their present condition. Yet they are hardy and active, and capable of enduring great fatigue. The bow is their chief, and indeed their almost only weapon, and they are very skilful in its use. It is strong, and requires a powerful arm; it is made of bamboo, and about five feet long, the string being either bamboo or made of sinews of wild