Page:The People of India — a series of photographic illustrations, with descriptive letterpress, of the races and tribes of Hindustan Vol 7.djvu/269

 GAUWLIES. (401)

HE Gauwlies, or Gowlies, of Central India and Berar are a very ancient race, anterior, according to tradition, to the Gonds and other purely forest tribes, by whom their antiquity is acknowledged. They resemble the Aheers or cowherds of Northern India, and follow the same pursuits. In the Satpoora range of mountains they are believed to have been the sovereigns of the country before the advent of the Mussulmans; and Asseer Gurh and Gawil Gurh, with many other hill forts, were the seats of their power. Both the forts were captured by the Mussulmans, who fortified them according to their own principles, and converted them into their strongholds; and the treacherous capture of Aseerghur, the capital of Asa Aheer, is related in Ferishta's History of the Kigs of Khandesh. King Mullik Nueer, under pretence of sending his family to the fort for refuge, dispatched a body of 200 armed men in closed litters, who, on their arrival in the fort, fell upon the Hindoo prince, and put him and his family to death. Asa Aheer appears to have been the last representative of the cowherd or shepherd princes. Throughout Gondwana many architectural remains exist, which are evidently of greater antiquity than the Gonds; and they are attributed to the Gauwlies, who, however, have no traditions of them, though the Gonds, in their own ballads and tales, retain legends which refer to them.

At present the Gauwlies are a simple, pastoral people, who subsist mainly by the produce of their herds. They breed and sell cattle, both cows and oxen, and buffaloes. They also sell ghee, or boiled butter, which they make in large quantities in the season which lasts from September or October till the commencement of the rainy weather; and the plateau of the Satpoora, which slopes towards the Taptee—indeed the waste lands of the whole province of Gondwana—supply rich and productive pastures. Gauwlies are, however, settled in all the towns and villages of Berar, where they sell milk, curds, whey, and ghee, and in many instances are substantial farmers and cultivators, and in all respects useful to the general communities in which they live. As a class they are simple and