1 Their number,
2 The remnants of the
3 aboriginal races in the
4 Panjab.
5 The outcast tribes.
6 They believe in
7 miigic and sorcery.
8 Curious custom of
9 burying dead.
10 Th aboriginal
11 tribes.
12 18 HISTORY OF THE PANJAB.
13 aggressor.” In another place it is said that “Indra, the slayer of Vrita, the
14 destroyer of cities, has slain the black-sprung servile hosts.” They have also
15 been termed Negritos from their physical affinities with the Negroes, being
16 seldom tall, and having coarse woolly hair, short broad noses and thick lips.
17 The number of aborigines in India exceeded twenty millions in 1872, of
18 which 959,720 were returned for the Panjab. No separate returns for these
19 tribes were furnished in the census of 1881, but they were classed among the
20 low caste Hindus. The true aborigines have left no settlements or fixed habi-
21 tations in the Panjab proper, and seem to have been all driven away to the
22 south-east by the Aryan invaders from the north-west. Their remnants in
23 the Panjab are the Sansis, or gipsies, a wild-looking people, living in tempo-
24 rary sheds in jungles, and subsisting chiefly on mice and such other small
25 animals as they can catch. There are also other wandering tribes in the Pan-
26 jab plains, who form the hereditary criminal classes of the Province, and
27 whose existence is recognised by the Criminal Tribes Act of 1871.
28 Many of the low and outcast tribes of the Panjab are believed to have
29 sprung from the aboriginal races. These are the Churahs, or scavengers,
30 the Chamdrs, or workers in leather, the Zohdrs of the hills, where they
31 perform menial offices, the Mahtams, Bawarias, Aheris, Thovis, Labanas
32 and Kehals, or jungle and river tribes, the Sénsis, Pernas, Nats, Bazigars,
33 Pakhiwaras, Hdrnis, Gandhilas, Ods and Hesis, or gipsy and vagrant
34 tribes. “Many of them,” observes Mr. Ibbetson in his Census Report of
35 1881, “are almost certainly aboriginal, and most of them have customs,
36 beliefs and worship peculiar to themselves.” The practice of magic and
37 sorcery is almost entirely confined to these classes. The scavengers and the
38 Sinsi gipsies invariably bury their dead with the face downwards, This is
39 done to prevent the spirit escaping, as, according to the belief of a section
40 of the Hindus, Churahs and some other low castes become bhitts, or
41 devils, after death and trouble people by producing fever and other malignant
42 diseases,* All these tribes are considered to be out of the pale of Hindu
43 society.
44 The aborigines are, generally speaking, to be found in dense unhealthy
45 forests along the base of the Himdlaya mountains, from the Panjab to
46 Eastern Bengal. None of them are to be met with in the mountains on the
47 west and north-west boundaries of the Panjéb, that is, west of the river
48 Indus, The principal Sub-Himdlayan tribes of the aborigines are the
49 Garrows who actually border on Mongolian races, Vdgas, Lushais, Kukies,
50 Lepchas, Lharis, Kachavis, and Boksas, and they extend till they meet the
51 Thibetan, Chinese and Burmese races. The aboriginal tribes are also to be
52 found scattered over the inaccessible regions of Central and Western India
53 and in the Deccan. The N airs of South-Western India practise polyandry.
54 Among them property is inherited, not by the issue of the owner, but by
55 the sister's issue. The Santdls, a very numerous and powerful tribe, whose
56 Insurrection, some years ago, was the cause of some anxiety to the Govern-
57 ment, inhabit the Rajmahal hills near Calcutta, and the Khonds,t who until
58 late years performed the horrible rites of human sacrifice, in the mountains
59 * Census Report, 1881, vol. i., p 117, Mr. [bbetson furth Ri
60 ets : i » Mr. rther adds :-— Riots have taken place,
61 eRe ear Sea been appealed to to prevent a Churah being buried face doawaras:
62 + The Te be Ma instead of being buried, his body is placed in the same position.”
63 tiem: for Le if ae children and adults, and, after fastening them, like cattle, slanghtered
64 4 Meaweh ena he victin was fixed against a post, his chest being fitted into the cleft of
65 the wile sl rat prece. The priest then wounded the victim slightly with his axe, on which
66 nuesGSciOn ct ec aaged themselves upon the victim and stripped the flesh from the bones. ‘The
67 anuu, or the On : of such flesh was considered auspicious. The priest then invoked the Tari
68 brought death a dess of Barth, in the following terms :—‘* You have afflicted us greatly ; have
69 our children and our bullocks, and failure to our corn, but we do not complain
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