1 MINOR LAND-OWNING AND AGRICULTURAL CASTES. 169
2 Gakkhae clans.
3 Bugial
4 7,117
5 IskaDfiral ...
6 2,668
7 Fi'roz;vl
8 1,822
9 Admal
10 1,801
11 Surangal ...
12 1,681
13 agriculturists ; witli no contempt for labour, since many work as coolies on
14 the railway ; but preferring service in the army or police. Their race feeling
15 is strong, and a rule of inheritance disfavoiu's Gakkhars of the half-blood.
16 Colonel Cracroft notes that they refuse to give their daughters in marriage
17 to any other class except Saiyads, that they keep their women very strictly
18 secluded, and marry only among the higher Eajpuls, and among them only
19 when they cannot find a suitable match among themselves. " Some of their
20 " principal men are very gentlemanly in their bearing, and show nnmistake-
21 " ably their high origin and breeding. They still cling to their traditions
22 " and, though the Sikhs reduced them to the most abject poverty, are looked
23 " up to in the district as men of high ranli and
24 " position, and in times of commotion they would
25 " assuredly take the lead one way or the other. "
26 Thus the character of the "savage Garg-ars"
27 seems to have been softened and improved by
28 time. The Gakkhars do not seem always to
29 have returned their clans, which are very well
30 marked. I give in the margin the figures for
31 a few of the largest. Their local distribution
32 in the Jaldani District is fully described in Mr. Thomson's Settlement Report.
33 465. The Awan (Caste No. 12). —The Awansj with whom have been
34 included all who returned themselves as Qutbshahi, are essentially a tribe of
35 the Salt-range, where they once held independent possessions of very con-
36 siderable extent, and in the western and central portions of which they
37 are still the dominant race.
38 They extend along the whole
39 length of the range from Jalilam
40 to the Indus, and are found in
41 great numbers throughout the
42 whole coimtiy beyond it up to
43 the foot of the Sidemans and
44 the Safed Koh ; though in
45 Trans-Indus Banuu they partly
46 and in Dehra Ismail almost
47 wholly disappear fi-om our
48 tables, being included in the
49 term Jat which in those parts means not very much more than et catera.
50 Thus we find among the Jats of our tables no fewer than 30,015 who returned
51 Awan as their trilje and who should probably be classed as Awan, of whom
52 the details are given in the margin.
53 The eastern limits of their position as a dominant tribe coincide approxi-
54 mately with the western border of the Chakwal and Find DaJan Khan
55 taksils. They have also spread eastwards along the foot of the hills as far east
56 as the Sutlej, and southwards down the river valley into Multan and Jhang.
57 They formerly held all the plain country at foot of the western Salt-range^
58 but have been gradually driven up into the hills by Pathans advancing from
59 the Indus and Tiwanas from the Jahalm.
60 Their story is that they are descended from Qutb Shiih of Ghazui, him-
61 self a descendant of Ali, the son-in-law of Mahomet, but by a wife other
62 than the Proj^het's daughter, who came from Hu-at about 1035 A.D. and
63 settled in the neighbourhood of Peshawar. Thence they spread along the
64 Hushyarpur
65 Lahore
66 Gajranwala
67 Jahlam
68 Gujrat
69 Multan
70 Jhang
71 Muza&rgarh
72 Awan J
73 ... 2,400
74 831
75 611
76 668
77 ... 715
78 ... 1,178
79 559
80 .. 2,017
81 ATS.
82 Denih
83 Khan
84 Derah
85 K han
86 Bannu
87 Other plac
88 Total
89 Ismail
90 ... 8,444
91 Ghazi
92 ... 1,015
93 ... 9,147
94 cj ... 2,015
95 ...30,015