ON THE ABORIGINAL TRIBES OF INDIA. 169 
On the Aboriginal Tribes of India. By Major-General Joun Brices, 
F.R.S., Vice-President of the Ethnological Society of London. 
On the occasion of the meeting of this Association at Oxford, I was pressed 
to read a paper on the Aboriginal tribes of India. At that period my in- 
quiries were incomplete, and I was unable to trace them to any separate 
stock, though it appeared clear they were in almost every respect distinct 
from the mass of the population consisting of Hindds of the Bramanical per- 
suasion. Since that period I have extended my researches, and have given 
two or three lectures on the same subject at the meetings of the Ethnological 
Society in London. ᾿ 
The Hindus are universally acknowledged to be of that branch of the human 
family denominated by Blumenbach Caucasian, and they believe they in- 
vaded India from the north-west. They were at one time further advanced 
in literature, in philosophy, in the science of mathematics, in anatomy, in 
surgery, in medicine in all its branches, in legislation, and even in purity of 
religious doctrines than their contemporaries in other regions of the globe. 
This description will be readily admitted if it can be shown that the Vedas, 
or holy scriptures of this people, date, as is asserted, fourteen centuries before 
our own era; and that the commentaries on a code of civil and criminal law 
(of a more ancient date) were written about twenty-seven centuries ago. At 
that period, it appears, from the latter work, that the Hindts had not yet pe- 
netrated further south than the twenty-second parallel of north latitude, 
beyond which (the work states) there then existed “ extensive forests, in- 
habited by a wild and impure race speaking barbarous tongues.” 
Here we find an aboriginal race clearly alluded to, and subsequent in- 
quiries and monumental remains prove that they were a numerous people, 
having established forms of government though living in a very simple and 
rude state of society. , 
My investigations lead me to believe that these abnormal tribes, probably 
of one common stock, had previously occupied the whole of the extensive re- 
gion of India, in successive incursions made from some other remote country. 
Though the religious tenets and civil institutions of these aborigines were 
alike, yet two separate hordes subsisted by different means. The one ob- 
tained their food by the chase, dwelling in or near the forests abounding 
with game; the other occupying the open plains, subsisted on the milk of 
their cattle (cows and buffaloes), and fed on the flesh of their flocks of 
sheep. 
These two classes were eternally at war, and the same aversion and innate 
hostility against each other exist at the present day. At the time the Hindis 
entered India both classes of this race appear to have been spread over the 
whole surface of the country, under the several denominations of Minas, 
Mérs, Bhils, Dhiro Kolies, Mhars, Mangs or Mans, Béders, Dhérs, Gowlies, 
Carumba, Cherumars, Morawa, Collary, Pully, Pariah, Yenedy, Chenchy, 
Barka, Tallary,Gond, Kond, Sawara, Banderwa, Cheru, Bengy, Kooki, Garro, 
Kassia, Hajin, Bhar, Dhanuk, Dhome, with many others of which I have not 
sufficient details. 
Among these tribes the etymologist may without difficulty trace the names 
of many of the territorial divisions which have been assigned to several por- 
tions of India by the Hinds. 
Thus Kolwan, from the Koles; Bhilwan and Bhilwara, from the Bhils; 
Mhar-rashtra, by contraction Mharatta, from the Mhars; Man Désa, from 
the Mans or Mangs; the city of Beder, from the Beders; Gondwara, from 
the Gonds; Oria-Desa or Orissa, from the Orias ; Kolwan and Koliwara, 
