68 Major-General Sir J. Malcolm on the Bhills. 



usages and superstitions of the lowest classes of its population ; but this 

 subject requires still more of our attention, from such knowledge 'being es- 

 sential to give success to our efforts to maintain the peace and promote the 

 prosperity of our Eastern empire. These classes are at once tlie most ig- 

 norant and most barbarous of the community ; and we may rest assured, 

 that all attempts towards their permanent reform will fail, unless grounded 

 on an intimate acquaintance with their past and present condition. 



I shall, after these prefatory observations, proceed to contribute my mite 

 towards the accomplishment of an object which I deem so important, by 

 stating what I know of the fabulous and real origin of the Bhills, a race of 

 men inhabiting the mountainous tracts of Candeish, Malwa, and Rajputana. 



The Bhilk are, and deem themselves, a distinct people. There are so 

 many different tribes among them, that it has been conjectured by some, 

 that the general name of Bhill only denotes a confederacy of mixed and 

 deoraded races of Hindus, associated by political events and local circum- 

 stances : but, though there can be no doubt, that their strength has been in- 

 creased, and their consequence raised, by recruits sprung from the prohibited 

 intercourse of the primitive Hindu castes, there is every reason to believe 

 that the original race of Bhills may claim a high antiquity, and that they were 

 once masters of many of the fertile plains of India, instead of being confined, 

 as they now are, to the rugged mountains and almost impenetrable jungles. 

 There are authentic records of the Rajput sovereigns of Jaudhpur and 

 Vdeypur having subdued large tracts from the Bhills ; and the countries 

 now under the Rajput princes of Dongerpw and Barmvara, may be 

 termed recent conquests from the same tribe, who, though they have no 

 longer their own chiefs, still form the mass of the population. The same 

 may be said of all the Rajput territories, in the woody and hilly tract wliich 

 separates Malrca from Guzerat, and the latter province from Mewar.* But 

 it is in that wild and uncultivated country which stretches along the left 

 bank of the Nermada, from the plains of Nemar to those of Guzerat, 

 amid the Satpurah and Adjenti ranges, and among the hills of Baglanah 



* The countries, above mentioned, extend from 20" to near 25" North latitude, and from 73" 

 to 76" East longitude ; but this is only in part inhabited by Bhills, whom we find in the 

 neighbouring hills, whence they extend in one line along the mountains to the furthest limits of 

 Donaerpur. They are also to be found in many of the smaller ranges of the hills of Guzerat and 

 Mewar ; but their favourite abodes are the woody and rugged banks of the Tapti, the Meh'i, and 

 the Nermada. 



