INDIA 



179 



wearied with dancing they sing. A man steps out of the crowd, and sings a verse impromptu, 

 a woman there joins him, and the pair chant in alternate strains, for the most part taunting 

 each other with personal defects. They all seem prone to excessive drinking. 



Nearly all the aboriginal hill people have the dark skin, flat nose, and thick lips which so 

 easily distinguish them from the Aryan race, and they mostly dress in the same way. For 

 men and women alike a cloth wound round the waist constitutes the chief article of attire. 

 Necklaces of beads, earrings of brass and iron, brass bracelets, and girdles of twisted cords find 

 favour in the eyes of young men and women. They seldom wear any covering on the head, 

 though the women often add false hair to their own. In one of the religious hymns of the 

 Gonds their god alleges as one cause of his displeasure against the first-created Gonds that 

 they did not bathe for six months together. It must be confessed that, in this respect, the 

 hill tribes of to-day do not belie their ancestry; and though they carry their scanty costume 

 with a certain grace, their dirtiness, and the tattoo-marks on their faces, arms, and thighs, have 

 a repelling effect. For the most part light-hearted and easy-tempered, when once their shyness 

 is overcome they prove very communicative. But while naturally frank, and far more truthful 

 than the Aryan Hindus, they are nevertheless arrant thieves, though their pilfering is generally 

 managed in the simplest and most maladroit manner. 



It may be said generally of the dark aborigines that they possess no written records, 

 being ignorant of letters, and even of hieroglyphics. The only works of their forefathers are 

 the rude stone circles, upright standing stones, and the mounds beneath which they were 

 buried, reminding one of a time when Europe was in an equally primitive stage of culture. 

 The knives and rough flint instruments found in the Narbada Valley speak of a time yet 

 more distant. 



By permission of Ilerr Karl Hagenbtck. 



A GROUP OF TAMIL GIRLS. 



