TROPICAL TRIBES AND RACES 191 



Rajputs. 



Rajputs may be divided into two classes, Eastern and Western. 

 The former are chiefly drawn from Cawnpore, Allahabad, 

 Benares, and Lucknow districts, while the latter and better 

 physical type of Rajput comes from Agra, Delhi, Rohtak, 

 Hissar, Nabba, Patiala, and Gurgaon districts. Rajputs are the 

 modern non-Brahminical and more or less pure-blooded repre- 

 sentatives of the early Aryan immigrants into India. A great 

 proportion of the Rajputs of the Punjab have been converted 

 to Islam, and have therefore lost their distinctive characters as 

 Rajputs. Some of the best Punjabi Mohammedans of the Indian 

 Army are derived from converted Rajput tribes. 



The two divisions differ somewhat in their caste rules and in 

 their dietaries, the Western Rajput tending to be more elastic in 

 his observance of caste obligations, and hence more amenable 

 to changes of diet when necessary. The farther west a Rajput 

 is, the less he is under Brahminical influence ; the closer to 

 Benares, the more priest-ridden, superstitious, and punctilious 

 is he in regard to his religious customs. All Rajputs will eat 

 flesh (except that specially forbidden), and do not object to 

 the flesh of wild boar, though he will have nothing to do 

 with the domestic pig. 



Foodstuffs eaten "by Rajputs 1. Eastern Rajputs. Wheat and 

 other cereals, juar, bajra, maize, and millets. Milk prepared 

 in various ways, clarified butter or ghi. Legumens gram dal, 

 arhar, and urid dais. Little meat or animal food is consumed 

 by the Eastern Rajput. 



2. Western Rajputs. In addition to those enumerated, animal 

 food enters much more largely into the diet. Goat's-flesh, 

 mutton, chickens, fish, and eggs are all made use of by the 

 Western Rajput. Roughly, 75 per cent, of this class partake 

 of meat regularly. 



The dieting of the Western Rajput is therefore decidedly 

 superior in assimilable protein to that of the Eastern Rajput, 

 as the effect of even a small amount of animal food daily 

 makes a considerable difference in the level of nitrogenous 

 metabolism. It is significant in connection with this that the 

 Western Rajput is considered so superior in those qualities 

 essential in a soldier that the eastern branch of the race 

 supplies a gradually decreasing number of recruits ; some Rajput 



