138 THE HIGHLANDS OF CENTEAL INDIA. 



purely nominal, the actual number of Hindii castes being 

 almost infinite, so also among the Gonds this distinction 

 accords with nothing to be seen in practice ; and their sub- 

 divisions differ in almost every district, being founded partly 

 perhaps on tribal descent, but chiefly on imported distinc- 

 tions arising from the extent of their approximation to 

 Hinduism. Some of these castes have already succeeded, 

 like their chiefs, in attaining to the status of Eajputs ; and 

 the process is still going on before our eyes in places where 

 the sacred thread is openly sold to aspirants by the chiefs and 

 their obsequious Brahmans. We have only to make a slight 

 change in the machinery to recognize in all this a system of 

 social promotion going on amongst ourselves in civilized 

 England ; and it may perhaps be doubted whether, if a slight 

 change of creed were, as here, the password to advancement 

 of social position, a good many Christians might not be found 

 to discover excellent reasons for such a step ! 



As might be expected, the Gonds have gone further in the 

 adoption of these Hindu sentiments than the other tribes. 

 They are far more numerous ; they occupy large tracts of low 

 country intermixed with the Hindus; their semi-Hindu chiefs 

 possessed the ruling power of the country for many genera- 

 tions ; and possibly they belong to a branch of the human 

 race more susceptible of modification than the others. Their 

 Tamulian congeners in Southern India, while losing little of 

 their aboriginal physical type, have conformed en masse to 

 the customs and religion of Hinduism ; while the Kolarian 

 stock, wherever found, has obstinately resisted intermixture 

 with the Hindii. 



In the next chapter I propose to give a sample of the 

 legends current among the Gonds, which indicate their own 

 consciousness of the importance of the change that has been 



