230 Journal of the Asiatic Society of Bengal. [N.S., XV, 
arrangement survives by which the domain is partitioned into 
subdivisions under petty chiefs. And we may reasonably 
suppose that the system has similarly persisted in Kalahandi. 
57. then we can trace an obvious connection between 
the Khond Districts subdivided into Mutthas in Bod with the 
Garhs subdivided into talugs in Kalahandi it is surely not fan- 
ciful to argue by analogy that the Garhs and talugs of Chhattis- 
garh were similarly the outcome of an earlier tribal organiza- 
M 
(see above, para. 19). The Gonds are a Dravidian tribe closely 
allied to the Khonds and the early institutions of both were in 
all probability closely similar. Bod and Kalabandi are no more 
than 100 miles from the borders of the Chhattisgarh, and I have 
therefore no hesitation in concluding that in Macpherson’s des- 
cription of the independent Khonds published in 1842 we can 
find a realistic picture of the conditions which prevailed in pri- 
mitive Chhattisgarh when the country was monopolized by its 
indigenous inhabitants some eight hundred years before he 
wrote. 
ot only is there nothing fanciful in this conclusion, it may 
v 
be able to trace in modern times the relics of a land system 
which, by force of comparison with other neighbouring coun- 
tries, gives us tangible proof of the former prevalence of a 
primitive tribal organization. - 
5 ssuming then in Chhattisgarh the existence in 
early days of this tribal or patriarchal system of which I have 
borrowed Macpherson’s description, we have next to consider 
under what circumstances did this arrangement become con- 
verted into one in which we find a central authority or King 
regulating the country through a hierarchy of greater Chiefs 
ms and lesser Chiefs or Taluqdars. It is usual to 
for our purpose, as late as 1000 A.D. when the Haihayas 
came to Chhattisgarh There were of course much earlier 
Aryan settlements at Sirpur on the Mahanadi from the fourth 
century A.D. and onward, but there is no reason to suppose 
that these made any very permanent impression on the 
general population of the country.! Even as late as the 
! This view is borne out by Mr. Mazumdar (see pages 17, 28 and 29 
of his ** Sonpur in the Sambalpur tract’) who states (loc. cit.) that ‘* the 
