356 T. H. Hendley — An Account of the Maiwdr Bhils. [No. 4, 



thorn bushes to keep off animals ; irrigation is not undertaken from wells 

 by the Bhil proper ; well water is used for drinking alone, but for this pur- 

 pose even he has a more simple contrivance, namely, digging a pit in the 

 dry bed of a river, and thus easily securing an abundant supply by filtra- 

 tion. He loses not a drop of rain, however, if it can be avoided ; he builds 

 walls of loose stones, earthed up with soil, across the narrow valleys, and so 

 forms a series of terraces, on which he grows rice, maize, &c. 



The patels or cultivators in the Rajput villages irrigate and grow many 

 other crops. Indian Corn appears always to have been the staple food. The 

 grain is stored up, the fresh ears of maize are much liked, and the ripe grain 

 in the season costs about twelve annas a maund. Grass is cut on the hill sides 

 and summits, where it seems most to abound, made into bundles, a dozen 

 or more of which are transfixed by a long sharp-pointed bamboo with a peg 

 half way down to prevent slipping, and carried, perhaps, several miles by the 

 women to sell or store up ; the stacks are on raised platforms, machans, or 

 high up in the tree branches. The principal source of wealth is undoubted- 

 ly the rearing of cattle on the hills. The women take the cows and goats out 

 to graze on the mountain sides, which have been worn into thousands of 

 paths by generations of animals. A man's position is estimated by the 

 number of cows he has. 



Habitations. — A Bhil village, or pal, is a collection of houses scattered 

 sometimes for miles along the sides of the hills. There are no banias, 

 these with the patels reside in Rajput villages or those belonging to Chiefs 

 of mixed blood. A platform of stones and earth is generally erected on the 

 slope of a hill, and on this is raised a loose stone wall ; the roof is of timber 

 and fiat tiles. In some places, as at Aba, the villages are mere thatched 

 bee-hives. The huts are substantial, commodious, and clean, often having a 

 courtyard in the centre : the back of the building usually looks towards a 

 hill to enable the owner to flee to its summit when his fears suggest a hos- 

 tile approach. In the Tracts many deserted and ruined houses may be seen, 

 but a pal itself is never abandoned. Sometimes there are the mere platforms 

 on which huts have never been built as safer spots or better soil have been 

 secured, or perhaps more often, their homes have been burnt over their heads 

 by their Rajput masters as punishment for crime. 



The Rajput villages are built on the sides of hills down into the plains, 

 leaving the Fort of the Chief overshadowing and overawing them above ; here, 

 however, the houses are crowded together, and a wall surrounds the whole. 

 In a Bhil pal, the huts are often half a mile apart. A community such as 

 that of Burla, which formerly numbered a thousand houses and three times 

 as many bows, would therefore occupy a considerable extent of country. 



Food. — The Bhil rejects nothing, except perhaps home-fed pork, he 

 will eat the bodies of dead animals — and even beef if he dared. Some time 



