114 THE HIGHLANDS OF CENTRAL INDIA 



of aborigines, crosses also appear to have taken place ; but 

 in such, cases it appears to have been the already debased 

 Hindu of the lower orders that has furnished the foreign 

 element, and the result has been a breed which little ap- 

 proaches the high Aryan character, and is, in fact, only a 

 shght advance on the purely aboriginal type. Among the 

 chiefs the cross appears to have taken place with all the 

 different tribes of indigenes. Towards the east the mixed 

 breed call themselves Gond-Eajputs, or shortly Eaj-Gonds, 

 and are the direct result of the alhance between the Rajput 

 adventurer and the Gond. In the Korku country the same 

 thing seems to have occurred between the Rajputs and the 

 Korkiis. In this case, however, the tribe being an influential 

 one, the descendants are only known as Korkiis. But they 

 differ in many respects from pure Korkiis, being tall and 

 fair-complexioned, ultra-Hindu in their observances, and 

 marrying only among their several families, or into purer 

 houses — ^never among the imdiluted aborigines. In the 

 extreme west a distinct race called Bhilalas has originated 

 from the cross between the Rajpiit and the Bheel. The 

 Bheels were for a much longer period in close contact with 

 Hindiis than any other tribe, and that during a period of 

 Indian history when the restrictions of caste were almost 

 entirely in abeyance. Buddhism, and its offspring Jainism, 

 were the ruling faiths in that part of the country up to the 

 eleventh or twelfth century ; and thus it is probable that a 

 much greater admixture of the races occurred there than 

 in countries where the Brahminical forms prevailed. The 

 Bhilalas are now very numerous, occupying large tracts as 

 almost the sole population, but stiU there is a marked dis- 

 tinction between these and the land-holding chiefs of the 

 same descent. The distinction is, in fact, identical with 

 that between the Raj -Gond and Korkii chiefs and the 

 numerous commoner classes of the same tribes who are 

 nominally pure aborigines, but are really half Hindii. 



As is the case with the divers people now included among 

 modern Hindiis, it would be wholly impossible now to gauge 

 the extent to which the infusion of the Aryan element has 

 taken place among these aboriginal races. The facility for 

 amalgamation between them — ^the chemical aflBnity, so to 



