116 THE HIGHLANDS OF CENTRAL INDIA 



with holy water. Thus they have gradually separated 

 themselves from the mass of their aboriginal subjects, and 

 formed a separate caste of their own, either inter-marrying 

 among families similarly situated, or if possible seeking brides, 

 as I have said, in houses superior to themselves. Some of 

 them have thus succeeded in almost eradicating the aboriginal 

 taint ; and by continued reversion to the purer stocks have 

 attained to an equahty of physical type with the higher 

 races. Their social status has come to be acknowledged 

 as that of the Rajpiit rather than the aborigine ; and many 

 have assumed the sacred thread, the wearing of which denotes 

 membership of one of the twice-born castes. Most of them, 

 however, whether from motives of policy or of superstition, 

 stiU concede something to their semi-aboriginal descent; 

 worshipping perhaps in secret the tribal deities, and, in 

 cases, placing at certain festivals the flesh of cows, abhorred 

 of Hinduism, to their hps, wrapped in a thin covering of 

 cloth. Many of them also require to be installed on their 

 succession to the chiefship by a ceremony which includes 

 the touching of their foreheads with a drop of blood drawn 

 from the body of a pure aborigine of the tribe they belong to. 

 Such an example on the part of their influential chiefs 

 was certain to be followed by large sections of their subjects ; 

 and in particular by such of them as were themselves in 

 some degree of mixed descent. Accordingly we find the 

 tribes much subdivided into clans, or castes, distinguished 

 from each other by a more or less close adoption of Hindu 

 customs and rehgious forms. A theory has arisen that the 

 Gonds are divided into twelve and a half formal castes 

 according to the number of the gods they worship, after the 

 pattern of the Hindus ; but, as in the case of the latter such 

 a division is 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 subdivisions differ in almost every district, being 

 founded partly perhaps on tribal descent, but chiefly on 

 imported distinctions arising from the extent of their approxi- 

 mation to Hindiiism. Some of these castes have aheady 

 succeeded, like their chiefs, in attaining to the status of 

 Rajputs; and the process is stiU going on before our eyes 



