118 THE HIGHLANDS OF CENTRAL INDIA 



obstacle to the inquirer. In the aboriginal tongues there 

 seem to be no expressions for abstract ideas, the few such 

 which they possess being derived from the Hindi. In fact, 

 the aboriginal roots are reaUy almost confined to the expres- 

 sion of the barest necessities of savage existence. The 

 names even of most of their personal deities, the nomen- 

 clature of rehgious ceremony, of moral quahties, and of 

 nearly aU the arts of life they possess, are all Hindi. The 

 form, and particularly the termination, of these imported 

 words is, however, frequently a good deal modified, the 

 pronunciation being as a rule broadened; and thus an 

 imperfect acquaintance with the dialects of Hindi frequently 

 leads to the acceptance of such phrases as purely aboriginal. 

 The greatest difficulty, however, is their vagueness of con- 

 ception, and their want of abstract ideas. Thus, for instance, 

 in all the recorded vocabularies it wiU be found that the term 

 for " sky " is nothing but the Hindi name for " clouds," 

 or " sun," or " moon," or some specific object in the sky, 

 not for the sky generally, for which they do not seem to 

 possess a name. It is only in the remotest wilds that either 

 Gonds or Korkus are now found who do not know sufficient 

 Hindi to carry on a simple conversation, • although they 

 generally employ their own tongue in talking among them- 

 selves. The tribes bordering on the plains, who visit some 

 bazaar town once a week for purposes of exchange, and 

 who are constantly in contact with the people of the plains, 

 have in many cases lost aU knowledge of their own language, 

 and speak the Hindi of the plains. There is nothing that 

 is worth preserving in these rudimentary indigenous tongues ; 

 and their inevitable absorption in the more copious lingua 

 franca of the plains is not at all to be regretted. 



In rehgion the Gond tribes have passed through all the 

 earlier stages of behef, and are now entering on that of 

 idolatry pure and simple — the last in which rehgion is still 

 altogether dissevered from ideas of morahty. As has been 

 generally observed, however, the objects of worship of each 

 new stage of development here form additions to those 

 formerly reverenced, rather than supplant them. 



The foundation of their creed appears to be a vague 

 pantheism, in which aU nature is looked upon as pervaded 



