122 THE HIGHLANDS OF CENTRAL INDIA 



the Fish, and the Man-Tiger, to suit the tastes of a variety 

 of half-Hiaduised races — ^that then Siva was also imported 

 from the West, and allied with the sterner objects of worship 

 of the wilder races, to draw them into the great net of the 

 priests, as the incarnations of Vishnu in their popular heroes 

 and totems were employed to draw the more civiHsed classes 

 of the people ? Were these deities really indigenous amongst 

 the Gonds we should certainly see their worship a matter 

 of more widespread and heartfelt devotion than it is. It 

 is in truth still almost confined to the chiefs and their half- 

 Hindii dependents, and to a few of the most advanced, and 

 probably half-blooded, sections of the tribes. In the great 

 periodical acts of pubhc propitiation of the gods they are 

 either not admitted, or if so, frequently have to sit under 

 one of the fetishes or nature-gods of the primitive faith. 



The chief of these ceremonies occur at the marked periods 

 of their agricultural season — ^when the crops are sown or 

 reaped, and at the flowering of the valuable Mhowa tree — 

 also when severe pestilence threatens the community. On 

 such occasions a row of small stones, taken from the nearest 

 hiU-side, are set up in a row and daubed with vermiHon, 

 to represent the presence of all the gods that are to be included 

 in the propitiation. Sometimes small pieces of iron hung 

 up in a pot are used instead. A bigger stone or bit of icon 

 represents the " Bara Pen," or Great God of the occasion, 

 who is usually the one supposed to want most attention 

 at the time. Cocks and goats, and libations of Mhowa spirit, 

 are then offered with much ceremony, dancing, and music ; 

 and the affair, hke most of their great occasions, usually 

 winds up by the whole of them getting abominably drimk. 

 Such is stUl the real religion of these peoples, notwithstanding 

 the lacquer of Hinduism many of them have received ; and 

 such I may add is not very different from that of the vast 

 mass of the so-called Hindus of the plains, who look on 

 Vishnu and Siva as httle nearer to them than do these 

 savages, and pay their real devotion to the village gods, to 

 the gods of the threshing-floor, and to their lares and penates 

 — all unrecognised by the orthodox priest. In both cases 

 their rehgious belief is wholly unconnected with any idea of 

 morahty. A moral deity, demanding morality from his 



