716 Account of the Origin, etc. of the [July, 



they are migratory cultivators of a soil, in which they claim no sort of 

 right, proprietory or possessory, but which they are allowed to till upon 

 the easy terms of a quit-rent and labour tax, because none others will 

 or can enter their malaria-guarded limits. There is no separate calling 

 of herdsman or shepherd, or tradesman or shop-keeper, or manufac- 

 turer or handicraft, alien or native, in these primitive societies, which 

 admit no strangers among them, though they live on perfectly amicable 

 terms with their neighbours, and thus can always procure, by purchase 

 or barter, the very few things which they require and do not produce 

 themselves. To a person accustomed to the constitution of social 

 bodies in India, whether Arian or Tamulian, it must seem nearly im- 

 possible, that communities could exist without smiths, and carpenters, 

 and potters, and curriers, and weavers, not to mention barbers. Yet of 

 these helot craftsmen, whose existence forms so striking a feature of all 

 Indian societies, and whose origin and status so much need* illustra- 

 tion, there is no trace among the Bodo or Dhimals, though they live 

 apart from all others, like the Khdnds, Gdnds and Kols, who have 

 these aliens among them ; and necessarily so, for their inaccessible po- 

 sition and predacious propensities, would otherwise too often cut them 

 off from all aid of craftsmen, whereas the Bodo and Dhimal, who dwell 

 upon the plains, and on peaceful equitable terms with their neighbours, 

 can always command such services, or rather their products in the mar- 

 kets. The Bodo and Dhimals have no buffaloes, few cows, no sheep, 

 a good many goats, abundance of swine and poultry, some pigeons and 



* When we consider the indispensableness of the services of these craftsmen, it 

 is remarkable that they should have continued to the present day, in a helot or out- 

 caste state, not only among the Arians, but even among the Tamulians, not only in 

 the plains but in the mountains. My belief is, that most of the Tamulians on the 

 Arian conquest, retired to the mountains and jungles, and that those who remained 

 were reduced to helotism and became the artizans of Arian society, such as we now 

 see them. Ages afterwards some of them passed into the fastnesses and wilds occu- 

 pied by their Tamulian brethren, in freedom, and fierce defiance, for the most part, 

 of their Arian enemies. These immigrants are the recent helot craftsmen of the 

 Gonds, Kh6nds and Kols, such as we now see them ; Tamulians in origin like the 

 masters they serve, but from whom they fail to obtain better treatment than from 

 the Arians. No common tie is recognised ; and ages of freedom and of servitude 

 have left no common trait of character. 



