32 Tlie Etlinohyy of India. 



occupy a broad tract east and west wherever the country is jungly or 

 hilly, but becoming more and more civilised and more dominant over 

 others as we go northwards. The valley of Sumbhulpore may be 

 taken as for the most part marking the division between the Gond 

 country on one side, and that of the Aborigines of northern stock 

 on the other. 



On the east the Gonds, under the name of Gours, extend into the 

 borders of the Chota-Nagpore agency in Oocleypore and Sirgoojah, 

 but they are there much Hinduised and have lost their language. The 

 Raja of Sirgoojah, though pretending to be a Rajpoot, is suspected to 

 be a Gour ; at any rate the Gours are there the dominant tribe. 

 Thence westward along the line of the Sautpoora hills, through all the 

 hilly country of the districts of Mandla, Jubbulpore, Seonee, Chand- 

 wara, Baitool and Hoshangabad, in fact in some degree to the neigh- 

 bourhood of Asseerghur, the Gonds predominate. In the wilder parts, 

 they speak their own Aboriginal language, and seem there to be a 

 simple and not intractable people, following both pastoral and agricul- 

 tural pursuits. In the older maps, the name Gondwana is given to a 

 wider tract of country in this part of Central India, being that which 

 was in modern times rather politically than ethnologically Gond, 

 The Gonds (in a somewhat civilised form) were in fact for some time 

 masters of all this part of the country, including the open and culti- 

 vated tracts about Nagpore, Raepore, Jubbulpore- &c. and perhaps as 

 far as Ellichpore on the one hand, and on the other to the south of the 

 Godavery, where some of them are found among the ordinary Telinga 

 population. Deogurh in the Sautpooras was the chief seat of their 

 power. They immediately preceded the Marattas. These latter 

 ousted them from the open and valuable tracts, and they do not now 

 form any considerable part of the population of the plain country, but 

 they maintained a feudal dominion in much of the hilly country ; and 

 to this day not only the chiefs and large zemindars of the Sautpoora 

 range, but most of the men of considerable position in parts of Saugor 

 and other districts north of the Nerbudda are, I understand, Gonds, 

 diluted or improved Gonds as the case may be, (most of them wish to 

 beeome Rajpoots, and others have become Mussulmans), but still Gonds. 



Following up the Dravidian tribes, we next come to the Oraons, now 

 located in the midst of Kolarian tribes and much mixed up with 



