276 P. N. Bose — Ohliattingar •. notes on its tribes, sects and castes. [No. 3, 
Christian to boot — would ascribe his fever from wliicb be suffered 
greatly to the malice of a fellow Chhattisgari servant. I have been told 
many .stories about the doings of RTippo.sed witches. At one time they 
were punished by the villagers rather heavily, but since the establish- 
ment of British rule, the witches have had a rather easy time of it. 
§ 3. Desckiptions of the tribes, sects, and castes. 
The Qonds.* 
Distribution. — The Gonds extend from Hoshangabad on the Nar- 
bada to the Godavari south of Bastar, a distance in a line of over 400 
miles. The area of the country occupied by them is about 120,000 square 
miles. According to the last census they number 2,040,355 souls. 
Scattered over such an extensive country through no less than 18 dis- 
tricts, generally separated from one another by difficult natural barriers, 
it is no wonder, that we should And important local differences among 
them in language, religion, manners and customs. The account given 
here relates chiefly to the Gonds of Chhattisgar with whom the writer 
had personal intercourse. 
Whence the Gonds came, and when they settled in India are points 
on which but little light has been thrown as yet. From their language 
they appear to belong to the Dravidian section of the aboriginal popu- 
lation of India, and to be more closely allied to the Tamil than to the 
Telugu subsection. t 
Oondi Songs. — The late Mr. Hislop, to whom Indian science owes 
BO much, collected some highly interesting songs of the Gonds. These 
have been published with an abstract English version in a work entitled 
“ Papers relating to the Aboriginal Tribes of the Central Provinces.” 
They had never before been committed to writing, bnt have been handed 
down by tradition. It is probable, therefore, that we have not got them 
in their original form ; indeed, embellishments from Hindn mythology 
are clearly discernible in their present garb. Still, the main structure 
of the songs is clearly recognised to be Gondi. They are five in num- 
ber, but are linked together into one story, in which the gradual social 
evolution of the Gonds may be distinctly traced. The first song treats 
* Mr. Hislop observes: “The name of Good, or Gund, seems to be a form of 
Kond, or Kund, the initial gutturals of the two words being interchangeable... . Both 
terms are most probably connected with Kondd — the Telugu equivalent for a moun- 
tain— and therefore will signify the ‘ hill people.’ ” (Papers relating to the Aboriginal 
Tribes of the Central Provinces, p. 3.) 
t Caldwell’s “Comparative Grammar of the Dravidian Languages.” 2nd edition, 
pp. S S-516. 
