1886.] Kavi Haj Shyamal Das —The Mind tribe of Jdjpur. 
179 
Bhils. 
Minds. 
(1-) Wild race, a blackish com¬ 
plexion. 
(2.) Follow theft occasionally 
and way-lay travellers. 
(3.) Loyal to the State, and 
hard-working. 
(4.) Inhabiting an area of 600 
miles. 
(5.) Wear breeches not cover¬ 
ing the thigh, and a cloth passing 
round the body cross-wise over the 
shoulders—both of country-cloth. 
(6.) Their weapons consist of 
bow and arrow ; they are well- 
skilled in hill-fight. 
(7.) Worshippers of Kalaji. 
(8.) A man can marry five 
women at a time. 
(1.) Ignorant;—wheaten com¬ 
plexion. 
(2.) Occasional robbers but 
habitual thieves. 
(3.) Not very loyal. 
(4.) 400 miles. 
(5.) Frock and dhoti. 
(6.) Spear and dagger : capable 
of fighting on the plains, as well as 
in the hilly tracts. 
(7.) Worship Mataji. 
(8.) A man can take two 
wives. 
Neither of these races is bound by any religion or social law, 
homicide is to them a mere sport. 
They organise a system of Thana of their own caste-men for the 
prevention of theft and highway robbery. 
They do not plead guilty even on punishment being dealt out to 
them. 
They are well aided in their profession by hills and forests. 
The Minas regularly pay rent, and instalments of debts. They 
never allow other castes to settle in their villages. 
The contributor’s own views. 
The accounts of the origin of the Minas, given in the foregoing 
pages, according to the views expressed by well-informed people of that 
tribe, and the traditions of the bards, are in my opinion not correct, 
seeing that mistakes generally occur in the records kept by the latter, 
except so far as the genealogies comprised in a period of nearly the 
last three centuries are concerned. 
Therefore, I take the liberty of here stating my own views as 
to the origin of this interesting race somewhat in detail, which urges 
me to go back to a very, very ancient epoch of history. 
There was no law to prohibit the four castes into which the Aryans 
split up after their immigration into India from Central Asia regions 
