BHIL TRIBES. many
389
down, as members of the police or as husbandmen, At the same time, though peace was established, and has since on the whole prevailed, any local disturbance has sufficed Bhi'ls settled
into regular industry.
to re-awaken in
The
some of the Bhil
made
tribes their old love of plunder.
advance in the standards of civilization or comfort. Ignorance, carelessness, and love of liquor have, especially in Western Khandesh, sunk many of the race deep in debt to the astute Hindus. The machinery of the law courts is worked by the Hindu usurer to keep his Bhil debtors in his pow'er ; and notwithBhil has
little
standing the great rise in the value of their labour,
on
many
of the Bhils
bondage to their creditors. They are fed between seed-time and harvest, and they receive an occasional turban or cotton toil
in practical
In other respects they are not
cloth.
Even
times of oppression.
and want of although
prevent their
skill
physically
their idleness
as
and
strong and fitfulness
much
better off than in the old
small landholders, their carelessness rise in
As
the social scale.
efficient
workers when
labourers,
they please,
stand in the way of their earning high
wages.
How
modern Bhil has changed from the original Bhil it is Bhi'Is, and when well fed many hill Bhils also, become equal in size and appearance to the low - class Hindus. In Poona they are superior in stature, appearance, and intelligence to the Satpurds. This seems to show that the stunted, stupid, and savage Bhils of Khandesh, Gujarat, Rajputana, and Central India have, either from marriage with older and lower races, or from exposure and want of food, suffered both in mind and body. The wild woodsman of the Satpuras is dark, short, but well made, active and hardy, with high cheekbones, wide nostrils, and in some cases coarse, Among the southern and western tribes, almost African features. who probably more nearly represent the original type of Bhil, are many well-built and not a few tall, handsome men, with regular The lowland Bhils are now scarcely to be features and wnvy hair. far the
hard to
The lowland
say.
distinguished from the local low-class Hindus.
The
may conveniently be arranged under namely (i) those of the plains, (2) those of the hills and (3) the mixed tribes. The first are found in small almost all the villages of Central and South Khdndesh.
Bhils of the present day
—
three groups,
and forests, numbers in The second have
their settlements in the
Sahyddris, the Bardas,
and the Dangs.
Vindhyas, the Satpuras, the
The mixed tnbes
are
—
(i) the
and half Rajput or Kumbi), found in the Eastern the Tadvis, and (3) the Nirdhis, both found in the
Bhilalas (half Bhil
Satpuras;
(2)
SatmaMs and Eastern Satpuras. The two last-named sections of the The hill Bhils have seldom race are half Bhil and half Musalman. any clothing except a
strip of
cotton round their loins.
Their
women
