VIZAGAPATAM.
some of the people to employ watchmen of their caste as the price of immunity from theft. They are connected with the Dombus of the Ráyagada and Gunupur taluks, who are even worse. These people dacoit houses at night in armed gangs of 50 or more with their faces blacked to prevent recognition. Terrifying the villagers into staying quiet in their huts, they force their way into the house of some wealthy person (for choice the local Sondi, liquor-seller and so wear — usually the only man worth looting in an agency village and a shark who gets little pity from his neighbours when forced to disgorge), tie up the men, rape the women and go off with everything of value. Their favourite method of extracting information regarding concealed property is to sprinkle the house-owner with boiling oil.
In the east of Gunupur the Savaras commit much cattle-theft, partly, it is said, because caste custom enjoins big periodical sacrifices of cattle to their deceased ancestors.
The Khonds here and in Bissamkatak also steal cattle, especially those belonging to Brinjári gangs, in an open manner for the sake of their flesh. In 1898, at Deppiguda near Gudári, a party of them attacked four constables who were patrolling the country to check these thefts, thrashed them, and carried off all their property and uniforms. Efforts to arrest these men resulted in the inhabitants of their village fleeing to the hills; and for a time it looked as if there was danger of others joining them and of the Khonds ' going out.'
Throughout the Jeypore country proper, the Dombus (and some Ghásis) are by far the most troublesome class. Their favourite crime is cattle-theft for the sake of the skins, but in 1902 a Dombu gang in Naurangpur went so far as to levy black- mail over a large extent of country and defy for some months all attempts at capture. The loss of their cattle exasperates the other hill folk to the last degree and in 1899 the naiks (headmen)of sixteen villages in the north of Jeypore taluk headed an organized attack on the houses of the Dombus, which, in the most deliberate manner, they razed to the ground in some fifteen villages. The Dombus had fortunately got scent of what was coming and made themselves scarce, and no bloodshed occurred. In the next year some of the naiks of the Rámagiri side of Jeypore taluk sent round a jack branch, a well-recognized form of the fiery cross, summoning villagers other than Dombus to assemble at a fixed time and place, but this was luckily intercepted by the police. The Agent afterwards discussed the whole question with the chief naiks of Jeypore and south Naurangpur.
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