Life and Travel in India: Being Recollections of a Journey Before the Days of RailroadsLeonowens, Anna Harriette
History
Life and Travel in India: Being Recollections of a Journey Before the Days of Railroads
Leonowens, Anna Harriette
India -- Description and travel; India -- Social life and customs
[31] The British established in 1825 a Bhil agency in Central India, and
organized a Bhil corps in order to utilize the warlike instincts of the
various Bhil tribes. This brave body of men, who have distinguished
themselves in war, have recently done good service in aiding to put down
the predatory habits of their countrymen. They are slowly becoming
cultivators of the soil, though still unwilling to rent land and thus
bind themselves to fixed habits for any length of time.
[32] A remarkable account of a residence with Nádir, and of some of his
murderous exploits, will be found in the _Autobiography of Lutfullah_.
[33] The great reforms which have been effected in many of these tribes
have been very materially assisted by the influence of the Bhil women.
[34] A strip of cloth worn by the lower population of India around the
loins.
[35] The Gonds are supposed to be the aborigines of the Sagar and
Nagpoor provinces, and have much in common with the Khandsor Khands,
another tribe of North Sarkar. They have dialects peculiar to
themselves, and which have no affinity whatever with the Sanskrit, but
probably are akin to that of the Dravidian stock. They kept up their old
religious custom of human sacrifice until 1835-45, when the strong arm
of the English interfered and has almost put a stop to it.
[36] Gondwana has been thought by some Oriental scholars to be the
ancient Chèdi, which was ruled by the great Sisupal, who is said to have
governed India about the time of the appearance of Krishna (the last of
the incarnations of Brahm) on earth. They identify Chanderi, his ancient
capital, with the modern Chanda, a city in British India in the Nagpoor
division of the Central Provinces, and abounding in fine remains of huge
reservoirs for water, cave-temples, and the curious tombs of the
aboriginal Gond kings.
[37] Meriah means "death-doomed," and Kudatee, "dedicated to the god."
[38] See _Introduction to the Second Book of the Rig-Veda_, by H. H.
Wilson, p. xvii.
[39] Khalif, or Caliph, successor or vicar of Mohammed, from Khalifah,
an Arabic title given to the acknowledged successors of Mohammed, who
were regarded as invested with supreme dignity and power in all matters
relating to religion and civil polity.
[40] A Mohammedan reformer and founder of the Sikh religion. He preached
about the fourteenth century against the abuses of the Mohammedan
religion, and inaugurated the spiritual worship of God alone. One day,
when Nanak lay on the ground absorbed in devotion, with his feet toward
Mecca, a Moslem priest, seeing him, cried, "Base infidel! how darest
thou turn thy feet toward the house of Allah?" Nanak answered, "And
thou, turn them if thou canst toward any spot where the awful house of
God is not."
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