10. Language.
As already stated, the Baigas have completely forgotten their own language, and in the Satpūra hills they speak a broken form of Hindi, though they have a certain number of words and expressions peculiar to the caste.
[1] This article is based largely on a monograph by the Rev. J. Lampard, missionary, Baihar, and also on papers by Muhammad Hanīf Siddīqi, forest ranger, Bilāspur, and Mr. Muhammad Ali Haqqāni, B.A., Tahsīldār, Dindori. Some extracts have been made from Colonel Ward’s Mandla Settlement Report (1869), and from Colonel Bloomfield’s Notes on the Baigas.
[2] In Bengal the Bhumia or Bhumīj are an important tribe.
[3] Colonel Ward’s Mandla Settlement Report (1868–69), p. 153.
[4] Shorea robusta.
[5] Jarrett’s Ain-i-Akbari, vol. ii. p. 196.
[6] Colonel Ward gives the bride’s house as among the Gonds. But inquiry in Mandla shows that if this custom formerly existed it has been abandoned.
[7] Forsyth’s Highlands of Central India, p. 377.
[8] The Great God. The Gonds also worship Bura Deo, resident in a sāj tree.
[9] Opened in 1905.
[10] Mandla Settlement Report (1868–69), p. 153.
[11] Notes on the Baigas, p. 4.
[12] Mr. Lampard’s monograph.
[13] Farthings.