Caste on Indian soil was not in its beginning an entirely arbitrary institution; it was at first the natural expression of a high-bred and highly-sensitive race toward an inferior and savage population among which they had settled. It took centuries before caste was established on Indian soil, and nearly a thousand years before it became incorporated in the sacred books of the Brahmans in its present form. But the moment that divine authority was claimed for it, that moment it became to the God-fearing races of the East a law so subtle, so intricate, and yet so absolute, that the most daring as well as the most abject could not hope to escape its iron rule.
From the remotest times there has been a ceaseless march of tribes and races into the vast peninsula called Hindostan, from which there is no easy outlet, east or west, north or south; all points are equally difficult and impassable—mountain-barriers on the north, with ranges of mountains and circling seas on every other side. Nevertheless, pouring across the Indus and straggling down the narrow defiles and passes of the Himalayas, came wave after wave of immigration, pushing the earlier populations farther and farther into the hills and forest-boundaries of the occupied land. Each wave, borne down by the later arrival, disappeared or retreated deeper and deeper into the heart of the country till the whole of India was over-flooded by the great Aryan invasion.
In no part of the world are there found so many remains of distinct tribes and races of men as in Hindostan proper. Everywhere in the forests, in the most inaccessible mountain-regions of the peninsula, and all along the sea-coast, are tribes and races who seem to have been hemmed in where we now find them. The vast plains of the regions of the Indus and the Ganges afforded no place of refuge to the retreating barbarians. Hence, with the exception of some few who were absorbed into the population of Lower Bengal, the Aryans drove all before them, even the Tamuls, a partly-civilized people, who, having swept the earlier inhabitants southward, were in their turn forced south.
From the latitude of the Vindhyan chain down to Cape Comorin, and in the forests of Ceylon, the aboriginal populations of India are still to be met with, living in detached communities, distinct in physical appearance, manners, customs, and religions, not only from the Hindoos, Tamuls, Moslems, and Parsees, but from one another.
Nothing annoyed our pundit so much as when he heard me call my bhistee, or water-man, "a Hindoo:" "Hindoo nay, maim sahib, whoo jungly-wallah hai" ("Not Hindoo-man, but a savage of the forest"). And, to tell the truth, one could not fail to notice between the Hindoo pundit and the coolie-bhistee as marked a difference as one sees between a high-bred American gentleman of the Anglo-Saxon race and the newly-emancipated American negro.
In crossing the Indus one comes upon the relics of ancient races in the dark-complexioned, diminutive, but powerfully athletic natives of Guzerat, many of whom are now the coolies or porters of Bombay. Again, scattered over the Vindhyan and Satpurah mountains and the banks of the Nerbudda and Tapti are other tribes of a very peculiar race called Bheels or Bhils, probably from the Sanskrit word "bhil," which signifies "separate" or "outcasts." The legends of these tribes, one and all, trace their origin to the union of the god Mahadèo with a beautiful woman met by him in a forest. From this union sprang a sort of giant distinguished by his ugliness and vice, who, after having perpetrated a series of horrible crimes, killed the sacred Brahmanic bull of the god, and was banished to the wilderness of Jodhpoor. The history of the Rajpoot princes of Jodhpoor and Odhpoor corroborates this account of the Bhil emigration. The Bhats,[30] or minstrels, of the Bhils still reside in Rajpootana, and make yearly visits to the countries of the various Bhil tribes to celebrate festal seasons with music and song. The celebrated Nádir Singh, a Bhilahah (that is, one sprung from the marriage of a Rajpoot with a Bhil woman), was one of the most formidable freebooters of his time until the establishment of an English settlement at Mhau,[31] when he was compelled to discharge his foreign adherents and renounce plundering.[32]
The Bhils are short in stature, thick-set, almost black, with wiry hair and beard, but extraordinarily active and capable of enduring great fatigue, delighting in flesh of all kinds and intoxicating drinks, with which no Brahman will ever pollute his sacred lips. The chiefs of the Bhils are called Bhomiyahs, and are generally of the Bhilalah or mixed race. They exercise the most absolute power over their subjects; each chief is styled a "dhani," or lord, and the most atrocious crimes are often committed at his bidding. In order to limit this absolute power, however, there are certain religious officers called "tarwis," or heads of tribes, whose counsel must be attended to by the chiefs. The worship of the Bhils is paid to Mahadèo, the high god, and Dèvi his consort, the goddess of small-pox. A great number of infernal deities are also propitiated by yearly offerings and pilgrimages to their respective shrines.
While the Bhil men are brutal, cruel, and drunken, it is a remarkable fact that the Bhil women are chaste, gentle, and almost always very good-looking.[33]
Driven southward by the conquering Rajpoots, numbers of the Bhils adopted the savage life of freebooters and robbers, which they still retain, and the more wealthy settled in Guzerat and Candeish, where most richly-ornamented temples and rock-shrines are to be found to-day, and such as remained with the Rajpoots became hardy cultivators of the soil or the bravest of watchmen when employed as guards.