The position of the Bhīls as the earliest residents of the country was also recognised by their employment in the capacity of village watchmen. One of the duties of this official is to know the village boundaries and keep watch and ward over them, and it was supposed that the oldest class of residents would know them best. The Bhīls worked in the office of Mānkar, the superior village watchman, in Nimār and also in Berār. Grant Duff states[7] that the Rāmosi or Bhīl was employed as village guard by the Marāthas, and the Rāmosis were a professional caste of village policemen, probably derived from the Bhīls or from the Bhīls and Kolis.
3. Historical notice.
The Rājpūts seem at first to have treated the Bhīls leniently. Intermarriage was frequent, especially in the families of Bhīl chieftains, and a new caste called Bhilāla[8] has arisen, which is composed of the descendants of mixed Rājpūt and Bhīl marriages. Chiefs and landholders in the Bhīl country now belong to this caste, and it is possible that some pure Bhīl families may have been admitted to it. The Bhilālas rank above the Bhīls, on a level with the cultivating castes. Instances occasionally occurred in which the children of Rājpūt by a Bhīl wife became Rājpūts. When Colonel Tod wrote, Rājpūts would still take food with Ujla Bhīls or those of pure aboriginal descent, and all castes would take water from them.[9] But as Hinduism came to be more orthodox in Rājputāna, the Bhīls sank to the position of outcastes. Their custom of eating beef had always caused them to be much despised. A tradition is related that one day the god Mahādeo or Siva, sick and unhappy, was reclining in a shady forest when a beautiful woman appeared, the first sight of whom effected a cure of all his complaints. An intercourse between the god and the strange female was established, the result of which was many children; one of whom, from infancy distinguished alike by his ugliness and vice, slew the favourite bull of Mahādeo, for which crime he was expelled to the woods and mountains, and his descendants have ever since been stigmatised by the names of Bhīl and Nishāda.[10] Nishāda is a term of contempt applied to the lowest outcastes. Major Hendley, writing in 1875, states: “Some time since a Thākur (chief) cut off the legs of two Bhīls, eaters of the sacred cow, and plunged the stumps into boiling oil.”[11] When the Marāthas began to occupy Central India they treated the Bhīls with great cruelty. A Bhīl caught in a disturbed part of the country was without inquiry flogged and hanged. Hundreds were thrown over high cliffs, and large bodies of them, assembled under promise of pardon, were beheaded or blown from guns. Their women were mutilated or smothered by smoke, and their children smashed to death against the stones.[12] This treatment may to some extent have been deserved owing to the predatory habits and cruelty of the Bhīls, but its result was to make them utter savages with their hand against every man, as they believed that every one’s was against them. From their strongholds in the hills they laid waste the plain country, holding villages and towns to ransom and driving off cattle; nor did any travellers pass with impunity through the hills except in convoys too large to be attacked. In Khāndesh, during the disturbed period of the wars of Sindhia and Holkar, about A.D. 1800, the Bhīls betook themselves to highway robbery and lived in bands either in mountains or in villages immediately beneath them. The revenue contractors were unable or unwilling to spend money in the maintenance of soldiers to protect the country, and the Bhīls in a very short time became so bold as to appear in bands of hundreds and attack towns, carrying off either cattle or hostages, for whom they demanded handsome ransoms.[13] In Gujarāt another writer described the Bhīls and Kolis as hereditary and professional plunderers—‘Soldiers of the night,’ as they themselves said they were.[14] Malcolm said of them, after peace had been restored to Central India:[15] “Measures are in progress that will, it is expected, soon complete the reformation of a class of men who, believing themselves doomed to be thieves and plunderers, have been confirmed in their destiny by the oppression and cruelty of neighbouring governments, increased by an avowed contempt for them as outcasts. The feeling this system of degradation has produced must be changed; and no effort has been left untried to restore this race of men to a better sense of their condition than that which they at present entertain. The common answer of a Bhīl when charged with theft or robbery is, ‘I am not to blame; I am the thief of Mahādeo’; in other words, ‘My destiny as a thief has been fixed by God.’” The Bhīl chiefs, who were known as Bhumia, exercised the most absolute power, and their orders to commit the most atrocious crimes were obeyed by their ignorant but attached subjects without a conception on the part of the latter that they had an option when he whom they termed their Dhunni (Lord) issued the mandates.[16] Firearms and swords were only used by the chiefs and headmen of the tribe, and their national weapon was the bamboo bow having the bowstring made from a thin strip of its elastic bark. The quiver was a piece of strong bamboo matting, and would contain sixty barbed arrows a yard long, and tipped with an iron spike either flattened and sharpened like a knife or rounded like a nail; other arrows, used for knocking over birds, had knob-like heads. Thus armed, the Bhīls would lie in wait in some deep ravine by the roadside, and an infernal yell announced their attack to the unwary traveller.[17] Major Hendley states that according to tradition in the Mahābhārata the god Krishna was killed by a Bhīl’s arrow, when he was fighting against them in Gujarāt with the Yādavas; and on this account it was ordained that the Bhīl should never again be able to draw the bow with the forefinger of the right hand. “Times have changed since then, but I noticed in examining their hands that few could move the forefinger without the second finger; indeed the fingers appeared useless as independent members of the hands. In connection with this may be mentioned their apparent inability to distinguish colours or count numbers, due alone to their want of words to express themselves.”[18]
Tantia Bhīl, a famous dacoit.
4. General Outram and the Khāndesh Bhīl Corps.
The reclamation and pacification of the Bhīls is inseparably associated with the name of Lieutenant, afterwards Sir James, Outram. The Khāndesh Bhīl Corps was first raised by him in 1825, when Bhīl robber bands were being hunted down by small parties of troops, and those who were willing to surrender were granted a free pardon for past offences, and given grants of land for cultivation and advances for the purchase of seed and bullocks. When the first attempts to raise the corps were made, the Bhīls believed that the object was to link them in line like galley-slaves with a view to extirpate the race, that blood was in high demand as a medicine in the country of their foreign masters, and so on. Indulging the wild men with feasts and entertainments, and delighting them with his matchless urbanity, Captain Outram at length contrived to draw over to the cause nine recruits, one of whom was a notorious plunderer who had a short time before successfully robbed the officer commanding a detachment sent against him. This infant corps soon became strongly attached to the person of their new chief and entirely devoted to his wishes; their goodwill had been won by his kind and conciliatory manners, while their admiration and respect had been thoroughly roused and excited by his prowess and valour in the chase. On one occasion, it is recorded, word was brought to Outram of the presence of a panther in some prickly-pear shrubs on the side of a hill near his station. He went to shoot it with a friend, Outram being on foot and his friend on horseback searching through the bushes. When close on the animal, Outram’s friend fired and missed, on which the panther sprang forward roaring and seized Outram, and they rolled down the hill together. Being released from the claws of the furious beast for a moment, Outram with great presence of mind drew a pistol which he had with him, and shot the panther dead. The Bhīls, on seeing that he had been injured, were one and all loud in their grief and expressions of regret, when Outram quieted them with the remark, ‘What do I care for the clawing of a cat?’ and this saying long remained a proverb among the Bhīls.[19] By his kindness and sympathy, listening freely to all that each single man in the corps had to say to him, Outram at length won their confidence, convinced them of his good faith and dissipated their fears of treachery. Soon the ranks of the corps became full, and for every vacant place there were numbers of applicants. The Bhīls freely hunted down and captured their friends and relations who continued to create disturbances, and brought them in for punishment. Outram managed to check their propensity for liquor by paying them every day just sufficient for their food, and giving them the balance of their pay at the end of the month, when some might have a drinking bout, but many preferred to spend the money on ornaments and articles of finery. With the assistance of the corps the marauding tendencies of the hill Bhīls were suppressed and tranquillity restored to Khāndesh, which rapidly became one of the most fertile parts of India. During the Mutiny the Bhīl corps remained loyal, and did good service in checking the local outbursts which occurred in Khāndesh. A second battalion was raised at this time, but was disbanded three years afterwards. After this the corps had little or nothing to do, and as the absence of fighting and the higher wages which could be obtained by ordinary labour ceased to render it attractive to the Bhīls, it was finally converted into police in 1891.[20]
5. Subdivisions.
The Bhīls of the Central Provinces have now only two subdivisions, the Muhammadan Bhīls, who were forcibly converted to Islām during the time of Aurāngzeb, and the remainder, who though retaining many animistic beliefs and superstitions, have practically become Hindus. The Muhammadan Bhīls only number about 3000 out of 28,000. They are known as Tadvi, a name which was formerly applied to a Bhīl headman, and is said to be derived from tād, meaning a separate branch or section. These Bhīls marry among themselves and not with any other Muhammadans. They retain many Hindu and animistic usages, and are scarcely Muhammadan in more than name. Both classes are divided into groups or septs, generally named after plants or animals to which they still show reverence. Thus the Jāmania sept, named after the jāman tree,[21] will not cut or burn any part of this tree, and at their weddings the dresses of the bride and bridegroom are taken and rubbed against the tree before being worn. Similarly the Rohini sept worship the rohan[22] tree, the Avalia sept the aonla[23] tree, the Meheda sept the bahera[24] tree, and so on. The Mori sept worship the peacock. They go into the jungle and look for the tracks of a peacock, and spreading a piece of red cloth before the footprint, lay their offerings of grain upon it. Members of this sept may not be tattooed, because they think the splashes of colour on the peacock’s feathers are tattoo-marks. Their women must veil themselves if they see a peacock, and they think that if any member of the sept irreverently treads on a peacock’s footprints he will fall ill. The Ghodmārya (Horse-killer) sept may not tame a horse nor ride one. The Masrya sept will not kill or eat fish. The Sanyān or cat sept have a tradition that one of their ancestors was once chasing a cat, which ran for protection under a cover which had been put over the stone figure of their goddess. The goddess turned the cat into stone and sat on it, and since then members of the sept will not touch a cat except to save it from harm, and they will not eat anything which has been touched by a cat. The Ghattaya sept worship the grinding mill at their weddings and also on festival days. The Solia sept, whose name is apparently derived from the sun, are split up into four subsepts: the Ada Solia, who hold their weddings at sunrise; the Japa Solia, who hold them at sunset; the Taria Solia, who hold them when stars have become visible after sunset; and the Tar Solia, who believe their name is connected with cotton thread and wrap several skeins of raw thread round the bride and bridegroom at the wedding ceremony. The Moharia sept worship the local goddess at the village of Moharia in Indore State, who is known as the Moharia Māta; at their weddings they apply turmeric and oil to the fingers of the goddess before rubbing them on the bride and bridegroom. The Maoli sept worship a goddess of that name in Barwāni town. Her shrine is considered to be in the shape of a kind of grain-basket known as kilia, and members of the sept may never make or use baskets of this shape, nor may they be tattooed with representations of it. Women of the sept are not allowed to visit the shrine of the goddess, but may worship her at home. Several septs have the names of Rājpūt clans, as Sesodia, Panwār, Mori, and appear to have originated in mixed unions between Rājpūts and Bhīls.