CHAPTER III. THE NON-ARYANS
The non-Aryans or Aborigines
The oldest dwellers in India consisted of many tribes, who, in the absence of a race-name of their own, are called the non-Aryans or Aborigines. They have left no written records; indeed, the use of letters, or of any simplest hieroglyphics, was to them unknown. The sole works of their hands which have come down to us are rude stone circles, and the upright slabs and mounds beneath which, like the primitive peoples of Europe, they buried their dead. From the remains found in these tombs, we only discover that, at some far distant but unfixed period, they knew how to make round pots of hard thin earthenware, not inelegant in shape; that they fought with iron weapons and wore ornaments of copper and gold. Earlier remains prove, indeed, that these ancient tomb-builders formed only one link in a chain of primeval races. Before them, India was peopled by tribes unacquainted with the metals, who hunted and warred with polished flint axes and other deftly wrought implements of stone, similar to those found in Northern Europe. And even these were the successors of yet ruder beings, who have left their agate knives and rough flint weapons in the Narbada valley. In front of this far-stretching background of the Early-Metal and Stone Ages, we see the so-called Aborigines being beaten down by the newly-arrived Aryan race.
The non-Aryans as described by the Aryans
The victorious Aryans from Western or West-Central Asia called the earlier tribes whom they found in India Dasyus, or ’enemies,’ and Dasas, or ‘slaves.’ The Aryans entered India from the colder north, and prided themselves on their fair complexion. Their Sanskrit word for ‘colour’ (varna) came to mean ‘race’ or ‘caste.’ The old Aryan poets, who composed the Veda at least 3000 and perhaps 4000 years ago, praised their bright gods, who, ‘slaying the Dasyus, protected the Aryan colour’; who ‘subjected the black-skin to the Aryan man.’ They tell us of their own ‘stormy deities, who rush on like furious bulls and scatter the black-skin.’ Moreover, the Aryan, with his finely-formed features, loathed the squat Mongolian faces of the Aborigines. One Vedic poet speaks of the Dasyus or non-Aryans as ’noseless’ or flat-nosed, while another praises his ‘own’ beautiful-nosed’ gods. The same unsightly feature was noticed with regard to a non-Aryan Asiatic tribe, by the companions of Alexander the Great on his Indian expedition, more than a thousand years later. But indeed the Vedic hymns abound in scornful epithets for the primitive races of India, as ‘disturbers of sacrifices,’ ‘gross feeders on flesh,’ ‘raw-eaters,’ ’lawless,’ ’not-sacrificing,’ ‘without gods,’ and ‘without rites.’ As time went on, and these rude tribes were driven back into the forest, they were painted in still more hideous shapes, till they became the ‘monsters’ and ‘demons’ of the Aryan poet and priest. Their ancient race-name, Dasyu, or ’enemy,’ thus grew to signify goblin or devil, as the old Teutonic word for enemy or ’the hater’ (modern German feind) has become the English ‘fiend.’
More Civilized non-Aryan Tribes
Nevertheless all the non-Aryan tribes of ancient India could not have been savages. We hear of wealthy Dasyus or non-Aryans; and the Vedic hymns speak of their ‘seven castles’ and ’ninety forts.’ The Aryans afterwards made alliance with non-Aryan tribes; and some of the most powerful kingdoms of India were ruled by non-Aryan kings. Nor were the non-Aryans devoid of religious rites, or of cravings after a future life. ‘They adorn,’ says an ancient Sanskrit book, ’the bodies of their dead with gifts, with raiment, with ornaments; imagining that thereby they shall attain the world to come.’ These ornaments are the bits of bronze, copper, and gold which we now dig up from beneath their rude stone monuments. In the Ramayana, the Sanskrit epic which narrates the advance of the Aryans into Southern India, a non-Aryan chief describes his race as ‘of fearful swiftness, unyielding in battle, in colour like a dark-blue cloud.’
The non-Aryans as they are
Let us now examine these primitive peoples as they exist at the present day. Thrust back by the Aryan invaders from the plains, they have lain hidden away in the mountains, like the remains of extinct animals found in hill-caves. India thus forms a great museum of races, in which we can study man from his lowest to his highest stages of culture. The specimens are not fossils or dry bones, but living tribes, each with its own set of curious customs and religious rites.
The Andaman Islanders
Among the rudest fragments of mankind are the isolated Andaman islanders, of non-Aryans of the Bay of Bengal. The Arab and early European voyagers described them as dog-faced man-eaters. The English officers sent to the islands in 1855 to establish a settlement, found themselves in the midst of naked cannibals; who daubed their bodies at festivals with red earth, and mourned for their dead friends by plastering themselves with dark mud. They used a noise like crying to express friendship or joy; bore only names of common gender, which they received before birth, and which therefore had to be applicable to either sex; and their sole conception of a god was an evil spirit, who spread disease. For five years they repulsed every effort at intercourse with showers of arrows; but our officers slowly brought them to a better frame of mind, by building sheds near the settlement, where some of these poor beings might find shelter and receive medicines and food.
The Hillmen of Madras
The Anamalai hills, in Southern Madras, form the refuge of many non-Aryan tribes. The long-haired, wild-looking Puliyas live on jungle products, mice, or any small animals they can catch; and worship demons. Another clan, the Mundavers, have no fixed dwellings, but wander over the innermost hills with their cattle. They shelter themselves in caves or under little leaf sheds, and seldom remain in one spot more than a year. The thick-lipped, small-bodied Kaders, ‘Lords of the Hills,’ are a remnant of a higher race. They live by the chase, and wield some influence over the ruder forest-folk. These hills abound in the great stone monuments (kistvacns and dolmens) which the ancient non-Aryans erected over their dead. The Nairs, the old military non-Aryan ruling race of South-Western India, still keep up the ancient system of polyandry, according to which one woman is the wife of several husbands, and a man’s property descends not to his own sons, but to his sister’s children. This system also appears among the non-Aryan tribes of the Himalayas at the opposite extremity of India.
Non-Aryans of the Vindhya Ranges
Many wild tribes inhabit the mountain ranges which separate Northern from Southern India. The best-known of these rude races are perhaps the Bhils, who dwell in the Vindhya hills, from Udaipur State far north of the Narbada river, southwards to the Khandesh Agency in the Bombay Presidency. They move about with their herds of sheep and goats through the jungly highlands, and eke out a spare livelihood by the chase and the natural products of the forest. In Udaipur State, they are settled in little hamlets, each homestead being built on a separate hillock, so as to render it impossible for their enemies to surprise a whole village at once. A single family may be seized, but the shouts which it raises give the alarm to all the rest, and in a few minutes the war-cry spreads from hill to hill, and swarms of half-naked savages rush together in arms to beat off the intruder. Before the British rule the Bhils were the terror of the neighbouring country, plundering and burning villages far and wide; while the Native Governments revenged themselves from time to time by fearful Bhil massacres. In 1818 the East India Company obtained the neighbouring Bombay District of Khandesh, but its first expedition against the Bhils failed miserably; one-half of our men having perished of fever in the jungles. Soon afterwards Sir James Outram took these wild tribes in hand. He made friends with them by means of feasts and tiger-hunts. Nine Bhil warriors, who were his constant companions in tracking the beasts of chase, formed the beginning of a regular Bhil corps which numbered 600 men in 1827, and fought boldly for the British Government. These loyal Bhils put a stop to plundering among their wilder fellow-countrymen, and they have proved themselves so trustworthy, that they are now employed as policemen and treasury-guards throughout a large tract in the Khandesh Political Agency.
Non-Aryans of the Central Provinces
In the Central Provinces, the non-Aryan races form a large part of the population. In certain localities they amount to one-half of the inhabitants. Their most important race, the Gonds, have made advances in civilization; but the wilder tribes still cling to the forest, and live by the chase. Some of them used, within the present generation, flint points for their arrows. They wield bows of great strength, which they hold with their feet, while they draw the string with both hands. They can send an arrow right through the body of a deer. The Maris fly from their grass-built huts on the approach of a stranger. Once a year a messenger comes to them from the local Raja to take their tribute, which consists chiefly of jungle products. He does not, however, enter their hamlets, but beats a drum outside, and then hides himself. The shy Maris creep forth from their huts, place what they have to give in an appointed spot, and run back again into their retreats.
The ‘Leaf-wearers’ of Orissa
Farther to the north-east, in the Tributary States of Orissa, there is a poor tribe, about 10,000 in number, of Juangs or Patuas, literally the ’leaf-wearers.’ Until twenty years ago, their women wore no clothes, but only a few strings of beads around the waist, with a bunch of leaves before and behind. In 1871, the English officer called together the clan, and, after a speech, handed out strips of cotton for the women to put on. They then passed in single file before him in their new clothes, and made obeisance. Finally, they gathered the bunches of leaves, which had formed their sole clothing, into a great heap, and solemnly set fire to it.
Himalayan Tribes
Proceeding to the northern boundary of India, we find the slopes and spurs of the Himalayas peopled by a great variety of rude non-Aryan tribes. Some of the Assam hillmen have no word for expressing distance by miles or by any land-measure, but reckon the length of a journey by the number of plugs of tobacco or betel-leaf which they chew upon the way. They hate work; and, as a rule, they are fierce, black, undersized, and ill-fed. In old times they earned a scanty livelihood by plundering the hamlets of the Assam valley. We now use them as a sort of police, to keep the peace of the border, in return for a yearly gift of cloth, hoes, and grain. Their very names bear witness to their former wild life. One tribe, the Akas of Assam, is divided into two clans, whose names literally mean ‘The eaters of a thousand hearths,’ and ‘The thieves who lurk in the cotton-field.’
More advanced non-Aryan Tribes
Many of the aboriginal tribes, therefore, remain in the same early stage of human progress as that ascribed to them by the Vedic poets more than 3000 years ago. But others have made great advances, and form communities of a well-developed type. These higher races, like the rude ones, are scattered over the length and breadth of India, and I must confine myself to a very brief account of two of them,—the Santals and the Kandhs.
The Santals
The Santals have their home among the hills which abut on the valley of the Ganges in Lower Bengal. They dwell in villages of their own, apart from the people of the plains, and, when first counted by British officers, numbered about a million. Although still clinging to many customs of a hunting forest tribe, they have learned the use of the plough, and have settled down into skilful husbandmen. Each hamlet is governed by its own headman, who is supposed to be a descendant of the original founder of the village, and who is assisted by a deputy headman and a watchman. The boys of the hamlet had their separate officers, and were strictly controlled by their own headman and his deputy till they entered the married state. The Santals know not the cruel distinctions of Hindu caste, but trace their tribes, usually fixed at seven, to the seven sons of the first parents. The whole village feasts, hunts, and worships together. So strong is the bond of race, that expulsion from the tribe used to be the only Santal punishment. A heinous criminal was cut off from ‘fire and water’ in the village, and sent forth alone into the jungle. Smaller offences were forgiven upon a public ‘reconciliation with the tribe; to effect which the guilty one had to provide a feast, with much rice-beer, for his clansmen.
Santal Ceremonies
The Santals do not allow of child-weddings. They marry about the age of 15 to 17, when the young people are old enough to choose for themselves. At the end of the ceremony the girl’s relatives pound burning charcoal with the household pestle, and extinguish it with water, in token of the breaking up of her former family ties. The Santals respect their women, and do not take a second wife during the life of the first, except when the first is childless. They solemnly burn their dead, and whenever possible they used to float three fragments of the skull down the Damodar river, the sacred stream of the race.
Santal Religion
The Santal has no knowledge of bright and friendly gods, such as the Vedic singers of the Aryan Indians worshipped. Still less can he imagine one omnipotent and beneficent Deity, who watches over mankind. Hunted and driven back before the Hindus and Muhammadans, the Santal does not understand how a Being can be more powerful than himself without wishing to harm him. ‘What,’ said a Santal to an eloquent missionary who had been discoursing on the omnipotence of the Christian God,—‘what if that strong One should eat me?’ He thinks that the earth swarms with demons, whose ill-will he tries to avert by the sacrifice of goats, cocks, and chickens. There are the ghosts of his forefathers, river-spirits, forest-spirits, well-demons, mountain-demons, and a mighty host of unseen beings, whom he must keep in good humour. These dwell chiefly in the ancient sal trees which shade his village. In some hamlets the people dance round every tree, so that they may not by evil chance miss the one in which the village-spirits happen to be dwelling.
Santal History
Until near the end of the last century, the Santals lived by plundering the adjacent plains. But under British rule they settled down into peaceful cultivators. To prevent disputes between them and the Hindu villagers of the lowlands, our officers set up in 1832 a boundary of stone pillars. But the Hindu money-lender soon came among them; and the simple hillmen plunged into debt. Their strong love of kindred prevented them from running away, and they sank into serfs to the Hindu usurers. The poor Santal gave over his whole crop each year to the money-lender, and was allowed just enough food to keep his family at work. When he died, the life-long burden descended to his children; for the high sense of honour among the Santals compels a son to take upon himself his father’s debts. In 1848 three entire villages threw up their clearings, and fled in despair to the jungle. In 1855 the Santals started in a body of 30,000 men, with their bows and arrows, to walk to Calcutta and lay their condition before the Governor-General. At first they were orderly; but the way was long; they had to live, and the hungry ones began to plunder. Quarrels broke out between them and the British police; and within a week they were in armed rebellion. The rising was put down, not without mournful bloodshed. Their complaints were carefully inquired into, and a simple system of government, directly under the eye of a British officer, was granted to them. They are now a prosperous people. But their shyness and superstition make them dread any new thing. A few of them took up arms to resist the Census of 1881.
The Kandha or Kondhs
The Kandhs, literally ‘The Mountaineers,’ a tribe about 100,000 strong, inhabit the steep and forest-covered ranges which rise from the Orissa coast. Their system of government is purely patriarchal. The family is strictly ruled by the father. The grown-up sons have no property during his life, but live in his house with their wives and children, and all share the common meal prepared by the grandmother. The head of the tribe is usually the eldest son of the patriarchal family; but if he be not fit for the post he is set aside, and an uncle or a younger brother is appointed. He enters on no undertaking without calling together the elders of the tribe.
Kandh Wars and Punishments
Up to 1835, when the English introduced milder laws, the Kandhs punished murder by blood-revenge. The kinsmen of the dead man were bound to kill the slayer, unless appeased by a payment of grain or cattle. Any one who wounded another had to maintain the sufferer until he recovered from his hurt. A stolen article must be returned, or its value paid; but the Kandh twice convicted of theft was driven forth from his tribe—the greatest punishment known to the race. Disputes were settled by duels, or by deadly combats between armed bands, or by the ordeal of boiling oil or heated iron, or by taking a solemn oath on an ant-hill, or on a tiger’s claw, or on a lizard’s skin. If a house-father died leaving no sons, his land was parcelled out among the other male heads of the village; for no woman was allowed to hold land, nor indeed any Kandh who could not with his own arms defend it.
Kandh Agriculture
The Kandh system of tillage represents a stage half way between the migratory cultivation of the ruder non-Aryan tribes and the settled agriculture of the Hindus. The Kandhs do not, like the ruder non-Aryans, merely burn down a patch in the jungle, take a few crops off it, and then move on to fresh clearings. Nor, on the other hand, do they go on cultivating the same fields, like the Hindus, from father to son. When their lands show signs of exhaustion, they desert them; and it was a rule in some of the Kandh settlements to change their village sites once in fourteen years.
Kandh Marriages by ‘Capture’
A Kandh wedding consists of forcibly carrying off the bride in the middle of a feast. The boy’s father pays a price for the girl, and usually chooses a strong one, several years older than his son. In this way Kandh maidens are married about fourteen, Kandh boys about ten. The bride remains as a servant in her new father-in-law’s house till her boy-husband grows old enough to live with her. She generally acquires a great influence over him; and a Kandh may not marry a second wife during the life of his first one, except with her consent.
Serfs of the Kandh Village
The Kandh engages only in husbandry and war, and despises all other work. But attached to each village is a row of hovels inhabited by a lower race, who are not allowed to hold land, to go forth to battle, or to join in the village worship. These poor people do the dirty work of the hamlet, and supply families of hereditary weavers, blacksmiths, potters, herdsmen, and distillers. They are kindly treated, and a portion of each feast is left for them. But they can never rise in the social scale. No Kandh could engage in their work without degradation, nor eat food prepared by their hands. They are supposed to be the remnants of a ruder race, whom the Kandhs found in possession of the hills, when they themselves were pushed backwards by the Aryans from the plains.
Kandh Human Sacrifices
The Kandhs, like the Santals, have many deities, race-gods, tribe-gods, family-gods, and a multitude of malignant spirits and demons. But their great divinity is the earth-god, who represents the productive energy of nature. Twice each year, at sowing-time and at harvest, and in all seasons of special calamity, the earth-god required a human sacrifice. The duty of kidnapping victims from the plains rested with the lower race attached to the Kandh village. Brahmans and Kandhs were the only classes exempted from sacrifice, and an ancient rule ordained that the offering must be bought with a price. The victim, on being brought to the hamlet, was welcomed at every threshold, daintily fed, and kindly treated till the fatal day arrived. He was then solemnly sacrificed to the earth-god, the Kandhs shouting in his dying ear, ‘We bought you with a price; no sin rests with us!’ His flesh and blood were portioned out among the village lands.
The Kandhs under British Rule
In 1835 the Kandhs passed under our rule, and human sacrifices were put down. Roads have been made through their hills, and fairs established. The English officers interfere as little as possible with their customs; and the Kandhs are now a peaceable and well-to-do race.
The Three non-Aryan Stocks
Whence came these primitive peoples, whom the Aryan invaders found in the land more than 3000 years ago, and who are still scattered over India, the fragments of a prehistoric world? Written annals they do not possess. Their traditions tell us little. But from their languages we find that they belong to three stocks. First, the Tibeto-Burman tribes, who entered India from the north-east, and still cling to the skirts of the Himalayas. Second, the Kolarians, who also seem to have entered Bengal by the north-eastern passes. They dwell chiefly along the north-eastern ranges of the central tableland which covers the southern half of India. Third, the Dravidians, who appear, on the other hand, to have found their way into the Punjab by the north-western passes. They now inhabit the southern part of the three-sided tableland as far down as Cape Comorin, the southernmost point of India.
Character of the non-Aryans
As a rule, the non-Aryan races, when fairly treated, are truthful, loyal, and kind. Those in the hills make good soldiers; while even the thieving tribes of the plains can be turned into clever police. The non-Aryan low-castes of Madras supplied the troops which conquered Southern India for the British; and some of them fought at the battle of Plassey, which won for us Bengal. The gallant Gurkhas, a non-Aryan tribe of the Himalayas, now rank among the bravest regiments in our Indian army, and have covered themselves with honour in every recent war, from Afghanistan to Burma.
The Future of the Non-Aryans
In many countries of the world, the ruder tribes have been crushed, or killed off by superior races. This has been the case, to a large extent, with the primitive peoples of Mexico and Peru, with the Red Indians of North America, and with the Aborigines of Australia and, to some extent, in New Zealand. But the non-Aryan tribes of India are prospering instead of decreasing under British rule. Hill-fairs and roads through their mountains and jungles have opened up to them new means of livelihood; and the Census, both in 1872 and 1881, showed that they have a larger proportion of children than the other Indian races. As they grow rich, they adopt Hindu customs, and numbers of them every year pass within the pale of Hinduism. Others become converts to Christianity, and it seems likely that in the course of two or three generations there will be but a small remnant of the non-Aryan races which still cling to their aboriginal customs and rites. The Census in 1881 and 1891 included many of them among the low caste Hindus, and returned a much smaller number of pure Aborigines than the figures which I have given at page 38 for the aboriginal population, from the Census of 1872. This arises partly from the fact that the aboriginal races are merging into the Hindu community: partly because the system of classification adopted in 1872 exhibited the Aborigines more fully according to their race than the later Census enumerations in 1881 and 1891. The returns of 1901 do not give details, but there is no reason to doubt that they continue as time goes on to abandon their ancient customs and to become merged, socially and religiously, in the general population.
Materials for Reference
Particulars will be found regarding the various aboriginal races in the Imperial Gazetteer of India, 2nd ed., under the heading of their respective localities. Dalton’s Ethnology of Bengal, Hislop’s Aboriginal Tribes of the Central Provinces, Sir Henry Elliot’s Races of the North Western Provinces of India (Beames’ edition), Sir William Hunter’s Annals of Rural Bengal, Ibbetson’s Census Report for the Punjab, 1881, Bishop Caldwell’s Comparative Grammar of the Dravidian or South Indian Languages, and Risley’s Tribes and Castes of Bengal are the standard authorities.