GONDS

[s. 286] : A non- Aryan race of Central India, numbering some 2,000,000 and forming the largest remnant of the Dravidian aborigines, so called, who were pushed back by the later Aryan immigration into the mountainous, ill-watered, jungle covered region known as Gondwana (the land of the Gonds), which is some 400x300 miles in extent and lies between 18° 40’ and 23° 40’ Lat. and 78° to 82° Long., mostly within the Central Provinces, Bastar and Berar. The Gonds are thinly scattered over this region, sharing the more acce ible plains with the Hindus. The Rajputs of Malwa early intermarried with the Gonds, forming the Raj-Gonds, who have retained the physical peculiarities, but have laid aside the rough habits of the Gonds and taken on some elements of Hindu civilization. The wild Gonds form the ma of the population of Bastar, whose ruler is a Gond. In the north of this state they are called Muriyas (forest people); southward about the Godavari and Prauhita valleys dwell a branch known as Kois (hill people), while those who live higher up in the hills are known as Gu-te-koi (high-hill people). The Khonds, another branch, are found in Ori a east of Gondwana. The long-continued independence of the Gonds as a race has been due to the arid, inacce ible character of their country, but their race unity is now broken, and as time goes on they are approaching more nearly to the language, customs and religion of their Hindu neighbors. The Gonds are short in stature, have dark, nearly black skin, small deep-set eyes, thick lips, thin beards and long black hair, and are strong and hardy. They are of good disposition, comparatively honest and truthful, grateful for kindne and hospitality. A rag about the loins and strings of beads are the chief articles of dre , and, in the N. ’V^i. of Bastar, the women content themselves with abbreviated aprons of leafy twigs. The sexes are intellectually and socially on an equality; women are freely wooed and marry usually after they are sixteen. A village is a straggling line of cultivated enclosures with a hut in each. They are in demand as mine workers. The language of these tribes is called Gondi. The northern Gonds speak also a corrupt Hindi, and the southern, including the Kois, use Telugu. The religion of the Gonds, allied to the Bhuta cult common to the uncultured people of South India, consists of the worship of nature and of the spirits of the dead, involving human sacrifice until its suppre ion by the British, when images of the horse and food were substituted as offerings. In religious ceremonies the rudest symbols are employed, the representation of their chief deities, Pharsa-Pen, Loha-Pen and Bhera-Pen, being a hatchet, a nail and a chain. The priests exercise large power. advanced Gonds have borrowed The more from the Hindus, worshiping Siva and and the Raj -Gonds have developed a system of caste which is foreign to Gond religion of the Kafi especially, tradition. The Free Church of Scotland began in 1845 a mi ion to the Gonds, under Rev. S. S. Hislop, who took into the employ of the mi ion the remaining members of an earlier German effort. The United Free Church of Scotland Mi ion, with headquarters at Nagpur, tho no longer distinctly a mi ion to the Gonds, now carries on this work for this people. The “Bhalagat Mi ion” to the Gonds, begun in 1894, had, in 1902, some half dozen European agents, who labored among the wild Gonds in the forests, with a center at Behir. The Swedish Evangelical National Society has undertaken work for the Gonds in Chindwara and the Methodist Episcopal Church (U. S.) at SirBut the chief mi ion to this people is oncha. that of the Church Mi ionary Society, which established in 1854 a station at Jabalpur, in part as a basis for a Gond mi ion, with which, however, the pre ure of other work seriously interfered. Upon the initiative of two earnest Christian workers stationed in that region, Col. Colton and Capt. Haig, the mi ion to the Kois was begun in 1860, the first fruit of which has, however, been more among other races than among the Kois. As a result of the Conference on non-Aryan Mi ions in 1877 a Gond Mi ion was established at Mandla, to which stations at Marpha and Patpara have been added. Five hundred converts were enrolled by the CMS in 1900, but many of them were not Gonds, the low caste Hindus proving more acce ible and proThus, while the Gonds during a long period have been regarded as a field of singular promise, mi ions to them are still in the day of small things. Gondwana was the most sorely stricken region in India during the famine of recent years and the mi ionaries exemplified the Gospel by extensive relief work. Imperial Gazetteer of India (Article Gonds) History of the Church Mi ionary Society: King (W. R.), Aboriginal Tribes of the Nilgiri Hills, London, 1870; Watson (J. F.) and Kay (J. W.), Races and Tribes of Hindu stan, 4 vols., gre ive.; London, 1868-70. 287