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188
THE INDIAN ANTIQUARY.
[JULY, 1874.
I believe well-deserved, reputation for chastity Cut noses are almost as common among the -perhaps because the men are more jealous, and Vånis of the western districts as goitres in more apt to punish adultery with death, than some Alpine valleys. The town of Ambegâm any other Hindus that I know of except the has been four times burnt to the ground. The Wanjaris. I knew one instance in which sympathies of the rural population are entirely a Kolî woman with the choice of death or dis- with the offenders, who but revenge the grievhonour before her, deliberately chose and bravely ances of their class; and where they might be endured the former. The manly, simple, and willing they are afraid to lend assistance to truthful character of the Kolis makes them the police, which would probably be punished a pleasant people to converse with and live by the burning of houses or crops, and perhaps among: but, upon the other hand, they are by personal violence. The rugged hills and great plunderers, and their frequent marauding dense jungles of the ghâts afford a safe refuge expeditions are aggravated by a reckless and to those who are recognized and "go out;" and unrelenting cruelty, which any one accustomed altogether our rule has perpetuated, if not proto intercourse with them in their milder mood duced, a state of things in the Sahyadri hills finds it difficult and painful to believe in. In which finds its nearest analogue in the Tipone case I knew a gang to burn a wretched perary of forty years ago, and which can only old man alive, because he did not pay a sum be altered either by removing the causes, or by which they must have known he could not simply dragooning the country into peace with possibly have in hand; and their detection was an enormously increased police force, in which a remarkable instance of the doctrine that latter case the Koli will probably slowly "murder will out." The other villagers had fled die out: the V â ni depriving him of his land in terror, but a little boy, the victim's grand- and house; the Kunabi, hard pressed for land child, stayed by his old relation to the last, and, in the over-populated plains, ever ready to step though half-stapefied by fear, remembered that into his place; and the Sirkâr providing him one of the murderers had a broken toe. The with a place of refuge in the jail or the Andaman with the broken toe was discovered, appre- man islands. The subsistence of the Kolis, hended, confessed his own offence and betrayed apart from the produce of occasional dacoihis accomplices, and they came by the punish- ties, is derived from the cultivation of rice ment they deserved. The other day a party of and coarse high-land grains, and oilseeds. In Kolis put an obnoxious Våni upon a heap of Puna the free forests are not sufficiently ex. prickly milk-bush (Euphorbia) and pressed him tensive to make woodcutting or cattle-herding on to it with their feet till he gave up his coin; any great addition to their means of livelihood, and I write with twenty Koli prisoners under as they are further north ; but they keep a guard, who relate the tale of a dozen robberies, good many buffaloes, which give very good varied with torture, rape, and fire-raising, in a milk and butter. They go down a good deal tone of cool frankness that would be amusing if to Bombay, when the crop has been got in, to it were not horrible. That they should be trans- work as coolies. Police service is very popular ported for life they seem to regard as part of with them, in which they are very useful for hill the rules of the game, which it is not worth service, though they sometimes get tired of it after while to avoid by lying, when fairly caught. a couple of years' service. A Koli corps raised The fact is that they have in many cases been by Major (now Colonel) Nuttall did good serdriven to madness by the extortions of the vice in former troublous times, the men fightVânis, and the perverted process of the ing at first with their own arms of sword and civil courts. A Koli buys a little grain or matchlock. They are often expert swordsmen cloth upon credit, signs he knows not what, and good shots, seldom use the spear, and is pressed on year after year for interest; and never the bow. The koitá, or bill-hook, is the after throwing crop, wood, and cattle in vain constant companion of every Koli, hanging into the gulf of usury, at last finds his creditor at his side in a hook which is often made of at the door with a writ of attachment for the sâmbar horn, very prettily carved. They are last remains of his miserable belongings. It is very skilful in the use of this rude tool, but little wonder that severe reprisals take place. I do not habitually use it as a weapon. It is
