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338
THE INDIAN ANTIQUARY.
[NOVEMBER, 1875.
to be akin to the Kolis of the Sahyadri, and would derive their name from a contraction of mawalache (sc. lolo), 'men of the sunset.'* They are chiefly confined to the high plateaux of the Pimpelner Taluka, forming the northernmost outworks of the Sahyadrî range. They are rather tall and fair as compared with the other aboriginal tribes of Khandesh; not very numer. ous, and live chiefly by cultivation ; rude enough, but improvable; they are a quiet, wellbehaved people, get drunk a little at times, tell the truth in inverse ratio to their prosperity and civilization, and seldom take Government service. They bury their dead, and often the deceased's personal property with him.
The Konkanis rank below the Gå wids, inhabit the same country, and resemble them in their way of living, but are dark and short, and more like the sa kûr st of the Konkan in ap- pearance than any other caste. They are, however, a much more settled race than the latter, and use the plough, which the Thikûrs seldom do. They say their ancestors came from the Konkan at some long-forgotten period. They bury their dead, and erect in their memory monolithic square pillars, sometimes as much as eight feet high above ground. They don't often take service or leave their villages, but many of them, as of the GÀ wids, are patils. Neither of these have any distinctive dialect.
The Pauryas inhabit the north-western corner of the district between the crest of the Satpuris and the Narmada river. They are a very wild and shy race, but simple and well-behaved enough. They ca!l themselves Paurya Bhill, Paurya Naik, and Paurya Koli indif. ferently, but to my eye resemble in appearance the sea-Kolis of the Konkan. The men wear peculiar silver earrings with a square drop, the women huge necklaces of small pewter "buglo" beads. I have on a former occasion described the peculiarities of their dialect (Ind. Ant. vol. III. p. 250). The Târvis are, in Khandesh, a mixed race produced partly by conversion of Bhills to Islam, and partly by miscegenation of Bhills and Musalmans ---a cross which shows very plainly on their features. They are a little more civilized than the Bhills, but their knowledge of Islam may be judged of from the fact that the greater number do not know
enough of a prayer to say over an animal that is being slaughtered. In Khandesh proper they are nearly always attached to a village of settled races, of which they are sometimes the watchmen: but in British Nimâr they are occasionally the only inhabitants of forest villages; e.g. of the two "Hatti States" of Ja mti and Gadh i (each of which consists of a single village). They are tolerable shikúris, but bad cultivators, and in a general way combine the faults of both races. The late Major Forsyth attaches to the word Tarvi the signification of hereditary watchman.' After much inquiry from the best authorities, I cannot find that it is ever used in that sense in Khandesh, or in any other than that which I have given above; but that most accurate and acute observer must have had grounds for his statement, and it is probable that they have adopted the name of an office as that of their race, just as the true Bhills delight in calling themselves "Naiks," a purely official name. Major Forsyth calls this caste "Muhammadan Bhills," and gives them a very bad character. They are very ready to take any service, are still rather given to theft, and were formerly great robbers. I remember an old Tarvi pointing out to me a deep glen in the Hatti hills with the remark "Many's the good herd of cattle I've hidden there in old days." They use the sword and matchlock, seldom the bow.
The Mawattis are not inhabitants of Khandesh proper, but the tradition of their advent in the Satmala hills bordering on it is .so curious that I stretch a point to bring them in here. They are Musalman mountaineers from Mewat, in Central India, and say that Alamgir Padshah imported them to garrison the forts and hold the passes about Ajanta, where they inhabit fifty villages in the hills and forests. They are a very wild people, and extremely rough of speech, but honest and brave, and physically tall, strong and active, though as ugly of visage as a pack of satyrs. They live by rongh cultivation and wood-cutting.
The Bhila la s I are a crossed race between the Bhills and caste-Hindus. They are found mostly in the Satpuras, where they live by cultivation and wood-catting, and are not remarkable for anything but their persistent assertion of superiority to the Bhills. A Bhi
* Vide Ind. Ant. vol. III. p. 187.
Vide rol. III. p. 189.
See Ind. Ant. vol. III. p. 208.
