e
Central Provinces. There is reason to believe that the Baigas were
once dominant in the Chhattisgarh plain and the hills surrounding it
which adjoin Chota Nagpur, the home of the Bhuiyas. The considerations
in favour of this view are given in the article on Bhuiya, to which
reference may be made.

2. Tribal legends.

The Baigas, however, are not without some conceit of themselves,
as the following legend will show. In the beginning, they say, God
created Nanga Baiga and Nangi Baigin, the first of the human race,
and asked them by what calling they would choose to live. They at once
said that they would make their living by felling trees in the jungle,
and permission being accorded, have done so ever since. They had two
sons, one of whom remained a Baiga, while the other became a Gond
and a tiller of the soil. The sons married their own two sisters who
were afterwards born, and while the elder couple are the ancestors
of the Baigas, from the younger are descended the Gonds and all the
remainder of the human race. In another version of the story the
first Baiga cut down two thousand old _sal_ [88] trees in one day,
and God told him to sprinkle a few grains of kutki on the ashes, and
then to retire and sleep for some months, when on his return he would
be able to reap a rich harvest for his children. In this manner the
habit of shifting cultivation is accorded divine sanction. According
to Binjhwar tradition Nanga Baiga and Nangi Baigin dwelt on the
_kajli ban pahar_, which being interpreted is the hill of elephants,
and may well refer to the ranges of Mandla and Bilaspur. It is
stated in the _Ain-i-Akbari_ [89] that the country of Garha-Mandla
abounded in wild elephants, and that the people paid their tribute
in these and gold mohurs. In Mandla the Baigas sometimes hang out
from their houses a bamboo mat fastened to a long pole to represent
a flag which they say once flew from the palace of a Baiga king. It
seems likely that the original home of the tribe may have been the
Chhattisgarh plain and the hill-ranges surrounding it. A number of
estates in these hills are held by landowners of tribes which are
offshoots of the Baigas, as the Bhainas and Binjhwars. The point is
further discussed in the article on Bhuiya. Most of the Baigas speak
a corrupt form of the Chhattisgarhi dialect. When they first came
under the detailed observation of English officers in the middle of
the nineteenth century, the tribe were eve