r residents of any
locality who are employed by later comers in this office, because they
are considered to have a more intimate acquaintance with the local
deities. And consequently we are entitled to assume that the Bhainas
are older residents of the country where they are found than their
neighbours, the Gonds and Kawars. There is other evidence to the same
effect; for instance, the oldest forts in Bilaspur are attributed to
the Bhainas, and a chief of this tribe is remembered as having ruled
in Bilaigarh; they are also said to have been dominant in Pendra,
where they are still most numerous, though the estate is now held
by a Kawar; and it is related that the Bhainas were expelled from
Phuljhar in Raipur by the Gonds. Phuljhar is believed to be a Gond
State of long standing, and the Raja of Raigarh and others claim to be
descended from its ruling family. A manuscript history of the Phuljhar
chiefs records that that country was held by a Bhaina king when the
Gonds invaded it, coming from Chanda. The Bhaina with his soldiers
took refuge in a hollow underground chamber with two exits. But the
secret of this was betrayed to the Gonds by an old Gond woman, and
they filled up the openings of the chamber with grass and burnt the
Bhainas to death. On this account the tribe will not enter Phuljhar
territory to this day, and say that it is death to a Bhaina to do
so. The Binjhwars are also said to have been dominant in the hills
to the east of Raipur District, and they too are a civilised branch
of the Baigas. And in all this area the village priest is commonly
known as Baiga, the deduction from which is, as already stated, that
the Baigas were the oldest residents. [264] It seems a legitimate
conclusion, therefore, that prior to the immigration of the Gonds
and Kawars, the ancient Baiga tribe was spread over the whole hill
country east and north of the Mahanadi basin.

2. Closely connected with the Kawars.

The Bhainas are also closely connected with the Kawars, who still own
many large estates in the hills north of Bilaspur. It is said that
formerly the Bhainas and Kawars both ate in common and intermarried,
but at present, though the Bhainas still eat rice boiled in water from
the Kawars, the latter do not reciprocate. But still, when a Kawar
is celebrating a birth, marriage or death in his family, or when he
takes in hand to make a tank, he will first give food to a Bhaina
before his own caste-men eat. And it may