es, for whom they demanded
handsome ransoms. [322] In Gujarat another writer described the Bhils
and Kolis as hereditary and professional plunderers--'Soldiers of
the night,' as they themselves said they were. [323] Malcolm said
of them, after peace had been restored to Central India: [324]
"Measures are in progress that will, it is expected, soon complete
the reformation of a class of men who, believing themselves doomed
to be thieves and plunderers, have been confirmed in their destiny
by the oppression and cruelty of neighbouring governments, increased
by an avowed contempt for them as outcasts. The feeling this system
of degradation has produced must be changed; and no effort has been
left untried to restore this race of men to a better sense of their
condition than that which they at present entertain. The common answer
of a Bhil when charged with theft or robbery is, 'I am not to blame;
I am the thief of Mahadeo'; in other words, 'My destiny as a thief
has been fixed by God.'" The Bhil chiefs, who were known as Bhumia,
exercised the most absolute power, and their orders to commit the
most atrocious crimes were obeyed by their ignorant but attached
subjects without a conception on the part of the latter that they
had an option when he whom they termed their Dhunni (Lord) issued the
mandates. [325] Firearms and swords were only used by the chiefs and
headmen of the tribe, and their national weapon was the bamboo bow
having the bowstring made from a thin strip of its elastic bark. The
quiver was a piece of strong bamboo matting, and would contain sixty
barbed arrows a yard long, and tipped with an iron spike either
flattened and sharpened like a knife or rounded like a nail; other
arrows, used for knocking over birds, had knob-like heads. Thus armed,
the Bhils would lie in wait in some deep ravine by the roadside, and
an infernal yell announced their attack to the unwary traveller. [326]
Major Hendley states that according to tradition in the Mahabharata
the god Krishna was killed by a Bhil's arrow, when he was fighting
against them in Gujarat with the Yadavas; and on this account it was
ordained that the Bhil should never again be able to draw the bow with
the forefinger of the right hand. "Times have changed since then, but
I noticed in examining their hands that few could move the forefinger
without the second finger; indeed the fingers appeared useless as
independent members of the hands. In connection with this m