happened to be there nobody knows. Colonel Tod is positive that the
Bhils, together with the Merases and the Goands, are the aborigines of
India, as well as the tribes who inhabit the Nerbuda forests. But why
the Bhils should be almost fair and blue-eyed, whereas the rest of
the hill-tribes are almost African in type, is a question that is not
answered by this statement. The fact that all these aborigines call
themselves Bhumaputra and Vanaputra, sons of the earth and sons of
the forest, when the Rajputs, their first conquerors, call themselves
Surya-vansa and the Brahmans Indu-putras, descendants of the sun and
the moon, does not prove everything. It seems to me, that in the present
case, their appearance, which confirms their legends, is of much greater
value than philology. Dr. Clark, the author of Travels in Scandinavia,
is very logical in saying that, "by directing our attention on the
traces of the ancient superstitions of a tribe, we shall find out who
were its primitive forefathers much more easily than by scientific
examination of their tongue; the superstitions are grafted on the very
root, whereas the tongue is subjected to all kinds of changes."

But, unfortunately, everything we know about the history of the Bhils is
reduced to the above-mentioned tradition, and to a few ancient songs
of their bards. These bards or bhattas live in Rajistan, but visit
the Bhils yearly, in order not to lose the leading thread of the
achievements of their countrymen. Their songs are history, because the
bhattas have existed from time immemorial, composing their lays for
future generations, for this is their hereditary duty. And the songs of
the remotest antiquity point to the lands over the Kalapani as the
place whence the Bhils came; that is to say, some place in Europe. Some
Orientalists, especially Colonel Tod, seek to prove that the Rajputs,
who conquered the Bhils, were newcomers of Scythian origin, and that
the Bhils are the true aborigines. To prove this, they put forward some
features common to both peoples, Rajput and Scythian, for instance (1)
the worship of the sword, the lance, the shield and the horse; (2) the
worship of, and the sacrifice to, the sun (which, as far as I know,
never was worshiped by the Scythians); (3) the passion of gambling
(which again is as strong amongst the Chinese and the Japanese); (4)
the custom of drinking blood out of the skull of an enemy (which is also
practised by some aborigines of A