Note 57 — D

It is recorded, in the Gazetteer of the Vizagapatam district, that “throughout the Jeypore country proper, the Dombus (and some Ghāsis) are by far the most troublesome class. Their favourite crime is cattle-theft for the sake of the skins, but, in 1902, a Dombu gang in Naurangpūr went so far as to levy blackmail over a large extent of country, and defy for some months all attempts at capture. The loss of their cattle exasperates the other hill folk to the last degree, and, in 1899, the Naiks (headmen) of sixteen villages in the north of Jeypore tāluk headed an organized attack on the houses of the Dombus, which, in the most deliberate manner, they razed to the ground in some fifteen villages. The Dombus had fortunately got scent of what was coming, and made themselves scarce, and no bloodshed occurred. In the next year, some of the Naiks of the Rāmagiri side of Jeypore tāluk sent round a jack branch, a well-recognised form of the fiery cross, summoning villagers other than Dombus to assemble at a fixed time and place, but this was luckily intercepted by the police. The Agent afterwards discussed the whole question with the chief Naiks of Jeypore and South Naurangpūr. They had no opinion of the deterrent effects of mere imprisonment on the Dombus. ‘You fatten them, and send them back,’ they said, and suggested that a far better plan would be to cut off their right hands. [It is noted, in the Vizagapatam Manual, 1869, that in cases of murder, the Rājah of Jeypore generally had the man’s hands, nose, and ears cut off, but, after all that, he seldom escaped the deceased’s relatives.] They eventually proposed a plan of checking the cattle-thefts, which is now being followed in much of that country. The Bāranaiks, or heads of groups of villages, were each given brands with distinctive letters and numbers, and required to brand the skins of all animals which had died a natural death or been honestly killed; and the possession by Dombus, skin merchants, or others, of unbranded skins is now considered a suspicious circumstance, the burden of explaining which lies upon the possessor. Unless this, or some other way of checking the Dombus’ depredations proves successful, serious danger exists that the rest of the people will take the matter into their own hands and, as the Dombus in the Agency number over 50,000, this would mean real trouble.” It is further recorded57 that the Paidis (Paidi Mālas), who often commit dacoities on the roads, “are connected with the Dombus of the Rāyagada and Gunupur tāluks, who are even worse. These people dacoit houses at night in armed gangs of fifty or more, with their faces blacked to prevent recognition. Terrifying the villagers into staying quiet in their huts, they force their way into the house of some wealthy person (for choice the local Sondi, liquor-seller and sowcar,58 usually the only man worth looting in an agency village, and a shark who gets little pity from his neighbours when forced to disgorge), tie up the men, rape the women, and go off with everything of value. Their favourite method of extracting information regarding concealed property is to sprinkle the houseowner with boiling oil.”