Note 183 — K (continued 5)

It is noted, in the Gazetteer of the Vizagapatam district, that “the Khonds steal cattle, especially those belonging to Brinjāri gangs, in an open manner, for the sake of their flesh. In 1898, at Veppiguda near Gudāri a party of them attacked four constables who were patrolling the country to check these thefts, thrashed them, and carried off all their property and uniforms. Efforts to arrest these men resulted in the inhabitants of their village fleeing to the hills, and, for a time, it looked as if there was danger of others joining them, and of the Khonds going out. In 1882, the Khonds of Kālahandi State rose against the Uriyas, and murdered some hundreds of them. Luckily the invitation to join them, conveyed by the circulation of the head, fingers, hair, etc., of an early victim, was not accepted by the Khonds of this district.” The news of the rising was conveyed to Mr. H. G. Prendergast, Assistant Superintendent of Police, by a Domb disguised as a fakir, who carried the report concealed in his languti (cloth). He was rewarded with a silver bangle. At a meeting held at the village of Balwarpur, it was decided that the Kultas should all be killed and swept out of the country. As a sign of this, the Kondhs carried brooms about. At Asurgarh the police found four headless corpses, and learnt from the widows all that they had to say about the atrocities. The murders had been committed in the most brutal way. All the victims were scalped while still alive, and one had an arm and a leg cut off before being scalped. As each victim died, his death was announced by three taps on a drum given slowly, followed by shouting and dancing. The unfortunate men were dragged out of their houses, and killed before their women and children. Neither here nor anywhere else were the women outraged, though they were threatened with death to make them give up buried treasure. One woman was in this way made to dig up a thousand rupees. On a tamarind tree near the village of Billat, affixed to it as a trophy, there was the scalped head of a Kulta, hacked about in the most horrible way.183