Note 7 — GŪJAR

The fact of the White Huns being tall and of fine features, in contrast to the horde which invaded Europe under Attila, accounts for these characteristics being found among the highest Rājpūt clans, who, as has been seen, are probably derived from them. The Gūjar caste generally is now, however, no doubt of mixed and impure blood. They were distinguished in the past as vagrant and predatory marauders, and must have assimilated various foreign elements. Mr. Crooke writes of them:7 “The Gūjars as a tribe have always been noted for their turbulence and habit of cattle-stealing. Bābar in his Memoirs describes how the commander of the rearguard captured a few Gūjar ruffians who followed the camp, decapitated them and sent their heads to the Emperor. The Gūjars of Pāli and Pāhal became exceedingly audacious while Sher Shāh was fortifying Delhi, and he marched to the hills and expelled them so that not a vestige of their habitations was left. Jahāngīr remarks that the Gūjars live chiefly on milk and curds and seldom cultivate land; and Bābar says: ‘Every time I entered Hindustān the Jāts and Gūjars have regularly poured down in prodigious numbers from the hills and wilds to carry off oxen and buffaloes. These were the wretches that really inflicted the chief hardships and were guilty of the chief oppression in the country.’ They maintained their old reputation in the Mutiny when they perpetrated numerous outrages and seriously impeded the operations of the British Army before Delhi.” In northern India the Gūjars are a pastoral caste. The saying about them is—