Note 32 — A

Aheriya.32—(Sans. akhetika, a hunter.) A tribe of hunters, fowlers, and thieves found in the Central Duâb. Their ethnological affinities have not as yet been very accurately ascertained. Sir H. M. Elliot describes them as a branch of the Dhânuks, from whom they are distinguished by not eating dead carcases, as the Dhânuks do. They are perhaps the same as the Hairi or Heri of the Hills, a colony of whom Bâz Bahâdur settled in the Tarâi as guards, where they, and some Mewâtis settled in a similar way, became a pest to the country.33 At the same time Mr. Williams describes the Heri in Dehra Dûn as aborigines and akin to the Bhoksas, with whom in appearance and character the Aheriyas of Aligarh and Etah seem to have little connection. They are almost certainly not the same as the Ahiriya or Dahiriya of the Gorakhpur Division, who are wandering cattle-dealers and apparently Ahîrs.34 In Gorakhpur, however, there is a tribe called Aheliya, said to be descended from Dhânuks, whose chief employment is the capture of snakes, which they eat. There is again a tribe in the Panjab known as Aheri, who are very probably akin to the Aheriyas of the North-West Provinces.35 They trace their origin to Râjputâna, and especially Jodhpur and the prairies of Bikâner. “They are vagrant in their habits, but not infrequently settle down in villages where they find employment. They catch and eat all kinds of wild animals, pure and impure, and work in reeds and grass. In addition to these occupations they work in the fields, and especially move about in gangs at harvest time in search of employment as reapers, and they cut wood and grass and work as general labourers on roads and other earthworks.” Mr. Fagan describes them in Hissâr as making baskets and winnowing fans and scutching wool. He thinks that the Jodhpuriya section, who appear to have been the ancestors of the tribe, may possibly have been Râjputs, and the other Aheris are probably descended from low castes who intermarried with them. In default of any distinct anthropometrical evidence, the most probable theory seems to be that the Aheriyas of these Provinces are connected with the Bhîl and their congeners, the Baheliya, who are a race of jungle hunters and fowlers. In Aligarh, they distinctly admit that in former times, owing to a scarcity of women in the tribe, they used to introduce girls of other castes. This, they say, they have ceased to do in recent years, since the number of their females has increased. This may, perhaps, point to the prevalence of infanticide in the tribe; but in any case it is very probable that a tribe of this character should become a sort of Cave of Adullam for every one who was in debt, and every one that was in distress or discontented.