Note 85 — G

Physical appearance of the Gonds. 4. Of the physical appearance of the Gonds Mr. Hislop writes:—“All are a little below the average size of Europeans, and in complexion darker than the generality of Hindus. Their bodies are well proportioned, but their features are rather ugly. They have a roundish head, distended nostrils, wide mouth, thickish lips, straight, black hair, and scanty beard and moustache. It has been supposed that some of the aborigines of Central India have woolly hair; but this is a mistake. Among the thousands I have seen I have not found one with hair like a Negro. A few, indeed, have curly locks, as a few Britons have; but I have not met with one inhabitant of the forest who exhibited any marked resemblance to the African race. On the contrary, both their hair and features are decidedly Mongolian.” “Their women,” writes Captain Forsyth,85 “differ among themselves more than do the men of these races. Those of the Gonds are somewhat lighter in colour and less fleshy than the Korkus. But the Gond women of different parts of the country vary greatly in appearance, many of them in the opener parts near the plains being great robust creatures; finer animals by far than the men, and here Hindu blood may be fairly expected. In the interior, again, bevies of Gond women may be seen who are liker monkeys than human beings. The features of all are strongly marked and coarse. The girls occasionally possess such comeliness as attaches to general plumpness and a good-humoured expression of face; but when their short youth is over, all pass at once into a hideous age. Their hard lives, sharing as they do all the labours of the men, except that of hunting, suffice to account for this. They dress decently enough, in a short petticoat, often dyed blue, tucked in between the legs so as to leave them naked to the thigh, and a mantle of white cotton covering the upper part of the body, with a fold thrown over the head. The most eastern section of the Korkus add a boddice, as do some of the Hinduised Gonds. The Gond women have the legs as far as they are suffered to be seen tattooed in a variety of fantastic patterns, done in indigo or gun-powder blue. The Pardhâns are the great artists in this line, and the figures they design are almost the only ornamental art attempted by these tribes. It is done when the girl becomes marriageable; and the traveller will sometimes hear dreadful shrieks issuing from their villages, which will be attributed to some young Gondin being operated upon with the tattooing needle. Like all barbarians, both races deck themselves with an inordinate amount of what they consider ornaments. Quantity rather than quality is aimed at; and both arms and legs are usually loaded with tiers of heavy rings, in silver among the more wealthy, but, rather than not at all, then in brass, iron, or coloured glass. Ear and noserings and bulky necklaces of coins and beads are also common; and their ambrosial locks are intertwined on State occasions with the hair of goats and other animals.”