DDK HistoryF.p65 - CSIR

30 ADJACENT TRIBAL BANDS [2.3
weapons, not practising archery, basket-making, pottery, leather
work or agriculture. Their tents are of canvas which is bought, though
originally they made their shelters out of stalks of sorghum. The cattle
used to move their goods, and for stalking or driving birds into snares,
are a peculiarly scrawny breed, fed by trespass, unfit for agriculture,
yielding hardly enough milk to keep the calf alive. That is, they have
absorbed a great deal from their environment, except ownership of
land or the essential means of production, thus affording excellent proof
of our thesis that man makes himself. If recent attempts at settling them
succeed, they will be merged into the proletariat. They are about to
pass from a small group living at the expense of society into the
larger group at whose expense society lives.
Three adjacent tribal splinters in the same place afford strong
contrast. Of these, the Ramosis, a lot of some 20 houses, were
settled on inam land about 1830, at which period they were wild
tribal brigands; they remain a distinct caste today but are not to be
distinguished from the general Maratha, peasant in appearance,
language, or religious observances ; they live by use of plough and
harrow, keep milch cattle. A group of Vaidus form a separate
village just beyond. Originally tribal hunters, still addicted to
strong drink and the chase, they have become something like a
guild of wealthy drug-vendors who sell their simples and secret
remedies to the gullible, making good money, increased by catching
live cobras (naga) for display at festivals. Though tough, insolent
and willing to fight, they are proud of their reputation for never
stealing anything; proud also of their solid-looking, though badly
built, unsanitary, individually owned houses. Their original language
is a dialect of Telugu, still used among themselves. They have their
own goddess and a characteristic form of (crouched) burial, in a
sitting posture, Indian style, with legs crossed. An empty space is
left in the grave-pit, in front of the corpse’s head, obviously for
breathing; food is placed once a year on the cairn above the pit.