n more solitary and retired
than at present. Their villages, it is said, were only to be found
in places far removed from all cleared and cultivated country. No
roads or well-defined paths connected them with ordinary lines of
traffic and more thickly inhabited tracts, but perched away in snug
corners in the hills, and hidden by convenient projecting spurs and
dense forests from the country round, they could not be seen except
when nearly approached, and were seldom visited unless by occasional
enterprising Banias and vendors of country liquor. Indeed, without a
Baiga for a guide many of the villages could hardly be discovered,
for nothing but occasional notches on the trees distinguished the
tracks to them from those of the sambhar and other wild animals.

3. Tribal subdivisions.

The following seven subdivisions or subtribes are recognised: Binjhwar,
Bharotia, Narotia or Nahar, Raibhaina, Kathbhaina, Kondwan or Kundi,
and Gondwaina. Of these the Binjhwar, Bharotia and Narotia are the
best-known. The name of the Binjhwars is probably derived from the
Vindhyan range, which in turn comes from the Sanskrit _vindhya_,
a hunter. The rule of exogamy is by no means strictly observed,
and in Kawardha it is said that these three subcastes intermarry
though they do not eat together, while in Balaghat the Bharotias
and Narotias both eat together and intermarry. In both places the
Binjhwars occupy the highest position, and the other two subtribes
will take food from them. The Binjhwars consider themselves as Hindus
and abjure the consumption of buffalo's and cow's flesh and rats,
while the other Baigas will eat almost anything. The Bharotias
partially shave their heads, and in Mandla are apparently known as
Mundia or Mudia, or "shaven." The Gondwainas eat both cow's flesh
and monkeys, and are regarded as the lowest subcaste. As shown by
their name they are probably the offspring of unions between Baigas
and Gonds. Similarly the Kondwans apparently derive their name from
the tract south of the Mahanadi which is named after the Khond tribe,
and was formerly owned by them.

Each subtribe is divided into a number of exogamous septs, the names of
which are identical in many cases with those of the Gonds, as Markam,
Maravi, Netam, Tekam and others. Gond names are found most frequently
among the Gondwainas and Narotias, and these have adopted from the
Gonds the prohibition of marriage between worshippers of the same
number of g