ent Report_ of 1869 Major Lucie Smith
wrote of them: "Tradition asserts that prior to the Gond conquest
the Manas reigned over the country, having their strongholds at
Surajgarh in Ahiri and at Manikgarh in the Manikgarh hills, now of
Hyderabad, and that after a troubled rule of two hundred years they
fell before the Gonds. In appearance they are of the Gond type, and
are strongly and stoutly made; while in character they are hardy,
industrious and truthful. Many warlike traditions still linger among
them, and doubtless in days gone by they did their duty as good
soldiers, but they have long since hung up sword and shield and now
rank among the best cultivators of rice in Chanda." Another local
tradition states that a line of Mana princes ruled at Wairagarh. The
names of three princes are remembered: Kurumpruhoda, the founder of
the line; Surjat Badwaik, who fortified Surjagarh; and Gahilu, who
built Manikgarh. As regards the name Manikgarh, it may be mentioned
that the tutelary deity of the Nagvansi kings of Bastar, who ruled
there before the accession of the present Raj-Gond dynasty in the
fourteenth century, was Manikya Devi, and it is possible that the
chiefs of Wairagarh were connected with the Bastar kings. Some of
the Manas say that they, as well as the Gowaris, are offshoots of
the Gond tribe; and a local saying to the effect that 'The Gond,
the Gowari and the Mana eat boiled juari or beans on leaf-plates'
shows that they are associated together in the popular mind. Hislop
states that the Ojhas, or soothsayers and minstrels of the Gonds,
have a subdivision of Mana Ojhas, who lay claim to special sanctity,
refusing to take food from any other caste. [175] The Gonds have a
subdivision called Mannewar, and as _war_ is only a Telugu suffix
for the plural, the proper name Manne closely resembles Mana. It is
shown in the article on the Parja tribe that the Parjas were a class
of Gonds or a tribe akin to them, who were dominant in Bastar prior
to the later immigration under the ancestors of the present Bastar
dynasty. And the most plausible hypothesis as to the past history of
the Manas is that they were also the rulers of some tracts of Chanda,
and were displaced like the Parjas by a Gond invasion from the south.

In Bhandara, where the Manas hold land, it is related that in former
times a gigantic kite lived on the hill of Ghurkundi, near Sakoli,
and devoured the crops of the surrounding country by whole fields at
a