re taken from those of Rajput clans, [261]
but the recorded lists differ, and there are now many other _gots_
or septs outside the _pals_. The Minas seem originally to have been an
aboriginal or pre-Aryan tribe of Rajputana, where they are still found
in considerable numbers. The Raja of Jaipur was formerly marked on the
forehead with blood taken from the great toe of a Mina on the occasion
of his installation. Colonel Tod records that the Amber or Jaipur State
was founded by one Dholesai in A.D. 967 after he had slaughtered large
numbers of the Minas by treachery. And in his time the Minas still
possessed large immunities and privileges in the Jaipur State. When
the Rajputs settled in force in Rajputana, reducing the Minas to
subjection, illicit connections would naturally arise on a large scale
between the invaders and the women of the conquered country. For even
when the Rajputs only came as small isolated parties of adventurers,
as into the Central Provinces, we find traces of such connections in
the survival of castes or subcastes of mixed descent from them and
the indigenous tribes. It follows therefore that where they occupied
the country and settled on the soil the process would be still more
common. Accordingly it is generally recognised that the Minas are a
caste of the most mixed and impure descent, and it has sometimes been
supposed that they were themselves a branch of the Rajputs. In the
Punjab when one woman accuses another of illicit intercourse she is
said '_Mina dena_,' or to designate her as a Mina. [262] Further it
is stated [263] that "The Minas are of two classes, the Zamindari or
agricultural and the Chaukidari or watchmen. These Chaukidari Minas
are the famous marauders." The office of village watchman was commonly
held by members of the aboriginal tribes, and these too furnished the
criminal classes. Another piece of evidence of the Dravidian origin
of the tribe is the fact that there exists even now a group of Dhedia
or impure Minas who do not refuse to eat cow's flesh. The Chaukidari
Minas, dispossessed of their land, resorted to the hills, and here they
developed into a community of thieves and bandits recruited from all
the outcastes of society. Sir A. Lyall wrote [264] of the caste as
"a Cave of Adullam which has stood open for centuries. With them a
captured woman is solemnly admitted by a form of adoption into one
circle of affinity, in order that she may be lawfully married into
another."