Lehal Library

HISTORY OF THE SIKHS 6 CHAP, I the Middle Indus. with other tribes, as Aroras and Rains, and towards the mountains of Suleiman some Afghan tribes are likewise to be found located. In the waste tracts between the Juns, Bhutls, Indus and Sutlej are found Juns, Bhutis, Sials, Kurruls, and Kathis, Kathis, and other tribes, who are both pastoral and of the cenpredatory, and who, with the Chibs and Buhows south tral plains. of Kashmir, between the Jhelum and Chenab, may be Chibs and Buhows of the lower hills. The Johlyas and L.angahs of the south. The Dogras and Kanets of the Himalayas. The Kohlis of &e Himalayas. the first inhabitants of the country, but little reclaimed in manners by Hindu or Muhammadan conquerors; or one or more of them, as the Bhutis, who boast of their lunar descent, may represent a tribe of ancient invaders or colonizers who have yielded to others more powerful than themselves. Indeed, there seems little doubt of the former supremacy of the Bhuti or Bhati race in NorthWestern India: the tribe is extensively diffused, but the only sovereignty which remains to it is over the sands of Jaisalmer. ^ The tracts along the Sutlej, about Pakpattan, are occupied by Wattus and Johiya Rajputs, ^ while lower down are found some of the Langah tribe, who were once the masters of Uch and Multan. The hills between Kashmir and the Sutlej are possessed by Rajput families, and the Muhammadan invasion seems to have thrust the more warlike Indians, on one side into the sands of Rajputana and the hills of Bundelkhand, and on the other into the recesses of the Himalayas. But the mass of the population is a mixed race called Dogras about Jammu, and Kanets to the eastward, even as far as the Jumna and Ganges, and which boasts of some Rajput blood. There are, however, some other tribes intermixed, as the Gaddis, who claim to be Kshattriya, and as the Kohlis, who may be the aborigines, and who resemble in manners and habits, and perhaps in language, the forest tribes of Central India. Towards the snowy limits there is some mixture of Bhutis, and towards Kashmir and in the towns there is a similar mixture of the people of that valley. The little chiefship of Karauli, between Jaipur and Gwamay also be added. The Raja is admitted by the genealo- 1 lior, gists to be of the Yadu or Lunar race, but people sometimes say that his being an Ahir or Cowherd forms his only relationship to Krishna, the pastoral Apollo of the Indians. 2 Tod (Rajasthan, i. 118) regards the Johiyas as extinct; but they still flourish as peasants on either bank of the Sutlej, between Kasur and Bahawalpur: they are now Muhammadans. The Dahia of Tod (i. 118) are likewise to be found as cultivators and as Muhammadans on the Lower Sutlej, under the name of Deheh, or Dahur and Duhur; and they and many other tribes seem to have yielded on one side to Rahtor Rajputs, and on the other to Baluchis.