The Ethnology of the British Colonies and Dependencies Part 17

IV.

Many Bruhmas wearied themselves with the study of the Veds, but found not the value of an oil seed.

Holy men and saints are sought about anxiously, but they were deceived by Maya.

There have been, and there have pa.s.sed away, ten regent Owtars, and the wondrous Muhadeo.

Even they, wearied with the application of ashes, could not find Thee.

V.

He who speaks of me as the Lord, him will I sink into the pit of h.e.l.l!

Consider me as the slave of G.o.d; of that have no doubt in thy mind.

I am but the slave of the Lord, come to behold the wonders of creation.

VI.

Dwell thou in flames uninjured, Remain unharmed amid ice eternal, Make blocks of stone thy daily food, Spurn the earth before thee with thy foot, Weigh the heavens in a balance, And then ask of me to perform miracles.

VII.

Since he fell at the feet of G.o.d, no one has appeared great in his eyes.

Ram and Ruheem, the Poorans, and the Koran, have many votaries, but neither does he regard.

Simruts, Shasters, and Veds, differ in many things; not one does he heed.

O G.o.d! under Thy favour has all been done, nought is of myself.

VIII.

All say that there are four races, But all are of the seed of Bruhm.

The world is but clay, And of similar clay many pots are made.

Nanuk says man will be judged by his actions, And that without finding G.o.d there will be no salvation.

The body of man is composed of five elements; Who can say that one is high and another low?

IX.

There are four races and four creeds in the world among Hindoos and Mahometans; Selfishness, jealousy, and pride drew all of them strongly; The Hindoos dwelt on Benares and the Ganges, the Mahometans on the Kaaba; The Mahometans held by circ.u.mcision, the Hindoos by strings and frontal marks.

They each called on Ram and Ruheem, one name, and yet both forgot the road.

Forgetting the Veds and the Koran, they were inveigled in the snares of the world.

Truth remained on one side, while Moollas and Brahmins disputed, And salvation was not attained.

X.

G.o.d heard the complaint (of virtue or truth), and Nanuk was sent into the world.

He established the custom that the disciple should wash the feet of his Gooroo, and drink the water; Par Bruhm and Poorun Bruhm, in his Kulyoog, he showed were one.

The four feet (of the animal sustaining the world) were made of faith; the four castes were made one; The high and the low became equal: the salutation of the feet (among disciples) he established in the world; Contrary to the nature of man, the feet were exalted above the head.

In the Kulyoog he gave salvation; using the only true name, he taught men to worship the Lord.

To give salvation in the Kulyoog, Gooroo Nanuk came.

PARTS BEYOND THE INDUS.

The Punjab is the most western locality of the Indian stock, whether we call the members of it Hindu or Tamulian. On crossing the Indus we reach a new ethnological area, only partially, and only recently British; _viz._, the country of the Biluch, and the country of the Afghans. And here we must prepare for new terms; for hearing of _tribes_ rather than _castes_; and for finding a polity more like that of the Jews and Arabs than the inst.i.tutions of the Brahmins.

_The Biluch._--_Biluchi-stan_ means the country of the _Biluch_, just as _Hindo-stan_ and _Afghani-stan_ mean that of the Hindus and Afghans. It is the south-western quarter of Persia, that is the chief area of the tribes in question. Hence, however, they extend into Kutch Gundava, Scinde, and Multan, and the northern parts of Gujerat. Between Kelat, the Indus, and the sea, they are mixed with Brahui.

The Biluchi is a dialect of the Persian--sufficiently close to be understood by a Persian proper.

There are no grounds for believing the Biluch to have been other than the aborigines of the country which they occupy; as their advent lies beyond the historical period; beyond the pale of admissible tradition.

We may, perhaps, be told that they came from Arabia; an origin which their Mahometanism, their division into tribes, and their manners, suggest; an origin, too, which their physiognomy by no means impugns.

Yet the tradition is not only unsupported, but equivocal. The _Arabia_ that it refers to is, probably, the country of the ancient _Arabitae_; and that is neither more nor less than a part of the province of Mekran, within--or nearly within--the present Biluch domain. Hence, they may be _Arabite_, though not _Arabian_; or rather the old _Arabitae_ of the _Arabius fluvius_ were Biluch.

But the Arabs are not the only members of the Semitic family with which the Biluch have been affiliated. A multiplicity of Jewish characteristics has been discerned. These are all the more visible from their contrast to the manners of the Hindus. Intermediate in appearance to the Hindu and the Persian, the Biluch "cast of feature is certainly Jewish;"[49] his tribual divisions are equally so; whilst the Levitical punishment of adultery by stoning, and the transmission of the widow of a deceased brother to the brothers who survive, have been duly recognized as Hebrew characteristics. We know what follows all this; as surely as smoke shows fire. Levitical peculiarities suggest the ubiquitous decad of the lost tribes of Israel. We shall soon hear of these again.

Tribes under chiefs--hereditary succession--pride of blood--clannish sentiments--feuds between tribe and tribe--the sacro-sanct.i.ty of revenge as a duty--the suspension of private wars when foreign foes threaten--greater rudeness amongst the mountains--comparative industry in the plains--the business of robbery tempered by the duties of hospitality--black mail, &c. All this is equally Biluch, Arabian, and Highland Scotch; and it all shows the similarity of details which accompanies similarity of social inst.i.tutions. Ethnological relationship it does _not_ show.

The word _Biluch_ is Persian. The bearer of the designation either calls himself by the name of his tribe, or else glorifies himself by the term _Usul_ or _Pure_. The tribes or _khoums_ are numerous. Sir H. Pottinger gives the names of no less than fifty-eight; without going into their subdivisions.

If, however, instead of details, we seek for cla.s.ses of greater generality we find that _three_ primary divisions comprise all the ramifications of the Biluch. The first of these is the _Rind_; the other two are the _Nihro_ and the _Mughsi_. The daughter of a Rind may be given to a Rind as a wife; but to marry into a tribe of Nihro or Mughsi extraction is a degradation. Here the elements of _caste_ intermix with those of _tribe_ or _clan_.

_Afghans._--_Afghani-stan_ means the country of the Afghans, just as _Hindo-stan_ and _Biluchi-stan_ mean that of the Hindus and Biluchi, respectively.

In India the Afghans are called _Patan_.

Their language is called _Pushtu_. It is allied to the Persian--but less closely than the Biluch.

Fully and accurately described in the admirable work of Lord Mountstuart Elphinstone, the Afghans have long commanded the attention of the ethnologist; and all that has been said about the Judaism of the Biluchi has been said in respect to them also, though not by so good a writer as the one just quoted. No wonder. Their tribual organization, if not more peculiar in character, has been more minutely described; a greater ma.s.siveness of frame and feature has been looked upon as eminently Judaic; and, lastly, an incorrect statement of Sir William Jones's, as to the Hebrew character of the Pushtu language, has added the authority of that respected scholar to the doctrine of the Semitic origin of the Afghans. Against this, however, stands the evidence of their peculiar and hitherto unplaced language. I say _unplaced_, because the criticism that separates the modern dialects of Hindostan from the Sanskrit, disconnects the Pushtu and the old Persian. Nevertheless, it is anything but either Hebrew or Arabic.

Similarity of political const.i.tution, and its attendant spirit of independence, have given a political importance to both the Biluch and the Afghan. Each is but partially--very partially--British; and each became dependent upon Britain, not because they were the Afghans and Biluch of their own rugged countries, but because they were part and parcel of certain territories in India. It was on the Indus that they were conquered; and it as Indians that they are British.

Four great patriarchs are the hypothetical progenitors of the four primary Afghan divisions--though it is uncertain whether any such quaternion be more of an historical reality than the four castes of Brahminism. Subordinate to these four heads is the division called _Ulus_ (_Ooloos_).

A minuter knowledge of the Afghan affiliations--real or supposed--is to be gained by premising that _khail_ has much the same meaning as the Biluch _khoum_, so that it denotes a division of population which we may call _clan_, _tribe_, or _sept_; whilst the affix -_zye_, means _sons_ or _offspring_. Hence, _Eusof-zye_ is equivalent to what an Arab would call _Beni Yusuf_; a Greek, _Ioseph-idae_; or a Highland Gael, _MacJoseph_. All this is clear. When, however, we try to give precision to our nomenclature, and ask whether the _khail_ contains a number of -_zye_, or the -_zye_ a number of _khails_, difficulties begin.

Sometimes the one, sometimes the other is the larger cla.s.s. And a _khail_ in one case may be divided into groups ending in -_zye_; in others, a group denoted by -_zye_ may contain two or more _khails_. Each is a _generic_ or _specific_ designation as the case may be.

However, to proceed to instances, the following groups of Afghans may be const.i.tuted.

1. Three sections--the _Acco-zye_, the _Mulle-zye_, and the _Lawe-zye_--are subdivisions of the--

2. _Eusof._--The Eusof and _Munder_ being branches of the--

3. _Eusof-zye._--Now the _Eusof-zye_ is one out of four divisions of the--

4. _Khukkhi._--The _Guggiani_, _Turcolani_, and _Mahomed-zye_, being the other three.

5. Lastly, the _Khukkhi_, the _Otman-khail_, the _Khyberi_, the _Bungush_, the _Khuttuk_ and, probably, some others form the _Berdurani_ Afghans.