_Baiga._ [85]--A primitive Dravidian tribe whose home is on the eastern
Satpura hills in the Mandla, Balaghat and Bilaspur Districts. The
number of the Baigas proper was only 30,000 in 1911. But the Binjhals
or Binjhwars, a fairly numerous caste in the Chhattisgarh Division, and
especially in the Sambalpur District, appear to have been originally
Baigas, though they have dropped the original caste name, become
Hinduised, and now disclaim connection with the parent tribe. A
reason for this may be found in the fact that Sambalpur contains
several Binjhwar zamindars, or large landowners, whose families would
naturally desire a more respectable pedigree than one giving them the
wild Baigas of the Satpuras for their forefathers. And the evolution of
the Binjhwar caste is a similar phenomenon to the constitution of the
Raj-Gonds, the Raj-Korkus, and other aristocratic subdivisions among
the forest tribes, who have been admitted to a respectable position
in the Hindu social community. The Binjhwars, however, have been so
successful as to cut themselves off almost completely from connection
with the original tribe, owing to their adoption of another name. But
in Balaghat and Mandla the Binjhwar subtribe is still recognised as
the most civilised subdivision of the Baigas. The Bhainas, a small
tribe in Bilaspur, are probably another offshoot, Kath-Bhaina being
the name of a subtribe of Baigas in that District, and Rai-Bhaina
in Balaghat, though the Bhainas too no longer admit identity with
the Baigas. A feature common to all three branches is that they have
forgotten their original tongue, and now speak a more or less corrupt
form of the Indo-Aryan vernaculars current around them. Finally,
the term Bhumia or 'Lord of the soil' is used sometimes as the name
of a separate tribe and sometimes as a synonym for Baiga. The fact is
that in the Central Provinces [86] Bhumia is the name of an office,
that of the priest of the village and local deities, which is held
by one of the forest tribes. In the tract where the Baigas live,
they, as the most ancient residents, are usually the priests of the
indigenous gods; but in Jubbulpore the same office is held by another
tribe, the Bharias. The name of the office often attaches itself to
members of the tribe, who consider it as somewhat more respectable
than their own, and it is therefore generally true to say that the
people known as Bhumias in Jubbulpore are really Bharias, but in
Mandla and Bilaspur they are Baigas.
In Mandla there is also found a group called Bharia-Baigas. These
are employed as village priests by Hindus, and worship certain Hindu
deities and not the Gond gods. They may perhaps be members of the
Bharia tribe of Jubbulpore, originally derived from the Bhars, who
have obtained the designation of Baiga, owing to their employment
as village priests. But they now consider themselves a part of the
Baiga tribe and say they came to Mandla from Rewah. In Mandla the
decision of a Baiga on a boundary dispute is almost always considered
as final, and this authority is of a kind that commonly emanates from
recognised priority of residence. [87] There seems reason to suppose
that the Baigas are really a branch of the primitive Bhuiya tribe
of Chota Nagpur, and that they have taken or been given the name of
Baiga, the designation of a village priest, on migration into the
Central Provinces. There is reason to believe that the Baigas were
once dominant in the Chhattisgarh plain and the hills surrounding it
which adjoin Chota Nagpur, the home of the Bhuiyas. The considerations
in favour of this view are given in the article on Bhuiya, to which
reference may be made.