There appears to be considerable reason for supposing that the
Baiga tribe of the Central Provinces are really a branch of the
Bhuiyas. Though the Baigas are now mainly returned from Mandla and
Balaghat, it seems likely that these Districts were not their original
home, and that they emigrated from Chhattisgarh into the Satpura hills
on the western borders of the plain. The hill country of Mandla and the
Maikal range of Balaghat form one of the wildest and most inhospitable
tracts in the Province, and it is unlikely that the Baigas would have
made their first settlements here and spread thence into the fertile
plain of Chhattisgarh. Migration in the opposite direction would be
more natural and probable. But it is fairly certain that the Baiga
tribe were among the earliest if not the earliest residents of the
Chhattisgarh plain and the hills north and east of it. The Bhaina,
Bhunjia and Binjhwar tribes who still reside in this country can
all be recognised as offshoots of the Baigas. In the article on
Bhaina it is shown that some of the oldest forts in Bilaspur are
attributed to the Bhainas and a chief of this tribe is remembered
as having ruled in Bilaigarh south of the Mahanadi. They are said
to have been dominant in Pendra where they are still most numerous,
and to have been expelled from Phuljhar in Raipur by the Gonds. The
Binjhwars or Binjhals again are an aristocratic subdivision of the
Baigas, belonging to the hills east of Chhattisgarh and the Uriya plain
country of Sambalpur beyond them. The zamindars of Bodasamar, Rampur,
Bhatgaon and other estates to the south and east of the Chhattisgarh
plain are members of this tribe. Both the Bhainas and Binjhwars are
frequently employed as priests of the village deities all over this
area, and may therefore be considered as older residents than the
Gond and Kawar tribes and the Hindus. Sir G. Grierson also states
that the language of the Baigas of Mandla and Balaghat is a form of
Chhattisgarhi, and this is fairly conclusive evidence of their first
having belonged to Chhattisgarh. [365] It seems not unlikely that the
Baigas retreated into the hills round Chhattisgarh after the Hindu
invasion and establishment of the Haihaya Rajput dynasty of Ratanpur,
which is now assigned to the ninth century of the Christian era; just
as the Gonds retired from the Nerbudda valley and the Nagpur plain
before the Hindus several centuries later. Sir H. Risley states that
the Binjhias or Binjhwars of Chota Nagpur say that their ancestors
came from Ratanpur twenty generations ago. [366]