The Minas were a famous robber tribe of the country of Mewat in
Rajputana, comprised in the Alwar and Bharatpur States and the
British District of Gurgaon. [259] They are also found in large
numbers in Jaipur State, which was formerly held by them. The Meos
and Minas are now considered to be branches of one tribe, the former
being at least nominally Muhammadans by religion and the latter
Hindus. A favourite story for recitation at their feasts is that of
Darya Khan Meo and Sasibadani Mini, a pair of lovers whose marriage
led to a quarrel between the tribes to which they belonged, in the
time of Akbar. This dispute caused the cessation of the practice of
intermarriage between Meos and Minas which had formerly obtained. Both
the Meos and Minas are divided into twelve large clans called _pal_,
the word _pal_ meaning, according to Colonel Tod, 'a defile in a
valley suitable for cultivation or defence.' In a sandy desert like
Rajputana the valleys of streams might be expected to be the only
favourable tracts for settlement, and the name perhaps therefore
is a record of the process by which the colonies of Minas in these
isolated patches of culturable land developed into exogamous clans
marrying with each other. The Meos have similarly twelve _pals_, and
the names of six of these are identical with those of the Minas. [260]
The names of the _pals_ are 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." With the conquest of northern India by the Muhammadans, many
of the Minas, being bound by no ties to Hinduism, might be expected
to embrace the new and actively proselytising religion, while their
robber bands would receive fugitive Muhammadans as recruits as well
as Hindus. Thus probably arose a Musalman branch of the community,
who afterwards became separately designated as the Meos. As already
seen, the Meos and Minas intermarried for a time, but subsequently
ceased to do so. As might be expected, the form of Islam professed
by the Meos is of a very bastard order, and Major Powlett's account
of it is reproduced in a short separate notice of that tribe.