Besides the village gods worshipped in common with the Hindus, the
Gonds have also their special tribal gods. These are sometimes kept
at a Deo-khulla, which is said to mean literally the threshing-floor
of the gods, and is perhaps so called because the place of meeting of
the worshippers is cleaned and plastered like a threshing-floor in the
fields. The gods most commonly found are Pharsi Pen, the battle-axe
god; Matiya, the great god of mischief; Ghangra, the bell god; Chawar,
the cow's tail, which is also used as a whisk; Palo, who consists of
a piece of cloth used to cover spear-heads; and Sale, who may be the
god who presides over cattle-pens (sala). The Deo-khulla of a six-god
Gond should have six, and that of a seven-god Gond seven gods, but
this rule is not regularly observed, and the Deo-khullas themselves
now tend to disappear as the Gonds become Hinduised and attention is
concentrated on the village and household gods. The collection of gods
at a Deo-khulla, Mr. Tawney remarks, is called Bura Deo, and when a
Gond swears by Bura Deo, he swears by all the gods of his sect. "The
gods," Mr. Tawney writes, "are generally tied up in grass and fixed
in the fork of the saj tree, or buried in some recess in the forest,
except Palo, who is put in a bag to prevent his getting wet, and Chawar
the cow's tail. The Bhumkas or priests are somewhat shy of showing
the gods at the Deo-khulla, and they may have some reason for this,
for not long since, a young scamp of a Muhammadan, having determined
to put to a test the reputed powers of the Gond gods for evil, hid
himself in a tree near the Deo-khulla during a meeting, and afterwards
took the gods out and threw them bag and baggage down a well. However,
when I went there, the Bhumka at Mujawar after some parley retired into
the forest, and came out quite confidingly with an armful of gods. The
Deo-khulla gods are generally all of iron, and those at Mujawar were
all spear-shaped except Palo, who is a piece of cloth, and Ghangra,
who is of bell-metal and in form like the bells ordinarily put round
the necks of bullocks. When a spear-head has been lost, and another is
not available, anything in the shape of a pike or spear will do, and
it does not appear to make any difference so long as iron is the metal
used. Women may not worship at the Deo-khulla. It seems clear that the
original gods were, with the exception of Ghangra, hunting-weapons and
representations of animals. Ghangra may be venerated because of his
association with bullocks and also on account of the melodious sound
made by bullock-bells. Of all the gods the most remarkable probably is
Palo. He is made of cloth and acts as a covering for the spear-heads
at the time of worship. The one I saw was a small cloth, about 30 by
18 inches, and in the form of a shield. He is a very expensive god
and costs from Rs. 50 to Rs. 80, his outside value perhaps being
Rs. 5. When a new one is required it has to be made by a Katia or
Raj-Pardhan, who must live in a separate house and not go near his
own till its completion. He must also be naked while he is working
and may not eat, drink, smoke or perform natural functions till he
has finished for the day. While engaged on the cloth he is well fed by
the Gonds and supplied with fowls and spirits; it is not surprising,
therefore, that the god is never finished in six months, though I would
engage to make one in a week. The cloth is embroidered with figures
in coloured silk, with a stitch or two of red silk in each animal,
which will subsequently represent blood. The animals I saw embroidered
were a bullock, some sort of deer, a gouty-looking snake with a body as
thick as the elephant's, and the latter animal barely distinguishable
from it by having two legs and a trunk. When ready the cloth Palo is
taken to the Deo-khulla and a great worship is held, during which blood
is seen to flow from the figures on the cloth and they are supposed
to be endowed with life." The animals embroidered on the cloth are
probably those principally revered by the Gonds, as the elephant,
snake, deer and bullock, while the worship of the cloth itself and the
embroidery on it indicates that they considered the arts of weaving
and sewing as divinely revealed accomplishments. And the fact that
the other gods were made of iron shows a similar reverence for this
metal, which they perhaps first discovered in India. At any rate the
quarrying and refining of indigenous iron-ore is at present carried
out by the Agarias, a caste derived from the Gonds. The spear-head
shape of most of the gods and that of Palo like a shield show their
veneration for these weapons of war, which are themselves sacred.