In the wilder tracts the Gonds were, until recently, extremely shy
of strangers, and would fly at their approach. Their tribute to the
Raja of Bastar, paid in kind, was collected once a year by an officer
who beat a tom-tom outside the village and forthwith hid himself,
whereupon the inhabitants brought out whatever they had to give and
deposited it on an appointed spot. Colonel Glasfurd notes that they had
great fear of a horse, and the sight of a man on horseback would put
a whole village to flight. [87] Even within the writer's experience,
in the wilder forest tracts of Chanda Gond women picking up mahua
would run and climb a tree at one's approach on a pony. As displaying
the ignorance of the Gonds, Mr. Cain relates [88] that about forty
years ago a Gond was sent with a basket of mangoes from Palvatsa to
Bhadrachalam, and was warned not to eat any of the fruit, as it would
be known if he did so from a note placed in the basket. On the way,
however, the Gond and his companion were overcome by the attraction
of the fruit, and decided that if they buried the note it would be
unable to see them eating. They accordingly did so and ate some of the
mangoes, and when taxed with their dishonesty at the journey's end,
could not understand how the note could have known of their eating
the mangoes when it had not seen them.
The Gonds can now count up to twenty, and beyond that they use the
word kori or a score, in talking of cattle, grain or rupees, so that
this, perhaps, takes them up to twenty score. They say they learnt
to count up to twenty on their ten fingers and ten toes.