The Gonds are mainly engaged in agriculture, and the great bulk of
them are farmservants and labourers. In the hilly tracts, however,
there is a substantial Gond tenantry, and a small number of proprietors
remain, though the majority have been ousted by Hindu moneylenders and
liquor-sellers. In the eastern Districts many important zamindari
estates are owned by Gond proprietors. The ancestors of these
families held the wild hilly country on the borders of the plains in
feudal tenure from the central rulers, and were responsible for the
restraint of the savage hillmen under their jurisdiction, and the
protection of the rich and settled lowlands from predatory inroads
from without. Their descendants are ordinary landed proprietors, and
would by this time have lost their estates but for the protection
of the law declaring them impartible and inalienable. A few of
the Feudatory Chiefs are also Gonds. Gond proprietors are generally
easy-going and kind-hearted to their tenants, but lacking in business
acumen and energy, and often addicted to drink and women. The tenants
are as a class shiftless and improvident and heavily indebted. But
they show signs of improvement, especially in the ryotwari villages
under direct Government management, and it may be hoped that primary
education and more temperate habits will gradually render them equal
to the Hindu cultivators.