"At about 12 o'clock in the day the people of Bora Des began to
advance in a mass across the Salki river, the boundary between the
Districts, into the plain of Kurmingia, where a much smaller force
was arrayed to oppose them. The combatants were protected from the
neck to the loins by skins, and cloth was wound round their legs down
to the heel, but the arms were quite bare. Round the heads of many,
too, cloth was wound, and for distinction the people of Bora Muta
wore peacock's feathers in their hair, while those of Bora Des had
cock's tail plumes. They advanced with horns blowing, and the gongs
beat when they passed a village. The women followed behind carrying
pots of water and food for refreshments, and the old men who were
past bearing arms were there, giving advice and encouragement. As the
adverse parties approached, showers of stones, handed by the women,
flew from slings from either side, and when they came within range
arrows came in flights and many fell back wounded. At length single
combats sprang up betwixt individuals who advanced before the rest,
and when the first man fell all rushed to dip their axes in his blood,
and hacked the body to pieces. The first man who himself unwounded
slew his opponent, struck off the latter's right arm and rushed with
it to the priest in the rear, who bore it off as an offering to Loha
Pennu (the Iron God or the God of Arms) in his grove. The right arms
of the rest who fell were cut off in like manner and heaped in the
rear beside the women, and to them the wounded were carried for care,
and the fatigued men constantly retired for water. The conflict was
at length general. All were engaged hand-to-hand, and now fought
fiercely, now paused by common consent for a moment's breathing. In
the end the men of Bora Des, although superior in numbers, began to
give way, and before four o'clock they were driven across the Salki,
leaving sixty men dead on the field, while the killed on the side of
the Bora Muta did not exceed thirty. And from the entire ignorance
of the Khonds of the simplest healing processes, at least an equal
number of the wounded died after the battle. The right hands of the
slain were hung up by both parties on the trees of the villages and
the dead were carried off to be burned. The people of Bora Des the
next morning flung a piece of bloody cloth on the field of battle,
a challenge to renew the conflict which was quickly accepted, and so
the contest was kept up for three days." The above account could,
of course, find no place in a description of the Khonds of this
generation, but has been thought worthy of quotation, as detailed
descriptions of the manner of fighting of these tribes, now weaned
from war by the British Government, are so rarely to be found.