The Music of Hindostan c6.272

c6.272

The most primitive tribe I came across were the *Kānikas*. A company of fifteen or so had marched in over night from two villages twenty miles away in the Ghāts. Small, wiry, pictures of men. They had had no food since the previous morning, as the shops were all closed when they arrived late at night. They brought with them bows and arrows and *kokkaras*. This is a flat piece of metal, eight inches by six, with serrated edges, rolled into a cylinder with the edges turned up. Along these a tenpenny nail is rubbed furiously. I offered one of them four annas if he would hit a tree twenty-five yards off; he missed it by a yard. Apparently they shoot hares, not at such distances, but by lying in wait near the hare’s form. They told me, ‘we live among tigers and elephants. We are not afraid. We say “shoo” to a tiger, and he goes away. We speak the truth, there is no need to tell a lie.’ They are loyal subjects of the Maharajah. They address him as ‘thou’, and would do anything for him. They live clean lives and treat their women well : there was not a degraded face amongst them.