Indische Palaographie von circa 350 a. Chr. – circa 1300 p. Chr. c48.s6.3.1

c48.s6.3.1

**§ 81.** (a) **Central Belt** (9,221,900). The tribes of this tract may be taken first, not only because they form the largest division, but also by reason of their more intimate racial connection with the masses of the plains. Each differs from the rest in some important respects with regard to organisation, customs and beliefs, but there are a few characteristics general throughout the whole. All but three or four of the larger tribes believe themselves to be autochthonous, if not to the tract they now inhabit, at least to one within a comparatively short distance. All the larger tribes, again, have traditions of dominion over a much larger tract than their present one, and in most cases the statement is supported by evidence such as that of ruins, names of places and castes and by identical forms and objects of worship. In every large tribe, again, there are sections which are far more Brāhmanised than the rest, usually with the tendency to separate under a different title, the latter being borrowed from an orthodox community of the plains. Most of the tribes are much subdivided into exogamous divisions, totemistic as a rule; endogamous sections following later, after contact with Brāhmanical castes. Where the tribe is free from such outside influences it employs priests belonging to its own or a neighbouring community, and in several cases the more important sacrifices are performable in the archaic fashion by the head of the family only.