THE WILDS OF INDIA

Otago Daily Times, Issue 16276, 8 January 1915, Page 2

THE WILDS OF INDIA

AMONG THE MARDIA PEOPLE. MR \BRAHAM A. LEND INTERVIEWED. Twelve y«ars of strciwioufl missionary work anions the heathen of India. including manv months of sojourn in tho f ai«diUa Hills and on the plains in the Marcha Country have been tho experience of Mr Abraham A. Lind, an ordained m mister, who some years ago was converted from tho Jewish faith to Chrietianity, and who arrived in Dnnedin a few days ago, with hie wife and child on a visit to Mr .mdMis Scott, of Carnarvon street, Roslyti, who are Mrs Lind's parents. Mrs Lond will best be remembered by residents of Dunwlin its Miss Scott, one of tho band of Otago missionaries who went out to India to join Pandita Uatmvbai'a mission there. it was there, after some years of experience in mission work, that she met her husband, and they were subsequently married. Although not connected with any denomination now, Mr Lind, years ago studied extensively in London and *> rmanv , it being the desire of his people that he should eventually become a Jewish Rabbi. However, ho felt the call of the Christian Church, and after serving in South Africa during the Boer war with the British Intelligence Department, ho was ordained as a minister of tho Christian religion, and then rtruck out for India, -where he has laboured ever since. Such, briefly, has been the career of Mr Lind. . . During the course of an interview by a Daily Times reporter yesterday, Mr Lind related some of his experiences m India, confining himseH chiefly to the Mardia people, he being the first -white man to visit this part of India. He said that lie visited the Mardia tribes, of Baetar State, General Provinces, in 1908, for the first time, with a view to reducing their I»n.fiyage to writing, so as to make it possible for the Gospel to bo brought to these people. He "left Jagdalpur on tho afternoon of Tuesday, May 6, accompanied by a chaprassi or agent, whoso services the Bastar State Government kindly lent him for the tour. The journey was necessarily Blow, but after a chapter of minor mishaps, he reached tho border of the country where, the white man was not known. At about 10 o'clock on .the morning of May 14, 1908, at Basinbohar, Mr Lind heard his first words of the Mardia language. Knowing several other Indian languages, he was aided somewhat in obtaining the names of all the objects on view, also some phrases and sentences, all of which he wrote down phonetically. It took some considerable time to get the people to understand what he wanted. As a result many difficulties were encountered, and he had to resort to all manner of devices in order to get tho Mardia equivalents to the words he wanted. After a few days' traveEing he reached Sounpur, which "is tho largest village of which the Mardia people can boast. It consists of about 25 houses. The natives were very timid, and when they saw him coming they ran into the forest, being apparently afraid that some evil being was among them. The Mardias are aborigines, quite distinct and, exclusive, and live by themselves on the hills and in the forests. There are two sections of them: the Mardia and the Moorias. The Mardia are those who live in the hills, an,d the Moorias thoso who live in the plain, Mooria meaning the man who lives on tho plains. These people have no written language, and Mr Lind set out to learn it with the object of writing it. At first his experience was trying, and in some respects humorous. Ho laboured among these people for a time longer, gaining • much valuable information, and then departed for his headquarters. In 1909 he started off again to go through this country, but had W) stop because some of the people had rebelled against one of their rajahs, who ruled over a certain section.

In 1912 Mre Lind and he went to a place called Bhamragarh, which was 130 miles from the nearest railway, and 60 miles from the nearest poet office. The road goes only half-way, and the other half of the way had to be traveroed through forcste. On arrival Mr Lind acquired a piece of forest land and erected a house of wooden lo.gs and bamboo, in which they lived. In thie way they were able to come in close contact .with the people, and Mr Lind was able to get a more complete knowledge of their language, which enabled him to write a grammar of the Mardia language. In this language there are three classes of words:—Primitive, Dravedian, and Sanekritic. There are also some words in the Mardian language which have been assimilated from Hindustani. The Mardian people are scattered over a large area of country; hence tho language differs somewhat in one part from that in another. The difference, however, was not such as to make the speech of the people in one district unintelligible to those coming from another. The chief difference was in the conjugation of the verb. Mr Lind said that the work he had written on thie language was calculated to enable a student to acquire a working knowledge of tho language without the help of a teacher; indeed, a teacher or Pandit was so far quite unknown among the Mardia seeing that they have not yet learned the art of writing.

Mr Lind said that, considering that the Mardia language waa unwritten, it wae wonderfully well developed. The Mardia are a very intelligent people, and it appeared to him that the chief reason why they have not so far boon civilised or evangelieed was that they are so far aw.ay from communication with the civilised parts of India. It was possible that on this account no one hae felt inclined to go among them. The greatest difficulty "that Mr Lind experienced in acquiring a knowledge of the language wae in getting the noune. verbs, and adjectives, and also in getting the names of abstract things. The way ho got over the difficultv was to get the people to tell him native stories, which he wrote down according to eound. Being a student of languages, and being able to speak 37 different langnagee, his taek was made much more easy than it otherwise would have been. Turning to tho question of the resources of this part of India, Mr Lind said there were large deposits of iron ore there, and the people made their own spear and arrow heads out of it. This ore had to be put through only a very low temperature to get the iron. There ie also graphite, coal in abundance, and gold. The forests are very dense, and thero should be a great future for the timber industry in Mardia.

The onlv cultivation by the people is oonfined to small rice flate for tho purposes of food. The inhabitants live largely on plant roots and hunting. Those -who live on the hilk da no cultivating whatever, and live on roots, fruit, and game. The Mardia generally -worship the <?evil, but they are not idolaters. Further, they believe in tho ex-stence of a God, their name for this great Supreme Power being: " Ispural," and tho meaning of the word is "who bears thp chief name." While they believe in God. they believe also that He is so great and so far away that He doee not take any notice of tho poor Mardias, and so they are compelled to have dealings with the ami they offer figs and other things as propitiatory offerings to the Devil. About 30 years ago they made human sacrifices to the Devil, but the Bastar native State, when it took over the government of this outlying district, put a stop to this form of worship. These Mardia people are remarkable in' many ways. They do not tell lies, ard are perhaps the only tribe in India who do not, as Indians generally are noted for their prevarications. The Mardias also do not steal. Their social system is ever so much belter than that of the Hindu or Mohammedan people. They do not believe in bigamy or in child marriages like the Hindus. Thev have several ways of getting a wife. One ie on the system of purchase, which is always with tho consent of the woman. If n man wants a wife he first of all sees the girl he desires to marry, and. having obtained her consent, he takes a number of present* tr> her relatives. Another system is th.it of working for «even years for a wife, as Jncob did for Rachel. This, too, cannot ho done without the girl's consent. The system of kidnapping is also popular among certain sections of th" people. Th's is done in tin's way: If a young man meets a girl whom he likes he soon finds out where she lives and who her fnther :uid mothnr are. He go?s home, an:l a family council is held over the matter, with the result that they get eomo wild buffalo skins, claws and teeth of a tiger, and take these as a present to thp girl's people. Theso are left, but no mention is made of the reason for tho gift. Then if tho match is acceptable to the girl's people a return vist is pn'd. during which certain ceremonies are -gone through. This is then considered tho equivalent of <i European engagement. It is after tills performance that tho yoiina min gets somo of his young men friends together, and they go to the place where t.ho bride-elect go~s to draw vvitcr. There they lie in ambush, and whnn she comes along tho young man of her choice seizes her and drags her off to tho hut he has erected n preparation for thoir marriage. Tho girl, thus taken unawares, cries out. whereupon a groat chrvse ensims. If the young nrin happens to get caught h° receives a good thrashing, raid has to start all over again, and he ; s called for the remainder of his days '" tlv> ninn who was caught." If. on the other hand. h-? succeed.-; in getting the girl into his hut fhe is eonsdorod ri<* his lawful wife, an , ! if sh' , refuses to livo with him her relatives c.rup-1 her to stand by her bargain.

Tho natives are dark-skinned but tvpll-ilf-vclopod, with handsome* feature, including an aquiline now?. Their liair for the most part is lone and straight, but occasionally eurlv-heaaed people aro mot, with. They are alf of a plonKint clispiisition and very affectionate in their family relations. They art', timid -with .strangers, but not hostile.

Mr Lind's miasoii to New Zealand is mainly for tho nuniose of raising , money with which to carry on evangolieirig work in the Mardisi country, and to that end n M:-irdia Mission Council h-ia lvon form: d in Dunodin with a view to nMnst.injj Mr Luid to carry on his work among these piviple.