Biloch: Meaning of Biloch

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This article is an extract from PANJAB CASTES SIR DENZIL CHARLES JELF IBBETSON, K.C. S.I. Being a reprint of the chapter on The Races, Castes and Tribes of the People in the Report on the Census of the Panjab published in 1883 by the late Sir Denzil Ibbetson, KCSI Lahore : Printed by the Superintendent, Government Printing, Punjab, 1916. Indpaedia is an archive. It neither agrees nor disagrees with the contents of this article.

Meaning of Biloch

Tho word Biloch is variously used in the Pan jab to denote the following people : —

(1) The Biloch proper, a nation which traces its origin from the direction of Makran, and now holds the lower Sulemaus ;

(2) A criminal tribe settled in the great jungles below Thanesar;

(3) Any Musalman camelman except in the extreme east and the extreme west of the Panjab ;

(4) A small Pathan tribe of Derah Ismarl Khan, morc properly called Baluch.

The criminal tribe will be described under vagraut and gisjiy tribes. It is almost certainly of true Biloch stock. The Pathan tribe will be noticed under the Pathans of Derah Ismail. It also is in all probability a small body of true Biloches who have become affiliated to the Pathans. Our figures for the most part refer to the true Biloch of the lower frontier and to their represen tatives who are scattered throughout the Panjab. But in the upper grazing grounds of the Western Plaius the Biloch settlers have taken to the grazing and breeding of camels rather than to husbandry ; and thus the word Biloch has become associated with the care of camels, insomuch that throughout the Peshawar, Rawalpindi, Lahore, Amritsar, and Jalandhar divisions, the word Biloch is used for any Musalman camelman whatever be his caste, every Biloch being supposed to be a camelman and every Mahomedan camelman to be a Biloch. In Sirsa we have Punwar Rajputs from Multan who are known as Biloch because they keep camels, and several Deputy Commissioners recommended that Untwal, Sarbau, and Biloch should be taken together as one caste. The headmen of these people are called Malik, and I have classed some five hundred Musalmans who returned themselves under this name, chiefly in the Lahore division, as Biloch. it is impossible to say how many of the men returned as Biloch because they keep camels are of true Biloch origin. Settlements of Biloches proper are, excluding the Multan and Derajat divisions, and Sbahpur, reported in Dehli, Gurgaon, Karnal, Hissar, Rohtak, Ludhiana, Amritsar, Gujrat wala, Firozpur, and Rawalpindi ; but in all these districts except the first five the word is used for camelmeu also, and the figures cannot be separated.

Biloch: Bibliography

The following books will be found to contain information regarding the Biloch nation : Hughes' Bilochistan, a useful compilation of perhaps is somewhat doubtful authority ; Brace's Memorandum on the Derah Ohdzi District (Panjab Selections, IX, 1871) chiefly statistical, and by no means free from error; Douie's BilocJu jK^imaA translated ; and Dames' Biloch Vocabulary (J. A. S. B., 1980), both including collections of Bilochi folklore; Pottiuger's Travels in Bilochistan and sind and Massous' Travels in the same countries. Fryers' Settle' ment Report of Derah Ohdzi Khan and Macgregors Gazetteer of the N. W. Frontier give most valuable accounts of the Biloch tribes ; while the Settlement Reports of those other districts in which Biloches are found in any numbers contain much useful information.