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BASSUS, CASSIANUS

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Originally appearing in Volume V03, Page 499 of the 1911 Encyclopedia Britannica.
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BASSUS, See also:CASSIANUS , called SCHOLASTIc1IS (lawyer), one of the geeponici or writers on agricultural subjects. He lived at the end of the 6th or the beginning of the 7th See also:century A.D. He compiled from earlier writers a collection of agricultural literature (Geeponica) which was afterwards revised by an unknown editor and published about the See also:year 950, in the reign of See also:Constantine Porphyrogenitus, to whom the See also:work itself has been ascribed. It contains a full See also:list of the authorities See also:drawn upon, and the subjects treated include See also:agriculture, birds, bees, horses, See also:cattle, heep, See also:dogs, fishes and the like. for raising See also:rice and wet crops. In the jungles the Marias, who are among the aboriginal tribes of Gond origin, raise kosra (Panicum italicum) and other inferior grains. Aboriginal races generally follow the migratory See also:system of tillage, clearing the See also:jungle on selected patches, and after taking crops for two or three years abandoning them for new ground. They do not use the plough; nor do they possess buffaloes, bullocks or cows; their only agricultural See also:implement is a See also:long-handled See also:iron See also:hoe. They are a timid, quiet, docile See also:race, and although addicted to drinking not quarrelsome. They inhabit the densest jungles and are very shy, avoiding contact with strangers, and flying to the hills on the least alarm; but they See also:bear a See also:good See also:character for honesty and truthfulness. They are very scantily dressed, See also:wear a variety of trinkets, with a See also:knife, See also:hatchet, See also:spear, See also:bow and arrows, the only weapons they use. Their See also:hair is generally shaved; excepting a topknot; and when not shaved it gets into a matted, tangled See also:mass; gathered into a See also:knot behind or on the See also:crown.

The Marias and the Jhurias are supposed to be a subdivision of the true Gond See also:

family. All the aboriginal tribes of See also:Bastar See also:worship the deities of the See also:Hindu See also:pantheon along with their own See also:national goddess Danteswari. Bastar is divided into two portions—that held by the See also:Raja or See also:chief himself, and that possessed by feudatory chiefs under him. The See also:climate is unhealthy—fever, smallpox, See also:dysentery and See also:rheumatism being the prevailing diseases. Jagdalpur, See also:Bijapur, See also:Madder and Bhupalpatnam See also:ate the only places of any See also:note in the dependency, the • first (on the Indravati See also:river) being the See also:residence of the raja and the chief See also:people of the See also:state. The See also:principal products are rice, oil-seeds, See also:lac, tussur See also:silk, horns, hides, See also:wax and a little iron. See also:Teak See also:timber is floated down the See also:rivers to the See also:Madras See also:coast. A good road has brought Jagdalpur into connexion with the railway at See also:Raipur.

End of Article: BASSUS, CASSIANUS

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