View source for Biloch: Meaning of Biloch

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This article is an extract from <br/>

PANJAB CASTES <br/>

SIR DENZIL CHARLES JELF IBBETSON, K.C. S.I. <br/>

Being a reprint of the chapter on <br/>
The Races, Castes and Tribes of <br/>
the People in the Report on the <br/>
Census of the Panjab published <br/>
in ''' 1883 ''' by the late Sir Denzil <br/>
Ibbetson, KCSI <br/>

Lahore : <br/>

Printed  by the Superintendent, Government Printing, Punjab, <br/>

1916. <br/>
''Indpaedia is an archive. It neither agrees nor disagrees ''<br/> 
''with the contents of this article.''
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[[Category:India|B]]
[[Category:Communities|B]]

=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.