CHEETA-MEENA, a branch of the 3feena race, from whom spring the Mair or Mera clan, the mountaineers of Rajputana, one of the abori ginal races of India, whose country is styled Mairwara, or 'the region of hills.' The Mair branch of the Meena is also called Mairote and Mairawut. Mairwara is that portion of the Aravalli chain between Komulmir and Ajmir, space of about 90 miles in length, and varying in breadth from 6 to 20. Rajputana rises from 3000 to 4000 feet above the level of the sea. Mera is 'a mountain' in Sanskrit ; Mairawut and Mairote, of or belonging to the mountain ; ' the name of the Albanian mountaineer, 3lainote, has the same signification. The Meena race consists of as many branches as their conquerors, the Rajputs. All these wild races have the vanity to mingle their pedigree with that of their conquerors, though in doing so they stigmatize themselves. The Cheeta-Meena accordingly claim descent from a grandson of the last Chauhan emperor of Delili. Unail and Anoop were the sons of Lakha, the nephew of the Chauhan king. The cocoanut was sent from Jeysulmir, offering princesses of that house in marriage, but an investigation into their maternal ancestry disclosed that they were the issue of a Meena concubine, and their birth being thus revealed, they became exiles from Ajmir, and associates with their maternal relatives.
Unail espoused the daughter of a Meena chieftain, by whom he had Cheeta, whose descendants enjoy almost a monopoly of power in Mairwara. The sons of Cheeta, who occupied the northern frontier near Ajmir, became Mahomedans about the 15th century, when Doodha, the sixteenth from the founder of the race, was created Dawad Khan by the liakhn of Ajmir ; and as Athoon was his residence, the Khan of Athoon' signified the chief of the 3fairotes. Athoon is still the chief town of the Mair race. Chang, Jhak, and Rajosi are the principal towns adjoining Athoon, Anoop also took a Meena wife, by whom he had Burrar, whose descendants have continued true to their original tenets. Their chief places are Burrar, Bairawara, 3fundilla, etc. The 3feena were always notorious for their lawless habits ; and importance has been attached to them so far back as the period of Beesildco, the celebrated prince of Ajmir, whom the Bard Chand states to have reduced them to submission, making them carry water in the streets of Ajmir. Like all mountaineers, they break out whenever the hands of power are feeble. In the autumn of 1882 the Meena committed a cruel outrage in the Jeypore territory.—Tod's Rajasthan, i. p. 681.