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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Tribes and Castes of the Central
+Provinces of India, by R. V. Russell
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: The Tribes and Castes of the Central Provinces of India
+       Volume II
+
+Author: R. V. Russell
+
+Release Date: July 6, 2007 [EBook #22010]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK TRIBES AND CASTES ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Jeroen Hellingman and the Online Distributed
+Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net/
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+        The Tribes and Castes of the Central Provinces of India
+
+                                   By
+
+                              R.V. Russell
+   Of the Indian Civil Service Superintendent of Ethnography, Central
+                               Provinces
+                              Assisted by
+                          Rai Bahadur Hira Lal
+                      Extra Assistant Commissioner
+
+
+   Published Under the Orders of the Central Provinces Administration
+
+                            In Four Volumes
+                               Vol. II.
+
+        Macmillan and Co., Limited St. Martin's Street, London.
+
+                                  1916
+
+
+
+
+
+
+CONTENTS OF VOLUME II
+
+Articles on Castes and Tribes of the Central Provinces in Alphabetical
+Order
+
+
+The articles which are considered to be of most general interest
+are shown in capitals
+
+
+
+    Agaria (_Iron-worker_)   3
+    Agharia (_Cultivator_)   8
+    Aghori (_Religious mendicant_)   13
+    AHIR (_Herdsman and milkman_)   18
+    Andh (_Tribe, now cultivators_)   38
+    Arakh (_Hunter_)   40
+    Atari (_Scent-seller_)   42
+    Audhelia (_Labourer_)   45
+    BADHAK (_Robber_)   49
+    BAHNA (_Cotton-cleaner_)   69
+    Baiga (_Forest tribe_)   77
+    Bairagi (_Religious mendicants_)   93
+    Balahi (_Labourer and village watchman_)   105
+    Balija (_Cultivator_)   108
+    BANIA (_Merchant and moneylender_)   111
+    Subcastes of Bania
+
+            Agarwala.
+            Agrahari.
+            Ajudhiabasi.
+            Asathi.
+            Charnagri.
+            Dhusar.
+            Dosar.
+            Gahoi.
+            Golapurab.
+            Kasarwani.
+            Kasaundhan.
+            Khandelwal.
+            Lad.
+            Lingayat.
+            Maheshri.
+            Nema.
+            Oswal.
+            Parwar.
+            Srimali.
+            Umre.
+
+    BANJARA (_Pack-carrier_)   162
+    Barai (_Betel-vine grower and seller_)   192
+    Barhai (_Carpenter_)   199
+    Bari (_Maker of leaf-plates_)   202
+    Basdewa (_Cattle-dealer and religious mendicant_)   204
+    Basor (_Bamboo-worker_)   208
+    Bedar (_Soldier and public service_)   212
+    Beldar (_Digger and navvy_)   215
+    Beria (_Vagabond gipsy_)   220
+    Bhaina (_Forest tribe_)   225
+    Bhamta (_Criminal tribe and labourers_)   234
+    Bharbhunja (_Grain-parcher_)   238
+    Bharia (_Forest tribe_)   242
+    BHAT (_Bard and genealogist_)   251
+    Bhatra (_Forest tribe_)   271
+    BHIL (_Forest tribe_)   278
+    Bhilala (_Landowner and cultivator_)   293
+    Bhishti (_Water-man_)   298
+    Bhoyar (_Cultivator_)   301
+    Bhuiya (_Forest tribe_)   305
+    Bhulia (_Weaver_)   319
+    Bhunjia (_Forest tribe_)   322
+    Binjhwar (_Cultivator_)   329
+    Bishnoi (_Cultivator_)   337
+    Bohra (_Trader_)   345
+    BRAHMAN (_Priest_)   351
+    Subcastes of Brahman
+
+            Ahivasi.
+            Jijhotia.
+            Kanaujia, Kanyakubja.
+            Khedawal.
+            Maharashtra.
+            Maithil.
+            Malwi.
+            Nagar.
+            Naramdeo.
+            Sanadhya.
+            Sarwaria.
+            Utkal.
+
+    Chadar (_Village watchman and labourer_)   400
+    CHAMAR (_Tanner and labourer_)   403
+    Chasa (_Cultivator_)   424
+    Chauhan (_Village watchman and labourer_)   427
+    Chhipa (_Dyer and calico-printer_)   429
+    CHITARI (_Painter_)   432
+    Chitrakathi (_Picture showman_)   438
+    Cutchi (_Trader and shopkeeper_)   440
+    DAHAIT (_Village watchman and labourer_)   444
+    Daharia (_Cultivator_)   453
+    Dangi (_Landowner and cultivator_)   457
+    Dangri (_Vegetable-grower_)   463
+    DARZI (_Tailor_)   466
+    Dewar (_Beggar and musician_)   472
+    Dhakar (_Illegitimate, cultivator_)   477
+    Dhangar (_Shepherd_)   480
+    Dhanuk (_Bowman, labourer_)   484
+    Dhanwar (_Forest tribe_)   488
+    DHIMAR (_Fisherman, water-carrier, and household servant_)   502
+    Dhoba (_Forest tribe, cultivator_)   515
+    DHOBI (_Washerman_)   519
+    Dhuri (_Grain-parcher_)   527
+    Dumal (_Cultivator_)   530
+    Fakir (_Religious mendicant_)   537
+
+
+
+
+
+
+ILLUSTRATIONS IN VOLUME II
+
+
+    31. Aghori mendicant   14
+    32. Ahirs decorated with cowries for the Stick Dance at Diwali   18
+    33. Image of Krishna as Murlidhar or the flute-player, with
+        attendant deities   28
+    34. Ahir dancers in Diwali costume   32
+    35. Pinjara cleaning cotton   72
+    36. Baiga village, Balaghat District   88
+    37. Hindu mendicants with sect-marks   94
+    38. Anchorite sitting on iron nails   98
+    39. Pilgrims carrying water of the river Nerbudda   100
+    40. _Coloured Plate_: Examples of Tilaks or sect-marks worn on
+        the forehead   102
+    41. Group of Marwari Bania women   112
+    42. Image of the god Ganpati carried in procession   116
+    43. The elephant-headed god Ganpati. His conveyance is a rat,
+        which can be seen as a little blob between his feet   120
+    44. Mud images made and worshipped at the Holi festival   126
+    45. Bania's shop   128
+    46. Banjara women with the _singh_ or horn   184
+    47. Group of Banjara women   188
+    48. Basors making baskets of bamboo   210
+    49. Bhat with his _putla_ or doll   256
+    50. Group of Bhils   278
+    51. Tantia Bhil, a famous dacoit   282
+    52. Group of Bohras at Burhanpur (Nimar)   346
+    53. Brahman worshipping his household gods   380
+    54. Brahman bathing party   384
+    55. Brahman Pujaris or priests   390
+    56. Group of Maratha Brahman men   392
+    57. Group of Naramdeo Brahman women   396
+    58. Group of Naramdeo Brahman men   398
+    59. Chamars tanning and working in leather   416
+    60. Chamars cutting leather and making shoes   418
+    61. Chhipa or calico-printer at work   430
+    62. Dhimar or fisherman's hut   502
+    63. Fishermen in dug-outs or hollowed tree trunks   506
+    64. Group of Gurujwale Fakirs   538
+
+
+
+
+
+
+PRONUNCIATION
+
+
+    _a_     has the sound of _u_ in _but_ or _murmur_.
+    _a_     has the sound of _a_ in _bath_ or _tar_.
+    _e_     has the sound of _é_ in _écarté_ or _ai_ in _maid_.
+    _i_     has the sound of _i_ in _bit_, or (as a final letter)
+            of _y_ in _sulky_
+    _i_     has the sound of _ee_ in _beet_.
+    _o_     has the sound of _o_ in _bore_ or _bowl_.
+    _u_     has the sound of _u_ in _put_ or _bull_.
+    _u_     has the sound of _oo_ in _poor_ or _boot_.
+
+
+The plural of caste names and a few common Hindustani words is formed
+by adding _s_ in the English manner according to ordinary usage,
+though this is not, of course, the Hindustani plural.
+
+Note.--The rupee contains 16 annas, and an anna is of the same value
+as a penny. A pice is a quarter of an anna, or a farthing. Rs. 1-8
+signifies one rupee and eight annas. A lakh is a hundred thousand,
+and a krore ten million.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+PART II
+
+ARTICLES ON CASTES AND TRIBES
+
+AGARIA--FAKIR
+
+
+
+
+
+
+Agaria
+
+
+
+1. Origin and subdivisions.
+
+
+Agaria. [1]--A small Dravidian caste, who are an offshoot of the Gond
+tribe. The Agarias have adopted the profession of iron-smelting and
+form a separate caste. They numbered 9500 persons in 1911 and live
+on the Maikal range in the Mandla, Raipur and Bilaspur Districts.
+
+The name probably signifies a worker with _ag_ or fire. An Agaria
+subcaste of Lohars also exists, many of whom are quite probably Gonds,
+but they are not included in the regular caste. Similar Dravidian
+castes of Agarias are to be found in Mirzapur and Bengal. The Agarias
+are quite distinct from the Agharia cultivating caste of the Uriya
+country. The Raipur Agarias still intermarry with the Rawanbansi
+Gonds of the District. The Agarias think that their caste has existed
+from the beginning of the world, and that the first Agaria made
+the ploughshare with which the first bullocks furrowed the primeval
+soil. The caste has two endogamous divisions, the Patharia and the
+Khuntia Agarias. The Patharias place a stone on the mouth of the
+bellows to fix them in the ground for smelting, while the Khuntias
+use a peg. The two subcastes do not even take water from one another.
+
+Their exogamous sections have generally the same names as those of
+the Gonds, as Sonwani, Dhurua, Tekam, Markam, Uika, Purtai, Marai,
+and others. A few names of Hindi origin are also found, as Ahindwar,
+Ranchirai and Rathoria, which show that some Hindus have probably been
+amalgamated with the caste. Ahindwar or Aindwar and Ranchirai mean
+a fish and a bird respectively in Hindi, while Rathoria is a _gotra_
+both of Rajputs and Telis. The Gond names are probably also those of
+animals, plants or other objects, but their meaning has now generally
+been forgotten. Tekam or _teka_ is a teak tree. Sonwani is a sept
+found among several of the Dravidian tribes, and the lower Hindu
+castes. A person of the Sonwani sept is always chosen to perform
+the ceremony of purification and readmission into caste of persons
+temporarily excommunicated. His duty often consists in pouring on such
+a person a little water in which gold has been placed to make it holy,
+and hence the name is considered to mean Sonapani or gold-water. The
+Agarias do not know the meanings of their section names and therefore
+have no totemistic observances. But they consider that all persons
+belonging to one _gotra_ are descended from a common ancestor, and
+marriage within the _gotra_ is therefore prohibited. As among the
+Gonds, first cousins are allowed to marry.
+
+
+
+2. Marriage.
+
+
+Marriage is usually adult. When the father of a boy wishes to arrange a
+marriage he sends emissaries to the father of the girl. They open the
+proceedings by saying, 'So-and-so has come to partake of your stale
+food.' [2] If the father of the girl approves he gives his consent by
+saying, 'He has come on foot, I receive him on my head.' The boy's
+father then repairs to the girl's house, where he is respectfully
+received and his feet are washed. He is then asked to take a drink of
+plain water, which is a humble method of offering him a meal. After
+this, presents for the girl are sent by a party accompanied by tomtom
+players, and a date is fixed for the marriage, which, contrary to the
+usual Hindu rule, may take place in the rains. The reason is perhaps
+because iron-smelting is not carried on during the rains and the
+Agarias therefore have no work to do. A few days before the wedding
+the bride-price is paid, which consists of 5 seers each of _urad_
+and til and a sum of Rs. 4 to Rs. 12. The marriage is held on any
+Monday, Tuesday or Friday, no further trouble being taken to select
+an auspicious day. In order that they may not forget the date fixed,
+the fathers of the parties each take a piece of thread in which
+they tie a knot for every day intervening between the date when the
+marriage day is settled and the day itself, and they then untie one
+knot for every day. Previous to the marriage all the village gods
+are propitiated by being anointed with oil by the Baiga or village
+priest. The first clod of earth for the ovens is also dug by the
+Baiga, and received in her cloth by the bride's mother as a mark
+of respect. The usual procedure is adopted in the marriage. After
+the bridegroom's arrival his teeth are cleaned with tooth-sticks,
+and the bride's sister tries to push _saj_ leaves into his mouth,
+a proceeding which he prevents by holding his fan in front of his
+face. For doing this the girl is given a small present. A _paili_
+[3] measure of rice is filled alternately by the bride and bridegroom
+twelve times, the other upsetting it each time after it is filled. At
+the marriage feast, in addition to rice and pulse, mutton curry and
+cakes of _urad_ pulse fried in oil are provided. _Urad_ is held in
+great respect, and is always given as a food at ceremonial feasts
+and to honoured guests. The greater part of the marriage ceremony
+is performed a second time at the bridegroom's house. Finally, the
+decorations of the marriage-shed and the palm-leaf crowns of the bride
+and bridegroom are thrown into a tank. The bride and bridegroom go
+into the water, and each in turn hides a jar under water, which the
+other must find. They then bathe, change their clothes, and go back
+to the bridegroom's house, the bride carrying the jar filled with
+water on her head. The boy is furnished with a bow and arrows and
+has to shoot at a stuffed deer over the girl's shoulder. After each
+shot she gives him a little sugar, and if he does not hit the deer
+in three shots he must pay 4 annas to the _sawasa_ or page. After
+the marriage the bridegroom does not visit his wife for a month in
+order to ascertain whether she is already pregnant. They then live
+together. The marriage expenses usually amount to Rs. 15 for the
+bridegroom's father and Rs. 40 for the bride's father. Sometimes the
+bridegroom serves his father-in-law for his wife, and he is then not
+required to pay anything for the marriage, the period of service being
+three years. If the couple anticipate the ceremony, however, they
+must leave the house, and then are recalled by the bride's parents,
+and readmitted into caste on giving a feast, which is in lieu of the
+marriage ceremony. If they do not comply with the first summons of
+the parents, the latter finally sever connection with them. Widow
+marriage is freely permitted, and the widow is expected to marry her
+late husband's younger brother, especially if he is a bachelor. If
+she marries another man with his consent, the new husband gives him
+a turban and shoulder-cloth. The children by the first husband are
+made over to his relatives if there are any. Divorce is permitted for
+adultery or extravagance or ill-treatment by either party. A divorced
+wife can marry again, but if she absconds with another man without
+being divorced the latter has to pay Rs. 12 to the husband.
+
+
+
+3. Birth and death ceremonies.
+
+
+When a woman becomes pregnant for the first time, her mother goes to
+her taking a new cloth and cakes and a preparation of milk, which
+is looked on as a luxurious food, and which, it is supposed, will
+strengthen the child in the womb. After birth the mother is impure
+for five days. The dead are usually burnt, but children under six
+whose ears have not been pierced, and persons dying a violent death
+or from cholera or smallpox are buried. When the principal man of
+the family dies, the caste-fellows at the mourning feast tie a cloth
+round the head of his successor to show that they acknowledge his
+new position. They offer water to the dead in the month of Kunwar
+(September-October).
+
+
+
+4. Religion and social customs.
+
+
+They have a vague belief in a supreme God but do not pay much attention
+to him. Their family god is Dulha Deo, to whom they offer goats,
+fowls, cocoanuts and cakes. In the forest tracts they also worship
+Bura Deo, the chief god of the Gonds. The deity who presides over
+their profession is Loha-Sur, the Iron demon, who is supposed to live
+in the smelting-kilns, and to whom they offer a black hen. Formerly,
+it is said, they were accustomed to offer a black cow. They worship
+their smelting implements on the day of Dasahra and during Phagun,
+and offer fowls to them. They have little faith in medicine, and in
+cases of sickness requisition the aid of the village sorcerer, who
+ascertains what deity is displeased with them by moving grain to and
+fro in a winnowing-fan and naming the village gods in turn. He goes
+on repeating the names until his hand slackens or stops at some name,
+and the offended god is thus indicated. He is then summoned and enters
+into the body of one of the persons present, and explains his reason
+for being offended with the sick person, as that he has passed by
+the god's shrine without taking off his shoes, or omitted to make the
+triennial offering of a fowl or the like. Atonement is then promised
+and the offering made, while the sick person on recovery notes the
+deity in question as one of a vindictive temper, whose worship must
+on no account be neglected. The Agarias say that they do not admit
+outsiders into the caste, but Gonds, Kawars and Ahirs are occasionally
+allowed to enter it. They refuse to eat monkeys, jackals, crocodiles,
+lizards, beef and the leavings of others. They eat pork and fowls
+and drink liquor copiously. They take food from the higher castes
+and from Gonds and Baigas. Only Bahelias and other impure castes will
+take food from them. Temporary excommunication from caste is imposed
+for conviction of a criminal offence, getting maggots in a wound, and
+killing a cow, a dog or a cat. Permanent excommunication is imposed
+for adultery or eating with a very low caste. Readmission to caste
+after temporary exclusion entails a feast, but if the offender is
+very poor he simply gives a little liquor or even water. The Agarias
+are usually sunk in poverty, and their personal belongings are of
+the scantiest description, consisting of a waist-cloth, and perhaps
+another wisp of cloth for the head, a brass _lota_ or cup and a few
+earthen vessels. Their women dress like Gond women, and have a few
+pewter ornaments. They are profusely tattooed with representations of
+flowers, scorpions and other objects. This is done merely for ornament.
+
+
+
+5. Occupation.
+
+
+The caste still follow their traditional occupation of iron-smelting
+and also make a few agricultural implements. They get their ore from
+the Maikal range, selecting stones of a dark reddish colour. They
+mix 16 lbs. of ore with 15 lbs. of charcoal in the furnace, the blast
+being produced by a pair of bellows worked by the feet and conveyed
+to the furnace through bamboo tubes; it is kept up steadily for four
+hours. The clay coating of the kiln is then broken down and the ball of
+molten slag and charcoal is taken out and hammered, and about 3 lbs. of
+good iron are obtained. With this they make ploughshares, mattocks,
+axes and sickles. They also move about from village to village with an
+anvil, a hammer and tongs, and building a small furnace under a tree,
+make and repair iron implements for the villagers.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+Agharia
+
+
+
+1. Origin.
+
+
+_Agharia_ [4] (a corruption of Agaria, meaning one who came from
+Agra).--A cultivating caste belonging to the Sambalpur District [5]
+and adjoining States. They number 27,000 persons in the Raigarh and
+Sarangarh States and Bilaspur District of the Central Provinces,
+and are found also in some of the Chota Nagpur States transferred
+from Bengal. According to the traditions of the Agharias their
+forefathers were Rajputs who lived near Agra. They were accustomed
+to salute the king of Delhi with one hand only and without bending
+the head. The king after suffering this for a long time determined
+to punish them for their contumacy, and summoned all the Agharias to
+appear before him. At the door through which they were to pass to his
+presence he fixed a sword at the height of a man's neck. The haughty
+Agharias came to the door, holding their heads high and not seeing
+the sword, and as a natural consequence they were all decapitated as
+they passed through. But there was one Agharia who had heard about the
+fixing of the sword and who thought it better to stay at home, saying
+that he had some ceremony to perform. When the king heard that there
+was one Agharia who had not passed through the door, he sent again,
+commanding him to come. The Agharia did not wish to go but felt it
+impossible to decline. He therefore sent for a Chamar of his village
+and besought him to go instead, saying that he would become a Rajput
+in his death and that he would ever be held in remembrance by the
+Agharia's descendants. The Chamar consented to sacrifice himself for
+his master, and going before the king was beheaded at the door. But
+the Agharia fled south, taking his whole village with him, and came
+to Chhattisgarh, where each of the families in the village founded a
+clan of the Agharia caste. And in memory of this, whenever an Agharia
+makes a libation to his ancestors, he first pours a little water on
+the ground in honour of the dead Chamar. According to another version
+of the story three brothers of different families escaped and first
+went to Orissa, where they asked the Gajpati king to employ them
+as soldiers. The king caused two sheaths of swords to be placed
+before them, and telling them that one contained a sword and the
+other a bullock-goad, asked them to select one and by their choice
+to determine whether they would be soldiers or husbandmen. From one
+sheath a haft of gold projected and from the other one of silver. The
+Agharias pulled out the golden haft and found that they had chosen the
+goad. The point of the golden and silver handles is obvious, and the
+story is of some interest for the distant resemblance which it bears
+to the choice of the caskets in _The Merchant of Venice_. Condemned,
+as they considered, to drive the plough, the Agharias took off their
+sacred threads, which they could no longer wear, and gave them to
+the youngest member of the caste, saying that he should keep them
+and be their Bhat, and they would support him with contributions
+of a tenth of the produce of their fields. He assented, and his
+descendants are the genealogists of the Agharias and are termed
+Dashanshi. The Agharias claim to be Somvansi Rajputs, a claim which
+Colonel Dalton says their appearance favours. "Tall, well-made, with
+high Aryan features and tawny complexions, they look like Rajputs,
+though they are more industrious and intelligent than the generality
+of the fighting tribe." [6]
+
+
+
+2. Subdivisions.
+
+
+Owing to the fact that with the transfer of the Sambalpur District,
+a considerable portion of the Agharias have ceased to be residents
+of the Central Provinces, it is unnecessary to give the details
+of their caste organisation at length. They have two subdivisions,
+the Bad or superior Agharias and the Chhote, Sarolia or Sarwaria,
+the inferior or mixed Agharias. The latter are a cross between an
+Agharia and a Gaur (Ahir) woman. The Bad Agharias will not eat with or
+even take water from the others. Further local subdivisions are now
+in course of formation, as the Ratanpuria, Phuljharia and Raigarhia
+or those living round Ratanpur, Phuljhar and Raigarh. The caste is
+said to have 84 _gotras_ or exogamous sections, of which 60 bear
+the title of Patel, 18 that of Naik, and 6 of Chaudhri. The section
+names are very mixed, some being those of eponymous Brahman _gotras_,
+as Sandilya, Kaushik and Bharadwaj; others those of Rajput septs, as
+Karchhul; while others are the names of animals and plants, as Barah
+(pig), Baram (the pipal tree), Nag (cobra), Kachhapa (tortoise),
+and a number of other local terms the meaning of which has been
+forgotten. Each of these sections, however, uses a different mark
+for branding cows, which it is the religious duty of an Agharia to
+rear, and though the marks now convey no meaning, they were probably
+originally the representations of material objects. In the case of
+names whose meaning is understood, traces of totemism survive in the
+respect paid to the animal or plant by members of the sept which bears
+its name. This analysis of the structure of the caste shows that it
+was a very mixed one. Originally consisting perhaps of a nucleus
+of immigrant Rajputs, the offspring of connections with inferior
+classes have been assimilated; while the story already quoted is
+probably intended to signify, after the usual Brahmanical fashion,
+that the pedigree of the Agharias at some period included a Chamar.
+
+
+
+3. Marriage customs.
+
+
+Marriage within the exogamous section and also with first cousins is
+forbidden, though in some places the union of a sister's son with
+a brother's daughter is permitted. Child marriage is usual, and
+censure visits a man who allows an unmarried daughter to arrive at
+adolescence. The bridegroom should always be older than the bride,
+at any rate by a day. When a betrothal is arranged some ornaments
+and a cloth bearing the _swastik_ or lucky mark are sent to the
+girl. Marriages are always celebrated during the months of Magh
+and Phagun, and they are held only once in five or six years,
+when all children whose matches can be arranged for are married
+off. This custom is economical, as it saves expenditure on marriage
+feasts. Colonel Dalton also states that the Agharias always employ
+Hindustani Brahmans for their ceremonies, and as very few of these
+are available, they make circuits over large areas, and conduct all
+the weddings of a locality at the same period. Before the marriage a
+kid is sacrificed at the bride's house to celebrate the removal of her
+status of maidenhood. When the bridegroom arrives at the bride's house
+he touches with his dagger the string of mango-leaves suspended from
+the marriage-shed and presents a rupee and a hundred betel-leaves
+to the bride's _sawasin_ or attendant. Next day the bridegroom's
+father sends a present of a bracelet and seven small earthen cups to
+the bride. She is seated in the open, and seven women hold the cups
+over her head one above the other. Water is then poured from above
+from one cup into the other, each being filled in turn and the whole
+finally falling on the bride's head. This probably symbolises the
+fertilising action of rain. The bride is then bathed and carried
+in a basket seven times round the marriage-post, after which she
+is seated in a chair and seven women place their heads together
+round her while a male relative winds a thread seven times round
+the heads of the women. The meaning of this ceremony is obscure. The
+bridegroom makes his appearance alone and is seated with the bride,
+both being dressed in clothes coloured yellow with turmeric. The
+bridegroom's party follows, and the feet of the couple are washed
+with milk. The bride's brother embraces the bridegroom and changes
+cloths with him. Water is poured over the hands of the couple,
+the girl's forehead is daubed with vermilion, and a red silk cloth
+is presented to her and the couple go round the marriage-post. The
+bride is taken for four days to the husband's house and then returns,
+and is again sent with the usual _gauna_ ceremony, when she is fit
+for conjugal relations. No price is usually paid for the bride, and
+each party spends about Rs. 100 on the marriage ceremony. Polygamy
+and widow marriage are generally allowed, the widow being disposed
+of by her parents. The ceremony at the marriage of a widow consists
+in putting vermilion on the parting of her hair and bangles on her
+wrists. Divorce is allowed on pain of a fine of Rs. 50 if the divorce
+is sought by the husband, and of Rs. 25 if the wife asks for it. In
+some localities divorce and also polygamy are said to be forbidden,
+and in such cases a woman who commits adultery is finally expelled
+from the caste, and a funeral feast is given to symbolise her death.
+
+
+
+4. Religious and social customs.
+
+
+The family god of the Agharias is Dulha Deo, who exists in every
+household. On the Haraiti day or the commencement of the agricultural
+year they worship the implements of cultivation, and at Dasahra
+the sword if they have one. They have a great reverence for cows
+and feed them sumptuously at festivals. Every Agharia has a _guru_
+or spiritual guide who whispers the _mantra_ or sacred verse into
+his ear and is occasionally consulted. The dead are usually burnt,
+but children and persons dying of cholera or smallpox are buried,
+males being placed on the pyre or in the grave on their faces and
+females on their backs, with the feet pointing to the south. On
+the third day the ashes are thrown into a river and the bones of
+each part of the body are collected and placed under the pipal
+tree, while a pot is slung over them, through which water trickles
+continually for a week, and a lighted lamp, cooked food, a leaf-cup
+and a tooth-stick are placed beside them daily for the use of the
+deceased during the same period. Mourning ends on the tenth day,
+and the usual purification ceremonies are then performed. Children
+are mourned for a shorter period. Well-to-do members of the caste
+feed a Brahman daily for a year after a death, believing that food
+so given passes to the spirit of the deceased. On the anniversary of
+the death the caste-fellows are feasted, and after that the deceased
+becomes a _purkha_ or ancestor and participates in devotions paid
+at the _shradhh_ ceremony. When the head of a joint family dies,
+his successor is given a turban and betel-leaves, and his forehead
+is marked by the priest and other relations with sandalwood. After a
+birth the mother is impure for twenty-one days. A feast is given on
+the twelfth day, and sometimes the child is named then, but often
+children are not named until they are six years old. The names of
+men usually end in _Ram_, _Nath_ or _Singh_, and those of women in
+_Kunwar_. Women do not name their husbands, their elderly relations,
+nor the sons of their husband's eldest brother. A man does not name
+his wife, as he thinks that to do so would tend to shorten his life
+in accordance with the Sanskrit saying, 'He who is desirous of long
+life should not name himself, his _guru_, a miser, his eldest son,
+or his wife.' The Agharias do not admit outsiders into the caste. They
+will not take cooked food from any caste, and water only from a Gaur
+or Rawat. They refuse to take water from an Uriya Brahman, probably
+in retaliation for the refusal of Uriya Brahmans to accept water from
+an Agharia, though taking it from a Kolta. Both the Uriya Brahmans
+and Agharias are of somewhat doubtful origin, and both are therefore
+probably the more concerned to maintain the social position to which
+they lay claim. But Kewats, Rawats, Telis and other castes eat cooked
+food from Agharias, and the caste therefore is admitted to a fairly
+high rank in the Uriya country. The Agharias do not drink liquor or
+eat any food which a Rajput would refuse.
+
+
+
+5. Occupation.
+
+
+As cultivators they are considered to be proficient. In the census of
+1901 nearly a quarter of the whole caste were shown as malguzars or
+village proprietors and lessees. They wear a coarse cloth of homespun
+yarn which they get woven for them by Gandas; probably in consequence
+of this the Agharias do not consider the touch of the Ganda to pollute
+them, as other castes do. They will not grow turmeric, onions, garlic,
+_san_-hemp or tomatoes, nor will they rear tasar silk-cocoons. Colonel
+Dalton says that their women do no outdoor work, and this is true in
+the Central Provinces as regards the better classes, but poor women
+work in the fields.
+
+
+
+Aghori
+
+
+
+1. General accounts of the caste.
+
+
+_Aghori, Aghorpanthi._ [7]--The most disreputable class of Saiva
+mendicants who feed on human corpses and excrement, and in past
+times practised cannibalism. The sect is apparently an ancient one, a
+supposed reference to it being contained in the Sanskrit drama _Malati
+Madhava_, the hero of which rescues his mistress from being offered
+as a sacrifice by one named Aghori Ghanta. [8] According to Lassen,
+quoted by Sir H. Risley, the Aghoris of the present day are closely
+connected with the Kapalika sect of the Middle Ages, who wore crowns
+and necklaces of skulls and offered human sacrifices to Chamunda,
+a form of Devi. The Aghoris now represent their filthy habits as
+merely giving practical expression to the abstract doctrine that the
+whole universe is full of Brahma, and consequently that one thing is
+as pure as another. By eating the most horrible food they utterly
+subdue their natural appetites, and hence acquire great power over
+themselves and over the forces of nature. It is believed that an
+Aghori can at will assume the shapes of a bird, an animal or a fish,
+and that he can bring back to life a corpse of which he has eaten a
+part. The principal resort of the Aghoris appears to be at Benares and
+at Girnar near Mount Abu, and they wander about the country as solitary
+mendicants. A few reside in Saugor, and they are occasionally met with
+in other places. They are much feared and disliked by the people owing
+to their practice of extorting alms by the threat to carry out their
+horrible practices before the eyes of their victims, and by throwing
+filth into their houses. Similarly they gash and cut their limbs so
+that the crime of blood may rest on those who refuse to give. "For the
+most part," Mr. Barrow states, [9] "the Aghorpanthis lead a wandering
+life, are without homes, and prefer to dwell in holes, clefts of rocks
+and burning-_ghats_. They do not cook, but eat the fragments given
+them in charity as received, which they put as far as may be into the
+cavity of the skull used as a begging-bowl. The bodies of _chelas_
+(disciples) who die in Benares are thrown into the Ganges, but the
+dead who die well off are placed in coffins. As a rule, Aghoris do not
+care what becomes of their bodies, but when buried they are placed in
+the grave sitting cross-legged. The Aghori _gurus_ keep dogs, which
+may be of any colour, and are said to be maintained for purposes of
+protection. The dogs are not all pariahs of the streets, although some
+_gurus_ are followed by three or four when on pilgrimage. Occasionally
+the dogs seem to be regarded with real affection by their strange
+masters. The Aghori is believed to hold converse with all the evil
+spirits frequenting the burning-_ghats_, and funeral parties must
+be very badly off who refuse to pay him something. In former days he
+claimed five pieces of wood at each funeral in Benares; but the Doms
+interfere with his perquisites, and in some cases only let him carry
+off the remains of the unburned wood from each pyre. When angered
+and excited, Aghoris invoke Kali and threaten to spread devastation
+around them. Even among the educated classes, who should know better,
+they are dreaded, and as an instance of the terror which they create
+among the ignorant, it may be mentioned that in the Lucknow District
+it is believed that if alms are refused them the Aghoris will cause
+those who refuse to be attacked with fever.
+
+"On the other hand, their good offices may secure benefits, as in the
+case of a zamindar of Muzaffarnagar, who at Allahabad refused to eat a
+piece of human flesh offered to him by an Aghori; the latter thereupon
+threw the flesh at the zamindar's head, on which it stuck. The zamindar
+afterwards became so exceedingly wealthy that he had difficulty in
+storing his wealth."
+
+
+
+2. Instances of cannibalism.
+
+
+In former times it is believed that the Aghoris used to kidnap
+strangers, sacrifice them to the goddess and eat the bodies, and
+Mr. Barrow relates the following incident of the murder of a boy: [10]
+"Another horrible case, unconnected with magic and apparently arising
+from mere blood-thirst, occurred at Neirad in June 1878. An Aghori
+mendicant of Dwarka staying at the temple of Sitaram Laldas seized a
+boy of twelve, named Shankar Ramdas, who was playing with two other
+boys, threw him down on the _oatla_ of the temple, ripped open his
+abdomen, tore out part of his entrails, and, according to the poor
+little victim's dying declaration, began to eat them. The other boys
+having raised an alarm, the monster was seized. When interrogated by
+the magistrate as to whether he had committed the crime in order to
+perform Aghorbidya, the prisoner said that as the boy was Bhakshan
+he had eaten his flesh. He added that if he had not been interrupted
+he would have eaten all the entrails. He was convicted, but only
+sentenced to transportation for life. The High Court, however,
+altered the sentence and ordered the prisoner to be hanged."
+
+The following instance, quoted by Mr. Barrow from Rewah, shows how an
+Aghori was hoist with his own petard: "Some years ago, when Maharaja
+Bishnath Singh was Chief of Rewah, a man of the Aghori caste went
+to Rewah and sat _dharna_ on the steps of the palace; having made
+ineffectual demands for alms, he requested to be supplied with human
+flesh, and for five days abstained from food. The Maharaja was much
+troubled, and at last, in order to get rid of his unwelcome visitor,
+sent for Ghansiam Das, another Aghori, a Fakir, who had for some
+years lived in Rewah. Ghansiam Das went up to the other Aghori and
+asked him if it was true that he had asked to be supplied with human
+flesh. On receiving a reply in the affirmative, Ghansiam Das said:
+'Very well, I too am extremely partial to this form of food; here is
+my hand, eat it and I will eat you'; and at the same time he seized
+hold of the other's hand and began to gnaw at it. The Aghori on this
+became much alarmed and begged to be excused. He shortly afterwards
+left Rewah and was not heard of again, while Ghansiam Das was rewarded
+for his services."
+
+The following recent instance of an Aghori devouring human corpses
+is reported from the Punjab: [11] "The loathsome story of a human
+ghoul from Patiala shows that the influence of the Aghorpanthi has
+not yet completely died out in this country. It is said that for some
+time past human graves have been found robbed of their contents, and
+the mystery could not be solved until the other day, when the police
+succeeded in arresting a man in the act of desecrating a child's grave,
+some forty miles distant from the capital (Patiala). The ghoul not only
+did not conceal the undevoured portion of the corpse he had with him,
+but told his captors the whole story of his gruesome career. He is
+a low-caste Hindu named Ram Nath, and is, according to a gentleman
+who saw him, 'a singularly mild and respectful-looking man, instead
+of a red-eyed and ravenous savage,' as he had expected to find him
+from the accounts of his disgusting propensities. He became an orphan
+at five and fell into the hands of two Sadhus of his own caste, who
+were evidently Aghorpanthis. They taught him to eat human flesh,
+which formed the staple of their food. The meat was procured from
+the graves in the villages they passed through. When Ram Nath was
+thoroughly educated in this rank the Sadhus deserted him. Since then
+he had been living on human carrion only, roaming about the country
+like a hungry vulture. He cannot eat cooked food, and therefore gets
+two seers of raw meat from the State every day. It is also reported
+that the Maharaja has now prohibited his being given anything but
+cooked food with a view to reforming him."
+
+Sir J. B. Fuller relates the following incident of the employment
+of an Aghori as a servant: [12] "There are actually ten thousand
+persons who at census time classed themselves as Aghoris. All of them
+do not practise cannibalism and some of them attempt to rise in the
+world. One of them secured service as a cook with a British officer
+of my acquaintance. My friend was in camp in the jungle with his
+wife and children, when his other servants came to him in a body and
+refused to remain in service unless the cook was dismissed, since they
+had discovered, they declared, that during the night-time he visited
+cemeteries and dug up the bodies of freshly buried children. The cook
+was absent, but they pointed to a box of his that emitted a sickening
+smell. The man was incontinently expelled, but for long afterwards the
+family were haunted by reminiscences of the curries they had eaten."
+
+
+
+
+
+
+Ahir
+
+
+
+List of Paragraphs
+
+
+    1. _General notice._
+    2. _Former dominance of the Abhiras._
+    3. _Ahir dialects._
+    4. _The Yadavas and Krishna._
+    5. _The modern Ahirs an occupational caste._
+    6. _Subcastes._
+    7. _The Dauwa or wet-nurse Ahirs. Fosterage._
+    8. _Exogamy._
+    9. _Marriage customs._
+    10. _Birth customs._
+    11. _Funeral rites. Bringing back the soul._
+    12. _Religion. Krishna and other deified cowherds._
+    13. _Caste deities._
+    14. _Other deities._
+    15. _The Diwali festival._
+    16. _Omens._
+    17. _Social customs._
+    18. _Ornaments._
+    19. _Occupation._
+    20. _Preparations of milk._
+
+
+
+1. General notice.
+
+
+_Ahir, [13] Gaoli, Guala, Golkar, Gaolan, Rawat, Gahra, Mahakul._--The
+caste, of cowherds, milkmen and cattle-breeders. In 1911 the Ahirs
+numbered nearly 750,000 persons in the Central Provinces and Berar,
+being the sixth caste in point of numbers. This figure, however,
+excludes 150,000 Gowaris or graziers of the Maratha Districts,
+and if these were added the Ahirs would outnumber the Telis and
+rank fifth. The name Ahir is derived from Abhira, a tribe mentioned
+several times in inscriptions and the Hindu sacred books. Goala,
+a cowherd, from Gopala, [14] a protector of cows, is the Bengali
+name for the caste, and Gaoli, with the same signification, is now
+used in the Central Provinces to signify a dairyman as opposed to
+a grazier. The Gaolans appear to be an inferior class of Gaolis in
+Berar. The Golkars of Chanda may be derived from the Telugu Golars or
+graziers, with a probable admixture of Gond blood. They are described
+as wild-looking people scattered about in the most thickly forested
+tracts of the District, where they graze and tend cattle. Rawat, a
+corruption of Rajputra or a princeling, is the name borne by the Ahir
+caste in Chhattisgarh; while Gahra is their designation in the Uriya
+country. The Mahakul Ahirs are a small group found in the Jashpur
+State, and said to belong to the Nandvansi division. The name means
+'Great family.'
+
+
+
+2. Former dominance of the Abhiras.
+
+
+The Abhiras appear to have been one of the immigrant tribes from
+Central Asia who entered India shortly before or about the commencement
+of the Christian era. In the Puranas and Mahabharata they are spoken
+of as Dasyu or robbers, and Mlechchhas or foreigners, in the story
+which says that Arjuna, after he had burned the dead bodies of
+Krishna and Balaram at Dwarka, was proceeding with the widows of the
+Yadava princes to Mathura through the Punjab when he was waylaid by
+the Abhiras and deprived of his treasures and beautiful women. [15]
+An inscription of the Saka era 102, or A.D. 180, speaks of a grant
+made by the Senapati or commander-in-chief of the state, who is
+called an Abhira, the locality being Sunda in Kathiawar. Another
+inscription found in Nasik and assigned by Mr. Enthoven to the fourth
+century speaks of an Abhira king, and the Puranas say that after the
+Andhrabhrityas the Deccan was held by the Abhiras, the west coast
+tract from the Tapti to Deogarh being called by their name. [16]
+In the time of Samudragupta in the middle of the fourth century
+the Abhiras were settled in Eastern Rajputana and Malwa. [17] When
+the Kathis arrived in Gujarat in the eighth century, they found the
+greater part of the country in the possession of the Ahirs. [18] In the
+Mirzapur District of the United Provinces a tract known as Ahraura is
+considered to be named after the tribe; and near Jhansi another piece
+of country is called Ahirwar. [19] Elliot states that Ahirs were also
+Rajas of Nepal about the commencement of our era. [20] In Khandesh,
+Mr. Enthoven states, the settlements of the Ahirs were important. In
+many castes there is a separate division of Ahirs, such as the Ahir
+Sunars, Sutars, Lohars, Shimpis, Salis, Guraos and Kolis. The fort
+of Asirgarh in Nimar bordering on Khandesh is supposed to have been
+founded by one Asa Ahir, who lived in the beginning of the fifteenth
+century. It is said that his ancestors had held land here for seven
+hundred years, and he had 10,000 cattle, 20,000 sheep and 1000 mares,
+with 2000 followers; but was still known to the people, to whom
+his benevolence had endeared him, by the simple name of Asa. This
+derivation of Asirgarh is clearly erroneous, as it was known as
+Asir or Asirgarh, and held by the Tak and Chauhan Rajputs from the
+eleventh century. But the story need not on that account, Mr. Grant
+says, [21] be set down as wholly a fable. Firishta, who records it,
+has usually a good credit, and more probably the real existence of
+a line of Ahir chieftains in the Tapti valley suggested a convenient
+ethnology for the fortress. Other traditions of the past domination
+of the pastoral tribes remain in the Central Provinces. Deogarh on
+the Chhindwara plateau was, according to the legend, the last seat
+of Gaoli power prior to its subversion by the Gonds in the sixteenth
+century. Jatba, the founder of the Deogarh Gond dynasty, is said to
+have entered the service of the Gaoli rulers, Mansur and Gansur, and
+subsequently with the aid of the goddess Devi to have slain them and
+usurped their kingdom. But a Gaoli chief still retained possession of
+the fort of Narnala for a few years longer, when he also was slain by
+the Muhammadans. Similarly the fort of Gawilgarh on the southern crest
+of the Satpuras is said to be named after a Gaoli chief who founded
+it. The Saugor traditions bring down the Gaoli supremacy to a much
+later date, as the tracts of Etawa and Khurai are held to have been
+governed by their chieftains till the close of the seventeenth century.
+
+
+
+3. Ahir dialects.
+
+
+Certain dialects called after the Abhiras or Ahirs still remain. One,
+known as Ahirwati, is spoken in the Rohtak and Gurgaon Districts of
+the Punjab and round Delhi. This is akin to Mewati, one of the forms
+of Rajasthani or the language of Rajputana. The Malwi dialect of
+Rajasthani is also known as Ahiri; and that curious form of Gujarati,
+which is half a Bhil dialect, and is generally known as Khandeshi,
+also bears the name of Ahirani. [22] The above linguistic facts seem
+to prove only that the Abhiras, or their occupational successors,
+the Ahirs, were strongly settled in the Delhi country of the Punjab,
+Malwa and Khandesh. They do not seem to throw much light on the origin
+of the Abhiras or Ahirs, and necessarily refer only to a small section
+of the existing Ahir caste, the great bulk of whom speak the Aryan
+language current where they dwell. Another authority states, however,
+that the Ahirs of Gujarat still retain a dialect of their own, and
+concludes that this and the other Ahir dialects are the remains of
+the distinct Abhira language.
+
+
+
+4. The Yadavas and Krishna.
+
+
+It cannot necessarily be assumed that all the above traditions relate
+to the Abhira tribe proper, of which the modern Ahir caste are scarcely
+more than the nominal representatives. Nevertheless, it may fairly be
+concluded from them that the Abhiras were widely spread over India
+and dominated considerable tracts of country. They are held to have
+entered India about the same time as the Sakas, who settled in Gujarat,
+among other places, and, as seen above, the earliest records of the
+Abhiras show them in Nasik and Kathiawar, and afterwards widely spread
+in Khandesh, that is, in the close neighbourhood of the Sakas. It has
+been suggested in the article on Rajput that the Yadava and other lunar
+clans of Rajputs may be the representatives of the Sakas and other
+nomad tribes who invaded India shortly before and after the Christian
+era. The god Krishna is held to have been the leader of the Yadavas,
+and to have founded with them the sacred city of Dwarka in Gujarat. The
+modern Ahirs have a subdivision called Jaduvansi or Yaduvansi, that is,
+of the race of the Yadavas, and they hold that Krishna was of the Ahir
+tribe. Since the Abhiras were also settled in Gujarat it is possible
+that they may have been connected with the Yadavas, and that this may
+be the foundation for their claim that Krishna was of their tribe. The
+Dyashraya-Kavya of Hemachandra speaks of a Chordasama prince reigning
+near Junagarh as an Abhira and a Yadava. But this is no doubt very
+conjectural, and the simple fact that Krishna was a herdsman would be
+a sufficient reason for the Ahirs to claim connection with him. It is
+pointed out that the names of Abhira chieftains given in the early
+inscriptions are derived from the god Siva, and this would not have
+been the case if they had at that epoch derived their origin from
+Krishna, an incarnation of Vishnu. "If the Abhiras had really been
+the descendants of the cowherds (Gopas) whose hero was Krishna, the
+name of the rival god Siva would never have formed components of the
+names of the Abhiras, whom we find mentioned in inscriptions. Hence
+the conclusion may safely be drawn that the Abhiras were by no means
+connected with Krishna and his cowherds even as late as about A.D. 300,
+to which date the first of the two inscriptions mentioned above is
+to be assigned. Precisely the same conclusion is pointed to by the
+contents of the Harivansha and Bhagwat Purana. The upbringing of
+Krishna among the cowherds and his flirtations with the milkmaids are
+again and again mentioned in these works, but the word Abhira does not
+occur even once in this connection. The only words we find used are
+Gopa, Gopi and Vraja. This is indeed remarkable. For the descriptions
+of the removal of Krishna as an infant to Nanda, the cowherd's hut,
+of his childhood passed in playing with the cowherd boys, and of his
+youth spent in amorous sports with the milkmaids are set forth at
+great length, but the word Abhira is not once met with. From this
+only one conclusion is possible, that is, that the Abhiras did not
+originally represent the Gopas of Krishna. The word Abhira occurs for
+the first time in connection with the Krishna legend about A.D. 550,
+from which it follows that the Abhiras came to be identified with
+the Gopas shortly before that date." [23]
+
+This argument is interesting as showing that Abhira was not originally
+an occupational term for a herdsman, nor a caste name, but belonged
+to an immigrant tribe. Owing apparently to the fact that the Abhiras,
+like the Gujars, devoted themselves to a pastoral mode of life in
+India, whereas the previous Aryan immigrants had settled down to
+cultivation, they gave their name to the great occupational caste
+of herdsmen which was subsequently developed, and of which they may
+originally have constituted the nucleus. The Gujars, who came to India
+at a later period, form a parallel case; although the Gujar caste,
+which is derived from them, is far less important than the Ahir,
+the Gujars have also been the parents of several Rajput clans. The
+reason why the early Mathura legends of Krishna make no mention of
+the Ahirs may be that the deity Krishna is probably compounded of at
+least two if not more distinct personalities. One is the hero chief of
+the Yadavas, who fought in the battle of the Pandavas and Kauravas,
+migrated to Gujarat and was killed there. As he was chief of the
+Yadavas this Krishna must stand for the actual or mythical personality
+of some leader of the immigrant nomad tribes. The other Krishna,
+the boy cowherd, who grazed cattle and sported with the milkmaids of
+Brindaban, may very probably be some hero of the indigenous non-Aryan
+tribes, who, then as now, lived in the forests and were shepherds
+and herdsmen. His lowly birth from a labouring cowherd, and the
+fact that his name means black and he is represented in sculpture
+as being of a dark colour, lend support to this view. The cult of
+Krishna, Mr. Crooke points out, was comparatively late, and probably
+connected with the development of the worship of the cow after the
+decay of Buddhism. This latter Krishna, who is worshipped with his
+mother as a child-god, was especially attractive to women, both actual
+and prospective mothers. It is quite probable therefore that as his
+worship became very popular in Hindustan in connection with that of
+the cow, he was given a more illustrious origin by identification
+with the Yadava hero, whose first home was apparently in Gujarat. In
+this connection it may also be noted that the episodes connected with
+Krishna in the Mahabharata have been considered late interpolations.
+
+
+
+5. The modern Ahirs an occupational caste.
+
+
+But though the Ahir caste takes its name and is perhaps partly
+descended from the Abhira tribe, there is no doubt that it is now
+and has been for centuries a purely occupational caste, largely
+recruited from the indigenous tribes. Thus in Bengal Colonel Dalton
+remarks that the features of the Mathuravasi Goalas are high, sharp
+and delicate, and they are of light-brown complexion. Those of the
+Magadha subcaste, on the other hand, are undefined and coarse. They
+are dark-complexioned, and have large hands and feet. "Seeing the
+latter standing in a group with some Singhbhum Kols, there is no
+distinguishing one from the other. There has doubtless been much
+mixture of blood." [24] Similarly in the Central Provinces the Ahirs
+are largely recruited from the Gonds and other tribes. In Chanda the
+Gowaris are admittedly descended from the unions of Gonds and Ahirs,
+and one of their subcastes, the Gond-Gowaris, are often classed as
+Gonds. Again, the Kaonra Ahirs of Mandla are descended from the unions
+of Ahirs either with the Gonds or Kawars, and many of them are probably
+pure Gonds. They have Gond sept-names and eat pork. Members of one
+of their subdivisions, the Gond-Kaonra, will take water from Gonds,
+and rank below the other Kaonras, from whom they will accept food and
+water. As cattle have to go into the thick jungles to graze in the hot
+weather, the graziers attending them become intimate with the forest
+tribes who live there, and these latter are also often employed to
+graze the cattle, and are perhaps after a time admitted to the Ahir
+caste. Many Ahirs in Mandla are scarcely considered to be Hindus,
+living as they do in Gond villages in sole company with the Gonds.
+
+
+
+6. Subcastes.
+
+
+The principal subcastes of the Ahirs in northern India are the
+Jaduvansi, Nandvansi and Gowalvansi. The Jaduvansi claimed to be
+descended from the Yadavas, who now form the Yadu and Jadon-Bhatti
+clans of Rajputs. The probability of a historical connection between
+the Abhiras and Yadavas has already been noticed. The Nandvansi
+consider their first ancestor to have been Nand, the cowherd, the
+foster-father of Krishna; while the name of the Gowalvansi is simply
+Goala or Gauli, a milkman, a common synonym for the caste. The Kaonra
+Ahirs of Mandla and the Kamarias of Jubbulpore are considered to belong
+to the Nandvansi group. Other subcastes in the northern Districts are
+the Jijhotia, who, like the Jijhotia Brahmans, take their name from
+Jajhoti, the classical term for Bundelkhand; the Bharotia; and the
+Narwaria from Narwar. The Rawats of Chhattisgarh are divided into the
+Jhadia, Kosaria and Kanaujia groups. Of these the Jhadia or 'jungly,'
+and Kosaria from Kosala, the ancient name of the Chhattisgarh country,
+are the oldest settlers, while the Kanaujia are largely employed as
+personal servants in Chhattisgarh, and all castes will take water
+from their hands. The superior class of them, however, refuse to
+clean household cooking vessels, and are hence known as Thethwar,
+or exact or pure, as distinguished from the other Rawats, who will
+perform this somewhat derogatory work.
+
+
+
+7. The Dauwa or wet-nurse Ahirs. Fosterage.
+
+
+The Dauwa or wet-nurse Ahirs are descended from the illegitimate
+offspring of Bundela Rajput fathers by Ahir mothers who were employed
+in this capacity in their families. An Ahir woman kept by a Bundela
+was known as Pardwarin, or one coming from another house. This is
+not considered a disgraceful origin; though the Dauwa Ahirs are not
+recognised by the Ahirs proper, they form a separate section of the
+caste, and Brahmans will take water from them. The children of such
+mothers stood in the relation of foster-brothers to the Rajputs,
+whom their mothers had nursed. The giving of milk, in accordance with
+the common primitive belief in the virtue attaching to an action
+in itself, was held to constitute a relation of quasi-maternity
+between the nurse and infant, and hence of fraternity between her own
+children and her foster-children. The former were called Dhai-bhais
+or foster-brothers by the Rajputs; they were often given permanent
+grants of land and employed on confidential missions, as for the
+arrangement of marriages. The minister of a Raja of Karauli was
+his Dauwa or foster-father, the husband of his nurse. Similarly,
+Colonel Tod says that the Dhai-bhai or foster-brother of the Raja
+of Boondi, commandant of the fortress of Tanagarh, was, like all
+his class, devotion personified. [25] A parallel instance of the
+tie of foster-kinship occurs in the case of the foster-brothers of
+Conachar or Hector in _The Fair Maid of Perth_. Thus the position
+of foster-brother of a Rajput was an honourable one, even though
+the child might be illegitimate. Ahir women were often employed as
+wet-nurses, because domestic service was a profession in which they
+commonly engaged. Owing to the comparatively humble origin of a large
+proportion of them they did not object to menial service, while the
+purity of their caste made it possible to use them for the supply
+of water and food. In Bengal the Uriya Ahirs were a common class of
+servants in European houses.
+
+The Gaolis or milkmen appear to form a distinct branch of the caste
+with subcastes of their own. Among them are the Nandvans, common to
+the Ahirs, the Malwi from Malwa and the Raghuvansi, called after the
+Rajput clan of that name. The Ranyas take their designation from _ran_,
+forest, like the Jhadia Rawats.
+
+
+
+8. Exogamy.
+
+
+The caste have exogamous sections, which are of the usual low-caste
+type, with titular or totemistic names. Those of the Chhattisgarhi
+Rawats are generally named after animals. A curious name among the
+Mahakul Ahirs is Mathankata, or one who bit his mother's nipples. The
+marriage of persons belonging to the same section and of first cousins
+is prohibited. A man may marry his wife's younger sister while his
+wife is living, but not her elder sister. The practice of exchanging
+girls between families is permissible.
+
+
+
+9. Marriage customs.
+
+
+As a rule, girls may be married before or after puberty, but the
+Golkars of Chanda insist on infant marriage, and fine the parents if
+an unmarried girl becomes adolescent. On the other hand, the Kaonra
+Ahirs of Mandla make a practice of not getting a girl married till
+the signs of puberty have appeared. It is said that in Mandla if an
+unmarried girl becomes pregnant by a man of the caste the _panchayat_
+give her to him and fine him Rs. 20 or 30, which they appropriate
+themselves, giving nothing to the father. If an Ahir girl is seduced
+by an outsider, she is made over to him, and a fine of Rs. 40 or 50
+is exacted from him if possible. This is paid to the girl's father,
+who has to spend it on a penalty feast to the caste. Generally,
+sexual offences within the community are leniently regarded. The
+wedding ceremony is of the type prevalent in the locality. The
+proposal comes from the boy's family, and a price is usually given
+for the bride. The Kaonra Ahirs of Mandla and the Jharia and Kosaria
+Rawats of Chhattisgarh employ a Brahman only to write the _lagun_ or
+paper fixing the date of the wedding, and the ceremony is conducted
+by the _sawasins_ or relatives of the parties. In Chhattisgarh the
+bridegroom is dressed as a girl to be taken to the wedding. In Betul
+the weddings of most Gaolis are held in Magh (January), and that of
+the Ranya subcaste in the bright fortnight of Kartik (October). At
+the ceremony the bride is made to stand on a small stone roller; the
+bridegroom then takes hold of the roller facing the bride and goes
+round in a circle seven times, turning the roller with him. Widow
+remarriage is permitted, and a widow is often expected to marry
+the younger brother of her deceased husband. If a bachelor wishes
+to marry a widow he first goes through the ceremony with a dagger
+or an earthen vessel. Divorce is freely permitted. In Hoshangabad a
+strip is torn off the clothes worn by husband and wife as a sign of
+their divorce. This is presumably in contrast to the knotting of the
+clothes of the couple together at a wedding.
+
+
+
+10. Birth customs.
+
+
+Among the Rawats of Chhattisgarh, when a child is shortly to be born
+the midwife dips her hand in oil and presses it on the wall, and it
+is supposed that she can tell by the way in which the oil trickles
+down whether the child will be a boy or a girl. If a woman is weak
+and ill during her pregnancy it is thought that a boy will be born,
+but if she is strong and healthy, a girl. A woman in advanced pregnancy
+is given whatever she desires to eat, and on one occasion especially
+delicate kinds of food are served to her, this rite being known as
+Sidhori. The explanation of the custom is that if the mother does
+not get the food she desires during pregnancy the child will long for
+it all through life. If delivery is delayed, a line of men and boys
+is sometimes made from the door of the house to a well, and a vessel
+is then passed from hand to hand from the house, filled with water,
+and back again. Thus the water, having acquired the quality of speed
+during its rapid transit, will communicate this to the woman and cause
+her quick delivery. Or they take some of the clay left unmoulded on
+the potter's wheel and give it her to drink in water; the explanation
+of this is exactly similar, the earth having acquired the quality of
+swiftness by the rapid transit on the wheel. If three boys or three
+girls have been born to a woman, they think that the fourth should
+be of the same sex, in order to make up two pairs. A boy or girl
+born after three of the opposite sex is called Titra or Titri, and is
+considered very unlucky. To avert this misfortune they cover the child
+with a basket, kindle a fire of grass all round it, and smash a brass
+pot on the floor. Then they say that the baby is the fifth and not
+the fourth child, and the evil is thus removed. When one woman gives
+birth to a male and another to a female child in the same quarter of
+a village on the same day and they are attended by the same midwife,
+it is thought that the boy child will fall ill from the contagion
+of the girl child communicated through the midwife. To avoid this,
+on the following Sunday the child's maternal uncle makes a banghy,
+which is carried across the shoulders like a large pair of scales,
+and weighs the child in it against cowdung. He then takes the banghy
+and deposits it at cross-roads outside the village. The father cannot
+see either the child or its mother till after the Chathi or sixth-day
+ceremony of purification, when the mother is bathed and dressed in
+clean clothes, the males of the family are shaved, all their clothes
+are washed, and the house is whitewashed; the child is also named on
+this day. The mother cannot go out of doors until after the Barhi or
+twelfth-day ceremony. If a child is born at an unlucky astrological
+period its ears are pierced in the fifth month after birth as a means
+of protection.
+
+
+
+11. Funeral rites. Bringing back the soul.
+
+
+The dead are either buried or burnt. When a man is dying they put
+basil leaves and boiled rice and milk in his mouth, and a little
+piece of gold, or if they have not got gold they put a rupee in his
+mouth and take it out again. For ten days after a death, food in
+a leaf-cup and a lamp are set out in the house-yard every evening,
+and every morning water and a tooth-stick. On the tenth day they are
+taken away and consigned to a river. In Chhattisgarh on the third
+day after death the soul is brought back. The women put a lamp on a
+red earthen pot and go to a tank or stream at night. The fish are
+attracted towards the light, and one of them is caught and put in
+the pot, which is then filled with water. It is brought home and set
+beside a small heap of flour, and the elders sit round it. The son
+of the deceased or other near relative anoints himself with turmeric
+and picks up a stone. This is washed with the water from the pot,
+and placed on the floor, and a sacrifice of a cock or hen is made to
+it according as the deceased was a man or a woman. The stone is then
+enshrined in the house as a family god, and the sacrifice of a fowl
+is repeated annually. It is supposed apparently that the dead man's
+spirit is brought back to the house in the fish, and then transferred
+to the stone by washing this with the water.
+
+
+
+12. Religion. Krishna and other deified cowherds.
+
+
+The Ahirs have a special relation to the Hindu religion, owing
+to their association with the sacred cow, which is itself revered
+as a goddess. When religion gets to the anthropomorphic stage the
+cowherd, who partakes of the cow's sanctity, may be deified as its
+representative. This was probably the case with Krishna, one of
+the most popular gods of Hinduism, who was a cowherd, and, as he is
+represented as being of a dark colour, may even have been held to
+be of the indigenous races. Though, according to the legend, he was
+really of royal birth, Krishna was brought up by Nand, a herdsman of
+Gokul, and Jasoda or Dasoda his wife, and in the popular belief these
+are his parents, as they probably were in the original story. The
+substitution of Krishna, born as a prince, for Jasoda's daughter,
+in order to protect him from destruction by the evil king Kansa of
+Mathura, is perhaps a later gloss, devised when his herdsman parentage
+was considered too obscure for the divine hero. Krishna's childhood in
+Jasoda's house with his miraculous feats of strength and his amorous
+sports with Radha and the other milkmaids of Brindawan, are among
+the most favourite Hindu legends. Govind and Gopal, the protector
+or guardian of cows, are names of Krishna and the commonest names of
+Hindus, as are also his other epithets, Murlidhar and Bansidhar, the
+flute-player; for Krishna and Balaram, like Greek and Roman shepherds,
+were accustomed to divert themselves with song, to the accompaniment
+of the same instrument. The child Krishna is also very popular, and
+his birthday, the Janam-Ashtami on the 8th of dark Bhadon (August),
+is a great festival. On this day potsful of curds are sprinkled over
+the assembled worshippers. Krishna, however, is not the solitary
+instance of the divine cowherd, but has several companions, humble
+indeed compared to him, but perhaps owing their apotheosis to the
+same reasons. Bhilat, a popular local godling of the Nerbudda Valley,
+was the son of an Ahir or Gaoli woman; she was childless and prayed
+to Parvati for a child, and the goddess caused her votary to have
+one by her own husband, the god Mahadeo. Bhilat was stolen away from
+his home by Mahadeo in the disguise of a beggar, and grew up to be
+a great hero and made many conquests; but finally he returned and
+lived with his herdsman parents, who were no doubt his real ones. He
+performed numerous miracles, and his devotees are still possessed by
+his spirit. Singaji is another godling who was a Gaoli by caste in
+Indore. He became a disciple of a holy Gokulastha Gosain or ascetic,
+and consequently a great observer of the Janam-Ashtami or Krishna's
+birthday. [26] On one occasion Singaji was late for prayers on this
+day, and the _guru_ was very angry, and said to him, 'Don't show your
+face to me again until you are dead.' Singaji went home and told the
+other children he was going to die. Then he went and buried himself
+alive. The occurrence was noised abroad and came to the ears of the
+_guru_, who was much distressed, and proceeded to offer his condolences
+to Singaji's family. But on the way he saw Singaji, who had been
+miraculously raised from the dead on account of his virtuous act of
+obedience, grazing his buffaloes as before. After asking for milk,
+which Singaji drew from a male buffalo calf, the _guru_ was able
+to inform the bereaved parents of their son's joyful reappearance
+and his miraculous powers; of these Singaji gave further subsequent
+demonstration, and since his death, said to have occurred 350 years
+ago, is widely venerated. The Gaolis pray to him for the protection
+of their cattle from disease, and make thank-offerings of butter if
+these prayers are fulfilled. Other pilgrims to Singaji's shrine offer
+unripe mangoes and sugar, and an annual fair is held at it, when it is
+said that for seven days no cows, flies or ants are to be seen in the
+place. In the Betul district there is a village godling called Dait,
+represented by a stone under a tree. He is the spirit of any Ahir who
+in his lifetime was credited in the locality with having the powers of
+an exorcist. In Mandla and other Districts when any buffalo herdsman
+dies at a very advanced age the people make a platform for him within
+the village and call it Mahashi Deo or the buffalo god. Similarly,
+when an old cattle herdsman dies they do the same, and call it Balki
+Deo or the bullock god. Here we have a clear instance of the process
+of substituting the spirit of the herdsman for the cow or buffalo as
+an object of worship. The occupation of the Ahir also lends itself to
+religious imaginations. He stays in the forest or waste grass-land,
+frequently alone from morning till night, watching his herds; and
+the credulous and uneducated minds of the more emotional may easily
+hear the voices of spirits, or in a half-sleeping condition during
+the heat and stillness of the long day may think that visions have
+appeared to them. Thus they come to believe themselves selected for
+communication with the unseen deities or spirits, and on occasions
+of strong religious excitement work themselves into a frenzy and are
+held to be possessed by a spirit or god.
+
+
+
+13. Caste deities.
+
+
+Among the special deities of the Ahirs is Kharak Deo, who is always
+located at the _khirkha_, or place of assembly of the cattle, on
+going to and returning from pasture. He appears to be the spirit or
+god of the _khirkha_. He is represented by a platform with an image
+of a horse on it, and when cattle fall ill the owners offer flour
+and butter to him. These are taken by the Ahirs in charge, and it is
+thought that the cattle will get well. Matar Deo is the god of the
+pen or enclosure for cattle made in the jungle. Three days after the
+Diwali festival the Rawats sacrifice one or more goats to him, cutting
+off their heads. They throw the heads into the air, and the cattle,
+smelling the blood, run together and toss them with their horns as
+they do when they scent a tiger. The men then say that the animals
+are possessed by Matar Deo. Guraya Deo is a deity who lives in the
+cattle-stalls in the village and is worshipped once a year. A man
+holds an egg in his hand, and walks round the stall pouring liquid
+over the egg all the way, so as to make a line round it. The egg is
+then buried beneath the shrine of the god, the rite being probably
+meant to ensure his aid for the protection of the cattle from disease
+in their stalls. A favourite saint of the Ahirs is Haridas Baba. He
+was a Jogi, and could separate his soul from his body at pleasure. On
+one occasion he had gone in spirit to Benares, leaving his body
+in the house of one of his disciples, who was an Ahir. When he did
+not return, and the people heard that a dead body was lying there,
+they came and insisted that it should be burnt. When he came back
+and found that his body was burnt, he entered into a man and spoke
+through him, telling the people what had happened. In atonement for
+their unfortunate mistake they promised to worship him.
+
+
+
+14. Other deities.
+
+
+The Mahakul Ahirs of Jashpur have three deities, whom they call Mahadeo
+or Siva, Sahadeo, one of the five Pandava brothers, and the goddess
+Lakshmi. They say that the buffalo is Mahadeo, the cow Sahadeo,
+and the rice Lakshmi. This also appears to be an instance of the
+personification of animals and the corn into anthropomorphic deities.
+
+
+
+15. The Diwali festival.
+
+
+The principal festival of the Ahirs is the Diwali, falling about the
+beginning of November, which is also the time when the autumn crops
+ripen. All classes observe this feast by illuminating their houses
+with many small saucer-lamps and letting off crackers and fireworks,
+and they generally gamble with money to bring them good luck during
+the coming year. The Ahirs make a mound of earth, which is called
+Govardhan, that is the mountain in Mathura which Krishna held upside
+down on his finger for seven days and nights, so that all the people
+might gather under it and be protected from the devastating storms of
+rain sent by Indra. After dancing round the mound they drive their
+cattle over it and make them trample it to pieces. At this time a
+festival called Marhai is held, at which much liquor is drunk and
+all classes disport themselves. In Damoh on this day the Ahirs go to
+the standing-place for village cattle, and after worshipping the god,
+frighten the cattle by waving leaves of the basil-plant at them, and
+then put on fantastic dresses, decorating themselves with cowries,
+and go round the village, singing and dancing. Elsewhere at the time
+of the Marhai they dance round a pole with peacock feathers tied to the
+top, and sometimes wear peacock feathers themselves, as well as aprons
+sewn all over with cowries. It is said that Krishna and Balaram used
+to wear peacock feathers when they danced in the jungles of Mathura,
+but this rite has probably some connection with the worship of the
+peacock. This bird might be venerated by the Ahirs as one of the
+prominent denizens of the jungle. In Raipur they tie a white cock
+to the top of the pole and dance round it. In Mandla, Khila Mutha,
+the god of the threshing-floor, is worshipped at this time, with
+offerings of a fowl and a goat. They also perform the rite of _jagana_
+or waking him up. They tie branches of a small shrub to a stick and
+pour milk over the stone which is his emblem, and sing, 'Wake up,
+Khila Mutha, this is the night of Amawas' (the new moon). Then they
+go to the cattle-shed and wake up the cattle, crying, 'Poraiya,
+god of the door, watchman of the window, open the door, Nand Gowal
+is coming.' Then they drive out the cattle and chase them with the
+branches tied to their sticks as far as their grazing-ground. Nand
+Gowal was the foster-father of Krishna, and is now said to signify a
+man who has a lakh (100,000) of cows. This custom of frightening the
+cattle and making them run is called _dhor jagana_ or _bichkana_, that
+is, to wake up or terrify the cattle. Its meaning is obscure, but it is
+said to preserve the cattle from disease during the year. In Raipur the
+women make an image of a parrot in clay at the Diwali and place it on
+a pole and go round to the different houses, singing and dancing round
+the pole, and receiving presents of rice and money. They praise the
+parrot as the bird who carries messages from a lover to his mistress,
+and as living on the mountains and among the green verdure, and sing:
+
+"Oh, parrot, where shall we sow _gondla_ grass and where shall we
+sow rice?
+
+"We will sow _gondla_ in a pond and rice in the field.
+
+"With what shall we cut _gondla_ grass, and with what shall we
+cut rice?
+
+"We shall cut _gondla_ with an axe and rice with a sickle."
+
+It is probable that the parrot is revered as a spirit of the forest,
+and also perhaps because it is destructive to the corn. The parrot
+is not, so far as is known, associated with any god, but the Hindus
+do not kill it. In Bilaspur an ear of rice is put into the parrot's
+mouth, and it is said there that the object of the rite is to prevent
+the parrots from preying on the corn.
+
+
+
+16. Omens.
+
+
+On the night of the full moon of Jesth (May) the Ahirs stay awake
+all night, and if the moon is covered with clouds they think that
+the rains will be good. If a cow's horns are not firmly fixed in
+the head and seem to shake slightly, it is called Maini, and such an
+animal is considered to be lucky. If a bullock sits down with three
+legs under him and the fourth stretched out in front it is a very
+good omen, and it is thought that his master's cattle will increase
+and multiply. When a buffalo-calf is born they cover it at once with
+a black cloth and remove it from the mother's sight, as they think
+that if she saw the calf and it then died her milk would dry up. The
+calf is fed by hand. Cow-calves, on the other hand, are usually left
+with the mother, and many people allow them to take all the milk,
+as they think it a sin to deprive them of it.
+
+
+
+17. Social customs.
+
+
+The Ahirs will eat the flesh of goats and chickens, and most of them
+consume liquor freely. The Kaonra Ahirs of Mandla eat pork, and the
+Rawats of Chhattisgarh are said not to object to field-mice and rats,
+even when caught in the houses. The Kaonra Ahirs are also said not to
+consider a woman impure during the period of menstruation. Nevertheless
+the Ahirs enjoy a good social status, owing to their relations with
+the sacred cow. As remarked by Eha: "His family having been connected
+for many generations with the sacred animal he enjoys a certain
+consciousness of moral respectability, like a man whose uncles are
+deans or canons." [27] All castes will take water from the hands of
+an Ahir, and in Chhattisgarh and the Uriya country the Rawats and
+Gahras, as the Ahir caste is known respectively in these localities,
+are the only caste from whom Brahmans and all other Hindus will take
+water. On this account, and because of their comparative purity,
+they are largely employed as personal servants. In Chhattisgarh the
+ordinary Rawats will clean the cooking-vessels even of Muhammadans,
+but the Thethwar or pure Rawats refuse this menial work. In Mandla,
+when a man is to be brought back into caste after a serious offence,
+such as getting vermin in a wound, he is made to stand in the middle
+of a stream, while some elderly relative pours water over him. He
+then addresses the members of the caste _panchayat_ or committee,
+who are standing on the bank, saying to them, 'Will you leave me in
+the mud or will you take me out?' Then they tell him to come out,
+and he has to give a feast. At this a member of the Meliha sept first
+eats food and puts some into the offender's mouth, thus taking the
+latter's sin upon himself. The offender then addresses the _panchayat_
+saying, 'Rajas of the Panch, eat.' Then the _panchayat_ and all the
+caste take food with him and he is readmitted. In Nandgaon State the
+head of the caste _panchayat_ is known as Thethwar, the title of the
+highest subcaste, and is appointed by the Raja, to whom he makes a
+present. In Jashpur, among the Mahakul Ahirs, when an offender is put
+out of caste he has on readmission to make an offering of Rs. 1-4 to
+Balaji, the tutelary deity of the State. These Mahakuls desire to be
+considered superior to ordinary Ahirs, and their social rules are hence
+very strict. A man is put out of caste if a dog, fowl or pig touches
+his water or cooking-pots, or if he touches a fowl. In the latter
+case he is obliged to make an offering of a fowl to the local god,
+and eight days are allowed for procuring it. A man is also put out of
+caste for beating his father. In Mandla, Ahirs commonly have the title
+of Patel or headman of a village, probably because in former times,
+when the country consisted almost entirely of forest and grass land,
+they were accustomed to hold large areas on contract for grazing.
+
+
+
+18. Ornaments.
+
+
+In Chhattisgarh the Rawat women are especially fond of wearing large
+_churas_ or leg-ornaments of bell-metal. These consist of a long
+cylinder which fits closely to the leg, being made in two halves which
+lock into each other, while at each end and in the centre circular
+plates project outwards horizontally. A pair of these _churas_ may
+weigh 8 or 10 lbs., and cost from Rs. 3 to Rs. 9. It is probable that
+some important magical advantage was expected to come from the wearing
+of these heavy appendages, which must greatly impede free progression,
+but its nature is not known.
+
+
+
+19. Occupation.
+
+
+Only about thirty per cent of the Ahirs are still occupied in breeding
+cattle and dealing in milk and butter. About four per cent are domestic
+servants, and nearly all the remainder cultivators and labourers. In
+former times the Ahirs had the exclusive right of milking the cow,
+so that on all occasions an Ahir must be hired for this purpose even
+by the lowest castes. Any one could, however, milk the buffalo, and
+also make curds and other preparations from cow's milk. [28] This
+rule is interesting as showing how the caste system was maintained
+and perpetuated by the custom of preserving to each caste a monopoly
+of its traditional occupation. The rule probably applied also to the
+bulk of the cultivating and the menial and artisan castes, and now
+that it has been entirely abrogated it would appear that the gradual
+decay and dissolution of the caste organisation must follow. The
+village cattle are usually entrusted jointly to one or more herdsmen
+for grazing purposes. The grazier is paid separately for each animal
+entrusted to his care, a common rate being one anna for a cow or
+bullock and two annas for a buffalo per month. When a calf is born
+he gets four annas for a cow-calf and eight annas for a she-buffalo,
+but except in the rice districts nothing for a male buffalo-calf, as
+these animals are considered useless outside the rice area. The reason
+is that buffaloes do not work steadily except in swampy or wet ground,
+where they can refresh themselves by frequent drinking. In the northern
+Districts male buffalo-calves are often neglected and allowed to die,
+but the cow-buffaloes are extremely valuable, because their milk is
+the principal source of supply of _ghi_ or boiled butter. When a cow
+or buffalo is in milk the grazier often gets the milk one day out
+of four or five. When a calf is born the teats of the cow are first
+milked about twenty times on to the ground in the name of the local
+god of the Ahirs. The remainder of the first day's milk is taken by
+the grazier, and for the next few days it is given to friends. The
+village grazier is often also expected to prepare the guest-house for
+Government officers and others visiting the village, fetch grass for
+their animals, and clean their cooking vessels. For this he sometimes
+receives a small plot of land and a present of a blanket annually
+from the village proprietor. Malguzars and large tenants have their
+private herdsmen. The pasturage afforded by the village waste lands
+and forest is, as a rule, only sufficient for the plough-bullocks and
+more valuable milch-animals. The remainder are taken away sometimes
+for long distances to the Government forest reserves, and here the
+herdsmen make stockades in the jungle and remain there with their
+animals for months together. The cattle which remain in the village are
+taken by the owners in the early morning to the _khirkha_ or central
+standing-ground. Here the grazier takes them over and drives them out
+to pasture. He brings them back at ten or eleven, and perhaps lets them
+stand in some field which the owner wants manured. Then he separates
+the cows and milch-buffaloes and takes them to their masters' houses,
+where he milks them all. In the afternoon all the cattle are again
+collected and driven out to pasture. The cultivators are very much in
+the grazier's hands, as they cannot supervise him, and if dishonest he
+may sell off a cow or calf to a friend in a distant village and tell
+the owner that it has been carried off by a tiger or panther. Unless
+the owner succeeds by a protracted search or by accident in finding
+the animal he cannot disprove the herdsman's statement, and the only
+remedy is to dispense with the latter's services if such losses become
+unduly frequent. On this account, according to the proverbs, the Ahir
+is held to be treacherous and false to his engagements. They are also
+regarded as stupid because they seldom get any education, retain their
+rustic and half-aboriginal dialect, and on account of their solitary
+life are dull and slow-witted in company. 'The barber's son learns to
+shave on the Ahir's head.' 'The cow is in league with the milkman and
+lets him milk water into the pail.' The Ahirs are also hot-tempered,
+and their propensity for drinking often results in affrays, when they
+break each other's head with their cattle-staffs. 'A Gaoli's quarrel:
+drunk at night and friends in the morning.'
+
+
+
+20. Preparations of milk.
+
+
+Hindus nearly always boil their milk before using it, as the taste
+of milk fresh from the cow is considered unpalatable. After boiling,
+the milk is put in a pot and a little old curds added, when the whole
+becomes _dahi_ or sour curds. This is a favourite food, and appears
+to be exactly the same substance as the Bulgarian sour milk which is
+now considered to have much medicinal value. Butter is also made by
+churning these curds or _dahi_. Butter is never used without being
+boiled first, when it becomes converted into a sort of oil; this
+has the advantage of keeping much better than fresh butter, and may
+remain fit for use for as long as a year. This boiled butter is known
+as _ghi_, and is the staple product of the dairy industry, the bulk
+of the surplus supply of milk being devoted to its manufacture. It
+is freely used by all classes who can afford it, and serves very well
+for cooking purposes. There is a comparatively small market for fresh
+milk among the Hindus, and as a rule only those drink milk who obtain
+it from their own animals. The acid residue after butter has been
+made from _dahi_ (curds) or milk is known as _matha_ or butter-milk,
+and is the only kind of milk drunk by the poorer classes. Milk boiled
+so long as to become solidified is known as _khir_, and is used by
+confectioners for making sweets. When the milk is boiled and some sour
+milk added to it, so that it coagulates while hot, the preparation is
+called _chhana_. The whey is expressed from this by squeezing it in a
+cloth, and a kind of cheese is obtained. [29] The liquid which oozes
+out at the root of a cow's horns after death is known as _gaolochan_
+and sells for a high price, as it is considered a valuable medicine
+for children's cough and lung diseases.
+
+
+
+Andh
+
+
+_Andh._ [30]--A low cultivating caste of Berar, who numbered 52,000
+persons in 1911, and belong to the Yeotmal, Akola and Buldana
+Districts. The Andhs appear to be a non-Aryan tribe of the Andhra or
+Tamil country, from which they derive their name. The territories
+of the Andhra dynasty extended across southern India from sea to
+sea in the early part of the Christian era. This designation may,
+however, have been given to them after migration, emigrants being not
+infrequently called in their new country by the name of the place from
+which they came, as Berari, Purdesi, Audhia (from Oudh), and so on. At
+present there seems to be no caste called Andh in Madras. Mr. Kitts
+[31] notes that they still come from Hyderabad across the Penganga
+river.
+
+The caste are divided into two groups, Vartati or pure and Khaltati or
+illegitimate, which take food together, but do not intermarry. They
+have a large number of exogamous septs, most of which appear to have
+Marathi names, either taken from villages or of a titular character. A
+few are called after animals or plants, as Majiria the cat, Ringni
+a kind of tree, Dumare from Dumar, an ant-hill, Dukare from Dukar,
+a pig, and Titawe from Titawa, a bird. Baghmare means tiger-killer
+or one killed by a tiger; members of this sept revere the tiger. Two
+septs, Bhoyar and Wanjari, are named after other castes.
+
+Marriage between members of the same sept is prohibited, and also
+between first cousins, except that a sister's son may marry a brother's
+daughter. Until recently marriage has been adult, but girls are now
+wedded as children, and betrothals are sometimes arranged before they
+are born. The ceremony resembles that of the Kunbis. Betrothals are
+arranged between October and December, and the weddings take place
+three or four months later, from January to April. If the bride is
+mature she goes at once to her husband's house. Polygamy is allowed;
+and as only a well-to-do man can afford to obtain more than one wife,
+those who have several are held to be wealthy, and treated with
+respect. Divorce and the remarriage of widows are permitted, but
+the widow may not marry her husband's brother nor any member of his
+clan. If an unmarried girl becomes pregnant by a man of her own or a
+superior caste she is fined, and can then be married as a widow. Her
+feet are not washed nor besmeared with red powder at the wedding
+ceremony like those of other girls. In some localities Andh women
+detected in a criminal intimacy even with men of such impure castes
+as the Mahars and Mangs have been readmitted into the community. A
+substantial fine is imposed on a woman detected in adultery according
+to her means and spent on a feast to the caste. All the members thus
+have a personal interest in the detection and punishment of such
+offences. The dead are usually buried, and water and sugar are placed
+in a dying man's mouth instead of the sacred objects used by Hindus;
+nor are the dying urged to call on Rama. The dead are buried with
+the head to the south, in opposition to the Hindu custom. The Andhs
+will eat the flesh of fowls and pigs, and even cats, rats and snakes
+in some localities, though the more civilised have abjured these
+latter. They are very fond of pork, and drink liquor, and will take
+food from Kunbis, Malis and Kolis, but not from Gonds. They have
+a caste _panchayat_ or committee, with a headman called Mohtaria,
+and two officers known as Phopatia and Dukria. When a caste offence
+is committed the Dukria goes to call the offender, and is given the
+earthen pots used at the penalty-feast, while the Phopatia receives
+a new piece of cloth. The Mohtaria or headman goes from village to
+village to decide cases, and gets a share of the fine. The caste are
+_shikaris_ or hunters, and cultivators. They catch antelope, hares,
+pig and nilgai in their nets, and kill them with sticks and stones,
+and they dam up streams and net fish. Birds are not caught. Generally,
+the customs of the Andhs clearly point to an aboriginal origin, but
+they are rapidly being Hinduised, and in some tracts can scarcely be
+distinguished from Kunbis.
+
+They have Marathi names; and though only one name is given at birth,
+Mr. Slaney notes that this is frequently changed for some pet name,
+and as often as not a man goes regularly by some name other than his
+real one.
+
+
+
+Arakh
+
+
+_Arakh._--A small caste of cultivators and labourers found
+principally in the Chanda District and Berar and scattered over other
+localities. The Arakhs are considered to be an offshoot of the Pasi or
+Bahelia caste of hunters and fowlers. Mr. Crooke [32] writes of them:
+"All their traditions connect them with the Pasis and Parasurama, the
+sixth Avatara of Vishnu. One story runs that Parasurama was bathing
+in the sea, when a leech bit his foot and caused it to bleed. He
+divided the blood into two parts; out of one part he made the first
+Pasi and out of the second the first Arakh. Another story is that
+the Pasis were made out of the sweat (_pasina_) of Parasurama. While
+Parasurama was away the Pasi shot some animals with his bow, and
+the deity was so enraged that he cursed the Pasi, and swore that
+his descendants should keep pigs. This accounts for the degradation
+of the Pasis. Subsequently Parasurama sent for some Pasis to help
+him in one of his wars; but they ran away and hid in an _arhar_
+[33] field and were hence called Arakhs." This connection with the
+Pasis is also recognised in the case of the Arakhs of Berar, of whom
+Mr. Kitts writes: [34] "The Arakhs found in Morsi are a race akin to
+the Bahelias. Their regular occupation is bird-catching and _shikar_
+(hunting). They do not follow Hindu customs in their marriages,
+but although they keep pigs, eat flesh and drink spirits, they will
+not touch a Chamar. They appear to be a branch of the Pasi tribe,
+and are described as a semi-Hinduised class of aborigines." In the
+Chanda District, however, the Arakhs are closely connected with the
+Gond tribe, as is evident from their system of exogamy. Thus they
+say that they are divided into the Matia, Tekam, Tesli, Godam, Madai,
+Sayam and Chorliu septs, worshipping respectively three, four, five,
+six, seven, eight and twelve gods; and persons who worship the same
+number of gods cannot marry with one another. This system of divisions
+according to the different number of gods worshipped is found in the
+Central Provinces only among the Gonds and one or two other tribes
+like the Baigas, who have adopted it from them, and as some of the
+names given above are also Gondi words, no doubt need be entertained
+that the Arakhs of Chanda are largely of Gond descent. They are
+probably, in fact, the offspring of irregular connections between
+the Gonds and Pasis, who, being both frequenters of the forests,
+would naturally come much into contact with each other. And being
+disowned by the true Pasis on account of their defective pedigree,
+they have apparently set up as a separate caste and adopted the name
+of Arakh to hide the deficiencies of their ancestry.
+
+The social customs of the Arakhs resemble those of other low Hindu
+castes, and need not be given in detail. Their weddings are held
+near a temple of Maroti, or if there be none such, then at the place
+where the Holi fire was lit in the preceding year. A bride-price
+varying from Rs. 25 to Rs. 40 is usually paid. In the case of the
+marriage of a widow, the second husband goes to the house of the
+woman, where the couple are bathed and seated on two wooden boards,
+a branch of a cotton-plant being placed near them. The bridegroom then
+ties five strings of black glass beads round the woman's neck. The
+dead are mourned for one day only, and a funeral feast is given to
+the caste-fellows. The Arakhs are a very low caste, but their touch
+does not convey impurity.
+
+
+
+Atari
+
+
+
+1. General notice.
+
+
+_Atari, [35] Gandhi, Bukekari._--A small Muhammadan caste of retailers
+of scent, incense, tooth-powder and _kunku_ or pink powder. Atari
+is derived from _atar_ or _itra_, attar of roses. Gandhi comes from
+_gandh_, a Sanskrit word for scent. Bukekari is a Marathi word meaning
+a seller of powder. The Ataris number about two hundred persons
+in Nagpur, Wardha and Berar. Both Hindus and Muhammadans follow
+the profession, but the Hindu Ataris are not a separate caste, and
+belong to the Teli, Gurao and Beldar castes. The Muhammadan Ataris,
+to whom this article refers, may marry with other Muhammadans, with
+the exception of low-class tradesmen like the Pinjaras, Kasais and
+Kunjras. One instance of an Atari marrying a Rangrez is known, but
+usually they decline to do so. But since they are not considered to
+be the equals of ordinary Muhammadans, they constitute more or less
+a distinct social group. They are of the same position as Muhammadan
+tin-workers, bangle-makers and pedlars, and sometimes intermarry
+with them. They admit Hindu converts into the community, but the
+women refuse to eat with them, and the better-class families will
+not intermarry with converts. A new convert must be circumcised,
+but if he is of advanced age, or if his foreskin is wanting, as
+sometimes happens, they take a rolled-up betel-leaf and cut it in
+two in substitution for the rite.
+
+
+
+2. Marriage customs.
+
+
+It is essential that a girl should be married before adolescence, as it
+is said that when the signs of puberty appear in her before wedlock her
+parents commit a crime equivalent to the shedding of human blood. The
+father of the boy looks for a bride, and after dropping hints to
+the girl's family to see if his proposal is acceptable, he sends some
+female relatives or friends to discuss the marriage. Before the wedding
+the boy is presented with a _chhap_ or ring of gold or silver with
+a small cup-like attachment. A _mehar_ or dowry must be given to the
+bride, the amount of which is not below Rs. 50 or above Rs. 250. The
+bride's parents give her cooking vessels, bedding and a bedstead. After
+the wedding, the couple are seated on a cot while the women sing songs,
+and they see each other's face reflected in a mirror. The procession
+returns after a stay of four days, and is received by the women of
+the bridegroom's family with some humorous ceremonies bearing on the
+nature of marriage. A feast called Tamm Walima follows, and the couple
+are shut up together in an inner room, even though they may be under
+age. The marriage includes some Hindu customs, such as the erection
+of the _pandal_ or shed, rubbing the couple with turmeric and oil,
+and the tying on of _kankans_ or wrist-bands. A girl going wrong
+before marriage may be wedded with full rites so long as she has not
+conceived, but after conception until her child is born she cannot go
+through the ceremony at all. After the birth of the child she may be
+married simply with the rite for widows. She retains the child, but it
+has no claim to succeed to her husband's property. A widow may marry
+again after an interval of forty days from her first husband's death,
+and she may wed her younger brother-in-law. Divorce is permitted at
+the instance of either party, and for mere disagreement. A man usually
+divorces his wife by vowing in the presence of two witnesses that he
+will in future consider intercourse with her as incestuous in the same
+degree as with his mother. A divorced woman has a claim to her _mehar_
+or dowry if not already paid, but forfeits it if she marries again. A
+man can marry the daughter of his paternal uncle. The services of a
+Kazi at weddings are paid for with a fee of Rs. 1-4, and well-to-do
+persons also give him a pair of turbans.
+
+
+
+3. Religion.
+
+
+The Ataris are Muhammadans of the Sunni sect. They revere the
+Muhammadan saints, and on the night of Shabrat they let off fireworks
+in honour of their ancestors and make offerings of _halwa_ [36] to
+them and place lamps and scent on their tombs. They swear by the pig
+and abstain from eating its flesh. The dog is considered an unclean
+animal and its tail, ears and tongue are especially defiling. If the
+hair of a dog falls on the ground they cannot pray in that place
+because the souls of the prophets cannot come there. To see a dog
+flapping its ears is a bad omen, and a person starting on a journey
+should postpone his departure. They esteem the spider, because they
+say it spread its web over the mouth of the cave where Hasan and
+Husain lay concealed from their enemies and thus prevented it from
+being searched. Some of them have Pirs or spiritual preceptors, these
+being Muhammadan beggars, not necessarily celibate. The ceremony of
+adhesion is that a man should drink sherbet from the cup from which
+his preceptor has drunk. They do not observe impurity after a death
+nor bathe on returning from a funeral.
+
+
+
+4. Social customs.
+
+
+Liquor is of course prohibited to the Ataris as to other Muhammadans,
+but some of them drink it nevertheless. Some of them eat beef and
+others abstain. The blood of animals killed must flow before death
+according to the rite of _halal_, but they say that fish are an
+exception, because when Abraham was offering up his son Ishmael and
+God substituted a goat, the goat bleated before it was killed, and
+this offended Abraham, who threw his sacrificial knife into the sea:
+the knife struck and killed a fish, and on this account all fish
+are considered to be _halal_ or lawful food without any further
+rite. The Ataris observe the Hindu law of inheritance, and some of
+them worship Hindu deities, as Mata the goddess of smallpox. As a rule
+their women are not secluded. The Ataris make _missi_ or tooth-powder
+from myrobalans, cloves and cardamoms, and other constituents. This
+has the effect of blackening the teeth. They also sell the _kunku_
+or red powder which women rub on their foreheads, its constituents
+being turmeric, borax and the juice of limes. They sell scent and
+sometimes deal in tobacco. The scents most in demand are _gulab-pani_
+or rose-water and _phulel_ or essence of tilli or sesamum. Scents are
+usually sold by the tola of 18 annas silver weight, [37] and a tola
+of attar may vary in price from 8 annas to Rs. 80. Other scents are
+made from _khas-khas_ grass, the mango, henna and musk, the _bela_
+flower, [38] the champak [39] and cucumber. Scent is manufactured
+by distillation from the flowers boiled in water, and the drops of
+congealed vapour fall into sandalwood oil, which they say is the basis
+of all scents. Fragrant oils are also sold for rubbing on the hair,
+made from orange flowers, jasmine, cotton-seed and the flowers of
+the _aonla_ tree. [40] Scent is sold in tiny circular glass bottles,
+and the oils in little bottles made from thin leather. The Ataris
+also retail the little black sticks of incense which are set up and
+burnt at the time of taking food and in temples, so that the smell
+and smoke may keep off evil spirits. When professional exorcists are
+called upon to clear any building, such as a hospital, supposed to be
+haunted by spirits or the ghosts of the dead, they commence operations
+by placing these sticks of incense at the entrance and setting them
+alight as in a temple.
+
+
+
+Audhelia
+
+
+
+1. Origin.
+
+
+_Audhelia (Audhalia)._--A small hybrid caste found almost exclusively
+in the Bilaspur District, where they number about 1000 persons. The
+name is derived from the word Udharia, meaning a person with
+clandestine sexual intimacies. The Audhelias are a mixed caste and
+trace their origin from a Daharia Rajput ancestor, by one Bhuri Bandi,
+a female slave of unknown caste. This couple is supposed to have
+resided in Ratanpur, the old capital of Chhattisgarh, and the female
+ancestors of the Audhelias are said to have been prostitutes until
+they developed into a caste and began to marry among themselves. Their
+proper avocation at present is the rearing of pigs, while some of
+them are also tenants and farm-labourers. Owing to the base descent
+and impure occupation of the caste they are held in very low esteem,
+and their touch is considered to convey pollution.
+
+
+
+2. Marriage.
+
+
+The caste have at present no endogamous divisions and still admit
+members of other castes with the exception of the very lowest. But
+social gradations exist to a certain extent among the members
+according to the position of their male ancestors, a Daharia Audhelia,
+for instance, being reluctant to eat or intermarry with a Panka
+Audhelia. Under these circumstances it has become a rule among the
+Audhelias not to eat with their caste-fellows excepting their own
+relations. On the occasion of a caste feast, therefore, each guest
+prepares his own food, taking only uncooked grain from his host. At
+present seven _gotras_ or exogamous divisions appear to have been
+formed in the caste with the names of Pachbhaiya, Chhahri, Kalkhor,
+Bachhawat, Dhanawat, Bhainsa and Limuan. The following story exists as
+to the origin of these _gotras_: There were formerly three brothers,
+Sahasman, Budha and Mangal, who were Sansis or robbers. One evening
+the three brothers halted in a forest and went to look for food. One
+brought back a buffalo-horn, another a peacock's feather and the
+youngest, Mangal, brought plums. The other brothers asked Mangal to
+let them share his plums, to which he agreed on condition that one
+of the brothers should give his daughter to him in marriage. As
+Mangal and his brothers were of one _gotra_ or section, and the
+marriage would thus involve splitting up the _gotra_, the brothers
+were doubtful whether it could be performed. They sought about for
+some sign to determine this difficult question, and decided that if
+Mangal succeeded in breaking in pieces an iron image of a cat simply
+by blows of his naked fist, it would be a sufficient indication
+that they might split up their _gotra_. Mangal was therefore put
+to the ordeal and succeeded in breaking the image, so the three
+brothers split up their _gotra_, the eldest assuming the _gotra_
+name of Bhainsa because he had found a buffalo-horn, the second that
+of Kalkhor, which is stated to mean peacock, and the third that of
+Chhahri, which at any rate does not mean a plum. The word Chhahri
+means either 'shadow,' or 'one who washes the clothes of a woman in
+confinement.' If we assume it to have the latter meaning, it may be
+due to the fact that Mangal had to wash the clothes of his own wife,
+not being able to induce a professional washerman to do so on account
+of the incestuous nature of the connection. As the eldest brother
+gave his daughter in an incestuous marriage he was also degraded, and
+became the ancestor of the Kanjars or prostitutes, who, it is said,
+to the present day do not solicit Audhelias in consideration of the
+consanguinity existing between them. The story itself sufficiently
+indicates the low and mixed descent of the Audhelias, and its real
+meaning may possibly be that when they first began to form a separate
+caste they permitted incestuous marriages on account of the paucity of
+their members. A curious point about the story is that the incestuous
+nature of the connection is not taken to be the most pressing objection
+to the marriage of Mangal with his own niece, but the violation of the
+caste rule prohibiting marriage within the same _gotra_. Bachhawat
+and Dhanawat are the names of sections of the Banjara caste, and
+the persons of these _gotras_ among the Audhelias are probably
+the descendants of illicit connections among Banjaras. The word
+Pachbhaiya means 'five brothers,' and this name possibly commemorates a
+polyandrous connection of some Audhelia woman. Limuan means a tortoise,
+which is a section of many castes. Several of the section-names are
+thus totemistic, and, as in other castes, some reverence is paid to
+the animal from whom the name is derived. At present the Audhelias
+forbid marriage within the same _gotra_ and also the union of first
+cousins. Girls are married between five and seven years of age as their
+numbers are scarce, and they are engaged as early as possible. Unless
+weddings are arranged by exchanging girls between two families, a
+high bride-price, often amounting to as much as Rs. 60, is paid. No
+stigma is incurred, however, if a girl should remain unmarried till
+she arrives at adolescence, but, on the contrary, a higher price is
+then obtained for her. Sexual licence either before or after marriage
+is considered a venial offence, but a woman detected in a _liaison_
+with a man of one of the lowest castes is turned out of caste. Widow
+marriage and divorce are freely allowed.
+
+
+
+3. Religion, birth and death.
+
+
+The Audhelias venerate Dulha Deo and Devi, to whom they usually offer
+pigs. Their principal festival is the Holi, at which their women were
+formerly engaged to perform as professional dancers. They usually burn
+their dead and remove the ashes on the third day, throwing them into
+the nearest stream. A few of the bones are picked up and buried under
+a pipal tree, and a pitcher with a hole in the bottom is hung on the
+tree so that water may trickle down on to them. On the tenth day the
+caste-people assemble and are shaved and bathe and rub their bodies
+with oil under the tree. Unmarried men and persons dying of cholera
+are buried, the head being placed to the north. They consider that if
+they place the corpse in the reverse position it would be an insult
+to the Ganges equivalent to kicking the holy river, as the feet of
+the body would then be turned towards it.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+Badhak
+
+
+List of Paragraphs
+
+
+    1.   _Introductory notice._
+    2.   _The Badhak dacoits._
+    3.   _Instances of dacoities._
+    4.   _Further instances of dacoities._
+    5.   _Disguise of religious mendicants._
+    6.   _Countenance and support of landowners._
+    7.   _Pride in their profession._
+    8.   _Caste rules and admission of outsiders._
+    9.   _Religion. Offerings to ancestors._
+    10.   _The wounded haunted by spirits._
+    11.   _Pious funeral observances._
+    12.   _Taking the omens._
+    13.   _Suppression of dacoity._
+    14.   _The Badhaks or Baoris at the present time._
+    15.   _Lizard-hunting._
+    16.   _Social observances._
+    17.   _Criminal practices._
+
+
+
+1. Introductory notice.
+
+
+_Badhak, Bagri, Baoria._--A famous tribe of dacoits who flourished
+up to about 1850, and extended their depredations over the whole
+of Northern and Central India. The Bagris and Baorias or Bawarias
+still exist and are well known to the police as inveterate criminals;
+but their operations are now confined to ordinary burglary, theft and
+cheating, and their more interesting profession of armed gang-robbery
+on a large scale is a thing of the past. The first part of this article
+is entirely compiled from the Report on their suppression drawn up
+by Colonel Sleeman, [41] who may be regarded as the virtual founder
+of the Thuggee and Dacoity Department. Some mention of the existing
+Bagri and Baoria tribes is added at the end.
+
+
+
+2. The Badhak dacoits.
+
+
+The origin of the Badhaks is obscure, but they seem to have belonged
+to Gujarat, as their peculiar dialect, still in use, is a form of
+Gujarati. The most striking feature in it is the regular substitution
+of _kh_ for _s_. They claimed to be Rajputs and were divided into clans
+with the well-known Rajput names of Solanki, Panwar, Dhundhel, Chauhan,
+Rathor, Gahlot, Bhatti and Charan. Their ancestors were supposed to
+have fled from Chitor on one of the historical occasions on which it
+was assaulted and sacked. But as they spoke Gujarati it seems more
+probable that they belonged to Gujarat, a fertile breeding-place of
+criminals, and they may have been descended from the alliances of
+Rajputs with the primitive tribes of this locality, the Bhils and
+Kolis. The existing Bagris are of short stature, one writer stating
+that none of them exceed five feet two inches in height; and this
+seems to indicate that they have little Rajput blood. It may be
+surmised that the Badhaks rose into importance and found scope for
+their predatory instincts during the period of general disorder and
+absence of governing authority through which northern India passed
+after the decline of the Mughal Empire. And they lived and robbed with
+the connivance or open support of the petty chiefs and landholders,
+to whom they gave a liberal share of their booty. The principal bands
+were located in the Oudh forests, but they belonged to the whole
+of northern India including the Central Provinces; and as Colonel
+Sleeman's Report, though of much interest, is now practically unknown,
+I have thought it not out of place to compile an article by means of
+short extracts from his account of the tribe.
+
+In 1822 the operations of the Badhaks were being conducted on such a
+scale that an officer wrote: "No District between the Brahmaputra,
+the Nerbudda, the Satlej and the Himalayas is free from them; and
+within this vast field hardly any wealthy merchant or manufacturer
+could feel himself secure for a single night from the depredations
+of Badhak dacoits. They had successfully attacked so many of the
+treasuries of our native Sub-Collectors that it was deemed necessary,
+all over the North-Western Provinces, to surround such buildings with
+extensive fortifications. In many cases they carried off our public
+treasure from strong parties of our regular troops and mounted police;
+and none seemed to know whence they came or whither they fled with
+the booty acquired." [42]
+
+
+
+3. Instances of dacoities.
+
+
+Colonel Sleeman thus described a dacoity in the town of Narsinghpur
+when he was in charge of that District: [43] "In February 1822,
+in the dusk of the evening, a party of about thirty persons, with
+nothing seemingly but walking-sticks in their hands, passed the
+piquet of sepoys on the bank of the rivulet which separates the
+cantonment from the town of Narsinghpur. On being challenged by
+the sentries they said they were cowherds and that their cattle were
+following close behind. They walked up the street; and coming opposite
+the houses of the most wealthy merchants, they set their torches
+in a blaze by blowing suddenly on pots filled with combustibles,
+stabbed everybody who ventured to move or make the slightest noise,
+plundered the houses, and in ten minutes were away with their booty,
+leaving about twelve persons dead and wounded on the ground. No trace
+of them was discovered." Another well-known exploit of the Badhaks
+was the attack on the palace of the ex-Peshwa, Baji Rao, at Bithur
+near Cawnpore. This was accomplished by a gang of about eighty men,
+who proceeded to the locality in the disguise of carriers of Ganges
+water. Having purchased a boat and a few muskets to intimidate
+the guard they crossed the Ganges about six miles below Bithur,
+and reached the place at ten o'clock at night; and after wounding
+eighteen persons who attempted resistance they possessed themselves
+of property, chiefly in gold, to the value of more than two and a
+half lakhs of rupees; and retiring without loss made their way in
+safety to their homes in the Oudh forests. The residence of this
+gang was known to a British police officer in the King of Oudh's
+service, Mr. Orr, and after a long delay on the part of the court
+an expedition was sent which recovered a portion of the treasure
+and captured two or three hundred of the Badhaks. But none of the
+recovered property reached the hands of Baji Rao and the prisoners
+were soon afterwards released. [44] Again in 1839, a gang of about
+fifty men under a well-known leader, Gajraj, scaled the walls of
+Jhansi and plundered the Surafa or bankers' quarter of the town for
+two hours, obtaining booty to the value of Rs. 40,000, which they
+carried off without the loss of a man. The following account of this
+raid was obtained by Colonel Sleeman from one of the robbers: [45]
+"The spy (_hirrowa_) having returned and reported that he had found a
+merchant's house in Jhansi which contained a good deal of property,
+we proceeded to a grove where we took the auspices by the process
+of _akut_ (counting of grains) and found the omens favourable. We
+then rested three days and settled the rates according to which the
+booty should be shared. Four or five men, who were considered too
+feeble for the enterprise, were sent back, and the rest, well armed,
+strong and full of courage, went on. In the evening of the fourth day
+we reached a plain about a mile from the town, where we rested to take
+breath for an hour; about nine o'clock we got to the wall and remained
+under it till midnight, preparing the ladders from materials which we
+had collected on the road. They were placed to the wall and we entered
+and passed through the town without opposition. A marriage procession
+was going on before us and the people thought we belonged to it. We
+found the bankers' shops closed. Thana and Saldewa, who carried the
+axes, soon broke them open, while Kulean lighted up his torch. Gajraj
+with twenty men entered, while the rest stood posted at the different
+avenues leading to the place. When all the property they could find
+had been collected, Gajraj hailed the god Hanuman and gave orders for
+the retreat. We got back safely to Mondegri in two days and a half,
+and then reposed for two or three days with the Raja of Narwar,
+with whom we left five or six of our stoutest men as a guard, and
+then returned home with our booty, consisting chiefly of diamonds,
+emeralds, gold and silver bullion, rupees and about sixty pounds
+of silver wire. None of our people were either killed or wounded,
+but whether any of the bankers' people were I know not."
+
+
+
+4. Further instances of dacoities.
+
+
+Colonel Sleeman writes elsewhere [46] of the leader of the above
+exploit: "This Gajraj had risen from the vocation of a _bandarwala_
+(monkey showman) to be the Robin Hood of Gwalior and the adjacent
+States; he was the governor-general of banditti in that country of
+banditti and kept the whole in awe; he had made himself so formidable
+that the Durbar appointed him to keep the _ghats_ or ferries over
+the Chambal, which he did in a very profitable manner to them and
+to himself, and none entered or quitted the country without paying
+blackmail." A common practice of the Badhaks, when in need of a little
+ready money, was to lie in wait for money-changers on their return
+from the markets. These men take their bags of money with them to the
+important bazars at a distance from their residence and return home
+with them after dusk. The dacoits were accustomed to watch for them
+in the darkest and most retired places on the roads and fell them
+to the ground with their bludgeons. This device was often practised
+and usually succeeded. [47] Of another Badhak chief, Meherban, it is
+stated [48] that he hired a discharged sepoy to instruct his followers
+in the European system of drill, that they might travel with him in
+the disguise of regular soldiers, well armed and accoutred. During
+the rains Meherban's spies (_hirrowa_) were sent to visit the great
+commercial towns and report any despatches of money or other valuables,
+which were to take place during the following open season. His own
+favourite disguise was that of a Hindu prince, while the remainder
+of the gang constituted his retinue and escort. On one occasion,
+assuming this character, he followed up a boat laden with Spanish
+dollars which was being sent from Calcutta to Benares; and having
+attacked it at its moorings at Makrai, he killed one and wounded ten
+men of the guard and made off with 25,000 Spanish dollars and Rs. 2600
+of the Company's coinage. A part of the band were sent direct to the
+rendezvous previously arranged, while Meherban returned to the grove
+where he had left his women and proceeded with them in a more leisurely
+fashion to the same place. Retaining the character of a native prince
+he halted here for two days to celebrate the Holi festival. Marching
+thence with his women conveyed in covered litters by hired bearers
+who were changed at intervals, he proceeded to his bivouac in the
+Oudh forests; and at Seosagar, one of his halting-places, he gave
+a large sum of money to a gardener to plant a grove of mango trees
+near a tank for the benefit of travellers, in the name of Raja
+Meherban Singh of Gaur in Oudh; and promised him further alms on
+future occasions of pilgrimage if he found the work progressing well,
+saying that it was a great shame that travellers should be compelled
+as he had been to halt without shade for themselves or their families
+during the heat of the day. He arrived safely at his quarters in the
+forest and was received in the customary fashion by a procession of
+women in their best attire, who conducted him with dancing and music,
+like a victorious Roman Proconsul, to his fort. [49]
+
+
+
+5. Disguise of religious mendicants.
+
+
+But naturally not all the Badhaks could do things in the style of
+Meherban Singh. The disguise which they most often assumed in the north
+was that of carriers of Ganges water, while in Central India they often
+pretended to be Banjaras travelling with pack-bullocks, or pilgrims,
+or wedding-parties going to fetch the bride or bridegroom. Sometimes
+also they took the character of religious mendicants, the leader being
+the high priest and all the rest his followers and disciples. One
+such gang, described by Colonel Sleeman, [50] had four or five
+tents of white and dyed cloth, two or three pairs of _nakkaras_
+or kettle-drums and trumpets, with a great number of buffaloes,
+cows, goats, sheep and ponies. Some were clothed, but the bodies
+of the greater part were covered with nothing but ashes, paint and
+a small cloth waistband. But they always provided themselves with
+five or six real Bairagis, whose services they purchased at a very
+high price. These men were put forward to answer questions in case
+of difficulty and to bully the landlords and peasantry; and if the
+people demurred to the demands of the Badhaks, to intimidate them by
+tricks calculated to play upon the fears of the ignorant. They held
+in their hands a preparation of gunpowder resembling common ashes; and
+when they found the people very stubborn they repeated their _mantras_
+over this and threw it upon the thatch of the nearest house, to which
+it set fire. The explosion was caused by a kind of fusee held in the
+hand which the people could not see, and taking it for a miracle
+they paid all that was demanded. Another method was to pretend to
+be carrying the bones of dead relatives to the Ganges. The bones or
+ashes of the deceased, says [51] Colonel Sleeman, are carried to the
+Ganges in bags, coloured red for females and white for males. These
+bags are considered holy, and are not allowed to touch the ground
+upon the way, and during halts in the journey are placed on poles or
+triangles. The carriers are regarded with respect as persons engaged
+upon a pious duty, and seldom questioned on the road. When a gang
+assumed this disguise they proceeded to their place of rendezvous
+in small parties, some with red and some with white bags, in which
+they carried the bones of animals most resembling those of the human
+frame. These were supported on triangles formed of the shafts on which
+the spear-heads would be fitted when they reached their destination
+and had prepared for action.
+
+
+
+6. Countenance and support of landowners.
+
+
+It would have been impossible for the Badhaks to exist and flourish
+as they did without the protection of the landowners on whose estates
+they lived; and this they received in full measure in return for a
+liberal share of their booty. When the chief of Karauli was called upon
+to dislodge a gang within his territory, he expressed apprehension
+that the coercion of the Badhaks might cause a revolution in the
+State. He was not at all singular, says Colonel Sleeman, in his fear
+of exasperating this formidable tribe of robbers. It was common to
+all the smaller chiefs and the provincial governors of the larger
+ones. They everywhere protected and fostered the Badhaks, as did the
+landholders; and the highest of them associated with the leaders of
+gangs on terms of equality and confidence. It was very common for a
+chief or the governor of a district in times of great difficulty and
+personal danger to require from one of the leaders of such gangs a
+night-guard or _palang ki chauki_: and no less so to entertain large
+bodies of them in the attack and defence of forts and camps whenever
+unusual courage and skill were required. The son of the Raja of Charda
+exchanged turbans with a Badhak leader, Mangal Singh, as a mark of the
+most intimate friendship. This episode recalls an alliance of similar
+character in _Lorna Doone_; and indeed it would not be difficult to
+find several points of resemblance between the careers of the more
+enterprising Badhak leaders and the Doones of Bagworthy; but India
+produced no character on the model of John Ridd, and it was reserved
+for an Englishman, Colonel Sleeman, to achieve the suppression of the
+Badhaks as well as that of the Thugs. After the fortress and territory
+of Garhakota in Saugor had been taken by the Maharaja Sindhia, Zalim
+Singh, a cousin of the dispossessed Bundela chief, collected a force
+of Bundelas and Pindaris and ravaged the country round Garhakota
+in 1813. In the course of his raid he sacked and burnt the town
+of Deori, and 15,000 persons perished in the flames. Colonel Jean
+Baptiste, Sindhia's general, obtained a number of picked Badhaks from
+Rajputana and offered them a rich reward for the head of Zalim Singh;
+and after watching his camp for three months they managed to come on
+him asleep in the tent of a dancing-girl, who was following his camp,
+and stabbed him to the heart. For this deed they received Rs. 20,000
+from Baptiste with other valuable presents. Their reputation was
+indeed such that they were frequently employed at this period both by
+chiefs who desired to take the lives of others and by those who were
+anxious for the preservation of their own. When it happened that a
+gang was caught after a robbery in a native State, the custom was
+not infrequently to make them over to the merchant whose property
+they had taken, with permission to keep them in confinement until
+they should refund his money; and in this manner by giving up the
+whole or a part of the proceeds of their robbery they were enabled
+to regain their liberty. Even if they were sent before the courts,
+justice was at that time so corrupt as to permit of easy avenues of
+escape for those who could afford to pay; and Colonel Sleeman records
+the deposition of a Badhak describing their methods of bribery:
+"When police officers arrest Badhaks their old women get round them
+and give them large sums of money; and they either release them or
+get their depositions so written that their release shall be ordered
+by the magistrates. If they are brought to court, their old women,
+dressed in rags, follow them at a distance of three or four miles
+with a thousand or two thousand rupees upon ponies; and these rupees
+they distribute among the native officers of the court and get the
+Badhaks released. These old women first ascertain from the people of
+the villages who are the Nazirs and Munshis of influence, and wait
+upon them at their houses and make their bargains. If the officials
+cannot effect their release, they take money from the old women and
+send them off to the Sadar Court, with letters of introduction to their
+friends, and advice as to the rate they shall pay to each according
+to his supposed influence. This is the way that all our leaders get
+released, and hardly any but useless men are left in confinement." [52]
+
+
+
+7. Pride in their profession.
+
+
+It may be noticed that these robbers took the utmost pleasure in their
+calling, and were most averse to the idea of giving it up and taking
+to honest pursuits. "Some of the men with me," one magistrate wrote,
+[53] "have been in jail for twenty, and one man for thirty years,
+and still do not appear to have any idea of abandoning their illegal
+vocation; even now, indeed, they look on what we consider an honest
+means of livelihood with the most marked contempt; and in relating
+their excursions talk of them with the greatest pleasure, much in
+the way an eager sportsman describes a boar-chase or fox-hunt. While
+talking of their excursions, which were to me really very interesting,
+their eyes gleamed with pleasure; and beating their hands on their
+foreheads and breasts and muttering some ejaculation they bewailed
+the hardness of their lot, which now ensured their never again being
+able to participate in such a joyous occupation." Another Badhak,
+on being examined, said he could not recall a case of one of the
+community having ever given up the trade of dacoity. "None ever did,
+I am certain of it," he continued. [54] "After having been arrested,
+on our release we frequently take lands, to make it appear we have
+left off dacoity, but we never do so in reality; it is only done as
+a feint and to enable our zamindars (landowners) to screen us." They
+sometimes paid rent for their land at the rate of thirty rupees
+an acre, in return for the countenance and protection afforded by
+the zamindars. "Our profession," another Badhak remarked, [55] "has
+been a _Padshahi Kam_ (a king's trade); we have attacked and seized
+boldly the thousands and hundreds of thousands that we have freely
+and nobly spent; we have been all our lives wallowing in wealth and
+basking in freedom, and find it hard to manage with the few copper
+pice a day we get from you." At the time when captures were numerous,
+and the idea was entertained of inducing the dacoits to settle in
+villages and supporting them until they had been trained to labour,
+several of them, on being asked how much they would require to support
+themselves, replied that they could not manage on less than two rupees
+a day, having earned quite that sum by dacoity. This amount would be
+more than twenty times the wages of an ordinary labourer at the same
+period. Another witness put the amount at one to two rupees a day,
+remarking, 'We are great persons for eating and drinking, and we keep
+several wives according to our means.' Of some of them Colonel Sleeman
+had a high opinion, and he mentions the case of one man, Ajit Singh,
+who was drafted into the native army and rose to be commander of a
+company. "I have seldom seen a man," he wrote, [56] "whom I would
+rather have with me in scenes of peril and difficulty." An attempt of
+the King of Oudh's, however, to form a regiment of Badhaks had ended
+in failure, as after a short time they mutinied, beat their commandant
+and other officers and turned them out of the regiment, giving as
+their reason that the officers had refused to perform the same duties
+as the men. And they visited with the same treatment all the other
+officers sent to them, until they were disbanded by the British on
+the province of Allahabad being made over to the Company. Colonel
+Sleeman notes that they were never known to offer any other violence
+or insult to females than to make them give up any gold ornaments that
+they might have about their persons. "In all my inquiries into the
+character, habits and conduct of these gangs, I have never found an
+instance of a female having been otherwise disgraced or insulted by
+them. They are all Hindus, and this reverence for the sex pervades
+all Hindu society." [57] According to their own account also they
+never committed murder; if people opposed them they struck and killed
+like soldiers, but this was considered to be in fair fight. It may
+be noted, nevertheless, that they had little idea of clan loyalty,
+and informed very freely against their fellows when this course was
+to their advantage. They also stated that they could not settle in
+towns; they had always been accustomed to live in the jungles and
+commit dacoities upon the people of the towns as a kind of _shikar_
+(sport); they delighted in it, and they felt living in towns or among
+other men as a kind of prison, and got quite confused (_ghabraye_),
+and their women even more than the men.
+
+
+
+8. Caste rules and admission of outsiders.
+
+
+The Badhaks had a regular caste organisation, and members of the
+different clans married with each other like the Rajputs after
+whom they were named. They admitted freely into the community
+members of any respectable Hindu caste, but not the impure castes
+or Muhammadans. But at least one instance of the admission of
+a Muhammadan is given. [58] The Badhaks were often known to the
+people as Siarkhawa or jackal-eaters, or Sabkhawa, those who eat
+everything. And the Muhammadan in question was given jackal's flesh
+to eat, and having partaken of it was considered to have become a
+member of the community. This indicates that the Badhaks were probably
+accustomed to eat the flesh of the jackal at a sacrificial meal,
+and hence that they worshipped the jackal, revering it probably
+as the deity of the forests where they lived. Such a veneration
+would account for the importance attached to the jackal's cry as an
+omen. The fact of their eating jackals also points to the conclusion
+that the Badhaks were not Rajputs, but a low hunting caste like the
+Pardhis and Bahelias. The Pardhis have Rajput sept names as well as the
+Badhaks. No doubt a few outcaste Rajputs may have joined the gangs and
+become their leaders. Others, however, said that they abstained from
+the flesh of jackals, snakes, foxes and cows and buffaloes. Children
+were frequently adopted, being purchased in large numbers in time
+of famine, and also occasionally kidnapped. They were brought up to
+the trade of dacoity, and if they showed sufficient aptitude for it
+were taken out on expeditions, but otherwise left at home to manage
+the household affairs. They were married to other adopted children
+and were known as Ghulami or Slave Badhaks, like the Jangar Banjaras;
+and like them also, after some generations, when their real origin had
+been forgotten, they became full Badhaks. It was very advantageous to
+a Badhak to have a number of children, because all plunder obtained was
+divided in regularly apportioned shares among the whole community. Men
+who were too old to go on dacoity also received their share, and all
+children, even babies born during the absence of the expedition. The
+Badhaks said that this rule was enforced because they thought it an
+advantage to the community that families should be large and their
+numbers should increase; from which statement it must be concluded
+that they seldom suffered any stringency from lack of spoil. They
+also stated that Badhak widows would go and find a second husband
+from among the regular population, and as a rule would sooner or
+later persuade him to join the Badhaks.
+
+
+
+9. Religion: offerings to ancestors.
+
+
+Like other Indian criminals the Badhaks were of a very religious
+or superstitious disposition. They considered the gods of the Hindu
+creed as favouring their undertakings so long as they were suitably
+propitiated by offering to their temples and priests, and the spirits
+of the most distinguished of their ancestors as exercising a vicarious
+authority under these deities in guiding them to their prey and warning
+them of danger. [59] The following is an account of a Badhak sacrifice
+given to Colonel Sleeman by the Ajit Singh already mentioned. It was
+in celebration of a dacoity in which they had obtained Rs. 40,000,
+out of which Rs. 4500 were set aside for sacrifices to the gods and
+charity to the poor. Ajit Singh said: "For offerings to the gods we
+purchase goats, sweet cakes and spirits; and having prepared a feast
+we throw a handful of the savoury food upon the fire in the name of
+the gods who have most assisted us; but of the feast so consecrated
+no female but a virgin can partake. The offering is made through the
+man who has successfully invoked the god on that particular occasion;
+and, as my god had guided us this time, I was employed to prepare the
+feast for him and to throw the offering upon the fire. The offering
+must be taken up before the feast is touched and put upon the fire,
+and a little water must be sprinkled on it. The savoury smell of the
+food as it burns reaches the nostrils of the god and delights him. On
+this as on most occasions I invoked the spirit of Ganga Singh, my
+grandfather, and to him I made the offering. I considered him to be
+the greatest of all my ancestors as a robber, and him I invoked on this
+solemn occasion. He never failed me when I invoked him, and I had the
+greatest confidence in his aid. The spirits of our ancestors can easily
+see whether we shall succeed in what we are about to undertake; and
+when we are to succeed they order us on, and when we are not they make
+signs to us to desist." Their mode [60] of ascertaining which of their
+ancestors interested himself most in their affairs was commonly this,
+that whenever a person talked incoherently in a fever or an epileptic
+fit, the spirit of one or other of his ancestors was supposed to be
+upon him. If they were in doubt as to whose spirit it was, one of them
+threw down some grains of wheat or coloured glass beads, a pinch at
+a time, saying the name of the ancestor he supposed the most likely
+to be at work and calling odd or even as he pleased. If the number
+proved to be as he called it several times running while that name
+was repeated, they felt secure of their family god, and proceeded at
+once to sacrifice a goat or something else in his name. When they were
+being hunted down and arrested by Colonel Sleeman and his assistants,
+they ascribed their misfortunes to the anger of the goddess Kali,
+because they had infringed her rules and disregarded her signs, and
+said that their forefathers had often told them they would one day
+be punished for their disobedience. [61]
+
+
+
+10. The wounded haunted by spirits.
+
+
+Whenever one of the gang was wounded and was taken with his wounds
+bleeding near a place haunted by a spirit, they believed the spirit
+got angry and took hold of him, [62] in the manner described by
+Ajit Singh as follows: "The spirit comes upon him in all kinds of
+shapes, sometimes in that of a buffalo, at others in that of a woman,
+sometimes in the air above and sometimes from the ground below; but no
+one can see him except the wounded person he is angry with and wants
+to punish. Upon such a wounded person we always place a naked sword
+or some other sharp steel instrument, as spirits are much afraid of
+weapons of this kind. If there be any good conjurer at hand to charm
+away the spirits from the person wounded he recovers, but nothing else
+can save him." In one case a dacoit named Ghisa had been severely
+wounded in an encounter and was seized by the spirit of a banyan
+tree as he was being taken away: "We made a litter with our ropes
+and cloaks thrown over them and on this he was carried off by four
+of our party; at half a mile distant the road passed under a large
+banyan tree and as the four men carried him along under the tree,
+the spirit of the place fell upon him and the four men who carried
+him fell down with the shock. They could not raise him again, so much
+were they frightened, and four other men were obliged to lift him and
+carry him off." The man died of his wounds soon after they reached
+the halting-place, and in commenting on this Ajit Singh continued:
+"When the spirit seized Ghisa under the tree we had unfortunately no
+conjurer, and he, poor fellow, died in consequence. It was evident that
+a spirit had got hold of him, for he could not keep his head upright;
+it always fell down upon his right or left shoulder as often as we
+tried to put it right; and he complained much of a pain in the region
+of the liver. We therefore concluded that the spirit had broken his
+neck and was consuming his liver."
+
+
+
+11. Pious funeral observances.
+
+
+Like pious Hindus as they were, the Badhaks were accustomed, whenever
+it was possible, to preserve the bones of their dead after the body
+had been burnt and carry them to the Ganges. If this was not possible,
+however, and the exigencies of their profession obliged them to make
+away with the body without the performance of due funeral rites,
+they cut off two or three fingers and sent these to the Ganges to
+be deposited instead of the whole body. [63] In one case a dacoit,
+Kundana, was killed in an affray, and the others carried off his body
+and thrust it into a porcupine's hole after cutting off three of the
+fingers. "We gave Kundana's fingers to his mother," Ajit Singh stated,
+"and she sent them with due offerings and ceremonies to the Ganges
+by the hands of the family priest. She gave this priest money to
+purchase a cow, to be presented to the priests in the name of her
+deceased son, and to distribute in charity to the poor and to holy
+men. She got from us for these purposes eighty rupees over and above
+her son's share of the booty, while his widow and children continued
+to receive their usual share of the takings of the gang so long as
+they remained with us."
+
+
+
+12. Taking the omens.
+
+
+Before setting out on an expedition it was their regular custom
+to take the omens, and the following account may be quoted of the
+preliminaries to an expedition of the great leader, Meherban Singh,
+who has already been mentioned: "In the latter end of that year,
+Meherban and his brother set out and assembled their friends on the
+bank of the Bisori river, where the rate at which each member of the
+party should share in the spoil was determined in order to secure to
+the dependants of any one who should fall in the enterprise their due
+share, as well as to prevent inconvenient disputes during and after
+the expedition. The party assembled on this occasion, including women
+and children, amounted to two hundred, and when the shares had been
+determined the goats were sacrificed for the feast. Each leader and
+member of the gang dipped his finger in the blood and swore fidelity
+to his engagements and his associates under all circumstances. The
+whole feasted together and drank freely till the next evening, when
+Meherban advanced with about twenty of the principal persons to a spot
+chosen a little way from the camp on the road they proposed to take in
+the expedition, and lifting up his hands in supplication said aloud,
+'If it be thy will, O God, and thine, Kali, to prosper our undertaking
+for the sake of the blind and the lame, _the widow and the orphan_,
+who depend upon our exertions for subsistence, vouchsafe, we pray thee,
+the call of the female jackal.' All his followers held up their hands
+in the same manner and repeated these words after him. All then sat
+down and waited in silence for the reply or spoke only in whispers. At
+last the cry of the female jackal was heard three times on the left,
+and believing her to have been inspired by the deity for their guidance
+they were all much rejoiced." The following was another more elaborate
+method of taking omens described by Ajit Singh: "When we speak of
+seeking omens from our gods or Devi Deota, we mean the spirits of those
+of our ancestors who performed great exploits in dacoity in their day,
+gained a great name and established lasting reputations. For instance,
+Mahajit, my grandfather, and Sahiba, his father, are called gods
+and admitted to be so by us all. We have all of us some such gods
+to be proud of among our ancestors; we propitiate them and ask for
+favourable omens from them before we enter upon any enterprise. We
+sometimes propitiate the Suraj Deota (sun god) and seek good omens
+from him. We get two or three goats or rams, and sometimes even ten
+or eleven, at the place where we determine to take the auspices, and
+having assembled the principal men of the gang we put water into the
+mouth of one of them and pray to the sun and to our ancestors thus:
+'O thou Sun God! And O all ye other Gods! If we are to succeed in
+the enterprise we are about to undertake we pray you to cause these
+goats to shake their bodies.' If they do not shake them after the
+gods have been thus duly invoked, the enterprise must not be entered
+upon and the goats are not sacrificed. We then try the auspices with
+wheat. We burn frankincense and scented wood and blow a shell; and
+taking out a pinch of wheat grains, put them on the cloth and count
+them. If they come up odd the omen is favourable, and if even it is
+bad. After this, which we call the auspices of the Akut, we take that
+of the Siarni or female jackal. If it calls on the left it is good,
+but if on the right bad. If the omens turn out favourable in all three
+trials then we have no fear whatever, but if they are favourable in
+only one trial out of the three the enterprise must be given up."
+
+
+
+13. Suppression of dacoity.
+
+
+Between 1837 and 1849 the suppression of the regular practice of
+armed dacoity was practically achieved by Colonel Sleeman. A number
+of officers were placed under his orders, and with small bodies of
+military and police were set to hunt down different bands of dacoits,
+following them all over India when necessary. And special Acts were
+passed to enable the offence of dacoity, wherever committed, to be
+tried by a competent magistrate in any part of India as had been done
+in the case of the Thugs. Many of the Badhaks received conditional
+pardons, and were drafted into the police in different stations, and
+an agricultural labour colony was also formed, but does not seem to
+have been altogether successful. During these twelve years more than
+1200 dacoits in all were brought to trial, while some were killed
+during the operations, and no doubt many others escaped and took to
+other avocations, or became ordinary criminals when their armed gangs
+were broken up. In 1825 it had been estimated that the Oudh forests
+alone contained from 4000 to 6000 dacoits, while the property stolen
+in 1811 from known dacoities was valued at ten lakhs of rupees.
+
+
+
+14. The Badhaks or Baoris at the present time.
+
+
+The Badhaks still exist, and are well known as one of the worst classes
+of criminals, practising ordinary house-breaking and theft. The name
+Badhak is now less commonly used than those of Bagri and Baori or
+Bawaria, both of which were borne by the original Badhaks. The word
+Bagri is derived from a tract of country in Malwa which is known
+as the Bagar or 'hedge of thorns,' because it is surrounded on all
+sides by wooded hills. [64] There are Bagri Jats and Bagri Rajputs,
+many of whom are now highly respectable landholders. Bawaria or
+Baori is derived from _banwar_, a creeper, or the tendril of a vine,
+and hence a noose made originally from some fibrous plant and used
+for trapping animals, this being one of the primary occupations of
+the tribe. [65] The term Badhak signifies a hunter or fowler, hence
+a robber or murderer (Platts). The Bagris and Bawarias are sometimes
+considered to be separate communities, but it is doubtful whether there
+is any real distinction between them. In Bombay the Bagris are known
+as Vaghris by the common change of _b_ into _v_. A good description
+of them is contained in Appendix C to Mr. Bhimbhai Kirparam's volume
+_Hindus of Gujarat_ in the _Bombay Gazetteer_. He divides them into the
+Chunaria or lime-burners, the Datonia or sellers of twig tooth-brushes,
+and two other groups, and states that, "They also keep fowls and sell
+eggs, catch birds and go as _shikaris_ or hunters. They traffic in
+green parrots, which they buy from Bhils and sell for a profit."
+
+
+
+15. Lizard-hunting.
+
+
+Their strength and powers of endurance are great, the same writer
+states, and they consider that these qualities are obtained by the
+eating of the _goh_ and _sandha_ or iguana lizards, which a Vaghri
+prizes very highly. This is also the case with the Bawarias of the
+Punjab, who go out hunting lizards in the rains and may be seen
+returning with baskets full of live lizards, which exist for days
+without food and are killed and eaten fresh by degrees. Their method
+of hunting the lizard is described by Mr. Wilson as follows: [66]
+"The lizard lives on grass, cannot bite severely, and is sluggish
+in his movements, so that he is easily caught. He digs a hole for
+himself of no great depth, and the easiest way to take him is to
+look out for the scarcely perceptible airhole and dig him out; but
+there are various ways of saving oneself this trouble. One, which I
+have seen, takes advantage of a habit the lizard has in cold weather
+(when he never comes out of his hole) of coming to the mouth for
+air and warmth. The Chuhra or other sportsman puts off his shoes and
+steals along the prairie till he sees signs of a lizard's hole. This
+he approaches on tiptoe, raising over his head with both hands a
+mallet with a round sharp point, and fixing his eyes intently upon
+the hole. When close enough he brings down his mallet with all his
+might on the ground just behind the mouth of the hole, and is often
+successful in breaking the lizard's back before he awakes to a sense
+of his danger. Another plan, which I have not seen, is to tie a wisp
+of grass to a long stick and move it over the hole so as to make a
+rustling noise. The lizard within thinks, 'Oh here's a snake! I may
+as well give in,' and comes to the mouth of the hole, putting out
+his tail first so that he may not see his executioner. The sportsman
+seizes his tail and snatches him out before he has time to learn his
+mistake." This common fondness for lizards is a point in favour of
+a connection between the Gujarat Vaghris and the Punjab Bawarias.
+
+
+
+16. Social observances.
+
+
+In Sirsa the great mass of the Bawarias are not given to crime,
+and in Gujarat also they do not appear to have special criminal
+tendencies. It is a curious point, however, that Mr. Bhimbhai Kirparam
+emphasises the chastity of the women of the Gujarat Vaghris. [67]
+"When a family returns home after a money-making tour to Bombay
+or some other city, the women are taken before Vihat (Devi), and
+with the women is brought a buffalo or a sheep that is tethered in
+front of Vihat's shrine. They must confess all, even their slightest
+shortcomings, such as the following: 'Two weeks ago, when begging in
+Parsi Bazar-street, a drunken sailor caught me by the hand. Another
+day a Miyan or Musalman ogled me, and forgive me, Devi, my looks
+encouraged him.' If Devi is satisfied the sheep or buffalo shivers,
+and is then sacrificed and provides a feast for the caste." [68]
+On the other hand, Mr. Crooke states [69] that in northern India,
+"The standard of morality is very low because in Muzaffarnagar it is
+extremely rare for a Bawaria woman to live with her husband. Almost
+invariably she lives with another man: but the official husband is
+responsible for the children." The great difference in the standard
+of morality is certainly surprising.
+
+In Gujarat [70] the Vaghris have _gurus_ or religious preceptors of
+their own. These men take an eight-anna silver piece and whisper in the
+ear of their disciples "Be immortal."... "The Bhuvas or priest-mediums
+play an important part in many Vaghri ceremonies. A Bhuva is a male
+child born after the mother has made a vow to the goddess Vihat
+or Devi that if a son be granted to her she will devote him to the
+service of the goddess. No Bhuva may cut or shave his hair on pain
+of a fine of ten rupees, and no Bhuva may eat carrion or food cooked
+by a Muhammadan."
+
+
+
+17. Criminal practices.
+
+
+The criminal Bagris still usually travel about in the disguise of
+Gosains and Bairagis, and are very difficult of detection except to
+real religious mendicants. Their housebreaking implement or jemmy
+is known as _Gyan_, but in speaking of it they always add _Das_,
+so that it sounds like the name of a Bairagi. [71] They are usually
+very much afraid of the _gyan_ being discovered on their persons,
+and are careful to bury it in the ground at each halting-place,
+while on the march it may be concealed in a pack-saddle. The means of
+identifying them, Mr. Kennedy remarks, [72] is by their family _deo_
+or god, which they carry about when wandering with their families. It
+consists of a brass or copper box containing grains of wheat and the
+seeds of a creeper, both soaked in _ghi_ (melted butter). The box with
+a peacock's feather and a bell is wrapped in two white and then in
+two red cloths, one of the white cloths having the print of a man's
+hand dipped in goat's blood upon it. The grains of wheat are used
+for taking the omens, a few being thrown up at sun-down and counted
+afterwards to see whether they are odd or even. When even, two grains
+are placed on the right hand of the omen-taker, and if this occurs
+three times running the auspices are considered to be favourable. [73]
+Mr. Gayer [74] notes that the Badhaks have usually from one to three
+brands from a hot iron on the inside of their left wrist. Those of
+them who are hunters brand the muscles of the left wrist in order to
+steady the hand when firing their matchlocks. The customs of wearing
+a peculiar necklace of small wooden beads and a kind of gold pin
+fixed to the front teeth, which Mr. Crooke [75] records as having
+been prevalent some years ago, have apparently been since abandoned,
+as they are not mentioned in more recent accounts. The Dehliwal and
+Malpura Baorias have, Mr. Kennedy states, [76] an interesting system of
+signs, which they mark on the walls of buildings at important corners,
+bridges and cross-roads and on the ground by the roadside with a stick,
+if no building is handy. The commonest is a loop, the straight line
+indicating the direction a gang or individual has taken:
+
+                       ________________________
+                     /
+                    /  /---\
+                   (  ( /// )
+                    \  \---/
+                     \________
+
+
+The addition of a number of vertical strokes inside the loop signifies
+the number of males in a gang. If these strokes are enclosed by a
+circle it means that the gang is encamped in the vicinity; while
+a square inside a circle and line as below means that property has
+been secured by friends who have left in the direction pointed by the
+line. It is said that Baorias will follow one another up for fifty
+or even a hundred miles by means of these hieroglyphics. The signs
+are bold marks, sometimes even a foot or more in length, and are
+made where they will at once catch the eye. When the Marwari Baorias
+desire to indicate to others of their caste, who may follow in their
+footsteps, the route taken, a member of the gang, usually a woman,
+trails a stick in the dust as she walks along, leaving a spiral track
+on the ground. Another method of indicating the route taken is to
+place leaves under stones at intervals along the road. [77] The form
+of crime most in favour among the ordinary Baoris is housebreaking
+by night. Their common practice is to make a hole in the wall beside
+the door through which the hand passes to raise the latch; and only
+occasionally they dig a hole in the base of the wall to admit of the
+passage of a man, while another favoured alternative is to break in
+through a barred window, the bars being quickly and forcibly bent and
+drawn out. [78] One class of Marwari Bagris are also expert coiners.
+
+
+                     /-------\
+                    /  +---+  \
+                    |  |   |  |---------------------
+                    \  +---+  /
+                     \-------/
+
+
+
+
+
+
+Bahna
+
+
+
+1. Nomenclature and internal structure.
+
+
+
+_Bahna, Pinjara, Dhunia._ [79]--The occupational caste of
+cotton-cleaners. The Bahnas numbered 48,000 persons in the Central
+Provinces and Berar in 1911. The large increase in the number
+of ginning-factories has ruined the Bahna's trade of cleaning
+hand-ginned cotton, and as no distinction attaches to the name of
+Bahna it is possible that members of the caste who have taken to
+other occupations may have abandoned it and returned themselves simply
+as Muhammadans. The three names Bahna, Pinjara, Dhunia appear to be
+used indifferently for the caste in this Province, though in other
+parts of India they are distinguished. Pinjara is derived from the
+word _pinjan_ used for a cotton-bow, and Dhunia is from _dhunna_,
+to card cotton. The caste is also known as Dhunak Pathani. Though
+professing the Muhammadan religion, they still have many Hindu
+customs and ceremonies, and in the matter of inheritance our courts
+have held that they are subject to Hindu and not Muhammadan law. [80]
+In Raipur a girl receives half the share of a boy in the division of
+inherited property. The caste appears to be a mixed occupational group,
+and is split into many territorial subcastes named after the different
+parts of the country from which its members have come, as Badharia from
+Badhas in Mirzapur, Sarsutia from the Saraswati river, Berari of Berar,
+Dakhni from the Deccan, Telangi from Madras, Pardeshi from northern
+India, and so on. Two groups are occupational, the Newaris of Saugor,
+who make the thick _newar_ tape used for the webbing of beds, and
+the Kanderas, who make fireworks and generally constitute a separate
+caste. There is considerable ground for supposing that the Bahnas
+are mainly derived from the caste of Telis or oil-pressers. In the
+Punjab Sir D. Ibbetson says [81] that the Penja or cotton-scutcher is
+an occupational name applied to Telis who follow this profession; and
+that the Penja, Kasai and Teli are all of the same caste. Similarly
+in Nasik the Telis and Pinjaras are said to form one community,
+under the government of a single _panchayat_. In cases of dispute
+or misconduct the usual penalty is temporary excommunication, which
+is known as the stopping of food and water. [82] The Telis are an
+enterprising community of very low status, and would therefore be
+naturally inclined to take to other occupations; many of them are
+shopkeepers, cultivators and landholders, and it is quite probable
+that in past times they took up the Bahna's profession and changed
+their religion with the hope of improving their social status. The
+Telis are generally considered to be quarrelsome and talkative,
+and the Bahnas or Dhunias have the same characteristics. If one man
+abusing another lapses into Billingsgate, the other will say to him,
+'_Hamko Julaha Dhunia neh jano_,' or 'Don't talk to me as if I was
+a Julaha or a Dhunia.'
+
+
+
+2. Marriage.
+
+
+Some Bahnas have exogamous sections with Hindu names, while others
+are without these, and simply regulate their marriages by rules of
+relationship. They have the primitive Hindu custom of allowing a
+sister's son to marry a brother's daughter, but not _vice versa_. A
+man cannot marry his wife's younger sister during her lifetime, nor
+her elder sister at any time. Children of the same foster-mother are
+also not allowed to marry. Their marriages are performed by a Kazi
+with an imitation of the Nikah rite. The bridegroom's party sit under
+the marriage-shed, and the bride with the women of her party inside
+the house. The Kazi selects two men, one from the bride's party, who
+is known as the Nikahi Bap or 'Marriage Father,' and the other from
+the bridegroom's, who is called the Gowah or 'Witness.' These two
+men go to the bride and ask her whether she accepts the bridegroom,
+whose name is stated, for her husband. She answers in the affirmative,
+and mentions the amount of the dowry which she is to receive. The
+bridegroom, who has hitherto had a veil (_mukhna_) over his face, now
+takes it off, and the men go to him and ask him whether he accepts the
+bride. He replies that he does, and agrees to pay the dowry demanded
+by her. The Kazi reads some texts and the guests are given a meal
+of rice and sugar. Many of the preliminaries to a Hindu marriage
+are performed by the more backward members of the caste, and until
+recently they erected a sacred post in the marriage-shed, but now
+they merely hang the green branch of a mango tree to the roof. The
+minimum amount of the _mehar_ or dowry is said to be Rs. 125, but it
+is paid to the girl's parents as a bride-price and not to herself,
+as among the Muhammadans. A widow is expected, but not obliged, to
+marry her deceased husband's younger brother. Divorce is permitted
+by means of a written deed known as 'Farkhati.'
+
+
+
+3. Religious and other customs.
+
+
+The Bahnas venerate Muhammad, and also worship the tombs of Muhammadan
+saints or _Pirs_. A green sheet or cloth is spread over the tomb and
+a lamp is kept burning by it, while offerings of incense and flowers
+are made. When the new cotton crop has been gathered they lay some
+new cotton by their bow and mallet and make an offering of _malida_
+or cakes of flour and sugar to it. They believe that two angels, one
+good and one bad, are perched continually on the shoulders of every
+man to record his good and evil deeds. And when an eclipse occurs they
+say that the sun and moon have gone behind a pinnacle or tower of the
+heavens. For exorcising evil spirits they write texts of the Koran
+on paper and burn them before the sufferer. The caste bury the dead
+with the feet pointing to the south. On the way to the grave each
+one of the mourners places his shoulder under the bier for a time,
+partaking of the impurity communicated by it. Incense is burnt daily
+in the name of a deceased person for forty days after his death, with
+the object probably of preventing his ghost from returning to haunt
+the house. Muhammadan beggars are fed on the tenth day. Similarly,
+after the birth of a child a woman is unclean for forty days, and
+cannot cook for her husband during that period. A child's hair is
+cut for the first time on the tenth or twelfth day after birth, this
+being known as Jhalar. Some parents leave a lock of hair to grow on
+the head in the name of the famous saint Sheikh Farid, thinking that
+they will thus ensure a long life for the child. It is probably in
+reality a way of preserving the Hindu _choti_ or scalp-lock.
+
+
+
+4. Occupation.
+
+
+The hereditary calling [83] of the Bahna is the cleaning or scutching
+of cotton, which is done by subjecting it to the vibration of a
+bow-string. The seed has been previously separated by a hand-gin,
+but the ginned cotton still contains much dirt, leaf-fibre and other
+rubbish, and to remove this is the Bahna's task. The bow is somewhat
+in the shape of a harp, the wide end consisting of a broad piece of
+wood over which the string passes, being secured to a straight wooden
+bar at the back. At the narrow end the bar and string are fixed to an
+iron ring. The string is made of the sinew of some animal, and this
+renders the implement objectionable to Hindus, and may account for
+the Bahnas being Muhammadans. The club or mallet is a wooden implement
+shaped like a dumb-bell. The bow is suspended from the roof so as to
+hang just over the pile of loose cotton; and the worker twangs the
+string with the mallet and then draws the mallet across the string,
+each three or four times. The string strikes a small portion of the
+cotton, the fibre of which is scattered by the impact and thrown off
+in a uniform condition of soft fluff, all dirt being at the same time
+removed. This is the operation technically known as teasing. Buchanan
+remarked that women frequently did the work themselves at home, using
+a smaller kind of bow called _dhunkara_. The clean cotton is made up
+into balls, some of which are passed on to the spinner, while others
+are used for the filling of quilts and the padded coats worn in the
+cold weather. The ingenious though rather clumsy method of the Bahna
+has been superseded by the ginning-factory, and little or no cotton
+destined for the spindle is now cleaned by him. The caste have been
+forced to take to cultivation or field labour, while many have become
+cartmen and others are brokers, peons or constables. Nearly every
+house still has its _pinjan_ or bow, but only a desultory use is
+made of this during the winter months. As it is principally used by a
+Muhammadan caste it seems a possible hypothesis that the cotton-bow
+was introduced into India by invaders of that religion. The name of
+the bow, _pinjan_, is, however, a Sanskrit derivative, and this is
+against the above theory. It has already been seen that the fact of
+animal sinew being used for the string would make it objectionable to
+Hindus. The Bahnas are subjected to considerable ridicule on account
+of their curious mixture of Hindu and Muhammadan ceremonies, amounting
+in some respects practically to a caricature of the rites of Islam;
+and further, they share with the weaver class the contempt shown to
+those who follow a calling considered more suitable for women than
+men. It is related that when the Mughal general Asaf Khan first made an
+expedition into the north of the Central Provinces he found the famous
+Gond-Rajput queen Durgavati of the Garha-Mandla dynasty governing with
+success a large and prosperous state in this locality. He thought a
+country ruled by a woman should fall an easy prey to the Muhammadan
+arms, and to show his contempt for her power he sent her a golden
+spindle. The queen retorted by a present of a gold cotton-cleaner's
+bow, and this so enraged the Mughal that he proceeded to attack the
+Gond kingdom. The story indicates that cotton-carding is considered
+a Muhammadan profession, and also that it is held in contempt.
+
+
+
+5. Proverbs about Bahnas.
+
+
+Various sayings show that the Bahna is not considered a proper
+Muhammadan, as
+
+
+                Turuk to Turuk
+                Aur Bahna Turuk,
+
+
+or 'A Muhammadan (Turk) is a Muhammadan and the Bahna is also a
+Muhammadan'; and again--
+
+
+                Achera, [84] Kachera, Pinjara,
+                Muhammad se dur, Din se niyara,
+
+
+or 'The Kachera and Pinjara are lost to Muhammad and far from the
+faith'; and again--
+
+
+                Adho Hindu adho Musalman
+                Tinkhon kahen Dhunak Pathan,
+
+
+or 'Half a Hindu and half a Muhammadan, that is he who is a Dhunak
+Pathan.' They have a grotesque imitation of the Muhammadan rite of
+_halal_, or causing an animal's blood to flow on to the ground with
+the repetition of the _kalma_ or invocation; thus it is said that when
+a Bahna is about to kill a fowl he addresses it somewhat as follows:
+
+
+                Kahe karkarat hai?
+                Kahe barbarat hai?
+                Kahe jai jai logon ka dana khat hai?
+                Tor kiamat mor niamat,
+                Bismillah hai tuch,
+
+
+or "Why do you cackle? Why do you crow? Why do you eat other people's
+grain? Your death is my feast; I touch you in the name of God." And
+saying this he puts a knife to the fowl's throat. The vernacular verse
+is a good imitation of the cackling of a fowl. And again, they slice
+off the top of an egg as if they were killing an animal and repeat the
+formula, "White dome, full of moisture, I know not if there is a male
+or female within; in the name of God I kill you." A person whose memory
+is not good enough to retain these texts will take a knife and proceed
+to one who knows them. Such a man will repeat the texts over the knife,
+blowing on it as he does so, and the Bahna considers that the knife
+has been sanctified and retains its virtue for a week. Others do not
+think this necessary, but have a special knife, which having once been
+consecrated is always kept for killing animals, and descends as an
+heirloom in the family, the use of this sacred knife being considered
+to make the repetition of the _kalma_ unnecessary. These customs are,
+however, practised only by the ignorant members of the caste in Raipur
+and Bilaspur, and are unknown in the more civilised tracts, where
+the Bahnas are rapidly conforming to ordinary Muhammadan usage. Such
+primitive Bahnas perform their marriages by walking round the sacred
+post, keep the Hindu festivals, and feed Brahmans on the tenth day
+after a death. They have a priest whom they call their Kazi, but elect
+him themselves. In some places when a Bahna goes to the well to draw
+water he first washes the parapet of the well to make it ceremonially
+clean, and then draws his water. This custom can only be compared
+with that of the Raj-Gonds who wash the firewood with which they are
+about to cook their food, in order to make it more pure. Respectable
+Muhammadans naturally look down on the Bahnas, and they retaliate
+by refusing to take food or water from any Muhammadan who is not
+a Bahna. By such strictness the more ignorant think that they will
+enhance their ceremonial purity and hence their social consideration;
+but the intelligent members of the caste know better and are glad to
+improve themselves by learning from educated Muhammadans. The other
+menial artisan castes among the Muhammadans have similar ideas, and
+it is reported that a Rangrez boy who took food in the house of one
+of the highest Muhammadan officers of Government in the Province was
+temporarily put out of caste. Another saying about the Bahnas is--
+
+
+                Sheikhon ki Sheikhi,
+                    Pathanon ki tarr,
+                Turkon ki Turkshahi,
+                    Bahnon ki bharrr ...
+
+
+or 'Proud as a Sheikh, obstinate as a Pathan, royal as a Turk, buzzing
+like a Bahna.' This refers to the noise of the cotton-cleaning bow,
+the twang of which as it is struck by the club is like a quail flying;
+and at the same time to the Bahna's loquacity. Another story is that
+a Bahna was once going through the forest with his cotton-cleaning bow
+and club or mallet, when a jackal met him on the path. The jackal was
+afraid that the Bahna would knock him on the head, so he said, "With
+thy bow on thy shoulder and thine arrow in thy hand, whither goest
+thou, O King of Delhi?" The Bahna was exceedingly pleased at this and
+replied, 'King of the forest, eater of wild plums, only the great can
+recognise the great.' But when the jackal had got to a safe distance
+he turned round and shouted, "With your cotton-bow on your shoulder and
+your club in your hand, there you go, you sorry Bahna." It is said also
+that although the Bahnas as good Muhammadans wear beards, they do not
+cultivate them very successfully, and many of them only have a growth
+of hair below the chin and none on the under-lip, in the fashion known
+as a goat's beard. This kind of beard is thus proverbially described
+as '_Bahna kaisi darhi_' or 'A Bahna's beard.' It may be repeated in
+conclusion that much of the ridicule attaching to the Bahnas arises
+simply from the fact that they follow what is considered a feminine
+occupation, and the remainder because in their ignorance they parody
+the rites of Islam. It may seem ill-natured to record the sayings
+in which they are lampooned, but the Bahnas cannot read English,
+and these have an interest as specimens of popular wit.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+Baiga
+
+
+
+List of Paragraphs
+
+
+     1.  _The tribe and its offshoots._
+     2.  _Tribal legends._
+     3.  _Tribal subdivisions._
+     4.  _Marriage._
+     5.  _Birth and funeral rites._
+     6.  _Religion._
+     7.  _Appearance and mode of life._
+     8.  _Dress and food._
+     9.  _Occupation._
+    10.  _Language._
+
+
+
+1. The tribe and its offshoots.
+
+
+_Baiga._ [85]--A primitive Dravidian tribe whose home is on the eastern
+Satpura hills in the Mandla, Balaghat and Bilaspur Districts. The
+number of the Baigas proper was only 30,000 in 1911. But the Binjhals
+or Binjhwars, a fairly numerous caste in the Chhattisgarh Division, and
+especially in the Sambalpur District, appear to have been originally
+Baigas, though they have dropped the original caste name, become
+Hinduised, and now disclaim connection with the parent tribe. A
+reason for this may be found in the fact that Sambalpur contains
+several Binjhwar zamindars, or large landowners, whose families would
+naturally desire a more respectable pedigree than one giving them the
+wild Baigas of the Satpuras for their forefathers. And the evolution of
+the Binjhwar caste is a similar phenomenon to the constitution of the
+Raj-Gonds, the Raj-Korkus, and other aristocratic subdivisions among
+the forest tribes, who have been admitted to a respectable position
+in the Hindu social community. The Binjhwars, however, have been so
+successful as to cut themselves off almost completely from connection
+with the original tribe, owing to their adoption of another name. But
+in Balaghat and Mandla the Binjhwar subtribe is still recognised as
+the most civilised subdivision of the Baigas. The Bhainas, a small
+tribe in Bilaspur, are probably another offshoot, Kath-Bhaina being
+the name of a subtribe of Baigas in that District, and Rai-Bhaina
+in Balaghat, though the Bhainas too no longer admit identity with
+the Baigas. A feature common to all three branches is that they have
+forgotten their original tongue, and now speak a more or less corrupt
+form of the Indo-Aryan vernaculars current around them. Finally,
+the term Bhumia or 'Lord of the soil' is used sometimes as the name
+of a separate tribe and sometimes as a synonym for Baiga. The fact is
+that in the Central Provinces [86] Bhumia is the name of an office,
+that of the priest of the village and local deities, which is held
+by one of the forest tribes. In the tract where the Baigas live,
+they, as the most ancient residents, are usually the priests of the
+indigenous gods; but in Jubbulpore the same office is held by another
+tribe, the Bharias. The name of the office often attaches itself to
+members of the tribe, who consider it as somewhat more respectable
+than their own, and it is therefore generally true to say that the
+people known as Bhumias in Jubbulpore are really Bharias, but in
+Mandla and Bilaspur they are Baigas.
+
+In Mandla there is also found a group called Bharia-Baigas. These
+are employed as village priests by Hindus, and worship certain Hindu
+deities and not the Gond gods. They may perhaps be members of the
+Bharia tribe of Jubbulpore, originally derived from the Bhars, who
+have obtained the designation of Baiga, owing to their employment
+as village priests. But they now consider themselves a part of the
+Baiga tribe and say they came to Mandla from Rewah. In Mandla the
+decision of a Baiga on a boundary dispute is almost always considered
+as final, and this authority is of a kind that commonly emanates from
+recognised priority of residence. [87] There seems reason to suppose
+that the Baigas are really a branch of the primitive Bhuiya tribe
+of Chota Nagpur, and that they have taken or been given the name of
+Baiga, the designation of a village priest, on migration into the
+Central Provinces. There is reason to believe that the Baigas were
+once dominant in the Chhattisgarh plain and the hills surrounding it
+which adjoin Chota Nagpur, the home of the Bhuiyas. The considerations
+in favour of this view are given in the article on Bhuiya, to which
+reference may be made.
+
+
+
+2. Tribal legends.
+
+
+The Baigas, however, are not without some conceit of themselves,
+as the following legend will show. In the beginning, they say, God
+created Nanga Baiga and Nangi Baigin, the first of the human race,
+and asked them by what calling they would choose to live. They at once
+said that they would make their living by felling trees in the jungle,
+and permission being accorded, have done so ever since. They had two
+sons, one of whom remained a Baiga, while the other became a Gond
+and a tiller of the soil. The sons married their own two sisters who
+were afterwards born, and while the elder couple are the ancestors
+of the Baigas, from the younger are descended the Gonds and all the
+remainder of the human race. In another version of the story the
+first Baiga cut down two thousand old _sal_ [88] trees in one day,
+and God told him to sprinkle a few grains of kutki on the ashes, and
+then to retire and sleep for some months, when on his return he would
+be able to reap a rich harvest for his children. In this manner the
+habit of shifting cultivation is accorded divine sanction. According
+to Binjhwar tradition Nanga Baiga and Nangi Baigin dwelt on the
+_kajli ban pahar_, which being interpreted is the hill of elephants,
+and may well refer to the ranges of Mandla and Bilaspur. It is
+stated in the _Ain-i-Akbari_ [89] that the country of Garha-Mandla
+abounded in wild elephants, and that the people paid their tribute
+in these and gold mohurs. In Mandla the Baigas sometimes hang out
+from their houses a bamboo mat fastened to a long pole to represent
+a flag which they say once flew from the palace of a Baiga king. It
+seems likely that the original home of the tribe may have been the
+Chhattisgarh plain and the hill-ranges surrounding it. A number of
+estates in these hills are held by landowners of tribes which are
+offshoots of the Baigas, as the Bhainas and Binjhwars. The point is
+further discussed in the article on Bhuiya. Most of the Baigas speak
+a corrupt form of the Chhattisgarhi dialect. When they first came
+under the detailed observation of English officers in the middle of
+the nineteenth century, the tribe were even more solitary and retired
+than at present. Their villages, it is said, were only to be found
+in places far removed from all cleared and cultivated country. No
+roads or well-defined paths connected them with ordinary lines of
+traffic and more thickly inhabited tracts, but perched away in snug
+corners in the hills, and hidden by convenient projecting spurs and
+dense forests from the country round, they could not be seen except
+when nearly approached, and were seldom visited unless by occasional
+enterprising Banias and vendors of country liquor. Indeed, without a
+Baiga for a guide many of the villages could hardly be discovered,
+for nothing but occasional notches on the trees distinguished the
+tracks to them from those of the sambhar and other wild animals.
+
+
+
+3. Tribal subdivisions.
+
+
+The following seven subdivisions or subtribes are recognised: Binjhwar,
+Bharotia, Narotia or Nahar, Raibhaina, Kathbhaina, Kondwan or Kundi,
+and Gondwaina. Of these the Binjhwar, Bharotia and Narotia are the
+best-known. The name of the Binjhwars is probably derived from the
+Vindhyan range, which in turn comes from the Sanskrit _vindhya_,
+a hunter. The rule of exogamy is by no means strictly observed,
+and in Kawardha it is said that these three subcastes intermarry
+though they do not eat together, while in Balaghat the Bharotias
+and Narotias both eat together and intermarry. In both places the
+Binjhwars occupy the highest position, and the other two subtribes
+will take food from them. The Binjhwars consider themselves as Hindus
+and abjure the consumption of buffalo's and cow's flesh and rats,
+while the other Baigas will eat almost anything. The Bharotias
+partially shave their heads, and in Mandla are apparently known as
+Mundia or Mudia, or "shaven." The Gondwainas eat both cow's flesh
+and monkeys, and are regarded as the lowest subcaste. As shown by
+their name they are probably the offspring of unions between Baigas
+and Gonds. Similarly the Kondwans apparently derive their name from
+the tract south of the Mahanadi which is named after the Khond tribe,
+and was formerly owned by them.
+
+Each subtribe is divided into a number of exogamous septs, the names of
+which are identical in many cases with those of the Gonds, as Markam,
+Maravi, Netam, Tekam and others. Gond names are found most frequently
+among the Gondwainas and Narotias, and these have adopted from the
+Gonds the prohibition of marriage between worshippers of the same
+number of gods. Thus the four septs above mentioned worship seven gods
+and may not intermarry. But they may marry among other septs such as
+the Dhurua, Pusam, Bania and Mawar who worship six gods. The Baigas do
+not appear to have assimilated the further division into worshippers
+of five, four, three and two gods which exist among the Gonds in some
+localities, and the system is confined to the lower subtribes. The
+meanings of the sept names have been forgotten and no instances of
+totemism are known. And the Binjhwars and Bharotias, who are more or
+less Hinduised, have now adopted territorial names for their septs,
+as Lapheya from Lapha zamindari, Ghugharia from Ghughri village in
+Mandla, and so on. The adoption of Gond names and septs appears to
+indicate that Gonds were in former times freely admitted into the Baiga
+tribe; and this continues to be the case at present among the lower
+subtribes, so far that a Gond girl marrying a Baiga becomes a regular
+member of the community. But the Binjhwars and Bharotias, who have
+a somewhat higher status than the others, refuse to admit Gonds, and
+are gradually adopting the strict rule of endogamy within the subtribe.
+
+
+
+4. Marriage.
+
+
+A Baiga must not take a wife from his own sept or from another one
+worshipping the same number of gods. But he may marry within his
+mother's sept, and in some localities the union of first cousins is
+permitted. Marriage is adult and the proposal comes from the parents of
+the bride, but in some places the girl is allowed to select a husband
+for herself. A price varying from five to twenty rupees is usually
+paid to the bride's parents, or in lieu of this the prospective
+husband serves his father-in-law for a period of about two years,
+the marriage being celebrated after the first year if his conduct
+is satisfactory. Orphan boys who have no parents to arrange their
+marriages for them often take service for a wife. Three ceremonies
+should precede the marriage. The first, which may take place at
+any time after the birth of both children, consists merely in the
+arrangement for their betrothal. The second is only a ratification
+of the first, feasts being provided by the boy's parents on both
+occasions. While on the approach of the children to marriageable age
+the final betrothal or _barokhi_ is held. The boy's father gives a
+large feast at the house of the girl and the date of the wedding is
+fixed. To ascertain whether the union will be auspicious, two grains
+of rice are dropped into a pot of water, after various preliminary
+solemnities to mark the importance of the occasion. If the points
+of the grains meet almost immediately it is considered that the
+marriage will be highly auspicious. If they do not meet, a second
+pair of grains are dropped in, and should these meet it is believed
+that the couple will quarrel after an interval of married life and
+that the wife will return to her father's house. While if neither
+of the two first essays are successful and a third pair is required,
+the regrettable conclusion is arrived at that the wife will run away
+with another man after a very short stay with her husband. But it
+is not stated that the betrothal is on that account annulled. The
+wedding procession starts from the bridegroom's house [90] and is
+received by the bride's father outside the village. It is considered
+essential that he should go out to meet the bride's party riding on an
+elephant. But as a real elephant is not within the means of a Baiga,
+two wooden bedsteads are lashed together and covered with blankets with
+a black cloth trunk in front, and this arrangement passes muster for
+an elephant. The elephant makes pretence to charge and trample down
+the marriage procession, until a rupee is paid, when the two parties
+embrace each other and proceed to the marriage-shed. Here the bride
+and bridegroom throw fried rice at each other until they are tired,
+and then walk three or seven times round the marriage-post with their
+clothes tied together. It is stated by Colonel Ward that the couple
+always retired to the forest to spend the wedding night, but this
+custom has now been abandoned. The expenditure on a marriage varies
+between ten and fifty rupees, of which only about five rupees fall
+on the bride's parents. The remarriage of widows is permitted, and
+the widow is expected, though not obliged, to wed her late husband's
+younger brother, while if she takes another husband he must pay her
+brother-in-law the sum of five rupees. The ceremony consists merely of
+the presentation of bangles and new clothes by the suitor, in token
+of her acceptance of which the widow pours some tepid water stained
+with turmeric over his head. Divorce may be effected by the husband
+and wife breaking a straw in the presence of the caste _panchayat_
+or committee. If the woman remains in the same village and does
+not marry again, the husband is responsible for her maintenance and
+that of her children, while a divorced woman may not remarry without
+the sanction of the _panchayat_ so long as her husband is alive and
+remains single. Polygamy is permitted.
+
+
+
+5. Birth and funeral rites.
+
+
+A woman is unclean for a month after childbirth, though the Binjhwars
+restrict the period to eight days. At the ceremony of purification a
+feast is given and the child is named, often after the month or day
+of its birth, as Chaitu, Phagu, Saoni, and so on, from the months
+of Chait, Phagun and Shrawan. Children who appear to be physically
+defective are given names accordingly, such as Langra (lame), or Bahira
+(deaf). The dead are usually buried, the bodies of old persons being
+burnt as a special honour and to save them from the risk of being
+devoured by wild animals. Bodies are laid naked in the grave with the
+head pointing to the south. In the grave of a man of importance two
+or three rupees and some tobacco are placed. In some places a rupee
+is thrust into the mouth of the dying man, and if his body is burnt,
+the coin is recovered from the pyre by his daughter or sister, who
+wears it as an amulet. Over the grave a platform is made on which
+a stone is erected. This is called the Bhiri of the deceased and is
+worshipped by his relatives in time of trouble. If one of the family
+has to be buried elsewhere, the relatives go to the Bhiri of the
+great dead and consign his spirit to be kept in their company. At a
+funeral the mourners take one black and one white fowl to a stream
+and kill and eat them there, setting aside a portion for the dead
+man. Mourning is observed for a period of from two to nine days,
+and during this time labour and even household work are stopped, food
+being supplied by the friends of the family. When a man is killed by
+a tiger the Baiga priest goes to the spot and there makes a small
+cone out of the blood-stained earth. This must represent a man,
+either the dead man or one of his living relatives. His companions
+having retired a few paces, the priest goes on his hands and knees
+and performs a series of antics which are supposed to represent the
+tiger in the act of destroying the man, at the same time seizing the
+lump of blood-stained earth in his teeth. One of the party then runs
+up and taps him on the back with a small stick. This perhaps means
+that the tiger is killed or otherwise rendered harmless; and the
+Baiga immediately lets the mud cone fall into the hands of one of the
+party. It is then placed in an ant-hill and a pig is sacrificed over
+it. The next day a small chicken is taken to the place, and after
+a mark supposed to be the dead man's name is made on its head with
+red ochre, it is thrown back into the forest, the priest exclaiming,
+'Take this and go home.' The ceremony is supposed to lay the dead
+man's spirit and at the same time to prevent the tiger from doing
+any further damage. The Baigas believe that the ghost of the victim,
+if not charmed to rest, resides on the head of the tiger and incites
+him to further deeds of blood, rendering him also secure from harm
+by his preternatural watchfulness. [91]
+
+They also think that they can shut up the tiger's _dar_ or jaws,
+so that he cannot bite them, by driving a nail into a tree. The
+forest track from Kanha to Kisli in the Banjar forest reserve of
+Mandla was formerly a haunt of man-eating tigers, to whom a number
+of the wood-cutters and Baiga coolies, clearing the jungle paths,
+fell victims every year. In a large tree, at a dangerous point in the
+track, there could recently be seen a nail, driven into the trunk by
+a Baiga priest, at some height from the ground. It was said that this
+nail shut the mouth of a famous man-eating tiger of the locality and
+prevented him from killing any more victims. As evidence of the truth
+of the story there were shown on the trunk the marks of the tiger's
+claws, where he had been jumping up the tree in the effort to pull
+the nail out of the trunk and get his man-eating powers restored.
+
+
+
+6. Religion.
+
+
+Although the Binjhwar subcaste now profess Hinduism, the religion of
+the Baigas is purely animistic. Their principal deity is Bura Deo, [92]
+who is supposed to reside in a _saj_ tree (_Terminalia tomentosa_); he
+is worshipped in the month of Jeth (May), when goats, fowls, cocoanuts,
+and the liquor of the new mahua crop are offered to him. Thakur Deo
+is the god of the village land and boundaries, and is propitiated
+with a white goat. The Baigas who plough the fields have a ceremony
+called Bidri, which is performed before the breaking of the rains. A
+handful of each kind of grain sown is given by each cultivator to the
+priest, who mixes the grains together and sows a little beneath the
+tree where Thakur Deo lives. After this he returns a little to each
+cultivator, and he sows it in the centre of the land on which crops
+are to be grown, while the priest keeps the remainder. This ceremony
+is believed to secure the success of the harvest. Dulha Deo is the
+god who averts disease and accident, and the offering made to him
+should consist of a fowl or goat of reddish colour. Bhimsen is the
+deity of rainfall, and Dharti Mata or Mother Earth is considered to be
+the wife of Thakur Deo, and must also be propitiated for the success
+of the crops. The grain itself is worshipped at the threshing floor
+by sprinkling water and liquor on to it. Certain Hindu deities are
+also worshipped by the Baigas, but not in orthodox fashion. Thus it
+would be sacrilege on the part of a Hindu to offer animal sacrifices
+to Narayan Deo, the sun-god, but the Baigas devote to him a special
+oblation of the most unclean animal, the pig. The animal to be
+sacrificed is allowed to wander loose for two or three years, and is
+then killed in a most cruel manner. It is laid across the threshold of
+a doorway on its back, and across its stomach is placed a stout plank
+of _saj_-wood. Half a dozen men sit or stand on the ends of this, and
+the fore and hind feet of the pig are pulled backwards and forwards
+alternately over the plank until it is crushed to death, while all
+the men sing or shout a sacrificial hymn. The head and feet are cut
+off and offered to the deity, and the body is eaten. The forests are
+believed to be haunted by spirits, and in certain localities _pats_
+or shrines are erected in their honour, and occasional offerings are
+made to them. The spirits of married persons are supposed to live in
+streams, while trees afford a shelter to the souls of the unmarried,
+who become _bhuts_ or malignant spirits after death. Nag Deo or the
+cobra is supposed to live in an ant-hill, and offerings are made to
+him there. Demoniacal possession is an article of faith, and a popular
+remedy is to burn human hair mixed with chillies and pig's dung near
+the person possessed, as the horrible smell thus produced will drive
+away the spirit. Many and weird, Mr. Low writes, are the simples
+which the Baiga's travelling scrip contains. Among these a dried bat
+has the chief place; this the Baiga says he uses to charm his nets
+with, that the prey may catch in them as the bat's claws catch in
+whatever it touches. As an instance of the Baiga's pantheism it may
+be mentioned that on one occasion when a train of the new Satpura
+railway [93] had pulled up at a wayside forest station, a Baiga was
+found offering a sacrifice to the engine. Like other superstitious
+people they are great believers in omens. A single crow bathing in
+a stream is a sign of death. A cock which crows in the night should
+be instantly killed and thrown into the darkness, a custom which some
+would be glad to see introduced into much more civilised centres. The
+woodpecker and owl are birds of bad omen. The Baigas do not appear to
+have any idea of a fresh birth, and one of their marriage songs says,
+"O girl, take your pleasure in going round the marriage-post once and
+for all, for there is no second birth." The Baigas are generally the
+priests of the Gonds, probably because being earlier residents of
+the country they are considered to have a more intimate acquaintance
+with the local deities. They have a wide knowledge of the medicinal
+properties of jungle roots and herbs, and are often successful in
+effecting cures when the regular native doctors have failed. Their
+village priests have consequently a considerable reputation as skilled
+sorcerers and persons conversant with the unseen world. A case is
+known of a Brahman transferred to a jungle station, who immediately
+after his arrival called in a Baiga priest and asked what forest gods
+he should worship, and what other steps he should take to keep well
+and escape calamity. Colonel Ward states that in his time Baigas were
+commonly called in to give aid when a town or village was attacked
+by cholera, and further that he had seen the greatest benefit to
+result from their visit. For the people had so much confidence in
+their powers and ceremonies that they lost half their fright at once,
+and were consequently not so much predisposed to an attack of the
+disease. On such an occasion the Baiga priest goes round the village
+and pulls out a little straw from each house-roof, afterwards burning
+the whole before the shrine of Khermata, the goddess of the village,
+to whom he also offers a chicken for each homestead. If this remedy
+fails goats are substituted for chickens, and lastly, as a forlorn
+hope, pigs are tried, and, as a rule, do not fail, because by this
+time the disease may be expected to have worked itself out. It is
+suggested that the chicken represents a human victim from each house,
+while the straw stands for the house itself, and the offering has
+the common idea of a substituted victim.
+
+
+
+7. Appearance and mode of life.
+
+
+In stature the Baigas are a little taller than most other tribes,
+and though they have a tendency to the flat nose of the Gonds,
+their foreheads and the general shape of their heads are of a better
+mould. Colonel Ward states that the members of the tribe inhabiting
+the Maikal range in Mandla are a much finer race than those living
+nearer the open country. [94] Their figures are very nearly perfect,
+says Colonel Bloomfield, [95] and their wiry limbs, unburdened by
+superfluous flesh, will carry them over very great distances and
+over places inaccessible to most human beings, while their compact
+bodies need no other nutriment than the scanty fare afforded by their
+native forests. They are born hunters, hardy and active in the chase,
+and exceedingly bold and courageous. In character they are naturally
+simple, honest and truthful, and when their fear of a stranger has
+been dissipated are most companionable folk. A small hut, 6 or 7 feet
+high at the ridge, made of split bamboos and mud, with a neat veranda
+in front thatched with leaves and grass, forms the Baiga's residence,
+and if it is burnt down, or abandoned on a visitation of epidemic
+disease, he can build another in the space of a day. A rough earthen
+vessel to hold water, leaves for plates, gourds for drinking-vessels,
+a piece of matting to sleep on, and a small axe, a sickle and a spear,
+exhaust the inventory of the Baiga's furniture, and the money value
+of the whole would not exceed a rupee. [96] The Baigas never live in
+a village with other castes, but have their huts some distance away
+from the village in the jungle. Unlike the other tribes also, the
+Baiga prefers his house to stand alone and at some little distance
+from those of his fellow-tribesmen. While nominally belonging to
+the village near which they dwell, so separate and distinct are
+they from the rest of people that in the famine of 1897 cases were
+found of starving Baiga hamlets only a few hundred yards away from
+the village proper in which ample relief was being given. On being
+questioned as to why they had not caused the Baigas to be helped,
+the other villagers said, 'We did not remember them'; and when the
+Baigas were asked why they did not apply for relief, they said,
+'We did not think it was meant for Baigas.'
+
+
+
+8. Dress and food.
+
+
+Their dress is of the most simple description, a small strip of rag
+between the legs and another wisp for a head-covering sufficing for
+the men, though the women are decently covered from their shoulders
+to half-way between the thighs and knees. A Baiga may be known by his
+scanty clothing and tangled hair, and his wife by the way in which
+her single garment is arranged so as to provide a safe sitting-place
+in it for her child. Baiga women have been seen at work in the field
+transplanting rice with babies comfortably seated in their cloth,
+one sometimes supported on either hip with their arms and legs out,
+while the mother was stooping low, hour after hour, handling the rice
+plants. A girl is tattooed on the forehead at the age of five, and over
+her whole body before she is married, both for the sake of ornament and
+because the practice is considered beneficial to the health. The Baigas
+are usually without blankets or warm clothing, and in the cold season
+they sleep round a wood fire kept burning or smouldering all night,
+stray sparks from which may alight on their tough skins without being
+felt. Mr. Lampard relates that on one occasion a number of Baiga men
+were supplied by the Mission under his charge with large new cloths
+to cover their bodies with and make them presentable on appearance in
+church. On the second Sunday, however, they came with their cloths
+burnt full of small holes; and they explained that the damage had
+been done at night while they were sleeping round the fire.
+
+A Baiga, Mr. Lampard continues, is speedily discerned in a forest
+village bazar, and is the most interesting object in it. His almost
+nude figure, wild, tangled hair innocent of such inventions as brush
+or comb, lithe wiry limbs and jungly and uncivilised appearance,
+mark him out at once. He generally brings a few mats or baskets which
+he has made, or fruits, roots, honey, horns of animals, or other
+jungle products which he has collected, for sale, and with the sum
+obtained (a few pice or annas at the most) he proceeds to make his
+weekly purchases, changing his pice into cowrie shells, of which he
+receives eighty for each one. He buys tobacco, salt, chillies and
+other sundries, besides as much of kodon, kutki, or perhaps rice, as
+he can afford, always leaving a trifle to be expended at the liquor
+shop before departing for home. The various purchases are tied up in
+the corners of the bit of rag twisted round his head. Unlike pieces
+of cloth known to civilisation, which usually have four corners,
+the Baiga's headgear appears to be nothing but corners, and when the
+shopping is done the strip of rag may have a dozen minute bundles
+tied up in it.
+
+In Baihar of Balaghat buying and selling are conducted on perhaps
+the most minute scale known, and if a Baiga has one or two pice [97]
+to lay out he will spend no inconsiderable time over it. Grain is
+sold in small measures holding about four ounces called _baraiyas_,
+but each of these has a layer of mud at the bottom of varying degrees
+of thickness, so as to reduce its capacity. Before a purchase can be
+made it must be settled by whose _baraiya_ the grain is to be measured,
+and the seller and purchaser each refuse the other's as being unfair
+to himself, until at length after discussion some neutral person's
+_baraiya_ is selected as a compromise. Their food consists largely
+of forest fruits and roots with a scanty allowance of rice or the
+light millets, and they can go without nourishment for periods which
+appear extraordinary to civilised man. They eat the flesh of almost
+all animals, though the more civilised abjure beef and monkeys. They
+will take food from a Gond but not from a Brahman. The Baiga dearly
+loves the common country liquor made from the mahua flower, and this is
+consumed as largely as funds will permit of at weddings, funerals and
+other social gatherings, and also if obtainable at other times. They
+have a tribal _panchayat_ or committee which imposes penalties for
+social offences, one punishment being the abstention from meat for a
+fixed period. A girl going wrong with a man of the caste is punished
+by a fine, but cases of unchastity among unmarried Baiga girls are
+rare. Among their pastimes dancing is one of the chief, and in their
+favourite dance, known as _karma_, the men and women form long lines
+opposite to each other with the musicians between them. One of the
+instruments, a drum called _mandar_, gives out a deep bass note which
+can be heard for miles. The two lines advance and retire, everybody
+singing at the same time, and when the dancers get fully into the
+time and swing, the pace increases, the drums beat furiously, the
+voices of the singers rise higher and higher, and by the light of the
+bonfires which are kept burning the whole scene is wild in the extreme.
+
+
+
+9. Occupation.
+
+
+The Baigas formerly practised only shifting cultivation, burning down
+patches of jungle and sowing seed on the ground fertilised by the
+ashes after the breaking of the rains. Now that this method has been
+prohibited in Government forest, attempts have been made to train them
+to regular cultivation, but with indifferent success in Balaghat. An
+idea of the difficulties to be encountered may be obtained from the
+fact that in some villages the Baiga cultivators, if left unwatched,
+would dig up the grain which they had themselves sown as seed in
+their fields and eat it; while the plough-cattle which were given to
+them invariably developed diseases in spite of all precautions, as a
+result of which they found their way sooner or later to the Baiga's
+cooking-pot. But they are gradually adopting settled habits, and in
+Mandla, where a considerable block of forest was allotted to them
+in which they might continue their destructive practice of shifting
+sowings, it is reported that the majority have now become regular
+cultivators. One explanation of their refusal to till the ground is
+that they consider it a sin to lacerate the breast of their mother
+earth with a ploughshare. They also say that God made the jungle to
+produce everything necessary for the sustenance of men and made the
+Baigas kings of the forest, giving them wisdom to discover the things
+provided for them. To Gonds and others who had not this knowledge, the
+inferior occupation of tilling the land was left. The men never become
+farmservants, but during the cultivating season they work for hire at
+uprooting the rice seedlings for transplantation; they do no other
+agricultural labour for others. Women do the actual transplantation
+of rice and work as harvesters. The men make bamboo mats and baskets,
+which they sell in the village weekly markets. They also collect
+and sell honey and other forest products, and are most expert at all
+work that can be done with an axe, making excellent woodcutters. But
+they show no aptitude in acquiring the use of any other implement,
+and dislike steady continuous labour, preferring to do a few days'
+work and then rest in their homes for a like period before beginning
+again. Their skill and dexterity in the use of the axe in hunting
+is extraordinary. Small deer, hares and peacocks are often knocked
+over by throwing it at them, and panthers and other large animals
+are occasionally killed with a single blow. If one of two Baigas
+is carried off by a tiger, the survivor will almost always make a
+determined and often successful attempt to rescue him with nothing
+more formidable than an axe or a stick. They are expert trackers,
+and are also clever at setting traps and snares, while, like Korkus,
+they catch fish by damming streams in the hot weather and throwing into
+the pool thus formed some leaf or root which stupefies them. Even in
+a famine year, Mr. Low says, a Baiga can collect a large basketful of
+roots in a single day; and if the bamboo seeds he is amply provided
+for. Nowadays Baiga cultivators may occasionally be met with who have
+taken to regular cultivation and become quite prosperous, owning a
+number of cattle.
+
+
+
+10. Language.
+
+
+As already stated, the Baigas have completely forgotten their own
+language, and in the Satpura hills they speak a broken form of Hindi,
+though they have a certain number of words and expressions peculiar
+to the caste.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+Bairagi
+
+
+
+List of Paragraphs
+
+
+ 1.  _Definition of name and statistics._
+ 2.  _The four Sampradayas or main orders._
+ 3.  _The Ramanujis._
+ 4.  _The Ramanandis._
+ 5.  _The Nimanandis._
+ 6.  _The Madhavacharyas._
+ 7.  _The Vallabhacharyas._
+ 8.  _Minor sects._
+ 9.  _The seven Akharas._
+10.  _The Dwaras._
+11.  _Initiation, appearance and customs._
+12.  _Recruitment of the order and its character._
+13.  _Social position and customs._
+14.  _Bairagi monasteries._
+15.  _Married Bairagis._
+
+
+
+1. Definition of name and statistics.
+
+
+
+_Bairagi_, [98] _Sadhu_.--The general term for members of the Vishnuite
+religious orders, who formerly as a rule lived by mendicancy. The
+Bairagis have now, however, become a caste. In 1911 they numbered
+38,000 persons in the Provinces, being distributed over all Districts
+and States. The name Bairagi is supposed to come from the Sanskrit
+Vairagya and to signify one who is free from human passions. Bairaga is
+also the term for the crutched stick which such mendicants frequently
+carry about with them and lean upon, either sitting or standing, and
+which in case of need would serve them as a weapon. Platts considers
+[99] that the name of the order comes from the Sanskrit abstract
+term, and the crutch therefore apparently obtained its name from
+being used by members of the order. Properly, a religious mendicant
+of any Vishnuite sect should be called a Bairagi. But the term is not
+generally applied to the more distinctive sects as the Kabirpanthi,
+Swami-Narayan, Satnami and others, some of which are almost separated
+from Hinduism, nor to the Sikh religious orders, nor the Chaitanya
+sect of Bengal. A proper Bairagi is one whose principal deity is
+either Vishnu or either of his great incarnations, Rama and Krishna.
+
+
+
+2. The four Sampradayas or main orders.
+
+
+It is generally held that there are four Sampradayas or main sects
+of Bairagis. These are--
+
+(_a_) The Ramanujis, the followers of the first prominent Vishnuite
+reformer Ramanuj in southern India, with whom are classed the
+Ramanandis or adherents of his great disciple Ramanand in northern
+India. Both these are also called Sri Vaishnava, that is, the principal
+or original Vaishnava sect.
+
+(_b_) The Nimanandi, Nimat or Nimbaditya sect, followers of a saint
+called Nimanand.
+
+(_c_) The Vishnu-Swami or Vallabhacharya sect, worshippers of Krishna
+and Radha.
+
+(_d_) The Madhavacharya sect of southern India.
+
+It will be desirable to give a few particulars of each of these,
+mainly taken from Wilson's _Hindu Sects_ and Dr. Bhattacharya's _Hindu
+Castes and Sects_.
+
+
+
+3. The Ramanujis.
+
+
+Ramanuj was the first great Vishnuite prophet, and lived in southern
+India in the eleventh or twelfth century on an island in the Kaveri
+river near Trichinopoly. He preached the worship of a supreme spirit,
+Vishnu and his consort Lakshmi, and taught that men also had souls
+or spirits, and that matter was lifeless. He was a strong opponent
+of the cult of Siva, then predominant in southern India, and of
+phallic worship. He, however, admitted only the higher castes into
+his order, and cannot therefore be considered as the founder of the
+liberalising principle of Vishnuism. The superiors of the Ramanuja
+sect are called Acharya, and rank highest among the priests of the
+Vishnuite orders. The most striking feature in the practice of the
+Ramanujis is the separate preparation and scrupulous privacy of their
+meals. They must not eat in cotton garments, but must bathe, and then
+put on wool or silk. The teachers allow their select pupils to assist
+them, but in general all the Ramanujis cook for themselves, and should
+the meal during this process, or while they are eating, attract even
+the look of a stranger, the operation is instantly stopped and the
+viands buried in the ground. The Ramanujis address each other with the
+salutation Dasoham, or 'I am your slave,' accompanied with the Pranam
+or slight inclination of the head and the application of joined hands
+to the forehead. To the Acharyas or superiors the other members of the
+sect perform the Ashtanga or prostration of the body with eight parts
+touching the ground. The _tilak_ or sect-mark of the Ramanujis consists
+of two perpendicular white lines from the roots of the hair to the top
+of the eyebrows, with a connecting white line at the base, and a third
+central line either of red or yellow. The Ramanujis do not recognise
+the worship of Radha, the consort of Krishna. The mendicant orders
+of the Satanis and Dasaris of southern India are branches of this sect.
+
+
+
+4. The Ramanandis
+
+
+Ramanand, the great prophet of Vishnuism in northern India, and the
+real founder of the liberal doctrines of the cult, lived at Benares
+at the end of the fourteenth century, and is supposed to have been a
+follower of Ramanuj. He introduced, however, a great extension of his
+predecessor's gospel in making his sect, nominally at least, open to
+all castes. He thus initiated the struggle against the social tyranny
+and exclusiveness of the caste system, which was carried to greater
+lengths by his disciples and successors, Kabir, Nanak, Dadu, Rai Das
+and others. These afterwards proclaimed the worship of one unseen god
+who could not be represented by idols, and the religious equality of
+all men, their tenets no doubt being considerably influenced by their
+observance of Islam, which had now become a principal religion of
+India. Ramanand himself did not go so far, and remained a good Hindu,
+inculcating the special worship of Rama and his consort Sita. The
+Ramaaandis consider the Ramayana as their most sacred book, and make
+pilgrimages to Ajodhia and Ramnath. [100] Their sect-mark consists of
+two white lines down the forehead with a red one between, but they are
+continued on to the nose, ending in a loop, instead of terminating at
+the line of the eyebrows, like that of the Ramanujis. The Ramanandis
+say that the mark on the nose represents the Singasun or lion's throne,
+while the two white lines up the forehead are Rama and Lakhshman, and
+the centre red one is Sita. Some of their devotees wear ochre-coloured
+clothes like the Sivite mendicants.
+
+
+
+5. The Nimanandis.
+
+
+The second of the four orders is that of the Nimanandis, called
+after a saint Nimanand. He lived near Mathura Brindaban, and on one
+occasion was engaged in religious controversy with a Jain ascetic
+till sunset. He then offered his visitor some refreshment, but the
+Jain could not eat anything after sunset, so Nimanand stopped the
+sun from setting, and ordered him to wait above a _nim_ tree till the
+meal was cooked and eaten under the tree, and this direction the sun
+duly obeyed. Hence Nimanand, whose original name was Bhaskaracharya,
+was called by his new name after the tree, and was afterwards held
+to have been an incarnation of Vishnu or the Sun.
+
+The doctrines of the sect, Mr. Growse states, [101] are of a very
+enlightened character. Thus their tenet of salvation by faith is
+thought by many scholars to have been directly derived from the
+Gospels; while another article in their creed is the continuance of
+conscious individual existence in a future world, when the highest
+reward of the good will not be extinction, but the enjoyment of
+the visible presence of the divinity whom they have served while
+on earth. The Nimanandis worship Krishna, and were the first sect,
+Dr. Bhattacharya states, [102] to associate with him as a divine
+consort Radha, the chief partner of his illicit loves.
+
+Their headquarters are at Muttra, and their chief festival is the
+Janam-Ashtami [103] or Krishna's birthday. Their sect-mark consists of
+two white lines down the forehead with a black patch in the centre,
+which is called Shiambindini. Shiam means black, and is a name of
+Krishna. They also sometimes have a circular line across the nose,
+which represents the moon.
+
+
+
+6. The Madhavacharyas.
+
+
+The third great order is that of the Madhavas, named after a saint
+called Madhavacharya in southern India. He attempted to reconcile the
+warring Sivites and Vishnuites by combining the worship of Krishna with
+that of Siva and Parvati. The doctrine of the sect is that the human
+soul is different from the divine soul, and its members are therefore
+called dualists. They admit a distinction between the divine soul and
+the universe, and between the human soul and the material world. They
+deny also the possibility of Nirvana or the absorption and extinction
+of the human soul in the divine essence. They destroy their thread
+at initiation, and also wear red clothes like the Sivite devotees,
+and like them also they carry a staff and water-pot. The _tilak_
+of the Madhavacharyas is said to consist of two white lines down the
+forehead and continued on to the nose where they meet, with a black
+vertical line between them.
+
+
+
+7. The Vallabhacharyas.
+
+
+The fourth main order is the Vishnu-Swami, which is much better known
+as the Vallabhacharya sect, called after its founder Vallabha, who
+was born in A.D. 1479. The god Krishna appeared to him and ordered
+him to marry and set up a shrine to the god at Gokul near Mathura
+(Muttra). The sect worship Krishna in his character of Bala Gopala
+or the cowherd boy. Their temples are numerous all over India, and
+especially at Mathura and Brindaban, where Krishna was brought up
+as a cowherd. The temples at Benares, Jagannath and Dwarka are rich
+and important, but the most celebrated shrine is at Sri Nathadwara
+in Mewar. The image is said to have transported itself thither
+from Mathura, when Aurangzeb ordered its temple at Mathura to be
+destroyed. Krishna is here represented as a little boy in the act of
+supporting the mountain Govardhan on his finger to shelter the people
+from the storms of rain sent by Indra. The image is splendidly dressed
+and richly decorated with ornaments to the value of several thousand
+pounds. The images of Krishna in the temples are commonly known as
+Thakurji, and are either of stone or brass. At all Vallabhacharya
+temples there are eight daily services: the Mangala or morning _levée_,
+a little after sunrise, when the god is taken from his couch and
+bathed; the Sringara, when he is attired in his jewels and seated on
+his throne; the Gwala, when he is supposed to be starting to graze
+his cattle in the woods of Braj; the Raj Bhog or midday meal, which,
+after presentation, is consumed by the priests and votaries who
+have assisted at the ceremonies; the Uttapan, about three o'clock,
+when the god awakes from his siesta; the Bhog or evening collation;
+the Sandhiya or disrobing at sunset; and the Sayan or retiring to
+rest. The ritual is performed by the priests and the lay worshipper
+is only a spectator, who shows his reverence by the same forms as he
+would to a human superior. [104]
+
+The priests of the sect are called Gokalastha Gosain or Maharaja. They
+are considered to be incarnations of the god, and divine honours
+are paid to them. They always marry, and avow that union with the
+god is best obtained by indulgence in all bodily enjoyments. This
+doctrine has led to great licentiousness in some groups of the sect,
+especially on the part of the priests or Maharajas. Women were taught
+to believe that the service of and contact with the priest were the
+most real form of worshipping the god, and that intercourse with him
+was equivalent to being united with the god. Dr. Bhattacharya quotes
+[105] the following tariff for the privilege of obtaining different
+degrees of contact with the body of the Maharaja or priest:
+
+
+    For homage by sight                                   Rs.   5.
+    For homage by touch                                   Rs.  20.
+    For the honour of washing the Maharaja's foot         Rs.  35.
+    For swinging him                                      Rs.  40.
+    For rubbing sweet unguents on his body                Rs.  42.
+    For being allowed to sit with him on the same couch   Rs.  60.
+    For the privilege of dancing with him                 Rs. 100
+    to 200.
+    For drinking the water in which he has bathed         Rs.  17.
+    For being closeted with him in the same room          Rs. 50 to 500.
+
+
+The public disapprobation caused by these practices and their bad
+effect on the morality of women culminated in the great Maharaj libel
+suit in the Bombay High Court in 1862. Since then the objectionable
+features of the cult have to a large extent disappeared, while it has
+produced some priests of exceptional liberality and enlightenment. The
+_tilak_ of the Vallabhacharyas is said to consist of two white lines
+down the forehead, forming a half-circle at its base and a white dot
+between them. They will not admit the lower castes into the order,
+but only those from whom a Brahman can take water.
+
+
+
+8. Minor sects.
+
+
+Besides the main sects as described above, Vaishnavism has produced
+many minor sects, consisting of the followers of some saint of special
+fame, and mendicants belonging to these are included in the body of
+Bairagis. One or two legends concerning such saints may be given. A
+common order is that of the Bendiwale, or those who wear a dot. Their
+founder began putting a red dot on his forehead between the two white
+lines in place of the long red line of the Ramanandis. His associates
+asked him why he had dared to alter his _tilak_ or sect-mark. He said
+that the goddess Janki had given him the dot, and as a test he went
+and bathed in the Sarju river, and rubbed his forehead with water,
+and all the sect-mark was rubbed out except the dot. So the others
+recognised the special intervention of the goddess, and he founded a
+sect. Another sect is called the Chaturbhuji or four-armed, Chaturbhuj
+being an epithet of Vishnu. He was taking part in a feast when his
+loin-cloth came undone behind, and the others said to him that as
+this had happened, he had become impure at the feast. He replied,
+'Let him to whom the _dhoti_ belongs tie it up,' and immediately
+four arms sprang from his body, and while two continued to take food,
+the other two tied up his loin-cloth behind. Thus it was recognised
+that the Chaturbhuji Vishnu had appeared in him, and he was venerated.
+
+
+
+9. The seven Akharas.
+
+
+Among the Bairagis, besides the four Sampradayas or main orders,
+there are seven Akharas. These are military divisions or schools for
+training, and were instituted when the Bairagis had to fight with the
+Gosains. Any member of one of the four Sampradayas can belong to any
+one of the seven Akharas, and a man can change his Akhara as often as
+he likes, but not his Sampradaya. The Akharas, with the exception of
+the Lasgaris, who change the red centre line of the Ramanandis into
+a white line, have no special sect-marks. They are distinguished by
+their flags or standards, which are elaborately decorated with gold
+thread embroidered on silk or sometimes with jewels, and cost two
+or three hundred rupees to prepare. These standards were carried
+by the Naga or naked members of the Akhara, who went in front and
+fought. Once in twelve years a great meeting of all the seven Akharas
+is held at Allahabad, Nasik, Ujjain or Hardwar, where they bathe and
+wash the image of the god in the water of the holy rivers. The quarrels
+between the Bairagis and Gosains usually occurred at the sacred rivers,
+and the point of contention was which sect should bathe first. The
+following is a list of the seven Akharas: Digambari, Khaki, Munjia,
+Kathia, Nirmohi, Nirbani or Niranjani and Lasgari.
+
+The name of the Digamber or Meghdamber signifies sky-clad or
+cloud-clad, that is naked. They do penance in the rainy season
+by sitting naked in the rain for two or three hours a day with an
+earthen pot on the head and the hands inserted in two others so that
+they cannot rub the skin. In the dry season they wear only a little
+cloth round the waist and ashes over the rest of the body. The ashes
+are produced from burnt cowdung picked up off the ground, and not
+mixed with straw like that which is prepared for fuel.
+
+The Khaki Bairagis also rub ashes on the body. During the four hot
+months they make five fires in a circle, and kneel between them with
+the head and legs and arms stretched towards the fires. The fires are
+kindled at noon with little heaps of cowdung cakes, and the penitent
+stays between them till they go out. They also have a block of wood
+with a hole through it, into which they insert the organ of generation
+and suspend it by chains in front and behind. They rub ashes on the
+body, from which they probably get their name of Khaki or dust-colour.
+
+The Munjia Akhara have a belt made of _munj_ grass round the waist,
+and a little apron also of grass, which is hung from it, and passed
+through the legs. Formerly they wore no other clothes, but now they
+have a cloth. They also do penance between the fires.
+
+The Kathias have a waist-belt of bamboo fibre, to which is suspended
+the wooden block for the purpose already described. Their name
+signifies wooden, and is probably given to them on account of this
+custom.
+
+The Nirmohi carry a _lota_ or brass vessel and a little cup, in which
+they receive alms.
+
+The Nirbani wear only a piece of string or rope round the waist, to
+which is attached a small strip of cloth passing through the legs. When
+begging, they carry a _kawar_ or banghy, holding two baskets covered
+with cloth, and into this they put all their alms. They never remove
+the cloth, but plunge their hands into the basket at random when
+they want something to eat. They call the basket Kamdhenu, the name
+of the cow which gave inexhaustible wealth. These Bairagis commonly
+marry and accumulate property.
+
+The Lasgari are soldiers, as the name denotes. [106] They wear three
+straight lines of sandalwood up the forehead. It is said that on one
+occasion the Bairagis were suddenly attacked by the Gosains when they
+had only made the white lines of the sect-mark, and they fought as
+they were. In consequence of this, they have ever since worn three
+white lines and no red one.
+
+Others say that the Lasgari are a branch of the Digambari Akhara,
+and that the Munjia and Kathia are branches of the Khaki Akhara. They
+give three other Akharas--Niralankhi, Mahanirbani and Santokhi--about
+which nothing is known.
+
+
+
+10. The Dwaras.
+
+
+Besides the Akharas, the Bairagis are said to have fifty-two Dwaras
+or doors, and every man must be a member of a Dwara as well as of a
+Sampradaya and Akhara. The Dwaras seem to have no special purpose,
+but in the case of Bairagis who marry, they now serve as exogamous
+sections, so that members of the same Dwara do not intermarry.
+
+
+
+11. Initiation, appearance and customs.
+
+
+A candidate for initiation has his head shaved, is invested with a
+necklace of beads of the _tulsi_ or basil, and is taught a _mantra_
+or text relating to Vishnu by his preceptor. The initiation
+text of the Ramanandis is said to be _Om Ramaya Namah_, or _Om_,
+Salutation to Rama. _Om_ is a very sacred syllable, having much magical
+power. Thereafter the novice must journey to Dwarka in Gujarat and have
+his body branded with hot iron or copper in the shape of Vishnu's four
+implements: the _chakra_ or discus, the _guda_ or club, the _shank_ or
+conch-shell and the _padma_ or lotus. Sometimes these are not branded
+but are made daily on the arms with clay. The sect-mark should be made
+with Gopichandan or the milkmaid's sandalwood. This is supposed to be
+clay taken from a tank at Dwarka, in which the Gopis or milkmaids who
+had been Krishna's companions drowned themselves when they heard of his
+death. But as this can seldom be obtained any suitable whitish clay is
+used instead. The Bairagis commonly let their hair grow long, after
+being shaved at initiation, to imitate the old forest ascetics. If
+a man makes a pilgrimage on foot to some famous shrine he may have
+his head shaved there and make an offering of his hair. Others keep
+their hair long and shave it only at the death of their _guru_ or
+preceptor. They usually wear white clothes, and if a man has a cloth
+on the upper part of the body it should be folded over the shoulders
+and knotted at the neck. He also has a _chimta_ or small pair of tongs,
+and, if he can obtain it, the skin of an Indian antelope, on which he
+will sit while taking his food. The skin of this animal is held to be
+sacred. Every Bairagi before he takes his food should dip a sprig of
+_tulsi_ or basil into it to sanctify it, and if he cannot get this he
+uses his necklace of _tulsi_-beads for the purpose instead. The caste
+abstain from flesh and liquor, but are addicted to the intoxicating
+drugs, _ganja_ and _bhang_ or preparations of Indian hemp. A Hindu
+on meeting a Bairagi will greet him with the phrase 'Jai Sitaram,'
+and the Bairagi will answer, 'Sitaram.' This word is a conjunction
+of the names of Rama and his consort Sita. When a Bairagi receives
+alms he will present to the giver a flower and a sprig of _tulsi_.
+
+
+
+12. Recruitment of the order and its character.
+
+
+A man belonging to any caste except the impure ones can be initiated
+as a Bairagi, and the order is to a large extent recruited from
+the lower castes. Theoretically all members of the order should
+eat together; but the Brahmans and other high castes belonging
+to it now eat only among themselves, except on the occasion of a
+Ghosti or special religious assembly, when all eat in common. As a
+matter of fact the order is a very mixed assortment of people. Many
+persons who lost their caste in the famine of 1897 from eating in
+Government poor-houses, joined the order and obtained a respectable
+position. Debtors who have become hopelessly involved sometimes find
+in it a means of escape from their creditors. Women of bad character,
+who have been expelled from their caste, are also frequently enrolled
+as female members, and in monasteries live openly with the men. The
+caste is also responsible for a good deal of crime. Not only is the
+disguise a very convenient one for thieves and robbers to assume on
+their travels, but many regular members of the order are criminally
+disposed. Nevertheless large numbers of Bairagis are men who have given
+up their caste and families from a genuine impulse of self-sacrifice,
+and the desire to lead a religious life.
+
+
+
+13. Social position and customs.
+
+
+On account of their sanctity the Bairagis have a fairly good social
+position, and respectable Hindu castes will accept cooked food
+from them. Brahmans usually, but not always, take water. They act
+as _gurus_ or spiritual guides to the laymen of all castes who can
+become Bairagis. They give the Ram and Gopal Mantras, or the texts
+of Rama and Krishna, to their disciples of the three twice-born
+castes, and the Sheo Mantra or Siva's text to other castes. The last
+is considered to be of smaller religious efficacy than the others,
+and is given to the lower castes and members of the higher ones who
+do not lead a particularly virtuous life. They invest boys with the
+sacred thread, and make the sect-mark on their foreheads. When they
+go and visit their disciples they receive presents, but do not ask
+them to confess their sins nor impose penalties.
+
+If a mendicant Bairagi keeps a woman it is stated that he is expelled
+from the community, but this rule does not seem to be enforced in
+practice. If he is detected in a casual act of sexual intercourse
+a fine should be imposed, such as feeding two or three hundred
+Bairagis. The property of an unmarried Bairagi descends to a selected
+_chela_ or disciple. The bodies of the dead are usually burnt, but
+those of saints specially famous for their austerities or piety are
+buried, and salt is put round the body to preserve it. Such men are
+known as Bhakta.
+
+
+
+14. Bairagi monasteries.
+
+
+The Bairagis [107] have numerous _maths_ or monasteries, scattered
+over the country and usually attached to temples. The Math comprises a
+set of huts or chambers for the Mahant or superior and his permanent
+pupils; a temple and often the Samadhi or tomb of the founder, or
+of some eminent Mahant; and a Dharmsala or charitable hostel for
+the accommodation of wandering members of the order, and of other
+travellers who are constantly visiting the temple. Ingress and egress
+are free to all, and, indeed, a restraint on personal liberty seems
+never to have entered into the conception of any Hindu religious
+legislator. There are, as a rule, a small number of resident _chelas_
+or disciples who are scholars and attendants on the superiors,
+and also out-members who travel over the country and return to the
+monastery as a headquarters. The monastery has commonly some small
+endowment in land, and the resident _chelas_ go out and beg for alms
+for their common support. If the Mahant is married the headship may
+descend in his family; but when he is unmarried his successor is one
+of his disciples, who is commonly chosen by election at a meeting of
+the Mahants of neighbouring monasteries. Formerly the Hindu governor
+of the district would preside at such an election, but it is now,
+of course, left entirely to the Bairagis themselves.
+
+
+
+15. Married Bairagis.
+
+
+Large numbers of Bairagis now marry and have children, and have
+formed an ordinary caste. The married Bairagis are held to be
+inferior to the celibate mendicants, and will take food from them,
+but the mendicants will not permit the married Bairagis to eat with
+them in the _chauka_ or place purified for the taking of food. The
+customs of the married Bairagis resemble those of ordinary Hindu
+castes such as the Kurmis. They permit divorce and the remarriage
+of widows, and burn the dead. Those who have taken to cultivation
+do not, as a rule, plough with their own hands. Many Bairagis have
+acquired property and become landholders, and others have extensive
+moneylending transactions. Two such men who had acquired possession
+of extensive tracts of zamindari land in Chhattisgarh, in satisfaction
+of loans made to the Gond zamindars, and had been given the zamindari
+status by the Marathas, were subsequently made Feudatory Chiefs of
+the Nandgaon and Chhuikhadan States. These chiefs now marry and the
+States descend in their families by primogeniture in the ordinary
+manner. As a rule, the Bairagi landowners and moneylenders are not
+found to be particularly good specimens of their class.
+
+
+
+Balahi
+
+
+
+1. General notice.
+
+
+_Balahi._ [108]--A low functional caste of weavers and village
+watchmen found in the Nimar and Hoshangabad Districts and in Central
+India. They numbered 52,000 persons in the Central Provinces in
+1911, being practically confined to the two Districts already
+mentioned. The name is a corruption of the Hindi _bulahi_, one who
+calls, or a messenger. The Balahis seem to be an occupational group,
+probably an offshoot of the large Kori caste of weavers, one of
+whose subdivisions is shown as Balahi in the United Provinces. In
+the Central Provinces they have received accretions from the spinner
+caste of Katias, themselves probably a branch of the Koris, and
+from the Mahars, the great menial caste of Bombay. In Hoshangabad
+they are known alternatively as Mahar, while in Burhanpur they are
+called Bunkar or weaver by outsiders. The following story which they
+tell about themselves also indicates their mixed origin. They say
+that their ancestors came to Nimar as part of the army of Raja Man
+of Jodhpur, who invaded the country when it was under Muhammadan
+rule. He was defeated, and his soldiers were captured and ordered
+to be killed. [109] One of the Balahis among them won the favour of
+the Muhammadan general and asked for his own freedom and that of the
+other Balahis from among the prisoners. The Musalman replied that
+he would be unable to determine which of the prisoners were really
+Balahis. On this the Balahi, whose name was Ganga Kochla, replied
+that he had an effective test. He therefore killed a cow, cooked its
+flesh and invited the prisoners to partake of it. So many of them
+as consented to eat were considered to be Balahis and liberated; but
+many members of other castes thus obtained their freedom, and they and
+their descendants are now included in the community. The subcastes
+or endogamous groups distinctly indicate the functional character
+of the caste, the names given being Nimari, Gannore, Katia, Kori and
+Mahar. Of these Katia, Kori and Mahar are the names of distinct castes,
+Nimari is a local subdivision indicating those who speak the peculiar
+dialect of this tract, and the Gannore are no doubt named after the
+Rajput clan of that name, of whom their ancestors were not improbably
+the illegitimate offspring. The Nimari Balahis are said to rank lower
+than the rest, as they will eat the flesh of dead cattle which the
+others refuse to do. They may not take water from the village well,
+and unless a separate one can be assigned to them, must pay others
+to draw water for them. Partly no doubt in the hope of escaping from
+this degraded position, many of the Nimari group became Christians in
+the famine of 1897. They are considered to be the oldest residents
+of Nimar. At marriages the Balahi receives as his perquisite the
+leaf-plates used for feasts with the leavings of food upon them;
+and at funerals he takes the cloth which covers the corpse on its
+way to the burning-_ghat_. In Nimar the Korkus and Balahis each
+have a separate burying-ground which is known as Murghata. [110] The
+Katias weave the finer kinds of cloth and rank a little higher than
+the others. In Burhanpur, as already stated, the caste are known as
+Bunkar, and they are probably identical with the Bunkars of Khandesh;
+Bunkar is simply an occupational term meaning a weaver.
+
+
+
+2. Marriage.
+
+
+The caste have the usual system of exogamous groups, some of which
+are named after villages, while the designations of others are
+apparently nicknames given to the founder of the clan, as Bagmar, a
+tiger-killer, Bhagoria, a runaway, and so on. They employ a Brahman to
+calculate the horoscopes of a bridal couple and fix the date of their
+wedding, but if he says the marriage is inauspicious, they merely
+obtain the permission of the caste _panchayat_ and celebrate it on
+a Saturday or Sunday. Apparently, however, they do not consult real
+Brahmans, but merely priests of their own caste whom they call Balahi
+Brahmans. These Brahmans are, nevertheless, said to recite the Satya
+Narayan Katha. They also have _gurus_ or spiritual preceptors, being
+members of the caste who have joined the mendicant orders; and Bhats
+or genealogists of their own caste who beg at their weddings. They
+have the practice of serving for a wife, known as Gharjamai or
+Lamjhana. When the pauper suitor is finally married at the expense
+of his wife's father, a marriage-shed is erected for him at the house
+of some neighbour, but his own family are not invited to the wedding.
+
+After marriage a girl goes to her husband's house for a few days and
+returns. The first Diwali or Akha-tij festival after the wedding must
+also be passed at the husband's house, but consummation is not effected
+until the _aina_ or _gauna_ ceremony is performed on the attainment
+of puberty. The cost of a wedding is about Rs. 80 to the bridegroom's
+family and Rs. 20 to the bride's family. A widow is forbidden to marry
+her late husband's brother or other relatives. At the wedding she is
+dressed in new clothes, and the foreheads of the couple are marked
+with cowdung as a sign of purification. They then proceed by night to
+the husband's village, and the woman waits till morning in some empty
+building, when she enters her husband's house carrying two water-pots
+on her head in token of the fertility which she is to bring to it.
+
+
+
+3. Other customs.
+
+
+Like the Mahars, the Balahis must not kill a dog or a cat under pain
+of expulsion; but it is peculiar that in their case the bear is held
+equally sacred, this being probably a residue of some totemistic
+observance. The most binding form of oath which they can use is by
+any one of these animals. The Balahis will admit any Hindu into the
+community except a man of the very lowest castes, and also Gonds
+and Korkus. The head and face of the neophyte are shaved clean, and
+he is made to lie on the ground under a string-cot; a number of the
+Balahis sit on this and wash themselves, letting the water drip from
+their bodies on to the man below until he is well drenched; he then
+gives a feast to the caste-fellows, and is considered to have become
+a Balahi. It is reported also that they will receive back into the
+community Balahi women who have lived with men of other castes and
+even with Jains and Muhammadans. They will take food from members of
+these religions and of any Hindu caste, except the most impure.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+Balija
+
+
+
+1. Origin and traditions.
+
+
+_Balija, Balji, Gurusthulu, Naidu._--A large trading caste of the
+Madras Presidency, where they number a million persons. In the Central
+Provinces 1200 were enumerated in 1911, excluding 1500 Perikis,
+who though really a subcaste and not a very exalted one of Balijas,
+[111] claim to be a separate caste. They are mainly returned from
+places where Madras troops have been stationed, as Nagpur, Jubbulpore
+and Raipur. The caste are frequently known as Naidu, a corruption
+of the Telugu word Nayakdu, a prince or leader. Their ancestors
+are supposed to have been Nayaks or kings of Madura, Tanjore and
+Vijayanagar. The traditional occupation of the caste appears to have
+been to make bangles and pearl and coral ornaments, and they have
+still a subcaste called Gazulu, or a bangle-seller. In Madras they
+are said to be an offshoot of the great cultivating castes of Kamma
+and Kapu and to be a mixed community recruited from these and other
+Telugu castes. Another proof of their mixed descent may be inferred
+from the fact that they will admit persons of other castes or the
+descendants of mixed marriages into the community without much scruple
+in Madras. [112] The name of Balija seems also to have been applied
+to a mixed caste started by Basava, the founder of the Lingayat sect
+of Sivites, these persons being known in Madras as Linga Balijas.
+
+
+
+2. Marriage.
+
+
+The Balijas have two main divisions, Desa or Kota, and Peta, the Desas
+or Kotas being those who claim descent from the old Balija kings,
+while the Petas are the trading Balijas, and are further subdivided
+into groups like the Gazulu or bangle-sellers and the Periki or
+salt-sellers. The subdivisions are not strictly endogamous. Every
+family has a surname, and exogamous groups or _gotras_ also exist,
+but these have generally been forgotten, and marriages are regulated
+by the surnames, the only prohibition being that persons of the same
+surname may not intermarry. Instances of such names are: Singiri,
+Gudari, Jadal, Sangnad and Dasiri. In fact the rules of exogamy
+are so loose that an instance is known of an uncle having married
+his niece. Marriage is usually infant, and the ceremony lasts for
+five days. On the first day the bride and bridegroom are seated on
+a yoke in the _pandal_ or marriage pavilion, where the relatives
+and guests assemble. The bridegroom puts a pair of silver rings
+on the bride's toes and ties the _mangal-sutram_ or flat circular
+piece of gold round her neck. On the next three days the bridegroom
+and bride are made to sit on a plank or cot face to face with each
+other and to throw flowers and play together for two hours in the
+mornings and evenings. On the fourth day, at dead of night, they are
+seated on a cot and the jewels and gifts for the bride are presented,
+and she is then formally handed over to the bridegroom's family. In
+Madras Mr. Thurston [113] states that on the last day of the marriage
+ceremony a mock ploughing and sowing rite is held, and during this,
+the sister of the bridegroom puts a cloth over the basket containing
+earth, wherein seeds are to be sown by the bridegroom, and will not
+allow him to go on with the ceremony till she has extracted a promise
+that his first-born daughter shall marry her son. No bride-price is
+paid, and the remarriage of widows is forbidden.
+
+
+
+3. Occupation and social status.
+
+
+The Balijas bury their dead in a sitting posture. In the Central
+Provinces they are usually Lingayats and especially worship Gauri,
+Siva's wife. Jangams serve them as priests. They usually eat flesh
+and drink liquor, but in Chanda it is stated that both these practices
+are forbidden. In the Central Provinces they are mainly cultivators,
+but some of them still sell bangles and salt. Several of them are in
+Government service and occupy a fairly high social position.
+
+In Madras a curious connection exists between the Kapus and Balijas
+and the impure Mala caste. It is said that once upon a time the Kapus
+and Balijas were flying from the Muhammadans and came to the northern
+Pallar river in high flood. They besought the river to go down and let
+them across, but it demanded the sacrifice of a first-born child. While
+the Kapus and Balijas were hesitating, the Malas who had followed them
+boldly sacrificed one of their children. Immediately the river divided
+before them and they all crossed in safety. Ever since then the Kapus
+and Balijas have respected the Malas, and the Balijas formerly even
+deposited the images of the goddess Gauri, of Ganesha, and of Siva's
+bull with the Malas, as the hereditary custodians of their gods. [114]
+
+
+
+
+
+
+Bania
+
+
+
+List of Paragraphs
+
+
+    1. _General notice._
+    2. _The Banias a true caste: use of the name._
+    3. _Their distinctive occupation._
+    4. _Their distinctive status._
+    5. _The endogamous divisions of the Banias._
+    6. _The Banias derived from the Rajputs._
+    7. _Banias employed as ministers in Rajput courts._
+    8. _Subcastes._
+    9. _Hindu and Jain subcastes: divisions among subcastes._
+    10. _Exogamy and rules regulating marriage._
+    11. _Marriage customs._
+    12. _Polygamy and widow-marrriage._
+    13. _Disposal of the dead and mourning._
+    14. _Religion: the god Ganpati or Ganesh._
+    15. _Diwali festival._
+    16. _Holi festival._
+    17. _Social customs: rules about food._
+    18. _Character of the Bania._
+    19. _Dislike of the cultivators towards him._
+    20. _His virtues._
+    21. _The moneylender changed for the worse._
+    22. _The enforcement of contracts._
+    23. _Cash coinage and the rate of interest._
+    24. _Proprietary and transferable rights in land._
+    25. _The Bania as a landlord._
+    26. _Commercial honesty._
+
+
+
+List of Subordinate Articles on Subcastes
+
+
+    1. Agarwala, Agarwal.
+    2. Agrahari.
+    3. Ajudhiabasi, Audhia.
+    4. Asathi.
+    5. Charnagri, Channagri, Samaiya.
+    6. Dhusar, Bhargava Dhusar.
+    7. Dosar, Dusra.
+    8. Gahoi.
+    9. Golapurab, Golahre.
+    10. Kasarwani.
+    11. Kasaundhan.
+    12. Khandelwal.
+    13. Lad.
+    14. Lingayat.
+    15. Maheshri.
+    16. Nema.
+    17. Oswal.
+    18. Parwar.
+    19. Srimali.
+    20. Umre.
+
+
+
+1. General notice.
+
+
+_Bania, Bani, Vani, Mahajan, Seth, Sahukar._--The occupational
+caste of bankers, moneylenders and dealers in grain, _ghi_ (butter),
+groceries and spices. The name Bania is derived from the Sanskrit
+_vanij_, a merchant. In western India the Banias are always called
+Vania or Vani. Mahajan literally means a great man, and being applied
+to successful Banias as an honorific title has now come to signify a
+banker or moneylender; Seth signifies a great merchant or capitalist,
+and is applied to Banias as an honorific prefix. The words _Sahu_,
+_Sao_ and _Sahukar_ mean upright or honest, and have also, curiously
+enough, come to signify a moneylender. The total number of Banias in
+the Central Provinces in 1911 was about 200,000, or rather over one
+per cent of the population. Of the above total two-thirds were Hindus
+and one-third Jains. The caste is fairly distributed over the whole
+Province, being most numerous in Districts with large towns and a
+considerable volume of trade.
+
+
+
+2. The Banias a true caste: use of the name.
+
+
+There has been much difference of opinion as to whether the name
+Bania should be taken to signify a caste, or whether it is merely an
+occupational term applied to a number of distinct castes. I venture
+to think it is necessary and scientifically correct to take it as a
+caste. In Bengal the word Banian, a corruption of Bania, has probably
+come to be a general term meaning simply a banker, or person dealing
+in money. But this does not seem to be the case elsewhere. As a
+rule the name Bania is used only as a caste name for groups who are
+considered both by themselves and outsiders to belong to the Bania
+caste. It may occasionally be applied to members of other castes,
+as in the case of certain Teli-Banias who have abandoned oil-pressing
+for shop-keeping, but such instances are very rare; and these Telis
+would probably now assert that they belonged to the Bania caste. That
+the Banias are recognised as a distinct caste by the people is shown
+by the number of uncomplimentary proverbs and sayings about them,
+which is far larger than in the case of any other caste. [115] In
+all these the name Bania is used and not that of any subdivision,
+and this indicates that none of the subdivisions are looked upon
+as distinctive social groups or castes. Moreover, so far as I am
+aware, the name Bania is applied regularly to all the groups usually
+classified under the caste, and there is no group which objects to the
+name or whose members refuse to describe themselves by it. This is by
+no means always the case with other important castes. The Rathor Telis
+of Mandla entirely decline to answer to the name of Teli, though they
+are classified under that caste. In the case of the important Ahir or
+grazier caste, those who sell milk instead of grazing cattle are called
+Gaoli, but remain members of the Ahir caste. An Ahir in Chhattisgarh
+would be called Rawat and in the Maratha Districts Gowari, but might
+still be an Ahir by caste. The Barai caste of betel-vine growers and
+sellers is in some localities called Tamboli and not Barai; elsewhere
+it is known only as Pansari, though the name Pansari is correctly
+an occupational term, and, where it is not applied to the Barais,
+means a grocer or druggist by profession and not a caste. Bania,
+on the other hand, over the greater part of India is applied only
+to persons who acknowledge themselves and are generally recognised
+by Hindu society to be members of the Bania caste, and there is no
+other name which is generally applied to any considerable section of
+such persons. Certain of the more important subcastes of Bania, as
+the Agarwala, Oswal and Parwar, are, it is true, frequently known by
+the subcaste name. But the caste name is as often as not, or even more
+often, affixed to it. Agarwala, or Agarwala Bania, are names equally
+applied to designate this subcaste, and similarly with the Oswals and
+Parwars; and even so the subcaste name is only applied for greater
+accuracy and for compliment, since these are the best subcastes;
+the Bania's quarter of a town will be called Bania Mahalla, and its
+residents spoken of as Banias, even though they may be nearly all
+Agarwals or Oswals. Several Rajput clans are similarly spoken of by
+their clan names, as Rathor, Panwar, and so on, without the addition
+of the caste name Rajput. Brahman subcastes are usually mentioned
+by their subcaste name for greater accuracy, though in their case
+too it is usual to add the caste name. And there are subdivisions of
+other castes, such as the Jaiswar Chamars and the Somvansi Mehras,
+who invariably speak of themselves only by their subcaste name,
+and discard the caste name altogether, being ashamed of it, but are
+nevertheless held to belong to their parent castes. Thus in the matter
+of common usage Bania conforms in all respects to the requirements
+of a proper caste name.
+
+
+
+3. Their distinctive occupation.
+
+
+The Banias have also a distinct and well-defined traditional
+occupation, [116] which is followed by many or most members of
+practically every subcaste so far as has been observed. This occupation
+has caused the caste as a body to be credited with special mental
+and moral characteristics in popular estimation, to a greater extent
+perhaps than any other caste. None of the subcastes are ashamed of
+their traditional occupation or try to abandon it. It is true that a
+few subcastes such as the Kasaundhans and Kasarwanis, sellers of metal
+vessels, apparently had originally a somewhat different profession,
+though resembling the traditional one; but they too, if they once
+only sold vessels, now engage largely in the traditional Bania's
+calling, and deal generally in grain and money. The Banias, no doubt
+because it is both profitable and respectable, adhere more generally
+to their traditional occupation than almost any great caste, except
+the cultivators. Mr. Marten's analysis [117] of the occupations of
+different castes shows that sixty per cent of the Banias are still
+engaged in trade; while only nineteen per cent of Brahmans follow
+a religious calling; twenty-nine per cent of Ahirs are graziers,
+cattle-dealers or milkmen; only nine per cent of Telis are engaged
+in all branches of industry, including their traditional occupation
+of oil-pressing; and similarly only twelve per cent of Chamars work
+at industrial occupations, including that of curing hides. In respect
+of occupation therefore the Banias strictly fulfil the definition of
+a caste.
+
+
+
+4. Their distinctive status.
+
+
+The Banias have also a distinctive social status. They are considered,
+though perhaps incorrectly, to represent the Vaishyas or third great
+division of the Aryan twice-born; they rank just below Rajputs and
+perhaps above all other castes except Brahmans; Brahmans will take
+food cooked without water from many Banias and drinking-water from
+all. Nearly all Banias wear the sacred thread; and the Banias are
+distinguished by the fact that they abstain more rigorously and
+generally from all kinds of flesh food than any other caste. Their
+rules as to diet are exceptionally strict, and are equally observed
+by the great majority of the subdivisions.
+
+
+
+5. The endogamous divisions of the Banias.
+
+
+Thus the Banias apparently fulfil the definition of a caste, as
+consisting of one or more endogamous groups or subcastes with a
+distinct name applied to them all and to them only, a distinctive
+occupation and a distinctive social status; and there seems no reason
+for not considering them a caste. If on the other hand we examine the
+subcastes of Bania we find that the majority of them have names derived
+from places, [118] not indicating any separate origin, occupation or
+status, but only residence in separate tracts. Such divisions are
+properly termed subcastes, being endogamous only, and in no other
+way distinctive. No subcaste can be markedly distinguished from the
+others in respect of occupation or social status, and none apparently
+can therefore be classified as a separate caste. There are no doubt
+substantial differences in status between the highest subcastes of
+Bania, the Agarwals, Oswals and Parwars, and the lower ones, the
+Kasaundhan, Kasarwani, Dosar and others. But this difference is not
+so great as that which separates different groups included in such
+important castes as Rajput and Bhat. It is true again that subcastes
+like the Agarwals and Oswals are individually important, but not
+more so than the Maratha, Khedawal, Kanaujia and Maithil Brahmans, or
+the Sesodia, Rathor, Panwar and Jadon Rajputs. The higher subcastes
+of Bania themselves recognise a common relationship by taking food
+cooked without water from each other, which is a very rare custom
+among subcastes. Some of them are even said to have intermarried. If
+on the other hand it is argued, not that two or three or more of the
+important subdivisions should be erected into independent castes,
+but that Bania is not a caste at all, and that every subcaste should
+be treated as a separate caste, then such purely local groups as
+Kanaujia, Jaiswar, Gujarati, Jaunpuri and others, which are found in
+forty or fifty other castes, would have to become separate castes;
+and if in this one case why not in all the other castes where they
+occur? This would result in the impossible position of having forty
+or fifty castes of the same name, which recognise no connection of
+any kind with each other, and make any arrangement or classification
+of castes altogether impracticable. And in 1911 out of 200,000 Banias
+in the Central Provinces, 43,000 were returned with no subcaste at
+all, and it would therefore be impossible to classify these under
+any other name.
+
+
+
+6. The Banias derived from the Rajputs.
+
+
+The Banias have been commonly supposed to represent the Vaishyas or
+third of the four classical castes, both by Hindu society generally
+and by leading authorities on the subject. It is perhaps this view of
+their origin which is partly responsible for the tendency to consider
+them as several castes and not one. But its accuracy is doubtful. The
+important Bania groups appear to be of Rajput stock. They nearly all
+come from Rajputana, Bundelkhand or Gujarat, that is from the homes
+of the principal Rajut clans. Several of them have legends of Rajput
+descent. The Agarwalas say that their first ancestor was a Kshatriya
+king, who married a Naga or snake princess; the Naga race is supposed
+to have signified the Scythian immigrants, who were snake-worshippers
+and from whom several clans of Rajputs were probably derived. The
+Agarwalas took their name from the ancient city of Agroha or possibly
+from Agra. The Oswals say that their ancestor was the Rajput king
+of Osnagar in Marwar, who with his followers was converted by a Jain
+mendicant. The Nemas state that their ancestors were fourteen young
+Rajput princes who escaped the vengeance of Parasurama by abandoning
+the profession of arms and taking to trade. The Khandelwals take
+their name from the town of Khandela in Jaipur State of Rajputana. The
+Kasarwanis say they immigrated from Kara Manikpur in Bundelkhand. The
+origin of the Umre Banias is not known, but in Gujarat they are also
+called Bagaria from the Bagar or wild country of the Dongarpur and
+Pertabgarh States of Rajputana, where numbers of them are still
+settled; the name Bagaria would appear to indicate that they are
+supposed to have immigrated thence into Gujarat. The Dhusar Banias
+ascribe their name to a hill called Dhusi or Dhosi on the border of
+Alwar State. The Asatis say that their original home was Tikamgarh
+State in Bundelkhand. The name of the Maheshris is held to be derived
+from Maheshwar, an ancient town on the Nerbudda, near Indore, which
+is traditionally supposed to have been the earliest settlement of the
+Yadava Rajputs. The headquarters of the Gahoi Banias is said to have
+been at Kharagpur in Bundelkhand, though according to their own legend
+they are of mixed origin. The home of the Srimalis was the old town
+of Srimal, now Bhinmal in Marwar. The Palliwal Banias were from the
+well-known trading town of Pali in Marwar. The Jaiswal are said to take
+their name from Jaisalmer State, which was their native country. The
+above are no doubt only a fraction of the Bania subcastes, but they
+include nearly all the most important and representative ones, from
+whom the caste takes its status and character. Of the numerous other
+groups the bulk have probably been brought into existence through
+the migration and settlement of sections of the caste in different
+parts of the country, where they have become endogamous and obtained a
+fresh name. Other subcastes may be composed of bodies of persons who,
+having taken to trade and prospered, obtained admission to the Bania
+caste through the efforts of their Brahman priests. But a number of
+mixed groups of the same character are also found among the Brahmans
+and Rajputs, and their existence does not invalidate arguments derived
+from a consideration of the representative subcastes. It may be said
+that not only the Banias, but many of the low castes have legends
+showing them to be of Rajput descent of the same character as those
+quoted above; and since in their case these stories have been adjudged
+spurious and worthless, no greater importance should be attached to
+those of the Banias. But it must be remembered that in the case of the
+Banias the stories are reinforced by the fact that the Bania subcastes
+certainly come from Rajputana; no doubt exists that they are of high
+caste, and that they must either be derived from Brahmans or Rajputs,
+or themselves represent some separate foreign group; but if they are
+really the descendants of the Vaishyas, the main body of the Aryan
+immigrants and the third of the four classical castes, it might be
+expected that their legends would show some trace of this instead of
+being unitedly in favour of their Rajput origin.
+
+Colonel Tod gives a catalogue of the eighty-four mercantile tribes,
+whom he states to be chiefly of Rajput descent. [119] In this list
+the Agarwal, Oswal, Srimal, Khandelwal, Palliwal and Lad subcastes
+occur; while the Dhakar and Dhusar subcastes may be represented by the
+names Dhakarwal and Dusora in the lists. The other names given by Tod
+appear to be mainly small territorial groups of Rajputana. Elsewhere,
+after speaking of the claims of certain towns in Rajputana to be
+centres of trade, Colonel Tod remarks: "These pretensions we may
+the more readily admit, when we recollect that nine-tenths of the
+bankers and commercial men of India are natives of Marudesh, [120]
+and these chiefly of the Jain faith. The Oswals, so termed from the
+town of Osi, near the Luni, estimate one hundred thousand families
+whose occupation is commerce. All these claim a Rajput descent, a fact
+entirely unknown to the European inquirer into the peculiarities of
+Hindu manners." [121]
+
+Similarly, Sir D. Ibbetson states that the Maheshri Banias claim
+Rajput origin and still have subdivisions bearing Rajput names. [122]
+Elliot also says that almost all the mercantile tribes of Hindustan
+are of Rajput descent. [123]
+
+It would appear, then, that the Banias are an offshoot from the
+Rajputs, who took to commerce and learnt to read and write for
+the purpose of keeping accounts. The Charans or bards are another
+literate caste derived from the Rajputs, and it may be noticed that
+both the Banias and Charans or Bhats have hitherto been content
+with the knowledge of their own rude Marwari dialect and evinced no
+desire for classical learning or higher English education. Matters
+are now changing, but this attitude shows that they have hitherto not
+desired education for itself but merely as an indispensable adjunct
+to their business.
+
+
+
+7. Banias employed as ministers in Rajput courts.
+
+
+Being literate, the Banias were not infrequently employed as ministers
+and treasurers in Rajput states. Forbes says, in an account of
+an Indian court: "Beside the king stand the warriors of Rajput
+race or, equally gallant in the field and wiser far in council,
+the Wania (Bania) Muntreshwars, already in profession puritans
+of peace, and not yet drained enough of their fiery Kshatriya
+blood.... It is remarkable that so many of the officers possessing
+high rank and holding independent commands are represented to have
+been Wanias." [124] Colonel Tod writes that Nunkurn, the Kachhwaha
+chief of the Shekhawat federation, had a minister named Devi Das of
+the Bania or mercantile caste, and, like thousands of that caste,
+energetic, shrewd and intelligent. [125] Similarly, Muhaj, the Jadon
+Bhatti chief of Jaisalmer, by an unhappy choice of a Bania minister,
+completed the demoralisation of the Bhatti state. This minister was
+named Sarup Singh, a Bania of the Jain faith and Mehta family, whose
+descendants were destined to be the exterminators of the laws and
+fortunes of the sons of Jaisal. [126] Other instances of the employment
+of Bania ministers are to be found in Rajput history. Finally, it
+may be noted that the Banias are by no means the only instance of a
+mercantile class formed from the Rajputs. The two important trading
+castes of Khatri and Bhatia are almost certainly of Rajput origin,
+as is shown in the articles on those castes.
+
+
+
+8. Subcastes.
+
+
+The Banias are divided into a large number of endogamous groups or
+subcastes, of which the most important have been treated in the
+annexed subordinate articles. The minor subcastes, mainly formed
+by migration, vary greatly in different provinces. Colonel Tod gave
+a list of eighty-four in Rajputana, of which eight or ten only can
+be identified in the Central Provinces, and of thirty mentioned by
+Bhattacharya as the most common groups in northern India, about a third
+are unknown in the Central Provinces. The origin of such subcastes
+has already been explained. The main subcastes may be classified
+roughly into groups coming from Rajputana, Bundelkhand and the United
+Provinces. The leading Rajputana groups are the Oswal, Maheshri,
+Khandelwal, Saitwal, Srimal and Jaiswaal. These groups are commonly
+known as Marwari Bania or simply Marwari. The Bundelkhand or Central
+India subcastes are the Gahoi, Golapurab, Asati, Umre and Parwar;
+[127] while the Agarwal, Dhusar, Agrahari, Ajudhiabasi and others
+come from the United Provinces. The Lad subcaste is from Gujarat,
+while the Lingayats originally belonged to the Telugu and Canarese
+country. Several of the subcastes coming from the same locality will
+take food cooked without water from each other, and occasionally two
+subcastes, as the Oswal and Khandelwal, even food cooked with water or
+_katchi_. This practice is seldom found in other good castes. It is
+probably due to the fact that the rules about food are less strictly
+observed in Rajputana.
+
+
+
+9. Hindu and Jain subcastes: divisions among subcastes.
+
+
+Another classification may be made of the subcastes according as
+they are of the Hindu or Jain religion; the important Jain subcastes
+are the Oswal, Parwar, Golapurab, Saitwal and Charnagar, and one or
+two smaller ones, as the Baghelwal and Samaiya. The other subcastes
+are principally Hindu, but many have a Jain minority, and similarly
+the Jain subcastes return a proportion of Hindus. The difference of
+religion counts for very little, as practically all the non-Jain Banias
+are strict Vaishnava Hindus, abstain entirely from any kind of flesh
+meat, and think it a sin to take animal life; while on their side the
+Jains employ Brahmans for certain purposes, worship some of the local
+Hindu deities, and observe the principal Hindu festivals. The Jain and
+Hindu sections of a subcaste have consequently, as a rule, no objection
+to taking food together, and will sometimes intermarry. Several of the
+important subcastes are subdivided into Bisa and Dasa, or twenty and
+ten groups. The Bisa or twenty group is of pure descent, or twenty
+carat, as it were, while the Dasas are considered to have a certain
+amount of alloy in their family pedigree. They are the offspring of
+remarried widows, and perhaps occasionally of still more irregular
+unions. Intermarriage sometimes takes place between the two groups,
+and families in the Dasa group, by living a respectable life and
+marrying well, improve their status, and perhaps ultimately get
+back into the Bisa group. As the Dasas become more respectable they
+will not admit to their communion newly remarried widows or couples
+who have married within the prohibited degrees, or otherwise made a
+_mésalliance_, and hence a third inferior group, called the Pacha or
+five, is brought into existence to make room for these.
+
+
+
+10. Exogamy and rules regulating marriage.
+
+
+Most subcastes have an elaborate system of exogamy. They are
+either divided into a large number of sections, or into a few
+_gotras_, usually twelve, each of which is further split up into
+subsections. Marriage can then be regulated by forbidding a man to
+take a wife from the whole of his own section or from the subsection
+of his mother, grandmothers and even greatgrandmothers. By this means
+the union of persons within five or more degrees of relationship
+either through males or females is avoided, and most Banias prohibit
+intermarriage, at any rate nominally, up to five degrees. Such
+practices as exchanging girls between families or marrying two
+sisters are, as a rule, prohibited. The _gotras_ or main sections
+appear to be frequently named after Brahman Rishis or saints, while
+the subsections have names of a territorial or titular character.
+
+
+
+11. Marriage customs.
+
+
+There is generally no recognised custom of paying a bride- or
+bridegroom-price, but one or two instances of its being done are given
+in the subordinate articles. On the occasion of betrothal, among some
+subcastes, the boy's father proceeds to the girl's house and presents
+her with a _mala_ or necklace of gold or silver coins or coral, and a
+_mundri_ or silver ring for the finger. The contract of betrothal is
+made at the village temple and the caste-fellows sprinkle turmeric and
+water over the parties. Before the wedding the ceremony of Benaiki is
+performed; in this the bridegroom, riding on a horse, and the bride on
+a decorated chair or litter, go round their villages and say farewell
+to their friends and relations. Sometimes they have a procession in
+this way round the marriage-shed. Among the Marwari Banias a _toran_
+or string of mango-leaves is stretched above the door of the house on
+the occasion of a wedding and left there for six months. And a wooden
+triangle with figures perched on it to represent sparrows is tied
+over the door. The binding portion of the wedding is the procession
+seven times round the marriage altar or post. In some Jain subcastes
+the bridegroom stands beside the post and the bride walks seven times
+round him, while he throws sugar over her head at each turn. After the
+wedding the couple are made to draw figures out of flour sprinkled
+on a brass plate in token of the bridegroom's occupation of keeping
+accounts. It is customary for the bride's family to give _sidha_ or
+uncooked food sufficient for a day's consumption to every outsider
+who accompanies the marriage party, while to each member of the caste
+provisions for two to five days are given. This is in addition to the
+evening feasts and involves great expense. Sometimes the wedding lasts
+for eight days, and feasts are given for four days by the bridegroom's
+party and four days by the bride's. It is said that in some places
+before a Bania has a wedding he goes before the caste _panchayat_
+and they ask him how many people he is going to invite. If he says
+five hundred, they prescribe the quantity of the different kinds of
+provisions which he must supply. Thus they may say forty maunds (3200
+lbs.) of sugar and flour, with butter, spices, and other articles in
+proportion. He says, 'Gentlemen, I am a poor man; make it a little
+less'; or he says he will give _gur_ or cakes of raw cane sugar
+instead of refined sugar. Then they say, 'No, your social position
+is too high for _gur_; you must have sugar for all purposes.' The
+more guests the host invites the higher is his social consideration;
+and it is said that if he does not maintain this his life is not worth
+living. Sometimes the exact amount of entertainment to be given at a
+wedding is fixed, and if a man cannot afford it at the time he must
+give the balance of the feasts at any subsequent period when he has
+money; and if he fails to do this he is put out of caste. The bride's
+father is often called on to furnish a certain sum for the travelling
+expenses of the bridegroom's party, and if he does not send this money
+they do not come. The distinctive feature of a Bania wedding in the
+northern Districts is that women accompany the marriage procession,
+and the Banias are the only high caste in which they do this. Hence a
+high-caste wedding party in which women are present can be recognised
+to be a Bania's. In the Maratha Districts women also go, but here
+this custom obtains among other high castes. The bridegroom's party
+hire or borrow a house in the bride's village, and here they erect
+a marriage-shed and go through the preliminary ceremonies of the
+wedding on the bridegroom's side as if they were at home.
+
+
+
+12. Polygamy and widow-marriage.
+
+
+Polygamy is very rare among the Banias, and it is generally the rule
+that a man must obtain the consent of his first wife before taking
+a second one. In the absence of this precaution for her happiness,
+parents will refuse to give him their daughter. The remarriage of
+widows is nominally prohibited, but frequently occurs, and remarried
+widows are relegated to the inferior social groups in each subcaste as
+already described. Divorce is also said to be prohibited, but it is
+probable that women put away for adultery are allowed to take refuge
+in such groups instead of being finally expelled.
+
+
+
+13. Disposal of the dead and mourning.
+
+
+The dead are cremated as a rule, and the ashes are thrown into
+a sacred river or any stream. The bodies of young children and of
+persons dying from epidemic disease are buried. The period of mourning
+must be for an odd number of days. On the third day a leaf plate with
+cooked food is placed on the ground where the body was burnt, and on
+some subsequent day a feast is given to the caste. Rich Banias will
+hire people to mourn. Widows and young girls are usually employed,
+and these come and sit before the house for an hour in the morning
+and sometimes also in the evening, and covering their heads with
+their cloths, beat their breasts and make lamentations. Rich men
+may hire as many as ten mourners for a period of one, two or three
+months. The Marwaris, when a girl is born, break an earthen pot to
+show that they have had a misfortune; but when a boy is born they
+beat a brass plate in token of their joy.
+
+
+
+14. Religion: the god Ganpati or Ganesh.
+
+
+Nearly all the Banias are Jains or Vaishnava Hindus. An account of the
+Jain religion has been given in a separate article, and some notice
+of the retention of Hindu practices by the Jains is contained in the
+subordinate article on Parwar Bania. The Vaishnava Banias no less
+than the Jains are strongly averse to the destruction of animal life,
+and will not kill any living thing. Their principal deity is the god
+Ganesh or Ganpati, the son of Mahadeo and Parvati, who is the god of
+good-luck, wealth and prosperity. Ganesh is represented in sculpture
+with the head of an elephant and riding on a rat, though the rat is now
+covered by the body of the god and is scarcely visible. He has a small
+body like a child's with a fat belly and round plump arms. Perhaps
+his body signifies that he is figured as a boy, the son of Parvati
+or Gauri. In former times grain was the main source of wealth, and
+from the appearance of Ganesh it can be understood why he is the god
+of overflowing granaries, and hence of wealth and good fortune. The
+elephant is a sacred animal among Hindus, and that on which the king
+rides. To have an elephant was a mark of wealth and distinction among
+Banias, and the Jains harness the cars of their gods to elephants at
+their great _rath_ or chariot festival. Gajpati or 'lord of elephants'
+is a title given to a king; Gajanand or 'elephant-faced' is an epithet
+of the god Ganesh and a favourite Hindu name. Gajvithi or the track
+of the elephant is a name of the Milky Way, and indicates that there
+is believed to be a divine elephant who takes this course through the
+heavens. The elephant eats so much grain that only a comparatively
+rich man can afford to keep one; and hence it is easy to understand
+how the attribute of plenty or of wealth was associated with the divine
+elephant as his special characteristic. Similarly the rat is connected
+with overflowing granaries, because when there is much corn in a
+Hindu house or store-shed there will be many rats; thus a multitude
+of rats implied a rich household, and so this animal too came to be a
+symbol of wealth. The Hindus do not now consider the rat sacred, but
+they have a tenderness for it, especially in the Maratha country. The
+more bigoted of them objected to rats being poisoned as a means of
+checking plague, though observation has fully convinced them that rats
+spread the plague; and in the Bania hospitals, formerly maintained for
+preserving the lives of animals, a number of rats were usually to be
+found. The rat, in fact, may now be said to stand to Ganpati in the
+position of a disreputable poor relation. No attempt is made to deny
+his existence, but he is kept in the background as far as possible. The
+god Ganpati is also associated with wealth of grain through his
+parentage. He is the offspring of Siva or Mahadeo and his wife Devi
+or Gauri. Mahadeo is in this case probably taken in his beneficent
+character of the deified bull; Devi in her most important aspect as
+the great mother-goddess is the earth, but as mother of Ganesh she
+is probably imagined in her special form of Gauri, the yellow one,
+that is, the yellow corn. Gauri is closely associated with Ganesh, and
+every Hindu bridal couple worship Gauri Ganesh together as an important
+rite of the wedding. Their conjunction in this manner lends colour to
+the idea that they are held to be mother and son. In Rajputana Gauri
+is worshipped as the corn goddess at the Gangore festival about the
+time of the vernal equinox, especially by women. The meaning of Gauri,
+Colonel Tod states, is yellow, emblematic of the ripened harvest,
+when the votaries of the goddess adore her effigies, in the shape
+of a matron painted the colour of ripe corn. Here she is seen as
+Ana-purna (the corn-goddess), the benefactress of mankind. "The rites
+commence when the sun enters Aries (the opening of the Hindu year),
+by a deputation to a spot beyond the city to bring earth for the image
+of Gauri. A small trench is then excavated in which barley is sown;
+the ground is irrigated and artificial heat supplied till the grain
+germinates, when the females join hands and dance round it, invoking
+the blessings of Gauri on their husbands. The young corn is then taken
+up, distributed and presented by the females to the men, who wear it
+in their turbans." [128] Thus if Ganesh is the son of Gauri he is the
+offspring of the bull and the growing corn; and his genesis from the
+elephant and the rat show him equally as the god of full granaries, and
+hence of wealth and good fortune. We can understand therefore how he
+is the special god of the Banias, who formerly must have dealt almost
+entirely in grain, as coined money had not come into general use.
+
+
+
+15. Diwali festival.
+
+
+At the Diwali festival the Banias worship Ganpati or Ganesh, in
+conjunction with Lakshmi, the goddess of wealth. Lakshmi is considered
+to be the deified cow, and, as such, the other main source of wealth,
+both as mother of the bull, the tiller of the soil, and the giver
+of milk from which _ghi_ (clarified butter) is made; this is another
+staple of the Bania's trade, as well as a luxurious food, of which he
+is especially fond. At Diwali all Banias make up their accounts for
+the year, and obtain the signatures of clients to their balances. They
+open fresh account-books, which they first worship and adorn with an
+image of Ganesh, and perhaps an invocation to the god on the front
+page. A silver rupee is also worshipped as an emblem of Lakshmi,
+but in some cases an English sovereign, as a more precious coin,
+has been substituted, and this is placed on the seat of the goddess
+and reverence paid to it. The Banias and Hindus generally think it
+requisite to gamble at Diwali in order to bring good luck during
+the coming year; all classes indulge in a little speculation at
+this season.
+
+
+
+16. Holi festival.
+
+
+In the month of Phagun (February), about the time of the Holi, the
+Marwaris make an image of mud naked, calling it Nathu Ram, who was
+supposed to be a great Marwari. They mock at this and throw mud at
+it, and beat it with shoes, and have various jests and sports. The
+men and women are divided into two parties, and throw dirty water
+and red powder over each other, and the women make whips of cloth
+and beat the men. After two or three days, they break up the image
+and throw it away. The Banias, both Jain and Hindu, like to begin the
+day by going and looking at the god in his temple. This is considered
+an auspicious omen in the same manner as it is commonly held to be a
+good omen to see some particular person or class of person the first
+thing in the morning. Others begin the day by worshipping the sacred
+_tulsi_ or basil.
+
+
+
+17. Social customs: rules about food.
+
+
+The Banias are very strict about food. The majority of them abstain
+from all kinds of flesh food and alcoholic liquor. The Kasarwanis are
+reported to eat the flesh of clean animals, and perhaps others of the
+lower subcastes may also do so, but the Banias are probably stricter
+than any other caste in their adherence to a vegetable diet. Many
+of them eschew also onions and garlic as impure food. Banias take
+the lead in the objection to foreign sugar on account of the stories
+told of the impure ingredients which it contains, and many of them,
+until recently, at any rate, still adhered to Indian sugar. Drugs are
+not forbidden, but they are not usually addicted to them. Tobacco
+is forbidden to the Jains, but both they and the Hindus smoke, and
+their women sometimes chew tobacco. The Bania while he is poor is
+very abstemious, and it is said that on a day when he has made no
+money he goes supperless to bed. But when he has accumulated wealth,
+he develops a fondness for _ghi_ or preserved butter, which often
+causes him to become portly. Otherwise his food remains simple, and
+as a rule he confined himself until recently to two daily meals,
+at midday and in the evening; but Banias, like most other classes
+who can afford it, have now begun to drink tea in the morning. In
+dress the Bania is also simple, adhering to the orthodox Hindu
+garb of a long white coat and a loin-cloth. He has not yet adopted
+the cotton trousers copied from the English fashion. Some Banias in
+their shops wear only a cloth over their shoulders and another round
+their waist. The _kardora_ or silver waist-belt is a favourite Bania
+ornament, and though plainly dressed in ordinary life, rich Marwaaris
+will on special festival occasions wear costly jewels. On his head the
+Marwari wears a small tightly folded turban, often coloured crimson,
+pink or yellow; a green turban is a sign of mourning and also black,
+though the latter is seldom seen. The Banias object to taking the
+life of any animal. They will not castrate cattle even through their
+servants, but sell the young bulls and buy oxen. In Saugor, a Bania
+is put out of caste if he keeps buffaloes. It is supposed that good
+Hindus should not keep buffaloes nor use them for carting or ploughing,
+because the buffalo is impure, and is the animal on which Yama,
+the god of death, rides. Thus in his social observances generally
+the Bania is one of the strictest castes, and this is a reason why
+his social status is high. Sometimes he is even held superior to the
+Rajput, as the local Rajputs are often of impure descent and lax in
+their observance of religious and social restrictions. Though he soon
+learns the vernacular language of the country where he settles, the
+Marwari usually retains his own native dialect in his account-books,
+and this makes it more difficult for his customers to understand them.
+
+
+
+18. Character of the Bania.
+
+
+The Bania has a very distinctive caste character. From early boyhood
+he is trained to the keeping of accounts and to the view that it
+is his business in life to make money, and that no transaction
+should be considered successful or creditable which does not show
+a profit. As an apprentice, he goes through a severe training in
+mental arithmetic, so as to enable him to make the most intricate
+calculations in his head. With this object a boy commits to memory a
+number of very elaborate tables. For whole numbers he learns by heart
+the units from one to ten multiplied as high as forty times, and the
+numbers from eleven to twenty multiplied to twenty times. There are
+also fractional tables, giving the results of multiplying 1/4, 1/2,
+3/4, 1 1/4, 1 1/2, 2 1/2, 3 1/2 into units from one to one hundred;
+interest-tables showing the interest due on any sum from one to
+one thousand rupees for one month, and for a quarter of a month at
+twelve per cent; tables of the squares of all numbers from one to
+one hundred, and a set of technical rules for finding the price of a
+part from the price of the whole. [129] The self-denial and tenacity
+which enable the Bania without capital to lay the foundations of a
+business are also remarkable. On first settling in a new locality, a
+Marwari Bania takes service with some shopkeeper, and by dint of the
+strictest economy puts together a little money. Then the new trader
+establishes himself in some village and begins to make grain advances
+to the cultivators on high rates of interest, though occasionally on
+bad security. He opens a shop and retails grain, pulses, condiments,
+spices, sugar and flour. From grain he gradually passes to selling
+cloth and lending money, and being keen and exacting, and having
+to deal with ignorant and illiterate clients, he acquires wealth;
+this he invests in purchasing villages, and after a time blossoms
+out into a big Seth or banker. The Bania can also start a retail
+business without capital. The way in which he does it is to buy
+a rupee's worth of stock in a town, and take it out early in the
+morning to a village, where he sits on the steps of the temple
+until he has sold it. Up till then he neither eats nor washes his
+face. He comes back in the evening after having eaten two or three
+pice worth of grain, and buys a fresh stock, which he takes out to
+another village in the morning. Thus he turns over his capital with
+a profit two or three times a week according to the saying, "If a
+Bania gets a rupee he will have an income of eight rupees a month,"
+or as another proverb pithily sums up the immigrant Marwari's career,
+'He comes with a _lota_ [130] and goes back with a lakh.' The Bania
+never writes off debts, even though his debtor may be a pauper, but
+goes on entering them up year by year in his account-books and taking
+the debtor's acknowledgment. For he says, '_Purus Parus_', or man is
+like the philosopher's stone, and his fortune may change any day.
+
+
+
+19. Dislike of the cultivators towards him.
+
+
+The cultivators rarely get fair treatment from the Banias, as the odds
+are too much against them. They must have money to sow their land, and
+live while the crops are growing, and the majority who have no capital
+are at the moneylender's mercy. He is of a different caste, and often
+of a different country, and has no fellow-feeling towards them, and
+therefore considers the transaction merely from the business point of
+view of getting as much profit as possible. The debtors are illiterate,
+often not even understanding the meaning of figures, or the result of
+paying compound interest at twenty-five or fifty per cent; they can
+neither keep accounts themselves nor check their creditor's. Hence
+they are entirely in his hands, and in the end their villages or land,
+if saleable, pass to him, and they decline from landlord to tenant,
+or from tenant to labourer. They have found vent for their feelings
+in some of the bitterest sayings ever current: 'A man who has a
+Bania for a friend has no need of an enemy.' 'Borrow from a Bania
+and you are as good as ruined.' 'The rogue cheats strangers and the
+Bania cheats his friends.' 'Kick a Bania even if he is dead.' "His
+heart, we are told, is no bigger than a coriander seed; he goes in
+like a needle and comes out like a sword; as a neighbour he is as
+bad as a boil in the armpit. If a Bania is on the other side of a
+river you should leave your bundle on this side for fear he should
+steal it. If a Bania is drowning you should not give him your hand;
+he is sure to have some pecuniary motive for drifting down-stream. A
+Bania will start an auction in a desert. If a Bania's son tumbles
+down he is sure to pick up something. He uses light weights and
+swears that the scales tip up of themselves; he keeps his accounts
+in a character that no one but God can read; if you borrow from him
+your debt mounts up like a refuse-heap or gallops like a horse; if
+he talks to a customer he debits the conversation in his accounts;
+and when his own credit is shaky he writes up his transactions on
+the wall so that they can easily be rubbed out." [131]
+
+
+
+20. His virtues.
+
+
+Nevertheless there is a good deal to be said on the other side,
+and the Bania's faults are probably to a large extent produced by
+his environment, like other people's. One of the Bania's virtues is
+that he will lend on security which neither the Government nor the
+banks would look at, or on none at all. Then he will always wait
+a long time for his money, especially if the interest is paid. No
+doubt this is no loss to him, as he keeps his money out at good
+interest; but it is a great convenience to a client that his debt
+can be postponed in a bad year, and that he can pay as much as he
+likes in a good one. The village moneylender is indispensable to
+its economy when the tenants are like school-boys in that money
+burns a hole in their pocket; and Sir Denzil Ibbetson states that
+it is surprising how much reasonableness and honesty there is in his
+dealings with the people, so long as he can keep his transactions out
+of a court of justice. [132] Similarly, Sir Reginald Craddock writes:
+"The village Bania is a much-abused individual, but he is as a rule a
+quiet, peaceable man, a necessary factor in the village economy. He
+is generally most forbearing with his clients and customers, and is
+not the person most responsible for the indebtedness of the ryot. It
+is the casual moneylender with little or no capital who lives by
+his wits, or the large firms with shops and agents scattered over
+the face of the country who work the serious mischief. These latter
+encourage the people to take loans and discourage repayment until the
+debt has increased by accumulation of interest to a sum from which
+the borrower cannot easily free himself." [133]
+
+
+
+21. The moneylender changed for the worse.
+
+
+The progress of administration, bringing with it easy and safe transit
+all over the country; the institution of a complete system of civil
+justice and the stringent enforcement of contracts through the courts;
+the introduction of cash coinage as the basis of all transactions;
+and the grant of proprietary and transferable rights in land,
+appear to have at the same time enhanced the Bania's prosperity
+and increased the harshness and rapacity of his dealings. When the
+moneylender lived in the village he had an interest in the solvency
+of the tenants who constituted his clientèle and was also amenable
+to public opinion, even though not of his own caste. For it would
+clearly be an impossibly unpleasant position for him to meet no one
+but bitter enemies whenever he set foot outside his house, and to go
+to bed in nightly fear of being dacoited and murdered by a combination
+of his next-door neighbours. He therefore probably adopted the motto
+of live and let live, and conducted his transactions on a basis of
+custom, like the other traders and artisans who lived among the
+village community. But with the rise of the large banking-houses
+whose dealings are conducted through agents over considerable tracts
+of country, public opinion can no longer act. The agent looks mainly
+to his principal, and the latter has no interest in or regard for
+the cultivators of distant villages. He cares only for his profit,
+and his business is conducted with a single view to that end. He
+himself has no public opinion to face, as he lives in a town among a
+community of his caste-fellows, and here absolutely no discredit is
+attached to grinding the faces of the poor, but on the contrary the
+honour and consideration accruing to him are in direct proportion to
+his wealth. The agent may have some compunction, but his first aim is
+to please his principal, and as he is often a sojourner liable to early
+transfer he cares little what may be said or thought about him locally.
+
+
+
+22. The enforcement of contracts.
+
+
+Again the introduction of the English law of contract and transfer
+of property, and the increase in the habit of litigation have greatly
+altered the character of the money-lending business for the worse. The
+debtor signs a bond sometimes not even knowing the conditions,
+more often having heard them but without any clear idea of their
+effect or of the consequences to himself, and as readily allows it
+to be registered. When it comes into court the witnesses, who are
+the moneylender's creatures, easily prove that it was a genuine and
+_bona fide_ transaction, and the debtor is too ignorant and stupid
+to be able to show that he did not understand the bargain or that it
+was unconscionable. In any case the court has little or no power to
+go behind a properly executed contract without any actual evidence of
+fraud, and has no option but to decree it in terms of the deed. This
+evil is likely to be remedied very shortly, as the Government of
+India have announced a proposal to introduce the recent English Act
+and allow the courts the discretion to go behind contracts, and to
+refuse to decree exorbitant interest or other hard bargains. This
+urgently needed reform will, it may be hoped, greatly improve the
+character of the civil administration by encouraging the courts to
+realise that it is their business to do justice between litigants,
+and not merely to administer the letter of the law; and at the same
+time it should have the result, as in England, of quickening the public
+conscience and that of the moneylenders themselves, which has indeed
+already been to some extent awakened by other Government measures,
+including the example set by the Government itself as a creditor.
+
+
+
+23. Cash coinage and the rate of interest.
+
+
+Again the free circulation of metal currency and its adoption as a
+medium for all transactions has hitherto been to the disadvantage
+of the debtors. Interest on money was probably little in vogue among
+pastoral peoples, and was looked upon with disfavour, being prohibited
+by both the Mosaic and Muhammadan codes. The reason was perhaps that
+in a pastoral community there existed no means of making a profit
+on a loan by which interest could be paid, and hence the result of
+usury was that the debtor ultimately became enslaved to his creditor;
+and the enslavement of freemen on any considerable scale was against
+the public interest. With the introduction of agriculture a system of
+loans on interest became a necessary and useful part of the public
+economy, as a cultivator could borrow grain to sow land and support
+himself and his family until the crop ripened, out of which the
+loan, principal and interest, could be repaid. If, as seems likely,
+this was the first occasion for the introduction of the system
+of loan-giving on a large scale, it would follow that the rate of
+interest would be based largely on the return yielded by the earth
+to the seed. Support is afforded to this conjecture by the fact that
+in the case of grain loans in the Central Provinces the interest on
+loans of grain of the crops which yield a comparatively small return,
+such as wheat, is twenty-five to fifty per cent, while in the case
+of those which yield a large return, such as juari and kodon, it is
+one hundred per cent. These high rates of interest were not of much
+importance so long as the transaction was in grain. The grain was
+much less valuable at harvest than at seed time, and in addition the
+lender had the expense of storing and protecting his stock of grain
+through the year. It is probable that a rate of twenty-five per cent
+on grain loans does not yield more than a reasonable profit to the
+lender. But when in recent times cash came to be substituted for
+grain it would appear that there was no proportionate reduction in
+the interest. The borrower would lose by having to sell his grain for
+the payment of his debt at the most unfavourable rate after harvest,
+and since the transaction was by a regular deed the lender no longer
+took any share of the risk of a bad harvest, as it is probable that he
+was formerly accustomed to do. The rates of interest for cash loans
+afforded a disproportionate profit to the lender, who was put to no
+substantial expense in keeping money as he had formerly been in the
+case of grain. It is thus probable that rates for cash loans were for
+a considerable period unduly severe in proportion to the risk, and
+involved unmerited loss to the borrower. This is now being remedied
+by competition, by Government loans given on a large scale in time
+of scarcity, and by the introduction of co-operative credit. But it
+has probably contributed to expedite the transfer of land from the
+cultivating to the moneylending classes.
+
+
+
+24. Proprietary and transferable rights in land.
+
+
+Lastly the grant of proprietary and transferable right to
+land has afforded a new incentive and reward to the successful
+moneylender. Prior to this measure it is probable that no considerable
+transfers of land occurred for ordinary debt. The village headman might
+be ousted for non-payment of revenue, or simply through the greed of
+some Government official under native rule, and of course the villages
+were continually pillaged and plundered by their own and hostile armies
+such as the Pindaris, while the population was periodically decimated
+by famine. But apart from their losses by famine, war and the badness
+of the central government, it is probable that the cultivators were
+held to have a hereditary right to their land, and were not liable to
+ejectment on the suit of any private person. It is doubtful whether
+they had any conception of ownership of the land, and it seems likely
+that they may have thought of it as a god or the property of the god;
+but the cultivating castes perhaps had a hereditary right to cultivate
+it, just as the Chamar had a prescriptive right to the hides of the
+village cattle, the Kalar to the mahua-flowers for making his liquor,
+the Kumhar to clay for his pots, and the Teli to press the oil-seeds
+grown in his village. The inferior castes were not allowed to hold
+land, and it was probably never imagined that the village moneylender
+should by means of a piece of stamped paper be able to oust the
+cultivators indebted to him and take their land himself. With the
+grant of proprietary right to land such as existed in England, and the
+application of the English law of contract and transfer of property,
+a new and easy road to wealth was opened to the moneylender, of which
+he was not slow to take advantage. The Banias have thus ousted numbers
+of improvident proprietors of the cultivating castes, and many of them
+have become large landlords. A considerable degree of protection has
+now been afforded to landowners and cultivators, and the process has
+been checked, but that it should have proceeded so far is regrettable;
+and the operation of the law has been responsible for a large amount
+of unintentional injustice to the cultivating castes and especially
+to proprietors of aboriginal descent, who on account of their extreme
+ignorance and improvidence most readily fall a prey to the moneylender.
+
+
+
+25. The Bania as a landlord.
+
+
+As landlords the Banias were not at first a success. They did not
+care to spend money in improving their property, and ground their
+tenants to the utmost. Sir R. Craddock remarks of them: [134] "Great
+or small they are absolutely unfitted by their natural instincts to
+be landlords. Shrewdest of traders, most business-like in the matter
+of bargains, they are unable to take a broad view of the duties of
+landlord or to see that rack-renting will not pay in the long run."
+
+Still, under the influence of education, and the growth of moral
+feeling, as well as the desire to stand well with Government officers
+and to obtain recognition in the shape of some honour, many of
+the Marwari proprietors are developing into just and progressive
+landlords. But from the cultivator's point of view, residence on
+their estates, which are managed by agents in charge of a number
+of villages for an absent owner, cannot compare with the system of
+the small cultivating proprietor resident among tenants of his own
+caste, and bound to them by ties of sympathy and caste feeling,
+which produces, as described by Sir R. Craddock, the ideal village.
+
+
+
+26. Commercial honesty.
+
+
+As a trader the Bania formerly had a high standard of commercial
+probity. Even though he might show little kindliness or honesty in
+dealing with the poorer class of borrowers, he was respected and
+absolutely reliable in regard to money. It was not unusual for people
+to place their money in a rich Bania's hands without interest, even
+paying him a small sum for safe-keeping. Bankruptcy was considered
+disgraceful, and was visited with social penalties little less severe
+than those enforced for breaches of caste rules. There was a firm
+belief that a merchant's condition in the next world depended on the
+discharge of all claims against him. And the duty of paying ancestral
+debts was evaded only in the case of helpless or hopeless poverty. Of
+late, partly owing to the waning power of caste and religious feeling
+in the matter, and partly to the knowledge of the bankruptcy laws,
+the standard of commercial honour has greatly fallen. Since the
+case of bankruptcy is governed and arranged for by law, the trader
+thinks that so long as he can keep within the law he has done nothing
+wrong. A banker, when heavily involved, seldom scruples to become a
+bankrupt and to keep back money enough to enable him to start afresh,
+even if he does nothing worse. This, however, is probably a transitory
+phase, and the same thing has happened in England and America at one
+stage of commercial development. In time it may be expected that
+the loss of the old religious and caste feeling will be made good
+by a new standard of commercial honour enforced by public opinion
+among merchants generally. The Banias are very good to their own
+caste, and when a man is ruined will have a general subscription and
+provide funds to enable him to start afresh in a small way. Beggars
+are very rare in the caste. Rich Marwaris are extremely generous in
+their subscriptions to objects of public utility, but it is said that
+the small Bania is not very charitably inclined, though he doles out
+handfuls of grain to beggars with fair liberality. But he has a system
+by which he exacts from those who deal with him a slight percentage
+on the price received by them for religious purposes. This is called
+Deodan or a gift to God, and is supposed to go into some public fund
+for the construction or maintenance of a temple or similar object. In
+the absence of proper supervision or audit it is to be feared that the
+Bania inclines to make use of it for his private charity, thus saving
+himself expense on that score. The system has been investigated by
+Mr. Napier, Commissioner of Jubbulpore, with a view to the application
+of these funds to public improvements.
+
+
+
+Bania, Agarwala
+
+
+_Bania, Agarwala, Agarwal._--This is generally considered to be
+the highest and most important subdivision of the Banias. They
+numbered about 25,000 persons in the Central Provinces in 1911,
+being principally found in Jubbulpore and Nagpur. The name is probably
+derived from Agroha, a small town in the Hissar District of the Punjab,
+which was formerly of some commercial importance. Buchanan records that
+when any firm failed in the city each of the others contributed a brick
+and five rupees, which formed a stock sufficient for the merchant to
+recommence trade with advantage. The Agarwalas trace their descent
+from a Raja Agar Sen, whose seventeen sons married the seventeen
+daughters of Basuki, the king of the Nagas or snakes. Elliot considers
+that the snakes were really the Scythian or barbarian immigrants,
+the Yueh-chi or Kushans, from whom several of the Rajpat clans as the
+Tak, Haihayas and others, who also have the legend of snake ancestry,
+were probably derived. Elliot also remarks that Raja Agar Sen, being a
+king, must have been a Kshatriya, and thus according to the legend the
+Agarwalas would have Rajput ancestry on both sides. Their appearance,
+Mr. Crooke states, indicates good race and breeding, and would lend
+colour to the theory of a Rajput origin. Raja Agar Sen is said to have
+ruled over both Agra and Agroha, and it seems possible that the name
+of the Agarwalas may also be connected with Agra, which is a much
+more important place than Agroha. The country round Agra and Delhi
+is their home, and the shrine of the tutelary goddess of some of the
+Agarwalas in the Central Provinces is near Delhi. The memory of the
+Naga princess who was their ancestor is still, Sir H. Risley states,
+held in honour by the Agarwalas, and they say, 'Our mother's house is
+of the race of the snake.' [135] No Agarwala, whether Hindu or Jain,
+will kill or molest a snake, and the Vaishnava Agarwalas of Delhi
+paint pictures of snakes on either side of the outside doors of their
+houses, and make offerings of fruit and flowers before them.
+
+In the Central Provinces, like other Bania subcastes, they are
+divided into the Bisa and Dasa or twenty and ten subdivisions,
+which marry among themselves. The Bisa rank higher than the Dasa,
+the latter being considered to have some flaw in their pedigree,
+such as descent from a remarried widow. The Dasas are sometimes
+said to be the descendants of the maidservants who accompanied the
+seventeen Naga or snake princesses on their marriages to the sons of
+Raja Agar Sen. A third division has now come into existence in the
+Central Provinces, known as the Pacha or fives; these are apparently
+of still more doubtful origin than the Dasas. The divisions tend to
+be endogamous, but if a man of the Bisa or Dasa cannot obtain a wife
+from his own group he will sometimes marry in a lower group.
+
+The Agarwalas are divided into seventeen and a half _gotras_ or
+exogamous sections, which are supposed to be descended from the
+seventeen sons of Raja Agar Sen. The extra half _gotra_ is accounted
+for by a legend, but it probably has in reality also something to
+do with illegitimate descent. Some of the _gotras_, as given by
+Mr. Crooke, are as a matter of fact named after Brahmanical saints
+like those of the Brahmans; instances of these are Garga, Gautama,
+Kaushika, Kasyapa and Vasishtha; the others appear to be territorial
+or titular names. The prohibitions on marriage between relations are
+far-reaching among the Agarwalas. The detailed rules are given in
+the article on Bania, and the effect is that persons descended from
+a common ancestor cannot intermarry for five generations. When the
+wedding procession is about to start the Kumhar brings his donkey
+and the bridegroom has to touch it with his foot, or, according to
+one version, ride upon it. The origin of this custom is obscure, but
+the people now say that it is meant to emphasise the fact that the
+bridegroom is going to do a foolish thing. The remarriage of widows
+is prohibited, and divorce is not recognised. Most of the Agarwalas
+are Vaishnava by religion, but a few are Jains. Intermarriage between
+members of the two religions is permitted in some localities, and
+the wife adopts that of her husband. The Jain Agarwalas observe the
+Hindu festivals and employ Brahmans for their ceremonies. In Nimar
+the caste have some curious taboos. It is said that a married woman
+may not eat wheat until a child has been born to her, but only juari;
+and if she has no child she may not eat wheat all her life. If a son
+is born to her she must go to Mahaur, a village near Delhi where the
+tutelary goddess of the caste has her shrine. This goddess is called
+Mohna Devi, and she is the deified spirit of a woman who burnt herself
+with her husband. After this the woman may eat wheat; but if a second
+son is born she must stop eating wheat until she has been to the shrine
+again. But if she has a daughter she may at once and always eat wheat
+without visiting the shrine. These rules, as well as the veneration
+of a snake, from which they believe themselves to be descended on the
+mother's side, may perhaps, as suggested by Sir H. Risley, be a relic
+of the system of matriarchal descent. It is said that when Raja Agar
+Sen or his sons married the Naga princesses, he obtained permission
+as a special favour from the goddess Lakshmi that the children should
+bear their father's name and not their mother's. [136]
+
+In Nimar some Agarwalas worship Goba Pir, the god of the sweepers. He
+is represented by a pole some 30 feet long on which are hung a cloth
+and cocoanuts. The sweepers carry this through the city almost daily
+during the month of Shrawan (July), and people offer cocoanuts, tying
+them on to the pole. Some Agarwalas offer vermilion to the god in token
+of worship, and a few invite it to the compounds of their houses and
+keep it there all night for the same purpose. When a feast is given in
+the caste the Agarwalas do not take their own brass vessels according
+to the usual practice, but the host gives them little earthen pots
+to drink from which are afterwards broken, and leaf-plates for their
+food. The Agarwalas will take food cooked without water (_pakki_) from
+Oswal, Maheshri and Khandelwal Banias. The Agarwalas of the Central
+Provinces hold some substantial estates in Chhattisgarh; these were
+obtained at the first settlements during 1860-70, when considerable
+depression existed, and many of the village headmen were unwilling to
+accept the revenue assessed on their villages. The more enterprising
+Banias stepped in and took them, and have profited enormously owing to
+the increase in the value of land. Akbar's great minister, Todar Mal,
+who first introduced an assessment of the land-revenue based on the
+measurement and survey of the land, is said to have been an Agarwala.
+
+
+
+Bania, Agrahari
+
+
+_Bania, Agrahari._ [137]--This subcaste numbered nearly 2000 persons
+in 1911, resident principally in Jubbulpore, Raipur and Bilaspur,
+and some of the Feudatory States. Mr. Crooke states that they claim
+partly a Vaishya and partly a Brahmanical descent, and wear the sacred
+thread. Like that of the Agarwala Banias their name has been connected
+with the cities of Agra and Agroha. There is no doubt that they are
+closely connected with the Agarwalas, and Mr. Nesfield suggests that
+the two groups must have been sections of one and the same caste
+which quarrelled on some trifling matter connected with cooking or
+eating, and have remained separate ever since. The Agrahari Banias
+are Hindus, and some of them belong to the Nanakpanthi sect. They
+are principally dealers in provisions, and they have acquired some
+discredit as compared with their kinsfolk the Agarwalas, through
+not secluding their women and allowing them to attend the shop. They
+also retail various sweet-smelling woods which are used in religious
+ceremonies, such as aloe-wood and sandalwood, besides a number of
+medicines and simples. The richer members of the caste are bankers,
+dealers in grain and pawnbrokers.
+
+
+
+Bania, Ajudhiabasi
+
+
+_Bania, Ajudhiabasi, Audhia_.--A subcaste of Bania, whose name
+signifies a resident of Ajodhia, the old name of Oudh. Outsiders often
+shorten the name to Audhia, but, as will be seen, the name Audhia
+is regularly applied to a criminal class, who may have been derived
+from the Ajudhiabasi Banias, but are now quite distinct from them. The
+Ajudhiabasis numbered nearly 2000 persons in 1911, belonging chiefly
+to the Jubbulpore, Narsinghpur and Hoshangabad Districts. This total
+includes any persons who may have returned themselves as Audhia. The
+Ajudhiabasis are nearly all Hindus with a small Jain minority. Though
+Oudh was their original home they are now fairly numerous in Cawnpore
+and Bundelkhand as well, and it may have been from this last locality
+that they entered the Central Provinces. Here they form a separate
+endogamous group and do not marry with their caste-fellows in northern
+India. They have exogamous sections, and marriage is prohibited
+within the section and also between first cousins. They permit the
+remarriage of widows, but are said not to recognise divorce, and to
+expel from the caste a woman guilty of adultery. It may be doubted,
+however, whether this is correct. Brahmans serve as their priests,
+and they invest boys with the sacred thread either at marriage or at
+a special ceremony known as Gurmukh. The dead are either buried or
+burnt; in the case of burial men are laid on the face and women on
+the back, the body being first rubbed with salt, clarified butter,
+turmeric and milk. A little earth from the grave is carried away and
+thrown into a sacred river, and when the dead are burnt the ashes are
+similarly disposed of. Their principal deity is the goddess Devi,
+and at the Dasahra festival they offer a goat to her, the flesh of
+which is distributed among members of the caste.
+
+The Audhias are a well-known criminal tribe, whose headquarters is
+in the Fatehpur District. They say that they are Banias, and use the
+name Ajudhiabasi in speaking of themselves, and from their customs and
+criminal methods it seems not unlikely that they may originally have
+been an offshoot from the Ajudhiabasi Banias. They are now, however,
+perfectly distinct from this group, and any confusion between them
+would be very unjust to the latter. In northern India it is said that
+the Audhias deal largely in counterfeit coin and false jewellery, and
+never commit crimes of violence; [138] but in Bombay they have taken
+to housebreaking, though they usually select an empty house. [139]
+From their homes in the United Provinces they wander over Central
+India, the Central Provinces, Bengal and Bombay; they are said to
+avoid the Punjab and Sind owing to difficulties of working, and they
+have made it a caste offence to commit any crime in the Ganges-Jumna
+Doab, probably because this is their home. It is said also that if
+any one of them is imprisoned he is put out of caste. They wander
+about disguised as religious mendicants, Brahmans or Bairagis. They
+carry their bedding tied on their back with a cloth, and a large bag
+slung over the shoulders which contains food, cooking-vessels and
+other articles. Sometimes they pretend to be Banias and hawk about
+sweets and groceries, or one of the gang opens a shop, which serves
+as a rendezvous and centre for collecting information. [140] In the
+Districts where they reside they are perfectly well-behaved. They are
+well-to-do and to all appearance respectable in their habits. Their
+women are well-dressed with plenty of ornaments on their persons. They
+have no apparent means of support; they neither cultivate land
+nor trade; and all that appears on the surface is that most of the
+men and boys go off after the rains and return at the end of the
+cold weather. If asked how they support themselves they reply by
+begging. Their marriage rules are those of high-caste Hindus. They
+are divided into two classes, Unch or high and Nich or low, the
+former being of pure blood, and the latter the descendants of kept
+women. These are practically endogamous. A man may not have more than
+two wives. If a girl is detected in immorality before marriage, she
+is permanently excommunicated, and a married woman can be turned out
+by her husband on proof of adultery. A bridegroom-price is usually
+paid, the father of the bride visiting the bridegroom and giving
+him the money in secret. The dead are burnt, and Brahmans are duly
+fed. If a man has died through an accident or from cholera, smallpox,
+poison or leprosy, the corpse, if available, is at once consigned to
+the Ganges or other river, and during the course of the next twelve
+months a Mahabrahman is paid to make an image of the deceased in
+gram-flour, which is cremated with the usual rites. As in the case
+of the Ajudhiabasi Banias, the tribal deity of the Audhias is the
+goddess Devi. [141]
+
+
+
+Bania, Asathi
+
+
+_Bania, Asathi._--This subcaste numbers about 2500 persons in the
+Central Provinces, belonging principally to the Damoh and Jubbulpore
+Districts. They say that their original home was the Tikamgarh State
+in Bundelkhand. They do not rank very high, and are sometimes said
+to be the descendants of an Ahir who became a Bania. The great bulk
+are Hindus and a small minority Jains. It is told of the Asathis that
+they first bury their dead, in accordance presumably with a former
+practice, and then exhume and burn the bodies; and there is a saying--
+
+
+                Ardha jale, ardha gare
+                Jinka nam Asathi pare,
+
+
+or, 'He who is an Asathi is half buried and half burnt.' But this
+practice, if it ever really existed, has now been abandoned.
+
+
+
+Bania, Charnagri
+
+
+_Bania, Charnagri, Channagri, Samaiya._--The Charnagris are a small
+Jain subcaste which numbered about 2500 persons in 1911, residing
+principally in the Damoh and Chhindwara Districts. They are the
+followers of one Taran Swami, who is said to have lived about five
+centuries ago. He preached against the worship of the images of the
+Jain Tirthakars, and said that this should be abandoned and only
+the sacred books be revered. The chief sacred place of the sect
+is Malhargarh in Gwalior State; here the tomb of their prophet is
+situated and there is also a large temple in which the Jain scriptures
+are enshrined. In the month of Phagun (February) a fair is held here,
+and Charnagris dance in the temples, holding lighted lamps in their
+hands. Nowadays the Charnagris also visit the ordinary Jain temples
+when their own are not available. They are practically all derived from
+Parwar Banias, and formerly would sometimes give their daughters to
+Parwars in marriage, but this practice is said to have stopped. Like
+other Bania subcastes, they are divided into Bisa and Dasa, or twenty
+and ten sections, the Dasa being of irregular descent. Intermarriage
+between the two sections occasionally occurs, and the Dasa will take
+food from the Bisa section, but the latter do not reciprocate except
+at caste feasts.
+
+
+
+Bania, Dhusar
+
+
+_Bania, Dhusar, Bhargava Dhusar._--The origin of this group is much
+disputed. They are usually classed as a subcaste of Bania, but claim
+to be Brahmans. They take their name from a hill called Dhusi or
+Dhosi, near Narnaul on the border of Alwar State. The title Bhargava
+signifies a descendant of Bhrigu, one of the famous eponymous Rishis
+or Brahmanical saints, to whom Manu confided his institutes, calling
+him his son. If this was their original name, it would show that they
+were Brahmans, but its adoption appears to be somewhat recent. Their
+claim to be Brahmans is, however, admitted by many members of that
+caste, and it is stated that they perform the functions of Brahmans
+in their original home in Rajputana. Mr. Burn wrote of them: [142]
+"In his book on castes published in 1872 Mr. Sherring does not refer to
+any claim to kinship with Brahmans, though in his description of Dhusar
+Banias he appears to include the people under consideration. Both the
+Dhusar Bhargavas and Dhusar Banias assert that Himu, the capable Vazir
+of Muhammad Shah Suri, belonged to their community, and such a claim
+by the former is if anything in favour of the view that they are not
+Brahmans, since Himu is variously described by Muhammadan writers as
+a corn-chandler, a weighman and a Bania. Colonel Dow in his history
+of Hindustan calls him a shopkeeper who was raised by Sher Shah to be
+Superintendent of Markets. It is not improbable that Himu's success
+laid the foundation for a claim to a higher position, but the matter
+does not admit of absolute proof, and I have therefore accepted the
+decision of the majority of the caste-committees and considered them
+as a caste allied to Brahmans." In the Punjab the Dhusars appear to be
+in some places Brahmans and in others Banias. "They take their food
+before morning prayer, contrary to the Hindu rule, but of late years
+they have begun to conform to the orthodox practice. The Brahman
+Dhusar marries with his caste-fellows and the Bania with Banias,
+avoiding always the same family (_gotra_) or one having the same
+family deity." [143] From the above accounts it would appear that
+the Dhusars may have originally been a class of Brahmans who took
+to trade, like the Palliwal Brahmans of Marwar, and have lost their
+position as Brahmans and become amalgamated with the Bania caste;
+or they may have been Banias, who acted as priests to others of the
+community, and hence claimed to be Brahmans. The caste is important and
+influential, and is now making every effort to recover or substantiate
+its Brahman status. One writer states that they combine the office
+aptitude and hard-heartedness to a debtor characteristic of the
+Bania. The Dhusars are rigid in the maintenance of the purity of
+their order and in the performance of Hindu ceremonies and duties,
+and neither eat meat nor drink any kind of spirit. In Delhi they
+were distinguished for their talent as singers, and cultivated a
+peculiar strain or measure, in which they were unsurpassed. [144]
+In the Central Provinces the Dhusars are a flourishing body, their
+leaders being Rai Bahadur Bihari Lal Khizanchi of Jubbulpore and Rai
+Sahib Seth Sundar Lal of Betul. They have founded the Bhargava bank
+of Jubbulpore, and shown considerable public spirit; to the latter
+gentleman's generosity a large part of the success of the recent
+debt-conciliation proceedings in the Betul District must be attributed.
+
+
+
+Bania, Dosar
+
+
+_Bania, Dosar, Dusra._ [145]--This subcaste numbers about 600
+persons. The original name is Dusra or second, and the Dosar or Dusra
+are a section of the Ummar Banias, who were so called because they
+permit widows to make a second marriage. Their home is the Ganges-Jumna
+Doab and Oudh, and in the United Provinces they are classed as an
+inferior subcaste of the Ummars. Here they say that the Ummars are
+their elder brothers. In the Central Provinces they are said to be
+forming three local endogamous groups according as their homes were in
+the Doab, Oudh or the Allahabad country; and members of each of these
+marry among themselves. The Dosars say that they all belong to the
+Kashyap [146] _gotra_ or clan, but for the purpose of marriage they
+have territorial or titular exogamous sections; instances of these are
+Gangapari, a native of Oudh; Sagarah, a resident of Saugor; Makraha,
+a seller of _makka_ or maize, and Tamakhuha, a tobacco-seller. They
+pay a bridegroom-price, the full recognised amount of which is Rs. 211,
+either in cash or brass cooking-vessels. Those who cannot afford this
+sum give half of it or Rs. 105, and the poorest classes pay anything
+they can afford. The Dosars are Vaishnava Hindus and employ Sanadhya
+Brahmans as their priests. These Brahmans will take food without
+water from their clients, but they are an inferior class and are
+looked down upon by other Brahmans. The caste are mainly shopkeepers,
+and they deal in gold and silver ornaments, as well as grain, tobacco
+and all kinds of groceries.
+
+
+
+Bania, Gahoi
+
+
+_Bania, Gahoi._ [147]--This Hindu subcaste numbered nearly 7000
+persons in 1911, belonging principally to the Saugor, Jubbulpore and
+Narsinghpur Districts. Their home is the Bundelkhand country, which
+these Districts adjoin, and they say that their original headquarters
+was at Kharagpur in Bundelkhand, whence they have spread over the
+surrounding country. They tell a curious story of their origin to the
+effect that once upon a time there was a certain schoolmaster, one
+Biya Pande Brahman, who could foretell the future. One day he was in
+his school with his boys when he foresaw that there was about to be an
+earthquake. He immediately warned his boys to get out of the building,
+and himself led the way. Only twelve of the boys had followed, and the
+others were still hesitating, when the earthquake began, the school
+fell in, and they were all buried in the ruins. The schoolmaster
+formed the boys who had escaped into one caste, calling them Gahoi,
+which is supposed to mean that which is left or the residue; and he
+determined that he and his descendants would be the priests of the
+new caste. At the weddings of the Gahois an image of the schoolmaster
+is painted on the house wall, and the bridegroom worships it with
+offerings of butter and flowers. The story indicates clearly that
+the Gahois are of mixed descent from several castes.
+
+The subcaste has twelve _gotras_ or sections, and seventy-two _al_
+or _anken_, which are subsections of the _gotras_. Several of the
+_al_ names appear to be of a titular or totemistic character, as Mor
+peacock, Sohania beautiful, Nagaria a drummer, Paharia a hillman,
+Matele the name of a village headman in Bundelkhand, Piparvania from
+the pipal tree, Dadaria a singer. The rule of exogamy is said to be
+that a man must not marry in his own _gotra_ nor in the _al_ of his
+mother or either grandmother. [148] Their weddings are held only at
+the bride's house, no ceremonies being performed at the bridegroom's;
+at the ceremony the bridegroom stands in the centre of the shed by
+the marriage-post and the bride walks seven times round him. At their
+weddings the Gahois still use the old rupees of the Nagpur kingdom for
+presents and payments to menials, and they hoard them up, when they
+can get them, for this special purpose. The rupee is sacred with the
+Bania, and this is an instance of the preservation of old accessories
+for religious ceremonies when they have been superseded in ordinary
+use. Polygamy is permitted, but is rare. The Gahois employ Bhargava
+Brahmans for their priests, and these are presumably the descendants
+of the schoolmaster who founded the caste. At the thirteenth-day feast
+after a death the Brahmans must be fed first before the members of the
+caste. On this occasion thirteen brass or earthen vessels are filled
+with flour, and a piece of money, and presented to thirteen Brahmans,
+while the family priest receives a bed and piece of cloth. The priests
+are said to be greedy, and to raise quarrels over the value of the
+presents given to them. At the Diwali festival the Gahois worship the
+implements of their trade, pen and ink, and their account-books. The
+Gahois are Vaishnava Hindus, and abstain from all flesh and alcoholic
+liquor. They trade in grain and groceries, and are bankers and
+moneylenders. They are considered to be cunning in business, and a
+proverb says that a Gahoi will deceive even his own father.
+
+
+
+Bania, Golapurab
+
+
+_Bania, Golapurab, Golahre._--This Jain subcaste numbers about 6000
+persons in the Central Provinces, and belongs mainly to the Saugor,
+Damoh and Narsinghpur Districts. Its distribution is nearly the
+same as that of the Gahois, and it is probably also a Bundelkhand
+group. The Golapurabs are practically all Digambari Jains with a small
+Hindu minority. In some localities they intermarry with Parwar Banias
+who are also Digambari Jains; and they will take food cooked without
+water from the Nema subcaste who are Hindus. According to one story
+the Golapurabs were the offspring of a Purabia, that is probably a
+Bais Rajput, by a kept woman of the Ahir caste. This fits in very
+well with the name, as Golak means a bastard, and the termination
+_purab_ would be from Purabia; but it is probably the name which has
+given rise to the story, or at any rate to the supposed descent from
+a Purabia. In the United Provinces a small subcaste of Bania called
+Golahre exists, belonging to the Jhansi District, that is the country
+of the Golapurabs, and Jain by religion. There is no doubt that this
+group is the same as the Golapurabs, and Mr. Crooke derives [149]
+the name from _gola_, a grain-mart, which seems more probable than
+the derivation suggested above. But it is an interesting fact that
+there is also a caste of cultivators called Golapurab in the United
+Provinces, found only in the Agra District. It is suggested that
+these people are the illegitimate offspring of Sanadhya Brahmans,
+with whom they appear to be closely connected. From their sept-names,
+however, which include those of several Rajput clans and also some
+titular terms of a low-caste type, Mr. Crooke thinks their Brahmanical
+origin improbable. It is noticeable that these Golapurabs though a
+cultivating caste have, like the Banias, a subcaste called Dasa,
+comprising persons of irregular descent; they also prohibit the
+remarriage of widows, and abstain from all flesh and from onions and
+garlic. Such customs are peculiar in a cultivating caste, and resemble
+those of Banias. It seems possible that a detailed investigation
+might give ground for supposing that both the Golahre and Golapurab
+subcastes of Banias in the United and Central Provinces respectively
+are connected with this cultivating caste of Golapurabs. The latter
+might have abandoned the Jain religion on taking to cultivation,
+as a Jain cannot well drive the plough, which involves destruction
+of animal life; or the Bania section might have adopted Jainism in
+order to obtain a better social position and differentiate themselves
+from the cultivators. Unfortunately no detailed information about
+the Golapurabs of the Central Provinces is available, from which the
+probability or otherwise of this hypothesis could be tested.
+
+
+
+Bania, Kasarwani
+
+
+_Bania, Kasarwani_. [150]--This Hindu subcaste numbers about 6500
+persons in the Central Provinces, who belong mainly to Saugor,
+Jubbulpore and the three Chhattisgarh Districts. The name is probably
+derived from _kansa_, bell-metal, as these Banias retail brass and
+bell-metal vessels. The Kasarwanis may therefore not improbably
+be an occupational group formed from persons who engaged in the
+trade, and in that case they may be wholly or partly derived from
+the Kasars and Tameras, the castes which work in brass, copper and
+bell-metal. The Kasarwanis are numerous in Allahabad and Mirzapur,
+and they may have come to Chhattisgarh from Mirzapur, attracted by the
+bell-metal industries in Ratanpur and Drug. In Saugor and also in the
+United Provinces they say that they came from Kara Manikpur several
+generations ago. If the selling of metal vessels was their original
+calling, many, or the majority of them, have now abandoned it, and
+deal in grain and groceries, and lend money like other Banias. The
+Kasarwanis do not observe the same standard of strictness as the good
+Bania subcastes in their social rules. They eat the flesh of goats,
+sheep, birds and fish, though they abstain from liquor. They permit the
+remarriage of widows and divorce; and women who have been divorced can
+marry again in the caste by the same rite as widows. They also allow
+the exchange of girls in marriage between two families. They do not as
+a rule wear the sacred thread. Their priests are Sarwaria Brahmans,
+and these Brahmans and a few Bania subcastes, such as the Agarwalas,
+Umres and Gahois, can take food cooked without water from them, but
+other Brahmans and Rajputs will not take any kind of food. Matches
+are arranged in the presence of the head of the caste _panchayat_,
+who is known as Chaudhri. The parents on each side give their consent,
+and in pledge of it six pice (farthings) are taken from both of them,
+mixed together and given to their family priests and barbers, four
+pice to the priests and two to the barbers. The following is a local
+derivation of the name; the word _kasar_ means more or the increase,
+and _bhata_ means less; and _Hamara kya kasar bhata?_ means 'How
+does my account stand?' Hence Kasarbani is one who keeps accounts,
+that is a Bania.
+
+
+
+Bania, Kasaundhan
+
+
+_Bania, Kasaundhan._--This subcaste numbers about 5500 persons in the
+Central Provinces and is returned principally from the Bilaspur, Raipur
+and Jubbulpore Districts. The name is derived [151] by Mr. Crooke from
+_kansa_, bell-metal, and _dhana_, wealth, and it would appear that the
+Kasaundhans like the Kasarwanis are an occupational group, made up of
+shopkeepers who dealt in metal vessels. Like them also the Kasaundhans
+may have originally been constituted from the metal-working castes,
+and indeed they may be only a local branch of the Kasarwanis, though no
+information is available which would decide this point. In the United
+Provinces both the Kasarwanis and Kasaundhans are divided into the
+Purbia or eastern and Pachhaiyan or western subcastes. Dharam Das,
+the great disciple of Kabir, who founded the Kabirpanthi sect in the
+Central Provinces, was a Kasaundhan Bania, and the Kabirpanthi Mahants
+or high-priests of Kawardha are of this caste. It is probable that a
+good many of the Kasaundhan Banias in Bilaspur and Raipur belong to
+the Kabirpanthi sect. The remainder are ordinary Hindus.
+
+
+
+Bania, Khandelwal
+
+
+_Bania, Khandelwal._--This subcaste numbers about 1500 persons in
+the Central Provinces; they are most numerous in the Hoshangabad and
+Amraoti Districts, but are scattered all over the Province. They take
+their name from the town of Khandela in the Jaipur State of Rajputana,
+which was formerly the capital of the Shekhawati federation. There is
+also a Khandelwal subcaste of the Brahman caste, found in the United
+Provinces. [152] Mr. Bhattacharya says of them: [153] "The Khandelwal
+Banias are not inferior to any other division of the caste either in
+wealth or refinement. There are both Vaishnavites and Jains among
+them, and the Vaishnavite Khandelwals wear the sacred thread. The
+millionaire Seths of Mathura are Khandelwal Banias."
+
+
+
+Bania, Lad
+
+
+_Bania, Lad._--This subcaste numbers about 5000 persons in the
+Central Provinces, being settled in Nimar, Nagpur and all the Berar
+Districts. The Lad Banias came from Gujarat, and Lad is derived from
+Lat-desh, the old name for Gujarat. Like other Banias they are divided
+into the Bisa and Dasa groups or twenties and tens, the Dasa being
+of irregular descent. Their family priests are Khedawal Brahmans,
+and their caste deity is Ashapuri of Ashnai, near Petlad. Lad women,
+especially those of Baroda, are noted for their taste in dress. The
+Lad Banias are Hindus of the Vallabhacharya sect, who worship Krishna,
+and were formerly addicted to sexual indulgence. [154]
+
+
+
+Bania, Lingayat
+
+
+_Bania, Lingayat._--The Lingayat Banias number nearly 8000 persons in
+the Central Provinces, being numerous in Wardha, Nagpur and all the
+Berar Districts. A brief account of the Lingayat sect has been given
+in a separate article. The Lingayat Banias form a separate endogamous
+group, and they do not eat or intermarry either with other Banias or
+with members of other castes belonging to the Lingayat sect. But they
+retain the name and occupation of Banias. They have five subdivisions,
+Pancham, Dikshawant, Chilliwant, Takalkar and Kanade. The Pancham or
+Panchamsalis are the descendants of the original Brahman converts
+to the Lingayat sect. They are the main body of the community
+and are initiated by what is known as the eight-fold sacrament or
+_eshta-varna_. The Dikshawant, from _diksha_ or initiation, are a
+subdivision of the Panchamsalis, who apparently initiate disciples
+like the Dikshit Brahmans. The Takalkar are said to take their name
+from a forest called Takali, where their first ancestress bore a
+child to the god Siva. The Kanade are from Canara. The meaning of
+the term Chilliwant is not known; it is said that a member of this
+subcaste will throw away his food or water if it is seen by any one
+who is not a Lingayat, and they shave the whole head. The above form
+endogamous subcastes. The Lingayat Banias also have exogamous groups,
+the names of which are mainly titular, of a low-caste type. Instances
+of them are Kaode, from _kawa_ a crow, Teli an oil-seller, Thubri a
+dwarf, Ubadkar an incendiary, Gudkari a sugar-seller and Dhamankar
+from Dhamangaon. They say that the _maths_ or exogamous groups are no
+longer regarded, and that marriage is now prohibited between persons
+having the same surname. It is stated that if a girl is not married
+before adolescence she is finally expelled from the caste, but this
+rule has probably become obsolete. The proposal for marriage comes
+from either the boy's or girl's party, and sometimes the bridegroom
+receives a small sum for his travelling expenses, while at other times
+a bride-price is paid. At the wedding, rice coloured red is put in
+the hands of the bridegroom and juari coloured yellow in those of the
+bride. The bridegroom places the rice on the bride's head and she lays
+the juari at his feet. A dish full of water with a golden ring in it is
+put between them, and they lay their hands on the ring together under
+the water and walk five times round a decorative little marriage-shed
+erected inside the real one. A feast is given, and the bridal couple
+sit on a little dais and eat out of the same dish. The remarriage of
+widows is permitted, but the widow may not marry a man belonging to
+the section either of her first husband or of her father. Divorce is
+recognised. The Lingayats bury the dead in a sitting posture with
+the _lingam_ or emblem of Siva, which has never left the dead man
+during his lifetime, clasped in his right hand. Sometimes a platform
+is made over the grave with an image of Siva. They do not shave the
+head in token of mourning. Their principal festival is Shivratri or
+Siva's night, when they offer the leaves of the bel tree and ashes
+to the god. A Lingayat must never be without the _lingam_ or phallic
+sign of Siva, which is carried slung round the neck in a little
+case of silver, copper or brass. If he loses it, he must not eat,
+drink nor smoke until he finds it or obtains another. The Lingayats
+do not employ Brahmans for any purpose, but are served by their own
+priests, the Jangams, [155] who are recruited both by descent and by
+initiation from members of the Pancham group. The Lingayat Banias are
+practically all immigrants from the Telugu country; they have Telugu
+names and speak this language in their homes. They deal in grain,
+cloth, groceries and spices.
+
+
+
+Bania, Maheshri
+
+
+_Bania, Maheshri._--This important subcaste of Banias numbered
+about 14,000 persons in the Central Provinces in 1911, of whom 8000
+belonged to the Berar Districts, and the remainder principally to
+Hoshangabad, Nimar, Wardha and Nagpur. The name is said to be derived
+from Maheshwar, an ancient town on the Nerbudda, near Indore, and one
+of the earliest Rajput settlements. But some of them say that their
+original home is in Bikanir, and tell a story to the effect that their
+ancestor was a Raja who was turned into stone with his seventy-two
+followers by some ascetics whose devotions they had interrupted in
+the forest. But when their wives came to commit _sati_ by the stone
+figures the god Siva intervened and brought them to life again. He
+told them to give up the profession of arms and take to trade. So the
+seventy-two followers were the ancestors of the seventy-two _gotras_
+or sections of the Maheshris, and the Raja became their tribal
+_Bhat_ or genealogist, and they were called Maheshri or Maheswari,
+from Mahesh, a name of Siva. In Gujarat the term Maheshri or Meshri
+appears to be used for all Banias who are not Jains, including the
+other important Hindu subcastes. [156] This is somewhat peculiar,
+and perhaps tends to show that several of the local subcastes are
+of recent formation. But though they profess to be named after Siva,
+the Maheshris, like practically all other Hindu Banias, are Vaishnava
+by sect, and wear the _kunti_ or necklace of beads of basil. A small
+minority are Jains. It is to be noticed that both the place of their
+origin, an early Rajput settlement of the Yadava clan, and their own
+legend tend to show that they were derived from the Rajput caste;
+for as their ancestors were attendants on a Raja and followed the
+profession of arms, which they were told to abandon, they could be
+none other than Rajputs. The Maheshris also have the Rajput custom of
+sending a cocoanut as a symbol of a proposal of marriage. In Nimar the
+Maheshri Banias say they belong to the Dhakar subcaste, a name which
+usually means illegitimate, though they themselves explain that it is
+derived from a place called Dhakargarh, from which they migrated. As
+already stated they are divided into seventy-two exogamous clans,
+the names of which appear to be titular or territorial. It is said
+that at their weddings when the bridegroom gets to the door of the
+marriage-shed, the bride's mother ties a scarf round his neck and
+takes hold of his nose and drags him into the shed. Sometimes they make
+the bridegroom kneel down and pay reverence to a shoe as a joke. They
+do not observe the custom of the _pangat_ or formal festal assembly,
+which is usual among Hindu castes; according to this, none can begin
+to eat until all the guests have assembled, when they all sit down at
+once. Among the Maheshris the guests sit down as they come in, and are
+served and take their food and go. They only have the _pangat_ feast
+on very rare occasions. The Maheshris are one of the richest, most
+enterprising and influential classes of Banias. They are intelligent,
+of high-bred appearance, cleanly habits and courteous manners. The
+great bankers, Sir Kasturchand Daga of Kamptee, of the firm of Bansi
+Lal Abirchand, and Rai Bahadur Seth Jiwan Das and Diwan Bahadur Seth
+Ballabh Das, of Jubbulpore, belong to this subcaste.
+
+
+
+Bania, Nema
+
+
+_Bania, Nema._--This subcaste numbers nearly 4000 persons, the bulk of
+whom reside in the Saugor, Damoh, Narsinghpur and Seoni Districts. The
+Nemas are most largely returned from Central India, and are probably
+a Bundelkhand group; they will eat food cooked without water with
+Golapurab Banias, who are also found in Bundelkhand. They are
+mainly Hindus, with a small minority of Jains. The origin of the
+name is obscure; the suggestion that it comes from Nimar appears
+to be untenable, as there are very few Nemas in that District. They
+say that when Parasurama was slaying the Kshatriyas fourteen young
+Rajput princes, who at the time were studying religion with their
+family priests, were saved by the latter on renouncing their Kshatriya
+status and declaring themselves to be Vaishyas. These fourteen princes
+were the ancestors of the fourteen _gotras_ of the Nema subcaste,
+but the _gotras_ actually bear the names of the fourteen Rishis or
+saints who saved their lives. These sections appear to be of the
+usual Brahmanical type, but marriage is regulated by another set of
+fifty-two subsections, with names which are apparently titular or
+territorial. Like other Bania groups the Nemas are divided into Bisa
+and Dasa subdivisions or twenties and tens, the Bisa being of pure
+and the Dasa of irregular descent. There is also a third group of
+Pacha or fives, who appear to be the offspring of kept women. After
+some generations, when the details of their ancestry are forgotten,
+the Pachas probably obtain promotion into the Dasa group. The Bisa
+and Dasa groups take food together, but do not intermarry. The
+Nemas wear the sacred thread and apparently prohibit the remarriage
+of widows. The Nemas are considered to be very keen business men,
+and a saying about them is, "Where a sheep grazes or a Nema trades,
+what is there left for anybody else?"
+
+
+
+Bania, Oswal
+
+
+_Bania, Oswal._--This is perhaps the most important subdivision of the
+Banias after the Agarwala. The Oswals numbered nearly 10,000 persons
+in the Central Provinces in 1911, being found in considerable numbers
+in all the Berar Districts, and also in Nimar, Wardha and Raipur. The
+name is derived from the town of Osia or Osnagar in Marwar. According
+to one legend of their origin the Raja of Osnagar had no son, and
+obtained one through the promise of a Jain ascetic. The people then
+drove the ascetic from the town, fearing that the Raja would become a
+Jain; but Osadev, the guardian goddess of the place, told the ascetic,
+Sri Ratan Suri, to convert the Raja by a miracle. So she took a small
+hank (_puni_) of cotton and passed it along the back of the saint,
+when it immediately became a snake and bit Jaichand, the son of the
+Raja, in the toe, while he was asleep beside his wife. Every means
+was tried to save his life, but he died. As his corpse was about
+to be burnt, the ascetic sent one of his disciples and stopped the
+cremation. Then the Raja came with the body of his son and stood
+with hands clasped before the saint. He ordered that it was to be
+taken back to the place where the prince had been bitten, and that
+the princess was to lie down beside it as before. At midnight the
+snake returned and licked the bite, when the prince was restored to
+life. Then the Raja, with all his Court and people, became a Jain. He
+and his family founded the _gotra_ or section now known as Sri Srimal
+or most noble; his servants formed that known as Srimal or excellent,
+while the other Rajputs of the town became ordinary Oswals. When the
+Brahmans of the place heard of these conversions they asked the saint
+how they were to live, as all their clients had become Jains. The
+saint directed that they should continue to be the family priests
+of the Oswals and be known as Bhojak or 'eaters.' Thus the Oswals,
+though Jains, continue to employ Marwari Brahmans as their family
+priests. Another version of the story is that the king of Srimali
+[157] allowed no one who was not a millionaire to live within his city
+walls. In consequence of this a large number of persons left Srimal,
+and, settling in Mandovad, called it Osa or the frontier. Among them
+were Srimali Banias and also Bhatti, Chauhan, Gahlot, Gaur, Yadava,
+and several other clans of Rajputs, and these were the people who
+were subsequently converted by the Jain ascetic, Sri Ratan Suri,
+and formed into the single caste of Oswal. [158] Finally, Colonel
+Tod states that the Oswals are all of pure Rajput descent, of no
+single tribe, but chiefly Panwars, Solankis and Bhattis. [159] From
+these legends and the fact that their headquarters are in Rajputana,
+it may safely be concluded that the Oswal Banias are of Rajput origin.
+
+The large majority of the Oswals are Jain by religion, but a few are
+Vaishnava Hindus. Intermarriage between the Hindu and Jain sections is
+permitted. Like the Agarwalas, the Oswals are divided into Bisa, Dasa
+and Pacha sections or twenties, tens and fives, according to the purity
+of their lineage. The Pacha subcaste still permit the remarriage of
+widows. The three groups take food together but do not intermarry. In
+Bombay, Dasa Oswals intermarry with the Dasa groups of Srimali and
+Parwar Banias, [160] and Oswals generally can marry with other good
+Bania subcastes so long as both parties are Jains. The Oswals are
+divided into eighty-four _gotras_ or exogamous sections for purposes
+of marriage, a list of which is given by Mr. Crooke. [161] Most of
+these cannot be recognised, but a few of them seem to be titular, as
+Lorha a caste which grows hemp, Nunia a salt-refiner, Seth a banker,
+Daftari an office-boy, Vaid a physician, Bhandari a cook, and Kukara
+a dog. These may indicate a certain amount of admixture of foreign
+elements in the caste. As stated from Benares, the exogamous rule
+is that a man cannot marry in his own section, and he cannot marry a
+girl whose father's or mother's section is the same as that of either
+his father or mother. This would bar the marriage of first cousins.
+
+Though Jains the Oswals perform their weddings by walking round the
+sacred fire and observe certain Hindu rites, including the worship
+of the god Ganpati. [162] They also revere other Hindu deities and
+the sun and moon. The dead are burnt, but they do not observe any
+impurity after a death nor clean the house. On the day after the
+death the mourning family, both men and women, visit Parasnath's
+temple, and lay one seer (2 lbs.) of Indian millet before the god,
+bow to him and go home. They do not gather the ashes of the dead nor
+keep the yearly death-day. Their only observance is that on some
+day between the twelfth day after a death and the end of a year,
+the caste-people are treated to a dinner of sweetmeats and the dead
+'are then forgotten.' [163] The Oswals will take food cooked with
+water (_katchi_) only from Brahmans, and that cooked without water
+(_pakki_) from Agarwala and Maheshri Banias. In the Central Provinces
+the principal deity of the Oswals is the Jain Tirthakar Parasnath,
+and they spend large sums in the erection of splendid temples. The
+Oswals are the most prominent trading caste in Rajputana; and they
+have also frequently held high offices, such as Diwan or minister,
+and paymaster in Rajput States. [164]
+
+
+
+Bania, Parwar
+
+
+
+1. Origin.
+
+
+_Bania, Parwar._ [165]--This Jain subcaste numbered nearly 29,000
+persons in 1911. They belong almost entirely to the Jubbulpore
+and Nerbudda Divisions, and the great bulk are found in the Saugor,
+Damoh and Jubbulpore Districts. The origin of the Parwars and of their
+name is not known, but there is some reason to suppose that they are
+from Rajputana. Their women wear on the head the _bij_, a Rajputana
+ornament, and use the _charu_, a deep brass plate for drinking, which
+also belongs there. Their songs are said to be in the Rajasthani
+dialect. It seems likely that the Parwars may be identical with the
+Porawal subcaste found in other Provinces, which, judging from the
+name, may belong to Rajputana. In the northern Districts the Parwars
+speak Bundeli, but in the south their language is said to be Marwari.
+
+
+
+2. Subdivisions.
+
+
+Among the Parwars the Samaiya or Channagri form a separate sectarian
+Jain group. They do not worship the images of the Jain Tirthakars,
+but enshrine the sacred books of the Jains in their temples, and
+worship these. The Parwars will take daughters in marriage from the
+Channagris, and sometimes give their daughters in consideration of
+a substantial bride-price. Among the Parwars themselves there is a
+social division between the Ath Sake and the Chao Sake; the former
+will not permit the marriage of persons related more nearly than
+eight degrees, while the latter permit it after four degrees. The
+Ath Sake have the higher position, and if one of them marries a Chao
+Sake he is degraded to that group. Besides this the Parwars have an
+inferior division called Benaikia, which consists of the offspring of
+irregular unions and of widows who have remarried. Persons who have
+committed a caste offence and cannot pay the fine imposed on them for
+it also go into this subcaste. The Benaikias [166] themselves are
+distributed into four groups of varying degrees of respectability,
+and families who live correctly and marry as well as they can tend
+to rise from one to the other until after several generations they
+may again be recognised as Parwars proper.
+
+
+
+3. Exogamy.
+
+
+The Parwars have twelve _gotras_ or main sections, and each _gotra_
+has, or is supposed to have, twelve _muls_ or subsections. A Parwar
+must not marry in his own _gotra_ nor in the _mul_ of his mother, or
+any of his grandmothers or greatgrandmothers. This practically bars
+marriage within seven degrees of relationship. But a man's sister and
+daughter may be married in the same family, and even to two brothers,
+and a man can marry two sisters.
+
+
+
+4. Marriage customs.
+
+
+As a rule no bride-price is paid, but occasionally an old man
+desiring a wife will give something substantial to her father in
+secret. There are two forms of marriage, called Thinga and Dajanha;
+in the former, women do not accompany the wedding procession, and they
+have a separate marriage-shed at the bridegroom's house for their own
+celebrations; while in the latter, they accompany it and erect such
+a shed at the house in the bridegroom's village or town where they
+have their lodging. Before the wedding, the bridegroom, mounted on
+a horse, and the bride, carried in a litter, proceed together round
+the marriage-shed. The bridegroom then stands by the sacred post in
+the centre and the bride walks seven times round him. In the evening
+there was a custom of dressing the principal male relatives of the
+bridegroom in women's clothes and making them dance, but this is now
+being discarded. On the fifth day is held a rite called Palkachar. A
+new cot is provided by the bride's father, and on it is spread a red
+cloth. The couple are seated on this with their hands entwined, and
+their relations come and make them presents. If the bridegroom catches
+hold of the dress of his mother- or father-in-law, they are expected
+to make him a handsome present. In other respects the wedding follows
+the ordinary Hindu ritual. Widow-marriage and divorce are forbidden
+among the Parwars proper, and those who practise them go into the
+lower Benaikia group.
+
+
+
+5. Religion: Hindu observances.
+
+
+The Parwars are practically all Jains of the Digambari sect. They
+build costly and beautiful temples for their Tirthakars, especially for
+their favourite Parasnath. They have also many Hindu practices. They
+observe the Diwali, Rakshabandhan and Holi festivals; they say that
+at the Diwali the last Tirthakar Mahavira attained beatitude and the
+gods rained down jewels; the little lamps now lighted at Diwali are
+held to be symbolic of these jewels. They tie the threads round the
+wrist on Rakshabandhan to keep off evil spirits. They worship Sitala
+Devi, the Hindu goddess of smallpox, and employ Brahmans to choose
+names for their children and fix the dates of their wedding and other
+ceremonies, though not at the ceremonies themselves.
+
+
+
+6. Disposal of the dead.
+
+
+The caste burn the dead, with the exception of the bodies of young
+children, which are buried. The corpse is sometimes placed sitting in
+a car to be taken to the cremation ground, but often laid on a bier
+in the ordinary manner. The sitting posture is that in which all the
+Tirthakars attained paradise, and their images always represent them
+in this posture. The corpse is naked save for a new piece of cloth
+round the waist, but it is covered with a sheet. The Jains do not
+shave their hair in token of mourning, nor do they offer sacrificial
+cakes to the dead. When the body is burnt they bathe in the nearest
+water and go home. Neither the bearers nor the mourners are held to
+be impure. Next day the mourning family, both men and women, visit
+Parasnath's temple, lay two pounds of Indian millet before the god
+and go home. [167] But in the Central Provinces they whitewash their
+houses, get their clothes washed, throw away their earthen pots and
+give a feast to the caste.
+
+
+
+7. Social rules and customs.
+
+
+The Parwars abstain from eating any kind of flesh and from drinking
+liquor. They have a _panchayat_ and impose penalties for offences
+against caste rules like the Hindus. Among the offences are the
+killing of any living thing, unchastity or adultery, theft or other
+bad conduct, taking cooked food or water from a caste from which
+the Parwars do not take them, and violation of any rule of their
+religion. To get vermin in a wound, or to be beaten by a low-caste
+man or with a shoe, incidents which entail serious penalties among
+the Hindus, are not offences with the Parwars. When an offender is
+put out of caste the ordinary deprivation is that he is not allowed
+to enter a Jain temple, and in serious cases he may also not eat nor
+drink with the caste. The Parwars are generally engaged in the trade
+in grain, _ghi_, and other staples. Several of them are well-to-do
+and own villages.
+
+
+
+Bania, Srimali
+
+
+_Bania, Srimali._--This subcaste takes its name from the town of
+Srimal, which is now Bhinmal in Marwar. They numbered 600 persons in
+the Central Provinces in 1911, most of whom belonged to the Hoshangabad
+District. More than two-thirds were Hindus and the remainder
+Jains. Colonel Tod writes of Bhinmal and an adjoining town, Sanchor:
+"These towns are on the high road to Cutch and Gujarat, which has given
+them from the most remote times a commercial celebrity. Bhinmal is said
+to contain about 1500 houses and Sanchor half that number. Very wealthy
+_mahajans_ or merchants used to reside here, but insecurity both within
+and without has much injured these cities." From Bhinmal the Srimalis
+appear to have gone to Gujarat, where they are found in considerable
+numbers. Their legend of origin is that the goddess Lakshmi created
+from a flower-garland 90,000 families to act as servants to the
+90,000 Srimali Brahmans, and these were the ancestors of the Srimali
+Banias. [168] Both the Jain and Hindu sections of the Srimali Banias
+employ Srimali Brahmans as priests. Like other classes of Banias, the
+Srimali are divided into two sections, the Bisa and Dasa, or twenty
+and ten, of which the Bisa are considered to be of pure and the Dasa of
+somewhat mixed descent. In Gujarat they also have a third territorial
+group, known as Ladva, from Lad, the old name of Gujarat. All three
+subdivisions take food together but do not intermarry. [169] The two
+highest sections of the Oswal Banias are called Sri Srimal and Srimal,
+and it is possible that further investigation might show the Srimals
+and Oswals to have been originally of one stock.
+
+
+
+Bania, Umre
+
+
+_Bania, Umre._--This Hindu subcaste belongs to Damoh and
+Jubbulpore. They are perhaps the same as the Ummar Banias of the United
+Provinces, who reside in the Meerut, Agra and Kumaon Divisions. The
+name Umre is found as a subdivision of several castes in the Central
+Provinces, as the Telis and others, and is probably derived from
+some town or tract of country in northern or central India, but no
+identification has been made. Mr. Bhimbhai Kirparam states that in
+Gujarat the Ummar Banias are also known as Bagaria from the Bagar
+or wild country, comprised in the Dongarpur and Pertabgarh States of
+Rajputana, where considerable numbers of them are still settled. Their
+headquarters is at Sagwara, near Dongarpur. [170] In Damoh the Umre
+Banias formerly cultivated the _al_ plant, [171] which yielded a
+well-known dye, and hence they lost caste, as in soaking the roots
+of the plant to extract the dye the numerous insects in them are
+necessarily destroyed. The Dosar subcaste [172] are a branch of the
+Umre, who allow widow-remarriage.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+Banjara
+
+
+
+List of Paragraphs
+
+
+    1. _Historical notice of the caste._
+    2. _Banjaras derived from the Charans or Bhats._
+    3. _Charan Banjaras employed with the Mughal armies._
+    4. _Internal structure._
+    5. _Minor subcastes._
+    6. _Marriage: betrothal._
+    7. _Marriage._
+    8. _Widow-remarriage._
+    9. _Birth and death._
+    10. _Religion: Banjari Devi._
+    11. _Mithu Bhukia._
+    12. _Siva Bhaia._
+    13. _Worship of cattle._
+    14. _Connection with the Sikhs._
+    15. _Witchcraft._
+    16. _Human sacrifice._
+    17. _Admission of outsiders: kidnapped children and slaves._
+    18. _Dress._
+    19. _Social customs._
+    20. _The Naik or headman. Banjara dogs._
+    21. _Criminal tendencies of the caste._
+    22. _Their virtues._
+
+
+
+1. Historical notice of the caste.
+
+
+_Banjara, Wanjari, Lahana, Mukeri_. [173]--The caste of carriers and
+drivers of pack-bullocks. In 1911 the Banjaras numbered about 56,000
+persons in the Central Provinces and 80,000 in Berar, the caste being
+in greater strength here than in any part of India except Hyderabad,
+where their total is 174,000. Bombay comes next with a figure
+approaching that of the Central Provinces and Berar, and the caste
+belongs therefore rather to the Deccan than to northern India. The
+name has been variously explained, but the most probable derivation
+is from the Sanskrit _banijya kara_, a merchant. Sir H. M. Elliot
+held that the name Banjara was of great antiquity, quoting a passage
+from the Dasa Kumara Charita of the eleventh or twelfth century. But
+it was subsequently shown by Professor Cowell that the name Banjara
+did not occur in the original text of this work. [174] Banjaras are
+supposed to be the people mentioned by Arrian in the fourth century
+B.C., as leading a wandering life, dwelling in tents and letting out
+for hire their beasts of burden. [175] But this passage merely proves
+the existence of carriers and not of the Banjara caste. Mr. Crooke
+states [176] that the first mention of Banjaras in Muhammadan history
+is in Sikandar's attack on Dholpur in A.D. 1504. [177] It seems
+improbable, therefore, that the Banjaras accompanied the different
+Muhammadan invaders of India, as might have been inferred from the
+fact that they came into the Deccan in the train of the forces of
+Aurangzeb. The caste has indeed two Muhammadan sections, the Turkia
+and Mukeri. [178] But both of these have the same Rajput clan names
+as the Hindu branch of the caste, and it seems possible that they may
+have embraced Islam under the proselytising influence of Aurangzeb,
+or simply owing to their having been employed with the Muhammadan
+troops. The great bulk of the caste in southern India are Hindus,
+and there seems no reason for assuming that its origin was Muhammadan.
+
+
+
+2. Banjaras derived from the Charans or Bhats.
+
+
+It may be suggested that the Banjaras are derived from the Charan
+or Bhat caste of Rajputana. Mr. Cumberlege, whose _Monograph_ on the
+caste in Berar is one of the best authorities, states that of the four
+divisions existing there the Charans are the most numerous and by
+far the most interesting class. [179] In the article on Bhat it has
+been explained how the Charans or bards, owing to their readiness
+to kill themselves rather than give up the property entrusted to
+their care, became the best safe-conduct for the passage of goods
+in Rajputana. The name Charan is generally held to mean 'Wanderer,'
+and in their capacity of bards the Charans were accustomed to travel
+from court to court of the different chiefs in quest of patronage. They
+were first protected by their sacred character and afterwards by their
+custom of _traga_ or _chandi_, that is, of killing themselves when
+attacked and threatening their assailants with the dreaded fate of
+being haunted by their ghosts. Mr. Bhimbhai Kirparam [180] remarks:
+"After Parasurama's dispersion of the Kshatris the Charans accompanied
+them in their southward flight. In those troubled times the Charans
+took charge of the supplies of the Kshatri forces and so fell to their
+present position of cattle-breeders and grain-carriers...." Most of
+the Charans are graziers, cattle-sellers and pack-carriers. Colonel
+Tod says: [181] "The Charans and Bhats or bards and genealogists are
+the chief carriers of these regions (Marwar); their sacred character
+overawes the lawless Rajput chief, and even the savage Koli and Bhil
+and the plundering Sahrai of the desert dread the anathema of these
+singular races, who conduct the caravans through the wildest and
+most desolate regions." In another passage Colonel Tod identifies
+the Charans and Banjaras [182] as follows: "Murlah is an excellent
+township inhabited by a community of Charans of the tribe Cucholia
+(Kacheli), who are Bunjarris (carriers) by profession, though poets by
+birth. The alliance is a curious one, and would appear incongruous were
+not gain the object generally in both cases. It was the sanctity of
+their office which converted our _bardais_ (bards) into _bunjarris_,
+for their persons being sacred, the immunity extended likewise to
+their goods and saved them from all imposts; so that in process of
+time they became the free-traders of Rajputana. I was highly gratified
+with the reception I received from the community, which collectively
+advanced to meet me at some distance from the town. The procession was
+headed by the village elders and all the fair Charanis, who, as they
+approached, gracefully waved their scarfs over me until I was fairly
+made captive by the muses of Murlah! It was a novel and interesting
+scene. The manly persons of the Charans, clad in the flowing white robe
+with the high loose-folded turban inclined on one side, from which
+the _mala_ or chaplet was gracefully suspended; and the _naiques_
+or leaders, with their massive necklaces of gold, with the image
+of the _pitriswar_ (_manes_) depending therefrom, gave the whole an
+air of opulence and dignity. The females were uniformly attired in a
+skirt of dark-brown camlet, having a bodice of light-coloured stuff,
+with gold ornaments worked into their fine black hair; and all had the
+favourite _churis_ or rings of _hathidant_ (elephant's tooth) covering
+the arm from the wrist to the elbow, and even above it." A little
+later, referring to the same Charan community, Colonel Tod writes:
+"The _tanda_ or caravan, consisting of four thousand bullocks, has
+been kept up amidst all the evils which have beset this land through
+Mughal and Maratha tyranny. The utility of these caravans as general
+carriers to conflicting armies and as regular tax-paying subjects has
+proved their safeguard, and they were too strong to be pillaged by any
+petty marauder, as any one who has seen a Banjari encampment will be
+convinced. They encamp in a square, and their grain-bags piled over
+each other breast-high, with interstices left for their matchlocks,
+make no contemptible fortification. Even the ruthless Turk, Jamshid
+Khan, set up a protecting tablet in favour of the Charans of Murlah,
+recording their exemption from _dind_ contributions, and that there
+should be no increase in duties, with threats to all who should injure
+the community. As usual, the sun and moon are appealed to as witnesses
+of good faith, and sculptured on the stone. Even the forest Bhil and
+mountain Mair have set up their signs of immunity and protection to
+the chosen of Hinglaz (tutelary deity); and the figures of a cow and
+its _kairi_ (calf) carved in rude relief speak the agreement that
+they should not be slain or stolen within the limits of Murlah."
+
+In the above passage the community described by Colonel Tod were
+Charans, but he identified them with Banjaras, using the name
+alternatively. He mentions their large herds of pack-bullocks, for the
+management of which the Charans, who were graziers as well as bards,
+would naturally be adapted; the name given to the camp, _tanda_, is
+that generally used by the Banjaras; the women wore ivory bangles,
+which the Banjara women wear. [183] In commenting on the way in which
+the women threw their scarves over him, making him a prisoner, Colonel
+Tod remarks: "This community had enjoyed for five hundred years the
+privilege of making prisoner any Rana of Mewar who may pass through
+Murlah, and keeping him in bondage until he gives them a _got_ or
+entertainment. The patriarch (of the village) told me that I was in
+jeopardy as the Rana's representative, but not knowing how I might
+have relished the joke had it been carried to its conclusion, they
+let me escape." Mr. Ball notes a similar custom of the Banjara women
+far away in the Bastar State of the Central Provinces: [184] "Today
+I passed through another Banjara hamlet, from whence the women and
+girls all hurried out in pursuit, and a brazen-faced powerful-looking
+lass seized the bridle of my horse as he was being led by the _sais_
+in the rear. The _sais_ and _chaprasi_ were both Muhammadans, and
+the forward conduct of these females perplexed them not a little,
+and the former was fast losing his temper at being thus assaulted by a
+woman." Colonel Mackenzie in his account of the Banjara caste remarks:
+[185] "It is certain that the Charans, whoever they were, first rose
+to the demand which the great armies of northern India, contending
+in exhausted countries far from their basis of supply, created,
+viz. the want of a fearless and reliable transport service.... The
+start which the Charans then acquired they retain among Banjaras to
+this day, though in very much diminished splendour and position. As
+they themselves relate, they were originally five brethren, Rathor,
+Turi, Panwar, Chauhan and Jadon. But fortune particularly smiled on
+Bhika Rathor, as his four sons, Mersi, Multasi, Dheda and Khamdar,
+great names among the Charans, rose immediately to eminence as
+commissariat transporters in the north. And not only under the
+Delhi Emperors, but under the Satara, subsequently the Poona Raj,
+and the Subahship of the Nizam, did several of their descendants rise
+to consideration and power." It thus seems a reasonable hypothesis
+that the nucleus of the Banjara caste was constituted by the Charans
+or bards of Rajputana. Mr. Bhimbhai Kirparam [186] also identifies
+the Charans and Banjaras, but I have not been able to find the exact
+passage. The following notice [187] by Colonel Tone is of interest
+in this connection:
+
+"The vast consumption that attends a Maratha army necessarily
+superinduces the idea of great supplies; yet, notwithstanding this,
+the native powers never concern themselves about providing for their
+forces, and have no idea of a grain and victualling department,
+which forms so great an object in a European campaign. The Banias
+or grain-sellers in an Indian army have always their servants ahead
+of the troops on the line of march, to purchase in the circumjacent
+country whatever necessaries are to be disposed of. Articles of
+consumption are never wanting in a native camp, though they are
+generally twenty-five per cent dearer than in the town bazars;
+but independent of this mode of supply the Vanjaris or itinerant
+grain-merchants furnish large quantities, which they bring on
+bullocks from an immense distance. These are a very peculiar race,
+and appear a marked and discriminated people from any other I have
+seen in this country. Formerly they were considered so sacred that
+they passed in safety in the midst of contending armies; of late,
+however, this reverence for their character is much abated and they
+have been frequently plundered, particularly by Tipu."
+
+The reference to the sacred character attaching to the Banjaras a
+century ago appears to be strong evidence in favour of their derivation
+from the Charans. For it could scarcely have been obtained by any body
+of commissariat agents coming into India with the Muhammadans. The
+fact that the example of disregarding it was first set by a Muhammadan
+prince points to the same conclusion.
+
+Mr. Irvine notices the Banjaras with the Mughal armies in similar
+terms: [188] "It is by these people that the Indian armies in the
+field are fed, and they are never injured by either army. The grain
+is taken from them, but invariably paid for. They encamp for safety
+every evening in a regular square formed of the bags of grain of
+which they construct a breastwork. They and their families are in the
+centre, and the oxen are made fast outside. Guards with matchlocks and
+spears are placed at the corners, and their dogs do duty as advanced
+posts. I have seen them with droves of 5000 bullocks. They do not
+move above two miles an hour, as their cattle are allowed to graze
+as they proceed on the march."
+
+One may suppose that the Charans having acted as carriers for the
+Rajput chiefs and courts, both in time of peace and in their continuous
+intestinal feuds, were pressed into service when the Mughal armies
+entered Rajputana and passed through it to Gujarat and the Deccan. In
+adopting the profession of transport agents for the imperial troops
+they may have been amalgamated into a fresh caste with other Hindus and
+Muhammadans doing the same work, just as the camp language formed by
+the superposition of a Persian vocabulary on to a grammatical basis
+of Hindi became Urdu or Hindustani. The readiness of the Charans
+to commit suicide rather than give up property committed to their
+charge was not, however, copied by the Banjaras, and so far as I am
+aware there is no record of men of this caste taking their own lives,
+though they had little scruple with those of others.
+
+
+
+3. Charan Ranjarans employed with the Mughal armies.
+
+
+The Charan Banjaras, Mr. Cumberlege states, [189] first came to the
+Deccan with Asaf Khan in the campaign which closed with the annexation
+by the Emperor Shah Jahan of Ahmadnagar and Berar about 1630. Their
+leaders or Naiks were Bhangi and Jhangi of the Rathor [190] and Bhagwan
+Das of the Jadon clan. Bhangi and Jhangi had 180,000 pack-bullocks,
+and Bhagwan Das 52,000. It was naturally an object with Asaf Khan to
+keep his commissariat well up with his force, and as Bhangi and Jhangi
+made difficulties about the supply of grass and water to their cattle,
+he gave them an order engraved on copper in letters of gold to the
+following effect:
+
+
+                Ranjan ka pani
+                Chhappar ka ghas
+                Din ke tin khun muaf;
+                Aur jahan Asaf Jah ke ghore
+                Wahan Bhangi Jhangi ke bail,
+
+
+which may be rendered as follows: "If you can find no water elsewhere
+you may even take it from the pots of my followers; grass you may
+take from the roofs of their huts; and I will pardon you up to three
+murders a day, provided that wherever I find my cavalry, Bhangi
+and Jhangi's bullocks shall be with them." This grant is still in
+the possession of Bhangi Naik's descendant who lives at Musi, near
+Hingoli. He is recognised by the Hyderabad Court as the head Naik of
+the Banjara caste, and on his death his successor receives a _khillat_
+or dress-of-honour from His Highness the Nizam. After Asaf Khan's
+campaign and settlement in the Deccan, a quarrel broke out between
+the Rathor clan, headed by Bhangi and Jhangi, and the Jadons under
+Bhagwan Das, owing to the fact that Asaf Khan had refused to give
+Bhagwan Das a grant like that quoted above. Both Bhangi and Bhagwan
+Das were slain in the feud and the Jadons captured the standard,
+consisting of eight _thans_ (lengths) of cloth, which was annually
+presented by the Nizam to Bhangi's descendants. When Mr. Cumberlege
+wrote (1869), this standard was in the possession of Hatti Naik,
+a descendant of Bhagwan Das, who had an estate near Muchli Bunder,
+in the Madras Presidency. Colonel Mackenzie states [191] that the
+leaders of the Rathor clan became so distinguished not only in their
+particular line but as men of war that the Emperors recognised
+their carrying distinctive standards, which were known as _dhal_
+by the Rathors themselves. Jhangi's family was also represented
+in the person of Ramu Naik, the _patel_ or headman of the village
+of Yaoli in the Yeotmal District. In 1791-92 the Banjaras were
+employed to supply grain to the British army under the Marquis of
+Cornwallis during the siege of Seringapatam, [192] and the Duke of
+Wellington in his Indian campaigns regularly engaged them as part of
+the commissariat staff of his army. On one occasion he said of them:
+"The Banjaras I look upon in the light of servants of the public,
+of whose grain I have a right to regulate the sale, always taking
+care that they have a proportionate advantage." [193]
+
+
+
+4. Internal structure.
+
+
+Mr. Cumberlege gives four main divisions of the caste in Berar, the
+Charans, Mathurias, Labhanas and Dharis. Of these the Charans are
+by far the most numerous and important, and included all the famous
+leaders of the caste mentioned above. The Charans are divided into
+the five clans, Rathor, Panwar, Chauhan, Puri and Jadon or Burthia,
+all of these being the names of leading Rajput clans; and as the
+Charan bards themselves were probably Rajputs, the Banjaras, who
+are descended from them, may claim the same lineage. Each clan or
+sept is divided into a number of subsepts; thus among the Rathors
+the principal subsept is the Bhurkia, called after the Bhika Rathor
+already mentioned; and this is again split into four groups, Mersi,
+Multasi, Dheda and Khamdar, named after his four sons. As a rule,
+members of the same clan, Panwar, Rathor and so on, may not intermarry,
+but Mr. Cumberlege states that a man belonging to the Banod or Bhurkia
+subsepts of the Rathors must not take a wife from his own subsept,
+but may marry any other Rathor girl. It seems probable that the same
+rule may hold with the other subsepts, as it is most unlikely that
+intermarriage should still be prohibited among so large a body as the
+Rathor Charans have now become. It may be supposed therefore that the
+division into subsepts took place when it became too inconvenient
+to prohibit marriage throughout the whole body of the sept, as
+has happened in other cases. The Mathuria Banjaras take their name
+from Mathura or Muttra and appear to be Brahmans. "They wear the
+sacred thread, [194] know the _Gayatri Mantra_, and to the present
+day abstain from meat and liquor, subsisting entirely on grain and
+vegetables. They always had a sufficiency of Charans and servants
+(_Jangar_) in their villages to perform all necessary manual labour,
+and would not themselves work for a remuneration otherwise than by
+carrying grain, which was and still is their legitimate occupation;
+but it was not considered undignified to cut wood and grass for the
+household. Both Mathuria and Labhana men are fairer than the Charans;
+they wear better jewellery and their loin-cloths have a silk border,
+while those of the Charans are of rough, common cloth." The Mathurias
+are sometimes known as Ahiwasi, and may be connected with the Ahiwasis
+of the Hindustani Districts, who also drive pack-bullocks and call
+themselves Brahmans. But it is naturally a sin for a Brahman to load
+the sacred ox, and any one who does so is held to have derogated
+from the priestly order. The Mathurias are divided according to
+Mr. Cumberlege into four groups called Pande, Dube, Tiwari and Chaube,
+all of which are common titles of Hindustani Brahmans and signify
+a man learned in one, two, three and four Vedas respectively. It is
+probable that these groups are exogamous, marrying with each other,
+but this is not stated. The third division, the Labhanas, may derive
+their name from _lavana_, salt, and probably devoted themselves more
+especially to the carriage of this staple. They are said to be Rajputs,
+and to be descended from Mota and Mola, the cowherds of Krishna. The
+fourth subdivision are the Dharis or bards of the caste, who rank
+below the others. According to their own story [195] their ancestor
+was a member of the Bhat caste, who became a disciple of Nanak,
+the Sikh apostle, and with him attended a feast given by the Mughal
+Emperor Humayun. Here he ate the flesh of a cow or buffalo, and in
+consequence became a Muhammadan and was circumcised. He was employed
+as a musician at the Mughal court, and his sons joined the Charans and
+became the bards of the Banjara caste. "The Dharis," Mr. Cumberlege
+continues, "are both musicians and mendicants; they sing in praise
+of their own and the Charan ancestors and of the old kings of Delhi;
+while at certain seasons of the year they visit Charan hamlets, when
+each family gives them a young bullock or a few rupees. They are
+Muhammadans, but worship Sarasvati and at their marriages offer up
+a he-goat to Gaji and Gandha, the two sons of the original Bhat, who
+became a Muhammadan. At burials a Fakir is called to read the prayers."
+
+
+
+5. Minor subcastes.
+
+
+Besides the above four main divisions, there are a number of others,
+the caste being now of a very mixed character. Two principal Muhammadan
+groups are given by Sir H. Elliot, the Turkia and Mukeri. The Turkia
+have thirty-six septs, some with Rajput names and others territorial or
+titular. They seem to be a mixed group of Hindus who may have embraced
+Islam as the religion of their employers. The Mukeri Banjaras assert
+that they derive their name from Mecca (Makka), which one of their
+Naiks, who had his camp in the vicinity, assisted Father Abraham in
+building. [196] Mr. Crooke thinks that the name may be a corruption
+of Makkeri and mean a seller of maize. Mr. Cumberlege says of them:
+"Multanis and Mukeris have been called Banjaras also, but have nothing
+in common with the caste; the Multanis are carriers of grain and the
+Mukeris of wood and timber, and hence the confusion may have arisen
+between them." But they are now held to be Banjaras by common usage;
+in Saugor the Mukeris also deal in cattle. From Chanda a different set
+of subcastes is reported called Bhusarjin, Ladjin, Saojin and Kanhejin;
+the first may take their name from _bhusa_, the chaff of wheat, while
+Lad is the term used for people coming from Gujarat, and Sao means
+a banker. In Sambalpur again a class of Thuria Banjaras is found,
+divided into the Bandesia, Atharadesia, Navadesia and Chhadesia, or
+the men of the 52 districts, the 18 districts, the 9 districts and
+the 6 districts respectively. The first and last two of these take
+food and marry with each other. Other groups are the Guar Banjaras,
+apparently from Guara or Gwala, a milkman, the Guguria Banjaras, who
+may, Mr. Hira Lal suggests, take their name from trading in _gugar_,
+a kind of gum, and the Bahrup Banjaras, who are Nats or acrobats. In
+Berar also a number of the caste have become respectable cultivators
+and now call themselves Wanjari, disclaiming any connection with
+the Banjaras, probably on account of the bad reputation for crime
+attached to these latter. Many of the Wanjaris have been allowed
+to rank with the Kunbi caste, and call themselves Wanjari Kunbis in
+order the better to dissociate themselves from their parent caste. The
+existing caste is therefore of a very mixed nature, and the original
+Brahman and Charan strains, though still perfectly recognisable,
+cannot have maintained their purity.
+
+
+
+6. Marriage: betrothal.
+
+
+At a betrothal in Nimar the bridegroom and his friends come and stay
+in the next village to that of the bride. The two parties meet on the
+boundary of the village, and here the bride-price is fixed, which
+is often a very large sum, ranging from Rs. 200 to Rs. 1000. Until
+the price is paid the father will not let the bridegroom into his
+house. In Yeotmal, when a betrothal is to be made, the parties go
+to a liquor-shop and there a betel-leaf and a large handful of sugar
+are distributed to everybody. Here the price to be paid for the bride
+amounts to Rs. 40 and four young bullocks. Prior to the wedding the
+bridegroom goes and stays for a month or so in the house of the bride's
+father, and during this time he must provide a supply of liquor daily
+for the bride's male relatives. The period was formerly longer, but now
+extends to a month at the most. While he resides at the bride's house
+the bridegroom wears a cloth over his head so that his face cannot be
+seen. Probably the prohibition against seeing him applies to the bride
+only, as the rule in Berar is that between the betrothal and marriage
+of a Charan girl she may not eat or drink in the bridegroom's house,
+or show her face to him or any of his relatives. Mathuria girls must
+be wedded before they are seven years old, but the Charans permit
+them to remain single until after adolescence.
+
+
+
+7. Marriage.
+
+
+Banjara marriages are frequently held in the rains, a season forbidden
+to other Hindus, but naturally the most convenient to them, because
+in the dry weather they are usually travelling. For the marriage
+ceremony they pitch a tent in lieu of the marriage-shed, and on the
+ground they place two rice-pounding pestles, round which the bride and
+bridegroom make the seven turns. Others substitute for the pestles
+a pack-saddle with two bags of grain in order to symbolise their
+camp life. During the turns the girl's hand is held by the Joshi
+or village priest, or some other Brahman, in case she should fall;
+such an occurrence being probably a very unlucky omen. Afterwards,
+the girl runs away and the Brahman has to pursue and catch her. In
+Bhandara the girl is clad only in a light skirt and breast-cloth,
+and her body is rubbed all over with oil in order to make his
+task more difficult. During this time the bride's party pelt the
+Brahman with rice, turmeric and areca-nuts, and sometimes even with
+stones; and if he is forced to cry with the pain, it is considered
+lucky. But if he finally catches the girl, he is conducted to a dais
+and sits there holding a brass plate in front of him, into which the
+bridegroom's party drop presents. A case is mentioned of a Brahman
+having obtained Rs. 70 in this manner. Among the Mathuria Banjaras
+of Berar the ceremony resembles the usual Hindu type. [197] Before
+the wedding the families bring the branches of eight or ten different
+kinds of trees, and perform the _hom_ or fire sacrifice with them. A
+Brahman knots the clothes of the couple together, and they walk round
+the fire. When the bride arrives at the bridegroom's hamlet after the
+wedding, two small brass vessels are given to her; she fetches water
+in these and returns them to the women of the boy's family, who mix
+this with other water previously drawn, and the girl, who up to this
+period was considered of no caste at all, becomes a Mathuria. [198]
+Food is cooked with this water, and the bride and bridegroom are
+formally received into the husband's _kuri_ or hamlet. It is possible
+that the mixing of the water may be a survival of the blood covenant,
+whereby a girl was received into her husband's clan on her marriage
+by her blood being mixed with that of her husband. [199] Or it may be
+simply symbolical of the union of the families. In some localities
+after the wedding the bride and bridegroom are made to stand on two
+bullocks, which are driven forward, and it is believed that whichever
+of them falls off first will be the first to die.
+
+
+
+8. Widow remarriage.
+
+
+Owing to the scarcity of women in the caste a widow is seldom allowed
+to go out of the family, and when her husband dies she is taken either
+by his elder or younger brother; this is in opposition to the usual
+Hindu practice, which forbids the marriage of a woman to her deceased
+husband's elder brother, on the ground that as successor to the
+headship of the joint family he stands to her, at least potentially,
+in the light of a father. If the widow prefers another man and runs
+away to him, the first husband's relatives claim compensation, and
+threaten, in the event of its being refused, to abduct a girl from
+this man's family in exchange for the widow. But no case of abduction
+has occurred in recent years. In Berar the compensation claimed in
+the case of a woman marrying out of the family amounts to Rs. 75,
+with Rs. 5 for the Naik or headman of the family. Should the widow
+elope without her brother-in-law's consent, he chooses ten or twelve
+of his friends to go and sit _dharna_ (starving themselves) before
+the hut of the man who has taken her. He is then bound to supply
+these men with food and liquor until he has paid the customary sum,
+when he may marry the widow. [200] In the event of the second husband
+being too poor to pay monetary compensation, he gives a goat, which
+is cut into eighteen pieces and distributed to the community. [201]
+
+
+
+9. Birth and death.
+
+
+After the birth of a child the mother is unclean for five days, and
+lives apart in a separate hut, which is run up for her use in the
+_kuri_ or hamlet. On the sixth day she washes the feet of all the
+children in the _kuri_, feeds them and then returns to her husband's
+hut. When a child is born in a moving _tanda_ or camp, the same
+rule is observed, and for five days the mother walks alone after the
+camp during the daily march. The caste bury the bodies of unmarried
+persons and those dying of smallpox and burn the others. Their rites
+of mourning are not strict, and are observed only for three days. The
+Banjaras have a saying: "Death in a foreign land is to be preferred,
+where there are no kinsfolk to mourn, and the corpse is a feast
+for birds and animals"; but this may perhaps be taken rather as an
+expression of philosophic resignation to the fate which must be in
+store for many of them, than a real preference, as with most people
+the desire to die at home almost amounts to an instinct.
+
+
+
+10. Religion: Banjari Devi.
+
+
+One of the tutelary deities of the Banjaras is Banjari Devi, whose
+shrine is usually located in the forest. It is often represented by a
+heap of stones, a large stone smeared with vermilion being placed on
+the top of the heap to represent the goddess. When a Banjara passes
+the place he casts a stone upon the heap as a prayer to the goddess
+to protect him from the dangers of the forest. A similar practice of
+offering bells from the necks of cattle is recorded by Mr. Thurston:
+[202] "It is related by Moor that he passed a tree on which were
+hanging several hundred bells. This was a superstitious sacrifice of
+the Banjaras (Lambaris), who, passing this tree, are in the habit
+of hanging a bell or bells upon it, which they take from the necks
+of their sick cattle, expecting to leave behind them the complaint
+also. Our servants particularly cautioned us against touching these
+diabolical bells, but as a few of them were taken for our own cattle,
+several accidents which happened were imputed to the anger of the
+deity to whom these offerings were made; who, they say, inflicts the
+same disorder on the unhappy bullock who carries a bell from the tree,
+as that from which he relieved the donor." In their houses the Banjari
+Devi is represented by a pack-saddle set on high in the room, and
+this is worshipped before the caravans set out on their annual tours.
+
+
+
+11. Mithu Bhukia.
+
+
+Another deity is Mithu Bhukia, an old freebooter, who lived in the
+Central Provinces; he is venerated by the dacoits as the most clever
+dacoit known in the annals of the caste, and a hut was usually
+set apart for him in each hamlet, a staff carrying a white flag
+being planted before it. Before setting out for a dacoity, the men
+engaged would assemble at the hut of Mithu Bhukia, and, burning a
+lamp before him, ask for an omen; if the wick of the lamp drooped
+the omen was propitious, and the men present then set out at once on
+the raid without returning home. They might not speak to each other
+nor answer if challenged; for if any one spoke the charm would be
+broken and the protection of Mithu Bhukia removed; and they should
+either return to take the omens again or give up that particular
+dacoity altogether. [203] It has been recorded as a characteristic
+trait of Banjaras that they will, as a rule, not answer if spoken
+to when engaged on a robbery, and the custom probably arises from
+this observance; but the worship of Mithu Bhukia is now frequently
+neglected. After a successful dacoity a portion of the spoil would be
+set apart for Mithu Bhukia, and of the balance the Naik or headman of
+the village received two shares if he participated in the crime; the
+man who struck the first blow or did most towards the common object
+also received two shares, and all the rest one share. With Mithu
+Bhukia's share a feast was given at which thanks were returned to
+him for the success of the enterprise, a burnt offering of incense
+being made in his tent and a libation of liquor poured over the
+flagstaff. A portion of the food was sent to the women and children,
+and the men sat down to the feast. Women were not allowed to share
+in the worship of Mithu Bhukia nor to enter his hut.
+
+
+
+12. Siva Bhaia.
+
+
+Another favourite deity is Siva Bhaia, whose story is given by Colonel
+Mackenzie [204] as follows: "The love borne by Mari Mata, the goddess
+of cholera, for the handsome Siva Rathor, is an event of our own
+times (1874); she proposed to him, but his heart being pre-engaged he
+rejected her; and in consequence his earthly bride was smitten sick
+and died, and the hand of the goddess fell heavily on Siva himself,
+thwarting all his schemes and blighting his fortunes and possessions,
+until at last he gave himself up to her. She then possessed him and
+caused him to prosper exceedingly, gifting him with supernatural power
+until his fame was noised abroad, and he was venerated as the saintly
+Siva Bhaia or great brother to all women, being himself unable to
+marry. But in his old age the goddess capriciously wished him to marry
+and have issue, but he refused and was slain and buried at Pohur in
+Berar. A temple was erected over him and his kinsmen became priests of
+it, and hither large numbers are attracted by the supposed efficacy
+of vows made to Siva, the most sacred of all oaths being that taken
+in his name." If a Banjara swears by Siva Bhaia, placing his right
+hand on the bare head of his son and heir, and grasping a cow's tail
+in his left, he will fear to perjure himself, lest by doing so he
+should bring injury on his son and a murrain on his cattle. [205]
+
+
+
+13. Worship of cattle.
+
+
+Naturally also the Banjaras worshipped their pack-cattle. [206] "When
+sickness occurs they lead the sick man to the feet of the bullock
+called Hatadiya. [207] On this animal no burden is ever laid, but
+he is decorated with streamers of red-dyed silk, and tinkling bells
+with many brass chains and rings on neck and feet, and silken tassels
+hanging in all directions; he moves steadily at the head of the convoy,
+and at the place where he lies down when he is tired they pitch their
+camp for the day; at his feet they make their vows when difficulties
+overtake them, and in illness, whether of themselves or their cattle,
+they trust to his worship for a cure."
+
+
+
+14. Connection with the Sikhs.
+
+
+Mr. Balfour also mentions in his paper that the Banjaras call
+themselves Sikhs, and it is noticeable that the Charan subcaste say
+that their ancestors were three Rajput boys who followed Guru Nanak,
+the prophet of the Sikhs. The influence of Nanak appears to have been
+widely extended over northern India, and to have been felt by large
+bodies of the people other than those who actually embraced the Sikh
+religion. Cumberlege states [208] that before starting to his marriage
+the bridegroom ties a rupee in his turban in honour of Guru Nanak,
+which is afterwards expended in sweetmeats. But otherwise the modern
+Banjaras do not appear to retain any Sikh observances.
+
+
+
+15. Witchcraft.
+
+
+"The Banjaras," Sir A. Lyall writes, [209] "are terribly vexed
+by witchcraft, to which their wandering and precarious existence
+especially exposes them in the shape of fever, rheumatism and
+dysentery. Solemn inquiries are still held in the wild jungles where
+these people camp out like gipsies, and many an unlucky hag has been
+strangled by sentence of their secret tribunals." The business of
+magic and witchcraft was in the hands of two classes of Bhagats or
+magicians, one good and the other bad, [210] who may correspond to
+the European practitioners of black and white magic. The good Bhagat
+is called Nimbu-katna or lemon-cutter, a lemon speared on a knife
+being a powerful averter of evil spirits. He is a total abstainer
+from meat and liquor, and fasts once a week on the day sacred to the
+deity whom he venerates, usually Mahadeo; he is highly respected and
+never panders to vice. But the Janta, the 'Wise or Cunning Man,' is
+of a different type, and the following is an account of the devilry
+often enacted when a deputation visited him to inquire into the cause
+of a prolonged illness, a cattle murrain, a sudden death or other
+misfortune. A woman might often be called a Dakun or witch in spite,
+and when once this word had been used, the husband or nearest male
+relative would be regularly bullied into consulting the Janta. Or
+if some woman had been ill for a week, an avaricious [211] husband
+or brother would begin to whisper foul play. Witchcraft would be
+mentioned, and the wise man called in. He would give the sufferer a
+quid of betel, muttering an incantation, but this rarely effected a
+cure, as it was against the interest of all parties that it should
+do so. The sufferer's relatives would then go to their Naik, tell him
+that the sick person was bewitched, and ask him to send a deputation
+to the Janta or witch-doctor. This would be at once despatched,
+consisting of one male adult from each house in the hamlet, with
+one of the sufferer's relatives. On the road the party would bury
+a bone or other article to test the wisdom of the witch-doctor. But
+he was not to be caught out, and on their arrival he would bid the
+deputation rest, and come to him for consultation on the following
+day. Meanwhile during the night the Janta would be thoroughly coached
+by some accomplice in the party. Next morning, meeting the deputation,
+he would tell every man all particulars of his name and family; name
+the invalid, and tell the party to bring materials for consulting the
+spirits, such as oil, vermilion, sugar, dates, cocoanut, _chironji_,
+[212] and sesamum. In the evening, holding a lamp, the Janta would
+be possessed by Mariai, the goddess of cholera; he would mention
+all particulars of the sick man's illness, and indignantly inquire
+why they had buried the bone on the road, naming it and describing
+the place. If this did not satisfy the deputation, a goat would be
+brought, and he would name its sex with any distinguishing marks on the
+body. The sick person's representative would then produce his _nazar_
+or fee, formerly Rs. 25, but lately the double of this or more. The
+Janta would now begin a sort of chant, introducing the names of the
+families of the _kuri_ other than that containing her who was to be
+proclaimed a witch, and heap on them all kinds of abuse. Finally, he
+would assume an ironic tone, extol the virtues of a certain family,
+become facetious, and praise its representative then present. This
+man would then question the Janta on all points regarding his own
+family, his connections, worldly goods, and what gods he worshipped,
+ask who was the witch, who taught her sorcery, and how and why she
+practised it in this particular instance. But the witch-doctor, having
+taken care to be well coached, would answer everything correctly and
+fix the guilt on to the witch. A goat would be sacrificed and eaten
+with liquor, and the deputation would return. The punishment for
+being proclaimed a Dakun or witch was formerly death to the woman
+and a fine to be paid by her relatives to the bewitched person's
+family. The woman's husband or her sons would be directed to kill
+her, and if they refused, other men were deputed to murder her, and
+bury the body at once with all the clothing and ornaments then on
+her person, while a further fine would be exacted from the family
+for not doing away with her themselves. But murder for witchcraft
+has been almost entirely stopped, and nowadays the husband, after
+being fined a few head of cattle, which are given to the sick man,
+is turned out of the village with his wife. It is quite possible,
+however, that an obnoxious old hag would even now not escape death,
+especially if the money fine were not forthcoming, and an instance
+is known in recent times of a mother being murdered by her three
+sons. The whole village combined to screen these amiable young men,
+and eventually they made the Janta the scapegoat, and he got seven
+years, while the murderers could not be touched. Colonel Mackenzie
+writes that, "Curious to relate, the Jantas, known locally as Bhagats,
+in order to become possessed of their alleged powers of divination and
+prophecy, require to travel to Kazhe, beyond Surat, there to learn and
+be instructed by low-caste Koli impostors." This is interesting as an
+instance of the powers of witchcraft being attributed by the Hindus or
+higher race to the indigenous primitive tribes, a rule which Dr. Tylor
+and Dr. Jevons consider to hold good generally in the history of magic.
+
+
+
+16. Human sacrifice.
+
+
+Several instances are known also of the Banjaras having practised
+human sacrifice. Mr. Thurston states: [213] "In former times the
+Lambadis, before setting out on a journey, used to procure a little
+child and bury it in the ground up to the shoulders, and then drive
+their loaded bullocks over the unfortunate victim. In proportion to
+the bullocks thoroughly trampling the child to death, so their belief
+in a successful journey increased." The Abbé Dubois describes another
+form of sacrifice: [214]
+
+"The Lambadis are accused of the still more atrocious crime of offering
+up human sacrifices. When they wish to perform this horrible act, it
+is said, they secretly carry off the first person they meet. Having
+conducted the victim to some lonely spot, they dig a hole in which they
+bury him up to the neck. While he is still alive they make a sort of
+lamp of dough made of flour, which they place on his head; this they
+fill with oil, and light four wicks in it. Having done this, the men
+and women join hands and, forming a circle, dance round their victim,
+singing and making a great noise until he expires." Mr. Cumberlege
+records [215] the following statement of a child kidnapped by a Banjara
+caravan in 1871. After explaining how he was kidnapped and the tip
+of his tongue cut off to give him a defect in speech, the Kunbi lad,
+taken from Sahungarhi, in the Bhandara District, went on to say that,
+"The _tanda_ (caravan) encamped for the night in the jungle. In the
+morning a woman named Gangi said that the devil was in her and that
+a sacrifice must be made. On this four men and three women took a boy
+to a place they had made for _puja_ (worship). They fed him with milk,
+rice and sugar, and then made him stand up, when Gangi drew a sword and
+approached the child, who tried to run away; caught and brought back
+to this place, Gangi, holding the sword with both hands and standing
+on the child's right side, cut off his head with one blow. Gangi
+collected the blood and sprinkled it on the idol; this idol is made
+of stone, is about 9 inches high, and has something sparkling in
+its forehead. The camp marched that day, and for four or five days
+consecutively, without another sacrifice; but on the fifth day a young
+woman came to the camp to sell curds, and having bought some, the
+Banjaras asked her to come in in the evening and eat with them. She
+did come, and after eating with the women slept in the camp. Early
+next morning she was sacrificed in the same way as the boy had been,
+but it took three blows to cut off her head; it was done by Gangi, and
+the blood was sprinkled on the stone idol. About a month ago Sitaram,
+a Gond lad, who had also been kidnapped and was in the camp, told me
+to run away as it had been decided to offer me up in sacrifice at the
+next Jiuti festival, so I ran away." The child having been brought
+to the police, a searching and protracted inquiry was held, which,
+however, determined nothing, though it did not disprove his story.
+
+
+
+17. Admission of outsiders: kidnapped children and slaves.
+
+
+The Banjara caste is not closed to outsiders, but the general rule
+is to admit only women who have been married to Banjara men. Women
+of the lowest and impure castes are excluded, and for some unknown
+reason the Patwas [216] and Nunias are bracketed with these. In
+Nimar it is stated that formerly Gonds, Korkus and even Balahis [217]
+might become Banjaras, but this does not happen now, because the caste
+has lost its occupation of carrying goods, and there is therefore no
+inducement to enter it. In former times they were much addicted to
+kidnapping children--these were whipped up or enticed away whenever an
+opportunity presented itself during their expeditions. The children
+were first put into the _gonis_ or grain bags of the bullocks and so
+carried for a few days, being made over at each halt to the care of
+a woman, who would pop the child back into its bag if any stranger
+passed by the encampment. The tongues of boys were sometimes slit or
+branded with hot gold, this last being the ceremony of initiation into
+the caste still used in Nimar. Girls, if they were as old as seven,
+were sometimes disfigured for fear of recognition, and for this
+purpose the juice of the marking-nut [218] tree would be smeared
+on one side of the face, which burned into the skin and entirely
+altered the appearance. Such children were known as Jangar. Girls
+would be used as concubines and servants of the married wife, and
+boys would also be employed as servants. Jangar boys would be married
+to Jangar girls, both remaining in their condition of servitude. But
+sometimes the more enterprising of them would abscond and settle down
+in a village. The rule was that for seven generations the children
+of Jangars or slaves continued in that condition, after which they
+were recognised as proper Banjaras. The Jangar could not draw in
+smoke through the stem of the huqqa when it was passed round in the
+assembly, but must take off the stem and inhale from the bowl. The
+Jangar also could not eat off the bell-metal plates of his master,
+because these were liable to pollution, but must use brass plates. At
+one time the Banjaras conducted a regular traffic in female slaves
+between Gujarat and Central India, selling in each country the girls
+whom they had kidnapped in the other. [219]
+
+
+
+18. Dress.
+
+
+Up to twelve years of age a Charan girl only wears a skirt with a
+shoulder-cloth tucked into the waist and carried over the left arm
+and the head. After this she may have anklets and bangles on the
+forearm and a breast-cloth. But until she is married she may not
+have the _wankri_ or curved anklet, which marks that estate, nor wear
+bone or ivory bangles on the upper arm. [220] When she is ten years
+old a Labhana girl is given two small bundles containing a nut, some
+cowries and rice, which are knotted to two corners of the _dupatta_
+or shoulder-cloth and hung over the shoulder, one in front and one
+behind. This denotes maidenhood. The bundles are considered sacred,
+are always knotted to the shoulder-cloth in wear, and are only removed
+to be tucked into the waist at the girl's marriage, where they are
+worn till death. These bundles alone distinguish the Labhana from
+the Mathuria woman. Women often have their hair hanging down beside
+the face in front and woven behind with silver thread into a plait
+down the back. This is known as Anthi, and has a number of cowries at
+the end. They have large bell-shaped ornaments of silver tied over
+the head and hanging down behind the ears, the hollow part of the
+ornament being stuffed with sheep's wool dyed red; and to these are
+attached little bells, while the anklets on the feet are also hollow
+and contain little stones or balls, which tinkle as they move. They
+have skirts, and separate short cloths drawn across the shoulders
+according to the northern fashion, usually red or green in colour,
+and along the skirt-borders double lines of cowries are sewn. Their
+breast-cloths are profusely ornamented with needle-work embroidery and
+small pieces of glass sewn into them, and are tied behind with cords of
+many colours whose ends are decorated with cowries and beads. Strings
+of beads, ten to twenty thick, threaded on horse-hair, are worn round
+the neck. Their favourite ornaments are cowries, [221] and they have
+these on their dress, in their houses and on the trappings of their
+bullocks. On the arms they have ten or twelve bangles of ivory,
+or in default of this lac, horn or cocoanut-shell. Mr. Ball states
+that he was "at once struck by the peculiar costumes and brilliant
+clothing of these Indian gipsies. They recalled to my mind the
+appearance of the gipsies of the Lower Danube and Wallachia." [222]
+The most distinctive ornament of a Banjara married woman is, however,
+a small stick about 6 inches long made of the wood of the _khair_ or
+catechu. In Nimar this is given to a woman by her husband at marriage,
+and she wears it afterwards placed upright on the top of the head,
+the hair being wound round it and the head-cloth draped over it in
+a graceful fashion. Widows leave it off, but on remarriage adopt it
+again. The stick is known as _chunda_ by the Banjaras, but outsiders
+call it _singh_ or horn. In Yeotmal, instead of one, the women have
+two little sticks fixed upright in the hair. The rank of the woman is
+said to be shown by the angle at which she wears this horn. [223] The
+dress of the men presents no features of special interest. In Nimar
+they usually have a necklace of coral beads, and some of them carry,
+slung on a thread round the neck, a tin tooth-pick and ear-scraper,
+while a small mirror and comb are kept in the head-cloth so that
+their toilet can be performed anywhere.
+
+Mr. Cumberlege [224] notes that in former times all Charan Banjaras
+when carrying grain for an army placed a twig of some tree, the sacred
+_nim_ [225] when available, in their turban to show that they were
+on the war-path; and that they would do the same now if they had
+occasion to fight to the death on any social matter or under any
+supposed grievance.
+
+
+
+19. Social customs.
+
+
+The Banjaras eat all kinds of meat, including fowls and pork, and drink
+liquor. But the Mathurias abstain from both flesh and liquor. Major
+Gunthorpe states that the Banjaras are accustomed to drink before
+setting out for a dacoity or robbery and, as they smoke after drinking,
+the remains of leaf-pipes lying about the scene of action may indicate
+their handiwork. They rank below the cultivating castes, and Brahmans
+will not take water to drink from them. When engaged in the carrying
+trade, they usually lived in _kuris_ or hamlets attached to such
+regular villages as had considerable tracts of waste land belonging
+to them. When the _tanda_ or caravan started on its long carrying
+trips, the young men and some of the women went with it with the
+working bullocks, while the old men and the remainder of the women
+and children remained to tend the breeding cattle in the hamlet. In
+Nimar they generally rented a little land in the village to give
+them a footing, and paid also a carrying fee on the number of cattle
+present. Their spare time was constantly occupied in the manufacture
+of hempen twine and sacking, which was much superior to that obtainable
+in towns. Even in Captain Forsyth's [226] time (1866) the construction
+of railways and roads had seriously interfered with the Banjaras'
+calling, and they had perforce taken to agriculture. Many of them
+have settled in the new ryotwari villages in Nimar as Government
+tenants. They still grow _tilli_ [227] in preference to other crops,
+because this oilseed can be raised without much labour or skill,
+and during their former nomadic life they were accustomed to sow it
+on any poor strip of land which they might rent for a season. Some
+of them also are accustomed to leave a part of their holding untilled
+in memory of their former and more prosperous life. In many villages
+they have not yet built proper houses, but continue to live in mud
+huts thatched with grass. They consider it unlucky to inhabit a house
+with a cement or tiled roof; this being no doubt a superstition arising
+from their camp life. Their houses must also be built so that the main
+beams do not cross, that is, the main beam of a house must never be
+in such a position that if projected it would cut another main beam;
+but the beams may be parallel. The same rule probably governed the
+arrangement of tents in their camps. In Nimar they prefer to live at
+some distance from water, probably that is of a tank or river; and this
+seems to be a survival of a usage mentioned by the Abbé Dubois: [228]
+"Among other curious customs of this odious caste is one that obliges
+them to drink no water which is not drawn from springs or wells. The
+water from rivers and tanks being thus forbidden, they are obliged
+in case of necessity to dig a little hole by the side of a tank or
+river and take the water filtering through, which, by this means, is
+supposed to become spring water." It is possible that this rule may
+have had its origin in a sanitary precaution. Colonel Sleeman notes
+[229] that the Banjaras on their carrying trips preferred by-paths
+through jungles to the high roads along cultivated plains, as grass,
+wood and water were more abundant along such paths; and when they could
+not avoid the high roads, they commonly encamped as far as they could
+from villages and towns, and upon the banks of rivers and streams,
+with the same object of obtaining a sufficient supply of grass,
+wood and water. Now it is well known that the decaying vegetation in
+these hill streams renders the water noxious and highly productive of
+malaria. And it seems possible that the perception of this fact led
+the Banjaras to dig shallow wells by the sides of the streams for
+their drinking-water, so that the supply thus obtained might be in
+some degree filtered by percolation through the intervening soil and
+freed from its vegetable germs. And the custom may have grown into
+a taboo, its underlying reason being unknown to the bulk of them,
+and be still practised, though no longer necessary when they do not
+travel. If this explanation be correct it would be an interesting
+conclusion that the Banjaras anticipated so far as they were able the
+sanitary precaution by which our soldiers are supplied with portable
+filters when on the march.
+
+
+
+20. The Naik or headman. Banjara dogs.
+
+
+Each _kuri_ (hamlet) or _tanda_ (caravan) had a chief or leader with
+the designation of Naik, a Telugu word meaning 'lord' or 'master.' The
+office of Naik [230] was only partly hereditary, and the choice also
+depended on ability. The Naik had authority to decide all disputes in
+the community, and the only appeal from him lay to the representatives
+of Bhangi and Jhangi Naik's families at Narsi and Poona, and to Burthia
+Naik's successors in the Telugu country. As already seen, the Naik
+received two shares if he participated in a robbery or other crime,
+and a fee on the remarriage of a widow outside her family and on
+the discovery of a witch. Another matter in which he was specially
+interested was pig-sticking. The Banjaras have a particular breed
+of dogs, and with these they were accustomed to hunt wild pig on
+foot, carrying spears. When a pig was killed, the head was cut off
+and presented to the Naik or headman, and if any man was injured
+or gored by the pig in the hunt, the Naik kept and fed him without
+charge until he recovered.
+
+The following notice of the Banjaras and their dogs may be reproduced:
+[231] "They are brave and have the reputation of great independence,
+which I am not disposed to allow to them. The Wanjari indeed is
+insolent on the road, and will drive his bullocks up against a Sahib
+or any one else; but at any disadvantage he is abject enough. I
+remember one who rather enjoyed seeing his dogs attack me, whom he
+supposed alone and unarmed, but the sight of a cocked pistol made
+him very quick in calling them off, and very humble in praying for
+their lives, which I spared less for his entreaties than because they
+were really noble animals. The Wanjaris are famous for their dogs,
+of which there are three breeds. The first is a large, smooth dog,
+generally black, sometimes fawn-coloured, with a square heavy head,
+most resembling the Danish boarhound. This is the true Wanjari
+dog. The second is also a large, square-headed dog, but shaggy,
+more like a great underbred spaniel than anything else. The third
+is an almost tailless greyhound, of the type known all over India by
+the various names of Lat, Polygar, Rampuri, etc. They all run both by
+sight and scent, and with their help the Wanjaris kill a good deal of
+game, chiefly pigs; but I think they usually keep clear of the old
+fighting boars. Besides sport and their legitimate occupations the
+Wanjaris seldom stickle at supplementing their resources by theft,
+especially of cattle; and they are more than suspected of infanticide."
+
+The Banjaras are credited with great affection for their dogs, and
+the following legend is told about one of them: Once upon a time a
+Banjara, who had a faithful dog, took a loan from a Bania (moneylender)
+and pledged his dog with him as security for payment. And some time
+afterwards, while the dog was with the moneylender, a theft was
+committed in his house, and the dog followed the thieves and saw them
+throw the property into a tank. When they went away the dog brought
+the Bania to the tank and he found his property. He was therefore very
+pleased with the dog and wrote a letter to his master, saying that the
+loan was repaid, and tied it round his neck and said to him, 'Now,
+go back to your master.' So the dog started back, but on his way he
+met his master, the Banjara, coming to the Bania with the money for
+the repayment of the loan. And when the Banjara saw the dog he was
+angry with him, not seeing the letter, and thinking he had run away,
+and said to him, 'Why did you come, betraying your trust?' and he
+killed the dog in a rage. And after killing him he found the letter
+and was very grieved, so he built a temple to the dog's memory, which
+is called the Kukurra Mandhi. And in the temple is the image of a
+dog. This temple is in the Drug District, five miles from Balod. A
+similar story is told of the temple of Kukurra Math in Mandla.
+
+
+
+21. Criminal tendencies of the caste.
+
+
+The following notice of Banjara criminals is abstracted from Major
+Gunthorpe's interesting account: [232] "In the palmy days of the tribe
+dacoities were undertaken on the most extensive scale. Gangs of fifty
+to a hundred and fifty well-armed men would go long distances from
+their _tandas_ or encampments for the purpose of attacking houses
+in villages, or treasure-parties or wealthy travellers on the high
+roads. The more intimate knowledge which the police have obtained
+concerning the habits of this race, and the detection and punishment
+of many criminals through approvers, have aided in stopping the heavy
+class of dacoities formerly prevalent, and their operations are now on
+a much smaller scale. In British territory arms are scarcely carried,
+but each man has a good stout stick (_gedi_), the bark of which is
+peeled off so as to make it look whitish and fresh. The attack is
+generally commenced by stone-throwing and then a rush is made, the
+sticks being freely used and the victims almost invariably struck
+about the head or face. While plundering, Hindustani is sometimes
+spoken, but as a rule they never utter a word, but grunt signals to
+one another. Their loin-cloths are braced up, nothing is worn on the
+upper part of the body, and their faces are generally muffled. In house
+dacoities men are posted at different corners of streets, each with
+a supply of well-chosen round stones to keep off any people coming
+to the rescue. Banjaras are very expert cattle-lifters, sometimes
+taking as many as a hundred head or even more at a time. This kind
+of robbery is usually practised in hilly or forest country where the
+cattle are sent to graze. Secreting themselves they watch for the
+herdsman to have his usual midday doze and for the cattle to stray
+to a little distance. As many as possible are then driven off to a
+great distance and secreted in ravines and woods. If questioned they
+answer that the animals belong to landowners and have been given into
+their charge to graze, and as this is done every day the questioner
+thinks nothing more of it. After a time the cattle are quietly sold
+to individual purchasers or taken to markets at a distance."
+
+
+
+22. Their virtues.
+
+
+The Banjaras, however, are far from being wholly criminal, and the
+number who have adopted an honest mode of livelihood is continually
+on the increase. Some allowance must be made for their having been
+deprived of their former calling by the cessation of the continual
+wars which distracted India under native rule, and the extension
+of roads and railways which has rendered their mode of transport
+by pack-bullocks almost entirely obsolete. At one time practically
+all the grain exported from Chhattisgarh was carried by them. In
+1881 Mr. Kitts noted that the number of Banjaras convicted in the
+Berar criminal courts was lower in proportion to the strength of
+the caste than that of Muhammadans, Brahmans, Koshtis or Sunars,
+[233] though the offences committed by them were usually more
+heinous. Colonel Mackenzie had quite a favourable opinion of them:
+"A Banjara who can read and write is unknown. But their memories,
+from cultivation, are marvellous and very retentive. They carry in
+their heads, without slip or mistake, the most varied and complicated
+transactions and the share of each in such, striking a debtor and
+creditor account as accurately as the best-kept ledger, while their
+history and songs are all learnt by heart and transmitted orally from
+generation to generation. On the whole, and taken rightly in their
+clannish nature, their virtues preponderate over their vices. In the
+main they are truthful and very brave, be it in war or the chase, and
+once gained over are faithful and devoted adherents. With the pride
+of high descent and with the right that might gives in unsettled and
+troublous times, these Banjaras habitually lord it over and contemn the
+settled inhabitants of the plains. And now not having foreseen their
+own fate, or at least not timely having read the warnings given by a
+yearly diminishing occupation, which slowly has taken their bread away,
+it is a bitter pill for them to sink into the ryot class or, oftener
+still, under stern necessity to become the ryot's servant. But they
+are settling to their fate, and the time must come when all their
+peculiar distinctive marks and traditions will be forgotten."
+
+
+
+Barai
+
+
+
+1. Origin and traditions.
+
+
+_Barai, [234] Tamboli, Pansari._--The caste of growers and sellers of
+the betel-vine leaf. The three terms are used indifferently for the
+caste in the Central Provinces, although some shades of variation in
+the meaning can be detected even here--Barai signifying especially one
+who grows the betel-vine, and Tamboli the seller of the prepared leaf;
+while Pansari, though its etymological meaning is also a dealer in
+_pan_ or betel-vine leaves, is used rather in the general sense of
+a druggist or grocer, and is apparently applied to the Barai caste
+because its members commonly follow this occupation. In Bengal,
+however, Barai and Tamboli are distinct castes, the occupations
+of growing and selling the betel-leaf being there separately
+practised. And they have been shown as different castes in the
+India Census Tables of 1901, though it is perhaps doubtful whether
+the distinction holds good in northern India. [235] In the Central
+Provinces and Berar the Barais numbered nearly 60,000 persons in
+1911. They reside principally in the Amraoti, Buldana, Nagpur, Wardha,
+Saugor and Jubbulpore Districts. The betel-vine is grown principally
+in the northern Districts of Saugor, Damoh and Jubbulpore and in
+those of Berar and the Nagpur plain. It is noticeable also that the
+growers and sellers of the betel-vine numbered only 14,000 in 1911
+out of 33,000 actual workers of the Barai caste; so that the majority
+of them are now employed in ordinary agriculture, field-labour and
+other avocations. No very probable derivation has been obtained for
+the word Barai, unless it comes from _bari_, a hedge or enclosure,
+and simply means 'gardener.' Another derivation is from _barana,_
+to avert hailstorms, a calling which they still practise in northern
+India. _Pan_, from the Sanskrit _parna_ (leaf), is _the_ leaf _par
+excellence_. Owing to the fact that they produce what is perhaps the
+most esteemed luxury in the diet of the higher classes of native
+society, the Barais occupy a fairly good social position, and one
+legend gives them a Brahman ancestry. This is to the effect that the
+first Barai was a Brahman whom God detected in a flagrant case of
+lying to his brother. His sacred thread was confiscated and being
+planted in the ground grew up into the first betel-vine, which he
+was set to tend. Another story of the origin of the vine is given
+later in this article. In the Central Provinces its cultivation has
+probably only flourished to any appreciable extent for a period of
+about three centuries, and the Barai caste would appear to be mainly
+a functional one, made up of a number of immigrants from northern
+India and of recruits from different classes of the population,
+including a large proportion of the non-Aryan element.
+
+
+
+2. Caste subdivisions.
+
+
+The following endogamous divisions of the caste have been reported:
+Chaurasia, so called from the Chaurasi pargana of the Mirzapur
+District; Panagaria from Panagar in Jubbulpore; Mahobia from Mahoba
+in Hamirpur; Jaiswar from the town of Jais in the Rai Bareli District
+of the United Provinces; Gangapari, coming from the further side of
+the Ganges; and Pardeshi or Deshwari, foreigners. The above divisions
+all have territorial names, and these show that a large proportion
+of the caste have come from northern India, the different batches
+of immigrants forming separate endogamous groups on their arrival
+here. Other subcastes are the Dudh Barais, from _dudh_, milk;
+the Kuman, said to be Kunbis who have adopted this occupation and
+become Barais; the Jharia and Kosaria, the oldest or jungly Barais,
+and those who live in Chhattisgarh; the Purania or old Barais; the
+Kumhardhang, who are said to be the descendants of a potter on whose
+wheel a betel-vine grew; and the Lahuri Sen, who are a subcaste formed
+of the descendants of irregular unions. None of the other subcastes
+will take food from these last, and the name is locally derived from
+_lahuri_, lower, and _sen_ or _shreni_, class. The caste is also
+divided into a large number of exogamous groups or septs which may
+be classified according to their names as territorial, titular and
+totemistic. Examples of territorial names are: Kanaujia of Kanauj,
+Burhanpuria of Burhanpur, Chitoria of Chitor in Rajputana, Deobijha
+the name of a village in Chhattisgarh, and Kharondiha from Kharond
+or Kalahandi State. These names must apparently have been adopted at
+random when a family either settled in one of these places or removed
+from it to another part of the country. Examples of titular names
+of groups are: Pandit (priest), Bhandari (store-keeper), Patharha
+(hail-averter), Batkaphor (pot-breaker), Bhulya (the forgetful one),
+Gujar (a caste), Gahoi (a caste), and so on. While the following are
+totemistic groups: Katara (dagger), Kulha (jackal), Bandrele (monkey),
+Chikhalkar (from _chikhal_, mud), Richharia (bear), and others. Where
+the group is named after another caste it probably indicates that a
+man of that caste became a Barai and founded a family; while the fact
+that some groups are totemistic shows that a section of the caste
+is recruited from the indigenous tribes. The large variety of names
+discloses the diverse elements of which the caste is made up.
+
+
+
+3. Marriage
+
+
+Marriage within the _gotra_ or exogamous group and within three
+degrees of relationship between persons connected through females
+is prohibited. Girls are usually wedded before adolescence, but
+no stigma attaches to the family if they remain single beyond this
+period. If a girl is seduced by a man of the caste she is married to
+him by the _pat_, a simple ceremony used for widows. In the southern
+Districts a barber cuts off a lock of her hair on the banks of a
+tank or river by way of penalty, and a fast is also imposed on her,
+while the caste-fellows exact a meal from her family. If she has an
+illegitimate child, it is given away to somebody else, if possible. A
+girl going wrong with an outsider is expelled from the caste.
+
+Polygamy is permitted and no stigma attaches to the taking of a second
+wife, though it is rarely done except for special family reasons. Among
+the Maratha Barais the bride and bridegroom must walk five times
+round the marriage altar and then worship the stone slab and roller
+used for pounding spices. This seems to show that the trade of the
+Pansari or druggist is recognised as being a proper avocation of the
+Barai. They subsequently have to worship the potter's wheel. After the
+wedding the bride, if she is a child, goes as usual to her husband's
+house for a few days. In Chhattisgarh she is accompanied by a few
+relations, the party being known as Chauthia, and during her stay in
+her husband's house the bride is made to sleep on the ground. Widow
+marriage is permitted, and the ceremony is conducted according to the
+usage of the locality. In Betul the relatives of the widow take the
+second husband before Maroti's shrine, where he offers a nut and some
+betel-leaf. He is then taken to the malguzar's house and presents
+to him Rs. 1-4-0, a cocoanut and some betel-vine leaf as the price
+of his assent to the marriage. If there is a Deshmukh [236] of the
+village, a cocoanut and betel-leaf are also given to him. The nut
+offered to Maroti represents the deceased husband's spirit, and is
+subsequently placed on a plank and kicked off by the new bridegroom
+in token of his usurping the other's place, and finally buried to
+lay the spirit. The property of the first husband descends to his
+children, and failing them his brother's children or collateral heirs
+take it before the widow. A bachelor espousing a widow must first go
+through the ceremony of marriage with a swallow-wort plant. When a
+widower marries a girl a silver impression representing the deceased
+first wife is made and worshipped daily with the family gods. Divorce
+is permitted on sufficient grounds at the instance of either party,
+being effected before the caste committee or _panchayat_. If a husband
+divorces his wife merely on account of bad temper, he must maintain her
+so long as she remains unmarried and continues to lead a moral life.
+
+
+
+4. Religion and social status.
+
+
+The Barais especially venerate the Nag or cobra and observe the
+festival of Nag-Panchmi (Cobra's fifth), in connection with which
+the following story is related. Formerly there was no betel-vine on
+the earth. But when the five Pandava brothers celebrated the great
+horse sacrifice after their victory at Hastinapur, they wanted some,
+and so messengers were sent down below the earth to the residence of
+the queen of the serpents, in order to try and obtain it. Basuki,
+the queen of the serpents, obligingly cut off the top joint of her
+little finger and gave it to the messengers. This was brought up
+and sown on the earth, and _pan_ creepers grew out of the joint. For
+this reason the betel-vine has no blossoms or seeds, but the joints
+of the creepers are cut off and sown, when they sprout afresh; and
+the betel-vine is called Nagbel or the serpent-creeper. On the day
+of Nag-Panchmi the Barais go to the _bareja_ with flowers, cocoanuts
+and other offerings, and worship a stone which is placed in it and
+which represents the Nag or cobra. A goat or sheep is sacrificed and
+they return home, no leaf of the _pan_ garden being touched on that
+day. A cup of milk is also left, in the belief that a cobra will come
+out of the _pan_ garden and drink it. The Barais say that members of
+their caste are never bitten by cobras, though many of these snakes
+frequent the gardens on account of the moist coolness and shade
+which they afford. The Agarwala Banias, from whom the Barais will
+take food cooked without water, have also a legend of descent from
+a Naga or snake princess. 'Our mother's house is of the race of the
+snake,' say the Agarwals of Bihar. [237] The caste usually burn the
+dead, with the exception of children and persons dying of leprosy
+or snake-bite, whose bodies are buried. Mourning is observed for
+ten days in the case of adults and for three days for children. In
+Chhattisgarh if any portion of the corpse remains unburnt on the
+day following the cremation, the relatives are penalised to the
+extent of an extra feast to the caste-fellows. Children are named
+on the sixth or twelfth day after birth either by a Brahman or by
+the women of the household. Two names are given, one for ceremonial
+and the other for ordinary use. When a Brahman is engaged he gives
+seven names for a boy and five for a girl, and the parents select
+one out of these. The Barais do not admit outsiders into the caste,
+and employ Brahmans for religious and ceremonial purposes. They are
+allowed to eat the flesh of clean animals, but very rarely do so,
+and they abstain from liquor. Brahmans will take sweets and water
+from them, and they occupy a fairly good social position on account
+of the important nature of their occupation.
+
+
+
+5. Occupation.
+
+
+"It has been mentioned," says Sir H. Risley, [238] "that the garden
+is regarded as almost sacred, and the superstitious practices in
+vogue resemble those of the silk-worm breeder. The Barui will not
+enter it until he has bathed and washed his clothes. Animals found
+inside are driven out, while women ceremonially unclean dare not enter
+within the gate. A Brahman never sets foot inside, and old men have a
+prejudice against entering it. It has, however, been known to be used
+for assignations." The betel-vine is the leaf of _Piper betel_ L.,
+the word being derived from the Malayalam _vettila_, 'a plain leaf,'
+and coming to us through the Portuguese _betre_ and _betle_. The
+leaf is called _pan_, and is eaten with the nut of _Areca catechu_,
+called in Hindi _supari_. The vine needs careful cultivation, the
+gardens having to be covered to keep off the heat of the sun, while
+liberal treatment with manure and irrigation is needed. The joints of
+the creepers are planted in February, and begin to supply leaves in
+about five months' time. When the first creepers are stripped after
+a period of nearly a year, they are cut off and fresh ones appear,
+the plants being exhausted within a period of about two years after
+the first sowing. A garden may cover from half an acre to an acre
+of land, and belongs to a number of growers, who act in partnership,
+each owning so many lines of vines. The plain leaves are sold at from
+2 annas to 4 annas a hundred, or a higher rate when they are out of
+season. Damoh, Ramtek and Bilahri are three of the best-known centres
+of cultivation in the Central Provinces. The Bilahri leaf is described
+in the _Ain-i-Akbari_ as follows: "The leaf called Bilahri is white and
+shining, and does not make the tongue harsh and hard. It tastes best
+of all kinds. After it has been taken away from the creeper, it turns
+white with some care after a month, or even after twenty days, when
+greater efforts are made." [239] For retail sale _bidas_ are prepared,
+consisting of a rolled betel-leaf containing areca-nut, catechu and
+lime, and fastened with a clove. Musk and cardamoms are sometimes
+added. Tobacco should be smoked after eating a _bida_ according to
+the saying, 'Service without a patron, a young man without a shield,
+and betel without tobacco are alike savourless.' _Bidas_ are sold
+at from two to four for a pice (farthing). Women of the caste often
+retail them, and as many are good-looking they secure more custom;
+they are also said to have an indifferent reputation. Early in the
+morning, when they open their shops, they burn some incense before
+the bamboo basket in which the leaves are kept, to propitiate Lakshmi,
+the goddess of wealth.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+Barhai
+
+
+
+List of Paragraphs
+
+
+    1.   _Strength and local distribution._
+    2.   _Internal structure._
+    3.   _Marriage customs._
+    4.   _Religion._
+    5.   _Social position._
+    6.   _Occupation._
+
+
+
+1. Strength and local distribution.
+
+
+_Barhai, Sutar, Kharadi, Mistri._--The occupational caste of
+carpenters. The Barhais numbered nearly 110,000 persons in the Central
+Provinces and Berar in 1911, or about 1 in 150 persons. The caste
+is most numerous in Districts with large towns, and few carpenters
+are to be found in villages except in the richer and more advanced
+Districts. Hitherto such woodwork as the villagers wanted for
+agriculture has been made by the Lohar or blacksmith, while the
+country cots, the only wooden article of furniture in their houses,
+could be fashioned by their own hands or by the Gond woodcutter. In the
+Mandla District the Barhai caste counts only 300 persons, and about
+the same in Balaghat, in Drug only 47 persons, and in the fourteen
+Chhattisgarh Feudatory States, with a population of more than two
+millions, only some 800 persons. The name Barhai is said to be from
+the Sanskrit Vardhika and the root _vardh_, to cut. Sutar is a common
+name of the caste in the Maratha Districts, and is from Sutra-kara,
+one who works by string, or a maker of string. The allusion may be to
+the Barhai's use of string in planing or measuring timber, or it may
+possibly indicate a transfer of occupation, the Sutars having first
+been mainly string-makers and afterwards abandoned this calling for
+that of the carpenter. The first wooden implements and articles of
+furniture may have been held together by string before nails came into
+use. Kharadi is literally a turner, one who turns woodwork on a lathe,
+from _kharat_, a lathe. Mistri, a corruption of the English Mister,
+is an honorific title for master carpenters.
+
+
+
+2. Internal structure.
+
+
+The comparatively recent growth of the caste in these Provinces is
+shown by its subdivisions. The principal subcastes of the Hindustani
+Districts are the Pardeshi or foreigners, immigrants from northern
+India, and the Purbia or eastern, coming from Oudh; other subcastes are
+the Sri Gaur Malas or immigrants from Malwa, the Beradi from Berar,
+and the Mahure from Hyderabad. We find also subcastes of Jat and
+Teli Barhais, consisting of Jats and Telis (oil-pressers) who have
+taken to carpentering. Two other caste-groups, the Chamar Barhais and
+Gondi Barhais, are returned, but these are not at present included in
+the Barhai caste, and consist merely of Chamars and Gonds who work
+as carpenters but remain in their own castes. In the course of some
+generations, however, if the cohesive social force of the caste system
+continues unabated, these groups may probably find admission into
+the Barhai caste. Colonel Tod notes that the progeny of one Makur,
+a prince of the Jadon Rajput house of Jaisalmer, became carpenters,
+and were known centuries after as Makur Sutars. They were apparently
+considered illegitimate, as he states: "Illegitimate children can
+never overcome this natural defect among the Rajputs. Thus we find
+among all classes of artisans in India some of royal but spurious
+descent." [240] The internal structure of the caste seems therefore
+to indicate that it is largely of foreign origin and to a certain
+degree of recent formation in these Provinces.
+
+
+
+3. Marriage customs.
+
+
+The caste are also divided into exogamous septs named after
+villages. In some localities it is said that they have no septs,
+but only surnames, and that people of the same surname cannot
+intermarry. Well-to-do persons marry their daughters before puberty
+and others when they can afford the expense of the ceremony. Brahman
+priests are employed at weddings, though on other occasions their
+services are occasionally dispensed with. The wedding ceremony is
+of the type prevalent in the locality. When the wedding procession
+reaches the bride's village it halts near the temple of Maroti or
+Hanuman. Among the Panchal Barhais the bridegroom does not wear
+a marriage crown but ties a bunch of flowers to his turban. The
+bridegroom's party is entertained for five days. Divorce and the
+remarriage of widows are permitted. In most localities it is said that
+a widow is forbidden to marry her first husband's younger as well as
+his elder brother. Among the Pardeshi Barhais of Betul if a bachelor
+desires to marry a widow he must first go through the ceremony with
+a branch or twig of the _gular_ tree. [241]
+
+
+
+4. Religion.
+
+
+The caste worship Viswakarma, the celestial architect, and venerate
+their trade implements on the Dasahra festival. They consider the
+sight of a mongoose and of a light-grey pigeon or dove as lucky
+omens. They burn the dead and throw the ashes into a river or tank,
+employing a Maha-Brahman to receive the gifts for the dead.
+
+
+
+5. Social position.
+
+
+In social status the Barhais rank with the higher artisan
+castes. Brahmans take water from them in some localities, perhaps
+more especially in towns. In Betul for instance Hindustani Brahmans
+do not accept water from the rural Barhais. In Damoh where both the
+Barhai and Lohar are village menials, their status is said to be the
+same, and Brahmans do not take water from Lohars. Mr. Nesfield says
+that the Barhai is a village servant and ranks with the Kurmi, with
+whom his interests are so closely allied. But there seems no special
+reason why the interests of the carpenter should be more closely
+allied with the cultivator than those of any other village menial,
+and it may be offered as a surmise that carpentering as a distinct
+trade is of comparatively late origin, and was adopted by Kurmis, to
+which fact the connection noticed by Mr. Nesfield might be attributed;
+hence the position of the Barhai among the castes from whom a Brahman
+will take water. In some localities well-to-do members of the caste
+have begun to wear the sacred thread.
+
+
+
+6. Occupation.
+
+
+In the northern Districts and the cotton tract the Barhai works as a
+village menial. He makes and mends the plough and harrow (_bakhar_)
+and other wooden implements of agriculture, and makes new ones when
+supplied with the wood. In Wardha he receives an annual contribution
+of 100 lbs. of grain from each cultivator. In Betul he gets 67 lbs. of
+grain and other perquisites for each plough of four bullocks. For
+making carts and building or repairing houses he must be separately
+paid. At weddings the Barhai often supplies the sacred marriage-post
+and is given from four annas to a rupee. At the Diwali festival he
+prepares a wooden peg about six inches long, and drives it into the
+cultivator's house inside the threshold, and receives half a pound
+to a pound of grain.
+
+In cities the carpenters are rapidly acquiring an increased degree
+of skill as the demand for a better class of houses and furniture
+becomes continually greater and more extensive. The carpenters
+have been taught to make English furniture by such institutions as
+the Friends' Mission of Hoshangabad and other missionaries; and a
+Government technical school has now been opened at Nagpur, in which
+boys from all over the Province are trained in the profession. Very
+little wood-carving with any pretensions to excellence has hitherto
+been done in the Central Provinces, but the Jain temples at Saugor and
+Khurai contain some fair woodwork. A good carpenter in towns can earn
+from 12 annas to Rs. 1-8 a day, and both his earnings and prospects
+have greatly improved within recent years. Sherring remarks of the
+Barhais: "As artisans they exhibit little or no inventive powers: but
+in imitating the workmanship of others they are perhaps unsurpassed
+in the whole world. They are equally clever in working from designs
+and models." [242]
+
+
+
+Bari
+
+_Bari._--A caste of household servants and makers of leaf-plates,
+belonging to northern India. The Baris numbered 1200 persons in
+the Central Provinces in 1911, residing mainly in Jubbulpore and
+Mandla. Sir H. Risley remarks of the caste: [243] "Mr. Nesfield
+regards the Bari as merely an offshoot from a semi-savage tribe
+known as Banmanush and Musahar. He is said still to associate with
+them at times, and if the demand for leaf-plates and cups, owing to
+some temporary cause, such as a local fair or an unusual multitude
+of marriages, happens to become larger than he can at once supply,
+he gets them secretly made by his ruder kinsfolk and retails them at
+a higher rate, passing them off as his own production. The strictest
+Brahmans, those at least who aspire to imitate the self-denying life
+of the ancient Indian hermit, never eat off any other plates than those
+made of leaves." "If the above view is correct," Sir H. Risley remarks,
+"the Baris are a branch of a non-Aryan tribe who have been given a
+fairly respectable position in the social system in consequence of the
+demand for leaf-plates, which are largely used by the highest as well
+as the lowest castes. Instances of this sort, in which a non-Aryan
+or mixed group is promoted on grounds of necessity or convenience to
+a higher status than their antecedents would entitle them to claim,
+are not unknown in other castes, and must have occurred frequently
+in outlying parts of the country, where the Aryan settlements were
+scanty and imperfectly supplied with the social apparatus demanded by
+the theory of ceremonial purity." There is no reason why the origin
+of the Bari from the Banmanush (wild man of the woods) or Musahar
+(mouse-eater), a forest tribe, as suggested by Mr. Nesfield from
+his observation of their mutual connection, should be questioned. The
+making of leaf-plates is an avocation which may be considered naturally
+to pertain to the tribes frequenting jungles from which the leaves are
+gathered; and in the Central Provinces, though in the north the Nai
+or barber ostensibly supplies the leaf-plates, probably buying the
+leaves and getting them made up by Gonds and others, in the Maratha
+Districts the Gond himself does so, and many Gonds make their living
+by this trade. The people of the Maratha country are apparently less
+strict than those of northern India, and do not object to eat off
+plates avowedly the handiwork of Gonds. The fact that the Bari has
+been raised to the position of a pure caste, so that Brahmans will take
+water from his hands, is one among several instances of this elevation
+of the rank of the serving castes for purposes of convenience. The
+caste themselves have the following legend of their origin: Once upon
+a time Parmeshwar [244] was offering rice milk to the spirits of his
+ancestors. In the course of this ceremony the performer has to present
+a gift known as Vikraya Dan, which cannot be accepted by others without
+loss of position. Parmeshwar offered the gift to various Brahmans,
+but they all refused it. So he made a man of clay, and blew upon the
+image and gave it life, and the god then asked the man whom he had
+created to accept the gift which the Brahmans had refused. This man,
+who was the first Bari, agreed on condition that all men should drink
+with him and recognise his purity of caste. Parmeshwar then told him
+to bring water in a cup, and drank of it in the presence of all the
+castes. And in consequence of this all the Hindus will take water
+from the hands of a Bari. They also say that their first ancestor was
+named Sundar on account of his personal beauty; but if so, he failed
+to bequeath this quality to his descendants. The proper avocation
+of the Baris is, as already stated, the manufacture of the leaf-cups
+and plates used by all Hindus at festivals. In the Central Provinces
+these are made from the large leaves of the _mahul_ creeper (_Bauhinia
+Vahlii_), or from the _palas_ (_Butea frondosa_). The caste also act as
+personal servants, handing round water, lighting and carrying torches
+at marriages and other entertainments and on journeys, and performing
+other functions. Some of them have taken to agriculture. Their women
+act as maids to high-caste Hindu ladies, and as they are always about
+the zenana, are liable to lose their virtue. A curious custom prevails
+in Marwar on the birth of an heir to the throne. An impression of the
+child's foot is taken by a Bari on cloth covered with saffron, and
+is exhibited to the native chiefs, who make him rich presents. [245]
+The Baris have the reputation of great fidelity to their employers, and
+a saying about them is, 'The Bari will die fighting for his master.'
+
+
+
+Basdewa
+
+
+_Basdewa, [246] Wasudeo, Harbola, Kaparia, Jaga, Kapdi._--A wandering
+beggar caste of mixed origin, who also call themselves Sanadhya or
+Sanaurhia Brahmans. The Basdewas trace their origin to Wasudeo,
+the father of Krishna, and the term Basdewa is a corruption of
+Wasudeo or Wasudeva. Kaparia is the name they bear in the Anterved
+or country between the Ganges and Jumna, whence they claim to have
+come. Kaparia has been derived from _kapra_, cloth, owing to the custom
+of the Basdewas of having several dresses, which they change rapidly
+like the Bahrupia, making themselves up in different characters as a
+show. Harbola is an occupational term, applied to a class of Basdewas
+who climb trees in the early morning and thence vociferate praises
+of the deity in a loud voice. The name is derived from _Har_, God,
+and _bolna_, to speak. As the Harbolas wake people up in the morning
+they are also called Jaga or Awakener. The number of Basdewas in
+the Central Provinces and Berar in 1911 was 2500, and they are found
+principally in the northern Districts and in Chhattisgarh. They have
+several territorial subcastes, as Gangaputri or those who dwell on
+the banks of the Ganges; Khaltia or Deswari, those who belong to
+the Central Provinces; Parauha, from _para_, a male buffalo calf,
+being the dealers in buffaloes; Harbola or those who climb trees and
+sing the praises of God; and Wasudeo, the dwellers in the Maratha
+Districts who marry only among themselves. The names of the exogamous
+divisions are very varied, some being taken from Brahman _gotras_ and
+Rajput septs, while others are the names of villages, or nicknames,
+or derived from animals and plants. It may be concluded from these
+names that the Basdewas are a mixed occupational group recruited
+from high and low castes, though they themselves say that they do
+not admit any outsiders except Brahmans into the community. In Bombay
+[247] the Wasudevas have a special connection with Kumhars or potters,
+whom they address by the term of _kaka_ or paternal uncle, and at whose
+houses they lodge on their travels, presenting their host with the two
+halves of a cocoanut. The caste do not observe celibacy. A price of
+Rs. 25 has usually to be given for a bride, and a Brahman is employed
+to perform the ceremony. At the conclusion of this the Brahman invests
+the bridegroom with a sacred thread, which he thereafter continues to
+wear. Widow marriage is permitted, and widows are commonly married to
+widowers. Divorce is also permitted. When a man's wife dies he shaves
+his moustache and beard, if any, in mourning and a father likewise
+for a daughter-in-law; this is somewhat peculiar, as other Hindus do
+not shave the moustache for a wife or daughter-in-law. The Basdewas
+are wandering mendicants. In the Maratha Districts they wear a plume
+of peacock's feathers, which they say was given to them as a badge
+by Krishna. In Saugor and Damoh instead of this they carry during the
+period from Dasahra to the end of Magh or from September to January a
+brass vessel called _matuk_ bound on their heads. It is surmounted by
+a brass cone and adorned with mango-leaves, cowries and a piece of red
+cloth, and with figures of Rama and Lakshman. Their stock-in-trade for
+begging consists of two _kartals_ or wooden clappers which are struck
+against each other; _ghungrus_ or jingling ornaments for the feet,
+worn when dancing; and a _paijna_ or kind of rattle, consisting of
+two semicircular iron wires bound at each end to a piece of wood with
+rings slung on to them; this is simply shaken in the hand and gives
+out a sound from the movement of the rings against the wires. They
+worship all these implements as well as their beggar's wallet on
+the Janam-Ashtami or Krishna's birthday, the Dasahra, and the full
+moon of Magh (January). They rise early and beg only in the morning
+from about four till eight, and sing songs in praise of Sarwan and
+Karan. Sarwan was a son renowned for his filial piety; he maintained
+and did service to his old blind parents to the end of their lives,
+much against the will of his wife, and was proof against all her
+machinations to induce him to abandon them. Karan was a proverbially
+charitable king, and all his family had the same virtue. His wife gave
+away daily rice and pulse to those who required it, his daughter gave
+them clothes, his son distributed cows as alms and his daughter-in-law
+cocoanuts. The king himself gave only gold, and it is related of him
+that he was accustomed to expend a maund and a quarter [248] weight
+of gold in alms-giving before he washed himself and paid his morning
+devotions. Therefore the Basdewas sing that he who gives early in the
+morning acquires the merit of Karan; and their presence at this time
+affords the requisite opportunity to anybody who may be desirous of
+emulating the king. At the end of every couplet they cry 'Jai Ganga'
+or 'Har Ganga,' invoking the Ganges.
+
+The Harbolas have each a beat of a certain number of villages which
+must not be infringed by the others. Their method is to ascertain the
+name of some well-to-do person in the village. This done, they climb
+a tree in the early morning before sunrise, and continue chanting
+his praises in a loud voice until he is sufficiently flattered
+by their eulogies or wearied by their importunity to throw down a
+present of a few pice under the tree, which the Harbola, descending,
+appropriates. The Basdewas of the northern Districts are now commonly
+engaged in the trade of buying and selling buffaloes. They take the
+young male calves from Saugor and Damoh to Chhattisgarh, and there
+retail them at a profit for rice cultivation, driving them in large
+herds along the road. For the capital which they have to borrow to
+make their purchases, they are charged very high rates of interest. The
+Basdewas have here a special veneration for the buffalo as the animal
+from which they make their livelihood, and they object strongly to
+the calves being taken to be tied out as baits for tiger, refusing,
+it is said, to accept payment if the calf should be killed. Their
+social status is not high, and none but the lowest castes will take
+food from their hands. They eat flesh and drink liquor, but abstain
+from pork, fowls and beef. Some of the caste have given up animal food.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+Basor
+
+
+List of Paragraphs
+
+
+    1.  _Numbers and distribution._
+    2.  _Caste traditions._
+    3.  _Subdivisions._
+    4.  _Marriage._
+    5.  _Religion and social status._
+    6.  _Occupation._
+
+
+
+1. Numbers and distribution.
+
+
+_Basor, [249] Bansphor, Dhulia, Burud._--The occupational caste of
+bamboo-workers, the two first names being Hindi and the last the
+term used in the Maratha Districts. The cognate Uriya caste is called
+Kandra and the Telugu one Medara. The Basors numbered 53,000 persons
+in the Central Provinces and Berar in 1911. About half the total
+number reside in the Saugor, Damoh and Jubbulpore Districts. The word
+Basor is a corruption of Bansphor, 'a breaker of bamboos.' Dhulia,
+from _dholi_, a drum, means a musician.
+
+
+
+2. Caste traditions.
+
+
+The caste trace their origin from Raja Benu or Venu who ruled at
+Singorgarh in Damoh. It is related of him that he was so pious that
+he raised no taxes from his subjects, but earned his livelihood by
+making and selling bamboo fans. He could of course keep no army,
+but he knew magic, and when he broke his fan the army of the enemy
+broke up in unison. Venu is a Sanskrit word meaning bamboo. But a
+mythological Sanskrit king called Vena is mentioned in the Puranas,
+from whom for his sins was born the first Nishada, the lowest of human
+beings, and Manu [250] states that the bamboo-worker is the issue of
+a Nishada or Chandal father and a Vaideha [251] mother. So that the
+local story may be a corruption of the Brahmanical tradition. Another
+legend relates that in the beginning there were no bamboos, and
+the first Basor took the serpent which Siva wore round his neck and
+going to a hill planted it with its head in the ground. A bamboo at
+once sprang up on the spot, and from this the Basor made the first
+winnowing fan. And the snake-like root of the bamboo, which no doubt
+suggested the story to its composer, is now adduced in proof of it.
+
+
+
+3. Subdivisions.
+
+
+The Basors of the northern Districts are divided into a number of
+subcastes, the principal of which are: the Purania or Juthia, who
+perhaps represent the oldest section, Purania being from _purana_ old;
+they are called Juthia because they eat the leavings of others; the
+Barmaiya or Malaiya, apparently a territorial group; the Deshwari or
+Bundelkhandi who reside in the _desh_ or native place of Bundelkhand;
+the Gudha or Gurha, the name being derived by some from _guda_
+a pigsty; the Dumar or Dom Basors; the Dhubela, perhaps from the
+Dhobi caste; and the Dharkar. Two or three of the above names appear
+to be those of other low castes from which the Basor caste may have
+been recruited, perhaps at times when a strong demand existed for
+bamboo-workers. The Buruds do not appear to be sufficiently numerous
+to have subcastes. But they include a few Telenga Buruds who are
+really Medaras, and the caste proper are therefore sometimes known as
+Maratha Buruds to distinguish them from these. The caste has numerous
+_bainks_ or exogamous groups or septs, the names of which may chiefly
+be classified as territorial and totemistic. Among the former are
+Mahobia, from the town of Mahoba; Sirmaiya, from Sirmau; Orahia,
+from Orai, the battlefield of the Banaphar generals, Alha and Udal;
+Tikarahia from Tikari, and so on. The totemistic septs include the
+Sanpero from _sanp_ a snake, the Mangrelo from _mangra_ a crocodile,
+the Morya from _mor_ a peacock, the Titya from the _titehri_ bird
+and the Sarkia from _sarki_ or red ochre, all of which worship their
+respective totems. The Katarya or 'dagger' sept worship a real or
+painted dagger at their marriage, and the Kemia, a branch of the _kem_
+tree (_Stephegyne parvifolia_). The Bandrelo, from _bandar_, worship a
+painted monkey. One or two groups are named after castes, as Bamhnelo
+from Brahman and Bargujaria from Bargujar Rajput, thus indicating that
+members of these castes became Basors and founded families. One sept
+is called Marha from Marhai, the goddess of cholera, and the members
+worship a picture of the goddess drawn in black. The name of the
+Kulhantia sept means somersault, and these turn a somersault before
+worshipping their gods. So strong is the totemistic idea that some
+of the territorial groups worship objects with similar names. Thus
+the Mahobia group, whose name is undoubtedly derived from the town
+of Mahoba, have adopted the mahua tree as their totem, and digging
+a small hole in the ground place in it a little water and the liquor
+made from mahua flowers, and worship it. This represents the process
+of distillation of country liquor. Similarly, the Orahia group,
+who derive their name from the town of Orai, now worship the _urai_
+or _khaskhas_ grass, and the Tikarahia from Tikari worship a _tikli_
+or glass spangle.
+
+
+
+4. Marriage.
+
+
+The marriage of persons belonging to the same _baink_ or sept and also
+that of first cousins is forbidden. The age of marriage is settled
+by convenience, and no stigma attaches to its postponement beyond
+adolescence. Intrigues of unmarried girls with men of their own or
+any higher caste are usually overlooked. The ceremony follows the
+standard Hindi and Marathi forms, and presents no special features. A
+bride-price called _chari_, amounting to seven or eight rupees,
+is usually paid. In Betul the practice of _lamjhana_ or serving the
+father-in-law for a term of years before marrying his daughter, is
+sometimes followed. Widow-marriage is permitted, and the widow is
+expected to wed her late husband's younger brother. The Basors are
+musicians by profession, but in Betul the _narsingha_, a peculiar
+kind of crooked trumpet, is the only implement which may be played
+at the marriage of a widow. A woman marrying a second time forfeits
+all interest in the property of her late husband, unless she is
+without issue and there are no near relatives of her husband to take
+it. Divorce is effected by the breaking of the woman's bangles in
+public. If obtained by the wife, she must repay to her first husband
+the expenditure incurred by him for her marriage when she takes a
+second. But the acceptance of this payment is considered derogatory
+and the husband refuses it unless he is poor.
+
+
+
+5. Religion and social status.
+
+
+The Basors worship the ordinary Hindu deities and also ghosts and
+spirits. Like the other low castes they entertain a special veneration
+for Devi. They profess to exorcise evil spirits and the evil eye,
+and to cure other disorders and diseases through the agency of their
+incantations and the goblins who do their bidding. They burn their
+dead when they can afford it and otherwise bury them, placing the
+corpse in the grave with its head to the north. The body of a woman
+is wrapped in a red shroud and that of a man in a white one. They
+observe mourning for a period of three to ten days, but in Jubbulpore
+it always ends with the fortnight in which the death takes place;
+so that a person dying on the 15th or 30th of the month is mourned
+only for one day. They eat almost every kind of food, including
+beef, pork, fowls, liquor and the leavings of others, but abjure
+crocodiles, monkeys, snakes and rats. Many of them have now given
+up eating cow's flesh in deference to Hindu feeling. They will take
+food from almost any caste except sweepers, and one or two others,
+as Joshi and Jasondhi, towards whom for some unexplained reason they
+entertain a special aversion. They will admit outsiders belonging
+to any caste from whom they can take food into the community. They
+are generally considered as impure, and live outside the village,
+and their touch conveys pollution, more especially in the Maratha
+Districts. The ordinary village menials, as the barber and washerman,
+will not work for them, and services of this nature are performed by
+men of their own community. As, however, their occupation is not in
+itself unclean, they rank above sweepers, Chamars and Dhobis. Temporary
+exclusion from caste is imposed for the usual offences, and the almost
+invariable penalty for readmission is a feast to the caste-fellows. A
+person, male or female, who has been convicted of adultery must have
+the head shaved, and is then seated in the centre of the caste-fellows
+and pelted by them with the leavings of their food. Basor women are
+not permitted to wear nose-rings on pain of exclusion from caste.
+
+
+
+6. Occupation.
+
+
+The trade of the Basors is a very essential one to the agricultural
+community. They make numerous kinds of baskets, among which may be
+mentioned the _chunka_, a very small one, the _tokni_, a basket
+of middle size, and the _tokna_, a very large one. The _dauri_
+is a special basket with a lining of matting for washing rice in
+a stream. The _jhanpi_ is a round basket with a cover for holding
+clothes; the _tipanna_ a small one in which girls keep dolls; and the
+_bilahra_ a still smaller one for holding betel-leaf. Other articles
+made from bamboo-bark are the _chalni_ or sieve, the _khunkhuna_ or
+rattle, the _bansuri_ or wooden flute, the _bijna_ or fan, and the
+_supa_ or winnowing-fan. All grain is cleaned with the help of the
+_supa_ both on the threshing-floor and in the house before consumption,
+and a child is always laid in one as soon as it is born. In towns
+the Basors make the bamboo matting which is so much used. The only
+implement they employ is the _banka_, a heavy curved knife, with which
+all the above articles are made. The _banka_ is duly worshipped at
+the Diwali festival. The Basors are also the village musicians, and a
+band of three or four of them play at weddings and on other festive
+occasions. Some of them work as pig-breeders and others are village
+watchmen. The women often act as midwives. One subcaste, the Dumar,
+will do scavenger's work, but they never take employment as _saises_,
+because the touch of horse-dung is considered as a pollution, entailing
+temporary excommunication from caste.
+
+
+
+Bedar
+
+
+
+1. General notice.
+
+
+_Bedar. [252]_--A small caste of about 1500 persons, belonging
+to Akola, Khandesh and Hyderabad. Their ancestors were Pindaris,
+apparently recruited from the different Maratha castes, and when the
+Pindaris were suppressed they obtained or were awarded land in the
+localities where they now reside, and took to cultivation. The more
+respectable Bedars say that their ancestors were Tirole Kunbis, but
+when Tipu Sultan invaded the Carnatic he took many of them prisoners
+and ordered them to become Muhammadans. In order to please him they
+took food with Muhammadans, and on this account the Kunbis put them out
+of caste until they should purify themselves. But as there were a large
+number of them, they did not do this, and have remained a separate
+caste. The real derivation of the name is unknown, but the caste say
+that it is _be-dar_ or 'without fear,' and was given to them on account
+of their bravery. They have now obtained a warrant from the descendant
+of Shankar Acharya, or the high priest of Sivite Hindus, permitting
+them to describe themselves as Put Kunbi or purified Kunbi. [253]
+The community is clearly of a most mixed nature, as there are also
+Dher or Mahar Bedars. They refuse to take food from other Mahars and
+consider themselves defiled by their touch. The social position of
+the caste also presents some peculiar features. Several of them have
+taken service in the army and police, and have risen to the rank of
+native officer; and Rao Sahib Dhonduji, a retired Inspector of Police,
+is a prominent member of the caste. The Raja of Surpur, near Raichur,
+is also said to be a Bedar, while others are ministerial officials
+occupying a respectable position. Yet of the Bedars generally it is
+said that they cannot draw water freely from the public wells, and in
+Nasik Bedar constables are not considered suitable for ordinary duty,
+as people object to their entering houses. The caste must therefore
+apparently have higher and lower groups, differing considerably
+in position.
+
+
+
+2. Subdivisions and marriage customs.
+
+
+They have three subdivisions, the Maratha, Telugu and Kande Bedars. The
+names of their exogamous sections are also Marathi. Nevertheless
+they retain one or two northern customs, presumably acquired from
+association with the Pindaris. Their women do not tuck the body-cloth
+in behind the waist, but draw it over the right shoulder. They wear
+the _choli_ or Hindustani breast-cloth tied in front, and have a hooped
+silver ornament on the top of the head, which is known as _dhora_. They
+eat goats, fowls and the flesh of the wild pig, and drink liquor, and
+will take food from a Kunbi or a Phulmali, and pay little heed to the
+rules of social impurity. But Hindustani Brahmans act as their priests.
+
+Before a wedding they call a Brahman and worship him as a god, the
+ceremony being known as Deo Brahman. The Brahman then cooks food in the
+house of his host. On the same occasion a person specially nominated
+by the Brahman, and known as Deokia, fetches an earthen vessel from
+the potter, and this is worshipped with offerings of turmeric and
+rice, and a cotton thread is tied round it. Formerly it is said they
+worshipped the spent bullets picked up after a battle, and especially
+any which had been extracted from the body of a wounded person.
+
+
+
+3. Funeral rites.
+
+
+When a man is about to die they take him down from his cot and lay
+him on the ground with his head in the lap of a relative. The dead
+are buried, a person of importance being carried to the grave in a
+sitting posture, while others are laid out in the ordinary manner. A
+woman is buried in a green cloth and a breast-cloth. When the corpse
+has been prepared for the funeral they take some liquor, and after a
+few drops have been poured into the mouth of the corpse the assembled
+persons drink the rest. While following to the grave they beat drums
+and play on musical instruments and sing religious songs; and if a
+man dies during the night, since he is not buried till the morning,
+they sit in the house playing and singing for the remaining hours of
+darkness. The object of this custom must presumably be to keep away
+evil spirits. After the funeral each man places a leafy branch of
+some tree or shrub on the grave, and on the thirteenth day they put
+food before a cow and also throw some on to the roof of the house as
+a portion for the crows.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+Beldar
+
+
+List of Paragraphs
+
+
+    1.  _General notice._
+    2.  _Beldars of the northern Districts._
+    3.  _Odias of Chhattisgarh._
+    4.  _Other Chhattisgarhi Beldars._
+    5.  _Munurwar and Telenga._
+    6.  _Vaddar._
+    7.  _Pathrot._
+    8.  _Takari._
+
+
+
+1. General notice.
+
+
+_Beldar, [254] Od, Sonkar, Raj, Larhia, Karigar, Matkuda, Chunkar,
+Munurwar, Thapatkari, Vaddar, Pathrot, Takari._--The term Beldar
+is generically applied to a number of occupational groups of more
+or less diverse origin, who work as masons or navvies, build the
+earthen embankments of tanks or fields, carry lime and bricks and
+in former times refined salt. Beldar means one who carries a _bel_,
+a hoe or mattock. In 1911 a total of 25,000 Beldars were returned
+from the Central Provinces, being most numerous in the Nimar, Wardha,
+Nagpur, Chanda and Raipur districts. The Nunia, Murha and Sansia
+(Uriya) castes, which have been treated in separate articles, are
+also frequently known as Beldar, and cannot be clearly distinguished
+from the main caste. If they are all classed together the total of
+the earth- and stone-working castes comes to 35,000 persons.
+
+It is probable that the bulk of the Beldars and allied castes are
+derived from the non-Aryan tribes. The Murhas or navvies of the
+northern Districts appear to be an offshoot of the Bind tribe; the
+people known as Matkuda (earth-digger) are usually Gonds or Pardhans;
+the Sansias and Larhias or Uriyas of Chhattisgarh and the Uriya country
+seem to have originated from the Kol, Bhuiya and Oraon tribes, the Kols
+especially making excellent diggers and masons; the Oddes or Vaddars
+of Madras are a very low caste, and some of their customs point to a
+similar origin, though the Munurwar masons of Chanda appear to have
+belonged originally to the Kapu caste of cultivators.
+
+The term Raj, which is also used for the Beldars in the northern
+Districts, has the distinctive meaning of a mason, while Chunkar
+signifies a lime-burner. The Sonkars were formerly occupied in Saugor
+in carrying lime, bricks and earth on donkeys, but they have now
+abandoned this calling in Chhattisgarh and taken to growing vegetables,
+and have been given a short separate notice. In Hoshangabad some
+Muhammadan Beldars are now also found.
+
+
+
+2. Beldars of the northern Districts.
+
+
+The Beldars of Saugor say that their ancestors were engaged in
+refining salt from earth. A divine saint named Nona Rishi (_non_,
+salt) came down on earth, and while cooking his food mixed some
+saline soil with it. The bread tasted much better in consequence, and
+he made the earth into a ball or _goli_ and taught his followers to
+extract the salt from it, whence their descendants are known as Goli
+Beldars. The customs of these Beldars are of the ordinary low-caste
+type. The wedding procession is accompanied by drums, fireworks and,
+if means permit, a nautch-girl. If a man puts away his wife without
+adequate cause the caste _panchayat_ may compel him to support her
+so long as she remains of good conduct. The party seeking a divorce,
+whether husband or wife, has to pay Rs. 7 to the caste committee
+and the other partner Rs. 3, irrespective of where the blame rests,
+and each remains out of caste until he or she pays.
+
+These Beldars will not take food from any caste but their own, and will
+not take water from a Brahman, though they will accept it from Kurmis,
+Gujars and similar castes. Sir H. Risley notes that their women always
+remove earth in baskets on the head. "The Beldars regard this mode of
+carrying earth as distinctive of themselves, and will on no account
+transport it in baskets slung from the shoulders. They work very
+hard when paid by the piece, and are notorious for their skill in
+manipulating the pillars (_sakhi_, witness) left to mark work done,
+so as to exaggerate the measurement. On one occasion while working
+for me on a large lake at Govindpur, in the north of the Manbhum
+District, a number of Beldars transplanted an entire pillar during
+the night and claimed payment for several thousand feet of imaginary
+earthwork. The fraud was most skilfully carried out, and was only
+detected by accident." [255] The Beldars are often dishonest in their
+dealings, and will take large advances for a tank or embankment, and
+then abscond with the money without doing the work. During the open
+season parties of the caste travel about in camp looking for work,
+their furniture being loaded on donkeys. They carry grain in earthen
+pots encased in bags of netting, neatly and closely woven, and grind
+their wheat daily in a small mill set on a goat-skin. Butter is made
+in one of their pots with a churning-stick, consisting of a cogged
+wheel fixed on to the end of a wooden rod.
+
+
+
+3. Odias of Chhattisgarh.
+
+
+The Beldars of Chhattisgarh are divided into the Odia or Uriya, Larhia,
+Kuchbandhia, Matkuda and Karigar groups. Uriya and Larhia are local
+names, applied to residents of the Uriya country and Chhattisgarh
+respectively. Odia is the name of a low Madras caste of masons,
+but whether it is a corruption of Uriya is not clear. Karigar means
+a workman, and Kuchbandhia is the name of a separate caste, who make
+loom-combs for weavers. The Odias pretend to be fallen Rajputs. They
+say that when Indra stole the sacrificial horse of Raja Sagar and
+kept it in the underworld, the Raja's thousand sons dug great holes
+through the earth to get it. Finally they arrived at the underworld
+and were all reduced to ashes by the Rishi Kapil Muni, who dwelt
+there. Their ghosts besought him for life, and he said that their
+descendants should always continue to dig holes in the earth, which
+would be used as tanks; and that whenever a tank was dug by them, and
+its marriage celebrated with a sacrifice, the savour of the sacrifice
+would descend to the ghosts and would afford them sustenance. The Odias
+say that they are the descendants of the Raja's sons, and unless a tank
+is dug and its marriage celebrated by them it remains impure. These
+Odias have their tutelary deity in Rewah State, and at his shrine is a
+flag which none but an Odia of genuine descent from Raja Sagar's sons
+can touch without some injury befalling him. If any Beldaar therefore
+claims to belong to their caste they call on him to touch the flag,
+and if he does so with impunity they acknowledge him as a brother.
+
+
+
+4. Other Chhattisgarhi Beldars.
+
+
+The other group of Chattisgarhi Beldars are of lower status, and
+clearly derived from the non-Aryan tribes. They eat pigs, and at
+intervals of two or three years they celebrate the worship of Gosain
+Deo with a sacrifice of pigs, the deity being apparently a deified
+ascetic or mendicant. On this occasion the Dhimars, Gonds, and all
+other castes which eat pig's flesh join in the sacrifice, and consume
+the meat together after the fashion of the rice at Jagannath's temple,
+which all castes may eat together without becoming impure. These
+Beldars use asses for the transport of their bricks and stones, and
+on the Diwali day they place a lamp before the ass and pay reverence
+to it. They say that at their marriages a bride-price of Rs. 100
+or Rs. 200 must always be paid, but they are allowed to give one or
+two donkeys and value them at Rs. 50 apiece. They make grindstones
+(_chakki_), combs for straightening the threads on the loom, and
+frames for stretching the threads. These frames are called _dongi_,
+and are made either wholly or partly from the horns of animals,
+a fact which no doubt renders them impure.
+
+
+
+5. Munurwar and Telenga.
+
+
+In Chanda the principal castes of stone-workers are the Telengas
+(Telugus), who are also known as Thapatkari (tapper or chiseller),
+Telenga Kunbi and Munurwar. They occupy a higher position than the
+ordinary Beldar, and Kunbis will take water from them and sometimes
+food. They say that they came into Chanda from the Telugu country along
+the Godavari and Pranhita rivers to build the great wall of Chanda
+and the palaces and tombs of the Gond kings. There is no reason to
+doubt that the Munurwars are a branch of the Kapu cultivating caste
+of the Telugu country. Mr. A. K. Smith states that they refuse to eat
+the flesh of an animal which has been skinned by a Mahar, a Chamar,
+or a Gond; the Kunbis and Marathas also consider flesh touched by a
+Mahar or Chamar to be impure, but do not object to a Gond. Like the
+Berar Kunbis, the Telengas prefer that an animal should be killed by
+the rite of _halal_ as practised by Muhammadan butchers. The reason
+no doubt is that the _halal_ is a method of sacrificial slaughter,
+and the killing of the animal is legitimised even though by the ritual
+of a foreign religion. The Thapatkaris appear to be a separate group,
+and their original profession was to collect and retail jungle fruits
+and roots having medicinal properties. Though the majority have become
+stone- and earth-workers some of them still do this.
+
+
+
+6. Vaddar.
+
+
+The Vaddars or Wadewars are a branch of the Odde caste of Madras. They
+are almost an impure caste, and a section of them are professional
+criminals. Their women wear glass bangles only on the left arm, those
+on the right arm being made of brass or other metal. This rule has no
+doubt been introduced because glass bangles would get broken when they
+were supporting loads on the head. The men often wear an iron bangle
+on the left wrist, which they say keeps off the lightning. Mr. Thurston
+states that "Women who have had seven husbands are much respected among
+the Oddes, and their blessing on a bridal pair is greatly prized. They
+work in gangs on contract, and every one, except very old and very
+young, shares in the labour. The women carry the earth in baskets,
+while the men use the pick and spade. The babies are usually tied up
+in cloths, which are suspended, hammock-fashion, from the boughs of
+trees. A woman found guilty of immorality is said to have to carry
+a basketful of earth from house to house before she is readmitted to
+the caste. The stone-cutting Vaddars are the principal criminals, and
+by going about under the pretence of mending grindstones they obtain
+much useful information as to the houses to be looted or parties of
+travellers to be attacked. In committing a highway robbery or dacoity
+they are always armed with stout sticks." [256]
+
+
+
+7. Pathrot.
+
+
+In Berar besides the regular Beldars two castes of stone-workers are
+found, the Pathrawats or Pathrots (stone-breakers) and the Takaris,
+who should perhaps be classed as separate castes. Both make and
+sharpen millstones and grindstones, and they are probably only
+occupational groups of recent formation. The Takaris are connected
+with the Pardhi caste of professional hunters and fowlers and may
+be a branch of them. The social customs of the Pathrots resemble
+those of the Kunbis. "They will take cooked food from a Sutar or a
+Kumbhar. Imprisonment, the killing of a cow or criminal intimacy of a
+man with a woman of another caste is punished by temporary outcasting,
+readmission involving a fine of Rs. 4 or Rs. 5. Their chief deity
+is the Devi of Tuljapur and their chief festival Dasahra; the
+implements of the caste are worshipped twice a year, on Gudhi Padwa
+and Diwali. Women are tattooed with a crescent between the eyebrows
+and dots on the right side of the nose, the right cheek, and the chin,
+and a basil plant or peacock is drawn on their wrists." [257]
+
+
+
+8. Takari.
+
+
+"The Takaris take their name from the verb _takne_, to reset or
+rechisel. They mend the handmills (_chakkis_) used for grinding corn,
+an occupation which is sometimes shared with them by the Langoti
+Pardhis. The Takari's avocation of chiselling grindstones gives him
+excellent opportunities for examining the interior economy of houses,
+and the position of boxes and cupboards, and for gauging the wealth of
+the inmates. They are the most inveterate house-breakers and dangerous
+criminals. A form of crime favoured by the Takari, in common with
+many other criminal classes, is that of decoying into a secluded
+spot outside the village the would-be receiver of stolen property and
+robbing him of his cash--a trick which carries a wholesome lesson with
+it." [258] The chisel with which they chip the grindstones furnishes,
+as stated by Mr. D. A. Smyth, D.S.P., an excellent implement for
+breaking a hole through the mud wall of a house.
+
+
+
+Beria, Bedia.
+
+
+[_Bibliography_: Sir H. Risley's _Tribes and Castes of Bengal_;
+Rajendra Lal Mitra in _Memoirs, Anthropological Society of London_,
+iii. p. 122; Mr. Crooke's _Tribes and Castes of the North-Western
+Provinces and Oudh_; Mr. Kennedy's _Criminal Classes of the Bombay
+Presidency_; Major Gunthorpe's _Criminal Tribes_; Mr. Gayer's _Lectures
+on some Criminal Tribes of the Central Provinces_; Colonel Sleeman's
+_Report on the Badhak or Bagri Dacoits_.]
+
+
+
+1. Historical notice.
+
+
+A caste of gipsies and thieves who are closely connected with the
+Sansias. In 1891 they numbered 906 persons in the Central Provinces,
+distributed over the northern Districts; in 1901 they were not
+separately classified but were identified with the Nats. "They say that
+some generations ago two brothers resided in the Bhartpur territory, of
+whom one was named Sains Mul and the other Mullanur. The descendants
+of Sains Mul are the Sansias and those of Mullanur the Berias or
+Kolhatis, who are vagrants and robbers by hereditary profession,
+living in tents or huts of matting, like Nats or other vagrant tribes,
+and having their women in common without any marriage ceremonies
+or ties whatsoever. Among themselves or their relatives the Sansias
+or descendants of Sains Mul, they are called Dholi or Kolhati. The
+descendants of the brothers eat, drink and smoke together, and join in
+robberies, but never intermarry." So Colonel Sleeman wrote in 1849,
+and other authorities agree on the close connection or identity of
+the Berias and Sansias of Central India. The Kolhatis belong mainly
+to the Deccan and are apparently a branch of the Berias, named
+after the _Kolhan_ or long pole with which they perform acrobatic
+feats. The Berias of Central India differ in many respects from those
+of Bengal. Here Sir H. Risley considers Beria to be 'the generic name
+of a number of vagrant, gipsy-like groups'; and a full description of
+them has been given by Babu Rajendra Lal Mitra, who considers them to
+resemble the gipsies of Europe. "They are noted for a light, elastic,
+wiry make, very uncommon in the people of this country. In agility
+and hardness they stand unrivalled. The men are of a brownish colour,
+like the bulk of Bengalis, but never black. The women are of lighter
+complexion and generally well-formed; some of them have considerable
+claims to beauty, and for a race so rude and primitive in their habits
+as the Berias, there is a sharpness in the features of their women
+which we see in no other aboriginal race in India. Like the gipsies
+of Europe they are noted for the symmetry of their limbs; but their
+offensive habits, dirty clothing and filthy professions give them a
+repulsive appearance, which is heightened by the reputation they have
+of kidnapping children and frequenting burial-grounds and places of
+cremation.... Familiar with the use of bows and arrows and great adepts
+in laying snares and traps, they are seldom without large supplies of
+game and flesh of wild animals of all kinds. They keep the dried bodies
+of a variety of birds for medical purposes; mongoose, squirrels and
+flying-foxes they eat with avidity as articles of luxury. Spirituous
+liquors and intoxicating drugs are indulged in to a large extent,
+and chiefs of clans assume the title of Bhangi or drinkers of hemp
+(_bhang_) as a mark of honour.... In lying, thieving and knavery
+the Beria is not a whit inferior to his brother gipsy of Europe. The
+Beria woman deals in charms for exorcising the devil and palmistry
+is her special vocation. She also carries with her a bundle of herbs
+and other real or pretended charms against sickness of body or mind;
+and she is much sought after by village maidens for the sake of
+the philtre with which she restores to them their estranged lovers;
+while she foretells the date when absent friends will return and the
+sex of unborn children. They practise cupping with buffalo horns,
+pretend to extract worms from decayed teeth and are commonly employed
+as tattooers. At home the Beria woman makes mats of palm-leaves,
+while her lord alone cooks.... Beria women are even more circumspect
+than European gipsies. If a wife does not return before the jackal's
+cry is heard in the evening, she is subject to severe punishment. It
+is said that a _faux pas_ among her own kindred is not considered
+reprehensible; but it is certain that no Berini has ever been known to
+be at fault with any one not of her own caste." This last statement
+is not a little astonishing, inasmuch as in Central India and in
+Bundelkhand Berni is an equivalent term for a prostitute. A similar
+diversity of conjugal morality has been noticed between the Bagris
+of northern India and the Vaghris of Gujarat. [259]
+
+
+
+2. Criminal tendencies in the Central Provinces.
+
+
+In other respects also the Berias of Bengal appear to be more
+respectable than the remainder of the caste, obtaining their livelihood
+by means which, if disreputable, are not actually dishonest; while
+in Central India the women Berias are prostitutes and the men
+house-breakers and thieves. These latter are so closely connected
+with the Sansias that the account of that caste is also applicable
+to the Berias. In Jubbulpore, Mr. Gayer states, the caste are expert
+house-breakers, bold and daring, and sometimes armed with swords and
+matchlocks. They sew up stolen property in their bed-quilts and secrete
+it in the hollow legs of their sleeping-cots, and the women habitually
+conceal jewels and even coins in the natural passages of the body, in
+which they make special _saos_ or receptacles by practice. The Beria
+women go about begging, and often break open the doors of unoccupied
+houses in the daytime and steal anything they can find. [260] Both
+Sansia and Beria women wear a _laong_ or clove in the left nostril.
+
+
+
+3. Social customs.
+
+
+As already stated, the women are professional prostitutes, but these
+do not marry, and on arrival at maturity they choose the life which
+they prefer. Mr. Crooke states, [261] however, that regular marriages
+seldom occur among them, because nearly all the girls are reserved
+for prostitution, and the men keep concubines drawn from any fairly
+respectable caste. So far is this the rule that in some localities if
+a man marries a girl of the tribe he is put out of caste or obliged
+to pay a fine to the tribal council. This last rule does not seem
+to obtain in the Central Provinces, but marriages are uncommon. In
+a colony of Berias in Jubbulpore [262] numbering sixty families it
+was stated that only eight weddings could be remembered as having
+occurred in the last fifty years. The boys therefore have to obtain
+wives as best they can; sometimes orphan girls from other castes are
+taken into the community, or any outsider is picked up. For a bride
+from the caste itself a sum of Rs. 100 is usually demanded, and the
+same has to be paid by a Beria man who takes a wife from the Nat or
+Kanjar castes, as is sometimes done. When a match is proposed they
+ask the expectant bridegroom how many thefts he has committed without
+detection; and if his performances have been inadequate they refuse
+to give him the girl on the ground that he will be unable to support
+a wife. At the betrothal the boy's parents go to the girl's house,
+taking with them a potful of liquor round which a silver ring is
+placed and a pig. The ring is given to the girl and the head of
+the pig to her father, while the liquor and the body of the pig
+provide a feast for the caste. They consult Brahmans at their birth
+and marriage ceremonies. Their principal deities appear to be their
+ancestors, whom they worship on the same day of the month and year
+as that on which their death took place. They make an offering of a
+pig to the goddess Dadaju or Devi before starting on their annual
+predatory excursions. Some rice is thrown into the animal's ear
+before it is killed, and the direction in which it turns its head is
+selected as the one divinely indicated for their route. Prostitution
+is naturally not regarded as any disgrace, and the women who have
+selected this profession mix on perfectly equal terms with those
+who are married. They occupy, in fact, a more independent position,
+as they dispose absolutely of their own earnings and property, and on
+their death it devolves on their daughters or other female relatives,
+males having no claim to it, in some localities at least. Among the
+children of married couples daughters inherit equally with sons. A
+prostitute is regarded as the head of the family so far as her children
+are concerned. Outsiders are freely admitted into the caste on giving
+a feast to the community. In Saugor the women of the caste, known
+as Berni, are the village dancing-girls, and are employed to give
+performances in the cold weather, especially at the Holi festival,
+where they dance the whole night through, fortified by continuous
+potations of liquor. This dance is called _rai_, and is accompanied
+by most obscene songs and gestures.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+Bhaina
+
+
+List of Paragraphs
+
+
+    1. _The tribe derived from the Baigas._
+    2. _Closely connected with the Kawars._
+    3. _Internal structure. Totemism._
+    4. _Marriage._
+    5. _Religious superstitions._
+    6. _Admission of outsiders and caste offences._
+    7. _Social customs._
+
+
+
+1. The tribe derived from the Baigas.
+
+
+_Bhaina._ [263]--A primitive tribe peculiar to the Central Provinces
+and found principally in the Bilaspur District and the adjoining area,
+that is, in the wild tract of forest country between the Satpura
+range and the south of the Chota Nagpur plateau. In 1911 about 17,000
+members of the tribe were returned. The tribe is of mixed descent and
+appears to have been derived principally from the Baigas and Kawars,
+having probably served as a city of refuge to persons expelled from
+these and other tribes and the lower castes for irregular sexual
+relations. Their connection with the Baigas is shown by the fact that
+in Mandla the Baigas have two subdivisions, which are known as Rai
+or Raj-Bhaina, and Kath, or catechu-making Bhaina. The name therefore
+would appear to have originated with the Baiga tribe. A Bhaina is also
+not infrequently found to be employed in the office of village priest
+and magician, which goes by the name of Baiga in Bilaspur. And a Bhaina
+has the same reputation as a Baiga for sorcery, it being said of him--
+
+
+                    Mainhar ki manjh
+                    Bhaina ki pang
+
+
+or 'The magic of a Bhaina is as deadly as the powdered _mainhar_
+fruit,' this fruit having the property of stupefying fish when thrown
+into the water, so that they can easily be caught. This reputation
+simply arises from the fact that in his capacity of village priest the
+Bhaina performs the various magical devices which lay the ghosts of
+the dead, protect the village against tigers, ensure the prosperity
+of the crops and so on. But it is always the older residents of any
+locality who are employed by later comers in this office, because they
+are considered to have a more intimate acquaintance with the local
+deities. And consequently we are entitled to assume that the Bhainas
+are older residents of the country where they are found than their
+neighbours, the Gonds and Kawars. There is other evidence to the same
+effect; for instance, the oldest forts in Bilaspur are attributed to
+the Bhainas, and a chief of this tribe is remembered as having ruled
+in Bilaigarh; they are also said to have been dominant in Pendra,
+where they are still most numerous, though the estate is now held
+by a Kawar; and it is related that the Bhainas were expelled from
+Phuljhar in Raipur by the Gonds. Phuljhar is believed to be a Gond
+State of long standing, and the Raja of Raigarh and others claim to be
+descended from its ruling family. A manuscript history of the Phuljhar
+chiefs records that that country was held by a Bhaina king when the
+Gonds invaded it, coming from Chanda. The Bhaina with his soldiers
+took refuge in a hollow underground chamber with two exits. But the
+secret of this was betrayed to the Gonds by an old Gond woman, and
+they filled up the openings of the chamber with grass and burnt the
+Bhainas to death. On this account the tribe will not enter Phuljhar
+territory to this day, and say that it is death to a Bhaina to do
+so. The Binjhwars are also said to have been dominant in the hills
+to the east of Raipur District, and they too are a civilised branch
+of the Baigas. And in all this area the village priest is commonly
+known as Baiga, the deduction from which is, as already stated, that
+the Baigas were the oldest residents. [264] It seems a legitimate
+conclusion, therefore, that prior to the immigration of the Gonds
+and Kawars, the ancient Baiga tribe was spread over the whole hill
+country east and north of the Mahanadi basin.
+
+
+
+2. Closely connected with the Kawars.
+
+
+The Bhainas are also closely connected with the Kawars, who still own
+many large estates in the hills north of Bilaspur. It is said that
+formerly the Bhainas and Kawars both ate in common and intermarried,
+but at present, though the Bhainas still eat rice boiled in water from
+the Kawars, the latter do not reciprocate. But still, when a Kawar
+is celebrating a birth, marriage or death in his family, or when he
+takes in hand to make a tank, he will first give food to a Bhaina
+before his own caste-men eat. And it may safely be assumed that this
+is a recognition of the Bhaina's position as having once been lord of
+the land. A Kawar may still be admitted into the Bhaina community,
+and it is said that the reason of the rupture of the former equal
+relations between the two tribes was the disgust felt by the Kawars
+for the rude and uncouth behaviour of the Bhainas. For on one occasion
+a Kawar went to ask for a Bhaina girl in marriage, and, as the men of
+the family were away, the women undertook to entertain him. And as
+the Bhainas had no axes, the daughter proceeded to crack the sticks
+on her head for kindling a fire, and for grass she pulled out a wisp
+of thatch from the roof and broke it over her thigh, being unable to
+chop it. This so offended the delicate susceptibilities of the Kawar
+that he went away without waiting for his meal, and from that time the
+Kawars ceased to marry with the Bhainas. It seems possible that the
+story points to the period when the primitive Bhainas and Baigas did
+not know the use of iron and to the introduction of this metal by the
+later-coming Kawars and Gonds. It is further related that when a Kawar
+is going to make a ceremonial visit he likes always to take with him
+two or three Bhainas, who are considered as his retainers, though not
+being so in fact. This enhances his importance, and it is also said
+that the stupidity of the Bhainas acts as a foil, through which the
+superior intelligence of the Kawar is made more apparent. All these
+details point to the same conclusion that the primitive Bhainas first
+held the country and were supplanted by the more civilised Kawars,
+and bears out the theory that the settlement of the Munda tribes was
+prior to those of the Dravidian family.
+
+
+
+3. Internal structure: Totemism.
+
+
+The tribe has two subdivisions of a territorial nature, Laria or
+Chhattisgarhi, and Uriya. The Uriya Bhainas will accept food cooked
+without water from the Sawaras or Saonrs, and these also from them;
+so that they have probably intermarried. Two other subdivisions
+recorded are the Jhalyara and Ghantyara or Ghatyara; the former
+being so called because they live in _jhalas_ or leaf huts in the
+forest, and the latter, it is said, because they tie a _ghanta_ or
+bell to their doors. This, however, seems very improbable. Another
+theory is that the word is derived from _ghat_, a slope or descent,
+and refers to a method which the tribe have of tattooing themselves
+with a pattern of lines known as _ghat_. Or it is said to mean a low
+or despised section. The Jhalyara and Ghatyara divisions comprise the
+less civilised portion of the tribe, who still live in the forests;
+and they are looked down on by the Uriya and Laria sections, who belong
+to the open country. The exogamous divisions of the tribe show clearly
+enough that the Bhainas, like other subject races, have quite failed
+to preserve any purity of blood. Among the names of their _gots_
+or septs are Dhobia (a washerman), Ahera (cowherd), Gond, Mallin
+(gardener), Panika (from a Panka or Ganda) and others. The members of
+such septs pay respect to any man belonging to the caste after which
+they are named and avoid picking a quarrel with him. They also worship
+the family gods of this caste. The tribe have also a number of totem
+septs, named after animals or plants. Such are Nag the cobra, Bagh
+the tiger, Chitwa the leopard, Gidha the vulture, Besra the hawk,
+Bendra the monkey, Kok or Lodha the wild dog, Bataria the quail,
+Durgachhia the black ant, and so on. Members of a sept will not injure
+the animal after which it is named, and if they see the corpse of the
+animal or hear of its death, they throw away an earthen cooking-pot
+and bathe and shave themselves as for one of the family. Members of
+the Baghchhal or tiger sept will, however, join in a beat for tiger
+though they are reluctant to do so. At weddings the Bhainas have a
+ceremony known as the _gotra_ worship. The bride's father makes an
+image in clay of the bird or animal of the groom's sept and places
+it beside the marriage-post. The bridegroom worships the image,
+lighting a sacrificial fire before it, and offers to it the vermilion
+which he afterwards smears upon the forehead of the bride. At the
+bridegroom's house a similar image is made of the bride's totem,
+and on returning there after the wedding she worships this. Women
+are often tattooed with representations of their totem animal, and
+men swear by it as their most sacred oath. A similar respect is paid
+to the inanimate objects after which certain septs are named. Thus
+members of the Gawad or cowdung sept will not burn cowdung cakes for
+fuel; and those of the Mircha sept do not use chillies. One sept is
+named after the sun, and when an eclipse occurs these perform the
+same formal rites of mourning as the others do on the death of their
+totem animal. Some of the groups have two divisions, male and female,
+which practically rank as separate septs. Instances of these are the
+Nagbans Andura and the Nagbans Mai or male and female cobra septs;
+the Karsayal Singhara and Karsayal Mundi or stag and doe deer septs;
+and the Baghchhal Andura and Baghchhal Mai or tiger and tigress
+septs. These may simply be instances of subdivisions arising owing
+to the boundaries of the sept having become too large for convenience.
+
+
+
+4. Marriage.
+
+
+The tribe consider that a boy should be married when he has learnt to
+drive the plough, and a girl when she is able to manage her household
+affairs. When a father can afford a bride for his son, he and his
+relatives go to the girl's village, taking with them ten or fifteen
+cakes of bread and a bottle of liquor. He stays with some relative and
+sends to ask the girl's father if he will give his daughter to the
+inquirer's son. If the former agrees, the bread and liquor are sent
+over to him, and he drinks three cups of the spirit as a pledge of
+the betrothal, the remainder being distributed to the company. This is
+known as _Tatia kholna_ or 'the opening of the door,' and is followed
+some days afterwards by a similar ceremonial which constitutes the
+regular betrothal. On this occasion the father agrees to marry his
+daughter within a year and demands the bride-price, which consists
+of rice, cloth, a goat and other articles, the total value being
+about five rupees. A date is next fixed for the wedding, the day
+selected being usually a Monday or Friday, but no date or month is
+forbidden. The number of days to the wedding are then counted, and
+two knotted strings are given to each party, with a knot for each
+day up to that on which the anointings with oil and turmeric will
+commence at the bridegroom's and bride's houses. Every day one knot
+is untied at each house up to that on which the ceremonies begin,
+and thus the correct date for them is known. The invitations to the
+wedding are given by distributing rice coloured yellow with turmeric
+to all members of the caste in the locality, with the intimation
+that the wedding procession will start on a certain day and that they
+will be pleased to attend. During the four days that they are being
+anointed the bride and bridegroom dance at their respective houses
+to the accompaniment of drums and other instruments. For the wedding
+ceremony a number of Hindu rites have been adopted. The eldest sister
+of the bridegroom or bride is known as the _sawasin_ and her husband as
+the _sawasa_, and these persons seem to act as the representatives of
+the bridal couple throughout the marriage and to receive all presents
+on their behalf. The custom is almost universal among the Hindus,
+and it is possible that they are intended to act as substitutes and
+to receive any strokes of evil fortune which may befall the bridal
+pair at a season at which they are peculiarly liable to it. The
+couple go round the sacred post, and afterwards the bridegroom daubs
+the bride's forehead with red lead seven times and covers her head
+with her cloth to show that she has become a married woman. After
+the wedding the bridegroom's parents say to him, "Now your parents
+have done everything they could for you, and you must manage your
+own house." The expenditure on an average wedding is about fifteen
+or twenty rupees. A widow is usually taken in marriage by her late
+husband's younger brother or Dewar, or by one of his relatives. If
+she marries an outsider, the Dewar realises twelve rupees from him
+in compensation for her loss. But if there is no Dewar this sum is
+not payable to her first husband's elder brother or her own father,
+because they could not have married her and hence are not held to be
+injured by a stranger doing so. If a woman is divorced and another
+man wishes to marry her, he must make a similar payment of twelve
+rupees to the first husband, together with a goat and liquor for the
+penal feast. The Bhainas bury or burn the dead according as their
+means permit.
+
+
+
+5. Religious superstitions.
+
+
+Their principal deity in Bilaspur is Nakti Devi [265] or the 'Noseless
+Goddess.' For her ritual rice is placed on a square of the floor
+washed with cowdung, and _ghi_ or preserved butter is poured on it and
+burnt. A hen is made to eat the rice, and then its head is cut off and
+laid on the square. The liver is burnt on the fire as an offering to
+the deity and the head and body of the animal are then eaten. After
+the death of a man a cock is offered to Nakti Devi and a hen after
+that of a woman. The fowl is made to pick rice first in the yard of
+the house, then on the threshold, and lastly inside the house. Thakur
+Deo is the deity of cultivation and is worshipped on the day before
+the autumn crops are sown. On this day all the men in the village
+go to his shrine taking a measure of rice and a ploughshare. At the
+same time the Baiga or village priest goes and bathes in the tank and
+is afterwards carried to the assembly on a man's shoulders. Here he
+makes an offering and repeats a charm, and then kneeling down strikes
+the earth seven times with the ploughshare, and sows five handfuls of
+rice, sprinkling water over the seed. After him the villagers walk
+seven times round the altar of the god in pairs, one man turning up
+the earth with the ploughshare and the other sowing and watering the
+seed. While this is going on the Baiga sits with his face covered
+with a piece of cloth, and at the end the villagers salute the Baiga
+and go home. When a man wishes to do an injury to another he makes
+an image of him with clay and daubs it with vermilion and worships
+it with an offering of a goat or a fowl and liquor. Then he prays
+the image that his enemy may die. Another way of injuring an enemy
+is to take rice coloured with turmeric, and after muttering charms
+throw it in the direction in which the enemy lives.
+
+
+
+6. Admission of outsiders and caste offences.
+
+
+Outsiders are not usually admitted, but if a Bhaina forms a connection
+with a woman of another tribe, they will admit the children of such
+a union, though not the woman herself. For they say: 'The seed is
+ours and what matters the field on which it was sown.' But a man
+of the Kawar tribe having intimacy with a Bhaina woman may be taken
+into the community. He must wait for three or four months after the
+matter becomes known and will beg for admission and offer to give
+the penalty feast. A day is fixed for this and invitations are sent
+to members of the caste. On the appointed day the women of the tribe
+cook rice, pulse, goat's flesh and urad cakes fried in oil, and in
+the evening the people assemble and drink liquor and then go to take
+their food. The candidate for admission serves water to the men and
+his prospective wife to the women, both being then permitted to take
+food with the tribe. Next morning the people come again and the woman
+is dressed in a white cloth with bangles. The couple stand together
+supported by their brother-in-law and sister-in-law respectively,
+and turmeric dissolved in water is poured over their heads. They
+are now considered to be married and go round together and give the
+salutation or Johar to the people, touching the feet of those who
+are entitled to this mark of respect, and kissing the others. Among
+the offences for which a man is temporarily put out of caste is
+getting the ear torn either accidentally or otherwise, being beaten
+by a man of very low caste, growing san-hemp (_Crotalaria juncea_),
+rearing tasar silk-worms or getting maggots in a wound. This last is
+almost as serious an offence as killing a cow, and, in both cases,
+before an offender can be reinstated he must kill a fowl and swallow
+a drop or two of its blood with turmeric. Women commonly get the lobe
+of the ear torn through the heavy ear-rings which they wear; and in
+a squabble another woman will often seize the ear-ring maliciously
+in order to tear the ear. A woman injured in this way is put out of
+caste for a year in Janjgir. To grow turmeric or garlic is also an
+offence against caste, but a man is permitted to do this for his own
+use and not for sale. A man who gets leprosy is said to be permanently
+expelled from caste. The purification of delinquents is conducted
+by members of the Sonwani (gold-water) and Patel (headman) septs,
+whose business it is to give the offender water to drink in which
+gold has been dipped and to take over the burden of his sins by first
+eating food with him. But others say that the Hathi or elephant sept
+is the highest, and to its members are delegated these duties. And
+in Janjgir again the president of the committee gives the gold-water,
+and is hence known as Sonwan; and this office must always be held by
+a man of the Bandar or monkey sept.
+
+
+
+7. Social customs.
+
+
+The Bhainas are a comparatively civilised tribe and have largely
+adopted Hindu usages. They employ Brahmans to fix auspicious days
+for their ceremonies, though not to officiate at them. They live
+principally in the open country and are engaged in agriculture, though
+very few of them hold land and the bulk are farm-labourers. They now
+disclaim any connection with the primitive Baigas, who still prefer
+the forests. But their caste mark, a symbol which may be affixed to
+documents in place of a signature or used for a brand on cattle, is
+a bow, and this shows that they retain the recollection of hunting as
+their traditional occupation. Like the Baigas, the tribe have forgotten
+their native dialect and now speak bad Hindi. They will eat pork and
+rats, and almost anything else they can get, eschewing only beef. But
+in their intercourse with other castes they are absurdly strict, and
+will take boiled rice only from a Kawar, or from a Brahman if it is
+cooked in a brass and not in an earthen vessel, and this only from
+a male and not from a female Brahman; while they will accept baked
+_chapatis_ and other food from a Gond and a Rawat. But in Sambalpur
+they will take this from a Savar and not from a Gond. They rank below
+the Gonds, Kawars and Savars or Saonrs. Women are tattooed with a
+representation of their sept totem; and on the knees and ankles they
+have some figures of lines which are known as _ghats_. These they
+say will enable them to climb the mountains leading to heaven in the
+other world, while those who have not such marks will be pierced with
+spears on their way up the ascent. It has already been suggested that
+these marks may have given rise to the name of the Ghatyara division
+of the tribe.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+Bhamta or Bhamtya
+
+
+
+1. Occupation.
+
+
+_Bhamta or Bhamtya._ [266]--A caste numbering 4000 persons in the
+Central Provinces, nearly all of whom reside in the Wardha, Nagpur
+and Chanda Districts of the Nagpur Division. The Bhamtas are also
+found in Bombay, Berar and Hyderabad. In Bombay they are known by the
+names of Uchla or 'Lifter' and Ganthachor or 'Bundle-thief.' [267]
+The Bhamtas were and still are notorious thieves, but many of the
+caste are now engaged in the cultivation of hemp, from which they
+make ropes, mats and gunny-bags. Formerly it was said in Wardha that
+a Bhamta girl would not marry unless her suitor had been arrested not
+less than fourteen times by the police, when she considered that he
+had qualified as a man. The following description of their methods
+does not necessarily apply to the whole caste, though the bulk of
+them are believed to have criminal tendencies. But some colonies of
+Bhamtas who have taken to the manufacture of sacking and gunny-bags
+from hemp-fibre may perhaps be excepted. They steal only during the
+daytime, and divide that part of the Province which they frequent into
+regular beats or ranges. They adopt many disguises. Even in their own
+cottages one dresses as a Marwari Bania, another as a Gujarat Jain,
+a third as a Brahman and a fourth as a Rajput. They keep to some
+particular disguise for years and often travel hundreds of miles,
+entering and stealing from the houses of the classes of persons whose
+dress they adopt, or taking service with a merchant or trader, and
+having gained their employer's confidence, seizing an opportunity to
+abscond with some valuable property. Sometimes two or three Bhamtas
+visit a large fair, and one of them dressed as a Brahman mingles with
+the crowd of bathers and worshippers. The false Brahman notices some
+ornament deposited by a bather, and while himself entering the water
+and repeating sacred verses, watches his opportunity and spreads out
+his cloth near the ornament, which he then catches with his toes,
+and dragging it with him to a distance as he walks away buries it in
+the sand. The accomplices meanwhile loiter near, and when the owner
+discovers his loss the Brahman sympathises with him and points out
+the accomplices as likely thieves, thus diverting suspicion from
+himself. The victim follows the accomplices, who make off, and the
+real thief meanwhile digs the ornament out of the sand and escapes
+at his leisure. Women often tie their ornaments in bundles at such
+bathing-fairs, and in that case two Bhamtas will go up to her, one
+on each side, and while one distracts her attention the other makes
+off with the bundle and buries it in the sand. A Bhamta rarely retains
+the stolen property on his person while there is a chance of his being
+searched, and is therefore not detected. They show considerable loyalty
+to one another, and never steal from or give information against a
+member of the caste. If stolen property is found in a Bhamta's house,
+and it has merely been deposited there for security, the real thief
+comes forward. An escaped prisoner does not come back to his friends
+lest he should get them into trouble. A Bhamta is never guilty of
+house-breaking or gang-robbery, and if he takes part in this offence
+he is put out of caste. He does not steal from the body of a person
+asleep. He is, however, expert at the theft of ornaments from the
+person. He never steals from a house in his own village, and the
+villagers frequently share directly or indirectly in his gains. The
+Bhamtas are now expert railway thieves. [268] Two of them will get
+into a carriage, and, engaging the other passengers in conversation,
+find out where they are going, so as to know the time available for
+action. When it gets dark and the travellers go to sleep, one of
+the Bhamtas lies down on the floor and covers himself with a large
+cloth. He begins feeling some bag under the seat, and if he cannot
+open it with his hands, takes from his mouth the small curved knife
+which all Bhamtas carry concealed between their gum and upper lip,
+and with this he rips up the seams of the bag and takes out what
+he finds; or they exchange bags, according to a favourite device of
+English railway thieves, and then quickly either leave the train or
+get into another carriage. If attention is aroused they throw the
+stolen property out of the window, marking the place and afterwards
+going back to recover it. Another device is to split open and pick
+the pockets of people in a crowd. Besides the knife they often have
+a needle and thread and an iron nut-cutter.
+
+
+
+2. Subdivisions and marriage customs.
+
+
+Members of other castes, as Chhatri, Kanjar, Rawat and others, who
+have taken to stealing, are frequently known as Bhamtas, but unless
+they have been specially initiated do not belong to the caste. The
+Bhamtas proper have two main divisions, the Chhatri Bhamtas, who are
+usually immigrants from Gujarat, and those of the Maratha country,
+who are often known as Bhamtis. The former have a dialect which is
+a mixture of Hindi, Marathi and Gujarati, while the latter speak
+the local form of Marathi. The sections of the Chhatri Bhamtas are
+named after Rajput septs, as Badgujar, Chauhan, Gahlot, Bhatti,
+Kachhwaha and others. They may be partly of Rajput descent, as they
+have regular and pleasing features and a fair complexion, and are well
+built and sturdy. The sections of the Bhamtis are called by Maratha
+surnames, as Gudekar, Kaothi, Bailkhade, Satbhaia and others. The
+Chhatri Bhamtas have northern customs, and the Bhamtis those of the
+Maratha country. Marriage between persons of the same _gotra_ or
+surname is prohibited. The Chhatris avoid marriage between relations
+having a common greatgrandparent, but among the Bhamtis the custom of
+Mehunchar is prevalent, by which the brother's daughter is married to
+the sister's son. Girls are usually married at ten and eleven years of
+age or later. The betrothal and marriage customs of the two subcastes
+differ, the Chhatris following the ceremonial of the northern Districts
+and the Bhamtis that of the Maratha country. The Chhatris do not pay
+a bride-price, but the Bhamtis usually do. Widow-marriage is allowed,
+and while the Chhatris expect the widow to marry her deceased husband's
+brother, the Bhamtis do not permit this. Among both subdivisions a
+price is paid for the widow to her parents. Divorce is only permitted
+for immoral conduct on the part of the wife. A divorced woman may
+remarry after giving a feast to the caste _panchayat_ or committee,
+and obtaining their consent.
+
+
+
+3. Religion and social customs.
+
+
+The goddess Devi is the tutelary deity of the caste, as of all those
+who ply a disreputable profession. Animals are sacrificed to her
+or let loose to wander in her name. The offerings are appropriated
+by the village washerman. In Bombay the rendezvous of the Bhamtis
+is the temple of Devi at Konali, in Akalkot State, near Sholapur,
+and here the gangs frequently assemble before and after their raids
+to ask the goddess that luck may attend them and to thank her for
+success obtained. [269] They worship their rope-making implements on
+the Dasahra day. They both bury and burn the dead. Ghosts and spirits
+are worshipped. If a man takes a second wife after the death of his
+first, the new wife wears a _putli_ or image of the first wife on
+a piece of silver on her neck, and offers it the _hom_ sacrifice
+by placing some _ghi_ on the fire before taking a meal. In cases of
+doubt and difficulty she often consults the _putli_ by speaking to it,
+while any chance stir of the image due to the movement of her body
+is interpreted as approval or disapproval. In the Central Provinces
+the Bhamtis say that they do not admit outsiders into the caste, but
+this is almost certainly untrue. In Bombay they are said to admit all
+Hindus [270] except the very lowest castes, and also Muhammadans. The
+candidate must pass through the two ceremonies of admission into the
+caste and adoption into a particular family. For the first he pays an
+admission fee, is bathed and dressed in new clothes, and one of the
+elders drops turmeric and sugar into his mouth. A feast follows, during
+which some elders of the caste eat out of the same plate with him. This
+completes the admission ceremony, but in order to marry in the caste
+a candidate must also be adopted into a particular family. The Bhamta
+who has agreed to adopt him invites the caste people to his house,
+and there takes the candidate on his knee while the guests drop
+turmeric and sugar into his mouth. The Bhamtas eat fish and fowl but
+not pork or beef, and drink liquor. This last practice is, however,
+frequently made a caste offence by the Bhamtis. They take cooked
+food from Brahmans and Kunbis and water from Gonds. The keeping of
+concubines is also an offence entailing temporary excommunication. The
+morality of the caste is somewhat low and their women are addicted
+to prostitution. The occupation of the Bhamta is also looked down on,
+and it is said, _Bhamta ka kam sub se nikam_, or 'The Bhamta's work is
+the worst of all.' This may apply either to his habits of stealing or
+to the fact that he supplies a bier made of twine and bamboo sticks at
+a death. In Bombay the showy dress of the Bhamta is proverbial. Women
+are tattooed before marriage on the forehead and lower lip, and on
+other parts of the body for purposes of adornment. The men have the
+head shaved for three inches above the top of the forehead in front
+and an inch higher behind, and they wear the scalp-lock much thicker
+than Brahmans do. They usually have red head-cloths.
+
+
+
+Bharbhunja
+
+
+
+1. General notice
+
+
+_Bharbhunja._ [271]--The occupational caste of grain-parchers. The
+name is derived from the Sanskrit _bhrastra_, a frying-pan, and
+_bharjaka_, one who fries. The Bharbhunjas numbered 3000 persons in
+1911, and belong mainly to the northern Districts, their headquarters
+being in Upper India. In Chhattisgarh the place of the Bharbhunjas is
+taken by the Dhuris. Sir H. Elliot [272] remarks that the caste are
+traditionally supposed to be descended from a Kahar father and a Sudra
+mother, and they are probably connected with the Kahars. In Saugor
+they say that their ancestors were Kankubja Brahmans who were ordered
+to parch rice at the wedding of the great Rama, and in consequence
+of this one of their subcastes is known as Kanbajia. But Kankubja is
+one of the commonest names of subcastes among the people of northern
+India, and merely indicates that the bearers belong to the tract
+round the old city of Kanauj; and there is no reason to suppose that
+it means anything more in the case of the Bharbhunjas. Another group
+are called Kaitha, and they say that their ancestors were Kayasths,
+who adopted the profession of grain-parching. It is said that in Bhopal
+proper Kayasths will take food from Kaitha Bharbhunjas and smoke from
+their huqqa; and it is noticeable that in northern India Mr. Crooke
+gives [273] not only the Kaitha subcaste, but other groups called
+Saksena and Srivastab, which are the names of well-known Kayasth
+subdivisions. It is possible, therefore, that the Kaitha group may
+really be connected with the Kayasths. Other subcastes are the Benglah,
+who are probably immigrants from Bengal; and the Kandu, who may also
+come from that direction, Kandu being the name of the corresponding
+caste of grain-parchers in Bengal.
+
+
+
+2. Social customs.
+
+
+The social customs of the Bharbhunjas resemble those of Hindustani
+castes of fairly good position. [274] They employ Brahmans for their
+ceremonies, and the family priest receives five rupees for officiating
+at a wedding, three rupees for a funeral, one rupee for a birth,
+and four annas on ordinary occasions. No price is paid for a bride,
+and at their marriages the greater part of the expense falls on the
+girl's father, who has to give three feasts as against two provided by
+the bridegroom's father. After the wedding the bridegroom's father puts
+on women's clothes given by the bride's father and dances before the
+family. Rose-coloured water and powder are sprinkled over the guests
+and the proceeding is known as _Phag_, because it is considered to have
+the same significance as the Holi festival observed in Phagun. This
+is usually done on the bank of a river or in some garden outside
+the village. At the _gauna_ or going-away ceremony the bride and
+bridegroom take their seats on two wooden boards and then change
+places. Divorce and the remarriage of widows are permitted. The union
+of a widow with her deceased husband's younger brother is considered
+a suitable match, but is not compulsory. When a bachelor marries a
+widow, he first goes through the proper ceremony either with a stick
+or an ear-ring, and is then united to the widow by the simple ritual
+employed for widow remarriage. A girl who is seduced by a member of
+the caste may be married to him as if she were a widow, but if her
+lover is an outsider she is permanently expelled from the caste.
+
+
+
+3. Occupation.
+
+
+The Bharbhunjas occupy a fairly high social position, analogous to
+that of the Barais, Kahars and other serving castes, the explanation
+being that all Hindus require the grain parched by them; this, as it
+is not cooked with water, may be eaten abroad, on a journey or in the
+market-place. This is known as _pakki_ food, and even Brahmans will
+take it from their hands. But Mr. Crooke notes [275] that the work
+they do, and particularly the sweeping up of dry leaves for fuel,
+tends to lower them in the popular estimation, and it is a favourite
+curse to wish of an enemy that he may some day come to stoke the kiln
+of a grain-parcher. Of their occupation Sir H. Risley states that
+"Throughout the caste the actual work of parching grain is usually
+left to the women. The process is a simple one. A clay oven is built,
+somewhat in the shape of a bee-hive, with ten or twelve round holes at
+the top. A fire is lighted under it and broken earthen pots containing
+sand are put on the holes. The grain to be parched is thrown in with
+the sand and stirred with a flat piece of wood or a broom until it is
+ready. The sand and parched grain are then placed in a sieve, through
+which the former escapes. The wages of the parcher are a proportion
+of the grain, varying from one-eighth to one-fourth. In Bengal the
+caste was spoken of by early English travellers under the quaint name
+of the frymen." [276] In the Central Provinces also grain-parching
+is distinctly a woman's industry, only twenty-two per cent of those
+shown as working at it being men. There are two classes of tradesmen,
+those who simply keep ovens and parch grain which is brought to them,
+and those who keep the grain and sell it ready parched. The rates for
+parching are a pice a seer or an eighth part of the grain. Gram and
+rice, husked or unhusked, are the grains usually parched. When parched,
+gram is called _phutana_ (broken) and rice _lahi_. The Bharbhunjas also
+prepare _sathu_, a flour made by grinding parched gram or wheat, which
+is a favourite food for a light morning meal, or for travellers. It
+can be taken without preparation, being simply mixed with water and
+a little salt or sugar. The following story is told about _sathu_
+to emphasise its convenience in this respect. Once two travellers
+were about to take some food before starting in the morning, of
+whom one had _sathu_ and the other _dhan_ (unhusked rice). The one
+with the _dhan_ knew that it would take him a long time to pound,
+and then cook and eat it, so he said to the other, "My poor friend,
+I perceive that you only have _sathu_, which will delay you because
+you must find water, and then mix it, and find salt, and put it in,
+before your _sathu_ can be ready, while rice--pound, eat and go. But
+if you like, as you are in a greater hurry than I am, I will change my
+rice for your _sathu_." The other traveller unsuspectingly consented,
+thinking he was getting the best of the bargain, and while he was still
+looking for a mortar in which to pound his rice, the first traveller
+had mixed and eaten the _sathu_ and proceeded on his journey. In the
+vernacular the point is brought out by the onomatopoeic character
+of the lines, which cannot be rendered in English. The caste are now
+also engaged in selling tobacco and sweetmeats and the manufacture of
+fireworks. They stoke their ovens with any refuse they can collect
+from the roads, and hence comes the saying, '_Bhar men dalna_',
+'To throw into the oven,' meaning to throw away something or to make
+ducks and drakes with it; while _Bhar-jhokna_ signifies to light
+or heat the oven, and, figuratively, to take up a mean occupation
+(Platts). Another proverb quoted by Mr. Crooke is, '_Bharbhunja ka
+larki kesar ka tika_,' or 'The Bharbhunja's slut with saffron on her
+forehead,' meaning one dressed in borrowed plumes. Another saying is,
+'_To tum kya abhi tak bhar bhunjte rahe_,' or 'Have you been stoking
+the oven all this time?'--meaning to imply that the person addressed
+has been wasting his time, because the profits from grain-parching
+are so small. The oven of the Psalmist into which the grass was cast
+no doubt closely resembled that of the Bharbhunjas.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+Bharia
+
+
+List of Paragraphs
+
+
+    1. _Origin and tribal legend._
+    2. _Tribal subdivisions._
+    3. _Marriage._
+    4. _Childbirth._
+    5. _Funeral ceremonies._
+    6. _Religion and magic._
+    7. _Social life and customs._
+    8. _Occupation._
+
+
+
+1. Origin and tribal legend.
+
+
+_Bharia, Bharia-Bhumia._ [277]--A Dravidian tribe numbering about
+50,000 persons and residing principally in the Jubbulpore District,
+which contains a half of the total number. The others are found in
+Chhindwara and Bilaspur. The proper name of the tribe is Bharia,
+but they are often called Bharia-Bhumia, because many of them hold
+the office of Bhumia or priest of the village gods and of the lower
+castes in Jubbulpore, and the Bharias prefer the designation of Bhumia
+as being the more respectable. The term Bhumia or 'Lord of the soil'
+is an alternative for Bhuiya, the name of another Dravidian tribe,
+and no doubt came to be applied to the office of village priest
+because it was held by members of this tribe; the term Baiga has a
+similar signification in Mandla and Balaghat, and is applied to the
+village priest though he may not belong to the Baiga tribe at all. The
+Bharias have forgotten their original affinities, and several stories
+of the origin of the tribe are based on far-fetched derivations of
+the name. One of these is to the effect that Arjun, when matters were
+going badly with the Pandavas in their battle against the Kauravas,
+took up a handful of _bharru_ grass and, pressing it, produced a
+host of men who fought in the battle and became the ancestors of the
+Bharias. And there are others of the same historical value. But there
+is no reason to doubt that Bharia is the contemptuous form of Bhar, as
+Telia for Teli, Jugia for Jogi, Kuria for Kori, and that the Bharias
+belong to the great Bhar tribe who were once dominant in the eastern
+part of the United Provinces, but are now at the bottom of the social
+scale, and relegated by their conquerors to the degrading office
+of swineherds. The Rajjhars, who appear to have formed a separate
+caste as the landowning subdivision of the Bhars, like the Raj-Gonds
+among Gonds, are said to be the descendants of a Raja and a Bharia
+woman. The Rajjhars form a separate caste in the Central Provinces,
+and the Bharias acknowledge some connection with them, but refuse to
+take water from their hands, as they consider them to be of impure
+blood. The Bharias also give Mahoba or Bandhogarh as their former
+home, and these places are in the country of the Bhars. According
+to tradition Raja Karna Deva, a former king of Dahal, the classical
+name of the Jubbulpore country, was a Bhar, and it may be that the
+immigration of the Bharias into Jubbulpore dates from his period, which
+is taken as 1040 to 1080 A.D. While then it may be considered as fairly
+certain that the Bharias are merely the Bhar tribe with a variant
+of the name, it is clear from the titles of their family groups,
+which will shortly be given, that they are an extremely mixed class
+and consist largely of the descendants of members of other castes,
+who, having lost their own social position, have taken refuge among
+the Bharias at the bottom of the social scale. Mr. Crooke says of the
+Bhars: [278] "The most probable supposition is that the Bhars were
+a Dravidian race closely allied to the Kols, Cheros and Seoris, who
+at an early date succumbed to the invading Aryans. This is borne out
+by their appearance and physique, which closely resemble that of the
+undoubted non-Aryan aborigines of the Vindhyan-Kaimur plateau." In
+the Central Provinces the Bharias have been so closely associated
+with the Gonds that they have been commonly considered to belong
+to that tribe. Thus Mr. Drysdale says of them: [279] 'The Bharias
+were the wildest of the wild Gonds and were inveterate _dhaya_ [280]
+cutters.' Although, however, they have to some extent intermarried
+with the Gonds, the Bharias were originally quite a distinct tribe,
+and would belong to the Kolarian or Munda group but that they have
+entirely forgotten their own language and speak only Hindi, though with
+a peculiar intonation especially noticeable in the case of their women.
+
+
+
+2. Tribal subdivisions.
+
+
+The structure of the tribe is a very loose one, and though the
+Bharias say that they are divided into subcastes, there are none
+in reality. Members of all castes except the very lowest may become
+Bharias, and one Bharia will recognise another as a fellow-tribesman
+if he can show relationship to any person admitted to occupy that
+position. But a division is in process of formation in Bilaspur
+based on the practice of eating beef, from which some abstain,
+and in consequence look down on the others who are addicted to it,
+and call them Dhur Bharias, the term _dhur_ meaning cattle. The
+abstainers from beef now refuse to marry with the others. The tribe
+is divided into a number of exogamous groups, and the names of these
+indicate the very heterogeneous elements of which it consists. Out of
+fifty-one groups reported not less than fifteen or sixteen have names
+derived from other castes or clans, showing almost certainly that such
+groups were formed by a mixed marriage or the admission of a family of
+outsiders. Such names are: Agaria, from the Agarias or iron-workers:
+this clan worships Loha-Sur, the god of the Agarias; Ahirwar, or the
+descendants of an Ahir: this clan worships the Ahir gods; Bamhania,
+born of a Brahman ancestor; Binjhwar or Binjha, perhaps from the
+tribe of that name; Chandel, from a Rajput clan; Dagdoha, a synonym
+of Basor: persons of this sept hang a piece of bamboo and a curved
+knife to the waist of the bride at their marriages; Dhurua, born of
+a Dhurua Gond; Kuanpa, born of an Ahir subcaste of that name; Kurka,
+of Korku parentage; Maravi, the name of a Gond clan; Rathor from a
+Rajput clan; Samarba from a Chamar; and Yarkara, the name of a Gond
+clan. These names sufficiently indicate the diverse elements of which
+the tribe is made up. Other group names with meanings are: Gambhele,
+or those who seclude their women in a separate house during the
+menstrual period; Kaitha, from the _kaith_ tree (_Feronia elephantum_);
+Karondiha, from the _karonda_ plant (_Carissa Carandas_); Magarha,
+from _magar_ a crocodile: members of this group worship an image of
+a crocodile made with flour and fried in oil; Sonwani, from _sona_
+gold: members of this group perform the ceremony of readmission of
+persons temporarily put out of caste by sprinkling on them a little
+water in which gold has been dipped. Any person who does not know his
+clan name calls himself a Chandel, and this group, though bearing the
+name of a distinguished Rajput clan, is looked upon as the lowest. But
+although the rule of exogamy in marriage is recognised, it is by no
+means strictly adhered to, and many cases are known in which unions
+have taken place between members of the same clan. So long as people
+can recollect a relationship between themselves, they do not permit
+their families to intermarry. But the memory of the Bharia does not
+extend beyond the third generation.
+
+
+
+3. Marriage.
+
+
+Marriages are adult, and the proposal comes from the boy's father,
+who has it conveyed to the girl's father through some friend in his
+village. If a betrothal is arranged the bride's father invites the
+father and friends of the bridegroom to dinner; on this occasion
+the boy's father brings some necklaces of lac beads and spangles and
+presents them to the bride's female relatives, who then come out and
+tie the necklaces round his neck and those of his friends, place
+the spangles on their foreheads, and then, catching hold of their
+cheeks, press and twist them violently. Some turmeric powder is also
+thrown on their faces. This is the binding portion of the betrothal
+ceremony. The date of marriage is fixed by a Brahman, this being
+the only purpose for which he is employed, and a bride-price varying
+from six to twelve rupees is paid. On this occasion the women draw
+caricatures with turmeric or charcoal on the loin-cloth of the boy's
+father, which they manage to purloin. The marriage ceremony follows
+generally the Hindu form. The bridegroom puts on women's ornaments
+and carries with him an iron nut-cracker or dagger to keep off evil
+spirits. After the wedding, the _midua_, a sort of burlesque dance,
+is held. The girl's mother gets the dress of the boy's father and puts
+it on, together with a false beard and moustaches, and dances, holding
+a wooden ladle in one hand and a packet of ashes in the other. Every
+time she approaches the bridegroom's father on her rounds she spills
+some of the ashes over him, and occasionally gives him a crack on
+the head with her ladle, these actions being accompanied by bursts of
+laughter from the party and frenzied playing by the musicians. When
+the party reach the bridegroom's house on their return, his mother and
+the other women come out and burn a little mustard and human hair in a
+lamp, the unpleasant smell emitted by these articles being considered
+potent to drive away evil spirits. Every time the bride leaves her
+father's house she must weep, and must cry separately with each one of
+her caste-sisters when taking leave of them. When she returns home she
+must begin weeping loudly on the boundary of the village, and continue
+doing so until she has embraced each of her relatives and friends,
+a performance which in a village containing a large number of Bharias
+may take from three to six hours. These tears are, however, considered
+to be a manifestation of joy, and the girl who cannot produce enough of
+them is often ridiculed. A prospective son-in-law who serves for his
+wife is known as Gharjian. The work given him is always very heavy,
+and the Bharias have a saying which compares his treatment with that
+awarded to an ox obtained on hire. If a girl is seduced by a man of
+the tribe, she may be married to him by the ceremony prescribed for
+the remarriage of a widow, which consists merely in the placing of
+bangles on the wrists and a present of a new cloth, together with
+a feast to the caste-fellows. Similarly if she is seduced by a man
+of another caste who would be allowed to become a Bharia, she can
+be married as a widow to any man of the tribe. A widow is expected
+to marry her late husband's younger brother, but no compulsion is
+exercised. If a bachelor espouses a widow, he first goes through the
+ceremony of marriage with a ring to which a twig of the date-palm is
+tied, by carrying the ring seven times round the marriage post. This
+is necessary to save him from the sin of dying unmarried, as the
+union with a widow is not reckoned as a true marriage. In Jubbulpore
+divorce is said to be allowed only for conjugal misbehaviour, and a
+Bharia will pass over three transgressions on his wife's part before
+finally turning her out of his house. A woman who wishes to leave her
+husband simply runs away from him and lives with somebody else. In
+this case the third party must pay a goat to the husband by way of
+compensation and give a feast to the caste-fellows.
+
+
+
+4. Childbirth.
+
+
+The carelessness of the Bharias in the matter of childbirth is
+notorious, and it is said that mothers commonly went on working up
+to the moment of childbirth and were delivered of children in the
+fields. Now, however, the woman lies up for three days, and some
+ceremonies of purification are performed. In Chhattisgarh infants
+are branded on the day of their birth, under the impression that this
+will cause them to digest the food they have taken in the womb. The
+child is named six months after birth by the father's sister, and
+its lips are then touched with cooked food for the first time.
+
+
+
+5. Funeral ceremonies.
+
+
+The tribe both burn and bury the dead, and observe mourning for an
+adult for ten days, during which time they daily put out a leaf-cup
+containing food for the use of the deceased. In the third year after
+the death, the _mangan_ or caste beggar visits the relatives of the
+deceased, and receives what they call one limb (_ang_), or half his
+belongings; the _ang_ consists of a loin-cloth, a brass vessel and
+dish, an axe, a scythe and a wrist-ring.
+
+
+
+6. Religion and magic.
+
+
+The Bharias call themselves Hindus and worship the village deities
+of the locality, and on the day of Diwali offer a black chicken
+to their family god, who may be Bura Deo, Dulha Deo or Karua, the
+cobra. For this snake they profess great reverence, and say that he was
+actually born in a Bharia family. As he could not work in the fields
+he was usually employed on errands. One day he was sent to the house,
+and surprised one of his younger brother's wives, who had not heard
+him coming, without her veil. She reproached him, and he retired in
+dudgeon to the oven, where he was presently burnt to death by another
+woman, who kindled a fire under it not knowing that he was there. So
+he has been deified and is worshipped by the tribe. The Bharias also
+venerate Bagheshwar, the tiger god, and believe that no tiger will eat
+a Bharia. On the Diwali day they invite the tiger to drink some gruel
+which they place ready for him behind their houses, at the same time
+warning the other villagers not to stir out of doors. In the morning
+they display the empty vessels as a proof that the tiger has visited
+them. They practise various magical devices, believing that they can
+kill a man by discharging at him a _muth_ or handful of charmed objects
+such as lemons, vermilion and seeds of urad. This ball will travel
+through the air and, descending on the house of the person at whom
+it is aimed, will kill him outright unless he can avert its power by
+stronger magic, and perhaps even cause it to recoil in the same manner
+on the head of the sender. They exorcise the Sudhiniyas or the drinkers
+of human blood. A person troubled by one of these is seated near the
+Bharia, who places two pots with their mouths joined over a fire. He
+recites incantations and the pots begin to boil, emitting blood. This
+result is obtained by placing a herb in the pot whose juice stains the
+water red. The blood-sucker is thus successfully exorcised. To drive
+away the evil eye they burn a mixture of chillies, salt, human hair
+and the husks of kodon, which emits a very evil smell. Such devices
+are practised by members of the tribe who hold the office of Bhumia
+or village priest. The Bharias are well-known thieves, and they say
+that the dark spots on the moon are caused by a banyan tree, which God
+planted with the object of diminishing her light and giving thieves
+a chance to ply their trade. If a Bhumia wishes to detect a thief,
+he sits clasping hands with a friend, while a pitcher is supported on
+their hands. An oblation is offered to the deity to guide the ordeal
+correctly, and the names of suspected persons are recited one by one,
+the name at which the pitcher topples over being that of the thief. But
+before employing this method of detection the Bhumia proclaims his
+intention of doing so on a certain date, and in the meantime places a
+heap of ashes in some lonely place and invites the thief to deposit
+the stolen article in the ashes to save himself from exposure. By
+common custom each person in the village is required to visit the
+heap and mingle a handful of ashes with it, and not infrequently
+the thief, frightened at the Bhumia's powers of detection, takes the
+stolen article and buries it in the ash-heap where it is duly found,
+the necessity for resorting to the further method of divination being
+thus obviated. Occasionally the Bharia in his character of a Hindu
+will make a vow to pay for a recitation of the Satya Narayan Katha
+or some other holy work. But he understands nothing of it, and if
+the Brahman employed takes a longer time than he had bargained for
+over the recitation he becomes extremely bored and irritated.
+
+
+
+7. Social life and customs.
+
+
+The scantiness of the Bharia's dress is proverbial, and the saying is
+'_Bharia bhwaka, pwanda langwata_', or 'The Bharia is verily a devil,
+who only covers his loins with a strip of cloth.' But lately he has
+assumed more clothing. Formerly an iron ring carried on the wrist to
+exorcise the evil spirits was his only ornament. Women wear usually
+only one coarse cloth dyed red, spangles on the forehead and ears, bead
+necklaces, and cheap metal bracelets and anklets. Some now have Hindu
+ornaments, but in common with other low castes they do not usually
+wear a nose-ring, out of respect to the higher castes. Women, though
+they work in the fields, do not commonly wear shoes; and if these
+are necessary to protect the feet from thorns, they take them off and
+carry them in the presence of an elder or a man of higher caste. They
+are tattooed with various devices, as a cock, a crown, a native chair,
+a pitcher stand, a sieve and a figure called _dhandha_, which consists
+of six dots joined by lines, and appears to be a representation of
+a man, one dot standing for the head, one for the body, two for
+the arms and two for the legs. This device is also used by other
+castes, and they evince reluctance if asked to explain its meaning,
+so that it may be intended as a representation of the girl's future
+husband. The Bharia is considered very ugly, and a saying about him
+is: 'The Bharia came down from the hills and got burnt by a cinder,
+so that his face is black.' He does not bathe for months together,
+and lives in a dirty hovel, infested by the fowls which he loves to
+rear. His food consists of coarse grain, often with boiled leaves as a
+vegetable, and he consumes much whey, mixing it with his scanty portion
+of grain. Members of all except the lowest castes are admitted to the
+Bharia community on presentation of a _pagri_ and some money to the
+headman, together with a feast to the caste-fellows. The Bharias do not
+eat monkeys, beef or the leavings of others, but they freely consume
+fowls and pork. They are not considered as impure, but rank above
+those castes only whose touch conveys pollution. For the slaughter
+of a cow the Bilaspur Bharias inflict the severe punishment of nine
+daily feasts to the caste, or one for each limb of the cow, the limbs
+being held to consist of the legs, ears, horns and tail. They have
+an aversion for the horse and will not remove its dung. To account
+for this they tell a story to the effect that in the beginning God
+gave them a horse to ride and fight upon. But they did not know how
+to mount the horse because it was so high. The wisest man among them
+then proposed to cut notches in the side of the animal by which they
+could climb up, and they did this. But God, when he saw it, was very
+angry with them, and ordered that they should never be soldiers, but
+should be given a winnowing-fan and broom to sweep the grain out of
+the grass and make their livelihood in that way.
+
+
+
+8. Occupation.
+
+
+The Bharias are usually farmservants and field-labourers, and their
+services in these capacities are in much request. They are hardy and
+industrious, and so simple that it is an easy matter for their masters
+to involve them in perpetual debt, and thus to keep them bound to
+service from generation to generation. They have no understanding
+of accounts, and the saying, 'Pay for the marriage of a Bharia and
+he is your bond-slave for ever,' sufficiently explains the methods
+adopted by their employers and creditors.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+Bhat
+
+
+List of Paragraphs
+
+
+     1.  _Origin of the Bhats._
+     2.  _Bhats and Charans._
+     3.  _Lower-class Bhats._
+     4.  _Social status of the caste._
+     5.  _Social customs._
+     6.  _The Bhat's business._
+     7.  _Their extortionate practices._
+     8.  _The Jasondhis._
+     9.  _The Charans as carriers._
+    10. _Suicide and the fear of ghosts._
+    11. _Instances of haunting and laying ghosts._
+    12. _The Charans as sureties._
+    13. _Suicide as a means of revenge._
+    14. _Dharna._
+    15. _Casting out spirits._
+    16. _Sulking. Going bankrupt._
+    17.  _Bhat songs._
+
+
+
+1. Origin of the Bhats.
+
+
+_Bhat, Rao, Jasondhi._--The caste of bards and genealogists. In
+1911 the Bhats numbered 29,000 persons in the Central Provinces
+and Berar, being distributed over all Districts and States, with
+a slight preponderance in large towns such as Nagpur, Jubbulpore
+and Amraoti. The name Bhat is derived from the Sanskrit Bhatta,
+a lord. The origin of the Bhats has been discussed in detail by Sir
+H. Risley. Some, no doubt, are derived from the Brahman caste as stated
+by Mr. Nesfield: "They are an offshoot from those secularised Brahmans
+who frequented the courts of princes and the camps of warriors, recited
+their praises in public, and kept records of their genealogies. Such,
+without much variation, is the function of the Bhat at the present
+day. The Mahabharata speaks of a band of bards and eulogists marching
+in front of Yudishthira as he made his progress from the field of
+Kurukshetra towards Hastinapur. But these very men are spoken of in the
+same poem as Brahmans. Naturally as time went on these courtier priests
+became hereditary bards, receded from the parent stem and founded a new
+caste." "The best modern opinion," Sir H. Risley states, [281] "seems
+disposed to find the germ of the Brahman caste in the bards, ministers
+and family priests, who were attached to the king's household in Vedic
+times. The characteristic profession of the Bhats has an ancient and
+distinguished history. The literature of both Greece and India owes
+the preservation of its oldest treasures to the singers who recited
+poems in the households of the chiefs, and doubtless helped in some
+measure to shape the masterpieces which they handed down. Their place
+was one of marked distinction. In the days when writing was unknown,
+the man who could remember many verses was held in high honour by
+the tribal chief, who depended upon the memory of the bard for his
+personal amusement, for the record of his own and his ancestors'
+prowess, and for the maintenance of the genealogy which established
+the purity of his descent. The bard, like the herald, was not lightly
+to be slain, and even Odysseus in the heat of his vengeance spares
+the aoidos Phemius, 'who sang among the wooers of necessity.'" [282]
+
+
+
+2. Bhats and Charans.
+
+
+There is no reason to doubt that the Birm or Baram Bhats are an
+offshoot of Brahmans, their name being merely a corruption of the term
+Brahman. But the caste is a very mixed one, and another large section,
+the Charans, are almost certainly derived from Rajputs. Malcolm states
+that according to the fable of their origin, Mahadeo first created
+Bhats to attend his lion and bull; but these could not prevent the
+former from killing the latter, which was a source of infinite vexation
+and trouble, as it compelled Mahadeo to create new ones. He therefore
+formed the Charan, equally devout with the Bhat, but of bolder spirit,
+and gave him in charge these favourite animals. From that time no bull
+was ever destroyed by the lion. [283] This fable perhaps indicates
+that while the peaceful Bhats were Brahmans, the more warlike
+Charans were Rajputs. It is also said that some Rajputs disguised
+themselves as bards to escape the vengeance of Parasurama. [284] The
+Maru Charans intermarry with Rajputs, and their name appears to be
+derived from Maru, the term for the Rajputana desert, which is also
+found in Marwar. Malcolm states [285] that when the Rajputs migrated
+from the banks of the Ganges to Rajputana, their Brahman priests did
+not accompany them in any numbers, and hence the Charans arose and
+supplied their place. They had to understand the rites of worship,
+particularly of Siva and Parvati, the favourite deities of the Rajputs,
+and were taught to read and write. One class became merchants and
+travelled with large convoys of goods, and the others were the bards
+and genealogists of the Rajputs. Their songs were in the rudest metre,
+and their language was the local dialect, understood by all. All this
+evidence shows that the Charans were a class of Rajput bards.
+
+
+
+3. Lower-class Bhats.
+
+
+But besides the Birm or Brahman Bhats and the Rajput Charans there is
+another large body of the caste of mixed origin, who serve as bards
+of the lower castes and are probably composed to a great extent of
+members of these castes. These are known as the Brid-dhari or begging
+Bhats. They beg from such castes as Lodhis, Telis, Kurmis, Ahirs and
+so on, each caste having a separate section of Bhats to serve it;
+the Bhats of each caste take food from the members of the caste,
+but they also eat and intermarry with each other. Again, there are
+Bairagi Bhats who beg from Bairagis, and keep the genealogies of
+the temple-priests and their successors. Yet another class are the
+Dasaundhis or Jasondhis, who sing songs in honour of Devi, play on
+musical instruments and practise astrology. These rank below the
+cultivating castes and sometimes admit members of such castes who
+have taken religious vows.
+
+
+
+4. Social status of the caste.
+
+
+The Brahman or Birm-Bhats form a separate subcaste, and the Rajputs
+are sometimes called Rajbhat. These wear the sacred thread, which the
+Brid-Bhats and Jasondhis do not. The social status of the Bhats appears
+to vary greatly. Sir H. Risley states that they rank immediately below
+Kayasths, and Brahmans will take water from their hands. The Charans
+are treated by the Rajputs with the greatest respect; [286] the highest
+ruler rises when one of this class enters or leaves an assembly,
+and the Charan is invited to eat first at a Rajput feast. He smokes
+from the same huqqa as Rajputs, and only caste-fellows can do this, as
+the smoke passes through water on its way to the mouth. In past times
+the Charan acted as a herald, and his person was inviolable. He was
+addressed as Maharaj, [287] and could sit on the Singhasan or Lion's
+Hide, the ancient term for a Rajput throne, as well as on the hides
+of the tiger, panther and black antelope. The Rajputs held him in
+equal estimation with the Brahman or perhaps even greater. [288] This
+was because they looked to him to enshrine their heroic deeds in his
+songs and hand them down to posterity. His sarcastic references to a
+defeat in battle or any act displaying a want of courage inflamed their
+passions as nothing else could do. On the other hand, the Brid-Bhats,
+who serve the lower castes, occupy an inferior position. This is
+because they beg at weddings and other feasts, and accept cooked
+food from members of the caste who are their clients. Such an act
+constitutes an admission of inferior status, and as the Bhats eat
+together their position becomes equivalent to that of the lowest
+group among them. Thus if other Bhats eat with the Bhats of Telis or
+Kalars, who have taken cooked food from their clients, they are all
+in the position of having taken food from Telis and Kalars, a thing
+which only the lowest castes will do. If the Bhat of any caste, such
+as the Kurmis, keeps a girl of that caste, she can be admitted into
+the community, which is therefore of a very mixed character. Such a
+caste as the Kurmis will not even take water from the hands of the
+Bhats who serve them. This rule applies also where a special section
+of the caste itself act as bards and minstrels. Thus the Pardhans
+are the bards of the Gonds, but rank below ordinary Gonds, who give
+them food and will not take it from them. And the Sansias, the bards
+of the Jats, and the Mirasis, who are employed in this capacity by
+the lower castes generally, occupy a very inferior position, and are
+sometimes considered as impure.
+
+
+
+5. Social customs.
+
+
+The customs of the Bhats resemble those of other castes of
+corresponding status. The higher Bhats forbid the remarriage of
+widows, and expel a girl who becomes pregnant before marriage. They
+carry a dagger, the special emblem of the Charans, in order to be
+distinguished from low-class Bhats. The Bhats generally display the
+_chaur_ or yak-tail whisk and the _chhadi_ or silver-plated rod on
+ceremonial occasions, and they worship these emblems of their calling
+on the principal festivals. The former is waved over the bridegroom
+at a wedding, and the latter is borne before him. The Brahman Bhats
+abstain from flesh of any kind and liquor, and other Bhats usually have
+the same rules about food as the caste whom they serve. Brahman Bhats
+and Charans alone wear the sacred thread. The high status sometimes
+assigned to this division of the caste is shown in the saying:
+
+
+                Age Brahman pichhe Bhat
+                take pichhe aur jat,
+
+
+or, 'First comes the Brahman, then the Bhat, and after them the
+other castes.'
+
+
+
+6. The Bhat's business.
+
+
+The business of a Bhat in former times is thus described by Forbes:
+[289] "When the rainy season closes and travelling becomes practicable,
+the bard sets off on his yearly tour from his residence in the
+Bhatwara or bard's quarter of some city or town. One by one he
+visits each of the Rajput chiefs who are his patrons, and from whom
+he has received portions of land or annual grants of money, timing
+his arrival, if possible, to suit occasions of marriage or other
+domestic festivals. After he has received the usual courtesies he
+produces the Wai, a book written in his own crabbed hieroglyphics
+or in those of his father, which contains the descent of the house
+from its founder, interspersed with many a verse or ballad, the dark
+sayings contained in which are chanted forth in musical cadence to
+a delighted audience, and are then orally interpreted by the bard
+with many an illustrative anecdote or tale. The Wai, however, is not
+merely a source for the gratification of family pride or even of love
+of song; it is also a record by which questions of relationship are
+determined when a marriage is in prospect, and disputes relating to the
+division of ancestral property are decided, intricate as these last
+necessarily are from the practice of polygamy and the rule that all
+the sons of a family are entitled to a share. It is the duty of the
+bard at each periodical visit to register the births, marriages and
+deaths which have taken place in the family since his last circuit,
+as well as to chronicle all the other events worthy of remark which
+have occurred to affect the fortunes of his patron; nor have we ever
+heard even a doubt suggested regarding the accurate, much less the
+honest fulfilment of this duty by the bard. The manners of the bardic
+tribe are very similar to those of their Rajput clients; their dress
+is nearly the same, but the bard seldom appears without the _katar_
+or dagger, a representation of which is scrawled beside his signature,
+and often rudely engraved upon his monumental stone, in evidence of
+his death in the sacred duty of _traga_ (suicide)." [290]
+
+
+
+7. Their extortionate practices.
+
+
+The Bhat thus fulfilled a most useful function as registrar of births
+and marriages. But his merits were soon eclipsed by the evils produced
+by his custom of extolling liberal patrons and satirising those who
+gave inadequately. The desire of the Rajputs to be handed down to fame
+in the Bhat's songs was such that no extravagance was spared to satisfy
+him. Chand, the great Rajput bard, sang of the marriage of Prithwi Raj,
+king of Delhi, that the bride's father emptied his coffers in gifts,
+but he filled them with the praises of mankind. A lakh of rupees
+[291] was given to the chief bard, and this became a precedent for
+similar occasions. "Until vanity suffers itself to be controlled,"
+Colonel Tod wrote, [292] "and the aristocratic Rajputs submit to
+republican simplicity, the evils arising from nuptial profusion
+will not cease. Unfortunately those who should check it find their
+interest in stimulating it, namely, the whole crowd of _mangtas_
+or beggars, bards, minstrels, jugglers, Brahmans, who assemble
+on these occasions, and pour forth their epithalamiums in praise
+of the virtue of liberality. The bards are the grand recorders of
+fame, and the volume of precedent is always resorted to by citing
+the liberality of former chiefs; while the dread of their satire
+[293] shuts the eyes of the chief to consequences, and they are only
+anxious to maintain the reputation of their ancestors, though fraught
+with future ruin." Owing to this insensate liberality in the desire
+to satisfy the bards and win their praises, a Rajput chief who had
+to marry a daughter was often practically ruined; and the desire
+to avoid such obligations led to the general practice of female
+infanticide, formerly so prevalent in Rajputana. The importance of
+the bards increased their voracity; Mr. Nesfield describes them as
+"Rapacious and conceited mendicants, too proud to work but not too
+proud to beg." The Dholis [294] or minstrels were one of the seven
+great evils which the famous king Sidhraj expelled from Anhilwada
+Patan in Gujarat; the Dakans or witches were another. [295] Malcolm
+states that "They give praise and fame in their songs to those who
+are liberal to them, while they visit those who neglect or injure
+them with satires in which the victims are usually reproached with
+illegitimate birth and meanness of character. Sometimes the Bhat,
+if very seriously offended, fixes an effigy of the person he desires
+to degrade on a long pole and appends to it a slipper as a mark of
+disgrace. In such cases the song of the Bhat records the infamy of the
+object of his revenge. This image usually travels the country till
+the party or his friends purchase the cessation of the curses and
+ridicule thus entailed. It is not deemed in these countries within
+the power of the prince, much less any other person, to stop a Bhat
+or even punish him for such a proceeding. In 1812 Sevak Ram Seth,
+a banker of Holkar's court, offended one of these Bhats, pushing
+him rudely out of the shop where the man had come to ask alms. The
+man made a figure [296] of him to which he attached a slipper and
+carried it to court, and everywhere sang the infamy of the Seth. The
+latter, though a man of wealth and influence, could not prevent him,
+but obstinately refused to purchase his forbearance. His friends
+after some months subscribed Rs. 80 and the Bhat discontinued his
+execrations, but said it was too late, as his curses had taken effect;
+and the superstitious Hindus ascribe the ruin of the banker, which
+took place some years afterwards, to this unfortunate event." The
+loquacity and importunity of the Bhats are shown in the saying,
+'Four Bhats make a crowd'; and their insincerity in the proverb
+quoted by Mr. Crooke, "The bard, the innkeeper and the harlot have
+no heart; they are polite when customers arrive, but neglect those
+leaving (after they have paid)" [297] The Bhat women are as bold,
+voluble and ready in retort as the men. When a Bhat woman passes a
+male caste-fellow on the road, it is the latter who raises a piece
+of cloth to his face till the woman is out of sight. [298]
+
+
+
+8. The Jasondhis.
+
+
+Some of the lower classes of Bhats have become religious mendicants
+and musicians, and perform ceremonial functions. Thus the Jasondhis,
+who are considered a class of Bhats, take their name from the _jas_
+or hymns sung in praise of Devi. They are divided into various
+sections, as the Nakib or flag-bearers in a procession, the Nazir or
+ushers who introduced visitors to the Raja, the Nagaria or players on
+kettle-drums, the Karaola who pour sesamum oil on their clothes and
+beg, and the Panda, who serve as priests of Devi, and beg carrying
+an image of the goddess in their hands. There is also a section of
+Muhammadan Bhats who serve as bards and genealogists for Muhammadan
+castes. Some Bhats, having the rare and needful qualification of
+literacy so that they can read the old Sanskrit medical works, have,
+like a number of Brahmans, taken to the practice of medicine and are
+known as Kaviraj.
+
+
+
+9. The Charans as carriers.
+
+
+As already stated, the persons of the Charans in the capacity of bard
+and herald were sacred, and they travelled from court to court without
+fear of molestation from robbers or enemies. It seems likely that the
+Charans may have united the breeding of cattle to their calling of
+bard; but in any case the advantage derived from their sanctity was so
+important that they gradually became the chief carriers and traders of
+Rajputana and the adjoining tracts. They further, in virtue of their
+holy character, enjoyed a partial exemption from the perpetual and
+harassing imposts levied by every petty State on produce entering its
+territory; and the combination of advantages thus obtained was such
+as to give them almost a monopoly in trade. They carried merchandise
+on large droves of bullocks all over Rajputana and the adjoining
+countries; and in course of time the carriers restricted themselves
+to their new profession, splitting off from the Charans and forming
+the caste of Banjaras.
+
+
+
+10. Suicide and the fear of ghosts.
+
+
+But the mere reverence for their calling would not have sufficed for
+a permanent safeguard to the Charans from destitute and unscrupulous
+robbers. They preserved it by the customs of _Chandi_ or _Traga_ and
+_Dharna_. These consisted in their readiness to mutilate, starve or
+kill themselves rather than give up property entrusted to their care;
+and it was a general belief that their ghosts would then haunt the
+persons whose ill deeds had forced them to take their own lives. It
+seems likely that this belief in the power of a suicide or murdered
+man to avenge himself by haunting any persons who had injured him or
+been responsible for his death may have had a somewhat wide prevalence
+and been partly accountable for the reprobation attaching in early
+times to the murderer and the act of self-slaughter. The haunted
+murderer would be impure and would bring ill-fortune on all who had
+to do with him, while the injury which a suicide would inflict on his
+relatives in haunting them would cause this act to be regarded as a sin
+against one's family and tribe. Even the ordinary fear of the ghosts
+of people who die in the natural course, and especially of those who
+are killed by accident, is so strong that a large part of the funeral
+rites is devoted to placating and laying the ghost of the dead man;
+and in India the period of observance of mourning for the dead is
+perhaps in reality that time during which the spirit of the dead man
+is supposed to haunt his old abode and render the survivors of his
+family impure. It was this fear of ghosts on which the Charans relied,
+nor did they hesitate a moment to sacrifice their lives in defence of
+any obligation they had undertaken or of property committed to their
+care. When plunderers carried off any cattle belonging to the Charans,
+the whole community would proceed to the spot where the robbers
+resided; and in failure of having their property restored would cut off
+the heads of several of their old men and women. Frequent instances
+occurred of a man dressing himself in cotton-quilted cloths steeped
+in oil which he set on fire at the bottom, and thus danced against
+the person against whom _traga_ was performed until the miserable
+creature dropped down and was burnt to ashes. On one occasion a Cutch
+chieftain, attempting to escape with his wife and child from a village,
+was overtaken by his enemy when about to leap a precipice; immediately
+turning he cut off his wife's head with his scimitar and, flourishing
+his reeking blade in the face of his pursuer, denounced against him
+the curse of the _traga_ which he had so fearfully performed. [299]
+In this case it was supposed that the wife's ghost would haunt the
+enemy who had driven the husband to kill her.
+
+
+
+11. Instances of haunting and laying ghosts.
+
+
+The following account in the _Rasmala_ [300] is an instance of suicide
+and of the actual haunting by the ghost: A Charan asserted a claim
+against the chief of Siela in Kathiawar, which the latter refused to
+liquidate. The bard thereupon, taking forty of his caste with him,
+went to Siela with the intention of sitting _Dharna_ at the chief's
+door and preventing any one from coming out or going in until the
+claim should be discharged. However, as they approached the town,
+the chief, becoming aware of their intention, caused the gates to
+be closed. The bards remained outside and for three days abstained
+from food; on the fourth day they proceeded to perform _traga_ as
+follows: some hacked their own arms; others decapitated three old
+women of the party and hung their heads up at the gate as a garland;
+certain of the women cut off their own breasts. The bards also pierced
+the throats of four of their old men with spikes, and they took two
+young girls by the heels, and dashed out their brains against the
+town gate. The Charan to whom the money was due dressed himself in
+clothes wadded with cotton which he steeped in oil and then set on
+fire. He thus burned himself to death. But as he died he cried out,
+"I am now dying; but I will become a headless ghost (_Kuvis_) in the
+palace, and will take the chiefs life and cut off his posterity." After
+this sacrifice the rest of the bards returned home.
+
+On the third day after the Charan's death his Bhut (ghost) threw the
+Rani downstairs so that she was very much injured. Many other persons
+also beheld the headless phantom in the palace. At last he entered
+the chief's head and set him trembling. At night he would throw stones
+at the palace, and he killed a female servant outright. At length, in
+consequence of the various acts of oppression which he committed, none
+dared to approach the chief's mansion even in broad daylight. In order
+to exorcise the Bhut, Jogis, Fakirs and Brahmans were sent for from
+many different places; but whoever attempted the cure was immediately
+assailed by the Bhut in the chief's body, and that so furiously
+that the exorcist's courage failed him. The Bhut would also cause
+the chief to tear the flesh off his own arms with his teeth. Besides
+this, four or five persons died of injuries received from the Bhut;
+but nobody had the power to expel him. At length a foreign Jyotishi
+(astrologer) came who had a great reputation for charms and magic,
+and the chief sent for him and paid him honour. First he tied all
+round the house threads which he had charged with a charm; then he
+sprinkled charmed milk and water all round; then he drove a charmed
+iron nail into the ground at each corner of the mansion, and two at the
+door. He purified the house and continued his charms and incantations
+for forty-one days, every day making sacrifices at the cemetery to the
+Bhut's spirit. The Joshi lived in a room securely fastened up; but
+people say that while he was muttering his charms stones would fall
+and strike the windows. Finally the Joshi brought the chief, who had
+been living in a separate room, and tried to exorcise the spirit. The
+patient began to be very violent, but the Joshi and his people spared
+no pains in thrashing him until they had rendered him quite docile. A
+sacrificial fire-pit was made and a lemon placed between it and the
+chief. The Joshi commanded the Bhut to enter the lime. The possessed,
+however, said, 'Who are you; if one of your Deos (gods) were to come,
+I would not quit this person.' Thus they went on from morning till
+noon. At last they came outside, and, burning various kinds of incense
+and sprinkling many charms, the Bhut was got out into the lemon. When
+the lemon began to jump about, the whole of the spectators praised
+the Joshi, crying out: 'The Bhut has gone into the lemon! The Bhut
+has gone into the lemon!' The possessed person himself, when he saw
+the lemon hopping about, was perfectly satisfied that the Bhut had
+left his body and gone out into the lemon. The Joshi then drove the
+lemon outside the city, followed by drummers and trumpeters; if the
+lemon left the road, he would touch it with his stick and put it into
+the right way again. On the track they sprinkled mustard and salt and
+finally buried the lemon in a pit seven cubits deep, throwing into
+the hole above it mustard and salt, and over these dust and stones,
+and filling in the space between the stones with lead. At each corner,
+too, the Joshi drove in an iron nail, two feet long, which he had
+previously charmed. The lemon buried, the people returned home, and not
+one of them ever saw the Bhut thereafter. According to the recorder
+of the tale, the cure was effected by putting quicksilver into the
+lemon. When a man is attacked with fever or becomes speechless or
+appears to have lockjaw, his friends conclude from these indications
+that he is possessed by a Bhut.
+
+In another case some Bhats had been put in charge, by the chief of a
+small State, of a village which was coveted by a neighbouring prince,
+the Rana of Danta. The latter sent for the Bhats and asked them to
+guard one or two of his villages, and having obtained their absence
+by this pretext he raided their village, carrying off hostages and
+cattle. When the Bhats got back they collected to the number of a
+hundred and began to perform _Dharna_ against the Rana. They set
+out from their village, and at every two miles as they advanced they
+burned a man, so that by the time they got to the Rana's territory
+seven or eight men had been burnt. They were then pacified by his
+people and induced to go back. The Rana offered them presents, but
+they refused to accept them, as they said the guilt of the death of
+their fellows who had been burned would thereby be removed from the
+Rana. The Rana lost all the seven sons born to him and died childless,
+and it was generally held to be on account of this sin. [301]
+
+
+
+12. The Charans as sureties.
+
+
+Such was the certainty attaching to the Charan's readiness to forfeit
+his life rather than prove false to a trust, and the fear entertained
+of the offence of causing him to do so and being haunted by his ghost,
+that his security was eagerly coveted in every kind of transaction. "No
+traveller could journey unattended by these guards, who for a small
+sum were satisfied to conduct him in safety. [302] The guards, called
+Valavas, were never backward in inflicting the most grievous wounds
+and even causing the death of their old men and women if the robbers
+persisted in plundering those under their protection; but this seldom
+happened, as the wildest Koli, Kathi or Rajput held the person of a
+Charan sacred. Besides becoming safeguards to travellers and goods,
+they used to stand security to the amount of many lakhs of rupees. When
+rents and property were concerned, the Rajputs preferred a Charan's
+bond to that of the wealthiest banker. They also gave security for good
+behaviour, called _chalu zamin_, and for personal attendance in court
+called _hazar zamin_. The ordinary _traga_ went no farther than a cut
+on the arm with the _katar_ or crease; the forearms of those who were
+in the habit of becoming security had generally several cuts from the
+elbow downwards. The Charans, both men and women, wounded themselves,
+committed suicide and murdered their relations with the most complete
+self-devotion. In 1812 the Marathas brought a body of troops to impose
+a payment on the village of Panchpipla. [303] The Charans resisted the
+demand, but finding the Marathas determined to carry their point, after
+a remonstrance against paying any kind of revenue as being contrary to
+their occupation and principles, they at last cut the throats of ten
+young children and threw them at the feet of the Marathas, exclaiming,
+'These are our riches and the only payment we can make.' The Charans
+were immediately seized and confined in irons at Jambusar."
+
+As was the case with the Bhat and the Brahman, the source of the
+Charan's power lay in the widespread fear that a Charan's blood
+brought ruin on him who caused the blood to be spilt. It was also
+sometimes considered that the Charan was possessed by his deity,
+and the caste were known as Deoputra or sons of God, the favourite
+dwelling of the guardian spirit.
+
+
+
+13. Suicide as a means of revenge.
+
+
+Such a belief enhanced the guilt attaching to the act of causing
+or being responsible for a Charan's death. Suicide from motives of
+revenge has been practised in other countries. "Another common form
+of suicide which is admired as heroic in China is that committed for
+the purpose of taking revenge upon an enemy who is otherwise out of
+reach--according to Chinese ideas a most effective mode of revenge,
+not only because the law throws the responsibility of the deed on him
+who occasioned it, but also because the disembodied soul is supposed
+to be better able than the living man to persecute the enemy." [304]
+Similarly, among the Hos or Mundas the suicide of young married women
+is or was extremely common, and the usual motive was that the girl,
+being unhappy in her husband's house, jumped down a well or otherwise
+made away with herself in the belief that she would take revenge on
+his family by haunting them after her death. The treatment of the
+suicide's body was sometimes directed to prevent his spirit from
+causing trouble. "According to Jewish custom persons who had killed
+themselves were left unburied till sunset, perhaps for fear lest the
+spirit of the deceased otherwise might find its way back to the old
+home." [305] At Athens the right hand of a person who had taken his
+own life was struck off and buried apart from the rest of the body,
+evidently in order to make him harmless after death. [306] Similarly,
+in England suicides were buried with a spike through the chest to
+prevent their spirits from rising, and at cross-roads, so that the
+ghost might not be able to find its way home. This fear appears to
+have partly underlain the idea that suicide was a crime or an offence
+against society and the state, though, as shown by Dr. Westermarck,
+the reprobation attaching to it was far from universal; while in
+the cultured communities of ancient Greece and Rome, and among such
+military peoples as the Japanese suicide was considered at all times a
+legitimate and, on occasion, a highly meritorious and praiseworthy act.
+
+That condition of mind which leads to the taking of one's own
+life from motives of revenge is perhaps a fruit of ignorance and
+solitude. The mind becomes distorted, and the sufferer attributes the
+unhappiness really caused by accident or his own faults or defects to
+the persecution of a malignant fate or the ill-will of his neighbours
+and associates. And long brooding over his wrongs eventuates in his
+taking the extreme step. The crime known as running amok appears to be
+the outcome of a similar state of mind. Here too the criminal considers
+his wrongs or misery as the result of injury or unjust treatment
+from his fellow-men, and, careless of his own life, determines to be
+revenged on them. Such hatred of one's kind is cured by education,
+leading to a truer appreciation of the circumstances and environment
+which determine the course of life, and by the more cheerful temper
+engendered by social intercourse. And these crimes of vengeance tend
+to die out with the advance of civilisation.
+
+
+
+14. _Dharna._
+
+
+Analogous to the custom of _traga_ was that of _Dharna_, which was
+frequently and generally resorted to for the redress of wrongs and
+offences at a time when the law made little provision for either. The
+ordinary method of _Dharna_ was to sit starving oneself in front of
+the door of the person from whom redress was sought until he gave it
+from fear of causing the death of the suppliant and being haunted
+by his ghost. It was, naturally, useless unless the person seeking
+redress was prepared to go to extremes, and has some analogy to the
+modern hunger-strike with the object of getting out of jail. Another
+common device was to thrust a spear-blade through both cheeks,
+and in this state to dance before the person against whom _Dharna_
+was practised. The pain had to be borne without a sign of suffering,
+which, if displayed, would destroy its efficacy. Or a creditor would
+proceed to the door of his debtor and demand payment, and if not
+appeased would stand up in his presence with an enormous weight upon
+his head, which he had brought with him for the purpose, swearing never
+to alter his position until satisfaction was given, and denouncing at
+the same time the most horrible execrations on his debtor, should he
+suffer him to expire in that situation. This seldom failed to produce
+the desired effect, but should he actually die while in _Dharna_, the
+debtor's house was razed to the earth and he and his family sold for
+the satisfaction of the creditor's heirs. Another and more desperate
+form of _Dharna_, only occasionally resorted to, was to erect a large
+pile of wood before the house of the debtor, and after the customary
+application for payment had been refused the creditor tied on the
+top of the pile a cow or a calf, or very frequently an old woman,
+generally his mother or other relation, swearing at the same time
+to set fire to it if satisfaction was not instantly given. All the
+time the old woman denounced the bitterest curses, threatening to
+persecute the wretched debtor both here and hereafter. [307]
+
+The word _dharna_ means 'to place or lay on,' and hence 'a
+pledge.' Mr. Hira Lal suggests that the standing with a weight on the
+head may have been the original form of the penance, from which the
+other and severer methods were subsequently derived. Another custom
+known as _dharna_ is that of a suppliant placing a stone on the
+shrine of a god or tomb of a saint. He makes his request and, laying
+the stone on the shrine, says, "Here I place this stone until you
+fulfil my prayer; if I do not remove it, the shame is on you." If the
+prayer is afterwards fulfilled, he takes away the stone and offers a
+cocoanut. It seems clear that the underlying idea of this custom is the
+same as that of standing with a stone on the head as described above,
+but it is difficult to say which was the earlier or original form.
+
+
+
+15. Casting out spirits.
+
+
+As a general rule, if the guilt of having caused a suicide was at a
+man's door, he should expiate it by going to the Ganges to bathe. When
+a man was haunted by the ghost of any one whom he had wronged, whether
+such a person had committed suicide or simply died of grief at being
+unable to obtain redress, it was said of him _Brahm laga_, or that
+Brahma had possessed him. The spirit of a Brahman boy, who has died
+unmarried, is also accustomed to haunt any person who walks over his
+grave in an impure condition or otherwise defiles it, and when a man is
+haunted in such a manner it is called _Brahm laga_. Then an exorcist
+is called, who sprinkles water over the possessed man, and this burns
+the Brahm Deo or spirit inside him as if it were burning oil. The
+spirit cries out, and the exorcist orders him to leave the man. Then
+the spirit states how he has been injured by the man, and refuses to
+leave him. The exorcist asks him what he requires on condition of
+leaving the man, and he asks for some good food or something else,
+and is given it. The exorcist takes a nail and goes to a _pipal_
+tree and orders the Brahm Deo to go into the tree. Brahm Deo obeys,
+and the exorcist drives the nail into the tree and the spirit remains
+imprisoned there until somebody takes the nail out, when he will come
+out again and haunt him. The Hindus think that the god Brahma lives
+in the roots of the _pipal_ tree, Siva in its branches, and Vishnu
+in the _choti_ or scalp-knot, that is the topmost foliage.
+
+
+
+16. Sulking. Going bankrupt.
+
+
+Another and mild form of _Dharna_ is that known as _Khatpati_. When a
+woman is angry with her husband on account of his having refused her
+some request, she will put her bed in a corner of the room and go and
+lie on it, turning her face to the wall, and remain so, not answering
+when spoken to nor taking food. The term Khatpati signifies keeping
+to one side of the bed, and there she will remain until her husband
+accedes to her request, unless indeed he should decide to beat her
+instead. This is merely an exaggerated form of the familiar display
+of temper known as sulking. It is interesting to note the use of the
+phrase turning one's face to the wall, with something of the meaning
+attached to it in the Bible.
+
+A custom similar to that of _Dharna_ was called _Diwala nikalna_ or
+going bankrupt. When a merchant had had heavy losses and could not
+meet his liabilities, he would place the lock of his door outside,
+reversing it, and sit in the veranda with a piece of sackcloth over
+him. Or he wrapped round him the floor-carpet of his room. When he
+had displayed these signs of ruin and self-abasement his creditors
+would not sue him, but he would never be able to borrow money again.
+
+
+
+17. Bhat songs.
+
+
+In conclusion a few specimens of Bhat songs may be given. The
+following is an account of the last king of Nagpur, Raghuji III.,
+commonly known as Baji Rao:
+
+
+        They made a picture of Baji Rao;
+        Baji Rao was the finest king to see;
+        The Brahmans told lies about him,
+        They sent a letter from Nagpur to Calcutta,
+        They made Baji Rao go on a pilgrimage.
+        Brothers! the great Sirdars who were with him,
+        They brought a troop of five hundred horse!
+        The Tuesday fair in Benares was held with fireworks,
+        They made the Ganges pink with rose-petals.
+        Baji Rao's gifts were splendid,
+        His turban and coat were of brocaded silk,
+        A pair of diamonds and emeralds
+        He gave to the Brahmans of Benares.
+        Oh brothers! the Raja sat in a covered howdah bound on an
+                                                            elephant!
+        Many fans waved over his head;
+        How charitable a king he was!
+
+
+In the above song a note of regret is manifest for the parade
+and display of the old court of Nagpur, English rule being less
+picturesque. The next is a song about the English:
+
+
+        The English have taken the throne of Nagpur,
+        The fear of the English is great.
+        In a moment's time they conquer countries.
+        The guns boomed, the English came strong and warlike,
+        They give wealth to all.
+        They ram the ramrods in the guns.
+        They conquered also Tippoo's dominions,
+        The English are ruling in the fort of Gawilgarh.
+
+
+The following is another song about the English, not quite so
+complimentary:
+
+
+    The English became our kings and have made current the _kaldar_
+    (milled) rupee.
+    The menials are favoured and the Bhats have lost their profession,
+    The mango has lost its taste, the milk has lost its sweetness,
+    The rose has lost its scent.
+    Baji Rao of Nagpur he also is gone,
+    No longer are the drums beaten at the palace gate.
+    Poona customs have come in.
+    Brahmans knowing the eighteen Purans have become Christians;
+    The son thinks himself better than his father,
+    The daughter-in-law no longer respects her mother-in-law.
+    The wife fights with her husband.
+    The English have made the railways and telegraphs;
+    The people wondered at the silver rupees and all the country
+    prospered.
+
+
+The following is a song about the Nerbudda at Mandla, Rewa being
+another name for the river:
+
+
+    The stream of the world springs out breaking apart the hills;
+    The Rewa cuts her path through the soil, the air is darkened with
+    her spray.
+    All the length of her banks are the seats of saints; hermits and
+    pilgrims worship her.
+    On seeing the holy river a man's sins fall away as wood is cut
+    by a saw;
+    By bathing in her he plucks the fruit of holiness.
+    When boats are caught in her flood, the people pray: 'We are
+    sinners, O Rewa, bring us safely to the bank!'
+    When the Nerbudda is in flood, Mandla is an island and the people
+    think their end has come:
+    The rain pours down on all sides, earth and sky become dark as
+    smoke, and men call on Rama.
+    The bard says: 'Let it rain as it may, some one will save us as
+    Krishna saved the people of Brindawan!'
+
+
+This is a description of a beautiful woman:
+
+
+    A beautiful woman is loved by her neighbours,
+    But she will let none come to her and answers them not.
+    They say: 'Since God has made you so beautiful, open your litter
+    and let yourself be seen!'
+    He who sees her is struck as by lightning, she shoots her lover
+    with the darts of her eyes, invisible herself.
+    She will not go to her husband's house till he has her brought
+    by the Government.
+    When she goes her father's village is left empty.
+    She is so delicate she faints at the sight of a flower,
+    Her body cannot bear the weight of her cloth,
+    The garland of jasmine-flowers is a burden on her neck,
+    The red powder on her feet is too heavy for them.
+
+
+It is interesting to note that weakness and delicacy in a woman
+are emphasised as an attraction, as in English literature of the
+eighteenth century.
+
+The last is a gentle intimation that poets, like other people, have
+to live:
+
+
+    It is useless to adorn oneself with sandalwood on an empty belly,
+    Nobody's body gets fat from the scent of flowers;
+    The singing of songs excites the mind,
+    But if the body is not fed all these are vain and hollow.
+
+
+All Bhats recite their verses in a high-pitched sing-song tone,
+which renders it very difficult for their hearers to grasp the
+sense unless they know it already. The Vedas and all other sacred
+verses are spoken in this manner, perhaps as a mark of respect and to
+distinguish them from ordinary speech. The method has some resemblance
+to intoning. Women use the same tone when mourning for the dead.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+Bhatra
+
+
+
+List of Paragraphs
+
+
+ 1. _General notice and structure of the caste._
+ 2. _Admission of outsiders._
+ 3. _Arrangement of marriages._
+ 4. _The Counter of Posts._
+ 5. _Marriage customs._
+ 6. _Propitiation of ghosts._
+ 7. _Religion. Ceremonies at hunting._
+ 8. _Superstitious remedies._
+ 9. _Occupation._
+10. _Names._
+
+
+
+1. General notice and structure of the caste.
+
+
+_Bhatra._ [308]--A primitive tribe of the Bastar State and the south
+of Raipur District, akin to the Gonds. They numbered 33,000 persons
+in 1891, and in subsequent enumerations have been amalgamated with
+the Gonds. Nothing is known of their origin except a legend that they
+came with the Rajas of Bastar from Warangal twenty-three generations
+ago. The word Bhatra is said to mean a servant, and the tribe are
+employed as village watchmen and household and domestic servants. They
+have three divisions, the Pit, Amnait and San Bhatras, who rank one
+below the other, the Pit being the highest and the San the lowest. The
+Pit Bhatras base their superiority on the fact that they decline to
+make grass mats, which the Amnait Bhatras will do, while the San
+Bhatras are considered to be practically identical with the Muria
+Gonds. Members of the three groups will eat with each other before
+marriage, but afterwards they will take only food cooked without water
+from a person belonging to another group. They have the usual set of
+exogamous septs named after plants and animals. Formerly, it is said,
+they were tattooed with representations of the totem plant and animal,
+and the septs named after the tiger and snake ate the flesh of these
+animals at a sacrificial meal. These customs have fallen into abeyance,
+but still if they kill their totem animal they will make apologies to
+it, and break their cooking-pots, and bury or burn the body. A man of
+substance will distribute alms in the name of the deceased animal. In
+some localities members of the Kachhun or tortoise sept will not eat a
+pumpkin which drops from a tree because it is considered to resemble a
+tortoise. But if they can break it immediately on touching the ground
+they may partake of the fruit, the assumption being apparently that
+it has not had time to become like a tortoise.
+
+
+
+2. Admission of outsiders.
+
+
+Outsiders are not as a rule admitted. But a woman of equal or higher
+caste who enters the house of a Bhatra will be recognised as his wife,
+and a man of the Panara, or gardener caste, can also become a member of
+the community if he lives with a Bhatra woman and eats from her hand.
+
+
+
+3. Arrangement of marriages.
+
+
+In Raipur a girl should be married before puberty, and if no husband
+is immediately available, they tie a few flowers into her cloth and
+consider this as a marriage. If an unmarried girl becomes pregnant she
+is debarred from going through the wedding ceremony, and will simply
+go and live with her lover or any other man. Matches are usually
+arranged by the parents, but if a daughter is not pleased with the
+prospective bridegroom, who may sometimes be a well-to-do man much
+older than herself, she occasionally runs away and goes through the
+ceremony on her own account with the man of her choice.
+
+If no one has asked her parents for her hand she may similarly select
+a husband for herself and make her wishes known, but in that case she
+is temporarily put out of caste until the chosen bridegroom signifies
+his acquiescence by giving the marriage feast. What happens if he
+definitely fails to respond is not stated, but presumably the young
+woman tries elsewhere until she finds herself accepted.
+
+
+
+4. The Counter of Posts.
+
+
+The date and hour of the wedding are fixed by an official known as
+the Meda Gantia, or Counter of Posts. He is a sort of illiterate
+village astrologer, who can foretell the character of the rainfall,
+and gives auspicious dates for sowing and harvest. He goes through
+some training, and as a test of his capacity is required by his
+teacher to tell at a glance the number of posts in an enclosure which
+he has not seen before. Having done this correctly he qualifies as
+a Meda Gantia. Apparently the Bhatras, being unable at one time to
+count themselves, acquired an exaggerated reverence for the faculty
+of counting, and thought that if a man could only count far enough
+he could reckon into the future; or it might be thought that as he
+could count and name future days, he thus obtained power over them,
+and could tell what would happen on them just as one can obtain power
+over a man and work him injury by knowing his real name.
+
+
+
+5. Marriage customs.
+
+
+At a wedding the couple walk seven times round the sacred post, which
+must be of wood of the mahua [309] tree, and on its conclusion the post
+is taken to a river or stream and consigned to the water. The Bhatras,
+like the Gonds, no doubt revere this tree because their intoxicating
+liquor is made from its flowers. The couple wear marriage crowns
+made from the leaves of the date palm and exchange these. A little
+turmeric and flour are mixed with water in a plate, and the bride,
+taking the bridegroom's right hand, dips it into the coloured paste
+and strikes it against the wall. The action is repeated five times,
+and then the bridegroom does the same with the bride's hand. By this
+rite the couple pledge each other for their mutual behaviour during
+married life. From the custom of making an impression of the hand
+on a wall in token of a vow may have arisen that of clasping hands
+as a symbol of a bargain assented to, and hence of shaking hands,
+by persons who meet, as a pledge of amity and the absence of hostile
+intentions. Usually the hand is covered with red ochre, which is
+probably a substitute for blood; and the impression of the hand is made
+on the wall of a temple in token of a vow. This may be a survival of
+the covenant made by the parties dipping their hands in the blood of
+the sacrifice and laying them on the god. A pit about a foot deep is
+dug close to the marriage-shed, and filled with mud or wet earth. The
+bride conceals a nut in the mud and the bridegroom has to find it,
+and the hiding and finding are repeated by both parties. This rite may
+have the signification of looking for children. The remainder of the
+day is spent in eating, drinking and dancing. On the way home after
+the wedding the bridegroom has to shoot a deer, the animal being
+represented by a branch of a tree thrown across the path by one of
+the party. But if a real deer happens by any chance to come by he has
+to shoot this. The bride goes up to the real or sham deer and pulls
+out the arrow, and presents her husband with water and a tooth-stick,
+after which he takes her in his arms and they dance home together. On
+arrival at the house the bridegroom's maternal uncle or his son lies
+down before the door covering himself with a blanket. He is asked
+what he wants, and says he will have the daughter of the bridegroom
+to wife. The bridegroom promises to give a daughter if he has one,
+and if he has a son to give him for a friend. The tribe consider that
+a man has a right to marry the daughter of his maternal uncle, and
+formerly if the girl was refused by her parents he abducted her and
+married her forcibly. The bride remains at her husband's house for a
+few days and then goes home, and before she finally takes up her abode
+with him the _gauna_ or going-away ceremony must be performed. The
+hands of the bride and bridegroom are tied together, and an arrow is
+held upright on them and some oil poured over it. The foreheads of
+the couple are marked with turmeric and rice, this rite being known
+as _tika_ or anointing, and presents are given to the bride's family.
+
+
+
+6. Propitiation of ghosts.
+
+
+The dead are buried, the corpse being laid on its back with the head
+to the north. Some rice, cowrie-shells, a winnowing-fan and other
+articles are placed on the grave. The tribe probably consider the
+winnowing-fan to have some magical property, as it also forms one of
+the presents given to the bride at the betrothal. If a man is killed
+by a tiger his spirit must be propitiated. The priest ties strips of
+tiger-skin to his arms, and the feathers of the peacock and blue jay
+to his waist, and jumps about pretending to be a tiger. A package of
+a hundred seers (200 lbs.) of rice is made up, and he sits on this
+and finally takes it away with him. If the dead man had any ornaments
+they must all be given, however valuable, lest his spirit should hanker
+after them and return to look for them in the shape of the tiger. The
+large quantity of rice given to the priest is also probably intended
+as a provision of the best food for the dead man's spirit, lest it
+be hungry and come in the shape of the tiger to satisfy its appetite
+upon the surviving relatives. The laying of the ghosts of persons
+killed by tigers is thus a very profitable business for the priests.
+
+
+
+7. Religion. Ceremonies at hunting.
+
+
+The tribe worship the god of hunting, who is known as Mati Deo
+and resides in a separate tree in each village. At the Bijphutni
+(threshing) or harvest festival in the month of Chait (March) they have
+a ceremonial hunting party. All the people of the village collect,
+each man having a bow and arrow slung to his back and a hatchet
+on his shoulder. They spread out a long net in the forest and beat
+the animals into this, usually catching a deer, wild pig or hare,
+and quails and other birds. They return and cook the game before the
+shrine of the god and offer to him a fowl and a pig. A pit is dug
+and water poured into it, and a person from each house must stand
+in the mud. A little seed taken from each house is also soaked in
+the mud, and after the feast is over this is taken and returned to
+the householder with words of abuse, a small present of two or three
+pice being received from him. The seed is no doubt thus consecrated
+for the next sowing. The tribe also have joint ceremonial fishing
+excursions. Their ideas of a future life are very vague, and they
+have no belief in a place of reward or punishment after death. They
+propitiate the spirits of their ancestors on the 15th of Asarh (June)
+with offerings of a little rice and incense.
+
+
+
+8. Superstitious remedies.
+
+
+To cure the evil eye they place a little gunpowder in water and
+apply it to the sufferer's eyes, the idea perhaps being that the
+fiery glance from the evil eye which struck him is quenched like the
+gunpowder. To bring on rain they perform a frog marriage, tying two
+frogs to a pestle and pouring oil and turmeric over them as in a real
+marriage. The children carry them round begging from door to door and
+finally deposit them in water. They say that when rain falls and the
+sun shines together the jackals are being married. Formerly a woman
+suspected of being a witch was tied up in a bag and thrown into a
+river or tank at various places set apart for the purpose. If she
+sank she was held to be innocent, and if she floated, guilty. In the
+latter case she had to defile herself by taking the bone of a cow
+and the tail of a pig in her mouth, and it was supposed that this
+drove out the magic-working spirit. In the case of illness of their
+children or cattle, or the failure of crops, they consult the Pujari
+or priest and make an offering. He applies some flowers or grains of
+rice to the forehead of the deity, and when one of these falls down
+he diagnoses from it the nature of the illness, and gives it to the
+sufferer to wear as a charm.
+
+
+
+9. Occupation.
+
+
+The tribe are cultivators and farmservants, and practise shifting
+cultivation. They work as village watchmen and also as the Majhi or
+village headman and the Pujari or village priest. These officials
+are paid by contributions of grain from the cultivators. And as
+already seen, the Bhatras are employed as household servants and
+will clean cooking-vessels. Since they act as village priests, it
+may perhaps be concluded that the Bhatras like the Parjas are older
+residents of Bastar than the bulk of the Gonds, and they have become
+the household servants of the Hindu immigrants, which the Gonds would
+probably disdain to do. Some of them wear the sacred thread, but in
+former times the Bastar Raja would invest any man with this for a
+fee of four or five rupees, and the Bhatras therefore purchased the
+social distinction. They find it inconvenient, however, and lay it
+aside when proceeding to their work or going out to hunt. If a man
+breaks his thread he must wait till a Brahman comes round, when he
+can purchase another.
+
+
+
+10. Names.
+
+
+Among a list of personal names given by Mr. Baijnath the following
+are of some interest: Pillu, one of short stature; Matola, one
+who learnt to walk late; Phagu, born in Phagun (February); Ghinu,
+dirty-looking; Dasru, born on the Dasahra festival; Ludki, one with
+a fleshy ear; Dalu, big-bellied; Mudi, a ring, this name having been
+given to a child which cried much after birth, but when its nose was
+pierced and a ring put in it stopped crying; Chhi, given to a child
+which sneezed immediately after birth; Nunha, a posthumous child;
+and Bhuklu, a child which began to play almost as soon as born. The
+above instances indicate that it is a favourite plan to select the
+name from any characteristic displayed by the child soon after birth,
+or from any circumstance or incident connected with its birth. Among
+names of women are: Cherangi, thin; Fundi, one with swollen cheeks;
+Kandri, one given to crying; Mahina (month), a child born a month late;
+Batai, one with large eyes; Gaida, fat; Pakli, of fair colour; Boda,
+one with crooked legs; Jhunki, one with small eyes; Rupi, a girl who
+was given a nose-ring of silver as her brothers had died; Paro, born
+on a field-embankment; Dango, tall. A woman must not call by their
+names her father-in-law, mother-in-law, her husband's brothers and
+elder sisters and the sons and daughters of her husband's brothers
+and sisters.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+Bhil
+
+
+
+List of Paragraphs
+
+
+
+1. _General notice. The Bhils a Kolarian tribe._
+2. _Rajputs deriving their title to the land from the Bhils._
+3. _Historical notice._
+4. _General Outram and the Khandesh Bhil Corps._
+5. _Subdivisions._
+6. _Exogamy and marriage customs._
+7. _Widow-marriage, divorce and polygamy._
+8. _Religion._
+9. _Witchcraft and amulets._
+10. _Funeral rites._
+11. _Social customs._
+12. _Appearance and characteristics._
+13. _Occupation._
+14. _Language._
+
+
+
+1. General notice. The Bhils a Kolarian tribe.
+
+
+_Bhil._ [310]--An indigenous or non-Aryan tribe which has been much
+in contact with the Hindus and is consequently well known. The home
+of the Bhils is the country comprised in the hill ranges of Khandesh,
+Central India and Rajputana, west from the Satpuras to the sea in
+Gujarat. The total number of Bhils in India exceeds a million and a
+half, of which the great bulk belong to Bombay, Rajputana and Central
+India. The Central Provinces have only about 28,000, practically all of
+whom reside in the Nimar district, on the hills forming the western end
+of the Satpura range and adjoining the Rajpipla hills of Khandesh. As
+the southern slopes of these hills lie in Berar, a few Bhils are also
+found there. The name Bhil seems to occur for the first time about
+A.D. 600. It is supposed to be derived from the Dravidian word for
+a bow, which is the characteristic weapon of the tribe. It has been
+suggested that the Bhils are the Pygmies referred to by Ktesias (400
+B.C.) and the Phyllitae of Ptolemy (A.D. 150). The Bhils are recognised
+as the oldest inhabitants of southern Rajputana and parts of Gujarat,
+and are usually spoken of in conjunction with the Kolis, who inhabit
+the adjoining tracts of Gujarat. The most probable hypothesis of the
+origin of the Kolis is that they are a western branch of the Kol or
+Munda tribe who have spread from Chota Nagpur, through Mandla and
+Jubbulpore, Central India and Rajputana to Gujarat and the sea. If
+this is correct the Kolis would be a Kolarian tribe. The Bhils have
+lost their own language, so that it cannot be ascertained whether
+it was Kolarian or Dravidian. But there is nothing against its being
+Kolarian in Sir G. Grierson's opinion; and in view of the length of
+residence of the tribe, the fact that they have abandoned their own
+language and their association with the Kolis, this view may be taken
+as generally probable. The Dravidian tribes have not penetrated so
+far west as Central India and Gujarat in appreciable numbers.
+
+
+
+2. Rajputs deriving their title to the land from the Bhils.
+
+
+The Rajputs still recognise the Bhils as the former residents and
+occupiers of the land by the fact that some Rajput chiefs must be
+marked on the brow with a Bhil's blood on accession to the _Gaddi_ or
+regal cushion. Tod relates how Goha, [311] the eponymous ancestor of
+the Sesodia Rajputs, took the state of Idar in Gujarat from a Bhil:
+"At this period Idar was governed by a chief of the savage race of
+Bhils. The young Goha frequented the forests in company with the Bhils,
+whose habits better assimilated with his daring nature than those of
+the Brahmans. He became a favourite with these _vena-putras_ or sons of
+the forest, who resigned to him Idar with its woods and mountains. The
+Bhils having determined in sport to elect a king, their choice fell
+on Goha; and one of the young savages, cutting his finger, applied
+the blood as the badge (_tika_) of sovereignty to his forehead. What
+was done in sport was confirmed by the old forest chief. The sequel
+fixes on Goha the stain of ingratitude, for he slew his benefactor,
+and no motive is assigned in the legend for the deed." [312]
+
+The legend is of course a euphemism for the fact that the Rajputs
+conquered and dispossessed the Bhils of Idar. But it is interesting
+as an indication that they did not consider themselves to derive a
+proper title to the land merely from the conquest, but wished also to
+show that it passed to them by the designation and free consent of
+the Bhils. The explanation is perhaps that they considered the gods
+of the Bhils to be the tutelary guardians and owners of the land,
+whom they must conciliate before they could hope to enjoy it in
+quiet and prosperity. This token of the devolution of the land from
+its previous holders, the Bhils, was till recently repeated on the
+occasion of each succession of a Sesodia chief. "The Bhil landholders
+of Oguna and Undri still claim the privilege of performing the _tika_
+for the Sesodias. The Oguna Bhil makes the mark of sovereignty on the
+chief's forehead with blood drawn from his own thumb, and then takes
+the chief by the arm and seats him on the throne, while the Undri Bhil
+holds the salver of spices and sacred grains of rice used in making
+the badge." [313] The story that Goha killed the old Bhil chief,
+his benefactor, who had adopted him as heir and successor, which
+fits in very badly with the rest of the legend, is probably based
+on another superstition. Sir J. G. Frazer has shown in _The Golden
+Bough_ that in ancient times it was a common superstition that any
+one who killed the king had a right to succeed him. The belief was
+that the king was the god of the country, on whose health, strength
+and efficiency its prosperity depended. When the king grew old and
+weak it was time for a successor, and he who could kill the king
+proved in this manner that the divine power and strength inherent
+in the late king had descended to him, and he was therefore the fit
+person to be king. [314] An almost similar story is told of the way
+in which the Kachhwaha Rajputs took the territory of Amber State from
+the Mina tribe. The infant Rajput prince had been deprived of Narwar
+by his uncle, and his mother wandered forth carrying him in a basket,
+till she came to the capital of the Minas, where she first obtained
+employment in the chiefs kitchen. But owing to her good cooking she
+attracted his wife's notice and ultimately disclosed her identity and
+told her story. The Mina chief then adopted her as his sister and the
+boy as his nephew. This boy, Dhola Rai, on growing up obtained a few
+Rajput adherents and slaughtered all the Minas while they were bathing
+at the feast of Diwali, after which he usurped their country. [315]
+The repetition both of the adoption and the ungrateful murder shows
+the importance attached by the Rajputs to both beliefs as necessary
+to the validity of their succession and occupation of the land.
+
+The position of the Bhils as the earliest residents of the country
+was also recognised by their employment in the capacity of village
+watchmen. One of the duties of this official is to know the village
+boundaries and keep watch and ward over them, and it was supposed
+that the oldest class of residents would know them best. The Bhils
+worked in the office of Mankar, the superior village watchman, in
+Nimar and also in Berar. Grant Duff states [316] that the Ramosi or
+Bhil was employed as village guard by the Marathas, and the Ramosis
+were a professional caste of village policemen, probably derived from
+the Bhils or from the Bhils and Kolis.
+
+
+
+3. Historical notice.
+
+
+The Rajputs seem at first to have treated the Bhils
+leniently. Intermarriage was frequent, especially in the families of
+Bhil chieftains, and a new caste called Bhilala [317] has arisen,
+which is composed of the descendants of mixed Rajput and Bhil
+marriages. Chiefs and landholders in the Bhil country now belong to
+this caste, and it is possible that some pure Bhil families may have
+been admitted to it. The Bhilalas rank above the Bhils, on a level
+with the cultivating castes. Instances occasionally occurred in which
+the children of Rajput by a Bhil wife became Rajputs. When Colonel Tod
+wrote, Rajputs would still take food with Ujla Bhils or those of pure
+aboriginal descent, and all castes would take water from them. [318]
+But as Hinduism came to be more orthodox in Rajputana, the Bhils
+sank to the position of outcastes. Their custom of eating beef had
+always caused them to be much despised. A tradition is related that
+one day the god Mahadeo or Siva, sick and unhappy, was reclining in a
+shady forest when a beautiful woman appeared, the first sight of whom
+effected a cure of all his complaints. An intercourse between the
+god and the strange female was established, the result of which was
+many children; one of whom, from infancy distinguished alike by his
+ugliness and vice, slew the favourite bull of Mahadeo, for which crime
+he was expelled to the woods and mountains, and his descendants have
+ever since been stigmatised by the names of Bhil and Nishada. [319]
+Nishada is a term of contempt applied to the lowest outcastes. Major
+Hendley, writing in 1875, states: "Some time since a Thakur (chief)
+cut off the legs of two Bhils, eaters of the sacred cow, and plunged
+the stumps into boiling oil." [320] When the Marathas began to occupy
+Central India they treated the Bhils with great cruelty. A Bhil caught
+in a disturbed part of the country was without inquiry flogged and
+hanged. Hundreds were thrown over high cliffs, and large bodies of
+them, assembled under promise of pardon, were beheaded or blown from
+guns. Their women were mutilated or smothered by smoke, and their
+children smashed to death against the stones. [321] This treatment may
+to some extent have been deserved owing to the predatory habits and
+cruelty of the Bhils, but its result was to make them utter savages
+with their hand against every man, as they believed that every one's
+was against them. From their strongholds in the hills they laid waste
+the plain country, holding villages and towns to ransom and driving off
+cattle; nor did any travellers pass with impunity through the hills
+except in convoys too large to be attacked. In Khandesh, during the
+disturbed period of the wars of Sindhia and Holkar, about A.D. 1800,
+the Bhils betook themselves to highway robbery and lived in bands
+either in mountains or in villages immediately beneath them. The
+revenue contractors were unable or unwilling to spend money in the
+maintenance of soldiers to protect the country, and the Bhils in a very
+short time became so bold as to appear in bands of hundreds and attack
+towns, carrying off either cattle or hostages, for whom they demanded
+handsome ransoms. [322] In Gujarat another writer described the Bhils
+and Kolis as hereditary and professional plunderers--'Soldiers of
+the night,' as they themselves said they were. [323] Malcolm said
+of them, after peace had been restored to Central India: [324]
+"Measures are in progress that will, it is expected, soon complete
+the reformation of a class of men who, believing themselves doomed
+to be thieves and plunderers, have been confirmed in their destiny
+by the oppression and cruelty of neighbouring governments, increased
+by an avowed contempt for them as outcasts. The feeling this system
+of degradation has produced must be changed; and no effort has been
+left untried to restore this race of men to a better sense of their
+condition than that which they at present entertain. The common answer
+of a Bhil when charged with theft or robbery is, 'I am not to blame;
+I am the thief of Mahadeo'; in other words, 'My destiny as a thief
+has been fixed by God.'" The Bhil chiefs, who were known as Bhumia,
+exercised the most absolute power, and their orders to commit the
+most atrocious crimes were obeyed by their ignorant but attached
+subjects without a conception on the part of the latter that they
+had an option when he whom they termed their Dhunni (Lord) issued the
+mandates. [325] Firearms and swords were only used by the chiefs and
+headmen of the tribe, and their national weapon was the bamboo bow
+having the bowstring made from a thin strip of its elastic bark. The
+quiver was a piece of strong bamboo matting, and would contain sixty
+barbed arrows a yard long, and tipped with an iron spike either
+flattened and sharpened like a knife or rounded like a nail; other
+arrows, used for knocking over birds, had knob-like heads. Thus armed,
+the Bhils would lie in wait in some deep ravine by the roadside, and
+an infernal yell announced their attack to the unwary traveller. [326]
+Major Hendley states that according to tradition in the Mahabharata
+the god Krishna was killed by a Bhil's arrow, when he was fighting
+against them in Gujarat with the Yadavas; and on this account it was
+ordained that the Bhil should never again be able to draw the bow with
+the forefinger of the right hand. "Times have changed since then, but
+I noticed in examining their hands that few could move the forefinger
+without the second finger; indeed the fingers appeared useless as
+independent members of the hands. In connection with this may be
+mentioned their apparent inability to distinguish colours or count
+numbers, due alone to their want of words to express themselves." [327]
+
+
+
+4. General Outram and the Khandesh Bhil Corps.
+
+
+The reclamation and pacification of the Bhils is inseparably associated
+with the name of Lieutenant, afterwards Sir James, Outram. The Khandesh
+Bhil Corps was first raised by him in 1825, when Bhil robber bands
+were being hunted down by small parties of troops, and those who were
+willing to surrender were granted a free pardon for past offences,
+and given grants of land for cultivation and advances for the purchase
+of seed and bullocks. When the first attempts to raise the corps were
+made, the Bhils believed that the object was to link them in line
+like galley-slaves with a view to extirpate the race, that blood was
+in high demand as a medicine in the country of their foreign masters,
+and so on. Indulging the wild men with feasts and entertainments, and
+delighting them with his matchless urbanity, Captain Outram at length
+contrived to draw over to the cause nine recruits, one of whom was a
+notorious plunderer who had a short time before successfully robbed
+the officer commanding a detachment sent against him. This infant
+corps soon became strongly attached to the person of their new chief
+and entirely devoted to his wishes; their goodwill had been won by his
+kind and conciliatory manners, while their admiration and respect had
+been thoroughly roused and excited by his prowess and valour in the
+chase. On one occasion, it is recorded, word was brought to Outram
+of the presence of a panther in some prickly-pear shrubs on the
+side of a hill near his station. He went to shoot it with a friend,
+Outram being on foot and his friend on horseback searching through the
+bushes. When close on the animal, Outram's friend fired and missed, on
+which the panther sprang forward roaring and seized Outram, and they
+rolled down the hill together. Being released from the claws of the
+furious beast for a moment, Outram with great presence of mind drew a
+pistol which he had with him, and shot the panther dead. The Bhils,
+on seeing that he had been injured, were one and all loud in their
+grief and expressions of regret, when Outram quieted them with the
+remark, 'What do I care for the clawing of a cat?' and this saying
+long remained a proverb among the Bhils. [328] By his kindness and
+sympathy, listening freely to all that each single man in the corps
+had to say to him, Outram at length won their confidence, convinced
+them of his good faith and dissipated their fears of treachery. Soon
+the ranks of the corps became full, and for every vacant place there
+were numbers of applicants. The Bhils freely hunted down and captured
+their friends and relations who continued to create disturbances,
+and brought them in for punishment. Outram managed to check their
+propensity for liquor by paying them every day just sufficient for
+their food, and giving them the balance of their pay at the end of
+the month, when some might have a drinking bout, but many preferred
+to spend the money on ornaments and articles of finery. With the
+assistance of the corps the marauding tendencies of the hill Bhils
+were suppressed and tranquillity restored to Khandesh, which rapidly
+became one of the most fertile parts of India. During the Mutiny the
+Bhil corps remained loyal, and did good service in checking the local
+outbursts which occurred in Khandesh. A second battalion was raised
+at this time, but was disbanded three years afterwards. After this the
+corps had little or nothing to do, and as the absence of fighting and
+the higher wages which could be obtained by ordinary labour ceased
+to render it attractive to the Bhils, it was finally converted into
+police in 1891. [329]
+
+
+
+5. Subdivisions.
+
+
+The Bhils of the Central Provinces have now only two subdivisions, the
+Muhammadan Bhils, who were forcibly converted to Islam during the time
+of Aurangzeb, and the remainder, who though retaining many animistic
+beliefs and superstitions, have practically become Hindus. The
+Muhammadan Bhils only number about 3000 out of 28,000. They are
+known as Tadvi, a name which was formerly applied to a Bhil headman,
+and is said to be derived from _tad_, meaning a separate branch or
+section. These Bhils marry among themselves and not with any other
+Muhammadans. They retain many Hindu and animistic usages, and are
+scarcely Muhammadan in more than name. Both classes are divided into
+groups or septs, generally named after plants or animals to which
+they still show reverence. Thus the Jamania sept, named after the
+_jaman_ tree, [330] will not cut or burn any part of this tree, and
+at their weddings the dresses of the bride and bridegroom are taken
+and rubbed against the tree before being worn. Similarly the Rohini
+sept worship the _rohan_ [331] tree, the Avalia sept the _aonla_
+[332] tree, the Meheda sept the _bahera_ [333] tree, and so on. The
+Mori sept worship the peacock. They go into the jungle and look for
+the tracks of a peacock, and spreading a piece of red cloth before the
+footprint, lay their offerings of grain upon it. Members of this sept
+may not be tattooed, because they think the splashes of colour on the
+peacock's feathers are tattoo-marks. Their women must veil themselves
+if they see a peacock, and they think that if any member of the sept
+irreverently treads on a peacock's footprints he will fall ill. The
+Ghodmarya (Horse-killer) sept may not tame a horse nor ride one. The
+Masrya sept will not kill or eat fish. The Sanyan or cat sept have a
+tradition that one of their ancestors was once chasing a cat, which
+ran for protection under a cover which had been put over the stone
+figure of their goddess. The goddess turned the cat into stone and
+sat on it, and since then members of the sept will not touch a cat
+except to save it from harm, and they will not eat anything which has
+been touched by a cat. The Ghattaya sept worship the grinding mill at
+their weddings and also on festival days. The Solia sept, whose name
+is apparently derived from the sun, are split up into four subsepts:
+the Ada Solia, who hold their weddings at sunrise; the Japa Solia,
+who hold them at sunset; the Taria Solia, who hold them when stars have
+become visible after sunset; and the Tar Solia, who believe their name
+is connected with cotton thread and wrap several skeins of raw thread
+round the bride and bridegroom at the wedding ceremony. The Moharia
+sept worship the local goddess at the village of Moharia in Indore
+State, who is known as the Moharia Mata; at their weddings they apply
+turmeric and oil to the fingers of the goddess before rubbing them on
+the bride and bridegroom. The Maoli sept worship a goddess of that
+name in Barwani town. Her shrine is considered to be in the shape
+of a kind of grain-basket known as _kilia_, and members of the sept
+may never make or use baskets of this shape, nor may they be tattooed
+with representations of it. Women of the sept are not allowed to visit
+the shrine of the goddess, but may worship her at home. Several septs
+have the names of Rajput clans, as Sesodia, Panwar, Mori, and appear
+to have originated in mixed unions between Rajputs and Bhils.
+
+
+
+6. Exogamy and marriage customs.
+
+
+A man must not marry in his own sept nor in the families of his
+mothers and grandmothers. The union of first cousins is thus
+prohibited, nor can girls be exchanged in marriage between two
+families. A wife's sister may also not be married during the wife's
+lifetime. The Muhammadan Bhils permit a man to marry his maternal
+uncle's daughter, and though he cannot marry his wife's sister
+he may keep her as a concubine. Marriages may be infant or adult,
+but the former practice is becoming prevalent and girls are often
+wedded before they are eleven. Matches are arranged by the parents
+of the parties in consultation with the caste _panchayat_; but in
+Bombay girls may select their own husbands, and they have also a
+recognised custom of elopement at the Tosina fair in the month of the
+Mahi Kantha. If a Bhil can persuade a girl to cross the river there
+with him he may claim her as his wife; but if they are caught before
+getting across he is liable to be punished by the bride's father. [334]
+The betrothal and wedding ceremonies now follow the ordinary ritual of
+the middle and lower castes in the Maratha country. [335] The bride
+must be younger than the bridegroom except in the case of a widow. A
+bride-price is paid which may vary from Rs. 9 to 20; in the case of
+Muhammadan Bhils the bridegroom is said to give a dowry of Rs. 20 to
+25. When the ovens are made with the sacred earth they roast some of
+the large millet juari [336] for the family feast, calling this Juari
+Mata or the grain goddess. Offerings of this are made to the family
+gods, and it is partaken of only by the members of the bride's and
+bridegroom's septs respectively at their houses. No outsider may even
+see this food being eaten. The leavings of food, with the leaf-plates
+on which it was eaten, are buried inside the house, as it is believed
+that if they should fall into the hands of any outsider the death or
+blindness of one of the family will ensue. When the bridegroom reaches
+the bride's house he strikes the marriage-shed with a dagger or other
+sharp instrument. A goat is killed and he steps in its blood as he
+enters the shed. A day for the wedding is selected by the priest,
+but it may also take place on any Sunday in the eight fine months. If
+the wedding takes place on the eleventh day of Kartik, that is on
+the expiration of the four rainy months when marriages are forbidden,
+they make a little hut of eleven stalks of juari with their cobs in
+the shape of a cone, and the bride and bridegroom walk round this. The
+services of a Brahman are not required for such a wedding. Sometimes
+the bridegroom is simply seated in a grain basket and the bride in
+a winnowing-fan; then their hands are joined as the sun is half set,
+and the marriage is completed. The bridegroom takes the basket and fan
+home with him. On the return of the wedding couple, their _kankans_
+or wristbands are taken off at Hanuman's temple. The Muhammadan Bhils
+perform the same ceremonies as the Hindus, but at the end they call in
+the Kazi or registrar, who repeats the Muhammadan prayers and records
+the dowry agreed upon. The practice of the bridegroom serving for
+his wife is in force among both classes of Bhils.
+
+
+
+7. Widow--marriage, divorce and polygamy.
+
+
+The remarriage of widows is permitted, but the widow may not marry
+any relative of her first husband. She returns to her father's house,
+and on her remarriage they obtain a bride-price of Rs. 40 or 50, a
+quarter of which goes in a feast to the tribesmen. The wedding of a
+widow is held on the Amawas or last day of the dark fortnight of the
+month, or on a Sunday. A wife may be divorced for adultery without
+consulting the _panchayat_. It is said that a wife cannot otherwise
+be divorced on any account, nor can a woman divorce her husband, but
+she may desert him and go and live with a man. In this case all that
+is necessary is that the second husband should repay to the first
+as compensation the amount expended by the latter on his marriage
+with the woman. Polygamy is permitted, and a second wife is sometimes
+taken in order to obtain children, but this number is seldom if ever
+exceeded. It is stated that the Bhil married women are generally chaste
+and faithful to their husbands, and any attempt to tamper with their
+virtue on the part of an outsider is strongly resented by the man.
+
+
+
+8. Religion.
+
+
+The Bhils worship the ordinary Hindu deities and the village godlings
+of the locality. The favourite both with Hindu and Muhammadan Bhils
+is Khande Rao or Khandoba, the war-god of the Marathas, who is often
+represented by a sword. The Muhammadans and the Hindu Bhils also
+to a less extent worship the Pirs or spirits of Muhammadan saints
+at their tombs, of which there are a number in Nimar. Major Hendley
+states that in Mewar the seats or _sthans_ of the Bhil gods are on the
+summits of high hills, and are represented by heaps of stones, solid
+or hollowed out in the centre, or mere platforms, in or near which are
+found numbers of clay or mud images of horses. [337] In some places
+clay lamps are burnt in front of the images of horses, from which
+it may be concluded that the horse itself is or was worshipped as a
+god. Colonel Tod states that the Bhils will eat of nothing white in
+colour, as a white sheep or goat; and their grand adjuration is 'By
+the white ram.' [338] Sir A. Lyall [339] says that their principal
+oath is by the dog. The Bhil sepoys told Major Hendley that they
+considered it of little use to go on worshipping their own gods, as
+the power of these had declined since the English became supreme. They
+thought the strong English gods were too much for the weak deities
+of their country, hence they were desirous of embracing Brahmanism,
+which would also raise them in the social scale and give them a better
+chance of promotion in regiments where there were Brahman officers.
+
+
+
+9. Witchcraft and amulets.
+
+
+They wear charms and amulets to keep off evil spirits; the charms
+are generally pieces of blue string with seven knots in them, which
+their witch-finder or Badwa ties, reciting an incantation on each; the
+knots were sometimes covered with metal to keep them undefiled and the
+charms were tied on at the Holi, Dasahra or some other festival. [340]
+In Bombay the Bhils still believe in witches as the agents of any
+misfortunes that may befall them. If a man was sick and thought some
+woman had bewitched him, the suspected woman was thrown into a stream
+or swung from a tree. If the branch broke and the woman fell and
+suffered serious injury, or if she could not swim across the stream
+and sank, she was considered to be innocent and efforts were made
+to save her. But if she escaped without injury she was held to be a
+witch, and it frequently happened that the woman would admit herself
+to be one either from fear of the infliction of a harder ordeal, or
+to keep up the belief in her powers as a witch, which often secured
+her a free supper of milk and chickens. She would then admit that
+she had really bewitched the sick man and undertake to cure him on
+some sacrifice being made. If he recovered, the animal named by the
+witch was sacrificed and its blood given her to drink while still
+warm; either from fear or in order to keep up the character she would
+drink it, and would be permitted to stay on in the village. If, on the
+other hand, the sick person died, the witch would often be driven into
+the forest to die of hunger or to be devoured by wild animals. [341]
+These practices have now disappeared in the Central Provinces, though
+occasionally murders of suspected witches may still occur. The Bhils
+are firm believers in omens, the nature of which is much the same as
+among the Hindus. When a Bhil is persistently unlucky in hunting,
+he sometimes says '_Nat laga_,' meaning that some bad spirit is
+causing his ill-success. Then he will make an image of a man in
+the sand or dust of the road, or sometimes two images of a man and
+woman, and throwing straw or grass over the images set it alight, and
+pound it down on them with a stick with abusive yells. This he calls
+killing his bad luck. [342] Major Hendley notes that the men danced
+before the different festivals and before battles. The men danced
+in a ring holding sticks and striking them against each other, much
+like the Baiga dance. Before battle they had a war-dance in which
+the performers were armed and imitated a combat. To be carried on
+the shoulders of one of the combatants was a great honour, perhaps
+because it symbolised being on horseback. The dance was probably in
+the nature of a magical rite, designed to obtain success in battle
+by going through an imitation of it beforehand. The priests are the
+chief physicians among the Bhils, though most old men were supposed
+to know something about medicine. [343]
+
+
+
+10. Funeral rites.
+
+
+The dead are usually buried lying on the back, with the head pointing
+to the south. Cooked food is placed on the bier and deposited on
+the ground half-way to the cemetery. On return each family of the
+sept brings a wheaten cake to the mourners and these are eaten. On
+the third day they place on the grave a thick cake of wheaten flour,
+water in an earthen pot and tobacco or any other stimulant which the
+deceased was in the habit of using in his life.
+
+
+
+11. Social customs.
+
+
+The Hindu Bhils say that they do not admit outsiders into the caste,
+but the Muhammadans will admit a man of any but the impure castes. The
+neophyte must be shaved and circumcised, and the Kazi gives him
+some holy water to drink and teaches him the profession of belief
+in Islam. If a man is not circumcised, the Tadvi or Muhammadan Bhils
+will not bury his body. Both classes of Bhils employ Brahmans at their
+ceremonies. The tribe eat almost all kinds of flesh and drink liquor,
+but the Hindus now abjure beef and the Muhammadans pork. Some Bhils
+now refuse to take the skins off dead cattle, but others will do
+so. The Bhils will take food from any caste except the impure ones,
+and none except these castes will now take food from them. Temporary
+or permanent exclusion from caste is imposed for the same offences
+as among the Hindus.
+
+
+
+12. Appearance and characteristics.
+
+
+The typical Bhil is small, dark, broad-nosed and ugly, but well built
+and active. The average height of 128 men measured by Major Hendley
+was 5 feet 6.4 inches. The hands are somewhat small and the legs
+fairly developed, those of the women being the best. "The Bhil is an
+excellent woodsman, knows the shortest cuts over the hills, can walk
+the roughest paths and climb the steepest crags without slipping or
+feeling distressed. He is often called in old Sanskrit works Venaputra,
+'child of the forest,' or Pal Indra, 'lord of the pass.' These
+names well describe his character. His country is approached through
+narrow defiles (_pal_), and through these none could pass without his
+permission. In former days he always levied _rakhwali_ or blackmail,
+and even now native travellers find him quite ready to assert what he
+deems his just rights. The Bhil is a capital huntsman, tracking and
+marking down tigers, panthers and bears, knowing all their haunts, the
+best places to shoot them, the paths they take and all those points so
+essential to success in big-game shooting; they will remember for years
+the spots where tigers have been disposed of, and all the circumstances
+connected with their deaths. The Bhil will himself attack a leopard,
+and with his sword, aided by his friends, cut him to pieces." [344]
+Their agility impressed the Hindus, and an old writer says: "Some
+Bhil chieftains who attended the camp of Sidhraj, king of Gujarat,
+astonished him with their feats of activity; in his army they seemed
+as the followers of Hanuman in attendance upon Ram." [345]
+
+
+
+13. Occupation.
+
+
+The Bhils have now had to abandon their free use of the forests,
+which was highly destructive in its effects, and their indiscriminate
+slaughter of game. Many of them live in the open country and have
+become farmservants and field-labourers. A certain proportion are
+tenants, but very few own villages. Some of the Tadvi Bhils, however,
+still retain villages which were originally granted free of revenue
+on condition of their keeping the hill-passes of the Satpuras open
+and safe for travellers. These are known as Hattiwala. Bhils also
+serve as village watchmen in Nimar and the adjoining tracts of the
+Berar Districts. Captain Forsyth, writing in 1868, described the
+Bhils as follows: "The Muhammadan Bhils are with few exceptions a
+miserable lot, idle and thriftless, and steeped in the deadly vice
+of opium-eating. The unconverted Bhils are held to be tolerably
+reliable. When they borrow money or stock for cultivation they seldom
+abscond fraudulently from their creditors, and this simple honesty
+of theirs tends, I fear, to keep numbers of them still in a state
+little above serfdom." [346]
+
+
+
+14. Language.
+
+
+The Bhils have now entirely abandoned their own language and speak a
+corrupt dialect based on the Aryan vernaculars current around them. The
+Bhil dialect is mainly derived from Gujarati, but it is influenced
+by Marwari and Marathi; in Nimar especially it becomes a corrupt
+form of Marathi. Bhili, as this dialect is called, contains a number
+of non-Aryan words, some of which appear to come from the Mundari,
+and others from the Dravidian languages; but these are insufficient
+to form any basis for a deduction as to whether the Bhils belonged
+to the Kolarian or Dravidian race. [347]
+
+
+
+Bhilala
+
+
+
+1. General notice.
+
+
+_Bhilala_, [348]--A small caste found in the Nimar and Hoshangabad
+Districts of the Central Provinces and in Central India. The total
+strength of the Bhilalas is about 150,000 persons, most of whom reside
+in the Bhopawar Agency, adjoining Nimar. Only 15,000 were returned from
+the Central Provinces in 1911. The Bhilalas are commonly considered,
+and the general belief may in their case be accepted as correct, to be
+a mixed caste sprung from the alliances of immigrant Rajputs with the
+Bhils of the Central India hills. The original term was not improbably
+Bhilwala, and may have been applied to those Rajput chiefs, a numerous
+body, who acquired small estates in the Bhil country, or to those who
+took the daughters of Bhil chieftains to wife, the second course being
+often no doubt a necessary preliminary to the first. Several Bhilala
+families hold estates in Nimar and Indore, and their chiefs now claim
+to be pure Rajputs. The principal Bhilala houses, as those of Bhamgarh,
+Selani and Mandhata, do not intermarry with the rest of the caste, but
+only among themselves and with other families of the same standing in
+Malwa and Holkar's Nimar. On succession to the _Gaddi_ or headship of
+the house, representatives of these families are marked with a _tika_
+or badge on the forehead and sometimes presented with a sword, and
+the investiture may be carried out by custom by the head of another
+house. Bhilala landholders usually have the title of Rao or Rawat. They
+do not admit that a Bhilala can now spring from intermarriage between
+a Rajput and a Bhil. The local Brahmans will take water from them and
+they are occasionally invested with the sacred thread at the time
+of marriage. The Bhilala Rao of Mandhata is hereditary custodian
+of the great shrine of Siva at Onkar Mandhata on an island in the
+Nerbudda. According to the traditions of the family, their ancestor,
+Bharat Singh, was a Chauhan Rajput, who took Mandhata from Nathu
+Bhil in A.D. 1165, and restored the worship of Siva to the island,
+which had been made inaccessible to pilgrims by the terrible deities,
+Kali and Bhairava, devourers of human flesh. In such legends may be
+recognised the propagation of Hinduism by the Rajput adventurers and
+the reconsecration of the aboriginal shrines to its deities. Bharat
+Singh is said to have killed Nathu Bhil, but it is more probable that
+he only married his daughter and founded a Bhilala family. Similar
+alliances have taken place among other tribes, as the Korku chiefs
+of the Gawilgarh and Mahadeo hills, and the Gond princes of Garha
+Mandla. The Bhilalas generally resemble other Hindus in appearance,
+showing no marked signs of aboriginal descent. Very probably they have
+all an infusion of Rajput blood, as the Rajputs settled in the Bhil
+country in some strength at an early period of history. The caste have,
+however, totemistic group names; they will eat fowls and drink liquor;
+and they bury their dead with the feet to the north, all these customs
+indicating a Dravidian origin. Their subordinate position in past times
+is shown by the fact that they will accept cooked food from a Kunbi
+or a Gujar; and indeed the status of all except the chief's families
+would naturally have been a low one, as they were practically the
+offspring of kept women. As already stated, the landowning families
+usually arrange alliances among themselves. Below these comes the
+body of the caste and below them is a group known as the Chhoti Tad
+or bastard Bhilalas, to which are relegated the progeny of irregular
+unions and persons expelled from the caste for social offences.
+
+
+
+2. Marriage.
+
+
+The caste, for the purpose of avoiding marriages between relations,
+are also divided into exogamous groups called _kul_ or _kuri_,
+several of the names of which are of totemistic origin or derived
+from those of animals and plants. Members of the Jamra _kuri_ will
+not cut or burn the _jamun_ [349] tree; those of the Saniyar _kuri_
+will not grow _san_-hemp, while the Astaryas revere the _sona_ [350]
+tree and the Pipaladya, the _pipal_ tree. Some of the _kuris_ have
+Rajput sept names, as Mori, Baghel and Solanki. A man is forbidden to
+take a wife from within his own sept or that of his mother, and the
+union of first cousins is also prohibited. The customs of the Bhilalas
+resemble those of the Kunbis and other cultivating castes. At their
+weddings four cart-yokes are arranged in a square, and inside this
+are placed two copper vessels filled with water and considered to
+represent the Ganges and Jumna. When the sun is half set, the bride
+and the bridegroom clasp hands and then walk seven times round the
+square of cart-yokes. The water of the pots is mixed and this is
+considered to represent the mingling of the bride's and bridegroom's
+personalities as the Ganges and Jumna meet at Allahabad. A sum of about
+Rs. 60 is usually paid by the parents of the bridegroom to those of
+the bride and is expended on the ceremony. The ordinary Bhilalas have,
+Mr. Korke states, a simple form of wedding which may be gone through
+without consulting a Brahman on the Ekadashi or eleventh of Kartik
+(October); this is the day on which the gods awake from sleep and
+marks the commencement of the marriage season. A cone is erected of
+eleven plants of juari, roots and all, and the couple simply walk
+round this seven times at night, when the marriage is complete. The
+remarriage of widows is permitted. The woman's forehead is marked
+with cowdung by another widow, probably as a rite of purification,
+and the cloths of the couple are tied together.
+
+
+
+3. Social customs.
+
+
+The caste commonly bury the dead and erect memorial stones at the
+heads of graves which they worship in the month of Chait (April),
+smearing them with vermilion and making an offering of flowers. This
+may either be a Dravidian usage or have been adopted by imitation
+from the Muhammadans. The caste worship the ordinary Hindu deities,
+but each family has a _Kul-devi_ or household god, Mr. Korke remarks,
+to which they pay special reverence. The offerings made to the Kul-devi
+must be consumed by the family alone, but married daughters are allowed
+to participate. They employ Nimari Brahmans as their priests, and also
+have _gurus_ or spiritual preceptors, who are Gosains or Bairagis. They
+will take food cooked with water from Brahmans, Rajputs, Munda Gujars
+and Tirole Kunbis. The last two groups are principal agricultural
+castes of the locality and the Bhilalas are probably employed by them
+as farmservants, and hence accept cooked food from their masters in
+accordance with a common custom. The local Brahmans of the Nagar,
+Naramdeo, Baisa and other subcastes will take water from the hand of
+a Bhilala. Temporary excommunication from caste is imposed for the
+usual offences, such as going to jail, getting maggots in a wound,
+killing a cow, a dog or a squirrel, committing homicide, being beaten
+by a man of low caste, selling shoes at a profit, committing adultery,
+and allowing a cow to die with a rope round its neck; and further, for
+touching the corpses of a cow, cat or horse, or a Barhai (carpenter) or
+Chamar (tanner). They will not swear by a dog, a cat or a squirrel, and
+if either of the first two animals dies in a house, it is considered to
+be impure for a month and a quarter. The head of the caste committee
+has the designation of Mandloi, which is a territorial title borne
+by several families in Nimar. He receives a share of the fine levied
+for the _Sarni_ or purification ceremony, when a person temporarily
+expelled is readmitted into caste. Under the Mandloi is the Kotwal
+whose business is to summon the members to the caste assemblies;
+he also is paid out of the fines and his office is hereditary.
+
+
+
+4. Occupation and character.
+
+
+The caste are cultivators, farmservants and field-labourers, and a
+Bhilala also usually held the office of Mankar, a superior kind of
+Kotwar or village watchman. The Mankar did no dirty work and would not
+touch hides, but attended on any officer who came to the village and
+acted as a guide. Where there was a village _sarai_ or rest-house,
+it was in charge of the Mankar, who was frequently also known as
+zamindar. This may have been a recognition of the ancient rights of
+the Bhilalas and Bhils to the country.
+
+
+
+5. Character.
+
+
+Captain Forsyth, Settlement Officer of Nimar, had a very unfavourable
+opinion of the Bhilalas, whom he described as proverbial for
+dishonesty in agricultural engagements and worse drunkards than any
+of the indigenous tribes. [351] This judgment was probably somewhat
+too severe, but they are poor cultivators, and a Bhilala's field may
+often be recognised by its slovenly appearance. [352]
+
+A century ago Sir J. Malcolm also wrote very severely of the Bhilalas:
+"The Bhilala and Lundi chiefs were the only robbers in Malwa whom under
+no circumstances travellers could trust. There are oaths of a sacred
+but obscure kind among those that are Rajputs or who boast their blood,
+which are almost a disgrace to take, but which, they assert, the basest
+was never known to break before Mandrup Singh, a Bhilala, and some of
+his associates, plunderers on the Nerbudda, showed the example. The
+vanity of this race has lately been flattered by their having risen
+into such power and consideration that neighbouring Rajput chiefs found
+it their interest to forget their prejudices and to condescend so far
+as to eat and drink with them. Hatti Singh, Grassia chief of Nowlana,
+a Khichi Rajput, and several others in the vicinity cultivated the
+friendship of Nadir, the late formidable Bhilala robber-chief of
+the Vindhya range; and among other sacrifices made by the Rajputs,
+was eating and drinking with him. On seeing this take place in my
+camp, I asked Hatti Singh whether he was not degraded by doing so;
+he said no, but that Nadir was elevated." [353]
+
+
+
+
+
+
+Bhishti
+
+
+_Bhishti._--A small Muhammadan caste of water-bearers. Only 26
+Bhishtis were shown in the Central Provinces in 1901 and 278 in
+1891. The tendency of the lower Muhammadan castes, as they obtain
+some education, is to return themselves simply as Muhammadans, the
+caste name being considered derogatory. The Bhishtis are, however,
+a regular caste numbering over a lakh of persons in India, the bulk
+of whom belong to the United Provinces. Many of them are converts
+from Hinduism, and they combine Hindu and Muhammadan practices. They
+have _gotras_ or exogamous sections, the names of which indicate
+the Hindu origin of their members, as Huseni Brahman, Samri Chauhan,
+Bahmangour and others. They prohibit marriage within the section and
+within two degrees of relationship on the mother's side. Marriages are
+performed by the Muhammadan ritual or Nikah, but a Brahman is sometimes
+asked to fix the auspicious day, and they erect a marriage-shed. The
+bridegroom goes to the bride's house riding on a horse, and when he
+arrives drops Rs. 1-4 into a pot of water held by a woman. The bride
+whips the bridegroom's horse with a switch made of flowers. During
+the marriage the bride sits inside the house and the bridegroom in
+the shed outside. An agent or Vakil with two witnesses goes to the
+bride and asks her whether she consents to marry the bridegroom,
+and when she gives her consent, as she always does, they go out and
+formally communicate it to the Kazi. The dowry is then settled, and
+the bond of marriage is sealed. But when the parents of the bride are
+poor they receive a bride-price of Rs. 30, from which they pay the
+dowry. The Bhishtis worship their leather bag (_mashk_) as a sort of
+fetish, and burn incense before it on Fridays. [354] The traditional
+occupation of the Bhishti is to supply water, and he is still engaged
+in this and other kinds of domestic service. The name is said to be
+derived from the Persian _bihisht_, 'paradise,' and to have been given
+to them on account of the relief which their ministrations afforded
+to the thirsty soldiery. [355] Perhaps, too, the grandiloquent name
+was applied partly in derision, like similar titles given to other
+menial servants. They are also known as Mashki or Pakhali, after
+their leathern water-bag. The leather bag is a distinctive sign of
+the Bhishti, but when he puts it away he may be recognised from the
+piece of red cloth which he usually wears round his waist. There is
+an interesting legend to the effect that the Bhishti who saved the
+Emperor Humayun's life at Chausa, and was rewarded by the tenure
+of the Imperial throne for half a day, employed his short lease of
+power by providing for his family and friends, and caused his leather
+bag to be cut up into rupees, which were gilded and stamped with the
+record of his date and reign in order to perpetuate its memory. [356]
+The story of the Bhishti obtaining his name on account of the solace
+which he afforded to the Muhammadan soldiery finds a parallel in the
+case of the English army:
+
+
+            The uniform 'e wore
+            Was nothin' much before,
+            An' rather less than 'arf o' that be'ind,
+            For a piece o' twisty rag
+            An' a goatskin water-bag
+            Was all the field-equipment 'e could find.
+
+            With 'is mussick on 'is back,
+            'E would skip with our attack,
+            An' watch us till the bugles made 'Retire,'
+            An' for all 'is dirty 'ide
+            'E was white, clear white, inside
+            When 'e went to tend the wounded under fire. [357]
+
+
+An excellent description of the Bhishti as a household servant is
+contained in Eha's _Behind the Bungalow_, [358] from which the
+following extract is taken: "If you ask: Who is the Bhishti? I
+will tell you. Bihisht in the Persian tongue means Paradise, and a
+Bihishtee is therefore an inhabitant of Paradise, a cherub, a seraph,
+an angel of mercy. He has no wings; the painters have misconceived
+him; but his back is bowed down with the burden of a great goat-skin
+swollen to bursting with the elixir of life. He walks the land when
+the heaven above him is brass and the earth iron, when the trees and
+shrubs are languishing and the last blade of grass has given up the
+struggle for life, when the very roses smell only of dust, and all
+day long the roaming dust-devils waltz about the fields, whirling
+leaf and grass and cornstalk round and round and up and away into
+the regions of the sky; and he unties a leather thong which chokes
+the throat of his goat-skin just where the head of the poor old goat
+was cut off, and straightway, with a life-reviving gurgle, the stream
+called _thandha pani_ gushes forth, and plant and shrub lift up their
+heads and the garden smiles again. The dust also on the roads is laid,
+and a grateful incense rises from the ground, the sides of the water
+_chatti_ grow dark and moist and cool themselves in the hot air,
+and through the dripping interstices of the _khaskhas_ tattie a
+chilly fragrance creeps into the room, causing the mercury in the
+thermometer to retreat from its proud place. I like the Bhishti and
+respect him. As a man he is temperate and contented, eating _bajri_
+bread and slaking his thirst with his own element. And as a servant
+he is laborious and faithful, rarely shirking his work, seeking it out
+rather. For example, we had a bottle-shaped filter of porous stoneware,
+standing in a bucket of water which it was his duty to fill daily;
+but the good man, not content with doing his bare duty, took the
+plug out of the filter and filled it too. And all the station knows
+how assiduously he fills the rain-gauge." With the construction of
+water-works in large stations the Bhishti is losing his occupation,
+and he is a far less familiar figure to the present generation of
+Anglo-Indians than to their predecessors.
+
+
+
+Bhoyar
+
+
+
+1. Origin and traditions.
+
+
+_Bhoyar, [359] Bhoir_ (Honorific titles, Mahajan and Patel).--A
+cultivating caste numbering nearly 60,000 persons in 1911, and residing
+principally in the Betul and Chhindwara Districts. The Bhoyars are not
+found outside the Central Provinces. They claim to be the descendants
+of a band of Panwar Rajputs, who were defending the town of Dharanagri
+or Dhar in Central India when it was besieged by Aurangzeb. Their post
+was on the western part of the wall, but they gave way and fled into
+the town as the sun was rising, and it shone on their faces. Hence
+they were called Bhoyar from a word _bhor_ meaning morning, because
+they were seen running away in the morning. They were put out of
+caste by the other Rajputs, and fled to the Central Provinces. The
+name may also be a variant of that of the Bhagore Rajputs. And another
+derivation is from _bhora_, a simpleton or timid person. Their claim
+to be immigrants from Central India is borne out by the fact that they
+still speak a corrupt form of the Malwi dialect of Rajputana, which
+is called after them Bhoyari, and their Bhats or genealogists come
+from Malwa. But they have now entirely lost their position as Rajputs.
+
+
+
+2. Subcastes and sections.
+
+
+The Bhoyars are divided into the Panwari, Dholewar, Chaurasia and
+Daharia subcastes. The Panwars are the most numerous and the highest,
+as claiming to be directly descended from Panwar Rajputs. They
+sometimes called themselves Jagdeo Panwars, Jagdeo being the name
+of the king under whom they served in Dharanagri. The Dholewars
+take their name from Dhola, a place in Malwa, or from _dhol_, a
+drum. They are the lowest subcaste, and some of them keep pigs. It
+is probable that these subcastes immigrated with the Malwa Rajas in
+the fifteenth century, the Dholewars being the earlier arrivals,
+and having from the first intermarried with the local Dravidian
+tribes. The Daharias take their name from Dahar, the old name of
+the Jubbulpore country, and may be a relic of the domination of
+the Chedi kings of Tewar. The name of the Chaurasias is probably
+derived from the Chaurasi or tract of eighty-four villages formerly
+held by the Betul Korku family of Chandu. The last two subdivisions
+are numerically unimportant. The Bhoyars have over a hundred _kuls_
+or exogamous sections. The names of most of these are titular, but
+some are territorial and a few totemistic. Instances of such names
+are Onkar (the god Siva), Deshmukh and Chaudhari, headman, Hazari (a
+leader of 1000 horse), Gore (fair-coloured), Dongardiya (a lamp on a
+hill), Pinjara (a cotton-cleaner), Gadria (a shepherd), Khaparia (a
+tyler), Khawasi (a barber), Chiknya (a sycophant), Kinkar (a slave),
+Dukhi (penurious), Suplya toplya (a basket and fan maker), Kasai (a
+butcher), Gohattya (a cow-killer), and Kalebhut (black devil). Among
+the territorial sections may be mentioned Sonpuria, from Sonpur,
+and Patharia, from the hill country. The name Badnagrya is also
+really territorial, being derived from the town of Badnagar, but
+the members of the section connect it with the _bad_ or banyan tree,
+the leaves of which they refrain from eating. Two other totemistic
+gotras are the Baranga and Baignya, derived from the _barang_ plant
+(_Kydia calycina_) and from the brinjal respectively. Some sections
+have the names of Rajput septs, as Chauhan, Parihar and Panwar. This
+curiously mixed list of family names appears to indicate that the
+Bhoyars originate from a small band of Rajputs who must have settled
+in the District about the fifteenth century as military colonists,
+and taken their wives from the people of the country. They may have
+subsequently been recruited by fresh bands of immigrants who have
+preserved a slightly higher status. They have abandoned their old high
+position, and now rank below the ordinary cultivating castes like
+Kunbis and Kurmis who arrived later; while the caste has probably
+in times past also been recruited to a considerable extent by the
+admission of families of outsiders.
+
+
+
+3. Marriage.
+
+
+Marriage within the _kul_ or family group is forbidden, as also the
+union of first cousins. Girls are usually married young, and sometimes
+infants of one or two months are given in wedlock, while contracts
+of betrothal are made for unborn children if they should be of the
+proper sex, the mother's womb being touched with _kunku_ or red powder
+to seal the agreement. A small _dej_ or price is usually paid for the
+bride, amounting to Rs. 5 with 240 lbs. of grain, and 8 seers of _ghi_
+and oil. At the betrothal the Joshi or astrologer is consulted to see
+whether the names of the couple make an auspicious conjunction. He asks
+for the names of the bride and bridegroom, and if these are found to be
+inimical another set of names is given, and the experiment is continued
+until a union is obtained which is astrologically auspicious. In order
+to provide for this contingency some Bhoyars give their children ten
+or twelve names at birth. If all the names fail, the Joshi invents new
+ones of his own, and in some way brings about the auspicious union
+to the satisfaction of both parties, who consider it no business
+of theirs to pry into the Joshi's calculations or to question his
+methods. After the marriage-shed is erected the family god must be
+invoked to be present at the ceremony. He is asked to come and take
+his seat in an earthen pot containing a lighted wick, the pot being
+supported on a toy chariot made of sticks. A thread is coiled round
+the neck of the jar, and the Bhoyars then place it in the middle of
+the house, confident that the god has entered it, and will ward off
+all calamities during the marriage. This is performed by the _bhanwar_
+ceremony, seven earthen pots being placed in a row, while the bride and
+bridegroom walk round in a circle holding a basket with a lighted lamp
+in it. As each circle is completed, one pot is removed. This always
+takes place at night. The Dholewars do not perform the _bhanwar_
+ceremony, and simply throw sacred rice on the couple, and this is
+also done in Wardha. Sometimes the Bhoyars dispense with the presence
+of the Brahman and merely get some rice and juari consecrated by
+him beforehand, which they throw on the heads of the couple, and
+thereupon consider the marriage complete. Weddings are generally
+held in the bright fortnight of Baisakh (April-May), and sometimes
+can be completed in a single day. Widow-marriage is allowed, but it
+is considered that the widow should marry a widower and not a bachelor.
+
+
+
+4. Occupation.
+
+
+The regular occupation of the Bhoyars is agriculture, and they are
+good cultivators, growing much sugar-cane with well-irrigation. They
+are industrious, and their holdings on the rocky soils of the plateau
+Districts are often cleared of stones at the cost of much labour. Their
+women work in the fields. In Betul they have the reputation of being
+much addicted to drink.
+
+
+
+5. Social status.
+
+
+They do not now admit outsiders, but their family names show that at
+one time they probably did so, and this laxity of feeling survives in
+the toleration with which they readmit into caste a woman who has gone
+wrong with an outsider. They eat flesh and fowls, and the Dholewars eat
+pork, while as already stated they are fond of liquor. To have a shoe
+thrown on his house by a caste-fellow is a serious degradation for a
+Bhoyar, and he must break his earthen pots, clean his house and give
+a feast. To be beaten with a shoe by a low caste like Mahar entails
+shaving the moustaches and paying a heavy fine, which is spent on a
+feast. The Bhoyars do not take food from any caste but Brahmans, but
+no caste higher than Kunbis and Malis will take water from them. In
+social status they rank somewhat below Kunbis. In appearance they are
+well built, and often of a fair complexion. Unmarried girls generally
+wear skirts instead of _saris_ or cloths folding between the legs;
+they also must not wear toe-rings. Women of the Panwar subcaste wear
+glass bangles on the left hand, and brass ones on the right. All
+women are tattooed. They both burn and bury the dead, placing the
+corpse on the pyre with its head to the south or west, and in Wardha
+to the north. Here they have a peculiar custom as regards mourning,
+which is observed only till the next Monday or Thursday whichever
+falls first. Thus the period of mourning may extend from one to four
+days. The Bhoyars are considered in Wardha to be more than ordinarily
+timid, and also to be considerable simpletons, while they stand in much
+awe of Government officials, and consider it a great misfortune to be
+brought into a court of justice. Very few of them can read and write.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+Bhuiya
+
+
+
+List of Paragraphs
+
+
+ 1. _The tribe and its name._
+ 2. _Distribution of the tribe._
+ 3. _Example of the position of the aborigines in Hindu society._
+ 4. _The Bhuiyas a Kolarian tribe._
+ 5. _The Baigas and the Bhuiyas. Chhattisgarh the home of the Baigas._
+ 6. _The Baigas a branch of the Bhuiyas._
+ 7. _Tribal subdivisions._
+ 8. _Exogamous septs._
+ 9. _Marriage customs._
+10. _Widow-marriage and divorce._
+11. _Religion._
+12. _Religious dancing._
+13. _Funeral rites and inheritance._
+14. _Physical appearance and occupation._
+15. _Social customs._
+
+
+
+1. The tribe and its name.
+
+
+_Bhuiya, Bhuinhar, Bhumia._ [360]--The name of a very important tribe
+of Chota Nagpur, Bengal and Orissa. The Bhuiyas numbered more than
+22,000 persons in the Central Provinces in 1911, being mainly found
+in the Sarguja and Jashpur States. In Bengal and Bihar the Bhuiyas
+proper count about half a million persons, while the Musahar and
+Khandait castes, both of whom are mainly derived from the Bhuiyas,
+total together well over a million.
+
+The name Bhuiya means 'Lord of the soil,' or 'Belonging to the soil,'
+and is a Sanskrit derivative. The tribe have completely forgotten
+their original name, and adopted this designation conferred on them
+by the immigrant Aryans. The term Bhuiya, however, is also employed
+by other tribes and by some Hindus as a title for landholders, being
+practically equivalent to zamindar. And hence a certain confusion
+arises, and classes or individuals may have the name of Bhuiya without
+belonging to the tribe at all. "In most parts of Chota Nagpur,"
+Sir H. Risley says, "there is a well-known distinction between a
+Bhuiya by tribe and a Bhuiya by title. The Bhuiyas of Bonai and
+Keonjhar described by Colonel Dalton belong to the former category;
+the Bhuiya Mundas and Oraons to the latter. The distinction will be
+made somewhat clearer if it is explained that every 'tribal Bhuiya'
+will as a matter of course describe himself as Bhuiya, while a member
+of another tribe will only do so if he is speaking with reference to
+a question of land, or desires for some special reason to lay stress
+on his status as a landholder or agriculturist."
+
+We further find in Bengal and Benares a caste of landholders known as
+Bhuinhar or Babhan, who are generally considered as a somewhat mixed
+and inferior group of Brahman and Rajput origin. Both Sir H. Risley
+and Mr. Crooke adopt this view and deny any connection between the
+Bhuinhars and the Bhuiya tribes. Babhan appears to be a corrupt form
+of Brahman. Mr. Mazumdar, however, states that Bhuiya is never used in
+Bengali as an equivalent for zamindar or landholder, and he considers
+that the Bhuinhars and also the Barah Bhuiyas, a well-known group of
+twelve landholders of Eastern Bengal and Assam, belonged to the Bhuiya
+tribe. He adduces from Sir E. Gait's _History of Assam_ the fact that
+the Chutias and Bhuiyas were dominant in that country prior to its
+conquest by the Ahoms in the thirteenth century, and considers that
+these Chutias gave their name to Chutia or Chota Nagpur. I am unable
+to express any opinion on Mr. Mazumdar's argument, and it is also
+unnecessary as the question does not concern the Central Provinces.
+
+
+
+2. Distribution of the tribe.
+
+
+The principal home of the Bhuiya tribe proper is the south of the
+Chota Nagpur plateau, comprised in the Gangpur, Bonai, Keonjhar and
+Bamra States. "The chiefs of these States," Colonel Dalton says,
+"now call themselves Rajputs; if they be so, they are strangely
+isolated families of Rajputs. The country for the most part belongs
+to the Bhuiya sub-proprietors. They are a privileged class, holding as
+hereditaments the principal offices of the State, and are organised as
+a body of militia. The chiefs have no right to exercise any authority
+till they have received the _tilak_ or token of investiture from their
+powerful Bhuiya vassals. Their position altogether renders their claim
+to be considered Rajputs extremely doubtful, and the stories told to
+account for their acquisition of the dignity are palpable fables. They
+were no doubt all Bhuiyas originally; they certainly do not look like
+Rajputs." Members of the tribe are the household servants of the Bamra
+Raja's family, and it is said that the first Raja of Bamra was a child
+of the Patna house, who was stolen from his home and anointed king of
+Bamra by the Bhuiyas and Khonds. Similarly Colonel Dalton records the
+legend that the Bhuiyas twenty-seven generations ago stole a child
+of the Moharbhanj Raja's family, brought it up amongst them and made
+it their Raja. He was freely admitted to intercourse with Bhuiya
+girls, and the children of this intimacy are the progenitors of the
+Rajkuli branch of the tribe. But they are not considered first among
+Bhuiyas because they are not of pure Bhuiya descent. Again the Raja of
+Keonjhar is always installed by the Bhuiyas. These facts indicate that
+the Bhuiyas were once the rulers of Chota Nagpur and are recognised
+as the oldest inhabitants of the country. From this centre they have
+spread north through Lohardaga and Hazaribagh and into southern Bihar,
+where large numbers of Bhuiyas are encountered on whom the opprobrious
+designation of Musahar or 'rat-eater' has been conferred by their
+Hindu neighbours. Others of the tribe who travelled south from Chota
+Nagpur experienced more favourable conditions, and here the tendency
+has been for the Bhuiyas to rise rather than to decline in social
+status. "Some of their leading families," Sir H. Risley states,
+"have come to be chiefs of the petty States of Orissa, and have now
+sunk the Bhuiya in the Khandait or swordsman, a caste of admitted
+respectability in Orissa and likely in course of time to transform
+itself into some variety of Rajput."
+
+
+
+3. Example of the position of the aborigines in Hindu society.
+
+
+The varying status of the Bhuiyas in Bihar, Chota Nagpur and Orissa
+is a good instance of the different ways in which the primitive
+tribes have fared in contact with the immigrant Aryans. Where the
+country has been completely colonised and populated by Hindus, as
+in Bihar, the aboriginal residents have commonly become transformed
+into village drudges, relegated to the meanest occupations, and
+despised as impure by the Hindu cultivators, like the Chamars of
+northern India and the Mahars of the Maratha Districts. Where the
+Hindu immigration has only been partial and the forests have not
+been cleared, as in Chota Nagpur and the Central Provinces, they may
+keep their old villages and tribal organisation and be admitted as
+a body into the hierarchy of caste, ranking above the impure castes
+but below the Hindu cultivators. This is the position of the Gonds,
+Baigas and other tribes in these tracts. While, if the Hindus come
+only as colonists and not as rulers, the indigenous residents may
+retain the overlordship of the soil and the landed proprietors among
+them may be formed into a caste ranking with the good cultivating
+castes of the Aryans. Instances of such are the Khandaits of Orissa,
+the Binjhwars of Chhattisgarh and the Bhilalas of Nimar and Indore.
+
+
+
+4. The Bhuiyas a Kolarian tribe.
+
+
+The Bhuiyas have now entirely forgotten their own language and speak
+Hindi, Uriya and Bengali, according as each is the dominant vernacular
+of their Hindu neighbours. They cannot therefore on the evidence
+of language be classified as a Munda or Kolarian or as a Dravidian
+tribe. Colonel Dalton was inclined to consider them as Dravidian: [361]
+"Mr. Stirling in his account of Orissa classes them among the Kols;
+but there are no grounds that I know of for so connecting them. As I
+have said above, they appear to me to be linked with the Dravidian
+rather than with the Kolarian tribes." His account, however, does
+not appear to contain any further evidence in support of this view;
+and, on the other hand, he identifies the Bhuiyas with the Savars
+or Saonrs. Speaking of the Bendkars or Savars of Keonjhar, he says:
+"It is difficult to regard them otherwise than as members of the great
+Bhuiya family, and thus connecting them we link the Bhuiyas and Savaras
+and give support to the conjecture that the former are Dravidian." But
+it is now shown in the _Linguistic Survey_ that the Savars have a Munda
+dialect. In Chota Nagpur this has been forgotten, and the tribe speak
+Hindi or Uriya like the Bhuiyas, but it remains in the hilly tracts of
+Ganjam and Vizagapatam. [362] Savara is closely related to Kharia and
+Juang, the dialects of two of the most primitive Munda tribes. The
+Savars must therefore be classed as a Munda or Kolarian tribe, and
+since Colonel Dalton identified the Bhuiyas with the Savars of Chota
+Nagpur, his evidence appears really to be in favour of the Kolarian
+origin of the Bhuiyas. He notes further that the ceremony of naming
+children among the Bhuiyas is identical with that of the Mundas and
+Hos. [363] Mr. Mazumdar writes: "Judging from the external appearance
+and general physical type one would be sure to mistake a Bhuiya for a
+Munda. Their habits and customs are essentially Mundari. The Bhuiyas
+who live in and around the District of Manbhum are not much ashamed
+to admit that they are Kol people; and Bhumia Kol is the name that
+has been given them there by the Hindus. The Mundas and Larka-Kols of
+Chota Nagpur tell us that they first established themselves there by
+driving out the Bhuiyas; and it seems likely that the Bhuiyas formed
+the first batch of the Munda immigrants in Chota Nagpur and became
+greatly Hinduised there, and on that account were not recognised by
+the Mundas as people of their kin." If the tradition of the Mundas and
+Kols that they came to Chota Nagpur after the Bhuiyas be accepted, and
+tradition on the point of priority of immigration is often trustworthy,
+then it follows that the Bhuiyas must be a Munda tribe. For the main
+distinction other than that of language between the Munda and Dravidian
+tribes is that the former were the earlier and the latter subsequent
+immigrants. The claim of the Bhuiyas to be the earliest residents of
+Chota Nagpur is supported by the fact that they officiate as priests
+in certain temples. Because in primitive religion the jurisdiction of
+the gods is entirely local, and foreigners bringing their own gods
+with them are ignorant of the character and qualities of the local
+deities, with which the indigenous residents are, on the other hand,
+well acquainted. Hence the tendency of later comers to employ these
+latter in the capacity of priests of the godlings of the earth, corn,
+forests and hills. Colonel Dalton writes: [364] "It is strange that
+these Hinduised Bhuiyas retain in their own hands the priestly duties
+of certain old shrines to the exclusion of Brahmans. This custom has
+no doubt descended in Bhuiya families from the time when Brahmans were
+not, or had obtained no footing amongst them, and when the religion of
+the land and the temples were not Hindu; they are now indeed dedicated
+to Hindu deities, but there are evidences of the temples having been
+originally occupied by other images. At some of these shrines human
+sacrifices were offered every third year and this continued till the
+country came under British rule." And again of the Pauri Bhuiyas of
+Keonjhar: "The Pauris dispute with the Juangs the claim to be the
+first settlers in Keonjhar, and boldly aver that the country belongs
+to them. They assert that the Raja is of their creation and that the
+prerogative of installing every new Raja on his accession is theirs,
+and theirs alone. The Hindu population of Keonjhar is in excess of the
+Bhuiya and it comprises Gonds and Kols, but the claim of the Pauris
+to the dominion they arrogate is admitted by all; even Brahmans and
+Rajputs respectfully acknowledge it, and the former by the addition
+of Brahmanical rites to the wild ceremonies of the Bhuiyas affirm
+and sanctify their installation." In view of this evidence it seems
+a probable hypothesis that the Bhuiyas are the earliest residents of
+these parts of Chota Nagpur and that they are a Kolarian tribe.
+
+
+
+5. The Baigas and the Bhuiyas. Chhattisgarh the home of the Baigas.
+
+
+There appears to be considerable reason for supposing that the
+Baiga tribe of the Central Provinces are really a branch of the
+Bhuiyas. Though the Baigas are now mainly returned from Mandla and
+Balaghat, it seems likely that these Districts were not their original
+home, and that they emigrated from Chhattisgarh into the Satpura hills
+on the western borders of the plain. The hill country of Mandla and the
+Maikal range of Balaghat form one of the wildest and most inhospitable
+tracts in the Province, and it is unlikely that the Baigas would have
+made their first settlements here and spread thence into the fertile
+plain of Chhattisgarh. Migration in the opposite direction would be
+more natural and probable. But it is fairly certain that the Baiga
+tribe were among the earliest if not the earliest residents of the
+Chhattisgarh plain and the hills north and east of it. The Bhaina,
+Bhunjia and Binjhwar tribes who still reside in this country can
+all be recognised as offshoots of the Baigas. In the article on
+Bhaina it is shown that some of the oldest forts in Bilaspur are
+attributed to the Bhainas and a chief of this tribe is remembered
+as having ruled in Bilaigarh south of the Mahanadi. They are said
+to have been dominant in Pendra where they are still most numerous,
+and to have been expelled from Phuljhar in Raipur by the Gonds. The
+Binjhwars or Binjhals again are an aristocratic subdivision of the
+Baigas, belonging to the hills east of Chhattisgarh and the Uriya plain
+country of Sambalpur beyond them. The zamindars of Bodasamar, Rampur,
+Bhatgaon and other estates to the south and east of the Chhattisgarh
+plain are members of this tribe. Both the Bhainas and Binjhwars are
+frequently employed as priests of the village deities all over this
+area, and may therefore be considered as older residents than the
+Gond and Kawar tribes and the Hindus. Sir G. Grierson also states
+that the language of the Baigas of Mandla and Balaghat is a form of
+Chhattisgarhi, and this is fairly conclusive evidence of their first
+having belonged to Chhattisgarh. [365] It seems not unlikely that the
+Baigas retreated into the hills round Chhattisgarh after the Hindu
+invasion and establishment of the Haihaya Rajput dynasty of Ratanpur,
+which is now assigned to the ninth century of the Christian era; just
+as the Gonds retired from the Nerbudda valley and the Nagpur plain
+before the Hindus several centuries later. Sir H. Risley states that
+the Binjhias or Binjhwars of Chota Nagpur say that their ancestors
+came from Ratanpur twenty generations ago. [366]
+
+
+
+6. The Baigas a branch of the Bhuiyas.
+
+
+But the Chhattisgarh plain and the hills north and east of it are
+adjacent to and belong to the same tract of country as the Chota
+Nagpur States, which are the home of the Bhuiyas. Sir H. Risley
+gives Baiga as a name for a sorcerer, and as a synonym or title of
+the Khairwar tribe in Chota Nagpur, possibly having reference to the
+idea that they, being among the original inhabitants of the country,
+are best qualified to play the part of sorcerer and propitiate the
+local gods. It has been suggested in the article on Khairwar that that
+tribe are a mongrel offshoot of the Santals and Cheros, but the point
+to be noticed here is the use of the term Baiga in Chota Nagpur for a
+sorcerer; and a sorcerer may be taken as practically equivalent for a
+priest of the indigenous deities, all tribes who act in this capacity
+being considered as sorcerers by the Hindus. If the Bhuiyas of Chota
+Nagpur had the title of Baiga, it is possible that it may have been
+substituted for the proper tribal name on their migration to the
+Central Provinces. Mr. Crooke distinguishes two tribes in Mirzapur
+whom he calls the Bhuiyas and Bhuiyars. The Bhuiyas of Mirzapur seem
+to be clearly a branch of the Bhuiya tribe of Chota Nagpur, with whom
+their section-names establish their identity. [367] Mr. Crooke states
+that the Bhuiyas are distinguished with very great difficulty from the
+Bhuiyars with whom they are doubtless very closely connected. [368]
+Of the Bhuiyars [369] he writes that the tribe is also known as Baiga,
+because large numbers of the aboriginal local priests are derived
+from this caste. He also states that "Most Bhuiyars are Baigas and
+officiate in their own as well as allied tribes; in fact, as already
+stated, one general name for the tribe is Baiga." [370] It seems not
+unlikely that these Bhuiyars are the Baigas of the Central Provinces
+and that they went to Mirzapur from here with the Gonds. Their original
+name may have been preserved or revived there, while it has dropped
+out of use in this Province. The name Baiga in the Central Provinces
+is sometimes applied to members of other tribes who serve as village
+priests, and, as has already been seen, it is used in the same sense in
+Chota Nagpur. The Baigas of Mandla are also known as Bhumia, which is
+only a variant of Bhuiya, having the same meaning of lord of the soil
+or belonging to the soil. Both Bhuiya and Bhumia are in fact nearly
+equivalent to our word 'aboriginal,' and both are names given to the
+tribe by the Hindus and not originally that by which its members called
+themselves. It would be quite natural that a branch of the Bhuiyas,
+who settled in the Central Provinces and were commonly employed as
+village priests by the Hindus and Gonds should have adopted the name
+of the office, Baiga, as their tribal designation; just as the title
+of Munda or village headman has become the name of one branch of the
+Kol tribe, and Bhumij, another term equivalent to Bhuiya, of a second
+branch. Mr. A. F. Hewitt, Settlement Officer of Raipur, considered
+that the Buniyas of that District were the same tribe as the Bhuiyas
+of the Garhjat States. [371] By Buniya he must apparently have meant
+the Bhunjia tribe of Raipur, who as already stated are an offshoot
+of the Baigas. Colonel Dalton describes the dances of the Bhuiyas
+of Chota Nagpur as follows: [372] "The men have each a wide kind of
+tambourine. They march round in a circle, beating these and singing
+a very simple melody in a minor key on four notes. The women dance
+opposite to them with their heads covered and bodies much inclined,
+touching each other like soldiers in line, but not holding hands or
+wreathing arms like the Kols." This account applies very closely to
+the Sela and Rina dances of the Baigas. The Sela dance is danced
+by men only who similarly march round in a circle, though they
+do not carry tambourines in the Central Provinces. Here, however,
+they sometimes carry sticks and march round in opposite directions,
+passing in and out and hitting their sticks against each other as
+they meet, the movement being exactly like the grand chain in the
+Lancers. Similarly the Baiga women dance the Rina dance by themselves,
+standing close to each other and bending forward, but not holding each
+other by the hands and arms, just as described by Colonel Dalton. The
+Gonds now also have the Sela and Rina dances, but admit that they are
+derived from the Baigas. Another point of some importance is that the
+Bhuiyas of Chota Nagpur and the Baigas and the tribes derived from
+them in the Central Provinces have all completely abandoned their own
+language and speak a broken form of that of their Hindu neighbours. As
+has been seen, too, the Bhuiyas are commonly employed as priests in
+Chota Nagpur, and there seems therefore to be a strong case for the
+original identity of the two tribes. [373] Both the Baigas and Bhuiyas,
+however, have now become greatly mixed with the surrounding tribes,
+the Baigas of Mandla and Balaghat having a strong Gond element.
+
+
+
+7. Tribal sub-divisions.
+
+
+In Singhbhum the Bhuiyas call themselves _Pawan-bans_ or 'The Children
+of the Wind,' and in connection with Hanuman's title of _Pawan-ka-put_
+or 'The Son of the Wind,' are held to be the veritable apes of
+the Ramayana who, under the leadership of Hanuman, the monkey-god,
+assisted the Aryan hero Rama on his expedition to Ceylon. This may be
+compared with the name given to the Gonds of the Central Provinces
+of Rawanbansi, or descendants of Rawan, the idea being that their
+ancestors were the subjects of Rawan, the demon king of Ceylon, who was
+conquered by Rama. "All Bhuiyas," Sir H. Risley states, "affect great
+reverence for the memory of Rikhmun or Rikhiasan, whom they regard,
+some as a patron deity, others as a mythical ancestor, whose name
+distinguishes one of the divisions of the tribe. It seems probable that
+in the earliest stage of belief Rikhmun was the bear-totem of a sept of
+the tribe, that later on he was transformed into an ancestral hero, and
+finally promoted to the rank of a tribal god." The Rikhiasan Mahatwar
+subtribe of the Bhuiyas in the Central Provinces are named after this
+hero Rikhmun; the designation of Mahatwar signifies that they are the
+Mahtos or leaders of the Bhuiyas. The Khandaits or Paiks are another
+subcaste formed from those who became soldiers; in Orissa they are now,
+as already stated, a separate caste of fairly high rank. The Parja
+or 'subject people' are the ordinary Bhuiyas, probably those living
+in Hindu tracts. The Dhur or 'dust' Gonds, and the Parja Gonds of
+Bastar may be noted as a parallel in nomenclature. The Rautadi are a
+territorial group, taking their name from a place called Raotal. The
+Khandaits practise hypergamy with the Rautadi, taking daughters from
+them, but not giving their daughters to them. The Pabudia or Madhai
+are the hill Bhuiyas, and are the most wild and backward portion of
+the tribe. Dalton writes of them in Keonjhar: "They are not bound
+to fight for the Raja, though they occasionally take up arms against
+him. Their duty is to attend on him and carry his loads when he travels
+about, and so long as they are satisfied with his person and his rule,
+no more willing or devoted subjects could be found. They are then in
+Keonjhar, as in Bonai, a race whom you cannot help liking and taking
+an interest in from the primitive simplicity of their customs, their
+amenability and their anxiety to oblige; but unsophisticated as they
+are they wield an extraordinary power in Keonjhar, and when they take
+it into their heads to use that power, the country may be said to be
+governed by an oligarchy composed of the sixty chiefs of the Pawri
+Desh, the Bhuiya Highlands. A knotted string passed from village to
+village in the name of the sixty chiefs throws the entire country into
+commotion, and the order verbally communicated in connection with
+it is as implicitly obeyed as if it emanated from the most potent
+despot." This knotted string is known as _Ganthi_. The Pabudias say
+that their ancestors were twelve brothers belonging to Keonjhar,
+of whom eight went to an unknown country, while the remaining four
+divided among themselves all the territory of which they had knowledge,
+this being comprised in the four existing states of Keonjhar, Bamra,
+Palahara and Bonai. Any Pabudia who takes up his residence permanently
+beyond the boundaries of these four states is considered to lose his
+caste, like Hindus in former times who went to dwell in the foreign
+country beyond the Indus. [374] But if the wandering Pabudia returns
+in two years, and proves that he has not drunk water from any other
+caste, he is taken back into the fold. Other subdivisions are the Kati
+or Khatti and the Bathudia, these last being an inferior group who
+are said to be looked down on because they have taken food from other
+low castes. No doubt they are really the offspring of irregular unions.
+
+
+
+8. Exogamus septs.
+
+
+In Raigarh the Bhuiyas appear to have no exogamous divisions. When
+they wish to arrange a marriage they compare the family gods of the
+parties, and if these are not identical and there is no recollection of
+a common ancestor for three generations, the union is permitted. In
+Sambalpur, however, Mr. Mazumdar states, all Bhuiyas are divided
+into the following twelve septs: Thakur, or the clan of royal blood;
+Saont, from _samanta_, a viceroy; Padhan, a village headman; Naik,
+a military leader; Kalo, a wizard or priest; Dehri, also a priest;
+Chatria, one who carried the royal umbrella; Sahu, a moneylender;
+Majhi, a headman; Behra, manager of the household; Amata, counsellor;
+and Dandsena, a police official. The Dehrin sept still worship the
+village gods on behalf of the tribe.
+
+
+
+9. Marriage customs.
+
+
+Marriage is adult, but the more civilised Bhuiyas are gradually
+adopting Hindu usages, and parents arrange matches for their children
+while they are still young. Among the Pabudias some primitive customs
+survive. They have the same system as the Oraons, by which all
+the bachelors of the village sleep in one large dormitory; this is
+known as Dhangarbasa, _dhangar_ meaning a farmservant or young man,
+or Mandarghar, the house of the drums, because these instruments are
+kept in it. "Some villages," Colonel Dalton states, "have a Dhangaria
+basa, or house for maidens, which, strange to say, they are allowed to
+occupy without any one to look after them. They appear to have very
+great liberty, and slips of morality, so long as they are confined
+to the tribe, are not much heeded." This intimacy between boys and
+girls of the same village does not, however, commonly end in marriage,
+for which a partner should be sought from another village. For this
+purpose the girls go in a body, taking with them some ground rice
+decorated with flowers. They lay this before the elders of the village
+they have entered, saying, 'Keep this or throw it into the water,
+as you prefer.' The old men pick up the flowers, placing them behind
+their ears. In the evening all the boys of the village come and dance
+with the girls, with intervals for courtship, half the total number of
+couples dancing and sitting out alternately. This goes on all night,
+and in the morning any couples who have come to an understanding
+run away together for a day or two. The boy's father must present a
+rupee and a piece of cloth to the girl's mother, and the marriage is
+considered to be completed.
+
+Among the Pabudia or Madhai Bhuiyas the bride-price consists of two
+bullocks or cows, one of which is given to the girl's father and
+the other to her brother. The boy's father makes the proposal for
+marriage, and the consent of the girl is necessary. At the wedding
+turmeric and rice are offered to the sun; some rice is then placed
+on the girl's head and turmeric rubbed on her body, and a brass ring
+is placed on her finger. The bridegroom's father says to him, "This
+girl is ours now: if in future she becomes one-eyed, lame or deaf,
+she will still be ours." The ceremony concludes with the usual feast
+and drinking bout. If the boy's father cannot afford the bride-price
+the couple sometimes run away from home for two or three days, when
+their parents go in search of them and they are brought back and
+married in the boy's house.
+
+
+
+10. Widow-marriage and divorce.
+
+
+A widow is often taken by the younger brother of the deceased husband,
+though no compulsion is exerted over her. But the match is common
+because the Bhuiyas have the survival of fraternal polyandry, which
+consists in allowing unmarried younger brothers to have access to an
+elder brother's wife during his lifetime. [375] Divorce is allowed
+for misconduct on the part of the wife or mutual disagreement.
+
+
+
+11. Religion.
+
+
+The Bhuiyas commonly take as their principal deity the spirit of the
+nearest mountain overlooking their village, and make offerings to it
+of butter, rice and fowls. In April they present the first-fruits
+of the mango harvest. They venerate the sun as Dharam Deota, but
+no offerings are made to him. Nearly all Bhuiyas worship the cobra,
+and some of them call it their mother and think they are descended
+from it. They will not touch or kill a cobra, and do not swear by
+it. In Rairakhol they venerate a goddess, Rambha Devi, who may be a
+corn-goddess, as the practice of burning down successive patches of
+jungle and sowing seed on each for two or three years is here known
+as _rambha_. They think that the sun and moon are sentient beings,
+and that fire and lightning are the children of the sun, and the stars
+the children of the moon. One day the moon invited the sun to dinner
+and gave him very nice food, so that the sun asked what it was. The
+moon said she had cooked her own children, and on this the sun went
+home and cooked all his children and ate them, and this is the reason
+why there are no stars during the day. But his eldest son, fire,
+went and hid in a _rengal_ tree, and his daughter, the lightning,
+darted hither and thither so that the sun could not catch her. And
+when night came again, and the stars came out, the sun saw how the
+moon had deceived him and cursed her, saying that she should die for
+fifteen days in every month. And this is the reason for the waxing
+and waning of the moon. Ever since this event fire has remained hidden
+in a _rengal_ tree, and when the Bhuiyas want him they rub two pieces
+of its wood together and he comes out. This is the Bhuiya explanation
+of the production of fire from the friction of wood.
+
+
+
+12. Religious dancing.
+
+
+In the month of Kartik (October), or the next month, they bring from
+the forest a branch of the _karm_ tree and venerate it and perform
+the _karma_ dance in front of it. They think that this worship and
+dance will cause the _karma_ tree, the mango, the jack-fruit and the
+mahua to bear a full crop of fruit. Monday, Wednesday and Friday are
+considered the proper days for worshipping the deities, and children
+are often named on a Friday.
+
+
+
+13. Funeral rites and inheritance.
+
+
+The dead are either buried or burnt, the corpse being placed always
+with the feet pointing to its native village. On the tenth day the
+soul of the dead person is called back to the house. But if a man is
+killed by a tiger or by falling from a tree no mourning is observed
+for him, and his soul is not brought back. To perish from snake-bite
+is considered a natural death, and in such cases the usual obsequies
+are awarded. This is probably because they revere the cobra as their
+first mother. The Pabudia Bhuiyas throw four to eight annas' worth
+of copper on to the pyre or into the grave, and if the deceased had
+a cow some _ghi_ or melted butter. No division of property can take
+place during the lifetime of either parent, but when both have died
+the children divide the inheritance, the eldest son taking two shares
+and the others one equal share each.
+
+
+
+14. Physical appearance and occupation.
+
+
+Colonel Dalton describes the Bhuiyas as, "A dark-brown,
+well-proportioned race, with black, straight hair, plentiful on
+the head, but scant on the face, of middle height, figures well
+knit and capable of enduring great fatigue, but light-framed like
+the Hindu rather than presenting the usual muscular development of
+the hillman." Their dress is scanty, and in the Tributary States
+Dalton says that the men and women all wear dresses of brown cotton
+cloth. This may be because white is a very conspicuous colour in the
+forests. They wear ornaments and beads, and are distinctive in that
+neither men nor women practise tattooing, though in some localities
+this rule is not observed by the women. To keep themselves warm at
+night they kindle two fires and sleep between them, and this custom
+has given rise to the saying, 'Wherever you see a Bhuiya he always has
+a fire.' In Bamra the Bhuiyas still practise shifting cultivation,
+for which they burn the forest growth from the hillsides and sow
+oilseeds in the fresh soil. This method of agriculture is called
+locally Khasrathumi. They obtain their lands free from the Raja in
+return for acting as luggage porters and coolies. In Bamra they will
+not serve as farm-servants or labourers for hire, but elsewhere they
+are more docile.
+
+
+
+15. Social customs.
+
+
+A woman divorced for adultery is not again admitted to caste
+intercourse. Her parents take her to their village, where she has
+to live in a separate hut and earn her own livelihood. If any Bhuiya
+steals from a Kol, Ganda or Ghasia he is permanently put out of caste,
+while for killing a cow the period of expulsion is twelve years. The
+emblem of the Bhuiyas is a sword, in reference to their employment as
+soldiers, and this they affix to documents in place of their signature.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+Bhulia
+
+
+_Bhulia, [376] Bholia, Bhoriya, Bholwa, Mihir, Mehar._--A caste of
+weavers in the Uriya country. In 1901 the Bhulias numbered 26,000
+persons, but with the transfer of Sambalpur and the Uriya States to
+Bengal this figure has been reduced to 5000. A curious fact about the
+caste is that though solely domiciled in the Uriya territories, many
+families belonging to it talk Hindi in their own houses. According to
+one of their traditions they immigrated to this part of the country
+with the first Chauhan Raja of Patna, and it may be that they are
+members of some northern caste who have forgotten their origin and
+taken to a fresh calling in the land of their adoption. The Koshtas of
+Chhattisgarh have a subcaste called Bhoriya, and possibly the Bhulias
+have some connection with these. The caste sometimes call themselves
+Devang, and Devang or Devangan is the name of another subcaste of
+Koshtis. Various local derivations of the name are current, generally
+connecting it with _bhulna_, to forget. The Bhulias occupy a higher
+rank than the ordinary weavers, corresponding with that of the Koshtis
+elsewhere, and this is to some extent considered to be an unwarranted
+pretension. Thus one saying has it: "Formerly a son was born from a
+Chandal woman; at that time none were aware of his descent or rank,
+and so he was called Bhulia (one who is forgotten). He took the loom
+in his hands and became the brother-in-law of the Ganda." The object
+here is obviously to relegate the Bhulia to the same impure status
+as the Ganda. Again the Bhulias affect the honorific title of Meher,
+and another saying addresses them thus: "Why do you call yourself
+Meher? You make a hole in the ground and put your legs into it and
+are like a cow with foot-and-mouth disease struggling in the mud." The
+allusion here is to the habit of the weaver of hollowing out a hole for
+his feet as he sits before the loom, while cattle with foot-and-mouth
+disease are made to stand in mud to cool and cleanse the feet.
+
+The caste have no subcastes, except that in Kalahandi a degraded
+section is recognised who are called Sanpara Bhulias, and with whom
+the others refuse to intermarry. These are, there is little reason
+to doubt, the progeny of illicit unions. They say that they have two
+_gotras_, Nagas from the cobra and Kachhap from the tortoise. But these
+have only been adopted for the sake of respectability, and exercise
+no influence on marriage, which is regulated by a number of exogamous
+groups called _vansa_. The names of the _vansas_ are usually either
+derived from villages or are titles or nicknames. Two of them, Bagh
+(tiger) and Kimir (crocodile), are totemistic, while two more, Kumhar
+(potter) and Dhuba (washerman), are the names of other castes. Examples
+of titular names are Bankra (crooked), Ranjujha (warrior), Kodjit
+(one who has conquered a score of people) and others. The territorial
+names are derived from those of villages where the caste reside at
+present. Marriage within the _vansa_ is forbidden, but some of the
+_vansas_ have been divided into _bad_ and _san_, or great and small,
+and members of these may marry with each other, the subdivision having
+been adopted when the original group became so large as to include
+persons who were practically not relations. The binding portion of
+the wedding ceremony is that the bridegroom should carry the bride
+in a basket seven times round the _hom_ or sacrificial fire. If he
+cannot do this, the girl's grandfather carries them both. After the
+ceremony the pair return to the bridegroom's village, and are made to
+sleep on the same bed, some elder woman of the family lying between
+them. After a few days the girl goes back to her parents and does
+not rejoin her husband until she attains maturity. The remarriage
+of widows is permitted, and in Native States is not less costly to
+the bridegroom than the regular ceremony. In Sonpur the suitor must
+proceed to the Raja and pay him twenty rupees for his permission,
+which is given in the shape of a present of rice and nuts. Similar
+sums are paid to the caste-fellows and the parents of the girl, and
+the Raja's rice and nuts are then placed on the heads of the couple,
+who become man and wife. Divorce may be effected at the instance of the
+husband or the wife's parents on the mere ground of incompatibility of
+temper. The position of the caste corresponds to that of the Koshtas;
+that is, they rank below the good cultivating castes, but above the
+menial and servile classes. They eat fowls and the flesh of wild pig,
+and drink liquor. A _liaison_ with one of the impure castes is the
+only offence entailing permanent expulsion from social intercourse. A
+curious rule is that in the case of a woman going wrong with a man of
+the caste, the man only is temporarily outcasted and forced to pay a
+fine on readmission, while the woman escapes without penalty. They
+employ Brahmans for ceremonial purposes. They are considered
+proverbially stupid, like the Koris in the northern Districts, but
+very laborious. One saying about them is: "The Kewat catches fish
+but himself eats crabs, and the Bhulia weaves loin-cloths but himself
+wears only a rag"; and another: "A Bhulia who is idle is as useless
+as a confectioner's son who eats sweetmeats, or a moneylender's son
+with a generous disposition, or a cultivator's son who is extravagant."
+
+
+
+Bhunjia
+
+
+
+1. Origin and traditions.
+
+
+
+_Bhunjia. [377]_--A small Dravidian tribe residing in the
+Bindranawagarh and Khariar zamindaris of the Raipur District, and
+numbering about 7000 persons. The tribe was not returned outside this
+area in 1911, but Sherring mentions them in a list of the hill tribes
+of the Jaipur zamindari of Vizagapatam, which touches the extreme
+south of Bindranawagarh. The Bhunjias are divided into two branches,
+Chaukhutia and Chinda, and the former have the following legend of
+their origin. On one occasion a Bhatra Gond named Bachar cast a net
+into the Pairi river and brought out a stone. He threw the stone back
+into the river and cast his net again, but a second and yet a third
+time the stone came out. So he laid the stone on the bank of the
+river and went back to his house, and that night he dreamt that the
+stone was Bura Deo, the great God of the Gonds. So he said: 'If this
+dream be true let me draw in a deer in my net to-morrow for a sign';
+and the next day the body of a deer appeared in his net. The stone
+then called upon the Gond to worship him as Bura Deo, but the Gond
+demurred to doing so himself, and said he would provide a substitute
+as a devotee. To this Bura Deo agreed, but said that Bachar, the Gond,
+must marry his daughter to the substituted worshipper. The Gond then
+set out to search for somebody, and in the village of Lafandi he
+found a Halba of the name of Konda, who was a cripple, deaf and dumb,
+blind, and a leper. He brought Konda to the stone, and on reaching
+it he was miraculously cured of all his ailments and gladly began
+to worship Bura Deo. He afterwards married the Gond's daughter and
+they had a son called Chaukhutia Bhunjia, who was the ancestor of
+the Chaukhutia division of the tribe. Now the term Chaukhutia in
+Chhattisgarhi signifies a bastard, and the story related above is
+obviously intended to signify that the Chaukhutia Bhunjias are of
+mixed descent from the Gonds and Halbas. It is clearly with this
+end in view that the Gond is made to decline to worship the stone
+himself and promise to find a substitute, an incident which is wholly
+unnatural and is simply dragged in to meet the case. The Chaukhutia
+subtribe especially worship Bura Deo, and sing a song relating to
+the finding of the stone in their marriage ceremony as follows:
+
+
+        Johar, johar Thakur Deota, Tumko lagon,
+        Do matia ghar men dine tumhare nam.
+        Johar, johar Konda, Tumko lagon,
+        Do matia ghar men, etc.
+        Johar, johar Bachar Jhakar Tumko lagon, etc.
+        Johar, johar Budha Raja Tumko lagon, etc.
+        Johar, johar Lafandi Mati Tumko lagon, etc.
+        Johar, johar Anand Mati Tumko lagon, etc.
+
+
+which may be rendered:
+
+
+    I make obeisance to thee, O Thakur Deo, I bow down to thee!
+    In thy name have I placed two pots in my house (as a mark of
+    respect).
+    I make obeisance to thee, O Konda Pujari, I bow down to thee!
+    In thy name have I placed two pots in my house.
+    I make obeisance to thee, O Bachar Jhakar!
+    In thy name have I placed two pots in my house.
+    I make obeisance to thee, O Budha Raja!
+    In thy name have I placed two pots in my house.
+    I make obeisance to thee, O Soil of Lafandi!
+    In thy name have I placed two pots in my house.
+    I make obeisance to thee, O Happy Spot!
+    In thy name have I placed two pots in my house.
+
+
+The song refers to the incidents in the story. Thakur Deo is the
+title given to the divine stone, Konda is the Halba priest, and
+Bachar the Gond who cast the net. Budha Raja, otherwise Singh Sei,
+is the Chief who was ruling in Bindranawagarh at the time, Lafandi the
+village where Konda Halba was found, and the Anand Mati or Happy Spot
+is that where the stone was taken out of the river. The majority of
+the sept-names returned are of Gond origin, and there seems no doubt
+that the Chaukhutias are, as the story says, of mixed descent from
+the Halbas and Gonds. It is noticeable, however, that the Bhunjias,
+though surrounded by Gonds on all sides, do not speak Gondi but a
+dialect of Hindi, which Sir G. Grierson considers to resemble that of
+the Halbas, and also describes as "A form of Chhattisgarhi which is
+practically the same as Baigani. It is a jargon spoken by Binjhwars,
+Bhumias and Bhunjias of Raipur, Raigarh, Sarangarh and Patna in the
+Central Provinces." [378] The Binjhwars also belong to the country
+of the Bhunjias, and one or two estates close to Bindranawagarh are
+held by members of this tribe. The Chinda division of the Bhunjias
+have a saying about themselves: '_Chinda Raja, Bhunjia Paik'_; and
+they say that there was originally a Kamar ruler of Bindranawagarh who
+was dispossessed by Chinda. The Kamars are a small and very primitive
+tribe of the same locality. _Paik_ means a foot-soldier, and it seems
+therefore that the Bhunjias formed the levies of this Chinda, who may
+very probably have been one of themselves. The term Bhunjia may perhaps
+signify one who lives on the soil, from _bhum_, the earth, and _jia_,
+dependent on. The word _Birjia_, a synonym for Binjhwar, is similarly
+a corruption of _bewar jia_, and means one who is dependent on _dahia_
+or patch cultivation. Sir H. Risley gives Birjia, Binjhia and Binjhwar
+[379] as synonymous terms, and Bhunjia may be another corruption of
+the same sort. The Binjhwars are a Hinduised offshoot of the ancient
+Baiga tribe, who may probably have been in possession of the hills
+bordering the Chhattisgarh plain as well as of the Satpura range before
+the advent of the Gonds, as the term Baiga is employed for a village
+priest over a large part of this area. It thus seems not improbable
+that the Chinda Bhunjias may have been derived from the Binjhwars,
+and this would account for the fact that the tribe speaks a dialect
+of Hindi and not Gondi. As already seen, the Chaukhutia subcaste
+appear to be of mixed origin from the Gonds and Halbas, and as the
+Chindas are probably descended from the Baigas, the Bhunjias may be
+considered to be an offshoot from these three important tribes.
+
+
+
+2. Subdivisions.
+
+
+Of the two subtribes already mentioned the Chaukhutia are recognised
+to be of illegitimate descent. As a consequence of this they strive to
+obtain increased social estimation by a ridiculously strict observance
+of the rules of ceremonial purity. If any man not of his own caste
+touches the hut where a Chaukhutia cooks his food, it is entirely
+abandoned and a fresh one built. At the time of the census they
+threatened to kill the enumerator if he touched their huts to affix the
+census number. Pegs had therefore to be planted in the ground a little
+in front of the huts and marked with their numbers. The Chaukhutia
+will not eat food cooked by other members of his own community, and
+this is a restriction found only among those of bastard descent, where
+every man is suspicious of his neighbour's parentage. He will not take
+food from the hands of his own daughter after she is married; as soon
+as the ceremony is over her belongings are at once removed from the
+hut, and even the floor beneath the seat of the bride and bridegroom
+during the marriage ceremony is dug up and the surface earth thrown
+away to avoid any risk of defilement. Only when it is remembered that
+these rules are observed by people who do not wash themselves from one
+week's end to the other, and wear the same wisp of cloth about their
+loins until it comes to pieces, can the full absurdity of such customs
+as the above be appreciated. But the tendency appears to be of the
+same kind as the intense desire for respectability so often noticed
+among the lower classes in England. The Chindas, whose pedigree is
+more reliable, are far less particular about their social purity.
+
+
+
+3. Marriage.
+
+
+As already stated, the exogamous divisions of the Bhunjias are derived
+from those of the Gonds. Among the Chaukhutias it is considered a
+great sin if the signs of puberty appear in a girl before she is
+married, and to avoid this, if no husband has been found for her,
+they perform a 'Kand Byah' or 'Arrow Marriage': the girl walks seven
+times round an arrow fixed in the ground, and is given away without
+ceremony to the man who by previous arrangement has brought the
+arrow. If a girl of the Chinda group goes wrong with an outsider
+before marriage and becomes pregnant, the matter is hushed up, but
+if she is a Chaukhutia it is said that she is finally expelled from
+the community, the same severe course being adopted even when she is
+not pregnant if there is reason to suppose that the offence has been
+committed. A proposal for marriage among the Chaukhutias is made on
+the boy's behalf by two men who are known as Mahalia and Jangalia, and
+are supposed to represent a Nai (barber) and Dhimar (water-carrier),
+though they do not actually belong to these castes. As among the
+Gonds, the marriage takes place at the bridegroom's village, and
+the Mahalia and Jangalia act as stewards of the ceremony, and are
+entrusted with the rice, pulse, salt, oil and other provisions, the
+bridegroom's family having no function in the matter except to pay
+for them. The provisions are all stored in a separate hut, and when
+the time for the feast has come they are distributed raw to all the
+guests, each family of whom cook for themselves. The reason for this
+is, as already explained, that each one is afraid of losing status
+by eating with other members of the tribe. The marriage is solemnised
+by walking round the sacred post, and the ceremony is conducted by a
+hereditary priest known as Dinwari, a member of the tribe, whose line
+it is believed will never become extinct. Among the Chinda Bhunjias
+the bride goes away with her husband, and in a short time returns with
+him to her parents' house for a few days, to make an offering to the
+deities. But the Chaukhutias will not allow her, after she has lived
+in her father-in-law's house, to return to her home. In future if she
+goes to visit her parents she must stay outside the house and cook
+her food separately. Widow-marriage and divorce are permitted, but
+a husband will often overlook transgressions on the part of his wife
+and only put her away when her conduct has become an open scandal. In
+such a case he will either quietly leave house and wife and settle
+alone in another village, or have his wife informed by means of a
+neighbour that if she does not leave the village he will do so. It
+is not the custom to bring cases before the tribal committee or to
+claim damages. A special tie exists between a man and his sister's
+children. The marriage of a brother's son or daughter to a sister's
+daughter or son is considered the most suitable. A man will not allow
+his sister's children to eat the leavings of food on his plate, though
+his own children may do so. This is a special token of respect to his
+sister's children. He will not chastise his sister's children, even
+though they deserve it. And it is considered especially meritorious for
+a man to pay for the wedding ceremony of his sister's son or daughter.
+
+
+
+4. Religion.
+
+
+Every third year in the month of Chait (March) the tribe offer a
+goat and a cocoanut to Mata, the deity of cholera and smallpox. They
+bow daily to the sun with folded hands, and believe that he is of
+special assistance to them in the liquidation of debt, which the
+Bhunjias consider a primary obligation. When a debt has been paid
+off they offer a cocoanut to the sun as a mark of gratitude for
+his assistance. They also pay great reverence to the tortoise. They
+call the tortoise the footstool (_pidha_) of God, and have adopted
+the Hindu theory that the earth is supported by a tortoise swimming
+in the midst of the ocean. Professor Tylor explains as follows how
+this belief arose: [380] "To man in the lower levels of science the
+earth is a flat plain over which the sky is placed like a dome as the
+arched upper shell of the tortoise stands upon the flat plate below,
+and this is why the tortoise is the symbol or representative of the
+world." It is said that Bhunjia women are never allowed to sit either
+on a footstool or a bed-cot, because these are considered to be the
+seats of the deities. They consider it disrespectful to walk across
+the shadow of any elderly person, or to step over the body of any human
+being or revered object on the ground. If they do this inadvertently,
+they apologise to the person or thing. If a man falls from a tree he
+will offer a chicken to the tree-spirit.
+
+
+
+5. Social rules.
+
+
+The tribe will eat pork, but abstain from beef and the flesh of
+monkeys. Notwithstanding their strictness of social observance, they
+rank lower than the Gonds, and only the Kamars will accept food from
+their hands. A man who has got maggots in a wound is purified by
+being given to drink water, mixed with powdered turmeric, in which
+silver and copper rings have been dipped. Women are secluded during
+the menstrual period for as long as eight days, and during this time
+they may not enter the dwelling-hut nor touch any article belonging to
+it. The Bhunjias take their food on plates of leaves, and often a whole
+family will have only one brass vessel, which will be reserved for
+production on the visit of a guest. But no strangers can be admitted
+to the house, and a separate hut is kept in the village for their
+use. Here they are given uncooked grain and pulse, which they prepare
+for themselves. When the women go out to work they do not leave their
+babies in the house, but carry them tied up in a small rag under the
+arm. They have no knowledge of medicine and are too timid to enter a
+Government dispensary. Their panacea for most diseases is branding the
+skin with a hot iron, which is employed indifferently for headache,
+pains in the stomach and rheumatism. Mr. Pyare Lal notes that one
+of his informants had recently been branded for rheumatism on both
+knees and said that he felt much relief.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+Binjhwar
+
+
+
+List of Paragraphs
+
+
+    1. _Origin and tradition._
+    2. _Tribal subdivisions._
+    3. _Marriage._
+    4. _The marriage ceremony._
+    5. _Sexual morality._
+    6. _Disposal of the dead._
+    7. _Religion._
+    8. _Festivals._
+    9. _Social customs._
+
+
+
+1. Origin and tradition.
+
+
+_Binjhwar, Binjhal._ [381]--A comparatively civilised Dravidian
+tribe, or caste formed from a tribe, found in the Raipur and Bilaspur
+Districts and the adjoining Uriya country. In 1911 the Binjhwars
+numbered 60,000 persons in the Central Provinces. There is little
+or no doubt that the Binjhwars are an offshoot of the primitive
+Baiga tribe of Mandla and Balaghat, who occupy the Satpura or Maikal
+hills to the north of the Chhattisgarh plain. In these Districts a
+Binjhwar subdivision of the Baigas exists; it is the most civilised
+and occupies the highest rank in the tribe. In Bhandara is found the
+Injhwar caste who are boatmen and cultivators. This caste is derived
+from the Binjhwar subdivision of the Baigas, and the name Injhwar
+is simply a corruption of Binjhwar. Neither the Binjhwars nor the
+Baigas are found except in the territories above mentioned, and it
+seems clear that the Binjhwars are a comparatively civilised section
+of the Baigas, who have become a distinct caste. They are in fact the
+landholding section of the Baigas, like the Raj-Gonds among the Gonds
+and the Bhilalas among Bhils. The zamindars of Bodasamar, Rampur,
+Bhatgaon and other estates to the south and east of the Chhattlsgarh
+plain belong to this tribe. But owing to the change of name their
+connection with the parent Baigas has now been forgotten. The name
+Binjhwar is derived from the Vindhya hills, and the tribe still worship
+the goddess Vindhyabasini of these hills as their tutelary deity. They
+say that their ancestors migrated from Binjhakop to Lampa, which may be
+either Lamta in Balaghat or Laphagarh in Bilaspur. The hills of Mandla,
+the home of perhaps the most primitive Baigas, are quite close to the
+Vindhya range. The tribe say that their original ancestors were _Barah
+bhai betkar_, or the twelve Brother Archers. They were the sons of
+the goddess Vindhyabasini. One day they were out shooting and let off
+their arrows, which flew to the door of the great temple at Puri and
+stuck in it. Nobody in the place was able to pull them out, not even
+when the king's elephants were brought and harnessed to them; till
+at length the brothers arrived and drew them forth quite easily with
+their hands, and the king was so pleased with their feat that he gave
+them the several estates which their descendants now hold. The story
+recalls that of Arthur and the magic sword. According to another legend
+the mother of the first Raja of Patna, a Chauhan Rajput, had fled from
+northern India to Sambalpur after her husband and relations had been
+killed in battle. She took refuge in a Binjhwar's hut and bore a son
+who became Raja of Patna; and in reward for the protection afforded to
+his mother he gave the Binjhwar the Bodasamar estate, requiring only
+of him and his descendants the tribute of a silk cloth on accession to
+the zamindari; and this has been rendered ever since by the zamindars
+of Bodasamar to the Rajas of Patna as a mark of fealty. It is further
+stated that the twelve archers when they fired the memorable arrows in
+the forest were in pursuit of a wild boar; and the landholding class of
+Binjhwars are called Bariha from _barah_, a boar. As is only fitting,
+the Binjhwars have taken the arrow as their tribal symbol or mark;
+their cattle are branded with it, and illiterate Binjhwars sign it
+in place of their name. If a husband cannot be found for a girl she
+is sometimes married to an arrow. At a Binjhwar wedding an arrow
+is laid on the trunk of mahua [382] which forms the marriage-post,
+and honours are paid to it as representing the bridegroom.
+
+
+
+2. Tribal subdivisions.
+
+
+The tribe have four subdivisions, the Binjhwars proper, the Sonjharas,
+the Birjhias and the Binjhias. The Sonjharas consist of those who
+took to washing for gold in the sands of the Mahanadi, and it may
+be noted that a separate caste of Sonjharas is also in existence in
+this locality besides the Binjhwar group. The Birjhias are those who
+practised _bewar_ or shifting cultivation in the forests, the name
+being derived from _bewarjia_, one living by _bewar_-sowing. Binjhia is
+simply a diminutive form of Binjhwar, but in Bilaspur it is sometimes
+regarded as a separate caste. The zamindar of Bhatgaon belongs to
+this group. The tribe have also exogamous divisions, the names of
+which are of a diverse character, and on being scrutinised show a
+mixture of foreign blood. Among totemistic names are Bagh, a tiger;
+Pod, a buffalo; Kamalia, the lotus flower; Panknali, the water-crow;
+Tar, the date-palm; Jal, a net, and others. Some of the sections
+are nicknames, as Udhar, a debtor; Marai Meli Bagh, one who carried
+a dead tiger; Ultum, a talker; Jalia, a liar; Kessal, one who has
+shaved a man, and so on. Several are the names of other castes, as
+Lohar, Dudh Kawaria, Bhil, Banka and Majhi, indicating that members
+of these castes have become Binjhwars and have founded families. The
+sept names also differ in different localities; the Birjhia subtribe
+who live in the same country as the Mundas have several Munda names
+among their septs, as Munna, Son, Solai; while the Binjhwars who are
+neighbours of the Gonds have Gond sept names, as Tekam, Sonwani, and
+others. This indicates that there has been a considerable amount of
+intermarriage with the surrounding tribes, as is the case generally
+among the lower classes of the population in Chhattisgarh. Even now if
+a woman of any caste from whom the Binjhwars will take water to drink
+forms a connection with a man of the tribe, though she herself must
+remain in an irregular position, her children will be considered as
+full members of it. The Barhias or landowning group have now adopted
+names of Sanskrit formation, as Gajendra, an elephant, Rameswar, the
+god Rama, and Nageshwar, the cobra deity. Two of their septs are named
+Lohar (blacksmith) and Kumhar (potter), and may be derived from members
+of these castes who became Binjhwars or from Binjhwars who took up the
+occupations. At a Binjhwar wedding the presence of a person belonging
+to each of the Lohar and Kumhar septs is essential, the reason being
+probably the estimation in which the two handicrafts were held when
+the Binjhwars first learnt them from their Hindu neighbours.
+
+
+
+3. Marriage.
+
+
+In Sambalpur there appears to be no system of exogamous groups, and
+marriage is determined simply by relationship. The union of agnates
+is avoided as long as the connection can be traced between them, but
+on the mother's side all except first cousins may marry. Marriage
+is usually adult, and girls are sometimes allowed to choose their
+own husbands. A bride-price of about eight _khandis_ (1400 lbs.) of
+unhusked rice is paid. The ceremony is performed at the bridegroom's
+house, to which the bride proceeds after bidding farewell to her
+family and friends in a fit of weeping. Weddings are avoided during
+the four months of the rainy season, and in Chait (March) because it
+is inauspicious, Jeth (May) because it is too hot, and Pus (December)
+because it is the last month of the year among the Binjhwars. The
+marriage ceremony should begin on a Sunday, when the guests are
+welcomed and their feet washed. On Monday the formal reception of the
+bride takes place, the Gandsan or scenting ceremony follows on Tuesday,
+and on Wednesday is the actual wedding. At the scenting ceremony seven
+married girls dressed in new clothes dyed yellow with turmeric conduct
+the bridegroom round the central post; one holds a dish containing
+rice, mango leaves, myrobalans and betel-nuts, and a second sprinkles
+water from a small pot. At each round the bridegroom is made to throw
+some of the condiments from the dish on to the wedding-post, and after
+the seven rounds he is seated and is rubbed with oil and turmeric.
+
+
+
+4. The marriage ceremony.
+
+
+Among the Birjhias a trunk of mahua with two branches is erected in
+the marriage-shed, and on this a dagger is placed in a winnowing-fan
+filled with rice, the former representing the bridegroom and the
+latter the bride. The bride first goes round the post seven times
+alone, and then the bridegroom, and after this they go round it
+together. A plough is brought and they stand upon the yoke, and seven
+cups of water having been collected from seven different houses,
+four are poured over the bridegroom and three over the bride. Some
+men climb on to the top of the shed and pour pots of water down on to
+the couple. This is now said to be done only as a joke. Next morning
+two strong men take the bridegroom and bride, who are usually grown
+up, on their backs, and the parties pelt each other with unhusked
+rice. Then the bridegroom holds the bride in his arms from behind and
+they stand facing the sun, while some old man ties round their feet
+a thread specially spun by a virgin. The couple stand for some time
+and then fall to the ground as if dazzled by his rays, when water is
+again poured over their bodies to revive them. Lastly, an old man
+takes the arrow from the top of the marriage-post and draws three
+lines with it on the ground to represent the Hindu trinity, Brahma,
+Vishnu and Siva, and the bridegroom jumps over these holding the bride
+in his arms. The couple go to bathe in a river or tank, and on the
+way home the bridegroom shoots seven arrows at an image of a sambhar
+deer made with straw. At the seventh shot the bride's brother takes
+the arrow, and running away and hiding it in his cloth lies down at
+the entrance of the bridegroom's house. The couple go up to him, and
+the bridegroom examines his body with suspicion, pretending to think
+that he is dead. He draws the arrow out of his cloth and points to
+some blood which has been previously sprinkled on the ground. After
+a time the boy gets up and receives some liquor as a reward. This
+procedure may perhaps be a symbolic survival of marriage by capture,
+the bridegroom killing the bride's brother before carrying her off,
+or more probably, perhaps, the boy may represent a dead deer. In
+some of the wilder tracts the man actually waylays and seizes the
+girl before the wedding, the occasion being previously determined,
+and the women of her family trying to prevent him. If he succeeds in
+carrying her off they stay for three or four days in the forest and
+then return and are married.
+
+
+
+5. Sexual morality.
+
+
+If a Binjhwar girl is seduced and rendered pregnant by a man of the
+tribe, the people exact a feast and compel them to join their hands
+in an informal manner before the caste committee, the tie thus formed
+being considered as indissoluble as a formal marriage. Polygamy is
+permitted; a Binjhwar zamindar marries a new wife, who is known as
+Pat Rani, to celebrate his accession to his estates, even though he
+may have five or six already.
+
+Divorce is recognised but is not very common, and a married woman
+having an intrigue with another Binjhwar is often simply made over
+to him and they live as husband and wife. If this man does not wish
+to take her she can live with any other, conjugal morality being very
+loose in Sambalpur. In Bodasamar a fine of from one to ten rupees is
+payable to the zamindar in the case of each divorce, and a feast must
+also be given to the caste-fellows.
+
+
+
+6. Disposal of the dead.
+
+
+The tribe usually bury the dead, and on the third day they place on
+the grave some uncooked rice and a lighted lamp. As soon as an insect
+flies to the lamp they catch it, and placing it in a cake of flour
+carry this to a stream, where it is worshipped with an offering of
+coloured rice. It is then thrust into the sand or mud in the bed of
+the stream with a grass broom. This ceremony is called Kharpani or
+'Grass and Water,' and appears to be a method of disposing of the
+dead man's spirit. It is not performed at all for young children,
+while, on the other hand, in the case of respected elders a second
+ceremony is carried out of the same nature, being known as Badapani or
+'Great Water.' On this occasion the _jiva_ or soul is worshipped with
+greater pomp. Except in the case of wicked souls, who are supposed
+to become malignant ghosts, the Binjhwars do not seem to have any
+definite belief in a future life. They say, '_Je maris te saris_,'
+or 'That which is dead is rotten and gone.'
+
+
+
+7. Religion.
+
+
+The tribe worship the common village deities of Chhattisgarh,
+and extend their veneration to Bura Deo, the principal god of the
+Gonds. They venerate their daggers, spears and arrows on the day of
+Dasahra, and every third year their tutelary goddess Vindhyabasini is
+carried in procession from village to village. Mr. Mian Bhai gives the
+following list of precepts as forming the Binjhwar's moral code:--Not
+to commit adultery outside the caste; not to eat beef; not to murder;
+not to steal; not to swear falsely before the caste committee. The
+tribe have _gurus_ or spiritual preceptors, whom he describes as
+the most ignorant Bairagis, very little better than impostors. When
+a boy or girl grows up the Bairagi comes and whispers the _Karn
+mantra_ or spell in his ear, also hanging a necklace of _tulsi_
+(basil) beads round his neck; for this the _guru_ receives a cloth,
+a cocoanut and a cash payment of four annas to a rupee. Thereafter he
+visits his disciples annually at harvest time and receives a present
+of grain from them.
+
+
+
+8. Festivals.
+
+
+On the 11th of Bhadon (August) the tribe celebrate the _karma_
+festival, which is something like May-Day or a harvest feast. The
+youths and maidens go to the forest and bring home a young _karma_
+tree, singing, dancing and beating drums. Offerings are made to the
+tree, and then the whole village, young and old, drink and dance
+round it all through the night. Next morning the tree is taken to
+the nearest stream or tank and consigned to it. After this the young
+girls of five or six villages make up a party and go about to the
+different villages accompanied by drummers and Ganda musicians. They
+are entertained for the night, and next morning dance for five or
+six hours in the village and then go on to another.
+
+
+
+9. Social customs.
+
+
+The tribe are indiscriminate in their diet, which includes pork,
+snakes, rats, and even carnivorous animals, as panthers. They refuse
+only beef, monkeys and the leavings of others. The wilder Binjhwars of
+the forests will not accept cooked food from any other caste, but those
+who live in association with Hindus will take it when cooked without
+water from a few of the higher ones. The tribe are not considered as
+impure. Their dress is very simple, consisting as a rule only of one
+dirty white piece of cloth in the case of both men and women. Their
+hair is unkempt, and they neither oil nor comb it. A genuine Binjhwar
+of the hills wears long frizzled hair with long beard and moustaches,
+but in the open country they cut their hair and shave the chin. Every
+Binjhwar woman is tattooed either before or just after her marriage,
+when she has attained to the age of adolescence. A man will not touch
+or accept food from a woman who is not tattooed on the feet. The
+expenses must be paid either by the woman's parents or her brothers
+and not by her husband. The practice is carried to an extreme, and
+many women have the upper part of the chest, the arms from shoulder to
+wrist, and the feet and legs up to the knee covered with devices. On
+the chest and arms the patterns are in the shape of flowers and leaves,
+while along the leg a succession of zigzag lines are pricked. The
+Binjhwars are usually cultivators and labourers, while, as already
+stated, several zamindari and other estates are owned by members of the
+tribe. Binjhwars also commonly hold the office of Jhankar or priest
+of the village gods in the Sambalpur District, as the Baigas do in
+Mandla and Balaghat. In Sambalpur the Jhankar or village priest is a
+universal and recognised village servant of fairly high status. His
+business is to conduct the worship of the local deities of the soil,
+crops, forests and hills, and he generally has a substantial holding,
+rent free, containing some of the best land in the village. It is
+said locally that the Jhankar is looked on as the founder of the
+village, and the representative of the old owners who were ousted
+by the Hindus. He worships on their behalf the indigenous deities,
+with whom he naturally possesses a more intimate acquaintance than
+the later immigrants; while the gods of these latter cannot be relied
+on to exercise a sufficient control over the works of nature in the
+foreign land to which they have been imported, or to ensure that the
+earth and the seasons will regularly perform their necessary functions
+in producing sustenance for mankind.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+Bishnoi
+
+
+
+List of Paragraphs
+
+
+    1. _Origin of the sect._
+    2. _Precepts of Jhambaji._
+    3. _Customs of the Bishnois in the Punjab._
+    4. _Initiation and baptism._
+    5. _Nature of the sect._
+    6. _Bishnois in the Central Provinces._
+    7. _Marriage._
+    8. _Disposal of the dead._
+    9. _Development into a caste._
+
+
+
+1. Origin of the sect.
+
+
+_Bishnoi._ [383]--A Hindu sect which has now developed into a
+caste. The sect was founded in the Punjab, and the Bishnois are
+immigrants from northern India. In the Central Provinces they
+numbered about 1100 persons in 1911, nearly all of whom belonged
+to the Hoshangabad District. The best description of the sect is
+contained in Mr. Wilson's _Sirsa Settlement Report_ (quoted in Sir
+E. Maclagan's _Census Report of the Punjab_ for 1891), from which the
+following details are taken: "The name Bishnoi means a worshipper of
+Vishnu. The founder of the sect was a Panwar Rajput named Jhambaji,
+who was born in a village of Bikaner State in A.D. 1451. His father
+had hitherto remained childless, and being greatly oppressed by this
+misfortune had been promised a son by a Muhammadan Fakir. After nine
+months Jhambaji was born and showed his miraculous origin in various
+ways, such as producing sweets from nothing for the delectation
+of his companions. Until he was thirty-four years old he spoke no
+word and was employed in tending his father's cattle. At this time
+a Brahman was sent for to get him to speak, and on confessing his
+failure, Jhambaji showed his power by lighting a lamp with a snap
+of his fingers and spoke his first word. He adopted the life of a
+teacher and went to reside on a sandhill some thirty miles south of
+Bikaner. In 1485 a fearful famine desolated the country, and Jhambaji
+gained an enormous number of disciples by providing food for all
+who would declare their belief in him. He is said to have died on
+his sandhill at the good old age of eighty-four, and to have been
+buried at a spot about a mile distant from it. A further account
+says that his body remained suspended for six months in the bier
+without decomposing. His name Jhambaji was a contraction of Achambha
+(The Wonder), with the honorific suffix _ji_.
+
+
+
+2. Precepts of Jhambaji.
+
+
+"The sayings (_shabd_) of Jhambaji, to the number of one hundred and
+twenty, were recorded by his disciples, and have been handed down in
+a book (_pothi_) which is written in the Nagari character, and in a
+Hindu dialect similar to Bagri and therefore probably a dialect of
+Rajasthani. The following is a translation of the twenty-nine precepts
+given by him for the guidance of his followers: 'For thirty days
+after childbirth and five days after a menstrual discharge a woman
+must not cook food. Bathe in the morning. Commit no adultery. Be
+content. Be abstemious and pure. Strain your drinking-water. Be
+careful of your speech. Examine your fuel in case any living creature
+be burnt with it. Show pity to living creatures. Keep duty present
+to your mind as the teacher bade. Do not steal. Do not speak evil
+of others. Do not tell lies. Never quarrel. Avoid opium, tobacco,
+_bhang_ and blue clothing. Flee from spirits and flesh. See that your
+goats are kept alive (not sold to Musalmans, who will kill them for
+food). Do not plough with bullocks. Keep a fast on the day before the
+new moon. Do not cut green trees. Sacrifice with fire. Say prayers;
+meditate. Perform worship and attain heaven.' And the last of the
+twenty-nine duties prescribed by the teacher: 'Baptise your children
+if you would be called a true Bishnoi.' [384]
+
+
+
+3. Customs of the Bishnois in the Punjab.
+
+
+"Some of these precepts are not strictly obeyed. For instance, though
+ordinarily they allow no blue in their clothing, yet a Bishnoi,
+if he is a police constable, is allowed to wear a blue uniform;
+and Bishnois do use bullocks, though most of their farming is done
+with camels. They also seem to be generally quarrelsome (in words)
+and given to use bad language. But they abstain from tobacco, drugs
+and spirits, and are noted for their regard for animal life, which is
+such that not only will they not themselves kill any living creature,
+but they do their utmost to prevent others from doing so. Consequently
+their villages are generally swarming with antelope and other animals,
+and they forbid their Musalman neighbours to kill them, and try to
+dissuade European sportsmen from interfering with them. They wanted to
+make it a condition of their settlement that no one should be allowed
+to shoot on their land, but at the same time they asked that they
+might be assessed at lower rates than their neighbours, on the ground
+that the antelope, being thus left undisturbed, did more damage to
+their crops; but I told them that this would lessen the merit (_pun_)
+of their actions in protecting the animals, and they must be treated
+just as the surrounding villages were. They consider it a good deed to
+scatter grain to pigeons and other birds, and often have a large number
+of half-tame birds about their villages. The day before the new moon
+(Amawas) they observe as a Sabbath and fast-day, doing no work in the
+fields or in the house. They bathe and pray three times a day, in the
+morning, afternoon and evening, saying 'Bishnu! Bishnu!' instead of
+the ordinary Hindu 'Ram! Ram.' Their clothing is the same as that of
+other Bagris, except that their women do not allow the waist to be
+seen, and are fond of wearing black woollen clothing. They are more
+particular about ceremonial purity than ordinary Hindus are, and it is
+a common saying that if a Bishnoi's food is on the first of a string of
+twenty camels and a man of another caste touches the last camel of the
+string, the Bishnoi would consider his food defiled and throw it away."
+
+
+
+4. Initiation and baptism.
+
+
+The ceremony of initiation is as follows: "A number of representative
+Bishnois assemble, and before them a Sadh or Bishnoi priest, after
+lighting a sacrificial fire (_hom_), instructs the novice in the duties
+of the faith. He then takes some water in a new earthen vessel, over
+which he prays in a set form (_Bishno gayatri_), stirring it the while
+with his string of beads (_mala_), and after asking the consent of
+the assembled Bishnois he pours the water three times into the hands
+of the novice, who drinks it off. The novice's scalp-lock (_choti_)
+is then cut off and his head shaved, for the Bishnois shave the whole
+head and do not leave a scalp-lock like the Hindus, but they allow the
+beard to grow, only shaving the chin on the father's death. Infant
+baptism is also practised, and thirty days after birth the child,
+whether boy or girl, is baptised by the priest (Sadh) in much the
+same way as an adult; only the set form of prayer is different, and
+the priest pours a few drops of water into the child's mouth, and
+gives the child's relatives each three handfuls of the consecrated
+water to drink; at the same time the barber clips off the child's
+hair. The baptismal ceremony has the effect of purifying the house,
+which has been made impure by the birth (_sutak_).
+
+"The Bishnois do not revere Brahmans, but have priests of their own
+known as Sadh, who are chosen from among the laity. The priests are
+a hereditary class, and do not intermarry with other Bishnois, from
+whom, like Brahmans, they receive food and offerings. The Bishnois do
+not burn their dead, but bury them below the cattle-shed or in some
+place like a pen frequented by cattle. They make pilgrimages to the
+place where Jhambaji is buried to the south of Bikaner; here a tomb
+and temple have been erected to his memory, and gatherings are held
+twice a year. The sect observe the Holi in a different way from other
+Hindus. After sunset on that day they fast till the next forenoon
+when, after hearing read the account of how Prahlad was tortured by
+his infidel father, Hrianya Kasipu, for believing in the god Vishnu,
+until he was delivered by the god himself in his incarnation of
+Narsingh, the Man-lion, and mourning over Prahlad's sufferings, they
+light a sacrificial fire and partake of consecrated water, and after
+distributing sugar (_gur_) in commemoration of Prahlad's delivery
+from the fire into which he was thrown, they break their fast."
+
+
+
+5. Nature of the sect.
+
+
+The above interesting account of the Bishnois by Mr. Wilson shows that
+Jhambaji was a religious reformer, who attempted to break loose from
+the debased Hindu polytheism and arrogant supremacy of the Brahmans
+by choosing one god, Vishnu, out of the Hindu pantheon and exalting
+him into the sole and supreme deity. In his method he thus differed
+from Kabir and other reformers, who went outside Hinduism altogether,
+preaching a monotheistic faith with one unseen and nameless deity. The
+case of the Manbhaos, whose unknown founder made Krishna the one
+god, discarding the Vedas and the rest of Hinduism, is analogous
+to Jhambaji's movement. His creed much resembles that of the other
+Hindu reformers and founders of the Vaishnavite sects. The extreme
+tenderness for animal life is a characteristic of most of them,
+and would be fostered by the Hindu belief in the transmigration of
+souls. The prohibition of liquor is another common feature, to which
+Jhambaji added that of all kinds of drugs. His mind, like those of
+Kabir and Nanak, was probably influenced by the spectacle of the
+comparatively liberal creed of Islam, which had now taken root in
+northern India. Mr. Crooke remarks that the Bishnois of Bijnor appear
+to differ from those of the Punjab in using the Muhammadan form of
+salutation, _Salam alaikum_, and the title of Shaikhji. They account
+for this by saying they murdered a Muhammadan Kazi, who prevented
+them from burning a widow, and were glad to compound the offence
+by pretending to adopt Islam. But it seems possible that on their
+first rupture with Hinduism they were to some extent drawn towards
+the Muhammadans, and adopted practices of which, on tending again to
+conform to their old religion, they have subsequently become ashamed.
+
+
+
+6. Bishnois in the Central Provinces.
+
+
+In northern India the members of different castes who have become
+Bishnois have formed separate endogamous groups, of which Mr. Crooke
+gives nine; among these are the Brahman, Bania, Jat, Sunar, Ahir and
+Nai Bishnois. Only members of comparatively good castes appear to have
+been admitted into the community, and in the Punjab they are nearly
+all Jats and Banias. In the Central Provinces the caste forms only
+one endogamous group. They have _gotras_ or exogamous sections, the
+names of which appear to be of the titular or territorial type. Some
+of the _gotras_, Jhuria, Ajna, Sain and Ahir, [385] are considered
+to be lower than the others, and though they are not debarred from
+intermarriage, a connection with them is looked upon as something of
+a _mésalliance_. They are not consulted in the settlement of tribal
+disputes. No explanation of the comparatively degraded position of
+these septs is forthcoming, but it may probably be attributed to
+some blot in their ancestral escutcheon. The Bishnois celebrate
+their marriages at any period of the year, and place no reliance
+on astrology. According to their saying, "Every day is as good as
+Sankrant, [386] every day is as good as Amawas. [387] The Ganges flows
+every day, and he whose preceptor has taught him the most truth will
+get the most good from bathing in it."
+
+
+
+7. Marriage.
+
+
+Before a wedding the bride's father sends, by the barber, a cocoanut
+and a silver ring tied round it with a yellow thread. On the thread
+are seven, nine, eleven or thirteen knots, signifying the number of
+days to elapse before the ceremony. The barber on his arrival stands
+outside the door of the house, and the bridegroom's father sends
+round to all the families of his caste. The men go to the house and
+the women come singing to the barber, and rub turmeric on the boy. A
+married woman touches the cocoanut and waves a lighted lamp seven
+times round the bridegroom's head. This is meant to scare off evil
+spirits. On arrival at the bride's village the bridegroom touches
+the marriage-shed with the branch of a _ber_ or wild plum tree. The
+mother of the bride gives him some sugar, rubs lamp-black on his
+eyes and twists his nose. The bride and bridegroom are seated side by
+side on wooden boards, and after the caste priest (Sadh) has chanted
+some sacred verses, water is poured nine times on to the palms of
+the bridegroom, and he drinks it. They do not perform the ceremony
+of walking round the sacred pole. Girls are usually married at a very
+early age, sometimes when they are only a few months old. Subsequently,
+when the bridegroom comes to take his bride, her family present her
+with clothing and a spinning-wheel, this implement being still in
+favour among the Bishnois. When a widow is to be married again she
+is taken to her new husband's house at night, and there grinds a
+flour-mill five times, being afterwards presented with lac bangles.
+
+
+
+8. Disposal of the dead.
+
+
+The dead are never burnt, but their bodies are weighted with sand-bags
+and thrown into a stream. The practice which formerly prevailed among
+the Bishnois of burying their dead in the courtyard of the house by
+the cattle-stalls has now fallen into desuetude as being insanitary. A
+red cloth is spread over the body of a woman, and if her maternal
+relatives are present each of them places a piece of cloth on the
+bier. After the funeral the mourning party proceed to a river to
+bathe, and then cook and eat their food on the bank. This custom is
+also followed by the Panwar Rajputs of the Wainganga Valley, but is
+forbidden by most of the good Hindu castes. No period of impurity is
+observed after a death, but on some day between the fourth and tenth
+days afterwards a feast is given to the caste-fellows.
+
+
+
+9. Development into a caste.
+
+
+The Bishnois of the Central Provinces are gradually becoming an
+ordinary Hindu caste, a fate which has several times befallen the
+adherents of Hindu reformers. Many of the precepts of Jhambaji are
+neglected. They still usually strain their water and examine their fuel
+before burning it to remove insects, and they scatter flour to feed the
+ants and grain for peacocks and pigeons. The wearing of blue cloth is
+avoided by most, blue being for an obscure reason a somewhat unlucky
+colour among the Hindus. But they now use bullocks for ploughing, and
+cut green trees except on the Amawas day. Many of them, especially
+the younger generation, have begun to grow the Hindu _choti_ or
+scalp-lock. They go on pilgrimage to all the Hindu sacred places, and
+no doubt make presents there to Brahman priests. They offer _pindas_
+or sacrificial cakes to the spirits of their deceased ancestors. They
+observe some of the ordinary Hindu festivals, as the Anant Chaturthi,
+and some of them employ Brahmans to read the Satya Narayan Katha,
+the favourite Hindu sacred book. They still retain their special
+observance of the Holi. The admission of proselytes has practically
+ceased, and they marry among themselves like an ordinary Hindu caste,
+in which light they are gradually coming to be regarded. The Bishnois
+are usually cultivators or moneylenders by calling.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+Bohra
+
+
+
+List of Paragraphs
+
+
+    1. _Origin of the sect._
+    2. _Their religious tenets._
+    3. _The Mullahs._
+    4. _Bohra graveyards._
+    5. _Religious customs._
+    6. _Occupation._
+    7. _Houses and dress._
+
+
+
+1. Origin of the sect.
+
+
+_Bohra, Bohora._ [388]--A Muhammadan caste of traders who come
+from Gujarat and speak Gujarati. At the last census they numbered
+nearly 5000 persons, residing principally in the Nimar, Nagpur and
+Amraoti Districts, Burhanpur being the headquarters of the sect in
+the Central Provinces. The name is probably derived from the Hindi
+_byohara_, a trader. Members of the caste are honorifically addressed
+as Mullaji. According to the received account of the rise of the
+Bohras in Gujarat a missionary, Abdulla, came from Yemen to Cambay
+in A.D. 1067. By his miracles he converted the great king Sidhraj
+of Anhilvada Patan in Gujarat, and he with numbers of his subjects
+embraced the new faith. For two centuries and a half the Bohras
+flourished, but with the establishment of Muzaffar Shah's power
+(A.D. 1390-1413) in that country the spread of Sunni doctrines was
+encouraged and the Bohra and other Shia sects suppressed. Since then,
+with gradually lessening numbers, they have passed through several
+bitter persecutions, meeting with little favour or protection, till at
+the close of the eighteenth century they found shelter under British
+rule. In 1539 the members of the sect living in Arabia were expelled
+from there and came to Gujarat, where they were hospitably received by
+their brethren, the headquarters of the sect being thenceforward fixed
+at Surat. The Bohras are Shias of the great Ismailia sect of Egypt. The
+Ismailia sect split off from the orthodox Shias on the question of the
+succession to the sixth Imam, Jafar Sadik, in A.D. 765. The dispute
+was between his eldest son's son Ismail and his second son Musi,
+the Ismailias being those who supported the former and the orthodox
+Shias the latter. The orthodox Shias are distinguished as believers
+in twelve Imams, the last of whom is still to come. The Ismailias
+again divided on a similar dispute as to the succession to the
+Khalifa Almustansir Billah by his eldest son Nazar or his younger son
+Almustaali. The Bohras are descended from the Mustaalians or supporters
+of the younger son and the Khojas from the Nazarians who supported
+the elder son. [389] All these distinctions appear somewhat trivial.
+
+
+
+2. Their religious tenets.
+
+
+Gujarat contains two classes of Bohras: the traders who are all
+Shias and are the only immigrants into the Central Provinces, and a
+large class of cultivating Bohras who are Sunnis. The latter may be
+the descendants of the earliest converts and may have been forced to
+become Sunnis when this sect was dominant in Gujarat as noticed above,
+while the Shias are perhaps descended from the later immigrants from
+Arabia. The Shia Bohras themselves are further divided into several
+sects of which the Daudi are the principal.
+
+Mr. Faridi writes of them: [390] "They are attentive to their religious
+duties, both men and women knowing the Koran. They are careful to
+say their prayers, to observe Muharram as a season of mourning and
+to go on pilgrimage to Mecca and Kerbala. They strictly abstain
+from music and dancing and from using or dealing in intoxicating
+drinks or drugs. Though fierce sectarians, keenly hating and hated
+by the regular Sunnis and other Muhammadans than those of their
+own sect, their reverence for Ali and for their high priest seems
+to be further removed from adoration than among the Khojahs. They
+would appear to accept the ordinary distinctions of right and wrong,
+punishing drunkenness, adultery and other acts generally considered
+disgraceful. Of the state beyond death they hold that, after passing
+a time of freedom as evil spirits, unbelievers go to a place of
+torment. Believers, but apparently only believers of the Ismaili
+faith, after a term of training enter a state of perfection. Among
+the faithful each disembodied spirit passes the term of training in
+communion with the soul of some good man. The spirit can suggest
+good or evil to the man and may learn from his good deeds to love
+the right; when the good man dies the spirits in communion with his
+soul are, if they have gained by their training, attached to some
+more perfect man, or if they have lost by their opportunities are
+sent back to learn; spirits raised to a higher degree of knowledge
+are placed in communion with the High Priest on earth; and on his
+death are with him united to the Imams, and when through the Imams
+they have learnt what they still require to know they are absorbed
+in perfection. Except for some peculiarities in their names; that
+they attach special importance to circumcision; that the sacrifice
+or _alsikah_ ceremony is held in the Mullah's house; that at marriage
+the bride and bridegroom when not of age are represented by sponsors
+or _walis_; that at death a prayer for pity on his soul and body is
+laid in the dead man's hands; and that on certain occasions the High
+Priest feeds the whole community--Bohra customs do not so far as has
+been ascertained differ from those of ordinary Muhammadans.
+
+
+
+3. The Mullahs.
+
+
+"Their leader, both in things religious and social, is the head Mullah
+of Surat. The ruling Mullah names his successor, generally, but it
+is said not always, from among the members of his own family. Short
+of worship the head Mullah is treated with the greatest respect. He
+lives in much state and entertains with the most profuse liberality. On
+both religious and civil questions his authority is final. Discipline
+is enforced in religious matters by fine, and in case of adultery,
+drunkenness and other offences, by fine, excommunication and rarely by
+flogging. On ceremonial occasions the head Mullah sits on his throne,
+and in token of his power has the flyflapper, _chauri_, held before
+him. As the Bohras enter they make three prostrations, _salaams_,
+close their hands and stand before him. To such as are worthy he says
+'Be seated,' to others 'Stand.' Once a year, on the 18th Rajjab,
+every Daudi lays his palm within the head Mullah's hand and takes
+an oath to be faithful. On this day when he goes to the mosque the
+Bohras are said to kiss the Mullah's footsteps and to apply the dust
+he treads to their heads and eyes." Each considerable settlement of
+the sect has a deputy Mullah of its own.
+
+
+
+4. Bohra graveyards.
+
+
+The Sahadra or burial-place of the Bohras at Burhanpur contains
+the tombs of three of the Surat Mullahs who happened to die when
+they were at Burhanpur. The tombs are in shell-lime and are fairly
+handsome erections. The Bohras support here by voluntary subscription
+a rest-house, where members of the sect coming to the city can obtain
+free board and lodging for as long as they like to stay. Mr. Conolly
+says of their graveyards: [391]
+
+"Their burial-grounds have a pleasing appearance, the tombs being
+regularly arranged in streets, east and west. The tombs themselves,
+which are, of course, north and south, the corpse resting on its right
+side, differ in no respect from those of Sunnis, with the exception
+of a small _chiragh takia_ or lamp-socket, cut out of the north face,
+just like the cavity for the inscription of our own tombs."
+
+
+
+5. Religious customs.
+
+
+Of their religion Mr. Kitts writes: [392] "In prayers they differ
+both from Shias and Sunnis in that they follow their Mullah, praying
+aloud after him, but without much regularity of posture. The times for
+commencing their devotions are about five minutes later than those
+observed by Sunnis. After the midday and sunset supplications they
+allow a short interval to elapse, remaining themselves in the mosque
+meanwhile. They then commence the afternoon and evening prayers and
+thus run five services into three."
+
+Mr. Thurston notes that the Bohras consider themselves so superior
+to other sects that if another Muhammadan enters their mosque
+they afterwards clean the spot which he has occupied during his
+prayers. [393] They show strictness in other ways, making their
+own sweetmeats at home and declining to eat those of the Halwai
+(confectioner). It is said also that they will not have their clothes
+washed by a Dhobi, nor wear shoes made by a Chamar, nor take food
+touched by any Hindu. They are said to bathe only on Fridays, and some
+of them not on every Friday. If a dog touches them they are unclean
+and must change their clothes. They celebrate the Id and Ramazan a
+day before other Muhammadans. At the Muharram their women break all
+their bangles and wear new bangles next day to show that they have
+been widowed, and during this period they observe mourning by going
+without shoes and not using umbrellas. Mr. Conolly says of them:
+"I must not omit to notice that a fine of 20 cowries (equally for
+rich and poor) punishes the non-attendance of a Bohra at the daily
+prayers. A large sum is exacted for remissness during the Ramazan,
+and it is said that the dread of loss operates powerfully upon a
+class of men who are particularly penny-wise. The money collected
+thus is transmitted by the Ujjain Mullah to his chief at Surat,
+who devotes it to religious purposes such as repairing or building
+mosques, assisting the needy of his subjects and the like. Several
+other offences have the same characteristic punishment, such as
+fornication, drunkenness, etc. But the cunning Bohras elude many of the
+fines and daily indulge in practices not sanctioned by their creed;
+thus in their shops pictures and figures may be purchased though it
+is against the commandments to sell the likeness of any living thing."
+
+It has been seen that when a Bohra is buried a prayer for pity on his
+soul and body is laid in the dead man's hands, of which Mr. Faridi
+gives the text. But other Muhammadans tell a story to the effect that
+the head Mullah writes a letter to the archangel Gabriel in which he
+is instructed to supply a stream of honey, a stream of milk, water
+and some fruit trees, a golden building and a number of houris, the
+extent of the order depending on the amount of money which has been
+paid to the Mullah by the departed in his lifetime; and this letter
+is placed beneath the dead man's head in the grave, the Bohras having
+no coffins. The Bohras indignantly repudiate any such version of the
+letter, and no doubt if the custom ever existed it has died out.
+
+
+
+6. Occupation.
+
+
+The Bohras, Captain Forsyth remarks, though bigoted religionists,
+are certainly the most civilised and enterprising and perhaps also
+the most industrious class in the Nimar District. They deal generally
+in hardware, piece-goods and drugs, and are very keen traders. There
+is a proverb, "He who is sharper than a Bohra must be mad, and he
+who is fairer than a Khatri must be a leper." Some of them are only
+pedlars and hawkers, and in past times their position seems to have
+been lower than at present. An old account says: [394] "The Bohras are
+an inferior set of travelling merchants. The inside of a Bohra's box
+is like that of an English country shop; spelling-books, prayer-books,
+lavender-water, soap, tapes, scissors, knives, needles and thread make
+but a small part of the variety." And again: "In Bombay the Bohras go
+about the town as the dirty Jews do in London early and late, carrying
+a bag and inviting by the same nasal tone servants and others to fill
+it with old clothes, empty bottles, scraps of iron, etc." [395]
+
+
+
+7. Houses and dress.
+
+
+Of their method of living Malcolm wrote: [396] "I visited several
+of the houses of this tribe at Shahjahanpur, where a colony of them
+are settled, and was gratified to find not only in their apartments,
+but in the spaciousness and cleanliness of their kitchens, in the
+well-constructed chimney, the neatly arranged pantries, and the
+polished dishes and plates as much of real comfort in domestic
+arrangements as could be found anywhere. We took the parties we
+visited by surprise and there could have been no preparation." The
+Bohras do not charge interest on loans, and they combine to support
+indigent members of the community, never allowing one of their caste
+to beg. The caste may easily be known from other Muhammadans by their
+small, tightly wound turbans and little skull-caps, and their long
+flowing robes, and loose trousers widening from the ankle upwards and
+gathered in at the waist with a string. The women dress in a coloured
+cotton or silk petticoat, a short-sleeved bodice and a coloured cotton
+head-scarf. When they go out of doors they throw a dark cloak over
+the head which covers the body to the ankles, with gauze openings
+for the eyes.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+Brahman [397]
+
+
+
+List of Paragraphs
+
+
+     1. _Origin and development of the caste._
+     2. _Their monopoly of literature._
+     3. _Absence of central authority._
+     4. _Mixed elements in the caste._
+     5. _Caste subdivisions._
+     6. _Miscellaneous groups._
+     7. _Sectarian divisions._
+     8. _Exogamy._
+     9. _Restrictions on marriage._
+    10. _Hypergamy._
+    11. _Marriage customs._
+    12. _Polygamy, divorce and treatment of widows._
+    13. _Sati or burning of widows._
+    14. _Funeral rites and mourning._
+    15. _Religion._
+    16. _Daily ritual._
+    17. _The sacred thread._
+    18. _Social position._
+    19. _Titles._
+    20. _Caste panchayat and offences._
+    21. _Rules about food._
+    22. _Dress._
+    23. _Tattooing._
+    24. _Occupation._
+    25. _Character of Brahmans._
+
+
+
+List of Subordinate Articles on Subcastes
+
+
+     1. Ahivasi.
+     2. Jijhotia.
+     3. Kanaujia, Kanyakubja.
+     4. Khedawal.
+     5. Maharashtra, Maratha.
+     6. Maithil.
+     7. Malwi.
+     8. Nagar.
+     9. Naramdeo.
+    10. Sanadhya, Sanaurhia.
+    11. Sarwaria.
+    12. Utkal.
+
+
+
+1. Origin and development of the caste.
+
+
+_Brahman, Baman._--The well-known priestly caste of India and the
+first of the four traditional castes of the Hindu scriptures. In 1911
+the Brahmans numbered about 450,000 persons in the Central Provinces
+and Berar, or nearly 3 per cent of the population. This is less than
+the average strength for India as a whole, which is about 4 1/2 per
+cent. The caste is spread over the whole Province, but is in greatest
+numbers in proportion to the population in Saugor and Jubbulpore,
+and weakest in the Feudatory States.
+
+The name Brahman or Brahma is said to be from the root _brih_ or
+_vrih_, to increase. The god Brahma is considered as the spirit
+and soul of the universe, the divine essence and source of all
+being. Brahmana, the masculine numerative singular, originally denoted
+one who prays, a worshipper or the composer or reciter of a hymn. [398]
+It is the common term used in the Vedas for the officiating priest. Sir
+H. Risley remarks on the origin of the caste: [399] "The best modern
+opinion seems disposed to find the germ of the Brahman caste in the
+bards, ministers and family priests who were attached to the king's
+household in Vedic times. Different stages of this institution may be
+observed. In the earliest ages the head of every Aryan household was
+his own priest, and even a king would himself perform the sacrifices
+which were appropriate to his rank. By degrees families or guilds
+of priestly singers arose, who sought service under the kings, and
+were rewarded by rich presents for the hymns or praise and prayer
+recited and sacrifices offered by them on behalf of their masters. As
+time went on the sacrifices became more numerous and more elaborate,
+and the mass of ritual grew to such an extent that the king could no
+longer cope with it unaided. The employment of _purohits_ or family
+priests, formerly optional, now became a sacred duty if the sacrifices
+were not to fall into disuse. The Brahman obtained a monopoly of
+priestly functions, and a race of sacerdotal specialists arose
+which tended continually to close its ranks against the intrusion
+of outsiders." Gradually then from the household priests and those
+who made it their business to commit to memory and recite the sacred
+hymns and verses handed down orally from generation to generation
+through this agency, an occupational caste emerged, which arrogated
+to itself the monopoly of these functions, and the doctrine developed
+that nobody could perform them who was not qualified by birth, that
+is, nobody could be a Brahman who was not the son of a Brahman. When
+religious ritual became more important, as apparently it did, a desire
+would naturally arise among the priests to make their revered and
+lucrative profession a hereditary monopoly; and this they were easily
+and naturally able to do by only teaching the sacred songs and the
+sacrificial rules and procedure to their own descendants. The process
+indeed would be to a considerable extent automatic, because the priests
+would always take their own sons for their pupils in the first place,
+and in the circumstances of early Indian society a married priesthood
+would thus naturally evolve into a hereditary caste. The Levites
+among the Jews and the priests of the Parsis formed similar hereditary
+orders, and the reason why they did not arise in other great religions
+would appear to have been the prescription or encouragement of the
+rule of celibacy for the clergy and the foundation of monasteries,
+to which admission was free. But the military landed aristocracies
+of Europe practically formed hereditary castes which were analogous
+to the Brahman and Rajput castes, though of a less stereotyped and
+primitive character. The rise of the Brahman caste was thus perhaps
+a comparatively simple and natural product of religious and social
+evolution, and might have occurred independently of the development
+of the caste system as a whole. The former might be accounted for by
+reasons which would be inadequate to explain the latter, even though
+as a matter of fact the same factors were at work in both cases.
+
+
+
+2. Their monopoly of literature.
+
+
+The hereditary monopoly of the sacred scriptures would be strengthened
+and made absolute when the Sanskrit language, in which they had been
+composed and handed down, ceased to be the ordinary spoken language
+of the people. Nobody then could learn them unless he was taught by
+a Brahman priest. And by keeping the sacred literature in an unknown
+language the priesthood made their own position absolutely secure and
+got into their own hands the allocation of the penalties and rewards
+promised by religion, for which these books were the authority, that
+is to say, the disposal of the souls of Hindus in the afterlife. They,
+in fact, held the keys of heaven and hell. The jealousy with which they
+guarded them is well shown by the Abbé Dubois: [400] "To the Brahmans
+alone belongs the right of reading the Vedas, and they are so jealous
+of this, or rather it is so much to their interest to prevent other
+castes obtaining any insight into their contents, that the Brahmans
+have inculcated the absurd theory, which is implicitly believed, that
+should anybody of any other caste be so highly imprudent as even to
+read the title-page his head would immediately split in two. The very
+few Brahmans who are able to read those sacred books in the original,
+only do so in secret and in a whisper. Expulsion from caste, without
+the smallest hope of re-entering it, would be the lightest punishment
+of a Brahman who exposed those books to the eyes of the profane." It
+would probably be unfair, however, to suppose that the Vedas were
+kept in the original Sanskrit simply from motives of policy. It
+was probably thought that the actual words of the sacred text had
+themselves a concrete force and potency which would be lost in a
+translation. This is the idea underlying the whole class of beliefs
+in the virtue of charms and spells.
+
+But the Brahmans had the monopoly not only of the sacred Sanskrit
+literature, but practically of any kind of literacy or education. They
+were for long the only literate section of the people. Subsequently
+two other castes learnt to read and write in response to an economic
+demand, the Kayasths and the Banias. The Kayasths, it has been
+suggested in the article on that caste, were to a large extent the
+offspring and inmates of the households of Brahmans, and were no doubt
+taught by them, but only to read and write the vernacular for the
+purpose of keeping the village records and accounts of rent. They were
+excluded from any knowledge of Sanskrit, and the Kayasths subsequently
+became an educated caste in spite of their Brahman preceptors, by
+learning Persian under their Muhammadan, and English under their
+European employers. The Banias never desired nor were encouraged
+to attain to any higher degree of literacy than that necessary
+for keeping accounts of sale and loan transactions. The Brahmans
+thus remained the only class with any real education, and acquired
+a monopoly not only of intellectual and religious leadership, but
+largely of public administration under the Hindu kings. No literature
+existed outside their own, which was mainly of a sacerdotal character;
+and India had no heritage such as that bequeathed by Greece and Rome
+to mediaeval Europe which could produce a Renaissance or revival of
+literacy, leading to the Reformation of religion and the breaking
+of the fetters in which the Roman priesthood had bound the human
+mind. The Brahmans thus established, not only a complete religious,
+but also a social ascendancy which is only now beginning to break
+down since the British Government has made education available to all.
+
+
+
+3. Absence of central authority.
+
+
+The Brahman body, however, lacked one very important element of
+strength. They were apparently never organised nor controlled by
+any central authority such as that which made the Roman church so
+powerful and cohesive. Colleges and seats of learning existed at
+Benares and other places, at which their youth were trained in the
+knowledge of religion and of the measure of their own pretensions,
+and the means by which these were to be sustained. But probably
+only a small minority can have attended them, and even these when
+they returned home must have been left practically to themselves,
+spread as the Brahmans were over the whole of India with no means of
+postal communication or rapid transit. And by this fact the chaotic
+character of the Hindu religion, its freedom of belief and worship,
+its innumerable deities, and the almost complete absence of dogmas
+may probably be to a great extent explained. And further the Brahman
+caste itself cannot have been so strictly organised that outsiders and
+the priests of the lower alien religions never obtained entrance to
+it. As shown by Mr. Crooke, many foreign elements, both individuals
+and groups, have at various times been admitted into the caste.
+
+
+
+4. Mixed elements in the caste.
+
+
+The early texts indicate that Brahmans were in the habit of forming
+connections with the widows of Rajanyas and Vaishyas, even if they
+did not take possession of the wives of such men while they were
+still alive. [401] The sons of Angiras, one of the great ancestral
+sages, were Brahmans as well as Kshatriyas. The descendants of Garga,
+another well-known eponymous ancestor, were Kshatriyas by birth but
+became Brahmans. Visvamitra was a Kshatriya, who, by the force of
+his austerities, compelled Brahma to admit him into the Brahmanical
+order, so that he might be on a level with Vasishtha with whom he
+had quarrelled. According to a passage in the Mahabharata all castes
+become Brahmans when once they have crossed the Gomti on a pilgrimage
+to the hermitage of Vasishtha. [402] In more recent times there are
+legends of persons created Brahmans by Hindu Rajas. Sir J. Malcolm in
+Central India found many low-caste female slaves in Brahman houses, the
+owners of which had treated them as belonging to their own caste. [403]
+
+It would appear also that in some cases the caste priests of different
+castes have become Brahmans. Thus the Saraswat Brahmans of the Punjab
+are the priests of the Khatri caste. They have the same complicated
+arrangement of exogamy and hypergamy as the Khatris, and will take
+food from that caste. It seems not improbable that they are really
+descendants of Khatri priests who have become Brahmans. [404]
+
+Similarly such groups as the Oswal, Srimal and Palliwal Brahmans of
+Rajputana, who are priests of the subcastes of Banias of the same
+name, may originally have been caste priests and become Brahmans. The
+Naramdeo Brahmans, or those living on the Nerbudda River, are said to
+be descendants of a Brahman father by a woman of the Naoda or Dhimar
+caste; and the Golapurab Brahmans similarly of a Brahman father and
+Ahir mother. In many cases, such as the island of Onkar Mandhata in
+the Nerbudda in Nimar, and the Mahadeo caves at Pachmarhi, the places
+of worship of the non-Aryan tribes have been adopted by Hinduism and
+the old mountain or river gods transformed into Hindu deities. At
+the same time it is not improbable that the tribal priests of the
+old shrines have been admitted into the Brahman caste.
+
+
+
+5. Caste subdivisions.
+
+
+The Brahman caste has ten main territorial divisions, forming two
+groups, the Panch-Gaur or five northern, and the Panch-Dravida or five
+southern. The boundary line between the two groups is supposed to
+be the Nerbudda River, which is also the boundary between Hindustan
+and the Deccan. But the Gujarati Brahmans belong to the southern
+group, though Gujarat is north of the Nerbudda. The five northern
+divisions are:
+
+(_a_) _Saraswat._--These belong to the Punjab and are named after
+the Saraswati river of the classical period, on whose banks they are
+supposed to have lived.
+
+(_b_) _Gaur._--The home of these is the country round Delhi, but
+they say that the name is from the old Gaur or Lakhnauti kingdom
+of Bengal. If this is correct, it is difficult to understand how
+they came from Bengal to Delhi contrary to the usual tendency of
+migration. General Cunningham has suggested that Gaura was also the
+name of the modern Gonda District, and it is possible that the term was
+once used for a considerable tract in northern India as well as Bengal,
+since it has come to be applied to all the northern Brahmans. [405]
+
+(_c_) _Kankubja or Kanaujia._--These are named after the old town of
+Kanauj on the Ganges near Cawnpore, once the capital of India. The
+Kanaujia are the most important of the northern groups and extend from
+the west of Oudh to beyond Benares and into the northern Districts of
+the Central Provinces. Here they are subdivided into four principal
+groups--the Kanaujia, Jijhotia, Sarwaria and Sanadhya, which are
+treated in annexed subordinate articles.
+
+(_d_) _Maithil._--They take their name from Mithila, the old term
+for Bihar or Tirhut, and belong to this tract.
+
+(_e_) _Utkal._--These are the Brahmans of Orissa.
+
+The five groups of the Panch-Dravida are as follows:
+
+(_a_) _Maharashtra._--These belong to the Maratha country or
+Bombay. They are subdivided into three main territorial groups--the
+Deshasth, or those of the home country, that is the Poona tract above
+the Western Ghats; the Konkonasth, who belong to the Bombay Konkan
+or littoral; and the Karhara, named after a place in the Satara
+District. [406]
+
+(_b_) _Tailanga or Andhra._--The Brahmans of the Telugu country,
+Hyderabad and the northern part of Madras. This territory was known
+as Andhra and governed by an important dynasty of the same name in
+early times.
+
+(_c_) _Dravida._--The Brahmans of the Tamil country or the south
+of Madras.
+
+(_d_) _Karnata._--The Brahmans of the Carnatic, or the Canarese
+country. The Canarese area comprises the Mysore State, and the British
+Districts of Canara, Dharwar and Belgaum.
+
+(_e_) _Gurjara._--The Brahmans of Gujarat, of whom two subcastes are
+found in the Central Provinces. The first consists of the Khedawals,
+named after Kheda, a village in Gujarat, who are a strictly orthodox
+class holding a good position in the caste. And the second are the
+Nagar Brahmans, who have been long settled in Nimar and the adjacent
+tracts, and act as village priests and astrologers. Their social
+status is somewhat lower.
+
+There are, however, a large number of other subcastes, and the
+tendency to fissure in a large caste, and to the formation of small
+local groups which marry among themselves, is nowhere more strikingly
+apparent than among the Brahmans. This is only natural, as they,
+more than any other caste, attach importance to strict ceremonial
+observance in matters of food and the daily ritual of prayer, and
+any group which was suspected of backsliding in respect of these on
+emigration to a new locality would be debarred from intermarriage
+with the parent caste at home. An instance of this is found among the
+Chhattisgarhi Brahmans, who have been long settled in this backward
+tract and cut off from communication with northern India. They
+are mainly of the Kanaujia division, but the Kanaujias of Oudh will
+neither take food nor intermarry with them, and they now constitute a
+separate subcaste of Kanaujias. Similarly the Malwi Brahmans, whose
+home is in Malwa, whence they have spread to Hoshangabad and Betul,
+are believed to have been originally a branch of the Gaur or Kanaujia,
+but have now become a distinct subcaste, and have adopted many of the
+customs of Maratha Brahmans. Mandla contains a colony of Sarwaria [407]
+Brahmans who received grants of villages from the Gond kings and have
+settled down there. They are now cultivators, and some have taken to
+the plough, while they also permit widow-remarriage in all but the
+name. They are naturally cut off from intercourse with the orthodox
+Sarwarias and marry among themselves. The Harenia Brahmans of Saugor
+are believed to have immigrated from Hariana some generations ago and
+form a separate local group; and also the Laheria Brahmans of the same
+District, who, like the Mandla Sarwarias, permit widows to marry. In
+Hoshangabad there is a small subcaste of Bawisa or 'Twenty-two'
+Brahmans, descended from twenty-two families from northern India,
+who settled here and have since married among themselves. A similar
+diversity of subcastes is found in other Provinces. The Brahmans of
+Bengal are also mainly of the Kanaujia division, but they are divided
+into several local subcastes, of which the principal are Rarhi and
+Barendra, named after tracts in Bengal, and quite distinct from the
+subdivisions of the Kanaujia group in the Central Provinces.
+
+
+
+6. Miscellaneous groups.
+
+
+Another class of local subdivisions consists of those Brahmans who
+live on the banks of the various sacred rivers or at famous shrines,
+and earn their livelihood by conducting pilgrims through the series
+of ceremonies and acts of worship which are performed on a visit to
+such places; they receive presents from the pilgrims and the offerings
+made at the shrines. The most prominent among these are the Gayawals of
+Gaya, the Prayagwals of Allahabad (Prayag), the Chaubes of Mathura, the
+Gangaputras (Sons of the Ganges) of Benares, the Pandarams of southern
+India and the Naramdeo Brahmans who hold charge of the many temples on
+the Nerbudda. As such men accept gifts from pilgrims they are generally
+looked down on by good Brahmans and marry among themselves. Many of
+them have a character for extortion and for fleecing their clients,
+a propensity commonly developed in a profession of this kind. Such
+a reputation particularly attaches to the Chaubes of Mathura and
+Brindaban, the holy places of the god Krishna. They are strong and
+finely built men, but gluttonous, idle and dissolute. Some of the
+Benares Brahmans are known as Sawalakhi, or having one and a quarter
+lakhs, apparently on account of the wealth they amass from pilgrims. A
+much lower group are the Maha-Brahmans (great Brahmans), who are also
+known as Patit (degraded) or Katia. These accept the gifts offered by
+the relatives after a death for the use of the dead man in the next
+world during the period of mourning; they also eat food which it is
+supposed will benefit the dead man, and are considered to represent
+him. Probably on this account they share in the impurity attaching to
+the dead, and are despised by all castes and sometimes not permitted to
+live in the village. Other Brahmans are degraded on account of their
+having partly adopted Muhammadan practices. The Husaini Brahmans of
+western India are so called as they combine Muhammadan with Hindu
+rites. They are principally beggars. And the Kalanki Brahmans of
+Wardha and other Districts are looked down upon because, it is said,
+that at the bidding of a Muhammadan governor they make a figure of
+a cow from sugar and eat it up. Probably they may have really acted
+as priests to Muhammadans who were inclined to adopt certain Hindu
+rites on the principle of imitation, and with a view to please their
+disciples conformed to some extent to Islam.
+
+
+
+7. Sectarian divisions.
+
+
+Brahmans have also sectarian divisions according to the different
+Vedas, which they especially study. It is held that the ancient Rishis
+or saints, like the Jewish patriarchs, lived far beyond the ordinary
+span of existence, and hence had time to learn all the Vedas and
+their commentaries. But this was impossible for their shorter-lived
+descendants, and hence each Veda has been divided into a number of
+Shakhas or branches, and the ordinary Brahman only learns one Shakha of
+one Veda. Most Brahmans of the Central Provinces are either Rigvedis
+or Yajurvedis, and these commonly marry only followers of their own
+Veda, thus forming a sort of cross set of endogamous divisions. The
+restriction on marriage may also extend to the Shakha, so that a
+man can only marry in a family of the same Shakha as himself. This
+applies in the Central Provinces mainly to the Yajurvedis, who have
+three well-known Shakhas or branches called Kannava, Apastambha and
+Madhyandina. These are derived from the Shukla or White Yajurveda,
+which can be understood, while the Black Yajurveda is obscure and
+unintelligible. The Rigvedis and Yajurvedis have some differences in
+their methods of recitation. The Rigvedis are said to move the head
+up and down when they recite and not to use the hands; while the
+Yajurvedis swing the hands and body from side to side. It is said
+that a Madhyandina cannot say his prayers nor take his food before
+midday, and hence the name, which means half the day. These points
+of distinction are given as stated by the local Brahmans, and it is
+not known whether they would be endorsed by the Pandits. The Maratha
+Brahmans of the Central Provinces are usually Rigvedis and the Kanaujia
+Brahmans Yajurvedis. Followers of the other two Vedas are practically
+not found. Among Kanaujia Brahmans it is also customary to ask the
+head of a family with which a marriage is proposed whether he ties
+a knot in the right or left half of his Shikha or scalp-lock during
+his prayers and whether he washes his right or left foot first in
+the performance of a religious ceremony.
+
+
+
+8. Exogamy.
+
+
+The exogamous arrangements of the Brahmans are also very complex. It
+is said that the Brahmans are descended from the seven sons of
+the god Brahma, who were Bhrigu, Angirasa, Marichi, Atri, Pulaha,
+Pulastya and Vasishtha. But Pulaha only begot demons and Pulastya
+giants, while Vasishtha died and was born again as a descendant
+of Marichi. Consequently the four ancestors of the Brahmans were
+Bhrigu, Angirasa, Marichi and Atri. But according to another account
+the ancestors of the Brahmans were the seven Rishis or saints who
+form the constellation of the Great Bear. These were Jamadagni,
+Bharadwaj, Gautam, Kashyap, Vasishtha, Agastya, Atri and Visvamitra,
+who makes the eighth and is held to be descended from Atri. These
+latter saints are also said to be the descendants of the four original
+ones, Atri appearing in both lists. But the two lists taken together
+make up eleven great saints, who were the eponymous ancestors of
+the Brahmans. All the different subcastes have as a rule exogamous
+classes tracing their descent from these saints. But each group,
+such as that of Bhrigu or Angirasa, contains a large number of
+exogamous sections usually named after other more recent saints, and
+intermarriage is sometimes prohibited among the different sections,
+which are descended from the same son of Brahma or star of the
+Great Bear. The arrangement thus bears a certain resemblance to the
+classification system of exogamy found among primitive races, only
+that the number of groups is now fairly large; but it is said that
+originally there were only four, from the four sons of Brahma who
+gave birth to Brahmans. The names of other important saints, after
+whom exogamous sections are most commonly called, are Garg, Sandilya,
+Kaushik, Vatsya and Bhargava. These five appear sometimes to be held
+as original ancestors in addition to the eleven already mentioned. It
+may be noted that some of the above names of saints have a totemistic
+character; for instance, Bharadwaj means a lark; Kashyap resembles
+Kachhap, the name for a tortoise; Kaushik may come from the _kusha_
+grass; Agastya from the _agasti_ flower, and so on. Within the main
+group exogamy sometimes also goes by titles or family names. Thus
+the principal titles of the Kanaujias are: Pande, a wise man; Dube,
+learned in two Vedas; Tiwari, learned in three Vedas; Chaube, learned
+in four Vedas; Sukul, white or pure; Upadhya, a teacher; Agnihotri,
+the priest who performs the fire-sacrifice; Dikshit, the initiator,
+and so on. Marriage between persons bearing the same family name
+tends to be prohibited, as they are considered to be relations.
+
+
+
+9. Restrictions on marriage.
+
+
+The prohibition of marriage within the _gotra_ or exogamous section
+bars the union of persons related solely through males. In addition
+to this, according to Hindu law a Brahman must not marry a girl of his
+mother's or maternal grandfather's _gotra_, or one who is a _sapinda_
+of his father or maternal grandfather. Mr. Joshi states that _sapindas_
+are persons related through being particles of the same body. It is
+also understood that two persons are said to be _sapindas_ when they
+can offer _pindas_ or funeral cakes to the same ancestor. The rule
+barring the marriage of _sapindas_ is that two persons cannot marry
+if they are both as near as fourth in descent from a common ancestor,
+and the relationship is derived through the father of either party. If
+either is more remote than fourth in descent they apparently could
+marry. If the relationship of the couple is through their mothers
+in each case, then they cannot marry if they are third in descent
+from the same ancestor, but may do so in the fourth or subsequent
+generations. It is of no importance whether the intervening links
+between the common ancestor and the proposed couple are male or female;
+descent is considered to be male if through the father, and female
+if through the mother. In practice, marriages are held to be valid
+between persons fourth in descent from a common ancestor in the case
+of male relationship, and third in the case of female relationship,
+that is, persons having a common greatgrandparent in the male line
+or a common grandparent in the female line can marry.
+
+Other rules are that girls must not be exchanged in marriage between
+two families, and a man may not marry two sisters, though he can
+marry his deceased wife's sister. The bride should be both younger
+in age and shorter in stature than the bridegroom. A younger sister
+should not be married while her elder sister is single.
+
+
+
+10. Hypergamy.
+
+
+The practice of hypergamy is, or was until recently, common among
+Brahmans. This is the rule by which the social estimation of a
+family is raised if its girls are married into a class of higher
+social status than its own. Members of the superior classes will take
+daughters from the lower classes on payment usually of a substantial
+bride-price, but will not give their daughters to them. According
+to Manu, men of the higher castes were allowed to take wives from
+the lower ones but not to give daughters to them. The origin of the
+custom is obscure. If caste was based on distinctions of race, then
+apparently the practice of hypergamy would be objectionable, because
+it would destroy the different racial classes. If, on the other
+hand, the castes consisted of groups of varying social status, the
+distinction being that those of the lower ones could not participate
+in the sacramental or communal meals of the higher ones, then the
+marriage of a daughter into a higher group, which would carry with
+it participation at the sacramental marriage feast of this group,
+might well be a coveted distinction. The custom of hypergamy prevails
+somewhat largely in northern India between different subcastes, groups
+of different social status in the same subcaste, and occasionally
+even between different castes. The social results of hypergamy, when
+commonly practised, are highly injurious. Men of the higher subcastes
+get paid for marrying several wives, and indulge in polygamy, while
+the girls of the higher subcastes and the boys of the lower ones
+find it difficult and sometimes even impossible to obtain husbands
+and wives. The custom attained its most absurd development among the
+Kulin Brahmans of eastern Bengal, as described by Sir H. Risley. [408]
+Here the Brahmans were divided by a Hindu king, Ballal Sen, into
+two classes, the Kulin (of good family), who had observed the entire
+nine counsels of perfection; and the Srotriya, who, though regular
+students of the Vedas, had lost sanctity by intermarrying with families
+of inferior birth. The latter were further subdivided into three
+classes according to their degree of social purity, and each higher
+class could take daughters from the next one or two lower ones. The
+doctrine known as Kula-gotra was developed, whereby the reputation of
+a family depended on the character of the marriages made by its female
+members. In describing the results of the system Sir H. Risley states:
+"The rush of competition for Kulin husbands on the part of the inferior
+classes became acute. In order to dispose of the surplus of women in
+the higher groups polygamy was resorted to on a very large scale:
+it was popular with the Kulins because it enabled them to make a
+handsome income by the accident of their birth; and it was accepted
+by the parents of the girls concerned as offering the only means of
+complying with the requirements of the Hindu religion. Tempted by a
+_pan_ or premium, which often reached the sum of two thousand rupees,
+Swabhava Kulins made light of their _kul_ and its obligations, and
+married girls, whom they left after the ceremony to be taken care of by
+their parents. Matrimony became a sort of profession, and the honour
+of marrying a girl to a Kulin is said to have been so highly valued
+in eastern Bengal that as soon as a boy was ten years old his friends
+began to discuss his matrimonial prospects, and before he was twenty
+he had become the husband of many wives of ages varying from five to
+fifty." The wives were commonly left at home to be supported by their
+parents, and it is said that when a Kulin Brahman had a journey to
+make he usually tried to put up for the night at the house of one of
+his fathers-in-law. All the marriages were recorded in the registers
+of the professional Ghataks or marriage-brokers, and each party was
+supplied with an extract. On arrival at his father-in-law's house the
+Kulin would produce his extract showing the date on which his marriage
+took place; and the owner of the house, who was often unfamiliar with
+the bridegroom's identity, would compare it with his own extract. When
+they agreed he was taken in and put up for the night, and enjoyed the
+society of his wife. The system thus entailed the greatest misery to
+large numbers of women, both those who were married to husbands whom
+they scarcely ever saw, and those of the higher classes who got no
+husbands at all. It is now rapidly falling into abeyance. Hypergamy
+is found in the Central Provinces among the subcastes of Kanaujia
+Brahmans. The Sarwaria subcaste, which is the highest, takes daughters
+from Kanaujias and Jijhotias, and the Kanaujias take them from the
+Jijhotias. These and other subcastes such as the Khedawals are also
+often divided into two groups of different status, the higher of
+which takes daughters from the lower. Usually the parents of the
+girl pay a liberal bridegroom-price in money or ornaments. It has
+never, however, been carried to the same length here as in Bengal,
+and two, or in some cases three, wives are the limit for a man of
+the higher classes. One division of Kanaujias is called the Satkul or
+seven families, and is the highest. Other Kanaujias, who are known as
+Pachhadar, pay substantial sums for husbands for this group, and it is
+reported that if such a marriage takes place and the bridegroom-price
+is not paid up, the husband will turn his wife out and send her home
+to her father. Certain subcastes of Sunars also have hypergamy and,
+as between different castes, it exists between the Dangis and Rajputs,
+pure Rajputs being held willing to take daughters in marriage from
+the highest clans of Dangis.
+
+
+
+11. Marriage customs.
+
+
+A text of Manu prescribes: [409] "If a young woman marry while she is
+pregnant, whether her pregnancy be known or unknown, the male child in
+her womb belongs to the bridegroom and is called a son received with
+his bride." But at present a Brahman girl who is known to be pregnant
+will be wholly debarred from the sacrament of marriage. An invitation
+to a wedding is sent by means of grains of rice coloured yellow with
+turmeric and placed in a brass bowl with areca-nuts over them. All
+the members of the caste or subcaste who eat food with the host and
+are resident in the same town or close at hand are as a rule invited,
+and all relatives of the family who reside at a distance. The head of
+the family goes himself to the residence of the guests and invites
+them with expressions of humility to honour his home. Before the
+wedding the ancestors of the family and also the divine mothers are
+worshipped, these latter consisting of the consorts of the principal
+gods. In front of the wedding procession are carried _kalashas_ or
+earthen jars filled to the brim with water, and with green shoots
+and branches floating on the top. The _kalasha_ is said to represent
+the universe and to contain the principal gods and divine mothers,
+while the waters in it are the seven seas. All these are witnesses
+to the wedding. Among other ceremonies, presents of fruit, food,
+ornaments and jewellery are exchanged between the parties, and these
+are called _choli-ka-bharana_ or filling the bride's breast-cloth. The
+original object of giving these presents was thus, it would appear
+from the name, to render the bride fertile. The father then gives
+his daughter away in a set form of speech. After reciting the exact
+moment of time, the hour, the day, the minute according to solar
+and lunar reckoning, the year and the epoch, he proceeds: "In the
+name of Vishnu (repeating the name three times), the supreme spirit,
+father and creator of the universe, and in furtherance of his wish for
+the propagation of the human species, I (specifying his full name and
+section, etc.), in the company of my married wife, do hereby offer the
+hand of my daughter--may she live long--full of all virtuous qualities,
+image of Lakshmi, wife of Vishnu, anxious of union in lawful wedlock,
+ornamented and dressed, brought up and instructed according to the best
+of my means, by name (naming her and repeating the full description
+of ancestors, class, etc.) in the solemn presence of the Brahmans,
+Gurus, fire and deities, to you--may you live long--(repeating the
+bridegroom's name and full description), anxious to obtain a wife
+with a view to secure the abode of bliss and eternal happiness in
+the heaven of Brahma. Accept her with _kusha_ grass, grains of rice,
+water and presents of money." Afterwards the father asks the bridegroom
+never to disregard the feelings and sentiments of his wife in matters
+of religion, social pleasures and the acquisition of money, and the
+bridegroom agrees. The binding portion of the ceremony consists in
+walking seven times round the sacred post, and when the seventh round
+is completed the marriage is irrevocable. Among the Maratha Brahmans
+the bridegroom is called Nawar Deo or the new god. During the five
+days of the wedding he is considered to be a sort of king, and is
+put in the highest place, and everybody defers to him. They make the
+bridegroom and bride name each other for a joke, as they are ashamed
+to do this, and will not untie their clothes to let them bathe until
+they have done it. At all the feasts the bride and bridegroom are
+made to eat out of the same plate, and they put pieces of food in
+each other's mouth, which is supposed to produce affection between
+them. The wedding expenses in an ordinary Kanaujia Brahman's family,
+whose income is perhaps Rs. 20 to 40 a month, are estimated at Rs. 200
+for the bridegroom's party and Rs. 175 for the bride's, exclusive
+of any bride- or bridegroom-price. The bulk of the expenditure is on
+feasts to the caste. The bride does not live with her husband until
+after she arrives at puberty, but it is thought desirable that she
+should spend long visits with his family before this, in order that
+she may assimilate their customs and be trained by her mother-in-law,
+according to the saying, 'Tender branches are easily bent.' Among
+some Maratha Brahmans, when the bride arrives at puberty a ceremony
+called Garhbhadan is performed, and the husband confesses whether he
+has cohabited with his wife before her puberty, and if so, he is fined
+a small sum. Such instances usually occur when the signs of puberty
+are delayed. If the planet Mangal or Mars is adverse to a girl in her
+horoscope, it is thought that her husband will die. The women of her
+family will, therefore, first marry her secretly to a pipal-tree,
+so that the tree may die instead. But they do not tell this to the
+bridegroom. In Saugor, girls whose horoscope is unfavourable to the
+husband are first married to the _arka_ or swallow-wort plant. If
+a Brahman has not sufficient funds to arrange for the marriage of
+his daughter he will go about and beg, and it is considered that
+alms given for this purpose acquire special merit for the donor,
+nor will any good Brahman refuse a contribution according to his means.
+
+
+
+12. Polygamy, divorce and treatment of widows.
+
+
+Polygamy conveys no stigma among Brahmans, but is uncommon. Divorce
+is not recognised, a woman who is put away by her husband being turned
+out of the caste. The remarriage of widows is strictly prohibited. It
+is said that marriage is the only sacrament (Sanskar) for a woman,
+and she can only go through it once. The holy nuptial texts may not
+be repeated except for a virgin. The prohibition of the remarriage
+of widows has become a most firmly rooted prejudice among the higher
+classes of Hindus, and is the last to give way before the inroads of
+liberal reform. Only a small minority of the most advanced Brahmans
+have recognised widow-remarriage, and these are generally held to
+be excluded from the caste, though breaches of the rules against the
+consumption of prohibited kinds of meat, and the drinking of aerated
+waters and even alcoholic liquor, are now winked at and not visited
+with the proper penalty. Nevertheless, many classes of Brahmans,
+who live in the country and have taken to cultivation, allow widows
+to live with men without putting the family out of caste. Where
+this is not permitted, surreptitious intercourse may occasionally
+take place with members of the family. The treatment of widows is
+also becoming more humane. Only Maratha and Khedawal Brahmans in
+the Central Provinces still force them to shave their heads, and
+these will permit a child-widow to retain her hair until she grows
+up, though they regard her as impure while she has it. A widow is
+usually forbidden to have a cot or bed, and must sleep on the ground
+or on a plank. She may not chew betel-leaves, should eat only once
+a day, and must rigorously observe all the prescribed fasts. She
+wears white clothes only, no glass bangles, and no ornaments on her
+feet. She is subject to other restrictions and is a general drudge
+in the family. It is probable that the original reason for such
+treatment of a widow was that she was considered impure through being
+perpetually haunted by her husband's ghost. Hindus say that a widow
+is half-dead. She should not be allowed to cook the household food,
+because while cooking it she will remember her husband and the food
+will become like a corpse. The smell of such food will offend the gods,
+and it cannot be offered to them. A widow is not permitted to worship
+the household god or the ancestors of the family. It was no doubt an
+advantage under the joint family system that a widow should not claim
+any life-interest in her husband's property. The modern tendency of
+widows, who are left in possession, to try and alienate the property
+from the husband's relatives has been a fruitful cause of litigation
+and the ruin of many old landed families. The severe treatment of
+widows was further calculated to suppress any tendency on the part
+of wives to poison their husbands. These secondary grounds may have
+contributed something to the preservation and enforcement of an idea
+based originally on superstitious motives.
+
+
+
+13. _Sati_ or burning of widows.
+
+
+For a widow to remain single and lead an austere and joyless life was
+held to confer great honour on her family; and this was enormously
+enhanced when she decided to become _sati_ and die with her husband
+on the funeral pyre. Though it is doubtful whether this practice is
+advocated by the Vedas, subsequent Hindu scriptures insist strongly
+on it. It was said that a widow who was burnt with her husband would
+enjoy as many years in paradise as there are hairs on the human head,
+that is to say, thirty-five million. Conversely, one who insisted
+on surviving him would in her next birth go into the body of some
+animal. By the act of _sati_ she purified all her husband's ancestors,
+even from the guilt of killing a Brahman, and also those of her own
+family. If a man died during an absence from home in another country
+his wife was recommended to take his slippers or any other article
+of dress and burn herself with them tied to her breast. [410]
+
+Great honour was paid to a Sati, and a temple or memorial stone was
+always erected to her at which her spirit was venerated, and this
+encouraged many pious women not only to resign themselves to this
+terrible death but ardently to desire it. The following account given
+by Mr. Ward of the method of a _sati_ immolation in Bengal may be
+reproduced: [411]
+
+"When the husband's life is despaired of and he is carried to the
+bank of the Ganges, the wife declares her resolution to be burnt
+with him. In this case she is treated with great respect by her
+neighbours, who bring her delicate food, and when her husband is dead
+she again declares her resolve to be burnt with his body. Having
+broken a small branch from a mango tree she takes it with her and
+proceeds to the body, where she sits down. The barber then paints
+the sides of her feet red, after which she bathes and puts on new
+clothes. During these preparations the drum beats a certain sound by
+which it is known that a widow is about to be burnt with the corpse
+of her husband. A hole is dug in the ground round which posts are
+driven into the earth, and thick green stakes laid across to form a
+kind of bed; and upon these are laid in abundance dry faggots, hemp,
+clarified butter and pitch. The officiating Brahman now causes the
+widow to repeat the prayer that as long as fourteen Indras reign,
+or as many years as there are hairs on her head, she may abide in
+heaven with her husband; that during this time the heavenly dancers
+may wait on her and her husband; and that by this act of merit all
+the ancestors of her mother and husband may ascend to heaven. She
+now presents her ornaments to her friends, ties some red cotton on
+both wrists, puts two new combs in her hair, paints her forehead,
+and takes into the end of the cloth that she wears some parched
+rice and cowries. The dead body is bathed, anointed with butter,
+and dressed in new clothes. The son takes a handful of boiled rice
+and offers it in the name of his deceased father. Ropes and another
+piece of cloth are spread on the wood, and the dead body is laid
+upon the pile. The widow next walks round the pyre seven times,
+as she did round the marriage-post at her wedding, strewing parched
+rice and cowries as she goes, which the spectators catch and keep
+under the belief that they will cure diseases. The widow then lies
+down on the fatal pile by the side of the dead body. The bodies are
+bound together with ropes and the faggots placed over them. The son,
+averting his head, puts fire to the face of his father, and at the
+same moment several persons light the pile at different sides, when
+the women and mourners set up cries. More faggots are hastily brought
+and thrown over the pile, and two bamboo levers are pressed over them
+to hold down the bodies and the pile. Several persons are employed in
+holding down these levers. More clarified butter, pitch and faggots
+are thrown on to the pile till the bodies are consumed. This may
+take about two hours, but I conceive the woman must be dead in a few
+minutes after the fire has been kindled."
+
+As showing the tenacity with which women sometimes adhered to their
+resolve to be burned with their husbands, and thus, as they believed,
+resume their conjugal life in heaven, the following account by Sir
+William Sleeman, in his _Rambles and Recollections_, of a _sati_
+at Jubbulpore may be given:
+
+"At Gopalpur on the Nerbudda are some very pretty temples built
+for the most part to the memory of women who have burned themselves
+with the remains of their husbands, and on the very spot where the
+cremation occurred. Among them was one recently raised over the ashes
+of one of the most extraordinary old bodies I had ever seen, who
+burned herself in my presence in 1829. In March 1828 I had issued a
+proclamation prohibiting any one from aiding or assisting in _sati_,
+and distinctly stating that to bring one ounce of wood for the
+purpose would be considered as so doing. Subsequently, on Tuesday,
+24th November, I had an application from the heads of the most
+respectable and most extensive family of Brahmans in the District,
+to suffer this old woman to burn herself with the remains of her
+husband, Umeid Singh Upadhya, who had that morning died upon the
+banks of the Nerbudda. I threatened to enforce my order and punish
+severely any man who assisted; and placed a police guard for the
+purpose of seeing that no one did so. The old woman remained by the
+edge of the water without eating or drinking. Next day the body of her
+husband was burned in the presence of several thousand spectators,
+who had assembled to see the _sati_. The sons and grandsons of the
+old woman remained with her, urging her to desist from her resolve,
+while her other relatives surrounded my house urging me to allow her
+to burn. All the day she remained sitting upon a bare rock in the bed
+of the Nerbudda, refusing every kind of sustenance, and exposed to
+the intense heat of the sun by day and the severe cold of the night,
+with only a thin sheet thrown over her shoulders. On the next day,
+Thursday, to cut off all hope of her being moved from her purpose,
+she put on the _dhujja_ or coarse red turban and broke her bracelets
+in pieces, by which she became dead in law and for ever excluded from
+caste. Should she choose to live after this she could never return
+to her family. On the morning of Saturday, the fourth day after the
+death, I rode out ten miles to the spot, and found the poor old widow
+sitting with the _dhujja_ round her head, a brass plate before her
+with undressed rice and flowers, and a cocoanut in each hand. She
+talked very collectedly, telling me that she had determined to mix her
+ashes with those of her departed husband, and should patiently await
+my permission to do so, assured that God would enable her to sustain
+life till that was given, though she dared not eat or drink. Looking
+at the sun, then rising before her over a long and beautiful reach of
+the Nerbudda, she said calmly: 'My soul has been for five days with
+my husband's near that sun; nothing but my earthly frame is left,
+and this I know you will in time suffer to be mixed with the ashes
+of his in yonder pit, because it is not in your nature wantonly
+to prolong the miseries of a poor old woman.' I told her that my
+object and duty was to save and preserve her; I was come to urge her
+to live and keep her family from the disgrace of being thought her
+murderers. I tried to work upon her pride and fears. I told her that
+the rent-free lands on which her family had long subsisted might be
+resumed by Government if her children permitted her to do this act;
+and that no brick or stone should ever mark the place of her death;
+but if she would live, a splendid habitation should be made for her
+among the temples, and an allowance given her from the rent-free
+lands. She smiled, but held out her arm and said, 'My pulse has long
+ceased to beat, for my spirit has departed, and I have nothing left
+but a little earth that I wish to mix with the ashes of my husband. I
+shall suffer nothing in burning, and if you wish proof order some fire,
+and you shall see this arm consumed without giving me any pain.' I
+did not attempt to feel her pulse, but some of my people did, and
+declared that it had ceased to be perceptible. At this time every
+native present believed that she was incapable of suffering pain,
+and her end confirmed them in their opinion. Satisfied myself that
+it would be unavailing to attempt to save her life, I sent for all
+the principal members of the family, and consented that she should be
+suffered to burn herself if they would enter into engagements that no
+other member of their family should ever do the same. This they all
+agreed to, and the papers having been drawn out in due form about
+midday, I sent down notice to the old lady, who seemed extremely
+pleased and thankful. The ceremonies of bathing were gone through
+before three, while the wood and other combustible materials for a
+strong fire were collected and put into the pit. After bathing she
+called for a _pan_ (betel-leaf) and ate it, then rose up, and with one
+arm on the shoulder of her eldest son, and the other on that of her
+nephew, approached the fire. As she rose up fire was set to the pile,
+and it was instantly in a blaze. The distance was about one hundred
+and fifty yards; she came on with a calm and cheerful countenance,
+stopped once, and casting her eyes upwards said, 'Why have they kept
+me five days from thee, my husband?' On coming to the sentries her
+supports stopped, she walked round the pit, paused a moment; and while
+muttering a prayer threw some flowers into the fire. She then walked
+deliberately and steadily to the brink, stepped into the centre of
+the flame, sat down, and leaning back in the midst as if reposing
+upon a couch, was consumed without uttering a shriek or betraying
+one sign of agony."
+
+In cases, however, where women shrank from the flames they were
+frequently forced into them, as it was a terrible disgrace to their
+families that they should recoil on the scene of the sacrifice. Opium
+and other drugs were also administered to stupefy the woman and prevent
+her from feeling pain. Widows were sometimes buried alive with their
+dead husbands. The practice of _sati_ was finally prohibited in 1829,
+without exciting the least discontent.
+
+
+
+14. Funeral rites and mourning.
+
+
+The bodies of children dying before they are named, or before the
+tonsure ceremony is performed on them, are buried, and those of other
+persons are burnt. In the grave of a small child some of its mother's
+milk, or, if this is not available, cow's milk in a leaf-cup or earthen
+vessel, is placed. Before a body is burnt cakes of wheat-flour are put
+on the face, breast and both shoulders, and a coin is always deposited
+for the purchase of the site. Mourning or impurity is observed for
+varying periods, according to the nearness of relationship. For a
+child, relatives other than the parents have only to take a bath to
+remove the impurity caused by the death. In a small town or village all
+Brahmans of the same subcaste living in the place are impure from the
+time of the death until cremation has taken place. After the funeral
+the chief mourner performs the _shraddh_ ceremony, offering _pindas_
+or cakes of rice, with libations of water, to the dead. Presents are
+made to Brahmans for the use of the dead man in the other world, and
+these are sometimes very valuable, as it is thought that the spirit
+will thereby be profited. Such presents are taken by the Maha-Brahman,
+who is much despised. When a late zamindar of Khariar died, Rs. 2000
+were given to the Maha-Brahman for the use of his soul in the next
+world. The funeral rites are performed by an ordinary Brahman, known
+as Malai, who may receive presents after the period of impurity has
+expired. Formerly a calf was let loose in the name of the deceased
+after being branded with the mark of a trident to dedicate it to Siva,
+and allowed to wander free thenceforth. Sometimes it was formally
+married to three or four female calves, and these latter were presented
+to Brahmans. Sometimes the calf was brought to stand over the dying
+man and water poured down its tail into his mouth. The practice of
+letting loose a male calf is now declining, as these animals are a
+great nuisance to the crops, and cultivators put them in the pound. The
+calf is therefore also presented to a Brahman. It is believed that the
+_shraddh_ ceremony is necessary to unite the dead man's spirit with
+the Pitris or ancestors, and without this it wanders homeless. Some
+think that the ancestors dwell on the under or dark side of the
+moon. Those descendants who can offer the _pindas_ or funeral cakes
+to the same ancestor are called Sapindas or relatives, and the man
+who fills the office of chief mourner thereby becomes the dead man's
+heir. Persons who have died a violent death or have been executed are
+not entitled to the ordinary funeral oblations, and cannot at once be
+united with the ancestors. But one year after the death an effigy of
+the deceased person is made in _kusha_ grass and burnt, with all the
+ordinary funeral rites, and offerings are made to his spirit as if
+he had died on this occasion. If the death was caused by snake-bite
+a gold snake is made and presented to a Brahman before this ceremony
+is begun. This is held to be the proper funeral ceremony which unites
+his spirit with the ancestors. Formerly in Madras if a man died during
+the last five days of the waning of the moon it was considered very
+unlucky. In order to escape evil effects to the relatives a special
+opening was made in the wall of the house, through which the body
+was carried, and the house itself was afterwards abandoned for three
+to six months. [412] A similar superstition prevails in the Central
+Provinces about a man dying in the Mul Nakshatra or lunar asterism,
+which is perhaps the same or some similar period. In this case it is
+thought that the deaths of four other members of the household are
+portended, and to avert this four human figures are made of flour or
+grass and burnt with the corpse. According to the Abbé Dubois if a
+man died on a Saturday it was thought that another death would occur
+in the family, and to avert this a living animal, such as a ram,
+goat or fowl, was offered with the corpse. [413]
+
+
+
+15. Religion.
+
+
+The religion of the Brahmans is Hinduism, of which they are the
+priests and exponents. Formerly the Brahman considered himself as
+a part of Brahma, and hence a god. This belief has decayed, but the
+gods are still held to reside in the body; Siva in the crown of the
+head, Vishnu in the chest, Brahma in the navel, Indra in the genitals
+and Ganesh in the rectum. Most Brahmans belong to a sect worshipping
+especially Siva or Vishnu, or Rama and Krishna, the incarnations of
+the latter god, or Sakti, the female principle of energy of Siva. But
+as a rule Brahmans, whether of the Sivite or Vishnuite sects, abstain
+from flesh meat and are averse to the killing of any living thing. The
+following account of the daily ritual prayers of a Benares Brahman
+may be reproduced from M. André Chevrillon's _Romantic India_, [414]
+as, though possibly not altogether accurate in points of detail,
+it gives an excellent idea of their infinitely complicated nature:
+
+
+
+16. Daily ritual.
+
+
+"Here is the daily life of one of the twenty-five thousand Brahmans
+of Benares. He rises before the dawn, and his first care is to look
+at an object of good omen. If he sees a crow at his left, a kite,
+a snake, a cat, a hare, a jackal, an empty jar, a smoking fire,
+a wood-pile, a widow, a man blind of one eye, he is threatened with
+great dangers during the day. If he intended to make a journey, he
+puts it off. But if he sees a cow, a horse, an elephant, a parrot, a
+lizard, a clear-burning fire, a virgin, all will go well. If he should
+sneeze once, he may count upon some special good fortune; but if twice
+some disaster will happen to him. If he yawns some demon may enter his
+body. Having avoided all objects of evil omen, the Brahman drops into
+the endless routine of his religious rites. Under penalty of rendering
+all the day's acts worthless, he must wash his teeth at the bank of
+a sacred stream or lake, reciting a special _mantra_, which ends in
+this ascription: 'O Ganges, daughter of Vishnu, thou springest from
+Vishnu's foot, thou art beloved by him! Remove from us the stains of
+sin and birth, and until death protect us thy servants!' He then rubs
+his body with ashes, saying: 'Homage to Siva, homage to the source of
+all birth! May he protect me during all births!' He traces the sacred
+signs upon his forehead--the three vertical lines representing the
+foot of Vishnu, or the three horizontal lines which symbolise the
+trident of Siva--and twists into a knot the hair left by the razor
+on the top of his head, that no impurity may fall from it to pollute
+the sacred river.
+
+"He is now ready to begin the ceremonies of the morning (_sandhya_),
+those which I have just observed on the banks of the river. Minutely
+and mechanically each Brahman performs by himself these rites of
+prescribed acts and gestures. First the internal ablution: the
+worshipper takes water in the hollow of his hand, and, letting it
+fall from above into his mouth, cleanses his body and soul. Meanwhile
+he mentally invokes the names of Vishnu, saying, 'Glory to Keshava,
+to Narayana, to Madhava, to Govinda,' and so on.
+
+"The second rite is the exercise or 'discipline' of the respiration
+(_prajayama_). Here there are three acts: first, the worshipper
+compresses the right nostril with the thumb, and drives the breath
+through the left; second, he inhales through the left nostril,
+then compresses it, and inhales through the other; third, he stops
+the nose completely with thumb and forefinger, and holds his breath
+as long as possible. All these acts must be done before sunrise, and
+prepare for what is to follow. Standing on the water's edge, he utters
+solemnly the famous syllable OM, pronouncing it _aum_, with a length
+equalling that of three letters. It recalls to him the three persons
+of the Hindu trinity: Brahma, who creates; Vishnu, who preserves;
+Siva, who destroys. More noble than any other word, imperishable,
+says Manu, it is eternal as Brahma himself. It is not a sign, but a
+being, a force; a force which constrains the gods, superior to them,
+the very essence of all things. Mysterious operations of the mind,
+strange associations of ideas, from which spring conceptions like
+these! Having uttered this ancient and formidable syllable, the man
+calls by their names the three worlds: earth, air, sky; and the four
+superior heavens. He then turns towards the east, and repeats the verse
+[415] from the Rig-Veda: 'Let us meditate upon the resplendent glory of
+the divine vivifier, that it may enlighten our minds.' As he says the
+last words he takes water in the palm of his hand and pours it upon the
+top of his head. 'Waters,' he says, 'give me strength and vigour that
+I may rejoice. Like loving mothers, bless us, penetrate us with your
+sacred essence. We come to wash ourselves from the pollution of sins:
+make us fruitful and prosperous.' Then follow other ablutions, other
+_mantras_, verses from the Rig-Veda, and this hymn, which relates the
+origin of all things: 'From the burning heat came out all things. Yes,
+the complete order of the world; Night, the throbbing Ocean, and after
+the throbbing Ocean, Time, which separates Light from Darkness. All
+mortals are its subjects. It is this which disposes of all things,
+and has made, one after another, the sun, the sky, the earth, the
+intermediate air.' This hymn, says Manu, thrice repeated, effaces
+the gravest sins.
+
+"About this time, beyond the sands of the opposite shore of the Ganges,
+the sun appears. As soon as its brilliant disc becomes visible the
+multitude welcome it, and salute it with 'the offering of water.' This
+is thrown into the air, either from a vase or from the hand. Thrice
+the worshipper, standing in the river up to his waist, flings the
+water towards the sun. The farther and wider he flings it, the greater
+the virtue attributed to this act. Then the Brahman, seated upon his
+heels, fulfils the most sacred of his religious duties: he meditates
+upon his fingers. For the fingers are sacred, inhabited by different
+manifestations of Vishnu; the thumb by Govinda, the index-finger by
+Madhava, the middle finger by Hrikesa, the third by Trivikama and the
+little finger by Vishnu himself. 'Homage to the two thumbs,' says
+the Brahman, 'to the two index-fingers, to the two middle fingers,
+to the two "unnamed fingers," to the two little fingers, to the two
+palms, to the two backs of the hands.' Then he touches the various
+parts of the body, and lastly, the right ear, the most sacred of all,
+where reside fire, water, the sun and the moon. He then takes a red
+bag (_gomukhi_), into which he plunges his hand, and by contortions
+of the fingers rapidly represents the chief incarnations of Vishnu:
+a fish, a tortoise, a wild boar, a lion, a slip-knot, a garland. [416]
+
+"The second part of the service is no less rich than the first
+in ablutions and _mantras_. The Brahman invokes the sun, 'Mitra,
+who regards all creatures with unchanging gaze,' and the Dawns,
+'brilliant children of the sky,' the earliest divinities of our Aryan
+race. He extols the world of Brahma, that of Siva, that of Vishnu;
+recites passages from the Mahabharata, the Puranas, all the first
+hymn of the Rig-Veda, the first lines of the second, the first words
+of the principal Vedas, of the Yajur, the Sama, and the Atharva, then
+fragments of grammar, inspired prosodies, and, in conclusion, the first
+words of the book of the Laws of Yajnavalkya, the philosophic Sutras:
+and finally ends the ceremony with three kinds of ablutions, which are
+called the refreshing of the gods, of the sages and of the ancestors.
+
+"First, placing his sacred cord upon the left shoulder, the Brahman
+takes up water in the right hand, and lets it run off his extended
+fingers. To refresh the sages, the cord must hang about the neck,
+and the water run over the side of the hand between the thumb and the
+forefinger, which is bent back. For the ancestors, the cord passes
+over the right shoulder, and the water falls from the hand in the
+same way as for the sages. 'Let the fathers be refreshed,' says the
+prayer, 'may this water serve all those who inhabit the seven worlds,
+as far as to Brahma's dwelling, even though their number be greater
+than thousands of millions of families. May this water, consecrated
+by my cord, be accepted by the men of my race who have left no sons.'
+
+"With this prayer the morning service ends. Now, remember that
+this worship is daily, that these formulas must be pronounced,
+these movements of the hands made with mechanical precision; that
+if the worshipper forgets one of the incarnations of Vishnu which
+he is to figure with his fingers, if he stop his left nostril when
+it should be the right, the entire ceremony loses its efficacy;
+that, not to go astray amid this multitude of words and gestures
+required for each rite, he is obliged to use mnemotechnic methods;
+that there are five of these for each series of formulas; that his
+attention always strained and always directed toward the externals
+of the cult, does not leave his mind a moment in which to reflect
+upon the profound meaning of some of these prayers, and you will
+comprehend the extraordinary scene that the banks of the Ganges at
+Benares present every morning; this anxious and demented multitude,
+these gestures, eager and yet methodical, this rapid movement of the
+lips, the fixed gaze of these men and women who, standing in the water,
+seem not even to see their neighbours, and count mentally like men in
+the delirium of a fever. Remember that there are ceremonies like these
+in the afternoon and also in the evening, and that in the intervals,
+in the street, in the house at meals, when going to bed, similar rites
+no less minute pursue the Brahman, all preceded by the exercises of
+respiration, the enunciation of the syllable OM, and the invocation of
+the principal gods. It is estimated that between daybreak and noon he
+has scarcely an hour of rest from the performance of these rites. After
+the great powers of nature, the Ganges, the Dawn, and the Sun, he
+goes to worship in their temples the representations of divinity,
+the sacred trees, finally the cows, to whom he offers flowers. In
+his own dwelling other divinities await him, five black stones,
+[417] representing Siva, Ganesa, Surya, Devi and Vishnu, arranged
+according to the cardinal points: one towards the north, a second to
+the south-east, a third to the south-west, a fourth to the north-west,
+and one in the centre, this order changing according as the worshipper
+regards one god or another as most important; then there is a shell,
+a bell--to which, kneeling, he offers flowers--and, lastly, a vase,
+whose mouth contains Vishnu, the neck Rudra, the paunch Brahma, while
+at the bottom repose the three divine mothers, the Ganges, the Indus,
+and the Jumna.
+
+"This is the daily cult of the Brahman of Benares, and on holidays
+it is still further complicated. Since the great epoch of Brahmanism
+it has remained the same. Some details may alter, but as a whole it
+has always been thus tyrannical and thus extravagant. As far back
+as the Upanishads appears the same faith in the power of articulate
+speech, the same imperative and innumerable prescriptions, the same
+singular formulas, the same enumeration of grotesque gestures. Every
+day, for more than twenty-five hundred years, since Buddhism was a
+protest against the tyranny and absurdity of rites, has this race
+mechanically passed through this machinery, resulting in what mental
+malformations, what habitual attitudes of mind and will, the race is
+now too different from ourselves for us to be able to conceive."
+
+Secular Brahmans now, however, greatly abridge the length of their
+prayers, and an hour or an hour and a half in the morning suffices
+for the daily bath and purification, the worship of the household
+deities and the morning meal.
+
+
+
+17. The sacred thread.
+
+
+Brahman boys are invested with the sacred thread between the ages of
+five and nine. The ceremony is called Upanayana or the introduction to
+knowledge, since by it the boy acquires the right to read the sacred
+books. Until this ceremony he is not really a Brahman, and is not bound
+to observe the caste rules and restrictions. By its performance he
+becomes Dvija or twice-born, and the highest importance is attached
+to the change or initiation. He may then begin to acquire divine
+knowledge, and perhaps in past times it was thought that he obtained
+the divine character belonging to a Brahman. The sacred thread is
+made of three strands of cotton, which should be obtained from the
+cotton tree growing wild. Sometimes a tree is grown in the yard of
+the house for the provision of the threads. It has several knots
+in it, to which great importance is attached, the number of knots
+being different for a Brahman, a Kshatriya and a Vaishya, the three
+twice-born castes. The thread hangs from the left shoulder, falling
+on to the right hip. Sometimes, when a man is married, he wears a
+double thread of six strands, the second being for his wife; and after
+his father dies a treble one of nine strands. At the investiture the
+boy's nails are cut and his hair is shaved, and he performs the _hom_
+or fire sacrifice for the first time. He then acquires the status of
+a Brahmachari or disciple, and in former times he would proceed to
+some religious centre and begin to study the sacred books. The idea
+of this is preserved by a symbolic ritual. Some Brahmans shave the
+boy's head completely, make a girdle of _kusha_ or _munj_ grass round
+his waist, provide him with a begging-bowl and tongs and the skin of
+an antelope to sit on and make him go and beg from four houses. Among
+others the boy gets on to a wooden horse and announces his intention
+of going off to Benares to study. His mother then sits on the edge of
+a well and threatens to throw herself in if he will not change his
+mind, or the maternal uncle promises to give the boy his daughter
+in marriage. Then the boy relinquishes his intention and agrees to
+stay at home. The sacred thread must always be passed through the
+hand before saying the Gayatri text in praise of the sun, the most
+sacred Brahmanical text. The sacred thread is changed once a year on
+the day of Rakshabandhan; the Brahman and all his family change it
+together. The word Rakshabandhan means binding or tying up the devils,
+and it would thus appear that the sacred thread and the knots in it
+may have been originally intended to some extent to be a protection
+against evil spirits. It is also changed on the occasion of a birth
+or death in the family, or of an eclipse, or if it breaks. The old
+threads are torn up or sewn into clothes by the very poor in the
+Maratha districts. It is said that the Brahmans are afraid that the
+Kunbis will get hold of their old threads, and if they do get one
+they will fold it into four strings, holding a lamp in the middle,
+and wave it over any one who is sick. The Brahmans think that if this
+is done all the accumulated virtue which they have obtained by many
+repetitions of the Gayatri or sacred prayer will be transferred to
+the sick Kunbi. Many castes now wear the sacred thread who have no
+proper claim to do so, especially those who have become landholders
+and aspire to the status of Rajputs.
+
+
+
+18. Social position.
+
+
+The Brahman is of course supreme in Hindu society. He never bows his
+head in salutation to any one who is not a Brahman, and acknowledges
+with a benediction the greetings of all other classes. No member
+of another caste, Dr. Bhattacharya states, can, consistently with
+Hindu etiquette and religious beliefs, refuse altogether to bow to
+a Brahman. "The more orthodox Sudras carry their veneration for the
+priestly caste to such an extent that they will not cross the shadow
+of a Brahman, and it is not unusual for them to be under a vow not
+to eat any food in the morning before drinking Brahman nectar, [418]
+or water in which the toe of a Brahman has been dipped. On the other
+hand, the pride of the Brahman is such that he does not bow even to
+the images of the gods in a Sudra's house. When a Brahman invites a
+Sudra the latter is usually asked to partake of the host's _prasada_
+or favour in the shape of the leavings of his plate. Orthodox Sudras
+actually take offence if invited by the use of any other formula. No
+Sudra is allowed to eat in the same room or at the same time with
+Brahmans." [419]
+
+A man of low caste meeting a Brahman says 'Pailagi' or 'I fall at
+your feet,' and touches the Brahman's foot with his hand, which he
+then carries to his own forehead to signify this. A man wishing to
+ask a favour in a humble manner stands on one leg and folds his cloth
+round his neck to show that his head is at his benefactor's disposal;
+and he takes a piece of grass in his mouth by which he means to say,
+'I am your cow.' Brahmans greeting each other clasp the hands and say
+'Salaam,' this method of greeting being known as Namaskar. Since
+most Brahmans have abandoned the priestly calling and are engaged
+in Government service and the professions, this exaggerated display
+of reverence is tending to disappear, nor do the educated members of
+the caste set any great store by it, preferring the social estimation
+attaching to such a prominent secular position as they often attain
+for themselves.
+
+
+
+19. Titles.
+
+
+Any Brahman is, however, commonly addressed by other castes as
+Maharaj, great king, or else as Pandit, a learned man. I had a Brahman
+chuprassie, or orderly, who was regularly addressed by the rest of the
+household as Pandit, and on inquiring as to the literary attainments
+of this learned man, I found he had read the first two class-books in
+a primary school. Other titles of Brahmans are Dvija, or twice-born,
+that is, one who has had the thread ceremony performed; Bipra, applied
+to a Brahman learned in the Shastras or scriptures; and Srotriya,
+a learned Brahman who is engaged in the performance of Vedic rites.
+
+
+
+20. Caste _panchayat_ and offences.
+
+
+The Brahmans have a caste _panchayat_, but among the educated classes
+the tendency is to drop the _panchayat_ procedure and to refer
+matters of caste rules and etiquette to the informal decision of a
+few of the most respected local members. In northern India there is
+no supreme authority for the caste, but the five southern divisions
+acknowledge the successor of the great reformer Shankar Acharya as
+their spiritual head, and important caste questions are referred to
+him. His headquarters are at the monastery of Sringeri on the Cauvery
+river in Mysore. Mr. Joshi gives four offences as punishable with
+permanent exclusion from caste: killing a Brahman, drinking prohibited
+wine or spirits, committing incest with a mother or step-mother or
+with the wife of one's spiritual preceptor, and stealing gold from a
+priest. Some very important offences, therefore, such as murder of any
+person other than a Brahman, adultery with a woman of impure caste and
+taking food from her, and all offences against property, except those
+mentioned, do not involve permanent expulsion. Temporary exclusion is
+inflicted for a variety of offences, among which are teaching the Vedas
+for hire, receiving gifts from a Sudra for performing fire-worship,
+falsely accusing a spiritual preceptor, subsisting by the harlotry of a
+wife, and defiling a damsel. It is possible that some of the offences
+against morality are comparatively recent additions. Brahmans who
+cross the sea to be educated in England are readmitted into caste
+on going through various rites of purification; the principal of
+these is to swallow the five products of the sacred cow, milk, _ghi_
+or preserved butter, curds, dung and urine. But the small minority
+who have introduced widow-marriage are still banned by the orthodox.
+
+
+
+21. Rules about food.
+
+
+Brahmans as a rule should not eat meat nor drink intoxicating
+liquor. But it is said that the following indulgences have been
+recognised: for residents in eastern India the eating of flesh and
+drinking liquor; for those of northern India the eating of flesh; for
+those in the west the use of water out of leather buckets; and in the
+south marriage with a first cousin on the mother's side. Hindustani
+Brahmans eat meat, according to Mr. Joshi, and others are now also
+adopting this custom. The kinds of meat permitted are mutton and
+venison, scaly, but not scaleless, fish, hares, and even the tortoise,
+wild boar, wild buffalo and rhinoceros. Brahmans are said even to
+eat domestic fowls, though not openly, and wild jungle fowls are
+preferred, but are seldom obtainable. Maratha Brahmans will not eat
+meat openly. Formerly only the flesh of animals offered in sacrifice
+could be eaten, but this rule is being disregarded and some Brahmans
+buy mutton from the butchers. A Brahman should not eat even _pakki
+rasoi_ or food cooked without water, such as sweetmeats and cakes fried
+in butter or oil, except when cooked by his own family and in his own
+home. But these are now partaken of abroad, and also purchased from
+the Halwai or confectioner on the assumption that he is a Brahman. A
+Brahman should take food cooked with water only from his own relations
+and in his own home after the place has been purified and spread
+with cowdung. He bathes before eating, and wears only a yellow silk
+or woollen cloth round his waist, which is kept specially for this
+purpose, cotton being regarded as impure. But these rules are tending
+to become obsolete, as educated Brahmans recognise more and more what
+a hindrance they cause to any social enjoyment. Boys especially who
+receive an English education in high schools and universities are
+rapidly becoming more liberal. They will drink soda-water or lemonade
+of which they are very fond, and eat European sweets and sometimes
+biscuits. The social intercourse of boys of all castes and religions
+in school and games, and in the latter the frequent association with
+Europeans, are having a remarkable effect in breaking down caste
+prejudice, the results of which should become very apparent in a few
+years. A Brahman also should not smoke, but many now do so, and when
+they go to see a friend will take their own huqqa with them as they
+cannot smoke out of his. Maratha and Khedawal Brahmans, however,
+as a rule do not smoke, but only chew tobacco.
+
+
+
+22. Dress.
+
+
+A Brahman's dress should be white, and he can have a coloured turban,
+preferably red. Maratha Brahmans were very particular about the
+securing of their _dhoti_ or loin-cloth, which always had to have
+five tucks, three into the waistband at the two sides and in front,
+while the loose ends were tucked in in front and behind. Buttons had
+to be avoided as they were made of bone, and shoes were considered
+to be impure as being of leather. Formerly a Brahman never entered
+a house with his shoes on, as he would consider the house to be
+defiled. According to the old rule, if a Brahman touches a man of
+an impure caste, as a Chamar (tanner) or Basor (basket-maker), he
+should bathe and change his loin-cloth, and if he touches a sweeper
+he should change his sacred thread. Now, however, educated Brahmans
+usually wear white cotton trousers and black or brown coats of cloth,
+alpaca or silk with the normal allowance of buttons, and European
+shoes and boots which they keep on indoors. Boys are even discarding
+the _choti_ or scalp-lock and simply cut their hair short in imitation
+of the English. For the head small felt caps have become fashionable
+in lieu of turbans.
+
+
+
+23. Tattooing.
+
+
+Men are never tattooed, but women are freely tattooed on the face
+and body. One dot is made in the centre of the forehead and three
+on the left nostril in the form of a triangle. All the limbs and the
+fingers and toes may also be tattooed, the most common patterns being
+a peacock with spread wings, a fish, cuckoo, scorpion, a child's
+doll, a sieve, a pattern of Sita's cookroom and representations of
+all female ornaments. Some women think that they will be able to sell
+the ornaments tattooed on their bodies in the next world and subsist
+on the proceeds.
+
+
+
+24. Occupation.
+
+
+In former times the Brahman was supposed to confine himself to priestly
+duties, learning the Vedas and giving instruction to the laity. His
+subsistence was to be obtained from gleaning the fields after the
+crop had been cut and from unsolicited alms, as it was disgraceful
+for him to beg. But if he could not make a living in this manner
+he was at liberty to adopt a trade or profession. The majority of
+Brahmans have followed the latter course with much success. They were
+the ministers of Hindu kings, and as these were usually illiterate,
+most of the power fell into the Brahmans' hands. In Poona the Maratha
+Brahmans became the actual rulers of the State. They have profited
+much from gifts and bequests of land for charitable purposes and are
+one of the largest landholding castes. In Mewar it was recorded that a
+fifth of the State revenue from land was assigned in religious grants,
+[420] and in the deeds of gift, drawn up no doubt by the Brahmans
+themselves, the most terrible penalties were invoked on any one who
+should interfere with the grant. One of these was that such an impious
+person would be a caterpillar in hell for sixty thousand years. [421]
+Plots of land and mango groves are also frequently given to Brahmans
+by village proprietors. A Brahman is forbidden to touch the plough
+with his own hands, but this rule is falling into abeyance and many
+Brahman cultivators plough themselves. Brahmans are also prohibited
+from selling a large number of articles, as milk, butter, cows, salt
+and so on. Formerly a Brahman village proprietor refused payment
+for the supplies of milk and butter given to travellers, and some
+would expend the whole produce of their cattle in feeding religious
+mendicants and poor Brahmans. But these scruples, which tended to
+multiply the number of beggars indefinitely, have happily vanished,
+and Brahmans will even sell cows to a butcher. Mr. Joshi relates
+that a suit was brought by a Brahman in his court for the hide of a
+cow sold by him for slaughter. A number of Brahmans are employed as
+personal servants, and these are usually cooks, a Brahman cook being
+very useful, since all Hindus can eat the food which he prepares. Nor
+has this calling hitherto been considered derogatory, as food is
+held to be sacred, and he who prepares it is respected. Many live on
+charitable contributions, and it is a rule among Hindus that a Brahman
+coming into the house and asking for a present must be given something
+or his curse will ruin the family. Liberality is encouraged by the
+recitation of legends, such as that of the good king Harischandra who
+gave away his whole kingdom to the great Brahman saint Visvamitra,
+and retired to Benares with a loin-cloth which the recipient allowed
+him to retain from his possessions. But Brahmans who take gifts at the
+time of a death, and those who take them from pilgrims at the sacred
+shrines, are despised and considered as out of caste, though not the
+priests in charge of temples. The rapacity of all these classes is
+proverbial, and an instance may be given of the conduct of the Pandas
+or temple-priests of Benares. These men were so haughty that they
+never appeared in the temple unless some very important visitor was
+expected, who would be able to pay largely. It is related that when
+the ex-Peshwa of Poona came to Benares after the death of his father
+he solicited the Panda of the great temple of Viseshwar to assist him
+in the performance of the ceremonies necessary for the repose of his
+father's soul. But the priest refused to do so until the Maharaja had
+filled with coined silver the _hauz_ or font of the temple. The demand
+was acceded to and Rs. 125,000 were required to fill the font. [422]
+Those who are very poor adopt the profession of a Maha-Brahman or
+Mahapatra, who takes gifts for the dead. Respectable Brahmans will
+not accept gifts at all, but when asked to a feast the host usually
+gives them one to four annas or pence with betel-leaf at the time of
+their departure, and there is no shame in accepting this. A very rich
+man may give a gold mohar (guinea) to each Brahman. Other Brahmans
+act as astrologers and foretell events. They pretend to be able
+to produce rain in a drought or stop excessive rainfall when it is
+injuring the crops. They interpret dreams and omens. In the case of
+a theft the loser will go to a Brahman astrologer, and after learning
+the circumstances the latter will tell him what sort of person stole
+the property and in what direction the property is concealed. But
+the large majority of Brahmans have abandoned all priestly functions,
+and are employed in all grades of Government service, the professions
+and agriculture. In 1911 about fifty-three per cent of Brahmans in
+the Central Provinces were supported by agriculture as landowners,
+cultivators and labourers. About twenty-two per cent were engaged
+in the arts and professions, seven per cent in Government service,
+including the police which contains many Brahman constables, and
+only nineteen per cent were returned under all occupations connected
+with religion.
+
+
+
+25. Character of Brahmans.
+
+
+Many hard things have been said about the Brahman caste and have
+not been undeserved. The Brahman priesthood displayed in a marked
+degree the vices of arrogance, greed, hypocrisy and dissimulation,
+which would naturally be engendered by their sacerdotal pretensions
+and the position they claimed at the head of Hindu society. But
+the priests and mendicants now, as has been seen, contribute only a
+comparatively small minority of the whole caste. The majority of the
+Brahmans are lawyers, doctors, executive officers of Government and
+clerks in all kinds of Government, railway and private offices. The
+defects ascribed to the priesthood apply to these, if at all, only in
+a very minor degree. The Brahman official has many virtues. He is, as
+a rule, honest, industrious and anxious to do his work creditably. He
+spends very little on his own pleasures, and his chief aim in life is
+to give his children as good an education as he can afford. A half or
+more of his income may be devoted to this object. If he is well-to-do
+he helps his poor relations liberally, having the strong fellow-feeling
+for them which is a relic of the joint family system. He is a faithful
+husband and an affectionate father. If his outlook on life is narrow
+and much of his leisure often devoted to petty quarrels and intrigues,
+this is largely the result of his imperfect, parrot-like education
+and lack of opportunity for anything better. In this respect it may
+be anticipated that the excellent education and training now afforded
+by Government in secondary schools for very small fees will produce a
+great improvement; and that the next generation of educated Hindus will
+be considerably more manly and intelligent, and it may be hoped at the
+same time not less honest, industrious and loyal than their fathers.
+
+
+
+Brahman, Ahivasi
+
+
+_Brahman, Ahivasi._--A class of persons who claim to be Brahmans, but
+are generally engaged in cultivation and pack-carriage. They are looked
+down upon by other Brahmans, and permit the remarriage of widows. The
+name means the abode of the snake or dragon, and the caste are said to
+be derived from a village Sunrakh in Muttra District, where a dragon
+once lived. For further information Mr. Crooke's article on the caste,
+[423] from which the above details are taken, may be consulted.
+
+
+
+Brahman, Jijhotia
+
+
+_Brahman, Jijhotia._--This is a local subdivision of the Kanaujia
+subcaste, belonging to Bundelkhand. They take their name from Jajhoti,
+the classical term for Bundelkhand, and reside in Saugor and the
+adjoining Districts, where they usually act as priests to the higher
+castes. The Jijhotia Brahmans rank a little below the Kanaujias proper
+and the Sarwarias, who are also a branch of the Kanaujia division. The
+two latter classes take daughters in marriage from Jijhotias, but do
+not give their daughters to them. But these hypergamous marriages are
+now rare. Jijhotia Brahmans will plough with their own hands in Saugor.
+
+
+
+Brahman, Kanaujia, Kanyakubja
+
+
+_Brahman, Kanaujia, Kanyakubja._--This, the most important division
+of the northern Brahmans, takes its name from the ancient city of
+Kanauj in the Farukhabad District on the Ganges, which was on two
+occasions the capital of India. The great king Harsha Vardhana, who
+ruled the whole of northern India in the seventh century, had his
+headquarters here, and when the Chinese pilgrim Hiuen Tsang stayed at
+Kanauj in A.D. 638 and 643 he found upwards of a hundred monasteries
+crowded by more than 10,000 Buddhist monks. "Hinduism flourished as
+well as Buddhism, and could show more than two hundred temples with
+thousands of worshippers. The city, which was strongly fortified,
+extended along the east bank of the Ganges for about four miles, and
+was adorned with lovely gardens and clear tanks. The inhabitants were
+well-to-do, including some families of great wealth; they dressed in
+silk, and were skilled in learning and the arts." [424] When Mahmud
+of Ghazni appeared before Kanauj in A.D. 1018 the number of temples
+is said to have risen to 10,000. The Sultan destroyed the temples,
+but seems to have spared the city. Thereafter Kanauj declined in
+importance, though still the capital of a Rajput dynasty, and the
+final sack by Shihab-ud-Din in A.D. 1194 reduced it to desolation
+and insignificance for ever. [425]
+
+The Kanaujia Brahmans include the principal body of the caste in
+Bengal and in the Hindi Districts of the Central Provinces. They are
+here divided into four sub-groups, the Kanaujia proper, Sarwaria,
+Jijhotia and Sanadhya, which are separately noticed. The Sarwarias
+are sometimes considered to rank a little higher than the proper
+Kanaujias. It is said that the two classes are the descendants of two
+brothers, Kanya and Kubja, of whom the former accepted a present from
+the divine king Rama of Ayodhya when he celebrated a sacrifice on his
+return from Ceylon, while the latter refused it. The Sarwarias are
+descended from Kubja who refused the present and therefore are purer
+than the Kanaujias, whose ancestor, Kanya, accepted it. Kanya and Kubja
+are simply the two parts of Kanyakubja, the old name for Kanauj. It may
+be noted that Kanya means a maiden and also the constellation Virgo,
+while Kubja is a name of the planet Mars; but it is not known whether
+the words in this sense are connected with the name of the city. The
+Kanaujia Brahmans of the Central Provinces practise hypergamy,
+as described in the general article on Brahman. Mr. Crooke states
+that in the United Provinces the children of a man's second wife can
+intermarry with those of his first wife, provided that they are not
+otherwise related or of the same section. The practice of exchanging
+girls between families is also permitted there. [426] In the Central
+Provinces the Kanaujias eat meat and sometimes plough with their own
+hands. The Chhattisgarhi Kanaujias form a separate group, who have
+been long separated from their brethren elsewhere. As a consequence
+other Kanaujias will neither eat nor intermarry with them. Similarly
+in Saugor those who have come recently from the United Provinces will
+not marry with the older settlers. A Kanaujia Brahman is very strict
+in the matter of taking food, and will scarcely eat it unless cooked
+by his own relations, according to the saying, '_Ath Kanaujia, nau
+chulha_' or 'Eight Kanaujias will want nine places to cook their food.'
+
+
+
+Brahman, Khedawal
+
+
+_Brahman, Khedawal._--The Khedawals are a class of Gujarati Brahmans,
+who take their name from Kheda or Kaira, the headquarters of the Kaira
+District, where they principally reside. They have two divisions,
+known as Inside and Outside. It is said that once the Kaira chief was
+anxious to have a son and offered them gifts. The majority refused the
+gifts, and leaving Kaira settled in villages outside the town; while
+a small number accepted the gifts and remained inside, and hence two
+separate divisions arose, the outside group being the higher. [427]
+It is said that the first Khedawal who came to the Central Provinces
+was on a journey from Gujarat to Benares when, on passing through
+Panna State, he saw some diamonds lying in a field. He stopped and
+picked up as many as he could and presented them to the Raja of Panna,
+who made him a grant of an estate, and from this time other Khedawals
+came and settled. A considerable colony of them now exists in Saugor
+and Damoh. The Khedawals are clever and astute, and many of them are
+the agents of landowners and moneylenders, while a large proportion
+are in the service of the Government. They do not as a rule perform
+priestly functions in the Central Provinces. Their caste observances
+are strict. Formerly it is said that a Khedawal who was sent to jail
+was permanently expelled from caste, and though the rule has been
+relaxed the penalties for readmission are still very heavy. They
+do not smoke, but only chew tobacco. Widows must dress in white,
+and their heads are sometimes shaved. They are said to consider a
+camel as impure as a donkey, and will not touch either animal. One
+of their common titles is Mehta, meaning great. The Khedawals of the
+Central Provinces formerly married only among themselves, but since
+the railway has been opened intermarriage with their caste-fellows
+in Gujarat has been resumed.
+
+
+
+Brahman, Maharashtra
+
+
+_Brahman, Maharashtra, Maratha._--The Maratha Brahmans, or those
+of the Bombay country, are numerous and important in the Central
+Provinces. The northern Districts were for a period governed by
+Maratha Brahmans on behalf of the Peshwa of Poona, and under the
+Bhonsla dynasty of Nagpur in the south they took a large part in the
+administration. The Maratha Brahmans have three main subcastes, the
+Deshasth, Konkonasth and Karhada. The Deshasth Brahmans belong to the
+country of Poona above the Western Ghats, which is known as the _desh_
+or home country. They are numerous in Berar and Nagpur. The Konkonasth
+are so called because they reside in the Konkan country along the
+Bombay coast. They have noticeably fair complexions, good features
+and often grey eyes. According to a legend they were sprung from the
+corpses of a party of shipwrecked foreigners, who were raised to life
+by Parasurama. [428] This story and their fine appearance have given
+rise to the hypothesis that their ancestors were shipwrecked sailors
+from some European country, or from Arabia or Persia. They are also
+known as Chitpavan, which is said to mean the pure in heart, but a
+derivation suggested in the _Bombay Gazetteer_ is from Chiplun or
+Chitapolan, a place in the Konkan which was their headquarters. The
+Peshwa of Poona was a Konkonasth Brahman, and there are a number of
+them in Saugor. The Karhada Brahmans take their name from the town
+of Karhad in the Satara District. They show little difference from
+the Deshasths in customs and appearance.
+
+Formerly the above three subcastes were endogamous and married only
+among themselves. But since the railway has been opened they have
+begun to intermarry with each other to a limited extent, having
+obtained sanction to this from the successor of Shankar Acharya,
+whom they acknowledge as their spiritual head.
+
+The Maratha Brahmans are also divided into sects, according to the
+Veda which they follow. Most of them are either Rigvedis or Yajurvedis,
+and these two sects marry among themselves. These Brahmans are strict
+in the observance of caste rules. They do not take water from any
+but other Brahmans, and abstain from flesh and liquor. They will,
+however, eat with any of the Panch-Dravid or southern divisions of
+Brahmans except those of Gujarat. They usually abstain from smoking,
+and until recently have made widows shave their heads; but this rule is
+perhaps now relaxed. As a rule they are well educated, and the majority
+of them look to Government service for a career, either as clerks
+in the public offices or as officers of the executive and judicial
+services. They are intelligent and generally reliable workers. The
+full name of a Maratha or Gujarati Brahman consists of his own name,
+his father's name and a surname. But he is commonly addressed by his
+own name, followed by the honorific termination Rao for Raja, a king,
+or Pant for Pandit, a wise man.
+
+
+
+Brahman, Maithil
+
+
+_Brahman, Maithil._--One of the five Panch-Gaur or northern divisions,
+comprising the Brahmans of Bihar or Tirhut. There are some Maithil
+Brahman families settled in Mandla, who were formerly in the service
+of the Gond kings. They have the surname of Ojha, which is one of those
+borne by the caste and signifies a soothsayer. The Maithil Brahmans are
+said to have at one time practised magic. Mithila or Bihar has also,
+from the earliest times, been famous for the cultivation of Sanskrit,
+and the great lawgiver Yajnavalkya is described as a native of this
+country. [429] The head of the subcaste is the Maharaja of Darbhanga,
+to whom family disputes are sometimes referred for decision. The
+Maithil Brahmans are said to be mainly Sakti worshippers. They eat
+flesh and fish, but do not drink liquor or smoke tobacco. [430]
+
+
+
+Brahman, Malwi
+
+
+_Brahman, Malwi._--This is a local class of Brahmans from Malwa
+in Central India, who are found in the Hoshangabad and Betul
+Districts. They are said to have been invited here by the Gond kings of
+Kherla in Betul six or more centuries ago, and are probably of impure
+descent. Malwa is north of the Nerbudda, and they should therefore
+properly belong to the Panch-Gaur division, but they speak Marathi and
+their customs resemble those of Maratha Brahmans, who will take food
+cooked without water from them. The Malwi Brahmans usually belong to
+the Madhyandina branch of the Yajurvedi sect. They work as village
+accountants (_patwaris_) and village priests, and also cultivate land.
+
+
+
+Brahman, Nagar
+
+
+_Brahman, Nagar._--A class of Gujarati Brahmans found in the Nimar
+District. The name is said to be derived from the town of Vadnagar of
+Gujarat, now in Baroda State. According to one account they accepted
+grants of land from a Rajput king, and hence were put out of caste
+by their fellows. Another story is that the Nagar Brahman women
+were renowned for their personal beauty and also for their skill in
+music. The emperor Jahangir, hearing of their fame, wished to see
+them and sent for them, but they refused to go. The emperor then
+ordered that all the men should be killed and the women be taken to
+his Court. A terrible struggle ensued, and many women threw themselves
+into tanks and rivers and were drowned, rather than lose their modesty
+by appearing before the emperor. A body of Brahmans numbering 7450
+(or 74 1/2 hundred) threw away their sacred threads and became Sudras
+in order to save their lives. Since this occurrence the figure 74
+1/2 is considered very unlucky. Banias write 74 1/2 in the beginning
+of their account-books, by which they are held to take a vow that if
+they make a false entry in the book they will be guilty of the sin
+of having killed this number of Brahmans. The same figure is also
+written on letters, so that none but the person to whom they are
+addressed may dare to open them. [431]
+
+The above stories seem to show that the Nagar Brahmans are partly of
+impure descent. In Gujarat it is said that one section of them called
+Barud are the descendants of Nagar Brahman fathers who were unable
+to get wives in their own caste and took them from others. The Barud
+section also formerly permitted the remarriage of widows. [432] This
+seems a further indication of mixed descent. The Nagars settled in
+the Central Provinces have for a long time ceased to marry with those
+of Gujarat owing to difficulties in communication. But now that the
+railway has been opened they have petitioned the Rao of Bhaunagar,
+who is the head of the caste, and a Nagar Brahman, to introduce
+intermarriage again between the two sections of the caste. Many Nagar
+Brahmans have taken to secular occupations and are land-agents and
+cultivators.
+
+Formerly the Nagar Brahmans observed very strict rules about defilement
+when in the state called _Nuven_, that is, having bathed and purified
+themselves prior to taking food. A Brahman in this condition was
+defiled if he touched an earthen vessel unless it was quite new and
+had never held water. If he sat down on a piece of cotton cloth or a
+scrap of leather or paper he became impure unless Hindu letters had
+been written on the paper; these, as being the goddess Saraswati, would
+preserve it from defilement. But cloth or leather could not be purified
+through being written on. Thus if the Brahman wished to read any book
+before or at his meal it had to be bound with silk and not with cotton;
+leather could not be used, and instead of paste of flour and water the
+binder had to employ paste of pounded tamarind seed. A printed book
+could not be read, because printing-ink contained impure matter. Raw
+cotton did not render the Brahman impure, but if it had been twisted
+into the wick of a lamp by any one not in a state of purity he became
+impure. Bones defiled, but women's ivory armlets did not, except in
+those parts of the country where they were not usually worn, and then
+they did. The touch of a child of the same caste who had not learned
+to eat grain did not defile, but if the child ate grain it did. The
+touch of a donkey, a dog or a pig defiled; some said that the touch
+of a cat also defiled, but others were inclined to think it did not,
+because in truth it was not easy to keep the cat out. [433]
+
+If a Brahman was defiled and rendered impure by any of the above
+means he could not proceed with his meal.
+
+
+
+Brahman, Naramdeo
+
+
+_Brahman, Naramdeo._--A class of Brahmans who live in the Hoshangabad
+and Nimar Districts near the banks of the Nerbudda, from which river
+their name is derived. According to their own account they belong to
+the Gurjara or Gujarati division, and were expelled from Gujarat by a
+Raja who had cut up a golden cow and wished them to accept pieces of it
+as presents. This they refused to do on account of the sin involved,
+and hence were exiled and came to the Central Provinces. A local
+legend about them is to the effect that they are the descendants
+of a famous Rishi or saint, who dwelt beside the Nerbudda, and of
+a Naoda or Dhimar woman who was one of his disciples. The Naramdeo
+Brahmans have for the most part adopted secular occupations, though
+they act as village priests or astrologers. They are largely employed
+as village accountants (_patwaris_), clerks in Government offices, and
+agents to landowners, that is, in very much the same capacity as the
+Kayasths. As land-agents they show much astuteness, and are reputed
+to have enriched themselves in many cases at the expense of their
+masters. Hence they are unpopular with the cultivators just as the
+Kayasths are, and very uncomplimentary proverbs are current about them.
+
+
+
+Brahman, Sanadhya
+
+
+_Brahman, Sanadhya, Sanaurhia._--The Sanadhyas are considered in the
+Central Provinces to be a branch of the Kanaujia division. Their
+home is in the Ganges-Jumna Doab and Rohilkhand, between the Gaur
+Brahmans to the north-west and the Kanaujias to the east. Mr. Crooke
+states that in some localities the Sanadhyas intermarry with both
+the Kanaujia and Gaur divisions. But formerly both Kanaujias and
+Gaurs practised hypergamy with the Sanadhyas, taking daughters from
+them in marriage but not giving their daughters to them. [434] This
+fact indicates the inferiority of the Sanadhya group, but marriage
+is now becoming reciprocal. In Bengal the Sanadhyas account for their
+inferiority to the other Kanaujias by saying that their ancestors on
+one occasion at the bidding of a Raja partook of a sacrificial feast
+with all their clothes on, instead of only their loin-cloths according
+to the rule among Brahmans, and were hence degraded. The Sanadhyas
+themselves have two divisions, the _Sarhe-tin ghar_ and _Dasghar_,
+or Three-and-a-half houses and Ten houses, of whom the former are
+superior, and practise hypergamy with the latter. Further, it is said
+that the Three-and-a-half group were once made to intermarry with the
+degraded Kataha or Maha-Brahmans, who are funeral priests. [435] This
+further indicates the inferior status of the Sanadhyas. The Sanaurhia
+criminal caste of pickpockets are supposed to be made up of a nucleus
+of Sanadhya Brahmans with recruits from all other castes, but this is
+not certain. In the Central Provinces a number of Sanadhyas took to
+carrying grain and merchandise on pack-bullocks, and are hence known
+as Belwar. They form a separate subcaste, ranking below the other
+Sanadhyas and marrying among themselves. Mr. Crooke notes that at
+their weddings the Sanadhyas worship a potter's wheel. Some make an
+image of it on the wall of the house, while others go to the potter's
+house and worship his wheel there. In the Central Provinces after
+the wedding they get a bed newly made with _newar_ tape and seat the
+bride and bridegroom on it, and put a large plate at their feet, in
+which presents are placed. The Sanadhyas differ from the Kanaujias in
+that they smoke tobacco but do not eat meat, while the Kanaujias eat
+meat but do not smoke. They greet each other with the word Dandawat,
+adding Maharaj to an equal or superior.
+
+
+
+Brahman, Sarwaria
+
+
+_Brahman, Sarwaria._--This is the highest class of the Kanaujia
+Bramans, who take their name from the river Sarju or Gogra in Oudh,
+where they have their home. They observe strict rules of ceremonial
+purity, and do not smoke tobacco nor plough with their own hands. An
+orthodox Sarwaria Braman will not give his daughter in marriage in a
+village from which his family has received a girl, and sometimes will
+not even drink the water of that village. The Sarwarias make widows
+dress in white and sometimes shave their heads. In some tracts they
+intermarry with the Kanaujia Brahmans, and in others take daughters in
+marriage but do not give their own daughters to them. In Dr. Buchanan's
+time, a century ago, the Sarwaria Brahmans would not eat rice sold in
+the bazar which had been cleaned in boiling water, as they considered
+that it had thereby become food cooked with water; and they carried
+their own grain to the grain-parcher to be prepared for them. When
+they ate either parched grain or sweetmeats from a confectioner in
+public they must purify the place on which they sat down with cowdung
+and water. [436] This may be compared with a practice observed by very
+strict Brahmans even now, of adding water to the medicine which they
+obtain from a Government dispensary, to purify it before drinking it.
+
+
+
+Brahman, Utkal
+
+
+_Brahman, Utkal._--These are the Brahmans of Orissa and one of
+the Panch-Gaur divisions. They are divided into two groups, the
+Dakshinatya or southern and the Jajpuria or northern clan. The Utkal
+Brahmans, who first settled in Sambalpur, are known as Jharia or
+jungly, and form a separate subcaste, marrying among themselves,
+as the later immigrants refuse to intermarry with them. Another
+group of Orissa Brahmans have taken to cultivation, and are known as
+Halia, from _hal_, a plough. They grow the betel-vine, and in Orissa
+the areca and cocoanuts, besides doing ordinary cultivation. They
+have entirely lost their sacerdotal character, but glory in their
+occupation, and affect to despise the Bed or Veda Brahmans, who live
+upon alms. [437] A third class of Orissa Brahmans are the Pandas,
+who serve as priests and cooks in the public temples and also in
+private houses, and travel about India touting for pilgrims to visit
+the temple at Jagannath. Dr. Bhattacharya describes the procedure of
+the temple-touts as follows: [438]
+
+"Their tours are so organised that during their campaigning season,
+which commences in November and is finished by the car-festival at the
+beginning of the rains, very few villages of the adjoining Provinces
+escape their visits and taxation. Their appearance causes a disturbance
+in every household. Those who have already visited 'The Lord of the
+World' at Puri are called upon to pay an instalment towards the debt
+contracted by them while at the sacred shrine, which, though paid
+many times over, is never completely satisfied. That, however, is a
+small matter compared with the misery and distraction caused by the
+'Jagannath mania,' which is excited by the preachings and pictures of
+the Panda. A fresh batch of old ladies become determined to visit the
+shrine, and neither the waitings and protestations of the children nor
+the prospect of a long and toilsome journey can dissuade them. The
+arrangements of the family are for the time being altogether upset,
+and the grief of those left behind is heightened by the fact that
+they look upon the pilgrims as going to meet almost certain death...."
+
+This vivid statement of the objections to the habit of pilgrimage from
+a Brahman writer is very interesting. Since the opening of the railway
+to Puri the danger and expense as well as the period of absence have
+been greatly reduced; but the pilgrimages are still responsible for
+a large mortality, as cholera frequently breaks out among the vast
+assembly at the temple, and the pilgrims, hastily returning to all
+parts of India, carry the disease with them, and cause epidemics in
+many localities. All castes now eat the rice cooked at the temple of
+Jagannath together without defilement, and friendships are cemented
+by eating a little of this rice together as a sacred bond.
+
+
+
+Chadar
+
+
+_Chadar, [439] Kotwar._--A small caste of weavers and village
+watchmen resident in the Districts of Saugor, Damoh, Jubbulpore and
+Narsinghpur. They numbered 28,000 persons in 1911. The caste is not
+found outside the northern Districts of the Central Provinces. The
+name is derived from the Sanskrit _chirkar_, a weaver, and belongs
+to Bundelkhand, but beyond this the Chadars have no knowledge or
+traditions of their origin. They are probably an occupational group
+formed from members of the Dravidian tribes and others who took to the
+profession of village watchmen. A number of other occupational castes
+of low status are found in the northern Districts, and their existence
+is probably to be accounted for by the fact that the forest tribes
+were subjected and their tribal organisation destroyed by the invading
+Bundelas and other Hindus some centuries ago. They were deprived
+of the land and relegated to the performance of menial and servile
+duties in the village, and they have formed a new set of divisions
+into castes arising from the occupations they adopted. The Chadars
+have two subcastes based on differences of religious practice, the
+Parmesuria or worshippers of Vishnu, and Athia or devotees of Devi. It
+is doubtful, however, whether these are strictly endogamous. They
+have a large number of exogamous septs or _bainks_, which are named
+after all sorts of animals, plants and natural objects. Instances of
+these names are Dhana (a leaf of the rice plant), Kasia (bell-metal),
+Gohia (a kind of lizard), Bachhulia (a calf), Gujaria (a milkmaid),
+Moria (a peacock), Laraiya (a jackal), Khatkira (a bug), Sugaria
+(a pig), Barraiya (a wasp), Neora (a mongoose), Bhartu Chiraiya (a
+sparrow), and so on. Thirty-nine names in all are reported. Members
+of each sept draw the figure of the animal or plant after which it
+is named on the wall at marriages and worship it. They usually refuse
+to kill the totem animal, and the members of the Sugaria or pig sept
+throw away their earthen vessels if a pig should be killed in their
+sight, and clean their houses as if on the death of a member of the
+family. Marriage between members of the same sept is forbidden and
+also between first cousins and other near relations. The Chadars say
+that the marriages of persons nearly related by blood are unhappy, and
+occasion serious consequences to the parties and their families. Girls
+are usually wedded in the fifth, seventh, ninth, or eleventh year
+of their age and boys between the ages of eight and sixteen. If an
+unmarried girl is seduced by a member of the caste she is married
+to him by the simple form adopted for the wedding of a widow. But
+if she goes wrong with an outsider of low caste she is permanently
+expelled. The remarriage of widows is permitted and divorce is also
+allowed, a deed being executed on stamped paper before the _panchayat_
+or caste committee. If a woman runs away from her husband to another
+man he must repay to the husband the amount expended on her wedding
+and give a feast to the caste. A Brahman is employed to fix the date
+of a wedding and sometimes for the naming of children, but he is only
+consulted and is never present at the ceremony. The caste venerate the
+goddess Devi, offering her a virgin she-goat in the month of Asarh
+(June-July). They worship their weaving implements at the Diwali
+and Holi festivals, and feed the crows in Kunwar (September-October)
+as representing the spirits of their ancestors. This custom is based
+on the superstition that a crow does not die of old age or disease,
+but only when it is killed. To cure a patient of fever they tie a
+blue thread, irregularly knotted, round his wrist. They believe that
+thunder-bolts are the arrows shot by Indra to kill his enemies in the
+lower world, and that the rainbow is Indra's bow; any one pointing at
+it will feel pain in his finger. The dead are mourned for ten days,
+and during that time a burning lamp is placed on the ground at some
+distance from the house, while on the tenth day a tooth-stick and water
+and food are set out for the soul of the dead. They will not throw the
+first teeth of a child on to a tiled roof, because they believe that if
+this is done his next teeth will be wide and ugly like the tiles. But
+it is a common practice to throw the first teeth on to the thatched
+roof of the house. The Chadars will admit members of most castes of
+good standing into the community, and they eat flesh, including pork
+and fowls, and drink liquor, and will take cooked food from most of the
+good castes and from Kalars, Khangars and Kumhars. The social status
+of the caste is very low, but they rank above the impure castes and
+are of cleanly habits, bathing daily and cleaning their kitchens
+before taking food. They are employed as village watchmen and as
+farmservants and field-labourers, and also weave coarse country cloth.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+Chamar
+
+
+
+List of Paragraphs
+
+
+    1. _General notice of the caste._
+    2. _Endogamous divisions._
+    3. _Subcastes continued._
+    4. _Exogamous divisions._
+    5. _Marriage._
+    6. _Widow-marriage and divorce._
+    7. _Funeral customs._
+    8. _Childbirth._
+    9. _Religion._
+    10. _Occupation._
+    11. _The tanning process._
+    12. _Shoes._
+    13. _Other articles made of leather._
+    14. _Customs connected with shoes._
+    15. _The Chamar as general village drudge._
+    16. _Social status._
+    17. _Character._
+
+
+
+1. General notice of the caste.
+
+
+_Chamar, Chambhar._ [440]--The caste of tanners and menial labourers
+of northern India. In the Central Provinces the Chamars numbered about
+900,000 persons in 1911. They are the third caste in the Province in
+numerical strength, being exceeded by the Gonds and Kunbis. About
+600,000 persons, or two-thirds of the total strength of the caste
+in the Province, belong to the Chhattisgarh Division and adjacent
+Feudatory States. Here the Chamars have to some extent emancipated
+themselves from their servile status and have become cultivators, and
+occasionally even malguzars or landed proprietors; and between them
+and the Hindus a bitter and long-standing feud is in progress. Outside
+Chhattisgarh the Chamars are found in most of the Hindi-speaking
+Districts whose population has been recruited from northern and
+central India, and here they are perhaps the most debased class of
+the community, consigned to the lowest of menial tasks, and their
+spirit broken by generations of servitude. In the Maratha country the
+place of the Chamars is taken by the Mehras or Mahars. In the whole
+of India the Chamars are about eleven millions strong, and are the
+largest caste with the exception of the Brahmans. The name is derived
+from the Sanskrit Charmakara, a worker in leather; and, according
+to classical tradition, the Chamar is the offspring of a Chandal or
+sweeper woman by a man of the fisher caste. [441] The superior physical
+type of the Chamar has been noticed in several localities. Thus in
+the Kanara District of Bombay [442] the Chamar women are said to be
+famed for their beauty of face and figure, and there it is stated
+that the Padminis or perfect type of women, middle-sized with fine
+features, black lustrous hair and eyes, full breasts and slim waists,
+[443] are all Chamarins. Sir D. Ibbetson writes [444] that their women
+are celebrated for beauty, and loss of caste is often attributed to
+too great a partiality for a Chamarin. In Chhattisgarh the Chamars
+are generally of fine stature and fair complexion; some of them are
+lighter in colour than the Chhattisgarhi Brahmans, and it is on record
+that a European officer mistook a Chamar for a Eurasian and addressed
+him in English. This, however, is by no means universally the case,
+and Sir H. Risley considers [445] that "The average Chamar is hardly
+distinguishable in point of features, stature or complexion from the
+members of those non-Aryan races from whose ranks we should primarily
+expect the profession of leather-dressers to be recruited." Again, Sir
+Henry Elliot, writing of the Chamars of the North-Western Provinces,
+says: "Chamars are reputed to be a dark race, and a fair Chamar is
+said to be as rare an object as a black Brahman:
+
+
+                Karia Brahman, gor Chamar,
+                Inke sath na utariye par,
+
+
+that is, 'Do not cross a river in the same boat with a black Brahman
+or a fair Chamar,' both being of evil omen." The latter description
+would certainly apply to the Chamars of the Central Provinces outside
+the Chhattisgarh Districts, but hardly to the caste as a whole within
+that area. No satisfactory explanation has been offered of this
+distinction of appearance of some groups of Chamars. It is possible
+that the Chamars of certain localities may be the descendants of a
+race from the north-west, conquered and enslaved by a later wave of
+immigrants; or that their physical development may owe something to
+adult marriage and a flesh diet, even though consisting largely of
+carrion. It may be noticed that the sweepers, who eat the broken food
+from the tables of the Europeans and wealthy natives, are sometimes
+stronger and better built than the average Hindu. Similarly, the
+Kasais or Muhammadan butchers are proverbially strong and lusty. But
+no evidence is forthcoming in support of such conjectures, and the
+problem is likely to remain insoluble.
+
+"The Chamars," Sir H. Risley states, [446] "trace their own pedigree
+to Ravi or Rai Das, the famous disciple of Ramanand at the end
+of the fourteenth century, and whenever a Chamar is asked what
+he is, he replies a Ravi Das. Another tradition current among them
+alleges that their original ancestor was the youngest of four Brahman
+brethren who went to bathe in a river and found a cow struggling in a
+quicksand. They sent the youngest brother in to rescue the animal, but
+before he could get to the spot it had been drowned. He was compelled,
+therefore, by his brothers to remove the carcase, and after he had
+done this they turned him out of their caste and gave him the name
+of Chamar." Other legends are related by Mr. Crooke in his article
+on the caste.
+
+
+
+2. Endogamous divisions.
+
+
+The Chamars are broken up into a number of endogamous subcastes. Of
+these the largest now consists of the members of the Satnami sect
+in Chhattisgarh, who do not intermarry with other Chamars. They
+are described in the article on that sect. The other Chamars call
+the Satnamis Jharia or 'jungly', which implies that they are the
+oldest residents in Chhattisgarh. The Satnamis are all cultivators,
+and have given up working in leather. The Chungias (from _chungi_,
+a leaf-pipe) are a branch of the Satnamis who have taken to smoking,
+a practice which is forbidden by the rules of the sect. In Chhattisgarh
+those Chamars who still cure hides and work in leather belong either
+to the Kanaujia or Ahirwar subcastes, the former of whom take their
+name from the well-known classical town of Kanauj in northern India,
+while the latter are said to be the descendants of unions between
+Chamar fathers and Ahir mothers. The Kanaujias are much addicted to
+drink, and though they eat pork they do not rear pigs. The Ahirwars,
+or Erwars as they are called outside Chhattisgarh, occupy a somewhat
+higher position than the Kanaujias. They consider themselves to be the
+direct descendants of the prophet Raidas or Rohidas, who, they say,
+had seven wives of different castes; one of them was an Ahir woman,
+and her offspring were the ancestors of the Ahirwar subcaste. Both
+the Kanaujias and Ahirwars of Chhattisgarh are generally known to
+outsiders as Paikaha, a term which indicates that they still follow
+their ancestral calling of curing hides, as opposed to the Satnamis,
+who have generally eschewed it. Those Chamars who are curriers have,
+as a rule, the right to receive the hides of the village cattle in
+return for removing the carcases, each family of Chamars having
+allotted to them a certain number of tenants whose dead cattle
+they take, while their women are the hereditary midwives of the
+village. Such Chamars have the designation of Meher. The Kanaujias
+make shoes out of a single piece of leather, while the Ahirwars cut
+the front separately. The latter also ornament their shoes with fancy
+work consisting of patterns of silver thread on red cloth. No Ahirwar
+girl is married until she has shown herself proficient in this kind of
+needlework. [447] Another well-known group, found both in Chhattisgarh
+and elsewhere, are the Jaiswaras, who take their name from the old
+town of Jais in the United Provinces. Many of them serve as grooms,
+and are accustomed to state their caste as Jaiswara, considering
+it a more respectable designation than Chamar. The Jaiswaras must
+carry burdens on their heads only and not on their shoulders, and
+they must not tie up a dog with a halter or neck-rope, this article
+being venerated by them as an implement of their calling. A breach
+of either of these rules entails temporary excommunication from caste
+and a fine for readmission. Among a number of territorial groups may
+be mentioned the Bundelkhandi or immigrants from Bundelkhand; the
+Bhadoria from the Bhadawar State; the Antarvedi from Antarved or the
+Doab, the country lying between the Ganges and Jumna; the Gangapari
+or those from the north of the Ganges; and the Pardeshi (foreigners)
+and Desha or Deswar (belonging to the country), both of which groups
+come from Hindustan. The Deswar Chamars of Narsinghpur [448] are now
+all agriculturists and have totally abjured the business of working in
+leather. The Mahobia and Khaijraha take their names from the towns of
+Mahoba and Khaijra in Central India. The Ladse or Ladvi come from south
+Gujarat, which in classical times was known as Lat; while the Maratha,
+Beraria and Dakhini subdivisions belong to southern India. There are
+a number of other territorial groups of less importance.
+
+
+
+3. Subcastes continued.
+
+
+Certain subcastes are of an occupational nature, and among these may be
+mentioned the Budalgirs of Chhindwara, who derive their name from the
+_budla_, or leather bag made for the transport and storage of oil and
+_ghi_. The _budla_, Mr. Trench remarks, [449] has been ousted by the
+kerosene oil tin, and the industry of the Budalgirs has consequently
+almost disappeared; but the _budlas_ are still used by barbers to
+hold oil for the torches which they carry in wedding processions. The
+Daijanya subcaste are so named because their women act as midwives
+(_dai_), but this business is by no means confined to one particular
+group, being undertaken generally by Chamar women. The Kataua or
+Katwa are leather-cutters, the name being derived from _katna_, to
+cut. And the Gobardhua (from _gobar_, cowdung) collect the droppings
+of cattle on the threshing-floors and wash out and eat the undigested
+grain. The Mochis or shoemakers and Jingars [450] or saddlemakers and
+bookbinders have obtained a better position than the ordinary Chamars,
+and have now practically become separate castes; while, on the other
+hand, the Dohar subcaste of Narsinghpur have sunk to the very lowest
+stage of casual labour, grass-cutting and the like, and are looked
+down on by the rest of the caste. [451] The Korchamars are said to be
+the descendants of alliances between Chamars and Koris or weavers, and
+the Turkanyas probably have Turk or Musalman blood in their veins. In
+Berar the Romya or Haralya subcaste claim the highest rank and say
+that their ancestor Harlya was the primeval Chamar who stripped off
+a piece of his own skin to make a pair of shoes for Mahadeo. [452]
+The Mangya [453] Chamars of Chanda and the Nona Chamars of Damoh are
+groups of beggars, who are the lowest of the caste and will take food
+from the hands of any other Chamar. The Nona group take their name
+from Nona or Lona Chamarin, a well-known witch about whom Mr. Crooke
+relates the following story: [454] "Her legend tells how Dhanwantari,
+the physician of the gods, was bitten by Takshaka, the king of the
+snakes, and knowing that death approached he ordered his sons to cook
+and eat his body after his death, so that they might thereby inherit
+his skill in medicine. They accordingly cooked his body in a cauldron,
+and were about to eat it when Takshaka appeared to them in the form
+of a Brahman and warned them against this act of cannibalism. So
+they let the cauldron float down the Ganges, and as it floated down,
+Lona the Chamarin, who was washing on the bank of the river, took the
+vessel out in ignorance of its contents, and partook of the ghastly
+food. She at once obtained power to cure diseases, and especially
+snake-bite. One day all the women were transplanting rice, and it
+was found that Lona could do as much work as all her companions put
+together. So they watched her, and when she thought she was alone she
+stripped off her clothes (nudity being an essential element in magic),
+muttered some spells, and threw the plants into the air, when they
+all settled down in their proper places. Finding she was observed, she
+tried to escape, and as she ran the earth opened, and all the water of
+the rice-fields followed her and thus was formed the channel of the
+Loni River in the Unao District." This Lona or Nona has obtained the
+position of a nursery bogey, and throughout Hindustan, Sir H. Risley
+states, parents frighten naughty children by telling them that Nona
+Chamarin will carry them off. The Chamars say that she was the mother
+or grandmother of the prophet Ravi Das, or Rai Das already referred to.
+
+
+
+4. Exogamous divisions.
+
+
+The caste is also divided into a large number of exogamous groups
+or sections, whose names, as might be expected, present a great
+diversity of character. Some are borrowed from Rajput clans, as
+Surajvansi, Gaharwar and Rathor; while others, as Marai, are taken
+from the Gonds. Instances of sections named after other castes are
+Banjar (Banjara), Jogi, Chhipia (Chhipi, a tailor) and Khairwar
+(a forest tribe). The Chhipia section preserve the memory of their
+comparatively illustrious descent by refusing to eat pork. Instances
+of sections called after a title or nickname of the reputed founder
+are Maladhari, one who wears a garland; Machhi-Mundia or fly-headed,
+perhaps the equivalent of feather-brained; Hathila, obstinate; Baghmar,
+a tiger-killer; Mangaya, a beggar; Dhuliya, a drummer; Jadkodiha, one
+who digs for roots, and so on. There are numerous territorial groups
+named after the town or village where the ancestor of the clan may
+be supposed to have lived; and many names also are of a totemistic
+nature, being taken from plants, animals or natural objects. Among
+these are Khunti, a peg; Chandaniha, sandalwood; Tarwaria, a sword;
+Borbans, plums; Miri, chillies; Chauria, a whisk; Baraiya, a wasp;
+Khalaria, a hide or skin; Kosni, _kosa_ or tasar silk; and Purain,
+the lotus plant. Totemistic observances survive only in one or two
+isolated instances.
+
+
+
+5. Marriage.
+
+
+A man must not take a wife from his own section, nor in some localities
+from that of his mother or either of his grandmothers. Generally the
+union of first cousins is prohibited. Adult marriage is the rule, but
+those who wish to improve their social position have taken to disposing
+of their daughters at an early age. Matches are always arranged by the
+parents, and it is the business of the boy's father to find a bride for
+his son. A bride-price is paid which may vary from two pice (farthings)
+to a hundred rupees, but usually averages about twenty rupees. In
+Chanda the amount is fixed at Rs. 13 and it is known as _hunda_,
+but if the bride's grandmother is alive it is increased to Rs. 15-8,
+and the extra money is given to her. The marriage ceremony follows the
+standard type prevalent in the locality. On his journey to the girl's
+house the boy rides on a bullock and is wrapped up in a blanket. In
+Bilaspur a kind of sham fight takes place between the parties, which
+is a reminiscence of the former practice of marriage by capture and is
+thus described as an eye-witness by the Rev. E. M. Gordon of Mungeli:
+[455]
+
+"As the bridegroom's party approached the home of the bride the boy's
+friends lifted him up on their shoulders, and, surrounding him on
+every side, they made their way to the bride's house, swinging round
+their sticks in a threatening manner. On coming near the house they
+crossed sticks with the bride's friends, who gradually fell back and
+allowed the bridegroom's friends to advance in their direction. The
+women of the house gathered with baskets and fans and some threw about
+rice in pretence of self-defence. When the sticks of the bridegroom's
+party struck the roof of the bride's house or of the marriage-shed her
+friends considered themselves defeated and the sham fight was at an
+end." Among the Maratha Chamars of Betul two earthen pots full of water
+are half buried in the ground and worship is paid to them. The bride
+and bridegroom then stand together and their relatives take out water
+from the pots and pour it on to their heads from above. The idea is
+that the pouring of the sacred water on to them will make them grow,
+and if the bride is much smaller than the bridegroom more water is
+poured on to her in order that she may grow faster. The practice may
+symbolise the fertilising influence of rain. Among the Dohar Chamars
+of Narsinghpur the bride and bridegroom are seated on a plough-yoke
+while the marriage ceremony is performed. Before the wedding the
+bride's party take a goat's leg in a basket with other articles to the
+_janwasa_ or bridegroom's lodging and present it to his father. The
+bride and bridegroom take the goat's leg and beat each other with it
+alternately. Another ceremony, known as Pendpuja, consists in placing
+pieces of stick with cotton stuck to the ends in an oven and burning
+them in the name of the deceased ancestors; but the significance, if
+there be any, of this rite is obscure. Some time after the wedding
+the bride is taken to her husband's house to live with him, and on
+this occasion a simple ceremony known as Chauk or Pathoni is performed.
+
+
+
+6. Widow-marriage and divorce.
+
+
+Widows commonly remarry, and may take for their second husband anybody
+they please, except their own relatives and their late husband's
+elder brother and ascendant relations. In Chhattisgarh widows are
+known either as _barandi_ or _randi_, the _randi_ being a widow
+in the ordinary sense of the term and the _barandi_ a girl who has
+been married but has not lived with her husband. Such a girl is not
+required to break her bangles on her husband's death, and, being more
+in demand as a second wife, her father naturally obtains a good price
+for her. To marry a woman whose husband is alive is known as _chhandwe
+banana_, the term _chhandwe_ implying that the woman has discarded,
+or has been discarded by, her husband. The second husband must in
+this case repay to the first husband the expenses incurred by him
+on his wedding. The marriage ceremony for a widow is of the simplest
+character, and consists generally of the presentation to her by her
+new husband of those articles which a married woman may use, but which
+should be forsworn by a widow, as representing the useless vanities
+of the world. Thus in Saugor the bridegroom presents his bride with
+new clothes, vermilion for the parting of her hair, a spangle for her
+forehead, lac dye for her feet, antimony for the eyes, a comb, glass
+bangles and betel-leaves. In Mandla and Seoni the bridegroom gives
+a ring, according to the English custom, instead of bangles. When
+a widow marries a second time her first husband's property remains
+with his family and also the children, unless they are very young,
+when the mother may keep them for a few years and subsequently send
+them back to their father's relatives. Divorce is permitted for a
+variety of causes, and is usually effected in the presence of the
+caste _panchayat_ or committee by the husband and wife breaking a
+straw as a symbol of the rupture of the union. In Chanda an image
+of the divorced wife is made of grass and burnt to indicate that to
+her husband she is as good as dead; if she has children their heads
+and faces are shaved in token of mourning, and in the absence of
+children the husband's younger brother has this rite performed; while
+the husband gives a funeral feast known as _Marti Jiti ka Bhat_, or
+'The feast of the living dead woman.' In Chhattisgarh marriage ties
+are of the loosest description, and adultery is scarcely recognised
+as an offence. A woman may go and live openly with other men and
+her husband will take her back afterwards. Sometimes, when two men
+are in the relation of Mahaprasad or nearest friend to each other,
+that is, when they have vowed friendship on rice from the temple of
+Jagannath, they will each place his wife at the other's disposal. The
+Chamars justify this carelessness of the fidelity of their wives by
+the saying, 'If my cow wanders and comes home again, shall I not let
+her into her stall?' In Seoni, if a Chamar woman is detected in a
+misdemeanour with a man of the caste, both parties are taken to the
+bank of a tank or river, where their heads are shaved in the presence
+of the caste _panchayat_ or committee. They are then made to bathe,
+and the shoes of all the assembled Chamars made up into two bundles
+and placed on their heads, while they are required to promise that
+they will not repeat the offence.
+
+
+
+7. Funeral customs.
+
+
+The caste usually bury the dead with the feet to the north, like the
+Gonds and other aboriginal tribes. They say that heaven is situated
+towards the north, and the dead man should be placed in a position to
+start for that direction. Another explanation is that the head of the
+earth lies towards the north, and yet another that in the Satyug or
+beginning of time the sun rose in the north; and in each succeeding
+Yug or era it has veered round the compass until now in the Kali Yug
+or Iron Age it rises in the east. In Chhattisgarh, before burying a
+corpse, they often make a mark on the body with butter, oil or soot;
+and when a child is subsequently born into the same family they
+look for any kind of mark on the corresponding place on its body. If
+any such be found they consider the child as a reincarnation of the
+deceased person. Still-born children, and those who die before the
+Chathi or sixth-day ceremony of purification, are not taken to the
+burial-ground, but their bodies are placed in an earthen pot and
+interred below the doorway or in the courtyard of the house. In
+such cases no funeral feast is demanded from the family, and some
+people believe that the custom tends in favour of the mother bearing
+another child; others say, however, that its object is to prevent
+the _tonhi_ or witch from getting hold of the body of the child and
+rousing its spirit to life to do her bidding as Matia Deo. [456] In
+Seoni a curious rule obtains to the effect that the bodies of those
+who eat carrion or the flesh of animals dying a natural death should
+be cremated. In the northern Districts a bier painted white is used
+for a man and a red one for a woman.
+
+
+
+8. Childbirth.
+
+
+Among the better-class Chamars it is customary to place a newborn child
+in a winnowing-fan on a bed of rice. The nurse receives the rice and
+she also goes round to the houses of the headman of the village and
+the relatives of the family and makes a mark with cowdung on their
+doors as an announcement of the birth, for which she receives a small
+present. In Chhattisgarh a woman is given nothing to eat or drink
+on the day that a child is born and for two days afterwards. On the
+fourth day she receives a liquid decoction of ginger, the roots of
+the _orai_ or _khaskhas_ grass, areca-nut, coriander and turmeric
+and other hot substances, and in some places a cake of linseed or
+sesamum. She sometimes goes on drinking this mixture for as long
+as a month, and usually receives solid food for the first time on
+the sixth day after the birth, when she bathes and her impurity
+is removed. The child is not permitted to suckle its mother until
+the third day after it is born, but before this it receives a small
+quantity of a mixture made by boiling the urine of a calf with some
+medicinal root. In Chhattisgarh it is a common practice to brand a
+child on the stomach on the name-day or sixth day after its birth;
+twenty or more small burns may be made with the point of a _hansia_
+or sickle on the stomach, and it is supposed that this operation will
+prevent it from catching cold. Another preventive for convulsions
+and diseases of the lungs is the rubbing of the limbs and body with
+castor-oil; the nurse wets her hands with the oil and then warms them
+before a fire and rubs the child. It is also held in the smoke of
+burning _ajwain_ plants (_Carum copticum_). Infants are named on the
+Chathi or sixth day, or sometimes on the twelfth day after birth. The
+child's head is shaved, and the hair, known as Jhalar, thrown away, the
+mother and child are washed and the males of the family are shaved. The
+mother is given her first regular meal of grain and pulse cooked with
+pumpkins. A pregnant woman who is afraid that her child will die will
+sometimes sell it to a neighbour before its birth for five or six
+cowries. [457] The baby will then be named Pachkouri or Chhekouri, and
+it is thought that the gods, who are jealous of the lives of children,
+will overlook one whose name shows it to be valueless. Children are
+often nicknamed after some peculiarity as Kanwa (one-eyed), Behra
+(deaf), Konda (dumb), Khurwa (lame), Kari (black), Bhuri (fair). It
+does not follow that a child called Konda is actually dumb, but it
+may simply have been late in learning to speak. Parents are jealous
+of exposing their children to the gaze of strangers and especially
+of a crowd, in which there will almost certainly be some malignant
+person to cast the evil eye upon them. Young children are therefore
+not infrequently secluded in the house and deprived of light and air
+to an extent which is highly injurious to them.
+
+
+
+9. Religion.
+
+
+The caste worship the ordinary Hindu and village deities of
+the localities in which they reside, and observe the principal
+festivals. In Saugor the Chamars have a family god, known as Marri,
+who is represented by a lump of clay kept in the cooking-room of the
+house. He is supposed to represent the ancestors of the family. The
+Seoni Chamars especially worship the castor-oil plant. Generally
+the caste revere the _rampi_ or skinning-knife with offerings of
+flour-cakes and cocoanuts on festival days. In Chhattisgarh more than
+half the Chamars belong to the reformed Satnami sect, by which the
+worship of images is at least nominally abolished. This is separately
+treated. Mr. Gordon states [458] that it is impossible to form a clear
+conception of the beliefs of the village Chamars as to the hereafter:
+"That they have the idea of hell as a place of punishment may be
+gathered from the belief that if salt is spilt the one who does this
+will in Patal--or the infernal region--have to gather up each grain of
+salt with his eyelids. Salt is for this reason handed round with great
+care, and it is considered unlucky to receive it in the palm of the
+hand; it is therefore invariably taken in a cloth or in a vessel. There
+is a belief that the spirit of the deceased hovers round familiar
+scenes and places, and on this account, whenever it is possible,
+it is customary to destroy or desert the house in which any one has
+died. If a house is deserted the custom is to sweep and plaster the
+place, and then, after lighting a lamp, to leave it in the house and
+withdraw altogether. After the spirit of the dead has wandered around
+restlessly for a certain time it is said that it will again become
+incarnate and take the form of man or of one of the lower animals."
+
+
+
+10. Occupation.
+
+
+The curing and tanning of hides is the primary occupation of the
+Chamar, but in 1911 only 80,000 persons, or about a seventh of the
+actual workers of the caste, were engaged in it, and by Satnamis the
+trade has been entirely eschewed. The majority of the Chhattisgarhi
+Chamars are cultivators with tenant right, and a number of them have
+obtained villages. In the northern Districts, however, the caste
+are as a rule miserably poor, and none of them own villages. A
+very few are tenants, and the vast majority despised and bullied
+helots. The condition of the leather-working Chamars is described
+by Mr. Trench as lamentable. [459] Chief among the causes of their
+ruin has been the recently established trade in raw hides. Formerly
+the bodies of all cattle dying within the precincts of the village
+necessarily became the property of the Chamars, as the Hindu owners
+could not touch them without loss of caste. But since the rise of
+the cattle-slaughtering industry the cultivator has put his religious
+scruples in his pocket, and sells his old and worn-out animals to the
+butchers for a respectable sum. "For a mere walking skeleton of a cow
+or bullock from two to four rupees may be had for the asking, and so
+long as he does not actually see or stipulate for the slaughter of the
+sacred animal, the cultivator's scruples remain dormant. No one laments
+this lapse from orthodoxy more sincerely than the outcaste Chamar. His
+situation may be compared with that of the Cornish pilchard-fishers,
+for whom the growing laxity on the part of continental Roman Catholic
+countries in the observance of Lent is already more than an omen of
+coming disaster." [460]
+
+
+
+11. The tanning process.
+
+
+When a hide is to be cured the inside is first cleaned with the
+_rampi_, a chisel-like implement with a short blade four inches broad
+and a thick short handle. It is then soaked in a mixture of water
+and lime for ten or twelve days, and at intervals scraped clean of
+flesh and hair with the _rampi_. "The skill of a good tanner appears
+in the absence of superfluous inner skin, fat or flesh, remaining to
+be removed after the hide is finally taken out of the lime-pit. Next
+the hard berries of the _ghont_ [461] tree are poured into a large
+earthen vessel sunk in the ground, and water added till the mixture
+is so thick as to become barely liquid. In this the folded hide is
+dipped three or four times a day, undergoing meanwhile a vigorous
+rubbing and kneading. The average duration of this process is eight
+days, and it is followed by what is according to European ideas the
+real tanning. Using as thread the roots of the ubiquitous _palas_
+[462] tree, the Chamar sews the hide up into a mussack-shaped bag
+open at the neck. The sewing is admirably executed, and when drawn
+tight the seams are nearly, but purposely not quite, water-tight. The
+hide is then hung on low stout scaffolding over a pit and filled with
+a decoction of the dried and semi-powdered leaves of the _dhaura_
+[463] tree mixed with water. As the decoction trickles slowly through
+the seams below, more is poured on from above, and from time to time
+the position of the hide is reversed in such a way that the tanning
+permeates each part in turn. Sometimes only one reversal of the hide
+takes place half-way through the process, which occupies as a rule
+some eight days. But energetic Chamars continually turn and refill
+the skin until satisfied that it is thoroughly saturated with the
+tanning. After a washing in clean water the hide is now considered
+to be tanned." [464]
+
+
+
+12. Shoes.
+
+
+In return for receiving the hides of the village cattle the Chamar
+had to supply the village proprietor and his family with a pair
+of shoes each free of payment once a year, and sometimes also the
+village accountant and watchman; but the cultivators had usually
+to pay for them, though nowadays they also often insist on shoes
+in exchange for their hides. Shoes are usually worn in the wheat
+and cotton growing areas, but are less common in the rice country,
+where they would continually stick in the mud of the fields. The
+Saugor or Bundelkhandi shoe is a striking specimen of footgear. The
+sole is formed of as many as three layers of stout hide, and may be
+nearly an inch thick. The uppers in a typical shoe are of black soft
+leather, inlaid with a simple pattern in silver thread. These are
+covered by flaps of stamped yellow goat-skin cut in triangular and
+half-moon patterns, the interstices between the flaps being filled
+with red cloth. The heel-piece is continued more than half-way up the
+calf behind. The toe is pointed, curled tightly over backwards and
+surmounted by a brass knob. The high frontal shield protects the instep
+from mud and spear-grass, and the heel-piece ensures the retention of
+the shoe in the deepest quagmire. Such shoes cost one or two rupees
+a pair. [465] In the rice Districts sandals are often worn on the
+road, and laid aside when the cultivator enters his fields. Women go
+bare-footed as a rule, but sometimes have sandals. Up till recently
+only prostitutes wore shoes in public, and no respectable woman would
+dare to do so. In towns boots and shoes made in the English fashion at
+Cawnpore and other centres have now been generally adopted, and with
+these socks are worn. The Mochis and Jingars, who are offshoots from
+the Chamar caste, have adopted the distinctive occupations of making
+shoes and horse furniture with prepared leather, and no longer cure
+hides. They have thus developed into a separate caste, and consider
+themselves greatly superior to the Chamars.
+
+
+
+13. Other articles made of leather.
+
+
+Other articles made of leather are the thongs and nose-strings for
+bullocks, the buckets for irrigation wells, rude country saddlery,
+and _mussacks_ and _pakhals_ for carrying water. These last are
+simply hides sewn into a bag and provided with an orifice. To make
+a pair of bellows a goat-skin is taken with all four legs attached,
+and wetted and filled with sand. It is then dried in the sun, the
+sand shaken out, the sticks fitted at the hind-quarters for blowing,
+and the pair of bellows is complete.
+
+
+
+14. Customs connected with shoes.
+
+
+The shoe, as everybody in India knows, is a symbol of the greatest
+degradation and impurity. This is partly on account of its manufacture
+from the impure leather or hide, and also perhaps because it is worn
+and trodden under foot. All the hides of tame animals are polluted and
+impure, but those of certain wild animals, such as the deer and tiger,
+are not so, being on the contrary to some extent sacred. This last
+feeling may be due to the fact that the old anchorites of the forests
+were accustomed to cover themselves with the skins of wild animals, and
+to use them for sitting and kneeling to pray. A Bairagi or Vaishnava
+religious mendicant much likes to carry a tiger-skin on his body if
+he can afford one; and a Brahman will have the skin of a black-buck
+spread in the room where he performs his devotions. Possibly the sin
+involved in killing tame animals has been partly responsible for the
+impurity attaching to their hides, to the obtaining of which the death
+of the animal must be a preliminary. Every Hindu removes his shoes
+before entering a house, though with the adoption of English boots a
+breach is being made in this custom. So far as the houses of Europeans
+are concerned, the retention of shoes is not, as might be imagined,
+of recent origin, but was noticed by Buchanan a hundred years ago:
+"Men of rank and their attendants continue to wear their shoes loose
+for the purpose of throwing them off whenever they enter a room,
+which they still continue to do everywhere except in the houses of
+Europeans, in which all natives of rank now imitate our example." In
+this connection it must be remembered that a Hindu house is always
+sacred as the shrine of the household god, and shoes are removed
+before stepping across the threshold on to the hallowed ground. This
+consideration does not apply to European houses, and affords ground
+for dispensing with the removal of laced shoes and boots.
+
+To be beaten or sometimes even touched with a shoe by a man of
+low caste entails temporary social excommunication to most Hindus,
+and must be expiated by a formal purification and caste feast. The
+outcaste Mahars punish a member of their community in the same manner
+even if somebody should throw a shoe on to the roof of his house,
+and the Pharasaical absurdities of the caste system surely find their
+culminating point in this rule. Similarly if a man touches his shoe
+with his hand and says 'I have beaten you,' to a member of any of
+the lower castes in Seoni, the person so addressed is considered as
+temporarily out of caste. If he then immediately goes and informs his
+caste-fellows he is reinstated with a nominal fine of grain worth
+one or two pice. But if he goes back to his house and takes food,
+and the incident is subsequently discovered, a penalty of a goat is
+levied. A curious exception recognised is that of the _Sirkari juta_,
+or shoe belonging to a Government servant, and to be beaten with this
+shoe does not entail social punishment.
+
+
+
+15. The Chamar as general village drudge.
+
+
+In return for his perquisite of the hides of cattle the Chamar has
+to act as the general village drudge in the northern Districts and is
+always selected for the performance of _bigar_ or forced labour. When
+a Government officer visits the village the Chamar must look after
+him, fetch what grass or fuel he requires, and accompany him as far
+as the next village to point out the road. He is also the bearer
+of official letters and messages sent to the village. The special
+Chamar on whom these duties are imposed usually receives a plot of
+land rent-free from the village proprietor. Another of the functions
+of the Chamar is the castration of the young bullocks, which task the
+cultivators will not do for themselves. His method is most primitive,
+the scrotum being held in a cleft bamboo or a pair of iron pincers,
+while the testicles are bruised and rubbed to pulp with a stone. The
+animal remains ill for a week or a fortnight and is not worked for two
+months, but the operation is rarely or never fatal. In the northern
+Districts the Chamars are said to be very strong and to make the
+best farmservants and coolies for earthwork. It is a proverb that
+'The Chamar has half a rib more than other men.' Notwithstanding his
+strength, however, he is a great coward, this characteristic having
+probably been acquired through centuries of oppression. Many Chamar
+women act as midwives. In Raipur the cultivators give her five annas
+at the birth of a boy and four annas for a girl, while well-to-do
+people pay a rupee. When the first child of a rich man is born,
+the midwife, barber and washerman go round to all his friends and
+relations to announce the event and obtain presents. It is a regular
+function of the Chamars to remove the carcases of dead cattle, which
+they eat without regard to the disease from which the animal may have
+died. But a Chamar will not touch the corpse of a pony, camel, cat,
+dog, squirrel or monkey, and to remove the bodies of such animals
+a Mehtar (sweeper) or a Gond must be requisitioned. In Raipur it is
+said that the Chamars will eat only the flesh of four-legged animals,
+avoiding presumably birds and fish. When acting as a porter the Chamar
+usually carries a load on his head, whereas the Kahar bears it on his
+shoulders, and this distinction is proverbial. In Raipur the Chamars
+have become retail cattle-dealers and are known as Kochias. They
+purchase cattle at the large central markets of Baloda and Bamnidih
+and retail them at the small village bazars. It is said that this
+trade could only flourish in Chhattisgarh, where the cultivators
+are too lazy to go and buy their cattle for themselves. Many Chamars
+have emigrated from Chhattisgarh to the Assam tea-gardens, and others
+have gone to Calcutta and to the railway workshops at Kharagpur and
+Chakardharpur. Many of them work as porters on the railway. It is
+probable that their taste for emigration is due to the resentment
+felt at their despised position in Chhattisgarh.
+
+
+
+16. Social status.
+
+
+The Chamar ranks at the very bottom of the social scale, and contact
+with his person is considered to be a defilement to high-caste
+Hindus. He cannot draw water from the common well and usually
+lives in a hamlet somewhat removed from the main village. But in
+several localities the rule is not so strict, and in Saugor a Chamar
+may go into all parts of the house except the cooking and eating
+rooms. This is almost necessary when he is so commonly employed
+as a farmservant. Here the village barber will shave Chamars and
+the washerman will wash their clothes. And the Chamar himself will
+not touch the corpse of a horse, a dog or any animal whose feet are
+uncloven; and he will not kill a cow though he eats its flesh. It is
+stated indeed that a Chamar who once killed a calf accidentally had
+to go to the Ganges to purify himself. The crime of cattle-poisoning
+is thus rare in Saugor and the other northern Districts, but in the
+east of the Provinces it is a common practice of the Chamars. As is
+usual with the low castes, many Chamars are in some repute as Gunias or
+sorcerers, and in this capacity they are frequently invited to enter
+the houses of Hindus to heal persons possessed of evil spirits. When
+children fall ill one of them is called in and he waves a branch of
+the _nim_ [466] tree over the child and taking ashes in his hand
+blows them at it; he is also consulted for hysterical women. When
+a Chamar has had something stolen and wishes to detect the thief,
+he takes the wooden-handled needle used for stitching leather and
+sticks the spike into the sole of a shoe. Then two persons standing
+in the relation of maternal uncle and nephew hold the needle and shoe
+up by placing their forefingers under the wooden handle. The names
+of all suspected persons are pronounced, and he at whose name the
+shoe turns on the needle is taken to be the thief.
+
+The caste do not employ Brahmans for their ceremonies, but consult
+them for the selection of auspicious days, as this business can be
+performed by the Brahman at home and he need not enter the Chamar's
+house. But poor and despised as the Chamars are they have a pride of
+their own. When the Dohar and Maratha Chamars sell shoes to a Mahar
+they will only allow him to try on one of them and not both, and this,
+too, he must do in a sitting posture, as an indication of humility. The
+Harale or Maratha Chamars of Berar [467] do not eat beef nor work with
+untanned leather, and they will not work for the lowest castes, as
+Mahars, Mangs, Basors and Kolis. If one of these buys a pair of shoes
+from the Chamar the seller asks no indiscreet questions; but he will
+not mend the pair as he would for a man of higher caste. The Satnamis
+of Chhattisgarh have openly revolted against the degraded position to
+which they are relegated by Hinduism and are at permanent feud with
+the Hindus; some of them have even adopted the sacred thread. But this
+interesting movement is separately discussed in the article on Satnami.
+
+
+
+17. Character.
+
+
+In Chhattisgarh the Chamars are the most criminal class of the
+population, and have made a regular practice of poisoning cattle with
+arsenic in order to obtain the hides and flesh. They either mix the
+poison with mahua flowers strewn on the grazing-ground, or make it
+into a ball with butter and insert it into the anus of the animal when
+the herdsman is absent. They also commit cattle-theft and frequently
+appear at the whipping-post before the court-house. The estimation in
+which they are held by their neighbours is reflected in the proverb,
+'Hemp, rice and a Chamar; the more they are pounded the better they
+are.' "The caste," Mr. Trench writes, "are illiterate to a man,
+and their intellectual development is reflected in their style of
+living. A visit to a hamlet of tanning Chamars induces doubt as to
+whence the appalling smells of the place proceed--from the hides or
+from the tanners. Were this squalor invariably, as it is occasionally,
+accompanied by a sufficiency of the necessaries of life, victuals and
+clothing, the Chamar would not be badly off, but the truth is that in
+the northern Districts at all events the Chamar, except in years of
+good harvest, does not get enough to eat. This fact is sufficiently
+indicated by a glance at the perquisites of the village Chamar, who
+is almost invariably the shoemaker and leather-worker for his little
+community. In one District the undigested grain left by the gorged
+bullocks on the threshing-floor is his portion, and a portion for
+which he will sometimes fight. Everywhere he is a carrion-eater,
+paying little or no regard to the disease from which the animal
+may have died." The custom above mentioned of washing grain from
+the dung of cattle is not so repugnant to the Hindus, owing to the
+sacred character of the cow, as it is to us. It is even sometimes
+considered holy food:--"The zamindar of Idar, who is named Naron Das,
+lives with such austerity that his only food is grain which has passed
+through oxen and has been separated from their dung; and this kind
+of aliment the Brahmans consider pure in the highest degree." [468]
+Old-fashioned cultivators do not muzzle the bullocks treading out
+the corn, and the animals eat it the whole time, so that much passes
+through their bodies undigested. The Chamar will make several maunds
+(80 lbs.) of grain in this way, and to a cultivator who does not
+muzzle his bullocks he will give a pair of shoes and a plough-rein and
+yoke-string. Another duty of the Chamar is to look after the _banda_
+or large underground masonry chamber in which grain is kept. After
+the grain has been stored, a conical roof is built and plastered over
+with mud to keep out water. The Chamar looks after the repairs of the
+mud plaster and in return receives a small quantity of grain, which
+usually goes bad on the floor of the store-chamber. They prepare the
+threshing-floors for the cultivators, making the surface of the soil
+level and beating it down to a smooth and hard surface. In return
+for this they receive the grain mixed with earth which remains on
+the threshing-floor after the crop is removed.
+
+Like all other village artisans the Chamar is considered by the
+cultivators to be faithless and dilatory in his dealings with them;
+and they vent their spleen in sayings such as the following:--"The
+Kori, the Chamar and the Ahir, these are the three biggest liars that
+ever were known. For if you ask the Chamar whether he has mended your
+shoes he says, 'I am at the last stitch,' when he has not begun them;
+if you ask the Ahir whether he has brought back your cow from the
+jungle he says, 'It has come, it has come,' without knowing or caring
+whether it has come or not; and if you ask the Kori whether he has
+made your cloth he says, 'It is on the loom,' when he has not so much
+as bought the thread." Another proverb conveying the same sense is,
+'The Mochi's to-morrow never comes.' But no doubt the uncertainty
+and delay in payment account for much of this conduct.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+Chasa
+
+
+
+1. Origin and traditions.
+
+
+_Chasa_, [469] _Tasa_ (also called Alia in the Sonpur and Patna
+States).--The chief cultivating caste of Orissa. In 1901 more
+than 21,000 Chasas were enumerated in Sambalpur and the adjoining
+Feudatory States, but nearly all these passed in 1905 to Bengal. The
+Chasas are said [470] by Sir H. Risley to be for the most part of
+non-Aryan descent, the loose organisation of the caste system among
+the Uriyas making it possible on the one hand for outsiders to be
+admitted into the caste, and on the other for wealthy Chasas who
+gave up ploughing with their own hands and assumed the respectable
+title of Mahanti to raise themselves to membership among the lower
+classes of Kayasths. This passage indicates that the term Mahanti is
+or was a broader one than Karan or Uriya Kayasth, and was applied to
+educated persons of other castes who apparently aspired to admission
+among the Karans, in the same manner as leading members of the
+warlike and landholding castes lay claim to rank as Rajputs. For
+this reason probably the Uriya Kayasths prefer the name of Karan
+to that of Mahanti, and the Uriya saying, 'He who has no caste is
+called a Mahanti,' supports this view. The word Chasa has the generic
+meaning of 'a cultivator,' and the Chasas may in Sambalpur be merely
+an occupational group recruited from other castes. This theory is
+supported by the names of their subdivisions, three of which, Kolta,
+Khandait and Ud or Orh are the names of distinct castes, while the
+fourth, Benatia, is found as a subdivision of several other castes.
+
+
+
+2. Exogamous divisions.
+
+
+Each family has a _got_ or sept and a _varga_ or family name. The
+_vargas_ are much more numerous than the _gots_, and marriages are
+arranged according to them, unions of members of the same _varga_ only
+being forbidden. The sept names are totemistic and the family names
+territorial or titular. Among the former are _bachhas_ (calf), _nagas_
+(cobra), _hasti_ or _gaj_ (elephant), _harin_ (deer), _mahumachhi_
+(bee), _dipas_ (lamp), and others; while instances of the _varga_
+names are Pitmundia, Hulbulsingia, Giringia and Dumania, all names of
+villages in Angul State; and Nayak (headman), Mahanti (writer), Dehri
+(worshipper), Behera (cook), Kandra (bamboo-worker), and others. The
+different _gots_ or septs revere their totems by drawing figures
+of them on their houses, and abstaining from injuring them in any
+way. If they find the footprints of the animal which they worship,
+they bow to the marks and obliterate them with the hand, perhaps with
+the view of affording protection to the totem animal from hunters
+or of preventing the marks from being trampled on by others. They
+believe that if they injured the totem animal they would be attacked
+by leprosy and their line would die out. Members of the _dipas_ sept
+will not eat if a lamp is put out at night, and will not touch a
+lamp with unclean hands. Those of the _mahumachhi_ or bee sept will
+not take honey from a comb or eat it. Those of the _gaj_ sept will
+not join an elephant kheddah. Some of the septs have an Ishta Devata
+or tutelary Hindu deity to whom worship is paid. Thus the elephant
+sept worship Ganesh, the elephant-headed god, and also do not kill
+rats because Ganesh rides on this animal. Similarly the _harin_ or
+deer sept have Pawan, the god of the wind, as their Ishta Devata,
+because a deer is considered to be as swift as the wind. It would
+appear then that the septs, each having its totem, were the original
+divisions for the restriction of marriage, but as these increased in
+size they were felt to debar the union of persons who had no real
+relationship and hence the smaller family groups were substituted
+for them; while in the case of the old septs, the substitution of the
+Hindu god representing the animal worshipped by the sept for the animal
+itself as the object of veneration is an instance of the process of
+abandoning totem or animal worship and conforming to Hinduism. In one
+or two cases the _vargas_ themselves have been further subdivided for
+the purpose of marriage. Thus certain families of the Padhan (leader,
+chief) _varga_ were entrusted with the duty of readmitting persons
+temporarily put out of caste to social intercourse, for which they
+received the remuneration of a rupee and a piece of cloth in each
+case. These families were called the Parichha or 'Scrutinisers' and
+have now become a separate _varga_, so that a Parichha Padhan may
+marry another Padhan. This is a further instance of the process of
+subdivision of exogamous groups which must take place as the groups
+increase in size and numbers, and the original idea of the common
+ancestry of the group vanishes. Until finally the primitive system of
+exogamy disappears and is replaced by the modern and convenient method
+of prohibition of marriage within certain degrees of relationship.
+
+
+
+3. Status and customs of the caste.
+
+
+The Chasas do not marry within the same _varga,_ but a man may usually
+take a wife from his mother's _varga_. A girl must always be wedded
+before arriving at adolescence, the penalty for breach of this rule
+being the driving out of the girl to seclusion in the forest for a
+day and a half, and a feast to the caste-fellows. If no husband is
+available she may be married to an arrow or a flower, or she goes
+through the form of marriage with any man in the caste, and when a
+suitable partner is subsequently found, is united with him by the
+form of widow-marriage. Widows may marry again and divorce is also
+allowed. The dead are usually buried if unmarried, and burnt when
+married. The Chasas worship the Hindu deities and also the village
+god Gramsiri, who is represented by a stone outside the village. At
+festivals they offer animal sacrifices to their agricultural
+implements, as hoes and hatchets. They employ Brahmans for religious
+ceremonies. They have an aversion to objects of a black colour, and
+will not use black umbrellas or clothes woven with black thread. They
+do not usually wear shoes or ride horses, even when they can afford
+these latter. Cultivation is the traditional occupation of the caste,
+and they are tenants, farmservants and field-labourers. They take food
+from Rajputs and Brahmans, and sometimes from Koltas and Sudhs. They
+eat flesh and fish, but abjure liquor, beef, pork and fowls. Their
+social position is a little below that of the good agricultural castes,
+and they are considered somewhat stupid, as shown by the proverb:
+
+
+                Chasa, ki jane pasar katha,
+                Padili bolai dons;
+
+
+or 'What does the Chasa know of the dice? At every throw he calls out
+"twenty."'
+
+
+
+
+
+
+Chauhan
+
+
+_Chauhan._ [471]--A small caste of village watchmen and labourers
+in the Chhattisgarh Division. They are also known as Chandel by
+outsiders. In 1911 the Chauhans numbered 7000 persons in the Raipur
+and Bilaspur Districts, and the adjoining Feudatory States. The
+caste claim themselves to be of Rajput origin, and say that their
+ancestors came from Mainpuri, which is the home of the Chauhan clan of
+Rajputs. A few of their section names are taken from those of Rajput
+clans, but the majority are of a totemistic nature, being called
+after animals and plants, as Nag the cobra, Neora the mongoose,
+Kolhia the jackal, Kamal the lotus, Pat silk, Chanwar rice, Khanda
+a sword, and so on. Members of each sept worship the object after
+which it is named at the time of marriage, and if the tree or animal
+itself is not readily available, they make a representation of it
+in flour and pay their respects to that. Thus members of the Bedna
+or sugarcane sept make a stick of flour and worship it. They will
+not kill or eat their sept totem, but in some cases, as in that of
+the Chanwar or rice sept, this rule is impossible of observance, so
+the members of this sept content themselves with abstaining from a
+single variety of rice, the kind called Nagkesar. Families who belong
+to septs named after heroic ancestors make an image in flour of the
+ancestral saint or hero and worship it. The caste employ Brahmans
+for their marriage and other ceremonies, and will not take food from
+any caste except Brahmans and their Bairagi _gurus_ or spiritual
+preceptors. But their social position is very low, as none except
+the most debased castes will take food or water from their hands, and
+their hereditary calling of village watchman would not be practised
+by any respectable caste. By outsiders they are considered little,
+if at all, superior to the Pankas and Gandas, and the most probable
+theory of their origin is that they are the descendants of irregular
+alliances between immigrant Rajput adventurers and the women of the
+country. Their social customs resemble those of other low castes in
+Chhattisgarh. Before the bridegroom starts for a wedding, they have
+a peculiar ceremony known as Naodori. Seven small earthen cups full
+of water are placed on the boy's head, and then poured over him in
+succession. A piece of new cloth is laid on his head, and afterwards
+placed seven times in contact with the earth. During this ritual the
+boy keeps his eyes shut, and it is believed that if he should open
+them before its completion, his children would be born blind. When
+the bride leaves her father's house she and all her relatives mourn
+and weep noisily, and the bride continues doing so until she is well
+over a mile from her own village. Similarly on the first three or
+four visits which she pays to her parents after her wedding, she
+begins crying loudly a mile away from their house, and continues
+until she reaches it. It is the etiquette also that women should
+cry whenever they meet relatives from a distance. In such cases
+when two women see each other they cry together, each placing her
+head on the other's shoulder and her hands at her sides. While they
+cry they change the position of their heads two or three times, and
+each addresses the other according to their relationship, as mother,
+sister, and so on. Or if any member of the family has recently died,
+they call upon him or her, exclaiming 'O my mother! O my sister! O
+my father! Why did not I, unfortunate one, die instead of thee?' A
+woman when weeping with a man holds to his sides and rests her head
+against his breast. The man exclaims at intervals, 'Stop crying,
+do not cry.' When two women are weeping together it is a point of
+etiquette that the elder should stop first and then beg her companion
+to do so, but if it is doubtful which is the elder, they sometimes
+go on crying for an hour at a time, exciting the younger spectators
+to mirth, until at length some elder steps forward and tells one of
+them to stop. The Chauhans permit the remarriage of widows, and a
+woman is bound by no restrictions as to her choice of a second husband.
+
+The goddess Durga or Devi is chiefly revered by the caste, who observe
+fasts in her honour in the months of Kunwar (September) and Chait
+(March). When they make a _badna_ or vow, they usually offer goats
+to the goddess, and sow the _Jawaras_ or Gardens of Adonis in her
+name, but except on such occasions they present less costly articles,
+as cocoanuts, betel-leaves, areca-nuts and flowers. On the Dasahra
+festival they worship the _lathi_ or stick which is the badge of
+office of the village watchman. They were formerly addicted to petty
+theft, and it is said that they worshipped the _khunta_ or pointed
+rod for digging through the wall of a house. The caste usually burn
+the dead, but children whose ears or noses have not been pierced are
+buried. Children who die before they have begun to eat grain are not
+mourned at all, while for older children the period of mourning is
+three to seven days, and for adults ten days. On the tenth day they
+clean their houses, shave themselves and offer balls of rice to the
+dead under the direction of a Brahman, to whom they present eating
+and drinking vessels, clothes, shoes and cattle with the belief that
+the articles will thus become available for the use of the dead man
+in the other world. The Chauhans will not eat fowls, pork or beef,
+and in some places they abstain from drinking liquor.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+Chhipa
+
+
+
+1. Constitution of the caste.
+
+
+_Chhipa, Rangari, Bhaosar, Nirali, Nilgar._--The Hindu caste of cotton
+printers and dyers. They are commonly known as Chhipa in the northern
+Districts and Rangari or Bhaosar in the Maratha country. The Chhipas
+and Rangaris together number about 23,000 persons. In the south of
+the Central Provinces and Berar cotton is a staple crop, and the
+cotton-weaving industry is much stronger than in the north, and as a
+necessary consequence the dyers also would be more numerous. Though the
+Chhipas and Rangaris do not intermarry or dine together, no essential
+distinction exists between them. They are both of functional origin,
+pursue exactly the same occupation, and relate the same story about
+themselves, and no good reason therefore exists for considering them
+as separate castes. Nilgar or Nirali is a purely occupational term
+applied to Chhipas or Rangaris who work in indigo (_nil_); while
+Bhaosar is another name for the Rangaris in the northern Districts.
+
+
+
+2. Its origin and position.
+
+
+The Rangaris say that when Parasurama, the Brahman, was slaying the
+Kshatriyas, two brothers of the warrior caste took refuge in a temple
+of Devi. One of them, called Bhaosar, threw himself upon the image,
+while the other hid behind it. The goddess saved them both and told
+them to adopt the vocation of dyers. The Rangaris are descended from
+the brother who was called Bhaosar and the Chhipas from the other
+brother, because he hid behind the image (_chhipna_, to hide). The word
+is really derived from _chhapna_, to print, because the Chhipas print
+coloured patterns on cotton cloths with wooden stamps. Rangari comes
+from the common word _rang_ or colour. The Chhipas have a slightly
+different version of the same story, according to which the goddess
+gave one brother a needle and a piece of thread, and the other some
+red betel-leaf which she spat at him out of her mouth; and told one to
+follow the vocation of a tailor, and the other that of a dyer. Hence
+the first was called Chhipi or Shimpi and the second Chhipa. This
+story indicates a connection between the dyeing and tailoring castes
+in the Maratha Districts, which no doubt exists, as one subcaste of
+the Rangaris is named after Namdeo, the patron saint of the Shimpis
+or tailors. Both the dyeing and tailoring industries are probably of
+considerably later origin than that of cotton-weaving, and both are
+urban rather than village industries. And this consideration perhaps
+accounts for the fact that the Chhipas and Rangaris rank higher than
+most of the weaving castes, and no stigma or impurity attaches to them.
+
+
+
+3. Caste subdivisions.
+
+
+The caste have a number of subdivisions, such as the Malaiyas or
+immigrants from Malwa, the Gujrati who come from Gujarat, the Golias
+or those who dye cloth with _goli ka rang_, the fugitive aniline dyes,
+the Namdeos who belong to the sect founded by the Darzi or tailor of
+that name, and the Khatris, these last being members of the Khatri
+caste who have adopted the profession.
+
+
+
+4. Marriage and other customs.
+
+
+Marriage is forbidden between persons so closely connected as to have a
+common ancestor in the third generation. In Bhandara it is obligatory
+on all members of the caste, who know the bride or bridegroom, to
+ask him or her to dine. The marriage rite is that prevalent among
+the Hindustani castes, of walking round the sacred post. Divorce
+and the marriage of widows are permitted. In Narsinghpur, when a
+bachelor marries a widow, he first goes through a mock ceremony by
+walking seven times round an earthen vessel filled with cakes; this
+rite being known as Langra Biyah or the lame marriage. The caste burn
+their dead, placing the head to the north. On the day of Dasahra the
+Chhipas worship their wooden stamps, first washing them and then making
+an offering to them of a cocoanut, flowers and an image consisting
+of a bottle-gourd standing on four sticks, which is considered to
+represent a goat. The Chhipas rank with the lower artisan castes,
+from whose hands Brahmans will not take water. Nevertheless some of
+them wear the sacred thread and place sect-marks on their foreheads.
+
+
+
+5. Occupation.
+
+
+The bulk of the Chhipas dye cloths in red, blue or black, with
+ornamental patterns picked out on them in black and white. Formerly
+their principal agent was the _al_ or Indian mulberry (_Morinda
+citrifolia_), from which a rich red dye is obtained. But this
+indigenous product has been ousted by alizarin, a colouring agent
+made from coal-tar, which is imported from Germany, and is about
+thirty per cent cheaper than the native dye. Chhipas prepare _saris_
+or women's wearing-cloths, and floor and bed cloths. The dye stamps
+are made of teakwood by an ordinary carpenter, the flat surface of
+the wood being hollowed out so as to leave ridges which form either
+a design in curved lines or the outlines of the figures of men,
+elephants and tigers. There is a great variety of patterns, as many
+as three hundred stamps having been found in one Chhipa's shop. The
+stamps are usually covered with a black ink made of sulphate of iron,
+and this is fixed by myrobalans; the Nilgars usually dye a plain blue
+with indigotin. No great variety or brilliancy of colours is obtained
+by the Hindu dyers, who are much excelled in this branch of the art
+by the Muhammadan Rangrez. In Gujarat dyeing is strictly forbidden
+by the caste rules of the Chhipas or Bhaosars during the four rainy
+months, because the slaughter of insects in the dyeing vat adds to
+the evil and ill-luck of that sunless time. [472]
+
+
+
+
+
+
+Chitari
+
+
+
+List of Paragraphs
+
+
+    1.  _Origin and traditions._
+    2.  _Social customs._
+    3.  _Birth and childhood._
+    4.  _The evil eye._
+    5.  _Cradle-songs._
+    6.  _Occupation._
+
+
+
+1. Origin and traditions.
+
+
+_Chitari, Chiter, Chitrakar, Maharana._--A caste of painters on
+wood and plaster. Chiter is the Hindustani, and Chitari the Marathi
+name, both being corruptions of the Sanskrit Chitrakar. Maharana
+is the term used in the Uriya country, where the caste are also
+known as Phal-Barhai, or a carpenter who only works on one side of
+the wood. Chitari is further an occupational term applied to Mochis
+and Jingars, or leather-workers, who have adopted the occupation of
+wall-painting, and there is no reason to doubt that the Chitaris were
+originally derived from the Mochis, though they have now a somewhat
+higher position. In Mandla the Chitrakars and Jingars are separate
+castes, and do not eat or intermarry with one another. Neither branch
+will take water from the Mochis, who make shoes, and some Chitrakars
+even refuse to touch them. They say that the founder of their caste
+was Biskarma, [473] the first painter, and that their ancestors
+were Rajputs, whose country was taken by Akbar. As they were without
+occupation Akbar then assigned to them the business of making saddles
+and bridles for his cavalry and scabbards for their swords. It is not
+unlikely that the Jingar caste did really originate or first become
+differentiated from the Mochis and Chamars in Rajputana owing to the
+demand for such articles, and this would account for the Mochis and
+Jingars having adopted Rajput names for their sections, and making
+a claim to Rajput descent. The Chitrakars of Mandla say that their
+ancestors belonged to Garha, near Jubbulpore, where the tomb of a
+woman of their family who became _sati_ is still to be seen. Garha,
+which was once the seat of an important Gond dynasty with a garrison,
+would also naturally have been a centre for their craft.
+
+Another legend traces their origin from Chitrarekha, a nymph who
+was skilled in painting and magic. She was the friend of a princess
+Usha, whose father was king of Sohagpur in Hoshangabad. Usha fell
+in love with a beautiful young prince whom she saw in a dream,
+and Chitrarekha drew the portraits of many gods and men for her,
+until finally Usha recognised the youth of her dream in the portrait
+of Aniruddha, the grandson of Krishna. Chitrarekha then by her magic
+power brought Aniruddha to Usha, but when her father found him in the
+palace he bound him and kept him in prison. On this Krishna appeared
+and rescued his grandson, and taking Usha from her father married
+them to each other. The Chitaris say that as a reward to Chitrarekha,
+Krishna promised her that her descendants should never be in want,
+and hence members of their caste do not lack for food even in famine
+time. [474] The Chitaris are declining in numbers, as their paintings
+are no longer in demand, the people preferring the cheap coloured
+prints imported from Germany and England.
+
+
+
+2. Social customs.
+
+
+The caste is a mixed occupational group, and those of Maratha,
+Telugu and Hindustani extraction marry among themselves. A few wear
+the sacred thread, and abstain from eating flesh or drinking liquor,
+while the bulk of them do not observe these restrictions.
+
+Among the Jingars women accompany the marriage procession, but not
+with the Chitaris.
+
+Widow-marriage is allowed, but among the Maharanas a wife who has lived
+with her husband may not marry any one except his younger brother,
+and if there are none she must remain a widow. In Mandla, if a widow
+marries her younger brother-in-law, half her first husband's property
+goes to him finally, and half to the first husband's children. If she
+marries an outsider she takes her first husband's property and children
+with her. Formerly if a wife misbehaved the Chitari sometimes sold
+her to the highest bidder, but this custom has fallen into abeyance,
+and now if a man divorces his wife her father usually repays to him
+the expenses of his marriage. These he realises in turn from any
+man who takes his daughter. A second wife worships the spirit of
+the dead first wife on the day of Akhatij, offering some food and a
+breast-cloth, so that the spirit may not trouble her.
+
+
+
+3. Birth and childhood.
+
+
+A pregnant woman must stay indoors during an eclipse; if she goes out
+and sees it they believe that her child will be born deformed. They
+think that a woman in this condition must be given any food which
+she takes a fancy for, so far as may be practicable, as to thwart her
+desires would affect the health of the child. Women in this condition
+sometimes have a craving for eating earth; then they will eat either
+the scrapings or whitewash from the walls, or black clay soil, or
+the ashes of cowdung cakes to the extent of a small handful a day. A
+woman's first child should be born in her father-in-law's or husband's
+house if possible, but at any rate not in her father's house. And if
+she should be taken with the pangs of travail while on a visit to her
+own family, they will send her to some other house for her child to be
+born. The ears of boys and the ears and nostrils of girls are pierced,
+and until this is done they are not considered to be proper members
+of the caste and can take food from any one's hand. The Chitaris of
+Mandla permit a boy to do this until he is married. A child's hair is
+not shaved when it is born, but this should be done once before it is
+three years old, whether it be a boy or girl. After this the hair may
+be allowed to grow, and shaved off or simply cut as they prefer. Except
+in the case of illness a girl's hair is only shaved once, and that
+of an adult woman is never cut, unless she becomes a widow and makes
+a pilgrimage to a sacred place, when it is shaved off as an offering.
+
+
+
+4. The evil eye.
+
+
+In order to avert the evil eye they hang round a child's neck a nut
+called _bajar-battu_, the shell of which they say will crack and
+open if any one casts the evil eye on the child. If it is placed in
+milk the two parts will come together again. They also think that
+the nut attracts the evil eye and absorbs its effect, and the child
+is therefore not injured. If they think that some one has cast the
+evil eye on a child, they say a charm, '_Ishwar, Gauri, Parvati ke an
+nazar dur ho jao_,' or 'Depart, Evil Eye, in the name of Mahadeo and
+Parvati,' and as they say this they blow on the child three times;
+or they take some salt, chillies and mustard in their hand and wave
+it round the child's head and say, '_Telin ki lagi ho, Tamolin ki
+lagi ho, Mararin ki ho, Gorania (Gondin) ki ho, oke, oke, parparake
+phut jawe_,' 'If it be a Telin, Tambolin, Mararin or Gondin who has
+cast the evil eye, may her eyes crack and fall out.' And at the same
+time they throw the mustard, chillies and salt on the fire so that
+the eyes of her who cast the evil eye may crack and fall out as these
+things crackle in the fire.
+
+If tiger's claws are used for an amulet, the points must be turned
+outwards. If any one intends to wish luck to a child, he says, '_Tori
+balayan leun_,' and waves his hands round the child's head several
+times to signify that he takes upon himself all the misfortunes which
+are to happen to the child. Then he presses the knuckles of his hands
+against the sides of his own head till they crack, which is a lucky
+omen, averting calamity. If the knuckles do not crack at the first
+attempt, it is repeated two or three times. When a man sneezes he will
+say 'Chatrapati,' which is considered to be a name of Devi, but is
+only used on this occasion. But some say nothing. After yawning they
+snap their fingers, the object of which, they say, is to drive away
+sleep, as otherwise the desire will become infectious and attack others
+present. But if a child yawns they sometimes hold one of their hands
+in front of his mouth, and it is probable that the original meaning
+of the custom was to prevent evil spirits from entering through the
+widely opened mouth, or the yawner's own soul or spirit from escaping;
+and the habit of holding the hand before the mouth from politeness
+when yawning inadvertently may be a reminiscence of this.
+
+
+
+5. Cradle-songs.
+
+
+The following are some cradle-songs taken down from a Chitrakar,
+but probably used by most of the lower Hindu castes:
+
+
+    1. Mother, rock the cradle of your pretty child. What is the
+    cradle made of, and what are its tassels made of?
+    The cradle is made of sandalwood, its tassels are of silk.
+    Some Gaolin (milkwoman) has overlooked the child, he vomits up
+    his milk.
+    Dasoda [475] shall wave salt and mustard round his head, and he
+    shall play in my lap.
+    My baby is making little steps. O Sunar, bring him tinkling
+    anklets!
+    The Sunar shall bring anklets for him, and my child will go to
+    the garden and there we will eat oranges and lemons.
+
+    2. My Krishna's tassel is lost, Tell me, some one, where it is. My
+    child is angry and will not come into my arms.
+    The tears are falling from his eyes like blossoms from the _bela_
+    [476] flower.
+    He has bangles on his wrists and anklets on his feet, on his head
+    a golden crown and round his waist a silver chain.
+
+
+The _jhumri_ or tassel referred to above is a tassel adorned with
+cowries and hung from the top of the cradle so that the child may
+keep his eyes on it while the cradle is being rocked.
+
+
+    3. Sleep, sleep, my little baby; I will wave my hands round your
+    head [477] on the banks of the Jumna. I have cooked hot cakes
+    for you and put butter in them; all the night you lay awake,
+    now take your fill of sleep.
+    The little mangoes are hanging on the tree; the rope is in the
+    well; sleep thou till I go and come back with water.
+    I will hang your cradle on the banyan tree, and its rope to the
+    pipal tree; I will rock my darling gently so that the rope shall
+    never break.
+
+
+The last song may be given in the vernacular as a specimen:
+
+
+            4. Ram ki Chireya, Ram ko khet.
+            Khaori Chireya, bhar, bhar pet.
+            Tan munaiyan kha lao khet,
+            Agao, labra, gali det;
+            Kahe ko, labra, gali de;
+            Apni bhuntia gin, gin le.
+
+
+or--
+
+
+    The field is Rama's, the little birds are Rama's; O birds, eat
+    your fill; the little birds have eaten up the corn.
+    The surly farmer has come to the field and scolds them; the little
+    birds say, 'O farmer, why do you scold us? count your ears of
+    maize, they are all there.'
+
+
+This song commemorates a favourite incident in the life of Tulsi Das,
+the author of the Ramayana, who when he was a little boy was once
+sent by his _guru_ to watch the crop. But after some time the _guru_
+came and found the field full of birds eating the corn and Tulsi Das
+watching them. When asked why he did not scare them away, he said,
+'Are they not as much the creatures of Rama as I am? how should I
+deprive them of food?'
+
+
+
+6. Occupation.
+
+
+The Chitaris pursue their old trade, principally in Nagpur city,
+where the taste for wall-paintings still survives; and they decorate
+the walls of houses with their crude red and blue colours. But
+they have now a number of other avocations. They paint pictures
+on paper, making their colours from the tins of imported aniline
+dyeing-powders which are sold in the bazar; but there is little
+demand for these. They make small pictures of the deities which
+the people hang on their walls for a day and then throw away. They
+also paint the bodies of the men who pretend to be tigers at the
+Muharram festival, for which they charge a rupee. They make the clay
+paper-covered masks of monkeys and demons worn by actors who play the
+Ramlila or story of Rama on the Ramnaomi festival in Chait (March);
+they also make the _tazias_ or representations of the tomb of Hussain
+and paper figures of human beings with small clay heads, which are
+carried in the Muharram procession. They make marriage crowns; the
+frames of these are of conical shape with a half-moon at the top,
+made from strips of bamboo; they are covered with red paper picked
+out with yellow and green and with tinfoil, and are ornamented with
+borders of date-palm leaves. The crowns cost from four annas to a
+rupee each. They make the artificial flowers used at weddings; these
+are stuck on a bamboo stick and at the arrival and departure of the
+bridegroom are scrambled for by the guests, who take them home as
+keepsakes or give them to their children for playthings. The flowers
+copied are the lotus, rose and chrysanthemum, and the imitations are
+quite good. Sometimes the bridegroom is surrounded by trays or boxes
+of flowers, carried in procession and arranged so as to look as if
+they were planted in beds. Other articles made by the Chitrakar are
+paper fans, paper globes for hanging to the roofs of houses, Chinese
+lanterns made either of paper or of mica covered with paper, and
+small caps of velvet embroidered with gold lace. At the Akti festival
+[478] they make pairs of little clay dolls, dressing them as male and
+female, and sell them in red lacquered bamboo baskets, and the girls
+take them to the jungle and pretend that they are married. Formerly
+the Chitrakars made clay idols for temples, but these have been
+supplanted by marble images imported from Jaipur. The Jingars make
+the cloth saddles on which natives ride, and some of them bind books,
+the leather for which is made from goat-skin, and is not considered so
+impure as that made from the hides of cattle. But one class of them,
+who are considered inferior, make leather harness from cow-hide and
+buffalo-hide.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+Chitrakathi
+
+
+_Chitrakathi, Hardas._ [479]--A small caste of religious mendicants
+and picture showmen in the Maratha Districts. In 1901 they numbered 200
+persons in the Central Provinces and 1500 in Berar, being principally
+found in the Amraoti District. The name, Mr. Enthoven writes, [480]
+is derived from _chitra,_ a picture, and _katha_, a story, and the
+professional occupation of the caste is to travel about exhibiting
+pictures of heroes and gods, and telling stories about them. The
+community is probably of mixed functional origin, for in Bombay
+they have exogamous section-names taken from those of the Marathas,
+as Jadhow, More, Powar and so on, while in the Central Provinces
+and Berar an entirely different set is found. Here several sections
+appear to be named after certain offices held or functions performed
+by their members at the caste feasts. Thus the Atak section are the
+caste headmen; the Mankari appear to be a sort of substitute for the
+Atak or their grand viziers, the word Mankar being primarily a title
+applied to Maratha noblemen, who held an official position at court;
+the Bhojni section serve the food at marriage and other ceremonies;
+the Kakra arrange for the lighting; the Kotharya are store-keepers; and
+the Ghoderao (from _ghoda_, a horse) have the duty of looking after the
+horses and bullock-carts of the castemen who assemble. The Chitrakathis
+are really no doubt the same caste as the Chitaris or Chitrakars
+(painters) of the Central Provinces, and, like them, a branch of the
+Mochis (tanners), and originally derived from the Chamars. But as the
+Berar Chitrakathis are migratory instead of settled, and in other
+respects differ from the Chitaris, they are treated in a separate
+article. Marriage within the section is forbidden, and, besides this,
+members of the Atak and Mankari sections cannot intermarry as they are
+considered to be related, being divisions of one original section. The
+social customs of the caste resemble those of the Kunbis, but they
+bury their dead in a sitting posture, with the face to the east, and
+on the eighth day erect a platform over the grave. At the festival
+of Akhatij (3rd of light Baisakh) [481] they worship a vessel of
+water in honour of their dead ancestors, and in Kunwar (September)
+they offer oblations to them. Though not impure, the caste occupy a
+low social position, and are said to prostitute their married women
+and tolerate sexual licence on the part of unmarried girls. Mr. Kitts
+[482] describes them as "Wandering mendicants, sometimes suspected
+of associating with Kaikaris for purposes of crime; but they seem
+nevertheless to be a comparatively harmless people. They travel about
+in little huts like those used by the Waddars; the men occasionally
+sell buffaloes and milk; the women beg, singing and accompanying
+themselves on the _thali_. The old men also beg, carrying a flag in
+their hand, and shouting the name of their god, Hari Vithal (from
+which they derive their name of Hardas). They are fond of spirits,
+and, when drunk, become pot-valiant and troublesome." The _thali_
+or plate on which their women play is also known as _sarthada_, and
+consists of a small brass dish coated with wax in the centre; this is
+held on the thigh and a pointed stick is moved in a circle so as to
+produce a droning sound. The men sometimes paint their own pictures,
+and in Bombay they have a caste rule that every Chitrakathi must have
+in his house a complete set of sacred pictures; this usually includes
+forty representations of Rama's life, thirty-five of that of the sons
+of Arjun, forty of the Pandavas, forty of Sita and Rawan, and forty
+of Harishchandra. The men also have sets of puppets representing the
+above and other deities, and enact scenes with them like a Punch and
+Judy show, sometimes aided by ventriloquism.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+Cutchi
+
+
+
+1. General notice.
+
+
+_Cutchi_ or _Meman, Kachhi, Muamin._--A class of Muhammadan merchants
+who come every year from Gujarat and Cutch to trade in the towns of
+the Central Provinces, where they reside for eight months, returning to
+their houses during the four months of the rainy season. In 1911 they
+numbered about 2000 persons, of whom five-sixths were men, this fact
+indicating the temporary nature of their settlements. Nevertheless a
+large proportion of the trade of the Province is in their hands. The
+caste is fully and excellently described by Khan Bahadur Fazalullah
+Lutfullah Faridi, Assistant Collector of Customs, Bombay, in the
+_Bombay Gazetteer_. [483] He remarks of them: "As shopkeepers and
+miscellaneous dealers Cutchis are considered to be the most successful
+of Muhammadans. They owe their success in commerce to their freedom
+from display and their close and personal attention to and keen
+interest in business. The richest Meman merchant does not disdain to
+do what a Parsi in his position would leave to his clerks. Their hope
+and courage are also excellent endowments. They engage without fear in
+any promising new branch of trade and are daring in their ventures,
+a trait partly inherited from their Lohana ancestors, and partly due
+to their faith in the luck which the favour of their saints secures
+them." Another great advantage arises from their method of trading
+in small corporations or companies of a number of persons either
+relations or friends. Some of these will have shops in the great
+centres of trade, Bombay and Calcutta, and others in different places
+in the interior. Each member then acts as correspondent and agent for
+all the others, and puts what business he can in their way. Many are
+also employed as assistants and servants in the shops; but at the end
+of the season, when all return to their native Gujarat, the profits
+from the different shops are pooled and divided among the members
+in varying proportion. By this method they obtain all the advantages
+which are recognised as attaching to co-operative trading.
+
+
+
+2. Origin of the caste.
+
+
+According to Mr. Faridi, from whose description the remainder of
+this article is mainly taken, the Memans or more correctly Muamins or
+'Believers' are converts from the Hindu caste of Lohanas of Sind. They
+venerate especially Maulana Abdul Kadir Gilani who died at Baghdad in
+A.D. 1165. His sixth descendant, Syed Yusufuddin Kordiri, was in 1421
+instructed in a dream to proceed to Sind and guide its people into
+the way of Islam. On his arrival he was received with honour by the
+local king, who was converted, and the ruler's example was followed
+by one Manikji, the head of one of the _nukhs_ or clans of the Lohana
+community. He with his three sons and seven hundred families of the
+caste embraced Islam, and on their conversion the title of Muamin or
+'Believer' was conferred on them by the saint. It may be noted that
+Colonel Tod derives the Lohanas from the Rajputs, remarking of them:
+[484] "This tribe is numerous both in Dhat and Talpura; formerly
+they were Rajputs, but betaking themselves to commerce have fallen
+into the third class. They are scribes and shopkeepers, and object
+to no occupation that will bring a subsistence; and as to food, to
+use the expressive idiom of this region where hunger spurns at law,
+'Excepting their cats and their cows they will eat anything.'" In his
+account of Sind, Postans says of the Lohanas: "The Hindu merchants and
+bankers have agents in the most remote parts of Central Asia and could
+negotiate bills upon Candahar, Khelat, Cabul, Khiva, Herat, Bokhara or
+any other marts of that country. These agents, in the pursuit of their
+calling, leave Sind for many years, quitting their families to locate
+themselves among the most savage and intolerant tribes." This account
+could equally apply to the Khatris, who also travel over Central Asia,
+as shown in the article on that caste; and if, as seems not improbable,
+the Lohanas and Khatris are connected, the hypothesis that the former,
+like the latter, are derived from Rajputs would receive some support.
+
+The present Pir or head of the community is Sayyid Jafir Shah, who is
+nineteenth in descent from Yusufuddin and lives partly in Bombay and
+partly in Mundra of South Cutch. "At an uncertain date," Mr. Faridi
+continues, "the Lohana or Cutchi Memans passed from Cutch south through
+Kathiawar to Gujarat. They are said to have been strong and wealthy
+in Surat during the period of its prosperity (1580-1680). As Surat
+sank the Cutchi Memans moved to Bombay. Outside Cutch and Kathiawar,
+which may be considered their homes, the Memans are scattered over the
+cities of north and south Gujarat and other Districts of Bombay. Beyond
+that Presidency they have spread as traders and merchants and formed
+settlements in Calcutta, Madras, the Malabar Coast, South Burma,
+Siam, Singapore and Java; in the ports of the Arabian Peninsula,
+except Muscat, where they have been ousted by the Khojas; and in
+Mozambique, Zanzibar and the East African Coast." [485] They have
+two divisions in Bombay, known as Cutchi or Kachhi and Halai.
+
+
+
+3. Social customs.
+
+
+Cutchis and Memans retain some non-Muhammadan usages. The principal
+of these is that they do not allow their daughters and widows to
+inherit according to the rule of Muhammadan law. [486] They conduct
+their weddings by the Nikah form and the _mehar_ or dowry is always
+the same sum of a hundred and twenty-five rupees, whatever may be the
+position of the parties and in the case of widows also. They say that
+either party may be divorced by the other for conjugal infidelity, but
+the _mehar_ or dowry must always be paid to the wife in the case of a
+divorce. The caste eat flesh and fowls and abstain from liquor. Most
+of them also decline to eat beef as a consequence of their Hindu
+ancestry and they will not take food from Hindus of low caste.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+Dahait [487]
+
+
+
+List of Paragraphs
+
+
+    1. _Origin of the caste._
+    2. _Internal structure: totemism._
+    3. _Marriage and other customs._
+    4. _Social position._
+    5. _Former occupations, door-keeper and mace-bearer._
+    6. _The umbrella._
+    7. _Significance of the umbrella._
+
+
+
+1. Origin of the caste.
+
+
+_Dahait, Dahayat._--A mixed caste of village watchmen of the Jubbulpore
+and Mandla Districts, who are derived from the cognate caste of
+Khangars and from several of the forest tribes. In 1911 the Dahaits
+numbered about 15,000 persons in the Central Provinces, of whom the
+large majority were found in the Jubbulpore District and the remainder
+in Bilaspur, Damoh and Seoni. Outside the Province they reside only
+in Bundelkhand. According to one story the Dahaits and Khangars had a
+common ancestor, and in Mandla again they say that their ancestors were
+the door-keepers of the Rajas of Mahoba, and were known as Chhadidar or
+Darwan; and they came to Mandla about 200 years ago, during the time
+of Raja Nizam Shah of the Raj-Gond dynasty of that place. In Mandla
+the names of their subdivisions are given as Rawatia or Rautia, Kol,
+Mawasi, Sonwani and Rajwaria. Of these Kol and Rajwar are the names
+of separate tribes; Mawasi is commonly used as a synonym for Korku,
+another tribe; Sonwani is the name of a sept found among several of
+the primitive tribes; while Rawat is a title borne by the Saonrs and
+Gonds. The names Rautia and Rajwaria are found as subdivisions of the
+Kol tribe in Mirzapur, [488] and it is not improbable that the Dahaits
+are principally derived from this tribe. The actual name Dahait is also
+given by Mr. Crooke as a subdivision of the Kols, and he states it to
+have the meaning of 'villager,' from _dehat_, a village. The Dahaits
+were a class of personal attendants on the chief or Raja, as will be
+seen subsequently. They stood behind the royal cushion and fanned him,
+ran in front of his chariot or litter to clear the way, and acted as
+door-keepers and ushers. Service of this kind is of a menial nature
+and, further, demands a considerable degree of physical robustness;
+and hence members of the non-Aryan forest tribes would naturally
+be selected for it. And it would appear that these menial servants
+gradually formed themselves into a caste in Bundelkhand and became the
+Dahaits. They obtained a certain rise in status, and now rank in the
+position of village menials above their parent tribes. In the Central
+Provinces the Dahaits have commonly been employed as village watchmen,
+a post analogous to that of door-keeper or porter. The caste are also
+known as Bhaldar or spearmen, and Kotwar or village watchmen.
+
+
+
+2. Internal structure: totemism.
+
+
+The subcastes returned from the Mandla District have already been
+mentioned. In Bilaspur they have quite different ones, of which two,
+Joharia and Pailagia, are derived from methods of greeting. Johar
+is the salutation which a Rajput prince sends to a vassal or chief
+of inferior rank, and Pailagi or 'I fall at your feet' is that with
+which a member of a lower caste accosts a Brahman. How such names
+came to be adopted as subcastes cannot be explained. The caste have
+a number of exogamous groups named after plants and animals. Members
+of the Bel, [489] Rusallo and Chheola [490] septs revere the trees
+after which these septs are named. They will not cut or injure
+the tree, and at the time of marriage they go and invite it to be
+present at the ceremony. They offer to the tree the _maihar_ cake,
+which is given only to the members of the family and the husbands
+and children of daughters. Those belonging to the Nagotia sept [491]
+will not kill a snake, and at the time of marriage they deposit the
+_maihar_ cake at a snake-hole. Members of the Singh (lion) and Bagh
+(tiger) septs will not kill a tiger, and at their weddings they draw
+his image on a wall and offer the cake to it, being well aware that
+if they approached the animal himself, he would probably repudiate
+the relationship and might not be satisfied with the cake for his meal.
+
+
+
+3. Marriage and other customs.
+
+
+Prior to a marriage a bride-price, known as _sukh_ or _chari_,
+and consisting of six rupees with some sugar, turmeric and sesamum
+oil, must be paid by the parents of the bridegroom to those of the
+bride; and in the absence of this they will decline to perform the
+ceremony. At the wedding the couple go round the sacred post, and then
+the bridegroom mingles the flames of two burning lamps and pierces the
+nose of the image of a bullock made in flour. This rite is performed
+by several castes, and is said to be in commemoration of Krishna's
+having done so on different occasions. It is probably meant to excuse
+or legitimise the real operation, which should properly be considered
+as sinful in view of the sacred character of the animal. And it may
+be mentioned here that the people of the Vindhyan or Bundelkhand
+Districts where the Dahaits live do not perforate the nostrils of
+bullocks, and drive them simply by a rope tied round the mouth. In
+consequence they have little control over them and are quite unable
+to stop a cart going downhill, which simply proceeds at the will
+of the animals until it reaches the level or bangs up against some
+obstacle. In Bilaspur a widow is expected to remain single for five
+years after her husband's death, and if she marries within that time
+she is put out of caste. Divorce is permitted, but is not of frequent
+occurrence. The caste will excuse a married woman caught in adultery
+once, but on a second offence she must be expelled. If a woman leaves
+her husband and goes to live with another man, the latter must repay to
+her husband the amount expended on his marriage. But in such a case,
+if the woman was already a widow or _kari aurat_, [492] no penalty
+is incurred by a man who takes her from her second husband. A man of
+any good cultivating caste who has a _liaison_ with a Dahait woman
+will be admitted into the community. An outsider who desires to
+become a member of the caste must clean his house, break his earthen
+cooking-pots and buy new ones, and give a meal to the caste-fellows
+at his house. He sits and takes food with them, and when the meal
+is over he takes a grain of rice from the leaf-plate of each guest
+and eats it, and drinks a drop of water from his leaf-cup. This act
+is equivalent to eating the leavings of food, and after it he cannot
+re-enter his own caste. On such occasions a rupee and a piece of cloth
+must be given to the headman of the caste, and a piece of cloth to
+each member of the _panchayat_ or committee. The headman is known
+as Mirdhan, and a member of the committee as Diwan, the offices of
+both being hereditary. The caste worship the Hindu and village gods
+of the locality. They have a curious belief that the skull of a man
+of the Kayasth (writer) caste cannot be burnt in fire, and that if
+it is placed in a dwelling-house the inmates will quarrel. A child's
+first teeth, if found, are thrown into a sacred river or on to the
+roof of a house with a few grains of rice, in order that the second
+teeth may grow white and pointed like the rice. The Jhalar or first
+hair of a boy or girl is cut between two and ten years of age and is
+wrapped in a piece of dough and thrown into a sacred river. Women are
+tattooed on the back of the hands, and also sometimes on the shoulder
+and the arms above the elbow, but not on the feet or face.
+
+
+
+4. Social position.
+
+
+The Dahaits are now commonly employed as village watchmen and as guards
+or porters (_chaukidar_) of houses. In Bilaspur they also carry litters
+and work as navvies and stonebreakers like the Kols. Here they will
+eat pork, but in Jubbulpore greater regard is paid to Hindu prejudice,
+and they have given up pork and fowls and begun to employ Brahmans
+for their ceremonies. The men of the caste will accept cooked food
+from any man of the higher castes or those cultivators from whom a
+Brahman will take water, but the women are more strict and will only
+accept it from a Brahman, Bania, Lodhi or Kurmi.
+
+
+
+5. Former occupations: door-keeper and mace-bearer.
+
+
+In past times the Dahaits were the personal attendants on the
+king. They fanned him with the _chaur_ or yak-tail whisk when he sat in
+state on the royal cushion. This implement is held sacred and is also
+used by Brahmans to fan the deities. On ordinary occasions the Raja
+was fanned by a pankha made of _khaskhas_ grass and wetted, but not
+so that the water fell on his head. They also acted as gate-keepers
+of the palace, and had the title of Darwan. The gate-keeper's post
+was a responsible one, as it lay on him to see that no one with evil
+intentions or carrying secret arms was admitted to the palace. Whenever
+a chief or noble came to visit the king he deposited his arms with
+the porter or door-keeper. The necessity of a faithful door-keeper is
+shown in the proverb: "With these five you must never quarrel: your
+Guru, your wife, your gate-keeper, your doctor and your cook." The
+reasons for the inclusion of the others are fairly clear. On the
+other hand the gate-porter had usually to be propitiated before
+access was obtained to his master, like the modern chuprassie; and the
+resentment felt at his rapacity is shown in the proverb: "The broker,
+the octroi moharrir, the door-keeper and the bard: these four will
+surely go to hell." The Darwan or door-keeper would be given the
+right to collect dues, equivalent to those of a village watchman,
+from forty or fifty villages. The Dahaits also carried the _chob_
+or silver mace before the king. This was about five feet long with
+a knob at the upper end as thick as a man's wrist. The mace-bearer
+was known as Chobdar, and it was his duty to carry messages and
+announce visitors; this latter function he performed with a degree of
+pomposity truly Asiatic, dwelling with open mouth very audibly on some
+of the most sounding and emphatic syllables in a way that appeared to
+strangers almost ludicrous, [493] as shown in the following instance:
+"On advancing, the Chobdars or heralds proclaimed the titles of this
+princely cow-keeper in the usual hyperbolical style. One of the most
+insignificant-looking men I ever saw then became the destroyer of
+nations, the leveller of mountains, the exhauster of the ocean. After
+commanding every inferior mortal to make way for this exalted prince,
+the heralds called aloud to the animal creation, 'Retire, ye serpents;
+fly, ye locusts; approach not, iguanas, lizards and reptiles, while
+your lord and master condescends to set his foot on the earth.'" [494]
+The Dahaits ran before the Raja's chariot or litter to clear the way
+for him and announce his coming; and it was also a principal business
+of the caste to carry the royal umbrella above the head of the king.
+
+
+
+6. The umbrella.
+
+
+The umbrella was the essential symbol of sovereignty in Asia like the
+crown in Europe. "Among the ancient Egyptians the umbrella carried
+with it a mark of distinction, and persons of quality alone could use
+it. The Assyrians reserved it for royal personages only. The umbrella
+or parasol, says Layard, that emblem of royalty so universally
+adopted by Eastern nations, was generally carried over the king in
+time of peace and sometimes even in war. In shape it resembled very
+closely those now in common use; but it is always seen open in the
+sculptures. It was edged with tassels and usually decorated at the top
+by a flower or some other ornament. The Greeks used it as a mystic
+symbol in some of their sacred festivals, and the Romans introduced
+the custom of hanging an umbrella in the basilican churches as a part
+of the insignia of office of the judge sitting in the basilica. It is
+said that on the judgment hall being turned into a church the umbrella
+remained, and in fact occupied the place of the canopy over thrones
+and the like; and Beatian, an Italian herald, says that a vermilion
+umbrella in a field argent symbolises dominion. It is also believed
+that the cardinal's hat is a modification of the umbrella in the
+basilican churches. The king of Burma is proud to call himself The Lord
+of Twenty-four Umbrellas, and the Emperor of China carries that number
+even to the hunting-field." [495] In Buddhist architecture the 'Wheel
+of Light' symbolising Buddha is overshadowed by an umbrella, itself
+adorned with garlands. At Sanchi we find sculptured representations
+of two and even three umbrellas placed one above the other over the
+temples, the double and triple canopies of which appear to be fixed
+to the same handle or staff as in the modern state umbrellas of China
+and Burma. Thus we have the primary idea of the accumulated honour of
+stone or metal discs which subsequently became such a prominent feature
+of Buddhist architecture, culminating in the many-storied pagodas of
+China and Japan. [496] Similarly in Hindu temples the pinnacle often
+stands on a circular stone base, probably representing an umbrella.
+
+The umbrella of state was apparently not black like its successor of
+commerce, but of white or another colour, though the colour is seldom
+recorded. Sometimes it was of peacock's feathers, the symbol of the
+Indian war-god, and as seen above, in Italy it was of red, the royal
+colour. It has been suggested that the halo originally represented
+an umbrella, and there is no reason to doubt that the umbrella was
+the parent of the state canopy.
+
+
+
+7. Significance of the umbrella.
+
+
+It has been supposed that the reason for carrying the umbrella above
+the king's head was to veil his eyes from his subjects, and prevent
+them from being injured by the magical power of his glance. [497]
+But its appearance on temples perhaps rather militates against this
+view. Possibly it may have merely served as a protection or covering
+to the king's head, the head being considered especially sacred
+as the seat of life. The same idea is perhaps at the root of the
+objection felt by Hindus to being seen abroad without a covering on
+the head. It seems likely that the umbrella may have been held to be
+a representation of the sky or firmament. The Muhammadans conjoined
+with it an _aftada_ or sun-symbol; this was an imitation of the sun,
+embroidered in gold upon crimson velvet and fixed on a circular
+framework which was borne aloft upon a gold or silver staff. [498]
+Both were carried over the head of any royal personage, and the
+association favours the idea that the umbrella represents the sky,
+while the king's head might be considered analogous to the sun. When
+one of the early Indian monarchs made extensive conquests, the annexed
+territories were described as being brought under his umbrella;
+of the king Harsha-Vardhana (606-648 A.D.) it is recorded that he
+prosecuted a methodical scheme of conquest with the deliberate object
+of bringing all India under one umbrella, that is, of constituting
+it into one state. This phrase seems to support the idea that the
+umbrella symbolised the firmament. Similarly, when Visvamitra sent
+beautiful maidens to tempt the good king Harischandra he instructed
+them to try and induce the king to marry them, and if he would not do
+this, to ask him for the Puchukra Undi or State Umbrella, which was
+the emblem of the king's protecting power over his kingdom, with the
+idea that that power would be destroyed by its loss. Chhatrapati or
+Lord of the Umbrella was the proudest title of an Indian king. When
+Sivaji was enthroned in 1674 he proclaimed himself as Pinnacle
+of the Kshatriya race and Lord of the Royal Umbrella. All these
+instances seem to indicate that some powerful significance, such as
+that already suggested, attached to the umbrella. Several tribes,
+as the Gonds and Mundas, have a legend that their earliest king was
+born of poor parents, and that one day his mother, having left the
+child under some tree while she went to her work, returned to find a
+cobra spreading its hood over him. The future royal destiny of the
+boy was thus predicted. It is commonly said that the cobra spread
+its hood over the child to guard it from the heat of the sun, but
+such protection would perhaps scarcely seem very important to such
+a people as the Gonds, and the mother would naturally also leave the
+child in the shade. It seems a possible hypothesis that the cobra's
+hood really symbolised the umbrella, the principal emblem of royal
+rank, and it was in this way that the child's great destiny was
+predicted. In this connection it may be noticed that one of the Jain
+Tirthakars, Parasnath, is represented in sculpture with an umbrella
+over his head; but some Jains say that the carving above the saint's
+head is not an umbrella but a cobra's hood. Even after it had ceased
+to be the exclusive appanage of the king, the umbrella was a sign of
+noble rank, and not permitted to the commonalty.
+
+The old Anglo-Indian term for an umbrella was 'roundel,' an early
+English word, applied to a variety of circular objects, as a mat
+under a dish, or a target, and in its form of 'arundel' to the conical
+handguard on a lance. [499] An old Indian writer says: "Roundels are
+in these warm climates very necessary to keep the sun from scorching
+a man, they may also be serviceable to keep the rain off; most men
+of account maintain one, two or three roundeliers, whose office
+is only to attend their master's motion; they are very light but
+of exceeding stiffness, being for the most part made of rhinoceros
+hide, very decently painted and guilded with what flowers they best
+admire. Exactly in the midst thereof is fixed a smooth handle made
+of wood, by which the Roundelier doth carry it, holding it a foot or
+more above his master's head, directing the centre thereof as opposite
+to the sun as possibly he may. Any man whatever that will go to the
+charge of it, which is no great matter, may have one or more Katysols
+to attend him but not a Roundel; unless he be a Governor or one of
+the Council. The same custom the English hold good amongst their own
+people, whereby they may be distinguished by the natives." [500] The
+Katysol was a Chinese paper and bamboo sunshade, and the use of them
+was not prohibited. It was derived from the Portuguese _quito-sol_,
+or that which keeps off the sun. [501] An extract from the _Madras
+Standing Orders_, 1677-78, prescribed: "That except by the members
+of this Council, those that have formerly been in that quality,
+Chiefs of Factories, Commanders of Ships out of England, and the
+Chaplains, Rundells shall not be worn by any men in this town, and
+by no woman below the degree of Factors' Wives and Ensigns' Wives,
+except by such as the Governor shall permit." [502] Another writer
+in 1754 states: "Some years before our arrival in the country, they
+(the E. I. Co.) found such sumptuary laws so absolutely necessary,
+that they gave the strictest orders that none of these young gentlemen
+should be allowed even to hire a Roundel boy, whose business it is
+to walk by his master and defend him with his Roundel or umbrella
+from the heat of the sun. A young fellow of humour, upon this last
+order coming over, altered the form of his Umbrella from a round to
+a square, called it a Squaredel instead of a Roundel, and insisted
+that no order yet in force forbade him the use of it." [503] The fact
+that the Anglo-Indians called the umbrella a roundel and regarded it
+as a symbol of sovereignty or nobility indicates that it was not yet
+used in England; and this Mr. Skeat shows to be correct. "The first
+umbrella used in England by a man in the open street for protection
+against rain is usually said to have been that carried by Jonas Hanway,
+a great traveller, who introduced it on his return from Paris about
+1750, some thirty years before it was generally adopted.
+
+"Some kind of umbrella was, however, occasionally used by ladies at
+least so far back as 1709; and a fact not generally known is that
+from about the year 1717 onwards, a 'parish' umbrella, resembling the
+more recent 'family' umbrella of the nineteenth century, was employed
+by the priest at open-air funerals, as the church accounts of many
+places testify." [504] This ecclesiastical use of the umbrella may
+have been derived from its employment as a symbol in Italian churches,
+as seen above. The word umbrella is derived through the Italian from
+the Latin _umbra_, shade, and in mediaeval times a state umbrella
+was carried over the Doge or Duke at Venice on the occasion of any
+great ceremony. [505]
+
+Even recently it is said that in Saugor no Bania dare go past a Bundela
+Rajput's house without getting down from his pony and folding up his
+umbrella. In Hindu slang a 'Chhatawali' or carrier of an umbrella was a
+term for a smart young man; as in the line, 'An umbrella has two kinds
+of ribs; two women are quarrelling for the love of him who carries
+it.' Now that the umbrella is free to all, and may be bought for a
+rupee or less in the bazar, the prestige which once attached to it
+has practically disappeared. But some flavour of its old associations
+may still cling to it in the minds of the sais and ayah who proudly
+parade to a festival carrying umbrellas spread over them to shade
+their dusky features from the sun; though the Raja, in obedience to
+the dictates of fashion, has discarded the umbrella for a _sola-topi_.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+Daharia
+
+
+
+1. Origin and traditions.
+
+
+_Daharia._ [506]--A caste of degraded Rajputs found in Bilaspur and
+Raipur, and numbering about 2000 persons. The Daharias were originally
+a clan of Rajputs but, like several others in the Central Provinces,
+they have now developed into a caste and marry among themselves, thus
+transgressing the first rule of Rajput exogamy. Colonel Tod included
+the Daharias among the thirty-six royal races of Rajasthan. [507]
+Their name is derived from Dahar or Dahal, the classical term for
+the Jubbulpore country at the period when it formed the dominion
+of the Haihaya or Kalachuri Rajput kings of Tripura or Tewar near
+Jubbulpore. This dynasty had an era of their own, commencing in
+A.D. 248, and their line continued until the tenth or eleventh
+century. The Arabian geographer Alberuni (born a.d. 973) mentions the
+country of Dahal and its king Gangeya Deva. His son Karna Daharia is
+still remembered as the builder of temples in Karanbel and Bilahri
+in Jubbulpore, and it is from him that the Daharia Rajputs take
+their name. The Haihaya dynasty of Ratanpur were related to the
+Kalachuri kings of Tewar, and under them the ancestors of the Daharia
+Rajputs probably migrated from Jubbulpore into Chhattisgarh. But
+they themselves have forgotten their illustrious origin, and tell a
+different story to account for their name. They say that they came from
+Baghelkhand or Rewah, which may well be correct, as Rewah lies between
+Chhattisgarh and Jubbulpore, and a large colony of Kalachuri Rajputs
+may still be found about ten miles north-east of Rewah town. The
+Daharias relate that when Parasurama, the great Brahman warrior, was
+slaying the Kshatriyas, a few of them escaped towards Ratanpur and were
+camping in the forest by the wayside. Parasurama came up and asked
+them who they were, and they said they were _Daharias_ or wayfarers,
+from _dahar_ the Chhattisgarhi term for a road or path; and thus they
+successfully escaped the vengeance of Parasurama. This futile fiction
+only demonstrates the real ignorance of their Brahman priests, who, if
+they had known a little history, need not have had recourse to their
+invention to furnish the Daharias with a distinguished pedigree. A
+third derivation is from a word _dahri_ or gate, and they say that the
+name of Dahria or Daharia was conferred on them by Bimbaji Bhonsla,
+because of the bravery with which they held the gates of Ratanpur
+against his attack. But history is against them here, as it records
+that Ratanpur capitulated to the Marathas without striking a blow.
+
+
+
+2. Sept and subsept.
+
+
+As already stated, the Daharias were originally a clan of Rajputs,
+whose members must take wives or husbands from other clans. They
+have now become a caste and marry among themselves, but within the
+caste they still have exogamous groups or septs, several of which are
+named after Rajput clans as Bais, Chandel, Baghel, Bundela, Mainpuri
+Chauhan, Parihar, Rathor and several others. Certain names are not of
+Rajput origin, and probably record the admission of outsiders into the
+caste. Like the Rajputs, within the sept they have also subsepts, some
+of which are taken from the Brahmans, as Parasar, Bharadwaj, Sandilya,
+while others are nicknames, as Kachariha (one who does not care about
+a beating), Atariha, Hiyas and others. The divisions of the septs and
+subsepts are very confused, and seem to indicate that at different
+times various foreign elements have been received into the community,
+including Rajputs of many different clans. According to rule, a man
+should not take a wife whose sept or subsept are the same as his own,
+but this is not adhered to; and in some cases the Daharias, on account
+of the paucity of their numbers and the difficulty of arranging
+matches, have been driven to permit the marriage of first cousins,
+which among proper Rajputs is forbidden. They also practise hypergamy,
+as members of the Mainpuri Chauhan, Hiyas, Bisen, Surkhi and Bais septs
+or subsepts will take girls in marriage from families of other septs,
+but will not give their daughters to them. This practice leads to
+polygamy among the five higher septs, whose daughters are all married
+in their own circle, while in addition they receive girls from the
+other groups. Members of these latter also consider it an honour to
+marry a daughter into one of the higher septs, and are willing to pay
+a considerable price for such a distinction. It seems probable that the
+small Daraiha caste of Bilaspur are an inferior branch of the Daharias.
+
+
+
+3. Social customs.
+
+
+The Daharias, in theory at any rate, observe the same rules in
+regard to their women as Brahmans and Rajputs. Neither divorce nor
+the marriage of widows is permitted, and a woman who goes wrong is
+finally expelled from the caste. Their social customs resemble those
+of the higher Hindustani castes. When the bridegroom starts for the
+wedding he is dressed in a long white gown reaching to the ankles,
+with new shoes, and he takes with him a dagger; this serves the
+double purpose of warding off evil spirits, always prone to attack
+the bridal party, and also of being a substitute for the bridegroom
+himself, as in case he should for some unforeseen reason be rendered
+unable to appear at the ceremony, the bride could be married to the
+dagger as his representative. It may also be mentioned that, before
+the bridegroom starts for the wedding, after he has been rubbed with
+oil and turmeric for five days he is seated on a wooden plank over
+a hole dug in the courtyard and bathed. He then changes his clothes,
+and the women bring twenty-one small _chukias_ or cups full of water
+and empty them over him. His head is then covered with a piece of
+new cloth, and a thread wound round it seven times by a Brahman. The
+thread is afterwards removed, and tied round an iron ring with some
+mango leaves, and this ring forms the _kankan_ which is tied to the
+bridegroom's wrist, a similar one being worn by the bride. Before the
+wedding the bride goes round to the houses of her friends, accompanied
+by the women of her party singing songs, and by musicians. At each
+house the mistress appears with her forehead and the parting of
+her hair profusely smeared with vermilion. She rubs her forehead
+against the bride's so as to colour it also with vermilion, which
+is now considered the symbol of a long and happy married life. The
+barber's wife applies red paint to the bride's feet, the gardener's
+wife presents her with a garland of flowers, and the carpenter's
+wife gives her a new wooden doll. She must also visit the potter's
+and washerman's wives, whose benisons are essential; they give her a
+new pot and a little rice respectively. When the bridegroom comes to
+touch the marriage-shed with his dagger he is resisted by the bride's
+sister, to whom he must give a rupee as a present. The binding portion
+of the marriage consists in the couple walking seven times round the
+marriage-post. At each turn the bridegroom seizes the bride's right
+toe and with it upsets one of seven little cups of rice placed near
+the marriage-post. This is probably a symbol of fertility. After
+it they worship seven pairs of little wooden boxes smeared with
+vermilion and called _singhora_ and _singhori_ as if they were male
+and female. The bridegroom's father brings two little dough images
+of Mahadeo and Parvati as the ideal married pair, and gives them to
+the couple. The new husband applies vermilion to his wife's forehead,
+and covers and uncovers her head seven times, to signify to her that,
+having become a wife, she should henceforth be veiled when she goes
+abroad. The bride's maid now washes her face, which probably requires
+it, and the wedding is complete. The Daharias usually have a _guru_ or
+spiritual preceptor, but husband and wife must not have the same one,
+as in that case they would be in the anomalous position of brother and
+sister, a _guru's_ disciples being looked upon as his children. The
+Daharias were formerly warriors in the service of the Ratanpur kings,
+and many families still possess an old sword which they worship on
+the day of Dasahra. Their names usually end in Singh or Lal. They
+are now engaged in cultivation, and many of them are proprietors of
+villages, and tenants. Some of them are employed as constables and
+chuprassies, but few are labourers, as they may not touch the plough
+with their own hands. They eat the flesh of clean animals, but do not
+drink liquor, and avoid onions and tomatoes. They have good features
+and fair complexions, the traces of their Rajput blood being quite
+evident. Brahmans will take water from them, but they now rank below
+Rajputs, on a level with the good cultivating castes.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+Dangi
+
+
+
+1. Origin and traditions.
+
+
+_Dangi._--A cultivating caste found almost exclusively in the
+Saugor District, which contained 23,000 persons out of a total of
+24,000 of the caste in the Central Provinces in 1911. There are also
+considerable numbers of them in Rajputana and Central India, from
+which localities they probably immigrated into the Saugor District
+during the eleventh century. The Dangis were formerly dominant in
+Saugor, a part of which was called Dangiwara after them. The kings of
+Garhpahra or old Saugor were Dangis, and their family still remains at
+the village of Bilehra, which with a few other villages they hold as
+a revenue-free grant. The name of the caste is variously derived. The
+traditional story is that the Rajput king of Garhpahra detained the
+palanquins of twenty-two married women of different castes and kept
+them as his wives. The issue of the illicit intercourse were named
+Dangis, and there are thus twenty-two subdivisions of the caste,
+besides three other subdivisions who are held to be descended from
+pure Rajputs. The name is said to be derived from _dang_, fraud,
+on account of the above deception. A more plausible derivation is
+from the Persian _dang_, a hill, the Dangis being thus hillmen; and
+they may not improbably have been a set of robbers and freebooters in
+the Vindhyan Hills, like the Gujars and Mewatis in northern India,
+naturally recruiting their band from all classes of the population,
+as is shown by ingenious implication in this story itself. '_Khet men
+bami, gaon men Dangi_,' or 'A Dangi in the village is like the hole
+of a snake in one's field' is a proverb which shows the estimation
+in which they were formerly held. The three higher septs may have
+been their leaders and may well have been Rajputs. Since they have
+settled down as respectable cultivators and enjoy a good repute among
+their neighbours, the Dangis have disowned the above story, and now
+say that they are descended from Raja Dang, a Kachhwaha Rajput king
+of Narwar in Central India. Nothing is known of Raja Dang except a
+rude couplet which records how he was cheated by a horse-dealer:
+
+
+                    Jitki ghori tit gayi
+                    Dang hath karyari rahi,
+
+
+'The mare bolted to the seller again, leaving in Dang's hand nothing
+except the reins.'
+
+The Dangis have a more heroic version of this story to the effect
+that the mare was a fairy of Indra's court, who for some reason had
+been transformed into this shape and was captured by Raja Dang. He
+refused to give her up to Indra and a battle was about to ensue,
+when the mare besought them to place her on a pyre and sacrifice her
+instead of fighting. They agreed to do this, and out of the flames
+of the pyre the fairy emerged and floated up to heaven, leaving only
+the reins and bridle of the mare in Raja Dang's hand. Yet a third
+story is that their original ancestor was Raja Nipal Singh of Narwar,
+and when he was fighting with Indra over the fairy, Krishna came to
+Indra's assistance. But Nipal Singh refused to bow down to Krishna,
+and being annoyed at this and wishing to teach him a lesson the god
+summoned him to his court. At the gate through which Nipal Singh
+had to pass, Krishna fixed a sword at the height of a man's neck,
+so that he must bend or have his head cut off. But Nipal Singh saw
+the trick, and, sitting down, propelled himself through the doorway
+with his head erect. The outwitted god remarked, '_Tum bare dandi
+ho_,' or 'You are very cunning,' and the name Dandi stuck to Nipal
+Singh and was afterwards corrupted to Dangi. There can be little
+doubt that the caste are an offshoot of Rajputs of impure blood,
+and with a large admixture of other classes of the population. Some
+of their sept names indicate their mixed descent, as Rakhya, born
+of a potter woman, Dhoniya, born of a washerwoman, and Pavniya, born
+of a weaver woman. In past times the Dangis served in the Rajput and
+Maratha armies, and a small isolated colony of them is found in one
+village of Indora in the Nagpur District, the descendants of Dangis
+who engaged in military service under the Bhonsla kings.
+
+
+
+2. Caste subdivisions.
+
+
+The Dangis have no subcastes distinguished by separate names, but they
+are divided into three classes, among whom the principle of hypergamy
+prevails. As already seen, there were formerly twenty-five clans, of
+whom the three highest, the Nahonias, Bhadonias and Nadias, claimed
+to be pure Rajputs. The other twenty-two clans are known as Baisa (22)
+or Prithwipat Dangis, after the king who is supposed to have been the
+ancestor of all the clans. Each of his twenty-two wives is said to have
+been given a village for her maintenance, and the clans are named after
+these villages. But there are now only thirteen of these local clans
+left, and below them is a miscellaneous group of clans, representing
+apparently later accretions to the caste. Some of them are named from
+the places from which they came, as Mahobia, from Mahoba, Narwaria,
+from Narwar, and so on. The Solakhia sept is named after the Solanki
+Rajputs, of whom they may be the partly illegitimate descendants. The
+Parnami sept are apparently those who have the creed of the Dhamis,
+the followers of Prannath of Panna. And as already seen, some are named
+from women of low caste, from whom by Dangi fathers they are supposed
+to be descended. The whole number of septs is thus divided into three
+groups, the highest containing the three quasi-Rajput septs already
+mentioned, the next highest the thirteen septs of Prithwipat Dangis,
+and the lowest all the other septs. Pure Rajputs will take daughters
+in marriage from the highest group, and this in turn takes girls of
+the Prithwipat Dangis of the thirteen clans, though neither will give
+daughters in return; and the Prithwipat Dangis will similarly accept
+the daughters of the miscellaneous septs below them in marriage with
+their sons. Matches are, however, not generally arranged according to
+the above system of hypergamy, but each group marries among its own
+members. Girls who are married into a higher group have to be given
+a larger dowry, the fathers often being willing to pay Rs. 500 or
+Rs. 1000 for the social distinction which such an alliance confers
+on the family. Among the highest septs there is a further difference
+between those whose ancestors accepted food from Raja Jai Singh,
+the founder of Jaisinghnagar, and those who refused it. The former
+are called Sakrodia or those who ate the leavings of others, and
+the latter _Deotaon ki sansar_, or the divine Dangis. Pure Rajputs
+will take daughters only from the members of the latter group in each
+sept. Marriage within the sept or _baink_ is prohibited, and as a rule
+a man does not marry a wife belonging to the same sept as his mother
+or grandmother. Marriage by exchange also is not allowed, that is,
+a girl cannot be married into the same family as that in which her
+brother has married.
+
+
+
+3. Marriage.
+
+
+Girls are generally married between seven and twelve and boys
+between ten and twenty, but no stigma attaches to a family allowing
+an unmarried girl to exceed the age of puberty. The bridegroom should
+always be older than the bride. Matches are arranged by the parents,
+the horoscopes of the children being compared among the well-to-do. The
+zodiacal sign of the boy's horoscope should be stronger than that of
+the girl's, so that she may be submissive to him in after-life. Thus
+a girl whose zodiac sign is the lion should not be married to a boy
+whose sign is the ram, because in that case the wife would dominate
+the husband. There is no special rule as to the time of the betrothal,
+and the ceremony is very simple, consisting in the presentation of a
+cocoanut by the bride's father to the bridegroom's father, and the
+distribution of sweets to the caste-fellows. The betrothal is not
+considered to have any particularly binding force and either party may
+break through it. Among the Dangis a bridegroom-price is usually paid,
+which varies according to the social respectability of the boy's sept,
+as much as Rs. 2000 having been given for a bridegroom of higher
+class according to the rule of hypergamy already described. But no
+value is placed on educational qualifications, as is the case among
+Brahmans and Kayasths. The marriage ceremony is conducted according
+to the ritual prevalent in the northern Districts, and presents no
+special features. Two feasts are given by the bride's father to the
+caste-fellows, one consisting of _katchi_ food or that which is cooked
+with water, and another of _pakki_ food cooked with _ghi_ (butter). If
+the bride is of marriageable age the _gauna_ or sending away ceremony
+is performed at once, otherwise it takes place in the third or fifth
+year after marriage. At the _gauna_ ceremony the bride's cloth is tied
+to that of the bridegroom, and they change seats. Widow-marriage is not
+fashionable, and the caste say that it is not permitted, but several
+instances are known of its having occurred. Divorce is not allowed,
+and a woman who goes wrong is finally expelled from the caste. Polygamy
+is allowed, and many well-to-do persons have more than one wife.
+
+
+
+4. Religious and social customs.
+
+
+The Dangis pay special reverence to the goddess Durga or Devi as the
+presiding deity of war. They worship her during the months of Kunwar
+(September) and Chait (March), and at the same time pay reverence to
+their weapons of war, their swords and guns, or if they have not got
+these, to knives and spears. They burn their dead, but children are
+usually buried. They observe mourning for three days for a child and
+for ten days for an adult, and on the 13th day the caste-fellows are
+feasted. Their family priests, who are Jijhotia Brahmans, used formerly
+to shave the head and beard when a death occurred among their clients
+as if they belonged to the family, but this practice was considered
+derogatory by other Brahmans, and they have now stopped it. The Dangis
+perform the _shradhh_ ceremony in the month of Kunwar. The caste wear
+the sacred thread, but it is said that they were formerly not allowed
+to do so in Bundelkhand. They eat fish and flesh, including that of
+wild boars, but not fowls or beef, and they do not drink liquor. They
+take _pakki_ food or that cooked without water from Kayasths and
+Gahoi Banias, and _katchi_ food, cooked with water, from Jijhotia
+and Sanadhya Brahmans. Jijhotia Brahmans formerly took _pakki_ food
+from Dangis, but have now ceased to do so. The Dangis require the
+services of Brahmans at all ceremonies. They have a caste _panchayat_
+or committee. A person who changes his religion or eats with a low
+caste is permanently expelled, while temporary exclusion is awarded
+for the usual delinquencies. In the case of the more serious offences,
+as murder or killing of a cow, the culprit must purify himself by a
+pilgrimage to a sacred river.
+
+
+
+5. Occupation and character.
+
+
+The Dangis were formerly, as already stated, of a quarrelsome
+temperament, but they have now settled down and, though spirited,
+are of a good disposition, and hard-working cultivators. They rank
+slightly above the representative cultivating castes owing to their
+former dominant position, and are still considered to have a good
+conceit of themselves, according to the saying:
+
+
+                Tin men neh terah men,
+                Mirdang bajawe dere men,
+
+
+or 'Though he belong neither to the three septs nor the thirteen septs,
+yet the Dangi blows his own trumpet in his own house.' They are still,
+too, of a fiery disposition, and it is said that the favourite dish
+of gram-flour cooked with curds, which is known as _karhi_, is never
+served at their weddings. Because the word _karhi_ also signifies
+the coming out of a sword from its sheath, and when addressed to
+another man has the equivalent of the English word 'Draw' in the
+duelling days. So if one Dangi said it to another, meaning to ask
+him for the dish, it might result in a fight. They are very backward
+in respect of education and set no store by it. They consider their
+traditional occupation to be military service, but nearly all of them
+are now engaged in agriculture. At the census of 1901 over 2000 were
+returned as supported by the ownership of land and 3000 as labourers
+and farmservants. Practically all the remainder are tenants. They
+are industrious, and their women work in the fields. The only crops
+which they object to grow are _kusum_ or safflower and san-hemp. The
+Nahonia Dangis, being the highest subcaste, refuse to sell milk or
+_ghi_. The men usually have Singh as a termination to their names,
+like Rajputs. Their dress and ornaments are of the type common in
+the northern Districts. The women tattoo their bodies.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+Dangri
+
+
+_Dangri._ [508]--A small caste of melon and vegetable growers, whose
+name is derived from _dangar_ or _dangra_, a water-melon. They reside
+in the Wardha and Bhandara Districts, and numbered about 1800 persons
+in 1911. The caste is a mixed one of functional origin, and appears to
+be an offshoot from the Kunbis with additions from other sources. In
+Wardha they say that their ancestor was one of two brothers to whom
+Mahadeo gave the seeds of a juari plant and a water-melon respectively
+for sowing. The former became the ancestor of the Kunbis and the latter
+of the Dangris. On one occasion when Mahadeo, assuming the guise of a
+beggar, asked the Dangri brother for a water-melon, he refused to give
+it, and on this account his descendants were condemned to perpetual
+poverty. In fact, the Dangris, like the other market-gardening castes,
+are badly off, possibly on account of their common habit of marrying
+a number of wives, whom they utilise as labourers in their vegetable
+gardens; for though a wife is better than a hired labourer for their
+particular method of cultivation, where supervision is difficult
+and the master may be put to serious loss from bad work and petty
+pilfering, while there is also much scope for women workers; yet on
+the other hand polygamy tends to the breeding of family quarrels and
+to excessive subdivision of property. The close personal supervision
+which is requisite perhaps also renders it especially difficult to
+carry on the business of market-gardening on a large scale. In any
+case the agricultural holdings of the Malis and Dangris are as a
+rule very small. The conclusion indicated by the above story that the
+Dangris are an offshoot from the Kunbi caste of cultivators appears
+to be correct; and it is supported by the fact that they will accept
+food cooked with water from the Baone Kunbis. But their subcastes
+show that even this small body is of very heterogeneous composition;
+for they are divided into the Teli, the Kalar, the Kunbi and the
+Gadiwan Dangris, thus showing that the caste has received recruits
+from the Telis or oilmen and the Kalars or liquor-sellers. The
+Gadiwan, as their name denotes, are a separate section who have
+adopted the comparatively novel occupation of cart-driving for a
+livelihood. In Wardha there is also a small class of Panibhar or
+waterman Dangris who are employed as water-bearers, this occupation
+arising not unnaturally from that of growing melons and other crops
+in river-beds. And a few members of the caste have taken to working
+in iron. The bulk of the Dangris, however, grow melons, chillies and
+brinjals on the banks or in the beds of rivers; but as the melon crop
+is raised in a period of six weeks during the hot season, they can
+also undertake some ordinary cultivation. When the melons ripen the
+first fruits are offered to Mahadeo and given to a Brahman to ensure
+the success of the crop. When the melon plants are in flower, a woman
+must not enter the field during the period of her monthly impurity,
+as it is believed that she would cause the crop to wither. While it
+may safely be assumed that the Dangris originated from the great Kunbi
+caste, it may be noted that some of them tell a story to the effect
+that their original home was Benares, and that they came from there
+into the Central Provinces; hence they call themselves Kashi Dangri,
+Kashi being the classical name for Benares. This legend appears to
+be entirely without foundation, as their family names, speech and
+customs are alike of purely Marathi origin. But it is found among
+other castes also that they like to pretend that they came from
+Benares, the most sacred centre of Hinduism. The social customs of
+the Dangris resemble those of the Kunbis, and it is unnecessary to
+describe them in detail. Before their weddings they have a curious
+ceremony known as Dewat Puja. The father of the bridegroom, with an
+axe over his shoulder and accompanied by his wife, goes to a well
+or a stream. Here they clean a small space with cow-dung and make
+an offering of rice, flowers, turmeric and incense, after which
+the man, breaking his bangle from off his wrist, throws it into the
+water, apparently as a propitiatory offering for the success of the
+marriage. It is not stated what the bangle is made of, but it may be
+assumed that a valuable one would not thus be thrown away. As among
+some of the other Maratha castes, the bridegroom must be wrapped in a
+blanket on his journey to the bride's village. If a bachelor desires
+to espouse a widow he must first go through the ceremony of marriage
+with a swallow-wort plant. Polygamy is freely permitted, and some
+Dangris are known to have as many as five wives. As already stated,
+wives are of great assistance in gardening work, which demands much
+hand-labour. Divorce and the remarriage of widows are allowed. The
+Dangris commonly bury the dead, and they place cotton leaves over the
+eyes and ears of the corpse. In Bhandara they say that this is done
+when it is believed the dead person was possessed by an evil spirit,
+and there is possibly some idea of preventing the escape of the spirit
+from the body. In Wardha the Dangris have rather a bad reputation,
+and a saying current about them is '_Dangri beta puha chor_,' or
+'A Dangri will steal even a shred of cotton'; but this may be a libel.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+Darzi
+
+
+
+List of Paragraphs
+
+
+    1. _General notice._
+    2. _Subdivisions._
+    3. _Sewn clothes not formerly worn._
+    4. _Occupation._
+    5. _Religion._
+
+
+
+1. General notice.
+
+
+_Darzi, Shimpi, Chhipi, Suji._--The occupational caste of tailors. In
+1911 a total of 51,000 persons were returned as belonging to the caste
+in the Central Provinces and Berar. The Darzis are an urban caste and
+are most numerous in Districts with large towns. Mr. Crooke derives
+the word Darzi from the Persian _darz_, meaning a seam. The name Suji
+from _sui_, a needle, was formerly more common. Shimpi is the Maratha
+name, and Chhipi, from Chhipa a calico-printer or dyer, is another
+name used for the caste, probably because it is largely recruited from
+the Chhipas. In Bombay they say that when Parasurama was destroying
+the Kshatriyas, two Rajput brothers hid themselves in a temple and
+were protected by the priest, who set one of them to sew dresses for
+the idol and the other to dye and stamp them. The first brother was
+called Chhipi and from him the Darzis are descended, the name being
+corrupted to Shimpi, and the second was called Chhipa and was the
+ancestor of the dyers. The common title of the Darzis is Khalifa, an
+Arabic word meaning 'The Successor of the Prophet.' Colonel Temple
+says that it is not confined to them but is also used by barbers,
+cooks and monitors in schools. [509] The caste is of comparatively
+recent formation. In fact Sir D. Ibbetson wrote [510] that "Darzi,
+or its Hindi equivalent Suji, is purely an occupational term, and
+though there is a Darzi guild in every town, there is no Darzi caste
+in the proper acceptation of the word. The greater number of Darzis
+belong perhaps to the Dhobi and Chhimba castes, more especially to
+the latter."
+
+
+
+2. Subdivisions.
+
+
+The Darzis, however, are now recognised as a distinct caste, but
+their mixed origin is shown by the names of their subcastes and
+exogamous sections. Thus they have a Baman subdivision named after the
+Brahman caste. These will not take food from any other caste except
+Brahmans and are probably an offshoot from them. They are considered
+to be the highest subdivision, and next to them come the Rai or
+Raj Darzis. Another subcaste is named Kaithia, after the Kayasths,
+and a third Srivastab, which is the name of a well-known subcaste
+of Kayasths derived from the town of Sravasti, now Sahet Mahet in
+the Gonda District. [511] In Betul the Srivastab Darzis are reported
+to forbid the remarriage of widows, thus showing that they desire to
+live up to their distinguished ancestry. A third subcaste is known as
+Chamarua and appears to be derived from the Chamars. Other subcastes
+are of the territorial type as Malwi, Khandeshi, Chhattisgarhi,
+Mathuria and so on, and the section or family names are usually
+taken from villages. Among them, however, we find Jugia from Jogi,
+Thakur or Rajput, Gujar, Khawas or barber, and Baroni, the title of
+a female Dhimar. Mr. Crooke gives several other names.
+
+
+
+3. Sewn clothes not formerly worn.
+
+
+It may thus reasonably be concluded that the Darzis are a caste
+of comparatively recent origin, and the explanation is probably
+that the use of the needle and thread in making clothes is a new
+fashion. Buchanan remarks: "The needle indeed seems to have been
+totally unknown to the Hindus, and I have not been able to learn
+any Hindi word for sewing except that used to express passing the
+shuttle in the act of weaving...." "Cloth composed of several pieces
+sewn together is an abomination to the Hindus, so that every woman of
+rank when she eats, cooks or prays, must lay aside her petticoat and
+retain only the wrapper made without the use of scissors or needle";
+and again, "The dress of the Hindu men of rank has become nearly the
+same with that of the Muhammadans [512] who did not allow any officer
+employed by them to appear at their _levées_ (Durbars) except in proper
+dress. At home, however, the Hindu men, and on all occasions their
+women, retain almost entirely their native dress, which consists of
+various pieces of cloth wrapped round them without having been sewn
+together in any form, and only kept in their place by having their
+ends thrust under the folds." And elsewhere he states: "The flowering
+of cotton cloth with the needle has given a good deal of employment
+to the Muhammadan women of Maldeh as the needle has never been used by
+the Hindus." [513] Darzi, as has been seen, is a Persian word, and in
+northern India many tailors are Muhammadans. And it seems, therefore,
+a possible hypothesis that the needle and the art of sewing were
+brought into general use by the Moslem invaders. It is true that in
+his _Indo-Aryans_ [514] Mr. Rajendra Lal Mitra combats this hypothesis
+and demonstrates that made-up clothes were known to the Aryans of
+the Rig-Veda and are found in early statuary. But he admits that the
+instances are not numerous, and it seems likely that the use of such
+clothes may have been confined to royal and aristocratic families. It
+is possible also that the Scythian invasions of the fifth century
+brought about a partial relapse from civilisation, during which certain
+arts and industries, and among them that of cutting and sewing cloth,
+were partially or completely lost. The tailor is not the familiar
+figure in Hindu social life that he is, for example, in England. Here
+he is traditionally an object or butt for ridicule as in the saying,
+'Nine tailors make a man,' and so on; and his weakness is no doubt
+supposed to be due to the fact that he pursues a sedentary indoor
+occupation and one more adapted to women than men, the needle being
+essentially a feminine implement. A similar ridicule, based no doubt
+on exactly the same grounds, attaches in India to the village weaver,
+as is evidenced by the proverbs given in the articles on Bhulia, Kori,
+and Jolaha. No reason exists probably for the contempt in which the
+weaver class is held other than that their work is considered to be
+more fitting for women than men. Thus in India the weaver appears to
+take the place of the tailor, and this leads to the conclusion that
+woven and not sewn clothes have always been commonly worn.
+
+In the Central Provinces, at least, the Darzi caste is practically
+confined to the towns, and though cotton jackets are worn even by
+labourers and shirts by the better-to-do, these are usually bought
+ready-made at the more important markets. Women, more conservative in
+their dress than men, have only one garment prepared with the needle,
+the small bodice known as _choli_ or _angia_. And in Chhattisgarh,
+a landlocked tract very backward in civilisation, the _choli_ has
+hitherto not been worn and is only now being introduced. Though he
+first copied the Muhammadan and now shows a partiality for the English
+style of dress for outdoor use, the Hindu when indoors still reverts to
+the one cloth round the waist and a second over the shoulders, which
+was probably once the regular garb of his countrymen. For meals the
+latter is discarded, and this costume, so strange to English ideas,
+while partly based on considerations of ceremonial purity, may also
+be due to a conservative adherence to the ancient fashion, when sewn
+clothes were not worn. It is noticeable also that high-caste Hindus,
+though they may wear a coat of cloth or tasar silk and cotton trousers,
+copying the English, still often carry the _dupatta_ or shoulder-cloth
+hanging round the neck. This now appears a useless encumbrance, but
+may be the relic of the old body-cloth and therefore interesting as a
+survival in dress, like the buttons on the back of our tail-coats to
+which the flaps were once hooked up for riding, or the seams on the
+backs of gloves, a relic of the time when the glove consisted simply
+of finger-lengths sewn together. [515] More recently the _dupatta_ has
+been made to fulfil the function of a pocket-handkerchief, while the
+educated are now discarding the _dupatta_ and carry their handkerchiefs
+in their pockets. The old dress of ceremony for landowners is the
+_angarkha_, a long coat reaching to the knees and with flaps folding
+over the breast and tied with strings. This is worn with pyjamas and is
+probably the Muhammadan ceremonial costume as remarked by Buchanan. In
+its correct form, at, least it has no buttons, and recalls the time
+when a similar state of things prevailed in English dress and the
+'trussing of his points' was a laborious daily task for every English
+gentleman. The _ghundis_ or small pieces of cloth made up into a ball,
+which were the precursors of the button, may still be seen on the
+cotton coats of rustics in the rural area.
+
+The substitution of clothes cut and sewn to fit the body for draped
+clothes is a matter of regret from an artistic or picturesque point
+of view, as the latter have usually a more graceful appearance. This
+is shown by the difficulty of reproducing modern clothes in statuary,
+trousers being usually the despair of the sculptor. But sewn clothes,
+when once introduced, must always prevail from considerations of
+comfort. When a Hindu pulls his _dhoti_ or loin-cloth up his legs and
+tucks it in round his hips in order to run or play a game he presumably
+performs the act described in the Bible as 'girding up his loins.'
+
+
+
+4. Occupation.
+
+
+The social customs of the Darzis present no features of special
+interest and resemble those of the lower castes in their locality. They
+rank below the cultivating castes, and Brahmans will not take water
+from their hands. Though not often employed by the Hindu villager
+the Darzi is to Europeans one of the best known of all castes. He is
+on the whole a capable workman and especially good at copying from a
+pattern. His proficiency in this respect attracted notice so long ago
+as 1689, as shown in an interesting quotation in the _Bombay Gazetteer_
+referring to the tailors of Surat: [516] "The tailors here fashion
+clothes for the Europeans, either men or women, according to every mode
+that prevails, and fit up the commodes and towering head-dresses for
+the women with as much skill as if they had been an Indian fashion,
+or themselves had been apprenticed at the Royal Exchange. (The commode
+was a wire structure to raise the cap and hair.)" Since then the Darzi
+has no doubt copied in turn all the changes of English fashions. He
+is a familiar figure in the veranda of the houses of Europeans,
+and his idiosyncrasies have been delightfully described by Eha in
+_Behind the Bungalow_. His needles and pins are stuck into the folds
+of his turban, and Eha says that he is bandy-legged because of the
+position in which he squats on his feet while sewing. In Gujarat
+the tailor is often employed in native households. "Though even in
+well-to-do families," Mr. Bhimbhai Kirparam writes, [517] "women sew
+their bodices and young children's clothes for everyday wear, every
+family has its own tailor. As a rule tailors sew in their own houses,
+and in the tailor's shop may be seen workmen squatting in rows on a
+palm-leaf mat or on cotton-stuffed quilts. The wives and sons' wives
+of the head of the establishment sit and work in the shop along with
+the men. Their busy time is during the marriage season from November
+to June. A village tailor is paid either in cash or grain and is not
+infrequently a member of the village establishment. During the rains,
+the tailor's slack season, he supplements his earnings by tillage,
+holding land which Government has continued to him on payment of
+one-half the ordinary rental. In south Gujarat, in the absence of
+Brahmans, a Darzi officiates at Bhawad marriages, and in some Brahman
+marriages a Darzi is called with some ceremony to sew a bodice for the
+bride. On the other hand, in the Panch Mahals and Rewa Kantha, besides
+tailoring Darzis blow trumpets at marriage and other processions and
+hold so low a position that even Dhedas object to eat their food." It
+seems clear that in Gujarat the Darzi caste is of older standing
+than in northern India, and it is possible that the art of sewing
+may have been acquired through the sea trade which was carried on
+between the western coast and Arabia and the Persian Gulf. Here the
+Darzi has become a village menial, which he is not recorded as being
+in any other part of India.
+
+
+
+5. Religion.
+
+
+Like the weaver, the Darzi is of a somewhat religious turn of mind,
+probably on account of his sedentary calling which gives him plenty
+of time for reflection. Many of them belong to the Namdeo sect,
+originated by a Chhipa or dyer, Namdeo Sadhu. Namdeo is said to have
+been a contemporary of Kabir and to have flourished in the twelfth
+or thirteenth century. He was a great worshipper of the god Vithoba
+of Pandharpur and is considered by the Marathas to be their oldest
+writer, being the author of many Abhangs, or sacred hymns. [518] He
+preached the unity of God, recognising apparently Vithoba or Vishnu
+as the one deity, and the uselessness of ceremonial. His followers
+are mainly Dhobis and Chhipas, the two principal castes from whom
+the Darzis have originated. [519] Namdeo's sect was thus apparently a
+protest on the part of the Chhipas and Dhobis against their inferior
+position in the caste system and the tyranny of the Brahmans, and
+resembled the spiritual revolt of the weavers under Kabir and of the
+Chamars under Ghasi Das and Jagjiwan Das.
+
+In Berar it is stated [520] that "the Simpi caste has twelve and a
+half divisions; of these the chief are known as the Jain, Marathi
+and Telugu Simpis. The Jain Simpis claim the hero Riminath as a
+caste-fellow, while the Marathas are often Lingayats and the Telugu
+division generally Vaishnavas." Before beginning work in the morning
+the Darzi bows to his scissors or needle and prays to them for his
+livelihood for that day.
+
+The Darzi's occupation, Mr. Crooke remarks, is a poor one and held
+rather in contempt. The village proverb runs, '_Darzi ka put jab tak
+jita tab tak sita_,' 'The tailor's boy will do nothing but sew all his
+life long.' Another somewhat more complimentary saying is, '_Tanak si
+suiya tak tak kare aur lakh taka ko banj kare_,' or 'The tiny needle
+goes _tuk tuk_, and makes merchandise worth a lakh of rupees.' The
+Hindustani version of both proverbs is obviously intended to give the
+sound of a needle passing through cloth, and it is possible that our
+word 'tuck' has the same origin.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+Dewar
+
+
+
+1. General notice.
+
+
+
+_Dewar._ [521]--(Derived from Devi, whom they worship, or from Diabar,
+'One who lights a lamp,' because they always practise magic with
+a lighted lamp.) A Dravidian caste of beggars and musicians. They
+numbered about 2500 persons in 1911 and are residents of the
+Chhattisgarh plain. The Dewars themselves trace their origin from a
+Binjhia named Gopal Rai, who accompanied Raja Kalyan Sai of Ratanpur
+on a visit to the Court of Delhi in Akbar's time. Gopal Rai was
+a great wrestler, and while at Delhi he seized and held a _mast_
+elephant belonging to the Emperor. When the latter heard of it he
+ordered a wrestling match to be arranged between Gopal Rai and his
+own champion wrestler. Gopal Rai defeated and killed his opponent,
+and Kalyan Sai ordered him to compose a triumphal song and sing it in
+honour of the occasion. He composed his song in favour of Devi Maha
+Mai, or Devi the Great Mother, and the composition and recitation of
+similar songs has ever since been the profession of his descendants
+the Dewars. The caste is, as is shown by the names of its sections,
+of mixed origin, and its members are the descendants of Gonds and
+Kawars reinforced probably by persons who have been expelled from
+their own caste and have become Dewars. They will still admit persons
+of any caste except the very lowest.
+
+
+
+2. Subdivisions.
+
+
+The caste has two principal divisions according to locality, named
+Raipuria and Ratanpuria, Raipur and Ratanpur having been formerly
+the two principal towns of Chhattisgarh. Within these are several
+other local subdivisions, _e.g._ Navagarhia or those belonging to
+Nawagarh in Bilaspur, Sonakhania from Sonakhan south of the Mahanadi,
+Chatarrajiha from Chater Raj, in Raipur, and Sarangarhia from Sarangarh
+State. Some other divisions are either occupational or social; thus
+the Baghurra Dewars are those who tame tigers and usually live in
+the direction of Bastar, the Baipari Dewars are petty traders in
+brass or pewter ornaments which they sell to Banjara women, and the
+Lohar and Jogi Dewars may be so called either because their ancestors
+belonged to these castes, or because they have adopted the profession
+of blacksmiths and beggars respectively. Probably both reasons are
+partly applicable. These subdivisions are not strictly endogamous,
+but show a tendency to become so. The two main subcastes, Raipuria
+and Ratanpuria, are distinguished by the musical instruments which
+they play on while begging. That of the Raipurias is a sort of rude
+fiddle called _sarangi_, which has a cocoanut shell as a resonator
+with horsehair strings, and is played with a bow. The Ratanpurias
+have an instrument called _dhungru_, which consists of a piece of
+bamboo about three feet long with a hollow gourd as a resonator and
+catgut strings. In the latter the resonator is held uppermost and
+rests against the shoulder of the player, while in the former it is
+at the lower end and is placed against his waist. The section names
+of the Dewars are almost all of Dravidian origin. Sonwania, Markam,
+Marai, Dhurwa, Ojha, Netam, Salam, Katlam and Jagat are the names of
+well-known Gond septs which are also possessed by the Dewars, and
+Telasi, Karsayal, Son-Mungir and others are Kawar septs which they
+have adopted. They admit that their ancestors were members of these
+septs among the Gonds and Kawars. Where the name of the ancestor
+has a meaning which they understand, some totemistic observances
+survive. Thus the members of the Karsayal sept will not kill or eat
+a deer. The septs are exogamous, but there is no other restriction
+on marriage and the union of first cousins is permissible.
+
+
+
+3. Marriage customs.
+
+
+Adult marriage is usual, and if a husband cannot be found for a
+girl who has reached maturity she is given to her sister's husband
+as a second wife, or to any other married person who will take her
+and give a feast to the caste. In some localities the boy who is
+to be married is sent with a few relatives to the girl's house. On
+arrival he places a pot of wine and a nut before the girl's father,
+who, if he is willing to carry out the marriage, orders the nut to
+be pounded up. This is always done by a member of the Sonwani sept,
+a similar respect being paid to this sept among some of the Dravidian
+tribes. The foreheads of the betrothed couple are smeared with the nut
+and with some yellow-coloured rice and they bow low to the elders of
+the caste. Usually a bride-price of Rs. 5 or 10 is then paid to the
+parents of the girl together with two pieces of cloth intended for
+their use. A feast follows, which consists merely of the distribution
+of uncooked food, as the Dewars, like some other low castes, will
+not take cooked food from each other. Pork and wine are essential
+ingredients in the feast or the ceremony cannot be completed. If
+liquor is not available, water from the house of a Kalar (distiller)
+will do instead, but there is no substitute for pork. This, however,
+is as a rule easily supplied as nearly all the Dewars keep pigs,
+which are retailed to the Gonds for their sacrifices. The marriage
+ceremony is performed within three or four months at most after
+the betrothal. Before entering the Mandwa or marriage-shed the
+bridegroom must place a jar of liquor in front of his prospective
+father-in-law. The bridegroom must also place a ring on the little
+finger of the bride's right hand, while she resists him as much as
+she can, her hand having previously been smeared with castor oil in
+order to make the task more difficult. Before taking the bride away
+the new husband must pay her father Rs. 20, and if he cannot do this,
+and in default of arrangements for remission which are sometimes made,
+must remain domiciled in his house for a certain period. As the bride
+is usually adult there is no necessity for a _gauna_ ceremony, and
+she leaves for her husband's house once for all. Thereafter when she
+visits the house of her parents she does so as a stranger, and they
+will not accept cooked food at her hands nor she at theirs. Neither
+will her husband's parents accept food from her, and each couple with
+their unmarried children form an exclusive group in this respect. Such
+a practice is found only among the low castes of mixed origin where
+nobody is certain of his neighbour's standing. If a woman has gone
+wrong before marriage, most of the ceremonies are omitted. In such a
+case the bridegroom catches hold of the bride by the hair and gives
+her a blow by way of punishment for her sin, and they then walk
+seven times round the sacred pole, the whole ceremony taking less
+than an hour. The bride-price is under these circumstances reduced to
+Rs. 15. Widow-marriage is permitted, and while in some localities the
+new husband need give nothing, in others he must pay as much as Rs. 50
+to the relatives of the deceased husband. If a woman runs away from
+her husband to another man, the latter must pay to the husband double
+the ordinary amount payable for a widow. If he cannot afford this, he
+must return the woman with Rs. 10 as compensation for the wrong he has
+done. The Dewars are also reported to have the practice of mortgaging
+their wives or making them over temporarily to a creditor in return
+for a loan. Divorce is allowed for the usual causes and by mutual
+consent. The husband must give a feast to the caste, which is looked
+on as the funeral ceremony of the woman so far as he is concerned;
+thereafter she is dead to him and he cannot marry her again on pain
+of the permanent exclusion of both from the caste. But a divorced
+woman can marry any other Dewar. Polygamy is freely allowed.
+
+
+
+4. Religion and social practices.
+
+
+The Dewars especially worship Devi Maha Mai and Dulha Deo. To the
+former they offer a she-goat and to the latter a he-goat which must be
+of a dark colour. They worship their _dhungru_ or musical instrument
+on the day of Dasahra. They consider the sun and the moon to be brother
+and sister, and both to be manifestations of the deity. They bury their
+dead, but those who are in good circumstances dig up the bones after a
+year or two and burn them, taking the ashes to a sacred river. Mourning
+lasts for seven or ten days according as the deceased is unmarried or
+married, and during this time they abjure flesh and oil. Their social
+rules are peculiar. Though considered impure by the higher castes,
+they will not take cooked food from a Brahman, whom they call a
+Kumhati Kida, or an insect which effects the metamorphosis of others
+into his own form, and who will therefore change them into his own
+caste. Nor will they take cooked food from members of their own caste,
+but they accept it from several of the lower castes including Gonds,
+whose leavings they will eat. This is probably because they beg from
+Gonds and attend their weddings. They keep pigs and pork is their
+favourite food, but they do not eat beef. They have a tribal council
+with a headman called Gaontia or Jemadar, who always belongs either
+to the Sonwani or Telasi section. Among offences for which a man is
+temporarily put out of caste is that of naming his younger brother's
+wife. He must also abstain from going into her room or touching her
+clothes. This rule does not apply to an elder brother's wife.
+
+
+
+5. Occupation.
+
+
+The Dewars are professional beggars, and play on the musical
+instruments called _dhungru_ and _sarangi_ which have already been
+described. The Ratanpurias usually celebrate in an exaggerated style
+the praises of Gopal Rai, their mythical ancestor. One of his exploits
+was to sever with a single sword-stroke the stalk of a plantain
+inside which the Emperor of Delhi had caused a solid bar of iron to be
+placed. The Raipurias prefer a song, called Gujrigit, about curds and
+milk. They also sing various songs relating how a woman is beloved by
+a Raja who tries to seduce her, but her chastity is miraculously saved
+by some curious combination of circumstances. They exorcise ghosts,
+train monkeys, bears and tigers for exhibition, and sell ornaments
+of base metal. In Raipur the men take about performing monkeys and
+the women do tattooing, for which they usually receive payment in the
+shape of an old or new cloth. A few have settled down to cultivation,
+but as a rule they are wanderers, carrying from place to place their
+scanty outfit of a small tent and mattress, both made of old rags,
+and a few vessels. They meet at central villages during the Holi
+festival. The family is restricted to the parents and unmarried
+children, separation usually taking place on marriage.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+Dhakar
+
+
+
+1. Origin and subdivisions.
+
+
+_Dhakar._ [522]--A small caste belonging solely to the Bastar State. In
+1911 they numbered 5500 persons in Bastar, and it is noticeable
+that there were nearly twice as many women as men. The term Dhakar
+connotes a man of illegitimate descent and is applied to the Kirars
+of the Central Provinces and perhaps to other castes of mixed Rajput
+origin. But in Bastar it is the special designation of a considerable
+class of persons who are the descendants of alliances between Brahman
+and Rajput immigrants and women of the indigenous tribes. They are
+divided, like the Halbas, into two groups--Purait or pure, and Surait
+or mixed. The son of a Brahman or Rajput father by a Rawat (herdsman)
+or Halba mother is a Purait, but one born from a woman of the Muria,
+Marar, Nai or Kalar castes is a Surait. But these latter can become
+Puraits after two or three generations, and the same rule applies to
+the son of a Dhakar father by a Halba or Rawat woman, who also ranks in
+the first place as a Surait. Descendants of a Dhakar father by a Muria
+or other low-caste woman, however, always remain Suraits. The Puraits
+and Suraits form endogamous groups, and the latter will accept cooked
+food from the former. The more respectable Dhakars round Jagdalpur
+are now tending, however, to call themselves Rajputs and refuse to
+admit any one of mixed birth into their community.
+
+One legend of their origin is that the first Dhakar was the offspring
+of a Brahman cook of the Raja of Bastar with a Kosaria Rawat woman;
+and though this is discredited by the Dhakars it is probably a fairly
+correct version of the facts. An inferior branch of the caste exists
+which is known as Chikrasar; it is related of them that their ancestors
+once went out hunting and set the forest on fire as a method of driving
+the game, as they occasionally do still. They came across the roasted
+body of a dog in the forest and ate it without knowing what animal it
+was. In the stomach, however, some cooked rice was found, and hence it
+was known as a dog and they were branded as dog-eaters. As a penalty
+the Raja imposed on them the duty of thatching a hut for him at the
+Dasahra festival, which their descendants still perform. The other
+Dhakars refuse to marry or eat with them, and it is clear from the
+custom of thatching the Raja's hut that they are a primitive and
+jungly branch of the caste.
+
+
+
+2. Marriage.
+
+
+If a girl becomes with child by a member of the caste she is made over
+to him without a marriage, or to the man to whom she was previously
+betrothed if he is still willing to take her. Neither is she expelled
+if the same event occurs with a man of any higher caste, but if he
+be of lower caste she is thrown out. Marriages are usually arranged
+by the parents but an adult girl may choose her own husband, and she
+is then wedded to him with abbreviated rites so that her family may
+avoid the disgrace of her entering his house like a widow or kept
+woman. Formerly a Dhakar might marry his granddaughter, but this is
+no longer done. When the signs of puberty first appear in a girl she
+is secluded and must not see or be seen by any man. They think that
+the souls of dead ancestors are reborn in children, and if a child
+refuses to suck they ask which of their ancestors he is and what
+he wants, or they offer it some present such as a silver bangle,
+and if the child then takes to the breast they give away the bangle
+to a Brahman. The sixth day after a child is born the paternal aunt
+prepares lamp-black from a lamp fed with melted butter and rubs it
+on the child's eyes and receives a small present.
+
+
+
+3. Funeral rites.
+
+
+The period of mourning or impurity after a death must terminate
+with a feast to the caste-men, and it continues until this is
+given. Consequently the other caste-men subscribe for a poor member,
+so that he may give the feast and resume his ordinary avocations. On
+this occasion one of the guests puts a small fish in a leaf-cup full
+of water, which no doubt represents the spirit of the deceased, and
+all the mourners touch this cup and are freed from their impurity. A
+Brahman is also invited, who lights a lamp fed with melted butter and
+then asks for a cow or some other valuable present as a recompense for
+his service of blowing out the lamp. Until this is done the Dhakars
+think that the soul of the departed is tortured by the flame of the
+lamp. If the Brahman is pleased, he pours some curds over the lamp
+and this acts as a cooling balm to the soul. When a member of the
+family dies the mourners shave the whole head with beard and moustache.
+
+
+
+4. Occupation and social status.
+
+
+The Dhakars are mainly engaged in cultivation as farmservants and
+labourers. Like the Halbas, they consider it a sin to heat or forge
+iron, looking upon the metal as sacred. They eat the flesh of clean
+animals, but abstain from both pigs and chickens, and some also do not
+eat the peacock. A man as well as a woman is permanently expelled for
+adultery with a person of lower caste, the idea of this rule being
+no doubt to prevent degradation in the status of the caste from the
+admission of the offspring of such unions. If one Dhakar beats another
+with a shoe, both are temporarily put out of caste. But if a man
+seduces a caste-man's wife and is beaten with a shoe by the husband,
+he is permanently expelled, while the husband is readmitted after
+a feast. On being received back into caste intercourse an offender
+is purified by drinking water in which the image of a local god has
+been dipped or the Raja of Bastar has placed his toe. Like other low
+castes of mixed origin, they are very particular about each other's
+status and will only accept cooked food from families who are well
+known to them. At caste feasts each family or group of families cooks
+for itself, and in some cases parents refuse to eat with the family
+into which their daughter has married and hence cannot do so with
+the girl herself.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+Dhangar
+
+
+
+1. Traditions and structure of the caste.
+
+
+_Dhangar._ [523]--The Maratha caste of shepherds and blanket-weavers,
+numbering 96,000 persons in the Central Provinces and Berar. They
+reside principally in the Nagpur, Wardha, Chanda and Nimar Districts
+of the Central Provinces and in all Districts of Berar. The Dhangars
+are a very numerous caste in Bombay and Hyderabad. The name is derived
+either from the Sanskrit _dhenu_, a cow, or more probably from _dhan_,
+[524] wealth, a term which is commonly applied to flocks of sheep
+and goats. It is said that the first sheep and goats came out of an
+ant-hill and scattering over the fields began to damage the crops of
+the cultivators. They, being helpless, prayed to Mahadeo to rescue
+them from this pest and he thereupon created the first Dhangar to tend
+the flocks. The Dhangars consequently revere an ant-hill, and never
+remove one from their fields, while they worship it on the Diwali day
+with offerings of rice, flowers and part of the ear of a goat. When
+tending and driving sheep and goats they ejaculate 'Har, Har,' which
+is a name of Mahadeo used by devotees in worshipping him. The Dhangars
+furnished a valuable contingent to Sivaji's guerilla soldiery, and
+the ruling family of Indore State belong to this caste. It is divided
+into the following subcastes: Varadi or Barade, belonging to Berar;
+Kanore or Kanade, of Kanara; Jhade, or those belonging to the Bhandara,
+Balaghat and Chhindwara Districts, called the Jhadi or hill country;
+Ladse, found in Hyderabad; Gadri, from _gadar_, a sheep, a division
+probably consisting of northerners, as the name for the cognate
+caste of shepherds in Hindustan is Gadaria; Telange, belonging to
+the Telugu country; Marathe, of the Maratha country; Mahurai from
+Mahur in Hyderabad, and one or two others. Eleven subcastes in all
+are reported. For the purposes of marriage a number of exogamous
+groups or septs exist which may be classified according to their
+nomenclature as titular and totemistic, many having also the names
+of other castes. Examples of sept names are: Powar, a Rajput sept;
+Dokra, an old man; Marte, a murderer or slayer; Sarodi, the name of
+a caste of mendicants; Mhali, a barber; Kaode, a crow; Chambhade, a
+Chamar; Gujde, a Gujar; Juade, a gambler; Lamchote, long-haired; Bodke,
+bald-headed; Khatik, a butcher; Chandekar, from Chanda; Dambhade, one
+having pimples on the body; Halle, a he-buffalo; Moya, a grass, and
+others. The sept names show that the caste is a functional one of very
+mixed composition, partly recruited from members of other castes who
+have taken to sheep-tending and generally from the non-Aryan tribes.
+
+
+
+2. Marriage.
+
+
+A man must not marry within his own sept or that of his mother,
+nor may he marry a first cousin. He may wed a younger sister
+of his wife during her lifetime, and the practice of marrying a
+girl and boy into the same family, called Anta Santa or exchange,
+is permitted. Occasionally the husband does service for his wife
+in his father-in-law's house. In Wardha the Dhangars measure the
+heights of a prospective bride and bridegroom with a piece of string
+and consider it a suitable match if the husband is taller than the
+wife, whether he be older or not. Marriages may be infant or adult,
+and polygamy is permitted, no stigma attaching to the taking of a
+second wife. Weddings may be celebrated in the rains up to the month
+of Kunwar (September), this provision probably arising from the fact
+that many Dhangars wander about the country during the open season,
+and are only at home during the rainy months. Perhaps for the same
+reason the wedding may, if the officiating priest so directs, be held
+at the house of a Brahman. This happens only when the Brahman has sown
+an offering of rice, called Gag, in the name of the goddess Rana Devi,
+the favourite deity of the Dhangars. On his way to the bride's house
+the bridegroom must be covered with a black blanket. Nowadays the
+wedding is sometimes held at the bridegroom's house and the bride
+comes for it. The caste say that this is done because there are not
+infrequently among the members of the bridegroom's family widows who
+have remarried or women who have been kept by men of higher castes or
+been guilty of adultery. The bride's female relatives refuse to wash
+the feet of these women and this provokes quarrels. To meet such cases
+the new rule has been introduced. At the wedding the priest sits on the
+roof of the house facing the west, and the bride and bridegroom stand
+below with a curtain between them. As the sun is half set he claps his
+hands and the bridegroom takes the clasped hands of the bride within
+his own, the curtain being withdrawn. The bridegroom ties round the
+bride's neck a yellow thread of seven strands, and when this is done
+she is married. Next morning a black bead necklace is substituted for
+the thread. The expenses of the bridegroom's party are about Rs. 50,
+and of the bride's about Rs. 30. The remaining procedure follows the
+customary usage of the Maratha Districts. Widows are permitted to
+marry again, but must not take a second husband from the sept to which
+the first belonged. A considerable price is paid for a widow, and it
+is often more expensive to marry one than a girl. A Brahman and the
+malguzar (village proprietor) should be present at the ceremony. If a
+bachelor marries a widow he must first go through the ceremony with
+a silver ring, and if the ring is subsequently lost or broken, its
+funeral rites must be performed. Divorce is allowed in the presence of
+the caste _panchayat_ at the instance of either party for sufficient
+reason, as the misconduct or bad temper of the wife or the impotency
+of the husband.
+
+
+
+3. Religion.
+
+
+Mahadeo is the special deity of the Dhangars, and they also observe
+the ordinary Hindu festivals. At Diwali they worship their goats by
+dyeing their horns and touching their feet. One Bahram of Nachangaon
+near Pulgaon is the tutelary deity of the Wardha Dhangars and the
+protector of their flocks. On the last day of the month of Magh
+they perform a special ceremony called the Deo Puja. A Dhimar acts
+as priest to the caste on this occasion and fashions some figures
+of idols out of rice to which vermilion and flowers are offered. He
+then distributes the grains of rice to the Dhangars who are present,
+pronouncing a benediction. The Dhimar receives his food and a present,
+and it is essential that the act of worship should be performed by
+one of this caste. In their houses they have Kul-Devi and Khandoba
+the Maratha hero, who are the family deities. But in large families
+they are kept only in the house of the eldest brother. Kul-Devi or the
+goddess of the family is worshipped at weddings, and a goat is offered
+to her in the month of Chait (March). The head is buried beneath her
+shrine inside the house and the body is consumed by members of the
+family only. Khandoba is worshipped on Sundays and they identify him
+with the sun. Vithoba, a form of Vishnu, is revered on Wednesdays,
+and Balaji, the younger brother of Rama, on Fridays. Many families
+also make a representation of some deceased bachelor relative, which
+they call Munjia, and of some married woman who is known as Mairni
+or Sasin, and worship them daily.
+
+
+
+4. Birth, death and social status.
+
+
+The Dhangars burn their dead unless they are too poor to purchase wood
+for fuel, in which case burial is resorted to. Unmarried children and
+persons dying from smallpox, leprosy, cholera and snake-bite are also
+buried. At the pyre the widow breaks her bangles and throws her glass
+beads on to her husband's body. On returning from the burning _ghat_
+the funeral party drink liquor. Some ganja, tobacco and anything else
+which the deceased may have been fond of during his life are left
+near the grave on the first day. Mourning is observed during ten days
+on the death of an adult and for three days for a child. Children are
+usually named on the twelfth day after birth, the well-to-do employing
+a Brahman for the purpose. On this day the child must not see a lamp,
+as it is feared that if he should do so he will afterwards have a
+squint. Only one name is given as a rule, but subsequently when the
+child comes to be married, if the Brahman finds that its name does not
+make the marriage auspicious, he substitutes another and the child
+is afterwards known by this new name. The caste employ Brahmans for
+ceremonies at birth and marriage. They eat flesh including fowls and
+wild pig, and drink liquor, but abstain from other unclean food. They
+will take food from a Kunbi, Phulmali or a Sunar, and water from any
+of the good cultivating castes. A Kunbi will take water from them. The
+women of the caste wear bracelets of lead or brass on the right wrist
+and glass bangles on the left. Permanent or temporary excommunication
+from caste is imposed for the usual offences, and among those visited
+with the minor penalty are selling shoes, touching the carcase of
+a dog or cat, and killing a cow or buffalo, or allowing one to die
+with a rope round its neck. No food is cooked for five weeks in a
+house in which a cat has died. The social standing of the caste is low.
+
+
+
+5. Occupation.
+
+
+The traditional occupation of the Dhangars is to tend sheep and goats,
+and they also sell goats' milk, make blankets from the wool of sheep,
+and sometimes breed and sell stock for slaughter. They generally
+live near tracts of waste land where grazing is available. Sheep are
+kept in open and goats in roofed folds. Like English shepherds they
+carry sticks or staffs and have dogs to assist in driving the flocks,
+and they sometimes hunt hares with their dogs. Their dress consists
+frequently only of a loin-cloth and a blanket, and having to bear
+exposure to all weathers, they are naturally strong and hardy. In
+appearance they are dark and of medium size. They eat three times
+a day and bathe in the evening on returning from work, though their
+ablutions are sometimes omitted in the cold weather.
+
+
+
+Dhanuk
+
+
+
+1. Original and classical records.
+
+
+_Dhanuk._--A low caste of agriculturists found principally in the
+Narsinghpur District, which contained three-fourths of the total
+of nearly 7000 persons returned in 1911. The headquarters of the
+caste are in the United Provinces, which contains more than a lakh
+of Dhanuks. The name is derived from the Sanskrit _dhanuska_, an
+archer, and the caste is an ancient one, its origin as given in
+the Padma Purana, quoted by Sir Henry Elliot, being from a Chamar
+father and a Chandal or sweeper mother. Another pedigree makes the
+mother a Chamar and the father an outcaste Ahir. Such statements,
+Sir H. Risley remarks in commenting on this genealogy, [525] serve
+to indicate in a general way the social rank held by the Dhanuks at
+the time when it was first thought necessary to enrol them among the
+mixed castes. Dr. Buchanan [526] says that the Dhanuks were in former
+times the militia of the country. He states that all the Dhanuks were
+at one time probably slaves and many were recruited to fill up the
+military ranks--a method of security which had long been prevalent
+in Asia, the armies of the Parthians having been composed entirely
+of slaves. A great many Dhanuks, at the time when Buchanan wrote,
+were still slaves, but some annually procured their liberty by the
+inability of their masters to maintain them and their unwillingness to
+sell their fellow-creatures. It may be concluded, therefore, that the
+Dhanuks were a body of servile soldiery, recruited as was often the
+case from the subject Dravidian tribes; following the all-powerful
+tendency of Hindu society they became a caste, and owing to the
+comparatively respectable nature of their occupation obtained a rise
+in social position from the outcaste status of the subject Dravidians
+to the somewhat higher group of castes who were not unclean but from
+whom a Brahman would not accept water. They did not advance so far
+as the Khandaits, another caste formed from military service, who
+were also, Sir H. Risley shows, originally recruited from a subject
+tribe, probably because the position of the Dhanuks was always more
+subordinate and no appreciable number of them came to be officers
+or leaders. The very debased origin of the caste already mentioned
+as given in the Padma Purana may be supposed as in other cases to be
+an attempt on the part of the priestly chronicler to repress what he
+considered to be unfounded claims to a rise in rank. But the Dhanuks,
+not less than the other soldier castes, have advanced a pretension
+to be Kshatriyas, those of Narsinghpur sometimes calling themselves
+Dhankarai Rajputs, though this claim is of course in their case
+a pure absurdity. It is not necessary to suppose that the Dhanuks
+of the Central Provinces are the lineal descendants of the caste
+whose genealogy is given in the Puranas; they may be a much more
+recent offshoot from a main caste, formed in a precisely similar
+manner from military service. [527] Mr. Crooke [528] surmises that
+they belonged to the large impure caste of Basors or basket-makers,
+who took to bow-making and thence to archery; and some connection
+is traceable between the Dhanuks and Basors in Narsinghpur. Such a
+separation must probably have occurred in comparatively recent times,
+inasmuch as some recollection of it still remains. The fact that
+Lodhis are the only caste besides Brahmans from whom the Dhanuks of
+Narsinghpur will take food cooked without water may indicate that
+they formed the militia of Lodhi chieftains in the Nerbudda valley,
+a hypothesis which is highly probable on general grounds.
+
+
+
+2. Marriage.
+
+
+In the Central Provinces the Dhanuks have no subcastes. [529] The
+names of their _gotras_ or family groups, though they themselves
+cannot explain them, are apparently territorial: as Maragaiyan from
+Maragaon, Benaikawar from Benaika village, Pangarya from Panagar,
+Binjharia from Bindhya or Vindhya, Barodhaya from Barodha village, and
+so on. Marriages within the same _gotra_ and between first cousins are
+prohibited, and child-marriage is usual. The father of the boy always
+takes the initiative in arranging a match, and if a man wants to find
+a husband for his daughter he must ask the assistance of his relatives
+to obtain a proposal, as it would be derogatory to move in the matter
+himself. The contract for marriages is made at the boy's house and is
+not inviolable. Before the departure of the bridegroom for the bride's
+village, he stands at the entrance of the marriage-shed, and his mother
+comes up and places her breast to his mouth and throws rice balls and
+ashes over him. The former action signifies the termination of his
+boyhood, while the latter is meant to protect him on his important
+journey. The bridegroom in walking away treads on a saucer in which
+a little rice is placed. Widow-marriage and divorce are permitted.
+
+
+
+3. Social rank and customs.
+
+
+A few members of the caste are tenants and the bulk of them
+farmservants and field-labourers. They also act as village
+watchmen. The Dhanuks eat flesh and fish, but not fowls, beef or pork,
+and they abstain from liquor. They will take food cooked without water
+from a Brahman and a Lodhi, but not from a Rajput; but in Nimar the
+status of the caste is distinctly lower, and they eat pig's flesh
+and the leavings of Brahmans and Rajputs. The mixed nature of the
+caste is shown by the fact that they will receive into the community
+illegitimate children born of a Dhanuk father and a woman of a higher
+caste such as Lodhi or Kurmi. They rank as already indicated just
+above the impure castes.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+Dhanwar
+
+
+
+List of Paragraphs
+
+
+    1. _Origin and traditions._
+    2. _Exogamous septs._
+    3. _Marriage._
+    4. _Festivities of the women of the bridegroom's party._
+    5. _Conclusion of the marriage._
+    6. _Widow-marriage and divorce._
+    7. _Childbirth._
+    8. _Disposal of the dead._
+    9. _Religion._
+    10. _Magic and witchcraft._
+    11. _Social rules._
+    12. _Dress and tattooing._
+    13. _Names of children._
+    14. _Occupation._
+
+
+
+1. Origin and traditions.
+
+
+_Dhanwar, Dhanuhar._ [530]--A primitive tribe living in the wild hilly
+country of the Bilaspur zamindari estates, adjoining Chota Nagpur. They
+numbered only 19,000 persons in 1911. The name Dhanuhar means a bowman,
+and the bulk of the tribe have until recently been accustomed to
+obtain their livelihood by hunting with bow and arrows. The name is
+thus merely a functional term and is analogous to those of Dhangar,
+or labourer, and Kisan, or cultivator, which are applied to the
+Oraons, and perhaps Halba or farmservant, by which another tribe
+is known. The Dhanwars are almost certainly not connected with the
+Dhanuks of northern India, though the names have the same meaning. They
+are probably an offshoot of either the Gond or the Kawar tribe or a
+mixture of both. Their own legend of their origin is nearly the same
+as that of the Gonds, while the bulk of their sept or family names are
+identical with those of the Kawars. Like the Kawars, the Dhanwars have
+no language of their own and speak a corrupt form of Chhattisgarhi
+Hindi. Mr. Jeorakhan Lal writes of them:--"The word Dhanuhar is a
+corrupt form of Dhanusdhar or a holder of a bow. The bow consists of
+a cleft piece of bamboo and the arrow is made of wood of the _dhaman_
+tree. [531] The pointed end is furnished with a piece or a nail of
+iron called _phani_, while to the other end are attached feathers
+of the vulture or peacock with a string of tasar silk. Dhanuhar boys
+learn the use of the bow at five years of age, and kill birds with it
+when they are seven or eight years old. At their marriage ceremony
+the bridegroom carries an arrow with him in place of a dagger as
+among the Hindus, and each household has a bow which is worshipped at
+every festival." According to their own legend the ancestors of the
+Dhanuhars were two babies whom a tigress unearthed from the ground when
+scratching a hole in her den, and brought up with her own young. They
+were named Naga Lodha and Nagi Lodhi, _Naga_ meaning naked and _Lodha_
+being the Chhattisgarhi word for a wild dog. Growing up they lived
+for some time as brother and sister, until the deity enjoined them
+to marry. But they had no children until Naga Lodha, in obedience to
+the god's instructions, gave his wife the fruit of eleven trees to
+eat. From these she had eleven sons at a birth, and as she observed
+a fortnight's impurity for each of them the total period was five and
+a half months. In memory of this, Dhanuhar women still remain impure
+for five months after delivery, and do not worship the gods for that
+period. Afterwards the couple had a twelfth son, who was born with
+a bow and arrows in his hand, and is now the ancestral hero of the
+tribe, being named Karankot. One day in the forest when Karankot was
+not with them, the eleven brothers came upon a wooden palisade, inside
+which were many deer and antelope tended by twelve Gaoli (herdsmen)
+brothers with their twelve sisters. The Lodha brothers attacked the
+place, but were taken prisoners by the Gaolis and forced to remove
+dung and other refuse from the enclosure. After a time Karankot
+went in search of his brothers and, coming to the place, defeated
+the Gaolis and rescued them and carried off the twelve sisters. The
+twelve brothers subsequently married the twelve Gaoli girls, Karankot
+himself being wedded to the youngest and most beautiful, whose name
+was Maswasi. From each couple is supposed to be descended one of the
+tribes who live in this country, as the Binjhwar, Bhumia, Korwa,
+Majhi, Kol, Kawar and others, the Dhanuhars themselves being the
+progeny of Karankot and Maswasi. The bones of the animals killed by
+Karankot were thrown into ditches dug round the village and form the
+pits of _chhui mithi_ or white clay now existing in this tract.
+
+
+
+2. Exogamous septs.
+
+
+The Dhanuhars, being a small tribe, have no endogamous divisions,
+but are divided into a number of totemistic exogamous septs. Many of
+the septs are called after plants or animals, and members of the sept
+refrain from killing or destroying the animal or plant after which it
+is named. The names of the septs are generally Chhattisgarhi words,
+though a few are Gondi. Out of fifty names returned twenty are also
+found in the Kawar tribe and four among the Gonds. This makes it
+probable that the Dhanuhars are mainly an offshoot from the Kawars
+with an admixture of Gonds and other tribes. A peculiarity worth
+noticing is that one or two of the septs have been split up into a
+number of others. The best instance of this is the Sonwani sept,
+which is found among several castes and tribes in Chhattisgarh;
+its name is perhaps derived from _Sona pani_ (Gold water), and its
+members have the function of readmitting those temporarily expelled
+from social intercourse by pouring on them a little water into which
+a piece of gold has been dipped. Among the Dhanuhars the Sonwani
+sept has become divided into the Son-Sonwani, who pour the gold
+water over the penitent; the Rakat Sonwani, who give him to drink
+a little of the blood of the sacrificial fowl; the Hardi Sonwani,
+who give turmeric water to the mourners when they come back from
+a funeral; the Kari Sonwani, who assist at this ceremony; and one
+or two others. The totem of the Kari Sonwani sept is a black cow,
+and when such an animal dies in the village members of the sept
+throw away their earthen pots. All these are now separate exogamous
+septs. The Deswars are another sept which has been divided in the
+same manner. They are, perhaps, a more recent accession to the tribe,
+and are looked down on by the others because they will eat the flesh
+of bison. The other Dhanwars refuse to do this because they say that
+when Sita, Rama's wife, was exiled in the jungles, she could not find
+a cow to worship and so revered a bison in its stead. And they say
+that the animal's feet are grey because of the turmeric water which
+Sita poured on them, and that the depression on its forehead is the
+mark of her hand when she placed a _tika_ or sign there with coloured
+rice. The Deswars are also called Dui Duaria or 'Those having two
+doors,' because they have a back door to their huts which is used
+only by women during their monthly period of impurity and kept shut
+at all other times. One of the septs is named Manakhia, which means
+'man-eater,' and it is possible that its members formerly offered human
+sacrifices. Similarly, the Rakat-bund or 'Drop of blood Deswars' may
+be so called because they shed human blood. A member of the Telasi or
+'Oil' sept, when he has killed a deer, will cut off the head and bring
+it home; placing it in his courtyard, he suspends a burning lamp over
+the head and places grains of rice on the forehead of the deer; and
+he then considers that he is revering the oil in the lamp. Members of
+the Surajgoti or sun sept are said to have stood as representatives
+of the sun in the rite of the purification of an offender.
+
+
+
+3. Marriage.
+
+
+Marriage within the sept is prohibited, and usually also between
+first cousins. Girls are commonly married a year or two after they
+arrive at maturity. The father of the boy looks out for a suitable
+girl for his son and sends a friend to make the proposal. If this
+is accepted a feast is given, and is known as Phul Phulwari or 'The
+bursting of the flower.' The betrothal itself is called Phaldan or
+'The gift of the fruit'; on this occasion the contract is ratified
+and the usual presents are exchanged. Yet a third ceremony, prior to
+the marriage, is that of the Barokhi or inspection, when the bride
+and bridegroom are taken to see each other. On this occasion they
+exchange copper rings, placing them on each other's finger, and the
+boy offers vermilion to the earth, and then rubs it on the bride's
+forehead. When the girl is mature the date of the wedding is fixed,
+a small bride-price of six rupees and a piece of cloth being usually
+paid. If the first signs of puberty appear in the girl during the
+bright fortnight of the month, the marriage is held during the dark
+fortnight and vice versa. The marriage-shed is built in the form of
+a rectangle and must consist of either seven or nine posts in three
+lines. The bridegroom's party comprises from twenty to forty persons of
+both sexes. When they arrive at the bride's village her father comes
+out to meet them and gives them leaf-pipes to smoke. He escorts them
+inside the village where a lodging has been prepared for them. The
+ceremony is based on that of the local Hindus with numerous petty
+variations in points of detail. In the actual ceremony the bride and
+bridegroom are first supported on the knees of two relatives. A sheet
+is held between them and each throws seven handfuls of parched rice
+over the other. They are then made to stand side by side; a knot
+is made of their cloths containing a piece of turmeric, and the
+bride's left hand is laid over the bridegroom's right one, and on
+it a _sendhaura_ or wooden box for vermilion is placed. The bride's
+mother moves seven times round the pair holding a lighted lamp, at
+which she warms her hand and then touches the marriage-crowns of the
+bride and bridegroom seven times in succession. And finally the couple
+walk seven times round the marriage-post, the bridegroom following
+the bride. The marriage is held during the day, and not, as is usual,
+at night or in the early morning. Afterwards, the pair are seated in
+the marriage-shed, the bridegroom's leg being placed over that of the
+bride, with their feet in a brass dish. The bride's mother then washes
+their great toes with milk and the rest of their feet with water. The
+bridegroom applies vermilion seven times to the marriage-post and to
+his wife's forehead at the parting of her hair. The couple are fed
+with rice and pulses one after the other out of the same leaf-plates,
+and the parties have a feast. Next morning, before their departure,
+the father of the bride asks the bridegroom to do his best to put up
+with his daughter, who is thievish, gluttonous and so slovenly that
+she lets her food drop on to the floor; but if he finds he cannot
+endure her, to send her home. In the same manner the father of the
+boy apologises for his son, saying that he cares only for mischief
+and pleasure. The party then returns to the bridegroom's house.
+
+
+
+4. Festivities of the women of the bridegroom's party.
+
+
+During the absence of the wedding party the women of the bridegroom's
+house with others in the village sing songs at night in the
+marriage-shed constructed at his house. These are known as Dindwa, a
+term applied to a man who has no wife, whether widower or bachelor. As
+they sing, the women dance in two lines with their arms interlaced,
+clapping their hands as they move backwards and forwards. The songs are
+of a lewd character, treating of intrigues in love mingled with abuse
+of their relatives and of other men who may be watching the proceedings
+by stealth. No offence is taken on such occasions, whatever may be
+said. In Upper India, Mr. Jeorakhan Lal states such songs are sung
+at the time of the marriage and are called _Naktoureki louk_ or the
+ceremony of the useless or shameless ones, because women, however shy
+and modest, become at this time as bold and shameless as men are at the
+Holi festival. The following are a few lines from one of these songs:
+
+
+    The wheat-cake is below and the urad-cake is above. Do you see
+    my brother's brother-in-law watching the dance in the narrow
+    lane. [532]
+
+    A sweetmeat is placed on the wheat-cake; a handsome young
+    black-guard has climbed on to the top of the wall to see the dance.
+
+    When a woman sees a man from afar he looks beautiful and
+    attractive: but when he comes near she sees that he is not worth
+    the trouble.
+
+    I went to the market and came back with my salt. Oh, I looked
+    more at you than at my husband who is wedded to me.
+
+
+
+5. Conclusion of the marriage.
+
+
+Several of the ceremonies are repeated at the bridegroom's house
+after the return of the wedding party. On the day following them the
+couple are taken to a tank walking under a canopy held up by their
+friends. Here they throw away their marriage-crowns, and play at
+hiding a vessel under the water. When they return to the house a goat
+is sacrificed to Dulha Deo and the bride cooks food in her new house
+for the first time, her husband helping her, and their relatives and
+friends in the village are invited to partake of it. After this the
+conjugal chamber is prepared by the women of the household, and the
+bride is taken to it and told to consider her husband's house as her
+own. The couple are then left together and the marriage is consummated.
+
+
+
+6. Widow-marriage and divorce.
+
+
+The remarriage of widows is permitted but it is not considered as a
+real marriage, according to the saying: "A woman cannot be anointed
+twice with the marriage oil, as a wooden cooking-vessel cannot be put
+twice on the fire." A widow married again is called a _Churiyahi Dauki_
+or 'Wife made by bangles,' as the ceremony may be completed by putting
+bangles on her wrists. When a woman is going to marry again she leaves
+her late husband's house and goes and lives with her own people or
+in a house by herself. The second husband makes his proposal to her
+through some other women. If accepted he comes with a party of his
+male friends, taking with him a new cloth and some bangles. They are
+received by the widow's guardian, and they sit in her house smoking and
+chewing tobacco while some woman friend retires with her and invests
+her with the new cloth and bangles. She comes out and the new husband
+and wife bow to all the Dhanwars, who are subsequently regaled with
+liquor and goats' flesh, and the marriage is completed. Polygamy is
+permitted but is not common. A husband may divorce his wife for failing
+to bear him issue, for being ugly, thievish, shrewish or a witch, or
+for an intrigue with another man. If a married woman commits adultery
+with another man of the tribe they are pardoned with the exaction
+of one feast. If her paramour is a Gond, Rawat, Binjhwar or Kawar,
+he is allowed to become a Dhanwar and marry her on giving several
+feasts, the exact number being fixed by the village Baiga or priest
+in a _panchayat_ or committee. With these exceptions a married woman
+having an intrigue with a man of another caste is finally expelled. A
+wife who desires to divorce her husband without his agreement is also
+turned out of the caste like a common woman.
+
+
+
+7. Childbirth.
+
+
+After the birth of a child the mother receives no food for the first
+and second, and fourth and fifth days, while on the third she is given
+only a warm decoction to drink. On the sixth day the men of the house
+are shaved and their impurity ceases. But the mother cooks no food
+for two months after bearing a female child and for three months
+if it is a male. The period has thus been somewhat reduced from the
+traditional one of five and a half months, [533] but it must still
+be highly inconvenient. At the expiration of the time of impurity
+the earthen pots are changed and the mother prepares a meal for the
+whole household. During her monthly period of impurity a woman cooks
+no food for six days. On the seventh day she bathes and cleans her
+hair with clay, and is then again permitted to touch the drinking
+water and cook food.
+
+
+
+8. Disposal of the dead.
+
+
+The tribe bury the dead. The corpse is wrapped in an old cloth and
+carried to the grave on a cot turned upside down. On arrival there
+it is washed with turmeric and water and wrapped in a new cloth. The
+bearers carry the corpse seven times round the open grave, saying,
+'This is your last marriage,' that is, with the earth. The male
+relatives and friends fill in the grave with earth, working with
+their hands only and keep their backs turned to the grave so as to
+avoid seeing the corpse. It is said that each person should throw
+only five handfuls. Other people then come up and fill in the grave,
+trampling down the surface as much as possible. For three days after a
+death the bereaved family do not cook for themselves but are supplied
+with food by their friends. These, however, do not give them any salt
+as it is thought that the craving for salt will divert their minds
+from dwelling on their loss. The tribe do not perform the _shraddh_
+ceremony, but in the month of Kunwar, on the day corresponding to that
+on which his father died, a man feeds the caste-fellows in memory of
+him. And at this period he offers libations to his ancestors, pouring
+a double handful of water on the ground for each one that he can
+remember and then one for all the others. While doing this he stands
+facing the east and does not turn to three different directions as the
+Hindu custom is. The spirit of a man who has been killed by a tiger
+becomes Baghia Masan or the tiger imp, and that of a woman who dies in
+childbirth becomes a Churel. Both are very troublesome to the living.
+
+
+
+9. Religion.
+
+
+The principal deities of the Dhanwars are Thakur Deo, the god of
+agriculture, and Dulha Deo, the deity of the family and hearth. Twice
+a year the village Baiga or medicine-man, who is usually a Gond,
+offers a cocoanut to Thakur Deo. He first consecrates it to the
+god by placing it in contact with water and the small heap of rice
+which lies in front of his shrine, and then splits it asunder on a
+stone, saying, '_Jai Thakur Deo_,' or 'Victory to Thakur Deo.' When
+any serious calamity befalls the tribe a goat is offered to the
+deity. It must also be first consecrated to him by eating his rice;
+its body is then washed in water and some of the sacred _dub_ [534]
+grass is placed on it, and the Baiga severs the head from the body
+with an axe. Dulha Deo is the god of the family and the marriage-bed,
+and when a Dhanwar is married or his first son is born, a goat is
+offered to the deity. Another interesting deity is Maiya Andhiyari,
+or the goddess of the dark fortnight of the month. She is worshipped
+in the house conjointly by husband and wife on any Tuesday in the
+dark fortnight of Magh (January-February), all the relatives of the
+family being invited. On the day of worship the husband and wife
+observe a fast, and all the water which is required for use in the
+house during the day and night must be brought into it in the early
+morning. A circular pit is dug inside the house, about three feet deep
+and as many wide. A she-goat which has borne no young is sacrificed
+to the goddess in the house in the same manner as in the sacrifice to
+Thakur Deo. The goat is skinned and cut up, the skin, bones and other
+refuse being thrown into the hole. The flesh is cooked and eaten
+with rice and pulse in the evening, all the family and relatives,
+men and women, eating together at the same time. After the meal,
+all the remaining food and the water including that used for cooking,
+and the new earthen pots used to carry water on that day are thrown
+into the pit. The mouth of the pit is then covered with wooden boards
+and plastered over with mud with great care to prevent a child falling
+into it; as it is held that nothing which has once gone into the pit
+may be taken out, even if it were a human being. It is said that
+once in the old days a man who happened to fall into the pit was
+buried alive, its mouth being covered over with planks of wood; and
+he was found alive when the pit was reopened next year. This is an
+instance of the sacrificial meal, common to many primitive peoples,
+at which the sacred animal was consumed by the worshippers, skin,
+bones and all. But now that such a course has become repugnant to
+their more civilised digestions, the refuse is considered sacred
+and disposed of in some such manner as that described. The goddess
+is also known as Rat Devi or the goddess of the night; or Rat Mai,
+the night mother. The goddess Maswasi was the mythical ancestress of
+the Dhanwars, the wife of Karankot, and also the daughter of Maiya
+Andhiyari or Rat Mai. She too is worshipped every third year in the
+dark fortnight of the month of Magh on any Tuesday. Her sacrifice is
+offered in the morning hours in the forest by men only, and consists
+also of a black she-goat. A site is chosen under a tree and cleaned
+with cowdung, the bones of animals being placed upon it in a heap
+to represent the goddess. The village Baiga kills the goat with an
+axe and the body is eaten by the worshippers. Maswasi is invoked by
+the Dhanwars before they go hunting, and whenever they kill a wild
+boar or a deer they offer it to her. She is thus clearly the goddess
+of hunting. The tribe also worship the spirits of hills and woods
+and the ghosts of the illustrious dead. The ghosts of dead Baigas
+or medicine-men are believed to become spirits attending on Thakur
+Deo, and when he is displeased with the Dhanwars they intervene
+to allay his anger. The brothers of Maswasi, the twelve Gaolis,
+are believed to be divine hunters and to haunt the forests, where
+they kill beasts and occasionally men. Six of them take post and the
+other six drive the beasts or men towards these through the forest,
+when they are pierced as with an arrow. The victim dies after a few
+days, but if human he may go to a sorcerer, who can extract the arrow,
+smaller than a grain of rice, from his body. In the month of Aghan
+(November), when the grass of the forests is to be cut, the members
+of the village collectively offer a goat to the grass deity, in order
+that none of the grass-cutters may be killed by a tiger or bitten by
+a snake or other wild animal.
+
+
+
+10. Magic and witchcraft.
+
+
+The Dhanwars are fervent believers in all kinds of magic and
+witchcraft. Magic is practised both by the Baiga, the village priest
+or medicine-man, who is always a man and who conducts the worship of
+the deities mentioned above, and by the _tonhi_, the regular witch,
+who may be a man or woman. Little difference appears to exist in the
+methods of the two classes of magicians, but the Baiga's magic is
+usually exercised for the good of his fellow-creatures, which indeed
+might be expected as he gets his livelihood from them, and he is also
+less powerful than the _tonhi_. The Baiga cures ordinary maladies and
+the bites of snakes and scorpions by mesmeric passes fortified by the
+utterance of charms. He raises the dead in much the same manner as a
+witch does, but employs the spirit of the dead person in casting out
+other evil spirits by which his clients may be possessed. One of the
+miracles performed by the Baiga is to make his wet cloth stand in the
+air stiff and straight, holding only the two lower ends. He can cross
+a river walking on leaves, and change men into beasts. Witches are
+not very common among the Dhanwars. A witch, male or female, maybe
+detected by a sunken and gloomy appearance of the eyes, a passionate
+temperament, or by being found naked in a graveyard at night, as
+only a witch would go there to raise a corpse from the dead. The
+Dhanwars eat nearly all kinds of food except beef and the leavings
+of others. They will take cooked food from the hands of Kawars, and
+the men also from Gonds, but not the women. In some places they will
+accept food from Brahmans, but not everywhere. They are not an impure
+caste, but usually live in a separate hamlet of their own, and are
+lower than the Gonds and Kawars, who will take water from them but
+not food. They are a very primitive people, and it is stated that at
+the census several of them left their huts and fled into the jungle,
+and were with difficulty induced to return. When an elder man dies
+his family usually abandon their hut, as it is believed that his
+spirit haunts it and causes death to any one who lives there.
+
+
+
+11. Social rules.
+
+
+A Kawar is always permitted to become a Dhanwar, and a woman of
+the Gond, Binjhwar and Rawat tribes, if such a one is living with a
+Dhanwar, may be married to him with the approval of the tribe. She does
+not enjoy the full status of membership herself, but it is accorded
+to her children. When an outsider is to be admitted a _panchayat_
+of five Dhanwars is assembled, one of whom must be of the Majhi
+sept. The members of the _panchayat_ hold out their right hands, palm
+upwards, one below the other, and beneath them the candidate and his
+wife place their hands. The Majhi pours water from a brass vessel on
+to the topmost hand, and it trickles down from one to the other on to
+those of the candidate and his wife. The blood of a slaughtered goat is
+mixed with the water in their palms and they sip it, and after giving
+a feast to the caste are considered as Dhanwars. Permanent exclusion
+from caste is imposed only for living with a man or woman of another
+caste other than those who may become Dhanwars, or for taking food
+from a member of an impure caste, the only ones which are lower than
+the Dhanwars. Temporary exclusion for an indefinite period is awarded
+for an irregular connection between a Dhanwar man and woman, or of
+a Dhanwar with a Kawar, Binjhwar, Rawat or Gond; on a family which
+harbours any one of its members who has been permanently expelled;
+and on a woman who cuts the navel-cord of a newly-born child, whether
+of her own caste or not. Irregular sexual intimacies are usually
+kept secret and condoned by marriage whenever possible. A person
+expelled for any of the above offences cannot claim readmission as a
+right. He must first please the members of the caste, and to do this
+he attends every caste feast without being invited, removes their
+leaf-plates with the leavings of food, and waits on them generally,
+and continually proffers his prayer for readmission. When the other
+Dhanwars are satisfied with his long and faithful service they take
+him back into the community. Temporary exclusion from caste, with the
+penalty of one or more feasts for readmission, is imposed for killing
+a cow or a cat accidentally, or in the course of giving it a beating;
+for having a cow or bullock in one's possession whose nostrils or ears
+get split; for getting maggots in a wound; for being beaten except by
+a Government official; for taking food from any higher caste other
+than those from whom food is accepted; and in the case of a woman
+for saying her husband's name aloud. This list of offences shows that
+the Dhanwars have almost completely adopted the Hindu code in social
+matters, while retaining their tribal religion. A person guilty of one
+of the above offences must have his or her head shaved by a barber,
+and make a pilgrimage to the shrine of Narsingh Nath in Bodasamar
+zamindari; after having accomplished this he is purified by one of
+the Sonwani sept, being given water in which gold has been dipped
+to drink through a bamboo tube, and he provides usually three feasts
+for the caste-fellows.
+
+
+
+12. Dress and tattooing.
+
+
+The tribe dress in the somewhat primitive fashion prevalent
+in Chhattisgarh, and there is nothing distinctive about their
+clothing. Women are tattooed at their parents' house before or just
+after marriage. It is said that the tattoo marks remain on the soul
+after death, and that she shows them to God, probably for purposes of
+identification. There is a saying, 'All other pleasures are transient,
+but the tattoo marks are my companions through life.' A Dhanwar will
+not take water from a woman who is not tattooed.
+
+
+
+13. Names of children.
+
+
+Children are named on the _chathi_ or sixth day after birth, and
+the parents always ascertain from a wise man whether the soul of
+any dead relative has been born again in the child so that they may
+name it after him. It is also thought that the sex may change in
+transmigration, for male children are sometimes named after women
+relatives and female after men. Mr. Hira Lal notes the following
+instance of the names of four children in a family. The eldest was
+named after his grandfather; the second was called Bhalu or bear,
+as his maternal uncle who had been eaten by a bear was reborn in him;
+the third was called Ghasi, the name of a low caste of grass-cutters,
+because the two children born before him had died; and the fourth
+was called Kausi, because the sorcerer could not identify the spirit
+of any relative as having been born again in him. The name Kausi
+is given to any one who cannot remember his sept, as in the saying,
+'_Bhule bisare kausi got_,' or 'A man who has got no _got_ belongs
+to the Kausi _got_.' Kausi is said to mean a stranger. Bad names
+are commonly given to avert ill-luck or premature death, as Boya, a
+liar; Labdu, one smeared with ashes; Marha, a corpse; or after some
+physical defect as Lati, one with clotted hair; Petwa, a stammerer;
+Lendra, shy; Ghundu, one who cannot walk; Ghunari, stunted; or from
+the place of birth, as Dongariha or Paharu, born on a hill; Banjariha,
+born in brushwood, and so on. A man will not mention the names of his
+wife, his son's wife or his sister's son's wife, and a woman will not
+name her husband or his elder brother or parents. As already stated,
+a woman saying her husband's name aloud is temporarily put out of
+caste, the Hindu custom being thus carried to extremes, as is often
+the case among the lower castes.
+
+
+
+14. Occupation.
+
+
+The tribe consider hunting to have been their proper calling, but
+many of them are now cultivators and labourers. They also make bamboo
+matting and large baskets for storing grain, but they will not make
+small bamboo baskets or fans, because this is the calling of the Turis,
+on whom the Dhanwar looks down. The women collect the leaves of _sal_
+[535] trees and sell them at the rate of about ten bundles for a pice
+(farthing) for use as _chongis_ or leaf-pipes. As already stated,
+the tribe have no language of their own, but speak a corrupt form
+of Chhattisgarhi.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+Dhimar [536]
+
+
+
+List of Paragraphs
+
+
+    1. _General notice._
+    2. _Subcastes._
+    3. _Exogamous groups._
+    4. _Marriage._
+    5. _Childbirth._
+    6. _Disposal of the dead._
+    7. _Religion._
+    8. _Occupation: fisherman._
+    9. _Water-carrier._
+    10. _Palanquin-bearer and personal servant._
+    11. _Other occupations._
+    12. _Social status._
+    13. _Legend of the caste._
+
+
+
+1. General notice.
+
+
+_Dhimar, Kahar, Bhoi, Palewar, Baraua, Machhandar._--The caste of
+fishermen and palanquin-bearers. In 1911 the Dhimars numbered 284,000
+persons in the Central Provinces and Berar, being most numerous in the
+Maratha Districts. In the north of the Province we find in place of
+the Dhimars the Kahars and Mullahs, and in the east or Chhattisgarh
+country the Kewats. But the distinction between these castes is no
+more than nominal, for in some localities both Kahar and Kewat are
+returned as subcastes of Dhimar. In some parts of India the Bhois
+and Dhimars are considered as separate castes, but in the Central
+Provinces they are not to be distinguished, both names being applied
+indiscriminately to the same persons. The name of Bhoi perhaps belongs
+more particularly to those who carry litters or palanquins, and that
+of Dhimar to the fishermen. The word Dhimar is a corruption of the
+Sanskrit Dhivara, a fisherman. Bhoi is a South Indian word (Telugu
+and Malayalam _boyi_, Tamil _bovi_), and in the Konkan people of this
+class are known as Kahar Bhui. Among the Gonds Bhoi is considered as
+an honorific name or title; and this indicates that a large number of
+Gonds have become enrolled in the Dhimar or Kahar caste, and consider
+it a rise in status. Palewar is the name of the Telugu fishermen of
+Chanda. Machhandar signifies one who catches fish.
+
+
+
+2. Subcastes.
+
+
+The caste has a large number of subdivisions of a local or occupational
+nature; among occupational names may be mentioned the Singaria or those
+who cultivate the _singara_ nut, the Nadha or those who live on the
+banks of streams, the Tankiwalas or sharpeners of grindstones, the
+Jhingas or prawn-catchers, the Bansias and Saraias or anglers (from
+_bansi_ or _sarai_, a bamboo fishing-rod), the Bandhaiyas or those
+who make ropes and sacking of hemp and fibre, and the Dhurias who sell
+parched rice. These last say that their original ancestors were created
+by Mahadeo out of a handful of dust (_dhur_) for carrying the palanquin
+of Parvati when she was tired. They are probably the same people as
+the Dhuris who also parch grain, and in Chhattisgarh are considered
+as a separate caste. Similarly the Sonjhara Dhimars wash for gold,
+the calling of the separate Sonjhara caste. The Kasdhonia Dhimars wash
+the sands of the sacred rivers to find the coins which pious pilgrims
+frequently drop or throw into the river as an offering when they bathe
+in it. The Gondia subcaste is clearly an offshoot from the Gond tribe,
+but a large proportion of the whole caste in the Central Provinces
+is probably derived from the Gonds or Kols, members of this latter
+tribe being especially proficient as palanquin-bearers. The Suvarha
+subcaste is named after the _suar_ or pig, because members of this
+subcaste breed and eat the unclean animal; they are looked down on
+by the others. Similarly the Gadhewale Dhimars keep donkeys, and are
+despised by the other subcastes who will not take food from them. They
+use donkeys for carrying loads of wood, and the bridegroom rides to
+his wedding on this animal; and among them a donkey is the only animal
+the corpse of which can be touched without conveying pollution. The
+Bhanare Dhimars appear to be named after the town of Bhandara.
+
+
+
+3. Exogamous groups.
+
+
+A large number of exogamous groups are also returned, either of a
+titular or totemistic nature: such are Baghmar, a tiger-slayer; Ojhwa,
+from Ojha, or sorcerer; Guru pahchan, one who knows his teacher;
+Midoia, a guardian of boundaries, from _med_, a boundary or border;
+Gidhwe, a vulture; Kolhe, or jackal; Gadhekhaya, a donkey-eater; and
+Kasture, musk; a few names are from towns or villages, as Tumsare
+from Tumsar, Nagpurkar from Nagpur; and a few from other castes as
+Madgi, Bhoyar, Pindaria from Pindari, a freebooter; Gondia (Gond)
+and Gondhali; and Kachhwaha, a sept of Rajputs.
+
+
+
+4. Marriage.
+
+
+Marriage is prohibited between members of the same sept and also
+between first cousins. In many localities families do not intermarry so
+long as they remember any relationship to have existed between them. In
+Mandla, Mr. Govind Moreshwar states, the Nadha and Kehera subcastes
+do not intermarry; but if a man desires a girl of the other subcaste
+he can be admitted into it on giving a feast to the caste-fellows
+according to his means, and thus marry her. Two families may exchange
+daughters in marriage. A maiden who goes wrong with a man of the
+caste or of any higher caste may be readmitted to the community under
+penalty of a feast to the caste and of having a lock of her hair cut
+off. In the Hindustani Districts women do not accompany the marriage
+procession, but in the Maratha Districts they do. Among the Bhanara
+Dhimars of Chanda the wedding may be held either at the bride's or the
+bridegroom's house. In the former case a bride-price of Rs. 16 is paid,
+and in the latter one of Rs. 20, because the expenses of the bride's
+family are increased if the wedding is held at her house. A custom
+exists among the poorer Dhimars in Chanda of postponing the marriage
+ceremony to avoid expense; a man will thus simply take a girl for his
+wife, making a payment of Rs. 1-4 or twenty pence to her father and
+giving a feast to the community. She will then live in his house as his
+wife, and at some subsequent date, perhaps in old age, the religious
+ceremony will be held so that the couple may have been properly married
+before they die. In this fashion the weddings of grandparents, parents
+and children have all been celebrated simultaneously. The Singaria
+Dhimars of Chhindwara grow _singara_ or water-nut in tanks, and at
+their weddings a crocodile must be killed and eaten. The Sonjharas
+or gold-washers must also have a crocodile, but they keep it alive
+and worship it, and when the ceremony is concluded let it go back
+again to the river. It is natural that castes whose avocations are
+connected with rivers and tanks should in a manner deify the most
+prominent or most ferocious animal contained in their waters. And
+the ceremonial eating of a sacred animal has been recorded among
+divers peoples all over the world. At a Dhimar marriage in Bhandara
+a net is given to the bridegroom, and _sidori_ or cooked food, tied
+in a piece of cloth, to the bride, and they walk out together as if
+going to a river to fish, but the bride's brother comes up and stops
+them. After a wedding in Mandla they kill a pig and bury it before the
+door of the bridegroom's house, covering it with earth, and the bride
+and bridegroom step over its body into the house. Widow-marriage is
+freely permitted; in Mandla the marriage of a widow may be held on
+the night of any day except Sunday, Tuesday and Saturday. Divorce is
+allowed, but is of rare occurrence. Adultery on the part of a wife
+will be frequently overlooked, and the extreme step of divorcing her
+is only taken if she creates a public scandal. In such a case the
+parties appear before a meeting of the caste, and the headman asks
+them whether they have determined to separate. He then breaks a straw
+in token of the disruption of the union, and the husband and wife
+must pronounce each other's names in an audible voice. [537] A fee of
+Rs. 1-4 is paid to the headman, and the divorce is completed. [538]
+In some localities the woman's bangles are also broken. In Jhansi
+the fine for keeping a widow is ten rupees and for living with the
+wife of another man sixty rupees.
+
+
+
+5. Childbirth
+
+
+Children are named either on the day of birth or the twelfth day
+afterwards. The women place the child in a cradle, spreading boiled
+wheat and gram over its body, and after swinging it to and fro the
+name is given. Sweets or boiled wheat and gram are distributed to those
+present. In Berar on the third day after a birth cakes of juari flour
+and buttermilk are distributed to other children; on the fifth day
+the slab and roller used for grinding the household corn are washed,
+anointed and worshipped; on the twelfth day the child is named and
+shortly after this its head is shaved. [539]
+
+
+
+6. Disposal of the dead.
+
+
+The bodies of the dead are usually buried, cremation being beyond the
+means of Dhimars. Children whose ears have not been pierced are mourned
+only for one day, and others for ten days. When a body has been burnt
+the ashes are consigned to a tank or river on the third day, or if
+the third day be a Sunday or a Wednesday, then on the fifth day. In
+Berar, Mr. Kitts remarks, [540] the funeral ceremony of the Dhimars
+resembles that of the Gonds. After a burial the mourners repair to the
+deceased's house to drink; and subsequently each fetches his own dinner
+and dines with the chief mourner. At this time he and his family are
+impure and the others cannot take food prepared by him; but ten days
+afterwards when the mourning is over and the chief mourner has bathed
+and shaved they again dine with him, and on the next day the caste is
+feasted. During the period of mourning a lighted lamp is daily placed
+outside the house. When the period of mourning expires all the clothes
+of the family are washed and their house is newly whitewashed. There is
+no subsequent annual performance of funeral rites as among the higher
+Hindus; but at the Akshayatritiya or commencement of the agricultural
+year the head of the household throws at each meal a little food into
+the fire, in honour of his dead ancestors.
+
+
+
+7. Religion.
+
+
+One of the principal deities of the Dhimars [541] as of other low
+castes is Dulha Deo, the deified bridegroom. They fashion his image of
+_kadamb_ [542] wood and besmear it with red lead. In Berar they also
+pray to Anna Purna, the Corn-giving goddess of Madras corresponding
+to Durga or Devi, whose form with that of her horse is engraved on
+a brass plate and anointed with yellow and red turmeric. When about
+to enter a river or tank for fishing or other purposes they pray to
+the water-god to save them from being drowned or molested by its
+denizens. They address a river as Ganga Mai or 'Mother Ganges' in
+order to propitiate it by this flattery. Those who are employed on
+ferry-boats especially venerate Ghatoia [543] Deo, the god of ferries
+and river-crossings. His shrine is near the place where the boats are
+tied up, and ferry contractors keep a live chicken in their boat to be
+offered to Ghatoia on the first occasion when the river is sufficiently
+in flood to be crossed by ferry after the breaking of the rains. Other
+local godlings are the Bare Purakh or Great men, a collective term for
+their deceased ancestors, of whom they make silver images; Parihar,
+the soul of the village priest; Baram Deo, the spirit of the banyan
+tree; and Gosain Deo, a deified ascetic. To the goddess Devi they
+offer a black she-goat which is eaten ceremonially, and when they have
+finished, the bones, skin and all the other remains of the animal are
+placed in a pit inside the house. If anything should fall into this
+pit it must be buried with the remains of the offering and not taken
+out. And they relate that on one occasion a child fell into the pit,
+and the parents, setting obedience to the law of the goddess above
+the life of their child, buried it alive. But next year when the
+sacrifice was again made and the pit was opened, the child was found
+in it alive and playing. So they say that the goddess will save the
+life of any one who is buried in the pit with her offering. When a
+widower marries a second time his wife sometimes wears a _tawiz_ or
+amulet in the shape of a silver box containing charms round her neck
+in order to ward off the evil machinations of her predecessor's spirit.
+
+
+
+8. Occupation: fisherman.
+
+
+The occupations of the Dhimar are many and various. He is primarily
+a fisherman and boatman, and has various kinds of nets for taking
+fish. One of these is of triangular shape about 150 feet wide at
+the base and 80 feet in height to the apex. The meshes vary from
+an inch wide at the top to three inches at the bottom. The ends of
+the base are weighted with stones and the net is then sunk into a
+river so that the base rests on its bed and the top is held by men
+in boats at the surface. Then other Dhimars beat the surface of the
+water for some distance with long bamboos on both sides of the net,
+driving the fish towards it. They call this a _kheda_, the term used
+for a beat of the forest for game.
+
+Another method is to stretch a long rope or cord across the river,
+secured on either bank, with baited hooks attached to it at short
+intervals. It is left for some hours and then drawn in. When the river
+is shallow one wide-bottomed boat will be paddled up the stream and a
+line of men will wade on each side beating the water with bamboos so
+as to make the small fish jump into the boat. Or they put a little
+cotton-seed on a stone in shallow water, and when the fish collect
+to eat the seed a long circular net weighted with pieces of iron
+is let down over the stone. Then the upper end is drawn tight and
+the fishermen put their hands inside and seize the little fish. The
+Dhimar is also regularly employed as a worker on ferries. His primitive
+boat made from the hollowed trunk of a tree and sometimes lashed in
+couples for greater stability may still be seen on all rivers. He makes
+his own fishing-nets, knitting them on a stick at his leisure while
+he is walking along or sitting down to smoke and talk. He worships
+his fishing-nets at the Diwali festival, and his reverence for the
+knitted thread is such that he will not touch or wear a shoe made of
+thread, because he thinks that the sacred article is debased by being
+sewn into leather. When engaged in road-work the Dhimars have unsewn
+sandals secured to the feet with strips of leather. It is a special
+degradation to a Dhimar to be struck with a shoe. He has a monopoly
+of growing _singara_ [544] or water-nuts in tanks. The fruit of this
+plant has a taste somewhat between a cocoanut and a potato, with a
+flavour of soap. It can be taken raw and is therefore a favourite
+comestible for fast days when cooked food is forbidden. It is also
+sold at railway stations and the fresh fruit is prescribed by village
+doctors as easy of digestion. The Dhimar grows melons, cucumbers and
+other vegetables on the sandy stretches along the banks of streams,
+but at agriculture proper he does not excel.
+
+
+
+9. Water-carrier.
+
+
+The Dhimar's connection with water has led to his becoming the
+water-carrier for Hindus, or that section of the community which
+can afford to employ one. This is more especially the case in the
+Hindustani Districts where women are frequently secluded and therefore
+cannot draw water for the household, while in the Maratha Districts
+where the women go to the well no water-bearer is required. In this
+capacity the Dhimar is usually the personal servant of the village
+proprietor, but in large villages every house has a _ghinochi_, either
+an earthen platform or wooden stand just outside the house, on which
+four or five earthen water-pots are kept. These the Dhimar fills up
+morning and evening and receives two or three annas or pence a month
+for doing so. He also brings water for Government servants when they
+come to the village, and cleans their cooking-vessels and prepares
+the hearth with fresh cowdung and water in order to cleanse it.
+
+If he cleans the malguzar's vessels he gets his food for doing so. When
+the tenants have marriages he performs the same duties for the whole
+wedding party and receives a present of one or two rupees and some
+clothes if the families are well off, and also his food every day
+while the marriage is in progress. In his capacity of waterman the
+title Baraua is used to him as an honorific method of address; and to
+his wife Baroni. In a hot country like India water is revered as the
+source of relief, comfort and life itself, like fire in cold countries,
+and the waterman participates in the regard paid to his element.
+
+Another business of the Dhimar's is to take sweet potatoes and
+boiled plums to the fields at harvest-time and sell them. He supplies
+water for drinking to the reapers and receives three sheaves a day
+in payment. On the fifteenth of Jesth (May) the Dhimar goes round
+to the cultivators, throwing his fishing-net over their heads and
+receives a small present.
+
+
+
+10. Palanquin-bearer and personal servant.
+
+
+At the period prior to the introduction of wheeled transport when
+palanquins or litters were largely used for travelling, the carriers
+belonged to the Kahar caste in northern India and to the Dhimars
+or Bhois in the south. Though litters are now practically not used
+for travelling except occasionally by high-caste women, a survival
+of the old custom is retained in the marriage ceremony, the bride
+and bridegroom being always carried back from the marriage-shed to
+the temporary lodging of the bridegroom in a _palki_, though for
+the longer journey to the bridegroom's village some less cumbrous
+conveyance is utilised. Four Dhimars carry the _palki_ and receive
+Rs. 1-4. Well-to-do people will be carried in procession round the
+town. When employed by the village proprietor the Dhimar accompanies
+him on his journey, carrying his cooking-vessels and other necessaries
+in a _banhgi_ or wooden cross-bar slung across the shoulders, from
+which two baskets are suspended by loops of rope. Water he will
+always carry in a _banhgi_ and never on his head or shoulders. From
+waterman and litter-carrier the Dhimar has become a personal servant;
+it is he to whom the term 'bearer' as designating a body-servant was
+first applied because he bears or carries his master in a _palki_
+and his clothes in a _banhgi_. He is commonly so employed in native
+houses, but rarely by Europeans, whether because he is too stupid
+or on account of caste objections of his own. When employed as a
+cook the Dhimar or his wife is permitted to knead flour with water
+and make it into a cake which the Brahman will then take and put on
+to the girdle with his own hands. He can also boil water and pour
+pulse into the cooking-pot from above so long as he does not touch
+the vessel after the food has been placed in it. He or she will also
+take any remains of food which is left in the cooking-pot as this
+is not considered to be polluted, food only becoming polluted when
+the hand touches it on the dish after having touched the mouth. When
+this has happened all the food on the dish becomes _jutha_ or leavings
+of food, and as a general rule no caste except the sweepers will eat
+the leavings of food of another caste or of another person of their
+own. Only the wife, whose meal follows her husband's, will eat his
+leavings. As a servant the Dhimar is very familiar with his master;
+he may enter any part of the house, including the cooking-place and
+the women's rooms, and he addresses his mistress as 'Mother.' In
+northern India Mr. Crooke states that the Kahars are sometimes known
+as Mahra, from the Sanskrit Mahila, a woman, because they have the
+entry of the female apartments. When he lights his master's pipe he
+takes the first pull himself to show that it has not been tampered
+with, and then presents it to him with his left hand placed under
+his right elbow in token of respect. Maid-servants also frequently
+belong to the Dhimar caste, and it often happens that the master of
+the household has illicit intercourse with them. Hence there is a
+proverb, 'The king's son draws water and the water-bearer's son sits
+on the throne,' similar intrigues on the part of high-born women with
+their servants being not unknown. The Dhimar often acts as a pimp,
+this being an incident of his profession of indoor servant.
+
+
+
+11. Other occupations.
+
+
+Another occupation of the Dhimar's is to sell parched grain and rice
+to travellers in markets and railway stations like the Bharbhunja
+and Dhuri. This he can do because of his comparative social
+purity, as all castes will take water and cakes and sweetmeats
+from his hands. Some Dhimars and Kewats also weave hemp-matting
+and gunny-bags, but such members of the caste rank lower than the
+others and Brahmans will not take water from them. Another calling
+by which a few Dhimars find support is that of breeding pigs. One
+would think it a difficult matter to make a living out of the village
+pig, an animal abhorred by both Hindus and Muhammadans as the most
+unclean of the brute creation, and equally abjured by Europeans as
+unfit for food. But the pig is in considerable demand by the forest
+tribes for sacrifice to their deities. The Dhimar participates in the
+sacrifice to Narayan Deo described in the article on Mahar, when a
+pig is eaten in concert by several of the lower castes. Lastly, the
+business of rearing the cocoons of the tasar silk-worm is usually in
+the hands of Dhimars and Kewats. While the caterpillars are feeding
+on leaves and spinning their cocoons these men live in the forests
+for two months together and watch the _kosa-baris_ or silk-gardens,
+that is the blocks of trees which are set apart for the purpose of
+rearing the caterpillars. During this period they eat only once a day,
+abstain from meat and lentils, do not get shaved and do not visit their
+wives. When the eggs of the caterpillars are to be placed on the trees
+they tie a silk thread round the first tree to be used and worship it
+as Pat Deo or the god of silk thread. On this subject Mr. Ball writes:
+[545] "The trees which it is intended to stock are carefully pollarded
+before the rains, and in early spring the leaves are stocked with young
+caterpillars which have been hatched in the houses. The men in charge
+erect wigwams and remain on the spot, isolated from their families,
+who regard them for the time being as unclean. During the daytime
+they have full occupation in guarding the large green caterpillars
+from the attacks of kites and other birds. The cocoons are collected
+soon after they are spun and boiled in a lye of wood-ash, and the
+extracted chrysalids must then be eaten by the caretakers, who have
+to undergo certain ceremonial rites before they are readmitted into
+the society of their fellows. The effect of the boiling in the lye
+is the removal of the glutinous matter, which renders it possible
+to wind off the silk." The eating of the caterpillars is no doubt a
+ceremonial observance like that of the crocodile at weddings. They
+are killed by the boiling of the cocoons and on this account members
+of good castes will not engage in the business of rearing them. The
+abstention from conjugal intimacy while engaged in some important
+business is a very common phenomenon.
+
+
+
+12. Social status.
+
+
+The social status of the Dhimar is somewhat peculiar. Owing to his
+employment as palanquin-bearer, cook and household servant he has
+been promoted to the group of castes who are ceremonially clean,
+so that Brahmans in northern India will take water and food cooked
+in butter from his hands. But by origin he no doubt belongs to the
+primitive or non-Aryan tribes, a fact which he shows by his appearance
+and also by his customs. In diet he is the reverse of fastidious,
+eating crocodiles, tortoises and crabs, and also pork in the Maratha
+Districts, though in the north where he is employed by Brahmans
+as a personal servant he abstains from this food. With all this,
+however, the Dhimars practise in some social matters a pharasaical
+strictness. In Jubbulpore Mr. Pancham Lal records that among the four
+subcastes of Rekwar, Bant, Barmaian and Pabeha a woman of one subcaste
+will not partake of any food cooked by one of another division. A man
+will take any kind of food cooked by a man of another subcaste, but
+from a woman only such as is not mixed with water. A woman will drink
+the water held in the metal vessel of a woman of another division,
+but not in an earthen vessel; and in a metal vessel only provided
+that it is brought straight from the well and not taken from the
+_ghinochi_ or water-stand of such woman's house. A man will take water
+to drink from the metal or earthen vessel of any other Dhimar, male or
+female. In Berar again Mr. Kitts states [546] that a Bhoi considers
+it pollution to eat or drink at the house of a Lohar (blacksmith),
+a Sutar (carpenter), a Bhat (bard), a washerman or a barber; he will
+not even carry their palanquins at a marriage.
+
+Once a year at the Muharram festival the Dhimars will eat at the
+hands of Muhammadans. They go round and beg for offerings of food
+and take them to the Fakir, who places a little before the _tazia_ or
+tomb of Husain and distributes the remainder to the Dhimars and other
+Hindus and Muhammadans who have been begging. Except on this occasion
+they will eat nothing touched by a Muhammadan. The Dhimar, the Nai or
+barber, and the Bari or indoor servant are the three household menials
+of the northern Districts, and are known as Pauni Parja. Sometimes
+the Ahir or grazier is an indoor servant and takes the place of the
+Dhimar or the Bari. These menials are admitted to the wedding and
+other family feasts and allowed to eat at them. They sit in a line
+apart from the members of the caste and one member of the family is
+deputed to wait on them. Their food is brought to them in separate
+dishes and no food from these dishes is served to guests of the caste.
+
+Permanent expulsion [547] from caste is inflicted only for marrying,
+or eating regularly, with a man or woman of some other low caste;
+but in the case of unmarried persons the latter offence may also be
+expiated. Temporary exclusion is imposed for killing a cat, dog or
+squirrel, getting maggots in a wound, being sentenced to imprisonment
+[548] or committing adultery with a person of any low caste. One
+who has committed any of the above offences must be purified by the
+Batta of the caste, that is a person who takes the sins of others
+upon himself. The Batta conducts the culprit to a river and then
+causes him to bathe, cuts off a lock of his hair, breaks a cocoanut
+as a sacrifice, and gives him a little cowdung and milk to eat. Then
+they proceed to eat together; the Batta eats five mouthfuls first
+and declares that he has taken the sin of the offender on himself;
+the latter gives the Batta Rs. 1-4 as his fee, and is once more a
+proper member of the community. In Berar a Bhoi who has been put
+out of caste is received back by his fellows when he has drunk the
+water touched by a Brahman's toe, and has feasted them with a bout
+of liquor. In towns the caste are generally addicted to drink, and
+no marriage or other social function is held without a sufficient
+supply of liquor. They also smoke _ganja_ (Indian hemp).
+
+
+
+13. Legend of the caste.
+
+
+The Dhimars are proverbially of a cheerful disposition, though simple
+and easily cheated. When carrying _palkis_ or litters at night they
+talk continually or sing monotonous songs to lighten the tedium of the
+way. In illustration of these qualities the following story is told:
+One day when Mahadeo and Parvati were travelling the goddess became
+very tired, so Mahadeo created four men from the dust, who bore her
+in a litter. On the way they talked and laughed, and Parvati was very
+pleased with them, so when she got home she told them to wait while she
+sent them out a reward. The Bhois found that they could get plenty of
+liquor, so they went on drinking it and forgot all about going for the
+reward. In the meantime a Marwari Bania who had heard what the goddess
+said, waited at the door of the palace, and when the servants brought
+out a bag of money he pretended that he was one of the Bhois and got
+them to give him the money, with which he made off. After a time the
+Bhois remembered about the reward and went to the door of the palace to
+get it, when the goddess came out and found out what had happened. The
+Bhois then wept and asked for another reward, but the goddess refused
+and said that as they had been so stupid their caste would always be
+poor, but at the same time they would be cheerful and happy.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+Dhoba
+
+
+
+List of Paragraphs
+
+
+    1. _General notice._
+    2. _Exogamous divisions._
+    3. _Marriage customs._
+    4. _Funeral rites._
+    5. _Caste panchayat and social penalties._
+    6. _Occupation and social customs._
+
+
+
+1. General notice.
+
+
+_Dhoba._ [549]--A small caste belonging to the Mandla District and
+apparently an offshoot from one of the primitive tribes. They have
+never been separately classified at the census but always amalgamated
+with the Dhobi or washerman caste. But the Mandla Dhobas acknowledge
+no connection with Dhobis, nor has any been detected. One Dhoba has
+indeed furnished a story to the Rev. E. Price that the first ancestor
+of the caste was a foundling boy, by appearance of good lineage,
+who was brought up by some Dhobis, and, marrying a Dhobi girl, made
+a new caste. But this is not sufficient to demonstrate the common
+origin of the Dhobas and Dhobis. The Dhobas reside principally in a
+few villages in the upper valley of the Burhner River, and members
+of the caste own two or three villages. They are dark in complexion
+and have, though in a less degree, the flat features, coarse nose
+and receding forehead of the Gond; but they are taller in stature
+and not so strongly built, and are much less capable of exertion.
+
+
+
+2. Exogamous divisions.
+
+
+The caste has twelve exogamous septs, though the list is probably
+not complete. These appear to be derived from the names of
+villages. Marriage is forbidden between the Baghmar and Baghcharia
+septs, the Maratha and Khatnagar and Maralwati septs and the Sonwani
+and Sonsonwani septs. These septs are said to have been subdivided and
+to be still related. The names Baghmar and Baghcharia are both derived
+from the tiger; Sonnwani is from Sona-pani or gold-water, and the
+Sonsonwani sept seems therefore to be the aristocratic branch or _crême
+de la crême_ of the Sonwanis. The children of brothers and sisters
+may marry but not those of two sisters, because a man's maternal aunt
+or _mausi_ is considered as equivalent to his mother. A man may also
+marry his step-sister on the mother's side, that is the daughter of
+his own mother by another husband either prior to or subsequent to
+his father, the step-sister being of a different sept. This relaxation
+may have been permitted on account of the small numbers of the caste
+and the consequent difficulty of arranging marriages.
+
+
+
+3. Marriage customs.
+
+
+The bridegroom goes to the bride's house for the wedding, which
+is conducted according to the Hindu ritual of walking round the
+sacred post. The cost of a marriage in a fairly well-to-do family,
+including the betrothal, may be about Rs. 140, of which a quarter
+falls on the bride's people. Divorce and the remarriage of widows
+are permitted. A pregnant woman stops working after six months and
+goes into retirement. After a birth the woman is impure for five or
+six days. She does not appear in public for a month, and takes no
+part in outdoor occupations or field-work until the child is weaned,
+that is six months after its birth.
+
+
+
+4. Funeral rites.
+
+
+The dead are usually buried, and all members of the dead man's sept
+are considered to be impure. After the funeral they bathe and come
+home and have their food cooked for them by other Dhobas, partaking of
+it in the dead man's house. On the ninth, eleventh or thirteenth day,
+when the impurity ends, the male members of the sept are shaved on the
+bank of a river and the hair is left lying there. When they start home
+they spread some thorns and two stones across the path. Then, as the
+first man steps over the thorns, he takes up one of the stones in his
+hand and passes it behind him to the second, and each man successively
+passes it back as he steps over the thorns, the last man throwing the
+stone behind the thorns. Thus the dead man's spirit in the shape of
+the stone is separated from the living and prevented from accompanying
+them home. Then a feast is held, all the men of the dead man's sept
+sitting opposite to the _panchayat_ at a distance of three feet. Next
+day water in which gold has been dipped is thrown over the dead man's
+house and each member of the sept drinks a little and is pure.
+
+
+
+5. Caste _panchayat_ and social penalties.
+
+
+The head of the caste is always a member of the Sonwani sept and is
+known as Raja. It is his business to administer water in which gold has
+been dipped (_sona-pani_) to offenders as a means of purification, and
+from this the name of the sept is derived. The Raja has no deputy, and
+officiates in all ceremonies of the caste; he receives no contribution
+from the caste, but a double share of food and sweetmeats when they
+are distributed. The other members of the Panch he is at liberty
+to choose from any _got_ or sept he likes. When a man has been put
+out of caste for a serious offence he has to give three feasts for
+readmission. The first meal consists of a goat with rice and pulse,
+and is eaten on the bank of a stream; on this occasion the head of the
+offender is shaved clean and all the hair thrown into the stream. The
+second meal is eaten in the yard of his house, and consists of cakes
+fried in butter with rice and pulse. The offender is not allowed
+to partake of either the first or second meal. On the third day the
+Raja gives the offender gold-water, and he is then considered to be
+purified and cooks food himself, which the caste-people eat with him
+in his house. A man is not put out of caste when he is sent to jail,
+as this is considered to be an order of the Government. A man keeping
+a woman of another caste is expelled and not reinstated until he has
+put her away, and even then it is said that they will consider his
+character before taking him back. A man who gets maggots in a wound
+may be readmitted to caste only during the months of Chait and Pus.
+
+
+
+6. Occupation and social customs.
+
+
+The Dhobas act as priests of the Gonds and are also cultivators. Their
+social position is distinctly higher than that of the Gonds and some
+of them have begun to employ Brahmans for their ceremonies. They
+will eat the flesh of most animals, except those of the cow-tribe,
+and also field-mice, and most of them drink liquor, though the more
+prominent members have begun to abstain. The origin of the caste is
+very obscure, but it would appear that they must be an offshoot of
+one of the Dravidian tribes. In this connection it is interesting
+to note that Chhattisgarh contains a large number of Dhobis, though
+the people of this tract have until recently worn little in the way
+of clothing, and usually wash it themselves when this operation is
+judged necessary. Many of the Dhobis of Chhattisgarh are cultivators,
+and it seems possible that a proportion of them may also really belong
+to this Dhoba caste.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+Dhobi
+
+
+
+List of Paragraphs
+
+
+    1. _Character and structure of the caste._
+    2. _Marriage customs._
+    3. _Other social customs._
+    4. _Religion._
+    5. _Occupation: washing clothes._
+    6. _Social position._
+    7. _Proverbs about the Dhobi._
+    8. _Wearing and lending the clothes of customers._
+
+
+
+1. Character and structure of the caste.
+
+
+_Dhobi, Warthi, Baretha, Chakla, Rajak, Parit._--The professional
+caste of washermen. The name is derived from the Hindi _dhona_,
+and the Sanskrit _dhav_, to wash. Warthi is the Maratha name for the
+caste, and Bareth or Baretha is an honorific or complimentary term of
+address. Rajak and Parit are synonyms, the latter being used in the
+Maratha Districts. The Chakla caste of Madras are leather-workers,
+but in Chanda a community of persons is found who are known as Chakla
+and are professional washermen. In 1911 the Dhobis numbered 165,000
+persons in the Central Provinces and Berar, or one to every hundred
+inhabitants. They are numerous in the Districts with large towns and
+also in Chhattisgarh, where, like the Dhobas of Bengal, they have to
+a considerable extent abandoned their hereditary profession and taken
+to cultivation and other callings. No account worth reproduction has
+been obtained of the origin of the caste. In the Central Provinces
+it is purely functional, as is shown by its subdivisions; these
+are generally of a territorial nature, and indicate that the Dhobis
+like the other professional castes have come here from all parts of
+the country. Instances of the subcastes are: Baonia and Beraria from
+Berar; Malwi, Bundelkhandi, Nimaria, Kanaujia, Udaipuria from Udaipur;
+Madrasi, Dharampuria from Dharampur, and so on. A separate subcaste
+is formed of Muhammadan Dhobis. The exogamous groups known as _khero_
+are of the usual low-caste type, taking their names from villages or
+titular or professional terms.
+
+
+
+2. Marriage customs.
+
+
+Marriage within the _khero_ is prohibited and also the union of first
+cousins. It is considered disgraceful to accept a price for a bride,
+and it is said that this is not done even by the parents of poor girls,
+but the caste will in such cases raise a subscription to defray the
+expenses of her marriage. In the northern Districts the marriages of
+Dhobis are characterised by continuous singing and dancing at the
+houses of the bridegroom and bride, these performances being known
+as _sajnai_ and _birha_. Some man also puts on a long coat, tight
+down to the waist and loose round the hips, to have the appearance
+of a dancing-girl, and dances before the party, while two or three
+other men play. Mr. Crooke considers that this ritual, which is
+found also among other low castes, resembles the European custom of
+the False Bride and is intended to divert the evil eye from the real
+bride. He writes: [550] "Now there are numerous customs which have
+been grouped in Europe under the name of the False Bride. Thus among
+the Esthonians the false bride is enacted by the bride's brother
+dressed in woman's clothes; in Polonia by a bearded man called the
+Wilde Braut; in Poland by an old woman veiled in white and lame;
+again among the Esthonians by an old woman with a brickwork crown;
+in Brittany, where the substitutes are first a little girl, then the
+mistress of the house, and lastly the grandmother.
+
+"The supposition may then be hazarded in the light of the Indian
+examples that some one assumes on this occasion the part of the
+bride in order to divert on himself from her the envious glance of
+the evil eye." Any further information on this interesting custom
+would be welcome.
+
+The remarriage of widows is allowed, and in Betul the bridegroom goes
+to the widow's house on a dark night wrapped up in a black blanket,
+and presents the widow with new clothes and bangles, and spangles and
+red lead for the forehead. Divorce is permitted with the approval of
+the caste headman by the execution of a deed on stamped paper.
+
+
+
+3. Other social customs.
+
+
+After a birth the mother is allowed no food for some days except
+country sugar and dates. The child is given some honey and castor-oil
+for the first two days and is then allowed to suckle the mother. A
+pit is dug inside the lying-in room, and in this are deposited water
+and the first cuttings of the nails and hair of the child. It is
+filled up and on her recovery the mother bows before it, praying for
+similar safe deliveries in future and for the immunity of the child
+from physical ailments. After the birth of a male child the mother
+is impure for seven days and for five days after that of a female.
+
+
+
+4. Religion.
+
+
+The principal deity of the Dhobis is Ghatoia, the god of the
+_ghat_ or landing-place on the river to which they go to wash their
+clothes. Libations of liquor are made to him in the month of Asarh
+(June), when the rains break and the rivers begin to be flooded. Before
+entering the water to wash the clothes they bow to the stone on which
+these are beaten out, asking that their work may be quickly finished;
+and they also pray to the river deity to protect them from snakes and
+crocodiles. They worship the stone on the Dasahra festival, making
+an offering to it of flowers, turmeric and cooked food. The Dhobi's
+washing-stone is believed to be haunted by the ghosts of departed
+Dhobis when revisiting the glimpses of the moon, and is held to have
+magical powers. If a man requires a love-charm he should steal a
+_supari_ or areca-nut from the bazar at night or on the occasion of
+an eclipse. The same night he goes to the Dhobi's stone and sets the
+nut upon it. He breaks an egg and a cocoanut over the stone and burns
+incense before it. Then he takes the nut away and gives it to the woman
+of his fancy, wrapped up in betel-leaf, and she will love him. Their
+chief festivals are the Holi and Diwali, at which they drink a great
+deal. The dead are buried or burnt as may be convenient, and mourning
+is observed for three days only, the family being purified on the
+Sunday or Wednesday following the death. They have a caste committee
+whose president is known as Mehtar, while other officials are the
+Chaudhri or vice-president, and the Badkur, who appoints dates for
+the penal feasts and issues the summons to the caste-fellows. These
+posts are hereditary and their holders receive presents of a rupee
+and a cloth when members of the caste have to give expiatory feasts.
+
+
+
+5. Occupation: washing clothes.
+
+
+Before washing his clothes the Dhobi steams them, [551] hanging
+them in a bundle for a time over a cauldron of boiling water. After
+this he takes them to a stream or pond and washes them roughly with
+fuller's earth. The washerman steps nearly knee-deep into the water,
+and taking a quantity of clothes by one end in his two hands he raises
+them aloft in the air and brings them down heavily upon a huge stone
+slab, grooved, at his feet. This threshing operation he repeats until
+his clothes are perfectly clean. In Saugor the clothes are rubbed
+with wood-ashes at night and beaten out in water with a stick in the
+morning. Silk clothes are washed with the nut of the _ritha_ tree
+(_Sapindus emarginatus_) which gives a lather like soap. Sir H. Risley
+writes of the Dacca washermen: [552] "For washing muslins and other
+coloured garments well or spring water is alone used; but if the
+articles are the property of a poor man or are commonplace, the water
+of the nearest tank or river is accounted sufficiently good. Indigo is
+in as general use as in England for removing the yellowish tinge and
+whitening the material. The water of the wells and springs bordering
+on the red laterite formation on the north of the city has been for
+centuries celebrated, and the old bleaching fields of the European
+factories were all situated in this neighbourhood. Various plants
+are used by the Dhobis to clarify water such as the _nirmali_
+(_Strychnos potatorum_), the _piu_ (_Basella_), the _nagphani_
+(_Cactus indicus_) and several plants of the mallow family. Alum,
+though not much valued, is sometimes used." In most Districts of
+the Central Provinces the Dhobi is employed as a village servant and
+is paid by annual contributions of grain from the cultivators. For
+ordinary washing he gets half as much as the blacksmith or carpenter,
+or 13 to 20 lbs. of grain annually from each householder, with
+about another 10 lbs. at seedtime or harvest. When he brings the
+clothes home he also receives a meal or a _chapati_, and well-to-do
+persons give him their old clothes as a present. In return for this
+he washes all the clothes of the family two or three times a month,
+except the loin-cloths and women's bodices which they themselves wash
+daily. The Dhobi is also employed on the occasion of a birth or a
+death. These events cause impurity and hence all the clothes of all
+the members of the family must be washed when the impurity ceases. In
+Saugor when a man dies the Dhobi receives eight annas and for a woman
+four annas, and similar rates in the case of the birth of a male or
+female child. When the first son is born in a family the Dhobi and
+barber place a brass vessel on the top of a pole and tie a flag to
+it as a cloth and take it round to all the friends and relations of
+the family, announcing the event. They receive presents of grain and
+money which they expend on a drinking-bout.
+
+
+
+6. Social position.
+
+
+The Dhobi is considered to be impure, and he is not allowed
+to come into the houses of the better castes nor to touch their
+water-vessels. In Saugor he may come as far as the veranda but not into
+the house. His status would in any case be low as a village menial, but
+he is specially degraded, Mr. Crooke states, by his task of washing the
+clothes of women after child-birth and his consequent association with
+puerperal blood, which is particularly abhorred. Formerly a Brahman
+did not let the Dhobi wash his clothes, or, if he did, they were
+again steeped in water in the house as a means of purification. Now
+he contents himself with sprinkling the clean clothes with water in
+which a piece of gold has been dipped. The Dhobi is not so impure as
+the Chamar and Basor, and if a member of the higher castes touches
+him inadvertently it is considered sufficient to wash the face and
+hands only and not the clothes.
+
+Colonel Tod writes [553] that in Rajputana the washermen's wells dug at
+the sides of streams are deemed the most impure of all receptacles. And
+one of the most binding oaths is that a man as he swears should drop
+a pebble into one of these wells, saying, "If I break this oath may
+all the good deeds of my forefathers fall into the washerman's well
+like this pebble." Nevertheless the Dhobi refuses to wash the clothes
+of some of the lowest castes as the Mang, Mahar and Chamar. Like
+the Teli the Dhobi is unlucky, and it is a bad omen to see him when
+starting on a journey or going out in the morning. But among some of
+the higher castes on the occasion of a marriage the elder members of
+the bridegroom's family go with the bride to the Dhobi's house. His
+wife presents the bride with betel-leaf and in return is given clothes
+with a rupee. This ceremony is called _sohag_ or good fortune, and
+the present from the Dhobin is supposed to be lucky. In Berar the
+Dhobi is also a Balutedar or village servant. Mr. Kitts writes of him:
+[554] "At a wedding he is called upon to spread the clothes on which
+the bridegroom and his party alight on coming to the bride's house;
+he also provides the cloth on which the bride and bridegroom are to
+sit and fastens the _kankan_ (bracelet) on the girl's hand. In the
+Yeotmal District the barber and the washerman sometimes take the place
+of the maternal uncle in the _jhenda_ dance; and when the bridegroom,
+assisted by five married women, has thrown the necklace of black beads
+round the bride's neck and has tied it with five knots, the barber
+and the washerman advance, and lifting the young couple on their
+thighs dance to the music of the _wajantri_, while the bystanders
+besprinkle them with red powder."
+
+In Chhattisgarh the Dhobis appear to have partly abandoned
+their hereditary profession and taken to agriculture and other
+callings. Sir Benjamin Robertson writes of them: [555] "The caste
+largely preponderates in Chhattisgarh, a part of the country where,
+at least to the superficial observer, it would hardly seem as if its
+services were much availed of; the number of Dhobis in Raipur and
+Bilaspur is nearly 40,000. In both Districts the washerman is one
+of the recognised village servants, but as a rule he gets no fixed
+payment, and the great body of cultivators dispense with his services
+altogether. According to the _Raipur Settlement Report_ (Mr. Hewett),
+he is employed by the ryots only to wash the clothes of the dead, and
+he is never found among a population of Satnamis. It may therefore
+be assumed that in Chhattisgarh the Bareth caste has largely taken
+to cultivation." In Bengal Sir H. Risley states [556] that "the Dhobi
+often gives up his caste trade and follows the profession of a writer,
+messenger or collector of rent (_tahsildar_), and it is an old native
+tradition that a Bengali Dhobi was the first interpreter the English
+factory at Calcutta had, while it is further stated that our early
+commercial transactions were carried on solely through the agency of
+low-caste natives. The Dhobi, however, will never engage himself as
+an indoor servant in the house of a European."
+
+
+
+7. Proverbs about the Dhobi.
+
+
+Like the other castes who supply the primary needs of the people,
+the Dhobi is not regarded with much favour by his customers, and they
+revenge themselves in various sarcasms at his expense for the injury
+caused to their clothes by his drastic measures. The following are
+mentioned by Sir G. Grierson: [557] '_Dhobi par Dhobi base, tab kapre
+par sabun pare_', or 'When many Dhobis compete, then some soap gets
+to the clothes,' and 'It is only the clothes of the Dhobi's father
+that never get torn.' The Dhobi's donkey is a familiar sight as
+one meets him on the road still toiling as in the time of Issachar
+between two bundles of clothes each larger than himself, and he has
+also become proverbial, '_Dhobi ka gadha neh ghar ka neh ghat ka_,'
+'The Dhobi's donkey is always on the move'; and 'The ass has only
+one master (a washerman), and the washerman has only one steed (an
+ass).' The resentment felt for the Dhobi by his customers is not
+confined to his Indian clients, as may be seen from Eha's excellent
+description of the Dhobi in _Behind the Bungalow_; and it may perhaps
+be permissible to introduce here the following short excerpt, though
+it necessarily loses in force by being detached from the context:
+"Day after day he has stood before that great black stone and wreaked
+his rage upon shirt and trouser and coat, and coat and trouser and
+shirt. Then he has wrung them as if he were wringing the necks of
+poultry, and fixed them on his drying line with thorns and spikes,
+and finally he has taken the battered garments to his torture chamber
+and ploughed them with his iron, longwise and crosswise and slantwise,
+and dropped glowing cinders on their tenderest places. Son has followed
+father through countless generations in cultivating this passion for
+destruction, until it has become the monstrous growth which we see
+and shudder at in the Dhobi."
+
+
+
+8. Wearing and lending the clothes of customers.
+
+
+It is also currently believed that the Dhobi wears the clothes of his
+customers himself. Thus, 'The Dhobi looks smart in other people's
+clothes'; and '_Rajache shiri, Paritache tiri_,' or 'The king's
+headscarf is the washerman's loin-cloth.' On this point Mr. Thurston
+writes of the Madras washerman: "It is an unpleasant reflection
+that the Vannans or washermen add to their income by hiring out
+the clothes of their customers for funeral parties, who lay them
+on the path before the pall-bearers, so that they may not step upon
+the ground. On one occasion a party of Europeans, when out shooting
+near the village of a hill tribe, met a funeral procession on its
+way to the burial-ground. The bier was draped in many folds of clean
+cloth, which one of the party recognised by the initials as one of
+his bed-sheets. Another identified as his sheet the cloth on which
+the corpse was lying. He cut off the corner with the initial, and a
+few days later the sheet was returned by the Dhobi, who pretended
+ignorance of the mutilation, and gave as an explanation that it
+must have been done in his absence by one of his assistants." [558]
+And Eha describes the same custom in the following amusing manner:
+"Did you ever open your handkerchief with the suspicion that you had
+got a duster into your pocket by mistake, till the name of De Souza
+blazoned on the corner showed you that you were wearing some one
+else's property? An accident of this kind reveals a beneficent branch
+of the Dhobi's business, one in which he comes to the relief of needy
+respectability. Suppose yourself (if you can) to be Mr. Lobo, enjoying
+the position of first violinist in a string band which performs at
+Parsi weddings and on other festive occasions. _Noblesse oblige_; you
+cannot evade the necessity for clean shirt-fronts, ill able as your
+precarious income may be to meet it. In these circumstances a Dhobi
+with good connections is what you require. He finds you in shirts of
+the best quality at so much an evening, and you are saved all risk and
+outlay of capital; you need keep no clothes except a greenish-black
+surtout and pants and an effective necktie. In this way the wealth
+of the rich helps the want of the poor without their feeling it
+or knowing it--an excellent arrangement. Sometimes, unfortunately,
+Mr. Lobo has a few clothes of his own, and then, as I have hinted,
+the Dhobi may exchange them by mistake, for he is uneducated and
+has much to remember; but if you occasionally suffer in this way you
+gain in another, for Mr. Lobo's family are skilful with the needle,
+and I have sent a torn garment to the wash which returned carefully
+repaired." [559]
+
+
+
+Dhuri
+
+
+
+1. Origin and Subdivisions.
+
+
+_Dhuri._ [560]--A caste belonging exclusively to Chhattisgarh, which
+numbered 3000 persons in 1911. Dhuri is an honorific abbreviation
+from Dhuriya as Bani from Bania. The special occupation of the caste
+is rice-parching, and they are an offshoot from Kahars, though in
+Chhattisgarh the Dhuris now consider the Kahars as a subcaste of
+their own. In Bengal the Dhuriyas are a subcaste of the Kandus or
+Bharbhunjas. Sir H. Risley states that "the Dhurias rank lowest of
+all the subcastes of Kandus, owing either to their having taken up
+the comparatively menial profession of palanquin-bearing, or to their
+being a branch of the Kahar caste who went in for grain-parching and
+thus came to be associated with the Kandus." [561] The caste have
+immigrated to Chhattisgarh from the United Provinces. In Kawardha
+they believe that the Raja of that State brought them back with him
+on his return from a pilgrimage. In Bilaspur and Raipur they say
+they came from Badhar, a pargana in the Mirzapur District, adjoining
+Rewah. Badhar is mentioned in one of the Rajim inscriptions, and is a
+place remembered by other castes of Chhattisgarh as their ancestral
+home. The Dhuris of Chhattisgarh relate their origin as follows:
+Mahadeo went once to the jungle and the damp earth stuck to his
+feet. He scraped it off and made it into a man, and asked him what
+caste he would like to belong to. The man said he would leave it to
+Mahadeo, who decided that he should be called Dhuri from _dhur,_
+dust. The man then asked Mahadeo to assign him an occupation, and
+Mahadeo said that as he was made from dust, which is pounded earth,
+his work should be to prepare _cheora_ or pounded rice, and added as a
+special distinction that all castes including Brahmans should eat the
+pounded rice prepared by him. All castes do eat _cheora_ because it is
+not boiled with water. The Dhuris have two subcastes, a higher and a
+lower, but they are known by different names in different tracts. In
+Kawardha they are called Raj Dhuri and Cheorakuta, the Raj Dhuris
+being the descendants of personal servants in the Raja's family and
+ranking above the Cheorakutas or rice-pounders. In Bilaspur they are
+called Badharia and Khawas, and in Raipur Badharia and Desha. The
+Khawas and Desha subcastes do menial household service and rank
+below the Badharias, who are perhaps later immigrants and refuse to
+engage in this occupation. The names of their exogamous sections are
+nearly all territorial, as Naugahia from Naogaon in Bilaspur District,
+Agoria from Agori, a pargana in Mirzapur District, Kashi or Benares,
+and a number of other names derived from villages in Bilaspur. But the
+caste do not strictly enforce the rule forbidding marriage within the
+_gotra_ or section, and are content with avoiding three generations
+both on the father's and mother's side. They have probably been driven
+to modify the rule on account of the paucity of their numbers and the
+difficulty of arranging marriages. For the same reason perhaps they
+look with indulgence on the practice, as a rule strictly prohibited,
+of marriage with a woman of another caste of lower social rank, and
+will admit the children of such a marriage into the caste, though
+not the woman herself.
+
+
+
+2. Marriage.
+
+
+Infant-marriage is in vogue, and polygamy is permitted only if the
+first wife be barren. The betrothal is cemented by an exchange of
+betel-leaves and areca-nuts between the fathers of the engaged
+couple. A bride-price of from ten to twenty rupees is usually
+paid. Some rice, a pice coin, 21 cowries and 21 pieces of turmeric
+are placed in the hole in which the marriage post is erected. When
+the wedding procession arrives at the girl's house the bridegroom
+goes to the marriage-shed and pulls out the festoons of mango
+leaves, the bride's family trying to prevent him by offering him
+a winnowing-fan. He then approaches the door of the house, behind
+which his future mother-in-law is standing, and slips a piece of
+cloth through the door for her. She takes this and retires without
+being seen. The wedding consists of the _bhanwar_ ceremony or walking
+round the sacred pole. During the proceedings the women tie a new
+thread round the bridegroom's neck to avert the evil eye. After
+the wedding the bride and bridegroom, in opposition to the usual
+custom, must return to the latter's house on foot. In explanation
+of this they tell a story to the effect that the married couple
+were formerly carried in a palanquin. But on one occasion when a
+wedding procession came to a river, everybody began to catch fish,
+leaving the bride deserted, and the palanquin-bearers, seeing this,
+carried her off. To prevent the recurrence of such a mischance the
+couple now have to walk. Widow-marriage is permitted, and the widow
+usually marries her late husband's younger brother. Divorce is only
+permitted for misconduct on the part of the wife.
+
+
+
+3. Religious beliefs.
+
+
+The Dhuris principally worship the goddess Devi. Nearly all members
+of the caste belong to the Kabirpanthi sect. They believe that the
+sun on setting goes through the earth, and that the milky way is the
+path by which the elephant of the heavens passes from south to north
+to feed on the young bamboo shoots, of which he is very fond. They
+think that the constellation of the Great Bear is a cot with three
+thieves tied to it. The thieves came to steal the cot, which belonged
+to an old woman, but God caught them and tied them down there for
+ever. Orion is the plough left by one of the Pandava brothers after
+he had finished tilling the heavens. The dead are burnt. They observe
+mourning during nine or ten days for an adult and make libations to the
+dead at the usual period in the month of Kunwar (September-October).
+
+
+
+4. Occupation and social status.
+
+
+The proper occupation of the caste is to parch rice. The rice is husked
+and then parched in an earthen pan, and subsequently bruised with a
+mallet in a wooden mortar. When prepared in this manner it is called
+_cheora_. The Dhuris also act as _khidmatgars_ or household servants,
+but the members of the Badharia subcaste refuse to do this work. Some
+members of the caste are fishermen, and others grow melons and sweet
+potatoes. Considering that they live in Chhattisgarh, the caste are
+somewhat scrupulous in the matter of food, neither eating fowls nor
+drinking liquor. The Kawardha Dhuris, however, who are later immigrants
+than the others, do not observe these restrictions, the reason for
+which may be that the Dhuris think it necessary to be strict in the
+matter of food, so that no one may object to take parched rice from
+them. Rawats and Gonds take food from their hands in some places,
+and their social status in Chhattisgarh is about equivalent to that
+of the Rawats or Ahirs. A man of the caste who kills a cow or gets
+vermin in a wound must go to Amarkantak to bathe in the Nerbudda.
+
+
+
+Dumal
+
+
+
+1. Origin and traditions.
+
+
+_Dumal._ [562]--An agricultural caste found in the Uriya country
+and principally in the Sonpur State, recently transferred to Bihar
+and Orissa. In 1901, 41,000 Dumals were enumerated in the Central
+Provinces, but only a few persons now remain. The caste originally
+came from Orissa. They themselves say that they were formerly a branch
+of the Gaurs, with whom they now have no special connection. They
+derive their name from a village called Dumba Hadap in the Athmalik
+State, where they say that they lived. Another story is that Dumal
+is derived from Duma, the name of a gateway in Baud town, near which
+they dwelt. Sir H. Risley says: "The Dumals or Jadupuria Gaura seem to
+be a group of local formation. They cherish the tradition that their
+ancestors came to Orissa from Jadupur, but this appears to be nothing
+more than the name of the Jadavas or Yadavas, the mythical progenitors
+of the Goala caste transformed into the name of an imaginary town."
+
+
+
+2. Subdivisions.
+
+
+The Dumals have no subcastes, but they have a complicated system of
+exogamy. This includes three kinds of divisions or sections, the _got_
+or sept, the _barga_ or family title and the _mitti_ or earth from
+which they sprang, that is, the name of the original village of the
+clan. Marriage is prohibited only between persons who have the same
+_got_, _barga_ and _mitti_; if any one of these is different it is
+allowed. Thus a man of the Nag _got_, Padhan _barga_ and Hindolsai
+_mitti_ may marry a girl of the Nag _got_, Padhan _barga_ and Kandhpada
+_mitti_; or one of the Nag _got_, Karmi _barga_ and Hindolsai _mitti_;
+or one of the Bud _got_, Padhan _barga_ and Hindolsai _mitti_. The
+_bargas_ are very numerous, but the _gots_ and _mittis_ are few and
+common to many _bargas_; and many people have forgotten the name
+of their _mitti_ altogether. Marriage therefore usually depends on
+the _bargas_ being different. The following table shows the _got_,
+_barga_ and _mitti_ of a few families:
+
+
+Got.                Barga.                  Mitti.
+
+Nag (cobra)         Padhan (chief)          Hindolsai
+Nag                 Karmi (manager)         Unda (a village in Athmalik)
+Nag                 Behra (Palki-bearer)    Kandhpada (a village in Athmalik)
+Nag                 Mahakul (great family)      Do.                   do.
+Nag                 Mesua (shepherd)        Dalpur (a village in Baud)
+Nag                 Karan (writer)          Kandhpada (a village in Athmalik)
+Nag or Nagesh       Mahakul (great family)  Bamanda (a village in Baud)
+Bud (a fish)        Kolta (caste)           Kandhpada (a village in Athmalik)
+Bud (a fish)        Baghar (buffalo)            Do.                   do.
+Bichhu (scorpion)   Mahakul (great family)  Bamada (a village in Baud)
+
+
+The only other _gots_ besides those given above are Kachhap (tortoise),
+Uluk (owl) and Limb (_nim_-tree). The _gots_ are thus totemistic,
+and the animal or plant giving its name to the _got_ is venerated
+and worshipped. The names of _bargas_ are diverse. Some are titles
+indicating the position of the founder of the family in life, as Naik
+(leader), Padhan (chief), Karmi (manager), Mahakul (great family) and
+so on. Others are derived from functions performed in sacrifices,
+as Amayat (one who kills the animal in the sacrifice), Gurandi
+(one who makes a preparation of sugar for it), Dehri (priest), Barik
+(one who carries the god's umbrella), Kamp (one who is in charge of
+the baskets containing the sacred articles of the temple). Another
+set of _bargas_ are names signifying the performance of menial
+functions in household service, as Gejo (kitchen-cleaner), Chaulia
+(rice-cleaner), Gadua (_lota_-bearer), Dang (spoon-bearer), Ghusri
+(cleaner of the dining-place with cowdung). Other names of _bargas_
+are derived from the caste's traditional occupation of grazing cattle,
+as Mesua or Mendli (shepherd), Gaigariya (milkman), Chhand (one who
+ties a rope to the legs of a cow when milking her). These names are
+interesting as showing that the Dumals before taking to their present
+occupation of agriculture were temple servants, household menials
+and cattle-herds, thus fulfilling the functions now performed by the
+Rawat or Gaur caste of graziers in Sambalpur. The names of the _mittis_
+or villages show that their original home was in the Orissa Tributary
+Mahals, while the totemistic names of _gots_ indicate their Dravidian
+origin. The marriage of first cousins is prohibited.
+
+
+
+3. Marriage.
+
+
+Girls must be married before adolescence, and in the event of the
+parents failing to accomplish this, the following heavy penalty is
+imposed on the girl herself. She is taken to the forest and tied to a
+tree with thread, this proceeding signifying her permanent exclusion
+from the caste. Any one belonging to another caste can then take her
+away and marry her if he chooses to do so. In practice, however, this
+penalty is very rarely imposed, as the parents can get out of it by
+marrying her to an old man, whether he is already married or not, the
+parents bearing all the expenses, while the husband gives two to four
+annas as a nominal contribution. After the marriage the old man can
+either keep the girl as his wife or divorce her for a further nominal
+payment of eight annas to a rupee. She then becomes a widow and can
+marry again, while her parents will get ten or twenty rupees for her.
+
+The boy's father makes the proposal for the marriage according to
+the following curious formula. Taking some fried grain he goes to the
+house of the father of the bride and addresses him as follows in the
+presence of the neighbours and the relatives of both parties: "I hear
+that the tree has budded and a blossom has come out; I intend to pluck
+it." To which the girl's father replies: "The flower is delicate; it is
+in the midst of an ocean and very difficult to approach: how will you
+pluck it?" To which the reply is: 'I shall bring ships and _dongas_
+(boats) and ply them in the ocean and fetch the flower.' And again:
+"If you do pluck it, can you support it? Many difficulties may stand in
+the way, and the flower may wither or get lost; will it be possible for
+you to steer the flower's boat in the ocean of time, as long as it is
+destined to be in this world?" To which the answer is: 'Yes, I shall,
+and it is with that intention that I have come to you.' On which the
+girl's father finally says: 'Very well then, I have given you the
+flower.' The question of the bride's price is then discussed. There
+are three recognised scales--Rs. 7 and 7 pieces of cloth, Rs. 9 and
+9 pieces of cloth, and Rs. 18 and 18 pieces of cloth. The rupees in
+question are those of Orissa, and each of them is worth only two-thirds
+of a Government rupee. In cases of extreme poverty Rs. 2 and 2 pieces
+of cloth are accepted. The price being fixed, the boy's father goes to
+pay it after an interval; and on this occasion he holds out his cloth,
+and a cocoanut is placed on it and broken by the girl's father, which
+confirms the betrothal. Before the marriage seven married girls go out
+and dig earth after worshipping the ground, and on their return let it
+all fall on to the head of the bridegroom's mother, which is protected
+only by a cloth. On the next day offerings are made to the ancestors,
+who are invited to attend the ceremony as village gods. The bridegroom
+is shaved clean and bathed, and the Brahman then ties an iron ring
+to his wrist, and the barber puts the turban and marriage-crown on
+his head. The procession then starts, but any barber who meets it on
+the way may put a fresh marriage-crown on the bridegroom's head and
+receive eight annas or a rupee for it, so that he sometimes arrives
+at his destination wearing four or five of them. The usual ceremonies
+attend the arrival. At the marriage the couple are blindfolded and
+seated in the shed, while the Brahman priest repeats _mantras_ or
+verses, and during this time the parents and the parties must continue
+placing nuts and pice all over the shed. These are the perquisites
+of the Brahman. The hands of the couple are then tied together with
+_kusha_ grass (_Eragrostis cynosuroides_), and water is poured over
+them. After the ceremony the couple gamble with seven cowries and seven
+pieces of turmeric. The boy then presses a cowrie on the ground with
+his little finger, and the girl has to take it away, which she easily
+does. The girl in her turn holds a cowrie inside her clenched hand,
+and the boy has to remove it with his little finger, which he finds
+it impossible to do. Thus the boy always loses and has to promise the
+girl something, either to give her an ornament or to take her on a
+pilgrimage, or to make her the mistress of his house. On the fifth
+or last day of the ceremony some curds are placed in a small pot,
+and the couple are made to churn them; this is probably symbolical of
+the caste's original occupation of tending cattle. The bride goes to
+her husband's house for three days, and then returns home. When she
+is to be finally brought to her husband's house, his father with some
+relatives goes to the parents of the girl and asks for her. It is now
+strict etiquette for her father to refuse to send her on the first
+occasion, and they usually have to call on him three or four times at
+intervals of some days, and selecting the days given by the astrologer
+as auspicious. Occasionally they have to go as many as ten times;
+but finally, if the girl's father proves very troublesome, they send
+an old woman who drags away the girl by force. If the father sends her
+away willingly he gives her presents of several basket-loads of grain,
+oil, turmeric, cooking-pots, cloth, and if he is well off a cow and
+bullocks, the value of the presents amounting to about Rs. 50. The
+girl's brother takes her to her husband's house, where a repetition of
+the marriage ceremony on a small scale is performed. Twice again after
+the consummation of the marriage she visits her parents for periods
+of one and six months, but after this she never again goes to their
+house unaccompanied by her husband. Widow-marriage is allowed, and the
+widow may marry the younger brother of her late husband or not as she
+pleases. But if she marries another man he must pay a sum of Rs. 10
+to Rs. 20 for her, of which Rs. 5 go to the Panua or headman of the
+caste, and Rs. 2 to their tutelary goddess Parmeshwari. The children
+by the first husband are kept either by his relatives or the widow's
+parents, and do not go to the new husband. When a bachelor marries a
+widow, he is first married to a flower or _sahara _tree. A widow who
+has remarried cannot take part in any worship or marriage ceremony
+in her house, not even in the marriage of her own sons. Divorce is
+allowed, and is effected in the presence of the caste _panchayat_
+or committee. A divorced woman may marry again.
+
+
+
+4. Religious and social customs.
+
+
+The caste worship the goddess Parmeshwari, the wife of Vishnu, and
+Jagannath, the Uriya incarnation of Vishnu. Parmeshwari is worshipped
+by Brahmans, who offer bread and _khir_ or rice and milk to her;
+goats are also offered by the Dehri or Mahakul, the caste priest,
+who receives the heads of the goats as his remuneration. They believe
+in witches, who they think drink the blood of children, and employ
+sorcerers to exorcise them. They worship a stick on Dasahra day in
+remembrance of their old profession of herding cattle, and they worship
+cows and buffaloes at the full moon of Shrawan (July-August). During
+Kunwar, on the eighth day of each fortnight, two festivals are
+held. At the first each girl in the family wears a thread containing
+eighteen knots twisted three times round her neck. All the girls fast
+and receive presents of cloths and grain from their brothers. This is
+called Bhaijiuntia, or the ceremony for the welfare of the brothers. On
+the second day the mother of the family does the same, and receives
+presents from her sons, this being Puajiuntia, or the ceremony for the
+welfare of sons. The Dumals believe that in the beginning water covered
+the earth. They think that the sun and moon are the eyes of God, and
+that the stars are the souls of virtuous men, who enjoy felicity in
+heaven for the period measured by the sum of their virtuous actions,
+and when this has expired have to descend again to earth to suffer the
+agonies of human life. When a shooting star is seen they think it is
+the soul of one of these descending to be born again on earth. They
+both burn and bury their dead according to their means. After a body
+is buried they make a fire over the grave and place an empty pot on
+it. Mourning is observed for twelve days in the case of a married
+and for seven in the case of an unmarried person. Children dying
+when less than six days old are not mourned at all. During mourning
+the persons of the household do not cook for themselves. On the third
+day after the death three leaf-plates, each containing a little rice,
+sugar and butter, are offered to the spirit of the deceased. On the
+fourth day four such plates are offered, and on the fifth day five,
+and so on up to the ninth day when the Pindas or sacrificial cakes
+are offered, and nine persons belonging to the caste are invited, food
+and a new piece of cloth being given to each. Should only one attend,
+nine plates of food would be served to him, and he would be given
+nine pieces of cloth. If two or more persons in a family are killed
+by a tiger, a Sulia or magician is called in, and he pretends to be
+the tiger and to bite some one in the family, who is then carried as
+a corpse to the burial-place, buried for a short time and taken out
+again. All the ceremonies of mourning are observed for him for one
+day. This proceeding is believed to secure immunity for the family from
+further attacks. In return for his services the Sulia gets a share
+of everything in the house corresponding to what he would receive,
+supposing he were a member of the family, on a partition. Thus if
+the family consisted of only two persons he would get a third part
+of the whole property.
+
+The Dumals eat meat, including wild boar's flesh, but not beef,
+fowls or tame pigs. They do not drink liquor. They will take food
+cooked with water from Brahmans and Sudhs, and even the leavings of
+food from Brahmans. This is probably because they were formerly the
+household servants of Brahmans, though they have now risen somewhat
+in position and rank, together with the Koltas and Sudhs, as a good
+cultivating caste. Their women and girls can easily be distinguished,
+the girls because the hair is shaved until they are married, and the
+women because they wear bangles of glass on one arm and of lac on the
+other. They never wear nose-rings or the ornament called _pairi_ on
+the feet, and no ornaments are worn on the arm above the elbow. They
+do not wear black clothing. The women are tattooed on the hands, feet
+and breast. Morality within the caste is lax. A woman going wrong
+with a man of her own caste is not punished, because the Dumals live
+generally in Native States, where it is the business of the Raja to
+find the seducer. But she is permanently excommunicated for a _liaison_
+with a man of another caste. Eating with a very low caste is almost
+the only offence which entails permanent exclusion for both sexes. The
+Dumals have a bad reputation for fidelity, according to a saying:
+'You cannot call the jungle a plain, and you should not call the
+Dumal a brother,' that is, do not trust a Dumal. Like the Ahirs they
+are somewhat stupid, and when enquiry was being made from them as to
+what crops they did not grow, one of them replied that they did not
+sow salt. They are good cultivators, and will grow anything except
+hemp and turmeric. In some places they still follow their traditional
+occupation of grazing cattle.
+
+
+
+Fakir
+
+
+
+1. General notice.
+
+
+_Fakir._ [563]--The class of Muhammadan beggars. In the Central
+Provinces the name is practically confined to Muhammadans, but in
+Upper India Hindus also use it. Nearly 9000 Fakirs were returned
+in 1911, being residents mainly of Districts with large towns, as
+Jubbulpore, Nagpur and Amraoti. Nearly two-fifths of the Muhammadans
+of the Central Provinces live in towns, and Muhammadan beggars
+would naturally congregate there also. The name is derived from the
+Arabic _fakr_, poverty. The Fakirs are often known as Shah, Lord,
+or Sain, a corruption of the Sanskrit Swami, master. Muhammad did
+not recognise religious ascetism, and expressly discouraged it. But
+even during his lifetime his companions Abu Bakr and Ali established
+religious orders with Zikrs or special exercises, and all Muhammadan
+Fakirs trace their origin to Abu Bakr or Ali subsequently the first
+and fourth Caliphs. [564] The Fakirs are divided into two classes,
+the Ba Shara or those who live according to the rules of Islam and
+marry; and the Be Shara or those without the law. These latter have
+no wives or homes; they drink intoxicating liquor, and neither fast,
+pray nor rule their passions. But several of the orders contain both
+married and celibate groups.
+
+
+
+2. Principal orders.
+
+
+The principal classes of Fakirs in the Central Provinces are
+the Madari, Gurujwale or Rafai, Jalali, Mewati, Sada Sohagal and
+Nakshbandia. All of these except the Nakshbandia are nominally at
+least Be Shara, or without the law, and celibate.
+
+The Madari are the followers of one Madar Shah, a converted Jew
+of Aleppo, whose tomb is supposed to be at Makhanpur in the United
+Provinces. Their characteristic badge is a pair of pincers. Some, in
+order to force people to give them alms, go about dragging a chain or
+lashing their legs with a whip. Others are monkey- and bear-trainers
+and rope-dancers. The Madaris are said to be proof against snakes and
+scorpions, and to have power to cure their bites. They will leap into
+a fire and trample it down, crying out, '_Aam Madar, Aam Madar_.' [565]
+
+The Gurujwale or Rafai have as their badge a spiked iron club with
+small chains attached to the end. The Fakir rattles the chains of
+his club to announce his presence, and if the people will not give
+him alms strikes at his own cheek or eye with the sharp point of his
+club, making the blood flow. They make prayers to their club once a
+year, so that it may not cause them serious injury when they strike
+themselves with it.
+
+The Jalalias are named after their founder, Jalal-ud-din of Bokhara,
+and have a horse-whip as their badge, with which they sometimes
+strike themselves on the hands and feet. They are said to consume
+large quantities of _bhang_, and to eat snakes and scorpions; they
+shave all the hair on the head and face, including the eyebrows,
+except a small scalp-lock on the right side.
+
+The Mewati appear to be a thieving order. They are also known as
+Kulchor or thieves of the family, and appear to have been originally
+a branch of the Madari, who were perhaps expelled on account of their
+thieving habits. Their distinguishing mark is a double bag like a
+pack-saddle, which they hang over their shoulders. The Sada or Musa
+Sohag are an order who dress like women, put on glass bangles, have
+their ears and noses pierced for ornaments, and wear long hair, but
+retain their beards and moustaches. They regard themselves as brides
+of God or of Hussan, and beg in this guise.
+
+The Nakshbandia are the disciples of Khwaja Mir Muhammad, who was
+called Nakshband or brocade-maker. They beg at night-time, carrying an
+open brass lamp with a short wick. Children are fond of the Nakshband,
+and go out in numbers to give him money. In return he marks them on the
+brow with oil from his lamp. They are quiet and well behaved, belonging
+to the Ba Shara class of Fakirs, and having homes and families.
+
+The Kalandaria or wandering dervishes, who are occasionally met with,
+were founded by Kalandar Yusuf-ul-Andalusi, a native of Spain. Having
+been dismissed from another order, he founded this as a new one, with
+the obligation of perpetual travelling. The Kalandar is a well-known
+figure in Eastern stories. [566]
+
+The Maulawiyah are the well-known dancing dervishes of Constantinople
+and Cairo, but do not belong to India.
+
+The different orders of Fakirs are not strictly endogamous, and
+marriages can take place between their members, though the Madaris
+prefer to confine marriage to their own order. Fakirs as a body
+are believed to marry among themselves, and hence to form something
+in the nature of a caste, but they freely admit outsiders, whether
+Muhammadans or proselytised Hindus.
+
+
+
+3. Rules and customs.
+
+
+Every Fakir must have a Murshid or preceptor, and be initiated by
+him. This applies also to boys born in the order, and a father cannot
+initiate his son. The rite is usually simple, the novice having
+to drink sherbet from the same cup as his preceptor and make him a
+present of Rs. 1-4; but some orders insist that the whole body of
+a novice should be shaved clean of hair before he is initiated. The
+principal religious exercise of Fakirs is known as Zikr, and consists
+in the continual repetition of the names of God by various methods, it
+being supposed that they can draw the name from different parts of the
+body. The exercise is so exhausting that they frequently faint under
+it, and is varied by repetition of certain chapters of the Koran. The
+Fakir has a _tasbih_ or rosary, often consisting of ninety-nine beads,
+on which he repeats the ninety-nine names of God. The Fakirs beg
+both from Hindus and Muhammadans, and are sometimes troublesome and
+importunate, inflicting wounds on themselves as a means of extorting
+alms. One beggar in Saugor said that he would give every one who gave
+him alms five strokes with his whip, and attracted considerable custom
+by this novel expedient. Some of them are in charge of Muhammadan
+cemeteries and receive fees for a burial, while others live at the
+tombs of saints. They keep the tomb in good repair, cover it with
+a green cloth and keep a lighted lamp on it, and appropriate the
+offerings made by visitors. Owing to their solitude and continuous
+repetition of prayers many Fakirs fall into a distraught condition,
+when they are known as _mast_, and are believed to be possessed of
+a spirit. At such a time the people attach the greatest importance
+to any utterances which fall from the Fakir's lips, believing that
+he has the gift of prophecy, and follow him about with presents to
+induce him to make some utterance.
+
+
+End of vol. II
+
+
+
+
+
+
+NOTES
+
+
+[1] This article is compiled from papers by Mr. Mir Padshah, Tahsildar
+of Bilaspur, and Kanhya Lal, clerk in the Gazetteer office.
+
+[2] _Basi_ or rice boiled in water the previous day.
+
+[3] A measure containing about 2 1/2 lbs. of grain.
+
+[4] This article is mainly compiled from papers by the late
+Mr. Baikunth Nath Pujari, Extra Assistant Commissioner, Sambalpur;
+Sitaram, Head Master of the Raigarh English School, and Kanhya Lal,
+clerk in the Gazetteer office.
+
+[5] Now transferred to Bengal.
+
+[6] Dalton's _Ethnology of Bengal_, p. 322.
+
+[7] This article is mainly based on a paper on _Aghoris
+and Aghorpanthis_, by Mr. H. W. Barrow, in the _Journal
+Anthr. Soc. Bombay_, iii. p. 197.
+
+[8] Bhattacharya, _Hindu Castes and Sects_, p. 392.
+
+[9] _Aghoris and Aghorpanthis_, pp. 224, 226.
+
+[10] Page 208.
+
+[11] _The Tribune_ (Lahore), November 29, 1898, quoted in Oman's
+_Mystics, Ascetics and Saints of India_, pp. 164, 165.
+
+[12] _Studies of Indian Life and Sentiment_, p. 44.
+
+[13] The information about birth customs in this article is from a
+paper by Mr. Kalika Prasad, Tahsildar, Raj-Nandgaon State.
+
+[14] _Go_, _gau_ or _gai_, an ox or cow, and _pal_ or _palak_,
+guardian.
+
+[15] _Ind. Ant._ (Jan. 1911), 'Foreign Elements in the Hindu
+Population,' by Mr. D. R. Bhandarkar.
+
+[16] Elliot, _Supplemental Glossary_, _s.v._ Ahir.
+
+[17] _Early History of India_, 3rd ed. p. 286.
+
+[18] Elliot, _ibidem._
+
+[19] _Bombay Monograph on Ahir._
+
+[20] Elliot, _ibidem._
+
+[21] _Central Provinces Gazetteer_ (1871), Introduction.
+
+[22] _Linguistic Survey of India_, vol. ix. part ii. p. 50.
+
+[23] _Bombay Ethnographic Survey._
+
+[24] Quoted in _Tribes and Castes of Bengal_, art. Goala.
+
+[25] _Rajasthan_, ii. p. 639.
+
+[26] Gokul was the place where Krishna was brought up, and the
+Gokulastha Gosains are his special devotees.
+
+[27] _Behind the Bungalow._
+
+[28] _Eastern India_, ii. p. 467.
+
+[29] Buchanan, _Eastern India_, ii. pp. 924, 943.
+
+[30] This article is mainly based on a paper by Mr. W. S. Slaney,
+E.A.C., Akola.
+
+[31] _Berar Census Report_ (1881).
+
+[32] _Tribes and Castes_, art. Arakh.
+
+[33] _Cajanus indicus._
+
+[34] _Berar Census Report_ (1881), p. 157.
+
+[35] Based on papers by Mr. Bijai Bahadur Royzada, Naib-Tahsildar
+Hinganghat, and Munshi Kanhya Lal of the Gazetteer office.
+
+[36] A preparation of raisins and other fruits and rice.
+
+[37] The ordinary tola is a rupee weight or two-fifths of an ounce.
+
+[38] _Jasminum zambac._
+
+[39] _Michelia champaca._
+
+[40] _Phyllanthus emblica._
+
+[41] _Report on the Badhak or Bagri Dacoits and the Measures adopted
+by the Government of India for their Suppression_, printed in 1849.
+
+[42] Sleeman, p. 10.
+
+[43] Sleeman, p. 10.
+
+[44] Sleeman, p. 57.
+
+[45] Sleeman, p. 95.
+
+[46] Sleeman, p. 231.
+
+[47] Sleeman, p. 217.
+
+[48] Sleeman, p. 20.
+
+[49] Sleeman, p. 21.
+
+[50] Sleeman, p. 81.
+
+[51] Sleeman, p. 82.
+
+[52] Sleeman, p. 152.
+
+[53] Sleeman, p. 127. This passage is from a letter written by a
+magistrate, Mr. Ramsay.
+
+[54] Sleeman, p. 129.
+
+[55] Sleeman, p. 112.
+
+[56] Sleeman, p. 124.
+
+[57] Sleeman, p. 125.
+
+[58] Sleeman, p. 147.
+
+[59] Sleeman, p. 104.
+
+[60] Sleeman, p. 110.
+
+[61] Sleeman, p. 131.
+
+[62] Sleeman, p. 205.
+
+[63] Sleeman, p. 106.
+
+[64] Malcolm's _Memoir of Central India_, ii. p. 479.
+
+[65] Crooke's _Tribes and Castes_, art. Bawaria.
+
+[66] _Sirsa Settlement Report._
+
+[67] It would appear that the Gujarat Vaghris are a distinct class
+from the criminal section of the tribe.
+
+[68] _Bombay Gazetteer_, _Gujarat Hindus_, p. 514.
+
+[69] Art. Bawaria, quoting from _North Indian Notes and Queries_,
+i. 51.
+
+[70] _Bombay Gazetteer_, _Hindus of Gujarat_, p. 574.
+
+[71] Gunthorpe's _Criminal Tribes_.
+
+[72] _Criminal Classes in the Bombay Presidency_, p. 151.
+
+[73] Gunthorpe's _Criminal Tribes_, art. Badhak.
+
+[74] _C. P. Police Lectures_, art. Badhak.
+
+[75] Art. Bawaria, para. 12.
+
+[76] _Criminal Classes in the Bombay Presidency_, p. 179.
+
+[77] Kennedy, _loc. cit._ p. 208.
+
+[78] Kennedy, _loc. cit._ p. 185.
+
+[79] This article is partly based on a paper by Munshi Kanhya Lal of
+the Gazetteer office.
+
+[80] Sir B. Robertson's _C.P. Census Report_ (1891), p. 203.
+
+[81] _Punjab Census Report_ (1881), paras. 646, 647.
+
+[82] _Nasik Gazetteer_, pp. 84, 85.
+
+[83] Crooke's _Tribes and Castes_, art. Bahna.
+
+[84] The word Achera is merely a jingle put in to make the rhyme
+complete.
+Kachera is a maker of glass bangles.
+
+[85] This article is based largely on a monograph by the
+Rev. J. Lampard, missionary, Baihar, and also on papers by Muhammad
+Hanif Siddiqi, forest ranger, Bilaspur, and Mr. Muhammad Ali Haqqani,
+B.A., Tahsildar, Dindori. Some extracts have been made from Colonel
+Ward's _Mandla Settlement Report_ (1869), and from Colonel Bloomfield's
+_Notes on the Baigas_.
+
+[86] In Bengal the Bhumia or Bhumij are an important tribe.
+
+[87] Colonel Ward's _Mandla Settlement Report_ (1868-69), p. 153.
+
+[88] _Shorea robusta._
+
+[89] Jarrett's _Ain-i-Akbari_, vol. ii. p. 196.
+
+[90] Colonel Ward gives the bride's house as among the Gonds. But
+inquiry in Mandla shows that if this custom formerly existed it has
+been abandoned.
+
+[91] Forsyth's _Highlands of Central India_, p. 377.
+
+[92] The Great God. The Gonds also worship Bura Deo, resident in a
+_saj_ tree.
+
+[93] Opened in 1905.
+
+[94] _Mandla Settlement Report_ (1868-69), p. 153.
+
+[95] _Notes on the Baigas_, p. 4.
+
+[96] Mr. Lampard's monograph.
+
+[97] Farthings.
+
+[98] This article contains material from Sir E. Maclagan's _Punjab
+Census Report_ (1891), and Dr. J. N. Bhattacharya's _Hindu Castes
+and Sects_ (Thacker, Spink & Co., Calcutta).
+
+[99] _Dictionary_, s.v.
+
+[100] Sir E. Maclagan's _Punjab Census Report_ (1891), p. 122.
+
+[101] _Memoir of Mathura._
+
+[102] _Hindu Castes and Sects_, p. 449.
+
+[103] Lit. the birth on the eighth day, as Krishna was born on the
+8th of dark Bhadon.
+
+[104] Mr. Crooke's _Tribes and Castes_, art. Vallabhacharya.
+
+[105] _Hindu Castes and Sects_, p. 457.
+
+[106] From _laskkar_, an army.
+
+[107] This paragraph is taken from Professor Wilson's _Account of
+Hindu Sects in the Asiatic Researches_.
+
+[108] This article is based on papers by Mr. Habib Ullah, Pleader,
+Burhanpur, Mr. W. Bagley, Subdivisional Officer, and Munsh Kanhya Lal,
+of the Gazetteer office.
+
+[109] This legend is probably a vague reminiscence of the historical
+fact that a Malwa army was misled by a Gond guide in the Nimar forests
+and cut up by the local Muhammadan ruler. The well-known Raja Man of
+Jodhpur was, it is believed, never in Nimar.
+
+[110] The _ghat_ or river-bank for the disposal of corpses.
+
+[111] _Madras Census Report_ (1891), p. 277.
+
+[112] _Ibidem_ (1891), p. 226.
+
+[113] _Ethnographic Notes in Southern India_, p. 16.
+
+[114] _Madras Census Report_ (1891), p. 277.
+
+[115] See para. 19 below.
+
+[116] See commencement of article.
+
+[117] _C.P. Census Report_ (1911), Occupation Chapter, Subsidiary
+Table I. p. 234.
+
+[118] For examples, the subordinate articles on Agarwal, Oswal,
+Maheshri, Khandelwal, Lad, Agrahari, Ajudhiabasi, and Srimali may be
+consulted. The census lists contain numerous other territorial names.
+
+[119] _Rajasthan_, i. pp. 76, 109.
+
+[120] That is Marwar. But perhaps the term here is used in the wider
+sense of Rajputana.
+
+[121] _Rajasthan_, ii. p. 145.
+
+[122] _Punjab Census Report_ (1881), p. 293.
+
+[123] _Supplemental Glossary_, p. 110.
+
+[124] _Rasmala_, i. pp. 240, 243.
+
+[125] _Rajasthan_, ii. p. 360.
+
+[126] _Ibid._ ii. p. 240.
+
+[127] The Parwars probably belonged originally to Rajputana; see
+subordinate article.
+
+[128] _Rajasthan_, i. p. 491.
+
+[129] _Bombay Gazetteer, Hindus of Gujarat_, p. 80.
+
+[130] The common brass drinking-vessel.
+
+[131] Sir H. H. Risley's _Peoples of India_, p. 127, and Appendix
+I. p. 8.
+
+[132] _Punjab Census Report_ (1881), p. 291.
+
+[133] _Nagpur Settlement Report_ (1900), para. 54.
+
+[134] _Nagpur Settlement Report_ (1900), para. 54.
+
+[135] _Tribes and Castes of Bengal_, art. Agarwala.
+
+[136] _Tribes and Castes of Bengal_, art. Agarwala.
+
+[137] The information on this subcaste is taken from Mr. Crooke's
+article on it in his _Tribes and Castes_.
+
+[138] Mr. Crooke's _Tribes and Castes_, art. Audhia.
+
+[139] Kennedy's _Criminal Classes of the Bombay Presidency_,
+art. Audhia.
+
+[140] Kennedy, _ibidem._
+
+[141] Mr. Crooke's _Tribes and Castes_, art. Audhia.
+
+[142] _United Provinces Census Report_ (1901), p. 220.
+
+[143] Atkinson, _Himalayan Gazetteer_, ii. p. 473, quoted in
+Mr. Crooke's article Dhusar.
+
+[144] Sherring, _Hindu Castes_, i. p. 293.
+
+[145] This account is based on a paper furnished by Mr. Jeorakhan Lal,
+Deputy Inspector of Schools, Bilaspur.
+
+[146] Kashyap was a Brahman saint, but the name is perhaps derived
+from Kachhap, a tortoise.
+
+[147] This article is mainly based on a paper by Mr. Pancham Lal,
+Naib-Tahsildar Sihora.
+
+[148] Mr. Crooke's _Tribes and Castes_, art. Gahoi.
+
+[149] _Tribes and Castes_, art. Golahre.
+
+[150] The above notice is partly based on a paper by Mr. Sant Prasad,
+schoolmaster, Nandgaon.
+
+[151] _Tribes and Castes_, art. Kasaundhan.
+
+[152] Mr. Crooke's _Tribes and Castes_, art. Khandelwal.
+
+[153] _Hindu Castes and Sects_, p. 209.
+
+[154] See article Bairagi for some notice of the sect.
+
+[155] See separate article on Jangam.
+
+[156] _Bombay Gazetteer_, _Hindus of Gujarat_, p. 70.
+
+[157] A town near Jhalor in Marwar, now called Bhinmal.
+
+[158] _Bombay Gazetteer_, _Hindus of Gujarat_, p. 97.
+
+[159] _Rajasthan_, ii. p. 210, footnote.
+
+[160] _Hindus of Gujarat_, _loc. cit._, and _Bombay Gazetteer_,
+xvi. 45.
+
+[161] _Tribes and Castes_, art. Oswal.
+
+[162] _Bombay Gazetteer_, vol. xvii. p. 51.
+
+[163] _Ibidem._
+
+[164] Bhattacharya, _Hindu Castes and Sects_, p. 207.
+
+[165] This article is based on papers by Mr. Pancham Lal,
+Naib-Tahsildar Sihora, and Munshi Kanhya Lal, of the Gazetteer office.
+
+[166] See also notice of Benaikias in article on Vidur.
+
+[167] _Bombay Gazetteer_, vol. xvii. p. 81.
+
+[168] _Bombay Gazetteer_, _Hindus of Gujarat_, p. 99.
+
+[169] _Ibidem._
+
+[170] _Ibidem._ p. 98.
+
+[171] _Merinda citrifolia_, see art. Alia.
+
+[172] See article.
+
+[173] This article is based principally on a _Monograph on the Banjara
+Clan_, by Mr. N. F. Cumberlege of the Berar Police, believed to have
+been first written in 1869 and reprinted in 1882; notes on the Banjaras
+written by Colonel Mackenzie and printed in the _Berar Census Report_
+(1881) and the _Pioneer_ newspaper (communicated by Mrs. Horsburgh);
+Major Gunthorpe's _Criminal Tribes_; papers by Mr. M. E. Khare,
+Extra-Assistant Commissioner, Chanda; Mr. Narayan Rao, Tahr., Betul;
+Mr. Mukund Rao, Manager, Pachmarhi Estate; and information on the
+caste collected in Yeotmal and Nimar.
+
+[174] Mr. Crooke's _Tribes and Castes_, art. Banjara, para. 1.
+
+[175] _Berar Census Report_ (1881), p. 150.
+
+[176] _Ibidem_, para. 2, quoting Dowson's Elliot, v. 100.
+
+[177] Khan Bahadur Fazalullah Lutfullah Faridi in the _Bombay
+Gazetteer_ (_Muhammadans of Gujarat_, p. 86) quoting from General
+Briggs (_Transactions Bombay Literary Society_, vol. i. 183) says
+that "as carriers of grain for Muhammadan armies the Banjaras have
+figured in history from the days of Muhammad Tughlak (A.D. 1340)
+to those of Aurangzeb."
+
+[178] Sir H. M. Elliot's _Supplemental Glossary_.
+
+[179] _Monograph on the Banjara Clan_, p. 8.
+
+[180] _Hindus of Gujarat_, p. 214 _et seq._
+
+[181] _Rajasthan_, i. 602.
+
+[182] _Ibidem_, ii. 570, 573.
+
+[183] This custom does not necessarily indicate a special connection
+between the Banjaras and Charans, as it is common to several
+castes in Rajputana; but it indicates that the Banjaras came from
+Rajputana. Banjara men also frequently wear the hair long, down to
+the neck, which is another custom of Rajputana.
+
+[184] _Jungle Life in India_, p. 517.
+
+[185] _Berar Census Report_ (1881), p. 152.
+
+[186] _Bombay Gazetteer, Hindus of Gujarat._
+
+[187] _Letter on the Marathas_ (1798), p. 67, _India Office Tracts._
+
+[188] _Army of the Indian Mughals_, p. 192.
+
+[189] _Monograph_, p. 14, and _Berar Census Report_ (1881) (Kitts),
+p. 151.
+
+[190] These are held to have been descendants of the Bhika Rathor
+referred to by Colonel Mackenzie above.
+
+[191] See note 3, p. 168.
+
+[192] General Briggs quoted by Mr. Faridi in _Bombay Gazetteer,
+Muhammadans of Gujarat_, p. 86.
+
+[193] A. Wellesley (1800), quoted in Mr. Crooke's edition of
+_Hobson-Jobson_, art. Brinjarry.
+
+[194] Cumberlege, _loc. cit._
+
+[195] Cumberlege, pp. 28, 29.
+
+[196] Elliot's _Races_, quoted by Mr. Crooke, _ibidem._
+
+[197] Cumberlege, pp. 4, 5.
+
+[198] Cumberlege, _l.c._
+
+[199] This custom is noticed in the article on Khairwar.
+
+[200] Cumberlege, p. 18.
+
+[201] Mr. Hira Lal suggests that this custom may have something to
+do with the phrase _Athara jat ke gayi_, or 'She has gone to the
+eighteen castes,' used of a woman who has been turned out of the
+community. This phrase seems, however, to be a euphemism, eighteen
+castes being a term of indefinite multitude for any or no caste. The
+number eighteen may be selected from the same unknown association
+which causes the goat to be cut into eighteen pieces.
+
+[202] _Ethnographic Notes in Southern India_, p. 344, quoting from
+Moor's _Narrative of Little's Detachment_.
+
+[203] Cumberlege, p. 35.
+
+[204] _Berar Census Report_, 1881.
+
+[205] Cumberlege, p. 21.
+
+[206] The following instance is taken from Mr. Balfour's article,
+'Migratory Tribes of Central India,' in _J. A. S. B._, new series,
+vol. xiii., quoted in Mr. Crooke's _Tribes and Castes_.
+
+[207] From the Sanskrit Hatya-adhya, meaning 'That which it is most
+sinful to slay' (Balfour).
+
+[208] _Monograph_, p. 12.
+
+[209] _Asiatic Studies_, i. p. 118 (ed. 1899).
+
+[210] Cumberlege, p. 23 _et seq._ The description of witchcraft is
+wholly reproduced from his _Monograph_.
+
+[211] His motive being the fine inflicted on the witch's family.
+
+[212] The fruit of _Buchanania latifolia_.
+
+[213] _Ethnographic Notes in Southern India_, p. 507, quoting from
+the Rev. J. Cain, _Ind. Ant._ viii. (1879).
+
+[214] _Hindu Manners, Customs and Ceremonies_, p. 70.
+
+[215] _Monograph_, p. 19.
+
+[216] The Patwas are weavers of silk thread and the Nunias are masons
+and navvies.
+
+[217] An impure caste of weavers, ranking with the Mahars.
+
+[218] _Semecarpus Anacardium._
+
+[219] Malcolm, _Memoir of Central India_, ii. p. 296.
+
+[220] Cumberlege, p. 16.
+
+[221] Small double shells which are still used to a slight extent as
+a currency in backward tracts. This would seem an impossibly cumbrous
+method of carrying money about nowadays, but I have been informed by
+a comparatively young official that in his father's time, change for
+a rupee could not be had in Chhattisgarh outside the two principal
+towns. As the cowries were a form of currency they were probably
+held sacred, and hence sewn on to clothes as a charm, just as gold
+and silver are used for ornaments.
+
+[222] _Jungle Life in India_, p. 516.
+
+[223] Brewer's _Dictionary of Phrase and Fable_ contains the following
+notice of horns as an article of dress: "Mr. Buckingham says of a
+Tyrian lady, 'She wore on her head a hollow silver horn rearing itself
+up obliquely from the forehead. It was some four inches in diameter at
+the root and pointed at the extremity. This peculiarity reminded me
+forcibly of the expression of the Psalmist: "Lift not up your horn on
+high; speak not with a stiff neck. All the horns of the wicked also
+will I cut off, but the horns of the righteous shall be exalted"
+(Ps. lxxv. 5, 10).' Bruce found in Abyssinia the silver horns of
+warriors and distinguished men. In the reign of Henry V. the horned
+headgear was introduced into England and from the effigy of Beatrice,
+Countess of Arundel, at Arundel Church, who is represented with the
+horns outspread to a great extent, we may infer that the length of
+the head-horn, like the length of the shoe-point in the reign of Henry
+VI., etc., marked the degree of rank. To cut off such horns would be
+to degrade; and to exalt and extend such horns would be to add honour
+and dignity to the wearer." Webb (_Heritage of Dress_, p. 117) writes:
+"Mr. Elworthy in a paper to the British Association at Ipswich in
+1865 considered the crown to be a development from horns of honour. He
+maintained that the symbols found in the head of the god Serapis were
+the elements from which were formed the composite head-dress called
+the crown into which horns entered to a very great extent." This
+seems a doubtful speculation, but still it may be quite possible
+that the idea of distinguishing by a crown the leader of the tribe
+was originally taken from the antlers of the leader of the herd. The
+helmets of the Vikings were also, I believe, decorated with horns.
+
+[224] _Monograph_, p. 40.
+
+[225] _Melia indica._
+
+[226] Author of the _Nimar Settlement Report_.
+
+[227] _Sesamum._
+
+[228] _Hindu Manners, Customs and Ceremonies_, p. 21.
+
+[229] _Report on the Badhak or Bagri Dacoits_, p. 310.
+
+[230] Colonel Mackenzie's notes.
+
+[231] Mr. W. F. Sinclair, C.S., in _Ind. Ant._ iii. p. 184 (1874).
+
+[232] _Notes on Criminal Tribes frequenting Bombay, Berar and the
+Central Provinces_ (Bombay, 1882).
+
+[233] _Berar Census Report_ (1881), p. 151.
+
+[234] This notice is compiled principally from a good paper
+by Mr. M. C. Chatterji, retired Extra Assistant Commissioner,
+Jubbulpore, and from papers by Professor Sada Shiva Jai Ram, M.A.,
+Government College, Jubbulpore, and Mr. Bhaskar Baji Rao Deshmukh,
+Deputy Inspector of Schools, Nagpur.
+
+[235] Sherring, _Hindu Tribes and Castes_, i. p. 330. Nesfield,
+_Brief View_, p. 15. _N.W.P. Census Report_ (1891), p 317.
+
+[236] The name of a superior revenue office; under the Marathas,
+now borne as a courtesy title by certain families.
+
+[237] _Tribes and Castes of Bengal_, art. Agarwal.
+
+[238] _Tribes and Castes of Bengal_, art. Barui.
+
+[239] Blochmann, _Ain-i-Akbari_, i. p. 72, quoted in Crooke's _Tribes
+and Castes_, art. Tamboli.
+
+[240] _Rajasthan_, ii. p. 210.
+
+[241] _Ficus glomerata._
+
+[242] _Hindu Castes_, i. p. 316.
+
+[243] _Tribes and Castes of Bengal_, art. Bari.
+
+[244] Vishnu.
+
+[245] Sherring, _Tribes and Castes_, i. pp. 403, 404.
+
+[246] This article is compiled from papers by Mr. W. N. Maw, Deputy
+Commissioner, Damoh, and Murlidhar, Munsiff of Khurai in Saugor.
+
+[247] _Bombay Gazetteer_, xvii. p. 108.
+
+[248] About 100 lbs.
+
+[249] Compiled from papers by Mr. Ram Lal, B. A., Deputy Inspector of
+Schools, Saugor; Mr. Vishnu Gangadhar Gadgil, Tahsildar, Narsinghpur;
+Mr. Devi Dayal, Tahsildar, Hatta; Mr. Kanhya Lal, B. A., Deputy
+Inspector of Schools, Betul; Mr. Keshava Rao, Headmaster, Middle
+School, Seoni; and Bapu Gulab Singh, Superintendent, Land Records,
+Betul.
+
+[250] Chapter x. 37, and Shudra Kamlakar, p. 284.
+
+[251] A Vaideha was the child of a Vaishya father and a Brahman mother.
+
+[252] Based on a paper by Rao Sahib Dhonduji, retired Inspector of
+Police, Akola, and information collected by Mr. Aduram Chaudhri of
+the Gazetteer office.
+
+[253] Mr. Marten's _C. P. Census Report_ (1911), p. 212.
+
+[254] This article is based on papers by Mr. A. K. Smith, C.S.,
+Mr. Khande Rao, Superintendent of Land Records, Raipur, and Munshi
+Kanhiya Lal, of the Gazetteer office.
+
+[255] _Tribes and Castes of Bengal_, art. Beldar.
+
+[256] _The Castes and Tribes of Southern India_, art. Odde.
+
+[257] _Akola District Gazetteer_ (Mr. C. Brown), pp. 132, 133.
+
+[258] _Amraoti District Gazetteer_ (Messrs. Nelson and Fitzgerald),
+p. 146.
+
+[259] See article on Badhak.
+
+[260] Kennedy, p. 247.
+
+[261] Crooke, art. Beria.
+
+[262] The following particulars are taken from a note by
+Mr. K. N. Date, Deputy Superintendent, Reformatory School, Jubbulpore.
+
+[263] This article is based principally on a paper by Panna Lal,
+Revenue Inspector, Bilaspur, and also on papers by Mr. Syed Sher Ali,
+Naib-Tahsildar, Mr. Hira Lal and Mr. Aduram Chaudhri of the Gazetteer
+office.
+
+[264] For the meaning of the term Baiga and its application to the
+tribe, see also article on Bhuiya.
+
+[265] It is or was, of course, a common practice for a husband to
+cut off his wife's nose if he suspected her of being unfaithful to
+him. But whether the application of the epithet to the goddess should
+be taken to imply anything against her moral character is not known.
+
+[266] This article is mainly compiled from a paper by Pyare Lal Misra,
+Ethnographic Clerk.
+
+[267] _Bombay Gazetteer_ (Campbell), xviii. p. 464.
+
+[268] The following particulars are taken from Colonel Portman's
+_Report on the Bhamtas of the Deccan_ (Bombay, 1887).
+
+[269] Portman, _loc. cit._
+
+[270] _Bombay Gazetteer_ (Campbell), xviii. p. 465.
+
+[271] This article contains some information from a paper by Mr. Gopal
+Parmanand, Deputy Inspector of Schools, Saugor.
+
+[272] _Memoirs of the Races of the N.W.P._ vol. i. p. 35.
+
+[273] _Tribes and Castes_, art. Bharbhunja.
+
+[274] See article on Kurmi. The remainder of this section is taken
+from Mr. Gopal Parmanand's notes.
+
+[275] _Ibidem._
+
+[276] _Tribes and Castes of Bengal_, art. Kandu.
+
+[277] This article is compiled from notes taken by Mr. Hira Lal,
+Assistant Gazetteer Superintendent in Jubbulpore, and from a paper
+by Ram Lal Sharma, schoolmaster, Bilaspur.
+
+[278] _Tribes and Castes of the N.W.P._, art. Bhar.
+
+[279] _C.P. Census Report_, 1881, p. 188.
+
+[280] _Dhaya_ means the system of shifting cultivation, which until
+prohibited was so injurious to the forests.
+
+[281] _Tribes and Castes of Bengal_, art. Brahman.
+
+[282] Art. Bhat.
+
+[283] Malcolm, _Central India_, ii. p. 132.
+
+[284] _Rajasthan_, ii. p. 406.
+
+[285] Malcolm, ii. p. 135.
+
+[286] _Rajasthan_, ii. pp. 133, 134.
+
+[287] Great King, the ordinary method of address to Brahmans.
+
+[288] _Rajasthan_, ii. p. 175.
+
+[289] _Rasmala_, ii. pp. 261, 262.
+
+[290] See later in this article.
+
+[291] This present of a lakh of rupees is known as Lakh Pasaru,
+and it is not usually given in cash but in kind. It is made up of
+grain, land, carriages, jewellery, horses, camels and elephants,
+and varies in value from Rs. 30,000 to Rs. 70,000. A living bard,
+Mahamahopadhyaya Murar Das, has received three Lakh Pasarus from the
+Rajas of Jodhpur and has refused one from the Rana of Udaipur in view
+of the fact that he was made _ayachaka_ by the Jodhpur Raja. _Ayachaka_
+means literally 'not a beggar,' and when a bard has once been made
+_ayachaka_ he cannot accept gifts from any person other than his own
+patron. An _ayachaka_ was formerly known as _polpat_, as it became
+his bounden duty to sing the praises of his patron constantly from
+the gate (_pol_) of the donor's fort or castle. (Mr. Hira Lal.)
+
+[292] _Rajasthan_, ii. p. 548.
+
+[293] _Viserva_, lit. poison.
+
+[294] From _dhol_, a drum.
+
+[295] _Rajasthan_, ii. p. 184.
+
+[296] Lit. _putli_ or doll.
+
+[297] _Tribes and Castes_, art. Bhat.
+
+[298] _Ibidem._ Veiling the face is a sign of modesty.
+
+[299] Postans. _Cutch_, p. 172.
+
+[300] Vol. ii. pp. 392-394.
+
+[301] _Rasmala_, ii. pp. 143, 144.
+
+[302] _Bombay Gazetteer_, _Hindus of Gujarat_, Mr. Bhimbhai Kirparam,
+pp. 217, 219.
+
+[303] In Broach.
+
+[304] Westermarck, _Origin and Development of the Moral Ideas_,
+ii. p. 242.
+
+[305] Westermarck, _ibidem_, p. 246.
+
+[306] Westermarck, _ibidem_, p. 248.
+
+[307] The above account of _Dharna_ is taken from Colonel Tone's
+_Letter on the Marathas_ (India Office Tracts).
+
+[308] This article is compiled from papers drawn up by Rai Bahadur
+Panda Baijnath, Superintendent, Bastar State; Mr. Ravi Shankar,
+Settlement Officer, Bastar; and Mr. Gopal Krishna, Assistant
+Superintendent, Bastar.
+
+[309] _Bassia latifolia_.
+
+[310] The principal authorities on the Bhils are: _An Account of the
+Mewar Bhils_, by Major P. H. Hendley, _J.A.S.B._ vol. xliv., 1875,
+pp. 347-385; the _Bombay Gazetteer_, vol. ix., _Hindus of Gujarat_;
+and notices in Colonel Tod's _Rajasthan_, Mr. A. L. Forbes's _Rasmala_,
+and _The Khandesh Bhil Corps_, by Mr. A. H. A. Simcox, C.S.
+
+[311] The old name of the Sesodia clan, Gahlot, is held to be derived
+from this Goha. See the article Rajput Sesodia for a notice of the
+real origin of the clan.
+
+[312] _Rajasthan_, i. p. 184.
+
+[313] _Ibidem_, p. 186.
+
+[314] Reference may be made to _The Golden Bough_ for the full
+explanation and illustration of this superstition.
+
+[315] _Rajasthan_, ii. pp. 320, 321.
+
+[316] _History of the Marathas_, i. p. 28.
+
+[317] See article.
+
+[318] _Rajasthan_, ii. p. 466.
+
+[319] Malcolm, _Memoir of Central India_, i. p. 518.
+
+[320] _An Account of the Bhils, J.A.S.B._ (1875), p. 369.
+
+[321] _Hyderabad Census Report_ (1891), p. 218.
+
+[322] _The Khandesh Bhil Corps_, by Mr A. H. A. Simcox.
+
+[323] Forbes, _Rasmala_, i. p. 104.
+
+[324] _Memoir of Central India_, i. pp. 525, 526.
+
+[325] _Ibidem_, i. p. 550.
+
+[326] _Hobson-Jobson_, art. Bhil.
+
+[327] _An Account of the Bhils_, p. 369.
+
+[328] _The Khandesh Bhil Corps_, p. 71.
+
+[329] _Ibidem_, p. 275.
+
+[330] _Eugenia jambolana._
+
+[331] _Soymida febrifuga._
+
+[332] _Phyllanthus emblica._
+
+[333] _Terminalia belerica._
+
+[334] _Bombay Gazetteer, Hindus of Gujarat_, p. 309.
+
+[335] See article Kunbi.
+
+[336] _Sorghum vulgare._
+
+[337] _Loc. cit._ p. 347.
+
+[338] _Western India._
+
+[339] _Asiatic Studies_, 1st series, p. 174.
+
+[340] _Asiatic Studies_, 1st series, p. 352.
+
+[341] _Bombay Gazetteer, Hindus of Gujarat_, p. 302.
+
+[342] _Bombay Gazetteer_, vol. xii. p. 87.
+
+[343] _An Account of the Bhils_, pp. 362, 363.
+
+[344] _Account of the Mewar Bhils_, pp. 357, 358.
+
+[345] Forbes, _Rasmala_, i. p. 113.
+
+[346] _Nimar Settlement Report_, pp. 246, 247.
+
+[347] Sir G. Grierson, _Linguistic Survey of India_, vol. ix. part
+iii. pp. 6-9.
+
+[348] This article is based mainly on Captain Forsyth's _Nimar
+Settlement Report_, and a paper by Mr. T. T. Korke, Pleader, Khandwa.
+
+[349] _Eugenia jambolana._
+
+[350] _Bauhinia racemosa._
+
+[351] _Settlement Report_ (1869), para. 411.
+
+[352] Mr. Montgomerie's _Nimar Settlement Report_.
+
+[353] _Memoir of Central India_, ii. p. 156.
+
+[354] Crooke's _Tribes and Castes_, art. Bhishti.
+
+[355] Elliott's _Memoirs of the North-Western Provinces_, i. p. 191.
+
+[356] Crooke's _Tribes and Castes_, ii. p. 100.
+
+[357] Rudyard Kipling, _Barrack-Room Ballads_, 'Gunga Din.'
+
+[358] Thacker and Co., London.
+
+[359] This article is mainly compiled from papers by Mr. Pandurang
+Lakshman Bakre, pleader, Betul, and Munshi Pyare Lal, ethnographic
+clerk.
+
+[360] This article is compiled partly from Colonel Dalton's _Ethnology
+of Bengal_ and Sir H. Risley's _Tribes and Castes of Bengal_; a
+monograph has also been furnished by Mr. B. C. Mazumdar, pleader,
+Sambalpur, and papers by Mr. A. B. Napier, Deputy Commissioner,
+Raipur, and Mr. Hira Lal.
+
+[361] _Ethnology of Bengal_, p. 140.
+
+[362] _Linguistic Survey_, vol. xiv. _Munda and Dravidian Languages_,
+p. 217.
+
+[363] Page 142.
+
+[364] _Ibidem_, p. 141.
+
+[365] In the article on Binjhwar, it was supposed that the Baigas
+migrated east from the Satpura hills into Chhattisgarh. But the
+evidence adduced above appears to show that this view is incorrect.
+
+[366] _Tribes and Castes_, art. Binjhia.
+
+[367] Crooke, _Tribes and Castes_, art. Bhuiya, para. 4.
+
+[368] _Ibidem_, para. 3.
+
+[369] _Ibidem_, art. Bhuiyar, para. 1.
+
+[370] _Ibidem_, para. 16.
+
+[371] Dalton, p. 147.
+
+[372] Page 142.
+
+[373] The question of the relation of the Baiga tribe to Mr. Crooke's
+Bhuiyars was first raised by Mr. E. A. H. Blunt, Census Superintendent,
+United Provinces.
+
+[374] Mr. Mazumdar's monograph.
+
+[375] From Mr. Mazumdar's monograph.
+
+[376] This article is compiled from a paper taken by Mr. Hira Lal
+at Sonpur.
+
+[377] This article is based on papers by Mr. Hira Lal, Mr. Gokul
+Prasad, Tahsildar, Dhamtari, Mr. Pyare Lal Misra of the Gazetteer
+office, and Munshi Ganpati Giri, Superintendent, Bindranawagarh estate.
+
+[378] From the _Index of Languages and Dialects_, furnished by Sir
+G. Grierson for the census.
+
+[379] _Tribes and Castes of Bengal_, art. Binjhia.
+
+[380] _Early History of Mankind_, p. 341.
+
+[381] This article is based on a paper by Mr. Mian Bhai Abdul Hussain,
+Extra Assistant Commissioner, Sambalpur.
+
+[382] _Bassia latifolia_.
+
+[383] This article is compiled from Mr. Wilson's account of the
+Bishnois as reproduced in Mr. Crooke's _Tribes and Castes_, and from
+notes taken by Mr. Aduram Chaudhri in the Hoshangabad District.
+
+[384] The total number of precepts as given above is only twenty-five,
+but can be raised to twenty-nine by counting the prohibition of opium,
+tobacco, _bhang_, blue clothing, spirits and flesh separately.
+
+[385] Jhuria may be Jharia, jungly; Sain is a term applied to beggars;
+the Ahir or herdsman sept may be descended from a man of this caste
+who became a Bishnoi.
+
+[386] The day when the sun passes from one zodiacal sign into another.
+
+[387] The New Moon day or the day before.
+
+[388] This article is largely based on Mr. F. L. Faridi's full
+description of the sect in the _Bombay Gazetteer, Muhammadans of
+Gujarat_, and on a paper by Mr. Habib Ullah, pleader, Burhanpur.
+
+[389] _Bombay Gazetteer, Muhammadans of Gujarat_, p. 30. Sir
+H. T. Colebrooke and Mr. Conolly thought that the Bohras were true
+Shias and not Ismailias.
+
+[390] _Ibidem_, pp. 30-32.
+
+[391] _J.A.S.B._ vol. vi. (1837), part ii. p. 847.
+
+[392] _Berar Census Report_ (1818), p. 70.
+
+[393] _Castes and Tribes of Southern India_, art. Bohra.
+
+[394] Crooke's edition of _Hobson-Jobson_, art. Bohra.
+
+[395] Moor's _Hindu Infanticide_, p. 168.
+
+[396] _Memoir of Central India_, ii. p. 111.
+
+[397] This article is mainly compiled from a full and excellent account
+of the caste by Mr. Gopal Datta Joshi, Civil Judge, Saugor, C.P., to
+whom the writer is much indebted. Extracts have also been taken from
+Mr. W. Crooke's and Sir H. Risley's articles on the caste in their
+works on the _Tribes and Castes_ of the United Provinces and Bengal
+respectively; from Mr. J. N. Bhattacharya's _Hindu Castes and Sects_
+(Thacker, Spink & Co., Calcutta, 1896), and from the Rev. W. Ward's
+_View of the History, Literature and Religion of the Hindus_ (London,
+1817).
+
+[398] Crooke's _Tribes and Castes_, art. Brahman, quoting Professor
+Eggeling in _Encyclopædia Britannica_, s.v. Brahmanism.
+
+[399] _Tribes and Castes of Bengal_, art. Brahman.
+
+[400] _Hindu Manners, Customs, and Ceremonies_, 3rd ed. p. 172.
+
+[401] Muir, _Ancient Sanskrit Texts_, i. 282 _sq._
+
+[402] Quoted in Mr. Crooke's _Tribes and Castes_, art. Brahman.
+
+[403] Quoted by Mr. Crooke.
+
+[404] _Tribes and Castes of the Punjab_, by Mr. H. A. Rose,
+vol. ii. p. 123.
+
+[405] See also article Rajput-Gaur.
+
+[406] See subordinate articles.
+
+[407] A section of the Kanaujia. See above.
+
+[408] _Tribes and Castes_, art. Brahman.
+
+[409] Chap. ix. v. 173.
+
+[410] Ward's _Hindus_, vol. ii. p. 97.
+
+[411] _Ibidem_, pp. 98, 100.
+
+[412] _Hindu Manners, Customs and Ceremonies_, by the Abbé Dubois,
+3rd ed. p. 499.
+
+[413] _Ibidem_, p. 500.
+
+[414] London, Heinemann (1897), pp. 84-91.
+
+[415] This is the famous Gayatri.
+
+[416] It is not known how a slip-knot and a garland are connected
+with any incarnation of Vishnu. For the incarnations see articles
+Vaishnava sect.
+
+[417] In the Central Provinces Ganpati is represented by a round
+red stone, Surya by a rock crystal or the Swastik sign, Devi by an
+image in brass or by a stone brought from her famous temple at Mahur,
+and Vishnu by the round black stone or Saligram. Besides these every
+Brahman will have a special family god, who may be one of the above
+or another deity, as Rama or Krishna.
+
+[418] _Bipracharanamrita._
+
+[419] _Hindu Castes and Sects_, pp. 19-21.
+
+[420] _Rajasthan_, i. p. 487.
+
+[421] _Rajasthan_, i. p. 698.
+
+[422] At that time £12,500 or more, now about £8000.
+
+[423] _Tribes and Castes of the North-West Provinces and Oudh_, s.v.
+
+[424] _Early History of India_, 3rd ed. p. 376.
+
+[425] _Ibidem_, p. 385.
+
+[426] _Tribes and Castes_, art. Kanaujia.
+
+[427] _Bombay Gazetteer, Hindus of Gujarat_, p. 11.
+
+[428] _Bombay Gazetteer, Satara_, p. 54.
+
+[429] Bhattacharya, _Hindu Castes and Sects_, p. 47.
+
+[430] _Ibidem_, p. 48.
+
+[431] From Mr. Gopal Datta Joshi's paper.
+
+[432] _Rasmala_, ii. p. 233.
+
+[433] _Rasmala_, ii. p. 259.
+
+[434] _Tribes and Castes_, art. Sanadhya.
+
+[435] Crooke, _ibidem_, paras. 3 and 6.
+
+[436] _Eastern India_, ii. 472, quoted in Mr. Crooke's art. Sarwaria.
+
+[437] Stirling's description of Orissa in _As. Res_. vol. xv. p. 199,
+quoted in _Hindu Castes and Sects_.
+
+[438] _Hindu Castes and Sects_, p. 63.
+
+[439] This article is compiled from papers by Mr. Wali Muhammad,
+Tahsildar of Khurai, and Kanhya Lal, clerk in the Gazetteer office.
+
+[440] This article is based on the Rev. E. M. Gordon's _Indian
+Folk-Tales_ (London, Elliott & Stock, 1908), and the Central
+Provinces _Monograph on the Leather Industry_, by Mr. C. G. Chenevix
+Trench, C.S.; with extracts from Sir H. H. Risley's and Mr. Crooke's
+descriptions of the caste, and from the _Berar Census Report_ (1881);
+on information collected for the District Gazetteers; and papers
+by Messrs. Durga Prasad Pande, Tahsildar, Raipur; Ram Lal, Deputy
+Inspector of Schools, Saugor; Govind Vithal Kane, Naib-Tahsildar,
+Wardha; Balkrishna Ramchandra Bakhle, Tahsildar, Mandla; Sitaram,
+schoolmaster, Balaghat; and Kanhya Lal of the Gazetteer office. Some
+of the material found in Mr. Gordon's book was obtained independently
+by the writer in Bilaspur before its publication and is therefore
+not specially acknowledged.
+
+[441] There are other genealogies showing the Chamar as the offspring
+of various mixed unions.
+
+[442] _Bombay Gazetteer_, vol. xv. Kanara, p. 355.
+
+[443] The Hindus say that there are five classes of women, Padmini,
+Hastini, Chitrani and Shunkhini being the first four, and of these
+Padmini is the most perfect. No details of the other classes are
+given. _Rasmala_, i. p. 160.
+
+[444] _Punjab Census Report_ (1881), p. 320.
+
+[445] _Tribes and Castes of Bengal_, art. Chamar.
+
+[446] _Loc. cit._
+
+[447] From Mr. Gordon's paper.
+
+[448] _Monograph on Leather Industries_, p. 9.
+
+[449] _Ibidem._
+
+[450] See articles on these castes.
+
+[451] _Monograph on Leather Industries_, p. 3.
+
+[452] _Berar Census Report_ (1881), p. 149.
+
+[453] From _mangna_, to beg.
+
+[454] _Tribes and Castes_, art. Chamar.
+
+[455] _Indian Folk-Tales._
+
+[456] _Indian Folk-Tales_, pp. 49, 50.
+
+[457] Shells which were formerly used as money.
+
+[458] _Indian Folk-Tales_, pp. 49, 50.
+
+[459] _Monograph_, p. 3.
+
+[460] _Monograph on Leather Industries_, p. 5.
+
+[461] _Zizyphus xylopera._
+
+[462] _Butea frondosa._
+
+[463] _Anogeissus latifolia._
+
+[464] The above is an abridgment of the description in Mr. Trench's
+_Monograph_, to which reference may be made for further details.
+
+[465] _Monograph on the Leather Industries_, pp. 10, 11.
+
+[466] _Melia indica._
+
+[467] _Berar Census Report_ (1881), p. 149.
+
+[468] _Rasmala_, i. 395, quoting from the _Ain-i-Akbari_.
+
+[469] From papers by Mr. Parmeshwar Misra, Settlement Superintendent,
+Rairakhol, and Mr. Rasanand, Sireshtedar, Bamra.
+
+[470] _Tribes and Castes of Bengal_, art. Chasa.
+
+[471] This article is based principally on notes taken by Mr. Hira
+Lal at Bhatgaon.
+
+[472] _Bombay Gazetteer_, _Hindus of Gujarat_, p. 178.
+
+[473] A corruption for Viswakarma, the divine artificer and architect.
+
+[474] The story, however, really belongs to northern India. Usha is
+the goddess of dawn.
+
+[475] Krishna's mother.
+
+[476] Little white flowers like jasmine. This simile would be unlikely
+to occur to the ordinary observer who sees a Hindu child crying.
+
+[477] _Tori balayan leun._ For explanation see above.
+
+[478] Commencement of the agricultural year.
+
+[479] This article is partly based on a paper by Mr. Bijai Bahadur,
+Naib-Tahsildar, Balaghat.
+
+[480] _Bombay Ethnographic Survey_, draft article on Chitrakathi.
+
+[481] May-June. The Akhatij is the beginning of the agricultural year.
+
+[482] _Berar Census Report_ (1881), paragraph 206. The passage is
+slightly altered and abridged in reproduction.
+
+[483] Vol. ix. part. ii. _Muhammadans of Gujarat_, p. 57.
+
+[484] _Rajasthan_, ii. p. 292.
+
+[485] _Bombay Gazetteer, l.c._
+
+[486] In recording this point Mr. Faridi gives the following note:
+"In 1847 a case occurred which shows how firmly the Memans cling
+to their original tribal customs. The widow of Haji Nur Muhammad
+of the Lakariya family demanded a share of her deceased husband's
+property according to Muhammadan law. The _jama-at_ or community
+decided that a widow had no claim to share her husband's estates
+under the Hindu law. Before the High Court, in spite of the ridicule
+of other Sunnis, the elders of the Cutchi Memans declared that their
+caste rules denied the widow's claim. The matter caused and is still
+(1896) causing agitation, as the doctors of the Sunni law at Mecca
+have decided that as the law of inheritance is laid down by the holy
+Koran, a wilful departure from it is little short of apostasy. The
+Memans are contemplating a change, but so far they have not found
+themselves able to depart from their tribal practices."
+
+[487] This article is based on papers by Mr. Vithal Rao,
+Naib-Tahsildar, Bilaspur, and Messrs. Kanhya Lal and Pyare Lal Misra
+of the Gazetteer office.
+
+[488] Crooke, _Tribes and Castes_, art. Kol.
+
+[489] _Aegle Marmelos._
+
+[490] _Butea frondosa._
+
+[491] _Nag_, a cobra.
+
+[492] Kept woman, a term applied to a widow.
+
+[493] Moor's _Hindu Infanticide_, p. 133.
+
+[494] James Forbes, _Oriental Memoirs_, i. p. 313.
+
+[495] Rajendra Lal Mitra, _Indo-Aryans_, i. p. 263.
+
+[496] _Journal of Indian Art and Industry_, xvi., April 1912, p. 3.
+
+[497] Dr. Jevons, _Introduction to the History of Religion_, p. 60.
+
+[498] _Private Life of an Eastern King_, p. 294.
+
+[499] _Hobson-Jobson, s.v._ 'Roundel.'
+
+[500] Old English manuscript quoted by Sir R. Temple in _Ind. Ant._
+(December 1904), p. 316.
+
+[501] _Hobson-Jobson, s.v._ 'Kittysol.'
+
+[502] _Hobson-Jobson, s.v._ 'Roundel.'
+
+[503] _Hobson-Jobson, ibidem._
+
+[504] W. W. Skeat, _The Past at our Doors_.
+
+[505] Skeat, _ibidem_, p. 95.
+
+[506] This article is compiled from papers by Mr. Bahmanji Muncherji,
+Extra Assistant Commissioner; Mr. Jeorakhan Lal, Deputy Inspector of
+Schools, and Pandit Pyare Lal Misra, ethnographic clerk. The historical
+notice is mainly supplied by Mr. Hira Lal.
+
+[507] Tod's _Rajasthan_, i. p. 128.
+
+[508] This article is based on notes taken by Pandit Pyare Lal Misra
+in Wardha, and Mr. Hira Lal in Bhandara.
+
+[509] _Proper Names of the Punjabis_, p. 74.
+
+[510] _Punjab Census Report_ (1881), para. 645.
+
+[511] Crooke's _Tribes and Castes_, art. Darzi.
+
+[512] Buchanan's _Eastern India_, Martin's edition, ii. pp. 417, 699.
+
+[513] _Ibidem_, p. 977.
+
+[514] Vol. i. pp. 178-184.
+
+[515] Webb's _Heritage of Dress_, p. 33.
+
+[516] _Bombay Gazetteer, Hindus of Gujarat_, p. 180, quoting from
+Ovington, _Voyage to Surat_, p. 280.
+
+[517] _Bombay Gazetteer, Hindus of Gujarat_, p. 180.
+
+[518] _Bombay Gazetteer, Nasik_, p. 50.
+
+[519] According to another account Namdeo belonged to
+Marwar. Mr. Maclagan's _Punjab Census Report_ (1891), p. 144.
+
+[520] _Berar Census Report_ (1881), para. 231.
+
+[521] This article is partly based on a note by Mr. Gokul Prasad,
+Tahsildar, Dhamtari.
+
+[522] This article is based entirely on a paper by Rai Bahadur Panda
+Baijnath, Superintendent, Bastar State.
+
+[523] Compiled mainly from a paper by Kanhya Lal, clerk in the
+Gazetteer office.
+
+[524] Cf. the two meanings of the word 'stock' in English.
+
+[525] _Tribes and Castes of Bengal_, art. Dhanuk.
+
+[526] _Eastern India_, i. 166, as quoted in Crooke's _Tribes and
+Castes_.
+
+[527] Cf. the two perfectly distinct groups of Paiks or foot-soldiers
+found in Jubbulpore and the Uriya country.
+
+[528] _Tribes and Castes of the N. W. P. and Oudh_, art. Basor.
+
+[529] The following particulars are from a paper by Kanhya Lal, a
+clerk in the Gazetteer office belonging to the Educational Department.
+
+[530] This article is based almost entirely on a monograph by
+Mr. Jeorakhan Lal, Deputy Inspector of Schools, Bilaspur.
+
+[531] _Grewia vestita._
+
+[532] The term brother's brother-in-law is abusive in the same sense
+as brother-in-law (_sala_) said by a man.
+
+[533] See commencement of this article.
+
+[534] _Cynodon dactylon._
+
+[535] _Shorea robusta._
+
+[536] This article is based partly on papers by Mr. Govind Moreshwar,
+Head Clerk, Mandla, and Mr. Pancham Lal, Naib-Tahsildar, Sihora. Much
+of the interesting information about the occupations of the caste
+was given to the writer by Babu Kali Prasanna Mukerji, Pleader, Saugor.
+
+[537] As a rule a husband and wife never address each other by name.
+
+[538] Among Hindus it is customary to give a little more than the
+proper sum on ceremonial occasions in order to show that there is no
+stint. Thus Rs. 1-4 is paid instead of a rupee.
+
+[539] _Berar Census Report_ (1881), p. 133.
+
+[540] _Ibidem_, _l.c._
+
+[541] _Ibidem_, _l.c._
+
+[542] _Anthocephalus kadamba._
+
+[543] From _ghat_, a steep hillside or slope; hence a river-crossing
+because of the banks sloping down to it.
+
+[544] _Trapa bispinosa._
+
+[545] _Jungle Life in India_, p. 137.
+
+[546] _Berar Census Report_ (1881), p. 132.
+
+[547] The following notice of caste offences is from Mr. Govind
+Moreshwar's paper.
+
+[548] Not probably on account of the commission of a crime, but because
+being sentenced to imprisonment involves the eating of ceremonially
+impure food. These rules are common to most Hindu castes, and the
+Dhimars are taken only as a typical example. They seem to have little
+or no connection with ordinary morality. But in Jhansi Mr. Crooke
+remarks that a Kahar is put out of caste for theft in his master's
+house. This again, however, might be considered as an offence against
+the community, tending to lower their corporate character in their
+business, and as such deserving of social punishment.
+
+[549] This article is partly based on an account of the caste
+furnished by Mr. H. F. E. Bell and drawn up by Mr. F. R. R. Rudman
+in the _Mandla District Gazetteer_.
+
+[550] _Folklore of Northern India_, vol. ii. p. 8.
+
+[551] Sherring's _Hindu Castes_, i. 342-3.
+
+[552] _Tribes and Castes_, art. Dhobi.
+
+[553] _Annals and Antiquities of Rajasthan._
+
+[554] _Berar Census Report_ (1881), p. 155.
+
+[555] _Central Provinces Census Report_ (1891), p. 202.
+
+[556] _Loc. cit._
+
+[557] _Bihar Peasant Life, s.v._ Dhobi.
+
+[558] _Ethnographic Notes in Southern India_, p. 226.
+
+[559] _Behind the Bungalow._
+
+[560] This article is mainly compiled from papers by Mr. Gokul
+Prasad, Naib-Tahsildar, Dhamtari, and Pyare Lal Misra, a clerk in
+the Gazetteer office.
+
+[561] _Tribes and Castes of Bengal_, art. Kandu.
+
+[562] This article is taken almost entirely from a paper drawn up by
+Mr. Hira Lal, Extra Assistant Commissioner.
+
+[563] This article is mainly compiled from Sir E. D. Maclagan's
+_Punjab Census Report_ (1891), pp. 192-196, the article on Fakir
+in the Rev. T. P. Hughes' _Dictionary of Islam_, and the volume on
+_Muhammadans of Gujarat_ in the _Bombay Gazetteer_, pp. 20-24.
+
+[564] Hughes, p. 116.
+
+[565] _Punjab Census Report_ (1891), p. 196.
+
+[566] Hughes' _Dictionary of Islam_, art. Fakir.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Tribes and Castes of the Central
+Provinces of India, by R. V. Russell
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+<pre>
+
+The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Tribes and Castes of the Central
+Provinces of India, by R. V. Russell
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: The Tribes and Castes of the Central Provinces of India
+       Volume II
+
+Author: R. V. Russell
+
+Release Date: July 6, 2007 [EBook #22010]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK TRIBES AND CASTES ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Jeroen Hellingman and the Online Distributed
+Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net/
+
+
+
+
+
+
+</pre>
+
+
+<div class="front">
+<div class="titlePage">
+<h1 class="docTitle">The Tribes and Castes of the Central Provinces of India</h1>
+<h2 class="byline">By
+<br>
+<span class="docAuthor">R.V. Russell</span><br>
+Of the Indian Civil Service Superintendent of Ethnography, Central Provinces<br>
+Assisted by<br>
+<span class="docAuthor">Rai Bahadur Hira L&#257;l</span><br>
+Extra Assistant Commissioner
+</h2>
+<h2 class="docImprint"><i>Published Under the Orders of the Central Provinces Administration</i>
+<br>
+In Four Volumes<br>
+Vol. II.
+<br>
+Macmillan and Co., Limited St. Martin&#8217;s Street, London.
+<br>
+1916
+</h2>
+</div><a id="d0e110"></a><span class="pagenum">[<a href="#d0e110">v</a>]</span><div id="d0e111" class="div1"><span class="pagenum">
+[<a href="#d0e111">Contents</a>]
+</span><h2>Contents of Volume II</h2>
+<h2>Articles on Castes and Tribes of the Central Provinces in Alphabetical Order</h2>
+<p><i>The articles which are considered to be of most general interest are shown in capitals</i>
+
+
+</p>
+<ul>
+<li><a href="#d0e1053">Agaria</a> (<i>Iron-worker</i>) 3
+
+</li>
+<li><a href="#d0e1141">Agharia</a> (<i>Cultivator</i>) 8
+
+</li>
+<li><a href="#d0e1240">Aghori</a> (<i>Religious mendicant</i>) 13
+
+</li>
+<li><a href="#d0e1335"><span class="smallcaps">Ah&#299;r</span></a> (<i>Herdsman and milkman</i>) 18
+
+</li>
+<li><a href="#d0e1816">Andh</a> (<i>Tribe, now cultivators</i>) 38
+
+</li>
+<li><a href="#d0e1845">Arakh</a> (<i>Hunter</i>) 40
+
+</li>
+<li><a href="#d0e1880">At&#257;ri</a> (<i>Scent-seller</i>) 42
+
+</li>
+<li><a href="#d0e1991">Audhelia</a> (<i>Labourer</i>) 45
+
+</li>
+<li><a href="#d0e2051"><span class="smallcaps">Badhak</span></a> (<i>Robber</i>) 49
+
+</li>
+<li><a href="#d0e2521"><span class="smallcaps">Bahna</span></a> (<i>Cotton-cleaner</i>) 69
+
+</li>
+<li><a href="#d0e2694">Baiga</a> (<i>Forest tribe</i>) 77
+
+</li>
+<li><a href="#d0e2963">Bair&#257;gi</a> (<i>Religious mendicants</i>) 93
+
+</li>
+<li><a href="#d0e3405">Bal&#257;hi</a> (<i>Labourer and village watchman</i>) 105
+
+</li>
+<li><a href="#d0e3462">Balija</a> (<i>Cultivator</i>) 108
+
+</li>
+<li><a href="#d0e3518"><span class="smallcaps">Bania</span></a> (<i>Merchant and moneylender</i>) 111
+
+</li>
+<li><span class="smallcaps">Subcastes of Bania</span>
+
+<table>
+<tr valign="top">
+<td>
+<ul>
+<li><a href="#d0e4070">Agarw&#257;la</a>.
+
+</li>
+<li><a href="#d0e4111">Agrahari</a>.
+
+</li>
+<li><a href="#d0e4125">Ajudhiab&#257;si</a>.
+
+</li>
+<li><a href="#d0e4161">As&#257;thi</a>.
+
+</li>
+<li><a href="#d0e4175">Charn&#257;gri</a>.
+
+</li>
+<li><a href="#d0e4184">Dh&#363;sar</a>.
+
+</li>
+<li><a href="#d0e4215">Dosar</a>.
+
+</li>
+<li><a href="#d0e4233">Gahoi</a>.
+
+</li>
+<li><a href="#d0e4275">Golap&#363;rab</a>.
+
+</li>
+<li><a href="#d0e4295">Kasarw&#257;ni</a>.
+
+</li>
+</ul>
+</td>
+<td>
+<ul>
+<li><a href="#d0e4322">Kasaundhan</a>.
+
+</li>
+<li><a href="#d0e4342">Khandelw&#257;l</a>.
+
+</li>
+<li><a href="#d0e4360">L&#257;d</a>.
+
+</li>
+<li><a href="#d0e4372">Ling&#257;yat</a>.
+
+</li>
+<li><a href="#d0e4402">Maheshri</a>.
+
+</li>
+<li><a href="#d0e4439">Nema</a>.
+
+</li>
+<li><a href="#d0e4454">Osw&#257;l</a>.
+
+</li>
+<li><a href="#d0e4530">Parw&#257;r</a>.
+
+</li>
+<li><a href="#d0e4613">Srim&#257;li</a>.
+
+</li>
+<li><a href="#d0e4637">Umre</a>.
+
+</li>
+</ul>
+</td>
+</tr>
+</table>
+<a id="d0e318"></a><span class="pagenum">[<a href="#d0e318">vi</a>]</span></li>
+<li><a href="#d0e4661"><span class="smallcaps">Banj&#257;ra</span></a> (<i>Pack-carrier</i>) 162
+
+</li>
+<li><a href="#d0e5481">Barai</a> (<i>Betel-vine grower and seller</i>) 192
+
+</li>
+<li><a href="#d0e5651">Barhai</a> (<i>Carpenter</i>) 199
+
+</li>
+<li><a href="#d0e5753">B&#257;ri</a> (<i>Maker of leaf-plates</i>) 202
+
+</li>
+<li><a href="#d0e5790">Basdewa</a> (<i>Cattle-dealer and religious mendicant</i>) 204
+
+</li>
+<li><a href="#d0e5847">Basor</a> (<i>Bamboo-worker</i>) 208
+
+</li>
+<li><a href="#d0e6044">Bedar</a> (<i>Soldier and public service</i>) 212
+
+</li>
+<li><a href="#d0e6088">Beld&#257;r</a> (<i>Digger and navvy</i>) 215
+
+</li>
+<li><a href="#d0e6250">Beria</a> (<i>Vagabond gipsy</i>) 220
+
+</li>
+<li><a href="#d0e6333">Bhaina</a> (<i>Forest tribe</i>) 225
+
+</li>
+<li><a href="#d0e6484">Bh&#257;mta</a> (<i>Criminal tribe and labourers</i>) 234
+
+</li>
+<li><a href="#d0e6556">Bharbh&#363;nja</a> (<i>Grain-parcher</i>) 238
+
+</li>
+<li><a href="#d0e6667">Bharia</a> (<i>Forest tribe</i>) 242
+
+</li>
+<li><a href="#d0e6842"><span class="smallcaps">Bhat</span></a> (<i>Bard and genealogist</i>) 251
+
+</li>
+<li><a href="#d0e7496">Bhatra</a> (<i>Forest tribe</i>) 271
+
+</li>
+<li><a href="#d0e7623"><span class="smallcaps">Bhil</span></a> (<i>Forest tribe</i>) 278
+
+</li>
+<li><a href="#d0e8064">Bhil&#257;la</a> (<i>Landowner and cultivator</i>) 293
+
+</li>
+<li><a href="#d0e8181">Bhishti</a> (<i>Water-man</i>) 298
+
+</li>
+<li><a href="#d0e8270">Bhoyar</a> (<i>Cultivator</i>) 301
+
+</li>
+<li><a href="#d0e8354">Bhuiya</a> (<i>Forest tribe</i>) 305
+
+</li>
+<li><a href="#d0e8650">Bhulia</a> (<i>Weaver</i>) 319
+
+</li>
+<li><a href="#d0e8698">Bhunjia</a> (<i>Forest tribe</i>) 322
+
+</li>
+<li><a href="#d0e8829">Binjhw&#257;r</a> (<i>Cultivator</i>) 329
+
+</li>
+<li><a href="#d0e8993">Bishnoi</a> (<i>Cultivator</i>) 337
+
+</li>
+<li><a href="#d0e9191">Bohra</a> (<i>Trader</i>) 345
+
+</li>
+<li><a href="#d0e9366"><span class="smallcaps">Br&#257;hman</span></a> (<i>Priest</i>) 351
+
+</li>
+<li><span class="smallcaps">Subcastes of Br&#257;hman</span>
+
+<table>
+<tr valign="top">
+<td>
+<ul>
+<li><a href="#d0e10150">Ahiv&#257;si</a>.
+
+</li>
+<li><a href="#d0e10162">Jijhotia</a>.
+
+</li>
+<li><a href="#d0e10175">Kanaujia, Kanyakubja</a>.
+
+</li>
+<li><a href="#d0e10213">Khed&#257;w&#257;l</a>.
+
+</li>
+<li><a href="#d0e10231">Mah&#257;r&#257;shtra</a>.
+
+</li>
+<li><a href="#d0e10256">Maithil</a>.
+
+</li>
+</ul>
+</td>
+<td>
+<ul>
+<li><a href="#d0e10274">M&#257;lwi</a>.
+
+</li>
+<li><a href="#d0e10284">N&#257;gar</a>.
+
+</li>
+<li><a href="#d0e10321">Naramdeo</a>.
+
+</li>
+<li><a href="#d0e10333">San&#257;dhya</a>.
+
+</li>
+<li><a href="#d0e10366">Sarwaria</a>.
+
+</li>
+<li><a href="#d0e10378">Utkal</a>.
+
+</li>
+</ul>
+</td>
+</tr>
+</table>
+
+</li>
+<li><a href="#d0e10413">Chad&#257;r</a> (<i>Village watchman and labourer</i>) 400
+
+</li>
+<li><a href="#d0e10437"><span class="smallcaps">Cham&#257;r</span></a> (<i>Tanner and labourer</i>) 403
+
+</li>
+<li><a href="#d0e10933">Chasa</a> (<i>Cultivator</i>) 424
+
+</li>
+<li><a href="#d0e11045">Chauh&#257;n</a> (<i>Village watchman and labourer</i>) 427
+
+</li>
+<li><a href="#d0e11075">Chh&#299;pa</a> (<i>Dyer and calico-printer</i>) 429
+
+</li>
+<li><a href="#d0e11146"><span class="smallcaps">Chit&#257;ri</span></a> (<i>Painter</i>) 432
+<a id="d0e603"></a><span class="pagenum">[<a href="#d0e603">vii</a>]</span></li>
+<li><a href="#d0e11334">Chitrakathi</a> (<i>Picture showman</i>) 438
+
+</li>
+<li><a href="#d0e11378">Cutchi</a> (<i>Trader and shopkeeper</i>) 440
+
+</li>
+<li><a href="#d0e11449"><span class="smallcaps">Dah&#257;it</span></a> (<i>Village watchman and labourer</i>) 444
+
+</li>
+<li><a href="#d0e11702">Daharia</a> (<i>Cultivator</i>) 453
+
+</li>
+<li><a href="#d0e11771">D&#257;ngi</a> (<i>Landowner and cultivator</i>) 457
+
+</li>
+<li><a href="#d0e11889">D&#257;ngri</a> (<i>Vegetable-grower</i>) 463
+
+</li>
+<li><a href="#d0e11912"><span class="smallcaps">Darzi</span></a> (<i>Tailor</i>) 466
+
+</li>
+<li><a href="#d0e12108">Dew&#257;r</a> (<i>Beggar and musician</i>) 472
+
+</li>
+<li><a href="#d0e12174">Dh&#257;kar</a> (<i>Illegitimate, cultivator</i>) 477
+
+</li>
+<li><a href="#d0e12209">Dhangar</a> (<i>Shepherd</i>) 480
+
+</li>
+<li><a href="#d0e12267">Dh&#257;nuk</a> (<i>Bowman, labourer</i>) 484
+
+</li>
+<li><a href="#d0e12327">Dhanw&#257;r</a> (<i>Forest tribe</i>) 488
+
+</li>
+<li><a href="#d0e12605"><span class="smallcaps">Dh&#299;mar</span></a> (<i>Fisherman, water-carrier, and household servant</i>) 502
+
+</li>
+<li><a href="#d0e12922">Dhoba</a> (<i>Forest tribe, cultivator</i>) 515
+
+</li>
+<li><a href="#d0e13020"><span class="smallcaps">Dhobi</span></a> (<i>Washerman</i>) 519
+
+</li>
+<li><a href="#d0e13264">Dhuri</a> (<i>Grain-parcher</i>) 527
+
+</li>
+<li><a href="#d0e13323">Dum&#257;l</a> (<i>Cultivator</i>) 530
+
+</li>
+<li><a href="#d0e13593">Fak&#299;r</a> (<i>Religious mendicant</i>) 537
+</li>
+</ul><p>
+
+
+<a id="d0e735"></a><span class="pagenum">[<a href="#d0e735">ix</a>]</span></p>
+</div>
+<div id="d0e736" class="div1"><span class="pagenum">
+[<a href="#d0e111">Contents</a>]
+</span><h2>Illustrations in Volume II</h2>
+<ul>
+<li>31. <a href="#d0e1291">Aghori mendicant</a> 14
+
+</li>
+<li>32. <a href="#d0e1470">Ah&#299;rs decorated with cowries for the Stick Dance at Diw&#257;li</a> 18
+
+</li>
+<li>33. <a href="#d0e1626">Image of Krishna as Murlidhar or the flute-player, with attendant deities</a> 28
+
+</li>
+<li>34. <a href="#d0e1671">Ah&#299;r dancers in Diw&#257;li costume</a> 32
+
+</li>
+<li>35. <a href="#d0e2582">Pinj&#257;ra cleaning cotton</a> 72
+
+</li>
+<li>36. <a href="#d0e2910">Baiga village, B&#257;l&#257;gh&#257;t District</a> 88
+
+</li>
+<li>37. <a href="#d0e3056">Hindu mendicants with sect-marks</a> 94
+
+</li>
+<li>38. <a href="#d0e3169">Anchorite sitting on iron nails</a> 98
+
+</li>
+<li>39. <a href="#d0e3252">Pilgrims carrying water of the river Nerbudda</a> 100
+
+</li>
+<li>40. <i>Coloured Plate</i>: <a href="#d0e3294">Examples of Tilaks or sect-marks worn on the forehead</a> 102
+
+</li>
+<li>41. <a href="#d0e3722">Group of M&#257;rw&#257;ri Bania women</a> 112
+
+</li>
+<li>42. <a href="#d0e3771">Image of the god Ganpati carried in procession</a> 116
+
+</li>
+<li>43. <a href="#d0e3848">The elephant-headed god Ganpati. His conveyance is a rat, which can be seen as a little blob between his feet</a> 120
+
+</li>
+<li>44. <a href="#d0e3940">Mud images made and worshipped at the Holi festival</a> 126
+
+</li>
+<li>45. <a href="#d0e3965">Bania&#8217;s shop</a> 128
+
+</li>
+<li>46. <a href="#d0e5314">Banj&#257;ra women with the <i>singh</i> or horn</a> 184
+
+</li>
+<li>47. <a href="#d0e5416">Group of Banj&#257;ra women</a> 188
+
+</li>
+<li>48. <a href="#d0e5961">Basors making baskets of bamboo</a> 210
+
+</li>
+<li>49. <a href="#d0e7041">Bh&#257;t with his <i>putla</i> or doll</a> 256
+
+</li>
+<li>50. <a href="#d0e7727">Group of Bh&#299;ls</a> 278
+
+</li>
+<li>51. <a href="#d0e7857">Tantia Bh&#299;l, a famous dacoit</a> 282
+
+</li>
+<li>52. <a href="#d0e9263">Group of Bohras at Burh&#257;npur (Nim&#257;r)</a> 346
+
+</li>
+<li>53. <a href="#d0e10015">Br&#257;hman worshipping his household gods</a> 380
+
+</li>
+<li>54. <a href="#d0e10086">Br&#257;hman bathing party</a> 384
+
+</li>
+<li>55. <a href="#d0e10171">Br&#257;hman Puj&#257;ris or priests</a> 390
+<a id="d0e875"></a><span class="pagenum">[<a href="#d0e875">x</a>]</span></li>
+<li>56. <a href="#d0e10227">Group of Mar&#257;tha Br&#257;hman men</a> 392
+
+</li>
+<li>57. <a href="#d0e10317">Group of N&#257;ramdeo Br&#257;hman women</a> 396
+
+</li>
+<li>58. <a href="#d0e10362">Group of N&#257;ramdeo Br&#257;hman men</a> 398
+
+</li>
+<li>59. <a href="#d0e10800">Cham&#257;rs tanning and working in leather</a> 416
+
+</li>
+<li>60. <a href="#d0e10853">Cham&#257;rs cutting leather and making shoes</a> 418
+
+</li>
+<li>61. <a href="#d0e11104">Chh&#299;pa or calico-printer at work</a> 430
+
+</li>
+<li>62. <a href="#d0e12693">Dh&#299;mar or fisherman&#8217;s hut</a> 502
+
+</li>
+<li>63. <a href="#d0e12758">Fishermen in dug-outs or hollowed tree trunks</a> 506
+
+</li>
+<li>64. <a href="#d0e13640">Group of Gurujw&#257;le Fak&#299;rs</a> 538
+</li>
+</ul><a id="d0e921"></a><span class="pagenum">[<a href="#d0e921">xi</a>]</span></div>
+<div id="d0e922" class="div1"><span class="pagenum">
+[<a href="#d0e111">Contents</a>]
+</span><h2>Pronunciation</h2>
+<p>
+</p>
+<div class="table">
+<table width="100%">
+<tr valign="top">
+<td valign="top">a, has the sound of </td>
+<td valign="top">u in <i>but</i> or <i>murmur</i>.
+</td>
+</tr>
+<tr valign="top">
+<td valign="top">&#257; has the sound of </td>
+<td valign="top">a in <i>bath</i> or <i>tar</i>.
+</td>
+</tr>
+<tr valign="top">
+<td valign="top">e has the sound of </td>
+<td valign="top">&eacute; in <i>&eacute;cart&eacute;</i> or ai in <i>maid</i>.
+</td>
+</tr>
+<tr valign="top">
+<td valign="top">i has the sound of </td>
+<td valign="top">i in <i>bit</i>, or (as a final letter) of y in <i>sulky</i>.
+</td>
+</tr>
+<tr valign="top">
+<td valign="top">&#299; has the sound of </td>
+<td valign="top">ee in <i>beet</i>.
+</td>
+</tr>
+<tr valign="top">
+<td valign="top">o has the sound of </td>
+<td valign="top">o in <i>bore</i> or <i>bowl</i>.
+</td>
+</tr>
+<tr valign="top">
+<td valign="top">u has the sound of </td>
+<td valign="top">u in <i>put</i> or <i>bull</i>.
+</td>
+</tr>
+<tr valign="top">
+<td valign="top">&#363; has the sound of </td>
+<td valign="top">oo in <i>poor</i> or <i>boot</i></td>
+</tr>
+</table>
+</div><p>
+
+</p>
+<p>The plural of caste names and a few common Hindust&#257;ni words is formed by adding <i>s</i> in the English manner according to ordinary usage, though this is not, of course, the Hindust&#257;ni plural.
+
+</p>
+<p><span class="smallcaps">Note</span>.&#8212;The rupee contains 16 annas, and an anna is of the same value as a penny. A pice is a quarter of an anna, or a farthing.
+Rs. 1&#8211;8 signifies one rupee and eight annas. A lakh is a hundred thousand, and a krore ten million.
+
+
+
+
+
+</p>
+</div>
+</div><a id="d0e1043"></a><span class="pagenum">[<a href="#d0e1043">1</a>]</span><div class="body">
+<div class="div0" id="d0e1045">
+<h2 class="label">Part II</h2>
+<h2>Articles on Castes and Tribes</h2>
+<h2>Agaria&#8212;Fak&#299;r</h2><a id="d0e1052"></a><span class="pagenum">[<a href="#d0e1052">3</a>]</span><div id="d0e1053" class="div1"><span class="pagenum">
+[<a href="#d0e111">Contents</a>]
+</span><h2>Agaria</h2>
+<div class="div2" id="d0e1056">
+<h3>1. Origin and subdivisions.</h3>
+<p>Agaria.<a id="d0e1061src" href="#d0e1061" class="noteref">1</a>&#8212;A small Dravidian caste, who are an offshoot of the Gond tribe. The Agarias have adopted the profession of iron-smelting
+and form a separate caste. They numbered 9500 persons in 1911 and live on the Maikal range in the Mandla, Raipur and Bil&#257;spur
+Districts.
+
+</p>
+<p>The name probably signifies a worker with <i>&#257;g</i> or fire. An Agaria subcaste of Loh&#257;rs also exists, many of whom are quite probably Gonds, but they are not included in the
+regular caste. Similar Dravidian castes of Agarias are to be found in M&#299;rz&#257;pur and Bengal. The Agarias are quite distinct
+from the Agharia cultivating caste of the Uriya country. The Raipur Agarias still intermarry with the R&#257;wanbansi Gonds of
+the District. The Agarias think that their caste has existed from the beginning of the world, and that the first Agaria made
+the ploughshare with which the first bullocks furrowed the primeval soil. The caste has two endogamous divisions, the Patharia
+and the Khuntia Agarias. The Patharias place a stone on the mouth of the bellows to fix them in the ground for smelting, while
+the Khuntias use a peg. The two subcastes do not even take water from one another.
+
+</p>
+<p>Their exogamous sections have generally the same names as those of the Gonds, as Sonw&#257;ni, Dhurua, Tek&#257;m, Mark&#257;m, Uika, Purtai,
+Marai, and others. A few names of Hindi origin are also found, as Ahindw&#257;r, Ranchirai and R&#257;thoria, which show that some Hindus
+have probably been amalgamated with the caste. Ahindw&#257;r or Aindw&#257;r and Ranchirai mean a fish and a bird respectively in Hindi,
+while R&#257;thoria is a <i>gotra</i> both of R&#257;jp&#363;ts and Telis. The Gond names are probably also those of animals, plants or other objects, but their meaning
+has now generally been <a id="d0e1074"></a><span class="pagenum">[<a href="#d0e1074">4</a>]</span>forgotten. Tek&#257;m or <i>teka</i> is a teak tree. Sonw&#257;ni is a sept found among several of the Dravidian tribes, and the lower Hindu castes. A person of the
+Sonw&#257;ni sept is always chosen to perform the ceremony of purification and readmission into caste of persons temporarily excommunicated.
+His duty often consists in pouring on such a person a little water in which gold has been placed to make it holy, and hence
+the name is considered to mean Son&#257;p&#257;ni or gold-water. The Agarias do not know the meanings of their section names and therefore
+have no totemistic observances. But they consider that all persons belonging to one <i>gotra</i> are descended from a common ancestor, and marriage within the <i>gotra</i> is therefore prohibited. As among the Gonds, first cousins are allowed to marry.
+
+
+</p>
+</div>
+<div class="div2" id="d0e1085">
+<h3>2. Marriage.</h3>
+<p>Marriage is usually adult. When the father of a boy wishes to arrange a marriage he sends emissaries to the father of the
+girl. They open the proceedings by saying, &#8216;So-and-so has come to partake of your stale food.&#8217;<a id="d0e1090src" href="#d0e1090" class="noteref">2</a> If the father of the girl approves he gives his consent by saying, &#8216;He has come on foot, I receive him on my head.&#8217; The boy&#8217;s
+father then repairs to the girl&#8217;s house, where he is respectfully received and his feet are washed. He is then asked to take
+a drink of plain water, which is a humble method of offering him a meal. After this, presents for the girl are sent by a party
+accompanied by tomtom players, and a date is fixed for the marriage, which, contrary to the usual Hindu rule, may take place
+in the rains. The reason is perhaps because iron-smelting is not carried on during the rains and the Agarias therefore have
+no work to do. A few days before the wedding the bride-price is paid, which consists of 5 seers each of <i>urad</i> and til and a sum of Rs. 4 to Rs. 12. The marriage is held on any Monday, Tuesday or Friday, no further trouble being taken
+to select an auspicious day. In order that they may not forget the date fixed, the fathers of the parties each take a piece
+of thread in which they tie a knot for every day intervening between the date when the marriage day is settled and the day
+itself, and they then untie one knot for every day. Previous to the marriage all the village gods are propitiated by being
+anointed with oil <a id="d0e1098"></a><span class="pagenum">[<a href="#d0e1098">5</a>]</span>by the Baiga or village priest. The first clod of earth for the ovens is also dug by the Baiga, and received in her cloth
+by the bride&#8217;s mother as a mark of respect. The usual procedure is adopted in the marriage. After the bridegroom&#8217;s arrival
+his teeth are cleaned with tooth-sticks, and the bride&#8217;s sister tries to push <i>s&#257;j</i> leaves into his mouth, a proceeding which he prevents by holding his fan in front of his face. For doing this the girl is
+given a small present. A <i>paili</i><a id="d0e1105src" href="#d0e1105" class="noteref">3</a> measure of rice is filled alternately by the bride and bridegroom twelve times, the other upsetting it each time after it
+is filled. At the marriage feast, in addition to rice and pulse, mutton curry and cakes of <i>urad</i> pulse fried in oil are provided. <i>Urad</i> is held in great respect, and is always given as a food at ceremonial feasts and to honoured guests. The greater part of
+the marriage ceremony is performed a second time at the bridegroom&#8217;s house. Finally, the decorations of the marriage-shed
+and the palm-leaf crowns of the bride and bridegroom are thrown into a tank. The bride and bridegroom go into the water, and
+each in turn hides a jar under water, which the other must find. They then bathe, change their clothes, and go back to the
+bridegroom&#8217;s house, the bride carrying the jar filled with water on her head. The boy is furnished with a bow and arrows and
+has to shoot at a stuffed deer over the girl&#8217;s shoulder. After each shot she gives him a little sugar, and if he does not
+hit the deer in three shots he must pay 4 annas to the <i>saw&#257;sa</i> or page. After the marriage the bridegroom does not visit his wife for a month in order to ascertain whether she is already
+pregnant. They then live together. The marriage expenses usually amount to Rs. 15 for the bridegroom&#8217;s father and Rs. 40 for
+the bride&#8217;s father. Sometimes the bridegroom serves his father-in-law for his wife, and he is then not required to pay anything
+for the marriage, the period of service being three years. If the couple anticipate the ceremony, however, they must leave
+the house, and then are recalled by the bride&#8217;s parents, and readmitted into caste on giving a feast, which is in lieu of
+the marriage ceremony. If they do not comply with the first summons of the parents, the latter finally sever connection <a id="d0e1117"></a><span class="pagenum">[<a href="#d0e1117">6</a>]</span>with them. Widow marriage is freely permitted, and the widow is expected to marry her late husband&#8217;s younger brother, especially
+if he is a bachelor. If she marries another man with his consent, the new husband gives him a turban and shoulder-cloth. The
+children by the first husband are made over to his relatives if there are any. Divorce is permitted for adultery or extravagance
+or ill-treatment by either party. A divorced wife can marry again, but if she absconds with another man without being divorced
+the latter has to pay Rs. 12 to the husband.
+
+
+</p>
+</div>
+<div class="div2" id="d0e1119">
+<h3>3. Birth and death ceremonies.</h3>
+<p>When a woman becomes pregnant for the first time, her mother goes to her taking a new cloth and cakes and a preparation of
+milk, which is looked on as a luxurious food, and which, it is supposed, will strengthen the child in the womb. After birth
+the mother is impure for five days. The dead are usually burnt, but children under six whose ears have not been pierced, and
+persons dying a violent death or from cholera or smallpox are buried. When the principal man of the family dies, the caste-fellows
+at the mourning feast tie a cloth round the head of his successor to show that they acknowledge his new position. They offer
+water to the dead in the month of Kunw&#257;r (September-October).
+
+
+</p>
+</div>
+<div class="div2" id="d0e1124">
+<h3>4. Religion and social customs.</h3>
+<p>They have a vague belief in a supreme God but do not pay much attention to him. Their family god is Dulha Deo, to whom they
+offer goats, fowls, cocoanuts and cakes. In the forest tracts they also worship Bura Deo, the chief god of the Gonds. The
+deity who presides over their profession is Loh&#257;-Sur, the Iron demon, who is supposed to live in the smelting-kilns, and to
+whom they offer a black hen. Formerly, it is said, they were accustomed to offer a black cow. They worship their smelting
+implements on the day of Dasahra and during Ph&#257;gun, and offer fowls to them. They have little faith in medicine, and in cases
+of sickness requisition the aid of the village sorcerer, who ascertains what deity is displeased with them by moving grain
+to and fro in a winnowing-fan and naming the village gods in turn. He goes on repeating the names until his hand slackens
+or stops at some name, and the offended god is thus indicated. He is then summoned and enters into the body of one of the
+persons present, <a id="d0e1129"></a><span class="pagenum">[<a href="#d0e1129">7</a>]</span>and explains his reason for being offended with the sick person, as that he has passed by the god&#8217;s shrine without taking
+off his shoes, or omitted to make the triennial offering of a fowl or the like. Atonement is then promised and the offering
+made, while the sick person on recovery notes the deity in question as one of a vindictive temper, whose worship must on no
+account be neglected. The Agarias say that they do not admit outsiders into the caste, but Gonds, Kawars and Ah&#299;rs are occasionally
+allowed to enter it. They refuse to eat monkeys, jackals, crocodiles, lizards, beef and the leavings of others. They eat pork
+and fowls and drink liquor copiously. They take food from the higher castes and from Gonds and Baigas. Only Bahelias and other
+impure castes will take food from them. Temporary excommunication from caste is imposed for conviction of a criminal offence,
+getting maggots in a wound, and killing a cow, a dog or a cat. Permanent excommunication is imposed for adultery or eating
+with a very low caste. Readmission to caste after temporary exclusion entails a feast, but if the offender is very poor he
+simply gives a little liquor or even water. The Agarias are usually sunk in poverty, and their personal belongings are of
+the scantiest description, consisting of a waist-cloth, and perhaps another wisp of cloth for the head, a brass <i>lota</i> or cup and a few earthen vessels. Their women dress like Gond women, and have a few pewter ornaments. They are profusely
+tattooed with representations of flowers, scorpions and other objects. This is done merely for ornament.
+
+
+</p>
+</div>
+<div class="div2" id="d0e1134">
+<h3>5. Occupation.</h3>
+<p>The caste still follow their traditional occupation of iron-smelting and also make a few agricultural implements. They get
+their ore from the Maikal range, selecting stones of a dark reddish colour. They mix 16 lbs. of ore with 15 lbs. of charcoal
+in the furnace, the blast being produced by a pair of bellows worked by the feet and conveyed to the furnace through bamboo
+tubes; it is kept up steadily for four hours. The clay coating of the kiln is then broken down and the ball of molten slag
+and charcoal is taken out and hammered, and about 3 lbs. of good iron are obtained. With this they make ploughshares, mattocks,
+axes and sickles. They also move about from village to village with an anvil, a hammer <a id="d0e1139"></a><span class="pagenum">[<a href="#d0e1139">8</a>]</span>and tongs, and building a small furnace under a tree, make and repair iron implements for the villagers.
+
+
+</p>
+</div>
+<div class="footnotes">
+<hr class="fnsep">
+<p class="footnote"><span class="label"><a id="d0e1061" href="#d0e1061src" class="noteref">1</a></span> This article is compiled from papers by Mr. M&#299;r P&#257;dsh&#257;h, Tahs&#299;ld&#257;r of Bil&#257;spur, and Kanhya L&#257;l, clerk in the Gazetteer office.
+</p>
+<p class="footnote"><span class="label"><a id="d0e1090" href="#d0e1090src" class="noteref">2</a></span> <i>B&#257;si</i> or rice boiled in water the previous day.
+</p>
+<p class="footnote"><span class="label"><a id="d0e1105" href="#d0e1105src" class="noteref">3</a></span> A measure containing about 2&frac12; lbs. of grain.
+</p>
+</div>
+</div>
+<div id="d0e1141" class="div1"><span class="pagenum">
+[<a href="#d0e111">Contents</a>]
+</span><h2>Agharia</h2>
+<div class="div2" id="d0e1144">
+<h3>1. Origin.</h3>
+<p><b>Agharia</b><a id="d0e1150src" href="#d0e1150" class="noteref">1</a> (a corruption of Agaria, meaning one who came from Agra).&#8212;A cultivating caste belonging to the Sambalpur District<a id="d0e1153src" href="#d0e1153" class="noteref">2</a> and adjoining States. They number 27,000 persons in the Raigarh and S&#257;rangarh States and Bil&#257;spur District of the Central
+Provinces, and are found also in some of the Chota N&#257;gpur States transferred from Bengal. According to the traditions of the
+Agharias their forefathers were R&#257;jp&#363;ts who lived near Agra. They were accustomed to salute the king of Delhi with one hand
+only and without bending the head. The king after suffering this for a long time determined to punish them for their contumacy,
+and summoned all the Agharias to appear before him. At the door through which they were to pass to his presence he fixed a
+sword at the height of a man&#8217;s neck. The haughty Agharias came to the door, holding their heads high and not seeing the sword,
+and as a natural consequence they were all decapitated as they passed through. But there was one Agharia who had heard about
+the fixing of the sword and who thought it better to stay at home, saying that he had some ceremony to perform. When the king
+heard that there was one Agharia who had not passed through the door, he sent again, commanding him to come. The Agharia did
+not wish to go but felt it impossible to decline. He therefore sent for a Cham&#257;r of his village and besought him to go instead,
+saying that he would become a R&#257;jp&#363;t in his death and that he would ever be held in remembrance by the Agharia&#8217;s descendants.
+The Cham&#257;r consented to sacrifice himself for his master, and going before the king was beheaded at the door. But the Agharia
+fled south, taking his whole village with him, and came to Chhatt&#299;sgarh, where each of the families in the village founded
+a clan of the Agharia caste. And in memory of this, whenever an Agharia makes a libation to his ancestors, he first pours
+a little water on the ground in honour of the dead Cham&#257;r. According to <a id="d0e1156"></a><span class="pagenum">[<a href="#d0e1156">9</a>]</span>another version of the story three brothers of different families escaped and first went to Orissa, where they asked the Gajpati
+king to employ them as soldiers. The king caused two sheaths of swords to be placed before them, and telling them that one
+contained a sword and the other a bullock-goad, asked them to select one and by their choice to determine whether they would
+be soldiers or husbandmen. From one sheath a haft of gold projected and from the other one of silver. The Agharias pulled
+out the golden haft and found that they had chosen the goad. The point of the golden and silver handles is obvious, and the
+story is of some interest for the distant resemblance which it bears to the choice of the caskets in <i>The Merchant of Venice</i>. Condemned, as they considered, to drive the plough, the Agharias took off their sacred threads, which they could no longer
+wear, and gave them to the youngest member of the caste, saying that he should keep them and be their Bh&#257;t, and they would
+support him with contributions of a tenth of the produce of their fields. He assented, and his descendants are the genealogists
+of the Agharias and are termed Dash&#257;nshi. The Agharias claim to be Somvansi R&#257;jp&#363;ts, a claim which Colonel Dalton says their
+appearance favours. &#8220;Tall, well-made, with high Aryan features and tawny complexions, they look like R&#257;jp&#363;ts, though they
+are more industrious and intelligent than the generality of the fighting tribe.&#8221;<a id="d0e1161src" href="#d0e1161" class="noteref">3</a>
+
+
+</p>
+</div>
+<div class="div2" id="d0e1167">
+<h3>2. Subdivisions.</h3>
+<p>Owing to the fact that with the transfer of the Sambalpur District, a considerable portion of the Agharias have ceased to
+be residents of the Central Provinces, it is unnecessary to give the details of their caste organisation at length. They have
+two subdivisions, the Bad or superior Agharias and the Chhote, Sarolia or Sarwaria, the inferior or mixed Agharias. The latter
+are a cross between an Agharia and a Gaur (Ah&#299;r) woman. The Bad Agharias will not eat with or even take water from the others.
+Further local subdivisions are now in course of formation, as the Ratanpuria, Phuljharia and Raigarhia or those living round
+Ratanpur, Phuljhar and Raigarh. The caste is said to have 84 <i>gotras</i> or exogamous sections, of which 60 bear the title of Patel, 18 that of N&#257;ik, and 6 of Chaudhri. The section names <a id="d0e1175"></a><span class="pagenum">[<a href="#d0e1175">10</a>]</span>are very mixed, some being those of eponymous Br&#257;hman <i>gotras</i>, as S&#257;ndilya, Kaushik and Bh&#257;radw&#257;j; others those of R&#257;jp&#363;t septs, as Karchhul; while others are the names of animals and
+plants, as Bar&#257;h (pig), Baram (the p&#299;pal tree), N&#257;g (cobra), Kachhapa (tortoise), and a number of other local terms the meaning
+of which has been forgotten. Each of these sections, however, uses a different mark for branding cows, which it is the religious
+duty of an Agharia to rear, and though the marks now convey no meaning, they were probably originally the representations
+of material objects. In the case of names whose meaning is understood, traces of totemism survive in the respect paid to the
+animal or plant by members of the sept which bears its name. This analysis of the structure of the caste shows that it was
+a very mixed one. Originally consisting perhaps of a nucleus of immigrant R&#257;jp&#363;ts, the offspring of connections with inferior
+classes have been assimilated; while the story already quoted is probably intended to signify, after the usual Br&#257;hmanical
+fashion, that the pedigree of the Agharias at some period included a Cham&#257;r.
+
+
+</p>
+</div>
+<div class="div2" id="d0e1180">
+<h3>3. Marriage customs.</h3>
+<p>Marriage within the exogamous section and also with first cousins is forbidden, though in some places the union of a sister&#8217;s
+son with a brother&#8217;s daughter is permitted. Child marriage is usual, and censure visits a man who allows an unmarried daughter
+to arrive at adolescence. The bridegroom should always be older than the bride, at any rate by a day. When a betrothal is
+arranged some ornaments and a cloth bearing the <i>swastik</i> or lucky mark are sent to the girl. Marriages are always celebrated during the months of M&#257;gh and Ph&#257;gun, and they are held
+only once in five or six years, when all children whose matches can be arranged for are married off. This custom is economical,
+as it saves expenditure on marriage feasts. Colonel Dalton also states that the Agharias always employ Hindust&#257;ni Br&#257;hmans
+for their ceremonies, and as very few of these are available, they make circuits over large areas, and conduct all the weddings
+of a locality at the same period. Before the marriage a kid is sacrificed at the bride&#8217;s house to celebrate the removal of
+her status of maidenhood. When the bridegroom arrives at the bride&#8217;s house he touches with his dagger the <a id="d0e1188"></a><span class="pagenum">[<a href="#d0e1188">11</a>]</span>string of mango-leaves suspended from the marriage-shed and presents a rupee and a hundred betel-leaves to the bride&#8217;s <i>saw&#257;sin</i> or attendant. Next day the bridegroom&#8217;s father sends a present of a bracelet and seven small earthen cups to the bride. She
+is seated in the open, and seven women hold the cups over her head one above the other. Water is then poured from above from
+one cup into the other, each being filled in turn and the whole finally falling on the bride&#8217;s head. This probably symbolises
+the fertilising action of rain. The bride is then bathed and carried in a basket seven times round the marriage-post, after
+which she is seated in a chair and seven women place their heads together round her while a male relative winds a thread seven
+times round the heads of the women. The meaning of this ceremony is obscure. The bridegroom makes his appearance alone and
+is seated with the bride, both being dressed in clothes coloured yellow with turmeric. The bridegroom&#8217;s party follows, and
+the feet of the couple are washed with milk. The bride&#8217;s brother embraces the bridegroom and changes cloths with him. Water
+is poured over the hands of the couple, the girl&#8217;s forehead is daubed with vermilion, and a red silk cloth is presented to
+her and the couple go round the marriage-post. The bride is taken for four days to the husband&#8217;s house and then returns, and
+is again sent with the usual <i>gauna</i> ceremony, when she is fit for conjugal relations. No price is usually paid for the bride, and each party spends about Rs.
+100 on the marriage ceremony. Polygamy and widow marriage are generally allowed, the widow being disposed of by her parents.
+The ceremony at the marriage of a widow consists in putting vermilion on the parting of her hair and bangles on her wrists.
+Divorce is allowed on pain of a fine of Rs. 50 if the divorce is sought by the husband, and of Rs. 25 if the wife asks for
+it. In some localities divorce and also polygamy are said to be forbidden, and in such cases a woman who commits adultery
+is finally expelled from the caste, and a funeral feast is given to symbolise her death.
+
+
+</p>
+</div>
+<div class="div2" id="d0e1196">
+<h3>4. Religious and social customs.</h3>
+<p>The family god of the Agharias is Dulha Deo, who exists in every household. On the Haraiti day or the commencement of the
+agricultural year they worship the implements <a id="d0e1201"></a><span class="pagenum">[<a href="#d0e1201">12</a>]</span>of cultivation, and at Dasahra the sword if they have one. They have a great reverence for cows and feed them sumptuously
+at festivals. Every Agharia has a <i>guru</i> or spiritual guide who whispers the <i>mantra</i> or sacred verse into his ear and is occasionally consulted. The dead are usually burnt, but children and persons dying of
+cholera or smallpox are buried, males being placed on the pyre or in the grave on their faces and females on their backs,
+with the feet pointing to the south. On the third day the ashes are thrown into a river and the bones of each part of the
+body are collected and placed under the pipal tree, while a pot is slung over them, through which water trickles continually
+for a week, and a lighted lamp, cooked food, a leaf-cup and a tooth-stick are placed beside them daily for the use of the
+deceased during the same period. Mourning ends on the tenth day, and the usual purification ceremonies are then performed.
+Children are mourned for a shorter period. Well-to-do members of the caste feed a Br&#257;hman daily for a year after a death,
+believing that food so given passes to the spirit of the deceased. On the anniversary of the death the caste-fellows are feasted,
+and after that the deceased becomes a <i>purkha</i> or ancestor and participates in devotions paid at the <i>shr&#257;dhh</i> ceremony. When the head of a joint family dies, his successor is given a turban and betel-leaves, and his forehead is marked
+by the priest and other relations with sandalwood. After a birth the mother is impure for twenty-one days. A feast is given
+on the twelfth day, and sometimes the child is named then, but often children are not named until they are six years old.
+The names of men usually end in <i>Ram</i>, <i>N&#257;th</i> or <i>Singh</i>, and those of women in <i>Kunwar</i>. Women do not name their husbands, their elderly relations, nor the sons of their husband&#8217;s eldest brother. A man does not
+name his wife, as he thinks that to do so would tend to shorten his life in accordance with the Sanskrit saying, &#8216;He who is
+desirous of long life should not name himself, his <i>guru</i>, a miser, his eldest son, or his wife.&#8217; The Agharias do not admit outsiders into the caste. They will not take cooked food
+from any caste, and water only from a Gaur or R&#257;wat. They refuse to take water from an Uriya Br&#257;hman, probably in retaliation
+for the refusal of Uriya Br&#257;hmans to accept <a id="d0e1230"></a><span class="pagenum">[<a href="#d0e1230">13</a>]</span>water from an Agharia, though taking it from a Kolta. Both the Uriya Br&#257;hmans and Agharias are of somewhat doubtful origin,
+and both are therefore probably the more concerned to maintain the social position to which they lay claim. But Kewats, R&#257;wats,
+Telis and other castes eat cooked food from Agharias, and the caste therefore is admitted to a fairly high rank in the Uriya
+country. The Agharias do not drink liquor or eat any food which a R&#257;jp&#363;t would refuse.
+
+
+</p>
+</div>
+<div class="div2" id="d0e1232">
+<h3>5. Occupation.</h3>
+<p>As cultivators they are considered to be proficient. In the census of 1901 nearly a quarter of the whole caste were shown
+as m&#257;lguz&#257;rs or village proprietors and lessees. They wear a coarse cloth of homespun yarn which they get woven for them by
+G&#257;ndas; probably in consequence of this the Agharias do not consider the touch of the G&#257;nda to pollute them, as other castes
+do. They will not grow turmeric, onions, garlic, <i>san</i>-hemp or tomatoes, nor will they rear tasar silk-cocoons. Colonel Dalton says that their women do no outdoor work, and this
+is true in the Central Provinces as regards the better classes, but poor women work in the fields.
+
+
+</p>
+</div>
+<div class="footnotes">
+<hr class="fnsep">
+<p class="footnote"><span class="label"><a id="d0e1150" href="#d0e1150src" class="noteref">1</a></span> This article is mainly compiled from papers by the late Mr. Baikunth N&#257;th Puj&#257;ri, Extra Assistant Commissioner, Sambalpur;
+Sit&#257;ram, Head Master of the Raigarh English School, and Kanhy&#257; L&#257;l, clerk in the Gazetteer office.
+</p>
+<p class="footnote"><span class="label"><a id="d0e1153" href="#d0e1153src" class="noteref">2</a></span> Now transferred to Bengal.
+</p>
+<p class="footnote"><span class="label"><a id="d0e1161" href="#d0e1161src" class="noteref">3</a></span> Dalton&#8217;s <i>Ethnology of Bengal</i>, p. 322.
+</p>
+</div>
+</div>
+<div id="d0e1240" class="div1"><span class="pagenum">
+[<a href="#d0e111">Contents</a>]
+</span><h2>Aghori</h2>
+<div class="div2" id="d0e1243">
+<h3>1. General accounts of the caste.</h3>
+<p><b>Aghori, Aghorpanthi.</b><a id="d0e1249src" href="#d0e1249" class="noteref">1</a>&#8212;The most disreputable class of Saiva mendicants who feed on human corpses and excrement, and in past times practised cannibalism.
+The sect is apparently an ancient one, a supposed reference to it being contained in the Sanskrit drama <i>M&#257;lati M&#257;dhava</i>, the hero of which rescues his mistress from being offered as a sacrifice by one named Aghori Ghanta.<a id="d0e1261src" href="#d0e1261" class="noteref">2</a> According to Lassen, quoted by Sir H. Risley, the Aghoris of the present day are closely connected with the Kap&#257;lika sect
+of the Middle Ages, who wore crowns and necklaces of skulls and offered human sacrifices to Ch&#257;munda, a form of Devi. The
+Aghoris now represent their filthy habits as merely giving practical expression to the abstract doctrine that the whole universe
+is full of Brahma, and consequently that one thing is as pure as another. By eating the most horrible food they utterly subdue
+their natural appetites, and hence acquire great power <a id="d0e1267"></a><span class="pagenum">[<a href="#d0e1267">14</a>]</span>over themselves and over the forces of nature. It is believed that an Aghori can at will assume the shapes of a bird, an animal
+or a fish, and that he can bring back to life a corpse of which he has eaten a part. The principal resort of the Aghoris appears
+to be at Ben&#257;res and at Girnar near Mount Abu, and they wander about the country as solitary mendicants. A few reside in Saugor,
+and they are occasionally met with in other places. They are much feared and disliked by the people owing to their practice
+of extorting alms by the threat to carry out their horrible practices before the eyes of their victims, and by throwing filth
+into their houses. Similarly they gash and cut their limbs so that the crime of blood may rest on those who refuse to give.
+&#8220;For the most part,&#8221; Mr. Barrow states,<a id="d0e1269src" href="#d0e1269" class="noteref">3</a> &#8220;the Aghorpanthis lead a wandering life, are without homes, and prefer to dwell in holes, clefts of rocks and burning-<i>gh&#257;ts</i>. They do not cook, but eat the fragments given them in charity as received, which they put as far as may be into the cavity
+of the skull used as a begging-bowl. The bodies of <i>chelas</i> (disciples) who die in Ben&#257;res are thrown into the Ganges, but the dead who die well off are placed in coffins. As a rule,
+Aghoris do not care what becomes of their bodies, but when buried they are placed in the grave sitting cross-legged. The Aghori
+<i>gurus</i> keep dogs, which may be of any colour, and are said to be maintained for purposes of protection. The dogs are not all pariahs
+of the streets, although some <i>gurus</i> are followed by three or four when on pilgrimage. Occasionally the dogs seem to be regarded with real affection by their
+strange masters. The Aghori is believed to hold converse with all the evil spirits frequenting the burning-<i>gh&#257;ts</i>, and funeral parties must be very badly off who refuse to pay him something. In former days he claimed five pieces of wood
+at each funeral in Ben&#257;res; but the Doms interfere with his perquisites, and in some cases only let him carry off the remains
+of the unburned wood from each pyre. When angered and excited, Aghoris invoke K&#257;li and threaten to spread devastation around
+them. Even among the educated classes, who should know better, they are dreaded, and as an instance of the terror which they
+create among the ignorant, it may be <a id="d0e1289"></a><span class="pagenum">[<a href="#d0e1289">15</a>]</span>mentioned that in the Lucknow District it is believed that if alms are refused them the Aghoris will cause those who refuse
+to be attacked with fever.
+
+
+</p>
+<div id="d0e1291" class="figure"><img border="0" src="images/p014.jpg" alt="Aghori mendicant." width="411" height="720"><p class="figureHead">Aghori mendicant.</p>
+</div><p>
+
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;On the other hand, their good offices may secure benefits, as in the case of a zam&#299;nd&#257;r of Muzaffarnagar, who at Allah&#257;b&#257;d
+refused to eat a piece of human flesh offered to him by an Aghori; the latter thereupon threw the flesh at the zam&#299;nd&#257;r&#8217;s
+head, on which it stuck. The zam&#299;nd&#257;r afterwards became so exceedingly wealthy that he had difficulty in storing his wealth.&#8221;
+
+
+</p>
+</div>
+<div class="div2" id="d0e1297">
+<h3>2. Instances of cannibalism.</h3>
+<p>In former times it is believed that the Aghoris used to kidnap strangers, sacrifice them to the goddess and eat the bodies,
+and Mr. Barrow relates the following incident of the murder of a boy:<a id="d0e1302src" href="#d0e1302" class="noteref">4</a> &#8220;Another horrible case, unconnected with magic and apparently arising from mere blood-thirst, occurred at Neir&#257;d in June
+1878. An Aghori mendicant of Dw&#257;rka staying at the temple of Sit&#257;r&#257;m L&#257;ld&#257;s seized a boy of twelve, named Shankar R&#257;md&#257;s,
+who was playing with two other boys, threw him down on the <i>oatla</i> of the temple, ripped open his abdomen, tore out part of his entrails, and, according to the poor little victim&#8217;s dying declaration,
+began to eat them. The other boys having raised an alarm, the monster was seized. When interrogated by the magistrate as to
+whether he had committed the crime in order to perform Aghorbidya, the prisoner said that as the boy was Bhakshan he had eaten
+his flesh. He added that if he had not been interrupted he would have eaten all the entrails. He was convicted, but only sentenced
+to transportation for life. The High Court, however, altered the sentence and ordered the prisoner to be hanged.&#8221;
+
+</p>
+<p>The following instance, quoted by Mr. Barrow from Rewah, shows how an Aghori was hoist with his own petard: &#8220;Some years ago,
+when Mah&#257;r&#257;ja Bishn&#257;th Singh was Chief of Rewah, a man of the Aghori caste went to Rewah and sat <i>dharna</i> on the steps of the palace; having made ineffectual demands for alms, he requested to be supplied with human flesh, and for
+five days abstained from food. The Mah&#257;r&#257;ja was much troubled, and at last, in order to get rid of his unwelcome visitor,
+sent for Ghansi&#257;m D&#257;s, <a id="d0e1313"></a><span class="pagenum">[<a href="#d0e1313">16</a>]</span>another Aghori, a Fak&#299;r, who had for some years lived in Rewah. Ghansi&#257;m D&#257;s went up to the other Aghori and asked him if
+it was true that he had asked to be supplied with human flesh. On receiving a reply in the affirmative, Ghansi&#257;m D&#257;s said:
+&#8216;Very well, I too am extremely partial to this form of food; here is my hand, eat it and I will eat you&#8217;; and at the same
+time he seized hold of the other&#8217;s hand and began to gnaw at it. The Aghori on this became much alarmed and begged to be excused.
+He shortly afterwards left Rewah and was not heard of again, while Ghansi&#257;m D&#257;s was rewarded for his services.&#8221;
+
+</p>
+<p>The following recent instance of an Aghori devouring human corpses is reported from the Punjab:<a id="d0e1317src" href="#d0e1317" class="noteref">5</a> &#8220;The loathsome story of a human ghoul from Pati&#257;la shows that the influence of the Aghorpanthi has not yet completely died
+out in this country. It is said that for some time past human graves have been found robbed of their contents, and the mystery
+could not be solved until the other day, when the police succeeded in arresting a man in the act of desecrating a child&#8217;s
+grave, some forty miles distant from the capital (Pati&#257;la). The ghoul not only did not conceal the undevoured portion of the
+corpse he had with him, but told his captors the whole story of his gruesome career. He is a low-caste Hindu named R&#257;m N&#257;th,
+and is, according to a gentleman who saw him, &#8216;a singularly mild and respectful-looking man, instead of a red-eyed and ravenous
+savage,&#8217; as he had expected to find him from the accounts of his disgusting propensities. He became an orphan at five and
+fell into the hands of two S&#257;dhus of his own caste, who were evidently Aghorpanthis. They taught him to eat human flesh, which
+formed the staple of their food. The meat was procured from the graves in the villages they passed through. When R&#257;m N&#257;th
+was thoroughly educated in this rank the S&#257;dhus deserted him. Since then he had been living on human carrion only, roaming
+about the country like a hungry vulture. He cannot eat cooked food, and therefore gets two seers of raw meat from the State
+every day. It is also reported that the Mah&#257;r&#257;ja has <a id="d0e1325"></a><span class="pagenum">[<a href="#d0e1325">17</a>]</span>now prohibited his being given anything but cooked food with a view to reforming him.&#8221;
+
+</p>
+<p>Sir J. B. Fuller relates the following incident of the employment of an Aghori as a servant:<a id="d0e1329src" href="#d0e1329" class="noteref">6</a> &#8220;There are actually ten thousand persons who at census time classed themselves as Aghoris. All of them do not practise cannibalism
+and some of them attempt to rise in the world. One of them secured service as a cook with a British officer of my acquaintance.
+My friend was in camp in the jungle with his wife and children, when his other servants came to him in a body and refused
+to remain in service unless the cook was dismissed, since they had discovered, they declared, that during the night-time he
+visited cemeteries and dug up the bodies of freshly buried children. The cook was absent, but they pointed to a box of his
+that emitted a sickening smell. The man was incontinently expelled, but for long afterwards the family were haunted by reminiscences
+of the curries they had eaten.&#8221;
+
+
+
+<a id="d0e1334"></a><span class="pagenum">[<a href="#d0e1334">18</a>]</span></p>
+</div>
+<div class="footnotes">
+<hr class="fnsep">
+<p class="footnote"><span class="label"><a id="d0e1249" href="#d0e1249src" class="noteref">1</a></span> This article is mainly based on a paper on <i>Aghoris and Aghorpanthis</i>, by Mr. H. W. Barrow, in the <i>Journal Anthr. Soc. Bombay</i>, iii. p. 197.
+</p>
+<p class="footnote"><span class="label"><a id="d0e1261" href="#d0e1261src" class="noteref">2</a></span> Bhattach&#257;rya, <i>Hindu Castes and Sects</i>, p. 392.
+</p>
+<p class="footnote"><span class="label"><a id="d0e1269" href="#d0e1269src" class="noteref">3</a></span> <i>Aghoris and Aghorpanthis</i>, pp. 224, 226.
+</p>
+<p class="footnote"><span class="label"><a id="d0e1302" href="#d0e1302src" class="noteref">4</a></span> Page 208.
+</p>
+<p class="footnote"><span class="label"><a id="d0e1317" href="#d0e1317src" class="noteref">5</a></span> <i>The Tribune</i> (Lahore), November 29, 1898, quoted in Oman&#8217;s <i>Mystics, Ascetics and Saints of India</i>, pp. 164, 165.
+</p>
+<p class="footnote"><span class="label"><a id="d0e1329" href="#d0e1329src" class="noteref">6</a></span> <i>Studies of Indian Life and Sentiment</i>, p. 44.
+</p>
+</div>
+</div>
+<div id="d0e1335" class="div1"><span class="pagenum">
+[<a href="#d0e111">Contents</a>]
+</span><h2>Ah&#299;r</h2>
+<h3>List of Paragraphs</h3>
+<ul>
+<li><a href="#d0e1441">1. General notice.</a></li>
+<li><a href="#d0e1474">2. Former dominance of the Abh&#299;ras.</a></li>
+<li><a href="#d0e1525">3. Ah&#299;r dialects.</a></li>
+<li><a href="#d0e1537">4. The Y&#257;davas and Krishna.</a></li>
+<li><a href="#d0e1558">5. The modern Ah&#299;rs an occupational caste.</a></li>
+<li><a href="#d0e1571">6. Subcastes.</a></li>
+<li><a href="#d0e1578">7. The Dauwa or wet-nurse Ah&#299;rs. Fosterage.</a></li>
+<li><a href="#d0e1598">8. Exogamy.</a></li>
+<li><a href="#d0e1603">9. Marriage customs.</a></li>
+<li><a href="#d0e1619">10. Birth customs.</a></li>
+<li><a href="#d0e1630">11. Funeral rites. Bringing back the soul.</a></li>
+<li><a href="#d0e1637">12. Religion. Krishna and other deified cowherds.</a></li>
+<li><a href="#d0e1658">13. Caste deities.</a></li>
+<li><a href="#d0e1675">14. Other deities.</a></li>
+<li><a href="#d0e1680">15. The Diw&#257;li festival.</a></li>
+<li><a href="#d0e1720">16. Omens.</a></li>
+<li><a href="#d0e1725">17. Social customs.</a></li>
+<li><a href="#d0e1748">18. Ornaments.</a></li>
+<li><a href="#d0e1759">19. Occupation.</a></li>
+<li><a href="#d0e1779">20. Preparations of milk.</a></li>
+</ul>
+<div class="div2" id="d0e1441">
+<h3>1. General notice.</h3>
+<p><b>Ah&#299;r,<a id="d0e1447src" href="#d0e1447" class="noteref">1</a> Gaoli, Gu&#257;la, Golkar, Gaol&#257;n, R&#257;wat, Gahra, Mah&#257;kul.</b>&#8212;The caste, of cowherds, milkmen and cattle-breeders. In 1911 the Ah&#299;rs numbered nearly 750,000 persons in the Central Provinces
+and Ber&#257;r, being the sixth caste in point of numbers. This figure, however, excludes 150,000 Gow&#257;ris or graziers of the Mar&#257;tha
+Districts, and if these were added the Ah&#299;rs would outnumber the Telis and rank fifth. The name Ah&#299;r is derived from Abh&#299;ra,
+a tribe mentioned several times in inscriptions and the Hindu sacred books. Go&#257;la, a cowherd, from Gop&#257;la,<a id="d0e1451src" href="#d0e1451" class="noteref">2</a> a protector of cows, is the Bengali name for the caste, and Gaoli, with the same signification, is now used in the Central
+Provinces to signify a dairyman as opposed to a grazier. The Gaol&#257;ns appear to be an inferior class of Gaolis in Ber&#257;r. The
+Golkars of Ch&#257;nda may be derived from the Telugu Golars or graziers, with a probable <a id="d0e1468"></a><span class="pagenum">[<a href="#d0e1468">19</a>]</span>admixture of Gond blood. They are described as wild-looking people scattered about in the most thickly forested tracts of
+the District, where they graze and tend cattle. R&#257;wat, a corruption of R&#257;jp&#363;tra or a princeling, is the name borne by the
+Ah&#299;r caste in Chhatt&#299;sgarh; while Gahra is their designation in the Uriya country. The Mah&#257;kul Ah&#299;rs are a small group found
+in the Jashpur State, and said to belong to the N&#257;ndvansi division. The name means &#8216;Great family.&#8217;
+
+
+
+</p>
+<div id="d0e1470" class="figure"><img border="0" src="images/p018.jpg" alt="Ah&#299;rs decorated with cowries for the Stick Dance at Diw&#257;li." width="720" height="484"><p class="figureHead">Ah&#299;rs decorated with cowries for the Stick Dance at Diw&#257;li.</p>
+</div><p>
+
+
+
+</p>
+</div>
+<div class="div2" id="d0e1474">
+<h3>2. Former dominance of the Abh&#299;ras.</h3>
+<p>The Abh&#299;ras appear to have been one of the immigrant tribes from Central Asia who entered India shortly before or about the
+commencement of the Christian era. In the Pur&#257;nas and Mah&#257;bh&#257;rata they are spoken of as Dasyu or robbers, and Mlechchhas or
+foreigners, in the story which says that Arjuna, after he had burned the dead bodies of Krishna and Bal&#257;r&#257;m at Dw&#257;rka, was
+proceeding with the widows of the Y&#257;dava princes to Mathura through the Punjab when he was waylaid by the Abh&#299;ras and deprived
+of his treasures and beautiful women.<a id="d0e1479src" href="#d0e1479" class="noteref">3</a> An inscription of the S&#257;ka era 102, or <span class="smallcaps">A.D.</span> 180, speaks of a grant made by the Senapati or commander-in-chief of the state, who is called an Abh&#299;ra, the locality being
+Sunda in K&#257;thi&#257;w&#257;r. Another inscription found in N&#257;sik and assigned by Mr. Enthoven to the fourth century speaks of an Abh&#299;ra
+king, and the Pur&#257;nas say that after the Andhrabhrityas the Deccan was held by the Abh&#299;ras, the west coast tract from the
+T&#257;pti to Deogarh being called by their name.<a id="d0e1487src" href="#d0e1487" class="noteref">4</a> In the time of Samudragupta in the middle of the fourth century the Abh&#299;ras were settled in Eastern R&#257;jputana and M&#257;lwa.<a id="d0e1496src" href="#d0e1496" class="noteref">5</a> When the K&#257;this arrived in Gujar&#257;t in the eighth century, they found the greater part of the country in the possession of
+the Ah&#299;rs.<a id="d0e1501src" href="#d0e1501" class="noteref">6</a> In the M&#299;rz&#257;pur District of the United Provinces a tract known as Ahraura is considered to be named after the tribe; and
+near Jh&#257;nsi another piece of country is called Ah&#299;rw&#257;r.<a id="d0e1506src" href="#d0e1506" class="noteref">7</a> Elliot states that Ah&#299;rs were also R&#257;jas of Nep&#257;l about the commencement of our era.<a id="d0e1510src" href="#d0e1510" class="noteref">8</a> In Kh&#257;ndesh, Mr. Enthoven states, <a id="d0e1515"></a><span class="pagenum">[<a href="#d0e1515">20</a>]</span>the settlements of the Ah&#299;rs were important. In many castes there is a separate division of Ah&#299;rs, such as the Ah&#299;r Sun&#257;rs,
+Sut&#257;rs, Loh&#257;rs, Shimp&#299;s, Sal&#299;s, Guraos and Kolis. The fort of As&#299;rgarh in Nim&#257;r bordering on Kh&#257;ndesh is supposed to have
+been founded by one Asa Ah&#299;r, who lived in the beginning of the fifteenth century. It is said that his ancestors had held
+land here for seven hundred years, and he had 10,000 cattle, 20,000 sheep and 1000 mares, with 2000 followers; but was still
+known to the people, to whom his benevolence had endeared him, by the simple name of Asa. This derivation of As&#299;rgarh is clearly
+erroneous, as it was known as As&#299;r or As&#299;rgarh, and held by the T&#257;k and Chauh&#257;n R&#257;jp&#363;ts from the eleventh century. But the
+story need not on that account, Mr. Grant says,<a id="d0e1517src" href="#d0e1517" class="noteref">9</a> be set down as wholly a fable. Firishta, who records it, has usually a good credit, and more probably the real existence
+of a line of Ah&#299;r chieftains in the Tapti valley suggested a convenient ethnology for the fortress. Other traditions of the past domination of the pastoral tribes remain in the Central Provinces. Deogarh
+on the Chhindw&#257;ra plateau was, according to the legend, the last seat of Gaoli power prior to its subversion by the Gonds
+in the sixteenth century. J&#257;tba, the founder of the Deogarh Gond dynasty, is said to have entered the service of the Gaoli
+rulers, Mansur and Gansur, and subsequently with the aid of the goddess Devi to have slain them and usurped their kingdom.
+But a Gaoli chief still retained possession of the fort of Narn&#257;la for a few years longer, when he also was slain by the Muhammadans.
+Similarly the fort of G&#257;wilgarh on the southern crest of the Satp&#363;ras is said to be named after a Gaoli chief who founded
+it. The Saugor traditions bring down the Gaoli supremacy to a much later date, as the tracts of Et&#257;wa and Khurai are held
+to have been governed by their chieftains till the close of the seventeenth century.
+
+
+</p>
+</div>
+<div class="div2" id="d0e1525">
+<h3>3. Ah&#299;r dialects.</h3>
+<p>Certain dialects called after the Abh&#299;ras or Ah&#299;rs still remain. One, known as Ah&#299;rwati, is spoken in the Rohtak and Gurgaon
+Districts of the Punjab and round Delhi. This is akin to Mew&#257;ti, one of the forms of R&#257;jasth&#257;ni or the <a id="d0e1530"></a><span class="pagenum">[<a href="#d0e1530">21</a>]</span>language of R&#257;jput&#257;na. The M&#257;lwi dialect of R&#257;jasth&#257;ni is also known as Ah&#299;ri; and that curious form of Gujar&#257;ti, which is
+half a Bh&#299;l dialect, and is generally known as Kh&#257;ndeshi, also bears the name of Ah&#299;rani.<a id="d0e1532src" href="#d0e1532" class="noteref">10</a> The above linguistic facts seem to prove only that the Abh&#299;ras, or their occupational successors, the Ah&#299;rs, were strongly
+settled in the Delhi country of the Punjab, M&#257;lwa and Kh&#257;ndesh. They do not seem to throw much light on the origin of the
+Abh&#299;ras or Ah&#299;rs, and necessarily refer only to a small section of the existing Ah&#299;r caste, the great bulk of whom speak the
+Aryan language current where they dwell. Another authority states, however, that the Ah&#299;rs of Gujar&#257;t still retain a dialect
+of their own, and concludes that this and the other Ah&#299;r dialects are the remains of the distinct Abh&#299;ra language.
+
+
+</p>
+</div>
+<div class="div2" id="d0e1537">
+<h3>4. The Y&#257;davas and Krishna.</h3>
+<p>It cannot necessarily be assumed that all the above traditions relate to the Abh&#299;ra tribe proper, of which the modern Ah&#299;r
+caste are scarcely more than the nominal representatives. Nevertheless, it may fairly be concluded from them that the Abh&#299;ras
+were widely spread over India and dominated considerable tracts of country. They are held to have entered India about the
+same time as the Sakas, who settled in Gujar&#257;t, among other places, and, as seen above, the earliest records of the Abh&#299;ras
+show them in N&#257;sik and K&#257;thi&#257;w&#257;r, and afterwards widely spread in Kh&#257;ndesh, that is, in the close neighbourhood of the Sakas.
+It has been suggested in the article on R&#257;jp&#363;t that the Y&#257;dava and other lunar clans of R&#257;jp&#363;ts may be the representatives
+of the Sakas and other nomad tribes who invaded India shortly before and after the Christian era. The god Krishna is held
+to have been the leader of the Y&#257;davas, and to have founded with them the sacred city of Dw&#257;rka in Gujar&#257;t. The modern Ah&#299;rs
+have a subdivision called J&#257;duvansi or Y&#257;duvansi, that is, of the race of the Y&#257;davas, and they hold that Krishna was of the
+Ah&#299;r tribe. Since the Abh&#299;ras were also settled in Gujar&#257;t it is possible that they may have been connected with the Y&#257;davas,
+and that this may be the foundation for their claim that Krishna was of their tribe. The Dyashraya-Kavya of Hemachandra speaks
+of a Chordasama prince reigning near Junagarh as <a id="d0e1542"></a><span class="pagenum">[<a href="#d0e1542">22</a>]</span>an Abh&#299;ra and a Y&#257;dava. But this is no doubt very conjectural, and the simple fact that Krishna was a herdsman would be a
+sufficient reason for the Ah&#299;rs to claim connection with him. It is pointed out that the names of Abh&#299;ra chieftains given
+in the early inscriptions are derived from the god Siva, and this would not have been the case if they had at that epoch derived
+their origin from Krishna, an incarnation of Vishnu. &#8220;If the Abh&#299;ras had really been the descendants of the cowherds (Gopas)
+whose hero was Krishna, the name of the rival god Siva would never have formed components of the names of the Abh&#299;ras, whom
+we find mentioned in inscriptions. Hence the conclusion may safely be drawn that the Abh&#299;ras were by no means connected with
+Krishna and his cowherds even as late as about <span class="smallcaps">A.D.</span> 300, to which date the first of the two inscriptions mentioned above is to be assigned. Precisely the same conclusion is
+pointed to by the contents of the Harivansha and Bhagwat Pur&#257;na. The upbringing of Krishna among the cowherds and his flirtations
+with the milkmaids are again and again mentioned in these works, but the word Abh&#299;ra does not occur even once in this connection.
+The only words we find used are Gopa, Gopi and Vraja. This is indeed remarkable. For the descriptions of the removal of Krishna
+as an infant to Nanda, the cowherd&#8217;s hut, of his childhood passed in playing with the cowherd boys, and of his youth spent
+in amorous sports with the milkmaids are set forth at great length, but the word Abh&#299;ra is not once met with. From this only
+one conclusion is possible, that is, that the Abh&#299;ras did not originally represent the Gopas of Krishna. The word Abh&#299;ra occurs
+for the first time in connection with the Krishna legend about <span class="smallcaps">A.D.</span> 550, from which it follows that the Abh&#299;ras came to be identified with the Gopas shortly before that date.&#8221;<a id="d0e1550src" href="#d0e1550" class="noteref">11</a>
+
+</p>
+<p>This argument is interesting as showing that Abh&#299;ra was not originally an occupational term for a herdsman, nor a caste name,
+but belonged to an immigrant tribe. Owing apparently to the fact that the Abh&#299;ras, like the G&#363;jars, devoted themselves to
+a pastoral mode of life in India, whereas the previous Aryan immigrants had settled down to cultivation, <a id="d0e1556"></a><span class="pagenum">[<a href="#d0e1556">23</a>]</span>they gave their name to the great occupational caste of herdsmen which was subsequently developed, and of which they may originally
+have constituted the nucleus. The G&#363;jars, who came to India at a later period, form a parallel case; although the G&#363;jar caste,
+which is derived from them, is far less important than the Ah&#299;r, the G&#363;jars have also been the parents of several R&#257;jp&#363;t clans.
+The reason why the early Mathura legends of Krishna make no mention of the Ah&#299;rs may be that the deity Krishna is probably
+compounded of at least two if not more distinct personalities. One is the hero chief of the Y&#257;davas, who fought in the battle
+of the Pandavas and Kauravas, migrated to Gujar&#257;t and was killed there. As he was chief of the Y&#257;davas this Krishna must stand
+for the actual or mythical personality of some leader of the immigrant nomad tribes. The other Krishna, the boy cowherd, who
+grazed cattle and sported with the milkmaids of Brind&#257;ban, may very probably be some hero of the indigenous non-Aryan tribes,
+who, then as now, lived in the forests and were shepherds and herdsmen. His lowly birth from a labouring cowherd, and the
+fact that his name means black and he is represented in sculpture as being of a dark colour, lend support to this view. The
+cult of Krishna, Mr. Crooke points out, was comparatively late, and probably connected with the development of the worship
+of the cow after the decay of Buddhism. This latter Krishna, who is worshipped with his mother as a child-god, was especially
+attractive to women, both actual and prospective mothers. It is quite probable therefore that as his worship became very popular
+in Hindust&#257;n in connection with that of the cow, he was given a more illustrious origin by identification with the Y&#257;dava
+hero, whose first home was apparently in Gujar&#257;t. In this connection it may also be noted that the episodes connected with
+Krishna in the Mah&#257;bh&#257;rata have been considered late interpolations.
+
+
+</p>
+</div>
+<div class="div2" id="d0e1558">
+<h3>5. The modern Ah&#299;rs an occupational caste.</h3>
+<p>But though the Ah&#299;r caste takes its name and is perhaps partly descended from the Abh&#299;ra tribe, there is no doubt that it
+is now and has been for centuries a purely occupational caste, largely recruited from the indigenous tribes. Thus in Bengal
+Colonel Dalton remarks that the features of the Mathur&#257;v&#257;si Go&#257;las are high, sharp and delicate, and <a id="d0e1563"></a><span class="pagenum">[<a href="#d0e1563">24</a>]</span>they are of light-brown complexion. Those of the Magadha subcaste, on the other hand, are undefined and coarse. They are dark-complexioned,
+and have large hands and feet. &#8220;Seeing the latter standing in a group with some Singhbh&#363;m Kols, there is no distinguishing
+one from the other. There has doubtless been much mixture of blood.&#8221;<a id="d0e1565src" href="#d0e1565" class="noteref">12</a> Similarly in the Central Provinces the Ah&#299;rs are largely recruited from the Gonds and other tribes. In Ch&#257;nda the Gow&#257;ris
+are admittedly descended from the unions of Gonds and Ah&#299;rs, and one of their subcastes, the Gond-Gow&#257;ris, are often classed
+as Gonds. Again, the Kaonra Ah&#299;rs of Mandla are descended from the unions of Ah&#299;rs either with the Gonds or Kawars, and many
+of them are probably pure Gonds. They have Gond sept-names and eat pork. Members of one of their subdivisions, the Gond-Kaonra,
+will take water from Gonds, and rank below the other Kaonras, from whom they will accept food and water. As cattle have to
+go into the thick jungles to graze in the hot weather, the graziers attending them become intimate with the forest tribes
+who live there, and these latter are also often employed to graze the cattle, and are perhaps after a time admitted to the
+Ah&#299;r caste. Many Ah&#299;rs in Mandla are scarcely considered to be Hindus, living as they do in Gond villages in sole company
+with the Gonds.
+
+
+</p>
+</div>
+<div class="div2" id="d0e1571">
+<h3>6. Subcastes.</h3>
+<p>The principal subcastes of the Ah&#299;rs in northern India are the J&#257;duvansi, N&#257;ndvansi and Gow&#257;lvansi. The J&#257;duvansi claimed
+to be descended from the Y&#257;davas, who now form the Y&#257;du and J&#257;don-Bhatti clans of R&#257;jp&#363;ts. The probability of a historical
+connection between the Abh&#299;ras and Y&#257;davas has already been noticed. The N&#257;ndvansi consider their first ancestor to have been
+N&#257;nd, the cowherd, the foster-father of Krishna; while the name of the Gow&#257;lvansi is simply Go&#257;la or Gauli, a milkman, a common
+synonym for the caste. The Kaonra Ah&#299;rs of Mandla and the Kamarias of Jubbulpore are considered to belong to the N&#257;ndvansi
+group. Other subcastes in the northern Districts are the Jijhotia, who, like the Jijhotia Br&#257;hmans, take their name from Jajhoti,
+the classical term for Bundelkhand; the Bharotia; and the Narwaria from Narwar. The R&#257;wats <a id="d0e1576"></a><span class="pagenum">[<a href="#d0e1576">25</a>]</span>of Chhatt&#299;sgarh are divided into the Jhadia, Kosaria and Kanaujia groups. Of these the Jhadia or &#8216;jungly,&#8217; and Kosaria from
+Kosala, the ancient name of the Chhatt&#299;sgarh country, are the oldest settlers, while the Kanaujia are largely employed as
+personal servants in Chhatt&#299;sgarh, and all castes will take water from their hands. The superior class of them, however, refuse
+to clean household cooking vessels, and are hence known as Thethw&#257;r, or exact or pure, as distinguished from the other R&#257;wats,
+who will perform this somewhat derogatory work.
+
+
+</p>
+</div>
+<div class="div2" id="d0e1578">
+<h3>7. The Dauwa or wet-nurse Ah&#299;rs. Fosterage.</h3>
+<p>The Dauwa or wet-nurse Ah&#299;rs are descended from the illegitimate offspring of Bundela R&#257;jp&#363;t fathers by Ah&#299;r mothers who were
+employed in this capacity in their families. An Ah&#299;r woman kept by a Bundela was known as Pardw&#257;rin, or one coming from another
+house. This is not considered a disgraceful origin; though the Dauwa Ah&#299;rs are not recognised by the Ah&#299;rs proper, they form
+a separate section of the caste, and Br&#257;hmans will take water from them. The children of such mothers stood in the relation
+of foster-brothers to the R&#257;jp&#363;ts, whom their mothers had nursed. The giving of milk, in accordance with the common primitive
+belief in the virtue attaching to an action in itself, was held to constitute a relation of quasi-maternity between the nurse
+and infant, and hence of fraternity between her own children and her foster-children. The former were called Dhai-bhais or
+foster-brothers by the R&#257;jp&#363;ts; they were often given permanent grants of land and employed on confidential missions, as for
+the arrangement of marriages. The minister of a R&#257;ja of Karauli was his Dauwa or foster-father, the husband of his nurse.
+Similarly, Colonel Tod says that the Dhai-bhai or foster-brother of the R&#257;ja of Boondi, commandant of the fortress of Tanagarh,
+was, like all his class, devotion personified.<a id="d0e1583src" href="#d0e1583" class="noteref">13</a> A parallel instance of the tie of foster-kinship occurs in the case of the foster-brothers of Conachar or Hector in <i>The Fair Maid of Perth</i>. Thus the position of foster-brother of a R&#257;jp&#363;t was an honourable one, even though the child might be illegitimate. Ah&#299;r
+women were often employed as wet-nurses, because domestic service was a profession in which they commonly engaged. Owing <a id="d0e1591"></a><span class="pagenum">[<a href="#d0e1591">26</a>]</span>to the comparatively humble origin of a large proportion of them they did not object to menial service, while the purity of
+their caste made it possible to use them for the supply of water and food. In Bengal the Uriya Ah&#299;rs were a common class of
+servants in European houses.
+
+</p>
+<p>The Gaolis or milkmen appear to form a distinct branch of the caste with subcastes of their own. Among them are the N&#257;ndvans,
+common to the Ah&#299;rs, the M&#257;lwi from M&#257;lwa and the R&#257;ghuvansi, called after the R&#257;jp&#363;t clan of that name. The R&#257;nyas take their
+designation from <i>r&#257;n</i>, forest, like the Jh&#257;dia R&#257;wats.
+
+
+</p>
+</div>
+<div class="div2" id="d0e1598">
+<h3>8. Exogamy.</h3>
+<p>The caste have exogamous sections, which are of the usual low-caste type, with titular or totemistic names. Those of the Chhatt&#299;sgarhi
+R&#257;wats are generally named after animals. A curious name among the Mah&#257;kul Ah&#299;rs is Math&#257;nk&#257;ta, or one who bit his mother&#8217;s
+nipples. The marriage of persons belonging to the same section and of first cousins is prohibited. A man may marry his wife&#8217;s
+younger sister while his wife is living, but not her elder sister. The practice of exchanging girls between families is permissible.
+
+
+</p>
+</div>
+<div class="div2" id="d0e1603">
+<h3>9. Marriage customs.</h3>
+<p>As a rule, girls may be married before or after puberty, but the Golkars of Ch&#257;nda insist on infant marriage, and fine the
+parents if an unmarried girl becomes adolescent. On the other hand, the Kaonra Ah&#299;rs of Mandla make a practice of not getting
+a girl married till the signs of puberty have appeared. It is said that in Mandla if an unmarried girl becomes pregnant by
+a man of the caste the <i>panch&#257;yat</i> give her to him and fine him Rs. 20 or 30, which they appropriate themselves, giving nothing to the father. If an Ah&#299;r girl
+is seduced by an outsider, she is made over to him, and a fine of Rs. 40 or 50 is exacted from him if possible. This is paid
+to the girl&#8217;s father, who has to spend it on a penalty feast to the caste. Generally, sexual offences within the community
+are leniently regarded. The wedding ceremony is of the type prevalent in the locality. The proposal comes from the boy&#8217;s family,
+and a price is usually given for the bride. The Kaonra Ah&#299;rs of Mandla and the Jharia and Kosaria R&#257;wats of Chhatt&#299;sgarh employ
+a Br&#257;hman only to write the <i>lagun</i> or paper fixing the date of the wedding, and the ceremony is conducted by the <i>saw&#257;sins</i> or relatives of <a id="d0e1617"></a><span class="pagenum">[<a href="#d0e1617">27</a>]</span>the parties. In Chhatt&#299;sgarh the bridegroom is dressed as a girl to be taken to the wedding. In Bet&#363;l the weddings of most
+Gaolis are held in M&#257;gh (January), and that of the R&#257;nya subcaste in the bright fortnight of K&#257;rtik (October). At the ceremony
+the bride is made to stand on a small stone roller; the bridegroom then takes hold of the roller facing the bride and goes
+round in a circle seven times, turning the roller with him. Widow remarriage is permitted, and a widow is often expected to
+marry the younger brother of her deceased husband. If a bachelor wishes to marry a widow he first goes through the ceremony
+with a dagger or an earthen vessel. Divorce is freely permitted. In Hoshang&#257;b&#257;d a strip is torn off the clothes worn by husband
+and wife as a sign of their divorce. This is presumably in contrast to the knotting of the clothes of the couple together
+at a wedding.
+
+
+</p>
+</div>
+<div class="div2" id="d0e1619">
+<h3>10. Birth customs.</h3>
+<p>Among the R&#257;wats of Chhatt&#299;sgarh, when a child is shortly to be born the midwife dips her hand in oil and presses it on the
+wall, and it is supposed that she can tell by the way in which the oil trickles down whether the child will be a boy or a
+girl. If a woman is weak and ill during her pregnancy it is thought that a boy will be born, but if she is strong and healthy,
+a girl. A woman in advanced pregnancy is given whatever she desires to eat, and on one occasion especially delicate kinds
+of food are served to her, this rite being known as Sidhori. The explanation of the custom is that if the mother does not
+get the food she desires during pregnancy the child will long for it all through life. If delivery is delayed, a line of men
+and boys is sometimes made from the door of the house to a well, and a vessel is then passed from hand to hand from the house,
+filled with water, and back again. Thus the water, having acquired the quality of speed during its rapid transit, will communicate
+this to the woman and cause her quick delivery. Or they take some of the clay left unmoulded on the potter&#8217;s wheel and give
+it her to drink in water; the explanation of this is exactly similar, the earth having acquired the quality of swiftness by
+the rapid transit on the wheel. If three boys or three girls have been born to a woman, they think that the fourth should
+be of the same sex, in order to make up <a id="d0e1624"></a><span class="pagenum">[<a href="#d0e1624">28</a>]</span>two pairs. A boy or girl born after three of the opposite sex is called Titra or Titri, and is considered very unlucky. To
+avert this misfortune they cover the child with a basket, kindle a fire of grass all round it, and smash a brass pot on the
+floor. Then they say that the baby is the fifth and not the fourth child, and the evil is thus removed. When one woman gives
+birth to a male and another to a female child in the same quarter of a village on the same day and they are attended by the
+same midwife, it is thought that the boy child will fall ill from the contagion of the girl child communicated through the
+midwife. To avoid this, on the following Sunday the child&#8217;s maternal uncle makes a banghy, which is carried across the shoulders
+like a large pair of scales, and weighs the child in it against cowdung. He then takes the banghy and deposits it at cross-roads
+outside the village. The father cannot see either the child or its mother till after the Chathi or sixth-day ceremony of purification,
+when the mother is bathed and dressed in clean clothes, the males of the family are shaved, all their clothes are washed,
+and the house is whitewashed; the child is also named on this day. The mother cannot go out of doors until after the B&#257;rhi
+or twelfth-day ceremony. If a child is born at an unlucky astrological period its ears are pierced in the fifth month after
+birth as a means of protection.
+
+
+</p>
+<div id="d0e1626" class="figure"><img border="0" src="images/p028.jpg" alt="Image of Krishna as Murlidhar or the flute-player, with attendant deities." width="720" height="525"><p class="figureHead">Image of Krishna as Murlidhar or the flute-player, with attendant deities.</p>
+</div><p>
+
+
+
+</p>
+</div>
+<div class="div2" id="d0e1630">
+<h3>11. Funeral rites. Bringing back the soul.</h3>
+<p>The dead are either buried or burnt. When a man is dying they put basil leaves and boiled rice and milk in his mouth, and
+a little piece of gold, or if they have not got gold they put a rupee in his mouth and take it out again. For ten days after
+a death, food in a leaf-cup and a lamp are set out in the house-yard every evening, and every morning water and a tooth-stick.
+On the tenth day they are taken away and consigned to a river. In Chhatt&#299;sgarh on the third day after death the soul is brought
+back. The women put a lamp on a red earthen pot and go to a tank or stream at night. The fish are attracted towards the light,
+and one of them is caught and put in the pot, which is then filled with water. It is brought home and set beside a small heap
+of flour, and the elders sit round it. The son of the deceased or other near relative anoints himself with turmeric and picks
+up a stone. This is washed with the water from <a id="d0e1635"></a><span class="pagenum">[<a href="#d0e1635">29</a>]</span>the pot, and placed on the floor, and a sacrifice of a cock or hen is made to it according as the deceased was a man or a
+woman. The stone is then enshrined in the house as a family god, and the sacrifice of a fowl is repeated annually. It is supposed
+apparently that the dead man&#8217;s spirit is brought back to the house in the fish, and then transferred to the stone by washing
+this with the water.
+
+
+</p>
+</div>
+<div class="div2" id="d0e1637">
+<h3>12. Religion. Krishna and other deified cowherds.</h3>
+<p>The Ah&#299;rs have a special relation to the Hindu religion, owing to their association with the sacred cow, which is itself revered
+as a goddess. When religion gets to the anthropomorphic stage the cowherd, who partakes of the cow&#8217;s sanctity, may be deified
+as its representative. This was probably the case with Krishna, one of the most popular gods of Hinduism, who was a cowherd,
+and, as he is represented as being of a dark colour, may even have been held to be of the indigenous races. Though, according
+to the legend, he was really of royal birth, Krishna was brought up by N&#257;nd, a herdsman of Gokul, and Jasoda or Dasoda his
+wife, and in the popular belief these are his parents, as they probably were in the original story. The substitution of Krishna,
+born as a prince, for Jasoda&#8217;s daughter, in order to protect him from destruction by the evil king K&#257;nsa of Mathura, is perhaps
+a later gloss, devised when his herdsman parentage was considered too obscure for the divine hero. Krishna&#8217;s childhood in
+Jasoda&#8217;s house with his miraculous feats of strength and his amorous sports with R&#257;dha and the other milkmaids of Brind&#257;wan,
+are among the most favourite Hindu legends. Govind and Gop&#257;l, the protector or guardian of cows, are names of Krishna and
+the commonest names of Hindus, as are also his other epithets, Murlidhar and Bansidhar, the flute-player; for Krishna and
+Bal&#257;r&#257;m, like Greek and Roman shepherds, were accustomed to divert themselves with song, to the accompaniment of the same
+instrument. The child Krishna is also very popular, and his birthday, the Janam-Ashtami on the 8th of dark Bh&#257;don (August),
+is a great festival. On this day potsful of curds are sprinkled over the assembled worshippers. Krishna, however, is not the
+solitary instance of the divine cowherd, but has several companions, humble indeed compared to him, but perhaps owing their
+apotheosis to the same reasons. Bh&#299;lat, a popular local godling of the <a id="d0e1642"></a><span class="pagenum">[<a href="#d0e1642">30</a>]</span>Nerbudda Valley, was the son of an Ah&#299;r or Gaoli woman; she was childless and prayed to P&#257;rvati for a child, and the goddess
+caused her votary to have one by her own husband, the god Mah&#257;deo. Bh&#299;lat was stolen away from his home by Mah&#257;deo in the
+disguise of a beggar, and grew up to be a great hero and made many conquests; but finally he returned and lived with his herdsman
+parents, who were no doubt his real ones. He performed numerous miracles, and his devotees are still possessed by his spirit.
+Sing&#257;ji is another godling who was a Gaoli by caste in Indore. He became a disciple of a holy Gokulastha Gosain or ascetic,
+and consequently a great observer of the Janam-Ashtami or Krishna&#8217;s birthday.<a id="d0e1644src" href="#d0e1644" class="noteref">14</a> On one occasion Sing&#257;ji was late for prayers on this day, and the <i>guru</i> was very angry, and said to him, &#8216;Don&#8217;t show your face to me again until you are dead.&#8217; Sing&#257;ji went home and told the other
+children he was going to die. Then he went and buried himself alive. The occurrence was noised abroad and came to the ears
+of the <i>guru</i>, who was much distressed, and proceeded to offer his condolences to Sing&#257;ji&#8217;s family. But on the way he saw Sing&#257;ji, who
+had been miraculously raised from the dead on account of his virtuous act of obedience, grazing his buffaloes as before. After
+asking for milk, which Sing&#257;ji drew from a male buffalo calf, the <i>guru</i> was able to inform the bereaved parents of their son&#8217;s joyful reappearance and his miraculous powers; of these Sing&#257;ji gave
+further subsequent demonstration, and since his death, said to have occurred 350 years ago, is widely venerated. The Gaolis
+pray to him for the protection of their cattle from disease, and make thank-offerings of butter if these prayers are fulfilled.
+Other pilgrims to Sing&#257;ji&#8217;s shrine offer unripe mangoes and sugar, and an annual fair is held at it, when it is said that
+for seven days no cows, flies or ants are to be seen in the place. In the Bet&#363;l district there is a village godling called
+Dait, represented by a stone under a tree. He is the spirit of any Ah&#299;r who in his lifetime was credited in the locality with
+having the powers of an exorcist. In Mandla and other Districts when any buffalo herdsman dies at a very advanced <a id="d0e1656"></a><span class="pagenum">[<a href="#d0e1656">31</a>]</span>age the people make a platform for him within the village and call it Mahashi Deo or the buffalo god. Similarly, when an old
+cattle herdsman dies they do the same, and call it Balki Deo or the bullock god. Here we have a clear instance of the process
+of substituting the spirit of the herdsman for the cow or buffalo as an object of worship. The occupation of the Ah&#299;r also
+lends itself to religious imaginations. He stays in the forest or waste grass-land, frequently alone from morning till night,
+watching his herds; and the credulous and uneducated minds of the more emotional may easily hear the voices of spirits, or
+in a half-sleeping condition during the heat and stillness of the long day may think that visions have appeared to them. Thus
+they come to believe themselves selected for communication with the unseen deities or spirits, and on occasions of strong
+religious excitement work themselves into a frenzy and are held to be possessed by a spirit or god.
+
+
+</p>
+</div>
+<div class="div2" id="d0e1658">
+<h3>13. Caste deities.</h3>
+<p>Among the special deities of the Ah&#299;rs is Kharak Deo, who is always located at the <i>khirkha</i>, or place of assembly of the cattle, on going to and returning from pasture. He appears to be the spirit or god of the <i>khirkha</i>. He is represented by a platform with an image of a horse on it, and when cattle fall ill the owners offer flour and butter
+to him. These are taken by the Ah&#299;rs in charge, and it is thought that the cattle will get well. Matar Deo is the god of the
+pen or enclosure for cattle made in the jungle. Three days after the Diw&#257;li festival the R&#257;wats sacrifice one or more goats
+to him, cutting off their heads. They throw the heads into the air, and the cattle, smelling the blood, run together and toss
+them with their horns as they do when they scent a tiger. The men then say that the animals are possessed by Matar Deo. Guraya
+Deo is a deity who lives in the cattle-stalls in the village and is worshipped once a year. A man holds an egg in his hand,
+and walks round the stall pouring liquid over the egg all the way, so as to make a line round it. The egg is then buried beneath
+the shrine of the god, the rite being probably meant to ensure his aid for the protection of the cattle from disease in their
+stalls. A favourite saint of the Ah&#299;rs is Harid&#257;s B&#257;ba. He was a Jogi, and could separate his soul from his body at pleasure.
+On one occasion he had <a id="d0e1669"></a><span class="pagenum">[<a href="#d0e1669">32</a>]</span>gone in spirit to Ben&#257;res, leaving his body in the house of one of his disciples, who was an Ah&#299;r. When he did not return,
+and the people heard that a dead body was lying there, they came and insisted that it should be burnt. When he came back and
+found that his body was burnt, he entered into a man and spoke through him, telling the people what had happened. In atonement
+for their unfortunate mistake they promised to worship him.
+
+
+
+</p>
+<div id="d0e1671" class="figure"><img border="0" src="images/p032.jpg" alt="Ah&#299;r dancers in Diw&#257;li costume." width="720" height="403"><p class="figureHead">Ah&#299;r dancers in Diw&#257;li costume.</p>
+</div><p>
+
+
+
+</p>
+</div>
+<div class="div2" id="d0e1675">
+<h3>14. Other deities.</h3>
+<p>The Mah&#257;kul Ah&#299;rs of Jashpur have three deities, whom they call Mah&#257;deo or Siva, Sah&#257;deo, one of the five P&#257;ndava brothers,
+and the goddess Lakshmi. They say that the buffalo is Mah&#257;deo, the cow Sah&#257;deo, and the rice Lakshmi. This also appears to
+be an instance of the personification of animals and the corn into anthropomorphic deities.
+
+
+</p>
+</div>
+<div class="div2" id="d0e1680">
+<h3>15. The Diw&#257;li festival.</h3>
+<p>The principal festival of the Ah&#299;rs is the Diw&#257;li, falling about the beginning of November, which is also the time when the
+autumn crops ripen. All classes observe this feast by illuminating their houses with many small saucer-lamps and letting off
+crackers and fireworks, and they generally gamble with money to bring them good luck during the coming year. The Ah&#299;rs make
+a mound of earth, which is called Govardhan, that is the mountain in Mathura which Krishna held upside down on his finger
+for seven days and nights, so that all the people might gather under it and be protected from the devastating storms of rain
+sent by Indra. After dancing round the mound they drive their cattle over it and make them trample it to pieces. At this time
+a festival called Marhai is held, at which much liquor is drunk and all classes disport themselves. In Damoh on this day the
+Ah&#299;rs go to the standing-place for village cattle, and after worshipping the god, frighten the cattle by waving leaves of
+the basil-plant at them, and then put on fantastic dresses, decorating themselves with cowries, and go round the village,
+singing and dancing. Elsewhere at the time of the Marhai they dance round a pole with peacock feathers tied to the top, and
+sometimes wear peacock feathers themselves, as well as aprons sewn all over with cowries. It is said that Krishna and Bal&#257;r&#257;m
+used to wear peacock feathers when they danced in the jungles of Mathura, but this rite has probably some connection with
+<a id="d0e1685"></a><span class="pagenum">[<a href="#d0e1685">33</a>]</span>the worship of the peacock. This bird might be venerated by the Ah&#299;rs as one of the prominent denizens of the jungle. In Raipur
+they tie a white cock to the top of the pole and dance round it. In Mandla, Khila Mutha, the god of the threshing-floor, is
+worshipped at this time, with offerings of a fowl and a goat. They also perform the rite of <i>jag&#257;na</i> or waking him up. They tie branches of a small shrub to a stick and pour milk over the stone which is his emblem, and sing,
+&#8216;Wake up, Khila Mutha, this is the night of Am&#257;was&#8217; (the new moon). Then they go to the cattle-shed and wake up the cattle,
+crying, &#8216;Poraiya, god of the door, watchman of the window, open the door, N&#257;nd Gow&#257;l is coming.&#8217; Then they drive out the cattle
+and chase them with the branches tied to their sticks as far as their grazing-ground. N&#257;nd Gow&#257;l was the foster-father of
+Krishna, and is now said to signify a man who has a lakh (100,000) of cows. This custom of frightening the cattle and making
+them run is called <i>dhor jag&#257;na</i> or <i>bichk&#257;na</i>, that is, to wake up or terrify the cattle. Its meaning is obscure, but it is said to preserve the cattle from disease during
+the year. In Raipur the women make an image of a parrot in clay at the Diw&#257;li and place it on a pole and go round to the different
+houses, singing and dancing round the pole, and receiving presents of rice and money. They praise the parrot as the bird who
+carries messages from a lover to his mistress, and as living on the mountains and among the green verdure, and sing:
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Oh, parrot, where shall we sow <i>gondla</i> grass and where shall we sow rice?
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;We will sow <i>gondla</i> in a pond and rice in the field.
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;With what shall we cut <i>gondla</i> grass, and with what shall we cut rice?
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;We shall cut <i>gondla</i> with an axe and rice with a sickle.&#8221;
+
+</p>
+<p>It is probable that the parrot is revered as a spirit of the forest, and also perhaps because it is destructive to the corn.
+The parrot is not, so far as is known, associated with any god, but the Hindus do not kill it. In Bil&#257;spur an ear of rice
+is put into the parrot&#8217;s mouth, and it is said there that the object of the rite is to prevent the parrots from preying on
+the corn.
+<a id="d0e1718"></a><span class="pagenum">[<a href="#d0e1718">34</a>]</span>
+
+
+</p>
+</div>
+<div class="div2" id="d0e1720">
+<h3>16. Omens.</h3>
+<p>On the night of the full moon of Jesth (May) the Ah&#299;rs stay awake all night, and if the moon is covered with clouds they think
+that the rains will be good. If a cow&#8217;s horns are not firmly fixed in the head and seem to shake slightly, it is called Maini,
+and such an animal is considered to be lucky. If a bullock sits down with three legs under him and the fourth stretched out
+in front it is a very good omen, and it is thought that his master&#8217;s cattle will increase and multiply. When a buffalo-calf
+is born they cover it at once with a black cloth and remove it from the mother&#8217;s sight, as they think that if she saw the
+calf and it then died her milk would dry up. The calf is fed by hand. Cow-calves, on the other hand, are usually left with
+the mother, and many people allow them to take all the milk, as they think it a sin to deprive them of it.
+
+
+</p>
+</div>
+<div class="div2" id="d0e1725">
+<h3>17. Social customs.</h3>
+<p>The Ah&#299;rs will eat the flesh of goats and chickens, and most of them consume liquor freely. The Kaonra Ah&#299;rs of Mandla eat
+pork, and the R&#257;wats of Chhatt&#299;sgarh are said not to object to field-mice and rats, even when caught in the houses. The Kaonra
+Ah&#299;rs are also said not to consider a woman impure during the period of menstruation. Nevertheless the Ah&#299;rs enjoy a good
+social status, owing to their relations with the sacred cow. As remarked by Eha: &#8220;His family having been connected for many
+generations with the sacred animal he enjoys a certain consciousness of moral respectability, like a man whose uncles are
+deans or canons.&#8221;<a id="d0e1730src" href="#d0e1730" class="noteref">15</a> All castes will take water from the hands of an Ah&#299;r, and in Chhatt&#299;sgarh and the Uriya country the R&#257;wats and Gahras, as
+the Ah&#299;r caste is known respectively in these localities, are the only caste from whom Br&#257;hmans and all other Hindus will
+take water. On this account, and because of their comparative purity, they are largely employed as personal servants. In Chhatt&#299;sgarh
+the ordinary R&#257;wats will clean the cooking-vessels even of Muhammadans, but the Thethw&#257;r or pure R&#257;wats refuse this menial
+work. In Mandla, when a man is to be brought back into caste after a serious offence, such as getting vermin in a wound, he
+is made to stand in the middle of a stream, while some elderly relative pours water over him. <a id="d0e1734"></a><span class="pagenum">[<a href="#d0e1734">35</a>]</span>He then addresses the members of the caste <i>panch&#257;yat</i> or committee, who are standing on the bank, saying to them, &#8216;Will you leave me in the mud or will you take me out?&#8217; Then
+they tell him to come out, and he has to give a feast. At this a member of the Meliha sept first eats food and puts some into
+the offender&#8217;s mouth, thus taking the latter&#8217;s sin upon himself. The offender then addresses the <i>panch&#257;yat</i> saying, &#8216;R&#257;jas of the Panch, eat.&#8217; Then the <i>panch&#257;yat</i> and all the caste take food with him and he is readmitted. In N&#257;ndgaon State the head of the caste <i>panch&#257;yat</i> is known as Thethw&#257;r, the title of the highest subcaste, and is appointed by the R&#257;ja, to whom he makes a present. In Jashpur,
+among the Mah&#257;kul Ah&#299;rs, when an offender is put out of caste he has on readmission to make an offering of Rs. 1&#8211;4 to B&#257;l&#257;ji,
+the tutelary deity of the State. These Mah&#257;kuls desire to be considered superior to ordinary Ah&#299;rs, and their social rules
+are hence very strict. A man is put out of caste if a dog, fowl or pig touches his water or cooking-pots, or if he touches
+a fowl. In the latter case he is obliged to make an offering of a fowl to the local god, and eight days are allowed for procuring
+it. A man is also put out of caste for beating his father. In Mandla, Ah&#299;rs commonly have the title of Patel or headman of
+a village, probably because in former times, when the country consisted almost entirely of forest and grass land, they were
+accustomed to hold large areas on contract for grazing.
+
+
+</p>
+</div>
+<div class="div2" id="d0e1748">
+<h3>18. Ornaments.</h3>
+<p>In Chhatt&#299;sgarh the R&#257;wat women are especially fond of wearing large <i>churas</i> or leg-ornaments of bell-metal. These consist of a long cylinder which fits closely to the leg, being made in two halves
+which lock into each other, while at each end and in the centre circular plates project outwards horizontally. A pair of these
+<i>churas</i> may weigh 8 or 10 lbs., and cost from Rs. 3 to Rs. 9. It is probable that some important magical advantage was expected to
+come from the wearing of these heavy appendages, which must greatly impede free progression, but its nature is not known.
+
+
+</p>
+</div>
+<div class="div2" id="d0e1759">
+<h3>19. Occupation.</h3>
+<p>Only about thirty per cent of the Ah&#299;rs are still occupied in breeding cattle and dealing in milk and butter. About four per
+cent are domestic servants, and nearly all the remainder cultivators and labourers. In former times the <a id="d0e1764"></a><span class="pagenum">[<a href="#d0e1764">36</a>]</span>Ah&#299;rs had the exclusive right of milking the cow, so that on all occasions an Ah&#299;r must be hired for this purpose even by
+the lowest castes. Any one could, however, milk the buffalo, and also make curds and other preparations from cow&#8217;s milk.<a id="d0e1766src" href="#d0e1766" class="noteref">16</a> This rule is interesting as showing how the caste system was maintained and perpetuated by the custom of preserving to each
+caste a monopoly of its traditional occupation. The rule probably applied also to the bulk of the cultivating and the menial
+and artisan castes, and now that it has been entirely abrogated it would appear that the gradual decay and dissolution of
+the caste organisation must follow. The village cattle are usually entrusted jointly to one or more herdsmen for grazing purposes.
+The grazier is paid separately for each animal entrusted to his care, a common rate being one anna for a cow or bullock and
+two annas for a buffalo per month. When a calf is born he gets four annas for a cow-calf and eight annas for a she-buffalo,
+but except in the rice districts nothing for a male buffalo-calf, as these animals are considered useless outside the rice
+area. The reason is that buffaloes do not work steadily except in swampy or wet ground, where they can refresh themselves
+by frequent drinking. In the northern Districts male buffalo-calves are often neglected and allowed to die, but the cow-buffaloes
+are extremely valuable, because their milk is the principal source of supply of <i>gh&#299;</i> or boiled butter. When a cow or buffalo is in milk the grazier often gets the milk one day out of four or five. When a calf
+is born the teats of the cow are first milked about twenty times on to the ground in the name of the local god of the Ah&#299;rs.
+The remainder of the first day&#8217;s milk is taken by the grazier, and for the next few days it is given to friends. The village
+grazier is often also expected to prepare the guest-house for Government officers and others visiting the village, fetch grass
+for their animals, and clean their cooking vessels. For this he sometimes receives a small plot of land and a present of a
+blanket annually from the village proprietor. M&#257;lguz&#257;rs and large tenants have their private herdsmen. The pasturage afforded
+by the village waste lands and forest is, as a rule, only sufficient for the plough-bullocks <a id="d0e1774"></a><span class="pagenum">[<a href="#d0e1774">37</a>]</span>and more valuable milch-animals. The remainder are taken away sometimes for long distances to the Government forest reserves,
+and here the herdsmen make stockades in the jungle and remain there with their animals for months together. The cattle which
+remain in the village are taken by the owners in the early morning to the <i>khirkha</i> or central standing-ground. Here the grazier takes them over and drives them out to pasture. He brings them back at ten or
+eleven, and perhaps lets them stand in some field which the owner wants manured. Then he separates the cows and milch-buffaloes
+and takes them to their masters&#8217; houses, where he milks them all. In the afternoon all the cattle are again collected and
+driven out to pasture. The cultivators are very much in the grazier&#8217;s hands, as they cannot supervise him, and if dishonest
+he may sell off a cow or calf to a friend in a distant village and tell the owner that it has been carried off by a tiger
+or panther. Unless the owner succeeds by a protracted search or by accident in finding the animal he cannot disprove the herdsman&#8217;s
+statement, and the only remedy is to dispense with the latter&#8217;s services if such losses become unduly frequent. On this account,
+according to the proverbs, the Ah&#299;r is held to be treacherous and false to his engagements. They are also regarded as stupid
+because they seldom get any education, retain their rustic and half-aboriginal dialect, and on account of their solitary life
+are dull and slow-witted in company. &#8216;The barber&#8217;s son learns to shave on the Ah&#299;r&#8217;s head.&#8217; &#8216;The cow is in league with the
+milkman and lets him milk water into the pail.&#8217; The Ah&#299;rs are also hot-tempered, and their propensity for drinking often results
+in affrays, when they break each other&#8217;s head with their cattle-staffs. &#8216;A Gaoli&#8217;s quarrel: drunk at night and friends in
+the morning.&#8217;
+
+
+</p>
+</div>
+<div class="div2" id="d0e1779">
+<h3>20. Preparations of milk.</h3>
+<p>Hindus nearly always boil their milk before using it, as the taste of milk fresh from the cow is considered unpalatable. After
+boiling, the milk is put in a pot and a little old curds added, when the whole becomes <i>dahi</i> or sour curds. This is a favourite food, and appears to be exactly the same substance as the Bulgarian sour milk which is
+now considered to have much medicinal value. Butter is also made by churning these curds or <i>dahi</i>. Butter is never used <a id="d0e1790"></a><span class="pagenum">[<a href="#d0e1790">38</a>]</span>without being boiled first, when it becomes converted into a sort of oil; this has the advantage of keeping much better than
+fresh butter, and may remain fit for use for as long as a year. This boiled butter is known as <i>gh&#299;</i>, and is the staple product of the dairy industry, the bulk of the surplus supply of milk being devoted to its manufacture.
+It is freely used by all classes who can afford it, and serves very well for cooking purposes. There is a comparatively small
+market for fresh milk among the Hindus, and as a rule only those drink milk who obtain it from their own animals. The acid
+residue after butter has been made from <i>dahi</i> (curds) or milk is known as <i>matha</i> or butter-milk, and is the only kind of milk drunk by the poorer classes. Milk boiled so long as to become solidified is
+known as <i>kh&#299;r</i>, and is used by confectioners for making sweets. When the milk is boiled and some sour milk added to it, so that it coagulates
+while hot, the preparation is called <i>chhana</i>. The whey is expressed from this by squeezing it in a cloth, and a kind of cheese is obtained.<a id="d0e1807src" href="#d0e1807" class="noteref">17</a> The liquid which oozes out at the root of a cow&#8217;s horns after death is known as <i>gaolochan</i> and sells for a high price, as it is considered a valuable medicine for children&#8217;s cough and lung diseases.
+
+
+</p>
+</div>
+<div class="footnotes">
+<hr class="fnsep">
+<p class="footnote"><span class="label"><a id="d0e1447" href="#d0e1447src" class="noteref">1</a></span> The information about birth customs in this article is from a paper by Mr. K&#257;lika Pras&#257;d, Tahs&#299;ld&#257;r, R&#257;j-Nandgaon State.
+</p>
+<p class="footnote"><span class="label"><a id="d0e1451" href="#d0e1451src" class="noteref">2</a></span> <i>Go</i>, <i>gau</i> or <i>gai</i>, an ox or cow, and <i>p&#257;l</i> or <i>p&#257;lak</i>, guardian.
+</p>
+<p class="footnote"><span class="label"><a id="d0e1479" href="#d0e1479src" class="noteref">3</a></span> <i>Ind. Ant.</i> (Jan. 1911), &#8216;Foreign Elements in the Hindu Population,&#8217; by Mr. D. R. Bhandarkar.
+</p>
+<p class="footnote"><span class="label"><a id="d0e1487" href="#d0e1487src" class="noteref">4</a></span> Elliot, <i>Supplemental Glossary</i>, <i>s.v.</i> Ah&#299;r.
+</p>
+<p class="footnote"><span class="label"><a id="d0e1496" href="#d0e1496src" class="noteref">5</a></span> <i>Early History of India</i>, 3rd ed. p. 286.
+</p>
+<p class="footnote"><span class="label"><a id="d0e1501" href="#d0e1501src" class="noteref">6</a></span> Elliot, <i>ibidem.</i></p>
+<p class="footnote"><span class="label"><a id="d0e1506" href="#d0e1506src" class="noteref">7</a></span> <i>Bombay Monograph on Ahir.</i></p>
+<p class="footnote"><span class="label"><a id="d0e1510" href="#d0e1510src" class="noteref">8</a></span> Elliot, <i>ibidem.</i></p>
+<p class="footnote"><span class="label"><a id="d0e1517" href="#d0e1517src" class="noteref">9</a></span> <i>Central Provinces Gazetteer</i> (1871), Introduction.
+</p>
+<p class="footnote"><span class="label"><a id="d0e1532" href="#d0e1532src" class="noteref">10</a></span> <i>Linguistic Survey of India</i>, vol. ix. part ii. p. 50.
+</p>
+<p class="footnote"><span class="label"><a id="d0e1550" href="#d0e1550src" class="noteref">11</a></span> <i>Bombay Ethnographic Survey.</i></p>
+<p class="footnote"><span class="label"><a id="d0e1565" href="#d0e1565src" class="noteref">12</a></span> Quoted in <i>Tribes and Castes of Bengal</i>, art. Go&#257;la.
+</p>
+<p class="footnote"><span class="label"><a id="d0e1583" href="#d0e1583src" class="noteref">13</a></span> <i>R&#257;jasth&#257;n</i>, ii. p. 639.
+</p>
+<p class="footnote"><span class="label"><a id="d0e1644" href="#d0e1644src" class="noteref">14</a></span> Gokul was the place where Krishna was brought up, and the Gokulastha Gosains are his special devotees.
+</p>
+<p class="footnote"><span class="label"><a id="d0e1730" href="#d0e1730src" class="noteref">15</a></span> <i>Behind the Bungalow.</i></p>
+<p class="footnote"><span class="label"><a id="d0e1766" href="#d0e1766src" class="noteref">16</a></span> <i>Eastern India</i>, ii. p. 467.
+</p>
+<p class="footnote"><span class="label"><a id="d0e1807" href="#d0e1807src" class="noteref">17</a></span> Buchanan, <i>Eastern India</i>, ii. pp. 924, 943.
+</p>
+</div>
+</div>
+<div id="d0e1816" class="div1"><span class="pagenum">
+[<a href="#d0e111">Contents</a>]
+</span><h2>Andh</h2>
+<p><b>Andh.</b><a id="d0e1822src" href="#d0e1822" class="noteref">1</a>&#8212;A low cultivating caste of Ber&#257;r, who numbered 52,000 persons in 1911, and belong to the Yeotmal, Akola and Buld&#257;na Districts.
+The Andhs appear to be a non-Aryan tribe of the Andhra or Tamil country, from which they derive their name. The territories
+of the Andhra dynasty extended across southern India from sea to sea in the early part of the Christian era. This designation
+may, however, have been given to them after migration, emigrants being not infrequently called in their new country by the
+name of the place from which they came, as Ber&#257;ri, Purdesi, Audhia (from Oudh), and so on. At present there seems to be no
+caste called Andh in Madras. Mr. Kitts<a id="d0e1825src" href="#d0e1825" class="noteref">2</a> notes that they still come from Hyder&#257;b&#257;d across the Penganga river.
+<a id="d0e1830"></a><span class="pagenum">[<a href="#d0e1830">39</a>]</span></p>
+<p>The caste are divided into two groups, Vart&#257;ti or pure and Khalt&#257;ti or illegitimate, which take food together, but do not
+intermarry. They have a large number of exogamous septs, most of which appear to have Mar&#257;thi names, either taken from villages
+or of a titular character. A few are called after animals or plants, as M&#257;jiria the cat, Ringni a kind of tree, Dumare from
+Dumar, an ant-hill, Dukare from Dukar, a pig, and Titawe from Titawa, a bird. B&#257;ghm&#257;re means tiger-killer or one killed by
+a tiger; members of this sept revere the tiger. Two septs, Bhoyar and Wanj&#257;ri, are named after other castes.
+
+</p>
+<p>Marriage between members of the same sept is prohibited, and also between first cousins, except that a sister&#8217;s son may marry
+a brother&#8217;s daughter. Until recently marriage has been adult, but girls are now wedded as children, and betrothals are sometimes
+arranged before they are born. The ceremony resembles that of the Kunbis. Betrothals are arranged between October and December,
+and the weddings take place three or four months later, from January to April. If the bride is mature she goes at once to
+her husband&#8217;s house. Polygamy is allowed; and as only a well-to-do man can afford to obtain more than one wife, those who
+have several are held to be wealthy, and treated with respect. Divorce and the remarriage of widows are permitted, but the
+widow may not marry her husband&#8217;s brother nor any member of his clan. If an unmarried girl becomes pregnant by a man of her
+own or a superior caste she is fined, and can then be married as a widow. Her feet are not washed nor besmeared with red powder
+at the wedding ceremony like those of other girls. In some localities Andh women detected in a criminal intimacy even with
+men of such impure castes as the Mah&#257;rs and M&#257;ngs have been readmitted into the community. A substantial fine is imposed on
+a woman detected in adultery according to her means and spent on a feast to the caste. All the members thus have a personal
+interest in the detection and punishment of such offences. The dead are usually buried, and water and sugar are placed in
+a dying man&#8217;s mouth instead of the sacred objects used by Hindus; nor are the dying urged to call on R&#257;ma. The dead are buried
+with the head to the south, <a id="d0e1835"></a><span class="pagenum">[<a href="#d0e1835">40</a>]</span>in opposition to the Hindu custom. The Andhs will eat the flesh of fowls and pigs, and even cats, rats and snakes in some
+localities, though the more civilised have abjured these latter. They are very fond of pork, and drink liquor, and will take
+food from Kunbis, M&#257;lis and Kolis, but not from Gonds. They have a caste <i>panch&#257;yat</i> or committee, with a headman called Mohtaria, and two officers known as Phopatia and Dukria. When a caste offence is committed
+the Dukria goes to call the offender, and is given the earthen pots used at the penalty-feast, while the Phopatia receives
+a new piece of cloth. The Mohtaria or headman goes from village to village to decide cases, and gets a share of the fine.
+The caste are <i>shik&#257;ris</i> or hunters, and cultivators. They catch antelope, hares, pig and nilgai in their nets, and kill them with sticks and stones,
+and they dam up streams and net fish. Birds are not caught. Generally, the customs of the Andhs clearly point to an aboriginal
+origin, but they are rapidly being Hinduised, and in some tracts can scarcely be distinguished from Kunbis.
+
+</p>
+<p>They have Mar&#257;thi names; and though only one name is given at birth, Mr. Slaney notes that this is frequently changed for
+some pet name, and as often as not a man goes regularly by some name other than his real one.
+
+
+</p>
+<div class="footnotes">
+<hr class="fnsep">
+<p class="footnote"><span class="label"><a id="d0e1822" href="#d0e1822src" class="noteref">1</a></span> This article is mainly based on a paper by Mr. W. S. Slaney, E.A.C., Akola.
+</p>
+<p class="footnote"><span class="label"><a id="d0e1825" href="#d0e1825src" class="noteref">2</a></span> <i>Ber&#257;r Census Report</i> (1881).
+</p>
+</div>
+</div>
+<div id="d0e1845" class="div1"><span class="pagenum">
+[<a href="#d0e111">Contents</a>]
+</span><h2>Arakh</h2>
+<p><b>Arakh.</b>&#8212;A small caste of cultivators and labourers found principally in the Ch&#257;nda District and Ber&#257;r and scattered over other localities.
+The Arakhs are considered to be an offshoot of the P&#257;si or Bahelia caste of hunters and fowlers. Mr. Crooke<a id="d0e1852src" href="#d0e1852" class="noteref">1</a> writes of them: &#8220;All their traditions connect them with the P&#257;sis and Parasur&#257;ma, the sixth Avat&#257;ra of Vishnu. One story
+runs that Parasur&#257;ma was bathing in the sea, when a leech bit his foot and caused it to bleed. He divided the blood into two
+parts; out of one part he made the first P&#257;si and out of the second the first Arakh. Another story is that the P&#257;sis were
+made out of the sweat (<i>pas&#299;na</i>) of Parasur&#257;ma. While Parasur&#257;ma was away the P&#257;si shot some animals with his bow, and the deity was so enraged that he cursed
+the P&#257;si, and swore that his descendants should keep pigs. This accounts <a id="d0e1860"></a><span class="pagenum">[<a href="#d0e1860">41</a>]</span>for the degradation of the P&#257;sis. Subsequently Parasur&#257;ma sent for some P&#257;sis to help him in one of his wars; but they ran
+away and hid in an <i>arhar</i><a id="d0e1864src" href="#d0e1864" class="noteref">2</a> field and were hence called Arakhs.&#8221; This connection with the P&#257;sis is also recognised in the case of the Arakhs of Ber&#257;r,
+of whom Mr. Kitts writes:<a id="d0e1868src" href="#d0e1868" class="noteref">3</a> &#8220;The Arakhs found in Morsi are a race akin to the Bahelias. Their regular occupation is bird-catching and <i>shik&#257;r</i> (hunting). They do not follow Hindu customs in their marriages, but although they keep pigs, eat flesh and drink spirits,
+they will not touch a Cham&#257;r. They appear to be a branch of the P&#257;si tribe, and are described as a semi-Hinduised class of
+aborigines.&#8221; In the Ch&#257;nda District, however, the Arakhs are closely connected with the Gond tribe, as is evident from their
+system of exogamy. Thus they say that they are divided into the M&#257;tia, Tek&#257;m, Tesli, God&#257;m, Madai, Say&#257;m and Chorliu septs,
+worshipping respectively three, four, five, six, seven, eight and twelve gods; and persons who worship the same number of
+gods cannot marry with one another. This system of divisions according to the different number of gods worshipped is found
+in the Central Provinces only among the Gonds and one or two other tribes like the Baigas, who have adopted it from them,
+and as some of the names given above are also Gondi words, no doubt need be entertained that the Arakhs of Ch&#257;nda are largely
+of Gond descent. They are probably, in fact, the offspring of irregular connections between the Gonds and P&#257;sis, who, being
+both frequenters of the forests, would naturally come much into contact with each other. And being disowned by the true P&#257;sis
+on account of their defective pedigree, they have apparently set up as a separate caste and adopted the name of Arakh to hide
+the deficiencies of their ancestry.
+
+</p>
+<p>The social customs of the Arakhs resemble those of other low Hindu castes, and need not be given in detail. Their weddings
+are held near a temple of M&#257;roti, or if there be none such, then at the place where the Holi fire was lit in the preceding
+year. A bride-price varying from Rs. 25 to Rs. 40 is usually paid. In the case of the <a id="d0e1878"></a><span class="pagenum">[<a href="#d0e1878">42</a>]</span>marriage of a widow, the second husband goes to the house of the woman, where the couple are bathed and seated on two wooden
+boards, a branch of a cotton-plant being placed near them. The bridegroom then ties five strings of black glass beads round
+the woman&#8217;s neck. The dead are mourned for one day only, and a funeral feast is given to the caste-fellows. The Arakhs are
+a very low caste, but their touch does not convey impurity.
+
+
+</p>
+<div class="footnotes">
+<hr class="fnsep">
+<p class="footnote"><span class="label"><a id="d0e1852" href="#d0e1852src" class="noteref">1</a></span> <i>Tribes and Castes</i>, art. Arakh.
+</p>
+<p class="footnote"><span class="label"><a id="d0e1864" href="#d0e1864src" class="noteref">2</a></span> <i>Cajanus indicus.</i></p>
+<p class="footnote"><span class="label"><a id="d0e1868" href="#d0e1868src" class="noteref">3</a></span> <i>Ber&#257;r Census Report</i> (1881), p. 157.
+</p>
+</div>
+</div>
+<div id="d0e1880" class="div1"><span class="pagenum">
+[<a href="#d0e111">Contents</a>]
+</span><h2>At&#257;ri</h2>
+<div class="div2" id="d0e1883">
+<h3>1. General notice.</h3>
+<p><b>At&#257;ri,<a id="d0e1889src" href="#d0e1889" class="noteref">1</a> Gandhi, <span id="d0e1892" class="corr" title="Source: Bukekari">Bukek&#257;ri</span>.</b>&#8212;A small Muhammadan caste of retailers of scent, incense, tooth-powder and <i>kunku</i> or pink powder. At&#257;ri is derived from <i>atar</i> or <i>itra</i>, attar of roses. Gandhi comes from <i>gandh</i>, a Sanskrit word for scent. Bukek&#257;ri is a Mar&#257;thi word meaning a seller of powder. The At&#257;ris number about two hundred persons
+in N&#257;gpur, Wardha and Ber&#257;r. Both Hindus and Muhammadans follow the profession, but the Hindu At&#257;ris are not a separate caste,
+and belong to the Teli, Gurao and Beld&#257;r castes. The Muhammadan At&#257;ris, to whom this article refers, may marry with other
+Muhammadans, with the exception of low-class tradesmen like the Pinj&#257;ras, Kasais and Kunjras. One instance of an At&#257;ri marrying
+a Rangrez is known, but usually they decline to do so. But since they are not considered to be the equals of ordinary Muhammadans,
+they constitute more or less a distinct social group. They are of the same position as Muhammadan tin-workers, bangle-makers
+and pedlars, and sometimes intermarry with them. They admit Hindu converts into the community, but the women refuse to eat
+with them, and the better-class families will not intermarry with converts. A new convert must be circumcised, but if he is
+of advanced age, or if his foreskin is wanting, as sometimes happens, they take a rolled-up betel-leaf and cut it in two in
+substitution for the rite.
+
+
+</p>
+</div>
+<div class="div2" id="d0e1908">
+<h3>2. Marriage customs.</h3>
+<p>It is essential that a girl should be married before adolescence, as it is said that when the signs of puberty appear in her
+before wedlock her parents commit a crime equivalent to the shedding of human blood. The father <a id="d0e1913"></a><span class="pagenum">[<a href="#d0e1913">43</a>]</span>of the boy looks for a bride, and after dropping hints to the girl&#8217;s family to see if his proposal is acceptable, he sends
+some female relatives or friends to discuss the marriage. Before the wedding the boy is presented with a <i>chh&#257;p</i> or ring of gold or silver with a small cup-like attachment. A <i>mehar</i> or dowry must be given to the bride, the amount of which is not below Rs. 50 or above Rs. 250. The bride&#8217;s parents give her
+cooking vessels, bedding and a bedstead. After the wedding, the couple are seated on a cot while the women sing songs, and
+they see each other&#8217;s face reflected in a mirror. The procession returns after a stay of four days, and is received by the
+women of the bridegroom&#8217;s family with some humorous ceremonies bearing on the nature of marriage. A feast called T&#257;mm Wal&#299;ma
+follows, and the couple are shut up together in an inner room, even though they may be under age. The marriage includes some
+Hindu customs, such as the erection of the <i>pandal</i> or shed, rubbing the couple with turmeric and oil, and the tying on of <i>kankans</i> or wrist-bands. A girl going wrong before marriage may be wedded with full rites so long as she has not conceived, but after
+conception until her child is born she cannot go through the ceremony at all. After the birth of the child she may be married
+simply with the rite for widows. She retains the child, but it has no claim to succeed to her husband&#8217;s property. A widow
+may marry again after an interval of forty days from her first husband&#8217;s death, and she may wed her younger brother-in-law.
+Divorce is permitted at the instance of either party, and for mere disagreement. A man usually divorces his wife by vowing
+in the presence of two witnesses that he will in future consider intercourse with her as incestuous in the same degree as
+with his mother. A divorced woman has a claim to her <i>mehar</i> or dowry if not already paid, but forfeits it if she marries again. A man can marry the daughter of his paternal uncle. The
+services of a K&#257;zi at weddings are paid for with a fee of Rs. 1&#8211;4, and well-to-do persons also give him a pair of turbans.
+
+
+</p>
+</div>
+<div class="div2" id="d0e1930">
+<h3>3. Religion.</h3>
+<p>The At&#257;ris are Muhammadans of the Sunn&#299; sect. They revere the Muhammadan saints, and on the night of Shabr&#257;t they let off
+fireworks in honour of their ancestors and make <a id="d0e1935"></a><span class="pagenum">[<a href="#d0e1935">44</a>]</span>offerings of <i>halwa</i><a id="d0e1939src" href="#d0e1939" class="noteref">2</a> to them and place lamps and scent on their tombs. They swear by the pig and abstain from eating its flesh. The dog is considered
+an unclean animal and its tail, ears and tongue are especially defiling. If the hair of a dog falls on the ground they cannot
+pray in that place because the souls of the prophets cannot come there. To see a dog flapping its ears is a bad omen, and
+a person starting on a journey should postpone his departure. They esteem the spider, because they say it spread its web over
+the mouth of the cave where Hasan and Husain lay concealed from their enemies and thus prevented it from being searched. Some
+of them have P&#299;rs or spiritual preceptors, these being Muhammadan beggars, not necessarily celibate. The ceremony of adhesion
+is that a man should drink sherbet from the cup from which his preceptor has drunk. They do not observe impurity after a death
+nor bathe on returning from a funeral.
+
+
+</p>
+</div>
+<div class="div2" id="d0e1942">
+<h3>4. Social customs.</h3>
+<p>Liquor is of course prohibited to the At&#257;ris as to other Muhammadans, but some of them drink it nevertheless. Some of them
+eat beef and others abstain. The blood of animals killed must flow before death according to the rite of <i>hal&#257;l</i>, but they say that fish are an exception, because when Abraham was offering up his son Ishmael and God substituted a goat,
+the goat bleated before it was killed, and this offended Abraham, who threw his sacrificial knife into the sea: the knife
+struck and killed a fish, and on this account all fish are considered to be <i>hal&#257;l</i> or lawful food without any further rite. The At&#257;ris observe the Hindu law of inheritance, and some of them worship Hindu
+deities, as M&#257;ta the goddess of smallpox. As a rule their women are not secluded. The At&#257;ris make <i>missi</i> or tooth-powder from myrobalans, cloves and cardamoms, and other constituents. This has the effect of blackening the teeth.
+They also sell the <i>kunku</i> or red powder which women rub on their foreheads, its constituents being turmeric, borax and the juice of limes. They sell
+scent and sometimes deal in tobacco. The scents most in demand are <i>gul&#257;b-p&#257;ni</i> or rose-water and <i>phulel</i> or essence of tilli or sesamum. Scents are usually sold by the tola of 18 annas silver weight,<a id="d0e1965src" href="#d0e1965" class="noteref">3</a> and <a id="d0e1968"></a><span class="pagenum">[<a href="#d0e1968">45</a>]</span>a tola of attar may vary in price from 8 annas to Rs. 80. Other scents are made from <i>khas-khas</i> grass, the mango, henna and musk, the <i>bela</i> flower,<a id="d0e1976src" href="#d0e1976" class="noteref">4</a> the champak<a id="d0e1980src" href="#d0e1980" class="noteref">5</a> and cucumber. Scent is manufactured by distillation from the flowers boiled in water, and the drops of congealed vapour fall
+into sandalwood oil, which they say is the basis of all scents. Fragrant oils are also sold for rubbing on the hair, made
+from orange flowers, jasmine, cotton-seed and the flowers of the <i>aonla</i> tree.<a id="d0e1987src" href="#d0e1987" class="noteref">6</a> Scent is sold in tiny circular glass bottles, and the oils in little bottles made from thin leather. The At&#257;ris also retail
+the little black sticks of incense which are set up and burnt at the time of taking food and in temples, so that the smell
+and smoke may keep off evil spirits. When professional exorcists are called upon to clear any building, such as a hospital,
+supposed to be haunted by spirits or the ghosts of the dead, they commence operations by placing these sticks of incense at
+the entrance and setting them alight as in a temple.
+
+
+</p>
+</div>
+<div class="footnotes">
+<hr class="fnsep">
+<p class="footnote"><span class="label"><a id="d0e1889" href="#d0e1889src" class="noteref">1</a></span> Based on papers by Mr. Bijai Bah&#257;dur Royz&#257;da, Naib-Tahs&#299;ld&#257;r Hingangh&#257;t, and Munshi Kanhya L&#257;l of the Gazetteer office.
+</p>
+<p class="footnote"><span class="label"><a id="d0e1939" href="#d0e1939src" class="noteref">2</a></span> A preparation of raisins and other fruits and rice.
+</p>
+<p class="footnote"><span class="label"><a id="d0e1965" href="#d0e1965src" class="noteref">3</a></span> The ordinary tola is a rupee weight or two-fifths of an ounce.
+</p>
+<p class="footnote"><span class="label"><a id="d0e1976" href="#d0e1976src" class="noteref">4</a></span> <i>Jasminum zambac.</i></p>
+<p class="footnote"><span class="label"><a id="d0e1980" href="#d0e1980src" class="noteref">5</a></span> <i>Michelia champaca.</i></p>
+<p class="footnote"><span class="label"><a id="d0e1987" href="#d0e1987src" class="noteref">6</a></span> <i>Phyllanthus emblica.</i></p>
+</div>
+</div>
+<div id="d0e1991" class="div1"><span class="pagenum">
+[<a href="#d0e111">Contents</a>]
+</span><h2>Audhelia</h2>
+<div class="div2" id="d0e1994">
+<h3>1. Origin.</h3>
+<p><b>Audhelia (Audhalia).</b>&#8212;A small hybrid caste found almost exclusively in the Bil&#257;spur District, where they number about 1000 persons. The name is
+derived from the word Udharia, meaning a person with clandestine sexual intimacies. The Audhelias are a mixed caste and trace
+their origin from a Daharia R&#257;jp&#363;t ancestor, by one Bh&#363;ri B&#257;ndi, a female slave of unknown caste. This couple is supposed
+to have resided in Ratanpur, the old capital of Chhatt&#299;sgarh, and the female ancestors of the Audhelias are said to have been
+prostitutes until they developed into a caste and began to marry among themselves. Their proper avocation at present is the
+rearing of pigs, while some of them are also tenants and farm-labourers. Owing to the base descent and impure occupation of
+the caste they are held in very low esteem, and their touch is considered to convey pollution.
+
+
+</p>
+</div>
+<div class="div2" id="d0e2001">
+<h3>2. Marriage.</h3>
+<p>The caste have at present no endogamous divisions and still admit members of other castes with the exception of the very lowest.
+But social gradations exist to a certain <a id="d0e2006"></a><span class="pagenum">[<a href="#d0e2006">46</a>]</span>extent among the members according to the position of their male ancestors, a Daharia Audhelia, for instance, being reluctant
+to eat or intermarry with a Panka Audhelia. Under these circumstances it has become a rule among the Audhelias not to eat
+with their caste-fellows excepting their own relations. On the occasion of a caste feast, therefore, each guest prepares his
+own food, taking only uncooked grain from his host. At present seven <i>gotras</i> or exogamous divisions appear to have been formed in the caste with the names of Pachbhaiya, Chhahri, K&#257;lkhor, Bachh&#257;wat,
+Dhan&#257;wat, Bhainsa and Limu&#257;n. The following story exists as to the origin of these <i>gotras</i>: There were formerly three brothers, Sahasm&#257;n, Budha and Mangal, who were S&#257;nsis or robbers. One evening the three brothers
+halted in a forest and went to look for food. One brought back a buffalo-horn, another a peacock&#8217;s feather and the youngest,
+Mangal, brought plums. The other brothers asked Mangal to let them share his plums, to which he agreed on condition that one
+of the brothers should give his daughter to him in marriage. As Mangal and his brothers were of one <i>gotra</i> or section, and the marriage would thus involve splitting up the <i>gotra</i>, the brothers were doubtful whether it could be performed. They sought about for some sign to determine this difficult question,
+and decided that if Mangal succeeded in breaking in pieces an iron image of a cat simply by blows of his naked fist, it would
+be a sufficient indication that they might split up their <i>gotra</i>. Mangal was therefore put to the ordeal and succeeded in breaking the image, so the three brothers split up their <i>gotra</i>, the eldest assuming the <i>gotra</i> name of Bhainsa because he had found a buffalo-horn, the second that of K&#257;lkhor, which is stated to mean peacock, and the
+third that of Chhahri, which at any rate does not mean a plum. The word Chhahri means either &#8216;shadow,&#8217; or &#8216;one who washes
+the clothes of a woman in confinement.&#8217; If we assume it to have the latter meaning, it may be due to the fact that Mangal
+had to wash the clothes of his own wife, not being able to induce a professional washerman to do so on account of the incestuous
+nature of the connection. As the eldest brother gave his daughter in an incestuous marriage he was also degraded, and became
+the ancestor <a id="d0e2029"></a><span class="pagenum">[<a href="#d0e2029">47</a>]</span>of the Kanjars or prostitutes, who, it is said, to the present day do not solicit Audhelias in consideration of the consanguinity
+existing between them. The story itself sufficiently indicates the low and mixed descent of the Audhelias, and its real meaning
+may possibly be that when they first began to form a separate caste they permitted incestuous marriages on account of the
+paucity of their members. A curious point about the story is that the incestuous nature of the connection is not taken to
+be the most pressing objection to the marriage of Mangal with his own niece, but the violation of the caste rule prohibiting
+marriage within the same <i>gotra</i>. Bachh&#257;wat and Dhan&#257;wat are the names of sections of the Banj&#257;ra caste, and the persons of these <i>gotras</i> among the Audhelias are probably the descendants of illicit connections among Banj&#257;ras. The word Pachbhaiya means &#8216;five brothers,&#8217;
+and this name possibly commemorates a polyandrous connection of some Audhelia woman. Limu&#257;n means a tortoise, which is a section
+of many castes. Several of the section-names are thus totemistic, and, as in other castes, some reverence is paid to the animal
+from whom the name is derived. At present the Audhelias forbid marriage within the same <i>gotra</i> and also the union of first cousins. Girls are married between five and seven years of age as their numbers are scarce, and
+they are engaged as early as possible. Unless weddings are arranged by exchanging girls between two families, a high bride-price,
+often amounting to as much as Rs. 60, is paid. No stigma is incurred, however, if a girl should remain unmarried till she
+arrives at adolescence, but, on the contrary, a higher price is then obtained for her. Sexual licence either before or after
+marriage is considered a venial offence, but a woman detected in a <i>liaison</i> with a man of one of the lowest castes is turned out of caste. Widow marriage and divorce are freely allowed.
+
+
+</p>
+</div>
+<div class="div2" id="d0e2043">
+<h3>3. Religion, birth and death.</h3>
+<p>The Audhelias venerate Dulha Deo and Devi, to whom they usually offer pigs. Their principal festival is the Holi, at which
+their women were formerly engaged to perform as professional dancers. They usually burn their dead and remove the ashes on
+the third day, throwing them into the nearest stream. A few of the bones are picked up and <a id="d0e2048"></a><span class="pagenum">[<a href="#d0e2048">48</a>]</span>buried under a p&#299;pal tree, and a pitcher with a hole in the bottom is hung on the tree so that water may trickle down on to
+them. On the tenth day the caste-people assemble and are shaved and bathe and rub their bodies with oil under the tree. Unmarried
+men and persons dying of cholera are buried, the head being placed to the north. They consider that if they place the corpse
+in the reverse position it would be an insult to the Ganges equivalent to kicking the holy river, as the feet of the body
+would then be turned towards it.
+
+
+
+<a id="d0e2050"></a><span class="pagenum">[<a href="#d0e2050">49</a>]</span></p>
+</div>
+</div>
+<div id="d0e2051" class="div1"><span class="pagenum">
+[<a href="#d0e111">Contents</a>]
+</span><h2>Badhak</h2>
+<h3>List of Paragraphs</h3>
+<ul>
+<li><a href="#d0e2142">1. Introductory notice.</a></li>
+<li><a href="#d0e2154">2. The Badhak dacoits.</a></li>
+<li><a href="#d0e2174">3. Instances of dacoities.</a></li>
+<li><a href="#d0e2196">4. Further instances of dacoities.</a></li>
+<li><a href="#d0e2226">5. Disguise of religious mendicants.</a></li>
+<li><a href="#d0e2245">6. Countenance and support of landowners.</a></li>
+<li><a href="#d0e2263">7. Pride in their profession.</a></li>
+<li><a href="#d0e2296">8. Caste rules and admission of outsiders.</a></li>
+<li><a href="#d0e2306">9. Religion: offerings to ancestors.</a></li>
+<li><a href="#d0e2322">10. The wounded haunted by spirits.</a></li>
+<li><a href="#d0e2332">11. Pious funeral observances.</a></li>
+<li><a href="#d0e2342">12. Taking the omens.</a></li>
+<li><a href="#d0e2352">13. Suppression of dacoity.</a></li>
+<li><a href="#d0e2359">14. The Badhaks or Baoris at the present time.</a></li>
+<li><a href="#d0e2396">15. Lizard-hunting.</a></li>
+<li><a href="#d0e2411">16. Social observances.</a></li>
+<li><a href="#d0e2448">17. Criminal practices.</a></li>
+</ul>
+<div class="div2" id="d0e2142">
+<h3>1. Introductory notice.</h3>
+<p><b>Badhak, B&#257;gri, Baoria.</b>&#8212;A famous tribe of dacoits who flourished up to about 1850, and extended their depredations over the whole of Northern and
+Central India. The B&#257;gris and Baorias or B&#257;warias still exist and are well known to the police as inveterate criminals; but
+their operations are now confined to ordinary burglary, theft and cheating, and their more interesting profession of armed
+gang-robbery on a large scale is a thing of the past. The first part of this article is entirely compiled from the Report
+on their suppression drawn up by Colonel Sleeman,<a id="d0e2149src" href="#d0e2149" class="noteref">1</a> who may be regarded as the virtual founder of the Thuggee and Dacoity Department. Some mention of the existing B&#257;gri and
+Baoria tribes is added at the end.
+
+
+</p>
+</div>
+<div class="div2" id="d0e2154">
+<h3>2. The Badhak dacoits.</h3>
+<p>The origin of the Badhaks is obscure, but they seem to have belonged to Gujar&#257;t, as their peculiar dialect, still in use,
+is a form of Gujar&#257;ti. The most striking feature in it is the regular substitution of <i>kh</i> for <i>s</i>. They claimed to be <a id="d0e2165"></a><span class="pagenum">[<a href="#d0e2165">50</a>]</span>R&#257;jp&#363;ts and were divided into clans with the well-known R&#257;jp&#363;t names of Solanki, Panw&#257;r, Dhundhel, Chauh&#257;n, R&#257;thor, Gahlot,
+Bhatti and Ch&#257;ran. Their ancestors were supposed to have fled from Chitor on one of the historical occasions on which it was
+assaulted and sacked. But as they spoke Gujar&#257;ti it seems more probable that they belonged to Gujar&#257;t, a fertile breeding-place
+of criminals, and they may have been descended from the alliances of R&#257;jp&#363;ts with the primitive tribes of this locality, the
+Bh&#299;ls and Kolis. The existing B&#257;gris are of short stature, one writer stating that none of them exceed five feet two inches
+in height; and this seems to indicate that they have little R&#257;jp&#363;t blood. It may be surmised that the Badhaks rose into importance
+and found scope for their predatory instincts during the period of general disorder and absence of governing authority through
+which northern India passed after the decline of the Mughal Empire. And they lived and robbed with the connivance or open
+support of the petty chiefs and landholders, to whom they gave a liberal share of their booty. The principal bands were located
+in the Oudh forests, but they belonged to the whole of northern India including the Central Provinces; and as Colonel Sleeman&#8217;s
+Report, though of much interest, is now practically unknown, I have thought it not out of place to compile an article by means
+of short extracts from his account of the tribe.
+
+</p>
+<p>In 1822 the operations of the Badhaks were being conducted on such a scale that an officer wrote: &#8220;No District between the
+Brahmaputra, the Nerbudda, the Satlej and the Himalayas is free from them; and within this vast field hardly any wealthy merchant
+or manufacturer could feel himself secure for a single night from the depredations of Badhak dacoits. They had successfully
+attacked so many of the treasuries of our native Sub-Collectors that it was deemed necessary, all over the North-Western Provinces,
+to surround such buildings with extensive fortifications. In many cases they carried off our public treasure from strong parties
+of our regular troops and mounted police; and none seemed to know whence they came or whither they fled with the booty acquired.&#8221;<a id="d0e2169src" href="#d0e2169" class="noteref">2</a>
+<a id="d0e2172"></a><span class="pagenum">[<a href="#d0e2172">51</a>]</span>
+
+
+</p>
+</div>
+<div class="div2" id="d0e2174">
+<h3>3. Instances of dacoities.</h3>
+<p>Colonel Sleeman thus described a dacoity in the town of Narsinghpur when he was in charge of that District:<a id="d0e2179src" href="#d0e2179" class="noteref">3</a> &#8220;In February 1822, in the dusk of the evening, a party of about thirty persons, with nothing seemingly but walking-sticks
+in their hands, passed the piquet of sepoys on the bank of the rivulet which separates the cantonment from the town of Narsinghpur.
+On being challenged by the sentries they said they were cowherds and that their cattle were following close behind. They walked
+up the street; and coming opposite the houses of the most wealthy merchants, they set their torches in a blaze by blowing
+suddenly on pots filled with combustibles, stabbed everybody who ventured to move or make the slightest noise, plundered the
+houses, and in ten minutes were away with their booty, leaving about twelve persons dead and wounded on the ground. No trace
+of them was discovered.&#8221; Another well-known exploit of the Badhaks was the attack on the palace of the ex-Peshwa, B&#257;ji Rao,
+at Bith&#363;r near Cawnpore. This was accomplished by a gang of about eighty men, who proceeded to the locality in the disguise
+of carriers of Ganges water. Having purchased a boat and a few muskets to intimidate the guard they crossed the Ganges about
+six miles below Bith&#363;r, and reached the place at ten o&#8217;clock at night; and after wounding eighteen persons who attempted resistance
+they possessed themselves of property, chiefly in gold, to the value of more than two and a half lakhs of rupees; and retiring
+without loss made their way in safety to their homes in the Oudh forests. The residence of this gang was known to a British
+police officer in the King of Oudh&#8217;s service, Mr. Orr, and after a long delay on the part of the court an expedition was sent
+which recovered a portion of the treasure and captured two or three hundred of the Badhaks. But none of the recovered property
+reached the hands of B&#257;ji Rao and the prisoners were soon afterwards released.<a id="d0e2182src" href="#d0e2182" class="noteref">4</a> Again in 1839, a gang of about fifty men under a well-known leader, Gajr&#257;j, scaled the walls of Jh&#257;nsi and plundered the
+Sur&#257;fa or bankers&#8217; quarter of the town for two hours, obtaining booty to the value of Rs. 40,000, which they carried off without
+the loss of a man. The following <a id="d0e2185"></a><span class="pagenum">[<a href="#d0e2185">52</a>]</span>account of this raid was obtained by Colonel Sleeman from one of the robbers:<a id="d0e2187src" href="#d0e2187" class="noteref">5</a> &#8220;The spy (<i>hirrowa</i>) having returned and reported that he had found a merchant&#8217;s house in Jh&#257;nsi which contained a good deal of property, we
+proceeded to a grove where we took the auspices by the process of <i>ak&#363;t</i> (counting of grains) and found the omens favourable. We then rested three days and settled the rates according to which the
+booty should be shared. Four or five men, who were considered too feeble for the enterprise, were sent back, and the rest,
+well armed, strong and full of courage, went on. In the evening of the fourth day we reached a plain about a mile from the
+town, where we rested to take breath for an hour; about nine o&#8217;clock we got to the wall and remained under it till midnight,
+preparing the ladders from materials which we had collected on the road. They were placed to the wall and we entered and passed
+through the town without opposition. A marriage procession was going on before us and the people thought we belonged to it.
+We found the bankers&#8217; shops closed. Th&#257;na and Saldewa, who carried the axes, soon broke them open, while Kulean lighted up
+his torch. Gajr&#257;j with twenty men entered, while the rest stood posted at the different avenues leading to the place. When
+all the property they could find had been collected, Gajr&#257;j hailed the god Hanum&#257;n and gave orders for the retreat. We got
+back safely to Mondegri in two days and a half, and then reposed for two or three days with the R&#257;ja of Narwar, with whom
+we left five or six of our stoutest men as a guard, and then returned home with our booty, consisting chiefly of diamonds,
+emeralds, gold and silver bullion, rupees and about sixty pounds of silver wire. None of our people were either killed or
+wounded, but whether any of the bankers&#8217; people were I know not.&#8221;
+
+
+</p>
+</div>
+<div class="div2" id="d0e2196">
+<h3>4. Further instances of dacoities.</h3>
+<p>Colonel Sleeman writes elsewhere<a id="d0e2201src" href="#d0e2201" class="noteref">6</a> of the leader of the above exploit: &#8220;This Gajr&#257;j had risen from the vocation of a <i>bandarw&#257;la</i> (monkey showman) to be the Robin Hood of Gw&#257;lior and the adjacent States; he was the governor-general of banditti in that
+country of banditti and kept the whole in awe; he had made himself so formidable that <a id="d0e2207"></a><span class="pagenum">[<a href="#d0e2207">53</a>]</span>the Durbar appointed him to keep the <i>gh&#257;ts</i> or ferries over the Chambal, which he did in a very profitable manner to them and to himself, and none entered or quitted
+the country without paying blackmail.&#8221; A common practice of the Badhaks, when in need of a little ready money, was to lie
+in wait for money-changers on their return from the markets. These men take their bags of money with them to the important
+baz&#257;rs at a distance from their residence and return home with them after dusk. The dacoits were accustomed to watch for them
+in the darkest and most retired places on the roads and fell them to the ground with their bludgeons. This device was often
+practised and usually succeeded.<a id="d0e2212src" href="#d0e2212" class="noteref">7</a> Of another Badhak chief, Meherb&#257;n, it is stated<a id="d0e2215src" href="#d0e2215" class="noteref">8</a> that he hired a discharged sepoy to instruct his followers in the European system of drill, that they might travel with him
+in the disguise of regular soldiers, well armed and accoutred. During the rains Meherb&#257;n&#8217;s spies (<i>hirrowa</i>) were sent to visit the great commercial towns and report any despatches of money or other valuables, which were to take
+place during the following open season. His own favourite disguise was that of a Hindu prince, while the remainder of the
+gang constituted his retinue and escort. On one occasion, assuming this character, he followed up a boat laden with Spanish
+dollars which was being sent from Calcutta to Ben&#257;res; and having attacked it at its moorings at Makrai, he killed one and
+wounded ten men of the guard and made off with 25,000 Spanish dollars and Rs. 2600 of the Company&#8217;s coinage. A part of the
+band were sent direct to the rendezvous previously arranged, while Meherb&#257;n returned to the grove where he had left his women
+and proceeded with them in a more leisurely fashion to the same place. Retaining the character of a native prince he halted
+here for two days to celebrate the Holi festival. Marching thence with his women conveyed in covered litters by hired bearers
+who were changed at intervals, he proceeded to his bivouac in the Oudh forests; and at Seos&#257;gar, one of his halting-places,
+he gave a large sum of money to a gardener to plant a grove of mango trees near a tank for the benefit of travellers, in the
+name of R&#257;ja Meherb&#257;n Singh of Gaur <a id="d0e2221"></a><span class="pagenum">[<a href="#d0e2221">54</a>]</span>in Oudh; and promised him further alms on future occasions of pilgrimage if he found the work progressing well, saying that
+it was a great shame that travellers should be compelled as he had been to halt without shade for themselves or their families
+during the heat of the day. He arrived safely at his quarters in the forest and was received in the customary fashion by a
+procession of women in their best attire, who conducted him with dancing and music, like a victorious Roman Proconsul, to
+his fort.<a id="d0e2223src" href="#d0e2223" class="noteref">9</a>
+
+
+</p>
+</div>
+<div class="div2" id="d0e2226">
+<h3>5. Disguise of religious mendicants.</h3>
+<p>But naturally not all the Badhaks could do things in the style of Meherb&#257;n Singh. The disguise which they most often assumed
+in the north was that of carriers of Ganges water, while in Central India they often pretended to be Banj&#257;ras travelling with
+pack-bullocks, or pilgrims, or wedding-parties going to fetch the bride or bridegroom. Sometimes also they took the character
+of religious mendicants, the leader being the high priest and all the rest his followers and disciples. One such gang, described
+by Colonel Sleeman,<a id="d0e2231src" href="#d0e2231" class="noteref">10</a> had four or five tents of white and dyed cloth, two or three pairs of <i>nakk&#257;ras</i> or kettle-drums and trumpets, with a great number of buffaloes, cows, goats, sheep and ponies. Some were clothed, but the
+bodies of the greater part were covered with nothing but ashes, paint and a small cloth waistband. But they always provided
+themselves with five or six real Bair&#257;gis, whose services they purchased at a very high price. These men were put forward
+to answer questions in case of difficulty and to bully the landlords and peasantry; and if the people demurred to the demands
+of the Badhaks, to intimidate them by tricks calculated to play upon the fears of the ignorant. They held in their hands a
+preparation of gunpowder resembling common ashes; and when they found the people very stubborn they repeated their <i>mantras</i> over this and threw it upon the thatch of the nearest house, to which it set fire. The explosion was caused by a kind of
+fusee held in the hand which the people could not see, and taking it for a miracle they paid all that was demanded. Another
+method was to pretend to be carrying the bones of dead relatives to the Ganges. The bones or ashes of <a id="d0e2240"></a><span class="pagenum">[<a href="#d0e2240">55</a>]</span>the deceased, says<a id="d0e2242src" href="#d0e2242" class="noteref">11</a> Colonel Sleeman, are carried to the Ganges in bags, coloured red for females and white for males. These bags are considered
+holy, and are not allowed to touch the ground upon the way, and during halts in the journey are placed on poles or triangles.
+The carriers are regarded with respect as persons engaged upon a pious duty, and seldom questioned on the road. When a gang
+assumed this disguise they proceeded to their place of rendezvous in small parties, some with red and some with white bags,
+in which they carried the bones of animals most resembling those of the human frame. These were supported on triangles formed
+of the shafts on which the spear-heads would be fitted when they reached their destination and had prepared for action.
+
+
+</p>
+</div>
+<div class="div2" id="d0e2245">
+<h3>6. Countenance and support of landowners.</h3>
+<p>It would have been impossible for the Badhaks to exist and flourish as they did without the protection of the landowners on
+whose estates they lived; and this they received in full measure in return for a liberal share of their booty. When the chief
+of Karauli was called upon to dislodge a gang within his territory, he expressed apprehension that the coercion of the Badhaks
+might cause a revolution in the State. He was not at all singular, says Colonel Sleeman, in his fear of exasperating this
+formidable tribe of robbers. It was common to all the smaller chiefs and the provincial governors of the larger ones. They
+everywhere protected and fostered the Badhaks, as did the landholders; and the highest of them associated with the leaders
+of gangs on terms of equality and confidence. It was very common for a chief or the governor of a district in times of great
+difficulty and personal danger to require from one of the leaders of such gangs a night-guard or <i>palang ki chauki</i>: and no less so to entertain large bodies of them in the attack and defence of forts and camps whenever unusual courage and
+skill were required. The son of the R&#257;ja of Charda exchanged turbans with a Badhak leader, Mangal Singh, as a mark of the
+most intimate friendship. This episode recalls an alliance of similar character in <i>Lorna Doone</i>; and indeed it would not be difficult to find several points of resemblance between the careers of the more enterprising
+Badhak leaders and the <a id="d0e2256"></a><span class="pagenum">[<a href="#d0e2256">56</a>]</span>Doones of Bagworthy; but India produced no character on the model of John Ridd, and it was reserved for an Englishman, Colonel
+Sleeman, to achieve the suppression of the Badhaks as well as that of the Thugs. After the fortress and territory of Garh&#257;kota
+in Saugor had been taken by the Mah&#257;r&#257;ja Sindhia, Z&#257;lim Singh, a cousin of the dispossessed Bundela chief, collected a force
+of Bundelas and Pind&#257;ris and ravaged the country round Garh&#257;kota in 1813. In the course of his raid he sacked and burnt the
+town of Deori, and 15,000 persons perished in the flames. Colonel Jean Baptiste, Sindhia&#8217;s general, obtained a number of picked
+Badhaks from R&#257;jput&#257;na and offered them a rich reward for the head of Z&#257;lim Singh; and after watching his camp for three months
+they managed to come on him asleep in the tent of a dancing-girl, who was following his camp, and stabbed him to the heart.
+For this deed they received Rs. 20,000 from Baptiste with other valuable presents. Their reputation was indeed such that they
+were frequently employed at this period both by chiefs who desired to take the lives of others and by those who were anxious
+for the preservation of their own. When it happened that a gang was caught after a robbery in a native State, the custom was
+not infrequently to make them over to the merchant whose property they had taken, with permission to keep them in confinement
+until they should refund his money; and in this manner by giving up the whole or a part of the proceeds of their robbery they
+were enabled to regain their liberty. Even if they were sent before the courts, justice was at that time so corrupt as to
+permit of easy avenues of escape for those who could afford to pay; and Colonel Sleeman records the deposition of a Badhak
+describing their methods of bribery: &#8220;When police officers arrest Badhaks their old women get round them and give them large
+sums of money; and they either release them or get their depositions so written that their release shall be ordered by the
+magistrates. If they are brought to court, their old women, dressed in rags, follow them at a distance of three or four miles
+with a thousand or two thousand rupees upon ponies; and these rupees they distribute among the native officers of the court
+and get the Badhaks released. These old women first ascertain from the people of the villages <a id="d0e2258"></a><span class="pagenum">[<a href="#d0e2258">57</a>]</span>who are the N&#257;zirs and Munshis of influence, and wait upon them at their houses and make their bargains. If the officials
+cannot effect their release, they take money from the old women and send them off to the Sadar Court, with letters of introduction
+to their friends, and advice as to the rate they shall pay to each according to his supposed influence. This is the way that
+all our leaders get released, and hardly any but useless men are left in confinement.&#8221;<a id="d0e2260src" href="#d0e2260" class="noteref">12</a>
+
+
+</p>
+</div>
+<div class="div2" id="d0e2263">
+<h3>7. Pride in their profession.</h3>
+<p>It may be noticed that these robbers took the utmost pleasure in their calling, and were most averse to the idea of giving
+it up and taking to honest pursuits. &#8220;Some of the men with me,&#8221; one magistrate wrote,<a id="d0e2268src" href="#d0e2268" class="noteref">13</a> &#8220;have been in jail for twenty, and one man for thirty years, and still do not appear to have any idea of abandoning their
+illegal vocation; even now, indeed, they look on what we consider an honest means of livelihood with the most marked contempt;
+and in relating their excursions talk of them with the greatest pleasure, much in the way an eager sportsman describes a boar-chase
+or fox-hunt. While talking of their excursions, which were to me really very interesting, their eyes gleamed with pleasure;
+and beating their hands on their foreheads and breasts and muttering some ejaculation they bewailed the hardness of their
+lot, which now ensured their never again being able to participate in such a joyous occupation.&#8221; Another Badhak, on being
+examined, said he could not recall a case of one of the community having ever given up the trade of dacoity. &#8220;None ever did,
+I am certain of it,&#8221; he continued.<a id="d0e2271src" href="#d0e2271" class="noteref">14</a> &#8220;After having been arrested, on our release we frequently take lands, to make it appear we have left off dacoity, but we
+never do so in reality; it is only done as a feint and to enable our zam&#299;nd&#257;rs (landowners) to screen us.&#8221; They sometimes
+paid rent for their land at the rate of thirty rupees an acre, in return for the countenance and protection afforded by the
+zam&#299;nd&#257;rs. &#8220;Our profession,&#8221; another Badhak remarked,<a id="d0e2274src" href="#d0e2274" class="noteref">15</a> &#8220;has been a <i>P&#257;dsh&#257;hi K&#257;m</i> (a king&#8217;s trade); we have attacked and seized boldly the thousands and hundreds of thousands that we have freely <a id="d0e2280"></a><span class="pagenum">[<a href="#d0e2280">58</a>]</span>and nobly spent; we have been all our lives wallowing in wealth and basking in freedom, and find it hard to manage with the
+few copper pice a day we get from you.&#8221; At the time when captures were numerous, and the idea was entertained of inducing
+the dacoits to settle in villages and supporting them until they had been trained to labour, several of them, on being asked
+how much they would require to support themselves, replied that they could not manage on less than two rupees a day, having
+earned quite that sum by dacoity. This amount would be more than twenty times the wages of an ordinary labourer at the same
+period. Another witness put the amount at one to two rupees a day, remarking, &#8216;We are great persons for eating and drinking,
+and we keep several wives according to our means.&#8217; Of some of them Colonel Sleeman had a high opinion, and he mentions the
+case of one man, Aj&#299;t Singh, who was drafted into the native army and rose to be commander of a company. &#8220;I have seldom seen
+a man,&#8221; he wrote,<a id="d0e2282src" href="#d0e2282" class="noteref">16</a> &#8220;whom I would rather have with me in scenes of peril and difficulty.&#8221; An attempt of the King of Oudh&#8217;s, however, to form
+a regiment of Badhaks had ended in failure, as after a short time they mutinied, beat their commandant and other officers
+and turned them out of the regiment, giving as their reason that the officers had refused to perform the same duties as the
+men. And they visited with the same treatment all the other officers sent to them, until they were disbanded by the British
+on the province of Allah&#257;b&#257;d being made over to the Company. Colonel Sleeman notes that they were never known to offer any
+other violence or insult to females than to make them give up any gold ornaments that they might have about their persons.
+&#8220;In all my inquiries into the character, habits and conduct of these gangs, I have never found an instance of a female having
+been otherwise disgraced or insulted by them. They are all Hind&#363;s, and this reverence for the sex pervades all Hind&#363; society.&#8221;<a id="d0e2285src" href="#d0e2285" class="noteref">17</a> According to their own account also they never committed murder; if people opposed them they struck and killed like soldiers,
+but this was considered to be in fair fight. It may be noted, nevertheless, that they had little idea of clan loyalty, and
+<a id="d0e2288"></a><span class="pagenum">[<a href="#d0e2288">59</a>]</span>informed very freely against their fellows when this course was to their advantage. They also stated that they could not settle
+in towns; they had always been accustomed to live in the jungles and commit dacoities upon the people of the towns as a kind
+of <i>shik&#257;r</i> (sport); they delighted in it, and they felt living in towns or among other men as a kind of prison, and got quite confused
+(<i>ghabr&#257;ye</i>), and their women even more than the men.
+
+
+</p>
+</div>
+<div class="div2" id="d0e2296">
+<h3>8. Caste rules and admission of outsiders.</h3>
+<p>The Badhaks had a regular caste organisation, and members of the different clans married with each other like the R&#257;jp&#363;ts
+after whom they were named. They admitted freely into the community members of any respectable Hindu caste, but not the impure
+castes or Muhammadans. But at least one instance of the admission of a Muhammadan is given.<a id="d0e2301src" href="#d0e2301" class="noteref">18</a> The Badhaks were often known to the people as Si&#257;rkhawa or jackal-eaters, or Sabkhawa, those who eat everything. And the
+Muhammadan in question was given jackal&#8217;s flesh to eat, and having partaken of it was considered to have become a member of
+the community. This indicates that the Badhaks were probably accustomed to eat the flesh of the jackal at a sacrificial meal,
+and hence that they worshipped the jackal, revering it probably as the deity of the forests where they lived. Such a veneration
+would account for the importance attached to the jackal&#8217;s cry as an omen. The fact of their eating jackals also points to
+the conclusion that the Badhaks were not R&#257;jp&#363;ts, but a low hunting caste like the P&#257;rdhis and Bahelias. The P&#257;rdhis have
+R&#257;jp&#363;t sept names as well as the Badhaks. No doubt a few outcaste R&#257;jp&#363;ts may have joined the gangs and become their leaders.
+Others, however, said that they abstained from the flesh of jackals, snakes, foxes and cows and buffaloes. Children were frequently
+adopted, being purchased in large numbers in time of famine, and also occasionally kidnapped. They were brought up to the
+trade of dacoity, and if they showed sufficient aptitude for it were taken out on expeditions, but otherwise left at home
+to manage the household affairs. They were married to other adopted children and were known as Ghul&#257;mi or Slave Badhaks, like
+the J&#257;ngar <a id="d0e2304"></a><span class="pagenum">[<a href="#d0e2304">60</a>]</span>Banj&#257;ras; and like them also, after some generations, when their real origin had been forgotten, they became full Badhaks.
+It was very advantageous to a Badhak to have a number of children, because all plunder obtained was divided in regularly apportioned
+shares among the whole community. Men who were too old to go on dacoity also received their share, and all children, even
+babies born during the absence of the expedition. The Badhaks said that this rule was enforced because they thought it an
+advantage to the community that families should be large and their numbers should increase; from which statement it must be
+concluded that they seldom suffered any stringency from lack of spoil. They also stated that Badhak widows would go and find
+a second husband from among the regular population, and as a rule would sooner or later persuade him to join the Badhaks.
+
+
+</p>
+</div>
+<div class="div2" id="d0e2306">
+<h3>9. Religion: offerings to ancestors.</h3>
+<p>Like other Indian criminals the Badhaks were of a very religious or superstitious disposition. They considered the gods of
+the Hindu creed as favouring their undertakings so long as they were suitably propitiated by offering to their temples and
+priests, and the spirits of the most distinguished of their ancestors as exercising a vicarious authority under these deities
+in guiding them to their prey and warning them of danger.<a id="d0e2311src" href="#d0e2311" class="noteref">19</a> The following is an account of a Badhak sacrifice given to Colonel Sleeman by the Aj&#299;t Singh already mentioned. It was in
+celebration of a dacoity in which they had obtained Rs. 40,000, out of which Rs. 4500 were set aside for sacrifices to the
+gods and charity to the poor. Aj&#299;t Singh said: &#8220;For offerings to the gods we purchase goats, sweet cakes and spirits; and
+having prepared a feast we throw a handful of the savoury food upon the fire in the name of the gods who have most assisted
+us; but of the feast so consecrated no female but a virgin can partake. The offering is made through the man who has successfully
+invoked the god on that particular occasion; and, as my god had guided us this time, I was employed to prepare the feast for
+him and to throw the offering upon the fire. The offering must be taken up before the feast is touched and put upon the <a id="d0e2314"></a><span class="pagenum">[<a href="#d0e2314">61</a>]</span>fire, and a little water must be sprinkled on it. The savoury smell of the food as it burns reaches the nostrils of the god
+and delights him. On this as on most occasions I invoked the spirit of Ganga Singh, my grandfather, and to him I made the
+offering. I considered him to be the greatest of all my ancestors as a robber, and him I invoked on this solemn occasion.
+He never failed me when I invoked him, and I had the greatest confidence in his aid. The spirits of our ancestors can easily
+see whether we shall succeed in what we are about to undertake; and when we are to succeed they order us on, and when we are
+not they make signs to us to desist.&#8221; Their mode<a id="d0e2316src" href="#d0e2316" class="noteref">20</a> of ascertaining which of their ancestors interested himself most in their affairs was commonly this, that whenever a person
+talked incoherently in a fever or an epileptic fit, the spirit of one or other of his ancestors was supposed to be upon him.
+If they were in doubt as to whose spirit it was, one of them threw down some grains of wheat or coloured glass beads, a pinch
+at a time, saying the name of the ancestor he supposed the most likely to be at work and calling odd or even as he pleased.
+If the number proved to be as he called it several times running while that name was repeated, they felt secure of their family
+god, and proceeded at once to sacrifice a goat or something else in his name. When they were being hunted down and arrested
+by Colonel Sleeman and his assistants, they ascribed their misfortunes to the anger of the goddess K&#257;li, because they had
+infringed her rules and disregarded her signs, and said that their forefathers had often told them they would one day be punished
+for their disobedience.<a id="d0e2319src" href="#d0e2319" class="noteref">21</a>
+
+
+</p>
+</div>
+<div class="div2" id="d0e2322">
+<h3>10. The wounded haunted by spirits.</h3>
+<p>Whenever one of the gang was wounded and was taken with his wounds bleeding near a place haunted by a spirit, they believed
+the spirit got angry and took hold of him,<a id="d0e2327src" href="#d0e2327" class="noteref">22</a> in the manner described by Aj&#299;t Singh as follows: &#8220;The spirit comes upon him in all kinds of shapes, sometimes in that of
+a buffalo, at others in that of a woman, sometimes in the air above and sometimes from the ground below; but no one can see
+him except the wounded person <a id="d0e2330"></a><span class="pagenum">[<a href="#d0e2330">62</a>]</span>he is angry with and wants to punish. Upon such a wounded person we always place a naked sword or some other sharp steel instrument,
+as spirits are much afraid of weapons of this kind. If there be any good conjurer at hand to charm away the spirits from the
+person wounded he recovers, but nothing else can save him.&#8221; In one case a dacoit named Gh&#299;sa had been severely wounded in
+an encounter and was seized by the spirit of a banyan tree as he was being taken away: &#8220;We made a litter with our ropes and
+cloaks thrown over them and on this he was carried off by four of our party; at half a mile distant the road passed under
+a large banyan tree and as the four men carried him along under the tree, the spirit of the place fell upon him and the four
+men who carried him fell down with the shock. They could not raise him again, so much were they frightened, and four other
+men were obliged to lift him and carry him off.&#8221; The man died of his wounds soon after they reached the halting-place, and
+in commenting on this Aj&#299;t Singh continued: &#8220;When the spirit seized Gh&#299;sa under the tree we had unfortunately no conjurer,
+and he, poor fellow, died in consequence. It was evident that a spirit had got hold of him, for he could not keep his head
+upright; it always fell down upon his right or left shoulder as often as we tried to put it right; and he complained much
+of a pain in the region of the liver. We therefore concluded that the spirit had broken his neck and was consuming his liver.&#8221;
+
+
+</p>
+</div>
+<div class="div2" id="d0e2332">
+<h3>11. Pious funeral observances.</h3>
+<p>Like pious Hindus as they were, the Badhaks were accustomed, whenever it was possible, to preserve the bones of their dead
+after the body had been burnt and carry them to the Ganges. If this was not possible, however, and the exigencies of their
+profession obliged them to make away with the body without the performance of due funeral rites, they cut off two or three
+fingers and sent these to the Ganges to be deposited instead of the whole body.<a id="d0e2337src" href="#d0e2337" class="noteref">23</a> In one case a dacoit, Kundana, was killed in an affray, and the others carried off his body and thrust it into a porcupine&#8217;s
+hole after cutting off three of the fingers. &#8220;We gave Kundana&#8217;s fingers to his mother,&#8221; Aj&#299;t Singh stated, &#8220;and she sent them
+<a id="d0e2340"></a><span class="pagenum">[<a href="#d0e2340">63</a>]</span>with due offerings and ceremonies to the Ganges by the hands of the family priest. She gave this priest money to purchase
+a cow, to be presented to the priests in the name of her deceased son, and to distribute in charity to the poor and to holy
+men. She got from us for these purposes eighty rupees over and above her son&#8217;s share of the booty, while his widow and children
+continued to receive their usual share of the takings of the gang so long as they remained with us.&#8221;
+
+
+</p>
+</div>
+<div class="div2" id="d0e2342">
+<h3>12. Taking the omens.</h3>
+<p>Before setting out on an expedition it was their regular custom to take the omens, and the following account may be quoted
+of the preliminaries to an expedition of the great leader, Meherb&#257;n Singh, who has already been mentioned: &#8220;In the latter
+end of that year, Meherb&#257;n and his brother set out and assembled their friends on the bank of the Bisori river, where the
+rate at which each member of the party should share in the spoil was determined in order to secure to the dependants of any
+one who should fall in the enterprise their due share, as well as to prevent inconvenient disputes during and after the expedition.
+The party assembled on this occasion, including women and children, amounted to two hundred, and when the shares had been
+determined the goats were sacrificed for the feast. Each leader and member of the gang dipped his finger in the blood and
+swore fidelity to his engagements and his associates under all circumstances. The whole feasted together and drank freely
+till the next evening, when Meherb&#257;n advanced with about twenty of the principal persons to a spot chosen a little way from
+the camp on the road they proposed to take in the expedition, and lifting up his hands in supplication said aloud, &#8216;If it
+be thy will, O God, and thine, K&#257;li, to prosper our undertaking for the sake of the blind and the lame, <i>the widow and the orphan</i>, who depend upon our exertions for subsistence, vouchsafe, we pray thee, the call of the female jackal.&#8217; All his followers
+held up their hands in the same manner and repeated these words after him. All then sat down and waited in silence for the
+reply or spoke only in whispers. At last the cry of the female jackal was heard three times on the left, and believing her
+to have been inspired by the deity for <a id="d0e2350"></a><span class="pagenum">[<a href="#d0e2350">64</a>]</span>their guidance they were all much rejoiced.&#8221; The following was another more elaborate method of taking omens described by
+Aj&#299;t Singh: &#8220;When we speak of seeking omens from our gods or Devi Deota, we mean the spirits of those of our ancestors who
+performed great exploits in dacoity in their day, gained a great name and established lasting reputations. For instance, Mah&#257;j&#299;t,
+my grandfather, and S&#257;hiba, his father, are called gods and admitted to be so by us all. We have all of us some such gods
+to be proud of among our ancestors; we propitiate them and ask for favourable omens from them before we enter upon any enterprise.
+We sometimes propitiate the S&#363;raj Deota (sun god) and seek good omens from him. We get two or three goats or rams, and sometimes
+even ten or eleven, at the place where we determine to take the auspices, and having assembled the principal men of the gang
+we put water into the mouth of one of them and pray to the sun and to our ancestors thus: &#8216;O thou Sun God! And O all ye other
+Gods! If we are to succeed in the enterprise we are about to undertake we pray you to cause these goats to shake their bodies.&#8217;
+If they do not shake them after the gods have been thus duly invoked, the enterprise must not be entered upon and the goats
+are not sacrificed. We then try the auspices with wheat. We burn frankincense and scented wood and blow a shell; and taking
+out a pinch of wheat grains, put them on the cloth and count them. If they come up odd the omen is favourable, and if even
+it is bad. After this, which we call the auspices of the Ak&#363;t, we take that of the Si&#257;rni or female jackal. If it calls on
+the left it is good, but if on the right bad. If the omens turn out favourable in all three trials then we have no fear whatever,
+but if they are favourable in only one trial out of the three the enterprise must be given up.&#8221;
+
+
+</p>
+</div>
+<div class="div2" id="d0e2352">
+<h3>13. Suppression of dacoity.</h3>
+<p>Between 1837 and 1849 the suppression of the regular practice of armed dacoity was practically achieved by Colonel Sleeman.
+A number of officers were placed under his orders, and with small bodies of military and police were set to hunt down different
+bands of dacoits, following them all over India when necessary. And special Acts were passed to <a id="d0e2357"></a><span class="pagenum">[<a href="#d0e2357">65</a>]</span>enable the offence of dacoity, wherever committed, to be tried by a competent magistrate in any part of India as had been
+done in the case of the Thugs. Many of the Badhaks received conditional pardons, and were drafted into the police in different
+stations, and an agricultural labour colony was also formed, but does not seem to have been altogether successful. During
+these twelve years more than 1200 dacoits in all were brought to trial, while some were killed during the operations, and
+no doubt many others escaped and took to other avocations, or became ordinary criminals when their armed gangs were broken
+up. In 1825 it had been estimated that the Oudh forests alone contained from 4000 to 6000 dacoits, while the property stolen
+in 1811 from known dacoities was valued at ten lakhs of rupees.
+
+
+</p>
+</div>
+<div class="div2" id="d0e2359">
+<h3>14. The Badhaks or Baoris at the present time.</h3>
+<p>The Badhaks still exist, and are well known as one of the worst classes of criminals, practising ordinary house-breaking and
+theft. The name Badhak is now less commonly used than those of B&#257;gri and Baori or B&#257;waria, both of which were borne by the
+original Badhaks. The word B&#257;gri is derived from a tract of country in M&#257;lwa which is known as the B&#257;gar or &#8216;hedge of thorns,&#8217;
+because it is surrounded on all sides by wooded hills.<a id="d0e2364src" href="#d0e2364" class="noteref">24</a> There are B&#257;gri J&#257;ts and B&#257;gri R&#257;jp&#363;ts, many of whom are now highly respectable landholders. B&#257;waria or Baori is derived
+from <i>b&#257;nwar</i>, a creeper, or the tendril of a vine, and hence a noose made originally from some fibrous plant and used for trapping animals,
+this being one of the primary occupations of the tribe.<a id="d0e2373src" href="#d0e2373" class="noteref">25</a> The term Badhak signifies a hunter or fowler, hence a robber or murderer (Platts). The B&#257;gris and B&#257;warias are sometimes
+considered to be separate communities, but it is doubtful whether there is any real distinction between them. In Bombay the
+B&#257;gris are known as V&#257;ghris by the common change of <i>b</i> into <i>v</i>. A good description of them is contained in Appendix C to Mr. Bhimbhai Kirp&#257;r&#257;m&#8217;s volume <i>Hindus of Gujarat</i> in the <i>Bombay Gazetteer</i>. He divides them into the Chunaria or lime-burners, the D&#257;tonia or sellers of twig tooth-brushes, and two other groups, and
+states that, &#8220;They also keep <a id="d0e2391"></a><span class="pagenum">[<a href="#d0e2391">66</a>]</span>fowls and sell eggs, catch birds and go as <i>shik&#257;ris</i> or hunters. They traffic in green parrots, which they buy from Bh&#299;ls and sell for a profit.&#8221;
+
+
+</p>
+</div>
+<div class="div2" id="d0e2396">
+<h3>15. Lizard-hunting.</h3>
+<p>Their strength and powers of endurance are great, the same writer states, and they consider that these qualities are obtained
+by the eating of the <i>goh</i> and <i>s&#257;ndha</i> or iguana lizards, which a V&#257;ghri prizes very highly. This is also the case with the B&#257;warias of the Punjab, who go out hunting
+lizards in the rains and may be seen returning with baskets full of live lizards, which exist for days without food and are
+killed and eaten fresh by degrees. Their method of hunting the lizard is described by Mr. Wilson as follows:<a id="d0e2407src" href="#d0e2407" class="noteref">26</a> &#8220;The lizard lives on grass, cannot bite severely, and is sluggish in his movements, so that he is easily caught. He digs
+a hole for himself of no great depth, and the easiest way to take him is to look out for the scarcely perceptible airhole
+and dig him out; but there are various ways of saving oneself this trouble. One, which I have seen, takes advantage of a habit
+the lizard has in cold weather (when he never comes out of his hole) of coming to the mouth for air and warmth. The Ch&#363;hra
+or other sportsman puts off his shoes and steals along the prairie till he sees signs of a lizard&#8217;s hole. This he approaches
+on tiptoe, raising over his head with both hands a mallet with a round sharp point, and fixing his eyes intently upon the
+hole. When close enough he brings down his mallet with all his might on the ground just behind the mouth of the hole, and
+is often successful in breaking the lizard&#8217;s back before he awakes to a sense of his danger. Another plan, which I have not
+seen, is to tie a wisp of grass to a long stick and move it over the hole so as to make a rustling noise. The lizard within
+thinks, &#8216;Oh here&#8217;s a snake! I may as well give in,&#8217; and comes to the mouth of the hole, putting out his tail first so that
+he may not see his executioner. The sportsman seizes his tail and snatches him out before he has time to learn his mistake.&#8221;
+This common fondness for lizards is a point in favour of a connection between the Gujar&#257;t V&#257;ghris and the Punjab B&#257;warias.
+
+
+</p>
+</div>
+<div class="div2" id="d0e2411">
+<h3>16. Social observances.</h3>
+<p>In Sirsa the great mass of the B&#257;warias are not given to <a id="d0e2416"></a><span class="pagenum">[<a href="#d0e2416">67</a>]</span>crime, and in Gujar&#257;t also they do not appear to have special criminal tendencies. It is a curious point, however, that Mr.
+Bhimbhai Kirp&#257;r&#257;m emphasises the chastity of the women of the Gujar&#257;t V&#257;ghris.<a id="d0e2418src" href="#d0e2418" class="noteref">27</a> &#8220;When a family returns home after a money-making tour to Bombay or some other city, the women are taken before Vih&#257;t (Devi),
+and with the women is brought a buffalo or a sheep that is tethered in front of Vih&#257;t&#8217;s shrine. They must confess all, even
+their slightest shortcomings, such as the following: &#8216;Two weeks ago, when begging in P&#257;rsi Baz&#257;r-street, a drunken sailor
+caught me by the hand. Another day a M&#299;yan or Musalm&#257;n ogled me, and forgive me, Devi, my looks encouraged him.&#8217; If Devi is
+satisfied the sheep or buffalo shivers, and is then sacrificed and provides a feast for the caste.&#8221;<a id="d0e2421src" href="#d0e2421" class="noteref">28</a> On the other hand, Mr. Crooke states<a id="d0e2429src" href="#d0e2429" class="noteref">29</a> that in northern India, &#8220;The standard of morality is very low because in Muzaffarnagar it is extremely rare for a B&#257;waria
+woman to live with her husband. Almost invariably she lives with another man: but the official husband is responsible for
+the children.&#8221; The great difference in the standard of morality is certainly surprising.
+
+</p>
+<p>In Gujar&#257;t<a id="d0e2437src" href="#d0e2437" class="noteref">30</a> the V&#257;ghris have <i>gurus</i> or religious preceptors of their own. These men take an eight-anna silver piece and whisper in the ear of their disciples
+&#8220;Be immortal.&#8221;... &#8220;The Bhuvas or priest-mediums play an important part in many V&#257;ghri ceremonies. A Bhuva is a male child
+born after the mother has made a vow to the goddess Vih&#257;t or Devi that if a son be granted to her she will devote him to the
+service of the goddess. No Bhuva may cut or shave his hair on pain of a fine of ten rupees, and no Bhuva may eat carrion or
+food cooked by a Muhammadan.&#8221;
+
+
+</p>
+</div>
+<div class="div2" id="d0e2448">
+<h3>17. Criminal practices.</h3>
+<p>The criminal B&#257;gris still usually travel about in the disguise of Gosains and Bair&#257;gis, and are very difficult of detection
+except to real religious mendicants. Their housebreaking implement or jemmy is known as <i>Gy&#257;n</i>, but in speaking of it they always add <i>D&#257;s</i>, so that it sounds like <a id="d0e2459"></a><span class="pagenum">[<a href="#d0e2459">68</a>]</span>the name of a Bair&#257;gi.<a id="d0e2461src" href="#d0e2461" class="noteref">31</a> They are usually very much afraid of the <i>gy&#257;n</i> being discovered on their persons, and are careful to bury it in the ground at each halting-place, while on the march it
+may be concealed in a pack-saddle. The means of identifying them, Mr. Kennedy remarks,<a id="d0e2470src" href="#d0e2470" class="noteref">32</a> is by their family <i>deo</i> or god, which they carry about when wandering with their families. It consists of a brass or copper box containing grains
+of wheat and the seeds of a creeper, both soaked in <i>gh&#299;</i> (melted butter). The box with a peacock&#8217;s feather and a bell is wrapped in two white and then in two red cloths, one of the
+white cloths having the print of a man&#8217;s hand dipped in goat&#8217;s blood upon it. The grains of wheat are used for taking the
+omens, a few being thrown up at sun-down and counted afterwards to see whether they are odd or even. When even, two grains
+are placed on the right hand of the omen-taker, and if this occurs three times running the auspices are considered to be favourable.<a id="d0e2481src" href="#d0e2481" class="noteref">33</a> Mr. Gayer<a id="d0e2487src" href="#d0e2487" class="noteref">34</a> notes that the Badhaks have usually from one to three brands from a hot iron on the inside of their left wrist. Those of
+them who are hunters brand the muscles of the left wrist in order to steady the hand when firing their matchlocks. The customs
+of wearing a peculiar necklace of small wooden beads and a kind of gold pin fixed to the front teeth, which Mr. Crooke<a id="d0e2492src" href="#d0e2492" class="noteref">35</a> records as having been prevalent some years ago, have apparently been since abandoned, as they are not mentioned in more
+recent accounts. The Dehliw&#257;l and M&#257;lpura Baorias have, Mr. Kennedy states,<a id="d0e2495src" href="#d0e2495" class="noteref">36</a> an interesting system of signs, which they mark on the walls of buildings at important corners, bridges and cross-roads and
+on the ground by the roadside with a stick, if no building is handy. The commonest is a loop, the straight line indicating
+the direction a gang or individual has taken:
+
+
+</p>
+<p></p>
+<div class="figure"><img border="0" src="images/p068.gif" alt="" width="157" height="57"></div><p>
+
+<a id="d0e2503"></a><span class="pagenum">[<a href="#d0e2503">69</a>]</span></p>
+<p>The addition of a number of vertical strokes inside the loop signifies the number of males in a gang. If these strokes are
+enclosed by a circle it means that the gang is encamped in the vicinity; while a square inside a circle and line as below
+means that property has been secured by friends who have left in the direction pointed by the line. It is said that Baorias
+will follow one another up for fifty or even a hundred miles by means of these hieroglyphics. The signs are bold marks, sometimes
+even a foot or more in length, and are made where they will at once catch the eye. When the M&#257;rw&#257;ri Baorias desire to indicate
+to others of their caste, who may follow in their footsteps, the route taken, a member of the gang, usually a woman, trails
+a stick in the dust as she walks along, leaving a spiral track on the ground. Another method of indicating the route taken
+is to place leaves under stones at intervals along the road.<a id="d0e2506src" href="#d0e2506" class="noteref">37</a> The form of crime most in favour among the ordinary Baoris is housebreaking by night. Their common practice is to make a
+hole in the wall beside the door through which the hand passes to raise the latch; and only occasionally they dig a hole in
+the base of the wall to admit of the passage of a man, while another favoured alternative is to break in through a barred
+window, the bars being quickly and forcibly bent and drawn out.<a id="d0e2512src" href="#d0e2512" class="noteref">38</a> One class of M&#257;rw&#257;ri B&#257;gris are also expert coiners.
+
+
+</p>
+<p></p>
+<div class="figure"><img border="0" src="images/p069.gif" alt="" width="212" height="70"></div><p>
+
+
+
+</p>
+</div>
+<div class="footnotes">
+<hr class="fnsep">
+<p class="footnote"><span class="label"><a id="d0e2149" href="#d0e2149src" class="noteref">1</a></span> <i>Report on the Badhak or B&#257;gri Dacoits and the Measures adopted by the Government of India for their Suppression</i>, printed in 1849.
+</p>
+<p class="footnote"><span class="label"><a id="d0e2169" href="#d0e2169src" class="noteref">2</a></span> Sleeman, p. 10.
+</p>
+<p class="footnote"><span class="label"><a id="d0e2179" href="#d0e2179src" class="noteref">3</a></span> Sleeman, p. 10.
+</p>
+<p class="footnote"><span class="label"><a id="d0e2182" href="#d0e2182src" class="noteref">4</a></span> Sleeman, p. 57.
+</p>
+<p class="footnote"><span class="label"><a id="d0e2187" href="#d0e2187src" class="noteref">5</a></span> Sleeman, p. 95.
+</p>
+<p class="footnote"><span class="label"><a id="d0e2201" href="#d0e2201src" class="noteref">6</a></span> Sleeman, p. 231.
+</p>
+<p class="footnote"><span class="label"><a id="d0e2212" href="#d0e2212src" class="noteref">7</a></span> Sleeman, p. 217.
+</p>
+<p class="footnote"><span class="label"><a id="d0e2215" href="#d0e2215src" class="noteref">8</a></span> Sleeman, p. 20.
+</p>
+<p class="footnote"><span class="label"><a id="d0e2223" href="#d0e2223src" class="noteref">9</a></span> Sleeman, p. 21.
+</p>
+<p class="footnote"><span class="label"><a id="d0e2231" href="#d0e2231src" class="noteref">10</a></span> Sleeman, p. 81.
+</p>
+<p class="footnote"><span class="label"><a id="d0e2242" href="#d0e2242src" class="noteref">11</a></span> Sleeman, p. 82.
+</p>
+<p class="footnote"><span class="label"><a id="d0e2260" href="#d0e2260src" class="noteref">12</a></span> Sleeman, p. 152.
+</p>
+<p class="footnote"><span class="label"><a id="d0e2268" href="#d0e2268src" class="noteref">13</a></span> Sleeman, p. 127. This passage is from a letter written by a magistrate, Mr. Ramsay.
+</p>
+<p class="footnote"><span class="label"><a id="d0e2271" href="#d0e2271src" class="noteref">14</a></span> Sleeman, p. 129.
+</p>
+<p class="footnote"><span class="label"><a id="d0e2274" href="#d0e2274src" class="noteref">15</a></span> Sleeman, p. 112.
+</p>
+<p class="footnote"><span class="label"><a id="d0e2282" href="#d0e2282src" class="noteref">16</a></span> Sleeman, p. 124.
+</p>
+<p class="footnote"><span class="label"><a id="d0e2285" href="#d0e2285src" class="noteref">17</a></span> Sleeman, p. 125.
+</p>
+<p class="footnote"><span class="label"><a id="d0e2301" href="#d0e2301src" class="noteref">18</a></span> Sleeman, p. 147.
+</p>
+<p class="footnote"><span class="label"><a id="d0e2311" href="#d0e2311src" class="noteref">19</a></span> Sleeman, p. 104.
+</p>
+<p class="footnote"><span class="label"><a id="d0e2316" href="#d0e2316src" class="noteref">20</a></span> Sleeman, p. 110.
+</p>
+<p class="footnote"><span class="label"><a id="d0e2319" href="#d0e2319src" class="noteref">21</a></span> Sleeman, p. 131.
+</p>
+<p class="footnote"><span class="label"><a id="d0e2327" href="#d0e2327src" class="noteref">22</a></span> Sleeman, p. 205.
+</p>
+<p class="footnote"><span class="label"><a id="d0e2337" href="#d0e2337src" class="noteref">23</a></span> Sleeman, p. 106.
+</p>
+<p class="footnote"><span class="label"><a id="d0e2364" href="#d0e2364src" class="noteref">24</a></span> Malcolm&#8217;s <i>Memoir of Central India</i>, ii. p. 479.
+</p>
+<p class="footnote"><span class="label"><a id="d0e2373" href="#d0e2373src" class="noteref">25</a></span> Crooke&#8217;s <i>Tribes and Castes</i>, art. B&#257;waria.
+</p>
+<p class="footnote"><span class="label"><a id="d0e2407" href="#d0e2407src" class="noteref">26</a></span> <i>Sirsa Settlement Report.</i></p>
+<p class="footnote"><span class="label"><a id="d0e2418" href="#d0e2418src" class="noteref">27</a></span> It would appear that the Gujar&#257;t V&#257;ghris are a distinct class from the criminal section of the tribe.
+</p>
+<p class="footnote"><span class="label"><a id="d0e2421" href="#d0e2421src" class="noteref">28</a></span> <i>Bombay Gazetteer</i>, <i>Gujar&#257;t Hindus</i>, p. 514.
+</p>
+<p class="footnote"><span class="label"><a id="d0e2429" href="#d0e2429src" class="noteref">29</a></span> Art. Bawaria, quoting from <i>North Indian Notes and Queries</i>, i. 51.
+</p>
+<p class="footnote"><span class="label"><a id="d0e2437" href="#d0e2437src" class="noteref">30</a></span> <i>Bombay Gazetteer</i>, <i>Hindus of Gujar&#257;t</i>, p. 574.
+</p>
+<p class="footnote"><span class="label"><a id="d0e2461" href="#d0e2461src" class="noteref">31</a></span> Gunthorpe&#8217;s <i>Criminal Tribes</i>.
+</p>
+<p class="footnote"><span class="label"><a id="d0e2470" href="#d0e2470src" class="noteref">32</a></span> <i>Criminal Classes in the Bombay Presidency</i>, p. 151.
+</p>
+<p class="footnote"><span class="label"><a id="d0e2481" href="#d0e2481src" class="noteref">33</a></span> Gunthorpe&#8217;s <i>Criminal Tribes</i>, art. Badhak.
+</p>
+<p class="footnote"><span class="label"><a id="d0e2487" href="#d0e2487src" class="noteref">34</a></span> <i>C. P. Police Lectures</i>, art. Badhak.
+</p>
+<p class="footnote"><span class="label"><a id="d0e2492" href="#d0e2492src" class="noteref">35</a></span> Art. B&#257;waria, para. 12.
+</p>
+<p class="footnote"><span class="label"><a id="d0e2495" href="#d0e2495src" class="noteref">36</a></span> <i>Criminal Classes in the Bombay Presidency</i>, p. 179.
+</p>
+<p class="footnote"><span class="label"><a id="d0e2506" href="#d0e2506src" class="noteref">37</a></span> Kennedy, <i>loc. cit.</i> p. 208.
+</p>
+<p class="footnote"><span class="label"><a id="d0e2512" href="#d0e2512src" class="noteref">38</a></span> Kennedy, <i>loc. cit.</i> p. 185.
+</p>
+</div>
+</div>
+<div id="d0e2521" class="div1"><span class="pagenum">
+[<a href="#d0e111">Contents</a>]
+</span><h2>Bahna</h2>
+<div class="div2" id="d0e2524">
+<h3>1. Nomenclature and internal structure.</h3>
+<p><b>Bahna, Pinj&#257;ra, Dhunia.</b><a id="d0e2530src" href="#d0e2530" class="noteref">1</a>&#8212;The occupational caste of cotton-cleaners. The Bahnas numbered 48,000 persons in the Central Provinces and Ber&#257;r in 1911.
+The large increase in the number of ginning-factories has ruined the Bahna&#8217;s trade of cleaning hand-ginned cotton, and as
+no distinction attaches to the name of Bahna it is possible that members of the caste who have taken to other occupations
+may have abandoned it and returned themselves <a id="d0e2533"></a><span class="pagenum">[<a href="#d0e2533">70</a>]</span>simply as Muhammadans. The three names Bahna, Pinj&#257;ra, Dhunia appear to be used indifferently for the caste in this Province,
+though in other parts of India they are distinguished. Pinj&#257;ra is derived from the word <i>pinjan</i> used for a cotton-bow, and Dhunia is from <i>dhunna</i>, to card cotton. The caste is also known as Dhunak Path&#257;ni. Though professing the Muhammadan religion, they still have many
+Hindu customs and ceremonies, and in the matter of inheritance our courts have held that they are subject to Hindu and not
+Muhammadan law.<a id="d0e2541src" href="#d0e2541" class="noteref">2</a> In Raipur a girl receives half the share of a boy in the division of inherited property. The caste appears to be a mixed
+occupational group, and is split into many territorial subcastes named after the different parts of the country from which
+its members have come, as Badharia from Badhas in M&#299;rz&#257;pur, Sars&#363;tia from the S&#257;raswati river, Ber&#257;ri of Ber&#257;r, Dakhni from
+the Deccan, Telangi from Madras, Pardeshi from northern India, and so on. Two groups are occupational, the New&#257;ris of Saugor,
+who make the thick <i>new&#257;r</i> tape used for the webbing of beds, and the Kanderas, who make fireworks and generally constitute a separate caste. There
+is considerable ground for supposing that the Bahnas are mainly derived from the caste of Telis or oil-pressers. In the Punjab
+Sir D. Ibbetson says<a id="d0e2550src" href="#d0e2550" class="noteref">3</a> that the Penja or cotton-scutcher is an occupational name applied to Telis who follow this profession; and that the Penja,
+Kasai and Teli are all of the same caste. Similarly in N&#257;sik the Telis and Pinj&#257;ras are said to form one community, under
+the government of a single <i>panch&#257;yat</i>. In cases of dispute or misconduct the usual penalty is temporary excommunication, which is known as the stopping of food
+and water.<a id="d0e2558src" href="#d0e2558" class="noteref">4</a> The Telis are an enterprising community of very low status, and would therefore be naturally inclined to take to other occupations;
+many of them are shopkeepers, cultivators and landholders, and it is quite probable that in past times they took up the Bahna&#8217;s
+profession and changed their religion with the hope of improving their social status. <a id="d0e2563"></a><span class="pagenum">[<a href="#d0e2563">71</a>]</span>The Telis are generally considered to be quarrelsome and talkative, and the Bahnas or Dhunias have the same characteristics.
+If one man abusing another lapses into Billingsgate, the other will say to him, &#8216;<i lang="und">Hamko Jul&#257;ha Dhunia neh j&#257;no</i>,&#8217; or &#8216;Don&#8217;t talk to me as if I was a Jul&#257;ha or a Dhunia.&#8217;
+
+
+</p>
+</div>
+<div class="div2" id="d0e2568">
+<h3>2. Marriage.</h3>
+<p>Some Bahnas have exogamous sections with Hindu names, while others are without these, and simply regulate their marriages
+by rules of relationship. They have the primitive Hindu custom of allowing a sister&#8217;s son to marry a brother&#8217;s daughter, but
+not <i>vice versa</i>. A man cannot marry his wife&#8217;s younger sister during her lifetime, nor her elder sister at any time. Children of the same
+foster-mother are also not allowed to marry. Their marriages are performed by a K&#257;zi with an imitation of the Nik&#257;h rite.
+The bridegroom&#8217;s party sit under the marriage-shed, and the bride with the women of her party inside the house. The K&#257;zi selects
+two men, one from the bride&#8217;s party, who is known as the Nik&#257;hi B&#257;p or &#8216;Marriage Father,&#8217; and the other from the bridegroom&#8217;s,
+who is called the Gow&#257;h or &#8216;Witness.&#8217; These two men go to the bride and ask her whether she accepts the bridegroom, whose
+name is stated, for her husband. She answers in the affirmative, and mentions the amount of the dowry which she is to receive.
+The bridegroom, who has hitherto had a veil (<i>mukhna</i>) over his face, now takes it off, and the men go to him and ask him whether he accepts the bride. He replies that he does,
+and agrees to pay the dowry demanded by her. The K&#257;zi reads some texts and the guests are given a meal of rice and sugar.
+Many of the preliminaries to a Hindu marriage are performed by the more backward members of the caste, and until recently
+they erected a sacred post in the marriage-shed, but now they merely hang the green branch of a mango tree to the roof. The
+minimum amount of the <i>mehar</i> or dowry is said to be Rs. 125, but it is paid to the girl&#8217;s parents as a bride-price and not to herself, as among the Muhammadans.
+A widow is expected, but not obliged, to marry her deceased husband&#8217;s younger brother. Divorce is permitted by means of a
+written deed known as &#8216;F&#257;rkhati.&#8217;
+
+
+
+
+</p>
+<div id="d0e2582" class="figure"><img border="0" src="images/p072.jpg" alt="Pinj&#257;ra cleaning cotton." width="720" height="515"><p class="figureHead">Pinj&#257;ra cleaning cotton.</p>
+</div><p>
+
+
+<a id="d0e2586"></a><span class="pagenum">[<a href="#d0e2586">72</a>]</span></p>
+</div>
+<div class="div2" id="d0e2587">
+<h3>3. Religious and other customs.</h3>
+<p>The Bahnas venerate Muhammad, and also worship the tombs of Muhammadan saints or <i>P&#299;rs</i>. A green sheet or cloth is spread over the tomb and a lamp is kept burning by it, while offerings of incense and flowers
+are made. When the new cotton crop has been gathered they lay some new cotton by their bow and mallet and make an offering
+of <i>mal&#299;da</i> or cakes of flour and sugar to it. They believe that two angels, one good and one bad, are perched continually on the shoulders
+of every man to record his good and evil deeds. And when an eclipse occurs they say that the sun and moon have gone behind
+a pinnacle or tower of the heavens. For exorcising evil spirits they write texts of the Kor&#257;n on paper and burn them before
+the sufferer. The caste bury the dead with the feet pointing to the south. On the way to the grave each one of the mourners
+places his shoulder under the bier for a time, partaking of the impurity communicated by it. Incense is burnt daily in the
+name of a deceased person for forty days after his death, with the object probably of preventing his ghost from returning
+to haunt the house. Muhammadan beggars are fed on the tenth day. Similarly, after the birth of a child a woman is unclean
+for forty days, and cannot cook for her husband during that period. A child&#8217;s hair is cut for the first time on the tenth
+or twelfth day after birth, this being known as Jh&#257;lar. Some parents leave a lock of hair to grow on the head in the name
+of the famous saint Sheikh Far&#299;d, thinking that they will thus ensure a long life for the child. It is probably in reality
+a way of preserving the Hindu <i>choti</i> or scalp-lock.
+
+
+</p>
+</div>
+<div class="div2" id="d0e2601">
+<h3>4. Occupation.</h3>
+<p>The hereditary calling<a id="d0e2606src" href="#d0e2606" class="noteref">5</a> of the Bahna is the cleaning or scutching of cotton, which is done by subjecting it to the vibration of a bow-string. The
+seed has been previously separated by a hand-gin, but the ginned cotton still contains much dirt, leaf-fibre and other rubbish,
+and to remove this is the Bahna&#8217;s task. The bow is somewhat in the shape of a harp, the wide end consisting of a broad piece
+of wood over which the string passes, being secured to a straight wooden bar at the back. At the narrow end the bar and string
+are fixed to an iron ring. The string is made of the <a id="d0e2612"></a><span class="pagenum">[<a href="#d0e2612">73</a>]</span>sinew of some animal, and this renders the implement objectionable to Hindus, and may account for the Bahnas being Muhammadans.
+The club or mallet is a wooden implement shaped like a dumb-bell. The bow is suspended from the roof so as to hang just over
+the pile of loose cotton; and the worker twangs the string with the mallet and then draws the mallet across the string, each
+three or four times. The string strikes a small portion of the cotton, the fibre of which is scattered by the impact and thrown
+off in a uniform condition of soft fluff, all dirt being at the same time removed. This is the operation technically known
+as teasing. Buchanan remarked that women frequently did the work themselves at home, using a smaller kind of bow called <i>dhunkara</i>. The clean cotton is made up into balls, some of which are passed on to the spinner, while others are used for the filling
+of quilts and the padded coats worn in the cold weather. The ingenious though rather clumsy method of the Bahna has been superseded
+by the ginning-factory, and little or no cotton destined for the spindle is now cleaned by him. The caste have been forced
+to take to cultivation or field labour, while many have become cartmen and others are brokers, peons or constables. Nearly
+every house still has its <i>pinjan</i> or bow, but only a desultory use is made of this during the winter months. As it is principally used by a Muhammadan caste
+it seems a possible hypothesis that the cotton-bow was introduced into India by invaders of that religion. The name of the
+bow, <i>pinjan</i>, is, however, a Sanskrit derivative, and this is against the above theory. It has already been seen that the fact of animal
+sinew being used for the string would make it objectionable to Hindus. The Bahnas are subjected to considerable ridicule on
+account of their curious mixture of Hindu and Muhammadan ceremonies, amounting in some respects practically to a caricature
+of the rites of Isl&#257;m; and further, they share with the weaver class the contempt shown to those who follow a calling considered
+more suitable for women than men. It is related that when the Mughal general Asaf Kh&#257;n first made an expedition into the north
+of the Central Provinces he found the famous Gond-R&#257;jp&#363;t queen Durg&#257;vati of the Garha-Mandla dynasty governing with success
+a large and <a id="d0e2623"></a><span class="pagenum">[<a href="#d0e2623">74</a>]</span>prosperous state in this locality. He thought a country ruled by a woman should fall an easy prey to the Muhammadan arms,
+and to show his contempt for her power he sent her a golden spindle. The queen retorted by a present of a gold cotton-cleaner&#8217;s
+bow, and this so enraged the Mughal that he proceeded to attack the Gond kingdom. The story indicates that cotton-carding
+is considered a Muhammadan profession, and also that it is held in contempt.
+
+
+</p>
+</div>
+<div class="div2" id="d0e2625">
+<h3>5. Proverbs about Bahnas.</h3>
+<p>Various sayings show that the Bahna is not considered a proper Muhammadan, as
+
+
+</p>
+<div class="poem" lang="und">
+<div class="stanza">
+<p class="line" style=""><span>Turuk to Turuk
+</span></p>
+<p class="line" style=""><span>Aur Bahna Turuk,</span></p>
+</div>
+</div>
+<p>or &#8216;A Muhammadan (Turk) is a Muhammadan and the Bahna is also a Muhammadan&#8217;; and again&#8212;
+
+
+</p>
+<div class="poem" lang="und">
+<div class="stanza">
+<p class="line" style=""><span>Achera,<a id="d0e2640src" href="#d0e2640" class="noteref">6</a> Kachera, Pinj&#257;ra,
+</span></p>
+<p class="line" style=""><span>Muhammad se d&#363;r, D&#299;n se niy&#257;ra,</span></p>
+</div>
+</div>
+<p>or &#8216;The Kachera and Pinj&#257;ra are lost to Muhammad and far from the faith&#8217;; and again&#8212;
+
+
+</p>
+<div class="poem" lang="und">
+<div class="stanza">
+<p class="line" style=""><span>Adho Hindu adho Musalm&#257;n
+</span></p>
+<p class="line" style=""><span>Tinkhon kahen Dhunak Path&#257;n,</span></p>
+</div>
+</div>
+<p>or &#8216;Half a Hindu and half a Muhammadan, that is he who is a Dhunak Path&#257;n.&#8217; They have a grotesque imitation of the Muhammadan
+rite of <i>hal&#257;l</i>, or causing an animal&#8217;s blood to flow on to the ground with the repetition of the <i>kalma</i> or invocation; thus it is said that when a Bahna is about to kill a fowl he addresses it somewhat as follows:
+
+
+</p>
+<div class="poem" lang="und">
+<div class="stanza">
+<p class="line" style=""><span>K&#257;he karkar&#257;t hai?
+</span></p>
+<p class="line" style=""><span>K&#257;he barbar&#257;t hai?
+</span></p>
+<p class="line" style=""><span>K&#257;he jai jai logon ka d&#257;na kh&#257;t h&#257;i?
+</span></p>
+<p class="line" style=""><span>Tor ki&#257;mat mor ni&#257;mat,
+</span></p>
+<p class="line" style=""><span>Bismill&#257;h hai tuch,</span></p>
+</div>
+</div>
+<p>or &#8220;Why do you cackle? Why do you crow? Why do you eat other people&#8217;s grain? Your death is my feast; I touch you in the name
+of God.&#8221; And saying this he puts a knife to the fowl&#8217;s throat. The vernacular verse is a good <a id="d0e2673"></a><span class="pagenum">[<a href="#d0e2673">75</a>]</span>imitation of the cackling of a fowl. And again, they slice off the top of an egg as if they were killing an animal and repeat
+the formula, &#8220;White dome, full of moisture, I know not if there is a male or female within; in the name of God I kill you.&#8221;
+A person whose memory is not good enough to retain these texts will take a knife and proceed to one who knows them. Such a
+man will repeat the texts over the knife, blowing on it as he does so, and the Bahna considers that the knife has been sanctified
+and retains its virtue for a week. Others do not think this necessary, but have a special knife, which having once been consecrated
+is always kept for killing animals, and descends as an heirloom in the family, the use of this sacred knife being considered
+to make the repetition of the <i>kalma</i> unnecessary. These customs are, however, practised only by the ignorant members of the caste in Raipur and Bil&#257;spur, and
+are unknown in the more civilised tracts, where the Bahnas are rapidly conforming to ordinary Muhammadan usage. Such primitive
+Bahnas perform their marriages by walking round the sacred post, keep the Hindu festivals, and feed Br&#257;hmans on the tenth
+day after a death. They have a priest whom they call their K&#257;zi, but elect him themselves. In some places when a Bahna goes
+to the well to draw water he first washes the parapet of the well to make it ceremonially clean, and then draws his water.
+This custom can only be compared with that of the R&#257;j-Gonds who wash the firewood with which they are about to cook their
+food, in order to make it more pure. Respectable Muhammadans naturally look down on the Bahnas, and they retaliate by refusing
+to take food or water from any Muhammadan who is not a Bahna. By such strictness the more ignorant think that they will enhance
+their ceremonial purity and hence their social consideration; but the intelligent members of the caste know better and are
+glad to improve themselves by learning from educated Muhammadans. The other menial artisan castes among the Muhammadans have
+similar ideas, and it is reported that a Rangrez boy who took food in the house of one of the highest Muhammadan officers
+of Government in the Province was temporarily put out of caste. Another saying about the Bahnas is&#8212;
+
+<a id="d0e2678"></a><span class="pagenum">[<a href="#d0e2678">76</a>]</span></p>
+<div class="poem" lang="und">
+<div class="stanza">
+<p class="line" style=""><span>Sheikhon k&#299; Sheikhi,
+</span></p>
+<p class="line" style="text-indent: 2em; "><span>Path&#257;non k&#299; tarr,</span></p>
+<p class="line" style=""><span>Turkon k&#299; Turksh&#257;hi,
+</span></p>
+<p class="line" style="text-indent: 2em; "><span>Bahnon k&#299; bharrr ...</span></p>
+</div>
+</div>
+<p>or &#8216;Proud as a Sheikh, obstinate as a Path&#257;n, royal as a Turk, buzzing like a Bahna.&#8217; This refers to the noise of the cotton-cleaning
+bow, the twang of which as it is struck by the club is like a quail flying; and at the same time to the Bahna&#8217;s loquacity.
+Another story is that a Bahna was once going through the forest with his cotton-cleaning bow and club or mallet, when a jackal
+met him on the path. The jackal was afraid that the Bahna would knock him on the head, so he said, &#8220;With thy bow on thy shoulder
+and thine arrow in thy hand, whither goest thou, O King of Delhi?&#8221; The Bahna was exceedingly pleased at this and replied,
+&#8216;King of the forest, eater of wild plums, only the great can recognise the great.&#8217; But when the jackal had got to a safe distance
+he turned round and shouted, &#8220;With your cotton-bow on your shoulder and your club in your hand, there you go, you sorry Bahna.&#8221;
+It is said also that although the Bahnas as good Muhammadans wear beards, they do not cultivate them very successfully, and
+many of them only have a growth of hair below the chin and none on the under-lip, in the fashion known as a goat&#8217;s beard.
+This kind of beard is thus proverbially described as &#8216;<i lang="und">Bahna kaisi d&#257;rhi</i>&#8217; or &#8216;A Bahna&#8217;s beard.&#8217; It may be repeated in conclusion that much of the ridicule attaching to the Bahnas arises simply from
+the fact that they follow what is considered a feminine occupation, and the remainder because in their ignorance they parody
+the rites of Isl&#257;m. It may seem ill-natured to record the sayings in which they are lampooned, but the Bahnas cannot read
+English, and these have an interest as specimens of popular wit.
+
+
+
+<a id="d0e2693"></a><span class="pagenum">[<a href="#d0e2693">77</a>]</span></p>
+</div>
+<div class="footnotes">
+<hr class="fnsep">
+<p class="footnote"><span class="label"><a id="d0e2530" href="#d0e2530src" class="noteref">1</a></span> This article is partly based on a paper by Munshi Kanhya L&#257;l of the Gazetteer office.
+</p>
+<p class="footnote"><span class="label"><a id="d0e2541" href="#d0e2541src" class="noteref">2</a></span> Sir B. Robertson&#8217;s <i>C.P. Census Report</i> (1891), p. 203.
+</p>
+<p class="footnote"><span class="label"><a id="d0e2550" href="#d0e2550src" class="noteref">3</a></span> <i>Punjab Census Report</i> (1881), paras. 646, 647.
+</p>
+<p class="footnote"><span class="label"><a id="d0e2558" href="#d0e2558src" class="noteref">4</a></span> <i>N&#257;sik Gazetteer</i>, pp. 84, 85.
+</p>
+<p class="footnote"><span class="label"><a id="d0e2606" href="#d0e2606src" class="noteref">5</a></span> Crooke&#8217;s <i>Tribes and Castes</i>, art. Bahna.
+</p>
+<p class="footnote" lang="en-uk"><span class="label"><a id="d0e2640" href="#d0e2640src" class="noteref">6</a></span> The word Achera is merely a jingle put in to make the rhyme complete.
+Kachera is a maker of glass bangles.
+</p>
+</div>
+</div>
+<div id="d0e2694" class="div1"><span class="pagenum">
+[<a href="#d0e111">Contents</a>]
+</span><h2>Baiga</h2>
+<h3>List of Paragraphs</h3>
+<ul>
+<li><a href="#d0e2750">1. The tribe and its offshoots.</a></li>
+<li><a href="#d0e2780">2. Tribal legends.</a></li>
+<li><a href="#d0e2804">3. Tribal subdivisions.</a></li>
+<li><a href="#d0e2816">4. Marriage.</a></li>
+<li><a href="#d0e2837">5. Birth and funeral rites.</a></li>
+<li><a href="#d0e2857">6. Religion.</a></li>
+<li><a href="#d0e2890">7. Appearance and mode of life.</a></li>
+<li><a href="#d0e2914">8. Dress and food.</a></li>
+<li><a href="#d0e2948">9. Occupation.</a></li>
+<li><a href="#d0e2957">10. Language.</a></li>
+</ul>
+<div class="div2" id="d0e2750">
+<h3>1. The tribe and its offshoots.</h3>
+<p><b>Baiga.</b><a id="d0e2756src" href="#d0e2756" class="noteref">1</a>&#8212;A primitive Dravidian tribe whose home is on the eastern Satp&#363;ra hills in the Mandla, B&#257;l&#257;gh&#257;t and Bil&#257;spur Districts. The
+number of the Baigas proper was only 30,000 in 1911. But the Binjh&#257;ls or Binjhw&#257;rs, a fairly numerous caste in the Chhatt&#299;sgarh
+Division, and especially in the Sambalpur District, appear to have been originally Baigas, though they have dropped the original
+caste name, become Hinduised, and now disclaim connection with the parent tribe. A reason for this may be found in the fact
+that Sambalpur contains several Binjhw&#257;r zam&#299;nd&#257;rs, or large landowners, whose families would naturally desire a more respectable
+pedigree than one giving them the wild Baigas of the Satp&#363;ras for their forefathers. And the evolution of the Binjhw&#257;r caste
+is a similar phenomenon to the constitution of the R&#257;j-Gonds, the R&#257;j-Korkus, and other aristocratic subdivisions among the
+forest tribes, who have been admitted to a respectable position in the Hindu social community. The Binjhw&#257;rs, however, have
+been so successful as to cut themselves off almost completely from connection with the original tribe, owing to their adoption
+of another name. But in B&#257;l&#257;gh&#257;t and Mandla the Binjhw&#257;r <a id="d0e2765"></a><span class="pagenum">[<a href="#d0e2765">78</a>]</span>subtribe is still recognised as the most civilised subdivision of the Baigas. The Bhainas, a small tribe in Bil&#257;spur, are
+probably another offshoot, Kath-Bhaina being the name of a subtribe of Baigas in that District, and Rai-Bhaina in B&#257;l&#257;gh&#257;t,
+though the Bhainas too no longer admit identity with the Baigas. A feature common to all three branches is that they have
+forgotten their original tongue, and now speak a more or less corrupt form of the Indo-Aryan vernaculars current around them.
+Finally, the term Bhumia or &#8216;Lord of the soil&#8217; is used sometimes as the name of a separate tribe and sometimes as a synonym
+for Baiga. The fact is that in the Central Provinces<a id="d0e2767src" href="#d0e2767" class="noteref">2</a> Bhumia is the name of an office, that of the priest of the village and local deities, which is held by one of the forest
+tribes. In the tract where the Baigas live, they, as the most ancient residents, are usually the priests of the indigenous
+gods; but in Jubbulpore the same office is held by another tribe, the Bharias. The name of the office often attaches itself
+to members of the tribe, who consider it as somewhat more respectable than their own, and it is therefore generally true to
+say that the people known as Bhumias in Jubbulpore are really Bharias, but in Mandla and Bil&#257;spur they are Baigas.
+
+</p>
+<p>In Mandla there is also found a group called Bharia-Baigas. These are employed as village priests by Hindus, and worship certain
+Hindu deities and not the Gond gods. They may perhaps be members of the Bharia tribe of Jubbulpore, originally derived from
+the Bhars, who have obtained the designation of Baiga, owing to their employment as village priests. But they now consider
+themselves a part of the Baiga tribe and say they came to Mandla from Rewah. In Mandla the decision of a Baiga on a boundary
+dispute is almost always considered as final, and this authority is of a kind that commonly emanates from recognised priority
+of residence.<a id="d0e2772src" href="#d0e2772" class="noteref">3</a> There seems reason to suppose that the Baigas are really a branch of the primitive Bhuiya tribe of Chota N&#257;gpur, and that
+they have taken or been given the name of Baiga, the designation of a village priest, on migration into the Central Provinces.
+There is reason to <a id="d0e2778"></a><span class="pagenum">[<a href="#d0e2778">79</a>]</span>believe that the Baigas were once dominant in the Chhatt&#299;sgarh plain and the hills surrounding it which adjoin Chota N&#257;gpur,
+the home of the Bhuiyas. The considerations in favour of this view are given in the article on Bhuiya, to which reference
+may be made.
+
+
+</p>
+</div>
+<div class="div2" id="d0e2780">
+<h3>2. Tribal legends.</h3>
+<p>The Baigas, however, are not without some conceit of themselves, as the following legend will show. In the beginning, they
+say, God created Nanga Baiga and Nangi Baigin, the first of the human race, and asked them by what calling they would choose
+to live. They at once said that they would make their living by felling trees in the jungle, and permission being accorded,
+have done so ever since. They had two sons, one of whom remained a Baiga, while the other became a Gond and a tiller of the
+soil. The sons married their own two sisters who were afterwards born, and while the elder couple are the ancestors of the
+Baigas, from the younger are descended the Gonds and all the remainder of the human race. In another version of the story
+the first Baiga cut down two thousand old <i>s&#257;l</i><a id="d0e2787src" href="#d0e2787" class="noteref">4</a> trees in one day, and God told him to sprinkle a few grains of kutki on the ashes, and then to retire and sleep for some
+months, when on his return he would be able to reap a rich harvest for his children. In this manner the habit of shifting
+cultivation is accorded divine sanction. According to Binjhw&#257;r tradition Nanga Baiga and Nangi Baigin dwelt on the <i>kajli ban pah&#257;r</i>, which being interpreted is the hill of elephants, and may well refer to the ranges of Mandla and Bil&#257;spur. It is stated
+in the <i>Ain-i-Akbari</i><a id="d0e2796src" href="#d0e2796" class="noteref">5</a> that the country of Garha-Mandla abounded in wild elephants, and that the people paid their tribute in these and gold mohurs.
+In Mandla the Baigas sometimes hang out from their houses a bamboo mat fastened to a long pole to represent a flag which they
+say once flew from the palace of a Baiga king. It seems likely that the original home of the tribe may have been the Chhatt&#299;sgarh
+plain and the hill-ranges surrounding it. A number of estates in these hills are held by landowners of tribes which are offshoots
+of the Baigas, as the Bhainas and Binjhw&#257;rs. The point is <a id="d0e2802"></a><span class="pagenum">[<a href="#d0e2802">80</a>]</span>further discussed in the article on Bhuiya. Most of the Baigas speak a corrupt form of the Chhatt&#299;sgarhi dialect. When they
+first came under the detailed observation of English officers in the middle of the nineteenth century, the tribe were even
+more solitary and retired than at present. Their villages, it is said, were only to be found in places far removed from all
+cleared and cultivated country. No roads or well-defined paths connected them with ordinary lines of traffic and more thickly
+inhabited tracts, but perched away in snug corners in the hills, and hidden by convenient projecting spurs and dense forests
+from the country round, they could not be seen except when nearly approached, and were seldom visited unless by occasional
+enterprising Banias and vendors of country liquor. Indeed, without a Baiga for a guide many of the villages could hardly be
+discovered, for nothing but occasional notches on the trees distinguished the tracks to them from those of the s&#257;mbhar and
+other wild animals.
+
+
+</p>
+</div>
+<div class="div2" id="d0e2804">
+<h3>3. Tribal subdivisions.</h3>
+<p>The following seven subdivisions or subtribes are recognised: Binjhw&#257;r, Bharotia, Narotia or N&#257;har, Raibhaina, Kathbhaina,
+Kondw&#257;n or Kundi, and Gondwaina. Of these the Binjhw&#257;r, Bharotia and Narotia are the best-known. The name of the Binjhw&#257;rs
+is probably derived from the Vindhyan range, which in turn comes from the Sanskrit <i>vindhya</i>, a hunter. The rule of exogamy is by no means strictly observed, and in Kawardha it is said that these three subcastes intermarry
+though they do not eat together, while in B&#257;l&#257;gh&#257;t the Bharotias and Narotias both eat together and intermarry. In both places
+the Binjhw&#257;rs occupy the highest position, and the other two subtribes will take food from them. The Binjhw&#257;rs consider themselves
+as Hindus and abjure the consumption of buffalo&#8217;s and cow&#8217;s flesh and rats, while the other Baigas will eat almost anything.
+The Bharotias partially shave their heads, and in Mandla are apparently known as Mundia or Mudia, or &#8220;shaven.&#8221; The Gondwainas
+eat both cow&#8217;s flesh and monkeys, and are regarded as the lowest subcaste. As shown by their name they are probably the offspring
+of unions between Baigas and Gonds. Similarly the Kondw&#257;ns apparently derive their name from the tract south of the <a id="d0e2812"></a><span class="pagenum">[<a href="#d0e2812">81</a>]</span>Mah&#257;nadi which is named after the Khond tribe, and was formerly owned by them.
+
+</p>
+<p>Each subtribe is divided into a number of exogamous septs, the names of which are identical in many cases with those of the
+Gonds, as Mark&#257;m, Mar&#257;vi, Net&#257;m, Tek&#257;m and others. Gond names are found most frequently among the Gondwainas and Narotias,
+and these have adopted from the Gonds the prohibition of marriage between worshippers of the same number of gods. Thus the
+four septs above mentioned worship seven gods and may not intermarry. But they may marry among other septs such as the Dhurua,
+Pus&#257;m, Bania and Maw&#257;r who worship six gods. The Baigas do not appear to have assimilated the further division into worshippers
+of five, four, three and two gods which exist among the Gonds in some localities, and the system is confined to the lower
+subtribes. The meanings of the sept names have been forgotten and no instances of totemism are known. And the Binjhw&#257;rs and
+Bharotias, who are more or less Hinduised, have now adopted territorial names for their septs, as Lapheya from L&#257;pha zam&#299;nd&#257;ri,
+Ghugharia from Ghughri village in Mandla, and so on. The adoption of Gond names and septs appears to indicate that Gonds were
+in former times freely admitted into the Baiga tribe; and this continues to be the case at present among the lower subtribes,
+so far that a Gond girl marrying a Baiga becomes a regular member of the community. But the Binjhw&#257;rs and Bharotias, who have
+a somewhat higher status than the others, refuse to admit Gonds, and are gradually adopting the strict rule of endogamy within
+the subtribe.
+
+
+</p>
+</div>
+<div class="div2" id="d0e2816">
+<h3>4. Marriage.</h3>
+<p>A Baiga must not take a wife from his own sept or from another one worshipping the same number of gods. But he may marry within
+his mother&#8217;s sept, and in some localities the union of first cousins is permitted. Marriage is adult and the proposal comes
+from the parents of the bride, but in some places the girl is allowed to select a husband for herself. A price varying from
+five to twenty rupees is usually paid to the bride&#8217;s parents, or in lieu of this the prospective husband serves his father-in-law
+for a period of about two years, the marriage being celebrated after the first year if his conduct is satisfactory. Orphan
+boys who have no parents to arrange <a id="d0e2821"></a><span class="pagenum">[<a href="#d0e2821">82</a>]</span>their marriages for them often take service for a wife. Three ceremonies should precede the marriage. The first, which may
+take place at any time after the birth of both children, consists merely in the arrangement for their betrothal. The second
+is only a ratification of the first, feasts being provided by the boy&#8217;s parents on both occasions. While on the approach of
+the children to marriageable age the final betrothal or <i>barokhi</i> is held. The boy&#8217;s father gives a large feast at the house of the girl and the date of the wedding is fixed. To ascertain
+whether the union will be auspicious, two grains of rice are dropped into a pot of water, after various preliminary solemnities
+to mark the importance of the occasion. If the points of the grains meet almost immediately it is considered that the marriage
+will be highly auspicious. If they do not meet, a second pair of grains are dropped in, and should these meet it is believed
+that the couple will quarrel after an interval of married life and that the wife will return to her father&#8217;s house. While
+if neither of the two first essays are successful and a third pair is required, the regrettable conclusion is arrived at that
+the wife will run away with another man after a very short stay with her husband. But it is not stated that the betrothal
+is on that account annulled. The wedding procession starts from the bridegroom&#8217;s house<a id="d0e2826src" href="#d0e2826" class="noteref">6</a> and is received by the bride&#8217;s father outside the village. It is considered essential that he should go out to meet the bride&#8217;s
+party riding on an elephant. But as a real elephant is not within the means of a Baiga, two wooden bedsteads are lashed together
+and covered with blankets with a black cloth trunk in front, and this arrangement passes muster for an elephant. The elephant
+makes pretence to charge and trample down the marriage procession, until a rupee is paid, when the two parties embrace each
+other and proceed to the marriage-shed. Here the bride and bridegroom throw fried rice at each other until they are tired,
+and then walk three or seven times round the marriage-post with their clothes tied together. It is stated by Colonel Ward
+that the couple always retired to the forest to spend <a id="d0e2829"></a><span class="pagenum">[<a href="#d0e2829">83</a>]</span>the wedding night, but this custom has now been abandoned. The expenditure on a marriage varies between ten and fifty rupees,
+of which only about five rupees fall on the bride&#8217;s parents. The remarriage of widows is permitted, and the widow is expected,
+though not obliged, to wed her late husband&#8217;s younger brother, while if she takes another husband he must pay her brother-in-law
+the sum of five rupees. The ceremony consists merely of the presentation of bangles and new clothes by the suitor, in token
+of her acceptance of which the widow pours some tepid water stained with turmeric over his head. Divorce may be effected by
+the husband and wife breaking a straw in the presence of the caste <i>panch&#257;yat</i> or committee. If the woman remains in the same village and does not marry again, the husband is responsible for her maintenance
+and that of her children, while a divorced woman may not remarry without the sanction of the <i>panch&#257;yat</i> so long as her husband is alive and remains single. Polygamy is permitted.
+
+
+</p>
+</div>
+<div class="div2" id="d0e2837">
+<h3>5. Birth and funeral rites.</h3>
+<p>A woman is unclean for a month after childbirth, though the Binjhw&#257;rs restrict the period to eight days. At the ceremony of
+purification a feast is given and the child is named, often after the month or day of its birth, as Chaitu, Ph&#257;gu, Saoni,
+and so on, from the months of Chait, Ph&#257;gun and Shr&#257;wan. Children who appear to be physically defective are given names accordingly,
+such as Langra (lame), or Bahira (deaf). The dead are usually buried, the bodies of old persons being burnt as a special honour
+and to save them from the risk of being devoured by wild animals. Bodies are laid naked in the grave with the head pointing
+to the south. In the grave of a man of importance two or three rupees and some tobacco are placed. In some places a rupee
+is thrust into the mouth of the dying man, and if his body is burnt, the coin is recovered from the pyre by his daughter or
+sister, who wears it as an amulet. Over the grave a platform is made on which a stone is erected. This is called the Bh&#299;ri
+of the deceased and is worshipped by his relatives in time of trouble. If one of the family has to be buried elsewhere, the
+relatives go to the Bh&#299;ri of the great dead and consign his spirit to be kept in their company. At a funeral the mourners
+take one black <a id="d0e2842"></a><span class="pagenum">[<a href="#d0e2842">84</a>]</span>and one white fowl to a stream and kill and eat them there, setting aside a portion for the dead man. Mourning is observed
+for a period of from two to nine days, and during this time labour and even household work are stopped, food being supplied
+by the friends of the family. When a man is killed by a tiger the Baiga priest goes to the spot and there makes a small cone
+out of the blood-stained earth. This must represent a man, either the dead man or one of his living relatives. His companions
+having retired a few paces, the priest goes on his hands and knees and performs a series of antics which are supposed to represent
+the tiger in the act of destroying the man, at the same time seizing the lump of blood-stained earth in his teeth. One of
+the party then runs up and taps him on the back with a small stick. This perhaps means that the tiger is killed or otherwise
+rendered harmless; and the Baiga immediately lets the mud cone fall into the hands of one of the party. It is then placed
+in an ant-hill and a pig is sacrificed over it. The next day a small chicken is taken to the place, and after a mark supposed
+to be the dead man&#8217;s name is made on its head with red ochre, it is thrown back into the forest, the priest exclaiming, &#8216;Take
+this and go home.&#8217; The ceremony is supposed to lay the dead man&#8217;s spirit and at the same time to prevent the tiger from doing
+any further damage. The Baigas believe that the ghost of the victim, if not charmed to rest, resides on the head of the tiger
+and incites him to further deeds of blood, rendering him also secure from harm by his preternatural watchfulness.<a id="d0e2844src" href="#d0e2844" class="noteref">7</a>
+
+</p>
+<p>They also think that they can shut up the tiger&#8217;s <i>d&#257;r</i> or jaws, so that he cannot bite them, by driving a nail into a tree. The forest track from K&#257;nha to Kisli in the Banjar forest
+reserve of Mandla was formerly a haunt of man-eating tigers, to whom a number of the wood-cutters and Baiga coolies, clearing
+the jungle paths, fell victims every year. In a large tree, at a dangerous point in the track, there could recently be seen
+a nail, driven into the trunk by a Baiga priest, at some height from the ground. It was said that this nail shut the mouth
+of a famous man-eating tiger of the locality and prevented him from killing any <a id="d0e2855"></a><span class="pagenum">[<a href="#d0e2855">85</a>]</span>more victims. As evidence of the truth of the story there were shown on the trunk the marks of the tiger&#8217;s claws, where he
+had been jumping up the tree in the effort to pull the nail out of the trunk and get his man-eating powers restored.
+
+
+</p>
+</div>
+<div class="div2" id="d0e2857">
+<h3>6. Religion.</h3>
+<p>Although the Binjhw&#257;r subcaste now profess Hinduism, the religion of the Baigas is purely animistic. Their principal deity
+is Bura Deo,<a id="d0e2862src" href="#d0e2862" class="noteref">8</a> who is supposed to reside in a <i>s&#257;j</i> tree (<i>Terminalia tomentosa</i>); he is worshipped in the month of Jeth (May), when goats, fowls, cocoanuts, and the liquor of the new mahua crop are offered
+to him. Th&#257;kur Deo is the god of the village land and boundaries, and is propitiated with a white goat. The Baigas who plough
+the fields have a ceremony called Bidri, which is performed before the breaking of the rains. A handful of each kind of grain
+sown is given by each cultivator to the priest, who mixes the grains together and sows a little beneath the tree where Th&#257;kur
+Deo lives. After this he returns a little to each cultivator, and he sows it in the centre of the land on which crops are
+to be grown, while the priest keeps the remainder. This ceremony is believed to secure the success of the harvest. Dulha Deo
+is the god who averts disease and accident, and the offering made to him should consist of a fowl or goat of reddish colour.
+Bh&#299;msen is the deity of rainfall, and Dharti M&#257;ta or Mother Earth is considered to be the wife of Th&#257;kur Deo, and must also
+be propitiated for the success of the crops. The grain itself is worshipped at the threshing floor by sprinkling water and
+liquor on to it. Certain Hindu deities are also worshipped by the Baigas, but not in orthodox fashion. Thus it would be sacrilege
+on the part of a Hindu to offer animal sacrifices to N&#257;r&#257;yan Deo, the sun-god, but the Baigas devote to him a special oblation
+of the most unclean animal, the pig. The animal to be sacrificed is allowed to wander loose for two or three years, and is
+then killed in a most cruel manner. It is laid across the threshold of a doorway on its back, and across its stomach is placed
+a stout plank of <i>s&#257;j</i>-wood. Half a dozen men sit or stand on the ends of this, and the fore and hind feet of the pig are pulled backwards and forwards
+alternately over <a id="d0e2877"></a><span class="pagenum">[<a href="#d0e2877">86</a>]</span>the plank until it is crushed to death, while all the men sing or shout a sacrificial hymn. The head and feet are cut off
+and offered to the deity, and the body is eaten. The forests are believed to be haunted by spirits, and in certain localities
+<i>p&#257;ts</i> or shrines are erected in their honour, and occasional offerings are made to them. The spirits of married persons are supposed
+to live in streams, while trees afford a shelter to the souls of the unmarried, who become <i>bh&#363;ts</i> or malignant spirits after death. N&#257;g Deo or the cobra is supposed to live in an ant-hill, and offerings are made to him
+there. Demoniacal possession is an article of faith, and a popular remedy is to burn human hair mixed with chillies and pig&#8217;s
+dung near the person possessed, as the horrible smell thus produced will drive away the spirit. Many and weird, Mr. Low writes,
+are the simples which the Baiga&#8217;s travelling scrip contains. Among these a dried bat has the chief place; this the Baiga says
+he uses to charm his nets with, that the prey may catch in them as the bat&#8217;s claws catch in whatever it touches. As an instance
+of the Baiga&#8217;s pantheism it may be mentioned that on one occasion when a train of the new Satp&#363;ra railway<a id="d0e2885src" href="#d0e2885" class="noteref">9</a> had pulled up at a wayside forest station, a Baiga was found offering a sacrifice to the engine. Like other superstitious
+people they are great believers in omens. A single crow bathing in a stream is a sign of death. A cock which crows in the
+night should be instantly killed and thrown into the darkness, a custom which some would be glad to see introduced into much
+more civilised centres. The woodpecker and owl are birds of bad omen. The Baigas do not appear to have any idea of a fresh
+birth, and one of their marriage songs says, &#8220;O girl, take your pleasure in going round the marriage-post once and for all,
+for there is no second birth.&#8221; The Baigas are generally the priests of the Gonds, probably because being earlier residents
+of the country they are considered to have a more intimate acquaintance with the local deities. They have a wide knowledge
+of the medicinal properties of jungle roots and herbs, and are often successful in effecting cures when the regular native
+doctors have failed. Their village priests have consequently a considerable reputation as skilled <a id="d0e2888"></a><span class="pagenum">[<a href="#d0e2888">87</a>]</span>sorcerers and persons conversant with the unseen world. A case is known of a Br&#257;hman transferred to a jungle station, who
+immediately after his arrival called in a Baiga priest and asked what forest gods he should worship, and what other steps
+he should take to keep well and escape calamity. Colonel Ward states that in his time Baigas were commonly called in to give
+aid when a town or village was attacked by cholera, and further that he had seen the greatest benefit to result from their
+visit. For the people had so much confidence in their powers and ceremonies that they lost half their fright at once, and
+were consequently not so much predisposed to an attack of the disease. On such an occasion the Baiga priest goes round the
+village and pulls out a little straw from each house-roof, afterwards burning the whole before the shrine of Kherm&#257;ta, the
+goddess of the village, to whom he also offers a chicken for each homestead. If this remedy fails goats are substituted for
+chickens, and lastly, as a forlorn hope, pigs are tried, and, as a rule, do not fail, because by this time the disease may
+be expected to have worked itself out. It is suggested that the chicken represents a human victim from each house, while the
+straw stands for the house itself, and the offering has the common idea of a substituted victim.
+
+
+</p>
+</div>
+<div class="div2" id="d0e2890">
+<h3>7. Appearance and mode of life.</h3>
+<p>In stature the Baigas are a little taller than most other tribes, and though they have a tendency to the flat nose of the
+Gonds, their foreheads and the general shape of their heads are of a better mould. Colonel Ward states that the members of
+the tribe inhabiting the Maikal range in Mandla are a much finer race than those living nearer the open country.<a id="d0e2895src" href="#d0e2895" class="noteref">10</a> Their figures are very nearly perfect, says Colonel Bloomfield,<a id="d0e2900src" href="#d0e2900" class="noteref">11</a> and their wiry limbs, unburdened by superfluous flesh, will carry them over very great distances and over places inaccessible
+to most human beings, while their compact bodies need no other nutriment than the scanty fare afforded by their native forests.
+They are born hunters, hardy and active in the chase, and exceedingly bold and courageous. In character they are naturally
+simple, honest and truthful, and when their fear of a stranger has been <a id="d0e2905"></a><span class="pagenum">[<a href="#d0e2905">88</a>]</span>dissipated are most companionable folk. A small hut, 6 or 7 feet high at the ridge, made of split bamboos and mud, with a
+neat veranda in front thatched with leaves and grass, forms the Baiga&#8217;s residence, and if it is burnt down, or abandoned on
+a visitation of epidemic disease, he can build another in the space of a day. A rough earthen vessel to hold water, leaves
+for plates, gourds for drinking-vessels, a piece of matting to sleep on, and a small axe, a sickle and a spear, exhaust the
+inventory of the Baiga&#8217;s furniture, and the money value of the whole would not exceed a rupee.<a id="d0e2907src" href="#d0e2907" class="noteref">12</a> The Baigas never live in a village with other castes, but have their huts some distance away from the village in the jungle.
+Unlike the other tribes also, the Baiga prefers his house to stand alone and at some little distance from those of his fellow-tribesmen.
+While nominally belonging to the village near which they dwell, so separate and distinct are they from the rest of people
+that in the famine of 1897 cases were found of starving Baiga hamlets only a few hundred yards away from the village proper
+in which ample relief was being given. On being questioned as to why they had not caused the Baigas to be helped, the other
+villagers said, &#8216;We did not remember them&#8217;; and when the Baigas were asked why they did not apply for relief, they said, &#8216;We
+did not think it was meant for Baigas.&#8217;
+
+
+
+</p>
+<div id="d0e2910" class="figure"><img border="0" src="images/p088.jpg" alt="Baiga village, B&#257;l&#257;gh&#257;t District." width="720" height="401"><p class="figureHead">Baiga village, B&#257;l&#257;gh&#257;t District.</p>
+</div><p>
+
+
+
+
+</p>
+</div>
+<div class="div2" id="d0e2914">
+<h3>8. Dress and food.</h3>
+<p>Their dress is of the most simple description, a small strip of rag between the legs and another wisp for a head-covering
+sufficing for the men, though the women are decently covered from their shoulders to half-way between the thighs and knees.
+A Baiga may be known by his scanty clothing and tangled hair, and his wife by the way in which her single garment is arranged
+so as to provide a safe sitting-place in it for her child. Baiga women have been seen at work in the field transplanting rice
+with babies comfortably seated in their cloth, one sometimes supported on either hip with their arms and legs out, while the
+mother was stooping low, hour after hour, handling the rice plants. A girl is tattooed on the forehead at the age of five,
+and over her whole body before she is married, both for the sake of ornament and because the practice is considered beneficial
+to the health. <a id="d0e2919"></a><span class="pagenum">[<a href="#d0e2919">89</a>]</span>The Baigas are usually without blankets or warm clothing, and in the cold season they sleep round a wood fire kept burning
+or smouldering all night, stray sparks from which may alight on their tough skins without being felt. Mr. Lampard relates
+that on one occasion a number of Baiga men were supplied by the Mission under his charge with large new cloths to cover their
+bodies with and make them presentable on appearance in church. On the second Sunday, however, they came with their cloths
+burnt full of small holes; and they explained that the damage had been done at night while they were sleeping round the fire.
+
+</p>
+<p>A Baiga, Mr. Lampard continues, is speedily discerned in a forest village baz&#257;r, and is the most interesting object in it.
+His almost nude figure, wild, tangled hair innocent of such inventions as brush or comb, lithe wiry limbs and jungly and uncivilised
+appearance, mark him out at once. He generally brings a few mats or baskets which he has made, or fruits, roots, honey, horns
+of animals, or other jungle products which he has collected, for sale, and with the sum obtained (a few pice or annas at the
+most) he proceeds to make his weekly purchases, changing his pice into cowrie shells, of which he receives eighty for each
+one. He buys tobacco, salt, chillies and other sundries, besides as much of kodon, kutki, or perhaps rice, as he can afford,
+always leaving a trifle to be expended at the liquor shop before departing for home. The various purchases are tied up in
+the corners of the bit of rag twisted round his head. Unlike pieces of cloth known to civilisation, which usually have four
+corners, the Baiga&#8217;s headgear appears to be nothing but corners, and when the shopping is done the strip of rag may have a
+dozen minute bundles tied up in it.
+
+</p>
+<p>In Baihar of B&#257;l&#257;gh&#257;t buying and selling are conducted on perhaps the most minute scale known, and if a Baiga has one or two
+pice<a id="d0e2925src" href="#d0e2925" class="noteref">13</a> to lay out he will spend no inconsiderable time over it. Grain is sold in small measures holding about four ounces called
+<i>baraiyas</i>, but each of these has a layer of mud at the bottom of varying degrees of thickness, so as to reduce its capacity. Before
+a purchase can be made it must be settled by whose <i>baraiya</i> the grain is to be measured, and <a id="d0e2934"></a><span class="pagenum">[<a href="#d0e2934">90</a>]</span>the seller and purchaser each refuse the other&#8217;s as being unfair to himself, until at length after discussion some neutral
+person&#8217;s <i>baraiya</i> is selected as a compromise. Their food consists largely of forest fruits and roots with a scanty allowance of rice or the
+light millets, and they can go without nourishment for periods which appear extraordinary to civilised man. They eat the flesh
+of almost all animals, though the more civilised abjure beef and monkeys. They will take food from a Gond but not from a Br&#257;hman.
+The Baiga dearly loves the common country liquor made from the mahua flower, and this is consumed as largely as funds will
+permit of at weddings, funerals and other social gatherings, and also if obtainable at other times. They have a tribal <i>panch&#257;yat</i> or committee which imposes penalties for social offences, one punishment being the abstention from meat for a fixed period.
+A girl going wrong with a man of the caste is punished by a fine, but cases of unchastity among unmarried Baiga girls are
+rare. Among their pastimes dancing is one of the chief, and in their favourite dance, known as <i>karma</i>, the men and women form long lines opposite to each other with the musicians between them. One of the instruments, a drum
+called <i>m&#257;ndar</i>, gives out a deep bass note which can be heard for miles. The two lines advance and retire, everybody singing at the same
+time, and when the dancers get fully into the time and swing, the pace increases, the drums beat furiously, the voices of
+the singers rise higher and higher, and by the light of the bonfires which are kept burning the whole scene is wild in the
+extreme.
+
+
+</p>
+</div>
+<div class="div2" id="d0e2948">
+<h3>9. Occupation.</h3>
+<p>The Baigas formerly practised only shifting cultivation, burning down patches of jungle and sowing seed on the ground fertilised
+by the ashes after the breaking of the rains. Now that this method has been prohibited in Government forest, attempts have
+been made to train them to regular cultivation, but with indifferent success in B&#257;l&#257;gh&#257;t. An idea of the difficulties to be
+encountered may be obtained from the fact that in some villages the Baiga cultivators, if left unwatched, would dig up the
+grain which they had themselves sown as seed in their fields and eat it; while the plough-cattle which were given to them
+invariably developed diseases in spite of all precautions, as a result of <a id="d0e2953"></a><span class="pagenum">[<a href="#d0e2953">91</a>]</span>which they found their way sooner or later to the Baiga&#8217;s cooking-pot. But they are gradually adopting settled habits, and
+in Mandla, where a considerable block of forest was allotted to them in which they might continue their destructive practice
+of shifting sowings, it is reported that the majority have now become regular cultivators. One explanation of their refusal
+to till the ground is that they consider it a sin to lacerate the breast of their mother earth with a ploughshare. They also
+say that God made the jungle to produce everything necessary for the sustenance of men and made the Baigas kings of the forest,
+giving them wisdom to discover the things provided for them. To Gonds and others who had not this knowledge, the inferior
+occupation of tilling the land was left. The men never become farmservants, but during the cultivating season they work for
+hire at uprooting the rice seedlings for transplantation; they do no other agricultural labour for others. Women do the actual
+transplantation of rice and work as harvesters. The men make bamboo mats and baskets, which they sell in the village weekly
+markets. They also collect and sell honey and other forest products, and are most expert at all work that can be done with
+an axe, making excellent woodcutters. But they show no aptitude in acquiring the use of any other implement, and dislike steady
+continuous labour, preferring to do a few days&#8217; work and then rest in their homes for a like period before beginning again.
+Their skill and dexterity in the use of the axe in hunting is extraordinary. Small deer, hares and peacocks are often knocked
+over by throwing it at them, and panthers and other large animals are occasionally killed with a single blow. If one of two
+Baigas is carried off by a tiger, the survivor will almost always make a determined and often successful attempt to rescue
+him with nothing more formidable than an axe or a stick. They are expert trackers, and are also clever at setting traps and
+snares, while, like Korkus, they catch fish by damming streams in the hot weather and throwing into the pool thus formed some
+leaf or root which stupefies them. Even in a famine year, Mr. Low says, a Baiga can collect a large basketful of roots in
+a single day; and if the bamboo seeds he is amply provided for. Nowadays Baiga cultivators may occasionally be met <a id="d0e2955"></a><span class="pagenum">[<a href="#d0e2955">92</a>]</span>with who have taken to regular cultivation and become quite prosperous, owning a number of cattle.
+
+
+</p>
+</div>
+<div class="div2" id="d0e2957">
+<h3>10. Language.</h3>
+<p>As already stated, the Baigas have completely forgotten their own language, and in the Satp&#363;ra hills they speak a broken form
+of Hindi, though they have a certain number of words and expressions peculiar to the caste.
+
+
+
+<a id="d0e2962"></a><span class="pagenum">[<a href="#d0e2962">93</a>]</span></p>
+</div>
+<div class="footnotes">
+<hr class="fnsep">
+<p class="footnote"><span class="label"><a id="d0e2756" href="#d0e2756src" class="noteref">1</a></span> This article is based largely on a monograph by the Rev. J. Lampard, missionary, Baihar, and also on papers by Muhammad Han&#299;f
+Sidd&#299;qi, forest ranger, Bil&#257;spur, and Mr. Muhammad Ali Haqq&#257;ni, B.A., Tahs&#299;ld&#257;r, Dindori. Some extracts have been made from
+Colonel Ward&#8217;s <i>Mandla Settlement Report</i> (1869), and from Colonel Bloomfield&#8217;s <i>Notes on the Baigas</i>.
+</p>
+<p class="footnote"><span class="label"><a id="d0e2767" href="#d0e2767src" class="noteref">2</a></span> In Bengal the Bhumia or Bhum&#299;j are an important tribe.
+</p>
+<p class="footnote"><span class="label"><a id="d0e2772" href="#d0e2772src" class="noteref">3</a></span> Colonel Ward&#8217;s <i>Mandla Settlement Report</i> (1868&#8211;69), p. 153.
+</p>
+<p class="footnote"><span class="label"><a id="d0e2787" href="#d0e2787src" class="noteref">4</a></span> <i>Shorea robusta.</i></p>
+<p class="footnote"><span class="label"><a id="d0e2796" href="#d0e2796src" class="noteref">5</a></span> Jarrett&#8217;s <i>Ain-i-Akbari</i>, vol. ii. p. 196.
+</p>
+<p class="footnote"><span class="label"><a id="d0e2826" href="#d0e2826src" class="noteref">6</a></span> Colonel Ward gives the bride&#8217;s house as among the Gonds. But inquiry in Mandla shows that if this custom formerly existed
+it has been abandoned.
+</p>
+<p class="footnote"><span class="label"><a id="d0e2844" href="#d0e2844src" class="noteref">7</a></span> Forsyth&#8217;s <i>Highlands of Central India</i>, p. 377.
+</p>
+<p class="footnote"><span class="label"><a id="d0e2862" href="#d0e2862src" class="noteref">8</a></span> The Great God. The Gonds also worship Bura Deo, resident in a <i>s&#257;j</i> tree.
+</p>
+<p class="footnote"><span class="label"><a id="d0e2885" href="#d0e2885src" class="noteref">9</a></span> Opened in 1905.
+</p>
+<p class="footnote"><span class="label"><a id="d0e2895" href="#d0e2895src" class="noteref">10</a></span> <i>Mandla Settlement Report</i> (1868&#8211;69), p. 153.
+</p>
+<p class="footnote"><span class="label"><a id="d0e2900" href="#d0e2900src" class="noteref">11</a></span> <i>Notes on the Baigas</i>, p. 4.
+</p>
+<p class="footnote"><span class="label"><a id="d0e2907" href="#d0e2907src" class="noteref">12</a></span> Mr. Lampard&#8217;s monograph.
+</p>
+<p class="footnote"><span class="label"><a id="d0e2925" href="#d0e2925src" class="noteref">13</a></span> Farthings.
+</p>
+</div>
+</div>
+<div id="d0e2963" class="div1"><span class="pagenum">
+[<a href="#d0e111">Contents</a>]
+</span><h2>Bair&#257;gi</h2>
+<h3>List of Paragraphs</h3>
+<ul>
+<li><a href="#d0e3030">1. Definition of name and statistics.</a></li>
+<li><a href="#d0e3060">2. The four Samprad&#257;yas or main orders.</a></li>
+<li><a href="#d0e3093">3. The R&#257;m&#257;nujis.</a></li>
+<li><a href="#d0e3103">4. The R&#257;m&#257;nandis</a></li>
+<li><a href="#d0e3116">5. The N&#299;m&#257;nandis.</a></li>
+<li><a href="#d0e3140">6. The M&#257;dhavach&#257;ryas.</a></li>
+<li><a href="#d0e3150">7. The Vallabhach&#257;ryas.</a></li>
+<li><a href="#d0e3234">8. Minor sects.</a></li>
+<li><a href="#d0e3245">9. The seven Akh&#257;ras.</a></li>
+<li><a href="#d0e3289">10. The Dw&#257;ras.</a></li>
+<li><a href="#d0e3298">11. Initiation, appearance and customs.</a></li>
+<li><a href="#d0e3353">12. Recruitment of the order and its character.</a></li>
+<li><a href="#d0e3360">13. Social position and customs.</a></li>
+<li><a href="#d0e3375">14. Bair&#257;gi monasteries.</a></li>
+<li><a href="#d0e3395">15. Married Bair&#257;gis.</a></li>
+</ul>
+<div class="div2" id="d0e3030">
+<h3>1. Definition of name and statistics.</h3>
+<p><b>Bair&#257;gi</b>,<a id="d0e3037src" href="#d0e3037" class="noteref">1</a> <b>S&#257;dhu</b>.&#8212;The general term for members of the Vishnuite religious orders, who formerly as a rule lived by mendicancy. The Bair&#257;gis
+have now, however, become a caste. In 1911 they numbered 38,000 persons in the Provinces, being distributed over all Districts
+and States. The name Bair&#257;gi is supposed to come from the Sanskrit Vair&#257;gya and to signify one who is free from human passions.
+Bair&#257;ga is also the term for the crutched stick which such mendicants frequently carry about with them and lean upon, either
+sitting or standing, and which in case of need would serve them as a weapon. Platts considers<a id="d0e3049src" href="#d0e3049" class="noteref">2</a> that the name of the order comes from the Sanskrit abstract term, and the crutch therefore apparently obtained its name from
+being used by members of the order. Properly, a religious mendicant of any Vishnuite sect should be called a Bair&#257;gi. But
+the term is not generally applied to the more distinctive sects as the Kab&#299;rpanthi, Sw&#257;mi-N&#257;r&#257;yan, Satn&#257;mi and others, some
+of which are almost separated from Hinduism, <a id="d0e3054"></a><span class="pagenum">[<a href="#d0e3054">94</a>]</span>nor to the Sikh religious orders, nor the Chaitanya sect of Bengal. A proper Bair&#257;gi is one whose principal deity is either
+Vishnu or either of his great incarnations, R&#257;ma and Krishna.
+
+
+
+</p>
+<div id="d0e3056" class="figure"><img border="0" src="images/p094.jpg" alt="Hindu mendicants with sect-marks." width="720" height="449"><p class="figureHead">Hindu mendicants with sect-marks.</p>
+</div><p>
+
+
+
+</p>
+</div>
+<div class="div2" id="d0e3060">
+<h3>2. The four Samprad&#257;yas or main orders.</h3>
+<p>It is generally held that there are four Samprad&#257;yas or main sects of Bair&#257;gis. These are&#8212;
+
+</p>
+<p>(<i>a</i>) The R&#257;m&#257;nujis, the followers of the first prominent Vishnuite reformer R&#257;m&#257;nuj in southern India, with whom are classed
+the R&#257;m&#257;nandis or adherents of his great disciple R&#257;m&#257;nand in northern India. Both these are also called Sri Vaishnava, that
+is, the principal or original Vaishnava sect.
+
+</p>
+<p>(<i>b</i>) The N&#299;m&#257;nandi, N&#299;m&#257;t or N&#299;mb&#257;ditya sect, followers of a saint called N&#299;m&#257;nand.
+
+</p>
+<p>(<i>c</i>) The Vishnu-Sw&#257;mi or Vallabhach&#257;rya sect, worshippers of Krishna and R&#257;dha.
+
+</p>
+<p>(<i>d</i>) The M&#257;dhavach&#257;rya sect of southern India.
+
+</p>
+<p>It will be desirable to give a few particulars of each of these, mainly taken from Wilson&#8217;s <i>Hindu Sects</i> and Dr. Bhattach&#257;rya&#8217;s <i>Hindu Castes and Sects</i>.
+
+
+</p>
+</div>
+<div class="div2" id="d0e3093">
+<h3>3. The R&#257;m&#257;nujis.</h3>
+<p>R&#257;m&#257;nuj was the first great Vishnuite prophet, and lived in southern India in the eleventh or twelfth century on an island
+in the K&#257;veri river near Trichinopoly. He preached the worship of a supreme spirit, Vishnu and his consort Lakshmi, and taught
+that men also had souls or spirits, and that matter was lifeless. He was a strong opponent of the cult of Siva, then predominant
+in southern India, and of phallic worship. He, however, admitted only the higher castes into his order, and cannot therefore
+be considered as the founder of the liberalising principle of Vishnuism. The superiors of the R&#257;m&#257;nuja sect are called Ach&#257;rya,
+and rank highest among the priests of the Vishnuite orders. The most striking feature in the practice of the R&#257;m&#257;nujis is
+the separate preparation and scrupulous privacy of their meals. They must not eat in cotton garments, but must bathe, and
+then put on wool or silk. The teachers allow their select pupils to assist them, but in general all the R&#257;m&#257;nujis cook for
+themselves, and should the meal during this process, or while they are eating, attract even the look of a stranger, the operation
+is instantly stopped and the viands buried in the <a id="d0e3098"></a><span class="pagenum">[<a href="#d0e3098">95</a>]</span>ground. The R&#257;m&#257;nujis address each other with the salutation Dasoham, or &#8216;I am your slave,&#8217; accompanied with the Pran&#257;m or
+slight inclination of the head and the application of joined hands to the forehead. To the Ach&#257;ryas or superiors the other
+members of the sect perform the Ashtanga or prostration of the body with eight parts touching the ground. The <i>tilak</i> or sect-mark of the R&#257;m&#257;nujis consists of two perpendicular white lines from the roots of the hair to the top of the eyebrows,
+with a connecting white line at the base, and a third central line either of red or yellow. The R&#257;m&#257;nujis do not recognise
+the worship of R&#257;dha, the consort of Krishna. The mendicant orders of the S&#257;tanis and Dasaris of southern India are branches
+of this sect.
+
+
+</p>
+</div>
+<div class="div2" id="d0e3103">
+<h3>4. The R&#257;m&#257;nandis</h3>
+<p>R&#257;m&#257;nand, the great prophet of Vishnuism in northern India, and the real founder of the liberal doctrines of the cult, lived
+at Ben&#257;res at the end of the fourteenth century, and is supposed to have been a follower of R&#257;m&#257;nuj. He introduced, however,
+a great extension of his predecessor&#8217;s gospel in making his sect, nominally at least, open to all castes. He thus initiated
+the struggle against the social tyranny and exclusiveness of the caste system, which was carried to greater lengths by his
+disciples and successors, Kab&#299;r, N&#257;nak, D&#257;du, Rai D&#257;s and others. These afterwards proclaimed the worship of one unseen god
+who could not be represented by idols, and the religious equality of all men, their tenets no doubt being considerably influenced
+by their observance of Isl&#257;m, which had now become a principal religion of India. R&#257;m&#257;nand himself did not go so far, and
+remained a good Hindu, inculcating the special worship of R&#257;ma and his consort S&#299;ta. The R&#257;ma&#257;andis consider the R&#257;m&#257;yana
+as their most sacred book, and make pilgrimages to Ajodhia and R&#257;mnath.<a id="d0e3108src" href="#d0e3108" class="noteref">3</a> Their sect-mark consists of two white lines down the forehead with a red one between, but they are continued on to the nose,
+ending in a loop, instead of terminating at the line of the eyebrows, like that of the R&#257;m&#257;nujis. The R&#257;m&#257;nandis say that
+the mark on the nose represents the Sing&#257;sun or lion&#8217;s throne, while the two white lines up the forehead are R&#257;ma and Lakhshman,
+and <a id="d0e3114"></a><span class="pagenum">[<a href="#d0e3114">96</a>]</span>the centre red one is S&#299;ta. Some of their devotees wear ochre-coloured clothes like the Sivite mendicants.
+
+
+</p>
+</div>
+<div class="div2" id="d0e3116">
+<h3>5. The N&#299;m&#257;nandis.</h3>
+<p>The second of the four orders is that of the N&#299;m&#257;nandis, called after a saint N&#299;m&#257;nand. He lived near Mathura Brind&#257;ban, and
+on one occasion was engaged in religious controversy with a Jain ascetic till sunset. He then offered his visitor some refreshment,
+but the Jain could not eat anything after sunset, so N&#299;m&#257;nand stopped the sun from setting, and ordered him to wait above
+a <i>n&#299;m</i> tree till the meal was cooked and eaten under the tree, and this direction the sun duly obeyed. Hence N&#299;m&#257;nand, whose original
+name was Bh&#257;skarach&#257;rya, was called by his new name after the tree, and was afterwards held to have been an incarnation of
+Vishnu or the Sun.
+
+</p>
+<p>The doctrines of the sect, Mr. Growse states,<a id="d0e3126src" href="#d0e3126" class="noteref">4</a> are of a very enlightened character. Thus their tenet of salvation by faith is thought by many scholars to have been directly
+derived from the Gospels; while another article in their creed is the continuance of conscious individual existence in a future
+world, when the highest reward of the good will not be extinction, but the enjoyment of the visible presence of the divinity
+whom they have served while on earth. The N&#299;m&#257;nandis worship Krishna, and were the first sect, Dr. Bhattach&#257;rya states,<a id="d0e3130src" href="#d0e3130" class="noteref">5</a> to associate with him as a divine consort R&#257;dha, the chief partner of his illicit loves.
+
+</p>
+<p>Their headquarters are at Muttra, and their chief festival is the Janam-Ashtami<a id="d0e3137src" href="#d0e3137" class="noteref">6</a> or Krishna&#8217;s birthday. Their sect-mark consists of two white lines down the forehead with a black patch in the centre, which
+is called Shi&#257;mbindini. Shi&#257;m means black, and is a name of Krishna. They also sometimes have a circular line across the nose,
+which represents the moon.
+
+
+</p>
+</div>
+<div class="div2" id="d0e3140">
+<h3>6. The M&#257;dhavach&#257;ryas.</h3>
+<p>The third great order is that of the M&#257;dhavas, named after a saint called M&#257;dhavach&#257;rya in southern India. He attempted to
+reconcile the warring Sivites and Vishnuites by combining the worship of Krishna with that of Siva <a id="d0e3145"></a><span class="pagenum">[<a href="#d0e3145">97</a>]</span>and P&#257;rvati. The doctrine of the sect is that the human soul is different from the divine soul, and its members are therefore
+called dualists. They admit a distinction between the divine soul and the universe, and between the human soul and the material
+world. They deny also the possibility of Nirv&#257;na or the absorption and extinction of the human soul in the divine essence.
+They destroy their thread at initiation, and also wear red clothes like the Sivite devotees, and like them also they carry
+a staff and water-pot. The <i>tilak</i> of the M&#257;dhavach&#257;ryas is said to consist of two white lines down the forehead and continued on to the nose where they meet,
+with a black vertical line between them.
+
+
+</p>
+</div>
+<div class="div2" id="d0e3150">
+<h3>7. The Vallabhach&#257;ryas.</h3>
+<p>The fourth main order is the Vishnu-Sw&#257;mi, which is much better known as the Vallabhach&#257;rya sect, called after its founder
+Vallabha, who was born in <span class="smallcaps">A.D.</span> 1479. The god Krishna appeared to him and ordered him to marry and set up a shrine to the god at Gokul near Mathura (Muttra).
+The sect worship Krishna in his character of B&#257;la Gop&#257;la or the cowherd boy. Their temples are numerous all over India, and
+especially at Mathura and Brind&#257;ban, where Krishna was brought up as a cowherd. The temples at Ben&#257;res, Jagann&#257;th and Dw&#257;rka
+are rich and important, but the most celebrated shrine is at Sri N&#257;thadw&#257;ra in Mew&#257;r. The image is said to have transported
+itself thither from Mathura, when Aur&#257;ngzeb ordered its temple at Mathura to be destroyed. Krishna is here represented as
+a little boy in the act of supporting the mountain Govardhan on his finger to shelter the people from the storms of rain sent
+by Indra. The image is splendidly dressed and richly decorated with ornaments to the value of several thousand pounds. The
+images of Krishna in the temples are commonly known as Th&#257;kurji, and are either of stone or brass. At all Vallabhach&#257;rya temples
+there are eight daily services: the Mangala or morning <i>lev&eacute;e</i>, a little after sunrise, when the god is taken from his couch and bathed; the Sring&#257;ra, when he is attired in his jewels
+and seated on his throne; the Gw&#257;la, when he is supposed to be starting to graze his cattle in the woods of Braj; the R&#257;j
+Bhog or midday meal, which, after presentation, is consumed by the priests and votaries <a id="d0e3161"></a><span class="pagenum">[<a href="#d0e3161">98</a>]</span>who have assisted at the ceremonies; the Utt&#257;pan, about three o&#8217;clock, when the god awakes from his siesta; the Bhog or evening
+collation; the Sandhiya or disrobing at sunset; and the Sayan or retiring to rest. The ritual is performed by the priests
+and the lay worshipper is only a spectator, who shows his reverence by the same forms as he would to a human superior.<a id="d0e3163src" href="#d0e3163" class="noteref">7</a>
+
+
+
+</p>
+<div id="d0e3169" class="figure"><img border="0" src="images/p098.jpg" alt="Anchorite sitting on iron nails." width="402" height="720"><p class="figureHead">Anchorite sitting on iron nails.</p>
+</div><p>
+
+
+
+</p>
+<p>The priests of the sect are called Gokalastha Gosain or Mah&#257;r&#257;ja. They are considered to be incarnations of the god, and divine
+honours are paid to them. They always marry, and avow that union with the god is best obtained by indulgence in all bodily
+enjoyments. This doctrine has led to great licentiousness in some groups of the sect, especially on the part of the priests
+or Mah&#257;r&#257;jas. Women were taught to believe that the service of and contact with the priest were the most real form of worshipping
+the god, and that intercourse with him was equivalent to being united with the god. Dr. Bhattach&#257;rya quotes<a id="d0e3175src" href="#d0e3175" class="noteref">8</a> the following tariff for the privilege of obtaining different degrees of contact with the body of the Mah&#257;r&#257;ja or priest:
+
+
+</p>
+<div class="table">
+<table width="100%">
+<tr valign="top">
+<td valign="top">For homage by sight </td>
+<td valign="top">Rs. 5.
+
+</td>
+</tr>
+<tr valign="top">
+<td valign="top">For homage by touch </td>
+<td valign="top">Rs. 20.
+
+</td>
+</tr>
+<tr valign="top">
+<td valign="top">For the honour of washing the Mah&#257;r&#257;ja&#8217;s foot </td>
+<td valign="top">Rs. 35.
+
+</td>
+</tr>
+<tr valign="top">
+<td valign="top">For swinging him </td>
+<td valign="top">Rs. 40.
+
+</td>
+</tr>
+<tr valign="top">
+<td valign="top">For rubbing sweet unguents on his body </td>
+<td valign="top">Rs. 42.
+
+</td>
+</tr>
+<tr valign="top">
+<td valign="top">For being allowed to sit with him on the same couch </td>
+<td valign="top">Rs. 60.
+
+</td>
+</tr>
+<tr valign="top">
+<td valign="top">For the privilege of dancing with him </td>
+<td valign="top">Rs. 100 to 200.
+
+</td>
+</tr>
+<tr valign="top">
+<td valign="top">For drinking the water in which he has bathed </td>
+<td valign="top">Rs. 17.
+
+</td>
+</tr>
+<tr valign="top">
+<td valign="top">For being closeted with him in the same room </td>
+<td valign="top">Rs. 50 to 500.</td>
+</tr>
+</table>
+</div><p>
+
+
+</p>
+<p>The public disapprobation caused by these practices <a id="d0e3229"></a><span class="pagenum">[<a href="#d0e3229">99</a>]</span>and their bad effect on the morality of women culminated in the great Mah&#257;r&#257;j libel suit in the Bombay High Court in 1862.
+Since then the objectionable features of the cult have to a large extent disappeared, while it has produced some priests of
+exceptional liberality and enlightenment. The <i>tilak</i> of the Vallabhach&#257;ryas is said to consist of two white lines down the forehead, forming a half-circle at its base and a white
+dot between them. They will not admit the lower castes into the order, but only those from whom a Br&#257;hman can take water.
+
+
+</p>
+</div>
+<div class="div2" id="d0e3234">
+<h3>8. Minor sects.</h3>
+<p>Besides the main sects as described above, Vaishnavism has produced many minor sects, consisting of the followers of some
+saint of special fame, and mendicants belonging to these are included in the body of Bair&#257;gis. One or two legends concerning
+such saints may be given. A common order is that of the Bendiw&#257;le, or those who wear a dot. Their founder began putting a
+red dot on his forehead between the two white lines in place of the long red line of the R&#257;m&#257;nandis. His associates asked
+him why he had dared to alter his <i>tilak</i> or sect-mark. He said that the goddess J&#257;nki had given him the dot, and as a test he went and bathed in the Sarju river,
+and rubbed his forehead with water, and all the sect-mark was rubbed out except the dot. So the others recognised the special
+intervention of the goddess, and he founded a sect. Another sect is called the Chaturbhuji or four-armed, Chaturbhuj being
+an epithet of Vishnu. He was taking part in a feast when his loin-cloth came undone behind, and the others said to him that
+as this had happened, he had become impure at the feast. He replied, &#8216;Let him to whom the <i>dhoti</i> belongs tie it up,&#8217; and immediately four arms sprang from his body, and while two continued to take food, the other two tied
+up his loin-cloth behind. Thus it was recognised that the Chaturbhuji Vishnu had appeared in him, and he was venerated.
+
+
+</p>
+</div>
+<div class="div2" id="d0e3245">
+<h3>9. The seven Akh&#257;ras.</h3>
+<p>Among the Bair&#257;gis, besides the four Samprad&#257;yas or main orders, there are seven Akh&#257;ras. These are military divisions or
+schools for training, and were instituted when the Bair&#257;gis had to fight with the Gosains. Any member of one of the four Samprad&#257;yas
+can belong to any one of the seven Akh&#257;ras, and a man can change his Akh&#257;ra as <a id="d0e3250"></a><span class="pagenum">[<a href="#d0e3250">100</a>]</span>often as he likes, but not his Samprad&#257;ya. The Akh&#257;ras, with the exception of the Lasgaris, who change the red centre line
+of the R&#257;man&#257;ndis into a white line, have no special sect-marks. They are distinguished by their flags or standards, which
+are elaborately decorated with gold thread embroidered on silk or sometimes with jewels, and cost two or three hundred rupees
+to prepare. These standards were carried by the N&#257;ga or naked members of the Akh&#257;ra, who went in front and fought. Once in
+twelve years a great meeting of all the seven Akh&#257;ras is held at Allah&#257;b&#257;d, N&#257;sik, Ujjain or Hardw&#257;r, where they bathe and
+wash the image of the god in the water of the holy rivers. The quarrels between the Bair&#257;gis and Gosains usually occurred
+at the sacred rivers, and the point of contention was which sect should bathe first. The following is a list of the seven
+Akh&#257;ras: Digambari, Kh&#257;ki, Munjia, Kathia, Nirmohi, Nirb&#257;ni or Niranjani and Lasgari.
+
+
+</p>
+<div id="d0e3252" class="figure"><img border="0" src="images/p100.jpg" alt="Pilgrims carrying water of the river Nerbudda." width="720" height="446"><p class="figureHead">Pilgrims carrying water of the river Nerbudda.</p>
+</div><p>
+
+
+</p>
+<p>The name of the Digamber or Meghdamber signifies sky-clad or cloud-clad, that is naked. They do penance in the rainy season
+by sitting naked in the rain for two or three hours a day with an earthen pot on the head and the hands inserted in two others
+so that they cannot rub the skin. In the dry season they wear only a little cloth round the waist and ashes over the rest
+of the body. The ashes are produced from burnt cowdung picked up off the ground, and not mixed with straw like that which
+is prepared for fuel.
+
+</p>
+<p>The Kh&#257;ki Bair&#257;gis also rub ashes on the body. During the four hot months they make five fires in a circle, and kneel between
+them with the head and legs and arms stretched towards the fires. The fires are kindled at noon with little heaps of cowdung
+cakes, and the penitent stays between them till they go out. They also have a block of wood with a hole through it, into which
+they insert the organ of generation and suspend it by chains in front and behind. They rub ashes on the body, from which they
+probably get their name of Kh&#257;ki or dust-colour.
+
+</p>
+<p>The Munjia Akh&#257;ra have a belt made of <i>munj</i> grass round the waist, and a little apron also of grass, which is hung from it, and passed through the legs. Formerly they
+<a id="d0e3265"></a><span class="pagenum">[<a href="#d0e3265">101</a>]</span>wore no other clothes, but now they have a cloth. They also do penance between the fires.
+
+</p>
+<p>The Kathias have a waist-belt of bamboo fibre, to which is suspended the wooden block for the purpose already described. Their
+name signifies wooden, and is probably given to them on account of this custom.
+
+</p>
+<p>The Nirmohi carry a <i>lota</i> or brass vessel and a little cup, in which they receive alms.
+
+</p>
+<p>The Nirb&#257;ni wear only a piece of string or rope round the waist, to which is attached a small strip of cloth passing through
+the legs. When begging, they carry a <i>kawar</i> or banghy, holding two baskets covered with cloth, and into this they put all their alms. They never remove the cloth, but
+plunge their hands into the basket at random when they want something to eat. They call the basket K&#257;mdhenu, the name of the
+cow which gave inexhaustible wealth. These Bair&#257;gis commonly marry and accumulate property.
+
+</p>
+<p>The Lasgari are soldiers, as the name denotes.<a id="d0e3281src" href="#d0e3281" class="noteref">9</a> They wear three straight lines of sandalwood up the forehead. It is said that on one occasion the Bair&#257;gis were suddenly
+attacked by the Gosains when they had only made the white lines of the sect-mark, and they fought as they were. In consequence
+of this, they have ever since worn three white lines and no red one.
+
+</p>
+<p>Others say that the Lasgari are a branch of the Digambari Akh&#257;ra, and that the Munjia and Kathia are branches of the Kh&#257;ki
+Akh&#257;ra. They give three other Akh&#257;ras&#8212;N&#299;ralankhi, Mah&#257;nirb&#257;ni and Santokhi&#8212;about which nothing is known.
+
+
+</p>
+</div>
+<div class="div2" id="d0e3289">
+<h3>10. The Dw&#257;ras.</h3>
+<p>Besides the Akh&#257;ras, the Bair&#257;gis are said to have fifty-two Dw&#257;ras or doors, and every man must be a member of a Dw&#257;ra as
+well as of a Samprad&#257;ya and Akh&#257;ra. The Dw&#257;ras seem to have no special purpose, but in the case of Bair&#257;gis who marry, they
+now serve as exogamous sections, so that members of the same Dw&#257;ra do not intermarry.
+
+
+
+
+</p>
+<div id="d0e3294" class="figure"><img border="0" src="images/p102.jpg" alt="Examples of Tilaks or sect-marks worn on the forehead." width="720" height="404"><p class="figureHead">Examples of Tilaks or sect-marks worn on the forehead.</p>
+</div><p>
+
+
+</p>
+</div>
+<div class="div2" id="d0e3298">
+<h3>11. Initiation, appearance and customs.</h3>
+<p>A candidate for initiation has his head shaved, is invested with a necklace of beads of the <i>tulsi</i> or basil, and is taught a <i>mantra</i> or text relating to Vishnu by his preceptor. The initiation text of the R&#257;m&#257;nandis is said to be <i>Om R&#257;m&#257;ya <a id="d0e3311"></a><span class="pagenum">[<a href="#d0e3311">102</a>]</span>N&#257;mah</i>, or <i>Om</i>, Salutation to R&#257;ma. <i>Om</i> is a very sacred syllable, having much magical power. Thereafter the novice must journey to Dw&#257;rka in Gujar&#257;t and have his
+body branded with hot iron or copper in the shape of Vishnu&#8217;s four implements: the <i>chakra</i> or discus, the <i>guda</i> or club, the <i>shank</i> or conch-shell and the <i>padma</i> or lotus. Sometimes these are not branded but are made daily on the arms with clay. The sect-mark should be made with Gopichandan
+or the milkmaid&#8217;s sandalwood. This is supposed to be clay taken from a tank at Dw&#257;rka, in which the Gopis or milkmaids who
+had been Krishna&#8217;s companions drowned themselves when they heard of his death. But as this can seldom be obtained any suitable
+whitish clay is used instead. The Bair&#257;gis commonly let their hair grow long, after being shaved at initiation, to imitate
+the old forest ascetics. If a man makes a pilgrimage on foot to some famous shrine he may have his head shaved there and make
+an offering of his hair. Others keep their hair long and shave it only at the death of their <i>guru</i> or preceptor. They usually wear white clothes, and if a man has a cloth on the upper part of the body it should be folded
+over the shoulders and knotted at the neck. He also has a <i>chimta</i> or small pair of tongs, and, if he can obtain it, the skin of an Indian antelope, on which he will sit while taking his food.
+The skin of this animal is held to be sacred. Every Bair&#257;gi before he takes his food should dip a sprig of <i>tulsi</i> or basil into it to sanctify it, and if he cannot get this he uses his necklace of <i>tulsi</i>-beads for the purpose instead. The caste abstain from flesh and liquor, but are addicted to the intoxicating drugs, <i>g&#257;nja</i> and <i>bh&#257;ng</i> or preparations of Indian hemp. A Hindu on meeting a Bair&#257;gi will greet him with the phrase &#8216;Jai S&#299;t&#257;r&#257;m,&#8217; and the Bair&#257;gi
+will answer, &#8216;S&#299;t&#257;r&#257;m.&#8217; This word is a conjunction of the names of R&#257;ma and his consort S&#299;ta. When a Bair&#257;gi receives alms
+he will present to the giver a flower and a sprig of <i>tulsi</i>.
+
+
+</p>
+</div>
+<div class="div2" id="d0e3353">
+<h3>12. Recruitment of the order and its character.</h3>
+<p>A man belonging to any caste except the impure ones can be initiated as a Bair&#257;gi, and the order is to a large extent recruited
+from the lower castes. Theoretically all members of the order should eat together; but the Br&#257;hmans and other high castes
+belonging to it now eat only <a id="d0e3358"></a><span class="pagenum">[<a href="#d0e3358">103</a>]</span>among themselves, except on the occasion of a Ghosti or special religious assembly, when all eat in common. As a matter of
+fact the order is a very mixed assortment of people. Many persons who lost their caste in the famine of 1897 from eating in
+Government poor-houses, joined the order and obtained a respectable position. Debtors who have become hopelessly involved
+sometimes find in it a means of escape from their creditors. Women of bad character, who have been expelled from their caste,
+are also frequently enrolled as female members, and in monasteries live openly with the men. The caste is also responsible
+for a good deal of crime. Not only is the disguise a very convenient one for thieves and robbers to assume on their travels,
+but many regular members of the order are criminally disposed. Nevertheless large numbers of Bair&#257;gis are men who have given
+up their caste and families from a genuine impulse of self-sacrifice, and the desire to lead a religious life.
+
+
+</p>
+</div>
+<div class="div2" id="d0e3360">
+<h3>13. Social position and customs.</h3>
+<p>On account of their sanctity the Bair&#257;gis have a fairly good social position, and respectable Hindu castes will accept cooked
+food from them. Br&#257;hmans usually, but not always, take water. They act as <i>gurus</i> or spiritual guides to the laymen of all castes who can become Bair&#257;gis. They give the R&#257;m and Gop&#257;l Mantras, or the texts
+of R&#257;ma and Krishna, to their disciples of the three twice-born castes, and the Sheo Mantra or Siva&#8217;s text to other castes.
+The last is considered to be of smaller religious efficacy than the others, and is given to the lower castes and members of
+the higher ones who do not lead a particularly virtuous life. They invest boys with the sacred thread, and make the sect-mark
+on their foreheads. When they go and visit their disciples they receive presents, but do not ask them to confess their sins
+nor impose penalties.
+
+</p>
+<p>If a mendicant Bair&#257;gi keeps a woman it is stated that he is expelled from the community, but this rule does not seem to be
+enforced in practice. If he is detected in a casual act of sexual intercourse a fine should be imposed, such as feeding two
+or three hundred Bair&#257;gis. The property of an unmarried Bair&#257;gi descends to a selected <i>chela</i> or disciple. The bodies of the dead are usually burnt, <a id="d0e3373"></a><span class="pagenum">[<a href="#d0e3373">104</a>]</span>but those of saints specially famous for their austerities or piety are buried, and salt is put round the body to preserve
+it. Such men are known as Bhakta.
+
+
+</p>
+</div>
+<div class="div2" id="d0e3375">
+<h3>14. Bair&#257;gi monasteries.</h3>
+<p>The Bair&#257;gis<a id="d0e3380src" href="#d0e3380" class="noteref">10</a> have numerous <i>maths</i> or monasteries, scattered over the country and usually attached to temples. The Math comprises a set of huts or chambers
+for the Mahant or superior and his permanent pupils; a temple and often the Sam&#257;dhi or tomb of the founder, or of some eminent
+Mahant; and a Dharms&#257;la or charitable hostel for the accommodation of wandering members of the order, and of other travellers
+who are constantly visiting the temple. Ingress and egress are free to all, and, indeed, a restraint on personal liberty seems
+never to have entered into the conception of any Hindu religious legislator. There are, as a rule, a small number of resident
+<i>chelas</i> or disciples who are scholars and attendants on the superiors, and also out-members who travel over the country and return
+to the monastery as a headquarters. The monastery has commonly some small endowment in land, and the resident <i>chelas</i> go out and beg for alms for their common support. If the Mahant is married the headship may descend in his family; but when
+he is unmarried his successor is one of his disciples, who is commonly chosen by election at a meeting of the Mahants of neighbouring
+monasteries. Formerly the Hindu governor of the district would preside at such an election, but it is now, of course, left
+entirely to the Bair&#257;gis themselves.
+
+
+</p>
+</div>
+<div class="div2" id="d0e3395">
+<h3>15. Married Bair&#257;gis.</h3>
+<p>Large numbers of Bair&#257;gis now marry and have children, and have formed an ordinary caste. The married Bair&#257;gis are held to
+be inferior to the celibate mendicants, and will take food from them, but the mendicants will not permit the married Bair&#257;gis
+to eat with them in the <i>chauka</i> or place purified for the taking of food. The customs of the married Bair&#257;gis resemble those of ordinary Hindu castes such
+as the Kurmis. They permit divorce and the remarriage of widows, and burn the dead. Those who have taken to cultivation do
+not, as a rule, plough with their own hands. Many Bair&#257;gis have acquired property and become <a id="d0e3403"></a><span class="pagenum">[<a href="#d0e3403">105</a>]</span>landholders, and others have extensive moneylending transactions. Two such men who had acquired possession of extensive tracts
+of zam&#299;nd&#257;ri land in Chhatt&#299;sgarh, in satisfaction of loans made to the Gond zam&#299;nd&#257;rs, and had been given the zam&#299;nd&#257;ri status
+by the Mar&#257;thas, were subsequently made Feudatory Chiefs of the N&#257;ndgaon and Chhuikhadan States. These chiefs now marry and
+the States descend in their families by primogeniture in the ordinary manner. As a rule, the Bair&#257;gi landowners and moneylenders
+are not found to be particularly good specimens of their class.
+
+
+</p>
+</div>
+<div class="footnotes">
+<hr class="fnsep">
+<p class="footnote"><span class="label"><a id="d0e3037" href="#d0e3037src" class="noteref">1</a></span> This article contains material from Sir E. Maclagan&#8217;s <i>Punjab Census Report</i> (1891), and Dr. J. N. Bhattach&#257;rya&#8217;s <i>Hindu Castes and Sects</i> (Thacker, Spink &amp; Co., Calcutta).
+</p>
+<p class="footnote"><span class="label"><a id="d0e3049" href="#d0e3049src" class="noteref">2</a></span> <i>Dictionary</i>, s.v.
+</p>
+<p class="footnote"><span class="label"><a id="d0e3108" href="#d0e3108src" class="noteref">3</a></span> Sir E. Maclagan&#8217;s <i>Punjab Census Report</i> (1891), p. 122.
+</p>
+<p class="footnote"><span class="label"><a id="d0e3126" href="#d0e3126src" class="noteref">4</a></span> <i>Memoir of Mathura.</i></p>
+<p class="footnote"><span class="label"><a id="d0e3130" href="#d0e3130src" class="noteref">5</a></span> <i>Hindu Castes and Sects</i>, p. 449.
+</p>
+<p class="footnote"><span class="label"><a id="d0e3137" href="#d0e3137src" class="noteref">6</a></span> Lit. the birth on the eighth day, as Krishna was born on the 8th of dark Bh&#257;don.
+</p>
+<p class="footnote"><span class="label"><a id="d0e3163" href="#d0e3163src" class="noteref">7</a></span> Mr. Crooke&#8217;s <i>Tribes and Castes</i>, art. Vallabhach&#257;rya.
+</p>
+<p class="footnote"><span class="label"><a id="d0e3175" href="#d0e3175src" class="noteref">8</a></span> <i>Hindu Castes and Sects</i>, p. 457.
+</p>
+<p class="footnote"><span class="label"><a id="d0e3281" href="#d0e3281src" class="noteref">9</a></span> From <i>laskkar</i>, an army.
+</p>
+<p class="footnote"><span class="label"><a id="d0e3380" href="#d0e3380src" class="noteref">10</a></span> This paragraph is taken from Professor Wilson&#8217;s <i>Account of Hindu Sects in the Asiatic Researches</i>.
+</p>
+</div>
+</div>
+<div id="d0e3405" class="div1"><span class="pagenum">
+[<a href="#d0e111">Contents</a>]
+</span><h2>Bal&#257;hi</h2>
+<div class="div2" id="d0e3408">
+<h3>1. General notice.</h3>
+<p><b>Bal&#257;hi.</b><a id="d0e3414src" href="#d0e3414" class="noteref">1</a>&#8212;A low functional caste of weavers and village watchmen found in the Nim&#257;r and Hoshang&#257;b&#257;d Districts and in Central India.
+They numbered 52,000 persons in the Central Provinces in 1911, being practically confined to the two Districts already mentioned.
+The name is a corruption of the Hindi <i>bul&#257;hi</i>, one who calls, or a messenger. The Bal&#257;his seem to be an occupational group, probably an offshoot of the large Kori caste
+of weavers, one of whose subdivisions is shown as Bal&#257;hi in the United Provinces. In the Central Provinces they have received
+accretions from the spinner caste of Katias, themselves probably a branch of the Koris, and from the Mah&#257;rs, the great menial
+caste of Bombay. In Hoshang&#257;b&#257;d they are known alternatively as Mah&#257;r, while in Burh&#257;npur they are called Bunkar or weaver
+by outsiders. The following story which they tell about themselves also indicates their mixed origin. They say that their
+ancestors came to Nim&#257;r as part of the army of R&#257;ja M&#257;n of Jodhpur, who invaded the country when it was under Muhammadan rule.
+He was defeated, and his soldiers were captured and ordered to be killed.<a id="d0e3420src" href="#d0e3420" class="noteref">2</a> One of the Bal&#257;his among them won the favour of the Muhammadan general and asked for his own freedom and that of the other
+Bal&#257;his from among the prisoners. The Musalm&#257;n <a id="d0e3423"></a><span class="pagenum">[<a href="#d0e3423">106</a>]</span>replied that he would be unable to determine which of the prisoners were really Bal&#257;his. On this the Bal&#257;hi, whose name was
+Ganga Kochla, replied that he had an effective test. He therefore killed a cow, cooked its flesh and invited the prisoners
+to partake of it. So many of them as consented to eat were considered to be Bal&#257;his and liberated; but many members of other
+castes thus obtained their freedom, and they and their descendants are now included in the community. The subcastes or endogamous
+groups distinctly indicate the functional character of the caste, the names given being Nim&#257;ri, Gannore, Katia, Kori and Mah&#257;r.
+Of these Katia, Kori and Mah&#257;r are the names of distinct castes, Nim&#257;ri is a local subdivision indicating those who speak
+the peculiar dialect of this tract, and the Gannore are no doubt named after the R&#257;jp&#363;t clan of that name, of whom their ancestors
+were not improbably the illegitimate offspring. The Nim&#257;ri Bal&#257;his are said to rank lower than the rest, as they will eat
+the flesh of dead cattle which the others refuse to do. They may not take water from the village well, and unless a separate
+one can be assigned to them, must pay others to draw water for them. Partly no doubt in the hope of escaping from this degraded
+position, many of the Nim&#257;ri group became Christians in the famine of 1897. They are considered to be the oldest residents
+of Nim&#257;r. At marriages the Bal&#257;hi receives as his perquisite the leaf-plates used for feasts with the leavings of food upon
+them; and at funerals he takes the cloth which covers the corpse on its way to the burning-<i>gh&#257;t</i>. In Nim&#257;r the Korkus and Bal&#257;his each have a separate burying-ground which is known as Murgh&#257;ta.<a id="d0e3428src" href="#d0e3428" class="noteref">3</a> The Katias weave the finer kinds of cloth and rank a little higher than the others. In Burh&#257;npur, as already stated, the
+caste are known as Bunkar, and they are probably identical with the Bunkars of Kh&#257;ndesh; Bunkar is simply an occupational
+term meaning a weaver.
+
+
+</p>
+</div>
+<div class="div2" id="d0e3434">
+<h3>2. Marriage.</h3>
+<p>The caste have the usual system of exogamous groups, some of which are named after villages, while the designations of others
+are apparently nicknames given to the founder of the clan, as Bagm&#257;r, a tiger-killer, Bhagoria, a runaway, <a id="d0e3439"></a><span class="pagenum">[<a href="#d0e3439">107</a>]</span>and so on. They employ a Br&#257;hman to calculate the horoscopes of a bridal couple and fix the date of their wedding, but if
+he says the marriage is inauspicious, they merely obtain the permission of the caste <i>panch&#257;yat</i> and celebrate it on a Saturday or Sunday. Apparently, however, they do not consult real Br&#257;hmans, but merely priests of their
+own caste whom they call Bal&#257;hi Br&#257;hmans. These Br&#257;hmans are, nevertheless, said to recite the Satya N&#257;r&#257;yan Katha. They also
+have <i>gurus</i> or spiritual preceptors, being members of the caste who have joined the mendicant orders; and Bh&#257;ts or genealogists of their
+own caste who beg at their weddings. They have the practice of serving for a wife, known as Gharjamai or Lamjhana. When the
+pauper suitor is finally married at the expense of his wife&#8217;s father, a marriage-shed is erected for him at the house of some
+neighbour, but his own family are not invited to the wedding.
+
+</p>
+<p>After marriage a girl goes to her husband&#8217;s house for a few days and returns. The first Diw&#257;li or Akha-t&#299;j festival after
+the wedding must also be passed at the husband&#8217;s house, but consummation is not effected until the <i>aina</i> or <i>gauna</i> ceremony is performed on the attainment of puberty. The cost of a wedding is about Rs. 80 to the bridegroom&#8217;s family and
+Rs. 20 to the bride&#8217;s family. A widow is forbidden to marry her late husband&#8217;s brother or other relatives. At the wedding
+she is dressed in new clothes, and the foreheads of the couple are marked with cowdung as a sign of purification. They then
+proceed by night to the husband&#8217;s village, and the woman waits till morning in some empty building, when she enters her husband&#8217;s
+house carrying two water-pots on her head in token of the fertility which she is to bring to it.
+
+
+</p>
+</div>
+<div class="div2" id="d0e3455">
+<h3>3. Other customs.</h3>
+<p>Like the Mah&#257;rs, the Bal&#257;his must not kill a dog or a cat under pain of expulsion; but it is peculiar that in their case the
+bear is held equally sacred, this being probably a residue of some totemistic observance. The most binding form of oath which
+they can use is by any one of these animals. The Bal&#257;his will admit any Hindu into the community except a man of the very
+lowest castes, and also Gonds and Korkus. The head and face of the neophyte <a id="d0e3460"></a><span class="pagenum">[<a href="#d0e3460">108</a>]</span>are shaved clean, and he is made to lie on the ground under a string-cot; a number of the Bal&#257;his sit on this and wash themselves,
+letting the water drip from their bodies on to the man below until he is well drenched; he then gives a feast to the caste-fellows,
+and is considered to have become a Bal&#257;hi. It is reported also that they will receive back into the community Bal&#257;hi women
+who have lived with men of other castes and even with Jains and Muhammadans. They will take food from members of these religions
+and of any Hindu caste, except the most impure.
+
+
+
+</p>
+</div>
+<div class="footnotes">
+<hr class="fnsep">
+<p class="footnote"><span class="label"><a id="d0e3414" href="#d0e3414src" class="noteref">1</a></span> This article is based on papers by Mr. Hab&#299;b Ullah, Pleader, Burh&#257;npur, Mr. W. Bagley, Subdivisional Officer, and Munsh Kanhya
+L&#257;l, of the Gazetteer office.
+</p>
+<p class="footnote"><span class="label"><a id="d0e3420" href="#d0e3420src" class="noteref">2</a></span> This legend is probably a vague reminiscence of the historical fact that a M&#257;lwa army was misled by a Gond guide in the Nim&#257;r
+forests and cut up by the local Muhammadan ruler. The well-known R&#257;ja M&#257;n of Jodhpur was, it is believed, never in Nim&#257;r.
+</p>
+<p class="footnote"><span class="label"><a id="d0e3428" href="#d0e3428src" class="noteref">3</a></span> The <i>gh&#257;t</i> or river-bank for the disposal of corpses.
+</p>
+</div>
+</div>
+<div id="d0e3462" class="div1"><span class="pagenum">
+[<a href="#d0e111">Contents</a>]
+</span><h2>Balija</h2>
+<div class="div2" id="d0e3465">
+<h3>1. Origin and traditions.</h3>
+<p><b>Balija, Balji, Gurusthulu, Naidu.</b>&#8212;A large trading caste of the Madras Presidency, where they number a million persons. In the Central Provinces 1200 were enumerated
+in 1911, excluding 1500 Perikis, who though really a subcaste and not a very exalted one of Balijas,<a id="d0e3472src" href="#d0e3472" class="noteref">1</a> claim to be a separate caste. They are mainly returned from places where Madras troops have been stationed, as N&#257;gpur, Jubbulpore
+and Raipur. The caste are frequently known as Naidu, a corruption of the Telugu word N&#257;yakdu, a prince or leader. Their ancestors
+are supposed to have been N&#257;yaks or kings of Madura, Tanjore and Vijayanagar. The traditional occupation of the caste appears
+to have been to make bangles and pearl and coral ornaments, and they have still a subcaste called G&#257;zulu, or a bangle-seller.
+In Madras they are said to be an offshoot of the great cultivating castes of Kamma and K&#257;pu and to be a mixed community recruited
+from these and other Telugu castes. Another proof of their mixed descent may be inferred from the fact that they will admit
+persons of other castes or the descendants of mixed marriages into the community without much scruple in Madras.<a id="d0e3477src" href="#d0e3477" class="noteref">2</a> The name of Balija seems also to have been applied to a mixed caste started by B&#257;sava, the founder of the Ling&#257;yat sect of
+Sivites, these persons being known in Madras as Linga Balijas.
+
+
+</p>
+</div>
+<div class="div2" id="d0e3482">
+<h3>2. Marriage.</h3>
+<p>The Balijas have two main divisions, Desa or Kota, and Peta, the Desas or Kotas being those who claim descent from the old
+Balija kings, while the Petas are the trading Balijas, and are further subdivided into groups like the G&#257;zulu or <a id="d0e3487"></a><span class="pagenum">[<a href="#d0e3487">109</a>]</span>bangle-sellers and the Periki or salt-sellers. The subdivisions are not strictly endogamous. Every family has a surname, and
+exogamous groups or <i>gotras</i> also exist, but these have generally been forgotten, and marriages are regulated by the surnames, the only prohibition being
+that persons of the same surname may not intermarry. Instances of such names are: Singiri, G&#363;d&#257;ri, Jadal, Sangn&#257;d and D&#257;siri.
+In fact the rules of exogamy are so loose that an instance is known of an uncle having married his niece. Marriage is usually
+infant, and the ceremony lasts for five days. On the first day the bride and bridegroom are seated on a yoke in the <i>pandal</i> or marriage pavilion, where the relatives and guests assemble. The bridegroom puts a pair of silver rings on the bride&#8217;s
+toes and ties the <i>mangal-s&#363;tram</i> or flat circular piece of gold round her neck. On the next three days the bridegroom and bride are made to sit on a plank
+or cot face to face with each other and to throw flowers and play together for two hours in the mornings and evenings. On
+the fourth day, at dead of night, they are seated on a cot and the jewels and gifts for the bride are presented, and she is
+then formally handed over to the bridegroom&#8217;s family. In Madras Mr. Thurston<a id="d0e3498src" href="#d0e3498" class="noteref">3</a> states that on the last day of the marriage ceremony a mock ploughing and sowing rite is held, and during this, the sister
+of the bridegroom puts a cloth over the basket containing earth, wherein seeds are to be sown by the bridegroom, and will
+not allow him to go on with the ceremony till she has extracted a promise that his first-born daughter shall marry her son.
+No bride-price is paid, and the remarriage of widows is forbidden.
+
+
+</p>
+</div>
+<div class="div2" id="d0e3503">
+<h3>3. Occupation and social status.</h3>
+<p>The Balijas bury their dead in a sitting posture. In the Central Provinces they are usually Ling&#257;yats and especially worship
+Gauri, Siva&#8217;s wife. Jangams serve them as priests. They usually eat flesh and drink liquor, but in Ch&#257;nda it is stated that
+both these practices are forbidden. In the Central Provinces they are mainly cultivators, but some of them still sell bangles
+and salt. Several of them are in Government service and occupy a fairly high social position.
+
+</p>
+<p>In Madras a curious connection exists between the K&#257;pus and Balijas and the impure M&#257;la caste. It is said <a id="d0e3510"></a><span class="pagenum">[<a href="#d0e3510">110</a>]</span>that once upon a time the K&#257;pus and Balijas were flying from the Muhammadans and came to the northern Pall&#257;r river in high
+flood. They besought the river to go down and let them across, but it demanded the sacrifice of a first-born child. While
+the K&#257;pus and Balijas were hesitating, the M&#257;las who had followed them boldly sacrificed one of their children. Immediately
+the river divided before them and they all crossed in safety. Ever since then the K&#257;pus and Balijas have respected the M&#257;las,
+and the Balijas formerly even deposited the images of the goddess Gauri, of Ganesha, and of Siva&#8217;s bull with the M&#257;las, as
+the hereditary custodians of their gods.<a id="d0e3512src" href="#d0e3512" class="noteref">4</a>
+
+
+
+<a id="d0e3517"></a><span class="pagenum">[<a href="#d0e3517">111</a>]</span></p>
+</div>
+<div class="footnotes">
+<hr class="fnsep">
+<p class="footnote"><span class="label"><a id="d0e3472" href="#d0e3472src" class="noteref">1</a></span> <i>Madras Census Report</i> (1891), p. 277.
+</p>
+<p class="footnote"><span class="label"><a id="d0e3477" href="#d0e3477src" class="noteref">2</a></span> <i>Ibidem</i> (1891), p. 226.
+</p>
+<p class="footnote"><span class="label"><a id="d0e3498" href="#d0e3498src" class="noteref">3</a></span> <i>Ethnographic Notes in Southern India</i>, p. 16.
+</p>
+<p class="footnote"><span class="label"><a id="d0e3512" href="#d0e3512src" class="noteref">4</a></span> <i>Madras Census Report</i> (1891), p. 277.
+</p>
+</div>
+</div>
+<div id="d0e3518" class="div1"><span class="pagenum">
+[<a href="#d0e111">Contents</a>]
+</span><h2>Bania</h2>
+<h3>List of Paragraphs</h3>
+<ul>
+<li><a href="#d0e3698">1. General notice.</a></li>
+<li><a href="#d0e3726">2. The Banias a true caste: use of the name.</a></li>
+<li><a href="#d0e3741">3. Their distinctive occupation.</a></li>
+<li><a href="#d0e3754">4. Their distinctive status.</a></li>
+<li><a href="#d0e3761">5. The endogamous divisions of the Banias.</a></li>
+<li><a href="#d0e3775">6. The Banias derived from the R&#257;jp&#363;ts.</a></li>
+<li><a href="#d0e3813">7. Banias employed as ministers in R&#257;jp&#363;t courts.</a></li>
+<li><a href="#d0e3835">8. Subcastes.</a></li>
+<li><a href="#d0e3852">9. Hindu and Jain subcastes: divisions among subcastes.</a></li>
+<li><a href="#d0e3862">10. Exogamy and rules regulating marriage.</a></li>
+<li><a href="#d0e3873">11. Marriage customs.</a></li>
+<li><a href="#d0e3903">12. Polygamy and widow-marriage.</a></li>
+<li><a href="#d0e3908">13. Disposal of the dead and mourning.</a></li>
+<li><a href="#d0e3913">14. Religion: the god Ganpati or Ganesh.</a></li>
+<li><a href="#d0e3930">15. Diw&#257;li festival.</a></li>
+<li><a href="#d0e3944">16. Holi festival.</a></li>
+<li><a href="#d0e3952">17. Social customs: rules about food.</a></li>
+<li><a href="#d0e3970">18. Character of the Bania.</a></li>
+<li><a href="#d0e3990">19. Dislike of the cultivators towards him.</a></li>
+<li><a href="#d0e4003">20. His virtues.</a></li>
+<li><a href="#d0e4020">21. The moneylender changed for the worse.</a></li>
+<li><a href="#d0e4025">22. The enforcement of contracts.</a></li>
+<li><a href="#d0e4035">23. Cash coinage and the rate of interest.</a></li>
+<li><a href="#d0e4042">24. Proprietary and transferable rights in land.</a></li>
+<li><a href="#d0e4049">25. The Bania as a landlord.</a></li>
+<li><a href="#d0e4063">26. Commercial honesty.</a></li>
+</ul>
+<h3>List of Subordinate Articles on Subcastes</h3>
+<ul>
+<li><a href="#d0e3698">1. General notice.</a></li>
+<li><a href="#d0e3726">2. The Banias a true caste: use of the name.</a></li>
+<li><a href="#d0e3741">3. Their distinctive occupation.</a></li>
+<li><a href="#d0e3754">4. Their distinctive status.</a></li>
+<li><a href="#d0e3761">5. The endogamous divisions of the Banias.</a></li>
+<li><a href="#d0e3775">6. The Banias derived from the R&#257;jp&#363;ts.</a></li>
+<li><a href="#d0e3813">7. Banias employed as ministers in R&#257;jp&#363;t courts.</a></li>
+<li><a href="#d0e3835">8. Subcastes.</a></li>
+<li><a href="#d0e3852">9. Hindu and Jain subcastes: divisions among subcastes.</a></li>
+<li><a href="#d0e3862">10. Exogamy and rules regulating marriage.</a></li>
+<li><a href="#d0e3873">11. Marriage customs.</a></li>
+<li><a href="#d0e3903">12. Polygamy and widow-marriage.</a></li>
+<li><a href="#d0e3908">13. Disposal of the dead and mourning.</a></li>
+<li><a href="#d0e3913">14. Religion: the god Ganpati or Ganesh.</a></li>
+<li><a href="#d0e3930">15. Diw&#257;li festival.</a></li>
+<li><a href="#d0e3944">16. Holi festival.</a></li>
+<li><a href="#d0e3952">17. Social customs: rules about food.</a></li>
+<li><a href="#d0e3970">18. Character of the Bania.</a></li>
+<li><a href="#d0e3990">19. Dislike of the cultivators towards him.</a></li>
+<li><a href="#d0e4003">20. His virtues.</a></li>
+<li><a href="#d0e4020">21. The moneylender changed for the worse.</a></li>
+<li><a href="#d0e4025">22. The enforcement of contracts.</a></li>
+<li><a href="#d0e4035">23. Cash coinage and the rate of interest.</a></li>
+<li><a href="#d0e4042">24. Proprietary and transferable rights in land.</a></li>
+<li><a href="#d0e4049">25. The Bania as a landlord.</a></li>
+<li><a href="#d0e4063">26. Commercial honesty.</a></li>
+</ul>
+<div class="div2" id="d0e3698">
+<h3>1. General notice.</h3>
+<p><b>Bania, B&#257;ni, V&#257;ni, Mah&#257;jan, Seth, S&#257;huk&#257;r.</b>&#8212;The occupational caste of bankers, moneylenders and dealers in <a id="d0e3705"></a><span class="pagenum">[<a href="#d0e3705">112</a>]</span>grain, <i>gh&#299;</i> (butter), groceries and spices. The name Bania is derived from the Sanskrit <i>vanij</i>, a merchant. In western India the Banias are always called V&#257;nia or V&#257;ni. Mah&#257;jan literally means a great man, and being
+applied to successful Banias as an honorific title has now come to signify a banker or moneylender; Seth signifies a great
+merchant or capitalist, and is applied to Banias as an honorific prefix. The words <i>S&#257;hu</i>, <i>Sao</i> and <i>S&#257;huk&#257;r</i> mean upright or honest, and have also, curiously enough, come to signify a moneylender. The total number of Banias in the
+Central Provinces in 1911 was about 200,000, or rather over one per cent of the population. Of the above total two-thirds
+were Hindus and one-third Jains. The caste is fairly distributed over the whole Province, being most numerous in Districts
+with large towns and a considerable volume of trade.
+
+
+
+</p>
+<div id="d0e3722" class="figure"><img border="0" src="images/p112.jpg" alt="Group of M&#257;rw&#257;ri Bania women." width="720" height="440"><p class="figureHead">Group of M&#257;rw&#257;ri Bania women.</p>
+</div><p>
+
+
+
+</p>
+</div>
+<div class="div2" id="d0e3726">
+<h3>2. The Banias a true caste: use of the name.</h3>
+<p>There has been much difference of opinion as to whether the name Bania should be taken to signify a caste, or whether it is
+merely an occupational term applied to a number of distinct castes. I venture to think it is necessary and scientifically
+correct to take it as a caste. In Bengal the word Banian, a corruption of Bania, has probably come to be a general term meaning
+simply a banker, or person dealing in money. But this does not seem to be the case elsewhere. As a rule the name Bania is
+used only as a caste name for groups who are considered both by themselves and outsiders to belong to the Bania caste. It
+may occasionally be applied to members of other castes, as in the case of certain Teli-Banias who have abandoned oil-pressing
+for shop-keeping, but such instances are very rare; and these Telis would probably now assert that they belonged to the Bania
+caste. That the Banias are recognised as a distinct caste by the people is shown by the number of uncomplimentary proverbs
+and sayings about them, which is far larger than in the case of any other caste.<a id="d0e3731src" href="#d0e3731" class="noteref">1</a> In all these the name Bania is used and not that of any subdivision, and this indicates that none of the subdivisions are
+looked upon as distinctive social groups or castes. Moreover, so far as I am aware, the name Bania is applied regularly to
+all the groups usually classified under the caste, and there is no <a id="d0e3737"></a><span class="pagenum">[<a href="#d0e3737">113</a>]</span>group which objects to the name or whose members refuse to describe themselves by it. This is by no means always the case
+with other important castes. The R&#257;thor Telis of Mandla entirely decline to answer to the name of Teli, though they are classified
+under that caste. In the case of the important Ah&#299;r or grazier caste, those who sell milk instead of grazing cattle are called
+Gaoli, but remain members of the Ah&#299;r caste. An Ah&#299;r in Chhatt&#299;sgarh would be called R&#257;wat and in the Maratha Districts Gow&#257;ri,
+but might still be an Ah&#299;r by caste. The Barai caste of betel-vine growers and sellers is in some localities called Tamboli
+and not Barai; elsewhere it is known only as Pans&#257;ri, though the name Pans&#257;ri is correctly an occupational term, and, where
+it is not applied to the Barais, means a grocer or druggist by profession and not a caste. Bania, on the other hand, over
+the greater part of India is applied only to persons who acknowledge themselves and are generally recognised by Hindu society
+to be members of the Bania caste, and there is no other name which is generally applied to any considerable section of such
+persons. Certain of the more important subcastes of Bania, as the Agarw&#257;la, Osw&#257;l and Parw&#257;r, are, it is true, frequently
+known by the subcaste name. But the caste name is as often as not, or even more often, affixed to it. Agarw&#257;la, or Agarw&#257;la
+Bania, are names equally applied to designate this subcaste, and similarly with the Osw&#257;ls and Parw&#257;rs; and even so the subcaste
+name is only applied for greater accuracy and for compliment, since these are the best subcastes; the Bania&#8217;s quarter of a
+town will be called Bania Mahalla, and its residents spoken of as Banias, even though they may be nearly all Agarw&#257;ls or Osw&#257;ls.
+Several R&#257;jp&#363;t clans are similarly spoken of by their clan names, as R&#257;thor, Panw&#257;r, and so on, without the addition of the
+caste name R&#257;jp&#363;t. Br&#257;hman subcastes are usually mentioned by their subcaste name for greater accuracy, though in their case
+too it is usual to add the caste name. And there are subdivisions of other castes, such as the Jaisw&#257;r Cham&#257;rs and the Somvansi
+Mehras, who invariably speak of themselves only by their subcaste name, and discard the caste name altogether, being ashamed
+of it, but are nevertheless held to belong to their parent castes. Thus in the <a id="d0e3739"></a><span class="pagenum">[<a href="#d0e3739">114</a>]</span>matter of common usage Bania conforms in all respects to the requirements of a proper caste name.
+
+
+</p>
+</div>
+<div class="div2" id="d0e3741">
+<h3>3. Their distinctive occupation.</h3>
+<p>The Banias have also a distinct and well-defined traditional occupation,<a id="d0e3746src" href="#d0e3746" class="noteref">2</a> which is followed by many or most members of practically every subcaste so far as has been observed. This occupation has
+caused the caste as a body to be credited with special mental and moral characteristics in popular estimation, to a greater
+extent perhaps than any other caste. None of the subcastes are ashamed of their traditional occupation or try to abandon it.
+It is true that a few subcastes such as the Kasaundhans and Kasarw&#257;nis, sellers of metal vessels, apparently had originally
+a somewhat different profession, though resembling the traditional one; but they too, if they once only sold vessels, now
+engage largely in the traditional Bania&#8217;s calling, and deal generally in grain and money. The Banias, no doubt because it
+is both profitable and respectable, adhere more generally to their traditional occupation than almost any great caste, except
+the cultivators. Mr. Marten&#8217;s analysis<a id="d0e3749src" href="#d0e3749" class="noteref">3</a> of the occupations of different castes shows that sixty per cent of the Banias are still engaged in trade; while only nineteen
+per cent of Br&#257;hmans follow a religious calling; twenty-nine per cent of Ah&#299;rs are graziers, cattle-dealers or milkmen; only
+nine per cent of Telis are engaged in all branches of industry, including their traditional occupation of oil-pressing; and
+similarly only twelve per cent of Cham&#257;rs work at industrial occupations, including that of curing hides. In respect of occupation
+therefore the Banias strictly fulfil the definition of a caste.
+
+
+</p>
+</div>
+<div class="div2" id="d0e3754">
+<h3>4. Their distinctive status.</h3>
+<p>The Banias have also a distinctive social status. They are considered, though perhaps incorrectly, to represent the Vaishyas
+or third great division of the Aryan twice-born; they rank just below R&#257;jp&#363;ts and perhaps above all other castes except Br&#257;hmans;
+Br&#257;hmans will take food cooked without water from many Banias and drinking-water from all. Nearly all Banias wear the sacred
+thread; and the Banias are distinguished by the fact that they abstain more rigorously and generally from all kinds of flesh
+food than <a id="d0e3759"></a><span class="pagenum">[<a href="#d0e3759">115</a>]</span>any other caste. Their rules as to diet are exceptionally strict, and are equally observed by the great majority of the subdivisions.
+
+
+</p>
+</div>
+<div class="div2" id="d0e3761">
+<h3>5. The endogamous divisions of the Banias.</h3>
+<p>Thus the Banias apparently fulfil the definition of a caste, as consisting of one or more endogamous groups or subcastes with
+a distinct name applied to them all and to them only, a distinctive occupation and a distinctive social status; and there
+seems no reason for not considering them a caste. If on the other hand we examine the subcastes of Bania we find that the
+majority of them have names derived from places,<a id="d0e3766src" href="#d0e3766" class="noteref">4</a> not indicating any separate origin, occupation or status, but only residence in separate tracts. Such divisions are properly
+termed subcastes, being endogamous only, and in no other way distinctive. No subcaste can be markedly distinguished from the
+others in respect of occupation or social status, and none apparently can therefore be classified as a separate caste. There
+are no doubt substantial differences in status between the highest subcastes of Bania, the Agarw&#257;ls, Osw&#257;ls and Parw&#257;rs, and
+the lower ones, the Kasaundhan, Kasarw&#257;ni, Dosar and others. But this difference is not so great as that which separates different
+groups included in such important castes as R&#257;jp&#363;t and Bh&#257;t. It is true again that subcastes like the Agarw&#257;ls and Osw&#257;ls
+are individually important, but not more so than the Mar&#257;tha, Khedaw&#257;l, Kanaujia and Maithil Br&#257;hmans, or the Sesodia, R&#257;thor,
+Panw&#257;r and J&#257;don R&#257;jp&#363;ts. The higher subcastes of Bania themselves recognise a common relationship by taking food cooked without
+water from each other, which is a very rare custom among subcastes. Some of them are even said to have intermarried. If on
+the other hand it is argued, not that two or three or more of the important subdivisions should be erected into independent
+castes, but that Bania is not a caste at all, and that every subcaste should be treated as a separate caste, then such purely
+local groups as Kanaujia, Jaisw&#257;r, Gujar&#257;ti, Jaunpuri and others, which are found in forty or fifty other castes, would have
+to become separate <a id="d0e3769"></a><span class="pagenum">[<a href="#d0e3769">116</a>]</span>castes; and if in this one case why not in all the other castes where they occur? This would result in the impossible position
+of having forty or fifty castes of the same name, which recognise no connection of any kind with each other, and make any
+arrangement or classification of castes altogether impracticable. And in 1911 out of 200,000 Banias in the Central Provinces,
+43,000 were returned with no subcaste at all, and it would therefore be impossible to classify these under any other name.
+
+
+
+
+</p>
+<div id="d0e3771" class="figure"><img border="0" src="images/p116.jpg" alt="Image of the god Ganpati carried in procession." width="547" height="720"><p class="figureHead">Image of the god Ganpati carried in procession.</p>
+</div><p>
+
+
+
+
+</p>
+</div>
+<div class="div2" id="d0e3775">
+<h3>6. The Banias derived from the R&#257;jp&#363;ts.</h3>
+<p>The Banias have been commonly supposed to represent the Vaishyas or third of the four classical castes, both by Hindu society
+generally and by leading authorities on the subject. It is perhaps this view of their origin which is partly responsible for
+the tendency to consider them as several castes and not one. But its accuracy is doubtful. The important Bania groups appear
+to be of R&#257;jp&#363;t stock. They nearly all come from R&#257;jput&#257;na, Bundelkhand or Gujar&#257;t, that is from the homes of the principal
+R&#257;j&#363;t clans. Several of them have legends of R&#257;jp&#363;t descent. The Agarw&#257;las say that their first ancestor was a Kshatriya king,
+who married a N&#257;ga or snake princess; the N&#257;ga race is supposed to have signified the Scythian immigrants, who were snake-worshippers
+and from whom several clans of R&#257;jp&#363;ts were probably derived. The Agarw&#257;las took their name from the ancient city of Agroha
+or possibly from Agra. The Osw&#257;ls say that their ancestor was the R&#257;jp&#363;t king of Osnagar in M&#257;rw&#257;r, who with his followers
+was converted by a Jain mendicant. The Nemas state that their ancestors were fourteen young R&#257;jp&#363;t princes who escaped the
+vengeance of Parasur&#257;ma by abandoning the profession of arms and taking to trade. The Khandelw&#257;ls take their name from the
+town of Khandela in Jaipur State of R&#257;jput&#257;na. The Kasarw&#257;nis say they immigrated from Kara M&#257;nikpur in Bundelkhand. The origin
+of the Umre Banias is not known, but in Gujar&#257;t they are also called B&#257;garia from the B&#257;gar or wild country of the Dongarpur
+and Pert&#257;bgarh States of R&#257;jput&#257;na, where numbers of them are still settled; the name B&#257;garia would appear to indicate that
+they are supposed to have immigrated thence into Gujar&#257;t. The Dh&#363;sar Banias ascribe their name to a hill <a id="d0e3780"></a><span class="pagenum">[<a href="#d0e3780">117</a>]</span>called Dh&#363;si or Dhosi on the border of Alwar State. The As&#257;tis say that their original home was T&#299;kamgarh State in Bundelkhand.
+The name of the Maheshris is held to be derived from Maheshwar, an ancient town on the Nerbudda, near Indore, which is traditionally
+supposed to have been the earliest settlement of the Y&#257;dava R&#257;jp&#363;ts. The headquarters of the Gahoi Banias is said to have
+been at Kharagpur in Bundelkhand, though according to their own legend they are of mixed origin. The home of the Srim&#257;lis
+was the old town of Srim&#257;l, now Bhinm&#257;l in M&#257;rw&#257;r. The Palliw&#257;l Banias were from the well-known trading town of P&#257;li in M&#257;rw&#257;r.
+The Jaisw&#257;l are said to take their name from Jaisalmer State, which was their native country. The above are no doubt only
+a fraction of the Bania subcastes, but they include nearly all the most important and representative ones, from whom the caste
+takes its status and character. Of the numerous other groups the bulk have probably been brought into existence through the
+migration and settlement of sections of the caste in different parts of the country, where they have become endogamous and
+obtained a fresh name. Other subcastes may be composed of bodies of persons who, having taken to trade and prospered, obtained
+admission to the Bania caste through the efforts of their Br&#257;hman priests. But a number of mixed groups of the same character
+are also found among the Br&#257;hmans and R&#257;jp&#363;ts, and their existence does not invalidate arguments derived from a consideration
+of the representative subcastes. It may be said that not only the Banias, but many of the low castes have legends showing
+them to be of R&#257;jp&#363;t descent of the same character as those quoted above; and since in their case these stories have been
+adjudged spurious and worthless, no greater importance should be attached to those of the Banias. But it must be remembered
+that in the case of the Banias the stories are reinforced by the fact that the Bania subcastes certainly come from R&#257;jput&#257;na;
+no doubt exists that they are of high caste, and that they must either be derived from Br&#257;hmans or R&#257;jp&#363;ts, or themselves
+represent some separate foreign group; but if they are really the descendants of the Vaishyas, the main body of the Aryan
+immigrants and the third of the four classical <a id="d0e3782"></a><span class="pagenum">[<a href="#d0e3782">118</a>]</span>castes, it might be expected that their legends would show some trace of this instead of being unitedly in favour of their
+R&#257;jp&#363;t origin.
+
+</p>
+<p>Colonel Tod gives a catalogue of the eighty-four mercantile tribes, whom he states to be chiefly of R&#257;jp&#363;t descent.<a id="d0e3786src" href="#d0e3786" class="noteref">5</a> In this list the Agarw&#257;l, Osw&#257;l, Srim&#257;l, Khandelw&#257;l, Palliw&#257;l and L&#257;d subcastes occur; while the Dh&#257;kar and Dh&#363;sar subcastes
+may be represented by the names Dh&#257;karw&#257;l and Dusora in the lists. The other names given by Tod appear to be mainly small
+territorial groups of R&#257;jput&#257;na. Elsewhere, after speaking of the claims of certain towns in R&#257;jput&#257;na to be centres of trade,
+Colonel Tod remarks: &#8220;These pretensions we may the more readily admit, when we recollect that nine-tenths of the bankers and
+commercial men of India are natives of M&#257;rudesh,<a id="d0e3791src" href="#d0e3791" class="noteref">6</a> and these chiefly of the Jain faith. The Osw&#257;ls, so termed from the town of Osi, near the Luni, estimate one hundred thousand
+families whose occupation is commerce. All these claim a R&#257;jp&#363;t descent, a fact entirely unknown to the European inquirer
+into the peculiarities of Hindu manners.&#8221;<a id="d0e3794src" href="#d0e3794" class="noteref">7</a>
+
+</p>
+<p>Similarly, Sir D. Ibbetson states that the Maheshri Banias claim R&#257;jp&#363;t origin and still have subdivisions bearing R&#257;jp&#363;t
+names.<a id="d0e3801src" href="#d0e3801" class="noteref">8</a> Elliot also says that almost all the mercantile tribes of Hindust&#257;n are of R&#257;jp&#363;t descent.<a id="d0e3806src" href="#d0e3806" class="noteref">9</a>
+
+</p>
+<p>It would appear, then, that the Banias are an offshoot from the R&#257;jp&#363;ts, who took to commerce and learnt to read and write
+for the purpose of keeping accounts. The Ch&#257;rans or bards are another literate caste derived from the R&#257;jp&#363;ts, and it may
+be noticed that both the Banias and Ch&#257;rans or Bh&#257;ts have hitherto been content with the knowledge of their own rude M&#257;rw&#257;ri
+dialect and evinced no desire for classical learning or higher English education. Matters are now changing, but this attitude
+shows that they have hitherto not desired education for itself but merely as an indispensable adjunct to their business.
+
+
+</p>
+</div>
+<div class="div2" id="d0e3813">
+<h3>7. Banias employed as ministers in R&#257;jp&#363;t courts.</h3>
+<p>Being literate, the Banias were not infrequently employed <a id="d0e3818"></a><span class="pagenum">[<a href="#d0e3818">119</a>]</span>as ministers and treasurers in R&#257;jp&#363;t states. Forbes says, in an account of an Indian court: &#8220;Beside the king stand the warriors
+of R&#257;jp&#363;t race or, equally gallant in the field and wiser far in council, the W&#257;nia (Bania) Muntreshwars, already in profession
+puritans of peace, and not yet drained enough of their fiery Kshatriya blood.... It is remarkable that so many of the officers
+possessing high rank and holding independent commands are represented to have been W&#257;nias.&#8221;<a id="d0e3820src" href="#d0e3820" class="noteref">10</a> Colonel Tod writes that Nunkurn, the Kachhw&#257;ha chief of the Shekh&#257;wat federation, had a minister named Devi Das of the Bania
+or mercantile caste, and, like thousands of that caste, energetic, shrewd and intelligent.<a id="d0e3825src" href="#d0e3825" class="noteref">11</a> Similarly, Muh&#257;j, the J&#257;don Bh&#257;tti chief of Jaisalmer, by an unhappy choice of a Bania minister, completed the demoralisation
+of the Bh&#257;tti state. This minister was named Sar&#363;p Singh, a Bania of the Jain faith and Mehta family, whose descendants were
+destined to be the exterminators of the laws and fortunes of the sons of Jaisal.<a id="d0e3830src" href="#d0e3830" class="noteref">12</a> Other instances of the employment of Bania ministers are to be found in R&#257;jp&#363;t history. Finally, it may be noted that the
+Banias are by no means the only instance of a mercantile class formed from the R&#257;jp&#363;ts. The two important trading castes of
+Khatri and Bh&#257;tia are almost certainly of R&#257;jp&#363;t origin, as is shown in the articles on those castes.
+
+
+</p>
+</div>
+<div class="div2" id="d0e3835">
+<h3>8. Subcastes.</h3>
+<p>The Banias are divided into a large number of endogamous groups or subcastes, of which the most important have been treated
+in the annexed subordinate articles. The minor subcastes, mainly formed by migration, vary greatly in different provinces.
+Colonel Tod gave a list of eighty-four in R&#257;jput&#257;na, of which eight or ten only can be identified in the Central Provinces,
+and of thirty mentioned by Bhattach&#257;rya as the most common groups in northern India, about a third are unknown in the Central
+Provinces. The origin of such subcastes has already been explained. The main subcastes may be classified roughly into groups
+coming from R&#257;jput&#257;na, Bundelkhand and the United Provinces. The leading R&#257;jput&#257;na groups are the Osw&#257;l, Maheshri, Khandelw&#257;l,
+Saitw&#257;l, Srim&#257;l and Jaisw&#257;al. These groups are commonly <a id="d0e3840"></a><span class="pagenum">[<a href="#d0e3840">120</a>]</span>known as M&#257;rw&#257;ri Bania or simply M&#257;rw&#257;ri. The Bundelkhand or Central India subcastes are the Gahoi, Golap&#363;rab, As&#257;ti, Umre
+and Parw&#257;r;<a id="d0e3842src" href="#d0e3842" class="noteref">13</a> while the Agarw&#257;l, Dhusar, Agrahari, Ajudhiab&#257;si and others come from the United Provinces. The L&#257;d subcaste is from Gujar&#257;t,
+while the Ling&#257;yats originally belonged to the Telugu and Canarese country. Several of the subcastes coming from the same
+locality will take food cooked without water from each other, and occasionally two subcastes, as the Osw&#257;l and Khandelw&#257;l,
+even food cooked with water or <i>katchi</i>. This practice is seldom found in other good castes. It is probably due to the fact that the rules about food are less strictly
+observed in R&#257;jput&#257;na.
+
+
+
+</p>
+<div id="d0e3848" class="figure"><img border="0" src="images/p120.jpg" alt="The elephant-headed god Ganpati. His conveyance is a rat, which can be seen as a little blob between his feet." width="720" height="531"><p class="figureHead">The elephant-headed god Ganpati. His conveyance is a rat, which can be seen as a little blob between his feet.</p>
+</div><p>
+
+
+
+</p>
+</div>
+<div class="div2" id="d0e3852">
+<h3>9. Hindu and Jain subcastes: divisions among subcastes.</h3>
+<p>Another classification may be made of the subcastes according as they are of the Hindu or Jain religion; the important Jain
+subcastes are the Osw&#257;l, Parw&#257;r, Golap&#363;rab, Saitw&#257;l and Charn&#257;gar, and one or two smaller ones, as the Baghelw&#257;l and Samaiya.
+The other subcastes are principally Hindu, but many have a Jain minority, and similarly the Jain subcastes return a proportion
+of Hindus. The difference of religion counts for very little, as practically all the non-Jain Banias are strict Vaishnava
+Hindus, abstain entirely from any kind of flesh meat, and think it a sin to take animal life; while on their side the Jains
+employ Br&#257;hmans for certain purposes, worship some of the local Hindu deities, and observe the principal Hindu festivals.
+The Jain and Hindu sections of a subcaste have consequently, as a rule, no objection to taking food together, and will sometimes
+intermarry. Several of the important subcastes are subdivided into B&#299;sa and Dasa, or twenty and ten groups. The B&#299;sa or twenty
+group is of pure descent, or twenty carat, as it were, while the Dasas are considered to have a certain amount of alloy in
+their family pedigree. They are the offspring of remarried widows, and perhaps occasionally of still more irregular unions.
+Intermarriage sometimes takes place between the two groups, and families in the Dasa group, by living a respectable life and
+marrying well, improve their status, and perhaps ultimately get back <a id="d0e3857"></a><span class="pagenum">[<a href="#d0e3857">121</a>]</span>into the B&#299;sa group. As the Dasas become more respectable they will not admit to their communion newly remarried widows or
+couples who have married within the prohibited degrees, or otherwise made a <i>m&eacute;salliance</i>, and hence a third inferior group, called the Pacha or five, is brought into existence to make room for these.
+
+
+</p>
+</div>
+<div class="div2" id="d0e3862">
+<h3>10. Exogamy and rules regulating marriage.</h3>
+<p>Most subcastes have an elaborate system of exogamy. They are either divided into a large number of sections, or into a few
+<i>gotras</i>, usually twelve, each of which is further split up into subsections. Marriage can then be regulated by forbidding a man to
+take a wife from the whole of his own section or from the subsection of his mother, grandmothers and even greatgrandmothers.
+By this means the union of persons within five or more degrees of relationship either through males or females is avoided,
+and most Banias prohibit intermarriage, at any rate nominally, up to five degrees. Such practices as exchanging girls between
+families or marrying two sisters are, as a rule, prohibited. The <i>gotras</i> or main sections appear to be frequently named after Br&#257;hman R&#299;shis or saints, while the subsections have names of a territorial
+or titular character.
+
+
+</p>
+</div>
+<div class="div2" id="d0e3873">
+<h3>11. Marriage customs.</h3>
+<p>There is generally no recognised custom of paying a bride- or bridegroom-price, but one or two instances of its being done
+are given in the subordinate articles. On the occasion of betrothal, among some subcastes, the boy&#8217;s father proceeds to the
+girl&#8217;s house and presents her with a <i>m&#257;la</i> or necklace of gold or silver coins or coral, and a <i>mundri</i> or silver ring for the finger. The contract of betrothal is made at the village temple and the caste-fellows sprinkle turmeric
+and water over the parties. Before the wedding the ceremony of Benaiki is performed; in this the bridegroom, riding on a horse,
+and the bride on a decorated chair or litter, go round their villages and say farewell to their friends and relations. Sometimes
+they have a procession in this way round the marriage-shed. Among the M&#257;rw&#257;ri Banias a <i>toran</i> or string of mango-leaves is stretched above the door of the house on the occasion of a wedding and left there for six months.
+And a wooden triangle with figures perched on it to represent sparrows is tied over the door. The binding portion of the wedding
+is the procession <a id="d0e3887"></a><span class="pagenum">[<a href="#d0e3887">122</a>]</span>seven times round the marriage altar or post. In some Jain subcastes the bridegroom stands beside the post and the bride walks
+seven times round him, while he throws sugar over her head at each turn. After the wedding the couple are made to draw figures
+out of flour sprinkled on a brass plate in token of the bridegroom&#8217;s occupation of keeping accounts. It is customary for the
+bride&#8217;s family to give <i>s&#299;dha</i> or uncooked food sufficient for a day&#8217;s consumption to every outsider who accompanies the marriage party, while to each member
+of the caste provisions for two to five days are given. This is in addition to the evening feasts and involves great expense.
+Sometimes the wedding lasts for eight days, and feasts are given for four days by the bridegroom&#8217;s party and four days by
+the bride&#8217;s. It is said that in some places before a Bania has a wedding he goes before the caste <i>panch&#257;yat</i> and they ask him how many people he is going to invite. If he says five hundred, they prescribe the quantity of the different
+kinds of provisions which he must supply. Thus they may say forty maunds (3200 lbs.) of sugar and flour, with butter, spices,
+and other articles in proportion. He says, &#8216;Gentlemen, I am a poor man; make it a little less&#8217;; or he says he will give <i>gur</i> or cakes of raw cane sugar instead of refined sugar. Then they say, &#8216;No, your social position is too high for <i>gur</i>; you must have sugar for all purposes.&#8217; The more guests the host invites the higher is his social consideration; and it is
+said that if he does not maintain this his life is not worth living. Sometimes the exact amount of entertainment to be given
+at a wedding is fixed, and if a man cannot afford it at the time he must give the balance of the feasts at any subsequent
+period when he has money; and if he fails to do this he is put out of caste. The bride&#8217;s father is often called on to furnish
+a certain sum for the travelling expenses of the bridegroom&#8217;s party, and if he does not send this money they do not come.
+The distinctive feature of a Bania wedding in the northern Districts is that women accompany the marriage procession, and
+the Banias are the only high caste in which they do this. Hence a high-caste wedding party in which women are present can
+be recognised to be a Bania&#8217;s. In the Mar&#257;tha <a id="d0e3901"></a><span class="pagenum">[<a href="#d0e3901">123</a>]</span>Districts women also go, but here this custom obtains among other high castes. The bridegroom&#8217;s party hire or borrow a house
+in the bride&#8217;s village, and here they erect a marriage-shed and go through the preliminary ceremonies of the wedding on the
+bridegroom&#8217;s side as if they were at home.
+
+
+</p>
+</div>
+<div class="div2" id="d0e3903">
+<h3>12. Polygamy and widow-marriage.</h3>
+<p>Polygamy is very rare among the Banias, and it is generally the rule that a man must obtain the consent of his first wife
+before taking a second one. In the absence of this precaution for her happiness, parents will refuse to give him their daughter.
+The remarriage of widows is nominally prohibited, but frequently occurs, and remarried widows are relegated to the inferior
+social groups in each subcaste as already described. Divorce is also said to be prohibited, but it is probable that women
+put away for adultery are allowed to take refuge in such groups instead of being finally expelled.
+
+
+</p>
+</div>
+<div class="div2" id="d0e3908">
+<h3>13. Disposal of the dead and mourning.</h3>
+<p>The dead are cremated as a rule, and the ashes are thrown into a sacred river or any stream. The bodies of young children
+and of persons dying from epidemic disease are buried. The period of mourning must be for an odd number of days. On the third
+day a leaf plate with cooked food is placed on the ground where the body was burnt, and on some subsequent day a feast is
+given to the caste. Rich Banias will hire people to mourn. Widows and young girls are usually employed, and these come and
+sit before the house for an hour in the morning and sometimes also in the evening, and covering their heads with their cloths,
+beat their breasts and make lamentations. Rich men may hire as many as ten mourners for a period of one, two or three months.
+The M&#257;rw&#257;ris, when a girl is born, break an earthen pot to show that they have had a misfortune; but when a boy is born they
+beat a brass plate in token of their joy.
+
+
+</p>
+</div>
+<div class="div2" id="d0e3913">
+<h3>14. Religion: the god Ganpati or Ganesh.</h3>
+<p>Nearly all the Banias are Jains or Vaishnava Hindus. An account of the Jain religion has been given in a separate article,
+and some notice of the retention of Hindu practices by the Jains is contained in the subordinate article on Parw&#257;r Bania.
+The Vaishnava Banias no less than the Jains are strongly averse to the destruction of animal life, and will not kill any living
+thing. Their principal deity is the god Ganesh <a id="d0e3918"></a><span class="pagenum">[<a href="#d0e3918">124</a>]</span>or Ganpati, the son of Mah&#257;deo and P&#257;rvati, who is the god of good-luck, wealth and prosperity. Ganesh is represented in sculpture
+with the head of an elephant and riding on a rat, though the rat is now covered by the body of the god and is scarcely visible.
+He has a small body like a child&#8217;s with a fat belly and round plump arms. Perhaps his body signifies that he is figured as
+a boy, the son of P&#257;rvati or Gauri. In former times grain was the main source of wealth, and from the appearance of Ganesh
+it can be understood why he is the god of overflowing granaries, and hence of wealth and good fortune. The elephant is a sacred
+animal among Hindus, and that on which the king rides. To have an elephant was a mark of wealth and distinction among Banias,
+and the Jains harness the cars of their gods to elephants at their great <i>rath</i> or chariot festival. Gajpati or &#8216;lord of elephants&#8217; is a title given to a king; Gaj&#257;nand or &#8216;elephant-faced&#8217; is an epithet
+of the god Ganesh and a favourite Hindu name. Gajv&#299;thi or the track of the elephant is a name of the Milky Way, and indicates
+that there is believed to be a divine elephant who takes this course through the heavens. The elephant eats so much grain
+that only a comparatively rich man can afford to keep one; and hence it is easy to understand how the attribute of plenty
+or of wealth was associated with the divine elephant as his special characteristic. Similarly the rat is connected with overflowing
+granaries, because when there is much corn in a Hindu house or store-shed there will be many rats; thus a multitude of rats
+implied a rich household, and so this animal too came to be a symbol of wealth. The Hindus do not now consider the rat sacred,
+but they have a tenderness for it, especially in the Mar&#257;tha country. The more bigoted of them objected to rats being poisoned
+as a means of checking plague, though observation has fully convinced them that rats spread the plague; and in the Bania hospitals,
+formerly maintained for preserving the lives of animals, a number of rats were usually to be found. The rat, in fact, may
+now be said to stand to Ganpati in the position of a disreputable poor relation. No attempt is made to deny his existence,
+but he is kept in the background as far as possible. The god Ganpati is also associated with wealth of grain through his <a id="d0e3923"></a><span class="pagenum">[<a href="#d0e3923">125</a>]</span>parentage. He is the offspring of Siva or Mah&#257;deo and his wife Devi or Gauri. Mah&#257;deo is in this case probably taken in his
+beneficent character of the deified bull; Devi in her most important aspect as the great mother-goddess is the earth, but
+as mother of Ganesh she is probably imagined in her special form of Gauri, the yellow one, that is, the yellow corn. Gauri
+is closely associated with Ganesh, and every Hindu bridal couple worship Gauri Ganesh together as an important rite of the
+wedding. Their conjunction in this manner lends colour to the idea that they are held to be mother and son. In R&#257;jput&#257;na Gauri
+is worshipped as the corn goddess at the Gangore festival about the time of the vernal equinox, especially by women. The meaning
+of Gauri, Colonel Tod states, is yellow, emblematic of the ripened harvest, when the votaries of the goddess adore her effigies,
+in the shape of a matron painted the colour of ripe corn. Here she is seen as Ana-p&#363;rna (the corn-goddess), the benefactress
+of mankind. &#8220;The rites commence when the sun enters Aries (the opening of the Hindu year), by a deputation to a spot beyond
+the city to bring earth for the image of Gauri. A small trench is then excavated in which barley is sown; the ground is irrigated
+and artificial heat supplied till the grain germinates, when the females join hands and dance round it, invoking the blessings
+of Gauri on their husbands. The young corn is then taken up, distributed and presented by the females to the men, who wear
+it in their turbans.&#8221;<a id="d0e3925src" href="#d0e3925" class="noteref">14</a> Thus if Ganesh is the son of Gauri he is the offspring of the bull and the growing corn; and his genesis from the elephant
+and the rat show him equally as the god of full granaries, and hence of wealth and good fortune. We can understand therefore
+how he is the special god of the Banias, who formerly must have dealt almost entirely in grain, as coined money had not come
+into general use.
+
+
+</p>
+</div>
+<div class="div2" id="d0e3930">
+<h3>15. Diw&#257;li festival.</h3>
+<p>At the Diw&#257;li festival the Banias worship Ganpati or Ganesh, in conjunction with Lakshmi, the goddess of wealth. Lakshmi is
+considered to be the deified cow, and, as such, the other main source of wealth, both as mother of the bull, the tiller of
+the soil, and the giver of milk from which <i>gh&#299;</i> <a id="d0e3938"></a><span class="pagenum">[<a href="#d0e3938">126</a>]</span>(clarified butter) is made; this is another staple of the Bania&#8217;s trade, as well as a luxurious food, of which he is especially
+fond. At Diw&#257;li all Banias make up their accounts for the year, and obtain the signatures of clients to their balances. They
+open fresh account-books, which they first worship and adorn with an image of Ganesh, and perhaps an invocation to the god
+on the front page. A silver rupee is also worshipped as an emblem of Lakshmi, but in some cases an English sovereign, as a
+more precious coin, has been substituted, and this is placed on the seat of the goddess and reverence paid to it. The Banias
+and Hindus generally think it requisite to gamble at Diw&#257;li in order to bring good luck during the coming year; all classes
+indulge in a little speculation at this season.
+
+
+</p>
+<div id="d0e3940" class="figure"><img border="0" src="images/p126.jpg" alt="Mud images made and worshipped at the Holi festival." width="483" height="720"><p class="figureHead">Mud images made and worshipped at the Holi festival.</p>
+</div><p>
+
+
+
+</p>
+</div>
+<div class="div2" id="d0e3944">
+<h3>16. Holi festival.</h3>
+<p>In the month of Ph&#257;gun (February), about the time of the Holi, the M&#257;rw&#257;ris make an image of mud naked, calling it N&#257;thu R&#257;m,
+who was supposed to be a great M&#257;rw&#257;ri. They mock at this and throw mud at it, and beat it with shoes, and have various jests
+and sports. The men and women are divided into two parties, and throw dirty water and red powder over each other, and the
+women make whips of cloth and beat the men. After two or three days, they break up the image and throw it away. The Banias,
+both Jain and Hindu, like to begin the day by going and looking at the god in his temple. This is considered an auspicious
+omen in the same manner as it is commonly held to be a good omen to see some particular person or class of person the first
+thing in the morning. Others begin the day by worshipping the sacred <i>tulsi</i> or basil.
+
+
+</p>
+</div>
+<div class="div2" id="d0e3952">
+<h3>17. Social customs: rules about food.</h3>
+<p>The Banias are very strict about food. The majority of them abstain from all kinds of flesh food and alcoholic liquor. The
+Kasarw&#257;nis are reported to eat the flesh of clean animals, and perhaps others of the lower subcastes may also do so, but the
+Banias are probably stricter than any other caste in their adherence to a vegetable diet. Many of them eschew also onions
+and garlic as impure food. Banias take the lead in the objection to foreign sugar on account of the stories told of the impure
+ingredients which it contains, and many of them, until recently, at any <a id="d0e3957"></a><span class="pagenum">[<a href="#d0e3957">127</a>]</span>rate, still adhered to Indian sugar. Drugs are not forbidden, but they are not usually addicted to them. Tobacco is forbidden
+to the Jains, but both they and the Hindus smoke, and their women sometimes chew tobacco. The Bania while he is poor is very
+abstemious, and it is said that on a day when he has made no money he goes supperless to bed. But when he has accumulated
+wealth, he develops a fondness for <i>gh&#299;</i> or preserved butter, which often causes him to become portly. Otherwise his food remains simple, and as a rule he confined
+himself until recently to two daily meals, at midday and in the evening; but Banias, like most other classes who can afford
+it, have now begun to drink tea in the morning. In dress the Bania is also simple, adhering to the orthodox Hindu garb of
+a long white coat and a loin-cloth. He has not yet adopted the cotton trousers copied from the English fashion. Some Banias
+in their shops wear only a cloth over their shoulders and another round their waist. The <i>kardora</i> or silver waist-belt is a favourite Bania ornament, and though plainly dressed in ordinary life, rich M&#257;rwa&#257;ris will on special
+festival occasions wear costly jewels. On his head the M&#257;rw&#257;ri wears a small tightly folded turban, often coloured crimson,
+pink or yellow; a green turban is a sign of mourning and also black, though the latter is seldom seen. The Banias object to
+taking the life of any animal. They will not castrate cattle even through their servants, but sell the young bulls and buy
+oxen. In Saugor, a Bania is put out of caste if he keeps buffaloes. It is supposed that good Hindus should not keep buffaloes
+nor use them for carting or ploughing, because the buffalo is impure, and is the animal on which Yama, the god of death, rides.
+Thus in his social observances generally the Bania is one of the strictest castes, and this is a reason why his social status
+is high. Sometimes he is even held superior to the R&#257;jp&#363;t, as the local R&#257;jp&#363;ts are often of impure descent and lax in their
+observance of religious and social restrictions. Though he soon learns the vernacular language of the country where he settles,
+the M&#257;rw&#257;ri usually retains his own native dialect in his account-books, and this makes it more difficult for his customers
+to understand them.
+
+
+</p>
+<div id="d0e3965" class="figure"><img border="0" src="images/p128.jpg" alt="Bania&#8217;s shop." width="720" height="507"><p class="figureHead">Bania&#8217;s shop.</p>
+</div><p>
+
+
+<a id="d0e3969"></a><span class="pagenum">[<a href="#d0e3969">128</a>]</span></p>
+</div>
+<div class="div2" id="d0e3970">
+<h3>18. Character of the Bania.</h3>
+<p>The Bania has a very distinctive caste character. From early boyhood he is trained to the keeping of accounts and to the view
+that it is his business in life to make money, and that no transaction should be considered successful or creditable which
+does not show a profit. As an apprentice, he goes through a severe training in mental arithmetic, so as to enable him to make
+the most intricate calculations in his head. With this object a boy commits to memory a number of very elaborate tables. For
+whole numbers he learns by heart the units from one to ten multiplied as high as forty times, and the numbers from eleven
+to twenty multiplied to twenty times. There are also fractional tables, giving the results of multiplying &frac14;, &frac12;, &frac34;, 1&frac14;, 1&frac12;,
+2&frac12;, 3&frac12; into units from one to one hundred; interest-tables showing the interest due on any sum from one to one thousand rupees
+for one month, and for a quarter of a month at twelve per cent; tables of the squares of all numbers from one to one hundred,
+and a set of technical rules for finding the price of a part from the price of the whole.<a id="d0e3975src" href="#d0e3975" class="noteref">15</a> The self-denial and tenacity which enable the Bania without capital to lay the foundations of a business are also remarkable.
+On first settling in a new locality, a M&#257;rw&#257;ri Bania takes service with some shopkeeper, and by dint of the strictest economy
+puts together a little money. Then the new trader establishes himself in some village and begins to make grain advances to
+the cultivators on high rates of interest, though occasionally on bad security. He opens a shop and retails grain, pulses,
+condiments, spices, sugar and flour. From grain he gradually passes to selling cloth and lending money, and being keen and
+exacting, and having to deal with ignorant and illiterate clients, he acquires wealth; this he invests in purchasing villages,
+and after a time blossoms out into a big Seth or banker. The Bania can also start a retail business without capital. The way
+in which he does it is to buy a rupee&#8217;s worth of stock in a town, and take it out early in the morning to a village, where
+he sits on the steps of the temple until he has sold it. Up till then he neither eats nor washes his face. He comes back in
+the evening after <a id="d0e3980"></a><span class="pagenum">[<a href="#d0e3980">129</a>]</span>having eaten two or three pice worth of grain, and buys a fresh stock, which he takes out to another village in the morning.
+Thus he turns over his capital with a profit two or three times a week according to the saying, &#8220;If a Bania gets a rupee he
+will have an income of eight rupees a month,&#8221; or as another proverb pithily sums up the immigrant M&#257;rw&#257;ri&#8217;s career, &#8216;He comes
+with a <i>lota</i><a id="d0e3984src" href="#d0e3984" class="noteref">16</a> and goes back with a lakh.&#8217; The Bania never writes off debts, even though his debtor may be a pauper, but goes on entering
+them up year by year in his account-books and taking the debtor&#8217;s acknowledgment. For he says, &#8216;<i lang="und">Purus P&#257;rus</i>&#8217;, or man is like the philosopher&#8217;s stone, and his fortune may change any day.
+
+
+</p>
+</div>
+<div class="div2" id="d0e3990">
+<h3>19. Dislike of the cultivators towards him.</h3>
+<p>The cultivators rarely get fair treatment from the Banias, as the odds are too much against them. They must have money to
+sow their land, and live while the crops are growing, and the majority who have no capital are at the moneylender&#8217;s mercy.
+He is of a different caste, and often of a different country, and has no fellow-feeling towards them, and therefore considers
+the transaction merely from the business point of view of getting as much profit as possible. The debtors are illiterate,
+often not even understanding the meaning of figures, or the result of paying compound interest at twenty-five or fifty per
+cent; they can neither keep accounts themselves nor check their creditor&#8217;s. Hence they are entirely in his hands, and in the
+end their villages or land, if saleable, pass to him, and they decline from landlord to tenant, or from tenant to labourer.
+They have found vent for their feelings in some of the bitterest sayings ever current: &#8216;A man who has a Bania for a friend
+has no need of an enemy.&#8217; &#8216;Borrow from a Bania and you are as good as ruined.&#8217; &#8216;The rogue cheats strangers and the Bania cheats
+his friends.&#8217; &#8216;Kick a Bania even if he is dead.&#8217; &#8220;His heart, we are told, is no bigger than a coriander seed; he goes in like
+a needle and comes out like a sword; as a neighbour he is as bad as a boil in the armpit. If a Bania is on the other side
+of a river you should leave your bundle on this side for fear he should steal it. If a Bania is drowning you should not give
+him your hand; he is sure to have some pecuniary motive for drifting down-stream. <a id="d0e3995"></a><span class="pagenum">[<a href="#d0e3995">130</a>]</span>A Bania will start an auction in a desert. If a Bania&#8217;s son tumbles down he is sure to pick up something. He uses light weights
+and swears that the scales tip up of themselves; he keeps his accounts in a character that no one but God can read; if you
+borrow from him your debt mounts up like a refuse-heap or gallops like a horse; if he talks to a customer he debits the conversation
+in his accounts; and when his own credit is shaky he writes up his transactions on the wall so that they can easily be rubbed
+out.&#8221;<a id="d0e3997src" href="#d0e3997" class="noteref">17</a>
+
+
+</p>
+</div>
+<div class="div2" id="d0e4003">
+<h3>20. His virtues.</h3>
+<p>Nevertheless there is a good deal to be said on the other side, and the Bania&#8217;s faults are probably to a large extent produced
+by his environment, like other people&#8217;s. One of the Bania&#8217;s virtues is that he will lend on security which neither the Government
+nor the banks would look at, or on none at all. Then he will always wait a long time for his money, especially if the interest
+is paid. No doubt this is no loss to him, as he keeps his money out at good interest; but it is a great convenience to a client
+that his debt can be postponed in a bad year, and that he can pay as much as he likes in a good one. The village moneylender
+is indispensable to its economy when the tenants are like school-boys in that money burns a hole in their pocket; and Sir
+Denzil Ibbetson states that it is surprising how much reasonableness and honesty there is in his dealings with the people,
+so long as he can keep his transactions out of a court of justice.<a id="d0e4008src" href="#d0e4008" class="noteref">18</a> Similarly, Sir Reginald Craddock writes: &#8220;The village Bania is a much-abused individual, but he is as a rule a quiet, peaceable
+man, a necessary factor in the village economy. He is generally most forbearing with his clients and customers, and is not
+the person most responsible for the indebtedness of the ryot. It is the casual moneylender with little or no capital who lives
+by his wits, or the large firms with shops and agents scattered over the face of the country who work the serious mischief.
+These latter encourage the people to take loans and discourage repayment until the debt has increased by accumulation of interest
+to a sum from which the borrower cannot easily free himself.&#8221;<a id="d0e4013src" href="#d0e4013" class="noteref">19</a>
+<a id="d0e4018"></a><span class="pagenum">[<a href="#d0e4018">131</a>]</span>
+
+
+</p>
+</div>
+<div class="div2" id="d0e4020">
+<h3>21. The moneylender changed for the worse.</h3>
+<p>The progress of administration, bringing with it easy and safe transit all over the country; the institution of a complete
+system of civil justice and the stringent enforcement of contracts through the courts; the introduction of cash coinage as
+the basis of all transactions; and the grant of proprietary and transferable rights in land, appear to have at the same time
+enhanced the Bania&#8217;s prosperity and increased the harshness and rapacity of his dealings. When the moneylender lived in the
+village he had an interest in the solvency of the tenants who constituted his client&egrave;le and was also amenable to public opinion,
+even though not of his own caste. For it would clearly be an impossibly unpleasant position for him to meet no one but bitter
+enemies whenever he set foot outside his house, and to go to bed in nightly fear of being dacoited and murdered by a combination
+of his next-door neighbours. He therefore probably adopted the motto of live and let live, and conducted his transactions
+on a basis of custom, like the other traders and artisans who lived among the village community. But with the rise of the
+large banking-houses whose dealings are conducted through agents over considerable tracts of country, public opinion can no
+longer act. The agent looks mainly to his principal, and the latter has no interest in or regard for the cultivators of distant
+villages. He cares only for his profit, and his business is conducted with a single view to that end. He himself has no public
+opinion to face, as he lives in a town among a community of his caste-fellows, and here absolutely no discredit is attached
+to grinding the faces of the poor, but on the contrary the honour and consideration accruing to him are in direct proportion
+to his wealth. The agent may have some compunction, but his first aim is to please his principal, and as he is often a sojourner
+liable to early transfer he cares little what may be said or thought about him locally.
+
+
+</p>
+</div>
+<div class="div2" id="d0e4025">
+<h3>22. The enforcement of contracts.</h3>
+<p>Again the introduction of the English law of contract and transfer of property, and the increase in the habit of litigation
+have greatly altered the character of the money-lending business for the worse. The debtor signs a bond sometimes not even
+knowing the conditions, more often having heard them but without any clear idea of their effect <a id="d0e4030"></a><span class="pagenum">[<a href="#d0e4030">132</a>]</span>or of the consequences to himself, and as readily allows it to be registered. When it comes into court the witnesses, who
+are the moneylender&#8217;s creatures, easily prove that it was a genuine and <i>bona fide</i> transaction, and the debtor is too ignorant and stupid to be able to show that he did not understand the bargain or that
+it was unconscionable. In any case the court has little or no power to go behind a properly executed contract without any
+actual evidence of fraud, and has no option but to decree it in terms of the deed. This evil is likely to be remedied very
+shortly, as the Government of India have announced a proposal to introduce the recent English Act and allow the courts the
+discretion to go behind contracts, and to refuse to decree exorbitant interest or other hard bargains. This urgently needed
+reform will, it may be hoped, greatly improve the character of the civil administration by encouraging the courts to realise
+that it is their business to do justice between litigants, and not merely to administer the letter of the law; and at the
+same time it should have the result, as in England, of quickening the public conscience and that of the moneylenders themselves,
+which has indeed already been to some extent awakened by other Government measures, including the example set by the Government
+itself as a creditor.
+
+
+</p>
+</div>
+<div class="div2" id="d0e4035">
+<h3>23. Cash coinage and the rate of interest.</h3>
+<p>Again the free circulation of metal currency and its adoption as a medium for all transactions has hitherto been to the disadvantage
+of the debtors. Interest on money was probably little in vogue among pastoral peoples, and was looked upon with disfavour,
+being prohibited by both the Mosaic and Muhammadan codes. The reason was perhaps that in a pastoral community there existed
+no means of making a profit on a loan by which interest could be paid, and hence the result of usury was that the debtor ultimately
+became enslaved to his creditor; and the enslavement of freemen on any considerable scale was against the public interest.
+With the introduction of agriculture a system of loans on interest became a necessary and useful part of the public economy,
+as a cultivator could borrow grain to sow land and support himself and his family until the crop ripened, out of which the
+loan, principal and interest, could be repaid. If, as seems likely, this was the first occasion <a id="d0e4040"></a><span class="pagenum">[<a href="#d0e4040">133</a>]</span>for the introduction of the system of loan-giving on a large scale, it would follow that the rate of interest would be based
+largely on the return yielded by the earth to the seed. Support is afforded to this conjecture by the fact that in the case
+of grain loans in the Central Provinces the interest on loans of grain of the crops which yield a comparatively small return,
+such as wheat, is twenty-five to fifty per cent, while in the case of those which yield a large return, such as ju&#257;ri and
+kodon, it is one hundred per cent. These high rates of interest were not of much importance so long as the transaction was
+in grain. The grain was much less valuable at harvest than at seed time, and in addition the lender had the expense of storing
+and protecting his stock of grain through the year. It is probable that a rate of twenty-five per cent on grain loans does
+not yield more than a reasonable profit to the lender. But when in recent times cash came to be substituted for grain it would
+appear that there was no proportionate reduction in the interest. The borrower would lose by having to sell his grain for
+the payment of his debt at the most unfavourable rate after harvest, and since the transaction was by a regular deed the lender
+no longer took any share of the risk of a bad harvest, as it is probable that he was formerly accustomed to do. The rates
+of interest for cash loans afforded a disproportionate profit to the lender, who was put to no substantial expense in keeping
+money as he had formerly been in the case of grain. It is thus probable that rates for cash loans were for a considerable
+period unduly severe in proportion to the risk, and involved unmerited loss to the borrower. This is now being remedied by
+competition, by Government loans given on a large scale in time of scarcity, and by the introduction of co-operative credit.
+But it has probably contributed to expedite the transfer of land from the cultivating to the moneylending classes.
+
+
+</p>
+</div>
+<div class="div2" id="d0e4042">
+<h3>24. Proprietary and transferable rights in land.</h3>
+<p>Lastly the grant of proprietary and transferable right to land has afforded a new incentive and reward to the successful moneylender.
+Prior to this measure it is probable that no considerable transfers of land occurred for ordinary debt. The village headman
+might be ousted for non-payment of revenue, or simply through the greed of some Government <a id="d0e4047"></a><span class="pagenum">[<a href="#d0e4047">134</a>]</span>official under native rule, and of course the villages were continually pillaged and plundered by their own and hostile armies
+such as the Pind&#257;ris, while the population was periodically decimated by famine. But apart from their losses by famine, war
+and the badness of the central government, it is probable that the cultivators were held to have a hereditary right to their
+land, and were not liable to ejectment on the suit of any private person. It is doubtful whether they had any conception of
+ownership of the land, and it seems likely that they may have thought of it as a god or the property of the god; but the cultivating
+castes perhaps had a hereditary right to cultivate it, just as the Cham&#257;r had a prescriptive right to the hides of the village
+cattle, the Kal&#257;r to the mahua-flowers for making his liquor, the Kumh&#257;r to clay for his pots, and the Teli to press the oil-seeds
+grown in his village. The inferior castes were not allowed to hold land, and it was probably never imagined that the village
+moneylender should by means of a piece of stamped paper be able to oust the cultivators indebted to him and take their land
+himself. With the grant of proprietary right to land such as existed in England, and the application of the English law of
+contract and transfer of property, a new and easy road to wealth was opened to the moneylender, of which he was not slow to
+take advantage. The Banias have thus ousted numbers of improvident proprietors of the cultivating castes, and many of them
+have become large landlords. A considerable degree of protection has now been afforded to landowners and cultivators, and
+the process has been checked, but that it should have proceeded so far is regrettable; and the operation of the law has been
+responsible for a large amount of unintentional injustice to the cultivating castes and especially to proprietors of aboriginal
+descent, who on account of their extreme ignorance and improvidence most readily fall a prey to the moneylender.
+
+
+</p>
+</div>
+<div class="div2" id="d0e4049">
+<h3>25. The Bania as a landlord.</h3>
+<p>As landlords the Banias were not at first a success. They did not care to spend money in improving their property, and ground
+their tenants to the utmost. Sir R. Craddock remarks of them:<a id="d0e4054src" href="#d0e4054" class="noteref">20</a> &#8220;Great or small they are absolutely unfitted by their natural instincts to be landlords. <a id="d0e4059"></a><span class="pagenum">[<a href="#d0e4059">135</a>]</span>Shrewdest of traders, most business-like in the matter of bargains, they are unable to take a broad view of the duties of
+landlord or to see that rack-renting will not pay in the long run.&#8221;
+
+</p>
+<p>Still, under the influence of education, and the growth of moral feeling, as well as the desire to stand well with Government
+officers and to obtain recognition in the shape of some honour, many of the M&#257;rw&#257;ri proprietors are developing into just and
+progressive landlords. But from the cultivator&#8217;s point of view, residence on their estates, which are managed by agents in
+charge of a number of villages for an absent owner, cannot compare with the system of the small cultivating proprietor resident
+among tenants of his own caste, and bound to them by ties of sympathy and caste feeling, which produces, as described by Sir
+R. Craddock, the ideal village.
+
+
+</p>
+</div>
+<div class="div2" id="d0e4063">
+<h3>26. Commercial honesty.</h3>
+<p>As a trader the Bania formerly had a high standard of commercial probity. Even though he might show little kindliness or honesty
+in dealing with the poorer class of borrowers, he was respected and absolutely reliable in regard to money. It was not unusual
+for people to place their money in a rich Bania&#8217;s hands without interest, even paying him a small sum for safe-keeping. Bankruptcy
+was considered disgraceful, and was visited with social penalties little less severe than those enforced for breaches of caste
+rules. There was a firm belief that a merchant&#8217;s condition in the next world depended on the discharge of all claims against
+him. And the duty of paying ancestral debts was evaded only in the case of helpless or hopeless poverty. Of late, partly owing
+to the waning power of caste and religious feeling in the matter, and partly to the knowledge of the bankruptcy laws, the
+standard of commercial honour has greatly fallen. Since the case of bankruptcy is governed and arranged for by law, the trader
+thinks that so long as he can keep within the law he has done nothing wrong. A banker, when heavily involved, seldom scruples
+to become a bankrupt and to keep back money enough to enable him to start afresh, even if he does nothing worse. This, however,
+is probably a transitory phase, and the same thing has happened in England and America at one stage of commercial development.
+In time it may be expected that the loss of the old <a id="d0e4068"></a><span class="pagenum">[<a href="#d0e4068">136</a>]</span>religious and caste feeling will be made good by a new standard of commercial honour enforced by public opinion among merchants
+generally. The Banias are very good to their own caste, and when a man is ruined will have a general subscription and provide
+funds to enable him to start afresh in a small way. Beggars are very rare in the caste. Rich M&#257;rw&#257;ris are extremely generous
+in their subscriptions to objects of public utility, but it is said that the small Bania is not very charitably inclined,
+though he doles out handfuls of grain to beggars with fair liberality. But he has a system by which he exacts from those who
+deal with him a slight percentage on the price received by them for religious purposes. This is called Deod&#257;n or a gift to
+God, and is supposed to go into some public fund for the construction or maintenance of a temple or similar object. In the
+absence of proper supervision or audit it is to be feared that the Bania inclines to make use of it for his private charity,
+thus saving himself expense on that score. The system has been investigated by Mr. Napier, Commissioner of Jubbulpore, with
+a view to the application of these funds to public improvements.
+
+
+
+</p>
+</div>
+<div class="footnotes">
+<hr class="fnsep">
+<p class="footnote"><span class="label"><a id="d0e3731" href="#d0e3731src" class="noteref">1</a></span> See <a href="#d0e3990">para. 19</a> below.
+</p>
+<p class="footnote"><span class="label"><a id="d0e3746" href="#d0e3746src" class="noteref">2</a></span> See commencement of article.
+</p>
+<p class="footnote"><span class="label"><a id="d0e3749" href="#d0e3749src" class="noteref">3</a></span> <i>C.P. Census Report</i> (1911), Occupation Chapter, Subsidiary Table I. p. 234.
+</p>
+<p class="footnote"><span class="label"><a id="d0e3766" href="#d0e3766src" class="noteref">4</a></span> For examples, the subordinate articles on Agarw&#257;l, Osw&#257;l, Maheshri, Khandelw&#257;l, L&#257;d, Agrahari, Ajudhiab&#257;si, and Srim&#257;li may
+be consulted. The census lists contain numerous other territorial names.
+</p>
+<p class="footnote"><span class="label"><a id="d0e3786" href="#d0e3786src" class="noteref">5</a></span> <i>R&#257;jasth&#257;n</i>, i. pp. 76, 109.
+</p>
+<p class="footnote"><span class="label"><a id="d0e3791" href="#d0e3791src" class="noteref">6</a></span> That is M&#257;rw&#257;r. But perhaps the term here is used in the wider sense of R&#257;jput&#257;na.
+</p>
+<p class="footnote"><span class="label"><a id="d0e3794" href="#d0e3794src" class="noteref">7</a></span> <i>R&#257;jasth&#257;n</i>, ii. p. 145.
+</p>
+<p class="footnote"><span class="label"><a id="d0e3801" href="#d0e3801src" class="noteref">8</a></span> <i>Punjab Census Report</i> (1881), p. 293.
+</p>
+<p class="footnote"><span class="label"><a id="d0e3806" href="#d0e3806src" class="noteref">9</a></span> <i>Supplemental Glossary</i>, p. 110.
+</p>
+<p class="footnote"><span class="label"><a id="d0e3820" href="#d0e3820src" class="noteref">10</a></span> <i>R&#257;sm&#257;la</i>, i. pp. 240, 243.
+</p>
+<p class="footnote"><span class="label"><a id="d0e3825" href="#d0e3825src" class="noteref">11</a></span> <i>R&#257;jasth&#257;n</i>, ii. p. 360.
+</p>
+<p class="footnote"><span class="label"><a id="d0e3830" href="#d0e3830src" class="noteref">12</a></span> <i>Ibid.</i> ii. p. 240.
+</p>
+<p class="footnote"><span class="label"><a id="d0e3842" href="#d0e3842src" class="noteref">13</a></span> The Parw&#257;rs probably belonged originally to R&#257;jput&#257;na; see subordinate article.
+</p>
+<p class="footnote"><span class="label"><a id="d0e3925" href="#d0e3925src" class="noteref">14</a></span> <i>R&#257;jasth&#257;n</i>, i. p. 491.
+</p>
+<p class="footnote"><span class="label"><a id="d0e3975" href="#d0e3975src" class="noteref">15</a></span> <i>Bombay Gazetteer, Hindus of Gujar&#257;t</i>, p. 80.
+</p>
+<p class="footnote"><span class="label"><a id="d0e3984" href="#d0e3984src" class="noteref">16</a></span> The common brass drinking-vessel.
+</p>
+<p class="footnote"><span class="label"><a id="d0e3997" href="#d0e3997src" class="noteref">17</a></span> Sir H. H. Risley&#8217;s <i>Peoples of India</i>, p. 127, and Appendix I. p. 8.
+</p>
+<p class="footnote"><span class="label"><a id="d0e4008" href="#d0e4008src" class="noteref">18</a></span> <i>Punjab Census Report</i> (1881), p. 291.
+</p>
+<p class="footnote"><span class="label"><a id="d0e4013" href="#d0e4013src" class="noteref">19</a></span> <i>N&#257;gpur Settlement Report</i> (1900), para. 54.
+</p>
+<p class="footnote"><span class="label"><a id="d0e4054" href="#d0e4054src" class="noteref">20</a></span> <i>N&#257;gpur Settlement Report</i> (1900), para. 54.
+</p>
+</div>
+</div>
+<div id="d0e4070" class="div1"><span class="pagenum">
+[<a href="#d0e111">Contents</a>]
+</span><h2>Bania, Agarw&#257;la</h2>
+<p><b>Bania, Agarw&#257;la, Agarw&#257;l.</b>&#8212;This is generally considered to be the highest and most important subdivision of the Banias. They numbered about 25,000 persons
+in the Central Provinces in 1911, being principally found in Jubbulpore and N&#257;gpur. The name is probably derived from Agroha,
+a small town in the Hiss&#257;r District of the Punjab, which was formerly of some commercial importance. Buchanan records that
+when any firm failed in the city each of the others contributed a brick and five rupees, which formed a stock sufficient for
+the merchant to recommence trade with advantage. The Agarw&#257;las trace their descent from a R&#257;ja Agar Sen, whose seventeen sons
+married the seventeen daughters of B&#257;suki, the king of the N&#257;gas or snakes. Elliot considers that the snakes were really the
+Scythian or barbarian immigrants, the Yueh-chi or Kush&#257;ns, from whom several of the R&#257;jp&#257;t clans as the T&#257;k, Haih&#257;yas and
+others, who also have the legend of snake ancestry, were probably derived. Elliot also remarks that R&#257;ja Agar Sen, being a
+<a id="d0e4077"></a><span class="pagenum">[<a href="#d0e4077">137</a>]</span>king, must have been a Kshatriya, and thus according to the legend the Agarw&#257;las would have R&#257;jp&#363;t ancestry on both sides.
+Their appearance, Mr. Crooke states, indicates good race and breeding, and would lend colour to the theory of a R&#257;jp&#363;t origin.
+R&#257;ja Agar Sen is said to have ruled over both Agra and Agroha, and it seems possible that the name of the Agarw&#257;las may also
+be connected with Agra, which is a much more important place than Agroha. The country round Agra and Delhi is their home,
+and the shrine of the tutelary goddess of some of the Agarw&#257;las in the Central Provinces is near Delhi. The memory of the
+N&#257;ga princess who was their ancestor is still, Sir H. Risley states, held in honour by the Agarw&#257;las, and they say, &#8216;Our mother&#8217;s
+house is of the race of the snake.&#8217;<a id="d0e4079src" href="#d0e4079" class="noteref">1</a> No Agarw&#257;la, whether Hindu or Jain, will kill or molest a snake, and the Vaishnava Agarw&#257;las of Delhi paint pictures of snakes
+on either side of the outside doors of their houses, and make offerings of fruit and flowers before them.
+
+</p>
+<p>In the Central Provinces, like other Bania subcastes, they are divided into the B&#299;sa and Dasa or twenty and ten subdivisions,
+which marry among themselves. The B&#299;sa rank higher than the Dasa, the latter being considered to have some flaw in their pedigree,
+such as descent from a remarried widow. The Dasas are sometimes said to be the descendants of the maidservants who accompanied
+the seventeen N&#257;ga or snake princesses on their marriages to the sons of R&#257;ja Agar Sen. A third division has now come into
+existence in the Central Provinces, known as the Pacha or fives; these are apparently of still more doubtful origin than the
+Dasas. The divisions tend to be endogamous, but if a man of the B&#299;sa or Dasa cannot obtain a wife from his own group he will
+sometimes marry in a lower group.
+
+</p>
+<p>The Agarw&#257;las are divided into seventeen and a half <i>gotras</i> or exogamous sections, which are supposed to be descended from the seventeen sons of R&#257;ja Agar Sen. The extra half <i>gotra</i> is accounted for by a legend, but it probably has in reality also something to do with illegitimate descent. Some of the
+<i>gotras</i>, as given by Mr. Crooke, are as a matter of fact named after Br&#257;hmanical saints like those of the <a id="d0e4097"></a><span class="pagenum">[<a href="#d0e4097">138</a>]</span>Br&#257;hmans; instances of these are Garga, Gautama, Kaushika, Kasyapa and Vasishtha; the others appear to be territorial or titular
+names. The prohibitions on marriage between relations are far-reaching among the Agarw&#257;las. The detailed rules are given in
+the article on Bania, and the effect is that persons descended from a common ancestor cannot intermarry for five generations.
+When the wedding procession is about to start the Kumh&#257;r brings his donkey and the bridegroom has to touch it with his foot,
+or, according to one version, ride upon it. The origin of this custom is obscure, but the people now say that it is meant
+to emphasise the fact that the bridegroom is going to do a foolish thing. The remarriage of widows is prohibited, and divorce
+is not recognised. Most of the Agarw&#257;las are Vaishnava by religion, but a few are Jains. Intermarriage between members of
+the two religions is permitted in some localities, and the wife adopts that of her husband. The Jain Agarw&#257;las observe the
+Hindu festivals and employ Br&#257;hmans for their ceremonies. In Nim&#257;r the caste have some curious taboos. It is said that a married
+woman may not eat wheat until a child has been born to her, but only ju&#257;ri; and if she has no child she may not eat wheat
+all her life. If a son is born to her she must go to Mahaur, a village near Delhi where the tutelary goddess of the caste
+has her shrine. This goddess is called Mohna Devi, and she is the deified spirit of a woman who burnt herself with her husband.
+After this the woman may eat wheat; but if a second son is born she must stop eating wheat until she has been to the shrine
+again. But if she has a daughter she may at once and always eat wheat without visiting the shrine. These rules, as well as
+the veneration of a snake, from which they believe themselves to be descended on the mother&#8217;s side, may perhaps, as suggested
+by Sir H. Risley, be a relic of the system of matriarchal descent. It is said that when R&#257;ja Agar Sen or his sons married
+the N&#257;ga princesses, he obtained permission as a special favour from the goddess Lakshmi that the children should bear their
+father&#8217;s name and not their mother&#8217;s.<a id="d0e4099src" href="#d0e4099" class="noteref">2</a>
+
+</p>
+<p>In Nim&#257;r some Agarw&#257;las worship Goba P&#299;r, the god of <a id="d0e4106"></a><span class="pagenum">[<a href="#d0e4106">139</a>]</span>the sweepers. He is represented by a pole some 30 feet long on which are hung a cloth and cocoanuts. The sweepers carry this
+through the city almost daily during the month of Shr&#257;wan (July), and people offer cocoanuts, tying them on to the pole. Some
+Agarw&#257;las offer vermilion to the god in token of worship, and a few invite it to the compounds of their houses and keep it
+there all night for the same purpose. When a feast is given in the caste the Agarw&#257;las do not take their own brass vessels
+according to the usual practice, but the host gives them little earthen pots to drink from which are afterwards broken, and
+leaf-plates for their food. The Agarw&#257;las will take food cooked without water (<i>pakki</i>) from Osw&#257;l, Maheshri and Khandelw&#257;l Banias. The Agarw&#257;las of the Central Provinces hold some substantial estates in Chhatt&#299;sgarh;
+these were obtained at the first settlements during 1860&#8211;70, when considerable depression existed, and many of the village
+headmen were unwilling to accept the revenue assessed on their villages. The more enterprising Banias stepped in and took
+them, and have profited enormously owing to the increase in the value of land. Akbar&#8217;s great minister, Todar Mal, who first
+introduced an assessment of the land-revenue based on the measurement and survey of the land, is said to have been an Agarw&#257;la.
+
+
+</p>
+<div class="footnotes">
+<hr class="fnsep">
+<p class="footnote"><span class="label"><a id="d0e4079" href="#d0e4079src" class="noteref">1</a></span> <i>Tribes and Castes of Bengal</i>, art. Agarw&#257;la.
+</p>
+<p class="footnote"><span class="label"><a id="d0e4099" href="#d0e4099src" class="noteref">2</a></span> <i>Tribes and Castes of Bengal</i>, art. Agarw&#257;la.
+</p>
+</div>
+</div>
+<div id="d0e4111" class="div1"><span class="pagenum">
+[<a href="#d0e111">Contents</a>]
+</span><h2>Bania, Agrahari</h2>
+<p><b>Bania, Agrahari.</b><a id="d0e4117src" href="#d0e4117" class="noteref">1</a>&#8212;This subcaste numbered nearly 2000 persons in 1911, resident principally in Jubbulpore, Raipur and Bil&#257;spur, and some of
+the Feudatory States. Mr. Crooke states that they claim partly a Vaishya and partly a Br&#257;hmanical descent, and wear the sacred
+thread. Like that of the Agarw&#257;la Banias their name has been connected with the cities of Agra and Agroha. There is no doubt
+that they are closely connected with the Agarw&#257;las, and Mr. Nesfield suggests that the two groups must have been sections
+of one and the same caste which quarrelled on some trifling matter connected with cooking or eating, and have remained separate
+ever since. The Agrahari Banias are Hindus, and some of them belong to <a id="d0e4123"></a><span class="pagenum">[<a href="#d0e4123">140</a>]</span>the N&#257;nakpanthi sect. They are principally dealers in provisions, and they have acquired some discredit as compared with their
+kinsfolk the Agarw&#257;las, through not secluding their women and allowing them to attend the shop. They also retail various sweet-smelling
+woods which are used in religious ceremonies, such as aloe-wood and sandalwood, besides a number of medicines and simples.
+The richer members of the caste are bankers, dealers in grain and pawnbrokers.
+
+
+
+</p>
+<div class="footnotes">
+<hr class="fnsep">
+<p class="footnote"><span class="label"><a id="d0e4117" href="#d0e4117src" class="noteref">1</a></span> The information on this subcaste is taken from Mr. Crooke&#8217;s article on it in his <i>Tribes and Castes</i>.
+</p>
+</div>
+</div>
+<div id="d0e4125" class="div1"><span class="pagenum">
+[<a href="#d0e111">Contents</a>]
+</span><h2>Bania, Ajudhiab&#257;si</h2>
+<p><b>Bania, Ajudhiab&#257;si, Audhia</b>.&#8212;A subcaste of Bania, whose name signifies a resident of Ajodhia, the old name of Oudh. Outsiders often shorten the name
+to Audhia, but, as will be seen, the name Audhia is regularly applied to a criminal class, who may have been derived from
+the Ajudhiab&#257;si Banias, but are now quite distinct from them. The Ajudhiab&#257;sis numbered nearly 2000 persons in 1911, belonging
+chiefly to the Jubbulpore, Narsinghpur and Hoshang&#257;b&#257;d Districts. This total includes any persons who may have returned themselves
+as Audhia. The Ajudhiab&#257;sis are nearly all Hindus with a small Jain minority. Though Oudh was their original home they are
+now fairly numerous in Cawnpore and Bundelkhand as well, and it may have been from this last locality that they entered the
+Central Provinces. Here they form a separate endogamous group and do not marry with their caste-fellows in northern India.
+They have exogamous sections, and marriage is prohibited within the section and also between first cousins. They permit the
+remarriage of widows, but are said not to recognise divorce, and to expel from the caste a woman guilty of adultery. It may
+be doubted, however, whether this is correct. Br&#257;hmans serve as their priests, and they invest boys with the sacred thread
+either at marriage or at a special ceremony known as Gurmukh. The dead are either buried or burnt; in the case of burial men
+are laid on the face and women on the back, the body being first rubbed with salt, clarified butter, turmeric and milk. A
+little earth from the grave is carried away and thrown into a sacred river, and when the dead are burnt the ashes are similarly
+disposed of. <a id="d0e4132"></a><span class="pagenum">[<a href="#d0e4132">141</a>]</span>Their principal deity is the goddess Devi, and at the Dasahra festival they offer a goat to her, the flesh of which is distributed
+among members of the caste.
+
+</p>
+<p>The Audhias are a well-known criminal tribe, whose headquarters is in the Fatehpur District. They say that they are Banias,
+and use the name Ajudhiab&#257;si in speaking of themselves, and from their customs and criminal methods it seems not unlikely
+that they may originally have been an offshoot from the Ajudhiab&#257;si Banias. They are now, however, perfectly distinct from
+this group, and any confusion between them would be very unjust to the latter. In northern India it is said that the Audhias
+deal largely in counterfeit coin and false jewellery, and never commit crimes of violence;<a id="d0e4136src" href="#d0e4136" class="noteref">1</a> but in Bombay they have taken to housebreaking, though they usually select an empty house.<a id="d0e4142src" href="#d0e4142" class="noteref">2</a> From their homes in the United Provinces they wander over Central India, the Central Provinces, Bengal and Bombay; they are
+said to avoid the Punjab and Sind owing to difficulties of working, and they have made it a caste offence to commit any crime
+in the Ganges-Jumna Do&#257;b, probably because this is their home. It is said also that if any one of them is imprisoned he is
+put out of caste. They wander about disguised as religious mendicants, Br&#257;hmans or Bair&#257;gis. They carry their bedding tied
+on their back with a cloth, and a large bag slung over the shoulders which contains food, cooking-vessels and other articles.
+Sometimes they pretend to be Banias and hawk about sweets and groceries, or one of the gang opens a shop, which serves as
+a rendezvous and centre for collecting information.<a id="d0e4148src" href="#d0e4148" class="noteref">3</a> In the Districts where they reside they are perfectly well-behaved. They are well-to-do and to all appearance respectable
+in their habits. Their women are well-dressed with plenty of ornaments on their persons. They have no apparent means of support;
+they neither cultivate land nor trade; and all that appears on the surface is that most of the men and boys go off after the
+rains and return at the end of <a id="d0e4153"></a><span class="pagenum">[<a href="#d0e4153">142</a>]</span>the cold weather. If asked how they support themselves they reply by begging. Their marriage rules are those of high-caste
+Hindus. They are divided into two classes, Unch or high and N&#299;ch or low, the former being of pure blood, and the latter the
+descendants of kept women. These are practically endogamous. A man may not have more than two wives. If a girl is detected
+in immorality before marriage, she is permanently excommunicated, and a married woman can be turned out by her husband on
+proof of adultery. A bridegroom-price is usually paid, the father of the bride visiting the bridegroom and giving him the
+money in secret. The dead are burnt, and Br&#257;hmans are duly fed. If a man has died through an accident or from cholera, smallpox,
+poison or leprosy, the corpse, if available, is at once consigned to the Ganges or other river, and during the course of the
+next twelve months a Mah&#257;br&#257;hman is paid to make an image of the deceased in gram-flour, which is cremated with the usual
+rites. As in the case of the Ajudhiab&#257;si Banias, the tribal deity of the Audhias is the goddess Devi.<a id="d0e4155src" href="#d0e4155" class="noteref">4</a>
+
+
+</p>
+<div class="footnotes">
+<hr class="fnsep">
+<p class="footnote"><span class="label"><a id="d0e4136" href="#d0e4136src" class="noteref">1</a></span> Mr. Crooke&#8217;s <i>Tribes and Castes</i>, art. Audhia.
+</p>
+<p class="footnote"><span class="label"><a id="d0e4142" href="#d0e4142src" class="noteref">2</a></span> Kennedy&#8217;s <i>Criminal Classes of the Bombay Presidency</i>, art. Audhia.
+</p>
+<p class="footnote"><span class="label"><a id="d0e4148" href="#d0e4148src" class="noteref">3</a></span> Kennedy, <i>ibidem.</i></p>
+<p class="footnote"><span class="label"><a id="d0e4155" href="#d0e4155src" class="noteref">4</a></span> Mr. Crooke&#8217;s <i>Tribes and Castes</i>, art. Audhia.
+</p>
+</div>
+</div>
+<div id="d0e4161" class="div1"><span class="pagenum">
+[<a href="#d0e111">Contents</a>]
+</span><h2>Bania, As&#257;thi</h2>
+<p><b>Bania, As&#257;thi.</b>&#8212;This subcaste numbers about 2500 persons in the Central Provinces, belonging principally to the Damoh and Jubbulpore Districts.
+They say that their original home was the T&#299;kamgarh State in Bundelkhand. They do not rank very high, and are sometimes said
+to be the descendants of an Ah&#299;r who became a Bania. The great bulk are Hindus and a small minority Jains. It is told of the
+As&#257;this that they first bury their dead, in accordance presumably with a former practice, and then exhume and burn the bodies;
+and there is a saying&#8212;
+
+
+</p>
+<div class="poem" lang="und">
+<div class="stanza">
+<p class="line" style=""><span>&#256;rdha jale, &#257;rdha gare
+</span></p>
+<p class="line" style=""><span>Jinka n&#257;m As&#257;thi pare,</span></p>
+</div>
+</div>
+<p>or, &#8216;He who is an As&#257;thi is half buried and half burnt.&#8217; But this practice, if it ever really existed, has now been abandoned.
+
+
+</p>
+</div>
+<div id="d0e4175" class="div1"><span class="pagenum">
+[<a href="#d0e111">Contents</a>]
+</span><h2>Bania, Charn&#257;gri</h2>
+<p><b>Bania, Charn&#257;gri, Chann&#257;gri, Samaiya.</b>&#8212;The Charn&#257;gris are a small Jain subcaste which numbered about 2500 <a id="d0e4182"></a><span class="pagenum">[<a href="#d0e4182">143</a>]</span>persons in 1911, residing principally in the Damoh and Chh&#299;ndw&#257;ra Districts. They are the followers of one Taran Sw&#257;mi, who
+is said to have lived about five centuries ago. He preached against the worship of the images of the Jain Tirthak&#257;rs, and
+said that this should be abandoned and only the sacred books be revered. The chief sacred place of the sect is Malh&#257;rgarh
+in Gwalior State; here the tomb of their prophet is situated and there is also a large temple in which the Jain scriptures
+are enshrined. In the month of Ph&#257;gun (February) a fair is held here, and Charn&#257;gris dance in the temples, holding lighted
+lamps in their hands. Nowadays the Charn&#257;gris also visit the ordinary Jain temples when their own are not available. They
+are practically all derived from Parw&#257;r Banias, and formerly would sometimes give their daughters to Parw&#257;rs in marriage,
+but this practice is said to have stopped. Like other Bania subcastes, they are divided into B&#299;sa and Dasa, or twenty and
+ten sections, the Dasa being of irregular descent. Intermarriage between the two sections occasionally occurs, and the Dasa
+will take food from the B&#299;sa section, but the latter do not reciprocate except at caste feasts.
+
+
+</p>
+</div>
+<div id="d0e4184" class="div1"><span class="pagenum">
+[<a href="#d0e111">Contents</a>]
+</span><h2>Bania, Dh&#363;sar</h2>
+<p><b>Bania, Dh&#363;sar, Bh&#257;rgava Dh&#363;sar.</b>&#8212;The origin of this group is much disputed. They are usually classed as a subcaste of Bania, but claim to be Br&#257;hmans. They
+take their name from a hill called Dh&#363;si or Dhosi, near Narnaul on the border of Alwar State. The title Bh&#257;rgava signifies
+a descendant of Bhrigu, one of the famous eponymous R&#299;shis or Br&#257;hmanical saints, to whom Manu confided his institutes, calling
+him his son. If this was their original name, it would show that they were Br&#257;hmans, but its adoption appears to be somewhat
+recent. Their claim to be Br&#257;hmans is, however, admitted by many members of that caste, and it is stated that they perform
+the functions of Br&#257;hmans in their original home in R&#257;jput&#257;na. Mr. Burn wrote of them:<a id="d0e4191src" href="#d0e4191" class="noteref">1</a> &#8220;In his book on castes published in 1872 Mr. Sherring does not refer to any claim to kinship with Br&#257;hmans, though in his
+description of Dh&#363;sar Banias he appears to include the people under consideration. Both <a id="d0e4196"></a><span class="pagenum">[<a href="#d0e4196">144</a>]</span>the Dh&#363;sar Bh&#257;rgavas and Dh&#363;sar Banias assert that Himu, the capable Vaz&#299;r of Muhammad Sh&#257;h Suri, belonged to their community,
+and such a claim by the former is if anything in favour of the view that they are not Br&#257;hmans, since Himu is variously described
+by Muhammadan writers as a corn-chandler, a weighman and a Bania. Colonel Dow in his history of Hindust&#257;n calls him a shopkeeper
+who was raised by Sher Sh&#257;h to be Superintendent of Markets. It is not improbable that Himu&#8217;s success laid the foundation
+for a claim to a higher position, but the matter does not admit of absolute proof, and I have therefore accepted the decision
+of the majority of the caste-committees and considered them as a caste allied to Br&#257;hmans.&#8221; In the Punjab the Dh&#363;sars appear
+to be in some places Br&#257;hmans and in others Banias. &#8220;They take their food before morning prayer, contrary to the Hindu rule,
+but of late years they have begun to conform to the orthodox practice. The Br&#257;hman Dh&#363;sar marries with his caste-fellows and
+the Bania with Banias, avoiding always the same family (<i>gotra</i>) or one having the same family deity.&#8221;<a id="d0e4201src" href="#d0e4201" class="noteref">2</a> From the above accounts it would appear that the Dh&#363;sars may have originally been a class of Br&#257;hmans who took to trade,
+like the Palliw&#257;l Br&#257;hmans of M&#257;rw&#257;r, and have lost their position as Br&#257;hmans and become amalgamated with the Bania caste;
+or they may have been Banias, who acted as priests to others of the community, and hence claimed to be Br&#257;hmans. The caste
+is important and influential, and is now making every effort to recover or substantiate its Br&#257;hman status. One writer states
+that they combine the office aptitude and hard-heartedness to a debtor characteristic of the Bania. The Dh&#363;sars are rigid
+in the maintenance of the purity of their order and in the performance of Hindu ceremonies and duties, and neither eat meat
+nor drink any kind of spirit. In Delhi they were distinguished for their talent as singers, and cultivated a peculiar strain
+or measure, in which they were unsurpassed.<a id="d0e4207src" href="#d0e4207" class="noteref">3</a> In the Central Provinces the Dh&#363;sars are a flourishing body, their leaders being Rai Bah&#257;dur Bih&#257;ri L&#257;l Khiz&#257;nchi of Jubbulpore
+and Rai S&#257;hib <a id="d0e4213"></a><span class="pagenum">[<a href="#d0e4213">145</a>]</span>Seth Sundar L&#257;l of Bet&#363;l. They have founded the Bh&#257;rgava bank of Jubbulpore, and shown considerable public spirit; to the
+latter gentleman&#8217;s generosity a large part of the success of the recent debt-conciliation proceedings in the Bet&#363;l District
+must be attributed.
+
+
+
+</p>
+<div class="footnotes">
+<hr class="fnsep">
+<p class="footnote"><span class="label"><a id="d0e4191" href="#d0e4191src" class="noteref">1</a></span> <i>United Provinces Census Report</i> (1901), p. 220.
+</p>
+<p class="footnote"><span class="label"><a id="d0e4201" href="#d0e4201src" class="noteref">2</a></span> Atkinson, <i>Himalayan Gazetteer</i>, ii. p. 473, quoted in Mr. Crooke&#8217;s article Dh&#363;sar.
+</p>
+<p class="footnote"><span class="label"><a id="d0e4207" href="#d0e4207src" class="noteref">3</a></span> Sherring, <i>Hindu Castes</i>, i. p. 293.
+</p>
+</div>
+</div>
+<div id="d0e4215" class="div1"><span class="pagenum">
+[<a href="#d0e111">Contents</a>]
+</span><h2>Bania, Dosar</h2>
+<p><b>Bania, Dosar, D&#363;sra.</b><a id="d0e4221src" href="#d0e4221" class="noteref">1</a>&#8212;This subcaste numbers about 600 persons. The original name is D&#363;sra or second, and the Dosar or D&#363;sra are a section of the
+Ummar Banias, who were so called because they permit widows to make a second marriage. Their home is the Ganges-Jumna Do&#257;b
+and Oudh, and in the United Provinces they are classed as an inferior subcaste of the Ummars. Here they say that the Ummars
+are their elder brothers. In the Central Provinces they are said to be forming three local endogamous groups according as
+their homes were in the Doab, Oudh or the Allah&#257;b&#257;d country; and members of each of these marry among themselves. The Dosars
+say that they all belong to the Kashyap<a id="d0e4224src" href="#d0e4224" class="noteref">2</a> <i>gotra</i> or clan, but for the purpose of marriage they have territorial or titular exogamous sections; instances of these are Gangap&#257;ri,
+a native of Oudh; S&#257;garah, a resident of Saugor; Makraha, a seller of <i>makka</i> or maize, and Tam&#257;khuha, a tobacco-seller. They pay a bridegroom-price, the full recognised amount of which is Rs. 211, either
+in cash or brass cooking-vessels. Those who cannot afford this sum give half of it or Rs. 105, and the poorest classes pay
+anything they can afford. The Dosars are Vaishnava Hindus and employ San&#257;dhya Br&#257;hmans as their priests. These Br&#257;hmans will
+take food without water from their clients, but they are an inferior class and are looked down upon by other Br&#257;hmans. The
+caste are mainly shopkeepers, and they deal in gold and silver ornaments, as well as grain, tobacco and all kinds of groceries.
+
+
+</p>
+<div class="footnotes">
+<hr class="fnsep">
+<p class="footnote"><span class="label"><a id="d0e4221" href="#d0e4221src" class="noteref">1</a></span> This account is based on a paper furnished by Mr. Jeor&#257;khan L&#257;l, Deputy Inspector of Schools, Bil&#257;spur.
+</p>
+<p class="footnote"><span class="label"><a id="d0e4224" href="#d0e4224src" class="noteref">2</a></span> Kashyap was a Br&#257;hman saint, but the name is perhaps derived from Kachhap, a tortoise.
+</p>
+</div>
+</div>
+<div id="d0e4233" class="div1"><span class="pagenum">
+[<a href="#d0e111">Contents</a>]
+</span><h2>Bania, Gahoi</h2>
+<p><b>Bania, Gahoi.</b><a id="d0e4239src" href="#d0e4239" class="noteref">1</a>&#8212;This Hindu subcaste numbered nearly 7000 persons in 1911, belonging principally to the Saugor, <a id="d0e4242"></a><span class="pagenum">[<a href="#d0e4242">146</a>]</span>Jubbulpore and Narsinghpur Districts. Their home is the Bundelkhand country, which these Districts adjoin, and they say that
+their original headquarters was at Kharagpur in Bundelkhand, whence they have spread over the surrounding country. They tell
+a curious story of their origin to the effect that once upon a time there was a certain schoolmaster, one Biya P&#257;nde Br&#257;hman,
+who could foretell the future. One day he was in his school with his boys when he foresaw that there was about to be an earthquake.
+He immediately warned his boys to get out of the building, and himself led the way. Only twelve of the boys had followed,
+and the others were still hesitating, when the earthquake began, the school fell in, and they were all buried in the ruins.
+The schoolmaster formed the boys who had escaped into one caste, calling them Gahoi, which is supposed to mean that which
+is left or the residue; and he determined that he and his descendants would be the priests of the new caste. At the weddings
+of the Gahois an image of the schoolmaster is painted on the house wall, and the bridegroom worships it with offerings of
+butter and flowers. The story indicates clearly that the Gahois are of mixed descent from several castes.
+
+</p>
+<p>The subcaste has twelve <i>gotras</i> or sections, and seventy-two <i>al</i> or <i>&#257;nken</i>, which are subsections of the <i>gotras</i>. Several of the <i>al</i> names appear to be of a titular or totemistic character, as Mor peacock, Sohania beautiful, Nagaria a drummer, Pah&#257;ria a
+hillman, Matele the name of a village headman in Bundelkhand, Piparv&#257;nia from the p&#299;pal tree, Dadaria a singer. The rule of
+exogamy is said to be that a man must not marry in his own <i>gotra</i> nor in the <i>al</i> of his mother or either grandmother.<a id="d0e4267src" href="#d0e4267" class="noteref">2</a> Their weddings are held only at the bride&#8217;s house, no ceremonies being performed at the bridegroom&#8217;s; at the ceremony the
+bridegroom stands in the centre of the shed by the marriage-post and the bride walks seven times round him. At their weddings
+the Gahois still use the old rupees of the N&#257;gpur kingdom for presents and payments to menials, and they hoard them up, when
+they can get them, for this special purpose. The rupee is sacred with the Bania, and this is an instance of the preservation
+of old accessories for religious ceremonies <a id="d0e4273"></a><span class="pagenum">[<a href="#d0e4273">147</a>]</span>when they have been superseded in ordinary use. Polygamy is permitted, but is rare. The Gahois employ Bh&#257;rgava Br&#257;hmans for
+their priests, and these are presumably the descendants of the schoolmaster who founded the caste. At the thirteenth-day feast
+after a death the Br&#257;hmans must be fed first before the members of the caste. On this occasion thirteen brass or earthen vessels
+are filled with flour, and a piece of money, and presented to thirteen Br&#257;hmans, while the family priest receives a bed and
+piece of cloth. The priests are said to be greedy, and to raise quarrels over the value of the presents given to them. At
+the Diw&#257;li festival the Gahois worship the implements of their trade, pen and ink, and their account-books. The Gahois are
+Vaishnava Hindus, and abstain from all flesh and alcoholic liquor. They trade in grain and groceries, and are bankers and
+moneylenders. They are considered to be cunning in business, and a proverb says that a Gahoi will deceive even his own father.
+
+
+
+</p>
+<div class="footnotes">
+<hr class="fnsep">
+<p class="footnote"><span class="label"><a id="d0e4239" href="#d0e4239src" class="noteref">1</a></span> This article is mainly based on a paper by Mr. Pancham L&#257;l, N&#257;ib-Tahs&#299;ld&#257;r Sihora.
+</p>
+<p class="footnote"><span class="label"><a id="d0e4267" href="#d0e4267src" class="noteref">2</a></span> Mr. Crooke&#8217;s <i>Tribes and Castes</i>, art. Gahoi.
+</p>
+</div>
+</div>
+<div id="d0e4275" class="div1"><span class="pagenum">
+[<a href="#d0e111">Contents</a>]
+</span><h2>Bania, Golap&#363;rab</h2>
+<p><b>Bania, Golap&#363;rab, Golahre.</b>&#8212;This Jain subcaste numbers about 6000 persons in the Central Provinces, and belongs mainly to the Saugor, Damoh and Narsinghpur
+Districts. Its distribution is nearly the same as that of the Gahois, and it is probably also a Bundelkhand group. The Golap&#363;rabs
+are practically all Digambari Jains with a small Hindu minority. In some localities they intermarry with Parw&#257;r Banias who
+are also Digambari Jains; and they will take food cooked without water from the Nema subcaste who are Hindus. According to
+one story the Golap&#363;rabs were the offspring of a P&#363;rabia, that is probably a Bais R&#257;jp&#363;t, by a kept woman of the Ah&#299;r caste.
+This fits in very well with the name, as Golak means a bastard, and the termination <i>p&#363;rab</i> would be from P&#363;rabia; but it is probably the name which has given rise to the story, or at any rate to the supposed descent
+from a P&#363;rabia. In the United Provinces a small subcaste of Bania called Golahre exists, belonging to the Jh&#257;nsi District,
+that is the country of the Golap&#363;rabs, and Jain by religion. There is no doubt that this group is the same as the Golap&#363;rabs,
+and Mr. Crooke derives<a id="d0e4285src" href="#d0e4285" class="noteref">1</a> the <a id="d0e4290"></a><span class="pagenum">[<a href="#d0e4290">148</a>]</span>name from <i>gola</i>, a grain-mart, which seems more probable than the derivation suggested above. But it is an interesting fact that there is
+also a caste of cultivators called Golap&#363;rab in the United Provinces, found only in the Agra District. It is suggested that
+these people are the illegitimate offspring of San&#257;dhya Br&#257;hmans, with whom they appear to be closely connected. From their
+sept-names, however, which include those of several R&#257;jp&#363;t clans and also some titular terms of a low-caste type, Mr. Crooke
+thinks their Br&#257;hmanical origin improbable. It is noticeable that these Golap&#363;rabs though a cultivating caste have, like the
+Banias, a subcaste called Dasa, comprising persons of irregular descent; they also prohibit the remarriage of widows, and
+abstain from all flesh and from onions and garlic. Such customs are peculiar in a cultivating caste, and resemble those of
+Banias. It seems possible that a detailed investigation might give ground for supposing that both the Golahre and Golap&#363;rab
+subcastes of Banias in the United and Central Provinces respectively are connected with this cultivating caste of Golap&#363;rabs.
+The latter might have abandoned the Jain religion on taking to cultivation, as a Jain cannot well drive the plough, which
+involves destruction of animal life; or the Bania section might have adopted Jainism in order to obtain a better social position
+and differentiate themselves from the cultivators. Unfortunately no detailed information about the Golap&#363;rabs of the Central
+Provinces is available, from which the probability or otherwise of this hypothesis could be tested.
+
+
+</p>
+<div class="footnotes">
+<hr class="fnsep">
+<p class="footnote"><span class="label"><a id="d0e4285" href="#d0e4285src" class="noteref">1</a></span> <i>Tribes and Castes</i>, art. Golahre.
+</p>
+</div>
+</div>
+<div id="d0e4295" class="div1"><span class="pagenum">
+[<a href="#d0e111">Contents</a>]
+</span><h2>Bania, Kasarw&#257;ni</h2>
+<p><b>Bania, Kasarw&#257;ni</b>.<a id="d0e4302src" href="#d0e4302" class="noteref">1</a>&#8212;This Hindu subcaste numbers about 6500 persons in the Central Provinces, who belong mainly to Saugor, Jubbulpore and the
+three Chhatt&#299;sgarh Districts. The name is probably derived from <i>k&#257;nsa</i>, bell-metal, as these Banias retail brass and bell-metal vessels. The Kasarw&#257;nis may therefore not improbably be an occupational
+group formed from persons who engaged in the trade, and in that case they may be wholly or partly derived from the Kas&#257;rs
+and Tameras, the castes which work in brass, copper <a id="d0e4308"></a><span class="pagenum">[<a href="#d0e4308">149</a>]</span>and bell-metal. The Kasarw&#257;nis are numerous in Allah&#257;b&#257;d and M&#299;rz&#257;pur, and they may have come to Chhatt&#299;sgarh from M&#299;rz&#257;pur,
+attracted by the bell-metal industries in Ratanpur and Dr&#363;g. In Saugor and also in the United Provinces they say that they
+came from Kara M&#257;nikpur several generations ago. If the selling of metal vessels was their original calling, many, or the
+majority of them, have now abandoned it, and deal in grain and groceries, and lend money like other Banias. The Kasarw&#257;nis
+do not observe the same standard of strictness as the good Bania subcastes in their social rules. They eat the flesh of goats,
+sheep, birds and fish, though they abstain from liquor. They permit the remarriage of widows and divorce; and women who have
+been divorced can marry again in the caste by the same rite as widows. They also allow the exchange of girls in marriage between
+two families. They do not as a rule wear the sacred thread. Their priests are Sarwaria Br&#257;hmans, and these Br&#257;hmans and a
+few Bania subcastes, such as the Agarw&#257;las, Umres and Gahois, can take food cooked without water from them, but other Br&#257;hmans
+and R&#257;jp&#363;ts will not take any kind of food. Matches are arranged in the presence of the head of the caste <i>panch&#257;yat</i>, who is known as Chaudhri. The parents on each side give their consent, and in pledge of it six pice (farthings) are taken
+from both of them, mixed together and given to their family priests and barbers, four pice to the priests and two to the barbers.
+The following is a local derivation of the name; the word <i>kasar</i> means more or the increase, and <i>bhata</i> means less; and <i>Ham&#257;ra kya kasar bhata?</i> means &#8216;How does my account stand?&#8217; Hence Kasarb&#257;ni is one who keeps accounts, that is a Bania.
+
+
+</p>
+<div class="footnotes">
+<hr class="fnsep">
+<p class="footnote"><span class="label"><a id="d0e4302" href="#d0e4302src" class="noteref">1</a></span> The above notice is partly based on a paper by Mr. Sant Pras&#257;d, schoolmaster, N&#257;ndgaon.
+</p>
+</div>
+</div>
+<div id="d0e4322" class="div1"><span class="pagenum">
+[<a href="#d0e111">Contents</a>]
+</span><h2>Bania, Kasaundhan</h2>
+<p><b>Bania, Kasaundhan.</b>&#8212;This subcaste numbers about 5500 persons in the Central Provinces and is returned principally from the Bil&#257;spur, Raipur and
+Jubbulpore Districts. The name is derived<a id="d0e4329src" href="#d0e4329" class="noteref">1</a> by Mr. Crooke from <i>k&#257;nsa</i>, bell-metal, and <i>dhana</i>, wealth, and it would appear that the Kasaundhans like the Kas&#257;rwanis are an occupational group, made up of shopkeepers who
+dealt in metal vessels. Like them also the <a id="d0e4340"></a><span class="pagenum">[<a href="#d0e4340">150</a>]</span>Kasaundhans may have originally been constituted from the metal-working castes, and indeed they may be only a local branch
+of the Kasarw&#257;nis, though no information is available which would decide this point. In the United Provinces both the Kasarw&#257;nis
+and Kasaundhans are divided into the P&#363;rbia or eastern and Pachhaiy&#257;n or western subcastes. Dharam Das, the great disciple
+of Kab&#299;r, who founded the Kab&#299;rpanthi sect in the Central Provinces, was a Kasaundhan Bania, and the Kab&#299;rpanthi Mahants or
+high-priests of Kawardha are of this caste. It is probable that a good many of the Kasaundhan Banias in Bil&#257;spur and Raipur
+belong to the Kab&#299;rpanthi sect. The remainder are ordinary Hindus.
+
+
+</p>
+<div class="footnotes">
+<hr class="fnsep">
+<p class="footnote"><span class="label"><a id="d0e4329" href="#d0e4329src" class="noteref">1</a></span> <i>Tribes and Castes</i>, art. Kasaundhan.
+</p>
+</div>
+</div>
+<div id="d0e4342" class="div1"><span class="pagenum">
+[<a href="#d0e111">Contents</a>]
+</span><h2>Bania, Khandelw&#257;l</h2>
+<p><b>Bania, Khandelw&#257;l.</b>&#8212;This subcaste numbers about 1500 persons in the Central Provinces; they are most numerous in the Hoshang&#257;b&#257;d and Amraoti
+Districts, but are scattered all over the Province. They take their name from the town of Khandela in the Jaipur State of
+R&#257;jput&#257;na, which was formerly the capital of the Shekh&#257;wati federation. There is also a Khandelw&#257;l subcaste of the Br&#257;hman
+caste, found in the United Provinces.<a id="d0e4349src" href="#d0e4349" class="noteref">1</a> Mr. Bhattach&#257;rya says of them:<a id="d0e4355src" href="#d0e4355" class="noteref">2</a> &#8220;The Khandelw&#257;l Banias are not inferior to any other division of the caste either in wealth or refinement. There are both
+Vaishnavites and Jains among them, and the Vaishnavite Khandelw&#257;ls wear the sacred thread. The millionaire Seths of Mathura
+are Khandelw&#257;l Banias.&#8221;
+
+
+</p>
+<div class="footnotes">
+<hr class="fnsep">
+<p class="footnote"><span class="label"><a id="d0e4349" href="#d0e4349src" class="noteref">1</a></span> Mr. Crooke&#8217;s <i>Tribes and Castes</i>, art. Khandelw&#257;l.
+</p>
+<p class="footnote"><span class="label"><a id="d0e4355" href="#d0e4355src" class="noteref">2</a></span> <i>Hindu Castes and Sects</i>, p. 209.
+</p>
+</div>
+</div>
+<div id="d0e4360" class="div1"><span class="pagenum">
+[<a href="#d0e111">Contents</a>]
+</span><h2>Bania, L&#257;d</h2>
+<p><b>Bania, L&#257;d.</b>&#8212;This subcaste numbers about 5000 persons in the Central Provinces, being settled in Nim&#257;r, N&#257;gpur and all the Ber&#257;r Districts.
+The L&#257;d Banias came from Gujar&#257;t, and L&#257;d is derived from L&#257;t-desh, the old name for Gujar&#257;t. Like other Banias they are divided
+into the B&#299;sa and Dasa groups or twenties and tens, the Dasa being of irregular descent. Their family priests are Khed&#257;wal
+Br&#257;hmans, and their caste deity is Ash&#257;puri of Ashnai, near Petl&#257;d. L&#257;d women, especially those of Baroda, are noted for their
+taste in dress. The L&#257;d Banias are Hindus of the Vallabhach&#257;rya <a id="d0e4367"></a><span class="pagenum">[<a href="#d0e4367">151</a>]</span>sect, who worship Krishna, and were formerly addicted to sexual indulgence.<a id="d0e4369src" href="#d0e4369" class="noteref">1</a>
+
+
+</p>
+<div class="footnotes">
+<hr class="fnsep">
+<p class="footnote"><span class="label"><a id="d0e4369" href="#d0e4369src" class="noteref">1</a></span> See article Bair&#257;gi for some notice of the sect.
+</p>
+</div>
+</div>
+<div id="d0e4372" class="div1"><span class="pagenum">
+[<a href="#d0e111">Contents</a>]
+</span><h2>Bania, Ling&#257;yat</h2>
+<p><b>Bania, Ling&#257;yat.</b>&#8212;The Ling&#257;yat Banias number nearly 8000 persons in the Central Provinces, being numerous in Wardha, N&#257;gpur and all the Ber&#257;r
+Districts. A brief account of the Ling&#257;yat sect has been given in a separate article. The Ling&#257;yat Banias form a separate
+endogamous group, and they do not eat or intermarry either with other Banias or with members of other castes belonging to
+the Ling&#257;yat sect. But they retain the name and occupation of Banias. They have five subdivisions, Pancham, Diksh&#257;want, Chilliwant,
+Takalkar and Kanade. The Pancham or Panchams&#257;lis are the descendants of the original Br&#257;hman converts to the Ling&#257;yat sect.
+They are the main body of the community and are initiated by what is known as the eight-fold sacrament or <i>eshta-varna</i>. The Diksh&#257;want, from <i>diksha</i> or initiation, are a subdivision of the Panchams&#257;lis, who apparently initiate disciples like the Dikshit Br&#257;hmans. The Takalkar
+are said to take their name from a forest called Takali, where their first ancestress bore a child to the god Siva. The Kanade
+are from Canara. The meaning of the term Chilliwant is not known; it is said that a member of this subcaste will throw away
+his food or water if it is seen by any one who is not a Ling&#257;yat, and they shave the whole head. The above form endogamous
+subcastes. The Ling&#257;yat Banias also have exogamous groups, the names of which are mainly titular, of a low-caste type. Instances
+of them are Kaode, from <i>kawa</i> a crow, Teli an oil-seller, Thubri a dwarf, Ubadkar an incendiary, Gudkari a sugar-seller and Dh&#257;mankar from Dh&#257;mangaon.
+They say that the <i>maths</i> or exogamous groups are no longer regarded, and that marriage is now prohibited between persons having the same surname.
+It is stated that if a girl is not married before adolescence she is finally expelled from the caste, but this rule has probably
+become obsolete. The proposal for marriage comes from either the boy&#8217;s or girl&#8217;s party, and sometimes the bridegroom receives
+a small sum for his travelling expenses, while at other times a bride-price <a id="d0e4391"></a><span class="pagenum">[<a href="#d0e4391">152</a>]</span>is paid. At the wedding, rice coloured red is put in the hands of the bridegroom and ju&#257;ri coloured yellow in those of the
+bride. The bridegroom places the rice on the bride&#8217;s head and she lays the ju&#257;ri at his feet. A dish full of water with a
+golden ring in it is put between them, and they lay their hands on the ring together under the water and walk five times round
+a decorative little marriage-shed erected inside the real one. A feast is given, and the bridal couple sit on a little dais
+and eat out of the same dish. The remarriage of widows is permitted, but the widow may not marry a man belonging to the section
+either of her first husband or of her father. Divorce is recognised. The Ling&#257;yats bury the dead in a sitting posture with
+the <i>lingam</i> or emblem of Siva, which has never left the dead man during his lifetime, clasped in his right hand. Sometimes a platform
+is made over the grave with an image of Siva. They do not shave the head in token of mourning. Their principal festival is
+Shivr&#257;tri or Siva&#8217;s night, when they offer the leaves of the bel tree and ashes to the god. A Ling&#257;yat must never be without
+the <i>lingam</i> or phallic sign of Siva, which is carried slung round the neck in a little case of silver, copper or brass. If he loses it,
+he must not eat, drink nor smoke until he finds it or obtains another. The Ling&#257;yats do not employ Br&#257;hmans for any purpose,
+but are served by their own priests, the Jangams,<a id="d0e4399src" href="#d0e4399" class="noteref">1</a> who are recruited both by descent and by initiation from members of the Pancham group. The Ling&#257;yat Banias are practically
+all immigrants from the Telugu country; they have Telugu names and speak this language in their homes. They deal in grain,
+cloth, groceries and spices.
+
+
+
+</p>
+<div class="footnotes">
+<hr class="fnsep">
+<p class="footnote"><span class="label"><a id="d0e4399" href="#d0e4399src" class="noteref">1</a></span> See separate article on Jangam.
+</p>
+</div>
+</div>
+<div id="d0e4402" class="div1"><span class="pagenum">
+[<a href="#d0e111">Contents</a>]
+</span><h2>Bania, Maheshri</h2>
+<p><b>Bania, Maheshri.</b>&#8212;This important subcaste of Banias numbered about 14,000 persons in the Central Provinces in 1911, of whom 8000 belonged to
+the Ber&#257;r Districts, and the remainder principally to Hoshang&#257;b&#257;d, Nim&#257;r, Wardha and N&#257;gpur. The name is said to be derived
+from Maheshwar, an ancient town on the Nerbudda, near Indore, and one of the earliest R&#257;jp&#363;t settlements. But some of them
+say that their original home is in B&#299;kan&#299;r, and tell a story to <a id="d0e4409"></a><span class="pagenum">[<a href="#d0e4409">153</a>]</span>the effect that their ancestor was a R&#257;ja who was turned into stone with his seventy-two followers by some ascetics whose
+devotions they had interrupted in the forest. But when their wives came to commit <i>sati</i> by the stone figures the god Siva intervened and brought them to life again. He told them to give up the profession of arms
+and take to trade. So the seventy-two followers were the ancestors of the seventy-two <i>gotras</i> or sections of the Maheshris, and the R&#257;ja became their tribal <i>Bh&#257;t</i> or genealogist, and they were called Maheshri or Maheswari, from Mahesh, a name of Siva. In Gujar&#257;t the term Maheshri or
+Meshri appears to be used for all Banias who are not Jains, including the other important Hindu subcastes.<a id="d0e4420src" href="#d0e4420" class="noteref">1</a> This is somewhat peculiar, and perhaps tends to show that several of the local subcastes are of recent formation. But though
+they profess to be named after Siva, the Maheshris, like practically all other Hindu Banias, are Vaishnava by sect, and wear
+the <i>kunti</i> or necklace of beads of basil. A small minority are Jains. It is to be noticed that both the place of their origin, an early
+R&#257;jp&#363;t settlement of the Y&#257;dava clan, and their own legend tend to show that they were derived from the R&#257;jp&#363;t caste; for
+as their ancestors were attendants on a R&#257;ja and followed the profession of arms, which they were told to abandon, they could
+be none other than R&#257;jp&#363;ts. The Maheshris also have the R&#257;jp&#363;t custom of sending a cocoanut as a symbol of a proposal of marriage.
+In Nim&#257;r the Maheshri Banias say they belong to the Dh&#257;kar subcaste, a name which usually means illegitimate, though they
+themselves explain that it is derived from a place called Dh&#257;kargarh, from which they migrated. As already stated they are
+divided into seventy-two exogamous clans, the names of which appear to be titular or territorial. It is said that at their
+weddings when the bridegroom gets to the door of the marriage-shed, the bride&#8217;s mother ties a scarf round his neck and takes
+hold of his nose and drags him into the shed. Sometimes they make the bridegroom kneel down and pay reverence to a shoe as
+a joke. They do not observe the custom of the <i>pangat</i> or formal festal assembly, which is usual among Hindu castes; according to this, none <a id="d0e4434"></a><span class="pagenum">[<a href="#d0e4434">154</a>]</span>can begin to eat until all the guests have assembled, when they all sit down at once. Among the Maheshris the guests sit down
+as they come in, and are served and take their food and go. They only have the <i>pangat</i> feast on very rare occasions. The Maheshris are one of the richest, most enterprising and influential classes of Banias.
+They are intelligent, of high-bred appearance, cleanly habits and courteous manners. The great bankers, Sir Kast&#363;rchand Daga
+of Kamptee, of the firm of Bansi L&#257;l Ab&#299;rchand, and Rai Bah&#257;dur Seth J&#299;wan Das and Diw&#257;n Bah&#257;dur Seth Ballabh Das, of Jubbulpore,
+belong to this subcaste.
+
+
+</p>
+<div class="footnotes">
+<hr class="fnsep">
+<p class="footnote"><span class="label"><a id="d0e4420" href="#d0e4420src" class="noteref">1</a></span> <i>Bombay Gazetteer</i>, <i>Hindus of Gujar&#257;t</i>, p. 70.
+</p>
+</div>
+</div>
+<div id="d0e4439" class="div1"><span class="pagenum">
+[<a href="#d0e111">Contents</a>]
+</span><h2>Bania, Nema</h2>
+<p><b>Bania, Nema.</b>&#8212;This subcaste numbers nearly 4000 persons, the bulk of whom reside in the Saugor, Damoh, Narsinghpur and Seoni Districts.
+The Nemas are most largely returned from Central India, and are probably a Bundelkhand group; they will eat food cooked without
+water with Golap&#363;rab Banias, who are also found in Bundelkhand. They are mainly Hindus, with a small minority of Jains. The
+origin of the name is obscure; the suggestion that it comes from Nim&#257;r appears to be untenable, as there are very few Nemas
+in that District. They say that when Parasur&#257;ma was slaying the Kshatriyas fourteen young R&#257;jp&#363;t princes, who at the time
+were studying religion with their family priests, were saved by the latter on renouncing their Kshatriya status and declaring
+themselves to be Vaishyas. These fourteen princes were the ancestors of the fourteen <i>gotras</i> of the Nema subcaste, but the <i>gotras</i> actually bear the names of the fourteen R&#299;shis or saints who saved their lives. These sections appear to be of the usual
+Br&#257;hmanical type, but marriage is regulated by another set of fifty-two subsections, with names which are apparently titular
+or territorial. Like other Bania groups the Nemas are divided into B&#299;sa and Dasa subdivisions or twenties and tens, the B&#299;sa
+being of pure and the Dasa of irregular descent. There is also a third group of Pacha or fives, who appear to be the offspring
+of kept women. After some generations, when the details of their ancestry are forgotten, the Pachas probably obtain promotion
+into the Dasa group. The B&#299;sa and Dasa groups take food together, but do not intermarry. The Nemas wear <a id="d0e4452"></a><span class="pagenum">[<a href="#d0e4452">155</a>]</span>the sacred thread and apparently prohibit the remarriage of widows. The Nemas are considered to be very keen business men,
+and a saying about them is, &#8220;Where a sheep grazes or a Nema trades, what is there left for anybody else?&#8221;
+
+
+</p>
+</div>
+<div id="d0e4454" class="div1"><span class="pagenum">
+[<a href="#d0e111">Contents</a>]
+</span><h2>Bania, Osw&#257;l</h2>
+<p><b>Bania, Osw&#257;l.</b>&#8212;This is perhaps the most important subdivision of the Banias after the Agarw&#257;la. The Osw&#257;ls numbered nearly 10,000 persons
+in the Central Provinces in 1911, being found in considerable numbers in all the Ber&#257;r Districts, and also in Nim&#257;r, Wardha
+and Raipur. The name is derived from the town of Osia or Osnagar in M&#257;rw&#257;r. According to one legend of their origin the R&#257;ja
+of Osnagar had no son, and obtained one through the promise of a Jain ascetic. The people then drove the ascetic from the
+town, fearing that the R&#257;ja would become a Jain; but Osadev, the guardian goddess of the place, told the ascetic, Sri Ratan
+Suri, to convert the R&#257;ja by a miracle. So she took a small hank (<i>p&#363;ni</i>) of cotton and passed it along the back of the saint, when it immediately became a snake and bit Jaichand, the son of the
+R&#257;ja, in the toe, while he was asleep beside his wife. Every means was tried to save his life, but he died. As his corpse
+was about to be burnt, the ascetic sent one of his disciples and stopped the cremation. Then the R&#257;ja came with the body of
+his son and stood with hands clasped before the saint. He ordered that it was to be taken back to the place where the prince
+had been bitten, and that the princess was to lie down beside it as before. At midnight the snake returned and licked the
+bite, when the prince was restored to life. Then the R&#257;ja, with all his Court and people, became a Jain. He and his family
+founded the <i>gotra</i> or section now known as Sri Srim&#257;l or most noble; his servants formed that known as Srim&#257;l or excellent, while the other
+R&#257;jp&#363;ts of the town became ordinary Osw&#257;ls. When the Br&#257;hmans of the place heard of these conversions they asked the saint
+how they were to live, as all their clients had become Jains. The saint directed that they should continue to be the family
+priests of the Osw&#257;ls and be known as Bhojak or &#8216;eaters.&#8217; Thus the Osw&#257;ls, though Jains, continue to employ M&#257;rw&#257;ri <a id="d0e4467"></a><span class="pagenum">[<a href="#d0e4467">156</a>]</span>Br&#257;hmans as their family priests. Another version of the story is that the king of Srim&#257;li<a id="d0e4469src" href="#d0e4469" class="noteref">1</a> allowed no one who was not a millionaire to live within his city walls. In consequence of this a large number of persons
+left Srim&#257;l, and, settling in Mandovad, called it Osa or the frontier. Among them were Srim&#257;li Banias and also Bhatti, Chauh&#257;n,
+Gahlot, Gaur, Y&#257;dava, and several other clans of R&#257;jp&#363;ts, and these were the people who were subsequently converted by the
+Jain ascetic, Sri Ratan Suri, and formed into the single caste of Osw&#257;l.<a id="d0e4472src" href="#d0e4472" class="noteref">2</a> Finally, Colonel Tod states that the Osw&#257;ls are all of pure R&#257;jp&#363;t descent, of no single tribe, but chiefly Panw&#257;rs, Solankis
+and Bhattis.<a id="d0e4480src" href="#d0e4480" class="noteref">3</a> From these legends and the fact that their headquarters are in R&#257;jput&#257;na, it may safely be concluded that the Osw&#257;l Banias
+are of R&#257;jp&#363;t origin.
+
+</p>
+<p>The large majority of the Osw&#257;ls are Jain by religion, but a few are Vaishnava Hindus. Intermarriage between the Hindu and
+Jain sections is permitted. Like the Agarw&#257;las, the Osw&#257;ls are divided into B&#299;sa, Dasa and Pacha sections or twenties, tens
+and fives, according to the purity of their lineage. The Pacha subcaste still permit the remarriage of widows. The three groups
+take food together but do not intermarry. In Bombay, Dasa Osw&#257;ls intermarry with the Dasa groups of Srim&#257;li and Parw&#257;r Banias,<a id="d0e4487src" href="#d0e4487" class="noteref">4</a> and Osw&#257;ls generally can marry with other good Bania subcastes so long as both parties are Jains. The Osw&#257;ls are divided
+into eighty-four <i>gotras</i> or exogamous sections for purposes of marriage, a list of which is given by Mr. Crooke.<a id="d0e4501src" href="#d0e4501" class="noteref">5</a> Most of these cannot be recognised, but a few of them seem to be titular, as Lorha a caste which grows hemp, Nunia a salt-refiner,
+Seth a banker, Daftari an office-boy, Vaid a physician, Bhand&#257;ri a cook, and Kukara a dog. These may indicate a certain amount
+of admixture of foreign elements in the caste. As stated from Ben&#257;res, the exogamous rule is that a man cannot marry in his
+own section, and he cannot marry a girl whose father&#8217;s or mother&#8217;s section is the same as that of either his father or mother.
+This would bar the marriage of first cousins.
+<a id="d0e4506"></a><span class="pagenum">[<a href="#d0e4506">157</a>]</span></p>
+<p>Though Jains the Osw&#257;ls perform their weddings by walking round the sacred fire and observe certain Hindu rites, including
+the worship of the god Ganpati.<a id="d0e4509src" href="#d0e4509" class="noteref">6</a> They also revere other Hindu deities and the sun and moon. The dead are burnt, but they do not observe any impurity after
+a death nor clean the house. On the day after the death the mourning family, both men and women, visit Parasn&#257;th&#8217;s temple,
+and lay one seer (2 lbs.) of Indian millet before the god, bow to him and go home. They do not gather the ashes of the dead
+nor keep the yearly death-day. Their only observance is that on some day between the twelfth day after a death and the end
+of a year, the caste-people are treated to a dinner of sweetmeats and the dead &#8216;are then forgotten.&#8217;<a id="d0e4514src" href="#d0e4514" class="noteref">7</a> The Osw&#257;ls will take food cooked with water (<i>katchi</i>) only from Br&#257;hmans, and that cooked without water (<i>pakki</i>) from Agarw&#257;la and Maheshri Banias. In the Central Provinces the principal deity of the Osw&#257;ls is the Jain Tirthak&#257;r Parasn&#257;th,
+and they spend large sums in the erection of splendid temples. The Osw&#257;ls are the most prominent trading caste in R&#257;jput&#257;na;
+and they have also frequently held high offices, such as Diw&#257;n or minister, and paymaster in R&#257;jp&#363;t States.<a id="d0e4524src" href="#d0e4524" class="noteref">8</a>
+
+
+</p>
+<div class="footnotes">
+<hr class="fnsep">
+<p class="footnote"><span class="label"><a id="d0e4469" href="#d0e4469src" class="noteref">1</a></span> A town near Jhalor in M&#257;rw&#257;r, now called Bhinm&#257;l.
+</p>
+<p class="footnote"><span class="label"><a id="d0e4472" href="#d0e4472src" class="noteref">2</a></span> <i>Bombay Gazetteer</i>, <i>Hindus of Gujar&#257;t</i>, p. 97.
+</p>
+<p class="footnote"><span class="label"><a id="d0e4480" href="#d0e4480src" class="noteref">3</a></span> <i>R&#257;jasth&#257;n</i>, ii. p. 210, footnote.
+</p>
+<p class="footnote"><span class="label"><a id="d0e4487" href="#d0e4487src" class="noteref">4</a></span> <i>Hindus of Gujar&#257;t</i>, <i>loc. cit.</i>, and <i>Bombay Gazetteer</i>, xvi. 45.
+</p>
+<p class="footnote"><span class="label"><a id="d0e4501" href="#d0e4501src" class="noteref">5</a></span> <i>Tribes and Castes</i>, art. Osw&#257;l.
+</p>
+<p class="footnote"><span class="label"><a id="d0e4509" href="#d0e4509src" class="noteref">6</a></span> <i>Bombay Gazetteer</i>, vol. xvii. p. 51.
+</p>
+<p class="footnote"><span class="label"><a id="d0e4514" href="#d0e4514src" class="noteref">7</a></span> <i>Ibidem.</i></p>
+<p class="footnote"><span class="label"><a id="d0e4524" href="#d0e4524src" class="noteref">8</a></span> Bhattach&#257;rya, <i>Hindu Castes and Sects</i>, p. 207.
+</p>
+</div>
+</div>
+<div id="d0e4530" class="div1"><span class="pagenum">
+[<a href="#d0e111">Contents</a>]
+</span><h2>Bania, Parw&#257;r</h2>
+<div class="div2" id="d0e4533">
+<h3>1. Origin.</h3>
+<p><b>Bania, Parw&#257;r.</b><a id="d0e4539src" href="#d0e4539" class="noteref">1</a>&#8212;This Jain subcaste numbered nearly 29,000 persons in 1911. They belong almost entirely to the Jubbulpore and Nerbudda Divisions,
+and the great bulk are found in the Saugor, Damoh and Jubbulpore Districts. The origin of the Parw&#257;rs and of their name is
+not known, but there is some reason to suppose that they are from R&#257;jput&#257;na. Their women wear on the head the <i>b&#299;j</i>, a R&#257;jput&#257;na ornament, and use the <i>ch&#257;ru</i>, a deep brass plate for drinking, which also belongs there. Their songs are said to be in the R&#257;jasth&#257;ni dialect. It seems
+likely that the Parw&#257;rs may be identical with the Poraw&#257;l subcaste found in other Provinces, which, judging from the name,
+may belong to R&#257;jput&#257;na. In the northern Districts the Parw&#257;rs <a id="d0e4548"></a><span class="pagenum">[<a href="#d0e4548">158</a>]</span>speak Bundeli, but in the south their language is said to be M&#257;rw&#257;ri.
+
+
+</p>
+</div>
+<div class="div2" id="d0e4550">
+<h3>2. Subdivisions.</h3>
+<p>Among the Parw&#257;rs the Samaiya or Chann&#257;gri form a separate sectarian Jain group. They do not worship the images of the Jain
+Tirthak&#257;rs, but enshrine the sacred books of the Jains in their temples, and worship these. The Parw&#257;rs will take daughters
+in marriage from the Chann&#257;gris, and sometimes give their daughters in consideration of a substantial bride-price. Among the
+Parw&#257;rs themselves there is a social division between the Ath S&#257;ke and the Chao S&#257;ke; the former will not permit the marriage
+of persons related more nearly than eight degrees, while the latter permit it after four degrees. The Ath S&#257;ke have the higher
+position, and if one of them marries a Chao S&#257;ke he is degraded to that group. Besides this the Parw&#257;rs have an inferior division
+called Benaikia, which consists of the offspring of irregular unions and of widows who have remarried. Persons who have committed
+a caste offence and cannot pay the fine imposed on them for it also go into this subcaste. The Benaikias<a id="d0e4555src" href="#d0e4555" class="noteref">2</a> themselves are distributed into four groups of varying degrees of respectability, and families who live correctly and marry
+as well as they can tend to rise from one to the other until after several generations they may again be recognised as Parw&#257;rs
+proper.
+
+
+</p>
+</div>
+<div class="div2" id="d0e4558">
+<h3>3. Exogamy.</h3>
+<p>The Parw&#257;rs have twelve <i>gotras</i> or main sections, and each <i>gotra</i> has, or is supposed to have, twelve <i>muls</i> or subsections. A Parw&#257;r must not marry in his own <i>gotra</i> nor in the <i>mul</i> of his mother, or any of his grandmothers or greatgrandmothers. This practically bars marriage within seven degrees of relationship.
+But a man&#8217;s sister and daughter may be married in the same family, and even to two brothers, and a man can marry two sisters.
+
+
+</p>
+</div>
+<div class="div2" id="d0e4578">
+<h3>4. Marriage customs.</h3>
+<p>As a rule no bride-price is paid, but occasionally an old man desiring a wife will give something substantial to her father
+in secret. There are two forms of marriage, called Thinga and Dajanha; in the former, women do not accompany the wedding procession,
+and they have a separate marriage-shed at the bridegroom&#8217;s house for their own celebrations; while in the latter, they accompany
+it <a id="d0e4583"></a><span class="pagenum">[<a href="#d0e4583">159</a>]</span>and erect such a shed at the house in the bridegroom&#8217;s village or town where they have their lodging. Before the wedding,
+the bridegroom, mounted on a horse, and the bride, carried in a litter, proceed together round the marriage-shed. The bridegroom
+then stands by the sacred post in the centre and the bride walks seven times round him. In the evening there was a custom
+of dressing the principal male relatives of the bridegroom in women&#8217;s clothes and making them dance, but this is now being
+discarded. On the fifth day is held a rite called Palkach&#257;r. A new cot is provided by the bride&#8217;s father, and on it is spread
+a red cloth. The couple are seated on this with their hands entwined, and their relations come and make them presents. If
+the bridegroom catches hold of the dress of his mother- or father-in-law, they are expected to make him a handsome present.
+In other respects the wedding follows the ordinary Hindu ritual. Widow-marriage and divorce are forbidden among the Parw&#257;rs
+proper, and those who practise them go into the lower Benaikia group.
+
+
+</p>
+</div>
+<div class="div2" id="d0e4585">
+<h3>5. Religion: Hindu observances.</h3>
+<p>The Parw&#257;rs are practically all Jains of the Digambari sect. They build costly and beautiful temples for their Tirthak&#257;rs,
+especially for their favourite Parasn&#257;th. They have also many Hindu practices. They observe the Diw&#257;li, Rakshabandhan and
+Holi festivals; they say that at the Diw&#257;li the last Tirthak&#257;r Mah&#257;v&#299;ra attained beatitude and the gods rained down jewels;
+the little lamps now lighted at Diw&#257;li are held to be symbolic of these jewels. They tie the threads round the wrist on Rakshabandhan
+to keep off evil spirits. They worship S&#299;tala Devi, the Hindu goddess of smallpox, and employ Br&#257;hmans to choose names for
+their children and fix the dates of their wedding and other ceremonies, though not at the ceremonies themselves.
+
+
+</p>
+</div>
+<div class="div2" id="d0e4590">
+<h3>6. Disposal of the dead.</h3>
+<p>The caste burn the dead, with the exception of the bodies of young children, which are buried. The corpse is sometimes placed
+sitting in a car to be taken to the cremation ground, but often laid on a bier in the ordinary manner. The sitting posture
+is that in which all the Tirthak&#257;rs attained paradise, and their images always represent them in this posture. The corpse
+is naked save for <a id="d0e4595"></a><span class="pagenum">[<a href="#d0e4595">160</a>]</span>a new piece of cloth round the waist, but it is covered with a sheet. The Jains do not shave their hair in token of mourning,
+nor do they offer sacrificial cakes to the dead. When the body is burnt they bathe in the nearest water and go home. Neither
+the bearers nor the mourners are held to be impure. Next day the mourning family, both men and women, visit Parasn&#257;th&#8217;s temple,
+lay two pounds of Indian millet before the god and go home.<a id="d0e4597src" href="#d0e4597" class="noteref">3</a> But in the Central Provinces they whitewash their houses, get their clothes washed, throw away their earthen pots and give
+a feast to the caste.
+
+
+</p>
+</div>
+<div class="div2" id="d0e4602">
+<h3>7. Social rules and customs.</h3>
+<p>The Parw&#257;rs abstain from eating any kind of flesh and from drinking liquor. They have a <i>panch&#257;yat</i> and impose penalties for offences against caste rules like the Hindus. Among the offences are the killing of any living thing,
+unchastity or adultery, theft or other bad conduct, taking cooked food or water from a caste from which the Parw&#257;rs do not
+take them, and violation of any rule of their religion. To get vermin in a wound, or to be beaten by a low-caste man or with
+a shoe, incidents which entail serious penalties among the Hindus, are not offences with the Parw&#257;rs. When an offender is
+put out of caste the ordinary deprivation is that he is not allowed to enter a Jain temple, and in serious cases he may also
+not eat nor drink with the caste. The Parw&#257;rs are generally engaged in the trade in grain, <i>gh&#299;</i>, and other staples. Several of them are well-to-do and own villages.
+
+
+
+</p>
+</div>
+<div class="footnotes">
+<hr class="fnsep">
+<p class="footnote"><span class="label"><a id="d0e4539" href="#d0e4539src" class="noteref">1</a></span> This article is based on papers by Mr. Pancham L&#257;l, Naib-Tahs&#299;ld&#257;r Sihora, and Munshi Kanhya L&#257;l, of the Gazetteer office.
+</p>
+<p class="footnote"><span class="label"><a id="d0e4555" href="#d0e4555src" class="noteref">2</a></span> See also notice of Benaikias in article on Vid&#363;r.
+</p>
+<p class="footnote"><span class="label"><a id="d0e4597" href="#d0e4597src" class="noteref">3</a></span> <i>Bombay Gazetteer</i>, vol. xvii. p. 81.
+</p>
+</div>
+</div>
+<div id="d0e4613" class="div1"><span class="pagenum">
+[<a href="#d0e111">Contents</a>]
+</span><h2>Bania, Srim&#257;li</h2>
+<p><b>Bania, Srim&#257;li.</b>&#8212;This subcaste takes its name from the town of Srim&#257;l, which is now Bhinm&#257;l in M&#257;rw&#257;r. They numbered 600 persons in the Central
+Provinces in 1911, most of whom belonged to the Hoshang&#257;b&#257;d District. More than two-thirds were Hindus and the remainder Jains.
+Colonel Tod writes of Bhinm&#257;l and an adjoining town, Sanchor: &#8220;These towns are on the high road to Cutch and Gujar&#257;t, which
+has given them from the most remote times a commercial celebrity. Bhinm&#257;l is said to contain about 1500 houses and Sanchor
+half that number. Very wealthy <i>mah&#257;jans</i> or merchants used to reside here, but insecurity <a id="d0e4623"></a><span class="pagenum">[<a href="#d0e4623">161</a>]</span>both within and without has much injured these cities.&#8221; From Bhinm&#257;l the Srim&#257;lis appear to have gone to Gujar&#257;t, where they
+are found in considerable numbers. Their legend of origin is that the goddess Lakshmi created from a flower-garland 90,000
+families to act as servants to the 90,000 Srim&#257;li Br&#257;hmans, and these were the ancestors of the Srim&#257;li Banias.<a id="d0e4625src" href="#d0e4625" class="noteref">1</a> Both the Jain and Hindu sections of the Srim&#257;li Banias employ Srim&#257;li Br&#257;hmans as priests. Like other classes of Banias,
+the Srim&#257;li are divided into two sections, the B&#299;sa and Dasa, or twenty and ten, of which the B&#299;sa are considered to be of
+pure and the Dasa of somewhat mixed descent. In Gujar&#257;t they also have a third territorial group, known as L&#257;dva, from L&#257;d,
+the old name of Gujar&#257;t. All three subdivisions take food together but do not intermarry.<a id="d0e4633src" href="#d0e4633" class="noteref">2</a> The two highest sections of the Osw&#257;l Banias are called Sri Srim&#257;l and Srim&#257;l, and it is possible that further investigation
+might show the Srim&#257;ls and Osw&#257;ls to have been originally of one stock.
+
+
+</p>
+<div class="footnotes">
+<hr class="fnsep">
+<p class="footnote"><span class="label"><a id="d0e4625" href="#d0e4625src" class="noteref">1</a></span> <i>Bombay Gazetteer</i>, <i>Hindus of Gujarat</i>, p. 99.
+</p>
+<p class="footnote"><span class="label"><a id="d0e4633" href="#d0e4633src" class="noteref">2</a></span> <i>Ibidem.</i></p>
+</div>
+</div>
+<div id="d0e4637" class="div1"><span class="pagenum">
+[<a href="#d0e111">Contents</a>]
+</span><h2>Bania, Umre</h2>
+<p><b>Bania, Umre.</b>&#8212;This Hindu subcaste belongs to Damoh and Jubbulpore. They are perhaps the same as the Ummar Banias of the United Provinces,
+who reside in the Meerut, Agra and Kumaon Divisions. The name Umre is found as a subdivision of several castes in the Central
+Provinces, as the Telis and others, and is probably derived from some town or tract of country in northern or central India,
+but no identification has been made. Mr. Bh&#299;mbhai Kirp&#257;r&#257;m states that in Gujar&#257;t the Ummar Banias are also known as B&#257;garia
+from the B&#257;gar or wild country, comprised in the Dongarpur and Pert&#257;bgarh States of R&#257;jput&#257;na, where considerable numbers
+of them are still settled. Their headquarters is at S&#257;gw&#257;ra, near Dongarpur.<a id="d0e4644src" href="#d0e4644" class="noteref">1</a> In Damoh the Umre Banias formerly cultivated the <i>al</i> plant,<a id="d0e4652src" href="#d0e4652" class="noteref">2</a> which yielded a well-known dye, and hence they lost caste, as in soaking the roots of the plant to extract the dye the numerous
+insects in them are necessarily destroyed. The Dosar subcaste<a id="d0e4657src" href="#d0e4657" class="noteref">3</a> are a branch of the Umre, who allow widow-remarriage.
+
+
+
+<a id="d0e4660"></a><span class="pagenum">[<a href="#d0e4660">162</a>]</span></p>
+<div class="footnotes">
+<hr class="fnsep">
+<p class="footnote"><span class="label"><a id="d0e4644" href="#d0e4644src" class="noteref">1</a></span> <i>Ibidem.</i> p. 98.
+</p>
+<p class="footnote"><span class="label"><a id="d0e4652" href="#d0e4652src" class="noteref">2</a></span> <i>Merinda citrifolia</i>, see art. Alia.
+</p>
+<p class="footnote"><span class="label"><a id="d0e4657" href="#d0e4657src" class="noteref">3</a></span> See article.
+</p>
+</div>
+</div>
+<div id="d0e4661" class="div1"><span class="pagenum">
+[<a href="#d0e111">Contents</a>]
+</span><h2>Banj&#257;ra</h2>
+<h3>List of Paragraphs</h3>
+<ul>
+<li><a href="#d0e4777">1. Historical notice of the caste.</a></li>
+<li><a href="#d0e4843">2. Banj&#257;ras derived from the Ch&#257;rans or Bh&#257;ts.</a></li>
+<li><a href="#d0e4976">3. Ch&#257;ran Ranj&#257;rans employed with the Mughal armies.</a></li>
+<li><a href="#d0e5036">4. Internal structure.</a></li>
+<li><a href="#d0e5062">5. Minor subcastes.</a></li>
+<li><a href="#d0e5083">6. Marriage: betrothal.</a></li>
+<li><a href="#d0e5088">7. Marriage.</a></li>
+<li><a href="#d0e5114">8. Widow remarriage.</a></li>
+<li><a href="#d0e5131">9. Birth and death.</a></li>
+<li><a href="#d0e5147">10. Religion: Banj&#257;ri Devi.</a></li>
+<li><a href="#d0e5160">11. M&#299;thu Bh&#363;kia.</a></li>
+<li><a href="#d0e5170">12. Siva Bh&#257;ia.</a></li>
+<li><a href="#d0e5185">13. Worship of cattle.</a></li>
+<li><a href="#d0e5202">14. Connection with the Sikhs.</a></li>
+<li><a href="#d0e5214">15. Witchcraft.</a></li>
+<li><a href="#d0e5255">16. Human sacrifice.</a></li>
+<li><a href="#d0e5288">17. Admission of outsiders: kidnapped children and slaves.</a></li>
+<li><a href="#d0e5322">18. Dress.</a></li>
+<li><a href="#d0e5379">19. Social customs.</a></li>
+<li><a href="#d0e5420">20. The N&#257;ik or headman. Banj&#257;ra dogs.</a></li>
+<li><a href="#d0e5448">21. Criminal tendencies of the caste.</a></li>
+<li><a href="#d0e5469">22. Their virtues.</a></li>
+</ul>
+<div class="div2" id="d0e4777">
+<h3>1. Historical notice of the caste.</h3>
+<p><b>Banj&#257;ra, Wanj&#257;ri, Lah&#257;na, Mukeri</b>.<a id="d0e4784src" href="#d0e4784" class="noteref">1</a>&#8212;The caste of carriers and drivers of pack-bullocks. In 1911 the Banj&#257;ras numbered about 56,000 persons in the Central Provinces
+and 80,000 in Ber&#257;r, the caste being in greater strength here than in any part of India except Hyder&#257;b&#257;d, where their total
+is 174,000. Bombay comes next with a figure approaching that of the Central Provinces and Ber&#257;r, and the caste belongs therefore
+rather to the Deccan than to northern India. The name has been variously explained, but the most probable derivation is from
+the Sanskrit <a id="d0e4799"></a><span class="pagenum">[<a href="#d0e4799">163</a>]</span><i>banijya kara</i>, a merchant. Sir H. M. Elliot held that the name Banj&#257;ra was of great antiquity, quoting a passage from the Dasa Kumara Charita
+of the eleventh or twelfth century. But it was subsequently shown by Professor Cowell that the name Banj&#257;ra did not occur
+in the original text of this work.<a id="d0e4803src" href="#d0e4803" class="noteref">2</a> Banj&#257;ras are supposed to be the people mentioned by Arrian in the fourth century B.C., as leading a wandering life, dwelling
+in tents and letting out for hire their beasts of burden.<a id="d0e4809src" href="#d0e4809" class="noteref">3</a> But this passage merely proves the existence of carriers and not of the Banj&#257;ra caste. Mr. Crooke states<a id="d0e4814src" href="#d0e4814" class="noteref">4</a> that the first mention of Banj&#257;ras in Muhammadan history is in Sikandar&#8217;s attack on Dholpur in <span class="smallcaps">A.D.</span> 1504.<a id="d0e4822src" href="#d0e4822" class="noteref">5</a> It seems improbable, therefore, that the Banj&#257;ras accompanied the different Muhammadan invaders of India, as might have been
+inferred from the fact that they came into the Deccan in the train of the forces of Aur&#257;ngzeb. The caste has indeed two Muhammadan
+sections, the Turkia and Mukeri.<a id="d0e4837src" href="#d0e4837" class="noteref">6</a> But both of these have the same R&#257;jp&#363;t clan names as the Hindu branch of the caste, and it seems possible that they may have
+embraced Isl&#257;m under the proselytising influence of Aur&#257;ngzeb, or simply owing to their having been employed with the Muhammadan
+troops. The great bulk of the caste in southern India are Hindus, and there seems no reason for assuming that its origin was
+Muhammadan.
+
+
+</p>
+</div>
+<div class="div2" id="d0e4843">
+<h3>2. Banj&#257;ras derived from the Ch&#257;rans or Bh&#257;ts.</h3>
+<p>It may be suggested that the Banj&#257;ras are derived from the Ch&#257;ran or Bh&#257;t caste of R&#257;jput&#257;na. Mr. Cumberlege, whose <i>Monograph</i> on the caste in Ber&#257;r is one of the best authorities, states that of the four divisions existing there the Ch&#257;rans are the
+most numerous and by far the most interesting class.<a id="d0e4851src" href="#d0e4851" class="noteref">7</a> In the article on Bh&#257;t it has been explained how the Ch&#257;rans or bards, owing to their readiness <a id="d0e4856"></a><span class="pagenum">[<a href="#d0e4856">164</a>]</span>to kill themselves rather than give up the property entrusted to their care, became the best safe-conduct for the passage
+of goods in R&#257;jput&#257;na. The name Ch&#257;ran is generally held to mean &#8216;Wanderer,&#8217; and in their capacity of bards the Ch&#257;rans were
+accustomed to travel from court to court of the different chiefs in quest of patronage. They were first protected by their
+sacred character and afterwards by their custom of <i>tr&#257;ga</i> or <i>ch&#257;ndi</i>, that is, of killing themselves when attacked and threatening their assailants with the dreaded fate of being haunted by
+their ghosts. Mr. Bhimbhai Kirpar&#257;m<a id="d0e4864src" href="#d0e4864" class="noteref">8</a> remarks: &#8220;After Par&#257;sur&#257;ma&#8217;s dispersion of the Kshatris the Ch&#257;rans accompanied them in their southward flight. In those
+troubled times the Ch&#257;rans took charge of the supplies of the Kshatri forces and so fell to their present position of cattle-breeders
+and grain-carriers....&#8221; Most of the Ch&#257;rans are graziers, cattle-sellers and pack-carriers. Colonel Tod says:<a id="d0e4871src" href="#d0e4871" class="noteref">9</a> &#8220;The Ch&#257;rans and Bh&#257;ts or bards and genealogists are the chief carriers of these regions (M&#257;rw&#257;r); their sacred character
+overawes the lawless R&#257;jp&#363;t chief, and even the savage Koli and Bh&#299;l and the plundering Sahrai of the desert dread the anathema
+of these singular races, who conduct the caravans through the wildest and most desolate regions.&#8221; In another passage Colonel
+Tod identifies the Ch&#257;rans and Banj&#257;ras<a id="d0e4876src" href="#d0e4876" class="noteref">10</a> as follows: &#8220;Murl&#257;h is an excellent township inhabited by a community of Ch&#257;rans of the tribe Cucholia (Kacheli), who are
+Bunj&#257;rris (carriers) by profession, though poets by birth. The alliance is a curious one, and would appear incongruous were
+not gain the object generally in both cases. It was the sanctity of their office which converted our <i>bardais</i> (bards) into <i>bunj&#257;rris</i>, for their persons being sacred, the immunity extended likewise to their goods and saved them from all imposts; so that in
+process of time they became the free-traders of R&#257;jput&#257;na. I was highly gratified with the reception I received from the community,
+which collectively advanced to meet me at some distance from the town. The procession was headed by the village elders and
+all the fair Ch&#257;ranis, who, as they approached, gracefully waved their <a id="d0e4887"></a><span class="pagenum">[<a href="#d0e4887">165</a>]</span>scarfs over me until I was fairly made captive by the muses of Murl&#257;h! It was a novel and interesting scene. The manly persons
+of the Ch&#257;rans, clad in the flowing white robe with the high loose-folded turban inclined on one side, from which the <i>m&#257;la</i> or chaplet was gracefully suspended; and the <i>naiques</i> or leaders, with their massive necklaces of gold, with the image of the <i>pitriswar</i> (<i>manes</i>) depending therefrom, gave the whole an air of opulence and dignity. The females were uniformly attired in a skirt of dark-brown
+camlet, having a bodice of light-coloured stuff, with gold ornaments worked into their fine black hair; and all had the favourite
+<i>ch&#363;ris</i> or rings of <i>h&#257;thid&#257;nt</i> (elephant&#8217;s tooth) covering the arm from the wrist to the elbow, and even above it.&#8221; A little later, referring to the same
+Ch&#257;ran community, Colonel Tod writes: &#8220;The <i>t&#257;nda</i> or caravan, consisting of four thousand bullocks, has been kept up amidst all the evils which have beset this land through
+Mughal and Mar&#257;tha tyranny. The utility of these caravans as general carriers to conflicting armies and as regular tax-paying
+subjects has proved their safeguard, and they were too strong to be pillaged by any petty marauder, as any one who has seen
+a Banj&#257;ri encampment will be convinced. They encamp in a square, and their grain-bags piled over each other breast-high, with
+interstices left for their matchlocks, make no contemptible fortification. Even the ruthless T&#363;rk, Jamsh&#299;d Kh&#257;n, set up a
+protecting tablet in favour of the Ch&#257;rans of Murl&#257;h, recording their exemption from <i>d&#299;nd</i> contributions, and that there should be no increase in duties, with threats to all who should injure the community. As usual,
+the sun and moon are appealed to as witnesses of good faith, and sculptured on the stone. Even the forest Bh&#299;l and mountain
+Mair have set up their signs of immunity and protection to the chosen of Hingl&#257;z (tutelary deity); and the figures of a cow
+and its <i>kairi</i> (calf) carved in rude relief speak the agreement that they should not be slain or stolen within the limits of Murl&#257;h.&#8221;
+
+</p>
+<p>In the above passage the community described by Colonel Tod were Ch&#257;rans, but he identified them with Banj&#257;ras, using the
+name alternatively. He mentions their <a id="d0e4918"></a><span class="pagenum">[<a href="#d0e4918">166</a>]</span>large herds of pack-bullocks, for the management of which the Ch&#257;rans, who were graziers as well as bards, would naturally
+be adapted; the name given to the camp, <i>t&#257;nda</i>, is that generally used by the Banj&#257;ras; the women wore ivory bangles, which the Banj&#257;ra women wear.<a id="d0e4923src" href="#d0e4923" class="noteref">11</a> In commenting on the way in which the women threw their scarves over him, making him a prisoner, Colonel Tod remarks: &#8220;This
+community had enjoyed for five hundred years the privilege of making prisoner any R&#257;na of Mew&#257;r who may pass through Murl&#257;h,
+and keeping him in bondage until he gives them a <i>got</i> or entertainment. The patriarch (of the village) told me that I was in jeopardy as the R&#257;na&#8217;s representative, but not knowing
+how I might have relished the joke had it been carried to its conclusion, they let me escape.&#8221; Mr. Ball notes a similar custom
+of the Banj&#257;ra women far away in the Bastar State of the Central Provinces:<a id="d0e4929src" href="#d0e4929" class="noteref">12</a> &#8220;Today I passed through another Banj&#257;ra hamlet, from whence the women and girls all hurried out in pursuit, and a brazen-faced
+powerful-looking lass seized the bridle of my horse as he was being led by the <i>sais</i> in the rear. The <i>sais</i> and <i>chapr&#257;si</i> were both Muhammadans, and the forward conduct of these females perplexed them not a little, and the former was fast losing
+his temper at being thus assaulted by a woman.&#8221; Colonel Mackenzie in his account of the Banj&#257;ra caste remarks:<a id="d0e4943src" href="#d0e4943" class="noteref">13</a> &#8220;It is certain that the Ch&#257;rans, whoever they were, first rose to the demand which the great armies of northern India, contending
+in exhausted countries far from their basis of supply, created, viz. the want of a fearless and reliable transport service....
+The start which the Ch&#257;rans then acquired they retain among Banj&#257;ras to this day, though in very much diminished splendour
+and position. As they themselves relate, they were originally five brethren, R&#257;thor, Turi, Panw&#257;r, Chauh&#257;n and J&#257;don. But
+fortune particularly smiled on Bh&#299;ka R&#257;thor, as his four sons, Mersi, Mult&#257;si, Dheda and Kh&#257;md&#257;r, great names among the <a id="d0e4948"></a><span class="pagenum">[<a href="#d0e4948">167</a>]</span>Ch&#257;rans, rose immediately to eminence as commissariat transporters in the north. And not only under the Delhi Emperors, but
+under the Sat&#257;ra, subsequently the Poona R&#257;j, and the Sub&#257;hship of the Niz&#257;m, did several of their descendants rise to consideration
+and power.&#8221; It thus seems a reasonable hypothesis that the nucleus of the Banj&#257;ra caste was constituted by the Ch&#257;rans or
+bards of R&#257;jput&#257;na. Mr. Bhimbhai Kirpar&#257;m<a id="d0e4950src" href="#d0e4950" class="noteref">14</a> also identifies the Ch&#257;rans and Banj&#257;ras, but I have not been able to find the exact passage. The following notice<a id="d0e4954src" href="#d0e4954" class="noteref">15</a> by Colonel Tone is of interest in this connection:
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;The vast consumption that attends a Mar&#257;tha army necessarily superinduces the idea of great supplies; yet, notwithstanding
+this, the native powers never concern themselves about providing for their forces, and have no idea of a grain and victualling
+department, which forms so great an object in a European campaign. The Banias or grain-sellers in an Indian army have always
+their servants ahead of the troops on the line of march, to purchase in the circumjacent country whatever necessaries are
+to be disposed of. Articles of consumption are never wanting in a native camp, though they are generally twenty-five per cent
+dearer than in the town baz&#257;rs; but independent of this mode of supply the Vanj&#257;ris or itinerant grain-merchants furnish large
+quantities, which they bring on bullocks from an immense distance. These are a very peculiar race, and appear a marked and
+discriminated people from any other I have seen in this country. Formerly they were considered so sacred that they passed
+in safety in the midst of contending armies; of late, however, this reverence for their character is much abated and they
+have been frequently plundered, particularly by Tipu.&#8221;
+
+</p>
+<p>The reference to the sacred character attaching to the Banj&#257;ras a century ago appears to be strong evidence in favour of their
+derivation from the Ch&#257;rans. For it could scarcely have been obtained by any body of commissariat agents coming into India
+with the Muhammadans. <a id="d0e4965"></a><span class="pagenum">[<a href="#d0e4965">168</a>]</span>The fact that the example of disregarding it was first set by a Muhammadan prince points to the same conclusion.
+
+</p>
+<p>Mr. Irvine notices the Banj&#257;ras with the Mughal armies in similar terms:<a id="d0e4969src" href="#d0e4969" class="noteref">16</a> &#8220;It is by these people that the Indian armies in the field are fed, and they are never injured by either army. The grain
+is taken from them, but invariably paid for. They encamp for safety every evening in a regular square formed of the bags of
+grain of which they construct a breastwork. They and their families are in the centre, and the oxen are made fast outside.
+Guards with matchlocks and spears are placed at the corners, and their dogs do duty as advanced posts. I have seen them with
+droves of 5000 bullocks. They do not move above two miles an hour, as their cattle are allowed to graze as they proceed on
+the march.&#8221;
+
+</p>
+<p>One may suppose that the Ch&#257;rans having acted as carriers for the R&#257;jp&#363;t chiefs and courts, both in time of peace and in their
+continuous intestinal feuds, were pressed into service when the Mughal armies entered R&#257;jput&#257;na and passed through it to Gujar&#257;t
+and the Deccan. In adopting the profession of transport agents for the imperial troops they may have been amalgamated into
+a fresh caste with other Hindus and Muhammadans doing the same work, just as the camp language formed by the superposition
+of a Persian vocabulary on to a grammatical basis of Hindi became Urdu or Hindust&#257;ni. The readiness of the Ch&#257;rans to commit
+suicide rather than give up property committed to their charge was not, however, copied by the Banj&#257;ras, and so far as I am
+aware there is no record of men of this caste taking their own lives, though they had little scruple with those of others.
+
+
+</p>
+</div>
+<div class="div2" id="d0e4976">
+<h3>3. Ch&#257;ran Ranj&#257;rans employed with the Mughal armies.</h3>
+<p>The Ch&#257;ran Banj&#257;ras, Mr. Cumberlege states,<a id="d0e4981src" href="#d0e4981" class="noteref">17</a> first came to the Deccan with Asaf Kh&#257;n in the campaign which closed with the annexation by the Emperor Sh&#257;h Jah&#257;n of Ahmadnagar
+and Ber&#257;r about 1630. Their leaders or N&#257;iks were Bhangi and Jhangi of the R&#257;thor<a id="d0e4989src" href="#d0e4989" class="noteref">18</a> and <a id="d0e4992"></a><span class="pagenum">[<a href="#d0e4992">169</a>]</span>Bhagw&#257;n D&#257;s of the J&#257;don clan. Bhangi and Jhangi had 180,000 pack-bullocks, and Bhagw&#257;n D&#257;s 52,000. It was naturally an object
+with Asaf Kh&#257;n to keep his commissariat well up with his force, and as Bhangi and Jhangi made difficulties about the supply
+of grass and water to their cattle, he gave them an order engraved on copper in letters of gold to the following effect:
+
+
+</p>
+<div class="poem" lang="und">
+<div class="stanza">
+<p class="line" style=""><span>Ranjan k&#257; p&#257;ni
+</span></p>
+<p class="line" style=""><span>Chhappar k&#257; gh&#257;s
+</span></p>
+<p class="line" style=""><span>Din ke t&#299;n kh&#363;n mu&#257;f;
+</span></p>
+<p class="line" style=""><span>Aur jah&#257;n Asaf J&#257;h ke ghore
+</span></p>
+<p class="line" style=""><span>Wah&#257;n Bhangi Jhangi ke bail,</span></p>
+</div>
+</div>
+<p>which may be rendered as follows: &#8220;If you can find no water elsewhere you may even take it from the pots of my followers;
+grass you may take from the roofs of their huts; and I will pardon you up to three murders a day, provided that wherever I
+find my cavalry, Bhangi and Jhangi&#8217;s bullocks shall be with them.&#8221; This grant is still in the possession of Bhangi N&#257;ik&#8217;s
+descendant who lives at Musi, near Hingoli. He is recognised by the Hyder&#257;b&#257;d Court as the head N&#257;ik of the Banj&#257;ra caste,
+and on his death his successor receives a <i>khillat</i> or dress-of-honour from His Highness the Niz&#257;m. After Asaf Kh&#257;n&#8217;s campaign and settlement in the Deccan, a quarrel broke
+out between the R&#257;thor clan, headed by Bhangi and Jhangi, and the J&#257;dons under Bhagw&#257;n D&#257;s, owing to the fact that Asaf Kh&#257;n
+had refused to give Bhagw&#257;n D&#257;s a grant like that quoted above. Both Bhangi and Bhagw&#257;n D&#257;s were slain in the feud and the
+J&#257;dons captured the standard, consisting of eight <i>th&#257;ns</i> (lengths) of cloth, which was annually presented by the Niz&#257;m to Bhangi&#8217;s descendants. When Mr. Cumberlege wrote (1869),
+this standard was in the possession of Hatti N&#257;ik, a descendant of Bhagw&#257;n D&#257;s, who had an estate near Muchli Bunder, in the
+Madras Presidency. Colonel Mackenzie states<a id="d0e5013src" href="#d0e5013" class="noteref">19</a> that the leaders of the R&#257;thor clan became so distinguished not only in their particular line but as men of war that the
+Emperors recognised their carrying distinctive standards, which were known as <i>dhal</i> <a id="d0e5019"></a><span class="pagenum">[<a href="#d0e5019">170</a>]</span>by the R&#257;thors themselves. Jhangi&#8217;s family was also represented in the person of R&#257;mu N&#257;ik, the <i>patel</i> or headman of the village of Yaoli in the Yeotm&#257;l District. In 1791&#8211;92 the Banj&#257;ras were employed to supply grain to the
+British army under the Marquis of Cornwallis during the siege of Seringapatam,<a id="d0e5024src" href="#d0e5024" class="noteref">20</a> and the Duke of Wellington in his Indian campaigns regularly engaged them as part of the commissariat staff of his army.
+On one occasion he said of them: &#8220;The Banj&#257;ras I look upon in the light of servants of the public, of whose grain I have a
+right to regulate the sale, always taking care that they have a proportionate advantage.&#8221;<a id="d0e5030src" href="#d0e5030" class="noteref">21</a>
+
+
+</p>
+</div>
+<div class="div2" id="d0e5036">
+<h3>4. Internal structure.</h3>
+<p>Mr. Cumberlege gives four main divisions of the caste in Ber&#257;r, the Ch&#257;rans, Mathurias, Labh&#257;nas and Dh&#257;ris. Of these the
+Ch&#257;rans are by far the most numerous and important, and included all the famous leaders of the caste mentioned above. The
+Ch&#257;rans are divided into the five clans, R&#257;thor, Panw&#257;r, Chauh&#257;n, Puri and J&#257;don or Burthia, all of these being the names
+of leading R&#257;jp&#363;t clans; and as the Ch&#257;ran bards themselves were probably R&#257;jp&#363;ts, the Banj&#257;ras, who are descended from them,
+may claim the same lineage. Each clan or sept is divided into a number of subsepts; thus among the R&#257;thors the principal subsept
+is the Bhurkia, called after the Bh&#299;ka R&#257;thor already mentioned; and this is again split into four groups, Mersi, Mult&#257;si,
+Dheda and Kh&#257;md&#257;r, named after his four sons. As a rule, members of the same clan, Panw&#257;r, R&#257;thor and so on, may not intermarry,
+but Mr. Cumberlege states that a man belonging to the B&#257;nod or Bhurkia subsepts of the R&#257;thors must not take a wife from his
+own subsept, but may marry any other R&#257;thor girl. It seems probable that the same rule may hold with the other subsepts, as
+it is most unlikely that intermarriage should still be prohibited among so large a body as the R&#257;thor Ch&#257;rans have now become.
+It may be supposed therefore that the division into subsepts took place when it became too inconvenient to prohibit marriage
+<a id="d0e5041"></a><span class="pagenum">[<a href="#d0e5041">171</a>]</span>throughout the whole body of the sept, as has happened in other cases. The Mathuria Banj&#257;ras take their name from Mathura
+or Muttra and appear to be Br&#257;hmans. &#8220;They wear the sacred thread,<a id="d0e5043src" href="#d0e5043" class="noteref">22</a> know the <i>Gayatri Mantra</i>, and to the present day abstain from meat and liquor, subsisting entirely on grain and vegetables. They always had a sufficiency
+of Ch&#257;rans and servants (<i>J&#257;ngar</i>) in their villages to perform all necessary manual labour, and would not themselves work for a remuneration otherwise than
+by carrying grain, which was and still is their legitimate occupation; but it was not considered undignified to cut wood and
+grass for the household. Both Mathuria and Labh&#257;na men are fairer than the Ch&#257;rans; they wear better jewellery and their loin-cloths
+have a silk border, while those of the Ch&#257;rans are of rough, common cloth.&#8221; The Mathurias are sometimes known as Ahiw&#257;si,
+and may be connected with the Ahiw&#257;sis of the Hindust&#257;ni Districts, who also drive pack-bullocks and call themselves Br&#257;hmans.
+But it is naturally a sin for a Br&#257;hman to load the sacred ox, and any one who does so is held to have derogated from the
+priestly order. The Mathurias are divided according to Mr. Cumberlege into four groups called P&#257;nde, Dube, T&#299;wari and Chaube,
+all of which are common titles of Hindust&#257;ni Br&#257;hmans and signify a man learned in one, two, three and four Vedas respectively.
+It is probable that these groups are exogamous, marrying with each other, but this is not stated. The third division, the
+Labh&#257;nas, may derive their name from <i>lavana</i>, salt, and probably devoted themselves more especially to the carriage of this staple. They are said to be R&#257;jp&#363;ts, and to
+be descended from Mota and Mola, the cowherds of Krishna. The fourth subdivision are the Dh&#257;ris or bards of the caste, who
+rank below the others. According to their own story<a id="d0e5057src" href="#d0e5057" class="noteref">23</a> their ancestor was a member of the Bh&#257;t caste, who became a disciple of N&#257;nak, the Sikh apostle, and with him attended a
+feast given by the Mughal Emperor Humayun. Here he ate the flesh of a cow or buffalo, and in consequence became a Muhammadan
+and was circumcised. He was employed as a musician at the Mughal court, and his sons <a id="d0e5060"></a><span class="pagenum">[<a href="#d0e5060">172</a>]</span>joined the Ch&#257;rans and became the bards of the Banj&#257;ra caste. &#8220;The Dh&#257;ris,&#8221; Mr. Cumberlege continues, &#8220;are both musicians
+and mendicants; they sing in praise of their own and the Ch&#257;ran ancestors and of the old kings of Delhi; while at certain
+seasons of the year they visit Ch&#257;ran hamlets, when each family gives them a young bullock or a few rupees. They are Muhammadans,
+but worship S&#257;rasvati and at their marriages offer up a he-goat to G&#257;ji and Gandha, the two sons of the original Bh&#257;t, who
+became a Muhammadan. At burials a Fak&#299;r is called to read the prayers.&#8221;
+
+
+</p>
+</div>
+<div class="div2" id="d0e5062">
+<h3>5. Minor subcastes.</h3>
+<p>Besides the above four main divisions, there are a number of others, the caste being now of a very mixed character. Two principal
+Muhammadan groups are given by Sir H. Elliot, the T&#363;rkia and Mukeri. The T&#363;rkia have thirty-six septs, some with R&#257;jp&#363;t names
+and others territorial or titular. They seem to be a mixed group of Hindus who may have embraced Islam as the religion of
+their employers. The Mukeri Banj&#257;ras assert that they derive their name from Mecca (Makka), which one of their N&#257;iks, who
+had his camp in the vicinity, assisted Father Abraham in building.<a id="d0e5067src" href="#d0e5067" class="noteref">24</a> Mr. Crooke thinks that the name may be a corruption of Makkeri and mean a seller of maize. Mr. Cumberlege says of them: &#8220;Mult&#257;nis
+and Mukeris have been called Banj&#257;ras also, but have nothing in common with the caste; the Mult&#257;nis are carriers of grain
+and the Mukeris of wood and timber, and hence the confusion may have arisen between them.&#8221; But they are now held to be Banj&#257;ras
+by common usage; in Saugor the Mukeris also deal in cattle. From Ch&#257;nda a different set of subcastes is reported called Bh&#363;sarjin,
+Ladjin, Saojin and Kanhejin; the first may take their name from <i>bh&#363;sa</i>, the chaff of wheat, while Lad is the term used for people coming from Gujar&#257;t, and Sao means a banker. In Sambalpur again
+a class of Thuria Banj&#257;ras is found, divided into the Bandesia, Atharadesia, Navadesia and Chhadesia, or the men of the 52
+districts, the 18 districts, the 9 districts and the 6 districts respectively. The first and last two of these take food and
+marry with each other. Other groups are the Gu&#257;r Banj&#257;ras, apparently from Gu&#257;ra or Gw&#257;la, a milkman, the <a id="d0e5078"></a><span class="pagenum">[<a href="#d0e5078">173</a>]</span>G&#363;guria Banj&#257;ras, who may, Mr. Hira L&#257;l suggests, take their name from trading in <i>g&#363;gar</i>, a kind of gum, and the Bahr&#363;p Banj&#257;ras, who are Nats or acrobats. In Ber&#257;r also a number of the caste have become respectable
+cultivators and now call themselves Wanj&#257;ri, disclaiming any connection with the Banj&#257;ras, probably on account of the bad
+reputation for crime attached to these latter. Many of the Wanj&#257;ris have been allowed to rank with the Kunbi caste, and call
+themselves Wanj&#257;ri Kunbis in order the better to dissociate themselves from their parent caste. The existing caste is therefore
+of a very mixed nature, and the original Br&#257;hman and Ch&#257;ran strains, though still perfectly recognisable, cannot have maintained
+their purity.
+
+
+</p>
+</div>
+<div class="div2" id="d0e5083">
+<h3>6. Marriage: betrothal.</h3>
+<p>At a betrothal in Nim&#257;r the bridegroom and his friends come and stay in the next village to that of the bride. The two parties
+meet on the boundary of the village, and here the bride-price is fixed, which is often a very large sum, ranging from Rs.
+200 to Rs. 1000. Until the price is paid the father will not let the bridegroom into his house. In Yeotm&#257;l, when a betrothal
+is to be made, the parties go to a liquor-shop and there a betel-leaf and a large handful of sugar are distributed to everybody.
+Here the price to be paid for the bride amounts to Rs. 40 and four young bullocks. Prior to the wedding the bridegroom goes
+and stays for a month or so in the house of the bride&#8217;s father, and during this time he must provide a supply of liquor daily
+for the bride&#8217;s male relatives. The period was formerly longer, but now extends to a month at the most. While he resides at
+the bride&#8217;s house the bridegroom wears a cloth over his head so that his face cannot be seen. Probably the prohibition against
+seeing him applies to the bride only, as the rule in Ber&#257;r is that between the betrothal and marriage of a Ch&#257;ran girl she
+may not eat or drink in the bridegroom&#8217;s house, or show her face to him or any of his relatives. Mathuria girls must be wedded
+before they are seven years old, but the Ch&#257;rans permit them to remain single until after adolescence.
+
+
+</p>
+</div>
+<div class="div2" id="d0e5088">
+<h3>7. Marriage.</h3>
+<p>Banj&#257;ra marriages are frequently held in the rains, a season forbidden to other Hindus, but naturally the most convenient
+to them, because in the dry weather they are usually <a id="d0e5093"></a><span class="pagenum">[<a href="#d0e5093">174</a>]</span>travelling. For the marriage ceremony they pitch a tent in lieu of the marriage-shed, and on the ground they place two rice-pounding
+pestles, round which the bride and bridegroom make the seven turns. Others substitute for the pestles a pack-saddle with two
+bags of grain in order to symbolise their camp life. During the turns the girl&#8217;s hand is held by the Joshi or village priest,
+or some other Br&#257;hman, in case she should fall; such an occurrence being probably a very unlucky omen. Afterwards, the girl
+runs away and the Br&#257;hman has to pursue and catch her. In Bhand&#257;ra the girl is clad only in a light skirt and breast-cloth,
+and her body is rubbed all over with oil in order to make his task more difficult. During this time the bride&#8217;s party pelt
+the Br&#257;hman with rice, turmeric and areca-nuts, and sometimes even with stones; and if he is forced to cry with the pain,
+it is considered lucky. But if he finally catches the girl, he is conducted to a dais and sits there holding a brass plate
+in front of him, into which the bridegroom&#8217;s party drop presents. A case is mentioned of a Br&#257;hman having obtained Rs. 70
+in this manner. Among the Mathuria Banj&#257;ras of Ber&#257;r the ceremony resembles the usual Hindu type.<a id="d0e5095src" href="#d0e5095" class="noteref">25</a> Before the wedding the families bring the branches of eight or ten different kinds of trees, and perform the <i>hom</i> or fire sacrifice with them. A Br&#257;hman knots the clothes of the couple together, and they walk round the fire. When the bride
+arrives at the bridegroom&#8217;s hamlet after the wedding, two small brass vessels are given to her; she fetches water in these
+and returns them to the women of the boy&#8217;s family, who mix this with other water previously drawn, and the girl, who up to
+this period was considered of no caste at all, becomes a Mathuria.<a id="d0e5101src" href="#d0e5101" class="noteref">26</a> Food is cooked with this water, and the bride and bridegroom are formally received into the husband&#8217;s <i>kuri</i> or hamlet. It is possible that the mixing of the water may be a survival of the blood covenant, whereby a girl was received
+into her husband&#8217;s clan on her marriage by her blood being mixed with that of her husband.<a id="d0e5109src" href="#d0e5109" class="noteref">27</a> Or it may be simply symbolical of the union of the families. In some localities after the wedding the bride and bridegroom
+are made to <a id="d0e5112"></a><span class="pagenum">[<a href="#d0e5112">175</a>]</span>stand on two bullocks, which are driven forward, and it is believed that whichever of them falls off first will be the first
+to die.
+
+
+</p>
+</div>
+<div class="div2" id="d0e5114">
+<h3>8. Widow remarriage.</h3>
+<p>Owing to the scarcity of women in the caste a widow is seldom allowed to go out of the family, and when her husband dies she
+is taken either by his elder or younger brother; this is in opposition to the usual Hindu practice, which forbids the marriage
+of a woman to her deceased husband&#8217;s elder brother, on the ground that as successor to the headship of the joint family he
+stands to her, at least potentially, in the light of a father. If the widow prefers another man and runs away to him, the
+first husband&#8217;s relatives claim compensation, and threaten, in the event of its being refused, to abduct a girl from this
+man&#8217;s family in exchange for the widow. But no case of abduction has occurred in recent years. In Ber&#257;r the compensation claimed
+in the case of a woman marrying out of the family amounts to Rs. 75, with Rs. 5 for the N&#257;ik or headman of the family. Should
+the widow elope without her brother-in-law&#8217;s consent, he chooses ten or twelve of his friends to go and sit <i>dharna</i> (starving themselves) before the hut of the man who has taken her. He is then bound to supply these men with food and liquor
+until he has paid the customary sum, when he may marry the widow.<a id="d0e5122src" href="#d0e5122" class="noteref">28</a> In the event of the second husband being too poor to pay monetary compensation, he gives a goat, which is cut into eighteen
+pieces and distributed to the community.<a id="d0e5125src" href="#d0e5125" class="noteref">29</a>
+
+
+</p>
+</div>
+<div class="div2" id="d0e5131">
+<h3>9. Birth and death.</h3>
+<p>After the birth of a child the mother is unclean for five days, and lives apart in a separate hut, which is run up for her
+use in the <i>kuri</i> or hamlet. On the sixth day she washes the feet of all the children in the <i>kuri</i>, feeds them and then returns to her husband&#8217;s hut. When a child is born in a moving <i>t&#257;nda</i> or camp, the same rule is observed, and for five days the mother walks alone after the camp during the daily march. The caste
+bury the bodies of unmarried <a id="d0e5145"></a><span class="pagenum">[<a href="#d0e5145">176</a>]</span>persons and those dying of smallpox and burn the others. Their rites of mourning are not strict, and are observed only for
+three days. The Banj&#257;ras have a saying: &#8220;Death in a foreign land is to be preferred, where there are no kinsfolk to mourn,
+and the corpse is a feast for birds and animals&#8221;; but this may perhaps be taken rather as an expression of philosophic resignation
+to the fate which must be in store for many of them, than a real preference, as with most people the desire to die at home
+almost amounts to an instinct.
+
+
+</p>
+</div>
+<div class="div2" id="d0e5147">
+<h3>10. Religion: Banj&#257;ri Devi.</h3>
+<p>One of the tutelary deities of the Banj&#257;ras is Banj&#257;ri Devi, whose shrine is usually located in the forest. It is often represented
+by a heap of stones, a large stone smeared with vermilion being placed on the top of the heap to represent the goddess. When
+a Banj&#257;ra passes the place he casts a stone upon the heap as a prayer to the goddess to protect him from the dangers of the
+forest. A similar practice of offering bells from the necks of cattle is recorded by Mr. Thurston:<a id="d0e5152src" href="#d0e5152" class="noteref">30</a> &#8220;It is related by Moor that he passed a tree on which were hanging several hundred bells. This was a superstitious sacrifice
+of the Banj&#257;ras (Lamb&#257;ris), who, passing this tree, are in the habit of hanging a bell or bells upon it, which they take from
+the necks of their sick cattle, expecting to leave behind them the complaint also. Our servants particularly cautioned us
+against touching these diabolical bells, but as a few of them were taken for our own cattle, several accidents which happened
+were imputed to the anger of the deity to whom these offerings were made; who, they say, inflicts the same disorder on the
+unhappy bullock who carries a bell from the tree, as that from which he relieved the donor.&#8221; In their houses the Banj&#257;ri Devi
+is represented by a pack-saddle set on high in the room, and this is worshipped before the caravans set out on their annual
+tours.
+
+
+</p>
+</div>
+<div class="div2" id="d0e5160">
+<h3>11. M&#299;thu Bh&#363;kia.</h3>
+<p>Another deity is M&#299;thu Bh&#363;kia, an old freebooter, who lived in the Central Provinces; he is venerated by the dacoits as the
+most clever dacoit known in the annals of the caste, and a hut was usually set apart for him in each <a id="d0e5165"></a><span class="pagenum">[<a href="#d0e5165">177</a>]</span>hamlet, a staff carrying a white flag being planted before it. Before setting out for a dacoity, the men engaged would assemble
+at the hut of M&#299;thu Bh&#363;kia, and, burning a lamp before him, ask for an omen; if the wick of the lamp drooped the omen was
+propitious, and the men present then set out at once on the raid without returning home. They might not speak to each other
+nor answer if challenged; for if any one spoke the charm would be broken and the protection of M&#299;thu Bh&#363;kia removed; and they
+should either return to take the omens again or give up that particular dacoity altogether.<a id="d0e5167src" href="#d0e5167" class="noteref">31</a> It has been recorded as a characteristic trait of Banj&#257;ras that they will, as a rule, not answer if spoken to when engaged
+on a robbery, and the custom probably arises from this observance; but the worship of M&#299;thu Bh&#363;kia is now frequently neglected.
+After a successful dacoity a portion of the spoil would be set apart for M&#299;thu Bh&#363;kia, and of the balance the N&#257;ik or headman
+of the village received two shares if he participated in the crime; the man who struck the first blow or did most towards
+the common object also received two shares, and all the rest one share. With M&#299;thu Bh&#363;kia&#8217;s share a feast was given at which
+thanks were returned to him for the success of the enterprise, a burnt offering of incense being made in his tent and a libation
+of liquor poured over the flagstaff. A portion of the food was sent to the women and children, and the men sat down to the
+feast. Women were not allowed to share in the worship of M&#299;thu Bh&#363;kia nor to enter his hut.
+
+
+</p>
+</div>
+<div class="div2" id="d0e5170">
+<h3>12. Siva Bh&#257;ia.</h3>
+<p>Another favourite deity is Siva Bh&#257;ia, whose story is given by Colonel Mackenzie<a id="d0e5175src" href="#d0e5175" class="noteref">32</a> as follows: &#8220;The love borne by M&#257;ri M&#257;ta, the goddess of cholera, for the handsome Siva R&#257;thor, is an event of our own times
+(1874); she proposed to him, but his heart being pre-engaged he rejected her; and in consequence his earthly bride was smitten
+sick and died, and the hand of the goddess fell heavily on Siva himself, thwarting all his schemes and blighting his fortunes
+and possessions, until at last he gave himself up to her. She then possessed him and caused him to prosper exceedingly, gifting
+him with supernatural power until his fame was <a id="d0e5180"></a><span class="pagenum">[<a href="#d0e5180">178</a>]</span>noised abroad, and he was venerated as the saintly Siva Bh&#257;ia or great brother to all women, being himself unable to marry.
+But in his old age the goddess capriciously wished him to marry and have issue, but he refused and was slain and buried at
+Pohur in Ber&#257;r. A temple was erected over him and his kinsmen became priests of it, and hither large numbers are attracted
+by the supposed efficacy of vows made to Siva, the most sacred of all oaths being that taken in his name.&#8221; If a Banj&#257;ra swears
+by Siva Bh&#257;ia, placing his right hand on the bare head of his son and heir, and grasping a cow&#8217;s tail in his left, he will
+fear to perjure himself, lest by doing so he should bring injury on his son and a murrain on his cattle.<a id="d0e5182src" href="#d0e5182" class="noteref">33</a>
+
+
+</p>
+</div>
+<div class="div2" id="d0e5185">
+<h3>13. Worship of cattle.</h3>
+<p>Naturally also the Banj&#257;ras worshipped their pack-cattle.<a id="d0e5190src" href="#d0e5190" class="noteref">34</a> &#8220;When sickness occurs they lead the sick man to the feet of the bullock called H&#257;tadiya.<a id="d0e5199src" href="#d0e5199" class="noteref">35</a> On this animal no burden is ever laid, but he is decorated with streamers of red-dyed silk, and tinkling bells with many
+brass chains and rings on neck and feet, and silken tassels hanging in all directions; he moves steadily at the head of the
+convoy, and at the place where he lies down when he is tired they pitch their camp for the day; at his feet they make their
+vows when difficulties overtake them, and in illness, whether of themselves or their cattle, they trust to his worship for
+a cure.&#8221;
+
+
+</p>
+</div>
+<div class="div2" id="d0e5202">
+<h3>14. Connection with the Sikhs.</h3>
+<p>Mr. Balfour also mentions in his paper that the Banj&#257;ras call themselves Sikhs, and it is noticeable that the Ch&#257;ran subcaste
+say that their ancestors were three R&#257;jp&#363;t boys who followed Guru N&#257;nak, the prophet of the Sikhs. The influence of N&#257;nak
+appears to have been widely extended over northern India, and to have been felt by large bodies of the people other than those
+who actually embraced the Sikh religion. Cumberlege states<a id="d0e5207src" href="#d0e5207" class="noteref">36</a> that before starting to his marriage the bridegroom ties a rupee in his turban in honour of Guru N&#257;nak, which is afterwards
+expended in sweetmeats. <a id="d0e5212"></a><span class="pagenum">[<a href="#d0e5212">179</a>]</span>But otherwise the modern Banj&#257;ras do not appear to retain any Sikh observances.
+
+
+</p>
+</div>
+<div class="div2" id="d0e5214">
+<h3>15. Witchcraft.</h3>
+<p>&#8220;The Banj&#257;ras,&#8221; Sir A. Lyall writes,<a id="d0e5219src" href="#d0e5219" class="noteref">37</a> &#8220;are terribly vexed by witchcraft, to which their wandering and precarious existence especially exposes them in the shape
+of fever, rheumatism and dysentery. Solemn inquiries are still held in the wild jungles where these people camp out like gipsies,
+and many an unlucky hag has been strangled by sentence of their secret tribunals.&#8221; The business of magic and witchcraft was
+in the hands of two classes of Bhagats or magicians, one good and the other bad,<a id="d0e5224src" href="#d0e5224" class="noteref">38</a> who may correspond to the European practitioners of black and white magic. The good Bhagat is called Nimbu-k&#257;tna or lemon-cutter,
+a lemon speared on a knife being a powerful averter of evil spirits. He is a total abstainer from meat and liquor, and fasts
+once a week on the day sacred to the deity whom he venerates, usually Mah&#257;deo; he is highly respected and never panders to
+vice. But the J&#257;nta, the &#8216;Wise or Cunning Man,&#8217; is of a different type, and the following is an account of the devilry often
+enacted when a deputation visited him to inquire into the cause of a prolonged illness, a cattle murrain, a sudden death or
+other misfortune. A woman might often be called a D&#257;kun or witch in spite, and when once this word had been used, the husband
+or nearest male relative would be regularly bullied into consulting the J&#257;nta. Or if some woman had been ill for a week, an
+avaricious<a id="d0e5233src" href="#d0e5233" class="noteref">39</a> husband or brother would begin to whisper foul play. Witchcraft would be mentioned, and the wise man called in. He would
+give the sufferer a quid of betel, muttering an incantation, but this rarely effected a cure, as it was against the interest
+of all parties that it should do so. The sufferer&#8217;s relatives would then go to their N&#257;ik, tell him that the sick person was
+bewitched, and ask him to send a deputation to the J&#257;nta or witch-doctor. This would be at once despatched, consisting of
+one male adult from each house in the hamlet, with one of the sufferer&#8217;s relatives. On the road the party would bury a bone
+or other article to <a id="d0e5236"></a><span class="pagenum">[<a href="#d0e5236">180</a>]</span>test the wisdom of the witch-doctor. But he was not to be caught out, and on their arrival he would bid the deputation rest,
+and come to him for consultation on the following day. Meanwhile during the night the J&#257;nta would be thoroughly coached by
+some accomplice in the party. Next morning, meeting the deputation, he would tell every man all particulars of his name and
+family; name the invalid, and tell the party to bring materials for consulting the spirits, such as oil, vermilion, sugar,
+dates, cocoanut, <i>chironji</i>,<a id="d0e5241src" href="#d0e5241" class="noteref">40</a> and sesamum. In the evening, holding a lamp, the J&#257;nta would be possessed by M&#257;riai, the goddess of cholera; he would mention
+all particulars of the sick man&#8217;s illness, and indignantly inquire why they had buried the bone on the road, naming it and
+describing the place. If this did not satisfy the deputation, a goat would be brought, and he would name its sex with any
+distinguishing marks on the body. The sick person&#8217;s representative would then produce his <i>nazar</i> or fee, formerly Rs. 25, but lately the double of this or more. The J&#257;nta would now begin a sort of chant, introducing the
+names of the families of the <i>kuri</i> other than that containing her who was to be proclaimed a witch, and heap on them all kinds of abuse. Finally, he would assume
+an ironic tone, extol the virtues of a certain family, become facetious, and praise its representative then present. This
+man would then question the J&#257;nta on all points regarding his own family, his connections, worldly goods, and what gods he
+worshipped, ask who was the witch, who taught her sorcery, and how and why she practised it in this particular instance. But
+the witch-doctor, having taken care to be well coached, would answer everything correctly and fix the guilt on to the witch.
+A goat would be sacrificed and eaten with liquor, and the deputation would return. The punishment for being proclaimed a D&#257;kun
+or witch was formerly death to the woman and a fine to be paid by her relatives to the bewitched person&#8217;s family. The woman&#8217;s
+husband or her sons would be directed to kill her, and if they refused, other men were deputed to murder her, and bury the
+body at once with all the clothing and ornaments then on her person, while a further fine would be exacted from the family
+for not doing away with her themselves. <a id="d0e5253"></a><span class="pagenum">[<a href="#d0e5253">181</a>]</span>But murder for witchcraft has been almost entirely stopped, and nowadays the husband, after being fined a few head of cattle,
+which are given to the sick man, is turned out of the village with his wife. It is quite possible, however, that an obnoxious
+old hag would even now not escape death, especially if the money fine were not forthcoming, and an instance is known in recent
+times of a mother being murdered by her three sons. The whole village combined to screen these amiable young men, and eventually
+they made the J&#257;nta the scapegoat, and he got seven years, while the murderers could not be touched. Colonel Mackenzie writes
+that, &#8220;Curious to relate, the J&#257;ntas, known locally as Bhagats, in order to become possessed of their alleged powers of divination
+and prophecy, require to travel to Kazhe, beyond Surat, there to learn and be instructed by low-caste Koli impostors.&#8221; This
+is interesting as an instance of the powers of witchcraft being attributed by the Hindus or higher race to the indigenous
+primitive tribes, a rule which Dr. Tylor and Dr. Jevons consider to hold good generally in the history of magic.
+
+
+</p>
+</div>
+<div class="div2" id="d0e5255">
+<h3>16. Human sacrifice.</h3>
+<p>Several instances are known also of the Banj&#257;ras having practised human sacrifice. Mr. Thurston states:<a id="d0e5260src" href="#d0e5260" class="noteref">41</a> &#8220;In former times the Lamb&#257;dis, before setting out on a journey, used to procure a little child and bury it in the ground
+up to the shoulders, and then drive their loaded bullocks over the unfortunate victim. In proportion to the bullocks thoroughly
+trampling the child to death, so their belief in a successful journey increased.&#8221; The Abb&eacute; Dubois describes another form of
+sacrifice:<a id="d0e5268src" href="#d0e5268" class="noteref">42</a>
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;The Lamb&#257;dis are accused of the still more atrocious crime of offering up human sacrifices. When they wish to perform this
+horrible act, it is said, they secretly carry off the first person they meet. Having conducted the victim to some lonely spot,
+they dig a hole in which they bury him up to the neck. While he is still alive they make a sort of lamp of dough made of flour,
+which they place on his head; this they fill with oil, and light four wicks in it. Having done this, the men and women join
+hands and, forming a <a id="d0e5275"></a><span class="pagenum">[<a href="#d0e5275">182</a>]</span>circle, dance round their victim, singing and making a great noise until he expires.&#8221; Mr. Cumberlege records<a id="d0e5277src" href="#d0e5277" class="noteref">43</a> the following statement of a child kidnapped by a Banj&#257;ra caravan in 1871. After explaining how he was kidnapped and the
+tip of his tongue cut off to give him a defect in speech, the Kunbi lad, taken from S&#257;hungarhi, in the Bhand&#257;ra District,
+went on to say that, &#8220;The <i>t&#257;nda</i> (caravan) encamped for the night in the jungle. In the morning a woman named Gangi said that the devil was in her and that
+a sacrifice must be made. On this four men and three women took a boy to a place they had made for <i>p&#363;ja</i> (worship). They fed him with milk, rice and sugar, and then made him stand up, when Gangi drew a sword and approached the
+child, who tried to run away; caught and brought back to this place, Gangi, holding the sword with both hands and standing
+on the child&#8217;s right side, cut off his head with one blow. Gangi collected the blood and sprinkled it on the idol; this idol
+is made of stone, is about 9 inches high, and has something sparkling in its forehead. The camp marched that day, and for
+four or five days consecutively, without another sacrifice; but on the fifth day a young woman came to the camp to sell curds,
+and having bought some, the Banj&#257;ras asked her to come in in the evening and eat with them. She did come, and after eating
+with the women slept in the camp. Early next morning she was sacrificed in the same way as the boy had been, but it took three
+blows to cut off her head; it was done by Gangi, and the blood was sprinkled on the stone idol. About a month ago Sit&#257;r&#257;m,
+a Gond lad, who had also been kidnapped and was in the camp, told me to run away as it had been decided to offer me up in
+sacrifice at the next Jiuti festival, so I ran away.&#8221; The child having been brought to the police, a searching and protracted
+inquiry was held, which, however, determined nothing, though it did not disprove his story.
+
+
+</p>
+</div>
+<div class="div2" id="d0e5288">
+<h3>17. Admission of outsiders: kidnapped children and slaves.</h3>
+<p>The Banj&#257;ra caste is not closed to outsiders, but the general rule is to admit only women who have been married to Banj&#257;ra
+men. Women of the lowest and impure castes are excluded, and for some unknown reason the Patwas<a id="d0e5293src" href="#d0e5293" class="noteref">44</a> and <a id="d0e5296"></a><span class="pagenum">[<a href="#d0e5296">183</a>]</span>Nunias are bracketed with these. In Nim&#257;r it is stated that formerly Gonds, Korkus and even Bal&#257;his<a id="d0e5298src" href="#d0e5298" class="noteref">45</a> might become Banj&#257;ras, but this does not happen now, because the caste has lost its occupation of carrying goods, and there
+is therefore no inducement to enter it. In former times they were much addicted to kidnapping children&#8212;these were whipped
+up or enticed away whenever an opportunity presented itself during their expeditions. The children were first put into the
+<i>gonis</i> or grain bags of the bullocks and so carried for a few days, being made over at each halt to the care of a woman, who would
+pop the child back into its bag if any stranger passed by the encampment. The tongues of boys were sometimes slit or branded
+with hot gold, this last being the ceremony of initiation into the caste still used in Nim&#257;r. Girls, if they were as old as
+seven, were sometimes disfigured for fear of recognition, and for this purpose the juice of the marking-nut<a id="d0e5304src" href="#d0e5304" class="noteref">46</a> tree would be smeared on one side of the face, which burned into the skin and entirely altered the appearance. Such children
+were known as J&#257;ngar. Girls would be used as concubines and servants of the married wife, and boys would also be employed
+as servants. J&#257;ngar boys would be married to J&#257;ngar girls, both remaining in their condition of servitude. But sometimes the
+more enterprising of them would abscond and settle down in a village. The rule was that for seven generations the children
+of J&#257;ngars or slaves continued in that condition, after which they were recognised as proper Banj&#257;ras. The J&#257;ngar could not
+draw in smoke through the stem of the huqqa when it was passed round in the assembly, but must take off the stem and inhale
+from the bowl. The J&#257;ngar also could not eat off the bell-metal plates of his master, because these were liable to pollution,
+but must use brass plates. At one time the Banj&#257;ras conducted a regular traffic in female slaves between Gujar&#257;t and Central
+India, selling in each country the girls whom they had kidnapped in the other.<a id="d0e5308src" href="#d0e5308" class="noteref">47</a>
+
+
+
+</p>
+<div id="d0e5314" class="figure"><img border="0" src="images/p184.jpg" alt="Banj&#257;ra women with the singh or horn." width="720" height="398"><p class="figureHead">Banj&#257;ra women with the <i>singh</i> or horn.
+</p>
+</div><p>
+
+
+<a id="d0e5321"></a><span class="pagenum">[<a href="#d0e5321">184</a>]</span></p>
+</div>
+<div class="div2" id="d0e5322">
+<h3>18. Dress.</h3>
+<p>Up to twelve years of age a Ch&#257;ran girl only wears a skirt with a shoulder-cloth tucked into the waist and carried over the
+left arm and the head. After this she may have anklets and bangles on the forearm and a breast-cloth. But until she is married
+she may not have the <i>w&#257;nkri</i> or curved anklet, which marks that estate, nor wear bone or ivory bangles on the upper arm.<a id="d0e5330src" href="#d0e5330" class="noteref">48</a> When she is ten years old a Labh&#257;na girl is given two small bundles containing a nut, some cowries and rice, which are knotted
+to two corners of the <i>dupatta</i> or shoulder-cloth and hung over the shoulder, one in front and one behind. This denotes maidenhood. The bundles are considered
+sacred, are always knotted to the shoulder-cloth in wear, and are only removed to be tucked into the waist at the girl&#8217;s marriage,
+where they are worn till death. These bundles alone distinguish the Labh&#257;na from the Mathuria woman. Women often have their
+hair hanging down beside the face in front and woven behind with silver thread into a plait down the back. This is known as
+Anthi, and has a number of cowries at the end. They have large bell-shaped ornaments of silver tied over the head and hanging
+down behind the ears, the hollow part of the ornament being stuffed with sheep&#8217;s wool dyed red; and to these are attached
+little bells, while the anklets on the feet are also hollow and contain little stones or balls, which tinkle as they move.
+They have skirts, and separate short cloths drawn across the shoulders according to the northern fashion, usually red or green
+in colour, and along the skirt-borders double lines of cowries are sewn. Their breast-cloths are profusely ornamented with
+needle-work embroidery and small pieces of glass sewn into them, and are tied behind with cords of many colours whose ends
+are decorated with cowries and beads. Strings of beads, ten to twenty thick, threaded on horse-hair, are worn round the neck.
+Their favourite ornaments are cowries,<a id="d0e5336src" href="#d0e5336" class="noteref">49</a> and they <a id="d0e5339"></a><span class="pagenum">[<a href="#d0e5339">185</a>]</span>have these on their dress, in their houses and on the trappings of their bullocks. On the arms they have ten or twelve bangles
+of ivory, or in default of this lac, horn or cocoanut-shell. Mr. Ball states that he was &#8220;at once struck by the peculiar costumes
+and brilliant clothing of these Indian gipsies. They recalled to my mind the appearance of the gipsies of the Lower Danube
+and Wallachia.&#8221;<a id="d0e5341src" href="#d0e5341" class="noteref">50</a> The most distinctive ornament of a Banj&#257;ra married woman is, however, a small stick about 6 inches long made of the wood
+of the <i>khair</i> or catechu. In Nim&#257;r this is given to a woman by her husband at marriage, and she wears it afterwards placed upright on the
+top of the head, the hair being wound round it and the head-cloth draped over it in a graceful fashion. Widows leave it off,
+but on remarriage adopt it again. The stick is known as <i>chunda</i> by the Banj&#257;ras, but outsiders call it <i>singh</i> or horn. In Yeotm&#257;l, instead of one, the women have two little sticks fixed upright in the hair. The rank of the woman is
+said to be shown by the angle at which she wears this horn.<a id="d0e5355src" href="#d0e5355" class="noteref">51</a> The dress of the men presents no features of special interest. In Nim&#257;r they usually have a necklace of coral beads, and
+some of them carry, slung on a thread round the neck, a <a id="d0e5364"></a><span class="pagenum">[<a href="#d0e5364">186</a>]</span>tin tooth-pick and ear-scraper, while a small mirror and comb are kept in the head-cloth so that their toilet can be performed
+anywhere.
+
+</p>
+<p>Mr. Cumberlege<a id="d0e5368src" href="#d0e5368" class="noteref">52</a> notes that in former times all Ch&#257;ran Banj&#257;ras when carrying grain for an army placed a twig of some tree, the sacred <i>n&#299;m</i><a id="d0e5375src" href="#d0e5375" class="noteref">53</a> when available, in their turban to show that they were on the war-path; and that they would do the same now if they had occasion
+to fight to the death on any social matter or under any supposed grievance.
+
+
+</p>
+</div>
+<div class="div2" id="d0e5379">
+<h3>19. Social customs.</h3>
+<p>The Banj&#257;ras eat all kinds of meat, including fowls and pork, and drink liquor. But the Mathurias abstain from both flesh
+and liquor. Major Gunthorpe states that the Banj&#257;ras are accustomed to drink before setting out for a dacoity or robbery and,
+as they smoke after drinking, the remains of leaf-pipes lying about the scene of action may indicate their handiwork. They
+rank below the cultivating castes, and Br&#257;hmans will not take water to drink from them. When engaged in the carrying trade,
+they usually lived in <i>kuris</i> or hamlets attached to such regular villages as had considerable tracts of waste land belonging to them. When the <i>t&#257;nda</i> or caravan started on its long carrying trips, the young men and some of the women went with it with the working bullocks,
+while the old men and the remainder of the women and children remained to tend the breeding cattle in the hamlet. In Nim&#257;r
+they generally rented a little land in the village to give them a footing, and paid also a carrying fee on the number of cattle
+present. Their spare time was constantly occupied in the manufacture of hempen twine and sacking, which was much superior
+to that obtainable in towns. Even in Captain Forsyth&#8217;s<a id="d0e5390src" href="#d0e5390" class="noteref">54</a> time (1866) the construction of railways and roads had seriously interfered with the Banjaras&#8217; calling, and they had perforce
+taken to agriculture. Many of them have settled in the new ryotw&#257;ri villages in Nim&#257;r as Government tenants. They still grow
+<i>tilli</i><a id="d0e5398src" href="#d0e5398" class="noteref">55</a> in preference to other crops, because this oilseed can be raised without much labour or skill, and during their former nomadic
+life they were accustomed to <a id="d0e5402"></a><span class="pagenum">[<a href="#d0e5402">187</a>]</span>sow it on any poor strip of land which they might rent for a season. Some of them also are accustomed to leave a part of their
+holding untilled in memory of their former and more prosperous life. In many villages they have not yet built proper houses,
+but continue to live in mud huts thatched with grass. They consider it unlucky to inhabit a house with a cement or tiled roof;
+this being no doubt a superstition arising from their camp life. Their houses must also be built so that the main beams do
+not cross, that is, the main beam of a house must never be in such a position that if projected it would cut another main
+beam; but the beams may be parallel. The same rule probably governed the arrangement of tents in their camps. In Nim&#257;r they
+prefer to live at some distance from water, probably that is of a tank or river; and this seems to be a survival of a usage
+mentioned by the Abb&eacute; Dubois:<a id="d0e5404src" href="#d0e5404" class="noteref">56</a> &#8220;Among other curious customs of this odious caste is one that obliges them to drink no water which is not drawn from springs
+or wells. The water from rivers and tanks being thus forbidden, they are obliged in case of necessity to dig a little hole
+by the side of a tank or river and take the water filtering through, which, by this means, is supposed to become spring water.&#8221;
+It is possible that this rule may have had its origin in a sanitary precaution. Colonel Sleeman notes<a id="d0e5409src" href="#d0e5409" class="noteref">57</a> that the Banj&#257;ras on their carrying trips preferred by-paths through jungles to the high roads along cultivated plains, as
+grass, wood and water were more abundant along such paths; and when they could not avoid the high roads, they commonly encamped
+as far as they could from villages and towns, and upon the banks of rivers and streams, with the same object of obtaining
+a sufficient supply of grass, wood and water. Now it is well known that the decaying vegetation in these hill streams renders
+the water noxious and highly productive of malaria. And it seems possible that the perception of this fact led the Banj&#257;ras
+to dig shallow wells by the sides of the streams for their drinking-water, so that the supply thus obtained might be in some
+degree filtered by percolation through the <a id="d0e5414"></a><span class="pagenum">[<a href="#d0e5414">188</a>]</span>intervening soil and freed from its vegetable germs. And the custom may have grown into a taboo, its underlying reason being
+unknown to the bulk of them, and be still practised, though no longer necessary when they do not travel. If this explanation
+be correct it would be an interesting conclusion that the Banj&#257;ras anticipated so far as they were able the sanitary precaution
+by which our soldiers are supplied with portable filters when on the march.
+
+
+
+</p>
+<div id="d0e5416" class="figure"><img border="0" src="images/p188.jpg" alt="Group of Banj&#257;ra women." width="720" height="402"><p class="figureHead">Group of Banj&#257;ra women.</p>
+</div><p>
+
+
+</p>
+</div>
+<div class="div2" id="d0e5420">
+<h3>20. The N&#257;ik or headman. Banj&#257;ra dogs.</h3>
+<p>Each <i>kuri</i> (hamlet) or <i>t&#257;nda</i> (caravan) had a chief or leader with the designation of N&#257;ik, a Telugu word meaning &#8216;lord&#8217; or &#8216;master.&#8217; The office of N&#257;ik<a id="d0e5431src" href="#d0e5431" class="noteref">58</a> was only partly hereditary, and the choice also depended on ability. The N&#257;ik had authority to decide all disputes in the
+community, and the only appeal from him lay to the representatives of Bhangi and Jhangi N&#257;ik&#8217;s families at Narsi and Poona,
+and to Burthia N&#257;ik&#8217;s successors in the Telugu country. As already seen, the N&#257;ik received two shares if he participated in
+a robbery or other crime, and a fee on the remarriage of a widow outside her family and on the discovery of a witch. Another
+matter in which he was specially interested was pig-sticking. The Banj&#257;ras have a particular breed of dogs, and with these
+they were accustomed to hunt wild pig on foot, carrying spears. When a pig was killed, the head was cut off and presented
+to the N&#257;ik or headman, and if any man was injured or gored by the pig in the hunt, the N&#257;ik kept and fed him without charge
+until he recovered.
+
+</p>
+<p>The following notice of the Banj&#257;ras and their dogs may be reproduced:<a id="d0e5436src" href="#d0e5436" class="noteref">59</a> &#8220;They are brave and have the reputation of great independence, which I am not disposed to allow to them. The Wanj&#257;ri indeed
+is insolent on the road, and will drive his bullocks up against a Sahib or any one else; but at any disadvantage he is abject
+enough. I remember one who rather enjoyed seeing his dogs attack me, whom he supposed alone and unarmed, but the sight of
+a cocked pistol made him very quick in calling them off, and very humble in praying for their lives, which I spared <a id="d0e5442"></a><span class="pagenum">[<a href="#d0e5442">189</a>]</span>less for his entreaties than because they were really noble animals. The Wanj&#257;ris are famous for their dogs, of which there
+are three breeds. The first is a large, smooth dog, generally black, sometimes fawn-coloured, with a square heavy head, most
+resembling the Danish boarhound. This is the true Wanj&#257;ri dog. The second is also a large, square-headed dog, but shaggy,
+more like a great underbred spaniel than anything else. The third is an almost tailless greyhound, of the type known all over
+India by the various names of L&#257;t, Polygar, R&#257;mp&#363;ri, etc. They all run both by sight and scent, and with their help the Wanj&#257;ris
+kill a good deal of game, chiefly pigs; but I think they usually keep clear of the old fighting boars. Besides sport and their
+legitimate occupations the Wanj&#257;ris seldom stickle at supplementing their resources by theft, especially of cattle; and they
+are more than suspected of infanticide.&#8221;
+
+</p>
+<p>The Banj&#257;ras are credited with great affection for their dogs, and the following legend is told about one of them: Once upon
+a time a Banj&#257;ra, who had a faithful dog, took a loan from a Bania (moneylender) and pledged his dog with him as security
+for payment. And some time afterwards, while the dog was with the moneylender, a theft was committed in his house, and the
+dog followed the thieves and saw them throw the property into a tank. When they went away the dog brought the Bania to the
+tank and he found his property. He was therefore very pleased with the dog and wrote a letter to his master, saying that the
+loan was repaid, and tied it round his neck and said to him, &#8216;Now, go back to your master.&#8217; So the dog started back, but on
+his way he met his master, the Banj&#257;ra, coming to the Bania with the money for the repayment of the loan. And when the Banj&#257;ra
+saw the dog he was angry with him, not seeing the letter, and thinking he had run away, and said to him, &#8216;Why did you come,
+betraying your trust?&#8217; and he killed the dog in a rage. And after killing him he found the letter and was very grieved, so
+he built a temple to the dog&#8217;s memory, which is called the Kukurra Mandhi. And in the temple is the image of a dog. This temple
+is in the Dr&#363;g District, five miles from <a id="d0e5446"></a><span class="pagenum">[<a href="#d0e5446">190</a>]</span>B&#257;lod. A similar story is told of the temple of Kukurra Math in Mandla.
+
+
+</p>
+</div>
+<div class="div2" id="d0e5448">
+<h3>21. Criminal tendencies of the caste.</h3>
+<p>The following notice of Banj&#257;ra criminals is abstracted from Major Gunthorpe&#8217;s interesting account:<a id="d0e5453src" href="#d0e5453" class="noteref">60</a> &#8220;In the palmy days of the tribe dacoities were undertaken on the most extensive scale. Gangs of fifty to a hundred and fifty
+well-armed men would go long distances from their <i>t&#257;ndas</i> or encampments for the purpose of attacking houses in villages, or treasure-parties or wealthy travellers on the high roads.
+The more intimate knowledge which the police have obtained concerning the habits of this race, and the detection and punishment
+of many criminals through approvers, have aided in stopping the heavy class of dacoities formerly prevalent, and their operations
+are now on a much smaller scale. In British territory arms are scarcely carried, but each man has a good stout stick (<i>gedi</i>), the bark of which is peeled off so as to make it look whitish and fresh. The attack is generally commenced by stone-throwing
+and then a rush is made, the sticks being freely used and the victims almost invariably struck about the head or face. While
+plundering, Hindust&#257;ni is sometimes spoken, but as a rule they never utter a word, but grunt signals to one another. Their
+loin-cloths are braced up, nothing is worn on the upper part of the body, and their faces are generally muffled. In house
+dacoities men are posted at different corners of streets, each with a supply of well-chosen round stones to keep off any people
+coming to the rescue. Banj&#257;ras are very expert cattle-lifters, sometimes taking as many as a hundred head or even more at
+a time. This kind of robbery is usually practised in hilly or forest country where the cattle are sent to graze. Secreting
+themselves they watch for the herdsman to have his usual midday doze and for the cattle to stray to a little distance. As
+many as possible are then driven off to a great distance and secreted in ravines and woods. If questioned they answer that
+the animals belong to landowners and have been given into their charge to graze, and as this is done every day the questioner
+thinks nothing more of it. After a time the cattle are <a id="d0e5464"></a><span class="pagenum">[<a href="#d0e5464">191</a>]</span>quietly sold to individual purchasers or taken to markets at a distance.<span id="d0e5466" class="corr" title="Source: ">&#8221;</span>
+
+
+</p>
+</div>
+<div class="div2" id="d0e5469">
+<h3>22. Their virtues.</h3>
+<p>The Banj&#257;ras, however, are far from being wholly criminal, and the number who have adopted an honest mode of livelihood is
+continually on the increase. Some allowance must be made for their having been deprived of their former calling by the cessation
+of the continual wars which distracted India under native rule, and the extension of roads and railways which has rendered
+their mode of transport by pack-bullocks almost entirely obsolete. At one time practically all the grain exported from Chhatt&#299;sgarh
+was carried by them. In 1881 Mr. Kitts noted that the number of Banj&#257;ras convicted in the Ber&#257;r criminal courts was lower
+in proportion to the strength of the caste than that of Muhammadans, Br&#257;hmans, Koshtis or Sunars,<a id="d0e5474src" href="#d0e5474" class="noteref">61</a> though the offences committed by them were usually more heinous. Colonel Mackenzie had quite a favourable opinion of them:
+&#8220;A Banj&#257;ra who can read and write is unknown. But their memories, from cultivation, are marvellous and very retentive. They
+carry in their heads, without slip or mistake, the most varied and complicated transactions and the share of each in such,
+striking a debtor and creditor account as accurately as the best-kept ledger, while their history and songs are all learnt
+by heart and transmitted orally from generation to generation. On the whole, and taken rightly in their clannish nature, their
+virtues preponderate over their vices. In the main they are truthful and very brave, be it in war or the chase, and once gained
+over are faithful and devoted adherents. With the pride of high descent and with the right that might gives in unsettled and
+troublous times, these Banj&#257;ras habitually lord it over and contemn the settled inhabitants of the plains. And now not having
+foreseen their own fate, or at least not timely having read the warnings given by a yearly diminishing occupation, which slowly
+has taken their bread away, it is a bitter pill for them to sink into the ryot class or, oftener still, under stern necessity
+to become the ryot&#8217;s servant. But they are settling to their fate, and the time must come when <a id="d0e5479"></a><span class="pagenum">[<a href="#d0e5479">192</a>]</span>all their peculiar distinctive marks and traditions will be forgotten.&#8221;
+
+
+</p>
+</div>
+<div class="footnotes">
+<hr class="fnsep">
+<p class="footnote"><span class="label"><a id="d0e4784" href="#d0e4784src" class="noteref">1</a></span> This article is based principally on a <i>Monograph on the Banj&#257;ra Clan</i>, by Mr. N. F. Cumberlege of the Ber&#257;r Police, believed to have been first written in 1869 and reprinted in 1882; notes on
+the Banj&#257;ras written by Colonel Mackenzie and printed in the <i>Ber&#257;r Census Report</i> (1881) and the <i>Pioneer</i> newspaper (communicated by Mrs. Horsburgh); Major Gunthorpe&#8217;s <i>Criminal Tribes</i>; papers by Mr. M. E. Khare, Extra-Assistant Commissioner, Ch&#257;nda; Mr. N&#257;r&#257;yan Rao, Tahr., Bet&#363;l; Mr. Mukund Rao, Manager,
+Pachmarhi Estate; and information on the caste collected in Yeotm&#257;l and Nim&#257;r.
+</p>
+<p class="footnote"><span class="label"><a id="d0e4803" href="#d0e4803src" class="noteref">2</a></span> Mr. Crooke&#8217;s <i>Tribes and Castes</i>, art. Banj&#257;ra, para. 1.
+</p>
+<p class="footnote"><span class="label"><a id="d0e4809" href="#d0e4809src" class="noteref">3</a></span> <i>Ber&#257;r Census Report</i> (1881), p. 150.
+</p>
+<p class="footnote"><span class="label"><a id="d0e4814" href="#d0e4814src" class="noteref">4</a></span> <i>Ibidem</i>, para. 2, quoting Dowson&#8217;s Elliot, v. 100.
+</p>
+<p class="footnote"><span class="label"><a id="d0e4822" href="#d0e4822src" class="noteref">5</a></span> Khan Bahadur Fazalullah Lutfullah Far&#299;di in the <i>Bombay Gazetteer</i> (<i>Muhammadans of Gujarat</i>, p. 86) quoting from General Briggs (<i>Transactions Bombay Literary Society</i>, vol. i. 183) says that &#8220;as carriers of grain for Muhammadan armies the Banj&#257;ras have figured in history from the days of
+Muhammad Tughlak (<span class="smallcaps">A.D.</span> 1340) to those of Aur&#257;ngzeb.&#8221;
+</p>
+<p class="footnote"><span class="label"><a id="d0e4837" href="#d0e4837src" class="noteref">6</a></span> Sir H. M. Elliot&#8217;s <i>Supplemental Glossary</i>.
+</p>
+<p class="footnote"><span class="label"><a id="d0e4851" href="#d0e4851src" class="noteref">7</a></span> <i>Monograph on the Banj&#257;ra Clan</i>, p. 8.
+</p>
+<p class="footnote"><span class="label"><a id="d0e4864" href="#d0e4864src" class="noteref">8</a></span> <i>Hindus of Gujar&#257;t</i>, p. 214 <i>et seq.</i></p>
+<p class="footnote"><span class="label"><a id="d0e4871" href="#d0e4871src" class="noteref">9</a></span> <i>R&#257;jasth&#257;n</i>, i. 602.
+</p>
+<p class="footnote"><span class="label"><a id="d0e4876" href="#d0e4876src" class="noteref">10</a></span> <i>Ibidem</i>, ii. 570, 573.
+</p>
+<p class="footnote"><span class="label"><a id="d0e4923" href="#d0e4923src" class="noteref">11</a></span> This custom does not necessarily indicate a special connection between the Banj&#257;ras and Ch&#257;rans, as it is common to several
+castes in R&#257;jput&#257;na; but it indicates that the Banj&#257;ras came from R&#257;jput&#257;na. Banj&#257;ra men also frequently wear the hair long,
+down to the neck, which is another custom of R&#257;jput&#257;na.
+</p>
+<p class="footnote"><span class="label"><a id="d0e4929" href="#d0e4929src" class="noteref">12</a></span> <i>Jungle Life in India</i>, p. 517.
+</p>
+<p class="footnote"><span class="label"><a id="d0e4943" href="#d0e4943src" class="noteref">13</a></span> <i>Ber&#257;r Census Report</i> (1881), p. 152.
+</p>
+<p class="footnote"><span class="label"><a id="d0e4950" href="#d0e4950src" class="noteref">14</a></span> <i>Bombay Gazetteer, Hindus of Gujar&#257;t.</i></p>
+<p class="footnote"><span class="label"><a id="d0e4954" href="#d0e4954src" class="noteref">15</a></span> <i>Letter on the Mar&#257;thas</i> (1798), p. 67, <i>India Office Tracts.</i></p>
+<p class="footnote"><span class="label"><a id="d0e4969" href="#d0e4969src" class="noteref">16</a></span> <i>Army of the Indian Mughals</i>, p. 192.
+</p>
+<p class="footnote"><span class="label"><a id="d0e4981" href="#d0e4981src" class="noteref">17</a></span> <i>Monograph</i>, p. 14, and <i>Ber&#257;r Census Report</i> (1881) (Kitts), p. 151.
+</p>
+<p class="footnote"><span class="label"><a id="d0e4989" href="#d0e4989src" class="noteref">18</a></span> These are held to have been descendants of the Bh&#299;ka R&#257;thor referred to by Colonel Mackenzie above.
+</p>
+<p class="footnote"><span class="label"><a id="d0e5013" href="#d0e5013src" class="noteref">19</a></span> See note 3, p. 168.
+</p>
+<p class="footnote"><span class="label"><a id="d0e5024" href="#d0e5024src" class="noteref">20</a></span> General Briggs quoted by Mr. Far&#299;di in <i>Bombay Gazetteer, Muhammadans of Gujar&#257;t</i>, p. 86.
+</p>
+<p class="footnote"><span class="label"><a id="d0e5030" href="#d0e5030src" class="noteref">21</a></span> A. Wellesley (1800), quoted in Mr. Crooke&#8217;s edition of <i>Hobson-Jobson</i>, art. Brinjarry.
+</p>
+<p class="footnote"><span class="label"><a id="d0e5043" href="#d0e5043src" class="noteref">22</a></span> Cumberlege, <i>loc. cit.</i></p>
+<p class="footnote"><span class="label"><a id="d0e5057" href="#d0e5057src" class="noteref">23</a></span> Cumberlege, pp. 28, 29.
+</p>
+<p class="footnote"><span class="label"><a id="d0e5067" href="#d0e5067src" class="noteref">24</a></span> Elliot&#8217;s <i>Races</i>, quoted by Mr. Crooke, <i>ibidem.</i></p>
+<p class="footnote"><span class="label"><a id="d0e5095" href="#d0e5095src" class="noteref">25</a></span> Cumberlege, pp. 4, 5.
+</p>
+<p class="footnote"><span class="label"><a id="d0e5101" href="#d0e5101src" class="noteref">26</a></span> Cumberlege, <i>l.c.</i></p>
+<p class="footnote"><span class="label"><a id="d0e5109" href="#d0e5109src" class="noteref">27</a></span> This custom is noticed in the article on Khairw&#257;r.
+</p>
+<p class="footnote"><span class="label"><a id="d0e5122" href="#d0e5122src" class="noteref">28</a></span> Cumberlege, p. 18.
+</p>
+<p class="footnote"><span class="label"><a id="d0e5125" href="#d0e5125src" class="noteref">29</a></span> Mr. H&#299;ra L&#257;l suggests that this custom may have something to do with the phrase <i>Ath&#257;ra j&#257;t ke g&#257;yi</i>, or &#8216;She has gone to the eighteen castes,&#8217; used of a woman who has been turned out of the community. This phrase seems, however,
+to be a euphemism, eighteen castes being a term of indefinite multitude for any or no caste. The number eighteen may be selected
+from the same unknown association which causes the goat to be cut into eighteen pieces.
+</p>
+<p class="footnote"><span class="label"><a id="d0e5152" href="#d0e5152src" class="noteref">30</a></span> <i>Ethnographic Notes in Southern India</i>, p. 344, quoting from Moor&#8217;s <i>Narrative of Little&#8217;s Detachment</i>.
+</p>
+<p class="footnote"><span class="label"><a id="d0e5167" href="#d0e5167src" class="noteref">31</a></span> Cumberlege, p. 35.
+</p>
+<p class="footnote"><span class="label"><a id="d0e5175" href="#d0e5175src" class="noteref">32</a></span> <i>Ber&#257;r Census Report</i>, 1881.
+</p>
+<p class="footnote"><span class="label"><a id="d0e5182" href="#d0e5182src" class="noteref">33</a></span> Cumberlege, p. 21.
+</p>
+<p class="footnote"><span class="label"><a id="d0e5190" href="#d0e5190src" class="noteref">34</a></span> The following instance is taken from Mr. Balfour&#8217;s article, &#8216;Migratory Tribes of Central India,&#8217; in <i>J. A. S. B.</i>, new series, vol. xiii., quoted in Mr. Crooke&#8217;s <i>Tribes and Castes</i>.
+</p>
+<p class="footnote"><span class="label"><a id="d0e5199" href="#d0e5199src" class="noteref">35</a></span> From the Sanskrit H&#257;tya-&#257;dhya, meaning &#8216;That which it is most sinful to slay&#8217; (Balfour).
+</p>
+<p class="footnote"><span class="label"><a id="d0e5207" href="#d0e5207src" class="noteref">36</a></span> <i>Monograph</i>, p. 12.
+</p>
+<p class="footnote"><span class="label"><a id="d0e5219" href="#d0e5219src" class="noteref">37</a></span> <i>Asiatic Studies</i>, i. p. 118 (ed. 1899).
+</p>
+<p class="footnote"><span class="label"><a id="d0e5224" href="#d0e5224src" class="noteref">38</a></span> Cumberlege, p. 23 <i>et seq.</i> The description of witchcraft is wholly reproduced from his <i>Monograph</i>.
+</p>
+<p class="footnote"><span class="label"><a id="d0e5233" href="#d0e5233src" class="noteref">39</a></span> His motive being the fine inflicted on the witch&#8217;s family.
+</p>
+<p class="footnote"><span class="label"><a id="d0e5241" href="#d0e5241src" class="noteref">40</a></span> The fruit of <i>Buchanania latifolia</i>.
+</p>
+<p class="footnote"><span class="label"><a id="d0e5260" href="#d0e5260src" class="noteref">41</a></span> <i>Ethnographic Notes in Southern India</i>, p. 507, quoting from the Rev. J. Cain, <i>Ind. Ant.</i> viii. (1879).
+</p>
+<p class="footnote"><span class="label"><a id="d0e5268" href="#d0e5268src" class="noteref">42</a></span> <i>Hindu Manners, Customs and Ceremonies</i>, p. 70.
+</p>
+<p class="footnote"><span class="label"><a id="d0e5277" href="#d0e5277src" class="noteref">43</a></span> <i>Monograph</i>, p. 19.
+</p>
+<p class="footnote"><span class="label"><a id="d0e5293" href="#d0e5293src" class="noteref">44</a></span> The Patwas are weavers of silk thread and the Nunias are masons and navvies.
+</p>
+<p class="footnote"><span class="label"><a id="d0e5298" href="#d0e5298src" class="noteref">45</a></span> An impure caste of weavers, ranking with the Mah&#257;rs.
+</p>
+<p class="footnote"><span class="label"><a id="d0e5304" href="#d0e5304src" class="noteref">46</a></span> <i>Semecarpus Anacardium.</i></p>
+<p class="footnote"><span class="label"><a id="d0e5308" href="#d0e5308src" class="noteref">47</a></span> Malcolm, <i>Memoir of Central India</i>, ii. p. 296.
+</p>
+<p class="footnote"><span class="label"><a id="d0e5330" href="#d0e5330src" class="noteref">48</a></span> Cumberlege, p. 16.
+</p>
+<p class="footnote"><span class="label"><a id="d0e5336" href="#d0e5336src" class="noteref">49</a></span> Small double shells which are still used to a slight extent as a currency in backward tracts. This would seem an impossibly
+cumbrous method of carrying money about nowadays, but I have been informed by a comparatively young official that in his father&#8217;s
+time, change for a rupee could not be had in Chhatt&#299;sgarh outside the two principal towns. As the cowries were a form of currency
+they were probably held sacred, and hence sewn on to clothes as a charm, just as gold and silver are used for ornaments.
+</p>
+<p class="footnote"><span class="label"><a id="d0e5341" href="#d0e5341src" class="noteref">50</a></span> <i>Jungle Life in India</i>, p. 516.
+</p>
+<p class="footnote"><span class="label"><a id="d0e5355" href="#d0e5355src" class="noteref">51</a></span> Brewer&#8217;s <i>Dictionary of Phrase and Fable</i> contains the following notice of horns as an article of dress: &#8220;Mr. Buckingham says of a Tyrian lady, &#8216;She wore on her head
+a hollow silver horn rearing itself up obliquely from the forehead. It was some four inches in diameter at the root and pointed
+at the extremity. This peculiarity reminded me forcibly of the expression of the Psalmist: &#8220;Lift not up your horn on high;
+speak not with a stiff neck. All the horns of the wicked also will I cut off, but the horns of the righteous shall be exalted&#8221;
+(Ps. lxxv. 5, 10).&#8217; Bruce found in Abyssinia the silver horns of warriors and distinguished men. In the reign of Henry V.
+the horned headgear was introduced into England and from the effigy of Beatrice, Countess of Arundel, at Arundel Church, who
+is represented with the horns outspread to a great extent, we may infer that the length of the head-horn, like the length
+of the shoe-point in the reign of Henry&nbsp;VI., etc., marked the degree of rank. To cut off such horns would be to degrade; and
+to exalt and extend such horns would be to add honour and dignity to the wearer.&#8221; Webb (<i>Heritage of Dress</i>, p. 117) writes: &#8220;Mr. Elworthy in a paper to the British Association at Ipswich in 1865 considered the crown to be a development
+from horns of honour. He maintained that the symbols found in the head of the god Serapis were the elements from which were
+formed the composite head-dress called the crown into which horns entered to a very great extent.&#8221; This seems a doubtful speculation,
+but still it may be quite possible that the idea of distinguishing by a crown the leader of the tribe was originally taken
+from the antlers of the leader of the herd. The helmets of the Vikings were also, I believe, decorated with horns.
+</p>
+<p class="footnote"><span class="label"><a id="d0e5368" href="#d0e5368src" class="noteref">52</a></span> <i>Monograph</i>, p. 40.
+</p>
+<p class="footnote"><span class="label"><a id="d0e5375" href="#d0e5375src" class="noteref">53</a></span> <i>Melia indica.</i></p>
+<p class="footnote"><span class="label"><a id="d0e5390" href="#d0e5390src" class="noteref">54</a></span> Author of the <i>Nim&#257;r Settlement Report</i>.
+</p>
+<p class="footnote"><span class="label"><a id="d0e5398" href="#d0e5398src" class="noteref">55</a></span> <i>Sesamum.</i></p>
+<p class="footnote"><span class="label"><a id="d0e5404" href="#d0e5404src" class="noteref">56</a></span> <i>Hindu Manners, Customs and Ceremonies</i>, p. 21.
+</p>
+<p class="footnote"><span class="label"><a id="d0e5409" href="#d0e5409src" class="noteref">57</a></span> <i>Report on the Badhak or B&#257;gri Dacoits</i>, p. 310.
+</p>
+<p class="footnote"><span class="label"><a id="d0e5431" href="#d0e5431src" class="noteref">58</a></span> Colonel Mackenzie&#8217;s notes.
+</p>
+<p class="footnote"><span class="label"><a id="d0e5436" href="#d0e5436src" class="noteref">59</a></span> Mr. W. F. Sinclair, C.S., in <i>Ind. Ant.</i> iii. p. 184 (1874).
+</p>
+<p class="footnote"><span class="label"><a id="d0e5453" href="#d0e5453src" class="noteref">60</a></span> <i>Notes on Criminal Tribes frequenting Bombay, Ber&#257;r and the Central Provinces</i> (Bombay, 1882).
+</p>
+<p class="footnote"><span class="label"><a id="d0e5474" href="#d0e5474src" class="noteref">61</a></span> <i>Ber&#257;r Census Report</i> (1881), p. 151.
+</p>
+</div>
+</div>
+<div id="d0e5481" class="div1"><span class="pagenum">
+[<a href="#d0e111">Contents</a>]
+</span><h2>Barai</h2>
+<div class="div2" id="d0e5484">
+<h3>1. Origin and traditions.</h3>
+<p><b>Barai,<a id="d0e5490src" href="#d0e5490" class="noteref">1</a> Tamboli, Pans&#257;ri.</b>&#8212;The caste of growers and sellers of the betel-vine leaf. The three terms are used indifferently for the caste in the Central
+Provinces, although some shades of variation in the meaning can be detected even here&#8212;Barai signifying especially one who
+grows the betel-vine, and Tamboli the seller of the prepared leaf; while Pans&#257;ri, though its etymological meaning is also
+a dealer in <i>p&#257;n</i> or betel-vine leaves, is used rather in the general sense of a druggist or grocer, and is apparently applied to the Barai
+caste because its members commonly follow this occupation. In Bengal, however, Barai and Tamboli are distinct castes, the
+occupations of growing and selling the betel-leaf being there separately practised. And they have been shown as different
+castes in the India Census Tables of 1901, though it is perhaps doubtful whether the distinction holds good in northern India.<a id="d0e5497src" href="#d0e5497" class="noteref">2</a> In the Central Provinces and Ber&#257;r the Barais numbered nearly 60,000 persons in 1911. They reside principally in the Amraoti,
+Buld&#257;na, N&#257;gpur, Wardha, Saugor and Jubbulpore Districts. The betel-vine is grown principally in the northern Districts of
+Saugor, Damoh and Jubbulpore and in those of Ber&#257;r and the N&#257;gpur plain. It is noticeable also that the growers and sellers
+of the betel-vine numbered only 14,000 in 1911 out of 33,000 actual workers of the Barai caste; so that the majority of them
+are now employed in ordinary agriculture, field-labour and other avocations. No very probable derivation has been obtained
+for the word Barai, unless it comes from <i>b&#257;ri</i>, a hedge or enclosure, and simply means &#8216;gardener.&#8217; Another derivation is from <i>bar&#257;na,</i> to avert hailstorms, a calling which they still practise in northern India. <i>P&#257;n</i>, from the Sanskrit <i>parna</i> (leaf), is <i>the</i> leaf <a id="d0e5524"></a><span class="pagenum">[<a href="#d0e5524">193</a>]</span><i>par excellence</i>. Owing to the fact that they produce what is perhaps the most esteemed luxury in the diet of the higher classes of native
+society, the Barais occupy a fairly good social position, and one legend gives them a Br&#257;hman ancestry. This is to the effect
+that the first Barai was a Br&#257;hman whom God detected in a flagrant case of lying to his brother. His sacred thread was confiscated
+and being planted in the ground grew up into the first betel-vine, which he was set to tend. Another story of the origin of
+the vine is given later in this article. In the Central Provinces its cultivation has probably only flourished to any appreciable
+extent for a period of about three centuries, and the Barai caste would appear to be mainly a functional one, made up of a
+number of immigrants from northern India and of recruits from different classes of the population, including a large proportion
+of the non-Aryan element.
+
+
+</p>
+</div>
+<div class="div2" id="d0e5528">
+<h3>2. Caste subdivisions.</h3>
+<p>The following endogamous divisions of the caste have been reported: Chaur&#257;sia, so called from the Chaur&#257;si pargana of the
+M&#299;rz&#257;pur District; Panagaria from Pan&#257;gar in Jubbulpore; Mahobia from Mahoba in Ham&#299;rpur; Jaisw&#257;r from the town of Jais in
+the Rai Bareli District of the United Provinces; Gangap&#257;ri, coming from the further side of the Ganges; and Pardeshi or Deshw&#257;ri,
+foreigners. The above divisions all have territorial names, and these show that a large proportion of the caste have come
+from northern India, the different batches of immigrants forming separate endogamous groups on their arrival here. Other subcastes
+are the D&#363;dh Barais, from <i>d&#363;dh</i>, milk; the Kum&#257;n, said to be Kunbis who have adopted this occupation and become Barais; the Jharia and Kosaria, the oldest
+or jungly Barais, and those who live in Chhatt&#299;sgarh; the Pur&#257;nia or old Barais; the Kumh&#257;rdhang, who are said to be the descendants
+of a potter on whose wheel a betel-vine grew; and the Lahuri Sen, who are a subcaste formed of the descendants of irregular
+unions. None of the other subcastes will take food from these last, and the name is locally derived from <i>lahuri</i>, lower, and <i>sen</i> or <i>shreni</i>, class. The caste is also divided into a large number of exogamous groups or septs which may be classified according to their
+names as territorial, titular and totemistic. <a id="d0e5545"></a><span class="pagenum">[<a href="#d0e5545">194</a>]</span>Examples of territorial names are: Kanaujia of Kanauj, Burh&#257;npuria of Burh&#257;npur, Chitoria of Chitor in R&#257;jput&#257;na, Deobijha
+the name of a village in Chhatt&#299;sgarh, and Kharondiha from Kharond or K&#257;l&#257;handi State. These names must apparently have been
+adopted at random when a family either settled in one of these places or removed from it to another part of the country. Examples
+of titular names of groups are: Pandit (priest), Bhand&#257;ri (store-keeper), Patharha (hail-averter), Batk&#257;phor (pot-breaker),
+Bhulya (the forgetful one), G&#363;jar (a caste), Gahoi (a caste), and so on. While the following are totemistic groups: Kat&#257;ra
+(dagger), Kulha (jackal), Bandrele (monkey), Ch&#299;khalk&#257;r (from <i>ch&#299;khal</i>, mud), Richharia (bear), and others. Where the group is named after another caste it probably indicates that a man of that
+caste became a Barai and founded a family; while the fact that some groups are totemistic shows that a section of the caste
+is recruited from the indigenous tribes. The large variety of names discloses the diverse elements of which the caste is made
+up.
+
+
+</p>
+</div>
+<div class="div2" id="d0e5550">
+<h3>3. Marriage</h3>
+<p>Marriage within the <i>gotra</i> or exogamous group and within three degrees of relationship between persons connected through females is prohibited. Girls
+are usually wedded before adolescence, but no stigma attaches to the family if they remain single beyond this period. If a
+girl is seduced by a man of the caste she is married to him by the <i>p&#257;t</i>, a simple ceremony used for widows. In the southern Districts a barber cuts off a lock of her hair on the banks of a tank
+or river by way of penalty, and a fast is also imposed on her, while the caste-fellows exact a meal from her family. If she
+has an illegitimate child, it is given away to somebody else, if possible. A girl going wrong with an outsider is expelled
+from the caste.
+
+</p>
+<p>Polygamy is permitted and no stigma attaches to the taking of a second wife, though it is rarely done except for special family
+reasons. Among the Mar&#257;tha Barais the bride and bridegroom must walk five times round the marriage altar and then worship
+the stone slab and roller used for pounding spices. This seems to show that the trade of the Pans&#257;ri or druggist is recognised
+as being a proper avocation of the Barai. They subsequently have to worship the potter&#8217;s <a id="d0e5563"></a><span class="pagenum">[<a href="#d0e5563">195</a>]</span>wheel. After the wedding the bride, if she is a child, goes as usual to her husband&#8217;s house for a few days. In Chhatt&#299;sgarh
+she is accompanied by a few relations, the party being known as Chauthia, and during her stay in her husband&#8217;s house the bride
+is made to sleep on the ground. Widow marriage is permitted, and the ceremony is conducted according to the usage of the locality.
+In Bet&#363;l the relatives of the widow take the second husband before M&#257;roti&#8217;s shrine, where he offers a nut and some betel-leaf.
+He is then taken to the m&#257;lguz&#257;r&#8217;s house and presents to him Rs. 1&#8211;4&#8211;0, a cocoanut and some betel-vine leaf as the price of
+his assent to the marriage. If there is a Deshmukh<a id="d0e5565src" href="#d0e5565" class="noteref">3</a> of the village, a cocoanut and betel-leaf are also given to him. The nut offered to M&#257;roti represents the deceased husband&#8217;s
+spirit, and is subsequently placed on a plank and kicked off by the new bridegroom in token of his usurping the other&#8217;s place,
+and finally buried to lay the spirit. The property of the first husband descends to his children, and failing them his brother&#8217;s
+children or collateral heirs take it before the widow. A bachelor espousing a widow must first go through the ceremony of
+marriage with a swallow-wort plant. When a widower marries a girl a silver impression representing the deceased first wife
+is made and worshipped daily with the family gods. Divorce is permitted on sufficient grounds at the instance of either party,
+being effected before the caste committee or <i>panch&#257;yat</i>. If a husband divorces his wife merely on account of bad temper, he must maintain her so long as she remains unmarried and
+continues to lead a moral life.
+
+
+</p>
+</div>
+<div class="div2" id="d0e5571">
+<h3>4. Religion and social status.</h3>
+<p>The Barais especially venerate the N&#257;g or cobra and observe the festival of N&#257;g-Panchmi (Cobra&#8217;s fifth), in connection with
+which the following story is related. Formerly there was no betel-vine on the earth. But when the five P&#257;ndava brothers celebrated
+the great horse sacrifice after their victory at Hastinapur, they wanted some, and so messengers were sent down below the
+earth to the residence of the queen of the serpents, in order to try and obtain it. B&#257;suki, the queen of the serpents, obligingly
+cut off the top <a id="d0e5576"></a><span class="pagenum">[<a href="#d0e5576">196</a>]</span>joint of her little finger and gave it to the messengers. This was brought up and sown on the earth, and <i>p&#257;n</i> creepers grew out of the joint. For this reason the betel-vine has no blossoms or seeds, but the joints of the creepers are
+cut off and sown, when they sprout afresh; and the betel-vine is called N&#257;gbel or the serpent-creeper. On the day of N&#257;g-Panchmi
+the Barais go to the <i>bareja</i> with flowers, cocoanuts and other offerings, and worship a stone which is placed in it and which represents the N&#257;g or cobra.
+A goat or sheep is sacrificed and they return home, no leaf of the <i>p&#257;n</i> garden being touched on that day. A cup of milk is also left, in the belief that a cobra will come out of the <i>p&#257;n</i> garden and drink it. The Barais say that members of their caste are never bitten by cobras, though many of these snakes frequent
+the gardens on account of the moist coolness and shade which they afford. The Agarw&#257;la Banias, from whom the Barais will take
+food cooked without water, have also a legend of descent from a N&#257;ga or snake princess. &#8216;Our mother&#8217;s house is of the race
+of the snake,&#8217; say the Agarw&#257;ls of Bih&#257;r.<a id="d0e5590src" href="#d0e5590" class="noteref">4</a> The caste usually burn the dead, with the exception of children and persons dying of leprosy or snake-bite, whose bodies
+are buried. Mourning is observed for ten days in the case of adults and for three days for children. In Chhatt&#299;sgarh if any
+portion of the corpse remains unburnt on the day following the cremation, the relatives are penalised to the extent of an
+extra feast to the caste-fellows. Children are named on the sixth or twelfth day after birth either by a Br&#257;hman or by the
+women of the household. Two names are given, one for ceremonial and the other for ordinary use. When a Br&#257;hman is engaged
+he gives seven names for a boy and five for a girl, and the parents select one out of these. The Barais do not admit outsiders
+into the caste, and employ Br&#257;hmans for religious and ceremonial purposes. They are allowed to eat the flesh of clean animals,
+but very rarely do so, and they abstain from liquor. Br&#257;hmans will take sweets and water from them, and they occupy a fairly
+good social position on account of the important nature of their occupation.
+
+
+<a id="d0e5595"></a><span class="pagenum">[<a href="#d0e5595">197</a>]</span></p>
+</div>
+<div class="div2" id="d0e5596">
+<h3>5. Occupation.</h3>
+<p>&#8220;It has been mentioned,&#8221; says Sir H. Risley,<a id="d0e5601src" href="#d0e5601" class="noteref">5</a> &#8220;that the garden is regarded as almost sacred, and the superstitious practices in vogue resemble those of the silk-worm breeder.
+The B&#257;rui will not enter it until he has bathed and washed his clothes. Animals found inside are driven out, while women ceremonially
+unclean dare not enter within the gate. A Br&#257;hman never sets foot inside, and old men have a prejudice against entering it.
+It has, however, been known to be used for assignations.&#8221; The betel-vine is the leaf of <i>Piper betel</i> L., the word being derived from the Malayalam <i>vettila</i>, &#8216;a plain leaf,&#8217; and coming to us through the Portuguese <i>betre</i> and <i>betle</i>. The leaf is called <i>p&#257;n</i>, and is eaten with the nut of <i>Areca catechu</i>, called in Hindi <i>sup&#257;ri</i>. The vine needs careful cultivation, the gardens having to be covered to keep off the heat of the sun, while liberal treatment
+with manure and irrigation is needed. The joints of the creepers are planted in February, and begin to supply leaves in about
+five months&#8217; time. When the first creepers are stripped after a period of nearly a year, they are cut off and fresh ones appear,
+the plants being exhausted within a period of about two years after the first sowing. A garden may cover from half an acre
+to an acre of land, and belongs to a number of growers, who act in partnership, each owning so many lines of vines. The plain
+leaves are sold at from 2 annas to 4 annas a hundred, or a higher rate when they are out of season. Damoh, R&#257;mtek and Bilahri
+are three of the best-known centres of cultivation in the Central Provinces. The Bilahri leaf is described in the <i>Ain-i-Akbari</i> as follows: &#8220;The leaf called Bilahri is white and shining, and does not make the tongue harsh and hard. It tastes best of
+all kinds. After it has been taken away from the creeper, it turns white with some care after a month, or even after twenty
+days, when greater efforts are made.&#8221;<a id="d0e5630src" href="#d0e5630" class="noteref">6</a> For retail sale <i>b&#299;das</i> are prepared, consisting of a rolled betel-leaf containing areca-nut, catechu and lime, and fastened with a clove. Musk and
+cardamoms are sometimes added. Tobacco should be smoked after eating a <i>b&#299;da</i> according to the saying, <a id="d0e5645"></a><span class="pagenum">[<a href="#d0e5645">198</a>]</span>&#8216;Service without a patron, a young man without a shield, and betel without tobacco are alike savourless.&#8217; <i>B&#299;das</i> are sold at from two to four for a pice (farthing). Women of the caste often retail them, and as many are good-looking they
+secure more custom; they are also said to have an indifferent reputation. Early in the morning, when they open their shops,
+they burn some incense before the bamboo basket in which the leaves are kept, to propitiate Lakshmi, the goddess of wealth.
+
+
+<a id="d0e5650"></a><span class="pagenum">[<a href="#d0e5650">199</a>]</span></p>
+</div>
+<div class="footnotes">
+<hr class="fnsep">
+<p class="footnote"><span class="label"><a id="d0e5490" href="#d0e5490src" class="noteref">1</a></span> This notice is compiled principally from a good paper by Mr. M. C. Chatterji, retired Extra Assistant Commissioner, Jubbulpore,
+and from papers by Professor Sada Shiva Jai R&#257;m, M.A., Government College, Jubbulpore, and Mr. Bh&#257;skar B&#257;ji Rao Deshmukh,
+Deputy Inspector of Schools, N&#257;gpur.
+</p>
+<p class="footnote"><span class="label"><a id="d0e5497" href="#d0e5497src" class="noteref">2</a></span> Sherring, <i>Hindu Tribes and Castes</i>, i. p. 330. Nesfield, <i>Brief View</i>, p. 15. <i>N.W.P. Census Report</i> (1891), p 317.
+</p>
+<p class="footnote"><span class="label"><a id="d0e5565" href="#d0e5565src" class="noteref">3</a></span> The name of a superior revenue office; under the Mar&#257;thas, now borne as a courtesy title by certain families.
+</p>
+<p class="footnote"><span class="label"><a id="d0e5590" href="#d0e5590src" class="noteref">4</a></span> <i>Tribes and Castes of Bengal</i>, art. Agarw&#257;l.
+</p>
+<p class="footnote"><span class="label"><a id="d0e5601" href="#d0e5601src" class="noteref">5</a></span> <i>Tribes and Castes of Bengal</i>, art. B&#257;rui.
+</p>
+<p class="footnote"><span class="label"><a id="d0e5630" href="#d0e5630src" class="noteref">6</a></span> Blochmann, <i>Ain-i-Akbari</i>, i. p. 72, quoted in Crooke&#8217;s <i>Tribes and Castes</i>, art. Tamboli.
+</p>
+</div>
+</div>
+<div id="d0e5651" class="div1"><span class="pagenum">
+[<a href="#d0e111">Contents</a>]
+</span><h2>Barhai</h2>
+<h3>List of Paragraphs</h3>
+<ul>
+<li><a href="#d0e5687">1. Strength and local distribution.</a></li>
+<li><a href="#d0e5702">2. Internal structure.</a></li>
+<li><a href="#d0e5712">3. Marriage customs.</a></li>
+<li><a href="#d0e5726">4. Religion.</a></li>
+<li><a href="#d0e5731">5. Social position.</a></li>
+<li><a href="#d0e5736">6. Occupation.</a></li>
+</ul>
+<div class="div2" id="d0e5687">
+<h3>1. Strength and local distribution.</h3>
+<p><b>Barhai, Sut&#257;r, Khar&#257;di, Mistri.</b>&#8212;The occupational caste of carpenters. The Barhais numbered nearly 110,000 persons in the Central Provinces and Ber&#257;r in 1911,
+or about 1 in 150 persons. The caste is most numerous in Districts with large towns, and few carpenters are to be found in
+villages except in the richer and more advanced Districts. Hitherto such woodwork as the villagers wanted for agriculture
+has been made by the Loh&#257;r or blacksmith, while the country cots, the only wooden article of furniture in their houses, could
+be fashioned by their own hands or by the Gond woodcutter. In the Mandla District the Barhai caste counts only 300 persons,
+and about the same in B&#257;l&#257;gh&#257;t, in Dr&#363;g only 47 persons, and in the fourteen Chhatt&#299;sgarh Feudatory States, with a population
+of more than two millions, only some 800 persons. The name Barhai is said to be from the Sanskrit Vardhika and the root <i>vardh</i>, to cut. Sut&#257;r is a common name of the caste in the Mar&#257;tha Districts, and is from S&#363;tra-kara, one who works by string, or
+a maker of string. The allusion may be to the Barhai&#8217;s use of string in planing or measuring timber, or it may possibly indicate
+a transfer of occupation, the Sut&#257;rs having first been mainly string-makers and afterwards abandoned this calling for that
+of the carpenter. The first wooden implements and articles of furniture may have been held together by string before nails
+came into use. Khar&#257;di is literally a turner, one who turns woodwork on <a id="d0e5697"></a><span class="pagenum">[<a href="#d0e5697">200</a>]</span>a lathe, from <i>khar&#257;t</i>, a lathe. Mistri, a corruption of the English Mister, is an honorific title for master carpenters.
+
+
+</p>
+</div>
+<div class="div2" id="d0e5702">
+<h3>2. Internal structure.</h3>
+<p>The comparatively recent growth of the caste in these Provinces is shown by its subdivisions. The principal subcastes of the
+Hindust&#257;ni Districts are the Pardeshi or foreigners, immigrants from northern India, and the P&#363;rbia or eastern, coming from
+Oudh; other subcastes are the Sri Gaur M&#257;las or immigrants from M&#257;lwa, the Ber&#257;di from Ber&#257;r, and the M&#257;hure from Hyder&#257;b&#257;d.
+We find also subcastes of J&#257;t and Teli Barhais, consisting of J&#257;ts and Telis (oil-pressers) who have taken to carpentering.
+Two other caste-groups, the Cham&#257;r Barhais and Gondi Barhais, are returned, but these are not at present included in the Barhai
+caste, and consist merely of Cham&#257;rs and Gonds who work as carpenters but remain in their own castes. In the course of some
+generations, however, if the cohesive social force of the caste system continues unabated, these groups may probably find
+admission into the Barhai caste. Colonel Tod notes that the progeny of one Mak&#363;r, a prince of the J&#257;don R&#257;jp&#363;t house of Jaisalmer,
+became carpenters, and were known centuries after as Mak&#363;r Sut&#257;rs. They were apparently considered illegitimate, as he states:
+&#8220;Illegitimate children can never overcome this natural defect among the R&#257;jp&#363;ts. Thus we find among all classes of artisans
+in India some of royal but spurious descent.&#8221;<a id="d0e5707src" href="#d0e5707" class="noteref">1</a> The internal structure of the caste seems therefore to indicate that it is largely of foreign origin and to a certain degree
+of recent formation in these Provinces.
+
+
+</p>
+</div>
+<div class="div2" id="d0e5712">
+<h3>3. Marriage customs.</h3>
+<p>The caste are also divided into exogamous septs named after villages. In some localities it is said that they have no septs,
+but only surnames, and that people of the same surname cannot intermarry. Well-to-do persons marry their daughters before
+puberty and others when they can afford the expense of the ceremony. Br&#257;hman priests are employed at weddings, though on other
+occasions their services are occasionally dispensed with. The wedding ceremony is of the type prevalent in the locality. When
+the wedding procession reaches the bride&#8217;s village it halts near the temple of M&#257;roti or Hanum&#257;n. Among the Panch&#257;l Barhais
+the bridegroom does <a id="d0e5717"></a><span class="pagenum">[<a href="#d0e5717">201</a>]</span>not wear a marriage crown but ties a bunch of flowers to his turban. The bridegroom&#8217;s party is entertained for five days.
+Divorce and the remarriage of widows are permitted. In most localities it is said that a widow is forbidden to marry her first
+husband&#8217;s younger as well as his elder brother. Among the Pardeshi Barhais of Bet&#363;l if a bachelor desires to marry a widow
+he must first go through the ceremony with a branch or twig of the <i>g&#363;lar</i> tree.<a id="d0e5722src" href="#d0e5722" class="noteref">2</a>
+
+
+</p>
+</div>
+<div class="div2" id="d0e5726">
+<h3>4. Religion.</h3>
+<p>The caste worship Viswakarma, the celestial architect, and venerate their trade implements on the Dasahra festival. They consider
+the sight of a mongoose and of a light-grey pigeon or dove as lucky omens. They burn the dead and throw the ashes into a river
+or tank, employing a Mah&#257;-Br&#257;hman to receive the gifts for the dead.
+
+
+</p>
+</div>
+<div class="div2" id="d0e5731">
+<h3>5. Social position.</h3>
+<p>In social status the Barhais rank with the higher artisan castes. Br&#257;hmans take water from them in some localities, perhaps
+more especially in towns. In Bet&#363;l for instance Hindust&#257;ni Br&#257;hmans do not accept water from the rural Barhais. In Damoh where
+both the Barhai and Loh&#257;r are village menials, their status is said to be the same, and Brahmans do not take water from Loh&#257;rs.
+Mr. Nesfield says that the Barhai is a village servant and ranks with the Kurmi, with whom his interests are so closely allied.
+But there seems no special reason why the interests of the carpenter should be more closely allied with the cultivator than
+those of any other village menial, and it may be offered as a surmise that carpentering as a distinct trade is of comparatively
+late origin, and was adopted by Kurmis, to which fact the connection noticed by Mr. Nesfield might be attributed; hence the
+position of the Barhai among the castes from whom a Br&#257;hman will take water. In some localities well-to-do members of the
+caste have begun to wear the sacred thread.
+
+
+</p>
+</div>
+<div class="div2" id="d0e5736">
+<h3>6. Occupation.</h3>
+<p>In the northern Districts and the cotton tract the Barhai works as a village menial. He makes and mends the plough and harrow
+(<i>bakhar</i>) and other wooden implements of agriculture, and makes new ones when supplied with the wood. In Wardha he receives an annual
+contribution of 100 lbs. of grain from each cultivator. In Bet&#363;l he gets 67 lbs. of grain <a id="d0e5744"></a><span class="pagenum">[<a href="#d0e5744">202</a>]</span>and other perquisites for each plough of four bullocks. For making carts and building or repairing houses he must be separately
+paid. At weddings the Barhai often supplies the sacred marriage-post and is given from four annas to a rupee. At the Diw&#257;li
+festival he prepares a wooden peg about six inches long, and drives it into the cultivator&#8217;s house inside the threshold, and
+receives half a pound to a pound of grain.
+
+</p>
+<p>In cities the carpenters are rapidly acquiring an increased degree of skill as the demand for a better class of houses and
+furniture becomes continually greater and more extensive. The carpenters have been taught to make English furniture by such
+institutions as the Friends&#8217; Mission of Hoshang&#257;b&#257;d and other missionaries; and a Government technical school has now been
+opened at N&#257;gpur, in which boys from all over the Province are trained in the profession. Very little wood-carving with any
+pretensions to excellence has hitherto been done in the Central Provinces, but the Jain temples at Saugor and Khurai contain
+some fair woodwork. A good carpenter in towns can earn from 12 annas to Rs. 1&#8211;8 a day, and both his earnings and prospects
+have greatly improved within recent years. Sherring remarks of the Barhais: &#8220;As artisans they exhibit little or no inventive
+powers: but in imitating the workmanship of others they are perhaps unsurpassed in the whole world. They are equally clever
+in working from designs and models.&#8221;<a id="d0e5748src" href="#d0e5748" class="noteref">3</a>
+
+
+</p>
+</div>
+<div class="footnotes">
+<hr class="fnsep">
+<p class="footnote"><span class="label"><a id="d0e5707" href="#d0e5707src" class="noteref">1</a></span> <i>R&#257;jasth&#257;n</i>, ii. p. 210.
+</p>
+<p class="footnote"><span class="label"><a id="d0e5722" href="#d0e5722src" class="noteref">2</a></span> <i>Ficus glomerata.</i></p>
+<p class="footnote"><span class="label"><a id="d0e5748" href="#d0e5748src" class="noteref">3</a></span> <i>Hindu Castes</i>, i. p. 316.
+</p>
+</div>
+</div>
+<div id="d0e5753" class="div1"><span class="pagenum">
+[<a href="#d0e111">Contents</a>]
+</span><h2>B&#257;ri</h2>
+<p><b>B&#257;ri.</b>&#8212;A caste of household servants and makers of leaf-plates, belonging to northern India. The B&#257;ris numbered 1200 persons in
+the Central Provinces in 1911, residing mainly in Jubbulpore and Mandla. Sir H. Risley remarks of the caste:<a id="d0e5760src" href="#d0e5760" class="noteref">1</a> &#8220;Mr. Nesfield regards the B&#257;ri as merely an offshoot from a semi-savage tribe known as Banm&#257;nush and Mus&#257;h&#257;r. He is said
+still to associate with them at times, and if the demand for leaf-plates and cups, owing to some temporary cause, such as
+a local fair or an unusual multitude of marriages, happens to become larger than he can at once supply, he gets them secretly
+made by his ruder kinsfolk and retails them at a higher rate, passing <a id="d0e5765"></a><span class="pagenum">[<a href="#d0e5765">203</a>]</span>them off as his own production. The strictest Br&#257;hmans, those at least who aspire to imitate the self-denying life of the
+ancient Indian hermit, never eat off any other plates than those made of leaves.&#8221; &#8220;If the above view is correct,&#8221; Sir H. Risley
+remarks, &#8220;the B&#257;ris are a branch of a non-Aryan tribe who have been given a fairly respectable position in the social system
+in consequence of the demand for leaf-plates, which are largely used by the highest as well as the lowest castes. Instances
+of this sort, in which a non-Aryan or mixed group is promoted on grounds of necessity or convenience to a higher status than
+their antecedents would entitle them to claim, are not unknown in other castes, and must have occurred frequently in outlying
+parts of the country, where the Aryan settlements were scanty and imperfectly supplied with the social apparatus demanded
+by the theory of ceremonial purity.&#8221; There is no reason why the origin of the B&#257;ri from the Banm&#257;nush (wild man of the woods)
+or Mus&#257;h&#257;r (mouse-eater), a forest tribe, as suggested by Mr. Nesfield from his observation of their mutual connection, should
+be questioned. The making of leaf-plates is an avocation which may be considered naturally to pertain to the tribes frequenting
+jungles from which the leaves are gathered; and in the Central Provinces, though in the north the Nai or barber ostensibly
+supplies the leaf-plates, probably buying the leaves and getting them made up by Gonds and others, in the Mar&#257;tha Districts
+the Gond himself does so, and many Gonds make their living by this trade. The people of the Mar&#257;tha country are apparently
+less strict than those of northern India, and do not object to eat off plates avowedly the handiwork of Gonds. The fact that
+the B&#257;ri has been raised to the position of a pure caste, so that Br&#257;hmans will take water from his hands, is one among several
+instances of this elevation of the rank of the serving castes for purposes of convenience. The caste themselves have the following
+legend of their origin: Once upon a time Parmeshwar<a id="d0e5767src" href="#d0e5767" class="noteref">2</a> was offering rice milk to the spirits of his ancestors. In the course of this ceremony the performer has to present a gift
+known as Vikraya D&#257;n, which cannot be accepted by others without loss of position. Parmeshwar <a id="d0e5770"></a><span class="pagenum">[<a href="#d0e5770">204</a>]</span>offered the gift to various Br&#257;hmans, but they all refused it. So he made a man of clay, and blew upon the image and gave
+it life, and the god then asked the man whom he had created to accept the gift which the Br&#257;hmans had refused. This man, who
+was the first B&#257;ri, agreed on condition that all men should drink with him and recognise his purity of caste. Parmeshwar then
+told him to bring water in a cup, and drank of it in the presence of all the castes. And in consequence of this all the Hindus
+will take water from the hands of a B&#257;ri. They also say that their first ancestor was named Sundar on account of his personal
+beauty; but if so, he failed to bequeath this quality to his descendants. The proper avocation of the B&#257;ris is, as already
+stated, the manufacture of the leaf-cups and plates used by all Hindus at festivals. In the Central Provinces these are made
+from the large leaves of the <i>m&#257;hul</i> creeper (<i>Bauhinia Vahlii</i>), or from the <i>pal&#257;s</i> (<i>Butea frondosa</i>). The caste also act as personal servants, handing round water, lighting and carrying torches at marriages and other entertainments
+and on journeys, and performing other functions. Some of them have taken to agriculture. Their women act as maids to high-caste
+Hindu ladies, and as they are always about the zen&#257;na, are liable to lose their virtue. A curious custom prevails in M&#257;rw&#257;r
+on the birth of an heir to the throne. An impression of the child&#8217;s foot is taken by a B&#257;ri on cloth covered with saffron,
+and is exhibited to the native chiefs, who make him rich presents.<a id="d0e5784src" href="#d0e5784" class="noteref">3</a> The B&#257;ris have the reputation of great fidelity to their employers, and a saying about them is, &#8216;The B&#257;ri will die fighting
+for his master.&#8217;
+
+
+</p>
+<div class="footnotes">
+<hr class="fnsep">
+<p class="footnote"><span class="label"><a id="d0e5760" href="#d0e5760src" class="noteref">1</a></span> <i>Tribes and Castes of Bengal</i>, art. B&#257;ri.
+</p>
+<p class="footnote"><span class="label"><a id="d0e5767" href="#d0e5767src" class="noteref">2</a></span> Vishnu.
+</p>
+<p class="footnote"><span class="label"><a id="d0e5784" href="#d0e5784src" class="noteref">3</a></span> Sherring, <i>Tribes and Castes</i>, i. pp. 403, 404.
+</p>
+</div>
+</div>
+<div id="d0e5790" class="div1"><span class="pagenum">
+[<a href="#d0e111">Contents</a>]
+</span><h2>Basdewa</h2>
+<p><b>Basdewa,<a id="d0e5796src" href="#d0e5796" class="noteref">1</a> Wasudeo, Harbola, Kaparia, Jaga, Kapdi.</b>&#8212;A wandering beggar caste of mixed origin, who also call themselves San&#257;dhya or Sanaurhia Br&#257;hmans. The Basdewas trace their
+origin to Wasudeo, the father of Krishna, and the term Basdewa is a corruption of Wasudeo or Wasudeva. Kaparia is the name
+they bear in the <a id="d0e5800"></a><span class="pagenum">[<a href="#d0e5800">205</a>]</span>Anterved or country between the Ganges and Jumna, whence they claim to have come. Kaparia has been derived from <i>kapra</i>, cloth, owing to the custom of the Basdewas of having several dresses, which they change rapidly like the Bahr&#363;pia, making
+themselves up in different characters as a show. Harbola is an occupational term, applied to a class of Basdewas who climb
+trees in the early morning and thence vociferate praises of the deity in a loud voice. The name is derived from <i>Har</i>, God, and <i>bolna</i>, to speak. As the Harbolas wake people up in the morning they are also called Jaga or Awakener. The number of Basdewas in
+the Central Provinces and Ber&#257;r in 1911 was 2500, and they are found principally in the northern Districts and in Chhatt&#299;sgarh.
+They have several territorial subcastes, as Gang&#257;putri or those who dwell on the banks of the Ganges; Khaltia or Desw&#257;ri,
+those who belong to the Central Provinces; Parauha, from <i>para</i>, a male buffalo calf, being the dealers in buffaloes; Harbola or those who climb trees and sing the praises of God; and Wasudeo,
+the dwellers in the Mar&#257;tha Districts who marry only among themselves. The names of the exogamous divisions are very varied,
+some being taken from Br&#257;hman <i>gotras</i> and R&#257;jp&#363;t septs, while others are the names of villages, or nicknames, or derived from animals and plants. It may be concluded
+from these names that the Basdewas are a mixed occupational group recruited from high and low castes, though they themselves
+say that they do not admit any outsiders except Br&#257;hmans into the community. In Bombay<a id="d0e5817src" href="#d0e5817" class="noteref">2</a> the Wasudevas have a special connection with Kumh&#257;rs or potters, whom they address by the term of <i>k&#257;ka</i> or paternal uncle, and at whose houses they lodge on their travels, presenting their host with the two halves of a cocoanut.
+The caste do not observe celibacy. A price of Rs. 25 has usually to be given for a bride, and a Br&#257;hman is employed to perform
+the ceremony. At the conclusion of this the Br&#257;hman invests the bridegroom with a sacred thread, which he thereafter continues
+to wear. Widow marriage is permitted, and widows are commonly married to widowers. Divorce is also permitted. When a man&#8217;s
+wife dies he shaves his moustache and beard, if any, <a id="d0e5825"></a><span class="pagenum">[<a href="#d0e5825">206</a>]</span>in mourning and a father likewise for a daughter-in-law; this is somewhat peculiar, as other Hindus do not shave the moustache
+for a wife or daughter-in-law. The Basdewas are wandering mendicants. In the Mar&#257;tha Districts they wear a plume of peacock&#8217;s
+feathers, which they say was given to them as a badge by Krishna. In Saugor and Damoh instead of this they carry during the
+period from Dasahra to the end of M&#257;gh or from September to January a brass vessel called <i>matuk</i> bound on their heads. It is surmounted by a brass cone and adorned with mango-leaves, cowries and a piece of red cloth, and
+with figures of R&#257;ma and Lakshman. Their stock-in-trade for begging consists of two <i>kart&#257;ls</i> or wooden clappers which are struck against each other; <i>ghungrus</i> or jingling ornaments for the feet, worn when dancing; and a <i>paijna</i> or kind of rattle, consisting of two semicircular iron wires bound at each end to a piece of wood with rings slung on to
+them; this is simply shaken in the hand and gives out a sound from the movement of the rings against the wires. They worship
+all these implements as well as their beggar&#8217;s wallet on the Janam-Ashtami or Krishna&#8217;s birthday, the Dasahra, and the full
+moon of M&#257;gh (January). They rise early and beg only in the morning from about four till eight, and sing songs in praise of
+Sarwan and Karan. Sarwan was a son renowned for his filial piety; he maintained and did service to his old blind parents to
+the end of their lives, much against the will of his wife, and was proof against all her machinations to induce him to abandon
+them. Karan was a proverbially charitable king, and all his family had the same virtue. His wife gave away daily rice and
+pulse to those who required it, his daughter gave them clothes, his son distributed cows as alms and his daughter-in-law cocoanuts.
+The king himself gave only gold, and it is related of him that he was accustomed to expend a maund and a quarter<a id="d0e5839src" href="#d0e5839" class="noteref">3</a> weight of gold in alms-giving before he washed himself and paid his morning devotions. Therefore the Basdewas sing that he
+who gives early in the morning acquires the merit of Karan; and their presence at this time affords the requisite opportunity
+to anybody who may be desirous of emulating the <a id="d0e5842"></a><span class="pagenum">[<a href="#d0e5842">207</a>]</span>king. At the end of every couplet they cry &#8216;Jai Ganga&#8217; or &#8216;Har Ganga,&#8217; invoking the Ganges.
+
+</p>
+<p>The Harbolas have each a beat of a certain number of villages which must not be infringed by the others. Their method is to
+ascertain the name of some well-to-do person in the village. This done, they climb a tree in the early morning before sunrise,
+and continue chanting his praises in a loud voice until he is sufficiently flattered by their eulogies or wearied by their
+importunity to throw down a present of a few pice under the tree, which the Harbola, descending, appropriates. The Basdewas
+of the northern Districts are now commonly engaged in the trade of buying and selling buffaloes. They take the young male
+calves from Saugor and Damoh to Chhatt&#299;sgarh, and there retail them at a profit for rice cultivation, driving them in large
+herds along the road. For the capital which they have to borrow to make their purchases, they are charged very high rates
+of interest. The Basdewas have here a special veneration for the buffalo as the animal from which they make their livelihood,
+and they object strongly to the calves being taken to be tied out as baits for tiger, refusing, it is said, to accept payment
+if the calf should be killed. Their social status is not high, and none but the lowest castes will take food from their hands.
+They eat flesh and drink liquor, but abstain from pork, fowls and beef. Some of the caste have given up animal food.
+
+
+
+<a id="d0e5846"></a><span class="pagenum">[<a href="#d0e5846">208</a>]</span></p>
+<div class="footnotes">
+<hr class="fnsep">
+<p class="footnote"><span class="label"><a id="d0e5796" href="#d0e5796src" class="noteref">1</a></span> This article is compiled from papers by Mr. W. N. Maw, Deputy Commissioner, Damoh, and Murl&#299;dhar, Munsiff of Khurai in Saugor.
+</p>
+<p class="footnote"><span class="label"><a id="d0e5817" href="#d0e5817src" class="noteref">2</a></span> <i>Bombay Gazetteer</i>, xvii. p. 108.
+</p>
+<p class="footnote"><span class="label"><a id="d0e5839" href="#d0e5839src" class="noteref">3</a></span> About 100 lbs.
+</p>
+</div>
+</div>
+<div id="d0e5847" class="div1"><span class="pagenum">
+[<a href="#d0e111">Contents</a>]
+</span><h2>Basor</h2>
+<h3>List of Paragraphs</h3>
+<ul>
+<li><a href="#d0e5883">1. Numbers and distribution.</a></li>
+<li><a href="#d0e5896">2. Caste traditions.</a></li>
+<li><a href="#d0e5909">3. Subdivisions.</a></li>
+<li><a href="#d0e5965">4. Marriage.</a></li>
+<li><a href="#d0e5984">5. Religion and social status.</a></li>
+<li><a href="#d0e5991">6. Occupation.</a></li>
+</ul>
+<div class="div2" id="d0e5883">
+<h3>1. Numbers and distribution.</h3>
+<p><b>Basor,<a id="d0e5889src" href="#d0e5889" class="noteref">1</a> Bansphor, Dhulia, Burud.</b>&#8212;The occupational caste of bamboo-workers, the two first names being Hindi and the last the term used in the Mar&#257;tha Districts.
+The cognate Uriya caste is called Kandra and the Telugu one Medara. The Basors numbered 53,000 persons in the Central Provinces
+and Ber&#257;r in 1911. About half the total number reside in the Saugor, Damoh and Jubbulpore Districts. The word Basor is a corruption
+of B&#257;nsphor, &#8216;a breaker of bamboos.&#8217; Dhulia, from <i>dholi</i>, a drum, means a musician.
+
+
+</p>
+</div>
+<div class="div2" id="d0e5896">
+<h3>2. Caste traditions.</h3>
+<p>The caste trace their origin from Raja Benu or Venu who ruled at Singorgarh in Damoh. It is related of him that he was so
+pious that he raised no taxes from his subjects, but earned his livelihood by making and selling bamboo fans. He could of
+course keep no army, but he knew magic, and when he broke his fan the army of the enemy broke up in unison. Venu is a Sanskrit
+word meaning bamboo. But a mythological Sanskrit king called Vena is mentioned in the Pur&#257;nas, from whom for his sins was
+born the first Nish&#257;da, the lowest of human beings, and Manu<a id="d0e5901src" href="#d0e5901" class="noteref">2</a> states that the bamboo-worker is the issue of a <a id="d0e5904"></a><span class="pagenum">[<a href="#d0e5904">209</a>]</span>Nish&#257;da or Chand&#257;l father and a Vaideha<a id="d0e5906src" href="#d0e5906" class="noteref">3</a> mother. So that the local story may be a corruption of the Br&#257;hmanical tradition. Another legend relates that in the beginning
+there were no bamboos, and the first Basor took the serpent which Siva wore round his neck and going to a hill planted it
+with its head in the ground. A bamboo at once sprang up on the spot, and from this the Basor made the first winnowing fan.
+And the snake-like root of the bamboo, which no doubt suggested the story to its composer, is now adduced in proof of it.
+
+
+</p>
+</div>
+<div class="div2" id="d0e5909">
+<h3>3. Subdivisions.</h3>
+<p>The Basors of the northern Districts are divided into a number of subcastes, the principal of which are: the Pur&#257;nia or Juthia,
+who perhaps represent the oldest section, Pur&#257;nia being from <i>pur&#257;na</i> old; they are called Juthia because they eat the leavings of others; the Barmaiya or Malaiya, apparently a territorial group;
+the Deshw&#257;ri or Bundelkhandi who reside in the <i>desh</i> or native place of Bundelkhand; the G&#363;dha or G&#363;rha, the name being derived by some from <i>g&#363;da</i> a pigsty; the Dumar or Dom Basors; the Dhubela, perhaps from the Dhobi caste; and the Dhark&#257;r. Two or three of the above
+names appear to be those of other low castes from which the Basor caste may have been recruited, perhaps at times when a strong
+demand existed for bamboo-workers. The Buruds do not appear to be sufficiently numerous to have subcastes. But they include
+a few Telenga Buruds who are really Medaras, and the caste proper are therefore sometimes known as Mar&#257;tha Buruds to distinguish
+them from these. The caste has numerous <i>bainks</i> or exogamous groups or septs, the names of which may chiefly be classified as territorial and totemistic. Among the former
+are Mahobia, from the town of Mahoba; Sirmaiya, from Sirmau; Orahia, from Orai, the battlefield of the Ban&#257;phar generals,
+Alha and Udal; Tikarahia from Tik&#257;ri, and so on. The totemistic septs include the S&#257;npero from <i>s&#257;np</i> a snake, the Mangrelo from <i>mangra</i> a crocodile, the Morya from <i>mor</i> a peacock, the Titya from the <i>titehri</i> bird and the Sarkia from <i>sarki</i> or red ochre, all of which worship their respective totems. The Katarya or &#8216;dagger&#8217; sept worship a real or painted dagger
+at their marriage, and the Kemia, a branch <a id="d0e5941"></a><span class="pagenum">[<a href="#d0e5941">210</a>]</span>of the <i>kem</i> tree (<i>Stephegyne parvifolia</i>). The Bandrelo, from <i>bandar</i>, worship a painted monkey. One or two groups are named after castes, as Bamhnelo from Br&#257;hman and Bargujaria from Barg&#363;jar
+R&#257;jp&#363;t, thus indicating that members of these castes became Basors and founded families. One sept is called Marha from Marhai,
+the goddess of cholera, and the members worship a picture of the goddess drawn in black. The name of the Kulh&#257;ntia sept means
+somersault, and these turn a somersault before worshipping their gods. So strong is the totemistic idea that some of the territorial
+groups worship objects with similar names. Thus the Mahobia group, whose name is undoubtedly derived from the town of Mahoba,
+have adopted the mahua tree as their totem, and digging a small hole in the ground place in it a little water and the liquor
+made from mahua flowers, and worship it. This represents the process of distillation of country liquor. Similarly, the Orahia
+group, who derive their name from the town of Orai, now worship the <i>urai</i> or <i>khaskhas</i> grass, and the Tikarahia from Tik&#257;ri worship a <i>tikli</i> or glass spangle.
+
+
+
+</p>
+<div id="d0e5961" class="figure"><img border="0" src="images/p210.jpg" alt="Basors making baskets of bamboo." width="720" height="441"><p class="figureHead">Basors making baskets of bamboo.</p>
+</div><p>
+
+
+
+</p>
+</div>
+<div class="div2" id="d0e5965">
+<h3>4. Marriage.</h3>
+<p>The marriage of persons belonging to the same <i>baink</i> or sept and also that of first cousins is forbidden. The age of marriage is settled by convenience, and no stigma attaches
+to its postponement beyond adolescence. Intrigues of unmarried girls with men of their own or any higher caste are usually
+overlooked. The ceremony follows the standard Hindi and Mar&#257;thi forms, and presents no special features. A bride-price called
+<i>ch&#257;ri</i>, amounting to seven or eight rupees, is usually paid. In Betul the practice of <i>lamjhana</i> or serving the father-in-law for a term of years before marrying his daughter, is sometimes followed. Widow-marriage is permitted,
+and the widow is expected to wed her late husband&#8217;s younger brother. The Basors are musicians by profession, but in Bet&#363;l
+the <i>narsingha</i>, a peculiar kind of crooked trumpet, is the only implement which may be played at the marriage of a widow. A woman marrying
+a second time forfeits all interest in the property of her late husband, unless she is without issue and there are no near
+relatives of her husband to take it. Divorce is effected by the breaking of the woman&#8217;s bangles in public. If obtained by
+the wife, <a id="d0e5982"></a><span class="pagenum">[<a href="#d0e5982">211</a>]</span>she must repay to her first husband the expenditure incurred by him for her marriage when she takes a second. But the acceptance
+of this payment is considered derogatory and the husband refuses it unless he is poor.
+
+
+</p>
+</div>
+<div class="div2" id="d0e5984">
+<h3>5. Religion and social status.</h3>
+<p>The Basors worship the ordinary Hindu deities and also ghosts and spirits. Like the other low castes they entertain a special
+veneration for Devi. They profess to exorcise evil spirits and the evil eye, and to cure other disorders and diseases through
+the agency of their incantations and the goblins who do their bidding. They burn their dead when they can afford it and otherwise
+bury them, placing the corpse in the grave with its head to the north. The body of a woman is wrapped in a red shroud and
+that of a man in a white one. They observe mourning for a period of three to ten days, but in Jubbulpore it always ends with
+the fortnight in which the death takes place; so that a person dying on the 15th or 30th of the month is mourned only for
+one day. They eat almost every kind of food, including beef, pork, fowls, liquor and the leavings of others, but abjure crocodiles,
+monkeys, snakes and rats. Many of them have now given up eating cow&#8217;s flesh in deference to Hindu feeling. They will take
+food from almost any caste except sweepers, and one or two others, as Joshi and Jasondhi, towards whom for some unexplained
+reason they entertain a special aversion. They will admit outsiders belonging to any caste from whom they can take food into
+the community. They are generally considered as impure, and live outside the village, and their touch conveys pollution, more
+especially in the Mar&#257;tha Districts. The ordinary village menials, as the barber and washerman, will not work for them, and
+services of this nature are performed by men of their own community. As, however, their occupation is not in itself unclean,
+they rank above sweepers, Cham&#257;rs and Dhobis. Temporary exclusion from caste is imposed for the usual offences, and the almost
+invariable penalty for readmission is a feast to the caste-fellows. A person, male or female, who has been convicted of adultery
+must have the head shaved, and is then seated in the centre of the caste-fellows and pelted by them with the leavings of their
+food. Basor women are not permitted to wear nose-rings on pain of exclusion from caste.
+
+<a id="d0e5989"></a><span class="pagenum">[<a href="#d0e5989">212</a>]</span>
+
+
+</p>
+</div>
+<div class="div2" id="d0e5991">
+<h3>6. Occupation.</h3>
+<p>The trade of the Basors is a very essential one to the agricultural community. They make numerous kinds of baskets, among
+which may be mentioned the <i>chunka</i>, a very small one, the <i>tokni</i>, a basket of middle size, and the <i>tokna</i>, a very large one. The <i>dauri</i> is a special basket with a lining of matting for washing rice in a stream. The <i>jh&#257;npi</i> is a round basket with a cover for holding clothes; the <i>tipanna</i> a small one in which girls keep dolls; and the <i>bilahra</i> a still smaller one for holding betel-leaf. Other articles made from bamboo-bark are the <i>chalni</i> or sieve, the <i>khunkhuna</i> or rattle, the <i>b&#257;nsuri</i> or wooden flute, the <i>bijna</i> or fan, and the <i>s&#363;pa</i> or winnowing-fan. All grain is cleaned with the help of the <i>s&#363;pa</i> both on the threshing-floor and in the house before consumption, and a child is always laid in one as soon as it is born.
+In towns the Basors make the bamboo matting which is so much used. The only implement they employ is the <i>b&#257;nka</i>, a heavy curved knife, with which all the above articles are made. The <i>b&#257;nka</i> is duly worshipped at the Diw&#257;li festival. The Basors are also the village musicians, and a band of three or four of them
+play at weddings and on other festive occasions. Some of them work as pig-breeders and others are village watchmen. The women
+often act as midwives. One subcaste, the Dum&#257;r, will do scavenger&#8217;s work, but they never take employment as <i>saises</i>, because the touch of horse-dung is considered as a pollution, entailing temporary excommunication from caste.
+
+
+</p>
+</div>
+<div class="footnotes">
+<hr class="fnsep">
+<p class="footnote"><span class="label"><a id="d0e5889" href="#d0e5889src" class="noteref">1</a></span> Compiled from papers by Mr. R&#257;m L&#257;l, B. A., Deputy Inspector of Schools, Saugor; Mr. Vishnu Gang&#257;dhar G&#257;dgil, Tahs&#299;ld&#257;r, Narsinghpur;
+Mr. Devi Dayal, Tahs&#299;ld&#257;r, Hatta; Mr. Kanhya L&#257;l, B. A., Deputy Inspector of Schools, Bet&#363;l; Mr. Keshava Rao, Headmaster,
+Middle School, Seoni; and Bapu Gul&#257;b Singh, Superintendent, Land Records, Bet&#363;l.
+</p>
+<p class="footnote"><span class="label"><a id="d0e5901" href="#d0e5901src" class="noteref">2</a></span> Chapter x. 37, and Sh&#363;dra Kaml&#257;kar, p. 284.
+</p>
+<p class="footnote"><span class="label"><a id="d0e5906" href="#d0e5906src" class="noteref">3</a></span> A Vaideha was the child of a Vaishya father and a Br&#257;hman mother.
+</p>
+</div>
+</div>
+<div id="d0e6044" class="div1"><span class="pagenum">
+[<a href="#d0e111">Contents</a>]
+</span><h2>Bedar</h2>
+<div class="div2" id="d0e6047">
+<h3>1. General notice.</h3>
+<p><b>Bedar.<a id="d0e6053src" href="#d0e6053" class="noteref">1</a></b>&#8212;A small caste of about 1500 persons, belonging to Akola, Kh&#257;ndesh and Hyder&#257;b&#257;d. Their ancestors were Pind&#257;ris, apparently
+recruited from the different Mar&#257;tha castes, and when the Pind&#257;ris were suppressed they obtained or were awarded land in the
+localities where they now reside, and took to cultivation. The more respectable Bedars say that their ancestors were Tirole
+Kunbis, but when Tipu Sult&#257;n invaded the Carnatic he took many of them prisoners and ordered them to become Muhammadans. In
+order to please him they took food with Muhammadans, <a id="d0e6056"></a><span class="pagenum">[<a href="#d0e6056">213</a>]</span>and on this account the Kunbis put them out of caste until they should purify themselves. But as there were a large number
+of them, they did not do this, and have remained a separate caste. The real derivation of the name is unknown, but the caste
+say that it is <i>be-dar</i> or &#8216;without fear,&#8217; and was given to them on account of their bravery. They have now obtained a warrant from the descendant
+of Shankar Ach&#257;rya, or the high priest of Sivite Hindus, permitting them to describe themselves as P&#363;t Kunbi or purified Kunbi.<a id="d0e6061src" href="#d0e6061" class="noteref">2</a> The community is clearly of a most mixed nature, as there are also Dher or Mah&#257;r Bedars. They refuse to take food from other
+Mah&#257;rs and consider themselves defiled by their touch. The social position of the caste also presents some peculiar features.
+Several of them have taken service in the army and police, and have risen to the rank of native officer; and Rao S&#257;hib Dhonduji,
+a retired Inspector of Police, is a prominent member of the caste. The R&#257;ja of Surpur, near Raichur, is also said to be a
+Bedar, while others are ministerial officials occupying a respectable position. Yet of the Bedars generally it is said that
+they cannot draw water freely from the public wells, and in N&#257;sik Bedar constables are not considered suitable for ordinary
+duty, as people object to their entering houses. The caste must therefore apparently have higher and lower groups, differing
+considerably in position.
+
+
+</p>
+</div>
+<div class="div2" id="d0e6067">
+<h3>2. Subdivisions and marriage customs.</h3>
+<p>They have three subdivisions, the Mar&#257;tha, Telugu and Kande Bedars. The names of their exogamous sections are also Mar&#257;thi.
+Nevertheless they retain one or two northern customs, presumably acquired from association with the Pind&#257;ris. Their women
+do not tuck the body-cloth in behind the waist, but draw it over the right shoulder. They wear the <i>choli</i> or Hindust&#257;ni breast-cloth tied in front, and have a hooped silver ornament on the top of the head, which is known as <i>dhora</i>. They eat goats, fowls and the flesh of the wild pig, and drink liquor, and will take food from a Kunbi or a Phulm&#257;li, and
+pay little heed to the rules of social impurity. But Hindust&#257;ni Br&#257;hmans act as their priests.
+
+</p>
+<p>Before a wedding they call a Br&#257;hman and worship him as a god, the ceremony being known as Deo Br&#257;hman. The <a id="d0e6080"></a><span class="pagenum">[<a href="#d0e6080">214</a>]</span>Br&#257;hman then cooks food in the house of his host. On the same occasion a person specially nominated by the Br&#257;hman, and known
+as Deokia, fetches an earthen vessel from the potter, and this is worshipped with offerings of turmeric and rice, and a cotton
+thread is tied round it. Formerly it is said they worshipped the spent bullets picked up after a battle, and especially any
+which had been extracted from the body of a wounded person.
+
+
+</p>
+</div>
+<div class="div2" id="d0e6082">
+<h3>3. Funeral rites.</h3>
+<p>When a man is about to die they take him down from his cot and lay him on the ground with his head in the lap of a relative.
+The dead are buried, a person of importance being carried to the grave in a sitting posture, while others are laid out in
+the ordinary manner. A woman is buried in a green cloth and a breast-cloth. When the corpse has been prepared for the funeral
+they take some liquor, and after a few drops have been poured into the mouth of the corpse the assembled persons drink the
+rest. While following to the grave they beat drums and play on musical instruments and sing religious songs; and if a man
+dies during the night, since he is not buried till the morning, they sit in the house playing and singing for the remaining
+hours of darkness. The object of this custom must presumably be to keep away evil spirits. After the funeral each man places
+a leafy branch of some tree or shrub on the grave, and on the thirteenth day they put food before a cow and also throw some
+on to the roof of the house as a portion for the crows.
+
+
+
+<a id="d0e6087"></a><span class="pagenum">[<a href="#d0e6087">215</a>]</span></p>
+</div>
+<div class="footnotes">
+<hr class="fnsep">
+<p class="footnote"><span class="label"><a id="d0e6053" href="#d0e6053src" class="noteref">1</a></span> Based on a paper by Rao Sahib Dhonduji, retired Inspector of Police, Akola, and information collected by Mr. Adur&#257;m Chaudhri
+of the Gazetteer office.
+</p>
+<p class="footnote"><span class="label"><a id="d0e6061" href="#d0e6061src" class="noteref">2</a></span> Mr. Marten&#8217;s <i>C. P. Census Report</i> (1911), p. 212.
+</p>
+</div>
+</div>
+<div id="d0e6088" class="div1"><span class="pagenum">
+[<a href="#d0e111">Contents</a>]
+</span><h2>Beld&#257;r</h2>
+<h3>List of Paragraphs</h3>
+<ul>
+<li><a href="#d0e6134">1. General notice.</a></li>
+<li><a href="#d0e6153">2. Beld&#257;rs of the northern Districts.</a></li>
+<li><a href="#d0e6181">3. Odias of Chhatt&#299;sgarh.</a></li>
+<li><a href="#d0e6188">4. Other Chhatt&#299;sgarhi Beld&#257;rs.</a></li>
+<li><a href="#d0e6199">5. Munurw&#257;r and Telenga.</a></li>
+<li><a href="#d0e6212">6. Vaddar.</a></li>
+<li><a href="#d0e6222">7. P&#257;throt.</a></li>
+<li><a href="#d0e6234">8. Tak&#257;ri.</a></li>
+</ul>
+<div class="div2" id="d0e6134">
+<h3>1. General notice.</h3>
+<p><b>Beld&#257;r,<a id="d0e6140src" href="#d0e6140" class="noteref">1</a> Od, Sonkar, R&#257;j, Larhia, K&#257;r&#299;gar, Matk&#363;da, Chunkar, Munurw&#257;r, Thapatkari, Vaddar, P&#257;throt, Tak&#257;ri.</b>&#8212;The term Beld&#257;r is generically applied to a number of occupational groups of more or less diverse origin, who work as masons
+or navvies, build the earthen embankments of tanks or fields, carry lime and bricks and in former times refined salt. Beld&#257;r
+means one who carries a <i>bel</i>, a hoe or mattock. In 1911 a total of 25,000 Beld&#257;rs were returned from the Central Provinces, being most numerous in the
+Nim&#257;r, Wardha, N&#257;gpur, Ch&#257;nda and Raipur districts. The Nunia, Murha and S&#257;nsia (Uriya) castes, which have been treated in
+separate articles, are also frequently known as Beld&#257;r, and cannot be clearly distinguished from the main caste. If they are
+all classed together the total of the earth- and stone-working castes comes to 35,000 persons.
+
+</p>
+<p>It is probable that the bulk of the Beld&#257;rs and allied castes are derived from the non-Aryan tribes. The Murhas or navvies
+of the northern Districts appear to be an offshoot of the Bind tribe; the people known as Matk&#363;da (earth-digger) are usually
+Gonds or Pardh&#257;ns; the S&#257;nsias and Larhias or Uriyas of Chhatt&#299;sgarh and the Uriya country seem to have originated from the
+Kol, Bhuiya and Oraon <a id="d0e6149"></a><span class="pagenum">[<a href="#d0e6149">216</a>]</span>tribes, the Kols especially making excellent diggers and masons; the Oddes or Vaddars of Madras are a very low caste, and
+some of their customs point to a similar origin, though the Munurw&#257;r masons of Ch&#257;nda appear to have belonged originally to
+the K&#257;pu caste of cultivators.
+
+</p>
+<p>The term R&#257;j, which is also used for the Beld&#257;rs in the northern Districts, has the distinctive meaning of a mason, while
+Ch&#363;nkar signifies a lime-burner. The Sonkars were formerly occupied in Saugor in carrying lime, bricks and earth on donkeys,
+but they have now abandoned this calling in Chhatt&#299;sgarh and taken to growing vegetables, and have been given a short separate
+notice. In Hoshang&#257;b&#257;d some Muhammadan Beld&#257;rs are now also found.
+
+
+</p>
+</div>
+<div class="div2" id="d0e6153">
+<h3>2. Beld&#257;rs of the northern Districts.</h3>
+<p>The Beld&#257;rs of Saugor say that their ancestors were engaged in refining salt from earth. A divine saint named Nona R&#299;shi (<i>non</i>, salt) came down on earth, and while cooking his food mixed some saline soil with it. The bread tasted much better in consequence,
+and he made the earth into a ball or <i>goli</i> and taught his followers to extract the salt from it, whence their descendants are known as Goli Beld&#257;rs. The customs of
+these Beld&#257;rs are of the ordinary low-caste type. The wedding procession is accompanied by drums, fireworks and, if means
+permit, a nautch-girl. If a man puts away his wife without adequate cause the caste <i>panch&#257;yat</i> may compel him to support her so long as she remains of good conduct. The party seeking a divorce, whether husband or wife,
+has to pay Rs. 7 to the caste committee and the other partner Rs. 3, irrespective of where the blame rests, and each remains
+out of caste until he or she pays.
+
+</p>
+<p>These Beld&#257;rs will not take food from any caste but their own, and will not take water from a Br&#257;hman, though they will accept
+it from Kurmis, G&#363;jars and similar castes. Sir H. Risley notes that their women always remove earth in baskets on the head.
+&#8220;The Beld&#257;rs regard this mode of carrying earth as distinctive of themselves, and will on no account transport it in baskets
+slung from the shoulders. They work very hard when paid by the piece, and are notorious for their skill in manipulating the
+pillars (<i>s&#257;khi</i>, witness) left to mark work done, so as to exaggerate the <a id="d0e6172"></a><span class="pagenum">[<a href="#d0e6172">217</a>]</span>measurement. On one occasion while working for me on a large lake at Govindpur, in the north of the M&#257;nbhum District, a number
+of Beld&#257;rs transplanted an entire pillar during the night and claimed payment for several thousand feet of imaginary earthwork.
+The fraud was most skilfully carried out, and was only detected by accident.<span id="d0e6174" class="corr" title="Source: ">&#8221;</span><a id="d0e6176src" href="#d0e6176" class="noteref">2</a> The Beld&#257;rs are often dishonest in their dealings, and will take large advances for a tank or embankment, and then abscond
+with the money without doing the work. During the open season parties of the caste travel about in camp looking for work,
+their furniture being loaded on donkeys. They carry grain in earthen pots encased in bags of netting, neatly and closely woven,
+and grind their wheat daily in a small mill set on a goat-skin. Butter is made in one of their pots with a churning-stick,
+consisting of a cogged wheel fixed on to the end of a wooden rod.
+
+
+</p>
+</div>
+<div class="div2" id="d0e6181">
+<h3>3. Odias of Chhatt&#299;sgarh.</h3>
+<p>The Beld&#257;rs of Chhatt&#299;sgarh are divided into the Odia or Uriya, Larhia, K&#363;chbandhia, Matk&#363;da and K&#257;r&#299;gar groups. Uriya and
+Larhia are local names, applied to residents of the Uriya country and Chhatt&#299;sgarh respectively. Odia is the name of a low
+Madras caste of masons, but whether it is a corruption of Uriya is not clear. K&#257;r&#299;gar means a workman, and K&#363;chbandhia is
+the name of a separate caste, who make loom-combs for weavers. The Odias pretend to be fallen R&#257;jp&#363;ts. They say that when
+Indra stole the sacrificial horse of R&#257;ja S&#257;gar and kept it in the underworld, the R&#257;ja&#8217;s thousand sons dug great holes through
+the earth to get it. Finally they arrived at the underworld and were all reduced to ashes by the R&#299;shi Kapil Muni, who dwelt
+there. Their ghosts besought him for life, and he said that their descendants should always continue to dig holes in the earth,
+which would be used as tanks; and that whenever a tank was dug by them, and its marriage celebrated with a sacrifice, the
+savour of the sacrifice would descend to the ghosts and would afford them sustenance. The Odias say that they are the descendants
+of the R&#257;ja&#8217;s sons, and unless a tank is dug and its marriage celebrated by them it remains impure. These Odias have their
+tutelary deity in Rewah State, and at his shrine is <a id="d0e6186"></a><span class="pagenum">[<a href="#d0e6186">218</a>]</span>a flag which none but an Odia of genuine descent from R&#257;ja S&#257;gar&#8217;s sons can touch without some injury befalling him. If any
+Beld&#257;ar therefore claims to belong to their caste they call on him to touch the flag, and if he does so with impunity they
+acknowledge him as a brother.
+
+
+</p>
+</div>
+<div class="div2" id="d0e6188">
+<h3>4. Other Chhatt&#299;sgarhi Beld&#257;rs.</h3>
+<p>The other group of Chatt&#299;sgarhi Beld&#257;rs are of lower status, and clearly derived from the non-Aryan tribes. They eat pigs,
+and at intervals of two or three years they celebrate the worship of Gosain Deo with a sacrifice of pigs, the deity being
+apparently a deified ascetic or mendicant. On this occasion the Dh&#299;mars, Gonds, and all other castes which eat pig&#8217;s flesh
+join in the sacrifice, and consume the meat together after the fashion of the rice at Jagann&#257;th&#8217;s temple, which all castes
+may eat together without becoming impure. These Beld&#257;rs use asses for the transport of their bricks and stones, and on the
+Diw&#257;li day they place a lamp before the ass and pay reverence to it. They say that at their marriages a bride-price of Rs.
+100 or Rs. 200 must always be paid, but they are allowed to give one or two donkeys and value them at Rs. 50 apiece. They
+make grindstones (<i>chakki</i>), combs for straightening the threads on the loom, and frames for stretching the threads. These frames are called <i>dongi</i>, and are made either wholly or partly from the horns of animals, a fact which no doubt renders them impure.
+
+
+</p>
+</div>
+<div class="div2" id="d0e6199">
+<h3>5. Munurw&#257;r and Telenga.</h3>
+<p>In Ch&#257;nda the principal castes of stone-workers are the Telengas (Telugus), who are also known as Th&#257;patkari (tapper or chiseller),
+Telenga Kunbi and Munurw&#257;r. They occupy a higher position than the ordinary Beld&#257;r, and Kunbis will take water from them and
+sometimes food. They say that they came into Ch&#257;nda from the Telugu country along the God&#257;vari and Pr&#257;nhita rivers to build
+the great wall of Chanda and the palaces and tombs of the Gond kings. There is no reason to doubt that the Munurw&#257;rs are a
+branch of the K&#257;pu cultivating caste of the Telugu country. Mr. A. K. Smith states that they refuse to eat the flesh of an
+animal which has been skinned by a Mah&#257;r, a Cham&#257;r, or a Gond; the Kunbis and Mar&#257;thas also consider flesh touched by a Mah&#257;r
+or Cham&#257;r to be impure, but do not object to a Gond. Like the Ber&#257;r <a id="d0e6204"></a><span class="pagenum">[<a href="#d0e6204">219</a>]</span>Kunbis, the Telengas prefer that an animal should be killed by the rite of <i>hal&#257;l</i> as practised by Muhammadan butchers. The reason no doubt is that the <i>hal&#257;l</i> is a method of sacrificial slaughter, and the killing of the animal is legitimised even though by the ritual of a foreign
+religion. The Th&#257;patkaris appear to be a separate group, and their original profession was to collect and retail jungle fruits
+and roots having medicinal properties. Though the majority have become stone- and earth-workers some of them still do this.
+
+
+</p>
+</div>
+<div class="div2" id="d0e6212">
+<h3>6. Vaddar.</h3>
+<p>The Vaddars or Wadew&#257;rs are a branch of the Odde caste of Madras. They are almost an impure caste, and a section of them are
+professional criminals. Their women wear glass bangles only on the left arm, those on the right arm being made of brass or
+other metal. This rule has no doubt been introduced because glass bangles would get broken when they were supporting loads
+on the head. The men often wear an iron bangle on the left wrist, which they say keeps off the lightning. Mr. Thurston states
+that &#8220;Women who have had seven husbands are much respected among the Oddes, and their blessing on a bridal pair is greatly
+prized. They work in gangs on contract, and every one, except very old and very young, shares in the labour. The women carry
+the earth in baskets, while the men use the pick and spade. The babies are usually tied up in cloths, which are suspended,
+hammock-fashion, from the boughs of trees. A woman found guilty of immorality is said to have to carry a basketful of earth
+from house to house before she is readmitted to the caste. The stone-cutting Vaddars are the principal criminals, and by going
+about under the pretence of mending grindstones they obtain much useful information as to the houses to be looted or parties
+of travellers to be attacked. In committing a highway robbery or dacoity they are always armed with stout sticks.&#8221;<a id="d0e6217src" href="#d0e6217" class="noteref">3</a>
+
+
+</p>
+</div>
+<div class="div2" id="d0e6222">
+<h3>7. P&#257;throt.</h3>
+<p>In Ber&#257;r besides the regular Beld&#257;rs two castes of stone-workers are found, the Pathr&#257;wats or P&#257;throts (stone-breakers) and
+the Tak&#257;ris, who should perhaps be classed as separate castes. Both make and sharpen millstones and grindstones, and they
+are probably only occupational groups of recent formation. The Tak&#257;ris are connected with the P&#257;rdhi caste <a id="d0e6227"></a><span class="pagenum">[<a href="#d0e6227">220</a>]</span>of professional hunters and fowlers and may be a branch of them. The social customs of the P&#257;throts resemble those of the
+Kunbis. &#8220;They will take cooked food from a Sut&#257;r or a Kumbh&#257;r. Imprisonment, the killing of a cow or criminal intimacy of
+a man with a woman of another caste is punished by temporary outcasting, readmission involving a fine of Rs. 4 or Rs. 5. Their
+chief deity is the Devi of Tulj&#257;pur and their chief festival Dasahra; the implements of the caste are worshipped twice a year,
+on Gudhi P&#257;dwa and Diw&#257;li. Women are tattooed with a crescent between the eyebrows and dots on the right side of the nose,
+the right cheek, and the chin, and a basil plant or peacock is drawn on their wrists.&#8221;<a id="d0e6229src" href="#d0e6229" class="noteref">4</a>
+
+
+</p>
+</div>
+<div class="div2" id="d0e6234">
+<h3>8. Tak&#257;ri.</h3>
+<p>&#8220;The Tak&#257;ris take their name from the verb <i>t&#257;kne</i>, to reset or rechisel. They mend the handmills (<i>chakkis</i>) used for grinding corn, an occupation which is sometimes shared with them by the Langoti P&#257;rdhis. The Tak&#257;ri&#8217;s avocation
+of chiselling grindstones gives him excellent opportunities for examining the interior economy of houses, and the position
+of boxes and cupboards, and for gauging the wealth of the inmates. They are the most inveterate house-breakers and dangerous
+criminals. A form of crime favoured by the Tak&#257;ri, in common with many other criminal classes, is that of decoying into a
+secluded spot outside the village the would-be receiver of stolen property and robbing him of his cash&#8212;a trick which carries
+a wholesome lesson with it.&#8221;<a id="d0e6245src" href="#d0e6245" class="noteref">5</a> The chisel with which they chip the grindstones furnishes, as stated by Mr. D. A. Smyth, D.S.P., an excellent implement for
+breaking a hole through the mud wall of a house.
+
+
+</p>
+</div>
+<div class="footnotes">
+<hr class="fnsep">
+<p class="footnote"><span class="label"><a id="d0e6140" href="#d0e6140src" class="noteref">1</a></span> This article is based on papers by Mr. A. K. Smith, C.S., Mr. Khande R&#257;o, Superintendent of Land Records, Raipur, and Munshi
+Kanhiya L&#257;l, of the Gazetteer office.
+</p>
+<p class="footnote"><span class="label"><a id="d0e6176" href="#d0e6176src" class="noteref">2</a></span> <i>Tribes and Castes of Bengal</i>, art. Beld&#257;r.
+</p>
+<p class="footnote"><span class="label"><a id="d0e6217" href="#d0e6217src" class="noteref">3</a></span> <i>The Castes and Tribes of Southern India</i>, art. Odde.
+</p>
+<p class="footnote"><span class="label"><a id="d0e6229" href="#d0e6229src" class="noteref">4</a></span> <i>Akola District Gazetteer</i> (Mr. C. Brown), pp. 132, 133.
+</p>
+<p class="footnote"><span class="label"><a id="d0e6245" href="#d0e6245src" class="noteref">5</a></span> <i>Amraoti District Gazetteer</i> (Messrs. Nelson and Fitzgerald), p. 146.
+</p>
+</div>
+</div>
+<div id="d0e6250" class="div1"><span class="pagenum">
+[<a href="#d0e111">Contents</a>]
+</span><h2>Beria, Bedia.</h2>
+<p>[<i>Bibliography</i>: Sir H. Risley&#8217;s <i>Tribes and Castes of Bengal</i>; R&#257;jendra L&#257;l Mitra in <i>Memoirs, Anthropological Society of London</i>, iii. p. 122; Mr. Crooke&#8217;s <i>Tribes and Castes of the North-Western Provinces and Oudh</i>; Mr. Kennedy&#8217;s <i>Criminal Classes of the Bombay Presidency</i>; Major Gunthorpe&#8217;s <i>Criminal Tribes</i>; Mr. Gayer&#8217;s <i>Lectures on some Criminal Tribes of the Central Provinces</i>; Colonel Sleeman&#8217;s <i>Report on the Badhak or B&#257;gri Dacoits</i>.]
+
+
+
+</p>
+<div class="div2" id="d0e6279">
+<h3>1. Historical notice.</h3>
+<p>A caste of gipsies and thieves who are closely connected with the S&#257;nsias. In 1891 they numbered 906 <a id="d0e6284"></a><span class="pagenum">[<a href="#d0e6284">221</a>]</span>persons in the Central Provinces, distributed over the northern Districts; in 1901 they were not separately classified but
+were identified with the Nats. &#8220;They say that some generations ago two brothers resided in the Bhartpur territory, of whom
+one was named Sains M&#363;l and the other Mullanur. The descendants of Sains M&#363;l are the S&#257;nsias and those of Mullanur the Berias
+or Kolh&#257;tis, who are vagrants and robbers by hereditary profession, living in tents or huts of matting, like Nats or other
+vagrant tribes, and having their women in common without any marriage ceremonies or ties whatsoever. Among themselves or their
+relatives the S&#257;nsias or descendants of Sains M&#363;l, they are called Dholi or Kolh&#257;ti. The descendants of the brothers eat,
+drink and smoke together, and join in robberies, but never intermarry.&#8221; So Colonel Sleeman wrote in 1849, and other authorities
+agree on the close connection or identity of the Berias and S&#257;nsias of Central India. The Kolh&#257;tis belong mainly to the Deccan
+and are apparently a branch of the Berias, named after the <i>Kolh&#257;n</i> or long pole with which they perform acrobatic feats. The Berias of Central India differ in many respects from those of Bengal.
+Here Sir H. Risley considers Beria to be &#8216;the generic name of a number of vagrant, gipsy-like groups&#8217;; and a full description
+of them has been given by B&#257;bu R&#257;jendra L&#257;l Mitra, who considers them to resemble the gipsies of Europe. &#8220;They are noted for
+a light, elastic, wiry make, very uncommon in the people of this country. In agility and hardness they stand unrivalled. The
+men are of a brownish colour, like the bulk of Bengalis, but never black. The women are of lighter complexion and generally
+well-formed; some of them have considerable claims to beauty, and for a race so rude and primitive in their habits as the
+Berias, there is a sharpness in the features of their women which we see in no other aboriginal race in India. Like the gipsies
+of Europe they are noted for the symmetry of their limbs; but their offensive habits, dirty clothing and filthy professions
+give them a repulsive appearance, which is heightened by the reputation they have of kidnapping children and frequenting burial-grounds
+and places of cremation.... Familiar with the use of bows and arrows and great adepts in <a id="d0e6289"></a><span class="pagenum">[<a href="#d0e6289">222</a>]</span>laying snares and traps, they are seldom without large supplies of game and flesh of wild animals of all kinds. They keep
+the dried bodies of a variety of birds for medical purposes; mongoose, squirrels and flying-foxes they eat with avidity as
+articles of luxury. Spirituous liquors and intoxicating drugs are indulged in to a large extent, and chiefs of clans assume
+the title of Bhangi or drinkers of hemp (<i>bh&#257;ng</i>) as a mark of honour.... In lying, thieving and knavery the Beria is not a whit inferior to his brother gipsy of Europe.
+The Beria woman deals in charms for exorcising the devil and palmistry is her special vocation. She also carries with her
+a bundle of herbs and other real or pretended charms against sickness of body or mind; and she is much sought after by village
+maidens for the sake of the philtre with which she restores to them their estranged lovers; while she foretells the date when
+absent friends will return and the sex of unborn children. They practise cupping with buffalo horns, pretend to extract worms
+from decayed teeth and are commonly employed as tattooers. At home the Beria woman makes mats of palm-leaves, while her lord
+alone cooks.... Beria women are even more circumspect than European gipsies. If a wife does not return before the jackal&#8217;s
+cry is heard in the evening, she is subject to severe punishment. It is said that a <i>faux pas</i> among her own kindred is not considered reprehensible; but it is certain that no Berini has ever been known to be at fault
+with any one not of her own caste.&#8221; This last statement is not a little astonishing, inasmuch as in Central India and in Bundelkhand
+Berni is an equivalent term for a prostitute. A similar diversity of conjugal morality has been noticed between the B&#257;gris
+of northern India and the V&#257;ghris of Gujar&#257;t.<a id="d0e6297src" href="#d0e6297" class="noteref">1</a>
+
+
+</p>
+</div>
+<div class="div2" id="d0e6300">
+<h3>2. Criminal tendencies in the Central Provinces.</h3>
+<p>In other respects also the Berias of Bengal appear to be more respectable than the remainder of the caste, obtaining their
+livelihood by means which, if disreputable, are not actually dishonest; while in Central India the women Berias are prostitutes
+and the men house-breakers and thieves. These latter are so closely connected with the S&#257;nsias that the account of that caste
+is also applicable to the Berias. <a id="d0e6305"></a><span class="pagenum">[<a href="#d0e6305">223</a>]</span>In Jubbulpore, Mr. Gayer states, the caste are expert house-breakers, bold and daring, and sometimes armed with swords and
+matchlocks. They sew up stolen property in their bed-quilts and secrete it in the hollow legs of their sleeping-cots, and
+the women habitually conceal jewels and even coins in the natural passages of the body, in which they make special <i>saos</i> or receptacles by practice. The Beria women go about begging, and often break open the doors of unoccupied houses in the
+daytime and steal anything they can find.<a id="d0e6310src" href="#d0e6310" class="noteref">2</a> Both S&#257;nsia and Beria women wear a <i>laong</i> or clove in the left nostril.
+
+
+</p>
+</div>
+<div class="div2" id="d0e6316">
+<h3>3. Social customs.</h3>
+<p>As already stated, the women are professional prostitutes, but these do not marry, and on arrival at maturity they choose
+the life which they prefer. Mr. Crooke states,<a id="d0e6321src" href="#d0e6321" class="noteref">3</a> however, that regular marriages seldom occur among them, because nearly all the girls are reserved for prostitution, and
+the men keep concubines drawn from any fairly respectable caste. So far is this the rule that in some localities if a man
+marries a girl of the tribe he is put out of caste or obliged to pay a fine to the tribal council. This last rule does not
+seem to obtain in the Central Provinces, but marriages are uncommon. In a colony of Berias in Jubbulpore<a id="d0e6324src" href="#d0e6324" class="noteref">4</a> numbering sixty families it was stated that only eight weddings could be remembered as having occurred in the last fifty
+years. The boys therefore have to obtain wives as best they can; sometimes orphan girls from other castes are taken into the
+community, or any outsider is picked up. For a bride from the caste itself a sum of Rs. 100 is usually demanded, and the same
+has to be paid by a Beria man who takes a wife from the Nat or Kanjar castes, as is sometimes done. When a match is proposed
+they ask the expectant bridegroom how many thefts he has committed without detection; and if his performances have been inadequate
+they refuse to give him the girl on the ground that he will be unable to support a wife. At the betrothal the boy&#8217;s parents
+go to the girl&#8217;s house, taking with them a potful of liquor round which a silver ring is placed and a <a id="d0e6327"></a><span class="pagenum">[<a href="#d0e6327">224</a>]</span>pig. The ring is given to the girl and the head of the pig to her father, while the liquor and the body of the pig provide
+a feast for the caste. They consult Br&#257;hmans at their birth and marriage ceremonies. Their principal deities appear to be
+their ancestors, whom they worship on the same day of the month and year as that on which their death took place. They make
+an offering of a pig to the goddess Dadaju or Devi before starting on their annual predatory excursions. Some rice is thrown
+into the animal&#8217;s ear before it is killed, and the direction in which it turns its head is selected as the one divinely indicated
+for their route. Prostitution is naturally not regarded as any disgrace, and the women who have selected this profession mix
+on perfectly equal terms with those who are married. They occupy, in fact, a more independent position, as they dispose absolutely
+of their own earnings and property, and on their death it devolves on their daughters or other female relatives, males having
+no claim to it, in some localities at least. Among the children of married couples daughters inherit equally with sons. A
+prostitute is regarded as the head of the family so far as her children are concerned. Outsiders are freely admitted into
+the caste on giving a feast to the community. In Saugor the women of the caste, known as Berni, are the village dancing-girls,
+and are employed to give performances in the cold weather, especially at the Holi festival, where they dance the whole night
+through, fortified by continuous potations of liquor. This dance is called <i>rai</i>, and is accompanied by most obscene songs and gestures.
+
+
+
+<a id="d0e6332"></a><span class="pagenum">[<a href="#d0e6332">225</a>]</span></p>
+</div>
+<div class="footnotes">
+<hr class="fnsep">
+<p class="footnote"><span class="label"><a id="d0e6297" href="#d0e6297src" class="noteref">1</a></span> See article on Badhak.
+</p>
+<p class="footnote"><span class="label"><a id="d0e6310" href="#d0e6310src" class="noteref">2</a></span> Kennedy, p. 247.
+</p>
+<p class="footnote"><span class="label"><a id="d0e6321" href="#d0e6321src" class="noteref">3</a></span> Crooke, art. Beria.
+</p>
+<p class="footnote"><span class="label"><a id="d0e6324" href="#d0e6324src" class="noteref">4</a></span> The following particulars are taken from a note by Mr. K. N. D&#257;te, Deputy Superintendent, Reformatory School, Jubbulpore.
+</p>
+</div>
+</div>
+<div id="d0e6333" class="div1"><span class="pagenum">
+[<a href="#d0e111">Contents</a>]
+</span><h2>Bhaina</h2>
+<h3>List of Paragraphs</h3>
+<ul>
+<li><a href="#d0e6374">1. The tribe derived from the Baigas.</a></li>
+<li><a href="#d0e6399">2. Closely connected with the Kawars.</a></li>
+<li><a href="#d0e6406">3. Internal structure: Totemism.</a></li>
+<li><a href="#d0e6431">4. Marriage.</a></li>
+<li><a href="#d0e6449">5. Religious superstitions.</a></li>
+<li><a href="#d0e6462">6. Admission of outsiders and caste offences.</a></li>
+<li><a href="#d0e6472">7. Social customs.</a></li>
+</ul>
+<div class="div2" id="d0e6374">
+<h3>1. The tribe derived from the Baigas.</h3>
+<p><b>Bhaina.</b><a id="d0e6380src" href="#d0e6380" class="noteref">1</a>&#8212;A primitive tribe peculiar to the Central Provinces and found principally in the Bil&#257;spur District and the adjoining area,
+that is, in the wild tract of forest country between the Satp&#363;ra range and the south of the Chota N&#257;gpur plateau. In 1911
+about 17,000 members of the tribe were returned. The tribe is of mixed descent and appears to have been derived principally
+from the Baigas and Kawars, having probably served as a city of refuge to persons expelled from these and other tribes and
+the lower castes for irregular sexual relations. Their connection with the Baigas is shown by the fact that in Mandla the
+Baigas have two subdivisions, which are known as Rai or R&#257;j-Bhaina, and Kath, or catechu-making Bhaina. The name therefore
+would appear to have originated with the Baiga tribe. A Bhaina is also not infrequently found to be employed in the office
+of village priest and magician, which goes by the name of Baiga in Bil&#257;spur. And a Bhaina has the same reputation as a Baiga
+for sorcery, it being said of him&#8212;
+
+
+</p>
+<div class="poem" lang="und">
+<div class="stanza">
+<p class="line" style=""><span>Mainh&#257;r ki m&#257;njh
+</span></p>
+<p class="line" style=""><span>Bhaina ki p&#257;ng</span></p>
+</div>
+</div><a id="d0e6388"></a><span class="pagenum">[<a href="#d0e6388">226</a>]</span><p>or &#8216;The magic of a Bhaina is as deadly as the powdered <i>mainh&#257;r</i> fruit,&#8217; this fruit having the property of stupefying fish when thrown into the water, so that they can easily be caught.
+This reputation simply arises from the fact that in his capacity of village priest the Bhaina performs the various magical
+devices which lay the ghosts of the dead, protect the village against tigers, ensure the prosperity of the crops and so on.
+But it is always the older residents of any locality who are employed by later comers in this office, because they are considered
+to have a more intimate acquaintance with the local deities. And consequently we are entitled to assume that the Bhainas are
+older residents of the country where they are found than their neighbours, the Gonds and Kawars. There is other evidence to
+the same effect; for instance, the oldest forts in Bil&#257;spur are attributed to the Bhainas, and a chief of this tribe is remembered
+as having ruled in Bilaigarh; they are also said to have been dominant in Pendra, where they are still most numerous, though
+the estate is now held by a Kawar; and it is related that the Bhainas were expelled from Phuljhar in Raipur by the Gonds.
+Phuljhar is believed to be a Gond State of long standing, and the R&#257;ja of Raigarh and others claim to be descended from its
+ruling family. A manuscript history of the Phuljhar chiefs records that that country was held by a Bhaina king when the Gonds
+invaded it, coming from Ch&#257;nda. The Bhaina with his soldiers took refuge in a hollow underground chamber with two exits. But
+the secret of this was betrayed to the Gonds by an old Gond woman, and they filled up the openings of the chamber with grass
+and burnt the Bhainas to death. On this account the tribe will not enter Phuljhar territory to this day, and say that it is
+death to a Bhaina to do so. The Binjhw&#257;rs are also said to have been dominant in the hills to the east of Raipur District,
+and they too are a civilised branch of the Baigas. And in all this area the village priest is commonly known as Baiga, the
+deduction from which is, as already stated, that the Baigas were the oldest residents.<a id="d0e6394src" href="#d0e6394" class="noteref">2</a> It seems a legitimate conclusion, therefore, that prior to the immigration of the <a id="d0e6397"></a><span class="pagenum">[<a href="#d0e6397">227</a>]</span>Gonds and Kawars, the ancient Baiga tribe was spread over the whole hill country east and north of the Mah&#257;nad&#299; basin.
+
+
+</p>
+</div>
+<div class="div2" id="d0e6399">
+<h3>2. Closely connected with the Kawars.</h3>
+<p>The Bhainas are also closely connected with the Kawars, who still own many large estates in the hills north of Bil&#257;spur. It
+is said that formerly the Bhainas and Kawars both ate in common and intermarried, but at present, though the Bhainas still
+eat rice boiled in water from the Kawars, the latter do not reciprocate. But still, when a Kawar is celebrating a birth, marriage
+or death in his family, or when he takes in hand to make a tank, he will first give food to a Bhaina before his own caste-men
+eat. And it may safely be assumed that this is a recognition of the Bhaina&#8217;s position as having once been lord of the land.
+A Kawar may still be admitted into the Bhaina community, and it is said that the reason of the rupture of the former equal
+relations between the two tribes was the disgust felt by the Kawars for the rude and uncouth behaviour of the Bhainas. For
+on one occasion a Kawar went to ask for a Bhaina girl in marriage, and, as the men of the family were away, the women undertook
+to entertain him. And as the Bhainas had no axes, the daughter proceeded to crack the sticks on her head for kindling a fire,
+and for grass she pulled out a wisp of thatch from the roof and broke it over her thigh, being unable to chop it. This so
+offended the delicate susceptibilities of the Kawar that he went away without waiting for his meal, and from that time the
+Kawars ceased to marry with the Bhainas. It seems possible that the story points to the period when the primitive Bhainas
+and Baigas did not know the use of iron and to the introduction of this metal by the later-coming Kawars and Gonds. It is
+further related that when a Kawar is going to make a ceremonial visit he likes always to take with him two or three Bhainas,
+who are considered as his retainers, though not being so in fact. This enhances his importance, and it is also said that the
+stupidity of the Bhainas acts as a foil, through which the superior intelligence of the Kawar is made more apparent. All these
+details point to the same conclusion that the primitive Bhainas first held the country and were supplanted by the more civilised
+Kawars, and bears <a id="d0e6404"></a><span class="pagenum">[<a href="#d0e6404">228</a>]</span>out the theory that the settlement of the Munda tribes was prior to those of the Dravidian family.
+
+
+</p>
+</div>
+<div class="div2" id="d0e6406">
+<h3>3. Internal structure: Totemism.</h3>
+<p>The tribe has two subdivisions of a territorial nature, Laria or Chhatt&#299;sgarhi, and Uriya. The Uriya Bhainas will accept food
+cooked without water from the Sawaras or Saonrs, and these also from them; so that they have probably intermarried. Two other
+subdivisions recorded are the Jhaly&#257;ra and Ghanty&#257;ra or Ghaty&#257;ra; the former being so called because they live in <i>jh&#257;las</i> or leaf huts in the forest, and the latter, it is said, because they tie a <i>ghanta</i> or bell to their doors. This, however, seems very improbable. Another theory is that the word is derived from <i>gh&#257;t</i>, a slope or descent, and refers to a method which the tribe have of tattooing themselves with a pattern of lines known as
+<i>gh&#257;t</i>. Or it is said to mean a low or despised section. The Jhaly&#257;ra and Ghaty&#257;ra divisions comprise the less civilised portion
+of the tribe, who still live in the forests; and they are looked down on by the Uriya and Laria sections, who belong to the
+open country. The exogamous divisions of the tribe show clearly enough that the Bhainas, like other subject races, have quite
+failed to preserve any purity of blood. Among the names of their <i>gots</i> or septs are Dhobia (a washerman), Ahera (cowherd), Gond, Mallin (gardener), Panika (from a Panka or Ganda) and others. The
+members of such septs pay respect to any man belonging to the caste after which they are named and avoid picking a quarrel
+with him. They also worship the family gods of this caste. The tribe have also a number of totem septs, named after animals
+or plants. Such are N&#257;g the cobra, B&#257;gh the tiger, Chitwa the leopard, Gidha the vulture, Besra the hawk, Bendra the monkey,
+Kok or Lodha the wild dog, Bataria the quail, Durgachhia the black ant, and so on. Members of a sept will not injure the animal
+after which it is named, and if they see the corpse of the animal or hear of its death, they throw away an earthen cooking-pot
+and bathe and shave themselves as for one of the family. Members of the Baghchh&#257;l or tiger sept will, however, join in a beat
+for tiger though they are reluctant to do so. At weddings the Bhainas have a ceremony known as the <i>gotra</i> worship. The bride&#8217;s father <a id="d0e6429"></a><span class="pagenum">[<a href="#d0e6429">229</a>]</span>makes an image in clay of the bird or animal of the groom&#8217;s sept and places it beside the marriage-post. The bridegroom worships
+the image, lighting a sacrificial fire before it, and offers to it the vermilion which he afterwards smears upon the forehead
+of the bride. At the bridegroom&#8217;s house a similar image is made of the bride&#8217;s totem, and on returning there after the wedding
+she worships this. Women are often tattooed with representations of their totem animal, and men swear by it as their most
+sacred oath. A similar respect is paid to the inanimate objects after which certain septs are named. Thus members of the Gawad
+or cowdung sept will not burn cowdung cakes for fuel; and those of the Mircha sept do not use chillies. One sept is named
+after the sun, and when an eclipse occurs these perform the same formal rites of mourning as the others do on the death of
+their totem animal. Some of the groups have two divisions, male and female, which practically rank as separate septs. Instances
+of these are the N&#257;gbans Andura and the N&#257;gbans Mai or male and female cobra septs; the Karsay&#257;l Singhara and Karsay&#257;l Mundi
+or stag and doe deer septs; and the Baghchh&#257;l Andura and Baghchh&#257;l Mai or tiger and tigress septs. These may simply be instances
+of subdivisions arising owing to the boundaries of the sept having become too large for convenience.
+
+
+</p>
+</div>
+<div class="div2" id="d0e6431">
+<h3>4. Marriage.</h3>
+<p>The tribe consider that a boy should be married when he has learnt to drive the plough, and a girl when she is able to manage
+her household affairs. When a father can afford a bride for his son, he and his relatives go to the girl&#8217;s village, taking
+with them ten or fifteen cakes of bread and a bottle of liquor. He stays with some relative and sends to ask the girl&#8217;s father
+if he will give his daughter to the inquirer&#8217;s son. If the former agrees, the bread and liquor are sent over to him, and he
+drinks three cups of the spirit as a pledge of the betrothal, the remainder being distributed to the company. This is known
+as <i lang="und">Tatia kholna</i> or &#8216;the opening of the door,&#8217; and is followed some days afterwards by a similar ceremonial which constitutes the regular
+betrothal. On this occasion the father agrees to marry his daughter within a year and demands the bride-price, which consists
+of rice, cloth, a goat and other articles, <a id="d0e6439"></a><span class="pagenum">[<a href="#d0e6439">230</a>]</span>the total value being about five rupees. A date is next fixed for the wedding, the day selected being usually a Monday or
+Friday, but no date or month is forbidden. The number of days to the wedding are then counted, and two knotted strings are
+given to each party, with a knot for each day up to that on which the anointings with oil and turmeric will commence at the
+bridegroom&#8217;s and bride&#8217;s houses. Every day one knot is untied at each house up to that on which the ceremonies begin, and
+thus the correct date for them is known. The invitations to the wedding are given by distributing rice coloured yellow with
+turmeric to all members of the caste in the locality, with the intimation that the wedding procession will start on a certain
+day and that they will be pleased to attend. During the four days that they are being anointed the bride and bridegroom dance
+at their respective houses to the accompaniment of drums and other instruments. For the wedding ceremony a number of Hindu
+rites have been adopted. The eldest sister of the bridegroom or bride is known as the <i>saw&#257;sin</i> and her husband as the <i>saw&#257;sa</i>, and these persons seem to act as the representatives of the bridal couple throughout the marriage and to receive all presents
+on their behalf. The custom is almost universal among the Hindus, and it is possible that they are intended to act as substitutes
+and to receive any strokes of evil fortune which may befall the bridal pair at a season at which they are peculiarly liable
+to it. The couple go round the sacred post, and afterwards the bridegroom daubs the bride&#8217;s forehead with red lead seven times
+and covers her head with her cloth to show that she has become a married woman. After the wedding the bridegroom&#8217;s parents
+say to him, &#8220;Now your parents have done everything they could for you, and you must manage your own house.&#8221; The expenditure
+on an average wedding is about fifteen or twenty rupees. A widow is usually taken in marriage by her late husband&#8217;s younger
+brother or Dewar, or by one of his relatives. If she marries an outsider, the Dewar realises twelve rupees from him in compensation
+for her loss. But if there is no Dewar this sum is not payable to her first husband&#8217;s elder brother or her own father, because
+they could not have married her <a id="d0e6447"></a><span class="pagenum">[<a href="#d0e6447">231</a>]</span>and hence are not held to be injured by a stranger doing so. If a woman is divorced and another man wishes to marry her, he
+must make a similar payment of twelve rupees to the first husband, together with a goat and liquor for the penal feast. The
+Bhainas bury or burn the dead according as their means permit.
+
+
+</p>
+</div>
+<div class="div2" id="d0e6449">
+<h3>5. Religious superstitions.</h3>
+<p>Their principal deity in Bil&#257;spur is Nakti Devi<a id="d0e6454src" href="#d0e6454" class="noteref">3</a> or the &#8216;Noseless Goddess.&#8217; For her ritual rice is placed on a square of the floor washed with cowdung, and <i>gh&#299;</i> or preserved butter is poured on it and burnt. A hen is made to eat the rice, and then its head is cut off and laid on the
+square. The liver is burnt on the fire as an offering to the deity and the head and body of the animal are then eaten. After
+the death of a man a cock is offered to Nakti Devi and a hen after that of a woman. The fowl is made to pick rice first in
+the yard of the house, then on the threshold, and lastly inside the house. Th&#257;kur Deo is the deity of cultivation and is worshipped
+on the day before the autumn crops are sown. On this day all the men in the village go to his shrine taking a measure of rice
+and a ploughshare. At the same time the Baiga or village priest goes and bathes in the tank and is afterwards carried to the
+assembly on a man&#8217;s shoulders. Here he makes an offering and repeats a charm, and then kneeling down strikes the earth seven
+times with the ploughshare, and sows five handfuls of rice, sprinkling water over the seed. After him the villagers walk seven
+times round the altar of the god in pairs, one man turning up the earth with the ploughshare and the other sowing and watering
+the seed. While this is going on the Baiga sits with his face covered with a piece of cloth, and at the end the villagers
+salute the Baiga and go home. When a man wishes to do an injury to another he makes an image of him with clay and daubs it
+with vermilion and worships it with an offering of a goat or a fowl and liquor. Then he prays the image that his enemy may
+die. Another way of injuring an enemy is to take rice coloured with turmeric, and after <a id="d0e6460"></a><span class="pagenum">[<a href="#d0e6460">232</a>]</span>muttering charms throw it in the direction in which the enemy lives.
+
+
+</p>
+</div>
+<div class="div2" id="d0e6462">
+<h3>6. Admission of outsiders and caste offences.</h3>
+<p>Outsiders are not usually admitted, but if a Bhaina forms a connection with a woman of another tribe, they will admit the
+children of such a union, though not the woman herself. For they say: &#8216;The seed is ours and what matters the field on which
+it was sown.&#8217; But a man of the Kawar tribe having intimacy with a Bhaina woman may be taken into the community. He must wait
+for three or four months after the matter becomes known and will beg for admission and offer to give the penalty feast. A
+day is fixed for this and invitations are sent to members of the caste. On the appointed day the women of the tribe cook rice,
+pulse, goat&#8217;s flesh and urad cakes fried in oil, and in the evening the people assemble and drink liquor and then go to take
+their food. The candidate for admission serves water to the men and his prospective wife to the women, both being then permitted
+to take food with the tribe. Next morning the people come again and the woman is dressed in a white cloth with bangles. The
+couple stand together supported by their brother-in-law and sister-in-law respectively, and turmeric dissolved in water is
+poured over their heads. They are now considered to be married and go round together and give the salutation or Joh&#257;r to the
+people, touching the feet of those who are entitled to this mark of respect, and kissing the others. Among the offences for
+which a man is temporarily put out of caste is getting the ear torn either accidentally or otherwise, being beaten by a man
+of very low caste, growing san-hemp (<i>Crotalaria juncea</i>), rearing tasar silk-worms or getting maggots in a wound. This last is almost as serious an offence as killing a cow, and,
+in both cases, before an offender can be reinstated he must kill a fowl and swallow a drop or two of its blood with turmeric.
+Women commonly get the lobe of the ear torn through the heavy ear-rings which they wear; and in a squabble another woman will
+often seize the ear-ring maliciously in order to tear the ear. A woman injured in this way is put out of caste for a year
+in J&#257;njgir. To grow turmeric or garlic is also an offence against caste, but a man is permitted to do this for his own use
+and not for sale. A man who gets leprosy is <a id="d0e6470"></a><span class="pagenum">[<a href="#d0e6470">233</a>]</span>said to be permanently expelled from caste. The purification of delinquents is conducted by members of the Sonw&#257;ni (gold-water)
+and Patel (headman) septs, whose business it is to give the offender water to drink in which gold has been dipped and to take
+over the burden of his sins by first eating food with him. But others say that the H&#257;thi or elephant sept is the highest,
+and to its members are delegated these duties. And in J&#257;njgir again the president of the committee gives the gold-water, and
+is hence known as Sonw&#257;n; and this office must always be held by a man of the Bandar or monkey sept.
+
+
+</p>
+</div>
+<div class="div2" id="d0e6472">
+<h3>7. Social customs.</h3>
+<p>The Bhainas are a comparatively civilised tribe and have largely adopted Hindu usages. They employ Br&#257;hmans to fix auspicious
+days for their ceremonies, though not to officiate at them. They live principally in the open country and are engaged in agriculture,
+though very few of them hold land and the bulk are farm-labourers. They now disclaim any connection with the primitive Baigas,
+who still prefer the forests. But their caste mark, a symbol which may be affixed to documents in place of a signature or
+used for a brand on cattle, is a bow, and this shows that they retain the recollection of hunting as their traditional occupation.
+Like the Baigas, the tribe have forgotten their native dialect and now speak bad Hindi. They will eat pork and rats, and almost
+anything else they can get, eschewing only beef. But in their intercourse with other castes they are absurdly strict, and
+will take boiled rice only from a Kawar, or from a Br&#257;hman if it is cooked in a brass and not in an earthen vessel, and this
+only from a male and not from a female Br&#257;hman; while they will accept baked <i>chap&#257;tis</i> and other food from a Gond and a R&#257;wat. But in Sambalpur they will take this from a Savar and not from a Gond. They rank
+below the Gonds, Kawars and Savars or Saonrs. Women are tattooed with a representation of their sept totem; and on the knees
+and ankles they have some figures of lines which are known as <i>gh&#257;ts</i>. These they say will enable them to climb the mountains leading to heaven in the other world, while those who have not such
+marks will be pierced with spears on their way up the ascent. It has already been suggested that these marks may have given
+rise to the name of the Ghaty&#257;ra division of the tribe.
+
+<a id="d0e6483"></a><span class="pagenum">[<a href="#d0e6483">234</a>]</span></p>
+</div>
+<div class="footnotes">
+<hr class="fnsep">
+<p class="footnote"><span class="label"><a id="d0e6380" href="#d0e6380src" class="noteref">1</a></span> This article is based principally on a paper by Panna L&#257;l, Revenue Inspector, Bil&#257;spur, and also on papers by Mr. Syed Sher
+Ali, N&#257;ib-Tahs&#299;ld&#257;r, Mr. Hira L&#257;l and Mr. Adur&#257;m Chaudhri of the Gazetteer office.
+</p>
+<p class="footnote"><span class="label"><a id="d0e6394" href="#d0e6394src" class="noteref">2</a></span> For the meaning of the term Baiga and its application to the tribe, see also article on Bhuiya.
+</p>
+<p class="footnote"><span class="label"><a id="d0e6454" href="#d0e6454src" class="noteref">3</a></span> It is or was, of course, a common practice for a husband to cut off his wife&#8217;s nose if he suspected her of being unfaithful
+to him. But whether the application of the epithet to the goddess should be taken to imply anything against her moral character
+is not known.
+</p>
+</div>
+</div>
+<div id="d0e6484" class="div1"><span class="pagenum">
+[<a href="#d0e111">Contents</a>]
+</span><h2>Bh&#257;mta or Bh&#257;mtya</h2>
+<div class="div2" id="d0e6487">
+<h3>1. Occupation.</h3>
+<p><b>Bh&#257;mta or Bh&#257;mtya.</b><a id="d0e6493src" href="#d0e6493" class="noteref">1</a>&#8212;A caste numbering 4000 persons in the Central Provinces, nearly all of whom reside in the Wardha, N&#257;gpur and Ch&#257;nda Districts
+of the N&#257;gpur Division. The Bh&#257;mtas are also found in Bombay, Ber&#257;r and Hyder&#257;b&#257;d. In Bombay they are known by the names of
+Uchla or &#8216;Lifter&#8217; and Ganthachor or &#8216;Bundle-thief.&#8217;<a id="d0e6496src" href="#d0e6496" class="noteref">2</a> The Bh&#257;mtas were and still are notorious thieves, but many of the caste are now engaged in the cultivation of hemp, from
+which they make ropes, mats and gunny-bags. Formerly it was said in Wardha that a Bh&#257;mta girl would not marry unless her suitor
+had been arrested not less than fourteen times by the police, when she considered that he had qualified as a man. The following
+description of their methods does not necessarily apply to the whole caste, though the bulk of them are believed to have criminal
+tendencies. But some colonies of Bh&#257;mtas who have taken to the manufacture of sacking and gunny-bags from hemp-fibre may perhaps
+be excepted. They steal only during the daytime, and divide that part of the Province which they frequent into regular beats
+or ranges. They adopt many disguises. Even in their own cottages one dresses as a M&#257;rw&#257;ri Bania, another as a Gujar&#257;t Jain,
+a third as a Br&#257;hman and a fourth as a R&#257;jp&#363;t. They keep to some particular disguise for years and often travel hundreds of
+miles, entering and stealing from the houses of the classes of persons whose dress they adopt, or taking service with a merchant
+or trader, and having gained their employer&#8217;s confidence, seizing an opportunity to abscond with some valuable property. Sometimes
+two or three Bh&#257;mtas visit a large fair, and one of them dressed as a Br&#257;hman mingles with the crowd of bathers and worshippers.
+The false Br&#257;hman notices some ornament deposited by a bather, and while himself entering the water and repeating sacred verses,
+watches his opportunity and spreads out his cloth near the ornament, which he then catches with his toes, and dragging it
+with him to a distance as he walks away buries <a id="d0e6501"></a><span class="pagenum">[<a href="#d0e6501">235</a>]</span>it in the sand. The accomplices meanwhile loiter near, and when the owner discovers his loss the Br&#257;hman sympathises with
+him and points out the accomplices as likely thieves, thus diverting suspicion from himself. The victim follows the accomplices,
+who make off, and the real thief meanwhile digs the ornament out of the sand and escapes at his leisure. Women often tie their
+ornaments in bundles at such bathing-fairs, and in that case two Bh&#257;mtas will go up to her, one on each side, and while one
+distracts her attention the other makes off with the bundle and buries it in the sand. A Bh&#257;mta rarely retains the stolen
+property on his person while there is a chance of his being searched, and is therefore not detected. They show considerable
+loyalty to one another, and never steal from or give information against a member of the caste. If stolen property is found
+in a Bh&#257;mta&#8217;s house, and it has merely been deposited there for security, the real thief comes forward. An escaped prisoner
+does not come back to his friends lest he should get them into trouble. A Bh&#257;mta is never guilty of house-breaking or gang-robbery,
+and if he takes part in this offence he is put out of caste. He does not steal from the body of a person asleep. He is, however,
+expert at the theft of ornaments from the person. He never steals from a house in his own village, and the villagers frequently
+share directly or indirectly in his gains. The Bh&#257;mtas are now expert railway thieves.<a id="d0e6503src" href="#d0e6503" class="noteref">3</a> Two of them will get into a carriage, and, engaging the other passengers in conversation, find out where they are going,
+so as to know the time available for action. When it gets dark and the travellers go to sleep, one of the Bh&#257;mtas lies down
+on the floor and covers himself with a large cloth. He begins feeling some bag under the seat, and if he cannot open it with
+his hands, takes from his mouth the small curved knife which all Bh&#257;mtas carry concealed between their gum and upper lip,
+and with this he rips up the seams of the bag and takes out what he finds; or they exchange bags, according to a favourite
+device of English railway thieves, and then quickly either leave the train or get into another carriage. <a id="d0e6509"></a><span class="pagenum">[<a href="#d0e6509">236</a>]</span>If attention is aroused they throw the stolen property out of the window, marking the place and afterwards going back to recover
+it. Another device is to split open and pick the pockets of people in a crowd. Besides the knife they often have a needle
+and thread and an iron nut-cutter.
+
+
+</p>
+</div>
+<div class="div2" id="d0e6511">
+<h3>2. Subdivisions and marriage customs.</h3>
+<p>Members of other castes, as Chhatri, Kanjar, R&#257;wat and others, who have taken to stealing, are frequently known as Bh&#257;mtas,
+but unless they have been specially initiated do not belong to the caste. The Bh&#257;mtas proper have two main divisions, the
+Chhatri Bh&#257;mtas, who are usually immigrants from Gujar&#257;t, and those of the Mar&#257;tha country, who are often known as Bh&#257;mtis.
+The former have a dialect which is a mixture of Hindi, Mar&#257;thi and Gujar&#257;ti, while the latter speak the local form of Mar&#257;thi.
+The sections of the Chhatri Bh&#257;mtas are named after R&#257;jp&#363;t septs, as Badg&#363;jar, Chauh&#257;n, Gahlot, Bhatti, Kachhw&#257;ha and others.
+They may be partly of R&#257;jp&#363;t descent, as they have regular and pleasing features and a fair complexion, and are well built
+and sturdy. The sections of the Bh&#257;mtis are called by Mar&#257;tha surnames, as Gudekar, Kaothi, Bailkhade, S&#257;tbhaia and others.
+The Chhatri Bh&#257;mtas have northern customs, and the Bh&#257;mtis those of the Mar&#257;tha country. Marriage between persons of the same
+<i>gotra</i> or surname is prohibited. The Chhatris avoid marriage between relations having a common greatgrandparent, but among the Bh&#257;mtis
+the custom of Mehunch&#257;r is prevalent, by which the brother&#8217;s daughter is married to the sister&#8217;s son. Girls are usually married
+at ten and eleven years of age or later. The betrothal and marriage customs of the two subcastes differ, the Chhatris following
+the ceremonial of the northern Districts and the Bh&#257;mtis that of the Mar&#257;tha country. The Chhatris do not pay a bride-price,
+but the Bh&#257;mtis usually do. Widow-marriage is allowed, and while the Chhatris expect the widow to marry her deceased husband&#8217;s
+brother, the Bh&#257;mtis do not permit this. Among both subdivisions a price is paid for the widow to her parents. Divorce is
+only permitted for immoral conduct on the part of the wife. A divorced woman may remarry after giving a feast to the caste
+<i>panch&#257;yat</i> or committee, and obtaining their consent.
+
+<a id="d0e6522"></a><span class="pagenum">[<a href="#d0e6522">237</a>]</span>
+
+
+</p>
+</div>
+<div class="div2" id="d0e6524">
+<h3>3. Religion and social customs.</h3>
+<p>The goddess Devi is the tutelary deity of the caste, as of all those who ply a disreputable profession. Animals are sacrificed
+to her or let loose to wander in her name. The offerings are appropriated by the village washerman. In Bombay the rendezvous
+of the Bh&#257;mtis is the temple of Devi at Konali, in Akalkot State, near Sholapur, and here the gangs frequently assemble before
+and after their raids to ask the goddess that luck may attend them and to thank her for success obtained.<a id="d0e6529src" href="#d0e6529" class="noteref">4</a> They worship their rope-making implements on the Dasahra day. They both bury and burn the dead. Ghosts and spirits are worshipped.
+If a man takes a second wife after the death of his first, the new wife wears a <i>putli</i> or image of the first wife on a piece of silver on her neck, and offers it the <i>hom</i> sacrifice by placing some <i>gh&#299;</i> on the fire before taking a meal. In cases of doubt and difficulty she often consults the <i>putli</i> by speaking to it, while any chance stir of the image due to the movement of her body is interpreted as approval or disapproval.
+In the Central Provinces the Bh&#257;mtis say that they do not admit outsiders into the caste, but this is almost certainly untrue.
+In Bombay they are said to admit all Hindus<a id="d0e6546src" href="#d0e6546" class="noteref">5</a> except the very lowest castes, and also Muhammadans. The candidate must pass through the two ceremonies of admission into
+the caste and adoption into a particular family. For the first he pays an admission fee, is bathed and dressed in new clothes,
+and one of the elders drops turmeric and sugar into his mouth. A feast follows, during which some elders of the caste eat
+out of the same plate with him. This completes the admission ceremony, but in order to marry in the caste a candidate must
+also be adopted into a particular family. The Bh&#257;mta who has agreed to adopt him invites the caste people to his house, and
+there takes the candidate on his knee while the guests drop turmeric and sugar into his mouth. The Bh&#257;mtas eat fish and fowl
+but not pork or beef, and drink liquor. This last practice is, however, frequently made a caste offence by the Bh&#257;mtis. They
+take cooked food from Br&#257;hmans and Kunbis and water from Gonds. The keeping of concubines is also an offence entailing temporary
+excommunication. <a id="d0e6551"></a><span class="pagenum">[<a href="#d0e6551">238</a>]</span>The morality of the caste is somewhat low and their women are addicted to prostitution. The occupation of the Bh&#257;mta is also
+looked down on, and it is said, <i>Bh&#257;mta ka k&#257;m sub se nik&#257;m</i>, or &#8216;The Bh&#257;mta&#8217;s work is the worst of all.&#8217; This may apply either to his habits of stealing or to the fact that he supplies
+a bier made of twine and bamboo sticks at a death. In Bombay the showy dress of the Bh&#257;mta is proverbial. Women are tattooed
+before marriage on the forehead and lower lip, and on other parts of the body for purposes of adornment. The men have the
+head shaved for three inches above the top of the forehead in front and an inch higher behind, and they wear the scalp-lock
+much thicker than Br&#257;hmans do. They usually have red head-cloths.
+
+
+</p>
+</div>
+<div class="footnotes">
+<hr class="fnsep">
+<p class="footnote"><span class="label"><a id="d0e6493" href="#d0e6493src" class="noteref">1</a></span> This article is mainly compiled from a paper by Py&#257;re L&#257;l Misra, Ethnographic Clerk.
+</p>
+<p class="footnote"><span class="label"><a id="d0e6496" href="#d0e6496src" class="noteref">2</a></span> <i>Bombay Gazetteer</i> (Campbell), xviii. p. 464.
+</p>
+<p class="footnote"><span class="label"><a id="d0e6503" href="#d0e6503src" class="noteref">3</a></span> The following particulars are taken from Colonel Portman&#8217;s <i>Report on the Bh&#257;mtas of the Deccan</i> (Bombay, 1887).
+</p>
+<p class="footnote"><span class="label"><a id="d0e6529" href="#d0e6529src" class="noteref">4</a></span> Portman, <i>loc. cit.</i></p>
+<p class="footnote"><span class="label"><a id="d0e6546" href="#d0e6546src" class="noteref">5</a></span> <i>Bombay Gazetteer</i> (Campbell), xviii. p. 465.
+</p>
+</div>
+</div>
+<div id="d0e6556" class="div1"><span class="pagenum">
+[<a href="#d0e111">Contents</a>]
+</span><h2>Bharbh&#363;nja</h2>
+<div class="div2" id="d0e6559">
+<h3>1. General notice</h3>
+<p><b>Bharbh&#363;nja.</b><a id="d0e6565src" href="#d0e6565" class="noteref">1</a>&#8212;The occupational caste of grain-parchers. The name is derived from the Sanskrit <i>bhr&#257;stra</i>, a frying-pan, and <i>bh&#257;rjaka</i>, one who fries. The Bharbh&#363;njas numbered 3000 persons in 1911, and belong mainly to the northern Districts, their headquarters
+being in Upper India. In Chhatt&#299;sgarh the place of the Bharbh&#363;njas is taken by the Dh&#363;ris. Sir H. Elliot<a id="d0e6574src" href="#d0e6574" class="noteref">2</a> remarks that the caste are traditionally supposed to be descended from a Kah&#257;r father and a S&#363;dra mother, and they are probably
+connected with the Kah&#257;rs. In Saugor they say that their ancestors were K&#257;nkubja Br&#257;hmans who were ordered to parch rice at
+the wedding of the great R&#257;ma, and in consequence of this one of their subcastes is known as K&#257;nbajia. But K&#257;nkubja is one
+of the commonest names of subcastes among the people of northern India, and merely indicates that the bearers belong to the
+tract round the old city of Kanauj; and there is no reason to suppose that it means anything more in the case of the Bharbh&#363;njas.
+Another group are called Kaitha, and they say that their ancestors were K&#257;yasths, who adopted the profession of grain-parching.
+It is said that in Bhop&#257;l proper K&#257;yasths will take food from Kaitha Bharbh&#363;njas and smoke from their huqqa; and it is noticeable
+that in <a id="d0e6579"></a><span class="pagenum">[<a href="#d0e6579">239</a>]</span>northern India Mr. Crooke gives<a id="d0e6581src" href="#d0e6581" class="noteref">3</a> not only the Kaitha subcaste, but other groups called Saksena and Sriv&#257;stab, which are the names of well-known Kayasth subdivisions.
+It is possible, therefore, that the Kaitha group may really be connected with the K&#257;yasths. Other subcastes are the Bengl&#257;h,
+who are probably immigrants from Bengal; and the K&#257;ndu, who may also come from that direction, K&#257;ndu being the name of the
+corresponding caste of grain-parchers in Bengal.
+
+
+</p>
+</div>
+<div class="div2" id="d0e6586">
+<h3>2. Social customs.</h3>
+<p>The social customs of the Bharbh&#363;njas resemble those of Hindust&#257;ni castes of fairly good position.<a id="d0e6591src" href="#d0e6591" class="noteref">4</a> They employ Br&#257;hmans for their ceremonies, and the family priest receives five rupees for officiating at a wedding, three
+rupees for a funeral, one rupee for a birth, and four annas on ordinary occasions. No price is paid for a bride, and at their
+marriages the greater part of the expense falls on the girl&#8217;s father, who has to give three feasts as against two provided
+by the bridegroom&#8217;s father. After the wedding the bridegroom&#8217;s father puts on women&#8217;s clothes given by the bride&#8217;s father
+and dances before the family. Rose-coloured water and powder are sprinkled over the guests and the proceeding is known as
+<i>Ph&#257;g</i>, because it is considered to have the same significance as the Holi festival observed in Ph&#257;gun. This is usually done on
+the bank of a river or in some garden outside the village. At the <i>gauna</i> or going-away ceremony the bride and bridegroom take their seats on two wooden boards and then change places. Divorce and
+the remarriage of widows are permitted. The union of a widow with her deceased husband&#8217;s younger brother is considered a suitable
+match, but is not compulsory. When a bachelor marries a widow, he first goes through the proper ceremony either with a stick
+or an ear-ring, and is then united to the widow by the simple ritual employed for widow remarriage. A girl who is seduced
+by a member of the caste may be married to him as if she were a widow, but if her lover is an outsider she is permanently
+expelled from the caste.
+
+
+</p>
+</div>
+<div class="div2" id="d0e6600">
+<h3>3. Occupation.</h3>
+<p>The Bharbh&#363;njas occupy a fairly high social position, <a id="d0e6605"></a><span class="pagenum">[<a href="#d0e6605">240</a>]</span>analogous to that of the Barais, Kah&#257;rs and other serving castes, the explanation being that all Hindus require the grain
+parched by them; this, as it is not cooked with water, may be eaten abroad, on a journey or in the market-place. This is known
+as <i>pakki</i> food, and even Br&#257;hmans will take it from their hands. But Mr. Crooke notes<a id="d0e6610src" href="#d0e6610" class="noteref">5</a> that the work they do, and particularly the sweeping up of dry leaves for fuel, tends to lower them in the popular estimation,
+and it is a favourite curse to wish of an enemy that he may some day come to stoke the kiln of a grain-parcher. Of their occupation
+Sir H. Risley states that &#8220;Throughout the caste the actual work of parching grain is usually left to the women. The process
+is a simple one. A clay oven is built, somewhat in the shape of a bee-hive, with ten or twelve round holes at the top. A fire
+is lighted under it and broken earthen pots containing sand are put on the holes. The grain to be parched is thrown in with
+the sand and stirred with a flat piece of wood or a broom until it is ready. The sand and parched grain are then placed in
+a sieve, through which the former escapes. The wages of the parcher are a proportion of the grain, varying from one-eighth
+to one-fourth. In Bengal the caste was spoken of by early English travellers under the quaint name of the frymen.&#8221;<a id="d0e6614src" href="#d0e6614" class="noteref">6</a> In the Central Provinces also grain-parching is distinctly a woman&#8217;s industry, only twenty-two per cent of those shown as
+working at it being men. There are two classes of tradesmen, those who simply keep ovens and parch grain which is brought
+to them, and those who keep the grain and sell it ready parched. The rates for parching are a pice a seer or an eighth part
+of the grain. Gram and rice, husked or unhusked, are the grains usually parched. When parched, gram is called <i>phut&#257;na</i> (broken) and rice <i>l&#257;hi</i>. The Bharbh&#363;njas also prepare <i>sathu</i>, a flour made by grinding parched gram or wheat, which is a favourite food for a light morning meal, or for travellers. It
+can be taken without preparation, being simply mixed with water and a little salt or sugar. The following story is told about
+<i>sathu</i> to emphasise its convenience in this respect. Once two travellers were about to take some food before <a id="d0e6631"></a><span class="pagenum">[<a href="#d0e6631">241</a>]</span>starting in the morning, of whom one had <i>sathu</i> and the other <i>dh&#257;n</i> (unhusked rice). The one with the <i>dh&#257;n</i> knew that it would take him a long time to pound, and then cook and eat it, so he said to the other, &#8220;My poor friend, I perceive
+that you only have <i>sathu</i>, which will delay you because you must find water, and then mix it, and find salt, and put it in, before your <i>sathu</i> can be ready, while rice&#8212;pound, eat and go. But if you like, as you are in a greater hurry than I am, I will change my rice
+for your <i>sathu</i>.&#8221; The other traveller unsuspectingly consented, thinking he was getting the best of the bargain, and while he was still looking
+for a mortar in which to pound his rice, the first traveller had mixed and eaten the <i>sathu</i> and proceeded on his journey. In the vernacular the point is brought out by the onomatopoeic character of the lines, which
+cannot be rendered in English. The caste are now also engaged in selling tobacco and sweetmeats and the manufacture of fireworks.
+They stoke their ovens with any refuse they can collect from the roads, and hence comes the saying, &#8216;<i lang="und">Bh&#257;r men d&#257;lna</i>&#8217;, &#8216;To throw into the oven,&#8217; meaning to throw away something or to make ducks and drakes with it; while <i>Bh&#257;r-jhokna</i> signifies to light or heat the oven, and, figuratively, to take up a mean occupation (Platts). Another proverb quoted by
+Mr. Crooke is, &#8216;<i lang="und">Bharbh&#363;nja ka larki kesar ka t&#299;ka</i>,&#8217; or &#8216;The Bharbh&#363;nja&#8217;s slut with saffron on her forehead,&#8217; meaning one dressed in borrowed plumes. Another saying is, &#8216;<i lang="und">To tum kya abhi tak bh&#257;r bhunjte rahe</i>,&#8217; or &#8216;Have you been stoking the oven all this time?&#8217;&#8212;meaning to imply that the person addressed has been wasting his time,
+because the profits from grain-parching are so small. The oven of the Psalmist into which the grass was cast no doubt closely
+resembled that of the Bharbh&#363;njas.
+
+
+
+
+<a id="d0e6666"></a><span class="pagenum">[<a href="#d0e6666">242</a>]</span></p>
+</div>
+<div class="footnotes">
+<hr class="fnsep">
+<p class="footnote"><span class="label"><a id="d0e6565" href="#d0e6565src" class="noteref">1</a></span> This article contains some information from a paper by Mr. Gopal Parmanand, Deputy Inspector of Schools, Saugor.
+</p>
+<p class="footnote"><span class="label"><a id="d0e6574" href="#d0e6574src" class="noteref">2</a></span> <i>Memoirs of the Races of the N.W.P.</i> vol. i. p. 35.
+</p>
+<p class="footnote"><span class="label"><a id="d0e6581" href="#d0e6581src" class="noteref">3</a></span> <i>Tribes and Castes</i>, art. Bharbh&#363;nja.
+</p>
+<p class="footnote"><span class="label"><a id="d0e6591" href="#d0e6591src" class="noteref">4</a></span> See article on Kurmi. The remainder of this section is taken from Mr. Gopal Parmanand&#8217;s notes.
+</p>
+<p class="footnote"><span class="label"><a id="d0e6610" href="#d0e6610src" class="noteref">5</a></span> <i>Ibidem.</i></p>
+<p class="footnote"><span class="label"><a id="d0e6614" href="#d0e6614src" class="noteref">6</a></span> <i>Tribes and Castes of Bengal</i>, art. K&#257;ndu.
+</p>
+</div>
+</div>
+<div id="d0e6667" class="div1"><span class="pagenum">
+[<a href="#d0e111">Contents</a>]
+</span><h2>Bharia</h2>
+<h3>List of Paragraphs</h3>
+<ul>
+<li><a href="#d0e6713">1. Origin and tribal legend.</a></li>
+<li><a href="#d0e6749">2. Tribal subdivisions.</a></li>
+<li><a href="#d0e6777">3. Marriage.</a></li>
+<li><a href="#d0e6789">4. Childbirth.</a></li>
+<li><a href="#d0e6794">5. Funeral ceremonies.</a></li>
+<li><a href="#d0e6808">6. Religion and magic.</a></li>
+<li><a href="#d0e6820">7. Social life and customs.</a></li>
+<li><a href="#d0e6836">8. Occupation.</a></li>
+</ul>
+<div class="div2" id="d0e6713">
+<h3>1. Origin and tribal legend.</h3>
+<p><b>Bharia, Bharia-Bhumia.</b><a id="d0e6719src" href="#d0e6719" class="noteref">1</a>&#8212;A Dravidian tribe numbering about 50,000 persons and residing principally in the Jubbulpore District, which contains a half
+of the total number. The others are found in Chhindw&#257;ra and Bil&#257;spur. The proper name of the tribe is Bharia, but they are
+often called Bharia-Bhumia, because many of them hold the office of Bhumia or priest of the village gods and of the lower
+castes in Jubbulpore, and the Bharias prefer the designation of Bhumia as being the more respectable. The term Bhumia or &#8216;Lord
+of the soil&#8217; is an alternative for Bhuiya, the name of another Dravidian tribe, and no doubt came to be applied to the office
+of village priest because it was held by members of this tribe; the term Baiga has a similar signification in Mandla and B&#257;l&#257;gh&#257;t,
+and is applied to the village priest though he may not belong to the Baiga tribe at all. The Bharias have forgotten their
+original affinities, and several stories of the origin of the tribe are based on far-fetched derivations of the name. One
+of these is to the effect that Arjun, when matters were going badly with the Pandavas in their battle against the Kauravas,
+took up a handful of <i>bharru</i> grass and, pressing it, produced a host of men who fought in the battle and became the ancestors of <a id="d0e6725"></a><span class="pagenum">[<a href="#d0e6725">243</a>]</span>the Bharias. And there are others of the same historical value. But there is no reason to doubt that Bharia is the contemptuous
+form of Bhar, as Telia for Teli, Jugia for Jogi, Kuria for Kori, and that the Bharias belong to the great Bhar tribe who were
+once dominant in the eastern part of the United Provinces, but are now at the bottom of the social scale, and relegated by
+their conquerors to the degrading office of swineherds. The R&#257;jjhars, who appear to have formed a separate caste as the landowning
+subdivision of the Bhars, like the R&#257;j-Gonds among Gonds, are said to be the descendants of a R&#257;ja and a Bharia woman. The
+R&#257;jjhars form a separate caste in the Central Provinces, and the Bharias acknowledge some connection with them, but refuse
+to take water from their hands, as they consider them to be of impure blood. The Bharias also give Mahoba or B&#257;ndhogarh as
+their former home, and these places are in the country of the Bhars. According to tradition R&#257;ja Karna Deva, a former king
+of D&#257;hal, the classical name of the Jubbulpore country, was a Bhar, and it may be that the immigration of the Bharias into
+Jubbulpore dates from his period, which is taken as 1040 to 1080 <span class="smallcaps">A.D.</span> While then it may be considered as fairly certain that the Bharias are merely the Bhar tribe with a variant of the name,
+it is clear from the titles of their family groups, which will shortly be given, that they are an extremely mixed class and
+consist largely of the descendants of members of other castes, who, having lost their own social position, have taken refuge
+among the Bharias at the bottom of the social scale. Mr. Crooke says of the Bhars:<a id="d0e6730src" href="#d0e6730" class="noteref">2</a> &#8220;The most probable supposition is that the Bhars were a Dravidian race closely allied to the Kols, Cheros and Seoris, who
+at an early date succumbed to the invading Aryans. This is borne out by their appearance and physique, which closely resemble
+that of the undoubted non-Aryan aborigines of the Vindhyan-Kaim&#363;r plateau.&#8221; In the Central Provinces the Bharias have been
+so closely associated with the Gonds that they have been commonly considered to belong to that tribe. Thus Mr. Drysdale says
+of them:<a id="d0e6735src" href="#d0e6735" class="noteref">3</a> &#8216;The Bharias were the wildest of the wild Gonds <a id="d0e6740"></a><span class="pagenum">[<a href="#d0e6740">244</a>]</span>and were inveterate <i>dhay&#257;</i><a id="d0e6744src" href="#d0e6744" class="noteref">4</a> cutters.&#8217; Although, however, they have to some extent intermarried with the Gonds, the Bharias were originally quite a distinct
+tribe, and would belong to the Kolarian or Munda group but that they have entirely forgotten their own language and speak
+only Hindi, though with a peculiar intonation especially noticeable in the case of their women.
+
+
+</p>
+</div>
+<div class="div2" id="d0e6749">
+<h3>2. Tribal subdivisions.</h3>
+<p>The structure of the tribe is a very loose one, and though the Bharias say that they are divided into subcastes, there are
+none in reality. Members of all castes except the very lowest may become Bharias, and one Bharia will recognise another as
+a fellow-tribesman if he can show relationship to any person admitted to occupy that position. But a division is in process
+of formation in Bil&#257;spur based on the practice of eating beef, from which some abstain, and in consequence look down on the
+others who are addicted to it, and call them Dhur Bharias, the term <i>dhur</i> meaning cattle. The abstainers from beef now refuse to marry with the others. The tribe is divided into a number of exogamous
+groups, and the names of these indicate the very heterogeneous elements of which it consists. Out of fifty-one groups reported
+not less than fifteen or sixteen have names derived from other castes or clans, showing almost certainly that such groups
+were formed by a mixed marriage or the admission of a family of outsiders. Such names are: Agaria, from the Agarias or iron-workers:
+this clan worships Loha-Sur, the god of the Agarias; Ahirw&#257;r, or the descendants of an Ah&#299;r: this clan worships the Ah&#299;r gods;
+Bamhania, born of a Br&#257;hman ancestor; Binjhw&#257;r or Binjha, perhaps from the tribe of that name; Chandel, from a R&#257;jp&#363;t clan;
+Dagdoha, a synonym of Basor: persons of this sept hang a piece of bamboo and a curved knife to the waist of the bride at their
+marriages; Dhurua, born of a Dhurua Gond; Ku&#257;npa, born of an Ah&#299;r subcaste of that name; Kurka, of Korku parentage; Mar&#257;vi,
+the name of a Gond clan; R&#257;thor from a R&#257;jp&#363;t clan; Samarba from a Cham&#257;r; and Yarkara, the name of a Gond clan. These names
+sufficiently indicate the diverse elements of which the tribe is made up. Other <a id="d0e6757"></a><span class="pagenum">[<a href="#d0e6757">245</a>]</span>group names with meanings are: Gambhele, or those who seclude their women in a separate house during the menstrual period;
+Kaitha, from the <i>kaith</i> tree (<i>Feronia elephantum</i>); Karondiha, from the <i>karonda</i> plant (<i>Carissa Carandas</i>); Magarha, from <i>magar</i> a crocodile: members of this group worship an image of a crocodile made with flour and fried in oil; Sonw&#257;ni, from <i>sona</i> gold: members of this group perform the ceremony of readmission of persons temporarily put out of caste by sprinkling on
+them a little water in which gold has been dipped. Any person who does not know his clan name calls himself a Chandel, and
+this group, though bearing the name of a distinguished R&#257;jp&#363;t clan, is looked upon as the lowest. But although the rule of
+exogamy in marriage is recognised, it is by no means strictly adhered to, and many cases are known in which unions have taken
+place between members of the same clan. So long as people can recollect a relationship between themselves, they do not permit
+their families to intermarry. But the memory of the Bharia does not extend beyond the third generation.
+
+
+</p>
+</div>
+<div class="div2" id="d0e6777">
+<h3>3. Marriage.</h3>
+<p>Marriages are adult, and the proposal comes from the boy&#8217;s father, who has it conveyed to the girl&#8217;s father through some friend
+in his village. If a betrothal is arranged the bride&#8217;s father invites the father and friends of the bridegroom to dinner;
+on this occasion the boy&#8217;s father brings some necklaces of lac beads and spangles and presents them to the bride&#8217;s female
+relatives, who then come out and tie the necklaces round his neck and those of his friends, place the spangles on their foreheads,
+and then, catching hold of their cheeks, press and twist them violently. Some turmeric powder is also thrown on their faces.
+This is the binding portion of the betrothal ceremony. The date of marriage is fixed by a Br&#257;hman, this being the only purpose
+for which he is employed, and a bride-price varying from six to twelve rupees is paid. On this occasion the women draw caricatures
+with turmeric or charcoal on the loin-cloth of the boy&#8217;s father, which they manage to purloin. The marriage ceremony follows
+generally the Hindu form. The bridegroom puts on women&#8217;s ornaments and carries with him an iron nut-cracker or dagger to keep
+off evil spirits. After <a id="d0e6782"></a><span class="pagenum">[<a href="#d0e6782">246</a>]</span>the wedding, the <i>midua</i>, a sort of burlesque dance, is held. The girl&#8217;s mother gets the dress of the boy&#8217;s father and puts it on, together with a
+false beard and moustaches, and dances, holding a wooden ladle in one hand and a packet of ashes in the other. Every time
+she approaches the bridegroom&#8217;s father on her rounds she spills some of the ashes over him, and occasionally gives him a crack
+on the head with her ladle, these actions being accompanied by bursts of laughter from the party and frenzied playing by the
+musicians. When the party reach the bridegroom&#8217;s house on their return, his mother and the other women come out and burn a
+little mustard and human hair in a lamp, the unpleasant smell emitted by these articles being considered potent to drive away
+evil spirits. Every time the bride leaves her father&#8217;s house she must weep, and must cry separately with each one of her caste-sisters
+when taking leave of them. When she returns home she must begin weeping loudly on the boundary of the village, and continue
+doing so until she has embraced each of her relatives and friends, a performance which in a village containing a large number
+of Bharias may take from three to six hours. These tears are, however, considered to be a manifestation of joy, and the girl
+who cannot produce enough of them is often ridiculed. A prospective son-in-law who serves for his wife is known as Gharji&#257;n.
+The work given him is always very heavy, and the Bharias have a saying which compares his treatment with that awarded to an
+ox obtained on hire. If a girl is seduced by a man of the tribe, she may be married to him by the ceremony prescribed for
+the remarriage of a widow, which consists merely in the placing of bangles on the wrists and a present of a new cloth, together
+with a feast to the caste-fellows. Similarly if she is seduced by a man of another caste who would be allowed to become a
+Bharia, she can be married as a widow to any man of the tribe. A widow is expected to marry her late husband&#8217;s younger brother,
+but no compulsion is exercised. If a bachelor espouses a widow, he first goes through the ceremony of marriage with a ring
+to which a twig of the date-palm is tied, by carrying the ring seven times round the marriage post. This is necessary to save
+him from the sin of dying <a id="d0e6787"></a><span class="pagenum">[<a href="#d0e6787">247</a>]</span>unmarried, as the union with a widow is not reckoned as a true marriage. In Jubbulpore divorce is said to be allowed only
+for conjugal misbehaviour, and a Bharia will pass over three transgressions on his wife&#8217;s part before finally turning her
+out of his house. A woman who wishes to leave her husband simply runs away from him and lives with somebody else. In this
+case the third party must pay a goat to the husband by way of compensation and give a feast to the caste-fellows.
+
+
+</p>
+</div>
+<div class="div2" id="d0e6789">
+<h3>4. Childbirth.</h3>
+<p>The carelessness of the Bharias in the matter of childbirth is notorious, and it is said that mothers commonly went on working
+up to the moment of childbirth and were delivered of children in the fields. Now, however, the woman lies up for three days,
+and some ceremonies of purification are performed. In Chhatt&#299;sgarh infants are branded on the day of their birth, under the
+impression that this will cause them to digest the food they have taken in the womb. The child is named six months after birth
+by the father&#8217;s sister, and its lips are then touched with cooked food for the first time.
+
+
+</p>
+</div>
+<div class="div2" id="d0e6794">
+<h3>5. Funeral ceremonies.</h3>
+<p>The tribe both burn and bury the dead, and observe mourning for an adult for ten days, during which time they daily put out
+a leaf-cup containing food for the use of the deceased. In the third year after the death, the <i>mangan</i> or caste beggar visits the relatives of the deceased, and receives what they call one limb (<i>ang</i>), or half his belongings; the <i>ang</i> consists of a loin-cloth, a brass vessel and dish, an axe, a scythe and a wrist-ring.
+
+
+</p>
+</div>
+<div class="div2" id="d0e6808">
+<h3>6. Religion and magic.</h3>
+<p>The Bharias call themselves Hindus and worship the village deities of the locality, and on the day of Diw&#257;li offer a black
+chicken to their family god, who may be Bura Deo, D&#363;lha Deo or Karua, the cobra. For this snake they profess great reverence,
+and say that he was actually born in a Bharia family. As he could not work in the fields he was usually employed on errands.
+One day he was sent to the house, and surprised one of his younger brother&#8217;s wives, who had not heard him coming, without
+her veil. She reproached him, and he retired in dudgeon to the oven, where he was presently burnt to death by another woman,
+who kindled a fire under it not knowing that he was there. So he has <a id="d0e6813"></a><span class="pagenum">[<a href="#d0e6813">248</a>]</span>been deified and is worshipped by the tribe. The Bharias also venerate B&#257;gheshwar, the tiger god, and believe that no tiger
+will eat a Bharia. On the Diw&#257;li day they invite the tiger to drink some gruel which they place ready for him behind their
+houses, at the same time warning the other villagers not to stir out of doors. In the morning they display the empty vessels
+as a proof that the tiger has visited them. They practise various magical devices, believing that they can kill a man by discharging
+at him a <i>m&#363;th</i> or handful of charmed objects such as lemons, vermilion and seeds of urad. This ball will travel through the air and, descending
+on the house of the person at whom it is aimed, will kill him outright unless he can avert its power by stronger magic, and
+perhaps even cause it to recoil in the same manner on the head of the sender. They exorcise the Sudhiniyas or the drinkers
+of human blood. A person troubled by one of these is seated near the Bharia, who places two pots with their mouths joined
+over a fire. He recites incantations and the pots begin to boil, emitting blood. This result is obtained by placing a herb
+in the pot whose juice stains the water red. The blood-sucker is thus successfully exorcised. To drive away the evil eye they
+burn a mixture of chillies, salt, human hair and the husks of kodon, which emits a very evil smell. Such devices are practised
+by members of the tribe who hold the office of Bhumia or village priest. The Bharias are well-known thieves, and they say
+that the dark spots on the moon are caused by a banyan tree, which God planted with the object of diminishing her light and
+giving thieves a chance to ply their trade. If a Bhumia wishes to detect a thief, he sits clasping hands with a friend, while
+a pitcher is supported on their hands. An oblation is offered to the deity to guide the ordeal correctly, and the names of
+suspected persons are recited one by one, the name at which the pitcher topples over being that of the thief. But before employing
+this method of detection the Bhumia proclaims his intention of doing so on a certain date, and in the meantime places a heap
+of ashes in some lonely place and invites the thief to deposit the stolen article in the ashes to save himself from exposure.
+By common custom each person in the village is required to visit <a id="d0e6818"></a><span class="pagenum">[<a href="#d0e6818">249</a>]</span>the heap and mingle a handful of ashes with it, and not infrequently the thief, frightened at the Bhumia&#8217;s powers of detection,
+takes the stolen article and buries it in the ash-heap where it is duly found, the necessity for resorting to the further
+method of divination being thus obviated. Occasionally the Bharia in his character of a Hindu will make a vow to pay for a
+recitation of the Satya N&#257;r&#257;yan Katha or some other holy work. But he understands nothing of it, and if the Br&#257;hman employed
+takes a longer time than he had bargained for over the recitation he becomes extremely bored and irritated.
+
+
+</p>
+</div>
+<div class="div2" id="d0e6820">
+<h3>7. Social life and customs.</h3>
+<p>The scantiness of the Bharia&#8217;s dress is proverbial, and the saying is &#8216;<i lang="und">Bharia bhw&#257;ka, pw&#257;nda langw&#257;ta</i>&#8217;, or &#8216;The Bharia is verily a devil, who only covers his loins with a strip of cloth.&#8217; But lately he has assumed more clothing.
+Formerly an iron ring carried on the wrist to exorcise the evil spirits was his only ornament. Women wear usually only one
+coarse cloth dyed red, spangles on the forehead and ears, bead necklaces, and cheap metal bracelets and anklets. Some now
+have Hindu ornaments, but in common with other low castes they do not usually wear a nose-ring, out of respect to the higher
+castes. Women, though they work in the fields, do not commonly wear shoes; and if these are necessary to protect the feet
+from thorns, they take them off and carry them in the presence of an elder or a man of higher caste. They are tattooed with
+various devices, as a cock, a crown, a native chair, a pitcher stand, a sieve and a figure called <i>dhandha</i>, which consists of six dots joined by lines, and appears to be a representation of a man, one dot standing for the head,
+one for the body, two for the arms and two for the legs. This device is also used by other castes, and they evince reluctance
+if asked to explain its meaning, so that it may be intended as a representation of the girl&#8217;s future husband. The Bharia is
+considered very ugly, and a saying about him is: &#8216;The Bharia came down from the hills and got burnt by a cinder, so that his
+face is black.&#8217; He does not bathe for months together, and lives in a dirty hovel, infested by the fowls which he loves to
+rear. His food consists of coarse grain, often with boiled leaves as a vegetable, and he consumes much whey, mixing it with
+his scanty portion of <a id="d0e6831"></a><span class="pagenum">[<a href="#d0e6831">250</a>]</span>grain. Members of all except the lowest castes are admitted to the Bharia community on presentation of a <i>pagri</i> and some money to the headman, together with a feast to the caste-fellows. The Bharias do not eat monkeys, beef or the leavings
+of others, but they freely consume fowls and pork. They are not considered as impure, but rank above those castes only whose
+touch conveys pollution. For the slaughter of a cow the Bil&#257;spur Bharias inflict the severe punishment of nine daily feasts
+to the caste, or one for each limb of the cow, the limbs being held to consist of the legs, ears, horns and tail. They have
+an aversion for the horse and will not remove its dung. To account for this they tell a story to the effect that in the beginning
+God gave them a horse to ride and fight upon. But they did not know how to mount the horse because it was so high. The wisest
+man among them then proposed to cut notches in the side of the animal by which they could climb up, and they did this. But
+God, when he saw it, was very angry with them, and ordered that they should never be soldiers, but should be given a winnowing-fan
+and broom to sweep the grain out of the grass and make their livelihood in that way.
+
+
+</p>
+</div>
+<div class="div2" id="d0e6836">
+<h3>8. Occupation.</h3>
+<p>The Bharias are usually farmservants and field-labourers, and their services in these capacities are in much request. They
+are hardy and industrious, and so simple that it is an easy matter for their masters to involve them in perpetual debt, and
+thus to keep them bound to service from generation to generation. They have no understanding of accounts, and the saying,
+&#8216;Pay for the marriage of a Bharia and he is your bond-slave for ever,&#8217; sufficiently explains the methods adopted by their
+employers and creditors.
+
+
+
+<a id="d0e6841"></a><span class="pagenum">[<a href="#d0e6841">251</a>]</span></p>
+</div>
+<div class="footnotes">
+<hr class="fnsep">
+<p class="footnote"><span class="label"><a id="d0e6719" href="#d0e6719src" class="noteref">1</a></span> This article is compiled from notes taken by Mr. Hira L&#257;l, Assistant Gazetteer Superintendent in Jubbulpore, and from a paper
+by R&#257;m L&#257;l Sharma, schoolmaster, Bil&#257;spur.
+</p>
+<p class="footnote"><span class="label"><a id="d0e6730" href="#d0e6730src" class="noteref">2</a></span> <i>Tribes and Castes of the N.W.P.</i>, art. Bhar.
+</p>
+<p class="footnote"><span class="label"><a id="d0e6735" href="#d0e6735src" class="noteref">3</a></span> <i>C.P. Census Report</i>, 1881, p. 188.
+</p>
+<p class="footnote"><span class="label"><a id="d0e6744" href="#d0e6744src" class="noteref">4</a></span> <i>Dhay&#257;</i> means the system of shifting cultivation, which until prohibited was so injurious to the forests.
+</p>
+</div>
+</div>
+<div id="d0e6842" class="div1"><span class="pagenum">
+[<a href="#d0e111">Contents</a>]
+</span><h2>Bh&#257;t</h2>
+<h3>List of Paragraphs</h3>
+<ul>
+<li><a href="#d0e6933">1. Origin of the Bh&#257;ts.</a></li>
+<li><a href="#d0e6954">2. Bh&#257;ts and Ch&#257;rans.</a></li>
+<li><a href="#d0e6975">3. Lower-class Bh&#257;ts.</a></li>
+<li><a href="#d0e6980">4. Social status of the caste.</a></li>
+<li><a href="#d0e7000">5. Social customs.</a></li>
+<li><a href="#d0e7020">6. The Bh&#257;t&#8217;s business.</a></li>
+<li><a href="#d0e7048">7. Their extortionate practices.</a></li>
+<li><a href="#d0e7121">8. The Jasondhis.</a></li>
+<li><a href="#d0e7129">9. The Ch&#257;rans as carriers.</a></li>
+<li><a href="#d0e7136">10. Suicide and the fear of ghosts.</a></li>
+<li><a href="#d0e7164">11. Instances of haunting and laying ghosts.</a></li>
+<li><a href="#d0e7200">12. The Ch&#257;rans as sureties.</a></li>
+<li><a href="#d0e7232">13. Suicide as a means of revenge.</a></li>
+<li><a href="#d0e7258">14. <i>Dharna.</i></a></li>
+<li><a href="#d0e7302">15. Casting out spirits.</a></li>
+<li><a href="#d0e7324">16. Sulking. Going bankrupt.</a></li>
+<li><a href="#d0e7343">17. Bh&#257;t songs.</a></li>
+</ul>
+<div class="div2" id="d0e6933">
+<h3>1. Origin of the Bh&#257;ts.</h3>
+<p><b>Bh&#257;t, Rao, Jasondhi.</b>&#8212;The caste of bards and genealogists. In 1911 the Bh&#257;ts numbered 29,000 persons in the Central Provinces and Ber&#257;r, being
+distributed over all Districts and States, with a slight preponderance in large towns such as N&#257;gpur, Jubbulpore and Amraoti.
+The name Bh&#257;t is derived from the Sanskrit Bhatta, a lord. The origin of the Bh&#257;ts has been discussed in detail by Sir H.
+Risley. Some, no doubt, are derived from the Br&#257;hman caste as stated by Mr. Nesfield: &#8220;They are an offshoot from those secularised
+Br&#257;hmans who frequented the courts of princes and the camps of warriors, recited their praises in public, and kept records
+of their genealogies. Such, without much variation, is the function of the Bh&#257;t at the present day. The Mah&#257;bh&#257;rata speaks
+of a band of bards and eulogists marching in front of Yudishthira as he made his progress from the field of Kurukshetra towards
+Hastinapur. But these very men are spoken of in the same poem as Br&#257;hmans. Naturally as time went on these courtier priests
+became hereditary bards, receded from the parent stem and founded a new caste.&#8221; &#8220;The best modern opinion,&#8221; Sir H. <a id="d0e6940"></a><span class="pagenum">[<a href="#d0e6940">252</a>]</span>Risley states,<a id="d0e6942src" href="#d0e6942" class="noteref">1</a> &#8220;seems disposed to find the germ of the Br&#257;hman caste in the bards, ministers and family priests, who were attached to the
+king&#8217;s household in Vedic times. The characteristic profession of the Bh&#257;ts has an ancient and distinguished history. The
+literature of both Greece and India owes the preservation of its oldest treasures to the singers who recited poems in the
+households of the chiefs, and doubtless helped in some measure to shape the masterpieces which they handed down. Their place
+was one of marked distinction. In the days when writing was unknown, the man who could remember many verses was held in high
+honour by the tribal chief, who depended upon the memory of the bard for his personal amusement, for the record of his own
+and his ancestors&#8217; prowess, and for the maintenance of the genealogy which established the purity of his descent. The bard,
+like the herald, was not lightly to be slain, and even Odysseus in the heat of his vengeance spares the <span class="abbr" title="Transcription: aoidos"><span class="Greek" lang="el">&#7936;&#959;&#953;&#948;&#8057;&#962;</span></span> Phemius, &#8216;who sang among the wooers of necessity.&#8217;&#8221;<a id="d0e6951src" href="#d0e6951" class="noteref">2</a>
+
+
+</p>
+</div>
+<div class="div2" id="d0e6954">
+<h3>2. Bh&#257;ts and Ch&#257;rans.</h3>
+<p>There is no reason to doubt that the Birm or Baram Bh&#257;ts are an offshoot of Br&#257;hmans, their name being merely a corruption
+of the term Br&#257;hman. But the caste is a very mixed one, and another large section, the Ch&#257;rans, are almost certainly derived
+from R&#257;jp&#363;ts. Malcolm states that according to the fable of their origin, Mah&#257;deo first created Bh&#257;ts to attend his lion and
+bull; but these could not prevent the former from killing the latter, which was a source of infinite vexation and trouble,
+as it compelled Mah&#257;deo to create new ones. He therefore formed the Ch&#257;ran, equally devout with the Bh&#257;t, but of bolder spirit,
+and gave him in charge these favourite animals. From that time no bull was ever destroyed by the lion.<a id="d0e6959src" href="#d0e6959" class="noteref">3</a> This fable perhaps indicates that while the peaceful Bh&#257;ts were Br&#257;hmans, the more warlike Ch&#257;rans were R&#257;jp&#363;ts. It is also
+said that some R&#257;jp&#363;ts disguised themselves as bards to escape the vengeance of Parasur&#257;ma.<a id="d0e6965src" href="#d0e6965" class="noteref">4</a> The M&#257;ru Ch&#257;rans intermarry with R&#257;jp&#363;ts, and their name appears to be derived from M&#257;ru, the term for the R&#257;jput&#257;na desert,
+which is also found in M&#257;rw&#257;r. <a id="d0e6970"></a><span class="pagenum">[<a href="#d0e6970">253</a>]</span>Malcolm states<a id="d0e6972src" href="#d0e6972" class="noteref">5</a> that when the R&#257;jp&#363;ts migrated from the banks of the Ganges to R&#257;jput&#257;na, their Br&#257;hman priests did not accompany them in
+any numbers, and hence the Ch&#257;rans arose and supplied their place. They had to understand the rites of worship, particularly
+of Siva and P&#257;rvati, the favourite deities of the R&#257;jp&#363;ts, and were taught to read and write. One class became merchants and
+travelled with large convoys of goods, and the others were the bards and genealogists of the R&#257;jp&#363;ts. Their songs were in
+the rudest metre, and their language was the local dialect, understood by all. All this evidence shows that the Ch&#257;rans were
+a class of R&#257;jp&#363;t bards.
+
+
+</p>
+</div>
+<div class="div2" id="d0e6975">
+<h3>3. Lower-class Bh&#257;ts.</h3>
+<p>But besides the Birm or Br&#257;hman Bh&#257;ts and the R&#257;jp&#363;t Ch&#257;rans there is another large body of the caste of mixed origin, who
+serve as bards of the lower castes and are probably composed to a great extent of members of these castes. These are known
+as the Brid-dhari or begging Bh&#257;ts. They beg from such castes as Lodhis, Telis, Kurmis, Ah&#299;rs and so on, each caste having
+a separate section of Bh&#257;ts to serve it; the Bh&#257;ts of each caste take food from the members of the caste, but they also eat
+and intermarry with each other. Again, there are Bair&#257;gi Bh&#257;ts who beg from Bair&#257;gis, and keep the genealogies of the temple-priests
+and their successors. Yet another class are the Dasaundhis or Jasondhis, who sing songs in honour of Devi, play on musical
+instruments and practise astrology. These rank below the cultivating castes and sometimes admit members of such castes who
+have taken religious vows.
+
+
+</p>
+</div>
+<div class="div2" id="d0e6980">
+<h3>4. Social status of the caste.</h3>
+<p>The Br&#257;hman or Birm-Bh&#257;ts form a separate subcaste, and the R&#257;jp&#363;ts are sometimes called R&#257;jbh&#257;t. These wear the sacred thread,
+which the Brid-Bh&#257;ts and Jasondhis do not. The social status of the Bh&#257;ts appears to vary greatly. Sir H. Risley states that
+they rank immediately below K&#257;yasths, and Br&#257;hmans will take water from their hands. The Ch&#257;rans are treated by the R&#257;jp&#363;ts
+with the greatest respect;<a id="d0e6985src" href="#d0e6985" class="noteref">6</a> the highest ruler rises when one of this class enters or leaves an assembly, and the Ch&#257;ran is invited to eat first at a
+R&#257;jp&#363;t feast. He smokes from the same huqqa as R&#257;jp&#363;ts, and only caste-fellows can do this, as the smoke <a id="d0e6990"></a><span class="pagenum">[<a href="#d0e6990">254</a>]</span>passes through water on its way to the mouth. In past times the Ch&#257;ran acted as a herald, and his person was inviolable. He
+was addressed as Mah&#257;r&#257;j,<a id="d0e6992src" href="#d0e6992" class="noteref">7</a> and could sit on the Singh&#257;san or Lion&#8217;s Hide, the ancient term for a R&#257;jp&#363;t throne, as well as on the hides of the tiger,
+panther and black antelope. The R&#257;jp&#363;ts held him in equal estimation with the Br&#257;hman or perhaps even greater.<a id="d0e6995src" href="#d0e6995" class="noteref">8</a> This was because they looked to him to enshrine their heroic deeds in his songs and hand them down to posterity. His sarcastic
+references to a defeat in battle or any act displaying a want of courage inflamed their passions as nothing else could do.
+On the other hand, the Brid-Bh&#257;ts, who serve the lower castes, occupy an inferior position. This is because they beg at weddings
+and other feasts, and accept cooked food from members of the caste who are their clients. Such an act constitutes an admission
+of inferior status, and as the Bh&#257;ts eat together their position becomes equivalent to that of the lowest group among them.
+Thus if other Bh&#257;ts eat with the Bh&#257;ts of Telis or Kal&#257;rs, who have taken cooked food from their clients, they are all in
+the position of having taken food from Telis and Kal&#257;rs, a thing which only the lowest castes will do. If the Bh&#257;t of any
+caste, such as the Kurmis, keeps a girl of that caste, she can be admitted into the community, which is therefore of a very
+mixed character. Such a caste as the Kurmis will not even take water from the hands of the Bh&#257;ts who serve them. This rule
+applies also where a special section of the caste itself act as bards and minstrels. Thus the Pardh&#257;ns are the bards of the
+Gonds, but rank below ordinary Gonds, who give them food and will not take it from them. And the S&#257;nsias, the bards of the
+J&#257;ts, and the Mir&#257;sis, who are employed in this capacity by the lower castes generally, occupy a very inferior position, and
+are sometimes considered as impure.
+
+
+</p>
+</div>
+<div class="div2" id="d0e7000">
+<h3>5. Social customs.</h3>
+<p>The customs of the Bh&#257;ts resemble those of other castes of corresponding status. The higher Bh&#257;ts forbid the remarriage of
+widows, and expel a girl who becomes pregnant before marriage. They carry a dagger, the special emblem of the Ch&#257;rans, in
+order to be distinguished from low-class <a id="d0e7005"></a><span class="pagenum">[<a href="#d0e7005">255</a>]</span>Bh&#257;ts. The Bh&#257;ts generally display the <i>chaur</i> or yak-tail whisk and the <i>chhadi</i> or silver-plated rod on ceremonial occasions, and they worship these emblems of their calling on the principal festivals.
+The former is waved over the bridegroom at a wedding, and the latter is borne before him. The Br&#257;hman Bh&#257;ts abstain from flesh
+of any kind and liquor, and other Bh&#257;ts usually have the same rules about food as the caste whom they serve. Br&#257;hman Bh&#257;ts
+and Ch&#257;rans alone wear the sacred thread. The high status sometimes assigned to this division of the caste is shown in the
+saying:
+
+
+</p>
+<div class="poem" lang="und">
+<div class="stanza">
+<p class="line" style=""><span>Age Br&#257;hman p&#299;chhe Bh&#257;t
+</span></p>
+<p class="line" style=""><span>t&#257;ke p&#299;chhe aur j&#257;t,</span></p>
+</div>
+</div>
+<p>or, &#8216;First comes the Br&#257;hman, then the Bh&#257;t, and after them the other castes.&#8217;
+
+
+</p>
+</div>
+<div class="div2" id="d0e7020">
+<h3>6. The Bh&#257;t&#8217;s business.</h3>
+<p>The business of a Bh&#257;t in former times is thus described by Forbes:<a id="d0e7025src" href="#d0e7025" class="noteref">9</a> &#8220;When the rainy season closes and travelling becomes practicable, the bard sets off on his yearly tour from his residence
+in the Bh&#257;tw&#257;ra or bard&#8217;s quarter of some city or town. One by one he visits each of the R&#257;jp&#363;t chiefs who are his patrons,
+and from whom he has received portions of land or annual grants of money, timing his arrival, if possible, to suit occasions
+of marriage or other domestic festivals. After he has received the usual courtesies he produces the Wai, a book written in
+his own crabbed hieroglyphics or in those of his father, which contains the descent of the house from its founder, interspersed
+with many a verse or ballad, the dark sayings contained in which are chanted forth in musical cadence to a delighted audience,
+and are then orally interpreted by the bard with many an illustrative anecdote or tale. The Wai, however, is not merely a
+source for the gratification of family pride or even of love of song; it is also a record by which questions of relationship
+are determined when a marriage is in prospect, and disputes relating to the division of ancestral property are decided, intricate
+as these last necessarily are from the practice of polygamy and the rule that all the sons of a family are entitled to a share.
+It is the duty of the bard at each periodical visit to register the births, marriages and deaths <a id="d0e7030"></a><span class="pagenum">[<a href="#d0e7030">256</a>]</span>which have taken place in the family since his last circuit, as well as to chronicle all the other events worthy of remark
+which have occurred to affect the fortunes of his patron; nor have we ever heard even a doubt suggested regarding the accurate,
+much less the honest fulfilment of this duty by the bard. The manners of the bardic tribe are very similar to those of their
+R&#257;jp&#363;t clients; their dress is nearly the same, but the bard seldom appears without the <i>kat&#257;r</i> or dagger, a representation of which is scrawled beside his signature, and often rudely engraved upon his monumental stone,
+in evidence of his death in the sacred duty of <i>tr&#257;ga</i> (suicide).&#8221;<a id="d0e7038src" href="#d0e7038" class="noteref">10</a>
+
+
+</p>
+<div id="d0e7041" class="figure"><img border="0" src="images/p256.jpg" alt="Bh&#257;t with his putla or doll." width="403" height="720"><p class="figureHead">Bh&#257;t with his <i>putla</i> or doll.
+</p>
+</div><p>
+
+
+
+</p>
+</div>
+<div class="div2" id="d0e7048">
+<h3>7. Their extortionate practices.</h3>
+<p>The Bh&#257;t thus fulfilled a most useful function as registrar of births and marriages. But his merits were soon eclipsed by
+the evils produced by his custom of extolling liberal patrons and satirising those who gave inadequately. The desire of the
+R&#257;jp&#363;ts to be handed down to fame in the Bh&#257;t&#8217;s songs was such that no extravagance was spared to satisfy him. Chand, the
+great R&#257;jp&#363;t bard, sang of the marriage of Prithwi R&#257;j, king of Delhi, that the bride&#8217;s father emptied his coffers in gifts,
+but he filled them with the praises of mankind. A lakh of rupees<a id="d0e7053src" href="#d0e7053" class="noteref">11</a> was given to the chief bard, and this became a precedent for similar occasions. &#8220;Until vanity suffers itself to be controlled,&#8221;
+Colonel Tod wrote,<a id="d0e7077src" href="#d0e7077" class="noteref">12</a> &#8220;and the aristocratic R&#257;jp&#363;ts submit to republican simplicity, the evils arising from nuptial profusion will not cease. Unfortunately
+those who should check it find their interest in stimulating it, namely, the whole crowd of <i>m&#257;ngtas</i> or beggars, bards, minstrels, jugglers, Br&#257;hmans, who assemble on these occasions, and pour forth their epithalamiums in
+praise of the virtue of liberality. The bards are the grand recorders of fame, and the volume of precedent is always <a id="d0e7085"></a><span class="pagenum">[<a href="#d0e7085">257</a>]</span>resorted to by citing the liberality of former chiefs; while the dread of their satire<a id="d0e7087src" href="#d0e7087" class="noteref">13</a> shuts the eyes of the chief to consequences, and they are only anxious to maintain the reputation of their ancestors, though
+fraught with future ruin.&#8221; Owing to this insensate liberality in the desire to satisfy the bards and win their praises, a
+R&#257;jp&#363;t chief who had to marry a daughter was often practically ruined; and the desire to avoid such obligations led to the
+general practice of female infanticide, formerly so prevalent in R&#257;jput&#257;na. The importance of the bards increased their voracity;
+Mr. Nesfield describes them as &#8220;Rapacious and conceited mendicants, too proud to work but not too proud to beg.&#8221; The Dholis<a id="d0e7092src" href="#d0e7092" class="noteref">14</a> or minstrels were one of the seven great evils which the famous king Sidhr&#257;j expelled from Anhilw&#257;da P&#257;tan in Gujar&#257;t; the
+D&#257;kans or witches were another.<a id="d0e7098src" href="#d0e7098" class="noteref">15</a> Malcolm states that &#8220;They give praise and fame in their songs to those who are liberal to them, while they visit those who
+neglect or injure them with satires in which the victims are usually reproached with illegitimate birth and meanness of character.
+Sometimes the Bh&#257;t, if very seriously offended, fixes an effigy of the person he desires to degrade on a long pole and appends
+to it a slipper as a mark of disgrace. In such cases the song of the Bh&#257;t records the infamy of the object of his revenge.
+This image usually travels the country till the party or his friends purchase the cessation of the curses and ridicule thus
+entailed. It is not deemed in these countries within the power of the prince, much less any other person, to stop a Bh&#257;t or
+even punish him for such a proceeding. In 1812 Sevak R&#257;m Seth, a banker of Holkar&#8217;s court, offended one of these Bh&#257;ts, pushing
+him rudely out of the shop where the man had come to ask alms. The man made a figure<a id="d0e7103src" href="#d0e7103" class="noteref">16</a> of him to which he attached a slipper and carried it to court, and everywhere sang the infamy of the Seth. The latter, though
+a man of wealth and influence, could not prevent him, but obstinately refused to purchase his forbearance. His friends after
+some months subscribed Rs. 80 and the Bh&#257;t discontinued his execrations, but said it was <a id="d0e7109"></a><span class="pagenum">[<a href="#d0e7109">258</a>]</span>too late, as his curses had taken effect; and the superstitious Hindus ascribe the ruin of the banker, which took place some
+years afterwards, to this unfortunate event.&#8221; The loquacity and importunity of the Bh&#257;ts are shown in the saying, &#8216;Four Bh&#257;ts
+make a crowd&#8217;; and their insincerity in the proverb quoted by Mr. Crooke, &#8220;The bard, the innkeeper and the harlot have no
+heart; they are polite when customers arrive, but neglect those leaving (after they have paid)&#8221;<a id="d0e7111src" href="#d0e7111" class="noteref">17</a> The Bh&#257;t women are as bold, voluble and ready in retort as the men. When a Bh&#257;t woman passes a male caste-fellow on the road,
+it is the latter who raises a piece of cloth to his face till the woman is out of sight.<a id="d0e7116src" href="#d0e7116" class="noteref">18</a>
+
+
+</p>
+</div>
+<div class="div2" id="d0e7121">
+<h3>8. The Jasondhis.</h3>
+<p>Some of the lower classes of Bh&#257;ts have become religious mendicants and musicians, and perform ceremonial functions. Thus
+the Jasondhis, who are considered a class of Bh&#257;ts, take their name from the <i>jas</i> or hymns sung in praise of Devi. They are divided into various sections, as the Nak&#299;b or flag-bearers in a procession, the
+N&#257;zir or ushers who introduced visitors to the R&#257;ja, the Nag&#257;ria or players on kettle-drums, the Karaola who pour sesamum
+oil on their clothes and beg, and the Panda, who serve as priests of Devi, and beg carrying an image of the goddess in their
+hands. There is also a section of Muhammadan Bh&#257;ts who serve as bards and genealogists for Muhammadan castes. Some Bh&#257;ts,
+having the rare and needful qualification of literacy so that they can read the old Sanskrit medical works, have, like a number
+of Br&#257;hmans, taken to the practice of medicine and are known as Kavir&#257;j.
+
+
+</p>
+</div>
+<div class="div2" id="d0e7129">
+<h3>9. The Ch&#257;rans as carriers.</h3>
+<p>As already stated, the persons of the Ch&#257;rans in the capacity of bard and herald were sacred, and they travelled from court
+to court without fear of molestation from robbers or enemies. It seems likely that the Ch&#257;rans may have united the breeding
+of cattle to their calling of bard; but in any case the advantage derived from their sanctity was so important that they gradually
+became the chief carriers and traders of R&#257;jput&#257;na and the adjoining tracts. They further, in virtue of their holy character,
+enjoyed a partial exemption from the perpetual and harassing imposts levied <a id="d0e7134"></a><span class="pagenum">[<a href="#d0e7134">259</a>]</span>by every petty State on produce entering its territory; and the combination of advantages thus obtained was such as to give
+them almost a monopoly in trade. They carried merchandise on large droves of bullocks all over R&#257;jput&#257;na and the adjoining
+countries; and in course of time the carriers restricted themselves to their new profession, splitting off from the Ch&#257;rans
+and forming the caste of Banj&#257;ras.
+
+
+</p>
+</div>
+<div class="div2" id="d0e7136">
+<h3>10. Suicide and the fear of ghosts.</h3>
+<p>But the mere reverence for their calling would not have sufficed for a permanent safeguard to the Ch&#257;rans from destitute and
+unscrupulous robbers. They preserved it by the customs of <i>Chandi</i> or <i>Tr&#257;ga</i> and <i>Dharna</i>. These consisted in their readiness to mutilate, starve or kill themselves rather than give up property entrusted to their
+care; and it was a general belief that their ghosts would then haunt the persons whose ill deeds had forced them to take their
+own lives. It seems likely that this belief in the power of a suicide or murdered man to avenge himself by haunting any persons
+who had injured him or been responsible for his death may have had a somewhat wide prevalence and been partly accountable
+for the reprobation attaching in early times to the murderer and the act of self-slaughter. The haunted murderer would be
+impure and would bring ill-fortune on all who had to do with him, while the injury which a suicide would inflict on his relatives
+in haunting them would cause this act to be regarded as a sin against one&#8217;s family and tribe. Even the ordinary fear of the
+ghosts of people who die in the natural course, and especially of those who are killed by accident, is so strong that a large
+part of the funeral rites is devoted to placating and laying the ghost of the dead man; and in India the period of observance
+of mourning for the dead is perhaps in reality that time during which the spirit of the dead man is supposed to haunt his
+old abode and render the survivors of his family impure. It was this fear of ghosts on which the Ch&#257;rans relied, nor did they
+hesitate a moment to sacrifice their lives in defence of any obligation they had undertaken or of property committed to their
+care. When plunderers carried off any cattle belonging to the Ch&#257;rans, the whole community would proceed to the spot where
+the robbers resided; and in failure of having their property <a id="d0e7150"></a><span class="pagenum">[<a href="#d0e7150">260</a>]</span>restored would cut off the heads of several of their old men and women. Frequent instances occurred of a man dressing himself
+in cotton-quilted cloths steeped in oil which he set on fire at the bottom, and thus danced against the person against whom
+<i>tr&#257;ga</i> was performed until the miserable creature dropped down and was burnt to ashes. On one occasion a Cutch chieftain, attempting
+to escape with his wife and child from a village, was overtaken by his enemy when about to leap a precipice; immediately turning
+he cut off his wife&#8217;s head with his scimitar and, flourishing his reeking blade in the face of his pursuer, denounced against
+him the curse of the <i>tr&#257;ga</i> which he had so fearfully performed.<a id="d0e7158src" href="#d0e7158" class="noteref">19</a> In this case it was supposed that the wife&#8217;s ghost would haunt the enemy who had driven the husband to kill her.
+
+
+</p>
+</div>
+<div class="div2" id="d0e7164">
+<h3>11. Instances of haunting and laying ghosts.</h3>
+<p>The following account in the <i>R&#257;sm&#257;la</i><a id="d0e7171src" href="#d0e7171" class="noteref">20</a> is an instance of suicide and of the actual haunting by the ghost: A Ch&#257;ran asserted a claim against the chief of Siela in
+K&#257;thi&#257;w&#257;r, which the latter refused to liquidate. The bard thereupon, taking forty of his caste with him, went to Siela with
+the intention of sitting <i>Dharna</i> at the chief&#8217;s door and preventing any one from coming out or going in until the claim should be discharged. However, as
+they approached the town, the chief, becoming aware of their intention, caused the gates to be closed. The bards remained
+outside and for three days abstained from food; on the fourth day they proceeded to perform <i>tr&#257;ga</i> as follows: some hacked their own arms; others decapitated three old women of the party and hung their heads up at the gate
+as a garland; certain of the women cut off their own breasts. The bards also pierced the throats of four of their old men
+with spikes, and they took two young girls by the heels, and dashed out their brains against the town gate. The Ch&#257;ran to
+whom the money was due dressed himself in clothes wadded with cotton which he steeped in oil and then set on fire. He thus
+burned himself to death. But as he died he cried out, &#8220;I am now dying; but I will become a headless ghost (<i>Kuv&#299;s</i>) in the palace, and will take the chiefs life and cut off his posterity.&#8221; After this sacrifice the rest of the bards returned
+home.
+<a id="d0e7183"></a><span class="pagenum">[<a href="#d0e7183">261</a>]</span></p>
+<p>On the third day after the Ch&#257;ran&#8217;s death his Bh&#363;t (ghost) threw the R&#257;ni downstairs so that she was very much injured. Many
+other persons also beheld the headless phantom in the palace. At last he entered the chief&#8217;s head and set him trembling. At
+night he would throw stones at the palace, and he killed a female servant outright. At length, in consequence of the various
+acts of oppression which he committed, none dared to approach the chief&#8217;s mansion even in broad daylight. In order to exorcise
+the Bh&#363;t, Jogis, Fak&#299;rs and Br&#257;hmans were sent for from many different places; but whoever attempted the cure was immediately
+assailed by the Bh&#363;t in the chief&#8217;s body, and that so furiously that the exorcist&#8217;s courage failed him. The Bh&#363;t would also
+cause the chief to tear the flesh off his own arms with his teeth. Besides this, four or five persons died of injuries received
+from the Bh&#363;t; but nobody had the power to expel him. At length a foreign Jyotishi (astrologer) came who had a great reputation
+for charms and magic, and the chief sent for him and paid him honour. First he tied all round the house threads which he had
+charged with a charm; then he sprinkled charmed milk and water all round; then he drove a charmed iron nail into the ground
+at each corner of the mansion, and two at the door. He purified the house and continued his charms and incantations for forty-one
+days, every day making sacrifices at the cemetery to the Bh&#363;t&#8217;s spirit. The Joshi lived in a room securely fastened up; but
+people say that while he was muttering his charms stones would fall and strike the windows. Finally the Joshi brought the
+chief, who had been living in a separate room, and tried to exorcise the spirit. The patient began to be very violent, but
+the Joshi and his people spared no pains in thrashing him until they had rendered him quite docile. A sacrificial fire-pit
+was made and a lemon placed between it and the chief. The Joshi commanded the Bh&#363;t to enter the lime. The possessed, however,
+said, &#8216;Who are you; if one of your Deos (gods) were to come, I would not quit this person.&#8217; Thus they went on from morning
+till noon. At last they came outside, and, burning various kinds of incense and sprinkling many charms, the Bh&#363;t was got out
+into the lemon. When the lemon began <a id="d0e7186"></a><span class="pagenum">[<a href="#d0e7186">262</a>]</span>to jump about, the whole of the spectators praised the Joshi, crying out: &#8216;The Bh&#363;t has gone into the lemon! The Bh&#363;t has
+gone into the lemon!&#8217; The possessed person himself, when he saw the lemon hopping about, was perfectly satisfied that the
+Bh&#363;t had left his body and gone out into the lemon. The Joshi then drove the lemon outside the city, followed by drummers
+and trumpeters; if the lemon left the road, he would touch it with his stick and put it into the right way again. On the track
+they sprinkled mustard and salt and finally buried the lemon in a pit seven cubits deep, throwing into the hole above it mustard
+and salt, and over these dust and stones, and filling in the space between the stones with lead. At each corner, too, the
+Joshi drove in an iron nail, two feet long, which he had previously charmed. The lemon buried, the people returned home, and
+not one of them ever saw the Bh&#363;t thereafter. According to the recorder of the tale, the cure was effected by putting quicksilver
+into the lemon. When a man is attacked with fever or becomes speechless or appears to have lockjaw, his friends conclude from
+these indications that he is possessed by a Bh&#363;t.
+
+</p>
+<p>In another case some Bh&#257;ts had been put in charge, by the chief of a small State, of a village which was coveted by a neighbouring
+prince, the R&#257;na of D&#257;nta. The latter sent for the Bh&#257;ts and asked them to guard one or two of his villages, and having obtained
+their absence by this pretext he raided their village, carrying off hostages and cattle. When the Bh&#257;ts got back they collected
+to the number of a hundred and began to perform <i>Dharna</i> against the R&#257;na. They set out from their village, and at every two miles as they advanced they burned a man, so that by
+the time they got to the Rana&#8217;s territory seven or eight men had been burnt. They were then pacified by his people and induced
+to go back. The R&#257;na offered them presents, but they refused to accept them, as they said the guilt of the death of their
+fellows who had been burned would thereby be removed from the R&#257;na. The R&#257;na lost all the seven sons born to him and died
+childless, and it was generally held to be on account of this sin.<a id="d0e7193src" href="#d0e7193" class="noteref">21</a>
+<a id="d0e7198"></a><span class="pagenum">[<a href="#d0e7198">263</a>]</span>
+
+
+</p>
+</div>
+<div class="div2" id="d0e7200">
+<h3>12. The Ch&#257;rans as sureties.</h3>
+<p>Such was the certainty attaching to the Ch&#257;ran&#8217;s readiness to forfeit his life rather than prove false to a trust, and the
+fear entertained of the offence of causing him to do so and being haunted by his ghost, that his security was eagerly coveted
+in every kind of transaction. &#8220;No traveller could journey unattended by these guards, who for a small sum were satisfied to
+conduct him in safety.<a id="d0e7205src" href="#d0e7205" class="noteref">22</a> The guards, called Val&#257;vas, were never backward in inflicting the most grievous wounds and even causing the death of their
+old men and women if the robbers persisted in plundering those under their protection; but this seldom happened, as the wildest
+Koli, K&#257;thi or R&#257;jp&#363;t held the person of a Ch&#257;ran sacred. Besides becoming safeguards to travellers and goods, they used to
+stand security to the amount of many lakhs of rupees. When rents and property were concerned, the R&#257;jp&#363;ts preferred a Ch&#257;ran&#8217;s
+bond to that of the wealthiest banker. They also gave security for good behaviour, called <i>ch&#257;lu z&#257;min</i>, and for personal attendance in court called <i>h&#257;zar z&#257;min</i>. The ordinary <i>tr&#257;ga</i> went no farther than a cut on the arm with the <i>kat&#257;r</i> or crease; the forearms of those who were in the habit of becoming security had generally several cuts from the elbow downwards.
+The Ch&#257;rans, both men and women, wounded themselves, committed suicide and murdered their relations with the most complete
+self-devotion. In 1812 the Mar&#257;thas brought a body of troops to impose a payment on the village of P&#257;nchpipla.<a id="d0e7225src" href="#d0e7225" class="noteref">23</a> The Ch&#257;rans resisted the demand, but finding the Mar&#257;thas determined to carry their point, after a remonstrance against paying
+any kind of revenue as being contrary to their occupation and principles, they at last cut the throats of ten young children
+and threw them at the feet of the Mar&#257;thas, exclaiming, &#8216;These are our riches and the only payment we can make.&#8217; The Ch&#257;rans
+were immediately seized and confined in irons at Jambusar.&#8221;
+
+</p>
+<p>As was the case with the Bh&#257;t and the Br&#257;hman, the source of the Ch&#257;ran&#8217;s power lay in the widespread fear that a Ch&#257;ran&#8217;s
+blood brought ruin on him who caused the blood to be spilt. It was also sometimes considered that the <a id="d0e7230"></a><span class="pagenum">[<a href="#d0e7230">264</a>]</span>Ch&#257;ran was possessed by his deity, and the caste were known as Deoputra or sons of God, the favourite dwelling of the guardian
+spirit.
+
+
+</p>
+</div>
+<div class="div2" id="d0e7232">
+<h3>13. Suicide as a means of revenge.</h3>
+<p>Such a belief enhanced the guilt attaching to the act of causing or being responsible for a Ch&#257;ran&#8217;s death. Suicide from motives
+of revenge has been practised in other countries. &#8220;Another common form of suicide which is admired as heroic in China is that
+committed for the purpose of taking revenge upon an enemy who is otherwise out of reach&#8212;according to Chinese ideas a most
+effective mode of revenge, not only because the law throws the responsibility of the deed on him who occasioned it, but also
+because the disembodied soul is supposed to be better able than the living man to persecute the enemy.&#8221;<a id="d0e7237src" href="#d0e7237" class="noteref">24</a> Similarly, among the Hos or Mundas the suicide of young married women is or was extremely common, and the usual motive was
+that the girl, being unhappy in her husband&#8217;s house, jumped down a well or otherwise made away with herself in the belief
+that she would take revenge on his family by haunting them after her death. The treatment of the suicide&#8217;s body was sometimes
+directed to prevent his spirit from causing trouble. &#8220;According to Jewish custom persons who had killed themselves were left
+unburied till sunset, perhaps for fear lest the spirit of the deceased otherwise might find its way back to the old home.&#8221;<a id="d0e7243src" href="#d0e7243" class="noteref">25</a> At Athens the right hand of a person who had taken his own life was struck off and buried apart from the rest of the body,
+evidently in order to make him harmless after death.<a id="d0e7249src" href="#d0e7249" class="noteref">26</a> Similarly, in England suicides were buried with a spike through the chest to prevent their spirits from rising, and at cross-roads,
+so that the ghost might not be able to find its way home. This fear appears to have partly underlain the idea that suicide
+was a crime or an offence against society and the state, though, as shown by Dr. Westermarck, the reprobation attaching to
+it was far from universal; while in the cultured communities of ancient Greece and Rome, and among such military peoples as
+the Japanese suicide was considered at all times a legitimate and, on occasion, a highly meritorious and praiseworthy act.
+<a id="d0e7255"></a><span class="pagenum">[<a href="#d0e7255">265</a>]</span></p>
+<p>That condition of mind which leads to the taking of one&#8217;s own life from motives of revenge is perhaps a fruit of ignorance
+and solitude. The mind becomes distorted, and the sufferer attributes the unhappiness really caused by accident or his own
+faults or defects to the persecution of a malignant fate or the ill-will of his neighbours and associates. And long brooding
+over his wrongs eventuates in his taking the extreme step. The crime known as running amok appears to be the outcome of a
+similar state of mind. Here too the criminal considers his wrongs or misery as the result of injury or unjust treatment from
+his fellow-men, and, careless of his own life, determines to be revenged on them. Such hatred of one&#8217;s kind is cured by education,
+leading to a truer appreciation of the circumstances and environment which determine the course of life, and by the more cheerful
+temper engendered by social intercourse. And these crimes of vengeance tend to die out with the advance of civilisation.
+
+
+</p>
+</div>
+<div class="div2" id="d0e7258">
+<h3>14. <i>Dharna.</i></h3>
+<p>Analogous to the custom of <i>tr&#257;ga</i> was that of <i>Dharna</i>, which was frequently and generally resorted to for the redress of wrongs and offences at a time when the law made little
+provision for either. The ordinary method of <i>Dharna</i> was to sit starving oneself in front of the door of the person from whom redress was sought until he gave it from fear of
+causing the death of the suppliant and being haunted by his ghost. It was, naturally, useless unless the person seeking redress
+was prepared to go to extremes, and has some analogy to the modern hunger-strike with the object of getting out of jail. Another
+common device was to thrust a spear-blade through both cheeks, and in this state to dance before the person against whom <i>Dharna</i> was practised. The pain had to be borne without a sign of suffering, which, if displayed, would destroy its efficacy. Or
+a creditor would proceed to the door of his debtor and demand payment, and if not appeased would stand up in his presence
+with an enormous weight upon his head, which he had brought with him for the purpose, swearing never to alter his position
+until satisfaction was given, and denouncing at the same time the most horrible execrations on his debtor, should he suffer
+him to expire in that situation. This seldom failed to produce the desired effect, but should he actually die <a id="d0e7277"></a><span class="pagenum">[<a href="#d0e7277">266</a>]</span>while in <i>Dharna</i>, the debtor&#8217;s house was razed to the earth and he and his family sold for the satisfaction of the creditor&#8217;s heirs. Another
+and more desperate form of <i>Dharna</i>, only occasionally resorted to, was to erect a large pile of wood before the house of the debtor, and after the customary
+application for payment had been refused the creditor tied on the top of the pile a cow or a calf, or very frequently an old
+woman, generally his mother or other relation, swearing at the same time to set fire to it if satisfaction was not instantly
+given. All the time the old woman denounced the bitterest curses, threatening to persecute the wretched debtor both here and
+hereafter.<a id="d0e7285src" href="#d0e7285" class="noteref">27</a>
+
+</p>
+<p>The word <i>dharna</i> means &#8216;to place or lay on,&#8217; and hence &#8216;a pledge.&#8217; Mr. H&#299;ra L&#257;l suggests that the standing with a weight on the head may have
+been the original form of the penance, from which the other and severer methods were subsequently derived. Another custom
+known as <i>dharna</i> is that of a suppliant placing a stone on the shrine of a god or tomb of a saint. He makes his request and, laying the stone
+on the shrine, says, &#8220;Here I place this stone until you fulfil my prayer; if I do not remove it, the shame is on you.&#8221; If
+the prayer is afterwards fulfilled, he takes away the stone and offers a cocoanut. It seems clear that the underlying idea
+of this custom is the same as that of standing with a stone on the head as described above, but it is difficult to say which
+was the earlier or original form.
+
+
+</p>
+</div>
+<div class="div2" id="d0e7302">
+<h3>15. Casting out spirits.</h3>
+<p>As a general rule, if the guilt of having caused a suicide was at a man&#8217;s door, he should expiate it by going to the Ganges
+to bathe. When a man was haunted by the ghost of any one whom he had wronged, whether such a person had committed suicide
+or simply died of grief at being unable to obtain redress, it was said of him <i>Brahm laga</i>, or that Brahma had possessed him. The spirit of a Br&#257;hman boy, who has died unmarried, is also accustomed to haunt any person
+who walks over his grave in an impure condition or otherwise defiles it, and when a man is haunted in such a manner it is
+called <i>Brahm laga</i>. Then an exorcist is called, <a id="d0e7313"></a><span class="pagenum">[<a href="#d0e7313">267</a>]</span>who sprinkles water over the possessed man, and this burns the Brahm Deo or spirit inside him as if it were burning oil. The
+spirit cries out, and the exorcist orders him to leave the man. Then the spirit states how he has been injured by the man,
+and refuses to leave him. The exorcist asks him what he requires on condition of leaving the man, and he asks for some good
+food or something else, and is given it. The exorcist takes a nail and goes to a <i>p&#299;pal</i> tree and orders the Brahm Deo to go into the tree. Brahm Deo obeys, and the exorcist drives the nail into the tree and the
+spirit remains imprisoned there until somebody takes the nail out, when he will come out again and haunt him. The Hindus think
+that the god Brahma lives in the roots of the <i>p&#299;pal</i> tree, Siva in its branches, and Vishnu in the <i>choti</i> or scalp-knot, that is the topmost foliage.
+
+
+</p>
+</div>
+<div class="div2" id="d0e7324">
+<h3>16. Sulking. Going bankrupt.</h3>
+<p>Another and mild form of <i>Dharna</i> is that known as <i>Kh&#257;tp&#257;ti</i>. When a woman is angry with her husband on account of his having refused her some request, she will put her bed in a corner
+of the room and go and lie on it, turning her face to the wall, and remain so, not answering when spoken to nor taking food.
+The term Kh&#257;tp&#257;ti signifies keeping to one side of the bed, and there she will remain until her husband accedes to her request,
+unless indeed he should decide to beat her instead. This is merely an exaggerated form of the familiar display of temper known
+as sulking. It is interesting to note the use of the phrase turning one&#8217;s face to the wall, with something of the meaning
+attached to it in the Bible.
+
+</p>
+<p>A custom similar to that of <i>Dharna</i> was called <i>Diw&#257;la nik&#257;lna</i> or going bankrupt. When a merchant had had heavy losses and could not meet his liabilities, he would place the lock of his
+door outside, reversing it, and sit in the veranda with a piece of sackcloth over him. Or he wrapped round him the floor-carpet
+of his room. When he had displayed these signs of ruin and self-abasement his creditors would not sue him, but he would never
+be able to borrow money again.
+
+
+</p>
+</div>
+<div class="div2" id="d0e7343">
+<h3>17. Bh&#257;t songs.</h3>
+<p>In conclusion a few specimens of Bh&#257;t songs may be given. The following is an account of the last king of N&#257;gpur, Raghuji
+III., commonly known as B&#257;ji Rao:
+
+<a id="d0e7348"></a><span class="pagenum">[<a href="#d0e7348">268</a>]</span></p>
+<div class="poem">
+<div class="stanza">
+<p class="line" style=""><span>They made a picture of B&#257;ji Rao;
+</span></p>
+<p class="line" style=""><span>B&#257;ji Rao was the finest king to see;
+</span></p>
+<p class="line" style=""><span>The Br&#257;hmans told lies about him,
+</span></p>
+<p class="line" style=""><span>They sent a letter from N&#257;gpur to Calcutta,
+</span></p>
+<p class="line" style=""><span>They made B&#257;ji Rao go on a pilgrimage.
+</span></p>
+<p class="line" style=""><span>Brothers! the great Sird&#257;rs who were with him,
+</span></p>
+<p class="line" style=""><span>They brought a troop of five hundred horse!
+</span></p>
+<p class="line" style=""><span>The Tuesday fair in Ben&#257;res was held with fireworks,
+</span></p>
+<p class="line" style=""><span>They made the Ganges pink with rose-petals.
+</span></p>
+<p class="line" style=""><span>B&#257;ji Rao&#8217;s gifts were splendid,
+</span></p>
+<p class="line" style=""><span>His turban and coat were of brocaded silk,
+</span></p>
+<p class="line" style=""><span>A pair of diamonds and emeralds
+</span></p>
+<p class="line" style=""><span>He gave to the Br&#257;hmans of Ben&#257;res.
+</span></p>
+<p class="line" style=""><span>Oh brothers! the R&#257;ja sat in a covered howdah bound on an elephant!
+</span></p>
+<p class="line" style=""><span>Many fans waved over his head;
+</span></p>
+<p class="line" style=""><span>How charitable a king he was!</span></p>
+</div>
+</div>
+<p>In the above song a note of regret is manifest for the parade and display of the old court of N&#257;gpur, English rule being less
+picturesque. The next is a song about the English:
+
+</p>
+<div class="poem">
+<div class="stanza">
+<p class="line" style=""><span>The English have taken the throne of N&#257;gpur,
+</span></p>
+<p class="line" style=""><span>The fear of the English is great.
+</span></p>
+<p class="line" style=""><span>In a moment&#8217;s time they conquer countries.
+</span></p>
+<p class="line" style=""><span>The guns boomed, the English came strong and warlike,
+</span></p>
+<p class="line" style=""><span>They give wealth to all.
+</span></p>
+<p class="line" style=""><span>They ram the ramrods in the guns.
+</span></p>
+<p class="line" style=""><span>They conquered also Tippoo&#8217;s dominions,
+</span></p>
+<p class="line" style=""><span>The English are ruling in the fort of G&#257;wilgarh.</span></p>
+</div>
+</div>
+<p>The following is another song about the English, not quite so complimentary:
+
+</p>
+<div class="poem">
+<div class="stanza">
+<p class="line" style=""><span>The English became our kings and have made current the <i>kald&#257;r</i> (milled) rupee.
+</span></p>
+<p class="line" style=""><span>The menials are favoured and the Bh&#257;ts have lost their profession,
+</span></p>
+<p class="line" style=""><span>The mango has lost its taste, the milk has lost its sweetness,
+</span></p>
+<p class="line" style=""><span>The rose has lost its scent.
+</span></p>
+<p class="line" style=""><span>B&#257;ji Rao of N&#257;gpur he also is gone,
+</span></p>
+<p class="line" style=""><span>No longer are the drums beaten at the palace gate.
+</span></p>
+<p class="line" style=""><span>Poona customs have come in.
+</span></p>
+<p class="line" style=""><span>Br&#257;hmans knowing the eighteen Pur&#257;ns have become Christians;
+</span></p>
+<p class="line" style=""><span>The son thinks himself better than his father,
+</span></p>
+<p class="line" style=""><span>The daughter-in-law no longer respects her mother-in-law.
+</span></p>
+<p class="line" style=""><span>The wife fights with her husband.
+</span></p>
+<p class="line" style=""><span>The English have made the railways and telegraphs;
+</span></p>
+<p class="line" style=""><span>The people wondered at the silver rupees and all the country prospered.</span></p>
+</div>
+</div><a id="d0e7433"></a><span class="pagenum">[<a href="#d0e7433">269</a>]</span><p>The following is a song about the Nerbudda at Mandla, Rewa being another name for the river:
+
+
+</p>
+<div class="poem">
+<div class="stanza">
+<p class="line" style=""><span>The stream of the world springs out breaking apart the hills;
+</span></p>
+<p class="line" style=""><span>The Rewa cuts her path through the soil, the air is darkened with her spray.
+</span></p>
+<p class="line" style=""><span>All the length of her banks are the seats of saints; hermits and pilgrims worship her.
+</span></p>
+<p class="line" style=""><span>On seeing the holy river a man&#8217;s sins fall away as wood is cut by a saw;
+</span></p>
+<p class="line" style=""><span>By bathing in her he plucks the fruit of holiness.
+</span></p>
+<p class="line" style=""><span>When boats are caught in her flood, the people pray: &#8216;We are sinners, O Rewa, bring us safely to the bank!&#8217;
+</span></p>
+<p class="line" style=""><span>When the Nerbudda is in flood, Mandla is an island and the people think their end has come:
+</span></p>
+<p class="line" style=""><span>The rain pours down on all sides, earth and sky become dark as smoke, and men call on R&#257;ma.
+</span></p>
+<p class="line" style=""><span>The bard says: &#8216;Let it rain as it may, some one will save us as Krishna saved the people of Brind&#257;wan!&#8217;</span></p>
+</div>
+</div>
+<p>This is a description of a beautiful woman:
+
+</p>
+<div class="poem">
+<div class="stanza">
+<p class="line" style=""><span>A beautiful woman is loved by her neighbours,
+</span></p>
+<p class="line" style=""><span>But she will let none come to her and answers them not.
+</span></p>
+<p class="line" style=""><span>They say: &#8216;Since God has made you so beautiful, open your litter and let yourself be seen!&#8217;
+</span></p>
+<p class="line" style=""><span>He who sees her is struck as by lightning, she shoots her lover with the darts of her eyes, invisible herself.
+</span></p>
+<p class="line" style=""><span>She will not go to her husband&#8217;s house till he has her brought by the Government.
+</span></p>
+<p class="line" style=""><span>When she goes her father&#8217;s village is left empty.
+</span></p>
+<p class="line" style=""><span>She is so delicate she faints at the sight of a flower,
+</span></p>
+<p class="line" style=""><span>Her body cannot bear the weight of her cloth,
+</span></p>
+<p class="line" style=""><span>The garland of jasmine-flowers is a burden on her neck,
+</span></p>
+<p class="line" style=""><span>The red powder on her feet is too heavy for them.</span></p>
+</div>
+</div>
+<p>It is interesting to note that weakness and delicacy in a woman are emphasised as an attraction, as in English literature
+of the eighteenth century.
+
+</p>
+<p>The last is a gentle intimation that poets, like other people, have to live:
+
+</p>
+<div class="poem">
+<div class="stanza">
+<p class="line" style=""><span>It is useless to adorn oneself with sandalwood on an empty belly,
+</span></p>
+<p class="line" style=""><span>Nobody&#8217;s body gets fat from the scent of flowers;
+</span></p>
+<p class="line" style=""><span>The singing of songs excites the mind,
+</span></p>
+<p class="line" style=""><span>But if the body is not fed all these are vain and hollow.</span></p>
+</div>
+</div>
+<p>All Bh&#257;ts recite their verses in a high-pitched sing-song tone, which renders it very difficult for their hearers to grasp
+<a id="d0e7493"></a><span class="pagenum">[<a href="#d0e7493">270</a>]</span>the sense unless they know it already. The Vedas and all other sacred verses are spoken in this manner, perhaps as a mark
+of respect and to distinguish them from ordinary speech. The method has some resemblance to intoning. Women use the same tone
+when mourning for the dead.
+
+
+
+<a id="d0e7495"></a><span class="pagenum">[<a href="#d0e7495">271</a>]</span></p>
+</div>
+<div class="footnotes">
+<hr class="fnsep">
+<p class="footnote"><span class="label"><a id="d0e6942" href="#d0e6942src" class="noteref">1</a></span> <i>Tribes and Castes of Bengal</i>, art. Br&#257;hman.
+</p>
+<p class="footnote"><span class="label"><a id="d0e6951" href="#d0e6951src" class="noteref">2</a></span> Art. Bh&#257;t.
+</p>
+<p class="footnote"><span class="label"><a id="d0e6959" href="#d0e6959src" class="noteref">3</a></span> Malcolm, <i>Central India</i>, ii. p. 132.
+</p>
+<p class="footnote"><span class="label"><a id="d0e6965" href="#d0e6965src" class="noteref">4</a></span> <i>R&#257;jasth&#257;n</i>, ii. p. 406.
+</p>
+<p class="footnote"><span class="label"><a id="d0e6972" href="#d0e6972src" class="noteref">5</a></span> Malcolm, ii. p. 135.
+</p>
+<p class="footnote"><span class="label"><a id="d0e6985" href="#d0e6985src" class="noteref">6</a></span> <i>R&#257;jasth&#257;n</i>, ii. pp. 133, 134.
+</p>
+<p class="footnote"><span class="label"><a id="d0e6992" href="#d0e6992src" class="noteref">7</a></span> Great King, the ordinary method of address to Br&#257;hmans.
+</p>
+<p class="footnote"><span class="label"><a id="d0e6995" href="#d0e6995src" class="noteref">8</a></span> <i>R&#257;jasth&#257;n</i>, ii. p. 175.
+</p>
+<p class="footnote"><span class="label"><a id="d0e7025" href="#d0e7025src" class="noteref">9</a></span> <i>R&#257;sm&#257;la</i>, ii. pp. 261, 262.
+</p>
+<p class="footnote"><span class="label"><a id="d0e7038" href="#d0e7038src" class="noteref">10</a></span> See later in this article.
+</p>
+<p class="footnote"><span class="label"><a id="d0e7053" href="#d0e7053src" class="noteref">11</a></span> This present of a lakh of rupees is known as L&#257;kh Pas&#257;ru, and it is not usually given in cash but in kind. It is made up of
+grain, land, carriages, jewellery, horses, camels and elephants, and varies in value from Rs. 30,000 to Rs. 70,000. A living
+bard, Mahamahopadhyaya Murar D&#257;s, has received three <span id="d0e7055" class="corr" title="Source: Lakh">L&#257;kh</span> Pas&#257;rus from the R&#257;jas of Jodhpur and has refused one from the R&#257;na of Udaipur in view of the fact that he was made <i>ayachaka</i> by the Jodhpur R&#257;ja. <i>Ayachaka</i> means literally &#8216;not a beggar,&#8217; and when a bard has once been made <i>ayachaka</i> he cannot accept gifts from any person other than his own patron. An <i>ayachaka</i> was formerly known as <i>polpat</i>, as it became his bounden duty to sing the praises of his patron constantly from the gate (<i>pol</i>) of the donor&#8217;s fort or castle. (Mr. H&#299;ra L&#257;l.)
+</p>
+<p class="footnote"><span class="label"><a id="d0e7077" href="#d0e7077src" class="noteref">12</a></span> <i>R&#257;jasth&#257;n</i>, ii. p. 548.
+</p>
+<p class="footnote"><span class="label"><a id="d0e7087" href="#d0e7087src" class="noteref">13</a></span> <i>Viserva</i>, lit. poison.
+</p>
+<p class="footnote"><span class="label"><a id="d0e7092" href="#d0e7092src" class="noteref">14</a></span> From <i>dhol</i>, a drum.
+</p>
+<p class="footnote"><span class="label"><a id="d0e7098" href="#d0e7098src" class="noteref">15</a></span> <i>R&#257;jasth&#257;n</i>, ii. p. 184.
+</p>
+<p class="footnote"><span class="label"><a id="d0e7103" href="#d0e7103src" class="noteref">16</a></span> Lit. <i>putli</i> or doll.
+</p>
+<p class="footnote"><span class="label"><a id="d0e7111" href="#d0e7111src" class="noteref">17</a></span> <i>Tribes and Castes</i>, art. Bh&#257;t.
+</p>
+<p class="footnote"><span class="label"><a id="d0e7116" href="#d0e7116src" class="noteref">18</a></span> <i>Ibidem.</i> Veiling the face is a sign of modesty.
+</p>
+<p class="footnote"><span class="label"><a id="d0e7158" href="#d0e7158src" class="noteref">19</a></span> Postans. <i>Cutch</i>, p. 172.
+</p>
+<p class="footnote"><span class="label"><a id="d0e7171" href="#d0e7171src" class="noteref">20</a></span> Vol. ii. pp. 392&#8211;394.
+</p>
+<p class="footnote"><span class="label"><a id="d0e7193" href="#d0e7193src" class="noteref">21</a></span> <i>R&#257;sm&#257;la</i>, ii. pp. 143, 144.
+</p>
+<p class="footnote"><span class="label"><a id="d0e7205" href="#d0e7205src" class="noteref">22</a></span> <i>Bombay Gazetteer</i>, <i>Hindus of Gujar&#257;t</i>, Mr. Bhimbhai Kirpar&#257;m, pp. 217, 219.
+</p>
+<p class="footnote"><span class="label"><a id="d0e7225" href="#d0e7225src" class="noteref">23</a></span> In Broach.
+</p>
+<p class="footnote"><span class="label"><a id="d0e7237" href="#d0e7237src" class="noteref">24</a></span> Westermarck, <i>Origin and Development of the Moral Ideas</i>, ii. p. 242.
+</p>
+<p class="footnote"><span class="label"><a id="d0e7243" href="#d0e7243src" class="noteref">25</a></span> Westermarck, <i>ibidem</i>, p. 246.
+</p>
+<p class="footnote"><span class="label"><a id="d0e7249" href="#d0e7249src" class="noteref">26</a></span> Westermarck, <i>ibidem</i>, p. 248.
+</p>
+<p class="footnote"><span class="label"><a id="d0e7285" href="#d0e7285src" class="noteref">27</a></span> The above account of <i>Dharna</i> is taken from Colonel Tone&#8217;s <i>Letter on the Mar&#257;thas</i> (India Office Tracts).
+</p>
+</div>
+</div>
+<div id="d0e7496" class="div1"><span class="pagenum">
+[<a href="#d0e111">Contents</a>]
+</span><h2>Bhatra</h2>
+<h3>List of Paragraphs</h3>
+<ul>
+<li><a href="#d0e7543">1. General notice and structure of the caste.</a></li>
+<li><a href="#d0e7554">2. Admission of outsiders.</a></li>
+<li><a href="#d0e7559">3. Arrangement of marriages.</a></li>
+<li><a href="#d0e7566">4. The Counter of Posts.</a></li>
+<li><a href="#d0e7573">5. Marriage customs.</a></li>
+<li><a href="#d0e7591">6. Propitiation of ghosts.</a></li>
+<li><a href="#d0e7598">7. Religion. Ceremonies at hunting.</a></li>
+<li><a href="#d0e7603">8. Superstitious remedies.</a></li>
+<li><a href="#d0e7610">9. Occupation.</a></li>
+<li><a href="#d0e7615">10. Names.</a></li>
+</ul>
+<div class="div2" id="d0e7543">
+<h3>1. General notice and structure of the caste.</h3>
+<p><b>Bhatra.</b><a id="d0e7549src" href="#d0e7549" class="noteref">1</a>&#8212;A primitive tribe of the Bastar State and the south of Raipur District, akin to the Gonds. They numbered 33,000 persons in
+1891, and in subsequent enumerations have been amalgamated with the Gonds. Nothing is known of their origin except a legend
+that they came with the R&#257;jas of Bastar from Warangal twenty-three generations ago. The word Bhatra is said to mean a servant,
+and the tribe are employed as village watchmen and household and domestic servants. They have three divisions, the P&#299;t, Amn&#257;it
+and S&#257;n Bhatras, who rank one below the other, the P&#299;t being the highest and the S&#257;n the lowest. The P&#299;t Bhatras base their
+superiority on the fact that they decline to make grass mats, which the Amn&#257;it Bhatras will do, while the S&#257;n Bhatras are
+considered to be practically identical with the Muria Gonds. Members of the three groups will eat with each other before marriage,
+but afterwards they will take only food cooked without water from a person belonging to another group. They have the usual
+set of exogamous septs named after plants and animals. Formerly, it is said, they were tattooed with representations <a id="d0e7552"></a><span class="pagenum">[<a href="#d0e7552">272</a>]</span>of the totem plant and animal, and the septs named after the tiger and snake ate the flesh of these animals at a sacrificial
+meal. These customs have fallen into abeyance, but still if they kill their totem animal they will make apologies to it, and
+break their cooking-pots, and bury or burn the body. A man of substance will distribute alms in the name of the deceased animal.
+In some localities members of the K&#257;chhun or tortoise sept will not eat a pumpkin which drops from a tree because it is considered
+to resemble a tortoise. But if they can break it immediately on touching the ground they may partake of the fruit, the assumption
+being apparently that it has not had time to become like a tortoise.
+
+
+</p>
+</div>
+<div class="div2" id="d0e7554">
+<h3>2. Admission of outsiders.</h3>
+<p>Outsiders are not as a rule admitted. But a woman of equal or higher caste who enters the house of a Bhatra will be recognised
+as his wife, and a man of the Pan&#257;ra, or gardener caste, can also become a member of the community if he lives with a Bhatra
+woman and eats from her hand.
+
+
+</p>
+</div>
+<div class="div2" id="d0e7559">
+<h3>3. Arrangement of marriages.</h3>
+<p>In Raipur a girl should be married before puberty, and if no husband is immediately available, they tie a few flowers into
+her cloth and consider this as a marriage. If an unmarried girl becomes pregnant she is debarred from going through the wedding
+ceremony, and will simply go and live with her lover or any other man. Matches are usually arranged by the parents, but if
+a daughter is not pleased with the prospective bridegroom, who may sometimes be a well-to-do man much older than herself,
+she occasionally runs away and goes through the ceremony on her own account with the man of her choice.
+
+</p>
+<p>If no one has asked her parents for her hand she may similarly select a husband for herself and make her wishes known, but
+in that case she is temporarily put out of caste until the chosen bridegroom signifies his acquiescence by giving the marriage
+feast. What happens if he definitely fails to respond is not stated, but presumably the young woman tries elsewhere until
+she finds herself accepted.
+
+
+</p>
+</div>
+<div class="div2" id="d0e7566">
+<h3>4. The Counter of Posts.</h3>
+<p>The date and hour of the wedding are fixed by an official known as the Meda Gantia, or Counter of Posts. He is a sort of illiterate
+village astrologer, who can foretell the character of the rainfall, and gives auspicious dates for <a id="d0e7571"></a><span class="pagenum">[<a href="#d0e7571">273</a>]</span>sowing and harvest. He goes through some training, and as a test of his capacity is required by his teacher to tell at a glance
+the number of posts in an enclosure which he has not seen before. Having done this correctly he qualifies as a Meda Gantia.
+Apparently the Bhatras, being unable at one time to count themselves, acquired an exaggerated reverence for the faculty of
+counting, and thought that if a man could only count far enough he could reckon into the future; or it might be thought that
+as he could count and name future days, he thus obtained power over them, and could tell what would happen on them just as
+one can obtain power over a man and work him injury by knowing his real name.
+
+
+</p>
+</div>
+<div class="div2" id="d0e7573">
+<h3>5. Marriage customs.</h3>
+<p>At a wedding the couple walk seven times round the sacred post, which must be of wood of the mahua<a id="d0e7578src" href="#d0e7578" class="noteref">2</a> tree, and on its conclusion the post is taken to a river or stream and consigned to the water. The Bhatras, like the Gonds,
+no doubt revere this tree because their intoxicating liquor is made from its flowers. The couple wear marriage crowns made
+from the leaves of the date palm and exchange these. A little turmeric and flour are mixed with water in a plate, and the
+bride, taking the bridegroom&#8217;s right hand, dips it into the coloured paste and strikes it against the wall. The action is
+repeated five times, and then the bridegroom does the same with the bride&#8217;s hand. By this rite the couple pledge each other
+for their mutual behaviour during married life. From the custom of making an impression of the hand on a wall in token of
+a vow may have arisen that of clasping hands as a symbol of a bargain assented to, and hence of shaking hands, by persons
+who meet, as a pledge of amity and the absence of hostile intentions. Usually the hand is covered with red ochre, which is
+probably a substitute for blood; and the impression of the hand is made on the wall of a temple in token of a vow. This may
+be a survival of the covenant made by the parties dipping their hands in the blood of the sacrifice and laying them on the
+god. A pit about a foot deep is dug close to the marriage-shed, and filled with mud or wet earth. The bride conceals a nut
+in the mud and the bridegroom has to find it, and <a id="d0e7583"></a><span class="pagenum">[<a href="#d0e7583">274</a>]</span>the hiding and finding are repeated by both parties. This rite may have the signification of looking for children. The remainder
+of the day is spent in eating, drinking and dancing. On the way home after the wedding the bridegroom has to shoot a deer,
+the animal being represented by a branch of a tree thrown across the path by one of the party. But if a real deer happens
+by any chance to come by he has to shoot this. The bride goes up to the real or sham deer and pulls out the arrow, and presents
+her husband with water and a tooth-stick, after which he takes her in his arms and they dance home together. On arrival at
+the house the bridegroom&#8217;s maternal uncle or his son lies down before the door covering himself with a blanket. He is asked
+what he wants, and says he will have the daughter of the bridegroom to wife. The bridegroom promises to give a daughter if
+he has one, and if he has a son to give him for a friend. The tribe consider that a man has a right to marry the daughter
+of his maternal uncle, and formerly if the girl was refused by her parents he abducted her and married her forcibly. The bride
+remains at her husband&#8217;s house for a few days and then goes home, and before she finally takes up her abode with him the <i>gauna</i> or going-away ceremony must be performed. The hands of the bride and bridegroom are tied together, and an arrow is held upright
+on them and some oil poured over it. The foreheads of the couple are marked with turmeric and rice, this rite being known
+as <i>t&#299;ka</i> or anointing, and presents are given to the bride&#8217;s family.
+
+
+</p>
+</div>
+<div class="div2" id="d0e7591">
+<h3>6. Propitiation of ghosts.</h3>
+<p>The dead are buried, the corpse being laid on its back with the head to the north. Some rice, cowrie-shells, a winnowing-fan
+and other articles are placed on the grave. The tribe probably consider the winnowing-fan to have some magical property, as
+it also forms one of the presents given to the bride at the betrothal. If a man is killed by a tiger his spirit must be propitiated.
+The priest ties strips of tiger-skin to his arms, and the feathers of the peacock and blue jay to his waist, and jumps about
+pretending to be a tiger. A package of a hundred seers (200 lbs.) of rice is made up, and he sits on this and finally takes
+it away with him. If the dead man had any ornaments they must all be given, however valuable, lest his spirit should hanker
+after <a id="d0e7596"></a><span class="pagenum">[<a href="#d0e7596">275</a>]</span>them and return to look for them in the shape of the tiger. The large quantity of rice given to the priest is also probably
+intended as a provision of the best food for the dead man&#8217;s spirit, lest it be hungry and come in the shape of the tiger to
+satisfy its appetite upon the surviving relatives. The laying of the ghosts of persons killed by tigers is thus a very profitable
+business for the priests.
+
+
+</p>
+</div>
+<div class="div2" id="d0e7598">
+<h3>7. Religion. Ceremonies at hunting.</h3>
+<p>The tribe worship the god of hunting, who is known as M&#257;ti Deo and resides in a separate tree in each village. At the B&#299;jph&#363;tni
+(threshing) or harvest festival in the month of Chait (March) they have a ceremonial hunting party. All the people of the
+village collect, each man having a bow and arrow slung to his back and a hatchet on his shoulder. They spread out a long net
+in the forest and beat the animals into this, usually catching a deer, wild pig or hare, and quails and other birds. They
+return and cook the game before the shrine of the god and offer to him a fowl and a pig. A pit is dug and water poured into
+it, and a person from each house must stand in the mud. A little seed taken from each house is also soaked in the mud, and
+after the feast is over this is taken and returned to the householder with words of abuse, a small present of two or three
+pice being received from him. The seed is no doubt thus consecrated for the next sowing. The tribe also have joint ceremonial
+fishing excursions. Their ideas of a future life are very vague, and they have no belief in a place of reward or punishment
+after death. They propitiate the spirits of their ancestors on the 15th of As&#257;rh (June) with offerings of a little rice and
+incense.
+
+
+</p>
+</div>
+<div class="div2" id="d0e7603">
+<h3>8. Superstitious remedies.</h3>
+<p>To cure the evil eye they place a little gunpowder in water and apply it to the sufferer&#8217;s eyes, the idea perhaps being that
+the fiery glance from the evil eye which struck him is quenched like the gunpowder. To bring on rain they perform a frog marriage,
+tying two frogs to a pestle and pouring oil and turmeric over them as in a real marriage. The children carry them round begging
+from door to door and finally deposit them in water. They say that when rain falls and the sun shines together the jackals
+are being married. Formerly a woman suspected of being a witch was tied up in a bag and thrown into a river or tank <a id="d0e7608"></a><span class="pagenum">[<a href="#d0e7608">276</a>]</span>at various places set apart for the purpose. If she sank she was held to be innocent, and if she floated, guilty. In the latter
+case she had to defile herself by taking the bone of a cow and the tail of a pig in her mouth, and it was supposed that this
+drove out the magic-working spirit. In the case of illness of their children or cattle, or the failure of crops, they consult
+the Puj&#257;ri or priest and make an offering. He applies some flowers or grains of rice to the forehead of the deity, and when
+one of these falls down he diagnoses from it the nature of the illness, and gives it to the sufferer to wear as a charm.
+
+
+</p>
+</div>
+<div class="div2" id="d0e7610">
+<h3>9. Occupation.</h3>
+<p>The tribe are cultivators and farmservants, and practise shifting cultivation. They work as village watchmen and also as the
+M&#257;jhi or village headman and the Puj&#257;ri or village priest. These officials are paid by contributions of grain from the cultivators.
+And as already seen, the Bhatras are employed as household servants and will clean cooking-vessels. Since they act as village
+priests, it may perhaps be concluded that the Bhatras like the Parjas are older residents of Bastar than the bulk of the Gonds,
+and they have become the household servants of the Hindu immigrants, which the Gonds would probably disdain to do. Some of
+them wear the sacred thread, but in former times the Bastar R&#257;ja would invest any man with this for a fee of four or five
+rupees, and the Bhatras therefore purchased the social distinction. They find it inconvenient, however, and lay it aside when
+proceeding to their work or going out to hunt. If a man breaks his thread he must wait till a Br&#257;hman comes round, when he
+can purchase another.
+
+
+</p>
+</div>
+<div class="div2" id="d0e7615">
+<h3>10. Names.</h3>
+<p>Among a list of personal names given by Mr. Baijn&#257;th the following are of some interest: Pillu, one of short stature; Matola,
+one who learnt to walk late; Phagu, born in Ph&#257;gun (February); Ghinu, dirty-looking; Dasru, born on the Dasahra festival;
+Ludki, one with a fleshy ear; Dalu, big-bellied; Mudi, a ring, this name having been given to a child which cried much after
+birth, but when its nose was pierced and a ring put in it stopped crying; Chhi, given to a child which sneezed immediately
+after birth; Nunha, a posthumous child; and Bhuklu, a child which began to play almost as soon as born. The above instances
+<a id="d0e7620"></a><span class="pagenum">[<a href="#d0e7620">277</a>]</span>indicate that it is a favourite plan to select the name from any characteristic displayed by the child soon after birth, or
+from any circumstance or incident connected with its birth. Among names of women are: Cherangi, thin; Fundi, one with swollen
+cheeks; Kandri, one given to crying; Mah&#299;na (month), a child born a month late; Batai, one with large eyes; Gaida, fat; Pakli,
+of fair colour; Boda, one with crooked legs; Jhunki, one with small eyes; Rupi, a girl who was given a nose-ring of silver
+as her brothers had died; Paro, born on a field-embankment; Dango, tall. A woman must not call by their names her father-in-law,
+mother-in-law, her husband&#8217;s brothers and elder sisters and the sons and daughters of her husband&#8217;s brothers and sisters.
+
+
+
+<a id="d0e7622"></a><span class="pagenum">[<a href="#d0e7622">278</a>]</span></p>
+</div>
+<div class="footnotes">
+<hr class="fnsep">
+<p class="footnote"><span class="label"><a id="d0e7549" href="#d0e7549src" class="noteref">1</a></span> This article is compiled from papers drawn up by Rai Bah&#257;dur Panda Baijn&#257;th, Superintendent, Bastar State; Mr. Ravi Shankar,
+Settlement Officer, Bastar; and Mr. Gop&#257;l Krishna, Assistant Superintendent, Bastar.
+</p>
+<p class="footnote"><span class="label"><a id="d0e7578" href="#d0e7578src" class="noteref">2</a></span> <i>Bassia latifolia</i>.
+</p>
+</div>
+</div>
+<div id="d0e7623" class="div1"><span class="pagenum">
+[<a href="#d0e111">Contents</a>]
+</span><h2>Bh&#299;l</h2>
+<h3>List of Paragraphs</h3>
+<ul>
+<li><a href="#d0e7686">1. General notice. The Bh&#299;ls a Kolarian tribe.</a></li>
+<li><a href="#d0e7731">2. R&#257;jp&#363;ts deriving their title to the land from the Bh&#299;ls.</a></li>
+<li><a href="#d0e7788">3. Historical notice.</a></li>
+<li><a href="#d0e7861">4. General Outram and the Kh&#257;ndesh Bh&#299;l Corps.</a></li>
+<li><a href="#d0e7878">5. Subdivisions.</a></li>
+<li><a href="#d0e7918">6. Exogamy and marriage customs.</a></li>
+<li><a href="#d0e7943">7. Widow&#8212;marriage, divorce and polygamy.</a></li>
+<li><a href="#d0e7953">8. Religion.</a></li>
+<li><a href="#d0e7977">9. Witchcraft and amulets.</a></li>
+<li><a href="#d0e8007">10. Funeral rites.</a></li>
+<li><a href="#d0e8012">11. Social customs.</a></li>
+<li><a href="#d0e8019">12. Appearance and characteristics.</a></li>
+<li><a href="#d0e8041">13. Occupation.</a></li>
+<li><a href="#d0e8053">14. Language.</a></li>
+</ul>
+<div class="div2" id="d0e7686">
+<h3>1. General notice. The Bh&#299;ls a Kolarian tribe.</h3>
+<p><b>Bh&#299;l.</b><a id="d0e7692src" href="#d0e7692" class="noteref">1</a>&#8212;An indigenous or non-Aryan tribe which has been much in contact with the Hindus and is consequently well known. The home
+of the Bh&#299;ls is the country comprised in the hill ranges of Kh&#257;ndesh, Central India and R&#257;jput&#257;na, west from the Satp&#363;ras
+to the sea in Gujar&#257;t. The total number of Bh&#299;ls in India exceeds a million and a half, of which the great bulk belong to
+Bombay, R&#257;jput&#257;na and Central India. The Central Provinces have only about 28,000, practically all of whom reside in the Nim&#257;r
+district, on the hills forming the western end of the Satp&#363;ra range and adjoining the R&#257;jpipla hills of Kh&#257;ndesh. As the southern
+slopes of these hills lie in Ber&#257;r, a few Bh&#299;ls are also found there. The name Bh&#299;l seems to occur for the first time about
+<span class="smallcaps">A.D.</span> 600. It is supposed to be derived from the Dravidian word for a bow, which is the characteristic weapon of the tribe. It
+has been suggested that the Bh&#299;ls <a id="d0e7719"></a><span class="pagenum">[<a href="#d0e7719">279</a>]</span>are the Pygmies referred to by Ktesias (400 <span class="smallcaps">B.C.</span>) and the Phyllitae of Ptolemy (<span class="smallcaps">A.D.</span> 150). The Bh&#299;ls are recognised as the oldest inhabitants of southern R&#257;jput&#257;na and parts of Gujar&#257;t, and are usually spoken
+of in conjunction with the Kolis, who inhabit the adjoining tracts of Gujar&#257;t. The most probable hypothesis of the origin
+of the Kolis is that they are a western branch of the Kol or Munda tribe who have spread from Chota N&#257;gpur, through Mandla
+and Jubbulpore, Central India and R&#257;jput&#257;na to Gujar&#257;t and the sea. If this is correct the Kolis would be a Kolarian tribe.
+The Bh&#299;ls have lost their own language, so that it cannot be ascertained whether it was Kolarian or Dravidian. But there is
+nothing against its being Kolarian in Sir G. Grierson&#8217;s opinion; and in view of the length of residence of the tribe, the
+fact that they have abandoned their own language and their association with the Kolis, this view may be taken as generally
+probable. The Dravidian tribes have not penetrated so far west as Central India and Gujar&#257;t in appreciable numbers.
+
+
+</p>
+<div id="d0e7727" class="figure"><img border="0" src="images/p278.jpg" alt="Group of Bh&#299;ls." width="720" height="397"><p class="figureHead">Group of Bh&#299;ls.</p>
+</div><p>
+
+
+
+</p>
+</div>
+<div class="div2" id="d0e7731">
+<h3>2. R&#257;jp&#363;ts deriving their title to the land from the Bh&#299;ls.</h3>
+<p>The R&#257;jp&#363;ts still recognise the Bh&#299;ls as the former residents and occupiers of the land by the fact that some R&#257;jp&#363;t chiefs
+must be marked on the brow with a Bh&#299;l&#8217;s blood on accession to the <i>Gaddi</i> or regal cushion. Tod relates how Goha,<a id="d0e7739src" href="#d0e7739" class="noteref">2</a> the eponymous ancestor of the Sesodia R&#257;jp&#363;ts, took the state of Idar in Gujar&#257;t from a Bh&#299;l: &#8220;At this period Idar was governed
+by a chief of the savage race of Bh&#299;ls. The young Goha frequented the forests in company with the Bh&#299;ls, whose habits better
+assimilated with his daring nature than those of the Br&#257;hmans. He became a favourite with these <i>vena-putras</i> or sons of the forest, who resigned to him Idar with its woods and mountains. The Bh&#299;ls having determined in sport to elect
+a king, their choice fell on Goha; and one of the young savages, cutting his finger, applied the blood as the badge (<i>t&#299;ka</i>) of sovereignty to his forehead. What was done in sport was confirmed by the old forest chief. The sequel fixes on Goha the
+stain of ingratitude, for he slew his <a id="d0e7748"></a><span class="pagenum">[<a href="#d0e7748">280</a>]</span>benefactor, and no motive is assigned in the legend for the deed.&#8221;<a id="d0e7750src" href="#d0e7750" class="noteref">3</a>
+
+</p>
+<p>The legend is of course a euphemism for the fact that the R&#257;jp&#363;ts conquered and dispossessed the Bh&#299;ls of Idar. But it is
+interesting as an indication that they did not consider themselves to derive a proper title to the land merely from the conquest,
+but wished also to show that it passed to them by the designation and free consent of the Bh&#299;ls. The explanation is perhaps
+that they considered the gods of the Bh&#299;ls to be the tutelary guardians and owners of the land, whom they must conciliate
+before they could hope to enjoy it in quiet and prosperity. This token of the devolution of the land from its previous holders,
+the Bh&#299;ls, was till recently repeated on the occasion of each succession of a Sesodia chief. &#8220;The Bh&#299;l landholders of Oguna
+and Undri still claim the privilege of performing the <i>t&#299;ka</i> for the Sesodias. The Oguna Bh&#299;l makes the mark of sovereignty on the chief&#8217;s forehead with blood drawn from his own thumb,
+and then takes the chief by the arm and seats him on the throne, while the Undri Bh&#299;l holds the salver of spices and sacred
+grains of rice used in making the badge.&#8221;<a id="d0e7760src" href="#d0e7760" class="noteref">4</a> The story that Goha killed the old Bh&#299;l chief, his benefactor, who had adopted him as heir and successor, which fits in very
+badly with the rest of the legend, is probably based on another superstition. Sir J. G. Frazer has shown in <i>The Golden Bough</i> that in ancient times it was a common superstition that any one who killed the king had a right to succeed him. The belief
+was that the king was the god of the country, on whose health, strength and efficiency its prosperity depended. When the king
+grew old and weak it was time for a successor, and he who could kill the king proved in this manner that the divine power
+and strength inherent in the late king had descended to him, and he was therefore the fit person to be king.<a id="d0e7768src" href="#d0e7768" class="noteref">5</a> An almost similar story is told of the way in which the Kachhw&#257;ha R&#257;jp&#363;ts took the territory of Amber State from the M&#299;na
+tribe. The infant R&#257;jp&#363;t prince had been deprived of Narwar by <a id="d0e7774"></a><span class="pagenum">[<a href="#d0e7774">281</a>]</span>his uncle, and his mother wandered forth carrying him in a basket, till she came to the capital of the M&#299;nas, where she first
+obtained employment in the chiefs kitchen. But owing to her good cooking she attracted his wife&#8217;s notice and ultimately disclosed
+her identity and told her story. The M&#299;na chief then adopted her as his sister and the boy as his nephew. This boy, Dhola
+Rai, on growing up obtained a few R&#257;jp&#363;t adherents and slaughtered all the M&#299;nas while they were bathing at the feast of Diw&#257;li,
+after which he usurped their country.<a id="d0e7776src" href="#d0e7776" class="noteref">6</a> The repetition both of the adoption and the ungrateful murder shows the importance attached by the R&#257;jp&#363;ts to both beliefs
+as necessary to the validity of their succession and occupation of the land.
+
+</p>
+<p>The position of the Bh&#299;ls as the earliest residents of the country was also recognised by their employment in the capacity
+of village watchmen. One of the duties of this official is to know the village boundaries and keep watch and ward over them,
+and it was supposed that the oldest class of residents would know them best. The Bh&#299;ls worked in the office of M&#257;nkar, the
+superior village watchman, in Nim&#257;r and also in Ber&#257;r. Grant Duff states<a id="d0e7783src" href="#d0e7783" class="noteref">7</a> that the R&#257;mosi or Bh&#299;l was employed as village guard by the Mar&#257;thas, and the R&#257;mosis were a professional caste of village
+policemen, probably derived from the Bh&#299;ls or from the Bh&#299;ls and Kolis.
+
+
+</p>
+</div>
+<div class="div2" id="d0e7788">
+<h3>3. Historical notice.</h3>
+<p>The R&#257;jp&#363;ts seem at first to have treated the Bh&#299;ls leniently. Intermarriage was frequent, especially in the families of Bh&#299;l
+chieftains, and a new caste called Bhil&#257;la<a id="d0e7793src" href="#d0e7793" class="noteref">8</a> has arisen, which is composed of the descendants of mixed R&#257;jp&#363;t and Bh&#299;l marriages. Chiefs and landholders in the Bh&#299;l country
+now belong to this caste, and it is possible that some pure Bh&#299;l families may have been admitted to it. The Bhil&#257;las rank
+above the Bh&#299;ls, on a level with the cultivating castes. Instances occasionally occurred in which the children of R&#257;jp&#363;t by
+a Bh&#299;l wife became R&#257;jp&#363;ts. When Colonel Tod wrote, R&#257;jp&#363;ts would still take food with Ujla Bh&#299;ls or those of pure aboriginal
+descent, and all castes would take water from them.<a id="d0e7796src" href="#d0e7796" class="noteref">9</a> But <a id="d0e7801"></a><span class="pagenum">[<a href="#d0e7801">282</a>]</span>as Hinduism came to be more orthodox in R&#257;jput&#257;na, the Bh&#299;ls sank to the position of outcastes. Their custom of eating beef
+had always caused them to be much despised. A tradition is related that one day the god Mah&#257;deo or Siva, sick and unhappy,
+was reclining in a shady forest when a beautiful woman appeared, the first sight of whom effected a cure of all his complaints.
+An intercourse between the god and the strange female was established, the result of which was many children; one of whom,
+from infancy distinguished alike by his ugliness and vice, slew the favourite bull of Mah&#257;deo, for which crime he was expelled
+to the woods and mountains, and his descendants have ever since been stigmatised by the names of Bh&#299;l and Nish&#257;da.<a id="d0e7803src" href="#d0e7803" class="noteref">10</a> Nish&#257;da is a term of contempt applied to the lowest outcastes. Major Hendley, writing in 1875, states: &#8220;Some time since a
+Th&#257;kur (chief) cut off the legs of two Bh&#299;ls, eaters of the sacred cow, and plunged the stumps into boiling oil.&#8221;<a id="d0e7809src" href="#d0e7809" class="noteref">11</a> When the Mar&#257;thas began to occupy Central India they treated the Bh&#299;ls with great cruelty. A Bh&#299;l caught in a disturbed part
+of the country was without inquiry flogged and hanged. Hundreds were thrown over high cliffs, and large bodies of them, assembled
+under promise of pardon, were beheaded or blown from guns. Their women were mutilated or smothered by smoke, and their children
+smashed to death against the stones.<a id="d0e7814src" href="#d0e7814" class="noteref">12</a> This treatment may to some extent have been deserved owing to the predatory habits and cruelty of the Bh&#299;ls, but its result
+was to make them utter savages with their hand against every man, as they believed that every one&#8217;s was against them. From
+their strongholds in the hills they laid waste the plain country, holding villages and towns to ransom and driving off cattle;
+nor did any travellers pass with impunity through the hills except in convoys too large to be attacked. In Kh&#257;ndesh, during
+the disturbed period of the wars of Sindhia and Holkar, about <span class="smallcaps">A.D.</span> 1800, the Bh&#299;ls betook themselves to highway robbery and lived in bands either in mountains or in villages immediately beneath
+them. The revenue contractors were <a id="d0e7822"></a><span class="pagenum">[<a href="#d0e7822">283</a>]</span>unable or unwilling to spend money in the maintenance of soldiers to protect the country, and the Bh&#299;ls in a very short time
+became so bold as to appear in bands of hundreds and attack towns, carrying off either cattle or hostages, for whom they demanded
+handsome ransoms.<a id="d0e7824src" href="#d0e7824" class="noteref">13</a> In Gujar&#257;t another writer described the Bh&#299;ls and Kolis as hereditary and professional plunderers&#8212;&#8216;Soldiers of the night,&#8217;
+as they themselves said they were.<a id="d0e7829src" href="#d0e7829" class="noteref">14</a> Malcolm said of them, after peace had been restored to Central India:<a id="d0e7835src" href="#d0e7835" class="noteref">15</a> &#8220;Measures are in progress that will, it is expected, soon complete the reformation of a class of men who, believing themselves
+doomed to be thieves and plunderers, have been confirmed in their destiny by the oppression and cruelty of neighbouring governments,
+increased by an avowed contempt for them as outcasts. The feeling this system of degradation has produced must be changed;
+and no effort has been left untried to restore this race of men to a better sense of their condition than that which they
+at present entertain. The common answer of a Bh&#299;l when charged with theft or robbery is, &#8216;I am not to blame; I am the thief
+of Mah&#257;deo&#8217;; in other words, &#8216;My destiny as a thief has been fixed by God.&#8217;&#8221; The Bh&#299;l chiefs, who were known as Bhumia, exercised
+the most absolute power, and their orders to commit the most atrocious crimes were obeyed by their ignorant but attached subjects
+without a conception on the part of the latter that they had an option when he whom they termed their Dhunni (Lord) issued
+the mandates.<a id="d0e7840src" href="#d0e7840" class="noteref">16</a> Firearms and swords were only used by the chiefs and headmen of the tribe, and their national weapon was the bamboo bow having
+the bowstring made from a thin strip of its elastic bark. The quiver was a piece of strong bamboo matting, and would contain
+sixty barbed arrows a yard long, and tipped with an iron spike either flattened and sharpened like a knife or rounded like
+a nail; other arrows, used for knocking over birds, had knob-like heads. Thus armed, the Bh&#299;ls would lie in wait in some deep
+ravine by the roadside, and an infernal yell announced their attack to the unwary traveller.<a id="d0e7845src" href="#d0e7845" class="noteref">17</a> Major Hendley states <a id="d0e7850"></a><span class="pagenum">[<a href="#d0e7850">284</a>]</span>that according to tradition in the Mah&#257;bh&#257;rata the god Krishna was killed by a Bh&#299;l&#8217;s arrow, when he was fighting against
+them in Gujar&#257;t with the Y&#257;davas; and on this account it was ordained that the Bh&#299;l should never again be able to draw the
+bow with the forefinger of the right hand. &#8220;Times have changed since then, but I noticed in examining their hands that few
+could move the forefinger without the second finger; indeed the fingers appeared useless as independent members of the hands.
+In connection with this may be mentioned their apparent inability to distinguish colours or count numbers, due alone to their
+want of words to express themselves.&#8221;<a id="d0e7852src" href="#d0e7852" class="noteref">18</a>
+
+
+</p>
+<div id="d0e7857" class="figure"><img border="0" src="images/p282.jpg" alt="Tantia Bh&#299;l, a famous dacoit." width="470" height="720"><p class="figureHead">Tantia Bh&#299;l, a famous dacoit.</p>
+</div><p>
+
+
+
+</p>
+</div>
+<div class="div2" id="d0e7861">
+<h3>4. General Outram and the Kh&#257;ndesh Bh&#299;l Corps.</h3>
+<p>The reclamation and pacification of the Bh&#299;ls is inseparably associated with the name of Lieutenant, afterwards Sir James,
+Outram. The Kh&#257;ndesh Bh&#299;l Corps was first raised by him in 1825, when Bh&#299;l robber bands were being hunted down by small parties
+of troops, and those who were willing to surrender were granted a free pardon for past offences, and given grants of land
+for cultivation and advances for the purchase of seed and bullocks. When the first attempts to raise the corps were made,
+the Bh&#299;ls believed that the object was to link them in line like galley-slaves with a view to extirpate the race, that blood
+was in high demand as a medicine in the country of their foreign masters, and so on. Indulging the wild men with feasts and
+entertainments, and delighting them with his matchless urbanity, Captain Outram at length contrived to draw over to the cause
+nine recruits, one of whom was a notorious plunderer who had a short time before successfully robbed the officer commanding
+a detachment sent against him. This infant corps soon became strongly attached to the person of their new chief and entirely
+devoted to his wishes; their goodwill had been won by his kind and conciliatory manners, while their admiration and respect
+had been thoroughly roused and excited by his prowess and valour in the chase. On one occasion, it is recorded, word was brought
+to Outram of the presence of a panther in some prickly-pear shrubs on the side of a hill near his station. He went to shoot
+it with a friend, Outram being on foot and his friend on horseback searching <a id="d0e7866"></a><span class="pagenum">[<a href="#d0e7866">285</a>]</span>through the bushes. When close on the animal, Outram&#8217;s friend fired and missed, on which the panther sprang forward roaring
+and seized Outram, and they rolled down the hill together. Being released from the claws of the furious beast for a moment,
+Outram with great presence of mind drew a pistol which he had with him, and shot the panther dead. The Bh&#299;ls, on seeing that
+he had been injured, were one and all loud in their grief and expressions of regret, when Outram quieted them with the remark,
+&#8216;What do I care for the clawing of a cat?&#8217; and this saying long remained a proverb among the Bh&#299;ls.<a id="d0e7868src" href="#d0e7868" class="noteref">19</a> By his kindness and sympathy, listening freely to all that each single man in the corps had to say to him, Outram at length
+won their confidence, convinced them of his good faith and dissipated their fears of treachery. Soon the ranks of the corps
+became full, and for every vacant place there were numbers of applicants. The Bh&#299;ls freely hunted down and captured their
+friends and relations who continued to create disturbances, and brought them in for punishment. Outram managed to check their
+propensity for liquor by paying them every day just sufficient for their food, and giving them the balance of their pay at
+the end of the month, when some might have a drinking bout, but many preferred to spend the money on ornaments and articles
+of finery. With the assistance of the corps the marauding tendencies of the hill Bh&#299;ls were suppressed and tranquillity restored
+to Kh&#257;ndesh, which rapidly became one of the most fertile parts of India. During the Mutiny the Bh&#299;l corps remained loyal,
+and did good service in checking the local outbursts which occurred in Kh&#257;ndesh. A second battalion was raised at this time,
+but was disbanded three years afterwards. After this the corps had little or nothing to do, and as the absence of fighting
+and the higher wages which could be obtained by ordinary labour ceased to render it attractive to the Bh&#299;ls, it was finally
+converted into police in 1891.<a id="d0e7873src" href="#d0e7873" class="noteref">20</a>
+
+
+</p>
+</div>
+<div class="div2" id="d0e7878">
+<h3>5. Subdivisions.</h3>
+<p>The Bh&#299;ls of the Central Provinces have now only two subdivisions, the Muhammadan Bh&#299;ls, who were forcibly converted to Isl&#257;m
+during the time of Aur&#257;ngzeb, and the remainder, who though retaining many animistic beliefs and <a id="d0e7883"></a><span class="pagenum">[<a href="#d0e7883">286</a>]</span>superstitions, have practically become Hindus. The Muhammadan Bh&#299;ls only number about 3000 out of 28,000. They are known as
+Tadvi, a name which was formerly applied to a Bh&#299;l headman, and is said to be derived from <i>t&#257;d</i>, meaning a separate branch or section. These Bh&#299;ls marry among themselves and not with any other Muhammadans. They retain
+many Hindu and animistic usages, and are scarcely Muhammadan in more than name. Both classes are divided into groups or septs,
+generally named after plants or animals to which they still show reverence. Thus the J&#257;mania sept, named after the <i>j&#257;man</i> tree,<a id="d0e7891src" href="#d0e7891" class="noteref">21</a> will not cut or burn any part of this tree, and at their weddings the dresses of the bride and bridegroom are taken and rubbed
+against the tree before being worn. Similarly the Rohini sept worship the <i>rohan</i><a id="d0e7897src" href="#d0e7897" class="noteref">22</a> tree, the Avalia sept the <i>aonla</i><a id="d0e7903src" href="#d0e7903" class="noteref">23</a> tree, the Meheda sept the <i>bahera</i><a id="d0e7909src" href="#d0e7909" class="noteref">24</a> tree, and so on. The Mori sept worship the peacock. They go into the jungle and look for the tracks of a peacock, and spreading
+a piece of red cloth before the footprint, lay their offerings of grain upon it. Members of this sept may not be tattooed,
+because they think the splashes of colour on the peacock&#8217;s feathers are tattoo-marks. Their women must veil themselves if
+they see a peacock, and they think that if any member of the sept irreverently treads on a peacock&#8217;s footprints he will fall
+ill. The Ghodm&#257;rya (Horse-killer) sept may not tame a horse nor ride one. The Masrya sept will not kill or eat fish. The Sany&#257;n
+or cat sept have a tradition that one of their ancestors was once chasing a cat, which ran for protection under a cover which
+had been put over the stone figure of their goddess. The goddess turned the cat into stone and sat on it, and since then members
+of the sept will not touch a cat except to save it from harm, and they will not eat anything which has been touched by a cat.
+The Ghattaya sept worship the grinding mill at their weddings and also on festival days. The Solia sept, whose name is apparently
+derived from the sun, are split up into four subsepts: the Ada Solia, who hold their weddings at sunrise; the Japa Solia,
+who hold them at sunset; the Taria Solia, <a id="d0e7913"></a><span class="pagenum">[<a href="#d0e7913">287</a>]</span>who hold them when stars have become visible after sunset; and the Tar Solia, who believe their name is connected with cotton
+thread and wrap several skeins of raw thread round the bride and bridegroom at the wedding ceremony. The Moharia sept worship
+the local goddess at the village of Moharia in Indore State, who is known as the Moharia M&#257;ta; at their weddings they apply
+turmeric and oil to the fingers of the goddess before rubbing them on the bride and bridegroom. The Maoli sept worship a goddess
+of that name in Barw&#257;ni town. Her shrine is considered to be in the shape of a kind of grain-basket known as <i>kilia</i>, and members of the sept may never make or use baskets of this shape, nor may they be tattooed with representations of it.
+Women of the sept are not allowed to visit the shrine of the goddess, but may worship her at home. Several septs have the
+names of R&#257;jp&#363;t clans, as Sesodia, Panw&#257;r, Mori, and appear to have originated in mixed unions between R&#257;jp&#363;ts and Bh&#299;ls.
+
+
+</p>
+</div>
+<div class="div2" id="d0e7918">
+<h3>6. Exogamy and marriage customs.</h3>
+<p>A man must not marry in his own sept nor in the families of his mothers and grandmothers. The union of first cousins is thus
+prohibited, nor can girls be exchanged in marriage between two families. A wife&#8217;s sister may also not be married during the
+wife&#8217;s lifetime. The Muhammadan Bh&#299;ls permit a man to marry his maternal uncle&#8217;s daughter, and though he cannot marry his
+wife&#8217;s sister he may keep her as a concubine. Marriages may be infant or adult, but the former practice is becoming prevalent
+and girls are often wedded before they are eleven. Matches are arranged by the parents of the parties in consultation with
+the caste <i>panch&#257;yat</i>; but in Bombay girls may select their own husbands, and they have also a recognised custom of elopement at the Tosina fair
+in the month of the Mahi K&#257;ntha. If a Bh&#299;l can persuade a girl to cross the river there with him he may claim her as his wife;
+but if they are caught before getting across he is liable to be punished by the bride&#8217;s father.<a id="d0e7926src" href="#d0e7926" class="noteref">25</a> The betrothal and wedding ceremonies now follow the ordinary ritual of the middle and lower castes in the Mar&#257;tha country.<a id="d0e7931src" href="#d0e7931" class="noteref">26</a> The bride must be <a id="d0e7934"></a><span class="pagenum">[<a href="#d0e7934">288</a>]</span>younger than the bridegroom except in the case of a widow. A bride-price is paid which may vary from Rs. 9 to 20; in the case
+of Muhammadan Bh&#299;ls the bridegroom is said to give a dowry of Rs. 20 to 25. When the ovens are made with the sacred earth
+they roast some of the large millet ju&#257;ri<a id="d0e7936src" href="#d0e7936" class="noteref">27</a> for the family feast, calling this Ju&#257;ri M&#257;ta or the grain goddess. Offerings of this are made to the family gods, and it
+is partaken of only by the members of the bride&#8217;s and bridegroom&#8217;s septs respectively at their houses. No outsider may even
+see this food being eaten. The leavings of food, with the leaf-plates on which it was eaten, are buried inside the house,
+as it is believed that if they should fall into the hands of any outsider the death or blindness of one of the family will
+ensue. When the bridegroom reaches the bride&#8217;s house he strikes the marriage-shed with a dagger or other sharp instrument.
+A goat is killed and he steps in its blood as he enters the shed. A day for the wedding is selected by the priest, but it
+may also take place on any Sunday in the eight fine months. If the wedding takes place on the eleventh day of K&#257;rtik, that
+is on the expiration of the four rainy months when marriages are forbidden, they make a little hut of eleven stalks of ju&#257;ri
+with their cobs in the shape of a cone, and the bride and bridegroom walk round this. The services of a Br&#257;hman are not required
+for such a wedding. Sometimes the bridegroom is simply seated in a grain basket and the bride in a winnowing-fan; then their
+hands are joined as the sun is half set, and the marriage is completed. The bridegroom takes the basket and fan home with
+him. On the return of the wedding couple, their <i>kankans</i> or wristbands are taken off at Hanum&#257;n&#8217;s temple. The Muhammadan Bh&#299;ls perform the same ceremonies as the Hindus, but at the
+end they call in the K&#257;zi or registrar, who repeats the Muhammadan prayers and records the dowry agreed upon. The practice
+of the bridegroom serving for his wife is in force among both classes of Bh&#299;ls.
+
+
+</p>
+</div>
+<div class="div2" id="d0e7943">
+<h3>7. Widow&#8212;marriage, divorce and polygamy.</h3>
+<p>The remarriage of widows is permitted, but the widow may not marry any relative of her first husband. She returns to her father&#8217;s
+house, and on her remarriage they <a id="d0e7948"></a><span class="pagenum">[<a href="#d0e7948">289</a>]</span>obtain a bride-price of Rs. 40 or 50, a quarter of which goes in a feast to the tribesmen. The wedding of a widow is held
+on the Am&#257;was or last day of the dark fortnight of the month, or on a Sunday. A wife may be divorced for adultery without
+consulting the <i>panch&#257;yat</i>. It is said that a wife cannot otherwise be divorced on any account, nor can a woman divorce her husband, but she may desert
+him and go and live with a man. In this case all that is necessary is that the second husband should repay to the first as
+compensation the amount expended by the latter on his marriage with the woman. Polygamy is permitted, and a second wife is
+sometimes taken in order to obtain children, but this number is seldom if ever exceeded. It is stated that the Bh&#299;l married
+women are generally chaste and faithful to their husbands, and any attempt to tamper with their virtue on the part of an outsider
+is strongly resented by the man.
+
+
+</p>
+</div>
+<div class="div2" id="d0e7953">
+<h3>8. Religion.</h3>
+<p>The Bh&#299;ls worship the ordinary Hindu deities and the village godlings of the locality. The favourite both with Hindu and Muhammadan
+Bh&#299;ls is Khande Rao or Khandoba, the war-god of the Mar&#257;thas, who is often represented by a sword. The Muhammadans and the
+Hindu Bh&#299;ls also to a less extent worship the P&#299;rs or spirits of Muhammadan saints at their tombs, of which there are a number
+in Nim&#257;r. Major Hendley states that in Mew&#257;r the seats or <i>sth&#257;ns</i> of the Bh&#299;l gods are on the summits of high hills, and are represented by heaps of stones, solid or hollowed out in the centre,
+or mere platforms, in or near which are found numbers of clay or mud images of horses.<a id="d0e7961src" href="#d0e7961" class="noteref">28</a> In some places clay lamps are burnt in front of the images of horses, from which it may be concluded that the horse itself
+is or was worshipped as a god. Colonel Tod states that the Bh&#299;ls will eat of nothing white in colour, as a white sheep or
+goat; and their grand adjuration is &#8216;By the white ram.&#8217;<a id="d0e7966src" href="#d0e7966" class="noteref">29</a> Sir A. Lyall<a id="d0e7970src" href="#d0e7970" class="noteref">30</a> says that their principal oath is by the dog. The Bh&#299;l sepoys told Major Hendley that they considered it of little use to
+go on worshipping their own gods, as the power of these had declined since the English became supreme. They thought the strong
+English gods were too much for <a id="d0e7975"></a><span class="pagenum">[<a href="#d0e7975">290</a>]</span>the weak deities of their country, hence they were desirous of embracing Br&#257;hmanism, which would also raise them in the social
+scale and give them a better chance of promotion in regiments where there were Br&#257;hman officers.
+
+
+</p>
+</div>
+<div class="div2" id="d0e7977">
+<h3>9. Witchcraft and amulets.</h3>
+<p>They wear charms and amulets to keep off evil spirits; the charms are generally pieces of blue string with seven knots in
+them, which their witch-finder or Badwa ties, reciting an incantation on each; the knots were sometimes covered with metal
+to keep them undefiled and the charms were tied on at the Holi, Dasahra or some other festival.<a id="d0e7982src" href="#d0e7982" class="noteref">31</a> In Bombay the Bh&#299;ls still believe in witches as the agents of any misfortunes that may befall them. If a man was sick and
+thought some woman had bewitched him, the suspected woman was thrown into a stream or swung from a tree. If the branch broke
+and the woman fell and suffered serious injury, or if she could not swim across the stream and sank, she was considered to
+be innocent and efforts were made to save her. But if she escaped without injury she was held to be a witch, and it frequently
+happened that the woman would admit herself to be one either from fear of the infliction of a harder ordeal, or to keep up
+the belief in her powers as a witch, which often secured her a free supper of milk and chickens. She would then admit that
+she had really bewitched the sick man and undertake to cure him on some sacrifice being made. If he recovered, the animal
+named by the witch was sacrificed and its blood given her to drink while still warm; either from fear or in order to keep
+up the character she would drink it, and would be permitted to stay on in the village. If, on the other hand, the sick person
+died, the witch would often be driven into the forest to die of hunger or to be devoured by wild animals.<a id="d0e7987src" href="#d0e7987" class="noteref">32</a> These practices have now disappeared in the Central Provinces, though occasionally murders of suspected witches may still
+occur. The Bh&#299;ls are firm believers in omens, the nature of which is much the same as among the Hindus. When a Bh&#299;l is persistently
+unlucky in hunting, he sometimes says &#8216;<i lang="und">Nat laga</i>,&#8217; meaning that some bad spirit is causing his ill-success. Then he will <a id="d0e7995"></a><span class="pagenum">[<a href="#d0e7995">291</a>]</span>make an image of a man in the sand or dust of the road, or sometimes two images of a man and woman, and throwing straw or
+grass over the images set it alight, and pound it down on them with a stick with abusive yells. This he calls killing his
+bad luck.<a id="d0e7997src" href="#d0e7997" class="noteref">33</a> Major Hendley notes that the men danced before the different festivals and before battles. The men danced in a ring holding
+sticks and striking them against each other, much like the Baiga dance. Before battle they had a war-dance in which the performers
+were armed and imitated a combat. To be carried on the shoulders of one of the combatants was a great honour, perhaps because
+it symbolised being on horseback. The dance was probably in the nature of a magical rite, designed to obtain success in battle
+by going through an imitation of it beforehand. The priests are the chief physicians among the Bh&#299;ls, though most old men
+were supposed to know something about medicine.<a id="d0e8002src" href="#d0e8002" class="noteref">34</a>
+
+
+</p>
+</div>
+<div class="div2" id="d0e8007">
+<h3>10. Funeral rites.</h3>
+<p>The dead are usually buried lying on the back, with the head pointing to the south. Cooked food is placed on the bier and
+deposited on the ground half-way to the cemetery. On return each family of the sept brings a wheaten cake to the mourners
+and these are eaten. On the third day they place on the grave a thick cake of wheaten flour, water in an earthen pot and tobacco
+or any other stimulant which the deceased was in the habit of using in his life.
+
+
+</p>
+</div>
+<div class="div2" id="d0e8012">
+<h3>11. Social customs.</h3>
+<p>The Hindu Bh&#299;ls say that they do not admit outsiders into the caste, but the Muhammadans will admit a man of any but the impure
+castes. The neophyte must be shaved and circumcised, and the K&#257;zi gives him some holy water to drink and teaches him the profession
+of belief in Isl&#257;m. If a man is not circumcised, the Tadvi or Muhammadan Bh&#299;ls will not bury his body. Both classes of Bh&#299;ls
+employ Br&#257;hmans at their ceremonies. The tribe eat almost all kinds of flesh and drink liquor, but the Hindus now abjure beef
+and the Muhammadans pork. Some Bh&#299;ls now refuse to take the skins off dead cattle, but others will do so. The Bh&#299;ls will take
+food from any caste except the impure ones, and none except these castes will now take food from <a id="d0e8017"></a><span class="pagenum">[<a href="#d0e8017">292</a>]</span>them. Temporary or permanent exclusion from caste is imposed for the same offences as among the Hindus.
+
+
+</p>
+</div>
+<div class="div2" id="d0e8019">
+<h3>12. Appearance and characteristics.</h3>
+<p>The typical Bh&#299;l is small, dark, broad-nosed and ugly, but well built and active. The average height of 128 men measured by
+Major Hendley was 5 feet 6.4 inches. The hands are somewhat small and the legs fairly developed, those of the women being
+the best. &#8220;The Bh&#299;l is an excellent woodsman, knows the shortest cuts over the hills, can walk the roughest paths and climb
+the steepest crags without slipping or feeling distressed. He is often called in old Sanskrit works Venaputra, &#8216;child of the
+forest,&#8217; or P&#257;l Indra, &#8216;lord of the pass.&#8217; These names well describe his character. His country is approached through narrow
+defiles (<i>p&#257;l</i>), and through these none could pass without his permission. In former days he always levied <i>rakhw&#257;li</i> or blackmail, and even now native travellers find him quite ready to assert what he deems his just rights. The Bh&#299;l is a
+capital huntsman, tracking and marking down tigers, panthers and bears, knowing all their haunts, the best places to shoot
+them, the paths they take and all those points so essential to success in big-game shooting; they will remember for years
+the spots where tigers have been disposed of, and all the circumstances connected with their deaths. The Bh&#299;l will himself
+attack a leopard, and with his sword, aided by his friends, cut him to pieces.&#8221;<a id="d0e8030src" href="#d0e8030" class="noteref">35</a> Their agility impressed the Hindus, and an old writer says: &#8220;Some Bh&#299;l chieftains who attended the camp of Sidhr&#257;j, king
+of Gujar&#257;t, astonished him with their feats of activity; in his army they seemed as the followers of Hanum&#257;n in attendance
+upon R&#257;m.&#8221;<a id="d0e8035src" href="#d0e8035" class="noteref">36</a>
+
+
+</p>
+</div>
+<div class="div2" id="d0e8041">
+<h3>13. Occupation.</h3>
+<p>The Bh&#299;ls have now had to abandon their free use of the forests, which was highly destructive in its effects, and their indiscriminate
+slaughter of game. Many of them live in the open country and have become farmservants and field-labourers. A certain proportion
+are tenants, but very few own villages. Some of the Tadvi Bh&#299;ls, however, still retain villages which were originally granted
+free of revenue on condition of their keeping the hill-passes of the Satp&#363;ras <a id="d0e8046"></a><span class="pagenum">[<a href="#d0e8046">293</a>]</span>open and safe for travellers. These are known as Hattiw&#257;la. Bh&#299;ls also serve as village watchmen in Nim&#257;r and the adjoining
+tracts of the Ber&#257;r Districts. Captain Forsyth, writing in 1868, described the Bh&#299;ls as follows: &#8220;The Muhammadan Bh&#299;ls are
+with few exceptions a miserable lot, idle and thriftless, and steeped in the deadly vice of opium-eating. The unconverted
+Bh&#299;ls are held to be tolerably reliable. When they borrow money or stock for cultivation they seldom abscond fraudulently
+from their creditors, and this simple honesty of theirs tends, I fear, to keep numbers of them still in a state little above
+serfdom.&#8221;<a id="d0e8048src" href="#d0e8048" class="noteref">37</a>
+
+
+</p>
+</div>
+<div class="div2" id="d0e8053">
+<h3>14. Language.</h3>
+<p>The Bh&#299;ls have now entirely abandoned their own language and speak a corrupt dialect based on the Aryan vernaculars current
+around them. The Bh&#299;l dialect is mainly derived from Gujar&#257;ti, but it is influenced by M&#257;rw&#257;ri and Mar&#257;thi; in Nim&#257;r especially
+it becomes a corrupt form of Mar&#257;thi. Bh&#299;li, as this dialect is called, contains a number of non-Aryan words, some of which
+appear to come from the Mund&#257;ri, and others from the Dravidian languages; but these are insufficient to form any basis for
+a deduction as to whether the Bh&#299;ls belonged to the Kolarian or Dravidian race.<a id="d0e8058src" href="#d0e8058" class="noteref">38</a>
+
+
+</p>
+</div>
+<div class="footnotes">
+<hr class="fnsep">
+<p class="footnote"><span class="label"><a id="d0e7692" href="#d0e7692src" class="noteref">1</a></span> The principal authorities on the Bh&#299;ls are: <i>An Account of the Mew&#257;r Bh&#299;ls</i>, by Major P. H. Hendley, <i>J.A.S.B.</i> vol. xliv., 1875, pp. 347&#8211;385; the <i>Bombay Gazetteer</i>, vol. ix., <i>Hindus of Gujar&#257;t</i>; and notices in Colonel Tod&#8217;s <i>R&#257;jasth&#257;n</i>, Mr. A. L. Forbes&#8217;s <i>R&#257;sm&#257;la</i>, and <i>The Kh&#257;ndesh Bh&#299;l Corps</i>, by Mr. A. H. A. Simcox, C.S.
+</p>
+<p class="footnote"><span class="label"><a id="d0e7739" href="#d0e7739src" class="noteref">2</a></span> The old name of the Sesodia clan, Gahlot, is held to be derived from this Goha. See the article R&#257;jp&#363;t Sesodia for a notice
+of the real origin of the clan.
+</p>
+<p class="footnote"><span class="label"><a id="d0e7750" href="#d0e7750src" class="noteref">3</a></span> <i>R&#257;jasth&#257;n</i>, i. p. 184.
+</p>
+<p class="footnote"><span class="label"><a id="d0e7760" href="#d0e7760src" class="noteref">4</a></span> <i>Ibidem</i>, p. 186.
+</p>
+<p class="footnote"><span class="label"><a id="d0e7768" href="#d0e7768src" class="noteref">5</a></span> Reference may be made to <i>The Golden Bough</i> for the full explanation and illustration of this superstition.
+</p>
+<p class="footnote"><span class="label"><a id="d0e7776" href="#d0e7776src" class="noteref">6</a></span> <i>R&#257;jasth&#257;n</i>, ii. pp. 320, 321.
+</p>
+<p class="footnote"><span class="label"><a id="d0e7783" href="#d0e7783src" class="noteref">7</a></span> <i>History of the Mar&#257;thas</i>, i. p. 28.
+</p>
+<p class="footnote"><span class="label"><a id="d0e7793" href="#d0e7793src" class="noteref">8</a></span> See article.
+</p>
+<p class="footnote"><span class="label"><a id="d0e7796" href="#d0e7796src" class="noteref">9</a></span> <i>R&#257;jasth&#257;n</i>, ii. p. 466.
+</p>
+<p class="footnote"><span class="label"><a id="d0e7803" href="#d0e7803src" class="noteref">10</a></span> Malcolm, <i>Memoir of Central India</i>, i. p. 518.
+</p>
+<p class="footnote"><span class="label"><a id="d0e7809" href="#d0e7809src" class="noteref">11</a></span> <i>An Account of the Bh&#299;ls, J.A.S.B.</i> (1875), p. 369.
+</p>
+<p class="footnote"><span class="label"><a id="d0e7814" href="#d0e7814src" class="noteref">12</a></span> <i>Hyder&#257;b&#257;d Census Report</i> (1891), p. 218.
+</p>
+<p class="footnote"><span class="label"><a id="d0e7824" href="#d0e7824src" class="noteref">13</a></span> <i>The Kh&#257;ndesh Bh&#299;l Corps</i>, by Mr A. H. A. Simcox.
+</p>
+<p class="footnote"><span class="label"><a id="d0e7829" href="#d0e7829src" class="noteref">14</a></span> Forbes, <i>R&#257;sm&#257;la</i>, i. p. 104.
+</p>
+<p class="footnote"><span class="label"><a id="d0e7835" href="#d0e7835src" class="noteref">15</a></span> <i>Memoir of Central India</i>, i. pp. 525, 526.
+</p>
+<p class="footnote"><span class="label"><a id="d0e7840" href="#d0e7840src" class="noteref">16</a></span> <i>Ibidem</i>, i. p. 550.
+</p>
+<p class="footnote"><span class="label"><a id="d0e7845" href="#d0e7845src" class="noteref">17</a></span> <i>Hobson-Jobson</i>, art. Bh&#299;l.
+</p>
+<p class="footnote"><span class="label"><a id="d0e7852" href="#d0e7852src" class="noteref">18</a></span> <i>An Account of the Bh&#299;ls</i>, p. 369.
+</p>
+<p class="footnote"><span class="label"><a id="d0e7868" href="#d0e7868src" class="noteref">19</a></span> <i>The Kh&#257;ndesh Bh&#299;l Corps</i>, p. 71.
+</p>
+<p class="footnote"><span class="label"><a id="d0e7873" href="#d0e7873src" class="noteref">20</a></span> <i>Ibidem</i>, p. 275.
+</p>
+<p class="footnote"><span class="label"><a id="d0e7891" href="#d0e7891src" class="noteref">21</a></span> <i>Eugenia jambolana.</i></p>
+<p class="footnote"><span class="label"><a id="d0e7897" href="#d0e7897src" class="noteref">22</a></span> <i>Soymida febrifuga.</i></p>
+<p class="footnote"><span class="label"><a id="d0e7903" href="#d0e7903src" class="noteref">23</a></span> <i>Phyllanthus emblica.</i></p>
+<p class="footnote"><span class="label"><a id="d0e7909" href="#d0e7909src" class="noteref">24</a></span> <i>Terminalia belerica.</i></p>
+<p class="footnote"><span class="label"><a id="d0e7926" href="#d0e7926src" class="noteref">25</a></span> <i>Bombay Gazetteer, Hindus of Gujar&#257;t</i>, p. 309.
+</p>
+<p class="footnote"><span class="label"><a id="d0e7931" href="#d0e7931src" class="noteref">26</a></span> See article Kunbi.
+</p>
+<p class="footnote"><span class="label"><a id="d0e7936" href="#d0e7936src" class="noteref">27</a></span> <i>Sorghum vulgare.</i></p>
+<p class="footnote"><span class="label"><a id="d0e7961" href="#d0e7961src" class="noteref">28</a></span> <i>Loc. cit.</i> p. 347.
+</p>
+<p class="footnote"><span class="label"><a id="d0e7966" href="#d0e7966src" class="noteref">29</a></span> <i>Western India.</i></p>
+<p class="footnote"><span class="label"><a id="d0e7970" href="#d0e7970src" class="noteref">30</a></span> <i>Asiatic Studies</i>, 1st series, p. 174.
+</p>
+<p class="footnote"><span class="label"><a id="d0e7982" href="#d0e7982src" class="noteref">31</a></span> <i>Asiatic Studies</i>, 1st series, p. 352.
+</p>
+<p class="footnote"><span class="label"><a id="d0e7987" href="#d0e7987src" class="noteref">32</a></span> <i>Bombay Gazetteer, Hindus of Gujar&#257;t</i>, p. 302.
+</p>
+<p class="footnote"><span class="label"><a id="d0e7997" href="#d0e7997src" class="noteref">33</a></span> <i>Bombay Gazetteer</i>, vol. xii. p. 87.
+</p>
+<p class="footnote"><span class="label"><a id="d0e8002" href="#d0e8002src" class="noteref">34</a></span> <i>An Account of the Bh&#299;ls</i>, pp. 362, 363.
+</p>
+<p class="footnote"><span class="label"><a id="d0e8030" href="#d0e8030src" class="noteref">35</a></span> <i>Account of the Mew&#257;r Bh&#299;ls</i>, pp. 357, 358.
+</p>
+<p class="footnote"><span class="label"><a id="d0e8035" href="#d0e8035src" class="noteref">36</a></span> Forbes, <i>R&#257;sm&#257;la</i>, i. p. 113.
+</p>
+<p class="footnote"><span class="label"><a id="d0e8048" href="#d0e8048src" class="noteref">37</a></span> <i>Nim&#257;r Settlement Report</i>, pp. 246, 247.
+</p>
+<p class="footnote"><span class="label"><a id="d0e8058" href="#d0e8058src" class="noteref">38</a></span> Sir G. Grierson, <i>Linguistic Survey of India</i>, vol. ix. part iii. pp. 6&#8211;9.
+</p>
+</div>
+</div>
+<div id="d0e8064" class="div1"><span class="pagenum">
+[<a href="#d0e111">Contents</a>]
+</span><h2>Bhil&#257;la</h2>
+<div class="div2" id="d0e8067">
+<h3>1. General notice.</h3>
+<p><b>Bhil&#257;la</b>,<a id="d0e8074src" href="#d0e8074" class="noteref">1</a>&#8212;A small caste found in the Nim&#257;r and Hoshang&#257;b&#257;d Districts of the Central Provinces and in Central India. The total strength
+of the Bhil&#257;las is about 150,000 persons, most of whom reside in the Bhop&#257;w&#257;r Agency, adjoining Nim&#257;r. Only 15,000 were returned
+from the Central Provinces in 1911. The Bhil&#257;las are commonly considered, and the general belief may in their case be accepted
+as correct, to be a mixed caste sprung from the alliances of immigrant R&#257;jp&#363;ts with the Bh&#299;ls of the Central India hills.
+The original term was not improbably Bh&#299;lw&#257;la, and may have been applied to those R&#257;jp&#363;t chiefs, a numerous body, who acquired
+small estates in the Bh&#299;l country, or to those who took the daughters of Bh&#299;l chieftains to wife, the second course being
+often no <a id="d0e8080"></a><span class="pagenum">[<a href="#d0e8080">294</a>]</span>doubt a necessary preliminary to the first. Several Bhil&#257;la families hold estates in Nim&#257;r and Indore, and their chiefs now
+claim to be pure R&#257;jp&#363;ts. The principal Bhil&#257;la houses, as those of Bh&#257;mgarh, Sel&#257;ni and Mandh&#257;ta, do not intermarry with
+the rest of the caste, but only among themselves and with other families of the same standing in M&#257;lwa and Holkar&#8217;s Nim&#257;r.
+On succession to the <i>Gaddi</i> or headship of the house, representatives of these families are marked with a <i>t&#299;ka</i> or badge on the forehead and sometimes presented with a sword, and the investiture may be carried out by custom by the head
+of another house. Bhil&#257;la landholders usually have the title of Rao or R&#257;wat. They do not admit that a Bhil&#257;la can now spring
+from intermarriage between a R&#257;jp&#363;t and a Bh&#299;l. The local Br&#257;hmans will take water from them and they are occasionally invested
+with the sacred thread at the time of marriage. The Bhil&#257;la Rao of Mandh&#257;ta is hereditary custodian of the great shrine of
+Siva at Onk&#257;r Mandh&#257;ta on an island in the Nerbudda. According to the traditions of the family, their ancestor, Bh&#257;rat Singh,
+was a Chauh&#257;n R&#257;jp&#363;t, who took Mandh&#257;ta from N&#257;thu Bh&#299;l in <span class="smallcaps">A.D.</span> 1165, and restored the worship of Siva to the island, which had been made inaccessible to pilgrims by the terrible deities,
+K&#257;li and Bhairava, devourers of human flesh. In such legends may be recognised the propagation of Hinduism by the R&#257;jp&#363;t adventurers
+and the reconsecration of the aboriginal shrines to its deities. Bh&#257;rat Singh is said to have killed N&#257;thu Bh&#299;l, but it is
+more probable that he only married his daughter and founded a Bhil&#257;la family. Similar alliances have taken place among other
+tribes, as the Korku chiefs of the G&#257;wilgarh and Mah&#257;deo hills, and the Gond princes of Garha Mandla. The Bhil&#257;las generally
+resemble other Hindus in appearance, showing no marked signs of aboriginal descent. Very probably they have all an infusion
+of R&#257;jp&#363;t blood, as the R&#257;jp&#363;ts settled in the Bh&#299;l country in some strength at an early period of history. The caste have,
+however, totemistic group names; they will eat fowls and drink liquor; and they bury their dead with the feet to the north,
+all these customs indicating a Dravidian origin. Their subordinate position in past times is shown by the fact that they will
+accept cooked food from a Kunbi <a id="d0e8091"></a><span class="pagenum">[<a href="#d0e8091">295</a>]</span>or a G&#363;jar; and indeed the status of all except the chief&#8217;s families would naturally have been a low one, as they were practically
+the offspring of kept women. As already stated, the landowning families usually arrange alliances among themselves. Below
+these comes the body of the caste and below them is a group known as the Chhoti Tad or bastard Bhil&#257;las, to which are relegated
+the progeny of irregular unions and persons expelled from the caste for social offences.
+
+
+</p>
+</div>
+<div class="div2" id="d0e8093">
+<h3>2. Marriage.</h3>
+<p>The caste, for the purpose of avoiding marriages between relations, are also divided into exogamous groups called <i>kul</i> or <i>kuri</i>, several of the names of which are of totemistic origin or derived from those of animals and plants. Members of the J&#257;mra
+<i>kuri</i> will not cut or burn the <i>j&#257;mun</i><a id="d0e8109src" href="#d0e8109" class="noteref">2</a> tree; those of the Saniy&#257;r <i>kuri</i> will not grow <i>san</i>-hemp, while the Astaryas revere the <i>sona</i><a id="d0e8121src" href="#d0e8121" class="noteref">3</a> tree and the Pipal&#257;dya, the <i>p&#299;pal</i> tree. Some of the <i>kuris</i> have R&#257;jp&#363;t sept names, as Mori, Baghel and Solanki. A man is forbidden to take a wife from within his own sept or that of
+his mother, and the union of first cousins is also prohibited. The customs of the Bhil&#257;las resemble those of the Kunbis and
+other cultivating castes. At their weddings four cart-yokes are arranged in a square, and inside this are placed two copper
+vessels filled with water and considered to represent the Ganges and Jumna. When the sun is half set, the bride and the bridegroom
+clasp hands and then walk seven times round the square of cart-yokes. The water of the pots is mixed and this is considered
+to represent the mingling of the bride&#8217;s and bridegroom&#8217;s personalities as the Ganges and Jumna meet at Allah&#257;b&#257;d. A sum of
+about Rs. 60 is usually paid by the parents of the bridegroom to those of the bride and is expended on the ceremony. The ordinary
+Bhil&#257;l&#257;s have, Mr. Korke states, a simple form of wedding which may be gone through without consulting a Br&#257;hman on the Ek&#257;dashi
+or eleventh of K&#257;rtik (October); this is the day on which the gods awake from sleep and marks the commencement of the marriage
+season. A cone is erected of eleven plants of ju&#257;ri, roots and all, and the couple simply walk round this seven times at night,
+when the marriage is complete. The <a id="d0e8131"></a><span class="pagenum">[<a href="#d0e8131">296</a>]</span>remarriage of widows is permitted. The woman&#8217;s forehead is marked with cowdung by another widow, probably as a rite of purification,
+and the cloths of the couple are tied together.
+
+
+</p>
+</div>
+<div class="div2" id="d0e8133">
+<h3>3. Social customs.</h3>
+<p>The caste commonly bury the dead and erect memorial stones at the heads of graves which they worship in the month of Chait
+(April), smearing them with vermilion and making an offering of flowers. This may either be a Dravidian usage or have been
+adopted by imitation from the Muhammadans. The caste worship the ordinary Hindu deities, but each family has a <i>Kul-devi</i> or household god, Mr. Korke remarks, to which they pay special reverence. The offerings made to the Kul-devi must be consumed
+by the family alone, but married daughters are allowed to participate. They employ Nim&#257;ri Br&#257;hmans as their priests, and also
+have <i>gurus</i> or spiritual preceptors, who are Gosains or Bair&#257;gis. They will take food cooked with water from Br&#257;hmans, R&#257;jp&#363;ts, Munda
+G&#363;jars and Tirole Kunbis. The last two groups are principal agricultural castes of the locality and the Bhil&#257;las are probably
+employed by them as farmservants, and hence accept cooked food from their masters in accordance with a common custom. The
+local Br&#257;hmans of the N&#257;gar, N&#257;ramdeo, Ba&#299;sa and other subcastes will take water from the hand of a Bhil&#257;la. Temporary excommunication
+from caste is imposed for the usual offences, such as going to jail, getting maggots in a wound, killing a cow, a dog or a
+squirrel, committing homicide, being beaten by a man of low caste, selling shoes at a profit, committing adultery, and allowing
+a cow to die with a rope round its neck; and further, for touching the corpses of a cow, cat or horse, or a Barhai (carpenter)
+or Cham&#257;r (tanner). They will not swear by a dog, a cat or a squirrel, and if either of the first two animals dies in a house,
+it is considered to be impure for a month and a quarter. The head of the caste committee has the designation of Mandloi, which
+is a territorial title borne by several families in Nim&#257;r. He receives a share of the fine levied for the <i>Sarni</i> or purification ceremony, when a person temporarily expelled is readmitted into caste. Under the Mandloi is the Kotw&#257;l whose
+business is to summon the members to the caste <a id="d0e8147"></a><span class="pagenum">[<a href="#d0e8147">297</a>]</span>assemblies; he also is paid out of the fines and his office is hereditary.
+
+
+</p>
+</div>
+<div class="div2" id="d0e8149">
+<h3>4. Occupation and character.</h3>
+<p>The caste are cultivators, farmservants and field-labourers, and a Bhil&#257;la also usually held the office of M&#257;nkar, a superior
+kind of Kotw&#257;r or village watchman. The M&#257;nkar did no dirty work and would not touch hides, but attended on any officer who
+came to the village and acted as a guide. Where there was a village <i>sarai</i> or rest-house, it was in charge of the M&#257;nkar, who was frequently also known as zam&#299;nd&#257;r. This may have been a recognition
+of the ancient rights of the Bhil&#257;las and Bh&#299;ls to the country.
+
+
+</p>
+</div>
+<div class="div2" id="d0e8157">
+<h3>5. Character.</h3>
+<p>Captain Forsyth, Settlement Officer of Nim&#257;r, had a very unfavourable opinion of the Bhil&#257;las, whom he described as proverbial
+for dishonesty in agricultural engagements and worse drunkards than any of the indigenous tribes.<a id="d0e8162src" href="#d0e8162" class="noteref">4</a> This judgment was probably somewhat too severe, but they are poor cultivators, and a Bhil&#257;la&#8217;s field may often be recognised
+by its slovenly appearance.<a id="d0e8167src" href="#d0e8167" class="noteref">5</a>
+
+</p>
+<p>A century ago Sir J. Malcolm also wrote very severely of the Bhil&#257;las: &#8220;The Bhil&#257;la and Lundi chiefs were the only robbers
+in M&#257;lwa whom under no circumstances travellers could trust. There are oaths of a sacred but obscure kind among those that
+are R&#257;jp&#363;ts or who boast their blood, which are almost a disgrace to take, but which, they assert, the basest was never known
+to break before Mandrup Singh, a Bhil&#257;la, and some of his associates, plunderers on the Nerbudda, showed the example. The
+vanity of this race has lately been flattered by their having risen into such power and consideration that neighbouring R&#257;jp&#363;t
+chiefs found it their interest to forget their prejudices and to condescend so far as to eat and drink with them. Hatti Singh,
+Grassia chief of Nowl&#257;na, a Kh&#299;chi R&#257;jp&#363;t, and several others in the vicinity cultivated the friendship of N&#257;dir, the late
+formidable Bhil&#257;la robber-chief of the Vindhya range; and among other sacrifices made by the R&#257;jp&#363;ts, was eating and drinking
+with him. On seeing this take place in my camp, I asked Hatti Singh whether he was not degraded by doing so; he said no, but
+that N&#257;dir was elevated.&#8221;<a id="d0e8175src" href="#d0e8175" class="noteref">6</a>
+
+<a id="d0e8180"></a><span class="pagenum">[<a href="#d0e8180">298</a>]</span></p>
+</div>
+<div class="footnotes">
+<hr class="fnsep">
+<p class="footnote"><span class="label"><a id="d0e8074" href="#d0e8074src" class="noteref">1</a></span> This article is based mainly on Captain Forsyth&#8217;s <i>Nim&#257;r Settlement Report</i>, and a paper by Mr. T. T. Korke, Pleader, Khandwa.
+</p>
+<p class="footnote"><span class="label"><a id="d0e8109" href="#d0e8109src" class="noteref">2</a></span> <i>Eugenia jambolana.</i></p>
+<p class="footnote"><span class="label"><a id="d0e8121" href="#d0e8121src" class="noteref">3</a></span> <i>Bauhinia racemosa.</i></p>
+<p class="footnote"><span class="label"><a id="d0e8162" href="#d0e8162src" class="noteref">4</a></span> <i>Settlement Report</i> (1869), para. 411.
+</p>
+<p class="footnote"><span class="label"><a id="d0e8167" href="#d0e8167src" class="noteref">5</a></span> Mr. Montgomerie&#8217;s <i>Nim&#257;r Settlement Report</i>.
+</p>
+<p class="footnote"><span class="label"><a id="d0e8175" href="#d0e8175src" class="noteref">6</a></span> <i>Memoir of Central India</i>, ii. p. 156.
+</p>
+</div>
+</div>
+<div id="d0e8181" class="div1"><span class="pagenum">
+[<a href="#d0e111">Contents</a>]
+</span><h2>Bhishti</h2>
+<p><b>Bhishti.</b>&#8212;A small Muhammadan caste of water-bearers. Only 26 Bhishtis were shown in the Central Provinces in 1901 and 278 in 1891.
+The tendency of the lower Muhammadan castes, as they obtain some education, is to return themselves simply as Muhammadans,
+the caste name being considered derogatory. The Bhishtis are, however, a regular caste numbering over a lakh of persons in
+India, the bulk of whom belong to the United Provinces. Many of them are converts from Hinduism, and they combine Hindu and
+Muhammadan practices. They have <i>gotras</i> or exogamous sections, the names of which indicate the Hindu origin of their members, as Huseni Br&#257;hman, Samri Chauh&#257;n, Bahmangour
+and others. They prohibit marriage within the section and within two degrees of relationship on the mother&#8217;s side. Marriages
+are performed by the Muhammadan ritual or Nik&#257;h, but a Br&#257;hman is sometimes asked to fix the auspicious day, and they erect
+a marriage-shed. The bridegroom goes to the bride&#8217;s house riding on a horse, and when he arrives drops Rs. 1&#8211;4 into a pot
+of water held by a woman. The bride whips the bridegroom&#8217;s horse with a switch made of flowers. During the marriage the bride
+sits inside the house and the bridegroom in the shed outside. An agent or Vak&#299;l with two witnesses goes to the bride and asks
+her whether she consents to marry the bridegroom, and when she gives her consent, as she always does, they go out and formally
+communicate it to the K&#257;zi. The dowry is then settled, and the bond of marriage is sealed. But when the parents of the bride
+are poor they receive a bride-price of Rs. 30, from which they pay the dowry. The Bhishtis worship their leather bag (<i>mashk</i>) as a sort of fetish, and burn incense before it on Fridays.<a id="d0e8194src" href="#d0e8194" class="noteref">1</a> The traditional occupation of the Bhishti is to supply water, and he is still engaged in this and other kinds of domestic
+service. The name is said to be derived from the Persian <i>bihisht</i>, &#8216;paradise,&#8217; and to have been given to them on account of the relief which their ministrations afforded to the thirsty soldiery.<a id="d0e8203src" href="#d0e8203" class="noteref">2</a> Perhaps, too, the grandiloquent name was applied partly in derision, <a id="d0e8209"></a><span class="pagenum">[<a href="#d0e8209">299</a>]</span>like similar titles given to other menial servants. They are also known as Mashki or Pakh&#257;li, after their leathern water-bag.
+The leather bag is a distinctive sign of the Bhishti, but when he puts it away he may be recognised from the piece of red
+cloth which he usually wears round his waist. There is an interesting legend to the effect that the Bhishti who saved the
+Emperor Humayun&#8217;s life at Chausa, and was rewarded by the tenure of the Imperial throne for half a day, employed his short
+lease of power by providing for his family and friends, and caused his leather bag to be cut up into rupees, which were gilded
+and stamped with the record of his date and reign in order to perpetuate its memory.<a id="d0e8211src" href="#d0e8211" class="noteref">3</a> The story of the Bhishti obtaining his name on account of the solace which he afforded to the Muhammadan soldiery finds a
+parallel in the case of the English army:
+
+
+</p>
+<div class="poem">
+<div class="stanza">
+<p class="line" style=""><span>The uniform &#8217;e wore
+</span></p>
+<p class="line" style=""><span>Was nothin&#8217; much before,
+</span></p>
+<p class="line" style=""><span>An&#8217; rather less than &#8217;arf o&#8217; that be&#8217;ind,
+</span></p>
+<p class="line" style=""><span>For a piece o&#8217; twisty rag
+</span></p>
+<p class="line" style=""><span>An&#8217; a goatskin water-bag
+</span></p>
+<p class="line" style=""><span>Was all the field-equipment &#8217;e could find.</span></p>
+</div>
+</div>
+<div class="poem">
+<div class="stanza">
+<p class="line" style=""><span>With &#8217;is mussick on &#8217;is back,
+</span></p>
+<p class="line" style=""><span>&#8217;E would skip with our attack,
+</span></p>
+<p class="line" style=""><span>An&#8217; watch us till the bugles made &#8216;Retire,&#8217;
+</span></p>
+<p class="line" style=""><span>An&#8217; for all &#8217;is dirty &#8217;ide
+</span></p>
+<p class="line" style=""><span>&#8217;E was white, clear white, inside
+</span></p>
+<p class="line" style=""><span>When &#8217;e went to tend the wounded under fire.<a id="d0e8243src" href="#d0e8243" class="noteref">4</a></span></p>
+</div>
+</div>
+<p>An excellent description of the Bhishti as a household servant is contained in Eha&#8217;s <i>Behind the Bungalow</i>,<a id="d0e8253src" href="#d0e8253" class="noteref">5</a> from which the following extract is taken: &#8220;If you ask: Who is the Bhishti? I will tell you. Bihisht in the Persian tongue
+means Paradise, and a Bihishtee is therefore an inhabitant of Paradise, a cherub, a seraph, an angel of mercy. He has no wings;
+the painters have misconceived him; but his back is bowed down with the burden of a great goat-skin swollen to bursting with
+the elixir of life. He walks the land when the heaven above him is brass and the earth iron, when the trees and shrubs are
+languishing and the last blade <a id="d0e8256"></a><span class="pagenum">[<a href="#d0e8256">300</a>]</span>of grass has given up the struggle for life, when the very roses smell only of dust, and all day long the roaming dust-devils
+waltz about the fields, whirling leaf and grass and cornstalk round and round and up and away into the regions of the sky;
+and he unties a leather thong which chokes the throat of his goat-skin just where the head of the poor old goat was cut off,
+and straightway, with a life-reviving gurgle, the stream called <i>thandha p&#257;ni</i> gushes forth, and plant and shrub lift up their heads and the garden smiles again. The dust also on the roads is laid, and
+a grateful incense rises from the ground, the sides of the water <i>chatti</i> grow dark and moist and cool themselves in the hot air, and through the dripping interstices of the <i>khaskhas</i> tattie a chilly fragrance creeps into the room, causing the mercury in the thermometer to retreat from its proud place. I
+like the Bhishti and respect him. As a man he is temperate and contented, eating <i>b&#257;jri</i> bread and slaking his thirst with his own element. And as a servant he is laborious and faithful, rarely shirking his work,
+seeking it out rather. For example, we had a bottle-shaped filter of porous stoneware, standing in a bucket of water which
+it was his duty to fill daily; but the good man, not content with doing his bare duty, took the plug out of the filter and
+filled it too. And all the station knows how assiduously he fills the rain-gauge.&#8221; With the construction of water-works in
+large stations the Bhishti is losing his occupation, and he is a far less familiar figure to the present generation of Anglo-Indians
+than to their predecessors.
+
+
+</p>
+<div class="footnotes">
+<hr class="fnsep">
+<p class="footnote"><span class="label"><a id="d0e8194" href="#d0e8194src" class="noteref">1</a></span> Crooke&#8217;s <i>Tribes and Castes</i>, art. Bhishti.
+</p>
+<p class="footnote"><span class="label"><a id="d0e8203" href="#d0e8203src" class="noteref">2</a></span> Elliott&#8217;s <i>Memoirs of the North-Western Provinces</i>, i. p. 191.
+</p>
+<p class="footnote"><span class="label"><a id="d0e8211" href="#d0e8211src" class="noteref">3</a></span> Crooke&#8217;s <i>Tribes and Castes</i>, ii. p. 100.
+</p>
+<p class="footnote"><span class="label"><a id="d0e8243" href="#d0e8243src" class="noteref">4</a></span> Rudyard Kipling, <i>Barrack-Room Ballads</i>, &#8216;Gunga Din.&#8217;
+</p>
+<p class="footnote"><span class="label"><a id="d0e8253" href="#d0e8253src" class="noteref">5</a></span> Thacker and Co., London.
+</p>
+</div>
+</div>
+<div id="d0e8270" class="div1"><span class="pagenum">
+[<a href="#d0e111">Contents</a>]
+</span><h2>Bhoyar</h2>
+<div class="div2" id="d0e8273">
+<h3>1. Origin and traditions.</h3>
+<p><b>Bhoyar,<a id="d0e8279src" href="#d0e8279" class="noteref">1</a> Bhoir</b> (Honorific titles, Mah&#257;jan and Patel).&#8212;A cultivating caste numbering nearly 60,000 persons in 1911, and residing principally
+in the Bet&#363;l and Chh&#299;ndw&#257;ra Districts. The Bhoyars are not found outside the Central Provinces. They claim to be the descendants
+of a band of Panw&#257;r R&#257;jp&#363;ts, who were defending the town of Dh&#257;r&#257;nagri or Dh&#257;r in Central India when it was besieged by Aur&#257;ngzeb.
+Their post was on the western part of the wall, but they gave way and fled into the town as the sun was rising, and it <a id="d0e8283"></a><span class="pagenum">[<a href="#d0e8283">301</a>]</span>shone on their faces. Hence they were called Bhoyar from a word <i>bhor</i> meaning morning, because they were seen running away in the morning. They were put out of caste by the other R&#257;jp&#363;ts, and
+fled to the Central Provinces. The name may also be a variant of that of the Bhagore R&#257;jp&#363;ts. And another derivation is from
+<i>bhora</i>, a simpleton or timid person. Their claim to be immigrants from Central India is borne out by the fact that they still speak
+a corrupt form of the M&#257;lwi dialect of R&#257;jput&#257;na, which is called after them Bhoyari, and their Bh&#257;ts or genealogists come
+from M&#257;lwa. But they have now entirely lost their position as R&#257;jp&#363;ts.
+
+
+</p>
+</div>
+<div class="div2" id="d0e8291">
+<h3>2. Subcastes and sections.</h3>
+<p>The Bhoyars are divided into the Panw&#257;ri, Dholew&#257;r, Chaur&#257;sia and Daharia subcastes. The Panw&#257;rs are the most numerous and
+the highest, as claiming to be directly descended from Panw&#257;r R&#257;jp&#363;ts. They sometimes called themselves Jagdeo Panw&#257;rs, Jagdeo
+being the name of the king under whom they served in Dh&#257;r&#257;nagri. The Dholew&#257;rs take their name from Dhola, a place in M&#257;lwa,
+or from <i>dhol</i>, a drum. They are the lowest subcaste, and some of them keep pigs. It is probable that these subcastes immigrated with the
+M&#257;lwa R&#257;jas in the fifteenth century, the Dholew&#257;rs being the earlier arrivals, and having from the first intermarried with
+the local Dravidian tribes. The Daharias take their name from D&#257;har, the old name of the Jubbulpore country, and may be a
+relic of the domination of the Chedi kings of Tewar. The name of the Chaur&#257;sias is probably derived from the Chaur&#257;si or tract
+of eighty-four villages formerly held by the Bet&#363;l Korku family of Ch&#257;ndu. The last two subdivisions are numerically unimportant.
+The Bhoyars have over a hundred <i>kuls</i> or exogamous sections. The names of most of these are titular, but some are territorial and a few totemistic. Instances of
+such names are Onk&#257;r (the god Siva), Deshmukh and Chaudhari, headman, Haz&#257;ri (a leader of 1000 horse), Gore (fair-coloured),
+Dongardiya (a lamp on a hill), Pinj&#257;ra (a cotton-cleaner), G&#257;dria (a shepherd), Khaparia (a tyler), Khaw&#257;si (a barber), Chikny&#257;
+(a sycophant), Kinkar (a slave), Dukhi (penurious), Suplya toplya (a basket and fan maker), Kasai (a butcher), Gohattya (a
+cow-killer), and K&#257;lebh&#363;t (black devil). Among the territorial sections may be mentioned Sonp&#363;ria, from Sonpur, <a id="d0e8302"></a><span class="pagenum">[<a href="#d0e8302">302</a>]</span>and Path&#257;ria, from the hill country. The name Badnagrya is also really territorial, being derived from the town of Badn&#257;gar,
+but the members of the section connect it with the <i>bad</i> or banyan tree, the leaves of which they refrain from eating. Two other totemistic gotras are the B&#257;ranga and Baignya, derived
+from the <i>b&#257;rang</i> plant (<i>Kydia calycina</i>) and from the brinjal respectively. Some sections have the names of R&#257;jp&#363;t septs, as Chauh&#257;n, Parih&#257;r and Panw&#257;r. This curiously
+mixed list of family names appears to indicate that the Bhoyars originate from a small band of R&#257;jp&#363;ts who must have settled
+in the District about the fifteenth century as military colonists, and taken their wives from the people of the country. They
+may have subsequently been recruited by fresh bands of immigrants who have preserved a slightly higher status. They have abandoned
+their old high position, and now rank below the ordinary cultivating castes like Kunbis and Kurmis who arrived later; while
+the caste has probably in times past also been recruited to a considerable extent by the admission of families of outsiders.
+
+
+</p>
+</div>
+<div class="div2" id="d0e8313">
+<h3>3. Marriage.</h3>
+<p>Marriage within the <i>kul</i> or family group is forbidden, as also the union of first cousins. Girls are usually married young, and sometimes infants
+of one or two months are given in wedlock, while contracts of betrothal are made for unborn children if they should be of
+the proper sex, the mother&#8217;s womb being touched with <i>kunku</i> or red powder to seal the agreement. A small <i>dej</i> or price is usually paid for the bride, amounting to Rs. 5 with 240 lbs. of grain, and 8 seers of <i>gh&#299;</i> and oil. At the betrothal the Joshi or astrologer is consulted to see whether the names of the couple make an auspicious
+conjunction. He asks for the names of the bride and bridegroom, and if these are found to be inimical another set of names
+is given, and the experiment is continued until a union is obtained which is astrologically auspicious. In order to provide
+for this contingency some Bhoyars give their children ten or twelve names at birth. If all the names fail, the Joshi invents
+new ones of his own, and in some way brings about the auspicious union to the satisfaction of both parties, who consider it
+no business of theirs to pry into the Joshi&#8217;s calculations or to question his methods. After the marriage-shed is erected
+<a id="d0e8330"></a><span class="pagenum">[<a href="#d0e8330">303</a>]</span>the family god must be invoked to be present at the ceremony. He is asked to come and take his seat in an earthen pot containing
+a lighted wick, the pot being supported on a toy chariot made of sticks. A thread is coiled round the neck of the jar, and
+the Bhoyars then place it in the middle of the house, confident that the god has entered it, and will ward off all calamities
+during the marriage. This is performed by the <i>bh&#257;nwar</i> ceremony, seven earthen pots being placed in a row, while the bride and bridegroom walk round in a circle holding a basket
+with a lighted lamp in it. As each circle is completed, one pot is removed. This always takes place at night. The Dholew&#257;rs
+do not perform the <i>bh&#257;nwar</i> ceremony, and simply throw sacred rice on the couple, and this is also done in Wardha. Sometimes the Bhoyars dispense with
+the presence of the Br&#257;hman and merely get some rice and ju&#257;ri consecrated by him beforehand, which they throw on the heads
+of the couple, and thereupon consider the marriage complete. Weddings are generally held in the bright fortnight of Bais&#257;kh
+(April-May), and sometimes can be completed in a single day. Widow-marriage is allowed, but it is considered that the widow
+should marry a widower and not a bachelor.
+
+
+</p>
+</div>
+<div class="div2" id="d0e8338">
+<h3>4. Occupation.</h3>
+<p>The regular occupation of the Bhoyars is agriculture, and they are good cultivators, growing much sugar-cane with well-irrigation.
+They are industrious, and their holdings on the rocky soils of the plateau Districts are often cleared of stones at the cost
+of much labour. Their women work in the fields. In Bet&#363;l they have the reputation of being much addicted to drink.
+
+
+</p>
+</div>
+<div class="div2" id="d0e8343">
+<h3>5. Social status.</h3>
+<p>They do not now admit outsiders, but their family names show that at one time they probably did so, and this laxity of feeling
+survives in the toleration with which they readmit into caste a woman who has gone wrong with an outsider. They eat flesh
+and fowls, and the Dholew&#257;rs eat pork, while as already stated they are fond of liquor. To have a shoe thrown on his house
+by a caste-fellow is a serious degradation for a Bhoyar, and he must break his earthen pots, clean his house and give a feast.
+To be beaten with a shoe by a low caste like Mah&#257;r entails shaving the moustaches and paying a heavy fine, which is spent
+on a <a id="d0e8348"></a><span class="pagenum">[<a href="#d0e8348">304</a>]</span>feast. The Bhoyars do not take food from any caste but Br&#257;hmans, but no caste higher than Kunbis and M&#257;lis will take water
+from them. In social status they rank somewhat below Kunbis. In appearance they are well built, and often of a fair complexion.
+Unmarried girls generally wear skirts instead of <i>s&#257;ris</i> or cloths folding between the legs; they also must not wear toe-rings. Women of the Panw&#257;r subcaste wear glass bangles on
+the left hand, and brass ones on the right. All women are tattooed. They both burn and bury the dead, placing the corpse on
+the pyre with its head to the south or west, and in Wardha to the north. Here they have a peculiar custom as regards mourning,
+which is observed only till the next Monday or Thursday whichever falls first. Thus the period of mourning may extend from
+one to four days. The Bhoyars are considered in Wardha to be more than ordinarily timid, and also to be considerable simpletons,
+while they stand in much awe of Government officials, and consider it a great misfortune to be brought into a court of justice.
+Very few of them can read and write.
+
+
+
+<a id="d0e8353"></a><span class="pagenum">[<a href="#d0e8353">305</a>]</span></p>
+</div>
+<div class="footnotes">
+<hr class="fnsep">
+<p class="footnote"><span class="label"><a id="d0e8279" href="#d0e8279src" class="noteref">1</a></span> This article is mainly compiled from papers by Mr. P&#257;ndurang Lakshman B&#257;kre, pleader, Bet&#363;l, and Munshi Py&#257;re L&#257;l, ethnographic
+clerk.
+</p>
+</div>
+</div>
+<div id="d0e8354" class="div1"><span class="pagenum">
+[<a href="#d0e111">Contents</a>]
+</span><h2>Bhuiya</h2>
+<h3>List of Paragraphs</h3>
+<ul>
+<li><a href="#d0e8421">1. The tribe and its name.</a></li>
+<li><a href="#d0e8445">2. Distribution of the tribe.</a></li>
+<li><a href="#d0e8455">3. Example of the position of the aborigines in Hindu society.</a></li>
+<li><a href="#d0e8462">4. The Bhuiyas a Kolarian tribe.</a></li>
+<li><a href="#d0e8495">5. The Baigas and the Bhuiyas. Chhatt&#299;sgarh the home of the Baigas.</a></li>
+<li><a href="#d0e8510">6. The Baigas a branch of the Bhuiyas.</a></li>
+<li><a href="#d0e8551">7. Tribal sub-divisions.</a></li>
+<li><a href="#d0e8570">8. Exogamus septs.</a></li>
+<li><a href="#d0e8580">9. Marriage customs.</a></li>
+<li><a href="#d0e8592">10. Widow-marriage and divorce.</a></li>
+<li><a href="#d0e8600">11. Religion.</a></li>
+<li><a href="#d0e8616">12. Religious dancing.</a></li>
+<li><a href="#d0e8630">13. Funeral rites and inheritance.</a></li>
+<li><a href="#d0e8638">14. Physical appearance and occupation.</a></li>
+<li><a href="#d0e8645">15. Social customs.</a></li>
+</ul>
+<div class="div2" id="d0e8421">
+<h3>1. The tribe and its name.</h3>
+<p><b>Bhuiya, Bhuinh&#257;r, Bhumia.</b><a id="d0e8427src" href="#d0e8427" class="noteref">1</a>&#8212;The name of a very important tribe of Chota N&#257;gpur, Bengal and Orissa. The Bhuiyas numbered more than 22,000 persons in the
+Central Provinces in 1911, being mainly found in the Sarg&#363;ja and Jashpur States. In Bengal and Bih&#257;r the Bhuiyas proper count
+about half a million persons, while the M&#363;sahar and Khandait castes, both of whom are mainly derived from the Bhuiyas, total
+together well over a million.
+
+</p>
+<p>The name Bhuiya means &#8216;Lord of the soil,&#8217; or &#8216;Belonging to the soil,&#8217; and is a Sanskrit derivative. The tribe have completely
+forgotten their original name, and adopted this designation conferred on them by the immigrant Aryans. The term Bhuiya, however,
+is also employed by other tribes and by some Hindus as a title for landholders, being practically equivalent to zam&#299;nd&#257;r.
+And hence a certain confusion arises, and classes or individuals may have the name of Bhuiya without belonging to the tribe
+at all. &#8220;In most <a id="d0e8438"></a><span class="pagenum">[<a href="#d0e8438">306</a>]</span>parts of Chota N&#257;gpur,&#8221; Sir H. Risley says, &#8220;there is a well-known distinction between a Bhuiya by tribe and a Bhuiya by title.
+The Bhuiyas of Bonai and Keonjhar described by Colonel Dalton belong to the former category; the Bhuiya Mundas and Oraons
+to the latter. The distinction will be made somewhat clearer if it is explained that every &#8216;tribal Bhuiya&#8217; will as a matter
+of course describe himself as Bhuiya, while a member of another tribe will only do so if he is speaking with reference to
+a question of land, or desires for some special reason to lay stress on his status as a landholder or agriculturist.&#8221;
+
+</p>
+<p>We further find in Bengal and Benares a caste of landholders known as Bhuinh&#257;r or B&#257;bhan, who are generally considered as
+a somewhat mixed and inferior group of Br&#257;hman and R&#257;jp&#363;t origin. Both Sir H. Risley and Mr. Crooke adopt this view and deny
+any connection between the Bhuinh&#257;rs and the Bhuiya tribes. B&#257;bhan appears to be a corrupt form of Br&#257;hman. Mr. Mazumd&#257;r,
+however, states that Bhuiya is never used in Bengali as an equivalent for zam&#299;nd&#257;r or landholder, and he considers that the
+Bhuinh&#257;rs and also the B&#257;rah Bhuiyas, a well-known group of twelve landholders of Eastern Bengal and Assam, belonged to the
+Bhuiya tribe. He adduces from Sir E. Gait&#8217;s <i>History of Assam</i> the fact that the Chutias and Bhuiyas were dominant in that country prior to its conquest by the Ahoms in the thirteenth
+century, and considers that these Chutias gave their name to Chutia or Chota N&#257;gpur. I am unable to express any opinion on
+Mr. Mazumd&#257;r&#8217;s argument, and it is also unnecessary as the question does not concern the Central Provinces.
+
+
+</p>
+</div>
+<div class="div2" id="d0e8445">
+<h3>2. Distribution of the tribe.</h3>
+<p>The principal home of the Bhuiya tribe proper is the south of the Chota N&#257;gpur plateau, comprised in the G&#257;ngpur, Bonai, Keonjhar
+and B&#257;mra States. &#8220;The chiefs of these States,&#8221; Colonel Dalton says, &#8220;now call themselves R&#257;jp&#363;ts; if they be so, they are
+strangely isolated families of R&#257;jp&#363;ts. The country for the most part belongs to the Bhuiya sub-proprietors. They are a privileged
+class, holding as hereditaments the principal offices of the State, and are organised as a body of militia. The chiefs have
+no right to exercise any authority till they have received the <i>tilak</i> or <a id="d0e8453"></a><span class="pagenum">[<a href="#d0e8453">307</a>]</span>token of investiture from their powerful Bhuiya vassals. Their position altogether renders their claim to be considered R&#257;jp&#363;ts
+extremely doubtful, and the stories told to account for their acquisition of the dignity are palpable fables. They were no
+doubt all Bhuiyas originally; they certainly do not look like R&#257;jp&#363;ts.&#8221; Members of the tribe are the household servants of
+the B&#257;mra R&#257;ja&#8217;s family, and it is said that the first R&#257;ja of B&#257;mra was a child of the Patna house, who was stolen from his
+home and anointed king of B&#257;mra by the Bhuiyas and Khonds. Similarly Colonel Dalton records the legend that the Bhuiyas twenty-seven
+generations ago stole a child of the Moharbhanj R&#257;ja&#8217;s family, brought it up amongst them and made it their R&#257;ja. He was freely
+admitted to intercourse with Bhuiya girls, and the children of this intimacy are the progenitors of the R&#257;jkuli branch of
+the tribe. But they are not considered first among Bhuiyas because they are not of pure Bhuiya descent. Again the R&#257;ja of
+Keonjhar is always installed by the Bhuiyas. These facts indicate that the Bhuiyas were once the rulers of Chota N&#257;gpur and
+are recognised as the oldest inhabitants of the country. From this centre they have spread north through Lohardaga and Haz&#257;rib&#257;gh
+and into southern Bih&#257;r, where large numbers of Bhuiyas are encountered on whom the opprobrious designation of M&#363;sahar or
+&#8216;rat-eater&#8217; has been conferred by their Hindu neighbours. Others of the tribe who travelled south from Chota N&#257;gpur experienced
+more favourable conditions, and here the tendency has been for the Bhuiyas to rise rather than to decline in social status.
+&#8220;Some of their leading families,&#8221; Sir H. Risley states, &#8220;have come to be chiefs of the petty States of Orissa, and have now
+sunk the Bhuiya in the Khandait or swordsman, a caste of admitted respectability in Orissa and likely in course of time to
+transform itself into some variety of R&#257;jp&#363;t.&#8221;
+
+
+</p>
+</div>
+<div class="div2" id="d0e8455">
+<h3>3. Example of the position of the aborigines in Hindu society.</h3>
+<p>The varying status of the Bhuiyas in Bih&#257;r, Chota N&#257;gpur and Orissa is a good instance of the different ways in which the
+primitive tribes have fared in contact with the immigrant Aryans. Where the country has been completely colonised and populated
+by Hindus, as in Bih&#257;r, the aboriginal residents have commonly become transformed into village <a id="d0e8460"></a><span class="pagenum">[<a href="#d0e8460">308</a>]</span>drudges, relegated to the meanest occupations, and despised as impure by the Hindu cultivators, like the Cham&#257;rs of northern
+India and the Mah&#257;rs of the Mar&#257;tha Districts. Where the Hindu immigration has only been partial and the forests have not
+been cleared, as in Chota N&#257;gpur and the Central Provinces, they may keep their old villages and tribal organisation and be
+admitted as a body into the hierarchy of caste, ranking above the impure castes but below the Hindu cultivators. This is the
+position of the Gonds, Baigas and other tribes in these tracts. While, if the Hindus come only as colonists and not as rulers,
+the indigenous residents may retain the overlordship of the soil and the landed proprietors among them may be formed into
+a caste ranking with the good cultivating castes of the Aryans. Instances of such are the Khandaits of Orissa, the Binjhw&#257;rs
+of Chhatt&#299;sgarh and the Bhil&#257;las of Nim&#257;r and Indore.
+
+
+</p>
+</div>
+<div class="div2" id="d0e8462">
+<h3>4. The Bhuiyas a Kolarian tribe.</h3>
+<p>The Bhuiyas have now entirely forgotten their own language and speak Hindi, Uriya and Bengali, according as each is the dominant
+vernacular of their Hindu neighbours. They cannot therefore on the evidence of language be classified as a Munda or Kolarian
+or as a Dravidian tribe. Colonel Dalton was inclined to consider them as Dravidian:<a id="d0e8467src" href="#d0e8467" class="noteref">2</a> &#8220;Mr. Stirling in his account of Orissa classes them among the Kols; but there are no grounds that I know of for so connecting
+them. As I have said above, they appear to me to be linked with the Dravidian rather than with the Kolarian tribes.&#8221; His account,
+however, does not appear to contain any further evidence in support of this view; and, on the other hand, he identifies the
+Bhuiyas with the Savars or Saonrs. Speaking of the Bendkars or Savars of Keonjhar, he says: &#8220;It is difficult to regard them
+otherwise than as members of the great Bhuiya family, and thus connecting them we link the Bhuiyas and Savaras and give support
+to the conjecture that the former are Dravidian.&#8221; But it is now shown in the <i>Linguistic Survey</i> that the Savars have a Munda dialect. In Chota N&#257;gpur this has been forgotten, and the tribe speak Hindi or Uriya like the
+Bhuiyas, but it remains in the hilly tracts of Ganj&#257;m and <a id="d0e8475"></a><span class="pagenum">[<a href="#d0e8475">309</a>]</span>Vizagapat&#257;m.<a id="d0e8477src" href="#d0e8477" class="noteref">3</a> Savara is closely related to Kharia and Ju&#257;ng, the dialects of two of the most primitive Munda tribes. The Savars must therefore
+be classed as a Munda or Kolarian tribe, and since Colonel Dalton identified the Bhuiyas with the Savars of Chota N&#257;gpur,
+his evidence appears really to be in favour of the Kolarian origin of the Bhuiyas. He notes further that the ceremony of naming
+children among the Bhuiyas is identical with that of the Mundas and Hos.<a id="d0e8485src" href="#d0e8485" class="noteref">4</a> Mr. Mazumd&#257;r writes: &#8220;Judging from the external appearance and general physical type one would be sure to mistake a Bhuiya
+for a Munda. Their habits and customs are essentially Mund&#257;ri. The Bhuiyas who live in and around the District of M&#257;nbh&#363;m
+are not much ashamed to admit that they are Kol people; and Bhumia Kol is the name that has been given them there by the Hindus.
+The Mundas and Larka-Kols of Chota N&#257;gpur tell us that they first established themselves there by driving out the Bhuiyas;
+and it seems likely that the Bhuiyas formed the first batch of the Munda immigrants in Chota N&#257;gpur and became greatly Hinduised
+there, and on that account were not recognised by the Mundas as people of their kin.&#8221; If the tradition of the Mundas and Kols
+that they came to Chota N&#257;gpur after the Bhuiyas be accepted, and tradition on the point of priority of immigration is often
+trustworthy, then it follows that the Bhuiyas must be a Munda tribe. For the main distinction other than that of language
+between the Munda and Dravidian tribes is that the former were the earlier and the latter subsequent immigrants. The claim
+of the Bhuiyas to be the earliest residents of Chota N&#257;gpur is supported by the fact that they officiate as priests in certain
+temples. Because in primitive religion the jurisdiction of the gods is entirely local, and foreigners bringing their own gods
+with them are ignorant of the character and qualities of the local deities, with which the indigenous residents are, on the
+other hand, well acquainted. Hence the tendency of later comers to employ these latter in the capacity of priests of the godlings
+of the earth, corn, forests and hills. Colonel Dalton writes:<a id="d0e8488src" href="#d0e8488" class="noteref">5</a> <a id="d0e8493"></a><span class="pagenum">[<a href="#d0e8493">310</a>]</span>&#8220;It is strange that these Hinduised Bhuiyas retain in their own hands the priestly duties of certain old shrines to the exclusion
+of Br&#257;hmans. This custom has no doubt descended in Bhuiya families from the time when Br&#257;hmans were not, or had obtained no
+footing amongst them, and when the religion of the land and the temples were not Hindu; they are now indeed dedicated to Hindu
+deities, but there are evidences of the temples having been originally occupied by other images. At some of these shrines
+human sacrifices were offered every third year and this continued till the country came under British rule.&#8221; And again of
+the Pauri Bhuiyas of Keonjhar: &#8220;The Pauris dispute with the Ju&#257;ngs the claim to be the first settlers in Keonjhar, and boldly
+aver that the country belongs to them. They assert that the R&#257;ja is of their creation and that the prerogative of installing
+every new R&#257;ja on his accession is theirs, and theirs alone. The Hindu population of Keonjhar is in excess of the Bhuiya and
+it comprises Gonds and Kols, but the claim of the Pauris to the dominion they arrogate is admitted by all; even Br&#257;hmans and
+R&#257;jp&#363;ts respectfully acknowledge it, and the former by the addition of Br&#257;hmanical rites to the wild ceremonies of the Bhuiyas
+affirm and sanctify their installation.&#8221; In view of this evidence it seems a probable hypothesis that the Bhuiyas are the
+earliest residents of these parts of Chota N&#257;gpur and that they are a Kolarian tribe.
+
+
+</p>
+</div>
+<div class="div2" id="d0e8495">
+<h3>5. The Baigas and the Bhuiyas. Chhatt&#299;sgarh the home of the Baigas.</h3>
+<p>There appears to be considerable reason for supposing that the Baiga tribe of the Central Provinces are really a branch of
+the Bhuiyas. Though the Baigas are now mainly returned from Mandla and B&#257;l&#257;gh&#257;t, it seems likely that these Districts were
+not their original home, and that they emigrated from Chhatt&#299;sgarh into the Satp&#363;ra hills on the western borders of the plain.
+The hill country of Mandla and the Maikal range of B&#257;l&#257;gh&#257;t form one of the wildest and most inhospitable tracts in the Province,
+and it is unlikely that the Baigas would have made their first settlements here and spread thence into the fertile plain of
+Chhatt&#299;sgarh. Migration in the opposite direction would be more natural and probable. But it is fairly certain that the Baiga
+tribe were among the earliest if not the earliest <a id="d0e8500"></a><span class="pagenum">[<a href="#d0e8500">311</a>]</span>residents of the Chhatt&#299;sgarh plain and the hills north and east of it. The Bhaina, Bhunjia and Binjhw&#257;r tribes who still
+reside in this country can all be recognised as offshoots of the Baigas. In the article on Bhaina it is shown that some of
+the oldest forts in Bil&#257;spur are attributed to the Bhainas and a chief of this tribe is remembered as having ruled in Bilaigarh
+south of the Mah&#257;nadi. They are said to have been dominant in Pendra where they are still most numerous, and to have been
+expelled from Phuljhar in Raipur by the Gonds. The Binjhw&#257;rs or Binjh&#257;ls again are an aristocratic subdivision of the Baigas,
+belonging to the hills east of Chhatt&#299;sgarh and the Uriya plain country of Sambalpur beyond them. The zam&#299;nd&#257;rs of Bod&#257;s&#257;mar,
+R&#257;mpur, Bhatgaon and other estates to the south and east of the Chhatt&#299;sgarh plain are members of this tribe. Both the Bhainas
+and Binjhw&#257;rs are frequently employed as priests of the village deities all over this area, and may therefore be considered
+as older residents than the Gond and Kawar tribes and the Hindus. Sir G. Grierson also states that the language of the Baigas
+of Mandla and B&#257;l&#257;gh&#257;t is a form of Chhatt&#299;sgarhi, and this is fairly conclusive evidence of their first having belonged to
+Chhatt&#299;sgarh.<a id="d0e8502src" href="#d0e8502" class="noteref">6</a> It seems not unlikely that the Baigas retreated into the hills round Chhatt&#299;sgarh after the Hindu invasion and establishment
+of the Haihaya R&#257;jp&#363;t dynasty of Ratanpur, which is now assigned to the ninth century of the Christian era; just as the Gonds
+retired from the Nerbudda valley and the N&#257;gpur plain before the Hindus several centuries later. Sir H. Risley states that
+the Binjhias or Binjhw&#257;rs of Chota N&#257;gpur say that their ancestors came from Ratanpur twenty generations ago.<a id="d0e8505src" href="#d0e8505" class="noteref">7</a>
+
+
+</p>
+</div>
+<div class="div2" id="d0e8510">
+<h3>6. The Baigas a branch of the Bhuiyas.</h3>
+<p>But the Chhatt&#299;sgarh plain and the hills north and east of it are adjacent to and belong to the same tract of country as the
+Chota N&#257;gpur States, which are the home of the Bhuiyas. Sir H. Risley gives Baiga as a name for a sorcerer, and as a synonym
+or title of the Khairw&#257;r tribe in Chota N&#257;gpur, possibly having reference to the idea that <a id="d0e8515"></a><span class="pagenum">[<a href="#d0e8515">312</a>]</span>they, being among the original inhabitants of the country, are best qualified to play the part of sorcerer and propitiate
+the local gods. It has been suggested in the article on Khairw&#257;r that that tribe are a mongrel offshoot of the Sant&#257;ls and
+Cheros, but the point to be noticed here is the use of the term Baiga in Chota N&#257;gpur for a sorcerer; and a sorcerer may be
+taken as practically equivalent for a priest of the indigenous deities, all tribes who act in this capacity being considered
+as sorcerers by the Hindus. If the Bhuiyas of Chota N&#257;gpur had the title of Baiga, it is possible that it may have been substituted
+for the proper tribal name on their migration to the Central Provinces. Mr. Crooke distinguishes two tribes in M&#299;rz&#257;pur whom
+he calls the Bhuiyas and Bhuiy&#257;rs. The Bhuiyas of M&#299;rz&#257;pur seem to be clearly a branch of the Bhuiya tribe of Chota N&#257;gpur,
+with whom their section-names establish their identity.<a id="d0e8517src" href="#d0e8517" class="noteref">8</a> Mr. Crooke states that the Bhuiyas are distinguished with very great difficulty from the Bhuiy&#257;rs with whom they are doubtless
+very closely connected.<a id="d0e8523src" href="#d0e8523" class="noteref">9</a> Of the Bhuiy&#257;rs<a id="d0e8528src" href="#d0e8528" class="noteref">10</a> he writes that the tribe is also known as Baiga, because large numbers of the aboriginal local priests are derived from this
+caste. He also states that &#8220;Most Bhuiy&#257;rs are Baigas and officiate in their own as well as allied tribes; in fact, as already
+stated, one general name for the tribe is Baiga.&#8221;<a id="d0e8533src" href="#d0e8533" class="noteref">11</a> It seems not unlikely that these Bhuiy&#257;rs are the Baigas of the Central Provinces and that they went to M&#299;rz&#257;pur from here
+with the Gonds. Their original name may have been preserved or revived there, while it has dropped out of use in this Province.
+The name Baiga in the Central Provinces is sometimes applied to members of other tribes who serve as village priests, and,
+as has already been seen, it is used in the same sense in Chota N&#257;gpur. The Baigas of Mandla are also known as Bhumia, which
+is only a variant of Bhuiya, having the same meaning of lord of the soil or belonging to the soil. Both Bhuiya and Bhumia
+are in fact nearly equivalent to our word &#8216;aboriginal,&#8217; and both are names given to the tribe by the <a id="d0e8538"></a><span class="pagenum">[<a href="#d0e8538">313</a>]</span>Hindus and not originally that by which its members called themselves. It would be quite natural that a branch of the Bhuiyas,
+who settled in the Central Provinces and were commonly employed as village priests by the Hindus and Gonds should have adopted
+the name of the office, Baiga, as their tribal designation; just as the title of Munda or village headman has become the name
+of one branch of the Kol tribe, and Bhumij, another term equivalent to Bhuiya, of a second branch. Mr. A. F. Hewitt, Settlement
+Officer of Raipur, considered that the Buniyas of that District were the same tribe as the Bhuiyas of the Garhj&#257;t States.<a id="d0e8540src" href="#d0e8540" class="noteref">12</a> By Buniya he must apparently have meant the Bhunjia tribe of Raipur, who as already stated are an offshoot of the Baigas.
+Colonel Dalton describes the dances of the Bhuiyas of Chota N&#257;gpur as follows:<a id="d0e8543src" href="#d0e8543" class="noteref">13</a> &#8220;The men have each a wide kind of tambourine. They march round in a circle, beating these and singing a very simple melody
+in a minor key on four notes. The women dance opposite to them with their heads covered and bodies much inclined, touching
+each other like soldiers in line, but not holding hands or wreathing arms like the Kols.&#8221; This account applies very closely
+to the Sela and R&#299;na dances of the Baigas. The Sela dance is danced by men only who similarly march round in a circle, though
+they do not carry tambourines in the Central Provinces. Here, however, they sometimes carry sticks and march round in opposite
+directions, passing in and out and hitting their sticks against each other as they meet, the movement being exactly like the
+grand chain in the Lancers. Similarly the Baiga women dance the R&#299;na dance by themselves, standing close to each other and
+bending forward, but not holding each other by the hands and arms, just as described by Colonel Dalton. The Gonds now also
+have the Sela and R&#299;na dances, but admit that they are derived from the Baigas. Another point of some importance is that the
+Bhuiyas of Chota N&#257;gpur and the Baigas and the tribes derived from them in the Central Provinces have all completely abandoned
+their own language and speak a broken form of that of their Hindu neighbours. As has been seen, too, the Bhuiyas are commonly
+employed as priests in Chota <a id="d0e8546"></a><span class="pagenum">[<a href="#d0e8546">314</a>]</span>N&#257;gpur, and there seems therefore to be a strong case for the original identity of the two tribes.<a id="d0e8548src" href="#d0e8548" class="noteref">14</a> Both the Baigas and Bhuiyas, however, have now become greatly mixed with the surrounding tribes, the Baigas of Mandla and
+B&#257;l&#257;gh&#257;t having a strong Gond element.
+
+
+</p>
+</div>
+<div class="div2" id="d0e8551">
+<h3>7. Tribal sub-divisions.</h3>
+<p>In Singhbh&#363;m the Bhuiyas call themselves <i>P&#257;wan-bans</i> or &#8216;The Children of the Wind,&#8217; and in connection with Hanum&#257;n&#8217;s title of <i>P&#257;wan-ka-p&#363;t</i> or &#8216;The Son of the Wind,&#8217; are held to be the veritable apes of the R&#257;m&#257;yana who, under the leadership of Hanum&#257;n, the monkey-god,
+assisted the Aryan hero R&#257;ma on his expedition to Ceylon. This may be compared with the name given to the Gonds of the Central
+Provinces of R&#257;wanbansi, or descendants of R&#257;wan, the idea being that their ancestors were the subjects of R&#257;wan, the demon
+king of Ceylon, who was conquered by R&#257;ma. &#8220;All Bhuiyas,&#8221; Sir H. Risley states, &#8220;affect great reverence for the memory of
+Rikhmun or Rikhiasan, whom they regard, some as a patron deity, others as a mythical ancestor, whose name distinguishes one
+of the divisions of the tribe. It seems probable that in the earliest stage of belief Rikhmun was the bear-totem of a sept
+of the tribe, that later on he was transformed into an ancestral hero, and finally promoted to the rank of a tribal god.&#8221;
+The Rikhiasan Mahatw&#257;r subtribe of the Bhuiyas in the Central Provinces are named after this hero Rikhmun; the designation
+of Mahatw&#257;r signifies that they are the Mahtos or leaders of the Bhuiyas. The Khandaits or P&#257;iks are another subcaste formed
+from those who became soldiers; in Orissa they are now, as already stated, a separate caste of fairly high rank. The Parja
+or &#8216;subject people&#8217; are the ordinary Bhuiyas, probably those living in Hindu tracts. The Dhur or &#8216;dust&#8217; Gonds, and the Parja
+Gonds of Bastar may be noted as a parallel in nomenclature. The Rautadi are a territorial group, taking their name from a
+place called Raotal. The Khandaits practise hypergamy with the Rautadi, taking daughters from them, but not giving their daughters
+to them. The P&#257;budia or M&#257;dhai are the hill Bhuiyas, and are the <a id="d0e8562"></a><span class="pagenum">[<a href="#d0e8562">315</a>]</span>most wild and backward portion of the tribe. Dalton writes of them in Keonjhar: &#8220;They are not bound to fight for the R&#257;ja,
+though they occasionally take up arms against him. Their duty is to attend on him and carry his loads when he travels about,
+and so long as they are satisfied with his person and his rule, no more willing or devoted subjects could be found. They are
+then in Keonjhar, as in Bonai, a race whom you cannot help liking and taking an interest in from the primitive simplicity
+of their customs, their amenability and their anxiety to oblige; but unsophisticated as they are they wield an extraordinary
+power in Keonjhar, and when they take it into their heads to use that power, the country may be said to be governed by an
+oligarchy composed of the sixty chiefs of the Pawri Desh, the Bhuiya Highlands. A knotted string passed from village to village
+in the name of the sixty chiefs throws the entire country into commotion, and the order verbally communicated in connection
+with it is as implicitly obeyed as if it emanated from the most potent despot.&#8221; This knotted string is known as <i>G&#257;nthi</i>. The P&#257;budias say that their ancestors were twelve brothers belonging to Keonjhar, of whom eight went to an unknown country,
+while the remaining four divided among themselves all the territory of which they had knowledge, this being comprised in the
+four existing states of Keonjhar, B&#257;mra, Palah&#257;ra and Bonai. Any P&#257;budia who takes up his residence permanently beyond the
+boundaries of these four states is considered to lose his caste, like Hindus in former times who went to dwell in the foreign
+country beyond the Indus.<a id="d0e8567src" href="#d0e8567" class="noteref">15</a> But if the wandering P&#257;budia returns in two years, and proves that he has not drunk water from any other caste, he is taken
+back into the fold. Other subdivisions are the K&#257;ti or Khatti and the B&#257;thudia, these last being an inferior group who are
+said to be looked down on because they have taken food from other low castes. No doubt they are really the offspring of irregular
+unions.
+
+
+</p>
+</div>
+<div class="div2" id="d0e8570">
+<h3>8. Exogamus septs.</h3>
+<p>In Raigarh the Bhuiyas appear to have no exogamous divisions. When they wish to arrange a marriage they compare the family
+gods of the parties, and if these are not identical and there is no recollection of a common ancestor <a id="d0e8575"></a><span class="pagenum">[<a href="#d0e8575">316</a>]</span>for three generations, the union is permitted. In Sambalpur, however, Mr. Mazumd&#257;r states, all Bhuiyas are divided into the
+following twelve septs: Th&#257;kur, or the clan of royal blood; Saont, from <i>s&#257;manta</i>, a viceroy; Padh&#257;n, a village headman; N&#257;ik, a military leader; K&#257;lo, a wizard or priest; Dehri, also a priest; Chatria,
+one who carried the royal umbrella; S&#257;hu, a moneylender; M&#257;jhi, a headman; Behra, manager of the household; Am&#257;ta, counsellor;
+and Dandsena, a police official. The Dehrin sept still worship the village gods on behalf of the tribe.
+
+
+</p>
+</div>
+<div class="div2" id="d0e8580">
+<h3>9. Marriage customs.</h3>
+<p>Marriage is adult, but the more civilised Bhuiyas are gradually adopting Hindu usages, and parents arrange matches for their
+children while they are still young. Among the P&#257;budias some primitive customs survive. They have the same system as the Oraons,
+by which all the bachelors of the village sleep in one large dormitory; this is known as Dh&#257;ngarb&#257;sa, <i>dh&#257;ngar</i> meaning a farmservant or young man, or M&#257;ndarghar, the house of the drums, because these instruments are kept in it. &#8220;Some
+villages,&#8221; Colonel Dalton states, &#8220;have a Dh&#257;ngaria b&#257;sa, or house for maidens, which, strange to say, they are allowed to
+occupy without any one to look after them. They appear to have very great liberty, and slips of morality, so long as they
+are confined to the tribe, are not much heeded.&#8221; This intimacy between boys and girls of the same village does not, however,
+commonly end in marriage, for which a partner should be sought from another village. For this purpose the girls go in a body,
+taking with them some ground rice decorated with flowers. They lay this before the elders of the village they have entered,
+saying, &#8216;Keep this or throw it into the water, as you prefer.&#8217; The old men pick up the flowers, placing them behind their
+ears. In the evening all the boys of the village come and dance with the girls, with intervals for courtship, half the total
+number of couples dancing and sitting out alternately. This goes on all night, and in the morning any couples who have come
+to an understanding run away together for a day or two. The boy&#8217;s father must present a rupee and a piece of cloth to the
+girl&#8217;s mother, and the marriage is considered to be completed.
+
+</p>
+<p>Among the P&#257;budia or Madhai Bhuiyas the bride-price <a id="d0e8590"></a><span class="pagenum">[<a href="#d0e8590">317</a>]</span>consists of two bullocks or cows, one of which is given to the girl&#8217;s father and the other to her brother. The boy&#8217;s father
+makes the proposal for marriage, and the consent of the girl is necessary. At the wedding turmeric and rice are offered to
+the sun; some rice is then placed on the girl&#8217;s head and turmeric rubbed on her body, and a brass ring is placed on her finger.
+The bridegroom&#8217;s father says to him, &#8220;This girl is ours now: if in future she becomes one-eyed, lame or deaf, she will still
+be ours.&#8221; The ceremony concludes with the usual feast and drinking bout. If the boy&#8217;s father cannot afford the bride-price
+the couple sometimes run away from home for two or three days, when their parents go in search of them and they are brought
+back and married in the boy&#8217;s house.
+
+
+</p>
+</div>
+<div class="div2" id="d0e8592">
+<h3>10. Widow-marriage and divorce.</h3>
+<p>A widow is often taken by the younger brother of the deceased husband, though no compulsion is exerted over her. But the match
+is common because the Bhuiyas have the survival of fraternal polyandry, which consists in allowing unmarried younger brothers
+to have access to an elder brother&#8217;s wife during his lifetime.<a id="d0e8597src" href="#d0e8597" class="noteref">16</a> Divorce is allowed for misconduct on the part of the wife or mutual disagreement.
+
+
+</p>
+</div>
+<div class="div2" id="d0e8600">
+<h3>11. Religion.</h3>
+<p>The Bhuiyas commonly take as their principal deity the spirit of the nearest mountain overlooking their village, and make
+offerings to it of butter, rice and fowls. In April they present the first-fruits of the mango harvest. They venerate the
+sun as Dharam Deota, but no offerings are made to him. Nearly all Bhuiyas worship the cobra, and some of them call it their
+mother and think they are descended from it. They will not touch or kill a cobra, and do not swear by it. In Rairakhol they
+venerate a goddess, Rambha Devi, who may be a corn-goddess, as the practice of burning down successive patches of jungle and
+sowing seed on each for two or three years is here known as <i>rambha</i>. They think that the sun and moon are sentient beings, and that fire and lightning are the children of the sun, and the stars
+the children of the moon. One day the moon invited the sun to dinner and gave him very nice food, so that the sun asked what
+it was. The moon said she had cooked her own children, and on this the sun went home and cooked all <a id="d0e8608"></a><span class="pagenum">[<a href="#d0e8608">318</a>]</span>his children and ate them, and this is the reason why there are no stars during the day. But his eldest son, fire, went and
+hid in a <i>rengal</i> tree, and his daughter, the lightning, darted hither and thither so that the sun could not catch her. And when night came
+again, and the stars came out, the sun saw how the moon had deceived him and cursed her, saying that she should die for fifteen
+days in every month. And this is the reason for the waxing and waning of the moon. Ever since this event fire has remained
+hidden in a <i>rengal</i> tree, and when the Bhuiyas want him they rub two pieces of its wood together and he comes out. This is the Bhuiya explanation
+of the production of fire from the friction of wood.
+
+
+</p>
+</div>
+<div class="div2" id="d0e8616">
+<h3>12. Religious dancing.</h3>
+<p>In the month of K&#257;rtik (October), or the next month, they bring from the forest a branch of the <i>karm</i> tree and venerate it and perform the <i>karma</i> dance in front of it. They think that this worship and dance will cause the <i>karma</i> tree, the mango, the jack-fruit and the mahua to bear a full crop of fruit. Monday, Wednesday and Friday are considered the
+proper days for worshipping the deities, and children are often named on a Friday.
+
+
+</p>
+</div>
+<div class="div2" id="d0e8630">
+<h3>13. Funeral rites and inheritance.</h3>
+<p>The dead are either buried or burnt, the corpse being placed always with the feet pointing to its native village. On the tenth
+day the soul of the dead person is called back to the house. But if a man is killed by a tiger or by falling from a tree no
+mourning is observed for him, and his soul is not brought back. To perish from snake-bite is considered a natural death, and
+in such cases the usual obsequies are awarded. This is probably because they revere the cobra as their first mother. The P&#257;budia
+Bhuiyas throw four to eight annas&#8217; worth of copper on to the pyre or into the grave, and if the deceased had a cow some <i>gh&#299;</i> or melted butter. No division of property can take place during the lifetime of either parent, but when both have died the
+children divide the inheritance, the eldest son taking two shares and the others one equal share each.
+
+
+</p>
+</div>
+<div class="div2" id="d0e8638">
+<h3>14. Physical appearance and occupation.</h3>
+<p>Colonel Dalton describes the Bhuiyas as, &#8220;A dark-brown, well-proportioned race, with black, straight hair, plentiful on the
+head, but scant on the face, of middle height, figures well knit and capable of enduring great fatigue, but <a id="d0e8643"></a><span class="pagenum">[<a href="#d0e8643">319</a>]</span>light-framed like the Hindu rather than presenting the usual muscular development of the hillman.&#8221; Their dress is scanty,
+and in the Tributary States Dalton says that the men and women all wear dresses of brown cotton cloth. This may be because
+white is a very conspicuous colour in the forests. They wear ornaments and beads, and are distinctive in that neither men
+nor women practise tattooing, though in some localities this rule is not observed by the women. To keep themselves warm at
+night they kindle two fires and sleep between them, and this custom has given rise to the saying, &#8216;Wherever you see a Bhuiya
+he always has a fire.&#8217; In B&#257;mra the Bhuiyas still practise shifting cultivation, for which they burn the forest growth from
+the hillsides and sow oilseeds in the fresh soil. This method of agriculture is called locally Khasrathumi. They obtain their
+lands free from the R&#257;ja in return for acting as luggage porters and coolies. In B&#257;mra they will not serve as farm-servants
+or labourers for hire, but elsewhere they are more docile.
+
+
+</p>
+</div>
+<div class="div2" id="d0e8645">
+<h3>15. Social customs.</h3>
+<p>A woman divorced for adultery is not again admitted to caste intercourse. Her parents take her to their village, where she
+has to live in a separate hut and earn her own livelihood. If any Bhuiya steals from a Kol, G&#257;nda or Ghasia he is permanently
+put out of caste, while for killing a cow the period of expulsion is twelve years. The emblem of the Bhuiyas is a sword, in
+reference to their employment as soldiers, and this they affix to documents in place of their signature.
+
+
+
+</p>
+</div>
+<div class="footnotes">
+<hr class="fnsep">
+<p class="footnote"><span class="label"><a id="d0e8427" href="#d0e8427src" class="noteref">1</a></span> This article is compiled partly from Colonel Dalton&#8217;s <i>Ethnology of Bengal</i> and Sir H. Risley&#8217;s <i>Tribes and Castes of Bengal</i>; a monograph has also been furnished by Mr. B. C. Mazumd&#257;r, pleader, Sambalpur, and papers by Mr. A. B. Napier, Deputy Commissioner,
+Raipur, and Mr. H&#299;ra L&#257;l.
+</p>
+<p class="footnote"><span class="label"><a id="d0e8467" href="#d0e8467src" class="noteref">2</a></span> <i>Ethnology of Bengal</i>, p. 140.
+</p>
+<p class="footnote"><span class="label"><a id="d0e8477" href="#d0e8477src" class="noteref">3</a></span> <i>Linguistic Survey</i>, vol. xiv. <i>Munda and Dravidian Languages</i>, p. 217.
+</p>
+<p class="footnote"><span class="label"><a id="d0e8485" href="#d0e8485src" class="noteref">4</a></span> Page 142.
+</p>
+<p class="footnote"><span class="label"><a id="d0e8488" href="#d0e8488src" class="noteref">5</a></span> <i>Ibidem</i>, p. 141.
+</p>
+<p class="footnote"><span class="label"><a id="d0e8502" href="#d0e8502src" class="noteref">6</a></span> In the article on Binjhw&#257;r, it was supposed that the Baigas migrated east from the Satp&#363;ra hills into Chhatt&#299;sgarh. But the
+evidence adduced above appears to show that this view is incorrect.
+</p>
+<p class="footnote"><span class="label"><a id="d0e8505" href="#d0e8505src" class="noteref">7</a></span> <i>Tribes and Castes</i>, art. Binjhia.
+</p>
+<p class="footnote"><span class="label"><a id="d0e8517" href="#d0e8517src" class="noteref">8</a></span> Crooke, <i>Tribes and Castes</i>, art. Bhuiya, para. 4.
+</p>
+<p class="footnote"><span class="label"><a id="d0e8523" href="#d0e8523src" class="noteref">9</a></span> <i>Ibidem</i>, para. 3.
+</p>
+<p class="footnote"><span class="label"><a id="d0e8528" href="#d0e8528src" class="noteref">10</a></span> <i>Ibidem</i>, art. Bhuiy&#257;r, para. 1.
+</p>
+<p class="footnote"><span class="label"><a id="d0e8533" href="#d0e8533src" class="noteref">11</a></span> <i>Ibidem</i>, para. 16.
+</p>
+<p class="footnote"><span class="label"><a id="d0e8540" href="#d0e8540src" class="noteref">12</a></span> Dalton, p. 147.
+</p>
+<p class="footnote"><span class="label"><a id="d0e8543" href="#d0e8543src" class="noteref">13</a></span> Page 142.
+</p>
+<p class="footnote"><span class="label"><a id="d0e8548" href="#d0e8548src" class="noteref">14</a></span> The question of the relation of the Baiga tribe to Mr. Crooke&#8217;s Bhuiy&#257;rs was first raised by Mr. E. A. H. Blunt, Census Superintendent,
+United Provinces.
+</p>
+<p class="footnote"><span class="label"><a id="d0e8567" href="#d0e8567src" class="noteref">15</a></span> Mr. Mazumd&#257;r&#8217;s monograph.
+</p>
+<p class="footnote"><span class="label"><a id="d0e8597" href="#d0e8597src" class="noteref">16</a></span> From Mr. Mazumd&#257;r&#8217;s monograph.
+</p>
+</div>
+</div>
+<div id="d0e8650" class="div1"><span class="pagenum">
+[<a href="#d0e111">Contents</a>]
+</span><h2>Bhulia</h2>
+<p><b>Bhulia,<a id="d0e8656src" href="#d0e8656" class="noteref">1</a> Bholia, Bhoriya, Bholwa, Mihir, Mehar.</b>&#8212;A caste of weavers in the Uriya country. In 1901 the Bhulias numbered 26,000 persons, but with the transfer of Sambalpur
+and the Uriya States to Bengal this figure has been reduced to 5000. A curious fact about the caste is that though solely
+domiciled in the Uriya territories, many families belonging to it talk Hindi in their own houses. According to one of their
+traditions they immigrated to this part of the country with the first Chauh&#257;n R&#257;ja of Patna, and it may be that they are members
+of some <a id="d0e8660"></a><span class="pagenum">[<a href="#d0e8660">320</a>]</span>northern caste who have forgotten their origin and taken to a fresh calling in the land of their adoption. The Koshtas of
+Chhatt&#299;sgarh have a subcaste called Bhoriya, and possibly the Bhulias have some connection with these. The caste sometimes
+call themselves Dev&#257;ng, and Dev&#257;ng or Dev&#257;ngan is the name of another subcaste of Koshtis. Various local derivations of the
+name are current, generally connecting it with <i>bh&#363;lna</i>, to forget. The Bhulias occupy a higher rank than the ordinary weavers, corresponding with that of the Koshtis elsewhere,
+and this is to some extent considered to be an unwarranted pretension. Thus one saying has it: &#8220;Formerly a son was born from
+a Chand&#257;l woman; at that time none were aware of his descent or rank, and so he was called Bhulia (one who is forgotten).
+He took the loom in his hands and became the brother-in-law of the G&#257;nda.&#8221; The object here is obviously to relegate the Bhulia
+to the same impure status as the G&#257;nda. Again the Bhulias affect the honorific title of Meher, and another saying addresses
+them thus: &#8220;Why do you call yourself Meher? You make a hole in the ground and put your legs into it and are like a cow with
+foot-and-mouth disease struggling in the mud.&#8221; The allusion here is to the habit of the weaver of hollowing out a hole for
+his feet as he sits before the loom, while cattle with foot-and-mouth disease are made to stand in mud to cool and cleanse
+the feet.
+
+</p>
+<p>The caste have no subcastes, except that in K&#257;l&#257;handi a degraded section is recognised who are called S&#257;np&#257;ra Bhulias, and
+with whom the others refuse to intermarry. These are, there is little reason to doubt, the progeny of illicit unions. They
+say that they have two <i>gotras</i>, N&#257;gas from the cobra and Kachhap from the tortoise. But these have only been adopted for the sake of respectability, and
+exercise no influence on marriage, which is regulated by a number of exogamous groups called <i>vansa</i>. The names of the <i>vansas</i> are usually either derived from villages or are titles or nicknames. Two of them, B&#257;gh (tiger) and Kimir (crocodile), are
+totemistic, while two more, Kumh&#257;r (potter) and Dhuba (washerman), are the names of other castes. Examples of titular names
+are B&#257;nkra (crooked), <a id="d0e8676"></a><span class="pagenum">[<a href="#d0e8676">321</a>]</span>Ranj&#363;jha (warrior), Kodjit (one who has conquered a score of people) and others. The territorial names are derived from those
+of villages where the caste reside at present. Marriage within the <i>vansa</i> is forbidden, but some of the <i>vansas</i> have been divided into <i>bad</i> and <i>s&#257;n</i>, or great and small, and members of these may marry with each other, the subdivision having been adopted when the original
+group became so large as to include persons who were practically not relations. The binding portion of the wedding ceremony
+is that the bridegroom should carry the bride in a basket seven times round the <i>hom</i> or sacrificial fire. If he cannot do this, the girl&#8217;s grandfather carries them both. After the ceremony the pair return to
+the bridegroom&#8217;s village, and are made to sleep on the same bed, some elder woman of the family lying between them. After
+a few days the girl goes back to her parents and does not rejoin her husband until she attains maturity. The remarriage of
+widows is permitted, and in Native States is not less costly to the bridegroom than the regular ceremony. In Sonpur the suitor
+must proceed to the R&#257;ja and pay him twenty rupees for his permission, which is given in the shape of a present of rice and
+nuts. Similar sums are paid to the caste-fellows and the parents of the girl, and the R&#257;ja&#8217;s rice and nuts are then placed
+on the heads of the couple, who become man and wife. Divorce may be effected at the instance of the husband or the wife&#8217;s
+parents on the mere ground of incompatibility of temper. The position of the caste corresponds to that of the Koshtas; that
+is, they rank below the good cultivating castes, but above the menial and servile classes. They eat fowls and the flesh of
+wild pig, and drink liquor. A <i>liaison</i> with one of the impure castes is the only offence entailing permanent expulsion from social intercourse. A curious rule is
+that in the case of a woman going wrong with a man of the caste, the man only is temporarily outcasted and forced to pay a
+fine on readmission, while the woman escapes without penalty. They employ Br&#257;hmans for ceremonial purposes. They are considered
+proverbially stupid, like the Koris in the northern Districts, but very laborious. One saying about them is: &#8220;The Kewat catches
+fish but himself eats crabs, <a id="d0e8696"></a><span class="pagenum">[<a href="#d0e8696">322</a>]</span>and the Bhulia weaves loin-cloths but himself wears only a rag&#8221;; and another: &#8220;A Bhulia who is idle is as useless as a confectioner&#8217;s
+son who eats sweetmeats, or a moneylender&#8217;s son with a generous disposition, or a cultivator&#8217;s son who is extravagant.&#8221;
+
+
+</p>
+<div class="footnotes">
+<hr class="fnsep">
+<p class="footnote"><span class="label"><a id="d0e8656" href="#d0e8656src" class="noteref">1</a></span> This article is compiled from a paper taken by Mr. H&#299;ra L&#257;l at Sonpur.
+</p>
+</div>
+</div>
+<div id="d0e8698" class="div1"><span class="pagenum">
+[<a href="#d0e111">Contents</a>]
+</span><h2>Bhunjia</h2>
+<div class="div2" id="d0e8701">
+<h3>1. Origin and traditions.</h3>
+<p><b>Bhunjia.<a id="d0e8707src" href="#d0e8707" class="noteref">1</a></b>&#8212;A small Dravidian tribe residing in the Bindr&#257;naw&#257;garh and Khari&#257;r zam&#299;nd&#257;ris of the Raipur District, and numbering about
+7000 persons. The tribe was not returned outside this area in 1911, but Sherring mentions them in a list of the hill tribes
+of the Jaipur zam&#299;nd&#257;ri of Vizagapatam, which touches the extreme south of Bindr&#257;naw&#257;garh. The Bhunjias are divided into two
+branches, Chaukhutia and Chinda, and the former have the following legend of their origin. On one occasion a Bhatra Gond named
+B&#257;char cast a net into the Pairi river and brought out a stone. He threw the stone back into the river and cast his net again,
+but a second and yet a third time the stone came out. So he laid the stone on the bank of the river and went back to his house,
+and that night he dreamt that the stone was Bura Deo, the great God of the Gonds. So he said: &#8216;If this dream be true let me
+draw in a deer in my net to-morrow for a sign&#8217;; and the next day the body of a deer appeared in his net. The stone then called
+upon the Gond to worship him as Bura Deo, but the Gond demurred to doing so himself, and said he would provide a substitute
+as a devotee. To this Bura Deo agreed, but said that B&#257;char, the Gond, must marry his daughter to the substituted worshipper.
+The Gond then set out to search for somebody, and in the village of Lafandi he found a Halba of the name of Konda, who was
+a cripple, deaf and dumb, blind, and a leper. He brought Konda to the stone, and on reaching it he was miraculously cured
+of all his ailments and gladly began to worship Bura Deo. He afterwards married the Gond&#8217;s daughter and they had a son called
+Chaukhutia Bhunjia, who was the ancestor of the Chaukhutia division of the tribe. Now the term Chaukhutia in <a id="d0e8710"></a><span class="pagenum">[<a href="#d0e8710">323</a>]</span>Chhatt&#299;sgarhi signifies a bastard, and the story related above is obviously intended to signify that the Chaukhutia Bhunjias
+are of mixed descent from the Gonds and Halbas. It is clearly with this end in view that the Gond is made to decline to worship
+the stone himself and promise to find a substitute, an incident which is wholly unnatural and is simply dragged in to meet
+the case. The Chaukhutia subtribe especially worship Bura Deo, and sing a song relating to the finding of the stone in their
+marriage ceremony as follows:
+
+</p>
+<div class="poem" lang="und">
+<div class="stanza">
+<p class="line" style=""><span>Joh&#257;r, joh&#257;r Th&#257;kur Deota, Tumko l&#257;gon,
+</span></p>
+<p class="line" style=""><span>Do matia ghar men d&#299;ne tumh&#257;re n&#257;m.
+</span></p>
+<p class="line" style=""><span>Joh&#257;r, joh&#257;r Konda, Tumko l&#257;gon,
+</span></p>
+<p class="line" style=""><span>Do matia ghar men, etc.
+</span></p>
+<p class="line" style=""><span>Joh&#257;r, joh&#257;r B&#257;char Jh&#257;kar Tumko l&#257;gon, etc.
+</span></p>
+<p class="line" style=""><span>Joh&#257;r, joh&#257;r B&#363;dha R&#257;ja Tumko l&#257;gon, etc.
+</span></p>
+<p class="line" style=""><span>Joh&#257;r, joh&#257;r Lafandi M&#257;ti Tumko l&#257;gon, etc.
+</span></p>
+<p class="line" style=""><span>Joh&#257;r, joh&#257;r &#256;nand M&#257;ti Tumko l&#257;gon, etc.</span></p>
+</div>
+</div>
+<p>which may be rendered:
+
+</p>
+<div class="poem">
+<div class="stanza">
+<p class="line" style=""><span>I make obeisance to thee, O Th&#257;kur Deo, I bow down to thee!
+</span></p>
+<p class="line" style=""><span>In thy name have I placed two pots in my house (as a mark of respect).
+</span></p>
+<p class="line" style=""><span>I make obeisance to thee, O Konda Puj&#257;ri, I bow down to thee!
+</span></p>
+<p class="line" style=""><span>In thy name have I placed two pots in my house.
+</span></p>
+<p class="line" style=""><span>I make obeisance to thee, O B&#257;char Jh&#257;kar!
+</span></p>
+<p class="line" style=""><span>In thy name have I placed two pots in my house.
+</span></p>
+<p class="line" style=""><span>I make obeisance to thee, O B&#363;dha R&#257;ja!
+</span></p>
+<p class="line" style=""><span>In thy name have I placed two pots in my house.
+</span></p>
+<p class="line" style=""><span>I make obeisance to thee, O Soil of Lafandi!
+</span></p>
+<p class="line" style=""><span>In thy name have I placed two pots in my house.
+</span></p>
+<p class="line" style=""><span>I make obeisance to thee, O Happy Spot!
+</span></p>
+<p class="line" style=""><span>In thy name have I placed two pots in my house.</span></p>
+</div>
+</div>
+<p>The song refers to the incidents in the story. Th&#257;kur Deo is the title given to the divine stone, Konda is the Halba priest,
+and B&#257;char the Gond who cast the net. B&#363;dha R&#257;ja, otherwise Singh Sei, is the Chief who was ruling in Bindr&#257;naw&#257;garh at the
+time, Lafandi the village where Konda Halba was found, and the &#256;nand M&#257;ti or Happy Spot is that where the stone was taken
+out of the river. The majority of the sept-names returned are of Gond origin, and there seems no doubt that the Chaukhutias
+are, as the story says, of mixed descent from the Halbas and Gonds. It is <a id="d0e8758"></a><span class="pagenum">[<a href="#d0e8758">324</a>]</span>noticeable, however, that the Bhunjias, though surrounded by Gonds on all sides, do not speak Gondi but a dialect of Hindi,
+which Sir G. Grierson considers to resemble that of the Halbas, and also describes as &#8220;A form of Chhatt&#299;sgarhi which is practically
+the same as Baig&#257;ni. It is a jargon spoken by Binjhw&#257;rs, Bhumias and Bhunjias of Raipur, Raigarh, S&#257;rangarh and Patna in the
+Central Provinces.&#8221;<a id="d0e8760src" href="#d0e8760" class="noteref">2</a> The Binjhw&#257;rs also belong to the country of the Bhunjias, and one or two estates close to Bindr&#257;naw&#257;garh are held by members
+of this tribe. The Chinda division of the Bhunjias have a saying about themselves: &#8216;<i>Chinda R&#257;ja, Bhunjia P&#257;ik&#8217;</i>; and they say that there was originally a Kam&#257;r ruler of Bindr&#257;naw&#257;garh who was dispossessed by Chinda. The Kam&#257;rs are a
+small and very primitive tribe of the same locality. <i>P&#257;ik</i> means a foot-soldier, and it seems therefore that the Bhunjias formed the levies of this Chinda, who may very probably have
+been one of themselves. The term Bhunjia may perhaps signify one who lives on the soil, from <i>bh&#363;m</i>, the earth, and <i>jia</i>, dependent on. The word <i>Birjia</i>, a synonym for Binjhw&#257;r, is similarly a corruption of <i>bewar jia</i>, and means one who is dependent on <i>dahia</i> or patch cultivation. Sir H. Risley gives Birjia, Binjhia and Binjhw&#257;r<a id="d0e8787src" href="#d0e8787" class="noteref">3</a> as synonymous terms, and Bhunjia may be another corruption of the same sort. The Binjhw&#257;rs are a Hinduised offshoot of the
+ancient Baiga tribe, who may probably have been in possession of the hills bordering the Chhatt&#299;sgarh plain as well as of
+the Satp&#363;ra range before the advent of the Gonds, as the term Baiga is employed for a village priest over a large part of
+this area. It thus seems not improbable that the Chinda Bhunjias may have been derived from the Binjhw&#257;rs, and this would
+account for the fact that the tribe speaks a dialect of Hindi and not Gondi. As already seen, the Chaukhutia subcaste appear
+to be of mixed origin from the Gonds and Halbas, and as the Chindas are probably descended from the Baigas, the Bhunjias may
+be considered to be an offshoot from these three important tribes.
+
+
+</p>
+</div>
+<div class="div2" id="d0e8792">
+<h3>2. Subdivisions.</h3>
+<p>Of the two subtribes already mentioned the Chaukhutia <a id="d0e8797"></a><span class="pagenum">[<a href="#d0e8797">325</a>]</span>are recognised to be of illegitimate descent. As a consequence of this they strive to obtain increased social estimation by
+a ridiculously strict observance of the rules of ceremonial purity. If any man not of his own caste touches the hut where
+a Chaukhutia cooks his food, it is entirely abandoned and a fresh one built. At the time of the census they threatened to
+kill the enumerator if he touched their huts to affix the census number. Pegs had therefore to be planted in the ground a
+little in front of the huts and marked with their numbers. The Chaukhutia will not eat food cooked by other members of his
+own community, and this is a restriction found only among those of bastard descent, where every man is suspicious of his neighbour&#8217;s
+parentage. He will not take food from the hands of his own daughter after she is married; as soon as the ceremony is over
+her belongings are at once removed from the hut, and even the floor beneath the seat of the bride and bridegroom during the
+marriage ceremony is dug up and the surface earth thrown away to avoid any risk of defilement. Only when it is remembered
+that these rules are observed by people who do not wash themselves from one week&#8217;s end to the other, and wear the same wisp
+of cloth about their loins until it comes to pieces, can the full absurdity of such customs as the above be appreciated. But
+the tendency appears to be of the same kind as the intense desire for respectability so often noticed among the lower classes
+in England. The Chindas, whose pedigree is more reliable, are far less particular about their social purity.
+
+
+</p>
+</div>
+<div class="div2" id="d0e8799">
+<h3>3. Marriage.</h3>
+<p>As already stated, the exogamous divisions of the Bhunjias are derived from those of the Gonds. Among the Chaukhutias it is
+considered a great sin if the signs of puberty appear in a girl before she is married, and to avoid this, if no husband has
+been found for her, they perform a &#8216;K&#257;nd By&#257;h&#8217; or &#8216;Arrow Marriage&#8217;: the girl walks seven times round an arrow fixed in the
+ground, and is given away without ceremony to the man who by previous arrangement has brought the arrow. If a girl of the
+Chinda group goes wrong with an outsider before marriage and becomes pregnant, the matter is hushed up, but if she is a Chaukhutia
+it is said that she is finally expelled from the community, <a id="d0e8804"></a><span class="pagenum">[<a href="#d0e8804">326</a>]</span>the same severe course being adopted even when she is not pregnant if there is reason to suppose that the offence has been
+committed. A proposal for marriage among the Chaukhutias is made on the boy&#8217;s behalf by two men who are known as Mah&#257;lia and
+Jang&#257;lia, and are supposed to represent a Nai (barber) and Dh&#299;mar (water-carrier), though they do not actually belong to these
+castes. As among the Gonds, the marriage takes place at the bridegroom&#8217;s village, and the Mah&#257;lia and Jang&#257;lia act as stewards
+of the ceremony, and are entrusted with the rice, pulse, salt, oil and other provisions, the bridegroom&#8217;s family having no
+function in the matter except to pay for them. The provisions are all stored in a separate hut, and when the time for the
+feast has come they are distributed raw to all the guests, each family of whom cook for themselves. The reason for this is,
+as already explained, that each one is afraid of losing status by eating with other members of the tribe. The marriage is
+solemnised by walking round the sacred post, and the ceremony is conducted by a hereditary priest known as D&#299;nw&#257;ri, a member
+of the tribe, whose line it is believed will never become extinct. Among the Chinda Bhunjias the bride goes away with her
+husband, and in a short time returns with him to her parents&#8217; house for a few days, to make an offering to the deities. But
+the Chaukhutias will not allow her, after she has lived in her father-in-law&#8217;s house, to return to her home. In future if
+she goes to visit her parents she must stay outside the house and cook her food separately. Widow-marriage and divorce are
+permitted, but a husband will often overlook transgressions on the part of his wife and only put her away when her conduct
+has become an open scandal. In such a case he will either quietly leave house and wife and settle alone in another village,
+or have his wife informed by means of a neighbour that if she does not leave the village he will do so. It is not the custom
+to bring cases before the tribal committee or to claim damages. A special tie exists between a man and his sister&#8217;s children.
+The marriage of a brother&#8217;s son or daughter to a sister&#8217;s daughter or son is considered the most suitable. A man will not
+allow his sister&#8217;s children to eat the leavings of food on his plate, <a id="d0e8806"></a><span class="pagenum">[<a href="#d0e8806">327</a>]</span>though his own children may do so. This is a special token of respect to his sister&#8217;s children. He will not chastise his sister&#8217;s
+children, even though they deserve it. And it is considered especially meritorious for a man to pay for the wedding ceremony
+of his sister&#8217;s son or daughter.
+
+
+</p>
+</div>
+<div class="div2" id="d0e8808">
+<h3>4. Religion.</h3>
+<p>Every third year in the month of Chait (March) the tribe offer a goat and a cocoanut to M&#257;ta, the deity of cholera and smallpox.
+They bow daily to the sun with folded hands, and believe that he is of special assistance to them in the liquidation of debt,
+which the Bhunjias consider a primary obligation. When a debt has been paid off they offer a cocoanut to the sun as a mark
+of gratitude for his assistance. They also pay great reverence to the tortoise. They call the tortoise the footstool (<i>p&#299;dha</i>) of God, and have adopted the Hindu theory that the earth is supported by a tortoise swimming in the midst of the ocean.
+Professor Tylor explains as follows how this belief arose:<a id="d0e8816src" href="#d0e8816" class="noteref">4</a> &#8220;To man in the lower levels of science the earth is a flat plain over which the sky is placed like a dome as the arched upper
+shell of the tortoise stands upon the flat plate below, and this is why the tortoise is the symbol or representative of the
+world.&#8221; It is said that Bhunjia women are never allowed to sit either on a footstool or a bed-cot, because these are considered
+to be the seats of the deities. They consider it disrespectful to walk across the shadow of any elderly person, or to step
+over the body of any human being or revered object on the ground. If they do this inadvertently, they apologise to the person
+or thing. If a man falls from a tree he will offer a chicken to the tree-spirit.
+
+
+</p>
+</div>
+<div class="div2" id="d0e8821">
+<h3>5. Social rules.</h3>
+<p>The tribe will eat pork, but abstain from beef and the flesh of monkeys. Notwithstanding their strictness of social observance,
+they rank lower than the Gonds, and only the Kam&#257;rs will accept food from their hands. A man who has got maggots in a wound
+is purified by being given to drink water, mixed with powdered turmeric, in which silver and copper rings have been dipped.
+Women are secluded during the menstrual period for as long as eight days, and during this time they may not enter the dwelling-hut
+nor touch any article belonging to it. The Bhunjias take their <a id="d0e8826"></a><span class="pagenum">[<a href="#d0e8826">328</a>]</span>food on plates of leaves, and often a whole family will have only one brass vessel, which will be reserved for production
+on the visit of a guest. But no strangers can be admitted to the house, and a separate hut is kept in the village for their
+use. Here they are given uncooked grain and pulse, which they prepare for themselves. When the women go out to work they do
+not leave their babies in the house, but carry them tied up in a small rag under the arm. They have no knowledge of medicine
+and are too timid to enter a Government dispensary. Their panacea for most diseases is branding the skin with a hot iron,
+which is employed indifferently for headache, pains in the stomach and rheumatism. Mr. Py&#257;re L&#257;l notes that one of his informants
+had recently been branded for rheumatism on both knees and said that he felt much relief.
+
+
+
+<a id="d0e8828"></a><span class="pagenum">[<a href="#d0e8828">329</a>]</span></p>
+</div>
+<div class="footnotes">
+<hr class="fnsep">
+<p class="footnote"><span class="label"><a id="d0e8707" href="#d0e8707src" class="noteref">1</a></span> This article is based on papers by Mr. H&#299;ra L&#257;l, Mr. Gokul Pras&#257;d, Tahs&#299;ld&#257;r, Dhamtar&#299;, Mr. Py&#257;re L&#257;l Misra of the Gazetteer
+office, and Munshi Ganpati Giri, Superintendent, Bindr&#257;naw&#257;garh estate.
+</p>
+<p class="footnote"><span class="label"><a id="d0e8760" href="#d0e8760src" class="noteref">2</a></span> From the <i>Index of Languages and Dialects</i>, furnished by Sir G. Grierson for the census.
+</p>
+<p class="footnote"><span class="label"><a id="d0e8787" href="#d0e8787src" class="noteref">3</a></span> <i>Tribes and Castes of Bengal</i>, art. Binjhia.
+</p>
+<p class="footnote"><span class="label"><a id="d0e8816" href="#d0e8816src" class="noteref">4</a></span> <i>Early History of Mankind</i>, p. 341.
+</p>
+</div>
+</div>
+<div id="d0e8829" class="div1"><span class="pagenum">
+[<a href="#d0e111">Contents</a>]
+</span><h2>Binjhw&#257;r</h2>
+<h3>List of Paragraphs</h3>
+<ul>
+<li><a href="#d0e8880">1. Origin and tradition.</a></li>
+<li><a href="#d0e8904">2. Tribal subdivisions.</a></li>
+<li><a href="#d0e8920">3. Marriage.</a></li>
+<li><a href="#d0e8928">4. The marriage ceremony.</a></li>
+<li><a href="#d0e8935">5. Sexual morality.</a></li>
+<li><a href="#d0e8944">6. Disposal of the dead.</a></li>
+<li><a href="#d0e8955">7. Religion.</a></li>
+<li><a href="#d0e8974">8. Festivals.</a></li>
+<li><a href="#d0e8985">9. Social customs.</a></li>
+</ul>
+<div class="div2" id="d0e8880">
+<h3>1. Origin and tradition.</h3>
+<p><b>Binjhw&#257;r, Binjh&#257;l.</b><a id="d0e8886src" href="#d0e8886" class="noteref">1</a>&#8212;A comparatively civilised Dravidian tribe, or caste formed from a tribe, found in the Raipur and Bil&#257;spur Districts and the
+adjoining Uriya country. In 1911 the Binjhw&#257;rs numbered 60,000 persons in the Central Provinces. There is little or no doubt
+that the Binjhw&#257;rs are an offshoot of the primitive Baiga tribe of Mandla and B&#257;l&#257;gh&#257;t, who occupy the Satp&#363;ra or Maikal hills
+to the north of the Chhatt&#299;sgarh plain. In these Districts a Binjhw&#257;r subdivision of the Baigas exists; it is the most civilised
+and occupies the highest rank in the tribe. In Bhand&#257;ra is found the Injhw&#257;r caste who are boatmen and cultivators. This caste
+is derived from the Binjhw&#257;r subdivision of the Baigas, and the name Injhw&#257;r is simply a corruption of Binjhw&#257;r. Neither the
+Binjhw&#257;rs nor the Baigas are found except in the territories above mentioned, and it seems clear that the Binjhw&#257;rs are a
+comparatively civilised section of the Baigas, who have become a distinct caste. They are in fact the landholding section
+of the Baigas, like the R&#257;j-Gonds among the Gonds and the Bhil&#257;las among Bh&#299;ls. The zam&#299;nd&#257;rs of Bod&#257;s&#257;mar, R&#257;mpur, Bhatg&#257;on
+and other estates to the south and east of the Chhattlsgarh plain belong to this tribe. But owing <a id="d0e8889"></a><span class="pagenum">[<a href="#d0e8889">330</a>]</span>to the change of name their connection with the parent Baigas has now been forgotten. The name Binjhw&#257;r is derived from the
+Vindhya hills, and the tribe still worship the goddess Vindhyab&#257;sini of these hills as their tutelary deity. They say that
+their ancestors migrated from Binjhakop to L&#257;mpa, which may be either L&#257;mta in B&#257;l&#257;gh&#257;t or L&#257;ph&#257;garh in Bil&#257;spur. The hills
+of Mandla, the home of perhaps the most primitive Baigas, are quite close to the Vindhya range. The tribe say that their original
+ancestors were <i>B&#257;rah bhai betk&#257;r</i>, or the twelve Brother Archers. They were the sons of the goddess Vindhyab&#257;sini. One day they were out shooting and let off
+their arrows, which flew to the door of the great temple at Puri and stuck in it. Nobody in the place was able to pull them
+out, not even when the king&#8217;s elephants were brought and harnessed to them; till at length the brothers arrived and drew them
+forth quite easily with their hands, and the king was so pleased with their feat that he gave them the several estates which
+their descendants now hold. The story recalls that of Arthur and the magic sword. According to another legend the mother of
+the first R&#257;ja of Patna, a Chauh&#257;n R&#257;jp&#363;t, had fled from northern India to Sambalpur after her husband and relations had been
+killed in battle. She took refuge in a Binjhw&#257;r&#8217;s hut and bore a son who became R&#257;ja of Patna; and in reward for the protection
+afforded to his mother he gave the Binjhw&#257;r the Bod&#257;s&#257;mar estate, requiring only of him and his descendants the tribute of
+a silk cloth on accession to the zam&#299;nd&#257;ri; and this has been rendered ever since by the zam&#299;nd&#257;rs of Bod&#257;s&#257;mar to the R&#257;jas
+of Patna as a mark of fealty. It is further stated that the twelve archers when they fired the memorable arrows in the forest
+were in pursuit of a wild boar; and the landholding class of Binjhw&#257;rs are called B&#257;riha from <i>b&#257;r&#257;h</i>, a boar. As is only fitting, the Binjhw&#257;rs have taken the arrow as their tribal symbol or mark; their cattle are branded
+with it, and illiterate Binjhw&#257;rs sign it in place of their name. If a husband cannot be found for a girl she is sometimes
+married to an arrow. At a Binjhw&#257;r wedding an arrow is laid on the trunk of mahua<a id="d0e8897src" href="#d0e8897" class="noteref">2</a> which forms the <a id="d0e8902"></a><span class="pagenum">[<a href="#d0e8902">331</a>]</span>marriage-post, and honours are paid to it as representing the bridegroom.
+
+
+</p>
+</div>
+<div class="div2" id="d0e8904">
+<h3>2. Tribal subdivisions.</h3>
+<p>The tribe have four subdivisions, the Binjhw&#257;rs proper, the Sonjharas, the Birjhias and the Binjhias. The Sonjharas consist
+of those who took to washing for gold in the sands of the Mah&#257;nadi, and it may be noted that a separate caste of Sonjharas
+is also in existence in this locality besides the Binjhw&#257;r group. The Birjhias are those who practised <i>bewar</i> or shifting cultivation in the forests, the name being derived from <i>bewarjia</i>, one living by <i>bewar</i>-sowing. Binjhia is simply a diminutive form of Binjhw&#257;r, but in Bil&#257;spur it is sometimes regarded as a separate caste. The
+zam&#299;nd&#257;r of Bhatgaon belongs to this group. The tribe have also exogamous divisions, the names of which are of a diverse character,
+and on being scrutinised show a mixture of foreign blood. Among totemistic names are B&#257;gh, a tiger; Pod, a buffalo; Kamalia,
+the lotus flower; Pankn&#257;li, the water-crow; T&#257;r, the date-palm; J&#257;l, a net, and others. Some of the sections are nicknames,
+as Udh&#257;r, a debtor; Marai Meli B&#257;gh, one who carried a dead tiger; Ultum, a talker; J&#257;lia, a liar; Kessal, one who has shaved
+a man, and so on. Several are the names of other castes, as Loh&#257;r, D&#363;dh Kawaria, Bh&#299;l, B&#257;nka and M&#257;jhi, indicating that members
+of these castes have become Binjhw&#257;rs and have founded families. The sept names also differ in different localities; the Birjhia
+subtribe who live in the same country as the Mundas have several Munda names among their septs, as Munna, Son, Solai; while
+the Binjhw&#257;rs who are neighbours of the Gonds have Gond sept names, as Tek&#257;m, Sonw&#257;ni, and others. This indicates that there
+has been a considerable amount of intermarriage with the surrounding tribes, as is the case generally among the lower classes
+of the population in Chhatt&#299;sgarh. Even now if a woman of any caste from whom the Binjhw&#257;rs will take water to drink forms
+a connection with a man of the tribe, though she herself must remain in an irregular position, her children will be considered
+as full members of it. The B&#257;rhias or landowning group have now adopted names of Sanskrit formation, as Gajendra, an elephant,
+R&#257;meswar, the god R&#257;ma, and N&#257;geshwar, the cobra deity. Two of their septs are named Loh&#257;r (blacksmith) <a id="d0e8918"></a><span class="pagenum">[<a href="#d0e8918">332</a>]</span>and Kumh&#257;r (potter), and may be derived from members of these castes who became Binjhw&#257;rs or from Binjhw&#257;rs who took up the
+occupations. At a Binjhw&#257;r wedding the presence of a person belonging to each of the Loh&#257;r and Kumh&#257;r septs is essential,
+the reason being probably the estimation in which the two handicrafts were held when the Binjhw&#257;rs first learnt them from
+their Hindu neighbours.
+
+
+</p>
+</div>
+<div class="div2" id="d0e8920">
+<h3>3. Marriage.</h3>
+<p>In Sambalpur there appears to be no system of exogamous groups, and marriage is determined simply by relationship. The union
+of agnates is avoided as long as the connection can be traced between them, but on the mother&#8217;s side all except first cousins
+may marry. Marriage is usually adult, and girls are sometimes allowed to choose their own husbands. A bride-price of about
+eight <i>khandis</i> (1400 lbs.) of unhusked rice is paid. The ceremony is performed at the bridegroom&#8217;s house, to which the bride proceeds after
+bidding farewell to her family and friends in a fit of weeping. Weddings are avoided during the four months of the rainy season,
+and in Chait (March) because it is inauspicious, Jeth (May) because it is too hot, and P&#363;s (December) because it is the last
+month of the year among the Binjhw&#257;rs. The marriage ceremony should begin on a Sunday, when the guests are welcomed and their
+feet washed. On Monday the formal reception of the bride takes place, the Gands&#257;n or scenting ceremony follows on Tuesday,
+and on Wednesday is the actual wedding. At the scenting ceremony seven married girls dressed in new clothes dyed yellow with
+turmeric conduct the bridegroom round the central post; one holds a dish containing rice, mango leaves, myrobalans and betel-nuts,
+and a second sprinkles water from a small pot. At each round the bridegroom is made to throw some of the condiments from the
+dish on to the wedding-post, and after the seven rounds he is seated and is rubbed with oil and turmeric.
+
+
+</p>
+</div>
+<div class="div2" id="d0e8928">
+<h3>4. The marriage ceremony.</h3>
+<p>Among the Birjhias a trunk of mahua with two branches is erected in the marriage-shed, and on this a dagger is placed in a
+winnowing-fan filled with rice, the former representing the bridegroom and the latter the bride. The bride first goes round
+the post seven times alone, and then the bridegroom, and after this they go round it together. A <a id="d0e8933"></a><span class="pagenum">[<a href="#d0e8933">333</a>]</span>plough is brought and they stand upon the yoke, and seven cups of water having been collected from seven different houses,
+four are poured over the bridegroom and three over the bride. Some men climb on to the top of the shed and pour pots of water
+down on to the couple. This is now said to be done only as a joke. Next morning two strong men take the bridegroom and bride,
+who are usually grown up, on their backs, and the parties pelt each other with unhusked rice. Then the bridegroom holds the
+bride in his arms from behind and they stand facing the sun, while some old man ties round their feet a thread specially spun
+by a virgin. The couple stand for some time and then fall to the ground as if dazzled by his rays, when water is again poured
+over their bodies to revive them. Lastly, an old man takes the arrow from the top of the marriage-post and draws three lines
+with it on the ground to represent the Hindu trinity, Brahma, Vishnu and Siva, and the bridegroom jumps over these holding
+the bride in his arms. The couple go to bathe in a river or tank, and on the way home the bridegroom shoots seven arrows at
+an image of a s&#257;mbhar deer made with straw. At the seventh shot the bride&#8217;s brother takes the arrow, and running away and
+hiding it in his cloth lies down at the entrance of the bridegroom&#8217;s house. The couple go up to him, and the bridegroom examines
+his body with suspicion, pretending to think that he is dead. He draws the arrow out of his cloth and points to some blood
+which has been previously sprinkled on the ground. After a time the boy gets up and receives some liquor as a reward. This
+procedure may perhaps be a symbolic survival of marriage by capture, the bridegroom killing the bride&#8217;s brother before carrying
+her off, or more probably, perhaps, the boy may represent a dead deer. In some of the wilder tracts the man actually waylays
+and seizes the girl before the wedding, the occasion being previously determined, and the women of her family trying to prevent
+him. If he succeeds in carrying her off they stay for three or four days in the forest and then return and are married.
+
+
+</p>
+</div>
+<div class="div2" id="d0e8935">
+<h3>5. Sexual morality.</h3>
+<p>If a Binjhw&#257;r girl is seduced and rendered pregnant by a man of the tribe, the people exact a feast and compel them to join
+their hands in an informal manner before the <a id="d0e8940"></a><span class="pagenum">[<a href="#d0e8940">334</a>]</span>caste committee, the tie thus formed being considered as indissoluble as a formal marriage. Polygamy is permitted; a Binjhw&#257;r
+zam&#299;nd&#257;r marries a new wife, who is known as P&#257;t R&#257;ni, to celebrate his accession to his estates, even though he may have
+five or six already.
+
+</p>
+<p>Divorce is recognised but is not very common, and a married woman having an intrigue with another Binjhw&#257;r is often simply
+made over to him and they live as husband and wife. If this man does not wish to take her she can live with any other, conjugal
+morality being very loose in Sambalpur. In Bod&#257;s&#257;mar a fine of from one to ten rupees is payable to the zam&#299;nd&#257;r in the case
+of each divorce, and a feast must also be given to the caste-fellows.
+
+
+</p>
+</div>
+<div class="div2" id="d0e8944">
+<h3>6. Disposal of the dead.</h3>
+<p>The tribe usually bury the dead, and on the third day they place on the grave some uncooked rice and a lighted lamp. As soon
+as an insect flies to the lamp they catch it, and placing it in a cake of flour carry this to a stream, where it is worshipped
+with an offering of coloured rice. It is then thrust into the sand or mud in the bed of the stream with a grass broom. This
+ceremony is called Kh&#257;rp&#257;ni or &#8216;Grass and Water,&#8217; and appears to be a method of disposing of the dead man&#8217;s spirit. It is
+not performed at all for young children, while, on the other hand, in the case of respected elders a second ceremony is carried
+out of the same nature, being known as Bad&#257;p&#257;ni or &#8216;Great Water.&#8217; On this occasion the <i lang="und">j&#299;va</i> or soul is worshipped with greater pomp. Except in the case of wicked souls, who are supposed to become malignant ghosts,
+the Binjhw&#257;rs do not seem to have any definite belief in a future life. They say, &#8216;<i lang="und">Je maris te saris</i>,&#8217; or &#8216;That which is dead is rotten and gone.&#8217;
+
+
+</p>
+</div>
+<div class="div2" id="d0e8955">
+<h3>7. Religion.</h3>
+<p>The tribe worship the common village deities of Chhatt&#299;sgarh, and extend their veneration to Bura Deo, the principal god of
+the Gonds. They venerate their daggers, spears and arrows on the day of Dasahra, and every third year their tutelary goddess
+Vindhyab&#257;sini is carried in procession from village to village. Mr. Mi&#257;n Bhai gives the following list of precepts as forming
+the Binjhw&#257;r&#8217;s moral code:&#8212;Not to commit adultery outside the caste; not to eat beef; not to murder; not to steal; not to
+swear falsely before the caste committee. The tribe have <i>gurus</i> or <a id="d0e8963"></a><span class="pagenum">[<a href="#d0e8963">335</a>]</span>spiritual preceptors, whom he describes as the most ignorant Bair&#257;gis, very little better than impostors. When a boy or girl
+grows up the Bair&#257;gi comes and whispers the <i>Karn mantra</i> or spell in his ear, also hanging a necklace of <i>tulsi</i> (basil) beads round his neck; for this the <i>guru</i> receives a cloth, a cocoanut and a cash payment of four annas to a rupee. Thereafter he visits his disciples annually at
+harvest time and receives a present of grain from them.
+
+
+</p>
+</div>
+<div class="div2" id="d0e8974">
+<h3>8. Festivals.</h3>
+<p>On the 11th of Bh&#257;don (August) the tribe celebrate the <i>karma</i> festival, which is something like May-Day or a harvest feast. The youths and maidens go to the forest and bring home a young
+<i>karma</i> tree, singing, dancing and beating drums. Offerings are made to the tree, and then the whole village, young and old, drink
+and dance round it all through the night. Next morning the tree is taken to the nearest stream or tank and consigned to it.
+After this the young girls of five or six villages make up a party and go about to the different villages accompanied by drummers
+and G&#257;nda musicians. They are entertained for the night, and next morning dance for five or six hours in the village and then
+go on to another.
+
+
+</p>
+</div>
+<div class="div2" id="d0e8985">
+<h3>9. Social customs.</h3>
+<p>The tribe are indiscriminate in their diet, which includes pork, snakes, rats, and even carnivorous animals, as panthers.
+They refuse only beef, monkeys and the leavings of others. The wilder Binjhw&#257;rs of the forests will not accept cooked food
+from any other caste, but those who live in association with Hindus will take it when cooked without water from a few of the
+higher ones. The tribe are not considered as impure. Their dress is very simple, consisting as a rule only of one dirty white
+piece of cloth in the case of both men and women. Their hair is unkempt, and they neither oil nor comb it. A genuine Binjhw&#257;r
+of the hills wears long frizzled hair with long beard and moustaches, but in the open country they cut their hair and shave
+the chin. Every Binjhw&#257;r woman is tattooed either before or just after her marriage, when she has attained to the age of adolescence.
+A man will not touch or accept food from a woman who is not tattooed on the feet. The expenses must be paid either by the
+woman&#8217;s parents or her brothers and not by her husband. The practice is carried to an extreme, and many <a id="d0e8990"></a><span class="pagenum">[<a href="#d0e8990">336</a>]</span>women have the upper part of the chest, the arms from shoulder to wrist, and the feet and legs up to the knee covered with
+devices. On the chest and arms the patterns are in the shape of flowers and leaves, while along the leg a succession of zigzag
+lines are pricked. The Binjhw&#257;rs are usually cultivators and labourers, while, as already stated, several zam&#299;nd&#257;ri and other
+estates are owned by members of the tribe. Binjhw&#257;rs also commonly hold the office of Jh&#257;nkar or priest of the village gods
+in the Sambalpur District, as the Baigas do in Mandla and B&#257;l&#257;gh&#257;t. In Sambalpur the Jh&#257;nkar or village priest is a universal
+and recognised village servant of fairly high status. His business is to conduct the worship of the local deities of the soil,
+crops, forests and hills, and he generally has a substantial holding, rent free, containing some of the best land in the village.
+It is said locally that the Jh&#257;nkar is looked on as the founder of the village, and the representative of the old owners who
+were ousted by the Hindus. He worships on their behalf the indigenous deities, with whom he naturally possesses a more intimate
+acquaintance than the later immigrants; while the gods of these latter cannot be relied on to exercise a sufficient control
+over the works of nature in the foreign land to which they have been imported, or to ensure that the earth and the seasons
+will regularly perform their necessary functions in producing sustenance for mankind.
+
+
+
+<a id="d0e8992"></a><span class="pagenum">[<a href="#d0e8992">337</a>]</span></p>
+</div>
+<div class="footnotes">
+<hr class="fnsep">
+<p class="footnote"><span class="label"><a id="d0e8886" href="#d0e8886src" class="noteref">1</a></span> This article is based on a paper by Mr. Mi&#257;n Bhai Abdul Hussain, Extra Assistant Commissioner, Sambalpur.
+</p>
+<p class="footnote"><span class="label"><a id="d0e8897" href="#d0e8897src" class="noteref">2</a></span> <i>Bassia latifolia</i>.
+</p>
+</div>
+</div>
+<div id="d0e8993" class="div1"><span class="pagenum">
+[<a href="#d0e111">Contents</a>]
+</span><h2>Bishnoi</h2>
+<h3>List of Paragraphs</h3>
+<ul>
+<li><a href="#d0e9044">1. Origin of the sect.</a></li>
+<li><a href="#d0e9070">2. Precepts of Jh&#257;mb&#257;ji.</a></li>
+<li><a href="#d0e9090">3. Customs of the Bishnois in the Punjab.</a></li>
+<li><a href="#d0e9100">4. Initiation and baptism.</a></li>
+<li><a href="#d0e9127">5. Nature of the sect.</a></li>
+<li><a href="#d0e9137">6. Bishnois in the Central Provinces.</a></li>
+<li><a href="#d0e9162">7. Marriage.</a></li>
+<li><a href="#d0e9172">8. Disposal of the dead.</a></li>
+<li><a href="#d0e9177">9. Development into a caste.</a></li>
+</ul>
+<div class="div2" id="d0e9044">
+<h3>1. Origin of the sect.</h3>
+<p><b>Bishnoi.</b><a id="d0e9050src" href="#d0e9050" class="noteref">1</a>&#8212;A Hindu sect which has now developed into a caste. The sect was founded in the Punjab, and the Bishnois are immigrants from
+northern India. In the Central Provinces they numbered about 1100 persons in 1911, nearly all of whom belonged to the Hoshang&#257;b&#257;d
+District. The best description of the sect is contained in Mr. Wilson&#8217;s <i>Sirsa Settlement Report</i> (quoted in Sir E. Maclagan&#8217;s <i>Census Report of the Punjab</i> for 1891), from which the following details are taken: &#8220;The name Bishnoi means a worshipper of Vishnu. The founder of the
+sect was a Panw&#257;r R&#257;jp&#363;t named Jh&#257;mb&#257;ji, who was born in a village of Bikaner State in <span class="smallcaps">A.D.</span> 1451. His father had hitherto remained childless, and being greatly oppressed by this misfortune had been promised a son
+by a Muhammadan Fak&#299;r. After nine months Jh&#257;mb&#257;ji was born and showed his miraculous origin in various ways, such as producing
+sweets from nothing for the delectation of his companions. Until he was thirty-four years old he spoke no word and was employed
+in tending his father&#8217;s cattle. At this time a Br&#257;hman was sent for to get him to speak, and on confessing his failure, Jh&#257;mb&#257;ji
+showed his power by lighting a <a id="d0e9065"></a><span class="pagenum">[<a href="#d0e9065">338</a>]</span>lamp with a snap of his fingers and spoke his first word. He adopted the life of a teacher and went to reside on a sandhill
+some thirty miles south of Bikaner. In 1485 a fearful famine desolated the country, and Jh&#257;mb&#257;ji gained an enormous number
+of disciples by providing food for all who would declare their belief in him. He is said to have died on his sandhill at the
+good old age of eighty-four, and to have been buried at a spot about a mile distant from it. A further account says that his
+body remained suspended for six months in the bier without decomposing. His name Jh&#257;mb&#257;ji was a contraction of Achambha (The
+Wonder), with the honorific suffix <i>ji</i>.
+
+
+</p>
+</div>
+<div class="div2" id="d0e9070">
+<h3>2. Precepts of Jh&#257;mb&#257;ji.</h3>
+<p>&#8220;The sayings (<i>shabd</i>) of Jh&#257;mb&#257;ji, to the number of one hundred and twenty, were recorded by his disciples, and have been handed down in a book
+(<i>pothi</i>) which is written in the N&#257;gari character, and in a Hindu dialect similar to B&#257;gri and therefore probably a dialect of R&#257;jasth&#257;ni.
+The following is a translation of the twenty-nine precepts given by him for the guidance of his followers: &#8216;For thirty days
+after childbirth and five days after a menstrual discharge a woman must not cook food. Bathe in the morning. Commit no adultery.
+Be content. Be abstemious and pure. Strain your drinking-water. Be careful of your speech. Examine your fuel in case any living
+creature be burnt with it. Show pity to living creatures. Keep duty present to your mind as the teacher bade. Do not steal.
+Do not speak evil of others. Do not tell lies. Never quarrel. Avoid opium, tobacco, <i>bh&#257;ng</i> and blue clothing. Flee from spirits and flesh. See that your goats are kept alive (not sold to Musalm&#257;ns, who will kill
+them for food). Do not plough with bullocks. Keep a fast on the day before the new moon. Do not cut green trees. Sacrifice
+with fire. Say prayers; meditate. Perform worship and attain heaven.&#8217; And the last of the twenty-nine duties prescribed by
+the teacher: &#8216;Baptise your children if you would be called a true Bishnoi.&#8217;<a id="d0e9084src" href="#d0e9084" class="noteref">2</a>
+
+
+</p>
+</div>
+<div class="div2" id="d0e9090">
+<h3>3. Customs of the Bishnois in the Punjab.</h3>
+<p>&#8220;Some of these precepts are not strictly obeyed. For <a id="d0e9095"></a><span class="pagenum">[<a href="#d0e9095">339</a>]</span>instance, though ordinarily they allow no blue in their clothing, yet a Bishnoi, if he is a police constable, is allowed to
+wear a blue uniform; and Bishnois do use bullocks, though most of their farming is done with camels. They also seem to be
+generally quarrelsome (in words) and given to use bad language. But they abstain from tobacco, drugs and spirits, and are
+noted for their regard for animal life, which is such that not only will they not themselves kill any living creature, but
+they do their utmost to prevent others from doing so. Consequently their villages are generally swarming with antelope and
+other animals, and they forbid their Musalm&#257;n neighbours to kill them, and try to dissuade European sportsmen from interfering
+with them. They wanted to make it a condition of their settlement that no one should be allowed to shoot on their land, but
+at the same time they asked that they might be assessed at lower rates than their neighbours, on the ground that the antelope,
+being thus left undisturbed, did more damage to their crops; but I told them that this would lessen the merit (<i>pun</i>) of their actions in protecting the animals, and they must be treated just as the surrounding villages were. They consider
+it a good deed to scatter grain to pigeons and other birds, and often have a large number of half-tame birds about their villages.
+The day before the new moon (Am&#257;was) they observe as a Sabbath and fast-day, doing no work in the fields or in the house.
+They bathe and pray three times a day, in the morning, afternoon and evening, saying &#8216;Bishnu! Bishnu!&#8217; instead of the ordinary
+Hindu &#8216;R&#257;m! R&#257;m.&#8217; Their clothing is the same as that of other B&#257;gris, except that their women do not allow the waist to be
+seen, and are fond of wearing black woollen clothing. They are more particular about ceremonial purity than ordinary Hindus
+are, and it is a common saying that if a Bishnoi&#8217;s food is on the first of a string of twenty camels and a man of another
+caste touches the last camel of the string, the Bishnoi would consider his food defiled and throw it away.&#8221;
+
+
+</p>
+</div>
+<div class="div2" id="d0e9100">
+<h3>4. Initiation and baptism.</h3>
+<p>The ceremony of initiation is as follows: &#8220;A number of representative Bishnois assemble, and before them a S&#257;dh or Bishnoi
+priest, after lighting a sacrificial fire (<i>hom</i>), instructs the novice in the duties of the faith. He then <a id="d0e9108"></a><span class="pagenum">[<a href="#d0e9108">340</a>]</span>takes some water in a new earthen vessel, over which he prays in a set form (<i>Bishno g&#257;yatri</i>), stirring it the while with his string of beads (<i>m&#257;la</i>), and after asking the consent of the assembled Bishnois he pours the water three times into the hands of the novice, who
+drinks it off. The novice&#8217;s scalp-lock (<i>choti</i>) is then cut off and his head shaved, for the Bishnois shave the whole head and do not leave a scalp-lock like the Hindus,
+but they allow the beard to grow, only shaving the chin on the father&#8217;s death. Infant baptism is also practised, and thirty
+days after birth the child, whether boy or girl, is baptised by the priest (S&#257;dh) in much the same way as an adult; only the
+set form of prayer is different, and the priest pours a few drops of water into the child&#8217;s mouth, and gives the child&#8217;s relatives
+each three handfuls of the consecrated water to drink; at the same time the barber clips off the child&#8217;s hair. The baptismal
+ceremony has the effect of purifying the house, which has been made impure by the birth (<i>s&#363;tak</i>).
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;The Bishnois do not revere Br&#257;hmans, but have priests of their own known as S&#257;dh, who are chosen from among the laity. The
+priests are a hereditary class, and do not intermarry with other Bishnois, from whom, like Br&#257;hmans, they receive food and
+offerings. The Bishnois do not burn their dead, but bury them below the cattle-shed or in some place like a pen frequented
+by cattle. They make pilgrimages to the place where Jh&#257;mb&#257;ji is buried to the south of Bikaner; here a tomb and temple have
+been erected to his memory, and gatherings are held twice a year. The sect observe the Holi in a different way from other
+Hindus. After sunset on that day they fast till the next forenoon when, after hearing read the account of how Prahl&#257;d was
+tortured by his infidel father, Hrianya Kasipu, for believing in the god Vishnu, until he was delivered by the god himself
+in his incarnation of Narsingh, the Man-lion, and mourning over Prahl&#257;d&#8217;s sufferings, they light a sacrificial fire and partake
+of consecrated water, and after distributing sugar (<i>gur</i>) in commemoration of Prahl&#257;d&#8217;s delivery from the fire into which he was thrown, they break their fast.&#8221;
+
+
+</p>
+</div>
+<div class="div2" id="d0e9127">
+<h3>5. Nature of the sect.</h3>
+<p>The above interesting account of the Bishnois by Mr. Wilson shows that Jh&#257;mb&#257;ji was a religious reformer, who <a id="d0e9132"></a><span class="pagenum">[<a href="#d0e9132">341</a>]</span>attempted to break loose from the debased Hindu polytheism and arrogant supremacy of the Br&#257;hmans by choosing one god, Vishnu,
+out of the Hindu pantheon and exalting him into the sole and supreme deity. In his method he thus differed from Kab&#299;r and
+other reformers, who went outside Hinduism altogether, preaching a monotheistic faith with one unseen and nameless deity.
+The case of the M&#257;nbhaos, whose unknown founder made Krishna the one god, discarding the Vedas and the rest of Hinduism, is
+analogous to Jh&#257;mb&#257;ji&#8217;s movement. His creed much resembles that of the other Hindu reformers and founders of the Vaishnavite
+sects. The extreme tenderness for animal life is a characteristic of most of them, and would be fostered by the Hindu belief
+in the transmigration of souls. The prohibition of liquor is another common feature, to which Jh&#257;mb&#257;ji added that of all kinds
+of drugs. His mind, like those of Kab&#299;r and N&#257;nak, was probably influenced by the spectacle of the comparatively liberal creed
+of Isl&#257;m, which had now taken root in northern India. Mr. Crooke remarks that the Bishnois of Bijnor appear to differ from
+those of the Punjab in using the Muhammadan form of salutation, <i>Sal&#257;m alaikum</i>, and the title of Shaikhji. They account for this by saying they murdered a Muhammadan K&#257;zi, who prevented them from burning
+a widow, and were glad to compound the offence by pretending to adopt Isl&#257;m. But it seems possible that on their first rupture
+with Hinduism they were to some extent drawn towards the Muhammadans, and adopted practices of which, on tending again to
+conform to their old religion, they have subsequently become ashamed.
+
+
+</p>
+</div>
+<div class="div2" id="d0e9137">
+<h3>6. Bishnois in the Central Provinces.</h3>
+<p>In northern India the members of different castes who have become Bishnois have formed separate endogamous groups, of which
+Mr. Crooke gives nine; among these are the Br&#257;hman, Bania, J&#257;t, Sun&#257;r, Ah&#299;r and Nai Bishnois. Only members of comparatively
+good castes appear to have been admitted into the community, and in the Punjab they are nearly all J&#257;ts and Banias. In the
+Central Provinces the caste forms only one endogamous group. They have <i>gotras</i> or exogamous sections, the names of which appear to be of the titular or territorial type. Some of the <i>gotras</i>, <a id="d0e9148"></a><span class="pagenum">[<a href="#d0e9148">342</a>]</span>Jhuria, Ajna, Sain and Ah&#299;r,<a id="d0e9150src" href="#d0e9150" class="noteref">3</a> are considered to be lower than the others, and though they are not debarred from intermarriage, a connection with them is
+looked upon as something of a <i>m&eacute;salliance</i>. They are not consulted in the settlement of tribal disputes. No explanation of the comparatively degraded position of these
+septs is forthcoming, but it may probably be attributed to some blot in their ancestral escutcheon. The Bishnois celebrate
+their marriages at any period of the year, and place no reliance on astrology. According to their saying, &#8220;Every day is as
+good as Sankr&#257;nt,<a id="d0e9156src" href="#d0e9156" class="noteref">4</a> every day is as good as Am&#257;was.<a id="d0e9159src" href="#d0e9159" class="noteref">5</a> The Ganges flows every day, and he whose preceptor has taught him the most truth will get the most good from bathing in it.&#8221;
+
+
+</p>
+</div>
+<div class="div2" id="d0e9162">
+<h3>7. Marriage.</h3>
+<p>Before a wedding the bride&#8217;s father sends, by the barber, a cocoanut and a silver ring tied round it with a yellow thread.
+On the thread are seven, nine, eleven or thirteen knots, signifying the number of days to elapse before the ceremony. The
+barber on his arrival stands outside the door of the house, and the bridegroom&#8217;s father sends round to all the families of
+his caste. The men go to the house and the women come singing to the barber, and rub turmeric on the boy. A married woman
+touches the cocoanut and waves a lighted lamp seven times round the bridegroom&#8217;s head. This is meant to scare off evil spirits.
+On arrival at the bride&#8217;s village the bridegroom touches the marriage-shed with the branch of a <i>ber</i> or wild plum tree. The mother of the bride gives him some sugar, rubs lamp-black on his eyes and twists his nose. The bride
+and bridegroom are seated side by side on wooden boards, and after the caste priest (S&#257;dh) has chanted some sacred verses,
+water is poured nine times on to the palms of the bridegroom, and he drinks it. They do not perform the ceremony of walking
+round the sacred pole. Girls are usually married at a very early age, sometimes when they are only a few months old. Subsequently,
+when the bridegroom <a id="d0e9170"></a><span class="pagenum">[<a href="#d0e9170">343</a>]</span>comes to take his bride, her family present her with clothing and a spinning-wheel, this implement being still in favour among
+the Bishnois. When a widow is to be married again she is taken to her new husband&#8217;s house at night, and there grinds a flour-mill
+five times, being afterwards presented with lac bangles.
+
+
+</p>
+</div>
+<div class="div2" id="d0e9172">
+<h3>8. Disposal of the dead.</h3>
+<p>The dead are never burnt, but their bodies are weighted with sand-bags and thrown into a stream. The practice which formerly
+prevailed among the Bishnois of burying their dead in the courtyard of the house by the cattle-stalls has now fallen into
+desuetude as being insanitary. A red cloth is spread over the body of a woman, and if her maternal relatives are present each
+of them places a piece of cloth on the bier. After the funeral the mourning party proceed to a river to bathe, and then cook
+and eat their food on the bank. This custom is also followed by the Panw&#257;r R&#257;jp&#363;ts of the Wainganga Valley, but is forbidden
+by most of the good Hindu castes. No period of impurity is observed after a death, but on some day between the fourth and
+tenth days afterwards a feast is given to the caste-fellows.
+
+
+</p>
+</div>
+<div class="div2" id="d0e9177">
+<h3>9. Development into a caste.</h3>
+<p>The Bishnois of the Central Provinces are gradually becoming an ordinary Hindu caste, a fate which has several times befallen
+the adherents of Hindu reformers. Many of the precepts of Jh&#257;mb&#257;ji are neglected. They still usually strain their water and
+examine their fuel before burning it to remove insects, and they scatter flour to feed the ants and grain for peacocks and
+pigeons. The wearing of blue cloth is avoided by most, blue being for an obscure reason a somewhat unlucky colour among the
+Hindus. But they now use bullocks for ploughing, and cut green trees except on the Am&#257;was day. Many of them, especially the
+younger generation, have begun to grow the Hindu <i>choti</i> or scalp-lock. They go on pilgrimage to all the Hindu sacred places, and no doubt make presents there to Br&#257;hman priests.
+They offer <i>pindas</i> or sacrificial cakes to the spirits of their deceased ancestors. They observe some of the ordinary Hindu festivals, as the
+Anant Chaturthi, and some of them employ Br&#257;hmans to read the Satya N&#257;r&#257;yan Katha, the favourite Hindu sacred book. They still
+retain their special <a id="d0e9188"></a><span class="pagenum">[<a href="#d0e9188">344</a>]</span>observance of the Holi. The admission of proselytes has practically ceased, and they marry among themselves like an ordinary
+Hindu caste, in which light they are gradually coming to be regarded. The Bishnois are usually cultivators or moneylenders
+by calling.
+
+
+
+<a id="d0e9190"></a><span class="pagenum">[<a href="#d0e9190">345</a>]</span></p>
+</div>
+<div class="footnotes">
+<hr class="fnsep">
+<p class="footnote"><span class="label"><a id="d0e9050" href="#d0e9050src" class="noteref">1</a></span> This article is compiled from Mr. Wilson&#8217;s account of the Bishnois as reproduced in Mr. Crooke&#8217;s <i>Tribes and Castes</i>, and from notes taken by Mr. Adur&#257;m Chaudhri in the Hoshang&#257;b&#257;d District.
+</p>
+<p class="footnote"><span class="label"><a id="d0e9084" href="#d0e9084src" class="noteref">2</a></span> The total number of precepts as given above is only twenty-five, but can be raised to twenty-nine by counting the prohibition
+of opium, tobacco, <i>bh&#257;ng</i>, blue clothing, spirits and flesh separately.
+</p>
+<p class="footnote"><span class="label"><a id="d0e9150" href="#d0e9150src" class="noteref">3</a></span> Jhuria may be Jharia, jungly; Sain is a term applied to beggars; the Ah&#299;r or herdsman sept may be descended from a man of
+this caste who became a Bishnoi.
+</p>
+<p class="footnote"><span class="label"><a id="d0e9156" href="#d0e9156src" class="noteref">4</a></span> The day when the sun passes from one zodiacal sign into another.
+</p>
+<p class="footnote"><span class="label"><a id="d0e9159" href="#d0e9159src" class="noteref">5</a></span> The New Moon day or the day before.
+</p>
+</div>
+</div>
+<div id="d0e9191" class="div1"><span class="pagenum">
+[<a href="#d0e111">Contents</a>]
+</span><h2>Bohra</h2>
+<h3>List of Paragraphs</h3>
+<ul>
+<li><a href="#d0e9232">1. Origin of the sect.</a></li>
+<li><a href="#d0e9267">2. Their religious tenets.</a></li>
+<li><a href="#d0e9287">3. The Mullahs.</a></li>
+<li><a href="#d0e9300">4. Bohra graveyards.</a></li>
+<li><a href="#d0e9315">5. Religious customs.</a></li>
+<li><a href="#d0e9336">6. Occupation.</a></li>
+<li><a href="#d0e9355">7. Houses and dress.</a></li>
+</ul>
+<div class="div2" id="d0e9232">
+<h3>1. Origin of the sect.</h3>
+<p><b>Bohra, Bohora.</b><a id="d0e9238src" href="#d0e9238" class="noteref">1</a>&#8212;A Muhammadan caste of traders who come from Gujar&#257;t and speak Gujar&#257;ti. At the last census they numbered nearly 5000 persons,
+residing principally in the Nim&#257;r, N&#257;gpur and Amraoti Districts, Burh&#257;npur being the headquarters of the sect in the Central
+Provinces. The name is probably derived from the Hindi <i>byoh&#257;ra</i>, a trader. Members of the caste are honorifically addressed as Mull&#257;ji. According to the received account of the rise of
+the Bohras in Gujar&#257;t a missionary, Abdulla, came from Yemen to Cambay in <span class="smallcaps">A.D.</span> 1067. By his miracles he converted the great king Sidhr&#257;j of Anhilv&#257;da P&#257;tan in Gujar&#257;t, and he with numbers of his subjects
+embraced the new faith. For two centuries and a half the Bohras flourished, but with the establishment of Muzaffar Sh&#257;h&#8217;s
+power (<span class="smallcaps">A.D.</span> 1390&#8211;1413) in that country the spread of Sunni doctrines was encouraged and the Bohra and other Shia sects suppressed. Since
+then, with gradually lessening numbers, they have passed through several bitter persecutions, meeting with little favour or
+protection, till at the close of the eighteenth century they found shelter under British rule. In 1539 the members of the
+sect living in Arabia were expelled from there and came to Gujar&#257;t, where they were hospitably received by their brethren,
+the headquarters of the sect being thenceforward <a id="d0e9253"></a><span class="pagenum">[<a href="#d0e9253">346</a>]</span>fixed at Surat. The Bohras are Shias of the great Ismailia sect of Egypt. The Ismailia sect split off from the orthodox Shias
+on the question of the succession to the sixth Im&#257;m, J&#257;far S&#257;dik, in <span class="smallcaps">A.D.</span> 765. The dispute was between his eldest son&#8217;s son Ismail and his second son Musi, the Ismailias being those who supported
+the former and the orthodox Shias the latter. The orthodox Shias are distinguished as believers in twelve Im&#257;ms, the last
+of whom is still to come. The Ismailias again divided on a similar dispute as to the succession to the Khal&#299;fa Almustansir
+Billah by his eldest son Naz&#257;r or his younger son Almusta&#257;li. The Bohras are descended from the Musta&#257;lians or supporters
+of the younger son and the Khojas from the Naz&#257;rians who supported the elder son.<a id="d0e9258src" href="#d0e9258" class="noteref">2</a> All these distinctions appear somewhat trivial.
+
+
+</p>
+<div id="d0e9263" class="figure"><img border="0" src="images/p346.jpg" alt="Group of Bohras at Burh&#257;npur (Nim&#257;r)." width="720" height="399"><p class="figureHead">Group of Bohras at Burh&#257;npur (Nim&#257;r).</p>
+</div><p>
+
+
+
+</p>
+</div>
+<div class="div2" id="d0e9267">
+<h3>2. Their religious tenets.</h3>
+<p>Gujar&#257;t contains two classes of Bohras: the traders who are all Shias and are the only immigrants into the Central Provinces,
+and a large class of cultivating Bohras who are Sunnis. The latter may be the descendants of the earliest converts and may
+have been forced to become Sunnis when this sect was dominant in Gujar&#257;t as noticed above, while the Shias are perhaps descended
+from the later immigrants from Arabia. The Shia Bohras themselves are further divided into several sects of which the D&#257;udi
+are the principal.
+
+</p>
+<p>Mr. Far&#299;di writes of them:<a id="d0e9274src" href="#d0e9274" class="noteref">3</a> &#8220;They are attentive to their religious duties, both men and women knowing the Kor&#257;n. They are careful to say their prayers,
+to observe Muharram as a season of mourning and to go on pilgrimage to Mecca and Kerbala. They strictly abstain from music
+and dancing and from using or dealing in intoxicating drinks or drugs. Though fierce sectarians, keenly hating and hated by
+the regular Sunnis and other Muhammadans than those of their own sect, their reverence for Ali and for their high priest seems
+to be further removed from adoration than among the Khojahs. They would appear to accept the ordinary distinctions of right
+and wrong, punishing drunkenness, adultery and other acts generally considered <a id="d0e9279"></a><span class="pagenum">[<a href="#d0e9279">347</a>]</span>disgraceful. Of the state beyond death they hold that, after passing a time of freedom as evil spirits, unbelievers go to
+a place of torment. Believers, but apparently only believers of the Ismaili faith, after a term of training enter a state
+of perfection. Among the faithful each disembodied spirit passes the term of training in communion with the soul of some good
+man. The spirit can suggest good or evil to the man and may learn from his good deeds to love the right; when the good man
+dies the spirits in communion with his soul are, if they have gained by their training, attached to some more perfect man,
+or if they have lost by their opportunities are sent back to learn; spirits raised to a higher degree of knowledge are placed
+in communion with the High Priest on earth; and on his death are with him united to the Im&#257;ms, and when through the Im&#257;ms
+they have learnt what they still require to know they are absorbed in perfection. Except for some peculiarities in their names;
+that they attach special importance to circumcision; that the sacrifice or <i>alsikah</i> ceremony is held in the Mullah&#8217;s house; that at marriage the bride and bridegroom when not of age are represented by sponsors
+or <i>walis</i>; that at death a prayer for pity on his soul and body is laid in the dead man&#8217;s hands; and that on certain occasions the
+High Priest feeds the whole community&#8212;Bohra customs do not so far as has been ascertained differ from those of ordinary Muhammadans.
+
+
+</p>
+</div>
+<div class="div2" id="d0e9287">
+<h3>3. The Mullahs.</h3>
+<p>&#8220;Their leader, both in things religious and social, is the head Mullah of Surat. The ruling Mullah names his successor, generally,
+but it is said not always, from among the members of his own family. Short of worship the head Mullah is treated with the
+greatest respect. He lives in much state and entertains with the most profuse liberality. On both religious and civil questions
+his authority is final. Discipline is enforced in religious matters by fine, and in case of adultery, drunkenness and other
+offences, by fine, excommunication and rarely by flogging. On ceremonial occasions the head Mullah sits on his throne, and
+in token of his power has the flyflapper, <i>chauri</i>, held before him. As the Bohras enter they make three prostrations, <i>salaams</i>, close their hands and stand before him. To such as are worthy <a id="d0e9298"></a><span class="pagenum">[<a href="#d0e9298">348</a>]</span>he says &#8216;Be seated,&#8217; to others &#8216;Stand.&#8217; Once a year, on the 18th Rajjab, every D&#257;udi lays his palm within the head Mullah&#8217;s
+hand and takes an oath to be faithful. On this day when he goes to the mosque the Bohras are said to kiss the Mullah&#8217;s footsteps
+and to apply the dust he treads to their heads and eyes.&#8221; Each considerable settlement of the sect has a deputy Mullah of
+its own.
+
+
+</p>
+</div>
+<div class="div2" id="d0e9300">
+<h3>4. Bohra graveyards.</h3>
+<p>The Sahadra or burial-place of the Bohras at Burh&#257;npur contains the tombs of three of the Surat Mullahs who happened to die
+when they were at Burh&#257;npur. The tombs are in shell-lime and are fairly handsome erections. The Bohras support here by voluntary
+subscription a rest-house, where members of the sect coming to the city can obtain free board and lodging for as long as they
+like to stay. Mr. Conolly says of their graveyards:<a id="d0e9305src" href="#d0e9305" class="noteref">4</a>
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Their burial-grounds have a pleasing appearance, the tombs being regularly arranged in streets, east and west. The tombs
+themselves, which are, of course, north and south, the corpse resting on its right side, differ in no respect from those of
+Sunnis, with the exception of a small <i>chir&#257;gh takia</i> or lamp-socket, cut out of the north face, just like the cavity for the inscription of our own tombs.&#8221;
+
+
+</p>
+</div>
+<div class="div2" id="d0e9315">
+<h3>5. Religious customs.</h3>
+<p>Of their religion Mr. Kitts writes:<a id="d0e9320src" href="#d0e9320" class="noteref">5</a> &#8220;In prayers they differ both from Shias and Sunnis in that they follow their Mullah, praying aloud after him, but without
+much regularity of posture. The times for commencing their devotions are about five minutes later than those observed by Sunnis.
+After the midday and sunset supplications they allow a short interval to elapse, remaining themselves in the mosque meanwhile.
+They then commence the afternoon and evening prayers and thus run five services into three.&#8221;
+
+</p>
+<p>Mr. Thurston notes that the Bohras consider themselves so superior to other sects that if another Muhammadan enters their
+mosque they afterwards clean the spot which he has occupied during his prayers.<a id="d0e9327src" href="#d0e9327" class="noteref">6</a> They show strictness in other ways, making their own sweetmeats at home and declining to eat those of the Halwai (confectioner).
+It is said <a id="d0e9332"></a><span class="pagenum">[<a href="#d0e9332">349</a>]</span>also that they will not have their clothes washed by a Dhobi, nor wear shoes made by a Cham&#257;r, nor take food touched by any
+Hindu. They are said to bathe only on Fridays, and some of them not on every Friday. If a dog touches them they are unclean
+and must change their clothes. They celebrate the Id and Ramaz&#257;n a day before other Muhammadans. At the Muharram their women
+break all their bangles and wear new bangles next day to show that they have been widowed, and during this period they observe
+mourning by going without shoes and not using umbrellas. Mr. Conolly says of them: &#8220;I must not omit to notice that a fine
+of 20 cowries (equally for rich and poor) punishes the non-attendance of a Bohra at the daily prayers. A large sum is exacted
+for remissness during the Ramaz&#257;n, and it is said that the dread of loss operates powerfully upon a class of men who are particularly
+penny-wise. The money collected thus is transmitted by the Ujjain Mullah to his chief at Surat, who devotes it to religious
+purposes such as repairing or building mosques, assisting the needy of his subjects and the like. Several other offences have
+the same characteristic punishment, such as fornication, drunkenness, etc. But the cunning Bohras elude many of the fines
+and daily indulge in practices not sanctioned by their creed; thus in their shops pictures and figures may be purchased though
+it is against the commandments to sell the likeness of any living thing.&#8221;
+
+</p>
+<p>It has been seen that when a Bohra is buried a prayer for pity on his soul and body is laid in the dead man&#8217;s hands, of which
+Mr. Far&#299;di gives the text. But other Muhammadans tell a story to the effect that the head Mullah writes a letter to the archangel
+Gabriel in which he is instructed to supply a stream of honey, a stream of milk, water and some fruit trees, a golden building
+and a number of houris, the extent of the order depending on the amount of money which has been paid to the Mullah by the
+departed in his lifetime; and this letter is placed beneath the dead man&#8217;s head in the grave, the Bohras having no coffins.
+The Bohras indignantly repudiate any such version of the letter, and no doubt if the custom ever existed it has died out.
+
+
+</p>
+</div>
+<div class="div2" id="d0e9336">
+<h3>6. Occupation.</h3>
+<p>The Bohras, Captain Forsyth remarks, though bigoted <a id="d0e9341"></a><span class="pagenum">[<a href="#d0e9341">350</a>]</span>religionists, are certainly the most civilised and enterprising and perhaps also the most industrious class in the Nim&#257;r District.
+They deal generally in hardware, piece-goods and drugs, and are very keen traders. There is a proverb, &#8220;He who is sharper
+than a Bohra must be mad, and he who is fairer than a Khatri must be a leper.&#8221; Some of them are only pedlars and hawkers,
+and in past times their position seems to have been lower than at present. An old account says:<a id="d0e9343src" href="#d0e9343" class="noteref">7</a> &#8220;The Bohras are an inferior set of travelling merchants. The inside of a Bohra&#8217;s box is like that of an English country shop;
+spelling-books, prayer-books, lavender-water, soap, tapes, scissors, knives, needles and thread make but a small part of the
+variety.&#8221; And again: &#8220;In Bombay the Bohras go about the town as the dirty Jews do in London early and late, carrying a bag
+and inviting by the same nasal tone servants and others to fill it with old clothes, empty bottles, scraps of iron, etc.&#8221;<a id="d0e9349src" href="#d0e9349" class="noteref">8</a>
+
+
+</p>
+</div>
+<div class="div2" id="d0e9355">
+<h3>7. Houses and dress.</h3>
+<p>Of their method of living Malcolm wrote:<a id="d0e9360src" href="#d0e9360" class="noteref">9</a> &#8220;I visited several of the houses of this tribe at Sh&#257;hjah&#257;npur, where a colony of them are settled, and was gratified to
+find not only in their apartments, but in the spaciousness and cleanliness of their kitchens, in the well-constructed chimney,
+the neatly arranged pantries, and the polished dishes and plates as much of real comfort in domestic arrangements as could
+be found anywhere. We took the parties we visited by surprise and there could have been no preparation.&#8221; The Bohras do not
+charge interest on loans, and they combine to support indigent members of the community, never allowing one of their caste
+to beg. The caste may easily be known from other Muhammadans by their small, tightly wound turbans and little skull-caps,
+and their long flowing robes, and loose trousers widening from the ankle upwards and gathered in at the waist with a string.
+The women dress in a coloured cotton or silk petticoat, a short-sleeved bodice and a coloured cotton head-scarf. When they
+go out of doors they throw a dark cloak over the head which covers the body to the ankles, with gauze openings for the eyes.
+
+
+
+<a id="d0e9365"></a><span class="pagenum">[<a href="#d0e9365">351</a>]</span></p>
+</div>
+<div class="footnotes">
+<hr class="fnsep">
+<p class="footnote"><span class="label"><a id="d0e9238" href="#d0e9238src" class="noteref">1</a></span> This article is largely based on Mr. F. L. Far&#299;di&#8217;s full description of the sect in the <i>Bombay Gazetteer, Muhammadans of Gujar&#257;t</i>, and on a paper by Mr. Habib Ullah, pleader, Burh&#257;npur.
+</p>
+<p class="footnote"><span class="label"><a id="d0e9258" href="#d0e9258src" class="noteref">2</a></span> <i>Bombay Gazetteer, Muhammadans of Gujar&#257;t</i>, p. 30. Sir H. T. Colebrooke and Mr. Conolly thought that the Bohras were true Shias and not Ismailias.
+</p>
+<p class="footnote"><span class="label"><a id="d0e9274" href="#d0e9274src" class="noteref">3</a></span> <i>Ibidem</i>, pp. 30&#8211;32.
+</p>
+<p class="footnote"><span class="label"><a id="d0e9305" href="#d0e9305src" class="noteref">4</a></span> <i>J.A.S.B.</i> vol. vi. (1837), part ii. p. 847.
+</p>
+<p class="footnote"><span class="label"><a id="d0e9320" href="#d0e9320src" class="noteref">5</a></span> <i>Berar Census Report</i> (1818), p. 70.
+</p>
+<p class="footnote"><span class="label"><a id="d0e9327" href="#d0e9327src" class="noteref">6</a></span> <i>Castes and Tribes of Southern India</i>, art. Bohra.
+</p>
+<p class="footnote"><span class="label"><a id="d0e9343" href="#d0e9343src" class="noteref">7</a></span> Crooke&#8217;s edition of <i>Hobson-Jobson</i>, art. Bohra.
+</p>
+<p class="footnote"><span class="label"><a id="d0e9349" href="#d0e9349src" class="noteref">8</a></span> Moor&#8217;s <i>Hindu Infanticide</i>, p. 168.
+</p>
+<p class="footnote"><span class="label"><a id="d0e9360" href="#d0e9360src" class="noteref">9</a></span> <i>Memoir of Central India</i>, ii. p. 111.
+</p>
+</div>
+</div>
+<div id="d0e9366" class="div1"><span class="pagenum">
+[<a href="#d0e111">Contents</a>]
+</span><h2>Br&#257;hman<a id="d0e9369src" href="#d0e9369" class="noteref">1</a></h2>
+<h3>List of Paragraphs</h3>
+<ul>
+<li><a href="#d0e9536">1. Origin and development of the caste.</a></li>
+<li><a href="#d0e9572">2. Their monopoly of literature.</a></li>
+<li><a href="#d0e9588">3. Absence of central authority.</a></li>
+<li><a href="#d0e9593">4. Mixed elements in the caste.</a></li>
+<li><a href="#d0e9628">5. Caste subdivisions.</a></li>
+<li><a href="#d0e9730">6. Miscellaneous groups.</a></li>
+<li><a href="#d0e9737">7. Sectarian divisions.</a></li>
+<li><a href="#d0e9744">8. Exogamy.</a></li>
+<li><a href="#d0e9757">9. Restrictions on marriage.</a></li>
+<li><a href="#d0e9787">10. Hypergamy.</a></li>
+<li><a href="#d0e9809">11. Marriage customs.</a></li>
+<li><a href="#d0e9836">12. Polygamy, divorce and treatment of widows.</a></li>
+<li><a href="#d0e9843">13. <i>Sati</i> or burning of widows.</a></li>
+<li><a href="#d0e9915">14. Funeral rites and mourning.</a></li>
+<li><a href="#d0e9947">15. Religion.</a></li>
+<li><a href="#d0e9960">16. Daily ritual.</a></li>
+<li><a href="#d0e10025">17. The sacred thread.</a></li>
+<li><a href="#d0e10041">18. Social position.</a></li>
+<li><a href="#d0e10062">19. Titles.</a></li>
+<li><a href="#d0e10067">20. Caste <i>panch&#257;yat</i> and offences.</a></li>
+<li><a href="#d0e10090">21. Rules about food.</a></li>
+<li><a href="#d0e10100">22. Dress.</a></li>
+<li><a href="#d0e10113">23. Tattooing.</a></li>
+<li><a href="#d0e10118">24. Occupation.</a></li>
+<li><a href="#d0e10143">25. Character of Br&#257;hmans.</a></li>
+</ul>
+<h3>List of Subordinate Articles on Subcastes</h3>
+<ul>
+<li><a href="#d0e9536">1. Origin and development of the caste.</a></li>
+<li><a href="#d0e9572">2. Their monopoly of literature.</a></li>
+<li><a href="#d0e9588">3. Absence of central authority.</a></li>
+<li><a href="#d0e9593">4. Mixed elements in the caste.</a></li>
+<li><a href="#d0e9628">5. Caste subdivisions.</a></li>
+<li><a href="#d0e9730">6. Miscellaneous groups.</a></li>
+<li><a href="#d0e9737">7. Sectarian divisions.</a></li>
+<li><a href="#d0e9744">8. Exogamy.</a></li>
+<li><a href="#d0e9757">9. Restrictions on marriage.</a></li>
+<li><a href="#d0e9787">10. Hypergamy.</a></li>
+<li><a href="#d0e9809">11. Marriage customs.</a></li>
+<li><a href="#d0e9836">12. Polygamy, divorce and treatment of widows.</a></li>
+<li><a href="#d0e9843">13. <i>Sati</i> or burning of widows.</a></li>
+<li><a href="#d0e9915">14. Funeral rites and mourning.</a></li>
+<li><a href="#d0e9947">15. Religion.</a></li>
+<li><a href="#d0e9960">16. Daily ritual.</a></li>
+<li><a href="#d0e10025">17. The sacred thread.</a></li>
+<li><a href="#d0e10041">18. Social position.</a></li>
+<li><a href="#d0e10062">19. Titles.</a></li>
+<li><a href="#d0e10067">20. Caste <i>panch&#257;yat</i> and offences.</a></li>
+<li><a href="#d0e10090">21. Rules about food.</a></li>
+<li><a href="#d0e10100">22. Dress.</a></li>
+<li><a href="#d0e10113">23. Tattooing.</a></li>
+<li><a href="#d0e10118">24. Occupation.</a></li>
+<li><a href="#d0e10143">25. Character of Br&#257;hmans.</a></li>
+</ul>
+<div class="div2" id="d0e9536">
+<h3>1. Origin and development of the caste.</h3>
+<p><b>Br&#257;hman, B&#257;man.</b>&#8212;The well-known priestly caste of India and the first of the four traditional castes of the Hindu scriptures. In 1911 the
+Br&#257;hmans numbered about 450,000 persons in the Central Provinces and Ber&#257;r, or <a id="d0e9543"></a><span class="pagenum">[<a href="#d0e9543">352</a>]</span>nearly 3 per cent of the population. This is less than the average strength for India as a whole, which is about 4&frac12; per cent.
+The caste is spread over the whole Province, but is in greatest numbers in proportion to the population in Saugor and Jubbulpore,
+and weakest in the Feudatory States.
+
+</p>
+<p>The name Br&#257;hman or Brahma is said to be from the root <i>brih</i> or <i>vrih</i>, to increase. The god Brahma is considered as the spirit and soul of the universe, the divine essence and source of all being.
+Br&#257;hmana, the masculine numerative singular, originally denoted one who prays, a worshipper or the composer or reciter of
+a hymn.<a id="d0e9553src" href="#d0e9553" class="noteref">2</a> It is the common term used in the Vedas for the officiating priest. Sir H. Risley remarks on the origin of the caste:<a id="d0e9562src" href="#d0e9562" class="noteref">3</a> &#8220;The best modern opinion seems disposed to find the germ of the Br&#257;hman caste in the bards, ministers and family priests
+who were attached to the king&#8217;s household in Vedic times. Different stages of this institution may be observed. In the earliest
+ages the head of every Aryan household was his own priest, and even a king would himself perform the sacrifices which were
+appropriate to his rank. By degrees families or guilds of priestly singers arose, who sought service under the kings, and
+were rewarded by rich presents for the hymns or praise and prayer recited and sacrifices offered by them on behalf of their
+masters. As time went on the sacrifices became more numerous and more elaborate, and the mass of ritual grew to such an extent
+that the king could no longer cope with it unaided. The employment of <i>purohits</i> or family priests, formerly optional, now became a sacred duty if the sacrifices were not to fall into disuse. The Br&#257;hman
+obtained a monopoly of priestly functions, and a race of sacerdotal specialists arose which tended continually to close its
+ranks against the intrusion of outsiders.&#8221; Gradually then from the household priests and those who made it their business
+to commit to memory and recite the sacred hymns and verses handed down orally from generation to generation through this agency,
+an <a id="d0e9570"></a><span class="pagenum">[<a href="#d0e9570">353</a>]</span>occupational caste emerged, which arrogated to itself the monopoly of these functions, and the doctrine developed that nobody
+could perform them who was not qualified by birth, that is, nobody could be a Br&#257;hman who was not the son of a Br&#257;hman. When
+religious ritual became more important, as apparently it did, a desire would naturally arise among the priests to make their
+revered and lucrative profession a hereditary monopoly; and this they were easily and naturally able to do by only teaching
+the sacred songs and the sacrificial rules and procedure to their own descendants. The process indeed would be to a considerable
+extent automatic, because the priests would always take their own sons for their pupils in the first place, and in the circumstances
+of early Indian society a married priesthood would thus naturally evolve into a hereditary caste. The Levites among the Jews
+and the priests of the P&#257;rsis formed similar hereditary orders, and the reason why they did not arise in other great religions
+would appear to have been the prescription or encouragement of the rule of celibacy for the clergy and the foundation of monasteries,
+to which admission was free. But the military landed aristocracies of Europe practically formed hereditary castes which were
+analogous to the Br&#257;hman and R&#257;jp&#363;t castes, though of a less stereotyped and primitive character. The rise of the Br&#257;hman
+caste was thus perhaps a comparatively simple and natural product of religious and social evolution, and might have occurred
+independently of the development of the caste system as a whole. The former might be accounted for by reasons which would
+be inadequate to explain the latter, even though as a matter of fact the same factors were at work in both cases.
+
+
+</p>
+</div>
+<div class="div2" id="d0e9572">
+<h3>2. Their monopoly of literature.</h3>
+<p>The hereditary monopoly of the sacred scriptures would be strengthened and made absolute when the Sanskrit language, in which
+they had been composed and handed down, ceased to be the ordinary spoken language of the people. Nobody then could learn them
+unless he was taught by a Br&#257;hman priest. And by keeping the sacred literature in an unknown language the priesthood made
+their own position absolutely secure and got into their own hands the allocation of the penalties and rewards promised <a id="d0e9577"></a><span class="pagenum">[<a href="#d0e9577">354</a>]</span>by religion, for which these books were the authority, that is to say, the disposal of the souls of Hindus in the afterlife.
+They, in fact, held the keys of heaven and hell. The jealousy with which they guarded them is well shown by the Abb&eacute; Dubois:<a id="d0e9579src" href="#d0e9579" class="noteref">4</a> &#8220;To the Br&#257;hmans alone belongs the right of reading the Vedas, and they are so jealous of this, or rather it is so much to
+their interest to prevent other castes obtaining any insight into their contents, that the Br&#257;hmans have inculcated the absurd
+theory, which is implicitly believed, that should anybody of any other caste be so highly imprudent as even to read the title-page
+his head would immediately split in two. The very few Br&#257;hmans who are able to read those sacred books in the original, only
+do so in secret and in a whisper. Expulsion from caste, without the smallest hope of re-entering it, would be the lightest
+punishment of a Br&#257;hman who exposed those books to the eyes of the profane.&#8221; It would probably be unfair, however, to suppose
+that the Vedas were kept in the original Sanskrit simply from motives of policy. It was probably thought that the actual words
+of the sacred text had themselves a concrete force and potency which would be lost in a translation. This is the idea underlying
+the whole class of beliefs in the virtue of charms and spells.
+
+</p>
+<p>But the Br&#257;hmans had the monopoly not only of the sacred Sanskrit literature, but practically of any kind of literacy or education.
+They were for long the only literate section of the people. Subsequently two other castes learnt to read and write in response
+to an economic demand, the K&#257;yasths and the Banias. The K&#257;yasths, it has been suggested in the article on that caste, were
+to a large extent the offspring and inmates of the households of Br&#257;hmans, and were no doubt taught by them, but only to read
+and write the vernacular for the purpose of keeping the village records and accounts of rent. They were excluded from any
+knowledge of Sanskrit, and the K&#257;yasths subsequently became an educated caste in spite of their Br&#257;hman preceptors, by learning
+Persian under their Muhammadan, and English under their European employers. The Banias never desired nor were encouraged to
+attain to any higher <a id="d0e9586"></a><span class="pagenum">[<a href="#d0e9586">355</a>]</span>degree of literacy than that necessary for keeping accounts of sale and loan transactions. The Br&#257;hmans thus remained the
+only class with any real education, and acquired a monopoly not only of intellectual and religious leadership, but largely
+of public administration under the Hindu kings. No literature existed outside their own, which was mainly of a sacerdotal
+character; and India had no heritage such as that bequeathed by Greece and Rome to mediaeval Europe which could produce a
+Renaissance or revival of literacy, leading to the Reformation of religion and the breaking of the fetters in which the Roman
+priesthood had bound the human mind. The Br&#257;hmans thus established, not only a complete religious, but also a social ascendancy
+which is only now beginning to break down since the British Government has made education available to all.
+
+
+</p>
+</div>
+<div class="div2" id="d0e9588">
+<h3>3. Absence of central authority.</h3>
+<p>The Br&#257;hman body, however, lacked one very important element of strength. They were apparently never organised nor controlled
+by any central authority such as that which made the Roman church so powerful and cohesive. Colleges and seats of learning
+existed at Ben&#257;res and other places, at which their youth were trained in the knowledge of religion and of the measure of
+their own pretensions, and the means by which these were to be sustained. But probably only a small minority can have attended
+them, and even these when they returned home must have been left practically to themselves, spread as the Br&#257;hmans were over
+the whole of India with no means of postal communication or rapid transit. And by this fact the chaotic character of the Hindu
+religion, its freedom of belief and worship, its innumerable deities, and the almost complete absence of dogmas may probably
+be to a great extent explained. And further the Br&#257;hman caste itself cannot have been so strictly organised that outsiders
+and the priests of the lower alien religions never obtained entrance to it. As shown by Mr. Crooke, many foreign elements,
+both individuals and groups, have at various times been admitted into the caste.
+
+
+</p>
+</div>
+<div class="div2" id="d0e9593">
+<h3>4. Mixed elements in the caste.</h3>
+<p>The early texts indicate that Br&#257;hmans were in the habit of forming connections with the widows of R&#257;janyas and Vaishyas,
+even if they did not take possession of the <a id="d0e9598"></a><span class="pagenum">[<a href="#d0e9598">356</a>]</span>wives of such men while they were still alive.<a id="d0e9600src" href="#d0e9600" class="noteref">5</a> The sons of Angiras, one of the great ancestral sages, were Br&#257;hmans as well as Kshatriyas. The descendants of Garga, another
+well-known eponymous ancestor, were Kshatriyas by birth but became Br&#257;hmans. Visv&#257;mitra was a Kshatriya, who, by the force
+of his austerities, compelled Brahma to admit him into the Br&#257;hmanical order, so that he might be on a level with Vasishtha
+with whom he had quarrelled. According to a passage in the Mah&#257;bh&#257;rata all castes become Br&#257;hmans when once they have crossed
+the Gomti on a pilgrimage to the hermitage of Vasishtha.<a id="d0e9608src" href="#d0e9608" class="noteref">6</a> In more recent times there are legends of persons created Br&#257;hmans by Hindu R&#257;jas. Sir J. Malcolm in Central India found
+many low-caste female slaves in Br&#257;hman houses, the owners of which had treated them as belonging to their own caste.<a id="d0e9614src" href="#d0e9614" class="noteref">7</a>
+
+</p>
+<p>It would appear also that in some cases the caste priests of different castes have become Br&#257;hmans. Thus the S&#257;raswat Br&#257;hmans
+of the Punjab are the priests of the Khatri caste. They have the same complicated arrangement of exogamy and hypergamy as
+the Khatris, and will take food from that caste. It seems not improbable that they are really descendants of Khatri priests
+who have become Br&#257;hmans.<a id="d0e9619src" href="#d0e9619" class="noteref">8</a>
+
+</p>
+<p>Similarly such groups as the Osw&#257;l, Srim&#257;l and Palliw&#257;l Br&#257;hmans of R&#257;jput&#257;na, who are priests of the subcastes of Banias
+of the same name, may originally have been caste priests and become Br&#257;hmans. The N&#257;ramdeo Br&#257;hmans, or those living on the
+Nerbudda River, are said to be descendants of a Br&#257;hman father by a woman of the Naoda or Dh&#299;mar caste; and the Golap&#363;rab
+Br&#257;hmans similarly of a Br&#257;hman father and Ah&#299;r mother. In many cases, such as the island of Onkar Mandh&#257;ta in the Nerbudda
+in Nim&#257;r, and the Mah&#257;deo caves at Pachmarhi, the places of worship of the non-Aryan tribes have been adopted by Hinduism
+and the old mountain or river gods transformed into Hindu deities. At the same time it is not improbable that the tribal priests
+of the old shrines have been admitted into the Br&#257;hman caste.
+<a id="d0e9626"></a><span class="pagenum">[<a href="#d0e9626">357</a>]</span>
+
+
+</p>
+</div>
+<div class="div2" id="d0e9628">
+<h3>5. Caste subdivisions.</h3>
+<p>The Br&#257;hman caste has ten main territorial divisions, forming two groups, the P&#257;nch-Gaur or five northern, and the P&#257;nch-Dr&#257;vida
+or five southern. The boundary line between the two groups is supposed to be the Nerbudda River, which is also the boundary
+between Hindust&#257;n and the Deccan. But the Gujar&#257;ti Br&#257;hmans belong to the southern group, though Gujar&#257;t is north of the Nerbudda.
+The five northern divisions are:
+
+</p>
+<p>(<i>a</i>) <i>S&#257;raswat.</i>&#8212;These belong to the Punjab and are named after the S&#257;raswati river of the classical period, on whose banks they are supposed
+to have lived.
+
+</p>
+<p>(<i>b</i>) <i>Gaur.</i>&#8212;The home of these is the country round Delhi, but they say that the name is from the old Gaur or Lakhnauti kingdom of Bengal.
+If this is correct, it is difficult to understand how they came from Bengal to Delhi contrary to the usual tendency of migration.
+General Cunningham has suggested that Gaura was also the name of the modern Gonda District, and it is possible that the term
+was once used for a considerable tract in northern India as well as Bengal, since it has come to be applied to all the northern
+Br&#257;hmans.<a id="d0e9649src" href="#d0e9649" class="noteref">9</a>
+
+</p>
+<p>(<i>c</i>) <i>K&#257;nkubja or Kanaujia.</i>&#8212;These are named after the old town of Kanauj on the Ganges near Cawnpore, once the capital of India. The Kanaujia are the
+most important of the northern groups and extend from the west of Oudh to beyond Ben&#257;res and into the northern Districts of
+the Central Provinces. Here they are subdivided into four principal groups&#8212;the Kanaujia, Jijhotia, Sarwaria and San&#257;dhya,
+which are treated in annexed subordinate articles.
+
+</p>
+<p>(<i>d</i>) <i>Maithil.</i>&#8212;They take their name from Mithila, the old term for Bih&#257;r or Tirh&#363;t, and belong to this tract.
+
+</p>
+<p>(<i>e</i>) <i>Utkal.</i>&#8212;These are the Br&#257;hmans of Orissa.
+
+</p>
+<p>The five groups of the P&#257;nch-Dr&#257;vida are as follows:
+
+</p>
+<p>(<i>a</i>) <i>Mahar&#257;shtra.</i>&#8212;These belong to the Mar&#257;tha country or Bombay. They are subdivided into three main territorial groups&#8212;the Deshasth, or those
+of the home country, that is the Poona tract above the Western Gh&#257;ts; the Konkonasth, who belong to the Bombay Konkan or littoral;
+<a id="d0e9686"></a><span class="pagenum">[<a href="#d0e9686">358</a>]</span>and the Karh&#257;ra, named after a place in the Sat&#257;ra District.<a id="d0e9688src" href="#d0e9688" class="noteref">10</a>
+
+</p>
+<p>(<i>b</i>) <i>Tailanga or Andhra.</i>&#8212;The Br&#257;hmans of the Telugu country, Hyder&#257;b&#257;d and the northern part of Madras. This territory was known as Andhra and governed
+by an important dynasty of the same name in early times.
+
+</p>
+<p>(<i>c</i>) <i>Dr&#257;vida.</i>&#8212;The Br&#257;hmans of the Tamil country or the south of Madras.
+
+</p>
+<p>(<i>d</i>) <i>Karn&#257;ta.</i>&#8212;The Br&#257;hmans of the Carnatic, or the Canarese country. The Canarese area comprises the Mysore State, and the British Districts
+of Canara, Dharwar and Belgaum.
+
+</p>
+<p>(<i>e</i>) <i>Gurjara.</i>&#8212;The Br&#257;hmans of Gujar&#257;t, of whom two subcastes are found in the Central Provinces. The first consists of the Khed&#257;w&#257;ls, named
+after Kheda, a village in Gujar&#257;t, who are a strictly orthodox class holding a good position in the caste. And the second
+are the N&#257;gar Br&#257;hmans, who have been long settled in Nim&#257;r and the adjacent tracts, and act as village priests and astrologers.
+Their social status is somewhat lower.
+
+</p>
+<p>There are, however, a large number of other subcastes, and the tendency to fissure in a large caste, and to the formation
+of small local groups which marry among themselves, is nowhere more strikingly apparent than among the Br&#257;hmans. This is only
+natural, as they, more than any other caste, attach importance to strict ceremonial observance in matters of food and the
+daily ritual of prayer, and any group which was suspected of backsliding in respect of these on emigration to a new locality
+would be debarred from intermarriage with the parent caste at home. An instance of this is found among the Chhatt&#299;sgarhi Br&#257;hmans,
+who have been long settled in this backward tract and cut off from communication with northern India. They are mainly of the
+Kanaujia division, but the Kanaujias of Oudh will neither take food nor intermarry with them, and they now constitute a separate
+subcaste of Kanaujias. Similarly the M&#257;lwi Br&#257;hmans, whose home is in M&#257;lwa, whence they have spread to Hoshang&#257;b&#257;d and Betul,
+are believed to have been originally a branch of the Gaur or Kanaujia, <a id="d0e9725"></a><span class="pagenum">[<a href="#d0e9725">359</a>]</span>but have now become a distinct subcaste, and have adopted many of the customs of Mar&#257;tha Br&#257;hmans. Mandla contains a colony
+of Sarwaria<a id="d0e9727src" href="#d0e9727" class="noteref">11</a> Br&#257;hmans who received grants of villages from the Gond kings and have settled down there. They are now cultivators, and some
+have taken to the plough, while they also permit widow-remarriage in all but the name. They are naturally cut off from intercourse
+with the orthodox Sarwarias and marry among themselves. The Harenia Br&#257;hmans of Saugor are believed to have immigrated from
+Hari&#257;na some generations ago and form a separate local group; and also the Laheria Br&#257;hmans of the same District, who, like
+the Mandla Sarwarias, permit widows to marry. In Hoshang&#257;b&#257;d there is a small subcaste of Baw&#299;sa or &#8216;Twenty-two&#8217; Br&#257;hmans,
+descended from twenty-two families from northern India, who settled here and have since married among themselves. A similar
+diversity of subcastes is found in other Provinces. The Br&#257;hmans of Bengal are also mainly of the Kanaujia division, but they
+are divided into several local subcastes, of which the principal are R&#257;rhi and Barendra, named after tracts in Bengal, and
+quite distinct from the subdivisions of the Kanaujia group in the Central Provinces.
+
+
+</p>
+</div>
+<div class="div2" id="d0e9730">
+<h3>6. Miscellaneous groups.</h3>
+<p>Another class of local subdivisions consists of those Br&#257;hmans who live on the banks of the various sacred rivers or at famous
+shrines, and earn their livelihood by conducting pilgrims through the series of ceremonies and acts of worship which are performed
+on a visit to such places; they receive presents from the pilgrims and the offerings made at the shrines. The most prominent
+among these are the Gayaw&#257;ls of Gaya, the Pray&#257;gw&#257;ls of Allah&#257;b&#257;d (Pray&#257;g), the Chaubes of Mathura, the Gangap&#363;tras (Sons
+of the Ganges) of Ben&#257;res, the Pandar&#257;ms of southern India and the N&#257;ramdeo Br&#257;hmans who hold charge of the many temples on
+the Nerbudda. As such men accept gifts from pilgrims they are generally looked down on by good Br&#257;hmans and marry among themselves.
+Many of them have a character for extortion and for fleecing their clients, a propensity commonly developed in a profession
+of this kind. Such a reputation particularly attaches to the Chaubes of Mathura <a id="d0e9735"></a><span class="pagenum">[<a href="#d0e9735">360</a>]</span>and Brind&#257;ban, the holy places of the god Krishna. They are strong and finely built men, but gluttonous, idle and dissolute.
+Some of the Ben&#257;res Br&#257;hmans are known as Sawal&#257;khi, or having one and a quarter lakhs, apparently on account of the wealth
+they amass from pilgrims. A much lower group are the Mah&#257;-Br&#257;hmans (great Br&#257;hmans), who are also known as Pat&#299;t (degraded)
+or Katia. These accept the gifts offered by the relatives after a death for the use of the dead man in the next world during
+the period of mourning; they also eat food which it is supposed will benefit the dead man, and are considered to represent
+him. Probably on this account they share in the impurity attaching to the dead, and are despised by all castes and sometimes
+not permitted to live in the village. Other Br&#257;hmans are degraded on account of their having partly adopted Muhammadan practices.
+The Husaini Br&#257;hmans of western India are so called as they combine Muhammadan with Hindu rites. They are principally beggars.
+And the Kalanki Br&#257;hmans of Wardha and other Districts are looked down upon because, it is said, that at the bidding of a
+Muhammadan governor they make a figure of a cow from sugar and eat it up. Probably they may have really acted as priests to
+Muhammadans who were inclined to adopt certain Hindu rites on the principle of imitation, and with a view to please their
+disciples conformed to some extent to Isl&#257;m.
+
+
+</p>
+</div>
+<div class="div2" id="d0e9737">
+<h3>7. Sectarian divisions.</h3>
+<p>Br&#257;hmans have also sectarian divisions according to the different Vedas, which they especially study. It is held that the
+ancient Rishis or saints, like the Jewish patriarchs, lived far beyond the ordinary span of existence, and hence had time
+to learn all the Vedas and their commentaries. But this was impossible for their shorter-lived descendants, and hence each
+Veda has been divided into a number of Sh&#257;khas or branches, and the ordinary Br&#257;hman only learns one Sh&#257;kha of one Veda. Most
+Br&#257;hmans of the Central Provinces are either Rigvedis or Yajurvedis, and these commonly marry only followers of their own
+Veda, thus forming a sort of cross set of endogamous divisions. The restriction on marriage may also extend to the Sh&#257;kha,
+so that a man can only marry in a family of the same Sh&#257;kha <a id="d0e9742"></a><span class="pagenum">[<a href="#d0e9742">361</a>]</span>as himself. This applies in the Central Provinces mainly to the Yajurvedis, who have three well-known Sh&#257;khas or branches
+called K&#257;nnava, Apastambha and M&#257;dhyandina. These are derived from the Shukla or White Yajurveda, which can be understood,
+while the Black Yajurveda is obscure and unintelligible. The Rigvedis and Yajurvedis have some differences in their methods
+of recitation. The Rigvedis are said to move the head up and down when they recite and not to use the hands; while the Yajurvedis
+swing the hands and body from side to side. It is said that a M&#257;dhyandina cannot say his prayers nor take his food before
+midday, and hence the name, which means half the day. These points of distinction are given as stated by the local Br&#257;hmans,
+and it is not known whether they would be endorsed by the Pandits. The Mar&#257;tha Br&#257;hmans of the Central Provinces are usually
+Rigvedis and the Kanaujia Br&#257;hmans Yajurvedis. Followers of the other two Vedas are practically not found. Among Kanaujia
+Br&#257;hmans it is also customary to ask the head of a family with which a marriage is proposed whether he ties a knot in the
+right or left half of his Shikha or scalp-lock during his prayers and whether he washes his right or left foot first in the
+performance of a religious ceremony.
+
+
+</p>
+</div>
+<div class="div2" id="d0e9744">
+<h3>8. Exogamy.</h3>
+<p>The exogamous arrangements of the Br&#257;hmans are also very complex. It is said that the Br&#257;hmans are descended from the seven
+sons of the god Brahma, who were Bhrigu, Angirasa, Marichi, Atri, Pulaha, Pulastya and Vasishtha. But Pulaha only begot demons
+and Pulastya giants, while Vasishtha died and was born again as a descendant of Marichi. Consequently the four ancestors of
+the Br&#257;hmans were Bhrigu, Angirasa, Marichi and Atri. But according to another account the ancestors of the Br&#257;hmans were
+the seven Rishis or saints who form the constellation of the Great Bear. These were Jamadagni, Bh&#257;radw&#257;j, Gautam, Kashyap,
+Vasishtha, Agastya, Atri and Visv&#257;mitra, who makes the eighth and is held to be descended from Atri. These latter saints are
+also said to be the descendants of the four original ones, Atri appearing in both lists. But the two lists taken together
+make up eleven great saints, who were the eponymous ancestors of the Br&#257;hmans. All the <a id="d0e9749"></a><span class="pagenum">[<a href="#d0e9749">362</a>]</span>different subcastes have as a rule exogamous classes tracing their descent from these saints. But each group, such as that
+of Bhrigu or Angirasa, contains a large number of exogamous sections usually named after other more recent saints, and intermarriage
+is sometimes prohibited among the different sections, which are descended from the same son of Brahma or star of the Great
+Bear. The arrangement thus bears a certain resemblance to the classification system of exogamy found among primitive races,
+only that the number of groups is now fairly large; but it is said that originally there were only four, from the four sons
+of Brahma who gave birth to Br&#257;hmans. The names of other important saints, after whom exogamous sections are most commonly
+called, are Garg, Sandilya, Kaushik, Vatsya and Bh&#257;rgava. These five appear sometimes to be held as original ancestors in
+addition to the eleven already mentioned. It may be noted that some of the above names of saints have a totemistic character;
+for instance, Bh&#257;radw&#257;j means a lark; Kashyap resembles Kachhap, the name for a tortoise; Kaushik may come from the <i>kusha</i> grass; Agastya from the <i>agasti</i> flower, and so on. Within the main group exogamy sometimes also goes by titles or family names. Thus the principal titles
+of the Kanaujias are: P&#257;nde, a wise man; Dube, learned in two Vedas; Tiw&#257;ri, learned in three Vedas; Chaube, learned in four
+Vedas; Sukul, white or pure; Up&#257;dhya, a teacher; Agnihotri, the priest who performs the fire-sacrifice; Dikshit, the initiator,
+and so on. Marriage between persons bearing the same family name tends to be prohibited, as they are considered to be relations.
+
+
+</p>
+</div>
+<div class="div2" id="d0e9757">
+<h3>9. Restrictions on marriage.</h3>
+<p>The prohibition of marriage within the <i>gotra</i> or exogamous section bars the union of persons related solely through males. In addition to this, according to Hindu law
+a Br&#257;hman must not marry a girl of his mother&#8217;s or maternal grandfather&#8217;s <i>gotra</i>, or one who is a <i>sapinda</i> of his father or maternal grandfather. Mr. Joshi states that <i>sapindas</i> are persons related through being particles of the same body. It is also understood that two persons are said to be <i>sapindas</i> when they can offer <i>pindas</i> or funeral cakes to the same ancestor. The rule barring the marriage of <i>sapindas</i> is that two persons cannot marry if they are <a id="d0e9783"></a><span class="pagenum">[<a href="#d0e9783">363</a>]</span>both as near as fourth in descent from a common ancestor, and the relationship is derived through the father of either party.
+If either is more remote than fourth in descent they apparently could marry. If the relationship of the couple is through
+their mothers in each case, then they cannot marry if they are third in descent from the same ancestor, but may do so in the
+fourth or subsequent generations. It is of no importance whether the intervening links between the common ancestor and the
+proposed couple are male or female; descent is considered to be male if through the father, and female if through the mother.
+In practice, marriages are held to be valid between persons fourth in descent from a common ancestor in the case of male relationship,
+and third in the case of female relationship, that is, persons having a common greatgrandparent in the male line or a common
+grandparent in the female line can marry.
+
+</p>
+<p>Other rules are that girls must not be exchanged in marriage between two families, and a man may not marry two sisters, though
+he can marry his deceased wife&#8217;s sister. The bride should be both younger in age and shorter in stature than the bridegroom.
+A younger sister should not be married while her elder sister is single.
+
+
+</p>
+</div>
+<div class="div2" id="d0e9787">
+<h3>10. Hypergamy.</h3>
+<p>The practice of hypergamy is, or was until recently, common among Br&#257;hmans. This is the rule by which the social estimation
+of a family is raised if its girls are married into a class of higher social status than its own. Members of the superior
+classes will take daughters from the lower classes on payment usually of a substantial bride-price, but will not give their
+daughters to them. According to Manu, men of the higher castes were allowed to take wives from the lower ones but not to give
+daughters to them. The origin of the custom is obscure. If caste was based on distinctions of race, then apparently the practice
+of hypergamy would be objectionable, because it would destroy the different racial classes. If, on the other hand, the castes
+consisted of groups of varying social status, the distinction being that those of the lower ones could not participate in
+the sacramental or communal meals of the higher ones, then the marriage of a daughter into a higher group, which would carry
+with it participation at the sacramental marriage <a id="d0e9792"></a><span class="pagenum">[<a href="#d0e9792">364</a>]</span>feast of this group, might well be a coveted distinction. The custom of hypergamy prevails somewhat largely in northern India
+between different subcastes, groups of different social status in the same subcaste, and occasionally even between different
+castes. The social results of hypergamy, when commonly practised, are highly injurious. Men of the higher subcastes get paid
+for marrying several wives, and indulge in polygamy, while the girls of the higher subcastes and the boys of the lower ones
+find it difficult and sometimes even impossible to obtain husbands and wives. The custom attained its most absurd development
+among the Kulin Br&#257;hmans of eastern Bengal, as described by Sir H. Risley.<a id="d0e9794src" href="#d0e9794" class="noteref">12</a> Here the Br&#257;hmans were divided by a Hindu king, Ball&#257;l Sen, into two classes, the Kulin (of good family), who had observed
+the entire nine counsels of perfection; and the Srotriya, who, though regular students of the Vedas, had lost sanctity by
+intermarrying with families of inferior birth. The latter were further subdivided into three classes according to their degree
+of social purity, and each higher class could take daughters from the next one or two lower ones. The doctrine known as Kula-gotra
+was developed, whereby the reputation of a family depended on the character of the marriages made by its female members. In
+describing the results of the system Sir H. Risley states: &#8220;The rush of competition for Kulin husbands on the part of the
+inferior classes became acute. In order to dispose of the surplus of women in the higher groups polygamy was resorted to on
+a very large scale: it was popular with the Kulins because it enabled them to make a handsome income by the accident of their
+birth; and it was accepted by the parents of the girls concerned as offering the only means of complying with the requirements
+of the Hindu religion. Tempted by a <i>p&#257;n</i> or premium, which often reached the sum of two thousand rupees, Sw&#257;bhava Kulins made light of their <i>kul</i> and its obligations, and married girls, whom they left after the ceremony to be taken care of by their parents. Matrimony
+became a sort of profession, and the honour of marrying a girl to a Kulin is said to have been so highly valued in <a id="d0e9805"></a><span class="pagenum">[<a href="#d0e9805">365</a>]</span>eastern Bengal that as soon as a boy was ten years old his friends began to discuss his matrimonial prospects, and before
+he was twenty he had become the husband of many wives of ages varying from five to fifty.&#8221; The wives were commonly left at
+home to be supported by their parents, and it is said that when a Kulin Br&#257;hman had a journey to make he usually tried to
+put up for the night at the house of one of his fathers-in-law. All the marriages were recorded in the registers of the professional
+Gh&#257;taks or marriage-brokers, and each party was supplied with an extract. On arrival at his father-in-law&#8217;s house the Kulin
+would produce his extract showing the date on which his marriage took place; and the owner of the house, who was often unfamiliar
+with the bridegroom&#8217;s identity, would compare it with his own extract. When they agreed he was taken in and put up for the
+night, and enjoyed the society of his wife. The system thus entailed the greatest misery to large numbers of women, both those
+who were married to husbands whom they scarcely ever saw, and those of the higher classes who got no husbands at all. It is
+now rapidly falling into abeyance. Hypergamy is found in the Central Provinces among the subcastes of Kanaujia Br&#257;hmans. The
+Sarwaria subcaste, which is the highest, takes daughters from Kanaujias and Jijhotias, and the Kanaujias take them from the
+Jijhotias. These and other subcastes such as the Khed&#257;w&#257;ls are also often divided into two groups of different status, the
+higher of which takes daughters from the lower. Usually the parents of the girl pay a liberal bridegroom-price in money or
+ornaments. It has never, however, been carried to the same length here as in Bengal, and two, or in some cases three, wives
+are the limit for a man of the higher classes. One division of Kanaujias is called the S&#257;tkul or seven families, and is the
+highest. Other Kanaujias, who are known as Pachh&#257;dar, pay substantial sums for husbands for this group, and it is reported
+that if such a marriage takes place and the bridegroom-price is not paid up, the husband will turn his wife out and send her
+home to her father. Certain subcastes of Sun&#257;rs also have hypergamy and, as between different castes, it exists between the
+D&#257;ngis and R&#257;jp&#363;ts, pure R&#257;jp&#363;ts being <a id="d0e9807"></a><span class="pagenum">[<a href="#d0e9807">366</a>]</span>held willing to take daughters in marriage from the highest clans of D&#257;ngis.
+
+
+</p>
+</div>
+<div class="div2" id="d0e9809">
+<h3>11. Marriage customs.</h3>
+<p>A text of Manu prescribes:<a id="d0e9814src" href="#d0e9814" class="noteref">13</a> &#8220;If a young woman marry while she is pregnant, whether her pregnancy be known or unknown, the male child in her womb belongs
+to the bridegroom and is called a son received with his bride.&#8221; But at present a Br&#257;hman girl who is known to be pregnant
+will be wholly debarred from the sacrament of marriage. An invitation to a wedding is sent by means of grains of rice coloured
+yellow with turmeric and placed in a brass bowl with areca-nuts over them. All the members of the caste or subcaste who eat
+food with the host and are resident in the same town or close at hand are as a rule invited, and all relatives of the family
+who reside at a distance. The head of the family goes himself to the residence of the guests and invites them with expressions
+of humility to honour his home. Before the wedding the ancestors of the family and also the divine mothers are worshipped,
+these latter consisting of the consorts of the principal gods. In front of the wedding procession are carried <i>kalashas</i> or earthen jars filled to the brim with water, and with green shoots and branches floating on the top. The <i>kalasha</i> is said to represent the universe and to contain the principal gods and divine mothers, while the waters in it are the seven
+seas. All these are witnesses to the wedding. Among other ceremonies, presents of fruit, food, ornaments and jewellery are
+exchanged between the parties, and these are called <i>choli-ka-bhar&#257;na</i> or filling the bride&#8217;s breast-cloth. The original object of giving these presents was thus, it would appear from the name,
+to render the bride fertile. The father then gives his daughter away in a set form of speech. After reciting the exact moment
+of time, the hour, the day, the minute according to solar and lunar reckoning, the year and the epoch, he proceeds: &#8220;In the
+name of Vishnu (repeating the name three times), the supreme spirit, father and creator of the universe, and in furtherance
+of his wish for the propagation of the human species, I (specifying his full name and section, etc.), in the company of my
+married wife, do hereby offer the hand of my daughter&#8212;may she live <a id="d0e9826"></a><span class="pagenum">[<a href="#d0e9826">367</a>]</span>long&#8212;full of all virtuous qualities, image of Lakshmi, wife of Vishnu, anxious of union in lawful wedlock, ornamented and
+dressed, brought up and instructed according to the best of my means, by name (naming her and repeating the full description
+of ancestors, class, etc.) in the solemn presence of the Br&#257;hmans, Gurus, fire and deities, to you&#8212;may you live long&#8212;(repeating
+the bridegroom&#8217;s name and full description), anxious to obtain a wife with a view to secure the abode of bliss and eternal
+happiness in the heaven of Brahma. Accept her with <i>kusha</i> grass, grains of rice, water and presents of money.&#8221; Afterwards the father asks the bridegroom never to disregard the feelings
+and sentiments of his wife in matters of religion, social pleasures and the acquisition of money, and the bridegroom agrees.
+The binding portion of the ceremony consists in walking seven times round the sacred post, and when the seventh round is completed
+the marriage is irrevocable. Among the Mar&#257;tha Br&#257;hmans the bridegroom is called Nawar Deo or the new god. During the five
+days of the wedding he is considered to be a sort of king, and is put in the highest place, and everybody defers to him. They
+make the bridegroom and bride name each other for a joke, as they are ashamed to do this, and will not untie their clothes
+to let them bathe until they have done it. At all the feasts the bride and bridegroom are made to eat out of the same plate,
+and they put pieces of food in each other&#8217;s mouth, which is supposed to produce affection between them. The wedding expenses
+in an ordinary Kanaujia Br&#257;hman&#8217;s family, whose income is perhaps Rs. 20 to 40 a month, are estimated at Rs. 200 for the bridegroom&#8217;s
+party and Rs. 175 for the bride&#8217;s, exclusive of any bride- or bridegroom-price. The bulk of the expenditure is on feasts to
+the caste. The bride does not live with her husband until after she arrives at puberty, but it is thought desirable that she
+should spend long visits with his family before this, in order that she may assimilate their customs and be trained by her
+mother-in-law, according to the saying, &#8216;Tender branches are easily bent.&#8217; Among some Mar&#257;tha Br&#257;hmans, when the bride arrives
+at puberty a ceremony called Garhbhad&#257;n is performed, and the husband confesses whether he has cohabited with his wife <a id="d0e9831"></a><span class="pagenum">[<a href="#d0e9831">368</a>]</span>before her puberty, and if so, he is fined a small sum. Such instances usually occur when the signs of puberty are delayed.
+If the planet Mangal or Mars is adverse to a girl in her horoscope, it is thought that her husband will die. The women of
+her family will, therefore, first marry her secretly to a p&#299;pal-tree, so that the tree may die instead. But they do not tell
+this to the bridegroom. In Saugor, girls whose horoscope is unfavourable to the husband are first married to the <i>arka</i> or swallow-wort plant. If a Br&#257;hman has not sufficient funds to arrange for the marriage of his daughter he will go about
+and beg, and it is considered that alms given for this purpose acquire special merit for the donor, nor will any good Br&#257;hman
+refuse a contribution according to his means.
+
+
+</p>
+</div>
+<div class="div2" id="d0e9836">
+<h3>12. Polygamy, divorce and treatment of widows.</h3>
+<p>Polygamy conveys no stigma among Br&#257;hmans, but is uncommon. Divorce is not recognised, a woman who is put away by her husband
+being turned out of the caste. The remarriage of widows is strictly prohibited. It is said that marriage is the only sacrament
+(Sansk&#257;r) for a woman, and she can only go through it once. The holy nuptial texts may not be repeated except for a virgin.
+The prohibition of the remarriage of widows has become a most firmly rooted prejudice among the higher classes of Hindus,
+and is the last to give way before the inroads of liberal reform. Only a small minority of the most advanced Br&#257;hmans have
+recognised widow-remarriage, and these are generally held to be excluded from the caste, though breaches of the rules against
+the consumption of prohibited kinds of meat, and the drinking of aerated waters and even alcoholic liquor, are now winked
+at and not visited with the proper penalty. Nevertheless, many classes of Br&#257;hmans, who live in the country and have taken
+to cultivation, allow widows to live with men without putting the family out of caste. Where this is not permitted, surreptitious
+intercourse may occasionally take place with members of the family. The treatment of widows is also becoming more humane.
+Only Mar&#257;tha and Khedaw&#257;l Br&#257;hmans in the Central Provinces still force them to shave their heads, and these will permit a
+child-widow to retain her hair until she grows up, though they regard her as impure while she has it. A widow is usually <a id="d0e9841"></a><span class="pagenum">[<a href="#d0e9841">369</a>]</span>forbidden to have a cot or bed, and must sleep on the ground or on a plank. She may not chew betel-leaves, should eat only
+once a day, and must rigorously observe all the prescribed fasts. She wears white clothes only, no glass bangles, and no ornaments
+on her feet. She is subject to other restrictions and is a general drudge in the family. It is probable that the original
+reason for such treatment of a widow was that she was considered impure through being perpetually haunted by her husband&#8217;s
+ghost. Hindus say that a widow is half-dead. She should not be allowed to cook the household food, because while cooking it
+she will remember her husband and the food will become like a corpse. The smell of such food will offend the gods, and it
+cannot be offered to them. A widow is not permitted to worship the household god or the ancestors of the family. It was no
+doubt an advantage under the joint family system that a widow should not claim any life-interest in her husband&#8217;s property.
+The modern tendency of widows, who are left in possession, to try and alienate the property from the husband&#8217;s relatives has
+been a fruitful cause of litigation and the ruin of many old landed families. The severe treatment of widows was further calculated
+to suppress any tendency on the part of wives to poison their husbands. These secondary grounds may have contributed something
+to the preservation and enforcement of an idea based originally on superstitious motives.
+
+
+</p>
+</div>
+<div class="div2" id="d0e9843">
+<h3>13. <i>Sati</i> or burning of widows.
+</h3>
+<p>For a widow to remain single and lead an austere and joyless life was held to confer great honour on her family; and this
+was enormously enhanced when she decided to become <i>sati</i> and die with her husband on the funeral pyre. Though it is doubtful whether this practice is advocated by the Vedas, subsequent
+Hindu scriptures insist strongly on it. It was said that a widow who was burnt with her husband would enjoy as many years
+in paradise as there are hairs on the human head, that is to say, thirty-five million. Conversely, one who insisted on surviving
+him would in her next birth go into the body of some animal. By the act of <i>sati</i> she purified all her husband&#8217;s ancestors, even from the guilt of killing a Br&#257;hman, and also those of her own family. If
+a man died during an absence from home in another <a id="d0e9857"></a><span class="pagenum">[<a href="#d0e9857">370</a>]</span>country his wife was recommended to take his slippers or any other article of dress and burn herself with them tied to her
+breast.<a id="d0e9859src" href="#d0e9859" class="noteref">14</a>
+
+</p>
+<p>Great honour was paid to a Sati, and a temple or memorial stone was always erected to her at which her spirit was venerated,
+and this encouraged many pious women not only to resign themselves to this terrible death but ardently to desire it. The following
+account given by Mr. Ward of the method of a <i>sati</i> immolation in Bengal may be reproduced:<a id="d0e9870src" href="#d0e9870" class="noteref">15</a>
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;When the husband&#8217;s life is despaired of and he is carried to the bank of the Ganges, the wife declares her resolution to
+be burnt with him. In this case she is treated with great respect by her neighbours, who bring her delicate food, and when
+her husband is dead she again declares her resolve to be burnt with his body. Having broken a small branch from a mango tree
+she takes it with her and proceeds to the body, where she sits down. The barber then paints the sides of her feet red, after
+which she bathes and puts on new clothes. During these preparations the drum beats a certain sound by which it is known that
+a widow is about to be burnt with the corpse of her husband. A hole is dug in the ground round which posts are driven into
+the earth, and thick green stakes laid across to form a kind of bed; and upon these are laid in abundance dry faggots, hemp,
+clarified butter and pitch. The officiating Br&#257;hman now causes the widow to repeat the prayer that as long as fourteen Indras
+reign, or as many years as there are hairs on her head, she may abide in heaven with her husband; that during this time the
+heavenly dancers may wait on her and her husband; and that by this act of merit all the ancestors of her mother and husband
+may ascend to heaven. She now presents her ornaments to her friends, ties some red cotton on both wrists, puts two new combs
+in her hair, paints her forehead, and takes into the end of the cloth that she wears some parched rice and cowries. The dead
+body is bathed, anointed with butter, and dressed in new clothes. The son takes a handful of boiled rice and offers it in
+the name of his deceased father. Ropes and another piece of <a id="d0e9877"></a><span class="pagenum">[<a href="#d0e9877">371</a>]</span>cloth are spread on the wood, and the dead body is laid upon the pile. The widow next walks round the pyre seven times, as
+she did round the marriage-post at her wedding, strewing parched rice and cowries as she goes, which the spectators catch
+and keep under the belief that they will cure diseases. The widow then lies down on the fatal pile by the side of the dead
+body. The bodies are bound together with ropes and the faggots placed over them. The son, averting his head, puts fire to
+the face of his father, and at the same moment several persons light the pile at different sides, when the women and mourners
+set up cries. More faggots are hastily brought and thrown over the pile, and two bamboo levers are pressed over them to hold
+down the bodies and the pile. Several persons are employed in holding down these levers. More clarified butter, pitch and
+faggots are thrown on to the pile till the bodies are consumed. This may take about two hours, but I conceive the woman must
+be dead in a few minutes after the fire has been kindled.&#8221;
+
+</p>
+<p>As showing the tenacity with which women sometimes adhered to their resolve to be burned with their husbands, and thus, as
+they believed, resume their conjugal life in heaven, the following account by Sir William Sleeman, in his <i>Rambles and Recollections</i>, of a <i>sati</i> at Jubbulpore may be given:
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;At Gop&#257;lpur on the Nerbudda are some very pretty temples built for the most part to the memory of women who have burned themselves
+with the remains of their husbands, and on the very spot where the cremation occurred. Among them was one recently raised
+over the ashes of one of the most extraordinary old bodies I had ever seen, who burned herself in my presence in 1829. In
+March 1828 I had issued a proclamation prohibiting any one from aiding or assisting in <i>sati</i>, and distinctly stating that to bring one ounce of wood for the purpose would be considered as so doing. Subsequently, on
+Tuesday, 24th November, I had an application from the heads of the most respectable and most extensive family of Br&#257;hmans
+in the District, to suffer this old woman to burn herself with the remains of her husband, Umeid Singh Up&#257;dhya, who had that
+morning died upon the banks of the Nerbudda. I threatened to <a id="d0e9892"></a><span class="pagenum">[<a href="#d0e9892">372</a>]</span>enforce my order and punish severely any man who assisted; and placed a police guard for the purpose of seeing that no one
+did so. The old woman remained by the edge of the water without eating or drinking. Next day the body of her husband was burned
+in the presence of several thousand spectators, who had assembled to see the <i>sati</i>. The sons and grandsons of the old woman remained with her, urging her to desist from her resolve, while her other relatives
+surrounded my house urging me to allow her to burn. All the day she remained sitting upon a bare rock in the bed of the Nerbudda,
+refusing every kind of sustenance, and exposed to the intense heat of the sun by day and the severe cold of the night, with
+only a thin sheet thrown over her shoulders. On the next day, Thursday, to cut off all hope of her being moved from her purpose,
+she put on the <i>dhujja</i> or coarse red turban and broke her bracelets in pieces, by which she became dead in law and for ever excluded from caste.
+Should she choose to live after this she could never return to her family. On the morning of Saturday, the fourth day after
+the death, I rode out ten miles to the spot, and found the poor old widow sitting with the <i>dhujja</i> round her head, a brass plate before her with undressed rice and flowers, and a cocoanut in each hand. She talked very collectedly,
+telling me that she had determined to mix her ashes with those of her departed husband, and should patiently await my permission
+to do so, assured that God would enable her to sustain life till that was given, though she dared not eat or drink. Looking
+at the sun, then rising before her over a long and beautiful reach of the Nerbudda, she said calmly: &#8216;My soul has been for
+five days with my husband&#8217;s near that sun; nothing but my earthly frame is left, and this I know you will in time suffer to
+be mixed with the ashes of his in yonder pit, because it is not in your nature wantonly to prolong the miseries of a poor
+old woman.&#8217; I told her that my object and duty was to save and preserve her; I was come to urge her to live and keep her family
+from the disgrace of being thought her murderers. I tried to work upon her pride and fears. I told her that the rent-free
+lands on which her family had long subsisted might be resumed by Government if her children permitted her to do <a id="d0e9903"></a><span class="pagenum">[<a href="#d0e9903">373</a>]</span>this act; and that no brick or stone should ever mark the place of her death; but if she would live, a splendid habitation
+should be made for her among the temples, and an allowance given her from the rent-free lands. She smiled, but held out her
+arm and said, &#8216;My pulse has long ceased to beat, for my spirit has departed, and I have nothing left but a little earth that
+I wish to mix with the ashes of my husband. I shall suffer nothing in burning, and if you wish proof order some fire, and
+you shall see this arm consumed without giving me any pain.&#8217; I did not attempt to feel her pulse, but some of my people did,
+and declared that it had ceased to be perceptible. At this time every native present believed that she was incapable of suffering
+pain, and her end confirmed them in their opinion. Satisfied myself that it would be unavailing to attempt to save her life,
+I sent for all the principal members of the family, and consented that she should be suffered to burn herself if they would
+enter into engagements that no other member of their family should ever do the same. This they all agreed to, and the papers
+having been drawn out in due form about midday, I sent down notice to the old lady, who seemed extremely pleased and thankful.
+The ceremonies of bathing were gone through before three, while the wood and other combustible materials for a strong fire
+were collected and put into the pit. After bathing she called for a <i>p&#257;n</i> (betel-leaf) and ate it, then rose up, and with one arm on the shoulder of her eldest son, and the other on that of her nephew,
+approached the fire. As she rose up fire was set to the pile, and it was instantly in a blaze. The distance was about one
+hundred and fifty yards; she came on with a calm and cheerful countenance, stopped once, and casting her eyes upwards said,
+&#8216;Why have they kept me five days from thee, my husband?&#8217; On coming to the sentries her supports stopped, she walked round
+the pit, paused a moment; and while muttering a prayer threw some flowers into the fire. She then walked deliberately and
+steadily to the brink, stepped into the centre of the flame, sat down, and leaning back in the midst as if reposing upon a
+couch, was consumed without uttering a shriek or betraying one sign of agony.&#8221;
+
+</p>
+<p>In cases, however, where women shrank from the flames <a id="d0e9910"></a><span class="pagenum">[<a href="#d0e9910">374</a>]</span>they were frequently forced into them, as it was a terrible disgrace to their families that they should recoil on the scene
+of the sacrifice. Opium and other drugs were also administered to stupefy the woman and prevent her from feeling pain. Widows
+were sometimes buried alive with their dead husbands. The practice of <i>sati</i> was finally prohibited in 1829, without exciting the least discontent.
+
+
+</p>
+</div>
+<div class="div2" id="d0e9915">
+<h3>14. Funeral rites and mourning.</h3>
+<p>The bodies of children dying before they are named, or before the tonsure ceremony is performed on them, are buried, and those
+of other persons are burnt. In the grave of a small child some of its mother&#8217;s milk, or, if this is not available, cow&#8217;s milk
+in a leaf-cup or earthen vessel, is placed. Before a body is burnt cakes of wheat-flour are put on the face, breast and both
+shoulders, and a coin is always deposited for the purchase of the site. Mourning or impurity is observed for varying periods,
+according to the nearness of relationship. For a child, relatives other than the parents have only to take a bath to remove
+the impurity caused by the death. In a small town or village all Br&#257;hmans of the same subcaste living in the place are impure
+from the time of the death until cremation has taken place. After the funeral the chief mourner performs the <i>shr&#257;ddh</i> ceremony, offering <i>pindas</i> or cakes of rice, with libations of water, to the dead. Presents are made to Br&#257;hmans for the use of the dead man in the
+other world, and these are sometimes very valuable, as it is thought that the spirit will thereby be profited. Such presents
+are taken by the Mah&#257;-Br&#257;hman, who is much despised. When a late zam&#299;nd&#257;r of Khari&#257;r died, Rs. 2000 were given to the Mah&#257;-Br&#257;hman
+for the use of his soul in the next world. The funeral rites are performed by an ordinary Br&#257;hman, known as Malai, who may
+receive presents after the period of impurity has expired. Formerly a calf was let loose in the name of the deceased after
+being branded with the mark of a trident to dedicate it to Siva, and allowed to wander free thenceforth. Sometimes it was
+formally married to three or four female calves, and these latter were presented to Br&#257;hmans. Sometimes the calf was brought
+to stand over the dying man and water poured down its tail into his mouth. The practice of letting loose a male calf is now
+declining, as these animals <a id="d0e9926"></a><span class="pagenum">[<a href="#d0e9926">375</a>]</span>are a great nuisance to the crops, and cultivators put them in the pound. The calf is therefore also presented to a Br&#257;hman.
+It is believed that the <i>shr&#257;ddh</i> ceremony is necessary to unite the dead man&#8217;s spirit with the Pitris or ancestors, and without this it wanders homeless.
+Some think that the ancestors dwell on the under or dark side of the moon. Those descendants who can offer the <i>pindas</i> or funeral cakes to the same ancestor are called Sapindas or relatives, and the man who fills the office of chief mourner
+thereby becomes the dead man&#8217;s heir. Persons who have died a violent death or have been executed are not entitled to the ordinary
+funeral oblations, and cannot at once be united with the ancestors. But one year after the death an effigy of the deceased
+person is made in <i>kusha</i> grass and burnt, with all the ordinary funeral rites, and offerings are made to his spirit as if he had died on this occasion.
+If the death was caused by snake-bite a gold snake is made and presented to a Br&#257;hman before this ceremony is begun. This
+is held to be the proper funeral ceremony which unites his spirit with the ancestors. Formerly in Madras if a man died during
+the last five days of the waning of the moon it was considered very unlucky. In order to escape evil effects to the relatives
+a special opening was made in the wall of the house, through which the body was carried, and the house itself was afterwards
+abandoned for three to six months.<a id="d0e9937src" href="#d0e9937" class="noteref">16</a> A similar superstition prevails in the Central Provinces about a man dying in the Mul Nakshatra or lunar asterism, which
+is perhaps the same or some similar period. In this case it is thought that the deaths of four other members of the household
+are portended, and to avert this four human figures are made of flour or grass and burnt with the corpse. According to the
+Abb&eacute; Dubois if a man died on a Saturday it was thought that another death would occur in the family, and to avert this a living
+animal, such as a ram, goat or fowl, was offered with the corpse.<a id="d0e9942src" href="#d0e9942" class="noteref">17</a>
+
+
+</p>
+</div>
+<div class="div2" id="d0e9947">
+<h3>15. Religion.</h3>
+<p>The religion of the Br&#257;hmans is Hinduism, of which they are the priests and exponents. Formerly the Br&#257;hman considered himself
+as a part of Brahma, and hence a god. <a id="d0e9952"></a><span class="pagenum">[<a href="#d0e9952">376</a>]</span>This belief has decayed, but the gods are still held to reside in the body; Siva in the crown of the head, Vishnu in the chest,
+Brahma in the navel, Indra in the genitals and Ganesh in the rectum. Most Br&#257;hmans belong to a sect worshipping especially
+Siva or Vishnu, or R&#257;ma and Krishna, the incarnations of the latter god, or Sakti, the female principle of energy of Siva.
+But as a rule Br&#257;hmans, whether of the Sivite or Vishnuite sects, abstain from flesh meat and are averse to the killing of
+any living thing. The following account of the daily ritual prayers of a Ben&#257;res Br&#257;hman may be reproduced from M. Andr&eacute; Chevrillon&#8217;s
+<i>Romantic India</i>,<a id="d0e9957src" href="#d0e9957" class="noteref">18</a> as, though possibly not altogether accurate in points of detail, it gives an excellent idea of their infinitely complicated
+nature:
+
+
+</p>
+</div>
+<div class="div2" id="d0e9960">
+<h3>16. Daily ritual.</h3>
+<p>&#8220;Here is the daily life of one of the twenty-five thousand Br&#257;hmans of Ben&#257;res. He rises before the dawn, and his first care
+is to look at an object of good omen. If he sees a crow at his left, a kite, a snake, a cat, a hare, a jackal, an empty jar,
+a smoking fire, a wood-pile, a widow, a man blind of one eye, he is threatened with great dangers during the day. If he intended
+to make a journey, he puts it off. But if he sees a cow, a horse, an elephant, a parrot, a lizard, a clear-burning fire, a
+virgin, all will go well. If he should sneeze once, he may count upon some special good fortune; but if twice some disaster
+will happen to him. If he yawns some demon may enter his body. Having avoided all objects of evil omen, the Br&#257;hman drops
+into the endless routine of his religious rites. Under penalty of rendering all the day&#8217;s acts worthless, he must wash his
+teeth at the bank of a sacred stream or lake, reciting a special <i>mantra</i>, which ends in this ascription: &#8216;O Ganges, daughter of Vishnu, thou springest from Vishnu&#8217;s foot, thou art beloved by him!
+Remove from us the stains of sin and birth, and until death protect us thy servants!&#8217; He then rubs his body with ashes, saying:
+&#8216;Homage to Siva, homage to the source of all birth! May he protect me during all births!&#8217; He traces the sacred signs upon
+his forehead&#8212;the three vertical lines representing the foot of Vishnu, or the three horizontal lines which symbolise the <a id="d0e9968"></a><span class="pagenum">[<a href="#d0e9968">377</a>]</span>trident of Siva&#8212;and twists into a knot the hair left by the razor on the top of his head, that no impurity may fall from it
+to pollute the sacred river.
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;He is now ready to begin the ceremonies of the morning (<i>sandhya</i>), those which I have just observed on the banks of the river. Minutely and mechanically each Br&#257;hman performs by himself
+these rites of prescribed acts and gestures. First the internal ablution: the worshipper takes water in the hollow of his
+hand, and, letting it fall from above into his mouth, cleanses his body and soul. Meanwhile he mentally invokes the names
+of Vishnu, saying, &#8216;Glory to Keshava, to Nar&#257;yana, to M&#257;dhava, to Govinda,&#8217; and so on.
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;The second rite is the exercise or &#8216;discipline&#8217; of the respiration (<i>prajayama</i>). Here there are three acts: first, the worshipper compresses the right nostril with the thumb, and drives the breath through
+the left; second, he inhales through the left nostril, then compresses it, and inhales through the other; third, he stops
+the nose completely with thumb and forefinger, and holds his breath as long as possible. All these acts must be done before
+sunrise, and prepare for what is to follow. Standing on the water&#8217;s edge, he utters solemnly the famous syllable OM, pronouncing
+it <i>aum</i>, with a length equalling that of three letters. It recalls to him the three persons of the Hindu trinity: Brahma, who creates;
+Vishnu, who preserves; Siva, who destroys. More noble than any other word, imperishable, says Manu, it is eternal as Brahma
+himself. It is not a sign, but a being, a force; a force which constrains the gods, superior to them, the very essence of
+all things. Mysterious operations of the mind, strange associations of ideas, from which spring conceptions like these! Having
+uttered this ancient and formidable syllable, the man calls by their names the three worlds: earth, air, sky; and the four
+superior heavens. He then turns towards the east, and repeats the verse<a id="d0e9983src" href="#d0e9983" class="noteref">19</a> from the Rig-Veda: &#8216;Let us meditate upon the resplendent glory of the divine vivifier, that it may enlighten our minds.&#8217;
+As he says the last words he takes water in the palm of his hand and pours it upon the top of his head. &#8216;Waters,&#8217; he says,
+<a id="d0e9986"></a><span class="pagenum">[<a href="#d0e9986">378</a>]</span>&#8216;give me strength and vigour that I may rejoice. Like loving mothers, bless us, penetrate us with your sacred essence. We
+come to wash ourselves from the pollution of sins: make us fruitful and prosperous.&#8217; Then follow other ablutions, other <i>mantras</i>, verses from the Rig-Veda, and this hymn, which relates the origin of all things: &#8216;From the burning heat came out all things.
+Yes, the complete order of the world; Night, the throbbing Ocean, and after the throbbing Ocean, Time, which separates Light
+from Darkness. All mortals are its subjects. It is this which disposes of all things, and has made, one after another, the
+sun, the sky, the earth, the intermediate air.&#8217; This hymn, says Manu, thrice repeated, effaces the gravest sins.
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;About this time, beyond the sands of the opposite shore of the Ganges, the sun appears. As soon as its brilliant disc becomes
+visible the multitude welcome it, and salute it with &#8216;the offering of water.&#8217; This is thrown into the air, either from a vase
+or from the hand. Thrice the worshipper, standing in the river up to his waist, flings the water towards the sun. The farther
+and wider he flings it, the greater the virtue attributed to this act. Then the Br&#257;hman, seated upon his heels, fulfils the
+most sacred of his religious duties: he meditates upon his fingers. For the fingers are sacred, inhabited by different manifestations
+of Vishnu; the thumb by Govinda, the index-finger by M&#257;dhava, the middle finger by Hrikesa, the third by Trivikama and the
+little finger by Vishnu himself. &#8216;Homage to the two thumbs,&#8217; says the Br&#257;hman, &#8216;to the two index-fingers, to the two middle
+fingers, to the two &#8220;unnamed fingers,&#8221; to the two little fingers, to the two palms, to the two backs of the hands.&#8217; Then he
+touches the various parts of the body, and lastly, the right ear, the most sacred of all, where reside fire, water, the sun
+and the moon. He then takes a red bag (<i>gomukhi</i>), into which he plunges his hand, and by contortions of the fingers rapidly represents the chief incarnations of Vishnu:
+a fish, a tortoise, a wild boar, a lion, a slip-knot, a garland.<a id="d0e9996src" href="#d0e9996" class="noteref">20</a>
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;The second part of the service is no less rich than the first in ablutions and <i>mantras</i>. The Br&#257;hman invokes the <a id="d0e10004"></a><span class="pagenum">[<a href="#d0e10004">379</a>]</span>sun, &#8216;Mitra, who regards all creatures with unchanging gaze,&#8217; and the Dawns, &#8216;brilliant children of the sky,&#8217; the earliest
+divinities of our Aryan race. He extols the world of Brahma, that of Siva, that of Vishnu; recites passages from the Mah&#257;bh&#257;rata,
+the Pur&#257;nas, all the first hymn of the Rig-Veda, the first lines of the second, the first words of the principal Vedas, of
+the Yajur, the Sama, and the Atharva, then fragments of grammar, inspired prosodies, and, in conclusion, the first words of
+the book of the Laws of Yajnavalkya, the philosophic Sutras: and finally ends the ceremony with three kinds of ablutions,
+which are called the refreshing of the gods, of the sages and of the ancestors.
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;First, placing his sacred cord upon the left shoulder, the Br&#257;hman takes up water in the right hand, and lets it run off
+his extended fingers. To refresh the sages, the cord must hang about the neck, and the water run over the side of the hand
+between the thumb and the forefinger, which is bent back. For the ancestors, the cord passes over the right shoulder, and
+the water falls from the hand in the same way as for the sages. &#8216;Let the fathers be refreshed,&#8217; says the prayer, &#8216;may this
+water serve all those who inhabit the seven worlds, as far as to Brahma&#8217;s dwelling, even though their number be greater than
+thousands of millions of families. May this water, consecrated by my cord, be accepted by the men of my race who have left
+no sons.&#8217;
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;With this prayer the morning service ends. Now, remember that this worship is daily, that these formulas must be pronounced,
+these movements of the hands made with mechanical precision; that if the worshipper forgets one of the incarnations of Vishnu
+which he is to figure with his fingers, if he stop his left nostril when it should be the right, the entire ceremony loses
+its efficacy; that, not to go astray amid this multitude of words and gestures required for each rite, he is obliged to use
+mnemotechnic methods; that there are five of these for each series of formulas; that his attention always strained and always
+directed toward the externals of the cult, does not leave his mind a moment in which to reflect upon the profound meaning
+of some of these prayers, and you will comprehend the extraordinary scene that the banks of the Ganges at Ben&#257;res present
+every morning; <a id="d0e10010"></a><span class="pagenum">[<a href="#d0e10010">380</a>]</span>this anxious and demented multitude, these gestures, eager and yet methodical, this rapid movement of the lips, the fixed
+gaze of these men and women who, standing in the water, seem not even to see their neighbours, and count mentally like men
+in the delirium of a fever. Remember that there are ceremonies like these in the afternoon and also in the evening, and that
+in the intervals, in the street, in the house at meals, when going to bed, similar rites no less minute pursue the Br&#257;hman,
+all preceded by the exercises of respiration, the enunciation of the syllable OM, and the invocation of the principal gods.
+It is estimated that between daybreak and noon he has scarcely an hour of rest from the performance of these rites. After
+the great powers of nature, the Ganges, the Dawn, and the Sun, he goes to worship in their temples the representations of
+divinity, the sacred trees, finally the cows, to whom he offers flowers. In his own dwelling other divinities await him, five
+black stones,<a id="d0e10012src" href="#d0e10012" class="noteref">21</a> representing Siva, Ganesa, Surya, Devi and Vishnu, arranged according to the cardinal points: one towards the north, a second
+to the south-east, a third to the south-west, a fourth to the north-west, and one in the centre, this order changing according
+as the worshipper regards one god or another as most important; then there is a shell, a bell&#8212;to which, kneeling, he offers
+flowers&#8212;and, lastly, a vase, whose mouth contains Vishnu, the neck Rudra, the paunch Brahma, while at the bottom repose the
+three divine mothers, the Ganges, the Indus, and the Jumna.
+
+
+</p>
+<div id="d0e10015" class="figure"><img border="0" src="images/p380.jpg" alt="Br&#257;hman worshipping his household gods." width="720" height="527"><p class="figureHead">Br&#257;hman worshipping his household gods.</p>
+</div><p>
+
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;This is the daily cult of the Br&#257;hman of Ben&#257;res, and on holidays it is still further complicated. Since the great epoch
+of Br&#257;hmanism it has remained the same. Some details may alter, but as a whole it has always been thus tyrannical and thus
+extravagant. As far back as the Upanishads appears the same faith in the power of articulate speech, the same imperative and
+innumerable prescriptions, the same singular formulas, the same enumeration of grotesque <a id="d0e10021"></a><span class="pagenum">[<a href="#d0e10021">381</a>]</span>gestures. Every day, for more than twenty-five hundred years, since Buddhism was a protest against the tyranny and absurdity
+of rites, has this race mechanically passed through this machinery, resulting in what mental malformations, what habitual
+attitudes of mind and will, the race is now too different from ourselves for us to be able to conceive.&#8221;
+
+</p>
+<p>Secular Br&#257;hmans now, however, greatly abridge the length of their prayers, and an hour or an hour and a half in the morning
+suffices for the daily bath and purification, the worship of the household deities and the morning meal.
+
+
+</p>
+</div>
+<div class="div2" id="d0e10025">
+<h3>17. The sacred thread.</h3>
+<p>Br&#257;hman boys are invested with the sacred thread between the ages of five and nine. The ceremony is called Upanayana or the
+introduction to knowledge, since by it the boy acquires the right to read the sacred books. Until this ceremony he is not
+really a Br&#257;hman, and is not bound to observe the caste rules and restrictions. By its performance he becomes Dvija or twice-born,
+and the highest importance is attached to the change or initiation. He may then begin to acquire divine knowledge, and perhaps
+in past times it was thought that he obtained the divine character belonging to a Br&#257;hman. The sacred thread is made of three
+strands of cotton, which should be obtained from the cotton tree growing wild. Sometimes a tree is grown in the yard of the
+house for the provision of the threads. It has several knots in it, to which great importance is attached, the number of knots
+being different for a Br&#257;hman, a Kshatriya and a Vaishya, the three twice-born castes. The thread hangs from the left shoulder,
+falling on to the right hip. Sometimes, when a man is married, he wears a double thread of six strands, the second being for
+his wife; and after his father dies a treble one of nine strands. At the investiture the boy&#8217;s nails are cut and his hair
+is shaved, and he performs the <i>hom</i> or fire sacrifice for the first time. He then acquires the status of a Brahmachari or disciple, and in former times he would
+proceed to some religious centre and begin to study the sacred books. The idea of this is preserved by a symbolic ritual.
+Some Br&#257;hmans shave the boy&#8217;s head completely, make a girdle of <i>kusha</i> or <i>munj</i> grass round his waist, provide him with a begging-bowl and tongs and the skin of an antelope to sit on and make him go and
+beg <a id="d0e10039"></a><span class="pagenum">[<a href="#d0e10039">382</a>]</span>from four houses. Among others the boy gets on to a wooden horse and announces his intention of going off to Ben&#257;res to study.
+His mother then sits on the edge of a well and threatens to throw herself in if he will not change his mind, or the maternal
+uncle promises to give the boy his daughter in marriage. Then the boy relinquishes his intention and agrees to stay at home.
+The sacred thread must always be passed through the hand before saying the Gayatri text in praise of the sun, the most sacred
+Br&#257;hmanical text. The sacred thread is changed once a year on the day of Rakshabandhan; the Br&#257;hman and all his family change
+it together. The word Rakshabandhan means binding or tying up the devils, and it would thus appear that the sacred thread
+and the knots in it may have been originally intended to some extent to be a protection against evil spirits. It is also changed
+on the occasion of a birth or death in the family, or of an eclipse, or if it breaks. The old threads are torn up or sewn
+into clothes by the very poor in the Mar&#257;tha districts. It is said that the Br&#257;hmans are afraid that the Kunbis will get hold
+of their old threads, and if they do get one they will fold it into four strings, holding a lamp in the middle, and wave it
+over any one who is sick. The Br&#257;hmans think that if this is done all the accumulated virtue which they have obtained by many
+repetitions of the Gayatri or sacred prayer will be transferred to the sick Kunbi. Many castes now wear the sacred thread
+who have no proper claim to do so, especially those who have become landholders and aspire to the status of R&#257;jp&#363;ts.
+
+
+</p>
+</div>
+<div class="div2" id="d0e10041">
+<h3>18. Social position.</h3>
+<p>The Br&#257;hman is of course supreme in Hindu society. He never bows his head in salutation to any one who is not a Br&#257;hman, and
+acknowledges with a benediction the greetings of all other classes. No member of another caste, Dr. Bhattach&#257;rya states, can,
+consistently with Hindu etiquette and religious beliefs, refuse altogether to bow to a Br&#257;hman. &#8220;The more orthodox S&#363;dras
+carry their veneration for the priestly caste to such an extent that they will not cross the shadow of a Br&#257;hman, and it is
+not unusual for them to be under a vow not to eat any food in the morning before drinking Br&#257;hman nectar,<a id="d0e10046src" href="#d0e10046" class="noteref">22</a> or water in which the toe of a <a id="d0e10050"></a><span class="pagenum">[<a href="#d0e10050">383</a>]</span>Br&#257;hman has been dipped. On the other hand, the pride of the Br&#257;hman is such that he does not bow even to the images of the
+gods in a S&#363;dra&#8217;s house. When a Br&#257;hman invites a S&#363;dra the latter is usually asked to partake of the host&#8217;s <i>pras&#257;da</i> or favour in the shape of the leavings of his plate. Orthodox S&#363;dras actually take offence if invited by the use of any other
+formula. No S&#363;dra is allowed to eat in the same room or at the same time with Br&#257;hmans.&#8221;<a id="d0e10055src" href="#d0e10055" class="noteref">23</a>
+
+</p>
+<p>A man of low caste meeting a Br&#257;hman says &#8216;Pailagi&#8217; or &#8216;I fall at your feet,&#8217; and touches the Br&#257;hman&#8217;s foot with his hand,
+which he then carries to his own forehead to signify this. A man wishing to ask a favour in a humble manner stands on one
+leg and folds his cloth round his neck to show that his head is at his benefactor&#8217;s disposal; and he takes a piece of grass
+in his mouth by which he means to say, &#8216;I am your cow.&#8217; Br&#257;hmans greeting each other clasp the hands and say &#8216;Salaam,&#8217; this
+method of greeting being known as Namaskar. Since most Br&#257;hmans have abandoned the priestly calling and are engaged in Government
+service and the professions, this exaggerated display of reverence is tending to disappear, nor do the educated members of
+the caste set any great store by it, preferring the social estimation attaching to such a prominent secular position as they
+often attain for themselves.
+
+
+</p>
+</div>
+<div class="div2" id="d0e10062">
+<h3>19. Titles.</h3>
+<p>Any Br&#257;hman is, however, commonly addressed by other castes as Mah&#257;r&#257;j, great king, or else as Pandit, a learned man. I had
+a Br&#257;hman chupr&#257;ssie, or orderly, who was regularly addressed by the rest of the household as Pandit, and on inquiring as
+to the literary attainments of this learned man, I found he had read the first two class-books in a primary school. Other
+titles of Br&#257;hmans are Dvija, or twice-born, that is, one who has had the thread ceremony performed; Bipra, applied to a Br&#257;hman
+learned in the Sh&#257;stras or scriptures; and Srotriya, a learned Br&#257;hman who is engaged in the performance of Vedic rites.
+
+
+</p>
+</div>
+<div class="div2" id="d0e10067">
+<h3>20. Caste <i>panch&#257;yat</i> and offences.
+</h3>
+<p>The Br&#257;hmans have a caste <i>panch&#257;yat</i>, but among the educated classes the tendency is to drop the <i>panch&#257;yat</i> procedure and to refer matters of caste rules and etiquette to the informal decision of a few of the most respected local
+<a id="d0e10081"></a><span class="pagenum">[<a href="#d0e10081">384</a>]</span>members. In northern India there is no supreme authority for the caste, but the five southern divisions acknowledge the successor
+of the great reformer Shankar Ach&#257;rya as their spiritual head, and important caste questions are referred to him. His headquarters
+are at the monastery of Sringeri on the Cauvery river in Mysore. Mr. Joshi gives four offences as punishable with permanent
+exclusion from caste: killing a Br&#257;hman, drinking prohibited wine or spirits, committing incest with a mother or step-mother
+or with the wife of one&#8217;s spiritual preceptor, and stealing gold from a priest. Some very important offences, therefore, such
+as murder of any person other than a Br&#257;hman, adultery with a woman of impure caste and taking food from her, and all offences
+against property, except those mentioned, do not involve permanent expulsion. Temporary exclusion is inflicted for a variety
+of offences, among which are teaching the Vedas for hire, receiving gifts from a S&#363;dra for performing fire-worship, falsely
+accusing a spiritual preceptor, subsisting by the harlotry of a wife, and defiling a damsel. It is possible that some of the
+offences against morality are comparatively recent additions. Br&#257;hmans who cross the sea to be educated in England are readmitted
+into caste on going through various rites of purification; the principal of these is to swallow the five products of the sacred
+cow, milk, <i>gh&#299;</i> or preserved butter, curds, dung and urine. But the small minority who have introduced widow-marriage are still banned by
+the orthodox.
+
+
+</p>
+<div id="d0e10086" class="figure"><img border="0" src="images/p384.jpg" alt="Br&#257;hman bathing party." width="720" height="418"><p class="figureHead">Br&#257;hman bathing party.</p>
+</div><p>
+
+
+
+</p>
+</div>
+<div class="div2" id="d0e10090">
+<h3>21. Rules about food.</h3>
+<p>Br&#257;hmans as a rule should not eat meat nor drink intoxicating liquor. But it is said that the following indulgences have been
+recognised: for residents in eastern India the eating of flesh and drinking liquor; for those of northern India the eating
+of flesh; for those in the west the use of water out of leather buckets; and in the south marriage with a first cousin on
+the mother&#8217;s side. Hindust&#257;ni Br&#257;hmans eat meat, according to Mr. Joshi, and others are now also adopting this custom. The
+kinds of meat permitted are mutton and venison, scaly, but not scaleless, fish, hares, and even the tortoise, wild boar, wild
+buffalo and rhinoceros. Br&#257;hmans are said even to eat domestic fowls, though not openly, and wild jungle <a id="d0e10095"></a><span class="pagenum">[<a href="#d0e10095">385</a>]</span>fowls are preferred, but are seldom obtainable. Mar&#257;tha Br&#257;hmans will not eat meat openly. Formerly only the flesh of animals
+offered in sacrifice could be eaten, but this rule is being disregarded and some Br&#257;hmans buy mutton from the butchers. A
+Br&#257;hman should not eat even <i>pakki rasoi</i> or food cooked without water, such as sweetmeats and cakes fried in butter or oil, except when cooked by his own family and
+in his own home. But these are now partaken of abroad, and also purchased from the Halwai or confectioner on the assumption
+that he is a Br&#257;hman. A Br&#257;hman should take food cooked with water only from his own relations and in his own home after the
+place has been purified and spread with cowdung. He bathes before eating, and wears only a yellow silk or woollen cloth round
+his waist, which is kept specially for this purpose, cotton being regarded as impure. But these rules are tending to become
+obsolete, as educated Br&#257;hmans recognise more and more what a hindrance they cause to any social enjoyment. Boys especially
+who receive an English education in high schools and universities are rapidly becoming more liberal. They will drink soda-water
+or lemonade of which they are very fond, and eat European sweets and sometimes biscuits. The social intercourse of boys of
+all castes and religions in school and games, and in the latter the frequent association with Europeans, are having a remarkable
+effect in breaking down caste prejudice, the results of which should become very apparent in a few years. A Br&#257;hman also should
+not smoke, but many now do so, and when they go to see a friend will take their own huqqa with them as they cannot smoke out
+of his. Mar&#257;tha and Khedaw&#257;l Br&#257;hmans, however, as a rule do not smoke, but only chew tobacco.
+
+
+</p>
+</div>
+<div class="div2" id="d0e10100">
+<h3>22. Dress.</h3>
+<p>A Br&#257;hman&#8217;s dress should be white, and he can have a coloured turban, preferably red. Mar&#257;tha Br&#257;hmans were very particular
+about the securing of their <i>dhoti</i> or loin-cloth, which always had to have five tucks, three into the waistband at the two sides and in front, while the loose
+ends were tucked in in front and behind. Buttons had to be avoided as they were made of bone, and shoes were considered to
+be impure as being of leather. Formerly a <a id="d0e10108"></a><span class="pagenum">[<a href="#d0e10108">386</a>]</span>Br&#257;hman never entered a house with his shoes on, as he would consider the house to be defiled. According to the old rule,
+if a Br&#257;hman touches a man of an impure caste, as a Cham&#257;r (tanner) or Basor (basket-maker), he should bathe and change his
+loin-cloth, and if he touches a sweeper he should change his sacred thread. Now, however, educated Br&#257;hmans usually wear white
+cotton trousers and black or brown coats of cloth, alpaca or silk with the normal allowance of buttons, and European shoes
+and boots which they keep on indoors. Boys are even discarding the <i>choti</i> or scalp-lock and simply cut their hair short in imitation of the English. For the head small felt caps have become fashionable
+in lieu of turbans.
+
+
+</p>
+</div>
+<div class="div2" id="d0e10113">
+<h3>23. Tattooing.</h3>
+<p>Men are never tattooed, but women are freely tattooed on the face and body. One dot is made in the centre of the forehead
+and three on the left nostril in the form of a triangle. All the limbs and the fingers and toes may also be tattooed, the
+most common patterns being a peacock with spread wings, a fish, cuckoo, scorpion, a child&#8217;s doll, a sieve, a pattern of S&#299;ta&#8217;s
+cookroom and representations of all female ornaments. Some women think that they will be able to sell the ornaments tattooed
+on their bodies in the next world and subsist on the proceeds.
+
+
+</p>
+</div>
+<div class="div2" id="d0e10118">
+<h3>24. Occupation.</h3>
+<p>In former times the Br&#257;hman was supposed to confine himself to priestly duties, learning the Vedas and giving instruction
+to the laity. His subsistence was to be obtained from gleaning the fields after the crop had been cut and from unsolicited
+alms, as it was disgraceful for him to beg. But if he could not make a living in this manner he was at liberty to adopt a
+trade or profession. The majority of Br&#257;hmans have followed the latter course with much success. They were the ministers of
+Hindu kings, and as these were usually illiterate, most of the power fell into the Br&#257;hmans&#8217; hands. In Poona the Mar&#257;tha Br&#257;hmans
+became the actual rulers of the State. They have profited much from gifts and bequests of land for charitable purposes and
+are one of the largest landholding castes. In Mew&#257;r it was recorded that a fifth of the State revenue from land was assigned
+in religious grants,<a id="d0e10123src" href="#d0e10123" class="noteref">24</a> and in the deeds of gift, drawn <a id="d0e10128"></a><span class="pagenum">[<a href="#d0e10128">387</a>]</span>up no doubt by the Br&#257;hmans themselves, the most terrible penalties were invoked on any one who should interfere with the
+grant. One of these was that such an impious person would be a caterpillar in hell for sixty thousand years.<a id="d0e10130src" href="#d0e10130" class="noteref">25</a> Plots of land and mango groves are also frequently given to Br&#257;hmans by village proprietors. A Br&#257;hman is forbidden to touch
+the plough with his own hands, but this rule is falling into abeyance and many Br&#257;hman cultivators plough themselves. Br&#257;hmans
+are also prohibited from selling a large number of articles, as milk, butter, cows, salt and so on. Formerly a Br&#257;hman village
+proprietor refused payment for the supplies of milk and butter given to travellers, and some would expend the whole produce
+of their cattle in feeding religious mendicants and poor Br&#257;hmans. But these scruples, which tended to multiply the number
+of beggars indefinitely, have happily vanished, and Br&#257;hmans will even sell cows to a butcher. Mr. Joshi relates that a suit
+was brought by a Br&#257;hman in his court for the hide of a cow sold by him for slaughter. A number of Br&#257;hmans are employed as
+personal servants, and these are usually cooks, a Br&#257;hman cook being very useful, since all Hindus can eat the food which
+he prepares. Nor has this calling hitherto been considered derogatory, as food is held to be sacred, and he who prepares it
+is respected. Many live on charitable contributions, and it is a rule among Hindus that a Br&#257;hman coming into the house and
+asking for a present must be given something or his curse will ruin the family. Liberality is encouraged by the recitation
+of legends, such as that of the good king Harischandra who gave away his whole kingdom to the great Br&#257;hman saint Visvamitra,
+and retired to Ben&#257;res with a loin-cloth which the recipient allowed him to retain from his possessions. But Br&#257;hmans who
+take gifts at the time of a death, and those who take them from pilgrims at the sacred shrines, are despised and considered
+as out of caste, though not the priests in charge of temples. The rapacity of all these classes is proverbial, and an instance
+may be given of the conduct of the Pandas or temple-priests of Ben&#257;res. These men were so haughty that they never appeared
+in the temple unless <a id="d0e10135"></a><span class="pagenum">[<a href="#d0e10135">388</a>]</span>some very important visitor was expected, who would be able to pay largely. It is related that when the ex-Peshwa of Poona
+came to Ben&#257;res after the death of his father he solicited the Panda of the great temple of Viseshwar to assist him in the
+performance of the ceremonies necessary for the repose of his father&#8217;s soul. But the priest refused to do so until the Mah&#257;r&#257;ja
+had filled with coined silver the <i>hauz</i> or font of the temple. The demand was acceded to and Rs. 125,000 were required to fill the font.<a id="d0e10140src" href="#d0e10140" class="noteref">26</a> Those who are very poor adopt the profession of a Mah&#257;-Br&#257;hman or Mah&#257;p&#257;tra, who takes gifts for the dead. Respectable Br&#257;hmans
+will not accept gifts at all, but when asked to a feast the host usually gives them one to four annas or pence with betel-leaf
+at the time of their departure, and there is no shame in accepting this. A very rich man may give a gold mohar (guinea) to
+each Br&#257;hman. Other Br&#257;hmans act as astrologers and foretell events. They pretend to be able to produce rain in a drought
+or stop excessive rainfall when it is injuring the crops. They interpret dreams and omens. In the case of a theft the loser
+will go to a Br&#257;hman astrologer, and after learning the circumstances the latter will tell him what sort of person stole the
+property and in what direction the property is concealed. But the large majority of Br&#257;hmans have abandoned all priestly functions,
+and are employed in all grades of Government service, the professions and agriculture. In 1911 about fifty-three per cent
+of Br&#257;hmans in the Central Provinces were supported by agriculture as landowners, cultivators and labourers. About twenty-two
+per cent were engaged in the arts and professions, seven per cent in Government service, including the police which contains
+many Br&#257;hman constables, and only nineteen per cent were returned under all occupations connected with religion.
+
+
+</p>
+</div>
+<div class="div2" id="d0e10143">
+<h3>25. Character of Br&#257;hmans.</h3>
+<p>Many hard things have been said about the Br&#257;hman caste and have not been undeserved. The Br&#257;hman priesthood displayed in
+a marked degree the vices of arrogance, greed, hypocrisy and dissimulation, which would naturally be engendered by their sacerdotal
+pretensions and the position they claimed at the head of Hindu society. But the priests <a id="d0e10148"></a><span class="pagenum">[<a href="#d0e10148">389</a>]</span>and mendicants now, as has been seen, contribute only a comparatively small minority of the whole caste. The majority of the
+Br&#257;hmans are lawyers, doctors, executive officers of Government and clerks in all kinds of Government, railway and private
+offices. The defects ascribed to the priesthood apply to these, if at all, only in a very minor degree. The Br&#257;hman official
+has many virtues. He is, as a rule, honest, industrious and anxious to do his work creditably. He spends very little on his
+own pleasures, and his chief aim in life is to give his children as good an education as he can afford. A half or more of
+his income may be devoted to this object. If he is well-to-do he helps his poor relations liberally, having the strong fellow-feeling
+for them which is a relic of the joint family system. He is a faithful husband and an affectionate father. If his outlook
+on life is narrow and much of his leisure often devoted to petty quarrels and intrigues, this is largely the result of his
+imperfect, parrot-like education and lack of opportunity for anything better. In this respect it may be anticipated that the
+excellent education and training now afforded by Government in secondary schools for very small fees will produce a great
+improvement; and that the next generation of educated Hindus will be considerably more manly and intelligent, and it may be
+hoped at the same time not less honest, industrious and loyal than their fathers.
+
+
+</p>
+</div>
+<div class="footnotes">
+<hr class="fnsep">
+<p class="footnote"><span class="label"><a id="d0e9369" href="#d0e9369src" class="noteref">1</a></span> This article is mainly compiled from a full and excellent account of the caste by Mr. Gopal Datta Joshi, Civil Judge, Saugor,
+C.P., to whom the writer is much indebted. Extracts have also been taken from Mr. W. Crooke&#8217;s and Sir H. Risley&#8217;s articles
+on the caste in their works on the <i>Tribes and Castes</i> of the United Provinces and Bengal respectively; from Mr. J. N. Bhattach&#257;rya&#8217;s <i>Hindu Castes and Sects</i> (Thacker, Spink &amp; Co., Calcutta, 1896), and from the Rev. W. Ward&#8217;s <i>View of the History, Literature and Religion of the Hindus</i> (London, 1817).
+</p>
+<p class="footnote"><span class="label"><a id="d0e9553" href="#d0e9553src" class="noteref">2</a></span> Crooke&#8217;s <i>Tribes and Castes</i>, art. Br&#257;hman, quoting Professor Eggeling in <i>Encyclop&aelig;dia Britannica</i>, s.v. Br&#257;hmanism.
+</p>
+<p class="footnote"><span class="label"><a id="d0e9562" href="#d0e9562src" class="noteref">3</a></span> <i>Tribes and Castes of Bengal</i>, art. Br&#257;hman.
+</p>
+<p class="footnote"><span class="label"><a id="d0e9579" href="#d0e9579src" class="noteref">4</a></span> <i>Hindu Manners, Customs, and Ceremonies</i>, 3rd ed. p. 172.
+</p>
+<p class="footnote"><span class="label"><a id="d0e9600" href="#d0e9600src" class="noteref">5</a></span> Muir, <i>Ancient Sanskrit Texts</i>, i. 282 <i>sq.</i></p>
+<p class="footnote"><span class="label"><a id="d0e9608" href="#d0e9608src" class="noteref">6</a></span> Quoted in Mr. Crooke&#8217;s <i>Tribes and Castes</i>, art. Br&#257;hman.
+</p>
+<p class="footnote"><span class="label"><a id="d0e9614" href="#d0e9614src" class="noteref">7</a></span> Quoted by Mr. Crooke.
+</p>
+<p class="footnote"><span class="label"><a id="d0e9619" href="#d0e9619src" class="noteref">8</a></span> <i>Tribes and Castes of the Punj&#257;b</i>, by Mr. H. A. Rose, vol. ii. p. 123.
+</p>
+<p class="footnote"><span class="label"><a id="d0e9649" href="#d0e9649src" class="noteref">9</a></span> See also article R&#257;jp&#363;t-Gaur.
+</p>
+<p class="footnote"><span class="label"><a id="d0e9688" href="#d0e9688src" class="noteref">10</a></span> See subordinate articles.
+</p>
+<p class="footnote"><span class="label"><a id="d0e9727" href="#d0e9727src" class="noteref">11</a></span> A section of the Kanaujia. See above.
+</p>
+<p class="footnote"><span class="label"><a id="d0e9794" href="#d0e9794src" class="noteref">12</a></span> <i>Tribes and Castes</i>, art. Br&#257;hman.
+</p>
+<p class="footnote"><span class="label"><a id="d0e9814" href="#d0e9814src" class="noteref">13</a></span> Chap. ix. v. 173.
+</p>
+<p class="footnote"><span class="label"><a id="d0e9859" href="#d0e9859src" class="noteref">14</a></span> Ward&#8217;s <i>Hindus</i>, vol. ii. p. 97.
+</p>
+<p class="footnote"><span class="label"><a id="d0e9870" href="#d0e9870src" class="noteref">15</a></span> <i>Ibidem</i>, pp. 98, 100.
+</p>
+<p class="footnote"><span class="label"><a id="d0e9937" href="#d0e9937src" class="noteref">16</a></span> <i>Hindu Manners, Customs and Ceremonies</i>, by the Abb&eacute; Dubois, 3rd ed. p. 499.
+</p>
+<p class="footnote"><span class="label"><a id="d0e9942" href="#d0e9942src" class="noteref">17</a></span> <i>Ibidem</i>, p. 500.
+</p>
+<p class="footnote"><span class="label"><a id="d0e9957" href="#d0e9957src" class="noteref">18</a></span> London, Heinemann (1897), pp. 84&#8211;91.
+</p>
+<p class="footnote"><span class="label"><a id="d0e9983" href="#d0e9983src" class="noteref">19</a></span> This is the famous Gayatri.
+</p>
+<p class="footnote"><span class="label"><a id="d0e9996" href="#d0e9996src" class="noteref">20</a></span> It is not known how a slip-knot and a garland are connected with any incarnation of Vishnu. For the incarnations see articles
+Vaishnava sect.
+</p>
+<p class="footnote"><span class="label"><a id="d0e10012" href="#d0e10012src" class="noteref">21</a></span> In the Central Provinces Ganpati is represented by a round red stone, Surya by a rock crystal or the Swastik sign, Devi by
+an image in brass or by a stone brought from her famous temple at Mahur, and Vishnu by the round black stone or S&#257;ligr&#257;m.
+Besides these every Br&#257;hman will have a special family god, who may be one of the above or another deity, as R&#257;ma or Krishna.
+</p>
+<p class="footnote"><span class="label"><a id="d0e10046" href="#d0e10046src" class="noteref">22</a></span> <i>Bipracharanamrita.</i></p>
+<p class="footnote"><span class="label"><a id="d0e10055" href="#d0e10055src" class="noteref">23</a></span> <i>Hindu Castes and Sects</i>, pp. 19&#8211;21.
+</p>
+<p class="footnote"><span class="label"><a id="d0e10123" href="#d0e10123src" class="noteref">24</a></span> <i>R&#257;jasth&#257;n</i>, i. p. 487.
+</p>
+<p class="footnote"><span class="label"><a id="d0e10130" href="#d0e10130src" class="noteref">25</a></span> <i>R&#257;jasth&#257;n</i>, i. p. 698.
+</p>
+<p class="footnote"><span class="label"><a id="d0e10140" href="#d0e10140src" class="noteref">26</a></span> At that time &pound;12,500 or more, now about &pound;8000.
+</p>
+</div>
+</div>
+<div id="d0e10150" class="div1"><span class="pagenum">
+[<a href="#d0e111">Contents</a>]
+</span><h2>Br&#257;hman, Ahiv&#257;si</h2>
+<p><b>Br&#257;hman, Ahiv&#257;si.</b>&#8212;A class of persons who claim to be Br&#257;hmans, but are generally engaged in cultivation and pack-carriage. They are looked
+down upon by other Br&#257;hmans, and permit the remarriage of widows. The name means the abode of the snake or dragon, and the
+caste are said to be derived from a village Sunrakh in Muttra District, where a dragon once lived. For further information
+Mr. Crooke&#8217;s article on the caste,<a id="d0e10157src" href="#d0e10157" class="noteref">1</a> from which the above details are taken, may be consulted.
+
+</p>
+<div class="footnotes">
+<hr class="fnsep">
+<p class="footnote"><span class="label"><a id="d0e10157" href="#d0e10157src" class="noteref">1</a></span> <i>Tribes and Castes of the North-West Provinces and Oudh</i>, s.v.
+</p>
+</div>
+</div>
+<div id="d0e10162" class="div1"><span class="pagenum">
+[<a href="#d0e111">Contents</a>]
+</span><h2>Br&#257;hman, Jijhotia</h2>
+<p><b>Br&#257;hman, Jijhotia.</b>&#8212;This is a local subdivision of the Kanaujia subcaste, belonging to Bundelkhand. They take their name from Jajhoti, the classical
+term for Bundelkhand, <a id="d0e10169"></a><span class="pagenum">[<a href="#d0e10169">390</a>]</span>and reside in Saugor and the adjoining Districts, where they usually act as priests to the higher castes. The Jijhotia Br&#257;hmans
+rank a little below the Kanaujias proper and the Sarwarias, who are also a branch of the Kanaujia division. The two latter
+classes take daughters in marriage from Jijhotias, but do not give their daughters to them. But these hypergamous marriages
+are now rare. Jijhotia Br&#257;hmans will plough with their own hands in Saugor.
+
+
+</p>
+<div id="d0e10171" class="figure"><img border="0" src="images/p390.jpg" alt="Br&#257;hman Puj&#257;ris or priests." width="720" height="415"><p class="figureHead">Br&#257;hman Puj&#257;ris or priests.</p>
+</div><p>
+
+
+
+</p>
+</div>
+<div id="d0e10175" class="div1"><span class="pagenum">
+[<a href="#d0e111">Contents</a>]
+</span><h2>Br&#257;hman, Kanaujia, Kanyakubja</h2>
+<p><b>Br&#257;hman, Kanaujia, Kanyakubja.</b>&#8212;This, the most important division of the northern Br&#257;hmans, takes its name from the ancient city of Kanauj in the Farukh&#257;b&#257;d
+District on the Ganges, which was on two occasions the capital of India. The great king Harsha Vardhana, who ruled the whole
+of northern India in the seventh century, had his headquarters here, and when the Chinese pilgrim Hiuen Tsang stayed at Kanauj
+in <span class="smallcaps">A.D.</span> 638 and 643 he found upwards of a hundred monasteries crowded by more than 10,000 Buddhist monks. &#8220;Hinduism flourished as
+well as Buddhism, and could show more than two hundred temples with thousands of worshippers. The city, which was strongly
+fortified, extended along the east bank of the Ganges for about four miles, and was adorned with lovely gardens and clear
+tanks. The inhabitants were well-to-do, including some families of great wealth; they dressed in silk, and were skilled in
+learning and the arts.&#8221;<a id="d0e10185src" href="#d0e10185" class="noteref">1</a> When Mahm&#363;d of Ghazni appeared before Kanauj in <span class="smallcaps">A.D.</span> 1018 the number of temples is said to have risen to 10,000. The Sultan destroyed the temples, but seems to have spared the
+city. Thereafter Kanauj declined in importance, though still the capital of a R&#257;jp&#363;t dynasty, and the final sack by Shih&#257;b-ud-D&#299;n
+in <span class="smallcaps">A.D.</span> 1194 reduced it to desolation and insignificance for ever.<a id="d0e10196src" href="#d0e10196" class="noteref">2</a>
+
+</p>
+<p>The Kanaujia Br&#257;hmans include the principal body of the caste in Bengal and in the Hindi Districts of the Central Provinces.
+They are here divided into four sub-groups, the Kanaujia proper, Sarwaria, Jijhotia and San&#257;dhya, which are separately noticed.
+The Sarwarias are sometimes considered to rank a little higher than the proper Kanaujias. It is said that the two classes
+are the <a id="d0e10203"></a><span class="pagenum">[<a href="#d0e10203">391</a>]</span>descendants of two brothers, Kanya and Kubja, of whom the former accepted a present from the divine king R&#257;ma of Ayodhya when
+he celebrated a sacrifice on his return from Ceylon, while the latter refused it. The Sarwarias are descended from Kubja who
+refused the present and therefore are purer than the Kanaujias, whose ancestor, Kanya, accepted it. Kanya and Kubja are simply
+the two parts of Kanyakubja, the old name for Kanauj. It may be noted that Kanya means a maiden and also the constellation
+Virgo, while Kubja is a name of the planet Mars; but it is not known whether the words in this sense are connected with the
+name of the city. The Kanaujia Br&#257;hmans of the Central Provinces practise hypergamy, as described in the general article on
+Br&#257;hman. Mr. Crooke states that in the United Provinces the children of a man&#8217;s second wife can intermarry with those of his
+first wife, provided that they are not otherwise related or of the same section. The practice of exchanging girls between
+families is also permitted there.<a id="d0e10205src" href="#d0e10205" class="noteref">3</a> In the Central Provinces the Kanaujias eat meat and sometimes plough with their own hands. The Chhatt&#299;sgarhi Kanaujias form
+a separate group, who have been long separated from their brethren elsewhere. As a consequence other Kanaujias will neither
+eat nor intermarry with them. Similarly in Saugor those who have come recently from the United Provinces will not marry with
+the older settlers. A Kanaujia Br&#257;hman is very strict in the matter of taking food, and will scarcely eat it unless cooked
+by his own relations, according to the saying, &#8216;<i lang="und">Ath Kanaujia, nau chulha</i>&#8217; or &#8216;Eight Kanaujias will want nine places to cook their food.&#8217;
+
+
+</p>
+<div class="footnotes">
+<hr class="fnsep">
+<p class="footnote"><span class="label"><a id="d0e10185" href="#d0e10185src" class="noteref">1</a></span> <i>Early History of India</i>, 3rd ed. p. 376.
+</p>
+<p class="footnote"><span class="label"><a id="d0e10196" href="#d0e10196src" class="noteref">2</a></span> <i>Ibidem</i>, p. 385.
+</p>
+<p class="footnote"><span class="label"><a id="d0e10205" href="#d0e10205src" class="noteref">3</a></span> <i>Tribes and Castes</i>, art. Kanaujia.
+</p>
+</div>
+</div>
+<div id="d0e10213" class="div1"><span class="pagenum">
+[<a href="#d0e111">Contents</a>]
+</span><h2>Br&#257;hman, Khed&#257;w&#257;l</h2>
+<p><b>Br&#257;hman, Khed&#257;w&#257;l.</b>&#8212;The Khed&#257;w&#257;ls are a class of Gujar&#257;ti Br&#257;hmans, who take their name from Kheda or Kaira, the headquarters of the Kaira District,
+where they principally reside. They have two divisions, known as Inside and Outside. It is said that once the Kaira chief
+was anxious to have a son and offered them gifts. The majority refused the gifts, and leaving Kaira settled in villages outside
+the town; while a small number accepted the gifts and <a id="d0e10220"></a><span class="pagenum">[<a href="#d0e10220">392</a>]</span>remained inside, and hence two separate divisions arose, the outside group being the higher.<a id="d0e10222src" href="#d0e10222" class="noteref">1</a> It is said that the first Khed&#257;w&#257;l who came to the Central Provinces was on a journey from Gujar&#257;t to Ben&#257;res when, on passing
+through Panna State, he saw some diamonds lying in a field. He stopped and picked up as many as he could and presented them
+to the R&#257;ja of Panna, who made him a grant of an estate, and from this time other Khed&#257;w&#257;ls came and settled. A considerable
+colony of them now exists in Saugor and Damoh. The Khed&#257;w&#257;ls are clever and astute, and many of them are the agents of landowners
+and moneylenders, while a large proportion are in the service of the Government. They do not as a rule perform priestly functions
+in the Central Provinces. Their caste observances are strict. Formerly it is said that a Khed&#257;w&#257;l who was sent to jail was
+permanently expelled from caste, and though the rule has been relaxed the penalties for readmission are still very heavy.
+They do not smoke, but only chew tobacco. Widows must dress in white, and their heads are sometimes shaved. They are said
+to consider a camel as impure as a donkey, and will not touch either animal. One of their common titles is Mehta, meaning
+great. The Khed&#257;w&#257;ls of the Central Provinces formerly married only among themselves, but since the railway has been opened
+intermarriage with their caste-fellows in Gujar&#257;t has been resumed.
+
+
+</p>
+<div id="d0e10227" class="figure"><img border="0" src="images/p392.jpg" alt="Group of Mar&#257;tha Br&#257;hman men." width="720" height="399"><p class="figureHead">Group of Mar&#257;tha Br&#257;hman men.</p>
+</div><p>
+
+
+
+</p>
+<div class="footnotes">
+<hr class="fnsep">
+<p class="footnote"><span class="label"><a id="d0e10222" href="#d0e10222src" class="noteref">1</a></span> <i>Bombay Gazetteer, Hindus of Gujarat</i>, p. 11.
+</p>
+</div>
+</div>
+<div id="d0e10231" class="div1"><span class="pagenum">
+[<a href="#d0e111">Contents</a>]
+</span><h2>Br&#257;hman, Mah&#257;r&#257;shtra</h2>
+<p><b>Br&#257;hman, Mah&#257;r&#257;shtra, Mar&#257;tha.</b>&#8212;The Mar&#257;tha Br&#257;hmans, or those of the Bombay country, are numerous and important in the Central Provinces. The northern Districts
+were for a period governed by Mar&#257;tha Br&#257;hmans on behalf of the Peshwa of Poona, and under the Bhonsla dynasty of N&#257;gpur in
+the south they took a large part in the administration. The Mar&#257;tha Br&#257;hmans have three main subcastes, the Deshasth, Konkonasth
+and Karh&#257;da. The Deshasth Br&#257;hmans belong to the country of Poona above the Western Ghats, which is known as the <i>desh</i> or home country. They are numerous in Ber&#257;r and N&#257;gpur. The Konkonasth are so called because they reside in the Konkan country
+along the Bombay coast. They have noticeably fair complexions, <a id="d0e10241"></a><span class="pagenum">[<a href="#d0e10241">393</a>]</span>good features and often grey eyes. According to a legend they were sprung from the corpses of a party of shipwrecked foreigners,
+who were raised to life by Parasur&#257;ma.<a id="d0e10243src" href="#d0e10243" class="noteref">1</a> This story and their fine appearance have given rise to the hypothesis that their ancestors were shipwrecked sailors from
+some European country, or from Arabia or Persia. They are also known as Chitp&#257;van, which is said to mean the pure in heart,
+but a derivation suggested in the <i>Bombay Gazetteer</i> is from Chiplun or Chit&#257;polan, a place in the Konkan which was their headquarters. The Peshwa of Poona was a Konkonasth Br&#257;hman,
+and there are a number of them in Saugor. The Karh&#257;da Br&#257;hmans take their name from the town of Karh&#257;d in the Sat&#257;ra District.
+They show little difference from the Deshasths in customs and appearance.
+
+</p>
+<p>Formerly the above three subcastes were endogamous and married only among themselves. But since the railway has been opened
+they have begun to intermarry with each other to a limited extent, having obtained sanction to this from the successor of
+Shankar Ach&#257;rya, whom they acknowledge as their spiritual head.
+
+</p>
+<p>The Mar&#257;tha Br&#257;hmans are also divided into sects, according to the Veda which they follow. Most of them are either Rigvedis
+or Yajurvedis, and these two sects marry among themselves. These Br&#257;hmans are strict in the observance of caste rules. They
+do not take water from any but other Br&#257;hmans, and abstain from flesh and liquor. They will, however, eat with any of the
+P&#257;nch-Dr&#257;vid or southern divisions of Br&#257;hmans except those of Gujar&#257;t. They usually abstain from smoking, and until recently
+have made widows shave their heads; but this rule is perhaps now relaxed. As a rule they are well educated, and the majority
+of them look to Government service for a career, either as clerks in the public offices or as officers of the executive and
+judicial services. They are intelligent and generally reliable workers. The full name of a Mar&#257;tha or Gujar&#257;ti Br&#257;hman consists
+of his own name, his father&#8217;s name and a surname. But he is commonly addressed by his own name, followed by the honorific
+termination Rao for R&#257;ja, a king, or Pant for Pandit, a wise man.
+
+<a id="d0e10255"></a><span class="pagenum">[<a href="#d0e10255">394</a>]</span></p>
+<div class="footnotes">
+<hr class="fnsep">
+<p class="footnote"><span class="label"><a id="d0e10243" href="#d0e10243src" class="noteref">1</a></span> <i>Bombay Gazetteer, Sat&#257;ra</i>, p. 54.
+</p>
+</div>
+</div>
+<div id="d0e10256" class="div1"><span class="pagenum">
+[<a href="#d0e111">Contents</a>]
+</span><h2>Br&#257;hman, Maithil</h2>
+<p><b>Br&#257;hman, Maithil.</b>&#8212;One of the five P&#257;nch-Gaur or northern divisions, comprising the Br&#257;hmans of Bih&#257;r or Tirh&#363;t. There are some Maithil Br&#257;hman
+families settled in Mandla, who were formerly in the service of the Gond kings. They have the surname of Ojha, which is one
+of those borne by the caste and signifies a soothsayer. The Maithil Br&#257;hmans are said to have at one time practised magic.
+Mithila or Bih&#257;r has also, from the earliest times, been famous for the cultivation of Sanskrit, and the great lawgiver Yajnavalkya
+is described as a native of this country.<a id="d0e10263src" href="#d0e10263" class="noteref">1</a> The head of the subcaste is the Mah&#257;r&#257;ja of Darbhanga, to whom family disputes are sometimes referred for decision. The Maithil
+Br&#257;hmans are said to be mainly Sakti worshippers. They eat flesh and fish, but do not drink liquor or smoke tobacco.<a id="d0e10269src" href="#d0e10269" class="noteref">2</a>
+
+
+
+</p>
+<div class="footnotes">
+<hr class="fnsep">
+<p class="footnote"><span class="label"><a id="d0e10263" href="#d0e10263src" class="noteref">1</a></span> Bhattach&#257;rya, <i>Hindu Castes and Sects</i>, p. 47.
+</p>
+<p class="footnote"><span class="label"><a id="d0e10269" href="#d0e10269src" class="noteref">2</a></span> <i>Ibidem</i>, p. 48.
+</p>
+</div>
+</div>
+<div id="d0e10274" class="div1"><span class="pagenum">
+[<a href="#d0e111">Contents</a>]
+</span><h2>Br&#257;hman, M&#257;lwi</h2>
+<p><b>Br&#257;hman, M&#257;lwi.</b>&#8212;This is a local class of Br&#257;hmans from M&#257;lwa in Central India, who are found in the Hoshang&#257;b&#257;d and Bet&#363;l Districts. They
+are said to have been invited here by the Gond kings of Kherla in Bet&#363;l six or more centuries ago, and are probably of impure
+descent. M&#257;lwa is north of the Nerbudda, and they should therefore properly belong to the P&#257;nch-Gaur division, but they speak
+Mar&#257;thi and their customs resemble those of Mar&#257;tha Br&#257;hmans, who will take food cooked without water from them. The M&#257;lwi
+Br&#257;hmans usually belong to the Madhyandina branch of the Yajurvedi sect. They work as village accountants (<i>patw&#257;ris</i>) and village priests, and also cultivate land.
+
+
+</p>
+</div>
+<div id="d0e10284" class="div1"><span class="pagenum">
+[<a href="#d0e111">Contents</a>]
+</span><h2>Br&#257;hman, N&#257;gar</h2>
+<p><b>Br&#257;hman, N&#257;gar.</b>&#8212;A class of Gujar&#257;ti Br&#257;hmans found in the Nim&#257;r District. The name is said to be derived from the town of Vadnagar of Gujar&#257;t,
+now in Baroda State. According to one account they accepted grants of land from a R&#257;jp&#363;t king, and hence were put out of caste
+by their fellows. Another story is that the N&#257;gar Br&#257;hman women were renowned for their personal beauty and also for their
+skill in music. The emperor Jah&#257;ngir, hearing of their fame, wished to see them and sent for them, but they refused <a id="d0e10291"></a><span class="pagenum">[<a href="#d0e10291">395</a>]</span>to go. The emperor then ordered that all the men should be killed and the women be taken to his Court. A terrible struggle
+ensued, and many women threw themselves into tanks and rivers and were drowned, rather than lose their modesty by appearing
+before the emperor. A body of Br&#257;hmans numbering 7450 (or 74&frac12; hundred) threw away their sacred threads and became S&#363;dras in
+order to save their lives. Since this occurrence the figure 74&frac12; is considered very unlucky. Banias write 74&frac12; in the beginning
+of their account-books, by which they are held to take a vow that if they make a false entry in the book they will be guilty
+of the sin of having killed this number of Br&#257;hmans. The same figure is also written on letters, so that none but the person
+to whom they are addressed may dare to open them.<a id="d0e10293src" href="#d0e10293" class="noteref">1</a>
+
+</p>
+<p>The above stories seem to show that the N&#257;gar Br&#257;hmans are partly of impure descent. In Gujar&#257;t it is said that one section
+of them called B&#257;rud are the descendants of N&#257;gar Br&#257;hman fathers who were unable to get wives in their own caste and took
+them from others. The B&#257;rud section also formerly permitted the remarriage of widows.<a id="d0e10298src" href="#d0e10298" class="noteref">2</a> This seems a further indication of mixed descent. The N&#257;gars settled in the Central Provinces have for a long time ceased
+to marry with those of Gujar&#257;t owing to difficulties in communication. But now that the railway has been opened they have
+petitioned the Rao of Bhaunagar, who is the head of the caste, and a N&#257;gar Br&#257;hman, to introduce intermarriage again between
+the two sections of the caste. Many N&#257;gar Br&#257;hmans have taken to secular occupations and are land-agents and cultivators.
+
+</p>
+<p>Formerly the N&#257;gar Br&#257;hmans observed very strict rules about defilement when in the state called <i>Nuven</i>, that is, having bathed and purified themselves prior to taking food. A Br&#257;hman in this condition was defiled if he touched
+an earthen vessel unless it was quite new and had never held water. If he sat down on a piece of cotton cloth or a scrap of
+leather or paper he became impure unless Hindu letters had been written on the paper; these, as being the goddess <a id="d0e10308"></a><span class="pagenum">[<a href="#d0e10308">396</a>]</span>S&#257;raswati, would preserve it from defilement. But cloth or leather could not be purified through being written on. Thus if
+the Br&#257;hman wished to read any book before or at his meal it had to be bound with silk and not with cotton; leather could
+not be used, and instead of paste of flour and water the binder had to employ paste of pounded tamarind seed. A printed book
+could not be read, because printing-ink contained impure matter. Raw cotton did not render the Br&#257;hman impure, but if it had
+been twisted into the wick of a lamp by any one not in a state of purity he became impure. Bones defiled, but women&#8217;s ivory
+armlets did not, except in those parts of the country where they were not usually worn, and then they did. The touch of a
+child of the same caste who had not learned to eat grain did not defile, but if the child ate grain it did. The touch of a
+donkey, a dog or a pig defiled; some said that the touch of a cat also defiled, but others were inclined to think it did not,
+because in truth it was not easy to keep the cat out.<a id="d0e10310src" href="#d0e10310" class="noteref">3</a>
+
+</p>
+<p>If a Br&#257;hman was defiled and rendered impure by any of the above means he could not proceed with his meal.
+
+
+</p>
+<div id="d0e10317" class="figure"><img border="0" src="images/p396.jpg" alt="Group of N&#257;ramdeo Br&#257;hman women." width="720" height="494"><p class="figureHead">Group of N&#257;ramdeo Br&#257;hman women.</p>
+</div><p>
+
+
+
+</p>
+<div class="footnotes">
+<hr class="fnsep">
+<p class="footnote"><span class="label"><a id="d0e10293" href="#d0e10293src" class="noteref">1</a></span> From Mr. Gopal Datta Joshi&#8217;s paper.
+</p>
+<p class="footnote"><span class="label"><a id="d0e10298" href="#d0e10298src" class="noteref">2</a></span> <i>R&#257;sm&#257;la</i>, ii. p. 233.
+</p>
+<p class="footnote"><span class="label"><a id="d0e10310" href="#d0e10310src" class="noteref">3</a></span> <i>R&#257;sm&#257;la</i>, ii. p. 259.
+</p>
+</div>
+</div>
+<div id="d0e10321" class="div1"><span class="pagenum">
+[<a href="#d0e111">Contents</a>]
+</span><h2>Br&#257;hman, N&#257;ramdeo</h2>
+<p><b>Br&#257;hman, N&#257;ramdeo.</b>&#8212;A class of Br&#257;hmans who live in the Hoshang&#257;b&#257;d and Nim&#257;r Districts near the banks of the Nerbudda, from which river their
+name is derived. According to their own account they belong to the Gurjara or Gujar&#257;ti division, and were expelled from Gujar&#257;t
+by a R&#257;ja who had cut up a golden cow and wished them to accept pieces of it as presents. This they refused to do on account
+of the sin involved, and hence were exiled and came to the Central Provinces. A local legend about them is to the effect that
+they are the descendants of a famous Rishi or saint, who dwelt beside the Nerbudda, and of a Naoda or Dh&#299;mar woman who was
+one of his disciples. The N&#257;ramdeo Br&#257;hmans have for the most part adopted secular occupations, though they act as village
+priests or astrologers. They are largely employed as village accountants (<i>patw&#257;ris</i>), clerks in Government offices, and agents to landowners, that is, in very much the same capacity <a id="d0e10331"></a><span class="pagenum">[<a href="#d0e10331">397</a>]</span>as the K&#257;yasths. As land-agents they show much astuteness, and are reputed to have enriched themselves in many cases at the
+expense of their masters. Hence they are unpopular with the cultivators just as the K&#257;yasths are, and very uncomplimentary
+proverbs are current about them.
+
+
+</p>
+</div>
+<div id="d0e10333" class="div1"><span class="pagenum">
+[<a href="#d0e111">Contents</a>]
+</span><h2>Br&#257;hman, San&#257;dhya</h2>
+<p><b>Br&#257;hman, San&#257;dhya, Sanaurhia.</b>&#8212;The San&#257;dhyas are considered in the Central Provinces to be a branch of the Kanaujia division. Their home is in the Ganges-Jumna
+Do&#257;b and Rohilkhand, between the Gaur Br&#257;hmans to the north-west and the Kanaujias to the east. Mr. Crooke states that in
+some localities the San&#257;dhyas intermarry with both the Kanaujia and Gaur divisions. But formerly both Kanaujias and Gaurs
+practised hypergamy with the San&#257;dhyas, taking daughters from them in marriage but not giving their daughters to them.<a id="d0e10340src" href="#d0e10340" class="noteref">1</a> This fact indicates the inferiority of the San&#257;dhya group, but marriage is now becoming reciprocal. In Bengal the San&#257;dhyas
+account for their inferiority to the other Kanaujias by saying that their ancestors on one occasion at the bidding of a R&#257;ja
+partook of a sacrificial feast with all their clothes on, instead of only their loin-cloths according to the rule among Br&#257;hmans,
+and were hence degraded. The San&#257;dhyas themselves have two divisions, the <i>S&#257;rhe-t&#299;n ghar</i> and <i>Dasghar</i>, or Three-and-a-half houses and Ten houses, of whom the former are superior, and practise hypergamy with the latter. Further,
+it is said that the Three-and-a-half group were once made to intermarry with the degraded Kataha or Mah&#257;-Br&#257;hmans, who are
+funeral priests.<a id="d0e10351src" href="#d0e10351" class="noteref">2</a> This further indicates the inferior status of the San&#257;dhyas. The Sanaurhia criminal caste of pickpockets are supposed to
+be made up of a nucleus of San&#257;dhya Br&#257;hmans with recruits from all other castes, but this is not certain. In the Central
+Provinces a number of San&#257;dhyas took to carrying grain and merchandise on pack-bullocks, and are hence known as Belw&#257;r. They
+form a separate subcaste, ranking below the other San&#257;dhyas and marrying among themselves. Mr. Crooke notes that at their
+weddings the San&#257;dhyas worship a potter&#8217;s wheel. Some make an image of it on the wall of the house, while <a id="d0e10357"></a><span class="pagenum">[<a href="#d0e10357">398</a>]</span>others go to the potter&#8217;s house and worship his wheel there. In the Central Provinces after the wedding they get a bed newly
+made with <i>new&#257;r</i> tape and seat the bride and bridegroom on it, and put a large plate at their feet, in which presents are placed. The San&#257;dhyas
+differ from the Kanaujias in that they smoke tobacco but do not eat meat, while the Kanaujias eat meat but do not smoke. They
+greet each other with the word Dand&#257;wat, adding Mah&#257;r&#257;j to an equal or superior.
+
+
+
+</p>
+<div id="d0e10362" class="figure"><img border="0" src="images/p398.jpg" alt="Group of N&#257;ramdeo Br&#257;hman men." width="720" height="401"><p class="figureHead">Group of N&#257;ramdeo Br&#257;hman men.</p>
+</div><p>
+
+
+</p>
+<div class="footnotes">
+<hr class="fnsep">
+<p class="footnote"><span class="label"><a id="d0e10340" href="#d0e10340src" class="noteref">1</a></span> <i>Tribes and Castes</i>, art. San&#257;dhya.
+</p>
+<p class="footnote"><span class="label"><a id="d0e10351" href="#d0e10351src" class="noteref">2</a></span> Crooke, <i>ibidem</i>, paras. 3 and 6.
+</p>
+</div>
+</div>
+<div id="d0e10366" class="div1"><span class="pagenum">
+[<a href="#d0e111">Contents</a>]
+</span><h2>Br&#257;hman, Sarwaria</h2>
+<p><b>Br&#257;hman, Sarwaria.</b>&#8212;This is the highest class of the Kanaujia Br&#257;mans, who take their name from the river Sarju or Gogra in Oudh, where they
+have their home. They observe strict rules of ceremonial purity, and do not smoke tobacco nor plough with their own hands.
+An orthodox Sarwaria Br&#257;man will not give his daughter in marriage in a village from which his family has received a girl,
+and sometimes will not even drink the water of that village. The Sarwarias make widows dress in white and sometimes shave
+their heads. In some tracts they intermarry with the Kanaujia Br&#257;hmans, and in others take daughters in marriage but do not
+give their own daughters to them. In Dr. Buchanan&#8217;s time, a century ago, the Sarwaria Br&#257;hmans would not eat rice sold in
+the baz&#257;r which had been cleaned in boiling water, as they considered that it had thereby become food cooked with water; and
+they carried their own grain to the grain-parcher to be prepared for them. When they ate either parched grain or sweetmeats
+from a confectioner in public they must purify the place on which they sat down with cowdung and water.<a id="d0e10373src" href="#d0e10373" class="noteref">1</a> This may be compared with a practice observed by very strict Br&#257;hmans even now, of adding water to the medicine which they
+obtain from a Government dispensary, to purify it before drinking it.
+
+
+</p>
+<div class="footnotes">
+<hr class="fnsep">
+<p class="footnote"><span class="label"><a id="d0e10373" href="#d0e10373src" class="noteref">1</a></span> <i>Eastern India</i>, ii. 472, quoted in Mr. Crooke&#8217;s art. Sarwaria.
+</p>
+</div>
+</div>
+<div id="d0e10378" class="div1"><span class="pagenum">
+[<a href="#d0e111">Contents</a>]
+</span><h2>Br&#257;hman, Utkal</h2>
+<p><b>Br&#257;hman, Utkal.</b>&#8212;These are the Br&#257;hmans of Orissa and one of the P&#257;nch-Gaur divisions. They are divided into two groups, the D&#257;kshinatya or
+southern and the Jajpuria or northern clan. The Utkal Br&#257;hmans, who first settled in Sambalpur, are known as Jharia or jungly,
+and form a <a id="d0e10385"></a><span class="pagenum">[<a href="#d0e10385">399</a>]</span>separate subcaste, marrying among themselves, as the later immigrants refuse to intermarry with them. Another group of Orissa
+Br&#257;hmans have taken to cultivation, and are known as Halia, from <i>hal</i>, a plough. They grow the betel-vine, and in Orissa the areca and cocoanuts, besides doing ordinary cultivation. They have
+entirely lost their sacerdotal character, but glory in their occupation, and affect to despise the Bed or Veda Br&#257;hmans, who
+live upon alms.<a id="d0e10390src" href="#d0e10390" class="noteref">1</a> A third class of Orissa Br&#257;hmans are the Pandas, who serve as priests and cooks in the public temples and also in private
+houses, and travel about India touting for pilgrims to visit the temple at Jagann&#257;th. Dr. Bhattach&#257;rya describes the procedure
+of the temple-touts as follows:<a id="d0e10402src" href="#d0e10402" class="noteref">2</a>
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Their tours are so organised that during their campaigning season, which commences in November and is finished by the car-festival
+at the beginning of the rains, very few villages of the adjoining Provinces escape their visits and taxation. Their appearance
+causes a disturbance in every household. Those who have already visited &#8216;The Lord of the World&#8217; at Puri are called upon to
+pay an instalment towards the debt contracted by them while at the sacred shrine, which, though paid many times over, is never
+completely satisfied. That, however, is a small matter compared with the misery and distraction caused by the &#8216;Jagann&#257;th mania,&#8217;
+which is excited by the preachings and pictures of the Panda. A fresh batch of old ladies become determined to visit the shrine,
+and neither the waitings and protestations of the children nor the prospect of a long and toilsome journey can dissuade them.
+The arrangements of the family are for the time being altogether upset, and the grief of those left behind is heightened by
+the fact that they look upon the pilgrims as going to meet almost certain death....&#8221;
+
+</p>
+<p>This vivid statement of the objections to the habit of pilgrimage from a Br&#257;hman writer is very interesting. Since the opening
+of the railway to Puri the danger and expense as well as the period of absence have been greatly reduced; but the pilgrimages
+are still responsible for a large <a id="d0e10411"></a><span class="pagenum">[<a href="#d0e10411">400</a>]</span>mortality, as cholera frequently breaks out among the vast assembly at the temple, and the pilgrims, hastily returning to
+all parts of India, carry the disease with them, and cause epidemics in many localities. All castes now eat the rice cooked
+at the temple of Jagann&#257;th together without defilement, and friendships are cemented by eating a little of this rice together
+as a sacred bond.
+
+
+</p>
+<div class="footnotes">
+<hr class="fnsep">
+<p class="footnote"><span class="label"><a id="d0e10390" href="#d0e10390src" class="noteref">1</a></span> Stirling&#8217;s description of Orissa in <i>As. Res</i>. vol<span id="d0e10395" class="corr" title="Source: ,">.</span> xv. p. 199, quoted in <i>Hindu Castes and Sects</i>.
+</p>
+<p class="footnote"><span class="label"><a id="d0e10402" href="#d0e10402src" class="noteref">2</a></span> <i>Hindu Castes and Sects</i>, p. 63.
+</p>
+</div>
+</div>
+<div id="d0e10413" class="div1"><span class="pagenum">
+[<a href="#d0e111">Contents</a>]
+</span><h2>Chad&#257;r</h2>
+<p><b>Chad&#257;r,<a id="d0e10419src" href="#d0e10419" class="noteref">1</a> Kotwar.</b>&#8212;A small caste of weavers and village watchmen resident in the Districts of Saugor, Damoh, Jubbulpore and Narsinghpur. They
+numbered 28,000 persons in 1911. The caste is not found outside the northern Districts of the Central Provinces. The name
+is derived from the Sanskrit <i>chirkar</i>, a weaver, and belongs to Bundelkhand, but beyond this the Chad&#257;rs have no knowledge or traditions of their origin. They
+are probably an occupational group formed from members of the Dravidian tribes and others who took to the profession of village
+watchmen. A number of other occupational castes of low status are found in the northern Districts, and their existence is
+probably to be accounted for by the fact that the forest tribes were subjected and their tribal organisation destroyed by
+the invading Bundelas and other Hindus some centuries ago. They were deprived of the land and relegated to the performance
+of menial and servile duties in the village, and they have formed a new set of divisions into castes arising from the occupations
+they adopted. The Chad&#257;rs have two subcastes based on differences of religious practice, the Parmesuria or worshippers of
+Vishnu, and Athia or devotees of Devi. It is doubtful, however, whether these are strictly endogamous. They have a large number
+of exogamous septs or <i>bainks</i>, which are named after all sorts of animals, plants and natural objects. Instances of these names are Dh&#257;na (a leaf of the
+rice plant), K&#257;sia (bell-metal), Gohia (a kind of lizard), Bachhulia (a calf), Gujaria (a milkmaid), Moria (a peacock), Laraiya
+(a jackal), Khatk&#299;ra (a bug), Sugaria (a pig), Barraiya (a wasp), Neora (a mongoose), Bhartu Chiraiya (a sparrow), and so
+on. Thirty-nine names <a id="d0e10429"></a><span class="pagenum">[<a href="#d0e10429">401</a>]</span>in all are reported. Members of each sept draw the figure of the animal or plant after which it is named on the wall at marriages
+and worship it. They usually refuse to kill the totem animal, and the members of the Sugaria or pig sept throw away their
+earthen vessels if a pig should be killed in their sight, and clean their houses as if on the death of a member of the family.
+Marriage between members of the same sept is forbidden and also between first cousins and other near relations. The Chad&#257;rs
+say that the marriages of persons nearly related by blood are unhappy, and occasion serious consequences to the parties and
+their families. Girls are usually wedded in the fifth, seventh, ninth, or eleventh year of their age and boys between the
+ages of eight and sixteen. If an unmarried girl is seduced by a member of the caste she is married to him by the simple form
+adopted for the wedding of a widow. But if she goes wrong with an outsider of low caste she is permanently expelled. The remarriage
+of widows is permitted and divorce is also allowed, a deed being executed on stamped paper before the <i>panch&#257;yat</i> or caste committee. If a woman runs away from her husband to another man he must repay to the husband the amount expended
+on her wedding and give a feast to the caste. A Br&#257;hman is employed to fix the date of a wedding and sometimes for the naming
+of children, but he is only consulted and is never present at the ceremony. The caste venerate the goddess Devi, offering
+her a virgin she-goat in the month of As&#257;rh (June-July). They worship their weaving implements at the Diw&#257;li and Holi festivals,
+and feed the crows in Kunw&#257;r (September-October) as representing the spirits of their ancestors. This custom is based on the
+superstition that a crow does not die of old age or disease, but only when it is killed. To cure a patient of fever they tie
+a blue thread, irregularly knotted, round his wrist. They believe that thunder-bolts are the arrows shot by Indra to kill
+his enemies in the lower world, and that the rainbow is Indra&#8217;s bow; any one pointing at it will feel pain in his finger.
+The dead are mourned for ten days, and during that time a burning lamp is placed on the ground at some distance from the house,
+while on the tenth day a tooth-stick and water and food are set out for the <a id="d0e10434"></a><span class="pagenum">[<a href="#d0e10434">402</a>]</span>soul of the dead. They will not throw the first teeth of a child on to a tiled roof, because they believe that if this is
+done his next teeth will be wide and ugly like the tiles. But it is a common practice to throw the first teeth on to the thatched
+roof of the house. The Chad&#257;rs will admit members of most castes of good standing into the community, and they eat flesh,
+including pork and fowls, and drink liquor, and will take cooked food from most of the good castes and from Kal&#257;rs, Khang&#257;rs
+and Kumh&#257;rs. The social status of the caste is very low, but they rank above the impure castes and are of cleanly habits,
+bathing daily and cleaning their kitchens before taking food. They are employed as village watchmen and as farmservants and
+field-labourers, and also weave coarse country cloth.
+
+
+
+<a id="d0e10436"></a><span class="pagenum">[<a href="#d0e10436">403</a>]</span></p>
+<div class="footnotes">
+<hr class="fnsep">
+<p class="footnote"><span class="label"><a id="d0e10419" href="#d0e10419src" class="noteref">1</a></span> This article is compiled from papers by Mr. Wali Muhammad, Tahs&#299;ld&#257;r of Khurai, and Kanhya L&#257;l, clerk in the Gazetteer office.
+</p>
+</div>
+</div>
+<div id="d0e10437" class="div1"><span class="pagenum">
+[<a href="#d0e111">Contents</a>]
+</span><h2>Cham&#257;r</h2>
+<h3>List of Paragraphs</h3>
+<ul>
+<li><a href="#d0e10528">1. General notice of the caste.</a></li>
+<li><a href="#d0e10587">2. Endogamous divisions.</a></li>
+<li><a href="#d0e10607">3. Subcastes continued.</a></li>
+<li><a href="#d0e10665">4. Exogamous divisions.</a></li>
+<li><a href="#d0e10673">5. Marriage.</a></li>
+<li><a href="#d0e10694">6. Widow-marriage and divorce.</a></li>
+<li><a href="#d0e10728">7. Funeral customs.</a></li>
+<li><a href="#d0e10743">8. Childbirth.</a></li>
+<li><a href="#d0e10768">9. Religion.</a></li>
+<li><a href="#d0e10783">10. Occupation.</a></li>
+<li><a href="#d0e10804">11. The tanning process.</a></li>
+<li><a href="#d0e10841">12. Shoes.</a></li>
+<li><a href="#d0e10857">13. Other articles made of leather.</a></li>
+<li><a href="#d0e10868">14. Customs connected with shoes.</a></li>
+<li><a href="#d0e10880">15. The Cham&#257;r as general village drudge.</a></li>
+<li><a href="#d0e10890">16. Social status.</a></li>
+<li><a href="#d0e10912">17. Character.</a></li>
+</ul>
+<div class="div2" id="d0e10528">
+<h3>1. General notice of the caste.</h3>
+<p><b>Cham&#257;r, Chambh&#257;r.</b><a id="d0e10534src" href="#d0e10534" class="noteref">1</a>&#8212;The caste of tanners and menial labourers of northern India. In the Central Provinces the Cham&#257;rs numbered about 900,000
+persons in 1911. They are the third caste in the Province in numerical strength, being exceeded by the Gonds and Kunbis. About
+600,000 persons, or two-thirds of the total strength of the caste in the Province, belong to the Chhatt&#299;sgarh Division and
+adjacent Feudatory States. Here the Cham&#257;rs have to some extent emancipated themselves from their servile status and have
+become cultivators, and occasionally even m&#257;lguz&#257;rs or landed proprietors; and between them and <a id="d0e10546"></a><span class="pagenum">[<a href="#d0e10546">404</a>]</span>the Hindus a bitter and long-standing feud is in progress. Outside Chhatt&#299;sgarh the Cham&#257;rs are found in most of the Hindi-speaking
+Districts whose population has been recruited from northern and central India, and here they are perhaps the most debased
+class of the community, consigned to the lowest of menial tasks, and their spirit broken by generations of servitude. In the
+Mar&#257;tha country the place of the Cham&#257;rs is taken by the Mehras or Mah&#257;rs. In the whole of India the Cham&#257;rs are about eleven
+millions strong, and are the largest caste with the exception of the Br&#257;hmans. The name is derived from the Sanskrit Charmak&#257;ra,
+a worker in leather; and, according to classical tradition, the Cham&#257;r is the offspring of a Chand&#257;l or sweeper woman by a
+man of the fisher caste.<a id="d0e10548src" href="#d0e10548" class="noteref">2</a> The superior physical type of the Cham&#257;r has been noticed in several localities. Thus in the Kanara District of Bombay<a id="d0e10551src" href="#d0e10551" class="noteref">3</a> the Cham&#257;r women are said to be famed for their beauty of face and figure, and there it is stated that the Padminis or perfect
+type of women, middle-sized with fine features, black lustrous hair and eyes, full breasts and slim waists,<a id="d0e10556src" href="#d0e10556" class="noteref">4</a> are all Cham&#257;rins. Sir D. Ibbetson writes<a id="d0e10562src" href="#d0e10562" class="noteref">5</a> that their women are celebrated for beauty, and loss of caste is often attributed to too great a partiality for a Cham&#257;rin.
+In Chhatt&#299;sgarh the Cham&#257;rs are generally of fine stature and fair complexion; some of them are lighter in colour than the
+Chhatt&#299;sgarhi Br&#257;hmans, and it is on record that a European officer mistook a Cham&#257;r for a Eurasian and addressed him in English.
+This, however, is by no means universally the case, and Sir H. Risley considers<a id="d0e10567src" href="#d0e10567" class="noteref">6</a> that &#8220;The average Cham&#257;r is hardly distinguishable in point of features, stature or complexion from the members of those
+non-Aryan races from whose ranks we should primarily expect the profession of leather-dressers to be recruited.&#8221; Again, Sir
+Henry Elliot, writing of the Cham&#257;rs of the North-Western Provinces, says: &#8220;Cham&#257;rs <a id="d0e10572"></a><span class="pagenum">[<a href="#d0e10572">405</a>]</span>are reputed to be a dark race, and a fair Cham&#257;r is said to be as rare an object as a black Br&#257;hman:
+
+
+</p>
+<div class="poem" lang="und">
+<div class="stanza">
+<p class="line" style=""><span>Karia Br&#257;hman, gor Cham&#257;r,
+</span></p>
+<p class="line" style=""><span>Inke s&#257;th n&#257; utariye p&#257;r,</span></p>
+</div>
+</div>
+<p>that is, &#8216;Do not cross a river in the same boat with a black Br&#257;hman or a fair Cham&#257;r,&#8217; both being of evil omen.&#8221; The latter
+description would certainly apply to the Cham&#257;rs of the Central Provinces outside the Chhatt&#299;sgarh Districts, but hardly to
+the caste as a whole within that area. No satisfactory explanation has been offered of this distinction of appearance of some
+groups of Cham&#257;rs. It is possible that the Cham&#257;rs of certain localities may be the descendants of a race from the north-west,
+conquered and enslaved by a later wave of immigrants; or that their physical development may owe something to adult marriage
+and a flesh diet, even though consisting largely of carrion. It may be noticed that the sweepers, who eat the broken food
+from the tables of the Europeans and wealthy natives, are sometimes stronger and better built than the average Hindu. Similarly,
+the Kasais or Muhammadan butchers are proverbially strong and lusty. But no evidence is forthcoming in support of such conjectures,
+and the problem is likely to remain insoluble.
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;The Cham&#257;rs,&#8221; Sir H. Risley states,<a id="d0e10583src" href="#d0e10583" class="noteref">7</a> &#8220;trace their own pedigree to Ravi or Rai D&#257;s, the famous disciple of R&#257;m&#257;nand at the end of the fourteenth century, and whenever
+a Cham&#257;r is asked what he is, he replies a Ravi D&#257;s. Another tradition current among them alleges that their original ancestor
+was the youngest of four Br&#257;hman brethren who went to bathe in a river and found a cow struggling in a quicksand. They sent
+the youngest brother in to rescue the animal, but before he could get to the spot it had been drowned. He was compelled, therefore,
+by his brothers to remove the carcase, and after he had done this they turned him out of their caste and gave him the name
+of Cham&#257;r.&#8221; Other legends are related by Mr. Crooke in his article on the caste.
+
+
+</p>
+</div>
+<div class="div2" id="d0e10587">
+<h3>2. Endogamous divisions.</h3>
+<p>The Cham&#257;rs are broken up into a number of endogamous subcastes. Of these the largest now consists of the <a id="d0e10592"></a><span class="pagenum">[<a href="#d0e10592">406</a>]</span>members of the Satn&#257;mi sect in Chhatt&#299;sgarh, who do not intermarry with other Cham&#257;rs. They are described in the article on
+that sect. The other Cham&#257;rs call the Satn&#257;mis Jharia or &#8216;jungly&#8217;, which implies that they are the oldest residents in Chhatt&#299;sgarh.
+The Satn&#257;mis are all cultivators, and have given up working in leather. The Chungias (from <i>chungi</i>, a leaf-pipe) are a branch of the Satn&#257;mis who have taken to smoking, a practice which is forbidden by the rules of the sect.
+In Chhatt&#299;sgarh those Cham&#257;rs who still cure hides and work in leather belong either to the Kanaujia or Ahirw&#257;r subcastes,
+the former of whom take their name from the well-known classical town of Kanauj in northern India, while the latter are said
+to be the descendants of unions between Cham&#257;r fathers and Ah&#299;r mothers. The Kanaujias are much addicted to drink, and though
+they eat pork they do not rear pigs. The Ahirw&#257;rs, or Erw&#257;rs as they are called outside Chhatt&#299;sgarh, occupy a somewhat higher
+position than the Kanaujias. They consider themselves to be the direct descendants of the prophet Raid&#257;s or Rohid&#257;s, who,
+they say, had seven wives of different castes; one of them was an Ah&#299;r woman, and her offspring were the ancestors of the
+Ahirw&#257;r subcaste. Both the Kanaujias and Ahirw&#257;rs of Chhatt&#299;sgarh are generally known to outsiders as Paikaha, a term which
+indicates that they still follow their ancestral calling of curing hides, as opposed to the Satn&#257;mis, who have generally eschewed
+it. Those Cham&#257;rs who are curriers have, as a rule, the right to receive the hides of the village cattle in return for removing
+the carcases, each family of Cham&#257;rs having allotted to them a certain number of tenants whose dead cattle they take, while
+their women are the hereditary midwives of the village. Such Cham&#257;rs have the designation of Meher. The Kanaujias make shoes
+out of a single piece of leather, while the Ahirw&#257;rs cut the front separately. The latter also ornament their shoes with fancy
+work consisting of patterns of silver thread on red cloth. No Ahirw&#257;r girl is married until she has shown herself proficient
+in this kind of needlework.<a id="d0e10597src" href="#d0e10597" class="noteref">8</a> Another well-known group, found both in Chhatt&#299;sgarh and elsewhere, are the Jaisw&#257;ras, who take their name from the <a id="d0e10600"></a><span class="pagenum">[<a href="#d0e10600">407</a>]</span>old town of Jais in the United Provinces. Many of them serve as grooms, and are accustomed to state their caste as Jaisw&#257;ra,
+considering it a more respectable designation than Cham&#257;r. The Jaisw&#257;ras must carry burdens on their heads only and not on
+their shoulders, and they must not tie up a dog with a halter or neck-rope, this article being venerated by them as an implement
+of their calling. A breach of either of these rules entails temporary excommunication from caste and a fine for readmission.
+Among a number of territorial groups may be mentioned the Bundelkhandi or immigrants from Bundelkhand; the Bhadoria from the
+Bhad&#257;war State; the Antarvedi from Antarved or the Do&#257;b, the country lying between the Ganges and Jumna; the Gang&#257;p&#257;ri or
+those from the north of the Ganges; and the Pardeshi (foreigners) and Desha or Desw&#257;r (belonging to the country), both of
+which groups come from Hindust&#257;n. The Desw&#257;r Cham&#257;rs of Narsinghpur<a id="d0e10602src" href="#d0e10602" class="noteref">9</a> are now all agriculturists and have totally abjured the business of working in leather. The Mahobia and Khaijr&#257;ha take their
+names from the towns of Mahoba and Khaijra in Central India. The L&#257;dse or L&#257;dvi come from south Gujar&#257;t, which in classical
+times was known as L&#257;t; while the Mar&#257;tha, Ber&#257;ria and Dakhini subdivisions belong to southern India. There are a number of
+other territorial groups of less importance.
+
+
+</p>
+</div>
+<div class="div2" id="d0e10607">
+<h3>3. Subcastes continued.</h3>
+<p>Certain subcastes are of an occupational nature, and among these may be mentioned the Budalgirs of Chhindw&#257;ra, who derive
+their name from the <i>budla</i>, or leather bag made for the transport and storage of oil and <i>gh&#299;</i>. The <i>budla</i>, Mr. Trench remarks,<a id="d0e10621src" href="#d0e10621" class="noteref">10</a> has been ousted by the kerosene oil tin, and the industry of the Budalgirs has consequently almost disappeared; but the <i>budlas</i> are still used by barbers to hold oil for the torches which they carry in wedding processions. The Daijanya subcaste are
+so named because their women act as midwives (<i>dai</i>), but this business is by no means confined to one particular group, being undertaken generally by Cham&#257;r women. The Kataua
+or Katwa are leather-cutters, the name being derived from <i>k&#257;tna</i>, to cut. And the Gobardhua (from <i>gobar</i>, cowdung) collect the <a id="d0e10637"></a><span class="pagenum">[<a href="#d0e10637">408</a>]</span>droppings of cattle on the threshing-floors and wash out and eat the undigested grain. The Mochis or shoemakers and J&#299;ngars<a id="d0e10639src" href="#d0e10639" class="noteref">11</a> or saddlemakers and bookbinders have obtained a better position than the ordinary Cham&#257;rs, and have now practically become
+separate castes; while, on the other hand, the Dohar subcaste of Narsinghpur have sunk to the very lowest stage of casual
+labour, grass-cutting and the like, and are looked down on by the rest of the caste.<a id="d0e10642src" href="#d0e10642" class="noteref">12</a> The Korcham&#257;rs are said to be the descendants of alliances between Cham&#257;rs and Koris or weavers, and the Turkanyas probably
+have Turk or Musalm&#257;n blood in their veins. In Ber&#257;r the Romya or Haralya subcaste claim the highest rank and say that their
+ancestor Harlya was the primeval Cham&#257;r who stripped off a piece of his own skin to make a pair of shoes for Mah&#257;deo.<a id="d0e10647src" href="#d0e10647" class="noteref">13</a> The M&#257;ngya<a id="d0e10652src" href="#d0e10652" class="noteref">14</a> Cham&#257;rs of Ch&#257;nda and the Nona Cham&#257;rs of Damoh are groups of beggars, who are the lowest of the caste and will take food
+from the hands of any other Cham&#257;r. The Nona group take their name from Nona or Lona Cham&#257;rin, a well-known witch about whom
+Mr. Crooke relates the following story:<a id="d0e10658src" href="#d0e10658" class="noteref">15</a> &#8220;Her legend tells how Dhanwantari, the physician of the gods, was bitten by Takshaka, the king of the snakes, and knowing
+that death approached he ordered his sons to cook and eat his body after his death, so that they might thereby inherit his
+skill in medicine. They accordingly cooked his body in a cauldron, and were about to eat it when Takshaka appeared to them
+in the form of a Br&#257;hman and warned them against this act of cannibalism. So they let the cauldron float down the Ganges,
+and as it floated down, Lona the Cham&#257;rin, who was washing on the bank of the river, took the vessel out in ignorance of its
+contents, and partook of the ghastly food. She at once obtained power to cure diseases, and especially snake-bite. One day
+all the women were transplanting rice, and it was found that Lona could do as much work as all her companions put together.
+So they watched her, and when she thought she was alone she stripped off her clothes (nudity being an <a id="d0e10663"></a><span class="pagenum">[<a href="#d0e10663">409</a>]</span>essential element in magic), muttered some spells, and threw the plants into the air, when they all settled down in their
+proper places. Finding she was observed, she tried to escape, and as she ran the earth opened, and all the water of the rice-fields
+followed her and thus was formed the channel of the Loni River in the Unao District.&#8221; This Lona or Nona has obtained the position
+of a nursery bogey, and throughout Hindust&#257;n, Sir H. Risley states, parents frighten naughty children by telling them that
+Nona Cham&#257;rin will carry them off. The Cham&#257;rs say that she was the mother or grandmother of the prophet Ravi D&#257;s, or Rai
+D&#257;s already referred to.
+
+
+</p>
+</div>
+<div class="div2" id="d0e10665">
+<h3>4. Exogamous divisions.</h3>
+<p>The caste is also divided into a large number of exogamous groups or sections, whose names, as might be expected, present
+a great diversity of character. Some are borrowed from R&#257;jp&#363;t clans, as S&#363;rajvansi, Gaharw&#257;r and R&#257;thor; while others, as
+Marai, are taken from the Gonds. Instances of sections named after other castes are Banjar (Banj&#257;ra), Jogi, Chhipia (Chhipi,
+a tailor) and Khairw&#257;r (a forest tribe). The Chhipia section preserve the memory of their comparatively illustrious descent
+by refusing to eat pork. Instances of sections called after a title or nickname of the reputed founder are M&#257;l&#257;dh&#257;ri, one
+who wears a garland; M&#257;chhi-Mundia or fly-headed, perhaps the equivalent of feather-brained; Hath&#299;la, obstinate; B&#257;ghm&#257;r,
+a tiger-killer; M&#257;ngaya, a beggar; Dhuliya, a drummer; Jadkodiha, one who digs for roots, and so on. There are numerous territorial
+groups named after the town or village where the ancestor of the clan may be supposed to have lived; and many names also are
+of a totemistic nature, being taken from plants, animals or natural objects. Among these are Khunti, a peg; Chandaniha, sandalwood;
+Tarw&#257;ria, a sword; Borbans, plums; Miri, chillies; Chauria, a whisk; Baraiya, a wasp; Khalaria, a hide or skin; Kosni, <i>kosa</i> or tasar silk; and Purain, the lotus plant. Totemistic observances survive only in one or two isolated instances.
+
+
+</p>
+</div>
+<div class="div2" id="d0e10673">
+<h3>5. Marriage.</h3>
+<p>A man must not take a wife from his own section, nor in some localities from that of his mother or either of his grandmothers.
+Generally the union of first cousins is prohibited. Adult marriage is the rule, but those who wish to improve <a id="d0e10678"></a><span class="pagenum">[<a href="#d0e10678">410</a>]</span>their social position have taken to disposing of their daughters at an early age. Matches are always arranged by the parents,
+and it is the business of the boy&#8217;s father to find a bride for his son. A bride-price is paid which may vary from two pice
+(farthings) to a hundred rupees, but usually averages about twenty rupees. In Ch&#257;nda the amount is fixed at Rs. 13 and it
+is known as <i>hunda</i>, but if the bride&#8217;s grandmother is alive it is increased to Rs. 15&#8211;8, and the extra money is given to her. The marriage ceremony
+follows the standard type prevalent in the locality. On his journey to the girl&#8217;s house the boy rides on a bullock and is
+wrapped up in a blanket. In Bil&#257;spur a kind of sham fight takes place between the parties, which is a reminiscence of the
+former practice of marriage by capture and is thus described as an eye-witness by the Rev. E. M. Gordon of Mungeli:<a id="d0e10683src" href="#d0e10683" class="noteref">16</a>
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;As the bridegroom&#8217;s party approached the home of the bride the boy&#8217;s friends lifted him up on their shoulders, and, surrounding
+him on every side, they made their way to the bride&#8217;s house, swinging round their sticks in a threatening manner. On coming
+near the house they crossed sticks with the bride&#8217;s friends, who gradually fell back and allowed the bridegroom&#8217;s friends
+to advance in their direction. The women of the house gathered with baskets and fans and some threw about rice in pretence
+of self-defence. When the sticks of the bridegroom&#8217;s party struck the roof of the bride&#8217;s house or of the marriage-shed her
+friends considered themselves defeated and the sham fight was at an end.&#8221; Among the Mar&#257;tha Cham&#257;rs of Bet&#363;l two earthen pots
+full of water are half buried in the ground and worship is paid to them. The bride and bridegroom then stand together and
+their relatives take out water from the pots and pour it on to their heads from above. The idea is that the pouring of the
+sacred water on to them will make them grow, and if the bride is much smaller than the bridegroom more water is poured on
+to her in order that she may grow faster. The practice may symbolise the fertilising influence of rain. Among the Dohar Cham&#257;rs
+of Narsinghpur the bride and bridegroom are seated on a plough-yoke while the marriage <a id="d0e10689"></a><span class="pagenum">[<a href="#d0e10689">411</a>]</span>ceremony is performed. Before the wedding the bride&#8217;s party take a goat&#8217;s leg in a basket with other articles to the <i>janw&#257;sa</i> or bridegroom&#8217;s lodging and present it to his father. The bride and bridegroom take the goat&#8217;s leg and beat each other with
+it alternately. Another ceremony, known as Pendp&#363;ja, consists in placing pieces of stick with cotton stuck to the ends in
+an oven and burning them in the name of the deceased ancestors; but the significance, if there be any, of this rite is obscure.
+Some time after the wedding the bride is taken to her husband&#8217;s house to live with him, and on this occasion a simple ceremony
+known as Chauk or Pathoni is performed.
+
+
+</p>
+</div>
+<div class="div2" id="d0e10694">
+<h3>6. Widow-marriage and divorce.</h3>
+<p>Widows commonly remarry, and may take for their second husband anybody they please, except their own relatives and their late
+husband&#8217;s elder brother and ascendant relations. In Chhatt&#299;sgarh widows are known either as <i>barandi</i> or <i>randi</i>, the <i>randi</i> being a widow in the ordinary sense of the term and the <i>barandi</i> a girl who has been married but has not lived with her husband. Such a girl is not required to break her bangles on her husband&#8217;s
+death, and, being more in demand as a second wife, her father naturally obtains a good price for her. To marry a woman whose
+husband is alive is known as <i>chhandwe ban&#257;na</i>, the term <i>chhandwe</i> implying that the woman has discarded, or has been discarded by, her husband. The second husband must in this case repay
+to the first husband the expenses incurred by him on his wedding. The marriage ceremony for a widow is of the simplest character,
+and consists generally of the presentation to her by her new husband of those articles which a married woman may use, but
+which should be forsworn by a widow, as representing the useless vanities of the world. Thus in Saugor the bridegroom presents
+his bride with new clothes, vermilion for the parting of her hair, a spangle for her forehead, lac dye for her feet, antimony
+for the eyes, a comb, glass bangles and betel-leaves. In Mandla and Seoni the bridegroom gives a ring, according to the English
+custom, instead of bangles. When a widow marries a second time her first husband&#8217;s property remains with his family and also
+the children, unless they are very young, when the mother may keep them for a few years and subsequently send them <a id="d0e10717"></a><span class="pagenum">[<a href="#d0e10717">412</a>]</span>back to their father&#8217;s relatives. Divorce is permitted for a variety of causes, and is usually effected in the presence of
+the caste <i>panch&#257;yat</i> or committee by the husband and wife breaking a straw as a symbol of the rupture of the union. In Ch&#257;nda an image of the
+divorced wife is made of grass and burnt to indicate that to her husband she is as good as dead; if she has children their
+heads and faces are shaved in token of mourning, and in the absence of children the husband&#8217;s younger brother has this rite
+performed; while the husband gives a funeral feast known as <i>Marti J&#299;ti k&#257; Bh&#257;t</i>, or &#8216;The feast of the living dead woman.&#8217; In Chhatt&#299;sgarh marriage ties are of the loosest description, and adultery is scarcely
+recognised as an offence. A woman may go and live openly with other men and her husband will take her back afterwards. Sometimes,
+when two men are in the relation of Mah&#257;pras&#257;d or nearest friend to each other, that is, when they have vowed friendship on
+rice from the temple of Jagann&#257;th, they will each place his wife at the other&#8217;s disposal. The Cham&#257;rs justify this carelessness
+of the fidelity of their wives by the saying, &#8216;If my cow wanders and comes home again, shall I not let her into her stall?&#8217;
+In Seoni, if a Cham&#257;r woman is detected in a misdemeanour with a man of the caste, both parties are taken to the bank of a
+tank or river, where their heads are shaved in the presence of the caste <i>panch&#257;yat</i> or committee. They are then made to bathe, and the shoes of all the assembled Cham&#257;rs made up into two bundles and placed
+on their heads, while they are required to promise that they will not repeat the offence.
+
+
+</p>
+</div>
+<div class="div2" id="d0e10728">
+<h3>7. Funeral customs.</h3>
+<p>The caste usually bury the dead with the feet to the north, like the Gonds and other aboriginal tribes. They say that heaven
+is situated towards the north, and the dead man should be placed in a position to start for that direction. Another explanation
+is that the head of the earth lies towards the north, and yet another that in the Satyug or beginning of time the sun rose
+in the north; and in each succeeding Yug or era it has veered round the compass until now in the Kali Yug or Iron Age it rises
+in the east. In Chhatt&#299;sgarh, before burying a corpse, they often make a mark on the body with butter, oil or soot; and when
+a child is <a id="d0e10733"></a><span class="pagenum">[<a href="#d0e10733">413</a>]</span>subsequently born into the same family they look for any kind of mark on the corresponding place on its body. If any such
+be found they consider the child as a reincarnation of the deceased person. Still-born children, and those who die before
+the Chathi or sixth-day ceremony of purification, are not taken to the burial-ground, but their bodies are placed in an earthen
+pot and interred below the doorway or in the courtyard of the house. In such cases no funeral feast is demanded from the family,
+and some people believe that the custom tends in favour of the mother bearing another child; others say, however, that its
+object is to prevent the <i>tonhi</i> or witch from getting hold of the body of the child and rousing its spirit to life to do her bidding as Matia Deo.<a id="d0e10738src" href="#d0e10738" class="noteref">17</a> In Seoni a curious rule obtains to the effect that the bodies of those who eat carrion or the flesh of animals dying a natural
+death should be cremated. In the northern Districts a bier painted white is used for a man and a red one for a woman.
+
+
+</p>
+</div>
+<div class="div2" id="d0e10743">
+<h3>8. Childbirth.</h3>
+<p>Among the better-class Cham&#257;rs it is customary to place a newborn child in a winnowing-fan on a bed of rice. The nurse receives
+the rice and she also goes round to the houses of the headman of the village and the relatives of the family and makes a mark
+with cowdung on their doors as an announcement of the birth, for which she receives a small present. In Chhatt&#299;sgarh a woman
+is given nothing to eat or drink on the day that a child is born and for two days afterwards. On the fourth day she receives
+a liquid decoction of ginger, the roots of the <i>orai</i> or <i>khaskhas</i> grass, areca-nut, coriander and turmeric and other hot substances, and in some places a cake of linseed or sesamum. She sometimes
+goes on drinking this mixture for as long as a month, and usually receives solid food for the first time on the sixth day
+after the birth, when she bathes and her impurity is removed. The child is not permitted to suckle its mother until the third
+day after it is born, but before this it receives a small quantity of a mixture made by boiling the urine of a calf with some
+medicinal root. In Chhatt&#299;sgarh it is a common practice to brand a child on the stomach on the name-day or sixth day after
+its birth; twenty or more small burns may be made with the point of a <i>hansia</i> or sickle on the <a id="d0e10757"></a><span class="pagenum">[<a href="#d0e10757">414</a>]</span>stomach, and it is supposed that this operation will prevent it from catching cold. Another preventive for convulsions and
+diseases of the lungs is the rubbing of the limbs and body with castor-oil; the nurse wets her hands with the oil and then
+warms them before a fire and rubs the child. It is also held in the smoke of burning <i>ajw&#257;in</i> plants (<i>Carum copticum</i>). Infants are named on the Chathi or sixth day, or sometimes on the twelfth day after birth. The child&#8217;s head is shaved,
+and the hair, known as Jh&#257;lar, thrown away, the mother and child are washed and the males of the family are shaved. The mother
+is given her first regular meal of grain and pulse cooked with pumpkins. A pregnant woman who is afraid that her child will
+die will sometimes sell it to a neighbour before its birth for five or six cowries.<a id="d0e10765src" href="#d0e10765" class="noteref">18</a> The baby will then be named Pachkouri or Chhekouri, and it is thought that the gods, who are jealous of the lives of children,
+will overlook one whose name shows it to be valueless. Children are often nicknamed after some peculiarity as K&#257;nwa (one-eyed),
+Behra (deaf), Konda (dumb), Khurwa (lame), K&#257;ri (black), Bh&#363;ri (fair). It does not follow that a child called Konda is actually
+dumb, but it may simply have been late in learning to speak. Parents are jealous of exposing their children to the gaze of
+strangers and especially of a crowd, in which there will almost certainly be some malignant person to cast the evil eye upon
+them. Young children are therefore not infrequently secluded in the house and deprived of light and air to an extent which
+is highly injurious to them.
+
+
+</p>
+</div>
+<div class="div2" id="d0e10768">
+<h3>9. Religion.</h3>
+<p>The caste worship the ordinary Hindu and village deities of the localities in which they reside, and observe the principal
+festivals. In Saugor the Cham&#257;rs have a family god, known as Marri, who is represented by a lump of clay kept in the cooking-room
+of the house. He is supposed to represent the ancestors of the family. The Seoni Cham&#257;rs especially worship the castor-oil
+plant. Generally the caste revere the <i>r&#257;mpi</i> or skinning-knife with offerings of flour-cakes and cocoanuts on festival days. In Chhatt&#299;sgarh more than half the Cham&#257;rs
+belong to the reformed Satn&#257;mi sect, by which the worship of images is at least nominally abolished. This <a id="d0e10776"></a><span class="pagenum">[<a href="#d0e10776">415</a>]</span>is separately treated. Mr. Gordon states<a id="d0e10778src" href="#d0e10778" class="noteref">19</a> that it is impossible to form a clear conception of the beliefs of the village Cham&#257;rs as to the hereafter: &#8220;That they have
+the idea of hell as a place of punishment may be gathered from the belief that if salt is spilt the one who does this will
+in Pat&#257;l&#8212;or the infernal region&#8212;have to gather up each grain of salt with his eyelids. Salt is for this reason handed round
+with great care, and it is considered unlucky to receive it in the palm of the hand; it is therefore invariably taken in a
+cloth or in a vessel. There is a belief that the spirit of the deceased hovers round familiar scenes and places, and on this
+account, whenever it is possible, it is customary to destroy or desert the house in which any one has died. If a house is
+deserted the custom is to sweep and plaster the place, and then, after lighting a lamp, to leave it in the house and withdraw
+altogether. After the spirit of the dead has wandered around restlessly for a certain time it is said that it will again become
+incarnate and take the form of man or of one of the lower animals.&#8221;
+
+
+</p>
+</div>
+<div class="div2" id="d0e10783">
+<h3>10. Occupation.</h3>
+<p>The curing and tanning of hides is the primary occupation of the Cham&#257;r, but in 1911 only 80,000 persons, or about a seventh
+of the actual workers of the caste, were engaged in it, and by Satn&#257;mis the trade has been entirely eschewed. The majority
+of the Chhatt&#299;sgarhi Cham&#257;rs are cultivators with tenant right, and a number of them have obtained villages. In the northern
+Districts, however, the caste are as a rule miserably poor, and none of them own villages. A very few are tenants, and the
+vast majority despised and bullied helots. The condition of the leather-working Cham&#257;rs is described by Mr. Trench as lamentable.<a id="d0e10788src" href="#d0e10788" class="noteref">20</a> Chief among the causes of their ruin has been the recently established trade in raw hides. Formerly the bodies of all cattle
+dying within the precincts of the village necessarily became the property of the Cham&#257;rs, as the Hindu owners could not touch
+them without loss of caste. But since the rise of the cattle-slaughtering industry the cultivator has put his religious scruples
+in his pocket, and sells his old and worn-out animals to the butchers for a respectable sum. &#8220;For a mere walking skeleton
+of a cow or bullock from <a id="d0e10793"></a><span class="pagenum">[<a href="#d0e10793">416</a>]</span>two to four rupees may be had for the asking, and so long as he does not actually see or stipulate for the slaughter of the
+sacred animal, the cultivator&#8217;s scruples remain dormant. No one laments this lapse from orthodoxy more sincerely than the
+outcaste Cham&#257;r. His situation may be compared with that of the Cornish pilchard-fishers, for whom the growing laxity on the
+part of continental Roman Catholic countries in the observance of Lent is already more than an omen of coming disaster.&#8221;<a id="d0e10795src" href="#d0e10795" class="noteref">21</a>
+
+
+</p>
+<div id="d0e10800" class="figure"><img border="0" src="images/p416.jpg" alt="Cham&#257;rs tanning and working in leather." width="720" height="467"><p class="figureHead">Cham&#257;rs tanning and working in leather.</p>
+</div><p>
+
+
+
+</p>
+</div>
+<div class="div2" id="d0e10804">
+<h3>11. The tanning process.</h3>
+<p>When a hide is to be cured the inside is first cleaned with the <i>r&#257;mpi</i>, a chisel-like implement with a short blade four inches broad and a thick short handle. It is then soaked in a mixture of
+water and lime for ten or twelve days, and at intervals scraped clean of flesh and hair with the <i>r&#257;mpi</i>. &#8220;The skill of a good tanner appears in the absence of superfluous inner skin, fat or flesh, remaining to be removed after
+the hide is finally taken out of the lime-pit. Next the hard berries of the <i>ghont</i><a id="d0e10817src" href="#d0e10817" class="noteref">22</a> tree are poured into a large earthen vessel sunk in the ground, and water added till the mixture is so thick as to become
+barely liquid. In this the folded hide is dipped three or four times a day, undergoing meanwhile a vigorous rubbing and kneading.
+The average duration of this process is eight days, and it is followed by what is according to European ideas the real tanning.
+Using as thread the roots of the ubiquitous <i>pal&#257;s</i><a id="d0e10823src" href="#d0e10823" class="noteref">23</a> tree, the Cham&#257;r sews the hide up into a mussack-shaped bag open at the neck. The sewing is admirably executed, and when
+drawn tight the seams are nearly, but purposely not quite, water-tight. The hide is then hung on low stout scaffolding over
+a pit and filled with a decoction of the dried and semi-powdered leaves of the <i>dhaura</i><a id="d0e10829src" href="#d0e10829" class="noteref">24</a> tree mixed with water. As the decoction trickles slowly through the seams below, more is poured on from above, and from time
+to time the position of the hide is reversed in such a way that the tanning permeates each part in turn. Sometimes only one
+reversal of the hide takes place half-way through the process, which occupies as a rule some <a id="d0e10833"></a><span class="pagenum">[<a href="#d0e10833">417</a>]</span>eight days. But energetic Cham&#257;rs continually turn and refill the skin until satisfied that it is thoroughly saturated with
+the tanning. After a washing in clean water the hide is now considered to be tanned.&#8221;<a id="d0e10835src" href="#d0e10835" class="noteref">25</a>
+
+
+</p>
+</div>
+<div class="div2" id="d0e10841">
+<h3>12. Shoes.</h3>
+<p>In return for receiving the hides of the village cattle the Cham&#257;r had to supply the village proprietor and his family with
+a pair of shoes each free of payment once a year, and sometimes also the village accountant and watchman; but the cultivators
+had usually to pay for them, though nowadays they also often insist on shoes in exchange for their hides. Shoes are usually
+worn in the wheat and cotton growing areas, but are less common in the rice country, where they would continually stick in
+the mud of the fields. The Saugor or Bundelkhandi shoe is a striking specimen of footgear. The sole is formed of as many as
+three layers of stout hide, and may be nearly an inch thick. The uppers in a typical shoe are of black soft leather, inlaid
+with a simple pattern in silver thread. These are covered by flaps of stamped yellow goat-skin cut in triangular and half-moon
+patterns, the interstices between the flaps being filled with red cloth. The heel-piece is continued more than half-way up
+the calf behind. The toe is pointed, curled tightly over backwards and surmounted by a brass knob. The high frontal shield
+protects the instep from mud and spear-grass, and the heel-piece ensures the retention of the shoe in the deepest quagmire.
+Such shoes cost one or two rupees a pair.<a id="d0e10846src" href="#d0e10846" class="noteref">26</a> In the rice Districts sandals are often worn on the road, and laid aside when the cultivator enters his fields. Women go
+bare-footed as a rule, but sometimes have sandals. Up till recently only prostitutes wore shoes in public, and no respectable
+woman would dare to do so. In towns boots and shoes made in the English fashion at Cawnpore and other centres have now been
+generally adopted, and with these socks are worn. The Mochis and J&#299;ngars, who are offshoots from the Cham&#257;r caste, have adopted
+the distinctive occupations of making shoes and horse furniture with prepared leather, and no longer cure hides. They have
+<a id="d0e10851"></a><span class="pagenum">[<a href="#d0e10851">418</a>]</span>thus developed into a separate caste, and consider themselves greatly superior to the Cham&#257;rs.
+
+
+</p>
+<div id="d0e10853" class="figure"><img border="0" src="images/p418.jpg" alt="Cham&#257;rs cutting leather and making shoes." width="720" height="458"><p class="figureHead">Cham&#257;rs cutting leather and making shoes.</p>
+</div><p>
+
+
+
+</p>
+</div>
+<div class="div2" id="d0e10857">
+<h3>13. Other articles made of leather.</h3>
+<p>Other articles made of leather are the thongs and nose-strings for bullocks, the buckets for irrigation wells, rude country
+saddlery, and <i>mussacks</i> and <i>pakh&#257;ls</i> for carrying water. These last are simply hides sewn into a bag and provided with an orifice. To make a pair of bellows a
+goat-skin is taken with all four legs attached, and wetted and filled with sand. It is then dried in the sun, the sand shaken
+out, the sticks fitted at the hind-quarters for blowing, and the pair of bellows is complete.
+
+
+</p>
+</div>
+<div class="div2" id="d0e10868">
+<h3>14. Customs connected with shoes.</h3>
+<p>The shoe, as everybody in India knows, is a symbol of the greatest degradation and impurity. This is partly on account of
+its manufacture from the impure leather or hide, and also perhaps because it is worn and trodden under foot. All the hides
+of tame animals are polluted and impure, but those of certain wild animals, such as the deer and tiger, are not so, being
+on the contrary to some extent sacred. This last feeling may be due to the fact that the old anchorites of the forests were
+accustomed to cover themselves with the skins of wild animals, and to use them for sitting and kneeling to pray. A Bair&#257;gi
+or Vaishnava religious mendicant much likes to carry a tiger-skin on his body if he can afford one; and a Br&#257;hman will have
+the skin of a black-buck spread in the room where he performs his devotions. Possibly the sin involved in killing tame animals
+has been partly responsible for the impurity attaching to their hides, to the obtaining of which the death of the animal must
+be a preliminary. Every Hindu removes his shoes before entering a house, though with the adoption of English boots a breach
+is being made in this custom. So far as the houses of Europeans are concerned, the retention of shoes is not, as might be
+imagined, of recent origin, but was noticed by Buchanan a hundred years ago: &#8220;Men of rank and their attendants continue to
+wear their shoes loose for the purpose of throwing them off whenever they enter a room, which they still continue to do everywhere
+except in the houses of Europeans, in which all natives of rank now imitate our example.&#8221; In this connection it must be remembered
+that a Hindu house is always sacred as the shrine of the <a id="d0e10873"></a><span class="pagenum">[<a href="#d0e10873">419</a>]</span>household god, and shoes are removed before stepping across the threshold on to the hallowed ground. This consideration does
+not apply to European houses, and affords ground for dispensing with the removal of laced shoes and boots.
+
+</p>
+<p>To be beaten or sometimes even touched with a shoe by a man of low caste entails temporary social excommunication to most
+Hindus, and must be expiated by a formal purification and caste feast. The outcaste Mah&#257;rs punish a member of their community
+in the same manner even if somebody should throw a shoe on to the roof of his house, and the Pharasaical absurdities of the
+caste system surely find their culminating point in this rule. Similarly if a man touches his shoe with his hand and says
+&#8216;I have beaten you,&#8217; to a member of any of the lower castes in Seoni, the person so addressed is considered as temporarily
+out of caste. If he then immediately goes and informs his caste-fellows he is reinstated with a nominal fine of grain worth
+one or two pice. But if he goes back to his house and takes food, and the incident is subsequently discovered, a penalty of
+a goat is levied. A curious exception recognised is that of the <i>Sirk&#257;ri j&#363;ta</i>, or shoe belonging to a Government servant, and to be beaten with this shoe does not entail social punishment.
+
+
+</p>
+</div>
+<div class="div2" id="d0e10880">
+<h3>15. The Cham&#257;r as general village drudge.</h3>
+<p>In return for his perquisite of the hides of cattle the Cham&#257;r has to act as the general village drudge in the northern Districts
+and is always selected for the performance of <i>big&#257;r</i> or forced labour. When a Government officer visits the village the Cham&#257;r must look after him, fetch what grass or fuel he
+requires, and accompany him as far as the next village to point out the road. He is also the bearer of official letters and
+messages sent to the village. The special Cham&#257;r on whom these duties are imposed usually receives a plot of land rent-free
+from the village proprietor. Another of the functions of the Cham&#257;r is the castration of the young bullocks, which task the
+cultivators will not do for themselves. His method is most primitive, the scrotum being held in a cleft bamboo or a pair of
+iron pincers, while the testicles are bruised and rubbed to pulp with a stone. The animal remains ill for a week or a fortnight
+and is not <a id="d0e10888"></a><span class="pagenum">[<a href="#d0e10888">420</a>]</span>worked for two months, but the operation is rarely or never fatal. In the northern Districts the Cham&#257;rs are said to be very
+strong and to make the best farmservants and coolies for earthwork. It is a proverb that &#8216;The Cham&#257;r has half a rib more than
+other men.&#8217; Notwithstanding his strength, however, he is a great coward, this characteristic having probably been acquired
+through centuries of oppression. Many Cham&#257;r women act as midwives. In Raipur the cultivators give her five annas at the birth
+of a boy and four annas for a girl, while well-to-do people pay a rupee. When the first child of a rich man is born, the midwife,
+barber and washerman go round to all his friends and relations to announce the event and obtain presents. It is a regular
+function of the Cham&#257;rs to remove the carcases of dead cattle, which they eat without regard to the disease from which the
+animal may have died. But a Cham&#257;r will not touch the corpse of a pony, camel, cat, dog, squirrel or monkey, and to remove
+the bodies of such animals a Mehtar (sweeper) or a Gond must be requisitioned. In Raipur it is said that the Cham&#257;rs will
+eat only the flesh of four-legged animals, avoiding presumably birds and fish. When acting as a porter the Cham&#257;r usually
+carries a load on his head, whereas the Kah&#257;r bears it on his shoulders, and this distinction is proverbial. In Raipur the
+Cham&#257;rs have become retail cattle-dealers and are known as Kochias. They purchase cattle at the large central markets of Baloda
+and Bamnidih and retail them at the small village baz&#257;rs. It is said that this trade could only flourish in Chhatt&#299;sgarh,
+where the cultivators are too lazy to go and buy their cattle for themselves. Many Cham&#257;rs have emigrated from Chhatt&#299;sgarh
+to the Assam tea-gardens, and others have gone to Calcutta and to the railway workshops at Kharagpur and Chakardharpur. Many
+of them work as porters on the railway. It is probable that their taste for emigration is due to the resentment felt at their
+despised position in Chhatt&#299;sgarh.
+
+
+</p>
+</div>
+<div class="div2" id="d0e10890">
+<h3>16. Social status.</h3>
+<p>The Cham&#257;r ranks at the very bottom of the social scale, and contact with his person is considered to be a defilement to high-caste
+Hindus. He cannot draw water from the common well and usually lives in a hamlet somewhat removed <a id="d0e10895"></a><span class="pagenum">[<a href="#d0e10895">421</a>]</span>from the main village. But in several localities the rule is not so strict, and in Saugor a Cham&#257;r may go into all parts of
+the house except the cooking and eating rooms. This is almost necessary when he is so commonly employed as a farmservant.
+Here the village barber will shave Cham&#257;rs and the washerman will wash their clothes. And the Cham&#257;r himself will not touch
+the corpse of a horse, a dog or any animal whose feet are uncloven; and he will not kill a cow though he eats its flesh. It
+is stated indeed that a Cham&#257;r who once killed a calf accidentally had to go to the Ganges to purify himself. The crime of
+cattle-poisoning is thus rare in Saugor and the other northern Districts, but in the east of the Provinces it is a common
+practice of the Cham&#257;rs. As is usual with the low castes, many Cham&#257;rs are in some repute as Gunias or sorcerers, and in this
+capacity they are frequently invited to enter the houses of Hindus to heal persons possessed of evil spirits. When children
+fall ill one of them is called in and he waves a branch of the <i>nim</i><a id="d0e10899src" href="#d0e10899" class="noteref">27</a> tree over the child and taking ashes in his hand blows them at it; he is also consulted for hysterical women. When a Cham&#257;r
+has had something stolen and wishes to detect the thief, he takes the wooden-handled needle used for stitching leather and
+sticks the spike into the sole of a shoe. Then two persons standing in the relation of maternal uncle and nephew hold the
+needle and shoe up by placing their forefingers under the wooden handle. The names of all suspected persons are pronounced,
+and he at whose name the shoe turns on the needle is taken to be the thief.
+
+</p>
+<p>The caste do not employ Br&#257;hmans for their ceremonies, but consult them for the selection of auspicious days, as this business
+can be performed by the Br&#257;hman at home and he need not enter the Cham&#257;r&#8217;s house. But poor and despised as the Cham&#257;rs are
+they have a pride of their own. When the Dohar and Mar&#257;tha Cham&#257;rs sell shoes to a Mah&#257;r they will only allow him to try on
+one of them and not both, and this, too, he must do in a sitting posture, as an indication of humility. The Harale or Mar&#257;tha
+Cham&#257;rs of Ber&#257;r<a id="d0e10905src" href="#d0e10905" class="noteref">28</a> do not eat beef nor work with untanned leather, and they will not work for the lowest castes, as Mah&#257;rs, M&#257;ngs, Basors and
+<a id="d0e10910"></a><span class="pagenum">[<a href="#d0e10910">422</a>]</span>Kolis. If one of these buys a pair of shoes from the Cham&#257;r the seller asks no indiscreet questions; but he will not mend
+the pair as he would for a man of higher caste. The Satn&#257;mis of Chhatt&#299;sgarh have openly revolted against the degraded position
+to which they are relegated by Hinduism and are at permanent feud with the Hindus; some of them have even adopted the sacred
+thread. But this interesting movement is separately discussed in the article on Satn&#257;mi.
+
+
+</p>
+</div>
+<div class="div2" id="d0e10912">
+<h3>17. Character.</h3>
+<p>In Chhatt&#299;sgarh the Cham&#257;rs are the most criminal class of the population, and have made a regular practice of poisoning cattle
+with arsenic in order to obtain the hides and flesh. They either mix the poison with mahua flowers strewn on the grazing-ground,
+or make it into a ball with butter and insert it into the anus of the animal when the herdsman is absent. They also commit
+cattle-theft and frequently appear at the whipping-post before the court-house. The estimation in which they are held by their
+neighbours is reflected in the proverb, &#8216;Hemp, rice and a Cham&#257;r; the more they are pounded the better they are.&#8217; &#8220;The caste,&#8221;
+Mr. Trench writes, &#8220;are illiterate to a man, and their intellectual development is reflected in their style of living. A visit
+to a hamlet of tanning Cham&#257;rs induces doubt as to whence the appalling smells of the place proceed&#8212;from the hides or from
+the tanners. Were this squalor invariably, as it is occasionally, accompanied by a sufficiency of the necessaries of life,
+victuals and clothing, the Cham&#257;r would not be badly off, but the truth is that in the northern Districts at all events the
+Cham&#257;r, except in years of good harvest, does not get enough to eat. This fact is sufficiently indicated by a glance at the
+perquisites of the village Cham&#257;r, who is almost invariably the shoemaker and leather-worker for his little community. In
+one District the undigested grain left by the gorged bullocks on the threshing-floor is his portion, and a portion for which
+he will sometimes fight. Everywhere he is a carrion-eater, paying little or no regard to the disease from which the animal
+may have died.&#8221; The custom above mentioned of washing grain from the dung of cattle is not so repugnant to the Hindus, owing
+to the sacred character of the cow, as it is to us. It is even sometimes <a id="d0e10917"></a><span class="pagenum">[<a href="#d0e10917">423</a>]</span>considered holy food:&#8212;&#8220;The zam&#299;nd&#257;r of Idar, who is named Naron D&#257;s, lives with such austerity that his only food is grain
+which has passed through oxen and has been separated from their dung; and this kind of aliment the Br&#257;hmans consider pure
+in the highest degree.&#8221;<a id="d0e10919src" href="#d0e10919" class="noteref">29</a> Old-fashioned cultivators do not muzzle the bullocks treading out the corn, and the animals eat it the whole time, so that
+much passes through their bodies undigested. The Cham&#257;r will make several maunds (80 lbs.) of grain in this way, and to a
+cultivator who does not muzzle his bullocks he will give a pair of shoes and a plough-rein and yoke-string. Another duty of
+the Cham&#257;r is to look after the <i>banda</i> or large underground masonry chamber in which grain is kept. After the grain has been stored, a conical roof is built and
+plastered over with mud to keep out water. The Cham&#257;r looks after the repairs of the mud plaster and in return receives a
+small quantity of grain, which usually goes bad on the floor of the store-chamber. They prepare the threshing-floors for the
+cultivators, making the surface of the soil level and beating it down to a smooth and hard surface. In return for this they
+receive the grain mixed with earth which remains on the threshing-floor after the crop is removed.
+
+</p>
+<p>Like all other village artisans the Cham&#257;r is considered by the cultivators to be faithless and dilatory in his dealings with
+them; and they vent their spleen in sayings such as the following:&#8212;&#8220;The Kori, the Cham&#257;r and the Ah&#299;r, these are the three
+biggest liars that ever were known. For if you ask the Cham&#257;r whether he has mended your shoes he says, &#8216;I am at the last
+stitch,&#8217; when he has not begun them; if you ask the Ah&#299;r whether he has brought back your cow from the jungle he says, &#8216;It
+has come, it has come,&#8217; without knowing or caring whether it has come or not; and if you ask the Kori whether he has made
+your cloth he says, &#8216;It is on the loom,&#8217; when he has not so much as bought the thread.&#8221; Another proverb conveying the same
+sense is, &#8216;The Mochi&#8217;s to-morrow never comes.&#8217; But no doubt the uncertainty and delay in payment account for much of this
+conduct.
+
+
+
+<a id="d0e10932"></a><span class="pagenum">[<a href="#d0e10932">424</a>]</span></p>
+</div>
+<div class="footnotes">
+<hr class="fnsep">
+<p class="footnote"><span class="label"><a id="d0e10534" href="#d0e10534src" class="noteref">1</a></span> This article is based on the Rev. E. M. Gordon&#8217;s <i>Indian Folk-Tales</i> (London, Elliott &amp; Stock, 1908), and the Central Provinces <i>Monograph on the Leather Industry</i>, by Mr. C. G. Chenevix Trench, C.S.; with extracts from Sir H. H. Risley&#8217;s and Mr. Crooke&#8217;s descriptions of the caste, and
+from the <i>Ber&#257;r Census Report</i> (1881); on information collected for the District Gazetteers; and papers by Messrs. Durga Pras&#257;d P&#257;nde, Tahs&#299;ld&#257;r, Raipur;
+R&#257;m L&#257;l, Deputy Inspector of Schools, Saugor; Govind Vithal K&#257;ne, Naib-Tahs&#299;ld&#257;r, Wardha; B&#257;lkrishna R&#257;mchandra Bakhle, Tahs&#299;ld&#257;r,
+Mandla; Sit&#257;r&#257;m, schoolmaster, B&#257;l&#257;gh&#257;t; and Kanhya L&#257;l of the Gazetteer office. Some of the material found in Mr. Gordon&#8217;s
+book was obtained independently by the writer in Bil&#257;spur before its publication and is therefore not specially acknowledged.
+</p>
+<p class="footnote"><span class="label"><a id="d0e10548" href="#d0e10548src" class="noteref">2</a></span> There are other genealogies showing the Cham&#257;r as the offspring of various mixed unions.
+</p>
+<p class="footnote"><span class="label"><a id="d0e10551" href="#d0e10551src" class="noteref">3</a></span> <i>Bombay Gazetteer</i>, vol. xv. Kanara, p. 355.
+</p>
+<p class="footnote"><span class="label"><a id="d0e10556" href="#d0e10556src" class="noteref">4</a></span> The Hindus say that there are five classes of women, Padmini, Hastini, Chitrani and Shunkhini being the first four, and of
+these Padmini is the most perfect. No details of the other classes are given. <i>R&#257;sm&#257;la</i>, i. p. 160.
+</p>
+<p class="footnote"><span class="label"><a id="d0e10562" href="#d0e10562src" class="noteref">5</a></span> <i>Punjab Census Report</i> (1881), p. 320.
+</p>
+<p class="footnote"><span class="label"><a id="d0e10567" href="#d0e10567src" class="noteref">6</a></span> <i>Tribes and Castes of Bengal</i>, art. Cham&#257;r.
+</p>
+<p class="footnote"><span class="label"><a id="d0e10583" href="#d0e10583src" class="noteref">7</a></span> <i>Loc. cit.</i></p>
+<p class="footnote"><span class="label"><a id="d0e10597" href="#d0e10597src" class="noteref">8</a></span> From Mr. Gordon&#8217;s paper.
+</p>
+<p class="footnote"><span class="label"><a id="d0e10602" href="#d0e10602src" class="noteref">9</a></span> <i>Monograph on Leather Industries</i>, p. 9.
+</p>
+<p class="footnote"><span class="label"><a id="d0e10621" href="#d0e10621src" class="noteref">10</a></span> <i>Ibidem.</i></p>
+<p class="footnote"><span class="label"><a id="d0e10639" href="#d0e10639src" class="noteref">11</a></span> See articles on these castes.
+</p>
+<p class="footnote"><span class="label"><a id="d0e10642" href="#d0e10642src" class="noteref">12</a></span> <i>Monograph on Leather Industries</i>, p. 3.
+</p>
+<p class="footnote"><span class="label"><a id="d0e10647" href="#d0e10647src" class="noteref">13</a></span> <i>Ber&#257;r Census Report</i> (1881), p. 149.
+</p>
+<p class="footnote"><span class="label"><a id="d0e10652" href="#d0e10652src" class="noteref">14</a></span> From <i>m&#257;ngna</i>, to beg.
+</p>
+<p class="footnote"><span class="label"><a id="d0e10658" href="#d0e10658src" class="noteref">15</a></span> <i>Tribes and Castes</i>, art. Cham&#257;r.
+</p>
+<p class="footnote"><span class="label"><a id="d0e10683" href="#d0e10683src" class="noteref">16</a></span> <i>Indian Folk-Tales.</i></p>
+<p class="footnote"><span class="label"><a id="d0e10738" href="#d0e10738src" class="noteref">17</a></span> <i>Indian Folk-Tales</i>, pp. 49, 50.
+</p>
+<p class="footnote"><span class="label"><a id="d0e10765" href="#d0e10765src" class="noteref">18</a></span> Shells which were formerly used as money.
+</p>
+<p class="footnote"><span class="label"><a id="d0e10778" href="#d0e10778src" class="noteref">19</a></span> <i>Indian Folk-Tales</i>, pp. 49, 50.
+</p>
+<p class="footnote"><span class="label"><a id="d0e10788" href="#d0e10788src" class="noteref">20</a></span> <i>Monograph</i>, p. 3.
+</p>
+<p class="footnote"><span class="label"><a id="d0e10795" href="#d0e10795src" class="noteref">21</a></span> <i>Monograph on Leather Industries</i>, p. 5.
+</p>
+<p class="footnote"><span class="label"><a id="d0e10817" href="#d0e10817src" class="noteref">22</a></span> <i>Zizyphus xylopera.</i></p>
+<p class="footnote"><span class="label"><a id="d0e10823" href="#d0e10823src" class="noteref">23</a></span> <i>Butea frondosa.</i></p>
+<p class="footnote"><span class="label"><a id="d0e10829" href="#d0e10829src" class="noteref">24</a></span> <i>Anogeissus latifolia.</i></p>
+<p class="footnote"><span class="label"><a id="d0e10835" href="#d0e10835src" class="noteref">25</a></span> The above is an abridgment of the description in Mr. Trench&#8217;s <i>Monograph</i>, to which reference may be made for further details.
+</p>
+<p class="footnote"><span class="label"><a id="d0e10846" href="#d0e10846src" class="noteref">26</a></span> <i>Monograph on the Leather Industries</i>, pp. 10, 11.
+</p>
+<p class="footnote"><span class="label"><a id="d0e10899" href="#d0e10899src" class="noteref">27</a></span> <i>Melia indica.</i></p>
+<p class="footnote"><span class="label"><a id="d0e10905" href="#d0e10905src" class="noteref">28</a></span> <i>Ber&#257;r Census Report</i> (1881), p. 149.
+</p>
+<p class="footnote"><span class="label"><a id="d0e10919" href="#d0e10919src" class="noteref">29</a></span> <i>R&#257;sm&#257;la</i>, i. 395, quoting from the <i>Ain-i-Akbari</i>.
+</p>
+</div>
+</div>
+<div id="d0e10933" class="div1"><span class="pagenum">
+[<a href="#d0e111">Contents</a>]
+</span><h2>Chasa</h2>
+<div class="div2" id="d0e10936">
+<h3>1. Origin and traditions.</h3>
+<p><b>Chasa</b>,<a id="d0e10943src" href="#d0e10943" class="noteref">1</a> <b>Tasa</b> (also called Alia in the Sonpur and Patna States).&#8212;The chief cultivating caste of Orissa. In 1901 more than 21,000 Chasas
+were enumerated in Sambalpur and the adjoining Feudatory States, but nearly all these passed in 1905 to Bengal. The Chasas
+are said<a id="d0e10949src" href="#d0e10949" class="noteref">2</a> by Sir H. Risley to be for the most part of non-Aryan descent, the loose organisation of the caste system among the Uriyas
+making it possible on the one hand for outsiders to be admitted into the caste, and on the other for wealthy Chasas who gave
+up ploughing with their own hands and assumed the respectable title of Mahanti to raise themselves to membership among the
+lower classes of K&#257;yasths. This passage indicates that the term Mahanti is or was a broader one than Karan or Uriya K&#257;yasth,
+and was applied to educated persons of other castes who apparently aspired to admission among the Karans, in the same manner
+as leading members of the warlike and landholding castes lay claim to rank as R&#257;jp&#363;ts. For this reason probably the Uriya
+K&#257;yasths prefer the name of Karan to that of Mahanti, and the Uriya saying, &#8216;He who has no caste is called a Mahanti,&#8217; supports
+this view. The word Chasa has the generic meaning of &#8216;a cultivator,&#8217; and the Chasas may in Sambalpur be merely an occupational
+group recruited from other castes. This theory is supported by the names of their subdivisions, three of which, Kolta, Khandait
+and Ud or Orh are the names of distinct castes, while the fourth, Benatia, is found as a subdivision of several other castes.
+
+
+</p>
+</div>
+<div class="div2" id="d0e10954">
+<h3>2. Exogamous divisions.</h3>
+<p>Each family has a <i>got</i> or sept and a <i>varga</i> or family name. The <i>vargas</i> are much more numerous than the <i>gots</i>, and marriages are arranged according to them, unions of members of the same <i>varga</i> only being forbidden. The sept names are totemistic and the family names territorial or titular. Among the former are <i>bachh&#257;s</i> (calf), <i>n&#257;gas</i> (cobra), <i>hasti</i> or <i>gaj</i> (elephant), <i>harin</i> (deer), <i>mahum&#257;chhi</i> (bee), <i>d&#299;pas</i> (lamp), and others; while instances of the <i>varga</i> names are Pitmundia, Hulbulsingia, Giringia and Dumania, <a id="d0e10998"></a><span class="pagenum">[<a href="#d0e10998">425</a>]</span>all names of villages in Angul State; and N&#257;yak (headman), Mahanti (writer), Dehri (worshipper), Behera (cook), Kandra (bamboo-worker),
+and others. The different <i>gots</i> or septs revere their totems by drawing figures of them on their houses, and abstaining from injuring them in any way. If
+they find the footprints of the animal which they worship, they bow to the marks and obliterate them with the hand, perhaps
+with the view of affording protection to the totem animal from hunters or of preventing the marks from being trampled on by
+others. They believe that if they injured the totem animal they would be attacked by leprosy and their line would die out.
+Members of the <i>d&#299;pas</i> sept will not eat if a lamp is put out at night, and will not touch a lamp with unclean hands. Those of the <i>mahum&#257;chhi</i> or bee sept will not take honey from a comb or eat it. Those of the <i>gaj</i> sept will not join an elephant kheddah. Some of the septs have an Ishta Devata or tutelary Hindu deity to whom worship is
+paid. Thus the elephant sept worship Ganesh, the elephant-headed god, and also do not kill rats because Ganesh rides on this
+animal. Similarly the <i>harin</i> or deer sept have P&#257;wan, the god of the wind, as their Ishta Devata, because a deer is considered to be as swift as the wind.
+It would appear then that the septs, each having its totem, were the original divisions for the restriction of marriage, but
+as these increased in size they were felt to debar the union of persons who had no real relationship and hence the smaller
+family groups were substituted for them; while in the case of the old septs, the substitution of the Hindu god representing
+the animal worshipped by the sept for the animal itself as the object of veneration is an instance of the process of abandoning
+totem or animal worship and conforming to Hinduism. In one or two cases the <i>vargas</i> themselves have been further subdivided for the purpose of marriage. Thus certain families of the Padh&#257;n (leader, chief)
+<i>varga</i> were entrusted with the duty of readmitting persons temporarily put out of caste to social intercourse, for which they received
+the remuneration of a rupee and a piece of cloth in each case. These families were called the Parichha or &#8216;Scrutinisers&#8217; and
+have now become a separate <i>varga</i>, so that a Parichha Padh&#257;n may <a id="d0e11024"></a><span class="pagenum">[<a href="#d0e11024">426</a>]</span>marry another Padh&#257;n. This is a further instance of the process of subdivision of exogamous groups which must take place as
+the groups increase in size and numbers, and the original idea of the common ancestry of the group vanishes. Until finally
+the primitive system of exogamy disappears and is replaced by the modern and convenient method of prohibition of marriage
+within certain degrees of relationship.
+
+
+</p>
+</div>
+<div class="div2" id="d0e11026">
+<h3>3. Status and customs of the caste.</h3>
+<p>The Chasas do not marry within the same <i>varga,</i> but a man may usually take a wife from his mother&#8217;s <i>varga</i>. A girl must always be wedded before arriving at adolescence, the penalty for breach of this rule being the driving out of
+the girl to seclusion in the forest for a day and a half, and a feast to the caste-fellows. If no husband is available she
+may be married to an arrow or a flower, or she goes through the form of marriage with any man in the caste, and when a suitable
+partner is subsequently found, is united with him by the form of widow-marriage. Widows may marry again and divorce is also
+allowed. The dead are usually buried if unmarried, and burnt when married. The Chasas worship the Hindu deities and also the
+village god Gr&#257;msiri, who is represented by a stone outside the village. At festivals they offer animal sacrifices to their
+agricultural implements, as hoes and hatchets. They employ Br&#257;hmans for religious ceremonies. They have an aversion to objects
+of a black colour, and will not use black umbrellas or clothes woven with black thread. They do not usually wear shoes or
+ride horses, even when they can afford these latter. Cultivation is the traditional occupation of the caste, and they are
+tenants, farmservants and field-labourers. They take food from R&#257;jp&#363;ts and Br&#257;hmans, and sometimes from Koltas and Sudhs.
+They eat flesh and fish, but abjure liquor, beef, pork and fowls. Their social position is a little below that of the good
+agricultural castes, and they are considered somewhat stupid, as shown by the proverb:
+
+
+</p>
+<div class="poem">
+<div class="stanza">
+<p class="line" style=""><span>Chasa, ki j&#257;ne pas&#257;r katha,
+</span></p>
+<p class="line" style=""><span>Padili bolai dons;</span></p>
+</div>
+</div>
+<p>or &#8216;What does the Chasa know of the dice? At every throw he calls out &#8220;twenty.&#8221;&#8217;
+
+<a id="d0e11044"></a><span class="pagenum">[<a href="#d0e11044">427</a>]</span></p>
+</div>
+<div class="footnotes">
+<hr class="fnsep">
+<p class="footnote"><span class="label"><a id="d0e10943" href="#d0e10943src" class="noteref">1</a></span> From papers by Mr. Parmeshwar Misra, Settlement Superintendent, Rairakhol, and Mr. Ras&#257;nand, Sireshted&#257;r, B&#257;mra.
+</p>
+<p class="footnote"><span class="label"><a id="d0e10949" href="#d0e10949src" class="noteref">2</a></span> <i>Tribes and Castes of Bengal</i>, art. Chasa.
+</p>
+</div>
+</div>
+<div id="d0e11045" class="div1"><span class="pagenum">
+[<a href="#d0e111">Contents</a>]
+</span><h2>Chauh&#257;n</h2>
+<p><b>Chauh&#257;n.</b><a id="d0e11051src" href="#d0e11051" class="noteref">1</a>&#8212;A small caste of village watchmen and labourers in the Chhatt&#299;sgarh Division. They are also known as Chandel by outsiders.
+In 1911 the Chauh&#257;ns numbered 7000 persons in the Raipur and Bil&#257;spur Districts, and the adjoining Feudatory States. The caste
+claim themselves to be of R&#257;jp&#363;t origin, and say that their ancestors came from Mainpuri, which is the home of the Chauh&#257;n
+clan of R&#257;jp&#363;ts. A few of their section names are taken from those of R&#257;jp&#363;t clans, but the majority are of a totemistic nature,
+being called after animals and plants, as N&#257;g the cobra, Neora the mongoose, Kolhia the jackal, Kamal the lotus, Pat silk,
+Ch&#257;nwar rice, Kh&#257;nda a sword, and so on. Members of each sept worship the object after which it is named at the time of marriage,
+and if the tree or animal itself is not readily available, they make a representation of it in flour and pay their respects
+to that. Thus members of the Bedna or sugarcane sept make a stick of flour and worship it. They will not kill or eat their
+sept totem, but in some cases, as in that of the Ch&#257;nwar or rice sept, this rule is impossible of observance, so the members
+of this sept content themselves with abstaining from a single variety of rice, the kind called N&#257;gkesar. Families who belong
+to septs named after heroic ancestors make an image in flour of the ancestral saint or hero and worship it. The caste employ
+Br&#257;hmans for their marriage and other ceremonies, and will not take food from any caste except Br&#257;hmans and their Bair&#257;gi
+<i>gurus</i> or spiritual preceptors. But their social position is very low, as none except the most debased castes will take food or
+water from their hands, and their hereditary calling of village watchman would not be practised by any respectable caste.
+By outsiders they are considered little, if at all, superior to the Pankas and G&#257;ndas, and the most probable theory of their
+origin is that they are the descendants of irregular alliances between immigrant R&#257;jp&#363;t adventurers and the women of the country.
+Their social customs resemble those of other low castes in Chhatt&#299;sgarh. Before the bridegroom starts for a wedding, they
+have a peculiar ceremony known as Naodori. Seven small earthen cups full of water are placed on the boy&#8217;s head, and <a id="d0e11057"></a><span class="pagenum">[<a href="#d0e11057">428</a>]</span>then poured over him in succession. A piece of new cloth is laid on his head, and afterwards placed seven times in contact
+with the earth. During this ritual the boy keeps his eyes shut, and it is believed that if he should open them before its
+completion, his children would be born blind. When the bride leaves her father&#8217;s house she and all her relatives mourn and
+weep noisily, and the bride continues doing so until she is well over a mile from her own village. Similarly on the first
+three or four visits which she pays to her parents after her wedding, she begins crying loudly a mile away from their house,
+and continues until she reaches it. It is the etiquette also that women should cry whenever they meet relatives from a distance.
+In such cases when two women see each other they cry together, each placing her head on the other&#8217;s shoulder and her hands
+at her sides. While they cry they change the position of their heads two or three times, and each addresses the other according
+to their relationship, as mother, sister, and so on. Or if any member of the family has recently died, they call upon him
+or her, exclaiming &#8216;O my mother! O my sister! O my father! Why did not I, unfortunate one, die instead of thee?&#8217; A woman when
+weeping with a man holds to his sides and rests her head against his breast. The man exclaims at intervals, &#8216;Stop crying,
+do not cry.&#8217; When two women are weeping together it is a point of etiquette that the elder should stop first and then beg
+her companion to do so, but if it is doubtful which is the elder, they sometimes go on crying for an hour at a time, exciting
+the younger spectators to mirth, until at length some elder steps forward and tells one of them to stop. The Chauhans permit
+the remarriage of widows, and a woman is bound by no restrictions as to her choice of a second husband.
+
+</p>
+<p>The goddess D&#363;rga or Devi is chiefly revered by the caste, who observe fasts in her honour in the months of Kunw&#257;r (September)
+and Chait (March). When they make a <i>badna</i> or vow, they usually offer goats to the goddess, and sow the <i>Jawaras</i> or Gardens of Adonis in her name, but except on such occasions they present less costly articles, as cocoanuts, betel-leaves,
+areca-nuts and flowers. On the Dasahra festival they worship the <i>l&#257;thi</i> or stick which is the <a id="d0e11070"></a><span class="pagenum">[<a href="#d0e11070">429</a>]</span>badge of office of the village watchman. They were formerly addicted to petty theft, and it is said that they worshipped the
+<i>khunta</i> or pointed rod for digging through the wall of a house. The caste usually burn the dead, but children whose ears or noses
+have not been pierced are buried. Children who die before they have begun to eat grain are not mourned at all, while for older
+children the period of mourning is three to seven days, and for adults ten days. On the tenth day they clean their houses,
+shave themselves and offer balls of rice to the dead under the direction of a Br&#257;hman, to whom they present eating and drinking
+vessels, clothes, shoes and cattle with the belief that the articles will thus become available for the use of the dead man
+in the other world. The Chauh&#257;ns will not eat fowls, pork or beef, and in some places they abstain from drinking liquor.
+
+
+
+</p>
+<div class="footnotes">
+<hr class="fnsep">
+<p class="footnote"><span class="label"><a id="d0e11051" href="#d0e11051src" class="noteref">1</a></span> This article is based principally on notes taken by Mr. H&#299;ra L&#257;l at Bhatgaon.
+</p>
+</div>
+</div>
+<div id="d0e11075" class="div1"><span class="pagenum">
+[<a href="#d0e111">Contents</a>]
+</span><h2>Chh&#299;pa</h2>
+<div class="div2" id="d0e11078">
+<h3>1. Constitution of the caste.</h3>
+<p><b>Chh&#299;pa, Rang&#257;ri, Bhaosar, Nir&#257;li, N&#299;lgar.</b>&#8212;The Hindu caste of cotton printers and dyers. They are commonly known as Chh&#299;pa in the northern Districts and Rang&#257;ri or
+Bhaosar in the Maratha country. The Chh&#299;pas and Rang&#257;ris together number about 23,000 persons. In the south of the Central
+Provinces and Ber&#257;r cotton is a staple crop, and the cotton-weaving industry is much stronger than in the north, and as a
+necessary consequence the dyers also would be more numerous. Though the Chh&#299;pas and Rang&#257;ris do not intermarry or dine together,
+no essential distinction exists between them. They are both of functional origin, pursue exactly the same occupation, and
+relate the same story about themselves, and no good reason therefore exists for considering them as separate castes. N&#299;lgar
+or Nir&#257;li is a purely occupational term applied to Chh&#299;pas or Rang&#257;ris who work in indigo (<i>n&#299;l</i>); while Bhaosar is another name for the Rang&#257;ris in the northern Districts.
+
+
+</p>
+</div>
+<div class="div2" id="d0e11088">
+<h3>2. Its origin and position.</h3>
+<p>The Rang&#257;ris say that when Parasur&#257;ma, the Br&#257;hman, was slaying the Kshatriyas, two brothers of the warrior caste took refuge
+in a temple of Devi. One of them, called Bhaosar, threw himself upon the image, while the other hid behind it. The goddess
+saved them both and told them to adopt the vocation of dyers. The Rang&#257;ris are descended <a id="d0e11093"></a><span class="pagenum">[<a href="#d0e11093">430</a>]</span>from the brother who was called Bhaosar and the Chh&#299;pas from the other brother, because he hid behind the image (<i>chhipna</i>, to hide). The word is really derived from <i>chh&#257;pna</i>, to print, because the Chh&#299;pas print coloured patterns on cotton cloths with wooden stamps. Rang&#257;ri comes from the common
+word <i>rang</i> or colour. The Chh&#299;pas have a slightly different version of the same story, according to which the goddess gave one brother
+a needle and a piece of thread, and the other some red betel-leaf which she spat at him out of her mouth; and told one to
+follow the vocation of a tailor, and the other that of a dyer. Hence the first was called Chh&#299;pi or Shimpi and the second
+Chh&#299;pa. This story indicates a connection between the dyeing and tailoring castes in the Mar&#257;tha Districts, which no doubt
+exists, as one subcaste of the Rang&#257;ris is named after N&#257;mdeo, the patron saint of the Shimpis or tailors. Both the dyeing
+and tailoring industries are probably of considerably later origin than that of cotton-weaving, and both are urban rather
+than village industries. And this consideration perhaps accounts for the fact that the Chh&#299;pas and Rang&#257;ris rank higher than
+most of the weaving castes, and no stigma or impurity attaches to them.
+
+
+</p>
+<div id="d0e11104" class="figure"><img border="0" src="images/p430.jpg" alt="Chh&#299;pa or calico-printer at work." width="720" height="402"><p class="figureHead">Chh&#299;pa or calico-printer at work.</p>
+</div><p>
+
+
+
+</p>
+</div>
+<div class="div2" id="d0e11108">
+<h3>3. Caste subdivisions.</h3>
+<p>The caste have a number of subdivisions, such as the Malaiyas or immigrants from M&#257;lwa, the Gujr&#257;ti who come from Gujar&#257;t,
+the Golias or those who dye cloth with <i>goli ka rang</i>, the fugitive aniline dyes, the N&#257;mdeos who belong to the sect founded by the Darzi or tailor of that name, and the Khatris,
+these last being members of the Khatri caste who have adopted the profession.
+
+
+</p>
+</div>
+<div class="div2" id="d0e11116">
+<h3>4. Marriage and other customs.</h3>
+<p>Marriage is forbidden between persons so closely connected as to have a common ancestor in the third generation. In Bhand&#257;ra
+it is obligatory on all members of the caste, who know the bride or bridegroom, to ask him or her to dine. The marriage rite
+is that prevalent among the Hindust&#257;ni castes, of walking round the sacred post. Divorce and the marriage of widows are permitted.
+In Narsinghpur, when a bachelor marries a widow, he first goes through a mock ceremony by walking seven times round an earthen
+vessel filled with cakes; this rite being known as Langra Biy&#257;h or the lame marriage. The caste burn their dead, placing the
+head to the north. On the day of Dasahra the <a id="d0e11121"></a><span class="pagenum">[<a href="#d0e11121">431</a>]</span>Chh&#299;pas worship their wooden stamps, first washing them and then making an offering to them of a cocoanut, flowers and an
+image consisting of a bottle-gourd standing on four sticks, which is considered to represent a goat. The Chh&#299;pas rank with
+the lower artisan castes, from whose hands Br&#257;hmans will not take water. Nevertheless some of them wear the sacred thread
+and place sect-marks on their foreheads.
+
+
+</p>
+</div>
+<div class="div2" id="d0e11123">
+<h3>5. Occupation.</h3>
+<p>The bulk of the Chh&#299;pas dye cloths in red, blue or black, with ornamental patterns picked out on them in black and white.
+Formerly their principal agent was the <i>al</i> or Indian mulberry (<i>Morinda citrifolia</i>), from which a rich red dye is obtained. But this indigenous product has been ousted by alizarin, a colouring agent made
+from coal-tar, which is imported from Germany, and is about thirty per cent cheaper than the native dye. Chh&#299;pas prepare <i>sar&#299;s</i> or women&#8217;s wearing-cloths, and floor and bed cloths. The dye stamps are made of teakwood by an ordinary carpenter, the flat
+surface of the wood being hollowed out so as to leave ridges which form either a design in curved lines or the outlines of
+the figures of men, elephants and tigers. There is a great variety of patterns, as many as three hundred stamps having been
+found in one Chh&#299;pa&#8217;s shop. The stamps are usually covered with a black ink made of sulphate of iron, and this is fixed by
+myrobalans; the N&#299;lgars usually dye a plain blue with indigotin. No great variety or brilliancy of colours is obtained by
+the Hindu dyers, who are much excelled in this branch of the art by the Muhammadan Rangrez. In Gujar&#257;t dyeing is strictly
+forbidden by the caste rules of the Chh&#299;pas or Bhaosars during the four rainy months, because the slaughter of insects in
+the dyeing vat adds to the evil and ill-luck of that sunless time.<a id="d0e11137src" href="#d0e11137" class="noteref">1</a>
+
+
+
+<a id="d0e11145"></a><span class="pagenum">[<a href="#d0e11145">432</a>]</span></p>
+</div>
+<div class="footnotes">
+<hr class="fnsep">
+<p class="footnote"><span class="label"><a id="d0e11137" href="#d0e11137src" class="noteref">1</a></span> <i>Bombay Gazetteer</i>, <i>Hindus of Gujar&#257;t</i>, p. 178.
+</p>
+</div>
+</div>
+<div id="d0e11146" class="div1"><span class="pagenum">
+[<a href="#d0e111">Contents</a>]
+</span><h2>Chit&#257;ri</h2>
+<h3>List of Paragraphs</h3>
+<ul>
+<li><a href="#d0e11182">1. Origin and traditions.</a></li>
+<li><a href="#d0e11202">2. Social customs.</a></li>
+<li><a href="#d0e11213">3. Birth and childhood.</a></li>
+<li><a href="#d0e11218">4. The evil eye.</a></li>
+<li><a href="#d0e11239">5. Cradle-songs.</a></li>
+<li><a href="#d0e11321">6. Occupation.</a></li>
+</ul>
+<div class="div2" id="d0e11182">
+<h3>1. Origin and traditions.</h3>
+<p><b>Chit&#257;ri, Chiter, Chitrak&#257;r, Mah&#257;rana.</b>&#8212;A caste of painters on wood and plaster. Chiter is the Hindust&#257;ni, and Chit&#257;ri the Mar&#257;thi name, both being corruptions of
+the Sanskrit Chitrak&#257;r. Mah&#257;rana is the term used in the Uriya country, where the caste are also known as Ph&#257;l-Barhai, or
+a carpenter who only works on one side of the wood. Chit&#257;ri is further an occupational term applied to Mochis and J&#299;ngars,
+or leather-workers, who have adopted the occupation of wall-painting, and there is no reason to doubt that the Chit&#257;ris were
+originally derived from the Mochis, though they have now a somewhat higher position. In Mandla the Chitrak&#257;rs and J&#299;ngars
+are separate castes, and do not eat or intermarry with one another. Neither branch will take water from the Mochis, who make
+shoes, and some Chitrak&#257;rs even refuse to touch them. They say that the founder of their caste was Biskarma,<a id="d0e11189src" href="#d0e11189" class="noteref">1</a> the first painter, and that their ancestors were R&#257;jp&#363;ts, whose country was taken by Akbar. As they were without occupation
+Akbar then assigned to them the business of making saddles and bridles for his cavalry and scabbards for their swords. It
+is not unlikely that the J&#299;ngar caste did really originate or first become differentiated from the Mochis and Cham&#257;rs in R&#257;jput&#257;na
+owing to the demand for such articles, and this would account for the Mochis and J&#299;ngars having adopted R&#257;jp&#363;t names for their
+sections, and making a claim to R&#257;jp&#363;t <a id="d0e11192"></a><span class="pagenum">[<a href="#d0e11192">433</a>]</span>descent. The Chitrak&#257;rs of Mandla say that their ancestors belonged to Garha, near Jubbulpore, where the tomb of a woman of
+their family who became <i>sati</i> is still to be seen. Garha, which was once the seat of an important Gond dynasty with a garrison, would also naturally have
+been a centre for their craft.
+
+</p>
+<p>Another legend traces their origin from Chitrarekha, a nymph who was skilled in painting and magic. She was the friend of
+a princess Usha, whose father was king of Soh&#257;gpur in Hoshang&#257;b&#257;d. Usha fell in love with a beautiful young prince whom she
+saw in a dream, and Chitrarekha drew the portraits of many gods and men for her, until finally Usha recognised the youth of
+her dream in the portrait of Aniruddha, the grandson of Krishna. Chitrarekha then by her magic power brought Aniruddha to
+Usha, but when her father found him in the palace he bound him and kept him in prison. On this Krishna appeared and rescued
+his grandson, and taking Usha from her father married them to each other. The Chit&#257;ris say that as a reward to Chitrarekha,
+Krishna promised her that her descendants should never be in want, and hence members of their caste do not lack for food even
+in famine time.<a id="d0e11199src" href="#d0e11199" class="noteref">2</a> The Chit&#257;ris are declining in numbers, as their paintings are no longer in demand, the people preferring the cheap coloured
+prints imported from Germany and England.
+
+
+</p>
+</div>
+<div class="div2" id="d0e11202">
+<h3>2. Social customs.</h3>
+<p>The caste is a mixed occupational group, and those of Mar&#257;tha, Telugu and Hindust&#257;ni extraction marry among themselves. A
+few wear the sacred thread, and abstain from eating flesh or drinking liquor, while the bulk of them do not observe these
+restrictions.
+
+</p>
+<p>Among the J&#299;ngars women accompany the marriage procession, but not with the Chit&#257;ris.
+
+</p>
+<p>Widow-marriage is allowed, but among the Mah&#257;r&#257;nas a wife who has lived with her husband may not marry any one except his
+younger brother, and if there are none she must remain a widow. In Mandla, if a widow marries her younger brother-in-law,
+half her first husband&#8217;s property goes to him finally, and half to the first husband&#8217;s children. <a id="d0e11211"></a><span class="pagenum">[<a href="#d0e11211">434</a>]</span>If she marries an outsider she takes her first husband&#8217;s property and children with her. Formerly if a wife misbehaved the
+Chit&#257;ri sometimes sold her to the highest bidder, but this custom has fallen into abeyance, and now if a man divorces his
+wife her father usually repays to him the expenses of his marriage. These he realises in turn from any man who takes his daughter.
+A second wife worships the spirit of the dead first wife on the day of Akh&#257;tij, offering some food and a breast-cloth, so
+that the spirit may not trouble her.
+
+
+</p>
+</div>
+<div class="div2" id="d0e11213">
+<h3>3. Birth and childhood.</h3>
+<p>A pregnant woman must stay indoors during an eclipse; if she goes out and sees it they believe that her child will be born
+deformed. They think that a woman in this condition must be given any food which she takes a fancy for, so far as may be practicable,
+as to thwart her desires would affect the health of the child. Women in this condition sometimes have a craving for eating
+earth; then they will eat either the scrapings or whitewash from the walls, or black clay soil, or the ashes of cowdung cakes
+to the extent of a small handful a day. A woman&#8217;s first child should be born in her father-in-law&#8217;s or husband&#8217;s house if
+possible, but at any rate not in her father&#8217;s house. And if she should be taken with the pangs of travail while on a visit
+to her own family, they will send her to some other house for her child to be born. The ears of boys and the ears and nostrils
+of girls are pierced, and until this is done they are not considered to be proper members of the caste and can take food from
+any one&#8217;s hand. The Chit&#257;ris of Mandla permit a boy to do this until he is married. A child&#8217;s hair is not shaved when it is
+born, but this should be done once before it is three years old, whether it be a boy or girl. After this the hair may be allowed
+to grow, and shaved off or simply cut as they prefer. Except in the case of illness a girl&#8217;s hair is only shaved once, and
+that of an adult woman is never cut, unless she becomes a widow and makes a pilgrimage to a sacred place, when it is shaved
+off as an offering.
+
+
+</p>
+</div>
+<div class="div2" id="d0e11218">
+<h3>4. The evil eye.</h3>
+<p>In order to avert the evil eye they hang round a child&#8217;s neck a nut called <i>bajar-battu</i>, the shell of which they say will crack and open if any one casts the evil eye on the child. If it is placed in milk the
+two parts will come together again. <a id="d0e11226"></a><span class="pagenum">[<a href="#d0e11226">435</a>]</span>They also think that the nut attracts the evil eye and absorbs its effect, and the child is therefore not injured. If they
+think that some one has cast the evil eye on a child, they say a charm, &#8216;<i lang="und">Ishwar, Gauri, P&#257;rvati ke &#257;n nazar dur ho jao</i>,&#8217; or &#8216;Depart, Evil Eye, in the name of Mah&#257;deo and P&#257;rvati,&#8217; and as they say this they blow on the child three times; or
+they take some salt, chillies and mustard in their hand and wave it round the child&#8217;s head and say, &#8216;<i lang="und">Telin k&#299; l&#257;gi ho, Tamolin k&#299; l&#257;gi ho, Mar&#257;rin k&#299; ho, Gorania (Gondin) k&#299; ho, oke, oke, parpar&#257;ke phut j&#257;we</i>,&#8217; &#8216;If it be a Telin, Tambolin, Mar&#257;rin or Gondin who has cast the evil eye, may her eyes crack and fall out.&#8217; And at the
+same time they throw the mustard, chillies and salt on the fire so that the eyes of her who cast the evil eye may crack and
+fall out as these things crackle in the fire.
+
+</p>
+<p>If tiger&#8217;s claws are used for an amulet, the points must be turned outwards. If any one intends to wish luck to a child, he
+says, &#8216;<i lang="und">Tori balay&#257;n leun</i>,&#8217; and waves his hands round the child&#8217;s head several times to signify that he takes upon himself all the misfortunes which
+are to happen to the child. Then he presses the knuckles of his hands against the sides of his own head till they crack, which
+is a lucky omen, averting calamity. If the knuckles do not crack at the first attempt, it is repeated two or three times.
+When a man sneezes he will say &#8216;Chatrapati,&#8217; which is considered to be a name of Devi, but is only used on this occasion.
+But some say nothing. After yawning they snap their fingers, the object of which, they say, is to drive away sleep, as otherwise
+the desire will become infectious and attack others present. But if a child yawns they sometimes hold one of their hands in
+front of his mouth, and it is probable that the original meaning of the custom was to prevent evil spirits from entering through
+the widely opened mouth, or the yawner&#8217;s own soul or spirit from escaping; and the habit of holding the hand before the mouth
+from politeness when yawning inadvertently may be a reminiscence of this.
+
+
+</p>
+</div>
+<div class="div2" id="d0e11239">
+<h3>5. Cradle-songs.</h3>
+<p>The following are some cradle-songs taken down from a Chitrak&#257;r, but probably used by most of the lower Hindu castes:
+
+<a id="d0e11244"></a><span class="pagenum">[<a href="#d0e11244">436</a>]</span></p>
+<div class="poem">
+<div class="stanza">
+<p class="line" style=""><span>1. Mother, rock the cradle of your pretty child. What is the cradle made of, and what are its tassels made of?
+</span></p>
+<p class="line" style=""><span>The cradle is made of sandalwood, its tassels are of silk.
+</span></p>
+<p class="line" style=""><span>Some Gaolin (milkwoman) has overlooked the child, he vomits up his milk.
+</span></p>
+<p class="line" style=""><span>Dasoda<a id="d0e11254src" href="#d0e11254" class="noteref">3</a> shall wave salt and mustard round his head, and he shall play in my lap.
+</span></p>
+<p class="line" style=""><span>My baby is making little steps. O Sun&#257;r, bring him tinkling anklets!
+</span></p>
+<p class="line" style=""><span>The Sun&#257;r shall bring anklets for him, and my child will go to the garden and there we will eat oranges and lemons.</span></p>
+</div>
+</div>
+<div class="poem">
+<div class="stanza">
+<p class="line" style=""><span>2. My Krishna&#8217;s tassel is lost, Tell me, some one, where it is. My child is angry and will not come into my arms.
+</span></p>
+<p class="line" style=""><span>The tears are falling from his eyes like blossoms from the <i>bela</i><a id="d0e11268src" href="#d0e11268" class="noteref">4</a> flower.
+</span></p>
+<p class="line" style=""><span>He has bangles on his wrists and anklets on his feet, on his head a golden crown and round his waist a silver chain.</span></p>
+</div>
+</div>
+<p>The <i>jhumri</i> or tassel referred to above is a tassel adorned with cowries and hung from the top of the cradle so that the child may keep
+his eyes on it while the cradle is being rocked.
+
+
+</p>
+<div class="poem">
+<div class="stanza">
+<p class="line" style=""><span>3. Sleep, sleep, my little baby; I will wave my hands round your head<a id="d0e11281src" href="#d0e11281" class="noteref">5</a> on the banks of the Jumna. I have cooked hot cakes for you and put butter in them; all the night you lay awake, now take
+your fill of sleep.
+</span></p>
+<p class="line" style=""><span>The little mangoes are hanging on the tree; the rope is in the well; sleep thou till I go and come back with water.
+</span></p>
+<p class="line" style=""><span>I will hang your cradle on the banyan tree, and its rope to the p&#299;pal tree; I will rock my darling gently so that the rope
+shall never break.</span></p>
+</div>
+</div>
+<p>The last song may be given in the vernacular as a specimen:
+
+</p>
+<div class="poem" lang="und">
+<div class="stanza">
+<p class="line" style=""><span>4. R&#257;m k&#299; Chireya, R&#257;m ko khet.
+</span></p>
+<p class="line" style=""><span>Khaori Chireya, bhar, bhar pet.
+</span></p>
+<p class="line" style=""><span>Tan munaiy&#257;n kh&#257; lao khet,
+</span></p>
+<p class="line" style=""><span>Agao, labra, g&#257;li det;
+</span></p>
+<p class="line" style=""><span>Kahe ko, labra, g&#257;li de;
+</span></p>
+<p class="line" style=""><span>Apni bhuntia gin, gin le.</span></p>
+</div>
+</div>
+<p>or&#8212;
+
+</p>
+<div class="poem">
+<div class="stanza">
+<p class="line" style=""><span>The field is R&#257;ma&#8217;s, the little birds are R&#257;ma&#8217;s; O birds, eat your fill; the little birds have eaten up the corn.
+<a id="d0e11310"></a><span class="pagenum">[<a href="#d0e11310">437</a>]</span></span></p>
+<p class="line" style=""><span>The surly farmer has come to the field and scolds them; the little birds say, &#8216;O farmer, why do you scold us? count your ears
+of maize, they are all there.&#8217;</span></p>
+</div>
+</div>
+<p>This song commemorates a favourite incident in the life of Tulsi D&#257;s, the author of the R&#257;m&#257;yana, who when he was a little
+boy was once sent by his <i>guru</i> to watch the crop. But after some time the <i>guru</i> came and found the field full of birds eating the corn and Tulsi D&#257;s watching them. When asked why he did not scare them
+away, he said, &#8216;Are they not as much the creatures of R&#257;ma as I am? how should I deprive them of food?&#8217;
+
+
+</p>
+</div>
+<div class="div2" id="d0e11321">
+<h3>6. Occupation.</h3>
+<p>The Chit&#257;ris pursue their old trade, principally in N&#257;gpur city, where the taste for wall-paintings still survives; and they
+decorate the walls of houses with their crude red and blue colours. But they have now a number of other avocations. They paint
+pictures on paper, making their colours from the tins of imported aniline dyeing-powders which are sold in the bazar; but
+there is little demand for these. They make small pictures of the deities which the people hang on their walls for a day and
+then throw away. They also paint the bodies of the men who pretend to be tigers at the Muharram festival, for which they charge
+a rupee. They make the clay paper-covered masks of monkeys and demons worn by actors who play the R&#257;ml&#299;la or story of R&#257;ma
+on the R&#257;mnaomi festival in Chait (March); they also make the <i>t&#257;zias</i> or representations of the tomb of Hussain and paper figures of human beings with small clay heads, which are carried in the
+Muharram procession. They make marriage crowns; the frames of these are of conical shape with a half-moon at the top, made
+from strips of bamboo; they are covered with red paper picked out with yellow and green and with tinfoil, and are ornamented
+with borders of date-palm leaves. The crowns cost from four annas to a rupee each. They make the artificial flowers used at
+weddings; these are stuck on a bamboo stick and at the arrival and departure of the bridegroom are scrambled for by the guests,
+who take them home as keepsakes or give them to their children for playthings. The flowers copied are the lotus, rose and
+chrysanthemum, and the imitations are quite good. Sometimes the bridegroom is <a id="d0e11329"></a><span class="pagenum">[<a href="#d0e11329">438</a>]</span>surrounded by trays or boxes of flowers, carried in procession and arranged so as to look as if they were planted in beds.
+Other articles made by the Chitrak&#257;r are paper fans, paper globes for hanging to the roofs of houses, Chinese lanterns made
+either of paper or of mica covered with paper, and small caps of velvet embroidered with gold lace. At the Akti festival<a id="d0e11331src" href="#d0e11331" class="noteref">6</a> they make pairs of little clay dolls, dressing them as male and female, and sell them in red lacquered bamboo baskets, and
+the girls take them to the jungle and pretend that they are married. Formerly the Chitrak&#257;rs made clay idols for temples,
+but these have been supplanted by marble images imported from Jaipur. The J&#299;ngars make the cloth saddles on which natives
+ride, and some of them bind books, the leather for which is made from goat-skin, and is not considered so impure as that made
+from the hides of cattle. But one class of them, who are considered inferior, make leather harness from cow-hide and buffalo-hide.
+
+
+
+</p>
+</div>
+<div class="footnotes">
+<hr class="fnsep">
+<p class="footnote"><span class="label"><a id="d0e11189" href="#d0e11189src" class="noteref">1</a></span> A corruption for Viswakarma, the divine artificer and architect.
+</p>
+<p class="footnote"><span class="label"><a id="d0e11199" href="#d0e11199src" class="noteref">2</a></span> The story, however, really belongs to northern India. Usha is the goddess of dawn.
+</p>
+<p class="footnote"><span class="label"><a id="d0e11254" href="#d0e11254src" class="noteref">3</a></span> Krishna&#8217;s mother.
+</p>
+<p class="footnote"><span class="label"><a id="d0e11268" href="#d0e11268src" class="noteref">4</a></span> Little white flowers like jasmine. This simile would be unlikely to occur to the ordinary observer who sees a Hindu child
+crying.
+</p>
+<p class="footnote"><span class="label"><a id="d0e11281" href="#d0e11281src" class="noteref">5</a></span> <i lang="und">Tori balay&#257;n leun.</i> For explanation see above.
+</p>
+<p class="footnote"><span class="label"><a id="d0e11331" href="#d0e11331src" class="noteref">6</a></span> Commencement of the agricultural year.
+</p>
+</div>
+</div>
+<div id="d0e11334" class="div1"><span class="pagenum">
+[<a href="#d0e111">Contents</a>]
+</span><h2>Chitrakathi</h2>
+<p><b>Chitrakathi, Hardas.</b><a id="d0e11340src" href="#d0e11340" class="noteref">1</a>&#8212;A small caste of religious mendicants and picture showmen in the Mar&#257;tha Districts. In 1901 they numbered 200 persons in
+the Central Provinces and 1500 in Ber&#257;r, being principally found in the Amraoti District. The name, Mr. Enthoven writes,<a id="d0e11343src" href="#d0e11343" class="noteref">2</a> is derived from <i>chitra,</i> a picture, and <i>katha</i>, a story, and the professional occupation of the caste is to travel about exhibiting pictures of heroes and gods, and telling
+stories about them. The community is probably of mixed functional origin, for in Bombay they have exogamous section-names
+taken from those of the Mar&#257;thas, as J&#257;dhow, More, Pow&#257;r and so on, while in the Central Provinces and Ber&#257;r an entirely different
+set is found. Here several sections appear to be named after certain offices held or functions performed by their members
+at the caste feasts. Thus the Atak section are the caste headmen; the M&#257;nkari appear to be a sort of substitute for the Atak
+or their grand viziers, the word <a id="d0e11354"></a><span class="pagenum">[<a href="#d0e11354">439</a>]</span>M&#257;nkar being primarily a title applied to Mar&#257;tha noblemen, who held an official position at court; the Bhojni section serve
+the food at marriage and other ceremonies; the K&#257;kra arrange for the lighting; the Koth&#257;rya are store-keepers; and the Ghoderao
+(from <i>ghoda</i>, a horse) have the duty of looking after the horses and bullock-carts of the castemen who assemble. The Chitrakathis are
+really no doubt the same caste as the Chit&#257;ris or Chitrak&#257;rs (painters) of the Central Provinces, and, like them, a branch
+of the Mochis (tanners), and originally derived from the Cham&#257;rs. But as the Ber&#257;r Chitrakathis are migratory instead of settled,
+and in other respects differ from the Chit&#257;ris, they are treated in a separate article. Marriage within the section is forbidden,
+and, besides this, members of the Atak and M&#257;nkari sections cannot intermarry as they are considered to be related, being
+divisions of one original section. The social customs of the caste resemble those of the Kunbis, but they bury their dead
+in a sitting posture, with the face to the east, and on the eighth day erect a platform over the grave. At the festival of
+Akhat&#299;j (3rd of light Bais&#257;kh)<a id="d0e11359src" href="#d0e11359" class="noteref">3</a> they worship a vessel of water in honour of their dead ancestors, and in Kunw&#257;r (September) they offer oblations to them.
+Though not impure, the caste occupy a low social position, and are said to prostitute their married women and tolerate sexual
+licence on the part of unmarried girls. Mr. Kitts<a id="d0e11362src" href="#d0e11362" class="noteref">4</a> describes them as &#8220;Wandering mendicants, sometimes suspected of associating with Kaik&#257;ris for purposes of crime; but they
+seem nevertheless to be a comparatively harmless people. They travel about in little huts like those used by the Waddars;
+the men occasionally sell buffaloes and milk; the women beg, singing and accompanying themselves on the <i>th&#257;li</i>. The old men also beg, carrying a flag in their hand, and shouting the name of their god, Hari Vithal (from which they derive
+their name of Hard&#257;s). They are fond of spirits, and, when drunk, become pot-valiant and troublesome.&#8221; The <i>th&#257;li</i> or plate on which their women play is also known as <i>sarth&#257;da</i>, and consists of a small brass dish coated with <a id="d0e11376"></a><span class="pagenum">[<a href="#d0e11376">440</a>]</span>wax in the centre; this is held on the thigh and a pointed stick is moved in a circle so as to produce a droning sound. The
+men sometimes paint their own pictures, and in Bombay they have a caste rule that every Chitrakathi must have in his house
+a complete set of sacred pictures; this usually includes forty representations of R&#257;ma&#8217;s life, thirty-five of that of the
+sons of Arjun, forty of the P&#257;ndavas, forty of S&#299;ta and R&#257;wan, and forty of Harishchandra. The men also have sets of puppets
+representing the above and other deities, and enact scenes with them like a Punch and Judy show, sometimes aided by ventriloquism.
+
+
+
+</p>
+<div class="footnotes">
+<hr class="fnsep">
+<p class="footnote"><span class="label"><a id="d0e11340" href="#d0e11340src" class="noteref">1</a></span> This article is partly based on a paper by Mr. Bijai Bahadur, Naib-Tahs&#299;ld&#257;r, B&#257;l&#257;gh&#257;t.
+</p>
+<p class="footnote"><span class="label"><a id="d0e11343" href="#d0e11343src" class="noteref">2</a></span> <i>Bombay Ethnographic Survey</i>, draft article on Chitrakathi.
+</p>
+<p class="footnote"><span class="label"><a id="d0e11359" href="#d0e11359src" class="noteref">3</a></span> May-June. The Akhat&#299;j is the beginning of the agricultural year.
+</p>
+<p class="footnote"><span class="label"><a id="d0e11362" href="#d0e11362src" class="noteref">4</a></span> <i>Ber&#257;r Census Report</i> (1881), paragraph 206. The passage is slightly altered and abridged in reproduction.
+</p>
+</div>
+</div>
+<div id="d0e11378" class="div1"><span class="pagenum">
+[<a href="#d0e111">Contents</a>]
+</span><h2>Cutchi</h2>
+<div class="div2" id="d0e11381">
+<h3>1. General notice.</h3>
+<p><b>Cutchi</b> or <b>Meman, Kachhi, Muamin.</b>&#8212;A class of Muhammadan merchants who come every year from Gujar&#257;t and Cutch to trade in the towns of the Central Provinces,
+where they reside for eight months, returning to their houses during the four months of the rainy season. In 1911 they numbered
+about 2000 persons, of whom five-sixths were men, this fact indicating the temporary nature of their settlements. Nevertheless
+a large proportion of the trade of the Province is in their hands. The caste is fully and excellently described by Kh&#257;n Bah&#257;dur
+Fazalullah Lutfullah Far&#299;di, Assistant Collector of Customs, Bombay, in the <i>Bombay Gazetteer</i>.<a id="d0e11394src" href="#d0e11394" class="noteref">1</a> He remarks of them: &#8220;As shopkeepers and miscellaneous dealers Cutchis are considered to be the most successful of Muhammadans.
+They owe their success in commerce to their freedom from display and their close and personal attention to and keen interest
+in business. The richest Meman merchant does not disdain to do what a P&#257;rsi in his position would leave to his clerks. Their
+hope and courage are also excellent endowments. They engage without fear in any promising new branch of trade and are daring
+in their ventures, a trait partly inherited from their Loh&#257;na ancestors, and partly due to their faith in the luck which the
+favour of their saints secures them.<span id="d0e11400" class="corr" title="Source: &#8217;">&#8221;</span> Another great advantage arises from their method of trading in small corporations or companies of a number of persons either
+relations or friends. Some of these will have shops in the great centres of trade, Bombay and Calcutta, and others in <a id="d0e11403"></a><span class="pagenum">[<a href="#d0e11403">441</a>]</span>different places in the interior. Each member then acts as correspondent and agent for all the others, and puts what business
+he can in their way. Many are also employed as assistants and servants in the shops; but at the end of the season, when all
+return to their native Gujar&#257;t, the profits from the different shops are pooled and divided among the members in varying proportion.
+By this method they obtain all the advantages which are recognised as attaching to co-operative trading.
+
+
+</p>
+</div>
+<div class="div2" id="d0e11405">
+<h3>2. Origin of the caste.</h3>
+<p>According to Mr. Far&#299;di, from whose description the remainder of this article is mainly taken, the Memans or more correctly
+Muamins or &#8216;Believers&#8217; are converts from the Hindu caste of Loh&#257;nas of Sind. They venerate especially Maul&#257;na Abdul K&#257;dir
+G&#299;l&#257;ni who died at Baghd&#257;d in <span class="smallcaps">A.D.</span> 1165. His sixth descendant, Syed Y&#363;sufudd&#299;n Kordiri, was in 1421 instructed in a dream to proceed to Sind and guide its people
+into the way of Isl&#257;m. On his arrival he was received with honour by the local king, who was converted, and the ruler&#8217;s example
+was followed by one M&#257;nikji, the head of one of the <i>nukhs</i> or clans of the Loh&#257;na community. He with his three sons and seven hundred families of the caste embraced Isl&#257;m, and on their
+conversion the title of Muamin or &#8216;Believer&#8217; was conferred on them by the saint. It may be noted that Colonel Tod derives
+the Loh&#257;nas from the R&#257;jp&#363;ts, remarking of them:<a id="d0e11416src" href="#d0e11416" class="noteref">2</a> &#8220;This tribe is numerous both in Dh&#257;t and Talp&#363;ra; formerly they were R&#257;jp&#363;ts, but betaking themselves to commerce have fallen
+into the third class. They are scribes and shopkeepers, and object to no occupation that will bring a subsistence; and as
+to food, to use the expressive idiom of this region where hunger spurns at law, &#8216;Excepting their cats and their cows they
+will eat anything.&#8217;&#8221; In his account of Sind, Postans says of the Loh&#257;nas: &#8220;The Hindu merchants and bankers have agents in
+the most remote parts of Central Asia and could negotiate bills upon Candah&#257;r, Khel&#257;t, C&#257;bul, Khiva, Her&#257;t, Bokh&#257;ra or any
+other marts of that country. These agents, in the pursuit of their calling, leave Sind for many years, quitting their families
+to locate themselves among the most savage and intolerant <a id="d0e11421"></a><span class="pagenum">[<a href="#d0e11421">442</a>]</span>tribes.&#8221; This account could equally apply to the Khatris, who also travel over Central Asia, as shown in the article on that
+caste; and if, as seems not improbable, the Loh&#257;nas and Khatris are connected, the hypothesis that the former, like the latter,
+are derived from R&#257;jp&#363;ts would receive some support.
+
+</p>
+<p>The present P&#299;r or head of the community is Sayyid J&#257;fir Sh&#257;h, who is nineteenth in descent from Y&#363;sufudd&#299;n and lives partly
+in Bombay and partly in Mundra of South Cutch. &#8220;At an uncertain date,&#8221; Mr. Far&#299;di continues, &#8220;the Loh&#257;na or Cutchi Memans
+passed from Cutch south through K&#257;thi&#257;w&#257;r to Gujar&#257;t. They are said to have been strong and wealthy in Surat during the period
+of its prosperity (1580&#8211;1680). As Surat sank the Cutchi Memans moved to Bombay. Outside Cutch and K&#257;thi&#257;w&#257;r, which may be
+considered their homes, the Memans are scattered over the cities of north and south Gujar&#257;t and other Districts of Bombay.
+Beyond that Presidency they have spread as traders and merchants and formed settlements in Calcutta, Madras, the Malabar Coast,
+South Burma, Siam, Singapore and Java; in the ports of the Arabian Peninsula, except Muscat, where they have been ousted by
+the Khojas; and in Mozambique, Zanzibar and the East African Coast.&#8221;<a id="d0e11425src" href="#d0e11425" class="noteref">3</a> They have two divisions in Bombay, known as Cutchi or Kachhi and Halai.
+
+
+</p>
+</div>
+<div class="div2" id="d0e11429">
+<h3>3. Social customs.</h3>
+<p>Cutchis and Memans retain some non-Muhammadan usages. The principal of these is that they do not allow their daughters and
+widows to inherit according to the rule of Muhammadan law.<a id="d0e11434src" href="#d0e11434" class="noteref">4</a> They conduct their weddings by the Nik&#257;h form and the <i>mehar</i> or dowry is always the same sum of a hundred and twenty-five rupees, whatever may be the position of the parties and in the
+case of widows also. <a id="d0e11443"></a><span class="pagenum">[<a href="#d0e11443">443</a>]</span>They say that either party may be divorced by the other for conjugal infidelity, but the <i>mehar</i> or dowry must always be paid to the wife in the case of a divorce. The caste eat flesh and fowls and abstain from liquor.
+Most of them also decline to eat beef as a consequence of their Hindu ancestry and they will not take food from Hindus of
+low caste.
+
+
+
+<a id="d0e11448"></a><span class="pagenum">[<a href="#d0e11448">444</a>]</span></p>
+</div>
+<div class="footnotes">
+<hr class="fnsep">
+<p class="footnote"><span class="label"><a id="d0e11394" href="#d0e11394src" class="noteref">1</a></span> Vol. ix. part. ii. <i>Muhammadans of Gujar&#257;t</i>, p. 57.
+</p>
+<p class="footnote"><span class="label"><a id="d0e11416" href="#d0e11416src" class="noteref">2</a></span> <i>R&#257;jasth&#257;n</i>, ii. p. 292.
+</p>
+<p class="footnote"><span class="label"><a id="d0e11425" href="#d0e11425src" class="noteref">3</a></span> <i>Bombay Gazetteer, l.c.</i></p>
+<p class="footnote"><span class="label"><a id="d0e11434" href="#d0e11434src" class="noteref">4</a></span> In recording this point Mr. Far&#299;di gives the following note: &#8220;In 1847 a case occurred which shows how firmly the Memans cling
+to their original tribal customs. The widow of H&#257;ji N&#363;r Muhammad of the Lakariya family demanded a share of her deceased husband&#8217;s
+property according to Muhammadan law. The <i>jam&#257;-at</i> or community decided that a widow had no claim to share her husband&#8217;s estates under the Hindu law. Before the High Court,
+in spite of the ridicule of other Sunnis, the elders of the Cutchi Memans declared that their caste rules denied the widow&#8217;s
+claim. The matter caused and is still (1896) causing agitation, as the doctors of the Sunni law at Mecca have decided that
+as the law of inheritance is laid down by the holy Kor&#257;n, a wilful departure from it is little short of apostasy. The Memans
+are contemplating a change, but so far they have not found themselves able to depart from their tribal practices.&#8221;
+</p>
+</div>
+</div>
+<div id="d0e11449" class="div1"><span class="pagenum">
+[<a href="#d0e111">Contents</a>]
+</span><h2>Dah&#257;it<a id="d0e11452src" href="#d0e11452" class="noteref">1</a></h2>
+<h3>List of Paragraphs</h3>
+<ul>
+<li><a href="#d0e11492">1. Origin of the caste.</a></li>
+<li><a href="#d0e11510">2. Internal structure: totemism.</a></li>
+<li><a href="#d0e11536">3. Marriage and other customs.</a></li>
+<li><a href="#d0e11561">4. Social position.</a></li>
+<li><a href="#d0e11569">5. Former occupations: door-keeper and mace-bearer.</a></li>
+<li><a href="#d0e11599">6. The umbrella.</a></li>
+<li><a href="#d0e11619">7. Significance of the umbrella.</a></li>
+</ul>
+<div class="div2" id="d0e11492">
+<h3>1. Origin of the caste.</h3>
+<p><b>Dah&#257;it, Dah&#257;yat.</b>&#8212;A mixed caste of village watchmen of the Jubbulpore and Mandla Districts, who are derived from the cognate caste of Khang&#257;rs
+and from several of the forest tribes. In 1911 the Dah&#257;its numbered about 15,000 persons in the Central Provinces, of whom
+the large majority were found in the Jubbulpore District and the remainder in Bil&#257;spur, Damoh and Seoni. Outside the Province
+they reside only in Bundelkhand. According to one story the Dah&#257;its and Khang&#257;rs had a common ancestor, and in Mandla again
+they say that their ancestors were the door-keepers of the R&#257;jas of Mahoba, and were known as Chhad&#299;dar or Darw&#257;n; and they
+came to Mandla about 200 years ago, during the time of R&#257;ja Niz&#257;m Sh&#257;h of the R&#257;j-Gond dynasty of that place. In Mandla the
+names of their subdivisions are given as Rawatia or Rautia, Kol, Maw&#257;si, Sonw&#257;ni and Rajw&#257;ria. Of these Kol and Rajw&#257;r are
+the names of separate tribes; Maw&#257;si is commonly used as a synonym for Korku, another tribe; Sonw&#257;ni is the name of a sept
+found among several of the primitive tribes; while R&#257;wat is a title borne by the Saonrs and Gonds. The names Rautia and Rajw&#257;ria
+are found as subdivisions of the Kol tribe in M&#299;rz&#257;pur,<a id="d0e11499src" href="#d0e11499" class="noteref">2</a> and it is not improbable that the <a id="d0e11505"></a><span class="pagenum">[<a href="#d0e11505">445</a>]</span>Dah&#257;its are principally derived from this tribe. The actual name Dah&#257;it is also given by Mr. Crooke as a subdivision of the
+Kols, and he states it to have the meaning of &#8216;villager,&#8217; from <i>deh&#257;t</i>, a village. The Dah&#257;its were a class of personal attendants on the chief or R&#257;ja, as will be seen subsequently. They stood
+behind the royal cushion and fanned him, ran in front of his chariot or litter to clear the way, and acted as door-keepers
+and ushers. Service of this kind is of a menial nature and, further, demands a considerable degree of physical robustness;
+and hence members of the non-Aryan forest tribes would naturally be selected for it. And it would appear that these menial
+servants gradually formed themselves into a caste in Bundelkhand and became the Dah&#257;its. They obtained a certain rise in status,
+and now rank in the position of village menials above their parent tribes. In the Central Provinces the Dah&#257;its have commonly
+been employed as village watchmen, a post analogous to that of door-keeper or porter. The caste are also known as Bh&#257;ld&#257;r
+or spearmen, and Kotw&#257;r or village watchmen.
+
+
+</p>
+</div>
+<div class="div2" id="d0e11510">
+<h3>2. Internal structure: totemism.</h3>
+<p>The subcastes returned from the Mandla District have already been mentioned. In Bil&#257;spur they have quite different ones, of
+which two, Joharia and Pailagia, are derived from methods of greeting. Joh&#257;r is the salutation which a R&#257;jp&#363;t prince sends
+to a vassal or chief of inferior rank, and Pailagi or &#8216;I fall at your feet&#8217; is that with which a member of a lower caste accosts
+a Br&#257;hman. How such names came to be adopted as subcastes cannot be explained. The caste have a number of exogamous groups
+named after plants and animals. Members of the Bel,<a id="d0e11515src" href="#d0e11515" class="noteref">3</a> Rusallo and Chheola<a id="d0e11519src" href="#d0e11519" class="noteref">4</a> septs revere the trees after which these septs are named. They will not cut or injure the tree, and at the time of marriage
+they go and invite it to be present at the ceremony. They offer to the tree the <i>maihar</i> cake, which is given only to the members of the family and the husbands and children of daughters. Those belonging to the
+Nagotia sept<a id="d0e11526src" href="#d0e11526" class="noteref">5</a> will not kill a snake, and at the time of marriage they deposit the <i>maihar</i> cake at a snake-hole. Members of the Singh (lion) and B&#257;gh (tiger) septs will not <a id="d0e11534"></a><span class="pagenum">[<a href="#d0e11534">446</a>]</span>kill a tiger, and at their weddings they draw his image on a wall and offer the cake to it, being well aware that if they
+approached the animal himself, he would probably repudiate the relationship and might not be satisfied with the cake for his
+meal.
+
+
+</p>
+</div>
+<div class="div2" id="d0e11536">
+<h3>3. Marriage and other customs.</h3>
+<p>Prior to a marriage a bride-price, known as <i>sukh</i> or <i>ch&#257;ri</i>, and consisting of six rupees with some sugar, turmeric and sesamum oil, must be paid by the parents of the bridegroom to
+those of the bride; and in the absence of this they will decline to perform the ceremony. At the wedding the couple go round
+the sacred post, and then the bridegroom mingles the flames of two burning lamps and pierces the nose of the image of a bullock
+made in flour. This rite is performed by several castes, and is said to be in commemoration of Krishna&#8217;s having done so on
+different occasions. It is probably meant to excuse or legitimise the real operation, which should properly be considered
+as sinful in view of the sacred character of the animal. And it may be mentioned here that the people of the Vindhyan or Bundelkhand
+Districts where the Dah&#257;its live do not perforate the nostrils of bullocks, and drive them simply by a rope tied round the
+mouth. In consequence they have little control over them and are quite unable to stop a cart going downhill, which simply
+proceeds at the will of the animals until it reaches the level or bangs up against some obstacle. In Bil&#257;spur a widow is expected
+to remain single for five years after her husband&#8217;s death, and if she marries within that time she is put out of caste. Divorce
+is permitted, but is not of frequent occurrence. The caste will excuse a married woman caught in adultery once, but on a second
+offence she must be expelled. If a woman leaves her husband and goes to live with another man, the latter must repay to her
+husband the amount expended on his marriage. But in such a case, if the woman was already a widow or <i lang="und">kari aurat</i>,<a id="d0e11550src" href="#d0e11550" class="noteref">6</a> no penalty is incurred by a man who takes her from her second husband. A man of any good cultivating caste who has a <i>liaison</i> with a Dah&#257;it woman will be admitted into the community. An outsider who desires to become a member of the caste must clean
+his house, break <a id="d0e11556"></a><span class="pagenum">[<a href="#d0e11556">447</a>]</span>his earthen cooking-pots and buy new ones, and give a meal to the caste-fellows at his house. He sits and takes food with
+them, and when the meal is over he takes a grain of rice from the leaf-plate of each guest and eats it, and drinks a drop
+of water from his leaf-cup. This act is equivalent to eating the leavings of food, and after it he cannot re-enter his own
+caste. On such occasions a rupee and a piece of cloth must be given to the headman of the caste, and a piece of cloth to each
+member of the <i>panch&#257;yat</i> or committee. The headman is known as Mirdh&#257;n, and a member of the committee as Diw&#257;n, the offices of both being hereditary.
+The caste worship the Hindu and village gods of the locality. They have a curious belief that the skull of a man of the K&#257;yasth
+(writer) caste cannot be burnt in fire, and that if it is placed in a dwelling-house the inmates will quarrel. A child&#8217;s first
+teeth, if found, are thrown into a sacred river or on to the roof of a house with a few grains of rice, in order that the
+second teeth may grow white and pointed like the rice. The Jh&#257;lar or first hair of a boy or girl is cut between two and ten
+years of age and is wrapped in a piece of dough and thrown into a sacred river. Women are tattooed on the back of the hands,
+and also sometimes on the shoulder and the arms above the elbow, but not on the feet or face.
+
+
+</p>
+</div>
+<div class="div2" id="d0e11561">
+<h3>4. Social position.</h3>
+<p>The Dah&#257;its are now commonly employed as village watchmen and as guards or porters (<i>chaukid&#257;r</i>) of houses. In Bil&#257;spur they also carry litters and work as navvies and stonebreakers like the Kols. Here they will eat pork,
+but in Jubbulpore greater regard is paid to Hindu prejudice, and they have given up pork and fowls and begun to employ Br&#257;hmans
+for their ceremonies. The men of the caste will accept cooked food from any man of the higher castes or those cultivators
+from whom a Br&#257;hman will take water, but the women are more strict and will only accept it from a Br&#257;hman, Bania, Lodhi or
+Kurmi.
+
+
+</p>
+</div>
+<div class="div2" id="d0e11569">
+<h3>5. Former occupations: door-keeper and mace-bearer.</h3>
+<p>In past times the Dah&#257;its were the personal attendants on the king. They fanned him with the <i>chaur</i> or yak-tail whisk when he sat in state on the royal cushion. This implement is held sacred and is also used by Br&#257;hmans to
+fan the deities. On ordinary occasions the R&#257;ja was fanned by a pankha made of <i>khaskhas</i> grass and wetted, but not so that <a id="d0e11580"></a><span class="pagenum">[<a href="#d0e11580">448</a>]</span>the water fell on his head. They also acted as gate-keepers of the palace, and had the title of Darw&#257;n. The gate-keeper&#8217;s
+post was a responsible one, as it lay on him to see that no one with evil intentions or carrying secret arms was admitted
+to the palace. Whenever a chief or noble came to visit the king he deposited his arms with the porter or door-keeper. The
+necessity of a faithful door-keeper is shown in the proverb: &#8220;With these five you must never quarrel: your Guru, your wife,
+your gate-keeper, your doctor and your cook.&#8221; The reasons for the inclusion of the others are fairly clear. On the other hand
+the gate-porter had usually to be propitiated before access was obtained to his master, like the modern chupr&#257;ssie; and the
+resentment felt at his rapacity is shown in the proverb: &#8220;The broker, the octroi moharrir, the door-keeper and the bard: these
+four will surely go to hell.&#8221; The Darw&#257;n or door-keeper would be given the right to collect dues, equivalent to those of a
+village watchman, from forty or fifty villages. The Dah&#257;its also carried the <i>chob</i> or silver mace before the king. This was about five feet long with a knob at the upper end as thick as a man&#8217;s wrist. The
+mace-bearer was known as Chobd&#257;r, and it was his duty to carry messages and announce visitors; this latter function he performed
+with a degree of pomposity truly Asiatic, dwelling with open mouth very audibly on some of the most sounding and emphatic
+syllables in a way that appeared to strangers almost ludicrous,<a id="d0e11585src" href="#d0e11585" class="noteref">7</a> as shown in the following instance: &#8220;On advancing, the Chobd&#257;rs or heralds proclaimed the titles of this princely cow-keeper
+in the usual hyperbolical style. One of the most insignificant-looking men I ever saw then became the destroyer of nations,
+the leveller of mountains, the exhauster of the ocean. After commanding every inferior mortal to make way for this exalted
+prince, the heralds called aloud to the animal creation, &#8216;Retire, ye serpents; fly, ye locusts; approach not, iguanas, lizards
+and reptiles, while your lord and master condescends to set his foot on the earth.&#8217;&#8221;<a id="d0e11591src" href="#d0e11591" class="noteref">8</a> The Dah&#257;its ran before the R&#257;ja&#8217;s chariot or litter to clear the way for him and announce his coming; and it <a id="d0e11597"></a><span class="pagenum">[<a href="#d0e11597">449</a>]</span>was also a principal business of the caste to carry the royal umbrella above the head of the king.
+
+
+</p>
+</div>
+<div class="div2" id="d0e11599">
+<h3>6. The umbrella.</h3>
+<p>The umbrella was the essential symbol of sovereignty in Asia like the crown in Europe. &#8220;Among the ancient Egyptians the umbrella
+carried with it a mark of distinction, and persons of quality alone could use it. The Assyrians reserved it for royal personages
+only. The umbrella or parasol, says Layard, that emblem of royalty so universally adopted by Eastern nations, was generally
+carried over the king in time of peace and sometimes even in war. In shape it resembled very closely those now in common use;
+but it is always seen open in the sculptures. It was edged with tassels and usually decorated at the top by a flower or some
+other ornament. The Greeks used it as a mystic symbol in some of their sacred festivals, and the Romans introduced the custom
+of hanging an umbrella in the basilican churches as a part of the insignia of office of the judge sitting in the basilica.
+It is said that on the judgment hall being turned into a church the umbrella remained, and in fact occupied the place of the
+canopy over thrones and the like; and Beatian, an Italian herald, says that a vermilion umbrella in a field argent symbolises
+dominion. It is also believed that the cardinal&#8217;s hat is a modification of the umbrella in the basilican churches. The king
+of Burma is proud to call himself The Lord of Twenty-four Umbrellas, and the Emperor of China carries that number even to
+the hunting-field.&#8221;<a id="d0e11604src" href="#d0e11604" class="noteref">9</a> In Buddhist architecture the &#8216;Wheel of Light&#8217; symbolising Buddha is overshadowed by an umbrella, itself adorned with garlands.
+At S&#257;nchi we find sculptured representations of two and even three umbrellas placed one above the other over the temples,
+the double and triple canopies of which appear to be fixed to the same handle or staff as in the modern state umbrellas of
+China and Burma. Thus we have the primary idea of the accumulated honour of stone or metal discs which subsequently became
+such a prominent feature of Buddhist architecture, culminating in the many-storied pagodas of China and Japan.<a id="d0e11610src" href="#d0e11610" class="noteref">10</a> Similarly in Hindu temples the pinnacle <a id="d0e11615"></a><span class="pagenum">[<a href="#d0e11615">450</a>]</span>often stands on a circular stone base, probably representing an umbrella.
+
+</p>
+<p>The umbrella of state was apparently not black like its successor of commerce, but of white or another colour, though the
+colour is seldom recorded. Sometimes it was of peacock&#8217;s feathers, the symbol of the Indian war-god, and as seen above, in
+Italy it was of red, the royal colour. It has been suggested that the halo originally represented an umbrella, and there is
+no reason to doubt that the umbrella was the parent of the state canopy.
+
+
+</p>
+</div>
+<div class="div2" id="d0e11619">
+<h3>7. Significance of the umbrella.</h3>
+<p>It has been supposed that the reason for carrying the umbrella above the king&#8217;s head was to veil his eyes from his subjects,
+and prevent them from being injured by the magical power of his glance.<a id="d0e11624src" href="#d0e11624" class="noteref">11</a> But its appearance on temples perhaps rather militates against this view. Possibly it may have merely served as a protection
+or covering to the king&#8217;s head, the head being considered especially sacred as the seat of life. The same idea is perhaps
+at the root of the objection felt by Hindus to being seen abroad without a covering on the head. It seems likely that the
+umbrella may have been held to be a representation of the sky or firmament. The Muhammadans conjoined with it an <i>aft&#257;da</i> or sun-symbol; this was an imitation of the sun, embroidered in gold upon crimson velvet and fixed on a circular framework
+which was borne aloft upon a gold or silver staff.<a id="d0e11633src" href="#d0e11633" class="noteref">12</a> Both were carried over the head of any royal personage, and the association favours the idea that the umbrella represents
+the sky, while the king&#8217;s head might be considered analogous to the sun. When one of the early Indian monarchs made extensive
+conquests, the annexed territories were described as being brought under his umbrella; of the king Harsha-Vardhana (606&#8211;648
+<span class="smallcaps">A.D.</span>) it is recorded that he prosecuted a methodical scheme of conquest with the deliberate object of bringing all India under
+one umbrella, that is, of constituting it into one state. This phrase seems to support the idea that the umbrella symbolised
+the firmament. Similarly, when Visv&#257;mitra sent beautiful maidens to tempt the good king Harischandra he instructed <a id="d0e11641"></a><span class="pagenum">[<a href="#d0e11641">451</a>]</span>them to try and induce the king to marry them, and if he would not do this, to ask him for the Puchukra Undi or State Umbrella,
+which was the emblem of the king&#8217;s protecting power over his kingdom, with the idea that that power would be destroyed by
+its loss. Chhatrapati or Lord of the Umbrella was the proudest title of an Indian king. When Sivaji was enthroned in 1674
+he proclaimed himself as Pinnacle of the Kshatriya race and Lord of the Royal Umbrella. All these instances seem to indicate
+that some powerful significance, such as that already suggested, attached to the umbrella. Several tribes, as the Gonds and
+Mundas, have a legend that their earliest king was born of poor parents, and that one day his mother, having left the child
+under some tree while she went to her work, returned to find a cobra spreading its hood over him. The future royal destiny
+of the boy was thus predicted. It is commonly said that the cobra spread its hood over the child to guard it from the heat
+of the sun, but such protection would perhaps scarcely seem very important to such a people as the Gonds, and the mother would
+naturally also leave the child in the shade. It seems a possible hypothesis that the cobra&#8217;s hood really symbolised the umbrella,
+the principal emblem of royal rank, and it was in this way that the child&#8217;s great destiny was predicted. In this connection
+it may be noticed that one of the Jain Tirthak&#257;rs, P&#257;rasn&#257;th, is represented in sculpture with an umbrella over his head;
+but some Jains say that the carving above the saint&#8217;s head is not an umbrella but a cobra&#8217;s hood. Even after it had ceased
+to be the exclusive appanage of the king, the umbrella was a sign of noble rank, and not permitted to the commonalty.
+
+</p>
+<p>The old Anglo-Indian term for an umbrella was &#8216;roundel,&#8217; an early English word, applied to a variety of circular objects,
+as a mat under a dish, or a target, and in its form of &#8216;arundel&#8217; to the conical handguard on a lance.<a id="d0e11645src" href="#d0e11645" class="noteref">13</a> An old Indian writer says: &#8220;Roundels are in these warm climates very necessary to keep the sun from scorching a man, they
+may also be serviceable to keep the rain off; most men of account maintain one, two or three roundeliers, whose office is
+only to attend their master&#8217;s motion; they are very <a id="d0e11650"></a><span class="pagenum">[<a href="#d0e11650">452</a>]</span>light but of exceeding stiffness, being for the most part made of rhinoceros hide, very decently painted and guilded with
+what flowers they best admire. Exactly in the midst thereof is fixed a smooth handle made of wood, by which the Roundelier
+doth carry it, holding it a foot or more above his master&#8217;s head, directing the centre thereof as opposite to the sun as possibly
+he may. Any man whatever that will go to the charge of it, which is no great matter, may have one or more Katysols to attend
+him but not a Roundel; unless he be a Governor or one of the Council. The same custom the English hold good amongst their
+own people, whereby they may be distinguished by the natives.&#8221;<a id="d0e11652src" href="#d0e11652" class="noteref">14</a> The Katysol was a Chinese paper and bamboo sunshade, and the use of them was not prohibited. It was derived from the Portuguese
+<i>quito-sol</i>, or that which keeps off the sun.<a id="d0e11661src" href="#d0e11661" class="noteref">15</a> An extract from the <i>Madras Standing Orders</i>, 1677&#8211;78, prescribed: &#8220;That except by the members of this Council, those that have formerly been in that quality, Chiefs
+of Factories, Commanders of Ships out of England, and the Chaplains, Rundells shall not be worn by any men in this town, and
+by no woman below the degree of Factors&#8217; Wives and Ensigns&#8217; Wives, except by such as the Governor shall permit.&#8221;<a id="d0e11669src" href="#d0e11669" class="noteref">16</a> Another writer in 1754 states: &#8220;Some years before our arrival in the country, they (the E. I. Co.) found such sumptuary laws
+so absolutely necessary, that they gave the strictest orders that none of these young gentlemen should be allowed even to
+hire a Roundel boy, whose business it is to walk by his master and defend him with his Roundel or umbrella from the heat of
+the sun. A young fellow of humour, upon this last order coming over, altered the form of his Umbrella from a round to a square,
+called it a Squaredel instead of a Roundel, and insisted that no order yet in force forbade him the use of it.&#8221;<a id="d0e11674src" href="#d0e11674" class="noteref">17</a> The fact that the Anglo-Indians called the umbrella a roundel and regarded it as a symbol of sovereignty or nobility indicates
+that it was not yet used in England; and this Mr. Skeat shows to be correct. &#8220;The first umbrella used in England by a man
+in <a id="d0e11678"></a><span class="pagenum">[<a href="#d0e11678">453</a>]</span>the open street for protection against rain is usually said to have been that carried by Jonas Hanway, a great traveller,
+who introduced it on his return from Paris about 1750, some thirty years before it was generally adopted.
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Some kind of umbrella was, however, occasionally used by ladies at least so far back as 1709; and a fact not generally known
+is that from about the year 1717 onwards, a &#8216;parish&#8217; umbrella, resembling the more recent &#8216;family&#8217; umbrella of the nineteenth
+century, was employed by the priest at open-air funerals, as the church accounts of many places testify.&#8221;<a id="d0e11682src" href="#d0e11682" class="noteref">18</a> This ecclesiastical use of the umbrella may have been derived from its employment as a symbol in Italian churches, as seen
+above. The word umbrella is derived through the Italian from the Latin <i>umbra</i>, shade, and in mediaeval times a state umbrella was carried over the Doge or Duke at Venice on the occasion of any great
+ceremony.<a id="d0e11691src" href="#d0e11691" class="noteref">19</a>
+
+</p>
+<p>Even recently it is said that in Saugor no Bania dare go past a Bundela R&#257;jp&#363;t&#8217;s house without getting down from his pony
+and folding up his umbrella. In Hindu slang a &#8216;Chhataw&#257;li&#8217; or carrier of an umbrella was a term for a smart young man; as
+in the line, &#8216;An umbrella has two kinds of ribs; two women are quarrelling for the love of him who carries it.&#8217; Now that the
+umbrella is free to all, and may be bought for a rupee or less in the baz&#257;r, the prestige which once attached to it has practically
+disappeared. But some flavour of its old associations may still cling to it in the minds of the sais and ayah who proudly
+parade to a festival carrying umbrellas spread over them to shade their dusky features from the sun; though the R&#257;ja, in obedience
+to the dictates of fashion, has discarded the umbrella for a <i>sola-topi</i>.
+
+
+
+</p>
+</div>
+<div class="footnotes">
+<hr class="fnsep">
+<p class="footnote"><span class="label"><a id="d0e11452" href="#d0e11452src" class="noteref">1</a></span> This article is based on papers by Mr. Vithal Rao, Naib-Tahs&#299;ld&#257;r, Bil&#257;spur, and Messrs. Kanhya L&#257;l and Py&#257;re L&#257;l Misra of
+the Gazetteer office.
+</p>
+<p class="footnote"><span class="label"><a id="d0e11499" href="#d0e11499src" class="noteref">2</a></span> Crooke, <i>Tribes and Castes</i>, art. Kol.
+</p>
+<p class="footnote"><span class="label"><a id="d0e11515" href="#d0e11515src" class="noteref">3</a></span> <i>Aegle Marmelos.</i></p>
+<p class="footnote"><span class="label"><a id="d0e11519" href="#d0e11519src" class="noteref">4</a></span> <i>Butea frondosa.</i></p>
+<p class="footnote"><span class="label"><a id="d0e11526" href="#d0e11526src" class="noteref">5</a></span> <i>N&#257;g</i>, a cobra.
+</p>
+<p class="footnote"><span class="label"><a id="d0e11550" href="#d0e11550src" class="noteref">6</a></span> Kept woman, a term applied to a widow.
+</p>
+<p class="footnote"><span class="label"><a id="d0e11585" href="#d0e11585src" class="noteref">7</a></span> Moor&#8217;s <i>Hindu Infanticide</i>, p. 133.
+</p>
+<p class="footnote"><span class="label"><a id="d0e11591" href="#d0e11591src" class="noteref">8</a></span> James Forbes, <i>Oriental Memoirs</i>, i. p. 313.
+</p>
+<p class="footnote"><span class="label"><a id="d0e11604" href="#d0e11604src" class="noteref">9</a></span> Rajendra L&#257;l Mitra, <i>Indo-Aryans</i>, i. p. 263.
+</p>
+<p class="footnote"><span class="label"><a id="d0e11610" href="#d0e11610src" class="noteref">10</a></span> <i>Journal of Indian Art and Industry</i>, xvi., April 1912, p. 3.
+</p>
+<p class="footnote"><span class="label"><a id="d0e11624" href="#d0e11624src" class="noteref">11</a></span> Dr. Jevons, <i>Introduction to the History of Religion</i>, p. 60.
+</p>
+<p class="footnote"><span class="label"><a id="d0e11633" href="#d0e11633src" class="noteref">12</a></span> <i>Private Life of an Eastern King</i>, p. 294.
+</p>
+<p class="footnote"><span class="label"><a id="d0e11645" href="#d0e11645src" class="noteref">13</a></span> <i>Hobson-Jobson, s.v.</i> &#8216;Roundel.&#8217;
+</p>
+<p class="footnote"><span class="label"><a id="d0e11652" href="#d0e11652src" class="noteref">14</a></span> Old English manuscript quoted by Sir R. Temple in <i>Ind. Ant.</i> (December 1904), p. 316.
+</p>
+<p class="footnote"><span class="label"><a id="d0e11661" href="#d0e11661src" class="noteref">15</a></span> <i>Hobson-Jobson, s.v.</i> &#8216;Kittysol.&#8217;
+</p>
+<p class="footnote"><span class="label"><a id="d0e11669" href="#d0e11669src" class="noteref">16</a></span> <i>Hobson-Jobson, s.v.</i> &#8216;Roundel.&#8217;
+</p>
+<p class="footnote"><span class="label"><a id="d0e11674" href="#d0e11674src" class="noteref">17</a></span> <i>Hobson-Jobson, ibidem.</i></p>
+<p class="footnote"><span class="label"><a id="d0e11682" href="#d0e11682src" class="noteref">18</a></span> W. W. Skeat, <i>The Past at our Doors</i>.
+</p>
+<p class="footnote"><span class="label"><a id="d0e11691" href="#d0e11691src" class="noteref">19</a></span> Skeat, <i>ibidem</i>, p. 95.
+</p>
+</div>
+</div>
+<div id="d0e11702" class="div1"><span class="pagenum">
+[<a href="#d0e111">Contents</a>]
+</span><h2>Daharia</h2>
+<div class="div2" id="d0e11705">
+<h3>1. Origin and traditions.</h3>
+<p><b>Daharia.</b><a id="d0e11711src" href="#d0e11711" class="noteref">1</a>&#8212;A caste of degraded R&#257;jp&#363;ts found in Bil&#257;spur and Raipur, and numbering about 2000 persons. The <a id="d0e11714"></a><span class="pagenum">[<a href="#d0e11714">454</a>]</span>Daharias were originally a clan of R&#257;jp&#363;ts but, like several others in the Central Provinces, they have now developed into
+a caste and marry among themselves, thus transgressing the first rule of R&#257;jp&#363;t exogamy. Colonel Tod included the Daharias
+among the thirty-six royal races of R&#257;jasth&#257;n.<a id="d0e11716src" href="#d0e11716" class="noteref">2</a> Their name is derived from D&#257;har or D&#257;hal, the classical term for the Jubbulpore country at the period when it formed the
+dominion of the Haihaya or K&#257;lachuri R&#257;jp&#363;t kings of Tripura or Tewar near Jubbulpore. This dynasty had an era of their own,
+commencing in <span class="smallcaps">A.D.</span> 248, and their line continued until the tenth or eleventh century. The Arabian geographer Alberuni (born <span class="smallcaps">a.d.</span> 973) mentions the country of D&#257;hal and its king G&#257;ngeya Deva. His son Karna Daharia is still remembered as the builder of
+temples in Karanbel and Bilahri in Jubbulpore, and it is from him that the Daharia R&#257;jp&#363;ts take their name. The Haihaya dynasty
+of Ratanpur were related to the K&#257;lachuri kings of Tewar, and under them the ancestors of the Daharia R&#257;jp&#363;ts probably migrated
+from Jubbulpore into Chhatt&#299;sgarh. But they themselves have forgotten their illustrious origin, and tell a different story
+to account for their name. They say that they came from Baghelkhand or Rewah, which may well be correct, as Rewah lies between
+Chhatt&#299;sgarh and Jubbulpore, and a large colony of K&#257;lachuri R&#257;jp&#363;ts may still be found about ten miles north-east of Rewah
+town. The Daharias relate that when Parasur&#257;ma, the great Br&#257;hman warrior, was slaying the Kshatriyas, a few of them escaped
+towards Ratanpur and were camping in the forest by the wayside. Parasur&#257;ma came up and asked them who they were, and they
+said they were <i>Daharias</i> or wayfarers, from <i>d&#257;har</i> the Chhatt&#299;sgarhi term for a road or path; and thus they successfully escaped the vengeance of Parasur&#257;ma. This futile fiction
+only demonstrates the real ignorance of their Br&#257;hman priests, who, if they had known a little history, need not have had
+recourse to their invention to furnish the Daharias with a distinguished pedigree. A third derivation is from a word <i>dahri</i> or gate, and they say that the name of Dahria or Daharia was conferred on them by Bimbaji Bhonsla, because of the bravery
+with which they held the gates of Ratanpur against his attack. But history <a id="d0e11737"></a><span class="pagenum">[<a href="#d0e11737">455</a>]</span>is against them here, as it records that Ratanpur capitulated to the Mar&#257;thas without striking a blow.
+
+
+</p>
+</div>
+<div class="div2" id="d0e11739">
+<h3>2. Sept and subsept.</h3>
+<p>As already stated, the Daharias were originally a clan of R&#257;jp&#363;ts, whose members must take wives or husbands from other clans.
+They have now become a caste and marry among themselves, but within the caste they still have exogamous groups or septs, several
+of which are named after R&#257;jp&#363;t clans as Bais, Chandel, Baghel, Bundela, Mainpuri Chauh&#257;n, Parih&#257;r, R&#257;thor and several others.
+Certain names are not of R&#257;jp&#363;t origin, and probably record the admission of outsiders into the caste. Like the R&#257;jp&#363;ts, within
+the sept they have also subsepts, some of which are taken from the Br&#257;hmans, as Par&#257;sar, Bh&#257;radw&#257;j, S&#257;ndilya, while others
+are nicknames, as Kachariha (one who does not care about a beating), Atariha, Hiy&#257;s and others. The divisions of the septs
+and subsepts are very confused, and seem to indicate that at different times various foreign elements have been received into
+the community, including R&#257;jp&#363;ts of many different clans. According to rule, a man should not take a wife whose sept or subsept
+are the same as his own, but this is not adhered to; and in some cases the Daharias, on account of the paucity of their numbers
+and the difficulty of arranging matches, have been driven to permit the marriage of first cousins, which among proper R&#257;jp&#363;ts
+is forbidden. They also practise hypergamy, as members of the Mainpuri Chauh&#257;n, Hiy&#257;s, Bisen, Surkhi and Bais septs or subsepts
+will take girls in marriage from families of other septs, but will not give their daughters to them. This practice leads to
+polygamy among the five higher septs, whose daughters are all married in their own circle, while in addition they receive
+girls from the other groups. Members of these latter also consider it an honour to marry a daughter into one of the higher
+septs, and are willing to pay a considerable price for such a distinction. It seems probable that the small Daraiha caste
+of Bil&#257;spur are an inferior branch of the Daharias.
+
+
+</p>
+</div>
+<div class="div2" id="d0e11744">
+<h3>3. Social customs.</h3>
+<p>The Daharias, in theory at any rate, observe the same rules in regard to their women as Br&#257;hmans and R&#257;jp&#363;ts. Neither divorce
+nor the marriage of widows is permitted, and a woman who goes wrong is finally expelled from the <a id="d0e11749"></a><span class="pagenum">[<a href="#d0e11749">456</a>]</span>caste. Their social customs resemble those of the higher Hindust&#257;ni castes. When the bridegroom starts for the wedding he
+is dressed in a long white gown reaching to the ankles, with new shoes, and he takes with him a dagger; this serves the double
+purpose of warding off evil spirits, always prone to attack the bridal party, and also of being a substitute for the bridegroom
+himself, as in case he should for some unforeseen reason be rendered unable to appear at the ceremony, the bride could be
+married to the dagger as his representative. It may also be mentioned that, before the bridegroom starts for the wedding,
+after he has been rubbed with oil and turmeric for five days he is seated on a wooden plank over a hole dug in the courtyard
+and bathed. He then changes his clothes, and the women bring twenty-one small <i>chukias</i> or cups full of water and empty them over him. His head is then covered with a piece of new cloth, and a thread wound round
+it seven times by a Br&#257;hman. The thread is afterwards removed, and tied round an iron ring with some mango leaves, and this
+ring forms the <i>kankan</i> which is tied to the bridegroom&#8217;s wrist, a similar one being worn by the bride. Before the wedding the bride goes round to
+the houses of her friends, accompanied by the women of her party singing songs, and by musicians. At each house the mistress
+appears with her forehead and the parting of her hair profusely smeared with vermilion. She rubs her forehead against the
+bride&#8217;s so as to colour it also with vermilion, which is now considered the symbol of a long and happy married life. The barber&#8217;s
+wife applies red paint to the bride&#8217;s feet, the gardener&#8217;s wife presents her with a garland of flowers, and the carpenter&#8217;s
+wife gives her a new wooden doll. She must also visit the potter&#8217;s and washerman&#8217;s wives, whose benisons are essential; they
+give her a new pot and a little rice respectively. When the bridegroom comes to touch the marriage-shed with his dagger he
+is resisted by the bride&#8217;s sister, to whom he must give a rupee as a present. The binding portion of the marriage consists
+in the couple walking seven times round the marriage-post. At each turn the bridegroom seizes the bride&#8217;s right toe and with
+it upsets one of seven little cups of rice placed near the marriage-post. This is probably a <a id="d0e11757"></a><span class="pagenum">[<a href="#d0e11757">457</a>]</span>symbol of fertility. After it they worship seven pairs of little wooden boxes smeared with vermilion and called <i>singhora</i> and <i>singhori</i> as if they were male and female. The bridegroom&#8217;s father brings two little dough images of Mah&#257;deo and P&#257;rvati as the ideal
+married pair, and gives them to the couple. The new husband applies vermilion to his wife&#8217;s forehead, and covers and uncovers
+her head seven times, to signify to her that, having become a wife, she should henceforth be veiled when she goes abroad.
+The bride&#8217;s maid now washes her face, which probably requires it, and the wedding is complete. The Daharias usually have a
+<i>guru</i> or spiritual preceptor, but husband and wife must not have the same one, as in that case they would be in the anomalous position
+of brother and sister, a <i>guru&#8217;s</i> disciples being looked upon as his children. The Daharias were formerly warriors in the service of the Ratanpur kings, and
+many families still possess an old sword which they worship on the day of Dasahra. Their names usually end in Singh or L&#257;l.
+They are now engaged in cultivation, and many of them are proprietors of villages, and tenants. Some of them are employed
+as constables and chupr&#257;ssies, but few are labourers, as they may not touch the plough with their own hands. They eat the
+flesh of clean animals, but do not drink liquor, and avoid onions and tomatoes. They have good features and fair complexions,
+the traces of their R&#257;jp&#363;t blood being quite evident. Br&#257;hmans will take water from them, but they now rank below R&#257;jp&#363;ts,
+on a level with the good cultivating castes.
+
+
+
+</p>
+</div>
+<div class="footnotes">
+<hr class="fnsep">
+<p class="footnote"><span class="label"><a id="d0e11711" href="#d0e11711src" class="noteref">1</a></span> This article is compiled from papers by Mr. Bahmanji Muncherji, Extra Assistant Commissioner; Mr. Jeor&#257;khan L&#257;l, Deputy Inspector
+of Schools, and Pandit Py&#257;re L&#257;l Misra, ethnographic clerk. The historical notice is mainly supplied by Mr. H&#299;ra L&#257;l.
+</p>
+<p class="footnote"><span class="label"><a id="d0e11716" href="#d0e11716src" class="noteref">2</a></span> Tod&#8217;s <i>R&#257;jasth&#257;n</i>, i. p. 128.
+</p>
+</div>
+</div>
+<div id="d0e11771" class="div1"><span class="pagenum">
+[<a href="#d0e111">Contents</a>]
+</span><h2>D&#257;ngi</h2>
+<div class="div2" id="d0e11774">
+<h3>1. Origin and traditions.</h3>
+<p><b>D&#257;ngi.</b>&#8212;A cultivating caste found almost exclusively in the Saugor District, which contained 23,000 persons out of a total of 24,000
+of the caste in the Central Provinces in 1911. There are also considerable numbers of them in R&#257;jput&#257;na and Central India,
+from which localities they probably immigrated into the Saugor District during the eleventh century. The D&#257;ngis were formerly
+dominant in Saugor, a part of which was called D&#257;ngiw&#257;ra after them. The kings of Garhpahra or old Saugor were D&#257;ngis, and
+their family still remains at the village of Bilehra, which with a few other villages they hold as a revenue-free grant. <a id="d0e11781"></a><span class="pagenum">[<a href="#d0e11781">458</a>]</span>The name of the caste is variously derived. The traditional story is that the R&#257;jp&#363;t king of Garhpahra detained the palanquins
+of twenty-two married women of different castes and kept them as his wives. The issue of the illicit intercourse were named
+D&#257;ngis, and there are thus twenty-two subdivisions of the caste, besides three other subdivisions who are held to be descended
+from pure R&#257;jp&#363;ts. The name is said to be derived from <i>d&#257;ng</i>, fraud, on account of the above deception. A more plausible derivation is from the Persian <i>d&#257;ng</i>, a hill, the D&#257;ngis being thus hillmen; and they may not improbably have been a set of robbers and freebooters in the Vindhyan
+Hills, like the G&#363;jars and Mew&#257;tis in northern India, naturally recruiting their band from all classes of the population,
+as is shown by ingenious implication in this story itself. &#8216;<i>Khet men b&#257;mi, gaon men D&#257;ngi</i>,&#8217; or &#8216;A D&#257;ngi in the village is like the hole of a snake in one&#8217;s field&#8217; is a proverb which shows the estimation in which
+they were formerly held. The three higher septs may have been their leaders and may well have been R&#257;jp&#363;ts. Since they have
+settled down as respectable cultivators and enjoy a good repute among their neighbours, the D&#257;ngis have disowned the above
+story, and now say that they are descended from R&#257;ja D&#257;ng, a Kachhw&#257;ha R&#257;jp&#363;t king of Narwar in Central India. Nothing is
+known of R&#257;ja D&#257;ng except a rude couplet which records how he was cheated by a horse-dealer:
+
+
+</p>
+<div class="poem" lang="und">
+<div class="stanza">
+<p class="line" style=""><span>Jitki ghori tit gayi
+</span></p>
+<p class="line" style=""><span>D&#257;ng h&#257;th kary&#257;ri rahi,</span></p>
+</div>
+</div>
+<p>&#8216;The mare bolted to the seller again, leaving in D&#257;ng&#8217;s hand nothing except the reins.&#8217;
+
+</p>
+<p>The D&#257;ngis have a more heroic version of this story to the effect that the mare was a fairy of Indra&#8217;s court, who for some
+reason had been transformed into this shape and was captured by R&#257;ja D&#257;ng. He refused to give her up to Indra and a battle
+was about to ensue, when the mare besought them to place her on a pyre and sacrifice her instead of fighting. They agreed
+to do this, and out of the flames of the pyre the fairy emerged and floated up to heaven, leaving only the reins and bridle
+of the mare in R&#257;ja D&#257;ng&#8217;s hand. <a id="d0e11801"></a><span class="pagenum">[<a href="#d0e11801">459</a>]</span>Yet a third story is that their original ancestor was R&#257;ja Nip&#257;l Singh of Narwar, and when he was fighting with Indra over
+the fairy, Krishna came to Indra&#8217;s assistance. But Nip&#257;l Singh refused to bow down to Krishna, and being annoyed at this and
+wishing to teach him a lesson the god summoned him to his court. At the gate through which Nip&#257;l Singh had to pass, Krishna
+fixed a sword at the height of a man&#8217;s neck, so that he must bend or have his head cut off. But Nip&#257;l Singh saw the trick,
+and, sitting down, propelled himself through the doorway with his head erect. The outwitted god remarked, &#8216;<i lang="und">Tum bare d&#257;ndi ho</i>,&#8217; or &#8216;You are very cunning,&#8217; and the name D&#257;ndi stuck to Nip&#257;l Singh and was afterwards corrupted to D&#257;ngi. There can be
+little doubt that the caste are an offshoot of R&#257;jp&#363;ts of impure blood, and with a large admixture of other classes of the
+population. Some of their sept names indicate their mixed descent, as Rakhya, born of a potter woman, Dhoniya, born of a washerwoman,
+and Pavniya, born of a weaver woman. In past times the D&#257;ngis served in the R&#257;jp&#363;t and Mar&#257;tha armies, and a small isolated
+colony of them is found in one village of Indora in the N&#257;gpur District, the descendants of D&#257;ngis who engaged in military
+service under the Bhonsla kings.
+
+
+</p>
+</div>
+<div class="div2" id="d0e11806">
+<h3>2. Caste subdivisions.</h3>
+<p>The D&#257;ngis have no subcastes distinguished by separate names, but they are divided into three classes, among whom the principle
+of hypergamy prevails. As already seen, there were formerly twenty-five clans, of whom the three highest, the Nahonias, Bhadonias
+and Nadias, claimed to be pure R&#257;jp&#363;ts. The other twenty-two clans are known as Ba&#299;sa (22) or Prithwipat D&#257;ngis, after the
+king who is supposed to have been the ancestor of all the clans. Each of his twenty-two wives is said to have been given a
+village for her maintenance, and the clans are named after these villages. But there are now only thirteen of these local
+clans left, and below them is a miscellaneous group of clans, representing apparently later accretions to the caste. Some
+of them are named from the places from which they came, as Mahobia, from Mahoba, Narwaria, from Narwar, and so on. The Solakhia
+sept is named after the Solanki R&#257;jp&#363;ts, of whom they may be the partly illegitimate descendants. The Parn&#257;mi sept are <a id="d0e11811"></a><span class="pagenum">[<a href="#d0e11811">460</a>]</span>apparently those who have the creed of the Dh&#257;mis, the followers of Pr&#257;nn&#257;th of Panna. And as already seen, some are named
+from women of low caste, from whom by D&#257;ngi fathers they are supposed to be descended. The whole number of septs is thus divided
+into three groups, the highest containing the three quasi-R&#257;jp&#363;t septs already mentioned, the next highest the thirteen septs
+of Prithwipat D&#257;ngis, and the lowest all the other septs. Pure R&#257;jp&#363;ts will take daughters in marriage from the highest group,
+and this in turn takes girls of the Prithwipat D&#257;ngis of the thirteen clans, though neither will give daughters in return;
+and the Prithwipat D&#257;ngis will similarly accept the daughters of the miscellaneous septs below them in marriage with their
+sons. Matches are, however, not generally arranged according to the above system of hypergamy, but each group marries among
+its own members. Girls who are married into a higher group have to be given a larger dowry, the fathers often being willing
+to pay Rs. 500 or Rs. 1000 for the social distinction which such an alliance confers on the family. Among the highest septs
+there is a further difference between those whose ancestors accepted food from R&#257;ja Jai Singh, the founder of Jaisinghnagar,
+and those who refused it. The former are called Sakrodia or those who ate the leavings of others, and the latter <i>Deotaon ki sans&#257;r</i>, or the divine D&#257;ngis. Pure R&#257;jp&#363;ts will take daughters only from the members of the latter group in each sept. Marriage
+within the sept or <i>baink</i> is prohibited, and as a rule a man does not marry a wife belonging to the same sept as his mother or grandmother. Marriage
+by exchange also is not allowed, that is, a girl cannot be married into the same family as that in which her brother has married.
+
+
+</p>
+</div>
+<div class="div2" id="d0e11819">
+<h3>3. Marriage.</h3>
+<p>Girls are generally married between seven and twelve and boys between ten and twenty, but no stigma attaches to a family allowing
+an unmarried girl to exceed the age of puberty. The bridegroom should always be older than the bride. Matches are arranged
+by the parents, the horoscopes of the children being compared among the well-to-do. The zodiacal sign of the boy&#8217;s horoscope
+should be stronger than that of the girl&#8217;s, so that she may be submissive to <a id="d0e11824"></a><span class="pagenum">[<a href="#d0e11824">461</a>]</span>him in after-life. Thus a girl whose zodiac sign is the lion should not be married to a boy whose sign is the ram, because
+in that case the wife would dominate the husband. There is no special rule as to the time of the betrothal, and the ceremony
+is very simple, consisting in the presentation of a cocoanut by the bride&#8217;s father to the bridegroom&#8217;s father, and the distribution
+of sweets to the caste-fellows. The betrothal is not considered to have any particularly binding force and either party may
+break through it. Among the D&#257;ngis a bridegroom-price is usually paid, which varies according to the social respectability
+of the boy&#8217;s sept, as much as Rs. 2000 having been given for a bridegroom of higher class according to the rule of hypergamy
+already described. But no value is placed on educational qualifications, as is the case among Br&#257;hmans and K&#257;yasths. The marriage
+ceremony is conducted according to the ritual prevalent in the northern Districts, and presents no special features. Two feasts
+are given by the bride&#8217;s father to the caste-fellows, one consisting of <i>katchi</i> food or that which is cooked with water, and another of <i>pakki</i> food cooked with <i>gh&#299;</i> (butter). If the bride is of marriageable age the <i>gauna</i> or sending away ceremony is performed at once, otherwise it takes place in the third or fifth year after marriage. At the
+<i>gauna</i> ceremony the bride&#8217;s cloth is tied to that of the bridegroom, and they change seats. Widow-marriage is not fashionable, and
+the caste say that it is not permitted, but several instances are known of its having occurred. Divorce is not allowed, and
+a woman who goes wrong is finally expelled from the caste. Polygamy is allowed, and many well-to-do persons have more than
+one wife.
+
+
+</p>
+</div>
+<div class="div2" id="d0e11841">
+<h3>4. Religious and social customs.</h3>
+<p>The D&#257;ngis pay special reverence to the goddess Durga or Devi as the presiding deity of war. They worship her during the months
+of Kunw&#257;r (September) and Chait (March), and at the same time pay reverence to their weapons of war, their swords and guns,
+or if they have not got these, to knives and spears. They burn their dead, but children are usually buried. They observe mourning
+for three days for a child and for ten days for an adult, and on the 13th day the caste-fellows are feasted. Their family
+priests, who are <a id="d0e11846"></a><span class="pagenum">[<a href="#d0e11846">462</a>]</span>Jijhotia Br&#257;hmans, used formerly to shave the head and beard when a death occurred among their clients as if they belonged
+to the family, but this practice was considered derogatory by other Br&#257;hmans, and they have now stopped it. The D&#257;ngis perform
+the <i>shr&#257;dhh</i> ceremony in the month of Kunw&#257;r. The caste wear the sacred thread, but it is said that they were formerly not allowed to
+do so in Bundelkhand. They eat fish and flesh, including that of wild boars, but not fowls or beef, and they do not drink
+liquor. They take <i>pakki</i> food or that cooked without water from K&#257;yasths and Gahoi Banias, and <i>katchi</i> food, cooked with water, from Jijhotia and San&#257;dhya Br&#257;hmans. Jijhotia Br&#257;hmans formerly took <i>pakki</i> food from D&#257;ngis, but have now ceased to do so. The D&#257;ngis require the services of Br&#257;hmans at all ceremonies. They have
+a caste <i>panch&#257;yat</i> or committee. A person who changes his religion or eats with a low caste is permanently expelled, while temporary exclusion
+is awarded for the usual delinquencies. In the case of the more serious offences, as murder or killing of a cow, the culprit
+must purify himself by a pilgrimage to a sacred river.
+
+
+</p>
+</div>
+<div class="div2" id="d0e11863">
+<h3>5. Occupation and character.</h3>
+<p>The D&#257;ngis were formerly, as already stated, of a quarrelsome temperament, but they have now settled down and, though spirited,
+are of a good disposition, and hard-working cultivators. They rank slightly above the representative cultivating castes owing
+to their former dominant position, and are still considered to have a good conceit of themselves, according to the saying:
+
+
+</p>
+<div class="poem" lang="und">
+<div class="stanza">
+<p class="line" style=""><span>Tin men neh terah men,
+</span></p>
+<p class="line" style=""><span>Mirdang baj&#257;we dere men,</span></p>
+</div>
+</div>
+<p>or &#8216;Though he belong neither to the three septs nor the thirteen septs, yet the D&#257;ngi blows his own trumpet in his own house.&#8217;
+They are still, too, of a fiery disposition, and it is said that the favourite dish of gram-flour cooked with curds, which
+is known as <i>karhi</i>, is never served at their weddings. Because the word <i>karhi</i> also signifies the coming out of a sword from its sheath, and when addressed to another man has the equivalent of the English
+word &#8216;Draw&#8217; in the duelling days. So if one D&#257;ngi said it to another, meaning to ask him for the dish, it might result in
+<a id="d0e11881"></a><span class="pagenum">[<a href="#d0e11881">463</a>]</span>a fight. They are very backward in respect of education and set no store by it. They consider their traditional occupation
+to be military service, but nearly all of them are now engaged in agriculture. At the census of 1901 over 2000 were returned
+as supported by the ownership of land and 3000 as labourers and farmservants. Practically all the remainder are tenants. They
+are industrious, and their women work in the fields. The only crops which they object to grow are <i>kusum</i> or safflower and san-hemp. The Nahonia D&#257;ngis, being the highest subcaste, refuse to sell milk or <i>gh&#299;</i>. The men usually have Singh as a termination to their names, like R&#257;jp&#363;ts. Their dress and ornaments are of the type common
+in the northern Districts. The women tattoo their bodies.
+
+
+
+</p>
+</div>
+</div>
+<div id="d0e11889" class="div1"><span class="pagenum">
+[<a href="#d0e111">Contents</a>]
+</span><h2>D&#257;ngri</h2>
+<p><b>D&#257;ngri.</b><a id="d0e11895src" href="#d0e11895" class="noteref">1</a>&#8212;A small caste of melon and vegetable growers, whose name is derived from <i>d&#257;ngar</i> or <i>d&#257;ngra</i>, a water-melon. They reside in the Wardha and Bhand&#257;ra Districts, and numbered about 1800 persons in 1911. The caste is a
+mixed one of functional origin, and appears to be an offshoot from the Kunbis with additions from other sources. In Wardha
+they say that their ancestor was one of two brothers to whom Mah&#257;deo gave the seeds of a ju&#257;ri plant and a water-melon respectively
+for sowing. The former became the ancestor of the Kunbis and the latter of the D&#257;ngris. On one occasion when Mah&#257;deo, assuming
+the guise of a beggar, asked the D&#257;ngri brother for a water-melon, he refused to give it, and on this account his descendants
+were condemned to perpetual poverty. In fact, the D&#257;ngris, like the other market-gardening castes, are badly off, possibly
+on account of their common habit of marrying a number of wives, whom they utilise as labourers in their vegetable gardens;
+for though a wife is better than a hired labourer for their particular method of cultivation, where supervision is difficult
+and the master may be put to serious loss from bad work and petty pilfering, while there is also much scope for women workers;
+yet on the other hand polygamy tends to the breeding of family quarrels and to <a id="d0e11904"></a><span class="pagenum">[<a href="#d0e11904">464</a>]</span>excessive subdivision of property. The close personal supervision which is requisite perhaps also renders it especially difficult
+to carry on the business of market-gardening on a large scale. In any case the agricultural holdings of the M&#257;lis and D&#257;ngris
+are as a rule very small. The conclusion indicated by the above story that the D&#257;ngris are an offshoot from the Kunbi caste
+of cultivators appears to be correct; and it is supported by the fact that they will accept food cooked with water from the
+Baone Kunbis. But their subcastes show that even this small body is of very heterogeneous composition; for they are divided
+into the Teli, the Kal&#257;r, the Kunbi and the G&#257;diw&#257;n D&#257;ngris, thus showing that the caste has received recruits from the Telis
+or oilmen and the Kal&#257;rs or liquor-sellers. The G&#257;diw&#257;n, as their name denotes, are a separate section who have adopted the
+comparatively novel occupation of cart-driving for a livelihood. In Wardha there is also a small class of P&#257;nibhar or waterman
+D&#257;ngris who are employed as water-bearers, this occupation arising not unnaturally from that of growing melons and other crops
+in river-beds. And a few members of the caste have taken to working in iron. The bulk of the D&#257;ngris, however, grow melons,
+chillies and brinjals on the banks or in the beds of rivers; but as the melon crop is raised in a period of six weeks during
+the hot season, they can also undertake some ordinary cultivation. When the melons ripen the first fruits are offered to Mah&#257;deo
+and given to a Br&#257;hman to ensure the success of the crop. When the melon plants are in flower, a woman must not enter the
+field during the period of her monthly impurity, as it is believed that she would cause the crop to wither. While it may safely
+be assumed that the D&#257;ngris originated from the great Kunbi caste, it may be noted that some of them tell a story to the effect
+that their original home was Ben&#257;res, and that they came from there into the Central Provinces; hence they call themselves
+K&#257;shi D&#257;ngri, K&#257;shi being the classical name for Ben&#257;res. This legend appears to be entirely without foundation, as their
+family names, speech and customs are alike of purely Mar&#257;thi origin. But it is found among other castes also that they like
+to pretend that they came from Ben&#257;res, the most sacred centre of Hinduism. <a id="d0e11906"></a><span class="pagenum">[<a href="#d0e11906">465</a>]</span>The social customs of the D&#257;ngris resemble those of the Kunbis, and it is unnecessary to describe them in detail. Before their
+weddings they have a curious ceremony known as Dewat P&#363;ja. The father of the bridegroom, with an axe over his shoulder and
+accompanied by his wife, goes to a well or a stream. Here they clean a small space with cow-dung and make an offering of rice,
+flowers, turmeric and incense, after which the man, breaking his bangle from off his wrist, throws it into the water, apparently
+as a propitiatory offering for the success of the marriage. It is not stated what the bangle is made of, but it may be assumed
+that a valuable one would not thus be thrown away. As among some of the other Mar&#257;tha castes, the bridegroom must be wrapped
+in a blanket on his journey to the bride&#8217;s village. If a bachelor desires to espouse a widow he must first go through the
+ceremony of marriage with a swallow-wort plant. Polygamy is freely permitted, and some D&#257;ngris are known to have as many as
+five wives. As already stated, wives are of great assistance in gardening work, which demands much hand-labour. Divorce and
+the remarriage of widows are allowed. The D&#257;ngris commonly bury the dead, and they place cotton leaves over the eyes and ears
+of the corpse. In Bhand&#257;ra they say that this is done when it is believed the dead person was possessed by an evil spirit,
+and there is possibly some idea of preventing the escape of the spirit from the body. In Wardha the D&#257;ngris have rather a
+bad reputation, and a saying current about them is &#8216;<i lang="und">D&#257;ngri beta puha chor</i>,&#8217; or &#8216;A D&#257;ngri will steal even a shred of cotton&#8217;; but this may be a libel.
+
+
+
+<a id="d0e11911"></a><span class="pagenum">[<a href="#d0e11911">466</a>]</span></p>
+<div class="footnotes">
+<hr class="fnsep">
+<p class="footnote"><span class="label"><a id="d0e11895" href="#d0e11895src" class="noteref">1</a></span> This article is based on notes taken by Pandit Py&#257;re L&#257;l Misra in Wardha, and Mr. Hir&#257; L&#257;l in Bhand&#257;ra.
+</p>
+</div>
+</div>
+<div id="d0e11912" class="div1"><span class="pagenum">
+[<a href="#d0e111">Contents</a>]
+</span><h2>Darzi</h2>
+<h3>List of Paragraphs</h3>
+<ul>
+<li><a href="#d0e11943">1. General notice.</a></li>
+<li><a href="#d0e11968">2. Subdivisions.</a></li>
+<li><a href="#d0e11979">3. Sewn clothes not formerly worn.</a></li>
+<li><a href="#d0e12046">4. Occupation.</a></li>
+<li><a href="#d0e12072">5. Religion.</a></li>
+</ul>
+<div class="div2" id="d0e11943">
+<h3>1. General notice.</h3>
+<p><b>Darzi, Shimpi, Chh&#299;pi, S&#363;ji.</b>&#8212;The occupational caste of tailors. In 1911 a total of 51,000 persons were returned as belonging to the caste in the Central
+Provinces and Ber&#257;r. The Darzis are an urban caste and are most numerous in Districts with large towns. Mr. Crooke derives
+the word Darzi from the Persian <i>darz</i>, meaning a seam. The name S&#363;ji from <i>sui</i>, a needle, was formerly more common. Shimpi is the Mar&#257;tha name, and Chh&#299;pi, from Chh&#299;pa a calico-printer or dyer, is another
+name used for the caste, probably because it is largely recruited from the Chh&#299;pas. In Bombay they say that when Parasur&#257;ma
+was destroying the Kshatriyas, two R&#257;jp&#363;t brothers hid themselves in a temple and were protected by the priest, who set one
+of them to sew dresses for the idol and the other to dye and stamp them. The first brother was called Chh&#299;pi and from him
+the Darzis are descended, the name being corrupted to Shimpi, and the second was called Chh&#299;pa and was the ancestor of the
+dyers. The common title of the Darzis is Khal&#299;fa, an Arabic word meaning &#8216;The Successor of the Prophet.&#8217; Colonel Temple says
+that it is not confined to them but is also used by barbers, cooks and monitors in schools.<a id="d0e11956src" href="#d0e11956" class="noteref">1</a> The caste is of comparatively recent formation. In fact Sir D. Ibbetson wrote<a id="d0e11961src" href="#d0e11961" class="noteref">2</a> that &#8220;Darzi, or its Hindi equivalent S&#363;ji, is purely <a id="d0e11966"></a><span class="pagenum">[<a href="#d0e11966">467</a>]</span>an occupational term, and though there is a Darzi guild in every town, there is no Darzi caste in the proper acceptation of
+the word. The greater number of Darzis belong perhaps to the Dhobi and Chh&#299;mba castes, more especially to the latter.&#8221;
+
+
+</p>
+</div>
+<div class="div2" id="d0e11968">
+<h3>2. Subdivisions.</h3>
+<p>The Darzis, however, are now recognised as a distinct caste, but their mixed origin is shown by the names of their subcastes
+and exogamous sections. Thus they have a B&#257;man subdivision named after the Br&#257;hman caste. These will not take food from any
+other caste except Br&#257;hmans and are probably an offshoot from them. They are considered to be the highest subdivision, and
+next to them come the Rai or R&#257;j Darzis. Another subcaste is named Kaithia, after the K&#257;yasths, and a third Sriv&#257;stab, which
+is the name of a well-known subcaste of K&#257;yasths derived from the town of Sr&#257;vasti, now Sahet Mahet in the Gonda District.<a id="d0e11973src" href="#d0e11973" class="noteref">3</a> In Bet&#363;l the Sriv&#257;stab Darzis are reported to forbid the remarriage of widows, thus showing that they desire to live up to
+their distinguished ancestry. A third subcaste is known as Chamarua and appears to be derived from the Cham&#257;rs. Other subcastes
+are of the territorial type as M&#257;lwi, Kh&#257;ndeshi, Chhatt&#299;sgarhi, Mathuria and so on, and the section or family names are usually
+taken from villages. Among them, however, we find Jugia from Jogi, Th&#257;kur or R&#257;jp&#363;t, G&#363;jar, Khaw&#257;s or barber, and Baroni,
+the title of a female Dh&#299;mar. Mr. Crooke gives several other names.
+
+
+</p>
+</div>
+<div class="div2" id="d0e11979">
+<h3>3. Sewn clothes not formerly worn.</h3>
+<p>It may thus reasonably be concluded that the Darzis are a caste of comparatively recent origin, and the explanation is probably
+that the use of the needle and thread in making clothes is a new fashion. Buchanan remarks: &#8220;The needle indeed seems to have
+been totally unknown to the Hindus, and I have not been able to learn any Hindi word for sewing except that used to express
+passing the shuttle in the act of weaving....&#8221; &#8220;Cloth composed of several pieces sewn together is an abomination to the Hindus,
+so that every woman of rank when she eats, cooks or prays, must lay aside her petticoat and retain only the wrapper made without
+the use of scissors or needle&#8221;; and again, &#8220;The dress of the Hindu men of rank has become nearly the same with <a id="d0e11984"></a><span class="pagenum">[<a href="#d0e11984">468</a>]</span>that of the Muhammadans<a id="d0e11986src" href="#d0e11986" class="noteref">4</a> who did not allow any officer employed by them to appear at their <i>lev&eacute;es</i> (Durbars) except in proper dress. At home, however, the Hindu men, and on all occasions their women, retain almost entirely
+their native dress, which consists of various pieces of cloth wrapped round them without having been sewn together in any
+form, and only kept in their place by having their ends thrust under the folds.&#8221; And elsewhere he states: &#8220;The flowering of
+cotton cloth with the needle has given a good deal of employment to the Muhammadan women of Maldeh as the needle has never
+been used by the Hindus.&#8221;<a id="d0e11995src" href="#d0e11995" class="noteref">5</a> Darzi, as has been seen, is a Persian word, and in northern India many tailors are Muhammadans. And it seems, therefore,
+a possible hypothesis that the needle and the art of sewing were brought into general use by the Moslem invaders. It is true
+that in his <i>Indo-Aryans</i><a id="d0e12002src" href="#d0e12002" class="noteref">6</a> Mr. R&#257;jendra L&#257;l Mitra combats this hypothesis and demonstrates that made-up clothes were known to the Aryans of the Rig-Veda
+and are found in early statuary. But he admits that the instances are not numerous, and it seems likely that the use of such
+clothes may have been confined to royal and aristocratic families. It is possible also that the Scythian invasions of the
+fifth century brought about a partial relapse from civilisation, during which certain arts and industries, and among them
+that of cutting and sewing cloth, were partially or completely lost. The tailor is not the familiar figure in Hindu social
+life that he is, for example, in England. Here he is traditionally an object or butt for ridicule as in the saying, &#8216;Nine
+tailors make a man,&#8217; and so on; and his weakness is no doubt supposed to be due to the fact that he pursues a sedentary indoor
+occupation and one more adapted to women than men, the needle being essentially a feminine implement. A similar ridicule,
+based no doubt on exactly the same grounds, attaches in India to the village weaver, as is evidenced by the proverbs given
+in the articles on Bhulia, Kori, and Jol&#257;ha. No reason exists probably for the contempt in which the weaver class is held
+other than that their work is considered to be more fitting for women than men. Thus in India the <a id="d0e12005"></a><span class="pagenum">[<a href="#d0e12005">469</a>]</span>weaver appears to take the place of the tailor, and this leads to the conclusion that woven and not sewn clothes have always
+been commonly worn.
+
+</p>
+<p>In the Central Provinces, at least, the Darzi caste is practically confined to the towns, and though cotton jackets are worn
+even by labourers and shirts by the better-to-do, these are usually bought ready-made at the more important markets. Women,
+more conservative in their dress than men, have only one garment prepared with the needle, the small bodice known as <i>choli</i> or <i>angia</i>. And in Chhatt&#299;sgarh, a landlocked tract very backward in civilisation, the <i>choli</i> has hitherto not been worn and is only now being introduced. Though he first copied the Muhammadan and now shows a partiality
+for the English style of dress for outdoor use, the Hindu when indoors still reverts to the one cloth round the waist and
+a second over the shoulders, which was probably once the regular garb of his countrymen. For meals the latter is discarded,
+and this costume, so strange to English ideas, while partly based on considerations of ceremonial purity, may also be due
+to a conservative adherence to the ancient fashion, when sewn clothes were not worn. It is noticeable also that high-caste
+Hindus, though they may wear a coat of cloth or tasar silk and cotton trousers, copying the English, still often carry the
+<i>dupatta</i> or shoulder-cloth hanging round the neck. This now appears a useless encumbrance, but may be the relic of the old body-cloth
+and therefore interesting as a survival in dress, like the buttons on the back of our tail-coats to which the flaps were once
+hooked up for riding, or the seams on the backs of gloves, a relic of the time when the glove consisted simply of finger-lengths
+sewn together.<a id="d0e12021src" href="#d0e12021" class="noteref">7</a> More recently the <i>dupatta</i> has been made to fulfil the function of a pocket-handkerchief, while the educated are now discarding the <i>dupatta</i> and carry their handkerchiefs in their pockets. The old dress of ceremony for landowners is the <i>angarkha</i>, a long coat reaching to the knees and with flaps folding over the breast and tied with strings. This is worn with pyjamas
+and is probably the Muhammadan ceremonial costume as remarked by Buchanan. In its correct form, at, least it has no buttons,
+<a id="d0e12036"></a><span class="pagenum">[<a href="#d0e12036">470</a>]</span>and recalls the time when a similar state of things prevailed in English dress and the &#8216;trussing of his points&#8217; was a laborious
+daily task for every English gentleman. The <i>ghundis</i> or small pieces of cloth made up into a ball, which were the precursors of the button, may still be seen on the cotton coats
+of rustics in the rural area.
+
+</p>
+<p>The substitution of clothes cut and sewn to fit the body for draped clothes is a matter of regret from an artistic or picturesque
+point of view, as the latter have usually a more graceful appearance. This is shown by the difficulty of reproducing modern
+clothes in statuary, trousers being usually the despair of the sculptor. But sewn clothes, when once introduced, must always
+prevail from considerations of comfort. When a Hindu pulls his <i>dhoti</i> or loin-cloth up his legs and tucks it in round his hips in order to run or play a game he presumably performs the act described
+in the Bible as &#8216;girding up his loins.&#8217;
+
+
+</p>
+</div>
+<div class="div2" id="d0e12046">
+<h3>4. Occupation.</h3>
+<p>The social customs of the Darzis present no features of special interest and resemble those of the lower castes in their locality.
+They rank below the cultivating castes, and Br&#257;hmans will not take water from their hands. Though not often employed by the
+Hindu villager the Darzi is to Europeans one of the best known of all castes. He is on the whole a capable workman and especially
+good at copying from a pattern. His proficiency in this respect attracted notice so long ago as 1689, as shown in an interesting
+quotation in the <i>Bombay Gazetteer</i> referring to the tailors of Surat:<a id="d0e12054src" href="#d0e12054" class="noteref">8</a> &#8220;The tailors here fashion clothes for the Europeans, either men or women, according to every mode that prevails, and fit
+up the commodes and towering head-dresses for the women with as much skill as if they had been an Indian fashion, or themselves
+had been apprenticed at the Royal Exchange. (The commode was a wire structure to raise the cap and hair.)&#8221; Since then the
+Darzi has no doubt copied in turn all the changes of English fashions. He is a familiar figure in the veranda of the houses
+of Europeans, and his idiosyncrasies have been delightfully described by Eha in <i>Behind the Bungalow</i>. <a id="d0e12065"></a><span class="pagenum">[<a href="#d0e12065">471</a>]</span>His needles and pins are stuck into the folds of his turban, and Eha says that he is bandy-legged because of the position
+in which he squats on his feet while sewing. In Gujar&#257;t the tailor is often employed in native households. &#8220;Though even in
+well-to-do families,&#8221; Mr. Bhimbhai Kirp&#257;ram writes,<a id="d0e12067src" href="#d0e12067" class="noteref">9</a> &#8220;women sew their bodices and young children&#8217;s clothes for everyday wear, every family has its own tailor. As a rule tailors
+sew in their own houses, and in the tailor&#8217;s shop may be seen workmen squatting in rows on a palm-leaf mat or on cotton-stuffed
+quilts. The wives and sons&#8217; wives of the head of the establishment sit and work in the shop along with the men. Their busy
+time is during the marriage season from November to June. A village tailor is paid either in cash or grain and is not infrequently
+a member of the village establishment. During the rains, the tailor&#8217;s slack season, he supplements his earnings by tillage,
+holding land which Government has continued to him on payment of one-half the ordinary rental. In south Gujar&#257;t, in the absence
+of Br&#257;hmans, a Darzi officiates at Bh&#257;wad marriages, and in some Br&#257;hman marriages a Darzi is called with some ceremony to
+sew a bodice for the bride. On the other hand, in the P&#257;nch Mahals and Rewa Kantha, besides tailoring Darzis blow trumpets
+at marriage and other processions and hold so low a position that even Dhedas object to eat their food.&#8221; It seems clear that
+in Gujar&#257;t the Darzi caste is of older standing than in northern India, and it is possible that the art of sewing may have
+been acquired through the sea trade which was carried on between the western coast and Arabia and the Persian Gulf. Here the
+Darzi has become a village menial, which he is not recorded as being in any other part of India.
+
+
+</p>
+</div>
+<div class="div2" id="d0e12072">
+<h3>5. Religion.</h3>
+<p>Like the weaver, the Darzi is of a somewhat religious turn of mind, probably on account of his sedentary calling which gives
+him plenty of time for reflection. Many of them belong to the N&#257;mdeo sect, originated by a Chh&#299;pa or dyer, N&#257;mdeo S&#257;dhu. N&#257;mdeo
+is said to have been a contemporary of Kab&#299;r and to have flourished in the twelfth or thirteenth century. He was a great worshipper
+of the <a id="d0e12077"></a><span class="pagenum">[<a href="#d0e12077">472</a>]</span>god Vithoba of Pandharpur and is considered by the Mar&#257;thas to be their oldest writer, being the author of many Abhangs, or
+sacred hymns.<a id="d0e12079src" href="#d0e12079" class="noteref">10</a> He preached the unity of God, recognising apparently Vithoba or Vishnu as the one deity, and the uselessness of ceremonial.
+His followers are mainly Dhobis and Chh&#299;pas, the two principal castes from whom the Darzis have originated.<a id="d0e12084src" href="#d0e12084" class="noteref">11</a> N&#257;mdeo&#8217;s sect was thus apparently a protest on the part of the Chh&#299;pas and Dhobis against their inferior position in the
+caste system and the tyranny of the Br&#257;hmans, and resembled the spiritual revolt of the weavers under Kab&#299;r and of the Cham&#257;rs
+under Gh&#257;si D&#257;s and Jagj&#299;wan D&#257;s.
+
+</p>
+<p>In Ber&#257;r it is stated<a id="d0e12092src" href="#d0e12092" class="noteref">12</a> that &#8220;the Simpi caste has twelve and a half divisions; of these the chief are known as the Jain, Mar&#257;thi and Telugu Simpis.
+The Jain Simpis claim the hero Rimin&#257;th as a caste-fellow, while the Mar&#257;thas are often Ling&#257;yats and the Telugu division
+generally Vaishnavas.&#8221; Before beginning work in the morning the Darzi bows to his scissors or needle and prays to them for
+his livelihood for that day.
+
+</p>
+<p>The Darzi&#8217;s occupation, Mr. Crooke remarks, is a poor one and held rather in contempt. The village proverb runs, &#8216;<i lang="und">Darzi ka p&#363;t jab tak j&#299;ta tab tak s&#299;ta</i>,&#8217; &#8216;The tailor&#8217;s boy will do nothing but sew all his life long.&#8217; Another somewhat more complimentary saying is, &#8216;<i lang="und">Tanak si suiya tak tak kare aur l&#257;kh taka ko banj kare</i>,&#8217; or &#8216;The tiny needle goes <i>tuk tuk</i>, and makes merchandise worth a lakh of rupees.&#8217; The Hindustani version of both proverbs is obviously intended to give the
+sound of a needle passing through cloth, and it is possible that our word &#8216;tuck&#8217; has the same origin.
+
+
+
+</p>
+</div>
+<div class="footnotes">
+<hr class="fnsep">
+<p class="footnote"><span class="label"><a id="d0e11956" href="#d0e11956src" class="noteref">1</a></span> <i>Proper Names of the Punj&#257;bis</i>, p. 74.
+</p>
+<p class="footnote"><span class="label"><a id="d0e11961" href="#d0e11961src" class="noteref">2</a></span> <i>Punjab Census Report</i> (1881), para. 645.
+</p>
+<p class="footnote"><span class="label"><a id="d0e11973" href="#d0e11973src" class="noteref">3</a></span> Crooke&#8217;s <i>Tribes and Castes</i>, art. Darzi.
+</p>
+<p class="footnote"><span class="label"><a id="d0e11986" href="#d0e11986src" class="noteref">4</a></span> Buchanan&#8217;s <i>Eastern India</i>, Martin&#8217;s edition, ii. pp. 417, 699.
+</p>
+<p class="footnote"><span class="label"><a id="d0e11995" href="#d0e11995src" class="noteref">5</a></span> <i>Ibidem</i>, p. 977.
+</p>
+<p class="footnote"><span class="label"><a id="d0e12002" href="#d0e12002src" class="noteref">6</a></span> Vol. i. pp. 178&#8211;184.
+</p>
+<p class="footnote"><span class="label"><a id="d0e12021" href="#d0e12021src" class="noteref">7</a></span> Webb&#8217;s <i>Heritage of Dress</i>, p. 33.
+</p>
+<p class="footnote"><span class="label"><a id="d0e12054" href="#d0e12054src" class="noteref">8</a></span> <i>Bombay Gazetteer, Hindus of Gujar&#257;t</i>, p. 180, quoting from Ovington, <i>Voyage to Surat</i>, p. 280.
+</p>
+<p class="footnote"><span class="label"><a id="d0e12067" href="#d0e12067src" class="noteref">9</a></span> <i>Bombay Gazetteer, Hindus of Gujar&#257;t</i>, p. 180.
+</p>
+<p class="footnote"><span class="label"><a id="d0e12079" href="#d0e12079src" class="noteref">10</a></span> <i>Bombay Gazetteer, Nasik</i>, p. 50.
+</p>
+<p class="footnote"><span class="label"><a id="d0e12084" href="#d0e12084src" class="noteref">11</a></span> According to another account N&#257;mdeo belonged to M&#257;rw&#257;r. Mr. Maclagan&#8217;s <i>Punjab Census Report</i> (1891), p. 144.
+</p>
+<p class="footnote"><span class="label"><a id="d0e12092" href="#d0e12092src" class="noteref">12</a></span> <i>Ber&#257;r Census Report</i> (1881), para. 231.
+</p>
+</div>
+</div>
+<div id="d0e12108" class="div1"><span class="pagenum">
+[<a href="#d0e111">Contents</a>]
+</span><h2>Dew&#257;r</h2>
+<div class="div2" id="d0e12111">
+<h3>1. General notice.</h3>
+<p><b>Dew&#257;r.</b><a id="d0e12117src" href="#d0e12117" class="noteref">1</a>&#8212;(Derived from Devi, whom they worship, or from Di&#257;b&#257;r, &#8216;One who lights a lamp,&#8217; because they always practise magic with a
+lighted lamp.) A Dravidian caste of beggars and musicians. They numbered about 2500 persons <a id="d0e12120"></a><span class="pagenum">[<a href="#d0e12120">473</a>]</span>in 1911 and are residents of the Chhatt&#299;sgarh plain. The Dew&#257;rs themselves trace their origin from a Binjhia named Gop&#257;l Rai,
+who accompanied R&#257;ja Kaly&#257;n Sai of Ratanpur on a visit to the Court of Delhi in Akb&#257;r&#8217;s time. Gop&#257;l Rai was a great wrestler,
+and while at Delhi he seized and held a <i>mast</i> elephant belonging to the Emperor. When the latter heard of it he ordered a wrestling match to be arranged between Gop&#257;l
+Rai and his own champion wrestler. Gop&#257;l Rai defeated and killed his opponent, and Kaly&#257;n Sai ordered him to compose a triumphal
+song and sing it in honour of the occasion. He composed his song in favour of Devi Maha Mai, or Devi the Great Mother, and
+the composition and recitation of similar songs has ever since been the profession of his descendants the Dew&#257;rs. The caste
+is, as is shown by the names of its sections, of mixed origin, and its members are the descendants of Gonds and Kawars reinforced
+probably by persons who have been expelled from their own caste and have become Dew&#257;rs. They will still admit persons of any
+caste except the very lowest.
+
+
+</p>
+</div>
+<div class="div2" id="d0e12125">
+<h3>2. Subdivisions.</h3>
+<p>The caste has two principal divisions according to locality, named Raip&#363;ria and Ratanp&#363;ria, Raipur and Ratanpur having been
+formerly the two principal towns of Chhatt&#299;sgarh. Within these are several other local subdivisions, <i>e.g.</i> Nav&#257;garhia or those belonging to Naw&#257;garh in Bil&#257;spur, Son&#257;khania from Son&#257;kh&#257;n south of the Mah&#257;nadi, Ch&#257;tarr&#257;jiha from
+Ch&#257;ter Raj, in Raipur, and S&#257;rangarhia from S&#257;rangarh State. Some other divisions are either occupational or social; thus
+the Baghurra Dew&#257;rs are those who tame tigers and usually live in the direction of Bastar, the Baip&#257;ri Dew&#257;rs are petty traders
+in brass or pewter ornaments which they sell to Banj&#257;ra women, and the Loh&#257;r and Jogi Dew&#257;rs may be so called either because
+their ancestors belonged to these castes, or because they have adopted the profession of blacksmiths and beggars respectively.
+Probably both reasons are partly applicable. These subdivisions are not strictly endogamous, but show a tendency to become
+so. The two main subcastes, Raip&#363;ria and Ratanp&#363;ria, are distinguished by the musical instruments which they play on while
+begging. That of the Raip&#363;rias is a sort of rude <a id="d0e12133"></a><span class="pagenum">[<a href="#d0e12133">474</a>]</span>fiddle called <i>s&#257;rangi</i>, which has a cocoanut shell as a resonator with horsehair strings, and is played with a bow. The Ratanp&#363;rias have an instrument
+called <i>dhungru</i>, which consists of a piece of bamboo about three feet long with a hollow gourd as a resonator and catgut strings. In the
+latter the resonator is held uppermost and rests against the shoulder of the player, while in the former it is at the lower
+end and is placed against his waist. The section names of the Dew&#257;rs are almost all of Dravidian origin. Sonw&#257;nia, Mark&#257;m,
+Marai, Dhurwa, Ojha, Net&#257;m, Sal&#257;m, Katl&#257;m and Jagat are the names of well-known Gond septs which are also possessed by the
+Dew&#257;rs, and Tel&#257;si, Karsayal, Son-Mungir and others are Kawar septs which they have adopted. They admit that their ancestors
+were members of these septs among the Gonds and Kawars. Where the name of the ancestor has a meaning which they understand,
+some totemistic observances survive. Thus the members of the Karsayal sept will not kill or eat a deer. The septs are exogamous,
+but there is no other restriction on marriage and the union of first cousins is permissible.
+
+
+</p>
+</div>
+<div class="div2" id="d0e12141">
+<h3>3. Marriage customs.</h3>
+<p>Adult marriage is usual, and if a husband cannot be found for a girl who has reached maturity she is given to her sister&#8217;s
+husband as a second wife, or to any other married person who will take her and give a feast to the caste. In some localities
+the boy who is to be married is sent with a few relatives to the girl&#8217;s house. On arrival he places a pot of wine and a nut
+before the girl&#8217;s father, who, if he is willing to carry out the marriage, orders the nut to be pounded up. This is always
+done by a member of the Sonw&#257;ni sept, a similar respect being paid to this sept among some of the Dravidian tribes. The foreheads
+of the betrothed couple are smeared with the nut and with some yellow-coloured rice and they bow low to the elders of the
+caste. Usually a bride-price of Rs. 5 or 10 is then paid to the parents of the girl together with two pieces of cloth intended
+for their use. A feast follows, which consists merely of the distribution of uncooked food, as the Dew&#257;rs, like some other
+low castes, will not take cooked food from each other. Pork and wine are essential ingredients in the feast or the ceremony
+cannot be completed. If liquor is not available, water from <a id="d0e12146"></a><span class="pagenum">[<a href="#d0e12146">475</a>]</span>the house of a Kal&#257;r (distiller) will do instead, but there is no substitute for pork. This, however, is as a rule easily
+supplied as nearly all the Dew&#257;rs keep pigs, which are retailed to the Gonds for their sacrifices. The marriage ceremony is
+performed within three or four months at most after the betrothal. Before entering the Mandwa or marriage-shed the bridegroom
+must place a jar of liquor in front of his prospective father-in-law. The bridegroom must also place a ring on the little
+finger of the bride&#8217;s right hand, while she resists him as much as she can, her hand having previously been smeared with castor
+oil in order to make the task more difficult. Before taking the bride away the new husband must pay her father Rs. 20, and
+if he cannot do this, and in default of arrangements for remission which are sometimes made, must remain domiciled in his
+house for a certain period. As the bride is usually adult there is no necessity for a <i>gauna</i> ceremony, and she leaves for her husband&#8217;s house once for all. Thereafter when she visits the house of her parents she does
+so as a stranger, and they will not accept cooked food at her hands nor she at theirs. Neither will her husband&#8217;s parents
+accept food from her, and each couple with their unmarried children form an exclusive group in this respect. Such a practice
+is found only among the low castes of mixed origin where nobody is certain of his neighbour&#8217;s standing. If a woman has gone
+wrong before marriage, most of the ceremonies are omitted. In such a case the bridegroom catches hold of the bride by the
+hair and gives her a blow by way of punishment for her sin, and they then walk seven times round the sacred pole, the whole
+ceremony taking less than an hour. The bride-price is under these circumstances reduced to Rs. 15. Widow-marriage is permitted,
+and while in some localities the new husband need give nothing, in others he must pay as much as Rs. 50 to the relatives of
+the deceased husband. If a woman runs away from her husband to another man, the latter must pay to the husband double the
+ordinary amount payable for a widow. If he cannot afford this, he must return the woman with Rs. 10 as compensation for the
+wrong he has done. The Dew&#257;rs are also reported to have the practice of mortgaging their <a id="d0e12151"></a><span class="pagenum">[<a href="#d0e12151">476</a>]</span>wives or making them over temporarily to a creditor in return for a loan. Divorce is allowed for the usual causes and by mutual
+consent. The husband must give a feast to the caste, which is looked on as the funeral ceremony of the woman so far as he
+is concerned; thereafter she is dead to him and he cannot marry her again on pain of the permanent exclusion of both from
+the caste. But a divorced woman can marry any other Dew&#257;r. Polygamy is freely allowed.
+
+
+</p>
+</div>
+<div class="div2" id="d0e12153">
+<h3>4. Religion and social practices.</h3>
+<p>The Dew&#257;rs especially worship Devi Maha Mai and D&#363;lha Deo. To the former they offer a she-goat and to the latter a he-goat
+which must be of a dark colour. They worship their <i>dhungru</i> or musical instrument on the day of Dasahra. They consider the sun and the moon to be brother and sister, and both to be
+manifestations of the deity. They bury their dead, but those who are in good circumstances dig up the bones after a year or
+two and burn them, taking the ashes to a sacred river. Mourning lasts for seven or ten days according as the deceased is unmarried
+or married, and during this time they abjure flesh and oil. Their social rules are peculiar. Though considered impure by the
+higher castes, they will not take cooked food from a Br&#257;hman, whom they call a Kumh&#257;ti K&#299;da, or an insect which effects the
+metamorphosis of others into his own form, and who will therefore change them into his own caste. Nor will they take cooked
+food from members of their own caste, but they accept it from several of the lower castes including Gonds, whose leavings
+they will eat. This is probably because they beg from Gonds and attend their weddings. They keep pigs and pork is their favourite
+food, but they do not eat beef. They have a tribal council with a headman called Gaontia or Jem&#257;dar, who always belongs either
+to the Sonw&#257;ni or Tel&#257;si section. Among offences for which a man is temporarily put out of caste is that of naming his younger
+brother&#8217;s wife. He must also abstain from going into her room or touching her clothes. This rule does not apply to an elder
+brother&#8217;s wife.
+
+
+</p>
+</div>
+<div class="div2" id="d0e12161">
+<h3>5. Occupation.</h3>
+<p>The Dew&#257;rs are professional beggars, and play on the musical instruments called <i>dhungru</i> and <i>s&#257;rangi</i> which have already been described. The Ratanp&#363;rias usually celebrate in an exaggerated style the praises of Gop&#257;l Rai, their
+<a id="d0e12172"></a><span class="pagenum">[<a href="#d0e12172">477</a>]</span>mythical ancestor. One of his exploits was to sever with a single sword-stroke the stalk of a plantain inside which the Emperor
+of Delhi had caused a solid bar of iron to be placed. The Raip&#363;rias prefer a song, called Gujr&#299;g&#299;t, about curds and milk.
+They also sing various songs relating how a woman is beloved by a R&#257;ja who tries to seduce her, but her chastity is miraculously
+saved by some curious combination of circumstances. They exorcise ghosts, train monkeys, bears and tigers for exhibition,
+and sell ornaments of base metal. In Raipur the men take about performing monkeys and the women do tattooing, for which they
+usually receive payment in the shape of an old or new cloth. A few have settled down to cultivation, but as a rule they are
+wanderers, carrying from place to place their scanty outfit of a small tent and mattress, both made of old rags, and a few
+vessels. They meet at central villages during the Holi festival. The family is restricted to the parents and unmarried children,
+separation usually taking place on marriage.
+
+
+
+</p>
+</div>
+<div class="footnotes">
+<hr class="fnsep">
+<p class="footnote"><span class="label"><a id="d0e12117" href="#d0e12117src" class="noteref">1</a></span> This article is partly based on a note by Mr. Gokul Pras&#257;d, Tahs&#299;ld&#257;r, Dhamtari.
+</p>
+</div>
+</div>
+<div id="d0e12174" class="div1"><span class="pagenum">
+[<a href="#d0e111">Contents</a>]
+</span><h2>Dh&#257;kar</h2>
+<div class="div2" id="d0e12177">
+<h3>1. Origin and subdivisions.</h3>
+<p><b>Dh&#257;kar.</b><a id="d0e12183src" href="#d0e12183" class="noteref">1</a>&#8212;A small caste belonging solely to the Bastar State. In 1911 they numbered 5500 persons in Bastar, and it is noticeable that
+there were nearly twice as many women as men. The term Dh&#257;kar connotes a man of illegitimate descent and is applied to the
+Kir&#257;rs of the Central Provinces and perhaps to other castes of mixed R&#257;jp&#363;t origin. But in Bastar it is the special designation
+of a considerable class of persons who are the descendants of alliances between Br&#257;hman and R&#257;jp&#363;t immigrants and women of
+the indigenous tribes. They are divided, like the Halbas, into two groups&#8212;Pur&#257;it or pure, and Sur&#257;it or mixed. The son of
+a Br&#257;hman or R&#257;jp&#363;t father by a R&#257;wat (herdsman) or Halba mother is a Pur&#257;it, but one born from a woman of the Muria, Mar&#257;r,
+Nai or Kal&#257;r castes is a Sur&#257;it. But these latter can become Pur&#257;its after two or three generations, and the same rule applies
+to the son of a Dh&#257;kar father by a Halba or R&#257;wat woman, who also ranks in the first place as a Sur&#257;it. Descendants of a Dh&#257;kar
+father by a Muria or other low-caste woman, however, always remain Sur&#257;its. <a id="d0e12186"></a><span class="pagenum">[<a href="#d0e12186">478</a>]</span>The Pur&#257;its and Sur&#257;its form endogamous groups, and the latter will accept cooked food from the former. The more respectable
+Dh&#257;kars round Jagdalpur are now tending, however, to call themselves R&#257;jp&#363;ts and refuse to admit any one of mixed birth into
+their community.
+
+</p>
+<p>One legend of their origin is that the first Dh&#257;kar was the offspring of a Br&#257;hman cook of the R&#257;ja of Bastar with a Kosaria
+R&#257;wat woman; and though this is discredited by the Dh&#257;kars it is probably a fairly correct version of the facts. An inferior
+branch of the caste exists which is known as Chikras&#257;r; it is related of them that their ancestors once went out hunting and
+set the forest on fire as a method of driving the game, as they occasionally do still. They came across the roasted body of
+a dog in the forest and ate it without knowing what animal it was. In the stomach, however, some cooked rice was found, and
+hence it was known as a dog and they were branded as dog-eaters. As a penalty the R&#257;ja imposed on them the duty of thatching
+a hut for him at the Dasahra festival, which their descendants still perform. The other Dh&#257;kars refuse to marry or eat with
+them, and it is clear from the custom of thatching the R&#257;ja&#8217;s hut that they are a primitive and jungly branch of the caste.
+
+
+</p>
+</div>
+<div class="div2" id="d0e12190">
+<h3>2. Marriage.</h3>
+<p>If a girl becomes with child by a member of the caste she is made over to him without a marriage, or to the man to whom she
+was previously betrothed if he is still willing to take her. Neither is she expelled if the same event occurs with a man of
+any higher caste, but if he be of lower caste she is thrown out. Marriages are usually arranged by the parents but an adult
+girl may choose her own husband, and she is then wedded to him with abbreviated rites so that her family may avoid the disgrace
+of her entering his house like a widow or kept woman. Formerly a Dh&#257;kar might marry his granddaughter, but this is no longer
+done. When the signs of puberty first appear in a girl she is secluded and must not see or be seen by any man. They think
+that the souls of dead ancestors are reborn in children, and if a child refuses to suck they ask which of their ancestors
+he is and what he wants, or they offer it some present such as a silver bangle, and if the child then takes to the breast
+they give away the bangle to a Br&#257;hman. The sixth day after a child is born <a id="d0e12195"></a><span class="pagenum">[<a href="#d0e12195">479</a>]</span>the paternal aunt prepares lamp-black from a lamp fed with melted butter and rubs it on the child&#8217;s eyes and receives a small
+present.
+
+
+</p>
+</div>
+<div class="div2" id="d0e12197">
+<h3>3. Funeral rites.</h3>
+<p>The period of mourning or impurity after a death must terminate with a feast to the caste-men, and it continues until this
+is given. Consequently the other caste-men subscribe for a poor member, so that he may give the feast and resume his ordinary
+avocations. On this occasion one of the guests puts a small fish in a leaf-cup full of water, which no doubt represents the
+spirit of the deceased, and all the mourners touch this cup and are freed from their impurity. A Br&#257;hman is also invited,
+who lights a lamp fed with melted butter and then asks for a cow or some other valuable present as a recompense for his service
+of blowing out the lamp. Until this is done the Dh&#257;kars think that the soul of the departed is tortured by the flame of the
+lamp. If the Br&#257;hman is pleased, he pours some curds over the lamp and this acts as a cooling balm to the soul. When a member
+of the family dies the mourners shave the whole head with beard and moustache.
+
+
+</p>
+</div>
+<div class="div2" id="d0e12202">
+<h3>4. Occupation and social status.</h3>
+<p>The Dh&#257;kars are mainly engaged in cultivation as farmservants and labourers. Like the Halbas, they consider it a sin to heat
+or forge iron, looking upon the metal as sacred. They eat the flesh of clean animals, but abstain from both pigs and chickens,
+and some also do not eat the peacock. A man as well as a woman is permanently expelled for adultery with a person of lower
+caste, the idea of this rule being no doubt to prevent degradation in the status of the caste from the admission of the offspring
+of such unions. If one Dh&#257;kar beats another with a shoe, both are temporarily put out of caste. But if a man seduces a caste-man&#8217;s
+wife and is beaten with a shoe by the husband, he is permanently expelled, while the husband is readmitted after a feast.
+On being received back into caste intercourse an offender is purified by drinking water in which the image of a local god
+has been dipped or the R&#257;ja of Bastar has placed his toe. Like other low castes of mixed origin, they are very particular
+about each other&#8217;s status and will only accept cooked food from families who are well known to them. At caste feasts each
+family or group of families cooks for <a id="d0e12207"></a><span class="pagenum">[<a href="#d0e12207">480</a>]</span>itself, and in some cases parents refuse to eat with the family into which their daughter has married and hence cannot do
+so with the girl herself.
+
+
+
+</p>
+</div>
+<div class="footnotes">
+<hr class="fnsep">
+<p class="footnote"><span class="label"><a id="d0e12183" href="#d0e12183src" class="noteref">1</a></span> This article is based entirely on a paper by Rai Bah&#257;dur Panda Baijn&#257;th, Superintendent, Bastar State.
+</p>
+</div>
+</div>
+<div id="d0e12209" class="div1"><span class="pagenum">
+[<a href="#d0e111">Contents</a>]
+</span><h2>Dhangar</h2>
+<div class="div2" id="d0e12212">
+<h3>1. Traditions and structure of the caste.</h3>
+<p><b>Dhangar.</b><a id="d0e12218src" href="#d0e12218" class="noteref">1</a>&#8212;The Mar&#257;tha caste of shepherds and blanket-weavers, numbering 96,000 persons in the Central Provinces and Ber&#257;r. They reside
+principally in the N&#257;gpur, Wardha, Ch&#257;nda and Nim&#257;r Districts of the Central Provinces and in all Districts of Ber&#257;r. The
+Dhangars are a very numerous caste in Bombay and Hyder&#257;b&#257;d. The name is derived either from the Sanskrit <i>dhenu</i>, a cow, or more probably from <i>dhan</i>,<a id="d0e12227src" href="#d0e12227" class="noteref">2</a> wealth, a term which is commonly applied to flocks of sheep and goats. It is said that the first sheep and goats came out
+of an ant-hill and scattering over the fields began to damage the crops of the cultivators. They, being helpless, prayed to
+Mah&#257;deo to rescue them from this pest and he thereupon created the first Dhangar to tend the flocks. The Dhangars consequently
+revere an ant-hill, and never remove one from their fields, while they worship it on the Diw&#257;li day with offerings of rice,
+flowers and part of the ear of a goat. When tending and driving sheep and goats they ejaculate &#8216;Har, Har,&#8217; which is a name
+of Mah&#257;deo used by devotees in worshipping him. The Dhangars furnished a valuable contingent to Sivaji&#8217;s guerilla soldiery,
+and the ruling family of Indore State belong to this caste. It is divided into the following subcastes: Var&#257;di or Bar&#257;de,
+belonging to Ber&#257;r; K&#257;nore or K&#257;nade, of Kanara; Jh&#257;de, or those belonging to the Bhand&#257;ra, B&#257;l&#257;gh&#257;t and Chhindw&#257;ra Districts,
+called the Jh&#257;di or hill country; L&#257;dse, found in Hyder&#257;b&#257;d; G&#257;dri, from <i>g&#257;dar</i>, a sheep, a division probably consisting of northerners, as the name for the cognate caste of shepherds in Hindust&#257;n is Gadaria;
+Telange, belonging to the Telugu country; Mar&#257;the, of the Mar&#257;tha country; M&#257;hurai from M&#257;hur in Hyder&#257;b&#257;d, and one or two
+others. Eleven subcastes in all are reported. For the purposes of marriage a number of exogamous groups or septs exist which
+may be classified according to their nomenclature as titular and totemistic, many having also the <a id="d0e12233"></a><span class="pagenum">[<a href="#d0e12233">481</a>]</span>names of other castes. Examples of sept names are: Pow&#257;r, a R&#257;jp&#363;t sept; Dokra, an old man; M&#257;rte, a murderer or slayer; Sarodi,
+the name of a caste of mendicants; Mh&#257;li, a barber; Kaode, a crow; Chambh&#257;de, a Cham&#257;r; G&#363;jde, a G&#363;jar; Ju&#257;de, a gambler;
+Lamchote, long-haired; Bodke, bald-headed; Khat&#299;k, a butcher; Ch&#257;ndekar, from Ch&#257;nda; Dambh&#257;de, one having pimples on the
+body; Halle, a he-buffalo; Moya, a grass, and others. The sept names show that the caste is a functional one of very mixed
+composition, partly recruited from members of other castes who have taken to sheep-tending and generally from the non-Aryan
+tribes.
+
+
+</p>
+</div>
+<div class="div2" id="d0e12235">
+<h3>2. Marriage.</h3>
+<p>A man must not marry within his own sept or that of his mother, nor may he marry a first cousin. He may wed a younger sister
+of his wife during her lifetime, and the practice of marrying a girl and boy into the same family, called Anta S&#257;nta or exchange,
+is permitted. Occasionally the husband does service for his wife in his father-in-law&#8217;s house. In Wardha the Dhangars measure
+the heights of a prospective bride and bridegroom with a piece of string and consider it a suitable match if the husband is
+taller than the wife, whether he be older or not. Marriages may be infant or adult, and polygamy is permitted, no stigma attaching
+to the taking of a second wife. Weddings may be celebrated in the rains up to the month of Kunw&#257;r (September), this provision
+probably arising from the fact that many Dhangars wander about the country during the open season, and are only at home during
+the rainy months. Perhaps for the same reason the wedding may, if the officiating priest so directs, be held at the house
+of a Br&#257;hman. This happens only when the Br&#257;hman has sown an offering of rice, called G&#257;g, in the name of the goddess R&#257;na
+Devi, the favourite deity of the Dhangars. On his way to the bride&#8217;s house the bridegroom must be covered with a black blanket.
+Nowadays the wedding is sometimes held at the bridegroom&#8217;s house and the bride comes for it. The caste say that this is done
+because there are not infrequently among the members of the bridegroom&#8217;s family widows who have remarried or women who have
+been kept by men of higher castes or been guilty of adultery. The bride&#8217;s female <a id="d0e12240"></a><span class="pagenum">[<a href="#d0e12240">482</a>]</span>relatives refuse to wash the feet of these women and this provokes quarrels. To meet such cases the new rule has been introduced.
+At the wedding the priest sits on the roof of the house facing the west, and the bride and bridegroom stand below with a curtain
+between them. As the sun is half set he claps his hands and the bridegroom takes the clasped hands of the bride within his
+own, the curtain being withdrawn. The bridegroom ties round the bride&#8217;s neck a yellow thread of seven strands, and when this
+is done she is married. Next morning a black bead necklace is substituted for the thread. The expenses of the bridegroom&#8217;s
+party are about Rs. 50, and of the bride&#8217;s about Rs. 30. The remaining procedure follows the customary usage of the Mar&#257;tha
+Districts. Widows are permitted to marry again, but must not take a second husband from the sept to which the first belonged.
+A considerable price is paid for a widow, and it is often more expensive to marry one than a girl. A Br&#257;hman and the m&#257;lguz&#257;r
+(village proprietor) should be present at the ceremony. If a bachelor marries a widow he must first go through the ceremony
+with a silver ring, and if the ring is subsequently lost or broken, its funeral rites must be performed. Divorce is allowed
+in the presence of the caste <i>panch&#257;yat</i> at the instance of either party for sufficient reason, as the misconduct or bad temper of the wife or the impotency of the
+husband.
+
+
+</p>
+</div>
+<div class="div2" id="d0e12245">
+<h3>3. Religion.</h3>
+<p>Mah&#257;deo is the special deity of the Dhangars, and they also observe the ordinary Hindu festivals. At Diw&#257;li they worship their
+goats by dyeing their horns and touching their feet. One Bahr&#257;m of N&#257;changaon near Pulgaon is the tutelary deity of the Wardha
+Dhangars and the protector of their flocks. On the last day of the month of M&#257;gh they perform a special ceremony called the
+Deo P&#363;ja. A Dh&#299;mar acts as priest to the caste on this occasion and fashions some figures of idols out of rice to which vermilion
+and flowers are offered. He then distributes the grains of rice to the Dhangars who are present, pronouncing a benediction.
+The Dh&#299;mar receives his food and a present, and it is essential that the act of worship should be performed by one of this
+caste. In their houses they have Kul-Devi <a id="d0e12250"></a><span class="pagenum">[<a href="#d0e12250">483</a>]</span>and Khandoba the Mar&#257;tha hero, who are the family deities. But in large families they are kept only in the house of the eldest
+brother. Kul-Devi or the goddess of the family is worshipped at weddings, and a goat is offered to her in the month of Chait
+(March). The head is buried beneath her shrine inside the house and the body is consumed by members of the family only. Khandoba
+is worshipped on Sundays and they identify him with the sun. Vithoba, a form of Vishnu, is revered on Wednesdays, and B&#257;l&#257;ji,
+the younger brother of R&#257;ma, on Fridays. Many families also make a representation of some deceased bachelor relative, which
+they call Munjia, and of some married woman who is known as Mairni or S&#257;sin, and worship them daily.
+
+
+</p>
+</div>
+<div class="div2" id="d0e12252">
+<h3>4. Birth, death and social status.</h3>
+<p>The Dhangars burn their dead unless they are too poor to purchase wood for fuel, in which case burial is resorted to. Unmarried
+children and persons dying from smallpox, leprosy, cholera and snake-bite are also buried. At the pyre the widow breaks her
+bangles and throws her glass beads on to her husband&#8217;s body. On returning from the burning <i>gh&#257;t</i> the funeral party drink liquor. Some g&#257;nja, tobacco and anything else which the deceased may have been fond of during his
+life are left near the grave on the first day. Mourning is observed during ten days on the death of an adult and for three
+days for a child. Children are usually named on the twelfth day after birth, the well-to-do employing a Br&#257;hman for the purpose.
+On this day the child must not see a lamp, as it is feared that if he should do so he will afterwards have a squint. Only
+one name is given as a rule, but subsequently when the child comes to be married, if the Br&#257;hman finds that its name does
+not make the marriage auspicious, he substitutes another and the child is afterwards known by this new name. The caste employ
+Br&#257;hmans for ceremonies at birth and marriage. They eat flesh including fowls and wild pig, and drink liquor, but abstain
+from other unclean food. They will take food from a Kunbi, Ph&#363;lm&#257;li or a Sun&#257;r, and water from any of the good cultivating
+castes. A Kunbi will take water from them. The women of the caste wear bracelets of lead or brass on the right wrist and glass
+bangles on the left. Permanent or temporary excommunication from caste <a id="d0e12260"></a><span class="pagenum">[<a href="#d0e12260">484</a>]</span>is imposed for the usual offences, and among those visited with the minor penalty are selling shoes, touching the carcase
+of a dog or cat, and killing a cow or buffalo, or allowing one to die with a rope round its neck. No food is cooked for five
+weeks in a house in which a cat has died. The social standing of the caste is low.
+
+
+</p>
+</div>
+<div class="div2" id="d0e12262">
+<h3>5. Occupation.</h3>
+<p>The traditional occupation of the Dhangars is to tend sheep and goats, and they also sell goats&#8217; milk, make blankets from
+the wool of sheep, and sometimes breed and sell stock for slaughter. They generally live near tracts of waste land where grazing
+is available. Sheep are kept in open and goats in roofed folds. Like English shepherds they carry sticks or staffs and have
+dogs to assist in driving the flocks, and they sometimes hunt hares with their dogs. Their dress consists frequently only
+of a loin-cloth and a blanket, and having to bear exposure to all weathers, they are naturally strong and hardy. In appearance
+they are dark and of medium size. They eat three times a day and bathe in the evening on returning from work, though their
+ablutions are sometimes omitted in the cold weather.
+
+
+</p>
+</div>
+<div class="footnotes">
+<hr class="fnsep">
+<p class="footnote"><span class="label"><a id="d0e12218" href="#d0e12218src" class="noteref">1</a></span> Compiled mainly from a paper by Kanhya L&#257;l, clerk in the Gazetteer office.
+</p>
+<p class="footnote"><span class="label"><a id="d0e12227" href="#d0e12227src" class="noteref">2</a></span> Cf. the two meanings of the word &#8216;stock&#8217; in English.
+</p>
+</div>
+</div>
+<div id="d0e12267" class="div1"><span class="pagenum">
+[<a href="#d0e111">Contents</a>]
+</span><h2>Dh&#257;nuk</h2>
+<div class="div2" id="d0e12270">
+<h3>1. Original and classical records.</h3>
+<p><b>Dh&#257;nuk.</b>&#8212;A low caste of agriculturists found principally in the Narsinghpur District, which contained three-fourths of the total of
+nearly 7000 persons returned in 1911. The headquarters of the caste are in the United Provinces, which contains more than
+a lakh of Dh&#257;nuks. The name is derived from the Sanskrit <i>dhanuska</i>, an archer, and the caste is an ancient one, its origin as given in the Padma Pur&#257;na, quoted by Sir Henry Elliot, being from
+a Cham&#257;r father and a Chand&#257;l or sweeper mother. Another pedigree makes the mother a Cham&#257;r and the father an outcaste Ah&#299;r.
+Such statements, Sir H. Risley remarks in commenting on this genealogy,<a id="d0e12280src" href="#d0e12280" class="noteref">1</a> serve to indicate in a general way the social rank held by the Dh&#257;nuks at the time when it was first thought necessary to
+enrol them among the mixed castes. Dr. Buchanan<a id="d0e12285src" href="#d0e12285" class="noteref">2</a> says that the Dh&#257;nuks were in former times the militia of the country. He states that all the Dh&#257;nuks <a id="d0e12293"></a><span class="pagenum">[<a href="#d0e12293">485</a>]</span>were at one time probably slaves and many were recruited to fill up the military ranks&#8212;a method of security which had long
+been prevalent in Asia, the armies of the Parthians having been composed entirely of slaves. A great many Dh&#257;nuks, at the
+time when Buchanan wrote, were still slaves, but some annually procured their liberty by the inability of their masters to
+maintain them and their unwillingness to sell their fellow-creatures. It may be concluded, therefore, that the Dh&#257;nuks were
+a body of servile soldiery, recruited as was often the case from the subject Dravidian tribes; following the all-powerful
+tendency of Hindu society they became a caste, and owing to the comparatively respectable nature of their occupation obtained
+a rise in social position from the outcaste status of the subject Dravidians to the somewhat higher group of castes who were
+not unclean but from whom a Br&#257;hman would not accept water. They did not advance so far as the Khandaits, another caste formed
+from military service, who were also, Sir H. Risley shows, originally recruited from a subject tribe, probably because the
+position of the Dh&#257;nuks was always more subordinate and no appreciable number of them came to be officers or leaders. The
+very debased origin of the caste already mentioned as given in the Padma Pur&#257;na may be supposed as in other cases to be an
+attempt on the part of the priestly chronicler to repress what he considered to be unfounded claims to a rise in rank. But
+the Dh&#257;nuks, not less than the other soldier castes, have advanced a pretension to be Kshatriyas, those of Narsinghpur sometimes
+calling themselves Dh&#257;nkarai R&#257;jp&#363;ts, though this claim is of course in their case a pure absurdity. It is not necessary to
+suppose that the Dh&#257;nuks of the Central Provinces are the lineal descendants of the caste whose genealogy is given in the
+Pur&#257;nas; they may be a much more recent offshoot from a main caste, formed in a precisely similar manner from military service.<a id="d0e12295src" href="#d0e12295" class="noteref">3</a> Mr. Crooke<a id="d0e12298src" href="#d0e12298" class="noteref">4</a> surmises that they belonged to the large impure caste of Basors or basket-makers, who took to bow-making and thence to archery;
+and some connection is traceable between the <a id="d0e12303"></a><span class="pagenum">[<a href="#d0e12303">486</a>]</span>Dh&#257;nuks and Basors in Narsinghpur. Such a separation must probably have occurred in comparatively recent times, inasmuch as
+some recollection of it still remains. The fact that Lodhis are the only caste besides Br&#257;hmans from whom the Dh&#257;nuks of Narsinghpur
+will take food cooked without water may indicate that they formed the militia of Lodhi chieftains in the Nerbudda valley,
+a hypothesis which is highly probable on general grounds.
+
+
+</p>
+</div>
+<div class="div2" id="d0e12305">
+<h3>2. Marriage.</h3>
+<p>In the Central Provinces the Dh&#257;nuks have no subcastes.<a id="d0e12310src" href="#d0e12310" class="noteref">5</a> The names of their <i>gotras</i> or family groups, though they themselves cannot explain them, are apparently territorial: as M&#257;ragaiy&#257;n from M&#257;ragaon, Benaikaw&#257;r
+from Benaika village, Pangarya from Pan&#257;gar, Binjharia from Bindhya or Vindhya, Barodhaya from Barodha village, and so on.
+Marriages within the same <i>gotra</i> and between first cousins are prohibited, and child-marriage is usual. The father of the boy always takes the initiative
+in arranging a match, and if a man wants to find a husband for his daughter he must ask the assistance of his relatives to
+obtain a proposal, as it would be derogatory to move in the matter himself. The contract for marriages is made at the boy&#8217;s
+house and is not inviolable. Before the departure of the bridegroom for the bride&#8217;s village, he stands at the entrance of
+the marriage-shed, and his mother comes up and places her breast to his mouth and throws rice balls and ashes over him. The
+former action signifies the termination of his boyhood, while the latter is meant to protect him on his important journey.
+The bridegroom in walking away treads on a saucer in which a little rice is placed. Widow-marriage and divorce are permitted.
+
+
+</p>
+</div>
+<div class="div2" id="d0e12319">
+<h3>3. Social rank and customs.</h3>
+<p>A few members of the caste are tenants and the bulk of them farmservants and field-labourers. They also act as village watchmen.
+The Dh&#257;nuks eat flesh and fish, but not fowls, beef or pork, and they abstain from liquor. They will take food cooked without
+water from a Br&#257;hman and a Lodhi, but not from a R&#257;jp&#363;t; but in Nim&#257;r the status of the caste is distinctly lower, and they
+eat pig&#8217;s flesh and the leavings of Br&#257;hmans and R&#257;jp&#363;ts. The mixed nature of <a id="d0e12324"></a><span class="pagenum">[<a href="#d0e12324">487</a>]</span>the caste is shown by the fact that they will receive into the community illegitimate children born of a Dh&#257;nuk father and
+a woman of a higher caste such as Lodhi or Kurmi. They rank as already indicated just above the impure castes.
+
+
+
+<a id="d0e12326"></a><span class="pagenum">[<a href="#d0e12326">488</a>]</span></p>
+</div>
+<div class="footnotes">
+<hr class="fnsep">
+<p class="footnote"><span class="label"><a id="d0e12280" href="#d0e12280src" class="noteref">1</a></span> <i>Tribes and Castes of Bengal</i>, art. Dh&#257;nuk.
+</p>
+<p class="footnote"><span class="label"><a id="d0e12285" href="#d0e12285src" class="noteref">2</a></span> <i>Eastern India</i>, i. 166, as quoted in Crooke&#8217;s <i>Tribes and Castes</i>.
+</p>
+<p class="footnote"><span class="label"><a id="d0e12295" href="#d0e12295src" class="noteref">3</a></span> Cf. the two perfectly distinct groups of Pa&#299;ks or foot-soldiers found in Jubbulpore and the Uriya country.
+</p>
+<p class="footnote"><span class="label"><a id="d0e12298" href="#d0e12298src" class="noteref">4</a></span> <i>Tribes and Castes of the N. W. P. and Oudh</i>, art. Basor.
+</p>
+<p class="footnote"><span class="label"><a id="d0e12310" href="#d0e12310src" class="noteref">5</a></span> The following particulars are from a paper by Kanhy&#257; L&#257;l, a clerk in the Gazetteer office belonging to the Educational Department.
+</p>
+</div>
+</div>
+<div id="d0e12327" class="div1"><span class="pagenum">
+[<a href="#d0e111">Contents</a>]
+</span><h2>Dhanw&#257;r</h2>
+<h3>List of Paragraphs</h3>
+<ul>
+<li><a href="#d0e12403">1. Origin and traditions.</a></li>
+<li><a href="#d0e12435">2. Exogamous septs.</a></li>
+<li><a href="#d0e12448">3. Marriage.</a></li>
+<li><a href="#d0e12458">4. Festivities of the women of the bridegroom&#8217;s party.</a></li>
+<li><a href="#d0e12484">5. Conclusion of the marriage.</a></li>
+<li><a href="#d0e12489">6. Widow-marriage and divorce.</a></li>
+<li><a href="#d0e12502">7. Childbirth.</a></li>
+<li><a href="#d0e12512">8. Disposal of the dead.</a></li>
+<li><a href="#d0e12520">9. Religion.</a></li>
+<li><a href="#d0e12538">10. Magic and witchcraft.</a></li>
+<li><a href="#d0e12551">11. Social rules.</a></li>
+<li><a href="#d0e12566">12. Dress and tattooing.</a></li>
+<li><a href="#d0e12571">13. Names of children.</a></li>
+<li><a href="#d0e12590">14. Occupation.</a></li>
+</ul>
+<div class="div2" id="d0e12403">
+<h3>1. Origin and traditions.</h3>
+<p><b>Dhanw&#257;r, Dhanuh&#257;r.</b><a id="d0e12409src" href="#d0e12409" class="noteref">1</a>&#8212;A primitive tribe living in the wild hilly country of the Bil&#257;spur zam&#299;nd&#257;ri estates, adjoining Chota N&#257;gpur. They numbered
+only 19,000 persons in 1911. The name Dhanuh&#257;r means a bowman, and the bulk of the tribe have until recently been accustomed
+to obtain their livelihood by hunting with bow and arrows. The name is thus merely a functional term and is analogous to those
+of Dh&#257;ngar, or labourer, and Kis&#257;n, or cultivator, which are applied to the Oraons, and perhaps Halba or farmservant, by which
+another tribe is known. The Dhanw&#257;rs are almost certainly not connected with the Dh&#257;nuks of northern India, though the names
+have the same meaning. They are probably an offshoot of either the Gond or the Kawar tribe or a mixture of both. Their own
+legend of their origin is nearly the same as that of the Gonds, while the bulk of their sept or family names are identical
+with those of the Kawars. Like the Kawars, the Dhanw&#257;rs have no language of their own and speak a corrupt form of Chhatt&#299;sgarhi
+Hindi. Mr. Jeor&#257;khan L&#257;l writes of them:&#8212;&#8220;The word Dhanuh&#257;r is a corrupt form of Dhanusdh&#257;r or a holder of a bow. The bow
+consists of a cleft piece of bamboo <a id="d0e12412"></a><span class="pagenum">[<a href="#d0e12412">489</a>]</span>and the arrow is made of wood of the <i>dh&#257;man</i> tree.<a id="d0e12417src" href="#d0e12417" class="noteref">2</a> The pointed end is furnished with a piece or a nail of iron called <i>phani</i>, while to the other end are attached feathers of the vulture or peacock with a string of tasar silk. Dhanuh&#257;r boys learn
+the use of the bow at five years of age, and kill birds with it when they are seven or eight years old. At their marriage
+ceremony the bridegroom carries an arrow with him in place of a dagger as among the Hindus, and each household has a bow which
+is worshipped at every festival.&#8221; According to their own legend the ancestors of the Dhanuh&#257;rs were two babies whom a tigress
+unearthed from the ground when scratching a hole in her den, and brought up with her own young. They were named N&#257;ga Lodha
+and N&#257;gi Lodhi, <i>N&#257;ga</i> meaning naked and <i>Lodha</i> being the Chhatt&#299;sgarhi word for a wild dog. Growing up they lived for some time as brother and sister, until the deity enjoined
+them to marry. But they had no children until N&#257;ga Lodha, in obedience to the god&#8217;s instructions, gave his wife the fruit
+of eleven trees to eat. From these she had eleven sons at a birth, and as she observed a fortnight&#8217;s impurity for each of
+them the total period was five and a half months. In memory of this, Dhanuh&#257;r women still remain impure for five months after
+delivery, and do not worship the gods for that period. Afterwards the couple had a twelfth son, who was born with a bow and
+arrows in his hand, and is now the ancestral hero of the tribe, being named Karankot. One day in the forest when Karankot
+was not with them, the eleven brothers came upon a wooden palisade, inside which were many deer and antelope tended by twelve
+Gaoli (herdsmen) brothers with their twelve sisters. The Lodha brothers attacked the place, but were taken prisoners by the
+Gaolis and forced to remove dung and other refuse from the enclosure. After a time Karankot went in search of his brothers
+and, coming to the place, defeated the Gaolis and rescued them and carried off the twelve sisters. The twelve brothers subsequently
+married the twelve Gaoli girls, Karankot himself being wedded to the youngest and most beautiful, whose name was Masw&#257;si.
+From each couple is supposed to be descended one of the tribes who live in <a id="d0e12430"></a><span class="pagenum">[<a href="#d0e12430">490</a>]</span>this country, as the Binjhw&#257;r, Bhumia, Korwa, M&#257;jhi, Kol, Kawar and others, the Dhanuh&#257;rs themselves being the progeny of
+Karankot and Masw&#257;si. The bones of the animals killed by Karankot were thrown into ditches dug round the village and form
+the pits of <i>chhui mithi</i> or white clay now existing in this tract.
+
+
+</p>
+</div>
+<div class="div2" id="d0e12435">
+<h3>2. Exogamous septs.</h3>
+<p>The Dhanuh&#257;rs, being a small tribe, have no endogamous divisions, but are divided into a number of totemistic exogamous septs.
+Many of the septs are called after plants or animals, and members of the sept refrain from killing or destroying the animal
+or plant after which it is named. The names of the septs are generally Chhatt&#299;sgarhi words, though a few are Gondi. Out of
+fifty names returned twenty are also found in the Kawar tribe and four among the Gonds. This makes it probable that the Dhanuh&#257;rs
+are mainly an offshoot from the Kawars with an admixture of Gonds and other tribes. A peculiarity worth noticing is that one
+or two of the septs have been split up into a number of others. The best instance of this is the Sonw&#257;ni sept, which is found
+among several castes and tribes in Chhatt&#299;sgarh; its name is perhaps derived from <i>Sona p&#257;ni</i> (Gold water), and its members have the function of readmitting those temporarily expelled from social intercourse by pouring
+on them a little water into which a piece of gold has been dipped. Among the Dhanuh&#257;rs the Sonw&#257;ni sept has become divided
+into the Son-Sonw&#257;ni, who pour the gold water over the penitent; the Rakat Sonw&#257;ni, who give him to drink a little of the
+blood of the sacrificial fowl; the Hardi Sonw&#257;ni, who give turmeric water to the mourners when they come back from a funeral;
+the K&#257;ri Sonw&#257;ni, who assist at this ceremony; and one or two others. The totem of the K&#257;ri Sonw&#257;ni sept is a black cow, and
+when such an animal dies in the village members of the sept throw away their earthen pots. All these are now separate exogamous
+septs. The Desw&#257;rs are another sept which has been divided in the same manner. They are, perhaps, a more recent accession
+to the tribe, and are looked down on by the others because they will eat the flesh of bison. The other Dhanw&#257;rs refuse to
+do this because they say that when S&#299;ta, R&#257;ma&#8217;s wife, was exiled in the jungles, she could not find a cow to worship and so
+revered a bison <a id="d0e12443"></a><span class="pagenum">[<a href="#d0e12443">491</a>]</span>in its stead. And they say that the animal&#8217;s feet are grey because of the turmeric water which S&#299;ta poured on them, and that
+the depression on its forehead is the mark of her hand when she placed a <i>t&#299;ka</i> or sign there with coloured rice. The Desw&#257;rs are also called Dui Du&#257;ria or &#8216;Those having two doors,&#8217; because they have a
+back door to their huts which is used only by women during their monthly period of impurity and kept shut at all other times.
+One of the septs is named Manakhia, which means &#8216;man-eater,&#8217; and it is possible that its members formerly offered human sacrifices.
+Similarly, the Rakat-bund or &#8216;Drop of blood Desw&#257;rs&#8217; may be so called because they shed human blood. A member of the Tel&#257;si
+or &#8216;Oil&#8217; sept, when he has killed a deer, will cut off the head and bring it home; placing it in his courtyard, he suspends
+a burning lamp over the head and places grains of rice on the forehead of the deer; and he then considers that he is revering
+the oil in the lamp. Members of the S&#363;rajgoti or sun sept are said to have stood as representatives of the sun in the rite
+of the purification of an offender.
+
+
+</p>
+</div>
+<div class="div2" id="d0e12448">
+<h3>3. Marriage.</h3>
+<p>Marriage within the sept is prohibited, and usually also between first cousins. Girls are commonly married a year or two after
+they arrive at maturity. The father of the boy looks out for a suitable girl for his son and sends a friend to make the proposal.
+If this is accepted a feast is given, and is known as Ph&#363;l Phulw&#257;ri or &#8216;The bursting of the flower.&#8217; The betrothal itself
+is called Phald&#257;n or &#8216;The gift of the fruit&#8217;; on this occasion the contract is ratified and the usual presents are exchanged.
+Yet a third ceremony, prior to the marriage, is that of the Barokhi or inspection, when the bride and bridegroom are taken
+to see each other. On this occasion they exchange copper rings, placing them on each other&#8217;s finger, and the boy offers vermilion
+to the earth, and then rubs it on the bride&#8217;s forehead. When the girl is mature the date of the wedding is fixed, a small
+bride-price of six rupees and a piece of cloth being usually paid. If the first signs of puberty appear in the girl during
+the bright fortnight of the month, the marriage is held during the dark fortnight and vice versa. The marriage-shed is built
+in the form of a rectangle and must consist of either seven or nine posts in three lines. The bridegroom&#8217;s party <a id="d0e12453"></a><span class="pagenum">[<a href="#d0e12453">492</a>]</span>comprises from twenty to forty persons of both sexes. When they arrive at the bride&#8217;s village her father comes out to meet
+them and gives them leaf-pipes to smoke. He escorts them inside the village where a lodging has been prepared for them. The
+ceremony is based on that of the local Hindus with numerous petty variations in points of detail. In the actual ceremony the
+bride and bridegroom are first supported on the knees of two relatives. A sheet is held between them and each throws seven
+handfuls of parched rice over the other. They are then made to stand side by side; a knot is made of their cloths containing
+a piece of turmeric, and the bride&#8217;s left hand is laid over the bridegroom&#8217;s right one, and on it a <i>sendhaura</i> or wooden box for vermilion is placed. The bride&#8217;s mother moves seven times round the pair holding a lighted lamp, at which
+she warms her hand and then touches the marriage-crowns of the bride and bridegroom seven times in succession. And finally
+the couple walk seven times round the marriage-post, the bridegroom following the bride. The marriage is held during the day,
+and not, as is usual, at night or in the early morning. Afterwards, the pair are seated in the marriage-shed, the bridegroom&#8217;s
+leg being placed over that of the bride, with their feet in a brass dish. The bride&#8217;s mother then washes their great toes
+with milk and the rest of their feet with water. The bridegroom applies vermilion seven times to the marriage-post and to
+his wife&#8217;s forehead at the parting of her hair. The couple are fed with rice and pulses one after the other out of the same
+leaf-plates, and the parties have a feast. Next morning, before their departure, the father of the bride asks the bridegroom
+to do his best to put up with his daughter, who is thievish, gluttonous and so slovenly that she lets her food drop on to
+the floor; but if he finds he cannot endure her, to send her home. In the same manner the father of the boy apologises for
+his son, saying that he cares only for mischief and pleasure. The party then returns to the bridegroom&#8217;s house.
+
+
+</p>
+</div>
+<div class="div2" id="d0e12458">
+<h3>4. Festivities of the women of the bridegroom&#8217;s party.</h3>
+<p>During the absence of the wedding party the women of the bridegroom&#8217;s house with others in the village sing songs at night
+in the marriage-shed constructed at his house. These are known as Dindwa, a term applied to a <a id="d0e12463"></a><span class="pagenum">[<a href="#d0e12463">493</a>]</span>man who has no wife, whether widower or bachelor. As they sing, the women dance in two lines with their arms interlaced, clapping
+their hands as they move backwards and forwards. The songs are of a lewd character, treating of intrigues in love mingled
+with abuse of their relatives and of other men who may be watching the proceedings by stealth. No offence is taken on such
+occasions, whatever may be said. In Upper India, Mr. Jeor&#257;kh&#257;n L&#257;l states such songs are sung at the time of the marriage
+and are called <i>Naktoureki louk</i> or the ceremony of the useless or shameless ones, because women, however shy and modest, become at this time as bold and
+shameless as men are at the Holi festival. The following are a few lines from one of these songs:
+
+
+</p>
+<div class="blockquote">
+<p>The wheat-cake is below and the urad-cake is above. Do you see my brother&#8217;s brother-in-law watching the dance in the narrow
+lane.<a id="d0e12471src" href="#d0e12471" class="noteref">3</a>
+
+
+</p>
+<p>A sweetmeat is placed on the wheat-cake; a handsome young black-guard has climbed on to the top of the wall to see the dance.
+
+
+</p>
+<p>When a woman sees a man from afar he looks beautiful and attractive: but when he comes near she sees that he is not worth
+the trouble.
+
+
+</p>
+<p>I went to the market and came back with my salt. Oh, I looked more at you than at my husband who is wedded to me.</p>
+</div><p>
+
+
+
+</p>
+</div>
+<div class="div2" id="d0e12484">
+<h3>5. Conclusion of the marriage.</h3>
+<p>Several of the ceremonies are repeated at the bridegroom&#8217;s house after the return of the wedding party. On the day following
+them the couple are taken to a tank walking under a canopy held up by their friends. Here they throw away their marriage-crowns,
+and play at hiding a vessel under the water. When they return to the house a goat is sacrificed to Dulha Deo and the bride
+cooks food in her new house for the first time, her husband helping her, and their relatives and friends in the village are
+invited to partake of it. After this the conjugal chamber is prepared by the women of the household, and the bride is taken
+to it and told to consider her husband&#8217;s house as her own. The couple are then left together and the marriage is consummated.
+
+
+</p>
+</div>
+<div class="div2" id="d0e12489">
+<h3>6. Widow-marriage and divorce.</h3>
+<p>The remarriage of widows is permitted but it is not considered as a real marriage, according to the <a id="d0e12494"></a><span class="pagenum">[<a href="#d0e12494">494</a>]</span>saying: &#8220;A woman cannot be anointed twice with the marriage oil, as a wooden cooking-vessel cannot be put twice on the fire.&#8221;
+A widow married again is called a <i lang="und">Churiy&#257;hi Dauki</i> or &#8216;Wife made by bangles,&#8217; as the ceremony may be completed by putting bangles on her wrists. When a woman is going to marry
+again she leaves her late husband&#8217;s house and goes and lives with her own people or in a house by herself. The second husband
+makes his proposal to her through some other women. If accepted he comes with a party of his male friends, taking with him
+a new cloth and some bangles. They are received by the widow&#8217;s guardian, and they sit in her house smoking and chewing tobacco
+while some woman friend retires with her and invests her with the new cloth and bangles. She comes out and the new husband
+and wife bow to all the Dhanw&#257;rs, who are subsequently regaled with liquor and goats&#8217; flesh, and the marriage is completed.
+Polygamy is permitted but is not common. A husband may divorce his wife for failing to bear him issue, for being ugly, thievish,
+shrewish or a witch, or for an intrigue with another man. If a married woman commits adultery with another man of the tribe
+they are pardoned with the exaction of one feast. If her paramour is a Gond, R&#257;wat, Binjhw&#257;r or Kawar, he is allowed to become
+a Dhanw&#257;r and marry her on giving several feasts, the exact number being fixed by the village Baiga or priest in a <i>panch&#257;yat</i> or committee. With these exceptions a married woman having an intrigue with a man of another caste is finally expelled. A
+wife who desires to divorce her husband without his agreement is also turned out of the caste like a common woman.
+
+
+</p>
+</div>
+<div class="div2" id="d0e12502">
+<h3>7. Childbirth.</h3>
+<p>After the birth of a child the mother receives no food for the first and second, and fourth and fifth days, while on the third
+she is given only a warm decoction to drink. On the sixth day the men of the house are shaved and their impurity ceases. But
+the mother cooks no food for two months after bearing a female child and for three months if it is a male. The period has
+thus been somewhat reduced from the traditional one of five and a half months,<a id="d0e12507src" href="#d0e12507" class="noteref">4</a> but it must still be highly inconvenient. At the expiration of the time of impurity the <a id="d0e12510"></a><span class="pagenum">[<a href="#d0e12510">495</a>]</span>earthen pots are changed and the mother prepares a meal for the whole household. During her monthly period of impurity a woman
+cooks no food for six days. On the seventh day she bathes and cleans her hair with clay, and is then again permitted to touch
+the drinking water and cook food.
+
+
+</p>
+</div>
+<div class="div2" id="d0e12512">
+<h3>8. Disposal of the dead.</h3>
+<p>The tribe bury the dead. The corpse is wrapped in an old cloth and carried to the grave on a cot turned upside down. On arrival
+there it is washed with turmeric and water and wrapped in a new cloth. The bearers carry the corpse seven times round the
+open grave, saying, &#8216;This is your last marriage,&#8217; that is, with the earth. The male relatives and friends fill in the grave
+with earth, working with their hands only and keep their backs turned to the grave so as to avoid seeing the corpse. It is
+said that each person should throw only five handfuls. Other people then come up and fill in the grave, trampling down the
+surface as much as possible. For three days after a death the bereaved family do not cook for themselves but are supplied
+with food by their friends. These, however, do not give them any salt as it is thought that the craving for salt will divert
+their minds from dwelling on their loss. The tribe do not perform the <i>shr&#257;ddh</i> ceremony, but in the month of Kunw&#257;r, on the day corresponding to that on which his father died, a man feeds the caste-fellows
+in memory of him. And at this period he offers libations to his ancestors, pouring a double handful of water on the ground
+for each one that he can remember and then one for all the others. While doing this he stands facing the east and does not
+turn to three different directions as the Hindu custom is. The spirit of a man who has been killed by a tiger becomes Baghia
+Mas&#257;n or the tiger imp, and that of a woman who dies in childbirth becomes a Churel. Both are very troublesome to the living.
+
+
+</p>
+</div>
+<div class="div2" id="d0e12520">
+<h3>9. Religion.</h3>
+<p>The principal deities of the Dhanw&#257;rs are Th&#257;kur Deo, the god of agriculture, and D&#363;lha Deo, the deity of the family and hearth.
+Twice a year the village Baiga or medicine-man, who is usually a Gond, offers a cocoanut to Th&#257;kur Deo. He first consecrates
+it to the god by placing it in contact with water and the small heap of rice which <a id="d0e12525"></a><span class="pagenum">[<a href="#d0e12525">496</a>]</span>lies in front of his shrine, and then splits it asunder on a stone, saying, &#8216;<i lang="und">Jai Th&#257;kur Deo</i>,&#8217; or &#8216;Victory to Th&#257;kur Deo.&#8217; When any serious calamity befalls the tribe a goat is offered to the deity. It must also be
+first consecrated to him by eating his rice; its body is then washed in water and some of the sacred <i>d&#363;b</i><a id="d0e12532src" href="#d0e12532" class="noteref">5</a> grass is placed on it, and the Baiga severs the head from the body with an axe. D&#363;lha Deo is the god of the family and the
+marriage-bed, and when a Dhanw&#257;r is married or his first son is born, a goat is offered to the deity. Another interesting
+deity is Maiya Andhiy&#257;ri, or the goddess of the dark fortnight of the month. She is worshipped in the house conjointly by
+husband and wife on any Tuesday in the dark fortnight of M&#257;gh (January-February), all the relatives of the family being invited.
+On the day of worship the husband and wife observe a fast, and all the water which is required for use in the house during
+the day and night must be brought into it in the early morning. A circular pit is dug inside the house, about three feet deep
+and as many wide. A she-goat which has borne no young is sacrificed to the goddess in the house in the same manner as in the
+sacrifice to Th&#257;kur Deo. The goat is skinned and cut up, the skin, bones and other refuse being thrown into the hole. The
+flesh is cooked and eaten with rice and pulse in the evening, all the family and relatives, men and women, eating together
+at the same time. After the meal, all the remaining food and the water including that used for cooking, and the new earthen
+pots used to carry water on that day are thrown into the pit. The mouth of the pit is then covered with wooden boards and
+plastered over with mud with great care to prevent a child falling into it; as it is held that nothing which has once gone
+into the pit may be taken out, even if it were a human being. It is said that once in the old days a man who happened to fall
+into the pit was buried alive, its mouth being covered over with planks of wood; and he was found alive when the pit was reopened
+next year. This is an instance of the sacrificial meal, common to many primitive peoples, at which the sacred animal was consumed
+by the worshippers, skin, bones and <a id="d0e12536"></a><span class="pagenum">[<a href="#d0e12536">497</a>]</span>all. But now that such a course has become repugnant to their more civilised digestions, the refuse is considered sacred and
+disposed of in some such manner as that described. The goddess is also known as R&#257;t Devi or the goddess of the night; or R&#257;t
+Mai, the night mother. The goddess Masw&#257;si was the mythical ancestress of the Dhanw&#257;rs, the wife of Karankot, and also the
+daughter of Maiya Andhiy&#257;ri or R&#257;t Mai. She too is worshipped every third year in the dark fortnight of the month of M&#257;gh
+on any Tuesday. Her sacrifice is offered in the morning hours in the forest by men only, and consists also of a black she-goat.
+A site is chosen under a tree and cleaned with cowdung, the bones of animals being placed upon it in a heap to represent the
+goddess. The village Baiga kills the goat with an axe and the body is eaten by the worshippers. Masw&#257;si is invoked by the
+Dhanw&#257;rs before they go hunting, and whenever they kill a wild boar or a deer they offer it to her. She is thus clearly the
+goddess of hunting. The tribe also worship the spirits of hills and woods and the ghosts of the illustrious dead. The ghosts
+of dead Baigas or medicine-men are believed to become spirits attending on Th&#257;kur Deo, and when he is displeased with the
+Dhanw&#257;rs they intervene to allay his anger. The brothers of Masw&#257;si, the twelve Gaolis, are believed to be divine hunters
+and to haunt the forests, where they kill beasts and occasionally men. Six of them take post and the other six drive the beasts
+or men towards these through the forest, when they are pierced as with an arrow. The victim dies after a few days, but if
+human he may go to a sorcerer, who can extract the arrow, smaller than a grain of rice, from his body. In the month of Aghan
+(November), when the grass of the forests is to be cut, the members of the village collectively offer a goat to the grass
+deity, in order that none of the grass-cutters may be killed by a tiger or bitten by a snake or other wild animal.
+
+
+</p>
+</div>
+<div class="div2" id="d0e12538">
+<h3>10. Magic and witchcraft.</h3>
+<p>The Dhanw&#257;rs are fervent believers in all kinds of magic and witchcraft. Magic is practised both by the Baiga, the village
+priest or medicine-man, who is always a man and who conducts the worship of the deities mentioned above, and by the <i>tonhi</i>, the regular witch, who may be a <a id="d0e12546"></a><span class="pagenum">[<a href="#d0e12546">498</a>]</span>man or woman. Little difference appears to exist in the methods of the two classes of magicians, but the Baiga&#8217;s magic is
+usually exercised for the good of his fellow-creatures, which indeed might be expected as he gets his livelihood from them,
+and he is also less powerful than the <i>tonhi</i>. The Baiga cures ordinary maladies and the bites of snakes and scorpions by mesmeric passes fortified by the utterance of
+charms. He raises the dead in much the same manner as a witch does, but employs the spirit of the dead person in casting out
+other evil spirits by which his clients may be possessed. One of the miracles performed by the Baiga is to make his wet cloth
+stand in the air stiff and straight, holding only the two lower ends. He can cross a river walking on leaves, and change men
+into beasts. Witches are not very common among the Dhanw&#257;rs. A witch, male or female, maybe detected by a sunken and gloomy
+appearance of the eyes, a passionate temperament, or by being found naked in a graveyard at night, as only a witch would go
+there to raise a corpse from the dead. The Dhanw&#257;rs eat nearly all kinds of food except beef and the leavings of others. They
+will take cooked food from the hands of Kawars, and the men also from Gonds, but not the women. In some places they will accept
+food from Br&#257;hmans, but not everywhere. They are not an impure caste, but usually live in a separate hamlet of their own,
+and are lower than the Gonds and Kawars, who will take water from them but not food. They are a very primitive people, and
+it is stated that at the census several of them left their huts and fled into the jungle, and were with difficulty induced
+to return. When an elder man dies his family usually abandon their hut, as it is believed that his spirit haunts it and causes
+death to any one who lives there.
+
+
+</p>
+</div>
+<div class="div2" id="d0e12551">
+<h3>11. Social rules.</h3>
+<p>A Kawar is always permitted to become a Dhanw&#257;r, and a woman of the Gond, Binjhw&#257;r and R&#257;wat tribes, if such a one is living
+with a Dhanw&#257;r, may be married to him with the approval of the tribe. She does not enjoy the full status of membership herself,
+but it is accorded to her children. When an outsider is to be admitted a <i>panch&#257;yat</i> of five Dhanw&#257;rs is assembled, one of whom must be of the M&#257;jhi sept. The members of the <i>panch&#257;yat</i> hold out their <a id="d0e12562"></a><span class="pagenum">[<a href="#d0e12562">499</a>]</span>right hands, palm upwards, one below the other, and beneath them the candidate and his wife place their hands. The M&#257;jhi pours
+water from a brass vessel on to the topmost hand, and it trickles down from one to the other on to those of the candidate
+and his wife. The blood of a slaughtered goat is mixed with the water in their palms and they sip it, and after giving a feast
+to the caste are considered as Dhanw&#257;rs. Permanent exclusion from caste is imposed only for living with a man or woman of
+another caste other than those who may become Dhanw&#257;rs, or for taking food from a member of an impure caste, the only ones
+which are lower than the Dhanw&#257;rs. Temporary exclusion for an indefinite period is awarded for an irregular connection between
+a Dhanw&#257;r man and woman, or of a Dhanw&#257;r with a Kawar, Binjhw&#257;r, R&#257;wat or Gond; on a family which harbours any one of its
+members who has been permanently expelled; and on a woman who cuts the navel-cord of a newly-born child, whether of her own
+caste or not. Irregular sexual intimacies are usually kept secret and condoned by marriage whenever possible. A person expelled
+for any of the above offences cannot claim readmission as a right. He must first please the members of the caste, and to do
+this he attends every caste feast without being invited, removes their leaf-plates with the leavings of food, and waits on
+them generally, and continually proffers his prayer for readmission. When the other Dhanw&#257;rs are satisfied with his long and
+faithful service they take him back into the community. Temporary exclusion from caste, with the penalty of one or more feasts
+for readmission, is imposed for killing a cow or a cat accidentally, or in the course of giving it a beating; for having a
+cow or bullock in one&#8217;s possession whose nostrils or ears get split; for getting maggots in a wound; for being beaten except
+by a Government official; for taking food from any higher caste other than those from whom food is accepted; and in the case
+of a woman for saying her husband&#8217;s name aloud. This list of offences shows that the Dhanw&#257;rs have almost completely adopted
+the Hindu code in social matters, while retaining their tribal religion. A person guilty of one of the above offences must
+have his or her head shaved by a barber, and make a pilgrimage to <a id="d0e12564"></a><span class="pagenum">[<a href="#d0e12564">500</a>]</span>the shrine of Narsingh N&#257;th in Bod&#257;s&#257;mar zam&#299;nd&#257;ri; after having accomplished this he is purified by one of the Sonw&#257;ni sept,
+being given water in which gold has been dipped to drink through a bamboo tube, and he provides usually three feasts for the
+caste-fellows.
+
+
+</p>
+</div>
+<div class="div2" id="d0e12566">
+<h3>12. Dress and tattooing.</h3>
+<p>The tribe dress in the somewhat primitive fashion prevalent in Chhatt&#299;sgarh, and there is nothing distinctive about their
+clothing. Women are tattooed at their parents&#8217; house before or just after marriage. It is said that the tattoo marks remain
+on the soul after death, and that she shows them to God, probably for purposes of identification. There is a saying, &#8216;All
+other pleasures are transient, but the tattoo marks are my companions through life.&#8217; A Dhanw&#257;r will not take water from a
+woman who is not tattooed.
+
+
+</p>
+</div>
+<div class="div2" id="d0e12571">
+<h3>13. Names of children.</h3>
+<p>Children are named on the <i>chathi</i> or sixth day after birth, and the parents always ascertain from a wise man whether the soul of any dead relative has been
+born again in the child so that they may name it after him. It is also thought that the sex may change in transmigration,
+for male children are sometimes named after women relatives and female after men. Mr. H&#299;ra L&#257;l notes the following instance
+of the names of four children in a family. The eldest was named after his grandfather; the second was called Bh&#257;lu or bear,
+as his maternal uncle who had been eaten by a bear was reborn in him; the third was called Gh&#257;si, the name of a low caste
+of grass-cutters, because the two children born before him had died; and the fourth was called Kausi, because the sorcerer
+could not identify the spirit of any relative as having been born again in him. The name Kausi is given to any one who cannot
+remember his sept, as in the saying, &#8216;<i lang="und">Bh&#363;le bis&#257;re kausi got</i>,&#8217; or &#8216;A man who has got no <i>got</i> belongs to the Kausi <i>got</i>.&#8217; Kausi is said to mean a stranger. Bad names are commonly given to avert ill-luck or premature death, as Boya, a liar; Labdu,
+one smeared with ashes; Marha, a corpse; or after some physical defect as Lati, one with clotted hair; Petwa, a stammerer;
+Lendra, shy; Ghundu, one who cannot walk; Ghunari, stunted; or from the place of birth, as Dongariha or Pah&#257;ru, born on a
+hill; Banjariha, born in brushwood, and so on. A man will not mention the names of his wife, his son&#8217;s wife or his <a id="d0e12588"></a><span class="pagenum">[<a href="#d0e12588">501</a>]</span>sister&#8217;s son&#8217;s wife, and a woman will not name her husband or his elder brother or parents. As already stated, a woman saying
+her husband&#8217;s name aloud is temporarily put out of caste, the Hindu custom being thus carried to extremes, as is often the
+case among the lower castes.
+
+
+</p>
+</div>
+<div class="div2" id="d0e12590">
+<h3>14. Occupation.</h3>
+<p>The tribe consider hunting to have been their proper calling, but many of them are now cultivators and labourers. They also
+make bamboo matting and large baskets for storing grain, but they will not make small bamboo baskets or fans, because this
+is the calling of the Turis, on whom the Dhanw&#257;r looks down. The women collect the leaves of <i>s&#257;l</i><a id="d0e12597src" href="#d0e12597" class="noteref">6</a> trees and sell them at the rate of about ten bundles for a pice (farthing) for use as <i>chongis</i> or leaf-pipes. As already stated, the tribe have no language of their own, but speak a corrupt form of Chhatt&#299;sgarhi.
+
+
+
+<a id="d0e12604"></a><span class="pagenum">[<a href="#d0e12604">502</a>]</span></p>
+</div>
+<div class="footnotes">
+<hr class="fnsep">
+<p class="footnote"><span class="label"><a id="d0e12409" href="#d0e12409src" class="noteref">1</a></span> This article is based almost entirely on a monograph by Mr. Jeor&#257;khan L&#257;l, Deputy Inspector of Schools, Bil&#257;spur.
+</p>
+<p class="footnote"><span class="label"><a id="d0e12417" href="#d0e12417src" class="noteref">2</a></span> <i>Grewia vestita.</i></p>
+<p class="footnote"><span class="label"><a id="d0e12471" href="#d0e12471src" class="noteref">3</a></span> The term brother&#8217;s brother-in-law is abusive in the same sense as brother-in-law (<i>s&#257;la</i>) said by a man.
+</p>
+<p class="footnote"><span class="label"><a id="d0e12507" href="#d0e12507src" class="noteref">4</a></span> See commencement of this article.
+</p>
+<p class="footnote"><span class="label"><a id="d0e12532" href="#d0e12532src" class="noteref">5</a></span> <i>Cynodon dactylon.</i></p>
+<p class="footnote"><span class="label"><a id="d0e12597" href="#d0e12597src" class="noteref">6</a></span> <i>Shorea robusta.</i></p>
+</div>
+</div>
+<div id="d0e12605" class="div1"><span class="pagenum">
+[<a href="#d0e111">Contents</a>]
+</span><h2>Dh&#299;mar<a id="d0e12608src" href="#d0e12608" class="noteref">1</a></h2>
+<h3>List of Paragraphs</h3>
+<ul>
+<li><a href="#d0e12678">1. General notice.</a></li>
+<li><a href="#d0e12697">2. Subcastes.</a></li>
+<li><a href="#d0e12717">3. Exogamous groups.</a></li>
+<li><a href="#d0e12727">4. Marriage.</a></li>
+<li><a href="#d0e12746">5. Childbirth</a></li>
+<li><a href="#d0e12762">6. Disposal of the dead.</a></li>
+<li><a href="#d0e12774">7. Religion.</a></li>
+<li><a href="#d0e12803">8. Occupation: fisherman.</a></li>
+<li><a href="#d0e12821">9. Water-carrier.</a></li>
+<li><a href="#d0e12835">10. Palanquin-bearer and personal servant.</a></li>
+<li><a href="#d0e12865">11. Other occupations.</a></li>
+<li><a href="#d0e12880">12. Social status.</a></li>
+<li><a href="#d0e12913">13. Legend of the caste.</a></li>
+</ul>
+<div class="div2" id="d0e12678">
+<h3>1. General notice.</h3>
+<p><b>Dh&#299;mar, Kah&#257;r, Bhoi, P&#257;lew&#257;r, Baraua, Machhandar.</b>&#8212;The caste of fishermen and palanquin-bearers. In 1911 the Dh&#299;mars numbered 284,000 persons in the Central Provinces and Ber&#257;r,
+being most numerous in the Mar&#257;tha Districts. In the north of the Province we find in place of the Dh&#299;mars the Kah&#257;rs and
+Mull&#257;hs, and in the east or Chhatt&#299;sgarh country the Kewats. But the distinction between these castes is no more than nominal,
+for in some localities both Kah&#257;r and Kewat are returned as subcastes of Dh&#299;mar. In some parts of India the Bhois and Dh&#299;mars
+are considered as separate castes, but in the Central Provinces they are not to be distinguished, both names being applied
+indiscriminately to the same persons. The name of Bhoi perhaps belongs more particularly to those who carry litters or palanquins,
+and that of Dh&#299;mar to the fishermen. The word Dh&#299;mar is a corruption of the Sanskrit Dh&#299;vara, a fisherman. Bhoi is a South
+Indian word (Telugu and Malayalam <i>boyi</i>, Tamil <i>bovi</i>), and in the Konkan people of this class are known as Kah&#257;r Bhui. Among the Gonds Bhoi is considered <a id="d0e12691"></a><span class="pagenum">[<a href="#d0e12691">503</a>]</span>as an honorific name or title; and this indicates that a large number of Gonds have become enrolled in the Dh&#299;mar or Kah&#257;r
+caste, and consider it a rise in status. P&#257;lew&#257;r is the name of the Telugu fishermen of Ch&#257;nda. Machhandar signifies one who
+catches fish.
+
+
+</p>
+<div id="d0e12693" class="figure"><img border="0" src="images/p502.jpg" alt="Dh&#299;mar or fisherman&#8217;s hut." width="720" height="435"><p class="figureHead">Dh&#299;mar or fisherman&#8217;s hut.</p>
+</div><p>
+
+
+
+</p>
+</div>
+<div class="div2" id="d0e12697">
+<h3>2. Subcastes.</h3>
+<p>The caste has a large number of subdivisions of a local or occupational nature; among occupational names may be mentioned
+the Singaria or those who cultivate the <i>sing&#257;ra</i> nut, the Nadha or those who live on the banks of streams, the T&#257;nkiw&#257;las or sharpeners of grindstones, the Jh&#299;ngas or prawn-catchers,
+the Bansias and Saraias or anglers (from <i>bansi</i> or <i>sarai</i>, a bamboo fishing-rod), the Bandhaiyas or those who make ropes and sacking of hemp and fibre, and the Dhurias who sell parched
+rice. These last say that their original ancestors were created by Mah&#257;deo out of a handful of dust (<i>dh&#363;r</i>) for carrying the palanquin of P&#257;rvati when she was tired. They are probably the same people as the Dhuris who also parch
+grain, and in Chhatt&#299;sgarh are considered as a separate caste. Similarly the Sonjhara Dh&#299;mars wash for gold, the calling of
+the separate Sonjhara caste. The Kasdhonia Dh&#299;mars wash the sands of the sacred rivers to find the coins which pious pilgrims
+frequently drop or throw into the river as an offering when they bathe in it. The Gondia subcaste is clearly an offshoot from
+the Gond tribe, but a large proportion of the whole caste in the Central Provinces is probably derived from the Gonds or Kols,
+members of this latter tribe being especially proficient as palanquin-bearers. The Suvarha subcaste is named after the <i>suar</i> or pig, because members of this subcaste breed and eat the unclean animal; they are looked down on by the others. Similarly
+the Gadhew&#257;le Dh&#299;mars keep donkeys, and are despised by the other subcastes who will not take food from them. They use donkeys
+for carrying loads of wood, and the bridegroom rides to his wedding on this animal; and among them a donkey is the only animal
+the corpse of which can be touched without conveying pollution. The Bhan&#257;re Dh&#299;mars appear to be named after the town of Bhand&#257;ra.
+
+
+</p>
+</div>
+<div class="div2" id="d0e12717">
+<h3>3. Exogamous groups.</h3>
+<p>A large number of exogamous groups are also returned, either of a titular or totemistic nature: such are B&#257;ghm&#257;r, a <a id="d0e12722"></a><span class="pagenum">[<a href="#d0e12722">504</a>]</span>tiger-slayer; Ojhwa, from Ojha, or sorcerer; Guru pahch&#257;n, one who knows his teacher; Midoia, a guardian of boundaries, from
+<i>med</i>, a boundary or border; Gidhwe, a vulture; Kolhe, or jackal; Gadhekh&#257;ya, a donkey-eater; and Kast&#363;re, musk; a few names are
+from towns or villages, as Tumsare from Tumsar, N&#257;gpurkar from N&#257;gpur; and a few from other castes as M&#257;dgi, Bhoyar, Pind&#257;ria
+from Pind&#257;ri, a freebooter; Gondia (Gond) and Gondhali; and Kachhw&#257;ha, a sept of R&#257;jp&#363;ts.
+
+
+</p>
+</div>
+<div class="div2" id="d0e12727">
+<h3>4. Marriage.</h3>
+<p>Marriage is prohibited between members of the same sept and also between first cousins. In many localities families do not
+intermarry so long as they remember any relationship to have existed between them. In Mandla, Mr. Govind Moreshwar states,
+the Nadha and Kehera subcastes do not intermarry; but if a man desires a girl of the other subcaste he can be admitted into
+it on giving a feast to the caste-fellows according to his means, and thus marry her. Two families may exchange daughters
+in marriage. A maiden who goes wrong with a man of the caste or of any higher caste may be readmitted to the community under
+penalty of a feast to the caste and of having a lock of her hair cut off. In the Hindust&#257;ni Districts women do not accompany
+the marriage procession, but in the Mar&#257;tha Districts they do. Among the Bhan&#257;ra Dh&#299;mars of Ch&#257;nda the wedding may be held
+either at the bride&#8217;s or the bridegroom&#8217;s house. In the former case a bride-price of Rs. 16 is paid, and in the latter one
+of Rs. 20, because the expenses of the bride&#8217;s family are increased if the wedding is held at her house. A custom exists among
+the poorer Dh&#299;mars in Ch&#257;nda of postponing the marriage ceremony to avoid expense; a man will thus simply take a girl for
+his wife, making a payment of Rs. 1&#8211;4 or twenty pence to her father and giving a feast to the community. She will then live
+in his house as his wife, and at some subsequent date, perhaps in old age, the religious ceremony will be held so that the
+couple may have been properly married before they die. In this fashion the weddings of grandparents, parents and children
+have all been celebrated simultaneously. The Singaria Dh&#299;mars of Chhindw&#257;ra grow <i>sing&#257;ra</i> or water-nut in tanks, and at their weddings a crocodile must be killed <a id="d0e12735"></a><span class="pagenum">[<a href="#d0e12735">505</a>]</span>and eaten. The Sonjharas or gold-washers must also have a crocodile, but they keep it alive and worship it, and when the ceremony
+is concluded let it go back again to the river. It is natural that castes whose avocations are connected with rivers and tanks
+should in a manner deify the most prominent or most ferocious animal contained in their waters. And the ceremonial eating
+of a sacred animal has been recorded among divers peoples all over the world. At a Dh&#299;mar marriage in Bhand&#257;ra a net is given
+to the bridegroom, and <i>sidori</i> or cooked food, tied in a piece of cloth, to the bride, and they walk out together as if going to a river to fish, but the
+bride&#8217;s brother comes up and stops them. After a wedding in Mandla they kill a pig and bury it before the door of the bridegroom&#8217;s
+house, covering it with earth, and the bride and bridegroom step over its body into the house. Widow-marriage is freely permitted;
+in Mandla the marriage of a widow may be held on the night of any day except Sunday, Tuesday and Saturday. Divorce is allowed,
+but is of rare occurrence. Adultery on the part of a wife will be frequently overlooked, and the extreme step of divorcing
+her is only taken if she creates a public scandal. In such a case the parties appear before a meeting of the caste, and the
+headman asks them whether they have determined to separate. He then breaks a straw in token of the disruption of the union,
+and the husband and wife must pronounce each other&#8217;s names in an audible voice.<a id="d0e12740src" href="#d0e12740" class="noteref">2</a> A fee of Rs. 1&#8211;4 is paid to the headman, and the divorce is completed.<a id="d0e12743src" href="#d0e12743" class="noteref">3</a> In some localities the woman&#8217;s bangles are also broken. In Jh&#257;nsi the fine for keeping a widow is ten rupees and for living
+with the wife of another man sixty rupees.
+
+
+</p>
+</div>
+<div class="div2" id="d0e12746">
+<h3>5. Childbirth</h3>
+<p>Children are named either on the day of birth or the twelfth day afterwards. The women place the child in a cradle, spreading
+boiled wheat and gram over its body, and after swinging it to and fro the name is given. Sweets or boiled wheat and gram are
+distributed to those present. In Ber&#257;r on the third day after a birth cakes of ju&#257;ri flour and buttermilk are distributed
+to other children; on the fifth <a id="d0e12751"></a><span class="pagenum">[<a href="#d0e12751">506</a>]</span>day the slab and roller used for grinding the household corn are washed, anointed and worshipped; on the twelfth day the child
+is named and shortly after this its head is shaved.<a id="d0e12753src" href="#d0e12753" class="noteref">4</a>
+
+
+</p>
+<div id="d0e12758" class="figure"><img border="0" src="images/p506.jpg" alt="Fishermen in dug-outs or hollowed tree trunks."><p class="figureHead">Fishermen in dug-outs or hollowed tree trunks.</p>
+</div><p>
+
+
+
+</p>
+</div>
+<div class="div2" id="d0e12762">
+<h3>6. Disposal of the dead.</h3>
+<p>The bodies of the dead are usually buried, cremation being beyond the means of Dh&#299;mars. Children whose ears have not been
+pierced are mourned only for one day, and others for ten days. When a body has been burnt the ashes are consigned to a tank
+or river on the third day, or if the third day be a Sunday or a Wednesday, then on the fifth day. In Ber&#257;r, Mr. Kitts remarks,<a id="d0e12767src" href="#d0e12767" class="noteref">5</a> the funeral ceremony of the Dh&#299;mars resembles that of the Gonds. After a burial the mourners repair to the deceased&#8217;s house
+to drink; and subsequently each fetches his own dinner and dines with the chief mourner. At this time he and his family are
+impure and the others cannot take food prepared by him; but ten days afterwards when the mourning is over and the chief mourner
+has bathed and shaved they again dine with him, and on the next day the caste is feasted. During the period of mourning a
+lighted lamp is daily placed outside the house. When the period of mourning expires all the clothes of the family are washed
+and their house is newly whitewashed. There is no subsequent annual performance of funeral rites as among the higher Hindus;
+but at the Akshayatritiya or commencement of the agricultural year the head of the household throws at each meal a little
+food into the fire, in honour of his dead ancestors.
+
+
+</p>
+</div>
+<div class="div2" id="d0e12774">
+<h3>7. Religion.</h3>
+<p>One of the principal deities of the Dh&#299;mars<a id="d0e12779src" href="#d0e12779" class="noteref">6</a> as of other low castes is Dulha Deo, the deified bridegroom. They fashion his image of <i>kadamb</i><a id="d0e12788src" href="#d0e12788" class="noteref">7</a> wood and besmear it with red lead. In Ber&#257;r they also pray to Anna P&#363;rna, the Corn-giving goddess of Madras corresponding
+to Durga or Devi, whose form with that of her horse is engraved on a brass plate and anointed with yellow and red turmeric.
+When about to enter a river or tank for fishing or other purposes they pray to the water-god to save them from being drowned
+or molested by its denizens. They address a river as Ganga Mai or &#8216;Mother Ganges&#8217; in order to <a id="d0e12792"></a><span class="pagenum">[<a href="#d0e12792">507</a>]</span>propitiate it by this flattery. Those who are employed on ferry-boats especially venerate Ghatoia<a id="d0e12794src" href="#d0e12794" class="noteref">8</a> Deo, the god of ferries and river-crossings. His shrine is near the place where the boats are tied up, and ferry contractors
+keep a live chicken in their boat to be offered to Ghatoia on the first occasion when the river is sufficiently in flood to
+be crossed by ferry after the breaking of the rains. Other local godlings are the Bare Purakh or Great men, a collective term
+for their deceased ancestors, of whom they make silver images; Parih&#257;r, the soul of the village priest; Baram Deo, the spirit
+of the banyan tree; and Gosain Deo, a deified ascetic. To the goddess Devi they offer a black she-goat which is eaten ceremonially,
+and when they have finished, the bones, skin and all the other remains of the animal are placed in a pit inside the house.
+If anything should fall into this pit it must be buried with the remains of the offering and not taken out. And they relate
+that on one occasion a child fell into the pit, and the parents, setting obedience to the law of the goddess above the life
+of their child, buried it alive. But next year when the sacrifice was again made and the pit was opened, the child was found
+in it alive and playing. So they say that the goddess will save the life of any one who is buried in the pit with her offering.
+When a widower marries a second time his wife sometimes wears a <i>t&#257;wiz</i> or amulet in the shape of a silver box containing charms round her neck in order to ward off the evil machinations of her
+predecessor&#8217;s spirit.
+
+
+</p>
+</div>
+<div class="div2" id="d0e12803">
+<h3>8. Occupation: fisherman.</h3>
+<p>The occupations of the Dh&#299;mar are many and various. He is primarily a fisherman and boatman, and has various kinds of nets
+for taking fish. One of these is of triangular shape about 150 feet wide at the base and 80 feet in height to the apex. The
+meshes vary from an inch wide at the top to three inches at the bottom. The ends of the base are weighted with stones and
+the net is then sunk into a river so that the base rests on its bed and the top is held by men in boats at the surface. Then
+other Dh&#299;mars beat the surface of the water for some distance with long bamboos on both sides of the net, driving the fish
+towards it. They <a id="d0e12808"></a><span class="pagenum">[<a href="#d0e12808">508</a>]</span>call this a <i>kheda</i>, the term used for a beat of the forest for game.
+
+</p>
+<p>Another method is to stretch a long rope or cord across the river, secured on either bank, with baited hooks attached to it
+at short intervals. It is left for some hours and then drawn in. When the river is shallow one wide-bottomed boat will be
+paddled up the stream and a line of men will wade on each side beating the water with bamboos so as to make the small fish
+jump into the boat. Or they put a little cotton-seed on a stone in shallow water, and when the fish collect to eat the seed
+a long circular net weighted with pieces of iron is let down over the stone. Then the upper end is drawn tight and the fishermen
+put their hands inside and seize the little fish. The Dh&#299;mar is also regularly employed as a worker on ferries. His primitive
+boat made from the hollowed trunk of a tree and sometimes lashed in couples for greater stability may still be seen on all
+rivers. He makes his own fishing-nets, knitting them on a stick at his leisure while he is walking along or sitting down to
+smoke and talk. He worships his fishing-nets at the Diw&#257;li festival, and his reverence for the knitted thread is such that
+he will not touch or wear a shoe made of thread, because he thinks that the sacred article is debased by being sewn into leather.
+When engaged in road-work the Dh&#299;mars have unsewn sandals secured to the feet with strips of leather. It is a special degradation
+to a Dh&#299;mar to be struck with a shoe. He has a monopoly of growing <i>sing&#257;ra</i><a id="d0e12817src" href="#d0e12817" class="noteref">9</a> or water-nuts in tanks. The fruit of this plant has a taste somewhat between a cocoanut and a potato, with a flavour of soap.
+It can be taken raw and is therefore a favourite comestible for fast days when cooked food is forbidden. It is also sold at
+railway stations and the fresh fruit is prescribed by village doctors as easy of digestion. The Dh&#299;mar grows melons, cucumbers
+and other vegetables on the sandy stretches along the banks of streams, but at agriculture proper he does not excel.
+
+
+</p>
+</div>
+<div class="div2" id="d0e12821">
+<h3>9. Water-carrier.</h3>
+<p>The Dh&#299;mar&#8217;s connection with water has led to his becoming the water-carrier for Hindus, or that section of the community
+which can afford to employ one. This is <a id="d0e12826"></a><span class="pagenum">[<a href="#d0e12826">509</a>]</span>more especially the case in the Hindust&#257;ni Districts where women are frequently secluded and therefore cannot draw water for
+the household, while in the Mar&#257;tha Districts where the women go to the well no water-bearer is required. In this capacity
+the Dh&#299;mar is usually the personal servant of the village proprietor, but in large villages every house has a <i>ghinochi</i>, either an earthen platform or wooden stand just outside the house, on which four or five earthen water-pots are kept. These
+the Dh&#299;mar fills up morning and evening and receives two or three annas or pence a month for doing so. He also brings water
+for Government servants when they come to the village, and cleans their cooking-vessels and prepares the hearth with fresh
+cowdung and water in order to cleanse it.
+
+</p>
+<p>If he cleans the m&#257;lguz&#257;r&#8217;s vessels he gets his food for doing so. When the tenants have marriages he performs the same duties
+for the whole wedding party and receives a present of one or two rupees and some clothes if the families are well off, and
+also his food every day while the marriage is in progress. In his capacity of waterman the title Baraua is used to him as
+an honorific method of address; and to his wife Baroni. In a hot country like India water is revered as the source of relief,
+comfort and life itself, like fire in cold countries, and the waterman participates in the regard paid to his element.
+
+</p>
+<p>Another business of the Dh&#299;mar&#8217;s is to take sweet potatoes and boiled plums to the fields at harvest-time and sell them. He
+supplies water for drinking to the reapers and receives three sheaves a day in payment. On the fifteenth of Jesth (May) the
+Dh&#299;mar goes round to the cultivators, throwing his fishing-net over their heads and receives a small present.
+
+
+</p>
+</div>
+<div class="div2" id="d0e12835">
+<h3>10. Palanquin-bearer and personal servant.</h3>
+<p>At the period prior to the introduction of wheeled transport when palanquins or litters were largely used for travelling,
+the carriers belonged to the Kah&#257;r caste in northern India and to the Dh&#299;mars or Bhois in the south. Though litters are now
+practically not used for travelling except occasionally by high-caste women, a survival of the old custom is retained in the
+marriage ceremony, the bride and bridegroom being always carried back from the marriage-shed to the temporary lodging of the
+bridegroom in a <i>p&#257;lki</i>, <a id="d0e12843"></a><span class="pagenum">[<a href="#d0e12843">510</a>]</span>though for the longer journey to the bridegroom&#8217;s village some less cumbrous conveyance is utilised. Four Dh&#299;mars carry the
+<i>p&#257;lki</i> and receive Rs. 1&#8211;4. Well-to-do people will be carried in procession round the town. When employed by the village proprietor
+the Dh&#299;mar accompanies him on his journey, carrying his cooking-vessels and other necessaries in a <i>banhgi</i> or wooden cross-bar slung across the shoulders, from which two baskets are suspended by loops of rope. Water he will always
+carry in a <i>banhgi</i> and never on his head or shoulders. From waterman and litter-carrier the Dh&#299;mar has become a personal servant; it is he to
+whom the term &#8216;bearer&#8217; as designating a body-servant was first applied because he bears or carries his master in a <i>p&#257;lki</i> and his clothes in a <i>banhgi</i>. He is commonly so employed in native houses, but rarely by Europeans, whether because he is too stupid or on account of
+caste objections of his own. When employed as a cook the Dh&#299;mar or his wife is permitted to knead flour with water and make
+it into a cake which the Br&#257;hman will then take and put on to the girdle with his own hands. He can also boil water and pour
+pulse into the cooking-pot from above so long as he does not touch the vessel after the food has been placed in it. He or
+she will also take any remains of food which is left in the cooking-pot as this is not considered to be polluted, food only
+becoming polluted when the hand touches it on the dish after having touched the mouth. When this has happened all the food
+on the dish becomes <i>j&#363;tha</i> or leavings of food, and as a general rule no caste except the sweepers will eat the leavings of food of another caste or
+of another person of their own. Only the wife, whose meal follows her husband&#8217;s, will eat his leavings. As a servant the Dh&#299;mar
+is very familiar with his master; he may enter any part of the house, including the cooking-place and the women&#8217;s rooms, and
+he addresses his mistress as &#8216;Mother.&#8217; In northern India Mr. Crooke states that the Kah&#257;rs are sometimes known as Mahra, from
+the Sanskrit Mahila, a woman, because they have the entry of the female apartments. When he lights his master&#8217;s pipe he takes
+the first pull himself to show that it has not been tampered with, and then presents it to him with his left hand placed under
+his <a id="d0e12863"></a><span class="pagenum">[<a href="#d0e12863">511</a>]</span>right elbow in token of respect. Maid-servants also frequently belong to the Dh&#299;mar caste, and it often happens that the master
+of the household has illicit intercourse with them. Hence there is a proverb, &#8216;The king&#8217;s son draws water and the water-bearer&#8217;s
+son sits on the throne,&#8217; similar intrigues on the part of high-born women with their servants being not unknown. The Dh&#299;mar
+often acts as a pimp, this being an incident of his profession of indoor servant.
+
+
+</p>
+</div>
+<div class="div2" id="d0e12865">
+<h3>11. Other occupations.</h3>
+<p>Another occupation of the Dh&#299;mar&#8217;s is to sell parched grain and rice to travellers in markets and railway stations like the
+Bharbh&#363;nja and Dhuri. This he can do because of his comparative social purity, as all castes will take water and cakes and
+sweetmeats from his hands. Some Dh&#299;mars and Kewats also weave hemp-matting and gunny-bags, but such members of the caste rank
+lower than the others and Br&#257;hmans will not take water from them. Another calling by which a few Dh&#299;mars find support is that
+of breeding pigs. One would think it a difficult matter to make a living out of the village pig, an animal abhorred by both
+Hindus and Muhammadans as the most unclean of the brute creation, and equally abjured by Europeans as unfit for food. But
+the pig is in considerable demand by the forest tribes for sacrifice to their deities. The Dh&#299;mar participates in the sacrifice
+to N&#257;r&#257;yan Deo described in the article on Mah&#257;r, when a pig is eaten in concert by several of the lower castes. Lastly, the
+business of rearing the cocoons of the tasar silk-worm is usually in the hands of Dh&#299;mars and Kewats. While the caterpillars
+are feeding on leaves and spinning their cocoons these men live in the forests for two months together and watch the <i>kosa-b&#257;ris</i> or silk-gardens, that is the blocks of trees which are set apart for the purpose of rearing the caterpillars. During this
+period they eat only once a day, abstain from meat and lentils, do not get shaved and do not visit their wives. When the eggs
+of the caterpillars are to be placed on the trees they tie a silk thread round the first tree to be used and worship it as
+P&#257;t Deo or the god of silk thread. On this subject Mr. Ball writes:<a id="d0e12873src" href="#d0e12873" class="noteref">10</a> &#8220;The trees which it is intended to stock are carefully pollarded before the rains, and in early spring the leaves are stocked
+<a id="d0e12878"></a><span class="pagenum">[<a href="#d0e12878">512</a>]</span>with young caterpillars which have been hatched in the houses. The men in charge erect wigwams and remain on the spot, isolated
+from their families, who regard them for the time being as unclean. During the daytime they have full occupation in guarding
+the large green caterpillars from the attacks of kites and other birds. The cocoons are collected soon after they are spun
+and boiled in a lye of wood-ash, and the extracted chrysalids must then be eaten by the caretakers, who have to undergo certain
+ceremonial rites before they are readmitted into the society of their fellows. The effect of the boiling in the lye is the
+removal of the glutinous matter, which renders it possible to wind off the silk.&#8221; The eating of the caterpillars is no doubt
+a ceremonial observance like that of the crocodile at weddings. They are killed by the boiling of the cocoons and on this
+account members of good castes will not engage in the business of rearing them. The abstention from conjugal intimacy while
+engaged in some important business is a very common phenomenon.
+
+
+</p>
+</div>
+<div class="div2" id="d0e12880">
+<h3>12. Social status.</h3>
+<p>The social status of the Dh&#299;mar is somewhat peculiar. Owing to his employment as palanquin-bearer, cook and household servant
+he has been promoted to the group of castes who are ceremonially clean, so that Br&#257;hmans in northern India will take water
+and food cooked in butter from his hands. But by origin he no doubt belongs to the primitive or non-Aryan tribes, a fact which
+he shows by his appearance and also by his customs. In diet he is the reverse of fastidious, eating crocodiles, tortoises
+and crabs, and also pork in the Mar&#257;tha Districts, though in the north where he is employed by Br&#257;hmans as a personal servant
+he abstains from this food. With all this, however, the Dh&#299;mars practise in some social matters a pharasaical strictness.
+In Jubbulpore Mr. Pancham L&#257;l records that among the four subcastes of Rekw&#257;r, Bant, Barmaian and Pabeha a woman of one subcaste
+will not partake of any food cooked by one of another division. A man will take any kind of food cooked by a man of another
+subcaste, but from a woman only such as is not mixed with water. A woman will drink the water held in the metal vessel of
+a woman of another division, but not in an earthen vessel; and in a metal vessel only provided <a id="d0e12885"></a><span class="pagenum">[<a href="#d0e12885">513</a>]</span>that it is brought straight from the well and not taken from the <i>ghinochi</i> or water-stand of such woman&#8217;s house. A man will take water to drink from the metal or earthen vessel of any other Dh&#299;mar,
+male or female. In Ber&#257;r again Mr. Kitts states<a id="d0e12890src" href="#d0e12890" class="noteref">11</a> that a Bhoi considers it pollution to eat or drink at the house of a Loh&#257;r (blacksmith), a Sut&#257;r (carpenter), a Bh&#257;t (bard),
+a washerman or a barber; he will not even carry their palanquins at a marriage.
+
+</p>
+<p>Once a year at the Muharram festival the Dh&#299;mars will eat at the hands of Muhammadans. They go round and beg for offerings
+of food and take them to the Fak&#299;r, who places a little before the <i>t&#257;zia</i> or tomb of Husain and distributes the remainder to the Dh&#299;mars and other Hindus and Muhammadans who have been begging. Except
+on this occasion they will eat nothing touched by a Muhammadan. The Dh&#299;mar, the Nai or barber, and the B&#257;ri or indoor servant
+are the three household menials of the northern Districts, and are known as Pauni Parja. Sometimes the Ah&#299;r or grazier is
+an indoor servant and takes the place of the Dh&#299;mar or the B&#257;ri. These menials are admitted to the wedding and other family
+feasts and allowed to eat at them. They sit in a line apart from the members of the caste and one member of the family is
+deputed to wait on them. Their food is brought to them in separate dishes and no food from these dishes is served to guests
+of the caste.
+
+</p>
+<p>Permanent expulsion<a id="d0e12902src" href="#d0e12902" class="noteref">12</a> from caste is inflicted only for marrying, or eating regularly, with a man or woman of some other low caste; but in the case
+of unmarried persons the latter offence may also be expiated. Temporary exclusion is imposed for killing a cat, dog or squirrel,
+getting maggots in a wound, being sentenced to imprisonment<a id="d0e12905src" href="#d0e12905" class="noteref">13</a> or committing adultery with a person of any low caste. One who has <a id="d0e12908"></a><span class="pagenum">[<a href="#d0e12908">514</a>]</span>committed any of the above offences must be purified by the Batta of the caste, that is a person who takes the sins of others
+upon himself. The Batta conducts the culprit to a river and then causes him to bathe, cuts off a lock of his hair, breaks
+a cocoanut as a sacrifice, and gives him a little cowdung and milk to eat. Then they proceed to eat together; the Batta eats
+five mouthfuls first and declares that he has taken the sin of the offender on himself; the latter gives the Batta Rs. 1&#8211;4
+as his fee, and is once more a proper member of the community. In Ber&#257;r a Bhoi who has been put out of caste is received back
+by his fellows when he has drunk the water touched by a Br&#257;hman&#8217;s toe, and has feasted them with a bout of liquor. In towns
+the caste are generally addicted to drink, and no marriage or other social function is held without a sufficient supply of
+liquor. They also smoke <i>g&#257;nja</i> (Indian hemp).
+
+
+</p>
+</div>
+<div class="div2" id="d0e12913">
+<h3>13. Legend of the caste.</h3>
+<p>The Dh&#299;mars are proverbially of a cheerful disposition, though simple and easily cheated. When carrying <i>p&#257;lkis</i> or litters at night they talk continually or sing monotonous songs to lighten the tedium of the way. In illustration of these
+qualities the following story is told: One day when Mah&#257;deo and P&#257;rvati were travelling the goddess became very tired, so
+Mah&#257;deo created four men from the dust, who bore her in a litter. On the way they talked and laughed, and P&#257;rvati was very
+pleased with them, so when she got home she told them to wait while she sent them out a reward. The Bhois found that they
+could get plenty of liquor, so they went on drinking it and forgot all about going for the reward. In the meantime a M&#257;rw&#257;ri
+Bania who had heard what the goddess said, waited at the door of the palace, and when the servants brought out a bag of money
+he pretended that he was one of the Bhois and got them to give him the money, with which he made off. After a time the Bhois
+remembered about the reward and went to the door of the palace to get it, when the goddess came out and found out what had
+happened. The Bhois then wept and asked for another reward, but the goddess refused and said that as they had been so stupid
+their caste would always be poor, but at the same time they would be cheerful and happy.
+
+
+
+<a id="d0e12921"></a><span class="pagenum">[<a href="#d0e12921">515</a>]</span></p>
+</div>
+<div class="footnotes">
+<hr class="fnsep">
+<p class="footnote"><span class="label"><a id="d0e12608" href="#d0e12608src" class="noteref">1</a></span> This article is based partly on papers by Mr. Govind Moreshwar, Head Clerk, Mandla, and Mr. Pancham L&#257;l, Naib-Tahs&#299;ld&#257;r, Sihora.
+Much of the interesting information about the occupations of the caste was given to the writer by B&#257;bu K&#257;li Prasanna Mukerji,
+Pleader, Saugor.
+</p>
+<p class="footnote"><span class="label"><a id="d0e12740" href="#d0e12740src" class="noteref">2</a></span> As a rule a husband and wife never address each other by name.
+</p>
+<p class="footnote"><span class="label"><a id="d0e12743" href="#d0e12743src" class="noteref">3</a></span> Among Hindus it is customary to give a little more than the proper sum on ceremonial occasions in order to show that there
+is no stint. Thus Rs. 1&#8211;4 is paid instead of a rupee.
+</p>
+<p class="footnote"><span class="label"><a id="d0e12753" href="#d0e12753src" class="noteref">4</a></span> <i>Ber&#257;r Census Report</i> (1881), p. 133.
+</p>
+<p class="footnote"><span class="label"><a id="d0e12767" href="#d0e12767src" class="noteref">5</a></span> <i>Ibidem</i>, <i>l.c.</i></p>
+<p class="footnote"><span class="label"><a id="d0e12779" href="#d0e12779src" class="noteref">6</a></span> <i>Ibidem</i>, <i>l.c.</i></p>
+<p class="footnote"><span class="label"><a id="d0e12788" href="#d0e12788src" class="noteref">7</a></span> <i>Anthocephalus kadamba.</i></p>
+<p class="footnote"><span class="label"><a id="d0e12794" href="#d0e12794src" class="noteref">8</a></span> From <i>gh&#257;t</i>, a steep hillside or slope; hence a river-crossing because of the banks sloping down to it.
+</p>
+<p class="footnote"><span class="label"><a id="d0e12817" href="#d0e12817src" class="noteref">9</a></span> <i>Trapa bispinosa.</i></p>
+<p class="footnote"><span class="label"><a id="d0e12873" href="#d0e12873src" class="noteref">10</a></span> <i>Jungle Life in India</i>, p. 137.
+</p>
+<p class="footnote"><span class="label"><a id="d0e12890" href="#d0e12890src" class="noteref">11</a></span> <i>Ber&#257;r Census Report</i> (1881), p. 132.
+</p>
+<p class="footnote"><span class="label"><a id="d0e12902" href="#d0e12902src" class="noteref">12</a></span> The following notice of caste offences is from Mr. Govind Moreshwar&#8217;s paper.
+</p>
+<p class="footnote"><span class="label"><a id="d0e12905" href="#d0e12905src" class="noteref">13</a></span> Not probably on account of the commission of a crime, but because being sentenced to imprisonment involves the eating of ceremonially
+impure food. These rules are common to most Hindu castes, and the Dh&#299;mars are taken only as a typical example. They seem to
+have little or no connection with ordinary morality. But in Jh&#257;nsi Mr. Crooke remarks that a Kah&#257;r is put out of caste for
+theft in his master&#8217;s house. This again, however, might be considered as an offence against the community, tending to lower
+their corporate character in their business, and as such deserving of social punishment.
+</p>
+</div>
+</div>
+<div id="d0e12922" class="div1"><span class="pagenum">
+[<a href="#d0e111">Contents</a>]
+</span><h2>Dhoba</h2>
+<h3>List of Paragraphs</h3>
+<ul>
+<li><a href="#d0e12958">1. General notice.</a></li>
+<li><a href="#d0e12970">2. Exogamous divisions.</a></li>
+<li><a href="#d0e12983">3. Marriage customs.</a></li>
+<li><a href="#d0e12988">4. Funeral rites.</a></li>
+<li><a href="#d0e12998">5. Caste <i>panch&#257;yat</i> and social penalties.</a></li>
+<li><a href="#d0e13012">6. Occupation and social customs.</a></li>
+</ul>
+<div class="div2" id="d0e12958">
+<h3>1. General notice.</h3>
+<p><b>Dhoba.</b><a id="d0e12964src" href="#d0e12964" class="noteref">1</a>&#8212;A small caste belonging to the Mandla District and apparently an offshoot from one of the primitive tribes. They have never
+been separately classified at the census but always amalgamated with the Dhobi or washerman caste. But the Mandla Dhobas acknowledge
+no connection with Dhobis, nor has any been detected. One Dhoba has indeed furnished a story to the Rev. E. Price that the
+first ancestor of the caste was a foundling boy, by appearance of good lineage, who was brought up by some Dhobis, and, marrying
+a Dhobi girl, made a new caste. But this is not sufficient to demonstrate the common origin of the Dhobas and Dhobis. The
+Dhobas reside principally in a few villages in the upper valley of the Burhner River, and members of the caste own two or
+three villages. They are dark in complexion and have, though in a less degree, the flat features, coarse nose and receding
+forehead of the Gond; but they are taller in stature and not so strongly built, and are much less capable of exertion.
+
+
+</p>
+</div>
+<div class="div2" id="d0e12970">
+<h3>2. Exogamous divisions.</h3>
+<p>The caste has twelve exogamous septs, though the list is probably not complete. These appear to be derived from the names
+of villages. Marriage is forbidden between the B&#257;ghm&#257;r and B&#257;ghcharia septs, the Mar&#257;tha and Khatn&#257;gar and Mar&#257;lwati septs
+and the Sonw&#257;ni and <a id="d0e12975"></a><span class="pagenum">[<a href="#d0e12975">516</a>]</span>Sonsonw&#257;ni septs. These septs are said to have been subdivided and to be still related. The names B&#257;ghm&#257;r and B&#257;ghcharia are
+both derived from the tiger; Sonnw&#257;ni is from Sona-p&#257;ni or gold-water, and the Sonsonw&#257;ni sept seems therefore to be the aristocratic
+branch or <i>cr&ecirc;me de la cr&ecirc;me</i> of the Sonw&#257;nis. The children of brothers and sisters may marry but not those of two sisters, because a man&#8217;s maternal aunt
+or <i>mausi</i> is considered as equivalent to his mother. A man may also marry his step-sister on the mother&#8217;s side, that is the daughter
+of his own mother by another husband either prior to or subsequent to his father, the step-sister being of a different sept.
+This relaxation may have been permitted on account of the small numbers of the caste and the consequent difficulty of arranging
+marriages.
+
+
+</p>
+</div>
+<div class="div2" id="d0e12983">
+<h3>3. Marriage customs.</h3>
+<p>The bridegroom goes to the bride&#8217;s house for the wedding, which is conducted according to the Hindu ritual of walking round
+the sacred post. The cost of a marriage in a fairly well-to-do family, including the betrothal, may be about Rs. 140, of which
+a quarter falls on the bride&#8217;s people. Divorce and the remarriage of widows are permitted. A pregnant woman stops working
+after six months and goes into retirement. After a birth the woman is impure for five or six days. She does not appear in
+public for a month, and takes no part in outdoor occupations or field-work until the child is weaned, that is six months after
+its birth.
+
+
+</p>
+</div>
+<div class="div2" id="d0e12988">
+<h3>4. Funeral rites.</h3>
+<p>The dead are usually buried, and all members of the dead man&#8217;s sept are considered to be impure. After the funeral they bathe
+and come home and have their food cooked for them by other Dhobas, partaking of it in the dead man&#8217;s house. On the ninth,
+eleventh or thirteenth day, when the impurity ends, the male members of the sept are shaved on the bank of a river and the
+hair is left lying there. When they start home they spread some thorns and two stones across the path. Then, as the first
+man steps over the thorns, he takes up one of the stones in his hand and passes it behind him to the second, and each man
+successively passes it back as he steps over the thorns, the last man throwing the stone behind the thorns. Thus the dead
+man&#8217;s spirit in the shape of the stone is separated from <a id="d0e12993"></a><span class="pagenum">[<a href="#d0e12993">517</a>]</span>the living and prevented from accompanying them home. Then a feast is held, all the men of the dead man&#8217;s sept sitting opposite
+to the <i>panch&#257;yat</i> at a distance of three feet. Next day water in which gold has been dipped is thrown over the dead man&#8217;s house and each member
+of the sept drinks a little and is pure.
+
+
+</p>
+</div>
+<div class="div2" id="d0e12998">
+<h3>5. Caste <i>panch&#257;yat</i> and social penalties.
+</h3>
+<p>The head of the caste is always a member of the Sonw&#257;ni sept and is known as R&#257;ja. It is his business to administer water
+in which gold has been dipped (<i>sona-p&#257;ni</i>) to offenders as a means of purification, and from this the name of the sept is derived. The R&#257;ja has no deputy, and officiates
+in all ceremonies of the caste; he receives no contribution from the caste, but a double share of food and sweetmeats when
+they are distributed. The other members of the Panch he is at liberty to choose from any <i>got</i> or sept he likes. When a man has been put out of caste for a serious offence he has to give three feasts for readmission.
+The first meal consists of a goat with rice and pulse, and is eaten on the bank of a stream; on this occasion the head of
+the offender is shaved clean and all the hair thrown into the stream. The second meal is eaten in the yard of his house, and
+consists of cakes fried in butter with rice and pulse. The offender is not allowed to partake of either the first or second
+meal. On the third day the R&#257;ja gives the offender gold-water, and he is then considered to be purified and cooks food himself,
+which the caste-people eat with him in his house. A man is not put out of caste when he is sent to jail, as this is considered
+to be an order of the Government. A man keeping a woman of another caste is expelled and not reinstated until he has put her
+away, and even then it is said that they will consider his character before taking him back. A man who gets maggots in a wound
+may be readmitted to caste only during the months of Chait and P&#363;s.
+
+
+</p>
+</div>
+<div class="div2" id="d0e13012">
+<h3>6. Occupation and social customs.</h3>
+<p>The Dhobas act as priests of the Gonds and are also cultivators. Their social position is distinctly higher than that of the
+Gonds and some of them have begun to employ Br&#257;hmans for their ceremonies. They will eat the flesh of most animals, except
+those of the cow-tribe, and also field-mice, and most of them drink liquor, though the more prominent <a id="d0e13017"></a><span class="pagenum">[<a href="#d0e13017">518</a>]</span>members have begun to abstain. The origin of the caste is very obscure, but it would appear that they must be an offshoot
+of one of the Dravidian tribes. In this connection it is interesting to note that Chhatt&#299;sgarh contains a large number of
+Dhobis, though the people of this tract have until recently worn little in the way of clothing, and usually wash it themselves
+when this operation is judged necessary. Many of the Dhobis of Chhatt&#299;sgarh are cultivators, and it seems possible that a
+proportion of them may also really belong to this Dhoba caste.
+
+
+
+<a id="d0e13019"></a><span class="pagenum">[<a href="#d0e13019">519</a>]</span></p>
+</div>
+<div class="footnotes">
+<hr class="fnsep">
+<p class="footnote"><span class="label"><a id="d0e12964" href="#d0e12964src" class="noteref">1</a></span> This article is partly based on an account of the caste furnished by Mr. H. F. E. Bell and drawn up by Mr. F. R. R. Rudman
+in the <i>Mandla District Gazetteer</i>.
+</p>
+</div>
+</div>
+<div id="d0e13020" class="div1"><span class="pagenum">
+[<a href="#d0e111">Contents</a>]
+</span><h2>Dhobi</h2>
+<h3>List of Paragraphs</h3>
+<ul>
+<li><a href="#d0e13066">1. Character and structure of the caste.</a></li>
+<li><a href="#d0e13084">2. Marriage customs.</a></li>
+<li><a href="#d0e13109">3. Other social customs.</a></li>
+<li><a href="#d0e13114">4. Religion.</a></li>
+<li><a href="#d0e13127">5. Occupation: washing clothes.</a></li>
+<li><a href="#d0e13172">6. Social position.</a></li>
+<li><a href="#d0e13221">7. Proverbs about the Dhobi.</a></li>
+<li><a href="#d0e13242">8. Wearing and lending the clothes of customers.</a></li>
+</ul>
+<div class="div2" id="d0e13066">
+<h3>1. Character and structure of the caste.</h3>
+<p><b>Dhobi, W&#257;rthi, Baretha, Chakla, Rajak, Parit.</b>&#8212;The professional caste of washermen. The name is derived from the Hindi <i>dhona</i>, and the Sanskrit <i>dhav</i>, to wash. W&#257;rthi is the Mar&#257;tha name for the caste, and Bareth or Baretha is an honorific or complimentary term of address.
+Rajak and Parit are synonyms, the latter being used in the Mar&#257;tha Districts. The Chakla caste of Madras are leather-workers,
+but in Ch&#257;nda a community of persons is found who are known as Chakla and are professional washermen. In 1911 the Dhobis numbered
+165,000 persons in the Central Provinces and Ber&#257;r, or one to every hundred inhabitants. They are numerous in the Districts
+with large towns and also in Chhatt&#299;sgarh, where, like the Dhobas of Bengal, they have to a considerable extent abandoned
+their hereditary profession and taken to cultivation and other callings. No account worth reproduction has been obtained of
+the origin of the caste. In the Central Provinces it is purely functional, as is shown by its subdivisions; these are generally
+of a territorial nature, and indicate that the Dhobis like the other professional castes have come here from all parts of
+the country. Instances of the subcastes are: Baonia and Ber&#257;ria from Ber&#257;r; M&#257;lwi, Bundelkhandi, Nim&#257;ria, Kanaujia, Udaipuria
+from Udaipur; Madrasi, Dharampuria from Dharampur, and so on. A separate subcaste is formed of <a id="d0e13079"></a><span class="pagenum">[<a href="#d0e13079">520</a>]</span>Muhammadan Dhobis. The exogamous groups known as <i>khero</i> are of the usual low-caste type, taking their names from villages or titular or professional terms.
+
+
+</p>
+</div>
+<div class="div2" id="d0e13084">
+<h3>2. Marriage customs.</h3>
+<p>Marriage within the <i>khero</i> is prohibited and also the union of first cousins. It is considered disgraceful to accept a price for a bride, and it is
+said that this is not done even by the parents of poor girls, but the caste will in such cases raise a subscription to defray
+the expenses of her marriage. In the northern Districts the marriages of Dhobis are characterised by continuous singing and
+dancing at the houses of the bridegroom and bride, these performances being known as <i>sajnai</i> and <i>birha</i>. Some man also puts on a long coat, tight down to the waist and loose round the hips, to have the appearance of a dancing-girl,
+and dances before the party, while two or three other men play. Mr. Crooke considers that this ritual, which is found also
+among other low castes, resembles the European custom of the False Bride and is intended to divert the evil eye from the real
+bride. He writes:<a id="d0e13098src" href="#d0e13098" class="noteref">1</a> &#8220;Now there are numerous customs which have been grouped in Europe under the name of the False Bride. Thus among the Esthonians
+the false bride is enacted by the bride&#8217;s brother dressed in woman&#8217;s clothes; in Polonia by a bearded man called the Wilde
+Braut; in Poland by an old woman veiled in white and lame; again among the Esthonians by an old woman with a brickwork crown;
+in Brittany, where the substitutes are first a little girl, then the mistress of the house, and lastly the grandmother.
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;The supposition may then be hazarded in the light of the Indian examples that some one assumes on this occasion the part
+of the bride in order to divert on himself from her the envious glance of the evil eye.&#8221; Any further information on this interesting
+custom would be welcome.
+
+</p>
+<p>The remarriage of widows is allowed, and in Bet&#363;l the bridegroom goes to the widow&#8217;s house on a dark night wrapped up in a
+black blanket, and presents the widow with new clothes and bangles, and spangles and red lead for the forehead. Divorce is
+permitted with the approval of the caste headman by the execution of a deed on stamped paper.
+<a id="d0e13107"></a><span class="pagenum">[<a href="#d0e13107">521</a>]</span>
+
+
+</p>
+</div>
+<div class="div2" id="d0e13109">
+<h3>3. Other social customs.</h3>
+<p>After a birth the mother is allowed no food for some days except country sugar and dates. The child is given some honey and
+castor-oil for the first two days and is then allowed to suckle the mother. A pit is dug inside the lying-in room, and in
+this are deposited water and the first cuttings of the nails and hair of the child. It is filled up and on her recovery the
+mother bows before it, praying for similar safe deliveries in future and for the immunity of the child from physical ailments.
+After the birth of a male child the mother is impure for seven days and for five days after that of a female.
+
+
+</p>
+</div>
+<div class="div2" id="d0e13114">
+<h3>4. Religion.</h3>
+<p>The principal deity of the Dhobis is Ghatoia, the god of the <i>gh&#257;t</i> or landing-place on the river to which they go to wash their clothes. Libations of liquor are made to him in the month of
+As&#257;rh (June), when the rains break and the rivers begin to be flooded. Before entering the water to wash the clothes they
+bow to the stone on which these are beaten out, asking that their work may be quickly finished; and they also pray to the
+river deity to protect them from snakes and crocodiles. They worship the stone on the Dasahra festival, making an offering
+to it of flowers, turmeric and cooked food. The Dhobi&#8217;s washing-stone is believed to be haunted by the ghosts of departed
+Dhobis when revisiting the glimpses of the moon, and is held to have magical powers. If a man requires a love-charm he should
+steal a <i>sup&#257;ri</i> or areca-nut from the baz&#257;r at night or on the occasion of an eclipse. The same night he goes to the Dhobi&#8217;s stone and sets
+the nut upon it. He breaks an egg and a cocoanut over the stone and burns incense before it. Then he takes the nut away and
+gives it to the woman of his fancy, wrapped up in betel-leaf, and she will love him. Their chief festivals are the Holi and
+Diw&#257;li, at which they drink a great deal. The dead are buried or burnt as may be convenient, and mourning is observed for
+three days only, the family being purified on the Sunday or Wednesday following the death. They have a caste committee whose
+president is known as Mehtar, while other officials are the Chaudhri or vice-president, and the Badkur, who appoints dates
+for the penal feasts and issues the summons to the caste-fellows. These posts are hereditary and their holders <a id="d0e13125"></a><span class="pagenum">[<a href="#d0e13125">522</a>]</span>receive presents of a rupee and a cloth when members of the caste have to give expiatory feasts.
+
+
+</p>
+</div>
+<div class="div2" id="d0e13127">
+<h3>5. Occupation: washing clothes.</h3>
+<p>Before washing his clothes the Dhobi steams them,<a id="d0e13132src" href="#d0e13132" class="noteref">2</a> hanging them in a bundle for a time over a cauldron of boiling water. After this he takes them to a stream or pond and washes
+them roughly with fuller&#8217;s earth. The washerman steps nearly knee-deep into the water, and taking a quantity of clothes by
+one end in his two hands he raises them aloft in the air and brings them down heavily upon a huge stone slab, grooved, at
+his feet. This threshing operation he repeats until his clothes are perfectly clean. In Saugor the clothes are rubbed with
+wood-ashes at night and beaten out in water with a stick in the morning. Silk clothes are washed with the nut of the <i>r&#299;tha</i> tree (<i>Sapindus emarginatus</i>) which gives a lather like soap. Sir H. Risley writes of the Dacca washermen:<a id="d0e13144src" href="#d0e13144" class="noteref">3</a> &#8220;For washing muslins and other coloured garments well or spring water is alone used; but if the articles are the property
+of a poor man or are commonplace, the water of the nearest tank or river is accounted sufficiently good. Indigo is in as general
+use as in England for removing the yellowish tinge and whitening the material. The water of the wells and springs bordering
+on the red laterite formation on the north of the city has been for centuries celebrated, and the old bleaching fields of
+the European factories were all situated in this neighbourhood. Various plants are used by the Dhobis to clarify water such
+as the <i>nirmali</i> (<i>Strychnos potatorum</i>), the <i>piu</i> (<i>Basella</i>), the <i>n&#257;gphani</i> (<i>Cactus indicus</i>) and several plants of the mallow family. Alum, though not much valued, is sometimes used.&#8221; In most Districts of the Central
+Provinces the Dhobi is employed as a village servant and is paid by annual contributions of grain from the cultivators. For
+ordinary washing he gets half as much as the blacksmith or carpenter, or 13 to 20 lbs. of grain annually from each householder,
+with about another 10 lbs. at seedtime or harvest. When he brings the clothes home he also receives a meal or a <i>chap&#257;ti</i>, and well-to-do persons give him their old clothes as a present. In return for this he washes all the clothes of the family
+two or three times a month, except the loin-cloths <a id="d0e13170"></a><span class="pagenum">[<a href="#d0e13170">523</a>]</span>and women&#8217;s bodices which they themselves wash daily. The Dhobi is also employed on the occasion of a birth or a death. These
+events cause impurity and hence all the clothes of all the members of the family must be washed when the impurity ceases.
+In Saugor when a man dies the Dhobi receives eight annas and for a woman four annas, and similar rates in the case of the
+birth of a male or female child. When the first son is born in a family the Dhobi and barber place a brass vessel on the top
+of a pole and tie a flag to it as a cloth and take it round to all the friends and relations of the family, announcing the
+event. They receive presents of grain and money which they expend on a drinking-bout.
+
+
+</p>
+</div>
+<div class="div2" id="d0e13172">
+<h3>6. Social position.</h3>
+<p>The Dhobi is considered to be impure, and he is not allowed to come into the houses of the better castes nor to touch their
+water-vessels. In Saugor he may come as far as the veranda but not into the house. His status would in any case be low as
+a village menial, but he is specially degraded, Mr. Crooke states, by his task of washing the clothes of women after child-birth
+and his consequent association with puerperal blood, which is particularly abhorred. Formerly a Br&#257;hman did not let the Dhobi
+wash his clothes, or, if he did, they were again steeped in water in the house as a means of purification. Now he contents
+himself with sprinkling the clean clothes with water in which a piece of gold has been dipped. The Dhobi is not so impure
+as the Cham&#257;r and Basor, and if a member of the higher castes touches him inadvertently it is considered sufficient to wash
+the face and hands only and not the clothes.
+
+</p>
+<p>Colonel Tod writes<a id="d0e13179src" href="#d0e13179" class="noteref">4</a> that in R&#257;jput&#257;na the washermen&#8217;s wells dug at the sides of streams are deemed the most impure of all receptacles. And one
+of the most binding oaths is that a man as he swears should drop a pebble into one of these wells, saying, &#8220;If I break this
+oath may all the good deeds of my forefathers fall into the washerman&#8217;s well like this pebble.&#8221; Nevertheless the Dhobi refuses
+to wash the clothes of some of the lowest castes as the M&#257;ng, Mah&#257;r and Cham&#257;r. Like the Teli the Dhobi is unlucky, and it
+is a bad omen to see him when starting on a journey or going out in the morning. But among some of the <a id="d0e13183"></a><span class="pagenum">[<a href="#d0e13183">524</a>]</span>higher castes on the occasion of a marriage the elder members of the bridegroom&#8217;s family go with the bride to the Dhobi&#8217;s
+house. His wife presents the bride with betel-leaf and in return is given clothes with a rupee. This ceremony is called <i>soh&#257;g</i> or good fortune, and the present from the Dhobin is supposed to be lucky. In Ber&#257;r the Dhobi is also a Bal&#363;ted&#257;r or village
+servant. Mr. Kitts writes of him:<a id="d0e13188src" href="#d0e13188" class="noteref">5</a> &#8220;At a wedding he is called upon to spread the clothes on which the bridegroom and his party alight on coming to the bride&#8217;s
+house; he also provides the cloth on which the bride and bridegroom are to sit and fastens the <i>kankan</i> (bracelet) on the girl&#8217;s hand. In the Yeotm&#257;l District the barber and the washerman sometimes take the place of the maternal
+uncle in the <i>jhenda</i> dance; and when the bridegroom, assisted by five married women, has thrown the necklace of black beads round the bride&#8217;s
+neck and has tied it with five knots, the barber and the washerman advance, and lifting the young couple on their thighs dance
+to the music of the <i>w&#257;jantri</i>, while the bystanders besprinkle them with red powder.&#8221;
+
+</p>
+<p>In Chhatt&#299;sgarh the Dhobis appear to have partly abandoned their hereditary profession and taken to agriculture and other
+callings. Sir Benjamin Robertson writes of them:<a id="d0e13204src" href="#d0e13204" class="noteref">6</a> &#8220;The caste largely preponderates in Chhatt&#299;sgarh, a part of the country where, at least to the superficial observer, it would
+hardly seem as if its services were much availed of; the number of Dhobis in Raipur and Bil&#257;spur is nearly 40,000. In both
+Districts the washerman is one of the recognised village servants, but as a rule he gets no fixed payment, and the great body
+of cultivators dispense with his services altogether. According to the <i>Raipur Settlement Report</i> (Mr. Hewett), he is employed by the ryots only to wash the clothes of the dead, and he is never found among a population
+of Satn&#257;mis. It may therefore be assumed that in Chhatt&#299;sgarh the Bareth caste has largely taken to cultivation.&#8221; In Bengal
+Sir H. Risley states<a id="d0e13212src" href="#d0e13212" class="noteref">7</a> that &#8220;the Dhobi often gives up his caste trade and follows the profession of a writer, messenger or collector of rent (<i>tahs&#299;ld&#257;r</i>), and it is <a id="d0e13219"></a><span class="pagenum">[<a href="#d0e13219">525</a>]</span>an old native tradition that a Bengali Dhobi was the first interpreter the English factory at Calcutta had, while it is further
+stated that our early commercial transactions were carried on solely through the agency of low-caste natives. The Dhobi, however,
+will never engage himself as an indoor servant in the house of a European.&#8221;
+
+
+</p>
+</div>
+<div class="div2" id="d0e13221">
+<h3>7. Proverbs about the Dhobi.</h3>
+<p>Like the other castes who supply the primary needs of the people, the Dhobi is not regarded with much favour by his customers,
+and they revenge themselves in various sarcasms at his expense for the injury caused to their clothes by his drastic measures.
+The following are mentioned by Sir G. Grierson:<a id="d0e13226src" href="#d0e13226" class="noteref">8</a> &#8216;<i lang="und">Dhobi par Dhobi base, tab kapre par s&#257;bun pare</i>&#8217;, or &#8216;When many Dhobis compete, then some soap gets to the clothes,&#8217; and &#8216;It is only the clothes of the Dhobi&#8217;s father that
+never get torn.&#8217; The Dhobi&#8217;s donkey is a familiar sight as one meets him on the road still toiling as in the time of Issachar
+between two bundles of clothes each larger than himself, and he has also become proverbial, &#8216;<i lang="und">Dhobi ka gadha neh ghar ka neh gh&#257;t ka</i>,&#8217; &#8216;The Dhobi&#8217;s donkey is always on the move&#8217;; and &#8216;The ass has only one master (a washerman), and the washerman has only
+one steed (an ass).&#8217; The resentment felt for the Dhobi by his customers is not confined to his Indian clients, as may be seen
+from Eha&#8217;s excellent description of the Dhobi in <i>Behind the Bungalow</i>; and it may perhaps be permissible to introduce here the following short excerpt, though it necessarily loses in force by
+being detached from the context: &#8220;Day after day he has stood before that great black stone and wreaked his rage upon shirt
+and trouser and coat, and coat and trouser and shirt. Then he has wrung them as if he were wringing the necks of poultry,
+and fixed them on his drying line with thorns and spikes, and finally he has taken the battered garments to his torture chamber
+and ploughed them with his iron, longwise and crosswise and slantwise, and dropped glowing cinders on their tenderest places.
+Son has followed father through countless generations in cultivating this passion for destruction, until it has become the
+monstrous growth which we see and shudder at in the Dhobi.&#8221;
+<a id="d0e13240"></a><span class="pagenum">[<a href="#d0e13240">526</a>]</span>
+
+
+</p>
+</div>
+<div class="div2" id="d0e13242">
+<h3>8. Wearing and lending the clothes of customers.</h3>
+<p>It is also currently believed that the Dhobi wears the clothes of his customers himself. Thus, &#8216;The Dhobi looks smart in other
+people&#8217;s clothes&#8217;; and &#8216;<i lang="und">R&#257;j&#257;che shiri, Parit&#257;che tiri</i>,&#8217; or &#8216;The king&#8217;s headscarf is the washerman&#8217;s loin-cloth.&#8217; On this point Mr. Thurston writes of the Madras washerman: &#8220;It
+is an unpleasant reflection that the Vann&#257;ns or washermen add to their income by hiring out the clothes of their customers
+for funeral parties, who lay them on the path before the pall-bearers, so that they may not step upon the ground. On one occasion
+a party of Europeans, when out shooting near the village of a hill tribe, met a funeral procession on its way to the burial-ground.
+The bier was draped in many folds of clean cloth, which one of the party recognised by the initials as one of his bed-sheets.
+Another identified as his sheet the cloth on which the corpse was lying. He cut off the corner with the initial, and a few
+days later the sheet was returned by the Dhobi, who pretended ignorance of the mutilation, and gave as an explanation that
+it must have been done in his absence by one of his assistants.&#8221;<a id="d0e13250src" href="#d0e13250" class="noteref">9</a> And Eha describes the same custom in the following amusing manner: &#8220;Did you ever open your handkerchief with the suspicion
+that you had got a duster into your pocket by mistake, till the name of De Souza blazoned on the corner showed you that you
+were wearing some one else&#8217;s property? An accident of this kind reveals a beneficent branch of the Dhobi&#8217;s business, one in
+which he comes to the relief of needy respectability. Suppose yourself (if you can) to be Mr. Lobo, enjoying the position
+of first violinist in a string band which performs at Parsi weddings and on other festive occasions. <i>Noblesse oblige</i>; you cannot evade the necessity for clean shirt-fronts, ill able as your precarious income may be to meet it. In these circumstances
+a Dhobi with good connections is what you require. He finds you in shirts of the best quality at so much an evening, and you
+are saved all risk and outlay of capital; you need keep no clothes except a greenish-black surtout and pants and an effective
+necktie. In this way the wealth of the rich helps the want of the poor without their feeling it or knowing it&#8212;an excellent
+arrangement. <a id="d0e13258"></a><span class="pagenum">[<a href="#d0e13258">527</a>]</span>Sometimes, unfortunately, Mr. Lobo has a few clothes of his own, and then, as I have hinted, the Dhobi may exchange them by
+mistake, for he is uneducated and has much to remember; but if you occasionally suffer in this way you gain in another, for
+Mr. Lobo&#8217;s family are skilful with the needle, and I have sent a torn garment to the wash which returned carefully repaired.&#8221;<a id="d0e13260src" href="#d0e13260" class="noteref">10</a>
+
+
+</p>
+</div>
+<div class="footnotes">
+<hr class="fnsep">
+<p class="footnote"><span class="label"><a id="d0e13098" href="#d0e13098src" class="noteref">1</a></span> <i>Folklore of Northern India</i>, vol. ii. p. 8.
+</p>
+<p class="footnote"><span class="label"><a id="d0e13132" href="#d0e13132src" class="noteref">2</a></span> Sherring&#8217;s <i>Hindu Castes</i>, i. 342&#8211;3.
+</p>
+<p class="footnote"><span class="label"><a id="d0e13144" href="#d0e13144src" class="noteref">3</a></span> <i>Tribes and Castes</i>, art. Dhobi.
+</p>
+<p class="footnote"><span class="label"><a id="d0e13179" href="#d0e13179src" class="noteref">4</a></span> <i>Annals and Antiquities of R&#257;jasth&#257;n.</i></p>
+<p class="footnote"><span class="label"><a id="d0e13188" href="#d0e13188src" class="noteref">5</a></span> <i>Ber&#257;r Census Report</i> (1881), p. 155.
+</p>
+<p class="footnote"><span class="label"><a id="d0e13204" href="#d0e13204src" class="noteref">6</a></span> <i>Central Provinces Census Report</i> (1891), p. 202.
+</p>
+<p class="footnote"><span class="label"><a id="d0e13212" href="#d0e13212src" class="noteref">7</a></span> <i>Loc. cit.</i></p>
+<p class="footnote"><span class="label"><a id="d0e13226" href="#d0e13226src" class="noteref">8</a></span> <i>Bih&#257;r Peasant Life, s.v.</i> Dhobi.
+</p>
+<p class="footnote"><span class="label"><a id="d0e13250" href="#d0e13250src" class="noteref">9</a></span> <i>Ethnographic Notes in Southern India</i>, p. 226.
+</p>
+<p class="footnote"><span class="label"><a id="d0e13260" href="#d0e13260src" class="noteref">10</a></span> <i>Behind the Bungalow.</i></p>
+</div>
+</div>
+<div id="d0e13264" class="div1"><span class="pagenum">
+[<a href="#d0e111">Contents</a>]
+</span><h2>Dhuri</h2>
+<div class="div2" id="d0e13267">
+<h3>1. Origin and Subdivisions.</h3>
+<p><b>Dhuri.</b><a id="d0e13273src" href="#d0e13273" class="noteref">1</a>&#8212;A caste belonging exclusively to Chhatt&#299;sgarh, which numbered 3000 persons in 1911. Dhuri is an honorific abbreviation from
+Dhuriya as B&#257;ni from Bania. The special occupation of the caste is rice-parching, and they are an offshoot from Kah&#257;rs, though
+in Chhatt&#299;sgarh the Dhuris now consider the Kah&#257;rs as a subcaste of their own. In Bengal the Dhuriyas are a subcaste of the
+K&#257;ndus or Bharbh&#363;njas. Sir H. Risley states that &#8220;the Dhurias rank lowest of all the subcastes of K&#257;ndus, owing either to
+their having taken up the comparatively menial profession of palanquin-bearing, or to their being a branch of the Kah&#257;r caste
+who went in for grain-parching and thus came to be associated with the K&#257;ndus.&#8221;<a id="d0e13276src" href="#d0e13276" class="noteref">2</a> The caste have immigrated to Chhatt&#299;sgarh from the United Provinces. In Kawardha they believe that the R&#257;ja of that State
+brought them back with him on his return from a pilgrimage. In Bil&#257;spur and Raipur they say they came from Badh&#257;r, a pargana
+in the M&#299;rz&#257;pur District, adjoining Rewah. Badh&#257;r is mentioned in one of the R&#257;jim inscriptions, and is a place remembered
+by other castes of Chhatt&#299;sgarh as their ancestral home. The Dhuris of Chhatt&#299;sgarh relate their origin as follows: Mah&#257;deo
+went once to the jungle and the damp earth stuck to his feet. He scraped it off and made it into a man, and asked him what
+caste he would like to belong to. The man said he would leave it to Mah&#257;deo, who decided that he should be called Dhuri from
+<i>dh&#363;r,</i> dust. The man then asked Mah&#257;deo to assign him an occupation, and Mah&#257;deo said that as he was made from dust, which is pounded
+earth, his work should <a id="d0e13284"></a><span class="pagenum">[<a href="#d0e13284">528</a>]</span>be to prepare <i>cheora</i> or pounded rice, and added as a special distinction that all castes including Br&#257;hmans should eat the pounded rice prepared
+by him. All castes do eat <i>cheora</i> because it is not boiled with water. The Dhuris have two subcastes, a higher and a lower, but they are known by different
+names in different tracts. In Kawardha they are called R&#257;j Dhuri and Cheor&#257;k&#363;ta, the R&#257;j Dhuris being the descendants of personal
+servants in the R&#257;ja&#8217;s family and ranking above the Cheor&#257;k&#363;tas or rice-pounders. In Bil&#257;spur they are called Badh&#257;ria and
+Khaw&#257;s, and in Raipur Badh&#257;ria and Desha. The Khaw&#257;s and Desha subcastes do menial household service and rank below the Badh&#257;rias,
+who are perhaps later immigrants and refuse to engage in this occupation. The names of their exogamous sections are nearly
+all territorial, as Naugahia from Naogaon in Bil&#257;spur District, Agoria from Agori, a pargana in M&#299;rz&#257;pur District, K&#257;shi or
+Ben&#257;res, and a number of other names derived from villages in Bil&#257;spur. But the caste do not strictly enforce the rule forbidding
+marriage within the <i>gotra</i> or section, and are content with avoiding three generations both on the father&#8217;s and mother&#8217;s side. They have probably been
+driven to modify the rule on account of the paucity of their numbers and the difficulty of arranging marriages. For the same
+reason perhaps they look with indulgence on the practice, as a rule strictly prohibited, of marriage with a woman of another
+caste of lower social rank, and will admit the children of such a marriage into the caste, though not the woman herself.
+
+
+</p>
+</div>
+<div class="div2" id="d0e13295">
+<h3>2. Marriage.</h3>
+<p>Infant-marriage is in vogue, and polygamy is permitted only if the first wife be barren. The betrothal is cemented by an exchange
+of betel-leaves and areca-nuts between the fathers of the engaged couple. A bride-price of from ten to twenty rupees is usually
+paid. Some rice, a pice coin, 21 cowries and 21 pieces of turmeric are placed in the hole in which the marriage post is erected.
+When the wedding procession arrives at the girl&#8217;s house the bridegroom goes to the marriage-shed and pulls out the festoons
+of mango leaves, the bride&#8217;s family trying to prevent him by offering him a winnowing-fan. He then approaches the door of
+the house, behind which his future mother-in-law is standing, <a id="d0e13300"></a><span class="pagenum">[<a href="#d0e13300">529</a>]</span>and slips a piece of cloth through the door for her. She takes this and retires without being seen. The wedding consists of
+the <i>bh&#257;nwar</i> ceremony or walking round the sacred pole. During the proceedings the women tie a new thread round the bridegroom&#8217;s neck
+to avert the evil eye. After the wedding the bride and bridegroom, in opposition to the usual custom, must return to the latter&#8217;s
+house on foot. In explanation of this they tell a story to the effect that the married couple were formerly carried in a palanquin.
+But on one occasion when a wedding procession came to a river, everybody began to catch fish, leaving the bride deserted,
+and the palanquin-bearers, seeing this, carried her off. To prevent the recurrence of such a mischance the couple now have
+to walk. Widow-marriage is permitted, and the widow usually marries her late husband&#8217;s younger brother. Divorce is only permitted
+for misconduct on the part of the wife.
+
+
+</p>
+</div>
+<div class="div2" id="d0e13305">
+<h3>3. Religious beliefs.</h3>
+<p>The Dhuris principally worship the goddess Devi. Nearly all members of the caste belong to the Kab&#299;rpanthi sect. They believe
+that the sun on setting goes through the earth, and that the milky way is the path by which the elephant of the heavens passes
+from south to north to feed on the young bamboo shoots, of which he is very fond. They think that the constellation of the
+Great Bear is a cot with three thieves tied to it. The thieves came to steal the cot, which belonged to an old woman, but
+God caught them and tied them down there for ever. Orion is the plough left by one of the P&#257;ndava brothers after he had finished
+tilling the heavens. The dead are burnt. They observe mourning during nine or ten days for an adult and make libations to
+the dead at the usual period in the month of Kunw&#257;r (September-October).
+
+
+</p>
+</div>
+<div class="div2" id="d0e13310">
+<h3>4. Occupation and social status.</h3>
+<p>The proper occupation of the caste is to parch rice. The rice is husked and then parched in an earthen pan, and subsequently
+bruised with a mallet in a wooden mortar. When prepared in this manner it is called <i>cheora</i>. The Dhuris also act as <i>khidmatg&#257;rs</i> or household servants, but the members of the Badharia subcaste refuse to do this work. Some members of the caste are fishermen,
+and others grow melons and sweet potatoes. Considering that they <a id="d0e13321"></a><span class="pagenum">[<a href="#d0e13321">530</a>]</span>live in Chhatt&#299;sgarh, the caste are somewhat scrupulous in the matter of food, neither eating fowls nor drinking liquor. The
+Kawardha Dhuris, however, who are later immigrants than the others, do not observe these restrictions, the reason for which
+may be that the Dhuris think it necessary to be strict in the matter of food, so that no one may object to take parched rice
+from them. R&#257;wats and Gonds take food from their hands in some places, and their social status in Chhatt&#299;sgarh is about equivalent
+to that of the R&#257;wats or Ah&#299;rs. A man of the caste who kills a cow or gets vermin in a wound must go to Am&#257;rkantak to bathe
+in the Nerbudda.
+
+
+</p>
+</div>
+<div class="footnotes">
+<hr class="fnsep">
+<p class="footnote"><span class="label"><a id="d0e13273" href="#d0e13273src" class="noteref">1</a></span> This article is mainly compiled from papers by Mr. Gokul Pras&#257;d, Naib-Tahs&#299;ld&#257;r, Dhamtari, and Py&#257;re L&#257;l Misra, a clerk in
+the Gazetteer office.
+</p>
+<p class="footnote"><span class="label"><a id="d0e13276" href="#d0e13276src" class="noteref">2</a></span> <i>Tribes and Castes of Bengal</i>, art. K&#257;ndu.
+</p>
+</div>
+</div>
+<div id="d0e13323" class="div1"><span class="pagenum">
+[<a href="#d0e111">Contents</a>]
+</span><h2>Dum&#257;l</h2>
+<div class="div2" id="d0e13326">
+<h3>1. Origin and traditions.</h3>
+<p><b>Dum&#257;l.</b><a id="d0e13332src" href="#d0e13332" class="noteref">1</a>&#8212;An agricultural caste found in the Uriya country and principally in the Sonpur State, recently transferred to Bih&#257;r and Orissa.
+In 1901, 41,000 Dum&#257;ls were enumerated in the Central Provinces, but only a few persons now remain. The caste originally came
+from Orissa. They themselves say that they were formerly a branch of the Gaurs, with whom they now have no special connection.
+They derive their name from a village called Dumba Hadap in the Athm&#257;lik State, where they say that they lived. Another story
+is that Dum&#257;l is derived from Duma, the name of a gateway in Baud town, near which they dwelt. Sir H. Risley says: &#8220;The Dum&#257;ls
+or J&#257;dupuria Gaura seem to be a group of local formation. They cherish the tradition that their ancestors came to Orissa from
+J&#257;dupur, but this appears to be nothing more than the name of the J&#257;davas or Y&#257;davas, the mythical progenitors of the Goala
+caste transformed into the name of an imaginary town.&#8221;
+
+
+</p>
+</div>
+<div class="div2" id="d0e13335">
+<h3>2. Subdivisions.</h3>
+<p>The Dum&#257;ls have no subcastes, but they have a complicated system of exogamy. This includes three kinds of divisions or sections,
+the <i>got</i> or sept, the <i>barga</i> or family title and the <i>mitti</i> or earth from which they sprang, that is, the name of the original village of the clan. Marriage is prohibited only between
+persons who have the same <i>got</i>, <i>barga</i> and <i>mitti</i>; if any one of these is different it is allowed. Thus a man of the N&#257;g <i>got</i>, Padh&#257;n <i>barga</i> and Hindolsai <i>mitti</i> may marry a girl of the N&#257;g <i>got</i>, Padh&#257;n <i>barga</i> and <a id="d0e13373"></a><span class="pagenum">[<a href="#d0e13373">531</a>]</span>Kandhpad&#257; <i>mitti</i>; or one of the N&#257;g <i>got</i>, Karmi <i>barga</i> and Hindolsai <i>mitti</i>; or one of the Bud <i>got</i>, Padh&#257;n <i>barga</i> and Hindolsai <i>mitti</i>. The <i>bargas</i> are very numerous, but the <i>gots</i> and <i>mittis</i> are few and common to many <i>bargas</i>; and many people have forgotten the name of their <i>mitti</i> altogether. Marriage therefore usually depends on the <i>bargas</i> being different. The following table shows the <i>got</i>, <i>barga</i> and <i>mitti</i> of a few families:
+
+</p>
+<div class="table">
+<table width="100%">
+<tr valign="top">
+<td valign="top">Got. </td>
+<td valign="top">Barga. </td>
+<td valign="top">Mitti.
+
+
+</td>
+</tr>
+<tr valign="top">
+<td valign="top">N&#257;g (cobra) </td>
+<td valign="top">Padh&#257;n (chief) </td>
+<td valign="top">Hindolsai
+
+</td>
+</tr>
+<tr valign="top">
+<td valign="top">N&#257;g </td>
+<td valign="top">Karmi (manager) </td>
+<td valign="top">Unda (a village in Athmalik)
+
+</td>
+</tr>
+<tr valign="top">
+<td valign="top">N&#257;g </td>
+<td valign="top">Behra (Palki-bearer) </td>
+<td valign="top">Kandhpada (a village in Athmalik)
+
+</td>
+</tr>
+<tr valign="top">
+<td valign="top">N&#257;g </td>
+<td valign="top">Mah&#257;kul (great family) </td>
+<td valign="top">Do. do.
+
+</td>
+</tr>
+<tr valign="top">
+<td valign="top">N&#257;g </td>
+<td valign="top">Mesua (shepherd) </td>
+<td valign="top">Dalpur (a village in Baud)
+
+</td>
+</tr>
+<tr valign="top">
+<td valign="top">N&#257;g </td>
+<td valign="top">Karan (writer) </td>
+<td valign="top">Kandhpada (a village in Athmalik)
+
+</td>
+</tr>
+<tr valign="top">
+<td valign="top">N&#257;g or N&#257;gesh </td>
+<td valign="top">Mah&#257;kul (great family) </td>
+<td valign="top">B&#257;manda (a village in Baud)
+
+</td>
+</tr>
+<tr valign="top">
+<td valign="top">Bud (a fish) </td>
+<td valign="top">Kolta (caste) </td>
+<td valign="top">Kandhpada (a village in Athmalik)
+
+</td>
+</tr>
+<tr valign="top">
+<td valign="top">Bud (a fish) </td>
+<td valign="top">Bagh&#257;r (buffalo) </td>
+<td valign="top">Do<span id="d0e13494" class="corr" title="Source: ">.</span> do.
+
+</td>
+</tr>
+<tr valign="top">
+<td valign="top">Bichh&#363; (scorpion) </td>
+<td valign="top">Mah&#257;kul (great family) </td>
+<td valign="top">B&#257;mada (a village in Baud)</td>
+</tr>
+</table>
+</div><p>
+
+
+</p>
+<p>The only other <i>gots</i> besides those given above are Kachhap (tortoise), Ul&#363;k (owl) and Limb (<i>nim</i>-tree). The <i>gots</i> are thus totemistic, and the animal or plant giving its name to the <i>got</i> is venerated and worshipped. The names of <i>bargas</i> are diverse. Some are titles indicating the position of the founder of the family in life, as N&#257;ik (leader), Padh&#257;n (chief),
+Karmi (manager), Mah&#257;kul (great family) and so on. Others are derived from functions performed in sacrifices, as Am&#257;yat (one
+who kills the animal in the sacrifice), Gurandi (one who makes a preparation of sugar for it), Dehri (priest), B&#257;rik (one
+who carries the god&#8217;s umbrella), Kamp (one who is in charge of the baskets containing the sacred articles of the temple).
+Another set of <i>bargas</i> are names signifying the performance of menial functions in household service, as Gejo (kitchen-cleaner), Chaulia (rice-cleaner),
+Gadua (<i>lot&#257;</i>-bearer), D&#257;ng (spoon-bearer), Ghusri (cleaner of the dining-place with cowdung). Other names of <i>bargas</i> are derived from the caste&#8217;s traditional occupation of grazing cattle, as Mesua or Mendli (shepherd), Gaigariya (milkman),
+Chh&#257;nd (one who ties a rope to the legs of a cow when milking her). These names are interesting as showing that the Dum&#257;ls
+<a id="d0e13531"></a><span class="pagenum">[<a href="#d0e13531">532</a>]</span>before taking to their present occupation of agriculture were temple servants, household menials and cattle-herds, thus fulfilling
+the functions now performed by the R&#257;wat or Gaur caste of graziers in Sambalpur. The names of the <i>mittis</i> or villages show that their original home was in the Orissa Tributary Mah&#257;ls, while the totemistic names of <i>gots</i> indicate their Dravidian origin. The marriage of first cousins is prohibited.
+
+
+</p>
+</div>
+<div class="div2" id="d0e13539">
+<h3>3. Marriage.</h3>
+<p>Girls must be married before adolescence, and in the event of the parents failing to accomplish this, the following heavy
+penalty is imposed on the girl herself. She is taken to the forest and tied to a tree with thread, this proceeding signifying
+her permanent exclusion from the caste. Any one belonging to another caste can then take her away and marry her if he chooses
+to do so. In practice, however, this penalty is very rarely imposed, as the parents can get out of it by marrying her to an
+old man, whether he is already married or not, the parents bearing all the expenses, while the husband gives two to four annas
+as a nominal contribution. After the marriage the old man can either keep the girl as his wife or divorce her for a further
+nominal payment of eight annas to a rupee. She then becomes a widow and can marry again, while her parents will get ten or
+twenty rupees for her.
+
+</p>
+<p>The boy&#8217;s father makes the proposal for the marriage according to the following curious formula. Taking some fried grain he
+goes to the house of the father of the bride and addresses him as follows in the presence of the neighbours and the relatives
+of both parties: &#8220;I hear that the tree has budded and a blossom has come out; I intend to pluck it.&#8221; To which the girl&#8217;s father
+replies: &#8220;The flower is delicate; it is in the midst of an ocean and very difficult to approach: how will you pluck it?&#8221; To
+which the reply is: &#8216;I shall bring ships and <i>dongas</i> (boats) and ply them in the ocean and fetch the flower.&#8217; And again: &#8220;If you do pluck it, can you support it? Many difficulties
+may stand in the way, and the flower may wither or get lost; will it be possible for you to steer the flower&#8217;s boat in the
+ocean of time, as long as it is destined to be in this world?&#8221; To which the answer is: &#8216;Yes, I shall, and it is with that
+<a id="d0e13549"></a><span class="pagenum">[<a href="#d0e13549">533</a>]</span>intention that I have come to you.&#8217; On which the girl&#8217;s father finally says: &#8216;Very well then, I have given you the flower.&#8217;
+The question of the bride&#8217;s price is then discussed. There are three recognised scales&#8212;Rs. 7 and 7 pieces of cloth, Rs. 9
+and 9 pieces of cloth, and Rs. 18 and 18 pieces of cloth. The rupees in question are those of Orissa, and each of them is
+worth only two-thirds of a Government rupee. In cases of extreme poverty Rs. 2 and 2 pieces of cloth are accepted. The price
+being fixed, the boy&#8217;s father goes to pay it after an interval; and on this occasion he holds out his cloth, and a cocoanut
+is placed on it and broken by the girl&#8217;s father, which confirms the betrothal. Before the marriage seven married girls go
+out and dig earth after worshipping the ground, and on their return let it all fall on to the head of the bridegroom&#8217;s mother,
+which is protected only by a cloth. On the next day offerings are made to the ancestors, who are invited to attend the ceremony
+as village gods. The bridegroom is shaved clean and bathed, and the Br&#257;hman then ties an iron ring to his wrist, and the barber
+puts the turban and marriage-crown on his head. The procession then starts, but any barber who meets it on the way may put
+a fresh marriage-crown on the bridegroom&#8217;s head and receive eight annas or a rupee for it, so that he sometimes arrives at
+his destination wearing four or five of them. The usual ceremonies attend the arrival. At the marriage the couple are blindfolded
+and seated in the shed, while the Br&#257;hman priest repeats <i>mantras</i> or verses, and during this time the parents and the parties must continue placing nuts and pice all over the shed. These
+are the perquisites of the Br&#257;hman. The hands of the couple are then tied together with <i>kusha</i> grass (<i>Eragrostis cynosuroides</i>), and water is poured over them. After the ceremony the couple gamble with seven cowries and seven pieces of turmeric. The
+boy then presses a cowrie on the ground with his little finger, and the girl has to take it away, which she easily does. The
+girl in her turn holds a cowrie inside her clenched hand, and the boy has to remove it with his little finger, which he finds
+it impossible to do. Thus the boy always loses and has to promise the girl something, either to give her an ornament or to
+take her on a pilgrimage, or to <a id="d0e13560"></a><span class="pagenum">[<a href="#d0e13560">534</a>]</span>make her the mistress of his house. On the fifth or last day of the ceremony some curds are placed in a small pot, and the
+couple are made to churn them; this is probably symbolical of the caste&#8217;s original occupation of tending cattle. The bride
+goes to her husband&#8217;s house for three days, and then returns home. When she is to be finally brought to her husband&#8217;s house,
+his father with some relatives goes to the parents of the girl and asks for her. It is now strict etiquette for her father
+to refuse to send her on the first occasion, and they usually have to call on him three or four times at intervals of some
+days, and selecting the days given by the astrologer as auspicious. Occasionally they have to go as many as ten times; but
+finally, if the girl&#8217;s father proves very troublesome, they send an old woman who drags away the girl by force. If the father
+sends her away willingly he gives her presents of several basket-loads of grain, oil, turmeric, cooking-pots, cloth, and if
+he is well off a cow and bullocks, the value of the presents amounting to about Rs. 50. The girl&#8217;s brother takes her to her
+husband&#8217;s house, where a repetition of the marriage ceremony on a small scale is performed. Twice again after the consummation
+of the marriage she visits her parents for periods of one and six months, but after this she never again goes to their house
+unaccompanied by her husband. Widow-marriage is allowed, and the widow may marry the younger brother of her late husband or
+not as she pleases. But if she marries another man he must pay a sum of Rs. 10 to Rs. 20 for her, of which Rs. 5 go to the
+Panua or headman of the caste, and Rs. 2 to their tutelary goddess Parmeshwari. The children by the first husband are kept
+either by his relatives or the widow&#8217;s parents, and do not go to the new husband. When a bachelor marries a widow, he is first
+married to a flower or <i>sahara </i>tree. A widow who has remarried cannot take part in any worship or marriage ceremony in her house, not even in the marriage
+of her own sons. Divorce is allowed, and is effected in the presence of the caste <i>panch&#257;yat</i> or committee. A divorced woman may marry again.
+
+
+</p>
+</div>
+<div class="div2" id="d0e13568">
+<h3>4. Religious and social customs.</h3>
+<p>The caste worship the goddess Parmeshwari, the wife of Vishnu, and Jagann&#257;th, the Uriya incarnation of Vishnu. Parmeshwari
+is worshipped by Br&#257;hmans, who offer bread <a id="d0e13573"></a><span class="pagenum">[<a href="#d0e13573">535</a>]</span>and <i>kh&#299;r</i> or rice and milk to her; goats are also offered by the Dehri or Mah&#257;kul, the caste priest, who receives the heads of the
+goats as his remuneration. They believe in witches, who they think drink the blood of children, and employ sorcerers to exorcise
+them. They worship a stick on Dasahra day in remembrance of their old profession of herding cattle, and they worship cows
+and buffaloes at the full moon of Shr&#257;wan (July-August). During Kunw&#257;r, on the eighth day of each fortnight, two festivals
+are held. At the first each girl in the family wears a thread containing eighteen knots twisted three times round her neck.
+All the girls fast and receive presents of cloths and grain from their brothers. This is called Bhaijiuntia, or the ceremony
+for the welfare of the brothers. On the second day the mother of the family does the same, and receives presents from her
+sons, this being Pu&#257;jiuntia, or the ceremony for the welfare of sons. The Dum&#257;ls believe that in the beginning water covered
+the earth. They think that the sun and moon are the eyes of God, and that the stars are the souls of virtuous men, who enjoy
+felicity in heaven for the period measured by the sum of their virtuous actions, and when this has expired have to descend
+again to earth to suffer the agonies of human life. When a shooting star is seen they think it is the soul of one of these
+descending to be born again on earth. They both burn and bury their dead according to their means. After a body is buried
+they make a fire over the grave and place an empty pot on it. Mourning is observed for twelve days in the case of a married
+and for seven in the case of an unmarried person. Children dying when less than six days old are not mourned at all. During
+mourning the persons of the household do not cook for themselves. On the third day after the death three leaf-plates, each
+containing a little rice, sugar and butter, are offered to the spirit of the deceased. On the fourth day four such plates
+are offered, and on the fifth day five, and so on up to the ninth day when the Pindas or sacrificial cakes are offered, and
+nine persons belonging to the caste are invited, food and a new piece of cloth being given to each. Should only one attend,
+nine plates of food would be served to him, and he would be given nine pieces of <a id="d0e13578"></a><span class="pagenum">[<a href="#d0e13578">536</a>]</span>cloth. If two or more persons in a family are killed by a tiger, a Sulia or magician is called in, and he pretends to be the
+tiger and to bite some one in the family, who is then carried as a corpse to the burial-place, buried for a short time and
+taken out again. All the ceremonies of mourning are observed for him for one day. This proceeding is believed to secure immunity
+for the family from further attacks. In return for his services the Sulia gets a share of everything in the house corresponding
+to what he would receive, supposing he were a member of the family, on a partition. Thus if the family consisted of only two
+persons he would get a third part of the whole property.
+
+</p>
+<p>The Dum&#257;ls eat meat, including wild boar&#8217;s flesh, but not beef, fowls or tame pigs. They do not drink liquor. They will take
+food cooked with water from Br&#257;hmans and Sudhs, and even the leavings of food from Br&#257;hmans. This is probably because they
+were formerly the household servants of Br&#257;hmans, though they have now risen somewhat in position and rank, together with
+the Koltas and Sudhs, as a good cultivating caste. Their women and girls can easily be distinguished, the girls because the
+hair is shaved until they are married, and the women because they wear bangles of glass on one arm and of lac on the other.
+They never wear nose-rings or the ornament called <i>pairi</i> on the feet, and no ornaments are worn on the arm above the elbow<span id="d0e13585" class="corr" title="Source: ">.</span> They do not wear black clothing. The women are tattooed on the hands, feet and breast. Morality within the caste is lax.
+A woman going wrong with a man of her own caste is not punished, because the Dum&#257;ls live generally in Native States, where
+it is the business of the R&#257;ja to find the seducer. But she is permanently excommunicated for a <i>liaison</i> with a man of another caste. Eating with a very low caste is almost the only offence which entails permanent exclusion for
+both sexes. The Dum&#257;ls have a bad reputation for fidelity, according to a saying: &#8216;You cannot call the jungle a plain, and
+you should not call the Dum&#257;l a brother,&#8217; that is, do not trust a Dum&#257;l. Like the Ah&#299;rs they are somewhat stupid, and when
+enquiry was being made from them as to what crops they did not grow, one of them replied that they did not sow salt. They
+are <a id="d0e13591"></a><span class="pagenum">[<a href="#d0e13591">537</a>]</span>good cultivators, and will grow anything except hemp and turmeric. In some places they still follow their traditional occupation
+of grazing cattle.
+
+
+</p>
+</div>
+<div class="footnotes">
+<hr class="fnsep">
+<p class="footnote"><span class="label"><a id="d0e13332" href="#d0e13332src" class="noteref">1</a></span> This article is taken almost entirely from a paper drawn up by Mr. H&#299;ra L&#257;l, Extra Assistant Commissioner.
+</p>
+</div>
+</div>
+<div id="d0e13593" class="div1"><span class="pagenum">
+[<a href="#d0e111">Contents</a>]
+</span><h2>Fak&#299;r</h2>
+<div class="div2" id="d0e13596">
+<h3>1. General notice.</h3>
+<p><b>Fak&#299;r.</b><a id="d0e13602src" href="#d0e13602" class="noteref">1</a>&#8212;The class of Muhammadan beggars. In the Central Provinces the name is practically confined to Muhammadans, but in Upper India
+Hindus also use it. Nearly 9000 Fak&#299;rs were returned in 1911, being residents mainly of Districts with large towns, as Jubbulpore,
+N&#257;gpur and Amraoti. Nearly two-fifths of the Muhammadans of the Central Provinces live in towns, and Muhammadan beggars would
+naturally congregate there also. The name is derived from the Arabic <i>fakr</i>, poverty. The Fak&#299;rs are often known as Sh&#257;h, Lord, or Sain, a corruption of the Sanskrit Sw&#257;mi, master. Muhammad did not
+recognise religious ascetism, and expressly discouraged it. But even during his lifetime his companions Abu Bakr and Ali established
+religious orders with Zikrs or special exercises, and all Muhammadan Fak&#299;rs trace their origin to Abu Bakr or Ali subsequently
+the first and fourth Caliphs.<a id="d0e13620src" href="#d0e13620" class="noteref">2</a> The Fak&#299;rs are divided into two classes, the Ba Shara or those who live according to the rules of Islam and marry; and the
+Be Shara or those without the law. These latter have no wives or homes; they drink intoxicating liquor, and neither fast,
+pray nor rule their passions. But several of the orders contain both married and celibate groups.
+
+
+</p>
+</div>
+<div class="div2" id="d0e13623">
+<h3>2. Principal orders.</h3>
+<p>The principal classes of Fak&#299;rs in the Central Provinces are the Madari, Gurujw&#257;le or Rafai, Jal&#257;li, Mew&#257;ti, Sada Soh&#257;gal
+and Nakshbandia. All of these except the Nakshbandia are nominally at least Be Shara, or without the law, and celibate.
+
+</p>
+<p>The Madari are the followers of one Madar Sh&#257;h, a converted Jew of Aleppo, whose tomb is supposed to be at Makhanpur in the
+United Provinces. Their characteristic badge is a pair of pincers. Some, in order to force people to give them alms, go about
+dragging a chain or lashing their legs with a whip. Others are monkey- and bear-trainers <a id="d0e13630"></a><span class="pagenum">[<a href="#d0e13630">538</a>]</span>and rope-dancers. The Madaris are said to be proof against snakes and scorpions, and to have power to cure their bites. They
+will leap into a fire and trample it down, crying out, &#8216;<i lang="und">Aam Madar, Aam Madar</i>.&#8217;<a id="d0e13635src" href="#d0e13635" class="noteref">3</a>
+
+
+</p>
+<div id="d0e13640" class="figure"><img border="0" src="images/p538.jpg" alt="Group of Gurujw&#257;le Fak&#299;rs." width="720" height="402"><p class="figureHead">Group of Gurujw&#257;le Fak&#299;rs.</p>
+</div><p>
+
+
+</p>
+<p>The Gurujw&#257;le or Rafai have as their badge a spiked iron club with small chains attached to the end. The Fak&#299;r rattles the
+chains of his club to announce his presence, and if the people will not give him alms strikes at his own cheek or eye with
+the sharp point of his club, making the blood flow. They make prayers to their club once a year, so that it may not cause
+them serious injury when they strike themselves with it.
+
+</p>
+<p>The Jal&#257;lias are named after their founder, Jal&#257;l-ud-d&#299;n of Bokh&#257;ra, and have a horse-whip as their badge, with which they
+sometimes strike themselves on the hands and feet. They are said to consume large quantities of <i>bh&#257;ng</i>, and to eat snakes and scorpions; they shave all the hair on the head and face, including the eyebrows, except a small scalp-lock
+on the right side.
+
+</p>
+<p>The Mew&#257;ti appear to be a thieving order. They are also known as Kulchor or thieves of the family, and appear to have been
+originally a branch of the Madari, who were perhaps expelled on account of their thieving habits. Their distinguishing mark
+is a double bag like a pack-saddle, which they hang over their shoulders. The Sada or M&#363;sa Soh&#257;g are an order who dress like
+women, put on glass bangles, have their ears and noses pierced for ornaments, and wear long hair, but retain their beards
+and moustaches. They regard themselves as brides of God or of Hussan, and beg in this guise.
+
+</p>
+<p>The Nakshbandia are the disciples of Khwaja M&#299;r Muhammad, who was called Nakshband or brocade-maker. They beg at night-time,
+carrying an open brass lamp with a short wick. Children are fond of the Nakshband, and go out in numbers to give him money.
+In return he marks them on the brow with oil from his lamp. They are quiet and well behaved, belonging to the Ba Shara class
+of Fak&#299;rs, and having homes and families.
+
+</p>
+<p>The Kalandaria or wandering dervishes, who are <a id="d0e13657"></a><span class="pagenum">[<a href="#d0e13657">539</a>]</span>occasionally met with, were founded by Kalandar Yusuf-ul-Andalusi, a native of Spain. Having been dismissed from another order,
+he founded this as a new one, with the obligation of perpetual travelling. The Kalandar is a well-known figure in Eastern
+stories.<a id="d0e13659src" href="#d0e13659" class="noteref">4</a>
+
+</p>
+<p>The Maulawiyah are the well-known dancing dervishes of Constantinople and Cairo, but do not belong to India.
+
+</p>
+<p>The different orders of Fak&#299;rs are not strictly endogamous, and marriages can take place between their members, though the
+Madaris prefer to confine marriage to their own order. Fak&#299;rs as a body are believed to marry among themselves, and hence
+to form something in the nature of a caste, but they freely admit outsiders, whether Muhammadans or proselytised Hindus.
+
+
+</p>
+</div>
+<div class="div2" id="d0e13669">
+<h3>3. Rules and customs.</h3>
+<p>Every Fak&#299;r must have a Murshid or preceptor, and be initiated by him. This applies also to boys born in the order, and a
+father cannot initiate his son. The rite is usually simple, the novice having to drink sherbet from the same cup as his preceptor
+and make him a present of Rs. 1&#8211;4; but some orders insist that the whole body of a novice should be shaved clean of hair before
+he is initiated. The principal religious exercise of Fak&#299;rs is known as Zikr, and consists in the continual repetition of
+the names of God by various methods, it being supposed that they can draw the name from different parts of the body. The exercise
+is so exhausting that they frequently faint under it, and is varied by repetition of certain chapters of the Kor&#257;n. The Fak&#299;r
+has a <i>tasb&#299;h</i> or rosary, often consisting of ninety-nine beads, on which he repeats the ninety-nine names of God. The Fak&#299;rs beg both from
+Hindus and Muhammadans, and are sometimes troublesome and importunate, inflicting wounds on themselves as a means of extorting
+alms. One beggar in Saugor said that he would give every one who gave him alms five strokes with his whip, and attracted considerable
+custom by this novel expedient. Some of them are in charge of Muhammadan cemeteries and receive fees for a burial, while others
+live at the tombs of saints. They keep the tomb in good repair, cover it with a green cloth and keep a lighted lamp on it,
+and appropriate the <a id="d0e13677"></a><span class="pagenum">[<a href="#d0e13677">540</a>]</span>offerings made by visitors. Owing to their solitude and continuous repetition of prayers many Fak&#299;rs fall into a distraught
+condition, when they are known as <i>mast</i>, and are believed to be possessed of a spirit. At such a time the people attach the greatest importance to any utterances
+which fall from the Fak&#299;r&#8217;s lips, believing that he has the gift of prophecy, and follow him about with presents to induce
+him to make some utterance.
+
+
+</p>
+<p class="trailer&#xA; ">End of vol. II</p>
+</div>
+<div class="footnotes">
+<hr class="fnsep">
+<p class="footnote"><span class="label"><a id="d0e13602" href="#d0e13602src" class="noteref">1</a></span> This article is mainly compiled from Sir E. D. Maclagan&#8217;s <i>Punjab Census Report</i> (1891), pp. 192&#8211;196, the article on Fak&#299;r in the Rev. T. P. Hughes&#8217; <i>Dictionary of Isl&#257;m</i>, and the volume on <i>Muhammadans of Gujar&#257;t</i> in the <i>Bombay Gazetteer</i>, pp. 20&#8211;24.
+</p>
+<p class="footnote"><span class="label"><a id="d0e13620" href="#d0e13620src" class="noteref">2</a></span> Hughes, p. 116.
+</p>
+<p class="footnote"><span class="label"><a id="d0e13635" href="#d0e13635src" class="noteref">3</a></span> <i>Punjab Census Report</i> (1891), p. 196.
+</p>
+<p class="footnote"><span class="label"><a id="d0e13659" href="#d0e13659src" class="noteref">4</a></span> Hughes&#8217; <i>Dictionary of Islam</i>, art. Fak&#299;r.
+</p>
+</div>
+</div>
+</div>
+</div>
+<div class="back">
+<div class="div1">
+<h2>Table of Contents</h2>
+<ul>
+<li><a href="#d0e111">Contents of Volume II: Articles on Castes and Tribes of the Central Provinces in Alphabetical Order</a></li>
+<li><a href="#d0e736">Illustrations in Volume II</a></li>
+<li><a href="#d0e922">Pronunciation</a></li>
+<li><a href="#d0e1045">Articles on Castes and Tribes: Agaria&#8212;Fak&#299;r</a><ul>
+<li><a href="#d0e1053">Agaria</a><ul>
+<li><a href="#d0e1056">1. Origin and subdivisions.</a></li>
+<li><a href="#d0e1085">2. Marriage.</a></li>
+<li><a href="#d0e1119">3. Birth and death ceremonies.</a></li>
+<li><a href="#d0e1124">4. Religion and social customs.</a></li>
+<li><a href="#d0e1134">5. Occupation.</a></li>
+</ul>
+</li>
+<li><a href="#d0e1141">Agharia</a><ul>
+<li><a href="#d0e1144">1. Origin.</a></li>
+<li><a href="#d0e1167">2. Subdivisions.</a></li>
+<li><a href="#d0e1180">3. Marriage customs.</a></li>
+<li><a href="#d0e1196">4. Religious and social customs.</a></li>
+<li><a href="#d0e1232">5. Occupation.</a></li>
+</ul>
+</li>
+<li><a href="#d0e1240">Aghori</a><ul>
+<li><a href="#d0e1243">1. General accounts of the caste.</a></li>
+<li><a href="#d0e1297">2. Instances of cannibalism.</a></li>
+</ul>
+</li>
+<li><a href="#d0e1335">Ah&#299;r</a><ul>
+<li><a href="#d0e1441">1. General notice.</a></li>
+<li><a href="#d0e1474">2. Former dominance of the Abh&#299;ras.</a></li>
+<li><a href="#d0e1525">3. Ah&#299;r dialects.</a></li>
+<li><a href="#d0e1537">4. The Y&#257;davas and Krishna.</a></li>
+<li><a href="#d0e1558">5. The modern Ah&#299;rs an occupational caste.</a></li>
+<li><a href="#d0e1571">6. Subcastes.</a></li>
+<li><a href="#d0e1578">7. The Dauwa or wet-nurse Ah&#299;rs. Fosterage.</a></li>
+<li><a href="#d0e1598">8. Exogamy.</a></li>
+<li><a href="#d0e1603">9. Marriage customs.</a></li>
+<li><a href="#d0e1619">10. Birth customs.</a></li>
+<li><a href="#d0e1630">11. Funeral rites. Bringing back the soul.</a></li>
+<li><a href="#d0e1637">12. Religion. Krishna and other deified cowherds.</a></li>
+<li><a href="#d0e1658">13. Caste deities.</a></li>
+<li><a href="#d0e1675">14. Other deities.</a></li>
+<li><a href="#d0e1680">15. The Diw&#257;li festival.</a></li>
+<li><a href="#d0e1720">16. Omens.</a></li>
+<li><a href="#d0e1725">17. Social customs.</a></li>
+<li><a href="#d0e1748">18. Ornaments.</a></li>
+<li><a href="#d0e1759">19. Occupation.</a></li>
+<li><a href="#d0e1779">20. Preparations of milk.</a></li>
+</ul>
+</li>
+<li><a href="#d0e1816">Andh</a></li>
+<li><a href="#d0e1845">Arakh</a></li>
+<li><a href="#d0e1880">At&#257;ri</a><ul>
+<li><a href="#d0e1883">1. General notice.</a></li>
+<li><a href="#d0e1908">2. Marriage customs.</a></li>
+<li><a href="#d0e1930">3. Religion.</a></li>
+<li><a href="#d0e1942">4. Social customs.</a></li>
+</ul>
+</li>
+<li><a href="#d0e1991">Audhelia</a><ul>
+<li><a href="#d0e1994">1. Origin.</a></li>
+<li><a href="#d0e2001">2. Marriage.</a></li>
+<li><a href="#d0e2043">3. Religion, birth and death.</a></li>
+</ul>
+</li>
+<li><a href="#d0e2051">Badhak</a><ul>
+<li><a href="#d0e2142">1. Introductory notice.</a></li>
+<li><a href="#d0e2154">2. The Badhak dacoits.</a></li>
+<li><a href="#d0e2174">3. Instances of dacoities.</a></li>
+<li><a href="#d0e2196">4. Further instances of dacoities.</a></li>
+<li><a href="#d0e2226">5. Disguise of religious mendicants.</a></li>
+<li><a href="#d0e2245">6. Countenance and support of landowners.</a></li>
+<li><a href="#d0e2263">7. Pride in their profession.</a></li>
+<li><a href="#d0e2296">8. Caste rules and admission of outsiders.</a></li>
+<li><a href="#d0e2306">9. Religion: offerings to ancestors.</a></li>
+<li><a href="#d0e2322">10. The wounded haunted by spirits.</a></li>
+<li><a href="#d0e2332">11. Pious funeral observances.</a></li>
+<li><a href="#d0e2342">12. Taking the omens.</a></li>
+<li><a href="#d0e2352">13. Suppression of dacoity.</a></li>
+<li><a href="#d0e2359">14. The Badhaks or Baoris at the present time.</a></li>
+<li><a href="#d0e2396">15. Lizard-hunting.</a></li>
+<li><a href="#d0e2411">16. Social observances.</a></li>
+<li><a href="#d0e2448">17. Criminal practices.</a></li>
+</ul>
+</li>
+<li><a href="#d0e2521">Bahna</a><ul>
+<li><a href="#d0e2524">1. Nomenclature and internal structure.</a></li>
+<li><a href="#d0e2568">2. Marriage.</a></li>
+<li><a href="#d0e2587">3. Religious and other customs.</a></li>
+<li><a href="#d0e2601">4. Occupation.</a></li>
+<li><a href="#d0e2625">5. Proverbs about Bahnas.</a></li>
+</ul>
+</li>
+<li><a href="#d0e2694">Baiga</a><ul>
+<li><a href="#d0e2750">1. The tribe and its offshoots.</a></li>
+<li><a href="#d0e2780">2. Tribal legends.</a></li>
+<li><a href="#d0e2804">3. Tribal subdivisions.</a></li>
+<li><a href="#d0e2816">4. Marriage.</a></li>
+<li><a href="#d0e2837">5. Birth and funeral rites.</a></li>
+<li><a href="#d0e2857">6. Religion.</a></li>
+<li><a href="#d0e2890">7. Appearance and mode of life.</a></li>
+<li><a href="#d0e2914">8. Dress and food.</a></li>
+<li><a href="#d0e2948">9. Occupation.</a></li>
+<li><a href="#d0e2957">10. Language.</a></li>
+</ul>
+</li>
+<li><a href="#d0e2963">Bair&#257;gi</a><ul>
+<li><a href="#d0e3030">1. Definition of name and statistics.</a></li>
+<li><a href="#d0e3060">2. The four Samprad&#257;yas or main orders.</a></li>
+<li><a href="#d0e3093">3. The R&#257;m&#257;nujis.</a></li>
+<li><a href="#d0e3103">4. The R&#257;m&#257;nandis</a></li>
+<li><a href="#d0e3116">5. The N&#299;m&#257;nandis.</a></li>
+<li><a href="#d0e3140">6. The M&#257;dhavach&#257;ryas.</a></li>
+<li><a href="#d0e3150">7. The Vallabhach&#257;ryas.</a></li>
+<li><a href="#d0e3234">8. Minor sects.</a></li>
+<li><a href="#d0e3245">9. The seven Akh&#257;ras.</a></li>
+<li><a href="#d0e3289">10. The Dw&#257;ras.</a></li>
+<li><a href="#d0e3298">11. Initiation, appearance and customs.</a></li>
+<li><a href="#d0e3353">12. Recruitment of the order and its character.</a></li>
+<li><a href="#d0e3360">13. Social position and customs.</a></li>
+<li><a href="#d0e3375">14. Bair&#257;gi monasteries.</a></li>
+<li><a href="#d0e3395">15. Married Bair&#257;gis.</a></li>
+</ul>
+</li>
+<li><a href="#d0e3405">Bal&#257;hi</a><ul>
+<li><a href="#d0e3408">1. General notice.</a></li>
+<li><a href="#d0e3434">2. Marriage.</a></li>
+<li><a href="#d0e3455">3. Other customs.</a></li>
+</ul>
+</li>
+<li><a href="#d0e3462">Balija</a><ul>
+<li><a href="#d0e3465">1. Origin and traditions.</a></li>
+<li><a href="#d0e3482">2. Marriage.</a></li>
+<li><a href="#d0e3503">3. Occupation and social status.</a></li>
+</ul>
+</li>
+<li><a href="#d0e3518">Bania</a><ul>
+<li><a href="#d0e3698">1. General notice.</a></li>
+<li><a href="#d0e3726">2. The Banias a true caste: use of the name.</a></li>
+<li><a href="#d0e3741">3. Their distinctive occupation.</a></li>
+<li><a href="#d0e3754">4. Their distinctive status.</a></li>
+<li><a href="#d0e3761">5. The endogamous divisions of the Banias.</a></li>
+<li><a href="#d0e3775">6. The Banias derived from the R&#257;jp&#363;ts.</a></li>
+<li><a href="#d0e3813">7. Banias employed as ministers in R&#257;jp&#363;t courts.</a></li>
+<li><a href="#d0e3835">8. Subcastes.</a></li>
+<li><a href="#d0e3852">9. Hindu and Jain subcastes: divisions among subcastes.</a></li>
+<li><a href="#d0e3862">10. Exogamy and rules regulating marriage.</a></li>
+<li><a href="#d0e3873">11. Marriage customs.</a></li>
+<li><a href="#d0e3903">12. Polygamy and widow-marriage.</a></li>
+<li><a href="#d0e3908">13. Disposal of the dead and mourning.</a></li>
+<li><a href="#d0e3913">14. Religion: the god Ganpati or Ganesh.</a></li>
+<li><a href="#d0e3930">15. Diw&#257;li festival.</a></li>
+<li><a href="#d0e3944">16. Holi festival.</a></li>
+<li><a href="#d0e3952">17. Social customs: rules about food.</a></li>
+<li><a href="#d0e3970">18. Character of the Bania.</a></li>
+<li><a href="#d0e3990">19. Dislike of the cultivators towards him.</a></li>
+<li><a href="#d0e4003">20. His virtues.</a></li>
+<li><a href="#d0e4020">21. The moneylender changed for the worse.</a></li>
+<li><a href="#d0e4025">22. The enforcement of contracts.</a></li>
+<li><a href="#d0e4035">23. Cash coinage and the rate of interest.</a></li>
+<li><a href="#d0e4042">24. Proprietary and transferable rights in land.</a></li>
+<li><a href="#d0e4049">25. The Bania as a landlord.</a></li>
+<li><a href="#d0e4063">26. Commercial honesty.</a></li>
+</ul>
+</li>
+<li><a href="#d0e4070">Bania, Agarw&#257;la</a></li>
+<li><a href="#d0e4111">Bania, Agrahari</a></li>
+<li><a href="#d0e4125">Bania, Ajudhiab&#257;si</a></li>
+<li><a href="#d0e4161">Bania, As&#257;thi</a></li>
+<li><a href="#d0e4175">Bania, Charn&#257;gri</a></li>
+<li><a href="#d0e4184">Bania, Dh&#363;sar</a></li>
+<li><a href="#d0e4215">Bania, Dosar</a></li>
+<li><a href="#d0e4233">Bania, Gahoi</a></li>
+<li><a href="#d0e4275">Bania, Golap&#363;rab</a></li>
+<li><a href="#d0e4295">Bania, Kasarw&#257;ni</a></li>
+<li><a href="#d0e4322">Bania, Kasaundhan</a></li>
+<li><a href="#d0e4342">Bania, Khandelw&#257;l</a></li>
+<li><a href="#d0e4360">Bania, L&#257;d</a></li>
+<li><a href="#d0e4372">Bania, Ling&#257;yat</a></li>
+<li><a href="#d0e4402">Bania, Maheshri</a></li>
+<li><a href="#d0e4439">Bania, Nema</a></li>
+<li><a href="#d0e4454">Bania, Osw&#257;l</a></li>
+<li><a href="#d0e4530">Bania, Parw&#257;r</a><ul>
+<li><a href="#d0e4533">1. Origin.</a></li>
+<li><a href="#d0e4550">2. Subdivisions.</a></li>
+<li><a href="#d0e4558">3. Exogamy.</a></li>
+<li><a href="#d0e4578">4. Marriage customs.</a></li>
+<li><a href="#d0e4585">5. Religion: Hindu observances.</a></li>
+<li><a href="#d0e4590">6. Disposal of the dead.</a></li>
+<li><a href="#d0e4602">7. Social rules and customs.</a></li>
+</ul>
+</li>
+<li><a href="#d0e4613">Bania, Srim&#257;li</a></li>
+<li><a href="#d0e4637">Bania, Umre</a></li>
+<li><a href="#d0e4661">Banj&#257;ra</a><ul>
+<li><a href="#d0e4777">1. Historical notice of the caste.</a></li>
+<li><a href="#d0e4843">2. Banj&#257;ras derived from the Ch&#257;rans or Bh&#257;ts.</a></li>
+<li><a href="#d0e4976">3. Ch&#257;ran Ranj&#257;rans employed with the Mughal armies.</a></li>
+<li><a href="#d0e5036">4. Internal structure.</a></li>
+<li><a href="#d0e5062">5. Minor subcastes.</a></li>
+<li><a href="#d0e5083">6. Marriage: betrothal.</a></li>
+<li><a href="#d0e5088">7. Marriage.</a></li>
+<li><a href="#d0e5114">8. Widow remarriage.</a></li>
+<li><a href="#d0e5131">9. Birth and death.</a></li>
+<li><a href="#d0e5147">10. Religion: Banj&#257;ri Devi.</a></li>
+<li><a href="#d0e5160">11. M&#299;thu Bh&#363;kia.</a></li>
+<li><a href="#d0e5170">12. Siva Bh&#257;ia.</a></li>
+<li><a href="#d0e5185">13. Worship of cattle.</a></li>
+<li><a href="#d0e5202">14. Connection with the Sikhs.</a></li>
+<li><a href="#d0e5214">15. Witchcraft.</a></li>
+<li><a href="#d0e5255">16. Human sacrifice.</a></li>
+<li><a href="#d0e5288">17. Admission of outsiders: kidnapped children and slaves.</a></li>
+<li><a href="#d0e5322">18. Dress.</a></li>
+<li><a href="#d0e5379">19. Social customs.</a></li>
+<li><a href="#d0e5420">20. The N&#257;ik or headman. Banj&#257;ra dogs.</a></li>
+<li><a href="#d0e5448">21. Criminal tendencies of the caste.</a></li>
+<li><a href="#d0e5469">22. Their virtues.</a></li>
+</ul>
+</li>
+<li><a href="#d0e5481">Barai</a><ul>
+<li><a href="#d0e5484">1. Origin and traditions.</a></li>
+<li><a href="#d0e5528">2. Caste subdivisions.</a></li>
+<li><a href="#d0e5550">3. Marriage</a></li>
+<li><a href="#d0e5571">4. Religion and social status.</a></li>
+<li><a href="#d0e5596">5. Occupation.</a></li>
+</ul>
+</li>
+<li><a href="#d0e5651">Barhai</a><ul>
+<li><a href="#d0e5687">1. Strength and local distribution.</a></li>
+<li><a href="#d0e5702">2. Internal structure.</a></li>
+<li><a href="#d0e5712">3. Marriage customs.</a></li>
+<li><a href="#d0e5726">4. Religion.</a></li>
+<li><a href="#d0e5731">5. Social position.</a></li>
+<li><a href="#d0e5736">6. Occupation.</a></li>
+</ul>
+</li>
+<li><a href="#d0e5753">B&#257;ri</a></li>
+<li><a href="#d0e5790">Basdewa</a></li>
+<li><a href="#d0e5847">Basor</a><ul>
+<li><a href="#d0e5883">1. Numbers and distribution.</a></li>
+<li><a href="#d0e5896">2. Caste traditions.</a></li>
+<li><a href="#d0e5909">3. Subdivisions.</a></li>
+<li><a href="#d0e5965">4. Marriage.</a></li>
+<li><a href="#d0e5984">5. Religion and social status.</a></li>
+<li><a href="#d0e5991">6. Occupation.</a></li>
+</ul>
+</li>
+<li><a href="#d0e6044">Bedar</a><ul>
+<li><a href="#d0e6047">1. General notice.</a></li>
+<li><a href="#d0e6067">2. Subdivisions and marriage customs.</a></li>
+<li><a href="#d0e6082">3. Funeral rites.</a></li>
+</ul>
+</li>
+<li><a href="#d0e6088">Beld&#257;r</a><ul>
+<li><a href="#d0e6134">1. General notice.</a></li>
+<li><a href="#d0e6153">2. Beld&#257;rs of the northern Districts.</a></li>
+<li><a href="#d0e6181">3. Odias of Chhatt&#299;sgarh.</a></li>
+<li><a href="#d0e6188">4. Other Chhatt&#299;sgarhi Beld&#257;rs.</a></li>
+<li><a href="#d0e6199">5. Munurw&#257;r and Telenga.</a></li>
+<li><a href="#d0e6212">6. Vaddar.</a></li>
+<li><a href="#d0e6222">7. P&#257;throt.</a></li>
+<li><a href="#d0e6234">8. Tak&#257;ri.</a></li>
+</ul>
+</li>
+<li><a href="#d0e6250">Beria, Bedia.</a><ul>
+<li><a href="#d0e6279">1. Historical notice.</a></li>
+<li><a href="#d0e6300">2. Criminal tendencies in the Central Provinces.</a></li>
+<li><a href="#d0e6316">3. Social customs.</a></li>
+</ul>
+</li>
+<li><a href="#d0e6333">Bhaina</a><ul>
+<li><a href="#d0e6374">1. The tribe derived from the Baigas.</a></li>
+<li><a href="#d0e6399">2. Closely connected with the Kawars.</a></li>
+<li><a href="#d0e6406">3. Internal structure: Totemism.</a></li>
+<li><a href="#d0e6431">4. Marriage.</a></li>
+<li><a href="#d0e6449">5. Religious superstitions.</a></li>
+<li><a href="#d0e6462">6. Admission of outsiders and caste offences.</a></li>
+<li><a href="#d0e6472">7. Social customs.</a></li>
+</ul>
+</li>
+<li><a href="#d0e6484">Bh&#257;mta or Bh&#257;mtya</a><ul>
+<li><a href="#d0e6487">1. Occupation.</a></li>
+<li><a href="#d0e6511">2. Subdivisions and marriage customs.</a></li>
+<li><a href="#d0e6524">3. Religion and social customs.</a></li>
+</ul>
+</li>
+<li><a href="#d0e6556">Bharbh&#363;nja</a><ul>
+<li><a href="#d0e6559">1. General notice</a></li>
+<li><a href="#d0e6586">2. Social customs.</a></li>
+<li><a href="#d0e6600">3. Occupation.</a></li>
+</ul>
+</li>
+<li><a href="#d0e6667">Bharia</a><ul>
+<li><a href="#d0e6713">1. Origin and tribal legend.</a></li>
+<li><a href="#d0e6749">2. Tribal subdivisions.</a></li>
+<li><a href="#d0e6777">3. Marriage.</a></li>
+<li><a href="#d0e6789">4. Childbirth.</a></li>
+<li><a href="#d0e6794">5. Funeral ceremonies.</a></li>
+<li><a href="#d0e6808">6. Religion and magic.</a></li>
+<li><a href="#d0e6820">7. Social life and customs.</a></li>
+<li><a href="#d0e6836">8. Occupation.</a></li>
+</ul>
+</li>
+<li><a href="#d0e6842">Bh&#257;t</a><ul>
+<li><a href="#d0e6933">1. Origin of the Bh&#257;ts.</a></li>
+<li><a href="#d0e6954">2. Bh&#257;ts and Ch&#257;rans.</a></li>
+<li><a href="#d0e6975">3. Lower-class Bh&#257;ts.</a></li>
+<li><a href="#d0e6980">4. Social status of the caste.</a></li>
+<li><a href="#d0e7000">5. Social customs.</a></li>
+<li><a href="#d0e7020">6. The Bh&#257;t&#8217;s business.</a></li>
+<li><a href="#d0e7048">7. Their extortionate practices.</a></li>
+<li><a href="#d0e7121">8. The Jasondhis.</a></li>
+<li><a href="#d0e7129">9. The Ch&#257;rans as carriers.</a></li>
+<li><a href="#d0e7136">10. Suicide and the fear of ghosts.</a></li>
+<li><a href="#d0e7164">11. Instances of haunting and laying ghosts.</a></li>
+<li><a href="#d0e7200">12. The Ch&#257;rans as sureties.</a></li>
+<li><a href="#d0e7232">13. Suicide as a means of revenge.</a></li>
+<li><a href="#d0e7258">14. <i>Dharna.</i></a></li>
+<li><a href="#d0e7302">15. Casting out spirits.</a></li>
+<li><a href="#d0e7324">16. Sulking. Going bankrupt.</a></li>
+<li><a href="#d0e7343">17. Bh&#257;t songs.</a></li>
+</ul>
+</li>
+<li><a href="#d0e7496">Bhatra</a><ul>
+<li><a href="#d0e7543">1. General notice and structure of the caste.</a></li>
+<li><a href="#d0e7554">2. Admission of outsiders.</a></li>
+<li><a href="#d0e7559">3. Arrangement of marriages.</a></li>
+<li><a href="#d0e7566">4. The Counter of Posts.</a></li>
+<li><a href="#d0e7573">5. Marriage customs.</a></li>
+<li><a href="#d0e7591">6. Propitiation of ghosts.</a></li>
+<li><a href="#d0e7598">7. Religion. Ceremonies at hunting.</a></li>
+<li><a href="#d0e7603">8. Superstitious remedies.</a></li>
+<li><a href="#d0e7610">9. Occupation.</a></li>
+<li><a href="#d0e7615">10. Names.</a></li>
+</ul>
+</li>
+<li><a href="#d0e7623">Bh&#299;l</a><ul>
+<li><a href="#d0e7686">1. General notice. The Bh&#299;ls a Kolarian tribe.</a></li>
+<li><a href="#d0e7731">2. R&#257;jp&#363;ts deriving their title to the land from the Bh&#299;ls.</a></li>
+<li><a href="#d0e7788">3. Historical notice.</a></li>
+<li><a href="#d0e7861">4. General Outram and the Kh&#257;ndesh Bh&#299;l Corps.</a></li>
+<li><a href="#d0e7878">5. Subdivisions.</a></li>
+<li><a href="#d0e7918">6. Exogamy and marriage customs.</a></li>
+<li><a href="#d0e7943">7. Widow&#8212;marriage, divorce and polygamy.</a></li>
+<li><a href="#d0e7953">8. Religion.</a></li>
+<li><a href="#d0e7977">9. Witchcraft and amulets.</a></li>
+<li><a href="#d0e8007">10. Funeral rites.</a></li>
+<li><a href="#d0e8012">11. Social customs.</a></li>
+<li><a href="#d0e8019">12. Appearance and characteristics.</a></li>
+<li><a href="#d0e8041">13. Occupation.</a></li>
+<li><a href="#d0e8053">14. Language.</a></li>
+</ul>
+</li>
+<li><a href="#d0e8064">Bhil&#257;la</a><ul>
+<li><a href="#d0e8067">1. General notice.</a></li>
+<li><a href="#d0e8093">2. Marriage.</a></li>
+<li><a href="#d0e8133">3. Social customs.</a></li>
+<li><a href="#d0e8149">4. Occupation and character.</a></li>
+<li><a href="#d0e8157">5. Character.</a></li>
+</ul>
+</li>
+<li><a href="#d0e8181">Bhishti</a></li>
+<li><a href="#d0e8270">Bhoyar</a><ul>
+<li><a href="#d0e8273">1. Origin and traditions.</a></li>
+<li><a href="#d0e8291">2. Subcastes and sections.</a></li>
+<li><a href="#d0e8313">3. Marriage.</a></li>
+<li><a href="#d0e8338">4. Occupation.</a></li>
+<li><a href="#d0e8343">5. Social status.</a></li>
+</ul>
+</li>
+<li><a href="#d0e8354">Bhuiya</a><ul>
+<li><a href="#d0e8421">1. The tribe and its name.</a></li>
+<li><a href="#d0e8445">2. Distribution of the tribe.</a></li>
+<li><a href="#d0e8455">3. Example of the position of the aborigines in Hindu society.</a></li>
+<li><a href="#d0e8462">4. The Bhuiyas a Kolarian tribe.</a></li>
+<li><a href="#d0e8495">5. The Baigas and the Bhuiyas. Chhatt&#299;sgarh the home of the Baigas.</a></li>
+<li><a href="#d0e8510">6. The Baigas a branch of the Bhuiyas.</a></li>
+<li><a href="#d0e8551">7. Tribal sub-divisions.</a></li>
+<li><a href="#d0e8570">8. Exogamus septs.</a></li>
+<li><a href="#d0e8580">9. Marriage customs.</a></li>
+<li><a href="#d0e8592">10. Widow-marriage and divorce.</a></li>
+<li><a href="#d0e8600">11. Religion.</a></li>
+<li><a href="#d0e8616">12. Religious dancing.</a></li>
+<li><a href="#d0e8630">13. Funeral rites and inheritance.</a></li>
+<li><a href="#d0e8638">14. Physical appearance and occupation.</a></li>
+<li><a href="#d0e8645">15. Social customs.</a></li>
+</ul>
+</li>
+<li><a href="#d0e8650">Bhulia</a></li>
+<li><a href="#d0e8698">Bhunjia</a><ul>
+<li><a href="#d0e8701">1. Origin and traditions.</a></li>
+<li><a href="#d0e8792">2. Subdivisions.</a></li>
+<li><a href="#d0e8799">3. Marriage.</a></li>
+<li><a href="#d0e8808">4. Religion.</a></li>
+<li><a href="#d0e8821">5. Social rules.</a></li>
+</ul>
+</li>
+<li><a href="#d0e8829">Binjhw&#257;r</a><ul>
+<li><a href="#d0e8880">1. Origin and tradition.</a></li>
+<li><a href="#d0e8904">2. Tribal subdivisions.</a></li>
+<li><a href="#d0e8920">3. Marriage.</a></li>
+<li><a href="#d0e8928">4. The marriage ceremony.</a></li>
+<li><a href="#d0e8935">5. Sexual morality.</a></li>
+<li><a href="#d0e8944">6. Disposal of the dead.</a></li>
+<li><a href="#d0e8955">7. Religion.</a></li>
+<li><a href="#d0e8974">8. Festivals.</a></li>
+<li><a href="#d0e8985">9. Social customs.</a></li>
+</ul>
+</li>
+<li><a href="#d0e8993">Bishnoi</a><ul>
+<li><a href="#d0e9044">1. Origin of the sect.</a></li>
+<li><a href="#d0e9070">2. Precepts of Jh&#257;mb&#257;ji.</a></li>
+<li><a href="#d0e9090">3. Customs of the Bishnois in the Punjab.</a></li>
+<li><a href="#d0e9100">4. Initiation and baptism.</a></li>
+<li><a href="#d0e9127">5. Nature of the sect.</a></li>
+<li><a href="#d0e9137">6. Bishnois in the Central Provinces.</a></li>
+<li><a href="#d0e9162">7. Marriage.</a></li>
+<li><a href="#d0e9172">8. Disposal of the dead.</a></li>
+<li><a href="#d0e9177">9. Development into a caste.</a></li>
+</ul>
+</li>
+<li><a href="#d0e9191">Bohra</a><ul>
+<li><a href="#d0e9232">1. Origin of the sect.</a></li>
+<li><a href="#d0e9267">2. Their religious tenets.</a></li>
+<li><a href="#d0e9287">3. The Mullahs.</a></li>
+<li><a href="#d0e9300">4. Bohra graveyards.</a></li>
+<li><a href="#d0e9315">5. Religious customs.</a></li>
+<li><a href="#d0e9336">6. Occupation.</a></li>
+<li><a href="#d0e9355">7. Houses and dress.</a></li>
+</ul>
+</li>
+<li><a href="#d0e9366">Br&#257;hman</a><ul>
+<li><a href="#d0e9536">1. Origin and development of the caste.</a></li>
+<li><a href="#d0e9572">2. Their monopoly of literature.</a></li>
+<li><a href="#d0e9588">3. Absence of central authority.</a></li>
+<li><a href="#d0e9593">4. Mixed elements in the caste.</a></li>
+<li><a href="#d0e9628">5. Caste subdivisions.</a></li>
+<li><a href="#d0e9730">6. Miscellaneous groups.</a></li>
+<li><a href="#d0e9737">7. Sectarian divisions.</a></li>
+<li><a href="#d0e9744">8. Exogamy.</a></li>
+<li><a href="#d0e9757">9. Restrictions on marriage.</a></li>
+<li><a href="#d0e9787">10. Hypergamy.</a></li>
+<li><a href="#d0e9809">11. Marriage customs.</a></li>
+<li><a href="#d0e9836">12. Polygamy, divorce and treatment of widows.</a></li>
+<li><a href="#d0e9843">13. <i>Sati</i> or burning of widows.</a></li>
+<li><a href="#d0e9915">14. Funeral rites and mourning.</a></li>
+<li><a href="#d0e9947">15. Religion.</a></li>
+<li><a href="#d0e9960">16. Daily ritual.</a></li>
+<li><a href="#d0e10025">17. The sacred thread.</a></li>
+<li><a href="#d0e10041">18. Social position.</a></li>
+<li><a href="#d0e10062">19. Titles.</a></li>
+<li><a href="#d0e10067">20. Caste <i>panch&#257;yat</i> and offences.</a></li>
+<li><a href="#d0e10090">21. Rules about food.</a></li>
+<li><a href="#d0e10100">22. Dress.</a></li>
+<li><a href="#d0e10113">23. Tattooing.</a></li>
+<li><a href="#d0e10118">24. Occupation.</a></li>
+<li><a href="#d0e10143">25. Character of Br&#257;hmans.</a></li>
+</ul>
+</li>
+<li><a href="#d0e10150">Br&#257;hman, Ahiv&#257;si</a></li>
+<li><a href="#d0e10162">Br&#257;hman, Jijhotia</a></li>
+<li><a href="#d0e10175">Br&#257;hman, Kanaujia, Kanyakubja</a></li>
+<li><a href="#d0e10213">Br&#257;hman, Khed&#257;w&#257;l</a></li>
+<li><a href="#d0e10231">Br&#257;hman, Mah&#257;r&#257;shtra</a></li>
+<li><a href="#d0e10256">Br&#257;hman, Maithil</a></li>
+<li><a href="#d0e10274">Br&#257;hman, M&#257;lwi</a></li>
+<li><a href="#d0e10284">Br&#257;hman, N&#257;gar</a></li>
+<li><a href="#d0e10321">Br&#257;hman, N&#257;ramdeo</a></li>
+<li><a href="#d0e10333">Br&#257;hman, San&#257;dhya</a></li>
+<li><a href="#d0e10366">Br&#257;hman, Sarwaria</a></li>
+<li><a href="#d0e10378">Br&#257;hman, Utkal</a></li>
+<li><a href="#d0e10413">Chad&#257;r</a></li>
+<li><a href="#d0e10437">Cham&#257;r</a><ul>
+<li><a href="#d0e10528">1. General notice of the caste.</a></li>
+<li><a href="#d0e10587">2. Endogamous divisions.</a></li>
+<li><a href="#d0e10607">3. Subcastes continued.</a></li>
+<li><a href="#d0e10665">4. Exogamous divisions.</a></li>
+<li><a href="#d0e10673">5. Marriage.</a></li>
+<li><a href="#d0e10694">6. Widow-marriage and divorce.</a></li>
+<li><a href="#d0e10728">7. Funeral customs.</a></li>
+<li><a href="#d0e10743">8. Childbirth.</a></li>
+<li><a href="#d0e10768">9. Religion.</a></li>
+<li><a href="#d0e10783">10. Occupation.</a></li>
+<li><a href="#d0e10804">11. The tanning process.</a></li>
+<li><a href="#d0e10841">12. Shoes.</a></li>
+<li><a href="#d0e10857">13. Other articles made of leather.</a></li>
+<li><a href="#d0e10868">14. Customs connected with shoes.</a></li>
+<li><a href="#d0e10880">15. The Cham&#257;r as general village drudge.</a></li>
+<li><a href="#d0e10890">16. Social status.</a></li>
+<li><a href="#d0e10912">17. Character.</a></li>
+</ul>
+</li>
+<li><a href="#d0e10933">Chasa</a><ul>
+<li><a href="#d0e10936">1. Origin and traditions.</a></li>
+<li><a href="#d0e10954">2. Exogamous divisions.</a></li>
+<li><a href="#d0e11026">3. Status and customs of the caste.</a></li>
+</ul>
+</li>
+<li><a href="#d0e11045">Chauh&#257;n</a></li>
+<li><a href="#d0e11075">Chh&#299;pa</a><ul>
+<li><a href="#d0e11078">1. Constitution of the caste.</a></li>
+<li><a href="#d0e11088">2. Its origin and position.</a></li>
+<li><a href="#d0e11108">3. Caste subdivisions.</a></li>
+<li><a href="#d0e11116">4. Marriage and other customs.</a></li>
+<li><a href="#d0e11123">5. Occupation.</a></li>
+</ul>
+</li>
+<li><a href="#d0e11146">Chit&#257;ri</a><ul>
+<li><a href="#d0e11182">1. Origin and traditions.</a></li>
+<li><a href="#d0e11202">2. Social customs.</a></li>
+<li><a href="#d0e11213">3. Birth and childhood.</a></li>
+<li><a href="#d0e11218">4. The evil eye.</a></li>
+<li><a href="#d0e11239">5. Cradle-songs.</a></li>
+<li><a href="#d0e11321">6. Occupation.</a></li>
+</ul>
+</li>
+<li><a href="#d0e11334">Chitrakathi</a></li>
+<li><a href="#d0e11378">Cutchi</a><ul>
+<li><a href="#d0e11381">1. General notice.</a></li>
+<li><a href="#d0e11405">2. Origin of the caste.</a></li>
+<li><a href="#d0e11429">3. Social customs.</a></li>
+</ul>
+</li>
+<li><a href="#d0e11449">Dah&#257;it</a><ul>
+<li><a href="#d0e11492">1. Origin of the caste.</a></li>
+<li><a href="#d0e11510">2. Internal structure: totemism.</a></li>
+<li><a href="#d0e11536">3. Marriage and other customs.</a></li>
+<li><a href="#d0e11561">4. Social position.</a></li>
+<li><a href="#d0e11569">5. Former occupations: door-keeper and mace-bearer.</a></li>
+<li><a href="#d0e11599">6. The umbrella.</a></li>
+<li><a href="#d0e11619">7. Significance of the umbrella.</a></li>
+</ul>
+</li>
+<li><a href="#d0e11702">Daharia</a><ul>
+<li><a href="#d0e11705">1. Origin and traditions.</a></li>
+<li><a href="#d0e11739">2. Sept and subsept.</a></li>
+<li><a href="#d0e11744">3. Social customs.</a></li>
+</ul>
+</li>
+<li><a href="#d0e11771">D&#257;ngi</a><ul>
+<li><a href="#d0e11774">1. Origin and traditions.</a></li>
+<li><a href="#d0e11806">2. Caste subdivisions.</a></li>
+<li><a href="#d0e11819">3. Marriage.</a></li>
+<li><a href="#d0e11841">4. Religious and social customs.</a></li>
+<li><a href="#d0e11863">5. Occupation and character.</a></li>
+</ul>
+</li>
+<li><a href="#d0e11889">D&#257;ngri</a></li>
+<li><a href="#d0e11912">Darzi</a><ul>
+<li><a href="#d0e11943">1. General notice.</a></li>
+<li><a href="#d0e11968">2. Subdivisions.</a></li>
+<li><a href="#d0e11979">3. Sewn clothes not formerly worn.</a></li>
+<li><a href="#d0e12046">4. Occupation.</a></li>
+<li><a href="#d0e12072">5. Religion.</a></li>
+</ul>
+</li>
+<li><a href="#d0e12108">Dew&#257;r</a><ul>
+<li><a href="#d0e12111">1. General notice.</a></li>
+<li><a href="#d0e12125">2. Subdivisions.</a></li>
+<li><a href="#d0e12141">3. Marriage customs.</a></li>
+<li><a href="#d0e12153">4. Religion and social practices.</a></li>
+<li><a href="#d0e12161">5. Occupation.</a></li>
+</ul>
+</li>
+<li><a href="#d0e12174">Dh&#257;kar</a><ul>
+<li><a href="#d0e12177">1. Origin and subdivisions.</a></li>
+<li><a href="#d0e12190">2. Marriage.</a></li>
+<li><a href="#d0e12197">3. Funeral rites.</a></li>
+<li><a href="#d0e12202">4. Occupation and social status.</a></li>
+</ul>
+</li>
+<li><a href="#d0e12209">Dhangar</a><ul>
+<li><a href="#d0e12212">1. Traditions and structure of the caste.</a></li>
+<li><a href="#d0e12235">2. Marriage.</a></li>
+<li><a href="#d0e12245">3. Religion.</a></li>
+<li><a href="#d0e12252">4. Birth, death and social status.</a></li>
+<li><a href="#d0e12262">5. Occupation.</a></li>
+</ul>
+</li>
+<li><a href="#d0e12267">Dh&#257;nuk</a><ul>
+<li><a href="#d0e12270">1. Original and classical records.</a></li>
+<li><a href="#d0e12305">2. Marriage.</a></li>
+<li><a href="#d0e12319">3. Social rank and customs.</a></li>
+</ul>
+</li>
+<li><a href="#d0e12327">Dhanw&#257;r</a><ul>
+<li><a href="#d0e12403">1. Origin and traditions.</a></li>
+<li><a href="#d0e12435">2. Exogamous septs.</a></li>
+<li><a href="#d0e12448">3. Marriage.</a></li>
+<li><a href="#d0e12458">4. Festivities of the women of the bridegroom&#8217;s party.</a></li>
+<li><a href="#d0e12484">5. Conclusion of the marriage.</a></li>
+<li><a href="#d0e12489">6. Widow-marriage and divorce.</a></li>
+<li><a href="#d0e12502">7. Childbirth.</a></li>
+<li><a href="#d0e12512">8. Disposal of the dead.</a></li>
+<li><a href="#d0e12520">9. Religion.</a></li>
+<li><a href="#d0e12538">10. Magic and witchcraft.</a></li>
+<li><a href="#d0e12551">11. Social rules.</a></li>
+<li><a href="#d0e12566">12. Dress and tattooing.</a></li>
+<li><a href="#d0e12571">13. Names of children.</a></li>
+<li><a href="#d0e12590">14. Occupation.</a></li>
+</ul>
+</li>
+<li><a href="#d0e12605">Dh&#299;mar</a><ul>
+<li><a href="#d0e12678">1. General notice.</a></li>
+<li><a href="#d0e12697">2. Subcastes.</a></li>
+<li><a href="#d0e12717">3. Exogamous groups.</a></li>
+<li><a href="#d0e12727">4. Marriage.</a></li>
+<li><a href="#d0e12746">5. Childbirth</a></li>
+<li><a href="#d0e12762">6. Disposal of the dead.</a></li>
+<li><a href="#d0e12774">7. Religion.</a></li>
+<li><a href="#d0e12803">8. Occupation: fisherman.</a></li>
+<li><a href="#d0e12821">9. Water-carrier.</a></li>
+<li><a href="#d0e12835">10. Palanquin-bearer and personal servant.</a></li>
+<li><a href="#d0e12865">11. Other occupations.</a></li>
+<li><a href="#d0e12880">12. Social status.</a></li>
+<li><a href="#d0e12913">13. Legend of the caste.</a></li>
+</ul>
+</li>
+<li><a href="#d0e12922">Dhoba</a><ul>
+<li><a href="#d0e12958">1. General notice.</a></li>
+<li><a href="#d0e12970">2. Exogamous divisions.</a></li>
+<li><a href="#d0e12983">3. Marriage customs.</a></li>
+<li><a href="#d0e12988">4. Funeral rites.</a></li>
+<li><a href="#d0e12998">5. Caste <i>panch&#257;yat</i> and social penalties.</a></li>
+<li><a href="#d0e13012">6. Occupation and social customs.</a></li>
+</ul>
+</li>
+<li><a href="#d0e13020">Dhobi</a><ul>
+<li><a href="#d0e13066">1. Character and structure of the caste.</a></li>
+<li><a href="#d0e13084">2. Marriage customs.</a></li>
+<li><a href="#d0e13109">3. Other social customs.</a></li>
+<li><a href="#d0e13114">4. Religion.</a></li>
+<li><a href="#d0e13127">5. Occupation: washing clothes.</a></li>
+<li><a href="#d0e13172">6. Social position.</a></li>
+<li><a href="#d0e13221">7. Proverbs about the Dhobi.</a></li>
+<li><a href="#d0e13242">8. Wearing and lending the clothes of customers.</a></li>
+</ul>
+</li>
+<li><a href="#d0e13264">Dhuri</a><ul>
+<li><a href="#d0e13267">1. Origin and Subdivisions.</a></li>
+<li><a href="#d0e13295">2. Marriage.</a></li>
+<li><a href="#d0e13305">3. Religious beliefs.</a></li>
+<li><a href="#d0e13310">4. Occupation and social status.</a></li>
+</ul>
+</li>
+<li><a href="#d0e13323">Dum&#257;l</a><ul>
+<li><a href="#d0e13326">1. Origin and traditions.</a></li>
+<li><a href="#d0e13335">2. Subdivisions.</a></li>
+<li><a href="#d0e13539">3. Marriage.</a></li>
+<li><a href="#d0e13568">4. Religious and social customs.</a></li>
+</ul>
+</li>
+<li><a href="#d0e13593">Fak&#299;r</a><ul>
+<li><a href="#d0e13596">1. General notice.</a></li>
+<li><a href="#d0e13623">2. Principal orders.</a></li>
+<li><a href="#d0e13669">3. Rules and customs.</a></li>
+</ul>
+</li>
+</ul>
+</li>
+</ul>
+</div>
+<div class="transcribernote">
+<h2>Colophon</h2>
+<h3>Availability</h3>
+<p>This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give
+it away or re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at <a href="https://www.gutenberg.org/">www.gutenberg.org</a>.
+
+</p>
+<p>This eBook is produced by Jeroen Hellingman and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at <a href="https://www.pgdp.net/">www.pgdp.net</a> from page images provided by the Million Books Project, supplemented with scans of the illustrations from original copies.
+
+</p>
+<p>gbn0404132117: Russel, R. V., The Tribes and Castes of the Central Provinces of India v. 1&#8211;4. Jeroen Hellingman &lt;jeroen@bohol.ph&gt;.
+1916p. 4/14/2004. ok.
+
+</p>
+<h3>Encoding</h3>
+<h3>Revision History</h3>
+<ul>
+<li>1-JUL-2007 Added TEI tagging.
+
+</li>
+</ul>
+<h3>Corrections</h3>
+<p>The following corrections have been applied to the text:</p>
+<table width="75%">
+<tr>
+<th>Location</th>
+<th>Source</th>
+<th>Correction</th>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td width="20%"><a href="#d0e1892">Page 42</a></td>
+<td width="40%">Bukekari</td>
+<td width="40%">Bukek&#257;ri</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td width="20%"><a href="#d0e5466">Page 191</a></td>
+<td width="40%">
+[<i>Not in source</i>]
+
+</td>
+<td width="40%">&#8221;</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td width="20%"><a href="#d0e6174">Page 217</a></td>
+<td width="40%">
+[<i>Not in source</i>]
+
+</td>
+<td width="40%">&#8221;</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td width="20%"><a href="#d0e7055">Page 256</a></td>
+<td width="40%">Lakh</td>
+<td width="40%">L&#257;kh</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td width="20%"><a href="#d0e10395">Page 399</a></td>
+<td width="40%">,</td>
+<td width="40%">.</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td width="20%"><a href="#d0e11400">Page 440</a></td>
+<td width="40%">&#8217;</td>
+<td width="40%">&#8221;</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td width="20%"><a href="#d0e13494">Page 531</a></td>
+<td width="40%">
+[<i>Not in source</i>]
+
+</td>
+<td width="40%">.</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td width="20%"><a href="#d0e13585">Page 536</a></td>
+<td width="40%">
+[<i>Not in source</i>]
+
+</td>
+<td width="40%">.</td>
+</tr>
+</table>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+<pre>
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Tribes and Castes of the Central
+Provinces of India, by R. V. Russell
+
+*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK TRIBES AND CASTES ***
+
+***** This file should be named 22010-h.htm or 22010-h.zip *****
+This and all associated files of various formats will be found in:
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+</body>
+</html>
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@@ -0,0 +1,22894 @@
+The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Tribes and Castes of the Central
+Provinces of India, by R. V. Russell
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: The Tribes and Castes of the Central Provinces of India
+       Volume II
+
+Author: R. V. Russell
+
+Release Date: July 6, 2007 [EBook #22010]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ASCII
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK TRIBES AND CASTES ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Jeroen Hellingman and the Online Distributed
+Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net/
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+        The Tribes and Castes of the Central Provinces of India
+
+                                   By
+
+                              R.V. Russell
+   Of the Indian Civil Service Superintendent of Ethnography, Central
+                               Provinces
+                              Assisted by
+                          Rai Bahadur Hira Lal
+                      Extra Assistant Commissioner
+
+
+   Published Under the Orders of the Central Provinces Administration
+
+                            In Four Volumes
+                               Vol. II.
+
+        Macmillan and Co., Limited St. Martin's Street, London.
+
+                                  1916
+
+
+
+
+
+
+CONTENTS OF VOLUME II
+
+Articles on Castes and Tribes of the Central Provinces in Alphabetical
+Order
+
+
+The articles which are considered to be of most general interest
+are shown in capitals
+
+
+
+    Agaria (_Iron-worker_)   3
+    Agharia (_Cultivator_)   8
+    Aghori (_Religious mendicant_)   13
+    AHIR (_Herdsman and milkman_)   18
+    Andh (_Tribe, now cultivators_)   38
+    Arakh (_Hunter_)   40
+    Atari (_Scent-seller_)   42
+    Audhelia (_Labourer_)   45
+    BADHAK (_Robber_)   49
+    BAHNA (_Cotton-cleaner_)   69
+    Baiga (_Forest tribe_)   77
+    Bairagi (_Religious mendicants_)   93
+    Balahi (_Labourer and village watchman_)   105
+    Balija (_Cultivator_)   108
+    BANIA (_Merchant and moneylender_)   111
+    Subcastes of Bania
+
+            Agarwala.
+            Agrahari.
+            Ajudhiabasi.
+            Asathi.
+            Charnagri.
+            Dhusar.
+            Dosar.
+            Gahoi.
+            Golapurab.
+            Kasarwani.
+            Kasaundhan.
+            Khandelwal.
+            Lad.
+            Lingayat.
+            Maheshri.
+            Nema.
+            Oswal.
+            Parwar.
+            Srimali.
+            Umre.
+
+    BANJARA (_Pack-carrier_)   162
+    Barai (_Betel-vine grower and seller_)   192
+    Barhai (_Carpenter_)   199
+    Bari (_Maker of leaf-plates_)   202
+    Basdewa (_Cattle-dealer and religious mendicant_)   204
+    Basor (_Bamboo-worker_)   208
+    Bedar (_Soldier and public service_)   212
+    Beldar (_Digger and navvy_)   215
+    Beria (_Vagabond gipsy_)   220
+    Bhaina (_Forest tribe_)   225
+    Bhamta (_Criminal tribe and labourers_)   234
+    Bharbhunja (_Grain-parcher_)   238
+    Bharia (_Forest tribe_)   242
+    BHAT (_Bard and genealogist_)   251
+    Bhatra (_Forest tribe_)   271
+    BHIL (_Forest tribe_)   278
+    Bhilala (_Landowner and cultivator_)   293
+    Bhishti (_Water-man_)   298
+    Bhoyar (_Cultivator_)   301
+    Bhuiya (_Forest tribe_)   305
+    Bhulia (_Weaver_)   319
+    Bhunjia (_Forest tribe_)   322
+    Binjhwar (_Cultivator_)   329
+    Bishnoi (_Cultivator_)   337
+    Bohra (_Trader_)   345
+    BRAHMAN (_Priest_)   351
+    Subcastes of Brahman
+
+            Ahivasi.
+            Jijhotia.
+            Kanaujia, Kanyakubja.
+            Khedawal.
+            Maharashtra.
+            Maithil.
+            Malwi.
+            Nagar.
+            Naramdeo.
+            Sanadhya.
+            Sarwaria.
+            Utkal.
+
+    Chadar (_Village watchman and labourer_)   400
+    CHAMAR (_Tanner and labourer_)   403
+    Chasa (_Cultivator_)   424
+    Chauhan (_Village watchman and labourer_)   427
+    Chhipa (_Dyer and calico-printer_)   429
+    CHITARI (_Painter_)   432
+    Chitrakathi (_Picture showman_)   438
+    Cutchi (_Trader and shopkeeper_)   440
+    DAHAIT (_Village watchman and labourer_)   444
+    Daharia (_Cultivator_)   453
+    Dangi (_Landowner and cultivator_)   457
+    Dangri (_Vegetable-grower_)   463
+    DARZI (_Tailor_)   466
+    Dewar (_Beggar and musician_)   472
+    Dhakar (_Illegitimate, cultivator_)   477
+    Dhangar (_Shepherd_)   480
+    Dhanuk (_Bowman, labourer_)   484
+    Dhanwar (_Forest tribe_)   488
+    DHIMAR (_Fisherman, water-carrier, and household servant_)   502
+    Dhoba (_Forest tribe, cultivator_)   515
+    DHOBI (_Washerman_)   519
+    Dhuri (_Grain-parcher_)   527
+    Dumal (_Cultivator_)   530
+    Fakir (_Religious mendicant_)   537
+
+
+
+
+
+
+ILLUSTRATIONS IN VOLUME II
+
+
+    31. Aghori mendicant   14
+    32. Ahirs decorated with cowries for the Stick Dance at Diwali   18
+    33. Image of Krishna as Murlidhar or the flute-player, with
+        attendant deities   28
+    34. Ahir dancers in Diwali costume   32
+    35. Pinjara cleaning cotton   72
+    36. Baiga village, Balaghat District   88
+    37. Hindu mendicants with sect-marks   94
+    38. Anchorite sitting on iron nails   98
+    39. Pilgrims carrying water of the river Nerbudda   100
+    40. _Coloured Plate_: Examples of Tilaks or sect-marks worn on
+        the forehead   102
+    41. Group of Marwari Bania women   112
+    42. Image of the god Ganpati carried in procession   116
+    43. The elephant-headed god Ganpati. His conveyance is a rat,
+        which can be seen as a little blob between his feet   120
+    44. Mud images made and worshipped at the Holi festival   126
+    45. Bania's shop   128
+    46. Banjara women with the _singh_ or horn   184
+    47. Group of Banjara women   188
+    48. Basors making baskets of bamboo   210
+    49. Bhat with his _putla_ or doll   256
+    50. Group of Bhils   278
+    51. Tantia Bhil, a famous dacoit   282
+    52. Group of Bohras at Burhanpur (Nimar)   346
+    53. Brahman worshipping his household gods   380
+    54. Brahman bathing party   384
+    55. Brahman Pujaris or priests   390
+    56. Group of Maratha Brahman men   392
+    57. Group of Naramdeo Brahman women   396
+    58. Group of Naramdeo Brahman men   398
+    59. Chamars tanning and working in leather   416
+    60. Chamars cutting leather and making shoes   418
+    61. Chhipa or calico-printer at work   430
+    62. Dhimar or fisherman's hut   502
+    63. Fishermen in dug-outs or hollowed tree trunks   506
+    64. Group of Gurujwale Fakirs   538
+
+
+
+
+
+
+PRONUNCIATION
+
+
+    _a_     has the sound of _u_ in _but_ or _murmur_.
+    _a_     has the sound of _a_ in _bath_ or _tar_.
+    _e_     has the sound of _e_ in _ecarte_ or _ai_ in _maid_.
+    _i_     has the sound of _i_ in _bit_, or (as a final letter)
+            of _y_ in _sulky_
+    _i_     has the sound of _ee_ in _beet_.
+    _o_     has the sound of _o_ in _bore_ or _bowl_.
+    _u_     has the sound of _u_ in _put_ or _bull_.
+    _u_     has the sound of _oo_ in _poor_ or _boot_.
+
+
+The plural of caste names and a few common Hindustani words is formed
+by adding _s_ in the English manner according to ordinary usage,
+though this is not, of course, the Hindustani plural.
+
+Note.--The rupee contains 16 annas, and an anna is of the same value
+as a penny. A pice is a quarter of an anna, or a farthing. Rs. 1-8
+signifies one rupee and eight annas. A lakh is a hundred thousand,
+and a krore ten million.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+PART II
+
+ARTICLES ON CASTES AND TRIBES
+
+AGARIA--FAKIR
+
+
+
+
+
+
+Agaria
+
+
+
+1. Origin and subdivisions.
+
+
+Agaria. [1]--A small Dravidian caste, who are an offshoot of the Gond
+tribe. The Agarias have adopted the profession of iron-smelting and
+form a separate caste. They numbered 9500 persons in 1911 and live
+on the Maikal range in the Mandla, Raipur and Bilaspur Districts.
+
+The name probably signifies a worker with _ag_ or fire. An Agaria
+subcaste of Lohars also exists, many of whom are quite probably Gonds,
+but they are not included in the regular caste. Similar Dravidian
+castes of Agarias are to be found in Mirzapur and Bengal. The Agarias
+are quite distinct from the Agharia cultivating caste of the Uriya
+country. The Raipur Agarias still intermarry with the Rawanbansi
+Gonds of the District. The Agarias think that their caste has existed
+from the beginning of the world, and that the first Agaria made
+the ploughshare with which the first bullocks furrowed the primeval
+soil. The caste has two endogamous divisions, the Patharia and the
+Khuntia Agarias. The Patharias place a stone on the mouth of the
+bellows to fix them in the ground for smelting, while the Khuntias
+use a peg. The two subcastes do not even take water from one another.
+
+Their exogamous sections have generally the same names as those of
+the Gonds, as Sonwani, Dhurua, Tekam, Markam, Uika, Purtai, Marai,
+and others. A few names of Hindi origin are also found, as Ahindwar,
+Ranchirai and Rathoria, which show that some Hindus have probably been
+amalgamated with the caste. Ahindwar or Aindwar and Ranchirai mean
+a fish and a bird respectively in Hindi, while Rathoria is a _gotra_
+both of Rajputs and Telis. The Gond names are probably also those of
+animals, plants or other objects, but their meaning has now generally
+been forgotten. Tekam or _teka_ is a teak tree. Sonwani is a sept
+found among several of the Dravidian tribes, and the lower Hindu
+castes. A person of the Sonwani sept is always chosen to perform
+the ceremony of purification and readmission into caste of persons
+temporarily excommunicated. His duty often consists in pouring on such
+a person a little water in which gold has been placed to make it holy,
+and hence the name is considered to mean Sonapani or gold-water. The
+Agarias do not know the meanings of their section names and therefore
+have no totemistic observances. But they consider that all persons
+belonging to one _gotra_ are descended from a common ancestor, and
+marriage within the _gotra_ is therefore prohibited. As among the
+Gonds, first cousins are allowed to marry.
+
+
+
+2. Marriage.
+
+
+Marriage is usually adult. When the father of a boy wishes to arrange a
+marriage he sends emissaries to the father of the girl. They open the
+proceedings by saying, 'So-and-so has come to partake of your stale
+food.' [2] If the father of the girl approves he gives his consent by
+saying, 'He has come on foot, I receive him on my head.' The boy's
+father then repairs to the girl's house, where he is respectfully
+received and his feet are washed. He is then asked to take a drink of
+plain water, which is a humble method of offering him a meal. After
+this, presents for the girl are sent by a party accompanied by tomtom
+players, and a date is fixed for the marriage, which, contrary to the
+usual Hindu rule, may take place in the rains. The reason is perhaps
+because iron-smelting is not carried on during the rains and the
+Agarias therefore have no work to do. A few days before the wedding
+the bride-price is paid, which consists of 5 seers each of _urad_
+and til and a sum of Rs. 4 to Rs. 12. The marriage is held on any
+Monday, Tuesday or Friday, no further trouble being taken to select
+an auspicious day. In order that they may not forget the date fixed,
+the fathers of the parties each take a piece of thread in which
+they tie a knot for every day intervening between the date when the
+marriage day is settled and the day itself, and they then untie one
+knot for every day. Previous to the marriage all the village gods
+are propitiated by being anointed with oil by the Baiga or village
+priest. The first clod of earth for the ovens is also dug by the
+Baiga, and received in her cloth by the bride's mother as a mark
+of respect. The usual procedure is adopted in the marriage. After
+the bridegroom's arrival his teeth are cleaned with tooth-sticks,
+and the bride's sister tries to push _saj_ leaves into his mouth,
+a proceeding which he prevents by holding his fan in front of his
+face. For doing this the girl is given a small present. A _paili_
+[3] measure of rice is filled alternately by the bride and bridegroom
+twelve times, the other upsetting it each time after it is filled. At
+the marriage feast, in addition to rice and pulse, mutton curry and
+cakes of _urad_ pulse fried in oil are provided. _Urad_ is held in
+great respect, and is always given as a food at ceremonial feasts
+and to honoured guests. The greater part of the marriage ceremony
+is performed a second time at the bridegroom's house. Finally, the
+decorations of the marriage-shed and the palm-leaf crowns of the bride
+and bridegroom are thrown into a tank. The bride and bridegroom go
+into the water, and each in turn hides a jar under water, which the
+other must find. They then bathe, change their clothes, and go back
+to the bridegroom's house, the bride carrying the jar filled with
+water on her head. The boy is furnished with a bow and arrows and
+has to shoot at a stuffed deer over the girl's shoulder. After each
+shot she gives him a little sugar, and if he does not hit the deer
+in three shots he must pay 4 annas to the _sawasa_ or page. After
+the marriage the bridegroom does not visit his wife for a month in
+order to ascertain whether she is already pregnant. They then live
+together. The marriage expenses usually amount to Rs. 15 for the
+bridegroom's father and Rs. 40 for the bride's father. Sometimes the
+bridegroom serves his father-in-law for his wife, and he is then not
+required to pay anything for the marriage, the period of service being
+three years. If the couple anticipate the ceremony, however, they
+must leave the house, and then are recalled by the bride's parents,
+and readmitted into caste on giving a feast, which is in lieu of the
+marriage ceremony. If they do not comply with the first summons of
+the parents, the latter finally sever connection with them. Widow
+marriage is freely permitted, and the widow is expected to marry her
+late husband's younger brother, especially if he is a bachelor. If
+she marries another man with his consent, the new husband gives him
+a turban and shoulder-cloth. The children by the first husband are
+made over to his relatives if there are any. Divorce is permitted for
+adultery or extravagance or ill-treatment by either party. A divorced
+wife can marry again, but if she absconds with another man without
+being divorced the latter has to pay Rs. 12 to the husband.
+
+
+
+3. Birth and death ceremonies.
+
+
+When a woman becomes pregnant for the first time, her mother goes to
+her taking a new cloth and cakes and a preparation of milk, which
+is looked on as a luxurious food, and which, it is supposed, will
+strengthen the child in the womb. After birth the mother is impure
+for five days. The dead are usually burnt, but children under six
+whose ears have not been pierced, and persons dying a violent death
+or from cholera or smallpox are buried. When the principal man of
+the family dies, the caste-fellows at the mourning feast tie a cloth
+round the head of his successor to show that they acknowledge his
+new position. They offer water to the dead in the month of Kunwar
+(September-October).
+
+
+
+4. Religion and social customs.
+
+
+They have a vague belief in a supreme God but do not pay much attention
+to him. Their family god is Dulha Deo, to whom they offer goats,
+fowls, cocoanuts and cakes. In the forest tracts they also worship
+Bura Deo, the chief god of the Gonds. The deity who presides over
+their profession is Loha-Sur, the Iron demon, who is supposed to live
+in the smelting-kilns, and to whom they offer a black hen. Formerly,
+it is said, they were accustomed to offer a black cow. They worship
+their smelting implements on the day of Dasahra and during Phagun,
+and offer fowls to them. They have little faith in medicine, and in
+cases of sickness requisition the aid of the village sorcerer, who
+ascertains what deity is displeased with them by moving grain to and
+fro in a winnowing-fan and naming the village gods in turn. He goes
+on repeating the names until his hand slackens or stops at some name,
+and the offended god is thus indicated. He is then summoned and enters
+into the body of one of the persons present, and explains his reason
+for being offended with the sick person, as that he has passed by
+the god's shrine without taking off his shoes, or omitted to make the
+triennial offering of a fowl or the like. Atonement is then promised
+and the offering made, while the sick person on recovery notes the
+deity in question as one of a vindictive temper, whose worship must
+on no account be neglected. The Agarias say that they do not admit
+outsiders into the caste, but Gonds, Kawars and Ahirs are occasionally
+allowed to enter it. They refuse to eat monkeys, jackals, crocodiles,
+lizards, beef and the leavings of others. They eat pork and fowls
+and drink liquor copiously. They take food from the higher castes
+and from Gonds and Baigas. Only Bahelias and other impure castes will
+take food from them. Temporary excommunication from caste is imposed
+for conviction of a criminal offence, getting maggots in a wound, and
+killing a cow, a dog or a cat. Permanent excommunication is imposed
+for adultery or eating with a very low caste. Readmission to caste
+after temporary exclusion entails a feast, but if the offender is
+very poor he simply gives a little liquor or even water. The Agarias
+are usually sunk in poverty, and their personal belongings are of
+the scantiest description, consisting of a waist-cloth, and perhaps
+another wisp of cloth for the head, a brass _lota_ or cup and a few
+earthen vessels. Their women dress like Gond women, and have a few
+pewter ornaments. They are profusely tattooed with representations of
+flowers, scorpions and other objects. This is done merely for ornament.
+
+
+
+5. Occupation.
+
+
+The caste still follow their traditional occupation of iron-smelting
+and also make a few agricultural implements. They get their ore from
+the Maikal range, selecting stones of a dark reddish colour. They
+mix 16 lbs. of ore with 15 lbs. of charcoal in the furnace, the blast
+being produced by a pair of bellows worked by the feet and conveyed
+to the furnace through bamboo tubes; it is kept up steadily for four
+hours. The clay coating of the kiln is then broken down and the ball of
+molten slag and charcoal is taken out and hammered, and about 3 lbs. of
+good iron are obtained. With this they make ploughshares, mattocks,
+axes and sickles. They also move about from village to village with an
+anvil, a hammer and tongs, and building a small furnace under a tree,
+make and repair iron implements for the villagers.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+Agharia
+
+
+
+1. Origin.
+
+
+_Agharia_ [4] (a corruption of Agaria, meaning one who came from
+Agra).--A cultivating caste belonging to the Sambalpur District [5]
+and adjoining States. They number 27,000 persons in the Raigarh and
+Sarangarh States and Bilaspur District of the Central Provinces,
+and are found also in some of the Chota Nagpur States transferred
+from Bengal. According to the traditions of the Agharias their
+forefathers were Rajputs who lived near Agra. They were accustomed
+to salute the king of Delhi with one hand only and without bending
+the head. The king after suffering this for a long time determined
+to punish them for their contumacy, and summoned all the Agharias to
+appear before him. At the door through which they were to pass to his
+presence he fixed a sword at the height of a man's neck. The haughty
+Agharias came to the door, holding their heads high and not seeing
+the sword, and as a natural consequence they were all decapitated as
+they passed through. But there was one Agharia who had heard about the
+fixing of the sword and who thought it better to stay at home, saying
+that he had some ceremony to perform. When the king heard that there
+was one Agharia who had not passed through the door, he sent again,
+commanding him to come. The Agharia did not wish to go but felt it
+impossible to decline. He therefore sent for a Chamar of his village
+and besought him to go instead, saying that he would become a Rajput
+in his death and that he would ever be held in remembrance by the
+Agharia's descendants. The Chamar consented to sacrifice himself for
+his master, and going before the king was beheaded at the door. But
+the Agharia fled south, taking his whole village with him, and came
+to Chhattisgarh, where each of the families in the village founded a
+clan of the Agharia caste. And in memory of this, whenever an Agharia
+makes a libation to his ancestors, he first pours a little water on
+the ground in honour of the dead Chamar. According to another version
+of the story three brothers of different families escaped and first
+went to Orissa, where they asked the Gajpati king to employ them
+as soldiers. The king caused two sheaths of swords to be placed
+before them, and telling them that one contained a sword and the
+other a bullock-goad, asked them to select one and by their choice
+to determine whether they would be soldiers or husbandmen. From one
+sheath a haft of gold projected and from the other one of silver. The
+Agharias pulled out the golden haft and found that they had chosen the
+goad. The point of the golden and silver handles is obvious, and the
+story is of some interest for the distant resemblance which it bears
+to the choice of the caskets in _The Merchant of Venice_. Condemned,
+as they considered, to drive the plough, the Agharias took off their
+sacred threads, which they could no longer wear, and gave them to
+the youngest member of the caste, saying that he should keep them
+and be their Bhat, and they would support him with contributions
+of a tenth of the produce of their fields. He assented, and his
+descendants are the genealogists of the Agharias and are termed
+Dashanshi. The Agharias claim to be Somvansi Rajputs, a claim which
+Colonel Dalton says their appearance favours. "Tall, well-made, with
+high Aryan features and tawny complexions, they look like Rajputs,
+though they are more industrious and intelligent than the generality
+of the fighting tribe." [6]
+
+
+
+2. Subdivisions.
+
+
+Owing to the fact that with the transfer of the Sambalpur District,
+a considerable portion of the Agharias have ceased to be residents
+of the Central Provinces, it is unnecessary to give the details
+of their caste organisation at length. They have two subdivisions,
+the Bad or superior Agharias and the Chhote, Sarolia or Sarwaria,
+the inferior or mixed Agharias. The latter are a cross between an
+Agharia and a Gaur (Ahir) woman. The Bad Agharias will not eat with or
+even take water from the others. Further local subdivisions are now
+in course of formation, as the Ratanpuria, Phuljharia and Raigarhia
+or those living round Ratanpur, Phuljhar and Raigarh. The caste is
+said to have 84 _gotras_ or exogamous sections, of which 60 bear
+the title of Patel, 18 that of Naik, and 6 of Chaudhri. The section
+names are very mixed, some being those of eponymous Brahman _gotras_,
+as Sandilya, Kaushik and Bharadwaj; others those of Rajput septs, as
+Karchhul; while others are the names of animals and plants, as Barah
+(pig), Baram (the pipal tree), Nag (cobra), Kachhapa (tortoise),
+and a number of other local terms the meaning of which has been
+forgotten. Each of these sections, however, uses a different mark
+for branding cows, which it is the religious duty of an Agharia to
+rear, and though the marks now convey no meaning, they were probably
+originally the representations of material objects. In the case of
+names whose meaning is understood, traces of totemism survive in the
+respect paid to the animal or plant by members of the sept which bears
+its name. This analysis of the structure of the caste shows that it
+was a very mixed one. Originally consisting perhaps of a nucleus
+of immigrant Rajputs, the offspring of connections with inferior
+classes have been assimilated; while the story already quoted is
+probably intended to signify, after the usual Brahmanical fashion,
+that the pedigree of the Agharias at some period included a Chamar.
+
+
+
+3. Marriage customs.
+
+
+Marriage within the exogamous section and also with first cousins is
+forbidden, though in some places the union of a sister's son with
+a brother's daughter is permitted. Child marriage is usual, and
+censure visits a man who allows an unmarried daughter to arrive at
+adolescence. The bridegroom should always be older than the bride,
+at any rate by a day. When a betrothal is arranged some ornaments
+and a cloth bearing the _swastik_ or lucky mark are sent to the
+girl. Marriages are always celebrated during the months of Magh
+and Phagun, and they are held only once in five or six years,
+when all children whose matches can be arranged for are married
+off. This custom is economical, as it saves expenditure on marriage
+feasts. Colonel Dalton also states that the Agharias always employ
+Hindustani Brahmans for their ceremonies, and as very few of these
+are available, they make circuits over large areas, and conduct all
+the weddings of a locality at the same period. Before the marriage a
+kid is sacrificed at the bride's house to celebrate the removal of her
+status of maidenhood. When the bridegroom arrives at the bride's house
+he touches with his dagger the string of mango-leaves suspended from
+the marriage-shed and presents a rupee and a hundred betel-leaves
+to the bride's _sawasin_ or attendant. Next day the bridegroom's
+father sends a present of a bracelet and seven small earthen cups to
+the bride. She is seated in the open, and seven women hold the cups
+over her head one above the other. Water is then poured from above
+from one cup into the other, each being filled in turn and the whole
+finally falling on the bride's head. This probably symbolises the
+fertilising action of rain. The bride is then bathed and carried
+in a basket seven times round the marriage-post, after which she
+is seated in a chair and seven women place their heads together
+round her while a male relative winds a thread seven times round
+the heads of the women. The meaning of this ceremony is obscure. The
+bridegroom makes his appearance alone and is seated with the bride,
+both being dressed in clothes coloured yellow with turmeric. The
+bridegroom's party follows, and the feet of the couple are washed
+with milk. The bride's brother embraces the bridegroom and changes
+cloths with him. Water is poured over the hands of the couple,
+the girl's forehead is daubed with vermilion, and a red silk cloth
+is presented to her and the couple go round the marriage-post. The
+bride is taken for four days to the husband's house and then returns,
+and is again sent with the usual _gauna_ ceremony, when she is fit
+for conjugal relations. No price is usually paid for the bride, and
+each party spends about Rs. 100 on the marriage ceremony. Polygamy
+and widow marriage are generally allowed, the widow being disposed
+of by her parents. The ceremony at the marriage of a widow consists
+in putting vermilion on the parting of her hair and bangles on her
+wrists. Divorce is allowed on pain of a fine of Rs. 50 if the divorce
+is sought by the husband, and of Rs. 25 if the wife asks for it. In
+some localities divorce and also polygamy are said to be forbidden,
+and in such cases a woman who commits adultery is finally expelled
+from the caste, and a funeral feast is given to symbolise her death.
+
+
+
+4. Religious and social customs.
+
+
+The family god of the Agharias is Dulha Deo, who exists in every
+household. On the Haraiti day or the commencement of the agricultural
+year they worship the implements of cultivation, and at Dasahra
+the sword if they have one. They have a great reverence for cows
+and feed them sumptuously at festivals. Every Agharia has a _guru_
+or spiritual guide who whispers the _mantra_ or sacred verse into
+his ear and is occasionally consulted. The dead are usually burnt,
+but children and persons dying of cholera or smallpox are buried,
+males being placed on the pyre or in the grave on their faces and
+females on their backs, with the feet pointing to the south. On
+the third day the ashes are thrown into a river and the bones of
+each part of the body are collected and placed under the pipal
+tree, while a pot is slung over them, through which water trickles
+continually for a week, and a lighted lamp, cooked food, a leaf-cup
+and a tooth-stick are placed beside them daily for the use of the
+deceased during the same period. Mourning ends on the tenth day,
+and the usual purification ceremonies are then performed. Children
+are mourned for a shorter period. Well-to-do members of the caste
+feed a Brahman daily for a year after a death, believing that food
+so given passes to the spirit of the deceased. On the anniversary of
+the death the caste-fellows are feasted, and after that the deceased
+becomes a _purkha_ or ancestor and participates in devotions paid
+at the _shradhh_ ceremony. When the head of a joint family dies,
+his successor is given a turban and betel-leaves, and his forehead
+is marked by the priest and other relations with sandalwood. After a
+birth the mother is impure for twenty-one days. A feast is given on
+the twelfth day, and sometimes the child is named then, but often
+children are not named until they are six years old. The names of
+men usually end in _Ram_, _Nath_ or _Singh_, and those of women in
+_Kunwar_. Women do not name their husbands, their elderly relations,
+nor the sons of their husband's eldest brother. A man does not name
+his wife, as he thinks that to do so would tend to shorten his life
+in accordance with the Sanskrit saying, 'He who is desirous of long
+life should not name himself, his _guru_, a miser, his eldest son,
+or his wife.' The Agharias do not admit outsiders into the caste. They
+will not take cooked food from any caste, and water only from a Gaur
+or Rawat. They refuse to take water from an Uriya Brahman, probably
+in retaliation for the refusal of Uriya Brahmans to accept water from
+an Agharia, though taking it from a Kolta. Both the Uriya Brahmans
+and Agharias are of somewhat doubtful origin, and both are therefore
+probably the more concerned to maintain the social position to which
+they lay claim. But Kewats, Rawats, Telis and other castes eat cooked
+food from Agharias, and the caste therefore is admitted to a fairly
+high rank in the Uriya country. The Agharias do not drink liquor or
+eat any food which a Rajput would refuse.
+
+
+
+5. Occupation.
+
+
+As cultivators they are considered to be proficient. In the census of
+1901 nearly a quarter of the whole caste were shown as malguzars or
+village proprietors and lessees. They wear a coarse cloth of homespun
+yarn which they get woven for them by Gandas; probably in consequence
+of this the Agharias do not consider the touch of the Ganda to pollute
+them, as other castes do. They will not grow turmeric, onions, garlic,
+_san_-hemp or tomatoes, nor will they rear tasar silk-cocoons. Colonel
+Dalton says that their women do no outdoor work, and this is true in
+the Central Provinces as regards the better classes, but poor women
+work in the fields.
+
+
+
+Aghori
+
+
+
+1. General accounts of the caste.
+
+
+_Aghori, Aghorpanthi._ [7]--The most disreputable class of Saiva
+mendicants who feed on human corpses and excrement, and in past
+times practised cannibalism. The sect is apparently an ancient one, a
+supposed reference to it being contained in the Sanskrit drama _Malati
+Madhava_, the hero of which rescues his mistress from being offered
+as a sacrifice by one named Aghori Ghanta. [8] According to Lassen,
+quoted by Sir H. Risley, the Aghoris of the present day are closely
+connected with the Kapalika sect of the Middle Ages, who wore crowns
+and necklaces of skulls and offered human sacrifices to Chamunda,
+a form of Devi. The Aghoris now represent their filthy habits as
+merely giving practical expression to the abstract doctrine that the
+whole universe is full of Brahma, and consequently that one thing is
+as pure as another. By eating the most horrible food they utterly
+subdue their natural appetites, and hence acquire great power over
+themselves and over the forces of nature. It is believed that an
+Aghori can at will assume the shapes of a bird, an animal or a fish,
+and that he can bring back to life a corpse of which he has eaten a
+part. The principal resort of the Aghoris appears to be at Benares and
+at Girnar near Mount Abu, and they wander about the country as solitary
+mendicants. A few reside in Saugor, and they are occasionally met with
+in other places. They are much feared and disliked by the people owing
+to their practice of extorting alms by the threat to carry out their
+horrible practices before the eyes of their victims, and by throwing
+filth into their houses. Similarly they gash and cut their limbs so
+that the crime of blood may rest on those who refuse to give. "For the
+most part," Mr. Barrow states, [9] "the Aghorpanthis lead a wandering
+life, are without homes, and prefer to dwell in holes, clefts of rocks
+and burning-_ghats_. They do not cook, but eat the fragments given
+them in charity as received, which they put as far as may be into the
+cavity of the skull used as a begging-bowl. The bodies of _chelas_
+(disciples) who die in Benares are thrown into the Ganges, but the
+dead who die well off are placed in coffins. As a rule, Aghoris do not
+care what becomes of their bodies, but when buried they are placed in
+the grave sitting cross-legged. The Aghori _gurus_ keep dogs, which
+may be of any colour, and are said to be maintained for purposes of
+protection. The dogs are not all pariahs of the streets, although some
+_gurus_ are followed by three or four when on pilgrimage. Occasionally
+the dogs seem to be regarded with real affection by their strange
+masters. The Aghori is believed to hold converse with all the evil
+spirits frequenting the burning-_ghats_, and funeral parties must
+be very badly off who refuse to pay him something. In former days he
+claimed five pieces of wood at each funeral in Benares; but the Doms
+interfere with his perquisites, and in some cases only let him carry
+off the remains of the unburned wood from each pyre. When angered
+and excited, Aghoris invoke Kali and threaten to spread devastation
+around them. Even among the educated classes, who should know better,
+they are dreaded, and as an instance of the terror which they create
+among the ignorant, it may be mentioned that in the Lucknow District
+it is believed that if alms are refused them the Aghoris will cause
+those who refuse to be attacked with fever.
+
+"On the other hand, their good offices may secure benefits, as in the
+case of a zamindar of Muzaffarnagar, who at Allahabad refused to eat a
+piece of human flesh offered to him by an Aghori; the latter thereupon
+threw the flesh at the zamindar's head, on which it stuck. The zamindar
+afterwards became so exceedingly wealthy that he had difficulty in
+storing his wealth."
+
+
+
+2. Instances of cannibalism.
+
+
+In former times it is believed that the Aghoris used to kidnap
+strangers, sacrifice them to the goddess and eat the bodies, and
+Mr. Barrow relates the following incident of the murder of a boy: [10]
+"Another horrible case, unconnected with magic and apparently arising
+from mere blood-thirst, occurred at Neirad in June 1878. An Aghori
+mendicant of Dwarka staying at the temple of Sitaram Laldas seized a
+boy of twelve, named Shankar Ramdas, who was playing with two other
+boys, threw him down on the _oatla_ of the temple, ripped open his
+abdomen, tore out part of his entrails, and, according to the poor
+little victim's dying declaration, began to eat them. The other boys
+having raised an alarm, the monster was seized. When interrogated by
+the magistrate as to whether he had committed the crime in order to
+perform Aghorbidya, the prisoner said that as the boy was Bhakshan
+he had eaten his flesh. He added that if he had not been interrupted
+he would have eaten all the entrails. He was convicted, but only
+sentenced to transportation for life. The High Court, however,
+altered the sentence and ordered the prisoner to be hanged."
+
+The following instance, quoted by Mr. Barrow from Rewah, shows how an
+Aghori was hoist with his own petard: "Some years ago, when Maharaja
+Bishnath Singh was Chief of Rewah, a man of the Aghori caste went
+to Rewah and sat _dharna_ on the steps of the palace; having made
+ineffectual demands for alms, he requested to be supplied with human
+flesh, and for five days abstained from food. The Maharaja was much
+troubled, and at last, in order to get rid of his unwelcome visitor,
+sent for Ghansiam Das, another Aghori, a Fakir, who had for some
+years lived in Rewah. Ghansiam Das went up to the other Aghori and
+asked him if it was true that he had asked to be supplied with human
+flesh. On receiving a reply in the affirmative, Ghansiam Das said:
+'Very well, I too am extremely partial to this form of food; here is
+my hand, eat it and I will eat you'; and at the same time he seized
+hold of the other's hand and began to gnaw at it. The Aghori on this
+became much alarmed and begged to be excused. He shortly afterwards
+left Rewah and was not heard of again, while Ghansiam Das was rewarded
+for his services."
+
+The following recent instance of an Aghori devouring human corpses
+is reported from the Punjab: [11] "The loathsome story of a human
+ghoul from Patiala shows that the influence of the Aghorpanthi has
+not yet completely died out in this country. It is said that for some
+time past human graves have been found robbed of their contents, and
+the mystery could not be solved until the other day, when the police
+succeeded in arresting a man in the act of desecrating a child's grave,
+some forty miles distant from the capital (Patiala). The ghoul not only
+did not conceal the undevoured portion of the corpse he had with him,
+but told his captors the whole story of his gruesome career. He is
+a low-caste Hindu named Ram Nath, and is, according to a gentleman
+who saw him, 'a singularly mild and respectful-looking man, instead
+of a red-eyed and ravenous savage,' as he had expected to find him
+from the accounts of his disgusting propensities. He became an orphan
+at five and fell into the hands of two Sadhus of his own caste, who
+were evidently Aghorpanthis. They taught him to eat human flesh,
+which formed the staple of their food. The meat was procured from
+the graves in the villages they passed through. When Ram Nath was
+thoroughly educated in this rank the Sadhus deserted him. Since then
+he had been living on human carrion only, roaming about the country
+like a hungry vulture. He cannot eat cooked food, and therefore gets
+two seers of raw meat from the State every day. It is also reported
+that the Maharaja has now prohibited his being given anything but
+cooked food with a view to reforming him."
+
+Sir J. B. Fuller relates the following incident of the employment
+of an Aghori as a servant: [12] "There are actually ten thousand
+persons who at census time classed themselves as Aghoris. All of them
+do not practise cannibalism and some of them attempt to rise in the
+world. One of them secured service as a cook with a British officer
+of my acquaintance. My friend was in camp in the jungle with his
+wife and children, when his other servants came to him in a body and
+refused to remain in service unless the cook was dismissed, since they
+had discovered, they declared, that during the night-time he visited
+cemeteries and dug up the bodies of freshly buried children. The cook
+was absent, but they pointed to a box of his that emitted a sickening
+smell. The man was incontinently expelled, but for long afterwards the
+family were haunted by reminiscences of the curries they had eaten."
+
+
+
+
+
+
+Ahir
+
+
+
+List of Paragraphs
+
+
+    1. _General notice._
+    2. _Former dominance of the Abhiras._
+    3. _Ahir dialects._
+    4. _The Yadavas and Krishna._
+    5. _The modern Ahirs an occupational caste._
+    6. _Subcastes._
+    7. _The Dauwa or wet-nurse Ahirs. Fosterage._
+    8. _Exogamy._
+    9. _Marriage customs._
+    10. _Birth customs._
+    11. _Funeral rites. Bringing back the soul._
+    12. _Religion. Krishna and other deified cowherds._
+    13. _Caste deities._
+    14. _Other deities._
+    15. _The Diwali festival._
+    16. _Omens._
+    17. _Social customs._
+    18. _Ornaments._
+    19. _Occupation._
+    20. _Preparations of milk._
+
+
+
+1. General notice.
+
+
+_Ahir, [13] Gaoli, Guala, Golkar, Gaolan, Rawat, Gahra, Mahakul._--The
+caste, of cowherds, milkmen and cattle-breeders. In 1911 the Ahirs
+numbered nearly 750,000 persons in the Central Provinces and Berar,
+being the sixth caste in point of numbers. This figure, however,
+excludes 150,000 Gowaris or graziers of the Maratha Districts,
+and if these were added the Ahirs would outnumber the Telis and
+rank fifth. The name Ahir is derived from Abhira, a tribe mentioned
+several times in inscriptions and the Hindu sacred books. Goala,
+a cowherd, from Gopala, [14] a protector of cows, is the Bengali
+name for the caste, and Gaoli, with the same signification, is now
+used in the Central Provinces to signify a dairyman as opposed to
+a grazier. The Gaolans appear to be an inferior class of Gaolis in
+Berar. The Golkars of Chanda may be derived from the Telugu Golars or
+graziers, with a probable admixture of Gond blood. They are described
+as wild-looking people scattered about in the most thickly forested
+tracts of the District, where they graze and tend cattle. Rawat, a
+corruption of Rajputra or a princeling, is the name borne by the Ahir
+caste in Chhattisgarh; while Gahra is their designation in the Uriya
+country. The Mahakul Ahirs are a small group found in the Jashpur
+State, and said to belong to the Nandvansi division. The name means
+'Great family.'
+
+
+
+2. Former dominance of the Abhiras.
+
+
+The Abhiras appear to have been one of the immigrant tribes from
+Central Asia who entered India shortly before or about the commencement
+of the Christian era. In the Puranas and Mahabharata they are spoken
+of as Dasyu or robbers, and Mlechchhas or foreigners, in the story
+which says that Arjuna, after he had burned the dead bodies of
+Krishna and Balaram at Dwarka, was proceeding with the widows of the
+Yadava princes to Mathura through the Punjab when he was waylaid by
+the Abhiras and deprived of his treasures and beautiful women. [15]
+An inscription of the Saka era 102, or A.D. 180, speaks of a grant
+made by the Senapati or commander-in-chief of the state, who is
+called an Abhira, the locality being Sunda in Kathiawar. Another
+inscription found in Nasik and assigned by Mr. Enthoven to the fourth
+century speaks of an Abhira king, and the Puranas say that after the
+Andhrabhrityas the Deccan was held by the Abhiras, the west coast
+tract from the Tapti to Deogarh being called by their name. [16]
+In the time of Samudragupta in the middle of the fourth century
+the Abhiras were settled in Eastern Rajputana and Malwa. [17] When
+the Kathis arrived in Gujarat in the eighth century, they found the
+greater part of the country in the possession of the Ahirs. [18] In the
+Mirzapur District of the United Provinces a tract known as Ahraura is
+considered to be named after the tribe; and near Jhansi another piece
+of country is called Ahirwar. [19] Elliot states that Ahirs were also
+Rajas of Nepal about the commencement of our era. [20] In Khandesh,
+Mr. Enthoven states, the settlements of the Ahirs were important. In
+many castes there is a separate division of Ahirs, such as the Ahir
+Sunars, Sutars, Lohars, Shimpis, Salis, Guraos and Kolis. The fort
+of Asirgarh in Nimar bordering on Khandesh is supposed to have been
+founded by one Asa Ahir, who lived in the beginning of the fifteenth
+century. It is said that his ancestors had held land here for seven
+hundred years, and he had 10,000 cattle, 20,000 sheep and 1000 mares,
+with 2000 followers; but was still known to the people, to whom
+his benevolence had endeared him, by the simple name of Asa. This
+derivation of Asirgarh is clearly erroneous, as it was known as
+Asir or Asirgarh, and held by the Tak and Chauhan Rajputs from the
+eleventh century. But the story need not on that account, Mr. Grant
+says, [21] be set down as wholly a fable. Firishta, who records it,
+has usually a good credit, and more probably the real existence of
+a line of Ahir chieftains in the Tapti valley suggested a convenient
+ethnology for the fortress. Other traditions of the past domination
+of the pastoral tribes remain in the Central Provinces. Deogarh on
+the Chhindwara plateau was, according to the legend, the last seat
+of Gaoli power prior to its subversion by the Gonds in the sixteenth
+century. Jatba, the founder of the Deogarh Gond dynasty, is said to
+have entered the service of the Gaoli rulers, Mansur and Gansur, and
+subsequently with the aid of the goddess Devi to have slain them and
+usurped their kingdom. But a Gaoli chief still retained possession of
+the fort of Narnala for a few years longer, when he also was slain by
+the Muhammadans. Similarly the fort of Gawilgarh on the southern crest
+of the Satpuras is said to be named after a Gaoli chief who founded
+it. The Saugor traditions bring down the Gaoli supremacy to a much
+later date, as the tracts of Etawa and Khurai are held to have been
+governed by their chieftains till the close of the seventeenth century.
+
+
+
+3. Ahir dialects.
+
+
+Certain dialects called after the Abhiras or Ahirs still remain. One,
+known as Ahirwati, is spoken in the Rohtak and Gurgaon Districts of
+the Punjab and round Delhi. This is akin to Mewati, one of the forms
+of Rajasthani or the language of Rajputana. The Malwi dialect of
+Rajasthani is also known as Ahiri; and that curious form of Gujarati,
+which is half a Bhil dialect, and is generally known as Khandeshi,
+also bears the name of Ahirani. [22] The above linguistic facts seem
+to prove only that the Abhiras, or their occupational successors,
+the Ahirs, were strongly settled in the Delhi country of the Punjab,
+Malwa and Khandesh. They do not seem to throw much light on the origin
+of the Abhiras or Ahirs, and necessarily refer only to a small section
+of the existing Ahir caste, the great bulk of whom speak the Aryan
+language current where they dwell. Another authority states, however,
+that the Ahirs of Gujarat still retain a dialect of their own, and
+concludes that this and the other Ahir dialects are the remains of
+the distinct Abhira language.
+
+
+
+4. The Yadavas and Krishna.
+
+
+It cannot necessarily be assumed that all the above traditions relate
+to the Abhira tribe proper, of which the modern Ahir caste are scarcely
+more than the nominal representatives. Nevertheless, it may fairly be
+concluded from them that the Abhiras were widely spread over India
+and dominated considerable tracts of country. They are held to have
+entered India about the same time as the Sakas, who settled in Gujarat,
+among other places, and, as seen above, the earliest records of the
+Abhiras show them in Nasik and Kathiawar, and afterwards widely spread
+in Khandesh, that is, in the close neighbourhood of the Sakas. It has
+been suggested in the article on Rajput that the Yadava and other lunar
+clans of Rajputs may be the representatives of the Sakas and other
+nomad tribes who invaded India shortly before and after the Christian
+era. The god Krishna is held to have been the leader of the Yadavas,
+and to have founded with them the sacred city of Dwarka in Gujarat. The
+modern Ahirs have a subdivision called Jaduvansi or Yaduvansi, that is,
+of the race of the Yadavas, and they hold that Krishna was of the Ahir
+tribe. Since the Abhiras were also settled in Gujarat it is possible
+that they may have been connected with the Yadavas, and that this may
+be the foundation for their claim that Krishna was of their tribe. The
+Dyashraya-Kavya of Hemachandra speaks of a Chordasama prince reigning
+near Junagarh as an Abhira and a Yadava. But this is no doubt very
+conjectural, and the simple fact that Krishna was a herdsman would be
+a sufficient reason for the Ahirs to claim connection with him. It is
+pointed out that the names of Abhira chieftains given in the early
+inscriptions are derived from the god Siva, and this would not have
+been the case if they had at that epoch derived their origin from
+Krishna, an incarnation of Vishnu. "If the Abhiras had really been
+the descendants of the cowherds (Gopas) whose hero was Krishna, the
+name of the rival god Siva would never have formed components of the
+names of the Abhiras, whom we find mentioned in inscriptions. Hence
+the conclusion may safely be drawn that the Abhiras were by no means
+connected with Krishna and his cowherds even as late as about A.D. 300,
+to which date the first of the two inscriptions mentioned above is
+to be assigned. Precisely the same conclusion is pointed to by the
+contents of the Harivansha and Bhagwat Purana. The upbringing of
+Krishna among the cowherds and his flirtations with the milkmaids are
+again and again mentioned in these works, but the word Abhira does not
+occur even once in this connection. The only words we find used are
+Gopa, Gopi and Vraja. This is indeed remarkable. For the descriptions
+of the removal of Krishna as an infant to Nanda, the cowherd's hut,
+of his childhood passed in playing with the cowherd boys, and of his
+youth spent in amorous sports with the milkmaids are set forth at
+great length, but the word Abhira is not once met with. From this
+only one conclusion is possible, that is, that the Abhiras did not
+originally represent the Gopas of Krishna. The word Abhira occurs for
+the first time in connection with the Krishna legend about A.D. 550,
+from which it follows that the Abhiras came to be identified with
+the Gopas shortly before that date." [23]
+
+This argument is interesting as showing that Abhira was not originally
+an occupational term for a herdsman, nor a caste name, but belonged
+to an immigrant tribe. Owing apparently to the fact that the Abhiras,
+like the Gujars, devoted themselves to a pastoral mode of life in
+India, whereas the previous Aryan immigrants had settled down to
+cultivation, they gave their name to the great occupational caste
+of herdsmen which was subsequently developed, and of which they may
+originally have constituted the nucleus. The Gujars, who came to India
+at a later period, form a parallel case; although the Gujar caste,
+which is derived from them, is far less important than the Ahir,
+the Gujars have also been the parents of several Rajput clans. The
+reason why the early Mathura legends of Krishna make no mention of
+the Ahirs may be that the deity Krishna is probably compounded of at
+least two if not more distinct personalities. One is the hero chief of
+the Yadavas, who fought in the battle of the Pandavas and Kauravas,
+migrated to Gujarat and was killed there. As he was chief of the
+Yadavas this Krishna must stand for the actual or mythical personality
+of some leader of the immigrant nomad tribes. The other Krishna,
+the boy cowherd, who grazed cattle and sported with the milkmaids of
+Brindaban, may very probably be some hero of the indigenous non-Aryan
+tribes, who, then as now, lived in the forests and were shepherds
+and herdsmen. His lowly birth from a labouring cowherd, and the
+fact that his name means black and he is represented in sculpture
+as being of a dark colour, lend support to this view. The cult of
+Krishna, Mr. Crooke points out, was comparatively late, and probably
+connected with the development of the worship of the cow after the
+decay of Buddhism. This latter Krishna, who is worshipped with his
+mother as a child-god, was especially attractive to women, both actual
+and prospective mothers. It is quite probable therefore that as his
+worship became very popular in Hindustan in connection with that of
+the cow, he was given a more illustrious origin by identification
+with the Yadava hero, whose first home was apparently in Gujarat. In
+this connection it may also be noted that the episodes connected with
+Krishna in the Mahabharata have been considered late interpolations.
+
+
+
+5. The modern Ahirs an occupational caste.
+
+
+But though the Ahir caste takes its name and is perhaps partly
+descended from the Abhira tribe, there is no doubt that it is now
+and has been for centuries a purely occupational caste, largely
+recruited from the indigenous tribes. Thus in Bengal Colonel Dalton
+remarks that the features of the Mathuravasi Goalas are high, sharp
+and delicate, and they are of light-brown complexion. Those of the
+Magadha subcaste, on the other hand, are undefined and coarse. They
+are dark-complexioned, and have large hands and feet. "Seeing the
+latter standing in a group with some Singhbhum Kols, there is no
+distinguishing one from the other. There has doubtless been much
+mixture of blood." [24] Similarly in the Central Provinces the Ahirs
+are largely recruited from the Gonds and other tribes. In Chanda the
+Gowaris are admittedly descended from the unions of Gonds and Ahirs,
+and one of their subcastes, the Gond-Gowaris, are often classed as
+Gonds. Again, the Kaonra Ahirs of Mandla are descended from the unions
+of Ahirs either with the Gonds or Kawars, and many of them are probably
+pure Gonds. They have Gond sept-names and eat pork. Members of one
+of their subdivisions, the Gond-Kaonra, will take water from Gonds,
+and rank below the other Kaonras, from whom they will accept food and
+water. As cattle have to go into the thick jungles to graze in the hot
+weather, the graziers attending them become intimate with the forest
+tribes who live there, and these latter are also often employed to
+graze the cattle, and are perhaps after a time admitted to the Ahir
+caste. Many Ahirs in Mandla are scarcely considered to be Hindus,
+living as they do in Gond villages in sole company with the Gonds.
+
+
+
+6. Subcastes.
+
+
+The principal subcastes of the Ahirs in northern India are the
+Jaduvansi, Nandvansi and Gowalvansi. The Jaduvansi claimed to be
+descended from the Yadavas, who now form the Yadu and Jadon-Bhatti
+clans of Rajputs. The probability of a historical connection between
+the Abhiras and Yadavas has already been noticed. The Nandvansi
+consider their first ancestor to have been Nand, the cowherd, the
+foster-father of Krishna; while the name of the Gowalvansi is simply
+Goala or Gauli, a milkman, a common synonym for the caste. The Kaonra
+Ahirs of Mandla and the Kamarias of Jubbulpore are considered to belong
+to the Nandvansi group. Other subcastes in the northern Districts are
+the Jijhotia, who, like the Jijhotia Brahmans, take their name from
+Jajhoti, the classical term for Bundelkhand; the Bharotia; and the
+Narwaria from Narwar. The Rawats of Chhattisgarh are divided into the
+Jhadia, Kosaria and Kanaujia groups. Of these the Jhadia or 'jungly,'
+and Kosaria from Kosala, the ancient name of the Chhattisgarh country,
+are the oldest settlers, while the Kanaujia are largely employed as
+personal servants in Chhattisgarh, and all castes will take water
+from their hands. The superior class of them, however, refuse to
+clean household cooking vessels, and are hence known as Thethwar,
+or exact or pure, as distinguished from the other Rawats, who will
+perform this somewhat derogatory work.
+
+
+
+7. The Dauwa or wet-nurse Ahirs. Fosterage.
+
+
+The Dauwa or wet-nurse Ahirs are descended from the illegitimate
+offspring of Bundela Rajput fathers by Ahir mothers who were employed
+in this capacity in their families. An Ahir woman kept by a Bundela
+was known as Pardwarin, or one coming from another house. This is
+not considered a disgraceful origin; though the Dauwa Ahirs are not
+recognised by the Ahirs proper, they form a separate section of the
+caste, and Brahmans will take water from them. The children of such
+mothers stood in the relation of foster-brothers to the Rajputs,
+whom their mothers had nursed. The giving of milk, in accordance with
+the common primitive belief in the virtue attaching to an action
+in itself, was held to constitute a relation of quasi-maternity
+between the nurse and infant, and hence of fraternity between her own
+children and her foster-children. The former were called Dhai-bhais
+or foster-brothers by the Rajputs; they were often given permanent
+grants of land and employed on confidential missions, as for the
+arrangement of marriages. The minister of a Raja of Karauli was
+his Dauwa or foster-father, the husband of his nurse. Similarly,
+Colonel Tod says that the Dhai-bhai or foster-brother of the Raja
+of Boondi, commandant of the fortress of Tanagarh, was, like all
+his class, devotion personified. [25] A parallel instance of the
+tie of foster-kinship occurs in the case of the foster-brothers of
+Conachar or Hector in _The Fair Maid of Perth_. Thus the position
+of foster-brother of a Rajput was an honourable one, even though
+the child might be illegitimate. Ahir women were often employed as
+wet-nurses, because domestic service was a profession in which they
+commonly engaged. Owing to the comparatively humble origin of a large
+proportion of them they did not object to menial service, while the
+purity of their caste made it possible to use them for the supply
+of water and food. In Bengal the Uriya Ahirs were a common class of
+servants in European houses.
+
+The Gaolis or milkmen appear to form a distinct branch of the caste
+with subcastes of their own. Among them are the Nandvans, common to
+the Ahirs, the Malwi from Malwa and the Raghuvansi, called after the
+Rajput clan of that name. The Ranyas take their designation from _ran_,
+forest, like the Jhadia Rawats.
+
+
+
+8. Exogamy.
+
+
+The caste have exogamous sections, which are of the usual low-caste
+type, with titular or totemistic names. Those of the Chhattisgarhi
+Rawats are generally named after animals. A curious name among the
+Mahakul Ahirs is Mathankata, or one who bit his mother's nipples. The
+marriage of persons belonging to the same section and of first cousins
+is prohibited. A man may marry his wife's younger sister while his
+wife is living, but not her elder sister. The practice of exchanging
+girls between families is permissible.
+
+
+
+9. Marriage customs.
+
+
+As a rule, girls may be married before or after puberty, but the
+Golkars of Chanda insist on infant marriage, and fine the parents if
+an unmarried girl becomes adolescent. On the other hand, the Kaonra
+Ahirs of Mandla make a practice of not getting a girl married till
+the signs of puberty have appeared. It is said that in Mandla if an
+unmarried girl becomes pregnant by a man of the caste the _panchayat_
+give her to him and fine him Rs. 20 or 30, which they appropriate
+themselves, giving nothing to the father. If an Ahir girl is seduced
+by an outsider, she is made over to him, and a fine of Rs. 40 or 50
+is exacted from him if possible. This is paid to the girl's father,
+who has to spend it on a penalty feast to the caste. Generally,
+sexual offences within the community are leniently regarded. The
+wedding ceremony is of the type prevalent in the locality. The
+proposal comes from the boy's family, and a price is usually given
+for the bride. The Kaonra Ahirs of Mandla and the Jharia and Kosaria
+Rawats of Chhattisgarh employ a Brahman only to write the _lagun_ or
+paper fixing the date of the wedding, and the ceremony is conducted
+by the _sawasins_ or relatives of the parties. In Chhattisgarh the
+bridegroom is dressed as a girl to be taken to the wedding. In Betul
+the weddings of most Gaolis are held in Magh (January), and that of
+the Ranya subcaste in the bright fortnight of Kartik (October). At
+the ceremony the bride is made to stand on a small stone roller; the
+bridegroom then takes hold of the roller facing the bride and goes
+round in a circle seven times, turning the roller with him. Widow
+remarriage is permitted, and a widow is often expected to marry
+the younger brother of her deceased husband. If a bachelor wishes
+to marry a widow he first goes through the ceremony with a dagger
+or an earthen vessel. Divorce is freely permitted. In Hoshangabad a
+strip is torn off the clothes worn by husband and wife as a sign of
+their divorce. This is presumably in contrast to the knotting of the
+clothes of the couple together at a wedding.
+
+
+
+10. Birth customs.
+
+
+Among the Rawats of Chhattisgarh, when a child is shortly to be born
+the midwife dips her hand in oil and presses it on the wall, and it
+is supposed that she can tell by the way in which the oil trickles
+down whether the child will be a boy or a girl. If a woman is weak
+and ill during her pregnancy it is thought that a boy will be born,
+but if she is strong and healthy, a girl. A woman in advanced pregnancy
+is given whatever she desires to eat, and on one occasion especially
+delicate kinds of food are served to her, this rite being known as
+Sidhori. The explanation of the custom is that if the mother does
+not get the food she desires during pregnancy the child will long for
+it all through life. If delivery is delayed, a line of men and boys
+is sometimes made from the door of the house to a well, and a vessel
+is then passed from hand to hand from the house, filled with water,
+and back again. Thus the water, having acquired the quality of speed
+during its rapid transit, will communicate this to the woman and cause
+her quick delivery. Or they take some of the clay left unmoulded on
+the potter's wheel and give it her to drink in water; the explanation
+of this is exactly similar, the earth having acquired the quality of
+swiftness by the rapid transit on the wheel. If three boys or three
+girls have been born to a woman, they think that the fourth should
+be of the same sex, in order to make up two pairs. A boy or girl
+born after three of the opposite sex is called Titra or Titri, and is
+considered very unlucky. To avert this misfortune they cover the child
+with a basket, kindle a fire of grass all round it, and smash a brass
+pot on the floor. Then they say that the baby is the fifth and not
+the fourth child, and the evil is thus removed. When one woman gives
+birth to a male and another to a female child in the same quarter of
+a village on the same day and they are attended by the same midwife,
+it is thought that the boy child will fall ill from the contagion
+of the girl child communicated through the midwife. To avoid this,
+on the following Sunday the child's maternal uncle makes a banghy,
+which is carried across the shoulders like a large pair of scales,
+and weighs the child in it against cowdung. He then takes the banghy
+and deposits it at cross-roads outside the village. The father cannot
+see either the child or its mother till after the Chathi or sixth-day
+ceremony of purification, when the mother is bathed and dressed in
+clean clothes, the males of the family are shaved, all their clothes
+are washed, and the house is whitewashed; the child is also named on
+this day. The mother cannot go out of doors until after the Barhi or
+twelfth-day ceremony. If a child is born at an unlucky astrological
+period its ears are pierced in the fifth month after birth as a means
+of protection.
+
+
+
+11. Funeral rites. Bringing back the soul.
+
+
+The dead are either buried or burnt. When a man is dying they put
+basil leaves and boiled rice and milk in his mouth, and a little
+piece of gold, or if they have not got gold they put a rupee in his
+mouth and take it out again. For ten days after a death, food in
+a leaf-cup and a lamp are set out in the house-yard every evening,
+and every morning water and a tooth-stick. On the tenth day they are
+taken away and consigned to a river. In Chhattisgarh on the third
+day after death the soul is brought back. The women put a lamp on a
+red earthen pot and go to a tank or stream at night. The fish are
+attracted towards the light, and one of them is caught and put in
+the pot, which is then filled with water. It is brought home and set
+beside a small heap of flour, and the elders sit round it. The son
+of the deceased or other near relative anoints himself with turmeric
+and picks up a stone. This is washed with the water from the pot,
+and placed on the floor, and a sacrifice of a cock or hen is made to
+it according as the deceased was a man or a woman. The stone is then
+enshrined in the house as a family god, and the sacrifice of a fowl
+is repeated annually. It is supposed apparently that the dead man's
+spirit is brought back to the house in the fish, and then transferred
+to the stone by washing this with the water.
+
+
+
+12. Religion. Krishna and other deified cowherds.
+
+
+The Ahirs have a special relation to the Hindu religion, owing
+to their association with the sacred cow, which is itself revered
+as a goddess. When religion gets to the anthropomorphic stage the
+cowherd, who partakes of the cow's sanctity, may be deified as its
+representative. This was probably the case with Krishna, one of
+the most popular gods of Hinduism, who was a cowherd, and, as he is
+represented as being of a dark colour, may even have been held to
+be of the indigenous races. Though, according to the legend, he was
+really of royal birth, Krishna was brought up by Nand, a herdsman of
+Gokul, and Jasoda or Dasoda his wife, and in the popular belief these
+are his parents, as they probably were in the original story. The
+substitution of Krishna, born as a prince, for Jasoda's daughter,
+in order to protect him from destruction by the evil king Kansa of
+Mathura, is perhaps a later gloss, devised when his herdsman parentage
+was considered too obscure for the divine hero. Krishna's childhood in
+Jasoda's house with his miraculous feats of strength and his amorous
+sports with Radha and the other milkmaids of Brindawan, are among
+the most favourite Hindu legends. Govind and Gopal, the protector
+or guardian of cows, are names of Krishna and the commonest names of
+Hindus, as are also his other epithets, Murlidhar and Bansidhar, the
+flute-player; for Krishna and Balaram, like Greek and Roman shepherds,
+were accustomed to divert themselves with song, to the accompaniment
+of the same instrument. The child Krishna is also very popular, and
+his birthday, the Janam-Ashtami on the 8th of dark Bhadon (August),
+is a great festival. On this day potsful of curds are sprinkled over
+the assembled worshippers. Krishna, however, is not the solitary
+instance of the divine cowherd, but has several companions, humble
+indeed compared to him, but perhaps owing their apotheosis to the
+same reasons. Bhilat, a popular local godling of the Nerbudda Valley,
+was the son of an Ahir or Gaoli woman; she was childless and prayed
+to Parvati for a child, and the goddess caused her votary to have
+one by her own husband, the god Mahadeo. Bhilat was stolen away from
+his home by Mahadeo in the disguise of a beggar, and grew up to be
+a great hero and made many conquests; but finally he returned and
+lived with his herdsman parents, who were no doubt his real ones. He
+performed numerous miracles, and his devotees are still possessed by
+his spirit. Singaji is another godling who was a Gaoli by caste in
+Indore. He became a disciple of a holy Gokulastha Gosain or ascetic,
+and consequently a great observer of the Janam-Ashtami or Krishna's
+birthday. [26] On one occasion Singaji was late for prayers on this
+day, and the _guru_ was very angry, and said to him, 'Don't show your
+face to me again until you are dead.' Singaji went home and told the
+other children he was going to die. Then he went and buried himself
+alive. The occurrence was noised abroad and came to the ears of the
+_guru_, who was much distressed, and proceeded to offer his condolences
+to Singaji's family. But on the way he saw Singaji, who had been
+miraculously raised from the dead on account of his virtuous act of
+obedience, grazing his buffaloes as before. After asking for milk,
+which Singaji drew from a male buffalo calf, the _guru_ was able
+to inform the bereaved parents of their son's joyful reappearance
+and his miraculous powers; of these Singaji gave further subsequent
+demonstration, and since his death, said to have occurred 350 years
+ago, is widely venerated. The Gaolis pray to him for the protection
+of their cattle from disease, and make thank-offerings of butter if
+these prayers are fulfilled. Other pilgrims to Singaji's shrine offer
+unripe mangoes and sugar, and an annual fair is held at it, when it is
+said that for seven days no cows, flies or ants are to be seen in the
+place. In the Betul district there is a village godling called Dait,
+represented by a stone under a tree. He is the spirit of any Ahir who
+in his lifetime was credited in the locality with having the powers of
+an exorcist. In Mandla and other Districts when any buffalo herdsman
+dies at a very advanced age the people make a platform for him within
+the village and call it Mahashi Deo or the buffalo god. Similarly,
+when an old cattle herdsman dies they do the same, and call it Balki
+Deo or the bullock god. Here we have a clear instance of the process
+of substituting the spirit of the herdsman for the cow or buffalo as
+an object of worship. The occupation of the Ahir also lends itself to
+religious imaginations. He stays in the forest or waste grass-land,
+frequently alone from morning till night, watching his herds; and
+the credulous and uneducated minds of the more emotional may easily
+hear the voices of spirits, or in a half-sleeping condition during
+the heat and stillness of the long day may think that visions have
+appeared to them. Thus they come to believe themselves selected for
+communication with the unseen deities or spirits, and on occasions
+of strong religious excitement work themselves into a frenzy and are
+held to be possessed by a spirit or god.
+
+
+
+13. Caste deities.
+
+
+Among the special deities of the Ahirs is Kharak Deo, who is always
+located at the _khirkha_, or place of assembly of the cattle, on
+going to and returning from pasture. He appears to be the spirit or
+god of the _khirkha_. He is represented by a platform with an image
+of a horse on it, and when cattle fall ill the owners offer flour
+and butter to him. These are taken by the Ahirs in charge, and it is
+thought that the cattle will get well. Matar Deo is the god of the
+pen or enclosure for cattle made in the jungle. Three days after the
+Diwali festival the Rawats sacrifice one or more goats to him, cutting
+off their heads. They throw the heads into the air, and the cattle,
+smelling the blood, run together and toss them with their horns as
+they do when they scent a tiger. The men then say that the animals
+are possessed by Matar Deo. Guraya Deo is a deity who lives in the
+cattle-stalls in the village and is worshipped once a year. A man
+holds an egg in his hand, and walks round the stall pouring liquid
+over the egg all the way, so as to make a line round it. The egg is
+then buried beneath the shrine of the god, the rite being probably
+meant to ensure his aid for the protection of the cattle from disease
+in their stalls. A favourite saint of the Ahirs is Haridas Baba. He
+was a Jogi, and could separate his soul from his body at pleasure. On
+one occasion he had gone in spirit to Benares, leaving his body
+in the house of one of his disciples, who was an Ahir. When he did
+not return, and the people heard that a dead body was lying there,
+they came and insisted that it should be burnt. When he came back
+and found that his body was burnt, he entered into a man and spoke
+through him, telling the people what had happened. In atonement for
+their unfortunate mistake they promised to worship him.
+
+
+
+14. Other deities.
+
+
+The Mahakul Ahirs of Jashpur have three deities, whom they call Mahadeo
+or Siva, Sahadeo, one of the five Pandava brothers, and the goddess
+Lakshmi. They say that the buffalo is Mahadeo, the cow Sahadeo,
+and the rice Lakshmi. This also appears to be an instance of the
+personification of animals and the corn into anthropomorphic deities.
+
+
+
+15. The Diwali festival.
+
+
+The principal festival of the Ahirs is the Diwali, falling about the
+beginning of November, which is also the time when the autumn crops
+ripen. All classes observe this feast by illuminating their houses
+with many small saucer-lamps and letting off crackers and fireworks,
+and they generally gamble with money to bring them good luck during
+the coming year. The Ahirs make a mound of earth, which is called
+Govardhan, that is the mountain in Mathura which Krishna held upside
+down on his finger for seven days and nights, so that all the people
+might gather under it and be protected from the devastating storms of
+rain sent by Indra. After dancing round the mound they drive their
+cattle over it and make them trample it to pieces. At this time a
+festival called Marhai is held, at which much liquor is drunk and
+all classes disport themselves. In Damoh on this day the Ahirs go to
+the standing-place for village cattle, and after worshipping the god,
+frighten the cattle by waving leaves of the basil-plant at them, and
+then put on fantastic dresses, decorating themselves with cowries,
+and go round the village, singing and dancing. Elsewhere at the time
+of the Marhai they dance round a pole with peacock feathers tied to the
+top, and sometimes wear peacock feathers themselves, as well as aprons
+sewn all over with cowries. It is said that Krishna and Balaram used
+to wear peacock feathers when they danced in the jungles of Mathura,
+but this rite has probably some connection with the worship of the
+peacock. This bird might be venerated by the Ahirs as one of the
+prominent denizens of the jungle. In Raipur they tie a white cock
+to the top of the pole and dance round it. In Mandla, Khila Mutha,
+the god of the threshing-floor, is worshipped at this time, with
+offerings of a fowl and a goat. They also perform the rite of _jagana_
+or waking him up. They tie branches of a small shrub to a stick and
+pour milk over the stone which is his emblem, and sing, 'Wake up,
+Khila Mutha, this is the night of Amawas' (the new moon). Then they
+go to the cattle-shed and wake up the cattle, crying, 'Poraiya,
+god of the door, watchman of the window, open the door, Nand Gowal
+is coming.' Then they drive out the cattle and chase them with the
+branches tied to their sticks as far as their grazing-ground. Nand
+Gowal was the foster-father of Krishna, and is now said to signify a
+man who has a lakh (100,000) of cows. This custom of frightening the
+cattle and making them run is called _dhor jagana_ or _bichkana_, that
+is, to wake up or terrify the cattle. Its meaning is obscure, but it is
+said to preserve the cattle from disease during the year. In Raipur the
+women make an image of a parrot in clay at the Diwali and place it on
+a pole and go round to the different houses, singing and dancing round
+the pole, and receiving presents of rice and money. They praise the
+parrot as the bird who carries messages from a lover to his mistress,
+and as living on the mountains and among the green verdure, and sing:
+
+"Oh, parrot, where shall we sow _gondla_ grass and where shall we
+sow rice?
+
+"We will sow _gondla_ in a pond and rice in the field.
+
+"With what shall we cut _gondla_ grass, and with what shall we
+cut rice?
+
+"We shall cut _gondla_ with an axe and rice with a sickle."
+
+It is probable that the parrot is revered as a spirit of the forest,
+and also perhaps because it is destructive to the corn. The parrot
+is not, so far as is known, associated with any god, but the Hindus
+do not kill it. In Bilaspur an ear of rice is put into the parrot's
+mouth, and it is said there that the object of the rite is to prevent
+the parrots from preying on the corn.
+
+
+
+16. Omens.
+
+
+On the night of the full moon of Jesth (May) the Ahirs stay awake
+all night, and if the moon is covered with clouds they think that
+the rains will be good. If a cow's horns are not firmly fixed in
+the head and seem to shake slightly, it is called Maini, and such an
+animal is considered to be lucky. If a bullock sits down with three
+legs under him and the fourth stretched out in front it is a very
+good omen, and it is thought that his master's cattle will increase
+and multiply. When a buffalo-calf is born they cover it at once with
+a black cloth and remove it from the mother's sight, as they think
+that if she saw the calf and it then died her milk would dry up. The
+calf is fed by hand. Cow-calves, on the other hand, are usually left
+with the mother, and many people allow them to take all the milk,
+as they think it a sin to deprive them of it.
+
+
+
+17. Social customs.
+
+
+The Ahirs will eat the flesh of goats and chickens, and most of them
+consume liquor freely. The Kaonra Ahirs of Mandla eat pork, and the
+Rawats of Chhattisgarh are said not to object to field-mice and rats,
+even when caught in the houses. The Kaonra Ahirs are also said not to
+consider a woman impure during the period of menstruation. Nevertheless
+the Ahirs enjoy a good social status, owing to their relations with
+the sacred cow. As remarked by Eha: "His family having been connected
+for many generations with the sacred animal he enjoys a certain
+consciousness of moral respectability, like a man whose uncles are
+deans or canons." [27] All castes will take water from the hands of
+an Ahir, and in Chhattisgarh and the Uriya country the Rawats and
+Gahras, as the Ahir caste is known respectively in these localities,
+are the only caste from whom Brahmans and all other Hindus will take
+water. On this account, and because of their comparative purity,
+they are largely employed as personal servants. In Chhattisgarh the
+ordinary Rawats will clean the cooking-vessels even of Muhammadans,
+but the Thethwar or pure Rawats refuse this menial work. In Mandla,
+when a man is to be brought back into caste after a serious offence,
+such as getting vermin in a wound, he is made to stand in the middle
+of a stream, while some elderly relative pours water over him. He
+then addresses the members of the caste _panchayat_ or committee,
+who are standing on the bank, saying to them, 'Will you leave me in
+the mud or will you take me out?' Then they tell him to come out,
+and he has to give a feast. At this a member of the Meliha sept first
+eats food and puts some into the offender's mouth, thus taking the
+latter's sin upon himself. The offender then addresses the _panchayat_
+saying, 'Rajas of the Panch, eat.' Then the _panchayat_ and all the
+caste take food with him and he is readmitted. In Nandgaon State the
+head of the caste _panchayat_ is known as Thethwar, the title of the
+highest subcaste, and is appointed by the Raja, to whom he makes a
+present. In Jashpur, among the Mahakul Ahirs, when an offender is put
+out of caste he has on readmission to make an offering of Rs. 1-4 to
+Balaji, the tutelary deity of the State. These Mahakuls desire to be
+considered superior to ordinary Ahirs, and their social rules are hence
+very strict. A man is put out of caste if a dog, fowl or pig touches
+his water or cooking-pots, or if he touches a fowl. In the latter
+case he is obliged to make an offering of a fowl to the local god,
+and eight days are allowed for procuring it. A man is also put out of
+caste for beating his father. In Mandla, Ahirs commonly have the title
+of Patel or headman of a village, probably because in former times,
+when the country consisted almost entirely of forest and grass land,
+they were accustomed to hold large areas on contract for grazing.
+
+
+
+18. Ornaments.
+
+
+In Chhattisgarh the Rawat women are especially fond of wearing large
+_churas_ or leg-ornaments of bell-metal. These consist of a long
+cylinder which fits closely to the leg, being made in two halves which
+lock into each other, while at each end and in the centre circular
+plates project outwards horizontally. A pair of these _churas_ may
+weigh 8 or 10 lbs., and cost from Rs. 3 to Rs. 9. It is probable that
+some important magical advantage was expected to come from the wearing
+of these heavy appendages, which must greatly impede free progression,
+but its nature is not known.
+
+
+
+19. Occupation.
+
+
+Only about thirty per cent of the Ahirs are still occupied in breeding
+cattle and dealing in milk and butter. About four per cent are domestic
+servants, and nearly all the remainder cultivators and labourers. In
+former times the Ahirs had the exclusive right of milking the cow,
+so that on all occasions an Ahir must be hired for this purpose even
+by the lowest castes. Any one could, however, milk the buffalo, and
+also make curds and other preparations from cow's milk. [28] This
+rule is interesting as showing how the caste system was maintained
+and perpetuated by the custom of preserving to each caste a monopoly
+of its traditional occupation. The rule probably applied also to the
+bulk of the cultivating and the menial and artisan castes, and now
+that it has been entirely abrogated it would appear that the gradual
+decay and dissolution of the caste organisation must follow. The
+village cattle are usually entrusted jointly to one or more herdsmen
+for grazing purposes. The grazier is paid separately for each animal
+entrusted to his care, a common rate being one anna for a cow or
+bullock and two annas for a buffalo per month. When a calf is born
+he gets four annas for a cow-calf and eight annas for a she-buffalo,
+but except in the rice districts nothing for a male buffalo-calf, as
+these animals are considered useless outside the rice area. The reason
+is that buffaloes do not work steadily except in swampy or wet ground,
+where they can refresh themselves by frequent drinking. In the northern
+Districts male buffalo-calves are often neglected and allowed to die,
+but the cow-buffaloes are extremely valuable, because their milk is
+the principal source of supply of _ghi_ or boiled butter. When a cow
+or buffalo is in milk the grazier often gets the milk one day out
+of four or five. When a calf is born the teats of the cow are first
+milked about twenty times on to the ground in the name of the local
+god of the Ahirs. The remainder of the first day's milk is taken by
+the grazier, and for the next few days it is given to friends. The
+village grazier is often also expected to prepare the guest-house for
+Government officers and others visiting the village, fetch grass for
+their animals, and clean their cooking vessels. For this he sometimes
+receives a small plot of land and a present of a blanket annually
+from the village proprietor. Malguzars and large tenants have their
+private herdsmen. The pasturage afforded by the village waste lands
+and forest is, as a rule, only sufficient for the plough-bullocks and
+more valuable milch-animals. The remainder are taken away sometimes
+for long distances to the Government forest reserves, and here the
+herdsmen make stockades in the jungle and remain there with their
+animals for months together. The cattle which remain in the village are
+taken by the owners in the early morning to the _khirkha_ or central
+standing-ground. Here the grazier takes them over and drives them out
+to pasture. He brings them back at ten or eleven, and perhaps lets them
+stand in some field which the owner wants manured. Then he separates
+the cows and milch-buffaloes and takes them to their masters' houses,
+where he milks them all. In the afternoon all the cattle are again
+collected and driven out to pasture. The cultivators are very much in
+the grazier's hands, as they cannot supervise him, and if dishonest he
+may sell off a cow or calf to a friend in a distant village and tell
+the owner that it has been carried off by a tiger or panther. Unless
+the owner succeeds by a protracted search or by accident in finding
+the animal he cannot disprove the herdsman's statement, and the only
+remedy is to dispense with the latter's services if such losses become
+unduly frequent. On this account, according to the proverbs, the Ahir
+is held to be treacherous and false to his engagements. They are also
+regarded as stupid because they seldom get any education, retain their
+rustic and half-aboriginal dialect, and on account of their solitary
+life are dull and slow-witted in company. 'The barber's son learns to
+shave on the Ahir's head.' 'The cow is in league with the milkman and
+lets him milk water into the pail.' The Ahirs are also hot-tempered,
+and their propensity for drinking often results in affrays, when they
+break each other's head with their cattle-staffs. 'A Gaoli's quarrel:
+drunk at night and friends in the morning.'
+
+
+
+20. Preparations of milk.
+
+
+Hindus nearly always boil their milk before using it, as the taste
+of milk fresh from the cow is considered unpalatable. After boiling,
+the milk is put in a pot and a little old curds added, when the whole
+becomes _dahi_ or sour curds. This is a favourite food, and appears
+to be exactly the same substance as the Bulgarian sour milk which is
+now considered to have much medicinal value. Butter is also made by
+churning these curds or _dahi_. Butter is never used without being
+boiled first, when it becomes converted into a sort of oil; this
+has the advantage of keeping much better than fresh butter, and may
+remain fit for use for as long as a year. This boiled butter is known
+as _ghi_, and is the staple product of the dairy industry, the bulk
+of the surplus supply of milk being devoted to its manufacture. It
+is freely used by all classes who can afford it, and serves very well
+for cooking purposes. There is a comparatively small market for fresh
+milk among the Hindus, and as a rule only those drink milk who obtain
+it from their own animals. The acid residue after butter has been
+made from _dahi_ (curds) or milk is known as _matha_ or butter-milk,
+and is the only kind of milk drunk by the poorer classes. Milk boiled
+so long as to become solidified is known as _khir_, and is used by
+confectioners for making sweets. When the milk is boiled and some sour
+milk added to it, so that it coagulates while hot, the preparation is
+called _chhana_. The whey is expressed from this by squeezing it in a
+cloth, and a kind of cheese is obtained. [29] The liquid which oozes
+out at the root of a cow's horns after death is known as _gaolochan_
+and sells for a high price, as it is considered a valuable medicine
+for children's cough and lung diseases.
+
+
+
+Andh
+
+
+_Andh._ [30]--A low cultivating caste of Berar, who numbered 52,000
+persons in 1911, and belong to the Yeotmal, Akola and Buldana
+Districts. The Andhs appear to be a non-Aryan tribe of the Andhra or
+Tamil country, from which they derive their name. The territories
+of the Andhra dynasty extended across southern India from sea to
+sea in the early part of the Christian era. This designation may,
+however, have been given to them after migration, emigrants being not
+infrequently called in their new country by the name of the place from
+which they came, as Berari, Purdesi, Audhia (from Oudh), and so on. At
+present there seems to be no caste called Andh in Madras. Mr. Kitts
+[31] notes that they still come from Hyderabad across the Penganga
+river.
+
+The caste are divided into two groups, Vartati or pure and Khaltati or
+illegitimate, which take food together, but do not intermarry. They
+have a large number of exogamous septs, most of which appear to have
+Marathi names, either taken from villages or of a titular character. A
+few are called after animals or plants, as Majiria the cat, Ringni
+a kind of tree, Dumare from Dumar, an ant-hill, Dukare from Dukar,
+a pig, and Titawe from Titawa, a bird. Baghmare means tiger-killer
+or one killed by a tiger; members of this sept revere the tiger. Two
+septs, Bhoyar and Wanjari, are named after other castes.
+
+Marriage between members of the same sept is prohibited, and also
+between first cousins, except that a sister's son may marry a brother's
+daughter. Until recently marriage has been adult, but girls are now
+wedded as children, and betrothals are sometimes arranged before they
+are born. The ceremony resembles that of the Kunbis. Betrothals are
+arranged between October and December, and the weddings take place
+three or four months later, from January to April. If the bride is
+mature she goes at once to her husband's house. Polygamy is allowed;
+and as only a well-to-do man can afford to obtain more than one wife,
+those who have several are held to be wealthy, and treated with
+respect. Divorce and the remarriage of widows are permitted, but
+the widow may not marry her husband's brother nor any member of his
+clan. If an unmarried girl becomes pregnant by a man of her own or a
+superior caste she is fined, and can then be married as a widow. Her
+feet are not washed nor besmeared with red powder at the wedding
+ceremony like those of other girls. In some localities Andh women
+detected in a criminal intimacy even with men of such impure castes
+as the Mahars and Mangs have been readmitted into the community. A
+substantial fine is imposed on a woman detected in adultery according
+to her means and spent on a feast to the caste. All the members thus
+have a personal interest in the detection and punishment of such
+offences. The dead are usually buried, and water and sugar are placed
+in a dying man's mouth instead of the sacred objects used by Hindus;
+nor are the dying urged to call on Rama. The dead are buried with
+the head to the south, in opposition to the Hindu custom. The Andhs
+will eat the flesh of fowls and pigs, and even cats, rats and snakes
+in some localities, though the more civilised have abjured these
+latter. They are very fond of pork, and drink liquor, and will take
+food from Kunbis, Malis and Kolis, but not from Gonds. They have
+a caste _panchayat_ or committee, with a headman called Mohtaria,
+and two officers known as Phopatia and Dukria. When a caste offence
+is committed the Dukria goes to call the offender, and is given the
+earthen pots used at the penalty-feast, while the Phopatia receives
+a new piece of cloth. The Mohtaria or headman goes from village to
+village to decide cases, and gets a share of the fine. The caste are
+_shikaris_ or hunters, and cultivators. They catch antelope, hares,
+pig and nilgai in their nets, and kill them with sticks and stones,
+and they dam up streams and net fish. Birds are not caught. Generally,
+the customs of the Andhs clearly point to an aboriginal origin, but
+they are rapidly being Hinduised, and in some tracts can scarcely be
+distinguished from Kunbis.
+
+They have Marathi names; and though only one name is given at birth,
+Mr. Slaney notes that this is frequently changed for some pet name,
+and as often as not a man goes regularly by some name other than his
+real one.
+
+
+
+Arakh
+
+
+_Arakh._--A small caste of cultivators and labourers found
+principally in the Chanda District and Berar and scattered over other
+localities. The Arakhs are considered to be an offshoot of the Pasi or
+Bahelia caste of hunters and fowlers. Mr. Crooke [32] writes of them:
+"All their traditions connect them with the Pasis and Parasurama, the
+sixth Avatara of Vishnu. One story runs that Parasurama was bathing
+in the sea, when a leech bit his foot and caused it to bleed. He
+divided the blood into two parts; out of one part he made the first
+Pasi and out of the second the first Arakh. Another story is that
+the Pasis were made out of the sweat (_pasina_) of Parasurama. While
+Parasurama was away the Pasi shot some animals with his bow, and
+the deity was so enraged that he cursed the Pasi, and swore that
+his descendants should keep pigs. This accounts for the degradation
+of the Pasis. Subsequently Parasurama sent for some Pasis to help
+him in one of his wars; but they ran away and hid in an _arhar_
+[33] field and were hence called Arakhs." This connection with the
+Pasis is also recognised in the case of the Arakhs of Berar, of whom
+Mr. Kitts writes: [34] "The Arakhs found in Morsi are a race akin to
+the Bahelias. Their regular occupation is bird-catching and _shikar_
+(hunting). They do not follow Hindu customs in their marriages,
+but although they keep pigs, eat flesh and drink spirits, they will
+not touch a Chamar. They appear to be a branch of the Pasi tribe,
+and are described as a semi-Hinduised class of aborigines." In the
+Chanda District, however, the Arakhs are closely connected with the
+Gond tribe, as is evident from their system of exogamy. Thus they
+say that they are divided into the Matia, Tekam, Tesli, Godam, Madai,
+Sayam and Chorliu septs, worshipping respectively three, four, five,
+six, seven, eight and twelve gods; and persons who worship the same
+number of gods cannot marry with one another. This system of divisions
+according to the different number of gods worshipped is found in the
+Central Provinces only among the Gonds and one or two other tribes
+like the Baigas, who have adopted it from them, and as some of the
+names given above are also Gondi words, no doubt need be entertained
+that the Arakhs of Chanda are largely of Gond descent. They are
+probably, in fact, the offspring of irregular connections between
+the Gonds and Pasis, who, being both frequenters of the forests,
+would naturally come much into contact with each other. And being
+disowned by the true Pasis on account of their defective pedigree,
+they have apparently set up as a separate caste and adopted the name
+of Arakh to hide the deficiencies of their ancestry.
+
+The social customs of the Arakhs resemble those of other low Hindu
+castes, and need not be given in detail. Their weddings are held
+near a temple of Maroti, or if there be none such, then at the place
+where the Holi fire was lit in the preceding year. A bride-price
+varying from Rs. 25 to Rs. 40 is usually paid. In the case of the
+marriage of a widow, the second husband goes to the house of the
+woman, where the couple are bathed and seated on two wooden boards,
+a branch of a cotton-plant being placed near them. The bridegroom then
+ties five strings of black glass beads round the woman's neck. The
+dead are mourned for one day only, and a funeral feast is given to
+the caste-fellows. The Arakhs are a very low caste, but their touch
+does not convey impurity.
+
+
+
+Atari
+
+
+
+1. General notice.
+
+
+_Atari, [35] Gandhi, Bukekari._--A small Muhammadan caste of retailers
+of scent, incense, tooth-powder and _kunku_ or pink powder. Atari
+is derived from _atar_ or _itra_, attar of roses. Gandhi comes from
+_gandh_, a Sanskrit word for scent. Bukekari is a Marathi word meaning
+a seller of powder. The Ataris number about two hundred persons
+in Nagpur, Wardha and Berar. Both Hindus and Muhammadans follow
+the profession, but the Hindu Ataris are not a separate caste, and
+belong to the Teli, Gurao and Beldar castes. The Muhammadan Ataris,
+to whom this article refers, may marry with other Muhammadans, with
+the exception of low-class tradesmen like the Pinjaras, Kasais and
+Kunjras. One instance of an Atari marrying a Rangrez is known, but
+usually they decline to do so. But since they are not considered to
+be the equals of ordinary Muhammadans, they constitute more or less
+a distinct social group. They are of the same position as Muhammadan
+tin-workers, bangle-makers and pedlars, and sometimes intermarry
+with them. They admit Hindu converts into the community, but the
+women refuse to eat with them, and the better-class families will
+not intermarry with converts. A new convert must be circumcised,
+but if he is of advanced age, or if his foreskin is wanting, as
+sometimes happens, they take a rolled-up betel-leaf and cut it in
+two in substitution for the rite.
+
+
+
+2. Marriage customs.
+
+
+It is essential that a girl should be married before adolescence, as it
+is said that when the signs of puberty appear in her before wedlock her
+parents commit a crime equivalent to the shedding of human blood. The
+father of the boy looks for a bride, and after dropping hints to
+the girl's family to see if his proposal is acceptable, he sends some
+female relatives or friends to discuss the marriage. Before the wedding
+the boy is presented with a _chhap_ or ring of gold or silver with
+a small cup-like attachment. A _mehar_ or dowry must be given to the
+bride, the amount of which is not below Rs. 50 or above Rs. 250. The
+bride's parents give her cooking vessels, bedding and a bedstead. After
+the wedding, the couple are seated on a cot while the women sing songs,
+and they see each other's face reflected in a mirror. The procession
+returns after a stay of four days, and is received by the women of
+the bridegroom's family with some humorous ceremonies bearing on the
+nature of marriage. A feast called Tamm Walima follows, and the couple
+are shut up together in an inner room, even though they may be under
+age. The marriage includes some Hindu customs, such as the erection
+of the _pandal_ or shed, rubbing the couple with turmeric and oil,
+and the tying on of _kankans_ or wrist-bands. A girl going wrong
+before marriage may be wedded with full rites so long as she has not
+conceived, but after conception until her child is born she cannot go
+through the ceremony at all. After the birth of the child she may be
+married simply with the rite for widows. She retains the child, but it
+has no claim to succeed to her husband's property. A widow may marry
+again after an interval of forty days from her first husband's death,
+and she may wed her younger brother-in-law. Divorce is permitted at
+the instance of either party, and for mere disagreement. A man usually
+divorces his wife by vowing in the presence of two witnesses that he
+will in future consider intercourse with her as incestuous in the same
+degree as with his mother. A divorced woman has a claim to her _mehar_
+or dowry if not already paid, but forfeits it if she marries again. A
+man can marry the daughter of his paternal uncle. The services of a
+Kazi at weddings are paid for with a fee of Rs. 1-4, and well-to-do
+persons also give him a pair of turbans.
+
+
+
+3. Religion.
+
+
+The Ataris are Muhammadans of the Sunni sect. They revere the
+Muhammadan saints, and on the night of Shabrat they let off fireworks
+in honour of their ancestors and make offerings of _halwa_ [36] to
+them and place lamps and scent on their tombs. They swear by the pig
+and abstain from eating its flesh. The dog is considered an unclean
+animal and its tail, ears and tongue are especially defiling. If the
+hair of a dog falls on the ground they cannot pray in that place
+because the souls of the prophets cannot come there. To see a dog
+flapping its ears is a bad omen, and a person starting on a journey
+should postpone his departure. They esteem the spider, because they
+say it spread its web over the mouth of the cave where Hasan and
+Husain lay concealed from their enemies and thus prevented it from
+being searched. Some of them have Pirs or spiritual preceptors, these
+being Muhammadan beggars, not necessarily celibate. The ceremony of
+adhesion is that a man should drink sherbet from the cup from which
+his preceptor has drunk. They do not observe impurity after a death
+nor bathe on returning from a funeral.
+
+
+
+4. Social customs.
+
+
+Liquor is of course prohibited to the Ataris as to other Muhammadans,
+but some of them drink it nevertheless. Some of them eat beef and
+others abstain. The blood of animals killed must flow before death
+according to the rite of _halal_, but they say that fish are an
+exception, because when Abraham was offering up his son Ishmael and
+God substituted a goat, the goat bleated before it was killed, and
+this offended Abraham, who threw his sacrificial knife into the sea:
+the knife struck and killed a fish, and on this account all fish
+are considered to be _halal_ or lawful food without any further
+rite. The Ataris observe the Hindu law of inheritance, and some of
+them worship Hindu deities, as Mata the goddess of smallpox. As a rule
+their women are not secluded. The Ataris make _missi_ or tooth-powder
+from myrobalans, cloves and cardamoms, and other constituents. This
+has the effect of blackening the teeth. They also sell the _kunku_
+or red powder which women rub on their foreheads, its constituents
+being turmeric, borax and the juice of limes. They sell scent and
+sometimes deal in tobacco. The scents most in demand are _gulab-pani_
+or rose-water and _phulel_ or essence of tilli or sesamum. Scents are
+usually sold by the tola of 18 annas silver weight, [37] and a tola
+of attar may vary in price from 8 annas to Rs. 80. Other scents are
+made from _khas-khas_ grass, the mango, henna and musk, the _bela_
+flower, [38] the champak [39] and cucumber. Scent is manufactured
+by distillation from the flowers boiled in water, and the drops of
+congealed vapour fall into sandalwood oil, which they say is the basis
+of all scents. Fragrant oils are also sold for rubbing on the hair,
+made from orange flowers, jasmine, cotton-seed and the flowers of
+the _aonla_ tree. [40] Scent is sold in tiny circular glass bottles,
+and the oils in little bottles made from thin leather. The Ataris
+also retail the little black sticks of incense which are set up and
+burnt at the time of taking food and in temples, so that the smell
+and smoke may keep off evil spirits. When professional exorcists are
+called upon to clear any building, such as a hospital, supposed to be
+haunted by spirits or the ghosts of the dead, they commence operations
+by placing these sticks of incense at the entrance and setting them
+alight as in a temple.
+
+
+
+Audhelia
+
+
+
+1. Origin.
+
+
+_Audhelia (Audhalia)._--A small hybrid caste found almost exclusively
+in the Bilaspur District, where they number about 1000 persons. The
+name is derived from the word Udharia, meaning a person with
+clandestine sexual intimacies. The Audhelias are a mixed caste and
+trace their origin from a Daharia Rajput ancestor, by one Bhuri Bandi,
+a female slave of unknown caste. This couple is supposed to have
+resided in Ratanpur, the old capital of Chhattisgarh, and the female
+ancestors of the Audhelias are said to have been prostitutes until
+they developed into a caste and began to marry among themselves. Their
+proper avocation at present is the rearing of pigs, while some of
+them are also tenants and farm-labourers. Owing to the base descent
+and impure occupation of the caste they are held in very low esteem,
+and their touch is considered to convey pollution.
+
+
+
+2. Marriage.
+
+
+The caste have at present no endogamous divisions and still admit
+members of other castes with the exception of the very lowest. But
+social gradations exist to a certain extent among the members
+according to the position of their male ancestors, a Daharia Audhelia,
+for instance, being reluctant to eat or intermarry with a Panka
+Audhelia. Under these circumstances it has become a rule among the
+Audhelias not to eat with their caste-fellows excepting their own
+relations. On the occasion of a caste feast, therefore, each guest
+prepares his own food, taking only uncooked grain from his host. At
+present seven _gotras_ or exogamous divisions appear to have been
+formed in the caste with the names of Pachbhaiya, Chhahri, Kalkhor,
+Bachhawat, Dhanawat, Bhainsa and Limuan. The following story exists as
+to the origin of these _gotras_: There were formerly three brothers,
+Sahasman, Budha and Mangal, who were Sansis or robbers. One evening
+the three brothers halted in a forest and went to look for food. One
+brought back a buffalo-horn, another a peacock's feather and the
+youngest, Mangal, brought plums. The other brothers asked Mangal to
+let them share his plums, to which he agreed on condition that one
+of the brothers should give his daughter to him in marriage. As
+Mangal and his brothers were of one _gotra_ or section, and the
+marriage would thus involve splitting up the _gotra_, the brothers
+were doubtful whether it could be performed. They sought about for
+some sign to determine this difficult question, and decided that if
+Mangal succeeded in breaking in pieces an iron image of a cat simply
+by blows of his naked fist, it would be a sufficient indication
+that they might split up their _gotra_. Mangal was therefore put
+to the ordeal and succeeded in breaking the image, so the three
+brothers split up their _gotra_, the eldest assuming the _gotra_
+name of Bhainsa because he had found a buffalo-horn, the second that
+of Kalkhor, which is stated to mean peacock, and the third that of
+Chhahri, which at any rate does not mean a plum. The word Chhahri
+means either 'shadow,' or 'one who washes the clothes of a woman in
+confinement.' If we assume it to have the latter meaning, it may be
+due to the fact that Mangal had to wash the clothes of his own wife,
+not being able to induce a professional washerman to do so on account
+of the incestuous nature of the connection. As the eldest brother
+gave his daughter in an incestuous marriage he was also degraded, and
+became the ancestor of the Kanjars or prostitutes, who, it is said,
+to the present day do not solicit Audhelias in consideration of the
+consanguinity existing between them. The story itself sufficiently
+indicates the low and mixed descent of the Audhelias, and its real
+meaning may possibly be that when they first began to form a separate
+caste they permitted incestuous marriages on account of the paucity of
+their members. A curious point about the story is that the incestuous
+nature of the connection is not taken to be the most pressing objection
+to the marriage of Mangal with his own niece, but the violation of the
+caste rule prohibiting marriage within the same _gotra_. Bachhawat
+and Dhanawat are the names of sections of the Banjara caste, and
+the persons of these _gotras_ among the Audhelias are probably
+the descendants of illicit connections among Banjaras. The word
+Pachbhaiya means 'five brothers,' and this name possibly commemorates a
+polyandrous connection of some Audhelia woman. Limuan means a tortoise,
+which is a section of many castes. Several of the section-names are
+thus totemistic, and, as in other castes, some reverence is paid to
+the animal from whom the name is derived. At present the Audhelias
+forbid marriage within the same _gotra_ and also the union of first
+cousins. Girls are married between five and seven years of age as their
+numbers are scarce, and they are engaged as early as possible. Unless
+weddings are arranged by exchanging girls between two families, a
+high bride-price, often amounting to as much as Rs. 60, is paid. No
+stigma is incurred, however, if a girl should remain unmarried till
+she arrives at adolescence, but, on the contrary, a higher price is
+then obtained for her. Sexual licence either before or after marriage
+is considered a venial offence, but a woman detected in a _liaison_
+with a man of one of the lowest castes is turned out of caste. Widow
+marriage and divorce are freely allowed.
+
+
+
+3. Religion, birth and death.
+
+
+The Audhelias venerate Dulha Deo and Devi, to whom they usually offer
+pigs. Their principal festival is the Holi, at which their women were
+formerly engaged to perform as professional dancers. They usually burn
+their dead and remove the ashes on the third day, throwing them into
+the nearest stream. A few of the bones are picked up and buried under
+a pipal tree, and a pitcher with a hole in the bottom is hung on the
+tree so that water may trickle down on to them. On the tenth day the
+caste-people assemble and are shaved and bathe and rub their bodies
+with oil under the tree. Unmarried men and persons dying of cholera
+are buried, the head being placed to the north. They consider that if
+they place the corpse in the reverse position it would be an insult
+to the Ganges equivalent to kicking the holy river, as the feet of
+the body would then be turned towards it.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+Badhak
+
+
+List of Paragraphs
+
+
+    1.   _Introductory notice._
+    2.   _The Badhak dacoits._
+    3.   _Instances of dacoities._
+    4.   _Further instances of dacoities._
+    5.   _Disguise of religious mendicants._
+    6.   _Countenance and support of landowners._
+    7.   _Pride in their profession._
+    8.   _Caste rules and admission of outsiders._
+    9.   _Religion. Offerings to ancestors._
+    10.   _The wounded haunted by spirits._
+    11.   _Pious funeral observances._
+    12.   _Taking the omens._
+    13.   _Suppression of dacoity._
+    14.   _The Badhaks or Baoris at the present time._
+    15.   _Lizard-hunting._
+    16.   _Social observances._
+    17.   _Criminal practices._
+
+
+
+1. Introductory notice.
+
+
+_Badhak, Bagri, Baoria._--A famous tribe of dacoits who flourished
+up to about 1850, and extended their depredations over the whole
+of Northern and Central India. The Bagris and Baorias or Bawarias
+still exist and are well known to the police as inveterate criminals;
+but their operations are now confined to ordinary burglary, theft and
+cheating, and their more interesting profession of armed gang-robbery
+on a large scale is a thing of the past. The first part of this article
+is entirely compiled from the Report on their suppression drawn up
+by Colonel Sleeman, [41] who may be regarded as the virtual founder
+of the Thuggee and Dacoity Department. Some mention of the existing
+Bagri and Baoria tribes is added at the end.
+
+
+
+2. The Badhak dacoits.
+
+
+The origin of the Badhaks is obscure, but they seem to have belonged
+to Gujarat, as their peculiar dialect, still in use, is a form of
+Gujarati. The most striking feature in it is the regular substitution
+of _kh_ for _s_. They claimed to be Rajputs and were divided into clans
+with the well-known Rajput names of Solanki, Panwar, Dhundhel, Chauhan,
+Rathor, Gahlot, Bhatti and Charan. Their ancestors were supposed to
+have fled from Chitor on one of the historical occasions on which it
+was assaulted and sacked. But as they spoke Gujarati it seems more
+probable that they belonged to Gujarat, a fertile breeding-place of
+criminals, and they may have been descended from the alliances of
+Rajputs with the primitive tribes of this locality, the Bhils and
+Kolis. The existing Bagris are of short stature, one writer stating
+that none of them exceed five feet two inches in height; and this
+seems to indicate that they have little Rajput blood. It may be
+surmised that the Badhaks rose into importance and found scope for
+their predatory instincts during the period of general disorder and
+absence of governing authority through which northern India passed
+after the decline of the Mughal Empire. And they lived and robbed with
+the connivance or open support of the petty chiefs and landholders,
+to whom they gave a liberal share of their booty. The principal bands
+were located in the Oudh forests, but they belonged to the whole
+of northern India including the Central Provinces; and as Colonel
+Sleeman's Report, though of much interest, is now practically unknown,
+I have thought it not out of place to compile an article by means of
+short extracts from his account of the tribe.
+
+In 1822 the operations of the Badhaks were being conducted on such a
+scale that an officer wrote: "No District between the Brahmaputra,
+the Nerbudda, the Satlej and the Himalayas is free from them; and
+within this vast field hardly any wealthy merchant or manufacturer
+could feel himself secure for a single night from the depredations
+of Badhak dacoits. They had successfully attacked so many of the
+treasuries of our native Sub-Collectors that it was deemed necessary,
+all over the North-Western Provinces, to surround such buildings with
+extensive fortifications. In many cases they carried off our public
+treasure from strong parties of our regular troops and mounted police;
+and none seemed to know whence they came or whither they fled with
+the booty acquired." [42]
+
+
+
+3. Instances of dacoities.
+
+
+Colonel Sleeman thus described a dacoity in the town of Narsinghpur
+when he was in charge of that District: [43] "In February 1822,
+in the dusk of the evening, a party of about thirty persons, with
+nothing seemingly but walking-sticks in their hands, passed the
+piquet of sepoys on the bank of the rivulet which separates the
+cantonment from the town of Narsinghpur. On being challenged by
+the sentries they said they were cowherds and that their cattle were
+following close behind. They walked up the street; and coming opposite
+the houses of the most wealthy merchants, they set their torches
+in a blaze by blowing suddenly on pots filled with combustibles,
+stabbed everybody who ventured to move or make the slightest noise,
+plundered the houses, and in ten minutes were away with their booty,
+leaving about twelve persons dead and wounded on the ground. No trace
+of them was discovered." Another well-known exploit of the Badhaks
+was the attack on the palace of the ex-Peshwa, Baji Rao, at Bithur
+near Cawnpore. This was accomplished by a gang of about eighty men,
+who proceeded to the locality in the disguise of carriers of Ganges
+water. Having purchased a boat and a few muskets to intimidate
+the guard they crossed the Ganges about six miles below Bithur,
+and reached the place at ten o'clock at night; and after wounding
+eighteen persons who attempted resistance they possessed themselves
+of property, chiefly in gold, to the value of more than two and a
+half lakhs of rupees; and retiring without loss made their way in
+safety to their homes in the Oudh forests. The residence of this
+gang was known to a British police officer in the King of Oudh's
+service, Mr. Orr, and after a long delay on the part of the court
+an expedition was sent which recovered a portion of the treasure
+and captured two or three hundred of the Badhaks. But none of the
+recovered property reached the hands of Baji Rao and the prisoners
+were soon afterwards released. [44] Again in 1839, a gang of about
+fifty men under a well-known leader, Gajraj, scaled the walls of
+Jhansi and plundered the Surafa or bankers' quarter of the town for
+two hours, obtaining booty to the value of Rs. 40,000, which they
+carried off without the loss of a man. The following account of this
+raid was obtained by Colonel Sleeman from one of the robbers: [45]
+"The spy (_hirrowa_) having returned and reported that he had found a
+merchant's house in Jhansi which contained a good deal of property,
+we proceeded to a grove where we took the auspices by the process
+of _akut_ (counting of grains) and found the omens favourable. We
+then rested three days and settled the rates according to which the
+booty should be shared. Four or five men, who were considered too
+feeble for the enterprise, were sent back, and the rest, well armed,
+strong and full of courage, went on. In the evening of the fourth day
+we reached a plain about a mile from the town, where we rested to take
+breath for an hour; about nine o'clock we got to the wall and remained
+under it till midnight, preparing the ladders from materials which we
+had collected on the road. They were placed to the wall and we entered
+and passed through the town without opposition. A marriage procession
+was going on before us and the people thought we belonged to it. We
+found the bankers' shops closed. Thana and Saldewa, who carried the
+axes, soon broke them open, while Kulean lighted up his torch. Gajraj
+with twenty men entered, while the rest stood posted at the different
+avenues leading to the place. When all the property they could find
+had been collected, Gajraj hailed the god Hanuman and gave orders for
+the retreat. We got back safely to Mondegri in two days and a half,
+and then reposed for two or three days with the Raja of Narwar,
+with whom we left five or six of our stoutest men as a guard, and
+then returned home with our booty, consisting chiefly of diamonds,
+emeralds, gold and silver bullion, rupees and about sixty pounds
+of silver wire. None of our people were either killed or wounded,
+but whether any of the bankers' people were I know not."
+
+
+
+4. Further instances of dacoities.
+
+
+Colonel Sleeman writes elsewhere [46] of the leader of the above
+exploit: "This Gajraj had risen from the vocation of a _bandarwala_
+(monkey showman) to be the Robin Hood of Gwalior and the adjacent
+States; he was the governor-general of banditti in that country of
+banditti and kept the whole in awe; he had made himself so formidable
+that the Durbar appointed him to keep the _ghats_ or ferries over
+the Chambal, which he did in a very profitable manner to them and
+to himself, and none entered or quitted the country without paying
+blackmail." A common practice of the Badhaks, when in need of a little
+ready money, was to lie in wait for money-changers on their return
+from the markets. These men take their bags of money with them to the
+important bazars at a distance from their residence and return home
+with them after dusk. The dacoits were accustomed to watch for them
+in the darkest and most retired places on the roads and fell them
+to the ground with their bludgeons. This device was often practised
+and usually succeeded. [47] Of another Badhak chief, Meherban, it is
+stated [48] that he hired a discharged sepoy to instruct his followers
+in the European system of drill, that they might travel with him in
+the disguise of regular soldiers, well armed and accoutred. During
+the rains Meherban's spies (_hirrowa_) were sent to visit the great
+commercial towns and report any despatches of money or other valuables,
+which were to take place during the following open season. His own
+favourite disguise was that of a Hindu prince, while the remainder
+of the gang constituted his retinue and escort. On one occasion,
+assuming this character, he followed up a boat laden with Spanish
+dollars which was being sent from Calcutta to Benares; and having
+attacked it at its moorings at Makrai, he killed one and wounded ten
+men of the guard and made off with 25,000 Spanish dollars and Rs. 2600
+of the Company's coinage. A part of the band were sent direct to the
+rendezvous previously arranged, while Meherban returned to the grove
+where he had left his women and proceeded with them in a more leisurely
+fashion to the same place. Retaining the character of a native prince
+he halted here for two days to celebrate the Holi festival. Marching
+thence with his women conveyed in covered litters by hired bearers
+who were changed at intervals, he proceeded to his bivouac in the
+Oudh forests; and at Seosagar, one of his halting-places, he gave
+a large sum of money to a gardener to plant a grove of mango trees
+near a tank for the benefit of travellers, in the name of Raja
+Meherban Singh of Gaur in Oudh; and promised him further alms on
+future occasions of pilgrimage if he found the work progressing well,
+saying that it was a great shame that travellers should be compelled
+as he had been to halt without shade for themselves or their families
+during the heat of the day. He arrived safely at his quarters in the
+forest and was received in the customary fashion by a procession of
+women in their best attire, who conducted him with dancing and music,
+like a victorious Roman Proconsul, to his fort. [49]
+
+
+
+5. Disguise of religious mendicants.
+
+
+But naturally not all the Badhaks could do things in the style of
+Meherban Singh. The disguise which they most often assumed in the north
+was that of carriers of Ganges water, while in Central India they often
+pretended to be Banjaras travelling with pack-bullocks, or pilgrims,
+or wedding-parties going to fetch the bride or bridegroom. Sometimes
+also they took the character of religious mendicants, the leader being
+the high priest and all the rest his followers and disciples. One
+such gang, described by Colonel Sleeman, [50] had four or five
+tents of white and dyed cloth, two or three pairs of _nakkaras_
+or kettle-drums and trumpets, with a great number of buffaloes,
+cows, goats, sheep and ponies. Some were clothed, but the bodies
+of the greater part were covered with nothing but ashes, paint and
+a small cloth waistband. But they always provided themselves with
+five or six real Bairagis, whose services they purchased at a very
+high price. These men were put forward to answer questions in case
+of difficulty and to bully the landlords and peasantry; and if the
+people demurred to the demands of the Badhaks, to intimidate them by
+tricks calculated to play upon the fears of the ignorant. They held
+in their hands a preparation of gunpowder resembling common ashes; and
+when they found the people very stubborn they repeated their _mantras_
+over this and threw it upon the thatch of the nearest house, to which
+it set fire. The explosion was caused by a kind of fusee held in the
+hand which the people could not see, and taking it for a miracle
+they paid all that was demanded. Another method was to pretend to
+be carrying the bones of dead relatives to the Ganges. The bones or
+ashes of the deceased, says [51] Colonel Sleeman, are carried to the
+Ganges in bags, coloured red for females and white for males. These
+bags are considered holy, and are not allowed to touch the ground
+upon the way, and during halts in the journey are placed on poles or
+triangles. The carriers are regarded with respect as persons engaged
+upon a pious duty, and seldom questioned on the road. When a gang
+assumed this disguise they proceeded to their place of rendezvous
+in small parties, some with red and some with white bags, in which
+they carried the bones of animals most resembling those of the human
+frame. These were supported on triangles formed of the shafts on which
+the spear-heads would be fitted when they reached their destination
+and had prepared for action.
+
+
+
+6. Countenance and support of landowners.
+
+
+It would have been impossible for the Badhaks to exist and flourish
+as they did without the protection of the landowners on whose estates
+they lived; and this they received in full measure in return for a
+liberal share of their booty. When the chief of Karauli was called upon
+to dislodge a gang within his territory, he expressed apprehension
+that the coercion of the Badhaks might cause a revolution in the
+State. He was not at all singular, says Colonel Sleeman, in his fear
+of exasperating this formidable tribe of robbers. It was common to
+all the smaller chiefs and the provincial governors of the larger
+ones. They everywhere protected and fostered the Badhaks, as did the
+landholders; and the highest of them associated with the leaders of
+gangs on terms of equality and confidence. It was very common for a
+chief or the governor of a district in times of great difficulty and
+personal danger to require from one of the leaders of such gangs a
+night-guard or _palang ki chauki_: and no less so to entertain large
+bodies of them in the attack and defence of forts and camps whenever
+unusual courage and skill were required. The son of the Raja of Charda
+exchanged turbans with a Badhak leader, Mangal Singh, as a mark of the
+most intimate friendship. This episode recalls an alliance of similar
+character in _Lorna Doone_; and indeed it would not be difficult to
+find several points of resemblance between the careers of the more
+enterprising Badhak leaders and the Doones of Bagworthy; but India
+produced no character on the model of John Ridd, and it was reserved
+for an Englishman, Colonel Sleeman, to achieve the suppression of the
+Badhaks as well as that of the Thugs. After the fortress and territory
+of Garhakota in Saugor had been taken by the Maharaja Sindhia, Zalim
+Singh, a cousin of the dispossessed Bundela chief, collected a force
+of Bundelas and Pindaris and ravaged the country round Garhakota
+in 1813. In the course of his raid he sacked and burnt the town
+of Deori, and 15,000 persons perished in the flames. Colonel Jean
+Baptiste, Sindhia's general, obtained a number of picked Badhaks from
+Rajputana and offered them a rich reward for the head of Zalim Singh;
+and after watching his camp for three months they managed to come on
+him asleep in the tent of a dancing-girl, who was following his camp,
+and stabbed him to the heart. For this deed they received Rs. 20,000
+from Baptiste with other valuable presents. Their reputation was
+indeed such that they were frequently employed at this period both by
+chiefs who desired to take the lives of others and by those who were
+anxious for the preservation of their own. When it happened that a
+gang was caught after a robbery in a native State, the custom was
+not infrequently to make them over to the merchant whose property
+they had taken, with permission to keep them in confinement until
+they should refund his money; and in this manner by giving up the
+whole or a part of the proceeds of their robbery they were enabled
+to regain their liberty. Even if they were sent before the courts,
+justice was at that time so corrupt as to permit of easy avenues of
+escape for those who could afford to pay; and Colonel Sleeman records
+the deposition of a Badhak describing their methods of bribery:
+"When police officers arrest Badhaks their old women get round them
+and give them large sums of money; and they either release them or
+get their depositions so written that their release shall be ordered
+by the magistrates. If they are brought to court, their old women,
+dressed in rags, follow them at a distance of three or four miles
+with a thousand or two thousand rupees upon ponies; and these rupees
+they distribute among the native officers of the court and get the
+Badhaks released. These old women first ascertain from the people of
+the villages who are the Nazirs and Munshis of influence, and wait
+upon them at their houses and make their bargains. If the officials
+cannot effect their release, they take money from the old women and
+send them off to the Sadar Court, with letters of introduction to their
+friends, and advice as to the rate they shall pay to each according
+to his supposed influence. This is the way that all our leaders get
+released, and hardly any but useless men are left in confinement." [52]
+
+
+
+7. Pride in their profession.
+
+
+It may be noticed that these robbers took the utmost pleasure in their
+calling, and were most averse to the idea of giving it up and taking
+to honest pursuits. "Some of the men with me," one magistrate wrote,
+[53] "have been in jail for twenty, and one man for thirty years,
+and still do not appear to have any idea of abandoning their illegal
+vocation; even now, indeed, they look on what we consider an honest
+means of livelihood with the most marked contempt; and in relating
+their excursions talk of them with the greatest pleasure, much in
+the way an eager sportsman describes a boar-chase or fox-hunt. While
+talking of their excursions, which were to me really very interesting,
+their eyes gleamed with pleasure; and beating their hands on their
+foreheads and breasts and muttering some ejaculation they bewailed
+the hardness of their lot, which now ensured their never again being
+able to participate in such a joyous occupation." Another Badhak,
+on being examined, said he could not recall a case of one of the
+community having ever given up the trade of dacoity. "None ever did,
+I am certain of it," he continued. [54] "After having been arrested,
+on our release we frequently take lands, to make it appear we have
+left off dacoity, but we never do so in reality; it is only done as
+a feint and to enable our zamindars (landowners) to screen us." They
+sometimes paid rent for their land at the rate of thirty rupees
+an acre, in return for the countenance and protection afforded by
+the zamindars. "Our profession," another Badhak remarked, [55] "has
+been a _Padshahi Kam_ (a king's trade); we have attacked and seized
+boldly the thousands and hundreds of thousands that we have freely
+and nobly spent; we have been all our lives wallowing in wealth and
+basking in freedom, and find it hard to manage with the few copper
+pice a day we get from you." At the time when captures were numerous,
+and the idea was entertained of inducing the dacoits to settle in
+villages and supporting them until they had been trained to labour,
+several of them, on being asked how much they would require to support
+themselves, replied that they could not manage on less than two rupees
+a day, having earned quite that sum by dacoity. This amount would be
+more than twenty times the wages of an ordinary labourer at the same
+period. Another witness put the amount at one to two rupees a day,
+remarking, 'We are great persons for eating and drinking, and we keep
+several wives according to our means.' Of some of them Colonel Sleeman
+had a high opinion, and he mentions the case of one man, Ajit Singh,
+who was drafted into the native army and rose to be commander of a
+company. "I have seldom seen a man," he wrote, [56] "whom I would
+rather have with me in scenes of peril and difficulty." An attempt of
+the King of Oudh's, however, to form a regiment of Badhaks had ended
+in failure, as after a short time they mutinied, beat their commandant
+and other officers and turned them out of the regiment, giving as
+their reason that the officers had refused to perform the same duties
+as the men. And they visited with the same treatment all the other
+officers sent to them, until they were disbanded by the British on
+the province of Allahabad being made over to the Company. Colonel
+Sleeman notes that they were never known to offer any other violence
+or insult to females than to make them give up any gold ornaments that
+they might have about their persons. "In all my inquiries into the
+character, habits and conduct of these gangs, I have never found an
+instance of a female having been otherwise disgraced or insulted by
+them. They are all Hindus, and this reverence for the sex pervades
+all Hindu society." [57] According to their own account also they
+never committed murder; if people opposed them they struck and killed
+like soldiers, but this was considered to be in fair fight. It may
+be noted, nevertheless, that they had little idea of clan loyalty,
+and informed very freely against their fellows when this course was
+to their advantage. They also stated that they could not settle in
+towns; they had always been accustomed to live in the jungles and
+commit dacoities upon the people of the towns as a kind of _shikar_
+(sport); they delighted in it, and they felt living in towns or among
+other men as a kind of prison, and got quite confused (_ghabraye_),
+and their women even more than the men.
+
+
+
+8. Caste rules and admission of outsiders.
+
+
+The Badhaks had a regular caste organisation, and members of the
+different clans married with each other like the Rajputs after
+whom they were named. They admitted freely into the community
+members of any respectable Hindu caste, but not the impure castes
+or Muhammadans. But at least one instance of the admission of
+a Muhammadan is given. [58] The Badhaks were often known to the
+people as Siarkhawa or jackal-eaters, or Sabkhawa, those who eat
+everything. And the Muhammadan in question was given jackal's flesh
+to eat, and having partaken of it was considered to have become a
+member of the community. This indicates that the Badhaks were probably
+accustomed to eat the flesh of the jackal at a sacrificial meal,
+and hence that they worshipped the jackal, revering it probably
+as the deity of the forests where they lived. Such a veneration
+would account for the importance attached to the jackal's cry as an
+omen. The fact of their eating jackals also points to the conclusion
+that the Badhaks were not Rajputs, but a low hunting caste like the
+Pardhis and Bahelias. The Pardhis have Rajput sept names as well as the
+Badhaks. No doubt a few outcaste Rajputs may have joined the gangs and
+become their leaders. Others, however, said that they abstained from
+the flesh of jackals, snakes, foxes and cows and buffaloes. Children
+were frequently adopted, being purchased in large numbers in time
+of famine, and also occasionally kidnapped. They were brought up to
+the trade of dacoity, and if they showed sufficient aptitude for it
+were taken out on expeditions, but otherwise left at home to manage
+the household affairs. They were married to other adopted children
+and were known as Ghulami or Slave Badhaks, like the Jangar Banjaras;
+and like them also, after some generations, when their real origin had
+been forgotten, they became full Badhaks. It was very advantageous to
+a Badhak to have a number of children, because all plunder obtained was
+divided in regularly apportioned shares among the whole community. Men
+who were too old to go on dacoity also received their share, and all
+children, even babies born during the absence of the expedition. The
+Badhaks said that this rule was enforced because they thought it an
+advantage to the community that families should be large and their
+numbers should increase; from which statement it must be concluded
+that they seldom suffered any stringency from lack of spoil. They
+also stated that Badhak widows would go and find a second husband
+from among the regular population, and as a rule would sooner or
+later persuade him to join the Badhaks.
+
+
+
+9. Religion: offerings to ancestors.
+
+
+Like other Indian criminals the Badhaks were of a very religious
+or superstitious disposition. They considered the gods of the Hindu
+creed as favouring their undertakings so long as they were suitably
+propitiated by offering to their temples and priests, and the spirits
+of the most distinguished of their ancestors as exercising a vicarious
+authority under these deities in guiding them to their prey and warning
+them of danger. [59] The following is an account of a Badhak sacrifice
+given to Colonel Sleeman by the Ajit Singh already mentioned. It was
+in celebration of a dacoity in which they had obtained Rs. 40,000,
+out of which Rs. 4500 were set aside for sacrifices to the gods and
+charity to the poor. Ajit Singh said: "For offerings to the gods we
+purchase goats, sweet cakes and spirits; and having prepared a feast
+we throw a handful of the savoury food upon the fire in the name of
+the gods who have most assisted us; but of the feast so consecrated
+no female but a virgin can partake. The offering is made through the
+man who has successfully invoked the god on that particular occasion;
+and, as my god had guided us this time, I was employed to prepare the
+feast for him and to throw the offering upon the fire. The offering
+must be taken up before the feast is touched and put upon the fire,
+and a little water must be sprinkled on it. The savoury smell of the
+food as it burns reaches the nostrils of the god and delights him. On
+this as on most occasions I invoked the spirit of Ganga Singh, my
+grandfather, and to him I made the offering. I considered him to be
+the greatest of all my ancestors as a robber, and him I invoked on this
+solemn occasion. He never failed me when I invoked him, and I had the
+greatest confidence in his aid. The spirits of our ancestors can easily
+see whether we shall succeed in what we are about to undertake; and
+when we are to succeed they order us on, and when we are not they make
+signs to us to desist." Their mode [60] of ascertaining which of their
+ancestors interested himself most in their affairs was commonly this,
+that whenever a person talked incoherently in a fever or an epileptic
+fit, the spirit of one or other of his ancestors was supposed to be
+upon him. If they were in doubt as to whose spirit it was, one of them
+threw down some grains of wheat or coloured glass beads, a pinch at
+a time, saying the name of the ancestor he supposed the most likely
+to be at work and calling odd or even as he pleased. If the number
+proved to be as he called it several times running while that name
+was repeated, they felt secure of their family god, and proceeded at
+once to sacrifice a goat or something else in his name. When they were
+being hunted down and arrested by Colonel Sleeman and his assistants,
+they ascribed their misfortunes to the anger of the goddess Kali,
+because they had infringed her rules and disregarded her signs, and
+said that their forefathers had often told them they would one day
+be punished for their disobedience. [61]
+
+
+
+10. The wounded haunted by spirits.
+
+
+Whenever one of the gang was wounded and was taken with his wounds
+bleeding near a place haunted by a spirit, they believed the spirit
+got angry and took hold of him, [62] in the manner described by
+Ajit Singh as follows: "The spirit comes upon him in all kinds of
+shapes, sometimes in that of a buffalo, at others in that of a woman,
+sometimes in the air above and sometimes from the ground below; but no
+one can see him except the wounded person he is angry with and wants
+to punish. Upon such a wounded person we always place a naked sword
+or some other sharp steel instrument, as spirits are much afraid of
+weapons of this kind. If there be any good conjurer at hand to charm
+away the spirits from the person wounded he recovers, but nothing else
+can save him." In one case a dacoit named Ghisa had been severely
+wounded in an encounter and was seized by the spirit of a banyan
+tree as he was being taken away: "We made a litter with our ropes
+and cloaks thrown over them and on this he was carried off by four
+of our party; at half a mile distant the road passed under a large
+banyan tree and as the four men carried him along under the tree,
+the spirit of the place fell upon him and the four men who carried
+him fell down with the shock. They could not raise him again, so much
+were they frightened, and four other men were obliged to lift him and
+carry him off." The man died of his wounds soon after they reached
+the halting-place, and in commenting on this Ajit Singh continued:
+"When the spirit seized Ghisa under the tree we had unfortunately no
+conjurer, and he, poor fellow, died in consequence. It was evident that
+a spirit had got hold of him, for he could not keep his head upright;
+it always fell down upon his right or left shoulder as often as we
+tried to put it right; and he complained much of a pain in the region
+of the liver. We therefore concluded that the spirit had broken his
+neck and was consuming his liver."
+
+
+
+11. Pious funeral observances.
+
+
+Like pious Hindus as they were, the Badhaks were accustomed, whenever
+it was possible, to preserve the bones of their dead after the body
+had been burnt and carry them to the Ganges. If this was not possible,
+however, and the exigencies of their profession obliged them to make
+away with the body without the performance of due funeral rites,
+they cut off two or three fingers and sent these to the Ganges to
+be deposited instead of the whole body. [63] In one case a dacoit,
+Kundana, was killed in an affray, and the others carried off his body
+and thrust it into a porcupine's hole after cutting off three of the
+fingers. "We gave Kundana's fingers to his mother," Ajit Singh stated,
+"and she sent them with due offerings and ceremonies to the Ganges
+by the hands of the family priest. She gave this priest money to
+purchase a cow, to be presented to the priests in the name of her
+deceased son, and to distribute in charity to the poor and to holy
+men. She got from us for these purposes eighty rupees over and above
+her son's share of the booty, while his widow and children continued
+to receive their usual share of the takings of the gang so long as
+they remained with us."
+
+
+
+12. Taking the omens.
+
+
+Before setting out on an expedition it was their regular custom
+to take the omens, and the following account may be quoted of the
+preliminaries to an expedition of the great leader, Meherban Singh,
+who has already been mentioned: "In the latter end of that year,
+Meherban and his brother set out and assembled their friends on the
+bank of the Bisori river, where the rate at which each member of the
+party should share in the spoil was determined in order to secure to
+the dependants of any one who should fall in the enterprise their due
+share, as well as to prevent inconvenient disputes during and after
+the expedition. The party assembled on this occasion, including women
+and children, amounted to two hundred, and when the shares had been
+determined the goats were sacrificed for the feast. Each leader and
+member of the gang dipped his finger in the blood and swore fidelity
+to his engagements and his associates under all circumstances. The
+whole feasted together and drank freely till the next evening, when
+Meherban advanced with about twenty of the principal persons to a spot
+chosen a little way from the camp on the road they proposed to take in
+the expedition, and lifting up his hands in supplication said aloud,
+'If it be thy will, O God, and thine, Kali, to prosper our undertaking
+for the sake of the blind and the lame, _the widow and the orphan_,
+who depend upon our exertions for subsistence, vouchsafe, we pray thee,
+the call of the female jackal.' All his followers held up their hands
+in the same manner and repeated these words after him. All then sat
+down and waited in silence for the reply or spoke only in whispers. At
+last the cry of the female jackal was heard three times on the left,
+and believing her to have been inspired by the deity for their guidance
+they were all much rejoiced." The following was another more elaborate
+method of taking omens described by Ajit Singh: "When we speak of
+seeking omens from our gods or Devi Deota, we mean the spirits of those
+of our ancestors who performed great exploits in dacoity in their day,
+gained a great name and established lasting reputations. For instance,
+Mahajit, my grandfather, and Sahiba, his father, are called gods
+and admitted to be so by us all. We have all of us some such gods
+to be proud of among our ancestors; we propitiate them and ask for
+favourable omens from them before we enter upon any enterprise. We
+sometimes propitiate the Suraj Deota (sun god) and seek good omens
+from him. We get two or three goats or rams, and sometimes even ten
+or eleven, at the place where we determine to take the auspices, and
+having assembled the principal men of the gang we put water into the
+mouth of one of them and pray to the sun and to our ancestors thus:
+'O thou Sun God! And O all ye other Gods! If we are to succeed in
+the enterprise we are about to undertake we pray you to cause these
+goats to shake their bodies.' If they do not shake them after the
+gods have been thus duly invoked, the enterprise must not be entered
+upon and the goats are not sacrificed. We then try the auspices with
+wheat. We burn frankincense and scented wood and blow a shell; and
+taking out a pinch of wheat grains, put them on the cloth and count
+them. If they come up odd the omen is favourable, and if even it is
+bad. After this, which we call the auspices of the Akut, we take that
+of the Siarni or female jackal. If it calls on the left it is good,
+but if on the right bad. If the omens turn out favourable in all three
+trials then we have no fear whatever, but if they are favourable in
+only one trial out of the three the enterprise must be given up."
+
+
+
+13. Suppression of dacoity.
+
+
+Between 1837 and 1849 the suppression of the regular practice of
+armed dacoity was practically achieved by Colonel Sleeman. A number
+of officers were placed under his orders, and with small bodies of
+military and police were set to hunt down different bands of dacoits,
+following them all over India when necessary. And special Acts were
+passed to enable the offence of dacoity, wherever committed, to be
+tried by a competent magistrate in any part of India as had been done
+in the case of the Thugs. Many of the Badhaks received conditional
+pardons, and were drafted into the police in different stations, and
+an agricultural labour colony was also formed, but does not seem to
+have been altogether successful. During these twelve years more than
+1200 dacoits in all were brought to trial, while some were killed
+during the operations, and no doubt many others escaped and took to
+other avocations, or became ordinary criminals when their armed gangs
+were broken up. In 1825 it had been estimated that the Oudh forests
+alone contained from 4000 to 6000 dacoits, while the property stolen
+in 1811 from known dacoities was valued at ten lakhs of rupees.
+
+
+
+14. The Badhaks or Baoris at the present time.
+
+
+The Badhaks still exist, and are well known as one of the worst classes
+of criminals, practising ordinary house-breaking and theft. The name
+Badhak is now less commonly used than those of Bagri and Baori or
+Bawaria, both of which were borne by the original Badhaks. The word
+Bagri is derived from a tract of country in Malwa which is known
+as the Bagar or 'hedge of thorns,' because it is surrounded on all
+sides by wooded hills. [64] There are Bagri Jats and Bagri Rajputs,
+many of whom are now highly respectable landholders. Bawaria or
+Baori is derived from _banwar_, a creeper, or the tendril of a vine,
+and hence a noose made originally from some fibrous plant and used
+for trapping animals, this being one of the primary occupations of
+the tribe. [65] The term Badhak signifies a hunter or fowler, hence
+a robber or murderer (Platts). The Bagris and Bawarias are sometimes
+considered to be separate communities, but it is doubtful whether there
+is any real distinction between them. In Bombay the Bagris are known
+as Vaghris by the common change of _b_ into _v_. A good description
+of them is contained in Appendix C to Mr. Bhimbhai Kirparam's volume
+_Hindus of Gujarat_ in the _Bombay Gazetteer_. He divides them into the
+Chunaria or lime-burners, the Datonia or sellers of twig tooth-brushes,
+and two other groups, and states that, "They also keep fowls and sell
+eggs, catch birds and go as _shikaris_ or hunters. They traffic in
+green parrots, which they buy from Bhils and sell for a profit."
+
+
+
+15. Lizard-hunting.
+
+
+Their strength and powers of endurance are great, the same writer
+states, and they consider that these qualities are obtained by the
+eating of the _goh_ and _sandha_ or iguana lizards, which a Vaghri
+prizes very highly. This is also the case with the Bawarias of the
+Punjab, who go out hunting lizards in the rains and may be seen
+returning with baskets full of live lizards, which exist for days
+without food and are killed and eaten fresh by degrees. Their method
+of hunting the lizard is described by Mr. Wilson as follows: [66]
+"The lizard lives on grass, cannot bite severely, and is sluggish
+in his movements, so that he is easily caught. He digs a hole for
+himself of no great depth, and the easiest way to take him is to
+look out for the scarcely perceptible airhole and dig him out; but
+there are various ways of saving oneself this trouble. One, which I
+have seen, takes advantage of a habit the lizard has in cold weather
+(when he never comes out of his hole) of coming to the mouth for
+air and warmth. The Chuhra or other sportsman puts off his shoes and
+steals along the prairie till he sees signs of a lizard's hole. This
+he approaches on tiptoe, raising over his head with both hands a
+mallet with a round sharp point, and fixing his eyes intently upon
+the hole. When close enough he brings down his mallet with all his
+might on the ground just behind the mouth of the hole, and is often
+successful in breaking the lizard's back before he awakes to a sense
+of his danger. Another plan, which I have not seen, is to tie a wisp
+of grass to a long stick and move it over the hole so as to make a
+rustling noise. The lizard within thinks, 'Oh here's a snake! I may
+as well give in,' and comes to the mouth of the hole, putting out
+his tail first so that he may not see his executioner. The sportsman
+seizes his tail and snatches him out before he has time to learn his
+mistake." This common fondness for lizards is a point in favour of
+a connection between the Gujarat Vaghris and the Punjab Bawarias.
+
+
+
+16. Social observances.
+
+
+In Sirsa the great mass of the Bawarias are not given to crime,
+and in Gujarat also they do not appear to have special criminal
+tendencies. It is a curious point, however, that Mr. Bhimbhai Kirparam
+emphasises the chastity of the women of the Gujarat Vaghris. [67]
+"When a family returns home after a money-making tour to Bombay
+or some other city, the women are taken before Vihat (Devi), and
+with the women is brought a buffalo or a sheep that is tethered in
+front of Vihat's shrine. They must confess all, even their slightest
+shortcomings, such as the following: 'Two weeks ago, when begging in
+Parsi Bazar-street, a drunken sailor caught me by the hand. Another
+day a Miyan or Musalman ogled me, and forgive me, Devi, my looks
+encouraged him.' If Devi is satisfied the sheep or buffalo shivers,
+and is then sacrificed and provides a feast for the caste." [68]
+On the other hand, Mr. Crooke states [69] that in northern India,
+"The standard of morality is very low because in Muzaffarnagar it is
+extremely rare for a Bawaria woman to live with her husband. Almost
+invariably she lives with another man: but the official husband is
+responsible for the children." The great difference in the standard
+of morality is certainly surprising.
+
+In Gujarat [70] the Vaghris have _gurus_ or religious preceptors of
+their own. These men take an eight-anna silver piece and whisper in the
+ear of their disciples "Be immortal."... "The Bhuvas or priest-mediums
+play an important part in many Vaghri ceremonies. A Bhuva is a male
+child born after the mother has made a vow to the goddess Vihat
+or Devi that if a son be granted to her she will devote him to the
+service of the goddess. No Bhuva may cut or shave his hair on pain
+of a fine of ten rupees, and no Bhuva may eat carrion or food cooked
+by a Muhammadan."
+
+
+
+17. Criminal practices.
+
+
+The criminal Bagris still usually travel about in the disguise of
+Gosains and Bairagis, and are very difficult of detection except to
+real religious mendicants. Their housebreaking implement or jemmy
+is known as _Gyan_, but in speaking of it they always add _Das_,
+so that it sounds like the name of a Bairagi. [71] They are usually
+very much afraid of the _gyan_ being discovered on their persons,
+and are careful to bury it in the ground at each halting-place,
+while on the march it may be concealed in a pack-saddle. The means of
+identifying them, Mr. Kennedy remarks, [72] is by their family _deo_
+or god, which they carry about when wandering with their families. It
+consists of a brass or copper box containing grains of wheat and the
+seeds of a creeper, both soaked in _ghi_ (melted butter). The box with
+a peacock's feather and a bell is wrapped in two white and then in
+two red cloths, one of the white cloths having the print of a man's
+hand dipped in goat's blood upon it. The grains of wheat are used
+for taking the omens, a few being thrown up at sun-down and counted
+afterwards to see whether they are odd or even. When even, two grains
+are placed on the right hand of the omen-taker, and if this occurs
+three times running the auspices are considered to be favourable. [73]
+Mr. Gayer [74] notes that the Badhaks have usually from one to three
+brands from a hot iron on the inside of their left wrist. Those of
+them who are hunters brand the muscles of the left wrist in order to
+steady the hand when firing their matchlocks. The customs of wearing
+a peculiar necklace of small wooden beads and a kind of gold pin
+fixed to the front teeth, which Mr. Crooke [75] records as having
+been prevalent some years ago, have apparently been since abandoned,
+as they are not mentioned in more recent accounts. The Dehliwal and
+Malpura Baorias have, Mr. Kennedy states, [76] an interesting system of
+signs, which they mark on the walls of buildings at important corners,
+bridges and cross-roads and on the ground by the roadside with a stick,
+if no building is handy. The commonest is a loop, the straight line
+indicating the direction a gang or individual has taken:
+
+                       ________________________
+                     /
+                    /  /---\
+                   (  ( /// )
+                    \  \---/
+                     \________
+
+
+The addition of a number of vertical strokes inside the loop signifies
+the number of males in a gang. If these strokes are enclosed by a
+circle it means that the gang is encamped in the vicinity; while
+a square inside a circle and line as below means that property has
+been secured by friends who have left in the direction pointed by the
+line. It is said that Baorias will follow one another up for fifty
+or even a hundred miles by means of these hieroglyphics. The signs
+are bold marks, sometimes even a foot or more in length, and are
+made where they will at once catch the eye. When the Marwari Baorias
+desire to indicate to others of their caste, who may follow in their
+footsteps, the route taken, a member of the gang, usually a woman,
+trails a stick in the dust as she walks along, leaving a spiral track
+on the ground. Another method of indicating the route taken is to
+place leaves under stones at intervals along the road. [77] The form
+of crime most in favour among the ordinary Baoris is housebreaking
+by night. Their common practice is to make a hole in the wall beside
+the door through which the hand passes to raise the latch; and only
+occasionally they dig a hole in the base of the wall to admit of the
+passage of a man, while another favoured alternative is to break in
+through a barred window, the bars being quickly and forcibly bent and
+drawn out. [78] One class of Marwari Bagris are also expert coiners.
+
+
+                     /-------\
+                    /  +---+  \
+                    |  |   |  |---------------------
+                    \  +---+  /
+                     \-------/
+
+
+
+
+
+
+Bahna
+
+
+
+1. Nomenclature and internal structure.
+
+
+
+_Bahna, Pinjara, Dhunia._ [79]--The occupational caste of
+cotton-cleaners. The Bahnas numbered 48,000 persons in the Central
+Provinces and Berar in 1911. The large increase in the number
+of ginning-factories has ruined the Bahna's trade of cleaning
+hand-ginned cotton, and as no distinction attaches to the name of
+Bahna it is possible that members of the caste who have taken to
+other occupations may have abandoned it and returned themselves simply
+as Muhammadans. The three names Bahna, Pinjara, Dhunia appear to be
+used indifferently for the caste in this Province, though in other
+parts of India they are distinguished. Pinjara is derived from the
+word _pinjan_ used for a cotton-bow, and Dhunia is from _dhunna_,
+to card cotton. The caste is also known as Dhunak Pathani. Though
+professing the Muhammadan religion, they still have many Hindu
+customs and ceremonies, and in the matter of inheritance our courts
+have held that they are subject to Hindu and not Muhammadan law. [80]
+In Raipur a girl receives half the share of a boy in the division of
+inherited property. The caste appears to be a mixed occupational group,
+and is split into many territorial subcastes named after the different
+parts of the country from which its members have come, as Badharia from
+Badhas in Mirzapur, Sarsutia from the Saraswati river, Berari of Berar,
+Dakhni from the Deccan, Telangi from Madras, Pardeshi from northern
+India, and so on. Two groups are occupational, the Newaris of Saugor,
+who make the thick _newar_ tape used for the webbing of beds, and
+the Kanderas, who make fireworks and generally constitute a separate
+caste. There is considerable ground for supposing that the Bahnas
+are mainly derived from the caste of Telis or oil-pressers. In the
+Punjab Sir D. Ibbetson says [81] that the Penja or cotton-scutcher is
+an occupational name applied to Telis who follow this profession; and
+that the Penja, Kasai and Teli are all of the same caste. Similarly
+in Nasik the Telis and Pinjaras are said to form one community,
+under the government of a single _panchayat_. In cases of dispute
+or misconduct the usual penalty is temporary excommunication, which
+is known as the stopping of food and water. [82] The Telis are an
+enterprising community of very low status, and would therefore be
+naturally inclined to take to other occupations; many of them are
+shopkeepers, cultivators and landholders, and it is quite probable
+that in past times they took up the Bahna's profession and changed
+their religion with the hope of improving their social status. The
+Telis are generally considered to be quarrelsome and talkative,
+and the Bahnas or Dhunias have the same characteristics. If one man
+abusing another lapses into Billingsgate, the other will say to him,
+'_Hamko Julaha Dhunia neh jano_,' or 'Don't talk to me as if I was
+a Julaha or a Dhunia.'
+
+
+
+2. Marriage.
+
+
+Some Bahnas have exogamous sections with Hindu names, while others
+are without these, and simply regulate their marriages by rules of
+relationship. They have the primitive Hindu custom of allowing a
+sister's son to marry a brother's daughter, but not _vice versa_. A
+man cannot marry his wife's younger sister during her lifetime, nor
+her elder sister at any time. Children of the same foster-mother are
+also not allowed to marry. Their marriages are performed by a Kazi
+with an imitation of the Nikah rite. The bridegroom's party sit under
+the marriage-shed, and the bride with the women of her party inside
+the house. The Kazi selects two men, one from the bride's party, who
+is known as the Nikahi Bap or 'Marriage Father,' and the other from
+the bridegroom's, who is called the Gowah or 'Witness.' These two
+men go to the bride and ask her whether she accepts the bridegroom,
+whose name is stated, for her husband. She answers in the affirmative,
+and mentions the amount of the dowry which she is to receive. The
+bridegroom, who has hitherto had a veil (_mukhna_) over his face, now
+takes it off, and the men go to him and ask him whether he accepts the
+bride. He replies that he does, and agrees to pay the dowry demanded
+by her. The Kazi reads some texts and the guests are given a meal
+of rice and sugar. Many of the preliminaries to a Hindu marriage
+are performed by the more backward members of the caste, and until
+recently they erected a sacred post in the marriage-shed, but now
+they merely hang the green branch of a mango tree to the roof. The
+minimum amount of the _mehar_ or dowry is said to be Rs. 125, but it
+is paid to the girl's parents as a bride-price and not to herself,
+as among the Muhammadans. A widow is expected, but not obliged, to
+marry her deceased husband's younger brother. Divorce is permitted
+by means of a written deed known as 'Farkhati.'
+
+
+
+3. Religious and other customs.
+
+
+The Bahnas venerate Muhammad, and also worship the tombs of Muhammadan
+saints or _Pirs_. A green sheet or cloth is spread over the tomb and
+a lamp is kept burning by it, while offerings of incense and flowers
+are made. When the new cotton crop has been gathered they lay some
+new cotton by their bow and mallet and make an offering of _malida_
+or cakes of flour and sugar to it. They believe that two angels, one
+good and one bad, are perched continually on the shoulders of every
+man to record his good and evil deeds. And when an eclipse occurs they
+say that the sun and moon have gone behind a pinnacle or tower of the
+heavens. For exorcising evil spirits they write texts of the Koran
+on paper and burn them before the sufferer. The caste bury the dead
+with the feet pointing to the south. On the way to the grave each
+one of the mourners places his shoulder under the bier for a time,
+partaking of the impurity communicated by it. Incense is burnt daily
+in the name of a deceased person for forty days after his death, with
+the object probably of preventing his ghost from returning to haunt
+the house. Muhammadan beggars are fed on the tenth day. Similarly,
+after the birth of a child a woman is unclean for forty days, and
+cannot cook for her husband during that period. A child's hair is
+cut for the first time on the tenth or twelfth day after birth, this
+being known as Jhalar. Some parents leave a lock of hair to grow on
+the head in the name of the famous saint Sheikh Farid, thinking that
+they will thus ensure a long life for the child. It is probably in
+reality a way of preserving the Hindu _choti_ or scalp-lock.
+
+
+
+4. Occupation.
+
+
+The hereditary calling [83] of the Bahna is the cleaning or scutching
+of cotton, which is done by subjecting it to the vibration of a
+bow-string. The seed has been previously separated by a hand-gin,
+but the ginned cotton still contains much dirt, leaf-fibre and other
+rubbish, and to remove this is the Bahna's task. The bow is somewhat
+in the shape of a harp, the wide end consisting of a broad piece of
+wood over which the string passes, being secured to a straight wooden
+bar at the back. At the narrow end the bar and string are fixed to an
+iron ring. The string is made of the sinew of some animal, and this
+renders the implement objectionable to Hindus, and may account for
+the Bahnas being Muhammadans. The club or mallet is a wooden implement
+shaped like a dumb-bell. The bow is suspended from the roof so as to
+hang just over the pile of loose cotton; and the worker twangs the
+string with the mallet and then draws the mallet across the string,
+each three or four times. The string strikes a small portion of the
+cotton, the fibre of which is scattered by the impact and thrown off
+in a uniform condition of soft fluff, all dirt being at the same time
+removed. This is the operation technically known as teasing. Buchanan
+remarked that women frequently did the work themselves at home, using
+a smaller kind of bow called _dhunkara_. The clean cotton is made up
+into balls, some of which are passed on to the spinner, while others
+are used for the filling of quilts and the padded coats worn in the
+cold weather. The ingenious though rather clumsy method of the Bahna
+has been superseded by the ginning-factory, and little or no cotton
+destined for the spindle is now cleaned by him. The caste have been
+forced to take to cultivation or field labour, while many have become
+cartmen and others are brokers, peons or constables. Nearly every
+house still has its _pinjan_ or bow, but only a desultory use is
+made of this during the winter months. As it is principally used by a
+Muhammadan caste it seems a possible hypothesis that the cotton-bow
+was introduced into India by invaders of that religion. The name of
+the bow, _pinjan_, is, however, a Sanskrit derivative, and this is
+against the above theory. It has already been seen that the fact of
+animal sinew being used for the string would make it objectionable to
+Hindus. The Bahnas are subjected to considerable ridicule on account
+of their curious mixture of Hindu and Muhammadan ceremonies, amounting
+in some respects practically to a caricature of the rites of Islam;
+and further, they share with the weaver class the contempt shown to
+those who follow a calling considered more suitable for women than
+men. It is related that when the Mughal general Asaf Khan first made an
+expedition into the north of the Central Provinces he found the famous
+Gond-Rajput queen Durgavati of the Garha-Mandla dynasty governing with
+success a large and prosperous state in this locality. He thought a
+country ruled by a woman should fall an easy prey to the Muhammadan
+arms, and to show his contempt for her power he sent her a golden
+spindle. The queen retorted by a present of a gold cotton-cleaner's
+bow, and this so enraged the Mughal that he proceeded to attack the
+Gond kingdom. The story indicates that cotton-carding is considered
+a Muhammadan profession, and also that it is held in contempt.
+
+
+
+5. Proverbs about Bahnas.
+
+
+Various sayings show that the Bahna is not considered a proper
+Muhammadan, as
+
+
+                Turuk to Turuk
+                Aur Bahna Turuk,
+
+
+or 'A Muhammadan (Turk) is a Muhammadan and the Bahna is also a
+Muhammadan'; and again--
+
+
+                Achera, [84] Kachera, Pinjara,
+                Muhammad se dur, Din se niyara,
+
+
+or 'The Kachera and Pinjara are lost to Muhammad and far from the
+faith'; and again--
+
+
+                Adho Hindu adho Musalman
+                Tinkhon kahen Dhunak Pathan,
+
+
+or 'Half a Hindu and half a Muhammadan, that is he who is a Dhunak
+Pathan.' They have a grotesque imitation of the Muhammadan rite of
+_halal_, or causing an animal's blood to flow on to the ground with
+the repetition of the _kalma_ or invocation; thus it is said that when
+a Bahna is about to kill a fowl he addresses it somewhat as follows:
+
+
+                Kahe karkarat hai?
+                Kahe barbarat hai?
+                Kahe jai jai logon ka dana khat hai?
+                Tor kiamat mor niamat,
+                Bismillah hai tuch,
+
+
+or "Why do you cackle? Why do you crow? Why do you eat other people's
+grain? Your death is my feast; I touch you in the name of God." And
+saying this he puts a knife to the fowl's throat. The vernacular verse
+is a good imitation of the cackling of a fowl. And again, they slice
+off the top of an egg as if they were killing an animal and repeat the
+formula, "White dome, full of moisture, I know not if there is a male
+or female within; in the name of God I kill you." A person whose memory
+is not good enough to retain these texts will take a knife and proceed
+to one who knows them. Such a man will repeat the texts over the knife,
+blowing on it as he does so, and the Bahna considers that the knife
+has been sanctified and retains its virtue for a week. Others do not
+think this necessary, but have a special knife, which having once been
+consecrated is always kept for killing animals, and descends as an
+heirloom in the family, the use of this sacred knife being considered
+to make the repetition of the _kalma_ unnecessary. These customs are,
+however, practised only by the ignorant members of the caste in Raipur
+and Bilaspur, and are unknown in the more civilised tracts, where
+the Bahnas are rapidly conforming to ordinary Muhammadan usage. Such
+primitive Bahnas perform their marriages by walking round the sacred
+post, keep the Hindu festivals, and feed Brahmans on the tenth day
+after a death. They have a priest whom they call their Kazi, but elect
+him themselves. In some places when a Bahna goes to the well to draw
+water he first washes the parapet of the well to make it ceremonially
+clean, and then draws his water. This custom can only be compared
+with that of the Raj-Gonds who wash the firewood with which they are
+about to cook their food, in order to make it more pure. Respectable
+Muhammadans naturally look down on the Bahnas, and they retaliate
+by refusing to take food or water from any Muhammadan who is not
+a Bahna. By such strictness the more ignorant think that they will
+enhance their ceremonial purity and hence their social consideration;
+but the intelligent members of the caste know better and are glad to
+improve themselves by learning from educated Muhammadans. The other
+menial artisan castes among the Muhammadans have similar ideas, and
+it is reported that a Rangrez boy who took food in the house of one
+of the highest Muhammadan officers of Government in the Province was
+temporarily put out of caste. Another saying about the Bahnas is--
+
+
+                Sheikhon ki Sheikhi,
+                    Pathanon ki tarr,
+                Turkon ki Turkshahi,
+                    Bahnon ki bharrr ...
+
+
+or 'Proud as a Sheikh, obstinate as a Pathan, royal as a Turk, buzzing
+like a Bahna.' This refers to the noise of the cotton-cleaning bow,
+the twang of which as it is struck by the club is like a quail flying;
+and at the same time to the Bahna's loquacity. Another story is that
+a Bahna was once going through the forest with his cotton-cleaning bow
+and club or mallet, when a jackal met him on the path. The jackal was
+afraid that the Bahna would knock him on the head, so he said, "With
+thy bow on thy shoulder and thine arrow in thy hand, whither goest
+thou, O King of Delhi?" The Bahna was exceedingly pleased at this and
+replied, 'King of the forest, eater of wild plums, only the great can
+recognise the great.' But when the jackal had got to a safe distance
+he turned round and shouted, "With your cotton-bow on your shoulder and
+your club in your hand, there you go, you sorry Bahna." It is said also
+that although the Bahnas as good Muhammadans wear beards, they do not
+cultivate them very successfully, and many of them only have a growth
+of hair below the chin and none on the under-lip, in the fashion known
+as a goat's beard. This kind of beard is thus proverbially described
+as '_Bahna kaisi darhi_' or 'A Bahna's beard.' It may be repeated in
+conclusion that much of the ridicule attaching to the Bahnas arises
+simply from the fact that they follow what is considered a feminine
+occupation, and the remainder because in their ignorance they parody
+the rites of Islam. It may seem ill-natured to record the sayings
+in which they are lampooned, but the Bahnas cannot read English,
+and these have an interest as specimens of popular wit.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+Baiga
+
+
+
+List of Paragraphs
+
+
+     1.  _The tribe and its offshoots._
+     2.  _Tribal legends._
+     3.  _Tribal subdivisions._
+     4.  _Marriage._
+     5.  _Birth and funeral rites._
+     6.  _Religion._
+     7.  _Appearance and mode of life._
+     8.  _Dress and food._
+     9.  _Occupation._
+    10.  _Language._
+
+
+
+1. The tribe and its offshoots.
+
+
+_Baiga._ [85]--A primitive Dravidian tribe whose home is on the eastern
+Satpura hills in the Mandla, Balaghat and Bilaspur Districts. The
+number of the Baigas proper was only 30,000 in 1911. But the Binjhals
+or Binjhwars, a fairly numerous caste in the Chhattisgarh Division, and
+especially in the Sambalpur District, appear to have been originally
+Baigas, though they have dropped the original caste name, become
+Hinduised, and now disclaim connection with the parent tribe. A
+reason for this may be found in the fact that Sambalpur contains
+several Binjhwar zamindars, or large landowners, whose families would
+naturally desire a more respectable pedigree than one giving them the
+wild Baigas of the Satpuras for their forefathers. And the evolution of
+the Binjhwar caste is a similar phenomenon to the constitution of the
+Raj-Gonds, the Raj-Korkus, and other aristocratic subdivisions among
+the forest tribes, who have been admitted to a respectable position
+in the Hindu social community. The Binjhwars, however, have been so
+successful as to cut themselves off almost completely from connection
+with the original tribe, owing to their adoption of another name. But
+in Balaghat and Mandla the Binjhwar subtribe is still recognised as
+the most civilised subdivision of the Baigas. The Bhainas, a small
+tribe in Bilaspur, are probably another offshoot, Kath-Bhaina being
+the name of a subtribe of Baigas in that District, and Rai-Bhaina
+in Balaghat, though the Bhainas too no longer admit identity with
+the Baigas. A feature common to all three branches is that they have
+forgotten their original tongue, and now speak a more or less corrupt
+form of the Indo-Aryan vernaculars current around them. Finally,
+the term Bhumia or 'Lord of the soil' is used sometimes as the name
+of a separate tribe and sometimes as a synonym for Baiga. The fact is
+that in the Central Provinces [86] Bhumia is the name of an office,
+that of the priest of the village and local deities, which is held
+by one of the forest tribes. In the tract where the Baigas live,
+they, as the most ancient residents, are usually the priests of the
+indigenous gods; but in Jubbulpore the same office is held by another
+tribe, the Bharias. The name of the office often attaches itself to
+members of the tribe, who consider it as somewhat more respectable
+than their own, and it is therefore generally true to say that the
+people known as Bhumias in Jubbulpore are really Bharias, but in
+Mandla and Bilaspur they are Baigas.
+
+In Mandla there is also found a group called Bharia-Baigas. These
+are employed as village priests by Hindus, and worship certain Hindu
+deities and not the Gond gods. They may perhaps be members of the
+Bharia tribe of Jubbulpore, originally derived from the Bhars, who
+have obtained the designation of Baiga, owing to their employment
+as village priests. But they now consider themselves a part of the
+Baiga tribe and say they came to Mandla from Rewah. In Mandla the
+decision of a Baiga on a boundary dispute is almost always considered
+as final, and this authority is of a kind that commonly emanates from
+recognised priority of residence. [87] There seems reason to suppose
+that the Baigas are really a branch of the primitive Bhuiya tribe
+of Chota Nagpur, and that they have taken or been given the name of
+Baiga, the designation of a village priest, on migration into the
+Central Provinces. There is reason to believe that the Baigas were
+once dominant in the Chhattisgarh plain and the hills surrounding it
+which adjoin Chota Nagpur, the home of the Bhuiyas. The considerations
+in favour of this view are given in the article on Bhuiya, to which
+reference may be made.
+
+
+
+2. Tribal legends.
+
+
+The Baigas, however, are not without some conceit of themselves,
+as the following legend will show. In the beginning, they say, God
+created Nanga Baiga and Nangi Baigin, the first of the human race,
+and asked them by what calling they would choose to live. They at once
+said that they would make their living by felling trees in the jungle,
+and permission being accorded, have done so ever since. They had two
+sons, one of whom remained a Baiga, while the other became a Gond
+and a tiller of the soil. The sons married their own two sisters who
+were afterwards born, and while the elder couple are the ancestors
+of the Baigas, from the younger are descended the Gonds and all the
+remainder of the human race. In another version of the story the
+first Baiga cut down two thousand old _sal_ [88] trees in one day,
+and God told him to sprinkle a few grains of kutki on the ashes, and
+then to retire and sleep for some months, when on his return he would
+be able to reap a rich harvest for his children. In this manner the
+habit of shifting cultivation is accorded divine sanction. According
+to Binjhwar tradition Nanga Baiga and Nangi Baigin dwelt on the
+_kajli ban pahar_, which being interpreted is the hill of elephants,
+and may well refer to the ranges of Mandla and Bilaspur. It is
+stated in the _Ain-i-Akbari_ [89] that the country of Garha-Mandla
+abounded in wild elephants, and that the people paid their tribute
+in these and gold mohurs. In Mandla the Baigas sometimes hang out
+from their houses a bamboo mat fastened to a long pole to represent
+a flag which they say once flew from the palace of a Baiga king. It
+seems likely that the original home of the tribe may have been the
+Chhattisgarh plain and the hill-ranges surrounding it. A number of
+estates in these hills are held by landowners of tribes which are
+offshoots of the Baigas, as the Bhainas and Binjhwars. The point is
+further discussed in the article on Bhuiya. Most of the Baigas speak
+a corrupt form of the Chhattisgarhi dialect. When they first came
+under the detailed observation of English officers in the middle of
+the nineteenth century, the tribe were even more solitary and retired
+than at present. Their villages, it is said, were only to be found
+in places far removed from all cleared and cultivated country. No
+roads or well-defined paths connected them with ordinary lines of
+traffic and more thickly inhabited tracts, but perched away in snug
+corners in the hills, and hidden by convenient projecting spurs and
+dense forests from the country round, they could not be seen except
+when nearly approached, and were seldom visited unless by occasional
+enterprising Banias and vendors of country liquor. Indeed, without a
+Baiga for a guide many of the villages could hardly be discovered,
+for nothing but occasional notches on the trees distinguished the
+tracks to them from those of the sambhar and other wild animals.
+
+
+
+3. Tribal subdivisions.
+
+
+The following seven subdivisions or subtribes are recognised: Binjhwar,
+Bharotia, Narotia or Nahar, Raibhaina, Kathbhaina, Kondwan or Kundi,
+and Gondwaina. Of these the Binjhwar, Bharotia and Narotia are the
+best-known. The name of the Binjhwars is probably derived from the
+Vindhyan range, which in turn comes from the Sanskrit _vindhya_,
+a hunter. The rule of exogamy is by no means strictly observed,
+and in Kawardha it is said that these three subcastes intermarry
+though they do not eat together, while in Balaghat the Bharotias
+and Narotias both eat together and intermarry. In both places the
+Binjhwars occupy the highest position, and the other two subtribes
+will take food from them. The Binjhwars consider themselves as Hindus
+and abjure the consumption of buffalo's and cow's flesh and rats,
+while the other Baigas will eat almost anything. The Bharotias
+partially shave their heads, and in Mandla are apparently known as
+Mundia or Mudia, or "shaven." The Gondwainas eat both cow's flesh
+and monkeys, and are regarded as the lowest subcaste. As shown by
+their name they are probably the offspring of unions between Baigas
+and Gonds. Similarly the Kondwans apparently derive their name from
+the tract south of the Mahanadi which is named after the Khond tribe,
+and was formerly owned by them.
+
+Each subtribe is divided into a number of exogamous septs, the names of
+which are identical in many cases with those of the Gonds, as Markam,
+Maravi, Netam, Tekam and others. Gond names are found most frequently
+among the Gondwainas and Narotias, and these have adopted from the
+Gonds the prohibition of marriage between worshippers of the same
+number of gods. Thus the four septs above mentioned worship seven gods
+and may not intermarry. But they may marry among other septs such as
+the Dhurua, Pusam, Bania and Mawar who worship six gods. The Baigas do
+not appear to have assimilated the further division into worshippers
+of five, four, three and two gods which exist among the Gonds in some
+localities, and the system is confined to the lower subtribes. The
+meanings of the sept names have been forgotten and no instances of
+totemism are known. And the Binjhwars and Bharotias, who are more or
+less Hinduised, have now adopted territorial names for their septs,
+as Lapheya from Lapha zamindari, Ghugharia from Ghughri village in
+Mandla, and so on. The adoption of Gond names and septs appears to
+indicate that Gonds were in former times freely admitted into the Baiga
+tribe; and this continues to be the case at present among the lower
+subtribes, so far that a Gond girl marrying a Baiga becomes a regular
+member of the community. But the Binjhwars and Bharotias, who have
+a somewhat higher status than the others, refuse to admit Gonds, and
+are gradually adopting the strict rule of endogamy within the subtribe.
+
+
+
+4. Marriage.
+
+
+A Baiga must not take a wife from his own sept or from another one
+worshipping the same number of gods. But he may marry within his
+mother's sept, and in some localities the union of first cousins is
+permitted. Marriage is adult and the proposal comes from the parents of
+the bride, but in some places the girl is allowed to select a husband
+for herself. A price varying from five to twenty rupees is usually
+paid to the bride's parents, or in lieu of this the prospective
+husband serves his father-in-law for a period of about two years,
+the marriage being celebrated after the first year if his conduct
+is satisfactory. Orphan boys who have no parents to arrange their
+marriages for them often take service for a wife. Three ceremonies
+should precede the marriage. The first, which may take place at
+any time after the birth of both children, consists merely in the
+arrangement for their betrothal. The second is only a ratification
+of the first, feasts being provided by the boy's parents on both
+occasions. While on the approach of the children to marriageable age
+the final betrothal or _barokhi_ is held. The boy's father gives a
+large feast at the house of the girl and the date of the wedding is
+fixed. To ascertain whether the union will be auspicious, two grains
+of rice are dropped into a pot of water, after various preliminary
+solemnities to mark the importance of the occasion. If the points
+of the grains meet almost immediately it is considered that the
+marriage will be highly auspicious. If they do not meet, a second
+pair of grains are dropped in, and should these meet it is believed
+that the couple will quarrel after an interval of married life and
+that the wife will return to her father's house. While if neither
+of the two first essays are successful and a third pair is required,
+the regrettable conclusion is arrived at that the wife will run away
+with another man after a very short stay with her husband. But it
+is not stated that the betrothal is on that account annulled. The
+wedding procession starts from the bridegroom's house [90] and is
+received by the bride's father outside the village. It is considered
+essential that he should go out to meet the bride's party riding on an
+elephant. But as a real elephant is not within the means of a Baiga,
+two wooden bedsteads are lashed together and covered with blankets with
+a black cloth trunk in front, and this arrangement passes muster for
+an elephant. The elephant makes pretence to charge and trample down
+the marriage procession, until a rupee is paid, when the two parties
+embrace each other and proceed to the marriage-shed. Here the bride
+and bridegroom throw fried rice at each other until they are tired,
+and then walk three or seven times round the marriage-post with their
+clothes tied together. It is stated by Colonel Ward that the couple
+always retired to the forest to spend the wedding night, but this
+custom has now been abandoned. The expenditure on a marriage varies
+between ten and fifty rupees, of which only about five rupees fall
+on the bride's parents. The remarriage of widows is permitted, and
+the widow is expected, though not obliged, to wed her late husband's
+younger brother, while if she takes another husband he must pay her
+brother-in-law the sum of five rupees. The ceremony consists merely of
+the presentation of bangles and new clothes by the suitor, in token
+of her acceptance of which the widow pours some tepid water stained
+with turmeric over his head. Divorce may be effected by the husband
+and wife breaking a straw in the presence of the caste _panchayat_
+or committee. If the woman remains in the same village and does
+not marry again, the husband is responsible for her maintenance and
+that of her children, while a divorced woman may not remarry without
+the sanction of the _panchayat_ so long as her husband is alive and
+remains single. Polygamy is permitted.
+
+
+
+5. Birth and funeral rites.
+
+
+A woman is unclean for a month after childbirth, though the Binjhwars
+restrict the period to eight days. At the ceremony of purification a
+feast is given and the child is named, often after the month or day
+of its birth, as Chaitu, Phagu, Saoni, and so on, from the months
+of Chait, Phagun and Shrawan. Children who appear to be physically
+defective are given names accordingly, such as Langra (lame), or Bahira
+(deaf). The dead are usually buried, the bodies of old persons being
+burnt as a special honour and to save them from the risk of being
+devoured by wild animals. Bodies are laid naked in the grave with the
+head pointing to the south. In the grave of a man of importance two
+or three rupees and some tobacco are placed. In some places a rupee
+is thrust into the mouth of the dying man, and if his body is burnt,
+the coin is recovered from the pyre by his daughter or sister, who
+wears it as an amulet. Over the grave a platform is made on which
+a stone is erected. This is called the Bhiri of the deceased and is
+worshipped by his relatives in time of trouble. If one of the family
+has to be buried elsewhere, the relatives go to the Bhiri of the
+great dead and consign his spirit to be kept in their company. At a
+funeral the mourners take one black and one white fowl to a stream
+and kill and eat them there, setting aside a portion for the dead
+man. Mourning is observed for a period of from two to nine days,
+and during this time labour and even household work are stopped, food
+being supplied by the friends of the family. When a man is killed by
+a tiger the Baiga priest goes to the spot and there makes a small
+cone out of the blood-stained earth. This must represent a man,
+either the dead man or one of his living relatives. His companions
+having retired a few paces, the priest goes on his hands and knees
+and performs a series of antics which are supposed to represent the
+tiger in the act of destroying the man, at the same time seizing the
+lump of blood-stained earth in his teeth. One of the party then runs
+up and taps him on the back with a small stick. This perhaps means
+that the tiger is killed or otherwise rendered harmless; and the
+Baiga immediately lets the mud cone fall into the hands of one of the
+party. It is then placed in an ant-hill and a pig is sacrificed over
+it. The next day a small chicken is taken to the place, and after
+a mark supposed to be the dead man's name is made on its head with
+red ochre, it is thrown back into the forest, the priest exclaiming,
+'Take this and go home.' The ceremony is supposed to lay the dead
+man's spirit and at the same time to prevent the tiger from doing
+any further damage. The Baigas believe that the ghost of the victim,
+if not charmed to rest, resides on the head of the tiger and incites
+him to further deeds of blood, rendering him also secure from harm
+by his preternatural watchfulness. [91]
+
+They also think that they can shut up the tiger's _dar_ or jaws,
+so that he cannot bite them, by driving a nail into a tree. The
+forest track from Kanha to Kisli in the Banjar forest reserve of
+Mandla was formerly a haunt of man-eating tigers, to whom a number
+of the wood-cutters and Baiga coolies, clearing the jungle paths,
+fell victims every year. In a large tree, at a dangerous point in the
+track, there could recently be seen a nail, driven into the trunk by
+a Baiga priest, at some height from the ground. It was said that this
+nail shut the mouth of a famous man-eating tiger of the locality and
+prevented him from killing any more victims. As evidence of the truth
+of the story there were shown on the trunk the marks of the tiger's
+claws, where he had been jumping up the tree in the effort to pull
+the nail out of the trunk and get his man-eating powers restored.
+
+
+
+6. Religion.
+
+
+Although the Binjhwar subcaste now profess Hinduism, the religion of
+the Baigas is purely animistic. Their principal deity is Bura Deo, [92]
+who is supposed to reside in a _saj_ tree (_Terminalia tomentosa_); he
+is worshipped in the month of Jeth (May), when goats, fowls, cocoanuts,
+and the liquor of the new mahua crop are offered to him. Thakur Deo
+is the god of the village land and boundaries, and is propitiated
+with a white goat. The Baigas who plough the fields have a ceremony
+called Bidri, which is performed before the breaking of the rains. A
+handful of each kind of grain sown is given by each cultivator to the
+priest, who mixes the grains together and sows a little beneath the
+tree where Thakur Deo lives. After this he returns a little to each
+cultivator, and he sows it in the centre of the land on which crops
+are to be grown, while the priest keeps the remainder. This ceremony
+is believed to secure the success of the harvest. Dulha Deo is the
+god who averts disease and accident, and the offering made to him
+should consist of a fowl or goat of reddish colour. Bhimsen is the
+deity of rainfall, and Dharti Mata or Mother Earth is considered to be
+the wife of Thakur Deo, and must also be propitiated for the success
+of the crops. The grain itself is worshipped at the threshing floor
+by sprinkling water and liquor on to it. Certain Hindu deities are
+also worshipped by the Baigas, but not in orthodox fashion. Thus it
+would be sacrilege on the part of a Hindu to offer animal sacrifices
+to Narayan Deo, the sun-god, but the Baigas devote to him a special
+oblation of the most unclean animal, the pig. The animal to be
+sacrificed is allowed to wander loose for two or three years, and is
+then killed in a most cruel manner. It is laid across the threshold of
+a doorway on its back, and across its stomach is placed a stout plank
+of _saj_-wood. Half a dozen men sit or stand on the ends of this, and
+the fore and hind feet of the pig are pulled backwards and forwards
+alternately over the plank until it is crushed to death, while all
+the men sing or shout a sacrificial hymn. The head and feet are cut
+off and offered to the deity, and the body is eaten. The forests are
+believed to be haunted by spirits, and in certain localities _pats_
+or shrines are erected in their honour, and occasional offerings are
+made to them. The spirits of married persons are supposed to live in
+streams, while trees afford a shelter to the souls of the unmarried,
+who become _bhuts_ or malignant spirits after death. Nag Deo or the
+cobra is supposed to live in an ant-hill, and offerings are made to
+him there. Demoniacal possession is an article of faith, and a popular
+remedy is to burn human hair mixed with chillies and pig's dung near
+the person possessed, as the horrible smell thus produced will drive
+away the spirit. Many and weird, Mr. Low writes, are the simples
+which the Baiga's travelling scrip contains. Among these a dried bat
+has the chief place; this the Baiga says he uses to charm his nets
+with, that the prey may catch in them as the bat's claws catch in
+whatever it touches. As an instance of the Baiga's pantheism it may
+be mentioned that on one occasion when a train of the new Satpura
+railway [93] had pulled up at a wayside forest station, a Baiga was
+found offering a sacrifice to the engine. Like other superstitious
+people they are great believers in omens. A single crow bathing in
+a stream is a sign of death. A cock which crows in the night should
+be instantly killed and thrown into the darkness, a custom which some
+would be glad to see introduced into much more civilised centres. The
+woodpecker and owl are birds of bad omen. The Baigas do not appear to
+have any idea of a fresh birth, and one of their marriage songs says,
+"O girl, take your pleasure in going round the marriage-post once and
+for all, for there is no second birth." The Baigas are generally the
+priests of the Gonds, probably because being earlier residents of
+the country they are considered to have a more intimate acquaintance
+with the local deities. They have a wide knowledge of the medicinal
+properties of jungle roots and herbs, and are often successful in
+effecting cures when the regular native doctors have failed. Their
+village priests have consequently a considerable reputation as skilled
+sorcerers and persons conversant with the unseen world. A case is
+known of a Brahman transferred to a jungle station, who immediately
+after his arrival called in a Baiga priest and asked what forest gods
+he should worship, and what other steps he should take to keep well
+and escape calamity. Colonel Ward states that in his time Baigas were
+commonly called in to give aid when a town or village was attacked
+by cholera, and further that he had seen the greatest benefit to
+result from their visit. For the people had so much confidence in
+their powers and ceremonies that they lost half their fright at once,
+and were consequently not so much predisposed to an attack of the
+disease. On such an occasion the Baiga priest goes round the village
+and pulls out a little straw from each house-roof, afterwards burning
+the whole before the shrine of Khermata, the goddess of the village,
+to whom he also offers a chicken for each homestead. If this remedy
+fails goats are substituted for chickens, and lastly, as a forlorn
+hope, pigs are tried, and, as a rule, do not fail, because by this
+time the disease may be expected to have worked itself out. It is
+suggested that the chicken represents a human victim from each house,
+while the straw stands for the house itself, and the offering has
+the common idea of a substituted victim.
+
+
+
+7. Appearance and mode of life.
+
+
+In stature the Baigas are a little taller than most other tribes,
+and though they have a tendency to the flat nose of the Gonds,
+their foreheads and the general shape of their heads are of a better
+mould. Colonel Ward states that the members of the tribe inhabiting
+the Maikal range in Mandla are a much finer race than those living
+nearer the open country. [94] Their figures are very nearly perfect,
+says Colonel Bloomfield, [95] and their wiry limbs, unburdened by
+superfluous flesh, will carry them over very great distances and
+over places inaccessible to most human beings, while their compact
+bodies need no other nutriment than the scanty fare afforded by their
+native forests. They are born hunters, hardy and active in the chase,
+and exceedingly bold and courageous. In character they are naturally
+simple, honest and truthful, and when their fear of a stranger has
+been dissipated are most companionable folk. A small hut, 6 or 7 feet
+high at the ridge, made of split bamboos and mud, with a neat veranda
+in front thatched with leaves and grass, forms the Baiga's residence,
+and if it is burnt down, or abandoned on a visitation of epidemic
+disease, he can build another in the space of a day. A rough earthen
+vessel to hold water, leaves for plates, gourds for drinking-vessels,
+a piece of matting to sleep on, and a small axe, a sickle and a spear,
+exhaust the inventory of the Baiga's furniture, and the money value
+of the whole would not exceed a rupee. [96] The Baigas never live in
+a village with other castes, but have their huts some distance away
+from the village in the jungle. Unlike the other tribes also, the
+Baiga prefers his house to stand alone and at some little distance
+from those of his fellow-tribesmen. While nominally belonging to
+the village near which they dwell, so separate and distinct are
+they from the rest of people that in the famine of 1897 cases were
+found of starving Baiga hamlets only a few hundred yards away from
+the village proper in which ample relief was being given. On being
+questioned as to why they had not caused the Baigas to be helped,
+the other villagers said, 'We did not remember them'; and when the
+Baigas were asked why they did not apply for relief, they said,
+'We did not think it was meant for Baigas.'
+
+
+
+8. Dress and food.
+
+
+Their dress is of the most simple description, a small strip of rag
+between the legs and another wisp for a head-covering sufficing for
+the men, though the women are decently covered from their shoulders
+to half-way between the thighs and knees. A Baiga may be known by his
+scanty clothing and tangled hair, and his wife by the way in which
+her single garment is arranged so as to provide a safe sitting-place
+in it for her child. Baiga women have been seen at work in the field
+transplanting rice with babies comfortably seated in their cloth,
+one sometimes supported on either hip with their arms and legs out,
+while the mother was stooping low, hour after hour, handling the rice
+plants. A girl is tattooed on the forehead at the age of five, and over
+her whole body before she is married, both for the sake of ornament and
+because the practice is considered beneficial to the health. The Baigas
+are usually without blankets or warm clothing, and in the cold season
+they sleep round a wood fire kept burning or smouldering all night,
+stray sparks from which may alight on their tough skins without being
+felt. Mr. Lampard relates that on one occasion a number of Baiga men
+were supplied by the Mission under his charge with large new cloths
+to cover their bodies with and make them presentable on appearance in
+church. On the second Sunday, however, they came with their cloths
+burnt full of small holes; and they explained that the damage had
+been done at night while they were sleeping round the fire.
+
+A Baiga, Mr. Lampard continues, is speedily discerned in a forest
+village bazar, and is the most interesting object in it. His almost
+nude figure, wild, tangled hair innocent of such inventions as brush
+or comb, lithe wiry limbs and jungly and uncivilised appearance,
+mark him out at once. He generally brings a few mats or baskets which
+he has made, or fruits, roots, honey, horns of animals, or other
+jungle products which he has collected, for sale, and with the sum
+obtained (a few pice or annas at the most) he proceeds to make his
+weekly purchases, changing his pice into cowrie shells, of which he
+receives eighty for each one. He buys tobacco, salt, chillies and
+other sundries, besides as much of kodon, kutki, or perhaps rice, as
+he can afford, always leaving a trifle to be expended at the liquor
+shop before departing for home. The various purchases are tied up in
+the corners of the bit of rag twisted round his head. Unlike pieces
+of cloth known to civilisation, which usually have four corners,
+the Baiga's headgear appears to be nothing but corners, and when the
+shopping is done the strip of rag may have a dozen minute bundles
+tied up in it.
+
+In Baihar of Balaghat buying and selling are conducted on perhaps
+the most minute scale known, and if a Baiga has one or two pice [97]
+to lay out he will spend no inconsiderable time over it. Grain is
+sold in small measures holding about four ounces called _baraiyas_,
+but each of these has a layer of mud at the bottom of varying degrees
+of thickness, so as to reduce its capacity. Before a purchase can be
+made it must be settled by whose _baraiya_ the grain is to be measured,
+and the seller and purchaser each refuse the other's as being unfair
+to himself, until at length after discussion some neutral person's
+_baraiya_ is selected as a compromise. Their food consists largely
+of forest fruits and roots with a scanty allowance of rice or the
+light millets, and they can go without nourishment for periods which
+appear extraordinary to civilised man. They eat the flesh of almost
+all animals, though the more civilised abjure beef and monkeys. They
+will take food from a Gond but not from a Brahman. The Baiga dearly
+loves the common country liquor made from the mahua flower, and this is
+consumed as largely as funds will permit of at weddings, funerals and
+other social gatherings, and also if obtainable at other times. They
+have a tribal _panchayat_ or committee which imposes penalties for
+social offences, one punishment being the abstention from meat for a
+fixed period. A girl going wrong with a man of the caste is punished
+by a fine, but cases of unchastity among unmarried Baiga girls are
+rare. Among their pastimes dancing is one of the chief, and in their
+favourite dance, known as _karma_, the men and women form long lines
+opposite to each other with the musicians between them. One of the
+instruments, a drum called _mandar_, gives out a deep bass note which
+can be heard for miles. The two lines advance and retire, everybody
+singing at the same time, and when the dancers get fully into the
+time and swing, the pace increases, the drums beat furiously, the
+voices of the singers rise higher and higher, and by the light of the
+bonfires which are kept burning the whole scene is wild in the extreme.
+
+
+
+9. Occupation.
+
+
+The Baigas formerly practised only shifting cultivation, burning down
+patches of jungle and sowing seed on the ground fertilised by the
+ashes after the breaking of the rains. Now that this method has been
+prohibited in Government forest, attempts have been made to train them
+to regular cultivation, but with indifferent success in Balaghat. An
+idea of the difficulties to be encountered may be obtained from the
+fact that in some villages the Baiga cultivators, if left unwatched,
+would dig up the grain which they had themselves sown as seed in
+their fields and eat it; while the plough-cattle which were given to
+them invariably developed diseases in spite of all precautions, as a
+result of which they found their way sooner or later to the Baiga's
+cooking-pot. But they are gradually adopting settled habits, and in
+Mandla, where a considerable block of forest was allotted to them
+in which they might continue their destructive practice of shifting
+sowings, it is reported that the majority have now become regular
+cultivators. One explanation of their refusal to till the ground is
+that they consider it a sin to lacerate the breast of their mother
+earth with a ploughshare. They also say that God made the jungle to
+produce everything necessary for the sustenance of men and made the
+Baigas kings of the forest, giving them wisdom to discover the things
+provided for them. To Gonds and others who had not this knowledge, the
+inferior occupation of tilling the land was left. The men never become
+farmservants, but during the cultivating season they work for hire at
+uprooting the rice seedlings for transplantation; they do no other
+agricultural labour for others. Women do the actual transplantation
+of rice and work as harvesters. The men make bamboo mats and baskets,
+which they sell in the village weekly markets. They also collect
+and sell honey and other forest products, and are most expert at all
+work that can be done with an axe, making excellent woodcutters. But
+they show no aptitude in acquiring the use of any other implement,
+and dislike steady continuous labour, preferring to do a few days'
+work and then rest in their homes for a like period before beginning
+again. Their skill and dexterity in the use of the axe in hunting
+is extraordinary. Small deer, hares and peacocks are often knocked
+over by throwing it at them, and panthers and other large animals
+are occasionally killed with a single blow. If one of two Baigas
+is carried off by a tiger, the survivor will almost always make a
+determined and often successful attempt to rescue him with nothing
+more formidable than an axe or a stick. They are expert trackers,
+and are also clever at setting traps and snares, while, like Korkus,
+they catch fish by damming streams in the hot weather and throwing into
+the pool thus formed some leaf or root which stupefies them. Even in
+a famine year, Mr. Low says, a Baiga can collect a large basketful of
+roots in a single day; and if the bamboo seeds he is amply provided
+for. Nowadays Baiga cultivators may occasionally be met with who have
+taken to regular cultivation and become quite prosperous, owning a
+number of cattle.
+
+
+
+10. Language.
+
+
+As already stated, the Baigas have completely forgotten their own
+language, and in the Satpura hills they speak a broken form of Hindi,
+though they have a certain number of words and expressions peculiar
+to the caste.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+Bairagi
+
+
+
+List of Paragraphs
+
+
+ 1.  _Definition of name and statistics._
+ 2.  _The four Sampradayas or main orders._
+ 3.  _The Ramanujis._
+ 4.  _The Ramanandis._
+ 5.  _The Nimanandis._
+ 6.  _The Madhavacharyas._
+ 7.  _The Vallabhacharyas._
+ 8.  _Minor sects._
+ 9.  _The seven Akharas._
+10.  _The Dwaras._
+11.  _Initiation, appearance and customs._
+12.  _Recruitment of the order and its character._
+13.  _Social position and customs._
+14.  _Bairagi monasteries._
+15.  _Married Bairagis._
+
+
+
+1. Definition of name and statistics.
+
+
+
+_Bairagi_, [98] _Sadhu_.--The general term for members of the Vishnuite
+religious orders, who formerly as a rule lived by mendicancy. The
+Bairagis have now, however, become a caste. In 1911 they numbered
+38,000 persons in the Provinces, being distributed over all Districts
+and States. The name Bairagi is supposed to come from the Sanskrit
+Vairagya and to signify one who is free from human passions. Bairaga is
+also the term for the crutched stick which such mendicants frequently
+carry about with them and lean upon, either sitting or standing, and
+which in case of need would serve them as a weapon. Platts considers
+[99] that the name of the order comes from the Sanskrit abstract
+term, and the crutch therefore apparently obtained its name from
+being used by members of the order. Properly, a religious mendicant
+of any Vishnuite sect should be called a Bairagi. But the term is not
+generally applied to the more distinctive sects as the Kabirpanthi,
+Swami-Narayan, Satnami and others, some of which are almost separated
+from Hinduism, nor to the Sikh religious orders, nor the Chaitanya
+sect of Bengal. A proper Bairagi is one whose principal deity is
+either Vishnu or either of his great incarnations, Rama and Krishna.
+
+
+
+2. The four Sampradayas or main orders.
+
+
+It is generally held that there are four Sampradayas or main sects
+of Bairagis. These are--
+
+(_a_) The Ramanujis, the followers of the first prominent Vishnuite
+reformer Ramanuj in southern India, with whom are classed the
+Ramanandis or adherents of his great disciple Ramanand in northern
+India. Both these are also called Sri Vaishnava, that is, the principal
+or original Vaishnava sect.
+
+(_b_) The Nimanandi, Nimat or Nimbaditya sect, followers of a saint
+called Nimanand.
+
+(_c_) The Vishnu-Swami or Vallabhacharya sect, worshippers of Krishna
+and Radha.
+
+(_d_) The Madhavacharya sect of southern India.
+
+It will be desirable to give a few particulars of each of these,
+mainly taken from Wilson's _Hindu Sects_ and Dr. Bhattacharya's _Hindu
+Castes and Sects_.
+
+
+
+3. The Ramanujis.
+
+
+Ramanuj was the first great Vishnuite prophet, and lived in southern
+India in the eleventh or twelfth century on an island in the Kaveri
+river near Trichinopoly. He preached the worship of a supreme spirit,
+Vishnu and his consort Lakshmi, and taught that men also had souls
+or spirits, and that matter was lifeless. He was a strong opponent
+of the cult of Siva, then predominant in southern India, and of
+phallic worship. He, however, admitted only the higher castes into
+his order, and cannot therefore be considered as the founder of the
+liberalising principle of Vishnuism. The superiors of the Ramanuja
+sect are called Acharya, and rank highest among the priests of the
+Vishnuite orders. The most striking feature in the practice of the
+Ramanujis is the separate preparation and scrupulous privacy of their
+meals. They must not eat in cotton garments, but must bathe, and then
+put on wool or silk. The teachers allow their select pupils to assist
+them, but in general all the Ramanujis cook for themselves, and should
+the meal during this process, or while they are eating, attract even
+the look of a stranger, the operation is instantly stopped and the
+viands buried in the ground. The Ramanujis address each other with the
+salutation Dasoham, or 'I am your slave,' accompanied with the Pranam
+or slight inclination of the head and the application of joined hands
+to the forehead. To the Acharyas or superiors the other members of the
+sect perform the Ashtanga or prostration of the body with eight parts
+touching the ground. The _tilak_ or sect-mark of the Ramanujis consists
+of two perpendicular white lines from the roots of the hair to the top
+of the eyebrows, with a connecting white line at the base, and a third
+central line either of red or yellow. The Ramanujis do not recognise
+the worship of Radha, the consort of Krishna. The mendicant orders
+of the Satanis and Dasaris of southern India are branches of this sect.
+
+
+
+4. The Ramanandis
+
+
+Ramanand, the great prophet of Vishnuism in northern India, and the
+real founder of the liberal doctrines of the cult, lived at Benares
+at the end of the fourteenth century, and is supposed to have been a
+follower of Ramanuj. He introduced, however, a great extension of his
+predecessor's gospel in making his sect, nominally at least, open to
+all castes. He thus initiated the struggle against the social tyranny
+and exclusiveness of the caste system, which was carried to greater
+lengths by his disciples and successors, Kabir, Nanak, Dadu, Rai Das
+and others. These afterwards proclaimed the worship of one unseen god
+who could not be represented by idols, and the religious equality of
+all men, their tenets no doubt being considerably influenced by their
+observance of Islam, which had now become a principal religion of
+India. Ramanand himself did not go so far, and remained a good Hindu,
+inculcating the special worship of Rama and his consort Sita. The
+Ramaaandis consider the Ramayana as their most sacred book, and make
+pilgrimages to Ajodhia and Ramnath. [100] Their sect-mark consists of
+two white lines down the forehead with a red one between, but they are
+continued on to the nose, ending in a loop, instead of terminating at
+the line of the eyebrows, like that of the Ramanujis. The Ramanandis
+say that the mark on the nose represents the Singasun or lion's throne,
+while the two white lines up the forehead are Rama and Lakhshman, and
+the centre red one is Sita. Some of their devotees wear ochre-coloured
+clothes like the Sivite mendicants.
+
+
+
+5. The Nimanandis.
+
+
+The second of the four orders is that of the Nimanandis, called
+after a saint Nimanand. He lived near Mathura Brindaban, and on one
+occasion was engaged in religious controversy with a Jain ascetic
+till sunset. He then offered his visitor some refreshment, but the
+Jain could not eat anything after sunset, so Nimanand stopped the
+sun from setting, and ordered him to wait above a _nim_ tree till the
+meal was cooked and eaten under the tree, and this direction the sun
+duly obeyed. Hence Nimanand, whose original name was Bhaskaracharya,
+was called by his new name after the tree, and was afterwards held
+to have been an incarnation of Vishnu or the Sun.
+
+The doctrines of the sect, Mr. Growse states, [101] are of a very
+enlightened character. Thus their tenet of salvation by faith is
+thought by many scholars to have been directly derived from the
+Gospels; while another article in their creed is the continuance of
+conscious individual existence in a future world, when the highest
+reward of the good will not be extinction, but the enjoyment of
+the visible presence of the divinity whom they have served while
+on earth. The Nimanandis worship Krishna, and were the first sect,
+Dr. Bhattacharya states, [102] to associate with him as a divine
+consort Radha, the chief partner of his illicit loves.
+
+Their headquarters are at Muttra, and their chief festival is the
+Janam-Ashtami [103] or Krishna's birthday. Their sect-mark consists of
+two white lines down the forehead with a black patch in the centre,
+which is called Shiambindini. Shiam means black, and is a name of
+Krishna. They also sometimes have a circular line across the nose,
+which represents the moon.
+
+
+
+6. The Madhavacharyas.
+
+
+The third great order is that of the Madhavas, named after a saint
+called Madhavacharya in southern India. He attempted to reconcile the
+warring Sivites and Vishnuites by combining the worship of Krishna with
+that of Siva and Parvati. The doctrine of the sect is that the human
+soul is different from the divine soul, and its members are therefore
+called dualists. They admit a distinction between the divine soul and
+the universe, and between the human soul and the material world. They
+deny also the possibility of Nirvana or the absorption and extinction
+of the human soul in the divine essence. They destroy their thread
+at initiation, and also wear red clothes like the Sivite devotees,
+and like them also they carry a staff and water-pot. The _tilak_
+of the Madhavacharyas is said to consist of two white lines down the
+forehead and continued on to the nose where they meet, with a black
+vertical line between them.
+
+
+
+7. The Vallabhacharyas.
+
+
+The fourth main order is the Vishnu-Swami, which is much better known
+as the Vallabhacharya sect, called after its founder Vallabha, who
+was born in A.D. 1479. The god Krishna appeared to him and ordered
+him to marry and set up a shrine to the god at Gokul near Mathura
+(Muttra). The sect worship Krishna in his character of Bala Gopala
+or the cowherd boy. Their temples are numerous all over India, and
+especially at Mathura and Brindaban, where Krishna was brought up
+as a cowherd. The temples at Benares, Jagannath and Dwarka are rich
+and important, but the most celebrated shrine is at Sri Nathadwara
+in Mewar. The image is said to have transported itself thither
+from Mathura, when Aurangzeb ordered its temple at Mathura to be
+destroyed. Krishna is here represented as a little boy in the act of
+supporting the mountain Govardhan on his finger to shelter the people
+from the storms of rain sent by Indra. The image is splendidly dressed
+and richly decorated with ornaments to the value of several thousand
+pounds. The images of Krishna in the temples are commonly known as
+Thakurji, and are either of stone or brass. At all Vallabhacharya
+temples there are eight daily services: the Mangala or morning _levee_,
+a little after sunrise, when the god is taken from his couch and
+bathed; the Sringara, when he is attired in his jewels and seated on
+his throne; the Gwala, when he is supposed to be starting to graze
+his cattle in the woods of Braj; the Raj Bhog or midday meal, which,
+after presentation, is consumed by the priests and votaries who
+have assisted at the ceremonies; the Uttapan, about three o'clock,
+when the god awakes from his siesta; the Bhog or evening collation;
+the Sandhiya or disrobing at sunset; and the Sayan or retiring to
+rest. The ritual is performed by the priests and the lay worshipper
+is only a spectator, who shows his reverence by the same forms as he
+would to a human superior. [104]
+
+The priests of the sect are called Gokalastha Gosain or Maharaja. They
+are considered to be incarnations of the god, and divine honours
+are paid to them. They always marry, and avow that union with the
+god is best obtained by indulgence in all bodily enjoyments. This
+doctrine has led to great licentiousness in some groups of the sect,
+especially on the part of the priests or Maharajas. Women were taught
+to believe that the service of and contact with the priest were the
+most real form of worshipping the god, and that intercourse with him
+was equivalent to being united with the god. Dr. Bhattacharya quotes
+[105] the following tariff for the privilege of obtaining different
+degrees of contact with the body of the Maharaja or priest:
+
+
+    For homage by sight                                   Rs.   5.
+    For homage by touch                                   Rs.  20.
+    For the honour of washing the Maharaja's foot         Rs.  35.
+    For swinging him                                      Rs.  40.
+    For rubbing sweet unguents on his body                Rs.  42.
+    For being allowed to sit with him on the same couch   Rs.  60.
+    For the privilege of dancing with him                 Rs. 100
+    to 200.
+    For drinking the water in which he has bathed         Rs.  17.
+    For being closeted with him in the same room          Rs. 50 to 500.
+
+
+The public disapprobation caused by these practices and their bad
+effect on the morality of women culminated in the great Maharaj libel
+suit in the Bombay High Court in 1862. Since then the objectionable
+features of the cult have to a large extent disappeared, while it has
+produced some priests of exceptional liberality and enlightenment. The
+_tilak_ of the Vallabhacharyas is said to consist of two white lines
+down the forehead, forming a half-circle at its base and a white dot
+between them. They will not admit the lower castes into the order,
+but only those from whom a Brahman can take water.
+
+
+
+8. Minor sects.
+
+
+Besides the main sects as described above, Vaishnavism has produced
+many minor sects, consisting of the followers of some saint of special
+fame, and mendicants belonging to these are included in the body of
+Bairagis. One or two legends concerning such saints may be given. A
+common order is that of the Bendiwale, or those who wear a dot. Their
+founder began putting a red dot on his forehead between the two white
+lines in place of the long red line of the Ramanandis. His associates
+asked him why he had dared to alter his _tilak_ or sect-mark. He said
+that the goddess Janki had given him the dot, and as a test he went
+and bathed in the Sarju river, and rubbed his forehead with water,
+and all the sect-mark was rubbed out except the dot. So the others
+recognised the special intervention of the goddess, and he founded a
+sect. Another sect is called the Chaturbhuji or four-armed, Chaturbhuj
+being an epithet of Vishnu. He was taking part in a feast when his
+loin-cloth came undone behind, and the others said to him that as
+this had happened, he had become impure at the feast. He replied,
+'Let him to whom the _dhoti_ belongs tie it up,' and immediately
+four arms sprang from his body, and while two continued to take food,
+the other two tied up his loin-cloth behind. Thus it was recognised
+that the Chaturbhuji Vishnu had appeared in him, and he was venerated.
+
+
+
+9. The seven Akharas.
+
+
+Among the Bairagis, besides the four Sampradayas or main orders,
+there are seven Akharas. These are military divisions or schools for
+training, and were instituted when the Bairagis had to fight with the
+Gosains. Any member of one of the four Sampradayas can belong to any
+one of the seven Akharas, and a man can change his Akhara as often as
+he likes, but not his Sampradaya. The Akharas, with the exception of
+the Lasgaris, who change the red centre line of the Ramanandis into
+a white line, have no special sect-marks. They are distinguished by
+their flags or standards, which are elaborately decorated with gold
+thread embroidered on silk or sometimes with jewels, and cost two
+or three hundred rupees to prepare. These standards were carried
+by the Naga or naked members of the Akhara, who went in front and
+fought. Once in twelve years a great meeting of all the seven Akharas
+is held at Allahabad, Nasik, Ujjain or Hardwar, where they bathe and
+wash the image of the god in the water of the holy rivers. The quarrels
+between the Bairagis and Gosains usually occurred at the sacred rivers,
+and the point of contention was which sect should bathe first. The
+following is a list of the seven Akharas: Digambari, Khaki, Munjia,
+Kathia, Nirmohi, Nirbani or Niranjani and Lasgari.
+
+The name of the Digamber or Meghdamber signifies sky-clad or
+cloud-clad, that is naked. They do penance in the rainy season
+by sitting naked in the rain for two or three hours a day with an
+earthen pot on the head and the hands inserted in two others so that
+they cannot rub the skin. In the dry season they wear only a little
+cloth round the waist and ashes over the rest of the body. The ashes
+are produced from burnt cowdung picked up off the ground, and not
+mixed with straw like that which is prepared for fuel.
+
+The Khaki Bairagis also rub ashes on the body. During the four hot
+months they make five fires in a circle, and kneel between them with
+the head and legs and arms stretched towards the fires. The fires are
+kindled at noon with little heaps of cowdung cakes, and the penitent
+stays between them till they go out. They also have a block of wood
+with a hole through it, into which they insert the organ of generation
+and suspend it by chains in front and behind. They rub ashes on the
+body, from which they probably get their name of Khaki or dust-colour.
+
+The Munjia Akhara have a belt made of _munj_ grass round the waist,
+and a little apron also of grass, which is hung from it, and passed
+through the legs. Formerly they wore no other clothes, but now they
+have a cloth. They also do penance between the fires.
+
+The Kathias have a waist-belt of bamboo fibre, to which is suspended
+the wooden block for the purpose already described. Their name
+signifies wooden, and is probably given to them on account of this
+custom.
+
+The Nirmohi carry a _lota_ or brass vessel and a little cup, in which
+they receive alms.
+
+The Nirbani wear only a piece of string or rope round the waist, to
+which is attached a small strip of cloth passing through the legs. When
+begging, they carry a _kawar_ or banghy, holding two baskets covered
+with cloth, and into this they put all their alms. They never remove
+the cloth, but plunge their hands into the basket at random when
+they want something to eat. They call the basket Kamdhenu, the name
+of the cow which gave inexhaustible wealth. These Bairagis commonly
+marry and accumulate property.
+
+The Lasgari are soldiers, as the name denotes. [106] They wear three
+straight lines of sandalwood up the forehead. It is said that on one
+occasion the Bairagis were suddenly attacked by the Gosains when they
+had only made the white lines of the sect-mark, and they fought as
+they were. In consequence of this, they have ever since worn three
+white lines and no red one.
+
+Others say that the Lasgari are a branch of the Digambari Akhara,
+and that the Munjia and Kathia are branches of the Khaki Akhara. They
+give three other Akharas--Niralankhi, Mahanirbani and Santokhi--about
+which nothing is known.
+
+
+
+10. The Dwaras.
+
+
+Besides the Akharas, the Bairagis are said to have fifty-two Dwaras
+or doors, and every man must be a member of a Dwara as well as of a
+Sampradaya and Akhara. The Dwaras seem to have no special purpose,
+but in the case of Bairagis who marry, they now serve as exogamous
+sections, so that members of the same Dwara do not intermarry.
+
+
+
+11. Initiation, appearance and customs.
+
+
+A candidate for initiation has his head shaved, is invested with a
+necklace of beads of the _tulsi_ or basil, and is taught a _mantra_
+or text relating to Vishnu by his preceptor. The initiation
+text of the Ramanandis is said to be _Om Ramaya Namah_, or _Om_,
+Salutation to Rama. _Om_ is a very sacred syllable, having much magical
+power. Thereafter the novice must journey to Dwarka in Gujarat and have
+his body branded with hot iron or copper in the shape of Vishnu's four
+implements: the _chakra_ or discus, the _guda_ or club, the _shank_ or
+conch-shell and the _padma_ or lotus. Sometimes these are not branded
+but are made daily on the arms with clay. The sect-mark should be made
+with Gopichandan or the milkmaid's sandalwood. This is supposed to be
+clay taken from a tank at Dwarka, in which the Gopis or milkmaids who
+had been Krishna's companions drowned themselves when they heard of his
+death. But as this can seldom be obtained any suitable whitish clay is
+used instead. The Bairagis commonly let their hair grow long, after
+being shaved at initiation, to imitate the old forest ascetics. If
+a man makes a pilgrimage on foot to some famous shrine he may have
+his head shaved there and make an offering of his hair. Others keep
+their hair long and shave it only at the death of their _guru_ or
+preceptor. They usually wear white clothes, and if a man has a cloth
+on the upper part of the body it should be folded over the shoulders
+and knotted at the neck. He also has a _chimta_ or small pair of tongs,
+and, if he can obtain it, the skin of an Indian antelope, on which he
+will sit while taking his food. The skin of this animal is held to be
+sacred. Every Bairagi before he takes his food should dip a sprig of
+_tulsi_ or basil into it to sanctify it, and if he cannot get this he
+uses his necklace of _tulsi_-beads for the purpose instead. The caste
+abstain from flesh and liquor, but are addicted to the intoxicating
+drugs, _ganja_ and _bhang_ or preparations of Indian hemp. A Hindu
+on meeting a Bairagi will greet him with the phrase 'Jai Sitaram,'
+and the Bairagi will answer, 'Sitaram.' This word is a conjunction
+of the names of Rama and his consort Sita. When a Bairagi receives
+alms he will present to the giver a flower and a sprig of _tulsi_.
+
+
+
+12. Recruitment of the order and its character.
+
+
+A man belonging to any caste except the impure ones can be initiated
+as a Bairagi, and the order is to a large extent recruited from
+the lower castes. Theoretically all members of the order should
+eat together; but the Brahmans and other high castes belonging
+to it now eat only among themselves, except on the occasion of a
+Ghosti or special religious assembly, when all eat in common. As a
+matter of fact the order is a very mixed assortment of people. Many
+persons who lost their caste in the famine of 1897 from eating in
+Government poor-houses, joined the order and obtained a respectable
+position. Debtors who have become hopelessly involved sometimes find
+in it a means of escape from their creditors. Women of bad character,
+who have been expelled from their caste, are also frequently enrolled
+as female members, and in monasteries live openly with the men. The
+caste is also responsible for a good deal of crime. Not only is the
+disguise a very convenient one for thieves and robbers to assume on
+their travels, but many regular members of the order are criminally
+disposed. Nevertheless large numbers of Bairagis are men who have given
+up their caste and families from a genuine impulse of self-sacrifice,
+and the desire to lead a religious life.
+
+
+
+13. Social position and customs.
+
+
+On account of their sanctity the Bairagis have a fairly good social
+position, and respectable Hindu castes will accept cooked food
+from them. Brahmans usually, but not always, take water. They act
+as _gurus_ or spiritual guides to the laymen of all castes who can
+become Bairagis. They give the Ram and Gopal Mantras, or the texts
+of Rama and Krishna, to their disciples of the three twice-born
+castes, and the Sheo Mantra or Siva's text to other castes. The last
+is considered to be of smaller religious efficacy than the others,
+and is given to the lower castes and members of the higher ones who
+do not lead a particularly virtuous life. They invest boys with the
+sacred thread, and make the sect-mark on their foreheads. When they
+go and visit their disciples they receive presents, but do not ask
+them to confess their sins nor impose penalties.
+
+If a mendicant Bairagi keeps a woman it is stated that he is expelled
+from the community, but this rule does not seem to be enforced in
+practice. If he is detected in a casual act of sexual intercourse
+a fine should be imposed, such as feeding two or three hundred
+Bairagis. The property of an unmarried Bairagi descends to a selected
+_chela_ or disciple. The bodies of the dead are usually burnt, but
+those of saints specially famous for their austerities or piety are
+buried, and salt is put round the body to preserve it. Such men are
+known as Bhakta.
+
+
+
+14. Bairagi monasteries.
+
+
+The Bairagis [107] have numerous _maths_ or monasteries, scattered
+over the country and usually attached to temples. The Math comprises a
+set of huts or chambers for the Mahant or superior and his permanent
+pupils; a temple and often the Samadhi or tomb of the founder, or
+of some eminent Mahant; and a Dharmsala or charitable hostel for
+the accommodation of wandering members of the order, and of other
+travellers who are constantly visiting the temple. Ingress and egress
+are free to all, and, indeed, a restraint on personal liberty seems
+never to have entered into the conception of any Hindu religious
+legislator. There are, as a rule, a small number of resident _chelas_
+or disciples who are scholars and attendants on the superiors,
+and also out-members who travel over the country and return to the
+monastery as a headquarters. The monastery has commonly some small
+endowment in land, and the resident _chelas_ go out and beg for alms
+for their common support. If the Mahant is married the headship may
+descend in his family; but when he is unmarried his successor is one
+of his disciples, who is commonly chosen by election at a meeting of
+the Mahants of neighbouring monasteries. Formerly the Hindu governor
+of the district would preside at such an election, but it is now,
+of course, left entirely to the Bairagis themselves.
+
+
+
+15. Married Bairagis.
+
+
+Large numbers of Bairagis now marry and have children, and have
+formed an ordinary caste. The married Bairagis are held to be
+inferior to the celibate mendicants, and will take food from them,
+but the mendicants will not permit the married Bairagis to eat with
+them in the _chauka_ or place purified for the taking of food. The
+customs of the married Bairagis resemble those of ordinary Hindu
+castes such as the Kurmis. They permit divorce and the remarriage
+of widows, and burn the dead. Those who have taken to cultivation
+do not, as a rule, plough with their own hands. Many Bairagis have
+acquired property and become landholders, and others have extensive
+moneylending transactions. Two such men who had acquired possession
+of extensive tracts of zamindari land in Chhattisgarh, in satisfaction
+of loans made to the Gond zamindars, and had been given the zamindari
+status by the Marathas, were subsequently made Feudatory Chiefs of
+the Nandgaon and Chhuikhadan States. These chiefs now marry and the
+States descend in their families by primogeniture in the ordinary
+manner. As a rule, the Bairagi landowners and moneylenders are not
+found to be particularly good specimens of their class.
+
+
+
+Balahi
+
+
+
+1. General notice.
+
+
+_Balahi._ [108]--A low functional caste of weavers and village
+watchmen found in the Nimar and Hoshangabad Districts and in Central
+India. They numbered 52,000 persons in the Central Provinces in
+1911, being practically confined to the two Districts already
+mentioned. The name is a corruption of the Hindi _bulahi_, one who
+calls, or a messenger. The Balahis seem to be an occupational group,
+probably an offshoot of the large Kori caste of weavers, one of
+whose subdivisions is shown as Balahi in the United Provinces. In
+the Central Provinces they have received accretions from the spinner
+caste of Katias, themselves probably a branch of the Koris, and
+from the Mahars, the great menial caste of Bombay. In Hoshangabad
+they are known alternatively as Mahar, while in Burhanpur they are
+called Bunkar or weaver by outsiders. The following story which they
+tell about themselves also indicates their mixed origin. They say
+that their ancestors came to Nimar as part of the army of Raja Man
+of Jodhpur, who invaded the country when it was under Muhammadan
+rule. He was defeated, and his soldiers were captured and ordered
+to be killed. [109] One of the Balahis among them won the favour of
+the Muhammadan general and asked for his own freedom and that of the
+other Balahis from among the prisoners. The Musalman replied that
+he would be unable to determine which of the prisoners were really
+Balahis. On this the Balahi, whose name was Ganga Kochla, replied
+that he had an effective test. He therefore killed a cow, cooked its
+flesh and invited the prisoners to partake of it. So many of them
+as consented to eat were considered to be Balahis and liberated; but
+many members of other castes thus obtained their freedom, and they and
+their descendants are now included in the community. The subcastes
+or endogamous groups distinctly indicate the functional character
+of the caste, the names given being Nimari, Gannore, Katia, Kori and
+Mahar. Of these Katia, Kori and Mahar are the names of distinct castes,
+Nimari is a local subdivision indicating those who speak the peculiar
+dialect of this tract, and the Gannore are no doubt named after the
+Rajput clan of that name, of whom their ancestors were not improbably
+the illegitimate offspring. The Nimari Balahis are said to rank lower
+than the rest, as they will eat the flesh of dead cattle which the
+others refuse to do. They may not take water from the village well,
+and unless a separate one can be assigned to them, must pay others
+to draw water for them. Partly no doubt in the hope of escaping from
+this degraded position, many of the Nimari group became Christians in
+the famine of 1897. They are considered to be the oldest residents
+of Nimar. At marriages the Balahi receives as his perquisite the
+leaf-plates used for feasts with the leavings of food upon them;
+and at funerals he takes the cloth which covers the corpse on its
+way to the burning-_ghat_. In Nimar the Korkus and Balahis each
+have a separate burying-ground which is known as Murghata. [110] The
+Katias weave the finer kinds of cloth and rank a little higher than
+the others. In Burhanpur, as already stated, the caste are known as
+Bunkar, and they are probably identical with the Bunkars of Khandesh;
+Bunkar is simply an occupational term meaning a weaver.
+
+
+
+2. Marriage.
+
+
+The caste have the usual system of exogamous groups, some of which
+are named after villages, while the designations of others are
+apparently nicknames given to the founder of the clan, as Bagmar, a
+tiger-killer, Bhagoria, a runaway, and so on. They employ a Brahman to
+calculate the horoscopes of a bridal couple and fix the date of their
+wedding, but if he says the marriage is inauspicious, they merely
+obtain the permission of the caste _panchayat_ and celebrate it on
+a Saturday or Sunday. Apparently, however, they do not consult real
+Brahmans, but merely priests of their own caste whom they call Balahi
+Brahmans. These Brahmans are, nevertheless, said to recite the Satya
+Narayan Katha. They also have _gurus_ or spiritual preceptors, being
+members of the caste who have joined the mendicant orders; and Bhats
+or genealogists of their own caste who beg at their weddings. They
+have the practice of serving for a wife, known as Gharjamai or
+Lamjhana. When the pauper suitor is finally married at the expense
+of his wife's father, a marriage-shed is erected for him at the house
+of some neighbour, but his own family are not invited to the wedding.
+
+After marriage a girl goes to her husband's house for a few days and
+returns. The first Diwali or Akha-tij festival after the wedding must
+also be passed at the husband's house, but consummation is not effected
+until the _aina_ or _gauna_ ceremony is performed on the attainment
+of puberty. The cost of a wedding is about Rs. 80 to the bridegroom's
+family and Rs. 20 to the bride's family. A widow is forbidden to marry
+her late husband's brother or other relatives. At the wedding she is
+dressed in new clothes, and the foreheads of the couple are marked
+with cowdung as a sign of purification. They then proceed by night to
+the husband's village, and the woman waits till morning in some empty
+building, when she enters her husband's house carrying two water-pots
+on her head in token of the fertility which she is to bring to it.
+
+
+
+3. Other customs.
+
+
+Like the Mahars, the Balahis must not kill a dog or a cat under pain
+of expulsion; but it is peculiar that in their case the bear is held
+equally sacred, this being probably a residue of some totemistic
+observance. The most binding form of oath which they can use is by
+any one of these animals. The Balahis will admit any Hindu into the
+community except a man of the very lowest castes, and also Gonds
+and Korkus. The head and face of the neophyte are shaved clean, and
+he is made to lie on the ground under a string-cot; a number of the
+Balahis sit on this and wash themselves, letting the water drip from
+their bodies on to the man below until he is well drenched; he then
+gives a feast to the caste-fellows, and is considered to have become
+a Balahi. It is reported also that they will receive back into the
+community Balahi women who have lived with men of other castes and
+even with Jains and Muhammadans. They will take food from members of
+these religions and of any Hindu caste, except the most impure.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+Balija
+
+
+
+1. Origin and traditions.
+
+
+_Balija, Balji, Gurusthulu, Naidu._--A large trading caste of the
+Madras Presidency, where they number a million persons. In the Central
+Provinces 1200 were enumerated in 1911, excluding 1500 Perikis,
+who though really a subcaste and not a very exalted one of Balijas,
+[111] claim to be a separate caste. They are mainly returned from
+places where Madras troops have been stationed, as Nagpur, Jubbulpore
+and Raipur. The caste are frequently known as Naidu, a corruption
+of the Telugu word Nayakdu, a prince or leader. Their ancestors
+are supposed to have been Nayaks or kings of Madura, Tanjore and
+Vijayanagar. The traditional occupation of the caste appears to have
+been to make bangles and pearl and coral ornaments, and they have
+still a subcaste called Gazulu, or a bangle-seller. In Madras they
+are said to be an offshoot of the great cultivating castes of Kamma
+and Kapu and to be a mixed community recruited from these and other
+Telugu castes. Another proof of their mixed descent may be inferred
+from the fact that they will admit persons of other castes or the
+descendants of mixed marriages into the community without much scruple
+in Madras. [112] The name of Balija seems also to have been applied
+to a mixed caste started by Basava, the founder of the Lingayat sect
+of Sivites, these persons being known in Madras as Linga Balijas.
+
+
+
+2. Marriage.
+
+
+The Balijas have two main divisions, Desa or Kota, and Peta, the Desas
+or Kotas being those who claim descent from the old Balija kings,
+while the Petas are the trading Balijas, and are further subdivided
+into groups like the Gazulu or bangle-sellers and the Periki or
+salt-sellers. The subdivisions are not strictly endogamous. Every
+family has a surname, and exogamous groups or _gotras_ also exist,
+but these have generally been forgotten, and marriages are regulated
+by the surnames, the only prohibition being that persons of the same
+surname may not intermarry. Instances of such names are: Singiri,
+Gudari, Jadal, Sangnad and Dasiri. In fact the rules of exogamy
+are so loose that an instance is known of an uncle having married
+his niece. Marriage is usually infant, and the ceremony lasts for
+five days. On the first day the bride and bridegroom are seated on
+a yoke in the _pandal_ or marriage pavilion, where the relatives
+and guests assemble. The bridegroom puts a pair of silver rings
+on the bride's toes and ties the _mangal-sutram_ or flat circular
+piece of gold round her neck. On the next three days the bridegroom
+and bride are made to sit on a plank or cot face to face with each
+other and to throw flowers and play together for two hours in the
+mornings and evenings. On the fourth day, at dead of night, they are
+seated on a cot and the jewels and gifts for the bride are presented,
+and she is then formally handed over to the bridegroom's family. In
+Madras Mr. Thurston [113] states that on the last day of the marriage
+ceremony a mock ploughing and sowing rite is held, and during this,
+the sister of the bridegroom puts a cloth over the basket containing
+earth, wherein seeds are to be sown by the bridegroom, and will not
+allow him to go on with the ceremony till she has extracted a promise
+that his first-born daughter shall marry her son. No bride-price is
+paid, and the remarriage of widows is forbidden.
+
+
+
+3. Occupation and social status.
+
+
+The Balijas bury their dead in a sitting posture. In the Central
+Provinces they are usually Lingayats and especially worship Gauri,
+Siva's wife. Jangams serve them as priests. They usually eat flesh
+and drink liquor, but in Chanda it is stated that both these practices
+are forbidden. In the Central Provinces they are mainly cultivators,
+but some of them still sell bangles and salt. Several of them are in
+Government service and occupy a fairly high social position.
+
+In Madras a curious connection exists between the Kapus and Balijas
+and the impure Mala caste. It is said that once upon a time the Kapus
+and Balijas were flying from the Muhammadans and came to the northern
+Pallar river in high flood. They besought the river to go down and let
+them across, but it demanded the sacrifice of a first-born child. While
+the Kapus and Balijas were hesitating, the Malas who had followed them
+boldly sacrificed one of their children. Immediately the river divided
+before them and they all crossed in safety. Ever since then the Kapus
+and Balijas have respected the Malas, and the Balijas formerly even
+deposited the images of the goddess Gauri, of Ganesha, and of Siva's
+bull with the Malas, as the hereditary custodians of their gods. [114]
+
+
+
+
+
+
+Bania
+
+
+
+List of Paragraphs
+
+
+    1. _General notice._
+    2. _The Banias a true caste: use of the name._
+    3. _Their distinctive occupation._
+    4. _Their distinctive status._
+    5. _The endogamous divisions of the Banias._
+    6. _The Banias derived from the Rajputs._
+    7. _Banias employed as ministers in Rajput courts._
+    8. _Subcastes._
+    9. _Hindu and Jain subcastes: divisions among subcastes._
+    10. _Exogamy and rules regulating marriage._
+    11. _Marriage customs._
+    12. _Polygamy and widow-marrriage._
+    13. _Disposal of the dead and mourning._
+    14. _Religion: the god Ganpati or Ganesh._
+    15. _Diwali festival._
+    16. _Holi festival._
+    17. _Social customs: rules about food._
+    18. _Character of the Bania._
+    19. _Dislike of the cultivators towards him._
+    20. _His virtues._
+    21. _The moneylender changed for the worse._
+    22. _The enforcement of contracts._
+    23. _Cash coinage and the rate of interest._
+    24. _Proprietary and transferable rights in land._
+    25. _The Bania as a landlord._
+    26. _Commercial honesty._
+
+
+
+List of Subordinate Articles on Subcastes
+
+
+    1. Agarwala, Agarwal.
+    2. Agrahari.
+    3. Ajudhiabasi, Audhia.
+    4. Asathi.
+    5. Charnagri, Channagri, Samaiya.
+    6. Dhusar, Bhargava Dhusar.
+    7. Dosar, Dusra.
+    8. Gahoi.
+    9. Golapurab, Golahre.
+    10. Kasarwani.
+    11. Kasaundhan.
+    12. Khandelwal.
+    13. Lad.
+    14. Lingayat.
+    15. Maheshri.
+    16. Nema.
+    17. Oswal.
+    18. Parwar.
+    19. Srimali.
+    20. Umre.
+
+
+
+1. General notice.
+
+
+_Bania, Bani, Vani, Mahajan, Seth, Sahukar._--The occupational
+caste of bankers, moneylenders and dealers in grain, _ghi_ (butter),
+groceries and spices. The name Bania is derived from the Sanskrit
+_vanij_, a merchant. In western India the Banias are always called
+Vania or Vani. Mahajan literally means a great man, and being applied
+to successful Banias as an honorific title has now come to signify a
+banker or moneylender; Seth signifies a great merchant or capitalist,
+and is applied to Banias as an honorific prefix. The words _Sahu_,
+_Sao_ and _Sahukar_ mean upright or honest, and have also, curiously
+enough, come to signify a moneylender. The total number of Banias in
+the Central Provinces in 1911 was about 200,000, or rather over one
+per cent of the population. Of the above total two-thirds were Hindus
+and one-third Jains. The caste is fairly distributed over the whole
+Province, being most numerous in Districts with large towns and a
+considerable volume of trade.
+
+
+
+2. The Banias a true caste: use of the name.
+
+
+There has been much difference of opinion as to whether the name
+Bania should be taken to signify a caste, or whether it is merely an
+occupational term applied to a number of distinct castes. I venture
+to think it is necessary and scientifically correct to take it as a
+caste. In Bengal the word Banian, a corruption of Bania, has probably
+come to be a general term meaning simply a banker, or person dealing
+in money. But this does not seem to be the case elsewhere. As a
+rule the name Bania is used only as a caste name for groups who are
+considered both by themselves and outsiders to belong to the Bania
+caste. It may occasionally be applied to members of other castes,
+as in the case of certain Teli-Banias who have abandoned oil-pressing
+for shop-keeping, but such instances are very rare; and these Telis
+would probably now assert that they belonged to the Bania caste. That
+the Banias are recognised as a distinct caste by the people is shown
+by the number of uncomplimentary proverbs and sayings about them,
+which is far larger than in the case of any other caste. [115] In
+all these the name Bania is used and not that of any subdivision,
+and this indicates that none of the subdivisions are looked upon
+as distinctive social groups or castes. Moreover, so far as I am
+aware, the name Bania is applied regularly to all the groups usually
+classified under the caste, and there is no group which objects to the
+name or whose members refuse to describe themselves by it. This is by
+no means always the case with other important castes. The Rathor Telis
+of Mandla entirely decline to answer to the name of Teli, though they
+are classified under that caste. In the case of the important Ahir or
+grazier caste, those who sell milk instead of grazing cattle are called
+Gaoli, but remain members of the Ahir caste. An Ahir in Chhattisgarh
+would be called Rawat and in the Maratha Districts Gowari, but might
+still be an Ahir by caste. The Barai caste of betel-vine growers and
+sellers is in some localities called Tamboli and not Barai; elsewhere
+it is known only as Pansari, though the name Pansari is correctly
+an occupational term, and, where it is not applied to the Barais,
+means a grocer or druggist by profession and not a caste. Bania,
+on the other hand, over the greater part of India is applied only
+to persons who acknowledge themselves and are generally recognised
+by Hindu society to be members of the Bania caste, and there is no
+other name which is generally applied to any considerable section of
+such persons. Certain of the more important subcastes of Bania, as
+the Agarwala, Oswal and Parwar, are, it is true, frequently known by
+the subcaste name. But the caste name is as often as not, or even more
+often, affixed to it. Agarwala, or Agarwala Bania, are names equally
+applied to designate this subcaste, and similarly with the Oswals and
+Parwars; and even so the subcaste name is only applied for greater
+accuracy and for compliment, since these are the best subcastes;
+the Bania's quarter of a town will be called Bania Mahalla, and its
+residents spoken of as Banias, even though they may be nearly all
+Agarwals or Oswals. Several Rajput clans are similarly spoken of by
+their clan names, as Rathor, Panwar, and so on, without the addition
+of the caste name Rajput. Brahman subcastes are usually mentioned
+by their subcaste name for greater accuracy, though in their case
+too it is usual to add the caste name. And there are subdivisions of
+other castes, such as the Jaiswar Chamars and the Somvansi Mehras,
+who invariably speak of themselves only by their subcaste name,
+and discard the caste name altogether, being ashamed of it, but are
+nevertheless held to belong to their parent castes. Thus in the matter
+of common usage Bania conforms in all respects to the requirements
+of a proper caste name.
+
+
+
+3. Their distinctive occupation.
+
+
+The Banias have also a distinct and well-defined traditional
+occupation, [116] which is followed by many or most members of
+practically every subcaste so far as has been observed. This occupation
+has caused the caste as a body to be credited with special mental
+and moral characteristics in popular estimation, to a greater extent
+perhaps than any other caste. None of the subcastes are ashamed of
+their traditional occupation or try to abandon it. It is true that a
+few subcastes such as the Kasaundhans and Kasarwanis, sellers of metal
+vessels, apparently had originally a somewhat different profession,
+though resembling the traditional one; but they too, if they once
+only sold vessels, now engage largely in the traditional Bania's
+calling, and deal generally in grain and money. The Banias, no doubt
+because it is both profitable and respectable, adhere more generally
+to their traditional occupation than almost any great caste, except
+the cultivators. Mr. Marten's analysis [117] of the occupations of
+different castes shows that sixty per cent of the Banias are still
+engaged in trade; while only nineteen per cent of Brahmans follow
+a religious calling; twenty-nine per cent of Ahirs are graziers,
+cattle-dealers or milkmen; only nine per cent of Telis are engaged
+in all branches of industry, including their traditional occupation
+of oil-pressing; and similarly only twelve per cent of Chamars work
+at industrial occupations, including that of curing hides. In respect
+of occupation therefore the Banias strictly fulfil the definition of
+a caste.
+
+
+
+4. Their distinctive status.
+
+
+The Banias have also a distinctive social status. They are considered,
+though perhaps incorrectly, to represent the Vaishyas or third great
+division of the Aryan twice-born; they rank just below Rajputs and
+perhaps above all other castes except Brahmans; Brahmans will take
+food cooked without water from many Banias and drinking-water from
+all. Nearly all Banias wear the sacred thread; and the Banias are
+distinguished by the fact that they abstain more rigorously and
+generally from all kinds of flesh food than any other caste. Their
+rules as to diet are exceptionally strict, and are equally observed
+by the great majority of the subdivisions.
+
+
+
+5. The endogamous divisions of the Banias.
+
+
+Thus the Banias apparently fulfil the definition of a caste, as
+consisting of one or more endogamous groups or subcastes with a
+distinct name applied to them all and to them only, a distinctive
+occupation and a distinctive social status; and there seems no reason
+for not considering them a caste. If on the other hand we examine the
+subcastes of Bania we find that the majority of them have names derived
+from places, [118] not indicating any separate origin, occupation or
+status, but only residence in separate tracts. Such divisions are
+properly termed subcastes, being endogamous only, and in no other
+way distinctive. No subcaste can be markedly distinguished from the
+others in respect of occupation or social status, and none apparently
+can therefore be classified as a separate caste. There are no doubt
+substantial differences in status between the highest subcastes of
+Bania, the Agarwals, Oswals and Parwars, and the lower ones, the
+Kasaundhan, Kasarwani, Dosar and others. But this difference is not
+so great as that which separates different groups included in such
+important castes as Rajput and Bhat. It is true again that subcastes
+like the Agarwals and Oswals are individually important, but not
+more so than the Maratha, Khedawal, Kanaujia and Maithil Brahmans, or
+the Sesodia, Rathor, Panwar and Jadon Rajputs. The higher subcastes
+of Bania themselves recognise a common relationship by taking food
+cooked without water from each other, which is a very rare custom
+among subcastes. Some of them are even said to have intermarried. If
+on the other hand it is argued, not that two or three or more of the
+important subdivisions should be erected into independent castes,
+but that Bania is not a caste at all, and that every subcaste should
+be treated as a separate caste, then such purely local groups as
+Kanaujia, Jaiswar, Gujarati, Jaunpuri and others, which are found in
+forty or fifty other castes, would have to become separate castes;
+and if in this one case why not in all the other castes where they
+occur? This would result in the impossible position of having forty
+or fifty castes of the same name, which recognise no connection of
+any kind with each other, and make any arrangement or classification
+of castes altogether impracticable. And in 1911 out of 200,000 Banias
+in the Central Provinces, 43,000 were returned with no subcaste at
+all, and it would therefore be impossible to classify these under
+any other name.
+
+
+
+6. The Banias derived from the Rajputs.
+
+
+The Banias have been commonly supposed to represent the Vaishyas or
+third of the four classical castes, both by Hindu society generally
+and by leading authorities on the subject. It is perhaps this view of
+their origin which is partly responsible for the tendency to consider
+them as several castes and not one. But its accuracy is doubtful. The
+important Bania groups appear to be of Rajput stock. They nearly all
+come from Rajputana, Bundelkhand or Gujarat, that is from the homes
+of the principal Rajut clans. Several of them have legends of Rajput
+descent. The Agarwalas say that their first ancestor was a Kshatriya
+king, who married a Naga or snake princess; the Naga race is supposed
+to have signified the Scythian immigrants, who were snake-worshippers
+and from whom several clans of Rajputs were probably derived. The
+Agarwalas took their name from the ancient city of Agroha or possibly
+from Agra. The Oswals say that their ancestor was the Rajput king
+of Osnagar in Marwar, who with his followers was converted by a Jain
+mendicant. The Nemas state that their ancestors were fourteen young
+Rajput princes who escaped the vengeance of Parasurama by abandoning
+the profession of arms and taking to trade. The Khandelwals take
+their name from the town of Khandela in Jaipur State of Rajputana. The
+Kasarwanis say they immigrated from Kara Manikpur in Bundelkhand. The
+origin of the Umre Banias is not known, but in Gujarat they are also
+called Bagaria from the Bagar or wild country of the Dongarpur and
+Pertabgarh States of Rajputana, where numbers of them are still
+settled; the name Bagaria would appear to indicate that they are
+supposed to have immigrated thence into Gujarat. The Dhusar Banias
+ascribe their name to a hill called Dhusi or Dhosi on the border of
+Alwar State. The Asatis say that their original home was Tikamgarh
+State in Bundelkhand. The name of the Maheshris is held to be derived
+from Maheshwar, an ancient town on the Nerbudda, near Indore, which
+is traditionally supposed to have been the earliest settlement of the
+Yadava Rajputs. The headquarters of the Gahoi Banias is said to have
+been at Kharagpur in Bundelkhand, though according to their own legend
+they are of mixed origin. The home of the Srimalis was the old town
+of Srimal, now Bhinmal in Marwar. The Palliwal Banias were from the
+well-known trading town of Pali in Marwar. The Jaiswal are said to take
+their name from Jaisalmer State, which was their native country. The
+above are no doubt only a fraction of the Bania subcastes, but they
+include nearly all the most important and representative ones, from
+whom the caste takes its status and character. Of the numerous other
+groups the bulk have probably been brought into existence through
+the migration and settlement of sections of the caste in different
+parts of the country, where they have become endogamous and obtained a
+fresh name. Other subcastes may be composed of bodies of persons who,
+having taken to trade and prospered, obtained admission to the Bania
+caste through the efforts of their Brahman priests. But a number of
+mixed groups of the same character are also found among the Brahmans
+and Rajputs, and their existence does not invalidate arguments derived
+from a consideration of the representative subcastes. It may be said
+that not only the Banias, but many of the low castes have legends
+showing them to be of Rajput descent of the same character as those
+quoted above; and since in their case these stories have been adjudged
+spurious and worthless, no greater importance should be attached to
+those of the Banias. But it must be remembered that in the case of the
+Banias the stories are reinforced by the fact that the Bania subcastes
+certainly come from Rajputana; no doubt exists that they are of high
+caste, and that they must either be derived from Brahmans or Rajputs,
+or themselves represent some separate foreign group; but if they are
+really the descendants of the Vaishyas, the main body of the Aryan
+immigrants and the third of the four classical castes, it might be
+expected that their legends would show some trace of this instead of
+being unitedly in favour of their Rajput origin.
+
+Colonel Tod gives a catalogue of the eighty-four mercantile tribes,
+whom he states to be chiefly of Rajput descent. [119] In this list
+the Agarwal, Oswal, Srimal, Khandelwal, Palliwal and Lad subcastes
+occur; while the Dhakar and Dhusar subcastes may be represented by the
+names Dhakarwal and Dusora in the lists. The other names given by Tod
+appear to be mainly small territorial groups of Rajputana. Elsewhere,
+after speaking of the claims of certain towns in Rajputana to be
+centres of trade, Colonel Tod remarks: "These pretensions we may
+the more readily admit, when we recollect that nine-tenths of the
+bankers and commercial men of India are natives of Marudesh, [120]
+and these chiefly of the Jain faith. The Oswals, so termed from the
+town of Osi, near the Luni, estimate one hundred thousand families
+whose occupation is commerce. All these claim a Rajput descent, a fact
+entirely unknown to the European inquirer into the peculiarities of
+Hindu manners." [121]
+
+Similarly, Sir D. Ibbetson states that the Maheshri Banias claim
+Rajput origin and still have subdivisions bearing Rajput names. [122]
+Elliot also says that almost all the mercantile tribes of Hindustan
+are of Rajput descent. [123]
+
+It would appear, then, that the Banias are an offshoot from the
+Rajputs, who took to commerce and learnt to read and write for
+the purpose of keeping accounts. The Charans or bards are another
+literate caste derived from the Rajputs, and it may be noticed that
+both the Banias and Charans or Bhats have hitherto been content
+with the knowledge of their own rude Marwari dialect and evinced no
+desire for classical learning or higher English education. Matters
+are now changing, but this attitude shows that they have hitherto not
+desired education for itself but merely as an indispensable adjunct
+to their business.
+
+
+
+7. Banias employed as ministers in Rajput courts.
+
+
+Being literate, the Banias were not infrequently employed as ministers
+and treasurers in Rajput states. Forbes says, in an account of
+an Indian court: "Beside the king stand the warriors of Rajput
+race or, equally gallant in the field and wiser far in council,
+the Wania (Bania) Muntreshwars, already in profession puritans
+of peace, and not yet drained enough of their fiery Kshatriya
+blood.... It is remarkable that so many of the officers possessing
+high rank and holding independent commands are represented to have
+been Wanias." [124] Colonel Tod writes that Nunkurn, the Kachhwaha
+chief of the Shekhawat federation, had a minister named Devi Das of
+the Bania or mercantile caste, and, like thousands of that caste,
+energetic, shrewd and intelligent. [125] Similarly, Muhaj, the Jadon
+Bhatti chief of Jaisalmer, by an unhappy choice of a Bania minister,
+completed the demoralisation of the Bhatti state. This minister was
+named Sarup Singh, a Bania of the Jain faith and Mehta family, whose
+descendants were destined to be the exterminators of the laws and
+fortunes of the sons of Jaisal. [126] Other instances of the employment
+of Bania ministers are to be found in Rajput history. Finally, it
+may be noted that the Banias are by no means the only instance of a
+mercantile class formed from the Rajputs. The two important trading
+castes of Khatri and Bhatia are almost certainly of Rajput origin,
+as is shown in the articles on those castes.
+
+
+
+8. Subcastes.
+
+
+The Banias are divided into a large number of endogamous groups or
+subcastes, of which the most important have been treated in the
+annexed subordinate articles. The minor subcastes, mainly formed
+by migration, vary greatly in different provinces. Colonel Tod gave
+a list of eighty-four in Rajputana, of which eight or ten only can
+be identified in the Central Provinces, and of thirty mentioned by
+Bhattacharya as the most common groups in northern India, about a third
+are unknown in the Central Provinces. The origin of such subcastes
+has already been explained. The main subcastes may be classified
+roughly into groups coming from Rajputana, Bundelkhand and the United
+Provinces. The leading Rajputana groups are the Oswal, Maheshri,
+Khandelwal, Saitwal, Srimal and Jaiswaal. These groups are commonly
+known as Marwari Bania or simply Marwari. The Bundelkhand or Central
+India subcastes are the Gahoi, Golapurab, Asati, Umre and Parwar;
+[127] while the Agarwal, Dhusar, Agrahari, Ajudhiabasi and others
+come from the United Provinces. The Lad subcaste is from Gujarat,
+while the Lingayats originally belonged to the Telugu and Canarese
+country. Several of the subcastes coming from the same locality will
+take food cooked without water from each other, and occasionally two
+subcastes, as the Oswal and Khandelwal, even food cooked with water or
+_katchi_. This practice is seldom found in other good castes. It is
+probably due to the fact that the rules about food are less strictly
+observed in Rajputana.
+
+
+
+9. Hindu and Jain subcastes: divisions among subcastes.
+
+
+Another classification may be made of the subcastes according as
+they are of the Hindu or Jain religion; the important Jain subcastes
+are the Oswal, Parwar, Golapurab, Saitwal and Charnagar, and one or
+two smaller ones, as the Baghelwal and Samaiya. The other subcastes
+are principally Hindu, but many have a Jain minority, and similarly
+the Jain subcastes return a proportion of Hindus. The difference of
+religion counts for very little, as practically all the non-Jain Banias
+are strict Vaishnava Hindus, abstain entirely from any kind of flesh
+meat, and think it a sin to take animal life; while on their side the
+Jains employ Brahmans for certain purposes, worship some of the local
+Hindu deities, and observe the principal Hindu festivals. The Jain and
+Hindu sections of a subcaste have consequently, as a rule, no objection
+to taking food together, and will sometimes intermarry. Several of the
+important subcastes are subdivided into Bisa and Dasa, or twenty and
+ten groups. The Bisa or twenty group is of pure descent, or twenty
+carat, as it were, while the Dasas are considered to have a certain
+amount of alloy in their family pedigree. They are the offspring of
+remarried widows, and perhaps occasionally of still more irregular
+unions. Intermarriage sometimes takes place between the two groups,
+and families in the Dasa group, by living a respectable life and
+marrying well, improve their status, and perhaps ultimately get
+back into the Bisa group. As the Dasas become more respectable they
+will not admit to their communion newly remarried widows or couples
+who have married within the prohibited degrees, or otherwise made a
+_mesalliance_, and hence a third inferior group, called the Pacha or
+five, is brought into existence to make room for these.
+
+
+
+10. Exogamy and rules regulating marriage.
+
+
+Most subcastes have an elaborate system of exogamy. They are
+either divided into a large number of sections, or into a few
+_gotras_, usually twelve, each of which is further split up into
+subsections. Marriage can then be regulated by forbidding a man to
+take a wife from the whole of his own section or from the subsection
+of his mother, grandmothers and even greatgrandmothers. By this means
+the union of persons within five or more degrees of relationship
+either through males or females is avoided, and most Banias prohibit
+intermarriage, at any rate nominally, up to five degrees. Such
+practices as exchanging girls between families or marrying two
+sisters are, as a rule, prohibited. The _gotras_ or main sections
+appear to be frequently named after Brahman Rishis or saints, while
+the subsections have names of a territorial or titular character.
+
+
+
+11. Marriage customs.
+
+
+There is generally no recognised custom of paying a bride- or
+bridegroom-price, but one or two instances of its being done are given
+in the subordinate articles. On the occasion of betrothal, among some
+subcastes, the boy's father proceeds to the girl's house and presents
+her with a _mala_ or necklace of gold or silver coins or coral, and a
+_mundri_ or silver ring for the finger. The contract of betrothal is
+made at the village temple and the caste-fellows sprinkle turmeric and
+water over the parties. Before the wedding the ceremony of Benaiki is
+performed; in this the bridegroom, riding on a horse, and the bride on
+a decorated chair or litter, go round their villages and say farewell
+to their friends and relations. Sometimes they have a procession in
+this way round the marriage-shed. Among the Marwari Banias a _toran_
+or string of mango-leaves is stretched above the door of the house on
+the occasion of a wedding and left there for six months. And a wooden
+triangle with figures perched on it to represent sparrows is tied
+over the door. The binding portion of the wedding is the procession
+seven times round the marriage altar or post. In some Jain subcastes
+the bridegroom stands beside the post and the bride walks seven times
+round him, while he throws sugar over her head at each turn. After the
+wedding the couple are made to draw figures out of flour sprinkled
+on a brass plate in token of the bridegroom's occupation of keeping
+accounts. It is customary for the bride's family to give _sidha_ or
+uncooked food sufficient for a day's consumption to every outsider
+who accompanies the marriage party, while to each member of the caste
+provisions for two to five days are given. This is in addition to the
+evening feasts and involves great expense. Sometimes the wedding lasts
+for eight days, and feasts are given for four days by the bridegroom's
+party and four days by the bride's. It is said that in some places
+before a Bania has a wedding he goes before the caste _panchayat_
+and they ask him how many people he is going to invite. If he says
+five hundred, they prescribe the quantity of the different kinds of
+provisions which he must supply. Thus they may say forty maunds (3200
+lbs.) of sugar and flour, with butter, spices, and other articles in
+proportion. He says, 'Gentlemen, I am a poor man; make it a little
+less'; or he says he will give _gur_ or cakes of raw cane sugar
+instead of refined sugar. Then they say, 'No, your social position
+is too high for _gur_; you must have sugar for all purposes.' The
+more guests the host invites the higher is his social consideration;
+and it is said that if he does not maintain this his life is not worth
+living. Sometimes the exact amount of entertainment to be given at a
+wedding is fixed, and if a man cannot afford it at the time he must
+give the balance of the feasts at any subsequent period when he has
+money; and if he fails to do this he is put out of caste. The bride's
+father is often called on to furnish a certain sum for the travelling
+expenses of the bridegroom's party, and if he does not send this money
+they do not come. The distinctive feature of a Bania wedding in the
+northern Districts is that women accompany the marriage procession,
+and the Banias are the only high caste in which they do this. Hence a
+high-caste wedding party in which women are present can be recognised
+to be a Bania's. In the Maratha Districts women also go, but here
+this custom obtains among other high castes. The bridegroom's party
+hire or borrow a house in the bride's village, and here they erect
+a marriage-shed and go through the preliminary ceremonies of the
+wedding on the bridegroom's side as if they were at home.
+
+
+
+12. Polygamy and widow-marriage.
+
+
+Polygamy is very rare among the Banias, and it is generally the rule
+that a man must obtain the consent of his first wife before taking
+a second one. In the absence of this precaution for her happiness,
+parents will refuse to give him their daughter. The remarriage of
+widows is nominally prohibited, but frequently occurs, and remarried
+widows are relegated to the inferior social groups in each subcaste as
+already described. Divorce is also said to be prohibited, but it is
+probable that women put away for adultery are allowed to take refuge
+in such groups instead of being finally expelled.
+
+
+
+13. Disposal of the dead and mourning.
+
+
+The dead are cremated as a rule, and the ashes are thrown into
+a sacred river or any stream. The bodies of young children and of
+persons dying from epidemic disease are buried. The period of mourning
+must be for an odd number of days. On the third day a leaf plate with
+cooked food is placed on the ground where the body was burnt, and on
+some subsequent day a feast is given to the caste. Rich Banias will
+hire people to mourn. Widows and young girls are usually employed,
+and these come and sit before the house for an hour in the morning
+and sometimes also in the evening, and covering their heads with
+their cloths, beat their breasts and make lamentations. Rich men
+may hire as many as ten mourners for a period of one, two or three
+months. The Marwaris, when a girl is born, break an earthen pot to
+show that they have had a misfortune; but when a boy is born they
+beat a brass plate in token of their joy.
+
+
+
+14. Religion: the god Ganpati or Ganesh.
+
+
+Nearly all the Banias are Jains or Vaishnava Hindus. An account of the
+Jain religion has been given in a separate article, and some notice
+of the retention of Hindu practices by the Jains is contained in the
+subordinate article on Parwar Bania. The Vaishnava Banias no less
+than the Jains are strongly averse to the destruction of animal life,
+and will not kill any living thing. Their principal deity is the god
+Ganesh or Ganpati, the son of Mahadeo and Parvati, who is the god of
+good-luck, wealth and prosperity. Ganesh is represented in sculpture
+with the head of an elephant and riding on a rat, though the rat is now
+covered by the body of the god and is scarcely visible. He has a small
+body like a child's with a fat belly and round plump arms. Perhaps
+his body signifies that he is figured as a boy, the son of Parvati
+or Gauri. In former times grain was the main source of wealth, and
+from the appearance of Ganesh it can be understood why he is the god
+of overflowing granaries, and hence of wealth and good fortune. The
+elephant is a sacred animal among Hindus, and that on which the king
+rides. To have an elephant was a mark of wealth and distinction among
+Banias, and the Jains harness the cars of their gods to elephants at
+their great _rath_ or chariot festival. Gajpati or 'lord of elephants'
+is a title given to a king; Gajanand or 'elephant-faced' is an epithet
+of the god Ganesh and a favourite Hindu name. Gajvithi or the track
+of the elephant is a name of the Milky Way, and indicates that there
+is believed to be a divine elephant who takes this course through the
+heavens. The elephant eats so much grain that only a comparatively
+rich man can afford to keep one; and hence it is easy to understand
+how the attribute of plenty or of wealth was associated with the divine
+elephant as his special characteristic. Similarly the rat is connected
+with overflowing granaries, because when there is much corn in a
+Hindu house or store-shed there will be many rats; thus a multitude
+of rats implied a rich household, and so this animal too came to be a
+symbol of wealth. The Hindus do not now consider the rat sacred, but
+they have a tenderness for it, especially in the Maratha country. The
+more bigoted of them objected to rats being poisoned as a means of
+checking plague, though observation has fully convinced them that rats
+spread the plague; and in the Bania hospitals, formerly maintained for
+preserving the lives of animals, a number of rats were usually to be
+found. The rat, in fact, may now be said to stand to Ganpati in the
+position of a disreputable poor relation. No attempt is made to deny
+his existence, but he is kept in the background as far as possible. The
+god Ganpati is also associated with wealth of grain through his
+parentage. He is the offspring of Siva or Mahadeo and his wife Devi
+or Gauri. Mahadeo is in this case probably taken in his beneficent
+character of the deified bull; Devi in her most important aspect as
+the great mother-goddess is the earth, but as mother of Ganesh she
+is probably imagined in her special form of Gauri, the yellow one,
+that is, the yellow corn. Gauri is closely associated with Ganesh, and
+every Hindu bridal couple worship Gauri Ganesh together as an important
+rite of the wedding. Their conjunction in this manner lends colour to
+the idea that they are held to be mother and son. In Rajputana Gauri
+is worshipped as the corn goddess at the Gangore festival about the
+time of the vernal equinox, especially by women. The meaning of Gauri,
+Colonel Tod states, is yellow, emblematic of the ripened harvest,
+when the votaries of the goddess adore her effigies, in the shape
+of a matron painted the colour of ripe corn. Here she is seen as
+Ana-purna (the corn-goddess), the benefactress of mankind. "The rites
+commence when the sun enters Aries (the opening of the Hindu year),
+by a deputation to a spot beyond the city to bring earth for the image
+of Gauri. A small trench is then excavated in which barley is sown;
+the ground is irrigated and artificial heat supplied till the grain
+germinates, when the females join hands and dance round it, invoking
+the blessings of Gauri on their husbands. The young corn is then taken
+up, distributed and presented by the females to the men, who wear it
+in their turbans." [128] Thus if Ganesh is the son of Gauri he is the
+offspring of the bull and the growing corn; and his genesis from the
+elephant and the rat show him equally as the god of full granaries, and
+hence of wealth and good fortune. We can understand therefore how he
+is the special god of the Banias, who formerly must have dealt almost
+entirely in grain, as coined money had not come into general use.
+
+
+
+15. Diwali festival.
+
+
+At the Diwali festival the Banias worship Ganpati or Ganesh, in
+conjunction with Lakshmi, the goddess of wealth. Lakshmi is considered
+to be the deified cow, and, as such, the other main source of wealth,
+both as mother of the bull, the tiller of the soil, and the giver
+of milk from which _ghi_ (clarified butter) is made; this is another
+staple of the Bania's trade, as well as a luxurious food, of which he
+is especially fond. At Diwali all Banias make up their accounts for
+the year, and obtain the signatures of clients to their balances. They
+open fresh account-books, which they first worship and adorn with an
+image of Ganesh, and perhaps an invocation to the god on the front
+page. A silver rupee is also worshipped as an emblem of Lakshmi,
+but in some cases an English sovereign, as a more precious coin,
+has been substituted, and this is placed on the seat of the goddess
+and reverence paid to it. The Banias and Hindus generally think it
+requisite to gamble at Diwali in order to bring good luck during
+the coming year; all classes indulge in a little speculation at
+this season.
+
+
+
+16. Holi festival.
+
+
+In the month of Phagun (February), about the time of the Holi, the
+Marwaris make an image of mud naked, calling it Nathu Ram, who was
+supposed to be a great Marwari. They mock at this and throw mud at
+it, and beat it with shoes, and have various jests and sports. The
+men and women are divided into two parties, and throw dirty water
+and red powder over each other, and the women make whips of cloth
+and beat the men. After two or three days, they break up the image
+and throw it away. The Banias, both Jain and Hindu, like to begin the
+day by going and looking at the god in his temple. This is considered
+an auspicious omen in the same manner as it is commonly held to be a
+good omen to see some particular person or class of person the first
+thing in the morning. Others begin the day by worshipping the sacred
+_tulsi_ or basil.
+
+
+
+17. Social customs: rules about food.
+
+
+The Banias are very strict about food. The majority of them abstain
+from all kinds of flesh food and alcoholic liquor. The Kasarwanis are
+reported to eat the flesh of clean animals, and perhaps others of the
+lower subcastes may also do so, but the Banias are probably stricter
+than any other caste in their adherence to a vegetable diet. Many
+of them eschew also onions and garlic as impure food. Banias take
+the lead in the objection to foreign sugar on account of the stories
+told of the impure ingredients which it contains, and many of them,
+until recently, at any rate, still adhered to Indian sugar. Drugs are
+not forbidden, but they are not usually addicted to them. Tobacco
+is forbidden to the Jains, but both they and the Hindus smoke, and
+their women sometimes chew tobacco. The Bania while he is poor is
+very abstemious, and it is said that on a day when he has made no
+money he goes supperless to bed. But when he has accumulated wealth,
+he develops a fondness for _ghi_ or preserved butter, which often
+causes him to become portly. Otherwise his food remains simple, and
+as a rule he confined himself until recently to two daily meals,
+at midday and in the evening; but Banias, like most other classes
+who can afford it, have now begun to drink tea in the morning. In
+dress the Bania is also simple, adhering to the orthodox Hindu
+garb of a long white coat and a loin-cloth. He has not yet adopted
+the cotton trousers copied from the English fashion. Some Banias in
+their shops wear only a cloth over their shoulders and another round
+their waist. The _kardora_ or silver waist-belt is a favourite Bania
+ornament, and though plainly dressed in ordinary life, rich Marwaaris
+will on special festival occasions wear costly jewels. On his head the
+Marwari wears a small tightly folded turban, often coloured crimson,
+pink or yellow; a green turban is a sign of mourning and also black,
+though the latter is seldom seen. The Banias object to taking the
+life of any animal. They will not castrate cattle even through their
+servants, but sell the young bulls and buy oxen. In Saugor, a Bania
+is put out of caste if he keeps buffaloes. It is supposed that good
+Hindus should not keep buffaloes nor use them for carting or ploughing,
+because the buffalo is impure, and is the animal on which Yama,
+the god of death, rides. Thus in his social observances generally
+the Bania is one of the strictest castes, and this is a reason why
+his social status is high. Sometimes he is even held superior to the
+Rajput, as the local Rajputs are often of impure descent and lax in
+their observance of religious and social restrictions. Though he soon
+learns the vernacular language of the country where he settles, the
+Marwari usually retains his own native dialect in his account-books,
+and this makes it more difficult for his customers to understand them.
+
+
+
+18. Character of the Bania.
+
+
+The Bania has a very distinctive caste character. From early boyhood
+he is trained to the keeping of accounts and to the view that it
+is his business in life to make money, and that no transaction
+should be considered successful or creditable which does not show
+a profit. As an apprentice, he goes through a severe training in
+mental arithmetic, so as to enable him to make the most intricate
+calculations in his head. With this object a boy commits to memory a
+number of very elaborate tables. For whole numbers he learns by heart
+the units from one to ten multiplied as high as forty times, and the
+numbers from eleven to twenty multiplied to twenty times. There are
+also fractional tables, giving the results of multiplying 1/4, 1/2,
+3/4, 1 1/4, 1 1/2, 2 1/2, 3 1/2 into units from one to one hundred;
+interest-tables showing the interest due on any sum from one to
+one thousand rupees for one month, and for a quarter of a month at
+twelve per cent; tables of the squares of all numbers from one to
+one hundred, and a set of technical rules for finding the price of a
+part from the price of the whole. [129] The self-denial and tenacity
+which enable the Bania without capital to lay the foundations of a
+business are also remarkable. On first settling in a new locality, a
+Marwari Bania takes service with some shopkeeper, and by dint of the
+strictest economy puts together a little money. Then the new trader
+establishes himself in some village and begins to make grain advances
+to the cultivators on high rates of interest, though occasionally on
+bad security. He opens a shop and retails grain, pulses, condiments,
+spices, sugar and flour. From grain he gradually passes to selling
+cloth and lending money, and being keen and exacting, and having
+to deal with ignorant and illiterate clients, he acquires wealth;
+this he invests in purchasing villages, and after a time blossoms
+out into a big Seth or banker. The Bania can also start a retail
+business without capital. The way in which he does it is to buy
+a rupee's worth of stock in a town, and take it out early in the
+morning to a village, where he sits on the steps of the temple
+until he has sold it. Up till then he neither eats nor washes his
+face. He comes back in the evening after having eaten two or three
+pice worth of grain, and buys a fresh stock, which he takes out to
+another village in the morning. Thus he turns over his capital with
+a profit two or three times a week according to the saying, "If a
+Bania gets a rupee he will have an income of eight rupees a month,"
+or as another proverb pithily sums up the immigrant Marwari's career,
+'He comes with a _lota_ [130] and goes back with a lakh.' The Bania
+never writes off debts, even though his debtor may be a pauper, but
+goes on entering them up year by year in his account-books and taking
+the debtor's acknowledgment. For he says, '_Purus Parus_', or man is
+like the philosopher's stone, and his fortune may change any day.
+
+
+
+19. Dislike of the cultivators towards him.
+
+
+The cultivators rarely get fair treatment from the Banias, as the odds
+are too much against them. They must have money to sow their land, and
+live while the crops are growing, and the majority who have no capital
+are at the moneylender's mercy. He is of a different caste, and often
+of a different country, and has no fellow-feeling towards them, and
+therefore considers the transaction merely from the business point of
+view of getting as much profit as possible. The debtors are illiterate,
+often not even understanding the meaning of figures, or the result of
+paying compound interest at twenty-five or fifty per cent; they can
+neither keep accounts themselves nor check their creditor's. Hence
+they are entirely in his hands, and in the end their villages or land,
+if saleable, pass to him, and they decline from landlord to tenant,
+or from tenant to labourer. They have found vent for their feelings
+in some of the bitterest sayings ever current: 'A man who has a
+Bania for a friend has no need of an enemy.' 'Borrow from a Bania
+and you are as good as ruined.' 'The rogue cheats strangers and the
+Bania cheats his friends.' 'Kick a Bania even if he is dead.' "His
+heart, we are told, is no bigger than a coriander seed; he goes in
+like a needle and comes out like a sword; as a neighbour he is as
+bad as a boil in the armpit. If a Bania is on the other side of a
+river you should leave your bundle on this side for fear he should
+steal it. If a Bania is drowning you should not give him your hand;
+he is sure to have some pecuniary motive for drifting down-stream. A
+Bania will start an auction in a desert. If a Bania's son tumbles
+down he is sure to pick up something. He uses light weights and
+swears that the scales tip up of themselves; he keeps his accounts
+in a character that no one but God can read; if you borrow from him
+your debt mounts up like a refuse-heap or gallops like a horse; if
+he talks to a customer he debits the conversation in his accounts;
+and when his own credit is shaky he writes up his transactions on
+the wall so that they can easily be rubbed out." [131]
+
+
+
+20. His virtues.
+
+
+Nevertheless there is a good deal to be said on the other side,
+and the Bania's faults are probably to a large extent produced by
+his environment, like other people's. One of the Bania's virtues is
+that he will lend on security which neither the Government nor the
+banks would look at, or on none at all. Then he will always wait
+a long time for his money, especially if the interest is paid. No
+doubt this is no loss to him, as he keeps his money out at good
+interest; but it is a great convenience to a client that his debt
+can be postponed in a bad year, and that he can pay as much as he
+likes in a good one. The village moneylender is indispensable to
+its economy when the tenants are like school-boys in that money
+burns a hole in their pocket; and Sir Denzil Ibbetson states that
+it is surprising how much reasonableness and honesty there is in his
+dealings with the people, so long as he can keep his transactions out
+of a court of justice. [132] Similarly, Sir Reginald Craddock writes:
+"The village Bania is a much-abused individual, but he is as a rule a
+quiet, peaceable man, a necessary factor in the village economy. He
+is generally most forbearing with his clients and customers, and is
+not the person most responsible for the indebtedness of the ryot. It
+is the casual moneylender with little or no capital who lives by
+his wits, or the large firms with shops and agents scattered over
+the face of the country who work the serious mischief. These latter
+encourage the people to take loans and discourage repayment until the
+debt has increased by accumulation of interest to a sum from which
+the borrower cannot easily free himself." [133]
+
+
+
+21. The moneylender changed for the worse.
+
+
+The progress of administration, bringing with it easy and safe transit
+all over the country; the institution of a complete system of civil
+justice and the stringent enforcement of contracts through the courts;
+the introduction of cash coinage as the basis of all transactions;
+and the grant of proprietary and transferable rights in land,
+appear to have at the same time enhanced the Bania's prosperity
+and increased the harshness and rapacity of his dealings. When the
+moneylender lived in the village he had an interest in the solvency
+of the tenants who constituted his clientele and was also amenable
+to public opinion, even though not of his own caste. For it would
+clearly be an impossibly unpleasant position for him to meet no one
+but bitter enemies whenever he set foot outside his house, and to go
+to bed in nightly fear of being dacoited and murdered by a combination
+of his next-door neighbours. He therefore probably adopted the motto
+of live and let live, and conducted his transactions on a basis of
+custom, like the other traders and artisans who lived among the
+village community. But with the rise of the large banking-houses
+whose dealings are conducted through agents over considerable tracts
+of country, public opinion can no longer act. The agent looks mainly
+to his principal, and the latter has no interest in or regard for
+the cultivators of distant villages. He cares only for his profit,
+and his business is conducted with a single view to that end. He
+himself has no public opinion to face, as he lives in a town among a
+community of his caste-fellows, and here absolutely no discredit is
+attached to grinding the faces of the poor, but on the contrary the
+honour and consideration accruing to him are in direct proportion to
+his wealth. The agent may have some compunction, but his first aim is
+to please his principal, and as he is often a sojourner liable to early
+transfer he cares little what may be said or thought about him locally.
+
+
+
+22. The enforcement of contracts.
+
+
+Again the introduction of the English law of contract and transfer
+of property, and the increase in the habit of litigation have greatly
+altered the character of the money-lending business for the worse. The
+debtor signs a bond sometimes not even knowing the conditions,
+more often having heard them but without any clear idea of their
+effect or of the consequences to himself, and as readily allows it
+to be registered. When it comes into court the witnesses, who are
+the moneylender's creatures, easily prove that it was a genuine and
+_bona fide_ transaction, and the debtor is too ignorant and stupid
+to be able to show that he did not understand the bargain or that it
+was unconscionable. In any case the court has little or no power to
+go behind a properly executed contract without any actual evidence of
+fraud, and has no option but to decree it in terms of the deed. This
+evil is likely to be remedied very shortly, as the Government of
+India have announced a proposal to introduce the recent English Act
+and allow the courts the discretion to go behind contracts, and to
+refuse to decree exorbitant interest or other hard bargains. This
+urgently needed reform will, it may be hoped, greatly improve the
+character of the civil administration by encouraging the courts to
+realise that it is their business to do justice between litigants,
+and not merely to administer the letter of the law; and at the same
+time it should have the result, as in England, of quickening the public
+conscience and that of the moneylenders themselves, which has indeed
+already been to some extent awakened by other Government measures,
+including the example set by the Government itself as a creditor.
+
+
+
+23. Cash coinage and the rate of interest.
+
+
+Again the free circulation of metal currency and its adoption as a
+medium for all transactions has hitherto been to the disadvantage
+of the debtors. Interest on money was probably little in vogue among
+pastoral peoples, and was looked upon with disfavour, being prohibited
+by both the Mosaic and Muhammadan codes. The reason was perhaps that
+in a pastoral community there existed no means of making a profit
+on a loan by which interest could be paid, and hence the result of
+usury was that the debtor ultimately became enslaved to his creditor;
+and the enslavement of freemen on any considerable scale was against
+the public interest. With the introduction of agriculture a system of
+loans on interest became a necessary and useful part of the public
+economy, as a cultivator could borrow grain to sow land and support
+himself and his family until the crop ripened, out of which the
+loan, principal and interest, could be repaid. If, as seems likely,
+this was the first occasion for the introduction of the system
+of loan-giving on a large scale, it would follow that the rate of
+interest would be based largely on the return yielded by the earth
+to the seed. Support is afforded to this conjecture by the fact that
+in the case of grain loans in the Central Provinces the interest on
+loans of grain of the crops which yield a comparatively small return,
+such as wheat, is twenty-five to fifty per cent, while in the case
+of those which yield a large return, such as juari and kodon, it is
+one hundred per cent. These high rates of interest were not of much
+importance so long as the transaction was in grain. The grain was
+much less valuable at harvest than at seed time, and in addition the
+lender had the expense of storing and protecting his stock of grain
+through the year. It is probable that a rate of twenty-five per cent
+on grain loans does not yield more than a reasonable profit to the
+lender. But when in recent times cash came to be substituted for
+grain it would appear that there was no proportionate reduction in
+the interest. The borrower would lose by having to sell his grain for
+the payment of his debt at the most unfavourable rate after harvest,
+and since the transaction was by a regular deed the lender no longer
+took any share of the risk of a bad harvest, as it is probable that he
+was formerly accustomed to do. The rates of interest for cash loans
+afforded a disproportionate profit to the lender, who was put to no
+substantial expense in keeping money as he had formerly been in the
+case of grain. It is thus probable that rates for cash loans were for
+a considerable period unduly severe in proportion to the risk, and
+involved unmerited loss to the borrower. This is now being remedied
+by competition, by Government loans given on a large scale in time
+of scarcity, and by the introduction of co-operative credit. But it
+has probably contributed to expedite the transfer of land from the
+cultivating to the moneylending classes.
+
+
+
+24. Proprietary and transferable rights in land.
+
+
+Lastly the grant of proprietary and transferable right to
+land has afforded a new incentive and reward to the successful
+moneylender. Prior to this measure it is probable that no considerable
+transfers of land occurred for ordinary debt. The village headman might
+be ousted for non-payment of revenue, or simply through the greed of
+some Government official under native rule, and of course the villages
+were continually pillaged and plundered by their own and hostile armies
+such as the Pindaris, while the population was periodically decimated
+by famine. But apart from their losses by famine, war and the badness
+of the central government, it is probable that the cultivators were
+held to have a hereditary right to their land, and were not liable to
+ejectment on the suit of any private person. It is doubtful whether
+they had any conception of ownership of the land, and it seems likely
+that they may have thought of it as a god or the property of the god;
+but the cultivating castes perhaps had a hereditary right to cultivate
+it, just as the Chamar had a prescriptive right to the hides of the
+village cattle, the Kalar to the mahua-flowers for making his liquor,
+the Kumhar to clay for his pots, and the Teli to press the oil-seeds
+grown in his village. The inferior castes were not allowed to hold
+land, and it was probably never imagined that the village moneylender
+should by means of a piece of stamped paper be able to oust the
+cultivators indebted to him and take their land himself. With the
+grant of proprietary right to land such as existed in England, and the
+application of the English law of contract and transfer of property,
+a new and easy road to wealth was opened to the moneylender, of which
+he was not slow to take advantage. The Banias have thus ousted numbers
+of improvident proprietors of the cultivating castes, and many of them
+have become large landlords. A considerable degree of protection has
+now been afforded to landowners and cultivators, and the process has
+been checked, but that it should have proceeded so far is regrettable;
+and the operation of the law has been responsible for a large amount
+of unintentional injustice to the cultivating castes and especially
+to proprietors of aboriginal descent, who on account of their extreme
+ignorance and improvidence most readily fall a prey to the moneylender.
+
+
+
+25. The Bania as a landlord.
+
+
+As landlords the Banias were not at first a success. They did not
+care to spend money in improving their property, and ground their
+tenants to the utmost. Sir R. Craddock remarks of them: [134] "Great
+or small they are absolutely unfitted by their natural instincts to
+be landlords. Shrewdest of traders, most business-like in the matter
+of bargains, they are unable to take a broad view of the duties of
+landlord or to see that rack-renting will not pay in the long run."
+
+Still, under the influence of education, and the growth of moral
+feeling, as well as the desire to stand well with Government officers
+and to obtain recognition in the shape of some honour, many of
+the Marwari proprietors are developing into just and progressive
+landlords. But from the cultivator's point of view, residence on
+their estates, which are managed by agents in charge of a number
+of villages for an absent owner, cannot compare with the system of
+the small cultivating proprietor resident among tenants of his own
+caste, and bound to them by ties of sympathy and caste feeling,
+which produces, as described by Sir R. Craddock, the ideal village.
+
+
+
+26. Commercial honesty.
+
+
+As a trader the Bania formerly had a high standard of commercial
+probity. Even though he might show little kindliness or honesty in
+dealing with the poorer class of borrowers, he was respected and
+absolutely reliable in regard to money. It was not unusual for people
+to place their money in a rich Bania's hands without interest, even
+paying him a small sum for safe-keeping. Bankruptcy was considered
+disgraceful, and was visited with social penalties little less severe
+than those enforced for breaches of caste rules. There was a firm
+belief that a merchant's condition in the next world depended on the
+discharge of all claims against him. And the duty of paying ancestral
+debts was evaded only in the case of helpless or hopeless poverty. Of
+late, partly owing to the waning power of caste and religious feeling
+in the matter, and partly to the knowledge of the bankruptcy laws,
+the standard of commercial honour has greatly fallen. Since the
+case of bankruptcy is governed and arranged for by law, the trader
+thinks that so long as he can keep within the law he has done nothing
+wrong. A banker, when heavily involved, seldom scruples to become a
+bankrupt and to keep back money enough to enable him to start afresh,
+even if he does nothing worse. This, however, is probably a transitory
+phase, and the same thing has happened in England and America at one
+stage of commercial development. In time it may be expected that
+the loss of the old religious and caste feeling will be made good
+by a new standard of commercial honour enforced by public opinion
+among merchants generally. The Banias are very good to their own
+caste, and when a man is ruined will have a general subscription and
+provide funds to enable him to start afresh in a small way. Beggars
+are very rare in the caste. Rich Marwaris are extremely generous in
+their subscriptions to objects of public utility, but it is said that
+the small Bania is not very charitably inclined, though he doles out
+handfuls of grain to beggars with fair liberality. But he has a system
+by which he exacts from those who deal with him a slight percentage
+on the price received by them for religious purposes. This is called
+Deodan or a gift to God, and is supposed to go into some public fund
+for the construction or maintenance of a temple or similar object. In
+the absence of proper supervision or audit it is to be feared that the
+Bania inclines to make use of it for his private charity, thus saving
+himself expense on that score. The system has been investigated by
+Mr. Napier, Commissioner of Jubbulpore, with a view to the application
+of these funds to public improvements.
+
+
+
+Bania, Agarwala
+
+
+_Bania, Agarwala, Agarwal._--This is generally considered to be
+the highest and most important subdivision of the Banias. They
+numbered about 25,000 persons in the Central Provinces in 1911,
+being principally found in Jubbulpore and Nagpur. The name is probably
+derived from Agroha, a small town in the Hissar District of the Punjab,
+which was formerly of some commercial importance. Buchanan records that
+when any firm failed in the city each of the others contributed a brick
+and five rupees, which formed a stock sufficient for the merchant to
+recommence trade with advantage. The Agarwalas trace their descent
+from a Raja Agar Sen, whose seventeen sons married the seventeen
+daughters of Basuki, the king of the Nagas or snakes. Elliot considers
+that the snakes were really the Scythian or barbarian immigrants,
+the Yueh-chi or Kushans, from whom several of the Rajpat clans as the
+Tak, Haihayas and others, who also have the legend of snake ancestry,
+were probably derived. Elliot also remarks that Raja Agar Sen, being a
+king, must have been a Kshatriya, and thus according to the legend the
+Agarwalas would have Rajput ancestry on both sides. Their appearance,
+Mr. Crooke states, indicates good race and breeding, and would lend
+colour to the theory of a Rajput origin. Raja Agar Sen is said to have
+ruled over both Agra and Agroha, and it seems possible that the name
+of the Agarwalas may also be connected with Agra, which is a much
+more important place than Agroha. The country round Agra and Delhi
+is their home, and the shrine of the tutelary goddess of some of the
+Agarwalas in the Central Provinces is near Delhi. The memory of the
+Naga princess who was their ancestor is still, Sir H. Risley states,
+held in honour by the Agarwalas, and they say, 'Our mother's house is
+of the race of the snake.' [135] No Agarwala, whether Hindu or Jain,
+will kill or molest a snake, and the Vaishnava Agarwalas of Delhi
+paint pictures of snakes on either side of the outside doors of their
+houses, and make offerings of fruit and flowers before them.
+
+In the Central Provinces, like other Bania subcastes, they are
+divided into the Bisa and Dasa or twenty and ten subdivisions,
+which marry among themselves. The Bisa rank higher than the Dasa,
+the latter being considered to have some flaw in their pedigree,
+such as descent from a remarried widow. The Dasas are sometimes
+said to be the descendants of the maidservants who accompanied the
+seventeen Naga or snake princesses on their marriages to the sons of
+Raja Agar Sen. A third division has now come into existence in the
+Central Provinces, known as the Pacha or fives; these are apparently
+of still more doubtful origin than the Dasas. The divisions tend to
+be endogamous, but if a man of the Bisa or Dasa cannot obtain a wife
+from his own group he will sometimes marry in a lower group.
+
+The Agarwalas are divided into seventeen and a half _gotras_ or
+exogamous sections, which are supposed to be descended from the
+seventeen sons of Raja Agar Sen. The extra half _gotra_ is accounted
+for by a legend, but it probably has in reality also something to
+do with illegitimate descent. Some of the _gotras_, as given by
+Mr. Crooke, are as a matter of fact named after Brahmanical saints
+like those of the Brahmans; instances of these are Garga, Gautama,
+Kaushika, Kasyapa and Vasishtha; the others appear to be territorial
+or titular names. The prohibitions on marriage between relations are
+far-reaching among the Agarwalas. The detailed rules are given in
+the article on Bania, and the effect is that persons descended from
+a common ancestor cannot intermarry for five generations. When the
+wedding procession is about to start the Kumhar brings his donkey
+and the bridegroom has to touch it with his foot, or, according to
+one version, ride upon it. The origin of this custom is obscure, but
+the people now say that it is meant to emphasise the fact that the
+bridegroom is going to do a foolish thing. The remarriage of widows
+is prohibited, and divorce is not recognised. Most of the Agarwalas
+are Vaishnava by religion, but a few are Jains. Intermarriage between
+members of the two religions is permitted in some localities, and
+the wife adopts that of her husband. The Jain Agarwalas observe the
+Hindu festivals and employ Brahmans for their ceremonies. In Nimar
+the caste have some curious taboos. It is said that a married woman
+may not eat wheat until a child has been born to her, but only juari;
+and if she has no child she may not eat wheat all her life. If a son
+is born to her she must go to Mahaur, a village near Delhi where the
+tutelary goddess of the caste has her shrine. This goddess is called
+Mohna Devi, and she is the deified spirit of a woman who burnt herself
+with her husband. After this the woman may eat wheat; but if a second
+son is born she must stop eating wheat until she has been to the shrine
+again. But if she has a daughter she may at once and always eat wheat
+without visiting the shrine. These rules, as well as the veneration
+of a snake, from which they believe themselves to be descended on the
+mother's side, may perhaps, as suggested by Sir H. Risley, be a relic
+of the system of matriarchal descent. It is said that when Raja Agar
+Sen or his sons married the Naga princesses, he obtained permission
+as a special favour from the goddess Lakshmi that the children should
+bear their father's name and not their mother's. [136]
+
+In Nimar some Agarwalas worship Goba Pir, the god of the sweepers. He
+is represented by a pole some 30 feet long on which are hung a cloth
+and cocoanuts. The sweepers carry this through the city almost daily
+during the month of Shrawan (July), and people offer cocoanuts, tying
+them on to the pole. Some Agarwalas offer vermilion to the god in token
+of worship, and a few invite it to the compounds of their houses and
+keep it there all night for the same purpose. When a feast is given in
+the caste the Agarwalas do not take their own brass vessels according
+to the usual practice, but the host gives them little earthen pots
+to drink from which are afterwards broken, and leaf-plates for their
+food. The Agarwalas will take food cooked without water (_pakki_) from
+Oswal, Maheshri and Khandelwal Banias. The Agarwalas of the Central
+Provinces hold some substantial estates in Chhattisgarh; these were
+obtained at the first settlements during 1860-70, when considerable
+depression existed, and many of the village headmen were unwilling to
+accept the revenue assessed on their villages. The more enterprising
+Banias stepped in and took them, and have profited enormously owing to
+the increase in the value of land. Akbar's great minister, Todar Mal,
+who first introduced an assessment of the land-revenue based on the
+measurement and survey of the land, is said to have been an Agarwala.
+
+
+
+Bania, Agrahari
+
+
+_Bania, Agrahari._ [137]--This subcaste numbered nearly 2000 persons
+in 1911, resident principally in Jubbulpore, Raipur and Bilaspur,
+and some of the Feudatory States. Mr. Crooke states that they claim
+partly a Vaishya and partly a Brahmanical descent, and wear the sacred
+thread. Like that of the Agarwala Banias their name has been connected
+with the cities of Agra and Agroha. There is no doubt that they are
+closely connected with the Agarwalas, and Mr. Nesfield suggests that
+the two groups must have been sections of one and the same caste
+which quarrelled on some trifling matter connected with cooking or
+eating, and have remained separate ever since. The Agrahari Banias
+are Hindus, and some of them belong to the Nanakpanthi sect. They
+are principally dealers in provisions, and they have acquired some
+discredit as compared with their kinsfolk the Agarwalas, through
+not secluding their women and allowing them to attend the shop. They
+also retail various sweet-smelling woods which are used in religious
+ceremonies, such as aloe-wood and sandalwood, besides a number of
+medicines and simples. The richer members of the caste are bankers,
+dealers in grain and pawnbrokers.
+
+
+
+Bania, Ajudhiabasi
+
+
+_Bania, Ajudhiabasi, Audhia_.--A subcaste of Bania, whose name
+signifies a resident of Ajodhia, the old name of Oudh. Outsiders often
+shorten the name to Audhia, but, as will be seen, the name Audhia
+is regularly applied to a criminal class, who may have been derived
+from the Ajudhiabasi Banias, but are now quite distinct from them. The
+Ajudhiabasis numbered nearly 2000 persons in 1911, belonging chiefly
+to the Jubbulpore, Narsinghpur and Hoshangabad Districts. This total
+includes any persons who may have returned themselves as Audhia. The
+Ajudhiabasis are nearly all Hindus with a small Jain minority. Though
+Oudh was their original home they are now fairly numerous in Cawnpore
+and Bundelkhand as well, and it may have been from this last locality
+that they entered the Central Provinces. Here they form a separate
+endogamous group and do not marry with their caste-fellows in northern
+India. They have exogamous sections, and marriage is prohibited
+within the section and also between first cousins. They permit the
+remarriage of widows, but are said not to recognise divorce, and to
+expel from the caste a woman guilty of adultery. It may be doubted,
+however, whether this is correct. Brahmans serve as their priests,
+and they invest boys with the sacred thread either at marriage or at
+a special ceremony known as Gurmukh. The dead are either buried or
+burnt; in the case of burial men are laid on the face and women on
+the back, the body being first rubbed with salt, clarified butter,
+turmeric and milk. A little earth from the grave is carried away and
+thrown into a sacred river, and when the dead are burnt the ashes are
+similarly disposed of. Their principal deity is the goddess Devi,
+and at the Dasahra festival they offer a goat to her, the flesh of
+which is distributed among members of the caste.
+
+The Audhias are a well-known criminal tribe, whose headquarters is
+in the Fatehpur District. They say that they are Banias, and use the
+name Ajudhiabasi in speaking of themselves, and from their customs and
+criminal methods it seems not unlikely that they may originally have
+been an offshoot from the Ajudhiabasi Banias. They are now, however,
+perfectly distinct from this group, and any confusion between them
+would be very unjust to the latter. In northern India it is said that
+the Audhias deal largely in counterfeit coin and false jewellery, and
+never commit crimes of violence; [138] but in Bombay they have taken
+to housebreaking, though they usually select an empty house. [139]
+From their homes in the United Provinces they wander over Central
+India, the Central Provinces, Bengal and Bombay; they are said to
+avoid the Punjab and Sind owing to difficulties of working, and they
+have made it a caste offence to commit any crime in the Ganges-Jumna
+Doab, probably because this is their home. It is said also that if
+any one of them is imprisoned he is put out of caste. They wander
+about disguised as religious mendicants, Brahmans or Bairagis. They
+carry their bedding tied on their back with a cloth, and a large bag
+slung over the shoulders which contains food, cooking-vessels and
+other articles. Sometimes they pretend to be Banias and hawk about
+sweets and groceries, or one of the gang opens a shop, which serves
+as a rendezvous and centre for collecting information. [140] In the
+Districts where they reside they are perfectly well-behaved. They are
+well-to-do and to all appearance respectable in their habits. Their
+women are well-dressed with plenty of ornaments on their persons. They
+have no apparent means of support; they neither cultivate land
+nor trade; and all that appears on the surface is that most of the
+men and boys go off after the rains and return at the end of the
+cold weather. If asked how they support themselves they reply by
+begging. Their marriage rules are those of high-caste Hindus. They
+are divided into two classes, Unch or high and Nich or low, the
+former being of pure blood, and the latter the descendants of kept
+women. These are practically endogamous. A man may not have more than
+two wives. If a girl is detected in immorality before marriage, she
+is permanently excommunicated, and a married woman can be turned out
+by her husband on proof of adultery. A bridegroom-price is usually
+paid, the father of the bride visiting the bridegroom and giving
+him the money in secret. The dead are burnt, and Brahmans are duly
+fed. If a man has died through an accident or from cholera, smallpox,
+poison or leprosy, the corpse, if available, is at once consigned to
+the Ganges or other river, and during the course of the next twelve
+months a Mahabrahman is paid to make an image of the deceased in
+gram-flour, which is cremated with the usual rites. As in the case
+of the Ajudhiabasi Banias, the tribal deity of the Audhias is the
+goddess Devi. [141]
+
+
+
+Bania, Asathi
+
+
+_Bania, Asathi._--This subcaste numbers about 2500 persons in the
+Central Provinces, belonging principally to the Damoh and Jubbulpore
+Districts. They say that their original home was the Tikamgarh State
+in Bundelkhand. They do not rank very high, and are sometimes said
+to be the descendants of an Ahir who became a Bania. The great bulk
+are Hindus and a small minority Jains. It is told of the Asathis that
+they first bury their dead, in accordance presumably with a former
+practice, and then exhume and burn the bodies; and there is a saying--
+
+
+                Ardha jale, ardha gare
+                Jinka nam Asathi pare,
+
+
+or, 'He who is an Asathi is half buried and half burnt.' But this
+practice, if it ever really existed, has now been abandoned.
+
+
+
+Bania, Charnagri
+
+
+_Bania, Charnagri, Channagri, Samaiya._--The Charnagris are a small
+Jain subcaste which numbered about 2500 persons in 1911, residing
+principally in the Damoh and Chhindwara Districts. They are the
+followers of one Taran Swami, who is said to have lived about five
+centuries ago. He preached against the worship of the images of the
+Jain Tirthakars, and said that this should be abandoned and only
+the sacred books be revered. The chief sacred place of the sect
+is Malhargarh in Gwalior State; here the tomb of their prophet is
+situated and there is also a large temple in which the Jain scriptures
+are enshrined. In the month of Phagun (February) a fair is held here,
+and Charnagris dance in the temples, holding lighted lamps in their
+hands. Nowadays the Charnagris also visit the ordinary Jain temples
+when their own are not available. They are practically all derived from
+Parwar Banias, and formerly would sometimes give their daughters to
+Parwars in marriage, but this practice is said to have stopped. Like
+other Bania subcastes, they are divided into Bisa and Dasa, or twenty
+and ten sections, the Dasa being of irregular descent. Intermarriage
+between the two sections occasionally occurs, and the Dasa will take
+food from the Bisa section, but the latter do not reciprocate except
+at caste feasts.
+
+
+
+Bania, Dhusar
+
+
+_Bania, Dhusar, Bhargava Dhusar._--The origin of this group is much
+disputed. They are usually classed as a subcaste of Bania, but claim
+to be Brahmans. They take their name from a hill called Dhusi or
+Dhosi, near Narnaul on the border of Alwar State. The title Bhargava
+signifies a descendant of Bhrigu, one of the famous eponymous Rishis
+or Brahmanical saints, to whom Manu confided his institutes, calling
+him his son. If this was their original name, it would show that they
+were Brahmans, but its adoption appears to be somewhat recent. Their
+claim to be Brahmans is, however, admitted by many members of that
+caste, and it is stated that they perform the functions of Brahmans
+in their original home in Rajputana. Mr. Burn wrote of them: [142]
+"In his book on castes published in 1872 Mr. Sherring does not refer to
+any claim to kinship with Brahmans, though in his description of Dhusar
+Banias he appears to include the people under consideration. Both the
+Dhusar Bhargavas and Dhusar Banias assert that Himu, the capable Vazir
+of Muhammad Shah Suri, belonged to their community, and such a claim
+by the former is if anything in favour of the view that they are not
+Brahmans, since Himu is variously described by Muhammadan writers as
+a corn-chandler, a weighman and a Bania. Colonel Dow in his history
+of Hindustan calls him a shopkeeper who was raised by Sher Shah to be
+Superintendent of Markets. It is not improbable that Himu's success
+laid the foundation for a claim to a higher position, but the matter
+does not admit of absolute proof, and I have therefore accepted the
+decision of the majority of the caste-committees and considered them
+as a caste allied to Brahmans." In the Punjab the Dhusars appear to be
+in some places Brahmans and in others Banias. "They take their food
+before morning prayer, contrary to the Hindu rule, but of late years
+they have begun to conform to the orthodox practice. The Brahman
+Dhusar marries with his caste-fellows and the Bania with Banias,
+avoiding always the same family (_gotra_) or one having the same
+family deity." [143] From the above accounts it would appear that
+the Dhusars may have originally been a class of Brahmans who took
+to trade, like the Palliwal Brahmans of Marwar, and have lost their
+position as Brahmans and become amalgamated with the Bania caste;
+or they may have been Banias, who acted as priests to others of the
+community, and hence claimed to be Brahmans. The caste is important and
+influential, and is now making every effort to recover or substantiate
+its Brahman status. One writer states that they combine the office
+aptitude and hard-heartedness to a debtor characteristic of the
+Bania. The Dhusars are rigid in the maintenance of the purity of
+their order and in the performance of Hindu ceremonies and duties,
+and neither eat meat nor drink any kind of spirit. In Delhi they
+were distinguished for their talent as singers, and cultivated a
+peculiar strain or measure, in which they were unsurpassed. [144]
+In the Central Provinces the Dhusars are a flourishing body, their
+leaders being Rai Bahadur Bihari Lal Khizanchi of Jubbulpore and Rai
+Sahib Seth Sundar Lal of Betul. They have founded the Bhargava bank
+of Jubbulpore, and shown considerable public spirit; to the latter
+gentleman's generosity a large part of the success of the recent
+debt-conciliation proceedings in the Betul District must be attributed.
+
+
+
+Bania, Dosar
+
+
+_Bania, Dosar, Dusra._ [145]--This subcaste numbers about 600
+persons. The original name is Dusra or second, and the Dosar or Dusra
+are a section of the Ummar Banias, who were so called because they
+permit widows to make a second marriage. Their home is the Ganges-Jumna
+Doab and Oudh, and in the United Provinces they are classed as an
+inferior subcaste of the Ummars. Here they say that the Ummars are
+their elder brothers. In the Central Provinces they are said to be
+forming three local endogamous groups according as their homes were in
+the Doab, Oudh or the Allahabad country; and members of each of these
+marry among themselves. The Dosars say that they all belong to the
+Kashyap [146] _gotra_ or clan, but for the purpose of marriage they
+have territorial or titular exogamous sections; instances of these are
+Gangapari, a native of Oudh; Sagarah, a resident of Saugor; Makraha,
+a seller of _makka_ or maize, and Tamakhuha, a tobacco-seller. They
+pay a bridegroom-price, the full recognised amount of which is Rs. 211,
+either in cash or brass cooking-vessels. Those who cannot afford this
+sum give half of it or Rs. 105, and the poorest classes pay anything
+they can afford. The Dosars are Vaishnava Hindus and employ Sanadhya
+Brahmans as their priests. These Brahmans will take food without
+water from their clients, but they are an inferior class and are
+looked down upon by other Brahmans. The caste are mainly shopkeepers,
+and they deal in gold and silver ornaments, as well as grain, tobacco
+and all kinds of groceries.
+
+
+
+Bania, Gahoi
+
+
+_Bania, Gahoi._ [147]--This Hindu subcaste numbered nearly 7000
+persons in 1911, belonging principally to the Saugor, Jubbulpore and
+Narsinghpur Districts. Their home is the Bundelkhand country, which
+these Districts adjoin, and they say that their original headquarters
+was at Kharagpur in Bundelkhand, whence they have spread over the
+surrounding country. They tell a curious story of their origin to the
+effect that once upon a time there was a certain schoolmaster, one
+Biya Pande Brahman, who could foretell the future. One day he was in
+his school with his boys when he foresaw that there was about to be an
+earthquake. He immediately warned his boys to get out of the building,
+and himself led the way. Only twelve of the boys had followed, and the
+others were still hesitating, when the earthquake began, the school
+fell in, and they were all buried in the ruins. The schoolmaster
+formed the boys who had escaped into one caste, calling them Gahoi,
+which is supposed to mean that which is left or the residue; and he
+determined that he and his descendants would be the priests of the
+new caste. At the weddings of the Gahois an image of the schoolmaster
+is painted on the house wall, and the bridegroom worships it with
+offerings of butter and flowers. The story indicates clearly that
+the Gahois are of mixed descent from several castes.
+
+The subcaste has twelve _gotras_ or sections, and seventy-two _al_
+or _anken_, which are subsections of the _gotras_. Several of the
+_al_ names appear to be of a titular or totemistic character, as Mor
+peacock, Sohania beautiful, Nagaria a drummer, Paharia a hillman,
+Matele the name of a village headman in Bundelkhand, Piparvania from
+the pipal tree, Dadaria a singer. The rule of exogamy is said to be
+that a man must not marry in his own _gotra_ nor in the _al_ of his
+mother or either grandmother. [148] Their weddings are held only at
+the bride's house, no ceremonies being performed at the bridegroom's;
+at the ceremony the bridegroom stands in the centre of the shed by
+the marriage-post and the bride walks seven times round him. At their
+weddings the Gahois still use the old rupees of the Nagpur kingdom for
+presents and payments to menials, and they hoard them up, when they
+can get them, for this special purpose. The rupee is sacred with the
+Bania, and this is an instance of the preservation of old accessories
+for religious ceremonies when they have been superseded in ordinary
+use. Polygamy is permitted, but is rare. The Gahois employ Bhargava
+Brahmans for their priests, and these are presumably the descendants
+of the schoolmaster who founded the caste. At the thirteenth-day feast
+after a death the Brahmans must be fed first before the members of the
+caste. On this occasion thirteen brass or earthen vessels are filled
+with flour, and a piece of money, and presented to thirteen Brahmans,
+while the family priest receives a bed and piece of cloth. The priests
+are said to be greedy, and to raise quarrels over the value of the
+presents given to them. At the Diwali festival the Gahois worship the
+implements of their trade, pen and ink, and their account-books. The
+Gahois are Vaishnava Hindus, and abstain from all flesh and alcoholic
+liquor. They trade in grain and groceries, and are bankers and
+moneylenders. They are considered to be cunning in business, and a
+proverb says that a Gahoi will deceive even his own father.
+
+
+
+Bania, Golapurab
+
+
+_Bania, Golapurab, Golahre._--This Jain subcaste numbers about 6000
+persons in the Central Provinces, and belongs mainly to the Saugor,
+Damoh and Narsinghpur Districts. Its distribution is nearly the
+same as that of the Gahois, and it is probably also a Bundelkhand
+group. The Golapurabs are practically all Digambari Jains with a small
+Hindu minority. In some localities they intermarry with Parwar Banias
+who are also Digambari Jains; and they will take food cooked without
+water from the Nema subcaste who are Hindus. According to one story
+the Golapurabs were the offspring of a Purabia, that is probably a
+Bais Rajput, by a kept woman of the Ahir caste. This fits in very
+well with the name, as Golak means a bastard, and the termination
+_purab_ would be from Purabia; but it is probably the name which has
+given rise to the story, or at any rate to the supposed descent from
+a Purabia. In the United Provinces a small subcaste of Bania called
+Golahre exists, belonging to the Jhansi District, that is the country
+of the Golapurabs, and Jain by religion. There is no doubt that this
+group is the same as the Golapurabs, and Mr. Crooke derives [149]
+the name from _gola_, a grain-mart, which seems more probable than
+the derivation suggested above. But it is an interesting fact that
+there is also a caste of cultivators called Golapurab in the United
+Provinces, found only in the Agra District. It is suggested that
+these people are the illegitimate offspring of Sanadhya Brahmans,
+with whom they appear to be closely connected. From their sept-names,
+however, which include those of several Rajput clans and also some
+titular terms of a low-caste type, Mr. Crooke thinks their Brahmanical
+origin improbable. It is noticeable that these Golapurabs though a
+cultivating caste have, like the Banias, a subcaste called Dasa,
+comprising persons of irregular descent; they also prohibit the
+remarriage of widows, and abstain from all flesh and from onions and
+garlic. Such customs are peculiar in a cultivating caste, and resemble
+those of Banias. It seems possible that a detailed investigation
+might give ground for supposing that both the Golahre and Golapurab
+subcastes of Banias in the United and Central Provinces respectively
+are connected with this cultivating caste of Golapurabs. The latter
+might have abandoned the Jain religion on taking to cultivation,
+as a Jain cannot well drive the plough, which involves destruction
+of animal life; or the Bania section might have adopted Jainism in
+order to obtain a better social position and differentiate themselves
+from the cultivators. Unfortunately no detailed information about
+the Golapurabs of the Central Provinces is available, from which the
+probability or otherwise of this hypothesis could be tested.
+
+
+
+Bania, Kasarwani
+
+
+_Bania, Kasarwani_. [150]--This Hindu subcaste numbers about 6500
+persons in the Central Provinces, who belong mainly to Saugor,
+Jubbulpore and the three Chhattisgarh Districts. The name is probably
+derived from _kansa_, bell-metal, as these Banias retail brass and
+bell-metal vessels. The Kasarwanis may therefore not improbably
+be an occupational group formed from persons who engaged in the
+trade, and in that case they may be wholly or partly derived from
+the Kasars and Tameras, the castes which work in brass, copper and
+bell-metal. The Kasarwanis are numerous in Allahabad and Mirzapur,
+and they may have come to Chhattisgarh from Mirzapur, attracted by the
+bell-metal industries in Ratanpur and Drug. In Saugor and also in the
+United Provinces they say that they came from Kara Manikpur several
+generations ago. If the selling of metal vessels was their original
+calling, many, or the majority of them, have now abandoned it, and
+deal in grain and groceries, and lend money like other Banias. The
+Kasarwanis do not observe the same standard of strictness as the good
+Bania subcastes in their social rules. They eat the flesh of goats,
+sheep, birds and fish, though they abstain from liquor. They permit the
+remarriage of widows and divorce; and women who have been divorced can
+marry again in the caste by the same rite as widows. They also allow
+the exchange of girls in marriage between two families. They do not as
+a rule wear the sacred thread. Their priests are Sarwaria Brahmans,
+and these Brahmans and a few Bania subcastes, such as the Agarwalas,
+Umres and Gahois, can take food cooked without water from them, but
+other Brahmans and Rajputs will not take any kind of food. Matches
+are arranged in the presence of the head of the caste _panchayat_,
+who is known as Chaudhri. The parents on each side give their consent,
+and in pledge of it six pice (farthings) are taken from both of them,
+mixed together and given to their family priests and barbers, four
+pice to the priests and two to the barbers. The following is a local
+derivation of the name; the word _kasar_ means more or the increase,
+and _bhata_ means less; and _Hamara kya kasar bhata?_ means 'How
+does my account stand?' Hence Kasarbani is one who keeps accounts,
+that is a Bania.
+
+
+
+Bania, Kasaundhan
+
+
+_Bania, Kasaundhan._--This subcaste numbers about 5500 persons in the
+Central Provinces and is returned principally from the Bilaspur, Raipur
+and Jubbulpore Districts. The name is derived [151] by Mr. Crooke from
+_kansa_, bell-metal, and _dhana_, wealth, and it would appear that the
+Kasaundhans like the Kasarwanis are an occupational group, made up of
+shopkeepers who dealt in metal vessels. Like them also the Kasaundhans
+may have originally been constituted from the metal-working castes,
+and indeed they may be only a local branch of the Kasarwanis, though no
+information is available which would decide this point. In the United
+Provinces both the Kasarwanis and Kasaundhans are divided into the
+Purbia or eastern and Pachhaiyan or western subcastes. Dharam Das,
+the great disciple of Kabir, who founded the Kabirpanthi sect in the
+Central Provinces, was a Kasaundhan Bania, and the Kabirpanthi Mahants
+or high-priests of Kawardha are of this caste. It is probable that a
+good many of the Kasaundhan Banias in Bilaspur and Raipur belong to
+the Kabirpanthi sect. The remainder are ordinary Hindus.
+
+
+
+Bania, Khandelwal
+
+
+_Bania, Khandelwal._--This subcaste numbers about 1500 persons in
+the Central Provinces; they are most numerous in the Hoshangabad and
+Amraoti Districts, but are scattered all over the Province. They take
+their name from the town of Khandela in the Jaipur State of Rajputana,
+which was formerly the capital of the Shekhawati federation. There is
+also a Khandelwal subcaste of the Brahman caste, found in the United
+Provinces. [152] Mr. Bhattacharya says of them: [153] "The Khandelwal
+Banias are not inferior to any other division of the caste either in
+wealth or refinement. There are both Vaishnavites and Jains among
+them, and the Vaishnavite Khandelwals wear the sacred thread. The
+millionaire Seths of Mathura are Khandelwal Banias."
+
+
+
+Bania, Lad
+
+
+_Bania, Lad._--This subcaste numbers about 5000 persons in the
+Central Provinces, being settled in Nimar, Nagpur and all the Berar
+Districts. The Lad Banias came from Gujarat, and Lad is derived from
+Lat-desh, the old name for Gujarat. Like other Banias they are divided
+into the Bisa and Dasa groups or twenties and tens, the Dasa being
+of irregular descent. Their family priests are Khedawal Brahmans,
+and their caste deity is Ashapuri of Ashnai, near Petlad. Lad women,
+especially those of Baroda, are noted for their taste in dress. The
+Lad Banias are Hindus of the Vallabhacharya sect, who worship Krishna,
+and were formerly addicted to sexual indulgence. [154]
+
+
+
+Bania, Lingayat
+
+
+_Bania, Lingayat._--The Lingayat Banias number nearly 8000 persons in
+the Central Provinces, being numerous in Wardha, Nagpur and all the
+Berar Districts. A brief account of the Lingayat sect has been given
+in a separate article. The Lingayat Banias form a separate endogamous
+group, and they do not eat or intermarry either with other Banias or
+with members of other castes belonging to the Lingayat sect. But they
+retain the name and occupation of Banias. They have five subdivisions,
+Pancham, Dikshawant, Chilliwant, Takalkar and Kanade. The Pancham or
+Panchamsalis are the descendants of the original Brahman converts
+to the Lingayat sect. They are the main body of the community
+and are initiated by what is known as the eight-fold sacrament or
+_eshta-varna_. The Dikshawant, from _diksha_ or initiation, are a
+subdivision of the Panchamsalis, who apparently initiate disciples
+like the Dikshit Brahmans. The Takalkar are said to take their name
+from a forest called Takali, where their first ancestress bore a
+child to the god Siva. The Kanade are from Canara. The meaning of
+the term Chilliwant is not known; it is said that a member of this
+subcaste will throw away his food or water if it is seen by any one
+who is not a Lingayat, and they shave the whole head. The above form
+endogamous subcastes. The Lingayat Banias also have exogamous groups,
+the names of which are mainly titular, of a low-caste type. Instances
+of them are Kaode, from _kawa_ a crow, Teli an oil-seller, Thubri a
+dwarf, Ubadkar an incendiary, Gudkari a sugar-seller and Dhamankar
+from Dhamangaon. They say that the _maths_ or exogamous groups are no
+longer regarded, and that marriage is now prohibited between persons
+having the same surname. It is stated that if a girl is not married
+before adolescence she is finally expelled from the caste, but this
+rule has probably become obsolete. The proposal for marriage comes
+from either the boy's or girl's party, and sometimes the bridegroom
+receives a small sum for his travelling expenses, while at other times
+a bride-price is paid. At the wedding, rice coloured red is put in
+the hands of the bridegroom and juari coloured yellow in those of the
+bride. The bridegroom places the rice on the bride's head and she lays
+the juari at his feet. A dish full of water with a golden ring in it is
+put between them, and they lay their hands on the ring together under
+the water and walk five times round a decorative little marriage-shed
+erected inside the real one. A feast is given, and the bridal couple
+sit on a little dais and eat out of the same dish. The remarriage of
+widows is permitted, but the widow may not marry a man belonging to
+the section either of her first husband or of her father. Divorce is
+recognised. The Lingayats bury the dead in a sitting posture with
+the _lingam_ or emblem of Siva, which has never left the dead man
+during his lifetime, clasped in his right hand. Sometimes a platform
+is made over the grave with an image of Siva. They do not shave the
+head in token of mourning. Their principal festival is Shivratri or
+Siva's night, when they offer the leaves of the bel tree and ashes
+to the god. A Lingayat must never be without the _lingam_ or phallic
+sign of Siva, which is carried slung round the neck in a little
+case of silver, copper or brass. If he loses it, he must not eat,
+drink nor smoke until he finds it or obtains another. The Lingayats
+do not employ Brahmans for any purpose, but are served by their own
+priests, the Jangams, [155] who are recruited both by descent and by
+initiation from members of the Pancham group. The Lingayat Banias are
+practically all immigrants from the Telugu country; they have Telugu
+names and speak this language in their homes. They deal in grain,
+cloth, groceries and spices.
+
+
+
+Bania, Maheshri
+
+
+_Bania, Maheshri._--This important subcaste of Banias numbered
+about 14,000 persons in the Central Provinces in 1911, of whom 8000
+belonged to the Berar Districts, and the remainder principally to
+Hoshangabad, Nimar, Wardha and Nagpur. The name is said to be derived
+from Maheshwar, an ancient town on the Nerbudda, near Indore, and one
+of the earliest Rajput settlements. But some of them say that their
+original home is in Bikanir, and tell a story to the effect that their
+ancestor was a Raja who was turned into stone with his seventy-two
+followers by some ascetics whose devotions they had interrupted in
+the forest. But when their wives came to commit _sati_ by the stone
+figures the god Siva intervened and brought them to life again. He
+told them to give up the profession of arms and take to trade. So the
+seventy-two followers were the ancestors of the seventy-two _gotras_
+or sections of the Maheshris, and the Raja became their tribal
+_Bhat_ or genealogist, and they were called Maheshri or Maheswari,
+from Mahesh, a name of Siva. In Gujarat the term Maheshri or Meshri
+appears to be used for all Banias who are not Jains, including the
+other important Hindu subcastes. [156] This is somewhat peculiar,
+and perhaps tends to show that several of the local subcastes are
+of recent formation. But though they profess to be named after Siva,
+the Maheshris, like practically all other Hindu Banias, are Vaishnava
+by sect, and wear the _kunti_ or necklace of beads of basil. A small
+minority are Jains. It is to be noticed that both the place of their
+origin, an early Rajput settlement of the Yadava clan, and their own
+legend tend to show that they were derived from the Rajput caste;
+for as their ancestors were attendants on a Raja and followed the
+profession of arms, which they were told to abandon, they could be
+none other than Rajputs. The Maheshris also have the Rajput custom of
+sending a cocoanut as a symbol of a proposal of marriage. In Nimar the
+Maheshri Banias say they belong to the Dhakar subcaste, a name which
+usually means illegitimate, though they themselves explain that it is
+derived from a place called Dhakargarh, from which they migrated. As
+already stated they are divided into seventy-two exogamous clans,
+the names of which appear to be titular or territorial. It is said
+that at their weddings when the bridegroom gets to the door of the
+marriage-shed, the bride's mother ties a scarf round his neck and
+takes hold of his nose and drags him into the shed. Sometimes they make
+the bridegroom kneel down and pay reverence to a shoe as a joke. They
+do not observe the custom of the _pangat_ or formal festal assembly,
+which is usual among Hindu castes; according to this, none can begin
+to eat until all the guests have assembled, when they all sit down at
+once. Among the Maheshris the guests sit down as they come in, and are
+served and take their food and go. They only have the _pangat_ feast
+on very rare occasions. The Maheshris are one of the richest, most
+enterprising and influential classes of Banias. They are intelligent,
+of high-bred appearance, cleanly habits and courteous manners. The
+great bankers, Sir Kasturchand Daga of Kamptee, of the firm of Bansi
+Lal Abirchand, and Rai Bahadur Seth Jiwan Das and Diwan Bahadur Seth
+Ballabh Das, of Jubbulpore, belong to this subcaste.
+
+
+
+Bania, Nema
+
+
+_Bania, Nema._--This subcaste numbers nearly 4000 persons, the bulk of
+whom reside in the Saugor, Damoh, Narsinghpur and Seoni Districts. The
+Nemas are most largely returned from Central India, and are probably
+a Bundelkhand group; they will eat food cooked without water with
+Golapurab Banias, who are also found in Bundelkhand. They are
+mainly Hindus, with a small minority of Jains. The origin of the
+name is obscure; the suggestion that it comes from Nimar appears
+to be untenable, as there are very few Nemas in that District. They
+say that when Parasurama was slaying the Kshatriyas fourteen young
+Rajput princes, who at the time were studying religion with their
+family priests, were saved by the latter on renouncing their Kshatriya
+status and declaring themselves to be Vaishyas. These fourteen princes
+were the ancestors of the fourteen _gotras_ of the Nema subcaste,
+but the _gotras_ actually bear the names of the fourteen Rishis or
+saints who saved their lives. These sections appear to be of the
+usual Brahmanical type, but marriage is regulated by another set of
+fifty-two subsections, with names which are apparently titular or
+territorial. Like other Bania groups the Nemas are divided into Bisa
+and Dasa subdivisions or twenties and tens, the Bisa being of pure
+and the Dasa of irregular descent. There is also a third group of
+Pacha or fives, who appear to be the offspring of kept women. After
+some generations, when the details of their ancestry are forgotten,
+the Pachas probably obtain promotion into the Dasa group. The Bisa
+and Dasa groups take food together, but do not intermarry. The
+Nemas wear the sacred thread and apparently prohibit the remarriage
+of widows. The Nemas are considered to be very keen business men,
+and a saying about them is, "Where a sheep grazes or a Nema trades,
+what is there left for anybody else?"
+
+
+
+Bania, Oswal
+
+
+_Bania, Oswal._--This is perhaps the most important subdivision of the
+Banias after the Agarwala. The Oswals numbered nearly 10,000 persons
+in the Central Provinces in 1911, being found in considerable numbers
+in all the Berar Districts, and also in Nimar, Wardha and Raipur. The
+name is derived from the town of Osia or Osnagar in Marwar. According
+to one legend of their origin the Raja of Osnagar had no son, and
+obtained one through the promise of a Jain ascetic. The people then
+drove the ascetic from the town, fearing that the Raja would become a
+Jain; but Osadev, the guardian goddess of the place, told the ascetic,
+Sri Ratan Suri, to convert the Raja by a miracle. So she took a small
+hank (_puni_) of cotton and passed it along the back of the saint,
+when it immediately became a snake and bit Jaichand, the son of the
+Raja, in the toe, while he was asleep beside his wife. Every means
+was tried to save his life, but he died. As his corpse was about
+to be burnt, the ascetic sent one of his disciples and stopped the
+cremation. Then the Raja came with the body of his son and stood
+with hands clasped before the saint. He ordered that it was to be
+taken back to the place where the prince had been bitten, and that
+the princess was to lie down beside it as before. At midnight the
+snake returned and licked the bite, when the prince was restored to
+life. Then the Raja, with all his Court and people, became a Jain. He
+and his family founded the _gotra_ or section now known as Sri Srimal
+or most noble; his servants formed that known as Srimal or excellent,
+while the other Rajputs of the town became ordinary Oswals. When the
+Brahmans of the place heard of these conversions they asked the saint
+how they were to live, as all their clients had become Jains. The
+saint directed that they should continue to be the family priests
+of the Oswals and be known as Bhojak or 'eaters.' Thus the Oswals,
+though Jains, continue to employ Marwari Brahmans as their family
+priests. Another version of the story is that the king of Srimali
+[157] allowed no one who was not a millionaire to live within his city
+walls. In consequence of this a large number of persons left Srimal,
+and, settling in Mandovad, called it Osa or the frontier. Among them
+were Srimali Banias and also Bhatti, Chauhan, Gahlot, Gaur, Yadava,
+and several other clans of Rajputs, and these were the people who
+were subsequently converted by the Jain ascetic, Sri Ratan Suri,
+and formed into the single caste of Oswal. [158] Finally, Colonel
+Tod states that the Oswals are all of pure Rajput descent, of no
+single tribe, but chiefly Panwars, Solankis and Bhattis. [159] From
+these legends and the fact that their headquarters are in Rajputana,
+it may safely be concluded that the Oswal Banias are of Rajput origin.
+
+The large majority of the Oswals are Jain by religion, but a few are
+Vaishnava Hindus. Intermarriage between the Hindu and Jain sections is
+permitted. Like the Agarwalas, the Oswals are divided into Bisa, Dasa
+and Pacha sections or twenties, tens and fives, according to the purity
+of their lineage. The Pacha subcaste still permit the remarriage of
+widows. The three groups take food together but do not intermarry. In
+Bombay, Dasa Oswals intermarry with the Dasa groups of Srimali and
+Parwar Banias, [160] and Oswals generally can marry with other good
+Bania subcastes so long as both parties are Jains. The Oswals are
+divided into eighty-four _gotras_ or exogamous sections for purposes
+of marriage, a list of which is given by Mr. Crooke. [161] Most of
+these cannot be recognised, but a few of them seem to be titular, as
+Lorha a caste which grows hemp, Nunia a salt-refiner, Seth a banker,
+Daftari an office-boy, Vaid a physician, Bhandari a cook, and Kukara
+a dog. These may indicate a certain amount of admixture of foreign
+elements in the caste. As stated from Benares, the exogamous rule
+is that a man cannot marry in his own section, and he cannot marry a
+girl whose father's or mother's section is the same as that of either
+his father or mother. This would bar the marriage of first cousins.
+
+Though Jains the Oswals perform their weddings by walking round the
+sacred fire and observe certain Hindu rites, including the worship
+of the god Ganpati. [162] They also revere other Hindu deities and
+the sun and moon. The dead are burnt, but they do not observe any
+impurity after a death nor clean the house. On the day after the
+death the mourning family, both men and women, visit Parasnath's
+temple, and lay one seer (2 lbs.) of Indian millet before the god,
+bow to him and go home. They do not gather the ashes of the dead nor
+keep the yearly death-day. Their only observance is that on some
+day between the twelfth day after a death and the end of a year,
+the caste-people are treated to a dinner of sweetmeats and the dead
+'are then forgotten.' [163] The Oswals will take food cooked with
+water (_katchi_) only from Brahmans, and that cooked without water
+(_pakki_) from Agarwala and Maheshri Banias. In the Central Provinces
+the principal deity of the Oswals is the Jain Tirthakar Parasnath,
+and they spend large sums in the erection of splendid temples. The
+Oswals are the most prominent trading caste in Rajputana; and they
+have also frequently held high offices, such as Diwan or minister,
+and paymaster in Rajput States. [164]
+
+
+
+Bania, Parwar
+
+
+
+1. Origin.
+
+
+_Bania, Parwar._ [165]--This Jain subcaste numbered nearly 29,000
+persons in 1911. They belong almost entirely to the Jubbulpore
+and Nerbudda Divisions, and the great bulk are found in the Saugor,
+Damoh and Jubbulpore Districts. The origin of the Parwars and of their
+name is not known, but there is some reason to suppose that they are
+from Rajputana. Their women wear on the head the _bij_, a Rajputana
+ornament, and use the _charu_, a deep brass plate for drinking, which
+also belongs there. Their songs are said to be in the Rajasthani
+dialect. It seems likely that the Parwars may be identical with the
+Porawal subcaste found in other Provinces, which, judging from the
+name, may belong to Rajputana. In the northern Districts the Parwars
+speak Bundeli, but in the south their language is said to be Marwari.
+
+
+
+2. Subdivisions.
+
+
+Among the Parwars the Samaiya or Channagri form a separate sectarian
+Jain group. They do not worship the images of the Jain Tirthakars,
+but enshrine the sacred books of the Jains in their temples, and
+worship these. The Parwars will take daughters in marriage from the
+Channagris, and sometimes give their daughters in consideration of
+a substantial bride-price. Among the Parwars themselves there is a
+social division between the Ath Sake and the Chao Sake; the former
+will not permit the marriage of persons related more nearly than
+eight degrees, while the latter permit it after four degrees. The
+Ath Sake have the higher position, and if one of them marries a Chao
+Sake he is degraded to that group. Besides this the Parwars have an
+inferior division called Benaikia, which consists of the offspring of
+irregular unions and of widows who have remarried. Persons who have
+committed a caste offence and cannot pay the fine imposed on them for
+it also go into this subcaste. The Benaikias [166] themselves are
+distributed into four groups of varying degrees of respectability,
+and families who live correctly and marry as well as they can tend
+to rise from one to the other until after several generations they
+may again be recognised as Parwars proper.
+
+
+
+3. Exogamy.
+
+
+The Parwars have twelve _gotras_ or main sections, and each _gotra_
+has, or is supposed to have, twelve _muls_ or subsections. A Parwar
+must not marry in his own _gotra_ nor in the _mul_ of his mother, or
+any of his grandmothers or greatgrandmothers. This practically bars
+marriage within seven degrees of relationship. But a man's sister and
+daughter may be married in the same family, and even to two brothers,
+and a man can marry two sisters.
+
+
+
+4. Marriage customs.
+
+
+As a rule no bride-price is paid, but occasionally an old man
+desiring a wife will give something substantial to her father in
+secret. There are two forms of marriage, called Thinga and Dajanha;
+in the former, women do not accompany the wedding procession, and they
+have a separate marriage-shed at the bridegroom's house for their own
+celebrations; while in the latter, they accompany it and erect such
+a shed at the house in the bridegroom's village or town where they
+have their lodging. Before the wedding, the bridegroom, mounted on
+a horse, and the bride, carried in a litter, proceed together round
+the marriage-shed. The bridegroom then stands by the sacred post in
+the centre and the bride walks seven times round him. In the evening
+there was a custom of dressing the principal male relatives of the
+bridegroom in women's clothes and making them dance, but this is now
+being discarded. On the fifth day is held a rite called Palkachar. A
+new cot is provided by the bride's father, and on it is spread a red
+cloth. The couple are seated on this with their hands entwined, and
+their relations come and make them presents. If the bridegroom catches
+hold of the dress of his mother- or father-in-law, they are expected
+to make him a handsome present. In other respects the wedding follows
+the ordinary Hindu ritual. Widow-marriage and divorce are forbidden
+among the Parwars proper, and those who practise them go into the
+lower Benaikia group.
+
+
+
+5. Religion: Hindu observances.
+
+
+The Parwars are practically all Jains of the Digambari sect. They
+build costly and beautiful temples for their Tirthakars, especially for
+their favourite Parasnath. They have also many Hindu practices. They
+observe the Diwali, Rakshabandhan and Holi festivals; they say that
+at the Diwali the last Tirthakar Mahavira attained beatitude and the
+gods rained down jewels; the little lamps now lighted at Diwali are
+held to be symbolic of these jewels. They tie the threads round the
+wrist on Rakshabandhan to keep off evil spirits. They worship Sitala
+Devi, the Hindu goddess of smallpox, and employ Brahmans to choose
+names for their children and fix the dates of their wedding and other
+ceremonies, though not at the ceremonies themselves.
+
+
+
+6. Disposal of the dead.
+
+
+The caste burn the dead, with the exception of the bodies of young
+children, which are buried. The corpse is sometimes placed sitting in
+a car to be taken to the cremation ground, but often laid on a bier
+in the ordinary manner. The sitting posture is that in which all the
+Tirthakars attained paradise, and their images always represent them
+in this posture. The corpse is naked save for a new piece of cloth
+round the waist, but it is covered with a sheet. The Jains do not
+shave their hair in token of mourning, nor do they offer sacrificial
+cakes to the dead. When the body is burnt they bathe in the nearest
+water and go home. Neither the bearers nor the mourners are held to
+be impure. Next day the mourning family, both men and women, visit
+Parasnath's temple, lay two pounds of Indian millet before the god
+and go home. [167] But in the Central Provinces they whitewash their
+houses, get their clothes washed, throw away their earthen pots and
+give a feast to the caste.
+
+
+
+7. Social rules and customs.
+
+
+The Parwars abstain from eating any kind of flesh and from drinking
+liquor. They have a _panchayat_ and impose penalties for offences
+against caste rules like the Hindus. Among the offences are the
+killing of any living thing, unchastity or adultery, theft or other
+bad conduct, taking cooked food or water from a caste from which
+the Parwars do not take them, and violation of any rule of their
+religion. To get vermin in a wound, or to be beaten by a low-caste
+man or with a shoe, incidents which entail serious penalties among
+the Hindus, are not offences with the Parwars. When an offender is
+put out of caste the ordinary deprivation is that he is not allowed
+to enter a Jain temple, and in serious cases he may also not eat nor
+drink with the caste. The Parwars are generally engaged in the trade
+in grain, _ghi_, and other staples. Several of them are well-to-do
+and own villages.
+
+
+
+Bania, Srimali
+
+
+_Bania, Srimali._--This subcaste takes its name from the town of
+Srimal, which is now Bhinmal in Marwar. They numbered 600 persons in
+the Central Provinces in 1911, most of whom belonged to the Hoshangabad
+District. More than two-thirds were Hindus and the remainder
+Jains. Colonel Tod writes of Bhinmal and an adjoining town, Sanchor:
+"These towns are on the high road to Cutch and Gujarat, which has given
+them from the most remote times a commercial celebrity. Bhinmal is said
+to contain about 1500 houses and Sanchor half that number. Very wealthy
+_mahajans_ or merchants used to reside here, but insecurity both within
+and without has much injured these cities." From Bhinmal the Srimalis
+appear to have gone to Gujarat, where they are found in considerable
+numbers. Their legend of origin is that the goddess Lakshmi created
+from a flower-garland 90,000 families to act as servants to the
+90,000 Srimali Brahmans, and these were the ancestors of the Srimali
+Banias. [168] Both the Jain and Hindu sections of the Srimali Banias
+employ Srimali Brahmans as priests. Like other classes of Banias, the
+Srimali are divided into two sections, the Bisa and Dasa, or twenty
+and ten, of which the Bisa are considered to be of pure and the Dasa of
+somewhat mixed descent. In Gujarat they also have a third territorial
+group, known as Ladva, from Lad, the old name of Gujarat. All three
+subdivisions take food together but do not intermarry. [169] The two
+highest sections of the Oswal Banias are called Sri Srimal and Srimal,
+and it is possible that further investigation might show the Srimals
+and Oswals to have been originally of one stock.
+
+
+
+Bania, Umre
+
+
+_Bania, Umre._--This Hindu subcaste belongs to Damoh and
+Jubbulpore. They are perhaps the same as the Ummar Banias of the United
+Provinces, who reside in the Meerut, Agra and Kumaon Divisions. The
+name Umre is found as a subdivision of several castes in the Central
+Provinces, as the Telis and others, and is probably derived from
+some town or tract of country in northern or central India, but no
+identification has been made. Mr. Bhimbhai Kirparam states that in
+Gujarat the Ummar Banias are also known as Bagaria from the Bagar
+or wild country, comprised in the Dongarpur and Pertabgarh States of
+Rajputana, where considerable numbers of them are still settled. Their
+headquarters is at Sagwara, near Dongarpur. [170] In Damoh the Umre
+Banias formerly cultivated the _al_ plant, [171] which yielded a
+well-known dye, and hence they lost caste, as in soaking the roots
+of the plant to extract the dye the numerous insects in them are
+necessarily destroyed. The Dosar subcaste [172] are a branch of the
+Umre, who allow widow-remarriage.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+Banjara
+
+
+
+List of Paragraphs
+
+
+    1. _Historical notice of the caste._
+    2. _Banjaras derived from the Charans or Bhats._
+    3. _Charan Banjaras employed with the Mughal armies._
+    4. _Internal structure._
+    5. _Minor subcastes._
+    6. _Marriage: betrothal._
+    7. _Marriage._
+    8. _Widow-remarriage._
+    9. _Birth and death._
+    10. _Religion: Banjari Devi._
+    11. _Mithu Bhukia._
+    12. _Siva Bhaia._
+    13. _Worship of cattle._
+    14. _Connection with the Sikhs._
+    15. _Witchcraft._
+    16. _Human sacrifice._
+    17. _Admission of outsiders: kidnapped children and slaves._
+    18. _Dress._
+    19. _Social customs._
+    20. _The Naik or headman. Banjara dogs._
+    21. _Criminal tendencies of the caste._
+    22. _Their virtues._
+
+
+
+1. Historical notice of the caste.
+
+
+_Banjara, Wanjari, Lahana, Mukeri_. [173]--The caste of carriers and
+drivers of pack-bullocks. In 1911 the Banjaras numbered about 56,000
+persons in the Central Provinces and 80,000 in Berar, the caste being
+in greater strength here than in any part of India except Hyderabad,
+where their total is 174,000. Bombay comes next with a figure
+approaching that of the Central Provinces and Berar, and the caste
+belongs therefore rather to the Deccan than to northern India. The
+name has been variously explained, but the most probable derivation
+is from the Sanskrit _banijya kara_, a merchant. Sir H. M. Elliot
+held that the name Banjara was of great antiquity, quoting a passage
+from the Dasa Kumara Charita of the eleventh or twelfth century. But
+it was subsequently shown by Professor Cowell that the name Banjara
+did not occur in the original text of this work. [174] Banjaras are
+supposed to be the people mentioned by Arrian in the fourth century
+B.C., as leading a wandering life, dwelling in tents and letting out
+for hire their beasts of burden. [175] But this passage merely proves
+the existence of carriers and not of the Banjara caste. Mr. Crooke
+states [176] that the first mention of Banjaras in Muhammadan history
+is in Sikandar's attack on Dholpur in A.D. 1504. [177] It seems
+improbable, therefore, that the Banjaras accompanied the different
+Muhammadan invaders of India, as might have been inferred from the
+fact that they came into the Deccan in the train of the forces of
+Aurangzeb. The caste has indeed two Muhammadan sections, the Turkia
+and Mukeri. [178] But both of these have the same Rajput clan names
+as the Hindu branch of the caste, and it seems possible that they may
+have embraced Islam under the proselytising influence of Aurangzeb,
+or simply owing to their having been employed with the Muhammadan
+troops. The great bulk of the caste in southern India are Hindus,
+and there seems no reason for assuming that its origin was Muhammadan.
+
+
+
+2. Banjaras derived from the Charans or Bhats.
+
+
+It may be suggested that the Banjaras are derived from the Charan
+or Bhat caste of Rajputana. Mr. Cumberlege, whose _Monograph_ on the
+caste in Berar is one of the best authorities, states that of the four
+divisions existing there the Charans are the most numerous and by
+far the most interesting class. [179] In the article on Bhat it has
+been explained how the Charans or bards, owing to their readiness
+to kill themselves rather than give up the property entrusted to
+their care, became the best safe-conduct for the passage of goods
+in Rajputana. The name Charan is generally held to mean 'Wanderer,'
+and in their capacity of bards the Charans were accustomed to travel
+from court to court of the different chiefs in quest of patronage. They
+were first protected by their sacred character and afterwards by their
+custom of _traga_ or _chandi_, that is, of killing themselves when
+attacked and threatening their assailants with the dreaded fate of
+being haunted by their ghosts. Mr. Bhimbhai Kirparam [180] remarks:
+"After Parasurama's dispersion of the Kshatris the Charans accompanied
+them in their southward flight. In those troubled times the Charans
+took charge of the supplies of the Kshatri forces and so fell to their
+present position of cattle-breeders and grain-carriers...." Most of
+the Charans are graziers, cattle-sellers and pack-carriers. Colonel
+Tod says: [181] "The Charans and Bhats or bards and genealogists are
+the chief carriers of these regions (Marwar); their sacred character
+overawes the lawless Rajput chief, and even the savage Koli and Bhil
+and the plundering Sahrai of the desert dread the anathema of these
+singular races, who conduct the caravans through the wildest and
+most desolate regions." In another passage Colonel Tod identifies
+the Charans and Banjaras [182] as follows: "Murlah is an excellent
+township inhabited by a community of Charans of the tribe Cucholia
+(Kacheli), who are Bunjarris (carriers) by profession, though poets by
+birth. The alliance is a curious one, and would appear incongruous were
+not gain the object generally in both cases. It was the sanctity of
+their office which converted our _bardais_ (bards) into _bunjarris_,
+for their persons being sacred, the immunity extended likewise to
+their goods and saved them from all imposts; so that in process of
+time they became the free-traders of Rajputana. I was highly gratified
+with the reception I received from the community, which collectively
+advanced to meet me at some distance from the town. The procession was
+headed by the village elders and all the fair Charanis, who, as they
+approached, gracefully waved their scarfs over me until I was fairly
+made captive by the muses of Murlah! It was a novel and interesting
+scene. The manly persons of the Charans, clad in the flowing white robe
+with the high loose-folded turban inclined on one side, from which
+the _mala_ or chaplet was gracefully suspended; and the _naiques_
+or leaders, with their massive necklaces of gold, with the image
+of the _pitriswar_ (_manes_) depending therefrom, gave the whole an
+air of opulence and dignity. The females were uniformly attired in a
+skirt of dark-brown camlet, having a bodice of light-coloured stuff,
+with gold ornaments worked into their fine black hair; and all had the
+favourite _churis_ or rings of _hathidant_ (elephant's tooth) covering
+the arm from the wrist to the elbow, and even above it." A little
+later, referring to the same Charan community, Colonel Tod writes:
+"The _tanda_ or caravan, consisting of four thousand bullocks, has
+been kept up amidst all the evils which have beset this land through
+Mughal and Maratha tyranny. The utility of these caravans as general
+carriers to conflicting armies and as regular tax-paying subjects has
+proved their safeguard, and they were too strong to be pillaged by any
+petty marauder, as any one who has seen a Banjari encampment will be
+convinced. They encamp in a square, and their grain-bags piled over
+each other breast-high, with interstices left for their matchlocks,
+make no contemptible fortification. Even the ruthless Turk, Jamshid
+Khan, set up a protecting tablet in favour of the Charans of Murlah,
+recording their exemption from _dind_ contributions, and that there
+should be no increase in duties, with threats to all who should injure
+the community. As usual, the sun and moon are appealed to as witnesses
+of good faith, and sculptured on the stone. Even the forest Bhil and
+mountain Mair have set up their signs of immunity and protection to
+the chosen of Hinglaz (tutelary deity); and the figures of a cow and
+its _kairi_ (calf) carved in rude relief speak the agreement that
+they should not be slain or stolen within the limits of Murlah."
+
+In the above passage the community described by Colonel Tod were
+Charans, but he identified them with Banjaras, using the name
+alternatively. He mentions their large herds of pack-bullocks, for the
+management of which the Charans, who were graziers as well as bards,
+would naturally be adapted; the name given to the camp, _tanda_, is
+that generally used by the Banjaras; the women wore ivory bangles,
+which the Banjara women wear. [183] In commenting on the way in which
+the women threw their scarves over him, making him a prisoner, Colonel
+Tod remarks: "This community had enjoyed for five hundred years the
+privilege of making prisoner any Rana of Mewar who may pass through
+Murlah, and keeping him in bondage until he gives them a _got_ or
+entertainment. The patriarch (of the village) told me that I was in
+jeopardy as the Rana's representative, but not knowing how I might
+have relished the joke had it been carried to its conclusion, they
+let me escape." Mr. Ball notes a similar custom of the Banjara women
+far away in the Bastar State of the Central Provinces: [184] "Today
+I passed through another Banjara hamlet, from whence the women and
+girls all hurried out in pursuit, and a brazen-faced powerful-looking
+lass seized the bridle of my horse as he was being led by the _sais_
+in the rear. The _sais_ and _chaprasi_ were both Muhammadans, and
+the forward conduct of these females perplexed them not a little,
+and the former was fast losing his temper at being thus assaulted by a
+woman." Colonel Mackenzie in his account of the Banjara caste remarks:
+[185] "It is certain that the Charans, whoever they were, first rose
+to the demand which the great armies of northern India, contending
+in exhausted countries far from their basis of supply, created,
+viz. the want of a fearless and reliable transport service.... The
+start which the Charans then acquired they retain among Banjaras to
+this day, though in very much diminished splendour and position. As
+they themselves relate, they were originally five brethren, Rathor,
+Turi, Panwar, Chauhan and Jadon. But fortune particularly smiled on
+Bhika Rathor, as his four sons, Mersi, Multasi, Dheda and Khamdar,
+great names among the Charans, rose immediately to eminence as
+commissariat transporters in the north. And not only under the
+Delhi Emperors, but under the Satara, subsequently the Poona Raj,
+and the Subahship of the Nizam, did several of their descendants rise
+to consideration and power." It thus seems a reasonable hypothesis
+that the nucleus of the Banjara caste was constituted by the Charans
+or bards of Rajputana. Mr. Bhimbhai Kirparam [186] also identifies
+the Charans and Banjaras, but I have not been able to find the exact
+passage. The following notice [187] by Colonel Tone is of interest
+in this connection:
+
+"The vast consumption that attends a Maratha army necessarily
+superinduces the idea of great supplies; yet, notwithstanding this,
+the native powers never concern themselves about providing for their
+forces, and have no idea of a grain and victualling department,
+which forms so great an object in a European campaign. The Banias
+or grain-sellers in an Indian army have always their servants ahead
+of the troops on the line of march, to purchase in the circumjacent
+country whatever necessaries are to be disposed of. Articles of
+consumption are never wanting in a native camp, though they are
+generally twenty-five per cent dearer than in the town bazars;
+but independent of this mode of supply the Vanjaris or itinerant
+grain-merchants furnish large quantities, which they bring on
+bullocks from an immense distance. These are a very peculiar race,
+and appear a marked and discriminated people from any other I have
+seen in this country. Formerly they were considered so sacred that
+they passed in safety in the midst of contending armies; of late,
+however, this reverence for their character is much abated and they
+have been frequently plundered, particularly by Tipu."
+
+The reference to the sacred character attaching to the Banjaras a
+century ago appears to be strong evidence in favour of their derivation
+from the Charans. For it could scarcely have been obtained by any body
+of commissariat agents coming into India with the Muhammadans. The
+fact that the example of disregarding it was first set by a Muhammadan
+prince points to the same conclusion.
+
+Mr. Irvine notices the Banjaras with the Mughal armies in similar
+terms: [188] "It is by these people that the Indian armies in the
+field are fed, and they are never injured by either army. The grain
+is taken from them, but invariably paid for. They encamp for safety
+every evening in a regular square formed of the bags of grain of
+which they construct a breastwork. They and their families are in the
+centre, and the oxen are made fast outside. Guards with matchlocks and
+spears are placed at the corners, and their dogs do duty as advanced
+posts. I have seen them with droves of 5000 bullocks. They do not
+move above two miles an hour, as their cattle are allowed to graze
+as they proceed on the march."
+
+One may suppose that the Charans having acted as carriers for the
+Rajput chiefs and courts, both in time of peace and in their continuous
+intestinal feuds, were pressed into service when the Mughal armies
+entered Rajputana and passed through it to Gujarat and the Deccan. In
+adopting the profession of transport agents for the imperial troops
+they may have been amalgamated into a fresh caste with other Hindus and
+Muhammadans doing the same work, just as the camp language formed by
+the superposition of a Persian vocabulary on to a grammatical basis
+of Hindi became Urdu or Hindustani. The readiness of the Charans
+to commit suicide rather than give up property committed to their
+charge was not, however, copied by the Banjaras, and so far as I am
+aware there is no record of men of this caste taking their own lives,
+though they had little scruple with those of others.
+
+
+
+3. Charan Ranjarans employed with the Mughal armies.
+
+
+The Charan Banjaras, Mr. Cumberlege states, [189] first came to the
+Deccan with Asaf Khan in the campaign which closed with the annexation
+by the Emperor Shah Jahan of Ahmadnagar and Berar about 1630. Their
+leaders or Naiks were Bhangi and Jhangi of the Rathor [190] and Bhagwan
+Das of the Jadon clan. Bhangi and Jhangi had 180,000 pack-bullocks,
+and Bhagwan Das 52,000. It was naturally an object with Asaf Khan to
+keep his commissariat well up with his force, and as Bhangi and Jhangi
+made difficulties about the supply of grass and water to their cattle,
+he gave them an order engraved on copper in letters of gold to the
+following effect:
+
+
+                Ranjan ka pani
+                Chhappar ka ghas
+                Din ke tin khun muaf;
+                Aur jahan Asaf Jah ke ghore
+                Wahan Bhangi Jhangi ke bail,
+
+
+which may be rendered as follows: "If you can find no water elsewhere
+you may even take it from the pots of my followers; grass you may
+take from the roofs of their huts; and I will pardon you up to three
+murders a day, provided that wherever I find my cavalry, Bhangi
+and Jhangi's bullocks shall be with them." This grant is still in
+the possession of Bhangi Naik's descendant who lives at Musi, near
+Hingoli. He is recognised by the Hyderabad Court as the head Naik of
+the Banjara caste, and on his death his successor receives a _khillat_
+or dress-of-honour from His Highness the Nizam. After Asaf Khan's
+campaign and settlement in the Deccan, a quarrel broke out between
+the Rathor clan, headed by Bhangi and Jhangi, and the Jadons under
+Bhagwan Das, owing to the fact that Asaf Khan had refused to give
+Bhagwan Das a grant like that quoted above. Both Bhangi and Bhagwan
+Das were slain in the feud and the Jadons captured the standard,
+consisting of eight _thans_ (lengths) of cloth, which was annually
+presented by the Nizam to Bhangi's descendants. When Mr. Cumberlege
+wrote (1869), this standard was in the possession of Hatti Naik,
+a descendant of Bhagwan Das, who had an estate near Muchli Bunder,
+in the Madras Presidency. Colonel Mackenzie states [191] that the
+leaders of the Rathor clan became so distinguished not only in their
+particular line but as men of war that the Emperors recognised
+their carrying distinctive standards, which were known as _dhal_
+by the Rathors themselves. Jhangi's family was also represented
+in the person of Ramu Naik, the _patel_ or headman of the village
+of Yaoli in the Yeotmal District. In 1791-92 the Banjaras were
+employed to supply grain to the British army under the Marquis of
+Cornwallis during the siege of Seringapatam, [192] and the Duke of
+Wellington in his Indian campaigns regularly engaged them as part of
+the commissariat staff of his army. On one occasion he said of them:
+"The Banjaras I look upon in the light of servants of the public,
+of whose grain I have a right to regulate the sale, always taking
+care that they have a proportionate advantage." [193]
+
+
+
+4. Internal structure.
+
+
+Mr. Cumberlege gives four main divisions of the caste in Berar, the
+Charans, Mathurias, Labhanas and Dharis. Of these the Charans are
+by far the most numerous and important, and included all the famous
+leaders of the caste mentioned above. The Charans are divided into
+the five clans, Rathor, Panwar, Chauhan, Puri and Jadon or Burthia,
+all of these being the names of leading Rajput clans; and as the
+Charan bards themselves were probably Rajputs, the Banjaras, who
+are descended from them, may claim the same lineage. Each clan or
+sept is divided into a number of subsepts; thus among the Rathors
+the principal subsept is the Bhurkia, called after the Bhika Rathor
+already mentioned; and this is again split into four groups, Mersi,
+Multasi, Dheda and Khamdar, named after his four sons. As a rule,
+members of the same clan, Panwar, Rathor and so on, may not intermarry,
+but Mr. Cumberlege states that a man belonging to the Banod or Bhurkia
+subsepts of the Rathors must not take a wife from his own subsept,
+but may marry any other Rathor girl. It seems probable that the same
+rule may hold with the other subsepts, as it is most unlikely that
+intermarriage should still be prohibited among so large a body as the
+Rathor Charans have now become. It may be supposed therefore that the
+division into subsepts took place when it became too inconvenient
+to prohibit marriage throughout the whole body of the sept, as
+has happened in other cases. The Mathuria Banjaras take their name
+from Mathura or Muttra and appear to be Brahmans. "They wear the
+sacred thread, [194] know the _Gayatri Mantra_, and to the present
+day abstain from meat and liquor, subsisting entirely on grain and
+vegetables. They always had a sufficiency of Charans and servants
+(_Jangar_) in their villages to perform all necessary manual labour,
+and would not themselves work for a remuneration otherwise than by
+carrying grain, which was and still is their legitimate occupation;
+but it was not considered undignified to cut wood and grass for the
+household. Both Mathuria and Labhana men are fairer than the Charans;
+they wear better jewellery and their loin-cloths have a silk border,
+while those of the Charans are of rough, common cloth." The Mathurias
+are sometimes known as Ahiwasi, and may be connected with the Ahiwasis
+of the Hindustani Districts, who also drive pack-bullocks and call
+themselves Brahmans. But it is naturally a sin for a Brahman to load
+the sacred ox, and any one who does so is held to have derogated
+from the priestly order. The Mathurias are divided according to
+Mr. Cumberlege into four groups called Pande, Dube, Tiwari and Chaube,
+all of which are common titles of Hindustani Brahmans and signify
+a man learned in one, two, three and four Vedas respectively. It is
+probable that these groups are exogamous, marrying with each other,
+but this is not stated. The third division, the Labhanas, may derive
+their name from _lavana_, salt, and probably devoted themselves more
+especially to the carriage of this staple. They are said to be Rajputs,
+and to be descended from Mota and Mola, the cowherds of Krishna. The
+fourth subdivision are the Dharis or bards of the caste, who rank
+below the others. According to their own story [195] their ancestor
+was a member of the Bhat caste, who became a disciple of Nanak,
+the Sikh apostle, and with him attended a feast given by the Mughal
+Emperor Humayun. Here he ate the flesh of a cow or buffalo, and in
+consequence became a Muhammadan and was circumcised. He was employed
+as a musician at the Mughal court, and his sons joined the Charans and
+became the bards of the Banjara caste. "The Dharis," Mr. Cumberlege
+continues, "are both musicians and mendicants; they sing in praise
+of their own and the Charan ancestors and of the old kings of Delhi;
+while at certain seasons of the year they visit Charan hamlets, when
+each family gives them a young bullock or a few rupees. They are
+Muhammadans, but worship Sarasvati and at their marriages offer up
+a he-goat to Gaji and Gandha, the two sons of the original Bhat, who
+became a Muhammadan. At burials a Fakir is called to read the prayers."
+
+
+
+5. Minor subcastes.
+
+
+Besides the above four main divisions, there are a number of others,
+the caste being now of a very mixed character. Two principal Muhammadan
+groups are given by Sir H. Elliot, the Turkia and Mukeri. The Turkia
+have thirty-six septs, some with Rajput names and others territorial or
+titular. They seem to be a mixed group of Hindus who may have embraced
+Islam as the religion of their employers. The Mukeri Banjaras assert
+that they derive their name from Mecca (Makka), which one of their
+Naiks, who had his camp in the vicinity, assisted Father Abraham in
+building. [196] Mr. Crooke thinks that the name may be a corruption
+of Makkeri and mean a seller of maize. Mr. Cumberlege says of them:
+"Multanis and Mukeris have been called Banjaras also, but have nothing
+in common with the caste; the Multanis are carriers of grain and the
+Mukeris of wood and timber, and hence the confusion may have arisen
+between them." But they are now held to be Banjaras by common usage;
+in Saugor the Mukeris also deal in cattle. From Chanda a different set
+of subcastes is reported called Bhusarjin, Ladjin, Saojin and Kanhejin;
+the first may take their name from _bhusa_, the chaff of wheat, while
+Lad is the term used for people coming from Gujarat, and Sao means
+a banker. In Sambalpur again a class of Thuria Banjaras is found,
+divided into the Bandesia, Atharadesia, Navadesia and Chhadesia, or
+the men of the 52 districts, the 18 districts, the 9 districts and
+the 6 districts respectively. The first and last two of these take
+food and marry with each other. Other groups are the Guar Banjaras,
+apparently from Guara or Gwala, a milkman, the Guguria Banjaras, who
+may, Mr. Hira Lal suggests, take their name from trading in _gugar_,
+a kind of gum, and the Bahrup Banjaras, who are Nats or acrobats. In
+Berar also a number of the caste have become respectable cultivators
+and now call themselves Wanjari, disclaiming any connection with
+the Banjaras, probably on account of the bad reputation for crime
+attached to these latter. Many of the Wanjaris have been allowed
+to rank with the Kunbi caste, and call themselves Wanjari Kunbis in
+order the better to dissociate themselves from their parent caste. The
+existing caste is therefore of a very mixed nature, and the original
+Brahman and Charan strains, though still perfectly recognisable,
+cannot have maintained their purity.
+
+
+
+6. Marriage: betrothal.
+
+
+At a betrothal in Nimar the bridegroom and his friends come and stay
+in the next village to that of the bride. The two parties meet on the
+boundary of the village, and here the bride-price is fixed, which
+is often a very large sum, ranging from Rs. 200 to Rs. 1000. Until
+the price is paid the father will not let the bridegroom into his
+house. In Yeotmal, when a betrothal is to be made, the parties go
+to a liquor-shop and there a betel-leaf and a large handful of sugar
+are distributed to everybody. Here the price to be paid for the bride
+amounts to Rs. 40 and four young bullocks. Prior to the wedding the
+bridegroom goes and stays for a month or so in the house of the bride's
+father, and during this time he must provide a supply of liquor daily
+for the bride's male relatives. The period was formerly longer, but now
+extends to a month at the most. While he resides at the bride's house
+the bridegroom wears a cloth over his head so that his face cannot be
+seen. Probably the prohibition against seeing him applies to the bride
+only, as the rule in Berar is that between the betrothal and marriage
+of a Charan girl she may not eat or drink in the bridegroom's house,
+or show her face to him or any of his relatives. Mathuria girls must
+be wedded before they are seven years old, but the Charans permit
+them to remain single until after adolescence.
+
+
+
+7. Marriage.
+
+
+Banjara marriages are frequently held in the rains, a season forbidden
+to other Hindus, but naturally the most convenient to them, because
+in the dry weather they are usually travelling. For the marriage
+ceremony they pitch a tent in lieu of the marriage-shed, and on the
+ground they place two rice-pounding pestles, round which the bride and
+bridegroom make the seven turns. Others substitute for the pestles
+a pack-saddle with two bags of grain in order to symbolise their
+camp life. During the turns the girl's hand is held by the Joshi
+or village priest, or some other Brahman, in case she should fall;
+such an occurrence being probably a very unlucky omen. Afterwards,
+the girl runs away and the Brahman has to pursue and catch her. In
+Bhandara the girl is clad only in a light skirt and breast-cloth,
+and her body is rubbed all over with oil in order to make his
+task more difficult. During this time the bride's party pelt the
+Brahman with rice, turmeric and areca-nuts, and sometimes even with
+stones; and if he is forced to cry with the pain, it is considered
+lucky. But if he finally catches the girl, he is conducted to a dais
+and sits there holding a brass plate in front of him, into which the
+bridegroom's party drop presents. A case is mentioned of a Brahman
+having obtained Rs. 70 in this manner. Among the Mathuria Banjaras
+of Berar the ceremony resembles the usual Hindu type. [197] Before
+the wedding the families bring the branches of eight or ten different
+kinds of trees, and perform the _hom_ or fire sacrifice with them. A
+Brahman knots the clothes of the couple together, and they walk round
+the fire. When the bride arrives at the bridegroom's hamlet after the
+wedding, two small brass vessels are given to her; she fetches water
+in these and returns them to the women of the boy's family, who mix
+this with other water previously drawn, and the girl, who up to this
+period was considered of no caste at all, becomes a Mathuria. [198]
+Food is cooked with this water, and the bride and bridegroom are
+formally received into the husband's _kuri_ or hamlet. It is possible
+that the mixing of the water may be a survival of the blood covenant,
+whereby a girl was received into her husband's clan on her marriage
+by her blood being mixed with that of her husband. [199] Or it may be
+simply symbolical of the union of the families. In some localities
+after the wedding the bride and bridegroom are made to stand on two
+bullocks, which are driven forward, and it is believed that whichever
+of them falls off first will be the first to die.
+
+
+
+8. Widow remarriage.
+
+
+Owing to the scarcity of women in the caste a widow is seldom allowed
+to go out of the family, and when her husband dies she is taken either
+by his elder or younger brother; this is in opposition to the usual
+Hindu practice, which forbids the marriage of a woman to her deceased
+husband's elder brother, on the ground that as successor to the
+headship of the joint family he stands to her, at least potentially,
+in the light of a father. If the widow prefers another man and runs
+away to him, the first husband's relatives claim compensation, and
+threaten, in the event of its being refused, to abduct a girl from
+this man's family in exchange for the widow. But no case of abduction
+has occurred in recent years. In Berar the compensation claimed in
+the case of a woman marrying out of the family amounts to Rs. 75,
+with Rs. 5 for the Naik or headman of the family. Should the widow
+elope without her brother-in-law's consent, he chooses ten or twelve
+of his friends to go and sit _dharna_ (starving themselves) before
+the hut of the man who has taken her. He is then bound to supply
+these men with food and liquor until he has paid the customary sum,
+when he may marry the widow. [200] In the event of the second husband
+being too poor to pay monetary compensation, he gives a goat, which
+is cut into eighteen pieces and distributed to the community. [201]
+
+
+
+9. Birth and death.
+
+
+After the birth of a child the mother is unclean for five days, and
+lives apart in a separate hut, which is run up for her use in the
+_kuri_ or hamlet. On the sixth day she washes the feet of all the
+children in the _kuri_, feeds them and then returns to her husband's
+hut. When a child is born in a moving _tanda_ or camp, the same
+rule is observed, and for five days the mother walks alone after the
+camp during the daily march. The caste bury the bodies of unmarried
+persons and those dying of smallpox and burn the others. Their rites
+of mourning are not strict, and are observed only for three days. The
+Banjaras have a saying: "Death in a foreign land is to be preferred,
+where there are no kinsfolk to mourn, and the corpse is a feast
+for birds and animals"; but this may perhaps be taken rather as an
+expression of philosophic resignation to the fate which must be in
+store for many of them, than a real preference, as with most people
+the desire to die at home almost amounts to an instinct.
+
+
+
+10. Religion: Banjari Devi.
+
+
+One of the tutelary deities of the Banjaras is Banjari Devi, whose
+shrine is usually located in the forest. It is often represented by a
+heap of stones, a large stone smeared with vermilion being placed on
+the top of the heap to represent the goddess. When a Banjara passes
+the place he casts a stone upon the heap as a prayer to the goddess
+to protect him from the dangers of the forest. A similar practice of
+offering bells from the necks of cattle is recorded by Mr. Thurston:
+[202] "It is related by Moor that he passed a tree on which were
+hanging several hundred bells. This was a superstitious sacrifice of
+the Banjaras (Lambaris), who, passing this tree, are in the habit
+of hanging a bell or bells upon it, which they take from the necks
+of their sick cattle, expecting to leave behind them the complaint
+also. Our servants particularly cautioned us against touching these
+diabolical bells, but as a few of them were taken for our own cattle,
+several accidents which happened were imputed to the anger of the
+deity to whom these offerings were made; who, they say, inflicts the
+same disorder on the unhappy bullock who carries a bell from the tree,
+as that from which he relieved the donor." In their houses the Banjari
+Devi is represented by a pack-saddle set on high in the room, and
+this is worshipped before the caravans set out on their annual tours.
+
+
+
+11. Mithu Bhukia.
+
+
+Another deity is Mithu Bhukia, an old freebooter, who lived in the
+Central Provinces; he is venerated by the dacoits as the most clever
+dacoit known in the annals of the caste, and a hut was usually
+set apart for him in each hamlet, a staff carrying a white flag
+being planted before it. Before setting out for a dacoity, the men
+engaged would assemble at the hut of Mithu Bhukia, and, burning a
+lamp before him, ask for an omen; if the wick of the lamp drooped
+the omen was propitious, and the men present then set out at once on
+the raid without returning home. They might not speak to each other
+nor answer if challenged; for if any one spoke the charm would be
+broken and the protection of Mithu Bhukia removed; and they should
+either return to take the omens again or give up that particular
+dacoity altogether. [203] It has been recorded as a characteristic
+trait of Banjaras that they will, as a rule, not answer if spoken
+to when engaged on a robbery, and the custom probably arises from
+this observance; but the worship of Mithu Bhukia is now frequently
+neglected. After a successful dacoity a portion of the spoil would be
+set apart for Mithu Bhukia, and of the balance the Naik or headman of
+the village received two shares if he participated in the crime; the
+man who struck the first blow or did most towards the common object
+also received two shares, and all the rest one share. With Mithu
+Bhukia's share a feast was given at which thanks were returned to
+him for the success of the enterprise, a burnt offering of incense
+being made in his tent and a libation of liquor poured over the
+flagstaff. A portion of the food was sent to the women and children,
+and the men sat down to the feast. Women were not allowed to share
+in the worship of Mithu Bhukia nor to enter his hut.
+
+
+
+12. Siva Bhaia.
+
+
+Another favourite deity is Siva Bhaia, whose story is given by Colonel
+Mackenzie [204] as follows: "The love borne by Mari Mata, the goddess
+of cholera, for the handsome Siva Rathor, is an event of our own
+times (1874); she proposed to him, but his heart being pre-engaged he
+rejected her; and in consequence his earthly bride was smitten sick
+and died, and the hand of the goddess fell heavily on Siva himself,
+thwarting all his schemes and blighting his fortunes and possessions,
+until at last he gave himself up to her. She then possessed him and
+caused him to prosper exceedingly, gifting him with supernatural power
+until his fame was noised abroad, and he was venerated as the saintly
+Siva Bhaia or great brother to all women, being himself unable to
+marry. But in his old age the goddess capriciously wished him to marry
+and have issue, but he refused and was slain and buried at Pohur in
+Berar. A temple was erected over him and his kinsmen became priests of
+it, and hither large numbers are attracted by the supposed efficacy
+of vows made to Siva, the most sacred of all oaths being that taken
+in his name." If a Banjara swears by Siva Bhaia, placing his right
+hand on the bare head of his son and heir, and grasping a cow's tail
+in his left, he will fear to perjure himself, lest by doing so he
+should bring injury on his son and a murrain on his cattle. [205]
+
+
+
+13. Worship of cattle.
+
+
+Naturally also the Banjaras worshipped their pack-cattle. [206] "When
+sickness occurs they lead the sick man to the feet of the bullock
+called Hatadiya. [207] On this animal no burden is ever laid, but
+he is decorated with streamers of red-dyed silk, and tinkling bells
+with many brass chains and rings on neck and feet, and silken tassels
+hanging in all directions; he moves steadily at the head of the convoy,
+and at the place where he lies down when he is tired they pitch their
+camp for the day; at his feet they make their vows when difficulties
+overtake them, and in illness, whether of themselves or their cattle,
+they trust to his worship for a cure."
+
+
+
+14. Connection with the Sikhs.
+
+
+Mr. Balfour also mentions in his paper that the Banjaras call
+themselves Sikhs, and it is noticeable that the Charan subcaste say
+that their ancestors were three Rajput boys who followed Guru Nanak,
+the prophet of the Sikhs. The influence of Nanak appears to have been
+widely extended over northern India, and to have been felt by large
+bodies of the people other than those who actually embraced the Sikh
+religion. Cumberlege states [208] that before starting to his marriage
+the bridegroom ties a rupee in his turban in honour of Guru Nanak,
+which is afterwards expended in sweetmeats. But otherwise the modern
+Banjaras do not appear to retain any Sikh observances.
+
+
+
+15. Witchcraft.
+
+
+"The Banjaras," Sir A. Lyall writes, [209] "are terribly vexed
+by witchcraft, to which their wandering and precarious existence
+especially exposes them in the shape of fever, rheumatism and
+dysentery. Solemn inquiries are still held in the wild jungles where
+these people camp out like gipsies, and many an unlucky hag has been
+strangled by sentence of their secret tribunals." The business of
+magic and witchcraft was in the hands of two classes of Bhagats or
+magicians, one good and the other bad, [210] who may correspond to
+the European practitioners of black and white magic. The good Bhagat
+is called Nimbu-katna or lemon-cutter, a lemon speared on a knife
+being a powerful averter of evil spirits. He is a total abstainer
+from meat and liquor, and fasts once a week on the day sacred to the
+deity whom he venerates, usually Mahadeo; he is highly respected and
+never panders to vice. But the Janta, the 'Wise or Cunning Man,' is
+of a different type, and the following is an account of the devilry
+often enacted when a deputation visited him to inquire into the cause
+of a prolonged illness, a cattle murrain, a sudden death or other
+misfortune. A woman might often be called a Dakun or witch in spite,
+and when once this word had been used, the husband or nearest male
+relative would be regularly bullied into consulting the Janta. Or
+if some woman had been ill for a week, an avaricious [211] husband
+or brother would begin to whisper foul play. Witchcraft would be
+mentioned, and the wise man called in. He would give the sufferer a
+quid of betel, muttering an incantation, but this rarely effected a
+cure, as it was against the interest of all parties that it should
+do so. The sufferer's relatives would then go to their Naik, tell him
+that the sick person was bewitched, and ask him to send a deputation
+to the Janta or witch-doctor. This would be at once despatched,
+consisting of one male adult from each house in the hamlet, with
+one of the sufferer's relatives. On the road the party would bury
+a bone or other article to test the wisdom of the witch-doctor. But
+he was not to be caught out, and on their arrival he would bid the
+deputation rest, and come to him for consultation on the following
+day. Meanwhile during the night the Janta would be thoroughly coached
+by some accomplice in the party. Next morning, meeting the deputation,
+he would tell every man all particulars of his name and family; name
+the invalid, and tell the party to bring materials for consulting the
+spirits, such as oil, vermilion, sugar, dates, cocoanut, _chironji_,
+[212] and sesamum. In the evening, holding a lamp, the Janta would
+be possessed by Mariai, the goddess of cholera; he would mention
+all particulars of the sick man's illness, and indignantly inquire
+why they had buried the bone on the road, naming it and describing
+the place. If this did not satisfy the deputation, a goat would be
+brought, and he would name its sex with any distinguishing marks on the
+body. The sick person's representative would then produce his _nazar_
+or fee, formerly Rs. 25, but lately the double of this or more. The
+Janta would now begin a sort of chant, introducing the names of the
+families of the _kuri_ other than that containing her who was to be
+proclaimed a witch, and heap on them all kinds of abuse. Finally, he
+would assume an ironic tone, extol the virtues of a certain family,
+become facetious, and praise its representative then present. This
+man would then question the Janta on all points regarding his own
+family, his connections, worldly goods, and what gods he worshipped,
+ask who was the witch, who taught her sorcery, and how and why she
+practised it in this particular instance. But the witch-doctor, having
+taken care to be well coached, would answer everything correctly and
+fix the guilt on to the witch. A goat would be sacrificed and eaten
+with liquor, and the deputation would return. The punishment for
+being proclaimed a Dakun or witch was formerly death to the woman
+and a fine to be paid by her relatives to the bewitched person's
+family. The woman's husband or her sons would be directed to kill
+her, and if they refused, other men were deputed to murder her, and
+bury the body at once with all the clothing and ornaments then on
+her person, while a further fine would be exacted from the family
+for not doing away with her themselves. But murder for witchcraft
+has been almost entirely stopped, and nowadays the husband, after
+being fined a few head of cattle, which are given to the sick man,
+is turned out of the village with his wife. It is quite possible,
+however, that an obnoxious old hag would even now not escape death,
+especially if the money fine were not forthcoming, and an instance
+is known in recent times of a mother being murdered by her three
+sons. The whole village combined to screen these amiable young men,
+and eventually they made the Janta the scapegoat, and he got seven
+years, while the murderers could not be touched. Colonel Mackenzie
+writes that, "Curious to relate, the Jantas, known locally as Bhagats,
+in order to become possessed of their alleged powers of divination and
+prophecy, require to travel to Kazhe, beyond Surat, there to learn and
+be instructed by low-caste Koli impostors." This is interesting as an
+instance of the powers of witchcraft being attributed by the Hindus or
+higher race to the indigenous primitive tribes, a rule which Dr. Tylor
+and Dr. Jevons consider to hold good generally in the history of magic.
+
+
+
+16. Human sacrifice.
+
+
+Several instances are known also of the Banjaras having practised
+human sacrifice. Mr. Thurston states: [213] "In former times the
+Lambadis, before setting out on a journey, used to procure a little
+child and bury it in the ground up to the shoulders, and then drive
+their loaded bullocks over the unfortunate victim. In proportion to
+the bullocks thoroughly trampling the child to death, so their belief
+in a successful journey increased." The Abbe Dubois describes another
+form of sacrifice: [214]
+
+"The Lambadis are accused of the still more atrocious crime of offering
+up human sacrifices. When they wish to perform this horrible act, it
+is said, they secretly carry off the first person they meet. Having
+conducted the victim to some lonely spot, they dig a hole in which they
+bury him up to the neck. While he is still alive they make a sort of
+lamp of dough made of flour, which they place on his head; this they
+fill with oil, and light four wicks in it. Having done this, the men
+and women join hands and, forming a circle, dance round their victim,
+singing and making a great noise until he expires." Mr. Cumberlege
+records [215] the following statement of a child kidnapped by a Banjara
+caravan in 1871. After explaining how he was kidnapped and the tip
+of his tongue cut off to give him a defect in speech, the Kunbi lad,
+taken from Sahungarhi, in the Bhandara District, went on to say that,
+"The _tanda_ (caravan) encamped for the night in the jungle. In the
+morning a woman named Gangi said that the devil was in her and that
+a sacrifice must be made. On this four men and three women took a boy
+to a place they had made for _puja_ (worship). They fed him with milk,
+rice and sugar, and then made him stand up, when Gangi drew a sword and
+approached the child, who tried to run away; caught and brought back
+to this place, Gangi, holding the sword with both hands and standing
+on the child's right side, cut off his head with one blow. Gangi
+collected the blood and sprinkled it on the idol; this idol is made
+of stone, is about 9 inches high, and has something sparkling in
+its forehead. The camp marched that day, and for four or five days
+consecutively, without another sacrifice; but on the fifth day a young
+woman came to the camp to sell curds, and having bought some, the
+Banjaras asked her to come in in the evening and eat with them. She
+did come, and after eating with the women slept in the camp. Early
+next morning she was sacrificed in the same way as the boy had been,
+but it took three blows to cut off her head; it was done by Gangi, and
+the blood was sprinkled on the stone idol. About a month ago Sitaram,
+a Gond lad, who had also been kidnapped and was in the camp, told me
+to run away as it had been decided to offer me up in sacrifice at the
+next Jiuti festival, so I ran away." The child having been brought
+to the police, a searching and protracted inquiry was held, which,
+however, determined nothing, though it did not disprove his story.
+
+
+
+17. Admission of outsiders: kidnapped children and slaves.
+
+
+The Banjara caste is not closed to outsiders, but the general rule
+is to admit only women who have been married to Banjara men. Women
+of the lowest and impure castes are excluded, and for some unknown
+reason the Patwas [216] and Nunias are bracketed with these. In
+Nimar it is stated that formerly Gonds, Korkus and even Balahis [217]
+might become Banjaras, but this does not happen now, because the caste
+has lost its occupation of carrying goods, and there is therefore no
+inducement to enter it. In former times they were much addicted to
+kidnapping children--these were whipped up or enticed away whenever an
+opportunity presented itself during their expeditions. The children
+were first put into the _gonis_ or grain bags of the bullocks and so
+carried for a few days, being made over at each halt to the care of
+a woman, who would pop the child back into its bag if any stranger
+passed by the encampment. The tongues of boys were sometimes slit or
+branded with hot gold, this last being the ceremony of initiation into
+the caste still used in Nimar. Girls, if they were as old as seven,
+were sometimes disfigured for fear of recognition, and for this
+purpose the juice of the marking-nut [218] tree would be smeared
+on one side of the face, which burned into the skin and entirely
+altered the appearance. Such children were known as Jangar. Girls
+would be used as concubines and servants of the married wife, and
+boys would also be employed as servants. Jangar boys would be married
+to Jangar girls, both remaining in their condition of servitude. But
+sometimes the more enterprising of them would abscond and settle down
+in a village. The rule was that for seven generations the children
+of Jangars or slaves continued in that condition, after which they
+were recognised as proper Banjaras. The Jangar could not draw in
+smoke through the stem of the huqqa when it was passed round in the
+assembly, but must take off the stem and inhale from the bowl. The
+Jangar also could not eat off the bell-metal plates of his master,
+because these were liable to pollution, but must use brass plates. At
+one time the Banjaras conducted a regular traffic in female slaves
+between Gujarat and Central India, selling in each country the girls
+whom they had kidnapped in the other. [219]
+
+
+
+18. Dress.
+
+
+Up to twelve years of age a Charan girl only wears a skirt with a
+shoulder-cloth tucked into the waist and carried over the left arm
+and the head. After this she may have anklets and bangles on the
+forearm and a breast-cloth. But until she is married she may not
+have the _wankri_ or curved anklet, which marks that estate, nor wear
+bone or ivory bangles on the upper arm. [220] When she is ten years
+old a Labhana girl is given two small bundles containing a nut, some
+cowries and rice, which are knotted to two corners of the _dupatta_
+or shoulder-cloth and hung over the shoulder, one in front and one
+behind. This denotes maidenhood. The bundles are considered sacred,
+are always knotted to the shoulder-cloth in wear, and are only removed
+to be tucked into the waist at the girl's marriage, where they are
+worn till death. These bundles alone distinguish the Labhana from
+the Mathuria woman. Women often have their hair hanging down beside
+the face in front and woven behind with silver thread into a plait
+down the back. This is known as Anthi, and has a number of cowries at
+the end. They have large bell-shaped ornaments of silver tied over
+the head and hanging down behind the ears, the hollow part of the
+ornament being stuffed with sheep's wool dyed red; and to these are
+attached little bells, while the anklets on the feet are also hollow
+and contain little stones or balls, which tinkle as they move. They
+have skirts, and separate short cloths drawn across the shoulders
+according to the northern fashion, usually red or green in colour,
+and along the skirt-borders double lines of cowries are sewn. Their
+breast-cloths are profusely ornamented with needle-work embroidery and
+small pieces of glass sewn into them, and are tied behind with cords of
+many colours whose ends are decorated with cowries and beads. Strings
+of beads, ten to twenty thick, threaded on horse-hair, are worn round
+the neck. Their favourite ornaments are cowries, [221] and they have
+these on their dress, in their houses and on the trappings of their
+bullocks. On the arms they have ten or twelve bangles of ivory,
+or in default of this lac, horn or cocoanut-shell. Mr. Ball states
+that he was "at once struck by the peculiar costumes and brilliant
+clothing of these Indian gipsies. They recalled to my mind the
+appearance of the gipsies of the Lower Danube and Wallachia." [222]
+The most distinctive ornament of a Banjara married woman is, however,
+a small stick about 6 inches long made of the wood of the _khair_ or
+catechu. In Nimar this is given to a woman by her husband at marriage,
+and she wears it afterwards placed upright on the top of the head,
+the hair being wound round it and the head-cloth draped over it in
+a graceful fashion. Widows leave it off, but on remarriage adopt it
+again. The stick is known as _chunda_ by the Banjaras, but outsiders
+call it _singh_ or horn. In Yeotmal, instead of one, the women have
+two little sticks fixed upright in the hair. The rank of the woman is
+said to be shown by the angle at which she wears this horn. [223] The
+dress of the men presents no features of special interest. In Nimar
+they usually have a necklace of coral beads, and some of them carry,
+slung on a thread round the neck, a tin tooth-pick and ear-scraper,
+while a small mirror and comb are kept in the head-cloth so that
+their toilet can be performed anywhere.
+
+Mr. Cumberlege [224] notes that in former times all Charan Banjaras
+when carrying grain for an army placed a twig of some tree, the sacred
+_nim_ [225] when available, in their turban to show that they were
+on the war-path; and that they would do the same now if they had
+occasion to fight to the death on any social matter or under any
+supposed grievance.
+
+
+
+19. Social customs.
+
+
+The Banjaras eat all kinds of meat, including fowls and pork, and drink
+liquor. But the Mathurias abstain from both flesh and liquor. Major
+Gunthorpe states that the Banjaras are accustomed to drink before
+setting out for a dacoity or robbery and, as they smoke after drinking,
+the remains of leaf-pipes lying about the scene of action may indicate
+their handiwork. They rank below the cultivating castes, and Brahmans
+will not take water to drink from them. When engaged in the carrying
+trade, they usually lived in _kuris_ or hamlets attached to such
+regular villages as had considerable tracts of waste land belonging
+to them. When the _tanda_ or caravan started on its long carrying
+trips, the young men and some of the women went with it with the
+working bullocks, while the old men and the remainder of the women
+and children remained to tend the breeding cattle in the hamlet. In
+Nimar they generally rented a little land in the village to give
+them a footing, and paid also a carrying fee on the number of cattle
+present. Their spare time was constantly occupied in the manufacture
+of hempen twine and sacking, which was much superior to that obtainable
+in towns. Even in Captain Forsyth's [226] time (1866) the construction
+of railways and roads had seriously interfered with the Banjaras'
+calling, and they had perforce taken to agriculture. Many of them
+have settled in the new ryotwari villages in Nimar as Government
+tenants. They still grow _tilli_ [227] in preference to other crops,
+because this oilseed can be raised without much labour or skill,
+and during their former nomadic life they were accustomed to sow it
+on any poor strip of land which they might rent for a season. Some
+of them also are accustomed to leave a part of their holding untilled
+in memory of their former and more prosperous life. In many villages
+they have not yet built proper houses, but continue to live in mud
+huts thatched with grass. They consider it unlucky to inhabit a house
+with a cement or tiled roof; this being no doubt a superstition arising
+from their camp life. Their houses must also be built so that the main
+beams do not cross, that is, the main beam of a house must never be
+in such a position that if projected it would cut another main beam;
+but the beams may be parallel. The same rule probably governed the
+arrangement of tents in their camps. In Nimar they prefer to live at
+some distance from water, probably that is of a tank or river; and this
+seems to be a survival of a usage mentioned by the Abbe Dubois: [228]
+"Among other curious customs of this odious caste is one that obliges
+them to drink no water which is not drawn from springs or wells. The
+water from rivers and tanks being thus forbidden, they are obliged
+in case of necessity to dig a little hole by the side of a tank or
+river and take the water filtering through, which, by this means, is
+supposed to become spring water." It is possible that this rule may
+have had its origin in a sanitary precaution. Colonel Sleeman notes
+[229] that the Banjaras on their carrying trips preferred by-paths
+through jungles to the high roads along cultivated plains, as grass,
+wood and water were more abundant along such paths; and when they could
+not avoid the high roads, they commonly encamped as far as they could
+from villages and towns, and upon the banks of rivers and streams,
+with the same object of obtaining a sufficient supply of grass,
+wood and water. Now it is well known that the decaying vegetation in
+these hill streams renders the water noxious and highly productive of
+malaria. And it seems possible that the perception of this fact led
+the Banjaras to dig shallow wells by the sides of the streams for
+their drinking-water, so that the supply thus obtained might be in
+some degree filtered by percolation through the intervening soil and
+freed from its vegetable germs. And the custom may have grown into
+a taboo, its underlying reason being unknown to the bulk of them,
+and be still practised, though no longer necessary when they do not
+travel. If this explanation be correct it would be an interesting
+conclusion that the Banjaras anticipated so far as they were able the
+sanitary precaution by which our soldiers are supplied with portable
+filters when on the march.
+
+
+
+20. The Naik or headman. Banjara dogs.
+
+
+Each _kuri_ (hamlet) or _tanda_ (caravan) had a chief or leader with
+the designation of Naik, a Telugu word meaning 'lord' or 'master.' The
+office of Naik [230] was only partly hereditary, and the choice also
+depended on ability. The Naik had authority to decide all disputes in
+the community, and the only appeal from him lay to the representatives
+of Bhangi and Jhangi Naik's families at Narsi and Poona, and to Burthia
+Naik's successors in the Telugu country. As already seen, the Naik
+received two shares if he participated in a robbery or other crime,
+and a fee on the remarriage of a widow outside her family and on
+the discovery of a witch. Another matter in which he was specially
+interested was pig-sticking. The Banjaras have a particular breed
+of dogs, and with these they were accustomed to hunt wild pig on
+foot, carrying spears. When a pig was killed, the head was cut off
+and presented to the Naik or headman, and if any man was injured
+or gored by the pig in the hunt, the Naik kept and fed him without
+charge until he recovered.
+
+The following notice of the Banjaras and their dogs may be reproduced:
+[231] "They are brave and have the reputation of great independence,
+which I am not disposed to allow to them. The Wanjari indeed is
+insolent on the road, and will drive his bullocks up against a Sahib
+or any one else; but at any disadvantage he is abject enough. I
+remember one who rather enjoyed seeing his dogs attack me, whom he
+supposed alone and unarmed, but the sight of a cocked pistol made
+him very quick in calling them off, and very humble in praying for
+their lives, which I spared less for his entreaties than because they
+were really noble animals. The Wanjaris are famous for their dogs,
+of which there are three breeds. The first is a large, smooth dog,
+generally black, sometimes fawn-coloured, with a square heavy head,
+most resembling the Danish boarhound. This is the true Wanjari
+dog. The second is also a large, square-headed dog, but shaggy,
+more like a great underbred spaniel than anything else. The third
+is an almost tailless greyhound, of the type known all over India by
+the various names of Lat, Polygar, Rampuri, etc. They all run both by
+sight and scent, and with their help the Wanjaris kill a good deal of
+game, chiefly pigs; but I think they usually keep clear of the old
+fighting boars. Besides sport and their legitimate occupations the
+Wanjaris seldom stickle at supplementing their resources by theft,
+especially of cattle; and they are more than suspected of infanticide."
+
+The Banjaras are credited with great affection for their dogs, and
+the following legend is told about one of them: Once upon a time a
+Banjara, who had a faithful dog, took a loan from a Bania (moneylender)
+and pledged his dog with him as security for payment. And some time
+afterwards, while the dog was with the moneylender, a theft was
+committed in his house, and the dog followed the thieves and saw them
+throw the property into a tank. When they went away the dog brought
+the Bania to the tank and he found his property. He was therefore very
+pleased with the dog and wrote a letter to his master, saying that the
+loan was repaid, and tied it round his neck and said to him, 'Now,
+go back to your master.' So the dog started back, but on his way he
+met his master, the Banjara, coming to the Bania with the money for
+the repayment of the loan. And when the Banjara saw the dog he was
+angry with him, not seeing the letter, and thinking he had run away,
+and said to him, 'Why did you come, betraying your trust?' and he
+killed the dog in a rage. And after killing him he found the letter
+and was very grieved, so he built a temple to the dog's memory, which
+is called the Kukurra Mandhi. And in the temple is the image of a
+dog. This temple is in the Drug District, five miles from Balod. A
+similar story is told of the temple of Kukurra Math in Mandla.
+
+
+
+21. Criminal tendencies of the caste.
+
+
+The following notice of Banjara criminals is abstracted from Major
+Gunthorpe's interesting account: [232] "In the palmy days of the tribe
+dacoities were undertaken on the most extensive scale. Gangs of fifty
+to a hundred and fifty well-armed men would go long distances from
+their _tandas_ or encampments for the purpose of attacking houses
+in villages, or treasure-parties or wealthy travellers on the high
+roads. The more intimate knowledge which the police have obtained
+concerning the habits of this race, and the detection and punishment
+of many criminals through approvers, have aided in stopping the heavy
+class of dacoities formerly prevalent, and their operations are now on
+a much smaller scale. In British territory arms are scarcely carried,
+but each man has a good stout stick (_gedi_), the bark of which is
+peeled off so as to make it look whitish and fresh. The attack is
+generally commenced by stone-throwing and then a rush is made, the
+sticks being freely used and the victims almost invariably struck
+about the head or face. While plundering, Hindustani is sometimes
+spoken, but as a rule they never utter a word, but grunt signals to
+one another. Their loin-cloths are braced up, nothing is worn on the
+upper part of the body, and their faces are generally muffled. In house
+dacoities men are posted at different corners of streets, each with
+a supply of well-chosen round stones to keep off any people coming
+to the rescue. Banjaras are very expert cattle-lifters, sometimes
+taking as many as a hundred head or even more at a time. This kind
+of robbery is usually practised in hilly or forest country where the
+cattle are sent to graze. Secreting themselves they watch for the
+herdsman to have his usual midday doze and for the cattle to stray
+to a little distance. As many as possible are then driven off to a
+great distance and secreted in ravines and woods. If questioned they
+answer that the animals belong to landowners and have been given into
+their charge to graze, and as this is done every day the questioner
+thinks nothing more of it. After a time the cattle are quietly sold
+to individual purchasers or taken to markets at a distance."
+
+
+
+22. Their virtues.
+
+
+The Banjaras, however, are far from being wholly criminal, and the
+number who have adopted an honest mode of livelihood is continually
+on the increase. Some allowance must be made for their having been
+deprived of their former calling by the cessation of the continual
+wars which distracted India under native rule, and the extension
+of roads and railways which has rendered their mode of transport
+by pack-bullocks almost entirely obsolete. At one time practically
+all the grain exported from Chhattisgarh was carried by them. In
+1881 Mr. Kitts noted that the number of Banjaras convicted in the
+Berar criminal courts was lower in proportion to the strength of
+the caste than that of Muhammadans, Brahmans, Koshtis or Sunars,
+[233] though the offences committed by them were usually more
+heinous. Colonel Mackenzie had quite a favourable opinion of them:
+"A Banjara who can read and write is unknown. But their memories,
+from cultivation, are marvellous and very retentive. They carry in
+their heads, without slip or mistake, the most varied and complicated
+transactions and the share of each in such, striking a debtor and
+creditor account as accurately as the best-kept ledger, while their
+history and songs are all learnt by heart and transmitted orally from
+generation to generation. On the whole, and taken rightly in their
+clannish nature, their virtues preponderate over their vices. In the
+main they are truthful and very brave, be it in war or the chase, and
+once gained over are faithful and devoted adherents. With the pride
+of high descent and with the right that might gives in unsettled and
+troublous times, these Banjaras habitually lord it over and contemn the
+settled inhabitants of the plains. And now not having foreseen their
+own fate, or at least not timely having read the warnings given by a
+yearly diminishing occupation, which slowly has taken their bread away,
+it is a bitter pill for them to sink into the ryot class or, oftener
+still, under stern necessity to become the ryot's servant. But they
+are settling to their fate, and the time must come when all their
+peculiar distinctive marks and traditions will be forgotten."
+
+
+
+Barai
+
+
+
+1. Origin and traditions.
+
+
+_Barai, [234] Tamboli, Pansari._--The caste of growers and sellers of
+the betel-vine leaf. The three terms are used indifferently for the
+caste in the Central Provinces, although some shades of variation in
+the meaning can be detected even here--Barai signifying especially one
+who grows the betel-vine, and Tamboli the seller of the prepared leaf;
+while Pansari, though its etymological meaning is also a dealer in
+_pan_ or betel-vine leaves, is used rather in the general sense of
+a druggist or grocer, and is apparently applied to the Barai caste
+because its members commonly follow this occupation. In Bengal,
+however, Barai and Tamboli are distinct castes, the occupations
+of growing and selling the betel-leaf being there separately
+practised. And they have been shown as different castes in the
+India Census Tables of 1901, though it is perhaps doubtful whether
+the distinction holds good in northern India. [235] In the Central
+Provinces and Berar the Barais numbered nearly 60,000 persons in
+1911. They reside principally in the Amraoti, Buldana, Nagpur, Wardha,
+Saugor and Jubbulpore Districts. The betel-vine is grown principally
+in the northern Districts of Saugor, Damoh and Jubbulpore and in
+those of Berar and the Nagpur plain. It is noticeable also that the
+growers and sellers of the betel-vine numbered only 14,000 in 1911
+out of 33,000 actual workers of the Barai caste; so that the majority
+of them are now employed in ordinary agriculture, field-labour and
+other avocations. No very probable derivation has been obtained for
+the word Barai, unless it comes from _bari_, a hedge or enclosure,
+and simply means 'gardener.' Another derivation is from _barana,_
+to avert hailstorms, a calling which they still practise in northern
+India. _Pan_, from the Sanskrit _parna_ (leaf), is _the_ leaf _par
+excellence_. Owing to the fact that they produce what is perhaps the
+most esteemed luxury in the diet of the higher classes of native
+society, the Barais occupy a fairly good social position, and one
+legend gives them a Brahman ancestry. This is to the effect that the
+first Barai was a Brahman whom God detected in a flagrant case of
+lying to his brother. His sacred thread was confiscated and being
+planted in the ground grew up into the first betel-vine, which he
+was set to tend. Another story of the origin of the vine is given
+later in this article. In the Central Provinces its cultivation has
+probably only flourished to any appreciable extent for a period of
+about three centuries, and the Barai caste would appear to be mainly
+a functional one, made up of a number of immigrants from northern
+India and of recruits from different classes of the population,
+including a large proportion of the non-Aryan element.
+
+
+
+2. Caste subdivisions.
+
+
+The following endogamous divisions of the caste have been reported:
+Chaurasia, so called from the Chaurasi pargana of the Mirzapur
+District; Panagaria from Panagar in Jubbulpore; Mahobia from Mahoba
+in Hamirpur; Jaiswar from the town of Jais in the Rai Bareli District
+of the United Provinces; Gangapari, coming from the further side of
+the Ganges; and Pardeshi or Deshwari, foreigners. The above divisions
+all have territorial names, and these show that a large proportion
+of the caste have come from northern India, the different batches
+of immigrants forming separate endogamous groups on their arrival
+here. Other subcastes are the Dudh Barais, from _dudh_, milk;
+the Kuman, said to be Kunbis who have adopted this occupation and
+become Barais; the Jharia and Kosaria, the oldest or jungly Barais,
+and those who live in Chhattisgarh; the Purania or old Barais; the
+Kumhardhang, who are said to be the descendants of a potter on whose
+wheel a betel-vine grew; and the Lahuri Sen, who are a subcaste formed
+of the descendants of irregular unions. None of the other subcastes
+will take food from these last, and the name is locally derived from
+_lahuri_, lower, and _sen_ or _shreni_, class. The caste is also
+divided into a large number of exogamous groups or septs which may
+be classified according to their names as territorial, titular and
+totemistic. Examples of territorial names are: Kanaujia of Kanauj,
+Burhanpuria of Burhanpur, Chitoria of Chitor in Rajputana, Deobijha
+the name of a village in Chhattisgarh, and Kharondiha from Kharond
+or Kalahandi State. These names must apparently have been adopted at
+random when a family either settled in one of these places or removed
+from it to another part of the country. Examples of titular names
+of groups are: Pandit (priest), Bhandari (store-keeper), Patharha
+(hail-averter), Batkaphor (pot-breaker), Bhulya (the forgetful one),
+Gujar (a caste), Gahoi (a caste), and so on. While the following are
+totemistic groups: Katara (dagger), Kulha (jackal), Bandrele (monkey),
+Chikhalkar (from _chikhal_, mud), Richharia (bear), and others. Where
+the group is named after another caste it probably indicates that a
+man of that caste became a Barai and founded a family; while the fact
+that some groups are totemistic shows that a section of the caste
+is recruited from the indigenous tribes. The large variety of names
+discloses the diverse elements of which the caste is made up.
+
+
+
+3. Marriage
+
+
+Marriage within the _gotra_ or exogamous group and within three
+degrees of relationship between persons connected through females
+is prohibited. Girls are usually wedded before adolescence, but
+no stigma attaches to the family if they remain single beyond this
+period. If a girl is seduced by a man of the caste she is married to
+him by the _pat_, a simple ceremony used for widows. In the southern
+Districts a barber cuts off a lock of her hair on the banks of a
+tank or river by way of penalty, and a fast is also imposed on her,
+while the caste-fellows exact a meal from her family. If she has an
+illegitimate child, it is given away to somebody else, if possible. A
+girl going wrong with an outsider is expelled from the caste.
+
+Polygamy is permitted and no stigma attaches to the taking of a second
+wife, though it is rarely done except for special family reasons. Among
+the Maratha Barais the bride and bridegroom must walk five times
+round the marriage altar and then worship the stone slab and roller
+used for pounding spices. This seems to show that the trade of the
+Pansari or druggist is recognised as being a proper avocation of the
+Barai. They subsequently have to worship the potter's wheel. After the
+wedding the bride, if she is a child, goes as usual to her husband's
+house for a few days. In Chhattisgarh she is accompanied by a few
+relations, the party being known as Chauthia, and during her stay in
+her husband's house the bride is made to sleep on the ground. Widow
+marriage is permitted, and the ceremony is conducted according to the
+usage of the locality. In Betul the relatives of the widow take the
+second husband before Maroti's shrine, where he offers a nut and some
+betel-leaf. He is then taken to the malguzar's house and presents
+to him Rs. 1-4-0, a cocoanut and some betel-vine leaf as the price
+of his assent to the marriage. If there is a Deshmukh [236] of the
+village, a cocoanut and betel-leaf are also given to him. The nut
+offered to Maroti represents the deceased husband's spirit, and is
+subsequently placed on a plank and kicked off by the new bridegroom
+in token of his usurping the other's place, and finally buried to
+lay the spirit. The property of the first husband descends to his
+children, and failing them his brother's children or collateral heirs
+take it before the widow. A bachelor espousing a widow must first go
+through the ceremony of marriage with a swallow-wort plant. When a
+widower marries a girl a silver impression representing the deceased
+first wife is made and worshipped daily with the family gods. Divorce
+is permitted on sufficient grounds at the instance of either party,
+being effected before the caste committee or _panchayat_. If a husband
+divorces his wife merely on account of bad temper, he must maintain her
+so long as she remains unmarried and continues to lead a moral life.
+
+
+
+4. Religion and social status.
+
+
+The Barais especially venerate the Nag or cobra and observe the
+festival of Nag-Panchmi (Cobra's fifth), in connection with which
+the following story is related. Formerly there was no betel-vine on
+the earth. But when the five Pandava brothers celebrated the great
+horse sacrifice after their victory at Hastinapur, they wanted some,
+and so messengers were sent down below the earth to the residence of
+the queen of the serpents, in order to try and obtain it. Basuki,
+the queen of the serpents, obligingly cut off the top joint of her
+little finger and gave it to the messengers. This was brought up
+and sown on the earth, and _pan_ creepers grew out of the joint. For
+this reason the betel-vine has no blossoms or seeds, but the joints
+of the creepers are cut off and sown, when they sprout afresh; and
+the betel-vine is called Nagbel or the serpent-creeper. On the day
+of Nag-Panchmi the Barais go to the _bareja_ with flowers, cocoanuts
+and other offerings, and worship a stone which is placed in it and
+which represents the Nag or cobra. A goat or sheep is sacrificed and
+they return home, no leaf of the _pan_ garden being touched on that
+day. A cup of milk is also left, in the belief that a cobra will come
+out of the _pan_ garden and drink it. The Barais say that members of
+their caste are never bitten by cobras, though many of these snakes
+frequent the gardens on account of the moist coolness and shade
+which they afford. The Agarwala Banias, from whom the Barais will
+take food cooked without water, have also a legend of descent from
+a Naga or snake princess. 'Our mother's house is of the race of the
+snake,' say the Agarwals of Bihar. [237] The caste usually burn the
+dead, with the exception of children and persons dying of leprosy
+or snake-bite, whose bodies are buried. Mourning is observed for
+ten days in the case of adults and for three days for children. In
+Chhattisgarh if any portion of the corpse remains unburnt on the
+day following the cremation, the relatives are penalised to the
+extent of an extra feast to the caste-fellows. Children are named
+on the sixth or twelfth day after birth either by a Brahman or by
+the women of the household. Two names are given, one for ceremonial
+and the other for ordinary use. When a Brahman is engaged he gives
+seven names for a boy and five for a girl, and the parents select
+one out of these. The Barais do not admit outsiders into the caste,
+and employ Brahmans for religious and ceremonial purposes. They are
+allowed to eat the flesh of clean animals, but very rarely do so,
+and they abstain from liquor. Brahmans will take sweets and water
+from them, and they occupy a fairly good social position on account
+of the important nature of their occupation.
+
+
+
+5. Occupation.
+
+
+"It has been mentioned," says Sir H. Risley, [238] "that the garden
+is regarded as almost sacred, and the superstitious practices in
+vogue resemble those of the silk-worm breeder. The Barui will not
+enter it until he has bathed and washed his clothes. Animals found
+inside are driven out, while women ceremonially unclean dare not enter
+within the gate. A Brahman never sets foot inside, and old men have a
+prejudice against entering it. It has, however, been known to be used
+for assignations." The betel-vine is the leaf of _Piper betel_ L.,
+the word being derived from the Malayalam _vettila_, 'a plain leaf,'
+and coming to us through the Portuguese _betre_ and _betle_. The
+leaf is called _pan_, and is eaten with the nut of _Areca catechu_,
+called in Hindi _supari_. The vine needs careful cultivation, the
+gardens having to be covered to keep off the heat of the sun, while
+liberal treatment with manure and irrigation is needed. The joints of
+the creepers are planted in February, and begin to supply leaves in
+about five months' time. When the first creepers are stripped after
+a period of nearly a year, they are cut off and fresh ones appear,
+the plants being exhausted within a period of about two years after
+the first sowing. A garden may cover from half an acre to an acre
+of land, and belongs to a number of growers, who act in partnership,
+each owning so many lines of vines. The plain leaves are sold at from
+2 annas to 4 annas a hundred, or a higher rate when they are out of
+season. Damoh, Ramtek and Bilahri are three of the best-known centres
+of cultivation in the Central Provinces. The Bilahri leaf is described
+in the _Ain-i-Akbari_ as follows: "The leaf called Bilahri is white and
+shining, and does not make the tongue harsh and hard. It tastes best
+of all kinds. After it has been taken away from the creeper, it turns
+white with some care after a month, or even after twenty days, when
+greater efforts are made." [239] For retail sale _bidas_ are prepared,
+consisting of a rolled betel-leaf containing areca-nut, catechu and
+lime, and fastened with a clove. Musk and cardamoms are sometimes
+added. Tobacco should be smoked after eating a _bida_ according to
+the saying, 'Service without a patron, a young man without a shield,
+and betel without tobacco are alike savourless.' _Bidas_ are sold
+at from two to four for a pice (farthing). Women of the caste often
+retail them, and as many are good-looking they secure more custom;
+they are also said to have an indifferent reputation. Early in the
+morning, when they open their shops, they burn some incense before
+the bamboo basket in which the leaves are kept, to propitiate Lakshmi,
+the goddess of wealth.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+Barhai
+
+
+
+List of Paragraphs
+
+
+    1.   _Strength and local distribution._
+    2.   _Internal structure._
+    3.   _Marriage customs._
+    4.   _Religion._
+    5.   _Social position._
+    6.   _Occupation._
+
+
+
+1. Strength and local distribution.
+
+
+_Barhai, Sutar, Kharadi, Mistri._--The occupational caste of
+carpenters. The Barhais numbered nearly 110,000 persons in the Central
+Provinces and Berar in 1911, or about 1 in 150 persons. The caste
+is most numerous in Districts with large towns, and few carpenters
+are to be found in villages except in the richer and more advanced
+Districts. Hitherto such woodwork as the villagers wanted for
+agriculture has been made by the Lohar or blacksmith, while the
+country cots, the only wooden article of furniture in their houses,
+could be fashioned by their own hands or by the Gond woodcutter. In the
+Mandla District the Barhai caste counts only 300 persons, and about
+the same in Balaghat, in Drug only 47 persons, and in the fourteen
+Chhattisgarh Feudatory States, with a population of more than two
+millions, only some 800 persons. The name Barhai is said to be from
+the Sanskrit Vardhika and the root _vardh_, to cut. Sutar is a common
+name of the caste in the Maratha Districts, and is from Sutra-kara,
+one who works by string, or a maker of string. The allusion may be to
+the Barhai's use of string in planing or measuring timber, or it may
+possibly indicate a transfer of occupation, the Sutars having first
+been mainly string-makers and afterwards abandoned this calling for
+that of the carpenter. The first wooden implements and articles of
+furniture may have been held together by string before nails came into
+use. Kharadi is literally a turner, one who turns woodwork on a lathe,
+from _kharat_, a lathe. Mistri, a corruption of the English Mister,
+is an honorific title for master carpenters.
+
+
+
+2. Internal structure.
+
+
+The comparatively recent growth of the caste in these Provinces is
+shown by its subdivisions. The principal subcastes of the Hindustani
+Districts are the Pardeshi or foreigners, immigrants from northern
+India, and the Purbia or eastern, coming from Oudh; other subcastes are
+the Sri Gaur Malas or immigrants from Malwa, the Beradi from Berar,
+and the Mahure from Hyderabad. We find also subcastes of Jat and
+Teli Barhais, consisting of Jats and Telis (oil-pressers) who have
+taken to carpentering. Two other caste-groups, the Chamar Barhais and
+Gondi Barhais, are returned, but these are not at present included in
+the Barhai caste, and consist merely of Chamars and Gonds who work
+as carpenters but remain in their own castes. In the course of some
+generations, however, if the cohesive social force of the caste system
+continues unabated, these groups may probably find admission into
+the Barhai caste. Colonel Tod notes that the progeny of one Makur,
+a prince of the Jadon Rajput house of Jaisalmer, became carpenters,
+and were known centuries after as Makur Sutars. They were apparently
+considered illegitimate, as he states: "Illegitimate children can
+never overcome this natural defect among the Rajputs. Thus we find
+among all classes of artisans in India some of royal but spurious
+descent." [240] The internal structure of the caste seems therefore
+to indicate that it is largely of foreign origin and to a certain
+degree of recent formation in these Provinces.
+
+
+
+3. Marriage customs.
+
+
+The caste are also divided into exogamous septs named after
+villages. In some localities it is said that they have no septs,
+but only surnames, and that people of the same surname cannot
+intermarry. Well-to-do persons marry their daughters before puberty
+and others when they can afford the expense of the ceremony. Brahman
+priests are employed at weddings, though on other occasions their
+services are occasionally dispensed with. The wedding ceremony is
+of the type prevalent in the locality. When the wedding procession
+reaches the bride's village it halts near the temple of Maroti or
+Hanuman. Among the Panchal Barhais the bridegroom does not wear
+a marriage crown but ties a bunch of flowers to his turban. The
+bridegroom's party is entertained for five days. Divorce and the
+remarriage of widows are permitted. In most localities it is said that
+a widow is forbidden to marry her first husband's younger as well as
+his elder brother. Among the Pardeshi Barhais of Betul if a bachelor
+desires to marry a widow he must first go through the ceremony with
+a branch or twig of the _gular_ tree. [241]
+
+
+
+4. Religion.
+
+
+The caste worship Viswakarma, the celestial architect, and venerate
+their trade implements on the Dasahra festival. They consider the
+sight of a mongoose and of a light-grey pigeon or dove as lucky
+omens. They burn the dead and throw the ashes into a river or tank,
+employing a Maha-Brahman to receive the gifts for the dead.
+
+
+
+5. Social position.
+
+
+In social status the Barhais rank with the higher artisan
+castes. Brahmans take water from them in some localities, perhaps
+more especially in towns. In Betul for instance Hindustani Brahmans
+do not accept water from the rural Barhais. In Damoh where both the
+Barhai and Lohar are village menials, their status is said to be the
+same, and Brahmans do not take water from Lohars. Mr. Nesfield says
+that the Barhai is a village servant and ranks with the Kurmi, with
+whom his interests are so closely allied. But there seems no special
+reason why the interests of the carpenter should be more closely
+allied with the cultivator than those of any other village menial,
+and it may be offered as a surmise that carpentering as a distinct
+trade is of comparatively late origin, and was adopted by Kurmis, to
+which fact the connection noticed by Mr. Nesfield might be attributed;
+hence the position of the Barhai among the castes from whom a Brahman
+will take water. In some localities well-to-do members of the caste
+have begun to wear the sacred thread.
+
+
+
+6. Occupation.
+
+
+In the northern Districts and the cotton tract the Barhai works as a
+village menial. He makes and mends the plough and harrow (_bakhar_)
+and other wooden implements of agriculture, and makes new ones when
+supplied with the wood. In Wardha he receives an annual contribution
+of 100 lbs. of grain from each cultivator. In Betul he gets 67 lbs. of
+grain and other perquisites for each plough of four bullocks. For
+making carts and building or repairing houses he must be separately
+paid. At weddings the Barhai often supplies the sacred marriage-post
+and is given from four annas to a rupee. At the Diwali festival he
+prepares a wooden peg about six inches long, and drives it into the
+cultivator's house inside the threshold, and receives half a pound
+to a pound of grain.
+
+In cities the carpenters are rapidly acquiring an increased degree
+of skill as the demand for a better class of houses and furniture
+becomes continually greater and more extensive. The carpenters
+have been taught to make English furniture by such institutions as
+the Friends' Mission of Hoshangabad and other missionaries; and a
+Government technical school has now been opened at Nagpur, in which
+boys from all over the Province are trained in the profession. Very
+little wood-carving with any pretensions to excellence has hitherto
+been done in the Central Provinces, but the Jain temples at Saugor and
+Khurai contain some fair woodwork. A good carpenter in towns can earn
+from 12 annas to Rs. 1-8 a day, and both his earnings and prospects
+have greatly improved within recent years. Sherring remarks of the
+Barhais: "As artisans they exhibit little or no inventive powers: but
+in imitating the workmanship of others they are perhaps unsurpassed
+in the whole world. They are equally clever in working from designs
+and models." [242]
+
+
+
+Bari
+
+_Bari._--A caste of household servants and makers of leaf-plates,
+belonging to northern India. The Baris numbered 1200 persons in
+the Central Provinces in 1911, residing mainly in Jubbulpore and
+Mandla. Sir H. Risley remarks of the caste: [243] "Mr. Nesfield
+regards the Bari as merely an offshoot from a semi-savage tribe
+known as Banmanush and Musahar. He is said still to associate with
+them at times, and if the demand for leaf-plates and cups, owing to
+some temporary cause, such as a local fair or an unusual multitude
+of marriages, happens to become larger than he can at once supply,
+he gets them secretly made by his ruder kinsfolk and retails them at
+a higher rate, passing them off as his own production. The strictest
+Brahmans, those at least who aspire to imitate the self-denying life
+of the ancient Indian hermit, never eat off any other plates than those
+made of leaves." "If the above view is correct," Sir H. Risley remarks,
+"the Baris are a branch of a non-Aryan tribe who have been given a
+fairly respectable position in the social system in consequence of the
+demand for leaf-plates, which are largely used by the highest as well
+as the lowest castes. Instances of this sort, in which a non-Aryan
+or mixed group is promoted on grounds of necessity or convenience to
+a higher status than their antecedents would entitle them to claim,
+are not unknown in other castes, and must have occurred frequently
+in outlying parts of the country, where the Aryan settlements were
+scanty and imperfectly supplied with the social apparatus demanded by
+the theory of ceremonial purity." There is no reason why the origin
+of the Bari from the Banmanush (wild man of the woods) or Musahar
+(mouse-eater), a forest tribe, as suggested by Mr. Nesfield from
+his observation of their mutual connection, should be questioned. The
+making of leaf-plates is an avocation which may be considered naturally
+to pertain to the tribes frequenting jungles from which the leaves are
+gathered; and in the Central Provinces, though in the north the Nai
+or barber ostensibly supplies the leaf-plates, probably buying the
+leaves and getting them made up by Gonds and others, in the Maratha
+Districts the Gond himself does so, and many Gonds make their living
+by this trade. The people of the Maratha country are apparently less
+strict than those of northern India, and do not object to eat off
+plates avowedly the handiwork of Gonds. The fact that the Bari has
+been raised to the position of a pure caste, so that Brahmans will take
+water from his hands, is one among several instances of this elevation
+of the rank of the serving castes for purposes of convenience. The
+caste themselves have the following legend of their origin: Once upon
+a time Parmeshwar [244] was offering rice milk to the spirits of his
+ancestors. In the course of this ceremony the performer has to present
+a gift known as Vikraya Dan, which cannot be accepted by others without
+loss of position. Parmeshwar offered the gift to various Brahmans,
+but they all refused it. So he made a man of clay, and blew upon the
+image and gave it life, and the god then asked the man whom he had
+created to accept the gift which the Brahmans had refused. This man,
+who was the first Bari, agreed on condition that all men should drink
+with him and recognise his purity of caste. Parmeshwar then told him
+to bring water in a cup, and drank of it in the presence of all the
+castes. And in consequence of this all the Hindus will take water
+from the hands of a Bari. They also say that their first ancestor was
+named Sundar on account of his personal beauty; but if so, he failed
+to bequeath this quality to his descendants. The proper avocation
+of the Baris is, as already stated, the manufacture of the leaf-cups
+and plates used by all Hindus at festivals. In the Central Provinces
+these are made from the large leaves of the _mahul_ creeper (_Bauhinia
+Vahlii_), or from the _palas_ (_Butea frondosa_). The caste also act as
+personal servants, handing round water, lighting and carrying torches
+at marriages and other entertainments and on journeys, and performing
+other functions. Some of them have taken to agriculture. Their women
+act as maids to high-caste Hindu ladies, and as they are always about
+the zenana, are liable to lose their virtue. A curious custom prevails
+in Marwar on the birth of an heir to the throne. An impression of the
+child's foot is taken by a Bari on cloth covered with saffron, and
+is exhibited to the native chiefs, who make him rich presents. [245]
+The Baris have the reputation of great fidelity to their employers, and
+a saying about them is, 'The Bari will die fighting for his master.'
+
+
+
+Basdewa
+
+
+_Basdewa, [246] Wasudeo, Harbola, Kaparia, Jaga, Kapdi._--A wandering
+beggar caste of mixed origin, who also call themselves Sanadhya or
+Sanaurhia Brahmans. The Basdewas trace their origin to Wasudeo,
+the father of Krishna, and the term Basdewa is a corruption of
+Wasudeo or Wasudeva. Kaparia is the name they bear in the Anterved
+or country between the Ganges and Jumna, whence they claim to have
+come. Kaparia has been derived from _kapra_, cloth, owing to the custom
+of the Basdewas of having several dresses, which they change rapidly
+like the Bahrupia, making themselves up in different characters as a
+show. Harbola is an occupational term, applied to a class of Basdewas
+who climb trees in the early morning and thence vociferate praises
+of the deity in a loud voice. The name is derived from _Har_, God,
+and _bolna_, to speak. As the Harbolas wake people up in the morning
+they are also called Jaga or Awakener. The number of Basdewas in
+the Central Provinces and Berar in 1911 was 2500, and they are found
+principally in the northern Districts and in Chhattisgarh. They have
+several territorial subcastes, as Gangaputri or those who dwell on
+the banks of the Ganges; Khaltia or Deswari, those who belong to
+the Central Provinces; Parauha, from _para_, a male buffalo calf,
+being the dealers in buffaloes; Harbola or those who climb trees and
+sing the praises of God; and Wasudeo, the dwellers in the Maratha
+Districts who marry only among themselves. The names of the exogamous
+divisions are very varied, some being taken from Brahman _gotras_ and
+Rajput septs, while others are the names of villages, or nicknames,
+or derived from animals and plants. It may be concluded from these
+names that the Basdewas are a mixed occupational group recruited
+from high and low castes, though they themselves say that they do
+not admit any outsiders except Brahmans into the community. In Bombay
+[247] the Wasudevas have a special connection with Kumhars or potters,
+whom they address by the term of _kaka_ or paternal uncle, and at whose
+houses they lodge on their travels, presenting their host with the two
+halves of a cocoanut. The caste do not observe celibacy. A price of
+Rs. 25 has usually to be given for a bride, and a Brahman is employed
+to perform the ceremony. At the conclusion of this the Brahman invests
+the bridegroom with a sacred thread, which he thereafter continues to
+wear. Widow marriage is permitted, and widows are commonly married to
+widowers. Divorce is also permitted. When a man's wife dies he shaves
+his moustache and beard, if any, in mourning and a father likewise
+for a daughter-in-law; this is somewhat peculiar, as other Hindus do
+not shave the moustache for a wife or daughter-in-law. The Basdewas
+are wandering mendicants. In the Maratha Districts they wear a plume
+of peacock's feathers, which they say was given to them as a badge
+by Krishna. In Saugor and Damoh instead of this they carry during the
+period from Dasahra to the end of Magh or from September to January a
+brass vessel called _matuk_ bound on their heads. It is surmounted by
+a brass cone and adorned with mango-leaves, cowries and a piece of red
+cloth, and with figures of Rama and Lakshman. Their stock-in-trade for
+begging consists of two _kartals_ or wooden clappers which are struck
+against each other; _ghungrus_ or jingling ornaments for the feet,
+worn when dancing; and a _paijna_ or kind of rattle, consisting of
+two semicircular iron wires bound at each end to a piece of wood with
+rings slung on to them; this is simply shaken in the hand and gives
+out a sound from the movement of the rings against the wires. They
+worship all these implements as well as their beggar's wallet on
+the Janam-Ashtami or Krishna's birthday, the Dasahra, and the full
+moon of Magh (January). They rise early and beg only in the morning
+from about four till eight, and sing songs in praise of Sarwan and
+Karan. Sarwan was a son renowned for his filial piety; he maintained
+and did service to his old blind parents to the end of their lives,
+much against the will of his wife, and was proof against all her
+machinations to induce him to abandon them. Karan was a proverbially
+charitable king, and all his family had the same virtue. His wife gave
+away daily rice and pulse to those who required it, his daughter gave
+them clothes, his son distributed cows as alms and his daughter-in-law
+cocoanuts. The king himself gave only gold, and it is related of him
+that he was accustomed to expend a maund and a quarter [248] weight
+of gold in alms-giving before he washed himself and paid his morning
+devotions. Therefore the Basdewas sing that he who gives early in the
+morning acquires the merit of Karan; and their presence at this time
+affords the requisite opportunity to anybody who may be desirous of
+emulating the king. At the end of every couplet they cry 'Jai Ganga'
+or 'Har Ganga,' invoking the Ganges.
+
+The Harbolas have each a beat of a certain number of villages which
+must not be infringed by the others. Their method is to ascertain the
+name of some well-to-do person in the village. This done, they climb
+a tree in the early morning before sunrise, and continue chanting
+his praises in a loud voice until he is sufficiently flattered
+by their eulogies or wearied by their importunity to throw down a
+present of a few pice under the tree, which the Harbola, descending,
+appropriates. The Basdewas of the northern Districts are now commonly
+engaged in the trade of buying and selling buffaloes. They take the
+young male calves from Saugor and Damoh to Chhattisgarh, and there
+retail them at a profit for rice cultivation, driving them in large
+herds along the road. For the capital which they have to borrow to
+make their purchases, they are charged very high rates of interest. The
+Basdewas have here a special veneration for the buffalo as the animal
+from which they make their livelihood, and they object strongly to
+the calves being taken to be tied out as baits for tiger, refusing,
+it is said, to accept payment if the calf should be killed. Their
+social status is not high, and none but the lowest castes will take
+food from their hands. They eat flesh and drink liquor, but abstain
+from pork, fowls and beef. Some of the caste have given up animal food.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+Basor
+
+
+List of Paragraphs
+
+
+    1.  _Numbers and distribution._
+    2.  _Caste traditions._
+    3.  _Subdivisions._
+    4.  _Marriage._
+    5.  _Religion and social status._
+    6.  _Occupation._
+
+
+
+1. Numbers and distribution.
+
+
+_Basor, [249] Bansphor, Dhulia, Burud._--The occupational caste of
+bamboo-workers, the two first names being Hindi and the last the
+term used in the Maratha Districts. The cognate Uriya caste is called
+Kandra and the Telugu one Medara. The Basors numbered 53,000 persons
+in the Central Provinces and Berar in 1911. About half the total
+number reside in the Saugor, Damoh and Jubbulpore Districts. The word
+Basor is a corruption of Bansphor, 'a breaker of bamboos.' Dhulia,
+from _dholi_, a drum, means a musician.
+
+
+
+2. Caste traditions.
+
+
+The caste trace their origin from Raja Benu or Venu who ruled at
+Singorgarh in Damoh. It is related of him that he was so pious that
+he raised no taxes from his subjects, but earned his livelihood by
+making and selling bamboo fans. He could of course keep no army,
+but he knew magic, and when he broke his fan the army of the enemy
+broke up in unison. Venu is a Sanskrit word meaning bamboo. But a
+mythological Sanskrit king called Vena is mentioned in the Puranas,
+from whom for his sins was born the first Nishada, the lowest of human
+beings, and Manu [250] states that the bamboo-worker is the issue of
+a Nishada or Chandal father and a Vaideha [251] mother. So that the
+local story may be a corruption of the Brahmanical tradition. Another
+legend relates that in the beginning there were no bamboos, and
+the first Basor took the serpent which Siva wore round his neck and
+going to a hill planted it with its head in the ground. A bamboo at
+once sprang up on the spot, and from this the Basor made the first
+winnowing fan. And the snake-like root of the bamboo, which no doubt
+suggested the story to its composer, is now adduced in proof of it.
+
+
+
+3. Subdivisions.
+
+
+The Basors of the northern Districts are divided into a number of
+subcastes, the principal of which are: the Purania or Juthia, who
+perhaps represent the oldest section, Purania being from _purana_ old;
+they are called Juthia because they eat the leavings of others; the
+Barmaiya or Malaiya, apparently a territorial group; the Deshwari or
+Bundelkhandi who reside in the _desh_ or native place of Bundelkhand;
+the Gudha or Gurha, the name being derived by some from _guda_
+a pigsty; the Dumar or Dom Basors; the Dhubela, perhaps from the
+Dhobi caste; and the Dharkar. Two or three of the above names appear
+to be those of other low castes from which the Basor caste may have
+been recruited, perhaps at times when a strong demand existed for
+bamboo-workers. The Buruds do not appear to be sufficiently numerous
+to have subcastes. But they include a few Telenga Buruds who are
+really Medaras, and the caste proper are therefore sometimes known as
+Maratha Buruds to distinguish them from these. The caste has numerous
+_bainks_ or exogamous groups or septs, the names of which may chiefly
+be classified as territorial and totemistic. Among the former are
+Mahobia, from the town of Mahoba; Sirmaiya, from Sirmau; Orahia,
+from Orai, the battlefield of the Banaphar generals, Alha and Udal;
+Tikarahia from Tikari, and so on. The totemistic septs include the
+Sanpero from _sanp_ a snake, the Mangrelo from _mangra_ a crocodile,
+the Morya from _mor_ a peacock, the Titya from the _titehri_ bird
+and the Sarkia from _sarki_ or red ochre, all of which worship their
+respective totems. The Katarya or 'dagger' sept worship a real or
+painted dagger at their marriage, and the Kemia, a branch of the _kem_
+tree (_Stephegyne parvifolia_). The Bandrelo, from _bandar_, worship a
+painted monkey. One or two groups are named after castes, as Bamhnelo
+from Brahman and Bargujaria from Bargujar Rajput, thus indicating that
+members of these castes became Basors and founded families. One sept
+is called Marha from Marhai, the goddess of cholera, and the members
+worship a picture of the goddess drawn in black. The name of the
+Kulhantia sept means somersault, and these turn a somersault before
+worshipping their gods. So strong is the totemistic idea that some
+of the territorial groups worship objects with similar names. Thus
+the Mahobia group, whose name is undoubtedly derived from the town
+of Mahoba, have adopted the mahua tree as their totem, and digging
+a small hole in the ground place in it a little water and the liquor
+made from mahua flowers, and worship it. This represents the process
+of distillation of country liquor. Similarly, the Orahia group,
+who derive their name from the town of Orai, now worship the _urai_
+or _khaskhas_ grass, and the Tikarahia from Tikari worship a _tikli_
+or glass spangle.
+
+
+
+4. Marriage.
+
+
+The marriage of persons belonging to the same _baink_ or sept and also
+that of first cousins is forbidden. The age of marriage is settled
+by convenience, and no stigma attaches to its postponement beyond
+adolescence. Intrigues of unmarried girls with men of their own or
+any higher caste are usually overlooked. The ceremony follows the
+standard Hindi and Marathi forms, and presents no special features. A
+bride-price called _chari_, amounting to seven or eight rupees,
+is usually paid. In Betul the practice of _lamjhana_ or serving the
+father-in-law for a term of years before marrying his daughter, is
+sometimes followed. Widow-marriage is permitted, and the widow is
+expected to wed her late husband's younger brother. The Basors are
+musicians by profession, but in Betul the _narsingha_, a peculiar
+kind of crooked trumpet, is the only implement which may be played
+at the marriage of a widow. A woman marrying a second time forfeits
+all interest in the property of her late husband, unless she is
+without issue and there are no near relatives of her husband to take
+it. Divorce is effected by the breaking of the woman's bangles in
+public. If obtained by the wife, she must repay to her first husband
+the expenditure incurred by him for her marriage when she takes a
+second. But the acceptance of this payment is considered derogatory
+and the husband refuses it unless he is poor.
+
+
+
+5. Religion and social status.
+
+
+The Basors worship the ordinary Hindu deities and also ghosts and
+spirits. Like the other low castes they entertain a special veneration
+for Devi. They profess to exorcise evil spirits and the evil eye,
+and to cure other disorders and diseases through the agency of their
+incantations and the goblins who do their bidding. They burn their
+dead when they can afford it and otherwise bury them, placing the
+corpse in the grave with its head to the north. The body of a woman
+is wrapped in a red shroud and that of a man in a white one. They
+observe mourning for a period of three to ten days, but in Jubbulpore
+it always ends with the fortnight in which the death takes place;
+so that a person dying on the 15th or 30th of the month is mourned
+only for one day. They eat almost every kind of food, including
+beef, pork, fowls, liquor and the leavings of others, but abjure
+crocodiles, monkeys, snakes and rats. Many of them have now given
+up eating cow's flesh in deference to Hindu feeling. They will take
+food from almost any caste except sweepers, and one or two others,
+as Joshi and Jasondhi, towards whom for some unexplained reason they
+entertain a special aversion. They will admit outsiders belonging
+to any caste from whom they can take food into the community. They
+are generally considered as impure, and live outside the village,
+and their touch conveys pollution, more especially in the Maratha
+Districts. The ordinary village menials, as the barber and washerman,
+will not work for them, and services of this nature are performed by
+men of their own community. As, however, their occupation is not in
+itself unclean, they rank above sweepers, Chamars and Dhobis. Temporary
+exclusion from caste is imposed for the usual offences, and the almost
+invariable penalty for readmission is a feast to the caste-fellows. A
+person, male or female, who has been convicted of adultery must have
+the head shaved, and is then seated in the centre of the caste-fellows
+and pelted by them with the leavings of their food. Basor women are
+not permitted to wear nose-rings on pain of exclusion from caste.
+
+
+
+6. Occupation.
+
+
+The trade of the Basors is a very essential one to the agricultural
+community. They make numerous kinds of baskets, among which may be
+mentioned the _chunka_, a very small one, the _tokni_, a basket
+of middle size, and the _tokna_, a very large one. The _dauri_
+is a special basket with a lining of matting for washing rice in
+a stream. The _jhanpi_ is a round basket with a cover for holding
+clothes; the _tipanna_ a small one in which girls keep dolls; and the
+_bilahra_ a still smaller one for holding betel-leaf. Other articles
+made from bamboo-bark are the _chalni_ or sieve, the _khunkhuna_ or
+rattle, the _bansuri_ or wooden flute, the _bijna_ or fan, and the
+_supa_ or winnowing-fan. All grain is cleaned with the help of the
+_supa_ both on the threshing-floor and in the house before consumption,
+and a child is always laid in one as soon as it is born. In towns
+the Basors make the bamboo matting which is so much used. The only
+implement they employ is the _banka_, a heavy curved knife, with which
+all the above articles are made. The _banka_ is duly worshipped at
+the Diwali festival. The Basors are also the village musicians, and a
+band of three or four of them play at weddings and on other festive
+occasions. Some of them work as pig-breeders and others are village
+watchmen. The women often act as midwives. One subcaste, the Dumar,
+will do scavenger's work, but they never take employment as _saises_,
+because the touch of horse-dung is considered as a pollution, entailing
+temporary excommunication from caste.
+
+
+
+Bedar
+
+
+
+1. General notice.
+
+
+_Bedar. [252]_--A small caste of about 1500 persons, belonging
+to Akola, Khandesh and Hyderabad. Their ancestors were Pindaris,
+apparently recruited from the different Maratha castes, and when the
+Pindaris were suppressed they obtained or were awarded land in the
+localities where they now reside, and took to cultivation. The more
+respectable Bedars say that their ancestors were Tirole Kunbis, but
+when Tipu Sultan invaded the Carnatic he took many of them prisoners
+and ordered them to become Muhammadans. In order to please him they
+took food with Muhammadans, and on this account the Kunbis put them out
+of caste until they should purify themselves. But as there were a large
+number of them, they did not do this, and have remained a separate
+caste. The real derivation of the name is unknown, but the caste say
+that it is _be-dar_ or 'without fear,' and was given to them on account
+of their bravery. They have now obtained a warrant from the descendant
+of Shankar Acharya, or the high priest of Sivite Hindus, permitting
+them to describe themselves as Put Kunbi or purified Kunbi. [253]
+The community is clearly of a most mixed nature, as there are also
+Dher or Mahar Bedars. They refuse to take food from other Mahars and
+consider themselves defiled by their touch. The social position of
+the caste also presents some peculiar features. Several of them have
+taken service in the army and police, and have risen to the rank of
+native officer; and Rao Sahib Dhonduji, a retired Inspector of Police,
+is a prominent member of the caste. The Raja of Surpur, near Raichur,
+is also said to be a Bedar, while others are ministerial officials
+occupying a respectable position. Yet of the Bedars generally it is
+said that they cannot draw water freely from the public wells, and in
+Nasik Bedar constables are not considered suitable for ordinary duty,
+as people object to their entering houses. The caste must therefore
+apparently have higher and lower groups, differing considerably
+in position.
+
+
+
+2. Subdivisions and marriage customs.
+
+
+They have three subdivisions, the Maratha, Telugu and Kande Bedars. The
+names of their exogamous sections are also Marathi. Nevertheless
+they retain one or two northern customs, presumably acquired from
+association with the Pindaris. Their women do not tuck the body-cloth
+in behind the waist, but draw it over the right shoulder. They wear
+the _choli_ or Hindustani breast-cloth tied in front, and have a hooped
+silver ornament on the top of the head, which is known as _dhora_. They
+eat goats, fowls and the flesh of the wild pig, and drink liquor, and
+will take food from a Kunbi or a Phulmali, and pay little heed to the
+rules of social impurity. But Hindustani Brahmans act as their priests.
+
+Before a wedding they call a Brahman and worship him as a god, the
+ceremony being known as Deo Brahman. The Brahman then cooks food in the
+house of his host. On the same occasion a person specially nominated
+by the Brahman, and known as Deokia, fetches an earthen vessel from
+the potter, and this is worshipped with offerings of turmeric and
+rice, and a cotton thread is tied round it. Formerly it is said they
+worshipped the spent bullets picked up after a battle, and especially
+any which had been extracted from the body of a wounded person.
+
+
+
+3. Funeral rites.
+
+
+When a man is about to die they take him down from his cot and lay
+him on the ground with his head in the lap of a relative. The dead
+are buried, a person of importance being carried to the grave in a
+sitting posture, while others are laid out in the ordinary manner. A
+woman is buried in a green cloth and a breast-cloth. When the corpse
+has been prepared for the funeral they take some liquor, and after a
+few drops have been poured into the mouth of the corpse the assembled
+persons drink the rest. While following to the grave they beat drums
+and play on musical instruments and sing religious songs; and if a
+man dies during the night, since he is not buried till the morning,
+they sit in the house playing and singing for the remaining hours of
+darkness. The object of this custom must presumably be to keep away
+evil spirits. After the funeral each man places a leafy branch of
+some tree or shrub on the grave, and on the thirteenth day they put
+food before a cow and also throw some on to the roof of the house as
+a portion for the crows.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+Beldar
+
+
+List of Paragraphs
+
+
+    1.  _General notice._
+    2.  _Beldars of the northern Districts._
+    3.  _Odias of Chhattisgarh._
+    4.  _Other Chhattisgarhi Beldars._
+    5.  _Munurwar and Telenga._
+    6.  _Vaddar._
+    7.  _Pathrot._
+    8.  _Takari._
+
+
+
+1. General notice.
+
+
+_Beldar, [254] Od, Sonkar, Raj, Larhia, Karigar, Matkuda, Chunkar,
+Munurwar, Thapatkari, Vaddar, Pathrot, Takari._--The term Beldar
+is generically applied to a number of occupational groups of more
+or less diverse origin, who work as masons or navvies, build the
+earthen embankments of tanks or fields, carry lime and bricks and
+in former times refined salt. Beldar means one who carries a _bel_,
+a hoe or mattock. In 1911 a total of 25,000 Beldars were returned
+from the Central Provinces, being most numerous in the Nimar, Wardha,
+Nagpur, Chanda and Raipur districts. The Nunia, Murha and Sansia
+(Uriya) castes, which have been treated in separate articles, are
+also frequently known as Beldar, and cannot be clearly distinguished
+from the main caste. If they are all classed together the total of
+the earth- and stone-working castes comes to 35,000 persons.
+
+It is probable that the bulk of the Beldars and allied castes are
+derived from the non-Aryan tribes. The Murhas or navvies of the
+northern Districts appear to be an offshoot of the Bind tribe; the
+people known as Matkuda (earth-digger) are usually Gonds or Pardhans;
+the Sansias and Larhias or Uriyas of Chhattisgarh and the Uriya country
+seem to have originated from the Kol, Bhuiya and Oraon tribes, the Kols
+especially making excellent diggers and masons; the Oddes or Vaddars
+of Madras are a very low caste, and some of their customs point to a
+similar origin, though the Munurwar masons of Chanda appear to have
+belonged originally to the Kapu caste of cultivators.
+
+The term Raj, which is also used for the Beldars in the northern
+Districts, has the distinctive meaning of a mason, while Chunkar
+signifies a lime-burner. The Sonkars were formerly occupied in Saugor
+in carrying lime, bricks and earth on donkeys, but they have now
+abandoned this calling in Chhattisgarh and taken to growing vegetables,
+and have been given a short separate notice. In Hoshangabad some
+Muhammadan Beldars are now also found.
+
+
+
+2. Beldars of the northern Districts.
+
+
+The Beldars of Saugor say that their ancestors were engaged in
+refining salt from earth. A divine saint named Nona Rishi (_non_,
+salt) came down on earth, and while cooking his food mixed some
+saline soil with it. The bread tasted much better in consequence, and
+he made the earth into a ball or _goli_ and taught his followers to
+extract the salt from it, whence their descendants are known as Goli
+Beldars. The customs of these Beldars are of the ordinary low-caste
+type. The wedding procession is accompanied by drums, fireworks and,
+if means permit, a nautch-girl. If a man puts away his wife without
+adequate cause the caste _panchayat_ may compel him to support her
+so long as she remains of good conduct. The party seeking a divorce,
+whether husband or wife, has to pay Rs. 7 to the caste committee
+and the other partner Rs. 3, irrespective of where the blame rests,
+and each remains out of caste until he or she pays.
+
+These Beldars will not take food from any caste but their own, and will
+not take water from a Brahman, though they will accept it from Kurmis,
+Gujars and similar castes. Sir H. Risley notes that their women always
+remove earth in baskets on the head. "The Beldars regard this mode of
+carrying earth as distinctive of themselves, and will on no account
+transport it in baskets slung from the shoulders. They work very
+hard when paid by the piece, and are notorious for their skill in
+manipulating the pillars (_sakhi_, witness) left to mark work done,
+so as to exaggerate the measurement. On one occasion while working
+for me on a large lake at Govindpur, in the north of the Manbhum
+District, a number of Beldars transplanted an entire pillar during
+the night and claimed payment for several thousand feet of imaginary
+earthwork. The fraud was most skilfully carried out, and was only
+detected by accident." [255] The Beldars are often dishonest in their
+dealings, and will take large advances for a tank or embankment, and
+then abscond with the money without doing the work. During the open
+season parties of the caste travel about in camp looking for work,
+their furniture being loaded on donkeys. They carry grain in earthen
+pots encased in bags of netting, neatly and closely woven, and grind
+their wheat daily in a small mill set on a goat-skin. Butter is made
+in one of their pots with a churning-stick, consisting of a cogged
+wheel fixed on to the end of a wooden rod.
+
+
+
+3. Odias of Chhattisgarh.
+
+
+The Beldars of Chhattisgarh are divided into the Odia or Uriya, Larhia,
+Kuchbandhia, Matkuda and Karigar groups. Uriya and Larhia are local
+names, applied to residents of the Uriya country and Chhattisgarh
+respectively. Odia is the name of a low Madras caste of masons,
+but whether it is a corruption of Uriya is not clear. Karigar means
+a workman, and Kuchbandhia is the name of a separate caste, who make
+loom-combs for weavers. The Odias pretend to be fallen Rajputs. They
+say that when Indra stole the sacrificial horse of Raja Sagar and
+kept it in the underworld, the Raja's thousand sons dug great holes
+through the earth to get it. Finally they arrived at the underworld
+and were all reduced to ashes by the Rishi Kapil Muni, who dwelt
+there. Their ghosts besought him for life, and he said that their
+descendants should always continue to dig holes in the earth, which
+would be used as tanks; and that whenever a tank was dug by them, and
+its marriage celebrated with a sacrifice, the savour of the sacrifice
+would descend to the ghosts and would afford them sustenance. The Odias
+say that they are the descendants of the Raja's sons, and unless a tank
+is dug and its marriage celebrated by them it remains impure. These
+Odias have their tutelary deity in Rewah State, and at his shrine is a
+flag which none but an Odia of genuine descent from Raja Sagar's sons
+can touch without some injury befalling him. If any Beldaar therefore
+claims to belong to their caste they call on him to touch the flag,
+and if he does so with impunity they acknowledge him as a brother.
+
+
+
+4. Other Chhattisgarhi Beldars.
+
+
+The other group of Chattisgarhi Beldars are of lower status, and
+clearly derived from the non-Aryan tribes. They eat pigs, and at
+intervals of two or three years they celebrate the worship of Gosain
+Deo with a sacrifice of pigs, the deity being apparently a deified
+ascetic or mendicant. On this occasion the Dhimars, Gonds, and all
+other castes which eat pig's flesh join in the sacrifice, and consume
+the meat together after the fashion of the rice at Jagannath's temple,
+which all castes may eat together without becoming impure. These
+Beldars use asses for the transport of their bricks and stones, and
+on the Diwali day they place a lamp before the ass and pay reverence
+to it. They say that at their marriages a bride-price of Rs. 100
+or Rs. 200 must always be paid, but they are allowed to give one or
+two donkeys and value them at Rs. 50 apiece. They make grindstones
+(_chakki_), combs for straightening the threads on the loom, and
+frames for stretching the threads. These frames are called _dongi_,
+and are made either wholly or partly from the horns of animals,
+a fact which no doubt renders them impure.
+
+
+
+5. Munurwar and Telenga.
+
+
+In Chanda the principal castes of stone-workers are the Telengas
+(Telugus), who are also known as Thapatkari (tapper or chiseller),
+Telenga Kunbi and Munurwar. They occupy a higher position than the
+ordinary Beldar, and Kunbis will take water from them and sometimes
+food. They say that they came into Chanda from the Telugu country along
+the Godavari and Pranhita rivers to build the great wall of Chanda
+and the palaces and tombs of the Gond kings. There is no reason to
+doubt that the Munurwars are a branch of the Kapu cultivating caste
+of the Telugu country. Mr. A. K. Smith states that they refuse to eat
+the flesh of an animal which has been skinned by a Mahar, a Chamar,
+or a Gond; the Kunbis and Marathas also consider flesh touched by a
+Mahar or Chamar to be impure, but do not object to a Gond. Like the
+Berar Kunbis, the Telengas prefer that an animal should be killed by
+the rite of _halal_ as practised by Muhammadan butchers. The reason
+no doubt is that the _halal_ is a method of sacrificial slaughter,
+and the killing of the animal is legitimised even though by the ritual
+of a foreign religion. The Thapatkaris appear to be a separate group,
+and their original profession was to collect and retail jungle fruits
+and roots having medicinal properties. Though the majority have become
+stone- and earth-workers some of them still do this.
+
+
+
+6. Vaddar.
+
+
+The Vaddars or Wadewars are a branch of the Odde caste of Madras. They
+are almost an impure caste, and a section of them are professional
+criminals. Their women wear glass bangles only on the left arm, those
+on the right arm being made of brass or other metal. This rule has no
+doubt been introduced because glass bangles would get broken when they
+were supporting loads on the head. The men often wear an iron bangle
+on the left wrist, which they say keeps off the lightning. Mr. Thurston
+states that "Women who have had seven husbands are much respected among
+the Oddes, and their blessing on a bridal pair is greatly prized. They
+work in gangs on contract, and every one, except very old and very
+young, shares in the labour. The women carry the earth in baskets,
+while the men use the pick and spade. The babies are usually tied up
+in cloths, which are suspended, hammock-fashion, from the boughs of
+trees. A woman found guilty of immorality is said to have to carry
+a basketful of earth from house to house before she is readmitted to
+the caste. The stone-cutting Vaddars are the principal criminals, and
+by going about under the pretence of mending grindstones they obtain
+much useful information as to the houses to be looted or parties of
+travellers to be attacked. In committing a highway robbery or dacoity
+they are always armed with stout sticks." [256]
+
+
+
+7. Pathrot.
+
+
+In Berar besides the regular Beldars two castes of stone-workers are
+found, the Pathrawats or Pathrots (stone-breakers) and the Takaris,
+who should perhaps be classed as separate castes. Both make and
+sharpen millstones and grindstones, and they are probably only
+occupational groups of recent formation. The Takaris are connected
+with the Pardhi caste of professional hunters and fowlers and may
+be a branch of them. The social customs of the Pathrots resemble
+those of the Kunbis. "They will take cooked food from a Sutar or a
+Kumbhar. Imprisonment, the killing of a cow or criminal intimacy of a
+man with a woman of another caste is punished by temporary outcasting,
+readmission involving a fine of Rs. 4 or Rs. 5. Their chief deity
+is the Devi of Tuljapur and their chief festival Dasahra; the
+implements of the caste are worshipped twice a year, on Gudhi Padwa
+and Diwali. Women are tattooed with a crescent between the eyebrows
+and dots on the right side of the nose, the right cheek, and the chin,
+and a basil plant or peacock is drawn on their wrists." [257]
+
+
+
+8. Takari.
+
+
+"The Takaris take their name from the verb _takne_, to reset or
+rechisel. They mend the handmills (_chakkis_) used for grinding corn,
+an occupation which is sometimes shared with them by the Langoti
+Pardhis. The Takari's avocation of chiselling grindstones gives him
+excellent opportunities for examining the interior economy of houses,
+and the position of boxes and cupboards, and for gauging the wealth of
+the inmates. They are the most inveterate house-breakers and dangerous
+criminals. A form of crime favoured by the Takari, in common with
+many other criminal classes, is that of decoying into a secluded
+spot outside the village the would-be receiver of stolen property and
+robbing him of his cash--a trick which carries a wholesome lesson with
+it." [258] The chisel with which they chip the grindstones furnishes,
+as stated by Mr. D. A. Smyth, D.S.P., an excellent implement for
+breaking a hole through the mud wall of a house.
+
+
+
+Beria, Bedia.
+
+
+[_Bibliography_: Sir H. Risley's _Tribes and Castes of Bengal_;
+Rajendra Lal Mitra in _Memoirs, Anthropological Society of London_,
+iii. p. 122; Mr. Crooke's _Tribes and Castes of the North-Western
+Provinces and Oudh_; Mr. Kennedy's _Criminal Classes of the Bombay
+Presidency_; Major Gunthorpe's _Criminal Tribes_; Mr. Gayer's _Lectures
+on some Criminal Tribes of the Central Provinces_; Colonel Sleeman's
+_Report on the Badhak or Bagri Dacoits_.]
+
+
+
+1. Historical notice.
+
+
+A caste of gipsies and thieves who are closely connected with the
+Sansias. In 1891 they numbered 906 persons in the Central Provinces,
+distributed over the northern Districts; in 1901 they were not
+separately classified but were identified with the Nats. "They say that
+some generations ago two brothers resided in the Bhartpur territory, of
+whom one was named Sains Mul and the other Mullanur. The descendants
+of Sains Mul are the Sansias and those of Mullanur the Berias or
+Kolhatis, who are vagrants and robbers by hereditary profession,
+living in tents or huts of matting, like Nats or other vagrant tribes,
+and having their women in common without any marriage ceremonies
+or ties whatsoever. Among themselves or their relatives the Sansias
+or descendants of Sains Mul, they are called Dholi or Kolhati. The
+descendants of the brothers eat, drink and smoke together, and join in
+robberies, but never intermarry." So Colonel Sleeman wrote in 1849,
+and other authorities agree on the close connection or identity of
+the Berias and Sansias of Central India. The Kolhatis belong mainly
+to the Deccan and are apparently a branch of the Berias, named
+after the _Kolhan_ or long pole with which they perform acrobatic
+feats. The Berias of Central India differ in many respects from those
+of Bengal. Here Sir H. Risley considers Beria to be 'the generic name
+of a number of vagrant, gipsy-like groups'; and a full description of
+them has been given by Babu Rajendra Lal Mitra, who considers them to
+resemble the gipsies of Europe. "They are noted for a light, elastic,
+wiry make, very uncommon in the people of this country. In agility
+and hardness they stand unrivalled. The men are of a brownish colour,
+like the bulk of Bengalis, but never black. The women are of lighter
+complexion and generally well-formed; some of them have considerable
+claims to beauty, and for a race so rude and primitive in their habits
+as the Berias, there is a sharpness in the features of their women
+which we see in no other aboriginal race in India. Like the gipsies
+of Europe they are noted for the symmetry of their limbs; but their
+offensive habits, dirty clothing and filthy professions give them a
+repulsive appearance, which is heightened by the reputation they have
+of kidnapping children and frequenting burial-grounds and places of
+cremation.... Familiar with the use of bows and arrows and great adepts
+in laying snares and traps, they are seldom without large supplies of
+game and flesh of wild animals of all kinds. They keep the dried bodies
+of a variety of birds for medical purposes; mongoose, squirrels and
+flying-foxes they eat with avidity as articles of luxury. Spirituous
+liquors and intoxicating drugs are indulged in to a large extent,
+and chiefs of clans assume the title of Bhangi or drinkers of hemp
+(_bhang_) as a mark of honour.... In lying, thieving and knavery
+the Beria is not a whit inferior to his brother gipsy of Europe. The
+Beria woman deals in charms for exorcising the devil and palmistry
+is her special vocation. She also carries with her a bundle of herbs
+and other real or pretended charms against sickness of body or mind;
+and she is much sought after by village maidens for the sake of
+the philtre with which she restores to them their estranged lovers;
+while she foretells the date when absent friends will return and the
+sex of unborn children. They practise cupping with buffalo horns,
+pretend to extract worms from decayed teeth and are commonly employed
+as tattooers. At home the Beria woman makes mats of palm-leaves,
+while her lord alone cooks.... Beria women are even more circumspect
+than European gipsies. If a wife does not return before the jackal's
+cry is heard in the evening, she is subject to severe punishment. It
+is said that a _faux pas_ among her own kindred is not considered
+reprehensible; but it is certain that no Berini has ever been known to
+be at fault with any one not of her own caste." This last statement
+is not a little astonishing, inasmuch as in Central India and in
+Bundelkhand Berni is an equivalent term for a prostitute. A similar
+diversity of conjugal morality has been noticed between the Bagris
+of northern India and the Vaghris of Gujarat. [259]
+
+
+
+2. Criminal tendencies in the Central Provinces.
+
+
+In other respects also the Berias of Bengal appear to be more
+respectable than the remainder of the caste, obtaining their livelihood
+by means which, if disreputable, are not actually dishonest; while
+in Central India the women Berias are prostitutes and the men
+house-breakers and thieves. These latter are so closely connected
+with the Sansias that the account of that caste is also applicable
+to the Berias. In Jubbulpore, Mr. Gayer states, the caste are expert
+house-breakers, bold and daring, and sometimes armed with swords and
+matchlocks. They sew up stolen property in their bed-quilts and secrete
+it in the hollow legs of their sleeping-cots, and the women habitually
+conceal jewels and even coins in the natural passages of the body, in
+which they make special _saos_ or receptacles by practice. The Beria
+women go about begging, and often break open the doors of unoccupied
+houses in the daytime and steal anything they can find. [260] Both
+Sansia and Beria women wear a _laong_ or clove in the left nostril.
+
+
+
+3. Social customs.
+
+
+As already stated, the women are professional prostitutes, but these
+do not marry, and on arrival at maturity they choose the life which
+they prefer. Mr. Crooke states, [261] however, that regular marriages
+seldom occur among them, because nearly all the girls are reserved
+for prostitution, and the men keep concubines drawn from any fairly
+respectable caste. So far is this the rule that in some localities if
+a man marries a girl of the tribe he is put out of caste or obliged
+to pay a fine to the tribal council. This last rule does not seem
+to obtain in the Central Provinces, but marriages are uncommon. In
+a colony of Berias in Jubbulpore [262] numbering sixty families it
+was stated that only eight weddings could be remembered as having
+occurred in the last fifty years. The boys therefore have to obtain
+wives as best they can; sometimes orphan girls from other castes are
+taken into the community, or any outsider is picked up. For a bride
+from the caste itself a sum of Rs. 100 is usually demanded, and the
+same has to be paid by a Beria man who takes a wife from the Nat or
+Kanjar castes, as is sometimes done. When a match is proposed they
+ask the expectant bridegroom how many thefts he has committed without
+detection; and if his performances have been inadequate they refuse
+to give him the girl on the ground that he will be unable to support
+a wife. At the betrothal the boy's parents go to the girl's house,
+taking with them a potful of liquor round which a silver ring is
+placed and a pig. The ring is given to the girl and the head of
+the pig to her father, while the liquor and the body of the pig
+provide a feast for the caste. They consult Brahmans at their birth
+and marriage ceremonies. Their principal deities appear to be their
+ancestors, whom they worship on the same day of the month and year
+as that on which their death took place. They make an offering of a
+pig to the goddess Dadaju or Devi before starting on their annual
+predatory excursions. Some rice is thrown into the animal's ear
+before it is killed, and the direction in which it turns its head is
+selected as the one divinely indicated for their route. Prostitution
+is naturally not regarded as any disgrace, and the women who have
+selected this profession mix on perfectly equal terms with those
+who are married. They occupy, in fact, a more independent position,
+as they dispose absolutely of their own earnings and property, and on
+their death it devolves on their daughters or other female relatives,
+males having no claim to it, in some localities at least. Among the
+children of married couples daughters inherit equally with sons. A
+prostitute is regarded as the head of the family so far as her children
+are concerned. Outsiders are freely admitted into the caste on giving
+a feast to the community. In Saugor the women of the caste, known
+as Berni, are the village dancing-girls, and are employed to give
+performances in the cold weather, especially at the Holi festival,
+where they dance the whole night through, fortified by continuous
+potations of liquor. This dance is called _rai_, and is accompanied
+by most obscene songs and gestures.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+Bhaina
+
+
+List of Paragraphs
+
+
+    1. _The tribe derived from the Baigas._
+    2. _Closely connected with the Kawars._
+    3. _Internal structure. Totemism._
+    4. _Marriage._
+    5. _Religious superstitions._
+    6. _Admission of outsiders and caste offences._
+    7. _Social customs._
+
+
+
+1. The tribe derived from the Baigas.
+
+
+_Bhaina._ [263]--A primitive tribe peculiar to the Central Provinces
+and found principally in the Bilaspur District and the adjoining area,
+that is, in the wild tract of forest country between the Satpura
+range and the south of the Chota Nagpur plateau. In 1911 about 17,000
+members of the tribe were returned. The tribe is of mixed descent and
+appears to have been derived principally from the Baigas and Kawars,
+having probably served as a city of refuge to persons expelled from
+these and other tribes and the lower castes for irregular sexual
+relations. Their connection with the Baigas is shown by the fact that
+in Mandla the Baigas have two subdivisions, which are known as Rai
+or Raj-Bhaina, and Kath, or catechu-making Bhaina. The name therefore
+would appear to have originated with the Baiga tribe. A Bhaina is also
+not infrequently found to be employed in the office of village priest
+and magician, which goes by the name of Baiga in Bilaspur. And a Bhaina
+has the same reputation as a Baiga for sorcery, it being said of him--
+
+
+                    Mainhar ki manjh
+                    Bhaina ki pang
+
+
+or 'The magic of a Bhaina is as deadly as the powdered _mainhar_
+fruit,' this fruit having the property of stupefying fish when thrown
+into the water, so that they can easily be caught. This reputation
+simply arises from the fact that in his capacity of village priest the
+Bhaina performs the various magical devices which lay the ghosts of
+the dead, protect the village against tigers, ensure the prosperity
+of the crops and so on. But it is always the older residents of any
+locality who are employed by later comers in this office, because they
+are considered to have a more intimate acquaintance with the local
+deities. And consequently we are entitled to assume that the Bhainas
+are older residents of the country where they are found than their
+neighbours, the Gonds and Kawars. There is other evidence to the same
+effect; for instance, the oldest forts in Bilaspur are attributed to
+the Bhainas, and a chief of this tribe is remembered as having ruled
+in Bilaigarh; they are also said to have been dominant in Pendra,
+where they are still most numerous, though the estate is now held
+by a Kawar; and it is related that the Bhainas were expelled from
+Phuljhar in Raipur by the Gonds. Phuljhar is believed to be a Gond
+State of long standing, and the Raja of Raigarh and others claim to be
+descended from its ruling family. A manuscript history of the Phuljhar
+chiefs records that that country was held by a Bhaina king when the
+Gonds invaded it, coming from Chanda. The Bhaina with his soldiers
+took refuge in a hollow underground chamber with two exits. But the
+secret of this was betrayed to the Gonds by an old Gond woman, and
+they filled up the openings of the chamber with grass and burnt the
+Bhainas to death. On this account the tribe will not enter Phuljhar
+territory to this day, and say that it is death to a Bhaina to do
+so. The Binjhwars are also said to have been dominant in the hills
+to the east of Raipur District, and they too are a civilised branch
+of the Baigas. And in all this area the village priest is commonly
+known as Baiga, the deduction from which is, as already stated, that
+the Baigas were the oldest residents. [264] It seems a legitimate
+conclusion, therefore, that prior to the immigration of the Gonds
+and Kawars, the ancient Baiga tribe was spread over the whole hill
+country east and north of the Mahanadi basin.
+
+
+
+2. Closely connected with the Kawars.
+
+
+The Bhainas are also closely connected with the Kawars, who still own
+many large estates in the hills north of Bilaspur. It is said that
+formerly the Bhainas and Kawars both ate in common and intermarried,
+but at present, though the Bhainas still eat rice boiled in water from
+the Kawars, the latter do not reciprocate. But still, when a Kawar
+is celebrating a birth, marriage or death in his family, or when he
+takes in hand to make a tank, he will first give food to a Bhaina
+before his own caste-men eat. And it may safely be assumed that this
+is a recognition of the Bhaina's position as having once been lord of
+the land. A Kawar may still be admitted into the Bhaina community,
+and it is said that the reason of the rupture of the former equal
+relations between the two tribes was the disgust felt by the Kawars
+for the rude and uncouth behaviour of the Bhainas. For on one occasion
+a Kawar went to ask for a Bhaina girl in marriage, and, as the men of
+the family were away, the women undertook to entertain him. And as
+the Bhainas had no axes, the daughter proceeded to crack the sticks
+on her head for kindling a fire, and for grass she pulled out a wisp
+of thatch from the roof and broke it over her thigh, being unable to
+chop it. This so offended the delicate susceptibilities of the Kawar
+that he went away without waiting for his meal, and from that time the
+Kawars ceased to marry with the Bhainas. It seems possible that the
+story points to the period when the primitive Bhainas and Baigas did
+not know the use of iron and to the introduction of this metal by the
+later-coming Kawars and Gonds. It is further related that when a Kawar
+is going to make a ceremonial visit he likes always to take with him
+two or three Bhainas, who are considered as his retainers, though not
+being so in fact. This enhances his importance, and it is also said
+that the stupidity of the Bhainas acts as a foil, through which the
+superior intelligence of the Kawar is made more apparent. All these
+details point to the same conclusion that the primitive Bhainas first
+held the country and were supplanted by the more civilised Kawars,
+and bears out the theory that the settlement of the Munda tribes was
+prior to those of the Dravidian family.
+
+
+
+3. Internal structure: Totemism.
+
+
+The tribe has two subdivisions of a territorial nature, Laria or
+Chhattisgarhi, and Uriya. The Uriya Bhainas will accept food cooked
+without water from the Sawaras or Saonrs, and these also from them;
+so that they have probably intermarried. Two other subdivisions
+recorded are the Jhalyara and Ghantyara or Ghatyara; the former
+being so called because they live in _jhalas_ or leaf huts in the
+forest, and the latter, it is said, because they tie a _ghanta_ or
+bell to their doors. This, however, seems very improbable. Another
+theory is that the word is derived from _ghat_, a slope or descent,
+and refers to a method which the tribe have of tattooing themselves
+with a pattern of lines known as _ghat_. Or it is said to mean a low
+or despised section. The Jhalyara and Ghatyara divisions comprise the
+less civilised portion of the tribe, who still live in the forests;
+and they are looked down on by the Uriya and Laria sections, who belong
+to the open country. The exogamous divisions of the tribe show clearly
+enough that the Bhainas, like other subject races, have quite failed
+to preserve any purity of blood. Among the names of their _gots_
+or septs are Dhobia (a washerman), Ahera (cowherd), Gond, Mallin
+(gardener), Panika (from a Panka or Ganda) and others. The members of
+such septs pay respect to any man belonging to the caste after which
+they are named and avoid picking a quarrel with him. They also worship
+the family gods of this caste. The tribe have also a number of totem
+septs, named after animals or plants. Such are Nag the cobra, Bagh
+the tiger, Chitwa the leopard, Gidha the vulture, Besra the hawk,
+Bendra the monkey, Kok or Lodha the wild dog, Bataria the quail,
+Durgachhia the black ant, and so on. Members of a sept will not injure
+the animal after which it is named, and if they see the corpse of the
+animal or hear of its death, they throw away an earthen cooking-pot
+and bathe and shave themselves as for one of the family. Members of
+the Baghchhal or tiger sept will, however, join in a beat for tiger
+though they are reluctant to do so. At weddings the Bhainas have a
+ceremony known as the _gotra_ worship. The bride's father makes an
+image in clay of the bird or animal of the groom's sept and places
+it beside the marriage-post. The bridegroom worships the image,
+lighting a sacrificial fire before it, and offers to it the vermilion
+which he afterwards smears upon the forehead of the bride. At the
+bridegroom's house a similar image is made of the bride's totem,
+and on returning there after the wedding she worships this. Women
+are often tattooed with representations of their totem animal, and
+men swear by it as their most sacred oath. A similar respect is paid
+to the inanimate objects after which certain septs are named. Thus
+members of the Gawad or cowdung sept will not burn cowdung cakes for
+fuel; and those of the Mircha sept do not use chillies. One sept is
+named after the sun, and when an eclipse occurs these perform the
+same formal rites of mourning as the others do on the death of their
+totem animal. Some of the groups have two divisions, male and female,
+which practically rank as separate septs. Instances of these are the
+Nagbans Andura and the Nagbans Mai or male and female cobra septs;
+the Karsayal Singhara and Karsayal Mundi or stag and doe deer septs;
+and the Baghchhal Andura and Baghchhal Mai or tiger and tigress
+septs. These may simply be instances of subdivisions arising owing
+to the boundaries of the sept having become too large for convenience.
+
+
+
+4. Marriage.
+
+
+The tribe consider that a boy should be married when he has learnt to
+drive the plough, and a girl when she is able to manage her household
+affairs. When a father can afford a bride for his son, he and his
+relatives go to the girl's village, taking with them ten or fifteen
+cakes of bread and a bottle of liquor. He stays with some relative and
+sends to ask the girl's father if he will give his daughter to the
+inquirer's son. If the former agrees, the bread and liquor are sent
+over to him, and he drinks three cups of the spirit as a pledge of
+the betrothal, the remainder being distributed to the company. This is
+known as _Tatia kholna_ or 'the opening of the door,' and is followed
+some days afterwards by a similar ceremonial which constitutes the
+regular betrothal. On this occasion the father agrees to marry his
+daughter within a year and demands the bride-price, which consists
+of rice, cloth, a goat and other articles, the total value being
+about five rupees. A date is next fixed for the wedding, the day
+selected being usually a Monday or Friday, but no date or month is
+forbidden. The number of days to the wedding are then counted, and
+two knotted strings are given to each party, with a knot for each
+day up to that on which the anointings with oil and turmeric will
+commence at the bridegroom's and bride's houses. Every day one knot
+is untied at each house up to that on which the ceremonies begin,
+and thus the correct date for them is known. The invitations to the
+wedding are given by distributing rice coloured yellow with turmeric
+to all members of the caste in the locality, with the intimation
+that the wedding procession will start on a certain day and that they
+will be pleased to attend. During the four days that they are being
+anointed the bride and bridegroom dance at their respective houses
+to the accompaniment of drums and other instruments. For the wedding
+ceremony a number of Hindu rites have been adopted. The eldest sister
+of the bridegroom or bride is known as the _sawasin_ and her husband as
+the _sawasa_, and these persons seem to act as the representatives of
+the bridal couple throughout the marriage and to receive all presents
+on their behalf. The custom is almost universal among the Hindus,
+and it is possible that they are intended to act as substitutes and
+to receive any strokes of evil fortune which may befall the bridal
+pair at a season at which they are peculiarly liable to it. The
+couple go round the sacred post, and afterwards the bridegroom daubs
+the bride's forehead with red lead seven times and covers her head
+with her cloth to show that she has become a married woman. After
+the wedding the bridegroom's parents say to him, "Now your parents
+have done everything they could for you, and you must manage your
+own house." The expenditure on an average wedding is about fifteen
+or twenty rupees. A widow is usually taken in marriage by her late
+husband's younger brother or Dewar, or by one of his relatives. If
+she marries an outsider, the Dewar realises twelve rupees from him
+in compensation for her loss. But if there is no Dewar this sum is
+not payable to her first husband's elder brother or her own father,
+because they could not have married her and hence are not held to be
+injured by a stranger doing so. If a woman is divorced and another
+man wishes to marry her, he must make a similar payment of twelve
+rupees to the first husband, together with a goat and liquor for the
+penal feast. The Bhainas bury or burn the dead according as their
+means permit.
+
+
+
+5. Religious superstitions.
+
+
+Their principal deity in Bilaspur is Nakti Devi [265] or the 'Noseless
+Goddess.' For her ritual rice is placed on a square of the floor
+washed with cowdung, and _ghi_ or preserved butter is poured on it and
+burnt. A hen is made to eat the rice, and then its head is cut off and
+laid on the square. The liver is burnt on the fire as an offering to
+the deity and the head and body of the animal are then eaten. After
+the death of a man a cock is offered to Nakti Devi and a hen after
+that of a woman. The fowl is made to pick rice first in the yard of
+the house, then on the threshold, and lastly inside the house. Thakur
+Deo is the deity of cultivation and is worshipped on the day before
+the autumn crops are sown. On this day all the men in the village
+go to his shrine taking a measure of rice and a ploughshare. At the
+same time the Baiga or village priest goes and bathes in the tank and
+is afterwards carried to the assembly on a man's shoulders. Here he
+makes an offering and repeats a charm, and then kneeling down strikes
+the earth seven times with the ploughshare, and sows five handfuls of
+rice, sprinkling water over the seed. After him the villagers walk
+seven times round the altar of the god in pairs, one man turning up
+the earth with the ploughshare and the other sowing and watering the
+seed. While this is going on the Baiga sits with his face covered
+with a piece of cloth, and at the end the villagers salute the Baiga
+and go home. When a man wishes to do an injury to another he makes
+an image of him with clay and daubs it with vermilion and worships
+it with an offering of a goat or a fowl and liquor. Then he prays
+the image that his enemy may die. Another way of injuring an enemy
+is to take rice coloured with turmeric, and after muttering charms
+throw it in the direction in which the enemy lives.
+
+
+
+6. Admission of outsiders and caste offences.
+
+
+Outsiders are not usually admitted, but if a Bhaina forms a connection
+with a woman of another tribe, they will admit the children of such
+a union, though not the woman herself. For they say: 'The seed is
+ours and what matters the field on which it was sown.' But a man
+of the Kawar tribe having intimacy with a Bhaina woman may be taken
+into the community. He must wait for three or four months after the
+matter becomes known and will beg for admission and offer to give
+the penalty feast. A day is fixed for this and invitations are sent
+to members of the caste. On the appointed day the women of the tribe
+cook rice, pulse, goat's flesh and urad cakes fried in oil, and in
+the evening the people assemble and drink liquor and then go to take
+their food. The candidate for admission serves water to the men and
+his prospective wife to the women, both being then permitted to take
+food with the tribe. Next morning the people come again and the woman
+is dressed in a white cloth with bangles. The couple stand together
+supported by their brother-in-law and sister-in-law respectively,
+and turmeric dissolved in water is poured over their heads. They
+are now considered to be married and go round together and give the
+salutation or Johar to the people, touching the feet of those who
+are entitled to this mark of respect, and kissing the others. Among
+the offences for which a man is temporarily put out of caste is
+getting the ear torn either accidentally or otherwise, being beaten
+by a man of very low caste, growing san-hemp (_Crotalaria juncea_),
+rearing tasar silk-worms or getting maggots in a wound. This last is
+almost as serious an offence as killing a cow, and, in both cases,
+before an offender can be reinstated he must kill a fowl and swallow
+a drop or two of its blood with turmeric. Women commonly get the lobe
+of the ear torn through the heavy ear-rings which they wear; and in
+a squabble another woman will often seize the ear-ring maliciously
+in order to tear the ear. A woman injured in this way is put out of
+caste for a year in Janjgir. To grow turmeric or garlic is also an
+offence against caste, but a man is permitted to do this for his own
+use and not for sale. A man who gets leprosy is said to be permanently
+expelled from caste. The purification of delinquents is conducted
+by members of the Sonwani (gold-water) and Patel (headman) septs,
+whose business it is to give the offender water to drink in which
+gold has been dipped and to take over the burden of his sins by first
+eating food with him. But others say that the Hathi or elephant sept
+is the highest, and to its members are delegated these duties. And
+in Janjgir again the president of the committee gives the gold-water,
+and is hence known as Sonwan; and this office must always be held by
+a man of the Bandar or monkey sept.
+
+
+
+7. Social customs.
+
+
+The Bhainas are a comparatively civilised tribe and have largely
+adopted Hindu usages. They employ Brahmans to fix auspicious days
+for their ceremonies, though not to officiate at them. They live
+principally in the open country and are engaged in agriculture, though
+very few of them hold land and the bulk are farm-labourers. They now
+disclaim any connection with the primitive Baigas, who still prefer
+the forests. But their caste mark, a symbol which may be affixed to
+documents in place of a signature or used for a brand on cattle, is
+a bow, and this shows that they retain the recollection of hunting as
+their traditional occupation. Like the Baigas, the tribe have forgotten
+their native dialect and now speak bad Hindi. They will eat pork and
+rats, and almost anything else they can get, eschewing only beef. But
+in their intercourse with other castes they are absurdly strict, and
+will take boiled rice only from a Kawar, or from a Brahman if it is
+cooked in a brass and not in an earthen vessel, and this only from
+a male and not from a female Brahman; while they will accept baked
+_chapatis_ and other food from a Gond and a Rawat. But in Sambalpur
+they will take this from a Savar and not from a Gond. They rank below
+the Gonds, Kawars and Savars or Saonrs. Women are tattooed with a
+representation of their sept totem; and on the knees and ankles they
+have some figures of lines which are known as _ghats_. These they
+say will enable them to climb the mountains leading to heaven in the
+other world, while those who have not such marks will be pierced with
+spears on their way up the ascent. It has already been suggested that
+these marks may have given rise to the name of the Ghatyara division
+of the tribe.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+Bhamta or Bhamtya
+
+
+
+1. Occupation.
+
+
+_Bhamta or Bhamtya._ [266]--A caste numbering 4000 persons in the
+Central Provinces, nearly all of whom reside in the Wardha, Nagpur
+and Chanda Districts of the Nagpur Division. The Bhamtas are also
+found in Bombay, Berar and Hyderabad. In Bombay they are known by the
+names of Uchla or 'Lifter' and Ganthachor or 'Bundle-thief.' [267]
+The Bhamtas were and still are notorious thieves, but many of the
+caste are now engaged in the cultivation of hemp, from which they
+make ropes, mats and gunny-bags. Formerly it was said in Wardha that
+a Bhamta girl would not marry unless her suitor had been arrested not
+less than fourteen times by the police, when she considered that he
+had qualified as a man. The following description of their methods
+does not necessarily apply to the whole caste, though the bulk of
+them are believed to have criminal tendencies. But some colonies of
+Bhamtas who have taken to the manufacture of sacking and gunny-bags
+from hemp-fibre may perhaps be excepted. They steal only during the
+daytime, and divide that part of the Province which they frequent into
+regular beats or ranges. They adopt many disguises. Even in their own
+cottages one dresses as a Marwari Bania, another as a Gujarat Jain,
+a third as a Brahman and a fourth as a Rajput. They keep to some
+particular disguise for years and often travel hundreds of miles,
+entering and stealing from the houses of the classes of persons whose
+dress they adopt, or taking service with a merchant or trader, and
+having gained their employer's confidence, seizing an opportunity to
+abscond with some valuable property. Sometimes two or three Bhamtas
+visit a large fair, and one of them dressed as a Brahman mingles with
+the crowd of bathers and worshippers. The false Brahman notices some
+ornament deposited by a bather, and while himself entering the water
+and repeating sacred verses, watches his opportunity and spreads out
+his cloth near the ornament, which he then catches with his toes,
+and dragging it with him to a distance as he walks away buries it in
+the sand. The accomplices meanwhile loiter near, and when the owner
+discovers his loss the Brahman sympathises with him and points out
+the accomplices as likely thieves, thus diverting suspicion from
+himself. The victim follows the accomplices, who make off, and the
+real thief meanwhile digs the ornament out of the sand and escapes
+at his leisure. Women often tie their ornaments in bundles at such
+bathing-fairs, and in that case two Bhamtas will go up to her, one
+on each side, and while one distracts her attention the other makes
+off with the bundle and buries it in the sand. A Bhamta rarely retains
+the stolen property on his person while there is a chance of his being
+searched, and is therefore not detected. They show considerable loyalty
+to one another, and never steal from or give information against a
+member of the caste. If stolen property is found in a Bhamta's house,
+and it has merely been deposited there for security, the real thief
+comes forward. An escaped prisoner does not come back to his friends
+lest he should get them into trouble. A Bhamta is never guilty of
+house-breaking or gang-robbery, and if he takes part in this offence
+he is put out of caste. He does not steal from the body of a person
+asleep. He is, however, expert at the theft of ornaments from the
+person. He never steals from a house in his own village, and the
+villagers frequently share directly or indirectly in his gains. The
+Bhamtas are now expert railway thieves. [268] Two of them will get
+into a carriage, and, engaging the other passengers in conversation,
+find out where they are going, so as to know the time available for
+action. When it gets dark and the travellers go to sleep, one of
+the Bhamtas lies down on the floor and covers himself with a large
+cloth. He begins feeling some bag under the seat, and if he cannot
+open it with his hands, takes from his mouth the small curved knife
+which all Bhamtas carry concealed between their gum and upper lip,
+and with this he rips up the seams of the bag and takes out what
+he finds; or they exchange bags, according to a favourite device of
+English railway thieves, and then quickly either leave the train or
+get into another carriage. If attention is aroused they throw the
+stolen property out of the window, marking the place and afterwards
+going back to recover it. Another device is to split open and pick
+the pockets of people in a crowd. Besides the knife they often have
+a needle and thread and an iron nut-cutter.
+
+
+
+2. Subdivisions and marriage customs.
+
+
+Members of other castes, as Chhatri, Kanjar, Rawat and others, who
+have taken to stealing, are frequently known as Bhamtas, but unless
+they have been specially initiated do not belong to the caste. The
+Bhamtas proper have two main divisions, the Chhatri Bhamtas, who are
+usually immigrants from Gujarat, and those of the Maratha country,
+who are often known as Bhamtis. The former have a dialect which is
+a mixture of Hindi, Marathi and Gujarati, while the latter speak
+the local form of Marathi. The sections of the Chhatri Bhamtas are
+named after Rajput septs, as Badgujar, Chauhan, Gahlot, Bhatti,
+Kachhwaha and others. They may be partly of Rajput descent, as they
+have regular and pleasing features and a fair complexion, and are well
+built and sturdy. The sections of the Bhamtis are called by Maratha
+surnames, as Gudekar, Kaothi, Bailkhade, Satbhaia and others. The
+Chhatri Bhamtas have northern customs, and the Bhamtis those of the
+Maratha country. Marriage between persons of the same _gotra_ or
+surname is prohibited. The Chhatris avoid marriage between relations
+having a common greatgrandparent, but among the Bhamtis the custom of
+Mehunchar is prevalent, by which the brother's daughter is married to
+the sister's son. Girls are usually married at ten and eleven years of
+age or later. The betrothal and marriage customs of the two subcastes
+differ, the Chhatris following the ceremonial of the northern Districts
+and the Bhamtis that of the Maratha country. The Chhatris do not pay
+a bride-price, but the Bhamtis usually do. Widow-marriage is allowed,
+and while the Chhatris expect the widow to marry her deceased husband's
+brother, the Bhamtis do not permit this. Among both subdivisions a
+price is paid for the widow to her parents. Divorce is only permitted
+for immoral conduct on the part of the wife. A divorced woman may
+remarry after giving a feast to the caste _panchayat_ or committee,
+and obtaining their consent.
+
+
+
+3. Religion and social customs.
+
+
+The goddess Devi is the tutelary deity of the caste, as of all those
+who ply a disreputable profession. Animals are sacrificed to her
+or let loose to wander in her name. The offerings are appropriated
+by the village washerman. In Bombay the rendezvous of the Bhamtis
+is the temple of Devi at Konali, in Akalkot State, near Sholapur,
+and here the gangs frequently assemble before and after their raids
+to ask the goddess that luck may attend them and to thank her for
+success obtained. [269] They worship their rope-making implements on
+the Dasahra day. They both bury and burn the dead. Ghosts and spirits
+are worshipped. If a man takes a second wife after the death of his
+first, the new wife wears a _putli_ or image of the first wife on
+a piece of silver on her neck, and offers it the _hom_ sacrifice
+by placing some _ghi_ on the fire before taking a meal. In cases of
+doubt and difficulty she often consults the _putli_ by speaking to it,
+while any chance stir of the image due to the movement of her body
+is interpreted as approval or disapproval. In the Central Provinces
+the Bhamtis say that they do not admit outsiders into the caste, but
+this is almost certainly untrue. In Bombay they are said to admit all
+Hindus [270] except the very lowest castes, and also Muhammadans. The
+candidate must pass through the two ceremonies of admission into the
+caste and adoption into a particular family. For the first he pays an
+admission fee, is bathed and dressed in new clothes, and one of the
+elders drops turmeric and sugar into his mouth. A feast follows, during
+which some elders of the caste eat out of the same plate with him. This
+completes the admission ceremony, but in order to marry in the caste
+a candidate must also be adopted into a particular family. The Bhamta
+who has agreed to adopt him invites the caste people to his house,
+and there takes the candidate on his knee while the guests drop
+turmeric and sugar into his mouth. The Bhamtas eat fish and fowl but
+not pork or beef, and drink liquor. This last practice is, however,
+frequently made a caste offence by the Bhamtis. They take cooked
+food from Brahmans and Kunbis and water from Gonds. The keeping of
+concubines is also an offence entailing temporary excommunication. The
+morality of the caste is somewhat low and their women are addicted
+to prostitution. The occupation of the Bhamta is also looked down on,
+and it is said, _Bhamta ka kam sub se nikam_, or 'The Bhamta's work is
+the worst of all.' This may apply either to his habits of stealing or
+to the fact that he supplies a bier made of twine and bamboo sticks at
+a death. In Bombay the showy dress of the Bhamta is proverbial. Women
+are tattooed before marriage on the forehead and lower lip, and on
+other parts of the body for purposes of adornment. The men have the
+head shaved for three inches above the top of the forehead in front
+and an inch higher behind, and they wear the scalp-lock much thicker
+than Brahmans do. They usually have red head-cloths.
+
+
+
+Bharbhunja
+
+
+
+1. General notice
+
+
+_Bharbhunja._ [271]--The occupational caste of grain-parchers. The
+name is derived from the Sanskrit _bhrastra_, a frying-pan, and
+_bharjaka_, one who fries. The Bharbhunjas numbered 3000 persons in
+1911, and belong mainly to the northern Districts, their headquarters
+being in Upper India. In Chhattisgarh the place of the Bharbhunjas is
+taken by the Dhuris. Sir H. Elliot [272] remarks that the caste are
+traditionally supposed to be descended from a Kahar father and a Sudra
+mother, and they are probably connected with the Kahars. In Saugor
+they say that their ancestors were Kankubja Brahmans who were ordered
+to parch rice at the wedding of the great Rama, and in consequence
+of this one of their subcastes is known as Kanbajia. But Kankubja is
+one of the commonest names of subcastes among the people of northern
+India, and merely indicates that the bearers belong to the tract
+round the old city of Kanauj; and there is no reason to suppose that
+it means anything more in the case of the Bharbhunjas. Another group
+are called Kaitha, and they say that their ancestors were Kayasths,
+who adopted the profession of grain-parching. It is said that in Bhopal
+proper Kayasths will take food from Kaitha Bharbhunjas and smoke from
+their huqqa; and it is noticeable that in northern India Mr. Crooke
+gives [273] not only the Kaitha subcaste, but other groups called
+Saksena and Srivastab, which are the names of well-known Kayasth
+subdivisions. It is possible, therefore, that the Kaitha group may
+really be connected with the Kayasths. Other subcastes are the Benglah,
+who are probably immigrants from Bengal; and the Kandu, who may also
+come from that direction, Kandu being the name of the corresponding
+caste of grain-parchers in Bengal.
+
+
+
+2. Social customs.
+
+
+The social customs of the Bharbhunjas resemble those of Hindustani
+castes of fairly good position. [274] They employ Brahmans for their
+ceremonies, and the family priest receives five rupees for officiating
+at a wedding, three rupees for a funeral, one rupee for a birth,
+and four annas on ordinary occasions. No price is paid for a bride,
+and at their marriages the greater part of the expense falls on the
+girl's father, who has to give three feasts as against two provided by
+the bridegroom's father. After the wedding the bridegroom's father puts
+on women's clothes given by the bride's father and dances before the
+family. Rose-coloured water and powder are sprinkled over the guests
+and the proceeding is known as _Phag_, because it is considered to have
+the same significance as the Holi festival observed in Phagun. This
+is usually done on the bank of a river or in some garden outside
+the village. At the _gauna_ or going-away ceremony the bride and
+bridegroom take their seats on two wooden boards and then change
+places. Divorce and the remarriage of widows are permitted. The union
+of a widow with her deceased husband's younger brother is considered
+a suitable match, but is not compulsory. When a bachelor marries a
+widow, he first goes through the proper ceremony either with a stick
+or an ear-ring, and is then united to the widow by the simple ritual
+employed for widow remarriage. A girl who is seduced by a member of
+the caste may be married to him as if she were a widow, but if her
+lover is an outsider she is permanently expelled from the caste.
+
+
+
+3. Occupation.
+
+
+The Bharbhunjas occupy a fairly high social position, analogous to
+that of the Barais, Kahars and other serving castes, the explanation
+being that all Hindus require the grain parched by them; this, as it
+is not cooked with water, may be eaten abroad, on a journey or in the
+market-place. This is known as _pakki_ food, and even Brahmans will
+take it from their hands. But Mr. Crooke notes [275] that the work
+they do, and particularly the sweeping up of dry leaves for fuel,
+tends to lower them in the popular estimation, and it is a favourite
+curse to wish of an enemy that he may some day come to stoke the kiln
+of a grain-parcher. Of their occupation Sir H. Risley states that
+"Throughout the caste the actual work of parching grain is usually
+left to the women. The process is a simple one. A clay oven is built,
+somewhat in the shape of a bee-hive, with ten or twelve round holes at
+the top. A fire is lighted under it and broken earthen pots containing
+sand are put on the holes. The grain to be parched is thrown in with
+the sand and stirred with a flat piece of wood or a broom until it is
+ready. The sand and parched grain are then placed in a sieve, through
+which the former escapes. The wages of the parcher are a proportion
+of the grain, varying from one-eighth to one-fourth. In Bengal the
+caste was spoken of by early English travellers under the quaint name
+of the frymen." [276] In the Central Provinces also grain-parching
+is distinctly a woman's industry, only twenty-two per cent of those
+shown as working at it being men. There are two classes of tradesmen,
+those who simply keep ovens and parch grain which is brought to them,
+and those who keep the grain and sell it ready parched. The rates for
+parching are a pice a seer or an eighth part of the grain. Gram and
+rice, husked or unhusked, are the grains usually parched. When parched,
+gram is called _phutana_ (broken) and rice _lahi_. The Bharbhunjas also
+prepare _sathu_, a flour made by grinding parched gram or wheat, which
+is a favourite food for a light morning meal, or for travellers. It
+can be taken without preparation, being simply mixed with water and
+a little salt or sugar. The following story is told about _sathu_
+to emphasise its convenience in this respect. Once two travellers
+were about to take some food before starting in the morning, of
+whom one had _sathu_ and the other _dhan_ (unhusked rice). The one
+with the _dhan_ knew that it would take him a long time to pound,
+and then cook and eat it, so he said to the other, "My poor friend,
+I perceive that you only have _sathu_, which will delay you because
+you must find water, and then mix it, and find salt, and put it in,
+before your _sathu_ can be ready, while rice--pound, eat and go. But
+if you like, as you are in a greater hurry than I am, I will change my
+rice for your _sathu_." The other traveller unsuspectingly consented,
+thinking he was getting the best of the bargain, and while he was still
+looking for a mortar in which to pound his rice, the first traveller
+had mixed and eaten the _sathu_ and proceeded on his journey. In the
+vernacular the point is brought out by the onomatopoeic character
+of the lines, which cannot be rendered in English. The caste are now
+also engaged in selling tobacco and sweetmeats and the manufacture of
+fireworks. They stoke their ovens with any refuse they can collect
+from the roads, and hence comes the saying, '_Bhar men dalna_',
+'To throw into the oven,' meaning to throw away something or to make
+ducks and drakes with it; while _Bhar-jhokna_ signifies to light
+or heat the oven, and, figuratively, to take up a mean occupation
+(Platts). Another proverb quoted by Mr. Crooke is, '_Bharbhunja ka
+larki kesar ka tika_,' or 'The Bharbhunja's slut with saffron on her
+forehead,' meaning one dressed in borrowed plumes. Another saying is,
+'_To tum kya abhi tak bhar bhunjte rahe_,' or 'Have you been stoking
+the oven all this time?'--meaning to imply that the person addressed
+has been wasting his time, because the profits from grain-parching
+are so small. The oven of the Psalmist into which the grass was cast
+no doubt closely resembled that of the Bharbhunjas.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+Bharia
+
+
+List of Paragraphs
+
+
+    1. _Origin and tribal legend._
+    2. _Tribal subdivisions._
+    3. _Marriage._
+    4. _Childbirth._
+    5. _Funeral ceremonies._
+    6. _Religion and magic._
+    7. _Social life and customs._
+    8. _Occupation._
+
+
+
+1. Origin and tribal legend.
+
+
+_Bharia, Bharia-Bhumia._ [277]--A Dravidian tribe numbering about
+50,000 persons and residing principally in the Jubbulpore District,
+which contains a half of the total number. The others are found in
+Chhindwara and Bilaspur. The proper name of the tribe is Bharia,
+but they are often called Bharia-Bhumia, because many of them hold
+the office of Bhumia or priest of the village gods and of the lower
+castes in Jubbulpore, and the Bharias prefer the designation of Bhumia
+as being the more respectable. The term Bhumia or 'Lord of the soil'
+is an alternative for Bhuiya, the name of another Dravidian tribe,
+and no doubt came to be applied to the office of village priest
+because it was held by members of this tribe; the term Baiga has a
+similar signification in Mandla and Balaghat, and is applied to the
+village priest though he may not belong to the Baiga tribe at all. The
+Bharias have forgotten their original affinities, and several stories
+of the origin of the tribe are based on far-fetched derivations of
+the name. One of these is to the effect that Arjun, when matters were
+going badly with the Pandavas in their battle against the Kauravas,
+took up a handful of _bharru_ grass and, pressing it, produced a
+host of men who fought in the battle and became the ancestors of the
+Bharias. And there are others of the same historical value. But there
+is no reason to doubt that Bharia is the contemptuous form of Bhar, as
+Telia for Teli, Jugia for Jogi, Kuria for Kori, and that the Bharias
+belong to the great Bhar tribe who were once dominant in the eastern
+part of the United Provinces, but are now at the bottom of the social
+scale, and relegated by their conquerors to the degrading office
+of swineherds. The Rajjhars, who appear to have formed a separate
+caste as the landowning subdivision of the Bhars, like the Raj-Gonds
+among Gonds, are said to be the descendants of a Raja and a Bharia
+woman. The Rajjhars form a separate caste in the Central Provinces,
+and the Bharias acknowledge some connection with them, but refuse to
+take water from their hands, as they consider them to be of impure
+blood. The Bharias also give Mahoba or Bandhogarh as their former
+home, and these places are in the country of the Bhars. According
+to tradition Raja Karna Deva, a former king of Dahal, the classical
+name of the Jubbulpore country, was a Bhar, and it may be that the
+immigration of the Bharias into Jubbulpore dates from his period, which
+is taken as 1040 to 1080 A.D. While then it may be considered as fairly
+certain that the Bharias are merely the Bhar tribe with a variant
+of the name, it is clear from the titles of their family groups,
+which will shortly be given, that they are an extremely mixed class
+and consist largely of the descendants of members of other castes,
+who, having lost their own social position, have taken refuge among
+the Bharias at the bottom of the social scale. Mr. Crooke says of the
+Bhars: [278] "The most probable supposition is that the Bhars were
+a Dravidian race closely allied to the Kols, Cheros and Seoris, who
+at an early date succumbed to the invading Aryans. This is borne out
+by their appearance and physique, which closely resemble that of the
+undoubted non-Aryan aborigines of the Vindhyan-Kaimur plateau." In
+the Central Provinces the Bharias have been so closely associated
+with the Gonds that they have been commonly considered to belong
+to that tribe. Thus Mr. Drysdale says of them: [279] 'The Bharias
+were the wildest of the wild Gonds and were inveterate _dhaya_ [280]
+cutters.' Although, however, they have to some extent intermarried
+with the Gonds, the Bharias were originally quite a distinct tribe,
+and would belong to the Kolarian or Munda group but that they have
+entirely forgotten their own language and speak only Hindi, though with
+a peculiar intonation especially noticeable in the case of their women.
+
+
+
+2. Tribal subdivisions.
+
+
+The structure of the tribe is a very loose one, and though the
+Bharias say that they are divided into subcastes, there are none
+in reality. Members of all castes except the very lowest may become
+Bharias, and one Bharia will recognise another as a fellow-tribesman
+if he can show relationship to any person admitted to occupy that
+position. But a division is in process of formation in Bilaspur
+based on the practice of eating beef, from which some abstain,
+and in consequence look down on the others who are addicted to it,
+and call them Dhur Bharias, the term _dhur_ meaning cattle. The
+abstainers from beef now refuse to marry with the others. The tribe
+is divided into a number of exogamous groups, and the names of these
+indicate the very heterogeneous elements of which it consists. Out of
+fifty-one groups reported not less than fifteen or sixteen have names
+derived from other castes or clans, showing almost certainly that such
+groups were formed by a mixed marriage or the admission of a family of
+outsiders. Such names are: Agaria, from the Agarias or iron-workers:
+this clan worships Loha-Sur, the god of the Agarias; Ahirwar, or the
+descendants of an Ahir: this clan worships the Ahir gods; Bamhania,
+born of a Brahman ancestor; Binjhwar or Binjha, perhaps from the
+tribe of that name; Chandel, from a Rajput clan; Dagdoha, a synonym
+of Basor: persons of this sept hang a piece of bamboo and a curved
+knife to the waist of the bride at their marriages; Dhurua, born of
+a Dhurua Gond; Kuanpa, born of an Ahir subcaste of that name; Kurka,
+of Korku parentage; Maravi, the name of a Gond clan; Rathor from a
+Rajput clan; Samarba from a Chamar; and Yarkara, the name of a Gond
+clan. These names sufficiently indicate the diverse elements of which
+the tribe is made up. Other group names with meanings are: Gambhele,
+or those who seclude their women in a separate house during the
+menstrual period; Kaitha, from the _kaith_ tree (_Feronia elephantum_);
+Karondiha, from the _karonda_ plant (_Carissa Carandas_); Magarha,
+from _magar_ a crocodile: members of this group worship an image of
+a crocodile made with flour and fried in oil; Sonwani, from _sona_
+gold: members of this group perform the ceremony of readmission of
+persons temporarily put out of caste by sprinkling on them a little
+water in which gold has been dipped. Any person who does not know his
+clan name calls himself a Chandel, and this group, though bearing the
+name of a distinguished Rajput clan, is looked upon as the lowest. But
+although the rule of exogamy in marriage is recognised, it is by no
+means strictly adhered to, and many cases are known in which unions
+have taken place between members of the same clan. So long as people
+can recollect a relationship between themselves, they do not permit
+their families to intermarry. But the memory of the Bharia does not
+extend beyond the third generation.
+
+
+
+3. Marriage.
+
+
+Marriages are adult, and the proposal comes from the boy's father,
+who has it conveyed to the girl's father through some friend in his
+village. If a betrothal is arranged the bride's father invites the
+father and friends of the bridegroom to dinner; on this occasion
+the boy's father brings some necklaces of lac beads and spangles and
+presents them to the bride's female relatives, who then come out and
+tie the necklaces round his neck and those of his friends, place
+the spangles on their foreheads, and then, catching hold of their
+cheeks, press and twist them violently. Some turmeric powder is also
+thrown on their faces. This is the binding portion of the betrothal
+ceremony. The date of marriage is fixed by a Brahman, this being
+the only purpose for which he is employed, and a bride-price varying
+from six to twelve rupees is paid. On this occasion the women draw
+caricatures with turmeric or charcoal on the loin-cloth of the boy's
+father, which they manage to purloin. The marriage ceremony follows
+generally the Hindu form. The bridegroom puts on women's ornaments
+and carries with him an iron nut-cracker or dagger to keep off evil
+spirits. After the wedding, the _midua_, a sort of burlesque dance,
+is held. The girl's mother gets the dress of the boy's father and puts
+it on, together with a false beard and moustaches, and dances, holding
+a wooden ladle in one hand and a packet of ashes in the other. Every
+time she approaches the bridegroom's father on her rounds she spills
+some of the ashes over him, and occasionally gives him a crack on
+the head with her ladle, these actions being accompanied by bursts of
+laughter from the party and frenzied playing by the musicians. When
+the party reach the bridegroom's house on their return, his mother and
+the other women come out and burn a little mustard and human hair in a
+lamp, the unpleasant smell emitted by these articles being considered
+potent to drive away evil spirits. Every time the bride leaves her
+father's house she must weep, and must cry separately with each one of
+her caste-sisters when taking leave of them. When she returns home she
+must begin weeping loudly on the boundary of the village, and continue
+doing so until she has embraced each of her relatives and friends,
+a performance which in a village containing a large number of Bharias
+may take from three to six hours. These tears are, however, considered
+to be a manifestation of joy, and the girl who cannot produce enough of
+them is often ridiculed. A prospective son-in-law who serves for his
+wife is known as Gharjian. The work given him is always very heavy,
+and the Bharias have a saying which compares his treatment with that
+awarded to an ox obtained on hire. If a girl is seduced by a man of
+the tribe, she may be married to him by the ceremony prescribed for
+the remarriage of a widow, which consists merely in the placing of
+bangles on the wrists and a present of a new cloth, together with
+a feast to the caste-fellows. Similarly if she is seduced by a man
+of another caste who would be allowed to become a Bharia, she can
+be married as a widow to any man of the tribe. A widow is expected
+to marry her late husband's younger brother, but no compulsion is
+exercised. If a bachelor espouses a widow, he first goes through the
+ceremony of marriage with a ring to which a twig of the date-palm is
+tied, by carrying the ring seven times round the marriage post. This
+is necessary to save him from the sin of dying unmarried, as the
+union with a widow is not reckoned as a true marriage. In Jubbulpore
+divorce is said to be allowed only for conjugal misbehaviour, and a
+Bharia will pass over three transgressions on his wife's part before
+finally turning her out of his house. A woman who wishes to leave her
+husband simply runs away from him and lives with somebody else. In
+this case the third party must pay a goat to the husband by way of
+compensation and give a feast to the caste-fellows.
+
+
+
+4. Childbirth.
+
+
+The carelessness of the Bharias in the matter of childbirth is
+notorious, and it is said that mothers commonly went on working up
+to the moment of childbirth and were delivered of children in the
+fields. Now, however, the woman lies up for three days, and some
+ceremonies of purification are performed. In Chhattisgarh infants
+are branded on the day of their birth, under the impression that this
+will cause them to digest the food they have taken in the womb. The
+child is named six months after birth by the father's sister, and
+its lips are then touched with cooked food for the first time.
+
+
+
+5. Funeral ceremonies.
+
+
+The tribe both burn and bury the dead, and observe mourning for an
+adult for ten days, during which time they daily put out a leaf-cup
+containing food for the use of the deceased. In the third year after
+the death, the _mangan_ or caste beggar visits the relatives of the
+deceased, and receives what they call one limb (_ang_), or half his
+belongings; the _ang_ consists of a loin-cloth, a brass vessel and
+dish, an axe, a scythe and a wrist-ring.
+
+
+
+6. Religion and magic.
+
+
+The Bharias call themselves Hindus and worship the village deities
+of the locality, and on the day of Diwali offer a black chicken
+to their family god, who may be Bura Deo, Dulha Deo or Karua, the
+cobra. For this snake they profess great reverence, and say that he was
+actually born in a Bharia family. As he could not work in the fields
+he was usually employed on errands. One day he was sent to the house,
+and surprised one of his younger brother's wives, who had not heard
+him coming, without her veil. She reproached him, and he retired in
+dudgeon to the oven, where he was presently burnt to death by another
+woman, who kindled a fire under it not knowing that he was there. So
+he has been deified and is worshipped by the tribe. The Bharias also
+venerate Bagheshwar, the tiger god, and believe that no tiger will eat
+a Bharia. On the Diwali day they invite the tiger to drink some gruel
+which they place ready for him behind their houses, at the same time
+warning the other villagers not to stir out of doors. In the morning
+they display the empty vessels as a proof that the tiger has visited
+them. They practise various magical devices, believing that they can
+kill a man by discharging at him a _muth_ or handful of charmed objects
+such as lemons, vermilion and seeds of urad. This ball will travel
+through the air and, descending on the house of the person at whom
+it is aimed, will kill him outright unless he can avert its power by
+stronger magic, and perhaps even cause it to recoil in the same manner
+on the head of the sender. They exorcise the Sudhiniyas or the drinkers
+of human blood. A person troubled by one of these is seated near the
+Bharia, who places two pots with their mouths joined over a fire. He
+recites incantations and the pots begin to boil, emitting blood. This
+result is obtained by placing a herb in the pot whose juice stains the
+water red. The blood-sucker is thus successfully exorcised. To drive
+away the evil eye they burn a mixture of chillies, salt, human hair
+and the husks of kodon, which emits a very evil smell. Such devices
+are practised by members of the tribe who hold the office of Bhumia
+or village priest. The Bharias are well-known thieves, and they say
+that the dark spots on the moon are caused by a banyan tree, which God
+planted with the object of diminishing her light and giving thieves
+a chance to ply their trade. If a Bhumia wishes to detect a thief,
+he sits clasping hands with a friend, while a pitcher is supported on
+their hands. An oblation is offered to the deity to guide the ordeal
+correctly, and the names of suspected persons are recited one by one,
+the name at which the pitcher topples over being that of the thief. But
+before employing this method of detection the Bhumia proclaims his
+intention of doing so on a certain date, and in the meantime places a
+heap of ashes in some lonely place and invites the thief to deposit
+the stolen article in the ashes to save himself from exposure. By
+common custom each person in the village is required to visit the
+heap and mingle a handful of ashes with it, and not infrequently
+the thief, frightened at the Bhumia's powers of detection, takes the
+stolen article and buries it in the ash-heap where it is duly found,
+the necessity for resorting to the further method of divination being
+thus obviated. Occasionally the Bharia in his character of a Hindu
+will make a vow to pay for a recitation of the Satya Narayan Katha
+or some other holy work. But he understands nothing of it, and if
+the Brahman employed takes a longer time than he had bargained for
+over the recitation he becomes extremely bored and irritated.
+
+
+
+7. Social life and customs.
+
+
+The scantiness of the Bharia's dress is proverbial, and the saying is
+'_Bharia bhwaka, pwanda langwata_', or 'The Bharia is verily a devil,
+who only covers his loins with a strip of cloth.' But lately he has
+assumed more clothing. Formerly an iron ring carried on the wrist to
+exorcise the evil spirits was his only ornament. Women wear usually
+only one coarse cloth dyed red, spangles on the forehead and ears, bead
+necklaces, and cheap metal bracelets and anklets. Some now have Hindu
+ornaments, but in common with other low castes they do not usually
+wear a nose-ring, out of respect to the higher castes. Women, though
+they work in the fields, do not commonly wear shoes; and if these
+are necessary to protect the feet from thorns, they take them off and
+carry them in the presence of an elder or a man of higher caste. They
+are tattooed with various devices, as a cock, a crown, a native chair,
+a pitcher stand, a sieve and a figure called _dhandha_, which consists
+of six dots joined by lines, and appears to be a representation of
+a man, one dot standing for the head, one for the body, two for
+the arms and two for the legs. This device is also used by other
+castes, and they evince reluctance if asked to explain its meaning,
+so that it may be intended as a representation of the girl's future
+husband. The Bharia is considered very ugly, and a saying about him
+is: 'The Bharia came down from the hills and got burnt by a cinder,
+so that his face is black.' He does not bathe for months together,
+and lives in a dirty hovel, infested by the fowls which he loves to
+rear. His food consists of coarse grain, often with boiled leaves as a
+vegetable, and he consumes much whey, mixing it with his scanty portion
+of grain. Members of all except the lowest castes are admitted to the
+Bharia community on presentation of a _pagri_ and some money to the
+headman, together with a feast to the caste-fellows. The Bharias do not
+eat monkeys, beef or the leavings of others, but they freely consume
+fowls and pork. They are not considered as impure, but rank above
+those castes only whose touch conveys pollution. For the slaughter
+of a cow the Bilaspur Bharias inflict the severe punishment of nine
+daily feasts to the caste, or one for each limb of the cow, the limbs
+being held to consist of the legs, ears, horns and tail. They have
+an aversion for the horse and will not remove its dung. To account
+for this they tell a story to the effect that in the beginning God
+gave them a horse to ride and fight upon. But they did not know how
+to mount the horse because it was so high. The wisest man among them
+then proposed to cut notches in the side of the animal by which they
+could climb up, and they did this. But God, when he saw it, was very
+angry with them, and ordered that they should never be soldiers, but
+should be given a winnowing-fan and broom to sweep the grain out of
+the grass and make their livelihood in that way.
+
+
+
+8. Occupation.
+
+
+The Bharias are usually farmservants and field-labourers, and their
+services in these capacities are in much request. They are hardy and
+industrious, and so simple that it is an easy matter for their masters
+to involve them in perpetual debt, and thus to keep them bound to
+service from generation to generation. They have no understanding
+of accounts, and the saying, 'Pay for the marriage of a Bharia and
+he is your bond-slave for ever,' sufficiently explains the methods
+adopted by their employers and creditors.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+Bhat
+
+
+List of Paragraphs
+
+
+     1.  _Origin of the Bhats._
+     2.  _Bhats and Charans._
+     3.  _Lower-class Bhats._
+     4.  _Social status of the caste._
+     5.  _Social customs._
+     6.  _The Bhat's business._
+     7.  _Their extortionate practices._
+     8.  _The Jasondhis._
+     9.  _The Charans as carriers._
+    10. _Suicide and the fear of ghosts._
+    11. _Instances of haunting and laying ghosts._
+    12. _The Charans as sureties._
+    13. _Suicide as a means of revenge._
+    14. _Dharna._
+    15. _Casting out spirits._
+    16. _Sulking. Going bankrupt._
+    17.  _Bhat songs._
+
+
+
+1. Origin of the Bhats.
+
+
+_Bhat, Rao, Jasondhi._--The caste of bards and genealogists. In
+1911 the Bhats numbered 29,000 persons in the Central Provinces
+and Berar, being distributed over all Districts and States, with
+a slight preponderance in large towns such as Nagpur, Jubbulpore
+and Amraoti. The name Bhat is derived from the Sanskrit Bhatta,
+a lord. The origin of the Bhats has been discussed in detail by Sir
+H. Risley. Some, no doubt, are derived from the Brahman caste as stated
+by Mr. Nesfield: "They are an offshoot from those secularised Brahmans
+who frequented the courts of princes and the camps of warriors, recited
+their praises in public, and kept records of their genealogies. Such,
+without much variation, is the function of the Bhat at the present
+day. The Mahabharata speaks of a band of bards and eulogists marching
+in front of Yudishthira as he made his progress from the field of
+Kurukshetra towards Hastinapur. But these very men are spoken of in the
+same poem as Brahmans. Naturally as time went on these courtier priests
+became hereditary bards, receded from the parent stem and founded a new
+caste." "The best modern opinion," Sir H. Risley states, [281] "seems
+disposed to find the germ of the Brahman caste in the bards, ministers
+and family priests, who were attached to the king's household in Vedic
+times. The characteristic profession of the Bhats has an ancient and
+distinguished history. The literature of both Greece and India owes
+the preservation of its oldest treasures to the singers who recited
+poems in the households of the chiefs, and doubtless helped in some
+measure to shape the masterpieces which they handed down. Their place
+was one of marked distinction. In the days when writing was unknown,
+the man who could remember many verses was held in high honour by
+the tribal chief, who depended upon the memory of the bard for his
+personal amusement, for the record of his own and his ancestors'
+prowess, and for the maintenance of the genealogy which established
+the purity of his descent. The bard, like the herald, was not lightly
+to be slain, and even Odysseus in the heat of his vengeance spares
+the aoidos Phemius, 'who sang among the wooers of necessity.'" [282]
+
+
+
+2. Bhats and Charans.
+
+
+There is no reason to doubt that the Birm or Baram Bhats are an
+offshoot of Brahmans, their name being merely a corruption of the term
+Brahman. But the caste is a very mixed one, and another large section,
+the Charans, are almost certainly derived from Rajputs. Malcolm states
+that according to the fable of their origin, Mahadeo first created
+Bhats to attend his lion and bull; but these could not prevent the
+former from killing the latter, which was a source of infinite vexation
+and trouble, as it compelled Mahadeo to create new ones. He therefore
+formed the Charan, equally devout with the Bhat, but of bolder spirit,
+and gave him in charge these favourite animals. From that time no bull
+was ever destroyed by the lion. [283] This fable perhaps indicates
+that while the peaceful Bhats were Brahmans, the more warlike
+Charans were Rajputs. It is also said that some Rajputs disguised
+themselves as bards to escape the vengeance of Parasurama. [284] The
+Maru Charans intermarry with Rajputs, and their name appears to be
+derived from Maru, the term for the Rajputana desert, which is also
+found in Marwar. Malcolm states [285] that when the Rajputs migrated
+from the banks of the Ganges to Rajputana, their Brahman priests did
+not accompany them in any numbers, and hence the Charans arose and
+supplied their place. They had to understand the rites of worship,
+particularly of Siva and Parvati, the favourite deities of the Rajputs,
+and were taught to read and write. One class became merchants and
+travelled with large convoys of goods, and the others were the bards
+and genealogists of the Rajputs. Their songs were in the rudest metre,
+and their language was the local dialect, understood by all. All this
+evidence shows that the Charans were a class of Rajput bards.
+
+
+
+3. Lower-class Bhats.
+
+
+But besides the Birm or Brahman Bhats and the Rajput Charans there is
+another large body of the caste of mixed origin, who serve as bards
+of the lower castes and are probably composed to a great extent of
+members of these castes. These are known as the Brid-dhari or begging
+Bhats. They beg from such castes as Lodhis, Telis, Kurmis, Ahirs and
+so on, each caste having a separate section of Bhats to serve it;
+the Bhats of each caste take food from the members of the caste,
+but they also eat and intermarry with each other. Again, there are
+Bairagi Bhats who beg from Bairagis, and keep the genealogies of
+the temple-priests and their successors. Yet another class are the
+Dasaundhis or Jasondhis, who sing songs in honour of Devi, play on
+musical instruments and practise astrology. These rank below the
+cultivating castes and sometimes admit members of such castes who
+have taken religious vows.
+
+
+
+4. Social status of the caste.
+
+
+The Brahman or Birm-Bhats form a separate subcaste, and the Rajputs
+are sometimes called Rajbhat. These wear the sacred thread, which the
+Brid-Bhats and Jasondhis do not. The social status of the Bhats appears
+to vary greatly. Sir H. Risley states that they rank immediately below
+Kayasths, and Brahmans will take water from their hands. The Charans
+are treated by the Rajputs with the greatest respect; [286] the highest
+ruler rises when one of this class enters or leaves an assembly,
+and the Charan is invited to eat first at a Rajput feast. He smokes
+from the same huqqa as Rajputs, and only caste-fellows can do this, as
+the smoke passes through water on its way to the mouth. In past times
+the Charan acted as a herald, and his person was inviolable. He was
+addressed as Maharaj, [287] and could sit on the Singhasan or Lion's
+Hide, the ancient term for a Rajput throne, as well as on the hides
+of the tiger, panther and black antelope. The Rajputs held him in
+equal estimation with the Brahman or perhaps even greater. [288] This
+was because they looked to him to enshrine their heroic deeds in his
+songs and hand them down to posterity. His sarcastic references to a
+defeat in battle or any act displaying a want of courage inflamed their
+passions as nothing else could do. On the other hand, the Brid-Bhats,
+who serve the lower castes, occupy an inferior position. This is
+because they beg at weddings and other feasts, and accept cooked
+food from members of the caste who are their clients. Such an act
+constitutes an admission of inferior status, and as the Bhats eat
+together their position becomes equivalent to that of the lowest
+group among them. Thus if other Bhats eat with the Bhats of Telis or
+Kalars, who have taken cooked food from their clients, they are all
+in the position of having taken food from Telis and Kalars, a thing
+which only the lowest castes will do. If the Bhat of any caste, such
+as the Kurmis, keeps a girl of that caste, she can be admitted into
+the community, which is therefore of a very mixed character. Such a
+caste as the Kurmis will not even take water from the hands of the
+Bhats who serve them. This rule applies also where a special section
+of the caste itself act as bards and minstrels. Thus the Pardhans
+are the bards of the Gonds, but rank below ordinary Gonds, who give
+them food and will not take it from them. And the Sansias, the bards
+of the Jats, and the Mirasis, who are employed in this capacity by
+the lower castes generally, occupy a very inferior position, and are
+sometimes considered as impure.
+
+
+
+5. Social customs.
+
+
+The customs of the Bhats resemble those of other castes of
+corresponding status. The higher Bhats forbid the remarriage of
+widows, and expel a girl who becomes pregnant before marriage. They
+carry a dagger, the special emblem of the Charans, in order to be
+distinguished from low-class Bhats. The Bhats generally display the
+_chaur_ or yak-tail whisk and the _chhadi_ or silver-plated rod on
+ceremonial occasions, and they worship these emblems of their calling
+on the principal festivals. The former is waved over the bridegroom
+at a wedding, and the latter is borne before him. The Brahman Bhats
+abstain from flesh of any kind and liquor, and other Bhats usually have
+the same rules about food as the caste whom they serve. Brahman Bhats
+and Charans alone wear the sacred thread. The high status sometimes
+assigned to this division of the caste is shown in the saying:
+
+
+                Age Brahman pichhe Bhat
+                take pichhe aur jat,
+
+
+or, 'First comes the Brahman, then the Bhat, and after them the
+other castes.'
+
+
+
+6. The Bhat's business.
+
+
+The business of a Bhat in former times is thus described by Forbes:
+[289] "When the rainy season closes and travelling becomes practicable,
+the bard sets off on his yearly tour from his residence in the
+Bhatwara or bard's quarter of some city or town. One by one he
+visits each of the Rajput chiefs who are his patrons, and from whom
+he has received portions of land or annual grants of money, timing
+his arrival, if possible, to suit occasions of marriage or other
+domestic festivals. After he has received the usual courtesies he
+produces the Wai, a book written in his own crabbed hieroglyphics
+or in those of his father, which contains the descent of the house
+from its founder, interspersed with many a verse or ballad, the dark
+sayings contained in which are chanted forth in musical cadence to
+a delighted audience, and are then orally interpreted by the bard
+with many an illustrative anecdote or tale. The Wai, however, is not
+merely a source for the gratification of family pride or even of love
+of song; it is also a record by which questions of relationship are
+determined when a marriage is in prospect, and disputes relating to the
+division of ancestral property are decided, intricate as these last
+necessarily are from the practice of polygamy and the rule that all
+the sons of a family are entitled to a share. It is the duty of the
+bard at each periodical visit to register the births, marriages and
+deaths which have taken place in the family since his last circuit,
+as well as to chronicle all the other events worthy of remark which
+have occurred to affect the fortunes of his patron; nor have we ever
+heard even a doubt suggested regarding the accurate, much less the
+honest fulfilment of this duty by the bard. The manners of the bardic
+tribe are very similar to those of their Rajput clients; their dress
+is nearly the same, but the bard seldom appears without the _katar_
+or dagger, a representation of which is scrawled beside his signature,
+and often rudely engraved upon his monumental stone, in evidence of
+his death in the sacred duty of _traga_ (suicide)." [290]
+
+
+
+7. Their extortionate practices.
+
+
+The Bhat thus fulfilled a most useful function as registrar of births
+and marriages. But his merits were soon eclipsed by the evils produced
+by his custom of extolling liberal patrons and satirising those who
+gave inadequately. The desire of the Rajputs to be handed down to fame
+in the Bhat's songs was such that no extravagance was spared to satisfy
+him. Chand, the great Rajput bard, sang of the marriage of Prithwi Raj,
+king of Delhi, that the bride's father emptied his coffers in gifts,
+but he filled them with the praises of mankind. A lakh of rupees
+[291] was given to the chief bard, and this became a precedent for
+similar occasions. "Until vanity suffers itself to be controlled,"
+Colonel Tod wrote, [292] "and the aristocratic Rajputs submit to
+republican simplicity, the evils arising from nuptial profusion
+will not cease. Unfortunately those who should check it find their
+interest in stimulating it, namely, the whole crowd of _mangtas_
+or beggars, bards, minstrels, jugglers, Brahmans, who assemble
+on these occasions, and pour forth their epithalamiums in praise
+of the virtue of liberality. The bards are the grand recorders of
+fame, and the volume of precedent is always resorted to by citing
+the liberality of former chiefs; while the dread of their satire
+[293] shuts the eyes of the chief to consequences, and they are only
+anxious to maintain the reputation of their ancestors, though fraught
+with future ruin." Owing to this insensate liberality in the desire
+to satisfy the bards and win their praises, a Rajput chief who had
+to marry a daughter was often practically ruined; and the desire
+to avoid such obligations led to the general practice of female
+infanticide, formerly so prevalent in Rajputana. The importance of
+the bards increased their voracity; Mr. Nesfield describes them as
+"Rapacious and conceited mendicants, too proud to work but not too
+proud to beg." The Dholis [294] or minstrels were one of the seven
+great evils which the famous king Sidhraj expelled from Anhilwada
+Patan in Gujarat; the Dakans or witches were another. [295] Malcolm
+states that "They give praise and fame in their songs to those who
+are liberal to them, while they visit those who neglect or injure
+them with satires in which the victims are usually reproached with
+illegitimate birth and meanness of character. Sometimes the Bhat,
+if very seriously offended, fixes an effigy of the person he desires
+to degrade on a long pole and appends to it a slipper as a mark of
+disgrace. In such cases the song of the Bhat records the infamy of the
+object of his revenge. This image usually travels the country till
+the party or his friends purchase the cessation of the curses and
+ridicule thus entailed. It is not deemed in these countries within
+the power of the prince, much less any other person, to stop a Bhat
+or even punish him for such a proceeding. In 1812 Sevak Ram Seth,
+a banker of Holkar's court, offended one of these Bhats, pushing
+him rudely out of the shop where the man had come to ask alms. The
+man made a figure [296] of him to which he attached a slipper and
+carried it to court, and everywhere sang the infamy of the Seth. The
+latter, though a man of wealth and influence, could not prevent him,
+but obstinately refused to purchase his forbearance. His friends
+after some months subscribed Rs. 80 and the Bhat discontinued his
+execrations, but said it was too late, as his curses had taken effect;
+and the superstitious Hindus ascribe the ruin of the banker, which
+took place some years afterwards, to this unfortunate event." The
+loquacity and importunity of the Bhats are shown in the saying,
+'Four Bhats make a crowd'; and their insincerity in the proverb
+quoted by Mr. Crooke, "The bard, the innkeeper and the harlot have
+no heart; they are polite when customers arrive, but neglect those
+leaving (after they have paid)" [297] The Bhat women are as bold,
+voluble and ready in retort as the men. When a Bhat woman passes a
+male caste-fellow on the road, it is the latter who raises a piece
+of cloth to his face till the woman is out of sight. [298]
+
+
+
+8. The Jasondhis.
+
+
+Some of the lower classes of Bhats have become religious mendicants
+and musicians, and perform ceremonial functions. Thus the Jasondhis,
+who are considered a class of Bhats, take their name from the _jas_
+or hymns sung in praise of Devi. They are divided into various
+sections, as the Nakib or flag-bearers in a procession, the Nazir or
+ushers who introduced visitors to the Raja, the Nagaria or players on
+kettle-drums, the Karaola who pour sesamum oil on their clothes and
+beg, and the Panda, who serve as priests of Devi, and beg carrying
+an image of the goddess in their hands. There is also a section of
+Muhammadan Bhats who serve as bards and genealogists for Muhammadan
+castes. Some Bhats, having the rare and needful qualification of
+literacy so that they can read the old Sanskrit medical works, have,
+like a number of Brahmans, taken to the practice of medicine and are
+known as Kaviraj.
+
+
+
+9. The Charans as carriers.
+
+
+As already stated, the persons of the Charans in the capacity of bard
+and herald were sacred, and they travelled from court to court without
+fear of molestation from robbers or enemies. It seems likely that the
+Charans may have united the breeding of cattle to their calling of
+bard; but in any case the advantage derived from their sanctity was so
+important that they gradually became the chief carriers and traders of
+Rajputana and the adjoining tracts. They further, in virtue of their
+holy character, enjoyed a partial exemption from the perpetual and
+harassing imposts levied by every petty State on produce entering its
+territory; and the combination of advantages thus obtained was such
+as to give them almost a monopoly in trade. They carried merchandise
+on large droves of bullocks all over Rajputana and the adjoining
+countries; and in course of time the carriers restricted themselves
+to their new profession, splitting off from the Charans and forming
+the caste of Banjaras.
+
+
+
+10. Suicide and the fear of ghosts.
+
+
+But the mere reverence for their calling would not have sufficed for
+a permanent safeguard to the Charans from destitute and unscrupulous
+robbers. They preserved it by the customs of _Chandi_ or _Traga_ and
+_Dharna_. These consisted in their readiness to mutilate, starve or
+kill themselves rather than give up property entrusted to their care;
+and it was a general belief that their ghosts would then haunt the
+persons whose ill deeds had forced them to take their own lives. It
+seems likely that this belief in the power of a suicide or murdered
+man to avenge himself by haunting any persons who had injured him or
+been responsible for his death may have had a somewhat wide prevalence
+and been partly accountable for the reprobation attaching in early
+times to the murderer and the act of self-slaughter. The haunted
+murderer would be impure and would bring ill-fortune on all who had
+to do with him, while the injury which a suicide would inflict on his
+relatives in haunting them would cause this act to be regarded as a sin
+against one's family and tribe. Even the ordinary fear of the ghosts
+of people who die in the natural course, and especially of those who
+are killed by accident, is so strong that a large part of the funeral
+rites is devoted to placating and laying the ghost of the dead man;
+and in India the period of observance of mourning for the dead is
+perhaps in reality that time during which the spirit of the dead man
+is supposed to haunt his old abode and render the survivors of his
+family impure. It was this fear of ghosts on which the Charans relied,
+nor did they hesitate a moment to sacrifice their lives in defence of
+any obligation they had undertaken or of property committed to their
+care. When plunderers carried off any cattle belonging to the Charans,
+the whole community would proceed to the spot where the robbers
+resided; and in failure of having their property restored would cut off
+the heads of several of their old men and women. Frequent instances
+occurred of a man dressing himself in cotton-quilted cloths steeped
+in oil which he set on fire at the bottom, and thus danced against
+the person against whom _traga_ was performed until the miserable
+creature dropped down and was burnt to ashes. On one occasion a Cutch
+chieftain, attempting to escape with his wife and child from a village,
+was overtaken by his enemy when about to leap a precipice; immediately
+turning he cut off his wife's head with his scimitar and, flourishing
+his reeking blade in the face of his pursuer, denounced against him
+the curse of the _traga_ which he had so fearfully performed. [299]
+In this case it was supposed that the wife's ghost would haunt the
+enemy who had driven the husband to kill her.
+
+
+
+11. Instances of haunting and laying ghosts.
+
+
+The following account in the _Rasmala_ [300] is an instance of suicide
+and of the actual haunting by the ghost: A Charan asserted a claim
+against the chief of Siela in Kathiawar, which the latter refused to
+liquidate. The bard thereupon, taking forty of his caste with him,
+went to Siela with the intention of sitting _Dharna_ at the chief's
+door and preventing any one from coming out or going in until the
+claim should be discharged. However, as they approached the town,
+the chief, becoming aware of their intention, caused the gates to
+be closed. The bards remained outside and for three days abstained
+from food; on the fourth day they proceeded to perform _traga_ as
+follows: some hacked their own arms; others decapitated three old
+women of the party and hung their heads up at the gate as a garland;
+certain of the women cut off their own breasts. The bards also pierced
+the throats of four of their old men with spikes, and they took two
+young girls by the heels, and dashed out their brains against the
+town gate. The Charan to whom the money was due dressed himself in
+clothes wadded with cotton which he steeped in oil and then set on
+fire. He thus burned himself to death. But as he died he cried out,
+"I am now dying; but I will become a headless ghost (_Kuvis_) in the
+palace, and will take the chiefs life and cut off his posterity." After
+this sacrifice the rest of the bards returned home.
+
+On the third day after the Charan's death his Bhut (ghost) threw the
+Rani downstairs so that she was very much injured. Many other persons
+also beheld the headless phantom in the palace. At last he entered
+the chief's head and set him trembling. At night he would throw stones
+at the palace, and he killed a female servant outright. At length, in
+consequence of the various acts of oppression which he committed, none
+dared to approach the chief's mansion even in broad daylight. In order
+to exorcise the Bhut, Jogis, Fakirs and Brahmans were sent for from
+many different places; but whoever attempted the cure was immediately
+assailed by the Bhut in the chief's body, and that so furiously
+that the exorcist's courage failed him. The Bhut would also cause
+the chief to tear the flesh off his own arms with his teeth. Besides
+this, four or five persons died of injuries received from the Bhut;
+but nobody had the power to expel him. At length a foreign Jyotishi
+(astrologer) came who had a great reputation for charms and magic,
+and the chief sent for him and paid him honour. First he tied all
+round the house threads which he had charged with a charm; then he
+sprinkled charmed milk and water all round; then he drove a charmed
+iron nail into the ground at each corner of the mansion, and two at the
+door. He purified the house and continued his charms and incantations
+for forty-one days, every day making sacrifices at the cemetery to the
+Bhut's spirit. The Joshi lived in a room securely fastened up; but
+people say that while he was muttering his charms stones would fall
+and strike the windows. Finally the Joshi brought the chief, who had
+been living in a separate room, and tried to exorcise the spirit. The
+patient began to be very violent, but the Joshi and his people spared
+no pains in thrashing him until they had rendered him quite docile. A
+sacrificial fire-pit was made and a lemon placed between it and the
+chief. The Joshi commanded the Bhut to enter the lime. The possessed,
+however, said, 'Who are you; if one of your Deos (gods) were to come,
+I would not quit this person.' Thus they went on from morning till
+noon. At last they came outside, and, burning various kinds of incense
+and sprinkling many charms, the Bhut was got out into the lemon. When
+the lemon began to jump about, the whole of the spectators praised
+the Joshi, crying out: 'The Bhut has gone into the lemon! The Bhut
+has gone into the lemon!' The possessed person himself, when he saw
+the lemon hopping about, was perfectly satisfied that the Bhut had
+left his body and gone out into the lemon. The Joshi then drove the
+lemon outside the city, followed by drummers and trumpeters; if the
+lemon left the road, he would touch it with his stick and put it into
+the right way again. On the track they sprinkled mustard and salt and
+finally buried the lemon in a pit seven cubits deep, throwing into
+the hole above it mustard and salt, and over these dust and stones,
+and filling in the space between the stones with lead. At each corner,
+too, the Joshi drove in an iron nail, two feet long, which he had
+previously charmed. The lemon buried, the people returned home, and not
+one of them ever saw the Bhut thereafter. According to the recorder
+of the tale, the cure was effected by putting quicksilver into the
+lemon. When a man is attacked with fever or becomes speechless or
+appears to have lockjaw, his friends conclude from these indications
+that he is possessed by a Bhut.
+
+In another case some Bhats had been put in charge, by the chief of a
+small State, of a village which was coveted by a neighbouring prince,
+the Rana of Danta. The latter sent for the Bhats and asked them to
+guard one or two of his villages, and having obtained their absence
+by this pretext he raided their village, carrying off hostages and
+cattle. When the Bhats got back they collected to the number of a
+hundred and began to perform _Dharna_ against the Rana. They set
+out from their village, and at every two miles as they advanced they
+burned a man, so that by the time they got to the Rana's territory
+seven or eight men had been burnt. They were then pacified by his
+people and induced to go back. The Rana offered them presents, but
+they refused to accept them, as they said the guilt of the death of
+their fellows who had been burned would thereby be removed from the
+Rana. The Rana lost all the seven sons born to him and died childless,
+and it was generally held to be on account of this sin. [301]
+
+
+
+12. The Charans as sureties.
+
+
+Such was the certainty attaching to the Charan's readiness to forfeit
+his life rather than prove false to a trust, and the fear entertained
+of the offence of causing him to do so and being haunted by his ghost,
+that his security was eagerly coveted in every kind of transaction. "No
+traveller could journey unattended by these guards, who for a small
+sum were satisfied to conduct him in safety. [302] The guards, called
+Valavas, were never backward in inflicting the most grievous wounds
+and even causing the death of their old men and women if the robbers
+persisted in plundering those under their protection; but this seldom
+happened, as the wildest Koli, Kathi or Rajput held the person of a
+Charan sacred. Besides becoming safeguards to travellers and goods,
+they used to stand security to the amount of many lakhs of rupees. When
+rents and property were concerned, the Rajputs preferred a Charan's
+bond to that of the wealthiest banker. They also gave security for good
+behaviour, called _chalu zamin_, and for personal attendance in court
+called _hazar zamin_. The ordinary _traga_ went no farther than a cut
+on the arm with the _katar_ or crease; the forearms of those who were
+in the habit of becoming security had generally several cuts from the
+elbow downwards. The Charans, both men and women, wounded themselves,
+committed suicide and murdered their relations with the most complete
+self-devotion. In 1812 the Marathas brought a body of troops to impose
+a payment on the village of Panchpipla. [303] The Charans resisted the
+demand, but finding the Marathas determined to carry their point, after
+a remonstrance against paying any kind of revenue as being contrary to
+their occupation and principles, they at last cut the throats of ten
+young children and threw them at the feet of the Marathas, exclaiming,
+'These are our riches and the only payment we can make.' The Charans
+were immediately seized and confined in irons at Jambusar."
+
+As was the case with the Bhat and the Brahman, the source of the
+Charan's power lay in the widespread fear that a Charan's blood
+brought ruin on him who caused the blood to be spilt. It was also
+sometimes considered that the Charan was possessed by his deity,
+and the caste were known as Deoputra or sons of God, the favourite
+dwelling of the guardian spirit.
+
+
+
+13. Suicide as a means of revenge.
+
+
+Such a belief enhanced the guilt attaching to the act of causing
+or being responsible for a Charan's death. Suicide from motives of
+revenge has been practised in other countries. "Another common form
+of suicide which is admired as heroic in China is that committed for
+the purpose of taking revenge upon an enemy who is otherwise out of
+reach--according to Chinese ideas a most effective mode of revenge,
+not only because the law throws the responsibility of the deed on him
+who occasioned it, but also because the disembodied soul is supposed
+to be better able than the living man to persecute the enemy." [304]
+Similarly, among the Hos or Mundas the suicide of young married women
+is or was extremely common, and the usual motive was that the girl,
+being unhappy in her husband's house, jumped down a well or otherwise
+made away with herself in the belief that she would take revenge on
+his family by haunting them after her death. The treatment of the
+suicide's body was sometimes directed to prevent his spirit from
+causing trouble. "According to Jewish custom persons who had killed
+themselves were left unburied till sunset, perhaps for fear lest the
+spirit of the deceased otherwise might find its way back to the old
+home." [305] At Athens the right hand of a person who had taken his
+own life was struck off and buried apart from the rest of the body,
+evidently in order to make him harmless after death. [306] Similarly,
+in England suicides were buried with a spike through the chest to
+prevent their spirits from rising, and at cross-roads, so that the
+ghost might not be able to find its way home. This fear appears to
+have partly underlain the idea that suicide was a crime or an offence
+against society and the state, though, as shown by Dr. Westermarck,
+the reprobation attaching to it was far from universal; while in
+the cultured communities of ancient Greece and Rome, and among such
+military peoples as the Japanese suicide was considered at all times a
+legitimate and, on occasion, a highly meritorious and praiseworthy act.
+
+That condition of mind which leads to the taking of one's own
+life from motives of revenge is perhaps a fruit of ignorance and
+solitude. The mind becomes distorted, and the sufferer attributes the
+unhappiness really caused by accident or his own faults or defects to
+the persecution of a malignant fate or the ill-will of his neighbours
+and associates. And long brooding over his wrongs eventuates in his
+taking the extreme step. The crime known as running amok appears to be
+the outcome of a similar state of mind. Here too the criminal considers
+his wrongs or misery as the result of injury or unjust treatment
+from his fellow-men, and, careless of his own life, determines to be
+revenged on them. Such hatred of one's kind is cured by education,
+leading to a truer appreciation of the circumstances and environment
+which determine the course of life, and by the more cheerful temper
+engendered by social intercourse. And these crimes of vengeance tend
+to die out with the advance of civilisation.
+
+
+
+14. _Dharna._
+
+
+Analogous to the custom of _traga_ was that of _Dharna_, which was
+frequently and generally resorted to for the redress of wrongs and
+offences at a time when the law made little provision for either. The
+ordinary method of _Dharna_ was to sit starving oneself in front of
+the door of the person from whom redress was sought until he gave it
+from fear of causing the death of the suppliant and being haunted
+by his ghost. It was, naturally, useless unless the person seeking
+redress was prepared to go to extremes, and has some analogy to the
+modern hunger-strike with the object of getting out of jail. Another
+common device was to thrust a spear-blade through both cheeks,
+and in this state to dance before the person against whom _Dharna_
+was practised. The pain had to be borne without a sign of suffering,
+which, if displayed, would destroy its efficacy. Or a creditor would
+proceed to the door of his debtor and demand payment, and if not
+appeased would stand up in his presence with an enormous weight upon
+his head, which he had brought with him for the purpose, swearing never
+to alter his position until satisfaction was given, and denouncing at
+the same time the most horrible execrations on his debtor, should he
+suffer him to expire in that situation. This seldom failed to produce
+the desired effect, but should he actually die while in _Dharna_, the
+debtor's house was razed to the earth and he and his family sold for
+the satisfaction of the creditor's heirs. Another and more desperate
+form of _Dharna_, only occasionally resorted to, was to erect a large
+pile of wood before the house of the debtor, and after the customary
+application for payment had been refused the creditor tied on the
+top of the pile a cow or a calf, or very frequently an old woman,
+generally his mother or other relation, swearing at the same time
+to set fire to it if satisfaction was not instantly given. All the
+time the old woman denounced the bitterest curses, threatening to
+persecute the wretched debtor both here and hereafter. [307]
+
+The word _dharna_ means 'to place or lay on,' and hence 'a
+pledge.' Mr. Hira Lal suggests that the standing with a weight on the
+head may have been the original form of the penance, from which the
+other and severer methods were subsequently derived. Another custom
+known as _dharna_ is that of a suppliant placing a stone on the
+shrine of a god or tomb of a saint. He makes his request and, laying
+the stone on the shrine, says, "Here I place this stone until you
+fulfil my prayer; if I do not remove it, the shame is on you." If the
+prayer is afterwards fulfilled, he takes away the stone and offers a
+cocoanut. It seems clear that the underlying idea of this custom is the
+same as that of standing with a stone on the head as described above,
+but it is difficult to say which was the earlier or original form.
+
+
+
+15. Casting out spirits.
+
+
+As a general rule, if the guilt of having caused a suicide was at a
+man's door, he should expiate it by going to the Ganges to bathe. When
+a man was haunted by the ghost of any one whom he had wronged, whether
+such a person had committed suicide or simply died of grief at being
+unable to obtain redress, it was said of him _Brahm laga_, or that
+Brahma had possessed him. The spirit of a Brahman boy, who has died
+unmarried, is also accustomed to haunt any person who walks over his
+grave in an impure condition or otherwise defiles it, and when a man is
+haunted in such a manner it is called _Brahm laga_. Then an exorcist
+is called, who sprinkles water over the possessed man, and this burns
+the Brahm Deo or spirit inside him as if it were burning oil. The
+spirit cries out, and the exorcist orders him to leave the man. Then
+the spirit states how he has been injured by the man, and refuses to
+leave him. The exorcist asks him what he requires on condition of
+leaving the man, and he asks for some good food or something else,
+and is given it. The exorcist takes a nail and goes to a _pipal_
+tree and orders the Brahm Deo to go into the tree. Brahm Deo obeys,
+and the exorcist drives the nail into the tree and the spirit remains
+imprisoned there until somebody takes the nail out, when he will come
+out again and haunt him. The Hindus think that the god Brahma lives
+in the roots of the _pipal_ tree, Siva in its branches, and Vishnu
+in the _choti_ or scalp-knot, that is the topmost foliage.
+
+
+
+16. Sulking. Going bankrupt.
+
+
+Another and mild form of _Dharna_ is that known as _Khatpati_. When a
+woman is angry with her husband on account of his having refused her
+some request, she will put her bed in a corner of the room and go and
+lie on it, turning her face to the wall, and remain so, not answering
+when spoken to nor taking food. The term Khatpati signifies keeping
+to one side of the bed, and there she will remain until her husband
+accedes to her request, unless indeed he should decide to beat her
+instead. This is merely an exaggerated form of the familiar display
+of temper known as sulking. It is interesting to note the use of the
+phrase turning one's face to the wall, with something of the meaning
+attached to it in the Bible.
+
+A custom similar to that of _Dharna_ was called _Diwala nikalna_ or
+going bankrupt. When a merchant had had heavy losses and could not
+meet his liabilities, he would place the lock of his door outside,
+reversing it, and sit in the veranda with a piece of sackcloth over
+him. Or he wrapped round him the floor-carpet of his room. When he
+had displayed these signs of ruin and self-abasement his creditors
+would not sue him, but he would never be able to borrow money again.
+
+
+
+17. Bhat songs.
+
+
+In conclusion a few specimens of Bhat songs may be given. The
+following is an account of the last king of Nagpur, Raghuji III.,
+commonly known as Baji Rao:
+
+
+        They made a picture of Baji Rao;
+        Baji Rao was the finest king to see;
+        The Brahmans told lies about him,
+        They sent a letter from Nagpur to Calcutta,
+        They made Baji Rao go on a pilgrimage.
+        Brothers! the great Sirdars who were with him,
+        They brought a troop of five hundred horse!
+        The Tuesday fair in Benares was held with fireworks,
+        They made the Ganges pink with rose-petals.
+        Baji Rao's gifts were splendid,
+        His turban and coat were of brocaded silk,
+        A pair of diamonds and emeralds
+        He gave to the Brahmans of Benares.
+        Oh brothers! the Raja sat in a covered howdah bound on an
+                                                            elephant!
+        Many fans waved over his head;
+        How charitable a king he was!
+
+
+In the above song a note of regret is manifest for the parade
+and display of the old court of Nagpur, English rule being less
+picturesque. The next is a song about the English:
+
+
+        The English have taken the throne of Nagpur,
+        The fear of the English is great.
+        In a moment's time they conquer countries.
+        The guns boomed, the English came strong and warlike,
+        They give wealth to all.
+        They ram the ramrods in the guns.
+        They conquered also Tippoo's dominions,
+        The English are ruling in the fort of Gawilgarh.
+
+
+The following is another song about the English, not quite so
+complimentary:
+
+
+    The English became our kings and have made current the _kaldar_
+    (milled) rupee.
+    The menials are favoured and the Bhats have lost their profession,
+    The mango has lost its taste, the milk has lost its sweetness,
+    The rose has lost its scent.
+    Baji Rao of Nagpur he also is gone,
+    No longer are the drums beaten at the palace gate.
+    Poona customs have come in.
+    Brahmans knowing the eighteen Purans have become Christians;
+    The son thinks himself better than his father,
+    The daughter-in-law no longer respects her mother-in-law.
+    The wife fights with her husband.
+    The English have made the railways and telegraphs;
+    The people wondered at the silver rupees and all the country
+    prospered.
+
+
+The following is a song about the Nerbudda at Mandla, Rewa being
+another name for the river:
+
+
+    The stream of the world springs out breaking apart the hills;
+    The Rewa cuts her path through the soil, the air is darkened with
+    her spray.
+    All the length of her banks are the seats of saints; hermits and
+    pilgrims worship her.
+    On seeing the holy river a man's sins fall away as wood is cut
+    by a saw;
+    By bathing in her he plucks the fruit of holiness.
+    When boats are caught in her flood, the people pray: 'We are
+    sinners, O Rewa, bring us safely to the bank!'
+    When the Nerbudda is in flood, Mandla is an island and the people
+    think their end has come:
+    The rain pours down on all sides, earth and sky become dark as
+    smoke, and men call on Rama.
+    The bard says: 'Let it rain as it may, some one will save us as
+    Krishna saved the people of Brindawan!'
+
+
+This is a description of a beautiful woman:
+
+
+    A beautiful woman is loved by her neighbours,
+    But she will let none come to her and answers them not.
+    They say: 'Since God has made you so beautiful, open your litter
+    and let yourself be seen!'
+    He who sees her is struck as by lightning, she shoots her lover
+    with the darts of her eyes, invisible herself.
+    She will not go to her husband's house till he has her brought
+    by the Government.
+    When she goes her father's village is left empty.
+    She is so delicate she faints at the sight of a flower,
+    Her body cannot bear the weight of her cloth,
+    The garland of jasmine-flowers is a burden on her neck,
+    The red powder on her feet is too heavy for them.
+
+
+It is interesting to note that weakness and delicacy in a woman
+are emphasised as an attraction, as in English literature of the
+eighteenth century.
+
+The last is a gentle intimation that poets, like other people, have
+to live:
+
+
+    It is useless to adorn oneself with sandalwood on an empty belly,
+    Nobody's body gets fat from the scent of flowers;
+    The singing of songs excites the mind,
+    But if the body is not fed all these are vain and hollow.
+
+
+All Bhats recite their verses in a high-pitched sing-song tone,
+which renders it very difficult for their hearers to grasp the
+sense unless they know it already. The Vedas and all other sacred
+verses are spoken in this manner, perhaps as a mark of respect and to
+distinguish them from ordinary speech. The method has some resemblance
+to intoning. Women use the same tone when mourning for the dead.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+Bhatra
+
+
+
+List of Paragraphs
+
+
+ 1. _General notice and structure of the caste._
+ 2. _Admission of outsiders._
+ 3. _Arrangement of marriages._
+ 4. _The Counter of Posts._
+ 5. _Marriage customs._
+ 6. _Propitiation of ghosts._
+ 7. _Religion. Ceremonies at hunting._
+ 8. _Superstitious remedies._
+ 9. _Occupation._
+10. _Names._
+
+
+
+1. General notice and structure of the caste.
+
+
+_Bhatra._ [308]--A primitive tribe of the Bastar State and the south
+of Raipur District, akin to the Gonds. They numbered 33,000 persons
+in 1891, and in subsequent enumerations have been amalgamated with
+the Gonds. Nothing is known of their origin except a legend that they
+came with the Rajas of Bastar from Warangal twenty-three generations
+ago. The word Bhatra is said to mean a servant, and the tribe are
+employed as village watchmen and household and domestic servants. They
+have three divisions, the Pit, Amnait and San Bhatras, who rank one
+below the other, the Pit being the highest and the San the lowest. The
+Pit Bhatras base their superiority on the fact that they decline to
+make grass mats, which the Amnait Bhatras will do, while the San
+Bhatras are considered to be practically identical with the Muria
+Gonds. Members of the three groups will eat with each other before
+marriage, but afterwards they will take only food cooked without water
+from a person belonging to another group. They have the usual set of
+exogamous septs named after plants and animals. Formerly, it is said,
+they were tattooed with representations of the totem plant and animal,
+and the septs named after the tiger and snake ate the flesh of these
+animals at a sacrificial meal. These customs have fallen into abeyance,
+but still if they kill their totem animal they will make apologies to
+it, and break their cooking-pots, and bury or burn the body. A man of
+substance will distribute alms in the name of the deceased animal. In
+some localities members of the Kachhun or tortoise sept will not eat a
+pumpkin which drops from a tree because it is considered to resemble a
+tortoise. But if they can break it immediately on touching the ground
+they may partake of the fruit, the assumption being apparently that
+it has not had time to become like a tortoise.
+
+
+
+2. Admission of outsiders.
+
+
+Outsiders are not as a rule admitted. But a woman of equal or higher
+caste who enters the house of a Bhatra will be recognised as his wife,
+and a man of the Panara, or gardener caste, can also become a member of
+the community if he lives with a Bhatra woman and eats from her hand.
+
+
+
+3. Arrangement of marriages.
+
+
+In Raipur a girl should be married before puberty, and if no husband
+is immediately available, they tie a few flowers into her cloth and
+consider this as a marriage. If an unmarried girl becomes pregnant she
+is debarred from going through the wedding ceremony, and will simply
+go and live with her lover or any other man. Matches are usually
+arranged by the parents, but if a daughter is not pleased with the
+prospective bridegroom, who may sometimes be a well-to-do man much
+older than herself, she occasionally runs away and goes through the
+ceremony on her own account with the man of her choice.
+
+If no one has asked her parents for her hand she may similarly select
+a husband for herself and make her wishes known, but in that case she
+is temporarily put out of caste until the chosen bridegroom signifies
+his acquiescence by giving the marriage feast. What happens if he
+definitely fails to respond is not stated, but presumably the young
+woman tries elsewhere until she finds herself accepted.
+
+
+
+4. The Counter of Posts.
+
+
+The date and hour of the wedding are fixed by an official known as
+the Meda Gantia, or Counter of Posts. He is a sort of illiterate
+village astrologer, who can foretell the character of the rainfall,
+and gives auspicious dates for sowing and harvest. He goes through
+some training, and as a test of his capacity is required by his
+teacher to tell at a glance the number of posts in an enclosure which
+he has not seen before. Having done this correctly he qualifies as
+a Meda Gantia. Apparently the Bhatras, being unable at one time to
+count themselves, acquired an exaggerated reverence for the faculty
+of counting, and thought that if a man could only count far enough
+he could reckon into the future; or it might be thought that as he
+could count and name future days, he thus obtained power over them,
+and could tell what would happen on them just as one can obtain power
+over a man and work him injury by knowing his real name.
+
+
+
+5. Marriage customs.
+
+
+At a wedding the couple walk seven times round the sacred post, which
+must be of wood of the mahua [309] tree, and on its conclusion the post
+is taken to a river or stream and consigned to the water. The Bhatras,
+like the Gonds, no doubt revere this tree because their intoxicating
+liquor is made from its flowers. The couple wear marriage crowns
+made from the leaves of the date palm and exchange these. A little
+turmeric and flour are mixed with water in a plate, and the bride,
+taking the bridegroom's right hand, dips it into the coloured paste
+and strikes it against the wall. The action is repeated five times,
+and then the bridegroom does the same with the bride's hand. By this
+rite the couple pledge each other for their mutual behaviour during
+married life. From the custom of making an impression of the hand
+on a wall in token of a vow may have arisen that of clasping hands
+as a symbol of a bargain assented to, and hence of shaking hands,
+by persons who meet, as a pledge of amity and the absence of hostile
+intentions. Usually the hand is covered with red ochre, which is
+probably a substitute for blood; and the impression of the hand is made
+on the wall of a temple in token of a vow. This may be a survival of
+the covenant made by the parties dipping their hands in the blood of
+the sacrifice and laying them on the god. A pit about a foot deep is
+dug close to the marriage-shed, and filled with mud or wet earth. The
+bride conceals a nut in the mud and the bridegroom has to find it,
+and the hiding and finding are repeated by both parties. This rite may
+have the signification of looking for children. The remainder of the
+day is spent in eating, drinking and dancing. On the way home after
+the wedding the bridegroom has to shoot a deer, the animal being
+represented by a branch of a tree thrown across the path by one of
+the party. But if a real deer happens by any chance to come by he has
+to shoot this. The bride goes up to the real or sham deer and pulls
+out the arrow, and presents her husband with water and a tooth-stick,
+after which he takes her in his arms and they dance home together. On
+arrival at the house the bridegroom's maternal uncle or his son lies
+down before the door covering himself with a blanket. He is asked
+what he wants, and says he will have the daughter of the bridegroom
+to wife. The bridegroom promises to give a daughter if he has one,
+and if he has a son to give him for a friend. The tribe consider that
+a man has a right to marry the daughter of his maternal uncle, and
+formerly if the girl was refused by her parents he abducted her and
+married her forcibly. The bride remains at her husband's house for a
+few days and then goes home, and before she finally takes up her abode
+with him the _gauna_ or going-away ceremony must be performed. The
+hands of the bride and bridegroom are tied together, and an arrow is
+held upright on them and some oil poured over it. The foreheads of
+the couple are marked with turmeric and rice, this rite being known
+as _tika_ or anointing, and presents are given to the bride's family.
+
+
+
+6. Propitiation of ghosts.
+
+
+The dead are buried, the corpse being laid on its back with the head
+to the north. Some rice, cowrie-shells, a winnowing-fan and other
+articles are placed on the grave. The tribe probably consider the
+winnowing-fan to have some magical property, as it also forms one of
+the presents given to the bride at the betrothal. If a man is killed
+by a tiger his spirit must be propitiated. The priest ties strips of
+tiger-skin to his arms, and the feathers of the peacock and blue jay
+to his waist, and jumps about pretending to be a tiger. A package of
+a hundred seers (200 lbs.) of rice is made up, and he sits on this
+and finally takes it away with him. If the dead man had any ornaments
+they must all be given, however valuable, lest his spirit should hanker
+after them and return to look for them in the shape of the tiger. The
+large quantity of rice given to the priest is also probably intended
+as a provision of the best food for the dead man's spirit, lest it
+be hungry and come in the shape of the tiger to satisfy its appetite
+upon the surviving relatives. The laying of the ghosts of persons
+killed by tigers is thus a very profitable business for the priests.
+
+
+
+7. Religion. Ceremonies at hunting.
+
+
+The tribe worship the god of hunting, who is known as Mati Deo
+and resides in a separate tree in each village. At the Bijphutni
+(threshing) or harvest festival in the month of Chait (March) they have
+a ceremonial hunting party. All the people of the village collect,
+each man having a bow and arrow slung to his back and a hatchet
+on his shoulder. They spread out a long net in the forest and beat
+the animals into this, usually catching a deer, wild pig or hare,
+and quails and other birds. They return and cook the game before the
+shrine of the god and offer to him a fowl and a pig. A pit is dug
+and water poured into it, and a person from each house must stand
+in the mud. A little seed taken from each house is also soaked in
+the mud, and after the feast is over this is taken and returned to
+the householder with words of abuse, a small present of two or three
+pice being received from him. The seed is no doubt thus consecrated
+for the next sowing. The tribe also have joint ceremonial fishing
+excursions. Their ideas of a future life are very vague, and they
+have no belief in a place of reward or punishment after death. They
+propitiate the spirits of their ancestors on the 15th of Asarh (June)
+with offerings of a little rice and incense.
+
+
+
+8. Superstitious remedies.
+
+
+To cure the evil eye they place a little gunpowder in water and
+apply it to the sufferer's eyes, the idea perhaps being that the
+fiery glance from the evil eye which struck him is quenched like the
+gunpowder. To bring on rain they perform a frog marriage, tying two
+frogs to a pestle and pouring oil and turmeric over them as in a real
+marriage. The children carry them round begging from door to door and
+finally deposit them in water. They say that when rain falls and the
+sun shines together the jackals are being married. Formerly a woman
+suspected of being a witch was tied up in a bag and thrown into a
+river or tank at various places set apart for the purpose. If she
+sank she was held to be innocent, and if she floated, guilty. In the
+latter case she had to defile herself by taking the bone of a cow
+and the tail of a pig in her mouth, and it was supposed that this
+drove out the magic-working spirit. In the case of illness of their
+children or cattle, or the failure of crops, they consult the Pujari
+or priest and make an offering. He applies some flowers or grains of
+rice to the forehead of the deity, and when one of these falls down
+he diagnoses from it the nature of the illness, and gives it to the
+sufferer to wear as a charm.
+
+
+
+9. Occupation.
+
+
+The tribe are cultivators and farmservants, and practise shifting
+cultivation. They work as village watchmen and also as the Majhi or
+village headman and the Pujari or village priest. These officials
+are paid by contributions of grain from the cultivators. And as
+already seen, the Bhatras are employed as household servants and
+will clean cooking-vessels. Since they act as village priests, it
+may perhaps be concluded that the Bhatras like the Parjas are older
+residents of Bastar than the bulk of the Gonds, and they have become
+the household servants of the Hindu immigrants, which the Gonds would
+probably disdain to do. Some of them wear the sacred thread, but in
+former times the Bastar Raja would invest any man with this for a
+fee of four or five rupees, and the Bhatras therefore purchased the
+social distinction. They find it inconvenient, however, and lay it
+aside when proceeding to their work or going out to hunt. If a man
+breaks his thread he must wait till a Brahman comes round, when he
+can purchase another.
+
+
+
+10. Names.
+
+
+Among a list of personal names given by Mr. Baijnath the following
+are of some interest: Pillu, one of short stature; Matola, one
+who learnt to walk late; Phagu, born in Phagun (February); Ghinu,
+dirty-looking; Dasru, born on the Dasahra festival; Ludki, one with
+a fleshy ear; Dalu, big-bellied; Mudi, a ring, this name having been
+given to a child which cried much after birth, but when its nose was
+pierced and a ring put in it stopped crying; Chhi, given to a child
+which sneezed immediately after birth; Nunha, a posthumous child;
+and Bhuklu, a child which began to play almost as soon as born. The
+above instances indicate that it is a favourite plan to select the
+name from any characteristic displayed by the child soon after birth,
+or from any circumstance or incident connected with its birth. Among
+names of women are: Cherangi, thin; Fundi, one with swollen cheeks;
+Kandri, one given to crying; Mahina (month), a child born a month late;
+Batai, one with large eyes; Gaida, fat; Pakli, of fair colour; Boda,
+one with crooked legs; Jhunki, one with small eyes; Rupi, a girl who
+was given a nose-ring of silver as her brothers had died; Paro, born
+on a field-embankment; Dango, tall. A woman must not call by their
+names her father-in-law, mother-in-law, her husband's brothers and
+elder sisters and the sons and daughters of her husband's brothers
+and sisters.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+Bhil
+
+
+
+List of Paragraphs
+
+
+
+1. _General notice. The Bhils a Kolarian tribe._
+2. _Rajputs deriving their title to the land from the Bhils._
+3. _Historical notice._
+4. _General Outram and the Khandesh Bhil Corps._
+5. _Subdivisions._
+6. _Exogamy and marriage customs._
+7. _Widow-marriage, divorce and polygamy._
+8. _Religion._
+9. _Witchcraft and amulets._
+10. _Funeral rites._
+11. _Social customs._
+12. _Appearance and characteristics._
+13. _Occupation._
+14. _Language._
+
+
+
+1. General notice. The Bhils a Kolarian tribe.
+
+
+_Bhil._ [310]--An indigenous or non-Aryan tribe which has been much
+in contact with the Hindus and is consequently well known. The home
+of the Bhils is the country comprised in the hill ranges of Khandesh,
+Central India and Rajputana, west from the Satpuras to the sea in
+Gujarat. The total number of Bhils in India exceeds a million and a
+half, of which the great bulk belong to Bombay, Rajputana and Central
+India. The Central Provinces have only about 28,000, practically all of
+whom reside in the Nimar district, on the hills forming the western end
+of the Satpura range and adjoining the Rajpipla hills of Khandesh. As
+the southern slopes of these hills lie in Berar, a few Bhils are also
+found there. The name Bhil seems to occur for the first time about
+A.D. 600. It is supposed to be derived from the Dravidian word for
+a bow, which is the characteristic weapon of the tribe. It has been
+suggested that the Bhils are the Pygmies referred to by Ktesias (400
+B.C.) and the Phyllitae of Ptolemy (A.D. 150). The Bhils are recognised
+as the oldest inhabitants of southern Rajputana and parts of Gujarat,
+and are usually spoken of in conjunction with the Kolis, who inhabit
+the adjoining tracts of Gujarat. The most probable hypothesis of the
+origin of the Kolis is that they are a western branch of the Kol or
+Munda tribe who have spread from Chota Nagpur, through Mandla and
+Jubbulpore, Central India and Rajputana to Gujarat and the sea. If
+this is correct the Kolis would be a Kolarian tribe. The Bhils have
+lost their own language, so that it cannot be ascertained whether
+it was Kolarian or Dravidian. But there is nothing against its being
+Kolarian in Sir G. Grierson's opinion; and in view of the length of
+residence of the tribe, the fact that they have abandoned their own
+language and their association with the Kolis, this view may be taken
+as generally probable. The Dravidian tribes have not penetrated so
+far west as Central India and Gujarat in appreciable numbers.
+
+
+
+2. Rajputs deriving their title to the land from the Bhils.
+
+
+The Rajputs still recognise the Bhils as the former residents and
+occupiers of the land by the fact that some Rajput chiefs must be
+marked on the brow with a Bhil's blood on accession to the _Gaddi_ or
+regal cushion. Tod relates how Goha, [311] the eponymous ancestor of
+the Sesodia Rajputs, took the state of Idar in Gujarat from a Bhil:
+"At this period Idar was governed by a chief of the savage race of
+Bhils. The young Goha frequented the forests in company with the Bhils,
+whose habits better assimilated with his daring nature than those of
+the Brahmans. He became a favourite with these _vena-putras_ or sons of
+the forest, who resigned to him Idar with its woods and mountains. The
+Bhils having determined in sport to elect a king, their choice fell
+on Goha; and one of the young savages, cutting his finger, applied
+the blood as the badge (_tika_) of sovereignty to his forehead. What
+was done in sport was confirmed by the old forest chief. The sequel
+fixes on Goha the stain of ingratitude, for he slew his benefactor,
+and no motive is assigned in the legend for the deed." [312]
+
+The legend is of course a euphemism for the fact that the Rajputs
+conquered and dispossessed the Bhils of Idar. But it is interesting
+as an indication that they did not consider themselves to derive a
+proper title to the land merely from the conquest, but wished also to
+show that it passed to them by the designation and free consent of
+the Bhils. The explanation is perhaps that they considered the gods
+of the Bhils to be the tutelary guardians and owners of the land,
+whom they must conciliate before they could hope to enjoy it in
+quiet and prosperity. This token of the devolution of the land from
+its previous holders, the Bhils, was till recently repeated on the
+occasion of each succession of a Sesodia chief. "The Bhil landholders
+of Oguna and Undri still claim the privilege of performing the _tika_
+for the Sesodias. The Oguna Bhil makes the mark of sovereignty on the
+chief's forehead with blood drawn from his own thumb, and then takes
+the chief by the arm and seats him on the throne, while the Undri Bhil
+holds the salver of spices and sacred grains of rice used in making
+the badge." [313] The story that Goha killed the old Bhil chief,
+his benefactor, who had adopted him as heir and successor, which
+fits in very badly with the rest of the legend, is probably based
+on another superstition. Sir J. G. Frazer has shown in _The Golden
+Bough_ that in ancient times it was a common superstition that any
+one who killed the king had a right to succeed him. The belief was
+that the king was the god of the country, on whose health, strength
+and efficiency its prosperity depended. When the king grew old and
+weak it was time for a successor, and he who could kill the king
+proved in this manner that the divine power and strength inherent
+in the late king had descended to him, and he was therefore the fit
+person to be king. [314] An almost similar story is told of the way
+in which the Kachhwaha Rajputs took the territory of Amber State from
+the Mina tribe. The infant Rajput prince had been deprived of Narwar
+by his uncle, and his mother wandered forth carrying him in a basket,
+till she came to the capital of the Minas, where she first obtained
+employment in the chiefs kitchen. But owing to her good cooking she
+attracted his wife's notice and ultimately disclosed her identity and
+told her story. The Mina chief then adopted her as his sister and the
+boy as his nephew. This boy, Dhola Rai, on growing up obtained a few
+Rajput adherents and slaughtered all the Minas while they were bathing
+at the feast of Diwali, after which he usurped their country. [315]
+The repetition both of the adoption and the ungrateful murder shows
+the importance attached by the Rajputs to both beliefs as necessary
+to the validity of their succession and occupation of the land.
+
+The position of the Bhils as the earliest residents of the country
+was also recognised by their employment in the capacity of village
+watchmen. One of the duties of this official is to know the village
+boundaries and keep watch and ward over them, and it was supposed
+that the oldest class of residents would know them best. The Bhils
+worked in the office of Mankar, the superior village watchman, in
+Nimar and also in Berar. Grant Duff states [316] that the Ramosi or
+Bhil was employed as village guard by the Marathas, and the Ramosis
+were a professional caste of village policemen, probably derived from
+the Bhils or from the Bhils and Kolis.
+
+
+
+3. Historical notice.
+
+
+The Rajputs seem at first to have treated the Bhils
+leniently. Intermarriage was frequent, especially in the families of
+Bhil chieftains, and a new caste called Bhilala [317] has arisen,
+which is composed of the descendants of mixed Rajput and Bhil
+marriages. Chiefs and landholders in the Bhil country now belong to
+this caste, and it is possible that some pure Bhil families may have
+been admitted to it. The Bhilalas rank above the Bhils, on a level
+with the cultivating castes. Instances occasionally occurred in which
+the children of Rajput by a Bhil wife became Rajputs. When Colonel Tod
+wrote, Rajputs would still take food with Ujla Bhils or those of pure
+aboriginal descent, and all castes would take water from them. [318]
+But as Hinduism came to be more orthodox in Rajputana, the Bhils
+sank to the position of outcastes. Their custom of eating beef had
+always caused them to be much despised. A tradition is related that
+one day the god Mahadeo or Siva, sick and unhappy, was reclining in a
+shady forest when a beautiful woman appeared, the first sight of whom
+effected a cure of all his complaints. An intercourse between the
+god and the strange female was established, the result of which was
+many children; one of whom, from infancy distinguished alike by his
+ugliness and vice, slew the favourite bull of Mahadeo, for which crime
+he was expelled to the woods and mountains, and his descendants have
+ever since been stigmatised by the names of Bhil and Nishada. [319]
+Nishada is a term of contempt applied to the lowest outcastes. Major
+Hendley, writing in 1875, states: "Some time since a Thakur (chief)
+cut off the legs of two Bhils, eaters of the sacred cow, and plunged
+the stumps into boiling oil." [320] When the Marathas began to occupy
+Central India they treated the Bhils with great cruelty. A Bhil caught
+in a disturbed part of the country was without inquiry flogged and
+hanged. Hundreds were thrown over high cliffs, and large bodies of
+them, assembled under promise of pardon, were beheaded or blown from
+guns. Their women were mutilated or smothered by smoke, and their
+children smashed to death against the stones. [321] This treatment may
+to some extent have been deserved owing to the predatory habits and
+cruelty of the Bhils, but its result was to make them utter savages
+with their hand against every man, as they believed that every one's
+was against them. From their strongholds in the hills they laid waste
+the plain country, holding villages and towns to ransom and driving off
+cattle; nor did any travellers pass with impunity through the hills
+except in convoys too large to be attacked. In Khandesh, during the
+disturbed period of the wars of Sindhia and Holkar, about A.D. 1800,
+the Bhils betook themselves to highway robbery and lived in bands
+either in mountains or in villages immediately beneath them. The
+revenue contractors were unable or unwilling to spend money in the
+maintenance of soldiers to protect the country, and the Bhils in a very
+short time became so bold as to appear in bands of hundreds and attack
+towns, carrying off either cattle or hostages, for whom they demanded
+handsome ransoms. [322] In Gujarat another writer described the Bhils
+and Kolis as hereditary and professional plunderers--'Soldiers of
+the night,' as they themselves said they were. [323] Malcolm said
+of them, after peace had been restored to Central India: [324]
+"Measures are in progress that will, it is expected, soon complete
+the reformation of a class of men who, believing themselves doomed
+to be thieves and plunderers, have been confirmed in their destiny
+by the oppression and cruelty of neighbouring governments, increased
+by an avowed contempt for them as outcasts. The feeling this system
+of degradation has produced must be changed; and no effort has been
+left untried to restore this race of men to a better sense of their
+condition than that which they at present entertain. The common answer
+of a Bhil when charged with theft or robbery is, 'I am not to blame;
+I am the thief of Mahadeo'; in other words, 'My destiny as a thief
+has been fixed by God.'" The Bhil chiefs, who were known as Bhumia,
+exercised the most absolute power, and their orders to commit the
+most atrocious crimes were obeyed by their ignorant but attached
+subjects without a conception on the part of the latter that they
+had an option when he whom they termed their Dhunni (Lord) issued the
+mandates. [325] Firearms and swords were only used by the chiefs and
+headmen of the tribe, and their national weapon was the bamboo bow
+having the bowstring made from a thin strip of its elastic bark. The
+quiver was a piece of strong bamboo matting, and would contain sixty
+barbed arrows a yard long, and tipped with an iron spike either
+flattened and sharpened like a knife or rounded like a nail; other
+arrows, used for knocking over birds, had knob-like heads. Thus armed,
+the Bhils would lie in wait in some deep ravine by the roadside, and
+an infernal yell announced their attack to the unwary traveller. [326]
+Major Hendley states that according to tradition in the Mahabharata
+the god Krishna was killed by a Bhil's arrow, when he was fighting
+against them in Gujarat with the Yadavas; and on this account it was
+ordained that the Bhil should never again be able to draw the bow with
+the forefinger of the right hand. "Times have changed since then, but
+I noticed in examining their hands that few could move the forefinger
+without the second finger; indeed the fingers appeared useless as
+independent members of the hands. In connection with this may be
+mentioned their apparent inability to distinguish colours or count
+numbers, due alone to their want of words to express themselves." [327]
+
+
+
+4. General Outram and the Khandesh Bhil Corps.
+
+
+The reclamation and pacification of the Bhils is inseparably associated
+with the name of Lieutenant, afterwards Sir James, Outram. The Khandesh
+Bhil Corps was first raised by him in 1825, when Bhil robber bands
+were being hunted down by small parties of troops, and those who were
+willing to surrender were granted a free pardon for past offences,
+and given grants of land for cultivation and advances for the purchase
+of seed and bullocks. When the first attempts to raise the corps were
+made, the Bhils believed that the object was to link them in line
+like galley-slaves with a view to extirpate the race, that blood was
+in high demand as a medicine in the country of their foreign masters,
+and so on. Indulging the wild men with feasts and entertainments, and
+delighting them with his matchless urbanity, Captain Outram at length
+contrived to draw over to the cause nine recruits, one of whom was a
+notorious plunderer who had a short time before successfully robbed
+the officer commanding a detachment sent against him. This infant
+corps soon became strongly attached to the person of their new chief
+and entirely devoted to his wishes; their goodwill had been won by his
+kind and conciliatory manners, while their admiration and respect had
+been thoroughly roused and excited by his prowess and valour in the
+chase. On one occasion, it is recorded, word was brought to Outram
+of the presence of a panther in some prickly-pear shrubs on the
+side of a hill near his station. He went to shoot it with a friend,
+Outram being on foot and his friend on horseback searching through the
+bushes. When close on the animal, Outram's friend fired and missed, on
+which the panther sprang forward roaring and seized Outram, and they
+rolled down the hill together. Being released from the claws of the
+furious beast for a moment, Outram with great presence of mind drew a
+pistol which he had with him, and shot the panther dead. The Bhils,
+on seeing that he had been injured, were one and all loud in their
+grief and expressions of regret, when Outram quieted them with the
+remark, 'What do I care for the clawing of a cat?' and this saying
+long remained a proverb among the Bhils. [328] By his kindness and
+sympathy, listening freely to all that each single man in the corps
+had to say to him, Outram at length won their confidence, convinced
+them of his good faith and dissipated their fears of treachery. Soon
+the ranks of the corps became full, and for every vacant place there
+were numbers of applicants. The Bhils freely hunted down and captured
+their friends and relations who continued to create disturbances,
+and brought them in for punishment. Outram managed to check their
+propensity for liquor by paying them every day just sufficient for
+their food, and giving them the balance of their pay at the end of
+the month, when some might have a drinking bout, but many preferred
+to spend the money on ornaments and articles of finery. With the
+assistance of the corps the marauding tendencies of the hill Bhils
+were suppressed and tranquillity restored to Khandesh, which rapidly
+became one of the most fertile parts of India. During the Mutiny the
+Bhil corps remained loyal, and did good service in checking the local
+outbursts which occurred in Khandesh. A second battalion was raised
+at this time, but was disbanded three years afterwards. After this the
+corps had little or nothing to do, and as the absence of fighting and
+the higher wages which could be obtained by ordinary labour ceased
+to render it attractive to the Bhils, it was finally converted into
+police in 1891. [329]
+
+
+
+5. Subdivisions.
+
+
+The Bhils of the Central Provinces have now only two subdivisions, the
+Muhammadan Bhils, who were forcibly converted to Islam during the time
+of Aurangzeb, and the remainder, who though retaining many animistic
+beliefs and superstitions, have practically become Hindus. The
+Muhammadan Bhils only number about 3000 out of 28,000. They are
+known as Tadvi, a name which was formerly applied to a Bhil headman,
+and is said to be derived from _tad_, meaning a separate branch or
+section. These Bhils marry among themselves and not with any other
+Muhammadans. They retain many Hindu and animistic usages, and are
+scarcely Muhammadan in more than name. Both classes are divided into
+groups or septs, generally named after plants or animals to which
+they still show reverence. Thus the Jamania sept, named after the
+_jaman_ tree, [330] will not cut or burn any part of this tree, and
+at their weddings the dresses of the bride and bridegroom are taken
+and rubbed against the tree before being worn. Similarly the Rohini
+sept worship the _rohan_ [331] tree, the Avalia sept the _aonla_
+[332] tree, the Meheda sept the _bahera_ [333] tree, and so on. The
+Mori sept worship the peacock. They go into the jungle and look for
+the tracks of a peacock, and spreading a piece of red cloth before the
+footprint, lay their offerings of grain upon it. Members of this sept
+may not be tattooed, because they think the splashes of colour on the
+peacock's feathers are tattoo-marks. Their women must veil themselves
+if they see a peacock, and they think that if any member of the sept
+irreverently treads on a peacock's footprints he will fall ill. The
+Ghodmarya (Horse-killer) sept may not tame a horse nor ride one. The
+Masrya sept will not kill or eat fish. The Sanyan or cat sept have a
+tradition that one of their ancestors was once chasing a cat, which
+ran for protection under a cover which had been put over the stone
+figure of their goddess. The goddess turned the cat into stone and
+sat on it, and since then members of the sept will not touch a cat
+except to save it from harm, and they will not eat anything which has
+been touched by a cat. The Ghattaya sept worship the grinding mill at
+their weddings and also on festival days. The Solia sept, whose name
+is apparently derived from the sun, are split up into four subsepts:
+the Ada Solia, who hold their weddings at sunrise; the Japa Solia,
+who hold them at sunset; the Taria Solia, who hold them when stars have
+become visible after sunset; and the Tar Solia, who believe their name
+is connected with cotton thread and wrap several skeins of raw thread
+round the bride and bridegroom at the wedding ceremony. The Moharia
+sept worship the local goddess at the village of Moharia in Indore
+State, who is known as the Moharia Mata; at their weddings they apply
+turmeric and oil to the fingers of the goddess before rubbing them on
+the bride and bridegroom. The Maoli sept worship a goddess of that
+name in Barwani town. Her shrine is considered to be in the shape
+of a kind of grain-basket known as _kilia_, and members of the sept
+may never make or use baskets of this shape, nor may they be tattooed
+with representations of it. Women of the sept are not allowed to visit
+the shrine of the goddess, but may worship her at home. Several septs
+have the names of Rajput clans, as Sesodia, Panwar, Mori, and appear
+to have originated in mixed unions between Rajputs and Bhils.
+
+
+
+6. Exogamy and marriage customs.
+
+
+A man must not marry in his own sept nor in the families of his
+mothers and grandmothers. The union of first cousins is thus
+prohibited, nor can girls be exchanged in marriage between two
+families. A wife's sister may also not be married during the wife's
+lifetime. The Muhammadan Bhils permit a man to marry his maternal
+uncle's daughter, and though he cannot marry his wife's sister
+he may keep her as a concubine. Marriages may be infant or adult,
+but the former practice is becoming prevalent and girls are often
+wedded before they are eleven. Matches are arranged by the parents
+of the parties in consultation with the caste _panchayat_; but in
+Bombay girls may select their own husbands, and they have also a
+recognised custom of elopement at the Tosina fair in the month of the
+Mahi Kantha. If a Bhil can persuade a girl to cross the river there
+with him he may claim her as his wife; but if they are caught before
+getting across he is liable to be punished by the bride's father. [334]
+The betrothal and wedding ceremonies now follow the ordinary ritual of
+the middle and lower castes in the Maratha country. [335] The bride
+must be younger than the bridegroom except in the case of a widow. A
+bride-price is paid which may vary from Rs. 9 to 20; in the case of
+Muhammadan Bhils the bridegroom is said to give a dowry of Rs. 20 to
+25. When the ovens are made with the sacred earth they roast some of
+the large millet juari [336] for the family feast, calling this Juari
+Mata or the grain goddess. Offerings of this are made to the family
+gods, and it is partaken of only by the members of the bride's and
+bridegroom's septs respectively at their houses. No outsider may even
+see this food being eaten. The leavings of food, with the leaf-plates
+on which it was eaten, are buried inside the house, as it is believed
+that if they should fall into the hands of any outsider the death or
+blindness of one of the family will ensue. When the bridegroom reaches
+the bride's house he strikes the marriage-shed with a dagger or other
+sharp instrument. A goat is killed and he steps in its blood as he
+enters the shed. A day for the wedding is selected by the priest,
+but it may also take place on any Sunday in the eight fine months. If
+the wedding takes place on the eleventh day of Kartik, that is on
+the expiration of the four rainy months when marriages are forbidden,
+they make a little hut of eleven stalks of juari with their cobs in
+the shape of a cone, and the bride and bridegroom walk round this. The
+services of a Brahman are not required for such a wedding. Sometimes
+the bridegroom is simply seated in a grain basket and the bride in
+a winnowing-fan; then their hands are joined as the sun is half set,
+and the marriage is completed. The bridegroom takes the basket and fan
+home with him. On the return of the wedding couple, their _kankans_
+or wristbands are taken off at Hanuman's temple. The Muhammadan Bhils
+perform the same ceremonies as the Hindus, but at the end they call in
+the Kazi or registrar, who repeats the Muhammadan prayers and records
+the dowry agreed upon. The practice of the bridegroom serving for
+his wife is in force among both classes of Bhils.
+
+
+
+7. Widow--marriage, divorce and polygamy.
+
+
+The remarriage of widows is permitted, but the widow may not marry
+any relative of her first husband. She returns to her father's house,
+and on her remarriage they obtain a bride-price of Rs. 40 or 50, a
+quarter of which goes in a feast to the tribesmen. The wedding of a
+widow is held on the Amawas or last day of the dark fortnight of the
+month, or on a Sunday. A wife may be divorced for adultery without
+consulting the _panchayat_. It is said that a wife cannot otherwise
+be divorced on any account, nor can a woman divorce her husband, but
+she may desert him and go and live with a man. In this case all that
+is necessary is that the second husband should repay to the first
+as compensation the amount expended by the latter on his marriage
+with the woman. Polygamy is permitted, and a second wife is sometimes
+taken in order to obtain children, but this number is seldom if ever
+exceeded. It is stated that the Bhil married women are generally chaste
+and faithful to their husbands, and any attempt to tamper with their
+virtue on the part of an outsider is strongly resented by the man.
+
+
+
+8. Religion.
+
+
+The Bhils worship the ordinary Hindu deities and the village godlings
+of the locality. The favourite both with Hindu and Muhammadan Bhils
+is Khande Rao or Khandoba, the war-god of the Marathas, who is often
+represented by a sword. The Muhammadans and the Hindu Bhils also
+to a less extent worship the Pirs or spirits of Muhammadan saints
+at their tombs, of which there are a number in Nimar. Major Hendley
+states that in Mewar the seats or _sthans_ of the Bhil gods are on the
+summits of high hills, and are represented by heaps of stones, solid
+or hollowed out in the centre, or mere platforms, in or near which are
+found numbers of clay or mud images of horses. [337] In some places
+clay lamps are burnt in front of the images of horses, from which
+it may be concluded that the horse itself is or was worshipped as a
+god. Colonel Tod states that the Bhils will eat of nothing white in
+colour, as a white sheep or goat; and their grand adjuration is 'By
+the white ram.' [338] Sir A. Lyall [339] says that their principal
+oath is by the dog. The Bhil sepoys told Major Hendley that they
+considered it of little use to go on worshipping their own gods, as
+the power of these had declined since the English became supreme. They
+thought the strong English gods were too much for the weak deities
+of their country, hence they were desirous of embracing Brahmanism,
+which would also raise them in the social scale and give them a better
+chance of promotion in regiments where there were Brahman officers.
+
+
+
+9. Witchcraft and amulets.
+
+
+They wear charms and amulets to keep off evil spirits; the charms
+are generally pieces of blue string with seven knots in them, which
+their witch-finder or Badwa ties, reciting an incantation on each; the
+knots were sometimes covered with metal to keep them undefiled and the
+charms were tied on at the Holi, Dasahra or some other festival. [340]
+In Bombay the Bhils still believe in witches as the agents of any
+misfortunes that may befall them. If a man was sick and thought some
+woman had bewitched him, the suspected woman was thrown into a stream
+or swung from a tree. If the branch broke and the woman fell and
+suffered serious injury, or if she could not swim across the stream
+and sank, she was considered to be innocent and efforts were made
+to save her. But if she escaped without injury she was held to be a
+witch, and it frequently happened that the woman would admit herself
+to be one either from fear of the infliction of a harder ordeal, or
+to keep up the belief in her powers as a witch, which often secured
+her a free supper of milk and chickens. She would then admit that
+she had really bewitched the sick man and undertake to cure him on
+some sacrifice being made. If he recovered, the animal named by the
+witch was sacrificed and its blood given her to drink while still
+warm; either from fear or in order to keep up the character she would
+drink it, and would be permitted to stay on in the village. If, on the
+other hand, the sick person died, the witch would often be driven into
+the forest to die of hunger or to be devoured by wild animals. [341]
+These practices have now disappeared in the Central Provinces, though
+occasionally murders of suspected witches may still occur. The Bhils
+are firm believers in omens, the nature of which is much the same as
+among the Hindus. When a Bhil is persistently unlucky in hunting,
+he sometimes says '_Nat laga_,' meaning that some bad spirit is
+causing his ill-success. Then he will make an image of a man in
+the sand or dust of the road, or sometimes two images of a man and
+woman, and throwing straw or grass over the images set it alight, and
+pound it down on them with a stick with abusive yells. This he calls
+killing his bad luck. [342] Major Hendley notes that the men danced
+before the different festivals and before battles. The men danced
+in a ring holding sticks and striking them against each other, much
+like the Baiga dance. Before battle they had a war-dance in which
+the performers were armed and imitated a combat. To be carried on
+the shoulders of one of the combatants was a great honour, perhaps
+because it symbolised being on horseback. The dance was probably in
+the nature of a magical rite, designed to obtain success in battle
+by going through an imitation of it beforehand. The priests are the
+chief physicians among the Bhils, though most old men were supposed
+to know something about medicine. [343]
+
+
+
+10. Funeral rites.
+
+
+The dead are usually buried lying on the back, with the head pointing
+to the south. Cooked food is placed on the bier and deposited on
+the ground half-way to the cemetery. On return each family of the
+sept brings a wheaten cake to the mourners and these are eaten. On
+the third day they place on the grave a thick cake of wheaten flour,
+water in an earthen pot and tobacco or any other stimulant which the
+deceased was in the habit of using in his life.
+
+
+
+11. Social customs.
+
+
+The Hindu Bhils say that they do not admit outsiders into the caste,
+but the Muhammadans will admit a man of any but the impure castes. The
+neophyte must be shaved and circumcised, and the Kazi gives him
+some holy water to drink and teaches him the profession of belief
+in Islam. If a man is not circumcised, the Tadvi or Muhammadan Bhils
+will not bury his body. Both classes of Bhils employ Brahmans at their
+ceremonies. The tribe eat almost all kinds of flesh and drink liquor,
+but the Hindus now abjure beef and the Muhammadans pork. Some Bhils
+now refuse to take the skins off dead cattle, but others will do
+so. The Bhils will take food from any caste except the impure ones,
+and none except these castes will now take food from them. Temporary
+or permanent exclusion from caste is imposed for the same offences
+as among the Hindus.
+
+
+
+12. Appearance and characteristics.
+
+
+The typical Bhil is small, dark, broad-nosed and ugly, but well built
+and active. The average height of 128 men measured by Major Hendley
+was 5 feet 6.4 inches. The hands are somewhat small and the legs
+fairly developed, those of the women being the best. "The Bhil is an
+excellent woodsman, knows the shortest cuts over the hills, can walk
+the roughest paths and climb the steepest crags without slipping or
+feeling distressed. He is often called in old Sanskrit works Venaputra,
+'child of the forest,' or Pal Indra, 'lord of the pass.' These
+names well describe his character. His country is approached through
+narrow defiles (_pal_), and through these none could pass without his
+permission. In former days he always levied _rakhwali_ or blackmail,
+and even now native travellers find him quite ready to assert what he
+deems his just rights. The Bhil is a capital huntsman, tracking and
+marking down tigers, panthers and bears, knowing all their haunts, the
+best places to shoot them, the paths they take and all those points so
+essential to success in big-game shooting; they will remember for years
+the spots where tigers have been disposed of, and all the circumstances
+connected with their deaths. The Bhil will himself attack a leopard,
+and with his sword, aided by his friends, cut him to pieces." [344]
+Their agility impressed the Hindus, and an old writer says: "Some
+Bhil chieftains who attended the camp of Sidhraj, king of Gujarat,
+astonished him with their feats of activity; in his army they seemed
+as the followers of Hanuman in attendance upon Ram." [345]
+
+
+
+13. Occupation.
+
+
+The Bhils have now had to abandon their free use of the forests,
+which was highly destructive in its effects, and their indiscriminate
+slaughter of game. Many of them live in the open country and have
+become farmservants and field-labourers. A certain proportion are
+tenants, but very few own villages. Some of the Tadvi Bhils, however,
+still retain villages which were originally granted free of revenue
+on condition of their keeping the hill-passes of the Satpuras open
+and safe for travellers. These are known as Hattiwala. Bhils also
+serve as village watchmen in Nimar and the adjoining tracts of the
+Berar Districts. Captain Forsyth, writing in 1868, described the
+Bhils as follows: "The Muhammadan Bhils are with few exceptions a
+miserable lot, idle and thriftless, and steeped in the deadly vice
+of opium-eating. The unconverted Bhils are held to be tolerably
+reliable. When they borrow money or stock for cultivation they seldom
+abscond fraudulently from their creditors, and this simple honesty
+of theirs tends, I fear, to keep numbers of them still in a state
+little above serfdom." [346]
+
+
+
+14. Language.
+
+
+The Bhils have now entirely abandoned their own language and speak a
+corrupt dialect based on the Aryan vernaculars current around them. The
+Bhil dialect is mainly derived from Gujarati, but it is influenced
+by Marwari and Marathi; in Nimar especially it becomes a corrupt
+form of Marathi. Bhili, as this dialect is called, contains a number
+of non-Aryan words, some of which appear to come from the Mundari,
+and others from the Dravidian languages; but these are insufficient
+to form any basis for a deduction as to whether the Bhils belonged
+to the Kolarian or Dravidian race. [347]
+
+
+
+Bhilala
+
+
+
+1. General notice.
+
+
+_Bhilala_, [348]--A small caste found in the Nimar and Hoshangabad
+Districts of the Central Provinces and in Central India. The total
+strength of the Bhilalas is about 150,000 persons, most of whom reside
+in the Bhopawar Agency, adjoining Nimar. Only 15,000 were returned from
+the Central Provinces in 1911. The Bhilalas are commonly considered,
+and the general belief may in their case be accepted as correct, to be
+a mixed caste sprung from the alliances of immigrant Rajputs with the
+Bhils of the Central India hills. The original term was not improbably
+Bhilwala, and may have been applied to those Rajput chiefs, a numerous
+body, who acquired small estates in the Bhil country, or to those who
+took the daughters of Bhil chieftains to wife, the second course being
+often no doubt a necessary preliminary to the first. Several Bhilala
+families hold estates in Nimar and Indore, and their chiefs now claim
+to be pure Rajputs. The principal Bhilala houses, as those of Bhamgarh,
+Selani and Mandhata, do not intermarry with the rest of the caste, but
+only among themselves and with other families of the same standing in
+Malwa and Holkar's Nimar. On succession to the _Gaddi_ or headship of
+the house, representatives of these families are marked with a _tika_
+or badge on the forehead and sometimes presented with a sword, and
+the investiture may be carried out by custom by the head of another
+house. Bhilala landholders usually have the title of Rao or Rawat. They
+do not admit that a Bhilala can now spring from intermarriage between
+a Rajput and a Bhil. The local Brahmans will take water from them and
+they are occasionally invested with the sacred thread at the time
+of marriage. The Bhilala Rao of Mandhata is hereditary custodian
+of the great shrine of Siva at Onkar Mandhata on an island in the
+Nerbudda. According to the traditions of the family, their ancestor,
+Bharat Singh, was a Chauhan Rajput, who took Mandhata from Nathu
+Bhil in A.D. 1165, and restored the worship of Siva to the island,
+which had been made inaccessible to pilgrims by the terrible deities,
+Kali and Bhairava, devourers of human flesh. In such legends may be
+recognised the propagation of Hinduism by the Rajput adventurers and
+the reconsecration of the aboriginal shrines to its deities. Bharat
+Singh is said to have killed Nathu Bhil, but it is more probable that
+he only married his daughter and founded a Bhilala family. Similar
+alliances have taken place among other tribes, as the Korku chiefs
+of the Gawilgarh and Mahadeo hills, and the Gond princes of Garha
+Mandla. The Bhilalas generally resemble other Hindus in appearance,
+showing no marked signs of aboriginal descent. Very probably they have
+all an infusion of Rajput blood, as the Rajputs settled in the Bhil
+country in some strength at an early period of history. The caste have,
+however, totemistic group names; they will eat fowls and drink liquor;
+and they bury their dead with the feet to the north, all these customs
+indicating a Dravidian origin. Their subordinate position in past times
+is shown by the fact that they will accept cooked food from a Kunbi
+or a Gujar; and indeed the status of all except the chief's families
+would naturally have been a low one, as they were practically the
+offspring of kept women. As already stated, the landowning families
+usually arrange alliances among themselves. Below these comes the
+body of the caste and below them is a group known as the Chhoti Tad
+or bastard Bhilalas, to which are relegated the progeny of irregular
+unions and persons expelled from the caste for social offences.
+
+
+
+2. Marriage.
+
+
+The caste, for the purpose of avoiding marriages between relations,
+are also divided into exogamous groups called _kul_ or _kuri_,
+several of the names of which are of totemistic origin or derived
+from those of animals and plants. Members of the Jamra _kuri_ will
+not cut or burn the _jamun_ [349] tree; those of the Saniyar _kuri_
+will not grow _san_-hemp, while the Astaryas revere the _sona_ [350]
+tree and the Pipaladya, the _pipal_ tree. Some of the _kuris_ have
+Rajput sept names, as Mori, Baghel and Solanki. A man is forbidden to
+take a wife from within his own sept or that of his mother, and the
+union of first cousins is also prohibited. The customs of the Bhilalas
+resemble those of the Kunbis and other cultivating castes. At their
+weddings four cart-yokes are arranged in a square, and inside this
+are placed two copper vessels filled with water and considered to
+represent the Ganges and Jumna. When the sun is half set, the bride
+and the bridegroom clasp hands and then walk seven times round the
+square of cart-yokes. The water of the pots is mixed and this is
+considered to represent the mingling of the bride's and bridegroom's
+personalities as the Ganges and Jumna meet at Allahabad. A sum of about
+Rs. 60 is usually paid by the parents of the bridegroom to those of
+the bride and is expended on the ceremony. The ordinary Bhilalas have,
+Mr. Korke states, a simple form of wedding which may be gone through
+without consulting a Brahman on the Ekadashi or eleventh of Kartik
+(October); this is the day on which the gods awake from sleep and
+marks the commencement of the marriage season. A cone is erected of
+eleven plants of juari, roots and all, and the couple simply walk
+round this seven times at night, when the marriage is complete. The
+remarriage of widows is permitted. The woman's forehead is marked
+with cowdung by another widow, probably as a rite of purification,
+and the cloths of the couple are tied together.
+
+
+
+3. Social customs.
+
+
+The caste commonly bury the dead and erect memorial stones at the
+heads of graves which they worship in the month of Chait (April),
+smearing them with vermilion and making an offering of flowers. This
+may either be a Dravidian usage or have been adopted by imitation
+from the Muhammadans. The caste worship the ordinary Hindu deities,
+but each family has a _Kul-devi_ or household god, Mr. Korke remarks,
+to which they pay special reverence. The offerings made to the Kul-devi
+must be consumed by the family alone, but married daughters are allowed
+to participate. They employ Nimari Brahmans as their priests, and also
+have _gurus_ or spiritual preceptors, who are Gosains or Bairagis. They
+will take food cooked with water from Brahmans, Rajputs, Munda Gujars
+and Tirole Kunbis. The last two groups are principal agricultural
+castes of the locality and the Bhilalas are probably employed by them
+as farmservants, and hence accept cooked food from their masters in
+accordance with a common custom. The local Brahmans of the Nagar,
+Naramdeo, Baisa and other subcastes will take water from the hand of
+a Bhilala. Temporary excommunication from caste is imposed for the
+usual offences, such as going to jail, getting maggots in a wound,
+killing a cow, a dog or a squirrel, committing homicide, being beaten
+by a man of low caste, selling shoes at a profit, committing adultery,
+and allowing a cow to die with a rope round its neck; and further, for
+touching the corpses of a cow, cat or horse, or a Barhai (carpenter) or
+Chamar (tanner). They will not swear by a dog, a cat or a squirrel, and
+if either of the first two animals dies in a house, it is considered to
+be impure for a month and a quarter. The head of the caste committee
+has the designation of Mandloi, which is a territorial title borne
+by several families in Nimar. He receives a share of the fine levied
+for the _Sarni_ or purification ceremony, when a person temporarily
+expelled is readmitted into caste. Under the Mandloi is the Kotwal
+whose business is to summon the members to the caste assemblies;
+he also is paid out of the fines and his office is hereditary.
+
+
+
+4. Occupation and character.
+
+
+The caste are cultivators, farmservants and field-labourers, and a
+Bhilala also usually held the office of Mankar, a superior kind of
+Kotwar or village watchman. The Mankar did no dirty work and would not
+touch hides, but attended on any officer who came to the village and
+acted as a guide. Where there was a village _sarai_ or rest-house,
+it was in charge of the Mankar, who was frequently also known as
+zamindar. This may have been a recognition of the ancient rights of
+the Bhilalas and Bhils to the country.
+
+
+
+5. Character.
+
+
+Captain Forsyth, Settlement Officer of Nimar, had a very unfavourable
+opinion of the Bhilalas, whom he described as proverbial for
+dishonesty in agricultural engagements and worse drunkards than any
+of the indigenous tribes. [351] This judgment was probably somewhat
+too severe, but they are poor cultivators, and a Bhilala's field may
+often be recognised by its slovenly appearance. [352]
+
+A century ago Sir J. Malcolm also wrote very severely of the Bhilalas:
+"The Bhilala and Lundi chiefs were the only robbers in Malwa whom under
+no circumstances travellers could trust. There are oaths of a sacred
+but obscure kind among those that are Rajputs or who boast their blood,
+which are almost a disgrace to take, but which, they assert, the basest
+was never known to break before Mandrup Singh, a Bhilala, and some of
+his associates, plunderers on the Nerbudda, showed the example. The
+vanity of this race has lately been flattered by their having risen
+into such power and consideration that neighbouring Rajput chiefs found
+it their interest to forget their prejudices and to condescend so far
+as to eat and drink with them. Hatti Singh, Grassia chief of Nowlana,
+a Khichi Rajput, and several others in the vicinity cultivated the
+friendship of Nadir, the late formidable Bhilala robber-chief of
+the Vindhya range; and among other sacrifices made by the Rajputs,
+was eating and drinking with him. On seeing this take place in my
+camp, I asked Hatti Singh whether he was not degraded by doing so;
+he said no, but that Nadir was elevated." [353]
+
+
+
+
+
+
+Bhishti
+
+
+_Bhishti._--A small Muhammadan caste of water-bearers. Only 26
+Bhishtis were shown in the Central Provinces in 1901 and 278 in
+1891. The tendency of the lower Muhammadan castes, as they obtain
+some education, is to return themselves simply as Muhammadans, the
+caste name being considered derogatory. The Bhishtis are, however,
+a regular caste numbering over a lakh of persons in India, the bulk
+of whom belong to the United Provinces. Many of them are converts
+from Hinduism, and they combine Hindu and Muhammadan practices. They
+have _gotras_ or exogamous sections, the names of which indicate
+the Hindu origin of their members, as Huseni Brahman, Samri Chauhan,
+Bahmangour and others. They prohibit marriage within the section and
+within two degrees of relationship on the mother's side. Marriages are
+performed by the Muhammadan ritual or Nikah, but a Brahman is sometimes
+asked to fix the auspicious day, and they erect a marriage-shed. The
+bridegroom goes to the bride's house riding on a horse, and when he
+arrives drops Rs. 1-4 into a pot of water held by a woman. The bride
+whips the bridegroom's horse with a switch made of flowers. During
+the marriage the bride sits inside the house and the bridegroom in
+the shed outside. An agent or Vakil with two witnesses goes to the
+bride and asks her whether she consents to marry the bridegroom,
+and when she gives her consent, as she always does, they go out and
+formally communicate it to the Kazi. The dowry is then settled, and
+the bond of marriage is sealed. But when the parents of the bride are
+poor they receive a bride-price of Rs. 30, from which they pay the
+dowry. The Bhishtis worship their leather bag (_mashk_) as a sort of
+fetish, and burn incense before it on Fridays. [354] The traditional
+occupation of the Bhishti is to supply water, and he is still engaged
+in this and other kinds of domestic service. The name is said to be
+derived from the Persian _bihisht_, 'paradise,' and to have been given
+to them on account of the relief which their ministrations afforded
+to the thirsty soldiery. [355] Perhaps, too, the grandiloquent name
+was applied partly in derision, like similar titles given to other
+menial servants. They are also known as Mashki or Pakhali, after
+their leathern water-bag. The leather bag is a distinctive sign of
+the Bhishti, but when he puts it away he may be recognised from the
+piece of red cloth which he usually wears round his waist. There is
+an interesting legend to the effect that the Bhishti who saved the
+Emperor Humayun's life at Chausa, and was rewarded by the tenure
+of the Imperial throne for half a day, employed his short lease of
+power by providing for his family and friends, and caused his leather
+bag to be cut up into rupees, which were gilded and stamped with the
+record of his date and reign in order to perpetuate its memory. [356]
+The story of the Bhishti obtaining his name on account of the solace
+which he afforded to the Muhammadan soldiery finds a parallel in the
+case of the English army:
+
+
+            The uniform 'e wore
+            Was nothin' much before,
+            An' rather less than 'arf o' that be'ind,
+            For a piece o' twisty rag
+            An' a goatskin water-bag
+            Was all the field-equipment 'e could find.
+
+            With 'is mussick on 'is back,
+            'E would skip with our attack,
+            An' watch us till the bugles made 'Retire,'
+            An' for all 'is dirty 'ide
+            'E was white, clear white, inside
+            When 'e went to tend the wounded under fire. [357]
+
+
+An excellent description of the Bhishti as a household servant is
+contained in Eha's _Behind the Bungalow_, [358] from which the
+following extract is taken: "If you ask: Who is the Bhishti? I
+will tell you. Bihisht in the Persian tongue means Paradise, and a
+Bihishtee is therefore an inhabitant of Paradise, a cherub, a seraph,
+an angel of mercy. He has no wings; the painters have misconceived
+him; but his back is bowed down with the burden of a great goat-skin
+swollen to bursting with the elixir of life. He walks the land when
+the heaven above him is brass and the earth iron, when the trees and
+shrubs are languishing and the last blade of grass has given up the
+struggle for life, when the very roses smell only of dust, and all
+day long the roaming dust-devils waltz about the fields, whirling
+leaf and grass and cornstalk round and round and up and away into
+the regions of the sky; and he unties a leather thong which chokes
+the throat of his goat-skin just where the head of the poor old goat
+was cut off, and straightway, with a life-reviving gurgle, the stream
+called _thandha pani_ gushes forth, and plant and shrub lift up their
+heads and the garden smiles again. The dust also on the roads is laid,
+and a grateful incense rises from the ground, the sides of the water
+_chatti_ grow dark and moist and cool themselves in the hot air,
+and through the dripping interstices of the _khaskhas_ tattie a
+chilly fragrance creeps into the room, causing the mercury in the
+thermometer to retreat from its proud place. I like the Bhishti and
+respect him. As a man he is temperate and contented, eating _bajri_
+bread and slaking his thirst with his own element. And as a servant
+he is laborious and faithful, rarely shirking his work, seeking it out
+rather. For example, we had a bottle-shaped filter of porous stoneware,
+standing in a bucket of water which it was his duty to fill daily;
+but the good man, not content with doing his bare duty, took the
+plug out of the filter and filled it too. And all the station knows
+how assiduously he fills the rain-gauge." With the construction of
+water-works in large stations the Bhishti is losing his occupation,
+and he is a far less familiar figure to the present generation of
+Anglo-Indians than to their predecessors.
+
+
+
+Bhoyar
+
+
+
+1. Origin and traditions.
+
+
+_Bhoyar, [359] Bhoir_ (Honorific titles, Mahajan and Patel).--A
+cultivating caste numbering nearly 60,000 persons in 1911, and residing
+principally in the Betul and Chhindwara Districts. The Bhoyars are not
+found outside the Central Provinces. They claim to be the descendants
+of a band of Panwar Rajputs, who were defending the town of Dharanagri
+or Dhar in Central India when it was besieged by Aurangzeb. Their post
+was on the western part of the wall, but they gave way and fled into
+the town as the sun was rising, and it shone on their faces. Hence
+they were called Bhoyar from a word _bhor_ meaning morning, because
+they were seen running away in the morning. They were put out of
+caste by the other Rajputs, and fled to the Central Provinces. The
+name may also be a variant of that of the Bhagore Rajputs. And another
+derivation is from _bhora_, a simpleton or timid person. Their claim
+to be immigrants from Central India is borne out by the fact that they
+still speak a corrupt form of the Malwi dialect of Rajputana, which
+is called after them Bhoyari, and their Bhats or genealogists come
+from Malwa. But they have now entirely lost their position as Rajputs.
+
+
+
+2. Subcastes and sections.
+
+
+The Bhoyars are divided into the Panwari, Dholewar, Chaurasia and
+Daharia subcastes. The Panwars are the most numerous and the highest,
+as claiming to be directly descended from Panwar Rajputs. They
+sometimes called themselves Jagdeo Panwars, Jagdeo being the name
+of the king under whom they served in Dharanagri. The Dholewars
+take their name from Dhola, a place in Malwa, or from _dhol_, a
+drum. They are the lowest subcaste, and some of them keep pigs. It
+is probable that these subcastes immigrated with the Malwa Rajas in
+the fifteenth century, the Dholewars being the earlier arrivals,
+and having from the first intermarried with the local Dravidian
+tribes. The Daharias take their name from Dahar, the old name of
+the Jubbulpore country, and may be a relic of the domination of
+the Chedi kings of Tewar. The name of the Chaurasias is probably
+derived from the Chaurasi or tract of eighty-four villages formerly
+held by the Betul Korku family of Chandu. The last two subdivisions
+are numerically unimportant. The Bhoyars have over a hundred _kuls_
+or exogamous sections. The names of most of these are titular, but
+some are territorial and a few totemistic. Instances of such names
+are Onkar (the god Siva), Deshmukh and Chaudhari, headman, Hazari (a
+leader of 1000 horse), Gore (fair-coloured), Dongardiya (a lamp on a
+hill), Pinjara (a cotton-cleaner), Gadria (a shepherd), Khaparia (a
+tyler), Khawasi (a barber), Chiknya (a sycophant), Kinkar (a slave),
+Dukhi (penurious), Suplya toplya (a basket and fan maker), Kasai (a
+butcher), Gohattya (a cow-killer), and Kalebhut (black devil). Among
+the territorial sections may be mentioned Sonpuria, from Sonpur,
+and Patharia, from the hill country. The name Badnagrya is also
+really territorial, being derived from the town of Badnagar, but
+the members of the section connect it with the _bad_ or banyan tree,
+the leaves of which they refrain from eating. Two other totemistic
+gotras are the Baranga and Baignya, derived from the _barang_ plant
+(_Kydia calycina_) and from the brinjal respectively. Some sections
+have the names of Rajput septs, as Chauhan, Parihar and Panwar. This
+curiously mixed list of family names appears to indicate that the
+Bhoyars originate from a small band of Rajputs who must have settled
+in the District about the fifteenth century as military colonists,
+and taken their wives from the people of the country. They may have
+subsequently been recruited by fresh bands of immigrants who have
+preserved a slightly higher status. They have abandoned their old high
+position, and now rank below the ordinary cultivating castes like
+Kunbis and Kurmis who arrived later; while the caste has probably
+in times past also been recruited to a considerable extent by the
+admission of families of outsiders.
+
+
+
+3. Marriage.
+
+
+Marriage within the _kul_ or family group is forbidden, as also the
+union of first cousins. Girls are usually married young, and sometimes
+infants of one or two months are given in wedlock, while contracts
+of betrothal are made for unborn children if they should be of the
+proper sex, the mother's womb being touched with _kunku_ or red powder
+to seal the agreement. A small _dej_ or price is usually paid for the
+bride, amounting to Rs. 5 with 240 lbs. of grain, and 8 seers of _ghi_
+and oil. At the betrothal the Joshi or astrologer is consulted to see
+whether the names of the couple make an auspicious conjunction. He asks
+for the names of the bride and bridegroom, and if these are found to be
+inimical another set of names is given, and the experiment is continued
+until a union is obtained which is astrologically auspicious. In order
+to provide for this contingency some Bhoyars give their children ten
+or twelve names at birth. If all the names fail, the Joshi invents new
+ones of his own, and in some way brings about the auspicious union
+to the satisfaction of both parties, who consider it no business
+of theirs to pry into the Joshi's calculations or to question his
+methods. After the marriage-shed is erected the family god must be
+invoked to be present at the ceremony. He is asked to come and take
+his seat in an earthen pot containing a lighted wick, the pot being
+supported on a toy chariot made of sticks. A thread is coiled round
+the neck of the jar, and the Bhoyars then place it in the middle of
+the house, confident that the god has entered it, and will ward off
+all calamities during the marriage. This is performed by the _bhanwar_
+ceremony, seven earthen pots being placed in a row, while the bride and
+bridegroom walk round in a circle holding a basket with a lighted lamp
+in it. As each circle is completed, one pot is removed. This always
+takes place at night. The Dholewars do not perform the _bhanwar_
+ceremony, and simply throw sacred rice on the couple, and this is
+also done in Wardha. Sometimes the Bhoyars dispense with the presence
+of the Brahman and merely get some rice and juari consecrated by
+him beforehand, which they throw on the heads of the couple, and
+thereupon consider the marriage complete. Weddings are generally
+held in the bright fortnight of Baisakh (April-May), and sometimes
+can be completed in a single day. Widow-marriage is allowed, but it
+is considered that the widow should marry a widower and not a bachelor.
+
+
+
+4. Occupation.
+
+
+The regular occupation of the Bhoyars is agriculture, and they are
+good cultivators, growing much sugar-cane with well-irrigation. They
+are industrious, and their holdings on the rocky soils of the plateau
+Districts are often cleared of stones at the cost of much labour. Their
+women work in the fields. In Betul they have the reputation of being
+much addicted to drink.
+
+
+
+5. Social status.
+
+
+They do not now admit outsiders, but their family names show that at
+one time they probably did so, and this laxity of feeling survives in
+the toleration with which they readmit into caste a woman who has gone
+wrong with an outsider. They eat flesh and fowls, and the Dholewars eat
+pork, while as already stated they are fond of liquor. To have a shoe
+thrown on his house by a caste-fellow is a serious degradation for a
+Bhoyar, and he must break his earthen pots, clean his house and give
+a feast. To be beaten with a shoe by a low caste like Mahar entails
+shaving the moustaches and paying a heavy fine, which is spent on a
+feast. The Bhoyars do not take food from any caste but Brahmans, but
+no caste higher than Kunbis and Malis will take water from them. In
+social status they rank somewhat below Kunbis. In appearance they are
+well built, and often of a fair complexion. Unmarried girls generally
+wear skirts instead of _saris_ or cloths folding between the legs;
+they also must not wear toe-rings. Women of the Panwar subcaste wear
+glass bangles on the left hand, and brass ones on the right. All
+women are tattooed. They both burn and bury the dead, placing the
+corpse on the pyre with its head to the south or west, and in Wardha
+to the north. Here they have a peculiar custom as regards mourning,
+which is observed only till the next Monday or Thursday whichever
+falls first. Thus the period of mourning may extend from one to four
+days. The Bhoyars are considered in Wardha to be more than ordinarily
+timid, and also to be considerable simpletons, while they stand in much
+awe of Government officials, and consider it a great misfortune to be
+brought into a court of justice. Very few of them can read and write.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+Bhuiya
+
+
+
+List of Paragraphs
+
+
+ 1. _The tribe and its name._
+ 2. _Distribution of the tribe._
+ 3. _Example of the position of the aborigines in Hindu society._
+ 4. _The Bhuiyas a Kolarian tribe._
+ 5. _The Baigas and the Bhuiyas. Chhattisgarh the home of the Baigas._
+ 6. _The Baigas a branch of the Bhuiyas._
+ 7. _Tribal subdivisions._
+ 8. _Exogamous septs._
+ 9. _Marriage customs._
+10. _Widow-marriage and divorce._
+11. _Religion._
+12. _Religious dancing._
+13. _Funeral rites and inheritance._
+14. _Physical appearance and occupation._
+15. _Social customs._
+
+
+
+1. The tribe and its name.
+
+
+_Bhuiya, Bhuinhar, Bhumia._ [360]--The name of a very important tribe
+of Chota Nagpur, Bengal and Orissa. The Bhuiyas numbered more than
+22,000 persons in the Central Provinces in 1911, being mainly found
+in the Sarguja and Jashpur States. In Bengal and Bihar the Bhuiyas
+proper count about half a million persons, while the Musahar and
+Khandait castes, both of whom are mainly derived from the Bhuiyas,
+total together well over a million.
+
+The name Bhuiya means 'Lord of the soil,' or 'Belonging to the soil,'
+and is a Sanskrit derivative. The tribe have completely forgotten
+their original name, and adopted this designation conferred on them
+by the immigrant Aryans. The term Bhuiya, however, is also employed
+by other tribes and by some Hindus as a title for landholders, being
+practically equivalent to zamindar. And hence a certain confusion
+arises, and classes or individuals may have the name of Bhuiya without
+belonging to the tribe at all. "In most parts of Chota Nagpur,"
+Sir H. Risley says, "there is a well-known distinction between a
+Bhuiya by tribe and a Bhuiya by title. The Bhuiyas of Bonai and
+Keonjhar described by Colonel Dalton belong to the former category;
+the Bhuiya Mundas and Oraons to the latter. The distinction will be
+made somewhat clearer if it is explained that every 'tribal Bhuiya'
+will as a matter of course describe himself as Bhuiya, while a member
+of another tribe will only do so if he is speaking with reference to
+a question of land, or desires for some special reason to lay stress
+on his status as a landholder or agriculturist."
+
+We further find in Bengal and Benares a caste of landholders known as
+Bhuinhar or Babhan, who are generally considered as a somewhat mixed
+and inferior group of Brahman and Rajput origin. Both Sir H. Risley
+and Mr. Crooke adopt this view and deny any connection between the
+Bhuinhars and the Bhuiya tribes. Babhan appears to be a corrupt form
+of Brahman. Mr. Mazumdar, however, states that Bhuiya is never used in
+Bengali as an equivalent for zamindar or landholder, and he considers
+that the Bhuinhars and also the Barah Bhuiyas, a well-known group of
+twelve landholders of Eastern Bengal and Assam, belonged to the Bhuiya
+tribe. He adduces from Sir E. Gait's _History of Assam_ the fact that
+the Chutias and Bhuiyas were dominant in that country prior to its
+conquest by the Ahoms in the thirteenth century, and considers that
+these Chutias gave their name to Chutia or Chota Nagpur. I am unable
+to express any opinion on Mr. Mazumdar's argument, and it is also
+unnecessary as the question does not concern the Central Provinces.
+
+
+
+2. Distribution of the tribe.
+
+
+The principal home of the Bhuiya tribe proper is the south of the
+Chota Nagpur plateau, comprised in the Gangpur, Bonai, Keonjhar and
+Bamra States. "The chiefs of these States," Colonel Dalton says,
+"now call themselves Rajputs; if they be so, they are strangely
+isolated families of Rajputs. The country for the most part belongs
+to the Bhuiya sub-proprietors. They are a privileged class, holding as
+hereditaments the principal offices of the State, and are organised as
+a body of militia. The chiefs have no right to exercise any authority
+till they have received the _tilak_ or token of investiture from their
+powerful Bhuiya vassals. Their position altogether renders their claim
+to be considered Rajputs extremely doubtful, and the stories told to
+account for their acquisition of the dignity are palpable fables. They
+were no doubt all Bhuiyas originally; they certainly do not look like
+Rajputs." Members of the tribe are the household servants of the Bamra
+Raja's family, and it is said that the first Raja of Bamra was a child
+of the Patna house, who was stolen from his home and anointed king of
+Bamra by the Bhuiyas and Khonds. Similarly Colonel Dalton records the
+legend that the Bhuiyas twenty-seven generations ago stole a child
+of the Moharbhanj Raja's family, brought it up amongst them and made
+it their Raja. He was freely admitted to intercourse with Bhuiya
+girls, and the children of this intimacy are the progenitors of the
+Rajkuli branch of the tribe. But they are not considered first among
+Bhuiyas because they are not of pure Bhuiya descent. Again the Raja of
+Keonjhar is always installed by the Bhuiyas. These facts indicate that
+the Bhuiyas were once the rulers of Chota Nagpur and are recognised
+as the oldest inhabitants of the country. From this centre they have
+spread north through Lohardaga and Hazaribagh and into southern Bihar,
+where large numbers of Bhuiyas are encountered on whom the opprobrious
+designation of Musahar or 'rat-eater' has been conferred by their
+Hindu neighbours. Others of the tribe who travelled south from Chota
+Nagpur experienced more favourable conditions, and here the tendency
+has been for the Bhuiyas to rise rather than to decline in social
+status. "Some of their leading families," Sir H. Risley states,
+"have come to be chiefs of the petty States of Orissa, and have now
+sunk the Bhuiya in the Khandait or swordsman, a caste of admitted
+respectability in Orissa and likely in course of time to transform
+itself into some variety of Rajput."
+
+
+
+3. Example of the position of the aborigines in Hindu society.
+
+
+The varying status of the Bhuiyas in Bihar, Chota Nagpur and Orissa
+is a good instance of the different ways in which the primitive
+tribes have fared in contact with the immigrant Aryans. Where the
+country has been completely colonised and populated by Hindus, as
+in Bihar, the aboriginal residents have commonly become transformed
+into village drudges, relegated to the meanest occupations, and
+despised as impure by the Hindu cultivators, like the Chamars of
+northern India and the Mahars of the Maratha Districts. Where the
+Hindu immigration has only been partial and the forests have not
+been cleared, as in Chota Nagpur and the Central Provinces, they may
+keep their old villages and tribal organisation and be admitted as
+a body into the hierarchy of caste, ranking above the impure castes
+but below the Hindu cultivators. This is the position of the Gonds,
+Baigas and other tribes in these tracts. While, if the Hindus come
+only as colonists and not as rulers, the indigenous residents may
+retain the overlordship of the soil and the landed proprietors among
+them may be formed into a caste ranking with the good cultivating
+castes of the Aryans. Instances of such are the Khandaits of Orissa,
+the Binjhwars of Chhattisgarh and the Bhilalas of Nimar and Indore.
+
+
+
+4. The Bhuiyas a Kolarian tribe.
+
+
+The Bhuiyas have now entirely forgotten their own language and speak
+Hindi, Uriya and Bengali, according as each is the dominant vernacular
+of their Hindu neighbours. They cannot therefore on the evidence
+of language be classified as a Munda or Kolarian or as a Dravidian
+tribe. Colonel Dalton was inclined to consider them as Dravidian: [361]
+"Mr. Stirling in his account of Orissa classes them among the Kols;
+but there are no grounds that I know of for so connecting them. As I
+have said above, they appear to me to be linked with the Dravidian
+rather than with the Kolarian tribes." His account, however, does
+not appear to contain any further evidence in support of this view;
+and, on the other hand, he identifies the Bhuiyas with the Savars
+or Saonrs. Speaking of the Bendkars or Savars of Keonjhar, he says:
+"It is difficult to regard them otherwise than as members of the great
+Bhuiya family, and thus connecting them we link the Bhuiyas and Savaras
+and give support to the conjecture that the former are Dravidian." But
+it is now shown in the _Linguistic Survey_ that the Savars have a Munda
+dialect. In Chota Nagpur this has been forgotten, and the tribe speak
+Hindi or Uriya like the Bhuiyas, but it remains in the hilly tracts of
+Ganjam and Vizagapatam. [362] Savara is closely related to Kharia and
+Juang, the dialects of two of the most primitive Munda tribes. The
+Savars must therefore be classed as a Munda or Kolarian tribe, and
+since Colonel Dalton identified the Bhuiyas with the Savars of Chota
+Nagpur, his evidence appears really to be in favour of the Kolarian
+origin of the Bhuiyas. He notes further that the ceremony of naming
+children among the Bhuiyas is identical with that of the Mundas and
+Hos. [363] Mr. Mazumdar writes: "Judging from the external appearance
+and general physical type one would be sure to mistake a Bhuiya for a
+Munda. Their habits and customs are essentially Mundari. The Bhuiyas
+who live in and around the District of Manbhum are not much ashamed
+to admit that they are Kol people; and Bhumia Kol is the name that
+has been given them there by the Hindus. The Mundas and Larka-Kols of
+Chota Nagpur tell us that they first established themselves there by
+driving out the Bhuiyas; and it seems likely that the Bhuiyas formed
+the first batch of the Munda immigrants in Chota Nagpur and became
+greatly Hinduised there, and on that account were not recognised by
+the Mundas as people of their kin." If the tradition of the Mundas and
+Kols that they came to Chota Nagpur after the Bhuiyas be accepted, and
+tradition on the point of priority of immigration is often trustworthy,
+then it follows that the Bhuiyas must be a Munda tribe. For the main
+distinction other than that of language between the Munda and Dravidian
+tribes is that the former were the earlier and the latter subsequent
+immigrants. The claim of the Bhuiyas to be the earliest residents of
+Chota Nagpur is supported by the fact that they officiate as priests
+in certain temples. Because in primitive religion the jurisdiction of
+the gods is entirely local, and foreigners bringing their own gods
+with them are ignorant of the character and qualities of the local
+deities, with which the indigenous residents are, on the other hand,
+well acquainted. Hence the tendency of later comers to employ these
+latter in the capacity of priests of the godlings of the earth, corn,
+forests and hills. Colonel Dalton writes: [364] "It is strange that
+these Hinduised Bhuiyas retain in their own hands the priestly duties
+of certain old shrines to the exclusion of Brahmans. This custom has
+no doubt descended in Bhuiya families from the time when Brahmans were
+not, or had obtained no footing amongst them, and when the religion of
+the land and the temples were not Hindu; they are now indeed dedicated
+to Hindu deities, but there are evidences of the temples having been
+originally occupied by other images. At some of these shrines human
+sacrifices were offered every third year and this continued till the
+country came under British rule." And again of the Pauri Bhuiyas of
+Keonjhar: "The Pauris dispute with the Juangs the claim to be the
+first settlers in Keonjhar, and boldly aver that the country belongs
+to them. They assert that the Raja is of their creation and that the
+prerogative of installing every new Raja on his accession is theirs,
+and theirs alone. The Hindu population of Keonjhar is in excess of the
+Bhuiya and it comprises Gonds and Kols, but the claim of the Pauris
+to the dominion they arrogate is admitted by all; even Brahmans and
+Rajputs respectfully acknowledge it, and the former by the addition
+of Brahmanical rites to the wild ceremonies of the Bhuiyas affirm
+and sanctify their installation." In view of this evidence it seems
+a probable hypothesis that the Bhuiyas are the earliest residents of
+these parts of Chota Nagpur and that they are a Kolarian tribe.
+
+
+
+5. The Baigas and the Bhuiyas. Chhattisgarh the home of the Baigas.
+
+
+There appears to be considerable reason for supposing that the
+Baiga tribe of the Central Provinces are really a branch of the
+Bhuiyas. Though the Baigas are now mainly returned from Mandla and
+Balaghat, it seems likely that these Districts were not their original
+home, and that they emigrated from Chhattisgarh into the Satpura hills
+on the western borders of the plain. The hill country of Mandla and the
+Maikal range of Balaghat form one of the wildest and most inhospitable
+tracts in the Province, and it is unlikely that the Baigas would have
+made their first settlements here and spread thence into the fertile
+plain of Chhattisgarh. Migration in the opposite direction would be
+more natural and probable. But it is fairly certain that the Baiga
+tribe were among the earliest if not the earliest residents of the
+Chhattisgarh plain and the hills north and east of it. The Bhaina,
+Bhunjia and Binjhwar tribes who still reside in this country can
+all be recognised as offshoots of the Baigas. In the article on
+Bhaina it is shown that some of the oldest forts in Bilaspur are
+attributed to the Bhainas and a chief of this tribe is remembered
+as having ruled in Bilaigarh south of the Mahanadi. They are said
+to have been dominant in Pendra where they are still most numerous,
+and to have been expelled from Phuljhar in Raipur by the Gonds. The
+Binjhwars or Binjhals again are an aristocratic subdivision of the
+Baigas, belonging to the hills east of Chhattisgarh and the Uriya plain
+country of Sambalpur beyond them. The zamindars of Bodasamar, Rampur,
+Bhatgaon and other estates to the south and east of the Chhattisgarh
+plain are members of this tribe. Both the Bhainas and Binjhwars are
+frequently employed as priests of the village deities all over this
+area, and may therefore be considered as older residents than the
+Gond and Kawar tribes and the Hindus. Sir G. Grierson also states
+that the language of the Baigas of Mandla and Balaghat is a form of
+Chhattisgarhi, and this is fairly conclusive evidence of their first
+having belonged to Chhattisgarh. [365] It seems not unlikely that the
+Baigas retreated into the hills round Chhattisgarh after the Hindu
+invasion and establishment of the Haihaya Rajput dynasty of Ratanpur,
+which is now assigned to the ninth century of the Christian era; just
+as the Gonds retired from the Nerbudda valley and the Nagpur plain
+before the Hindus several centuries later. Sir H. Risley states that
+the Binjhias or Binjhwars of Chota Nagpur say that their ancestors
+came from Ratanpur twenty generations ago. [366]
+
+
+
+6. The Baigas a branch of the Bhuiyas.
+
+
+But the Chhattisgarh plain and the hills north and east of it are
+adjacent to and belong to the same tract of country as the Chota
+Nagpur States, which are the home of the Bhuiyas. Sir H. Risley
+gives Baiga as a name for a sorcerer, and as a synonym or title of
+the Khairwar tribe in Chota Nagpur, possibly having reference to the
+idea that they, being among the original inhabitants of the country,
+are best qualified to play the part of sorcerer and propitiate the
+local gods. It has been suggested in the article on Khairwar that that
+tribe are a mongrel offshoot of the Santals and Cheros, but the point
+to be noticed here is the use of the term Baiga in Chota Nagpur for a
+sorcerer; and a sorcerer may be taken as practically equivalent for a
+priest of the indigenous deities, all tribes who act in this capacity
+being considered as sorcerers by the Hindus. If the Bhuiyas of Chota
+Nagpur had the title of Baiga, it is possible that it may have been
+substituted for the proper tribal name on their migration to the
+Central Provinces. Mr. Crooke distinguishes two tribes in Mirzapur
+whom he calls the Bhuiyas and Bhuiyars. The Bhuiyas of Mirzapur seem
+to be clearly a branch of the Bhuiya tribe of Chota Nagpur, with whom
+their section-names establish their identity. [367] Mr. Crooke states
+that the Bhuiyas are distinguished with very great difficulty from the
+Bhuiyars with whom they are doubtless very closely connected. [368]
+Of the Bhuiyars [369] he writes that the tribe is also known as Baiga,
+because large numbers of the aboriginal local priests are derived
+from this caste. He also states that "Most Bhuiyars are Baigas and
+officiate in their own as well as allied tribes; in fact, as already
+stated, one general name for the tribe is Baiga." [370] It seems not
+unlikely that these Bhuiyars are the Baigas of the Central Provinces
+and that they went to Mirzapur from here with the Gonds. Their original
+name may have been preserved or revived there, while it has dropped
+out of use in this Province. The name Baiga in the Central Provinces
+is sometimes applied to members of other tribes who serve as village
+priests, and, as has already been seen, it is used in the same sense in
+Chota Nagpur. The Baigas of Mandla are also known as Bhumia, which is
+only a variant of Bhuiya, having the same meaning of lord of the soil
+or belonging to the soil. Both Bhuiya and Bhumia are in fact nearly
+equivalent to our word 'aboriginal,' and both are names given to the
+tribe by the Hindus and not originally that by which its members called
+themselves. It would be quite natural that a branch of the Bhuiyas,
+who settled in the Central Provinces and were commonly employed as
+village priests by the Hindus and Gonds should have adopted the name
+of the office, Baiga, as their tribal designation; just as the title
+of Munda or village headman has become the name of one branch of the
+Kol tribe, and Bhumij, another term equivalent to Bhuiya, of a second
+branch. Mr. A. F. Hewitt, Settlement Officer of Raipur, considered
+that the Buniyas of that District were the same tribe as the Bhuiyas
+of the Garhjat States. [371] By Buniya he must apparently have meant
+the Bhunjia tribe of Raipur, who as already stated are an offshoot
+of the Baigas. Colonel Dalton describes the dances of the Bhuiyas
+of Chota Nagpur as follows: [372] "The men have each a wide kind of
+tambourine. They march round in a circle, beating these and singing
+a very simple melody in a minor key on four notes. The women dance
+opposite to them with their heads covered and bodies much inclined,
+touching each other like soldiers in line, but not holding hands or
+wreathing arms like the Kols." This account applies very closely to
+the Sela and Rina dances of the Baigas. The Sela dance is danced
+by men only who similarly march round in a circle, though they
+do not carry tambourines in the Central Provinces. Here, however,
+they sometimes carry sticks and march round in opposite directions,
+passing in and out and hitting their sticks against each other as
+they meet, the movement being exactly like the grand chain in the
+Lancers. Similarly the Baiga women dance the Rina dance by themselves,
+standing close to each other and bending forward, but not holding each
+other by the hands and arms, just as described by Colonel Dalton. The
+Gonds now also have the Sela and Rina dances, but admit that they are
+derived from the Baigas. Another point of some importance is that the
+Bhuiyas of Chota Nagpur and the Baigas and the tribes derived from
+them in the Central Provinces have all completely abandoned their own
+language and speak a broken form of that of their Hindu neighbours. As
+has been seen, too, the Bhuiyas are commonly employed as priests in
+Chota Nagpur, and there seems therefore to be a strong case for the
+original identity of the two tribes. [373] Both the Baigas and Bhuiyas,
+however, have now become greatly mixed with the surrounding tribes,
+the Baigas of Mandla and Balaghat having a strong Gond element.
+
+
+
+7. Tribal sub-divisions.
+
+
+In Singhbhum the Bhuiyas call themselves _Pawan-bans_ or 'The Children
+of the Wind,' and in connection with Hanuman's title of _Pawan-ka-put_
+or 'The Son of the Wind,' are held to be the veritable apes of
+the Ramayana who, under the leadership of Hanuman, the monkey-god,
+assisted the Aryan hero Rama on his expedition to Ceylon. This may be
+compared with the name given to the Gonds of the Central Provinces
+of Rawanbansi, or descendants of Rawan, the idea being that their
+ancestors were the subjects of Rawan, the demon king of Ceylon, who was
+conquered by Rama. "All Bhuiyas," Sir H. Risley states, "affect great
+reverence for the memory of Rikhmun or Rikhiasan, whom they regard,
+some as a patron deity, others as a mythical ancestor, whose name
+distinguishes one of the divisions of the tribe. It seems probable that
+in the earliest stage of belief Rikhmun was the bear-totem of a sept of
+the tribe, that later on he was transformed into an ancestral hero, and
+finally promoted to the rank of a tribal god." The Rikhiasan Mahatwar
+subtribe of the Bhuiyas in the Central Provinces are named after this
+hero Rikhmun; the designation of Mahatwar signifies that they are the
+Mahtos or leaders of the Bhuiyas. The Khandaits or Paiks are another
+subcaste formed from those who became soldiers; in Orissa they are now,
+as already stated, a separate caste of fairly high rank. The Parja
+or 'subject people' are the ordinary Bhuiyas, probably those living
+in Hindu tracts. The Dhur or 'dust' Gonds, and the Parja Gonds of
+Bastar may be noted as a parallel in nomenclature. The Rautadi are a
+territorial group, taking their name from a place called Raotal. The
+Khandaits practise hypergamy with the Rautadi, taking daughters from
+them, but not giving their daughters to them. The Pabudia or Madhai
+are the hill Bhuiyas, and are the most wild and backward portion of
+the tribe. Dalton writes of them in Keonjhar: "They are not bound
+to fight for the Raja, though they occasionally take up arms against
+him. Their duty is to attend on him and carry his loads when he travels
+about, and so long as they are satisfied with his person and his rule,
+no more willing or devoted subjects could be found. They are then in
+Keonjhar, as in Bonai, a race whom you cannot help liking and taking
+an interest in from the primitive simplicity of their customs, their
+amenability and their anxiety to oblige; but unsophisticated as they
+are they wield an extraordinary power in Keonjhar, and when they take
+it into their heads to use that power, the country may be said to be
+governed by an oligarchy composed of the sixty chiefs of the Pawri
+Desh, the Bhuiya Highlands. A knotted string passed from village to
+village in the name of the sixty chiefs throws the entire country into
+commotion, and the order verbally communicated in connection with
+it is as implicitly obeyed as if it emanated from the most potent
+despot." This knotted string is known as _Ganthi_. The Pabudias say
+that their ancestors were twelve brothers belonging to Keonjhar,
+of whom eight went to an unknown country, while the remaining four
+divided among themselves all the territory of which they had knowledge,
+this being comprised in the four existing states of Keonjhar, Bamra,
+Palahara and Bonai. Any Pabudia who takes up his residence permanently
+beyond the boundaries of these four states is considered to lose his
+caste, like Hindus in former times who went to dwell in the foreign
+country beyond the Indus. [374] But if the wandering Pabudia returns
+in two years, and proves that he has not drunk water from any other
+caste, he is taken back into the fold. Other subdivisions are the Kati
+or Khatti and the Bathudia, these last being an inferior group who
+are said to be looked down on because they have taken food from other
+low castes. No doubt they are really the offspring of irregular unions.
+
+
+
+8. Exogamus septs.
+
+
+In Raigarh the Bhuiyas appear to have no exogamous divisions. When
+they wish to arrange a marriage they compare the family gods of the
+parties, and if these are not identical and there is no recollection of
+a common ancestor for three generations, the union is permitted. In
+Sambalpur, however, Mr. Mazumdar states, all Bhuiyas are divided
+into the following twelve septs: Thakur, or the clan of royal blood;
+Saont, from _samanta_, a viceroy; Padhan, a village headman; Naik,
+a military leader; Kalo, a wizard or priest; Dehri, also a priest;
+Chatria, one who carried the royal umbrella; Sahu, a moneylender;
+Majhi, a headman; Behra, manager of the household; Amata, counsellor;
+and Dandsena, a police official. The Dehrin sept still worship the
+village gods on behalf of the tribe.
+
+
+
+9. Marriage customs.
+
+
+Marriage is adult, but the more civilised Bhuiyas are gradually
+adopting Hindu usages, and parents arrange matches for their children
+while they are still young. Among the Pabudias some primitive customs
+survive. They have the same system as the Oraons, by which all
+the bachelors of the village sleep in one large dormitory; this is
+known as Dhangarbasa, _dhangar_ meaning a farmservant or young man,
+or Mandarghar, the house of the drums, because these instruments are
+kept in it. "Some villages," Colonel Dalton states, "have a Dhangaria
+basa, or house for maidens, which, strange to say, they are allowed to
+occupy without any one to look after them. They appear to have very
+great liberty, and slips of morality, so long as they are confined
+to the tribe, are not much heeded." This intimacy between boys and
+girls of the same village does not, however, commonly end in marriage,
+for which a partner should be sought from another village. For this
+purpose the girls go in a body, taking with them some ground rice
+decorated with flowers. They lay this before the elders of the village
+they have entered, saying, 'Keep this or throw it into the water,
+as you prefer.' The old men pick up the flowers, placing them behind
+their ears. In the evening all the boys of the village come and dance
+with the girls, with intervals for courtship, half the total number of
+couples dancing and sitting out alternately. This goes on all night,
+and in the morning any couples who have come to an understanding
+run away together for a day or two. The boy's father must present a
+rupee and a piece of cloth to the girl's mother, and the marriage is
+considered to be completed.
+
+Among the Pabudia or Madhai Bhuiyas the bride-price consists of two
+bullocks or cows, one of which is given to the girl's father and
+the other to her brother. The boy's father makes the proposal for
+marriage, and the consent of the girl is necessary. At the wedding
+turmeric and rice are offered to the sun; some rice is then placed
+on the girl's head and turmeric rubbed on her body, and a brass ring
+is placed on her finger. The bridegroom's father says to him, "This
+girl is ours now: if in future she becomes one-eyed, lame or deaf,
+she will still be ours." The ceremony concludes with the usual feast
+and drinking bout. If the boy's father cannot afford the bride-price
+the couple sometimes run away from home for two or three days, when
+their parents go in search of them and they are brought back and
+married in the boy's house.
+
+
+
+10. Widow-marriage and divorce.
+
+
+A widow is often taken by the younger brother of the deceased husband,
+though no compulsion is exerted over her. But the match is common
+because the Bhuiyas have the survival of fraternal polyandry, which
+consists in allowing unmarried younger brothers to have access to an
+elder brother's wife during his lifetime. [375] Divorce is allowed
+for misconduct on the part of the wife or mutual disagreement.
+
+
+
+11. Religion.
+
+
+The Bhuiyas commonly take as their principal deity the spirit of the
+nearest mountain overlooking their village, and make offerings to it
+of butter, rice and fowls. In April they present the first-fruits
+of the mango harvest. They venerate the sun as Dharam Deota, but
+no offerings are made to him. Nearly all Bhuiyas worship the cobra,
+and some of them call it their mother and think they are descended
+from it. They will not touch or kill a cobra, and do not swear by
+it. In Rairakhol they venerate a goddess, Rambha Devi, who may be a
+corn-goddess, as the practice of burning down successive patches of
+jungle and sowing seed on each for two or three years is here known
+as _rambha_. They think that the sun and moon are sentient beings,
+and that fire and lightning are the children of the sun, and the stars
+the children of the moon. One day the moon invited the sun to dinner
+and gave him very nice food, so that the sun asked what it was. The
+moon said she had cooked her own children, and on this the sun went
+home and cooked all his children and ate them, and this is the reason
+why there are no stars during the day. But his eldest son, fire,
+went and hid in a _rengal_ tree, and his daughter, the lightning,
+darted hither and thither so that the sun could not catch her. And
+when night came again, and the stars came out, the sun saw how the
+moon had deceived him and cursed her, saying that she should die for
+fifteen days in every month. And this is the reason for the waxing
+and waning of the moon. Ever since this event fire has remained hidden
+in a _rengal_ tree, and when the Bhuiyas want him they rub two pieces
+of its wood together and he comes out. This is the Bhuiya explanation
+of the production of fire from the friction of wood.
+
+
+
+12. Religious dancing.
+
+
+In the month of Kartik (October), or the next month, they bring from
+the forest a branch of the _karm_ tree and venerate it and perform
+the _karma_ dance in front of it. They think that this worship and
+dance will cause the _karma_ tree, the mango, the jack-fruit and the
+mahua to bear a full crop of fruit. Monday, Wednesday and Friday are
+considered the proper days for worshipping the deities, and children
+are often named on a Friday.
+
+
+
+13. Funeral rites and inheritance.
+
+
+The dead are either buried or burnt, the corpse being placed always
+with the feet pointing to its native village. On the tenth day the
+soul of the dead person is called back to the house. But if a man is
+killed by a tiger or by falling from a tree no mourning is observed
+for him, and his soul is not brought back. To perish from snake-bite
+is considered a natural death, and in such cases the usual obsequies
+are awarded. This is probably because they revere the cobra as their
+first mother. The Pabudia Bhuiyas throw four to eight annas' worth
+of copper on to the pyre or into the grave, and if the deceased had
+a cow some _ghi_ or melted butter. No division of property can take
+place during the lifetime of either parent, but when both have died
+the children divide the inheritance, the eldest son taking two shares
+and the others one equal share each.
+
+
+
+14. Physical appearance and occupation.
+
+
+Colonel Dalton describes the Bhuiyas as, "A dark-brown,
+well-proportioned race, with black, straight hair, plentiful on
+the head, but scant on the face, of middle height, figures well
+knit and capable of enduring great fatigue, but light-framed like
+the Hindu rather than presenting the usual muscular development of
+the hillman." Their dress is scanty, and in the Tributary States
+Dalton says that the men and women all wear dresses of brown cotton
+cloth. This may be because white is a very conspicuous colour in the
+forests. They wear ornaments and beads, and are distinctive in that
+neither men nor women practise tattooing, though in some localities
+this rule is not observed by the women. To keep themselves warm at
+night they kindle two fires and sleep between them, and this custom
+has given rise to the saying, 'Wherever you see a Bhuiya he always has
+a fire.' In Bamra the Bhuiyas still practise shifting cultivation,
+for which they burn the forest growth from the hillsides and sow
+oilseeds in the fresh soil. This method of agriculture is called
+locally Khasrathumi. They obtain their lands free from the Raja in
+return for acting as luggage porters and coolies. In Bamra they will
+not serve as farm-servants or labourers for hire, but elsewhere they
+are more docile.
+
+
+
+15. Social customs.
+
+
+A woman divorced for adultery is not again admitted to caste
+intercourse. Her parents take her to their village, where she has
+to live in a separate hut and earn her own livelihood. If any Bhuiya
+steals from a Kol, Ganda or Ghasia he is permanently put out of caste,
+while for killing a cow the period of expulsion is twelve years. The
+emblem of the Bhuiyas is a sword, in reference to their employment as
+soldiers, and this they affix to documents in place of their signature.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+Bhulia
+
+
+_Bhulia, [376] Bholia, Bhoriya, Bholwa, Mihir, Mehar._--A caste of
+weavers in the Uriya country. In 1901 the Bhulias numbered 26,000
+persons, but with the transfer of Sambalpur and the Uriya States to
+Bengal this figure has been reduced to 5000. A curious fact about the
+caste is that though solely domiciled in the Uriya territories, many
+families belonging to it talk Hindi in their own houses. According to
+one of their traditions they immigrated to this part of the country
+with the first Chauhan Raja of Patna, and it may be that they are
+members of some northern caste who have forgotten their origin and
+taken to a fresh calling in the land of their adoption. The Koshtas of
+Chhattisgarh have a subcaste called Bhoriya, and possibly the Bhulias
+have some connection with these. The caste sometimes call themselves
+Devang, and Devang or Devangan is the name of another subcaste of
+Koshtis. Various local derivations of the name are current, generally
+connecting it with _bhulna_, to forget. The Bhulias occupy a higher
+rank than the ordinary weavers, corresponding with that of the Koshtis
+elsewhere, and this is to some extent considered to be an unwarranted
+pretension. Thus one saying has it: "Formerly a son was born from a
+Chandal woman; at that time none were aware of his descent or rank,
+and so he was called Bhulia (one who is forgotten). He took the loom
+in his hands and became the brother-in-law of the Ganda." The object
+here is obviously to relegate the Bhulia to the same impure status
+as the Ganda. Again the Bhulias affect the honorific title of Meher,
+and another saying addresses them thus: "Why do you call yourself
+Meher? You make a hole in the ground and put your legs into it and
+are like a cow with foot-and-mouth disease struggling in the mud." The
+allusion here is to the habit of the weaver of hollowing out a hole for
+his feet as he sits before the loom, while cattle with foot-and-mouth
+disease are made to stand in mud to cool and cleanse the feet.
+
+The caste have no subcastes, except that in Kalahandi a degraded
+section is recognised who are called Sanpara Bhulias, and with whom
+the others refuse to intermarry. These are, there is little reason
+to doubt, the progeny of illicit unions. They say that they have two
+_gotras_, Nagas from the cobra and Kachhap from the tortoise. But these
+have only been adopted for the sake of respectability, and exercise
+no influence on marriage, which is regulated by a number of exogamous
+groups called _vansa_. The names of the _vansas_ are usually either
+derived from villages or are titles or nicknames. Two of them, Bagh
+(tiger) and Kimir (crocodile), are totemistic, while two more, Kumhar
+(potter) and Dhuba (washerman), are the names of other castes. Examples
+of titular names are Bankra (crooked), Ranjujha (warrior), Kodjit
+(one who has conquered a score of people) and others. The territorial
+names are derived from those of villages where the caste reside at
+present. Marriage within the _vansa_ is forbidden, but some of the
+_vansas_ have been divided into _bad_ and _san_, or great and small,
+and members of these may marry with each other, the subdivision having
+been adopted when the original group became so large as to include
+persons who were practically not relations. The binding portion of
+the wedding ceremony is that the bridegroom should carry the bride
+in a basket seven times round the _hom_ or sacrificial fire. If he
+cannot do this, the girl's grandfather carries them both. After the
+ceremony the pair return to the bridegroom's village, and are made to
+sleep on the same bed, some elder woman of the family lying between
+them. After a few days the girl goes back to her parents and does
+not rejoin her husband until she attains maturity. The remarriage
+of widows is permitted, and in Native States is not less costly to
+the bridegroom than the regular ceremony. In Sonpur the suitor must
+proceed to the Raja and pay him twenty rupees for his permission,
+which is given in the shape of a present of rice and nuts. Similar
+sums are paid to the caste-fellows and the parents of the girl, and
+the Raja's rice and nuts are then placed on the heads of the couple,
+who become man and wife. Divorce may be effected at the instance of the
+husband or the wife's parents on the mere ground of incompatibility of
+temper. The position of the caste corresponds to that of the Koshtas;
+that is, they rank below the good cultivating castes, but above the
+menial and servile classes. They eat fowls and the flesh of wild pig,
+and drink liquor. A _liaison_ with one of the impure castes is the
+only offence entailing permanent expulsion from social intercourse. A
+curious rule is that in the case of a woman going wrong with a man of
+the caste, the man only is temporarily outcasted and forced to pay a
+fine on readmission, while the woman escapes without penalty. They
+employ Brahmans for ceremonial purposes. They are considered
+proverbially stupid, like the Koris in the northern Districts, but
+very laborious. One saying about them is: "The Kewat catches fish
+but himself eats crabs, and the Bhulia weaves loin-cloths but himself
+wears only a rag"; and another: "A Bhulia who is idle is as useless
+as a confectioner's son who eats sweetmeats, or a moneylender's son
+with a generous disposition, or a cultivator's son who is extravagant."
+
+
+
+Bhunjia
+
+
+
+1. Origin and traditions.
+
+
+
+_Bhunjia. [377]_--A small Dravidian tribe residing in the
+Bindranawagarh and Khariar zamindaris of the Raipur District, and
+numbering about 7000 persons. The tribe was not returned outside this
+area in 1911, but Sherring mentions them in a list of the hill tribes
+of the Jaipur zamindari of Vizagapatam, which touches the extreme
+south of Bindranawagarh. The Bhunjias are divided into two branches,
+Chaukhutia and Chinda, and the former have the following legend of
+their origin. On one occasion a Bhatra Gond named Bachar cast a net
+into the Pairi river and brought out a stone. He threw the stone back
+into the river and cast his net again, but a second and yet a third
+time the stone came out. So he laid the stone on the bank of the
+river and went back to his house, and that night he dreamt that the
+stone was Bura Deo, the great God of the Gonds. So he said: 'If this
+dream be true let me draw in a deer in my net to-morrow for a sign';
+and the next day the body of a deer appeared in his net. The stone
+then called upon the Gond to worship him as Bura Deo, but the Gond
+demurred to doing so himself, and said he would provide a substitute
+as a devotee. To this Bura Deo agreed, but said that Bachar, the Gond,
+must marry his daughter to the substituted worshipper. The Gond then
+set out to search for somebody, and in the village of Lafandi he
+found a Halba of the name of Konda, who was a cripple, deaf and dumb,
+blind, and a leper. He brought Konda to the stone, and on reaching
+it he was miraculously cured of all his ailments and gladly began
+to worship Bura Deo. He afterwards married the Gond's daughter and
+they had a son called Chaukhutia Bhunjia, who was the ancestor of
+the Chaukhutia division of the tribe. Now the term Chaukhutia in
+Chhattisgarhi signifies a bastard, and the story related above is
+obviously intended to signify that the Chaukhutia Bhunjias are of
+mixed descent from the Gonds and Halbas. It is clearly with this
+end in view that the Gond is made to decline to worship the stone
+himself and promise to find a substitute, an incident which is wholly
+unnatural and is simply dragged in to meet the case. The Chaukhutia
+subtribe especially worship Bura Deo, and sing a song relating to
+the finding of the stone in their marriage ceremony as follows:
+
+
+        Johar, johar Thakur Deota, Tumko lagon,
+        Do matia ghar men dine tumhare nam.
+        Johar, johar Konda, Tumko lagon,
+        Do matia ghar men, etc.
+        Johar, johar Bachar Jhakar Tumko lagon, etc.
+        Johar, johar Budha Raja Tumko lagon, etc.
+        Johar, johar Lafandi Mati Tumko lagon, etc.
+        Johar, johar Anand Mati Tumko lagon, etc.
+
+
+which may be rendered:
+
+
+    I make obeisance to thee, O Thakur Deo, I bow down to thee!
+    In thy name have I placed two pots in my house (as a mark of
+    respect).
+    I make obeisance to thee, O Konda Pujari, I bow down to thee!
+    In thy name have I placed two pots in my house.
+    I make obeisance to thee, O Bachar Jhakar!
+    In thy name have I placed two pots in my house.
+    I make obeisance to thee, O Budha Raja!
+    In thy name have I placed two pots in my house.
+    I make obeisance to thee, O Soil of Lafandi!
+    In thy name have I placed two pots in my house.
+    I make obeisance to thee, O Happy Spot!
+    In thy name have I placed two pots in my house.
+
+
+The song refers to the incidents in the story. Thakur Deo is the
+title given to the divine stone, Konda is the Halba priest, and
+Bachar the Gond who cast the net. Budha Raja, otherwise Singh Sei,
+is the Chief who was ruling in Bindranawagarh at the time, Lafandi the
+village where Konda Halba was found, and the Anand Mati or Happy Spot
+is that where the stone was taken out of the river. The majority of
+the sept-names returned are of Gond origin, and there seems no doubt
+that the Chaukhutias are, as the story says, of mixed descent from
+the Halbas and Gonds. It is noticeable, however, that the Bhunjias,
+though surrounded by Gonds on all sides, do not speak Gondi but a
+dialect of Hindi, which Sir G. Grierson considers to resemble that of
+the Halbas, and also describes as "A form of Chhattisgarhi which is
+practically the same as Baigani. It is a jargon spoken by Binjhwars,
+Bhumias and Bhunjias of Raipur, Raigarh, Sarangarh and Patna in the
+Central Provinces." [378] The Binjhwars also belong to the country
+of the Bhunjias, and one or two estates close to Bindranawagarh are
+held by members of this tribe. The Chinda division of the Bhunjias
+have a saying about themselves: '_Chinda Raja, Bhunjia Paik'_; and
+they say that there was originally a Kamar ruler of Bindranawagarh who
+was dispossessed by Chinda. The Kamars are a small and very primitive
+tribe of the same locality. _Paik_ means a foot-soldier, and it seems
+therefore that the Bhunjias formed the levies of this Chinda, who may
+very probably have been one of themselves. The term Bhunjia may perhaps
+signify one who lives on the soil, from _bhum_, the earth, and _jia_,
+dependent on. The word _Birjia_, a synonym for Binjhwar, is similarly
+a corruption of _bewar jia_, and means one who is dependent on _dahia_
+or patch cultivation. Sir H. Risley gives Birjia, Binjhia and Binjhwar
+[379] as synonymous terms, and Bhunjia may be another corruption of
+the same sort. The Binjhwars are a Hinduised offshoot of the ancient
+Baiga tribe, who may probably have been in possession of the hills
+bordering the Chhattisgarh plain as well as of the Satpura range before
+the advent of the Gonds, as the term Baiga is employed for a village
+priest over a large part of this area. It thus seems not improbable
+that the Chinda Bhunjias may have been derived from the Binjhwars,
+and this would account for the fact that the tribe speaks a dialect
+of Hindi and not Gondi. As already seen, the Chaukhutia subcaste
+appear to be of mixed origin from the Gonds and Halbas, and as the
+Chindas are probably descended from the Baigas, the Bhunjias may be
+considered to be an offshoot from these three important tribes.
+
+
+
+2. Subdivisions.
+
+
+Of the two subtribes already mentioned the Chaukhutia are recognised
+to be of illegitimate descent. As a consequence of this they strive to
+obtain increased social estimation by a ridiculously strict observance
+of the rules of ceremonial purity. If any man not of his own caste
+touches the hut where a Chaukhutia cooks his food, it is entirely
+abandoned and a fresh one built. At the time of the census they
+threatened to kill the enumerator if he touched their huts to affix the
+census number. Pegs had therefore to be planted in the ground a little
+in front of the huts and marked with their numbers. The Chaukhutia
+will not eat food cooked by other members of his own community, and
+this is a restriction found only among those of bastard descent, where
+every man is suspicious of his neighbour's parentage. He will not take
+food from the hands of his own daughter after she is married; as soon
+as the ceremony is over her belongings are at once removed from the
+hut, and even the floor beneath the seat of the bride and bridegroom
+during the marriage ceremony is dug up and the surface earth thrown
+away to avoid any risk of defilement. Only when it is remembered that
+these rules are observed by people who do not wash themselves from one
+week's end to the other, and wear the same wisp of cloth about their
+loins until it comes to pieces, can the full absurdity of such customs
+as the above be appreciated. But the tendency appears to be of the
+same kind as the intense desire for respectability so often noticed
+among the lower classes in England. The Chindas, whose pedigree is
+more reliable, are far less particular about their social purity.
+
+
+
+3. Marriage.
+
+
+As already stated, the exogamous divisions of the Bhunjias are derived
+from those of the Gonds. Among the Chaukhutias it is considered a
+great sin if the signs of puberty appear in a girl before she is
+married, and to avoid this, if no husband has been found for her,
+they perform a 'Kand Byah' or 'Arrow Marriage': the girl walks seven
+times round an arrow fixed in the ground, and is given away without
+ceremony to the man who by previous arrangement has brought the
+arrow. If a girl of the Chinda group goes wrong with an outsider
+before marriage and becomes pregnant, the matter is hushed up, but
+if she is a Chaukhutia it is said that she is finally expelled from
+the community, the same severe course being adopted even when she is
+not pregnant if there is reason to suppose that the offence has been
+committed. A proposal for marriage among the Chaukhutias is made on
+the boy's behalf by two men who are known as Mahalia and Jangalia, and
+are supposed to represent a Nai (barber) and Dhimar (water-carrier),
+though they do not actually belong to these castes. As among the
+Gonds, the marriage takes place at the bridegroom's village, and
+the Mahalia and Jangalia act as stewards of the ceremony, and are
+entrusted with the rice, pulse, salt, oil and other provisions, the
+bridegroom's family having no function in the matter except to pay
+for them. The provisions are all stored in a separate hut, and when
+the time for the feast has come they are distributed raw to all the
+guests, each family of whom cook for themselves. The reason for this
+is, as already explained, that each one is afraid of losing status
+by eating with other members of the tribe. The marriage is solemnised
+by walking round the sacred post, and the ceremony is conducted by a
+hereditary priest known as Dinwari, a member of the tribe, whose line
+it is believed will never become extinct. Among the Chinda Bhunjias
+the bride goes away with her husband, and in a short time returns with
+him to her parents' house for a few days, to make an offering to the
+deities. But the Chaukhutias will not allow her, after she has lived
+in her father-in-law's house, to return to her home. In future if she
+goes to visit her parents she must stay outside the house and cook
+her food separately. Widow-marriage and divorce are permitted, but
+a husband will often overlook transgressions on the part of his wife
+and only put her away when her conduct has become an open scandal. In
+such a case he will either quietly leave house and wife and settle
+alone in another village, or have his wife informed by means of a
+neighbour that if she does not leave the village he will do so. It
+is not the custom to bring cases before the tribal committee or to
+claim damages. A special tie exists between a man and his sister's
+children. The marriage of a brother's son or daughter to a sister's
+daughter or son is considered the most suitable. A man will not allow
+his sister's children to eat the leavings of food on his plate, though
+his own children may do so. This is a special token of respect to his
+sister's children. He will not chastise his sister's children, even
+though they deserve it. And it is considered especially meritorious for
+a man to pay for the wedding ceremony of his sister's son or daughter.
+
+
+
+4. Religion.
+
+
+Every third year in the month of Chait (March) the tribe offer a
+goat and a cocoanut to Mata, the deity of cholera and smallpox. They
+bow daily to the sun with folded hands, and believe that he is of
+special assistance to them in the liquidation of debt, which the
+Bhunjias consider a primary obligation. When a debt has been paid
+off they offer a cocoanut to the sun as a mark of gratitude for
+his assistance. They also pay great reverence to the tortoise. They
+call the tortoise the footstool (_pidha_) of God, and have adopted
+the Hindu theory that the earth is supported by a tortoise swimming
+in the midst of the ocean. Professor Tylor explains as follows how
+this belief arose: [380] "To man in the lower levels of science the
+earth is a flat plain over which the sky is placed like a dome as the
+arched upper shell of the tortoise stands upon the flat plate below,
+and this is why the tortoise is the symbol or representative of the
+world." It is said that Bhunjia women are never allowed to sit either
+on a footstool or a bed-cot, because these are considered to be the
+seats of the deities. They consider it disrespectful to walk across
+the shadow of any elderly person, or to step over the body of any human
+being or revered object on the ground. If they do this inadvertently,
+they apologise to the person or thing. If a man falls from a tree he
+will offer a chicken to the tree-spirit.
+
+
+
+5. Social rules.
+
+
+The tribe will eat pork, but abstain from beef and the flesh of
+monkeys. Notwithstanding their strictness of social observance, they
+rank lower than the Gonds, and only the Kamars will accept food from
+their hands. A man who has got maggots in a wound is purified by
+being given to drink water, mixed with powdered turmeric, in which
+silver and copper rings have been dipped. Women are secluded during
+the menstrual period for as long as eight days, and during this time
+they may not enter the dwelling-hut nor touch any article belonging to
+it. The Bhunjias take their food on plates of leaves, and often a whole
+family will have only one brass vessel, which will be reserved for
+production on the visit of a guest. But no strangers can be admitted
+to the house, and a separate hut is kept in the village for their
+use. Here they are given uncooked grain and pulse, which they prepare
+for themselves. When the women go out to work they do not leave their
+babies in the house, but carry them tied up in a small rag under the
+arm. They have no knowledge of medicine and are too timid to enter a
+Government dispensary. Their panacea for most diseases is branding the
+skin with a hot iron, which is employed indifferently for headache,
+pains in the stomach and rheumatism. Mr. Pyare Lal notes that one
+of his informants had recently been branded for rheumatism on both
+knees and said that he felt much relief.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+Binjhwar
+
+
+
+List of Paragraphs
+
+
+    1. _Origin and tradition._
+    2. _Tribal subdivisions._
+    3. _Marriage._
+    4. _The marriage ceremony._
+    5. _Sexual morality._
+    6. _Disposal of the dead._
+    7. _Religion._
+    8. _Festivals._
+    9. _Social customs._
+
+
+
+1. Origin and tradition.
+
+
+_Binjhwar, Binjhal._ [381]--A comparatively civilised Dravidian
+tribe, or caste formed from a tribe, found in the Raipur and Bilaspur
+Districts and the adjoining Uriya country. In 1911 the Binjhwars
+numbered 60,000 persons in the Central Provinces. There is little
+or no doubt that the Binjhwars are an offshoot of the primitive
+Baiga tribe of Mandla and Balaghat, who occupy the Satpura or Maikal
+hills to the north of the Chhattisgarh plain. In these Districts a
+Binjhwar subdivision of the Baigas exists; it is the most civilised
+and occupies the highest rank in the tribe. In Bhandara is found the
+Injhwar caste who are boatmen and cultivators. This caste is derived
+from the Binjhwar subdivision of the Baigas, and the name Injhwar
+is simply a corruption of Binjhwar. Neither the Binjhwars nor the
+Baigas are found except in the territories above mentioned, and it
+seems clear that the Binjhwars are a comparatively civilised section
+of the Baigas, who have become a distinct caste. They are in fact the
+landholding section of the Baigas, like the Raj-Gonds among the Gonds
+and the Bhilalas among Bhils. The zamindars of Bodasamar, Rampur,
+Bhatgaon and other estates to the south and east of the Chhattlsgarh
+plain belong to this tribe. But owing to the change of name their
+connection with the parent Baigas has now been forgotten. The name
+Binjhwar is derived from the Vindhya hills, and the tribe still worship
+the goddess Vindhyabasini of these hills as their tutelary deity. They
+say that their ancestors migrated from Binjhakop to Lampa, which may be
+either Lamta in Balaghat or Laphagarh in Bilaspur. The hills of Mandla,
+the home of perhaps the most primitive Baigas, are quite close to the
+Vindhya range. The tribe say that their original ancestors were _Barah
+bhai betkar_, or the twelve Brother Archers. They were the sons of
+the goddess Vindhyabasini. One day they were out shooting and let off
+their arrows, which flew to the door of the great temple at Puri and
+stuck in it. Nobody in the place was able to pull them out, not even
+when the king's elephants were brought and harnessed to them; till
+at length the brothers arrived and drew them forth quite easily with
+their hands, and the king was so pleased with their feat that he gave
+them the several estates which their descendants now hold. The story
+recalls that of Arthur and the magic sword. According to another legend
+the mother of the first Raja of Patna, a Chauhan Rajput, had fled from
+northern India to Sambalpur after her husband and relations had been
+killed in battle. She took refuge in a Binjhwar's hut and bore a son
+who became Raja of Patna; and in reward for the protection afforded to
+his mother he gave the Binjhwar the Bodasamar estate, requiring only
+of him and his descendants the tribute of a silk cloth on accession to
+the zamindari; and this has been rendered ever since by the zamindars
+of Bodasamar to the Rajas of Patna as a mark of fealty. It is further
+stated that the twelve archers when they fired the memorable arrows in
+the forest were in pursuit of a wild boar; and the landholding class of
+Binjhwars are called Bariha from _barah_, a boar. As is only fitting,
+the Binjhwars have taken the arrow as their tribal symbol or mark;
+their cattle are branded with it, and illiterate Binjhwars sign it
+in place of their name. If a husband cannot be found for a girl she
+is sometimes married to an arrow. At a Binjhwar wedding an arrow
+is laid on the trunk of mahua [382] which forms the marriage-post,
+and honours are paid to it as representing the bridegroom.
+
+
+
+2. Tribal subdivisions.
+
+
+The tribe have four subdivisions, the Binjhwars proper, the Sonjharas,
+the Birjhias and the Binjhias. The Sonjharas consist of those who
+took to washing for gold in the sands of the Mahanadi, and it may
+be noted that a separate caste of Sonjharas is also in existence in
+this locality besides the Binjhwar group. The Birjhias are those who
+practised _bewar_ or shifting cultivation in the forests, the name
+being derived from _bewarjia_, one living by _bewar_-sowing. Binjhia is
+simply a diminutive form of Binjhwar, but in Bilaspur it is sometimes
+regarded as a separate caste. The zamindar of Bhatgaon belongs to
+this group. The tribe have also exogamous divisions, the names of
+which are of a diverse character, and on being scrutinised show a
+mixture of foreign blood. Among totemistic names are Bagh, a tiger;
+Pod, a buffalo; Kamalia, the lotus flower; Panknali, the water-crow;
+Tar, the date-palm; Jal, a net, and others. Some of the sections
+are nicknames, as Udhar, a debtor; Marai Meli Bagh, one who carried
+a dead tiger; Ultum, a talker; Jalia, a liar; Kessal, one who has
+shaved a man, and so on. Several are the names of other castes, as
+Lohar, Dudh Kawaria, Bhil, Banka and Majhi, indicating that members
+of these castes have become Binjhwars and have founded families. The
+sept names also differ in different localities; the Birjhia subtribe
+who live in the same country as the Mundas have several Munda names
+among their septs, as Munna, Son, Solai; while the Binjhwars who are
+neighbours of the Gonds have Gond sept names, as Tekam, Sonwani, and
+others. This indicates that there has been a considerable amount of
+intermarriage with the surrounding tribes, as is the case generally
+among the lower classes of the population in Chhattisgarh. Even now if
+a woman of any caste from whom the Binjhwars will take water to drink
+forms a connection with a man of the tribe, though she herself must
+remain in an irregular position, her children will be considered as
+full members of it. The Barhias or landowning group have now adopted
+names of Sanskrit formation, as Gajendra, an elephant, Rameswar, the
+god Rama, and Nageshwar, the cobra deity. Two of their septs are named
+Lohar (blacksmith) and Kumhar (potter), and may be derived from members
+of these castes who became Binjhwars or from Binjhwars who took up the
+occupations. At a Binjhwar wedding the presence of a person belonging
+to each of the Lohar and Kumhar septs is essential, the reason being
+probably the estimation in which the two handicrafts were held when
+the Binjhwars first learnt them from their Hindu neighbours.
+
+
+
+3. Marriage.
+
+
+In Sambalpur there appears to be no system of exogamous groups, and
+marriage is determined simply by relationship. The union of agnates
+is avoided as long as the connection can be traced between them, but
+on the mother's side all except first cousins may marry. Marriage
+is usually adult, and girls are sometimes allowed to choose their
+own husbands. A bride-price of about eight _khandis_ (1400 lbs.) of
+unhusked rice is paid. The ceremony is performed at the bridegroom's
+house, to which the bride proceeds after bidding farewell to her
+family and friends in a fit of weeping. Weddings are avoided during
+the four months of the rainy season, and in Chait (March) because it
+is inauspicious, Jeth (May) because it is too hot, and Pus (December)
+because it is the last month of the year among the Binjhwars. The
+marriage ceremony should begin on a Sunday, when the guests are
+welcomed and their feet washed. On Monday the formal reception of the
+bride takes place, the Gandsan or scenting ceremony follows on Tuesday,
+and on Wednesday is the actual wedding. At the scenting ceremony seven
+married girls dressed in new clothes dyed yellow with turmeric conduct
+the bridegroom round the central post; one holds a dish containing
+rice, mango leaves, myrobalans and betel-nuts, and a second sprinkles
+water from a small pot. At each round the bridegroom is made to throw
+some of the condiments from the dish on to the wedding-post, and after
+the seven rounds he is seated and is rubbed with oil and turmeric.
+
+
+
+4. The marriage ceremony.
+
+
+Among the Birjhias a trunk of mahua with two branches is erected in
+the marriage-shed, and on this a dagger is placed in a winnowing-fan
+filled with rice, the former representing the bridegroom and the
+latter the bride. The bride first goes round the post seven times
+alone, and then the bridegroom, and after this they go round it
+together. A plough is brought and they stand upon the yoke, and seven
+cups of water having been collected from seven different houses,
+four are poured over the bridegroom and three over the bride. Some
+men climb on to the top of the shed and pour pots of water down on to
+the couple. This is now said to be done only as a joke. Next morning
+two strong men take the bridegroom and bride, who are usually grown
+up, on their backs, and the parties pelt each other with unhusked
+rice. Then the bridegroom holds the bride in his arms from behind and
+they stand facing the sun, while some old man ties round their feet
+a thread specially spun by a virgin. The couple stand for some time
+and then fall to the ground as if dazzled by his rays, when water is
+again poured over their bodies to revive them. Lastly, an old man
+takes the arrow from the top of the marriage-post and draws three
+lines with it on the ground to represent the Hindu trinity, Brahma,
+Vishnu and Siva, and the bridegroom jumps over these holding the bride
+in his arms. The couple go to bathe in a river or tank, and on the
+way home the bridegroom shoots seven arrows at an image of a sambhar
+deer made with straw. At the seventh shot the bride's brother takes
+the arrow, and running away and hiding it in his cloth lies down at
+the entrance of the bridegroom's house. The couple go up to him, and
+the bridegroom examines his body with suspicion, pretending to think
+that he is dead. He draws the arrow out of his cloth and points to
+some blood which has been previously sprinkled on the ground. After
+a time the boy gets up and receives some liquor as a reward. This
+procedure may perhaps be a symbolic survival of marriage by capture,
+the bridegroom killing the bride's brother before carrying her off,
+or more probably, perhaps, the boy may represent a dead deer. In
+some of the wilder tracts the man actually waylays and seizes the
+girl before the wedding, the occasion being previously determined,
+and the women of her family trying to prevent him. If he succeeds in
+carrying her off they stay for three or four days in the forest and
+then return and are married.
+
+
+
+5. Sexual morality.
+
+
+If a Binjhwar girl is seduced and rendered pregnant by a man of the
+tribe, the people exact a feast and compel them to join their hands
+in an informal manner before the caste committee, the tie thus formed
+being considered as indissoluble as a formal marriage. Polygamy is
+permitted; a Binjhwar zamindar marries a new wife, who is known as
+Pat Rani, to celebrate his accession to his estates, even though he
+may have five or six already.
+
+Divorce is recognised but is not very common, and a married woman
+having an intrigue with another Binjhwar is often simply made over
+to him and they live as husband and wife. If this man does not wish
+to take her she can live with any other, conjugal morality being very
+loose in Sambalpur. In Bodasamar a fine of from one to ten rupees is
+payable to the zamindar in the case of each divorce, and a feast must
+also be given to the caste-fellows.
+
+
+
+6. Disposal of the dead.
+
+
+The tribe usually bury the dead, and on the third day they place on
+the grave some uncooked rice and a lighted lamp. As soon as an insect
+flies to the lamp they catch it, and placing it in a cake of flour
+carry this to a stream, where it is worshipped with an offering of
+coloured rice. It is then thrust into the sand or mud in the bed of
+the stream with a grass broom. This ceremony is called Kharpani or
+'Grass and Water,' and appears to be a method of disposing of the
+dead man's spirit. It is not performed at all for young children,
+while, on the other hand, in the case of respected elders a second
+ceremony is carried out of the same nature, being known as Badapani or
+'Great Water.' On this occasion the _jiva_ or soul is worshipped with
+greater pomp. Except in the case of wicked souls, who are supposed
+to become malignant ghosts, the Binjhwars do not seem to have any
+definite belief in a future life. They say, '_Je maris te saris_,'
+or 'That which is dead is rotten and gone.'
+
+
+
+7. Religion.
+
+
+The tribe worship the common village deities of Chhattisgarh,
+and extend their veneration to Bura Deo, the principal god of the
+Gonds. They venerate their daggers, spears and arrows on the day of
+Dasahra, and every third year their tutelary goddess Vindhyabasini is
+carried in procession from village to village. Mr. Mian Bhai gives the
+following list of precepts as forming the Binjhwar's moral code:--Not
+to commit adultery outside the caste; not to eat beef; not to murder;
+not to steal; not to swear falsely before the caste committee. The
+tribe have _gurus_ or spiritual preceptors, whom he describes as
+the most ignorant Bairagis, very little better than impostors. When
+a boy or girl grows up the Bairagi comes and whispers the _Karn
+mantra_ or spell in his ear, also hanging a necklace of _tulsi_
+(basil) beads round his neck; for this the _guru_ receives a cloth,
+a cocoanut and a cash payment of four annas to a rupee. Thereafter he
+visits his disciples annually at harvest time and receives a present
+of grain from them.
+
+
+
+8. Festivals.
+
+
+On the 11th of Bhadon (August) the tribe celebrate the _karma_
+festival, which is something like May-Day or a harvest feast. The
+youths and maidens go to the forest and bring home a young _karma_
+tree, singing, dancing and beating drums. Offerings are made to the
+tree, and then the whole village, young and old, drink and dance
+round it all through the night. Next morning the tree is taken to
+the nearest stream or tank and consigned to it. After this the young
+girls of five or six villages make up a party and go about to the
+different villages accompanied by drummers and Ganda musicians. They
+are entertained for the night, and next morning dance for five or
+six hours in the village and then go on to another.
+
+
+
+9. Social customs.
+
+
+The tribe are indiscriminate in their diet, which includes pork,
+snakes, rats, and even carnivorous animals, as panthers. They refuse
+only beef, monkeys and the leavings of others. The wilder Binjhwars of
+the forests will not accept cooked food from any other caste, but those
+who live in association with Hindus will take it when cooked without
+water from a few of the higher ones. The tribe are not considered as
+impure. Their dress is very simple, consisting as a rule only of one
+dirty white piece of cloth in the case of both men and women. Their
+hair is unkempt, and they neither oil nor comb it. A genuine Binjhwar
+of the hills wears long frizzled hair with long beard and moustaches,
+but in the open country they cut their hair and shave the chin. Every
+Binjhwar woman is tattooed either before or just after her marriage,
+when she has attained to the age of adolescence. A man will not touch
+or accept food from a woman who is not tattooed on the feet. The
+expenses must be paid either by the woman's parents or her brothers
+and not by her husband. The practice is carried to an extreme, and
+many women have the upper part of the chest, the arms from shoulder to
+wrist, and the feet and legs up to the knee covered with devices. On
+the chest and arms the patterns are in the shape of flowers and leaves,
+while along the leg a succession of zigzag lines are pricked. The
+Binjhwars are usually cultivators and labourers, while, as already
+stated, several zamindari and other estates are owned by members of the
+tribe. Binjhwars also commonly hold the office of Jhankar or priest
+of the village gods in the Sambalpur District, as the Baigas do in
+Mandla and Balaghat. In Sambalpur the Jhankar or village priest is a
+universal and recognised village servant of fairly high status. His
+business is to conduct the worship of the local deities of the soil,
+crops, forests and hills, and he generally has a substantial holding,
+rent free, containing some of the best land in the village. It is
+said locally that the Jhankar is looked on as the founder of the
+village, and the representative of the old owners who were ousted
+by the Hindus. He worships on their behalf the indigenous deities,
+with whom he naturally possesses a more intimate acquaintance than
+the later immigrants; while the gods of these latter cannot be relied
+on to exercise a sufficient control over the works of nature in the
+foreign land to which they have been imported, or to ensure that the
+earth and the seasons will regularly perform their necessary functions
+in producing sustenance for mankind.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+Bishnoi
+
+
+
+List of Paragraphs
+
+
+    1. _Origin of the sect._
+    2. _Precepts of Jhambaji._
+    3. _Customs of the Bishnois in the Punjab._
+    4. _Initiation and baptism._
+    5. _Nature of the sect._
+    6. _Bishnois in the Central Provinces._
+    7. _Marriage._
+    8. _Disposal of the dead._
+    9. _Development into a caste._
+
+
+
+1. Origin of the sect.
+
+
+_Bishnoi._ [383]--A Hindu sect which has now developed into a
+caste. The sect was founded in the Punjab, and the Bishnois are
+immigrants from northern India. In the Central Provinces they
+numbered about 1100 persons in 1911, nearly all of whom belonged
+to the Hoshangabad District. The best description of the sect is
+contained in Mr. Wilson's _Sirsa Settlement Report_ (quoted in Sir
+E. Maclagan's _Census Report of the Punjab_ for 1891), from which the
+following details are taken: "The name Bishnoi means a worshipper of
+Vishnu. The founder of the sect was a Panwar Rajput named Jhambaji,
+who was born in a village of Bikaner State in A.D. 1451. His father
+had hitherto remained childless, and being greatly oppressed by this
+misfortune had been promised a son by a Muhammadan Fakir. After nine
+months Jhambaji was born and showed his miraculous origin in various
+ways, such as producing sweets from nothing for the delectation
+of his companions. Until he was thirty-four years old he spoke no
+word and was employed in tending his father's cattle. At this time
+a Brahman was sent for to get him to speak, and on confessing his
+failure, Jhambaji showed his power by lighting a lamp with a snap
+of his fingers and spoke his first word. He adopted the life of a
+teacher and went to reside on a sandhill some thirty miles south of
+Bikaner. In 1485 a fearful famine desolated the country, and Jhambaji
+gained an enormous number of disciples by providing food for all
+who would declare their belief in him. He is said to have died on
+his sandhill at the good old age of eighty-four, and to have been
+buried at a spot about a mile distant from it. A further account
+says that his body remained suspended for six months in the bier
+without decomposing. His name Jhambaji was a contraction of Achambha
+(The Wonder), with the honorific suffix _ji_.
+
+
+
+2. Precepts of Jhambaji.
+
+
+"The sayings (_shabd_) of Jhambaji, to the number of one hundred and
+twenty, were recorded by his disciples, and have been handed down in
+a book (_pothi_) which is written in the Nagari character, and in a
+Hindu dialect similar to Bagri and therefore probably a dialect of
+Rajasthani. The following is a translation of the twenty-nine precepts
+given by him for the guidance of his followers: 'For thirty days
+after childbirth and five days after a menstrual discharge a woman
+must not cook food. Bathe in the morning. Commit no adultery. Be
+content. Be abstemious and pure. Strain your drinking-water. Be
+careful of your speech. Examine your fuel in case any living creature
+be burnt with it. Show pity to living creatures. Keep duty present
+to your mind as the teacher bade. Do not steal. Do not speak evil
+of others. Do not tell lies. Never quarrel. Avoid opium, tobacco,
+_bhang_ and blue clothing. Flee from spirits and flesh. See that your
+goats are kept alive (not sold to Musalmans, who will kill them for
+food). Do not plough with bullocks. Keep a fast on the day before the
+new moon. Do not cut green trees. Sacrifice with fire. Say prayers;
+meditate. Perform worship and attain heaven.' And the last of the
+twenty-nine duties prescribed by the teacher: 'Baptise your children
+if you would be called a true Bishnoi.' [384]
+
+
+
+3. Customs of the Bishnois in the Punjab.
+
+
+"Some of these precepts are not strictly obeyed. For instance, though
+ordinarily they allow no blue in their clothing, yet a Bishnoi,
+if he is a police constable, is allowed to wear a blue uniform;
+and Bishnois do use bullocks, though most of their farming is done
+with camels. They also seem to be generally quarrelsome (in words)
+and given to use bad language. But they abstain from tobacco, drugs
+and spirits, and are noted for their regard for animal life, which is
+such that not only will they not themselves kill any living creature,
+but they do their utmost to prevent others from doing so. Consequently
+their villages are generally swarming with antelope and other animals,
+and they forbid their Musalman neighbours to kill them, and try to
+dissuade European sportsmen from interfering with them. They wanted to
+make it a condition of their settlement that no one should be allowed
+to shoot on their land, but at the same time they asked that they
+might be assessed at lower rates than their neighbours, on the ground
+that the antelope, being thus left undisturbed, did more damage to
+their crops; but I told them that this would lessen the merit (_pun_)
+of their actions in protecting the animals, and they must be treated
+just as the surrounding villages were. They consider it a good deed to
+scatter grain to pigeons and other birds, and often have a large number
+of half-tame birds about their villages. The day before the new moon
+(Amawas) they observe as a Sabbath and fast-day, doing no work in the
+fields or in the house. They bathe and pray three times a day, in the
+morning, afternoon and evening, saying 'Bishnu! Bishnu!' instead of
+the ordinary Hindu 'Ram! Ram.' Their clothing is the same as that of
+other Bagris, except that their women do not allow the waist to be
+seen, and are fond of wearing black woollen clothing. They are more
+particular about ceremonial purity than ordinary Hindus are, and it is
+a common saying that if a Bishnoi's food is on the first of a string of
+twenty camels and a man of another caste touches the last camel of the
+string, the Bishnoi would consider his food defiled and throw it away."
+
+
+
+4. Initiation and baptism.
+
+
+The ceremony of initiation is as follows: "A number of representative
+Bishnois assemble, and before them a Sadh or Bishnoi priest, after
+lighting a sacrificial fire (_hom_), instructs the novice in the duties
+of the faith. He then takes some water in a new earthen vessel, over
+which he prays in a set form (_Bishno gayatri_), stirring it the while
+with his string of beads (_mala_), and after asking the consent of
+the assembled Bishnois he pours the water three times into the hands
+of the novice, who drinks it off. The novice's scalp-lock (_choti_)
+is then cut off and his head shaved, for the Bishnois shave the whole
+head and do not leave a scalp-lock like the Hindus, but they allow the
+beard to grow, only shaving the chin on the father's death. Infant
+baptism is also practised, and thirty days after birth the child,
+whether boy or girl, is baptised by the priest (Sadh) in much the
+same way as an adult; only the set form of prayer is different, and
+the priest pours a few drops of water into the child's mouth, and
+gives the child's relatives each three handfuls of the consecrated
+water to drink; at the same time the barber clips off the child's
+hair. The baptismal ceremony has the effect of purifying the house,
+which has been made impure by the birth (_sutak_).
+
+"The Bishnois do not revere Brahmans, but have priests of their own
+known as Sadh, who are chosen from among the laity. The priests are
+a hereditary class, and do not intermarry with other Bishnois, from
+whom, like Brahmans, they receive food and offerings. The Bishnois do
+not burn their dead, but bury them below the cattle-shed or in some
+place like a pen frequented by cattle. They make pilgrimages to the
+place where Jhambaji is buried to the south of Bikaner; here a tomb
+and temple have been erected to his memory, and gatherings are held
+twice a year. The sect observe the Holi in a different way from other
+Hindus. After sunset on that day they fast till the next forenoon
+when, after hearing read the account of how Prahlad was tortured by
+his infidel father, Hrianya Kasipu, for believing in the god Vishnu,
+until he was delivered by the god himself in his incarnation of
+Narsingh, the Man-lion, and mourning over Prahlad's sufferings, they
+light a sacrificial fire and partake of consecrated water, and after
+distributing sugar (_gur_) in commemoration of Prahlad's delivery
+from the fire into which he was thrown, they break their fast."
+
+
+
+5. Nature of the sect.
+
+
+The above interesting account of the Bishnois by Mr. Wilson shows that
+Jhambaji was a religious reformer, who attempted to break loose from
+the debased Hindu polytheism and arrogant supremacy of the Brahmans
+by choosing one god, Vishnu, out of the Hindu pantheon and exalting
+him into the sole and supreme deity. In his method he thus differed
+from Kabir and other reformers, who went outside Hinduism altogether,
+preaching a monotheistic faith with one unseen and nameless deity. The
+case of the Manbhaos, whose unknown founder made Krishna the one
+god, discarding the Vedas and the rest of Hinduism, is analogous
+to Jhambaji's movement. His creed much resembles that of the other
+Hindu reformers and founders of the Vaishnavite sects. The extreme
+tenderness for animal life is a characteristic of most of them,
+and would be fostered by the Hindu belief in the transmigration of
+souls. The prohibition of liquor is another common feature, to which
+Jhambaji added that of all kinds of drugs. His mind, like those of
+Kabir and Nanak, was probably influenced by the spectacle of the
+comparatively liberal creed of Islam, which had now taken root in
+northern India. Mr. Crooke remarks that the Bishnois of Bijnor appear
+to differ from those of the Punjab in using the Muhammadan form of
+salutation, _Salam alaikum_, and the title of Shaikhji. They account
+for this by saying they murdered a Muhammadan Kazi, who prevented
+them from burning a widow, and were glad to compound the offence
+by pretending to adopt Islam. But it seems possible that on their
+first rupture with Hinduism they were to some extent drawn towards
+the Muhammadans, and adopted practices of which, on tending again to
+conform to their old religion, they have subsequently become ashamed.
+
+
+
+6. Bishnois in the Central Provinces.
+
+
+In northern India the members of different castes who have become
+Bishnois have formed separate endogamous groups, of which Mr. Crooke
+gives nine; among these are the Brahman, Bania, Jat, Sunar, Ahir and
+Nai Bishnois. Only members of comparatively good castes appear to have
+been admitted into the community, and in the Punjab they are nearly
+all Jats and Banias. In the Central Provinces the caste forms only
+one endogamous group. They have _gotras_ or exogamous sections, the
+names of which appear to be of the titular or territorial type. Some
+of the _gotras_, Jhuria, Ajna, Sain and Ahir, [385] are considered
+to be lower than the others, and though they are not debarred from
+intermarriage, a connection with them is looked upon as something of
+a _mesalliance_. They are not consulted in the settlement of tribal
+disputes. No explanation of the comparatively degraded position of
+these septs is forthcoming, but it may probably be attributed to
+some blot in their ancestral escutcheon. The Bishnois celebrate
+their marriages at any period of the year, and place no reliance
+on astrology. According to their saying, "Every day is as good as
+Sankrant, [386] every day is as good as Amawas. [387] The Ganges flows
+every day, and he whose preceptor has taught him the most truth will
+get the most good from bathing in it."
+
+
+
+7. Marriage.
+
+
+Before a wedding the bride's father sends, by the barber, a cocoanut
+and a silver ring tied round it with a yellow thread. On the thread
+are seven, nine, eleven or thirteen knots, signifying the number of
+days to elapse before the ceremony. The barber on his arrival stands
+outside the door of the house, and the bridegroom's father sends
+round to all the families of his caste. The men go to the house and
+the women come singing to the barber, and rub turmeric on the boy. A
+married woman touches the cocoanut and waves a lighted lamp seven
+times round the bridegroom's head. This is meant to scare off evil
+spirits. On arrival at the bride's village the bridegroom touches
+the marriage-shed with the branch of a _ber_ or wild plum tree. The
+mother of the bride gives him some sugar, rubs lamp-black on his
+eyes and twists his nose. The bride and bridegroom are seated side by
+side on wooden boards, and after the caste priest (Sadh) has chanted
+some sacred verses, water is poured nine times on to the palms of
+the bridegroom, and he drinks it. They do not perform the ceremony
+of walking round the sacred pole. Girls are usually married at a very
+early age, sometimes when they are only a few months old. Subsequently,
+when the bridegroom comes to take his bride, her family present her
+with clothing and a spinning-wheel, this implement being still in
+favour among the Bishnois. When a widow is to be married again she
+is taken to her new husband's house at night, and there grinds a
+flour-mill five times, being afterwards presented with lac bangles.
+
+
+
+8. Disposal of the dead.
+
+
+The dead are never burnt, but their bodies are weighted with sand-bags
+and thrown into a stream. The practice which formerly prevailed among
+the Bishnois of burying their dead in the courtyard of the house by
+the cattle-stalls has now fallen into desuetude as being insanitary. A
+red cloth is spread over the body of a woman, and if her maternal
+relatives are present each of them places a piece of cloth on the
+bier. After the funeral the mourning party proceed to a river to
+bathe, and then cook and eat their food on the bank. This custom is
+also followed by the Panwar Rajputs of the Wainganga Valley, but is
+forbidden by most of the good Hindu castes. No period of impurity is
+observed after a death, but on some day between the fourth and tenth
+days afterwards a feast is given to the caste-fellows.
+
+
+
+9. Development into a caste.
+
+
+The Bishnois of the Central Provinces are gradually becoming an
+ordinary Hindu caste, a fate which has several times befallen the
+adherents of Hindu reformers. Many of the precepts of Jhambaji are
+neglected. They still usually strain their water and examine their fuel
+before burning it to remove insects, and they scatter flour to feed the
+ants and grain for peacocks and pigeons. The wearing of blue cloth is
+avoided by most, blue being for an obscure reason a somewhat unlucky
+colour among the Hindus. But they now use bullocks for ploughing, and
+cut green trees except on the Amawas day. Many of them, especially
+the younger generation, have begun to grow the Hindu _choti_ or
+scalp-lock. They go on pilgrimage to all the Hindu sacred places, and
+no doubt make presents there to Brahman priests. They offer _pindas_
+or sacrificial cakes to the spirits of their deceased ancestors. They
+observe some of the ordinary Hindu festivals, as the Anant Chaturthi,
+and some of them employ Brahmans to read the Satya Narayan Katha,
+the favourite Hindu sacred book. They still retain their special
+observance of the Holi. The admission of proselytes has practically
+ceased, and they marry among themselves like an ordinary Hindu caste,
+in which light they are gradually coming to be regarded. The Bishnois
+are usually cultivators or moneylenders by calling.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+Bohra
+
+
+
+List of Paragraphs
+
+
+    1. _Origin of the sect._
+    2. _Their religious tenets._
+    3. _The Mullahs._
+    4. _Bohra graveyards._
+    5. _Religious customs._
+    6. _Occupation._
+    7. _Houses and dress._
+
+
+
+1. Origin of the sect.
+
+
+_Bohra, Bohora._ [388]--A Muhammadan caste of traders who come
+from Gujarat and speak Gujarati. At the last census they numbered
+nearly 5000 persons, residing principally in the Nimar, Nagpur and
+Amraoti Districts, Burhanpur being the headquarters of the sect in
+the Central Provinces. The name is probably derived from the Hindi
+_byohara_, a trader. Members of the caste are honorifically addressed
+as Mullaji. According to the received account of the rise of the
+Bohras in Gujarat a missionary, Abdulla, came from Yemen to Cambay
+in A.D. 1067. By his miracles he converted the great king Sidhraj
+of Anhilvada Patan in Gujarat, and he with numbers of his subjects
+embraced the new faith. For two centuries and a half the Bohras
+flourished, but with the establishment of Muzaffar Shah's power
+(A.D. 1390-1413) in that country the spread of Sunni doctrines was
+encouraged and the Bohra and other Shia sects suppressed. Since then,
+with gradually lessening numbers, they have passed through several
+bitter persecutions, meeting with little favour or protection, till at
+the close of the eighteenth century they found shelter under British
+rule. In 1539 the members of the sect living in Arabia were expelled
+from there and came to Gujarat, where they were hospitably received by
+their brethren, the headquarters of the sect being thenceforward fixed
+at Surat. The Bohras are Shias of the great Ismailia sect of Egypt. The
+Ismailia sect split off from the orthodox Shias on the question of the
+succession to the sixth Imam, Jafar Sadik, in A.D. 765. The dispute
+was between his eldest son's son Ismail and his second son Musi,
+the Ismailias being those who supported the former and the orthodox
+Shias the latter. The orthodox Shias are distinguished as believers
+in twelve Imams, the last of whom is still to come. The Ismailias
+again divided on a similar dispute as to the succession to the
+Khalifa Almustansir Billah by his eldest son Nazar or his younger son
+Almustaali. The Bohras are descended from the Mustaalians or supporters
+of the younger son and the Khojas from the Nazarians who supported
+the elder son. [389] All these distinctions appear somewhat trivial.
+
+
+
+2. Their religious tenets.
+
+
+Gujarat contains two classes of Bohras: the traders who are all
+Shias and are the only immigrants into the Central Provinces, and a
+large class of cultivating Bohras who are Sunnis. The latter may be
+the descendants of the earliest converts and may have been forced to
+become Sunnis when this sect was dominant in Gujarat as noticed above,
+while the Shias are perhaps descended from the later immigrants from
+Arabia. The Shia Bohras themselves are further divided into several
+sects of which the Daudi are the principal.
+
+Mr. Faridi writes of them: [390] "They are attentive to their religious
+duties, both men and women knowing the Koran. They are careful to
+say their prayers, to observe Muharram as a season of mourning and
+to go on pilgrimage to Mecca and Kerbala. They strictly abstain
+from music and dancing and from using or dealing in intoxicating
+drinks or drugs. Though fierce sectarians, keenly hating and hated
+by the regular Sunnis and other Muhammadans than those of their
+own sect, their reverence for Ali and for their high priest seems
+to be further removed from adoration than among the Khojahs. They
+would appear to accept the ordinary distinctions of right and wrong,
+punishing drunkenness, adultery and other acts generally considered
+disgraceful. Of the state beyond death they hold that, after passing
+a time of freedom as evil spirits, unbelievers go to a place of
+torment. Believers, but apparently only believers of the Ismaili
+faith, after a term of training enter a state of perfection. Among
+the faithful each disembodied spirit passes the term of training in
+communion with the soul of some good man. The spirit can suggest
+good or evil to the man and may learn from his good deeds to love
+the right; when the good man dies the spirits in communion with his
+soul are, if they have gained by their training, attached to some
+more perfect man, or if they have lost by their opportunities are
+sent back to learn; spirits raised to a higher degree of knowledge
+are placed in communion with the High Priest on earth; and on his
+death are with him united to the Imams, and when through the Imams
+they have learnt what they still require to know they are absorbed
+in perfection. Except for some peculiarities in their names; that
+they attach special importance to circumcision; that the sacrifice
+or _alsikah_ ceremony is held in the Mullah's house; that at marriage
+the bride and bridegroom when not of age are represented by sponsors
+or _walis_; that at death a prayer for pity on his soul and body is
+laid in the dead man's hands; and that on certain occasions the High
+Priest feeds the whole community--Bohra customs do not so far as has
+been ascertained differ from those of ordinary Muhammadans.
+
+
+
+3. The Mullahs.
+
+
+"Their leader, both in things religious and social, is the head Mullah
+of Surat. The ruling Mullah names his successor, generally, but it
+is said not always, from among the members of his own family. Short
+of worship the head Mullah is treated with the greatest respect. He
+lives in much state and entertains with the most profuse liberality. On
+both religious and civil questions his authority is final. Discipline
+is enforced in religious matters by fine, and in case of adultery,
+drunkenness and other offences, by fine, excommunication and rarely by
+flogging. On ceremonial occasions the head Mullah sits on his throne,
+and in token of his power has the flyflapper, _chauri_, held before
+him. As the Bohras enter they make three prostrations, _salaams_,
+close their hands and stand before him. To such as are worthy he says
+'Be seated,' to others 'Stand.' Once a year, on the 18th Rajjab,
+every Daudi lays his palm within the head Mullah's hand and takes
+an oath to be faithful. On this day when he goes to the mosque the
+Bohras are said to kiss the Mullah's footsteps and to apply the dust
+he treads to their heads and eyes." Each considerable settlement of
+the sect has a deputy Mullah of its own.
+
+
+
+4. Bohra graveyards.
+
+
+The Sahadra or burial-place of the Bohras at Burhanpur contains
+the tombs of three of the Surat Mullahs who happened to die when
+they were at Burhanpur. The tombs are in shell-lime and are fairly
+handsome erections. The Bohras support here by voluntary subscription
+a rest-house, where members of the sect coming to the city can obtain
+free board and lodging for as long as they like to stay. Mr. Conolly
+says of their graveyards: [391]
+
+"Their burial-grounds have a pleasing appearance, the tombs being
+regularly arranged in streets, east and west. The tombs themselves,
+which are, of course, north and south, the corpse resting on its right
+side, differ in no respect from those of Sunnis, with the exception
+of a small _chiragh takia_ or lamp-socket, cut out of the north face,
+just like the cavity for the inscription of our own tombs."
+
+
+
+5. Religious customs.
+
+
+Of their religion Mr. Kitts writes: [392] "In prayers they differ
+both from Shias and Sunnis in that they follow their Mullah, praying
+aloud after him, but without much regularity of posture. The times for
+commencing their devotions are about five minutes later than those
+observed by Sunnis. After the midday and sunset supplications they
+allow a short interval to elapse, remaining themselves in the mosque
+meanwhile. They then commence the afternoon and evening prayers and
+thus run five services into three."
+
+Mr. Thurston notes that the Bohras consider themselves so superior
+to other sects that if another Muhammadan enters their mosque
+they afterwards clean the spot which he has occupied during his
+prayers. [393] They show strictness in other ways, making their
+own sweetmeats at home and declining to eat those of the Halwai
+(confectioner). It is said also that they will not have their clothes
+washed by a Dhobi, nor wear shoes made by a Chamar, nor take food
+touched by any Hindu. They are said to bathe only on Fridays, and some
+of them not on every Friday. If a dog touches them they are unclean
+and must change their clothes. They celebrate the Id and Ramazan a
+day before other Muhammadans. At the Muharram their women break all
+their bangles and wear new bangles next day to show that they have
+been widowed, and during this period they observe mourning by going
+without shoes and not using umbrellas. Mr. Conolly says of them:
+"I must not omit to notice that a fine of 20 cowries (equally for
+rich and poor) punishes the non-attendance of a Bohra at the daily
+prayers. A large sum is exacted for remissness during the Ramazan,
+and it is said that the dread of loss operates powerfully upon a
+class of men who are particularly penny-wise. The money collected
+thus is transmitted by the Ujjain Mullah to his chief at Surat,
+who devotes it to religious purposes such as repairing or building
+mosques, assisting the needy of his subjects and the like. Several
+other offences have the same characteristic punishment, such as
+fornication, drunkenness, etc. But the cunning Bohras elude many of the
+fines and daily indulge in practices not sanctioned by their creed;
+thus in their shops pictures and figures may be purchased though it
+is against the commandments to sell the likeness of any living thing."
+
+It has been seen that when a Bohra is buried a prayer for pity on his
+soul and body is laid in the dead man's hands, of which Mr. Faridi
+gives the text. But other Muhammadans tell a story to the effect that
+the head Mullah writes a letter to the archangel Gabriel in which he
+is instructed to supply a stream of honey, a stream of milk, water
+and some fruit trees, a golden building and a number of houris, the
+extent of the order depending on the amount of money which has been
+paid to the Mullah by the departed in his lifetime; and this letter
+is placed beneath the dead man's head in the grave, the Bohras having
+no coffins. The Bohras indignantly repudiate any such version of the
+letter, and no doubt if the custom ever existed it has died out.
+
+
+
+6. Occupation.
+
+
+The Bohras, Captain Forsyth remarks, though bigoted religionists,
+are certainly the most civilised and enterprising and perhaps also
+the most industrious class in the Nimar District. They deal generally
+in hardware, piece-goods and drugs, and are very keen traders. There
+is a proverb, "He who is sharper than a Bohra must be mad, and he
+who is fairer than a Khatri must be a leper." Some of them are only
+pedlars and hawkers, and in past times their position seems to have
+been lower than at present. An old account says: [394] "The Bohras are
+an inferior set of travelling merchants. The inside of a Bohra's box
+is like that of an English country shop; spelling-books, prayer-books,
+lavender-water, soap, tapes, scissors, knives, needles and thread make
+but a small part of the variety." And again: "In Bombay the Bohras go
+about the town as the dirty Jews do in London early and late, carrying
+a bag and inviting by the same nasal tone servants and others to fill
+it with old clothes, empty bottles, scraps of iron, etc." [395]
+
+
+
+7. Houses and dress.
+
+
+Of their method of living Malcolm wrote: [396] "I visited several
+of the houses of this tribe at Shahjahanpur, where a colony of them
+are settled, and was gratified to find not only in their apartments,
+but in the spaciousness and cleanliness of their kitchens, in the
+well-constructed chimney, the neatly arranged pantries, and the
+polished dishes and plates as much of real comfort in domestic
+arrangements as could be found anywhere. We took the parties we
+visited by surprise and there could have been no preparation." The
+Bohras do not charge interest on loans, and they combine to support
+indigent members of the community, never allowing one of their caste
+to beg. The caste may easily be known from other Muhammadans by their
+small, tightly wound turbans and little skull-caps, and their long
+flowing robes, and loose trousers widening from the ankle upwards and
+gathered in at the waist with a string. The women dress in a coloured
+cotton or silk petticoat, a short-sleeved bodice and a coloured cotton
+head-scarf. When they go out of doors they throw a dark cloak over
+the head which covers the body to the ankles, with gauze openings
+for the eyes.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+Brahman [397]
+
+
+
+List of Paragraphs
+
+
+     1. _Origin and development of the caste._
+     2. _Their monopoly of literature._
+     3. _Absence of central authority._
+     4. _Mixed elements in the caste._
+     5. _Caste subdivisions._
+     6. _Miscellaneous groups._
+     7. _Sectarian divisions._
+     8. _Exogamy._
+     9. _Restrictions on marriage._
+    10. _Hypergamy._
+    11. _Marriage customs._
+    12. _Polygamy, divorce and treatment of widows._
+    13. _Sati or burning of widows._
+    14. _Funeral rites and mourning._
+    15. _Religion._
+    16. _Daily ritual._
+    17. _The sacred thread._
+    18. _Social position._
+    19. _Titles._
+    20. _Caste panchayat and offences._
+    21. _Rules about food._
+    22. _Dress._
+    23. _Tattooing._
+    24. _Occupation._
+    25. _Character of Brahmans._
+
+
+
+List of Subordinate Articles on Subcastes
+
+
+     1. Ahivasi.
+     2. Jijhotia.
+     3. Kanaujia, Kanyakubja.
+     4. Khedawal.
+     5. Maharashtra, Maratha.
+     6. Maithil.
+     7. Malwi.
+     8. Nagar.
+     9. Naramdeo.
+    10. Sanadhya, Sanaurhia.
+    11. Sarwaria.
+    12. Utkal.
+
+
+
+1. Origin and development of the caste.
+
+
+_Brahman, Baman._--The well-known priestly caste of India and the
+first of the four traditional castes of the Hindu scriptures. In 1911
+the Brahmans numbered about 450,000 persons in the Central Provinces
+and Berar, or nearly 3 per cent of the population. This is less than
+the average strength for India as a whole, which is about 4 1/2 per
+cent. The caste is spread over the whole Province, but is in greatest
+numbers in proportion to the population in Saugor and Jubbulpore,
+and weakest in the Feudatory States.
+
+The name Brahman or Brahma is said to be from the root _brih_ or
+_vrih_, to increase. The god Brahma is considered as the spirit
+and soul of the universe, the divine essence and source of all
+being. Brahmana, the masculine numerative singular, originally denoted
+one who prays, a worshipper or the composer or reciter of a hymn. [398]
+It is the common term used in the Vedas for the officiating priest. Sir
+H. Risley remarks on the origin of the caste: [399] "The best modern
+opinion seems disposed to find the germ of the Brahman caste in the
+bards, ministers and family priests who were attached to the king's
+household in Vedic times. Different stages of this institution may be
+observed. In the earliest ages the head of every Aryan household was
+his own priest, and even a king would himself perform the sacrifices
+which were appropriate to his rank. By degrees families or guilds
+of priestly singers arose, who sought service under the kings, and
+were rewarded by rich presents for the hymns or praise and prayer
+recited and sacrifices offered by them on behalf of their masters. As
+time went on the sacrifices became more numerous and more elaborate,
+and the mass of ritual grew to such an extent that the king could no
+longer cope with it unaided. The employment of _purohits_ or family
+priests, formerly optional, now became a sacred duty if the sacrifices
+were not to fall into disuse. The Brahman obtained a monopoly of
+priestly functions, and a race of sacerdotal specialists arose
+which tended continually to close its ranks against the intrusion
+of outsiders." Gradually then from the household priests and those
+who made it their business to commit to memory and recite the sacred
+hymns and verses handed down orally from generation to generation
+through this agency, an occupational caste emerged, which arrogated
+to itself the monopoly of these functions, and the doctrine developed
+that nobody could perform them who was not qualified by birth, that
+is, nobody could be a Brahman who was not the son of a Brahman. When
+religious ritual became more important, as apparently it did, a desire
+would naturally arise among the priests to make their revered and
+lucrative profession a hereditary monopoly; and this they were easily
+and naturally able to do by only teaching the sacred songs and the
+sacrificial rules and procedure to their own descendants. The process
+indeed would be to a considerable extent automatic, because the priests
+would always take their own sons for their pupils in the first place,
+and in the circumstances of early Indian society a married priesthood
+would thus naturally evolve into a hereditary caste. The Levites
+among the Jews and the priests of the Parsis formed similar hereditary
+orders, and the reason why they did not arise in other great religions
+would appear to have been the prescription or encouragement of the
+rule of celibacy for the clergy and the foundation of monasteries,
+to which admission was free. But the military landed aristocracies
+of Europe practically formed hereditary castes which were analogous
+to the Brahman and Rajput castes, though of a less stereotyped and
+primitive character. The rise of the Brahman caste was thus perhaps
+a comparatively simple and natural product of religious and social
+evolution, and might have occurred independently of the development
+of the caste system as a whole. The former might be accounted for by
+reasons which would be inadequate to explain the latter, even though
+as a matter of fact the same factors were at work in both cases.
+
+
+
+2. Their monopoly of literature.
+
+
+The hereditary monopoly of the sacred scriptures would be strengthened
+and made absolute when the Sanskrit language, in which they had been
+composed and handed down, ceased to be the ordinary spoken language
+of the people. Nobody then could learn them unless he was taught by
+a Brahman priest. And by keeping the sacred literature in an unknown
+language the priesthood made their own position absolutely secure and
+got into their own hands the allocation of the penalties and rewards
+promised by religion, for which these books were the authority, that
+is to say, the disposal of the souls of Hindus in the afterlife. They,
+in fact, held the keys of heaven and hell. The jealousy with which they
+guarded them is well shown by the Abbe Dubois: [400] "To the Brahmans
+alone belongs the right of reading the Vedas, and they are so jealous
+of this, or rather it is so much to their interest to prevent other
+castes obtaining any insight into their contents, that the Brahmans
+have inculcated the absurd theory, which is implicitly believed, that
+should anybody of any other caste be so highly imprudent as even to
+read the title-page his head would immediately split in two. The very
+few Brahmans who are able to read those sacred books in the original,
+only do so in secret and in a whisper. Expulsion from caste, without
+the smallest hope of re-entering it, would be the lightest punishment
+of a Brahman who exposed those books to the eyes of the profane." It
+would probably be unfair, however, to suppose that the Vedas were
+kept in the original Sanskrit simply from motives of policy. It
+was probably thought that the actual words of the sacred text had
+themselves a concrete force and potency which would be lost in a
+translation. This is the idea underlying the whole class of beliefs
+in the virtue of charms and spells.
+
+But the Brahmans had the monopoly not only of the sacred Sanskrit
+literature, but practically of any kind of literacy or education. They
+were for long the only literate section of the people. Subsequently
+two other castes learnt to read and write in response to an economic
+demand, the Kayasths and the Banias. The Kayasths, it has been
+suggested in the article on that caste, were to a large extent the
+offspring and inmates of the households of Brahmans, and were no doubt
+taught by them, but only to read and write the vernacular for the
+purpose of keeping the village records and accounts of rent. They were
+excluded from any knowledge of Sanskrit, and the Kayasths subsequently
+became an educated caste in spite of their Brahman preceptors, by
+learning Persian under their Muhammadan, and English under their
+European employers. The Banias never desired nor were encouraged
+to attain to any higher degree of literacy than that necessary
+for keeping accounts of sale and loan transactions. The Brahmans
+thus remained the only class with any real education, and acquired
+a monopoly not only of intellectual and religious leadership, but
+largely of public administration under the Hindu kings. No literature
+existed outside their own, which was mainly of a sacerdotal character;
+and India had no heritage such as that bequeathed by Greece and Rome
+to mediaeval Europe which could produce a Renaissance or revival of
+literacy, leading to the Reformation of religion and the breaking
+of the fetters in which the Roman priesthood had bound the human
+mind. The Brahmans thus established, not only a complete religious,
+but also a social ascendancy which is only now beginning to break
+down since the British Government has made education available to all.
+
+
+
+3. Absence of central authority.
+
+
+The Brahman body, however, lacked one very important element of
+strength. They were apparently never organised nor controlled by
+any central authority such as that which made the Roman church so
+powerful and cohesive. Colleges and seats of learning existed at
+Benares and other places, at which their youth were trained in the
+knowledge of religion and of the measure of their own pretensions,
+and the means by which these were to be sustained. But probably
+only a small minority can have attended them, and even these when
+they returned home must have been left practically to themselves,
+spread as the Brahmans were over the whole of India with no means of
+postal communication or rapid transit. And by this fact the chaotic
+character of the Hindu religion, its freedom of belief and worship,
+its innumerable deities, and the almost complete absence of dogmas
+may probably be to a great extent explained. And further the Brahman
+caste itself cannot have been so strictly organised that outsiders and
+the priests of the lower alien religions never obtained entrance to
+it. As shown by Mr. Crooke, many foreign elements, both individuals
+and groups, have at various times been admitted into the caste.
+
+
+
+4. Mixed elements in the caste.
+
+
+The early texts indicate that Brahmans were in the habit of forming
+connections with the widows of Rajanyas and Vaishyas, even if they
+did not take possession of the wives of such men while they were
+still alive. [401] The sons of Angiras, one of the great ancestral
+sages, were Brahmans as well as Kshatriyas. The descendants of Garga,
+another well-known eponymous ancestor, were Kshatriyas by birth but
+became Brahmans. Visvamitra was a Kshatriya, who, by the force of
+his austerities, compelled Brahma to admit him into the Brahmanical
+order, so that he might be on a level with Vasishtha with whom he
+had quarrelled. According to a passage in the Mahabharata all castes
+become Brahmans when once they have crossed the Gomti on a pilgrimage
+to the hermitage of Vasishtha. [402] In more recent times there are
+legends of persons created Brahmans by Hindu Rajas. Sir J. Malcolm in
+Central India found many low-caste female slaves in Brahman houses, the
+owners of which had treated them as belonging to their own caste. [403]
+
+It would appear also that in some cases the caste priests of different
+castes have become Brahmans. Thus the Saraswat Brahmans of the Punjab
+are the priests of the Khatri caste. They have the same complicated
+arrangement of exogamy and hypergamy as the Khatris, and will take
+food from that caste. It seems not improbable that they are really
+descendants of Khatri priests who have become Brahmans. [404]
+
+Similarly such groups as the Oswal, Srimal and Palliwal Brahmans of
+Rajputana, who are priests of the subcastes of Banias of the same
+name, may originally have been caste priests and become Brahmans. The
+Naramdeo Brahmans, or those living on the Nerbudda River, are said to
+be descendants of a Brahman father by a woman of the Naoda or Dhimar
+caste; and the Golapurab Brahmans similarly of a Brahman father and
+Ahir mother. In many cases, such as the island of Onkar Mandhata in
+the Nerbudda in Nimar, and the Mahadeo caves at Pachmarhi, the places
+of worship of the non-Aryan tribes have been adopted by Hinduism and
+the old mountain or river gods transformed into Hindu deities. At
+the same time it is not improbable that the tribal priests of the
+old shrines have been admitted into the Brahman caste.
+
+
+
+5. Caste subdivisions.
+
+
+The Brahman caste has ten main territorial divisions, forming two
+groups, the Panch-Gaur or five northern, and the Panch-Dravida or five
+southern. The boundary line between the two groups is supposed to
+be the Nerbudda River, which is also the boundary between Hindustan
+and the Deccan. But the Gujarati Brahmans belong to the southern
+group, though Gujarat is north of the Nerbudda. The five northern
+divisions are:
+
+(_a_) _Saraswat._--These belong to the Punjab and are named after
+the Saraswati river of the classical period, on whose banks they are
+supposed to have lived.
+
+(_b_) _Gaur._--The home of these is the country round Delhi, but
+they say that the name is from the old Gaur or Lakhnauti kingdom
+of Bengal. If this is correct, it is difficult to understand how
+they came from Bengal to Delhi contrary to the usual tendency of
+migration. General Cunningham has suggested that Gaura was also the
+name of the modern Gonda District, and it is possible that the term was
+once used for a considerable tract in northern India as well as Bengal,
+since it has come to be applied to all the northern Brahmans. [405]
+
+(_c_) _Kankubja or Kanaujia._--These are named after the old town of
+Kanauj on the Ganges near Cawnpore, once the capital of India. The
+Kanaujia are the most important of the northern groups and extend from
+the west of Oudh to beyond Benares and into the northern Districts of
+the Central Provinces. Here they are subdivided into four principal
+groups--the Kanaujia, Jijhotia, Sarwaria and Sanadhya, which are
+treated in annexed subordinate articles.
+
+(_d_) _Maithil._--They take their name from Mithila, the old term
+for Bihar or Tirhut, and belong to this tract.
+
+(_e_) _Utkal._--These are the Brahmans of Orissa.
+
+The five groups of the Panch-Dravida are as follows:
+
+(_a_) _Maharashtra._--These belong to the Maratha country or
+Bombay. They are subdivided into three main territorial groups--the
+Deshasth, or those of the home country, that is the Poona tract above
+the Western Ghats; the Konkonasth, who belong to the Bombay Konkan
+or littoral; and the Karhara, named after a place in the Satara
+District. [406]
+
+(_b_) _Tailanga or Andhra._--The Brahmans of the Telugu country,
+Hyderabad and the northern part of Madras. This territory was known
+as Andhra and governed by an important dynasty of the same name in
+early times.
+
+(_c_) _Dravida._--The Brahmans of the Tamil country or the south
+of Madras.
+
+(_d_) _Karnata._--The Brahmans of the Carnatic, or the Canarese
+country. The Canarese area comprises the Mysore State, and the British
+Districts of Canara, Dharwar and Belgaum.
+
+(_e_) _Gurjara._--The Brahmans of Gujarat, of whom two subcastes are
+found in the Central Provinces. The first consists of the Khedawals,
+named after Kheda, a village in Gujarat, who are a strictly orthodox
+class holding a good position in the caste. And the second are the
+Nagar Brahmans, who have been long settled in Nimar and the adjacent
+tracts, and act as village priests and astrologers. Their social
+status is somewhat lower.
+
+There are, however, a large number of other subcastes, and the
+tendency to fissure in a large caste, and to the formation of small
+local groups which marry among themselves, is nowhere more strikingly
+apparent than among the Brahmans. This is only natural, as they,
+more than any other caste, attach importance to strict ceremonial
+observance in matters of food and the daily ritual of prayer, and
+any group which was suspected of backsliding in respect of these on
+emigration to a new locality would be debarred from intermarriage
+with the parent caste at home. An instance of this is found among the
+Chhattisgarhi Brahmans, who have been long settled in this backward
+tract and cut off from communication with northern India. They
+are mainly of the Kanaujia division, but the Kanaujias of Oudh will
+neither take food nor intermarry with them, and they now constitute a
+separate subcaste of Kanaujias. Similarly the Malwi Brahmans, whose
+home is in Malwa, whence they have spread to Hoshangabad and Betul,
+are believed to have been originally a branch of the Gaur or Kanaujia,
+but have now become a distinct subcaste, and have adopted many of the
+customs of Maratha Brahmans. Mandla contains a colony of Sarwaria [407]
+Brahmans who received grants of villages from the Gond kings and have
+settled down there. They are now cultivators, and some have taken to
+the plough, while they also permit widow-remarriage in all but the
+name. They are naturally cut off from intercourse with the orthodox
+Sarwarias and marry among themselves. The Harenia Brahmans of Saugor
+are believed to have immigrated from Hariana some generations ago and
+form a separate local group; and also the Laheria Brahmans of the same
+District, who, like the Mandla Sarwarias, permit widows to marry. In
+Hoshangabad there is a small subcaste of Bawisa or 'Twenty-two'
+Brahmans, descended from twenty-two families from northern India,
+who settled here and have since married among themselves. A similar
+diversity of subcastes is found in other Provinces. The Brahmans of
+Bengal are also mainly of the Kanaujia division, but they are divided
+into several local subcastes, of which the principal are Rarhi and
+Barendra, named after tracts in Bengal, and quite distinct from the
+subdivisions of the Kanaujia group in the Central Provinces.
+
+
+
+6. Miscellaneous groups.
+
+
+Another class of local subdivisions consists of those Brahmans who
+live on the banks of the various sacred rivers or at famous shrines,
+and earn their livelihood by conducting pilgrims through the series
+of ceremonies and acts of worship which are performed on a visit to
+such places; they receive presents from the pilgrims and the offerings
+made at the shrines. The most prominent among these are the Gayawals of
+Gaya, the Prayagwals of Allahabad (Prayag), the Chaubes of Mathura, the
+Gangaputras (Sons of the Ganges) of Benares, the Pandarams of southern
+India and the Naramdeo Brahmans who hold charge of the many temples on
+the Nerbudda. As such men accept gifts from pilgrims they are generally
+looked down on by good Brahmans and marry among themselves. Many of
+them have a character for extortion and for fleecing their clients,
+a propensity commonly developed in a profession of this kind. Such
+a reputation particularly attaches to the Chaubes of Mathura and
+Brindaban, the holy places of the god Krishna. They are strong and
+finely built men, but gluttonous, idle and dissolute. Some of the
+Benares Brahmans are known as Sawalakhi, or having one and a quarter
+lakhs, apparently on account of the wealth they amass from pilgrims. A
+much lower group are the Maha-Brahmans (great Brahmans), who are also
+known as Patit (degraded) or Katia. These accept the gifts offered by
+the relatives after a death for the use of the dead man in the next
+world during the period of mourning; they also eat food which it is
+supposed will benefit the dead man, and are considered to represent
+him. Probably on this account they share in the impurity attaching to
+the dead, and are despised by all castes and sometimes not permitted to
+live in the village. Other Brahmans are degraded on account of their
+having partly adopted Muhammadan practices. The Husaini Brahmans of
+western India are so called as they combine Muhammadan with Hindu
+rites. They are principally beggars. And the Kalanki Brahmans of
+Wardha and other Districts are looked down upon because, it is said,
+that at the bidding of a Muhammadan governor they make a figure of
+a cow from sugar and eat it up. Probably they may have really acted
+as priests to Muhammadans who were inclined to adopt certain Hindu
+rites on the principle of imitation, and with a view to please their
+disciples conformed to some extent to Islam.
+
+
+
+7. Sectarian divisions.
+
+
+Brahmans have also sectarian divisions according to the different
+Vedas, which they especially study. It is held that the ancient Rishis
+or saints, like the Jewish patriarchs, lived far beyond the ordinary
+span of existence, and hence had time to learn all the Vedas and
+their commentaries. But this was impossible for their shorter-lived
+descendants, and hence each Veda has been divided into a number of
+Shakhas or branches, and the ordinary Brahman only learns one Shakha of
+one Veda. Most Brahmans of the Central Provinces are either Rigvedis
+or Yajurvedis, and these commonly marry only followers of their own
+Veda, thus forming a sort of cross set of endogamous divisions. The
+restriction on marriage may also extend to the Shakha, so that a
+man can only marry in a family of the same Shakha as himself. This
+applies in the Central Provinces mainly to the Yajurvedis, who have
+three well-known Shakhas or branches called Kannava, Apastambha and
+Madhyandina. These are derived from the Shukla or White Yajurveda,
+which can be understood, while the Black Yajurveda is obscure and
+unintelligible. The Rigvedis and Yajurvedis have some differences in
+their methods of recitation. The Rigvedis are said to move the head
+up and down when they recite and not to use the hands; while the
+Yajurvedis swing the hands and body from side to side. It is said
+that a Madhyandina cannot say his prayers nor take his food before
+midday, and hence the name, which means half the day. These points
+of distinction are given as stated by the local Brahmans, and it is
+not known whether they would be endorsed by the Pandits. The Maratha
+Brahmans of the Central Provinces are usually Rigvedis and the Kanaujia
+Brahmans Yajurvedis. Followers of the other two Vedas are practically
+not found. Among Kanaujia Brahmans it is also customary to ask the
+head of a family with which a marriage is proposed whether he ties
+a knot in the right or left half of his Shikha or scalp-lock during
+his prayers and whether he washes his right or left foot first in
+the performance of a religious ceremony.
+
+
+
+8. Exogamy.
+
+
+The exogamous arrangements of the Brahmans are also very complex. It
+is said that the Brahmans are descended from the seven sons of
+the god Brahma, who were Bhrigu, Angirasa, Marichi, Atri, Pulaha,
+Pulastya and Vasishtha. But Pulaha only begot demons and Pulastya
+giants, while Vasishtha died and was born again as a descendant
+of Marichi. Consequently the four ancestors of the Brahmans were
+Bhrigu, Angirasa, Marichi and Atri. But according to another account
+the ancestors of the Brahmans were the seven Rishis or saints who
+form the constellation of the Great Bear. These were Jamadagni,
+Bharadwaj, Gautam, Kashyap, Vasishtha, Agastya, Atri and Visvamitra,
+who makes the eighth and is held to be descended from Atri. These
+latter saints are also said to be the descendants of the four original
+ones, Atri appearing in both lists. But the two lists taken together
+make up eleven great saints, who were the eponymous ancestors of
+the Brahmans. All the different subcastes have as a rule exogamous
+classes tracing their descent from these saints. But each group,
+such as that of Bhrigu or Angirasa, contains a large number of
+exogamous sections usually named after other more recent saints, and
+intermarriage is sometimes prohibited among the different sections,
+which are descended from the same son of Brahma or star of the
+Great Bear. The arrangement thus bears a certain resemblance to the
+classification system of exogamy found among primitive races, only
+that the number of groups is now fairly large; but it is said that
+originally there were only four, from the four sons of Brahma who
+gave birth to Brahmans. The names of other important saints, after
+whom exogamous sections are most commonly called, are Garg, Sandilya,
+Kaushik, Vatsya and Bhargava. These five appear sometimes to be held
+as original ancestors in addition to the eleven already mentioned. It
+may be noted that some of the above names of saints have a totemistic
+character; for instance, Bharadwaj means a lark; Kashyap resembles
+Kachhap, the name for a tortoise; Kaushik may come from the _kusha_
+grass; Agastya from the _agasti_ flower, and so on. Within the main
+group exogamy sometimes also goes by titles or family names. Thus
+the principal titles of the Kanaujias are: Pande, a wise man; Dube,
+learned in two Vedas; Tiwari, learned in three Vedas; Chaube, learned
+in four Vedas; Sukul, white or pure; Upadhya, a teacher; Agnihotri,
+the priest who performs the fire-sacrifice; Dikshit, the initiator,
+and so on. Marriage between persons bearing the same family name
+tends to be prohibited, as they are considered to be relations.
+
+
+
+9. Restrictions on marriage.
+
+
+The prohibition of marriage within the _gotra_ or exogamous section
+bars the union of persons related solely through males. In addition
+to this, according to Hindu law a Brahman must not marry a girl of his
+mother's or maternal grandfather's _gotra_, or one who is a _sapinda_
+of his father or maternal grandfather. Mr. Joshi states that _sapindas_
+are persons related through being particles of the same body. It is
+also understood that two persons are said to be _sapindas_ when they
+can offer _pindas_ or funeral cakes to the same ancestor. The rule
+barring the marriage of _sapindas_ is that two persons cannot marry
+if they are both as near as fourth in descent from a common ancestor,
+and the relationship is derived through the father of either party. If
+either is more remote than fourth in descent they apparently could
+marry. If the relationship of the couple is through their mothers
+in each case, then they cannot marry if they are third in descent
+from the same ancestor, but may do so in the fourth or subsequent
+generations. It is of no importance whether the intervening links
+between the common ancestor and the proposed couple are male or female;
+descent is considered to be male if through the father, and female
+if through the mother. In practice, marriages are held to be valid
+between persons fourth in descent from a common ancestor in the case
+of male relationship, and third in the case of female relationship,
+that is, persons having a common greatgrandparent in the male line
+or a common grandparent in the female line can marry.
+
+Other rules are that girls must not be exchanged in marriage between
+two families, and a man may not marry two sisters, though he can
+marry his deceased wife's sister. The bride should be both younger
+in age and shorter in stature than the bridegroom. A younger sister
+should not be married while her elder sister is single.
+
+
+
+10. Hypergamy.
+
+
+The practice of hypergamy is, or was until recently, common among
+Brahmans. This is the rule by which the social estimation of a
+family is raised if its girls are married into a class of higher
+social status than its own. Members of the superior classes will take
+daughters from the lower classes on payment usually of a substantial
+bride-price, but will not give their daughters to them. According
+to Manu, men of the higher castes were allowed to take wives from
+the lower ones but not to give daughters to them. The origin of the
+custom is obscure. If caste was based on distinctions of race, then
+apparently the practice of hypergamy would be objectionable, because
+it would destroy the different racial classes. If, on the other
+hand, the castes consisted of groups of varying social status, the
+distinction being that those of the lower ones could not participate
+in the sacramental or communal meals of the higher ones, then the
+marriage of a daughter into a higher group, which would carry with
+it participation at the sacramental marriage feast of this group,
+might well be a coveted distinction. The custom of hypergamy prevails
+somewhat largely in northern India between different subcastes, groups
+of different social status in the same subcaste, and occasionally
+even between different castes. The social results of hypergamy, when
+commonly practised, are highly injurious. Men of the higher subcastes
+get paid for marrying several wives, and indulge in polygamy, while
+the girls of the higher subcastes and the boys of the lower ones
+find it difficult and sometimes even impossible to obtain husbands
+and wives. The custom attained its most absurd development among the
+Kulin Brahmans of eastern Bengal, as described by Sir H. Risley. [408]
+Here the Brahmans were divided by a Hindu king, Ballal Sen, into
+two classes, the Kulin (of good family), who had observed the entire
+nine counsels of perfection; and the Srotriya, who, though regular
+students of the Vedas, had lost sanctity by intermarrying with families
+of inferior birth. The latter were further subdivided into three
+classes according to their degree of social purity, and each higher
+class could take daughters from the next one or two lower ones. The
+doctrine known as Kula-gotra was developed, whereby the reputation of
+a family depended on the character of the marriages made by its female
+members. In describing the results of the system Sir H. Risley states:
+"The rush of competition for Kulin husbands on the part of the inferior
+classes became acute. In order to dispose of the surplus of women in
+the higher groups polygamy was resorted to on a very large scale:
+it was popular with the Kulins because it enabled them to make a
+handsome income by the accident of their birth; and it was accepted
+by the parents of the girls concerned as offering the only means of
+complying with the requirements of the Hindu religion. Tempted by a
+_pan_ or premium, which often reached the sum of two thousand rupees,
+Swabhava Kulins made light of their _kul_ and its obligations, and
+married girls, whom they left after the ceremony to be taken care of by
+their parents. Matrimony became a sort of profession, and the honour
+of marrying a girl to a Kulin is said to have been so highly valued
+in eastern Bengal that as soon as a boy was ten years old his friends
+began to discuss his matrimonial prospects, and before he was twenty
+he had become the husband of many wives of ages varying from five to
+fifty." The wives were commonly left at home to be supported by their
+parents, and it is said that when a Kulin Brahman had a journey to
+make he usually tried to put up for the night at the house of one of
+his fathers-in-law. All the marriages were recorded in the registers
+of the professional Ghataks or marriage-brokers, and each party was
+supplied with an extract. On arrival at his father-in-law's house the
+Kulin would produce his extract showing the date on which his marriage
+took place; and the owner of the house, who was often unfamiliar with
+the bridegroom's identity, would compare it with his own extract. When
+they agreed he was taken in and put up for the night, and enjoyed the
+society of his wife. The system thus entailed the greatest misery to
+large numbers of women, both those who were married to husbands whom
+they scarcely ever saw, and those of the higher classes who got no
+husbands at all. It is now rapidly falling into abeyance. Hypergamy
+is found in the Central Provinces among the subcastes of Kanaujia
+Brahmans. The Sarwaria subcaste, which is the highest, takes daughters
+from Kanaujias and Jijhotias, and the Kanaujias take them from the
+Jijhotias. These and other subcastes such as the Khedawals are also
+often divided into two groups of different status, the higher of
+which takes daughters from the lower. Usually the parents of the
+girl pay a liberal bridegroom-price in money or ornaments. It has
+never, however, been carried to the same length here as in Bengal,
+and two, or in some cases three, wives are the limit for a man of
+the higher classes. One division of Kanaujias is called the Satkul or
+seven families, and is the highest. Other Kanaujias, who are known as
+Pachhadar, pay substantial sums for husbands for this group, and it is
+reported that if such a marriage takes place and the bridegroom-price
+is not paid up, the husband will turn his wife out and send her home
+to her father. Certain subcastes of Sunars also have hypergamy and,
+as between different castes, it exists between the Dangis and Rajputs,
+pure Rajputs being held willing to take daughters in marriage from
+the highest clans of Dangis.
+
+
+
+11. Marriage customs.
+
+
+A text of Manu prescribes: [409] "If a young woman marry while she is
+pregnant, whether her pregnancy be known or unknown, the male child in
+her womb belongs to the bridegroom and is called a son received with
+his bride." But at present a Brahman girl who is known to be pregnant
+will be wholly debarred from the sacrament of marriage. An invitation
+to a wedding is sent by means of grains of rice coloured yellow with
+turmeric and placed in a brass bowl with areca-nuts over them. All
+the members of the caste or subcaste who eat food with the host and
+are resident in the same town or close at hand are as a rule invited,
+and all relatives of the family who reside at a distance. The head of
+the family goes himself to the residence of the guests and invites
+them with expressions of humility to honour his home. Before the
+wedding the ancestors of the family and also the divine mothers are
+worshipped, these latter consisting of the consorts of the principal
+gods. In front of the wedding procession are carried _kalashas_ or
+earthen jars filled to the brim with water, and with green shoots
+and branches floating on the top. The _kalasha_ is said to represent
+the universe and to contain the principal gods and divine mothers,
+while the waters in it are the seven seas. All these are witnesses
+to the wedding. Among other ceremonies, presents of fruit, food,
+ornaments and jewellery are exchanged between the parties, and these
+are called _choli-ka-bharana_ or filling the bride's breast-cloth. The
+original object of giving these presents was thus, it would appear
+from the name, to render the bride fertile. The father then gives
+his daughter away in a set form of speech. After reciting the exact
+moment of time, the hour, the day, the minute according to solar
+and lunar reckoning, the year and the epoch, he proceeds: "In the
+name of Vishnu (repeating the name three times), the supreme spirit,
+father and creator of the universe, and in furtherance of his wish for
+the propagation of the human species, I (specifying his full name and
+section, etc.), in the company of my married wife, do hereby offer the
+hand of my daughter--may she live long--full of all virtuous qualities,
+image of Lakshmi, wife of Vishnu, anxious of union in lawful wedlock,
+ornamented and dressed, brought up and instructed according to the best
+of my means, by name (naming her and repeating the full description
+of ancestors, class, etc.) in the solemn presence of the Brahmans,
+Gurus, fire and deities, to you--may you live long--(repeating the
+bridegroom's name and full description), anxious to obtain a wife
+with a view to secure the abode of bliss and eternal happiness in
+the heaven of Brahma. Accept her with _kusha_ grass, grains of rice,
+water and presents of money." Afterwards the father asks the bridegroom
+never to disregard the feelings and sentiments of his wife in matters
+of religion, social pleasures and the acquisition of money, and the
+bridegroom agrees. The binding portion of the ceremony consists in
+walking seven times round the sacred post, and when the seventh round
+is completed the marriage is irrevocable. Among the Maratha Brahmans
+the bridegroom is called Nawar Deo or the new god. During the five
+days of the wedding he is considered to be a sort of king, and is
+put in the highest place, and everybody defers to him. They make the
+bridegroom and bride name each other for a joke, as they are ashamed
+to do this, and will not untie their clothes to let them bathe until
+they have done it. At all the feasts the bride and bridegroom are
+made to eat out of the same plate, and they put pieces of food in
+each other's mouth, which is supposed to produce affection between
+them. The wedding expenses in an ordinary Kanaujia Brahman's family,
+whose income is perhaps Rs. 20 to 40 a month, are estimated at Rs. 200
+for the bridegroom's party and Rs. 175 for the bride's, exclusive
+of any bride- or bridegroom-price. The bulk of the expenditure is on
+feasts to the caste. The bride does not live with her husband until
+after she arrives at puberty, but it is thought desirable that she
+should spend long visits with his family before this, in order that
+she may assimilate their customs and be trained by her mother-in-law,
+according to the saying, 'Tender branches are easily bent.' Among
+some Maratha Brahmans, when the bride arrives at puberty a ceremony
+called Garhbhadan is performed, and the husband confesses whether he
+has cohabited with his wife before her puberty, and if so, he is fined
+a small sum. Such instances usually occur when the signs of puberty
+are delayed. If the planet Mangal or Mars is adverse to a girl in her
+horoscope, it is thought that her husband will die. The women of her
+family will, therefore, first marry her secretly to a pipal-tree,
+so that the tree may die instead. But they do not tell this to the
+bridegroom. In Saugor, girls whose horoscope is unfavourable to the
+husband are first married to the _arka_ or swallow-wort plant. If
+a Brahman has not sufficient funds to arrange for the marriage of
+his daughter he will go about and beg, and it is considered that
+alms given for this purpose acquire special merit for the donor,
+nor will any good Brahman refuse a contribution according to his means.
+
+
+
+12. Polygamy, divorce and treatment of widows.
+
+
+Polygamy conveys no stigma among Brahmans, but is uncommon. Divorce
+is not recognised, a woman who is put away by her husband being turned
+out of the caste. The remarriage of widows is strictly prohibited. It
+is said that marriage is the only sacrament (Sanskar) for a woman,
+and she can only go through it once. The holy nuptial texts may not
+be repeated except for a virgin. The prohibition of the remarriage
+of widows has become a most firmly rooted prejudice among the higher
+classes of Hindus, and is the last to give way before the inroads of
+liberal reform. Only a small minority of the most advanced Brahmans
+have recognised widow-remarriage, and these are generally held to
+be excluded from the caste, though breaches of the rules against the
+consumption of prohibited kinds of meat, and the drinking of aerated
+waters and even alcoholic liquor, are now winked at and not visited
+with the proper penalty. Nevertheless, many classes of Brahmans,
+who live in the country and have taken to cultivation, allow widows
+to live with men without putting the family out of caste. Where
+this is not permitted, surreptitious intercourse may occasionally
+take place with members of the family. The treatment of widows is
+also becoming more humane. Only Maratha and Khedawal Brahmans in
+the Central Provinces still force them to shave their heads, and
+these will permit a child-widow to retain her hair until she grows
+up, though they regard her as impure while she has it. A widow is
+usually forbidden to have a cot or bed, and must sleep on the ground
+or on a plank. She may not chew betel-leaves, should eat only once
+a day, and must rigorously observe all the prescribed fasts. She
+wears white clothes only, no glass bangles, and no ornaments on her
+feet. She is subject to other restrictions and is a general drudge
+in the family. It is probable that the original reason for such
+treatment of a widow was that she was considered impure through being
+perpetually haunted by her husband's ghost. Hindus say that a widow
+is half-dead. She should not be allowed to cook the household food,
+because while cooking it she will remember her husband and the food
+will become like a corpse. The smell of such food will offend the gods,
+and it cannot be offered to them. A widow is not permitted to worship
+the household god or the ancestors of the family. It was no doubt an
+advantage under the joint family system that a widow should not claim
+any life-interest in her husband's property. The modern tendency of
+widows, who are left in possession, to try and alienate the property
+from the husband's relatives has been a fruitful cause of litigation
+and the ruin of many old landed families. The severe treatment of
+widows was further calculated to suppress any tendency on the part
+of wives to poison their husbands. These secondary grounds may have
+contributed something to the preservation and enforcement of an idea
+based originally on superstitious motives.
+
+
+
+13. _Sati_ or burning of widows.
+
+
+For a widow to remain single and lead an austere and joyless life was
+held to confer great honour on her family; and this was enormously
+enhanced when she decided to become _sati_ and die with her husband
+on the funeral pyre. Though it is doubtful whether this practice is
+advocated by the Vedas, subsequent Hindu scriptures insist strongly
+on it. It was said that a widow who was burnt with her husband would
+enjoy as many years in paradise as there are hairs on the human head,
+that is to say, thirty-five million. Conversely, one who insisted
+on surviving him would in her next birth go into the body of some
+animal. By the act of _sati_ she purified all her husband's ancestors,
+even from the guilt of killing a Brahman, and also those of her own
+family. If a man died during an absence from home in another country
+his wife was recommended to take his slippers or any other article
+of dress and burn herself with them tied to her breast. [410]
+
+Great honour was paid to a Sati, and a temple or memorial stone was
+always erected to her at which her spirit was venerated, and this
+encouraged many pious women not only to resign themselves to this
+terrible death but ardently to desire it. The following account given
+by Mr. Ward of the method of a _sati_ immolation in Bengal may be
+reproduced: [411]
+
+"When the husband's life is despaired of and he is carried to the
+bank of the Ganges, the wife declares her resolution to be burnt
+with him. In this case she is treated with great respect by her
+neighbours, who bring her delicate food, and when her husband is dead
+she again declares her resolve to be burnt with his body. Having
+broken a small branch from a mango tree she takes it with her and
+proceeds to the body, where she sits down. The barber then paints
+the sides of her feet red, after which she bathes and puts on new
+clothes. During these preparations the drum beats a certain sound by
+which it is known that a widow is about to be burnt with the corpse
+of her husband. A hole is dug in the ground round which posts are
+driven into the earth, and thick green stakes laid across to form a
+kind of bed; and upon these are laid in abundance dry faggots, hemp,
+clarified butter and pitch. The officiating Brahman now causes the
+widow to repeat the prayer that as long as fourteen Indras reign,
+or as many years as there are hairs on her head, she may abide in
+heaven with her husband; that during this time the heavenly dancers
+may wait on her and her husband; and that by this act of merit all
+the ancestors of her mother and husband may ascend to heaven. She
+now presents her ornaments to her friends, ties some red cotton on
+both wrists, puts two new combs in her hair, paints her forehead,
+and takes into the end of the cloth that she wears some parched
+rice and cowries. The dead body is bathed, anointed with butter,
+and dressed in new clothes. The son takes a handful of boiled rice
+and offers it in the name of his deceased father. Ropes and another
+piece of cloth are spread on the wood, and the dead body is laid
+upon the pile. The widow next walks round the pyre seven times,
+as she did round the marriage-post at her wedding, strewing parched
+rice and cowries as she goes, which the spectators catch and keep
+under the belief that they will cure diseases. The widow then lies
+down on the fatal pile by the side of the dead body. The bodies are
+bound together with ropes and the faggots placed over them. The son,
+averting his head, puts fire to the face of his father, and at the
+same moment several persons light the pile at different sides, when
+the women and mourners set up cries. More faggots are hastily brought
+and thrown over the pile, and two bamboo levers are pressed over them
+to hold down the bodies and the pile. Several persons are employed in
+holding down these levers. More clarified butter, pitch and faggots
+are thrown on to the pile till the bodies are consumed. This may
+take about two hours, but I conceive the woman must be dead in a few
+minutes after the fire has been kindled."
+
+As showing the tenacity with which women sometimes adhered to their
+resolve to be burned with their husbands, and thus, as they believed,
+resume their conjugal life in heaven, the following account by Sir
+William Sleeman, in his _Rambles and Recollections_, of a _sati_
+at Jubbulpore may be given:
+
+"At Gopalpur on the Nerbudda are some very pretty temples built
+for the most part to the memory of women who have burned themselves
+with the remains of their husbands, and on the very spot where the
+cremation occurred. Among them was one recently raised over the ashes
+of one of the most extraordinary old bodies I had ever seen, who
+burned herself in my presence in 1829. In March 1828 I had issued a
+proclamation prohibiting any one from aiding or assisting in _sati_,
+and distinctly stating that to bring one ounce of wood for the
+purpose would be considered as so doing. Subsequently, on Tuesday,
+24th November, I had an application from the heads of the most
+respectable and most extensive family of Brahmans in the District,
+to suffer this old woman to burn herself with the remains of her
+husband, Umeid Singh Upadhya, who had that morning died upon the
+banks of the Nerbudda. I threatened to enforce my order and punish
+severely any man who assisted; and placed a police guard for the
+purpose of seeing that no one did so. The old woman remained by the
+edge of the water without eating or drinking. Next day the body of her
+husband was burned in the presence of several thousand spectators,
+who had assembled to see the _sati_. The sons and grandsons of the
+old woman remained with her, urging her to desist from her resolve,
+while her other relatives surrounded my house urging me to allow her
+to burn. All the day she remained sitting upon a bare rock in the bed
+of the Nerbudda, refusing every kind of sustenance, and exposed to
+the intense heat of the sun by day and the severe cold of the night,
+with only a thin sheet thrown over her shoulders. On the next day,
+Thursday, to cut off all hope of her being moved from her purpose,
+she put on the _dhujja_ or coarse red turban and broke her bracelets
+in pieces, by which she became dead in law and for ever excluded from
+caste. Should she choose to live after this she could never return
+to her family. On the morning of Saturday, the fourth day after the
+death, I rode out ten miles to the spot, and found the poor old widow
+sitting with the _dhujja_ round her head, a brass plate before her
+with undressed rice and flowers, and a cocoanut in each hand. She
+talked very collectedly, telling me that she had determined to mix her
+ashes with those of her departed husband, and should patiently await
+my permission to do so, assured that God would enable her to sustain
+life till that was given, though she dared not eat or drink. Looking
+at the sun, then rising before her over a long and beautiful reach of
+the Nerbudda, she said calmly: 'My soul has been for five days with
+my husband's near that sun; nothing but my earthly frame is left,
+and this I know you will in time suffer to be mixed with the ashes
+of his in yonder pit, because it is not in your nature wantonly
+to prolong the miseries of a poor old woman.' I told her that my
+object and duty was to save and preserve her; I was come to urge her
+to live and keep her family from the disgrace of being thought her
+murderers. I tried to work upon her pride and fears. I told her that
+the rent-free lands on which her family had long subsisted might be
+resumed by Government if her children permitted her to do this act;
+and that no brick or stone should ever mark the place of her death;
+but if she would live, a splendid habitation should be made for her
+among the temples, and an allowance given her from the rent-free
+lands. She smiled, but held out her arm and said, 'My pulse has long
+ceased to beat, for my spirit has departed, and I have nothing left
+but a little earth that I wish to mix with the ashes of my husband. I
+shall suffer nothing in burning, and if you wish proof order some fire,
+and you shall see this arm consumed without giving me any pain.' I
+did not attempt to feel her pulse, but some of my people did, and
+declared that it had ceased to be perceptible. At this time every
+native present believed that she was incapable of suffering pain,
+and her end confirmed them in their opinion. Satisfied myself that
+it would be unavailing to attempt to save her life, I sent for all
+the principal members of the family, and consented that she should be
+suffered to burn herself if they would enter into engagements that no
+other member of their family should ever do the same. This they all
+agreed to, and the papers having been drawn out in due form about
+midday, I sent down notice to the old lady, who seemed extremely
+pleased and thankful. The ceremonies of bathing were gone through
+before three, while the wood and other combustible materials for a
+strong fire were collected and put into the pit. After bathing she
+called for a _pan_ (betel-leaf) and ate it, then rose up, and with one
+arm on the shoulder of her eldest son, and the other on that of her
+nephew, approached the fire. As she rose up fire was set to the pile,
+and it was instantly in a blaze. The distance was about one hundred
+and fifty yards; she came on with a calm and cheerful countenance,
+stopped once, and casting her eyes upwards said, 'Why have they kept
+me five days from thee, my husband?' On coming to the sentries her
+supports stopped, she walked round the pit, paused a moment; and while
+muttering a prayer threw some flowers into the fire. She then walked
+deliberately and steadily to the brink, stepped into the centre of
+the flame, sat down, and leaning back in the midst as if reposing
+upon a couch, was consumed without uttering a shriek or betraying
+one sign of agony."
+
+In cases, however, where women shrank from the flames they were
+frequently forced into them, as it was a terrible disgrace to their
+families that they should recoil on the scene of the sacrifice. Opium
+and other drugs were also administered to stupefy the woman and prevent
+her from feeling pain. Widows were sometimes buried alive with their
+dead husbands. The practice of _sati_ was finally prohibited in 1829,
+without exciting the least discontent.
+
+
+
+14. Funeral rites and mourning.
+
+
+The bodies of children dying before they are named, or before the
+tonsure ceremony is performed on them, are buried, and those of other
+persons are burnt. In the grave of a small child some of its mother's
+milk, or, if this is not available, cow's milk in a leaf-cup or earthen
+vessel, is placed. Before a body is burnt cakes of wheat-flour are put
+on the face, breast and both shoulders, and a coin is always deposited
+for the purchase of the site. Mourning or impurity is observed for
+varying periods, according to the nearness of relationship. For a
+child, relatives other than the parents have only to take a bath to
+remove the impurity caused by the death. In a small town or village all
+Brahmans of the same subcaste living in the place are impure from the
+time of the death until cremation has taken place. After the funeral
+the chief mourner performs the _shraddh_ ceremony, offering _pindas_
+or cakes of rice, with libations of water, to the dead. Presents are
+made to Brahmans for the use of the dead man in the other world, and
+these are sometimes very valuable, as it is thought that the spirit
+will thereby be profited. Such presents are taken by the Maha-Brahman,
+who is much despised. When a late zamindar of Khariar died, Rs. 2000
+were given to the Maha-Brahman for the use of his soul in the next
+world. The funeral rites are performed by an ordinary Brahman, known
+as Malai, who may receive presents after the period of impurity has
+expired. Formerly a calf was let loose in the name of the deceased
+after being branded with the mark of a trident to dedicate it to Siva,
+and allowed to wander free thenceforth. Sometimes it was formally
+married to three or four female calves, and these latter were presented
+to Brahmans. Sometimes the calf was brought to stand over the dying
+man and water poured down its tail into his mouth. The practice of
+letting loose a male calf is now declining, as these animals are a
+great nuisance to the crops, and cultivators put them in the pound. The
+calf is therefore also presented to a Brahman. It is believed that the
+_shraddh_ ceremony is necessary to unite the dead man's spirit with
+the Pitris or ancestors, and without this it wanders homeless. Some
+think that the ancestors dwell on the under or dark side of the
+moon. Those descendants who can offer the _pindas_ or funeral cakes
+to the same ancestor are called Sapindas or relatives, and the man
+who fills the office of chief mourner thereby becomes the dead man's
+heir. Persons who have died a violent death or have been executed are
+not entitled to the ordinary funeral oblations, and cannot at once be
+united with the ancestors. But one year after the death an effigy of
+the deceased person is made in _kusha_ grass and burnt, with all the
+ordinary funeral rites, and offerings are made to his spirit as if
+he had died on this occasion. If the death was caused by snake-bite
+a gold snake is made and presented to a Brahman before this ceremony
+is begun. This is held to be the proper funeral ceremony which unites
+his spirit with the ancestors. Formerly in Madras if a man died during
+the last five days of the waning of the moon it was considered very
+unlucky. In order to escape evil effects to the relatives a special
+opening was made in the wall of the house, through which the body
+was carried, and the house itself was afterwards abandoned for three
+to six months. [412] A similar superstition prevails in the Central
+Provinces about a man dying in the Mul Nakshatra or lunar asterism,
+which is perhaps the same or some similar period. In this case it is
+thought that the deaths of four other members of the household are
+portended, and to avert this four human figures are made of flour or
+grass and burnt with the corpse. According to the Abbe Dubois if a
+man died on a Saturday it was thought that another death would occur
+in the family, and to avert this a living animal, such as a ram,
+goat or fowl, was offered with the corpse. [413]
+
+
+
+15. Religion.
+
+
+The religion of the Brahmans is Hinduism, of which they are the
+priests and exponents. Formerly the Brahman considered himself as
+a part of Brahma, and hence a god. This belief has decayed, but the
+gods are still held to reside in the body; Siva in the crown of the
+head, Vishnu in the chest, Brahma in the navel, Indra in the genitals
+and Ganesh in the rectum. Most Brahmans belong to a sect worshipping
+especially Siva or Vishnu, or Rama and Krishna, the incarnations of
+the latter god, or Sakti, the female principle of energy of Siva. But
+as a rule Brahmans, whether of the Sivite or Vishnuite sects, abstain
+from flesh meat and are averse to the killing of any living thing. The
+following account of the daily ritual prayers of a Benares Brahman
+may be reproduced from M. Andre Chevrillon's _Romantic India_, [414]
+as, though possibly not altogether accurate in points of detail,
+it gives an excellent idea of their infinitely complicated nature:
+
+
+
+16. Daily ritual.
+
+
+"Here is the daily life of one of the twenty-five thousand Brahmans
+of Benares. He rises before the dawn, and his first care is to look
+at an object of good omen. If he sees a crow at his left, a kite,
+a snake, a cat, a hare, a jackal, an empty jar, a smoking fire,
+a wood-pile, a widow, a man blind of one eye, he is threatened with
+great dangers during the day. If he intended to make a journey, he
+puts it off. But if he sees a cow, a horse, an elephant, a parrot, a
+lizard, a clear-burning fire, a virgin, all will go well. If he should
+sneeze once, he may count upon some special good fortune; but if twice
+some disaster will happen to him. If he yawns some demon may enter his
+body. Having avoided all objects of evil omen, the Brahman drops into
+the endless routine of his religious rites. Under penalty of rendering
+all the day's acts worthless, he must wash his teeth at the bank of
+a sacred stream or lake, reciting a special _mantra_, which ends in
+this ascription: 'O Ganges, daughter of Vishnu, thou springest from
+Vishnu's foot, thou art beloved by him! Remove from us the stains of
+sin and birth, and until death protect us thy servants!' He then rubs
+his body with ashes, saying: 'Homage to Siva, homage to the source of
+all birth! May he protect me during all births!' He traces the sacred
+signs upon his forehead--the three vertical lines representing the
+foot of Vishnu, or the three horizontal lines which symbolise the
+trident of Siva--and twists into a knot the hair left by the razor
+on the top of his head, that no impurity may fall from it to pollute
+the sacred river.
+
+"He is now ready to begin the ceremonies of the morning (_sandhya_),
+those which I have just observed on the banks of the river. Minutely
+and mechanically each Brahman performs by himself these rites of
+prescribed acts and gestures. First the internal ablution: the
+worshipper takes water in the hollow of his hand, and, letting it
+fall from above into his mouth, cleanses his body and soul. Meanwhile
+he mentally invokes the names of Vishnu, saying, 'Glory to Keshava,
+to Narayana, to Madhava, to Govinda,' and so on.
+
+"The second rite is the exercise or 'discipline' of the respiration
+(_prajayama_). Here there are three acts: first, the worshipper
+compresses the right nostril with the thumb, and drives the breath
+through the left; second, he inhales through the left nostril,
+then compresses it, and inhales through the other; third, he stops
+the nose completely with thumb and forefinger, and holds his breath
+as long as possible. All these acts must be done before sunrise, and
+prepare for what is to follow. Standing on the water's edge, he utters
+solemnly the famous syllable OM, pronouncing it _aum_, with a length
+equalling that of three letters. It recalls to him the three persons
+of the Hindu trinity: Brahma, who creates; Vishnu, who preserves;
+Siva, who destroys. More noble than any other word, imperishable,
+says Manu, it is eternal as Brahma himself. It is not a sign, but a
+being, a force; a force which constrains the gods, superior to them,
+the very essence of all things. Mysterious operations of the mind,
+strange associations of ideas, from which spring conceptions like
+these! Having uttered this ancient and formidable syllable, the man
+calls by their names the three worlds: earth, air, sky; and the four
+superior heavens. He then turns towards the east, and repeats the verse
+[415] from the Rig-Veda: 'Let us meditate upon the resplendent glory of
+the divine vivifier, that it may enlighten our minds.' As he says the
+last words he takes water in the palm of his hand and pours it upon the
+top of his head. 'Waters,' he says, 'give me strength and vigour that
+I may rejoice. Like loving mothers, bless us, penetrate us with your
+sacred essence. We come to wash ourselves from the pollution of sins:
+make us fruitful and prosperous.' Then follow other ablutions, other
+_mantras_, verses from the Rig-Veda, and this hymn, which relates the
+origin of all things: 'From the burning heat came out all things. Yes,
+the complete order of the world; Night, the throbbing Ocean, and after
+the throbbing Ocean, Time, which separates Light from Darkness. All
+mortals are its subjects. It is this which disposes of all things,
+and has made, one after another, the sun, the sky, the earth, the
+intermediate air.' This hymn, says Manu, thrice repeated, effaces
+the gravest sins.
+
+"About this time, beyond the sands of the opposite shore of the Ganges,
+the sun appears. As soon as its brilliant disc becomes visible the
+multitude welcome it, and salute it with 'the offering of water.' This
+is thrown into the air, either from a vase or from the hand. Thrice
+the worshipper, standing in the river up to his waist, flings the
+water towards the sun. The farther and wider he flings it, the greater
+the virtue attributed to this act. Then the Brahman, seated upon his
+heels, fulfils the most sacred of his religious duties: he meditates
+upon his fingers. For the fingers are sacred, inhabited by different
+manifestations of Vishnu; the thumb by Govinda, the index-finger by
+Madhava, the middle finger by Hrikesa, the third by Trivikama and the
+little finger by Vishnu himself. 'Homage to the two thumbs,' says
+the Brahman, 'to the two index-fingers, to the two middle fingers,
+to the two "unnamed fingers," to the two little fingers, to the two
+palms, to the two backs of the hands.' Then he touches the various
+parts of the body, and lastly, the right ear, the most sacred of all,
+where reside fire, water, the sun and the moon. He then takes a red
+bag (_gomukhi_), into which he plunges his hand, and by contortions
+of the fingers rapidly represents the chief incarnations of Vishnu:
+a fish, a tortoise, a wild boar, a lion, a slip-knot, a garland. [416]
+
+"The second part of the service is no less rich than the first
+in ablutions and _mantras_. The Brahman invokes the sun, 'Mitra,
+who regards all creatures with unchanging gaze,' and the Dawns,
+'brilliant children of the sky,' the earliest divinities of our Aryan
+race. He extols the world of Brahma, that of Siva, that of Vishnu;
+recites passages from the Mahabharata, the Puranas, all the first
+hymn of the Rig-Veda, the first lines of the second, the first words
+of the principal Vedas, of the Yajur, the Sama, and the Atharva, then
+fragments of grammar, inspired prosodies, and, in conclusion, the first
+words of the book of the Laws of Yajnavalkya, the philosophic Sutras:
+and finally ends the ceremony with three kinds of ablutions, which are
+called the refreshing of the gods, of the sages and of the ancestors.
+
+"First, placing his sacred cord upon the left shoulder, the Brahman
+takes up water in the right hand, and lets it run off his extended
+fingers. To refresh the sages, the cord must hang about the neck,
+and the water run over the side of the hand between the thumb and the
+forefinger, which is bent back. For the ancestors, the cord passes
+over the right shoulder, and the water falls from the hand in the
+same way as for the sages. 'Let the fathers be refreshed,' says the
+prayer, 'may this water serve all those who inhabit the seven worlds,
+as far as to Brahma's dwelling, even though their number be greater
+than thousands of millions of families. May this water, consecrated
+by my cord, be accepted by the men of my race who have left no sons.'
+
+"With this prayer the morning service ends. Now, remember that
+this worship is daily, that these formulas must be pronounced,
+these movements of the hands made with mechanical precision; that
+if the worshipper forgets one of the incarnations of Vishnu which
+he is to figure with his fingers, if he stop his left nostril when
+it should be the right, the entire ceremony loses its efficacy;
+that, not to go astray amid this multitude of words and gestures
+required for each rite, he is obliged to use mnemotechnic methods;
+that there are five of these for each series of formulas; that his
+attention always strained and always directed toward the externals
+of the cult, does not leave his mind a moment in which to reflect
+upon the profound meaning of some of these prayers, and you will
+comprehend the extraordinary scene that the banks of the Ganges at
+Benares present every morning; this anxious and demented multitude,
+these gestures, eager and yet methodical, this rapid movement of the
+lips, the fixed gaze of these men and women who, standing in the water,
+seem not even to see their neighbours, and count mentally like men in
+the delirium of a fever. Remember that there are ceremonies like these
+in the afternoon and also in the evening, and that in the intervals,
+in the street, in the house at meals, when going to bed, similar rites
+no less minute pursue the Brahman, all preceded by the exercises of
+respiration, the enunciation of the syllable OM, and the invocation of
+the principal gods. It is estimated that between daybreak and noon he
+has scarcely an hour of rest from the performance of these rites. After
+the great powers of nature, the Ganges, the Dawn, and the Sun, he
+goes to worship in their temples the representations of divinity,
+the sacred trees, finally the cows, to whom he offers flowers. In
+his own dwelling other divinities await him, five black stones,
+[417] representing Siva, Ganesa, Surya, Devi and Vishnu, arranged
+according to the cardinal points: one towards the north, a second to
+the south-east, a third to the south-west, a fourth to the north-west,
+and one in the centre, this order changing according as the worshipper
+regards one god or another as most important; then there is a shell,
+a bell--to which, kneeling, he offers flowers--and, lastly, a vase,
+whose mouth contains Vishnu, the neck Rudra, the paunch Brahma, while
+at the bottom repose the three divine mothers, the Ganges, the Indus,
+and the Jumna.
+
+"This is the daily cult of the Brahman of Benares, and on holidays
+it is still further complicated. Since the great epoch of Brahmanism
+it has remained the same. Some details may alter, but as a whole it
+has always been thus tyrannical and thus extravagant. As far back
+as the Upanishads appears the same faith in the power of articulate
+speech, the same imperative and innumerable prescriptions, the same
+singular formulas, the same enumeration of grotesque gestures. Every
+day, for more than twenty-five hundred years, since Buddhism was a
+protest against the tyranny and absurdity of rites, has this race
+mechanically passed through this machinery, resulting in what mental
+malformations, what habitual attitudes of mind and will, the race is
+now too different from ourselves for us to be able to conceive."
+
+Secular Brahmans now, however, greatly abridge the length of their
+prayers, and an hour or an hour and a half in the morning suffices
+for the daily bath and purification, the worship of the household
+deities and the morning meal.
+
+
+
+17. The sacred thread.
+
+
+Brahman boys are invested with the sacred thread between the ages of
+five and nine. The ceremony is called Upanayana or the introduction to
+knowledge, since by it the boy acquires the right to read the sacred
+books. Until this ceremony he is not really a Brahman, and is not bound
+to observe the caste rules and restrictions. By its performance he
+becomes Dvija or twice-born, and the highest importance is attached
+to the change or initiation. He may then begin to acquire divine
+knowledge, and perhaps in past times it was thought that he obtained
+the divine character belonging to a Brahman. The sacred thread is
+made of three strands of cotton, which should be obtained from the
+cotton tree growing wild. Sometimes a tree is grown in the yard of
+the house for the provision of the threads. It has several knots
+in it, to which great importance is attached, the number of knots
+being different for a Brahman, a Kshatriya and a Vaishya, the three
+twice-born castes. The thread hangs from the left shoulder, falling
+on to the right hip. Sometimes, when a man is married, he wears a
+double thread of six strands, the second being for his wife; and after
+his father dies a treble one of nine strands. At the investiture the
+boy's nails are cut and his hair is shaved, and he performs the _hom_
+or fire sacrifice for the first time. He then acquires the status of
+a Brahmachari or disciple, and in former times he would proceed to
+some religious centre and begin to study the sacred books. The idea
+of this is preserved by a symbolic ritual. Some Brahmans shave the
+boy's head completely, make a girdle of _kusha_ or _munj_ grass round
+his waist, provide him with a begging-bowl and tongs and the skin of
+an antelope to sit on and make him go and beg from four houses. Among
+others the boy gets on to a wooden horse and announces his intention
+of going off to Benares to study. His mother then sits on the edge of
+a well and threatens to throw herself in if he will not change his
+mind, or the maternal uncle promises to give the boy his daughter
+in marriage. Then the boy relinquishes his intention and agrees to
+stay at home. The sacred thread must always be passed through the
+hand before saying the Gayatri text in praise of the sun, the most
+sacred Brahmanical text. The sacred thread is changed once a year on
+the day of Rakshabandhan; the Brahman and all his family change it
+together. The word Rakshabandhan means binding or tying up the devils,
+and it would thus appear that the sacred thread and the knots in it
+may have been originally intended to some extent to be a protection
+against evil spirits. It is also changed on the occasion of a birth
+or death in the family, or of an eclipse, or if it breaks. The old
+threads are torn up or sewn into clothes by the very poor in the
+Maratha districts. It is said that the Brahmans are afraid that the
+Kunbis will get hold of their old threads, and if they do get one
+they will fold it into four strings, holding a lamp in the middle,
+and wave it over any one who is sick. The Brahmans think that if this
+is done all the accumulated virtue which they have obtained by many
+repetitions of the Gayatri or sacred prayer will be transferred to
+the sick Kunbi. Many castes now wear the sacred thread who have no
+proper claim to do so, especially those who have become landholders
+and aspire to the status of Rajputs.
+
+
+
+18. Social position.
+
+
+The Brahman is of course supreme in Hindu society. He never bows his
+head in salutation to any one who is not a Brahman, and acknowledges
+with a benediction the greetings of all other classes. No member
+of another caste, Dr. Bhattacharya states, can, consistently with
+Hindu etiquette and religious beliefs, refuse altogether to bow to
+a Brahman. "The more orthodox Sudras carry their veneration for the
+priestly caste to such an extent that they will not cross the shadow
+of a Brahman, and it is not unusual for them to be under a vow not
+to eat any food in the morning before drinking Brahman nectar, [418]
+or water in which the toe of a Brahman has been dipped. On the other
+hand, the pride of the Brahman is such that he does not bow even to
+the images of the gods in a Sudra's house. When a Brahman invites a
+Sudra the latter is usually asked to partake of the host's _prasada_
+or favour in the shape of the leavings of his plate. Orthodox Sudras
+actually take offence if invited by the use of any other formula. No
+Sudra is allowed to eat in the same room or at the same time with
+Brahmans." [419]
+
+A man of low caste meeting a Brahman says 'Pailagi' or 'I fall at
+your feet,' and touches the Brahman's foot with his hand, which he
+then carries to his own forehead to signify this. A man wishing to
+ask a favour in a humble manner stands on one leg and folds his cloth
+round his neck to show that his head is at his benefactor's disposal;
+and he takes a piece of grass in his mouth by which he means to say,
+'I am your cow.' Brahmans greeting each other clasp the hands and say
+'Salaam,' this method of greeting being known as Namaskar. Since
+most Brahmans have abandoned the priestly calling and are engaged
+in Government service and the professions, this exaggerated display
+of reverence is tending to disappear, nor do the educated members of
+the caste set any great store by it, preferring the social estimation
+attaching to such a prominent secular position as they often attain
+for themselves.
+
+
+
+19. Titles.
+
+
+Any Brahman is, however, commonly addressed by other castes as
+Maharaj, great king, or else as Pandit, a learned man. I had a Brahman
+chuprassie, or orderly, who was regularly addressed by the rest of the
+household as Pandit, and on inquiring as to the literary attainments
+of this learned man, I found he had read the first two class-books in
+a primary school. Other titles of Brahmans are Dvija, or twice-born,
+that is, one who has had the thread ceremony performed; Bipra, applied
+to a Brahman learned in the Shastras or scriptures; and Srotriya,
+a learned Brahman who is engaged in the performance of Vedic rites.
+
+
+
+20. Caste _panchayat_ and offences.
+
+
+The Brahmans have a caste _panchayat_, but among the educated classes
+the tendency is to drop the _panchayat_ procedure and to refer
+matters of caste rules and etiquette to the informal decision of a
+few of the most respected local members. In northern India there is
+no supreme authority for the caste, but the five southern divisions
+acknowledge the successor of the great reformer Shankar Acharya as
+their spiritual head, and important caste questions are referred to
+him. His headquarters are at the monastery of Sringeri on the Cauvery
+river in Mysore. Mr. Joshi gives four offences as punishable with
+permanent exclusion from caste: killing a Brahman, drinking prohibited
+wine or spirits, committing incest with a mother or step-mother or
+with the wife of one's spiritual preceptor, and stealing gold from a
+priest. Some very important offences, therefore, such as murder of any
+person other than a Brahman, adultery with a woman of impure caste and
+taking food from her, and all offences against property, except those
+mentioned, do not involve permanent expulsion. Temporary exclusion is
+inflicted for a variety of offences, among which are teaching the Vedas
+for hire, receiving gifts from a Sudra for performing fire-worship,
+falsely accusing a spiritual preceptor, subsisting by the harlotry of a
+wife, and defiling a damsel. It is possible that some of the offences
+against morality are comparatively recent additions. Brahmans who
+cross the sea to be educated in England are readmitted into caste
+on going through various rites of purification; the principal of
+these is to swallow the five products of the sacred cow, milk, _ghi_
+or preserved butter, curds, dung and urine. But the small minority
+who have introduced widow-marriage are still banned by the orthodox.
+
+
+
+21. Rules about food.
+
+
+Brahmans as a rule should not eat meat nor drink intoxicating
+liquor. But it is said that the following indulgences have been
+recognised: for residents in eastern India the eating of flesh and
+drinking liquor; for those of northern India the eating of flesh; for
+those in the west the use of water out of leather buckets; and in the
+south marriage with a first cousin on the mother's side. Hindustani
+Brahmans eat meat, according to Mr. Joshi, and others are now also
+adopting this custom. The kinds of meat permitted are mutton and
+venison, scaly, but not scaleless, fish, hares, and even the tortoise,
+wild boar, wild buffalo and rhinoceros. Brahmans are said even to
+eat domestic fowls, though not openly, and wild jungle fowls are
+preferred, but are seldom obtainable. Maratha Brahmans will not eat
+meat openly. Formerly only the flesh of animals offered in sacrifice
+could be eaten, but this rule is being disregarded and some Brahmans
+buy mutton from the butchers. A Brahman should not eat even _pakki
+rasoi_ or food cooked without water, such as sweetmeats and cakes fried
+in butter or oil, except when cooked by his own family and in his own
+home. But these are now partaken of abroad, and also purchased from
+the Halwai or confectioner on the assumption that he is a Brahman. A
+Brahman should take food cooked with water only from his own relations
+and in his own home after the place has been purified and spread
+with cowdung. He bathes before eating, and wears only a yellow silk
+or woollen cloth round his waist, which is kept specially for this
+purpose, cotton being regarded as impure. But these rules are tending
+to become obsolete, as educated Brahmans recognise more and more what
+a hindrance they cause to any social enjoyment. Boys especially who
+receive an English education in high schools and universities are
+rapidly becoming more liberal. They will drink soda-water or lemonade
+of which they are very fond, and eat European sweets and sometimes
+biscuits. The social intercourse of boys of all castes and religions
+in school and games, and in the latter the frequent association with
+Europeans, are having a remarkable effect in breaking down caste
+prejudice, the results of which should become very apparent in a few
+years. A Brahman also should not smoke, but many now do so, and when
+they go to see a friend will take their own huqqa with them as they
+cannot smoke out of his. Maratha and Khedawal Brahmans, however,
+as a rule do not smoke, but only chew tobacco.
+
+
+
+22. Dress.
+
+
+A Brahman's dress should be white, and he can have a coloured turban,
+preferably red. Maratha Brahmans were very particular about the
+securing of their _dhoti_ or loin-cloth, which always had to have
+five tucks, three into the waistband at the two sides and in front,
+while the loose ends were tucked in in front and behind. Buttons had
+to be avoided as they were made of bone, and shoes were considered
+to be impure as being of leather. Formerly a Brahman never entered
+a house with his shoes on, as he would consider the house to be
+defiled. According to the old rule, if a Brahman touches a man of
+an impure caste, as a Chamar (tanner) or Basor (basket-maker), he
+should bathe and change his loin-cloth, and if he touches a sweeper
+he should change his sacred thread. Now, however, educated Brahmans
+usually wear white cotton trousers and black or brown coats of cloth,
+alpaca or silk with the normal allowance of buttons, and European
+shoes and boots which they keep on indoors. Boys are even discarding
+the _choti_ or scalp-lock and simply cut their hair short in imitation
+of the English. For the head small felt caps have become fashionable
+in lieu of turbans.
+
+
+
+23. Tattooing.
+
+
+Men are never tattooed, but women are freely tattooed on the face
+and body. One dot is made in the centre of the forehead and three
+on the left nostril in the form of a triangle. All the limbs and the
+fingers and toes may also be tattooed, the most common patterns being
+a peacock with spread wings, a fish, cuckoo, scorpion, a child's
+doll, a sieve, a pattern of Sita's cookroom and representations of
+all female ornaments. Some women think that they will be able to sell
+the ornaments tattooed on their bodies in the next world and subsist
+on the proceeds.
+
+
+
+24. Occupation.
+
+
+In former times the Brahman was supposed to confine himself to priestly
+duties, learning the Vedas and giving instruction to the laity. His
+subsistence was to be obtained from gleaning the fields after the
+crop had been cut and from unsolicited alms, as it was disgraceful
+for him to beg. But if he could not make a living in this manner
+he was at liberty to adopt a trade or profession. The majority of
+Brahmans have followed the latter course with much success. They were
+the ministers of Hindu kings, and as these were usually illiterate,
+most of the power fell into the Brahmans' hands. In Poona the Maratha
+Brahmans became the actual rulers of the State. They have profited
+much from gifts and bequests of land for charitable purposes and are
+one of the largest landholding castes. In Mewar it was recorded that a
+fifth of the State revenue from land was assigned in religious grants,
+[420] and in the deeds of gift, drawn up no doubt by the Brahmans
+themselves, the most terrible penalties were invoked on any one who
+should interfere with the grant. One of these was that such an impious
+person would be a caterpillar in hell for sixty thousand years. [421]
+Plots of land and mango groves are also frequently given to Brahmans
+by village proprietors. A Brahman is forbidden to touch the plough
+with his own hands, but this rule is falling into abeyance and many
+Brahman cultivators plough themselves. Brahmans are also prohibited
+from selling a large number of articles, as milk, butter, cows, salt
+and so on. Formerly a Brahman village proprietor refused payment
+for the supplies of milk and butter given to travellers, and some
+would expend the whole produce of their cattle in feeding religious
+mendicants and poor Brahmans. But these scruples, which tended to
+multiply the number of beggars indefinitely, have happily vanished,
+and Brahmans will even sell cows to a butcher. Mr. Joshi relates
+that a suit was brought by a Brahman in his court for the hide of a
+cow sold by him for slaughter. A number of Brahmans are employed as
+personal servants, and these are usually cooks, a Brahman cook being
+very useful, since all Hindus can eat the food which he prepares. Nor
+has this calling hitherto been considered derogatory, as food is
+held to be sacred, and he who prepares it is respected. Many live on
+charitable contributions, and it is a rule among Hindus that a Brahman
+coming into the house and asking for a present must be given something
+or his curse will ruin the family. Liberality is encouraged by the
+recitation of legends, such as that of the good king Harischandra who
+gave away his whole kingdom to the great Brahman saint Visvamitra,
+and retired to Benares with a loin-cloth which the recipient allowed
+him to retain from his possessions. But Brahmans who take gifts at the
+time of a death, and those who take them from pilgrims at the sacred
+shrines, are despised and considered as out of caste, though not the
+priests in charge of temples. The rapacity of all these classes is
+proverbial, and an instance may be given of the conduct of the Pandas
+or temple-priests of Benares. These men were so haughty that they
+never appeared in the temple unless some very important visitor was
+expected, who would be able to pay largely. It is related that when
+the ex-Peshwa of Poona came to Benares after the death of his father
+he solicited the Panda of the great temple of Viseshwar to assist him
+in the performance of the ceremonies necessary for the repose of his
+father's soul. But the priest refused to do so until the Maharaja had
+filled with coined silver the _hauz_ or font of the temple. The demand
+was acceded to and Rs. 125,000 were required to fill the font. [422]
+Those who are very poor adopt the profession of a Maha-Brahman or
+Mahapatra, who takes gifts for the dead. Respectable Brahmans will
+not accept gifts at all, but when asked to a feast the host usually
+gives them one to four annas or pence with betel-leaf at the time of
+their departure, and there is no shame in accepting this. A very rich
+man may give a gold mohar (guinea) to each Brahman. Other Brahmans
+act as astrologers and foretell events. They pretend to be able
+to produce rain in a drought or stop excessive rainfall when it is
+injuring the crops. They interpret dreams and omens. In the case of
+a theft the loser will go to a Brahman astrologer, and after learning
+the circumstances the latter will tell him what sort of person stole
+the property and in what direction the property is concealed. But
+the large majority of Brahmans have abandoned all priestly functions,
+and are employed in all grades of Government service, the professions
+and agriculture. In 1911 about fifty-three per cent of Brahmans in
+the Central Provinces were supported by agriculture as landowners,
+cultivators and labourers. About twenty-two per cent were engaged
+in the arts and professions, seven per cent in Government service,
+including the police which contains many Brahman constables, and
+only nineteen per cent were returned under all occupations connected
+with religion.
+
+
+
+25. Character of Brahmans.
+
+
+Many hard things have been said about the Brahman caste and have
+not been undeserved. The Brahman priesthood displayed in a marked
+degree the vices of arrogance, greed, hypocrisy and dissimulation,
+which would naturally be engendered by their sacerdotal pretensions
+and the position they claimed at the head of Hindu society. But
+the priests and mendicants now, as has been seen, contribute only a
+comparatively small minority of the whole caste. The majority of the
+Brahmans are lawyers, doctors, executive officers of Government and
+clerks in all kinds of Government, railway and private offices. The
+defects ascribed to the priesthood apply to these, if at all, only in
+a very minor degree. The Brahman official has many virtues. He is, as
+a rule, honest, industrious and anxious to do his work creditably. He
+spends very little on his own pleasures, and his chief aim in life is
+to give his children as good an education as he can afford. A half or
+more of his income may be devoted to this object. If he is well-to-do
+he helps his poor relations liberally, having the strong fellow-feeling
+for them which is a relic of the joint family system. He is a faithful
+husband and an affectionate father. If his outlook on life is narrow
+and much of his leisure often devoted to petty quarrels and intrigues,
+this is largely the result of his imperfect, parrot-like education
+and lack of opportunity for anything better. In this respect it may
+be anticipated that the excellent education and training now afforded
+by Government in secondary schools for very small fees will produce a
+great improvement; and that the next generation of educated Hindus will
+be considerably more manly and intelligent, and it may be hoped at the
+same time not less honest, industrious and loyal than their fathers.
+
+
+
+Brahman, Ahivasi
+
+
+_Brahman, Ahivasi._--A class of persons who claim to be Brahmans, but
+are generally engaged in cultivation and pack-carriage. They are looked
+down upon by other Brahmans, and permit the remarriage of widows. The
+name means the abode of the snake or dragon, and the caste are said to
+be derived from a village Sunrakh in Muttra District, where a dragon
+once lived. For further information Mr. Crooke's article on the caste,
+[423] from which the above details are taken, may be consulted.
+
+
+
+Brahman, Jijhotia
+
+
+_Brahman, Jijhotia._--This is a local subdivision of the Kanaujia
+subcaste, belonging to Bundelkhand. They take their name from Jajhoti,
+the classical term for Bundelkhand, and reside in Saugor and the
+adjoining Districts, where they usually act as priests to the higher
+castes. The Jijhotia Brahmans rank a little below the Kanaujias proper
+and the Sarwarias, who are also a branch of the Kanaujia division. The
+two latter classes take daughters in marriage from Jijhotias, but do
+not give their daughters to them. But these hypergamous marriages are
+now rare. Jijhotia Brahmans will plough with their own hands in Saugor.
+
+
+
+Brahman, Kanaujia, Kanyakubja
+
+
+_Brahman, Kanaujia, Kanyakubja._--This, the most important division
+of the northern Brahmans, takes its name from the ancient city of
+Kanauj in the Farukhabad District on the Ganges, which was on two
+occasions the capital of India. The great king Harsha Vardhana, who
+ruled the whole of northern India in the seventh century, had his
+headquarters here, and when the Chinese pilgrim Hiuen Tsang stayed at
+Kanauj in A.D. 638 and 643 he found upwards of a hundred monasteries
+crowded by more than 10,000 Buddhist monks. "Hinduism flourished as
+well as Buddhism, and could show more than two hundred temples with
+thousands of worshippers. The city, which was strongly fortified,
+extended along the east bank of the Ganges for about four miles, and
+was adorned with lovely gardens and clear tanks. The inhabitants were
+well-to-do, including some families of great wealth; they dressed in
+silk, and were skilled in learning and the arts." [424] When Mahmud
+of Ghazni appeared before Kanauj in A.D. 1018 the number of temples
+is said to have risen to 10,000. The Sultan destroyed the temples,
+but seems to have spared the city. Thereafter Kanauj declined in
+importance, though still the capital of a Rajput dynasty, and the
+final sack by Shihab-ud-Din in A.D. 1194 reduced it to desolation
+and insignificance for ever. [425]
+
+The Kanaujia Brahmans include the principal body of the caste in
+Bengal and in the Hindi Districts of the Central Provinces. They are
+here divided into four sub-groups, the Kanaujia proper, Sarwaria,
+Jijhotia and Sanadhya, which are separately noticed. The Sarwarias
+are sometimes considered to rank a little higher than the proper
+Kanaujias. It is said that the two classes are the descendants of two
+brothers, Kanya and Kubja, of whom the former accepted a present from
+the divine king Rama of Ayodhya when he celebrated a sacrifice on his
+return from Ceylon, while the latter refused it. The Sarwarias are
+descended from Kubja who refused the present and therefore are purer
+than the Kanaujias, whose ancestor, Kanya, accepted it. Kanya and Kubja
+are simply the two parts of Kanyakubja, the old name for Kanauj. It may
+be noted that Kanya means a maiden and also the constellation Virgo,
+while Kubja is a name of the planet Mars; but it is not known whether
+the words in this sense are connected with the name of the city. The
+Kanaujia Brahmans of the Central Provinces practise hypergamy,
+as described in the general article on Brahman. Mr. Crooke states
+that in the United Provinces the children of a man's second wife can
+intermarry with those of his first wife, provided that they are not
+otherwise related or of the same section. The practice of exchanging
+girls between families is also permitted there. [426] In the Central
+Provinces the Kanaujias eat meat and sometimes plough with their own
+hands. The Chhattisgarhi Kanaujias form a separate group, who have
+been long separated from their brethren elsewhere. As a consequence
+other Kanaujias will neither eat nor intermarry with them. Similarly
+in Saugor those who have come recently from the United Provinces will
+not marry with the older settlers. A Kanaujia Brahman is very strict
+in the matter of taking food, and will scarcely eat it unless cooked
+by his own relations, according to the saying, '_Ath Kanaujia, nau
+chulha_' or 'Eight Kanaujias will want nine places to cook their food.'
+
+
+
+Brahman, Khedawal
+
+
+_Brahman, Khedawal._--The Khedawals are a class of Gujarati Brahmans,
+who take their name from Kheda or Kaira, the headquarters of the Kaira
+District, where they principally reside. They have two divisions,
+known as Inside and Outside. It is said that once the Kaira chief was
+anxious to have a son and offered them gifts. The majority refused the
+gifts, and leaving Kaira settled in villages outside the town; while
+a small number accepted the gifts and remained inside, and hence two
+separate divisions arose, the outside group being the higher. [427]
+It is said that the first Khedawal who came to the Central Provinces
+was on a journey from Gujarat to Benares when, on passing through
+Panna State, he saw some diamonds lying in a field. He stopped and
+picked up as many as he could and presented them to the Raja of Panna,
+who made him a grant of an estate, and from this time other Khedawals
+came and settled. A considerable colony of them now exists in Saugor
+and Damoh. The Khedawals are clever and astute, and many of them are
+the agents of landowners and moneylenders, while a large proportion
+are in the service of the Government. They do not as a rule perform
+priestly functions in the Central Provinces. Their caste observances
+are strict. Formerly it is said that a Khedawal who was sent to jail
+was permanently expelled from caste, and though the rule has been
+relaxed the penalties for readmission are still very heavy. They
+do not smoke, but only chew tobacco. Widows must dress in white,
+and their heads are sometimes shaved. They are said to consider a
+camel as impure as a donkey, and will not touch either animal. One
+of their common titles is Mehta, meaning great. The Khedawals of the
+Central Provinces formerly married only among themselves, but since
+the railway has been opened intermarriage with their caste-fellows
+in Gujarat has been resumed.
+
+
+
+Brahman, Maharashtra
+
+
+_Brahman, Maharashtra, Maratha._--The Maratha Brahmans, or those
+of the Bombay country, are numerous and important in the Central
+Provinces. The northern Districts were for a period governed by
+Maratha Brahmans on behalf of the Peshwa of Poona, and under the
+Bhonsla dynasty of Nagpur in the south they took a large part in the
+administration. The Maratha Brahmans have three main subcastes, the
+Deshasth, Konkonasth and Karhada. The Deshasth Brahmans belong to the
+country of Poona above the Western Ghats, which is known as the _desh_
+or home country. They are numerous in Berar and Nagpur. The Konkonasth
+are so called because they reside in the Konkan country along the
+Bombay coast. They have noticeably fair complexions, good features
+and often grey eyes. According to a legend they were sprung from the
+corpses of a party of shipwrecked foreigners, who were raised to life
+by Parasurama. [428] This story and their fine appearance have given
+rise to the hypothesis that their ancestors were shipwrecked sailors
+from some European country, or from Arabia or Persia. They are also
+known as Chitpavan, which is said to mean the pure in heart, but a
+derivation suggested in the _Bombay Gazetteer_ is from Chiplun or
+Chitapolan, a place in the Konkan which was their headquarters. The
+Peshwa of Poona was a Konkonasth Brahman, and there are a number of
+them in Saugor. The Karhada Brahmans take their name from the town
+of Karhad in the Satara District. They show little difference from
+the Deshasths in customs and appearance.
+
+Formerly the above three subcastes were endogamous and married only
+among themselves. But since the railway has been opened they have
+begun to intermarry with each other to a limited extent, having
+obtained sanction to this from the successor of Shankar Acharya,
+whom they acknowledge as their spiritual head.
+
+The Maratha Brahmans are also divided into sects, according to the
+Veda which they follow. Most of them are either Rigvedis or Yajurvedis,
+and these two sects marry among themselves. These Brahmans are strict
+in the observance of caste rules. They do not take water from any
+but other Brahmans, and abstain from flesh and liquor. They will,
+however, eat with any of the Panch-Dravid or southern divisions of
+Brahmans except those of Gujarat. They usually abstain from smoking,
+and until recently have made widows shave their heads; but this rule is
+perhaps now relaxed. As a rule they are well educated, and the majority
+of them look to Government service for a career, either as clerks
+in the public offices or as officers of the executive and judicial
+services. They are intelligent and generally reliable workers. The
+full name of a Maratha or Gujarati Brahman consists of his own name,
+his father's name and a surname. But he is commonly addressed by his
+own name, followed by the honorific termination Rao for Raja, a king,
+or Pant for Pandit, a wise man.
+
+
+
+Brahman, Maithil
+
+
+_Brahman, Maithil._--One of the five Panch-Gaur or northern divisions,
+comprising the Brahmans of Bihar or Tirhut. There are some Maithil
+Brahman families settled in Mandla, who were formerly in the service
+of the Gond kings. They have the surname of Ojha, which is one of those
+borne by the caste and signifies a soothsayer. The Maithil Brahmans are
+said to have at one time practised magic. Mithila or Bihar has also,
+from the earliest times, been famous for the cultivation of Sanskrit,
+and the great lawgiver Yajnavalkya is described as a native of this
+country. [429] The head of the subcaste is the Maharaja of Darbhanga,
+to whom family disputes are sometimes referred for decision. The
+Maithil Brahmans are said to be mainly Sakti worshippers. They eat
+flesh and fish, but do not drink liquor or smoke tobacco. [430]
+
+
+
+Brahman, Malwi
+
+
+_Brahman, Malwi._--This is a local class of Brahmans from Malwa
+in Central India, who are found in the Hoshangabad and Betul
+Districts. They are said to have been invited here by the Gond kings of
+Kherla in Betul six or more centuries ago, and are probably of impure
+descent. Malwa is north of the Nerbudda, and they should therefore
+properly belong to the Panch-Gaur division, but they speak Marathi and
+their customs resemble those of Maratha Brahmans, who will take food
+cooked without water from them. The Malwi Brahmans usually belong to
+the Madhyandina branch of the Yajurvedi sect. They work as village
+accountants (_patwaris_) and village priests, and also cultivate land.
+
+
+
+Brahman, Nagar
+
+
+_Brahman, Nagar._--A class of Gujarati Brahmans found in the Nimar
+District. The name is said to be derived from the town of Vadnagar of
+Gujarat, now in Baroda State. According to one account they accepted
+grants of land from a Rajput king, and hence were put out of caste
+by their fellows. Another story is that the Nagar Brahman women
+were renowned for their personal beauty and also for their skill in
+music. The emperor Jahangir, hearing of their fame, wished to see
+them and sent for them, but they refused to go. The emperor then
+ordered that all the men should be killed and the women be taken to
+his Court. A terrible struggle ensued, and many women threw themselves
+into tanks and rivers and were drowned, rather than lose their modesty
+by appearing before the emperor. A body of Brahmans numbering 7450
+(or 74 1/2 hundred) threw away their sacred threads and became Sudras
+in order to save their lives. Since this occurrence the figure 74
+1/2 is considered very unlucky. Banias write 74 1/2 in the beginning
+of their account-books, by which they are held to take a vow that if
+they make a false entry in the book they will be guilty of the sin
+of having killed this number of Brahmans. The same figure is also
+written on letters, so that none but the person to whom they are
+addressed may dare to open them. [431]
+
+The above stories seem to show that the Nagar Brahmans are partly of
+impure descent. In Gujarat it is said that one section of them called
+Barud are the descendants of Nagar Brahman fathers who were unable
+to get wives in their own caste and took them from others. The Barud
+section also formerly permitted the remarriage of widows. [432] This
+seems a further indication of mixed descent. The Nagars settled in
+the Central Provinces have for a long time ceased to marry with those
+of Gujarat owing to difficulties in communication. But now that the
+railway has been opened they have petitioned the Rao of Bhaunagar,
+who is the head of the caste, and a Nagar Brahman, to introduce
+intermarriage again between the two sections of the caste. Many Nagar
+Brahmans have taken to secular occupations and are land-agents and
+cultivators.
+
+Formerly the Nagar Brahmans observed very strict rules about defilement
+when in the state called _Nuven_, that is, having bathed and purified
+themselves prior to taking food. A Brahman in this condition was
+defiled if he touched an earthen vessel unless it was quite new and
+had never held water. If he sat down on a piece of cotton cloth or a
+scrap of leather or paper he became impure unless Hindu letters had
+been written on the paper; these, as being the goddess Saraswati, would
+preserve it from defilement. But cloth or leather could not be purified
+through being written on. Thus if the Brahman wished to read any book
+before or at his meal it had to be bound with silk and not with cotton;
+leather could not be used, and instead of paste of flour and water the
+binder had to employ paste of pounded tamarind seed. A printed book
+could not be read, because printing-ink contained impure matter. Raw
+cotton did not render the Brahman impure, but if it had been twisted
+into the wick of a lamp by any one not in a state of purity he became
+impure. Bones defiled, but women's ivory armlets did not, except in
+those parts of the country where they were not usually worn, and then
+they did. The touch of a child of the same caste who had not learned
+to eat grain did not defile, but if the child ate grain it did. The
+touch of a donkey, a dog or a pig defiled; some said that the touch
+of a cat also defiled, but others were inclined to think it did not,
+because in truth it was not easy to keep the cat out. [433]
+
+If a Brahman was defiled and rendered impure by any of the above
+means he could not proceed with his meal.
+
+
+
+Brahman, Naramdeo
+
+
+_Brahman, Naramdeo._--A class of Brahmans who live in the Hoshangabad
+and Nimar Districts near the banks of the Nerbudda, from which river
+their name is derived. According to their own account they belong to
+the Gurjara or Gujarati division, and were expelled from Gujarat by a
+Raja who had cut up a golden cow and wished them to accept pieces of it
+as presents. This they refused to do on account of the sin involved,
+and hence were exiled and came to the Central Provinces. A local
+legend about them is to the effect that they are the descendants
+of a famous Rishi or saint, who dwelt beside the Nerbudda, and of
+a Naoda or Dhimar woman who was one of his disciples. The Naramdeo
+Brahmans have for the most part adopted secular occupations, though
+they act as village priests or astrologers. They are largely employed
+as village accountants (_patwaris_), clerks in Government offices, and
+agents to landowners, that is, in very much the same capacity as the
+Kayasths. As land-agents they show much astuteness, and are reputed
+to have enriched themselves in many cases at the expense of their
+masters. Hence they are unpopular with the cultivators just as the
+Kayasths are, and very uncomplimentary proverbs are current about them.
+
+
+
+Brahman, Sanadhya
+
+
+_Brahman, Sanadhya, Sanaurhia._--The Sanadhyas are considered in the
+Central Provinces to be a branch of the Kanaujia division. Their
+home is in the Ganges-Jumna Doab and Rohilkhand, between the Gaur
+Brahmans to the north-west and the Kanaujias to the east. Mr. Crooke
+states that in some localities the Sanadhyas intermarry with both
+the Kanaujia and Gaur divisions. But formerly both Kanaujias and
+Gaurs practised hypergamy with the Sanadhyas, taking daughters from
+them in marriage but not giving their daughters to them. [434] This
+fact indicates the inferiority of the Sanadhya group, but marriage
+is now becoming reciprocal. In Bengal the Sanadhyas account for their
+inferiority to the other Kanaujias by saying that their ancestors on
+one occasion at the bidding of a Raja partook of a sacrificial feast
+with all their clothes on, instead of only their loin-cloths according
+to the rule among Brahmans, and were hence degraded. The Sanadhyas
+themselves have two divisions, the _Sarhe-tin ghar_ and _Dasghar_,
+or Three-and-a-half houses and Ten houses, of whom the former are
+superior, and practise hypergamy with the latter. Further, it is said
+that the Three-and-a-half group were once made to intermarry with the
+degraded Kataha or Maha-Brahmans, who are funeral priests. [435] This
+further indicates the inferior status of the Sanadhyas. The Sanaurhia
+criminal caste of pickpockets are supposed to be made up of a nucleus
+of Sanadhya Brahmans with recruits from all other castes, but this is
+not certain. In the Central Provinces a number of Sanadhyas took to
+carrying grain and merchandise on pack-bullocks, and are hence known
+as Belwar. They form a separate subcaste, ranking below the other
+Sanadhyas and marrying among themselves. Mr. Crooke notes that at
+their weddings the Sanadhyas worship a potter's wheel. Some make an
+image of it on the wall of the house, while others go to the potter's
+house and worship his wheel there. In the Central Provinces after
+the wedding they get a bed newly made with _newar_ tape and seat the
+bride and bridegroom on it, and put a large plate at their feet, in
+which presents are placed. The Sanadhyas differ from the Kanaujias in
+that they smoke tobacco but do not eat meat, while the Kanaujias eat
+meat but do not smoke. They greet each other with the word Dandawat,
+adding Maharaj to an equal or superior.
+
+
+
+Brahman, Sarwaria
+
+
+_Brahman, Sarwaria._--This is the highest class of the Kanaujia
+Bramans, who take their name from the river Sarju or Gogra in Oudh,
+where they have their home. They observe strict rules of ceremonial
+purity, and do not smoke tobacco nor plough with their own hands. An
+orthodox Sarwaria Braman will not give his daughter in marriage in a
+village from which his family has received a girl, and sometimes will
+not even drink the water of that village. The Sarwarias make widows
+dress in white and sometimes shave their heads. In some tracts they
+intermarry with the Kanaujia Brahmans, and in others take daughters in
+marriage but do not give their own daughters to them. In Dr. Buchanan's
+time, a century ago, the Sarwaria Brahmans would not eat rice sold in
+the bazar which had been cleaned in boiling water, as they considered
+that it had thereby become food cooked with water; and they carried
+their own grain to the grain-parcher to be prepared for them. When
+they ate either parched grain or sweetmeats from a confectioner in
+public they must purify the place on which they sat down with cowdung
+and water. [436] This may be compared with a practice observed by very
+strict Brahmans even now, of adding water to the medicine which they
+obtain from a Government dispensary, to purify it before drinking it.
+
+
+
+Brahman, Utkal
+
+
+_Brahman, Utkal._--These are the Brahmans of Orissa and one of
+the Panch-Gaur divisions. They are divided into two groups, the
+Dakshinatya or southern and the Jajpuria or northern clan. The Utkal
+Brahmans, who first settled in Sambalpur, are known as Jharia or
+jungly, and form a separate subcaste, marrying among themselves,
+as the later immigrants refuse to intermarry with them. Another
+group of Orissa Brahmans have taken to cultivation, and are known as
+Halia, from _hal_, a plough. They grow the betel-vine, and in Orissa
+the areca and cocoanuts, besides doing ordinary cultivation. They
+have entirely lost their sacerdotal character, but glory in their
+occupation, and affect to despise the Bed or Veda Brahmans, who live
+upon alms. [437] A third class of Orissa Brahmans are the Pandas,
+who serve as priests and cooks in the public temples and also in
+private houses, and travel about India touting for pilgrims to visit
+the temple at Jagannath. Dr. Bhattacharya describes the procedure of
+the temple-touts as follows: [438]
+
+"Their tours are so organised that during their campaigning season,
+which commences in November and is finished by the car-festival at the
+beginning of the rains, very few villages of the adjoining Provinces
+escape their visits and taxation. Their appearance causes a disturbance
+in every household. Those who have already visited 'The Lord of the
+World' at Puri are called upon to pay an instalment towards the debt
+contracted by them while at the sacred shrine, which, though paid
+many times over, is never completely satisfied. That, however, is a
+small matter compared with the misery and distraction caused by the
+'Jagannath mania,' which is excited by the preachings and pictures of
+the Panda. A fresh batch of old ladies become determined to visit the
+shrine, and neither the waitings and protestations of the children nor
+the prospect of a long and toilsome journey can dissuade them. The
+arrangements of the family are for the time being altogether upset,
+and the grief of those left behind is heightened by the fact that
+they look upon the pilgrims as going to meet almost certain death...."
+
+This vivid statement of the objections to the habit of pilgrimage from
+a Brahman writer is very interesting. Since the opening of the railway
+to Puri the danger and expense as well as the period of absence have
+been greatly reduced; but the pilgrimages are still responsible for
+a large mortality, as cholera frequently breaks out among the vast
+assembly at the temple, and the pilgrims, hastily returning to all
+parts of India, carry the disease with them, and cause epidemics in
+many localities. All castes now eat the rice cooked at the temple of
+Jagannath together without defilement, and friendships are cemented
+by eating a little of this rice together as a sacred bond.
+
+
+
+Chadar
+
+
+_Chadar, [439] Kotwar._--A small caste of weavers and village
+watchmen resident in the Districts of Saugor, Damoh, Jubbulpore and
+Narsinghpur. They numbered 28,000 persons in 1911. The caste is not
+found outside the northern Districts of the Central Provinces. The
+name is derived from the Sanskrit _chirkar_, a weaver, and belongs
+to Bundelkhand, but beyond this the Chadars have no knowledge or
+traditions of their origin. They are probably an occupational group
+formed from members of the Dravidian tribes and others who took to the
+profession of village watchmen. A number of other occupational castes
+of low status are found in the northern Districts, and their existence
+is probably to be accounted for by the fact that the forest tribes
+were subjected and their tribal organisation destroyed by the invading
+Bundelas and other Hindus some centuries ago. They were deprived
+of the land and relegated to the performance of menial and servile
+duties in the village, and they have formed a new set of divisions
+into castes arising from the occupations they adopted. The Chadars
+have two subcastes based on differences of religious practice, the
+Parmesuria or worshippers of Vishnu, and Athia or devotees of Devi. It
+is doubtful, however, whether these are strictly endogamous. They
+have a large number of exogamous septs or _bainks_, which are named
+after all sorts of animals, plants and natural objects. Instances of
+these names are Dhana (a leaf of the rice plant), Kasia (bell-metal),
+Gohia (a kind of lizard), Bachhulia (a calf), Gujaria (a milkmaid),
+Moria (a peacock), Laraiya (a jackal), Khatkira (a bug), Sugaria
+(a pig), Barraiya (a wasp), Neora (a mongoose), Bhartu Chiraiya (a
+sparrow), and so on. Thirty-nine names in all are reported. Members
+of each sept draw the figure of the animal or plant after which it
+is named on the wall at marriages and worship it. They usually refuse
+to kill the totem animal, and the members of the Sugaria or pig sept
+throw away their earthen vessels if a pig should be killed in their
+sight, and clean their houses as if on the death of a member of the
+family. Marriage between members of the same sept is forbidden and
+also between first cousins and other near relations. The Chadars say
+that the marriages of persons nearly related by blood are unhappy, and
+occasion serious consequences to the parties and their families. Girls
+are usually wedded in the fifth, seventh, ninth, or eleventh year
+of their age and boys between the ages of eight and sixteen. If an
+unmarried girl is seduced by a member of the caste she is married
+to him by the simple form adopted for the wedding of a widow. But
+if she goes wrong with an outsider of low caste she is permanently
+expelled. The remarriage of widows is permitted and divorce is also
+allowed, a deed being executed on stamped paper before the _panchayat_
+or caste committee. If a woman runs away from her husband to another
+man he must repay to the husband the amount expended on her wedding
+and give a feast to the caste. A Brahman is employed to fix the date
+of a wedding and sometimes for the naming of children, but he is only
+consulted and is never present at the ceremony. The caste venerate the
+goddess Devi, offering her a virgin she-goat in the month of Asarh
+(June-July). They worship their weaving implements at the Diwali
+and Holi festivals, and feed the crows in Kunwar (September-October)
+as representing the spirits of their ancestors. This custom is based
+on the superstition that a crow does not die of old age or disease,
+but only when it is killed. To cure a patient of fever they tie a
+blue thread, irregularly knotted, round his wrist. They believe that
+thunder-bolts are the arrows shot by Indra to kill his enemies in the
+lower world, and that the rainbow is Indra's bow; any one pointing at
+it will feel pain in his finger. The dead are mourned for ten days,
+and during that time a burning lamp is placed on the ground at some
+distance from the house, while on the tenth day a tooth-stick and water
+and food are set out for the soul of the dead. They will not throw the
+first teeth of a child on to a tiled roof, because they believe that if
+this is done his next teeth will be wide and ugly like the tiles. But
+it is a common practice to throw the first teeth on to the thatched
+roof of the house. The Chadars will admit members of most castes of
+good standing into the community, and they eat flesh, including pork
+and fowls, and drink liquor, and will take cooked food from most of the
+good castes and from Kalars, Khangars and Kumhars. The social status
+of the caste is very low, but they rank above the impure castes and
+are of cleanly habits, bathing daily and cleaning their kitchens
+before taking food. They are employed as village watchmen and as
+farmservants and field-labourers, and also weave coarse country cloth.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+Chamar
+
+
+
+List of Paragraphs
+
+
+    1. _General notice of the caste._
+    2. _Endogamous divisions._
+    3. _Subcastes continued._
+    4. _Exogamous divisions._
+    5. _Marriage._
+    6. _Widow-marriage and divorce._
+    7. _Funeral customs._
+    8. _Childbirth._
+    9. _Religion._
+    10. _Occupation._
+    11. _The tanning process._
+    12. _Shoes._
+    13. _Other articles made of leather._
+    14. _Customs connected with shoes._
+    15. _The Chamar as general village drudge._
+    16. _Social status._
+    17. _Character._
+
+
+
+1. General notice of the caste.
+
+
+_Chamar, Chambhar._ [440]--The caste of tanners and menial labourers
+of northern India. In the Central Provinces the Chamars numbered about
+900,000 persons in 1911. They are the third caste in the Province in
+numerical strength, being exceeded by the Gonds and Kunbis. About
+600,000 persons, or two-thirds of the total strength of the caste
+in the Province, belong to the Chhattisgarh Division and adjacent
+Feudatory States. Here the Chamars have to some extent emancipated
+themselves from their servile status and have become cultivators, and
+occasionally even malguzars or landed proprietors; and between them
+and the Hindus a bitter and long-standing feud is in progress. Outside
+Chhattisgarh the Chamars are found in most of the Hindi-speaking
+Districts whose population has been recruited from northern and
+central India, and here they are perhaps the most debased class of
+the community, consigned to the lowest of menial tasks, and their
+spirit broken by generations of servitude. In the Maratha country the
+place of the Chamars is taken by the Mehras or Mahars. In the whole
+of India the Chamars are about eleven millions strong, and are the
+largest caste with the exception of the Brahmans. The name is derived
+from the Sanskrit Charmakara, a worker in leather; and, according
+to classical tradition, the Chamar is the offspring of a Chandal or
+sweeper woman by a man of the fisher caste. [441] The superior physical
+type of the Chamar has been noticed in several localities. Thus in
+the Kanara District of Bombay [442] the Chamar women are said to be
+famed for their beauty of face and figure, and there it is stated
+that the Padminis or perfect type of women, middle-sized with fine
+features, black lustrous hair and eyes, full breasts and slim waists,
+[443] are all Chamarins. Sir D. Ibbetson writes [444] that their women
+are celebrated for beauty, and loss of caste is often attributed to
+too great a partiality for a Chamarin. In Chhattisgarh the Chamars
+are generally of fine stature and fair complexion; some of them are
+lighter in colour than the Chhattisgarhi Brahmans, and it is on record
+that a European officer mistook a Chamar for a Eurasian and addressed
+him in English. This, however, is by no means universally the case,
+and Sir H. Risley considers [445] that "The average Chamar is hardly
+distinguishable in point of features, stature or complexion from the
+members of those non-Aryan races from whose ranks we should primarily
+expect the profession of leather-dressers to be recruited." Again, Sir
+Henry Elliot, writing of the Chamars of the North-Western Provinces,
+says: "Chamars are reputed to be a dark race, and a fair Chamar is
+said to be as rare an object as a black Brahman:
+
+
+                Karia Brahman, gor Chamar,
+                Inke sath na utariye par,
+
+
+that is, 'Do not cross a river in the same boat with a black Brahman
+or a fair Chamar,' both being of evil omen." The latter description
+would certainly apply to the Chamars of the Central Provinces outside
+the Chhattisgarh Districts, but hardly to the caste as a whole within
+that area. No satisfactory explanation has been offered of this
+distinction of appearance of some groups of Chamars. It is possible
+that the Chamars of certain localities may be the descendants of a
+race from the north-west, conquered and enslaved by a later wave of
+immigrants; or that their physical development may owe something to
+adult marriage and a flesh diet, even though consisting largely of
+carrion. It may be noticed that the sweepers, who eat the broken food
+from the tables of the Europeans and wealthy natives, are sometimes
+stronger and better built than the average Hindu. Similarly, the
+Kasais or Muhammadan butchers are proverbially strong and lusty. But
+no evidence is forthcoming in support of such conjectures, and the
+problem is likely to remain insoluble.
+
+"The Chamars," Sir H. Risley states, [446] "trace their own pedigree
+to Ravi or Rai Das, the famous disciple of Ramanand at the end
+of the fourteenth century, and whenever a Chamar is asked what
+he is, he replies a Ravi Das. Another tradition current among them
+alleges that their original ancestor was the youngest of four Brahman
+brethren who went to bathe in a river and found a cow struggling in a
+quicksand. They sent the youngest brother in to rescue the animal, but
+before he could get to the spot it had been drowned. He was compelled,
+therefore, by his brothers to remove the carcase, and after he had
+done this they turned him out of their caste and gave him the name
+of Chamar." Other legends are related by Mr. Crooke in his article
+on the caste.
+
+
+
+2. Endogamous divisions.
+
+
+The Chamars are broken up into a number of endogamous subcastes. Of
+these the largest now consists of the members of the Satnami sect
+in Chhattisgarh, who do not intermarry with other Chamars. They
+are described in the article on that sect. The other Chamars call
+the Satnamis Jharia or 'jungly', which implies that they are the
+oldest residents in Chhattisgarh. The Satnamis are all cultivators,
+and have given up working in leather. The Chungias (from _chungi_,
+a leaf-pipe) are a branch of the Satnamis who have taken to smoking,
+a practice which is forbidden by the rules of the sect. In Chhattisgarh
+those Chamars who still cure hides and work in leather belong either
+to the Kanaujia or Ahirwar subcastes, the former of whom take their
+name from the well-known classical town of Kanauj in northern India,
+while the latter are said to be the descendants of unions between
+Chamar fathers and Ahir mothers. The Kanaujias are much addicted to
+drink, and though they eat pork they do not rear pigs. The Ahirwars,
+or Erwars as they are called outside Chhattisgarh, occupy a somewhat
+higher position than the Kanaujias. They consider themselves to be the
+direct descendants of the prophet Raidas or Rohidas, who, they say,
+had seven wives of different castes; one of them was an Ahir woman,
+and her offspring were the ancestors of the Ahirwar subcaste. Both
+the Kanaujias and Ahirwars of Chhattisgarh are generally known to
+outsiders as Paikaha, a term which indicates that they still follow
+their ancestral calling of curing hides, as opposed to the Satnamis,
+who have generally eschewed it. Those Chamars who are curriers have,
+as a rule, the right to receive the hides of the village cattle in
+return for removing the carcases, each family of Chamars having
+allotted to them a certain number of tenants whose dead cattle
+they take, while their women are the hereditary midwives of the
+village. Such Chamars have the designation of Meher. The Kanaujias
+make shoes out of a single piece of leather, while the Ahirwars cut
+the front separately. The latter also ornament their shoes with fancy
+work consisting of patterns of silver thread on red cloth. No Ahirwar
+girl is married until she has shown herself proficient in this kind of
+needlework. [447] Another well-known group, found both in Chhattisgarh
+and elsewhere, are the Jaiswaras, who take their name from the old
+town of Jais in the United Provinces. Many of them serve as grooms,
+and are accustomed to state their caste as Jaiswara, considering
+it a more respectable designation than Chamar. The Jaiswaras must
+carry burdens on their heads only and not on their shoulders, and
+they must not tie up a dog with a halter or neck-rope, this article
+being venerated by them as an implement of their calling. A breach
+of either of these rules entails temporary excommunication from caste
+and a fine for readmission. Among a number of territorial groups may
+be mentioned the Bundelkhandi or immigrants from Bundelkhand; the
+Bhadoria from the Bhadawar State; the Antarvedi from Antarved or the
+Doab, the country lying between the Ganges and Jumna; the Gangapari
+or those from the north of the Ganges; and the Pardeshi (foreigners)
+and Desha or Deswar (belonging to the country), both of which groups
+come from Hindustan. The Deswar Chamars of Narsinghpur [448] are now
+all agriculturists and have totally abjured the business of working in
+leather. The Mahobia and Khaijraha take their names from the towns of
+Mahoba and Khaijra in Central India. The Ladse or Ladvi come from south
+Gujarat, which in classical times was known as Lat; while the Maratha,
+Beraria and Dakhini subdivisions belong to southern India. There are
+a number of other territorial groups of less importance.
+
+
+
+3. Subcastes continued.
+
+
+Certain subcastes are of an occupational nature, and among these may be
+mentioned the Budalgirs of Chhindwara, who derive their name from the
+_budla_, or leather bag made for the transport and storage of oil and
+_ghi_. The _budla_, Mr. Trench remarks, [449] has been ousted by the
+kerosene oil tin, and the industry of the Budalgirs has consequently
+almost disappeared; but the _budlas_ are still used by barbers to
+hold oil for the torches which they carry in wedding processions. The
+Daijanya subcaste are so named because their women act as midwives
+(_dai_), but this business is by no means confined to one particular
+group, being undertaken generally by Chamar women. The Kataua or
+Katwa are leather-cutters, the name being derived from _katna_, to
+cut. And the Gobardhua (from _gobar_, cowdung) collect the droppings
+of cattle on the threshing-floors and wash out and eat the undigested
+grain. The Mochis or shoemakers and Jingars [450] or saddlemakers and
+bookbinders have obtained a better position than the ordinary Chamars,
+and have now practically become separate castes; while, on the other
+hand, the Dohar subcaste of Narsinghpur have sunk to the very lowest
+stage of casual labour, grass-cutting and the like, and are looked
+down on by the rest of the caste. [451] The Korchamars are said to be
+the descendants of alliances between Chamars and Koris or weavers, and
+the Turkanyas probably have Turk or Musalman blood in their veins. In
+Berar the Romya or Haralya subcaste claim the highest rank and say
+that their ancestor Harlya was the primeval Chamar who stripped off
+a piece of his own skin to make a pair of shoes for Mahadeo. [452]
+The Mangya [453] Chamars of Chanda and the Nona Chamars of Damoh are
+groups of beggars, who are the lowest of the caste and will take food
+from the hands of any other Chamar. The Nona group take their name
+from Nona or Lona Chamarin, a well-known witch about whom Mr. Crooke
+relates the following story: [454] "Her legend tells how Dhanwantari,
+the physician of the gods, was bitten by Takshaka, the king of the
+snakes, and knowing that death approached he ordered his sons to cook
+and eat his body after his death, so that they might thereby inherit
+his skill in medicine. They accordingly cooked his body in a cauldron,
+and were about to eat it when Takshaka appeared to them in the form
+of a Brahman and warned them against this act of cannibalism. So
+they let the cauldron float down the Ganges, and as it floated down,
+Lona the Chamarin, who was washing on the bank of the river, took the
+vessel out in ignorance of its contents, and partook of the ghastly
+food. She at once obtained power to cure diseases, and especially
+snake-bite. One day all the women were transplanting rice, and it
+was found that Lona could do as much work as all her companions put
+together. So they watched her, and when she thought she was alone she
+stripped off her clothes (nudity being an essential element in magic),
+muttered some spells, and threw the plants into the air, when they
+all settled down in their proper places. Finding she was observed, she
+tried to escape, and as she ran the earth opened, and all the water of
+the rice-fields followed her and thus was formed the channel of the
+Loni River in the Unao District." This Lona or Nona has obtained the
+position of a nursery bogey, and throughout Hindustan, Sir H. Risley
+states, parents frighten naughty children by telling them that Nona
+Chamarin will carry them off. The Chamars say that she was the mother
+or grandmother of the prophet Ravi Das, or Rai Das already referred to.
+
+
+
+4. Exogamous divisions.
+
+
+The caste is also divided into a large number of exogamous groups
+or sections, whose names, as might be expected, present a great
+diversity of character. Some are borrowed from Rajput clans, as
+Surajvansi, Gaharwar and Rathor; while others, as Marai, are taken
+from the Gonds. Instances of sections named after other castes are
+Banjar (Banjara), Jogi, Chhipia (Chhipi, a tailor) and Khairwar
+(a forest tribe). The Chhipia section preserve the memory of their
+comparatively illustrious descent by refusing to eat pork. Instances
+of sections called after a title or nickname of the reputed founder
+are Maladhari, one who wears a garland; Machhi-Mundia or fly-headed,
+perhaps the equivalent of feather-brained; Hathila, obstinate; Baghmar,
+a tiger-killer; Mangaya, a beggar; Dhuliya, a drummer; Jadkodiha, one
+who digs for roots, and so on. There are numerous territorial groups
+named after the town or village where the ancestor of the clan may
+be supposed to have lived; and many names also are of a totemistic
+nature, being taken from plants, animals or natural objects. Among
+these are Khunti, a peg; Chandaniha, sandalwood; Tarwaria, a sword;
+Borbans, plums; Miri, chillies; Chauria, a whisk; Baraiya, a wasp;
+Khalaria, a hide or skin; Kosni, _kosa_ or tasar silk; and Purain,
+the lotus plant. Totemistic observances survive only in one or two
+isolated instances.
+
+
+
+5. Marriage.
+
+
+A man must not take a wife from his own section, nor in some localities
+from that of his mother or either of his grandmothers. Generally the
+union of first cousins is prohibited. Adult marriage is the rule, but
+those who wish to improve their social position have taken to disposing
+of their daughters at an early age. Matches are always arranged by the
+parents, and it is the business of the boy's father to find a bride for
+his son. A bride-price is paid which may vary from two pice (farthings)
+to a hundred rupees, but usually averages about twenty rupees. In
+Chanda the amount is fixed at Rs. 13 and it is known as _hunda_,
+but if the bride's grandmother is alive it is increased to Rs. 15-8,
+and the extra money is given to her. The marriage ceremony follows the
+standard type prevalent in the locality. On his journey to the girl's
+house the boy rides on a bullock and is wrapped up in a blanket. In
+Bilaspur a kind of sham fight takes place between the parties, which
+is a reminiscence of the former practice of marriage by capture and is
+thus described as an eye-witness by the Rev. E. M. Gordon of Mungeli:
+[455]
+
+"As the bridegroom's party approached the home of the bride the boy's
+friends lifted him up on their shoulders, and, surrounding him on
+every side, they made their way to the bride's house, swinging round
+their sticks in a threatening manner. On coming near the house they
+crossed sticks with the bride's friends, who gradually fell back and
+allowed the bridegroom's friends to advance in their direction. The
+women of the house gathered with baskets and fans and some threw about
+rice in pretence of self-defence. When the sticks of the bridegroom's
+party struck the roof of the bride's house or of the marriage-shed her
+friends considered themselves defeated and the sham fight was at an
+end." Among the Maratha Chamars of Betul two earthen pots full of water
+are half buried in the ground and worship is paid to them. The bride
+and bridegroom then stand together and their relatives take out water
+from the pots and pour it on to their heads from above. The idea is
+that the pouring of the sacred water on to them will make them grow,
+and if the bride is much smaller than the bridegroom more water is
+poured on to her in order that she may grow faster. The practice may
+symbolise the fertilising influence of rain. Among the Dohar Chamars
+of Narsinghpur the bride and bridegroom are seated on a plough-yoke
+while the marriage ceremony is performed. Before the wedding the
+bride's party take a goat's leg in a basket with other articles to the
+_janwasa_ or bridegroom's lodging and present it to his father. The
+bride and bridegroom take the goat's leg and beat each other with it
+alternately. Another ceremony, known as Pendpuja, consists in placing
+pieces of stick with cotton stuck to the ends in an oven and burning
+them in the name of the deceased ancestors; but the significance, if
+there be any, of this rite is obscure. Some time after the wedding
+the bride is taken to her husband's house to live with him, and on
+this occasion a simple ceremony known as Chauk or Pathoni is performed.
+
+
+
+6. Widow-marriage and divorce.
+
+
+Widows commonly remarry, and may take for their second husband anybody
+they please, except their own relatives and their late husband's
+elder brother and ascendant relations. In Chhattisgarh widows are
+known either as _barandi_ or _randi_, the _randi_ being a widow
+in the ordinary sense of the term and the _barandi_ a girl who has
+been married but has not lived with her husband. Such a girl is not
+required to break her bangles on her husband's death, and, being more
+in demand as a second wife, her father naturally obtains a good price
+for her. To marry a woman whose husband is alive is known as _chhandwe
+banana_, the term _chhandwe_ implying that the woman has discarded,
+or has been discarded by, her husband. The second husband must in
+this case repay to the first husband the expenses incurred by him
+on his wedding. The marriage ceremony for a widow is of the simplest
+character, and consists generally of the presentation to her by her
+new husband of those articles which a married woman may use, but which
+should be forsworn by a widow, as representing the useless vanities
+of the world. Thus in Saugor the bridegroom presents his bride with
+new clothes, vermilion for the parting of her hair, a spangle for her
+forehead, lac dye for her feet, antimony for the eyes, a comb, glass
+bangles and betel-leaves. In Mandla and Seoni the bridegroom gives
+a ring, according to the English custom, instead of bangles. When
+a widow marries a second time her first husband's property remains
+with his family and also the children, unless they are very young,
+when the mother may keep them for a few years and subsequently send
+them back to their father's relatives. Divorce is permitted for a
+variety of causes, and is usually effected in the presence of the
+caste _panchayat_ or committee by the husband and wife breaking a
+straw as a symbol of the rupture of the union. In Chanda an image
+of the divorced wife is made of grass and burnt to indicate that to
+her husband she is as good as dead; if she has children their heads
+and faces are shaved in token of mourning, and in the absence of
+children the husband's younger brother has this rite performed; while
+the husband gives a funeral feast known as _Marti Jiti ka Bhat_, or
+'The feast of the living dead woman.' In Chhattisgarh marriage ties
+are of the loosest description, and adultery is scarcely recognised
+as an offence. A woman may go and live openly with other men and
+her husband will take her back afterwards. Sometimes, when two men
+are in the relation of Mahaprasad or nearest friend to each other,
+that is, when they have vowed friendship on rice from the temple of
+Jagannath, they will each place his wife at the other's disposal. The
+Chamars justify this carelessness of the fidelity of their wives by
+the saying, 'If my cow wanders and comes home again, shall I not let
+her into her stall?' In Seoni, if a Chamar woman is detected in a
+misdemeanour with a man of the caste, both parties are taken to the
+bank of a tank or river, where their heads are shaved in the presence
+of the caste _panchayat_ or committee. They are then made to bathe,
+and the shoes of all the assembled Chamars made up into two bundles
+and placed on their heads, while they are required to promise that
+they will not repeat the offence.
+
+
+
+7. Funeral customs.
+
+
+The caste usually bury the dead with the feet to the north, like the
+Gonds and other aboriginal tribes. They say that heaven is situated
+towards the north, and the dead man should be placed in a position to
+start for that direction. Another explanation is that the head of the
+earth lies towards the north, and yet another that in the Satyug or
+beginning of time the sun rose in the north; and in each succeeding
+Yug or era it has veered round the compass until now in the Kali Yug
+or Iron Age it rises in the east. In Chhattisgarh, before burying a
+corpse, they often make a mark on the body with butter, oil or soot;
+and when a child is subsequently born into the same family they
+look for any kind of mark on the corresponding place on its body. If
+any such be found they consider the child as a reincarnation of the
+deceased person. Still-born children, and those who die before the
+Chathi or sixth-day ceremony of purification, are not taken to the
+burial-ground, but their bodies are placed in an earthen pot and
+interred below the doorway or in the courtyard of the house. In
+such cases no funeral feast is demanded from the family, and some
+people believe that the custom tends in favour of the mother bearing
+another child; others say, however, that its object is to prevent
+the _tonhi_ or witch from getting hold of the body of the child and
+rousing its spirit to life to do her bidding as Matia Deo. [456] In
+Seoni a curious rule obtains to the effect that the bodies of those
+who eat carrion or the flesh of animals dying a natural death should
+be cremated. In the northern Districts a bier painted white is used
+for a man and a red one for a woman.
+
+
+
+8. Childbirth.
+
+
+Among the better-class Chamars it is customary to place a newborn child
+in a winnowing-fan on a bed of rice. The nurse receives the rice and
+she also goes round to the houses of the headman of the village and
+the relatives of the family and makes a mark with cowdung on their
+doors as an announcement of the birth, for which she receives a small
+present. In Chhattisgarh a woman is given nothing to eat or drink
+on the day that a child is born and for two days afterwards. On the
+fourth day she receives a liquid decoction of ginger, the roots of
+the _orai_ or _khaskhas_ grass, areca-nut, coriander and turmeric
+and other hot substances, and in some places a cake of linseed or
+sesamum. She sometimes goes on drinking this mixture for as long
+as a month, and usually receives solid food for the first time on
+the sixth day after the birth, when she bathes and her impurity
+is removed. The child is not permitted to suckle its mother until
+the third day after it is born, but before this it receives a small
+quantity of a mixture made by boiling the urine of a calf with some
+medicinal root. In Chhattisgarh it is a common practice to brand a
+child on the stomach on the name-day or sixth day after its birth;
+twenty or more small burns may be made with the point of a _hansia_
+or sickle on the stomach, and it is supposed that this operation will
+prevent it from catching cold. Another preventive for convulsions
+and diseases of the lungs is the rubbing of the limbs and body with
+castor-oil; the nurse wets her hands with the oil and then warms them
+before a fire and rubs the child. It is also held in the smoke of
+burning _ajwain_ plants (_Carum copticum_). Infants are named on the
+Chathi or sixth day, or sometimes on the twelfth day after birth. The
+child's head is shaved, and the hair, known as Jhalar, thrown away, the
+mother and child are washed and the males of the family are shaved. The
+mother is given her first regular meal of grain and pulse cooked with
+pumpkins. A pregnant woman who is afraid that her child will die will
+sometimes sell it to a neighbour before its birth for five or six
+cowries. [457] The baby will then be named Pachkouri or Chhekouri, and
+it is thought that the gods, who are jealous of the lives of children,
+will overlook one whose name shows it to be valueless. Children are
+often nicknamed after some peculiarity as Kanwa (one-eyed), Behra
+(deaf), Konda (dumb), Khurwa (lame), Kari (black), Bhuri (fair). It
+does not follow that a child called Konda is actually dumb, but it
+may simply have been late in learning to speak. Parents are jealous
+of exposing their children to the gaze of strangers and especially
+of a crowd, in which there will almost certainly be some malignant
+person to cast the evil eye upon them. Young children are therefore
+not infrequently secluded in the house and deprived of light and air
+to an extent which is highly injurious to them.
+
+
+
+9. Religion.
+
+
+The caste worship the ordinary Hindu and village deities of
+the localities in which they reside, and observe the principal
+festivals. In Saugor the Chamars have a family god, known as Marri,
+who is represented by a lump of clay kept in the cooking-room of the
+house. He is supposed to represent the ancestors of the family. The
+Seoni Chamars especially worship the castor-oil plant. Generally
+the caste revere the _rampi_ or skinning-knife with offerings of
+flour-cakes and cocoanuts on festival days. In Chhattisgarh more than
+half the Chamars belong to the reformed Satnami sect, by which the
+worship of images is at least nominally abolished. This is separately
+treated. Mr. Gordon states [458] that it is impossible to form a clear
+conception of the beliefs of the village Chamars as to the hereafter:
+"That they have the idea of hell as a place of punishment may be
+gathered from the belief that if salt is spilt the one who does this
+will in Patal--or the infernal region--have to gather up each grain of
+salt with his eyelids. Salt is for this reason handed round with great
+care, and it is considered unlucky to receive it in the palm of the
+hand; it is therefore invariably taken in a cloth or in a vessel. There
+is a belief that the spirit of the deceased hovers round familiar
+scenes and places, and on this account, whenever it is possible,
+it is customary to destroy or desert the house in which any one has
+died. If a house is deserted the custom is to sweep and plaster the
+place, and then, after lighting a lamp, to leave it in the house and
+withdraw altogether. After the spirit of the dead has wandered around
+restlessly for a certain time it is said that it will again become
+incarnate and take the form of man or of one of the lower animals."
+
+
+
+10. Occupation.
+
+
+The curing and tanning of hides is the primary occupation of the
+Chamar, but in 1911 only 80,000 persons, or about a seventh of the
+actual workers of the caste, were engaged in it, and by Satnamis the
+trade has been entirely eschewed. The majority of the Chhattisgarhi
+Chamars are cultivators with tenant right, and a number of them have
+obtained villages. In the northern Districts, however, the caste
+are as a rule miserably poor, and none of them own villages. A
+very few are tenants, and the vast majority despised and bullied
+helots. The condition of the leather-working Chamars is described
+by Mr. Trench as lamentable. [459] Chief among the causes of their
+ruin has been the recently established trade in raw hides. Formerly
+the bodies of all cattle dying within the precincts of the village
+necessarily became the property of the Chamars, as the Hindu owners
+could not touch them without loss of caste. But since the rise of
+the cattle-slaughtering industry the cultivator has put his religious
+scruples in his pocket, and sells his old and worn-out animals to the
+butchers for a respectable sum. "For a mere walking skeleton of a cow
+or bullock from two to four rupees may be had for the asking, and so
+long as he does not actually see or stipulate for the slaughter of the
+sacred animal, the cultivator's scruples remain dormant. No one laments
+this lapse from orthodoxy more sincerely than the outcaste Chamar. His
+situation may be compared with that of the Cornish pilchard-fishers,
+for whom the growing laxity on the part of continental Roman Catholic
+countries in the observance of Lent is already more than an omen of
+coming disaster." [460]
+
+
+
+11. The tanning process.
+
+
+When a hide is to be cured the inside is first cleaned with the
+_rampi_, a chisel-like implement with a short blade four inches broad
+and a thick short handle. It is then soaked in a mixture of water
+and lime for ten or twelve days, and at intervals scraped clean of
+flesh and hair with the _rampi_. "The skill of a good tanner appears
+in the absence of superfluous inner skin, fat or flesh, remaining to
+be removed after the hide is finally taken out of the lime-pit. Next
+the hard berries of the _ghont_ [461] tree are poured into a large
+earthen vessel sunk in the ground, and water added till the mixture
+is so thick as to become barely liquid. In this the folded hide is
+dipped three or four times a day, undergoing meanwhile a vigorous
+rubbing and kneading. The average duration of this process is eight
+days, and it is followed by what is according to European ideas the
+real tanning. Using as thread the roots of the ubiquitous _palas_
+[462] tree, the Chamar sews the hide up into a mussack-shaped bag
+open at the neck. The sewing is admirably executed, and when drawn
+tight the seams are nearly, but purposely not quite, water-tight. The
+hide is then hung on low stout scaffolding over a pit and filled with
+a decoction of the dried and semi-powdered leaves of the _dhaura_
+[463] tree mixed with water. As the decoction trickles slowly through
+the seams below, more is poured on from above, and from time to time
+the position of the hide is reversed in such a way that the tanning
+permeates each part in turn. Sometimes only one reversal of the hide
+takes place half-way through the process, which occupies as a rule
+some eight days. But energetic Chamars continually turn and refill
+the skin until satisfied that it is thoroughly saturated with the
+tanning. After a washing in clean water the hide is now considered
+to be tanned." [464]
+
+
+
+12. Shoes.
+
+
+In return for receiving the hides of the village cattle the Chamar
+had to supply the village proprietor and his family with a pair
+of shoes each free of payment once a year, and sometimes also the
+village accountant and watchman; but the cultivators had usually
+to pay for them, though nowadays they also often insist on shoes
+in exchange for their hides. Shoes are usually worn in the wheat
+and cotton growing areas, but are less common in the rice country,
+where they would continually stick in the mud of the fields. The
+Saugor or Bundelkhandi shoe is a striking specimen of footgear. The
+sole is formed of as many as three layers of stout hide, and may be
+nearly an inch thick. The uppers in a typical shoe are of black soft
+leather, inlaid with a simple pattern in silver thread. These are
+covered by flaps of stamped yellow goat-skin cut in triangular and
+half-moon patterns, the interstices between the flaps being filled
+with red cloth. The heel-piece is continued more than half-way up the
+calf behind. The toe is pointed, curled tightly over backwards and
+surmounted by a brass knob. The high frontal shield protects the instep
+from mud and spear-grass, and the heel-piece ensures the retention of
+the shoe in the deepest quagmire. Such shoes cost one or two rupees
+a pair. [465] In the rice Districts sandals are often worn on the
+road, and laid aside when the cultivator enters his fields. Women go
+bare-footed as a rule, but sometimes have sandals. Up till recently
+only prostitutes wore shoes in public, and no respectable woman would
+dare to do so. In towns boots and shoes made in the English fashion at
+Cawnpore and other centres have now been generally adopted, and with
+these socks are worn. The Mochis and Jingars, who are offshoots from
+the Chamar caste, have adopted the distinctive occupations of making
+shoes and horse furniture with prepared leather, and no longer cure
+hides. They have thus developed into a separate caste, and consider
+themselves greatly superior to the Chamars.
+
+
+
+13. Other articles made of leather.
+
+
+Other articles made of leather are the thongs and nose-strings for
+bullocks, the buckets for irrigation wells, rude country saddlery,
+and _mussacks_ and _pakhals_ for carrying water. These last are
+simply hides sewn into a bag and provided with an orifice. To make
+a pair of bellows a goat-skin is taken with all four legs attached,
+and wetted and filled with sand. It is then dried in the sun, the
+sand shaken out, the sticks fitted at the hind-quarters for blowing,
+and the pair of bellows is complete.
+
+
+
+14. Customs connected with shoes.
+
+
+The shoe, as everybody in India knows, is a symbol of the greatest
+degradation and impurity. This is partly on account of its manufacture
+from the impure leather or hide, and also perhaps because it is worn
+and trodden under foot. All the hides of tame animals are polluted and
+impure, but those of certain wild animals, such as the deer and tiger,
+are not so, being on the contrary to some extent sacred. This last
+feeling may be due to the fact that the old anchorites of the forests
+were accustomed to cover themselves with the skins of wild animals, and
+to use them for sitting and kneeling to pray. A Bairagi or Vaishnava
+religious mendicant much likes to carry a tiger-skin on his body if
+he can afford one; and a Brahman will have the skin of a black-buck
+spread in the room where he performs his devotions. Possibly the sin
+involved in killing tame animals has been partly responsible for the
+impurity attaching to their hides, to the obtaining of which the death
+of the animal must be a preliminary. Every Hindu removes his shoes
+before entering a house, though with the adoption of English boots a
+breach is being made in this custom. So far as the houses of Europeans
+are concerned, the retention of shoes is not, as might be imagined,
+of recent origin, but was noticed by Buchanan a hundred years ago:
+"Men of rank and their attendants continue to wear their shoes loose
+for the purpose of throwing them off whenever they enter a room,
+which they still continue to do everywhere except in the houses of
+Europeans, in which all natives of rank now imitate our example." In
+this connection it must be remembered that a Hindu house is always
+sacred as the shrine of the household god, and shoes are removed
+before stepping across the threshold on to the hallowed ground. This
+consideration does not apply to European houses, and affords ground
+for dispensing with the removal of laced shoes and boots.
+
+To be beaten or sometimes even touched with a shoe by a man of
+low caste entails temporary social excommunication to most Hindus,
+and must be expiated by a formal purification and caste feast. The
+outcaste Mahars punish a member of their community in the same manner
+even if somebody should throw a shoe on to the roof of his house,
+and the Pharasaical absurdities of the caste system surely find their
+culminating point in this rule. Similarly if a man touches his shoe
+with his hand and says 'I have beaten you,' to a member of any of
+the lower castes in Seoni, the person so addressed is considered as
+temporarily out of caste. If he then immediately goes and informs his
+caste-fellows he is reinstated with a nominal fine of grain worth
+one or two pice. But if he goes back to his house and takes food,
+and the incident is subsequently discovered, a penalty of a goat is
+levied. A curious exception recognised is that of the _Sirkari juta_,
+or shoe belonging to a Government servant, and to be beaten with this
+shoe does not entail social punishment.
+
+
+
+15. The Chamar as general village drudge.
+
+
+In return for his perquisite of the hides of cattle the Chamar has
+to act as the general village drudge in the northern Districts and is
+always selected for the performance of _bigar_ or forced labour. When
+a Government officer visits the village the Chamar must look after
+him, fetch what grass or fuel he requires, and accompany him as far
+as the next village to point out the road. He is also the bearer
+of official letters and messages sent to the village. The special
+Chamar on whom these duties are imposed usually receives a plot of
+land rent-free from the village proprietor. Another of the functions
+of the Chamar is the castration of the young bullocks, which task the
+cultivators will not do for themselves. His method is most primitive,
+the scrotum being held in a cleft bamboo or a pair of iron pincers,
+while the testicles are bruised and rubbed to pulp with a stone. The
+animal remains ill for a week or a fortnight and is not worked for two
+months, but the operation is rarely or never fatal. In the northern
+Districts the Chamars are said to be very strong and to make the
+best farmservants and coolies for earthwork. It is a proverb that
+'The Chamar has half a rib more than other men.' Notwithstanding his
+strength, however, he is a great coward, this characteristic having
+probably been acquired through centuries of oppression. Many Chamar
+women act as midwives. In Raipur the cultivators give her five annas
+at the birth of a boy and four annas for a girl, while well-to-do
+people pay a rupee. When the first child of a rich man is born,
+the midwife, barber and washerman go round to all his friends and
+relations to announce the event and obtain presents. It is a regular
+function of the Chamars to remove the carcases of dead cattle, which
+they eat without regard to the disease from which the animal may have
+died. But a Chamar will not touch the corpse of a pony, camel, cat,
+dog, squirrel or monkey, and to remove the bodies of such animals
+a Mehtar (sweeper) or a Gond must be requisitioned. In Raipur it is
+said that the Chamars will eat only the flesh of four-legged animals,
+avoiding presumably birds and fish. When acting as a porter the Chamar
+usually carries a load on his head, whereas the Kahar bears it on his
+shoulders, and this distinction is proverbial. In Raipur the Chamars
+have become retail cattle-dealers and are known as Kochias. They
+purchase cattle at the large central markets of Baloda and Bamnidih
+and retail them at the small village bazars. It is said that this
+trade could only flourish in Chhattisgarh, where the cultivators
+are too lazy to go and buy their cattle for themselves. Many Chamars
+have emigrated from Chhattisgarh to the Assam tea-gardens, and others
+have gone to Calcutta and to the railway workshops at Kharagpur and
+Chakardharpur. Many of them work as porters on the railway. It is
+probable that their taste for emigration is due to the resentment
+felt at their despised position in Chhattisgarh.
+
+
+
+16. Social status.
+
+
+The Chamar ranks at the very bottom of the social scale, and contact
+with his person is considered to be a defilement to high-caste
+Hindus. He cannot draw water from the common well and usually
+lives in a hamlet somewhat removed from the main village. But in
+several localities the rule is not so strict, and in Saugor a Chamar
+may go into all parts of the house except the cooking and eating
+rooms. This is almost necessary when he is so commonly employed
+as a farmservant. Here the village barber will shave Chamars and
+the washerman will wash their clothes. And the Chamar himself will
+not touch the corpse of a horse, a dog or any animal whose feet are
+uncloven; and he will not kill a cow though he eats its flesh. It is
+stated indeed that a Chamar who once killed a calf accidentally had
+to go to the Ganges to purify himself. The crime of cattle-poisoning
+is thus rare in Saugor and the other northern Districts, but in the
+east of the Provinces it is a common practice of the Chamars. As is
+usual with the low castes, many Chamars are in some repute as Gunias or
+sorcerers, and in this capacity they are frequently invited to enter
+the houses of Hindus to heal persons possessed of evil spirits. When
+children fall ill one of them is called in and he waves a branch of
+the _nim_ [466] tree over the child and taking ashes in his hand
+blows them at it; he is also consulted for hysterical women. When
+a Chamar has had something stolen and wishes to detect the thief,
+he takes the wooden-handled needle used for stitching leather and
+sticks the spike into the sole of a shoe. Then two persons standing
+in the relation of maternal uncle and nephew hold the needle and shoe
+up by placing their forefingers under the wooden handle. The names
+of all suspected persons are pronounced, and he at whose name the
+shoe turns on the needle is taken to be the thief.
+
+The caste do not employ Brahmans for their ceremonies, but consult
+them for the selection of auspicious days, as this business can be
+performed by the Brahman at home and he need not enter the Chamar's
+house. But poor and despised as the Chamars are they have a pride of
+their own. When the Dohar and Maratha Chamars sell shoes to a Mahar
+they will only allow him to try on one of them and not both, and this,
+too, he must do in a sitting posture, as an indication of humility. The
+Harale or Maratha Chamars of Berar [467] do not eat beef nor work with
+untanned leather, and they will not work for the lowest castes, as
+Mahars, Mangs, Basors and Kolis. If one of these buys a pair of shoes
+from the Chamar the seller asks no indiscreet questions; but he will
+not mend the pair as he would for a man of higher caste. The Satnamis
+of Chhattisgarh have openly revolted against the degraded position to
+which they are relegated by Hinduism and are at permanent feud with
+the Hindus; some of them have even adopted the sacred thread. But this
+interesting movement is separately discussed in the article on Satnami.
+
+
+
+17. Character.
+
+
+In Chhattisgarh the Chamars are the most criminal class of the
+population, and have made a regular practice of poisoning cattle with
+arsenic in order to obtain the hides and flesh. They either mix the
+poison with mahua flowers strewn on the grazing-ground, or make it
+into a ball with butter and insert it into the anus of the animal when
+the herdsman is absent. They also commit cattle-theft and frequently
+appear at the whipping-post before the court-house. The estimation in
+which they are held by their neighbours is reflected in the proverb,
+'Hemp, rice and a Chamar; the more they are pounded the better they
+are.' "The caste," Mr. Trench writes, "are illiterate to a man,
+and their intellectual development is reflected in their style of
+living. A visit to a hamlet of tanning Chamars induces doubt as to
+whence the appalling smells of the place proceed--from the hides or
+from the tanners. Were this squalor invariably, as it is occasionally,
+accompanied by a sufficiency of the necessaries of life, victuals and
+clothing, the Chamar would not be badly off, but the truth is that in
+the northern Districts at all events the Chamar, except in years of
+good harvest, does not get enough to eat. This fact is sufficiently
+indicated by a glance at the perquisites of the village Chamar, who
+is almost invariably the shoemaker and leather-worker for his little
+community. In one District the undigested grain left by the gorged
+bullocks on the threshing-floor is his portion, and a portion for
+which he will sometimes fight. Everywhere he is a carrion-eater,
+paying little or no regard to the disease from which the animal
+may have died." The custom above mentioned of washing grain from
+the dung of cattle is not so repugnant to the Hindus, owing to the
+sacred character of the cow, as it is to us. It is even sometimes
+considered holy food:--"The zamindar of Idar, who is named Naron Das,
+lives with such austerity that his only food is grain which has passed
+through oxen and has been separated from their dung; and this kind
+of aliment the Brahmans consider pure in the highest degree." [468]
+Old-fashioned cultivators do not muzzle the bullocks treading out
+the corn, and the animals eat it the whole time, so that much passes
+through their bodies undigested. The Chamar will make several maunds
+(80 lbs.) of grain in this way, and to a cultivator who does not
+muzzle his bullocks he will give a pair of shoes and a plough-rein and
+yoke-string. Another duty of the Chamar is to look after the _banda_
+or large underground masonry chamber in which grain is kept. After
+the grain has been stored, a conical roof is built and plastered over
+with mud to keep out water. The Chamar looks after the repairs of the
+mud plaster and in return receives a small quantity of grain, which
+usually goes bad on the floor of the store-chamber. They prepare the
+threshing-floors for the cultivators, making the surface of the soil
+level and beating it down to a smooth and hard surface. In return
+for this they receive the grain mixed with earth which remains on
+the threshing-floor after the crop is removed.
+
+Like all other village artisans the Chamar is considered by the
+cultivators to be faithless and dilatory in his dealings with them;
+and they vent their spleen in sayings such as the following:--"The
+Kori, the Chamar and the Ahir, these are the three biggest liars that
+ever were known. For if you ask the Chamar whether he has mended your
+shoes he says, 'I am at the last stitch,' when he has not begun them;
+if you ask the Ahir whether he has brought back your cow from the
+jungle he says, 'It has come, it has come,' without knowing or caring
+whether it has come or not; and if you ask the Kori whether he has
+made your cloth he says, 'It is on the loom,' when he has not so much
+as bought the thread." Another proverb conveying the same sense is,
+'The Mochi's to-morrow never comes.' But no doubt the uncertainty
+and delay in payment account for much of this conduct.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+Chasa
+
+
+
+1. Origin and traditions.
+
+
+_Chasa_, [469] _Tasa_ (also called Alia in the Sonpur and Patna
+States).--The chief cultivating caste of Orissa. In 1901 more
+than 21,000 Chasas were enumerated in Sambalpur and the adjoining
+Feudatory States, but nearly all these passed in 1905 to Bengal. The
+Chasas are said [470] by Sir H. Risley to be for the most part of
+non-Aryan descent, the loose organisation of the caste system among
+the Uriyas making it possible on the one hand for outsiders to be
+admitted into the caste, and on the other for wealthy Chasas who
+gave up ploughing with their own hands and assumed the respectable
+title of Mahanti to raise themselves to membership among the lower
+classes of Kayasths. This passage indicates that the term Mahanti is
+or was a broader one than Karan or Uriya Kayasth, and was applied to
+educated persons of other castes who apparently aspired to admission
+among the Karans, in the same manner as leading members of the
+warlike and landholding castes lay claim to rank as Rajputs. For
+this reason probably the Uriya Kayasths prefer the name of Karan
+to that of Mahanti, and the Uriya saying, 'He who has no caste is
+called a Mahanti,' supports this view. The word Chasa has the generic
+meaning of 'a cultivator,' and the Chasas may in Sambalpur be merely
+an occupational group recruited from other castes. This theory is
+supported by the names of their subdivisions, three of which, Kolta,
+Khandait and Ud or Orh are the names of distinct castes, while the
+fourth, Benatia, is found as a subdivision of several other castes.
+
+
+
+2. Exogamous divisions.
+
+
+Each family has a _got_ or sept and a _varga_ or family name. The
+_vargas_ are much more numerous than the _gots_, and marriages are
+arranged according to them, unions of members of the same _varga_ only
+being forbidden. The sept names are totemistic and the family names
+territorial or titular. Among the former are _bachhas_ (calf), _nagas_
+(cobra), _hasti_ or _gaj_ (elephant), _harin_ (deer), _mahumachhi_
+(bee), _dipas_ (lamp), and others; while instances of the _varga_
+names are Pitmundia, Hulbulsingia, Giringia and Dumania, all names of
+villages in Angul State; and Nayak (headman), Mahanti (writer), Dehri
+(worshipper), Behera (cook), Kandra (bamboo-worker), and others. The
+different _gots_ or septs revere their totems by drawing figures
+of them on their houses, and abstaining from injuring them in any
+way. If they find the footprints of the animal which they worship,
+they bow to the marks and obliterate them with the hand, perhaps with
+the view of affording protection to the totem animal from hunters
+or of preventing the marks from being trampled on by others. They
+believe that if they injured the totem animal they would be attacked
+by leprosy and their line would die out. Members of the _dipas_ sept
+will not eat if a lamp is put out at night, and will not touch a
+lamp with unclean hands. Those of the _mahumachhi_ or bee sept will
+not take honey from a comb or eat it. Those of the _gaj_ sept will
+not join an elephant kheddah. Some of the septs have an Ishta Devata
+or tutelary Hindu deity to whom worship is paid. Thus the elephant
+sept worship Ganesh, the elephant-headed god, and also do not kill
+rats because Ganesh rides on this animal. Similarly the _harin_ or
+deer sept have Pawan, the god of the wind, as their Ishta Devata,
+because a deer is considered to be as swift as the wind. It would
+appear then that the septs, each having its totem, were the original
+divisions for the restriction of marriage, but as these increased in
+size they were felt to debar the union of persons who had no real
+relationship and hence the smaller family groups were substituted
+for them; while in the case of the old septs, the substitution of the
+Hindu god representing the animal worshipped by the sept for the animal
+itself as the object of veneration is an instance of the process of
+abandoning totem or animal worship and conforming to Hinduism. In one
+or two cases the _vargas_ themselves have been further subdivided for
+the purpose of marriage. Thus certain families of the Padhan (leader,
+chief) _varga_ were entrusted with the duty of readmitting persons
+temporarily put out of caste to social intercourse, for which they
+received the remuneration of a rupee and a piece of cloth in each
+case. These families were called the Parichha or 'Scrutinisers' and
+have now become a separate _varga_, so that a Parichha Padhan may
+marry another Padhan. This is a further instance of the process of
+subdivision of exogamous groups which must take place as the groups
+increase in size and numbers, and the original idea of the common
+ancestry of the group vanishes. Until finally the primitive system of
+exogamy disappears and is replaced by the modern and convenient method
+of prohibition of marriage within certain degrees of relationship.
+
+
+
+3. Status and customs of the caste.
+
+
+The Chasas do not marry within the same _varga,_ but a man may usually
+take a wife from his mother's _varga_. A girl must always be wedded
+before arriving at adolescence, the penalty for breach of this rule
+being the driving out of the girl to seclusion in the forest for a
+day and a half, and a feast to the caste-fellows. If no husband is
+available she may be married to an arrow or a flower, or she goes
+through the form of marriage with any man in the caste, and when a
+suitable partner is subsequently found, is united with him by the
+form of widow-marriage. Widows may marry again and divorce is also
+allowed. The dead are usually buried if unmarried, and burnt when
+married. The Chasas worship the Hindu deities and also the village
+god Gramsiri, who is represented by a stone outside the village. At
+festivals they offer animal sacrifices to their agricultural
+implements, as hoes and hatchets. They employ Brahmans for religious
+ceremonies. They have an aversion to objects of a black colour, and
+will not use black umbrellas or clothes woven with black thread. They
+do not usually wear shoes or ride horses, even when they can afford
+these latter. Cultivation is the traditional occupation of the caste,
+and they are tenants, farmservants and field-labourers. They take food
+from Rajputs and Brahmans, and sometimes from Koltas and Sudhs. They
+eat flesh and fish, but abjure liquor, beef, pork and fowls. Their
+social position is a little below that of the good agricultural castes,
+and they are considered somewhat stupid, as shown by the proverb:
+
+
+                Chasa, ki jane pasar katha,
+                Padili bolai dons;
+
+
+or 'What does the Chasa know of the dice? At every throw he calls out
+"twenty."'
+
+
+
+
+
+
+Chauhan
+
+
+_Chauhan._ [471]--A small caste of village watchmen and labourers
+in the Chhattisgarh Division. They are also known as Chandel by
+outsiders. In 1911 the Chauhans numbered 7000 persons in the Raipur
+and Bilaspur Districts, and the adjoining Feudatory States. The
+caste claim themselves to be of Rajput origin, and say that their
+ancestors came from Mainpuri, which is the home of the Chauhan clan of
+Rajputs. A few of their section names are taken from those of Rajput
+clans, but the majority are of a totemistic nature, being called
+after animals and plants, as Nag the cobra, Neora the mongoose,
+Kolhia the jackal, Kamal the lotus, Pat silk, Chanwar rice, Khanda
+a sword, and so on. Members of each sept worship the object after
+which it is named at the time of marriage, and if the tree or animal
+itself is not readily available, they make a representation of it
+in flour and pay their respects to that. Thus members of the Bedna
+or sugarcane sept make a stick of flour and worship it. They will
+not kill or eat their sept totem, but in some cases, as in that of
+the Chanwar or rice sept, this rule is impossible of observance, so
+the members of this sept content themselves with abstaining from a
+single variety of rice, the kind called Nagkesar. Families who belong
+to septs named after heroic ancestors make an image in flour of the
+ancestral saint or hero and worship it. The caste employ Brahmans
+for their marriage and other ceremonies, and will not take food from
+any caste except Brahmans and their Bairagi _gurus_ or spiritual
+preceptors. But their social position is very low, as none except
+the most debased castes will take food or water from their hands, and
+their hereditary calling of village watchman would not be practised
+by any respectable caste. By outsiders they are considered little,
+if at all, superior to the Pankas and Gandas, and the most probable
+theory of their origin is that they are the descendants of irregular
+alliances between immigrant Rajput adventurers and the women of the
+country. Their social customs resemble those of other low castes in
+Chhattisgarh. Before the bridegroom starts for a wedding, they have
+a peculiar ceremony known as Naodori. Seven small earthen cups full
+of water are placed on the boy's head, and then poured over him in
+succession. A piece of new cloth is laid on his head, and afterwards
+placed seven times in contact with the earth. During this ritual the
+boy keeps his eyes shut, and it is believed that if he should open
+them before its completion, his children would be born blind. When
+the bride leaves her father's house she and all her relatives mourn
+and weep noisily, and the bride continues doing so until she is well
+over a mile from her own village. Similarly on the first three or
+four visits which she pays to her parents after her wedding, she
+begins crying loudly a mile away from their house, and continues
+until she reaches it. It is the etiquette also that women should
+cry whenever they meet relatives from a distance. In such cases
+when two women see each other they cry together, each placing her
+head on the other's shoulder and her hands at her sides. While they
+cry they change the position of their heads two or three times, and
+each addresses the other according to their relationship, as mother,
+sister, and so on. Or if any member of the family has recently died,
+they call upon him or her, exclaiming 'O my mother! O my sister! O
+my father! Why did not I, unfortunate one, die instead of thee?' A
+woman when weeping with a man holds to his sides and rests her head
+against his breast. The man exclaims at intervals, 'Stop crying,
+do not cry.' When two women are weeping together it is a point of
+etiquette that the elder should stop first and then beg her companion
+to do so, but if it is doubtful which is the elder, they sometimes
+go on crying for an hour at a time, exciting the younger spectators
+to mirth, until at length some elder steps forward and tells one of
+them to stop. The Chauhans permit the remarriage of widows, and a
+woman is bound by no restrictions as to her choice of a second husband.
+
+The goddess Durga or Devi is chiefly revered by the caste, who observe
+fasts in her honour in the months of Kunwar (September) and Chait
+(March). When they make a _badna_ or vow, they usually offer goats
+to the goddess, and sow the _Jawaras_ or Gardens of Adonis in her
+name, but except on such occasions they present less costly articles,
+as cocoanuts, betel-leaves, areca-nuts and flowers. On the Dasahra
+festival they worship the _lathi_ or stick which is the badge of
+office of the village watchman. They were formerly addicted to petty
+theft, and it is said that they worshipped the _khunta_ or pointed
+rod for digging through the wall of a house. The caste usually burn
+the dead, but children whose ears or noses have not been pierced are
+buried. Children who die before they have begun to eat grain are not
+mourned at all, while for older children the period of mourning is
+three to seven days, and for adults ten days. On the tenth day they
+clean their houses, shave themselves and offer balls of rice to the
+dead under the direction of a Brahman, to whom they present eating
+and drinking vessels, clothes, shoes and cattle with the belief that
+the articles will thus become available for the use of the dead man
+in the other world. The Chauhans will not eat fowls, pork or beef,
+and in some places they abstain from drinking liquor.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+Chhipa
+
+
+
+1. Constitution of the caste.
+
+
+_Chhipa, Rangari, Bhaosar, Nirali, Nilgar._--The Hindu caste of cotton
+printers and dyers. They are commonly known as Chhipa in the northern
+Districts and Rangari or Bhaosar in the Maratha country. The Chhipas
+and Rangaris together number about 23,000 persons. In the south of
+the Central Provinces and Berar cotton is a staple crop, and the
+cotton-weaving industry is much stronger than in the north, and as a
+necessary consequence the dyers also would be more numerous. Though the
+Chhipas and Rangaris do not intermarry or dine together, no essential
+distinction exists between them. They are both of functional origin,
+pursue exactly the same occupation, and relate the same story about
+themselves, and no good reason therefore exists for considering them
+as separate castes. Nilgar or Nirali is a purely occupational term
+applied to Chhipas or Rangaris who work in indigo (_nil_); while
+Bhaosar is another name for the Rangaris in the northern Districts.
+
+
+
+2. Its origin and position.
+
+
+The Rangaris say that when Parasurama, the Brahman, was slaying the
+Kshatriyas, two brothers of the warrior caste took refuge in a temple
+of Devi. One of them, called Bhaosar, threw himself upon the image,
+while the other hid behind it. The goddess saved them both and told
+them to adopt the vocation of dyers. The Rangaris are descended from
+the brother who was called Bhaosar and the Chhipas from the other
+brother, because he hid behind the image (_chhipna_, to hide). The word
+is really derived from _chhapna_, to print, because the Chhipas print
+coloured patterns on cotton cloths with wooden stamps. Rangari comes
+from the common word _rang_ or colour. The Chhipas have a slightly
+different version of the same story, according to which the goddess
+gave one brother a needle and a piece of thread, and the other some
+red betel-leaf which she spat at him out of her mouth; and told one to
+follow the vocation of a tailor, and the other that of a dyer. Hence
+the first was called Chhipi or Shimpi and the second Chhipa. This
+story indicates a connection between the dyeing and tailoring castes
+in the Maratha Districts, which no doubt exists, as one subcaste of
+the Rangaris is named after Namdeo, the patron saint of the Shimpis
+or tailors. Both the dyeing and tailoring industries are probably of
+considerably later origin than that of cotton-weaving, and both are
+urban rather than village industries. And this consideration perhaps
+accounts for the fact that the Chhipas and Rangaris rank higher than
+most of the weaving castes, and no stigma or impurity attaches to them.
+
+
+
+3. Caste subdivisions.
+
+
+The caste have a number of subdivisions, such as the Malaiyas or
+immigrants from Malwa, the Gujrati who come from Gujarat, the Golias
+or those who dye cloth with _goli ka rang_, the fugitive aniline dyes,
+the Namdeos who belong to the sect founded by the Darzi or tailor of
+that name, and the Khatris, these last being members of the Khatri
+caste who have adopted the profession.
+
+
+
+4. Marriage and other customs.
+
+
+Marriage is forbidden between persons so closely connected as to have a
+common ancestor in the third generation. In Bhandara it is obligatory
+on all members of the caste, who know the bride or bridegroom, to
+ask him or her to dine. The marriage rite is that prevalent among
+the Hindustani castes, of walking round the sacred post. Divorce
+and the marriage of widows are permitted. In Narsinghpur, when a
+bachelor marries a widow, he first goes through a mock ceremony by
+walking seven times round an earthen vessel filled with cakes; this
+rite being known as Langra Biyah or the lame marriage. The caste burn
+their dead, placing the head to the north. On the day of Dasahra the
+Chhipas worship their wooden stamps, first washing them and then making
+an offering to them of a cocoanut, flowers and an image consisting
+of a bottle-gourd standing on four sticks, which is considered to
+represent a goat. The Chhipas rank with the lower artisan castes,
+from whose hands Brahmans will not take water. Nevertheless some of
+them wear the sacred thread and place sect-marks on their foreheads.
+
+
+
+5. Occupation.
+
+
+The bulk of the Chhipas dye cloths in red, blue or black, with
+ornamental patterns picked out on them in black and white. Formerly
+their principal agent was the _al_ or Indian mulberry (_Morinda
+citrifolia_), from which a rich red dye is obtained. But this
+indigenous product has been ousted by alizarin, a colouring agent
+made from coal-tar, which is imported from Germany, and is about
+thirty per cent cheaper than the native dye. Chhipas prepare _saris_
+or women's wearing-cloths, and floor and bed cloths. The dye stamps
+are made of teakwood by an ordinary carpenter, the flat surface of
+the wood being hollowed out so as to leave ridges which form either
+a design in curved lines or the outlines of the figures of men,
+elephants and tigers. There is a great variety of patterns, as many
+as three hundred stamps having been found in one Chhipa's shop. The
+stamps are usually covered with a black ink made of sulphate of iron,
+and this is fixed by myrobalans; the Nilgars usually dye a plain blue
+with indigotin. No great variety or brilliancy of colours is obtained
+by the Hindu dyers, who are much excelled in this branch of the art
+by the Muhammadan Rangrez. In Gujarat dyeing is strictly forbidden
+by the caste rules of the Chhipas or Bhaosars during the four rainy
+months, because the slaughter of insects in the dyeing vat adds to
+the evil and ill-luck of that sunless time. [472]
+
+
+
+
+
+
+Chitari
+
+
+
+List of Paragraphs
+
+
+    1.  _Origin and traditions._
+    2.  _Social customs._
+    3.  _Birth and childhood._
+    4.  _The evil eye._
+    5.  _Cradle-songs._
+    6.  _Occupation._
+
+
+
+1. Origin and traditions.
+
+
+_Chitari, Chiter, Chitrakar, Maharana._--A caste of painters on
+wood and plaster. Chiter is the Hindustani, and Chitari the Marathi
+name, both being corruptions of the Sanskrit Chitrakar. Maharana
+is the term used in the Uriya country, where the caste are also
+known as Phal-Barhai, or a carpenter who only works on one side of
+the wood. Chitari is further an occupational term applied to Mochis
+and Jingars, or leather-workers, who have adopted the occupation of
+wall-painting, and there is no reason to doubt that the Chitaris were
+originally derived from the Mochis, though they have now a somewhat
+higher position. In Mandla the Chitrakars and Jingars are separate
+castes, and do not eat or intermarry with one another. Neither branch
+will take water from the Mochis, who make shoes, and some Chitrakars
+even refuse to touch them. They say that the founder of their caste
+was Biskarma, [473] the first painter, and that their ancestors
+were Rajputs, whose country was taken by Akbar. As they were without
+occupation Akbar then assigned to them the business of making saddles
+and bridles for his cavalry and scabbards for their swords. It is not
+unlikely that the Jingar caste did really originate or first become
+differentiated from the Mochis and Chamars in Rajputana owing to the
+demand for such articles, and this would account for the Mochis and
+Jingars having adopted Rajput names for their sections, and making
+a claim to Rajput descent. The Chitrakars of Mandla say that their
+ancestors belonged to Garha, near Jubbulpore, where the tomb of a
+woman of their family who became _sati_ is still to be seen. Garha,
+which was once the seat of an important Gond dynasty with a garrison,
+would also naturally have been a centre for their craft.
+
+Another legend traces their origin from Chitrarekha, a nymph who
+was skilled in painting and magic. She was the friend of a princess
+Usha, whose father was king of Sohagpur in Hoshangabad. Usha fell
+in love with a beautiful young prince whom she saw in a dream,
+and Chitrarekha drew the portraits of many gods and men for her,
+until finally Usha recognised the youth of her dream in the portrait
+of Aniruddha, the grandson of Krishna. Chitrarekha then by her magic
+power brought Aniruddha to Usha, but when her father found him in the
+palace he bound him and kept him in prison. On this Krishna appeared
+and rescued his grandson, and taking Usha from her father married
+them to each other. The Chitaris say that as a reward to Chitrarekha,
+Krishna promised her that her descendants should never be in want,
+and hence members of their caste do not lack for food even in famine
+time. [474] The Chitaris are declining in numbers, as their paintings
+are no longer in demand, the people preferring the cheap coloured
+prints imported from Germany and England.
+
+
+
+2. Social customs.
+
+
+The caste is a mixed occupational group, and those of Maratha,
+Telugu and Hindustani extraction marry among themselves. A few wear
+the sacred thread, and abstain from eating flesh or drinking liquor,
+while the bulk of them do not observe these restrictions.
+
+Among the Jingars women accompany the marriage procession, but not
+with the Chitaris.
+
+Widow-marriage is allowed, but among the Maharanas a wife who has lived
+with her husband may not marry any one except his younger brother,
+and if there are none she must remain a widow. In Mandla, if a widow
+marries her younger brother-in-law, half her first husband's property
+goes to him finally, and half to the first husband's children. If she
+marries an outsider she takes her first husband's property and children
+with her. Formerly if a wife misbehaved the Chitari sometimes sold
+her to the highest bidder, but this custom has fallen into abeyance,
+and now if a man divorces his wife her father usually repays to him
+the expenses of his marriage. These he realises in turn from any
+man who takes his daughter. A second wife worships the spirit of
+the dead first wife on the day of Akhatij, offering some food and a
+breast-cloth, so that the spirit may not trouble her.
+
+
+
+3. Birth and childhood.
+
+
+A pregnant woman must stay indoors during an eclipse; if she goes out
+and sees it they believe that her child will be born deformed. They
+think that a woman in this condition must be given any food which
+she takes a fancy for, so far as may be practicable, as to thwart her
+desires would affect the health of the child. Women in this condition
+sometimes have a craving for eating earth; then they will eat either
+the scrapings or whitewash from the walls, or black clay soil, or
+the ashes of cowdung cakes to the extent of a small handful a day. A
+woman's first child should be born in her father-in-law's or husband's
+house if possible, but at any rate not in her father's house. And if
+she should be taken with the pangs of travail while on a visit to her
+own family, they will send her to some other house for her child to be
+born. The ears of boys and the ears and nostrils of girls are pierced,
+and until this is done they are not considered to be proper members
+of the caste and can take food from any one's hand. The Chitaris of
+Mandla permit a boy to do this until he is married. A child's hair is
+not shaved when it is born, but this should be done once before it is
+three years old, whether it be a boy or girl. After this the hair may
+be allowed to grow, and shaved off or simply cut as they prefer. Except
+in the case of illness a girl's hair is only shaved once, and that
+of an adult woman is never cut, unless she becomes a widow and makes
+a pilgrimage to a sacred place, when it is shaved off as an offering.
+
+
+
+4. The evil eye.
+
+
+In order to avert the evil eye they hang round a child's neck a nut
+called _bajar-battu_, the shell of which they say will crack and
+open if any one casts the evil eye on the child. If it is placed in
+milk the two parts will come together again. They also think that
+the nut attracts the evil eye and absorbs its effect, and the child
+is therefore not injured. If they think that some one has cast the
+evil eye on a child, they say a charm, '_Ishwar, Gauri, Parvati ke an
+nazar dur ho jao_,' or 'Depart, Evil Eye, in the name of Mahadeo and
+Parvati,' and as they say this they blow on the child three times;
+or they take some salt, chillies and mustard in their hand and wave
+it round the child's head and say, '_Telin ki lagi ho, Tamolin ki
+lagi ho, Mararin ki ho, Gorania (Gondin) ki ho, oke, oke, parparake
+phut jawe_,' 'If it be a Telin, Tambolin, Mararin or Gondin who has
+cast the evil eye, may her eyes crack and fall out.' And at the same
+time they throw the mustard, chillies and salt on the fire so that
+the eyes of her who cast the evil eye may crack and fall out as these
+things crackle in the fire.
+
+If tiger's claws are used for an amulet, the points must be turned
+outwards. If any one intends to wish luck to a child, he says, '_Tori
+balayan leun_,' and waves his hands round the child's head several
+times to signify that he takes upon himself all the misfortunes which
+are to happen to the child. Then he presses the knuckles of his hands
+against the sides of his own head till they crack, which is a lucky
+omen, averting calamity. If the knuckles do not crack at the first
+attempt, it is repeated two or three times. When a man sneezes he will
+say 'Chatrapati,' which is considered to be a name of Devi, but is
+only used on this occasion. But some say nothing. After yawning they
+snap their fingers, the object of which, they say, is to drive away
+sleep, as otherwise the desire will become infectious and attack others
+present. But if a child yawns they sometimes hold one of their hands
+in front of his mouth, and it is probable that the original meaning
+of the custom was to prevent evil spirits from entering through the
+widely opened mouth, or the yawner's own soul or spirit from escaping;
+and the habit of holding the hand before the mouth from politeness
+when yawning inadvertently may be a reminiscence of this.
+
+
+
+5. Cradle-songs.
+
+
+The following are some cradle-songs taken down from a Chitrakar,
+but probably used by most of the lower Hindu castes:
+
+
+    1. Mother, rock the cradle of your pretty child. What is the
+    cradle made of, and what are its tassels made of?
+    The cradle is made of sandalwood, its tassels are of silk.
+    Some Gaolin (milkwoman) has overlooked the child, he vomits up
+    his milk.
+    Dasoda [475] shall wave salt and mustard round his head, and he
+    shall play in my lap.
+    My baby is making little steps. O Sunar, bring him tinkling
+    anklets!
+    The Sunar shall bring anklets for him, and my child will go to
+    the garden and there we will eat oranges and lemons.
+
+    2. My Krishna's tassel is lost, Tell me, some one, where it is. My
+    child is angry and will not come into my arms.
+    The tears are falling from his eyes like blossoms from the _bela_
+    [476] flower.
+    He has bangles on his wrists and anklets on his feet, on his head
+    a golden crown and round his waist a silver chain.
+
+
+The _jhumri_ or tassel referred to above is a tassel adorned with
+cowries and hung from the top of the cradle so that the child may
+keep his eyes on it while the cradle is being rocked.
+
+
+    3. Sleep, sleep, my little baby; I will wave my hands round your
+    head [477] on the banks of the Jumna. I have cooked hot cakes
+    for you and put butter in them; all the night you lay awake,
+    now take your fill of sleep.
+    The little mangoes are hanging on the tree; the rope is in the
+    well; sleep thou till I go and come back with water.
+    I will hang your cradle on the banyan tree, and its rope to the
+    pipal tree; I will rock my darling gently so that the rope shall
+    never break.
+
+
+The last song may be given in the vernacular as a specimen:
+
+
+            4. Ram ki Chireya, Ram ko khet.
+            Khaori Chireya, bhar, bhar pet.
+            Tan munaiyan kha lao khet,
+            Agao, labra, gali det;
+            Kahe ko, labra, gali de;
+            Apni bhuntia gin, gin le.
+
+
+or--
+
+
+    The field is Rama's, the little birds are Rama's; O birds, eat
+    your fill; the little birds have eaten up the corn.
+    The surly farmer has come to the field and scolds them; the little
+    birds say, 'O farmer, why do you scold us? count your ears of
+    maize, they are all there.'
+
+
+This song commemorates a favourite incident in the life of Tulsi Das,
+the author of the Ramayana, who when he was a little boy was once
+sent by his _guru_ to watch the crop. But after some time the _guru_
+came and found the field full of birds eating the corn and Tulsi Das
+watching them. When asked why he did not scare them away, he said,
+'Are they not as much the creatures of Rama as I am? how should I
+deprive them of food?'
+
+
+
+6. Occupation.
+
+
+The Chitaris pursue their old trade, principally in Nagpur city,
+where the taste for wall-paintings still survives; and they decorate
+the walls of houses with their crude red and blue colours. But
+they have now a number of other avocations. They paint pictures
+on paper, making their colours from the tins of imported aniline
+dyeing-powders which are sold in the bazar; but there is little
+demand for these. They make small pictures of the deities which
+the people hang on their walls for a day and then throw away. They
+also paint the bodies of the men who pretend to be tigers at the
+Muharram festival, for which they charge a rupee. They make the clay
+paper-covered masks of monkeys and demons worn by actors who play the
+Ramlila or story of Rama on the Ramnaomi festival in Chait (March);
+they also make the _tazias_ or representations of the tomb of Hussain
+and paper figures of human beings with small clay heads, which are
+carried in the Muharram procession. They make marriage crowns; the
+frames of these are of conical shape with a half-moon at the top,
+made from strips of bamboo; they are covered with red paper picked
+out with yellow and green and with tinfoil, and are ornamented with
+borders of date-palm leaves. The crowns cost from four annas to a
+rupee each. They make the artificial flowers used at weddings; these
+are stuck on a bamboo stick and at the arrival and departure of the
+bridegroom are scrambled for by the guests, who take them home as
+keepsakes or give them to their children for playthings. The flowers
+copied are the lotus, rose and chrysanthemum, and the imitations are
+quite good. Sometimes the bridegroom is surrounded by trays or boxes
+of flowers, carried in procession and arranged so as to look as if
+they were planted in beds. Other articles made by the Chitrakar are
+paper fans, paper globes for hanging to the roofs of houses, Chinese
+lanterns made either of paper or of mica covered with paper, and
+small caps of velvet embroidered with gold lace. At the Akti festival
+[478] they make pairs of little clay dolls, dressing them as male and
+female, and sell them in red lacquered bamboo baskets, and the girls
+take them to the jungle and pretend that they are married. Formerly
+the Chitrakars made clay idols for temples, but these have been
+supplanted by marble images imported from Jaipur. The Jingars make
+the cloth saddles on which natives ride, and some of them bind books,
+the leather for which is made from goat-skin, and is not considered so
+impure as that made from the hides of cattle. But one class of them,
+who are considered inferior, make leather harness from cow-hide and
+buffalo-hide.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+Chitrakathi
+
+
+_Chitrakathi, Hardas._ [479]--A small caste of religious mendicants
+and picture showmen in the Maratha Districts. In 1901 they numbered 200
+persons in the Central Provinces and 1500 in Berar, being principally
+found in the Amraoti District. The name, Mr. Enthoven writes, [480]
+is derived from _chitra,_ a picture, and _katha_, a story, and the
+professional occupation of the caste is to travel about exhibiting
+pictures of heroes and gods, and telling stories about them. The
+community is probably of mixed functional origin, for in Bombay
+they have exogamous section-names taken from those of the Marathas,
+as Jadhow, More, Powar and so on, while in the Central Provinces
+and Berar an entirely different set is found. Here several sections
+appear to be named after certain offices held or functions performed
+by their members at the caste feasts. Thus the Atak section are the
+caste headmen; the Mankari appear to be a sort of substitute for the
+Atak or their grand viziers, the word Mankar being primarily a title
+applied to Maratha noblemen, who held an official position at court;
+the Bhojni section serve the food at marriage and other ceremonies;
+the Kakra arrange for the lighting; the Kotharya are store-keepers; and
+the Ghoderao (from _ghoda_, a horse) have the duty of looking after the
+horses and bullock-carts of the castemen who assemble. The Chitrakathis
+are really no doubt the same caste as the Chitaris or Chitrakars
+(painters) of the Central Provinces, and, like them, a branch of the
+Mochis (tanners), and originally derived from the Chamars. But as the
+Berar Chitrakathis are migratory instead of settled, and in other
+respects differ from the Chitaris, they are treated in a separate
+article. Marriage within the section is forbidden, and, besides this,
+members of the Atak and Mankari sections cannot intermarry as they are
+considered to be related, being divisions of one original section. The
+social customs of the caste resemble those of the Kunbis, but they
+bury their dead in a sitting posture, with the face to the east, and
+on the eighth day erect a platform over the grave. At the festival
+of Akhatij (3rd of light Baisakh) [481] they worship a vessel of
+water in honour of their dead ancestors, and in Kunwar (September)
+they offer oblations to them. Though not impure, the caste occupy a
+low social position, and are said to prostitute their married women
+and tolerate sexual licence on the part of unmarried girls. Mr. Kitts
+[482] describes them as "Wandering mendicants, sometimes suspected
+of associating with Kaikaris for purposes of crime; but they seem
+nevertheless to be a comparatively harmless people. They travel about
+in little huts like those used by the Waddars; the men occasionally
+sell buffaloes and milk; the women beg, singing and accompanying
+themselves on the _thali_. The old men also beg, carrying a flag in
+their hand, and shouting the name of their god, Hari Vithal (from
+which they derive their name of Hardas). They are fond of spirits,
+and, when drunk, become pot-valiant and troublesome." The _thali_
+or plate on which their women play is also known as _sarthada_, and
+consists of a small brass dish coated with wax in the centre; this is
+held on the thigh and a pointed stick is moved in a circle so as to
+produce a droning sound. The men sometimes paint their own pictures,
+and in Bombay they have a caste rule that every Chitrakathi must have
+in his house a complete set of sacred pictures; this usually includes
+forty representations of Rama's life, thirty-five of that of the sons
+of Arjun, forty of the Pandavas, forty of Sita and Rawan, and forty
+of Harishchandra. The men also have sets of puppets representing the
+above and other deities, and enact scenes with them like a Punch and
+Judy show, sometimes aided by ventriloquism.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+Cutchi
+
+
+
+1. General notice.
+
+
+_Cutchi_ or _Meman, Kachhi, Muamin._--A class of Muhammadan merchants
+who come every year from Gujarat and Cutch to trade in the towns of
+the Central Provinces, where they reside for eight months, returning to
+their houses during the four months of the rainy season. In 1911 they
+numbered about 2000 persons, of whom five-sixths were men, this fact
+indicating the temporary nature of their settlements. Nevertheless a
+large proportion of the trade of the Province is in their hands. The
+caste is fully and excellently described by Khan Bahadur Fazalullah
+Lutfullah Faridi, Assistant Collector of Customs, Bombay, in the
+_Bombay Gazetteer_. [483] He remarks of them: "As shopkeepers and
+miscellaneous dealers Cutchis are considered to be the most successful
+of Muhammadans. They owe their success in commerce to their freedom
+from display and their close and personal attention to and keen
+interest in business. The richest Meman merchant does not disdain to
+do what a Parsi in his position would leave to his clerks. Their hope
+and courage are also excellent endowments. They engage without fear in
+any promising new branch of trade and are daring in their ventures,
+a trait partly inherited from their Lohana ancestors, and partly due
+to their faith in the luck which the favour of their saints secures
+them." Another great advantage arises from their method of trading
+in small corporations or companies of a number of persons either
+relations or friends. Some of these will have shops in the great
+centres of trade, Bombay and Calcutta, and others in different places
+in the interior. Each member then acts as correspondent and agent for
+all the others, and puts what business he can in their way. Many are
+also employed as assistants and servants in the shops; but at the end
+of the season, when all return to their native Gujarat, the profits
+from the different shops are pooled and divided among the members
+in varying proportion. By this method they obtain all the advantages
+which are recognised as attaching to co-operative trading.
+
+
+
+2. Origin of the caste.
+
+
+According to Mr. Faridi, from whose description the remainder of
+this article is mainly taken, the Memans or more correctly Muamins or
+'Believers' are converts from the Hindu caste of Lohanas of Sind. They
+venerate especially Maulana Abdul Kadir Gilani who died at Baghdad in
+A.D. 1165. His sixth descendant, Syed Yusufuddin Kordiri, was in 1421
+instructed in a dream to proceed to Sind and guide its people into
+the way of Islam. On his arrival he was received with honour by the
+local king, who was converted, and the ruler's example was followed
+by one Manikji, the head of one of the _nukhs_ or clans of the Lohana
+community. He with his three sons and seven hundred families of the
+caste embraced Islam, and on their conversion the title of Muamin or
+'Believer' was conferred on them by the saint. It may be noted that
+Colonel Tod derives the Lohanas from the Rajputs, remarking of them:
+[484] "This tribe is numerous both in Dhat and Talpura; formerly
+they were Rajputs, but betaking themselves to commerce have fallen
+into the third class. They are scribes and shopkeepers, and object
+to no occupation that will bring a subsistence; and as to food, to
+use the expressive idiom of this region where hunger spurns at law,
+'Excepting their cats and their cows they will eat anything.'" In his
+account of Sind, Postans says of the Lohanas: "The Hindu merchants and
+bankers have agents in the most remote parts of Central Asia and could
+negotiate bills upon Candahar, Khelat, Cabul, Khiva, Herat, Bokhara or
+any other marts of that country. These agents, in the pursuit of their
+calling, leave Sind for many years, quitting their families to locate
+themselves among the most savage and intolerant tribes." This account
+could equally apply to the Khatris, who also travel over Central Asia,
+as shown in the article on that caste; and if, as seems not improbable,
+the Lohanas and Khatris are connected, the hypothesis that the former,
+like the latter, are derived from Rajputs would receive some support.
+
+The present Pir or head of the community is Sayyid Jafir Shah, who is
+nineteenth in descent from Yusufuddin and lives partly in Bombay and
+partly in Mundra of South Cutch. "At an uncertain date," Mr. Faridi
+continues, "the Lohana or Cutchi Memans passed from Cutch south through
+Kathiawar to Gujarat. They are said to have been strong and wealthy
+in Surat during the period of its prosperity (1580-1680). As Surat
+sank the Cutchi Memans moved to Bombay. Outside Cutch and Kathiawar,
+which may be considered their homes, the Memans are scattered over the
+cities of north and south Gujarat and other Districts of Bombay. Beyond
+that Presidency they have spread as traders and merchants and formed
+settlements in Calcutta, Madras, the Malabar Coast, South Burma,
+Siam, Singapore and Java; in the ports of the Arabian Peninsula,
+except Muscat, where they have been ousted by the Khojas; and in
+Mozambique, Zanzibar and the East African Coast." [485] They have
+two divisions in Bombay, known as Cutchi or Kachhi and Halai.
+
+
+
+3. Social customs.
+
+
+Cutchis and Memans retain some non-Muhammadan usages. The principal
+of these is that they do not allow their daughters and widows to
+inherit according to the rule of Muhammadan law. [486] They conduct
+their weddings by the Nikah form and the _mehar_ or dowry is always
+the same sum of a hundred and twenty-five rupees, whatever may be the
+position of the parties and in the case of widows also. They say that
+either party may be divorced by the other for conjugal infidelity, but
+the _mehar_ or dowry must always be paid to the wife in the case of a
+divorce. The caste eat flesh and fowls and abstain from liquor. Most
+of them also decline to eat beef as a consequence of their Hindu
+ancestry and they will not take food from Hindus of low caste.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+Dahait [487]
+
+
+
+List of Paragraphs
+
+
+    1. _Origin of the caste._
+    2. _Internal structure: totemism._
+    3. _Marriage and other customs._
+    4. _Social position._
+    5. _Former occupations, door-keeper and mace-bearer._
+    6. _The umbrella._
+    7. _Significance of the umbrella._
+
+
+
+1. Origin of the caste.
+
+
+_Dahait, Dahayat._--A mixed caste of village watchmen of the Jubbulpore
+and Mandla Districts, who are derived from the cognate caste of
+Khangars and from several of the forest tribes. In 1911 the Dahaits
+numbered about 15,000 persons in the Central Provinces, of whom the
+large majority were found in the Jubbulpore District and the remainder
+in Bilaspur, Damoh and Seoni. Outside the Province they reside only
+in Bundelkhand. According to one story the Dahaits and Khangars had a
+common ancestor, and in Mandla again they say that their ancestors were
+the door-keepers of the Rajas of Mahoba, and were known as Chhadidar or
+Darwan; and they came to Mandla about 200 years ago, during the time
+of Raja Nizam Shah of the Raj-Gond dynasty of that place. In Mandla
+the names of their subdivisions are given as Rawatia or Rautia, Kol,
+Mawasi, Sonwani and Rajwaria. Of these Kol and Rajwar are the names
+of separate tribes; Mawasi is commonly used as a synonym for Korku,
+another tribe; Sonwani is the name of a sept found among several of
+the primitive tribes; while Rawat is a title borne by the Saonrs and
+Gonds. The names Rautia and Rajwaria are found as subdivisions of the
+Kol tribe in Mirzapur, [488] and it is not improbable that the Dahaits
+are principally derived from this tribe. The actual name Dahait is also
+given by Mr. Crooke as a subdivision of the Kols, and he states it to
+have the meaning of 'villager,' from _dehat_, a village. The Dahaits
+were a class of personal attendants on the chief or Raja, as will be
+seen subsequently. They stood behind the royal cushion and fanned him,
+ran in front of his chariot or litter to clear the way, and acted as
+door-keepers and ushers. Service of this kind is of a menial nature
+and, further, demands a considerable degree of physical robustness;
+and hence members of the non-Aryan forest tribes would naturally
+be selected for it. And it would appear that these menial servants
+gradually formed themselves into a caste in Bundelkhand and became the
+Dahaits. They obtained a certain rise in status, and now rank in the
+position of village menials above their parent tribes. In the Central
+Provinces the Dahaits have commonly been employed as village watchmen,
+a post analogous to that of door-keeper or porter. The caste are also
+known as Bhaldar or spearmen, and Kotwar or village watchmen.
+
+
+
+2. Internal structure: totemism.
+
+
+The subcastes returned from the Mandla District have already been
+mentioned. In Bilaspur they have quite different ones, of which two,
+Joharia and Pailagia, are derived from methods of greeting. Johar
+is the salutation which a Rajput prince sends to a vassal or chief
+of inferior rank, and Pailagi or 'I fall at your feet' is that with
+which a member of a lower caste accosts a Brahman. How such names
+came to be adopted as subcastes cannot be explained. The caste have
+a number of exogamous groups named after plants and animals. Members
+of the Bel, [489] Rusallo and Chheola [490] septs revere the trees
+after which these septs are named. They will not cut or injure
+the tree, and at the time of marriage they go and invite it to be
+present at the ceremony. They offer to the tree the _maihar_ cake,
+which is given only to the members of the family and the husbands
+and children of daughters. Those belonging to the Nagotia sept [491]
+will not kill a snake, and at the time of marriage they deposit the
+_maihar_ cake at a snake-hole. Members of the Singh (lion) and Bagh
+(tiger) septs will not kill a tiger, and at their weddings they draw
+his image on a wall and offer the cake to it, being well aware that
+if they approached the animal himself, he would probably repudiate
+the relationship and might not be satisfied with the cake for his meal.
+
+
+
+3. Marriage and other customs.
+
+
+Prior to a marriage a bride-price, known as _sukh_ or _chari_,
+and consisting of six rupees with some sugar, turmeric and sesamum
+oil, must be paid by the parents of the bridegroom to those of the
+bride; and in the absence of this they will decline to perform the
+ceremony. At the wedding the couple go round the sacred post, and then
+the bridegroom mingles the flames of two burning lamps and pierces the
+nose of the image of a bullock made in flour. This rite is performed
+by several castes, and is said to be in commemoration of Krishna's
+having done so on different occasions. It is probably meant to excuse
+or legitimise the real operation, which should properly be considered
+as sinful in view of the sacred character of the animal. And it may
+be mentioned here that the people of the Vindhyan or Bundelkhand
+Districts where the Dahaits live do not perforate the nostrils of
+bullocks, and drive them simply by a rope tied round the mouth. In
+consequence they have little control over them and are quite unable
+to stop a cart going downhill, which simply proceeds at the will
+of the animals until it reaches the level or bangs up against some
+obstacle. In Bilaspur a widow is expected to remain single for five
+years after her husband's death, and if she marries within that time
+she is put out of caste. Divorce is permitted, but is not of frequent
+occurrence. The caste will excuse a married woman caught in adultery
+once, but on a second offence she must be expelled. If a woman leaves
+her husband and goes to live with another man, the latter must repay to
+her husband the amount expended on his marriage. But in such a case,
+if the woman was already a widow or _kari aurat_, [492] no penalty
+is incurred by a man who takes her from her second husband. A man of
+any good cultivating caste who has a _liaison_ with a Dahait woman
+will be admitted into the community. An outsider who desires to
+become a member of the caste must clean his house, break his earthen
+cooking-pots and buy new ones, and give a meal to the caste-fellows
+at his house. He sits and takes food with them, and when the meal
+is over he takes a grain of rice from the leaf-plate of each guest
+and eats it, and drinks a drop of water from his leaf-cup. This act
+is equivalent to eating the leavings of food, and after it he cannot
+re-enter his own caste. On such occasions a rupee and a piece of cloth
+must be given to the headman of the caste, and a piece of cloth to
+each member of the _panchayat_ or committee. The headman is known
+as Mirdhan, and a member of the committee as Diwan, the offices of
+both being hereditary. The caste worship the Hindu and village gods
+of the locality. They have a curious belief that the skull of a man
+of the Kayasth (writer) caste cannot be burnt in fire, and that if
+it is placed in a dwelling-house the inmates will quarrel. A child's
+first teeth, if found, are thrown into a sacred river or on to the
+roof of a house with a few grains of rice, in order that the second
+teeth may grow white and pointed like the rice. The Jhalar or first
+hair of a boy or girl is cut between two and ten years of age and is
+wrapped in a piece of dough and thrown into a sacred river. Women are
+tattooed on the back of the hands, and also sometimes on the shoulder
+and the arms above the elbow, but not on the feet or face.
+
+
+
+4. Social position.
+
+
+The Dahaits are now commonly employed as village watchmen and as guards
+or porters (_chaukidar_) of houses. In Bilaspur they also carry litters
+and work as navvies and stonebreakers like the Kols. Here they will
+eat pork, but in Jubbulpore greater regard is paid to Hindu prejudice,
+and they have given up pork and fowls and begun to employ Brahmans
+for their ceremonies. The men of the caste will accept cooked food
+from any man of the higher castes or those cultivators from whom a
+Brahman will take water, but the women are more strict and will only
+accept it from a Brahman, Bania, Lodhi or Kurmi.
+
+
+
+5. Former occupations: door-keeper and mace-bearer.
+
+
+In past times the Dahaits were the personal attendants on the
+king. They fanned him with the _chaur_ or yak-tail whisk when he sat in
+state on the royal cushion. This implement is held sacred and is also
+used by Brahmans to fan the deities. On ordinary occasions the Raja
+was fanned by a pankha made of _khaskhas_ grass and wetted, but not
+so that the water fell on his head. They also acted as gate-keepers
+of the palace, and had the title of Darwan. The gate-keeper's post
+was a responsible one, as it lay on him to see that no one with evil
+intentions or carrying secret arms was admitted to the palace. Whenever
+a chief or noble came to visit the king he deposited his arms with
+the porter or door-keeper. The necessity of a faithful door-keeper is
+shown in the proverb: "With these five you must never quarrel: your
+Guru, your wife, your gate-keeper, your doctor and your cook." The
+reasons for the inclusion of the others are fairly clear. On the
+other hand the gate-porter had usually to be propitiated before
+access was obtained to his master, like the modern chuprassie; and the
+resentment felt at his rapacity is shown in the proverb: "The broker,
+the octroi moharrir, the door-keeper and the bard: these four will
+surely go to hell." The Darwan or door-keeper would be given the
+right to collect dues, equivalent to those of a village watchman,
+from forty or fifty villages. The Dahaits also carried the _chob_
+or silver mace before the king. This was about five feet long with
+a knob at the upper end as thick as a man's wrist. The mace-bearer
+was known as Chobdar, and it was his duty to carry messages and
+announce visitors; this latter function he performed with a degree of
+pomposity truly Asiatic, dwelling with open mouth very audibly on some
+of the most sounding and emphatic syllables in a way that appeared to
+strangers almost ludicrous, [493] as shown in the following instance:
+"On advancing, the Chobdars or heralds proclaimed the titles of this
+princely cow-keeper in the usual hyperbolical style. One of the most
+insignificant-looking men I ever saw then became the destroyer of
+nations, the leveller of mountains, the exhauster of the ocean. After
+commanding every inferior mortal to make way for this exalted prince,
+the heralds called aloud to the animal creation, 'Retire, ye serpents;
+fly, ye locusts; approach not, iguanas, lizards and reptiles, while
+your lord and master condescends to set his foot on the earth.'" [494]
+The Dahaits ran before the Raja's chariot or litter to clear the way
+for him and announce his coming; and it was also a principal business
+of the caste to carry the royal umbrella above the head of the king.
+
+
+
+6. The umbrella.
+
+
+The umbrella was the essential symbol of sovereignty in Asia like the
+crown in Europe. "Among the ancient Egyptians the umbrella carried
+with it a mark of distinction, and persons of quality alone could use
+it. The Assyrians reserved it for royal personages only. The umbrella
+or parasol, says Layard, that emblem of royalty so universally
+adopted by Eastern nations, was generally carried over the king in
+time of peace and sometimes even in war. In shape it resembled very
+closely those now in common use; but it is always seen open in the
+sculptures. It was edged with tassels and usually decorated at the top
+by a flower or some other ornament. The Greeks used it as a mystic
+symbol in some of their sacred festivals, and the Romans introduced
+the custom of hanging an umbrella in the basilican churches as a part
+of the insignia of office of the judge sitting in the basilica. It is
+said that on the judgment hall being turned into a church the umbrella
+remained, and in fact occupied the place of the canopy over thrones
+and the like; and Beatian, an Italian herald, says that a vermilion
+umbrella in a field argent symbolises dominion. It is also believed
+that the cardinal's hat is a modification of the umbrella in the
+basilican churches. The king of Burma is proud to call himself The Lord
+of Twenty-four Umbrellas, and the Emperor of China carries that number
+even to the hunting-field." [495] In Buddhist architecture the 'Wheel
+of Light' symbolising Buddha is overshadowed by an umbrella, itself
+adorned with garlands. At Sanchi we find sculptured representations
+of two and even three umbrellas placed one above the other over the
+temples, the double and triple canopies of which appear to be fixed
+to the same handle or staff as in the modern state umbrellas of China
+and Burma. Thus we have the primary idea of the accumulated honour of
+stone or metal discs which subsequently became such a prominent feature
+of Buddhist architecture, culminating in the many-storied pagodas of
+China and Japan. [496] Similarly in Hindu temples the pinnacle often
+stands on a circular stone base, probably representing an umbrella.
+
+The umbrella of state was apparently not black like its successor of
+commerce, but of white or another colour, though the colour is seldom
+recorded. Sometimes it was of peacock's feathers, the symbol of the
+Indian war-god, and as seen above, in Italy it was of red, the royal
+colour. It has been suggested that the halo originally represented
+an umbrella, and there is no reason to doubt that the umbrella was
+the parent of the state canopy.
+
+
+
+7. Significance of the umbrella.
+
+
+It has been supposed that the reason for carrying the umbrella above
+the king's head was to veil his eyes from his subjects, and prevent
+them from being injured by the magical power of his glance. [497]
+But its appearance on temples perhaps rather militates against this
+view. Possibly it may have merely served as a protection or covering
+to the king's head, the head being considered especially sacred
+as the seat of life. The same idea is perhaps at the root of the
+objection felt by Hindus to being seen abroad without a covering on
+the head. It seems likely that the umbrella may have been held to be
+a representation of the sky or firmament. The Muhammadans conjoined
+with it an _aftada_ or sun-symbol; this was an imitation of the sun,
+embroidered in gold upon crimson velvet and fixed on a circular
+framework which was borne aloft upon a gold or silver staff. [498]
+Both were carried over the head of any royal personage, and the
+association favours the idea that the umbrella represents the sky,
+while the king's head might be considered analogous to the sun. When
+one of the early Indian monarchs made extensive conquests, the annexed
+territories were described as being brought under his umbrella;
+of the king Harsha-Vardhana (606-648 A.D.) it is recorded that he
+prosecuted a methodical scheme of conquest with the deliberate object
+of bringing all India under one umbrella, that is, of constituting
+it into one state. This phrase seems to support the idea that the
+umbrella symbolised the firmament. Similarly, when Visvamitra sent
+beautiful maidens to tempt the good king Harischandra he instructed
+them to try and induce the king to marry them, and if he would not do
+this, to ask him for the Puchukra Undi or State Umbrella, which was
+the emblem of the king's protecting power over his kingdom, with the
+idea that that power would be destroyed by its loss. Chhatrapati or
+Lord of the Umbrella was the proudest title of an Indian king. When
+Sivaji was enthroned in 1674 he proclaimed himself as Pinnacle
+of the Kshatriya race and Lord of the Royal Umbrella. All these
+instances seem to indicate that some powerful significance, such as
+that already suggested, attached to the umbrella. Several tribes,
+as the Gonds and Mundas, have a legend that their earliest king was
+born of poor parents, and that one day his mother, having left the
+child under some tree while she went to her work, returned to find a
+cobra spreading its hood over him. The future royal destiny of the
+boy was thus predicted. It is commonly said that the cobra spread
+its hood over the child to guard it from the heat of the sun, but
+such protection would perhaps scarcely seem very important to such
+a people as the Gonds, and the mother would naturally also leave the
+child in the shade. It seems a possible hypothesis that the cobra's
+hood really symbolised the umbrella, the principal emblem of royal
+rank, and it was in this way that the child's great destiny was
+predicted. In this connection it may be noticed that one of the Jain
+Tirthakars, Parasnath, is represented in sculpture with an umbrella
+over his head; but some Jains say that the carving above the saint's
+head is not an umbrella but a cobra's hood. Even after it had ceased
+to be the exclusive appanage of the king, the umbrella was a sign of
+noble rank, and not permitted to the commonalty.
+
+The old Anglo-Indian term for an umbrella was 'roundel,' an early
+English word, applied to a variety of circular objects, as a mat
+under a dish, or a target, and in its form of 'arundel' to the conical
+handguard on a lance. [499] An old Indian writer says: "Roundels are
+in these warm climates very necessary to keep the sun from scorching
+a man, they may also be serviceable to keep the rain off; most men
+of account maintain one, two or three roundeliers, whose office
+is only to attend their master's motion; they are very light but
+of exceeding stiffness, being for the most part made of rhinoceros
+hide, very decently painted and guilded with what flowers they best
+admire. Exactly in the midst thereof is fixed a smooth handle made
+of wood, by which the Roundelier doth carry it, holding it a foot or
+more above his master's head, directing the centre thereof as opposite
+to the sun as possibly he may. Any man whatever that will go to the
+charge of it, which is no great matter, may have one or more Katysols
+to attend him but not a Roundel; unless he be a Governor or one of
+the Council. The same custom the English hold good amongst their own
+people, whereby they may be distinguished by the natives." [500] The
+Katysol was a Chinese paper and bamboo sunshade, and the use of them
+was not prohibited. It was derived from the Portuguese _quito-sol_,
+or that which keeps off the sun. [501] An extract from the _Madras
+Standing Orders_, 1677-78, prescribed: "That except by the members
+of this Council, those that have formerly been in that quality,
+Chiefs of Factories, Commanders of Ships out of England, and the
+Chaplains, Rundells shall not be worn by any men in this town, and
+by no woman below the degree of Factors' Wives and Ensigns' Wives,
+except by such as the Governor shall permit." [502] Another writer
+in 1754 states: "Some years before our arrival in the country, they
+(the E. I. Co.) found such sumptuary laws so absolutely necessary,
+that they gave the strictest orders that none of these young gentlemen
+should be allowed even to hire a Roundel boy, whose business it is
+to walk by his master and defend him with his Roundel or umbrella
+from the heat of the sun. A young fellow of humour, upon this last
+order coming over, altered the form of his Umbrella from a round to
+a square, called it a Squaredel instead of a Roundel, and insisted
+that no order yet in force forbade him the use of it." [503] The fact
+that the Anglo-Indians called the umbrella a roundel and regarded it
+as a symbol of sovereignty or nobility indicates that it was not yet
+used in England; and this Mr. Skeat shows to be correct. "The first
+umbrella used in England by a man in the open street for protection
+against rain is usually said to have been that carried by Jonas Hanway,
+a great traveller, who introduced it on his return from Paris about
+1750, some thirty years before it was generally adopted.
+
+"Some kind of umbrella was, however, occasionally used by ladies at
+least so far back as 1709; and a fact not generally known is that
+from about the year 1717 onwards, a 'parish' umbrella, resembling the
+more recent 'family' umbrella of the nineteenth century, was employed
+by the priest at open-air funerals, as the church accounts of many
+places testify." [504] This ecclesiastical use of the umbrella may
+have been derived from its employment as a symbol in Italian churches,
+as seen above. The word umbrella is derived through the Italian from
+the Latin _umbra_, shade, and in mediaeval times a state umbrella
+was carried over the Doge or Duke at Venice on the occasion of any
+great ceremony. [505]
+
+Even recently it is said that in Saugor no Bania dare go past a Bundela
+Rajput's house without getting down from his pony and folding up his
+umbrella. In Hindu slang a 'Chhatawali' or carrier of an umbrella was a
+term for a smart young man; as in the line, 'An umbrella has two kinds
+of ribs; two women are quarrelling for the love of him who carries
+it.' Now that the umbrella is free to all, and may be bought for a
+rupee or less in the bazar, the prestige which once attached to it
+has practically disappeared. But some flavour of its old associations
+may still cling to it in the minds of the sais and ayah who proudly
+parade to a festival carrying umbrellas spread over them to shade
+their dusky features from the sun; though the Raja, in obedience to
+the dictates of fashion, has discarded the umbrella for a _sola-topi_.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+Daharia
+
+
+
+1. Origin and traditions.
+
+
+_Daharia._ [506]--A caste of degraded Rajputs found in Bilaspur and
+Raipur, and numbering about 2000 persons. The Daharias were originally
+a clan of Rajputs but, like several others in the Central Provinces,
+they have now developed into a caste and marry among themselves, thus
+transgressing the first rule of Rajput exogamy. Colonel Tod included
+the Daharias among the thirty-six royal races of Rajasthan. [507]
+Their name is derived from Dahar or Dahal, the classical term for
+the Jubbulpore country at the period when it formed the dominion
+of the Haihaya or Kalachuri Rajput kings of Tripura or Tewar near
+Jubbulpore. This dynasty had an era of their own, commencing in
+A.D. 248, and their line continued until the tenth or eleventh
+century. The Arabian geographer Alberuni (born a.d. 973) mentions the
+country of Dahal and its king Gangeya Deva. His son Karna Daharia is
+still remembered as the builder of temples in Karanbel and Bilahri
+in Jubbulpore, and it is from him that the Daharia Rajputs take
+their name. The Haihaya dynasty of Ratanpur were related to the
+Kalachuri kings of Tewar, and under them the ancestors of the Daharia
+Rajputs probably migrated from Jubbulpore into Chhattisgarh. But
+they themselves have forgotten their illustrious origin, and tell a
+different story to account for their name. They say that they came from
+Baghelkhand or Rewah, which may well be correct, as Rewah lies between
+Chhattisgarh and Jubbulpore, and a large colony of Kalachuri Rajputs
+may still be found about ten miles north-east of Rewah town. The
+Daharias relate that when Parasurama, the great Brahman warrior, was
+slaying the Kshatriyas, a few of them escaped towards Ratanpur and were
+camping in the forest by the wayside. Parasurama came up and asked
+them who they were, and they said they were _Daharias_ or wayfarers,
+from _dahar_ the Chhattisgarhi term for a road or path; and thus they
+successfully escaped the vengeance of Parasurama. This futile fiction
+only demonstrates the real ignorance of their Brahman priests, who, if
+they had known a little history, need not have had recourse to their
+invention to furnish the Daharias with a distinguished pedigree. A
+third derivation is from a word _dahri_ or gate, and they say that the
+name of Dahria or Daharia was conferred on them by Bimbaji Bhonsla,
+because of the bravery with which they held the gates of Ratanpur
+against his attack. But history is against them here, as it records
+that Ratanpur capitulated to the Marathas without striking a blow.
+
+
+
+2. Sept and subsept.
+
+
+As already stated, the Daharias were originally a clan of Rajputs,
+whose members must take wives or husbands from other clans. They
+have now become a caste and marry among themselves, but within the
+caste they still have exogamous groups or septs, several of which are
+named after Rajput clans as Bais, Chandel, Baghel, Bundela, Mainpuri
+Chauhan, Parihar, Rathor and several others. Certain names are not of
+Rajput origin, and probably record the admission of outsiders into the
+caste. Like the Rajputs, within the sept they have also subsepts, some
+of which are taken from the Brahmans, as Parasar, Bharadwaj, Sandilya,
+while others are nicknames, as Kachariha (one who does not care about
+a beating), Atariha, Hiyas and others. The divisions of the septs and
+subsepts are very confused, and seem to indicate that at different
+times various foreign elements have been received into the community,
+including Rajputs of many different clans. According to rule, a man
+should not take a wife whose sept or subsept are the same as his own,
+but this is not adhered to; and in some cases the Daharias, on account
+of the paucity of their numbers and the difficulty of arranging
+matches, have been driven to permit the marriage of first cousins,
+which among proper Rajputs is forbidden. They also practise hypergamy,
+as members of the Mainpuri Chauhan, Hiyas, Bisen, Surkhi and Bais septs
+or subsepts will take girls in marriage from families of other septs,
+but will not give their daughters to them. This practice leads to
+polygamy among the five higher septs, whose daughters are all married
+in their own circle, while in addition they receive girls from the
+other groups. Members of these latter also consider it an honour to
+marry a daughter into one of the higher septs, and are willing to pay
+a considerable price for such a distinction. It seems probable that the
+small Daraiha caste of Bilaspur are an inferior branch of the Daharias.
+
+
+
+3. Social customs.
+
+
+The Daharias, in theory at any rate, observe the same rules in
+regard to their women as Brahmans and Rajputs. Neither divorce nor
+the marriage of widows is permitted, and a woman who goes wrong is
+finally expelled from the caste. Their social customs resemble those
+of the higher Hindustani castes. When the bridegroom starts for the
+wedding he is dressed in a long white gown reaching to the ankles,
+with new shoes, and he takes with him a dagger; this serves the
+double purpose of warding off evil spirits, always prone to attack
+the bridal party, and also of being a substitute for the bridegroom
+himself, as in case he should for some unforeseen reason be rendered
+unable to appear at the ceremony, the bride could be married to the
+dagger as his representative. It may also be mentioned that, before
+the bridegroom starts for the wedding, after he has been rubbed with
+oil and turmeric for five days he is seated on a wooden plank over
+a hole dug in the courtyard and bathed. He then changes his clothes,
+and the women bring twenty-one small _chukias_ or cups full of water
+and empty them over him. His head is then covered with a piece of
+new cloth, and a thread wound round it seven times by a Brahman. The
+thread is afterwards removed, and tied round an iron ring with some
+mango leaves, and this ring forms the _kankan_ which is tied to the
+bridegroom's wrist, a similar one being worn by the bride. Before the
+wedding the bride goes round to the houses of her friends, accompanied
+by the women of her party singing songs, and by musicians. At each
+house the mistress appears with her forehead and the parting of
+her hair profusely smeared with vermilion. She rubs her forehead
+against the bride's so as to colour it also with vermilion, which
+is now considered the symbol of a long and happy married life. The
+barber's wife applies red paint to the bride's feet, the gardener's
+wife presents her with a garland of flowers, and the carpenter's
+wife gives her a new wooden doll. She must also visit the potter's
+and washerman's wives, whose benisons are essential; they give her a
+new pot and a little rice respectively. When the bridegroom comes to
+touch the marriage-shed with his dagger he is resisted by the bride's
+sister, to whom he must give a rupee as a present. The binding portion
+of the marriage consists in the couple walking seven times round the
+marriage-post. At each turn the bridegroom seizes the bride's right
+toe and with it upsets one of seven little cups of rice placed near
+the marriage-post. This is probably a symbol of fertility. After
+it they worship seven pairs of little wooden boxes smeared with
+vermilion and called _singhora_ and _singhori_ as if they were male
+and female. The bridegroom's father brings two little dough images
+of Mahadeo and Parvati as the ideal married pair, and gives them to
+the couple. The new husband applies vermilion to his wife's forehead,
+and covers and uncovers her head seven times, to signify to her that,
+having become a wife, she should henceforth be veiled when she goes
+abroad. The bride's maid now washes her face, which probably requires
+it, and the wedding is complete. The Daharias usually have a _guru_ or
+spiritual preceptor, but husband and wife must not have the same one,
+as in that case they would be in the anomalous position of brother and
+sister, a _guru's_ disciples being looked upon as his children. The
+Daharias were formerly warriors in the service of the Ratanpur kings,
+and many families still possess an old sword which they worship on
+the day of Dasahra. Their names usually end in Singh or Lal. They
+are now engaged in cultivation, and many of them are proprietors of
+villages, and tenants. Some of them are employed as constables and
+chuprassies, but few are labourers, as they may not touch the plough
+with their own hands. They eat the flesh of clean animals, but do not
+drink liquor, and avoid onions and tomatoes. They have good features
+and fair complexions, the traces of their Rajput blood being quite
+evident. Brahmans will take water from them, but they now rank below
+Rajputs, on a level with the good cultivating castes.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+Dangi
+
+
+
+1. Origin and traditions.
+
+
+_Dangi._--A cultivating caste found almost exclusively in the
+Saugor District, which contained 23,000 persons out of a total of
+24,000 of the caste in the Central Provinces in 1911. There are also
+considerable numbers of them in Rajputana and Central India, from
+which localities they probably immigrated into the Saugor District
+during the eleventh century. The Dangis were formerly dominant in
+Saugor, a part of which was called Dangiwara after them. The kings of
+Garhpahra or old Saugor were Dangis, and their family still remains at
+the village of Bilehra, which with a few other villages they hold as
+a revenue-free grant. The name of the caste is variously derived. The
+traditional story is that the Rajput king of Garhpahra detained the
+palanquins of twenty-two married women of different castes and kept
+them as his wives. The issue of the illicit intercourse were named
+Dangis, and there are thus twenty-two subdivisions of the caste,
+besides three other subdivisions who are held to be descended from
+pure Rajputs. The name is said to be derived from _dang_, fraud,
+on account of the above deception. A more plausible derivation is
+from the Persian _dang_, a hill, the Dangis being thus hillmen; and
+they may not improbably have been a set of robbers and freebooters in
+the Vindhyan Hills, like the Gujars and Mewatis in northern India,
+naturally recruiting their band from all classes of the population,
+as is shown by ingenious implication in this story itself. '_Khet men
+bami, gaon men Dangi_,' or 'A Dangi in the village is like the hole
+of a snake in one's field' is a proverb which shows the estimation
+in which they were formerly held. The three higher septs may have
+been their leaders and may well have been Rajputs. Since they have
+settled down as respectable cultivators and enjoy a good repute among
+their neighbours, the Dangis have disowned the above story, and now
+say that they are descended from Raja Dang, a Kachhwaha Rajput king
+of Narwar in Central India. Nothing is known of Raja Dang except a
+rude couplet which records how he was cheated by a horse-dealer:
+
+
+                    Jitki ghori tit gayi
+                    Dang hath karyari rahi,
+
+
+'The mare bolted to the seller again, leaving in Dang's hand nothing
+except the reins.'
+
+The Dangis have a more heroic version of this story to the effect
+that the mare was a fairy of Indra's court, who for some reason had
+been transformed into this shape and was captured by Raja Dang. He
+refused to give her up to Indra and a battle was about to ensue,
+when the mare besought them to place her on a pyre and sacrifice her
+instead of fighting. They agreed to do this, and out of the flames
+of the pyre the fairy emerged and floated up to heaven, leaving only
+the reins and bridle of the mare in Raja Dang's hand. Yet a third
+story is that their original ancestor was Raja Nipal Singh of Narwar,
+and when he was fighting with Indra over the fairy, Krishna came to
+Indra's assistance. But Nipal Singh refused to bow down to Krishna,
+and being annoyed at this and wishing to teach him a lesson the god
+summoned him to his court. At the gate through which Nipal Singh
+had to pass, Krishna fixed a sword at the height of a man's neck,
+so that he must bend or have his head cut off. But Nipal Singh saw
+the trick, and, sitting down, propelled himself through the doorway
+with his head erect. The outwitted god remarked, '_Tum bare dandi
+ho_,' or 'You are very cunning,' and the name Dandi stuck to Nipal
+Singh and was afterwards corrupted to Dangi. There can be little
+doubt that the caste are an offshoot of Rajputs of impure blood,
+and with a large admixture of other classes of the population. Some
+of their sept names indicate their mixed descent, as Rakhya, born
+of a potter woman, Dhoniya, born of a washerwoman, and Pavniya, born
+of a weaver woman. In past times the Dangis served in the Rajput and
+Maratha armies, and a small isolated colony of them is found in one
+village of Indora in the Nagpur District, the descendants of Dangis
+who engaged in military service under the Bhonsla kings.
+
+
+
+2. Caste subdivisions.
+
+
+The Dangis have no subcastes distinguished by separate names, but they
+are divided into three classes, among whom the principle of hypergamy
+prevails. As already seen, there were formerly twenty-five clans, of
+whom the three highest, the Nahonias, Bhadonias and Nadias, claimed
+to be pure Rajputs. The other twenty-two clans are known as Baisa (22)
+or Prithwipat Dangis, after the king who is supposed to have been the
+ancestor of all the clans. Each of his twenty-two wives is said to have
+been given a village for her maintenance, and the clans are named after
+these villages. But there are now only thirteen of these local clans
+left, and below them is a miscellaneous group of clans, representing
+apparently later accretions to the caste. Some of them are named from
+the places from which they came, as Mahobia, from Mahoba, Narwaria,
+from Narwar, and so on. The Solakhia sept is named after the Solanki
+Rajputs, of whom they may be the partly illegitimate descendants. The
+Parnami sept are apparently those who have the creed of the Dhamis,
+the followers of Prannath of Panna. And as already seen, some are named
+from women of low caste, from whom by Dangi fathers they are supposed
+to be descended. The whole number of septs is thus divided into three
+groups, the highest containing the three quasi-Rajput septs already
+mentioned, the next highest the thirteen septs of Prithwipat Dangis,
+and the lowest all the other septs. Pure Rajputs will take daughters
+in marriage from the highest group, and this in turn takes girls of
+the Prithwipat Dangis of the thirteen clans, though neither will give
+daughters in return; and the Prithwipat Dangis will similarly accept
+the daughters of the miscellaneous septs below them in marriage with
+their sons. Matches are, however, not generally arranged according to
+the above system of hypergamy, but each group marries among its own
+members. Girls who are married into a higher group have to be given
+a larger dowry, the fathers often being willing to pay Rs. 500 or
+Rs. 1000 for the social distinction which such an alliance confers
+on the family. Among the highest septs there is a further difference
+between those whose ancestors accepted food from Raja Jai Singh,
+the founder of Jaisinghnagar, and those who refused it. The former
+are called Sakrodia or those who ate the leavings of others, and
+the latter _Deotaon ki sansar_, or the divine Dangis. Pure Rajputs
+will take daughters only from the members of the latter group in each
+sept. Marriage within the sept or _baink_ is prohibited, and as a rule
+a man does not marry a wife belonging to the same sept as his mother
+or grandmother. Marriage by exchange also is not allowed, that is,
+a girl cannot be married into the same family as that in which her
+brother has married.
+
+
+
+3. Marriage.
+
+
+Girls are generally married between seven and twelve and boys
+between ten and twenty, but no stigma attaches to a family allowing
+an unmarried girl to exceed the age of puberty. The bridegroom should
+always be older than the bride. Matches are arranged by the parents,
+the horoscopes of the children being compared among the well-to-do. The
+zodiacal sign of the boy's horoscope should be stronger than that of
+the girl's, so that she may be submissive to him in after-life. Thus
+a girl whose zodiac sign is the lion should not be married to a boy
+whose sign is the ram, because in that case the wife would dominate
+the husband. There is no special rule as to the time of the betrothal,
+and the ceremony is very simple, consisting in the presentation of a
+cocoanut by the bride's father to the bridegroom's father, and the
+distribution of sweets to the caste-fellows. The betrothal is not
+considered to have any particularly binding force and either party may
+break through it. Among the Dangis a bridegroom-price is usually paid,
+which varies according to the social respectability of the boy's sept,
+as much as Rs. 2000 having been given for a bridegroom of higher
+class according to the rule of hypergamy already described. But no
+value is placed on educational qualifications, as is the case among
+Brahmans and Kayasths. The marriage ceremony is conducted according
+to the ritual prevalent in the northern Districts, and presents no
+special features. Two feasts are given by the bride's father to the
+caste-fellows, one consisting of _katchi_ food or that which is cooked
+with water, and another of _pakki_ food cooked with _ghi_ (butter). If
+the bride is of marriageable age the _gauna_ or sending away ceremony
+is performed at once, otherwise it takes place in the third or fifth
+year after marriage. At the _gauna_ ceremony the bride's cloth is tied
+to that of the bridegroom, and they change seats. Widow-marriage is not
+fashionable, and the caste say that it is not permitted, but several
+instances are known of its having occurred. Divorce is not allowed,
+and a woman who goes wrong is finally expelled from the caste. Polygamy
+is allowed, and many well-to-do persons have more than one wife.
+
+
+
+4. Religious and social customs.
+
+
+The Dangis pay special reverence to the goddess Durga or Devi as the
+presiding deity of war. They worship her during the months of Kunwar
+(September) and Chait (March), and at the same time pay reverence to
+their weapons of war, their swords and guns, or if they have not got
+these, to knives and spears. They burn their dead, but children are
+usually buried. They observe mourning for three days for a child and
+for ten days for an adult, and on the 13th day the caste-fellows are
+feasted. Their family priests, who are Jijhotia Brahmans, used formerly
+to shave the head and beard when a death occurred among their clients
+as if they belonged to the family, but this practice was considered
+derogatory by other Brahmans, and they have now stopped it. The Dangis
+perform the _shradhh_ ceremony in the month of Kunwar. The caste wear
+the sacred thread, but it is said that they were formerly not allowed
+to do so in Bundelkhand. They eat fish and flesh, including that of
+wild boars, but not fowls or beef, and they do not drink liquor. They
+take _pakki_ food or that cooked without water from Kayasths and
+Gahoi Banias, and _katchi_ food, cooked with water, from Jijhotia
+and Sanadhya Brahmans. Jijhotia Brahmans formerly took _pakki_ food
+from Dangis, but have now ceased to do so. The Dangis require the
+services of Brahmans at all ceremonies. They have a caste _panchayat_
+or committee. A person who changes his religion or eats with a low
+caste is permanently expelled, while temporary exclusion is awarded
+for the usual delinquencies. In the case of the more serious offences,
+as murder or killing of a cow, the culprit must purify himself by a
+pilgrimage to a sacred river.
+
+
+
+5. Occupation and character.
+
+
+The Dangis were formerly, as already stated, of a quarrelsome
+temperament, but they have now settled down and, though spirited,
+are of a good disposition, and hard-working cultivators. They rank
+slightly above the representative cultivating castes owing to their
+former dominant position, and are still considered to have a good
+conceit of themselves, according to the saying:
+
+
+                Tin men neh terah men,
+                Mirdang bajawe dere men,
+
+
+or 'Though he belong neither to the three septs nor the thirteen septs,
+yet the Dangi blows his own trumpet in his own house.' They are still,
+too, of a fiery disposition, and it is said that the favourite dish
+of gram-flour cooked with curds, which is known as _karhi_, is never
+served at their weddings. Because the word _karhi_ also signifies
+the coming out of a sword from its sheath, and when addressed to
+another man has the equivalent of the English word 'Draw' in the
+duelling days. So if one Dangi said it to another, meaning to ask
+him for the dish, it might result in a fight. They are very backward
+in respect of education and set no store by it. They consider their
+traditional occupation to be military service, but nearly all of them
+are now engaged in agriculture. At the census of 1901 over 2000 were
+returned as supported by the ownership of land and 3000 as labourers
+and farmservants. Practically all the remainder are tenants. They
+are industrious, and their women work in the fields. The only crops
+which they object to grow are _kusum_ or safflower and san-hemp. The
+Nahonia Dangis, being the highest subcaste, refuse to sell milk or
+_ghi_. The men usually have Singh as a termination to their names,
+like Rajputs. Their dress and ornaments are of the type common in
+the northern Districts. The women tattoo their bodies.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+Dangri
+
+
+_Dangri._ [508]--A small caste of melon and vegetable growers, whose
+name is derived from _dangar_ or _dangra_, a water-melon. They reside
+in the Wardha and Bhandara Districts, and numbered about 1800 persons
+in 1911. The caste is a mixed one of functional origin, and appears to
+be an offshoot from the Kunbis with additions from other sources. In
+Wardha they say that their ancestor was one of two brothers to whom
+Mahadeo gave the seeds of a juari plant and a water-melon respectively
+for sowing. The former became the ancestor of the Kunbis and the latter
+of the Dangris. On one occasion when Mahadeo, assuming the guise of a
+beggar, asked the Dangri brother for a water-melon, he refused to give
+it, and on this account his descendants were condemned to perpetual
+poverty. In fact, the Dangris, like the other market-gardening castes,
+are badly off, possibly on account of their common habit of marrying
+a number of wives, whom they utilise as labourers in their vegetable
+gardens; for though a wife is better than a hired labourer for their
+particular method of cultivation, where supervision is difficult
+and the master may be put to serious loss from bad work and petty
+pilfering, while there is also much scope for women workers; yet on
+the other hand polygamy tends to the breeding of family quarrels and
+to excessive subdivision of property. The close personal supervision
+which is requisite perhaps also renders it especially difficult to
+carry on the business of market-gardening on a large scale. In any
+case the agricultural holdings of the Malis and Dangris are as a
+rule very small. The conclusion indicated by the above story that the
+Dangris are an offshoot from the Kunbi caste of cultivators appears
+to be correct; and it is supported by the fact that they will accept
+food cooked with water from the Baone Kunbis. But their subcastes
+show that even this small body is of very heterogeneous composition;
+for they are divided into the Teli, the Kalar, the Kunbi and the
+Gadiwan Dangris, thus showing that the caste has received recruits
+from the Telis or oilmen and the Kalars or liquor-sellers. The
+Gadiwan, as their name denotes, are a separate section who have
+adopted the comparatively novel occupation of cart-driving for a
+livelihood. In Wardha there is also a small class of Panibhar or
+waterman Dangris who are employed as water-bearers, this occupation
+arising not unnaturally from that of growing melons and other crops
+in river-beds. And a few members of the caste have taken to working
+in iron. The bulk of the Dangris, however, grow melons, chillies and
+brinjals on the banks or in the beds of rivers; but as the melon crop
+is raised in a period of six weeks during the hot season, they can
+also undertake some ordinary cultivation. When the melons ripen the
+first fruits are offered to Mahadeo and given to a Brahman to ensure
+the success of the crop. When the melon plants are in flower, a woman
+must not enter the field during the period of her monthly impurity,
+as it is believed that she would cause the crop to wither. While it
+may safely be assumed that the Dangris originated from the great Kunbi
+caste, it may be noted that some of them tell a story to the effect
+that their original home was Benares, and that they came from there
+into the Central Provinces; hence they call themselves Kashi Dangri,
+Kashi being the classical name for Benares. This legend appears to
+be entirely without foundation, as their family names, speech and
+customs are alike of purely Marathi origin. But it is found among
+other castes also that they like to pretend that they came from
+Benares, the most sacred centre of Hinduism. The social customs of
+the Dangris resemble those of the Kunbis, and it is unnecessary to
+describe them in detail. Before their weddings they have a curious
+ceremony known as Dewat Puja. The father of the bridegroom, with an
+axe over his shoulder and accompanied by his wife, goes to a well
+or a stream. Here they clean a small space with cow-dung and make
+an offering of rice, flowers, turmeric and incense, after which
+the man, breaking his bangle from off his wrist, throws it into the
+water, apparently as a propitiatory offering for the success of the
+marriage. It is not stated what the bangle is made of, but it may be
+assumed that a valuable one would not thus be thrown away. As among
+some of the other Maratha castes, the bridegroom must be wrapped in a
+blanket on his journey to the bride's village. If a bachelor desires
+to espouse a widow he must first go through the ceremony of marriage
+with a swallow-wort plant. Polygamy is freely permitted, and some
+Dangris are known to have as many as five wives. As already stated,
+wives are of great assistance in gardening work, which demands much
+hand-labour. Divorce and the remarriage of widows are allowed. The
+Dangris commonly bury the dead, and they place cotton leaves over the
+eyes and ears of the corpse. In Bhandara they say that this is done
+when it is believed the dead person was possessed by an evil spirit,
+and there is possibly some idea of preventing the escape of the spirit
+from the body. In Wardha the Dangris have rather a bad reputation,
+and a saying current about them is '_Dangri beta puha chor_,' or
+'A Dangri will steal even a shred of cotton'; but this may be a libel.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+Darzi
+
+
+
+List of Paragraphs
+
+
+    1. _General notice._
+    2. _Subdivisions._
+    3. _Sewn clothes not formerly worn._
+    4. _Occupation._
+    5. _Religion._
+
+
+
+1. General notice.
+
+
+_Darzi, Shimpi, Chhipi, Suji._--The occupational caste of tailors. In
+1911 a total of 51,000 persons were returned as belonging to the caste
+in the Central Provinces and Berar. The Darzis are an urban caste and
+are most numerous in Districts with large towns. Mr. Crooke derives
+the word Darzi from the Persian _darz_, meaning a seam. The name Suji
+from _sui_, a needle, was formerly more common. Shimpi is the Maratha
+name, and Chhipi, from Chhipa a calico-printer or dyer, is another
+name used for the caste, probably because it is largely recruited from
+the Chhipas. In Bombay they say that when Parasurama was destroying
+the Kshatriyas, two Rajput brothers hid themselves in a temple and
+were protected by the priest, who set one of them to sew dresses for
+the idol and the other to dye and stamp them. The first brother was
+called Chhipi and from him the Darzis are descended, the name being
+corrupted to Shimpi, and the second was called Chhipa and was the
+ancestor of the dyers. The common title of the Darzis is Khalifa, an
+Arabic word meaning 'The Successor of the Prophet.' Colonel Temple
+says that it is not confined to them but is also used by barbers,
+cooks and monitors in schools. [509] The caste is of comparatively
+recent formation. In fact Sir D. Ibbetson wrote [510] that "Darzi,
+or its Hindi equivalent Suji, is purely an occupational term, and
+though there is a Darzi guild in every town, there is no Darzi caste
+in the proper acceptation of the word. The greater number of Darzis
+belong perhaps to the Dhobi and Chhimba castes, more especially to
+the latter."
+
+
+
+2. Subdivisions.
+
+
+The Darzis, however, are now recognised as a distinct caste, but
+their mixed origin is shown by the names of their subcastes and
+exogamous sections. Thus they have a Baman subdivision named after the
+Brahman caste. These will not take food from any other caste except
+Brahmans and are probably an offshoot from them. They are considered
+to be the highest subdivision, and next to them come the Rai or
+Raj Darzis. Another subcaste is named Kaithia, after the Kayasths,
+and a third Srivastab, which is the name of a well-known subcaste
+of Kayasths derived from the town of Sravasti, now Sahet Mahet in
+the Gonda District. [511] In Betul the Srivastab Darzis are reported
+to forbid the remarriage of widows, thus showing that they desire to
+live up to their distinguished ancestry. A third subcaste is known as
+Chamarua and appears to be derived from the Chamars. Other subcastes
+are of the territorial type as Malwi, Khandeshi, Chhattisgarhi,
+Mathuria and so on, and the section or family names are usually
+taken from villages. Among them, however, we find Jugia from Jogi,
+Thakur or Rajput, Gujar, Khawas or barber, and Baroni, the title of
+a female Dhimar. Mr. Crooke gives several other names.
+
+
+
+3. Sewn clothes not formerly worn.
+
+
+It may thus reasonably be concluded that the Darzis are a caste
+of comparatively recent origin, and the explanation is probably
+that the use of the needle and thread in making clothes is a new
+fashion. Buchanan remarks: "The needle indeed seems to have been
+totally unknown to the Hindus, and I have not been able to learn
+any Hindi word for sewing except that used to express passing the
+shuttle in the act of weaving...." "Cloth composed of several pieces
+sewn together is an abomination to the Hindus, so that every woman of
+rank when she eats, cooks or prays, must lay aside her petticoat and
+retain only the wrapper made without the use of scissors or needle";
+and again, "The dress of the Hindu men of rank has become nearly the
+same with that of the Muhammadans [512] who did not allow any officer
+employed by them to appear at their _levees_ (Durbars) except in proper
+dress. At home, however, the Hindu men, and on all occasions their
+women, retain almost entirely their native dress, which consists of
+various pieces of cloth wrapped round them without having been sewn
+together in any form, and only kept in their place by having their
+ends thrust under the folds." And elsewhere he states: "The flowering
+of cotton cloth with the needle has given a good deal of employment
+to the Muhammadan women of Maldeh as the needle has never been used by
+the Hindus." [513] Darzi, as has been seen, is a Persian word, and in
+northern India many tailors are Muhammadans. And it seems, therefore,
+a possible hypothesis that the needle and the art of sewing were
+brought into general use by the Moslem invaders. It is true that in
+his _Indo-Aryans_ [514] Mr. Rajendra Lal Mitra combats this hypothesis
+and demonstrates that made-up clothes were known to the Aryans of
+the Rig-Veda and are found in early statuary. But he admits that the
+instances are not numerous, and it seems likely that the use of such
+clothes may have been confined to royal and aristocratic families. It
+is possible also that the Scythian invasions of the fifth century
+brought about a partial relapse from civilisation, during which certain
+arts and industries, and among them that of cutting and sewing cloth,
+were partially or completely lost. The tailor is not the familiar
+figure in Hindu social life that he is, for example, in England. Here
+he is traditionally an object or butt for ridicule as in the saying,
+'Nine tailors make a man,' and so on; and his weakness is no doubt
+supposed to be due to the fact that he pursues a sedentary indoor
+occupation and one more adapted to women than men, the needle being
+essentially a feminine implement. A similar ridicule, based no doubt
+on exactly the same grounds, attaches in India to the village weaver,
+as is evidenced by the proverbs given in the articles on Bhulia, Kori,
+and Jolaha. No reason exists probably for the contempt in which the
+weaver class is held other than that their work is considered to be
+more fitting for women than men. Thus in India the weaver appears to
+take the place of the tailor, and this leads to the conclusion that
+woven and not sewn clothes have always been commonly worn.
+
+In the Central Provinces, at least, the Darzi caste is practically
+confined to the towns, and though cotton jackets are worn even by
+labourers and shirts by the better-to-do, these are usually bought
+ready-made at the more important markets. Women, more conservative in
+their dress than men, have only one garment prepared with the needle,
+the small bodice known as _choli_ or _angia_. And in Chhattisgarh,
+a landlocked tract very backward in civilisation, the _choli_ has
+hitherto not been worn and is only now being introduced. Though he
+first copied the Muhammadan and now shows a partiality for the English
+style of dress for outdoor use, the Hindu when indoors still reverts to
+the one cloth round the waist and a second over the shoulders, which
+was probably once the regular garb of his countrymen. For meals the
+latter is discarded, and this costume, so strange to English ideas,
+while partly based on considerations of ceremonial purity, may also
+be due to a conservative adherence to the ancient fashion, when sewn
+clothes were not worn. It is noticeable also that high-caste Hindus,
+though they may wear a coat of cloth or tasar silk and cotton trousers,
+copying the English, still often carry the _dupatta_ or shoulder-cloth
+hanging round the neck. This now appears a useless encumbrance, but
+may be the relic of the old body-cloth and therefore interesting as a
+survival in dress, like the buttons on the back of our tail-coats to
+which the flaps were once hooked up for riding, or the seams on the
+backs of gloves, a relic of the time when the glove consisted simply
+of finger-lengths sewn together. [515] More recently the _dupatta_ has
+been made to fulfil the function of a pocket-handkerchief, while the
+educated are now discarding the _dupatta_ and carry their handkerchiefs
+in their pockets. The old dress of ceremony for landowners is the
+_angarkha_, a long coat reaching to the knees and with flaps folding
+over the breast and tied with strings. This is worn with pyjamas and is
+probably the Muhammadan ceremonial costume as remarked by Buchanan. In
+its correct form, at, least it has no buttons, and recalls the time
+when a similar state of things prevailed in English dress and the
+'trussing of his points' was a laborious daily task for every English
+gentleman. The _ghundis_ or small pieces of cloth made up into a ball,
+which were the precursors of the button, may still be seen on the
+cotton coats of rustics in the rural area.
+
+The substitution of clothes cut and sewn to fit the body for draped
+clothes is a matter of regret from an artistic or picturesque point
+of view, as the latter have usually a more graceful appearance. This
+is shown by the difficulty of reproducing modern clothes in statuary,
+trousers being usually the despair of the sculptor. But sewn clothes,
+when once introduced, must always prevail from considerations of
+comfort. When a Hindu pulls his _dhoti_ or loin-cloth up his legs and
+tucks it in round his hips in order to run or play a game he presumably
+performs the act described in the Bible as 'girding up his loins.'
+
+
+
+4. Occupation.
+
+
+The social customs of the Darzis present no features of special
+interest and resemble those of the lower castes in their locality. They
+rank below the cultivating castes, and Brahmans will not take water
+from their hands. Though not often employed by the Hindu villager
+the Darzi is to Europeans one of the best known of all castes. He is
+on the whole a capable workman and especially good at copying from a
+pattern. His proficiency in this respect attracted notice so long ago
+as 1689, as shown in an interesting quotation in the _Bombay Gazetteer_
+referring to the tailors of Surat: [516] "The tailors here fashion
+clothes for the Europeans, either men or women, according to every mode
+that prevails, and fit up the commodes and towering head-dresses for
+the women with as much skill as if they had been an Indian fashion,
+or themselves had been apprenticed at the Royal Exchange. (The commode
+was a wire structure to raise the cap and hair.)" Since then the Darzi
+has no doubt copied in turn all the changes of English fashions. He
+is a familiar figure in the veranda of the houses of Europeans,
+and his idiosyncrasies have been delightfully described by Eha in
+_Behind the Bungalow_. His needles and pins are stuck into the folds
+of his turban, and Eha says that he is bandy-legged because of the
+position in which he squats on his feet while sewing. In Gujarat
+the tailor is often employed in native households. "Though even in
+well-to-do families," Mr. Bhimbhai Kirparam writes, [517] "women sew
+their bodices and young children's clothes for everyday wear, every
+family has its own tailor. As a rule tailors sew in their own houses,
+and in the tailor's shop may be seen workmen squatting in rows on a
+palm-leaf mat or on cotton-stuffed quilts. The wives and sons' wives
+of the head of the establishment sit and work in the shop along with
+the men. Their busy time is during the marriage season from November
+to June. A village tailor is paid either in cash or grain and is not
+infrequently a member of the village establishment. During the rains,
+the tailor's slack season, he supplements his earnings by tillage,
+holding land which Government has continued to him on payment of
+one-half the ordinary rental. In south Gujarat, in the absence of
+Brahmans, a Darzi officiates at Bhawad marriages, and in some Brahman
+marriages a Darzi is called with some ceremony to sew a bodice for the
+bride. On the other hand, in the Panch Mahals and Rewa Kantha, besides
+tailoring Darzis blow trumpets at marriage and other processions and
+hold so low a position that even Dhedas object to eat their food." It
+seems clear that in Gujarat the Darzi caste is of older standing
+than in northern India, and it is possible that the art of sewing
+may have been acquired through the sea trade which was carried on
+between the western coast and Arabia and the Persian Gulf. Here the
+Darzi has become a village menial, which he is not recorded as being
+in any other part of India.
+
+
+
+5. Religion.
+
+
+Like the weaver, the Darzi is of a somewhat religious turn of mind,
+probably on account of his sedentary calling which gives him plenty
+of time for reflection. Many of them belong to the Namdeo sect,
+originated by a Chhipa or dyer, Namdeo Sadhu. Namdeo is said to have
+been a contemporary of Kabir and to have flourished in the twelfth
+or thirteenth century. He was a great worshipper of the god Vithoba
+of Pandharpur and is considered by the Marathas to be their oldest
+writer, being the author of many Abhangs, or sacred hymns. [518] He
+preached the unity of God, recognising apparently Vithoba or Vishnu
+as the one deity, and the uselessness of ceremonial. His followers
+are mainly Dhobis and Chhipas, the two principal castes from whom
+the Darzis have originated. [519] Namdeo's sect was thus apparently a
+protest on the part of the Chhipas and Dhobis against their inferior
+position in the caste system and the tyranny of the Brahmans, and
+resembled the spiritual revolt of the weavers under Kabir and of the
+Chamars under Ghasi Das and Jagjiwan Das.
+
+In Berar it is stated [520] that "the Simpi caste has twelve and a
+half divisions; of these the chief are known as the Jain, Marathi
+and Telugu Simpis. The Jain Simpis claim the hero Riminath as a
+caste-fellow, while the Marathas are often Lingayats and the Telugu
+division generally Vaishnavas." Before beginning work in the morning
+the Darzi bows to his scissors or needle and prays to them for his
+livelihood for that day.
+
+The Darzi's occupation, Mr. Crooke remarks, is a poor one and held
+rather in contempt. The village proverb runs, '_Darzi ka put jab tak
+jita tab tak sita_,' 'The tailor's boy will do nothing but sew all his
+life long.' Another somewhat more complimentary saying is, '_Tanak si
+suiya tak tak kare aur lakh taka ko banj kare_,' or 'The tiny needle
+goes _tuk tuk_, and makes merchandise worth a lakh of rupees.' The
+Hindustani version of both proverbs is obviously intended to give the
+sound of a needle passing through cloth, and it is possible that our
+word 'tuck' has the same origin.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+Dewar
+
+
+
+1. General notice.
+
+
+
+_Dewar._ [521]--(Derived from Devi, whom they worship, or from Diabar,
+'One who lights a lamp,' because they always practise magic with
+a lighted lamp.) A Dravidian caste of beggars and musicians. They
+numbered about 2500 persons in 1911 and are residents of the
+Chhattisgarh plain. The Dewars themselves trace their origin from a
+Binjhia named Gopal Rai, who accompanied Raja Kalyan Sai of Ratanpur
+on a visit to the Court of Delhi in Akbar's time. Gopal Rai was
+a great wrestler, and while at Delhi he seized and held a _mast_
+elephant belonging to the Emperor. When the latter heard of it he
+ordered a wrestling match to be arranged between Gopal Rai and his
+own champion wrestler. Gopal Rai defeated and killed his opponent,
+and Kalyan Sai ordered him to compose a triumphal song and sing it in
+honour of the occasion. He composed his song in favour of Devi Maha
+Mai, or Devi the Great Mother, and the composition and recitation of
+similar songs has ever since been the profession of his descendants
+the Dewars. The caste is, as is shown by the names of its sections,
+of mixed origin, and its members are the descendants of Gonds and
+Kawars reinforced probably by persons who have been expelled from
+their own caste and have become Dewars. They will still admit persons
+of any caste except the very lowest.
+
+
+
+2. Subdivisions.
+
+
+The caste has two principal divisions according to locality, named
+Raipuria and Ratanpuria, Raipur and Ratanpur having been formerly
+the two principal towns of Chhattisgarh. Within these are several
+other local subdivisions, _e.g._ Navagarhia or those belonging to
+Nawagarh in Bilaspur, Sonakhania from Sonakhan south of the Mahanadi,
+Chatarrajiha from Chater Raj, in Raipur, and Sarangarhia from Sarangarh
+State. Some other divisions are either occupational or social; thus
+the Baghurra Dewars are those who tame tigers and usually live in
+the direction of Bastar, the Baipari Dewars are petty traders in
+brass or pewter ornaments which they sell to Banjara women, and the
+Lohar and Jogi Dewars may be so called either because their ancestors
+belonged to these castes, or because they have adopted the profession
+of blacksmiths and beggars respectively. Probably both reasons are
+partly applicable. These subdivisions are not strictly endogamous,
+but show a tendency to become so. The two main subcastes, Raipuria
+and Ratanpuria, are distinguished by the musical instruments which
+they play on while begging. That of the Raipurias is a sort of rude
+fiddle called _sarangi_, which has a cocoanut shell as a resonator
+with horsehair strings, and is played with a bow. The Ratanpurias
+have an instrument called _dhungru_, which consists of a piece of
+bamboo about three feet long with a hollow gourd as a resonator and
+catgut strings. In the latter the resonator is held uppermost and
+rests against the shoulder of the player, while in the former it is
+at the lower end and is placed against his waist. The section names
+of the Dewars are almost all of Dravidian origin. Sonwania, Markam,
+Marai, Dhurwa, Ojha, Netam, Salam, Katlam and Jagat are the names of
+well-known Gond septs which are also possessed by the Dewars, and
+Telasi, Karsayal, Son-Mungir and others are Kawar septs which they
+have adopted. They admit that their ancestors were members of these
+septs among the Gonds and Kawars. Where the name of the ancestor
+has a meaning which they understand, some totemistic observances
+survive. Thus the members of the Karsayal sept will not kill or eat
+a deer. The septs are exogamous, but there is no other restriction
+on marriage and the union of first cousins is permissible.
+
+
+
+3. Marriage customs.
+
+
+Adult marriage is usual, and if a husband cannot be found for a
+girl who has reached maturity she is given to her sister's husband
+as a second wife, or to any other married person who will take her
+and give a feast to the caste. In some localities the boy who is
+to be married is sent with a few relatives to the girl's house. On
+arrival he places a pot of wine and a nut before the girl's father,
+who, if he is willing to carry out the marriage, orders the nut to
+be pounded up. This is always done by a member of the Sonwani sept,
+a similar respect being paid to this sept among some of the Dravidian
+tribes. The foreheads of the betrothed couple are smeared with the nut
+and with some yellow-coloured rice and they bow low to the elders of
+the caste. Usually a bride-price of Rs. 5 or 10 is then paid to the
+parents of the girl together with two pieces of cloth intended for
+their use. A feast follows, which consists merely of the distribution
+of uncooked food, as the Dewars, like some other low castes, will
+not take cooked food from each other. Pork and wine are essential
+ingredients in the feast or the ceremony cannot be completed. If
+liquor is not available, water from the house of a Kalar (distiller)
+will do instead, but there is no substitute for pork. This, however,
+is as a rule easily supplied as nearly all the Dewars keep pigs,
+which are retailed to the Gonds for their sacrifices. The marriage
+ceremony is performed within three or four months at most after
+the betrothal. Before entering the Mandwa or marriage-shed the
+bridegroom must place a jar of liquor in front of his prospective
+father-in-law. The bridegroom must also place a ring on the little
+finger of the bride's right hand, while she resists him as much as
+she can, her hand having previously been smeared with castor oil in
+order to make the task more difficult. Before taking the bride away
+the new husband must pay her father Rs. 20, and if he cannot do this,
+and in default of arrangements for remission which are sometimes made,
+must remain domiciled in his house for a certain period. As the bride
+is usually adult there is no necessity for a _gauna_ ceremony, and
+she leaves for her husband's house once for all. Thereafter when she
+visits the house of her parents she does so as a stranger, and they
+will not accept cooked food at her hands nor she at theirs. Neither
+will her husband's parents accept food from her, and each couple with
+their unmarried children form an exclusive group in this respect. Such
+a practice is found only among the low castes of mixed origin where
+nobody is certain of his neighbour's standing. If a woman has gone
+wrong before marriage, most of the ceremonies are omitted. In such a
+case the bridegroom catches hold of the bride by the hair and gives
+her a blow by way of punishment for her sin, and they then walk
+seven times round the sacred pole, the whole ceremony taking less
+than an hour. The bride-price is under these circumstances reduced to
+Rs. 15. Widow-marriage is permitted, and while in some localities the
+new husband need give nothing, in others he must pay as much as Rs. 50
+to the relatives of the deceased husband. If a woman runs away from
+her husband to another man, the latter must pay to the husband double
+the ordinary amount payable for a widow. If he cannot afford this, he
+must return the woman with Rs. 10 as compensation for the wrong he has
+done. The Dewars are also reported to have the practice of mortgaging
+their wives or making them over temporarily to a creditor in return
+for a loan. Divorce is allowed for the usual causes and by mutual
+consent. The husband must give a feast to the caste, which is looked
+on as the funeral ceremony of the woman so far as he is concerned;
+thereafter she is dead to him and he cannot marry her again on pain
+of the permanent exclusion of both from the caste. But a divorced
+woman can marry any other Dewar. Polygamy is freely allowed.
+
+
+
+4. Religion and social practices.
+
+
+The Dewars especially worship Devi Maha Mai and Dulha Deo. To the
+former they offer a she-goat and to the latter a he-goat which must be
+of a dark colour. They worship their _dhungru_ or musical instrument
+on the day of Dasahra. They consider the sun and the moon to be brother
+and sister, and both to be manifestations of the deity. They bury their
+dead, but those who are in good circumstances dig up the bones after a
+year or two and burn them, taking the ashes to a sacred river. Mourning
+lasts for seven or ten days according as the deceased is unmarried or
+married, and during this time they abjure flesh and oil. Their social
+rules are peculiar. Though considered impure by the higher castes,
+they will not take cooked food from a Brahman, whom they call a
+Kumhati Kida, or an insect which effects the metamorphosis of others
+into his own form, and who will therefore change them into his own
+caste. Nor will they take cooked food from members of their own caste,
+but they accept it from several of the lower castes including Gonds,
+whose leavings they will eat. This is probably because they beg from
+Gonds and attend their weddings. They keep pigs and pork is their
+favourite food, but they do not eat beef. They have a tribal council
+with a headman called Gaontia or Jemadar, who always belongs either
+to the Sonwani or Telasi section. Among offences for which a man is
+temporarily put out of caste is that of naming his younger brother's
+wife. He must also abstain from going into her room or touching her
+clothes. This rule does not apply to an elder brother's wife.
+
+
+
+5. Occupation.
+
+
+The Dewars are professional beggars, and play on the musical
+instruments called _dhungru_ and _sarangi_ which have already been
+described. The Ratanpurias usually celebrate in an exaggerated style
+the praises of Gopal Rai, their mythical ancestor. One of his exploits
+was to sever with a single sword-stroke the stalk of a plantain
+inside which the Emperor of Delhi had caused a solid bar of iron to be
+placed. The Raipurias prefer a song, called Gujrigit, about curds and
+milk. They also sing various songs relating how a woman is beloved by
+a Raja who tries to seduce her, but her chastity is miraculously saved
+by some curious combination of circumstances. They exorcise ghosts,
+train monkeys, bears and tigers for exhibition, and sell ornaments
+of base metal. In Raipur the men take about performing monkeys and
+the women do tattooing, for which they usually receive payment in the
+shape of an old or new cloth. A few have settled down to cultivation,
+but as a rule they are wanderers, carrying from place to place their
+scanty outfit of a small tent and mattress, both made of old rags,
+and a few vessels. They meet at central villages during the Holi
+festival. The family is restricted to the parents and unmarried
+children, separation usually taking place on marriage.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+Dhakar
+
+
+
+1. Origin and subdivisions.
+
+
+_Dhakar._ [522]--A small caste belonging solely to the Bastar State. In
+1911 they numbered 5500 persons in Bastar, and it is noticeable
+that there were nearly twice as many women as men. The term Dhakar
+connotes a man of illegitimate descent and is applied to the Kirars
+of the Central Provinces and perhaps to other castes of mixed Rajput
+origin. But in Bastar it is the special designation of a considerable
+class of persons who are the descendants of alliances between Brahman
+and Rajput immigrants and women of the indigenous tribes. They are
+divided, like the Halbas, into two groups--Purait or pure, and Surait
+or mixed. The son of a Brahman or Rajput father by a Rawat (herdsman)
+or Halba mother is a Purait, but one born from a woman of the Muria,
+Marar, Nai or Kalar castes is a Surait. But these latter can become
+Puraits after two or three generations, and the same rule applies to
+the son of a Dhakar father by a Halba or Rawat woman, who also ranks in
+the first place as a Surait. Descendants of a Dhakar father by a Muria
+or other low-caste woman, however, always remain Suraits. The Puraits
+and Suraits form endogamous groups, and the latter will accept cooked
+food from the former. The more respectable Dhakars round Jagdalpur
+are now tending, however, to call themselves Rajputs and refuse to
+admit any one of mixed birth into their community.
+
+One legend of their origin is that the first Dhakar was the offspring
+of a Brahman cook of the Raja of Bastar with a Kosaria Rawat woman;
+and though this is discredited by the Dhakars it is probably a fairly
+correct version of the facts. An inferior branch of the caste exists
+which is known as Chikrasar; it is related of them that their ancestors
+once went out hunting and set the forest on fire as a method of driving
+the game, as they occasionally do still. They came across the roasted
+body of a dog in the forest and ate it without knowing what animal it
+was. In the stomach, however, some cooked rice was found, and hence it
+was known as a dog and they were branded as dog-eaters. As a penalty
+the Raja imposed on them the duty of thatching a hut for him at the
+Dasahra festival, which their descendants still perform. The other
+Dhakars refuse to marry or eat with them, and it is clear from the
+custom of thatching the Raja's hut that they are a primitive and
+jungly branch of the caste.
+
+
+
+2. Marriage.
+
+
+If a girl becomes with child by a member of the caste she is made over
+to him without a marriage, or to the man to whom she was previously
+betrothed if he is still willing to take her. Neither is she expelled
+if the same event occurs with a man of any higher caste, but if he
+be of lower caste she is thrown out. Marriages are usually arranged
+by the parents but an adult girl may choose her own husband, and she
+is then wedded to him with abbreviated rites so that her family may
+avoid the disgrace of her entering his house like a widow or kept
+woman. Formerly a Dhakar might marry his granddaughter, but this is
+no longer done. When the signs of puberty first appear in a girl she
+is secluded and must not see or be seen by any man. They think that
+the souls of dead ancestors are reborn in children, and if a child
+refuses to suck they ask which of their ancestors he is and what
+he wants, or they offer it some present such as a silver bangle,
+and if the child then takes to the breast they give away the bangle
+to a Brahman. The sixth day after a child is born the paternal aunt
+prepares lamp-black from a lamp fed with melted butter and rubs it
+on the child's eyes and receives a small present.
+
+
+
+3. Funeral rites.
+
+
+The period of mourning or impurity after a death must terminate
+with a feast to the caste-men, and it continues until this is
+given. Consequently the other caste-men subscribe for a poor member,
+so that he may give the feast and resume his ordinary avocations. On
+this occasion one of the guests puts a small fish in a leaf-cup full
+of water, which no doubt represents the spirit of the deceased, and
+all the mourners touch this cup and are freed from their impurity. A
+Brahman is also invited, who lights a lamp fed with melted butter and
+then asks for a cow or some other valuable present as a recompense for
+his service of blowing out the lamp. Until this is done the Dhakars
+think that the soul of the departed is tortured by the flame of the
+lamp. If the Brahman is pleased, he pours some curds over the lamp
+and this acts as a cooling balm to the soul. When a member of the
+family dies the mourners shave the whole head with beard and moustache.
+
+
+
+4. Occupation and social status.
+
+
+The Dhakars are mainly engaged in cultivation as farmservants and
+labourers. Like the Halbas, they consider it a sin to heat or forge
+iron, looking upon the metal as sacred. They eat the flesh of clean
+animals, but abstain from both pigs and chickens, and some also do not
+eat the peacock. A man as well as a woman is permanently expelled for
+adultery with a person of lower caste, the idea of this rule being
+no doubt to prevent degradation in the status of the caste from the
+admission of the offspring of such unions. If one Dhakar beats another
+with a shoe, both are temporarily put out of caste. But if a man
+seduces a caste-man's wife and is beaten with a shoe by the husband,
+he is permanently expelled, while the husband is readmitted after
+a feast. On being received back into caste intercourse an offender
+is purified by drinking water in which the image of a local god has
+been dipped or the Raja of Bastar has placed his toe. Like other low
+castes of mixed origin, they are very particular about each other's
+status and will only accept cooked food from families who are well
+known to them. At caste feasts each family or group of families cooks
+for itself, and in some cases parents refuse to eat with the family
+into which their daughter has married and hence cannot do so with
+the girl herself.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+Dhangar
+
+
+
+1. Traditions and structure of the caste.
+
+
+_Dhangar._ [523]--The Maratha caste of shepherds and blanket-weavers,
+numbering 96,000 persons in the Central Provinces and Berar. They
+reside principally in the Nagpur, Wardha, Chanda and Nimar Districts
+of the Central Provinces and in all Districts of Berar. The Dhangars
+are a very numerous caste in Bombay and Hyderabad. The name is derived
+either from the Sanskrit _dhenu_, a cow, or more probably from _dhan_,
+[524] wealth, a term which is commonly applied to flocks of sheep
+and goats. It is said that the first sheep and goats came out of an
+ant-hill and scattering over the fields began to damage the crops of
+the cultivators. They, being helpless, prayed to Mahadeo to rescue
+them from this pest and he thereupon created the first Dhangar to tend
+the flocks. The Dhangars consequently revere an ant-hill, and never
+remove one from their fields, while they worship it on the Diwali day
+with offerings of rice, flowers and part of the ear of a goat. When
+tending and driving sheep and goats they ejaculate 'Har, Har,' which
+is a name of Mahadeo used by devotees in worshipping him. The Dhangars
+furnished a valuable contingent to Sivaji's guerilla soldiery, and
+the ruling family of Indore State belong to this caste. It is divided
+into the following subcastes: Varadi or Barade, belonging to Berar;
+Kanore or Kanade, of Kanara; Jhade, or those belonging to the Bhandara,
+Balaghat and Chhindwara Districts, called the Jhadi or hill country;
+Ladse, found in Hyderabad; Gadri, from _gadar_, a sheep, a division
+probably consisting of northerners, as the name for the cognate
+caste of shepherds in Hindustan is Gadaria; Telange, belonging to
+the Telugu country; Marathe, of the Maratha country; Mahurai from
+Mahur in Hyderabad, and one or two others. Eleven subcastes in all
+are reported. For the purposes of marriage a number of exogamous
+groups or septs exist which may be classified according to their
+nomenclature as titular and totemistic, many having also the names
+of other castes. Examples of sept names are: Powar, a Rajput sept;
+Dokra, an old man; Marte, a murderer or slayer; Sarodi, the name of
+a caste of mendicants; Mhali, a barber; Kaode, a crow; Chambhade, a
+Chamar; Gujde, a Gujar; Juade, a gambler; Lamchote, long-haired; Bodke,
+bald-headed; Khatik, a butcher; Chandekar, from Chanda; Dambhade, one
+having pimples on the body; Halle, a he-buffalo; Moya, a grass, and
+others. The sept names show that the caste is a functional one of very
+mixed composition, partly recruited from members of other castes who
+have taken to sheep-tending and generally from the non-Aryan tribes.
+
+
+
+2. Marriage.
+
+
+A man must not marry within his own sept or that of his mother,
+nor may he marry a first cousin. He may wed a younger sister
+of his wife during her lifetime, and the practice of marrying a
+girl and boy into the same family, called Anta Santa or exchange,
+is permitted. Occasionally the husband does service for his wife
+in his father-in-law's house. In Wardha the Dhangars measure the
+heights of a prospective bride and bridegroom with a piece of string
+and consider it a suitable match if the husband is taller than the
+wife, whether he be older or not. Marriages may be infant or adult,
+and polygamy is permitted, no stigma attaching to the taking of a
+second wife. Weddings may be celebrated in the rains up to the month
+of Kunwar (September), this provision probably arising from the fact
+that many Dhangars wander about the country during the open season,
+and are only at home during the rainy months. Perhaps for the same
+reason the wedding may, if the officiating priest so directs, be held
+at the house of a Brahman. This happens only when the Brahman has sown
+an offering of rice, called Gag, in the name of the goddess Rana Devi,
+the favourite deity of the Dhangars. On his way to the bride's house
+the bridegroom must be covered with a black blanket. Nowadays the
+wedding is sometimes held at the bridegroom's house and the bride
+comes for it. The caste say that this is done because there are not
+infrequently among the members of the bridegroom's family widows who
+have remarried or women who have been kept by men of higher castes or
+been guilty of adultery. The bride's female relatives refuse to wash
+the feet of these women and this provokes quarrels. To meet such cases
+the new rule has been introduced. At the wedding the priest sits on the
+roof of the house facing the west, and the bride and bridegroom stand
+below with a curtain between them. As the sun is half set he claps his
+hands and the bridegroom takes the clasped hands of the bride within
+his own, the curtain being withdrawn. The bridegroom ties round the
+bride's neck a yellow thread of seven strands, and when this is done
+she is married. Next morning a black bead necklace is substituted for
+the thread. The expenses of the bridegroom's party are about Rs. 50,
+and of the bride's about Rs. 30. The remaining procedure follows the
+customary usage of the Maratha Districts. Widows are permitted to
+marry again, but must not take a second husband from the sept to which
+the first belonged. A considerable price is paid for a widow, and it
+is often more expensive to marry one than a girl. A Brahman and the
+malguzar (village proprietor) should be present at the ceremony. If a
+bachelor marries a widow he must first go through the ceremony with
+a silver ring, and if the ring is subsequently lost or broken, its
+funeral rites must be performed. Divorce is allowed in the presence of
+the caste _panchayat_ at the instance of either party for sufficient
+reason, as the misconduct or bad temper of the wife or the impotency
+of the husband.
+
+
+
+3. Religion.
+
+
+Mahadeo is the special deity of the Dhangars, and they also observe
+the ordinary Hindu festivals. At Diwali they worship their goats by
+dyeing their horns and touching their feet. One Bahram of Nachangaon
+near Pulgaon is the tutelary deity of the Wardha Dhangars and the
+protector of their flocks. On the last day of the month of Magh
+they perform a special ceremony called the Deo Puja. A Dhimar acts
+as priest to the caste on this occasion and fashions some figures
+of idols out of rice to which vermilion and flowers are offered. He
+then distributes the grains of rice to the Dhangars who are present,
+pronouncing a benediction. The Dhimar receives his food and a present,
+and it is essential that the act of worship should be performed by
+one of this caste. In their houses they have Kul-Devi and Khandoba
+the Maratha hero, who are the family deities. But in large families
+they are kept only in the house of the eldest brother. Kul-Devi or the
+goddess of the family is worshipped at weddings, and a goat is offered
+to her in the month of Chait (March). The head is buried beneath her
+shrine inside the house and the body is consumed by members of the
+family only. Khandoba is worshipped on Sundays and they identify him
+with the sun. Vithoba, a form of Vishnu, is revered on Wednesdays,
+and Balaji, the younger brother of Rama, on Fridays. Many families
+also make a representation of some deceased bachelor relative, which
+they call Munjia, and of some married woman who is known as Mairni
+or Sasin, and worship them daily.
+
+
+
+4. Birth, death and social status.
+
+
+The Dhangars burn their dead unless they are too poor to purchase wood
+for fuel, in which case burial is resorted to. Unmarried children and
+persons dying from smallpox, leprosy, cholera and snake-bite are also
+buried. At the pyre the widow breaks her bangles and throws her glass
+beads on to her husband's body. On returning from the burning _ghat_
+the funeral party drink liquor. Some ganja, tobacco and anything else
+which the deceased may have been fond of during his life are left
+near the grave on the first day. Mourning is observed during ten days
+on the death of an adult and for three days for a child. Children are
+usually named on the twelfth day after birth, the well-to-do employing
+a Brahman for the purpose. On this day the child must not see a lamp,
+as it is feared that if he should do so he will afterwards have a
+squint. Only one name is given as a rule, but subsequently when the
+child comes to be married, if the Brahman finds that its name does not
+make the marriage auspicious, he substitutes another and the child
+is afterwards known by this new name. The caste employ Brahmans for
+ceremonies at birth and marriage. They eat flesh including fowls and
+wild pig, and drink liquor, but abstain from other unclean food. They
+will take food from a Kunbi, Phulmali or a Sunar, and water from any
+of the good cultivating castes. A Kunbi will take water from them. The
+women of the caste wear bracelets of lead or brass on the right wrist
+and glass bangles on the left. Permanent or temporary excommunication
+from caste is imposed for the usual offences, and among those visited
+with the minor penalty are selling shoes, touching the carcase of
+a dog or cat, and killing a cow or buffalo, or allowing one to die
+with a rope round its neck. No food is cooked for five weeks in a
+house in which a cat has died. The social standing of the caste is low.
+
+
+
+5. Occupation.
+
+
+The traditional occupation of the Dhangars is to tend sheep and goats,
+and they also sell goats' milk, make blankets from the wool of sheep,
+and sometimes breed and sell stock for slaughter. They generally
+live near tracts of waste land where grazing is available. Sheep are
+kept in open and goats in roofed folds. Like English shepherds they
+carry sticks or staffs and have dogs to assist in driving the flocks,
+and they sometimes hunt hares with their dogs. Their dress consists
+frequently only of a loin-cloth and a blanket, and having to bear
+exposure to all weathers, they are naturally strong and hardy. In
+appearance they are dark and of medium size. They eat three times
+a day and bathe in the evening on returning from work, though their
+ablutions are sometimes omitted in the cold weather.
+
+
+
+Dhanuk
+
+
+
+1. Original and classical records.
+
+
+_Dhanuk._--A low caste of agriculturists found principally in the
+Narsinghpur District, which contained three-fourths of the total
+of nearly 7000 persons returned in 1911. The headquarters of the
+caste are in the United Provinces, which contains more than a lakh
+of Dhanuks. The name is derived from the Sanskrit _dhanuska_, an
+archer, and the caste is an ancient one, its origin as given in
+the Padma Purana, quoted by Sir Henry Elliot, being from a Chamar
+father and a Chandal or sweeper mother. Another pedigree makes the
+mother a Chamar and the father an outcaste Ahir. Such statements,
+Sir H. Risley remarks in commenting on this genealogy, [525] serve
+to indicate in a general way the social rank held by the Dhanuks at
+the time when it was first thought necessary to enrol them among the
+mixed castes. Dr. Buchanan [526] says that the Dhanuks were in former
+times the militia of the country. He states that all the Dhanuks were
+at one time probably slaves and many were recruited to fill up the
+military ranks--a method of security which had long been prevalent
+in Asia, the armies of the Parthians having been composed entirely
+of slaves. A great many Dhanuks, at the time when Buchanan wrote,
+were still slaves, but some annually procured their liberty by the
+inability of their masters to maintain them and their unwillingness to
+sell their fellow-creatures. It may be concluded, therefore, that the
+Dhanuks were a body of servile soldiery, recruited as was often the
+case from the subject Dravidian tribes; following the all-powerful
+tendency of Hindu society they became a caste, and owing to the
+comparatively respectable nature of their occupation obtained a rise
+in social position from the outcaste status of the subject Dravidians
+to the somewhat higher group of castes who were not unclean but from
+whom a Brahman would not accept water. They did not advance so far
+as the Khandaits, another caste formed from military service, who
+were also, Sir H. Risley shows, originally recruited from a subject
+tribe, probably because the position of the Dhanuks was always more
+subordinate and no appreciable number of them came to be officers
+or leaders. The very debased origin of the caste already mentioned
+as given in the Padma Purana may be supposed as in other cases to be
+an attempt on the part of the priestly chronicler to repress what he
+considered to be unfounded claims to a rise in rank. But the Dhanuks,
+not less than the other soldier castes, have advanced a pretension
+to be Kshatriyas, those of Narsinghpur sometimes calling themselves
+Dhankarai Rajputs, though this claim is of course in their case
+a pure absurdity. It is not necessary to suppose that the Dhanuks
+of the Central Provinces are the lineal descendants of the caste
+whose genealogy is given in the Puranas; they may be a much more
+recent offshoot from a main caste, formed in a precisely similar
+manner from military service. [527] Mr. Crooke [528] surmises that
+they belonged to the large impure caste of Basors or basket-makers,
+who took to bow-making and thence to archery; and some connection
+is traceable between the Dhanuks and Basors in Narsinghpur. Such a
+separation must probably have occurred in comparatively recent times,
+inasmuch as some recollection of it still remains. The fact that
+Lodhis are the only caste besides Brahmans from whom the Dhanuks of
+Narsinghpur will take food cooked without water may indicate that
+they formed the militia of Lodhi chieftains in the Nerbudda valley,
+a hypothesis which is highly probable on general grounds.
+
+
+
+2. Marriage.
+
+
+In the Central Provinces the Dhanuks have no subcastes. [529] The
+names of their _gotras_ or family groups, though they themselves
+cannot explain them, are apparently territorial: as Maragaiyan from
+Maragaon, Benaikawar from Benaika village, Pangarya from Panagar,
+Binjharia from Bindhya or Vindhya, Barodhaya from Barodha village, and
+so on. Marriages within the same _gotra_ and between first cousins are
+prohibited, and child-marriage is usual. The father of the boy always
+takes the initiative in arranging a match, and if a man wants to find
+a husband for his daughter he must ask the assistance of his relatives
+to obtain a proposal, as it would be derogatory to move in the matter
+himself. The contract for marriages is made at the boy's house and is
+not inviolable. Before the departure of the bridegroom for the bride's
+village, he stands at the entrance of the marriage-shed, and his mother
+comes up and places her breast to his mouth and throws rice balls and
+ashes over him. The former action signifies the termination of his
+boyhood, while the latter is meant to protect him on his important
+journey. The bridegroom in walking away treads on a saucer in which
+a little rice is placed. Widow-marriage and divorce are permitted.
+
+
+
+3. Social rank and customs.
+
+
+A few members of the caste are tenants and the bulk of them
+farmservants and field-labourers. They also act as village
+watchmen. The Dhanuks eat flesh and fish, but not fowls, beef or pork,
+and they abstain from liquor. They will take food cooked without water
+from a Brahman and a Lodhi, but not from a Rajput; but in Nimar the
+status of the caste is distinctly lower, and they eat pig's flesh
+and the leavings of Brahmans and Rajputs. The mixed nature of the
+caste is shown by the fact that they will receive into the community
+illegitimate children born of a Dhanuk father and a woman of a higher
+caste such as Lodhi or Kurmi. They rank as already indicated just
+above the impure castes.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+Dhanwar
+
+
+
+List of Paragraphs
+
+
+    1. _Origin and traditions._
+    2. _Exogamous septs._
+    3. _Marriage._
+    4. _Festivities of the women of the bridegroom's party._
+    5. _Conclusion of the marriage._
+    6. _Widow-marriage and divorce._
+    7. _Childbirth._
+    8. _Disposal of the dead._
+    9. _Religion._
+    10. _Magic and witchcraft._
+    11. _Social rules._
+    12. _Dress and tattooing._
+    13. _Names of children._
+    14. _Occupation._
+
+
+
+1. Origin and traditions.
+
+
+_Dhanwar, Dhanuhar._ [530]--A primitive tribe living in the wild hilly
+country of the Bilaspur zamindari estates, adjoining Chota Nagpur. They
+numbered only 19,000 persons in 1911. The name Dhanuhar means a bowman,
+and the bulk of the tribe have until recently been accustomed to
+obtain their livelihood by hunting with bow and arrows. The name is
+thus merely a functional term and is analogous to those of Dhangar,
+or labourer, and Kisan, or cultivator, which are applied to the
+Oraons, and perhaps Halba or farmservant, by which another tribe
+is known. The Dhanwars are almost certainly not connected with the
+Dhanuks of northern India, though the names have the same meaning. They
+are probably an offshoot of either the Gond or the Kawar tribe or a
+mixture of both. Their own legend of their origin is nearly the same
+as that of the Gonds, while the bulk of their sept or family names are
+identical with those of the Kawars. Like the Kawars, the Dhanwars have
+no language of their own and speak a corrupt form of Chhattisgarhi
+Hindi. Mr. Jeorakhan Lal writes of them:--"The word Dhanuhar is a
+corrupt form of Dhanusdhar or a holder of a bow. The bow consists of
+a cleft piece of bamboo and the arrow is made of wood of the _dhaman_
+tree. [531] The pointed end is furnished with a piece or a nail of
+iron called _phani_, while to the other end are attached feathers
+of the vulture or peacock with a string of tasar silk. Dhanuhar boys
+learn the use of the bow at five years of age, and kill birds with it
+when they are seven or eight years old. At their marriage ceremony
+the bridegroom carries an arrow with him in place of a dagger as
+among the Hindus, and each household has a bow which is worshipped at
+every festival." According to their own legend the ancestors of the
+Dhanuhars were two babies whom a tigress unearthed from the ground when
+scratching a hole in her den, and brought up with her own young. They
+were named Naga Lodha and Nagi Lodhi, _Naga_ meaning naked and _Lodha_
+being the Chhattisgarhi word for a wild dog. Growing up they lived
+for some time as brother and sister, until the deity enjoined them
+to marry. But they had no children until Naga Lodha, in obedience to
+the god's instructions, gave his wife the fruit of eleven trees to
+eat. From these she had eleven sons at a birth, and as she observed
+a fortnight's impurity for each of them the total period was five and
+a half months. In memory of this, Dhanuhar women still remain impure
+for five months after delivery, and do not worship the gods for that
+period. Afterwards the couple had a twelfth son, who was born with
+a bow and arrows in his hand, and is now the ancestral hero of the
+tribe, being named Karankot. One day in the forest when Karankot was
+not with them, the eleven brothers came upon a wooden palisade, inside
+which were many deer and antelope tended by twelve Gaoli (herdsmen)
+brothers with their twelve sisters. The Lodha brothers attacked the
+place, but were taken prisoners by the Gaolis and forced to remove
+dung and other refuse from the enclosure. After a time Karankot
+went in search of his brothers and, coming to the place, defeated
+the Gaolis and rescued them and carried off the twelve sisters. The
+twelve brothers subsequently married the twelve Gaoli girls, Karankot
+himself being wedded to the youngest and most beautiful, whose name
+was Maswasi. From each couple is supposed to be descended one of the
+tribes who live in this country, as the Binjhwar, Bhumia, Korwa,
+Majhi, Kol, Kawar and others, the Dhanuhars themselves being the
+progeny of Karankot and Maswasi. The bones of the animals killed by
+Karankot were thrown into ditches dug round the village and form the
+pits of _chhui mithi_ or white clay now existing in this tract.
+
+
+
+2. Exogamous septs.
+
+
+The Dhanuhars, being a small tribe, have no endogamous divisions,
+but are divided into a number of totemistic exogamous septs. Many of
+the septs are called after plants or animals, and members of the sept
+refrain from killing or destroying the animal or plant after which it
+is named. The names of the septs are generally Chhattisgarhi words,
+though a few are Gondi. Out of fifty names returned twenty are also
+found in the Kawar tribe and four among the Gonds. This makes it
+probable that the Dhanuhars are mainly an offshoot from the Kawars
+with an admixture of Gonds and other tribes. A peculiarity worth
+noticing is that one or two of the septs have been split up into a
+number of others. The best instance of this is the Sonwani sept,
+which is found among several castes and tribes in Chhattisgarh;
+its name is perhaps derived from _Sona pani_ (Gold water), and its
+members have the function of readmitting those temporarily expelled
+from social intercourse by pouring on them a little water into which
+a piece of gold has been dipped. Among the Dhanuhars the Sonwani
+sept has become divided into the Son-Sonwani, who pour the gold
+water over the penitent; the Rakat Sonwani, who give him to drink
+a little of the blood of the sacrificial fowl; the Hardi Sonwani,
+who give turmeric water to the mourners when they come back from
+a funeral; the Kari Sonwani, who assist at this ceremony; and one
+or two others. The totem of the Kari Sonwani sept is a black cow,
+and when such an animal dies in the village members of the sept
+throw away their earthen pots. All these are now separate exogamous
+septs. The Deswars are another sept which has been divided in the
+same manner. They are, perhaps, a more recent accession to the tribe,
+and are looked down on by the others because they will eat the flesh
+of bison. The other Dhanwars refuse to do this because they say that
+when Sita, Rama's wife, was exiled in the jungles, she could not find
+a cow to worship and so revered a bison in its stead. And they say
+that the animal's feet are grey because of the turmeric water which
+Sita poured on them, and that the depression on its forehead is the
+mark of her hand when she placed a _tika_ or sign there with coloured
+rice. The Deswars are also called Dui Duaria or 'Those having two
+doors,' because they have a back door to their huts which is used
+only by women during their monthly period of impurity and kept shut
+at all other times. One of the septs is named Manakhia, which means
+'man-eater,' and it is possible that its members formerly offered human
+sacrifices. Similarly, the Rakat-bund or 'Drop of blood Deswars' may
+be so called because they shed human blood. A member of the Telasi or
+'Oil' sept, when he has killed a deer, will cut off the head and bring
+it home; placing it in his courtyard, he suspends a burning lamp over
+the head and places grains of rice on the forehead of the deer; and
+he then considers that he is revering the oil in the lamp. Members of
+the Surajgoti or sun sept are said to have stood as representatives
+of the sun in the rite of the purification of an offender.
+
+
+
+3. Marriage.
+
+
+Marriage within the sept is prohibited, and usually also between
+first cousins. Girls are commonly married a year or two after they
+arrive at maturity. The father of the boy looks out for a suitable
+girl for his son and sends a friend to make the proposal. If this
+is accepted a feast is given, and is known as Phul Phulwari or 'The
+bursting of the flower.' The betrothal itself is called Phaldan or
+'The gift of the fruit'; on this occasion the contract is ratified
+and the usual presents are exchanged. Yet a third ceremony, prior to
+the marriage, is that of the Barokhi or inspection, when the bride
+and bridegroom are taken to see each other. On this occasion they
+exchange copper rings, placing them on each other's finger, and the
+boy offers vermilion to the earth, and then rubs it on the bride's
+forehead. When the girl is mature the date of the wedding is fixed,
+a small bride-price of six rupees and a piece of cloth being usually
+paid. If the first signs of puberty appear in the girl during the
+bright fortnight of the month, the marriage is held during the dark
+fortnight and vice versa. The marriage-shed is built in the form of
+a rectangle and must consist of either seven or nine posts in three
+lines. The bridegroom's party comprises from twenty to forty persons of
+both sexes. When they arrive at the bride's village her father comes
+out to meet them and gives them leaf-pipes to smoke. He escorts them
+inside the village where a lodging has been prepared for them. The
+ceremony is based on that of the local Hindus with numerous petty
+variations in points of detail. In the actual ceremony the bride and
+bridegroom are first supported on the knees of two relatives. A sheet
+is held between them and each throws seven handfuls of parched rice
+over the other. They are then made to stand side by side; a knot
+is made of their cloths containing a piece of turmeric, and the
+bride's left hand is laid over the bridegroom's right one, and on
+it a _sendhaura_ or wooden box for vermilion is placed. The bride's
+mother moves seven times round the pair holding a lighted lamp, at
+which she warms her hand and then touches the marriage-crowns of the
+bride and bridegroom seven times in succession. And finally the couple
+walk seven times round the marriage-post, the bridegroom following
+the bride. The marriage is held during the day, and not, as is usual,
+at night or in the early morning. Afterwards, the pair are seated in
+the marriage-shed, the bridegroom's leg being placed over that of the
+bride, with their feet in a brass dish. The bride's mother then washes
+their great toes with milk and the rest of their feet with water. The
+bridegroom applies vermilion seven times to the marriage-post and to
+his wife's forehead at the parting of her hair. The couple are fed
+with rice and pulses one after the other out of the same leaf-plates,
+and the parties have a feast. Next morning, before their departure,
+the father of the bride asks the bridegroom to do his best to put up
+with his daughter, who is thievish, gluttonous and so slovenly that
+she lets her food drop on to the floor; but if he finds he cannot
+endure her, to send her home. In the same manner the father of the
+boy apologises for his son, saying that he cares only for mischief
+and pleasure. The party then returns to the bridegroom's house.
+
+
+
+4. Festivities of the women of the bridegroom's party.
+
+
+During the absence of the wedding party the women of the bridegroom's
+house with others in the village sing songs at night in the
+marriage-shed constructed at his house. These are known as Dindwa, a
+term applied to a man who has no wife, whether widower or bachelor. As
+they sing, the women dance in two lines with their arms interlaced,
+clapping their hands as they move backwards and forwards. The songs are
+of a lewd character, treating of intrigues in love mingled with abuse
+of their relatives and of other men who may be watching the proceedings
+by stealth. No offence is taken on such occasions, whatever may be
+said. In Upper India, Mr. Jeorakhan Lal states such songs are sung
+at the time of the marriage and are called _Naktoureki louk_ or the
+ceremony of the useless or shameless ones, because women, however shy
+and modest, become at this time as bold and shameless as men are at the
+Holi festival. The following are a few lines from one of these songs:
+
+
+    The wheat-cake is below and the urad-cake is above. Do you see
+    my brother's brother-in-law watching the dance in the narrow
+    lane. [532]
+
+    A sweetmeat is placed on the wheat-cake; a handsome young
+    black-guard has climbed on to the top of the wall to see the dance.
+
+    When a woman sees a man from afar he looks beautiful and
+    attractive: but when he comes near she sees that he is not worth
+    the trouble.
+
+    I went to the market and came back with my salt. Oh, I looked
+    more at you than at my husband who is wedded to me.
+
+
+
+5. Conclusion of the marriage.
+
+
+Several of the ceremonies are repeated at the bridegroom's house
+after the return of the wedding party. On the day following them the
+couple are taken to a tank walking under a canopy held up by their
+friends. Here they throw away their marriage-crowns, and play at
+hiding a vessel under the water. When they return to the house a goat
+is sacrificed to Dulha Deo and the bride cooks food in her new house
+for the first time, her husband helping her, and their relatives and
+friends in the village are invited to partake of it. After this the
+conjugal chamber is prepared by the women of the household, and the
+bride is taken to it and told to consider her husband's house as her
+own. The couple are then left together and the marriage is consummated.
+
+
+
+6. Widow-marriage and divorce.
+
+
+The remarriage of widows is permitted but it is not considered as a
+real marriage, according to the saying: "A woman cannot be anointed
+twice with the marriage oil, as a wooden cooking-vessel cannot be put
+twice on the fire." A widow married again is called a _Churiyahi Dauki_
+or 'Wife made by bangles,' as the ceremony may be completed by putting
+bangles on her wrists. When a woman is going to marry again she leaves
+her late husband's house and goes and lives with her own people or
+in a house by herself. The second husband makes his proposal to her
+through some other women. If accepted he comes with a party of his
+male friends, taking with him a new cloth and some bangles. They are
+received by the widow's guardian, and they sit in her house smoking and
+chewing tobacco while some woman friend retires with her and invests
+her with the new cloth and bangles. She comes out and the new husband
+and wife bow to all the Dhanwars, who are subsequently regaled with
+liquor and goats' flesh, and the marriage is completed. Polygamy is
+permitted but is not common. A husband may divorce his wife for failing
+to bear him issue, for being ugly, thievish, shrewish or a witch, or
+for an intrigue with another man. If a married woman commits adultery
+with another man of the tribe they are pardoned with the exaction
+of one feast. If her paramour is a Gond, Rawat, Binjhwar or Kawar,
+he is allowed to become a Dhanwar and marry her on giving several
+feasts, the exact number being fixed by the village Baiga or priest
+in a _panchayat_ or committee. With these exceptions a married woman
+having an intrigue with a man of another caste is finally expelled. A
+wife who desires to divorce her husband without his agreement is also
+turned out of the caste like a common woman.
+
+
+
+7. Childbirth.
+
+
+After the birth of a child the mother receives no food for the first
+and second, and fourth and fifth days, while on the third she is given
+only a warm decoction to drink. On the sixth day the men of the house
+are shaved and their impurity ceases. But the mother cooks no food
+for two months after bearing a female child and for three months
+if it is a male. The period has thus been somewhat reduced from the
+traditional one of five and a half months, [533] but it must still
+be highly inconvenient. At the expiration of the time of impurity
+the earthen pots are changed and the mother prepares a meal for the
+whole household. During her monthly period of impurity a woman cooks
+no food for six days. On the seventh day she bathes and cleans her
+hair with clay, and is then again permitted to touch the drinking
+water and cook food.
+
+
+
+8. Disposal of the dead.
+
+
+The tribe bury the dead. The corpse is wrapped in an old cloth and
+carried to the grave on a cot turned upside down. On arrival there
+it is washed with turmeric and water and wrapped in a new cloth. The
+bearers carry the corpse seven times round the open grave, saying,
+'This is your last marriage,' that is, with the earth. The male
+relatives and friends fill in the grave with earth, working with
+their hands only and keep their backs turned to the grave so as to
+avoid seeing the corpse. It is said that each person should throw
+only five handfuls. Other people then come up and fill in the grave,
+trampling down the surface as much as possible. For three days after a
+death the bereaved family do not cook for themselves but are supplied
+with food by their friends. These, however, do not give them any salt
+as it is thought that the craving for salt will divert their minds
+from dwelling on their loss. The tribe do not perform the _shraddh_
+ceremony, but in the month of Kunwar, on the day corresponding to that
+on which his father died, a man feeds the caste-fellows in memory of
+him. And at this period he offers libations to his ancestors, pouring
+a double handful of water on the ground for each one that he can
+remember and then one for all the others. While doing this he stands
+facing the east and does not turn to three different directions as the
+Hindu custom is. The spirit of a man who has been killed by a tiger
+becomes Baghia Masan or the tiger imp, and that of a woman who dies in
+childbirth becomes a Churel. Both are very troublesome to the living.
+
+
+
+9. Religion.
+
+
+The principal deities of the Dhanwars are Thakur Deo, the god of
+agriculture, and Dulha Deo, the deity of the family and hearth. Twice
+a year the village Baiga or medicine-man, who is usually a Gond,
+offers a cocoanut to Thakur Deo. He first consecrates it to the
+god by placing it in contact with water and the small heap of rice
+which lies in front of his shrine, and then splits it asunder on a
+stone, saying, '_Jai Thakur Deo_,' or 'Victory to Thakur Deo.' When
+any serious calamity befalls the tribe a goat is offered to the
+deity. It must also be first consecrated to him by eating his rice;
+its body is then washed in water and some of the sacred _dub_ [534]
+grass is placed on it, and the Baiga severs the head from the body
+with an axe. Dulha Deo is the god of the family and the marriage-bed,
+and when a Dhanwar is married or his first son is born, a goat is
+offered to the deity. Another interesting deity is Maiya Andhiyari,
+or the goddess of the dark fortnight of the month. She is worshipped
+in the house conjointly by husband and wife on any Tuesday in the
+dark fortnight of Magh (January-February), all the relatives of the
+family being invited. On the day of worship the husband and wife
+observe a fast, and all the water which is required for use in the
+house during the day and night must be brought into it in the early
+morning. A circular pit is dug inside the house, about three feet deep
+and as many wide. A she-goat which has borne no young is sacrificed
+to the goddess in the house in the same manner as in the sacrifice to
+Thakur Deo. The goat is skinned and cut up, the skin, bones and other
+refuse being thrown into the hole. The flesh is cooked and eaten
+with rice and pulse in the evening, all the family and relatives,
+men and women, eating together at the same time. After the meal,
+all the remaining food and the water including that used for cooking,
+and the new earthen pots used to carry water on that day are thrown
+into the pit. The mouth of the pit is then covered with wooden boards
+and plastered over with mud with great care to prevent a child falling
+into it; as it is held that nothing which has once gone into the pit
+may be taken out, even if it were a human being. It is said that
+once in the old days a man who happened to fall into the pit was
+buried alive, its mouth being covered over with planks of wood; and
+he was found alive when the pit was reopened next year. This is an
+instance of the sacrificial meal, common to many primitive peoples,
+at which the sacred animal was consumed by the worshippers, skin,
+bones and all. But now that such a course has become repugnant to
+their more civilised digestions, the refuse is considered sacred
+and disposed of in some such manner as that described. The goddess
+is also known as Rat Devi or the goddess of the night; or Rat Mai,
+the night mother. The goddess Maswasi was the mythical ancestress of
+the Dhanwars, the wife of Karankot, and also the daughter of Maiya
+Andhiyari or Rat Mai. She too is worshipped every third year in the
+dark fortnight of the month of Magh on any Tuesday. Her sacrifice is
+offered in the morning hours in the forest by men only, and consists
+also of a black she-goat. A site is chosen under a tree and cleaned
+with cowdung, the bones of animals being placed upon it in a heap
+to represent the goddess. The village Baiga kills the goat with an
+axe and the body is eaten by the worshippers. Maswasi is invoked by
+the Dhanwars before they go hunting, and whenever they kill a wild
+boar or a deer they offer it to her. She is thus clearly the goddess
+of hunting. The tribe also worship the spirits of hills and woods
+and the ghosts of the illustrious dead. The ghosts of dead Baigas
+or medicine-men are believed to become spirits attending on Thakur
+Deo, and when he is displeased with the Dhanwars they intervene
+to allay his anger. The brothers of Maswasi, the twelve Gaolis,
+are believed to be divine hunters and to haunt the forests, where
+they kill beasts and occasionally men. Six of them take post and the
+other six drive the beasts or men towards these through the forest,
+when they are pierced as with an arrow. The victim dies after a few
+days, but if human he may go to a sorcerer, who can extract the arrow,
+smaller than a grain of rice, from his body. In the month of Aghan
+(November), when the grass of the forests is to be cut, the members
+of the village collectively offer a goat to the grass deity, in order
+that none of the grass-cutters may be killed by a tiger or bitten by
+a snake or other wild animal.
+
+
+
+10. Magic and witchcraft.
+
+
+The Dhanwars are fervent believers in all kinds of magic and
+witchcraft. Magic is practised both by the Baiga, the village priest
+or medicine-man, who is always a man and who conducts the worship of
+the deities mentioned above, and by the _tonhi_, the regular witch,
+who may be a man or woman. Little difference appears to exist in the
+methods of the two classes of magicians, but the Baiga's magic is
+usually exercised for the good of his fellow-creatures, which indeed
+might be expected as he gets his livelihood from them, and he is also
+less powerful than the _tonhi_. The Baiga cures ordinary maladies and
+the bites of snakes and scorpions by mesmeric passes fortified by the
+utterance of charms. He raises the dead in much the same manner as a
+witch does, but employs the spirit of the dead person in casting out
+other evil spirits by which his clients may be possessed. One of the
+miracles performed by the Baiga is to make his wet cloth stand in the
+air stiff and straight, holding only the two lower ends. He can cross
+a river walking on leaves, and change men into beasts. Witches are
+not very common among the Dhanwars. A witch, male or female, maybe
+detected by a sunken and gloomy appearance of the eyes, a passionate
+temperament, or by being found naked in a graveyard at night, as
+only a witch would go there to raise a corpse from the dead. The
+Dhanwars eat nearly all kinds of food except beef and the leavings
+of others. They will take cooked food from the hands of Kawars, and
+the men also from Gonds, but not the women. In some places they will
+accept food from Brahmans, but not everywhere. They are not an impure
+caste, but usually live in a separate hamlet of their own, and are
+lower than the Gonds and Kawars, who will take water from them but
+not food. They are a very primitive people, and it is stated that at
+the census several of them left their huts and fled into the jungle,
+and were with difficulty induced to return. When an elder man dies
+his family usually abandon their hut, as it is believed that his
+spirit haunts it and causes death to any one who lives there.
+
+
+
+11. Social rules.
+
+
+A Kawar is always permitted to become a Dhanwar, and a woman of
+the Gond, Binjhwar and Rawat tribes, if such a one is living with a
+Dhanwar, may be married to him with the approval of the tribe. She does
+not enjoy the full status of membership herself, but it is accorded
+to her children. When an outsider is to be admitted a _panchayat_
+of five Dhanwars is assembled, one of whom must be of the Majhi
+sept. The members of the _panchayat_ hold out their right hands, palm
+upwards, one below the other, and beneath them the candidate and his
+wife place their hands. The Majhi pours water from a brass vessel on
+to the topmost hand, and it trickles down from one to the other on to
+those of the candidate and his wife. The blood of a slaughtered goat is
+mixed with the water in their palms and they sip it, and after giving
+a feast to the caste are considered as Dhanwars. Permanent exclusion
+from caste is imposed only for living with a man or woman of another
+caste other than those who may become Dhanwars, or for taking food
+from a member of an impure caste, the only ones which are lower than
+the Dhanwars. Temporary exclusion for an indefinite period is awarded
+for an irregular connection between a Dhanwar man and woman, or of
+a Dhanwar with a Kawar, Binjhwar, Rawat or Gond; on a family which
+harbours any one of its members who has been permanently expelled;
+and on a woman who cuts the navel-cord of a newly-born child, whether
+of her own caste or not. Irregular sexual intimacies are usually
+kept secret and condoned by marriage whenever possible. A person
+expelled for any of the above offences cannot claim readmission as a
+right. He must first please the members of the caste, and to do this
+he attends every caste feast without being invited, removes their
+leaf-plates with the leavings of food, and waits on them generally,
+and continually proffers his prayer for readmission. When the other
+Dhanwars are satisfied with his long and faithful service they take
+him back into the community. Temporary exclusion from caste, with the
+penalty of one or more feasts for readmission, is imposed for killing
+a cow or a cat accidentally, or in the course of giving it a beating;
+for having a cow or bullock in one's possession whose nostrils or ears
+get split; for getting maggots in a wound; for being beaten except by
+a Government official; for taking food from any higher caste other
+than those from whom food is accepted; and in the case of a woman
+for saying her husband's name aloud. This list of offences shows that
+the Dhanwars have almost completely adopted the Hindu code in social
+matters, while retaining their tribal religion. A person guilty of one
+of the above offences must have his or her head shaved by a barber,
+and make a pilgrimage to the shrine of Narsingh Nath in Bodasamar
+zamindari; after having accomplished this he is purified by one of
+the Sonwani sept, being given water in which gold has been dipped
+to drink through a bamboo tube, and he provides usually three feasts
+for the caste-fellows.
+
+
+
+12. Dress and tattooing.
+
+
+The tribe dress in the somewhat primitive fashion prevalent
+in Chhattisgarh, and there is nothing distinctive about their
+clothing. Women are tattooed at their parents' house before or just
+after marriage. It is said that the tattoo marks remain on the soul
+after death, and that she shows them to God, probably for purposes of
+identification. There is a saying, 'All other pleasures are transient,
+but the tattoo marks are my companions through life.' A Dhanwar will
+not take water from a woman who is not tattooed.
+
+
+
+13. Names of children.
+
+
+Children are named on the _chathi_ or sixth day after birth, and
+the parents always ascertain from a wise man whether the soul of
+any dead relative has been born again in the child so that they may
+name it after him. It is also thought that the sex may change in
+transmigration, for male children are sometimes named after women
+relatives and female after men. Mr. Hira Lal notes the following
+instance of the names of four children in a family. The eldest was
+named after his grandfather; the second was called Bhalu or bear,
+as his maternal uncle who had been eaten by a bear was reborn in him;
+the third was called Ghasi, the name of a low caste of grass-cutters,
+because the two children born before him had died; and the fourth
+was called Kausi, because the sorcerer could not identify the spirit
+of any relative as having been born again in him. The name Kausi
+is given to any one who cannot remember his sept, as in the saying,
+'_Bhule bisare kausi got_,' or 'A man who has got no _got_ belongs
+to the Kausi _got_.' Kausi is said to mean a stranger. Bad names
+are commonly given to avert ill-luck or premature death, as Boya, a
+liar; Labdu, one smeared with ashes; Marha, a corpse; or after some
+physical defect as Lati, one with clotted hair; Petwa, a stammerer;
+Lendra, shy; Ghundu, one who cannot walk; Ghunari, stunted; or from
+the place of birth, as Dongariha or Paharu, born on a hill; Banjariha,
+born in brushwood, and so on. A man will not mention the names of his
+wife, his son's wife or his sister's son's wife, and a woman will not
+name her husband or his elder brother or parents. As already stated,
+a woman saying her husband's name aloud is temporarily put out of
+caste, the Hindu custom being thus carried to extremes, as is often
+the case among the lower castes.
+
+
+
+14. Occupation.
+
+
+The tribe consider hunting to have been their proper calling, but
+many of them are now cultivators and labourers. They also make bamboo
+matting and large baskets for storing grain, but they will not make
+small bamboo baskets or fans, because this is the calling of the Turis,
+on whom the Dhanwar looks down. The women collect the leaves of _sal_
+[535] trees and sell them at the rate of about ten bundles for a pice
+(farthing) for use as _chongis_ or leaf-pipes. As already stated,
+the tribe have no language of their own, but speak a corrupt form
+of Chhattisgarhi.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+Dhimar [536]
+
+
+
+List of Paragraphs
+
+
+    1. _General notice._
+    2. _Subcastes._
+    3. _Exogamous groups._
+    4. _Marriage._
+    5. _Childbirth._
+    6. _Disposal of the dead._
+    7. _Religion._
+    8. _Occupation: fisherman._
+    9. _Water-carrier._
+    10. _Palanquin-bearer and personal servant._
+    11. _Other occupations._
+    12. _Social status._
+    13. _Legend of the caste._
+
+
+
+1. General notice.
+
+
+_Dhimar, Kahar, Bhoi, Palewar, Baraua, Machhandar._--The caste of
+fishermen and palanquin-bearers. In 1911 the Dhimars numbered 284,000
+persons in the Central Provinces and Berar, being most numerous in the
+Maratha Districts. In the north of the Province we find in place of
+the Dhimars the Kahars and Mullahs, and in the east or Chhattisgarh
+country the Kewats. But the distinction between these castes is no
+more than nominal, for in some localities both Kahar and Kewat are
+returned as subcastes of Dhimar. In some parts of India the Bhois
+and Dhimars are considered as separate castes, but in the Central
+Provinces they are not to be distinguished, both names being applied
+indiscriminately to the same persons. The name of Bhoi perhaps belongs
+more particularly to those who carry litters or palanquins, and that
+of Dhimar to the fishermen. The word Dhimar is a corruption of the
+Sanskrit Dhivara, a fisherman. Bhoi is a South Indian word (Telugu
+and Malayalam _boyi_, Tamil _bovi_), and in the Konkan people of this
+class are known as Kahar Bhui. Among the Gonds Bhoi is considered as
+an honorific name or title; and this indicates that a large number of
+Gonds have become enrolled in the Dhimar or Kahar caste, and consider
+it a rise in status. Palewar is the name of the Telugu fishermen of
+Chanda. Machhandar signifies one who catches fish.
+
+
+
+2. Subcastes.
+
+
+The caste has a large number of subdivisions of a local or occupational
+nature; among occupational names may be mentioned the Singaria or those
+who cultivate the _singara_ nut, the Nadha or those who live on the
+banks of streams, the Tankiwalas or sharpeners of grindstones, the
+Jhingas or prawn-catchers, the Bansias and Saraias or anglers (from
+_bansi_ or _sarai_, a bamboo fishing-rod), the Bandhaiyas or those
+who make ropes and sacking of hemp and fibre, and the Dhurias who sell
+parched rice. These last say that their original ancestors were created
+by Mahadeo out of a handful of dust (_dhur_) for carrying the palanquin
+of Parvati when she was tired. They are probably the same people as
+the Dhuris who also parch grain, and in Chhattisgarh are considered
+as a separate caste. Similarly the Sonjhara Dhimars wash for gold,
+the calling of the separate Sonjhara caste. The Kasdhonia Dhimars wash
+the sands of the sacred rivers to find the coins which pious pilgrims
+frequently drop or throw into the river as an offering when they bathe
+in it. The Gondia subcaste is clearly an offshoot from the Gond tribe,
+but a large proportion of the whole caste in the Central Provinces
+is probably derived from the Gonds or Kols, members of this latter
+tribe being especially proficient as palanquin-bearers. The Suvarha
+subcaste is named after the _suar_ or pig, because members of this
+subcaste breed and eat the unclean animal; they are looked down on
+by the others. Similarly the Gadhewale Dhimars keep donkeys, and are
+despised by the other subcastes who will not take food from them. They
+use donkeys for carrying loads of wood, and the bridegroom rides to
+his wedding on this animal; and among them a donkey is the only animal
+the corpse of which can be touched without conveying pollution. The
+Bhanare Dhimars appear to be named after the town of Bhandara.
+
+
+
+3. Exogamous groups.
+
+
+A large number of exogamous groups are also returned, either of a
+titular or totemistic nature: such are Baghmar, a tiger-slayer; Ojhwa,
+from Ojha, or sorcerer; Guru pahchan, one who knows his teacher;
+Midoia, a guardian of boundaries, from _med_, a boundary or border;
+Gidhwe, a vulture; Kolhe, or jackal; Gadhekhaya, a donkey-eater; and
+Kasture, musk; a few names are from towns or villages, as Tumsare
+from Tumsar, Nagpurkar from Nagpur; and a few from other castes as
+Madgi, Bhoyar, Pindaria from Pindari, a freebooter; Gondia (Gond)
+and Gondhali; and Kachhwaha, a sept of Rajputs.
+
+
+
+4. Marriage.
+
+
+Marriage is prohibited between members of the same sept and also
+between first cousins. In many localities families do not intermarry so
+long as they remember any relationship to have existed between them. In
+Mandla, Mr. Govind Moreshwar states, the Nadha and Kehera subcastes
+do not intermarry; but if a man desires a girl of the other subcaste
+he can be admitted into it on giving a feast to the caste-fellows
+according to his means, and thus marry her. Two families may exchange
+daughters in marriage. A maiden who goes wrong with a man of the
+caste or of any higher caste may be readmitted to the community under
+penalty of a feast to the caste and of having a lock of her hair cut
+off. In the Hindustani Districts women do not accompany the marriage
+procession, but in the Maratha Districts they do. Among the Bhanara
+Dhimars of Chanda the wedding may be held either at the bride's or the
+bridegroom's house. In the former case a bride-price of Rs. 16 is paid,
+and in the latter one of Rs. 20, because the expenses of the bride's
+family are increased if the wedding is held at her house. A custom
+exists among the poorer Dhimars in Chanda of postponing the marriage
+ceremony to avoid expense; a man will thus simply take a girl for his
+wife, making a payment of Rs. 1-4 or twenty pence to her father and
+giving a feast to the community. She will then live in his house as his
+wife, and at some subsequent date, perhaps in old age, the religious
+ceremony will be held so that the couple may have been properly married
+before they die. In this fashion the weddings of grandparents, parents
+and children have all been celebrated simultaneously. The Singaria
+Dhimars of Chhindwara grow _singara_ or water-nut in tanks, and at
+their weddings a crocodile must be killed and eaten. The Sonjharas
+or gold-washers must also have a crocodile, but they keep it alive
+and worship it, and when the ceremony is concluded let it go back
+again to the river. It is natural that castes whose avocations are
+connected with rivers and tanks should in a manner deify the most
+prominent or most ferocious animal contained in their waters. And
+the ceremonial eating of a sacred animal has been recorded among
+divers peoples all over the world. At a Dhimar marriage in Bhandara
+a net is given to the bridegroom, and _sidori_ or cooked food, tied
+in a piece of cloth, to the bride, and they walk out together as if
+going to a river to fish, but the bride's brother comes up and stops
+them. After a wedding in Mandla they kill a pig and bury it before the
+door of the bridegroom's house, covering it with earth, and the bride
+and bridegroom step over its body into the house. Widow-marriage is
+freely permitted; in Mandla the marriage of a widow may be held on
+the night of any day except Sunday, Tuesday and Saturday. Divorce is
+allowed, but is of rare occurrence. Adultery on the part of a wife
+will be frequently overlooked, and the extreme step of divorcing her
+is only taken if she creates a public scandal. In such a case the
+parties appear before a meeting of the caste, and the headman asks
+them whether they have determined to separate. He then breaks a straw
+in token of the disruption of the union, and the husband and wife
+must pronounce each other's names in an audible voice. [537] A fee of
+Rs. 1-4 is paid to the headman, and the divorce is completed. [538]
+In some localities the woman's bangles are also broken. In Jhansi
+the fine for keeping a widow is ten rupees and for living with the
+wife of another man sixty rupees.
+
+
+
+5. Childbirth
+
+
+Children are named either on the day of birth or the twelfth day
+afterwards. The women place the child in a cradle, spreading boiled
+wheat and gram over its body, and after swinging it to and fro the
+name is given. Sweets or boiled wheat and gram are distributed to those
+present. In Berar on the third day after a birth cakes of juari flour
+and buttermilk are distributed to other children; on the fifth day
+the slab and roller used for grinding the household corn are washed,
+anointed and worshipped; on the twelfth day the child is named and
+shortly after this its head is shaved. [539]
+
+
+
+6. Disposal of the dead.
+
+
+The bodies of the dead are usually buried, cremation being beyond the
+means of Dhimars. Children whose ears have not been pierced are mourned
+only for one day, and others for ten days. When a body has been burnt
+the ashes are consigned to a tank or river on the third day, or if
+the third day be a Sunday or a Wednesday, then on the fifth day. In
+Berar, Mr. Kitts remarks, [540] the funeral ceremony of the Dhimars
+resembles that of the Gonds. After a burial the mourners repair to the
+deceased's house to drink; and subsequently each fetches his own dinner
+and dines with the chief mourner. At this time he and his family are
+impure and the others cannot take food prepared by him; but ten days
+afterwards when the mourning is over and the chief mourner has bathed
+and shaved they again dine with him, and on the next day the caste is
+feasted. During the period of mourning a lighted lamp is daily placed
+outside the house. When the period of mourning expires all the clothes
+of the family are washed and their house is newly whitewashed. There is
+no subsequent annual performance of funeral rites as among the higher
+Hindus; but at the Akshayatritiya or commencement of the agricultural
+year the head of the household throws at each meal a little food into
+the fire, in honour of his dead ancestors.
+
+
+
+7. Religion.
+
+
+One of the principal deities of the Dhimars [541] as of other low
+castes is Dulha Deo, the deified bridegroom. They fashion his image of
+_kadamb_ [542] wood and besmear it with red lead. In Berar they also
+pray to Anna Purna, the Corn-giving goddess of Madras corresponding
+to Durga or Devi, whose form with that of her horse is engraved on
+a brass plate and anointed with yellow and red turmeric. When about
+to enter a river or tank for fishing or other purposes they pray to
+the water-god to save them from being drowned or molested by its
+denizens. They address a river as Ganga Mai or 'Mother Ganges' in
+order to propitiate it by this flattery. Those who are employed on
+ferry-boats especially venerate Ghatoia [543] Deo, the god of ferries
+and river-crossings. His shrine is near the place where the boats are
+tied up, and ferry contractors keep a live chicken in their boat to be
+offered to Ghatoia on the first occasion when the river is sufficiently
+in flood to be crossed by ferry after the breaking of the rains. Other
+local godlings are the Bare Purakh or Great men, a collective term for
+their deceased ancestors, of whom they make silver images; Parihar,
+the soul of the village priest; Baram Deo, the spirit of the banyan
+tree; and Gosain Deo, a deified ascetic. To the goddess Devi they
+offer a black she-goat which is eaten ceremonially, and when they have
+finished, the bones, skin and all the other remains of the animal are
+placed in a pit inside the house. If anything should fall into this
+pit it must be buried with the remains of the offering and not taken
+out. And they relate that on one occasion a child fell into the pit,
+and the parents, setting obedience to the law of the goddess above
+the life of their child, buried it alive. But next year when the
+sacrifice was again made and the pit was opened, the child was found
+in it alive and playing. So they say that the goddess will save the
+life of any one who is buried in the pit with her offering. When a
+widower marries a second time his wife sometimes wears a _tawiz_ or
+amulet in the shape of a silver box containing charms round her neck
+in order to ward off the evil machinations of her predecessor's spirit.
+
+
+
+8. Occupation: fisherman.
+
+
+The occupations of the Dhimar are many and various. He is primarily
+a fisherman and boatman, and has various kinds of nets for taking
+fish. One of these is of triangular shape about 150 feet wide at
+the base and 80 feet in height to the apex. The meshes vary from
+an inch wide at the top to three inches at the bottom. The ends of
+the base are weighted with stones and the net is then sunk into a
+river so that the base rests on its bed and the top is held by men
+in boats at the surface. Then other Dhimars beat the surface of the
+water for some distance with long bamboos on both sides of the net,
+driving the fish towards it. They call this a _kheda_, the term used
+for a beat of the forest for game.
+
+Another method is to stretch a long rope or cord across the river,
+secured on either bank, with baited hooks attached to it at short
+intervals. It is left for some hours and then drawn in. When the river
+is shallow one wide-bottomed boat will be paddled up the stream and a
+line of men will wade on each side beating the water with bamboos so
+as to make the small fish jump into the boat. Or they put a little
+cotton-seed on a stone in shallow water, and when the fish collect
+to eat the seed a long circular net weighted with pieces of iron
+is let down over the stone. Then the upper end is drawn tight and
+the fishermen put their hands inside and seize the little fish. The
+Dhimar is also regularly employed as a worker on ferries. His primitive
+boat made from the hollowed trunk of a tree and sometimes lashed in
+couples for greater stability may still be seen on all rivers. He makes
+his own fishing-nets, knitting them on a stick at his leisure while
+he is walking along or sitting down to smoke and talk. He worships
+his fishing-nets at the Diwali festival, and his reverence for the
+knitted thread is such that he will not touch or wear a shoe made of
+thread, because he thinks that the sacred article is debased by being
+sewn into leather. When engaged in road-work the Dhimars have unsewn
+sandals secured to the feet with strips of leather. It is a special
+degradation to a Dhimar to be struck with a shoe. He has a monopoly
+of growing _singara_ [544] or water-nuts in tanks. The fruit of this
+plant has a taste somewhat between a cocoanut and a potato, with a
+flavour of soap. It can be taken raw and is therefore a favourite
+comestible for fast days when cooked food is forbidden. It is also
+sold at railway stations and the fresh fruit is prescribed by village
+doctors as easy of digestion. The Dhimar grows melons, cucumbers and
+other vegetables on the sandy stretches along the banks of streams,
+but at agriculture proper he does not excel.
+
+
+
+9. Water-carrier.
+
+
+The Dhimar's connection with water has led to his becoming the
+water-carrier for Hindus, or that section of the community which
+can afford to employ one. This is more especially the case in the
+Hindustani Districts where women are frequently secluded and therefore
+cannot draw water for the household, while in the Maratha Districts
+where the women go to the well no water-bearer is required. In this
+capacity the Dhimar is usually the personal servant of the village
+proprietor, but in large villages every house has a _ghinochi_, either
+an earthen platform or wooden stand just outside the house, on which
+four or five earthen water-pots are kept. These the Dhimar fills up
+morning and evening and receives two or three annas or pence a month
+for doing so. He also brings water for Government servants when they
+come to the village, and cleans their cooking-vessels and prepares
+the hearth with fresh cowdung and water in order to cleanse it.
+
+If he cleans the malguzar's vessels he gets his food for doing so. When
+the tenants have marriages he performs the same duties for the whole
+wedding party and receives a present of one or two rupees and some
+clothes if the families are well off, and also his food every day
+while the marriage is in progress. In his capacity of waterman the
+title Baraua is used to him as an honorific method of address; and to
+his wife Baroni. In a hot country like India water is revered as the
+source of relief, comfort and life itself, like fire in cold countries,
+and the waterman participates in the regard paid to his element.
+
+Another business of the Dhimar's is to take sweet potatoes and
+boiled plums to the fields at harvest-time and sell them. He supplies
+water for drinking to the reapers and receives three sheaves a day
+in payment. On the fifteenth of Jesth (May) the Dhimar goes round
+to the cultivators, throwing his fishing-net over their heads and
+receives a small present.
+
+
+
+10. Palanquin-bearer and personal servant.
+
+
+At the period prior to the introduction of wheeled transport when
+palanquins or litters were largely used for travelling, the carriers
+belonged to the Kahar caste in northern India and to the Dhimars
+or Bhois in the south. Though litters are now practically not used
+for travelling except occasionally by high-caste women, a survival
+of the old custom is retained in the marriage ceremony, the bride
+and bridegroom being always carried back from the marriage-shed to
+the temporary lodging of the bridegroom in a _palki_, though for
+the longer journey to the bridegroom's village some less cumbrous
+conveyance is utilised. Four Dhimars carry the _palki_ and receive
+Rs. 1-4. Well-to-do people will be carried in procession round the
+town. When employed by the village proprietor the Dhimar accompanies
+him on his journey, carrying his cooking-vessels and other necessaries
+in a _banhgi_ or wooden cross-bar slung across the shoulders, from
+which two baskets are suspended by loops of rope. Water he will
+always carry in a _banhgi_ and never on his head or shoulders. From
+waterman and litter-carrier the Dhimar has become a personal servant;
+it is he to whom the term 'bearer' as designating a body-servant was
+first applied because he bears or carries his master in a _palki_
+and his clothes in a _banhgi_. He is commonly so employed in native
+houses, but rarely by Europeans, whether because he is too stupid
+or on account of caste objections of his own. When employed as a
+cook the Dhimar or his wife is permitted to knead flour with water
+and make it into a cake which the Brahman will then take and put on
+to the girdle with his own hands. He can also boil water and pour
+pulse into the cooking-pot from above so long as he does not touch
+the vessel after the food has been placed in it. He or she will also
+take any remains of food which is left in the cooking-pot as this
+is not considered to be polluted, food only becoming polluted when
+the hand touches it on the dish after having touched the mouth. When
+this has happened all the food on the dish becomes _jutha_ or leavings
+of food, and as a general rule no caste except the sweepers will eat
+the leavings of food of another caste or of another person of their
+own. Only the wife, whose meal follows her husband's, will eat his
+leavings. As a servant the Dhimar is very familiar with his master;
+he may enter any part of the house, including the cooking-place and
+the women's rooms, and he addresses his mistress as 'Mother.' In
+northern India Mr. Crooke states that the Kahars are sometimes known
+as Mahra, from the Sanskrit Mahila, a woman, because they have the
+entry of the female apartments. When he lights his master's pipe he
+takes the first pull himself to show that it has not been tampered
+with, and then presents it to him with his left hand placed under
+his right elbow in token of respect. Maid-servants also frequently
+belong to the Dhimar caste, and it often happens that the master of
+the household has illicit intercourse with them. Hence there is a
+proverb, 'The king's son draws water and the water-bearer's son sits
+on the throne,' similar intrigues on the part of high-born women with
+their servants being not unknown. The Dhimar often acts as a pimp,
+this being an incident of his profession of indoor servant.
+
+
+
+11. Other occupations.
+
+
+Another occupation of the Dhimar's is to sell parched grain and rice
+to travellers in markets and railway stations like the Bharbhunja
+and Dhuri. This he can do because of his comparative social
+purity, as all castes will take water and cakes and sweetmeats
+from his hands. Some Dhimars and Kewats also weave hemp-matting
+and gunny-bags, but such members of the caste rank lower than the
+others and Brahmans will not take water from them. Another calling
+by which a few Dhimars find support is that of breeding pigs. One
+would think it a difficult matter to make a living out of the village
+pig, an animal abhorred by both Hindus and Muhammadans as the most
+unclean of the brute creation, and equally abjured by Europeans as
+unfit for food. But the pig is in considerable demand by the forest
+tribes for sacrifice to their deities. The Dhimar participates in the
+sacrifice to Narayan Deo described in the article on Mahar, when a
+pig is eaten in concert by several of the lower castes. Lastly, the
+business of rearing the cocoons of the tasar silk-worm is usually in
+the hands of Dhimars and Kewats. While the caterpillars are feeding
+on leaves and spinning their cocoons these men live in the forests
+for two months together and watch the _kosa-baris_ or silk-gardens,
+that is the blocks of trees which are set apart for the purpose of
+rearing the caterpillars. During this period they eat only once a day,
+abstain from meat and lentils, do not get shaved and do not visit their
+wives. When the eggs of the caterpillars are to be placed on the trees
+they tie a silk thread round the first tree to be used and worship it
+as Pat Deo or the god of silk thread. On this subject Mr. Ball writes:
+[545] "The trees which it is intended to stock are carefully pollarded
+before the rains, and in early spring the leaves are stocked with young
+caterpillars which have been hatched in the houses. The men in charge
+erect wigwams and remain on the spot, isolated from their families,
+who regard them for the time being as unclean. During the daytime
+they have full occupation in guarding the large green caterpillars
+from the attacks of kites and other birds. The cocoons are collected
+soon after they are spun and boiled in a lye of wood-ash, and the
+extracted chrysalids must then be eaten by the caretakers, who have
+to undergo certain ceremonial rites before they are readmitted into
+the society of their fellows. The effect of the boiling in the lye
+is the removal of the glutinous matter, which renders it possible
+to wind off the silk." The eating of the caterpillars is no doubt a
+ceremonial observance like that of the crocodile at weddings. They
+are killed by the boiling of the cocoons and on this account members
+of good castes will not engage in the business of rearing them. The
+abstention from conjugal intimacy while engaged in some important
+business is a very common phenomenon.
+
+
+
+12. Social status.
+
+
+The social status of the Dhimar is somewhat peculiar. Owing to his
+employment as palanquin-bearer, cook and household servant he has
+been promoted to the group of castes who are ceremonially clean,
+so that Brahmans in northern India will take water and food cooked
+in butter from his hands. But by origin he no doubt belongs to the
+primitive or non-Aryan tribes, a fact which he shows by his appearance
+and also by his customs. In diet he is the reverse of fastidious,
+eating crocodiles, tortoises and crabs, and also pork in the Maratha
+Districts, though in the north where he is employed by Brahmans
+as a personal servant he abstains from this food. With all this,
+however, the Dhimars practise in some social matters a pharasaical
+strictness. In Jubbulpore Mr. Pancham Lal records that among the four
+subcastes of Rekwar, Bant, Barmaian and Pabeha a woman of one subcaste
+will not partake of any food cooked by one of another division. A man
+will take any kind of food cooked by a man of another subcaste, but
+from a woman only such as is not mixed with water. A woman will drink
+the water held in the metal vessel of a woman of another division,
+but not in an earthen vessel; and in a metal vessel only provided
+that it is brought straight from the well and not taken from the
+_ghinochi_ or water-stand of such woman's house. A man will take water
+to drink from the metal or earthen vessel of any other Dhimar, male or
+female. In Berar again Mr. Kitts states [546] that a Bhoi considers
+it pollution to eat or drink at the house of a Lohar (blacksmith),
+a Sutar (carpenter), a Bhat (bard), a washerman or a barber; he will
+not even carry their palanquins at a marriage.
+
+Once a year at the Muharram festival the Dhimars will eat at the
+hands of Muhammadans. They go round and beg for offerings of food
+and take them to the Fakir, who places a little before the _tazia_ or
+tomb of Husain and distributes the remainder to the Dhimars and other
+Hindus and Muhammadans who have been begging. Except on this occasion
+they will eat nothing touched by a Muhammadan. The Dhimar, the Nai or
+barber, and the Bari or indoor servant are the three household menials
+of the northern Districts, and are known as Pauni Parja. Sometimes
+the Ahir or grazier is an indoor servant and takes the place of the
+Dhimar or the Bari. These menials are admitted to the wedding and
+other family feasts and allowed to eat at them. They sit in a line
+apart from the members of the caste and one member of the family is
+deputed to wait on them. Their food is brought to them in separate
+dishes and no food from these dishes is served to guests of the caste.
+
+Permanent expulsion [547] from caste is inflicted only for marrying,
+or eating regularly, with a man or woman of some other low caste;
+but in the case of unmarried persons the latter offence may also be
+expiated. Temporary exclusion is imposed for killing a cat, dog or
+squirrel, getting maggots in a wound, being sentenced to imprisonment
+[548] or committing adultery with a person of any low caste. One
+who has committed any of the above offences must be purified by the
+Batta of the caste, that is a person who takes the sins of others
+upon himself. The Batta conducts the culprit to a river and then
+causes him to bathe, cuts off a lock of his hair, breaks a cocoanut
+as a sacrifice, and gives him a little cowdung and milk to eat. Then
+they proceed to eat together; the Batta eats five mouthfuls first
+and declares that he has taken the sin of the offender on himself;
+the latter gives the Batta Rs. 1-4 as his fee, and is once more a
+proper member of the community. In Berar a Bhoi who has been put
+out of caste is received back by his fellows when he has drunk the
+water touched by a Brahman's toe, and has feasted them with a bout
+of liquor. In towns the caste are generally addicted to drink, and
+no marriage or other social function is held without a sufficient
+supply of liquor. They also smoke _ganja_ (Indian hemp).
+
+
+
+13. Legend of the caste.
+
+
+The Dhimars are proverbially of a cheerful disposition, though simple
+and easily cheated. When carrying _palkis_ or litters at night they
+talk continually or sing monotonous songs to lighten the tedium of the
+way. In illustration of these qualities the following story is told:
+One day when Mahadeo and Parvati were travelling the goddess became
+very tired, so Mahadeo created four men from the dust, who bore her
+in a litter. On the way they talked and laughed, and Parvati was very
+pleased with them, so when she got home she told them to wait while she
+sent them out a reward. The Bhois found that they could get plenty of
+liquor, so they went on drinking it and forgot all about going for the
+reward. In the meantime a Marwari Bania who had heard what the goddess
+said, waited at the door of the palace, and when the servants brought
+out a bag of money he pretended that he was one of the Bhois and got
+them to give him the money, with which he made off. After a time the
+Bhois remembered about the reward and went to the door of the palace to
+get it, when the goddess came out and found out what had happened. The
+Bhois then wept and asked for another reward, but the goddess refused
+and said that as they had been so stupid their caste would always be
+poor, but at the same time they would be cheerful and happy.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+Dhoba
+
+
+
+List of Paragraphs
+
+
+    1. _General notice._
+    2. _Exogamous divisions._
+    3. _Marriage customs._
+    4. _Funeral rites._
+    5. _Caste panchayat and social penalties._
+    6. _Occupation and social customs._
+
+
+
+1. General notice.
+
+
+_Dhoba._ [549]--A small caste belonging to the Mandla District and
+apparently an offshoot from one of the primitive tribes. They have
+never been separately classified at the census but always amalgamated
+with the Dhobi or washerman caste. But the Mandla Dhobas acknowledge
+no connection with Dhobis, nor has any been detected. One Dhoba has
+indeed furnished a story to the Rev. E. Price that the first ancestor
+of the caste was a foundling boy, by appearance of good lineage,
+who was brought up by some Dhobis, and, marrying a Dhobi girl, made
+a new caste. But this is not sufficient to demonstrate the common
+origin of the Dhobas and Dhobis. The Dhobas reside principally in a
+few villages in the upper valley of the Burhner River, and members
+of the caste own two or three villages. They are dark in complexion
+and have, though in a less degree, the flat features, coarse nose
+and receding forehead of the Gond; but they are taller in stature
+and not so strongly built, and are much less capable of exertion.
+
+
+
+2. Exogamous divisions.
+
+
+The caste has twelve exogamous septs, though the list is probably
+not complete. These appear to be derived from the names of
+villages. Marriage is forbidden between the Baghmar and Baghcharia
+septs, the Maratha and Khatnagar and Maralwati septs and the Sonwani
+and Sonsonwani septs. These septs are said to have been subdivided and
+to be still related. The names Baghmar and Baghcharia are both derived
+from the tiger; Sonnwani is from Sona-pani or gold-water, and the
+Sonsonwani sept seems therefore to be the aristocratic branch or _creme
+de la creme_ of the Sonwanis. The children of brothers and sisters
+may marry but not those of two sisters, because a man's maternal aunt
+or _mausi_ is considered as equivalent to his mother. A man may also
+marry his step-sister on the mother's side, that is the daughter of
+his own mother by another husband either prior to or subsequent to
+his father, the step-sister being of a different sept. This relaxation
+may have been permitted on account of the small numbers of the caste
+and the consequent difficulty of arranging marriages.
+
+
+
+3. Marriage customs.
+
+
+The bridegroom goes to the bride's house for the wedding, which
+is conducted according to the Hindu ritual of walking round the
+sacred post. The cost of a marriage in a fairly well-to-do family,
+including the betrothal, may be about Rs. 140, of which a quarter
+falls on the bride's people. Divorce and the remarriage of widows
+are permitted. A pregnant woman stops working after six months and
+goes into retirement. After a birth the woman is impure for five or
+six days. She does not appear in public for a month, and takes no
+part in outdoor occupations or field-work until the child is weaned,
+that is six months after its birth.
+
+
+
+4. Funeral rites.
+
+
+The dead are usually buried, and all members of the dead man's sept
+are considered to be impure. After the funeral they bathe and come
+home and have their food cooked for them by other Dhobas, partaking of
+it in the dead man's house. On the ninth, eleventh or thirteenth day,
+when the impurity ends, the male members of the sept are shaved on the
+bank of a river and the hair is left lying there. When they start home
+they spread some thorns and two stones across the path. Then, as the
+first man steps over the thorns, he takes up one of the stones in his
+hand and passes it behind him to the second, and each man successively
+passes it back as he steps over the thorns, the last man throwing the
+stone behind the thorns. Thus the dead man's spirit in the shape of
+the stone is separated from the living and prevented from accompanying
+them home. Then a feast is held, all the men of the dead man's sept
+sitting opposite to the _panchayat_ at a distance of three feet. Next
+day water in which gold has been dipped is thrown over the dead man's
+house and each member of the sept drinks a little and is pure.
+
+
+
+5. Caste _panchayat_ and social penalties.
+
+
+The head of the caste is always a member of the Sonwani sept and is
+known as Raja. It is his business to administer water in which gold has
+been dipped (_sona-pani_) to offenders as a means of purification, and
+from this the name of the sept is derived. The Raja has no deputy, and
+officiates in all ceremonies of the caste; he receives no contribution
+from the caste, but a double share of food and sweetmeats when they
+are distributed. The other members of the Panch he is at liberty
+to choose from any _got_ or sept he likes. When a man has been put
+out of caste for a serious offence he has to give three feasts for
+readmission. The first meal consists of a goat with rice and pulse,
+and is eaten on the bank of a stream; on this occasion the head of the
+offender is shaved clean and all the hair thrown into the stream. The
+second meal is eaten in the yard of his house, and consists of cakes
+fried in butter with rice and pulse. The offender is not allowed
+to partake of either the first or second meal. On the third day the
+Raja gives the offender gold-water, and he is then considered to be
+purified and cooks food himself, which the caste-people eat with him
+in his house. A man is not put out of caste when he is sent to jail,
+as this is considered to be an order of the Government. A man keeping
+a woman of another caste is expelled and not reinstated until he has
+put her away, and even then it is said that they will consider his
+character before taking him back. A man who gets maggots in a wound
+may be readmitted to caste only during the months of Chait and Pus.
+
+
+
+6. Occupation and social customs.
+
+
+The Dhobas act as priests of the Gonds and are also cultivators. Their
+social position is distinctly higher than that of the Gonds and some
+of them have begun to employ Brahmans for their ceremonies. They
+will eat the flesh of most animals, except those of the cow-tribe,
+and also field-mice, and most of them drink liquor, though the more
+prominent members have begun to abstain. The origin of the caste is
+very obscure, but it would appear that they must be an offshoot of
+one of the Dravidian tribes. In this connection it is interesting
+to note that Chhattisgarh contains a large number of Dhobis, though
+the people of this tract have until recently worn little in the way
+of clothing, and usually wash it themselves when this operation is
+judged necessary. Many of the Dhobis of Chhattisgarh are cultivators,
+and it seems possible that a proportion of them may also really belong
+to this Dhoba caste.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+Dhobi
+
+
+
+List of Paragraphs
+
+
+    1. _Character and structure of the caste._
+    2. _Marriage customs._
+    3. _Other social customs._
+    4. _Religion._
+    5. _Occupation: washing clothes._
+    6. _Social position._
+    7. _Proverbs about the Dhobi._
+    8. _Wearing and lending the clothes of customers._
+
+
+
+1. Character and structure of the caste.
+
+
+_Dhobi, Warthi, Baretha, Chakla, Rajak, Parit._--The professional
+caste of washermen. The name is derived from the Hindi _dhona_,
+and the Sanskrit _dhav_, to wash. Warthi is the Maratha name for the
+caste, and Bareth or Baretha is an honorific or complimentary term of
+address. Rajak and Parit are synonyms, the latter being used in the
+Maratha Districts. The Chakla caste of Madras are leather-workers,
+but in Chanda a community of persons is found who are known as Chakla
+and are professional washermen. In 1911 the Dhobis numbered 165,000
+persons in the Central Provinces and Berar, or one to every hundred
+inhabitants. They are numerous in the Districts with large towns and
+also in Chhattisgarh, where, like the Dhobas of Bengal, they have to
+a considerable extent abandoned their hereditary profession and taken
+to cultivation and other callings. No account worth reproduction has
+been obtained of the origin of the caste. In the Central Provinces
+it is purely functional, as is shown by its subdivisions; these
+are generally of a territorial nature, and indicate that the Dhobis
+like the other professional castes have come here from all parts of
+the country. Instances of the subcastes are: Baonia and Beraria from
+Berar; Malwi, Bundelkhandi, Nimaria, Kanaujia, Udaipuria from Udaipur;
+Madrasi, Dharampuria from Dharampur, and so on. A separate subcaste
+is formed of Muhammadan Dhobis. The exogamous groups known as _khero_
+are of the usual low-caste type, taking their names from villages or
+titular or professional terms.
+
+
+
+2. Marriage customs.
+
+
+Marriage within the _khero_ is prohibited and also the union of first
+cousins. It is considered disgraceful to accept a price for a bride,
+and it is said that this is not done even by the parents of poor girls,
+but the caste will in such cases raise a subscription to defray the
+expenses of her marriage. In the northern Districts the marriages of
+Dhobis are characterised by continuous singing and dancing at the
+houses of the bridegroom and bride, these performances being known
+as _sajnai_ and _birha_. Some man also puts on a long coat, tight
+down to the waist and loose round the hips, to have the appearance
+of a dancing-girl, and dances before the party, while two or three
+other men play. Mr. Crooke considers that this ritual, which is
+found also among other low castes, resembles the European custom of
+the False Bride and is intended to divert the evil eye from the real
+bride. He writes: [550] "Now there are numerous customs which have
+been grouped in Europe under the name of the False Bride. Thus among
+the Esthonians the false bride is enacted by the bride's brother
+dressed in woman's clothes; in Polonia by a bearded man called the
+Wilde Braut; in Poland by an old woman veiled in white and lame;
+again among the Esthonians by an old woman with a brickwork crown;
+in Brittany, where the substitutes are first a little girl, then the
+mistress of the house, and lastly the grandmother.
+
+"The supposition may then be hazarded in the light of the Indian
+examples that some one assumes on this occasion the part of the
+bride in order to divert on himself from her the envious glance of
+the evil eye." Any further information on this interesting custom
+would be welcome.
+
+The remarriage of widows is allowed, and in Betul the bridegroom goes
+to the widow's house on a dark night wrapped up in a black blanket,
+and presents the widow with new clothes and bangles, and spangles and
+red lead for the forehead. Divorce is permitted with the approval of
+the caste headman by the execution of a deed on stamped paper.
+
+
+
+3. Other social customs.
+
+
+After a birth the mother is allowed no food for some days except
+country sugar and dates. The child is given some honey and castor-oil
+for the first two days and is then allowed to suckle the mother. A
+pit is dug inside the lying-in room, and in this are deposited water
+and the first cuttings of the nails and hair of the child. It is
+filled up and on her recovery the mother bows before it, praying for
+similar safe deliveries in future and for the immunity of the child
+from physical ailments. After the birth of a male child the mother
+is impure for seven days and for five days after that of a female.
+
+
+
+4. Religion.
+
+
+The principal deity of the Dhobis is Ghatoia, the god of the
+_ghat_ or landing-place on the river to which they go to wash their
+clothes. Libations of liquor are made to him in the month of Asarh
+(June), when the rains break and the rivers begin to be flooded. Before
+entering the water to wash the clothes they bow to the stone on which
+these are beaten out, asking that their work may be quickly finished;
+and they also pray to the river deity to protect them from snakes and
+crocodiles. They worship the stone on the Dasahra festival, making
+an offering to it of flowers, turmeric and cooked food. The Dhobi's
+washing-stone is believed to be haunted by the ghosts of departed
+Dhobis when revisiting the glimpses of the moon, and is held to have
+magical powers. If a man requires a love-charm he should steal a
+_supari_ or areca-nut from the bazar at night or on the occasion of
+an eclipse. The same night he goes to the Dhobi's stone and sets the
+nut upon it. He breaks an egg and a cocoanut over the stone and burns
+incense before it. Then he takes the nut away and gives it to the woman
+of his fancy, wrapped up in betel-leaf, and she will love him. Their
+chief festivals are the Holi and Diwali, at which they drink a great
+deal. The dead are buried or burnt as may be convenient, and mourning
+is observed for three days only, the family being purified on the
+Sunday or Wednesday following the death. They have a caste committee
+whose president is known as Mehtar, while other officials are the
+Chaudhri or vice-president, and the Badkur, who appoints dates for
+the penal feasts and issues the summons to the caste-fellows. These
+posts are hereditary and their holders receive presents of a rupee
+and a cloth when members of the caste have to give expiatory feasts.
+
+
+
+5. Occupation: washing clothes.
+
+
+Before washing his clothes the Dhobi steams them, [551] hanging
+them in a bundle for a time over a cauldron of boiling water. After
+this he takes them to a stream or pond and washes them roughly with
+fuller's earth. The washerman steps nearly knee-deep into the water,
+and taking a quantity of clothes by one end in his two hands he raises
+them aloft in the air and brings them down heavily upon a huge stone
+slab, grooved, at his feet. This threshing operation he repeats until
+his clothes are perfectly clean. In Saugor the clothes are rubbed
+with wood-ashes at night and beaten out in water with a stick in the
+morning. Silk clothes are washed with the nut of the _ritha_ tree
+(_Sapindus emarginatus_) which gives a lather like soap. Sir H. Risley
+writes of the Dacca washermen: [552] "For washing muslins and other
+coloured garments well or spring water is alone used; but if the
+articles are the property of a poor man or are commonplace, the water
+of the nearest tank or river is accounted sufficiently good. Indigo is
+in as general use as in England for removing the yellowish tinge and
+whitening the material. The water of the wells and springs bordering
+on the red laterite formation on the north of the city has been for
+centuries celebrated, and the old bleaching fields of the European
+factories were all situated in this neighbourhood. Various plants
+are used by the Dhobis to clarify water such as the _nirmali_
+(_Strychnos potatorum_), the _piu_ (_Basella_), the _nagphani_
+(_Cactus indicus_) and several plants of the mallow family. Alum,
+though not much valued, is sometimes used." In most Districts of
+the Central Provinces the Dhobi is employed as a village servant and
+is paid by annual contributions of grain from the cultivators. For
+ordinary washing he gets half as much as the blacksmith or carpenter,
+or 13 to 20 lbs. of grain annually from each householder, with
+about another 10 lbs. at seedtime or harvest. When he brings the
+clothes home he also receives a meal or a _chapati_, and well-to-do
+persons give him their old clothes as a present. In return for this
+he washes all the clothes of the family two or three times a month,
+except the loin-cloths and women's bodices which they themselves wash
+daily. The Dhobi is also employed on the occasion of a birth or a
+death. These events cause impurity and hence all the clothes of all
+the members of the family must be washed when the impurity ceases. In
+Saugor when a man dies the Dhobi receives eight annas and for a woman
+four annas, and similar rates in the case of the birth of a male or
+female child. When the first son is born in a family the Dhobi and
+barber place a brass vessel on the top of a pole and tie a flag to
+it as a cloth and take it round to all the friends and relations of
+the family, announcing the event. They receive presents of grain and
+money which they expend on a drinking-bout.
+
+
+
+6. Social position.
+
+
+The Dhobi is considered to be impure, and he is not allowed
+to come into the houses of the better castes nor to touch their
+water-vessels. In Saugor he may come as far as the veranda but not into
+the house. His status would in any case be low as a village menial, but
+he is specially degraded, Mr. Crooke states, by his task of washing the
+clothes of women after child-birth and his consequent association with
+puerperal blood, which is particularly abhorred. Formerly a Brahman
+did not let the Dhobi wash his clothes, or, if he did, they were
+again steeped in water in the house as a means of purification. Now
+he contents himself with sprinkling the clean clothes with water in
+which a piece of gold has been dipped. The Dhobi is not so impure as
+the Chamar and Basor, and if a member of the higher castes touches
+him inadvertently it is considered sufficient to wash the face and
+hands only and not the clothes.
+
+Colonel Tod writes [553] that in Rajputana the washermen's wells dug at
+the sides of streams are deemed the most impure of all receptacles. And
+one of the most binding oaths is that a man as he swears should drop
+a pebble into one of these wells, saying, "If I break this oath may
+all the good deeds of my forefathers fall into the washerman's well
+like this pebble." Nevertheless the Dhobi refuses to wash the clothes
+of some of the lowest castes as the Mang, Mahar and Chamar. Like
+the Teli the Dhobi is unlucky, and it is a bad omen to see him when
+starting on a journey or going out in the morning. But among some of
+the higher castes on the occasion of a marriage the elder members of
+the bridegroom's family go with the bride to the Dhobi's house. His
+wife presents the bride with betel-leaf and in return is given clothes
+with a rupee. This ceremony is called _sohag_ or good fortune, and
+the present from the Dhobin is supposed to be lucky. In Berar the
+Dhobi is also a Balutedar or village servant. Mr. Kitts writes of him:
+[554] "At a wedding he is called upon to spread the clothes on which
+the bridegroom and his party alight on coming to the bride's house;
+he also provides the cloth on which the bride and bridegroom are to
+sit and fastens the _kankan_ (bracelet) on the girl's hand. In the
+Yeotmal District the barber and the washerman sometimes take the place
+of the maternal uncle in the _jhenda_ dance; and when the bridegroom,
+assisted by five married women, has thrown the necklace of black beads
+round the bride's neck and has tied it with five knots, the barber
+and the washerman advance, and lifting the young couple on their
+thighs dance to the music of the _wajantri_, while the bystanders
+besprinkle them with red powder."
+
+In Chhattisgarh the Dhobis appear to have partly abandoned
+their hereditary profession and taken to agriculture and other
+callings. Sir Benjamin Robertson writes of them: [555] "The caste
+largely preponderates in Chhattisgarh, a part of the country where,
+at least to the superficial observer, it would hardly seem as if its
+services were much availed of; the number of Dhobis in Raipur and
+Bilaspur is nearly 40,000. In both Districts the washerman is one
+of the recognised village servants, but as a rule he gets no fixed
+payment, and the great body of cultivators dispense with his services
+altogether. According to the _Raipur Settlement Report_ (Mr. Hewett),
+he is employed by the ryots only to wash the clothes of the dead, and
+he is never found among a population of Satnamis. It may therefore
+be assumed that in Chhattisgarh the Bareth caste has largely taken
+to cultivation." In Bengal Sir H. Risley states [556] that "the Dhobi
+often gives up his caste trade and follows the profession of a writer,
+messenger or collector of rent (_tahsildar_), and it is an old native
+tradition that a Bengali Dhobi was the first interpreter the English
+factory at Calcutta had, while it is further stated that our early
+commercial transactions were carried on solely through the agency of
+low-caste natives. The Dhobi, however, will never engage himself as
+an indoor servant in the house of a European."
+
+
+
+7. Proverbs about the Dhobi.
+
+
+Like the other castes who supply the primary needs of the people,
+the Dhobi is not regarded with much favour by his customers, and they
+revenge themselves in various sarcasms at his expense for the injury
+caused to their clothes by his drastic measures. The following are
+mentioned by Sir G. Grierson: [557] '_Dhobi par Dhobi base, tab kapre
+par sabun pare_', or 'When many Dhobis compete, then some soap gets
+to the clothes,' and 'It is only the clothes of the Dhobi's father
+that never get torn.' The Dhobi's donkey is a familiar sight as
+one meets him on the road still toiling as in the time of Issachar
+between two bundles of clothes each larger than himself, and he has
+also become proverbial, '_Dhobi ka gadha neh ghar ka neh ghat ka_,'
+'The Dhobi's donkey is always on the move'; and 'The ass has only
+one master (a washerman), and the washerman has only one steed (an
+ass).' The resentment felt for the Dhobi by his customers is not
+confined to his Indian clients, as may be seen from Eha's excellent
+description of the Dhobi in _Behind the Bungalow_; and it may perhaps
+be permissible to introduce here the following short excerpt, though
+it necessarily loses in force by being detached from the context:
+"Day after day he has stood before that great black stone and wreaked
+his rage upon shirt and trouser and coat, and coat and trouser and
+shirt. Then he has wrung them as if he were wringing the necks of
+poultry, and fixed them on his drying line with thorns and spikes,
+and finally he has taken the battered garments to his torture chamber
+and ploughed them with his iron, longwise and crosswise and slantwise,
+and dropped glowing cinders on their tenderest places. Son has followed
+father through countless generations in cultivating this passion for
+destruction, until it has become the monstrous growth which we see
+and shudder at in the Dhobi."
+
+
+
+8. Wearing and lending the clothes of customers.
+
+
+It is also currently believed that the Dhobi wears the clothes of his
+customers himself. Thus, 'The Dhobi looks smart in other people's
+clothes'; and '_Rajache shiri, Paritache tiri_,' or 'The king's
+headscarf is the washerman's loin-cloth.' On this point Mr. Thurston
+writes of the Madras washerman: "It is an unpleasant reflection
+that the Vannans or washermen add to their income by hiring out
+the clothes of their customers for funeral parties, who lay them
+on the path before the pall-bearers, so that they may not step upon
+the ground. On one occasion a party of Europeans, when out shooting
+near the village of a hill tribe, met a funeral procession on its
+way to the burial-ground. The bier was draped in many folds of clean
+cloth, which one of the party recognised by the initials as one of
+his bed-sheets. Another identified as his sheet the cloth on which
+the corpse was lying. He cut off the corner with the initial, and a
+few days later the sheet was returned by the Dhobi, who pretended
+ignorance of the mutilation, and gave as an explanation that it
+must have been done in his absence by one of his assistants." [558]
+And Eha describes the same custom in the following amusing manner:
+"Did you ever open your handkerchief with the suspicion that you had
+got a duster into your pocket by mistake, till the name of De Souza
+blazoned on the corner showed you that you were wearing some one
+else's property? An accident of this kind reveals a beneficent branch
+of the Dhobi's business, one in which he comes to the relief of needy
+respectability. Suppose yourself (if you can) to be Mr. Lobo, enjoying
+the position of first violinist in a string band which performs at
+Parsi weddings and on other festive occasions. _Noblesse oblige_; you
+cannot evade the necessity for clean shirt-fronts, ill able as your
+precarious income may be to meet it. In these circumstances a Dhobi
+with good connections is what you require. He finds you in shirts of
+the best quality at so much an evening, and you are saved all risk and
+outlay of capital; you need keep no clothes except a greenish-black
+surtout and pants and an effective necktie. In this way the wealth
+of the rich helps the want of the poor without their feeling it
+or knowing it--an excellent arrangement. Sometimes, unfortunately,
+Mr. Lobo has a few clothes of his own, and then, as I have hinted,
+the Dhobi may exchange them by mistake, for he is uneducated and
+has much to remember; but if you occasionally suffer in this way you
+gain in another, for Mr. Lobo's family are skilful with the needle,
+and I have sent a torn garment to the wash which returned carefully
+repaired." [559]
+
+
+
+Dhuri
+
+
+
+1. Origin and Subdivisions.
+
+
+_Dhuri._ [560]--A caste belonging exclusively to Chhattisgarh, which
+numbered 3000 persons in 1911. Dhuri is an honorific abbreviation
+from Dhuriya as Bani from Bania. The special occupation of the caste
+is rice-parching, and they are an offshoot from Kahars, though in
+Chhattisgarh the Dhuris now consider the Kahars as a subcaste of
+their own. In Bengal the Dhuriyas are a subcaste of the Kandus or
+Bharbhunjas. Sir H. Risley states that "the Dhurias rank lowest of
+all the subcastes of Kandus, owing either to their having taken up
+the comparatively menial profession of palanquin-bearing, or to their
+being a branch of the Kahar caste who went in for grain-parching and
+thus came to be associated with the Kandus." [561] The caste have
+immigrated to Chhattisgarh from the United Provinces. In Kawardha
+they believe that the Raja of that State brought them back with him
+on his return from a pilgrimage. In Bilaspur and Raipur they say
+they came from Badhar, a pargana in the Mirzapur District, adjoining
+Rewah. Badhar is mentioned in one of the Rajim inscriptions, and is a
+place remembered by other castes of Chhattisgarh as their ancestral
+home. The Dhuris of Chhattisgarh relate their origin as follows:
+Mahadeo went once to the jungle and the damp earth stuck to his
+feet. He scraped it off and made it into a man, and asked him what
+caste he would like to belong to. The man said he would leave it to
+Mahadeo, who decided that he should be called Dhuri from _dhur,_
+dust. The man then asked Mahadeo to assign him an occupation, and
+Mahadeo said that as he was made from dust, which is pounded earth,
+his work should be to prepare _cheora_ or pounded rice, and added as a
+special distinction that all castes including Brahmans should eat the
+pounded rice prepared by him. All castes do eat _cheora_ because it is
+not boiled with water. The Dhuris have two subcastes, a higher and a
+lower, but they are known by different names in different tracts. In
+Kawardha they are called Raj Dhuri and Cheorakuta, the Raj Dhuris
+being the descendants of personal servants in the Raja's family and
+ranking above the Cheorakutas or rice-pounders. In Bilaspur they are
+called Badharia and Khawas, and in Raipur Badharia and Desha. The
+Khawas and Desha subcastes do menial household service and rank
+below the Badharias, who are perhaps later immigrants and refuse to
+engage in this occupation. The names of their exogamous sections are
+nearly all territorial, as Naugahia from Naogaon in Bilaspur District,
+Agoria from Agori, a pargana in Mirzapur District, Kashi or Benares,
+and a number of other names derived from villages in Bilaspur. But the
+caste do not strictly enforce the rule forbidding marriage within the
+_gotra_ or section, and are content with avoiding three generations
+both on the father's and mother's side. They have probably been driven
+to modify the rule on account of the paucity of their numbers and the
+difficulty of arranging marriages. For the same reason perhaps they
+look with indulgence on the practice, as a rule strictly prohibited,
+of marriage with a woman of another caste of lower social rank, and
+will admit the children of such a marriage into the caste, though
+not the woman herself.
+
+
+
+2. Marriage.
+
+
+Infant-marriage is in vogue, and polygamy is permitted only if the
+first wife be barren. The betrothal is cemented by an exchange of
+betel-leaves and areca-nuts between the fathers of the engaged
+couple. A bride-price of from ten to twenty rupees is usually
+paid. Some rice, a pice coin, 21 cowries and 21 pieces of turmeric
+are placed in the hole in which the marriage post is erected. When
+the wedding procession arrives at the girl's house the bridegroom
+goes to the marriage-shed and pulls out the festoons of mango
+leaves, the bride's family trying to prevent him by offering him
+a winnowing-fan. He then approaches the door of the house, behind
+which his future mother-in-law is standing, and slips a piece of
+cloth through the door for her. She takes this and retires without
+being seen. The wedding consists of the _bhanwar_ ceremony or walking
+round the sacred pole. During the proceedings the women tie a new
+thread round the bridegroom's neck to avert the evil eye. After
+the wedding the bride and bridegroom, in opposition to the usual
+custom, must return to the latter's house on foot. In explanation
+of this they tell a story to the effect that the married couple
+were formerly carried in a palanquin. But on one occasion when a
+wedding procession came to a river, everybody began to catch fish,
+leaving the bride deserted, and the palanquin-bearers, seeing this,
+carried her off. To prevent the recurrence of such a mischance the
+couple now have to walk. Widow-marriage is permitted, and the widow
+usually marries her late husband's younger brother. Divorce is only
+permitted for misconduct on the part of the wife.
+
+
+
+3. Religious beliefs.
+
+
+The Dhuris principally worship the goddess Devi. Nearly all members
+of the caste belong to the Kabirpanthi sect. They believe that the
+sun on setting goes through the earth, and that the milky way is the
+path by which the elephant of the heavens passes from south to north
+to feed on the young bamboo shoots, of which he is very fond. They
+think that the constellation of the Great Bear is a cot with three
+thieves tied to it. The thieves came to steal the cot, which belonged
+to an old woman, but God caught them and tied them down there for
+ever. Orion is the plough left by one of the Pandava brothers after
+he had finished tilling the heavens. The dead are burnt. They observe
+mourning during nine or ten days for an adult and make libations to the
+dead at the usual period in the month of Kunwar (September-October).
+
+
+
+4. Occupation and social status.
+
+
+The proper occupation of the caste is to parch rice. The rice is husked
+and then parched in an earthen pan, and subsequently bruised with a
+mallet in a wooden mortar. When prepared in this manner it is called
+_cheora_. The Dhuris also act as _khidmatgars_ or household servants,
+but the members of the Badharia subcaste refuse to do this work. Some
+members of the caste are fishermen, and others grow melons and sweet
+potatoes. Considering that they live in Chhattisgarh, the caste are
+somewhat scrupulous in the matter of food, neither eating fowls nor
+drinking liquor. The Kawardha Dhuris, however, who are later immigrants
+than the others, do not observe these restrictions, the reason for
+which may be that the Dhuris think it necessary to be strict in the
+matter of food, so that no one may object to take parched rice from
+them. Rawats and Gonds take food from their hands in some places,
+and their social status in Chhattisgarh is about equivalent to that
+of the Rawats or Ahirs. A man of the caste who kills a cow or gets
+vermin in a wound must go to Amarkantak to bathe in the Nerbudda.
+
+
+
+Dumal
+
+
+
+1. Origin and traditions.
+
+
+_Dumal._ [562]--An agricultural caste found in the Uriya country
+and principally in the Sonpur State, recently transferred to Bihar
+and Orissa. In 1901, 41,000 Dumals were enumerated in the Central
+Provinces, but only a few persons now remain. The caste originally
+came from Orissa. They themselves say that they were formerly a branch
+of the Gaurs, with whom they now have no special connection. They
+derive their name from a village called Dumba Hadap in the Athmalik
+State, where they say that they lived. Another story is that Dumal
+is derived from Duma, the name of a gateway in Baud town, near which
+they dwelt. Sir H. Risley says: "The Dumals or Jadupuria Gaura seem to
+be a group of local formation. They cherish the tradition that their
+ancestors came to Orissa from Jadupur, but this appears to be nothing
+more than the name of the Jadavas or Yadavas, the mythical progenitors
+of the Goala caste transformed into the name of an imaginary town."
+
+
+
+2. Subdivisions.
+
+
+The Dumals have no subcastes, but they have a complicated system of
+exogamy. This includes three kinds of divisions or sections, the _got_
+or sept, the _barga_ or family title and the _mitti_ or earth from
+which they sprang, that is, the name of the original village of the
+clan. Marriage is prohibited only between persons who have the same
+_got_, _barga_ and _mitti_; if any one of these is different it is
+allowed. Thus a man of the Nag _got_, Padhan _barga_ and Hindolsai
+_mitti_ may marry a girl of the Nag _got_, Padhan _barga_ and Kandhpada
+_mitti_; or one of the Nag _got_, Karmi _barga_ and Hindolsai _mitti_;
+or one of the Bud _got_, Padhan _barga_ and Hindolsai _mitti_. The
+_bargas_ are very numerous, but the _gots_ and _mittis_ are few and
+common to many _bargas_; and many people have forgotten the name
+of their _mitti_ altogether. Marriage therefore usually depends on
+the _bargas_ being different. The following table shows the _got_,
+_barga_ and _mitti_ of a few families:
+
+
+Got.                Barga.                  Mitti.
+
+Nag (cobra)         Padhan (chief)          Hindolsai
+Nag                 Karmi (manager)         Unda (a village in Athmalik)
+Nag                 Behra (Palki-bearer)    Kandhpada (a village in Athmalik)
+Nag                 Mahakul (great family)      Do.                   do.
+Nag                 Mesua (shepherd)        Dalpur (a village in Baud)
+Nag                 Karan (writer)          Kandhpada (a village in Athmalik)
+Nag or Nagesh       Mahakul (great family)  Bamanda (a village in Baud)
+Bud (a fish)        Kolta (caste)           Kandhpada (a village in Athmalik)
+Bud (a fish)        Baghar (buffalo)            Do.                   do.
+Bichhu (scorpion)   Mahakul (great family)  Bamada (a village in Baud)
+
+
+The only other _gots_ besides those given above are Kachhap (tortoise),
+Uluk (owl) and Limb (_nim_-tree). The _gots_ are thus totemistic,
+and the animal or plant giving its name to the _got_ is venerated
+and worshipped. The names of _bargas_ are diverse. Some are titles
+indicating the position of the founder of the family in life, as Naik
+(leader), Padhan (chief), Karmi (manager), Mahakul (great family) and
+so on. Others are derived from functions performed in sacrifices,
+as Amayat (one who kills the animal in the sacrifice), Gurandi
+(one who makes a preparation of sugar for it), Dehri (priest), Barik
+(one who carries the god's umbrella), Kamp (one who is in charge of
+the baskets containing the sacred articles of the temple). Another
+set of _bargas_ are names signifying the performance of menial
+functions in household service, as Gejo (kitchen-cleaner), Chaulia
+(rice-cleaner), Gadua (_lota_-bearer), Dang (spoon-bearer), Ghusri
+(cleaner of the dining-place with cowdung). Other names of _bargas_
+are derived from the caste's traditional occupation of grazing cattle,
+as Mesua or Mendli (shepherd), Gaigariya (milkman), Chhand (one who
+ties a rope to the legs of a cow when milking her). These names are
+interesting as showing that the Dumals before taking to their present
+occupation of agriculture were temple servants, household menials
+and cattle-herds, thus fulfilling the functions now performed by the
+Rawat or Gaur caste of graziers in Sambalpur. The names of the _mittis_
+or villages show that their original home was in the Orissa Tributary
+Mahals, while the totemistic names of _gots_ indicate their Dravidian
+origin. The marriage of first cousins is prohibited.
+
+
+
+3. Marriage.
+
+
+Girls must be married before adolescence, and in the event of the
+parents failing to accomplish this, the following heavy penalty is
+imposed on the girl herself. She is taken to the forest and tied to a
+tree with thread, this proceeding signifying her permanent exclusion
+from the caste. Any one belonging to another caste can then take her
+away and marry her if he chooses to do so. In practice, however, this
+penalty is very rarely imposed, as the parents can get out of it by
+marrying her to an old man, whether he is already married or not, the
+parents bearing all the expenses, while the husband gives two to four
+annas as a nominal contribution. After the marriage the old man can
+either keep the girl as his wife or divorce her for a further nominal
+payment of eight annas to a rupee. She then becomes a widow and can
+marry again, while her parents will get ten or twenty rupees for her.
+
+The boy's father makes the proposal for the marriage according to
+the following curious formula. Taking some fried grain he goes to the
+house of the father of the bride and addresses him as follows in the
+presence of the neighbours and the relatives of both parties: "I hear
+that the tree has budded and a blossom has come out; I intend to pluck
+it." To which the girl's father replies: "The flower is delicate; it is
+in the midst of an ocean and very difficult to approach: how will you
+pluck it?" To which the reply is: 'I shall bring ships and _dongas_
+(boats) and ply them in the ocean and fetch the flower.' And again:
+"If you do pluck it, can you support it? Many difficulties may stand in
+the way, and the flower may wither or get lost; will it be possible for
+you to steer the flower's boat in the ocean of time, as long as it is
+destined to be in this world?" To which the answer is: 'Yes, I shall,
+and it is with that intention that I have come to you.' On which the
+girl's father finally says: 'Very well then, I have given you the
+flower.' The question of the bride's price is then discussed. There
+are three recognised scales--Rs. 7 and 7 pieces of cloth, Rs. 9 and
+9 pieces of cloth, and Rs. 18 and 18 pieces of cloth. The rupees in
+question are those of Orissa, and each of them is worth only two-thirds
+of a Government rupee. In cases of extreme poverty Rs. 2 and 2 pieces
+of cloth are accepted. The price being fixed, the boy's father goes to
+pay it after an interval; and on this occasion he holds out his cloth,
+and a cocoanut is placed on it and broken by the girl's father, which
+confirms the betrothal. Before the marriage seven married girls go out
+and dig earth after worshipping the ground, and on their return let it
+all fall on to the head of the bridegroom's mother, which is protected
+only by a cloth. On the next day offerings are made to the ancestors,
+who are invited to attend the ceremony as village gods. The bridegroom
+is shaved clean and bathed, and the Brahman then ties an iron ring
+to his wrist, and the barber puts the turban and marriage-crown on
+his head. The procession then starts, but any barber who meets it on
+the way may put a fresh marriage-crown on the bridegroom's head and
+receive eight annas or a rupee for it, so that he sometimes arrives
+at his destination wearing four or five of them. The usual ceremonies
+attend the arrival. At the marriage the couple are blindfolded and
+seated in the shed, while the Brahman priest repeats _mantras_ or
+verses, and during this time the parents and the parties must continue
+placing nuts and pice all over the shed. These are the perquisites
+of the Brahman. The hands of the couple are then tied together with
+_kusha_ grass (_Eragrostis cynosuroides_), and water is poured over
+them. After the ceremony the couple gamble with seven cowries and seven
+pieces of turmeric. The boy then presses a cowrie on the ground with
+his little finger, and the girl has to take it away, which she easily
+does. The girl in her turn holds a cowrie inside her clenched hand,
+and the boy has to remove it with his little finger, which he finds
+it impossible to do. Thus the boy always loses and has to promise the
+girl something, either to give her an ornament or to take her on a
+pilgrimage, or to make her the mistress of his house. On the fifth
+or last day of the ceremony some curds are placed in a small pot,
+and the couple are made to churn them; this is probably symbolical of
+the caste's original occupation of tending cattle. The bride goes to
+her husband's house for three days, and then returns home. When she
+is to be finally brought to her husband's house, his father with some
+relatives goes to the parents of the girl and asks for her. It is now
+strict etiquette for her father to refuse to send her on the first
+occasion, and they usually have to call on him three or four times at
+intervals of some days, and selecting the days given by the astrologer
+as auspicious. Occasionally they have to go as many as ten times;
+but finally, if the girl's father proves very troublesome, they send
+an old woman who drags away the girl by force. If the father sends her
+away willingly he gives her presents of several basket-loads of grain,
+oil, turmeric, cooking-pots, cloth, and if he is well off a cow and
+bullocks, the value of the presents amounting to about Rs. 50. The
+girl's brother takes her to her husband's house, where a repetition of
+the marriage ceremony on a small scale is performed. Twice again after
+the consummation of the marriage she visits her parents for periods
+of one and six months, but after this she never again goes to their
+house unaccompanied by her husband. Widow-marriage is allowed, and the
+widow may marry the younger brother of her late husband or not as she
+pleases. But if she marries another man he must pay a sum of Rs. 10
+to Rs. 20 for her, of which Rs. 5 go to the Panua or headman of the
+caste, and Rs. 2 to their tutelary goddess Parmeshwari. The children
+by the first husband are kept either by his relatives or the widow's
+parents, and do not go to the new husband. When a bachelor marries a
+widow, he is first married to a flower or _sahara _tree. A widow who
+has remarried cannot take part in any worship or marriage ceremony
+in her house, not even in the marriage of her own sons. Divorce is
+allowed, and is effected in the presence of the caste _panchayat_
+or committee. A divorced woman may marry again.
+
+
+
+4. Religious and social customs.
+
+
+The caste worship the goddess Parmeshwari, the wife of Vishnu, and
+Jagannath, the Uriya incarnation of Vishnu. Parmeshwari is worshipped
+by Brahmans, who offer bread and _khir_ or rice and milk to her;
+goats are also offered by the Dehri or Mahakul, the caste priest,
+who receives the heads of the goats as his remuneration. They believe
+in witches, who they think drink the blood of children, and employ
+sorcerers to exorcise them. They worship a stick on Dasahra day in
+remembrance of their old profession of herding cattle, and they worship
+cows and buffaloes at the full moon of Shrawan (July-August). During
+Kunwar, on the eighth day of each fortnight, two festivals are
+held. At the first each girl in the family wears a thread containing
+eighteen knots twisted three times round her neck. All the girls fast
+and receive presents of cloths and grain from their brothers. This is
+called Bhaijiuntia, or the ceremony for the welfare of the brothers. On
+the second day the mother of the family does the same, and receives
+presents from her sons, this being Puajiuntia, or the ceremony for the
+welfare of sons. The Dumals believe that in the beginning water covered
+the earth. They think that the sun and moon are the eyes of God, and
+that the stars are the souls of virtuous men, who enjoy felicity in
+heaven for the period measured by the sum of their virtuous actions,
+and when this has expired have to descend again to earth to suffer the
+agonies of human life. When a shooting star is seen they think it is
+the soul of one of these descending to be born again on earth. They
+both burn and bury their dead according to their means. After a body
+is buried they make a fire over the grave and place an empty pot on
+it. Mourning is observed for twelve days in the case of a married
+and for seven in the case of an unmarried person. Children dying
+when less than six days old are not mourned at all. During mourning
+the persons of the household do not cook for themselves. On the third
+day after the death three leaf-plates, each containing a little rice,
+sugar and butter, are offered to the spirit of the deceased. On the
+fourth day four such plates are offered, and on the fifth day five,
+and so on up to the ninth day when the Pindas or sacrificial cakes
+are offered, and nine persons belonging to the caste are invited, food
+and a new piece of cloth being given to each. Should only one attend,
+nine plates of food would be served to him, and he would be given
+nine pieces of cloth. If two or more persons in a family are killed
+by a tiger, a Sulia or magician is called in, and he pretends to be
+the tiger and to bite some one in the family, who is then carried as
+a corpse to the burial-place, buried for a short time and taken out
+again. All the ceremonies of mourning are observed for him for one
+day. This proceeding is believed to secure immunity for the family from
+further attacks. In return for his services the Sulia gets a share
+of everything in the house corresponding to what he would receive,
+supposing he were a member of the family, on a partition. Thus if
+the family consisted of only two persons he would get a third part
+of the whole property.
+
+The Dumals eat meat, including wild boar's flesh, but not beef,
+fowls or tame pigs. They do not drink liquor. They will take food
+cooked with water from Brahmans and Sudhs, and even the leavings of
+food from Brahmans. This is probably because they were formerly the
+household servants of Brahmans, though they have now risen somewhat
+in position and rank, together with the Koltas and Sudhs, as a good
+cultivating caste. Their women and girls can easily be distinguished,
+the girls because the hair is shaved until they are married, and the
+women because they wear bangles of glass on one arm and of lac on the
+other. They never wear nose-rings or the ornament called _pairi_ on
+the feet, and no ornaments are worn on the arm above the elbow. They
+do not wear black clothing. The women are tattooed on the hands, feet
+and breast. Morality within the caste is lax. A woman going wrong
+with a man of her own caste is not punished, because the Dumals live
+generally in Native States, where it is the business of the Raja to
+find the seducer. But she is permanently excommunicated for a _liaison_
+with a man of another caste. Eating with a very low caste is almost
+the only offence which entails permanent exclusion for both sexes. The
+Dumals have a bad reputation for fidelity, according to a saying:
+'You cannot call the jungle a plain, and you should not call the
+Dumal a brother,' that is, do not trust a Dumal. Like the Ahirs they
+are somewhat stupid, and when enquiry was being made from them as to
+what crops they did not grow, one of them replied that they did not
+sow salt. They are good cultivators, and will grow anything except
+hemp and turmeric. In some places they still follow their traditional
+occupation of grazing cattle.
+
+
+
+Fakir
+
+
+
+1. General notice.
+
+
+_Fakir._ [563]--The class of Muhammadan beggars. In the Central
+Provinces the name is practically confined to Muhammadans, but in
+Upper India Hindus also use it. Nearly 9000 Fakirs were returned
+in 1911, being residents mainly of Districts with large towns, as
+Jubbulpore, Nagpur and Amraoti. Nearly two-fifths of the Muhammadans
+of the Central Provinces live in towns, and Muhammadan beggars
+would naturally congregate there also. The name is derived from the
+Arabic _fakr_, poverty. The Fakirs are often known as Shah, Lord,
+or Sain, a corruption of the Sanskrit Swami, master. Muhammad did
+not recognise religious ascetism, and expressly discouraged it. But
+even during his lifetime his companions Abu Bakr and Ali established
+religious orders with Zikrs or special exercises, and all Muhammadan
+Fakirs trace their origin to Abu Bakr or Ali subsequently the first
+and fourth Caliphs. [564] The Fakirs are divided into two classes,
+the Ba Shara or those who live according to the rules of Islam and
+marry; and the Be Shara or those without the law. These latter have
+no wives or homes; they drink intoxicating liquor, and neither fast,
+pray nor rule their passions. But several of the orders contain both
+married and celibate groups.
+
+
+
+2. Principal orders.
+
+
+The principal classes of Fakirs in the Central Provinces are
+the Madari, Gurujwale or Rafai, Jalali, Mewati, Sada Sohagal and
+Nakshbandia. All of these except the Nakshbandia are nominally at
+least Be Shara, or without the law, and celibate.
+
+The Madari are the followers of one Madar Shah, a converted Jew
+of Aleppo, whose tomb is supposed to be at Makhanpur in the United
+Provinces. Their characteristic badge is a pair of pincers. Some, in
+order to force people to give them alms, go about dragging a chain or
+lashing their legs with a whip. Others are monkey- and bear-trainers
+and rope-dancers. The Madaris are said to be proof against snakes and
+scorpions, and to have power to cure their bites. They will leap into
+a fire and trample it down, crying out, '_Aam Madar, Aam Madar_.' [565]
+
+The Gurujwale or Rafai have as their badge a spiked iron club with
+small chains attached to the end. The Fakir rattles the chains of
+his club to announce his presence, and if the people will not give
+him alms strikes at his own cheek or eye with the sharp point of his
+club, making the blood flow. They make prayers to their club once a
+year, so that it may not cause them serious injury when they strike
+themselves with it.
+
+The Jalalias are named after their founder, Jalal-ud-din of Bokhara,
+and have a horse-whip as their badge, with which they sometimes
+strike themselves on the hands and feet. They are said to consume
+large quantities of _bhang_, and to eat snakes and scorpions; they
+shave all the hair on the head and face, including the eyebrows,
+except a small scalp-lock on the right side.
+
+The Mewati appear to be a thieving order. They are also known as
+Kulchor or thieves of the family, and appear to have been originally
+a branch of the Madari, who were perhaps expelled on account of their
+thieving habits. Their distinguishing mark is a double bag like a
+pack-saddle, which they hang over their shoulders. The Sada or Musa
+Sohag are an order who dress like women, put on glass bangles, have
+their ears and noses pierced for ornaments, and wear long hair, but
+retain their beards and moustaches. They regard themselves as brides
+of God or of Hussan, and beg in this guise.
+
+The Nakshbandia are the disciples of Khwaja Mir Muhammad, who was
+called Nakshband or brocade-maker. They beg at night-time, carrying an
+open brass lamp with a short wick. Children are fond of the Nakshband,
+and go out in numbers to give him money. In return he marks them on the
+brow with oil from his lamp. They are quiet and well behaved, belonging
+to the Ba Shara class of Fakirs, and having homes and families.
+
+The Kalandaria or wandering dervishes, who are occasionally met with,
+were founded by Kalandar Yusuf-ul-Andalusi, a native of Spain. Having
+been dismissed from another order, he founded this as a new one, with
+the obligation of perpetual travelling. The Kalandar is a well-known
+figure in Eastern stories. [566]
+
+The Maulawiyah are the well-known dancing dervishes of Constantinople
+and Cairo, but do not belong to India.
+
+The different orders of Fakirs are not strictly endogamous, and
+marriages can take place between their members, though the Madaris
+prefer to confine marriage to their own order. Fakirs as a body
+are believed to marry among themselves, and hence to form something
+in the nature of a caste, but they freely admit outsiders, whether
+Muhammadans or proselytised Hindus.
+
+
+
+3. Rules and customs.
+
+
+Every Fakir must have a Murshid or preceptor, and be initiated by
+him. This applies also to boys born in the order, and a father cannot
+initiate his son. The rite is usually simple, the novice having
+to drink sherbet from the same cup as his preceptor and make him a
+present of Rs. 1-4; but some orders insist that the whole body of
+a novice should be shaved clean of hair before he is initiated. The
+principal religious exercise of Fakirs is known as Zikr, and consists
+in the continual repetition of the names of God by various methods, it
+being supposed that they can draw the name from different parts of the
+body. The exercise is so exhausting that they frequently faint under
+it, and is varied by repetition of certain chapters of the Koran. The
+Fakir has a _tasbih_ or rosary, often consisting of ninety-nine beads,
+on which he repeats the ninety-nine names of God. The Fakirs beg
+both from Hindus and Muhammadans, and are sometimes troublesome and
+importunate, inflicting wounds on themselves as a means of extorting
+alms. One beggar in Saugor said that he would give every one who gave
+him alms five strokes with his whip, and attracted considerable custom
+by this novel expedient. Some of them are in charge of Muhammadan
+cemeteries and receive fees for a burial, while others live at the
+tombs of saints. They keep the tomb in good repair, cover it with
+a green cloth and keep a lighted lamp on it, and appropriate the
+offerings made by visitors. Owing to their solitude and continuous
+repetition of prayers many Fakirs fall into a distraught condition,
+when they are known as _mast_, and are believed to be possessed of
+a spirit. At such a time the people attach the greatest importance
+to any utterances which fall from the Fakir's lips, believing that
+he has the gift of prophecy, and follow him about with presents to
+induce him to make some utterance.
+
+
+End of vol. II
+
+
+
+
+
+
+NOTES
+
+
+[1] This article is compiled from papers by Mr. Mir Padshah, Tahsildar
+of Bilaspur, and Kanhya Lal, clerk in the Gazetteer office.
+
+[2] _Basi_ or rice boiled in water the previous day.
+
+[3] A measure containing about 2 1/2 lbs. of grain.
+
+[4] This article is mainly compiled from papers by the late
+Mr. Baikunth Nath Pujari, Extra Assistant Commissioner, Sambalpur;
+Sitaram, Head Master of the Raigarh English School, and Kanhya Lal,
+clerk in the Gazetteer office.
+
+[5] Now transferred to Bengal.
+
+[6] Dalton's _Ethnology of Bengal_, p. 322.
+
+[7] This article is mainly based on a paper on _Aghoris
+and Aghorpanthis_, by Mr. H. W. Barrow, in the _Journal
+Anthr. Soc. Bombay_, iii. p. 197.
+
+[8] Bhattacharya, _Hindu Castes and Sects_, p. 392.
+
+[9] _Aghoris and Aghorpanthis_, pp. 224, 226.
+
+[10] Page 208.
+
+[11] _The Tribune_ (Lahore), November 29, 1898, quoted in Oman's
+_Mystics, Ascetics and Saints of India_, pp. 164, 165.
+
+[12] _Studies of Indian Life and Sentiment_, p. 44.
+
+[13] The information about birth customs in this article is from a
+paper by Mr. Kalika Prasad, Tahsildar, Raj-Nandgaon State.
+
+[14] _Go_, _gau_ or _gai_, an ox or cow, and _pal_ or _palak_,
+guardian.
+
+[15] _Ind. Ant._ (Jan. 1911), 'Foreign Elements in the Hindu
+Population,' by Mr. D. R. Bhandarkar.
+
+[16] Elliot, _Supplemental Glossary_, _s.v._ Ahir.
+
+[17] _Early History of India_, 3rd ed. p. 286.
+
+[18] Elliot, _ibidem._
+
+[19] _Bombay Monograph on Ahir._
+
+[20] Elliot, _ibidem._
+
+[21] _Central Provinces Gazetteer_ (1871), Introduction.
+
+[22] _Linguistic Survey of India_, vol. ix. part ii. p. 50.
+
+[23] _Bombay Ethnographic Survey._
+
+[24] Quoted in _Tribes and Castes of Bengal_, art. Goala.
+
+[25] _Rajasthan_, ii. p. 639.
+
+[26] Gokul was the place where Krishna was brought up, and the
+Gokulastha Gosains are his special devotees.
+
+[27] _Behind the Bungalow._
+
+[28] _Eastern India_, ii. p. 467.
+
+[29] Buchanan, _Eastern India_, ii. pp. 924, 943.
+
+[30] This article is mainly based on a paper by Mr. W. S. Slaney,
+E.A.C., Akola.
+
+[31] _Berar Census Report_ (1881).
+
+[32] _Tribes and Castes_, art. Arakh.
+
+[33] _Cajanus indicus._
+
+[34] _Berar Census Report_ (1881), p. 157.
+
+[35] Based on papers by Mr. Bijai Bahadur Royzada, Naib-Tahsildar
+Hinganghat, and Munshi Kanhya Lal of the Gazetteer office.
+
+[36] A preparation of raisins and other fruits and rice.
+
+[37] The ordinary tola is a rupee weight or two-fifths of an ounce.
+
+[38] _Jasminum zambac._
+
+[39] _Michelia champaca._
+
+[40] _Phyllanthus emblica._
+
+[41] _Report on the Badhak or Bagri Dacoits and the Measures adopted
+by the Government of India for their Suppression_, printed in 1849.
+
+[42] Sleeman, p. 10.
+
+[43] Sleeman, p. 10.
+
+[44] Sleeman, p. 57.
+
+[45] Sleeman, p. 95.
+
+[46] Sleeman, p. 231.
+
+[47] Sleeman, p. 217.
+
+[48] Sleeman, p. 20.
+
+[49] Sleeman, p. 21.
+
+[50] Sleeman, p. 81.
+
+[51] Sleeman, p. 82.
+
+[52] Sleeman, p. 152.
+
+[53] Sleeman, p. 127. This passage is from a letter written by a
+magistrate, Mr. Ramsay.
+
+[54] Sleeman, p. 129.
+
+[55] Sleeman, p. 112.
+
+[56] Sleeman, p. 124.
+
+[57] Sleeman, p. 125.
+
+[58] Sleeman, p. 147.
+
+[59] Sleeman, p. 104.
+
+[60] Sleeman, p. 110.
+
+[61] Sleeman, p. 131.
+
+[62] Sleeman, p. 205.
+
+[63] Sleeman, p. 106.
+
+[64] Malcolm's _Memoir of Central India_, ii. p. 479.
+
+[65] Crooke's _Tribes and Castes_, art. Bawaria.
+
+[66] _Sirsa Settlement Report._
+
+[67] It would appear that the Gujarat Vaghris are a distinct class
+from the criminal section of the tribe.
+
+[68] _Bombay Gazetteer_, _Gujarat Hindus_, p. 514.
+
+[69] Art. Bawaria, quoting from _North Indian Notes and Queries_,
+i. 51.
+
+[70] _Bombay Gazetteer_, _Hindus of Gujarat_, p. 574.
+
+[71] Gunthorpe's _Criminal Tribes_.
+
+[72] _Criminal Classes in the Bombay Presidency_, p. 151.
+
+[73] Gunthorpe's _Criminal Tribes_, art. Badhak.
+
+[74] _C. P. Police Lectures_, art. Badhak.
+
+[75] Art. Bawaria, para. 12.
+
+[76] _Criminal Classes in the Bombay Presidency_, p. 179.
+
+[77] Kennedy, _loc. cit._ p. 208.
+
+[78] Kennedy, _loc. cit._ p. 185.
+
+[79] This article is partly based on a paper by Munshi Kanhya Lal of
+the Gazetteer office.
+
+[80] Sir B. Robertson's _C.P. Census Report_ (1891), p. 203.
+
+[81] _Punjab Census Report_ (1881), paras. 646, 647.
+
+[82] _Nasik Gazetteer_, pp. 84, 85.
+
+[83] Crooke's _Tribes and Castes_, art. Bahna.
+
+[84] The word Achera is merely a jingle put in to make the rhyme
+complete.
+Kachera is a maker of glass bangles.
+
+[85] This article is based largely on a monograph by the
+Rev. J. Lampard, missionary, Baihar, and also on papers by Muhammad
+Hanif Siddiqi, forest ranger, Bilaspur, and Mr. Muhammad Ali Haqqani,
+B.A., Tahsildar, Dindori. Some extracts have been made from Colonel
+Ward's _Mandla Settlement Report_ (1869), and from Colonel Bloomfield's
+_Notes on the Baigas_.
+
+[86] In Bengal the Bhumia or Bhumij are an important tribe.
+
+[87] Colonel Ward's _Mandla Settlement Report_ (1868-69), p. 153.
+
+[88] _Shorea robusta._
+
+[89] Jarrett's _Ain-i-Akbari_, vol. ii. p. 196.
+
+[90] Colonel Ward gives the bride's house as among the Gonds. But
+inquiry in Mandla shows that if this custom formerly existed it has
+been abandoned.
+
+[91] Forsyth's _Highlands of Central India_, p. 377.
+
+[92] The Great God. The Gonds also worship Bura Deo, resident in a
+_saj_ tree.
+
+[93] Opened in 1905.
+
+[94] _Mandla Settlement Report_ (1868-69), p. 153.
+
+[95] _Notes on the Baigas_, p. 4.
+
+[96] Mr. Lampard's monograph.
+
+[97] Farthings.
+
+[98] This article contains material from Sir E. Maclagan's _Punjab
+Census Report_ (1891), and Dr. J. N. Bhattacharya's _Hindu Castes
+and Sects_ (Thacker, Spink & Co., Calcutta).
+
+[99] _Dictionary_, s.v.
+
+[100] Sir E. Maclagan's _Punjab Census Report_ (1891), p. 122.
+
+[101] _Memoir of Mathura._
+
+[102] _Hindu Castes and Sects_, p. 449.
+
+[103] Lit. the birth on the eighth day, as Krishna was born on the
+8th of dark Bhadon.
+
+[104] Mr. Crooke's _Tribes and Castes_, art. Vallabhacharya.
+
+[105] _Hindu Castes and Sects_, p. 457.
+
+[106] From _laskkar_, an army.
+
+[107] This paragraph is taken from Professor Wilson's _Account of
+Hindu Sects in the Asiatic Researches_.
+
+[108] This article is based on papers by Mr. Habib Ullah, Pleader,
+Burhanpur, Mr. W. Bagley, Subdivisional Officer, and Munsh Kanhya Lal,
+of the Gazetteer office.
+
+[109] This legend is probably a vague reminiscence of the historical
+fact that a Malwa army was misled by a Gond guide in the Nimar forests
+and cut up by the local Muhammadan ruler. The well-known Raja Man of
+Jodhpur was, it is believed, never in Nimar.
+
+[110] The _ghat_ or river-bank for the disposal of corpses.
+
+[111] _Madras Census Report_ (1891), p. 277.
+
+[112] _Ibidem_ (1891), p. 226.
+
+[113] _Ethnographic Notes in Southern India_, p. 16.
+
+[114] _Madras Census Report_ (1891), p. 277.
+
+[115] See para. 19 below.
+
+[116] See commencement of article.
+
+[117] _C.P. Census Report_ (1911), Occupation Chapter, Subsidiary
+Table I. p. 234.
+
+[118] For examples, the subordinate articles on Agarwal, Oswal,
+Maheshri, Khandelwal, Lad, Agrahari, Ajudhiabasi, and Srimali may be
+consulted. The census lists contain numerous other territorial names.
+
+[119] _Rajasthan_, i. pp. 76, 109.
+
+[120] That is Marwar. But perhaps the term here is used in the wider
+sense of Rajputana.
+
+[121] _Rajasthan_, ii. p. 145.
+
+[122] _Punjab Census Report_ (1881), p. 293.
+
+[123] _Supplemental Glossary_, p. 110.
+
+[124] _Rasmala_, i. pp. 240, 243.
+
+[125] _Rajasthan_, ii. p. 360.
+
+[126] _Ibid._ ii. p. 240.
+
+[127] The Parwars probably belonged originally to Rajputana; see
+subordinate article.
+
+[128] _Rajasthan_, i. p. 491.
+
+[129] _Bombay Gazetteer, Hindus of Gujarat_, p. 80.
+
+[130] The common brass drinking-vessel.
+
+[131] Sir H. H. Risley's _Peoples of India_, p. 127, and Appendix
+I. p. 8.
+
+[132] _Punjab Census Report_ (1881), p. 291.
+
+[133] _Nagpur Settlement Report_ (1900), para. 54.
+
+[134] _Nagpur Settlement Report_ (1900), para. 54.
+
+[135] _Tribes and Castes of Bengal_, art. Agarwala.
+
+[136] _Tribes and Castes of Bengal_, art. Agarwala.
+
+[137] The information on this subcaste is taken from Mr. Crooke's
+article on it in his _Tribes and Castes_.
+
+[138] Mr. Crooke's _Tribes and Castes_, art. Audhia.
+
+[139] Kennedy's _Criminal Classes of the Bombay Presidency_,
+art. Audhia.
+
+[140] Kennedy, _ibidem._
+
+[141] Mr. Crooke's _Tribes and Castes_, art. Audhia.
+
+[142] _United Provinces Census Report_ (1901), p. 220.
+
+[143] Atkinson, _Himalayan Gazetteer_, ii. p. 473, quoted in
+Mr. Crooke's article Dhusar.
+
+[144] Sherring, _Hindu Castes_, i. p. 293.
+
+[145] This account is based on a paper furnished by Mr. Jeorakhan Lal,
+Deputy Inspector of Schools, Bilaspur.
+
+[146] Kashyap was a Brahman saint, but the name is perhaps derived
+from Kachhap, a tortoise.
+
+[147] This article is mainly based on a paper by Mr. Pancham Lal,
+Naib-Tahsildar Sihora.
+
+[148] Mr. Crooke's _Tribes and Castes_, art. Gahoi.
+
+[149] _Tribes and Castes_, art. Golahre.
+
+[150] The above notice is partly based on a paper by Mr. Sant Prasad,
+schoolmaster, Nandgaon.
+
+[151] _Tribes and Castes_, art. Kasaundhan.
+
+[152] Mr. Crooke's _Tribes and Castes_, art. Khandelwal.
+
+[153] _Hindu Castes and Sects_, p. 209.
+
+[154] See article Bairagi for some notice of the sect.
+
+[155] See separate article on Jangam.
+
+[156] _Bombay Gazetteer_, _Hindus of Gujarat_, p. 70.
+
+[157] A town near Jhalor in Marwar, now called Bhinmal.
+
+[158] _Bombay Gazetteer_, _Hindus of Gujarat_, p. 97.
+
+[159] _Rajasthan_, ii. p. 210, footnote.
+
+[160] _Hindus of Gujarat_, _loc. cit._, and _Bombay Gazetteer_,
+xvi. 45.
+
+[161] _Tribes and Castes_, art. Oswal.
+
+[162] _Bombay Gazetteer_, vol. xvii. p. 51.
+
+[163] _Ibidem._
+
+[164] Bhattacharya, _Hindu Castes and Sects_, p. 207.
+
+[165] This article is based on papers by Mr. Pancham Lal,
+Naib-Tahsildar Sihora, and Munshi Kanhya Lal, of the Gazetteer office.
+
+[166] See also notice of Benaikias in article on Vidur.
+
+[167] _Bombay Gazetteer_, vol. xvii. p. 81.
+
+[168] _Bombay Gazetteer_, _Hindus of Gujarat_, p. 99.
+
+[169] _Ibidem._
+
+[170] _Ibidem._ p. 98.
+
+[171] _Merinda citrifolia_, see art. Alia.
+
+[172] See article.
+
+[173] This article is based principally on a _Monograph on the Banjara
+Clan_, by Mr. N. F. Cumberlege of the Berar Police, believed to have
+been first written in 1869 and reprinted in 1882; notes on the Banjaras
+written by Colonel Mackenzie and printed in the _Berar Census Report_
+(1881) and the _Pioneer_ newspaper (communicated by Mrs. Horsburgh);
+Major Gunthorpe's _Criminal Tribes_; papers by Mr. M. E. Khare,
+Extra-Assistant Commissioner, Chanda; Mr. Narayan Rao, Tahr., Betul;
+Mr. Mukund Rao, Manager, Pachmarhi Estate; and information on the
+caste collected in Yeotmal and Nimar.
+
+[174] Mr. Crooke's _Tribes and Castes_, art. Banjara, para. 1.
+
+[175] _Berar Census Report_ (1881), p. 150.
+
+[176] _Ibidem_, para. 2, quoting Dowson's Elliot, v. 100.
+
+[177] Khan Bahadur Fazalullah Lutfullah Faridi in the _Bombay
+Gazetteer_ (_Muhammadans of Gujarat_, p. 86) quoting from General
+Briggs (_Transactions Bombay Literary Society_, vol. i. 183) says
+that "as carriers of grain for Muhammadan armies the Banjaras have
+figured in history from the days of Muhammad Tughlak (A.D. 1340)
+to those of Aurangzeb."
+
+[178] Sir H. M. Elliot's _Supplemental Glossary_.
+
+[179] _Monograph on the Banjara Clan_, p. 8.
+
+[180] _Hindus of Gujarat_, p. 214 _et seq._
+
+[181] _Rajasthan_, i. 602.
+
+[182] _Ibidem_, ii. 570, 573.
+
+[183] This custom does not necessarily indicate a special connection
+between the Banjaras and Charans, as it is common to several
+castes in Rajputana; but it indicates that the Banjaras came from
+Rajputana. Banjara men also frequently wear the hair long, down to
+the neck, which is another custom of Rajputana.
+
+[184] _Jungle Life in India_, p. 517.
+
+[185] _Berar Census Report_ (1881), p. 152.
+
+[186] _Bombay Gazetteer, Hindus of Gujarat._
+
+[187] _Letter on the Marathas_ (1798), p. 67, _India Office Tracts._
+
+[188] _Army of the Indian Mughals_, p. 192.
+
+[189] _Monograph_, p. 14, and _Berar Census Report_ (1881) (Kitts),
+p. 151.
+
+[190] These are held to have been descendants of the Bhika Rathor
+referred to by Colonel Mackenzie above.
+
+[191] See note 3, p. 168.
+
+[192] General Briggs quoted by Mr. Faridi in _Bombay Gazetteer,
+Muhammadans of Gujarat_, p. 86.
+
+[193] A. Wellesley (1800), quoted in Mr. Crooke's edition of
+_Hobson-Jobson_, art. Brinjarry.
+
+[194] Cumberlege, _loc. cit._
+
+[195] Cumberlege, pp. 28, 29.
+
+[196] Elliot's _Races_, quoted by Mr. Crooke, _ibidem._
+
+[197] Cumberlege, pp. 4, 5.
+
+[198] Cumberlege, _l.c._
+
+[199] This custom is noticed in the article on Khairwar.
+
+[200] Cumberlege, p. 18.
+
+[201] Mr. Hira Lal suggests that this custom may have something to
+do with the phrase _Athara jat ke gayi_, or 'She has gone to the
+eighteen castes,' used of a woman who has been turned out of the
+community. This phrase seems, however, to be a euphemism, eighteen
+castes being a term of indefinite multitude for any or no caste. The
+number eighteen may be selected from the same unknown association
+which causes the goat to be cut into eighteen pieces.
+
+[202] _Ethnographic Notes in Southern India_, p. 344, quoting from
+Moor's _Narrative of Little's Detachment_.
+
+[203] Cumberlege, p. 35.
+
+[204] _Berar Census Report_, 1881.
+
+[205] Cumberlege, p. 21.
+
+[206] The following instance is taken from Mr. Balfour's article,
+'Migratory Tribes of Central India,' in _J. A. S. B._, new series,
+vol. xiii., quoted in Mr. Crooke's _Tribes and Castes_.
+
+[207] From the Sanskrit Hatya-adhya, meaning 'That which it is most
+sinful to slay' (Balfour).
+
+[208] _Monograph_, p. 12.
+
+[209] _Asiatic Studies_, i. p. 118 (ed. 1899).
+
+[210] Cumberlege, p. 23 _et seq._ The description of witchcraft is
+wholly reproduced from his _Monograph_.
+
+[211] His motive being the fine inflicted on the witch's family.
+
+[212] The fruit of _Buchanania latifolia_.
+
+[213] _Ethnographic Notes in Southern India_, p. 507, quoting from
+the Rev. J. Cain, _Ind. Ant._ viii. (1879).
+
+[214] _Hindu Manners, Customs and Ceremonies_, p. 70.
+
+[215] _Monograph_, p. 19.
+
+[216] The Patwas are weavers of silk thread and the Nunias are masons
+and navvies.
+
+[217] An impure caste of weavers, ranking with the Mahars.
+
+[218] _Semecarpus Anacardium._
+
+[219] Malcolm, _Memoir of Central India_, ii. p. 296.
+
+[220] Cumberlege, p. 16.
+
+[221] Small double shells which are still used to a slight extent as
+a currency in backward tracts. This would seem an impossibly cumbrous
+method of carrying money about nowadays, but I have been informed by
+a comparatively young official that in his father's time, change for
+a rupee could not be had in Chhattisgarh outside the two principal
+towns. As the cowries were a form of currency they were probably
+held sacred, and hence sewn on to clothes as a charm, just as gold
+and silver are used for ornaments.
+
+[222] _Jungle Life in India_, p. 516.
+
+[223] Brewer's _Dictionary of Phrase and Fable_ contains the following
+notice of horns as an article of dress: "Mr. Buckingham says of a
+Tyrian lady, 'She wore on her head a hollow silver horn rearing itself
+up obliquely from the forehead. It was some four inches in diameter at
+the root and pointed at the extremity. This peculiarity reminded me
+forcibly of the expression of the Psalmist: "Lift not up your horn on
+high; speak not with a stiff neck. All the horns of the wicked also
+will I cut off, but the horns of the righteous shall be exalted"
+(Ps. lxxv. 5, 10).' Bruce found in Abyssinia the silver horns of
+warriors and distinguished men. In the reign of Henry V. the horned
+headgear was introduced into England and from the effigy of Beatrice,
+Countess of Arundel, at Arundel Church, who is represented with the
+horns outspread to a great extent, we may infer that the length of
+the head-horn, like the length of the shoe-point in the reign of Henry
+VI., etc., marked the degree of rank. To cut off such horns would be
+to degrade; and to exalt and extend such horns would be to add honour
+and dignity to the wearer." Webb (_Heritage of Dress_, p. 117) writes:
+"Mr. Elworthy in a paper to the British Association at Ipswich in
+1865 considered the crown to be a development from horns of honour. He
+maintained that the symbols found in the head of the god Serapis were
+the elements from which were formed the composite head-dress called
+the crown into which horns entered to a very great extent." This
+seems a doubtful speculation, but still it may be quite possible
+that the idea of distinguishing by a crown the leader of the tribe
+was originally taken from the antlers of the leader of the herd. The
+helmets of the Vikings were also, I believe, decorated with horns.
+
+[224] _Monograph_, p. 40.
+
+[225] _Melia indica._
+
+[226] Author of the _Nimar Settlement Report_.
+
+[227] _Sesamum._
+
+[228] _Hindu Manners, Customs and Ceremonies_, p. 21.
+
+[229] _Report on the Badhak or Bagri Dacoits_, p. 310.
+
+[230] Colonel Mackenzie's notes.
+
+[231] Mr. W. F. Sinclair, C.S., in _Ind. Ant._ iii. p. 184 (1874).
+
+[232] _Notes on Criminal Tribes frequenting Bombay, Berar and the
+Central Provinces_ (Bombay, 1882).
+
+[233] _Berar Census Report_ (1881), p. 151.
+
+[234] This notice is compiled principally from a good paper
+by Mr. M. C. Chatterji, retired Extra Assistant Commissioner,
+Jubbulpore, and from papers by Professor Sada Shiva Jai Ram, M.A.,
+Government College, Jubbulpore, and Mr. Bhaskar Baji Rao Deshmukh,
+Deputy Inspector of Schools, Nagpur.
+
+[235] Sherring, _Hindu Tribes and Castes_, i. p. 330. Nesfield,
+_Brief View_, p. 15. _N.W.P. Census Report_ (1891), p 317.
+
+[236] The name of a superior revenue office; under the Marathas,
+now borne as a courtesy title by certain families.
+
+[237] _Tribes and Castes of Bengal_, art. Agarwal.
+
+[238] _Tribes and Castes of Bengal_, art. Barui.
+
+[239] Blochmann, _Ain-i-Akbari_, i. p. 72, quoted in Crooke's _Tribes
+and Castes_, art. Tamboli.
+
+[240] _Rajasthan_, ii. p. 210.
+
+[241] _Ficus glomerata._
+
+[242] _Hindu Castes_, i. p. 316.
+
+[243] _Tribes and Castes of Bengal_, art. Bari.
+
+[244] Vishnu.
+
+[245] Sherring, _Tribes and Castes_, i. pp. 403, 404.
+
+[246] This article is compiled from papers by Mr. W. N. Maw, Deputy
+Commissioner, Damoh, and Murlidhar, Munsiff of Khurai in Saugor.
+
+[247] _Bombay Gazetteer_, xvii. p. 108.
+
+[248] About 100 lbs.
+
+[249] Compiled from papers by Mr. Ram Lal, B. A., Deputy Inspector of
+Schools, Saugor; Mr. Vishnu Gangadhar Gadgil, Tahsildar, Narsinghpur;
+Mr. Devi Dayal, Tahsildar, Hatta; Mr. Kanhya Lal, B. A., Deputy
+Inspector of Schools, Betul; Mr. Keshava Rao, Headmaster, Middle
+School, Seoni; and Bapu Gulab Singh, Superintendent, Land Records,
+Betul.
+
+[250] Chapter x. 37, and Shudra Kamlakar, p. 284.
+
+[251] A Vaideha was the child of a Vaishya father and a Brahman mother.
+
+[252] Based on a paper by Rao Sahib Dhonduji, retired Inspector of
+Police, Akola, and information collected by Mr. Aduram Chaudhri of
+the Gazetteer office.
+
+[253] Mr. Marten's _C. P. Census Report_ (1911), p. 212.
+
+[254] This article is based on papers by Mr. A. K. Smith, C.S.,
+Mr. Khande Rao, Superintendent of Land Records, Raipur, and Munshi
+Kanhiya Lal, of the Gazetteer office.
+
+[255] _Tribes and Castes of Bengal_, art. Beldar.
+
+[256] _The Castes and Tribes of Southern India_, art. Odde.
+
+[257] _Akola District Gazetteer_ (Mr. C. Brown), pp. 132, 133.
+
+[258] _Amraoti District Gazetteer_ (Messrs. Nelson and Fitzgerald),
+p. 146.
+
+[259] See article on Badhak.
+
+[260] Kennedy, p. 247.
+
+[261] Crooke, art. Beria.
+
+[262] The following particulars are taken from a note by
+Mr. K. N. Date, Deputy Superintendent, Reformatory School, Jubbulpore.
+
+[263] This article is based principally on a paper by Panna Lal,
+Revenue Inspector, Bilaspur, and also on papers by Mr. Syed Sher Ali,
+Naib-Tahsildar, Mr. Hira Lal and Mr. Aduram Chaudhri of the Gazetteer
+office.
+
+[264] For the meaning of the term Baiga and its application to the
+tribe, see also article on Bhuiya.
+
+[265] It is or was, of course, a common practice for a husband to
+cut off his wife's nose if he suspected her of being unfaithful to
+him. But whether the application of the epithet to the goddess should
+be taken to imply anything against her moral character is not known.
+
+[266] This article is mainly compiled from a paper by Pyare Lal Misra,
+Ethnographic Clerk.
+
+[267] _Bombay Gazetteer_ (Campbell), xviii. p. 464.
+
+[268] The following particulars are taken from Colonel Portman's
+_Report on the Bhamtas of the Deccan_ (Bombay, 1887).
+
+[269] Portman, _loc. cit._
+
+[270] _Bombay Gazetteer_ (Campbell), xviii. p. 465.
+
+[271] This article contains some information from a paper by Mr. Gopal
+Parmanand, Deputy Inspector of Schools, Saugor.
+
+[272] _Memoirs of the Races of the N.W.P._ vol. i. p. 35.
+
+[273] _Tribes and Castes_, art. Bharbhunja.
+
+[274] See article on Kurmi. The remainder of this section is taken
+from Mr. Gopal Parmanand's notes.
+
+[275] _Ibidem._
+
+[276] _Tribes and Castes of Bengal_, art. Kandu.
+
+[277] This article is compiled from notes taken by Mr. Hira Lal,
+Assistant Gazetteer Superintendent in Jubbulpore, and from a paper
+by Ram Lal Sharma, schoolmaster, Bilaspur.
+
+[278] _Tribes and Castes of the N.W.P._, art. Bhar.
+
+[279] _C.P. Census Report_, 1881, p. 188.
+
+[280] _Dhaya_ means the system of shifting cultivation, which until
+prohibited was so injurious to the forests.
+
+[281] _Tribes and Castes of Bengal_, art. Brahman.
+
+[282] Art. Bhat.
+
+[283] Malcolm, _Central India_, ii. p. 132.
+
+[284] _Rajasthan_, ii. p. 406.
+
+[285] Malcolm, ii. p. 135.
+
+[286] _Rajasthan_, ii. pp. 133, 134.
+
+[287] Great King, the ordinary method of address to Brahmans.
+
+[288] _Rajasthan_, ii. p. 175.
+
+[289] _Rasmala_, ii. pp. 261, 262.
+
+[290] See later in this article.
+
+[291] This present of a lakh of rupees is known as Lakh Pasaru,
+and it is not usually given in cash but in kind. It is made up of
+grain, land, carriages, jewellery, horses, camels and elephants,
+and varies in value from Rs. 30,000 to Rs. 70,000. A living bard,
+Mahamahopadhyaya Murar Das, has received three Lakh Pasarus from the
+Rajas of Jodhpur and has refused one from the Rana of Udaipur in view
+of the fact that he was made _ayachaka_ by the Jodhpur Raja. _Ayachaka_
+means literally 'not a beggar,' and when a bard has once been made
+_ayachaka_ he cannot accept gifts from any person other than his own
+patron. An _ayachaka_ was formerly known as _polpat_, as it became
+his bounden duty to sing the praises of his patron constantly from
+the gate (_pol_) of the donor's fort or castle. (Mr. Hira Lal.)
+
+[292] _Rajasthan_, ii. p. 548.
+
+[293] _Viserva_, lit. poison.
+
+[294] From _dhol_, a drum.
+
+[295] _Rajasthan_, ii. p. 184.
+
+[296] Lit. _putli_ or doll.
+
+[297] _Tribes and Castes_, art. Bhat.
+
+[298] _Ibidem._ Veiling the face is a sign of modesty.
+
+[299] Postans. _Cutch_, p. 172.
+
+[300] Vol. ii. pp. 392-394.
+
+[301] _Rasmala_, ii. pp. 143, 144.
+
+[302] _Bombay Gazetteer_, _Hindus of Gujarat_, Mr. Bhimbhai Kirparam,
+pp. 217, 219.
+
+[303] In Broach.
+
+[304] Westermarck, _Origin and Development of the Moral Ideas_,
+ii. p. 242.
+
+[305] Westermarck, _ibidem_, p. 246.
+
+[306] Westermarck, _ibidem_, p. 248.
+
+[307] The above account of _Dharna_ is taken from Colonel Tone's
+_Letter on the Marathas_ (India Office Tracts).
+
+[308] This article is compiled from papers drawn up by Rai Bahadur
+Panda Baijnath, Superintendent, Bastar State; Mr. Ravi Shankar,
+Settlement Officer, Bastar; and Mr. Gopal Krishna, Assistant
+Superintendent, Bastar.
+
+[309] _Bassia latifolia_.
+
+[310] The principal authorities on the Bhils are: _An Account of the
+Mewar Bhils_, by Major P. H. Hendley, _J.A.S.B._ vol. xliv., 1875,
+pp. 347-385; the _Bombay Gazetteer_, vol. ix., _Hindus of Gujarat_;
+and notices in Colonel Tod's _Rajasthan_, Mr. A. L. Forbes's _Rasmala_,
+and _The Khandesh Bhil Corps_, by Mr. A. H. A. Simcox, C.S.
+
+[311] The old name of the Sesodia clan, Gahlot, is held to be derived
+from this Goha. See the article Rajput Sesodia for a notice of the
+real origin of the clan.
+
+[312] _Rajasthan_, i. p. 184.
+
+[313] _Ibidem_, p. 186.
+
+[314] Reference may be made to _The Golden Bough_ for the full
+explanation and illustration of this superstition.
+
+[315] _Rajasthan_, ii. pp. 320, 321.
+
+[316] _History of the Marathas_, i. p. 28.
+
+[317] See article.
+
+[318] _Rajasthan_, ii. p. 466.
+
+[319] Malcolm, _Memoir of Central India_, i. p. 518.
+
+[320] _An Account of the Bhils, J.A.S.B._ (1875), p. 369.
+
+[321] _Hyderabad Census Report_ (1891), p. 218.
+
+[322] _The Khandesh Bhil Corps_, by Mr A. H. A. Simcox.
+
+[323] Forbes, _Rasmala_, i. p. 104.
+
+[324] _Memoir of Central India_, i. pp. 525, 526.
+
+[325] _Ibidem_, i. p. 550.
+
+[326] _Hobson-Jobson_, art. Bhil.
+
+[327] _An Account of the Bhils_, p. 369.
+
+[328] _The Khandesh Bhil Corps_, p. 71.
+
+[329] _Ibidem_, p. 275.
+
+[330] _Eugenia jambolana._
+
+[331] _Soymida febrifuga._
+
+[332] _Phyllanthus emblica._
+
+[333] _Terminalia belerica._
+
+[334] _Bombay Gazetteer, Hindus of Gujarat_, p. 309.
+
+[335] See article Kunbi.
+
+[336] _Sorghum vulgare._
+
+[337] _Loc. cit._ p. 347.
+
+[338] _Western India._
+
+[339] _Asiatic Studies_, 1st series, p. 174.
+
+[340] _Asiatic Studies_, 1st series, p. 352.
+
+[341] _Bombay Gazetteer, Hindus of Gujarat_, p. 302.
+
+[342] _Bombay Gazetteer_, vol. xii. p. 87.
+
+[343] _An Account of the Bhils_, pp. 362, 363.
+
+[344] _Account of the Mewar Bhils_, pp. 357, 358.
+
+[345] Forbes, _Rasmala_, i. p. 113.
+
+[346] _Nimar Settlement Report_, pp. 246, 247.
+
+[347] Sir G. Grierson, _Linguistic Survey of India_, vol. ix. part
+iii. pp. 6-9.
+
+[348] This article is based mainly on Captain Forsyth's _Nimar
+Settlement Report_, and a paper by Mr. T. T. Korke, Pleader, Khandwa.
+
+[349] _Eugenia jambolana._
+
+[350] _Bauhinia racemosa._
+
+[351] _Settlement Report_ (1869), para. 411.
+
+[352] Mr. Montgomerie's _Nimar Settlement Report_.
+
+[353] _Memoir of Central India_, ii. p. 156.
+
+[354] Crooke's _Tribes and Castes_, art. Bhishti.
+
+[355] Elliott's _Memoirs of the North-Western Provinces_, i. p. 191.
+
+[356] Crooke's _Tribes and Castes_, ii. p. 100.
+
+[357] Rudyard Kipling, _Barrack-Room Ballads_, 'Gunga Din.'
+
+[358] Thacker and Co., London.
+
+[359] This article is mainly compiled from papers by Mr. Pandurang
+Lakshman Bakre, pleader, Betul, and Munshi Pyare Lal, ethnographic
+clerk.
+
+[360] This article is compiled partly from Colonel Dalton's _Ethnology
+of Bengal_ and Sir H. Risley's _Tribes and Castes of Bengal_; a
+monograph has also been furnished by Mr. B. C. Mazumdar, pleader,
+Sambalpur, and papers by Mr. A. B. Napier, Deputy Commissioner,
+Raipur, and Mr. Hira Lal.
+
+[361] _Ethnology of Bengal_, p. 140.
+
+[362] _Linguistic Survey_, vol. xiv. _Munda and Dravidian Languages_,
+p. 217.
+
+[363] Page 142.
+
+[364] _Ibidem_, p. 141.
+
+[365] In the article on Binjhwar, it was supposed that the Baigas
+migrated east from the Satpura hills into Chhattisgarh. But the
+evidence adduced above appears to show that this view is incorrect.
+
+[366] _Tribes and Castes_, art. Binjhia.
+
+[367] Crooke, _Tribes and Castes_, art. Bhuiya, para. 4.
+
+[368] _Ibidem_, para. 3.
+
+[369] _Ibidem_, art. Bhuiyar, para. 1.
+
+[370] _Ibidem_, para. 16.
+
+[371] Dalton, p. 147.
+
+[372] Page 142.
+
+[373] The question of the relation of the Baiga tribe to Mr. Crooke's
+Bhuiyars was first raised by Mr. E. A. H. Blunt, Census Superintendent,
+United Provinces.
+
+[374] Mr. Mazumdar's monograph.
+
+[375] From Mr. Mazumdar's monograph.
+
+[376] This article is compiled from a paper taken by Mr. Hira Lal
+at Sonpur.
+
+[377] This article is based on papers by Mr. Hira Lal, Mr. Gokul
+Prasad, Tahsildar, Dhamtari, Mr. Pyare Lal Misra of the Gazetteer
+office, and Munshi Ganpati Giri, Superintendent, Bindranawagarh estate.
+
+[378] From the _Index of Languages and Dialects_, furnished by Sir
+G. Grierson for the census.
+
+[379] _Tribes and Castes of Bengal_, art. Binjhia.
+
+[380] _Early History of Mankind_, p. 341.
+
+[381] This article is based on a paper by Mr. Mian Bhai Abdul Hussain,
+Extra Assistant Commissioner, Sambalpur.
+
+[382] _Bassia latifolia_.
+
+[383] This article is compiled from Mr. Wilson's account of the
+Bishnois as reproduced in Mr. Crooke's _Tribes and Castes_, and from
+notes taken by Mr. Aduram Chaudhri in the Hoshangabad District.
+
+[384] The total number of precepts as given above is only twenty-five,
+but can be raised to twenty-nine by counting the prohibition of opium,
+tobacco, _bhang_, blue clothing, spirits and flesh separately.
+
+[385] Jhuria may be Jharia, jungly; Sain is a term applied to beggars;
+the Ahir or herdsman sept may be descended from a man of this caste
+who became a Bishnoi.
+
+[386] The day when the sun passes from one zodiacal sign into another.
+
+[387] The New Moon day or the day before.
+
+[388] This article is largely based on Mr. F. L. Faridi's full
+description of the sect in the _Bombay Gazetteer, Muhammadans of
+Gujarat_, and on a paper by Mr. Habib Ullah, pleader, Burhanpur.
+
+[389] _Bombay Gazetteer, Muhammadans of Gujarat_, p. 30. Sir
+H. T. Colebrooke and Mr. Conolly thought that the Bohras were true
+Shias and not Ismailias.
+
+[390] _Ibidem_, pp. 30-32.
+
+[391] _J.A.S.B._ vol. vi. (1837), part ii. p. 847.
+
+[392] _Berar Census Report_ (1818), p. 70.
+
+[393] _Castes and Tribes of Southern India_, art. Bohra.
+
+[394] Crooke's edition of _Hobson-Jobson_, art. Bohra.
+
+[395] Moor's _Hindu Infanticide_, p. 168.
+
+[396] _Memoir of Central India_, ii. p. 111.
+
+[397] This article is mainly compiled from a full and excellent account
+of the caste by Mr. Gopal Datta Joshi, Civil Judge, Saugor, C.P., to
+whom the writer is much indebted. Extracts have also been taken from
+Mr. W. Crooke's and Sir H. Risley's articles on the caste in their
+works on the _Tribes and Castes_ of the United Provinces and Bengal
+respectively; from Mr. J. N. Bhattacharya's _Hindu Castes and Sects_
+(Thacker, Spink & Co., Calcutta, 1896), and from the Rev. W. Ward's
+_View of the History, Literature and Religion of the Hindus_ (London,
+1817).
+
+[398] Crooke's _Tribes and Castes_, art. Brahman, quoting Professor
+Eggeling in _Encyclopaedia Britannica_, s.v. Brahmanism.
+
+[399] _Tribes and Castes of Bengal_, art. Brahman.
+
+[400] _Hindu Manners, Customs, and Ceremonies_, 3rd ed. p. 172.
+
+[401] Muir, _Ancient Sanskrit Texts_, i. 282 _sq._
+
+[402] Quoted in Mr. Crooke's _Tribes and Castes_, art. Brahman.
+
+[403] Quoted by Mr. Crooke.
+
+[404] _Tribes and Castes of the Punjab_, by Mr. H. A. Rose,
+vol. ii. p. 123.
+
+[405] See also article Rajput-Gaur.
+
+[406] See subordinate articles.
+
+[407] A section of the Kanaujia. See above.
+
+[408] _Tribes and Castes_, art. Brahman.
+
+[409] Chap. ix. v. 173.
+
+[410] Ward's _Hindus_, vol. ii. p. 97.
+
+[411] _Ibidem_, pp. 98, 100.
+
+[412] _Hindu Manners, Customs and Ceremonies_, by the Abbe Dubois,
+3rd ed. p. 499.
+
+[413] _Ibidem_, p. 500.
+
+[414] London, Heinemann (1897), pp. 84-91.
+
+[415] This is the famous Gayatri.
+
+[416] It is not known how a slip-knot and a garland are connected
+with any incarnation of Vishnu. For the incarnations see articles
+Vaishnava sect.
+
+[417] In the Central Provinces Ganpati is represented by a round
+red stone, Surya by a rock crystal or the Swastik sign, Devi by an
+image in brass or by a stone brought from her famous temple at Mahur,
+and Vishnu by the round black stone or Saligram. Besides these every
+Brahman will have a special family god, who may be one of the above
+or another deity, as Rama or Krishna.
+
+[418] _Bipracharanamrita._
+
+[419] _Hindu Castes and Sects_, pp. 19-21.
+
+[420] _Rajasthan_, i. p. 487.
+
+[421] _Rajasthan_, i. p. 698.
+
+[422] At that time L12,500 or more, now about L8000.
+
+[423] _Tribes and Castes of the North-West Provinces and Oudh_, s.v.
+
+[424] _Early History of India_, 3rd ed. p. 376.
+
+[425] _Ibidem_, p. 385.
+
+[426] _Tribes and Castes_, art. Kanaujia.
+
+[427] _Bombay Gazetteer, Hindus of Gujarat_, p. 11.
+
+[428] _Bombay Gazetteer, Satara_, p. 54.
+
+[429] Bhattacharya, _Hindu Castes and Sects_, p. 47.
+
+[430] _Ibidem_, p. 48.
+
+[431] From Mr. Gopal Datta Joshi's paper.
+
+[432] _Rasmala_, ii. p. 233.
+
+[433] _Rasmala_, ii. p. 259.
+
+[434] _Tribes and Castes_, art. Sanadhya.
+
+[435] Crooke, _ibidem_, paras. 3 and 6.
+
+[436] _Eastern India_, ii. 472, quoted in Mr. Crooke's art. Sarwaria.
+
+[437] Stirling's description of Orissa in _As. Res_. vol. xv. p. 199,
+quoted in _Hindu Castes and Sects_.
+
+[438] _Hindu Castes and Sects_, p. 63.
+
+[439] This article is compiled from papers by Mr. Wali Muhammad,
+Tahsildar of Khurai, and Kanhya Lal, clerk in the Gazetteer office.
+
+[440] This article is based on the Rev. E. M. Gordon's _Indian
+Folk-Tales_ (London, Elliott & Stock, 1908), and the Central
+Provinces _Monograph on the Leather Industry_, by Mr. C. G. Chenevix
+Trench, C.S.; with extracts from Sir H. H. Risley's and Mr. Crooke's
+descriptions of the caste, and from the _Berar Census Report_ (1881);
+on information collected for the District Gazetteers; and papers
+by Messrs. Durga Prasad Pande, Tahsildar, Raipur; Ram Lal, Deputy
+Inspector of Schools, Saugor; Govind Vithal Kane, Naib-Tahsildar,
+Wardha; Balkrishna Ramchandra Bakhle, Tahsildar, Mandla; Sitaram,
+schoolmaster, Balaghat; and Kanhya Lal of the Gazetteer office. Some
+of the material found in Mr. Gordon's book was obtained independently
+by the writer in Bilaspur before its publication and is therefore
+not specially acknowledged.
+
+[441] There are other genealogies showing the Chamar as the offspring
+of various mixed unions.
+
+[442] _Bombay Gazetteer_, vol. xv. Kanara, p. 355.
+
+[443] The Hindus say that there are five classes of women, Padmini,
+Hastini, Chitrani and Shunkhini being the first four, and of these
+Padmini is the most perfect. No details of the other classes are
+given. _Rasmala_, i. p. 160.
+
+[444] _Punjab Census Report_ (1881), p. 320.
+
+[445] _Tribes and Castes of Bengal_, art. Chamar.
+
+[446] _Loc. cit._
+
+[447] From Mr. Gordon's paper.
+
+[448] _Monograph on Leather Industries_, p. 9.
+
+[449] _Ibidem._
+
+[450] See articles on these castes.
+
+[451] _Monograph on Leather Industries_, p. 3.
+
+[452] _Berar Census Report_ (1881), p. 149.
+
+[453] From _mangna_, to beg.
+
+[454] _Tribes and Castes_, art. Chamar.
+
+[455] _Indian Folk-Tales._
+
+[456] _Indian Folk-Tales_, pp. 49, 50.
+
+[457] Shells which were formerly used as money.
+
+[458] _Indian Folk-Tales_, pp. 49, 50.
+
+[459] _Monograph_, p. 3.
+
+[460] _Monograph on Leather Industries_, p. 5.
+
+[461] _Zizyphus xylopera._
+
+[462] _Butea frondosa._
+
+[463] _Anogeissus latifolia._
+
+[464] The above is an abridgment of the description in Mr. Trench's
+_Monograph_, to which reference may be made for further details.
+
+[465] _Monograph on the Leather Industries_, pp. 10, 11.
+
+[466] _Melia indica._
+
+[467] _Berar Census Report_ (1881), p. 149.
+
+[468] _Rasmala_, i. 395, quoting from the _Ain-i-Akbari_.
+
+[469] From papers by Mr. Parmeshwar Misra, Settlement Superintendent,
+Rairakhol, and Mr. Rasanand, Sireshtedar, Bamra.
+
+[470] _Tribes and Castes of Bengal_, art. Chasa.
+
+[471] This article is based principally on notes taken by Mr. Hira
+Lal at Bhatgaon.
+
+[472] _Bombay Gazetteer_, _Hindus of Gujarat_, p. 178.
+
+[473] A corruption for Viswakarma, the divine artificer and architect.
+
+[474] The story, however, really belongs to northern India. Usha is
+the goddess of dawn.
+
+[475] Krishna's mother.
+
+[476] Little white flowers like jasmine. This simile would be unlikely
+to occur to the ordinary observer who sees a Hindu child crying.
+
+[477] _Tori balayan leun._ For explanation see above.
+
+[478] Commencement of the agricultural year.
+
+[479] This article is partly based on a paper by Mr. Bijai Bahadur,
+Naib-Tahsildar, Balaghat.
+
+[480] _Bombay Ethnographic Survey_, draft article on Chitrakathi.
+
+[481] May-June. The Akhatij is the beginning of the agricultural year.
+
+[482] _Berar Census Report_ (1881), paragraph 206. The passage is
+slightly altered and abridged in reproduction.
+
+[483] Vol. ix. part. ii. _Muhammadans of Gujarat_, p. 57.
+
+[484] _Rajasthan_, ii. p. 292.
+
+[485] _Bombay Gazetteer, l.c._
+
+[486] In recording this point Mr. Faridi gives the following note:
+"In 1847 a case occurred which shows how firmly the Memans cling
+to their original tribal customs. The widow of Haji Nur Muhammad
+of the Lakariya family demanded a share of her deceased husband's
+property according to Muhammadan law. The _jama-at_ or community
+decided that a widow had no claim to share her husband's estates
+under the Hindu law. Before the High Court, in spite of the ridicule
+of other Sunnis, the elders of the Cutchi Memans declared that their
+caste rules denied the widow's claim. The matter caused and is still
+(1896) causing agitation, as the doctors of the Sunni law at Mecca
+have decided that as the law of inheritance is laid down by the holy
+Koran, a wilful departure from it is little short of apostasy. The
+Memans are contemplating a change, but so far they have not found
+themselves able to depart from their tribal practices."
+
+[487] This article is based on papers by Mr. Vithal Rao,
+Naib-Tahsildar, Bilaspur, and Messrs. Kanhya Lal and Pyare Lal Misra
+of the Gazetteer office.
+
+[488] Crooke, _Tribes and Castes_, art. Kol.
+
+[489] _Aegle Marmelos._
+
+[490] _Butea frondosa._
+
+[491] _Nag_, a cobra.
+
+[492] Kept woman, a term applied to a widow.
+
+[493] Moor's _Hindu Infanticide_, p. 133.
+
+[494] James Forbes, _Oriental Memoirs_, i. p. 313.
+
+[495] Rajendra Lal Mitra, _Indo-Aryans_, i. p. 263.
+
+[496] _Journal of Indian Art and Industry_, xvi., April 1912, p. 3.
+
+[497] Dr. Jevons, _Introduction to the History of Religion_, p. 60.
+
+[498] _Private Life of an Eastern King_, p. 294.
+
+[499] _Hobson-Jobson, s.v._ 'Roundel.'
+
+[500] Old English manuscript quoted by Sir R. Temple in _Ind. Ant._
+(December 1904), p. 316.
+
+[501] _Hobson-Jobson, s.v._ 'Kittysol.'
+
+[502] _Hobson-Jobson, s.v._ 'Roundel.'
+
+[503] _Hobson-Jobson, ibidem._
+
+[504] W. W. Skeat, _The Past at our Doors_.
+
+[505] Skeat, _ibidem_, p. 95.
+
+[506] This article is compiled from papers by Mr. Bahmanji Muncherji,
+Extra Assistant Commissioner; Mr. Jeorakhan Lal, Deputy Inspector of
+Schools, and Pandit Pyare Lal Misra, ethnographic clerk. The historical
+notice is mainly supplied by Mr. Hira Lal.
+
+[507] Tod's _Rajasthan_, i. p. 128.
+
+[508] This article is based on notes taken by Pandit Pyare Lal Misra
+in Wardha, and Mr. Hira Lal in Bhandara.
+
+[509] _Proper Names of the Punjabis_, p. 74.
+
+[510] _Punjab Census Report_ (1881), para. 645.
+
+[511] Crooke's _Tribes and Castes_, art. Darzi.
+
+[512] Buchanan's _Eastern India_, Martin's edition, ii. pp. 417, 699.
+
+[513] _Ibidem_, p. 977.
+
+[514] Vol. i. pp. 178-184.
+
+[515] Webb's _Heritage of Dress_, p. 33.
+
+[516] _Bombay Gazetteer, Hindus of Gujarat_, p. 180, quoting from
+Ovington, _Voyage to Surat_, p. 280.
+
+[517] _Bombay Gazetteer, Hindus of Gujarat_, p. 180.
+
+[518] _Bombay Gazetteer, Nasik_, p. 50.
+
+[519] According to another account Namdeo belonged to
+Marwar. Mr. Maclagan's _Punjab Census Report_ (1891), p. 144.
+
+[520] _Berar Census Report_ (1881), para. 231.
+
+[521] This article is partly based on a note by Mr. Gokul Prasad,
+Tahsildar, Dhamtari.
+
+[522] This article is based entirely on a paper by Rai Bahadur Panda
+Baijnath, Superintendent, Bastar State.
+
+[523] Compiled mainly from a paper by Kanhya Lal, clerk in the
+Gazetteer office.
+
+[524] Cf. the two meanings of the word 'stock' in English.
+
+[525] _Tribes and Castes of Bengal_, art. Dhanuk.
+
+[526] _Eastern India_, i. 166, as quoted in Crooke's _Tribes and
+Castes_.
+
+[527] Cf. the two perfectly distinct groups of Paiks or foot-soldiers
+found in Jubbulpore and the Uriya country.
+
+[528] _Tribes and Castes of the N. W. P. and Oudh_, art. Basor.
+
+[529] The following particulars are from a paper by Kanhya Lal, a
+clerk in the Gazetteer office belonging to the Educational Department.
+
+[530] This article is based almost entirely on a monograph by
+Mr. Jeorakhan Lal, Deputy Inspector of Schools, Bilaspur.
+
+[531] _Grewia vestita._
+
+[532] The term brother's brother-in-law is abusive in the same sense
+as brother-in-law (_sala_) said by a man.
+
+[533] See commencement of this article.
+
+[534] _Cynodon dactylon._
+
+[535] _Shorea robusta._
+
+[536] This article is based partly on papers by Mr. Govind Moreshwar,
+Head Clerk, Mandla, and Mr. Pancham Lal, Naib-Tahsildar, Sihora. Much
+of the interesting information about the occupations of the caste
+was given to the writer by Babu Kali Prasanna Mukerji, Pleader, Saugor.
+
+[537] As a rule a husband and wife never address each other by name.
+
+[538] Among Hindus it is customary to give a little more than the
+proper sum on ceremonial occasions in order to show that there is no
+stint. Thus Rs. 1-4 is paid instead of a rupee.
+
+[539] _Berar Census Report_ (1881), p. 133.
+
+[540] _Ibidem_, _l.c._
+
+[541] _Ibidem_, _l.c._
+
+[542] _Anthocephalus kadamba._
+
+[543] From _ghat_, a steep hillside or slope; hence a river-crossing
+because of the banks sloping down to it.
+
+[544] _Trapa bispinosa._
+
+[545] _Jungle Life in India_, p. 137.
+
+[546] _Berar Census Report_ (1881), p. 132.
+
+[547] The following notice of caste offences is from Mr. Govind
+Moreshwar's paper.
+
+[548] Not probably on account of the commission of a crime, but because
+being sentenced to imprisonment involves the eating of ceremonially
+impure food. These rules are common to most Hindu castes, and the
+Dhimars are taken only as a typical example. They seem to have little
+or no connection with ordinary morality. But in Jhansi Mr. Crooke
+remarks that a Kahar is put out of caste for theft in his master's
+house. This again, however, might be considered as an offence against
+the community, tending to lower their corporate character in their
+business, and as such deserving of social punishment.
+
+[549] This article is partly based on an account of the caste
+furnished by Mr. H. F. E. Bell and drawn up by Mr. F. R. R. Rudman
+in the _Mandla District Gazetteer_.
+
+[550] _Folklore of Northern India_, vol. ii. p. 8.
+
+[551] Sherring's _Hindu Castes_, i. 342-3.
+
+[552] _Tribes and Castes_, art. Dhobi.
+
+[553] _Annals and Antiquities of Rajasthan._
+
+[554] _Berar Census Report_ (1881), p. 155.
+
+[555] _Central Provinces Census Report_ (1891), p. 202.
+
+[556] _Loc. cit._
+
+[557] _Bihar Peasant Life, s.v._ Dhobi.
+
+[558] _Ethnographic Notes in Southern India_, p. 226.
+
+[559] _Behind the Bungalow._
+
+[560] This article is mainly compiled from papers by Mr. Gokul
+Prasad, Naib-Tahsildar, Dhamtari, and Pyare Lal Misra, a clerk in
+the Gazetteer office.
+
+[561] _Tribes and Castes of Bengal_, art. Kandu.
+
+[562] This article is taken almost entirely from a paper drawn up by
+Mr. Hira Lal, Extra Assistant Commissioner.
+
+[563] This article is mainly compiled from Sir E. D. Maclagan's
+_Punjab Census Report_ (1891), pp. 192-196, the article on Fakir
+in the Rev. T. P. Hughes' _Dictionary of Islam_, and the volume on
+_Muhammadans of Gujarat_ in the _Bombay Gazetteer_, pp. 20-24.
+
+[564] Hughes, p. 116.
+
+[565] _Punjab Census Report_ (1891), p. 196.
+
+[566] Hughes' _Dictionary of Islam_, art. Fakir.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Tribes and Castes of the Central
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