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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 Lāl</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’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">Ahīr</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">Atāri</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">Bairāgi</a> (<i>Religious mendicants</i>) 93 + +</li> +<li><a href="#d0e3405">Balāhi</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">Agarwāla</a>. + +</li> +<li><a href="#d0e4111">Agrahari</a>. + +</li> +<li><a href="#d0e4125">Ajudhiabāsi</a>. + +</li> +<li><a href="#d0e4161">Asāthi</a>. + +</li> +<li><a href="#d0e4175">Charnāgri</a>. + +</li> +<li><a href="#d0e4184">Dhūsar</a>. + +</li> +<li><a href="#d0e4215">Dosar</a>. + +</li> +<li><a href="#d0e4233">Gahoi</a>. + +</li> +<li><a href="#d0e4275">Golapūrab</a>. + +</li> +<li><a href="#d0e4295">Kasarwāni</a>. + +</li> +</ul> +</td> +<td> +<ul> +<li><a href="#d0e4322">Kasaundhan</a>. + +</li> +<li><a href="#d0e4342">Khandelwāl</a>. + +</li> +<li><a href="#d0e4360">Lād</a>. + +</li> +<li><a href="#d0e4372">Lingāyat</a>. + +</li> +<li><a href="#d0e4402">Maheshri</a>. + +</li> +<li><a href="#d0e4439">Nema</a>. + +</li> +<li><a href="#d0e4454">Oswāl</a>. + +</li> +<li><a href="#d0e4530">Parwār</a>. + +</li> +<li><a href="#d0e4613">Srimāli</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">Banjāra</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">Bāri</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">Beldār</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">Bhāmta</a> (<i>Criminal tribe and labourers</i>) 234 + +</li> +<li><a href="#d0e6556">Bharbhūnja</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">Bhilāla</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">Binjhwār</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">Brāhman</span></a> (<i>Priest</i>) 351 + +</li> +<li><span class="smallcaps">Subcastes of Brāhman</span> + +<table> +<tr valign="top"> +<td> +<ul> +<li><a href="#d0e10150">Ahivāsi</a>. + +</li> +<li><a href="#d0e10162">Jijhotia</a>. + +</li> +<li><a href="#d0e10175">Kanaujia, Kanyakubja</a>. + +</li> +<li><a href="#d0e10213">Khedāwāl</a>. + +</li> +<li><a href="#d0e10231">Mahārāshtra</a>. + +</li> +<li><a href="#d0e10256">Maithil</a>. + +</li> +</ul> +</td> +<td> +<ul> +<li><a href="#d0e10274">Mālwi</a>. + +</li> +<li><a href="#d0e10284">Nāgar</a>. + +</li> +<li><a href="#d0e10321">Naramdeo</a>. + +</li> +<li><a href="#d0e10333">Sanādhya</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">Chadār</a> (<i>Village watchman and labourer</i>) 400 + +</li> +<li><a href="#d0e10437"><span class="smallcaps">Chamār</span></a> (<i>Tanner and labourer</i>) 403 + +</li> +<li><a href="#d0e10933">Chasa</a> (<i>Cultivator</i>) 424 + +</li> +<li><a href="#d0e11045">Chauhān</a> (<i>Village watchman and labourer</i>) 427 + +</li> +<li><a href="#d0e11075">Chhīpa</a> (<i>Dyer and calico-printer</i>) 429 + +</li> +<li><a href="#d0e11146"><span class="smallcaps">Chitāri</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">Dahāit</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">Dāngi</a> (<i>Landowner and cultivator</i>) 457 + +</li> +<li><a href="#d0e11889">Dāngri</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">Dewār</a> (<i>Beggar and musician</i>) 472 + +</li> +<li><a href="#d0e12174">Dhākar</a> (<i>Illegitimate, cultivator</i>) 477 + +</li> +<li><a href="#d0e12209">Dhangar</a> (<i>Shepherd</i>) 480 + +</li> +<li><a href="#d0e12267">Dhānuk</a> (<i>Bowman, labourer</i>) 484 + +</li> +<li><a href="#d0e12327">Dhanwār</a> (<i>Forest tribe</i>) 488 + +</li> +<li><a href="#d0e12605"><span class="smallcaps">Dhīmar</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">Dumāl</a> (<i>Cultivator</i>) 530 + +</li> +<li><a href="#d0e13593">Fakīr</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">Ahīrs decorated with cowries for the Stick Dance at Diwāli</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">Ahīr dancers in Diwāli costume</a> 32 + +</li> +<li>35. <a href="#d0e2582">Pinjāra cleaning cotton</a> 72 + +</li> +<li>36. <a href="#d0e2910">Baiga village, Bālāghāt 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 Mārwāri 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’s shop</a> 128 + +</li> +<li>46. <a href="#d0e5314">Banjāra women with the <i>singh</i> or horn</a> 184 + +</li> +<li>47. <a href="#d0e5416">Group of Banjāra women</a> 188 + +</li> +<li>48. <a href="#d0e5961">Basors making baskets of bamboo</a> 210 + +</li> +<li>49. <a href="#d0e7041">Bhāt with his <i>putla</i> or doll</a> 256 + +</li> +<li>50. <a href="#d0e7727">Group of Bhīls</a> 278 + +</li> +<li>51. <a href="#d0e7857">Tantia Bhīl, a famous dacoit</a> 282 + +</li> +<li>52. <a href="#d0e9263">Group of Bohras at Burhānpur (Nimār)</a> 346 + +</li> +<li>53. <a href="#d0e10015">Brāhman worshipping his household gods</a> 380 + +</li> +<li>54. <a href="#d0e10086">Brāhman bathing party</a> 384 + +</li> +<li>55. <a href="#d0e10171">Brāhman Pujāris 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 Marātha Brāhman men</a> 392 + +</li> +<li>57. <a href="#d0e10317">Group of Nāramdeo Brāhman women</a> 396 + +</li> +<li>58. <a href="#d0e10362">Group of Nāramdeo Brāhman men</a> 398 + +</li> +<li>59. <a href="#d0e10800">Chamārs tanning and working in leather</a> 416 + +</li> +<li>60. <a href="#d0e10853">Chamārs cutting leather and making shoes</a> 418 + +</li> +<li>61. <a href="#d0e11104">Chhīpa or calico-printer at work</a> 430 + +</li> +<li>62. <a href="#d0e12693">Dhīmar or fisherman’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 Gurujwāle Fakīrs</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">ā 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">é in <i>écarté</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">ī 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">ū 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 Hindustāni words is formed by adding <i>s</i> in the English manner according to ordinary usage, though this is not, of course, the Hindustāni plural. + +</p> +<p><span class="smallcaps">Note</span>.—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. + + + + + +</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—Fakīr</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>—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 Bilāspur +Districts. + +</p> +<p>The name probably signifies a worker with <i>āg</i> or fire. An Agaria subcaste of Lohārs 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 Mīrzāpur and Bengal. The Agarias are quite distinct +from the Agharia cultivating caste of the Uriya country. The Raipur Agarias still intermarry with the Rāwanbansi 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 Sonwāni, Dhurua, Tekām, Markām, Uika, Purtai, +Marai, and others. A few names of Hindi origin are also found, as Ahindwār, Ranchirai and Rāthoria, which show that some Hindus +have probably been amalgamated with the caste. Ahindwār or Aindwār and Ranchirai mean a fish and a bird respectively in Hindi, +while Rāthoria is a <i>gotra</i> both of Rājpūts 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. Tekām or <i>teka</i> is a teak tree. Sonwāni is a sept found among several of the Dravidian tribes, and the lower Hindu castes. A person of the +Sonwāni 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 Sonāpāni 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, ‘So-and-so has come to partake of your stale food.’<a id="d0e1090src" href="#d0e1090" class="noteref">2</a> 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 <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’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 <i>sāj</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’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 <i>sawāsa</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’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 <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’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 Kunwār (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 Lohā-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 Phāgun, 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’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 Ahīrs 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. Mīr Pādshāh, Tahsīldār of Bilāspur, and Kanhya Lāl, clerk in the Gazetteer office. +</p> +<p class="footnote"><span class="label"><a id="d0e1090" href="#d0e1090src" class="noteref">2</a></span> <i>Bāsi</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 2½ 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).—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 Sārangarh States and Bilāspur District of the Central +Provinces, and are found also in some of the Chota Nāgpur States transferred from Bengal. According to the traditions of the +Agharias their forefathers were Rājpūts 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 Chamār of his village and besought him to go instead, +saying that he would become a Rājpūt in his death and that he would ever be held in remembrance by the Agharia’s descendants. +The Chamār 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 Chhattīsgarh, 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 Chamār. 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 Bhāt, 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 Dashānshi. The Agharias claim to be Somvansi Rājpūts, a claim which Colonel Dalton says their +appearance favours. “Tall, well-made, with high Aryan features and tawny complexions, they look like Rājpūts, though they +are more industrious and intelligent than the generality of the fighting tribe.”<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 (Ahīr) 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 Nāik, 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 Brāhman <i>gotras</i>, as Sāndilya, Kaushik and Bhāradwāj; others those of Rājpūt septs, as Karchhul; while others are the names of animals and +plants, as Barāh (pig), Baram (the pīpal tree), Nāg (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 Rājpūts, the offspring of connections with inferior +classes have been assimilated; while the story already quoted is probably intended to signify, after the usual Brāhmanical +fashion, that the pedigree of the Agharias at some period included a Chamār. + + +</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’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 <i>swastik</i> or lucky mark are sent to the girl. Marriages are always celebrated during the months of Māgh and Phāgun, 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 Hindustāni Brāhmans +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 <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’s <i>sawāsin</i> 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 <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 Brāhman 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>shrādhh</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>Nāth</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’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 <i>guru</i>, 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 Rāwat. They refuse to take water from an Uriya Brāhman, probably in retaliation +for the refusal of Uriya Brāhmans 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 Brāhmans 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, Rāwats, +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 Rājpūt 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 mālguzārs or village proprietors and lessees. They wear a coarse cloth of homespun yarn which they get woven for them by +Gāndas; probably in consequence of this the Agharias do not consider the touch of the Gānda 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 Nāth Pujāri, Extra Assistant Commissioner, Sambalpur; +Sitāram, Head Master of the Raigarh English School, and Kanhyā Lāl, 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’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>—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>Mālati Mādhava</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 Kapālika sect +of the Middle Ages, who wore crowns and necklaces of skulls and offered human sacrifices to Chāmunda, 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 Benāres 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,<a id="d0e1269src" href="#d0e1269" class="noteref">3</a> “the Aghorpanthis lead a wandering life, are without homes, and prefer to dwell in holes, clefts of rocks and burning-<i>ghāts</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 Benāres 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>ghāts</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 Benāres; 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 Kāli 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>“On the other hand, their good offices may secure benefits, as in the case of a zamīndār of Muzaffarnagar, who at Allahābād +refused to eat a piece of human flesh offered to him by an Aghori; the latter thereupon threw the flesh at the zamīndār’s +head, on which it stuck. The zamīndār afterwards became so exceedingly wealthy that he had difficulty in storing his wealth.” + + +</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> “Another horrible case, unconnected with magic and apparently arising from mere blood-thirst, occurred at Neirād in June +1878. An Aghori mendicant of Dwārka staying at the temple of Sitārām Lāldās seized a boy of twelve, named Shankar Rāmdās, +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’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.” + +</p> +<p>The following instance, quoted by Mr. Barrow from Rewah, shows how an Aghori was hoist with his own petard: “Some years ago, +when Mahārāja Bishnāth 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 Mahārāja was much troubled, and at last, in order to get rid of his unwelcome visitor, +sent for Ghansiām Dās, <a id="d0e1313"></a><span class="pagenum">[<a href="#d0e1313">16</a>]</span>another Aghori, a Fakīr, who had for some years lived in Rewah. Ghansiām Dās 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, Ghansiām Dās 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 Ghansiām Dās was rewarded for his services.” + +</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> “The loathsome story of a human ghoul from Patiāla 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 (Patiāla). 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 Rām Nāth, +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 Sādhus 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 Rām Nāth +was thoroughly educated in this rank the Sādhus 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 Mahārāja 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.” + +</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> “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.” + + + +<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> Bhattachārya, <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’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>Ahīr</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 Abhīras.</a></li> +<li><a href="#d0e1525">3. Ahīr dialects.</a></li> +<li><a href="#d0e1537">4. The Yādavas and Krishna.</a></li> +<li><a href="#d0e1558">5. The modern Ahīrs an occupational caste.</a></li> +<li><a href="#d0e1571">6. Subcastes.</a></li> +<li><a href="#d0e1578">7. The Dauwa or wet-nurse Ahīrs. 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 Diwāli 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>Ahīr,<a id="d0e1447src" href="#d0e1447" class="noteref">1</a> Gaoli, Guāla, Golkar, Gaolān, Rāwat, Gahra, Mahākul.</b>—The caste, of cowherds, milkmen and cattle-breeders. In 1911 the Ahīrs numbered nearly 750,000 persons in the Central Provinces +and Berār, being the sixth caste in point of numbers. This figure, however, excludes 150,000 Gowāris or graziers of the Marātha +Districts, and if these were added the Ahīrs would outnumber the Telis and rank fifth. The name Ahīr is derived from Abhīra, +a tribe mentioned several times in inscriptions and the Hindu sacred books. Goāla, a cowherd, from Gopāla,<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 Gaolāns appear to be an inferior class of Gaolis in Berār. The +Golkars of Chānda 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. Rāwat, a corruption of Rājpūtra or a princeling, is the name borne by the +Ahīr caste in Chhattīsgarh; while Gahra is their designation in the Uriya country. The Mahākul Ahīrs are a small group found +in the Jashpur State, and said to belong to the Nāndvansi division. The name means ‘Great family.’ + + + +</p> +<div id="d0e1470" class="figure"><img border="0" src="images/p018.jpg" alt="Ahīrs decorated with cowries for the Stick Dance at Diwāli." width="720" height="484"><p class="figureHead">Ahīrs decorated with cowries for the Stick Dance at Diwāli.</p> +</div><p> + + + +</p> +</div> +<div class="div2" id="d0e1474"> +<h3>2. Former dominance of the Abhīras.</h3> +<p>The Abhīras 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 Purānas and Mahābhārata 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 Balārām at Dwārka, was +proceeding with the widows of the Yādava princes to Mathura through the Punjab when he was waylaid by the Abhīras and deprived +of his treasures and beautiful women.<a id="d0e1479src" href="#d0e1479" class="noteref">3</a> An inscription of the Sāka 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 Abhīra, the locality being +Sunda in Kāthiāwār. Another inscription found in Nāsik and assigned by Mr. Enthoven to the fourth century speaks of an Abhīra +king, and the Purānas say that after the Andhrabhrityas the Deccan was held by the Abhīras, the west coast tract from the +Tāpti 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 Abhīras were settled in Eastern Rājputana and Mālwa.<a id="d0e1496src" href="#d0e1496" class="noteref">5</a> When the Kāthis arrived in Gujarāt in the eighth century, they found the greater part of the country in the possession of +the Ahīrs.<a id="d0e1501src" href="#d0e1501" class="noteref">6</a> In the Mīrzāpur District of the United Provinces a tract known as Ahraura is considered to be named after the tribe; and +near Jhānsi another piece of country is called Ahīrwār.<a id="d0e1506src" href="#d0e1506" class="noteref">7</a> Elliot states that Ahīrs were also Rājas of Nepāl about the commencement of our era.<a id="d0e1510src" href="#d0e1510" class="noteref">8</a> In Khāndesh, Mr. Enthoven states, <a id="d0e1515"></a><span class="pagenum">[<a href="#d0e1515">20</a>]</span>the settlements of the Ahīrs were important. In many castes there is a separate division of Ahīrs, such as the Ahīr Sunārs, +Sutārs, Lohārs, Shimpīs, Salīs, Guraos and Kolis. The fort of Asīrgarh in Nimār bordering on Khāndesh is supposed to have +been founded by one Asa Ahīr, 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 Asīrgarh is clearly +erroneous, as it was known as Asīr or Asīrgarh, and held by the Tāk and Chauhān Rājpūts 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 Ahīr 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 Chhindwāra plateau was, according to the legend, the last seat of Gaoli power prior to its subversion by the Gonds +in the sixteenth century. Jātba, 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 Narnāla for a few years longer, when he also was slain by the Muhammadans. +Similarly the fort of Gāwilgarh on the southern crest of the Satpūras 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 Etāwa 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. Ahīr dialects.</h3> +<p>Certain dialects called after the Abhīras or Ahīrs still remain. One, known as Ahīrwati, is spoken in the Rohtak and Gurgaon +Districts of the Punjab and round Delhi. This is akin to Mewāti, one of the forms of Rājasthāni or the <a id="d0e1530"></a><span class="pagenum">[<a href="#d0e1530">21</a>]</span>language of Rājputāna. The Mālwi dialect of Rājasthāni is also known as Ahīri; and that curious form of Gujarāti, which is +half a Bhīl dialect, and is generally known as Khāndeshi, also bears the name of Ahīrani.<a id="d0e1532src" href="#d0e1532" class="noteref">10</a> The above linguistic facts seem to prove only that the Abhīras, or their occupational successors, the Ahīrs, were strongly +settled in the Delhi country of the Punjab, Mālwa and Khāndesh. They do not seem to throw much light on the origin of the +Abhīras or Ahīrs, and necessarily refer only to a small section of the existing Ahīr caste, the great bulk of whom speak the +Aryan language current where they dwell. Another authority states, however, that the Ahīrs of Gujarāt still retain a dialect +of their own, and concludes that this and the other Ahīr dialects are the remains of the distinct Abhīra language. + + +</p> +</div> +<div class="div2" id="d0e1537"> +<h3>4. The Yādavas and Krishna.</h3> +<p>It cannot necessarily be assumed that all the above traditions relate to the Abhīra tribe proper, of which the modern Ahīr +caste are scarcely more than the nominal representatives. Nevertheless, it may fairly be concluded from them that the Abhīras +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 Gujarāt, among other places, and, as seen above, the earliest records of the Abhīras +show them in Nāsik and Kāthiāwār, and afterwards widely spread in Khāndesh, that is, in the close neighbourhood of the Sakas. +It has been suggested in the article on Rājpūt that the Yādava and other lunar clans of Rājpūts 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 Yādavas, and to have founded with them the sacred city of Dwārka in Gujarāt. The modern Ahīrs +have a subdivision called Jāduvansi or Yāduvansi, that is, of the race of the Yādavas, and they hold that Krishna was of the +Ahīr tribe. Since the Abhīras were also settled in Gujarāt it is possible that they may have been connected with the Yādavas, +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 Abhīra and a Yādava. But this is no doubt very conjectural, and the simple fact that Krishna was a herdsman would be a +sufficient reason for the Ahīrs to claim connection with him. It is pointed out that the names of Abhīra 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 Abhīras 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 Abhīras, whom +we find mentioned in inscriptions. Hence the conclusion may safely be drawn that the Abhīras 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 Purāna. The upbringing of Krishna among the cowherds and his flirtations +with the milkmaids are again and again mentioned in these works, but the word Abhīra 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 Abhīra is not once met with. From this only +one conclusion is possible, that is, that the Abhīras did not originally represent the Gopas of Krishna. The word Abhīra 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 Abhīras came to be identified with the Gopas shortly before that date.”<a id="d0e1550src" href="#d0e1550" class="noteref">11</a> + +</p> +<p>This argument is interesting as showing that Abhīra 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 Abhīras, like the Gūjars, 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 Gūjars, who came to India at a later period, form a parallel case; although the Gūjar caste, +which is derived from them, is far less important than the Ahīr, the Gūjars have also been the parents of several Rājpūt clans. +The reason why the early Mathura legends of Krishna make no mention of the Ahīrs 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 Yādavas, who fought in the battle +of the Pandavas and Kauravas, migrated to Gujarāt and was killed there. As he was chief of the Yādavas 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 Brindāban, 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 Hindustān in connection with that of the cow, he was given a more illustrious origin by identification with the Yādava +hero, whose first home was apparently in Gujarāt. In this connection it may also be noted that the episodes connected with +Krishna in the Mahābhārata have been considered late interpolations. + + +</p> +</div> +<div class="div2" id="d0e1558"> +<h3>5. The modern Ahīrs an occupational caste.</h3> +<p>But though the Ahīr caste takes its name and is perhaps partly descended from the Abhīra 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 Mathurāvāsi Goālas 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. “Seeing the latter standing in a group with some Singhbhūm Kols, there is no distinguishing +one from the other. There has doubtless been much mixture of blood.”<a id="d0e1565src" href="#d0e1565" class="noteref">12</a> Similarly in the Central Provinces the Ahīrs are largely recruited from the Gonds and other tribes. In Chānda the Gowāris +are admittedly descended from the unions of Gonds and Ahīrs, and one of their subcastes, the Gond-Gowāris, are often classed +as Gonds. Again, the Kaonra Ahīrs of Mandla are descended from the unions of Ahīrs 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 +Ahīr caste. Many Ahīrs 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 Ahīrs in northern India are the Jāduvansi, Nāndvansi and Gowālvansi. The Jāduvansi claimed +to be descended from the Yādavas, who now form the Yādu and Jādon-Bhatti clans of Rājpūts. The probability of a historical +connection between the Abhīras and Yādavas has already been noticed. The Nāndvansi consider their first ancestor to have been +Nānd, the cowherd, the foster-father of Krishna; while the name of the Gowālvansi is simply Goāla or Gauli, a milkman, a common +synonym for the caste. The Kaonra Ahīrs of Mandla and the Kamarias of Jubbulpore are considered to belong to the Nāndvansi +group. Other subcastes in the northern Districts are the Jijhotia, who, like the Jijhotia Brāhmans, take their name from Jajhoti, +the classical term for Bundelkhand; the Bharotia; and the Narwaria from Narwar. The Rāwats <a id="d0e1576"></a><span class="pagenum">[<a href="#d0e1576">25</a>]</span>of Chhattīsgarh are divided into the Jhadia, Kosaria and Kanaujia groups. Of these the Jhadia or ‘jungly,’ and Kosaria from +Kosala, the ancient name of the Chhattīsgarh country, are the oldest settlers, while the Kanaujia are largely employed as +personal servants in Chhattīsgarh, 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 Thethwār, or exact or pure, as distinguished from the other Rāwats, +who will perform this somewhat derogatory work. + + +</p> +</div> +<div class="div2" id="d0e1578"> +<h3>7. The Dauwa or wet-nurse Ahīrs. Fosterage.</h3> +<p>The Dauwa or wet-nurse Ahīrs are descended from the illegitimate offspring of Bundela Rājpūt fathers by Ahīr mothers who were +employed in this capacity in their families. An Ahīr woman kept by a Bundela was known as Pardwārin, or one coming from another +house. This is not considered a disgraceful origin; though the Dauwa Ahīrs are not recognised by the Ahīrs proper, they form +a separate section of the caste, and Brāhmans will take water from them. The children of such mothers stood in the relation +of foster-brothers to the Rājpūts, 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 Rājpūts; they were often given permanent grants of land and employed on confidential missions, as for +the arrangement of marriages. The minister of a Rāja 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 Rāja 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 Rājpūt was an honourable one, even though the child might be illegitimate. Ahīr +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 Ahīrs 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 Nāndvans, +common to the Ahīrs, the Mālwi from Mālwa and the Rāghuvansi, called after the Rājpūt clan of that name. The Rānyas take their +designation from <i>rān</i>, forest, like the Jhādia Rāwats. + + +</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 Chhattīsgarhi +Rāwats are generally named after animals. A curious name among the Mahākul Ahīrs is Mathānkāta, 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. + + +</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 Chānda insist on infant marriage, and fine the +parents if an unmarried girl becomes adolescent. On the other hand, the Kaonra Ahīrs 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>panchāyat</i> give her to him and fine him Rs. 20 or 30, which they appropriate themselves, giving nothing to the father. If an Ahīr 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 Ahīrs of Mandla and the Jharia and Kosaria Rāwats of Chhattīsgarh employ +a Brāhman only to write the <i>lagun</i> or paper fixing the date of the wedding, and the ceremony is conducted by the <i>sawāsins</i> or relatives of <a id="d0e1617"></a><span class="pagenum">[<a href="#d0e1617">27</a>]</span>the parties. In Chhattīsgarh the bridegroom is dressed as a girl to be taken to the wedding. In Betūl the weddings of most +Gaolis are held in Māgh (January), and that of the Rānya subcaste in the bright fortnight of Kārtik (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 Hoshangābād 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 Rāwats of Chhattīsgarh, 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 <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’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 Bārhi +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 Chhattīsgarh 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’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 Ahīrs 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 Nānd, 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 Kānsa 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 Rādha and the other milkmaids of Brindāwan, +are among the most favourite Hindu legends. Govind and Gopāl, 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 +Balārām, 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 Bhādon (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. Bhīlat, 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 Ahīr or Gaoli woman; she was childless and prayed to Pārvati for a child, and the goddess +caused her votary to have one by her own husband, the god Mahādeo. Bhīlat was stolen away from his home by Mahādeo 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. +Singāji 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.<a id="d0e1644src" href="#d0e1644" class="noteref">14</a> On one occasion Singāji was late for prayers on this day, and the <i>guru</i> was very angry, and said to him, ‘Don’t show your face to me again until you are dead.’ Singāji 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 Singāji’s family. But on the way he saw Singāji, 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 Singāji drew from a male buffalo calf, the <i>guru</i> was able to inform the bereaved parents of their son’s joyful reappearance and his miraculous powers; of these Singāji 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 Singāji’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 Betūl district there is a village godling called +Dait, represented by a stone under a tree. He is the spirit of any Ahīr 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 Ahīr 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 Ahīrs 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 Ahīrs 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 Diwāli festival the Rāwats 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 Ahīrs is Haridās Bāba. 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 Benāres, leaving his body in the house of one of his disciples, who was an Ahīr. 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="Ahīr dancers in Diwāli costume." width="720" height="403"><p class="figureHead">Ahīr dancers in Diwāli costume.</p> +</div><p> + + + +</p> +</div> +<div class="div2" id="d0e1675"> +<h3>14. Other deities.</h3> +<p>The Mahākul Ahīrs of Jashpur have three deities, whom they call Mahādeo or Siva, Sahādeo, one of the five Pāndava brothers, +and the goddess Lakshmi. They say that the buffalo is Mahādeo, the cow Sahādeo, 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 Diwāli festival.</h3> +<p>The principal festival of the Ahīrs is the Diwāli, 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 Ahīrs 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 +Ahīrs 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 Balārām +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 Ahīrs 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>jagāna</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, +‘Wake up, Khila Mutha, this is the night of Amāwas’ (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, Nānd Gowāl is coming.’ Then they drive out the cattle +and chase them with the branches tied to their sticks as far as their grazing-ground. Nānd Gowāl 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 jagāna</i> or <i>bichkāna</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 Diwāli 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>“Oh, parrot, where shall we sow <i>gondla</i> grass and where shall we sow rice? + +</p> +<p>“We will sow <i>gondla</i> in a pond and rice in the field. + +</p> +<p>“With what shall we cut <i>gondla</i> grass, and with what shall we cut rice? + +</p> +<p>“We shall cut <i>gondla</i> with an axe and rice with a sickle.” + +</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 Bilāspur 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. +<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 Ahīrs 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. + + +</p> +</div> +<div class="div2" id="d0e1725"> +<h3>17. Social customs.</h3> +<p>The Ahīrs will eat the flesh of goats and chickens, and most of them consume liquor freely. The Kaonra Ahīrs of Mandla eat +pork, and the Rāwats of Chhattīsgarh are said not to object to field-mice and rats, even when caught in the houses. The Kaonra +Ahīrs are also said not to consider a woman impure during the period of menstruation. Nevertheless the Ahīrs 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.”<a id="d0e1730src" href="#d0e1730" class="noteref">15</a> All castes will take water from the hands of an Ahīr, and in Chhattīsgarh and the Uriya country the Rāwats and Gahras, as +the Ahīr caste is known respectively in these localities, are the only caste from whom Brāhmans and all other Hindus will +take water. On this account, and because of their comparative purity, they are largely employed as personal servants. In Chhattīsgarh +the ordinary Rāwats will clean the cooking-vessels even of Muhammadans, but the Thethwār or pure Rāwats 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>panchāyat</i> 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 <i>panchāyat</i> saying, ‘Rājas of the Panch, eat.’ Then the <i>panchāyat</i> and all the caste take food with him and he is readmitted. In Nāndgaon State the head of the caste <i>panchāyat</i> is known as Thethwār, the title of the highest subcaste, and is appointed by the Rāja, to whom he makes a present. In Jashpur, +among the Mahākul Ahīrs, when an offender is put out of caste he has on readmission to make an offering of Rs. 1–4 to Bālāji, +the tutelary deity of the State. These Mahākuls desire to be considered superior to ordinary Ahīrs, 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, Ahīrs 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 Chhattīsgarh the Rāwat 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 Ahīrs 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>Ahīrs had the exclusive right of milking the cow, so that on all occasions an Ahīr 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.<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>ghī</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 Ahīrs. +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. Mālguzārs 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’ 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 Ahīr 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 Ahīr’s head.’ ‘The cow is in league with the +milkman and lets him milk water into the pail.’ The Ahīrs 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.’ + + +</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>ghī</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>khīr</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’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’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. Kālika Prasād, Tahsīldār, Rāj-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>pāl</i> or <i>pālak</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), ‘Foreign Elements in the Hindu Population,’ 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> Ahīr. +</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. Goāla. +</p> +<p class="footnote"><span class="label"><a id="d0e1583" href="#d0e1583src" class="noteref">13</a></span> <i>Rājasthān</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>—A low cultivating caste of Berār, who numbered 52,000 persons in 1911, and belong to the Yeotmal, Akola and Buldāna 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 Berāri, 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 Hyderābād 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, Vartāti or pure and Khaltāti or illegitimate, which take food together, but do not +intermarry. They have a large number of exogamous septs, most of which appear to have Marāthi names, either taken from villages +or of a titular character. A few are called after animals or plants, as Mājiria the cat, Ringni a kind of tree, Dumare from +Dumar, an ant-hill, Dukare from Dukar, a pig, and Titawe from Titawa, a bird. Bāghmāre means tiger-killer or one killed by +a tiger; members of this sept revere the tiger. Two septs, Bhoyar and Wanjāri, 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’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 Mahārs and Māngs 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 Rāma. 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, Mālis and Kolis, but not from Gonds. They have a caste <i>panchāyat</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>shikāris</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 Marāthi 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>Berār 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>—A small caste of cultivators and labourers found principally in the Chānda District and Berār and scattered over other localities. +The Arakhs are considered to be an offshoot of the Pāsi or Bahelia caste of hunters and fowlers. Mr. Crooke<a id="d0e1852src" href="#d0e1852" class="noteref">1</a> writes of them: “All their traditions connect them with the Pāsis and Parasurāma, the sixth Avatāra of Vishnu. One story +runs that Parasurāma 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 Pāsi and out of the second the first Arakh. Another story is that the Pāsis were +made out of the sweat (<i>pasīna</i>) of Parasurāma. While Parasurāma was away the Pāsi shot some animals with his bow, and the deity was so enraged that he cursed +the Pāsi, 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 Pāsis. Subsequently Parasurāma sent for some Pāsis 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.” This connection with the Pāsis is also recognised in the case of the Arakhs of Berār, +of whom Mr. Kitts writes:<a id="d0e1868src" href="#d0e1868" class="noteref">3</a> “The Arakhs found in Morsi are a race akin to the Bahelias. Their regular occupation is bird-catching and <i>shikār</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 Chamār. They appear to be a branch of the Pāsi tribe, and are described as a semi-Hinduised class of +aborigines.” In the Chānda 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 Mātia, Tekām, Tesli, Godām, Madai, Sayām 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 Chānda are largely +of Gond descent. They are probably, in fact, the offspring of irregular connections between the Gonds and Pāsis, who, being +both frequenters of the forests, would naturally come much into contact with each other. And being disowned by the true Pāsis +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 Māroti, 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’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>Berār Census Report</i> (1881), p. 157. +</p> +</div> +</div> +<div id="d0e1880" class="div1"><span class="pagenum"> +[<a href="#d0e111">Contents</a>] +</span><h2>Atāri</h2> +<div class="div2" id="d0e1883"> +<h3>1. General notice.</h3> +<p><b>Atāri,<a id="d0e1889src" href="#d0e1889" class="noteref">1</a> Gandhi, <span id="d0e1892" class="corr" title="Source: Bukekari">Bukekāri</span>.</b>—A small Muhammadan caste of retailers of scent, incense, tooth-powder and <i>kunku</i> or pink powder. Atāri is derived from <i>atar</i> or <i>itra</i>, attar of roses. Gandhi comes from <i>gandh</i>, a Sanskrit word for scent. Bukekāri is a Marāthi word meaning a seller of powder. The Atāris number about two hundred persons +in Nāgpur, Wardha and Berār. Both Hindus and Muhammadans follow the profession, but the Hindu Atāris are not a separate caste, +and belong to the Teli, Gurao and Beldār castes. The Muhammadan Atāris, to whom this article refers, may marry with other +Muhammadans, with the exception of low-class tradesmen like the Pinjāras, Kasais and Kunjras. One instance of an Atāri 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’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>chhāp</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’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 Tāmm Walīma +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’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 <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 Kāzi at weddings are paid for with a fee of Rs. 1–4, 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 Atāris are Muhammadans of the Sunnī sect. They revere the Muhammadan saints, and on the night of Shabrāt 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 Pīrs 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 Atāris 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>halāl</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>halāl</i> or lawful food without any further rite. The Atāris observe the Hindu law of inheritance, and some of them worship Hindu +deities, as Māta the goddess of smallpox. As a rule their women are not secluded. The Atāris 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>gulāb-pāni</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 Atāris 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 Bahādur Royzāda, Naib-Tahsīldār Hinganghāt, and Munshi Kanhya Lāl 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>—A small hybrid caste found almost exclusively in the Bilāspur 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 Rājpūt ancestor, by one Bhūri Bāndi, a female slave of unknown caste. This couple is supposed +to have resided in Ratanpur, the old capital of Chhattīsgarh, 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, Kālkhor, Bachhāwat, +Dhanāwat, Bhainsa and Limuān. The following story exists as to the origin of these <i>gotras</i>: There were formerly three brothers, Sahasmān, Budha and Mangal, who were Sānsis 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 <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 Kālkhor, 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 <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>. Bachhāwat and Dhanāwat are the names of sections of the Banjāra caste, and the persons of these <i>gotras</i> among the Audhelias are probably the descendants of illicit connections among Banjāras. The word Pachbhaiya means ‘five brothers,’ +and this name possibly commemorates a polyandrous connection of some Audhelia woman. Limuān 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 pīpal 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, Bāgri, Baoria.</b>—A famous tribe of dacoits who flourished up to about 1850, and extended their depredations over the whole of Northern and +Central India. The Bāgris and Baorias or Bāwarias 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 Bāgri 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 Gujarāt, as their peculiar dialect, still in use, +is a form of Gujarāti. 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>Rājpūts and were divided into clans with the well-known Rājpūt names of Solanki, Panwār, Dhundhel, Chauhān, Rāthor, Gahlot, +Bhatti and Chāran. 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 Gujarāti it seems more probable that they belonged to Gujarāt, a fertile breeding-place +of criminals, and they may have been descended from the alliances of Rājpūts with the primitive tribes of this locality, the +Bhīls and Kolis. The existing Bāgris 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 Rājpūt 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. + +</p> +<p>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.”<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> “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, Bāji Rao, +at Bithūr 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 Bithūr, 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 Bāji 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, Gajrāj, scaled the walls of Jhānsi and plundered the +Surāfa 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 <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> “The spy (<i>hirrowa</i>) having returned and reported that he had found a merchant’s house in Jhānsi which contained a good deal of property, we +proceeded to a grove where we took the auspices by the process of <i>akūt</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’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. Thāna and Saldewa, who carried the axes, soon broke them open, while Kulean lighted up +his torch. Gajrāj 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, Gajrāj hailed the god Hanumān 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 Rāja 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.” + + +</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: “This Gajrāj had risen from the vocation of a <i>bandarwāla</i> (monkey showman) to be the Robin Hood of Gwālior 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>ghāts</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.” 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 +bazārs 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, Meherbān, 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 Meherbān’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 Benāres; 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 Meherbān 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 Seosāgar, 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 Rāja Meherbān 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 Meherbān 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 Banjāras 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>nakkāras</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 Bairāgis, 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 Rāja 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 Garhākota +in Saugor had been taken by the Mahārāja Sindhia, Zālim Singh, a cousin of the dispossessed Bundela chief, collected a force +of Bundelas and Pindāris and ravaged the country round Garhākota 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 Rājputāna and offered them a rich reward for the head of Zālim 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 <a id="d0e2258"></a><span class="pagenum">[<a href="#d0e2258">57</a>]</span>who are the Nāzirs 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.”<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. “Some of the men with me,” one magistrate wrote,<a id="d0e2268src" href="#d0e2268" class="noteref">13</a> “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.<a id="d0e2271src" href="#d0e2271" class="noteref">14</a> “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 zamīndārs (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 +zamīndārs. “Our profession,” another Badhak remarked,<a id="d0e2274src" href="#d0e2274" class="noteref">15</a> “has been a <i>Pādshāhi Kām</i> (a king’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.” 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, Ajīt Singh, who was drafted into the native army and rose to be commander of a company. “I have seldom seen +a man,” he wrote,<a id="d0e2282src" href="#d0e2282" class="noteref">16</a> “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 Allahābād 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 Hindūs, and this reverence for the sex pervades all Hindū society.”<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>shikār</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>ghabrāye</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 Rājpūts +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 Siārkhawa 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 Rājpūts, but a low hunting caste like the Pārdhis and Bahelias. The Pārdhis have +Rājpūt sept names as well as the Badhaks. No doubt a few outcaste Rājpūts 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 Ghulāmi or Slave Badhaks, like +the Jāngar <a id="d0e2304"></a><span class="pagenum">[<a href="#d0e2304">60</a>]</span>Banjāras; 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 Ajīt 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. Ajīt 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 <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.” 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 Kāli, 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 Ajīt 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 <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.” In one case a dacoit named Ghīsa 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 Ajīt Singh continued: “When the spirit seized Ghīsa 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.” + + +</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’s +hole after cutting off three of the fingers. “We gave Kundana’s fingers to his mother,” Ajīt Singh stated, “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’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.” + + +</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, Meherbān Singh, who has already been mentioned: “In the latter +end of that year, Meherbān 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 Meherbān 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, Kāli, 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.’ 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.” The following was another more elaborate method of taking omens described by +Ajīt 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, Mahājīt, +my grandfather, and Sāhiba, 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 Sūraj 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 Akūt, we take that of the Siārni 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.” + + +</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 Bāgri and Baori or Bāwaria, both of which were borne by the +original Badhaks. The word Bāgri is derived from a tract of country in Mālwa which is known as the Bāgar or ‘hedge of thorns,’ +because it is surrounded on all sides by wooded hills.<a id="d0e2364src" href="#d0e2364" class="noteref">24</a> There are Bāgri Jāts and Bāgri Rājpūts, many of whom are now highly respectable landholders. Bāwaria or Baori is derived +from <i>bānwar</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 Bāgris and Bāwarias are sometimes +considered to be separate communities, but it is doubtful whether there is any real distinction between them. In Bombay the +Bāgris are known as Vāghris 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 Kirpārām’s volume <i>Hindus of Gujarat</i> in the <i>Bombay Gazetteer</i>. He divides them into the Chunaria or lime-burners, the Dātonia or sellers of twig tooth-brushes, and two other groups, and +states that, “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>shikāris</i> or hunters. They traffic in green parrots, which they buy from Bhīls and sell for a profit.” + + +</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>sāndha</i> or iguana lizards, which a Vāghri prizes very highly. This is also the case with the Bāwarias 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> “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 Chūhra +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 Gujarāt Vāghris and the Punjab Bāwarias. + + +</p> +</div> +<div class="div2" id="d0e2411"> +<h3>16. Social observances.</h3> +<p>In Sirsa the great mass of the Bāwarias are not given to <a id="d0e2416"></a><span class="pagenum">[<a href="#d0e2416">67</a>]</span>crime, and in Gujarāt also they do not appear to have special criminal tendencies. It is a curious point, however, that Mr. +Bhimbhai Kirpārām emphasises the chastity of the women of the Gujarāt Vāghris.<a id="d0e2418src" href="#d0e2418" class="noteref">27</a> “When a family returns home after a money-making tour to Bombay or some other city, the women are taken before Vihāt (Devi), +and with the women is brought a buffalo or a sheep that is tethered in front of Vihāt’s shrine. They must confess all, even +their slightest shortcomings, such as the following: ‘Two weeks ago, when begging in Pārsi Bazār-street, a drunken sailor +caught me by the hand. Another day a Mīyan or Musalmān 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.”<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, “The standard of morality is very low because in Muzaffarnagar it is extremely rare for a Bāwaria +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. + +</p> +<p>In Gujarāt<a id="d0e2437src" href="#d0e2437" class="noteref">30</a> the Vāghris 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 +“Be immortal.”... “The Bhuvas or priest-mediums play an important part in many Vāghri ceremonies. A Bhuva is a male child +born after the mother has made a vow to the goddess Vihāt 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.” + + +</p> +</div> +<div class="div2" id="d0e2448"> +<h3>17. Criminal practices.</h3> +<p>The criminal Bāgris still usually travel about in the disguise of Gosains and Bairāgis, and are very difficult of detection +except to real religious mendicants. Their housebreaking implement or jemmy is known as <i>Gyān</i>, but in speaking of it they always add <i>Dās</i>, so that it sounds like <a id="d0e2459"></a><span class="pagenum">[<a href="#d0e2459">68</a>]</span>the name of a Bairāgi.<a id="d0e2461src" href="#d0e2461" class="noteref">31</a> They are usually very much afraid of the <i>gyān</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>ghī</i> (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.<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 Dehliwāl and Mālpura 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 Mārwāri 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 Mārwāri Bāgris 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 Bāgri 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’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’s <i>Tribes and Castes</i>, art. Bāwaria. +</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 Gujarāt Vāghris 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>Gujarāt 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 Gujarāt</i>, p. 574. +</p> +<p class="footnote"><span class="label"><a id="d0e2461" href="#d0e2461src" class="noteref">31</a></span> Gunthorpe’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’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. Bāwaria, 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, Pinjāra, Dhunia.</b><a id="d0e2530src" href="#d0e2530" class="noteref">1</a>—The occupational caste of cotton-cleaners. The Bahnas numbered 48,000 persons in the Central Provinces and Berār 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 <a id="d0e2533"></a><span class="pagenum">[<a href="#d0e2533">70</a>]</span>simply as Muhammadans. The three names Bahna, Pinjāra, Dhunia appear to be used indifferently for the caste in this Province, +though in other parts of India they are distinguished. Pinjāra 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 Pathāni. 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 Mīrzāpur, Sarsūtia from the Sāraswati river, Berāri of Berār, Dakhni from +the Deccan, Telangi from Madras, Pardeshi from northern India, and so on. Two groups are occupational, the Newāris of Saugor, +who make the thick <i>newār</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 Nāsik the Telis and Pinjāras are said to form one community, under +the government of a single <i>panchāyat</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’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, ‘<i lang="und">Hamko Julāha Dhunia neh jāno</i>,’ or ‘Don’t talk to me as if I was a Julāha or a Dhunia.’ + + +</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’s son to marry a brother’s daughter, but +not <i>vice versa</i>. 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 Kāzi with an imitation of the Nikāh rite. +The bridegroom’s party sit under the marriage-shed, and the bride with the women of her party inside the house. The Kāzi selects +two men, one from the bride’s party, who is known as the Nikāhi Bāp or ‘Marriage Father,’ and the other from the bridegroom’s, +who is called the Gowāh 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 (<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 Kāzi 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’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 ‘Fārkhati.’ + + + + +</p> +<div id="d0e2582" class="figure"><img border="0" src="images/p072.jpg" alt="Pinjāra cleaning cotton." width="720" height="515"><p class="figureHead">Pinjāra 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>Pīrs</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>malīda</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 Korān 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 Jhālar. Some parents leave a lock of hair to grow on the head in the name +of the famous saint Sheikh Farīd, 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’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 Islām; 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 Khān first made an expedition into the north +of the Central Provinces he found the famous Gond-Rājpūt queen Durgāvati 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’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 ‘A Muhammadan (Turk) is a Muhammadan and the Bahna is also a Muhammadan’; and again— + + +</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, Pinjāra, +</span></p> +<p class="line" style=""><span>Muhammad se dūr, Dīn se niyāra,</span></p> +</div> +</div> +<p>or ‘The Kachera and Pinjāra are lost to Muhammad and far from the faith’; and again— + + +</p> +<div class="poem" lang="und"> +<div class="stanza"> +<p class="line" style=""><span>Adho Hindu adho Musalmān +</span></p> +<p class="line" style=""><span>Tinkhon kahen Dhunak Pathān,</span></p> +</div> +</div> +<p>or ‘Half a Hindu and half a Muhammadan, that is he who is a Dhunak Pathān.’ They have a grotesque imitation of the Muhammadan +rite of <i>halāl</i>, or causing an animal’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>Kāhe karkarāt hai? +</span></p> +<p class="line" style=""><span>Kāhe barbarāt hai? +</span></p> +<p class="line" style=""><span>Kāhe jai jai logon ka dāna khāt hāi? +</span></p> +<p class="line" style=""><span>Tor kiāmat mor niāmat, +</span></p> +<p class="line" style=""><span>Bismillāh hai tuch,</span></p> +</div> +</div> +<p>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 <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, “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 <i>kalma</i> unnecessary. These customs are, however, practised only by the ignorant members of the caste in Raipur and Bilāspur, 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 Brāhmans on the tenth +day after a death. They have a priest whom they call their Kāzi, 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 Rāj-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— + +<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 kī Sheikhi, +</span></p> +<p class="line" style="text-indent: 2em; "><span>Pathānon kī tarr,</span></p> +<p class="line" style=""><span>Turkon kī Turkshāhi, +</span></p> +<p class="line" style="text-indent: 2em; "><span>Bahnon kī bharrr ...</span></p> +</div> +</div> +<p>or ‘Proud as a Sheikh, obstinate as a Pathān, 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 ‘<i lang="und">Bahna kaisi dārhi</i>’ 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 Islām. 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 Lāl of the Gazetteer office. +</p> +<p class="footnote"><span class="label"><a id="d0e2541" href="#d0e2541src" class="noteref">2</a></span> Sir B. Robertson’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>Nāsik Gazetteer</i>, pp. 84, 85. +</p> +<p class="footnote"><span class="label"><a id="d0e2606" href="#d0e2606src" class="noteref">5</a></span> Crooke’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>—A primitive Dravidian tribe whose home is on the eastern Satpūra hills in the Mandla, Bālāghāt and Bilāspur Districts. The +number of the Baigas proper was only 30,000 in 1911. But the Binjhāls or Binjhwārs, a fairly numerous caste in the Chhattīsgarh +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 Binjhwār zamīndārs, or large landowners, whose families would naturally desire a more respectable +pedigree than one giving them the wild Baigas of the Satpūras for their forefathers. And the evolution of the Binjhwār caste +is a similar phenomenon to the constitution of the Rāj-Gonds, the Rāj-Korkus, and other aristocratic subdivisions among the +forest tribes, who have been admitted to a respectable position in the Hindu social community. The Binjhwārs, 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 Bālāghāt and Mandla the Binjhwār <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 Bilāspur, are +probably another offshoot, Kath-Bhaina being the name of a subtribe of Baigas in that District, and Rai-Bhaina in Bālāghāt, +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<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 Bilāspur 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 Nāgpur, 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 Chhattīsgarh plain and the hills surrounding it which adjoin Chota Nāgpur, +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>sāl</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 Binjhwār tradition Nanga Baiga and Nangi Baigin dwelt on the <i>kajli ban pahār</i>, which being interpreted is the hill of elephants, and may well refer to the ranges of Mandla and Bilāspur. 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 Chhattīsgarh +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 Binjhwārs. 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 Chhattīsgarhi 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 sāmbhar 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: Binjhwār, Bharotia, Narotia or Nāhar, Raibhaina, Kathbhaina, +Kondwān or Kundi, and Gondwaina. Of these the Binjhwār, Bharotia and Narotia are the best-known. The name of the Binjhwārs +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 Bālāghāt the Bharotias and Narotias both eat together and intermarry. In both places +the Binjhwārs occupy the highest position, and the other two subtribes will take food from them. The Binjhwārs 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 Kondwāns apparently derive their name from the tract south of the <a id="d0e2812"></a><span class="pagenum">[<a href="#d0e2812">81</a>]</span>Mahānadi 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 Markām, Marāvi, Netām, Tekām 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, +Pusām, Bania and Mawār 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 Binjhwārs and +Bharotias, who are more or less Hinduised, have now adopted territorial names for their septs, as Lapheya from Lāpha zamīndāri, +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 Binjhwārs 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’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 <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’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’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<a id="d0e2826src" href="#d0e2826" class="noteref">6</a> 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 <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’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 <i>panchāyat</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>panchāyat</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 Binjhwārs 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, Phāgu, Saoni, +and so on, from the months of Chait, Phāgun and Shrāwan. 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 Bhīri +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 Bhīri 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’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.<a id="d0e2844src" href="#d0e2844" class="noteref">7</a> + +</p> +<p>They also think that they can shut up the tiger’s <i>dār</i> or jaws, so that he cannot bite them, by driving a nail into a tree. The forest track from Kānha 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’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 Binjhwār 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>sāj</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. Thākur 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 Thākur +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. +Bhīmsen is the deity of rainfall, and Dharti Māta or Mother Earth is considered to be the wife of Thākur 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 Nārāyan 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>sāj</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>pāts</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>bhūts</i> or malignant spirits after death. Nāg 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 Satpūra 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, “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 <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 Brāhman 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 Khermāta, 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’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.<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, ‘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.’ + + + +</p> +<div id="d0e2910" class="figure"><img border="0" src="images/p088.jpg" alt="Baiga village, Bālāghāt District." width="720" height="401"><p class="figureHead">Baiga village, Bālāghāt 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 bazār, 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. + +</p> +<p>In Baihar of Bālāghāt 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’s as being unfair to himself, until at length after discussion some neutral +person’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 Brāhman. +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>panchāyat</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>māndar</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 Bālāghāt. 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’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 <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 Satpūra 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 Hanīf +Siddīqi, forest ranger, Bilāspur, and Mr. Muhammad Ali Haqqāni, B.A., Tahsīldār, Dindori. Some extracts have been made from +Colonel Ward’s <i>Mandla Settlement Report</i> (1869), and from Colonel Bloomfield’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 Bhumīj are an important tribe. +</p> +<p class="footnote"><span class="label"><a id="d0e2772" href="#d0e2772src" class="noteref">3</a></span> Colonel Ward’s <i>Mandla Settlement Report</i> (1868–69), 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’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’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’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>sāj</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> (1868–69), 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’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>Bairāgi</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 Sampradāyas or main orders.</a></li> +<li><a href="#d0e3093">3. The Rāmānujis.</a></li> +<li><a href="#d0e3103">4. The Rāmānandis</a></li> +<li><a href="#d0e3116">5. The Nīmānandis.</a></li> +<li><a href="#d0e3140">6. The Mādhavachāryas.</a></li> +<li><a href="#d0e3150">7. The Vallabhachāryas.</a></li> +<li><a href="#d0e3234">8. Minor sects.</a></li> +<li><a href="#d0e3245">9. The seven Akhāras.</a></li> +<li><a href="#d0e3289">10. The Dwāras.</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. Bairāgi monasteries.</a></li> +<li><a href="#d0e3395">15. Married Bairāgis.</a></li> +</ul> +<div class="div2" id="d0e3030"> +<h3>1. Definition of name and statistics.</h3> +<p><b>Bairāgi</b>,<a id="d0e3037src" href="#d0e3037" class="noteref">1</a> <b>Sādhu</b>.—The general term for members of the Vishnuite religious orders, who formerly as a rule lived by mendicancy. The Bairāgis +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 Bairāgi is supposed to come from the Sanskrit Vairāgya and to signify one who is free from human passions. +Bairāga 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 Bairāgi. But +the term is not generally applied to the more distinctive sects as the Kabīrpanthi, Swāmi-Nārāyan, Satnāmi 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 Bairāgi is one whose principal deity is either +Vishnu or either of his great incarnations, Rāma 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 Sampradāyas or main orders.</h3> +<p>It is generally held that there are four Sampradāyas or main sects of Bairāgis. These are— + +</p> +<p>(<i>a</i>) The Rāmānujis, the followers of the first prominent Vishnuite reformer Rāmānuj in southern India, with whom are classed +the Rāmānandis or adherents of his great disciple Rāmānand in northern India. Both these are also called Sri Vaishnava, that +is, the principal or original Vaishnava sect. + +</p> +<p>(<i>b</i>) The Nīmānandi, Nīmāt or Nīmbāditya sect, followers of a saint called Nīmānand. + +</p> +<p>(<i>c</i>) The Vishnu-Swāmi or Vallabhachārya sect, worshippers of Krishna and Rādha. + +</p> +<p>(<i>d</i>) The Mādhavachārya sect of southern India. + +</p> +<p>It will be desirable to give a few particulars of each of these, mainly taken from Wilson’s <i>Hindu Sects</i> and Dr. Bhattachārya’s <i>Hindu Castes and Sects</i>. + + +</p> +</div> +<div class="div2" id="d0e3093"> +<h3>3. The Rāmānujis.</h3> +<p>Rāmānuj was the first great Vishnuite prophet, and lived in southern India in the eleventh or twelfth century on an island +in the Kāveri 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 Rāmānuja sect are called Achārya, +and rank highest among the priests of the Vishnuite orders. The most striking feature in the practice of the Rāmānujis 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 Rāmānujis 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 Rāmānujis address each other with the salutation Dasoham, or ‘I am your slave,’ accompanied with the Pranām or +slight inclination of the head and the application of joined hands to the forehead. To the Achāryas 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 Rāmānujis 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 Rāmānujis do not recognise +the worship of Rādha, the consort of Krishna. The mendicant orders of the Sātanis and Dasaris of southern India are branches +of this sect. + + +</p> +</div> +<div class="div2" id="d0e3103"> +<h3>4. The Rāmānandis</h3> +<p>Rāmānand, the great prophet of Vishnuism in northern India, and the real founder of the liberal doctrines of the cult, lived +at Benāres at the end of the fourteenth century, and is supposed to have been a follower of Rāmānuj. 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, Kabīr, Nānak, Dādu, Rai Dās 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 Islām, which had now become a principal religion of India. Rāmānand himself did not go so far, and +remained a good Hindu, inculcating the special worship of Rāma and his consort Sīta. The Rāmaāandis consider the Rāmāyana +as their most sacred book, and make pilgrimages to Ajodhia and Rāmnath.<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 Rāmānujis. The Rāmānandis say that +the mark on the nose represents the Singāsun or lion’s throne, while the two white lines up the forehead are Rāma and Lakhshman, +and <a id="d0e3114"></a><span class="pagenum">[<a href="#d0e3114">96</a>]</span>the centre red one is Sīta. Some of their devotees wear ochre-coloured clothes like the Sivite mendicants. + + +</p> +</div> +<div class="div2" id="d0e3116"> +<h3>5. The Nīmānandis.</h3> +<p>The second of the four orders is that of the Nīmānandis, called after a saint Nīmānand. He lived near Mathura Brindāban, 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 Nīmānand stopped the sun from setting, and ordered him to wait above +a <i>nīm</i> tree till the meal was cooked and eaten under the tree, and this direction the sun duly obeyed. Hence Nīmānand, whose original +name was Bhāskarachārya, 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 Nīmānandis worship Krishna, and were the first sect, Dr. Bhattachārya states,<a id="d0e3130src" href="#d0e3130" class="noteref">5</a> to associate with him as a divine consort Rādha, 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’s birthday. Their sect-mark consists of two white lines down the forehead with a black patch in the centre, which +is called Shiāmbindini. Shiām 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 Mādhavachāryas.</h3> +<p>The third great order is that of the Mādhavas, named after a saint called Mādhavachārya 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 Pārvati. 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 Nirvāna 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 Mādhavachāryas 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 Vallabhachāryas.</h3> +<p>The fourth main order is the Vishnu-Swāmi, which is much better known as the Vallabhachārya 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 Bāla Gopāla or the cowherd boy. Their temples are numerous all over India, and +especially at Mathura and Brindāban, where Krishna was brought up as a cowherd. The temples at Benāres, Jagannāth and Dwārka +are rich and important, but the most celebrated shrine is at Sri Nāthadwāra in Mewār. The image is said to have transported +itself thither from Mathura, when Aurāngzeb 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 Thākurji, and are either of stone or brass. At all Vallabhachārya temples +there are eight daily services: the Mangala or morning <i>levée</i>, a little after sunrise, when the god is taken from his couch and bathed; the Sringāra, when he is attired in his jewels +and seated on his throne; the Gwāla, when he is supposed to be starting to graze his cattle in the woods of Braj; the Rāj +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 Uttāpan, 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.<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 Mahārāja. 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 Mahārājas. 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. Bhattachārya 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 Mahārāja 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 Mahārāja’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 Mahārāj 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 Vallabhachāryas 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 Brāhman 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 Bairāgis. One or two legends concerning +such saints may be given. A common order is that of the Bendiwāle, 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 Rāmānandis. His associates asked +him why he had dared to alter his <i>tilak</i> or sect-mark. He said that the goddess Jānki 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 <i>dhoti</i> 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. + + +</p> +</div> +<div class="div2" id="d0e3245"> +<h3>9. The seven Akhāras.</h3> +<p>Among the Bairāgis, besides the four Sampradāyas or main orders, there are seven Akhāras. These are military divisions or +schools for training, and were instituted when the Bairāgis had to fight with the Gosains. Any member of one of the four Sampradāyas +can belong to any one of the seven Akhāras, and a man can change his Akhāra as <a id="d0e3250"></a><span class="pagenum">[<a href="#d0e3250">100</a>]</span>often as he likes, but not his Sampradāya. The Akhāras, with the exception of the Lasgaris, who change the red centre line +of the Rāmanāndis 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 Nāga or naked members of the Akhāra, who went in front and fought. Once in +twelve years a great meeting of all the seven Akhāras is held at Allahābād, Nāsik, Ujjain or Hardwār, where they bathe and +wash the image of the god in the water of the holy rivers. The quarrels between the Bairāgis 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 +Akhāras: Digambari, Khāki, Munjia, Kathia, Nirmohi, Nirbāni 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 Khāki Bairāgis 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 Khāki or dust-colour. + +</p> +<p>The Munjia Akhāra 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 Nirbāni 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 Kāmdhenu, the name of the +cow which gave inexhaustible wealth. These Bairāgis 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 Bairāgis 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 Akhāra, and that the Munjia and Kathia are branches of the Khāki +Akhāra. They give three other Akhāras—Nīralankhi, Mahānirbāni and Santokhi—about which nothing is known. + + +</p> +</div> +<div class="div2" id="d0e3289"> +<h3>10. The Dwāras.</h3> +<p>Besides the Akhāras, the Bairāgis are said to have fifty-two Dwāras or doors, and every man must be a member of a Dwāra as +well as of a Sampradāya and Akhāra. The Dwāras seem to have no special purpose, but in the case of Bairāgis who marry, they +now serve as exogamous sections, so that members of the same Dwāra 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 Rāmānandis is said to be <i>Om Rāmāya <a id="d0e3311"></a><span class="pagenum">[<a href="#d0e3311">102</a>]</span>Nāmah</i>, or <i>Om</i>, Salutation to Rāma. <i>Om</i> is a very sacred syllable, having much magical power. Thereafter the novice must journey to Dwārka in Gujarāt and have his +body branded with hot iron or copper in the shape of Vishnu’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’s sandalwood. This is supposed to be clay taken from a tank at Dwārka, 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 Bairāgis 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 Bairāgi 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>gānja</i> and <i>bhāng</i> or preparations of Indian hemp. A Hindu on meeting a Bairāgi will greet him with the phrase ‘Jai Sītārām,’ and the Bairāgi +will answer, ‘Sītārām.’ This word is a conjunction of the names of Rāma and his consort Sīta. When a Bairāgi 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 Bairāgi, and the order is to a large extent recruited +from the lower castes. Theoretically all members of the order should eat together; but the Brāhmans 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 Bairāgis 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 Bairāgis have a fairly good social position, and respectable Hindu castes will accept cooked +food from them. Brāhmans usually, but not always, take water. They act as <i>gurus</i> or spiritual guides to the laymen of all castes who can become Bairāgis. They give the Rām and Gopāl Mantras, or the texts +of Rāma 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. + +</p> +<p>If a mendicant Bairāgi 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 Bairāgis. The property of an unmarried Bairāgi 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. Bairāgi monasteries.</h3> +<p>The Bairāgis<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 Samādhi or tomb of the founder, or of some eminent +Mahant; and a Dharmsāla 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 Bairāgis themselves. + + +</p> +</div> +<div class="div2" id="d0e3395"> +<h3>15. Married Bairāgis.</h3> +<p>Large numbers of Bairāgis now marry and have children, and have formed an ordinary caste. The married Bairāgis are held to +be inferior to the celibate mendicants, and will take food from them, but the mendicants will not permit the married Bairāgis +to eat with them in the <i>chauka</i> or place purified for the taking of food. The customs of the married Bairāgis 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 Bairāgis 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 zamīndāri land in Chhattīsgarh, in satisfaction of loans made to the Gond zamīndārs, and had been given the zamīndāri status +by the Marāthas, were subsequently made Feudatory Chiefs of the Nāndgaon and Chhuikhadan States. These chiefs now marry and +the States descend in their families by primogeniture in the ordinary manner. As a rule, the Bairāgi 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’s <i>Punjab Census Report</i> (1891), and Dr. J. N. Bhattachārya’s <i>Hindu Castes and Sects</i> (Thacker, Spink & 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’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 Bhādon. +</p> +<p class="footnote"><span class="label"><a id="d0e3163" href="#d0e3163src" class="noteref">7</a></span> Mr. Crooke’s <i>Tribes and Castes</i>, art. Vallabhachārya. +</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’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>Balāhi</h2> +<div class="div2" id="d0e3408"> +<h3>1. General notice.</h3> +<p><b>Balāhi.</b><a id="d0e3414src" href="#d0e3414" class="noteref">1</a>—A low functional caste of weavers and village watchmen found in the Nimār and Hoshangābād 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>bulāhi</i>, one who calls, or a messenger. The Balāhis seem to be an occupational group, probably an offshoot of the large Kori caste +of weavers, one of whose subdivisions is shown as Balāhi 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 Mahārs, the great menial +caste of Bombay. In Hoshangābād they are known alternatively as Mahār, while in Burhānpur 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 Nimār as part of the army of Rāja Mān 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 Balāhis among them won the favour of the Muhammadan general and asked for his own freedom and that of the other +Balāhis from among the prisoners. The Musalmān <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 Balāhis. On this the Balāhi, 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 Balāhis 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 Nimāri, Gannore, Katia, Kori and Mahār. +Of these Katia, Kori and Mahār are the names of distinct castes, Nimāri is a local subdivision indicating those who speak +the peculiar dialect of this tract, and the Gannore are no doubt named after the Rājpūt clan of that name, of whom their ancestors +were not improbably the illegitimate offspring. The Nimāri Balāhis 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 Nimāri group became Christians in the famine of 1897. They are considered to be the oldest residents +of Nimār. At marriages the Balāhi 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>ghāt</i>. In Nimār the Korkus and Balāhis each have a separate burying-ground which is known as Murghāta.<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 Burhānpur, as already stated, the +caste are known as Bunkar, and they are probably identical with the Bunkars of Khāndesh; 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 Bagmār, 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 Brāhman 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>panchāyat</i> and celebrate it on a Saturday or Sunday. Apparently, however, they do not consult real Brāhmans, but merely priests of their +own caste whom they call Balāhi Brāhmans. These Brāhmans are, nevertheless, said to recite the Satya Nārāyan Katha. They also +have <i>gurus</i> or spiritual preceptors, being members of the caste who have joined the mendicant orders; and Bhāts 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. + +</p> +<p>After marriage a girl goes to her husband’s house for a few days and returns. The first Diwāli or Akha-tīj festival after +the wedding must also be passed at the husband’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’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. + + +</p> +</div> +<div class="div2" id="d0e3455"> +<h3>3. Other customs.</h3> +<p>Like the Mahārs, the Balāhis 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 Balāhis 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 Balāhis 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 Balāhi. It is reported also that they will receive back into the community Balāhi 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. Habīb Ullah, Pleader, Burhānpur, Mr. W. Bagley, Subdivisional Officer, and Munsh Kanhya +Lāl, 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 Mālwa army was misled by a Gond guide in the Nimār +forests and cut up by the local Muhammadan ruler. The well-known Rāja Mān of Jodhpur was, it is believed, never in Nimār. +</p> +<p class="footnote"><span class="label"><a id="d0e3428" href="#d0e3428src" class="noteref">3</a></span> The <i>ghāt</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>—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 Nāgpur, Jubbulpore +and Raipur. The caste are frequently known as Naidu, a corruption of the Telugu word Nāyakdu, a prince or leader. Their ancestors +are supposed to have been Nāyaks 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 Gāzulu, or a bangle-seller. +In Madras they are said to be an offshoot of the great cultivating castes of Kamma and Kāpu 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 Bāsava, the founder of the Lingāyat 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 Gāzulu 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, Gūdāri, Jadal, Sangnād and Dāsiri. +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’s +toes and ties the <i>mangal-sūtram</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’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 Lingāyats and especially worship +Gauri, Siva’s wife. Jangams serve them as priests. They usually eat flesh and drink liquor, but in Chānda 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 Kāpus and Balijas and the impure Māla caste. It is said <a id="d0e3510"></a><span class="pagenum">[<a href="#d0e3510">110</a>]</span>that once upon a time the Kāpus and Balijas were flying from the Muhammadans and came to the northern Pallār 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 Kāpus and Balijas were hesitating, the Mālas 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 Kāpus and Balijas have respected the Mālas, +and the Balijas formerly even deposited the images of the goddess Gauri, of Ganesha, and of Siva’s bull with the Mālas, 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 Rājpūts.</a></li> +<li><a href="#d0e3813">7. Banias employed as ministers in Rājpūt 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. Diwāli 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 Rājpūts.</a></li> +<li><a href="#d0e3813">7. Banias employed as ministers in Rājpūt 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. Diwāli 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, Bāni, Vāni, Mahājan, Seth, Sāhukār.</b>—The occupational caste of bankers, moneylenders and dealers in <a id="d0e3705"></a><span class="pagenum">[<a href="#d0e3705">112</a>]</span>grain, <i>ghī</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 Vānia or Vāni. Mahājan 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>Sāhu</i>, <i>Sao</i> and <i>Sāhukār</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 Mārwāri Bania women." width="720" height="440"><p class="figureHead">Group of Mārwāri 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 Rāthor 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 Ahīr or grazier caste, those who sell milk instead of grazing cattle are called +Gaoli, but remain members of the Ahīr caste. An Ahīr in Chhattīsgarh would be called Rāwat and in the Maratha Districts Gowāri, +but might still be an Ahīr 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 Pansāri, though the name Pansāri 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 Agarwāla, Oswāl and Parwār, 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. Agarwāla, or Agarwāla +Bania, are names equally applied to designate this subcaste, and similarly with the Oswāls and Parwārs; 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 Agarwāls or Oswāls. +Several Rājpūt clans are similarly spoken of by their clan names, as Rāthor, Panwār, and so on, without the addition of the +caste name Rājpūt. Brāhman 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 Jaiswār Chamārs 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 Kasarwānis, 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<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 Brāhmans follow a religious calling; twenty-nine per cent of Ahīrs 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 Chamārs 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 Rājpūts and perhaps above all other castes except Brāhmans; +Brāhmans 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 Agarwāls, Oswāls and Parwārs, and +the lower ones, the Kasaundhan, Kasarwāni, Dosar and others. But this difference is not so great as that which separates different +groups included in such important castes as Rājpūt and Bhāt. It is true again that subcastes like the Agarwāls and Oswāls +are individually important, but not more so than the Marātha, Khedawāl, Kanaujia and Maithil Brāhmans, or the Sesodia, Rāthor, +Panwār and Jādon Rājpūts. 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, Jaiswār, Gujarāti, 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 Rājpūts.</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 Rājpūt stock. They nearly all come from Rājputāna, Bundelkhand or Gujarāt, that is from the homes of the principal +Rājūt clans. Several of them have legends of Rājpūt descent. The Agarwālas say that their first ancestor was a Kshatriya king, +who married a Nāga or snake princess; the Nāga race is supposed to have signified the Scythian immigrants, who were snake-worshippers +and from whom several clans of Rājpūts were probably derived. The Agarwālas took their name from the ancient city of Agroha +or possibly from Agra. The Oswāls say that their ancestor was the Rājpūt king of Osnagar in Mārwār, who with his followers +was converted by a Jain mendicant. The Nemas state that their ancestors were fourteen young Rājpūt princes who escaped the +vengeance of Parasurāma by abandoning the profession of arms and taking to trade. The Khandelwāls take their name from the +town of Khandela in Jaipur State of Rājputāna. The Kasarwānis say they immigrated from Kara Mānikpur in Bundelkhand. The origin +of the Umre Banias is not known, but in Gujarāt they are also called Bāgaria from the Bāgar or wild country of the Dongarpur +and Pertābgarh States of Rājputāna, where numbers of them are still settled; the name Bāgaria would appear to indicate that +they are supposed to have immigrated thence into Gujarāt. The Dhūsar Banias ascribe their name to a hill <a id="d0e3780"></a><span class="pagenum">[<a href="#d0e3780">117</a>]</span>called Dhūsi or Dhosi on the border of Alwar State. The Asātis say that their original home was Tīkamgarh 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 Yādava Rājpūts. 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 Srimālis +was the old town of Srimāl, now Bhinmāl in Mārwār. The Palliwāl Banias were from the well-known trading town of Pāli in Mārwār. +The Jaiswāl 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 Brāhman priests. But a number of mixed groups of the same character +are also found among the Brāhmans and Rājpūts, 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 Rājpūt 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 Rājputāna; +no doubt exists that they are of high caste, and that they must either be derived from Brāhmans or Rājpūts, 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 +Rājpūt origin. + +</p> +<p>Colonel Tod gives a catalogue of the eighty-four mercantile tribes, whom he states to be chiefly of Rājpūt descent.<a id="d0e3786src" href="#d0e3786" class="noteref">5</a> In this list the Agarwāl, Oswāl, Srimāl, Khandelwāl, Palliwāl and Lād subcastes occur; while the Dhākar and Dhūsar subcastes +may be represented by the names Dhākarwāl and Dusora in the lists. The other names given by Tod appear to be mainly small +territorial groups of Rājputāna. Elsewhere, after speaking of the claims of certain towns in Rājputāna 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 Mārudesh,<a id="d0e3791src" href="#d0e3791" class="noteref">6</a> and these chiefly of the Jain faith. The Oswāls, so termed from the town of Osi, near the Luni, estimate one hundred thousand +families whose occupation is commerce. All these claim a Rājpūt descent, a fact entirely unknown to the European inquirer +into the peculiarities of Hindu manners.”<a id="d0e3794src" href="#d0e3794" class="noteref">7</a> + +</p> +<p>Similarly, Sir D. Ibbetson states that the Maheshri Banias claim Rājpūt origin and still have subdivisions bearing Rājpūt +names.<a id="d0e3801src" href="#d0e3801" class="noteref">8</a> Elliot also says that almost all the mercantile tribes of Hindustān are of Rājpūt descent.<a id="d0e3806src" href="#d0e3806" class="noteref">9</a> + +</p> +<p>It would appear, then, that the Banias are an offshoot from the Rājpūts, who took to commerce and learnt to read and write +for the purpose of keeping accounts. The Chārans or bards are another literate caste derived from the Rājpūts, and it may +be noticed that both the Banias and Chārans or Bhāts have hitherto been content with the knowledge of their own rude Mārwāri +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 Rājpūt 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 Rājpūt states. Forbes says, in an account of an Indian court: “Beside the king stand the warriors +of Rājpūt race or, equally gallant in the field and wiser far in council, the Wānia (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 Wānias.”<a id="d0e3820src" href="#d0e3820" class="noteref">10</a> Colonel Tod writes that Nunkurn, the Kachhwāha chief of the Shekhāwat 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, Muhāj, the Jādon Bhātti chief of Jaisalmer, by an unhappy choice of a Bania minister, completed the demoralisation +of the Bhātti state. This minister was named Sarūp 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 Rājpūt history. Finally, it may be noted that the +Banias are by no means the only instance of a mercantile class formed from the Rājpūts. The two important trading castes of +Khatri and Bhātia are almost certainly of Rājpūt 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 Rājputāna, of which eight or ten only can be identified in the Central Provinces, +and of thirty mentioned by Bhattachārya 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 Rājputāna, Bundelkhand and the United Provinces. The leading Rājputāna groups are the Oswāl, Maheshri, Khandelwāl, +Saitwāl, Srimāl and Jaiswāal. These groups are commonly <a id="d0e3840"></a><span class="pagenum">[<a href="#d0e3840">120</a>]</span>known as Mārwāri Bania or simply Mārwāri. The Bundelkhand or Central India subcastes are the Gahoi, Golapūrab, Asāti, Umre +and Parwār;<a id="d0e3842src" href="#d0e3842" class="noteref">13</a> while the Agarwāl, Dhusar, Agrahari, Ajudhiabāsi and others come from the United Provinces. The Lād subcaste is from Gujarāt, +while the Lingāyats 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 Oswāl and Khandelwāl, +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 Rājputāna. + + + +</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 Oswāl, Parwār, Golapūrab, Saitwāl and Charnāgar, and one or two smaller ones, as the Baghelwāl 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 Brāhmans 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 Bīsa and Dasa, or twenty and ten groups. The Bīsa 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 Bīsa 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>mésalliance</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 Brāhman Rīshis 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’s father proceeds to the +girl’s house and presents her with a <i>māla</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 Mārwāri 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’s occupation of keeping accounts. It is customary for the +bride’s family to give <i>sīdha</i> 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 <i>panchāyat</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, ‘Gentlemen, I am a poor man; make it a little less’; or he says he will give <i>gur</i> or cakes of raw cane sugar instead of refined sugar. Then they say, ‘No, your social position is too high for <i>gur</i>; 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 Marātha <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’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. + + +</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 Mārwāris, 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 Parwār 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 Mahādeo and Pārvati, 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 Pārvati 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 ‘lord of elephants’ is a title given to a king; Gajānand or ‘elephant-faced’ is an epithet +of the god Ganesh and a favourite Hindu name. Gajvīthi 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 Marātha 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 Mahādeo and his wife Devi or Gauri. Mahādeo 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 Rājputāna 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-pūrna (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.”<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. Diwāli festival.</h3> +<p>At the Diwāli 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>ghī</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’s trade, as well as a luxurious food, of which he is especially +fond. At Diwāli 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 Diwāli 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 Phāgun (February), about the time of the Holi, the Mārwāris make an image of mud naked, calling it Nāthu Rām, +who was supposed to be a great Mārwāri. 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 +Kasarwānis 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>ghī</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 Mārwaāris will on special +festival occasions wear costly jewels. On his head the Mārwāri 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 Rājpūt, as the local Rājpūts 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 Mārwāri 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’s shop." width="720" height="507"><p class="figureHead">Bania’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 ¼, ½, ¾, 1¼, 1½, +2½, 3½ 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 Mārwāri 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 <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, “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 Mārwāri’s career, ‘He comes +with a <i>lota</i><a id="d0e3984src" href="#d0e3984" class="noteref">16</a> 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, ‘<i lang="und">Purus Pārus</i>’, or man is like the philosopher’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’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 id="d0e3995"></a><span class="pagenum">[<a href="#d0e3995">130</a>]</span>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.”<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’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.<a id="d0e4008src" href="#d0e4008" class="noteref">18</a> 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.”<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’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. + + +</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’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 juāri 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 Pindāris, 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 Chamār had a prescriptive right to the hides of the village +cattle, the Kalār to the mahua-flowers for making his liquor, the Kumhār 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> “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.” + +</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 Mārwāri 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. + + +</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’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 <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 Mārwāris 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 Deodān 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 Agarwāl, Oswāl, Maheshri, Khandelwāl, Lād, Agrahari, Ajudhiabāsi, and Srimāli 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>Rājasthān</i>, i. pp. 76, 109. +</p> +<p class="footnote"><span class="label"><a id="d0e3791" href="#d0e3791src" class="noteref">6</a></span> That is Mārwār. But perhaps the term here is used in the wider sense of Rājputāna. +</p> +<p class="footnote"><span class="label"><a id="d0e3794" href="#d0e3794src" class="noteref">7</a></span> <i>Rājasthān</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>Rāsmāla</i>, i. pp. 240, 243. +</p> +<p class="footnote"><span class="label"><a id="d0e3825" href="#d0e3825src" class="noteref">11</a></span> <i>Rājasthān</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 Parwārs probably belonged originally to Rājputāna; see subordinate article. +</p> +<p class="footnote"><span class="label"><a id="d0e3925" href="#d0e3925src" class="noteref">14</a></span> <i>Rājasthān</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 Gujarāt</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’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>Nāgpur Settlement Report</i> (1900), para. 54. +</p> +<p class="footnote"><span class="label"><a id="d0e4054" href="#d0e4054src" class="noteref">20</a></span> <i>Nāgpur 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, Agarwāla</h2> +<p><b>Bania, Agarwāla, Agarwāl.</b>—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 Nāgpur. The name is probably derived from Agroha, +a small town in the Hissār 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 Agarwālas trace their descent from a Rāja Agar Sen, whose seventeen sons +married the seventeen daughters of Bāsuki, the king of the Nāgas or snakes. Elliot considers that the snakes were really the +Scythian or barbarian immigrants, the Yueh-chi or Kushāns, from whom several of the Rājpāt clans as the Tāk, Haihāyas and +others, who also have the legend of snake ancestry, were probably derived. Elliot also remarks that Rāja 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 Agarwālas would have Rājpūt ancestry on both sides. +Their appearance, Mr. Crooke states, indicates good race and breeding, and would lend colour to the theory of a Rājpūt origin. +Rāja Agar Sen is said to have ruled over both Agra and Agroha, and it seems possible that the name of the Agarwālas 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 Agarwālas in the Central Provinces is near Delhi. The memory of the +Nāga princess who was their ancestor is still, Sir H. Risley states, held in honour by the Agarwālas, and they say, ‘Our mother’s +house is of the race of the snake.’<a id="d0e4079src" href="#d0e4079" class="noteref">1</a> No Agarwāla, whether Hindu or Jain, will kill or molest a snake, and the Vaishnava Agarwālas 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 Bīsa and Dasa or twenty and ten subdivisions, +which marry among themselves. The Bīsa 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 Nāga or snake princesses on their marriages to the sons of Rāja 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 Bīsa or Dasa cannot obtain a wife from his own group he will +sometimes marry in a lower group. + +</p> +<p>The Agarwālas are divided into seventeen and a half <i>gotras</i> or exogamous sections, which are supposed to be descended from the seventeen sons of Rāja 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 Brāhmanical saints like those of the <a id="d0e4097"></a><span class="pagenum">[<a href="#d0e4097">138</a>]</span>Brāhmans; 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 Agarwālas. 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 Kumhār 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 Agarwālas 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 Agarwālas observe the +Hindu festivals and employ Brāhmans for their ceremonies. In Nimār 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 juāri; 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 Rāja Agar Sen or his sons married +the Nāga 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.<a id="d0e4099src" href="#d0e4099" class="noteref">2</a> + +</p> +<p>In Nimār some Agarwālas worship Goba Pīr, 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 Shrāwan (July), and people offer cocoanuts, tying them on to the pole. Some +Agarwālas 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 Agarwālas 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 Agarwālas will take food cooked without water (<i>pakki</i>) from Oswāl, Maheshri and Khandelwāl Banias. The Agarwālas of the Central Provinces hold some substantial estates in Chhattīsgarh; +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 Agarwāla. + + +</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. Agarwāla. +</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. Agarwāla. +</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>—This subcaste numbered nearly 2000 persons in 1911, resident principally in Jubbulpore, Raipur and Bilāspur, and some of +the Feudatory States. Mr. Crooke states that they claim partly a Vaishya and partly a Brāhmanical descent, and wear the sacred +thread. Like that of the Agarwāla Banias their name has been connected with the cities of Agra and Agroha. There is no doubt +that they are closely connected with the Agarwālas, 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 Nānakpanthi sect. They are principally dealers in provisions, and they have acquired some discredit as compared with their +kinsfolk the Agarwālas, 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’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, Ajudhiabāsi</h2> +<p><b>Bania, Ajudhiabāsi, Audhia</b>.—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 Ajudhiabāsi Banias, but are now quite distinct from them. The Ajudhiabāsis numbered nearly 2000 persons in 1911, belonging +chiefly to the Jubbulpore, Narsinghpur and Hoshangābād Districts. This total includes any persons who may have returned themselves +as Audhia. The Ajudhiabāsis 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. Brāhmans 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 Ajudhiabāsi 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 Ajudhiabāsi 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 Doāb, 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, Brāhmans or Bairāgis. 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 Nīch 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 Brāhmans 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 Mahābrāhman 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 Ajudhiabāsi 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’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’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’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, Asāthi</h2> +<p><b>Bania, Asāthi.</b>—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 Tīkamgarh State in Bundelkhand. They do not rank very high, and are sometimes said +to be the descendants of an Ahīr who became a Bania. The great bulk are Hindus and a small minority Jains. It is told of the +Asāthis 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— + + +</p> +<div class="poem" lang="und"> +<div class="stanza"> +<p class="line" style=""><span>Ārdha jale, ārdha gare +</span></p> +<p class="line" style=""><span>Jinka nām Asāthi pare,</span></p> +</div> +</div> +<p>or, ‘He who is an Asāthi is half buried and half burnt.’ 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, Charnāgri</h2> +<p><b>Bania, Charnāgri, Channāgri, Samaiya.</b>—The Charnāgris 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 Chhīndwāra Districts. They are the followers of one Taran Swāmi, who +is said to have lived about five centuries ago. He preached against the worship of the images of the Jain Tirthakārs, and +said that this should be abandoned and only the sacred books be revered. The chief sacred place of the sect is Malhārgarh +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 Phāgun (February) a fair is held here, and Charnāgris dance in the temples, holding lighted +lamps in their hands. Nowadays the Charnāgris also visit the ordinary Jain temples when their own are not available. They +are practically all derived from Parwār Banias, and formerly would sometimes give their daughters to Parwārs in marriage, +but this practice is said to have stopped. Like other Bania subcastes, they are divided into Bīsa 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 Bīsa 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, Dhūsar</h2> +<p><b>Bania, Dhūsar, Bhārgava Dhūsar.</b>—The origin of this group is much disputed. They are usually classed as a subcaste of Bania, but claim to be Brāhmans. They +take their name from a hill called Dhūsi or Dhosi, near Narnaul on the border of Alwar State. The title Bhārgava signifies +a descendant of Bhrigu, one of the famous eponymous Rīshis or Brāhmanical saints, to whom Manu confided his institutes, calling +him his son. If this was their original name, it would show that they were Brāhmans, but its adoption appears to be somewhat +recent. Their claim to be Brāhmans is, however, admitted by many members of that caste, and it is stated that they perform +the functions of Brāhmans in their original home in Rājputāna. Mr. Burn wrote of them:<a id="d0e4191src" href="#d0e4191" class="noteref">1</a> “In his book on castes published in 1872 Mr. Sherring does not refer to any claim to kinship with Brāhmans, though in his +description of Dhūsar Banias he appears to include the people under consideration. Both <a id="d0e4196"></a><span class="pagenum">[<a href="#d0e4196">144</a>]</span>the Dhūsar Bhārgavas and Dhūsar Banias assert that Himu, the capable Vazīr of Muhammad Shāh Suri, belonged to their community, +and such a claim by the former is if anything in favour of the view that they are not Brāhmans, since Himu is variously described +by Muhammadan writers as a corn-chandler, a weighman and a Bania. Colonel Dow in his history of Hindustān calls him a shopkeeper +who was raised by Sher Shāh 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 Brāhmans.” In the Punjab the Dhūsars appear +to be in some places Brāhmans 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 Brāhman Dhūsar 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.”<a id="d0e4201src" href="#d0e4201" class="noteref">2</a> From the above accounts it would appear that the Dhūsars may have originally been a class of Brāhmans who took to trade, +like the Palliwāl Brāhmans of Mārwār, and have lost their position as Brāhmans 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 Brāhmans. The caste +is important and influential, and is now making every effort to recover or substantiate its Brāhman status. One writer states +that they combine the office aptitude and hard-heartedness to a debtor characteristic of the Bania. The Dhūsars 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 Dhūsars are a flourishing body, their leaders being Rai Bahādur Bihāri Lāl Khizānchi of Jubbulpore +and Rai Sāhib <a id="d0e4213"></a><span class="pagenum">[<a href="#d0e4213">145</a>]</span>Seth Sundar Lāl of Betūl. They have founded the Bhārgava 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 Betūl 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’s article Dhūsar. +</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, Dūsra.</b><a id="d0e4221src" href="#d0e4221" class="noteref">1</a>—This subcaste numbers about 600 persons. The original name is Dūsra or second, and the Dosar or Dūsra 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 Doāb +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 Allahābād 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 Gangapāri, +a native of Oudh; Sāgarah, a resident of Saugor; Makraha, a seller of <i>makka</i> or maize, and Tamākhuha, 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 Sanādhya Brāhmans as their priests. These Brāhmans will +take food without water from their clients, but they are an inferior class and are looked down upon by other Brāhmans. 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. Jeorākhan Lāl, Deputy Inspector of Schools, Bilāspur. +</p> +<p class="footnote"><span class="label"><a id="d0e4224" href="#d0e4224src" class="noteref">2</a></span> Kashyap was a Brāhman 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>—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 Pānde Brāhman, +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>ānken</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, Pahāria a +hillman, Matele the name of a village headman in Bundelkhand, Piparvānia from the pīpal 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’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 Nāgpur 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 Bhārgava Brāhmans 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 Brāhmans 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 Brāhmans, 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 Diwāli 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 Lāl, Nāib-Tahsīldār Sihora. +</p> +<p class="footnote"><span class="label"><a id="d0e4267" href="#d0e4267src" class="noteref">2</a></span> Mr. Crooke’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, Golapūrab</h2> +<p><b>Bania, Golapūrab, Golahre.</b>—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 Golapūrabs +are practically all Digambari Jains with a small Hindu minority. In some localities they intermarry with Parwār 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 Golapūrabs were the offspring of a Pūrabia, that is probably a Bais Rājpūt, by a kept woman of the Ahīr caste. +This fits in very well with the name, as Golak means a bastard, and the termination <i>pūrab</i> would be from Pūrabia; but it is probably the name which has given rise to the story, or at any rate to the supposed descent +from a Pūrabia. In the United Provinces a small subcaste of Bania called Golahre exists, belonging to the Jhānsi District, +that is the country of the Golapūrabs, and Jain by religion. There is no doubt that this group is the same as the Golapūrabs, +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 Golapūrab in the United Provinces, found only in the Agra District. It is suggested that +these people are the illegitimate offspring of Sanādhya Brāhmans, with whom they appear to be closely connected. From their +sept-names, however, which include those of several Rājpūt clans and also some titular terms of a low-caste type, Mr. Crooke +thinks their Brāhmanical origin improbable. It is noticeable that these Golapūrabs 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 Golapūrab +subcastes of Banias in the United and Central Provinces respectively are connected with this cultivating caste of Golapūrabs. +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 Golapūrabs 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, Kasarwāni</h2> +<p><b>Bania, Kasarwāni</b>.<a id="d0e4302src" href="#d0e4302" class="noteref">1</a>—This Hindu subcaste numbers about 6500 persons in the Central Provinces, who belong mainly to Saugor, Jubbulpore and the +three Chhattīsgarh Districts. The name is probably derived from <i>kānsa</i>, bell-metal, as these Banias retail brass and bell-metal vessels. The Kasarwānis 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 Kasārs +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 Kasarwānis are numerous in Allahābād and Mīrzāpur, and they may have come to Chhattīsgarh from Mīrzāpur, +attracted by the bell-metal industries in Ratanpur and Drūg. In Saugor and also in the United Provinces they say that they +came from Kara Mānikpur 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 Kasarwānis +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 Brāhmans, and these Brāhmans and a +few Bania subcastes, such as the Agarwālas, Umres and Gahois, can take food cooked without water from them, but other Brāhmans +and Rājpūts will not take any kind of food. Matches are arranged in the presence of the head of the caste <i>panchāyat</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>Hamāra kya kasar bhata?</i> means ‘How does my account stand?’ Hence Kasarbāni 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 Prasād, schoolmaster, Nāndgaon. +</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>—This subcaste numbers about 5500 persons in the Central Provinces and is returned principally from the Bilāspur, Raipur and +Jubbulpore Districts. The name is derived<a id="d0e4329src" href="#d0e4329" class="noteref">1</a> by Mr. Crooke from <i>kānsa</i>, bell-metal, and <i>dhana</i>, wealth, and it would appear that the Kasaundhans like the Kasārwanis 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 Kasarwānis, though no information is available which would decide this point. In the United Provinces both the Kasarwānis +and Kasaundhans are divided into the Pūrbia or eastern and Pachhaiyān or western subcastes. Dharam Das, the great disciple +of Kabīr, who founded the Kabīrpanthi sect in the Central Provinces, was a Kasaundhan Bania, and the Kabīrpanthi Mahants or +high-priests of Kawardha are of this caste. It is probable that a good many of the Kasaundhan Banias in Bilāspur and Raipur +belong to the Kabīrpanthi 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, Khandelwāl</h2> +<p><b>Bania, Khandelwāl.</b>—This subcaste numbers about 1500 persons in the Central Provinces; they are most numerous in the Hoshangābād and Amraoti +Districts, but are scattered all over the Province. They take their name from the town of Khandela in the Jaipur State of +Rājputāna, which was formerly the capital of the Shekhāwati federation. There is also a Khandelwāl subcaste of the Brāhman +caste, found in the United Provinces.<a id="d0e4349src" href="#d0e4349" class="noteref">1</a> Mr. Bhattachārya says of them:<a id="d0e4355src" href="#d0e4355" class="noteref">2</a> “The Khandelwāl 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 Khandelwāls wear the sacred thread. The millionaire Seths of Mathura +are Khandelwāl Banias.” + + +</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’s <i>Tribes and Castes</i>, art. Khandelwāl. +</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, Lād</h2> +<p><b>Bania, Lād.</b>—This subcaste numbers about 5000 persons in the Central Provinces, being settled in Nimār, Nāgpur and all the Berār Districts. +The Lād Banias came from Gujarāt, and Lād is derived from Lāt-desh, the old name for Gujarāt. Like other Banias they are divided +into the Bīsa and Dasa groups or twenties and tens, the Dasa being of irregular descent. Their family priests are Khedāwal +Brāhmans, and their caste deity is Ashāpuri of Ashnai, near Petlād. Lād women, especially those of Baroda, are noted for their +taste in dress. The Lād Banias are Hindus of the Vallabhachārya <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 Bairāgi 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, Lingāyat</h2> +<p><b>Bania, Lingāyat.</b>—The Lingāyat Banias number nearly 8000 persons in the Central Provinces, being numerous in Wardha, Nāgpur and all the Berār +Districts. A brief account of the Lingāyat sect has been given in a separate article. The Lingāyat 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 Lingāyat sect. But they retain the name and occupation of Banias. They have five subdivisions, Pancham, Dikshāwant, Chilliwant, +Takalkar and Kanade. The Pancham or Panchamsālis are the descendants of the original Brāhman converts to the Lingāyat 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 Dikshāwant, from <i>diksha</i> or initiation, are a subdivision of the Panchamsālis, who apparently initiate disciples like the Dikshit Brāhmans. 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 Lingāyat, and they shave the whole head. The above form endogamous +subcastes. The Lingāyat 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 Dhāmankar from Dhāmangaon. +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’s or girl’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 juāri coloured yellow in those of the +bride. The bridegroom places the rice on the bride’s head and she lays the juāri 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 Lingāyats 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 +Shivrātri or Siva’s night, when they offer the leaves of the bel tree and ashes to the god. A Lingāyat 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 Lingāyats do not employ Brāhmans 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 Lingāyat 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>—This important subcaste of Banias numbered about 14,000 persons in the Central Provinces in 1911, of whom 8000 belonged to +the Berār Districts, and the remainder principally to Hoshangābād, Nimār, Wardha and Nāgpur. The name is said to be derived +from Maheshwar, an ancient town on the Nerbudda, near Indore, and one of the earliest Rājpūt settlements. But some of them +say that their original home is in Bīkanīr, 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 Rāja 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 Rāja became their tribal <i>Bhāt</i> or genealogist, and they were called Maheshri or Maheswari, from Mahesh, a name of Siva. In Gujarāt 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 +Rājpūt settlement of the Yādava clan, and their own legend tend to show that they were derived from the Rājpūt caste; for +as their ancestors were attendants on a Rāja and followed the profession of arms, which they were told to abandon, they could +be none other than Rājpūts. The Maheshris also have the Rājpūt custom of sending a cocoanut as a symbol of a proposal of marriage. +In Nimār the Maheshri Banias say they belong to the Dhākar subcaste, a name which usually means illegitimate, though they +themselves explain that it is derived from a place called Dhākargarh, 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 <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 Kastūrchand Daga +of Kamptee, of the firm of Bansi Lāl Abīrchand, and Rai Bahādur Seth Jīwan Das and Diwān Bahādur 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 Gujarāt</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>—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 Golapūrab 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 Nimār appears to be untenable, as there are very few Nemas +in that District. They say that when Parasurāma was slaying the Kshatriyas fourteen young Rājpūt 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 Rīshis or saints who saved their lives. These sections appear to be of the usual +Brāhmanical 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 Bīsa and Dasa subdivisions or twenties and tens, the Bīsa +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 Bīsa 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, “Where a sheep grazes or a Nema trades, what is there left for anybody else?” + + +</p> +</div> +<div id="d0e4454" class="div1"><span class="pagenum"> +[<a href="#d0e111">Contents</a>] +</span><h2>Bania, Oswāl</h2> +<p><b>Bania, Oswāl.</b>—This is perhaps the most important subdivision of the Banias after the Agarwāla. The Oswāls numbered nearly 10,000 persons +in the Central Provinces in 1911, being found in considerable numbers in all the Berār Districts, and also in Nimār, Wardha +and Raipur. The name is derived from the town of Osia or Osnagar in Mārwār. According to one legend of their origin the Rāja +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 Rāja would become a Jain; but Osadev, the guardian goddess of the place, told the ascetic, Sri Ratan +Suri, to convert the Rāja by a miracle. So she took a small hank (<i>pūni</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 +Rāja, 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 Rāja 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 Rāja, with all his Court and people, became a Jain. He and his family +founded the <i>gotra</i> or section now known as Sri Srimāl or most noble; his servants formed that known as Srimāl or excellent, while the other +Rājpūts of the town became ordinary Oswāls. When the Brāhmans 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 Oswāls and be known as Bhojak or ‘eaters.’ Thus the Oswāls, though Jains, continue to employ Mārwāri <a id="d0e4467"></a><span class="pagenum">[<a href="#d0e4467">156</a>]</span>Brāhmans as their family priests. Another version of the story is that the king of Srimāli<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 Srimāl, and, settling in Mandovad, called it Osa or the frontier. Among them were Srimāli Banias and also Bhatti, Chauhān, +Gahlot, Gaur, Yādava, and several other clans of Rājpūts, and these were the people who were subsequently converted by the +Jain ascetic, Sri Ratan Suri, and formed into the single caste of Oswāl.<a id="d0e4472src" href="#d0e4472" class="noteref">2</a> Finally, Colonel Tod states that the Oswāls are all of pure Rājpūt descent, of no single tribe, but chiefly Panwārs, Solankis +and Bhattis.<a id="d0e4480src" href="#d0e4480" class="noteref">3</a> From these legends and the fact that their headquarters are in Rājputāna, it may safely be concluded that the Oswāl Banias +are of Rājpūt origin. + +</p> +<p>The large majority of the Oswāls are Jain by religion, but a few are Vaishnava Hindus. Intermarriage between the Hindu and +Jain sections is permitted. Like the Agarwālas, the Oswāls are divided into Bīsa, 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 Oswāls intermarry with the Dasa groups of Srimāli and Parwār Banias,<a id="d0e4487src" href="#d0e4487" class="noteref">4</a> and Oswāls generally can marry with other good Bania subcastes so long as both parties are Jains. The Oswāls 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, Bhandāri a cook, and Kukara a dog. These may indicate a certain amount +of admixture of foreign elements in the caste. As stated from Benāres, 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. +<a id="d0e4506"></a><span class="pagenum">[<a href="#d0e4506">157</a>]</span></p> +<p>Though Jains the Oswāls 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 Parasnāth’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.’<a id="d0e4514src" href="#d0e4514" class="noteref">7</a> The Oswāls will take food cooked with water (<i>katchi</i>) only from Brāhmans, and that cooked without water (<i>pakki</i>) from Agarwāla and Maheshri Banias. In the Central Provinces the principal deity of the Oswāls is the Jain Tirthakār Parasnāth, +and they spend large sums in the erection of splendid temples. The Oswāls are the most prominent trading caste in Rājputāna; +and they have also frequently held high offices, such as Diwān or minister, and paymaster in Rājpūt 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 Mārwār, now called Bhinmāl. +</p> +<p class="footnote"><span class="label"><a id="d0e4472" href="#d0e4472src" class="noteref">2</a></span> <i>Bombay Gazetteer</i>, <i>Hindus of Gujarāt</i>, p. 97. +</p> +<p class="footnote"><span class="label"><a id="d0e4480" href="#d0e4480src" class="noteref">3</a></span> <i>Rājasthān</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 Gujarāt</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. Oswāl. +</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> Bhattachārya, <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, Parwār</h2> +<div class="div2" id="d0e4533"> +<h3>1. Origin.</h3> +<p><b>Bania, Parwār.</b><a id="d0e4539src" href="#d0e4539" class="noteref">1</a>—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 Parwārs and of their name is +not known, but there is some reason to suppose that they are from Rājputāna. Their women wear on the head the <i>bīj</i>, a Rājputāna ornament, and use the <i>chāru</i>, a deep brass plate for drinking, which also belongs there. Their songs are said to be in the Rājasthāni dialect. It seems +likely that the Parwārs may be identical with the Porawāl subcaste found in other Provinces, which, judging from the name, +may belong to Rājputāna. In the northern Districts the Parwārs <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 Mārwāri. + + +</p> +</div> +<div class="div2" id="d0e4550"> +<h3>2. Subdivisions.</h3> +<p>Among the Parwārs the Samaiya or Channāgri form a separate sectarian Jain group. They do not worship the images of the Jain +Tirthakārs, but enshrine the sacred books of the Jains in their temples, and worship these. The Parwārs will take daughters +in marriage from the Channāgris, and sometimes give their daughters in consideration of a substantial bride-price. Among the +Parwārs themselves there is a social division between the Ath Sāke and the Chao Sāke; 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 Sāke have the higher +position, and if one of them marries a Chao Sāke he is degraded to that group. Besides this the Parwārs 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 Parwārs +proper. + + +</p> +</div> +<div class="div2" id="d0e4558"> +<h3>3. Exogamy.</h3> +<p>The Parwārs 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 Parwār 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’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’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’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 Palkachār. 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 Parwārs +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 Parwārs are practically all Jains of the Digambari sect. They build costly and beautiful temples for their Tirthakārs, +especially for their favourite Parasnāth. They have also many Hindu practices. They observe the Diwāli, Rakshabandhan and +Holi festivals; they say that at the Diwāli the last Tirthakār Mahāvīra attained beatitude and the gods rained down jewels; +the little lamps now lighted at Diwāli are held to be symbolic of these jewels. They tie the threads round the wrist on Rakshabandhan +to keep off evil spirits. They worship Sītala Devi, the Hindu goddess of smallpox, and employ Brāhmans 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 Tirthakārs 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 Parasnāth’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 Parwārs abstain from eating any kind of flesh and from drinking liquor. They have a <i>panchāyat</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 Parwārs 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 Parwārs. 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 Parwārs are generally engaged in the trade in grain, <i>ghī</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 Lāl, Naib-Tahsīldār Sihora, and Munshi Kanhya Lāl, 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 Vidūr. +</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, Srimāli</h2> +<p><b>Bania, Srimāli.</b>—This subcaste takes its name from the town of Srimāl, which is now Bhinmāl in Mārwār. They numbered 600 persons in the Central +Provinces in 1911, most of whom belonged to the Hoshangābād District. More than two-thirds were Hindus and the remainder Jains. +Colonel Tod writes of Bhinmāl and an adjoining town, Sanchor: “These towns are on the high road to Cutch and Gujarāt, which +has given them from the most remote times a commercial celebrity. Bhinmāl is said to contain about 1500 houses and Sanchor +half that number. Very wealthy <i>mahājans</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.” From Bhinmāl the Srimālis appear to have gone to Gujarāt, 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 Srimāli Brāhmans, and these were the ancestors of the Srimāli Banias.<a id="d0e4625src" href="#d0e4625" class="noteref">1</a> Both the Jain and Hindu sections of the Srimāli Banias employ Srimāli Brāhmans as priests. Like other classes of Banias, +the Srimāli are divided into two sections, the Bīsa and Dasa, or twenty and ten, of which the Bīsa are considered to be of +pure and the Dasa of somewhat mixed descent. In Gujarāt they also have a third territorial group, known as Lādva, from Lād, +the old name of Gujarāt. 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 Oswāl Banias are called Sri Srimāl and Srimāl, and it is possible that further investigation +might show the Srimāls and Oswāls 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>—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. Bhīmbhai Kirpārām states that in Gujarāt the Ummar Banias are also known as Bāgaria +from the Bāgar or wild country, comprised in the Dongarpur and Pertābgarh States of Rājputāna, where considerable numbers +of them are still settled. Their headquarters is at Sāgwāra, 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>Banjāra</h2> +<h3>List of Paragraphs</h3> +<ul> +<li><a href="#d0e4777">1. Historical notice of the caste.</a></li> +<li><a href="#d0e4843">2. Banjāras derived from the Chārans or Bhāts.</a></li> +<li><a href="#d0e4976">3. Chāran Ranjārans 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: Banjāri Devi.</a></li> +<li><a href="#d0e5160">11. Mīthu Bhūkia.</a></li> +<li><a href="#d0e5170">12. Siva Bhāia.</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 Nāik or headman. Banjāra 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>Banjāra, Wanjāri, Lahāna, Mukeri</b>.<a id="d0e4784src" href="#d0e4784" class="noteref">1</a>—The caste of carriers and drivers of pack-bullocks. In 1911 the Banjāras numbered about 56,000 persons in the Central Provinces +and 80,000 in Berār, the caste being in greater strength here than in any part of India except Hyderābād, where their total +is 174,000. Bombay comes next with a figure approaching that of the Central Provinces and Berār, 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 Banjāra 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 Banjāra did not occur +in the original text of this work.<a id="d0e4803src" href="#d0e4803" class="noteref">2</a> Banjāras 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 Banjāra caste. Mr. Crooke states<a id="d0e4814src" href="#d0e4814" class="noteref">4</a> that the first mention of Banjāras in Muhammadan history is in Sikandar’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 Banjāras 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 Aurāngzeb. 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 Rājpūt clan names as the Hindu branch of the caste, and it seems possible that they may have +embraced Islām under the proselytising influence of Aurāngzeb, 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. Banjāras derived from the Chārans or Bhāts.</h3> +<p>It may be suggested that the Banjāras are derived from the Chāran or Bhāt caste of Rājputāna. Mr. Cumberlege, whose <i>Monograph</i> on the caste in Berār is one of the best authorities, states that of the four divisions existing there the Chārans are the +most numerous and by far the most interesting class.<a id="d0e4851src" href="#d0e4851" class="noteref">7</a> In the article on Bhāt it has been explained how the Chārans 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 Rājputāna. The name Chāran is generally held to mean ‘Wanderer,’ and in their capacity of bards the Chārans 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>trāga</i> or <i>chāndi</i>, that is, of killing themselves when attacked and threatening their assailants with the dreaded fate of being haunted by +their ghosts. Mr. Bhimbhai Kirparām<a id="d0e4864src" href="#d0e4864" class="noteref">8</a> remarks: “After Parāsurāma’s dispersion of the Kshatris the Chārans accompanied them in their southward flight. In those +troubled times the Chārans 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 Chārans are graziers, cattle-sellers and pack-carriers. Colonel Tod says:<a id="d0e4871src" href="#d0e4871" class="noteref">9</a> “The Chārans and Bhāts or bards and genealogists are the chief carriers of these regions (Mārwār); their sacred character +overawes the lawless Rājpūt chief, and even the savage Koli and Bhīl 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 Chārans and Banjāras<a id="d0e4876src" href="#d0e4876" class="noteref">10</a> as follows: “Murlāh is an excellent township inhabited by a community of Chārans of the tribe Cucholia (Kacheli), who are +Bunjārris (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>bunjārris</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 Rājputāna. 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 Chāranis, 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 Murlāh! It was a novel and interesting scene. The manly persons +of the Chārans, clad in the flowing white robe with the high loose-folded turban inclined on one side, from which the <i>māla</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>chūris</i> or rings of <i>hāthidānt</i> (elephant’s tooth) covering the arm from the wrist to the elbow, and even above it.” A little later, referring to the same +Chāran community, Colonel Tod writes: “The <i>tānda</i> or caravan, consisting of four thousand bullocks, has been kept up amidst all the evils which have beset this land through +Mughal and Marātha 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 Banjāri 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 Tūrk, Jamshīd Khān, set up a +protecting tablet in favour of the Chārans of Murlāh, recording their exemption from <i>dīnd</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 Bhīl and mountain +Mair have set up their signs of immunity and protection to the chosen of Hinglāz (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 Murlāh.” + +</p> +<p>In the above passage the community described by Colonel Tod were Chārans, but he identified them with Banjāras, 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 Chārans, who were graziers as well as bards, would naturally +be adapted; the name given to the camp, <i>tānda</i>, is that generally used by the Banjāras; the women wore ivory bangles, which the Banjāra 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: “This +community had enjoyed for five hundred years the privilege of making prisoner any Rāna of Mewār who may pass through Murlāh, +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 Rāna’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 Banjāra women far away in the Bastar State of the Central Provinces:<a id="d0e4929src" href="#d0e4929" class="noteref">12</a> “Today I passed through another Banjāra 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>chaprāsi</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.” Colonel Mackenzie in his account of the Banjāra caste remarks:<a id="d0e4943src" href="#d0e4943" class="noteref">13</a> “It is certain that the Chārans, 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 Chārans then acquired they retain among Banjāras to this day, though in very much diminished splendour +and position. As they themselves relate, they were originally five brethren, Rāthor, Turi, Panwār, Chauhān and Jādon. But +fortune particularly smiled on Bhīka Rāthor, as his four sons, Mersi, Multāsi, Dheda and Khāmdār, great names among the <a id="d0e4948"></a><span class="pagenum">[<a href="#d0e4948">167</a>]</span>Chārans, rose immediately to eminence as commissariat transporters in the north. And not only under the Delhi Emperors, but +under the Satāra, subsequently the Poona Rāj, and the Subāhship of the Nizām, did several of their descendants rise to consideration +and power.” It thus seems a reasonable hypothesis that the nucleus of the Banjāra caste was constituted by the Chārans or +bards of Rājputāna. Mr. Bhimbhai Kirparām<a id="d0e4950src" href="#d0e4950" class="noteref">14</a> also identifies the Chārans and Banjāras, 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>“The vast consumption that attends a Marātha 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 bazārs; but independent of this mode of supply the Vanjāris 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.” + +</p> +<p>The reference to the sacred character attaching to the Banjāras a century ago appears to be strong evidence in favour of their +derivation from the Chārans. 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 Banjāras with the Mughal armies in similar terms:<a id="d0e4969src" href="#d0e4969" class="noteref">16</a> “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.” + +</p> +<p>One may suppose that the Chārans having acted as carriers for the Rājpūt chiefs and courts, both in time of peace and in their +continuous intestinal feuds, were pressed into service when the Mughal armies entered Rājputāna and passed through it to Gujarāt +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 Hindustāni. The readiness of the Chārans to commit +suicide rather than give up property committed to their charge was not, however, copied by the Banjāras, 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. Chāran Ranjārans employed with the Mughal armies.</h3> +<p>The Chāran Banjāras, Mr. Cumberlege states,<a id="d0e4981src" href="#d0e4981" class="noteref">17</a> first came to the Deccan with Asaf Khān in the campaign which closed with the annexation by the Emperor Shāh Jahān of Ahmadnagar +and Berār about 1630. Their leaders or Nāiks were Bhangi and Jhangi of the Rāthor<a id="d0e4989src" href="#d0e4989" class="noteref">18</a> and <a id="d0e4992"></a><span class="pagenum">[<a href="#d0e4992">169</a>]</span>Bhagwān Dās of the Jādon clan. Bhangi and Jhangi had 180,000 pack-bullocks, and Bhagwān Dās 52,000. It was naturally an object +with Asaf Khān 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 kā pāni +</span></p> +<p class="line" style=""><span>Chhappar kā ghās +</span></p> +<p class="line" style=""><span>Din ke tīn khūn muāf; +</span></p> +<p class="line" style=""><span>Aur jahān Asaf Jāh ke ghore +</span></p> +<p class="line" style=""><span>Wahān Bhangi Jhangi ke bail,</span></p> +</div> +</div> +<p>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 Nāik’s +descendant who lives at Musi, near Hingoli. He is recognised by the Hyderābād Court as the head Nāik of the Banjāra caste, +and on his death his successor receives a <i>khillat</i> or dress-of-honour from His Highness the Nizām. After Asaf Khān’s campaign and settlement in the Deccan, a quarrel broke +out between the Rāthor clan, headed by Bhangi and Jhangi, and the Jādons under Bhagwān Dās, owing to the fact that Asaf Khān +had refused to give Bhagwān Dās a grant like that quoted above. Both Bhangi and Bhagwān Dās were slain in the feud and the +Jādons captured the standard, consisting of eight <i>thāns</i> (lengths) of cloth, which was annually presented by the Nizām to Bhangi’s descendants. When Mr. Cumberlege wrote (1869), +this standard was in the possession of Hatti Nāik, a descendant of Bhagwān Dās, 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 Rāthor 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 Rāthors themselves. Jhangi’s family was also represented in the person of Rāmu Nāik, the <i>patel</i> or headman of the village of Yaoli in the Yeotmāl District. In 1791–92 the Banjāras 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: “The Banjāras 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.”<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 Berār, the Chārans, Mathurias, Labhānas and Dhāris. Of these the +Chārans are by far the most numerous and important, and included all the famous leaders of the caste mentioned above. The +Chārans are divided into the five clans, Rāthor, Panwār, Chauhān, Puri and Jādon or Burthia, all of these being the names +of leading Rājpūt clans; and as the Chāran bards themselves were probably Rājpūts, the Banjāras, who are descended from them, +may claim the same lineage. Each clan or sept is divided into a number of subsepts; thus among the Rāthors the principal subsept +is the Bhurkia, called after the Bhīka Rāthor already mentioned; and this is again split into four groups, Mersi, Multāsi, +Dheda and Khāmdār, named after his four sons. As a rule, members of the same clan, Panwār, Rāthor and so on, may not intermarry, +but Mr. Cumberlege states that a man belonging to the Bānod or Bhurkia subsepts of the Rāthors must not take a wife from his +own subsept, but may marry any other Rāthor 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 Rāthor Chārans 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 Banjāras take their name from Mathura +or Muttra and appear to be Brāhmans. “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 Chārans and servants (<i>Jāngar</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 Labhāna men are fairer than the Chārans; they wear better jewellery and their loin-cloths +have a silk border, while those of the Chārans are of rough, common cloth.” The Mathurias are sometimes known as Ahiwāsi, +and may be connected with the Ahiwāsis of the Hindustāni Districts, who also drive pack-bullocks and call themselves Brāhmans. +But it is naturally a sin for a Brāhman 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 Pānde, Dube, Tīwari and Chaube, +all of which are common titles of Hindustāni Brāhmans 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 +Labhānas, 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 Rājpūts, and to +be descended from Mota and Mola, the cowherds of Krishna. The fourth subdivision are the Dhāris 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 Bhāt caste, who became a disciple of Nānak, 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 Chārans and became the bards of the Banjāra caste. “The Dhāris,” Mr. Cumberlege continues, “are both musicians +and mendicants; they sing in praise of their own and the Chāran ancestors and of the old kings of Delhi; while at certain +seasons of the year they visit Chāran hamlets, when each family gives them a young bullock or a few rupees. They are Muhammadans, +but worship Sārasvati and at their marriages offer up a he-goat to Gāji and Gandha, the two sons of the original Bhāt, who +became a Muhammadan. At burials a Fakīr is called to read the prayers.” + + +</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 Tūrkia and Mukeri. The Tūrkia have thirty-six septs, some with Rājpūt 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 Banjāras assert that they derive their name from Mecca (Makka), which one of their Nāiks, 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: “Multānis +and Mukeris have been called Banjāras also, but have nothing in common with the caste; the Multānis 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 Banjāras +by common usage; in Saugor the Mukeris also deal in cattle. From Chānda a different set of subcastes is reported called Bhūsarjin, +Ladjin, Saojin and Kanhejin; the first may take their name from <i>bhūsa</i>, the chaff of wheat, while Lad is the term used for people coming from Gujarāt, and Sao means a banker. In Sambalpur again +a class of Thuria Banjāras 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 Guār Banjāras, apparently from Guāra or Gwāla, a milkman, the <a id="d0e5078"></a><span class="pagenum">[<a href="#d0e5078">173</a>]</span>Gūguria Banjāras, who may, Mr. Hira Lāl suggests, take their name from trading in <i>gūgar</i>, a kind of gum, and the Bahrūp Banjāras, who are Nats or acrobats. In Berār also a number of the caste have become respectable +cultivators and now call themselves Wanjāri, disclaiming any connection with the Banjāras, probably on account of the bad +reputation for crime attached to these latter. Many of the Wanjāris have been allowed to rank with the Kunbi caste, and call +themselves Wanjāri 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 Brāhman and Chāran 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 Nimār 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 Yeotmāl, 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 Berār is that between the betrothal and marriage of a Chāran 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 Chārans permit them to remain single until after adolescence. + + +</p> +</div> +<div class="div2" id="d0e5088"> +<h3>7. Marriage.</h3> +<p>Banjāra 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’s hand is held by the Joshi or village priest, +or some other Brāhman, in case she should fall; such an occurrence being probably a very unlucky omen. Afterwards, the girl +runs away and the Brāhman has to pursue and catch her. In Bhandāra 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 Brāhman 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 Brāhman having obtained Rs. 70 +in this manner. Among the Mathuria Banjāras of Berār 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 Brāhman 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.<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’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’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’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 Berār the compensation claimed +in the case of a woman marrying out of the family amounts to Rs. 75, with Rs. 5 for the Nāik 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 <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’s hut. When a child is born in a moving <i>tānda</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 Banjāras 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. + + +</p> +</div> +<div class="div2" id="d0e5147"> +<h3>10. Religion: Banjāri Devi.</h3> +<p>One of the tutelary deities of the Banjāras is Banjāri 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 Banjāra 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> “It is related by Moor that he passed a tree on which were hanging several hundred bells. This was a superstitious sacrifice +of the Banjāras (Lambāris), 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 Banjāri 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. Mīthu Bhūkia.</h3> +<p>Another deity is Mīthu Bhūkia, 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 Mīthu Bhūkia, 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 Mīthu Bhūkia 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 Banjāras 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 Mīthu Bhūkia is now frequently neglected. +After a successful dacoity a portion of the spoil would be set apart for Mīthu Bhūkia, and of the balance the Nāik 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 Mīthu Bhūkia’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 Mīthu Bhūkia nor to enter his hut. + + +</p> +</div> +<div class="div2" id="d0e5170"> +<h3>12. Siva Bhāia.</h3> +<p>Another favourite deity is Siva Bhāia, whose story is given by Colonel Mackenzie<a id="d0e5175src" href="#d0e5175" class="noteref">32</a> as follows: “The love borne by Māri Māta, the goddess of cholera, for the handsome Siva Rāthor, 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 Bhāia 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 Berār. 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 Banjāra swears +by Siva Bhāia, 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.<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 Banjāras worshipped their pack-cattle.<a id="d0e5190src" href="#d0e5190" class="noteref">34</a> “When sickness occurs they lead the sick man to the feet of the bullock called Hātadiya.<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.” + + +</p> +</div> +<div class="div2" id="d0e5202"> +<h3>14. Connection with the Sikhs.</h3> +<p>Mr. Balfour also mentions in his paper that the Banjāras call themselves Sikhs, and it is noticeable that the Chāran subcaste +say that their ancestors were three Rājpūt boys who followed Guru Nānak, the prophet of the Sikhs. The influence of Nānak +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 Nānak, which is afterwards +expended in sweetmeats. <a id="d0e5212"></a><span class="pagenum">[<a href="#d0e5212">179</a>]</span>But otherwise the modern Banjāras do not appear to retain any Sikh observances. + + +</p> +</div> +<div class="div2" id="d0e5214"> +<h3>15. Witchcraft.</h3> +<p>“The Banjāras,” Sir A. Lyall writes,<a id="d0e5219src" href="#d0e5219" class="noteref">37</a> “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,<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-kātna 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 Mahādeo; he is highly respected and never panders to +vice. But the Jānta, 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 Dākun 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 Jānta. 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’s relatives would then go to their Nāik, tell him that the sick person was +bewitched, and ask him to send a deputation to the Jānta 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 <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 Jānta 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 Jānta would be possessed by Māriai, 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 <i>nazar</i> or fee, formerly Rs. 25, but lately the double of this or more. The Jānta 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 Jānta 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 Dākun +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. <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 Jānta the scapegoat, and he got seven years, while the murderers could not be touched. Colonel Mackenzie writes +that, “Curious to relate, the Jāntas, 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. + + +</p> +</div> +<div class="div2" id="d0e5255"> +<h3>16. Human sacrifice.</h3> +<p>Several instances are known also of the Banjāras having practised human sacrifice. Mr. Thurston states:<a id="d0e5260src" href="#d0e5260" class="noteref">41</a> “In former times the Lambādis, 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:<a id="d0e5268src" href="#d0e5268" class="noteref">42</a> + +</p> +<p>“The Lambādis 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.” Mr. Cumberlege records<a id="d0e5277src" href="#d0e5277" class="noteref">43</a> the following statement of a child kidnapped by a Banjāra 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 Sāhungarhi, in the Bhandāra District, +went on to say that, “The <i>tānda</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>pūja</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’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 Banjāras 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 Sitārām, +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. + + +</p> +</div> +<div class="div2" id="d0e5288"> +<h3>17. Admission of outsiders: kidnapped children and slaves.</h3> +<p>The Banjāra caste is not closed to outsiders, but the general rule is to admit only women who have been married to Banjāra +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 Nimār it is stated that formerly Gonds, Korkus and even Balāhis<a id="d0e5298src" href="#d0e5298" class="noteref">45</a> might become Banjāras, 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 +<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 Nimār. 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 Jāngar. Girls would be used as concubines and servants of the married wife, and boys would also be employed +as servants. Jāngar boys would be married to Jāngar 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 Jāngars or slaves continued in that condition, after which they were recognised as proper Banjāras. The Jāngar 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 Jāngar 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 Banjāras conducted a regular traffic in female slaves between Gujarāt 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="Banjāra women with the singh or horn." width="720" height="398"><p class="figureHead">Banjāra 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 Chāran 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>wānkri</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 Labhāna 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’s marriage, +where they are worn till death. These bundles alone distinguish the Labhāna 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,<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 “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.”<a id="d0e5341src" href="#d0e5341" class="noteref">50</a> The most distinctive ornament of a Banjāra married woman is, however, a small stick about 6 inches long made of the wood +of the <i>khair</i> or catechu. In Nimār 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 Banjāras, but outsiders call it <i>singh</i> or horn. In Yeotmāl, 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 Nimār 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 Chāran Banjāras when carrying grain for an army placed a twig of some tree, the sacred <i>nīm</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 Banjāras 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 Banjāras 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 Brāhmans 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>tānda</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 Nimār +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<a id="d0e5390src" href="#d0e5390" class="noteref">54</a> 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 ryotwāri villages in Nimār 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 Nimār 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:<a id="d0e5404src" href="#d0e5404" class="noteref">56</a> “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<a id="d0e5409src" href="#d0e5409" class="noteref">57</a> that the Banjāras 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 Banjāras +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 Banjāras 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 Banjāra women." width="720" height="402"><p class="figureHead">Group of Banjāra women.</p> +</div><p> + + +</p> +</div> +<div class="div2" id="d0e5420"> +<h3>20. The Nāik or headman. Banjāra dogs.</h3> +<p>Each <i>kuri</i> (hamlet) or <i>tānda</i> (caravan) had a chief or leader with the designation of Nāik, a Telugu word meaning ‘lord’ or ‘master.’ The office of Nāik<a id="d0e5431src" href="#d0e5431" class="noteref">58</a> was only partly hereditary, and the choice also depended on ability. The Nāik had authority to decide all disputes in the +community, and the only appeal from him lay to the representatives of Bhangi and Jhangi Nāik’s families at Narsi and Poona, +and to Burthia Nāik’s successors in the Telugu country. As already seen, the Nāik 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 Banjāras 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 Nāik or headman, and if any man was injured or gored by the pig in the hunt, the Nāik kept and fed him without charge +until he recovered. + +</p> +<p>The following notice of the Banjāras and their dogs may be reproduced:<a id="d0e5436src" href="#d0e5436" class="noteref">59</a> “They are brave and have the reputation of great independence, which I am not disposed to allow to them. The Wanjāri 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 Wanjāris 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 Wanjāri 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 Lāt, Polygar, Rāmpūri, etc. They all run both by sight and scent, and with their help the Wanjāris +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 Wanjāris seldom stickle at supplementing their resources by theft, especially of cattle; and they +are more than suspected of infanticide.” + +</p> +<p>The Banjāras are credited with great affection for their dogs, and the following legend is told about one of them: Once upon +a time a Banjāra, 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 Banjāra, coming to the Bania with the money for the repayment of the loan. And when the Banjāra +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 Drūg District, five miles from <a id="d0e5446"></a><span class="pagenum">[<a href="#d0e5446">190</a>]</span>Bālod. 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 Banjāra criminals is abstracted from Major Gunthorpe’s interesting account:<a id="d0e5453src" href="#d0e5453" class="noteref">60</a> “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>tāndas</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, Hindustāni 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. Banjāras 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: ">”</span> + + +</p> +</div> +<div class="div2" id="d0e5469"> +<h3>22. Their virtues.</h3> +<p>The Banjāras, 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 Chhattīsgarh +was carried by them. In 1881 Mr. Kitts noted that the number of Banjāras convicted in the Berār criminal courts was lower +in proportion to the strength of the caste than that of Muhammadans, Brāhmans, 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: +“A Banjāra 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 Banjāras 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 <a id="d0e5479"></a><span class="pagenum">[<a href="#d0e5479">192</a>]</span>all their peculiar distinctive marks and traditions will be forgotten.” + + +</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 Banjāra Clan</i>, by Mr. N. F. Cumberlege of the Berār Police, believed to have been first written in 1869 and reprinted in 1882; notes on +the Banjāras written by Colonel Mackenzie and printed in the <i>Berār Census Report</i> (1881) and the <i>Pioneer</i> newspaper (communicated by Mrs. Horsburgh); Major Gunthorpe’s <i>Criminal Tribes</i>; papers by Mr. M. E. Khare, Extra-Assistant Commissioner, Chānda; Mr. Nārāyan Rao, Tahr., Betūl; Mr. Mukund Rao, Manager, +Pachmarhi Estate; and information on the caste collected in Yeotmāl and Nimār. +</p> +<p class="footnote"><span class="label"><a id="d0e4803" href="#d0e4803src" class="noteref">2</a></span> Mr. Crooke’s <i>Tribes and Castes</i>, art. Banjāra, para. 1. +</p> +<p class="footnote"><span class="label"><a id="d0e4809" href="#d0e4809src" class="noteref">3</a></span> <i>Berār 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’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 Farīdi 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 “as carriers of grain for Muhammadan armies the Banjāras have figured in history from the days of +Muhammad Tughlak (<span class="smallcaps">A.D.</span> 1340) to those of Aurāngzeb.” +</p> +<p class="footnote"><span class="label"><a id="d0e4837" href="#d0e4837src" class="noteref">6</a></span> Sir H. M. Elliot’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 Banjāra Clan</i>, p. 8. +</p> +<p class="footnote"><span class="label"><a id="d0e4864" href="#d0e4864src" class="noteref">8</a></span> <i>Hindus of Gujarāt</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>Rājasthān</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 Banjāras and Chārans, as it is common to several +castes in Rājputāna; but it indicates that the Banjāras came from Rājputāna. Banjāra men also frequently wear the hair long, +down to the neck, which is another custom of Rājputāna. +</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>Berār 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 Gujarāt.</i></p> +<p class="footnote"><span class="label"><a id="d0e4954" href="#d0e4954src" class="noteref">15</a></span> <i>Letter on the Marāthas</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>Berār 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 Bhīka Rāthor 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. Farīdi in <i>Bombay Gazetteer, Muhammadans of Gujarāt</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’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’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 Khairwār. +</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. Hīra Lāl suggests that this custom may have something to do with the phrase <i>Athāra jāt ke gāyi</i>, 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. +</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’s <i>Narrative of Little’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>Berār 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’s article, ‘Migratory Tribes of Central India,’ in <i>J. A. S. B.</i>, new series, vol. xiii., quoted in Mr. Crooke’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 Hātya-ādhya, meaning ‘That which it is most sinful to slay’ (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’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 Mahārs. +</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’s +time, change for a rupee could not be had in Chhattīsgarh 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’s <i>Dictionary of Phrase and Fable</i> 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 (<i>Heritage of Dress</i>, 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. +</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>Nimār 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 Bāgri Dacoits</i>, p. 310. +</p> +<p class="footnote"><span class="label"><a id="d0e5431" href="#d0e5431src" class="noteref">58</a></span> Colonel Mackenzie’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, Berār 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>Berār 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, Pansāri.</b>—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 Pansāri, though its etymological meaning is also +a dealer in <i>pān</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 Berār the Barais numbered nearly 60,000 persons in 1911. They reside principally in the Amraoti, +Buldāna, Nāgpur, Wardha, Saugor and Jubbulpore Districts. The betel-vine is grown principally in the northern Districts of +Saugor, Damoh and Jubbulpore and in those of Berār and the Nāgpur 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>bāri</i>, a hedge or enclosure, and simply means ‘gardener.’ Another derivation is from <i>barāna,</i> to avert hailstorms, a calling which they still practise in northern India. <i>Pān</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 Brāhman ancestry. This is to the effect +that the first Barai was a Brāhman 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: Chaurāsia, so called from the Chaurāsi pargana of the +Mīrzāpur District; Panagaria from Panāgar in Jubbulpore; Mahobia from Mahoba in Hamīrpur; Jaiswār from the town of Jais in +the Rai Bareli District of the United Provinces; Gangapāri, coming from the further side of the Ganges; and Pardeshi or Deshwāri, +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 Dūdh Barais, from <i>dūdh</i>, milk; the Kumān, 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 Chhattīsgarh; the Purānia or old Barais; the Kumhārdhang, 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, Burhānpuria of Burhānpur, Chitoria of Chitor in Rājputāna, Deobijha +the name of a village in Chhattīsgarh, and Kharondiha from Kharond or Kālāhandi 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), Bhandāri (store-keeper), Patharha (hail-averter), Batkāphor (pot-breaker), +Bhulya (the forgetful one), Gūjar (a caste), Gahoi (a caste), and so on. While the following are totemistic groups: Katāra +(dagger), Kulha (jackal), Bandrele (monkey), Chīkhalkār (from <i>chīkhal</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>pāt</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 Marātha 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 Pansāri or druggist is recognised +as being a proper avocation of the Barai. They subsequently have to worship the potter’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’s house for a few days. In Chhattīsgarh +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 Betūl the relatives of the widow take the second husband before Māroti’s shrine, where he offers a nut and some betel-leaf. +He is then taken to the mālguzār’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<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 Māroti 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 <i>panchāyat</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 Nāg or cobra and observe the festival of Nāg-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 Pāndava 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. Bāsuki, 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>pān</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 Nāgbel or the serpent-creeper. On the day of Nāg-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 Nāg or cobra. +A goat or sheep is sacrificed and they return home, no leaf of the <i>pān</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>pān</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 Agarwāla Banias, from whom the Barais will take +food cooked without water, have also a legend of descent from a Nāga or snake princess. ‘Our mother’s house is of the race +of the snake,’ say the Agarwāls of Bihār.<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 Chhattīsgarh 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 Brāhman or by the +women of the household. Two names are given, one for ceremonial and the other for ordinary use. When a Brāhman 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 Brāhmans 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. Brāhmans 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>“It has been mentioned,” says Sir H. Risley,<a id="d0e5601src" href="#d0e5601" class="noteref">5</a> “that the garden is regarded as almost sacred, and the superstitious practices in vogue resemble those of the silk-worm breeder. +The Bārui 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 Brāhman 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 <i>Piper betel</i> L., the word being derived from the Malayalam <i>vettila</i>, ‘a plain leaf,’ and coming to us through the Portuguese <i>betre</i> and <i>betle</i>. The leaf is called <i>pān</i>, and is eaten with the nut of <i>Areca catechu</i>, called in Hindi <i>supāri</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’ 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, Rāmtek 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: “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.”<a id="d0e5630src" href="#d0e5630" class="noteref">6</a> For retail sale <i>bīdas</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>bīda</i> according to the saying, <a id="d0e5645"></a><span class="pagenum">[<a href="#d0e5645">198</a>]</span>‘Service without a patron, a young man without a shield, and betel without tobacco are alike savourless.’ <i>Bīdas</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 Rām, M.A., Government College, Jubbulpore, and Mr. Bhāskar Bāji Rao Deshmukh, +Deputy Inspector of Schools, Nāgpur. +</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 Marāthas, 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. Agarwāl. +</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. Bārui. +</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’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, Sutār, Kharādi, Mistri.</b>—The occupational caste of carpenters. The Barhais numbered nearly 110,000 persons in the Central Provinces and Berār 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 Lohār 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 Bālāghāt, in Drūg only 47 persons, and in the fourteen Chhattīsgarh 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. Sutār is a common name of the caste in the Marātha Districts, and is from Sūtra-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 Sutārs 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. Kharādi 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>kharāt</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 +Hindustāni Districts are the Pardeshi or foreigners, immigrants from northern India, and the Pūrbia or eastern, coming from +Oudh; other subcastes are the Sri Gaur Mālas or immigrants from Mālwa, the Berādi from Berār, and the Māhure from Hyderābād. +We find also subcastes of Jāt and Teli Barhais, consisting of Jāts and Telis (oil-pressers) who have taken to carpentering. +Two other caste-groups, the Chamār Barhais and Gondi Barhais, are returned, but these are not at present included in the Barhai +caste, and consist merely of Chamārs 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 Makūr, a prince of the Jādon Rājpūt house of Jaisalmer, +became carpenters, and were known centuries after as Makūr Sutārs. They were apparently considered illegitimate, as he states: +“Illegitimate children can never overcome this natural defect among the Rājpūts. Thus we find among all classes of artisans +in India some of royal but spurious descent.”<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. Brāhman 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 Māroti or Hanumān. Among the Panchāl 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’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 Betūl if a bachelor desires to marry a widow +he must first go through the ceremony with a branch or twig of the <i>gūlar</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 Mahā-Brāhman 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. Brāhmans take water from them in some localities, perhaps +more especially in towns. In Betūl for instance Hindustāni Brāhmans do not accept water from the rural Barhais. In Damoh where +both the Barhai and Lohār are village menials, their status is said to be the same, and Brahmans do not take water from Lohārs. +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 Brāhman 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 Betūl 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 Diwāli +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. + +</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’ Mission of Hoshangābād and other missionaries; and a Government technical school has now been +opened at Nāgpur, 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.”<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>Rājasthān</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>Bāri</h2> +<p><b>Bāri.</b>—A caste of household servants and makers of leaf-plates, belonging to northern India. The Bāris 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> “Mr. Nesfield regards the Bāri as merely an offshoot from a semi-savage tribe known as Banmānush and Musāhār. 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 Brāhmans, 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 Bāris 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 Bāri from the Banmānush (wild man of the woods) +or Musāhār (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 Marātha Districts +the Gond himself does so, and many Gonds make their living by this trade. The people of the Marātha 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 Bāri has been raised to the position of a pure caste, so that Brāhmans 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 Dān, 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 Brāhmans, 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 Brāhmans had refused. This man, who +was the first Bāri, 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 Bāri. 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 Bāris 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>māhul</i> creeper (<i>Bauhinia Vahlii</i>), or from the <i>palās</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 zenāna, are liable to lose their virtue. A curious custom prevails in Mārwār +on the birth of an heir to the throne. An impression of the child’s foot is taken by a Bāri 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 Bāris have the reputation of great fidelity to their employers, and a saying about them is, ‘The Bāri will die fighting +for his master.’ + + +</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. Bāri. +</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>—A wandering beggar caste of mixed origin, who also call themselves Sanādhya or Sanaurhia Brāhmans. 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 Bahrūpia, 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 Berār in 1911 was 2500, and they are found principally in the northern Districts and in Chhattīsgarh. +They have several territorial subcastes, as Gangāputri or those who dwell on the banks of the Ganges; Khaltia or Deswāri, +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 Marātha Districts who marry only among themselves. The names of the exogamous divisions are very varied, +some being taken from Brāhman <i>gotras</i> and Rājpūt 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 Brāhmans into the community. In Bombay<a id="d0e5817src" href="#d0e5817" class="noteref">2</a> the Wasudevas have a special connection with Kumhārs or potters, whom they address by the term of <i>kāka</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 Brāhman is employed to perform +the ceremony. At the conclusion of this the Brāhman 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, <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 Marātha 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 Māgh 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 Rāma and Lakshman. Their stock-in-trade for begging consists of two <i>kartāls</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’s wallet on the Janam-Ashtami or Krishna’s birthday, the Dasahra, and the full +moon of Māgh (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 ‘Jai Ganga’ or ‘Har Ganga,’ 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 Chhattīsgarh, 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 Murlīdhar, 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>—The occupational caste of bamboo-workers, the two first names being Hindi and the last the term used in the Marātha Districts. +The cognate Uriya caste is called Kandra and the Telugu one Medara. The Basors numbered 53,000 persons in the Central Provinces +and Berār in 1911. About half the total number reside in the Saugor, Damoh and Jubbulpore Districts. The word Basor is a corruption +of Bānsphor, ‘a breaker of bamboos.’ 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 Purānas, from whom for his sins was +born the first Nishāda, 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>Nishāda or Chandāl 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 Brāhmanical 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 Purānia or Juthia, +who perhaps represent the oldest section, Purānia being from <i>purāna</i> old; they are called Juthia because they eat the leavings of others; the Barmaiya or Malaiya, apparently a territorial group; +the Deshwāri or Bundelkhandi who reside in the <i>desh</i> or native place of Bundelkhand; the Gūdha or Gūrha, the name being derived by some from <i>gūda</i> a pigsty; the Dumar or Dom Basors; the Dhubela, perhaps from the Dhobi caste; and the Dharkār. 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 Marātha 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 Banāphar generals, +Alha and Udal; Tikarahia from Tikāri, and so on. The totemistic septs include the Sānpero from <i>sānp</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 ‘dagger’ 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 Brāhman and Bargujaria from Bargūjar +Rājpūt, 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 Kulhāntia 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 Tikāri 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 Marāthi forms, and presents no special features. A bride-price called +<i>chāri</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’s younger brother. The Basors are musicians by profession, but in Betūl +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’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’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 Marātha 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, Chamārs 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>jhānpi</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>bānsuri</i> or wooden flute, the <i>bijna</i> or fan, and the <i>sūpa</i> or winnowing-fan. All grain is cleaned with the help of the <i>sūpa</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>bānka</i>, a heavy curved knife, with which all the above articles are made. The <i>bānka</i> is duly worshipped at the Diwāli 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 Dumār, will do scavenger’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. Rām Lāl, B. A., Deputy Inspector of Schools, Saugor; Mr. Vishnu Gangādhar Gādgil, Tahsīldār, Narsinghpur; +Mr. Devi Dayal, Tahsīldār, Hatta; Mr. Kanhya Lāl, B. A., Deputy Inspector of Schools, Betūl; Mr. Keshava Rao, Headmaster, +Middle School, Seoni; and Bapu Gulāb Singh, Superintendent, Land Records, Betūl. +</p> +<p class="footnote"><span class="label"><a id="d0e5901" href="#d0e5901src" class="noteref">2</a></span> Chapter x. 37, and Shūdra Kamlākar, 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 Brāhman 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>—A small caste of about 1500 persons, belonging to Akola, Khāndesh and Hyderābād. Their ancestors were Pindāris, apparently +recruited from the different Marātha castes, and when the Pindāris 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 Sultān 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 ‘without fear,’ and was given to them on account of their bravery. They have now obtained a warrant from the descendant +of Shankar Achārya, or the high priest of Sivite Hindus, permitting them to describe themselves as Pūt 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 Mahār Bedars. They refuse to take food from other +Mahārs 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 Sāhib Dhonduji, +a retired Inspector of Police, is a prominent member of the caste. The Rāja 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 Nāsik 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 Marātha, Telugu and Kande Bedars. The names of their exogamous sections are also Marāthi. +Nevertheless they retain one or two northern customs, presumably acquired from association with the Pindāris. 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 Hindustāni 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 Phulmāli, and +pay little heed to the rules of social impurity. But Hindustāni Brāhmans act as their priests. + +</p> +<p>Before a wedding they call a Brāhman and worship him as a god, the ceremony being known as Deo Brāhman. The <a id="d0e6080"></a><span class="pagenum">[<a href="#d0e6080">214</a>]</span>Brāhman then cooks food in the house of his host. On the same occasion a person specially nominated by the Brāhman, 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. Adurām Chaudhri +of the Gazetteer office. +</p> +<p class="footnote"><span class="label"><a id="d0e6061" href="#d0e6061src" class="noteref">2</a></span> Mr. Marten’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>Beldār</h2> +<h3>List of Paragraphs</h3> +<ul> +<li><a href="#d0e6134">1. General notice.</a></li> +<li><a href="#d0e6153">2. Beldārs of the northern Districts.</a></li> +<li><a href="#d0e6181">3. Odias of Chhattīsgarh.</a></li> +<li><a href="#d0e6188">4. Other Chhattīsgarhi Beldārs.</a></li> +<li><a href="#d0e6199">5. Munurwār and Telenga.</a></li> +<li><a href="#d0e6212">6. Vaddar.</a></li> +<li><a href="#d0e6222">7. Pāthrot.</a></li> +<li><a href="#d0e6234">8. Takāri.</a></li> +</ul> +<div class="div2" id="d0e6134"> +<h3>1. General notice.</h3> +<p><b>Beldār,<a id="d0e6140src" href="#d0e6140" class="noteref">1</a> Od, Sonkar, Rāj, Larhia, Kārīgar, Matkūda, Chunkar, Munurwār, Thapatkari, Vaddar, Pāthrot, Takāri.</b>—The term Beldār 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. Beldār +means one who carries a <i>bel</i>, a hoe or mattock. In 1911 a total of 25,000 Beldārs were returned from the Central Provinces, being most numerous in the +Nimār, Wardha, Nāgpur, Chānda and Raipur districts. The Nunia, Murha and Sānsia (Uriya) castes, which have been treated in +separate articles, are also frequently known as Beldār, 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 Beldārs 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 Matkūda (earth-digger) are usually +Gonds or Pardhāns; the Sānsias and Larhias or Uriyas of Chhattīsgarh 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 Munurwār masons of Chānda appear to have belonged originally to +the Kāpu caste of cultivators. + +</p> +<p>The term Rāj, which is also used for the Beldārs in the northern Districts, has the distinctive meaning of a mason, while +Chūnkar 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 Chhattīsgarh and taken to growing vegetables, and have been given a short separate +notice. In Hoshangābād some Muhammadan Beldārs are now also found. + + +</p> +</div> +<div class="div2" id="d0e6153"> +<h3>2. Beldārs of the northern Districts.</h3> +<p>The Beldārs of Saugor say that their ancestors were engaged in refining salt from earth. A divine saint named Nona Rīshi (<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 Beldārs. The customs of +these Beldārs 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>panchāyat</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 Beldārs will not take food from any caste but their own, and will not take water from a Brāhman, though they will accept +it from Kurmis, Gūjars and similar castes. Sir H. Risley notes that their women always remove earth in baskets on the head. +“The Beldārs 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>sākhi</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 Mānbhum District, a number +of Beldārs 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: ">”</span><a id="d0e6176src" href="#d0e6176" class="noteref">2</a> The Beldārs 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 Chhattīsgarh.</h3> +<p>The Beldārs of Chhattīsgarh are divided into the Odia or Uriya, Larhia, Kūchbandhia, Matkūda and Kārīgar groups. Uriya and +Larhia are local names, applied to residents of the Uriya country and Chhattīsgarh respectively. Odia is the name of a low +Madras caste of masons, but whether it is a corruption of Uriya is not clear. Kārīgar means a workman, and Kūchbandhia is +the name of a separate caste, who make loom-combs for weavers. The Odias pretend to be fallen Rājpūts. They say that when +Indra stole the sacrificial horse of Rāja Sāgar and kept it in the underworld, the Rāja’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 Rīshi 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 Rāja’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 Rāja Sāgar’s sons can touch without some injury befalling him. If any +Beldāar 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 Chhattīsgarhi Beldārs.</h3> +<p>The other group of Chattīsgarhi Beldārs 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 Dhīmars, 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 Jagannāth’s temple, which all castes +may eat together without becoming impure. These Beldārs use asses for the transport of their bricks and stones, and on the +Diwāli 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. Munurwār and Telenga.</h3> +<p>In Chānda the principal castes of stone-workers are the Telengas (Telugus), who are also known as Thāpatkari (tapper or chiseller), +Telenga Kunbi and Munurwār. They occupy a higher position than the ordinary Beldār, and Kunbis will take water from them and +sometimes food. They say that they came into Chānda from the Telugu country along the Godāvari and Prānhita 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 Munurwārs are a +branch of the Kāpu 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 Mahār, a Chamār, or a Gond; the Kunbis and Marāthas also consider flesh touched by a Mahār +or Chamār to be impure, but do not object to a Gond. Like the Berār <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>halāl</i> as practised by Muhammadan butchers. The reason no doubt is that the <i>halāl</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 Thāpatkaris 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 Wadewārs 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.”<a id="d0e6217src" href="#d0e6217" class="noteref">3</a> + + +</p> +</div> +<div class="div2" id="d0e6222"> +<h3>7. Pāthrot.</h3> +<p>In Berār besides the regular Beldārs two castes of stone-workers are found, the Pathrāwats or Pāthrots (stone-breakers) and +the Takāris, 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 Takāris are connected with the Pārdhi 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 Pāthrots resemble those of the +Kunbis. “They will take cooked food from a Sutār or a Kumbhār. 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 Tuljāpur and their chief festival Dasahra; the implements of the caste are worshipped twice a year, +on Gudhi Pādwa and Diwāli. 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.”<a id="d0e6229src" href="#d0e6229" class="noteref">4</a> + + +</p> +</div> +<div class="div2" id="d0e6234"> +<h3>8. Takāri.</h3> +<p>“The Takāris take their name from the verb <i>tākne</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 Pārdhis. The Takāri’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 Takāri, 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.”<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 Rāo, Superintendent of Land Records, Raipur, and Munshi +Kanhiya Lāl, 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. Beldār. +</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’s <i>Tribes and Castes of Bengal</i>; Rājendra Lāl Mitra in <i>Memoirs, Anthropological Society of London</i>, iii. p. 122; Mr. Crooke’s <i>Tribes and Castes of the North-Western Provinces and Oudh</i>; Mr. Kennedy’s <i>Criminal Classes of the Bombay Presidency</i>; Major Gunthorpe’s <i>Criminal Tribes</i>; Mr. Gayer’s <i>Lectures on some Criminal Tribes of the Central Provinces</i>; Colonel Sleeman’s <i>Report on the Badhak or Bāgri 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 Sānsias. 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. “They say that some generations ago two brothers resided in the Bhartpur territory, of whom +one was named Sains Mūl and the other Mullanur. The descendants of Sains Mūl are the Sānsias and those of Mullanur the Berias +or Kolhātis, 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 Sānsias or descendants of Sains Mūl, they are called Dholi or Kolhāti. 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 Sānsias of Central India. The Kolhātis belong mainly to the Deccan +and are apparently a branch of the Berias, named after the <i>Kolhān</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 ‘the generic name of a number of vagrant, gipsy-like groups’; and a full description +of them has been given by Bābu Rājendra Lāl 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 <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>bhāng</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’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.” 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 Bāgris +of northern India and the Vāghris of Gujarāt.<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 Sānsias 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 Sānsia 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’s parents +go to the girl’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 Brāhmans 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 <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. Dāte, 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>—A primitive tribe peculiar to the Central Provinces and found principally in the Bilāspur District and the adjoining area, +that is, in the wild tract of forest country between the Satpūra range and the south of the Chota Nāgpur 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 Rāj-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 Bilāspur. And a Bhaina has the same reputation as a Baiga +for sorcery, it being said of him— + + +</p> +<div class="poem" lang="und"> +<div class="stanza"> +<p class="line" style=""><span>Mainhār ki mānjh +</span></p> +<p class="line" style=""><span>Bhaina ki pāng</span></p> +</div> +</div><a id="d0e6388"></a><span class="pagenum">[<a href="#d0e6388">226</a>]</span><p>or ‘The magic of a Bhaina is as deadly as the powdered <i>mainhār</i> 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 Bilāspur 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 Rāja 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 Chānda. 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 Binjhwārs 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 Mahānadī 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 Bilāspur. 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 <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 Chhattīsgarhi, 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 Jhalyāra and Ghantyāra or Ghatyāra; the former being so called because they live in <i>jhālas</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>ghāt</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>ghāt</i>. Or it is said to mean a low or despised section. The Jhalyāra and Ghatyāra 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 Nāg the cobra, Bāgh 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 Baghchhāl 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’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’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 Nāgbans Andura and the Nāgbans Mai or male and female cobra septs; the Karsayāl Singhara and Karsayāl Mundi +or stag and doe deer septs; and the Baghchhāl Andura and Baghchhāl 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’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 <i lang="und">Tatia kholna</i> 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, <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’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 <i>sawāsin</i> and her husband as the <i>sawāsa</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’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 <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 Bilāspur is Nakti Devi<a id="d0e6454src" href="#d0e6454" class="noteref">3</a> or the ‘Noseless Goddess.’ For her ritual rice is placed on a square of the floor washed with cowdung, and <i>ghī</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. Thākur 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 <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: ‘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 Johār 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 Jānjgir. 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 Sonwāni (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 Hāthi or elephant sept is the highest, +and to its members are delegated these duties. And in Jānjgir again the president of the committee gives the gold-water, and +is hence known as Sonwān; 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 Brāhmans 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 Brāhman if it is cooked in a brass and not in an earthen vessel, and this +only from a male and not from a female Brāhman; while they will accept baked <i>chapātis</i> and other food from a Gond and a Rāwat. 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>ghāts</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 Ghatyāra 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 Lāl, Revenue Inspector, Bilāspur, and also on papers by Mr. Syed Sher +Ali, Nāib-Tahsīldār, Mr. Hira Lāl and Mr. Adurām 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’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>Bhāmta or Bhāmtya</h2> +<div class="div2" id="d0e6487"> +<h3>1. Occupation.</h3> +<p><b>Bhāmta or Bhāmtya.</b><a id="d0e6493src" href="#d0e6493" class="noteref">1</a>—A caste numbering 4000 persons in the Central Provinces, nearly all of whom reside in the Wardha, Nāgpur and Chānda Districts +of the Nāgpur Division. The Bhāmtas are also found in Bombay, Berār and Hyderābād. In Bombay they are known by the names of +Uchla or ‘Lifter’ and Ganthachor or ‘Bundle-thief.’<a id="d0e6496src" href="#d0e6496" class="noteref">2</a> The Bhāmtas 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 Bhāmta 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 Bhāmtas 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 Mārwāri Bania, another as a Gujarāt Jain, +a third as a Brāhman and a fourth as a Rājpūt. 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 Bhāmtas visit a large fair, and one of them dressed as a Brāhman mingles with the crowd of bathers and worshippers. +The false Brāhman 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 Brāhman 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 Bhāmtas 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 Bhāmta 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 Bhāmta’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 Bhāmta 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 Bhāmtas 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 Bhāmtas 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 Bhāmtas 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, Rāwat and others, who have taken to stealing, are frequently known as Bhāmtas, +but unless they have been specially initiated do not belong to the caste. The Bhāmtas proper have two main divisions, the +Chhatri Bhāmtas, who are usually immigrants from Gujarāt, and those of the Marātha country, who are often known as Bhāmtis. +The former have a dialect which is a mixture of Hindi, Marāthi and Gujarāti, while the latter speak the local form of Marāthi. +The sections of the Chhatri Bhāmtas are named after Rājpūt septs, as Badgūjar, Chauhān, Gahlot, Bhatti, Kachhwāha and others. +They may be partly of Rājpūt descent, as they have regular and pleasing features and a fair complexion, and are well built +and sturdy. The sections of the Bhāmtis are called by Marātha surnames, as Gudekar, Kaothi, Bailkhade, Sātbhaia and others. +The Chhatri Bhāmtas have northern customs, and the Bhāmtis those of the Marātha 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 Bhāmtis +the custom of Mehunchār 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 Bhāmtis that of the Marātha country. The Chhatris do not pay a bride-price, +but the Bhāmtis usually do. Widow-marriage is allowed, and while the Chhatris expect the widow to marry her deceased husband’s +brother, the Bhāmtis 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>panchāyat</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 Bhāmtis 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>ghī</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 Bhāmtis 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 Bhāmta 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 Bhāmtas eat fish and fowl +but not pork or beef, and drink liquor. This last practice is, however, frequently made a caste offence by the Bhāmtis. They +take cooked food from Brāhmans 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 Bhāmta is also +looked down on, and it is said, <i>Bhāmta ka kām sub se nikām</i>, or ‘The Bhāmta’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 Bhāmta 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 Brāhmans 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 Pyāre Lāl 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’s <i>Report on the Bhāmtas 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>Bharbhūnja</h2> +<div class="div2" id="d0e6559"> +<h3>1. General notice</h3> +<p><b>Bharbhūnja.</b><a id="d0e6565src" href="#d0e6565" class="noteref">1</a>—The occupational caste of grain-parchers. The name is derived from the Sanskrit <i>bhrāstra</i>, a frying-pan, and <i>bhārjaka</i>, one who fries. The Bharbhūnjas numbered 3000 persons in 1911, and belong mainly to the northern Districts, their headquarters +being in Upper India. In Chhattīsgarh the place of the Bharbhūnjas is taken by the Dhūris. Sir H. Elliot<a id="d0e6574src" href="#d0e6574" class="noteref">2</a> remarks that the caste are traditionally supposed to be descended from a Kahār father and a Sūdra mother, and they are probably +connected with the Kahārs. In Saugor they say that their ancestors were Kānkubja Brāhmans who were ordered to parch rice at +the wedding of the great Rāma, and in consequence of this one of their subcastes is known as Kānbajia. But Kānkubja 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 Bharbhūnjas. +Another group are called Kaitha, and they say that their ancestors were Kāyasths, who adopted the profession of grain-parching. +It is said that in Bhopāl proper Kāyasths will take food from Kaitha Bharbhūnjas 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 Srivāstab, which are the names of well-known Kayasth subdivisions. +It is possible, therefore, that the Kaitha group may really be connected with the Kāyasths. Other subcastes are the Benglāh, +who are probably immigrants from Bengal; and the Kāndu, who may also come from that direction, Kāndu 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 Bharbhūnjas resemble those of Hindustāni castes of fairly good position.<a id="d0e6591src" href="#d0e6591" class="noteref">4</a> They employ Brāhmans 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 +<i>Phāg</i>, because it is considered to have the same significance as the Holi festival observed in Phāgun. 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’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 Bharbhūnjas 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, Kahārs 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 Brāhmans 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 “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.”<a id="d0e6614src" href="#d0e6614" class="noteref">6</a> 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 <i>phutāna</i> (broken) and rice <i>lāhi</i>. The Bharbhūnjas 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>dhān</i> (unhusked rice). The one with the <i>dhān</i> 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 <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—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>.” 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, ‘<i lang="und">Bhār men dālna</i>’, ‘To throw into the oven,’ meaning to throw away something or to make ducks and drakes with it; while <i>Bhār-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, ‘<i lang="und">Bharbhūnja ka larki kesar ka tīka</i>,’ or ‘The Bharbhūnja’s slut with saffron on her forehead,’ meaning one dressed in borrowed plumes. Another saying is, ‘<i lang="und">To tum kya abhi tak bhār bhunjte rahe</i>,’ 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 Bharbhūnjas. + + + + +<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. Bharbhūnja. +</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’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. Kāndu. +</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>—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 Chhindwāra and Bilāspur. 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 Bālāghāt, +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 Rājjhars, who appear to have formed a separate caste as the landowning +subdivision of the Bhars, like the Rāj-Gonds among Gonds, are said to be the descendants of a Rāja and a Bharia woman. The +Rājjhars 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 Bāndhogarh as +their former home, and these places are in the country of the Bhars. According to tradition Rāja Karna Deva, a former king +of Dāhal, 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> “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-Kaimūr 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:<a id="d0e6735src" href="#d0e6735" class="noteref">3</a> ‘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>dhayā</i><a id="d0e6744src" href="#d0e6744" class="noteref">4</a> 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. + + +</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 Bilāspur 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; Ahirwār, or the descendants of an Ahīr: this clan worships the Ahīr gods; +Bamhania, born of a Brāhman ancestor; Binjhwār or Binjha, perhaps from the tribe of that name; Chandel, from a Rājpūt 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; Kuānpa, born of an Ahīr subcaste of that name; Kurka, of Korku parentage; Marāvi, +the name of a Gond clan; Rāthor from a Rājpūt clan; Samarba from a Chamār; 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; Sonwāni, 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 Rājpūt 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’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 Brāhman, 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 <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’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 Gharjiān. +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 <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’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 Chhattīsgarh 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. + + +</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 Diwāli offer a black +chicken to their family god, who may be Bura Deo, Dūlha 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 <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 Bāgheshwar, the tiger god, and believe that no tiger +will eat a Bharia. On the Diwāli 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>mūth</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’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 Nārāyan Katha or some other holy work. But he understands nothing of it, and if the Brāhman 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’s dress is proverbial, and the saying is ‘<i lang="und">Bharia bhwāka, pwānda langwāta</i>’, 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 <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’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 <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 Bilāspur 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, +‘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. + + + +<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 Lāl, Assistant Gazetteer Superintendent in Jubbulpore, and from a paper +by Rām Lāl Sharma, schoolmaster, Bilāspur. +</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>Dhayā</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>Bhāt</h2> +<h3>List of Paragraphs</h3> +<ul> +<li><a href="#d0e6933">1. Origin of the Bhāts.</a></li> +<li><a href="#d0e6954">2. Bhāts and Chārans.</a></li> +<li><a href="#d0e6975">3. Lower-class Bhāts.</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 Bhāt’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 Chārans 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 Chārans 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. Bhāt songs.</a></li> +</ul> +<div class="div2" id="d0e6933"> +<h3>1. Origin of the Bhāts.</h3> +<p><b>Bhāt, Rao, Jasondhi.</b>—The caste of bards and genealogists. In 1911 the Bhāts numbered 29,000 persons in the Central Provinces and Berār, being +distributed over all Districts and States, with a slight preponderance in large towns such as Nāgpur, Jubbulpore and Amraoti. +The name Bhāt is derived from the Sanskrit Bhatta, a lord. The origin of the Bhāts has been discussed in detail by Sir H. +Risley. Some, no doubt, are derived from the Brāhman caste as stated by Mr. Nesfield: “They are an offshoot from those secularised +Brāhmans 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 Bhāt at the present day. The Mahābhārata 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 Brāhmans. 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. <a id="d0e6940"></a><span class="pagenum">[<a href="#d0e6940">252</a>]</span>Risley states,<a id="d0e6942src" href="#d0e6942" class="noteref">1</a> “seems disposed to find the germ of the Brāhman caste in the bards, ministers and family priests, who were attached to the +king’s household in Vedic times. The characteristic profession of the Bhāts 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 <span class="abbr" title="Transcription: aoidos"><span class="Greek" lang="el">ἀοιδός</span></span> Phemius, ‘who sang among the wooers of necessity.’”<a id="d0e6951src" href="#d0e6951" class="noteref">2</a> + + +</p> +</div> +<div class="div2" id="d0e6954"> +<h3>2. Bhāts and Chārans.</h3> +<p>There is no reason to doubt that the Birm or Baram Bhāts are an offshoot of Brāhmans, their name being merely a corruption +of the term Brāhman. But the caste is a very mixed one, and another large section, the Chārans, are almost certainly derived +from Rājpūts. Malcolm states that according to the fable of their origin, Mahādeo first created Bhāts 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 Mahādeo to create new ones. He therefore formed the Chāran, equally devout with the Bhāt, 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 Bhāts were Brāhmans, the more warlike Chārans were Rājpūts. It is also +said that some Rājpūts disguised themselves as bards to escape the vengeance of Parasurāma.<a id="d0e6965src" href="#d0e6965" class="noteref">4</a> The Māru Chārans intermarry with Rājpūts, and their name appears to be derived from Māru, the term for the Rājputāna desert, +which is also found in Mārwār. <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 Rājpūts migrated from the banks of the Ganges to Rājputāna, their Brāhman priests did not accompany them in +any numbers, and hence the Chārans arose and supplied their place. They had to understand the rites of worship, particularly +of Siva and Pārvati, the favourite deities of the Rājpūts, 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 Rājpūts. Their songs were in +the rudest metre, and their language was the local dialect, understood by all. All this evidence shows that the Chārans were +a class of Rājpūt bards. + + +</p> +</div> +<div class="div2" id="d0e6975"> +<h3>3. Lower-class Bhāts.</h3> +<p>But besides the Birm or Brāhman Bhāts and the Rājpūt Chārans 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 Bhāts. They beg from such castes as Lodhis, Telis, Kurmis, Ahīrs and so on, each caste having +a separate section of Bhāts to serve it; the Bhāts of each caste take food from the members of the caste, but they also eat +and intermarry with each other. Again, there are Bairāgi Bhāts who beg from Bairāgis, 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 Brāhman or Birm-Bhāts form a separate subcaste, and the Rājpūts are sometimes called Rājbhāt. These wear the sacred thread, +which the Brid-Bhāts and Jasondhis do not. The social status of the Bhāts appears to vary greatly. Sir H. Risley states that +they rank immediately below Kāyasths, and Brāhmans will take water from their hands. The Chārans are treated by the Rājpūts +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 Chāran is invited to eat first at a +Rājpūt feast. He smokes from the same huqqa as Rājpūts, 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 Chāran acted as a herald, and his person was inviolable. He +was addressed as Mahārāj,<a id="d0e6992src" href="#d0e6992" class="noteref">7</a> and could sit on the Singhāsan or Lion’s Hide, the ancient term for a Rājpūt throne, as well as on the hides of the tiger, +panther and black antelope. The Rājpūts held him in equal estimation with the Brāhman 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-Bhāts, 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 Bhāts eat together their position becomes equivalent to that of the lowest group among them. +Thus if other Bhāts eat with the Bhāts of Telis or Kalārs, who have taken cooked food from their clients, they are all in +the position of having taken food from Telis and Kalārs, a thing which only the lowest castes will do. If the Bhāt 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 Bhāts who serve them. This rule +applies also where a special section of the caste itself act as bards and minstrels. Thus the Pardhāns are the bards of the +Gonds, but rank below ordinary Gonds, who give them food and will not take it from them. And the Sānsias, the bards of the +Jāts, and the Mirāsis, 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 Bhāts resemble those of other castes of corresponding status. The higher Bhāts forbid the remarriage of +widows, and expel a girl who becomes pregnant before marriage. They carry a dagger, the special emblem of the Chārans, in +order to be distinguished from low-class <a id="d0e7005"></a><span class="pagenum">[<a href="#d0e7005">255</a>]</span>Bhāts. The Bhāts 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 Brāhman Bhāts abstain from flesh +of any kind and liquor, and other Bhāts usually have the same rules about food as the caste whom they serve. Brāhman Bhāts +and Chārans 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 Brāhman pīchhe Bhāt +</span></p> +<p class="line" style=""><span>tāke pīchhe aur jāt,</span></p> +</div> +</div> +<p>or, ‘First comes the Brāhman, then the Bhāt, and after them the other castes.’ + + +</p> +</div> +<div class="div2" id="d0e7020"> +<h3>6. The Bhāt’s business.</h3> +<p>The business of a Bhāt in former times is thus described by Forbes:<a id="d0e7025src" href="#d0e7025" class="noteref">9</a> “When the rainy season closes and travelling becomes practicable, the bard sets off on his yearly tour from his residence +in the Bhātwāra or bard’s quarter of some city or town. One by one he visits each of the Rājpūt 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 +Rājpūt clients; their dress is nearly the same, but the bard seldom appears without the <i>katār</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>trāga</i> (suicide).”<a id="d0e7038src" href="#d0e7038" class="noteref">10</a> + + +</p> +<div id="d0e7041" class="figure"><img border="0" src="images/p256.jpg" alt="Bhāt with his putla or doll." width="403" height="720"><p class="figureHead">Bhāt 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 Bhāt 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 +Rājpūts to be handed down to fame in the Bhāt’s songs was such that no extravagance was spared to satisfy him. Chand, the +great Rājpūt bard, sang of the marriage of Prithwi Rāj, 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<a id="d0e7053src" href="#d0e7053" class="noteref">11</a> was given to the chief bard, and this became a precedent for similar occasions. “Until vanity suffers itself to be controlled,” +Colonel Tod wrote,<a id="d0e7077src" href="#d0e7077" class="noteref">12</a> “and the aristocratic Rājpūts 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>māngtas</i> or beggars, bards, minstrels, jugglers, Brāhmans, 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.” Owing to this insensate liberality in the desire to satisfy the bards and win their praises, a +Rājpūt 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 Rājputāna. 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<a id="d0e7092src" href="#d0e7092" class="noteref">14</a> or minstrels were one of the seven great evils which the famous king Sidhrāj expelled from Anhilwāda Pātan in Gujarāt; the +Dākans or witches were another.<a id="d0e7098src" href="#d0e7098" class="noteref">15</a> 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 Bhāt, 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 Bhāt 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 Bhāt or +even punish him for such a proceeding. In 1812 Sevak Rām Seth, a banker of Holkar’s court, offended one of these Bhāts, 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 Bhāt 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.” The loquacity and importunity of the Bhāts are shown in the saying, ‘Four Bhāts +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)”<a id="d0e7111src" href="#d0e7111" class="noteref">17</a> The Bhāt women are as bold, voluble and ready in retort as the men. When a Bhāt 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 Bhāts have become religious mendicants and musicians, and perform ceremonial functions. Thus +the Jasondhis, who are considered a class of Bhāts, take their name from the <i>jas</i> or hymns sung in praise of Devi. They are divided into various sections, as the Nakīb or flag-bearers in a procession, the +Nāzir or ushers who introduced visitors to the Rāja, the Nagāria 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 Bhāts who serve as bards and genealogists for Muhammadan castes. Some Bhāts, +having the rare and needful qualification of literacy so that they can read the old Sanskrit medical works, have, like a number +of Brāhmans, taken to the practice of medicine and are known as Kavirāj. + + +</p> +</div> +<div class="div2" id="d0e7129"> +<h3>9. The Chārans as carriers.</h3> +<p>As already stated, the persons of the Chārans 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 Chārans 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 Rājputāna 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 Rājputāna and the adjoining +countries; and in course of time the carriers restricted themselves to their new profession, splitting off from the Chārans +and forming the caste of Banjāras. + + +</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 Chārans from destitute and +unscrupulous robbers. They preserved it by the customs of <i>Chandi</i> or <i>Trāga</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’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 Chārans 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 Chārans, 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>trāga</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’s head with his scimitar and, flourishing his reeking blade in the face of his pursuer, denounced against +him the curse of the <i>trāga</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’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>Rāsmāla</i><a id="d0e7171src" href="#d0e7171" class="noteref">20</a> is an instance of suicide and of the actual haunting by the ghost: A Chāran asserted a claim against the chief of Siela in +Kāthiāwār, 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’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>trāga</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 Chāran 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 (<i>Kuvīs</i>) in the palace, and will take the chiefs life and cut off his posterity.” 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 Chāran’s death his Bhūt (ghost) threw the Rāni 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 Bhūt, Jogis, Fakīrs and Brāhmans were sent for from many different places; but whoever attempted the cure was immediately +assailed by the Bhūt in the chief’s body, and that so furiously that the exorcist’s courage failed him. The Bhūt 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 Bhūt; 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 Bhūt’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 Bhūt 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 Bhūt 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: ‘The Bhūt has gone into the lemon! The Bhūt has +gone into the lemon!’ The possessed person himself, when he saw the lemon hopping about, was perfectly satisfied that the +Bhūt 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 Bhūt 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 Bhūt. + +</p> +<p>In another case some Bhāts had been put in charge, by the chief of a small State, of a village which was coveted by a neighbouring +prince, the Rāna of Dānta. The latter sent for the Bhāts 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 Bhāts got back they collected +to the number of a hundred and began to perform <i>Dharna</i> against the Rāna. 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 Rāna 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 Rāna. The Rāna 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 Chārans as sureties.</h3> +<p>Such was the certainty attaching to the Chāran’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.<a id="d0e7205src" href="#d0e7205" class="noteref">22</a> The guards, called Valāvas, 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, Kāthi or Rājpūt held the person of a Chāran 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 Rājpūts preferred a Chāran’s +bond to that of the wealthiest banker. They also gave security for good behaviour, called <i>chālu zāmin</i>, and for personal attendance in court called <i>hāzar zāmin</i>. The ordinary <i>trāga</i> went no farther than a cut on the arm with the <i>katār</i> or crease; the forearms of those who were in the habit of becoming security had generally several cuts from the elbow downwards. +The Chārans, both men and women, wounded themselves, committed suicide and murdered their relations with the most complete +self-devotion. In 1812 the Marāthas brought a body of troops to impose a payment on the village of Pānchpipla.<a id="d0e7225src" href="#d0e7225" class="noteref">23</a> The Chārans resisted the demand, but finding the Marāthas 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 Marāthas, exclaiming, ‘These are our riches and the only payment we can make.’ The Chārans +were immediately seized and confined in irons at Jambusar.” + +</p> +<p>As was the case with the Bhāt and the Brāhman, the source of the Chāran’s power lay in the widespread fear that a Chāran’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>Chāran 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 Chāran’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.”<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’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.”<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’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. + + +</p> +</div> +<div class="div2" id="d0e7258"> +<h3>14. <i>Dharna.</i></h3> +<p>Analogous to the custom of <i>trāga</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’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 <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 ‘to place or lay on,’ and hence ‘a pledge.’ Mr. Hīra Lāl 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, “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. + + +</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’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 Brāhman 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>pīpal</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>pīpal</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>Khātpāti</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 Khātpāti 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. + +</p> +<p>A custom similar to that of <i>Dharna</i> was called <i>Diwāla nikālna</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. Bhāt songs.</h3> +<p>In conclusion a few specimens of Bhāt songs may be given. The following is an account of the last king of Nāgpur, Raghuji +III., commonly known as Bāji 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 Bāji Rao; +</span></p> +<p class="line" style=""><span>Bāji Rao was the finest king to see; +</span></p> +<p class="line" style=""><span>The Brāhmans told lies about him, +</span></p> +<p class="line" style=""><span>They sent a letter from Nāgpur to Calcutta, +</span></p> +<p class="line" style=""><span>They made Bāji Rao go on a pilgrimage. +</span></p> +<p class="line" style=""><span>Brothers! the great Sirdārs 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 Benāres 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>Bāji Rao’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 Brāhmans of Benāres. +</span></p> +<p class="line" style=""><span>Oh brothers! the Rāja 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 Nāgpur, 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 Nāgpur, +</span></p> +<p class="line" style=""><span>The fear of the English is great. +</span></p> +<p class="line" style=""><span>In a moment’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’s dominions, +</span></p> +<p class="line" style=""><span>The English are ruling in the fort of Gāwilgarh.</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>kaldār</i> (milled) rupee. +</span></p> +<p class="line" style=""><span>The menials are favoured and the Bhāts 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>Bāji Rao of Nāgpur 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>Brāhmans knowing the eighteen Purāns 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’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: ‘We are sinners, O Rewa, bring us safely to the bank!’ +</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 Rāma. +</span></p> +<p class="line" style=""><span>The bard says: ‘Let it rain as it may, some one will save us as Krishna saved the people of Brindāwan!’</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: ‘Since God has made you so beautiful, open your litter and let yourself be seen!’ +</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’s house till he has her brought by the Government. +</span></p> +<p class="line" style=""><span>When she goes her father’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’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 Bhāts 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. Brāhman. +</p> +<p class="footnote"><span class="label"><a id="d0e6951" href="#d0e6951src" class="noteref">2</a></span> Art. Bhāt. +</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>Rājasthān</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>Rājasthān</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 Brāhmans. +</p> +<p class="footnote"><span class="label"><a id="d0e6995" href="#d0e6995src" class="noteref">8</a></span> <i>Rājasthān</i>, ii. p. 175. +</p> +<p class="footnote"><span class="label"><a id="d0e7025" href="#d0e7025src" class="noteref">9</a></span> <i>Rāsmāla</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 Lākh Pasāru, 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 Dās, has received three <span id="d0e7055" class="corr" title="Source: Lakh">Lākh</span> Pasārus from the Rājas of Jodhpur and has refused one from the Rāna of Udaipur in view of the fact that he was made <i>ayachaka</i> by the Jodhpur Rāja. <i>Ayachaka</i> means literally ‘not a beggar,’ 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’s fort or castle. (Mr. Hīra Lāl.) +</p> +<p class="footnote"><span class="label"><a id="d0e7077" href="#d0e7077src" class="noteref">12</a></span> <i>Rājasthān</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>Rājasthān</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. Bhāt. +</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. 392–394. +</p> +<p class="footnote"><span class="label"><a id="d0e7193" href="#d0e7193src" class="noteref">21</a></span> <i>Rāsmāla</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 Gujarāt</i>, Mr. Bhimbhai Kirparām, 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’s <i>Letter on the Marāthas</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>—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 Rājas 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 Pīt, Amnāit +and Sān Bhatras, who rank one below the other, the Pīt being the highest and the Sān the lowest. The Pīt Bhatras base their +superiority on the fact that they decline to make grass mats, which the Amnāit Bhatras will do, while the Sān 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 Kāchhun 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 Panāra, 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’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 <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’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 <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>tīka</i> or anointing, and presents are given to the bride’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’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 Māti Deo and resides in a separate tree in each village. At the Bījphūtni +(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 Asārh (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’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 Pujāri 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 +Mājhi or village headman and the Pujāri 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 Rāja 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 Brāhman 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. Baijnāth the following are of some interest: Pillu, one of short stature; Matola, +one who learnt to walk late; Phagu, born in Phāgun (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; Mahīna (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. + + + +<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 Bahādur Panda Baijnāth, Superintendent, Bastar State; Mr. Ravi Shankar, +Settlement Officer, Bastar; and Mr. Gopāl 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>Bhīl</h2> +<h3>List of Paragraphs</h3> +<ul> +<li><a href="#d0e7686">1. General notice. The Bhīls a Kolarian tribe.</a></li> +<li><a href="#d0e7731">2. Rājpūts deriving their title to the land from the Bhīls.</a></li> +<li><a href="#d0e7788">3. Historical notice.</a></li> +<li><a href="#d0e7861">4. General Outram and the Khāndesh Bhīl 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—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 Bhīls a Kolarian tribe.</h3> +<p><b>Bhīl.</b><a id="d0e7692src" href="#d0e7692" class="noteref">1</a>—An indigenous or non-Aryan tribe which has been much in contact with the Hindus and is consequently well known. The home +of the Bhīls is the country comprised in the hill ranges of Khāndesh, Central India and Rājputāna, west from the Satpūras +to the sea in Gujarāt. The total number of Bhīls in India exceeds a million and a half, of which the great bulk belong to +Bombay, Rājputāna and Central India. The Central Provinces have only about 28,000, practically all of whom reside in the Nimār +district, on the hills forming the western end of the Satpūra range and adjoining the Rājpipla hills of Khāndesh. As the southern +slopes of these hills lie in Berār, a few Bhīls are also found there. The name Bhīl 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 Bhīls <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 Bhīls are recognised as the oldest inhabitants of southern Rājputāna and parts of Gujarāt, and are usually spoken +of in conjunction with the Kolis, who inhabit the adjoining tracts of Gujarāt. 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 Nāgpur, through Mandla +and Jubbulpore, Central India and Rājputāna to Gujarāt and the sea. If this is correct the Kolis would be a Kolarian tribe. +The Bhīls 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 Gujarāt in appreciable numbers. + + +</p> +<div id="d0e7727" class="figure"><img border="0" src="images/p278.jpg" alt="Group of Bhīls." width="720" height="397"><p class="figureHead">Group of Bhīls.</p> +</div><p> + + + +</p> +</div> +<div class="div2" id="d0e7731"> +<h3>2. Rājpūts deriving their title to the land from the Bhīls.</h3> +<p>The Rājpūts still recognise the Bhīls as the former residents and occupiers of the land by the fact that some Rājpūt chiefs +must be marked on the brow with a Bhīl’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 Rājpūts, took the state of Idar in Gujarāt from a Bhīl: “At this period Idar was governed +by a chief of the savage race of Bhīls. The young Goha frequented the forests in company with the Bhīls, whose habits better +assimilated with his daring nature than those of the Brāhmans. 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 Bhīls 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>tīka</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.”<a id="d0e7750src" href="#d0e7750" class="noteref">3</a> + +</p> +<p>The legend is of course a euphemism for the fact that the Rājpūts conquered and dispossessed the Bhīls 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 Bhīls. The explanation is perhaps +that they considered the gods of the Bhīls 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 Bhīls, was till recently repeated on the occasion of each succession of a Sesodia chief. “The Bhīl landholders of Oguna +and Undri still claim the privilege of performing the <i>tīka</i> for the Sesodias. The Oguna Bhīl 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 Bhīl holds the salver of spices and sacred +grains of rice used in making the badge.”<a id="d0e7760src" href="#d0e7760" class="noteref">4</a> The story that Goha killed the old Bhīl 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 Kachhwāha Rājpūts took the territory of Amber State from the Mīna +tribe. The infant Rājpūt 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 Mīnas, 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 Mīna chief then adopted her as his sister and the boy as his nephew. This boy, Dhola +Rai, on growing up obtained a few Rājpūt adherents and slaughtered all the Mīnas while they were bathing at the feast of Diwāli, +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 Rājpūts to both beliefs +as necessary to the validity of their succession and occupation of the land. + +</p> +<p>The position of the Bhīls 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 Bhīls worked in the office of Mānkar, the +superior village watchman, in Nimār and also in Berār. Grant Duff states<a id="d0e7783src" href="#d0e7783" class="noteref">7</a> that the Rāmosi or Bhīl was employed as village guard by the Marāthas, and the Rāmosis were a professional caste of village +policemen, probably derived from the Bhīls or from the Bhīls and Kolis. + + +</p> +</div> +<div class="div2" id="d0e7788"> +<h3>3. Historical notice.</h3> +<p>The Rājpūts seem at first to have treated the Bhīls leniently. Intermarriage was frequent, especially in the families of Bhīl +chieftains, and a new caste called Bhilāla<a id="d0e7793src" href="#d0e7793" class="noteref">8</a> has arisen, which is composed of the descendants of mixed Rājpūt and Bhīl marriages. Chiefs and landholders in the Bhīl country +now belong to this caste, and it is possible that some pure Bhīl families may have been admitted to it. The Bhilālas rank +above the Bhīls, on a level with the cultivating castes. Instances occasionally occurred in which the children of Rājpūt by +a Bhīl wife became Rājpūts. When Colonel Tod wrote, Rājpūts would still take food with Ujla Bhīls 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 Rājputāna, the Bhīls 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 Mahādeo 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 Mahādeo, for which crime he was expelled +to the woods and mountains, and his descendants have ever since been stigmatised by the names of Bhīl and Nishāda.<a id="d0e7803src" href="#d0e7803" class="noteref">10</a> Nishāda is a term of contempt applied to the lowest outcastes. Major Hendley, writing in 1875, states: “Some time since a +Thākur (chief) cut off the legs of two Bhīls, eaters of the sacred cow, and plunged the stumps into boiling oil.”<a id="d0e7809src" href="#d0e7809" class="noteref">11</a> When the Marāthas began to occupy Central India they treated the Bhīls with great cruelty. A Bhīl 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 Bhīls, 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 Khāndesh, during +the disturbed period of the wars of Sindhia and Holkar, about <span class="smallcaps">A.D.</span> 1800, the Bhīls 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 Bhīls 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 Gujarāt another writer described the Bhīls and Kolis as hereditary and professional plunderers—‘Soldiers of the night,’ +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> “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 Bhīl when charged with theft or robbery is, ‘I am not to blame; I am the thief +of Mahādeo’; in other words, ‘My destiny as a thief has been fixed by God.’” The Bhīl 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 Bhīls 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 Mahābhārata the god Krishna was killed by a Bhīl’s arrow, when he was fighting against +them in Gujarāt with the Yādavas; and on this account it was ordained that the Bhīl 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.”<a id="d0e7852src" href="#d0e7852" class="noteref">18</a> + + +</p> +<div id="d0e7857" class="figure"><img border="0" src="images/p282.jpg" alt="Tantia Bhīl, a famous dacoit." width="470" height="720"><p class="figureHead">Tantia Bhīl, a famous dacoit.</p> +</div><p> + + + +</p> +</div> +<div class="div2" id="d0e7861"> +<h3>4. General Outram and the Khāndesh Bhīl Corps.</h3> +<p>The reclamation and pacification of the Bhīls is inseparably associated with the name of Lieutenant, afterwards Sir James, +Outram. The Khāndesh Bhīl Corps was first raised by him in 1825, when Bhīl 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 Bhīls 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’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 Bhīls, 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 Bhīls.<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 Bhīls 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 Bhīls were suppressed and tranquillity restored +to Khāndesh, which rapidly became one of the most fertile parts of India. During the Mutiny the Bhīl corps remained loyal, +and did good service in checking the local outbursts which occurred in Khāndesh. 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 Bhīls, 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 Bhīls of the Central Provinces have now only two subdivisions, the Muhammadan Bhīls, who were forcibly converted to Islām +during the time of Aurāngzeb, 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 Bhīls only number about 3000 out of 28,000. They are known as +Tadvi, a name which was formerly applied to a Bhīl headman, and is said to be derived from <i>tād</i>, meaning a separate branch or section. These Bhīls 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 Jāmania sept, named after the <i>jāman</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’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 Ghodmārya (Horse-killer) sept may not tame a horse nor ride one. The Masrya sept will not kill or eat fish. The Sanyān +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 Māta; 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 Barwāni 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 Rājpūt clans, as Sesodia, Panwār, Mori, and appear to have originated in mixed unions between Rājpūts and Bhīls. + + +</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’s sister may also not be married during the +wife’s lifetime. The Muhammadan Bhīls 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 <i>panchāyat</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 Kāntha. If a Bhīl 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.<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 Marātha 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 Bhīls 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 juāri<a id="d0e7936src" href="#d0e7936" class="noteref">27</a> for the family feast, calling this Juāri Māta 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 Kārtik, that +is on the expiration of the four rainy months when marriages are forbidden, they make a little hut of eleven stalks of juāri +with their cobs in the shape of a cone, and the bride and bridegroom walk round this. The services of a Brāhman 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 Hanumān’s temple. The Muhammadan Bhīls perform the same ceremonies as the Hindus, but at the +end they call in the Kāzi 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 Bhīls. + + +</p> +</div> +<div class="div2" id="d0e7943"> +<h3>7. Widow—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’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 Amāwas 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>panchāyat</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 Bhīl 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 Bhīls worship the ordinary Hindu deities and the village godlings of the locality. The favourite both with Hindu and Muhammadan +Bhīls is Khande Rao or Khandoba, the war-god of the Marāthas, who is often represented by a sword. The Muhammadans and the +Hindu Bhīls also to a less extent worship the Pīrs or spirits of Muhammadan saints at their tombs, of which there are a number +in Nimār. Major Hendley states that in Mewār the seats or <i>sthāns</i> of the Bhīl 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 Bhīls will eat of nothing white in colour, as a white sheep or +goat; and their grand adjuration is ‘By the white ram.’<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 Bhīl 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 Brāhmanism, which would also raise them in the social +scale and give them a better chance of promotion in regiments where there were Brāhman 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 Bhīls 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 Bhīls are firm believers in omens, the nature of which is much the same as among the Hindus. When a Bhīl is persistently +unlucky in hunting, he sometimes says ‘<i lang="und">Nat laga</i>,’ 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 Bhīls, 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 Bhīls 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 Kāzi gives him some holy water to drink and teaches him the profession +of belief in Islām. If a man is not circumcised, the Tadvi or Muhammadan Bhīls will not bury his body. Both classes of Bhīls +employ Brāhmans 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 Bhīls now refuse to take the skins off dead cattle, but others will do so. The Bhīls 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 Bhīl 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 Bhīl 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 Pāl Indra, ‘lord of the pass.’ These names well describe his character. His country is approached through narrow +defiles (<i>pāl</i>), and through these none could pass without his permission. In former days he always levied <i>rakhwāli</i> or blackmail, and even now native travellers find him quite ready to assert what he deems his just rights. The Bhīl 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 Bhīl will himself +attack a leopard, and with his sword, aided by his friends, cut him to pieces.”<a id="d0e8030src" href="#d0e8030" class="noteref">35</a> Their agility impressed the Hindus, and an old writer says: “Some Bhīl chieftains who attended the camp of Sidhrāj, king +of Gujarāt, astonished him with their feats of activity; in his army they seemed as the followers of Hanumān in attendance +upon Rām.”<a id="d0e8035src" href="#d0e8035" class="noteref">36</a> + + +</p> +</div> +<div class="div2" id="d0e8041"> +<h3>13. Occupation.</h3> +<p>The Bhīls 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 Bhīls, however, still retain villages which were originally granted +free of revenue on condition of their keeping the hill-passes of the Satpūras <a id="d0e8046"></a><span class="pagenum">[<a href="#d0e8046">293</a>]</span>open and safe for travellers. These are known as Hattiwāla. Bhīls also serve as village watchmen in Nimār and the adjoining +tracts of the Berār Districts. Captain Forsyth, writing in 1868, described the Bhīls as follows: “The Muhammadan Bhīls are +with few exceptions a miserable lot, idle and thriftless, and steeped in the deadly vice of opium-eating. The unconverted +Bhīls 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.”<a id="d0e8048src" href="#d0e8048" class="noteref">37</a> + + +</p> +</div> +<div class="div2" id="d0e8053"> +<h3>14. Language.</h3> +<p>The Bhīls have now entirely abandoned their own language and speak a corrupt dialect based on the Aryan vernaculars current +around them. The Bhīl dialect is mainly derived from Gujarāti, but it is influenced by Mārwāri and Marāthi; in Nimār especially +it becomes a corrupt form of Marāthi. Bhīli, as this dialect is called, contains a number of non-Aryan words, some of which +appear to come from the Mundāri, and others from the Dravidian languages; but these are insufficient to form any basis for +a deduction as to whether the Bhīls 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 Bhīls are: <i>An Account of the Mewār Bhīls</i>, by Major P. H. Hendley, <i>J.A.S.B.</i> vol. xliv., 1875, pp. 347–385; the <i>Bombay Gazetteer</i>, vol. ix., <i>Hindus of Gujarāt</i>; and notices in Colonel Tod’s <i>Rājasthān</i>, Mr. A. L. Forbes’s <i>Rāsmāla</i>, and <i>The Khāndesh Bhīl 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 Rājpūt 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>Rājasthān</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>Rājasthān</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 Marāthas</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>Rājasthān</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 Bhīls, 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>Hyderābād 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 Khāndesh Bhīl 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>Rāsmāla</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. Bhīl. +</p> +<p class="footnote"><span class="label"><a id="d0e7852" href="#d0e7852src" class="noteref">18</a></span> <i>An Account of the Bhīls</i>, p. 369. +</p> +<p class="footnote"><span class="label"><a id="d0e7868" href="#d0e7868src" class="noteref">19</a></span> <i>The Khāndesh Bhīl 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 Gujarāt</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 Gujarāt</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 Bhīls</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 Mewār Bhīls</i>, pp. 357, 358. +</p> +<p class="footnote"><span class="label"><a id="d0e8035" href="#d0e8035src" class="noteref">36</a></span> Forbes, <i>Rāsmāla</i>, i. p. 113. +</p> +<p class="footnote"><span class="label"><a id="d0e8048" href="#d0e8048src" class="noteref">37</a></span> <i>Nimār 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. 6–9. +</p> +</div> +</div> +<div id="d0e8064" class="div1"><span class="pagenum"> +[<a href="#d0e111">Contents</a>] +</span><h2>Bhilāla</h2> +<div class="div2" id="d0e8067"> +<h3>1. General notice.</h3> +<p><b>Bhilāla</b>,<a id="d0e8074src" href="#d0e8074" class="noteref">1</a>—A small caste found in the Nimār and Hoshangābād Districts of the Central Provinces and in Central India. The total strength +of the Bhilālas is about 150,000 persons, most of whom reside in the Bhopāwār Agency, adjoining Nimār. Only 15,000 were returned +from the Central Provinces in 1911. The Bhilālas 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 Rājpūts with the Bhīls of the Central India hills. +The original term was not improbably Bhīlwāla, and may have been applied to those Rājpūt chiefs, a numerous body, who acquired +small estates in the Bhīl country, or to those who took the daughters of Bhīl 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 Bhilāla families hold estates in Nimār and Indore, and their chiefs now +claim to be pure Rājpūts. The principal Bhilāla houses, as those of Bhāmgarh, Selāni and Mandhāta, do not intermarry with +the rest of the caste, but only among themselves and with other families of the same standing in Mālwa and Holkar’s Nimār. +On succession to the <i>Gaddi</i> or headship of the house, representatives of these families are marked with a <i>tīka</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. Bhilāla landholders usually have the title of Rao or Rāwat. They do not admit that a Bhilāla can now spring +from intermarriage between a Rājpūt and a Bhīl. The local Brāhmans will take water from them and they are occasionally invested +with the sacred thread at the time of marriage. The Bhilāla Rao of Mandhāta is hereditary custodian of the great shrine of +Siva at Onkār Mandhāta on an island in the Nerbudda. According to the traditions of the family, their ancestor, Bhārat Singh, +was a Chauhān Rājpūt, who took Mandhāta from Nāthu Bhīl 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, +Kāli and Bhairava, devourers of human flesh. In such legends may be recognised the propagation of Hinduism by the Rājpūt adventurers +and the reconsecration of the aboriginal shrines to its deities. Bhārat Singh is said to have killed Nāthu Bhīl, but it is +more probable that he only married his daughter and founded a Bhilāla family. Similar alliances have taken place among other +tribes, as the Korku chiefs of the Gāwilgarh and Mahādeo hills, and the Gond princes of Garha Mandla. The Bhilālas generally +resemble other Hindus in appearance, showing no marked signs of aboriginal descent. Very probably they have all an infusion +of Rājpūt blood, as the Rājpūts settled in the Bhīl 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 Gūjar; 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 Bhilālas, 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 Jāmra +<i>kuri</i> will not cut or burn the <i>jāmun</i><a id="d0e8109src" href="#d0e8109" class="noteref">2</a> tree; those of the Saniyār <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 Pipalādya, the <i>pīpal</i> tree. Some of the <i>kuris</i> have Rājpūt 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 Bhilālas 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 Allahābād. 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 +Bhilālās have, Mr. Korke states, a simple form of wedding which may be gone through without consulting a Brāhman on the Ekādashi +or eleventh of Kārtik (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 juāri, 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’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 Nimāri Brāhmans as their priests, and also +have <i>gurus</i> or spiritual preceptors, who are Gosains or Bairāgis. They will take food cooked with water from Brāhmans, Rājpūts, Munda +Gūjars and Tirole Kunbis. The last two groups are principal agricultural castes of the locality and the Bhilālas are probably +employed by them as farmservants, and hence accept cooked food from their masters in accordance with a common custom. The +local Brāhmans of the Nāgar, Nāramdeo, Baīsa and other subcastes will take water from the hand of a Bhilāla. 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 Chamār (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 Nimār. 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 Kotwāl 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 Bhilāla also usually held the office of Mānkar, a superior +kind of Kotwār or village watchman. The Mānkar 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 Mānkar, who was frequently also known as zamīndār. This may have been a recognition +of the ancient rights of the Bhilālas and Bhīls to the country. + + +</p> +</div> +<div class="div2" id="d0e8157"> +<h3>5. Character.</h3> +<p>Captain Forsyth, Settlement Officer of Nimār, had a very unfavourable opinion of the Bhilālas, 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 Bhilāla’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 Bhilālas: “The Bhilāla and Lundi chiefs were the only robbers +in Mālwa whom under no circumstances travellers could trust. There are oaths of a sacred but obscure kind among those that +are Rājpūts 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 Bhilāla, 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 Rājpūt +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 Nowlāna, a Khīchi Rājpūt, and several others in the vicinity cultivated the friendship of Nādir, the late +formidable Bhilāla robber-chief of the Vindhya range; and among other sacrifices made by the Rājpūts, 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 Nādir was elevated.”<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’s <i>Nimār 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’s <i>Nimār 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>—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 Brāhman, Samri Chauhān, 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 Nikāh, but a Brāhman 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 Vakīl 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 Kāzi. 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>, ‘paradise,’ 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 Pakhāli, 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.<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 ’e wore +</span></p> +<p class="line" style=""><span>Was nothin’ much before, +</span></p> +<p class="line" style=""><span>An’ rather less than ’arf o’ that be’ind, +</span></p> +<p class="line" style=""><span>For a piece o’ twisty rag +</span></p> +<p class="line" style=""><span>An’ a goatskin water-bag +</span></p> +<p class="line" style=""><span>Was all the field-equipment ’e could find.</span></p> +</div> +</div> +<div class="poem"> +<div class="stanza"> +<p class="line" style=""><span>With ’is mussick on ’is back, +</span></p> +<p class="line" style=""><span>’E would skip with our attack, +</span></p> +<p class="line" style=""><span>An’ watch us till the bugles made ‘Retire,’ +</span></p> +<p class="line" style=""><span>An’ for all ’is dirty ’ide +</span></p> +<p class="line" style=""><span>’E was white, clear white, inside +</span></p> +<p class="line" style=""><span>When ’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’s <i>Behind the Bungalow</i>,<a id="d0e8253src" href="#d0e8253" class="noteref">5</a> 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 <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 pāni</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>bājri</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.” 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’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’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’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>, ‘Gunga Din.’ +</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, Mahājan and Patel).—A cultivating caste numbering nearly 60,000 persons in 1911, and residing principally +in the Betūl and Chhīndwāra Districts. The Bhoyars are not found outside the Central Provinces. They claim to be the descendants +of a band of Panwār Rājpūts, who were defending the town of Dhārānagri or Dhār in Central India when it was besieged by Aurāngzeb. +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 Rājpūts, and +fled to the Central Provinces. The name may also be a variant of that of the Bhagore Rājpūts. 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 Mālwi dialect of Rājputāna, which is called after them Bhoyari, and their Bhāts or genealogists come +from Mālwa. But they have now entirely lost their position as Rājpūts. + + +</p> +</div> +<div class="div2" id="d0e8291"> +<h3>2. Subcastes and sections.</h3> +<p>The Bhoyars are divided into the Panwāri, Dholewār, Chaurāsia and Daharia subcastes. The Panwārs are the most numerous and +the highest, as claiming to be directly descended from Panwār Rājpūts. They sometimes called themselves Jagdeo Panwārs, Jagdeo +being the name of the king under whom they served in Dhārānagri. The Dholewārs take their name from Dhola, a place in Mālwa, +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 +Mālwa Rājas in the fifteenth century, the Dholewārs being the earlier arrivals, and having from the first intermarried with +the local Dravidian tribes. The Daharias take their name from Dāhar, 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 Chaurāsias is probably derived from the Chaurāsi or tract +of eighty-four villages formerly held by the Betūl Korku family of Chāndu. 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 Onkār (the god Siva), Deshmukh and Chaudhari, headman, Hazāri (a leader of 1000 horse), Gore (fair-coloured), +Dongardiya (a lamp on a hill), Pinjāra (a cotton-cleaner), Gādria (a shepherd), Khaparia (a tyler), Khawāsi (a barber), Chiknyā +(a sycophant), Kinkar (a slave), Dukhi (penurious), Suplya toplya (a basket and fan maker), Kasai (a butcher), Gohattya (a +cow-killer), and Kālebhūt (black devil). Among the territorial sections may be mentioned Sonpūria, from Sonpur, <a id="d0e8302"></a><span class="pagenum">[<a href="#d0e8302">302</a>]</span>and Pathāria, from the hill country. The name Badnagrya is also really territorial, being derived from the town of Badnāgar, +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 Bāranga and Baignya, derived +from the <i>bārang</i> plant (<i>Kydia calycina</i>) and from the brinjal respectively. Some sections have the names of Rājpūt septs, as Chauhān, Parihār and Panwār. This curiously +mixed list of family names appears to indicate that the Bhoyars originate from a small band of Rājpūts 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’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>ghī</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’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>bhānwar</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 Dholewārs +do not perform the <i>bhānwar</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 Brāhman and merely get some rice and juāri 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 Baisākh +(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 Betūl 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 Dholewārs 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 Mahār 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 Brāhmans, but no caste higher than Kunbis and Mālis 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>sāris</i> or cloths folding between the legs; they also must not wear toe-rings. Women of the Panwār 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. Pāndurang Lakshman Bākre, pleader, Betūl, and Munshi Pyāre Lāl, 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. Chhattīsgarh 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, Bhuinhār, Bhumia.</b><a id="d0e8427src" href="#d0e8427" class="noteref">1</a>—The name of a very important tribe of Chota Nāgpur, Bengal and Orissa. The Bhuiyas numbered more than 22,000 persons in the +Central Provinces in 1911, being mainly found in the Sargūja and Jashpur States. In Bengal and Bihār the Bhuiyas proper count +about half a million persons, while the Mūsahar and Khandait castes, both of whom are mainly derived from the Bhuiyas, total +together well over a million. + +</p> +<p>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 zamīndār. +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 <a id="d0e8438"></a><span class="pagenum">[<a href="#d0e8438">306</a>]</span>parts of Chota Nāgpur,” 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.” + +</p> +<p>We further find in Bengal and Benares a caste of landholders known as Bhuinhār or Bābhan, who are generally considered as +a somewhat mixed and inferior group of Brāhman and Rājpūt origin. Both Sir H. Risley and Mr. Crooke adopt this view and deny +any connection between the Bhuinhārs and the Bhuiya tribes. Bābhan appears to be a corrupt form of Brāhman. Mr. Mazumdār, +however, states that Bhuiya is never used in Bengali as an equivalent for zamīndār or landholder, and he considers that the +Bhuinhārs and also the Bārah 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 <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 Nāgpur. I am unable to express any opinion on +Mr. Mazumdār’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 Nāgpur plateau, comprised in the Gāngpur, Bonai, Keonjhar +and Bāmra States. “The chiefs of these States,” Colonel Dalton says, “now call themselves Rājpūts; if they be so, they are +strangely isolated families of Rājpūts. 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 Rājpūts +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 Rājpūts.” Members of the tribe are the household servants of +the Bāmra Rāja’s family, and it is said that the first Rāja of Bāmra was a child of the Patna house, who was stolen from his +home and anointed king of Bāmra by the Bhuiyas and Khonds. Similarly Colonel Dalton records the legend that the Bhuiyas twenty-seven +generations ago stole a child of the Moharbhanj Rāja’s family, brought it up amongst them and made it their Rāja. He was freely +admitted to intercourse with Bhuiya girls, and the children of this intimacy are the progenitors of the Rājkuli branch of +the tribe. But they are not considered first among Bhuiyas because they are not of pure Bhuiya descent. Again the Rāja of +Keonjhar is always installed by the Bhuiyas. These facts indicate that the Bhuiyas were once the rulers of Chota Nāgpur and +are recognised as the oldest inhabitants of the country. From this centre they have spread north through Lohardaga and Hazāribāgh +and into southern Bihār, where large numbers of Bhuiyas are encountered on whom the opprobrious designation of Mūsahar or +‘rat-eater’ has been conferred by their Hindu neighbours. Others of the tribe who travelled south from Chota Nāgpur 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 Rājpūt.” + + +</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 Bihār, Chota Nāgpur 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 Bihār, 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 Chamārs of northern +India and the Mahārs of the Marātha Districts. Where the Hindu immigration has only been partial and the forests have not +been cleared, as in Chota Nāgpur 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 Binjhwārs +of Chhattīsgarh and the Bhilālas of Nimār 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> “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 <i>Linguistic Survey</i> that the Savars have a Munda dialect. In Chota Nāgpur this has been forgotten, and the tribe speak Hindi or Uriya like the +Bhuiyas, but it remains in the hilly tracts of Ganjām and <a id="d0e8475"></a><span class="pagenum">[<a href="#d0e8475">309</a>]</span>Vizagapatām.<a id="d0e8477src" href="#d0e8477" class="noteref">3</a> Savara is closely related to Kharia and Juāng, 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 Nāgpur, +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. Mazumdār 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 Mundāri. The Bhuiyas who live in and around the District of Mānbhūm +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 Nāgpur 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 Nāgpur 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 Nāgpur 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 Nāgpur 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>“It is strange that these Hinduised Bhuiyas retain in their own hands the priestly duties of certain old shrines to the exclusion +of Brāhmans. This custom has no doubt descended in Bhuiya families from the time when Brāhmans 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 Juāngs the claim to be the first settlers in Keonjhar, and boldly +aver that the country belongs to them. They assert that the Rāja is of their creation and that the prerogative of installing +every new Rāja 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 Brāhmans and +Rājpūts respectfully acknowledge it, and the former by the addition of Brāhmanical 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 Nāgpur and that they are a Kolarian tribe. + + +</p> +</div> +<div class="div2" id="d0e8495"> +<h3>5. The Baigas and the Bhuiyas. Chhattīsgarh 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 Bālāghāt, it seems likely that these Districts were +not their original home, and that they emigrated from Chhattīsgarh into the Satpūra hills on the western borders of the plain. +The hill country of Mandla and the Maikal range of Bālāghāt 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 +Chhattīsgarh. 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 Chhattīsgarh plain and the hills north and east of it. The Bhaina, Bhunjia and Binjhwār 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 Bilāspur are attributed to the Bhainas and a chief of this tribe is remembered as having ruled in Bilaigarh +south of the Mahānadi. 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 Binjhwārs or Binjhāls again are an aristocratic subdivision of the Baigas, +belonging to the hills east of Chhattīsgarh and the Uriya plain country of Sambalpur beyond them. The zamīndārs of Bodāsāmar, +Rāmpur, Bhatgaon and other estates to the south and east of the Chhattīsgarh plain are members of this tribe. Both the Bhainas +and Binjhwārs 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 Bālāghāt is a form of Chhattīsgarhi, and this is fairly conclusive evidence of their first having belonged to +Chhattīsgarh.<a id="d0e8502src" href="#d0e8502" class="noteref">6</a> It seems not unlikely that the Baigas retreated into the hills round Chhattīsgarh after the Hindu invasion and establishment +of the Haihaya Rājpūt 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 Nāgpur plain before the Hindus several centuries later. Sir H. Risley states that +the Binjhias or Binjhwārs of Chota Nāgpur 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 Chhattīsgarh plain and the hills north and east of it are adjacent to and belong to the same tract of country as the +Chota Nāgpur 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 Khairwār tribe in Chota Nāgpur, 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 Khairwār that that tribe are a mongrel offshoot of the Santāls and +Cheros, but the point to be noticed here is the use of the term Baiga in Chota Nāgpur 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 Nāgpur 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 Mīrzāpur whom +he calls the Bhuiyas and Bhuiyārs. The Bhuiyas of Mīrzāpur seem to be clearly a branch of the Bhuiya tribe of Chota Nāgpur, +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 Bhuiyārs with whom they are doubtless +very closely connected.<a id="d0e8523src" href="#d0e8523" class="noteref">9</a> Of the Bhuiyārs<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 “Most Bhuiyārs 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.”<a id="d0e8533src" href="#d0e8533" class="noteref">11</a> It seems not unlikely that these Bhuiyārs are the Baigas of the Central Provinces and that they went to Mīrzāpur 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 Nāgpur. 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 <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 Garhjāt 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 Nāgpur as follows:<a id="d0e8543src" href="#d0e8543" class="noteref">13</a> “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 Rīna 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 Rīna 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 Rīna dances, but admit that they are derived from the Baigas. Another point of some importance is that the +Bhuiyas of Chota Nāgpur 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>Nāgpur, 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 +Bālāghāt having a strong Gond element. + + +</p> +</div> +<div class="div2" id="d0e8551"> +<h3>7. Tribal sub-divisions.</h3> +<p>In Singhbhūm the Bhuiyas call themselves <i>Pāwan-bans</i> or ‘The Children of the Wind,’ and in connection with Hanumān’s title of <i>Pāwan-ka-pūt</i> or ‘The Son of the Wind,’ are held to be the veritable apes of the Rāmāyana who, under the leadership of Hanumān, the monkey-god, +assisted the Aryan hero Rāma on his expedition to Ceylon. This may be compared with the name given to the Gonds of the Central +Provinces of Rāwanbansi, or descendants of Rāwan, the idea being that their ancestors were the subjects of Rāwan, the demon +king of Ceylon, who was conquered by Rāma. “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 Mahatwār subtribe of the Bhuiyas in the Central Provinces are named after this hero Rikhmun; the designation +of Mahatwār signifies that they are the Mahtos or leaders of the Bhuiyas. The Khandaits or Pāiks 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 Pābudia or Mādhai 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: “They are not bound to fight for the Rāja, +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 <i>Gānthi</i>. The Pābudias 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, Bāmra, Palahāra and Bonai. Any Pābudia 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 Pābudia 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 Kāti or Khatti and the Bāthudia, 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. Mazumdār states, all Bhuiyas are divided into the +following twelve septs: Thākur, or the clan of royal blood; Saont, from <i>sāmanta</i>, a viceroy; Padhān, a village headman; Nāik, a military leader; Kālo, a wizard or priest; Dehri, also a priest; Chatria, +one who carried the royal umbrella; Sāhu, a moneylender; Mājhi, a headman; Behra, manager of the household; Amāta, 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 Pābudias 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 Dhāngarbāsa, <i>dhāngar</i> meaning a farmservant or young man, or Māndarghar, the house of the drums, because these instruments are kept in it. “Some +villages,” Colonel Dalton states, “have a Dhāngaria bāsa, 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. + +</p> +<p>Among the Pābudia 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’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. + + +</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’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 Kārtik (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 Pābudia +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 <i>ghī</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, “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.” 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 Bāmra 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 Rāja in return for acting as luggage porters and coolies. In Bāmra 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, Gānda 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’s <i>Ethnology of Bengal</i> and Sir H. Risley’s <i>Tribes and Castes of Bengal</i>; a monograph has also been furnished by Mr. B. C. Mazumdār, pleader, Sambalpur, and papers by Mr. A. B. Napier, Deputy Commissioner, +Raipur, and Mr. Hīra Lāl. +</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 Binjhwār, it was supposed that the Baigas migrated east from the Satpūra hills into Chhattīsgarh. 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. Bhuiyār, 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’s Bhuiyārs 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. Mazumdār’s monograph. +</p> +<p class="footnote"><span class="label"><a id="d0e8597" href="#d0e8597src" class="noteref">16</a></span> From Mr. Mazumdār’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>—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 Chauhān Rāja 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 +Chhattīsgarh have a subcaste called Bhoriya, and possibly the Bhulias have some connection with these. The caste sometimes +call themselves Devāng, and Devāng or Devāngan is the name of another subcaste of Koshtis. Various local derivations of the +name are current, generally connecting it with <i>bhūlna</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: “Formerly a son was born from +a Chandāl 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 Gānda.” The object here is obviously to relegate the Bhulia +to the same impure status as the Gānda. 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. + +</p> +<p>The caste have no subcastes, except that in Kālāhandi a degraded section is recognised who are called Sānpāra 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>, Nāgas 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, Bāgh (tiger) and Kimir (crocodile), are +totemistic, while two more, Kumhār (potter) and Dhuba (washerman), are the names of other castes. Examples of titular names +are Bānkra (crooked), <a id="d0e8676"></a><span class="pagenum">[<a href="#d0e8676">321</a>]</span>Ranjūjha (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>sān</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’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 Rāja 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 Rāja’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 <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 Brāhmans 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, <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”; 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.” + + +</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. Hīra Lāl 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>—A small Dravidian tribe residing in the Bindrānawāgarh and Khariār zamīndāris 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 zamīndāri of Vizagapatam, which touches the extreme south of Bindrānawāgarh. 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 +Bāchar 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 Bāchar, 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 <a id="d0e8710"></a><span class="pagenum">[<a href="#d0e8710">323</a>]</span>Chhattīsgarhi 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>Johār, johār Thākur Deota, Tumko lāgon, +</span></p> +<p class="line" style=""><span>Do matia ghar men dīne tumhāre nām. +</span></p> +<p class="line" style=""><span>Johār, johār Konda, Tumko lāgon, +</span></p> +<p class="line" style=""><span>Do matia ghar men, etc. +</span></p> +<p class="line" style=""><span>Johār, johār Bāchar Jhākar Tumko lāgon, etc. +</span></p> +<p class="line" style=""><span>Johār, johār Būdha Rāja Tumko lāgon, etc. +</span></p> +<p class="line" style=""><span>Johār, johār Lafandi Māti Tumko lāgon, etc. +</span></p> +<p class="line" style=""><span>Johār, johār Ānand Māti Tumko lāgon, 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 Thākur 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 Pujāri, 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 Bāchar Jhākar! +</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 Būdha Rāja! +</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. Thākur Deo is the title given to the divine stone, Konda is the Halba priest, +and Bāchar the Gond who cast the net. Būdha Rāja, otherwise Singh Sei, is the Chief who was ruling in Bindrānawāgarh at the +time, Lafandi the village where Konda Halba was found, and the Ānand Māti 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 “A form of Chhattīsgarhi which is practically +the same as Baigāni. It is a jargon spoken by Binjhwārs, Bhumias and Bhunjias of Raipur, Raigarh, Sārangarh and Patna in the +Central Provinces.”<a id="d0e8760src" href="#d0e8760" class="noteref">2</a> The Binjhwārs also belong to the country of the Bhunjias, and one or two estates close to Bindrānawāgarh are held by members +of this tribe. The Chinda division of the Bhunjias have a saying about themselves: ‘<i>Chinda Rāja, Bhunjia Pāik’</i>; and they say that there was originally a Kamār ruler of Bindrānawāgarh who was dispossessed by Chinda. The Kamārs are a +small and very primitive tribe of the same locality. <i>Pāik</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>bhūm</i>, the earth, and <i>jia</i>, dependent on. The word <i>Birjia</i>, a synonym for Binjhwār, 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 Binjhwār<a id="d0e8787src" href="#d0e8787" class="noteref">3</a> as synonymous terms, and Bhunjia may be another corruption of the same sort. The Binjhwārs are a Hinduised offshoot of the +ancient Baiga tribe, who may probably have been in possession of the hills bordering the Chhattīsgarh plain as well as of +the Satpūra 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 Binjhwārs, 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’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. + + +</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 ‘Kānd Byāh’ 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, <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’s behalf by two men who are known as Mahālia and +Jangālia, and are supposed to represent a Nai (barber) and Dhīmar (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 Mahālia and Jangālia 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 Dīnwāri, 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, <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’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. + + +</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 Māta, 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>pīdha</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> “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. + + +</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 Kamārs 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. Pyāre Lāl 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. Hīra Lāl, Mr. Gokul Prasād, Tahsīldār, Dhamtarī, Mr. Pyāre Lāl Misra of the Gazetteer +office, and Munshi Ganpati Giri, Superintendent, Bindrānawāgarh 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>Binjhwār</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>Binjhwār, Binjhāl.</b><a id="d0e8886src" href="#d0e8886" class="noteref">1</a>—A comparatively civilised Dravidian tribe, or caste formed from a tribe, found in the Raipur and Bilāspur Districts and the +adjoining Uriya country. In 1911 the Binjhwārs numbered 60,000 persons in the Central Provinces. There is little or no doubt +that the Binjhwārs are an offshoot of the primitive Baiga tribe of Mandla and Bālāghāt, who occupy the Satpūra or Maikal hills +to the north of the Chhattīsgarh plain. In these Districts a Binjhwār subdivision of the Baigas exists; it is the most civilised +and occupies the highest rank in the tribe. In Bhandāra is found the Injhwār caste who are boatmen and cultivators. This caste +is derived from the Binjhwār subdivision of the Baigas, and the name Injhwār is simply a corruption of Binjhwār. Neither the +Binjhwārs nor the Baigas are found except in the territories above mentioned, and it seems clear that the Binjhwārs 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 Rāj-Gonds among the Gonds and the Bhilālas among Bhīls. The zamīndārs of Bodāsāmar, Rāmpur, Bhatgāon +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 Binjhwār is derived from the +Vindhya hills, and the tribe still worship the goddess Vindhyabāsini of these hills as their tutelary deity. They say that +their ancestors migrated from Binjhakop to Lāmpa, which may be either Lāmta in Bālāghāt or Lāphāgarh in Bilāspur. 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>Bārah bhai betkār</i>, or the twelve Brother Archers. They were the sons of the goddess Vindhyabāsini. 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 Rāja of Patna, a Chauhān Rājpūt, had fled from northern India to Sambalpur after her husband and relations had been +killed in battle. She took refuge in a Binjhwār’s hut and bore a son who became Rāja of Patna; and in reward for the protection +afforded to his mother he gave the Binjhwār the Bodāsāmar estate, requiring only of him and his descendants the tribute of +a silk cloth on accession to the zamīndāri; and this has been rendered ever since by the zamīndārs of Bodāsāmar to the Rājas +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 Binjhwārs are called Bāriha from <i>bārāh</i>, a boar. As is only fitting, the Binjhwārs have taken the arrow as their tribal symbol or mark; their cattle are branded +with it, and illiterate Binjhwārs 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 Binjhwār 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 Binjhwārs proper, the Sonjharas, the Birjhias and the Binjhias. The Sonjharas consist +of those who took to washing for gold in the sands of the Mahānadi, and it may be noted that a separate caste of Sonjharas +is also in existence in this locality besides the Binjhwār 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 Binjhwār, but in Bilāspur it is sometimes regarded as a separate caste. The +zamīndār 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 Bāgh, a tiger; Pod, a buffalo; Kamalia, +the lotus flower; Panknāli, the water-crow; Tār, the date-palm; Jāl, a net, and others. Some of the sections are nicknames, +as Udhār, a debtor; Marai Meli Bāgh, one who carried a dead tiger; Ultum, a talker; Jālia, a liar; Kessal, one who has shaved +a man, and so on. Several are the names of other castes, as Lohār, Dūdh Kawaria, Bhīl, Bānka and Mājhi, indicating that members +of these castes have become Binjhwārs 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 Binjhwārs who are neighbours of the Gonds have Gond sept names, as Tekām, Sonwāni, 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 Chhattīsgarh. Even now if a woman of any caste from whom the Binjhwārs 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 Bārhias or landowning group have now adopted names of Sanskrit formation, as Gajendra, an elephant, +Rāmeswar, the god Rāma, and Nāgeshwar, the cobra deity. Two of their septs are named Lohār (blacksmith) <a id="d0e8918"></a><span class="pagenum">[<a href="#d0e8918">332</a>]</span>and Kumhār (potter), and may be derived from members of these castes who became Binjhwārs or from Binjhwārs who took up the +occupations. At a Binjhwār wedding the presence of a person belonging to each of the Lohār and Kumhār septs is essential, +the reason being probably the estimation in which the two handicrafts were held when the Binjhwārs 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’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’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 Pūs (December) because it is the last +month of the year among the Binjhwārs. 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 Gandsān 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 sāmbhar 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. + + +</p> +</div> +<div class="div2" id="d0e8935"> +<h3>5. Sexual morality.</h3> +<p>If a Binjhwār 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 Binjhwār +zamīndār marries a new wife, who is known as Pāt Rāni, 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 Binjhwār 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 Bodāsāmar a fine of from one to ten rupees is payable to the zamīndār 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 Khārpāni 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 Badāpāni or ‘Great Water.’ On this occasion the <i lang="und">jīva</i> or soul is worshipped with greater pomp. Except in the case of wicked souls, who are supposed to become malignant ghosts, +the Binjhwārs do not seem to have any definite belief in a future life. They say, ‘<i lang="und">Je maris te saris</i>,’ or ‘That which is dead is rotten and gone.’ + + +</p> +</div> +<div class="div2" id="d0e8955"> +<h3>7. Religion.</h3> +<p>The tribe worship the common village deities of Chhattīsgarh, 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 +Vindhyabāsini is carried in procession from village to village. Mr. Miān Bhai gives the following list of precepts as forming +the Binjhwār’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 <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 Bairāgis, very little better than impostors. When a boy or girl +grows up the Bairāgi 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 Bhādon (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 Gānda 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 Binjhwārs 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 Binjhwār +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 Binjhwār 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 <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 Binjhwārs are usually cultivators and labourers, while, as already stated, several zamīndāri and other +estates are owned by members of the tribe. Binjhwārs also commonly hold the office of Jhānkar or priest of the village gods +in the Sambalpur District, as the Baigas do in Mandla and Bālāghāt. In Sambalpur the Jhānkar 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 Jhānkar 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. Miān 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 Jhāmbāji.</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>—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 Hoshangābād +District. The best description of the sect is contained in Mr. Wilson’s <i>Sirsa Settlement Report</i> (quoted in Sir E. Maclagan’s <i>Census Report of the Punjab</i> for 1891), from which the following details are taken: “The name Bishnoi means a worshipper of Vishnu. The founder of the +sect was a Panwār Rājpūt named Jhāmbāji, 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 Fakīr. After nine months Jhāmbāji 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 Brāhman was sent for to get him to speak, and on confessing his failure, Jhāmbāji +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 Jhāmbāji 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 Jhāmbāji 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 Jhāmbāji.</h3> +<p>“The sayings (<i>shabd</i>) of Jhāmbāji, 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 Nāgari character, and in a Hindu dialect similar to Bāgri and therefore probably a dialect of Rājasthāni. +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, <i>bhāng</i> and blue clothing. Flee from spirits and flesh. See that your goats are kept alive (not sold to Musalmāns, 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.’<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>“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 Musalmān 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 (Amāwas) 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 ‘Rām! Rām.’ Their clothing is the same as that of other Bāgris, 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.” + + +</p> +</div> +<div class="div2" id="d0e9100"> +<h3>4. Initiation and baptism.</h3> +<p>The ceremony of initiation is as follows: “A number of representative Bishnois assemble, and before them a Sādh 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 gāyatri</i>), stirring it the while with his string of beads (<i>māla</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’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’s death. Infant baptism is also practised, and thirty +days after birth the child, whether boy or girl, is baptised by the priest (Sādh) 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 (<i>sūtak</i>). + +</p> +<p>“The Bishnois do not revere Brāhmans, but have priests of their own known as Sādh, who are chosen from among the laity. The +priests are a hereditary class, and do not intermarry with other Bishnois, from whom, like Brāhmans, 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 Jhāmbāji 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 Prahlād 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 Prahlād’s sufferings, they light a sacrificial fire and partake +of consecrated water, and after distributing sugar (<i>gur</i>) in commemoration of Prahlād’s delivery from the fire into which he was thrown, they break their fast.” + + +</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 Jhāmbāji 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 Brāhmans 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 Kabīr and +other reformers, who went outside Hinduism altogether, preaching a monotheistic faith with one unseen and nameless deity. +The case of the Mānbhaos, whose unknown founder made Krishna the one god, discarding the Vedas and the rest of Hinduism, is +analogous to Jhāmbāji’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 Jhāmbāji added that of all kinds +of drugs. His mind, like those of Kabīr and Nānak, was probably influenced by the spectacle of the comparatively liberal creed +of Islām, 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>Salām alaikum</i>, and the title of Shaikhji. They account for this by saying they murdered a Muhammadan Kāzi, who prevented them from burning +a widow, and were glad to compound the offence by pretending to adopt Islām. 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 Brāhman, Bania, Jāt, Sunār, Ahīr 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 Jāts 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 Ahīr,<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>mésalliance</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, “Every day is as +good as Sankrānt,<a id="d0e9156src" href="#d0e9156" class="noteref">4</a> every day is as good as Amāwas.<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.” + + +</p> +</div> +<div class="div2" id="d0e9162"> +<h3>7. Marriage.</h3> +<p>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 <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 (Sādh) 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’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 Panwār Rājpūts 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 Jhāmbāji 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 Amāwas 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 Brāhman 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 Brāhmans to read the Satya Nārāyan 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’s account of the Bishnois as reproduced in Mr. Crooke’s <i>Tribes and Castes</i>, and from notes taken by Mr. Adurām Chaudhri in the Hoshangābād 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>bhāng</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 Ahīr 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>—A Muhammadan caste of traders who come from Gujarāt and speak Gujarāti. At the last census they numbered nearly 5000 persons, +residing principally in the Nimār, Nāgpur and Amraoti Districts, Burhānpur being the headquarters of the sect in the Central +Provinces. The name is probably derived from the Hindi <i>byohāra</i>, a trader. Members of the caste are honorifically addressed as Mullāji. According to the received account of the rise of +the Bohras in Gujarāt a missionary, Abdulla, came from Yemen to Cambay in <span class="smallcaps">A.D.</span> 1067. By his miracles he converted the great king Sidhrāj of Anhilvāda Pātan in Gujarāt, 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 Shāh’s +power (<span class="smallcaps">A.D.</span> 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 Gujarāt, 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 Imām, Jāfar Sādik, in <span class="smallcaps">A.D.</span> 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 Imāms, the last +of whom is still to come. The Ismailias again divided on a similar dispute as to the succession to the Khalīfa Almustansir +Billah by his eldest son Nazār or his younger son Almustaāli. The Bohras are descended from the Mustaālians or supporters +of the younger son and the Khojas from the Nazārians 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 Burhānpur (Nimār)." width="720" height="399"><p class="figureHead">Group of Bohras at Burhānpur (Nimār).</p> +</div><p> + + + +</p> +</div> +<div class="div2" id="d0e9267"> +<h3>2. Their religious tenets.</h3> +<p>Gujarāt 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 Gujarāt 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 Dāudi +are the principal. + +</p> +<p>Mr. Farīdi writes of them:<a id="d0e9274src" href="#d0e9274" class="noteref">3</a> “They are attentive to their religious duties, both men and women knowing the Korān. 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 Imāms, and when through the Imāms +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’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’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. + + +</p> +</div> +<div class="div2" id="d0e9287"> +<h3>3. The Mullahs.</h3> +<p>“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 ‘Be seated,’ to others ‘Stand.’ Once a year, on the 18th Rajjab, every Dāudi 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. + + +</p> +</div> +<div class="div2" id="d0e9300"> +<h3>4. Bohra graveyards.</h3> +<p>The Sahadra or burial-place of the Bohras at Burhānpur contains the tombs of three of the Surat Mullahs who happened to die +when they were at Burhānpur. 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>“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>chirāgh takia</i> or lamp-socket, cut out of the north face, just like the cavity for the inscription of our own tombs.” + + +</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> “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.” + +</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 Chamār, 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 Ramazān 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 Ramazān, 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.” + +</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’s hands, of which +Mr. Farīdi 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. + + +</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 Nimār 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:<a id="d0e9343src" href="#d0e9343" class="noteref">7</a> “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.”<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> “I visited several of the houses of this tribe at Shāhjahānpur, 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. + + + +<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. Farīdi’s full description of the sect in the <i>Bombay Gazetteer, Muhammadans of Gujarāt</i>, and on a paper by Mr. Habib Ullah, pleader, Burhānpur. +</p> +<p class="footnote"><span class="label"><a id="d0e9258" href="#d0e9258src" class="noteref">2</a></span> <i>Bombay Gazetteer, Muhammadans of Gujarāt</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. 30–32. +</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’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’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>Brāhman<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>panchāyat</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 Brāhmans.</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>panchāyat</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 Brāhmans.</a></li> +</ul> +<div class="div2" id="d0e9536"> +<h3>1. Origin and development of the caste.</h3> +<p><b>Brāhman, Bāman.</b>—The well-known priestly caste of India and the first of the four traditional castes of the Hindu scriptures. In 1911 the +Brāhmans numbered about 450,000 persons in the Central Provinces and Berār, 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 4½ 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 Brāhman 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. +Brāhmana, 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> “The best modern opinion seems disposed to find the germ of the Brāhman 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 <i>purohits</i> or family priests, formerly optional, now became a sacred duty if the sacrifices were not to fall into disuse. The Brāhman +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 <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 Brāhman who was not the son of a Brāhman. 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 Pārsis 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 Brāhman and Rājpūt castes, though of a less stereotyped and primitive character. The rise of the Brāhman +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 Brāhman 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 Abbé Dubois:<a id="d0e9579src" href="#d0e9579" class="noteref">4</a> “To the Brāhmans 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 Brāhmans 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 Brāhmans 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 Brāhman 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. + +</p> +<p>But the Brāhmans 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 Kāyasths and the Banias. The Kāyasths, it has been suggested in the article on that caste, were +to a large extent the offspring and inmates of the households of Brāhmans, 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 Kāyasths subsequently became an educated caste in spite of their Brāhman 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 Brāhmans 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 Brāhmans 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 Brāhman 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 Benāres 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 Brāhmans 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 Brāhman 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 Brāhmans were in the habit of forming connections with the widows of Rājanyas 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 Brāhmans as well as Kshatriyas. The descendants of Garga, another +well-known eponymous ancestor, were Kshatriyas by birth but became Brāhmans. Visvāmitra was a Kshatriya, who, by the force +of his austerities, compelled Brahma to admit him into the Brāhmanical order, so that he might be on a level with Vasishtha +with whom he had quarrelled. According to a passage in the Mahābhārata all castes become Brāhmans 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 Brāhmans by Hindu Rājas. Sir J. Malcolm in Central India found +many low-caste female slaves in Brāhman 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 Brāhmans. Thus the Sāraswat Brāhmans +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 Brāhmans.<a id="d0e9619src" href="#d0e9619" class="noteref">8</a> + +</p> +<p>Similarly such groups as the Oswāl, Srimāl and Palliwāl Brāhmans of Rājputāna, who are priests of the subcastes of Banias +of the same name, may originally have been caste priests and become Brāhmans. The Nāramdeo Brāhmans, or those living on the +Nerbudda River, are said to be descendants of a Brāhman father by a woman of the Naoda or Dhīmar caste; and the Golapūrab +Brāhmans similarly of a Brāhman father and Ahīr mother. In many cases, such as the island of Onkar Mandhāta in the Nerbudda +in Nimār, and the Mahādeo 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 Brāhman 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 Brāhman caste has ten main territorial divisions, forming two groups, the Pānch-Gaur or five northern, and the Pānch-Drāvida +or five southern. The boundary line between the two groups is supposed to be the Nerbudda River, which is also the boundary +between Hindustān and the Deccan. But the Gujarāti Brāhmans belong to the southern group, though Gujarāt is north of the Nerbudda. +The five northern divisions are: + +</p> +<p>(<i>a</i>) <i>Sāraswat.</i>—These belong to the Punjab and are named after the Sāraswati river of the classical period, on whose banks they are supposed +to have lived. + +</p> +<p>(<i>b</i>) <i>Gaur.</i>—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 +Brāhmans.<a id="d0e9649src" href="#d0e9649" class="noteref">9</a> + +</p> +<p>(<i>c</i>) <i>Kānkubja or Kanaujia.</i>—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 Benāres and into the northern Districts of +the Central Provinces. Here they are subdivided into four principal groups—the Kanaujia, Jijhotia, Sarwaria and Sanādhya, +which are treated in annexed subordinate articles. + +</p> +<p>(<i>d</i>) <i>Maithil.</i>—They take their name from Mithila, the old term for Bihār or Tirhūt, and belong to this tract. + +</p> +<p>(<i>e</i>) <i>Utkal.</i>—These are the Brāhmans of Orissa. + +</p> +<p>The five groups of the Pānch-Drāvida are as follows: + +</p> +<p>(<i>a</i>) <i>Maharāshtra.</i>—These belong to the Marātha 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 Ghāts; 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 Karhāra, named after a place in the Satāra District.<a id="d0e9688src" href="#d0e9688" class="noteref">10</a> + +</p> +<p>(<i>b</i>) <i>Tailanga or Andhra.</i>—The Brāhmans of the Telugu country, Hyderābād 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>Drāvida.</i>—The Brāhmans of the Tamil country or the south of Madras. + +</p> +<p>(<i>d</i>) <i>Karnāta.</i>—The Brāhmans 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>—The Brāhmans of Gujarāt, of whom two subcastes are found in the Central Provinces. The first consists of the Khedāwāls, named +after Kheda, a village in Gujarāt, who are a strictly orthodox class holding a good position in the caste. And the second +are the Nāgar Brāhmans, who have been long settled in Nimār 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 Brāhmans. 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 Chhattīsgarhi Brāhmans, +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 Mālwi Brāhmans, whose home is in Mālwa, whence they have spread to Hoshangābād 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 Marātha Brāhmans. Mandla contains a colony +of Sarwaria<a id="d0e9727src" href="#d0e9727" class="noteref">11</a> Brāhmans 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 Brāhmans of Saugor are believed to have immigrated from +Hariāna some generations ago and form a separate local group; and also the Laheria Brāhmans of the same District, who, like +the Mandla Sarwarias, permit widows to marry. In Hoshangābād there is a small subcaste of Bawīsa or ‘Twenty-two’ Brāhmans, +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 Brāhmans of Bengal are also mainly of the Kanaujia division, but they +are divided into several local subcastes, of which the principal are Rārhi 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 Brāhmans 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 Gayawāls of Gaya, the Prayāgwāls of Allahābād (Prayāg), the Chaubes of Mathura, the Gangapūtras (Sons +of the Ganges) of Benāres, the Pandarāms of southern India and the Nāramdeo Brāhmans 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 Brāhmans 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 Brindāban, the holy places of the god Krishna. They are strong and finely built men, but gluttonous, idle and dissolute. +Some of the Benāres Brāhmans are known as Sawalākhi, or having one and a quarter lakhs, apparently on account of the wealth +they amass from pilgrims. A much lower group are the Mahā-Brāhmans (great Brāhmans), who are also known as Patīt (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 Brāhmans are degraded on account of their having partly adopted Muhammadan practices. +The Husaini Brāhmans of western India are so called as they combine Muhammadan with Hindu rites. They are principally beggars. +And the Kalanki Brāhmans 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 Islām. + + +</p> +</div> +<div class="div2" id="d0e9737"> +<h3>7. Sectarian divisions.</h3> +<p>Brāhmans 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 Shākhas or branches, and the ordinary Brāhman only learns one Shākha of one Veda. Most +Brāhmans 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 Shākha, +so that a man can only marry in a family of the same Shākha <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 Shākhas or branches +called Kānnava, Apastambha and Mādhyandina. 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 Mādhyandina 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 Brāhmans, +and it is not known whether they would be endorsed by the Pandits. The Marātha Brāhmans of the Central Provinces are usually +Rigvedis and the Kanaujia Brāhmans Yajurvedis. Followers of the other two Vedas are practically not found. Among Kanaujia +Brāhmans 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 Brāhmans are also very complex. It is said that the Brāhmans 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 Brāhmans were Bhrigu, Angirasa, Marichi and Atri. But according to another account the ancestors of the Brāhmans were +the seven Rishis or saints who form the constellation of the Great Bear. These were Jamadagni, Bhāradwāj, Gautam, Kashyap, +Vasishtha, Agastya, Atri and Visvāmitra, 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 Brāhmans. 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 Brāhmans. The names of other important saints, after whom exogamous sections are most commonly +called, are Garg, Sandilya, Kaushik, Vatsya and Bhārgava. 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, Bhāradwāj 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: Pānde, a wise man; Dube, learned in two Vedas; Tiwāri, learned in three Vedas; Chaube, learned in four +Vedas; Sukul, white or pure; Upādhya, 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 Brāhman must not marry a girl of his mother’s or maternal grandfather’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’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 Brāhmans. 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 Brāhmans of eastern Bengal, as described by Sir H. Risley.<a id="d0e9794src" href="#d0e9794" class="noteref">12</a> Here the Brāhmans were divided by a Hindu king, Ballāl 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 <i>pān</i> or premium, which often reached the sum of two thousand rupees, Swābhava 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.” The wives were commonly left at +home to be supported by their parents, and it is said that when a Kulin Brāhman 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 +Ghātaks 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 Brāhmans. 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 Khedāwāls 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 Sātkul or seven families, and is the +highest. Other Kanaujias, who are known as Pachhādar, 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 Sunārs also have hypergamy and, as between different castes, it exists between the +Dāngis and Rājpūts, pure Rājpūts 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 Dāngis. + + +</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> “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 Brāhman 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-bharāna</i> 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 <a id="d0e9826"></a><span class="pagenum">[<a href="#d0e9826">367</a>]</span>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 Brāhmans, 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 <i>kusha</i> 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 Marātha Brāhmans 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 Brāhman’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 Marātha Brāhmans, when the bride arrives +at puberty a ceremony called Garhbhadān 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 pīpal-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 Brāhman 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 Brāhman +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 Brāhmans, 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 +(Sanskār) 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 Brāhmans 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 Brāhmans, 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 Marātha and Khedawāl Brāhmans 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’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. + + +</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’s ancestors, even from the guilt of killing a Brāhman, 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>“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 Brāhman 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.” + +</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>“At Gopālpur 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 Brāhmans +in the District, to suffer this old woman to burn herself with the remains of her husband, Umeid Singh Upādhya, 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: ‘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 <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, ‘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 <i>pān</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, +‘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.” + +</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’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 Brāhmans 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>shrāddh</i> ceremony, offering <i>pindas</i> or cakes of rice, with libations of water, to the dead. Presents are made to Brāhmans 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 Mahā-Brāhman, who is much despised. When a late zamīndār of Khariār died, Rs. 2000 were given to the Mahā-Brāhman +for the use of his soul in the next world. The funeral rites are performed by an ordinary Brāhman, 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 Brāhmans. 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 Brāhman. +It is believed that the <i>shrāddh</i> 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 <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’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 Brāhman 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 +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.<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 Brāhmans is Hinduism, of which they are the priests and exponents. Formerly the Brāhman 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 Brāhmans belong to a sect worshipping especially +Siva or Vishnu, or Rāma and Krishna, the incarnations of the latter god, or Sakti, the female principle of energy of Siva. +But as a rule Brāhmans, 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 Benāres Brāhman may be reproduced from M. André Chevrillon’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>“Here is the daily life of one of the twenty-five thousand Brāhmans of Benāres. 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 Brāhman 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 <i>mantra</i>, 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 <a id="d0e9968"></a><span class="pagenum">[<a href="#d0e9968">377</a>]</span>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. + +</p> +<p>“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 Brāhman 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 Narāyana, to Mādhava, to Govinda,’ and so on. + +</p> +<p>“The second rite is the exercise or ‘discipline’ 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’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: ‘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, +<a id="d0e9986"></a><span class="pagenum">[<a href="#d0e9986">378</a>]</span>‘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 <i>mantras</i>, 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. + +</p> +<p>“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 Brāhman, 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 Mādhava, the middle finger by Hrikesa, the third by Trivikama and the +little finger by Vishnu himself. ‘Homage to the two thumbs,’ says the Brāhman, ‘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 (<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>“The second part of the service is no less rich than the first in ablutions and <i>mantras</i>. The Brāhman invokes the <a id="d0e10004"></a><span class="pagenum">[<a href="#d0e10004">379</a>]</span>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 Mahābhārata, +the Purānas, 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>“First, placing his sacred cord upon the left shoulder, the Brāhman 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.’ + +</p> +<p>“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 Benāres 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 Brāhman, +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—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. + + +</p> +<div id="d0e10015" class="figure"><img border="0" src="images/p380.jpg" alt="Brāhman worshipping his household gods." width="720" height="527"><p class="figureHead">Brāhman worshipping his household gods.</p> +</div><p> + + +</p> +<p>“This is the daily cult of the Brāhman of Benāres, and on holidays it is still further complicated. Since the great epoch +of Brāhmanism 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.” + +</p> +<p>Secular Brāhmans 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>Brāhman 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 Brāhman, 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 Brāhman. 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 Brāhman, 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 <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 Brāhmans shave the boy’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 Benāres 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 +Brāhmanical text. The sacred thread is changed once a year on the day of Rakshabandhan; the Brāhman 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 Marātha districts. It is said that the Brāhmans 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 Brāhmans 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 Rājpūts. + + +</p> +</div> +<div class="div2" id="d0e10041"> +<h3>18. Social position.</h3> +<p>The Brāhman is of course supreme in Hindu society. He never bows his head in salutation to any one who is not a Brāhman, and +acknowledges with a benediction the greetings of all other classes. No member of another caste, Dr. Bhattachārya states, can, +consistently with Hindu etiquette and religious beliefs, refuse altogether to bow to a Brāhman. “The more orthodox Sūdras +carry their veneration for the priestly caste to such an extent that they will not cross the shadow of a Brāhman, and it is +not unusual for them to be under a vow not to eat any food in the morning before drinking Brāhman 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>Brāhman has been dipped. On the other hand, the pride of the Brāhman is such that he does not bow even to the images of the +gods in a Sūdra’s house. When a Brāhman invites a Sūdra the latter is usually asked to partake of the host’s <i>prasāda</i> or favour in the shape of the leavings of his plate. Orthodox Sūdras actually take offence if invited by the use of any other +formula. No Sūdra is allowed to eat in the same room or at the same time with Brāhmans.”<a id="d0e10055src" href="#d0e10055" class="noteref">23</a> + +</p> +<p>A man of low caste meeting a Brāhman says ‘Pailagi’ or ‘I fall at your feet,’ and touches the Brāhman’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.’ Brāhmans greeting each other clasp the hands and say ‘Salaam,’ this +method of greeting being known as Namaskar. Since most Brāhmans 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 Brāhman is, however, commonly addressed by other castes as Mahārāj, great king, or else as Pandit, a learned man. I had +a Brāhman chuprāssie, 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 Brāhmans are Dvija, or twice-born, that is, one who has had the thread ceremony performed; Bipra, applied to a Brāhman +learned in the Shāstras or scriptures; and Srotriya, a learned Brāhman who is engaged in the performance of Vedic rites. + + +</p> +</div> +<div class="div2" id="d0e10067"> +<h3>20. Caste <i>panchāyat</i> and offences. +</h3> +<p>The Brāhmans have a caste <i>panchāyat</i>, but among the educated classes the tendency is to drop the <i>panchāyat</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 Achārya 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 Brāhman, 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 Brāhman, 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 Sūdra 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. Brāhmans 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>ghī</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="Brāhman bathing party." width="720" height="418"><p class="figureHead">Brāhman bathing party.</p> +</div><p> + + + +</p> +</div> +<div class="div2" id="d0e10090"> +<h3>21. Rules about food.</h3> +<p>Brāhmans 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. Hindustāni Brāhmans 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. Brāhmans 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. Marātha Brāhmans 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 Brāhmans buy mutton from the butchers. A +Brāhman 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 Brāhman. A Brāhman 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 Brāhmans 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 Brāhman 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. Marātha and Khedawāl Brāhmans, however, as a rule do not smoke, but only chew tobacco. + + +</p> +</div> +<div class="div2" id="d0e10100"> +<h3>22. Dress.</h3> +<p>A Brāhman’s dress should be white, and he can have a coloured turban, preferably red. Marātha Brāhmans 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>Brāhman never entered a house with his shoes on, as he would consider the house to be defiled. According to the old rule, +if a Brāhman touches a man of an impure caste, as a Chamār (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 Brāhmans 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’s doll, a sieve, a pattern of Sīta’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 Brāhman 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 Brāhmans 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 Brāhmans’ hands. In Poona the Marātha Brāhmans +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 Mewār 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 Brāhmans 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 Brāhmans by village proprietors. A Brāhman is forbidden to touch +the plough with his own hands, but this rule is falling into abeyance and many Brāhman cultivators plough themselves. Brāhmans +are also prohibited from selling a large number of articles, as milk, butter, cows, salt and so on. Formerly a Brāhman 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 Brāhmans. But these scruples, which tended to multiply the number +of beggars indefinitely, have happily vanished, and Brāhmans will even sell cows to a butcher. Mr. Joshi relates that a suit +was brought by a Brāhman in his court for the hide of a cow sold by him for slaughter. A number of Brāhmans are employed as +personal servants, and these are usually cooks, a Brāhman 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 Brāhman 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 Brāhman saint Visvamitra, +and retired to Benāres with a loin-cloth which the recipient allowed him to retain from his possessions. But Brāhmans 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 Benāres. 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 Benāres 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 Mahārāja +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 Mahā-Brāhman or Mahāpātra, who takes gifts for the dead. Respectable Brāhmans +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 Brāhman. Other Brāhmans 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 Brāhman 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 Brāhmans 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 Brāhmans 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 Brāhman 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 Brāhmans.</h3> +<p>Many hard things have been said about the Brāhman caste and have not been undeserved. The Brāhman 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 +Brāhmans 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 Brāhman 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’s and Sir H. Risley’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. Bhattachārya’s <i>Hindu Castes and Sects</i> (Thacker, Spink & Co., Calcutta, 1896), and from the Rev. W. Ward’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’s <i>Tribes and Castes</i>, art. Brāhman, quoting Professor Eggeling in <i>Encyclopædia Britannica</i>, s.v. Brāhmanism. +</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. Brāhman. +</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’s <i>Tribes and Castes</i>, art. Brāhman. +</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 Punjāb</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 Rājpūt-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. Brāhman. +</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’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 Abbé 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. 84–91. +</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 Sāligrām. +Besides these every Brāhman will have a special family god, who may be one of the above or another deity, as Rāma 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. 19–21. +</p> +<p class="footnote"><span class="label"><a id="d0e10123" href="#d0e10123src" class="noteref">24</a></span> <i>Rājasthān</i>, i. p. 487. +</p> +<p class="footnote"><span class="label"><a id="d0e10130" href="#d0e10130src" class="noteref">25</a></span> <i>Rājasthān</i>, i. p. 698. +</p> +<p class="footnote"><span class="label"><a id="d0e10140" href="#d0e10140src" class="noteref">26</a></span> At that time £12,500 or more, now about £8000. +</p> +</div> +</div> +<div id="d0e10150" class="div1"><span class="pagenum"> +[<a href="#d0e111">Contents</a>] +</span><h2>Brāhman, Ahivāsi</h2> +<p><b>Brāhman, Ahivāsi.</b>—A class of persons who claim to be Brāhmans, but are generally engaged in cultivation and pack-carriage. They are looked +down upon by other Brāhmans, 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,<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>Brāhman, Jijhotia</h2> +<p><b>Brāhman, Jijhotia.</b>—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 Brāhmans +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 Brāhmans will plough with their own hands in Saugor. + + +</p> +<div id="d0e10171" class="figure"><img border="0" src="images/p390.jpg" alt="Brāhman Pujāris or priests." width="720" height="415"><p class="figureHead">Brāhman Pujāris or priests.</p> +</div><p> + + + +</p> +</div> +<div id="d0e10175" class="div1"><span class="pagenum"> +[<a href="#d0e111">Contents</a>] +</span><h2>Brāhman, Kanaujia, Kanyakubja</h2> +<p><b>Brāhman, Kanaujia, Kanyakubja.</b>—This, the most important division of the northern Brāhmans, takes its name from the ancient city of Kanauj in the Farukhābād +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. “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.”<a id="d0e10185src" href="#d0e10185" class="noteref">1</a> When Mahmūd 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 Rājpūt dynasty, and the final sack by Shihāb-ud-Dīn +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 Brāhmans 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 Sanādhya, 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 Rāma 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 Brāhmans of the Central Provinces practise hypergamy, as described in the general article on +Brāhman. 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.<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 Chhattīsgarhi 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 Brāhman is very strict in the matter of taking food, and will scarcely eat it unless cooked +by his own relations, according to the saying, ‘<i lang="und">Ath Kanaujia, nau chulha</i>’ or ‘Eight Kanaujias will want nine places to cook their food.’ + + +</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>Brāhman, Khedāwāl</h2> +<p><b>Brāhman, Khedāwāl.</b>—The Khedāwāls are a class of Gujarāti Brāhmans, 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 Khedāwāl who came to the Central Provinces was on a journey from Gujarāt to Benāres 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 Rāja of Panna, who made him a grant of an estate, and from this time other Khedāwāls came and settled. A considerable +colony of them now exists in Saugor and Damoh. The Khedāwāls 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 Khedāwāl 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 Khedāwāls of the Central Provinces formerly married only among themselves, but since the railway has been opened +intermarriage with their caste-fellows in Gujarāt has been resumed. + + +</p> +<div id="d0e10227" class="figure"><img border="0" src="images/p392.jpg" alt="Group of Marātha Brāhman men." width="720" height="399"><p class="figureHead">Group of Marātha Brāhman 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>Brāhman, Mahārāshtra</h2> +<p><b>Brāhman, Mahārāshtra, Marātha.</b>—The Marātha Brāhmans, or those of the Bombay country, are numerous and important in the Central Provinces. The northern Districts +were for a period governed by Marātha Brāhmans on behalf of the Peshwa of Poona, and under the Bhonsla dynasty of Nāgpur in +the south they took a large part in the administration. The Marātha Brāhmans have three main subcastes, the Deshasth, Konkonasth +and Karhāda. The Deshasth Brāhmans 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 Berār and Nāgpur. 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 Parasurāma.<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 Chitpāvan, which is said to mean the pure in heart, +but a derivation suggested in the <i>Bombay Gazetteer</i> is from Chiplun or Chitāpolan, a place in the Konkan which was their headquarters. The Peshwa of Poona was a Konkonasth Brāhman, +and there are a number of them in Saugor. The Karhāda Brāhmans take their name from the town of Karhād in the Satāra 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 Achārya, whom they acknowledge as their spiritual head. + +</p> +<p>The Marātha Brāhmans 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 Brāhmans are strict in the observance of caste rules. They +do not take water from any but other Brāhmans, and abstain from flesh and liquor. They will, however, eat with any of the +Pānch-Drāvid or southern divisions of Brāhmans except those of Gujarāt. 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 Marātha or Gujarāti Brāhman 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 Rāja, 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, Satāra</i>, p. 54. +</p> +</div> +</div> +<div id="d0e10256" class="div1"><span class="pagenum"> +[<a href="#d0e111">Contents</a>] +</span><h2>Brāhman, Maithil</h2> +<p><b>Brāhman, Maithil.</b>—One of the five Pānch-Gaur or northern divisions, comprising the Brāhmans of Bihār or Tirhūt. There are some Maithil Brāhman +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 Brāhmans are said to have at one time practised magic. +Mithila or Bihār 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 Mahārāja of Darbhanga, to whom family disputes are sometimes referred for decision. The Maithil +Brāhmans 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> Bhattachārya, <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>Brāhman, Mālwi</h2> +<p><b>Brāhman, Mālwi.</b>—This is a local class of Brāhmans from Mālwa in Central India, who are found in the Hoshangābād and Betūl Districts. They +are said to have been invited here by the Gond kings of Kherla in Betūl six or more centuries ago, and are probably of impure +descent. Mālwa is north of the Nerbudda, and they should therefore properly belong to the Pānch-Gaur division, but they speak +Marāthi and their customs resemble those of Marātha Brāhmans, who will take food cooked without water from them. The Mālwi +Brāhmans usually belong to the Madhyandina branch of the Yajurvedi sect. They work as village accountants (<i>patwāris</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>Brāhman, Nāgar</h2> +<p><b>Brāhman, Nāgar.</b>—A class of Gujarāti Brāhmans found in the Nimār District. The name is said to be derived from the town of Vadnagar of Gujarāt, +now in Baroda State. According to one account they accepted grants of land from a Rājpūt king, and hence were put out of caste +by their fellows. Another story is that the Nāgar Brāhman women were renowned for their personal beauty and also for their +skill in music. The emperor Jahāngir, 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 Brāhmans numbering 7450 (or 74½ hundred) threw away their sacred threads and became Sūdras in +order to save their lives. Since this occurrence the figure 74½ is considered very unlucky. Banias write 74½ 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 Brāhmans. 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 Nāgar Brāhmans are partly of impure descent. In Gujarāt it is said that one section +of them called Bārud are the descendants of Nāgar Brāhman fathers who were unable to get wives in their own caste and took +them from others. The Bārud 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 Nāgars settled in the Central Provinces have for a long time ceased +to marry with those of Gujarāt 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 Nāgar Brāhman, to introduce intermarriage again between +the two sections of the caste. Many Nāgar Brāhmans have taken to secular occupations and are land-agents and cultivators. + +</p> +<p>Formerly the Nāgar Brāhmans 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 Brāhman 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>Sāraswati, would preserve it from defilement. But cloth or leather could not be purified through being written on. Thus if +the Brāhman 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 Brāhman 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.<a id="d0e10310src" href="#d0e10310" class="noteref">3</a> + +</p> +<p>If a Brāhman 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 Nāramdeo Brāhman women." width="720" height="494"><p class="figureHead">Group of Nāramdeo Brāhman 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’s paper. +</p> +<p class="footnote"><span class="label"><a id="d0e10298" href="#d0e10298src" class="noteref">2</a></span> <i>Rāsmāla</i>, ii. p. 233. +</p> +<p class="footnote"><span class="label"><a id="d0e10310" href="#d0e10310src" class="noteref">3</a></span> <i>Rāsmāla</i>, ii. p. 259. +</p> +</div> +</div> +<div id="d0e10321" class="div1"><span class="pagenum"> +[<a href="#d0e111">Contents</a>] +</span><h2>Brāhman, Nāramdeo</h2> +<p><b>Brāhman, Nāramdeo.</b>—A class of Brāhmans who live in the Hoshangābād and Nimār 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 Gujarāti division, and were expelled from Gujarāt +by a Rāja 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 Dhīmar woman who was +one of his disciples. The Nāramdeo Brāhmans have for the most part adopted secular occupations, though they act as village +priests or astrologers. They are largely employed as village accountants (<i>patwāris</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 Kāyasths. 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 Kāyasths 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>Brāhman, Sanādhya</h2> +<p><b>Brāhman, Sanādhya, Sanaurhia.</b>—The Sanādhyas are considered in the Central Provinces to be a branch of the Kanaujia division. Their home is in the Ganges-Jumna +Doāb and Rohilkhand, between the Gaur Brāhmans to the north-west and the Kanaujias to the east. Mr. Crooke states that in +some localities the Sanādhyas intermarry with both the Kanaujia and Gaur divisions. But formerly both Kanaujias and Gaurs +practised hypergamy with the Sanādhyas, 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 Sanādhya group, but marriage is now becoming reciprocal. In Bengal the Sanādhyas +account for their inferiority to the other Kanaujias by saying that their ancestors on one occasion at the bidding of a Rāja +partook of a sacrificial feast with all their clothes on, instead of only their loin-cloths according to the rule among Brāhmans, +and were hence degraded. The Sanādhyas themselves have two divisions, the <i>Sārhe-tīn 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 Mahā-Brāhmans, who are +funeral priests.<a id="d0e10351src" href="#d0e10351" class="noteref">2</a> This further indicates the inferior status of the Sanādhyas. The Sanaurhia criminal caste of pickpockets are supposed to +be made up of a nucleus of Sanādhya Brāhmans with recruits from all other castes, but this is not certain. In the Central +Provinces a number of Sanādhyas took to carrying grain and merchandise on pack-bullocks, and are hence known as Belwār. They +form a separate subcaste, ranking below the other Sanādhyas and marrying among themselves. Mr. Crooke notes that at their +weddings the Sanādhyas worship a potter’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’s house and worship his wheel there. In the Central Provinces after the wedding they get a bed newly +made with <i>newār</i> tape and seat the bride and bridegroom on it, and put a large plate at their feet, in which presents are placed. The Sanādhyas +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 Dandāwat, adding Mahārāj to an equal or superior. + + + +</p> +<div id="d0e10362" class="figure"><img border="0" src="images/p398.jpg" alt="Group of Nāramdeo Brāhman men." width="720" height="401"><p class="figureHead">Group of Nāramdeo Brāhman 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. Sanādhya. +</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>Brāhman, Sarwaria</h2> +<p><b>Brāhman, Sarwaria.</b>—This is the highest class of the Kanaujia Brāmans, 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 Brāman 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 Brāhmans, 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 Brāhmans would not eat rice sold in +the bazār 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 Brāhmans 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’s art. Sarwaria. +</p> +</div> +</div> +<div id="d0e10378" class="div1"><span class="pagenum"> +[<a href="#d0e111">Contents</a>] +</span><h2>Brāhman, Utkal</h2> +<p><b>Brāhman, Utkal.</b>—These are the Brāhmans of Orissa and one of the Pānch-Gaur divisions. They are divided into two groups, the Dākshinatya or +southern and the Jajpuria or northern clan. The Utkal Brāhmans, 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 +Brāhmans 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 Brāhmans, who +live upon alms.<a id="d0e10390src" href="#d0e10390" class="noteref">1</a> A third class of Orissa Brāhmans 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 Jagannāth. Dr. Bhattachārya describes the procedure +of the temple-touts as follows:<a id="d0e10402src" href="#d0e10402" class="noteref">2</a> + +</p> +<p>“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 ‘Jagannāth 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....” + +</p> +<p>This vivid statement of the objections to the habit of pilgrimage from a Brāhman 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 Jagannāth 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’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>Chadār</h2> +<p><b>Chadār,<a id="d0e10419src" href="#d0e10419" class="noteref">1</a> Kotwar.</b>—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 Chadārs 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 Chadārs 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 Dhāna (a leaf of the +rice plant), Kāsia (bell-metal), Gohia (a kind of lizard), Bachhulia (a calf), Gujaria (a milkmaid), Moria (a peacock), Laraiya +(a jackal), Khatkīra (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 Chadārs +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>panchāyat</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 Brāhman 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 Asārh (June-July). They worship their weaving implements at the Diwāli and Holi festivals, +and feed the crows in Kunwār (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 <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 Chadārs 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 Kalārs, Khangārs +and Kumhārs. 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, Tahsīldār of Khurai, and Kanhya Lāl, clerk in the Gazetteer office. +</p> +</div> +</div> +<div id="d0e10437" class="div1"><span class="pagenum"> +[<a href="#d0e111">Contents</a>] +</span><h2>Chamār</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 Chamār 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>Chamār, Chambhār.</b><a id="d0e10534src" href="#d0e10534" class="noteref">1</a>—The caste of tanners and menial labourers of northern India. In the Central Provinces the Chamārs 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 Chhattīsgarh Division and +adjacent Feudatory States. Here the Chamārs have to some extent emancipated themselves from their servile status and have +become cultivators, and occasionally even mālguzārs 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 Chhattīsgarh the Chamārs 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 +Marātha country the place of the Chamārs is taken by the Mehras or Mahārs. In the whole of India the Chamārs are about eleven +millions strong, and are the largest caste with the exception of the Brāhmans. The name is derived from the Sanskrit Charmakāra, +a worker in leather; and, according to classical tradition, the Chamār is the offspring of a Chandāl 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 Chamār has been noticed in several localities. Thus in the Kanara District of Bombay<a id="d0e10551src" href="#d0e10551" class="noteref">3</a> the Chamār 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 Chamārins. 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 Chamārin. +In Chhattīsgarh the Chamārs are generally of fine stature and fair complexion; some of them are lighter in colour than the +Chhattīsgarhi Brāhmans, and it is on record that a European officer mistook a Chamār 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 “The average Chamār 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 Chamārs of the North-Western Provinces, says: “Chamārs <a id="d0e10572"></a><span class="pagenum">[<a href="#d0e10572">405</a>]</span>are reputed to be a dark race, and a fair Chamār is said to be as rare an object as a black Brāhman: + + +</p> +<div class="poem" lang="und"> +<div class="stanza"> +<p class="line" style=""><span>Karia Brāhman, gor Chamār, +</span></p> +<p class="line" style=""><span>Inke sāth nā utariye pār,</span></p> +</div> +</div> +<p>that is, ‘Do not cross a river in the same boat with a black Brāhman or a fair Chamār,’ both being of evil omen.” The latter +description would certainly apply to the Chamārs of the Central Provinces outside the Chhattīsgarh 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 Chamārs. It is possible that the Chamārs 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>“The Chamārs,” Sir H. Risley states,<a id="d0e10583src" href="#d0e10583" class="noteref">7</a> “trace their own pedigree to Ravi or Rai Dās, the famous disciple of Rāmānand at the end of the fourteenth century, and whenever +a Chamār is asked what he is, he replies a Ravi Dās. Another tradition current among them alleges that their original ancestor +was the youngest of four Brāhman 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 Chamār.” 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 Chamārs 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 Satnāmi sect in Chhattīsgarh, who do not intermarry with other Chamārs. They are described in the article on +that sect. The other Chamārs call the Satnāmis Jharia or ‘jungly’, which implies that they are the oldest residents in Chhattīsgarh. +The Satnāmis are all cultivators, and have given up working in leather. The Chungias (from <i>chungi</i>, a leaf-pipe) are a branch of the Satnāmis who have taken to smoking, a practice which is forbidden by the rules of the sect. +In Chhattīsgarh those Chamārs who still cure hides and work in leather belong either to the Kanaujia or Ahirwār 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 Chamār fathers and Ahīr mothers. The Kanaujias are much addicted to drink, and though +they eat pork they do not rear pigs. The Ahirwārs, or Erwārs as they are called outside Chhattīsgarh, occupy a somewhat higher +position than the Kanaujias. They consider themselves to be the direct descendants of the prophet Raidās or Rohidās, who, +they say, had seven wives of different castes; one of them was an Ahīr woman, and her offspring were the ancestors of the +Ahirwār subcaste. Both the Kanaujias and Ahirwārs of Chhattīsgarh 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 Satnāmis, who have generally eschewed +it. Those Chamārs 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 Chamārs 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 Chamārs have the designation of Meher. The Kanaujias make shoes +out of a single piece of leather, while the Ahirwārs cut the front separately. The latter also ornament their shoes with fancy +work consisting of patterns of silver thread on red cloth. No Ahirwār 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 Chhattīsgarh and elsewhere, are the Jaiswāras, 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 Jaiswāra, +considering it a more respectable designation than Chamār. The Jaiswāras 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 +Bhadāwar State; the Antarvedi from Antarved or the Doāb, the country lying between the Ganges and Jumna; the Gangāpāri or +those from the north of the Ganges; and the Pardeshi (foreigners) and Desha or Deswār (belonging to the country), both of +which groups come from Hindustān. The Deswār Chamārs 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 Khaijrāha take their +names from the towns of Mahoba and Khaijra in Central India. The Lādse or Lādvi come from south Gujarāt, which in classical +times was known as Lāt; while the Marātha, Berāria 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 Chhindwāra, who derive +their name from the <i>budla</i>, or leather bag made for the transport and storage of oil and <i>ghī</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 Chamār women. The Kataua +or Katwa are leather-cutters, the name being derived from <i>kātna</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 Jīngars<a id="d0e10639src" href="#d0e10639" class="noteref">11</a> or saddlemakers and bookbinders have obtained a better position than the ordinary Chamārs, 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 Korchamārs are said to be the descendants of alliances between Chamārs and Koris or weavers, and the Turkanyas probably +have Turk or Musalmān blood in their veins. In Berār the Romya or Haralya subcaste claim the highest rank and say that their +ancestor Harlya was the primeval Chamār who stripped off a piece of his own skin to make a pair of shoes for Mahādeo.<a id="d0e10647src" href="#d0e10647" class="noteref">13</a> The Māngya<a id="d0e10652src" href="#d0e10652" class="noteref">14</a> Chamārs of Chānda and the Nona Chamārs of Damoh are groups of beggars, who are the lowest of the caste and will take food +from the hands of any other Chamār. The Nona group take their name from Nona or Lona Chamārin, a well-known witch about whom +Mr. Crooke relates the following story:<a id="d0e10658src" href="#d0e10658" class="noteref">15</a> “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 Brāhman and warned them against this act of cannibalism. So they let the cauldron float down the Ganges, +and as it floated down, Lona the Chamārin, 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.” This Lona or Nona has obtained the position +of a nursery bogey, and throughout Hindustān, Sir H. Risley states, parents frighten naughty children by telling them that +Nona Chamārin will carry them off. The Chamārs say that she was the mother or grandmother of the prophet Ravi Dās, or Rai +Dās 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 Rājpūt clans, as Sūrajvansi, Gaharwār and Rāthor; while others, as +Marai, are taken from the Gonds. Instances of sections named after other castes are Banjar (Banjāra), Jogi, Chhipia (Chhipi, +a tailor) and Khairwār (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 Mālādhāri, one +who wears a garland; Māchhi-Mundia or fly-headed, perhaps the equivalent of feather-brained; Hathīla, obstinate; Bāghmār, +a tiger-killer; Māngaya, 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; +Tarwāria, 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’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 Chānda the amount is fixed at Rs. 13 and it +is known as <i>hunda</i>, 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 Bilāspur 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>“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 Marātha Chamārs of Betūl 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 Chamārs +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’s party take a goat’s leg in a basket with other articles to the <i>janwāsa</i> 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 Pendpūja, 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. + + +</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’s elder brother and ascendant relations. In Chhattīsgarh 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’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 banāna</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’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’s relatives. Divorce is permitted for a variety of causes, and is usually effected in the presence of +the caste <i>panchāyat</i> or committee by the husband and wife breaking a straw as a symbol of the rupture of the union. In Chānda 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 <i>Marti Jīti kā Bhāt</i>, or ‘The feast of the living dead woman.’ In Chhattīsgarh 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 Mahāprasād or nearest friend to each other, that is, when they have vowed friendship on +rice from the temple of Jagannāth, they will each place his wife at the other’s disposal. The Chamārs 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 Chamār 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>panchāyat</i> or committee. They are then made to bathe, and the shoes of all the assembled Chamārs 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 Chhattīsgarh, 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 Chamārs 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 Chhattīsgarh 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 Chhattīsgarh 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>ajwāin</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’s head is shaved, +and the hair, known as Jhālar, 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 Kānwa (one-eyed), +Behra (deaf), Konda (dumb), Khurwa (lame), Kāri (black), Bhūri (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 Chamārs 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 Chamārs especially worship the castor-oil +plant. Generally the caste revere the <i>rāmpi</i> or skinning-knife with offerings of flour-cakes and cocoanuts on festival days. In Chhattīsgarh more than half the Chamārs +belong to the reformed Satnāmi 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 Chamārs 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 Patāl—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.” + + +</p> +</div> +<div class="div2" id="d0e10783"> +<h3>10. Occupation.</h3> +<p>The curing and tanning of hides is the primary occupation of the Chamār, but in 1911 only 80,000 persons, or about a seventh +of the actual workers of the caste, were engaged in it, and by Satnāmis the trade has been entirely eschewed. The majority +of the Chhattīsgarhi Chamārs 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 Chamārs 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 Chamārs, 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 <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’s scruples remain dormant. No one laments this lapse from orthodoxy more sincerely than the +outcaste Chamār. 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.”<a id="d0e10795src" href="#d0e10795" class="noteref">21</a> + + +</p> +<div id="d0e10800" class="figure"><img border="0" src="images/p416.jpg" alt="Chamārs tanning and working in leather." width="720" height="467"><p class="figureHead">Chamārs 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>rāmpi</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>rāmpi</i>. “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>palās</i><a id="d0e10823src" href="#d0e10823" class="noteref">23</a> tree, the Chamār 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 Chamārs 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.”<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 Chamār 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 Jīngars, who are offshoots from the Chamār 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 Chamārs. + + +</p> +<div id="d0e10853" class="figure"><img border="0" src="images/p418.jpg" alt="Chamārs cutting leather and making shoes." width="720" height="458"><p class="figureHead">Chamārs 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>pakhāls</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 Bairāgi +or Vaishnava religious mendicant much likes to carry a tiger-skin on his body if he can afford one; and a Brāhman 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 <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 Mahārs 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 <i>Sirkāri jūta</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 Chamār as general village drudge.</h3> +<p>In return for his perquisite of the hides of cattle the Chamār has to act as the general village drudge in the northern Districts +and is always selected for the performance of <i>bigār</i> or forced labour. When a Government officer visits the village the Chamār 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 Chamār on whom these duties are imposed usually receives a plot of land rent-free +from the village proprietor. Another of the functions of the Chamār 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 Chamārs are said to be very +strong and to make the best farmservants and coolies for earthwork. It is a proverb that ‘The Chamār 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 Chamār 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 Chamārs to remove the carcases of dead cattle, which they eat without regard to the disease from which the +animal may have died. But a Chamār 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 Chamārs will +eat only the flesh of four-legged animals, avoiding presumably birds and fish. When acting as a porter the Chamār usually +carries a load on his head, whereas the Kahār bears it on his shoulders, and this distinction is proverbial. In Raipur the +Chamārs 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 bazārs. It is said that this trade could only flourish in Chhattīsgarh, +where the cultivators are too lazy to go and buy their cattle for themselves. Many Chamārs have emigrated from Chhattīsgarh +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 Chhattīsgarh. + + +</p> +</div> +<div class="div2" id="d0e10890"> +<h3>16. Social status.</h3> +<p>The Chamār 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 Chamār 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 Chamārs and the washerman will wash their clothes. And the Chamār 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 Chamār 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 Chamārs. As is usual with the low castes, many Chamārs 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 Chamār +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 Brāhmans for their ceremonies, but consult them for the selection of auspicious days, as this business +can be performed by the Brāhman at home and he need not enter the Chamār’s house. But poor and despised as the Chamārs are +they have a pride of their own. When the Dohar and Marātha Chamārs sell shoes to a Mahār 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 Marātha +Chamārs of Berār<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 Mahārs, Māngs, 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 Chamār the seller asks no indiscreet questions; but he will not mend +the pair as he would for a man of higher caste. The Satnāmis of Chhattīsgarh 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 Satnāmi. + + +</p> +</div> +<div class="div2" id="d0e10912"> +<h3>17. Character.</h3> +<p>In Chhattīsgarh the Chamārs 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 Chamār; 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 Chamārs 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 Chamār would not be badly off, but the truth is that in the northern Districts at all events the +Chamār, 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 Chamār, 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 <a id="d0e10917"></a><span class="pagenum">[<a href="#d0e10917">423</a>]</span>considered holy food:—“The zamīndār of Idar, who is named Naron Dās, 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 Brāhmans consider pure +in the highest degree.”<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 Chamār 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 Chamār 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 Chamār 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 Chamār 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 Chamār and the Ahīr, these are the three +biggest liars that ever were known. For if you ask the Chamār whether he has mended your shoes he says, ‘I am at the last +stitch,’ when he has not begun them; if you ask the Ahīr 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. + + + +<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’s <i>Indian Folk-Tales</i> (London, Elliott & 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’s and Mr. Crooke’s descriptions of the caste, and +from the <i>Berār Census Report</i> (1881); on information collected for the District Gazetteers; and papers by Messrs. Durga Prasād Pānde, Tahsīldār, Raipur; +Rām Lāl, Deputy Inspector of Schools, Saugor; Govind Vithal Kāne, Naib-Tahsīldār, Wardha; Bālkrishna Rāmchandra Bakhle, Tahsīldār, +Mandla; Sitārām, schoolmaster, Bālāghāt; and Kanhya Lāl of the Gazetteer office. Some of the material found in Mr. Gordon’s +book was obtained independently by the writer in Bilāspur 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 Chamār 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>Rāsmāla</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. Chamār. +</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’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>Berār 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>māngna</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. Chamār. +</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’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>Berār Census Report</i> (1881), p. 149. +</p> +<p class="footnote"><span class="label"><a id="d0e10919" href="#d0e10919src" class="noteref">29</a></span> <i>Rāsmāla</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).—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 Kāyasths. This passage indicates that the term Mahanti is or was a broader one than Karan or Uriya Kāyasth, +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 Rājpūts. For this reason probably the Uriya +Kāyasths 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. + + +</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>bachhās</i> (calf), <i>nāgas</i> (cobra), <i>hasti</i> or <i>gaj</i> (elephant), <i>harin</i> (deer), <i>mahumāchhi</i> (bee), <i>dīpas</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 Nāyak (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>dīpas</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>mahumāchhi</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 Pāwan, 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 Padhān (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 ‘Scrutinisers’ and +have now become a separate <i>varga</i>, so that a Parichha Padhān may <a id="d0e11024"></a><span class="pagenum">[<a href="#d0e11024">426</a>]</span>marry another Padhān. 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’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 Grāmsiri, 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 Brāhmans 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 Rājpūts and Brāhmans, 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 jāne pasār katha, +</span></p> +<p class="line" style=""><span>Padili bolai dons;</span></p> +</div> +</div> +<p>or ‘What does the Chasa know of the dice? At every throw he calls out “twenty.”’ + +<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. Rasānand, Sireshtedār, Bāmra. +</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>Chauhān</h2> +<p><b>Chauhān.</b><a id="d0e11051src" href="#d0e11051" class="noteref">1</a>—A small caste of village watchmen and labourers in the Chhattīsgarh Division. They are also known as Chandel by outsiders. +In 1911 the Chauhāns numbered 7000 persons in the Raipur and Bilāspur Districts, and the adjoining Feudatory States. The caste +claim themselves to be of Rājpūt origin, and say that their ancestors came from Mainpuri, which is the home of the Chauhān +clan of Rājpūts. A few of their section names are taken from those of Rājpūt clans, but the majority are of a totemistic nature, +being called after animals and plants, as Nāg the cobra, Neora the mongoose, Kolhia the jackal, Kamal the lotus, Pat silk, +Chānwar rice, Khānda 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 Chānwar 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 Nāgkesar. 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 +Brāhmans for their marriage and other ceremonies, and will not take food from any caste except Brāhmans and their Bairāgi +<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 Gāndas, and the most probable theory of their +origin is that they are the descendants of irregular alliances between immigrant Rājpūt adventurers and the women of the country. +Their social customs resemble those of other low castes in Chhattīsgarh. 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 <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’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. + +</p> +<p>The goddess Dūrga or Devi is chiefly revered by the caste, who observe fasts in her honour in the months of Kunwār (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>lāthi</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 Brāhman, 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 Chauhāns 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. Hīra Lāl at Bhatgaon. +</p> +</div> +</div> +<div id="d0e11075" class="div1"><span class="pagenum"> +[<a href="#d0e111">Contents</a>] +</span><h2>Chhīpa</h2> +<div class="div2" id="d0e11078"> +<h3>1. Constitution of the caste.</h3> +<p><b>Chhīpa, Rangāri, Bhaosar, Nirāli, Nīlgar.</b>—The Hindu caste of cotton printers and dyers. They are commonly known as Chhīpa in the northern Districts and Rangāri or +Bhaosar in the Maratha country. The Chhīpas and Rangāris together number about 23,000 persons. In the south of the Central +Provinces and Berār 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 Chhīpas and Rangāris 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. Nīlgar +or Nirāli is a purely occupational term applied to Chhīpas or Rangāris who work in indigo (<i>nīl</i>); while Bhaosar is another name for the Rangāris in the northern Districts. + + +</p> +</div> +<div class="div2" id="d0e11088"> +<h3>2. Its origin and position.</h3> +<p>The Rangāris say that when Parasurāma, the Brāhman, 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 Rangāris are descended <a id="d0e11093"></a><span class="pagenum">[<a href="#d0e11093">430</a>]</span>from the brother who was called Bhaosar and the Chhīpas from the other brother, because he hid behind the image (<i>chhipna</i>, to hide). The word is really derived from <i>chhāpna</i>, to print, because the Chhīpas print coloured patterns on cotton cloths with wooden stamps. Rangāri comes from the common +word <i>rang</i> or colour. The Chhīpas 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 Chhīpi or Shimpi and the second +Chhīpa. This story indicates a connection between the dyeing and tailoring castes in the Marātha Districts, which no doubt +exists, as one subcaste of the Rangāris is named after Nāmdeo, 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 Chhīpas and Rangāris 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="Chhīpa or calico-printer at work." width="720" height="402"><p class="figureHead">Chhīpa 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 Mālwa, the Gujrāti who come from Gujarāt, +the Golias or those who dye cloth with <i>goli ka rang</i>, the fugitive aniline dyes, the Nāmdeos 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 Bhandāra +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 Hindustāni 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 Biyāh 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>Chhīpas 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 Chhīpas rank with +the lower artisan castes, from whose hands Brāhmans 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 Chhīpas 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. Chhīpas prepare <i>sarīs</i> 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 Chhīpa’s shop. The stamps are usually covered with a black ink made of sulphate of iron, and this is fixed by +myrobalans; the Nīlgars 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 Gujarāt dyeing is strictly +forbidden by the caste rules of the Chhīpas 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 Gujarāt</i>, p. 178. +</p> +</div> +</div> +<div id="d0e11146" class="div1"><span class="pagenum"> +[<a href="#d0e111">Contents</a>] +</span><h2>Chitāri</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>Chitāri, Chiter, Chitrakār, Mahārana.</b>—A caste of painters on wood and plaster. Chiter is the Hindustāni, and Chitāri the Marāthi name, both being corruptions of +the Sanskrit Chitrakār. Mahārana is the term used in the Uriya country, where the caste are also known as Phāl-Barhai, or +a carpenter who only works on one side of the wood. Chitāri is further an occupational term applied to Mochis and Jīngars, +or leather-workers, who have adopted the occupation of wall-painting, and there is no reason to doubt that the Chitāris were +originally derived from the Mochis, though they have now a somewhat higher position. In Mandla the Chitrakārs and Jīngars +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 Chitrakārs 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 Rājpūts, 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 Jīngar caste did really originate or first become differentiated from the Mochis and Chamārs in Rājputāna +owing to the demand for such articles, and this would account for the Mochis and Jīngars having adopted Rājpūt names for their +sections, and making a claim to Rājpūt <a id="d0e11192"></a><span class="pagenum">[<a href="#d0e11192">433</a>]</span>descent. The Chitrakārs 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 Sohāgpur in Hoshangābād. 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 Chitāris 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 Chitāris 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 Marātha, Telugu and Hindustāni 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 Jīngars women accompany the marriage procession, but not with the Chitāris. + +</p> +<p>Widow-marriage is allowed, but among the Mahārānas 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. <a id="d0e11211"></a><span class="pagenum">[<a href="#d0e11211">434</a>]</span>If she marries an outsider she takes her first husband’s property and children with her. Formerly if a wife misbehaved the +Chitāri 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 Akhātij, 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’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 Chitāris 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. + + +</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’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, ‘<i lang="und">Ishwar, Gauri, Pārvati ke ān nazar dur ho jao</i>,’ or ‘Depart, Evil Eye, in the name of Mahādeo and Pārvati,’ 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, ‘<i lang="und">Telin kī lāgi ho, Tamolin kī lāgi ho, Marārin kī ho, Gorania (Gondin) kī ho, oke, oke, parparāke phut jāwe</i>,’ ‘If it be a Telin, Tambolin, Marārin 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. + +</p> +<p>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, ‘<i lang="und">Tori balayān leun</i>,’ 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. + + +</p> +</div> +<div class="div2" id="d0e11239"> +<h3>5. Cradle-songs.</h3> +<p>The following are some cradle-songs taken down from a Chitrakār, 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 Sunār, bring him tinkling anklets! +</span></p> +<p class="line" style=""><span>The Sunār 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’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 pīpal 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. Rām kī Chireya, Rām ko khet. +</span></p> +<p class="line" style=""><span>Khaori Chireya, bhar, bhar pet. +</span></p> +<p class="line" style=""><span>Tan munaiyān khā lao khet, +</span></p> +<p class="line" style=""><span>Agao, labra, gāli det; +</span></p> +<p class="line" style=""><span>Kahe ko, labra, gāli de; +</span></p> +<p class="line" style=""><span>Apni bhuntia gin, gin le.</span></p> +</div> +</div> +<p>or— + +</p> +<div class="poem"> +<div class="stanza"> +<p class="line" style=""><span>The field is Rāma’s, the little birds are Rāma’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, ‘O farmer, why do you scold us? count your ears +of maize, they are all there.’</span></p> +</div> +</div> +<p>This song commemorates a favourite incident in the life of Tulsi Dās, the author of the Rāmāyana, 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 Dās watching them. When asked why he did not scare them +away, he said, ‘Are they not as much the creatures of Rāma as I am? how should I deprive them of food?’ + + +</p> +</div> +<div class="div2" id="d0e11321"> +<h3>6. Occupation.</h3> +<p>The Chitāris pursue their old trade, principally in Nāgpur 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 Rāmlīla or story of Rāma +on the Rāmnaomi festival in Chait (March); they also make the <i>tāzias</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 Chitrakār 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 Chitrakārs made clay idols for temples, +but these have been supplanted by marble images imported from Jaipur. The Jīngars 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’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 balayān 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>—A small caste of religious mendicants and picture showmen in the Marātha Districts. In 1901 they numbered 200 persons in +the Central Provinces and 1500 in Berār, 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 Marāthas, as Jādhow, More, Powār and so on, while in the Central Provinces and Berār 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 Mānkari 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>Mānkar being primarily a title applied to Marātha noblemen, who held an official position at court; the Bhojni section serve +the food at marriage and other ceremonies; the Kākra arrange for the lighting; the Kothārya 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 Chitāris or Chitrakārs (painters) of the Central Provinces, and, like them, a branch +of the Mochis (tanners), and originally derived from the Chamārs. But as the Berār Chitrakathis are migratory instead of settled, +and in other respects differ from the Chitāris, they are treated in a separate article. Marriage within the section is forbidden, +and, besides this, members of the Atak and Mānkari 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 +Akhatīj (3rd of light Baisākh)<a id="d0e11359src" href="#d0e11359" class="noteref">3</a> they worship a vessel of water in honour of their dead ancestors, and in Kunwār (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 “Wandering mendicants, sometimes suspected of associating with Kaikāris 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>thāli</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 Hardās). They are fond of spirits, and, when drunk, become pot-valiant and troublesome.” The <i>thāli</i> or plate on which their women play is also known as <i>sarthāda</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 Rāma’s life, thirty-five of that of the +sons of Arjun, forty of the Pāndavas, forty of Sīta and Rāwan, 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-Tahsīldār, Bālāghāt. +</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 Akhatīj 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>Berār 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>—A class of Muhammadan merchants who come every year from Gujarāt 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 Khān Bahādur +Fazalullah Lutfullah Farīdi, Assistant Collector of Customs, Bombay, in the <i>Bombay Gazetteer</i>.<a id="d0e11394src" href="#d0e11394" class="noteref">1</a> 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 Pārsi 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 Lohāna 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: ’">”</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 Gujarāt, 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. Farīdi, 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 Lohānas of Sind. They venerate especially Maulāna Abdul Kādir +Gīlāni who died at Baghdād in <span class="smallcaps">A.D.</span> 1165. His sixth descendant, Syed Yūsufuddīn Kordiri, was in 1421 instructed in a dream to proceed to Sind and guide its people +into the way of Islām. On his arrival he was received with honour by the local king, who was converted, and the ruler’s example +was followed by one Mānikji, the head of one of the <i>nukhs</i> or clans of the Lohāna community. He with his three sons and seven hundred families of the caste embraced Islām, 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 Lohānas from the Rājpūts, remarking of them:<a id="d0e11416src" href="#d0e11416" class="noteref">2</a> “This tribe is numerous both in Dhāt and Talpūra; formerly they were Rājpūts, 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 Lohānas: “The Hindu merchants and bankers have agents in +the most remote parts of Central Asia and could negotiate bills upon Candahār, Khelāt, Cābul, Khiva, Herāt, Bokhāra 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.” 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 Lohānas and Khatris are connected, the hypothesis that the former, like the latter, +are derived from Rājpūts would receive some support. + +</p> +<p>The present Pīr or head of the community is Sayyid Jāfir Shāh, who is nineteenth in descent from Yūsufuddīn and lives partly +in Bombay and partly in Mundra of South Cutch. “At an uncertain date,” Mr. Farīdi continues, “the Lohāna or Cutchi Memans +passed from Cutch south through Kāthiāwār to Gujarāt. 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 Kāthiāwār, which may be +considered their homes, the Memans are scattered over the cities of north and south Gujarāt 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.”<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 Nikāh 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 Gujarāt</i>, p. 57. +</p> +<p class="footnote"><span class="label"><a id="d0e11416" href="#d0e11416src" class="noteref">2</a></span> <i>Rājasthān</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. Farīdi gives the following note: “In 1847 a case occurred which shows how firmly the Memans cling +to their original tribal customs. The widow of Hāji Nūr Muhammad of the Lakariya family demanded a share of her deceased husband’s +property according to Muhammadan law. The <i>jamā-at</i> 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 Korān, 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.” +</p> +</div> +</div> +<div id="d0e11449" class="div1"><span class="pagenum"> +[<a href="#d0e111">Contents</a>] +</span><h2>Dahāit<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>Dahāit, Dahāyat.</b>—A mixed caste of village watchmen of the Jubbulpore and Mandla Districts, who are derived from the cognate caste of Khangārs +and from several of the forest tribes. In 1911 the Dahāits numbered about 15,000 persons in the Central Provinces, of whom +the large majority were found in the Jubbulpore District and the remainder in Bilāspur, Damoh and Seoni. Outside the Province +they reside only in Bundelkhand. According to one story the Dahāits and Khangārs had a common ancestor, and in Mandla again +they say that their ancestors were the door-keepers of the Rājas of Mahoba, and were known as Chhadīdar or Darwān; and they +came to Mandla about 200 years ago, during the time of Rāja Nizām Shāh of the Rāj-Gond dynasty of that place. In Mandla the +names of their subdivisions are given as Rawatia or Rautia, Kol, Mawāsi, Sonwāni and Rajwāria. Of these Kol and Rajwār are +the names of separate tribes; Mawāsi is commonly used as a synonym for Korku, another tribe; Sonwāni is the name of a sept +found among several of the primitive tribes; while Rāwat is a title borne by the Saonrs and Gonds. The names Rautia and Rajwāria +are found as subdivisions of the Kol tribe in Mīrzāpur,<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>Dahāits are principally derived from this tribe. The actual name Dahāit is also given by Mr. Crooke as a subdivision of the +Kols, and he states it to have the meaning of ‘villager,’ from <i>dehāt</i>, a village. The Dahāits were a class of personal attendants on the chief or Rāja, 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 Dahāits. 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 Dahāits have commonly +been employed as village watchmen, a post analogous to that of door-keeper or porter. The caste are also known as Bhāldār +or spearmen, and Kotwār 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 Bilāspur they have quite different ones, of +which two, Joharia and Pailagia, are derived from methods of greeting. Johār is the salutation which a Rājpūt 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 Brāhman. 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 Bāgh (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>chāri</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’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 Dahāits 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 Bilāspur 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 <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 Dahāit 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>panchāyat</i> or committee. The headman is known as Mirdhān, and a member of the committee as Diwān, 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 Kāyasth +(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 Jhālar 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 Dahāits are now commonly employed as village watchmen and as guards or porters (<i>chaukidār</i>) of houses. In Bilāspur 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 Brāhmans +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 Brāhman will take water, but the women are more strict and will only accept it from a Brāhman, 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 Dahāits 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 Brāhmans to +fan the deities. On ordinary occasions the Rāja 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 Darwān. 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 chuprāssie; 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 Darwān or door-keeper would be given the right to collect dues, equivalent to those of a +village watchman, from forty or fifty villages. The Dahāits 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’s wrist. The +mace-bearer was known as Chobdār, 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: “On advancing, the Chobdārs 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.’”<a id="d0e11591src" href="#d0e11591" class="noteref">8</a> The Dahāits ran before the Rāja’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. “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.”<a id="d0e11604src" href="#d0e11604" class="noteref">9</a> In Buddhist architecture the ‘Wheel of Light’ symbolising Buddha is overshadowed by an umbrella, itself adorned with garlands. +At Sānchi 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’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’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’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>aftāda</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’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 +<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 Visvāmitra 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’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 Tirthakārs, Pārasnāth, 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. + +</p> +<p>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.<a id="d0e11645src" href="#d0e11645" class="noteref">13</a> 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 <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’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.”<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>, 1677–78, 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.”<a id="d0e11669src" href="#d0e11669" class="noteref">16</a> 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.”<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. “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>“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.”<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 Rājpūt’s house without getting down from his pony +and folding up his umbrella. In Hindu slang a ‘Chhatawāli’ 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 bazār, 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 Rāja, 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-Tahsīldār, Bilāspur, and Messrs. Kanhya Lāl and Pyāre Lāl 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>Nāg</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’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 Lāl 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> ‘Roundel.’ +</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> ‘Kittysol.’ +</p> +<p class="footnote"><span class="label"><a id="d0e11669" href="#d0e11669src" class="noteref">16</a></span> <i>Hobson-Jobson, s.v.</i> ‘Roundel.’ +</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>—A caste of degraded Rājpūts found in Bilāspur 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 Rājpūts 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 Rājpūt exogamy. Colonel Tod included the Daharias +among the thirty-six royal races of Rājasthān.<a id="d0e11716src" href="#d0e11716" class="noteref">2</a> Their name is derived from Dāhar or Dāhal, the classical term for the Jubbulpore country at the period when it formed the +dominion of the Haihaya or Kālachuri Rājpūt 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 Dāhal and its king Gāngeya 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 Rājpūts take their name. The Haihaya dynasty +of Ratanpur were related to the Kālachuri kings of Tewar, and under them the ancestors of the Daharia Rājpūts probably migrated +from Jubbulpore into Chhattīsgarh. 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 +Chhattīsgarh and Jubbulpore, and a large colony of Kālachuri Rājpūts may still be found about ten miles north-east of Rewah +town. The Daharias relate that when Parasurāma, the great Brāhman warrior, was slaying the Kshatriyas, a few of them escaped +towards Ratanpur and were camping in the forest by the wayside. Parasurāma came up and asked them who they were, and they +said they were <i>Daharias</i> or wayfarers, from <i>dāhar</i> the Chhattīsgarhi term for a road or path; and thus they successfully escaped the vengeance of Parasurāma. This futile fiction +only demonstrates the real ignorance of their Brāhman 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 Marāthas 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 Rājpūts, 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 Rājpūt clans as Bais, Chandel, Baghel, Bundela, Mainpuri Chauhān, Parihār, Rāthor and several others. +Certain names are not of Rājpūt origin, and probably record the admission of outsiders into the caste. Like the Rājpūts, within +the sept they have also subsepts, some of which are taken from the Brāhmans, as Parāsar, Bhāradwāj, Sāndilya, while others +are nicknames, as Kachariha (one who does not care about a beating), Atariha, Hiyās 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 Rājpūts 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 Rājpūts +is forbidden. They also practise hypergamy, as members of the Mainpuri Chauhān, Hiyās, 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 Bilāspur 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 Brāhmans and Rājpūts. 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 Hindustāni 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 Brāhman. 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’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 <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’s father brings two little dough images of Mahādeo and Pārvati 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 +<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’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 Lāl. +They are now engaged in cultivation, and many of them are proprietors of villages, and tenants. Some of them are employed +as constables and chuprāssies, 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 Rājpūt blood being quite evident. Brāhmans will take water from them, but they now rank below Rājpūts, +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. Jeorākhan Lāl, Deputy Inspector +of Schools, and Pandit Pyāre Lāl Misra, ethnographic clerk. The historical notice is mainly supplied by Mr. Hīra Lāl. +</p> +<p class="footnote"><span class="label"><a id="d0e11716" href="#d0e11716src" class="noteref">2</a></span> Tod’s <i>Rājasthān</i>, i. p. 128. +</p> +</div> +</div> +<div id="d0e11771" class="div1"><span class="pagenum"> +[<a href="#d0e111">Contents</a>] +</span><h2>Dāngi</h2> +<div class="div2" id="d0e11774"> +<h3>1. Origin and traditions.</h3> +<p><b>Dāngi.</b>—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 Rājputāna and Central India, +from which localities they probably immigrated into the Saugor District during the eleventh century. The Dāngis were formerly +dominant in Saugor, a part of which was called Dāngiwāra after them. The kings of Garhpahra or old Saugor were Dāngis, 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 Rājpūt 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 +Dāngis, and there are thus twenty-two subdivisions of the caste, besides three other subdivisions who are held to be descended +from pure Rājpūts. The name is said to be derived from <i>dāng</i>, fraud, on account of the above deception. A more plausible derivation is from the Persian <i>dāng</i>, a hill, the Dāngis being thus hillmen; and they may not improbably have been a set of robbers and freebooters in the Vindhyan +Hills, like the Gūjars and Mewātis in northern India, naturally recruiting their band from all classes of the population, +as is shown by ingenious implication in this story itself. ‘<i>Khet men bāmi, gaon men Dāngi</i>,’ or ‘A Dāngi 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 Rājpūts. Since they have +settled down as respectable cultivators and enjoy a good repute among their neighbours, the Dāngis have disowned the above +story, and now say that they are descended from Rāja Dāng, a Kachhwāha Rājpūt king of Narwar in Central India. Nothing is +known of Rāja Dāng 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>Dāng hāth karyāri rahi,</span></p> +</div> +</div> +<p>‘The mare bolted to the seller again, leaving in Dāng’s hand nothing except the reins.’ + +</p> +<p>The Dāngis 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 Rāja Dāng. 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 Rāja Dāng’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 Rāja Nipāl Singh of Narwar, and when he was fighting with Indra over +the fairy, Krishna came to Indra’s assistance. But Nipāl 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 Nipāl 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 Nipāl Singh saw the trick, +and, sitting down, propelled himself through the doorway with his head erect. The outwitted god remarked, ‘<i lang="und">Tum bare dāndi ho</i>,’ or ‘You are very cunning,’ and the name Dāndi stuck to Nipāl Singh and was afterwards corrupted to Dāngi. There can be +little doubt that the caste are an offshoot of Rājpūts 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 Dāngis served in the Rājpūt and Marātha armies, and a small isolated +colony of them is found in one village of Indora in the Nāgpur District, the descendants of Dāngis who engaged in military +service under the Bhonsla kings. + + +</p> +</div> +<div class="div2" id="d0e11806"> +<h3>2. Caste subdivisions.</h3> +<p>The Dāngis 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 Rājpūts. The other twenty-two clans are known as Baīsa (22) or Prithwipat Dāngis, 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 Rājpūts, of whom they may be the partly illegitimate descendants. The Parnāmi sept are <a id="d0e11811"></a><span class="pagenum">[<a href="#d0e11811">460</a>]</span>apparently those who have the creed of the Dhāmis, the followers of Prānnāth of Panna. And as already seen, some are named +from women of low caste, from whom by Dāngi fathers they are supposed to be descended. The whole number of septs is thus divided +into three groups, the highest containing the three quasi-Rājpūt septs already mentioned, the next highest the thirteen septs +of Prithwipat Dāngis, and the lowest all the other septs. Pure Rājpūts will take daughters in marriage from the highest group, +and this in turn takes girls of the Prithwipat Dāngis of the thirteen clans, though neither will give daughters in return; +and the Prithwipat Dāngis 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 Rāja 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 sansār</i>, or the divine Dāngis. Pure Rājpūts 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’s horoscope +should be stronger than that of the girl’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’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 Dāngis 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 Brāhmans and Kāyasths. 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 <i>katchi</i> food or that which is cooked with water, and another of <i>pakki</i> food cooked with <i>ghī</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’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 Dāngis pay special reverence to the goddess Durga or Devi as the presiding deity of war. They worship her during the months +of Kunwār (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 Brāhmans, 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 Brāhmans, and they have now stopped it. The Dāngis perform +the <i>shrādhh</i> ceremony in the month of Kunwār. 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 Kāyasths and Gahoi Banias, and <i>katchi</i> food, cooked with water, from Jijhotia and Sanādhya Brāhmans. Jijhotia Brāhmans formerly took <i>pakki</i> food from Dāngis, but have now ceased to do so. The Dāngis require the services of Brāhmans at all ceremonies. They have +a caste <i>panchāyat</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 Dāngis 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 bajāwe dere men,</span></p> +</div> +</div> +<p>or ‘Though he belong neither to the three septs nor the thirteen septs, yet the Dāngi 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 <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 ‘Draw’ in the duelling days. So if one Dāngi 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 Dāngis, being the highest subcaste, refuse to sell milk or <i>ghī</i>. The men usually have Singh as a termination to their names, like Rājpūts. 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>Dāngri</h2> +<p><b>Dāngri.</b><a id="d0e11895src" href="#d0e11895" class="noteref">1</a>—A small caste of melon and vegetable growers, whose name is derived from <i>dāngar</i> or <i>dāngra</i>, a water-melon. They reside in the Wardha and Bhandāra 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 Mahādeo gave the seeds of a juāri plant and a water-melon respectively +for sowing. The former became the ancestor of the Kunbis and the latter of the Dāngris. On one occasion when Mahādeo, assuming +the guise of a beggar, asked the Dāngri brother for a water-melon, he refused to give it, and on this account his descendants +were condemned to perpetual poverty. In fact, the Dāngris, 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 Mālis and Dāngris +are as a rule very small. The conclusion indicated by the above story that the Dāngris 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 Kalār, the Kunbi and the Gādiwān Dāngris, thus showing that the caste has received recruits from the Telis +or oilmen and the Kalārs or liquor-sellers. The Gādiwān, 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 Pānibhar or waterman +Dāngris 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 Dāngris, 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 Mahādeo +and given to a Brāhman 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 Dāngris 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 Benāres, and that they came from there into the Central Provinces; hence they call themselves +Kāshi Dāngri, Kāshi being the classical name for Benāres. This legend appears to be entirely without foundation, as their +family names, speech and customs are alike of purely Marāthi origin. But it is found among other castes also that they like +to pretend that they came from Benāres, the most sacred centre of Hinduism. <a id="d0e11906"></a><span class="pagenum">[<a href="#d0e11906">465</a>]</span>The social customs of the Dāngris 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 Pūja. 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 Marātha 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 Dāngris 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 Dāngris commonly bury the dead, and they place cotton leaves over the eyes and ears +of the corpse. In Bhandāra 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 Dāngris have rather a +bad reputation, and a saying current about them is ‘<i lang="und">Dāngri beta puha chor</i>,’ or ‘A Dāngri will steal even a shred of cotton’; 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 Pyāre Lāl Misra in Wardha, and Mr. Hirā Lāl in Bhandāra. +</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, Chhīpi, Sūji.</b>—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 Berār. 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 Sūji from <i>sui</i>, a needle, was formerly more common. Shimpi is the Marātha name, and Chhīpi, from Chhīpa a calico-printer or dyer, is another +name used for the caste, probably because it is largely recruited from the Chhīpas. In Bombay they say that when Parasurāma +was destroying the Kshatriyas, two Rājpūt 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 Chhīpi and from him +the Darzis are descended, the name being corrupted to Shimpi, and the second was called Chhīpa and was the ancestor of the +dyers. The common title of the Darzis is Khalīfa, 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.<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 “Darzi, or its Hindi equivalent Sūji, 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 Chhīmba castes, more especially to the latter.” + + +</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 Bāman subdivision named after the Brāhman caste. These will not take food from any +other caste except Brāhmans and are probably an offshoot from them. They are considered to be the highest subdivision, and +next to them come the Rai or Rāj Darzis. Another subcaste is named Kaithia, after the Kāyasths, and a third Srivāstab, which +is the name of a well-known subcaste of Kāyasths derived from the town of Srāvasti, now Sahet Mahet in the Gonda District.<a id="d0e11973src" href="#d0e11973" class="noteref">3</a> In Betūl the Srivāstab 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 Chamārs. Other subcastes +are of the territorial type as Mālwi, Khāndeshi, Chhattīsgarhi, Mathuria and so on, and the section or family names are usually +taken from villages. Among them, however, we find Jugia from Jogi, Thākur or Rājpūt, Gūjar, Khawās or barber, and Baroni, +the title of a female Dhīmar. 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: “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 <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>levées</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.” 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.”<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. Rājendra Lāl 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 Jolāha. 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 Chhattīsgarh, 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 ‘trussing of his points’ 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 ‘girding up his loins.’ + + +</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 Brāhmans 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> “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 <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 Gujarāt the tailor is often employed in native households. “Though even in +well-to-do families,” Mr. Bhimbhai Kirpāram writes,<a id="d0e12067src" href="#d0e12067" class="noteref">9</a> “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 Gujarāt, in the absence +of Brāhmans, a Darzi officiates at Bhāwad marriages, and in some Brāhman marriages a Darzi is called with some ceremony to +sew a bodice for the bride. On the other hand, in the Pānch 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 Gujarāt 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 Nāmdeo sect, originated by a Chhīpa or dyer, Nāmdeo Sādhu. Nāmdeo +is said to have been a contemporary of Kabīr 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 Marāthas 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 Chhīpas, the two principal castes from whom the Darzis have originated.<a id="d0e12084src" href="#d0e12084" class="noteref">11</a> Nāmdeo’s sect was thus apparently a protest on the part of the Chhīpas and Dhobis against their inferior position in the +caste system and the tyranny of the Brāhmans, and resembled the spiritual revolt of the weavers under Kabīr and of the Chamārs +under Ghāsi Dās and Jagjīwan Dās. + +</p> +<p>In Berār it is stated<a id="d0e12092src" href="#d0e12092" class="noteref">12</a> that “the Simpi caste has twelve and a half divisions; of these the chief are known as the Jain, Marāthi and Telugu Simpis. +The Jain Simpis claim the hero Rimināth as a caste-fellow, while the Marāthas are often Lingāyats 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. + +</p> +<p>The Darzi’s occupation, Mr. Crooke remarks, is a poor one and held rather in contempt. The village proverb runs, ‘<i lang="und">Darzi ka pūt jab tak jīta tab tak sīta</i>,’ ‘The tailor’s boy will do nothing but sew all his life long.’ Another somewhat more complimentary saying is, ‘<i lang="und">Tanak si suiya tak tak kare aur lākh taka ko banj kare</i>,’ or ‘The tiny needle goes <i>tuk tuk</i>, 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. + + + +</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 Punjābis</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’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’s <i>Eastern India</i>, Martin’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. 178–184. +</p> +<p class="footnote"><span class="label"><a id="d0e12021" href="#d0e12021src" class="noteref">7</a></span> Webb’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 Gujarāt</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 Gujarāt</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 Nāmdeo belonged to Mārwār. Mr. Maclagan’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>Berār Census Report</i> (1881), para. 231. +</p> +</div> +</div> +<div id="d0e12108" class="div1"><span class="pagenum"> +[<a href="#d0e111">Contents</a>] +</span><h2>Dewār</h2> +<div class="div2" id="d0e12111"> +<h3>1. General notice.</h3> +<p><b>Dewār.</b><a id="d0e12117src" href="#d0e12117" class="noteref">1</a>—(Derived from Devi, whom they worship, or from Diābār, ‘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 <a id="d0e12120"></a><span class="pagenum">[<a href="#d0e12120">473</a>]</span>in 1911 and are residents of the Chhattīsgarh plain. The Dewārs themselves trace their origin from a Binjhia named Gopāl Rai, +who accompanied Rāja Kalyān Sai of Ratanpur on a visit to the Court of Delhi in Akbār’s time. Gopāl 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 Gopāl +Rai and his own champion wrestler. Gopāl Rai defeated and killed his opponent, and Kalyān 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 Dewārs. 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 Dewārs. 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 Raipūria and Ratanpūria, Raipur and Ratanpur having been +formerly the two principal towns of Chhattīsgarh. Within these are several other local subdivisions, <i>e.g.</i> Navāgarhia or those belonging to Nawāgarh in Bilāspur, Sonākhania from Sonākhān south of the Mahānadi, Chātarrājiha from +Chāter Raj, in Raipur, and Sārangarhia from Sārangarh State. Some other divisions are either occupational or social; thus +the Baghurra Dewārs are those who tame tigers and usually live in the direction of Bastar, the Baipāri Dewārs are petty traders +in brass or pewter ornaments which they sell to Banjāra women, and the Lohār and Jogi Dewārs 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, Raipūria and Ratanpūria, are distinguished by the musical instruments which they play on while +begging. That of the Raipūrias is a sort of rude <a id="d0e12133"></a><span class="pagenum">[<a href="#d0e12133">474</a>]</span>fiddle called <i>sārangi</i>, which has a cocoanut shell as a resonator with horsehair strings, and is played with a bow. The Ratanpūrias 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 Dewārs are almost all of Dravidian origin. Sonwānia, Markām, +Marai, Dhurwa, Ojha, Netām, Salām, Katlām and Jagat are the names of well-known Gond septs which are also possessed by the +Dewārs, and Telāsi, 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’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 Sonwāni 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 Dewārs, 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 Kalār (distiller) will do instead, but there is no substitute for pork. This, however, is as a rule easily +supplied as nearly all the Dewārs 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 <i>gauna</i> 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 Dewārs 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 Dewār. Polygamy is freely allowed. + + +</p> +</div> +<div class="div2" id="d0e12153"> +<h3>4. Religion and social practices.</h3> +<p>The Dewārs especially worship Devi Maha Mai and Dūlha 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 Brāhman, whom they call a Kumhāti Kīda, 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 Jemādar, who always belongs either +to the Sonwāni or Telāsi 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. + + +</p> +</div> +<div class="div2" id="d0e12161"> +<h3>5. Occupation.</h3> +<p>The Dewārs are professional beggars, and play on the musical instruments called <i>dhungru</i> and <i>sārangi</i> which have already been described. The Ratanpūrias usually celebrate in an exaggerated style the praises of Gopāl 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 Raipūrias prefer a song, called Gujrīgīt, about curds and milk. +They also sing various songs relating how a woman is beloved by a Rāja 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 Prasād, Tahsīldār, Dhamtari. +</p> +</div> +</div> +<div id="d0e12174" class="div1"><span class="pagenum"> +[<a href="#d0e111">Contents</a>] +</span><h2>Dhākar</h2> +<div class="div2" id="d0e12177"> +<h3>1. Origin and subdivisions.</h3> +<p><b>Dhākar.</b><a id="d0e12183src" href="#d0e12183" class="noteref">1</a>—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 Dhākar connotes a man of illegitimate descent and is applied to the +Kirārs of the Central Provinces and perhaps to other castes of mixed Rājpūt origin. But in Bastar it is the special designation +of a considerable class of persons who are the descendants of alliances between Brāhman and Rājpūt immigrants and women of +the indigenous tribes. They are divided, like the Halbas, into two groups—Purāit or pure, and Surāit or mixed. The son of +a Brāhman or Rājpūt father by a Rāwat (herdsman) or Halba mother is a Purāit, but one born from a woman of the Muria, Marār, +Nai or Kalār castes is a Surāit. But these latter can become Purāits after two or three generations, and the same rule applies +to the son of a Dhākar father by a Halba or Rāwat woman, who also ranks in the first place as a Surāit. Descendants of a Dhākar +father by a Muria or other low-caste woman, however, always remain Surāits. <a id="d0e12186"></a><span class="pagenum">[<a href="#d0e12186">478</a>]</span>The Purāits and Surāits form endogamous groups, and the latter will accept cooked food from the former. The more respectable +Dhākars round Jagdalpur are now tending, however, to call themselves Rājpūts and refuse to admit any one of mixed birth into +their community. + +</p> +<p>One legend of their origin is that the first Dhākar was the offspring of a Brāhman cook of the Rāja of Bastar with a Kosaria +Rāwat woman; and though this is discredited by the Dhākars it is probably a fairly correct version of the facts. An inferior +branch of the caste exists which is known as Chikrasār; 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 Rāja imposed on them the duty of thatching +a hut for him at the Dasahra festival, which their descendants still perform. The other Dhākars refuse to marry or eat with +them, and it is clear from the custom of thatching the Rāja’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 Dhākar 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 Brāhman. 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’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 Brāhman 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 Dhākars think that the soul of the departed is tortured by the flame of the +lamp. If the Brāhman 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 Dhākars 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 Dhākar 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 Rāja 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 <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 Bahādur Panda Baijnāth, 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>—The Marātha caste of shepherds and blanket-weavers, numbering 96,000 persons in the Central Provinces and Berār. They reside +principally in the Nāgpur, Wardha, Chānda and Nimār Districts of the Central Provinces and in all Districts of Berār. The +Dhangars are a very numerous caste in Bombay and Hyderābād. 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 +Mahādeo 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 Diwāli 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 Mahādeo 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: Varādi or Barāde, +belonging to Berār; Kānore or Kānade, of Kanara; Jhāde, or those belonging to the Bhandāra, Bālāghāt and Chhindwāra Districts, +called the Jhādi or hill country; Lādse, found in Hyderābād; Gādri, from <i>gādar</i>, a sheep, a division probably consisting of northerners, as the name for the cognate caste of shepherds in Hindustān is Gadaria; +Telange, belonging to the Telugu country; Marāthe, of the Marātha country; Māhurai from Māhur in Hyderābād, 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: Powār, a Rājpūt sept; Dokra, an old man; Mārte, a murderer or slayer; Sarodi, +the name of a caste of mendicants; Mhāli, a barber; Kaode, a crow; Chambhāde, a Chamār; Gūjde, a Gūjar; Juāde, a gambler; +Lamchote, long-haired; Bodke, bald-headed; Khatīk, a butcher; Chāndekar, from Chānda; Dambhāde, 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 Sānta 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 Kunwār (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 Brāhman. This happens only when the Brāhman has sown an offering of rice, called Gāg, in the name of the goddess Rāna +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 <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’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 Marātha +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 Brāhman and the mālguzār +(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>panchāyat</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>Mahādeo is the special deity of the Dhangars, and they also observe the ordinary Hindu festivals. At Diwāli they worship their +goats by dyeing their horns and touching their feet. One Bahrām of Nāchangaon near Pulgaon is the tutelary deity of the Wardha +Dhangars and the protector of their flocks. On the last day of the month of Māgh they perform a special ceremony called the +Deo Pūja. A Dhīmar 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 Dhīmar 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 Marātha 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 Bālāji, +the younger brother of Rāma, 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 Sāsin, 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’s body. On returning from the burning <i>ghāt</i> the funeral party drink liquor. Some gānja, 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 Brāhman 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 Brāhman 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 +Brāhmans 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, Phūlmāli or a Sunār, 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’ 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 Lāl, 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 ‘stock’ in English. +</p> +</div> +</div> +<div id="d0e12267" class="div1"><span class="pagenum"> +[<a href="#d0e111">Contents</a>] +</span><h2>Dhānuk</h2> +<div class="div2" id="d0e12270"> +<h3>1. Original and classical records.</h3> +<p><b>Dhānuk.</b>—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 Dhānuks. 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 Purāna, quoted by Sir Henry Elliot, being from +a Chamār father and a Chandāl or sweeper mother. Another pedigree makes the mother a Chamār and the father an outcaste Ahīr. +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 Dhānuks 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 Dhānuks were in former times the militia of the country. He states that all the Dhānuks <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—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 Dhānuks, 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 Dhānuks 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 Brāhman 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 Dhānuks 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 Purāna 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 Dhānuks, not less than the other soldier castes, have advanced a pretension to be Kshatriyas, those of Narsinghpur sometimes +calling themselves Dhānkarai Rājpūts, though this claim is of course in their case a pure absurdity. It is not necessary to +suppose that the Dhānuks of the Central Provinces are the lineal descendants of the caste whose genealogy is given in the +Purānas; 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>Dhānuks 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 Brāhmans from whom the Dhānuks 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 Dhānuks 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 Māragaiyān from Māragaon, Benaikawār +from Benaika village, Pangarya from Panāgar, 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’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. + + +</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 Dhānuks eat flesh and fish, but not fowls, beef or pork, and they abstain from liquor. They will take food cooked without +water from a Brāhman and a Lodhi, but not from a Rājpūt; but in Nimār the status of the caste is distinctly lower, and they +eat pig’s flesh and the leavings of Brāhmans and Rājpūts. 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 Dhānuk 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. Dhānuk. +</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’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 Paīks 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 Kanhyā Lāl, 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>Dhanwār</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’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>Dhanwār, Dhanuhār.</b><a id="d0e12409src" href="#d0e12409" class="noteref">1</a>—A primitive tribe living in the wild hilly country of the Bilāspur zamīndāri estates, adjoining Chota Nāgpur. They numbered +only 19,000 persons in 1911. The name Dhanuhār 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 Dhāngar, or labourer, and Kisān, or cultivator, which are applied to the Oraons, and perhaps Halba or farmservant, by which +another tribe is known. The Dhanwārs are almost certainly not connected with the Dhānuks 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 Dhanwārs have no language of their own and speak a corrupt form of Chhattīsgarhi +Hindi. Mr. Jeorākhan Lāl writes of them:—“The word Dhanuhār is a corrupt form of Dhanusdhār 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>dhāman</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. Dhanuhār 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 Dhanuhārs 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 Nāga Lodha +and Nāgi Lodhi, <i>Nāga</i> meaning naked and <i>Lodha</i> being the Chhattīsgarhi 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 Nāga 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, Dhanuhār 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 Maswāsi. +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 Binjhwār, Bhumia, Korwa, Mājhi, Kol, Kawar and others, the Dhanuhārs themselves being the progeny of +Karankot and Maswāsi. 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 Dhanuhārs, 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 Chhattīsgarhi 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 Dhanuhārs +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 Sonwāni sept, which is found +among several castes and tribes in Chhattīsgarh; its name is perhaps derived from <i>Sona pāni</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 Dhanuhārs the Sonwāni sept has become divided +into the Son-Sonwāni, who pour the gold water over the penitent; the Rakat Sonwāni, who give him to drink a little of the +blood of the sacrificial fowl; the Hardi Sonwāni, who give turmeric water to the mourners when they come back from a funeral; +the Kāri Sonwāni, who assist at this ceremony; and one or two others. The totem of the Kāri Sonwāni 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 Deswārs 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 Dhanwārs refuse to +do this because they say that when Sīta, Rāma’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’s feet are grey because of the turmeric water which Sīta poured on them, and that +the depression on its forehead is the mark of her hand when she placed a <i>tīka</i> or sign there with coloured rice. The Deswārs are also called Dui Duāria 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 Deswārs’ may be so called because they shed human blood. A member of the Telāsi +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 Sūrajgoti 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 Phūl Phulwāri or ‘The bursting of the flower.’ The betrothal itself +is called Phaldān 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 <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’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 <i>sendhaura</i> 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. + + +</p> +</div> +<div class="div2" id="d0e12458"> +<h3>4. Festivities of the women of the bridegroom’s party.</h3> +<p>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 <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. Jeorākhān Lāl 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’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’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. + + +</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: “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 <i lang="und">Churiyāhi Dauki</i> 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 Dhanwārs, 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, Rāwat, Binjhwār or Kawar, he is allowed to become +a Dhanwār and marry her on giving several feasts, the exact number being fixed by the village Baiga or priest in a <i>panchāyat</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, ‘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 <i>shrāddh</i> ceremony, but in the month of Kunwār, 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 +Masān 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 Dhanwārs are Thākur Deo, the god of agriculture, and Dūlha 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 Thākur 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, ‘<i lang="und">Jai Thākur Deo</i>,’ or ‘Victory to Thākur 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 <i>dūb</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. Dūlha Deo is the god of the family and the +marriage-bed, and when a Dhanwār is married or his first son is born, a goat is offered to the deity. Another interesting +deity is Maiya Andhiyāri, 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 Māgh (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 Thākur 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 Rāt Devi or the goddess of the night; or Rāt +Mai, the night mother. The goddess Maswāsi was the mythical ancestress of the Dhanwārs, the wife of Karankot, and also the +daughter of Maiya Andhiyāri or Rāt Mai. She too is worshipped every third year in the dark fortnight of the month of Māgh +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. Maswāsi is invoked by the +Dhanwārs 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 Thākur Deo, and when he is displeased with the +Dhanwārs they intervene to allay his anger. The brothers of Maswāsi, 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 Dhanwārs 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’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 Dhanwārs. 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 Dhanwārs 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 Brāhmans, 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 Dhanwār, and a woman of the Gond, Binjhwār and Rāwat tribes, if such a one is living +with a Dhanwār, 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>panchāyat</i> of five Dhanwārs is assembled, one of whom must be of the Mājhi sept. The members of the <i>panchāyat</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 Mājhi 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 Dhanwārs. Permanent exclusion from caste is imposed only for living with a man or woman of +another caste other than those who may become Dhanwārs, or for taking food from a member of an impure caste, the only ones +which are lower than the Dhanwārs. Temporary exclusion for an indefinite period is awarded for an irregular connection between +a Dhanwār man and woman, or of a Dhanwār with a Kawar, Binjhwār, Rāwat 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 Dhanwārs 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 Dhanwārs 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 Nāth in Bodāsāmar zamīndāri; after having accomplished this he is purified by one of the Sonwāni 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 Chhattīsgarh, 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 Dhanwār 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. Hīra Lāl notes the following instance +of the names of four children in a family. The eldest was named after his grandfather; the second was called Bhālu or bear, +as his maternal uncle who had been eaten by a bear was reborn in him; the third was called Ghāsi, 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, ‘<i lang="und">Bhūle bisāre kausi got</i>,’ or ‘A man who has got no <i>got</i> belongs to the Kausi <i>got</i>.’ 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 Pahāru, 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 <a id="d0e12588"></a><span class="pagenum">[<a href="#d0e12588">501</a>]</span>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. + + +</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 Dhanwār looks down. The women collect the leaves of <i>sāl</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 Chhattīsgarhi. + + + +<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. Jeorākhan Lāl, Deputy Inspector of Schools, Bilāspur. +</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’s brother-in-law is abusive in the same sense as brother-in-law (<i>sāla</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>Dhīmar<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>Dhīmar, Kahār, Bhoi, Pālewār, Baraua, Machhandar.</b>—The caste of fishermen and palanquin-bearers. In 1911 the Dhīmars numbered 284,000 persons in the Central Provinces and Berār, +being most numerous in the Marātha Districts. In the north of the Province we find in place of the Dhīmars the Kahārs and +Mullāhs, and in the east or Chhattīsgarh country the Kewats. But the distinction between these castes is no more than nominal, +for in some localities both Kahār and Kewat are returned as subcastes of Dhīmar. In some parts of India the Bhois and Dhīmars +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 Dhīmar to the fishermen. The word Dhīmar is a corruption of the Sanskrit Dhīvara, 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 Kahār 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 Dhīmar or Kahār +caste, and consider it a rise in status. Pālewār is the name of the Telugu fishermen of Chānda. Machhandar signifies one who +catches fish. + + +</p> +<div id="d0e12693" class="figure"><img border="0" src="images/p502.jpg" alt="Dhīmar or fisherman’s hut." width="720" height="435"><p class="figureHead">Dhīmar or fisherman’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>singāra</i> nut, the Nadha or those who live on the banks of streams, the Tānkiwālas or sharpeners of grindstones, the Jhīngas 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 Mahādeo out of a handful of dust (<i>dhūr</i>) for carrying the palanquin of Pārvati when she was tired. They are probably the same people as the Dhuris who also parch +grain, and in Chhattīsgarh are considered as a separate caste. Similarly the Sonjhara Dhīmars wash for gold, the calling of +the separate Sonjhara caste. The Kasdhonia Dhīmars 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 Gadhewāle Dhīmars 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 Bhanāre Dhīmars appear to be named after the town of Bhandāra. + + +</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 Bāghmār, a <a id="d0e12722"></a><span class="pagenum">[<a href="#d0e12722">504</a>]</span>tiger-slayer; Ojhwa, from Ojha, or sorcerer; Guru pahchān, one who knows his teacher; Midoia, a guardian of boundaries, from +<i>med</i>, a boundary or border; Gidhwe, a vulture; Kolhe, or jackal; Gadhekhāya, a donkey-eater; and Kastūre, musk; a few names are +from towns or villages, as Tumsare from Tumsar, Nāgpurkar from Nāgpur; and a few from other castes as Mādgi, Bhoyar, Pindāria +from Pindāri, a freebooter; Gondia (Gond) and Gondhali; and Kachhwāha, a sept of Rājpūts. + + +</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 Hindustāni Districts women do not accompany +the marriage procession, but in the Marātha Districts they do. Among the Bhanāra Dhīmars of Chānda 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 Dhīmars in Chānda 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 Dhīmars of Chhindwāra grow <i>singāra</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 Dhīmar marriage in Bhandāra 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’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.<a id="d0e12740src" href="#d0e12740" class="noteref">2</a> A fee of Rs. 1–4 is paid to the headman, and the divorce is completed.<a id="d0e12743src" href="#d0e12743" class="noteref">3</a> In some localities the woman’s bangles are also broken. In Jhānsi 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 Berār on the third day after a birth cakes of juāri 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 Dhīmars. 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 Berār, Mr. Kitts remarks,<a id="d0e12767src" href="#d0e12767" class="noteref">5</a> the funeral ceremony of the Dhīmars 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. + + +</p> +</div> +<div class="div2" id="d0e12774"> +<h3>7. Religion.</h3> +<p>One of the principal deities of the Dhīmars<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 Berār they also pray to Anna Pūrna, 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 <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; Parihār, 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>tāwiz</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’s spirit. + + +</p> +</div> +<div class="div2" id="d0e12803"> +<h3>8. Occupation: fisherman.</h3> +<p>The occupations of the Dhīmar 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 Dhīmars 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 Dhīmar 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 Diwāli 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 Dhīmars have unsewn sandals secured to the feet with strips of leather. It is a special degradation +to a Dhīmar to be struck with a shoe. He has a monopoly of growing <i>singāra</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 Dhīmar 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 Dhīmar’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 Hindustāni Districts where women are frequently secluded and therefore cannot draw water for +the household, while in the Marātha Districts where the women go to the well no water-bearer is required. In this capacity +the Dhīmar 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 Dhīmar 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 mālguzār’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 Dhīmar’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 +Dhīmar 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 Kahār caste in northern India and to the Dhīmars 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>pālki</i>, <a id="d0e12843"></a><span class="pagenum">[<a href="#d0e12843">510</a>]</span>though for the longer journey to the bridegroom’s village some less cumbrous conveyance is utilised. Four Dhīmars carry the +<i>pālki</i> and receive Rs. 1–4. Well-to-do people will be carried in procession round the town. When employed by the village proprietor +the Dhīmar 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 Dhīmar 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 <i>pālki</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 Dhīmar or his wife is permitted to knead flour with water and make +it into a cake which the Brāhman 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>jūtha</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’s, will eat his leavings. As a servant the Dhīmar +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 Kahārs 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 <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 Dhīmar 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 Dhīmar +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 Dhīmar’s is to sell parched grain and rice to travellers in markets and railway stations like the +Bharbhūnja 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 Dhīmars and Kewats also weave hemp-matting and gunny-bags, but such members of the caste rank +lower than the others and Brāhmans will not take water from them. Another calling by which a few Dhīmars 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 Dhīmar participates in the sacrifice +to Nārāyan Deo described in the article on Mahār, 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 Dhīmars 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-bāris</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 +Pāt Deo or the god of silk thread. On this subject Mr. Ball writes:<a id="d0e12873src" href="#d0e12873" class="noteref">10</a> “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.” 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 Dhīmar 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 Brāhmans 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 Marātha Districts, though in the north where he is employed by Brāhmans as a personal servant +he abstains from this food. With all this, however, the Dhīmars practise in some social matters a pharasaical strictness. +In Jubbulpore Mr. Pancham Lāl records that among the four subcastes of Rekwār, 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’s house. A man will take water to drink from the metal or earthen vessel of any other Dhīmar, +male or female. In Berār 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 Lohār (blacksmith), a Sutār (carpenter), a Bhāt (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 Dhīmars will eat at the hands of Muhammadans. They go round and beg for offerings +of food and take them to the Fakīr, who places a little before the <i>tāzia</i> or tomb of Husain and distributes the remainder to the Dhīmars and other Hindus and Muhammadans who have been begging. Except +on this occasion they will eat nothing touched by a Muhammadan. The Dhīmar, the Nai or barber, and the Bāri or indoor servant +are the three household menials of the northern Districts, and are known as Pauni Parja. Sometimes the Ahīr or grazier is +an indoor servant and takes the place of the Dhīmar or the Bāri. 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. 1–4 +as his fee, and is once more a proper member of the community. In Berār a Bhoi who has been put out of caste is received back +by his fellows when he has drunk the water touched by a Brāhman’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>gānja</i> (Indian hemp). + + +</p> +</div> +<div class="div2" id="d0e12913"> +<h3>13. Legend of the caste.</h3> +<p>The Dhīmars are proverbially of a cheerful disposition, though simple and easily cheated. When carrying <i>pālkis</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 Mahādeo and Pārvati were travelling the goddess became very tired, so +Mahādeo created four men from the dust, who bore her in a litter. On the way they talked and laughed, and Pārvati 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 Mārwāri +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 Lāl, Naib-Tahsīldār, Sihora. +Much of the interesting information about the occupations of the caste was given to the writer by Bābu Kāli 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. 1–4 is paid instead of a rupee. +</p> +<p class="footnote"><span class="label"><a id="d0e12753" href="#d0e12753src" class="noteref">4</a></span> <i>Berār 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>ghāt</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>Berār 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’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 Dhīmars are taken only as a typical example. They seem to +have little or no connection with ordinary morality. But in Jhānsi Mr. Crooke remarks that a Kahār 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. +</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>panchāyat</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>—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 Bāghmār and Bāghcharia septs, the Marātha and Khatnāgar and Marālwati septs +and the Sonwāni and <a id="d0e12975"></a><span class="pagenum">[<a href="#d0e12975">516</a>]</span>Sonsonwāni septs. These septs are said to have been subdivided and to be still related. The names Bāghmār and Bāghcharia are +both derived from the tiger; Sonnwāni is from Sona-pāni or gold-water, and the Sonsonwāni sept seems therefore to be the aristocratic +branch or <i>crême de la crême</i> of the Sonwānis. The children of brothers and sisters may marry but not those of two sisters, because a man’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’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’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. + + +</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’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 <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’s sept sitting opposite +to the <i>panchāyat</i> 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. + + +</p> +</div> +<div class="div2" id="d0e12998"> +<h3>5. Caste <i>panchāyat</i> and social penalties. +</h3> +<p>The head of the caste is always a member of the Sonwāni sept and is known as Rāja. It is his business to administer water +in which gold has been dipped (<i>sona-pāni</i>) to offenders as a means of purification, and from this the name of the sept is derived. The Rāja 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 Rāja 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 Pūs. + + +</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 Brāhmans 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 Chhattīsgarh 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 Chhattīsgarh 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, Wārthi, Baretha, Chakla, Rajak, Parit.</b>—The professional caste of washermen. The name is derived from the Hindi <i>dhona</i>, and the Sanskrit <i>dhav</i>, to wash. Wārthi is the Marātha 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 Marātha Districts. The Chakla caste of Madras are leather-workers, +but in Chānda 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 Berār, or one to every hundred inhabitants. They are numerous in the Districts +with large towns and also in Chhattīsgarh, 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 Berāria from Berār; Mālwi, Bundelkhandi, Nimāria, 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> “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. + +</p> +<p>“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. + +</p> +<p>The remarriage of widows is allowed, and in Betūl 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. +<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>ghāt</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 +Asārh (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 <i>supāri</i> or areca-nut from the bazār 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 +Diwāli, 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’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>rītha</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> “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>nāgphani</i> (<i>Cactus indicus</i>) 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 <i>chapāti</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’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 Brāhman 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 Chamār 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 Rājputāna 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 Māng, Mahār and Chamār. 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’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 <i>sohāg</i> or good fortune, and the present from the Dhobin is supposed to be lucky. In Berār the Dhobi is also a Balūtedār or village +servant. Mr. Kitts writes of him:<a id="d0e13188src" href="#d0e13188" class="noteref">5</a> “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 <i>kankan</i> (bracelet) on the girl’s hand. In the Yeotmāl 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’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>wājantri</i>, while the bystanders besprinkle them with red powder.” + +</p> +<p>In Chhattīsgarh 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> “The caste largely preponderates in Chhattīsgarh, 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 Bilāspur 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 Satnāmis. It may therefore be assumed that in Chhattīsgarh the Bareth caste has largely taken to cultivation.” In Bengal +Sir H. Risley states<a id="d0e13212src" href="#d0e13212" class="noteref">7</a> that “the Dhobi often gives up his caste trade and follows the profession of a writer, messenger or collector of rent (<i>tahsīldār</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.” + + +</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> ‘<i lang="und">Dhobi par Dhobi base, tab kapre par sābun pare</i>’, 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, ‘<i lang="und">Dhobi ka gadha neh ghar ka neh ghāt ka</i>,’ ‘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 <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: “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.” +<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, ‘The Dhobi looks smart in other +people’s clothes’; and ‘<i lang="und">Rājāche shiri, Paritāche tiri</i>,’ 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 Vannāns 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.”<a id="d0e13250src" href="#d0e13250" class="noteref">9</a> 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. <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—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’s family are skilful with the needle, and I have sent a torn garment to the wash which returned carefully repaired.”<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’s <i>Hindu Castes</i>, i. 342–3. +</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 Rājasthān.</i></p> +<p class="footnote"><span class="label"><a id="d0e13188" href="#d0e13188src" class="noteref">5</a></span> <i>Berār 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>Bihār 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>—A caste belonging exclusively to Chhattīsgarh, which numbered 3000 persons in 1911. Dhuri is an honorific abbreviation from +Dhuriya as Bāni from Bania. The special occupation of the caste is rice-parching, and they are an offshoot from Kahārs, though +in Chhattīsgarh the Dhuris now consider the Kahārs as a subcaste of their own. In Bengal the Dhuriyas are a subcaste of the +Kāndus or Bharbhūnjas. Sir H. Risley states that “the Dhurias rank lowest of all the subcastes of Kāndus, owing either to +their having taken up the comparatively menial profession of palanquin-bearing, or to their being a branch of the Kahār caste +who went in for grain-parching and thus came to be associated with the Kāndus.”<a id="d0e13276src" href="#d0e13276" class="noteref">2</a> The caste have immigrated to Chhattīsgarh from the United Provinces. In Kawardha they believe that the Rāja of that State +brought them back with him on his return from a pilgrimage. In Bilāspur and Raipur they say they came from Badhār, a pargana +in the Mīrzāpur District, adjoining Rewah. Badhār is mentioned in one of the Rājim inscriptions, and is a place remembered +by other castes of Chhattīsgarh as their ancestral home. The Dhuris of Chhattīsgarh relate their origin as follows: Mahādeo +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 Mahādeo, who decided that he should be called Dhuri from +<i>dhūr,</i> dust. The man then asked Mahādeo to assign him an occupation, and Mahādeo 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 Brāhmans 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 Rāj Dhuri and Cheorākūta, the Rāj Dhuris being the descendants of personal +servants in the Rāja’s family and ranking above the Cheorākūtas or rice-pounders. In Bilāspur they are called Badhāria and +Khawās, and in Raipur Badhāria and Desha. The Khawās and Desha subcastes do menial household service and rank below the Badhārias, +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 Bilāspur District, Agoria from Agori, a pargana in Mīrzāpur District, Kāshi or +Benāres, and a number of other names derived from villages in Bilāspur. 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’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. + + +</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’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, <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>bhānwar</i> 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. + + +</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 Kabīrpanthi 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 Pāndava 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 Kunwār (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>khidmatgārs</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 Chhattīsgarh, 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. Rāwats and Gonds take food from their hands in some places, and their social status in Chhattīsgarh is about equivalent +to that of the Rāwats or Ahīrs. A man of the caste who kills a cow or gets vermin in a wound must go to Amārkantak 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 Prasād, Naib-Tahsīldār, Dhamtari, and Pyāre Lāl 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. Kāndu. +</p> +</div> +</div> +<div id="d0e13323" class="div1"><span class="pagenum"> +[<a href="#d0e111">Contents</a>] +</span><h2>Dumāl</h2> +<div class="div2" id="d0e13326"> +<h3>1. Origin and traditions.</h3> +<p><b>Dumāl.</b><a id="d0e13332src" href="#d0e13332" class="noteref">1</a>—An agricultural caste found in the Uriya country and principally in the Sonpur State, recently transferred to Bihār and Orissa. +In 1901, 41,000 Dumāls 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 Athmālik State, where they say that they lived. Another story +is that Dumāl is derived from Duma, the name of a gateway in Baud town, near which they dwelt. Sir H. Risley says: “The Dumāls +or Jādupuria Gaura seem to be a group of local formation. They cherish the tradition that their ancestors came to Orissa from +Jādupur, but this appears to be nothing more than the name of the Jādavas or Yādavas, the mythical progenitors of the Goala +caste transformed into the name of an imaginary town.” + + +</p> +</div> +<div class="div2" id="d0e13335"> +<h3>2. Subdivisions.</h3> +<p>The Dumāls 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 Nāg <i>got</i>, Padhān <i>barga</i> and Hindolsai <i>mitti</i> may marry a girl of the Nāg <i>got</i>, Padhān <i>barga</i> and <a id="d0e13373"></a><span class="pagenum">[<a href="#d0e13373">531</a>]</span>Kandhpadā <i>mitti</i>; or one of the Nāg <i>got</i>, Karmi <i>barga</i> and Hindolsai <i>mitti</i>; or one of the Bud <i>got</i>, Padhān <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">Nāg (cobra) </td> +<td valign="top">Padhān (chief) </td> +<td valign="top">Hindolsai + +</td> +</tr> +<tr valign="top"> +<td valign="top">Nāg </td> +<td valign="top">Karmi (manager) </td> +<td valign="top">Unda (a village in Athmalik) + +</td> +</tr> +<tr valign="top"> +<td valign="top">Nāg </td> +<td valign="top">Behra (Palki-bearer) </td> +<td valign="top">Kandhpada (a village in Athmalik) + +</td> +</tr> +<tr valign="top"> +<td valign="top">Nāg </td> +<td valign="top">Mahākul (great family) </td> +<td valign="top">Do. do. + +</td> +</tr> +<tr valign="top"> +<td valign="top">Nāg </td> +<td valign="top">Mesua (shepherd) </td> +<td valign="top">Dalpur (a village in Baud) + +</td> +</tr> +<tr valign="top"> +<td valign="top">Nāg </td> +<td valign="top">Karan (writer) </td> +<td valign="top">Kandhpada (a village in Athmalik) + +</td> +</tr> +<tr valign="top"> +<td valign="top">Nāg or Nāgesh </td> +<td valign="top">Mahākul (great family) </td> +<td valign="top">Bāmanda (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">Baghār (buffalo) </td> +<td valign="top">Do<span id="d0e13494" class="corr" title="Source: ">.</span> do. + +</td> +</tr> +<tr valign="top"> +<td valign="top">Bichhū (scorpion) </td> +<td valign="top">Mahākul (great family) </td> +<td valign="top">Bāmada (a village in Baud)</td> +</tr> +</table> +</div><p> + + +</p> +<p>The only other <i>gots</i> besides those given above are Kachhap (tortoise), Ulūk (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 Nāik (leader), Padhān (chief), +Karmi (manager), Mahākul (great family) and so on. Others are derived from functions performed in sacrifices, as Amāyat (one +who kills the animal in the sacrifice), Gurandi (one who makes a preparation of sugar for it), Dehri (priest), Bārik (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 <i>bargas</i> are names signifying the performance of menial functions in household service, as Gejo (kitchen-cleaner), Chaulia (rice-cleaner), +Gadua (<i>lotā</i>-bearer), Dāng (spoon-bearer), Ghusri (cleaner of the dining-place with cowdung). Other names of <i>bargas</i> are derived from the caste’s traditional occupation of grazing cattle, as Mesua or Mendli (shepherd), Gaigariya (milkman), +Chhānd (one who ties a rope to the legs of a cow when milking her). These names are interesting as showing that the Dumāls +<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 Rāwat 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 Mahāls, 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’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 <i>dongas</i> (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 +<a id="d0e13549"></a><span class="pagenum">[<a href="#d0e13549">533</a>]</span>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 Brāhman 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 Brāhman 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 Brāhman. 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’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 <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>panchāyat</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 Jagannāth, the Uriya incarnation of Vishnu. Parmeshwari +is worshipped by Brāhmans, who offer bread <a id="d0e13573"></a><span class="pagenum">[<a href="#d0e13573">535</a>]</span>and <i>khīr</i> or rice and milk to her; goats are also offered by the Dehri or Mahākul, 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 Shrāwan (July-August). During Kunwār, 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 Puājiuntia, or the ceremony for the welfare of sons. The Dumāls 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 Dumāls 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 Brāhmans and Sudhs, and even the leavings of food from Brāhmans. This is probably because they +were formerly the household servants of Brāhmans, 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 Dumāls live generally in Native States, where +it is the business of the Rāja 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 Dumāls have a bad reputation for fidelity, according to a saying: ‘You cannot call the jungle a plain, and +you should not call the Dumāl a brother,’ that is, do not trust a Dumāl. Like the Ahīrs 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. Hīra Lāl, Extra Assistant Commissioner. +</p> +</div> +</div> +<div id="d0e13593" class="div1"><span class="pagenum"> +[<a href="#d0e111">Contents</a>] +</span><h2>Fakīr</h2> +<div class="div2" id="d0e13596"> +<h3>1. General notice.</h3> +<p><b>Fakīr.</b><a id="d0e13602src" href="#d0e13602" class="noteref">1</a>—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 Fakīrs were returned in 1911, being residents mainly of Districts with large towns, as Jubbulpore, +Nāgpur 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 Fakīrs are often known as Shāh, Lord, or Sain, a corruption of the Sanskrit Swāmi, 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 Fakīrs trace their origin to Abu Bakr or Ali subsequently +the first and fourth Caliphs.<a id="d0e13620src" href="#d0e13620" class="noteref">2</a> The Fakīrs 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 Fakīrs in the Central Provinces are the Madari, Gurujwāle or Rafai, Jalāli, Mewāti, Sada Sohāgal +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 Shāh, 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, ‘<i lang="und">Aam Madar, Aam Madar</i>.’<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 Gurujwāle Fakīrs." width="720" height="402"><p class="figureHead">Group of Gurujwāle Fakīrs.</p> +</div><p> + + +</p> +<p>The Gurujwāle or Rafai have as their badge a spiked iron club with small chains attached to the end. The Fakīr 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 Jalālias are named after their founder, Jalāl-ud-dīn of Bokhāra, 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>bhāng</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 Mewāti 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 Mūsa Sohāg 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 Mīr 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 Fakīrs, 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 Fakīrs are not strictly endogamous, and marriages can take place between their members, though the +Madaris prefer to confine marriage to their own order. Fakīrs 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 Fakīr 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 Fakīrs 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 Korān. The Fakīr +has a <i>tasbīh</i> or rosary, often consisting of ninety-nine beads, on which he repeats the ninety-nine names of God. The Fakīrs 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 Fakīrs 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 Fakīr’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
 ">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’s <i>Punjab Census Report</i> (1891), pp. 192–196, the article on Fakīr in the Rev. T. P. Hughes’ <i>Dictionary of Islām</i>, and the volume on <i>Muhammadans of Gujarāt</i> in the <i>Bombay Gazetteer</i>, pp. 20–24. +</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’ <i>Dictionary of Islam</i>, art. Fakīr. +</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—Fakīr</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">Ahīr</a><ul> +<li><a href="#d0e1441">1. General notice.</a></li> +<li><a href="#d0e1474">2. Former dominance of the Abhīras.</a></li> +<li><a href="#d0e1525">3. Ahīr dialects.</a></li> +<li><a href="#d0e1537">4. The Yādavas and Krishna.</a></li> +<li><a href="#d0e1558">5. The modern Ahīrs an occupational caste.</a></li> +<li><a href="#d0e1571">6. Subcastes.</a></li> +<li><a href="#d0e1578">7. The Dauwa or wet-nurse Ahīrs. 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 Diwāli 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">Atāri</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">Bairāgi</a><ul> +<li><a href="#d0e3030">1. Definition of name and statistics.</a></li> +<li><a href="#d0e3060">2. The four Sampradāyas or main orders.</a></li> +<li><a href="#d0e3093">3. The Rāmānujis.</a></li> +<li><a href="#d0e3103">4. The Rāmānandis</a></li> +<li><a href="#d0e3116">5. The Nīmānandis.</a></li> +<li><a href="#d0e3140">6. The Mādhavachāryas.</a></li> +<li><a href="#d0e3150">7. The Vallabhachāryas.</a></li> +<li><a href="#d0e3234">8. Minor sects.</a></li> +<li><a href="#d0e3245">9. The seven Akhāras.</a></li> +<li><a href="#d0e3289">10. The Dwāras.</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. Bairāgi monasteries.</a></li> +<li><a href="#d0e3395">15. Married Bairāgis.</a></li> +</ul> +</li> +<li><a href="#d0e3405">Balāhi</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 Rājpūts.</a></li> +<li><a href="#d0e3813">7. Banias employed as ministers in Rājpūt 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. Diwāli 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, Agarwāla</a></li> +<li><a href="#d0e4111">Bania, Agrahari</a></li> +<li><a href="#d0e4125">Bania, Ajudhiabāsi</a></li> +<li><a href="#d0e4161">Bania, Asāthi</a></li> +<li><a href="#d0e4175">Bania, Charnāgri</a></li> +<li><a href="#d0e4184">Bania, Dhūsar</a></li> +<li><a href="#d0e4215">Bania, Dosar</a></li> +<li><a href="#d0e4233">Bania, Gahoi</a></li> +<li><a href="#d0e4275">Bania, Golapūrab</a></li> +<li><a href="#d0e4295">Bania, Kasarwāni</a></li> +<li><a href="#d0e4322">Bania, Kasaundhan</a></li> +<li><a href="#d0e4342">Bania, Khandelwāl</a></li> +<li><a href="#d0e4360">Bania, Lād</a></li> +<li><a href="#d0e4372">Bania, Lingāyat</a></li> +<li><a href="#d0e4402">Bania, Maheshri</a></li> +<li><a href="#d0e4439">Bania, Nema</a></li> +<li><a href="#d0e4454">Bania, Oswāl</a></li> +<li><a href="#d0e4530">Bania, Parwār</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, Srimāli</a></li> +<li><a href="#d0e4637">Bania, Umre</a></li> +<li><a href="#d0e4661">Banjāra</a><ul> +<li><a href="#d0e4777">1. Historical notice of the caste.</a></li> +<li><a href="#d0e4843">2. Banjāras derived from the Chārans or Bhāts.</a></li> +<li><a href="#d0e4976">3. Chāran Ranjārans 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: Banjāri Devi.</a></li> +<li><a href="#d0e5160">11. Mīthu Bhūkia.</a></li> +<li><a href="#d0e5170">12. Siva Bhāia.</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 Nāik or headman. Banjāra 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">Bāri</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">Beldār</a><ul> +<li><a href="#d0e6134">1. General notice.</a></li> +<li><a href="#d0e6153">2. Beldārs of the northern Districts.</a></li> +<li><a href="#d0e6181">3. Odias of Chhattīsgarh.</a></li> +<li><a href="#d0e6188">4. Other Chhattīsgarhi Beldārs.</a></li> +<li><a href="#d0e6199">5. Munurwār and Telenga.</a></li> +<li><a href="#d0e6212">6. Vaddar.</a></li> +<li><a href="#d0e6222">7. Pāthrot.</a></li> +<li><a href="#d0e6234">8. Takāri.</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">Bhāmta or Bhāmtya</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">Bharbhūnja</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">Bhāt</a><ul> +<li><a href="#d0e6933">1. Origin of the Bhāts.</a></li> +<li><a href="#d0e6954">2. Bhāts and Chārans.</a></li> +<li><a href="#d0e6975">3. Lower-class Bhāts.</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 Bhāt’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 Chārans 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 Chārans 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. Bhāt 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">Bhīl</a><ul> +<li><a href="#d0e7686">1. General notice. The Bhīls a Kolarian tribe.</a></li> +<li><a href="#d0e7731">2. Rājpūts deriving their title to the land from the Bhīls.</a></li> +<li><a href="#d0e7788">3. Historical notice.</a></li> +<li><a href="#d0e7861">4. General Outram and the Khāndesh Bhīl 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—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">Bhilāla</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. Chhattīsgarh 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">Binjhwār</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 Jhāmbāji.</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">Brāhman</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>panchāyat</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 Brāhmans.</a></li> +</ul> +</li> +<li><a href="#d0e10150">Brāhman, Ahivāsi</a></li> +<li><a href="#d0e10162">Brāhman, Jijhotia</a></li> +<li><a href="#d0e10175">Brāhman, Kanaujia, Kanyakubja</a></li> +<li><a href="#d0e10213">Brāhman, Khedāwāl</a></li> +<li><a href="#d0e10231">Brāhman, Mahārāshtra</a></li> +<li><a href="#d0e10256">Brāhman, Maithil</a></li> +<li><a href="#d0e10274">Brāhman, Mālwi</a></li> +<li><a href="#d0e10284">Brāhman, Nāgar</a></li> +<li><a href="#d0e10321">Brāhman, Nāramdeo</a></li> +<li><a href="#d0e10333">Brāhman, Sanādhya</a></li> +<li><a href="#d0e10366">Brāhman, Sarwaria</a></li> +<li><a href="#d0e10378">Brāhman, Utkal</a></li> +<li><a href="#d0e10413">Chadār</a></li> +<li><a href="#d0e10437">Chamār</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 Chamār 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">Chauhān</a></li> +<li><a href="#d0e11075">Chhīpa</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">Chitāri</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">Dahāit</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">Dāngi</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">Dāngri</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">Dewār</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">Dhākar</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">Dhānuk</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">Dhanwār</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’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">Dhīmar</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>panchāyat</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">Dumāl</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">Fakīr</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. 1–4. Jeroen Hellingman <jeroen@bohol.ph>. +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%">Bukekāri</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%">”</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%">”</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td width="20%"><a href="#d0e7055">Page 256</a></td> +<td width="40%">Lakh</td> +<td width="40%">Lākh</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%">’</td> +<td width="40%">”</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. 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