part one

man was induced to make his appearance. He was a most wretched-looking, leprous object, having lost several fingers and toes. He could give no very definite explanation as to his means of subsistence. All he could say was that he lived 'by picking up odds and ends here and there.' However, he seemed to be able to afford himself the solace of tobacco. A few cocks and hens at one of the caves, and a goat at the other, were the only domestic animals which I saw."

13. Their skill with bows and arrows.

The tribe are of small stature. They are very fond of hunting, and are expert at using their bows and arrows, with which they have killed even bison. Mr. W. E. Ley, C.S., relates the following particulars of a recent murder by a Kamar in Raipur: Two Hindus went to a Kamar's house in the jungle to dun him for a debt. He could not pay the debt, but invited them to take food in his house. At the meal the creditor's companion said the food was bad, and a quarrel thereupon ensuing, slapped the Kamar in the face. The latter started up, snatched up his bow and arrow and axe, and ran away into the jungle. The Hindus then set out for home, and as they were afraid of being attacked by the Kamar, they took his brother with them as a protection. Nevertheless the Kamar shot one of them through the side, the arrow passing through the arm and penetrating the lung. He then shot the other through the chest, and running in, mutilated his body in a shocking manner. When charged with the murders he confessed them freely, saying that he was a wild man of the woods and knew no better.

KANJAR

[Bibliography: Mr. J. C. Nesfield's The Kanjars of Upper India, Calcutta Review, vol. lxxvii., 1883; Mr. Crooke's Castes and Tribes, art. Kanjar; Major Gunthorpe's Criminal Tribes; Mr. Kitts' Berar Census Report (1881); Mr. Gayer's Lectures on Criminal Tribes of the Central Provinces.]

List of Paragraphs

1. Derivation of the Kanjars from the Doms. 2. The Kanjars and the Gipsies. 3. The Thugs derived from the Kanjars. 4. The Doms. 5. The criminal Kanjars. 6. The Kunchband Kanjars. 7. Marriage and religion. 8. Social customs. 9. Industrial arts.

1. Derivation of the Kanjars from the Doms.

Kanjar.--A name applied somewhat loosely to various small communities of a gipsy character who wander about the country. In 1911 about 1000 Kuchbandhia Kanjars were returned in the Province. In Berar the Kanjars seem to be practically identical with the Sansias; Major Gunthorpe [301] gives Kanjar and Sansia as alternative names of the same caste of criminals, and this is also done by Mr. Kennedy in Bombay. [302] Mr. Kitts writes of them: [303] "The Deccani and Marwari Kanjars were originally Bhats (bards) of the Jat tribe; and as they generally give themselves out to be Bhats are probably not included at all among the Kanjars returned at the census. They are a vagrant people, living in tents and addicted to crime. The women are good-looking; some are noted for their obscene songs, filthy alike in word and gesture; while others, whose husbands play on the sarangi, lead a life of immorality. The men are often skilful acrobats." And in another passage: [304] "The Sansia family or the 'Long Firm' of India includes two principal divisions represented in Berar by the Kanjars and Kolhatis respectively. They will eat, drink and smoke together, and occasionally join in committing dacoity. They eat all kinds of meat and drink all liquors; they are lax of morals and loose of life." Now in northern India the business of acting as bards to the Jats and begging from them is the traditional function of the Sansias; and we may therefore conclude that so far as Berar and the Maratha Districts are concerned the Kanjars are identical with the Sansias, while the Kolhatis mentioned by Mr. Kitts are the same people as the Berias, as shown in the article on Kolhati, and the Berias themselves are another branch of the Sansias. [305] There seems some reason to suppose that these four closely allied groups, the Kanjar or Sansia, and the Kolhati or Beria, may have their origin from the great Dom caste of menials and scavengers in Hindustan and Bengal. In the Punjab the Doms are the regular bards and genealogists of the lower castes, being known also as Mirasi: "The two words are used throughout the Province as absolutely synonymous. The word Mirasi is derived from the Arabic miras or inheritance; and the Mirasi is to the inferior agricultural castes and the outcaste tribes what the Bhat is to the Rajputs." [306] In the article on Sansia it is shown that the primary calling of the Sansias was to act as bards and genealogists of the Jats; and this common occupation is to some extent in favour of the original identity of the two castes Dom and Sansia, though Sir D. Ibbetson was not of this opinion. [307] In the United Provinces Mr. Crooke gives the Jallad or executioners as one of the main divisions of the Kanjars; [308] and the Jallads of Umballa are said to be the descendants of a Kanjar family who were attached to the Delhi Court as executioners. [309] But the Jallad or supwala is also a name of the Doms. "The term Jallad, which is an Arabic name for 'A public flogger,' is more especially applied to those Doms who are employed in cities to kill ownerless dogs and to act as public executioners." [310] Mr. Gayer states that as the result of special inquiries made by an experienced police-officer it would appear that these Jallad Kanjars are really Doms. [311] In Gujarat the Mirs or Mirasis are also known as Dom after the tribe of that name; they were originally of two classes, one the descendants of Gujarat Bhats or bards, the other from northern India, partly of Bhat descent and

## partly connected with the Doms. [312] And the Sansias and Berias in

Bombay when accompanied by their families usually pass themselves off as Gujarati Bhats, that is, bards of the Jat caste from Marwar or of the Kolis from Gujarat. [313] Major Gunthorpe states that the Kolhatis or Berias of Berar appear to be the same as the Domras of Bengal; [314] and Mr. Kitts that the Kham Kolhatis are the Domarus of Telingana. [315] In writing of the Kanjar bards Sherring also says: "These are the Kanjars of Gondwana, the Sansis of northern India; they are the most desperate of all dacoits and wander about the country as though belonging to the Gujarati Domtaris or showmen." The above evidence seems sufficient to establish a prima facie case in favour of the Dom origin of these gipsy castes. It may be noticed further that the Jallad Kanjars of the United Provinces are also known as Supwala or makers of sieves and winnowing-fans, a calling which belongs specially to the Doms, Bhangis, and other sweeper castes. Both Doms and Bhangis have divisions known as Bansphor or 'breaker of bamboos,' a name which has the same signification as Supwala. Again, the deity of the criminal Doms of Bengal is known as Sansari Mai. [316]

2. The Kanjars and the Gipsies.

The Kanjars and Berias are the typical gipsy castes of India, and have been supposed to be the parents of the European gipsies. On this point Mr. Nesfield writes: "The commonly received legend is that multitudes of Kanjars were driven out of India by the oppressions of Tamerlane, and it is inferred that the gipsies of Europe are their direct descendants by blood, because they speak like them a form of the Hindi language." [317] Sir G. Grierson states: [318] "According to the Shah-nama, the Persian monarch Bahram Gaur received in the fifth century from an Indian king 12,000 musicians who were known as Luris, and the Luris or Lulis, that is gipsies, of modern Persia are the descendants of these." These people were also called Lutt, and hence it was supposed that they were the Indian Jats. Sir G. Grierson, however, shows it to be highly improbable that the Jats, one of the highest castes of cultivators, could ever have furnished a huge band of professional singers and dancers. He on the contrary derives the gipsies from the Dom tribe: [319] "Mr. Leland has made a happy suggestion that the original gipsies may have been Doms of India. He points out that Romany is almost letter for letter the same as Domni, the plural of Dom. Domni is the plural form in the Bhojpuri dialect of the Bihari language. It was originally a genitive plural; so that Romany-Rye, 'A gipsy gentleman,' may be well compared with the Bhojpuri Domni Rai, 'A king of the Doms.' The Bhojpuri-speaking Doms are a famous race, and they have many points of resemblance with the gipsies of Europe. Thus they are darker in complexion than the surrounding Biharis, are great thieves, live by hunting, dancing and telling fortunes, their women have a reputation for making love-philtres and medicines to procure abortion, they keep fowls (which no orthodox Hindu will do), and are said to eat carrion. They are also great musicians and horsemen. The gipsy grammar is closely connected with Bhojpuri, and the following mongrel, half-gipsy, half-English rhyme will show the extraordinary similarity of the two vocabularies: [320]

Gipsy. The Rye (squire) he mores (hunts) adrey the wesh (wood) Bhojpuri. Rai mare andal besh (Pers. bysh)

Gipsy. The kaun-engro (ear-fellow, hare) and chiriclo (bird). Bhojpuri. Kanwala chirin

Gipsy. You sovs (sleep) with leste (him) drey (within) the wesh (wood) Bhojpuri. soe andal besh

Gipsy. And rigs (carry) for leste (him) the gono (sack, game-bag). Bhojpuri. gon

Gipsy. Oprey (above) the rukh (tree) adrey (within) the wesh (wood) Bhojpuri. Upri rukh andal besh

Gipsy. Are chiriclo (male-bird) and chiricli (female-bird). Bhojpuri. chirin chirin

Gipsy. Tuley (below) the rukh (tree) adrey (within) the wesh (wood) Bhojpuri. Tule rukh andal besh

Gipsy. Are pireno (lover) and pireni (lady-love). Bhojpuri. pyara pyari

In the above it must be remembered that the verbal terminations of the gipsy text are English and not gipsy."

Sir G. Grierson also adds (in the passage first quoted): "I may note here a word which lends a singular confirmation to the theory. It is the gipsy term for bread, which is manro or manro. This is usually connected either with the Gaudian manr 'rice-gruel' or with manrua, the millet (Eleusine coracana). Neither of these agrees with the idea of bread, but in the Magadhi dialect of Bihari, spoken south of the Ganges in the native land of these Maghiya Doms, there is a peculiar word manda or manra which means wheat, whence the transition to the gipsy manro, bread, is eminently natural."

The above argument renders it probable that the gipsies are derived from the Doms; and as Mr. Nesfield gives it as a common legend that they originated from the Kanjars, this is perhaps another connecting link between the Doms and Kanjars. The word gipsy is probably an abbreviation of 'Egyptian,' the country assigned as the home of the gipsies in mediaeval times. It has already been seen that the Doms are the bards and minstrels of the lower castes in the Punjab, and that the Kanjars and Sansias, originally identical or very closely connected, were in particular the bards of the Jats. It is a possible speculation that they may have been mixed up with the lower classes of Jats or have taken their name, and that this has led to the confusion between the Jats and gipsies. Some support is afforded to this suggestion by the fact that the Kanjars of Jubbulpore say that they have three divisions, the Jat, Multani and Kuchbandia. The Jat Kanjars are, no doubt, those who acted as bards to the Jats, and hence took the name; and if the ancestors of these people emigrated from India they may have given themselves out as Jat.

3. The Thugs derived from the Kanjars.

In the article on Thug it is suggested that a large, if not the principal, section of the Thugs were derived from the Kanjars. At the Thug marriages an old matron would sometimes repeat, "Here's to the spirits of those who once led bears and monkeys; to those who drove bullocks and marked with the godini (tattooing-needle); and those who made baskets for the head." And these are the occupations of the Kanjars and Berias. The Goyandas of Jubbulpore, descendants of Thug approvers, are considered to be a class of gipsy Muhammadans, akin to or identical with the Kanjars, of whom the Multani subdivision are also Muhammadans. Like the Kanjar women the Goyandas make articles of net and string. There is also a colony of Berias in Jubbulpore, and these are admittedly the descendants of Thugs who were located there. If the above argument is well founded, we are led to the interesting conclusion that four of the most important vagrant and criminal castes of India, as well as the Mirasis or low-class Hindu bards, the gipsies, and a large section of the Thugs, are all derived from the great Dom caste.

4. The Doms.

The Doms appear to be one of the chief aboriginal tribes of northern India, who were reduced to servitude like the Mahars and Chamars. Sir H. M. Elliot considered them to be "One of the original tribes of India. Tradition fixes their residence to the north of the Ghagra, touching the Bhars on the east in the vicinity of the Rohini. Several old forts testify to their former importance, and still retain the names of their founders, as, for instance, Domdiha and Domingarh in the Gorakhpur district. Ramgarh and Sahukot on the Rohini are also Dom forts." [321] Sir G. Grierson quotes Dr. Fleet as follows: "In a south Indian inscription a king Rudradeva is said to have subdued a certain Domma, whose strength evidently lay in his cavalry. No clue is given as to who this Domma was, but he may have been the leader of some aboriginal tribe which had not then lost all its power"; and suggests that this Domma may have been a leader of the Doms, who would then be shown to have been dominant in southern India. As already seen there is a Domaru caste of Telingana, with whom Mr. Kitts identified the Berias or Kolhatis. In northern India the Doms were reduced to a more degraded condition than the other pre-Aryan tribes as they furnished a large section of the sweeper caste. As has been seen also they were employed as public executioners like the Mangs. This brief mention of the Doms has been made in view of the interest attaching to them on account of the above suggestions, and because there will be no separate article on the caste.

5. The criminal Kanjars.

In Berar two main divisions of the Kanjars may be recognised, the Kunchbandhia or those who make weavers' brooms and are comparatively honest, and the other or criminal Kanjars. [322] The criminal Kanjars may again be divided into the Marwari and Deccani groups. They were probably once the same, but the Deccanis, owing to their settlement in the south, have adopted some Maratha or Gujarati fashions, and speak the Marathi language; their women wear the angia or Maratha breast-cloth fastening behind, and have a gold ornament shaped like a flower in the nose; [323] while the Marwari Kanjars have no breast-cloth and may not wear gold ornaments at all. The Deccani Kanjars are fond of stealing donkeys, their habit being either to mix their own herds with those of the village and drive them all off together, or, if they catch the donkeys unattended, to secrete them in some water-course, tying their legs together, and if they remain undiscovered to remove them at nightfall. The animals are at once driven away for a long distance before any attempt is made to dispose of them. The Marwari Kanjars consider it derogatory to keep donkeys and therefore do not steal these animals. They are preeminently cattle-lifters and sheep-stealers, and their encampments may be recognised by the numbers of bullocks and cows about them. Their women wear the short Marwari petticoat reaching half-way between the knees and ankles. Their hair is plaited over the forehead and cowrie shells and brass ornaments like buttons are often attached in it. Bead necklaces are much worn by the women and bead and horse-hair necklets by the men. A peculiarity about the women is that they are confirmed snuff-takers and consume great quantities of the weed in this form. The women go into the towns and villages and give exhibitions of singing and dancing; and picking up any information they can acquire about the location of property, impart this to the men. Sometimes they take service, and a case was known in Jubbulpore of Kanjar women hiring themselves out as pankha-pullers, with the result that the houses in which they were employed were subsequently robbed. [324] It is said, however, that they do not regularly break into houses, but confine themselves to lurking theft. I have thought it desirable to record here the above particulars of the criminal Kanjars, taken from Major Gunthorpe's account; for, though the caste is, as already stated, identical with the Sansias, their customs in Berar differ considerably from those of the Sansias of Central India, who are treated of in the article on that caste.

6. The Kunchband Kanjars.

We come, finally, to the Kunchband Kanjars, the most representative section of the caste, who as a body are not criminals, or at any rate less so than the others. The name Kunchband or Kuchband, by which they are sometimes known, is derived from their trade of making brushes (kunch) of the roots of khas-khas grass, which are used by weavers for cleaning the threads entangled on the looms. This has given rise to the proverb 'Kori ka bigari Kunchbandhia' or 'The Kunchbandhia must look to the Kori (weaver) as his patron'; the point being that the Kori is himself no better than a casual labourer, and a man who is dependent on him must be in a poor way indeed. The Kunchbandhias are also known in northern India as Sankat or Patharkat, because they make and sharpen the household grinding-stones, this being the calling of the Takankar Pardhis in the Maratha Districts, and as Goher because they catch and eat the goh, the large lizard or iguana. [325] Other divisions are the Dhobibans or washerman's race, the Lakarhar or wood-cutters, and the Untwar or camelmen.

7. Marriage and religion.

In the Central Provinces there are other divisions, as the Jat and Multani Kanjars. They say they have two exogamous divisions, Kalkha and Malha, and a member of either of these must take a wife from the other division. Both the Kalkhas and Malhas are further divided into kuls or sections, but the influence of these on marriage is not clear. At a Kanjar marriage, Mr. Crooke states, the gadela or spade with which they dig out the khas-khas grass and kill wolves or vermin, is placed in the marriage pavilion during the ceremony. The bridegroom swears that he will not drive away nor divorce his wife, and sometimes a mehar or dowry is also fixed for the bride. The father-in-law usually, however, remits a part or the whole of this subsequently, when the bridegroom goes to take food at his house on festival occasions. Mr. Nesfield states that the principal deity of the Kanjars is the man-god Mana, who was not only the teacher and guide, but also the founder and ancestor of the tribe. He is buried, as some Kanjars relate, at Kara in the Allahabad District, not far from the Ganges and facing the old city of Manikpur on the opposite bank. Mana is worshipped with special ceremony in the rainy season, when the tribe is less migratory than in the dry months of the year. On such occasions, if sufficient notice is circulated, several encampments unite temporarily to pay honour to their common ancestor. The worshippers collect near a tree under which they sacrifice a pig, a goat, a sheep, or a fowl, and make an offering of roasted flesh and spirituous liquor. Formerly, it is said, they used to sacrifice a child, having first made it insensible with fermented palm-juice or toddy. [326] They dance round the tree in honour of Mana, and sing the customary songs in commemoration of his wisdom and deeds of valour.

8. Social customs.

The dead are usually buried, both male and female corpses being laid on their faces with the feet pointing to the south. Kanjars who become Muhammadans may be readmitted to the community after the following ceremony. A pit is dug and the convert sits in it and each Kanjar throws a little curds on to his body. He then goes and bathes in a river, his tongue is touched or branded with heated gold and he gives a feast to the community. A Kanjar woman who has lived in concubinage with a Brahman, Rajput, Agarwal Bania, Kurmi, Ahir or Lodhi may be taken back into the caste after the same ceremony; but not one who has lived with a Kayasth, Sunar or Lohar or any lower caste. A Kanjar is not put out of caste for being imprisoned, nor for being beaten by an outsider, nor for selling shoes. If a man touches his daughter-in-law even accidentally he is fined the sum of Rs. 2-8.

9. Industrial arts.

The following account of the industries of the vagrant Kanjars was written by Mr. Nesfield in 1883. In the Central Provinces many of them are now more civilised, and some are employed in Government service. Their women also make and retail string-net purses, balls and other articles.

"Among the arts of the Kanjar are making mats of the sirki reed, baskets of wattled cane, fans of palm-leaves and rattles of plaited straw: these last are now sold to Hindu children as toys, though originally they may have been used by the Kanjars themselves (if we are to trust to the analogy of other backward races) as sacred and mysterious implements. From the stalks of the munj grass and from the roots of the palas [327] tree they make ropes which are sold or bartered to villagers in exchange for grain and milk. They prepare the skins of which drums are made and sell them to Hindu musicians; though, probably, as in the case of the rattle, the drum was originally used by the Kanjars themselves and worshipped as a fetish; for even the Aryan tribes, who are said to have been far more advanced than the indigenous races, sang hymns in honour of the drum or dundubhi as if it were something sacred. They make plates of broad leaves which are ingeniously stitched together by their stalks; and plates of this kind are very widely used by the inferior Indian castes and by confectioners and sellers of sweetmeats. The mats of sirki reed with which they cover their own movable leaf huts are models of neatness and simplicity and many of these are sold to cart-drivers. The toddy or juice of the palm tree, which they extract and ferment by methods of their own and partly for their own use, finds a ready sale among low-caste Hindus in villages and market towns. They are among the chief stone-cutters in Upper India, especially in the manufacture of the grinding-mill which is very widely used. This consists of two circular stones of equal diameter; the upper one, which is the thicker and heavier, revolves on a wooden pivot fixed in the centre of the lower one and is propelled by two women, each holding the same handle. But it is also not less frequent for one woman to grind alone." It is perhaps not realised what this business of grinding her own grain instead of buying flour means to the Indian woman. She rises before daybreak to commence the work, and it takes her perhaps two or three hours to complete the day's provision. Grain-grinding for hire is an occupation pursued by poor women. The pisanhari, as she is called, receives an anna (penny) for grinding 16 lbs. of grain, and can get through 30 lbs. a day. In several localities temples are shown supposed to have been built by some pious pisanhari from her earnings. "The Kanjars," Mr. Nesfield continues, "also gather the white wool-like fibre which grows in the pods of the semal or Indian cotton tree and twist it into thread for the use of weavers. [328] In the manufacture of brushes for the cleaning of cotton-yarn the Kanjars enjoy almost a complete monopoly. In these brushes a stiff mass of horsehair is attached to a wooden handle by sinews and strips of hide; and the workmanship is remarkably neat and durable. [329] Another complete or almost complete monopoly enjoyed by Kanjars is the collection and sale of sweet-scented roots of the khas-khas grass, which are afterward made up by the Chhaparbands and others into door-screens, and through being continually watered cool the hot air which passes through them. The roots of this wild grass, which grows in most abundance on the outskirts of forests or near the banks of rivers, are dug out of the earth by an instrument called khunti. This has a handle three feet long, and a blade about a foot long resembling that of a knife. The same implement serves as a dagger or short spear for killing wolves or jackals, as a tool for carving a secret entrance through the clay wall of a villager's hut in which a burglary is meditated, as a spade or hoe for digging snakes, field-rats, and lizards out of their holes, and edible roots out of the earth, and as a hatchet for chopping wood."

Kapewar

Kapewar, [330] Munurwar.--A great cultivating caste of the Telugu country, where they are known as Kapu or Reddi, and correspond to the Kurmi in Hindustan and the Kunbi in the Maratha Districts. In the Central Provinces about 18,000 persons of the caste were enumerated in the Chanda District and Berar in 1911. The term Kapu means a watchman, and Reddi is considered to be a corruption of Rathor or Rashtrakuta, meaning a king, or more properly the headman of a village. Kapewar is simply the plural form of Kapu, and Munurwar, in reality the name of a subcaste of Kapewars, is used as a synonym for the main caste in Chanda. They are divided into various occupational subcastes, as the Upparwars or earth-diggers, from uppar, earth; the Gone, who make gonas or hemp gunny-bags; the Elmas, who are household servants; the Gollewars, who sell milk; and the Gamadis or masons. The Kunte or lame Kapewars, the lowest group, say that their ancestor was born lame; they are also called Bhiksha Kunte or lame beggars and serve as the bards of the caste besides begging from them. They are considered to be of illegitimate origin. No detailed account of the caste need be given here, but one or two interesting customs reported from Chanda may be noted. Girls must be married before they are ten years old, and in default of this the parents are temporarily put out of caste and have to pay a penalty for readmission. But if they take the girl to some sacred place on the Godavari river and marry her there the penalty is avoided. Contrary to the usual custom the bride goes to the bridegroom's house to be married. On the fourth night of the marriage ceremony the bridegroom takes with him all the parts of a plough as if he was going out to the field, and walks up the marriage-shed to the further end followed by the bride, who carries on her head some cooked food tied up in a cloth. The skirts of the couple are knotted together. On reaching the end of the shed the bridegroom makes five drills in the ground with a bullock-goad and sows cotton and juari seeds mixed together. Then the cooked food is eaten by all who are present, the bridal couple commencing first, and the seed is irrigated by washing their hands over it. This performance is a symbolical portrayal of the future life of the couple, which will be spent in cultivation. In Chanda a number of Kapewars are stone-masons, and are considered the most proficient workers at this trade in the locality. Major Lucie Smith, the author of the Chanda Settlement Report of 1869, thought that the ancestors of the caste had been originally brought to Chanda to build the fine walls with ramparts and bastions which stretch for a length of six or seven miles round the town. The caste are sometimes known as Telugu Kunbis. Men may be distinguished by the single dot which is always tattooed on the forehead during their infancy. Men of the Gowari caste have a similar mark.

Karan

Karan, [331] Karnam, Mahanti.--The indigenous writer caste of Orissa. In 1901 a total of 5000 Karans were enumerated in Sambalpur and the Uriya States, but the bulk of these have since passed under the jurisdiction of Bihar and Orissa, and only about 1000 remain in the Central Provinces. The total numbers of the caste in India exceed a quarter of a million. The poet Kalidas in his Raghuvansa describes Karans as the offspring of a Vaishya father and a Sudra mother. The caste fulfils the same functions in Orissa as the Kayasths elsewhere, and it is said that their original ancestors were brought from northern India by Yayati Kesari, king of Orissa (A.D. 447-526), to supply the demand for writers and clerks. The original of the word Karan is said to be the Hindi karani, kiran, which Wilson derives from Sanskrit karan, 'a doer.' The word karani was at one time applied by natives to the junior members of the Civil Service--'Writers,' as they were designated. And the 'Writers' Buildings' of Calcutta were known as karani kibarik. From this term a corruption 'Cranny' came into use, and was applied in Bengal to a clerk writing English, and thence to the East Indians or half-castes from whom English copyists were subsequently recruited. [332] The derivation of Mahanti is obscure, unless it be from maha, great, or from Mahant, the head of a monastery. The caste prefer the name of Karan, because that of Mahanti is often appropriated by affluent Chasas and others who wish to get a rise in rank. In fact a proverb says: Jar nahin Jati, taku bolanti Mahanti, or 'He who has no caste calls himself a Mahanti.' The Karans, like the Kayasths, claim Chitragupta as their first ancestor, but most of them repudiate any connection with the Kayasths, though they are of the same calling. The Karans of Sambalpur have two subcastes, the Jhadua or those of the jhadi or jungle and the Utkali or Uriyas. The former are said to be the earlier immigrants and are looked down on by the latter, who do not intermarry with them. Their exogamous divisions or gotras are of the type called eponymous, being named after well-known Rishis or saints like those of the Brahmans. Instances of such names are Bharadwaj, Parasar, Valmik and Vasishtha. Some of the names, however, are in a manner totemistic, as Nagas, the cobra; Kounchhas, the tortoise; Bachas, a calf, and so on. These animals are revered by the members of the gotra named after them, but as they are of semi-divine nature, the practice may be distinguished from true totemism. In some cases, however, members of the Bharadwaj gotra venerate the blue-jay, and of the Parasar gotra, a pigeon. Marriage is regulated according to the table of prohibited degrees in vogue among the higher castes. Girls are commonly married before they are ten years old, but no penalty attaches to the postponement of the ceremony to a later age. The binding portion of the marriage is Hastabandhan or the tying of the hands of the couple together with kusha grass, [333] and when this has been done the marriage cannot be annulled. The bride goes to her husband's house for a few days and then returns home until she attains maturity. Divorce and remarriage of widows are prohibited, and an unfaithful wife is finally expelled from the caste. The Karans worship the usual Hindu gods and call themselves Smarths. Some belong to the local Parmarth and Kumbhipatia sects, the former of which practises obscene rites. They burn their dead, excepting the bodies of infants, and perform the shraddh ceremony. The caste have a high social position in Sambalpur, and Brahmans will sometimes take food cooked without water from them. They wear the sacred thread. They eat fish and the flesh of clean animals but do not drink liquor. Bhandaris or barbers will take katcha food from a Karan. They are generally engaged in service as clerks, accountants, schoolmasters or patwaris. Their usual titles are Patnaik or Bohidar. The Karans are considered to be of extravagant habits, and one proverb about them is--

Mahanti jati, udhar paile kinanti hathi,

or, 'The Mahanti if he can get a loan will at once buy an elephant.' Their shrewdness in business transactions and tendency to overreach the less intelligent cultivating castes have made them unpopular like the Kayasths, and another proverb says--

Patarkata, Tankarkata, Paniota, Gaudini mai E chari jati ku vishwas nai,

or, 'Trust not the palm-leaf writer (Karan), the weaver, the liquor-distiller nor the milk-seller.'

KASAI

List of Paragraphs

1. General notice of the caste. 2. The cattle-slaughtering industry. 3. Muhammadan rite of zibah or halal. 4. Animism. 5. Animal-gods. The domestic animals. 6. Other animals. 7. Animals worshipped in India. 8. The sacrificial meal. 9. Primitive basis of kinship. 10. The bond of food. 11. The blood-feud. 12. Taking food together and hospitality. 13. The Roman sacra. 14. The Hindu caste-feasts. 15. Sacrifice of the camel. 16. The joint sacrifice. 17. Animal sacrifices in Greece. 18. The Passover. 19. Sanctity of domestic animals. 20. Sacrificial slaughter for food. 21. Animal-fights. 22. The sacrificial method of killing. 23. Animal sacrifices in Indian ritual.

1. General notice of the caste.

Kasai, Kassab.--The caste of Muhammadan butchers, of whom about 4000 persons were returned from the Central Provinces and Berar in 1911. During the last decade the numbers of the caste have very greatly increased owing to the rise of the cattle-slaughtering industry. Two kinds of Kasais may be distinguished, the Gai Kasai or cow-killers and the Bakar Kasai or mutton butchers. The latter, however, are usually Hindus and have been formed into a separate caste, being known as Khatik. Like other Muhammadans who have adopted professions of a not too reputable nature, the Kasais have become a caste, partly because the ordinary Muhammadan declines to intermarry with them, and

## partly no doubt in imitation of the Hindu social system. The Kasais

are one of the lowest of the Muhammadan castes, and will admit into their community even low-caste Hindu converts. They celebrate their weddings by the nikah form, but until recently many Hindu rites were added to it. The Kazi is employed to conduct the marriage, but if his services are not available a member of the caste may officiate instead. Polygamy is permitted to the number of four wives. A man may divorce his wife simply for disobedience, but if a woman wishes to divorce her husband she must forego the Meher or dowry promised at the time of the wedding. The Kasai women, perhaps owing to their meat diet, are noticeably strong and well nourished, and there is a saying to the effect that, 'The butcher's daughter will bear children when she is ten years old.' The deities of the Kasais are a number of Muhammadan saints, who are known as Aulia or Favourites of God. The caste bury the dead, and on the third day they read the Kalma over some parched grain and distribute this to the caste-fellows, who eat it in the name of the deceased man, invoking a blessing upon him. On the ninth day after the death they distribute food to Muhammadan Fakirs or beggars, and on the twentieth and fortieth days two more feasts are given to the caste and a third on the anniversary of the death. Owing to what is considered the degrading nature of his occupation, the social position of the Kasai is very low, and there is a saying--

Na dekha ho bagh, to dekh belai; Na dekha ho Thag, to dekh Kasai,

or, 'If you have not seen a tiger, look at a cat; and if you have not seen a Thug, look at a butcher.' Many Hindus have a superstition that leprosy is developed by the continual eating of beef.

2. The cattle-slaughtering industry.

In recent years an extensive industry in the slaughter of cattle has sprung up all over the Province. Worn-out animals are now eagerly bought up and killed; their hides are dried and exported, and the meat is cured and sent to Madras and Burma, a substantial profit being obtained from its sale. The blood, horns and hoofs are other products which yield a return. The religious scruples of the Hindus have given way to the temptation of obtaining what is to them a substantial sum for a valueless animal, and, with the exception perhaps of Brahmans and Banias, all castes now dispose of their useless cattle to the butchers. At first this was done by stealth, and efforts were made to impose severe penalties on anybody guilty of the crime of being accessory to the death of the sacred kine, while it is said that the emissaries of the butchers were sent to the markets disguised as Brahmans or religious mendicants, and pretended that they wished to buy cattle in order to preserve their lives as a meritorious act. But such attempts at restriction have generally proved fruitless, and the trade is now openly practised and acquiesced in by public opinion. In spite of many complaints of the shortage of plough cattle caused by the large numbers of animals slaughtered, the results of this traffic are probably almost wholly advantageous; for the villages no longer contain a horde of worn-out and decrepit animals to deprive the valuable plough and milch cattle of a share of the too scanty pasturage. Kasais themselves are generally prosperous.

3. Muhammadan rite of zibah or halal.

When killing an animal the butcher lays it on the ground with its feet to the west and head stretched towards the north and then cuts its throat saying:

In the name of God; God is great.

This method of killing an animal is known as zibah. The Muhammadan belief that an animal is not fit for food unless its throat has been cut so that the blood flows on to the ground is thus explained in Professor Robertson Smith's Religion of the Semites [334]: "In heathen Canaan all the animals belonged to the god of the country; but it was lawful to kill them if payment was made to the god by pouring out their life or blood on the ground." The Arabs are of the same Semitic stock, and this may be partly the underlying idea of their rite of zibah. It seems doubtful, however, whether the explanation suffices to explain its continuance for so long a period among the Muhammadans who have long ceased to reverence any earth-deity, and in a foreign country where the soil cannot be sacred to them; and a short summary of Dr. Robertson Smith's luminous explanation of the underlying principle of animal sacrifice in early times seems requisite to its full understanding.

4. Animism.

Primitive man did not recognise any difference of intelligence and self-consciousness between himself and the lower animals and even plants, but believed them all to be possessed of consciousness and volition as he was. He knew of no natural laws of the constitution of matter and the action of forces, and therefore thought that all natural phenomena, the sun, moon and stars, the wind and rain, were similarly appearances, manifestations or acts of volition of beings conscious like himself. This is what is meant by animism. Among several races the community was divided into totem-clans, and each clan held sacred some animal or bird, which was considered as a kinsman. All the members of the clan were kin to each other through the tie formed by their eating their totem animal, which in the hunting stage was probably their chief means of subsistence, and from which they consequently thought that they derived their common life. [335] In process of time the animals which were domesticated, such as the horse, the sheep, the cow and the camel, acquired a special sanctity, and became, in fact, the principal deities of the community, such as the calf-god Apis, the cow-goddess Isis-Hathor, and the ram-god Amen in Egypt, Hera, probably a cow-goddess, and Dionysus, who may be the deified bull or goat (or a combination of them) in Greece, and so on.

5. Animal-gods. The domestic animals.

It is easy to see how these domestic animals would overshadow all others in importance when the tribe had arrived at the pastoral or agricultural stage; thus in the former the camel, horse, goat or sheep, and in the latter pre-eminently the bull and cow, as the animals which afforded subsistence to the whole tribe, would become their greatest gods. It must be presumed that men forgot that their ancestors had tamed these animals, and looked on them as divine helpers who of their own free will had come to give mankind their aid in gaining a subsistence. Those who have observed the reverence paid to the cow and bull in India will have no difficulty in realising this point of view. Many other instances can be obtained. Thus in the Vedic religion of the Aryans the Ashvins, from ashva, a horse, were the divine horsemen of the dawn or of the sun. The principal sacrifice was that of the horse, considered, perhaps, as the representative of the sun or carrier of celestial fire. In a hymn the horse is said to be sprung from the gods. In Greece Phaethon was the charioteer of the horses of the sun. Mars, as the Roman god of war, may perhaps have been the deified horse, as suggested later. The chieftains of the Anglo-Saxon invaders of England, Hengist and Horsa, were held to be descended from the god Odin, to whom horses were sacrificed; Hengist means a stallion and Horsa a horse, the word having survived in modern English. Other mythical kings in Bede's chronicle have names derived from that of the horse (vicg.). [336] The camel does not seem to have become an anthropomorphic god, but the Arabs venerated it and refrained from killing it except as a sacrifice, when it was offered to the Morning-Star and partaken of sacramentally by the worshippers as will be seen subsequently. The ox as the tiller of the ground, with the cow as milk-giver and mother of the ox, are especially venerated by races in the early agricultural stage. Egyptian and Greek instances have already been given. In modern Egypt, as in India, bulls are let loose and held sacred. "Sometimes a peasant vows that he will sacrifice, for the sake of a saint, a calf which he possesses, as soon as it is full grown and fatted. It is let loose, by consent of all his neighbours, to pasture where it will, even in fields of young wheat; and at last, after it has been sacrificed, a public feast is made with its meat. Many a large bull is thus given away." [337] Dionysus Zagreus was a young bull devoured by the Titans, whom Zeus raised again to a glorious life. [338] The Babylonians had a bull-god, Ninit. [339] Brazen images of bulls were placed in Babylonian temples. The Parsis hold the bull sacred, and a child is made to drink a bull's urine as a rite of purification. After a funeral the mourners free themselves from the impurity caused by contact with the dead in a similar manner. [340] The monotheistic religion of Persia, Mitraism, which was an outcome of the faith of Zoroaster, and being introduced by the Emperors Commodus and Julian into the Roman world contended for some time with Christianity, was apparently sun-worship, Mitra being the sun-god of the ancient Aryans and Iranians; M. Reinach says: "Mitra is born from a rock; he makes water flow from the rock by striking it with an arrow, makes an alliance with the sun, and enters into a struggle with a bull, whom he conquers and sacrifices. The sacrifice of the bull appears to indicate that the worship of Mitra in its most ancient form was that of a sacred bull, conjoined to or representing the sun, which was sacrificed as a god, and its flesh and blood eaten in a sacrificial meal. Mitra, the slayer of the bull, figures in a double rôle as one finds in all the religions which have passed from totemism to anthropomorphism." [341] In Scandinavia the god Odin and his brothers were the grandsons of a divine cow, born from the melting ice in the region of snow and darkness. [342] In Rome a white bull was sacrificed to the Feriae Latinae, apparently the spirit of the Latin holy days, and distributed among all the towns of Latium. [343] Altars of the ancient Celts or Gauls have been found in France carved with the image of a bull. [344] In Palestine there is the familiar instance of the golden calf. In the open court of Solomon's temple stood the brazen sea on twelve oxen, and figures of lions, oxen and cherubim covered the portable tanks. [345] The veneration of the bull survived into Christian England in the Middle Ages. "At St. Edmundsbury a white bull, which enjoyed full ease and plenty in the fields, and was never yoked to the plough nor employed in any service, was led in procession in the chief streets of the town to the principal gate of the monastery, attended by all the monks singing and a shouting crowd. [346] "Such remedies as cowdung and cow's urine have been used on the continent of Europe by peasant physicians down to our times"; [347] and the belief in their efficacy must apparently have arisen from the sanctity attaching to the animal. In India Siva rides upon the bull Nandi, and when the Kunbis were too weak from famine to plough the fields, he had Nandi castrated and harnessed to the plough, thus teaching them to use oxen for ploughing; the image of Nandi is always carved in stone in front of Siva, and there seems little reason to doubt that in his beneficent aspect of Mahadeo the god was originally the deified bull. Bulls were let loose in his honour and allowed to graze where they would, and formerly a good Hindu would not even sell a bull, though this rule has fallen into abeyance. The sacred cow, Kamdhenu, was the giver of all wealth in Hindu mythology, and Lakshmi, the goddess of wealth, is considered to have been the deified cow. Hindus are purified from grave offences by drinking the five products of the sacred cow, milk, curds, butter, dung and urine; and the floors of Hindu houses are daily plastered with cowdung to the same end.

6. Other animals.

Of the exaltation of minor animals into anthropomorphic gods and goddesses only a few instances need be given. As is shown by Sir J. G. Frazer, Demeter and Proserpine probably both represent the deified pig. [348] "The Greek drama has arisen from the celebrations of Dionysus. In the beginning the people sacrificed a goat totem-god, that is to say, Dionysus himself; they wept for his death and then celebrated his resurrection with transports of joy." [349] And again M. Reinach states: "There are more than mere vestiges of totemism in ancient Greece. We may take first the attendant animals of the gods, the eagle of Zeus, the owl of Athena, the fawn of Artemis, the dolphin of Poseidon, the dove of Aphrodite and so on; the sacred animal can develop into the companion of the god, but also into his enemy or victim; thus Apollo Sauroctonos is, as the epithet shows, a killer of lizards; but in the beginning it was the lizard itself which was divine. We have seen that the boar before becoming the slayer of Adonis had been Adonis himself." [350]

In early Rome "The wolf was the animal most venerated. Its association with Mars, as the sacrifice most pleasing to him, leaves no doubt as to the primitive nature of the god. It was a wolf which acted as guide to the Samnites in their search for a place to settle in, and these Samnites called themselves Hirpi or Hirpini, that is to say, wolves. Romulus and Remus, sons of the wolf Mars and the she-wolf Silvia (the forest-dweller), are suckled by a she-wolf." [351] It seems possible that Mars as the deified wolf was at first an agricultural deity, the wolf being worshipped by the shepherd and farmer because he was their principal enemy, as the sambhar stag and the wild buffalo are similarly venerated by Indian cultivators. At a later period, in becoming the god of war, he may have represented the deified horse as well. Races of war-horses were held at his festivals on 14th March and 27th February, and a great race on the Ides of October when the winner was solemnly slain. [352] "In Egypt the baboon was regarded as the emblem of Tahuti, the god of wisdom; the serious expression and human ways of the large baboons are an obvious cause for their being regarded as the wisest of animals. Tahuti is represented as a baboon from the earliest dynasty down to late times; and four baboons were sacred in his temple at Heliopolis." [353] "The hippopotamus was the goddess Ta-urt, 'the great one,' the patroness of pregnancy, who is never shown in any other form. Rarely this animal appears as the emblem of the god Set. The jackal haunted the cemeteries on the edge of the desert, and so came to be taken as the guardian of the dead and identified with Anubis, the god of departing souls. The vulture was the emblem of maternity as being supposed to care especially for her young. Hence she is identified with Mut, the mother-goddess of Thebes. The cobra serpent was sacred from the earliest times to the present day. It was never identified with any of the great deities, but three goddesses appear in serpent form." [354]

7. Animals worshipped in India.

Finally, in India we have Hanuman, originally the deified ape, about whose identity there can be no doubt as he still retains his monkey's tail in all sculpture. Bhairon, the watchman of Mahadeo's temples, rides on a black dog, and was perhaps originally the watch-dog, or in his more terrible character of the devourer of human beings, the wolf. Ganesh or Ganpati has the head of an elephant and rides on a rat and appears to have derived his divine attributes from both these animals, as will be explained elsewhere; [355] Kartikeya, the god of war, rides on a peacock, and as the peacock is sacred, he may originally have been that bird, perhaps because its plumes were a favourite war emblem. Among his epithets are Sarabhu, born in the thicket, Dwadasakara and Dwadasaksha, twelve-handed and twelve-eyed. He was fostered by the maidens who make the Pleiades, and his epithet of twelve-eyed may be taken from the eyes in the peacock's feathers. [356] But, like the Greek gods, the Hindu gods have now long become anthropomorphic, and only vestiges remain of their animal associations. Enough has been said to show that most of the pantheons are largely occupied by deified animals and birds.

8. The sacrificial meal.

The original sacrifice was that in which the community of kinsmen ate together the flesh of their divine or totem animal-god and drank its blood. In early religion the tribal god was the ancestor and relative of the tribe. He protected and fostered the tribe in its public concerns, but took no special care of individuals; the only offences of which he took cognisance were those against the tribe as a whole, such as shedding a kinsman's blood. At periodical intervals the tribe renewed their kinship with the god and each other by eating his flesh together at a sacrificial meal by which they acquired his divine attributes; and every tribesman was not only invited, but bound, to participate. "According to antique ideas those who eat and drink together are by this very act tied to one another by a bond of friendship and mutual obligation. Hence when we find that in ancient religions all the ordinary functions of worship are summed up in the sacrificial meal, and that the ordinary intercourse between gods and men has no other form, we are to remember that the act of eating and drinking together is the solemn and stated expression of the fact that all who share the meal are brethren, and that the duties of friendship and brotherhood are implicitly acknowledged in their common act. [357] The one thing directly expressed in the sacrificial meal is that the god and his worshippers are commensals, but every other point in their mutual relations is included in what this involves. Those who sit at meat together are united for all social effects; those who do not eat together are aliens to one another, without fellowship in religion and without reciprocal social duties. The extent to which this view prevailed among the ancient Semites, and still prevails among the Arabs, may be brought out most clearly by reference to the law of hospitality. Among the Arabs every stranger whom one meets in the desert is a natural enemy, and has no protection against violence except his own strong hand or the fear that his tribe will avenge him if his blood be spilt. But if I have eaten the smallest morsel of food with a man I have nothing further to fear from him; 'there is salt between us,' and he is bound not only to do me no harm, but to help and defend me as if I were his brother. So far was this principle carried by the old Arabs that Zaid-al-Khail, a famous warrior in the days of Muhammad, refused to slay a vagabond who carried off his camels, because the thief had surreptitiously drunk from his father's milk-bowl before committing the theft." [358] It is in this idea that the feeling of hospitality originally arose. Those who ate together the sacred food consisting of the body of the god were brothers, and bound to assist each other and do each other no harm; and the obligation extended in a modified form to all food partaken of together, more especially as with some races, as the ancient Romans and the Hindus, all the regular household meals are sacred; they may only be partaken of after purifying the body, and a portion of the food at each meal is offered to the gods. "There was a sworn alliance between the Lihyan and the Mostalic--they were wont to eat and drink together. This phrase of an Arab narrator supplies exactly what is wanted to define the significance of the sacrificial meal. The god and his worshippers are wont to eat and drink together, and by this token their fellowship is declared and sealed." [359]

9. Primitive basis of kinship.

The primitive idea of kinship rested on this participation in the sacrificial meal, and not on blood-relationship. "In ancient times the fundamental obligations of kinship had nothing to do with degrees of relationship, but rested with absolute and identical force on every member of the clan. To know that a man's life was sacred to me and that every blood-feud that touched him involved me also, it was not necessary for me to count cousinship with him by reckoning up to our common ancestor; it was enough that we belonged to the same clan and bore the same clan-name. What was my clan was determined by customary law, which was not the same in all stages of society; in the earliest Semitic communities a man was of his mother's clan, in later times he belonged to the clan of his father. But the essential idea of kinship was independent of the particular form of the law. A kin was a group of persons whose lives were so bound up together, in what must be called a physical unity, that they could be treated as parts of one common life. The members of one kindred looked on themselves as one living whole, a single animated mass of blood, flesh, and bones, of which no member could be touched without all the members suffering. This point of view is expressed in the Semitic tongues in many familiar forms of speech. In case of homicide Arabian tribesmen do not say, 'The blood of M or N has been spilt,' naming the man; they say, 'Our blood has been spilt.' In Hebrew the phrase by which one claims kinship is, 'I am your bone and your flesh.' Both in Hebrew and in Arabic 'flesh' is synonymous with 'clan' or kindred group." [360] Similarly in India a Hindu speaks of any member of his subcaste or clan as his bhai or brother.

"Indeed, in a religion based on kinship, where the god and his worshippers are of one stock, the principle of sanctity and that of kinship are identical. The sanctity of a kinsman's life and the sanctity of the godhead are not two things but one; for ultimately the only thing which is sacred is the common tribal life or the common blood which is identified with the life. Whatever being partakes in this life is holy, and its holiness may be described indifferently as participation in the divine life and nature, or as participation in the kindred blood." [361]

10. The bond of food.

"At a later period the conception is found current that any food which two men partake of together, so that the same substance enters into their flesh and blood, is enough to establish some sacred unity of life between them; but in ancient times this significance seems to be always attached to participation in the flesh of a sacrosanct victim, and the solemn mystery of its death is justified by the consideration that only in this way can the sacred cement be procured which creates or keeps alive a living bond of union between the worshippers and their god. This cement is nothing less than the actual life of the sacred and kindred animal, which is conceived as residing in its flesh, but especially in its blood, and so, in the sacred meal, is actually distributed among all the participants, each of whom incorporated a

## particle of it with his own individual life." [362]

11. The blood-feud.

It thus appears that the sacrifice of the divine animal which was the god of the tribe or clan, and the eating of its flesh and drinking of its blood together, was the only tangible bond or obligation on which such law and morality as existed in primitive society was based. Those who participated in this sacrifice were brothers and forbidden to shed each other's blood, because in so doing they would have spilt the blood of the god impiously and unlawfully; the only lawful occasion on which it could be shed being by participation of all the clan or kinsmen in the sacrificial meal. All other persons outside the clan were strangers or enemies, and no rights or obligations existed in connection with them; the only restraint on killing them being the fear that their kinsmen would take blood-revenge, not solely on the murderer, but on any member of his clan. A man's life was protected only by this readiness of his clansmen to avenge him; if he slew a fellow-kinsman, thus shedding the blood of the god which flowed in the veins of every member, or committed any other great impiety against the god, he was outlawed, and henceforth there was no protection for his life except such as he could afford himself by his own strength. This reflection puts the importance of the blood-feud in primitive society in a clear light. It was at that time really a beneficent institution, being the only protection for human life; and its survival among such backward races as the Pathans and Corsicans, long after the State has undertaken the protection and avenging of life and the blood-feud has become almost wholly useless and evil, is more easily understood.

12. Taking food together and hospitality.

The original idea of the sacrificial meal was that the kinsmen in concert partook of the body of the god, thereby renewing their kinship with him and with each other. By analogy, however, the tie thus formed was extended to the whole practice of eating together. It has been seen how a stranger who partook of food with an Arab became sacred and as a kinsman to his host and all the latter's clan for such time as any part of the food might remain in his system, a period which was conventionally taken as about three days. "The Old Testament records many cases where a covenant was sealed by the parties eating and drinking together. In most of these the meal is sacrificial, and the deity is taken in as a third party to the covenant. But in Joshua i. 14 the Israelites enter into alliance with the Gibeonites by taking of their victuals without consulting Jehovah. A formal league confirmed by an oath follows, but by accepting the proffered food the Israelites are already committed to the alliance." [363] From the belief in the strength and sanctity of the tie formed by eating together the obligation of hospitality appears to be derived. And this is one of the few moral ideas which are more binding in primitive than in civilised society.

13. The Roman sacra.

"A good example of the clan sacrifice, in which a whole kinship periodically joins, is afforded by the Roman sacra gentilicia. As in primitive society no man can belong to more than one kindred, so among the Romans no one could share in the sacra of two gentes--to do so was to confound the ritual and contaminate the purity of the gens. The sacra consisted in common anniversary sacrifices, in which the clansmen honoured the gods of the clan, and after them the whole kin, living and dead, were brought together in the service." [364]

14. The Hindu caste-feasts.

The intense importance thus attached to eating in common on ceremonial occasions has a very familiar ring to any one possessing some acquaintance with the Indian caste-system. The resemblance of the gotra or clan and the subcaste to the Greek phratry and phule and the Roman gens and curia or tribe has been pointed out by M. Emile Senart in Les Castes dans l'Inde. The origin of the subcaste or group, whose members eat together and intermarry, cannot be discussed here. But it seems probable that the real bond which unites it is the capacity of its members to join in the ceremonial feasts at marriages, funerals, and the readmission of members temporarily excluded, which are of a type closely resembling and seemingly derived from the sacrificial meal. Before a wedding the ancestors of the family are formally invited, and when the wedding-cakes are made they are offered to the ancestors and then partaken of by all relatives of the family as in the Roman sacra. In this case grain would take the place of flesh as the sacrificial food among a people who no longer eat the flesh of animals. Thus Sir J. G. Frazer states: "At the close of the rice harvest in the East Indian island of Buro each clan (fenna) meets at a common sacramental meal, to which every member of the clan is bound to contribute a little of the new rice. This meal is called 'eating the soul of the rice,' a name which clearly indicates the sacramental character of the repast. Some of the rice is also set apart and offered to the spirits." [365] Grain cooked with water is sacred food among the Hindus. The bride and bridegroom worship Gauri, perhaps a corn-goddess, and her son Ganesh, the god of prosperity and full granaries. It has been suggested that yellow is the propitious Hindu colour for weddings, because it is the colour of the corn. [366] At the wedding feast all the guests sit knee to knee touching each other as a sign of their brotherhood. Sometimes the bride eats with the men in token of her inclusion in the brotherhood. In most castes the feast cannot begin until all the guests have come, and every member of the subcaste who is not under the ban of exclusion must be invited. If any considerable number of the guests wilfully abstain from attending it is an insult to the host and an implication that his own position is doubtful. Other points of resemblance between the caste feast and the sacrificial meal will be discussed elsewhere.

15. Sacrifice of the camel.

The sacrifice of the camel in Arabia, about the period of the fourth century, is thus described: "The camel chosen as the victim is bound upon a rude altar of stones piled together, and when the leader of the band has thrice led the worshippers round the altar in a solemn procession accompanied with chants, he inflicts the first wound while the last words of the hymn are still upon the lips of the congregation, and in all haste drinks of the blood that gushes forth. Forthwith the whole company fall on the victim with their swords, hacking off pieces of the quivering flesh and devouring them raw, with such wild haste that in the short interval between the rise of the day-star, which marked the hour for the service to begin, and the disappearance of its rays before the rising sun, the entire camel, body and bones, skin, blood and entrails, is wholly devoured." [367]

In this case the camel was offered as a sacrifice to Venus or the Morning Star, and it had to be devoured while the star was visible. But it is clear that the camel itself had been originally revered, because except for the sacrifice it was unlawful for the Arabs to kill the camel otherwise than as a last resort to save themselves from starvation. "The ordinary sustenance of the Saracens was derived from pillage or from hunting and from the milk of their herds. Only when these supplies failed they fell back on the flesh of their camels, one of which was slain for each clan or for each group which habitually pitched their tents together--always a fraction of a clan--and the flesh was hastily devoured by the kinsmen in dog-like fashion, half raw and merely softened over the fire." [368] In Bhopal it is stated that a camel is still sacrificed annually in perpetuation of the ancient rite. Hindus who keep camels revere them like other domestic animals. When one of my tent-camels had broken its leg by a fall and had to be killed, I asked the camelman, to whom the animal belonged, to shoot it; but he positively refused, saying, 'How shall I kill him who gives me my bread'; and a Muhammadan orderly finally shot it.

16. The joint sacrifice.

The camel was devoured raw almost before the life had left the body, so that its divine life and blood might be absorbed by the worshippers. The obligation to devour the whole body perhaps rested on the belief that its slaughter otherwise than as a sacrifice was impious, and if any part of the body was left unconsumed the clan would incur the guilt of murder. Afterwards, when more civilised stomachs revolted against the practice of devouring the whole body, the bones were buried or burnt, and it is suggested that our word bonfire comes from bone-fire. [369] Primitive usage required the presence of every clansman, so that each might participate in shedding the sacred blood. Neither the blood of the god nor of any of the kinsmen might be spilt by private violence, but only by consent of the kindred and the kindred god. Similarly in shedding the blood of a member of the kin all the others were required to share the responsibility, and this was the ancient Hebrew form of execution where the culprit was stoned by the whole congregation. [370]

17. Animal sacrifices in Greece.

M. Salomon Reinach gives the following explanation of Greek myths in connection with the sacrificial meal: "The primitive sacrifice of the god, usually accompanied by the eating of the god in fellowship, was preserved in their religious rites, and when its meaning had been forgotten numerous legends were invented to account for it. In order to understand their origin it is necessary to remember that the primitive worshippers masqueraded as the god and took his name. As the object of the totem sacrifice is to make the participants like the god and confer his divinity on them, the faithful endeavoured to increase the resemblance by taking the name of the god and covering themselves with the skins of animals of his species. Thus the Athenian damsels celebrating the worship of the bear Artemis dressed themselves in bear-skins and called themselves bears; the Maenads who sacrificed the doe Penthea were clad in doe-skins. Even in the later rites the devotees of Bacchus called themselves Bacchantes. A whole series of legends can be interpreted as semi-rationalistic explanations of the sacrificial meal. Actaeon was really a great stag sacrificed by women devotees who called themselves the great hind and the little hinds; he became the rash hunter who surprised Artemis at her bath, and was transformed into a stag and devoured by his own dogs. The dogs are a euphemism; in the early legend they were the human devotees of the sacred stag who tore him to pieces and devoured him with their bare teeth. These feasts of raw flesh survived in the secret religious cults of Greece long after uncooked meat had ceased to be consumed in ordinary life. Orpheus (ophreus, the haughty), who appears in art with the skin of a fox on his head, was originally a sacred fox devoured by the women of the fox totem-clan; these women call themselves Bassarides in the legend, and bassareus is one of the old names of the fox. Zagreus is a son of Zeus and Persephone who transformed himself into a bull to escape from the Titans, excited against him by Hera; the Titans, worshippers of the divine bull, killed and ate him; Zagreus was invoked in his worship as the 'good bull,' and when Zagreus by the grace of Zeus was reborn as Dionysus, the young god carried on his forehead the horns which bore witness to his animal nature. Hippolytus in the fable is the son of Theseus who repels the advances of Phaedra, his stepmother, and was killed by his runaway horses because Theseus, deceived by Phaedra, invoked the anger of a god upon him. But Hippolytus in Greek means 'One torn to pieces by horses.' Hippolytus is himself a horse whom the worshippers of the horse, calling themselves horses and disguised as such, tore to pieces and devoured. Phaethon (The Shining One) is a son of Apollo, who demands leave to drive the chariot of the sun, drives it badly, nearly burns up the world, and finally falls and perishes in the sea. This legend is the product of an old rite at Rhodes, the island of the sun, where every year a white horse and a burning chariot were thrown into the sea to help the sun, fatigued by his labours." [371]

18. The Passover.

M. Reinach points out that the Passover of the Israelites was in its origin a similar sacrifice. A lamb or kid, the first-fruit of the flocks, was eaten entire without the bones being broken, the blood smeared on the doorway being an offering to the god. The story connecting this sacrifice with the death of the first-born in Egypt was of later origin, devised to account for it when the real meaning had been forgotten. [372] The name Rachel [373] means a ewe, and it would appear that the children of Israel in the pastoral stage had the sheep for their totem deity and supposed themselves to be descended from it, as the Jats consider themselves to be descended from Siva, probably in his form of Mahadeo, the deified bull. As held in Canaan, the festival may have been a relic of the former migratory life of the Israelites when they tended flocks and regarded the sheep, or goat, as their most important domestic animal. It may have been in memory of this wandering life that the festival was accompanied by the eating of unleavened bread, and the sacrifice was consumed with loins girded up and staffs in their hands, as if in readiness for a journey. The Banjaras retain in their marriage and other customs various reminiscences of their former migratory life, as shown in the article on that caste. The Gadarias of the Central Provinces worship a goddess called Dishai Devi, who is represented by a stone platform just outside the sheep-pen. She has thus probably developed from the deified sheep or goat, which itself was formerly worshipped. On the eighth day of the fasts in Chait and Kunwar the Gadarias offer the goddess a virgin she-goat. They wash the goat's feet in water and rub turmeric on its feet and head. It is given rice to eat and brought before the goddess, and water is poured over its body; when the goat begins to shiver they think that the goddess has accepted the offering, and cut its throat with a sickle or knife. Then the animal is roasted whole and eaten in the veranda of the house, nothing being thrown away but the bones. Only men may join in this sacrifice, and not women.

19. Sanctity of domestic animals.

Thus it was a more or less general rule among several races that the domestic animals were deified and held sacred, and were slain only at a sacrifice. It followed that it was sinful to kill these animals on any other occasion. It has already been seen that the Arabs forbore to kill their worn-out camels for food except when driven to it by hunger as a last resort. "That it was once a capital offence to kill an ox, both in Attica and the Peloponnesus, is attested by Varro. So far as Athens is concerned, this statement seems to be drawn from the legend that was told in connection with the annual sacrifice at the Diipolia, where the victim was a bull and its death was followed by a solemn inquiry as to who was responsible for the act. In this trial everyone who had anything to do with the slaughter was called as a party; the maidens who drew water to sharpen the axe and knife threw the blame on the sharpeners, they put it on the man who handed the axe, he on the man who struck down the victim, and he again on the one who cut its throat, who finally fixed the responsibility on the knife, which was accordingly found guilty of murder and cast into the sea." [374] "At Tenedos the priest who offered a bull-calf to Dionysus anthroporraistes was attacked with stones and had to flee for his life; and at Corinth, in the annual sacrifice of a goat to Hera Acraea, care was taken to shift the responsibility of the death off the shoulders of the community by employing hirelings as ministers. Even they did no more than hide the knife in such a way that the goat, scraping with its feet, procured its own death." [375] "Agatharchides, describing the Troglodytes of East Africa, a primitive pastoral people in the polyandrous state of society, tells us that their whole sustenance was derived from their flocks and herds. When pasture abounded, after the rainy season, they lived on milk mingled with blood (drawn apparently, as in Arabia, from the living animal), and in the dry season they had recourse to the flesh of aged or weakly beasts. Further, 'they gave the name of parent to no human being, but only to the ox and cow, the ram and ewe, from whom they had their nourishment.' Among the Caffres the cattle kraal is sacred; women may not enter it, and to defile it is a capital offence." [376] Among the Egyptians also cows were never killed. [377]

20. Sacrificial slaughter for food.

Gradually, however, as the reverence for animals declined and the true level of their intelligence compared to that of man came to be better appreciated, the sanctity attaching to their lives no doubt grew weaker. Then it would become permissible to kill a domestic animal privately and otherwise than by a joint sacrifice of the clan; but the old custom of justifying the slaughter by offering it to the god would still remain. "At this stage, [378] at least among the Hebrews, the original sanctity of the life of domestic animals is still recognised in a modified form, inasmuch as it is held unlawful to use their flesh for food except in a sacrificial meal. But this rule is not strict enough to prevent flesh from becoming a familiar luxury. Sacrifices are multiplied on trivial occasions of religious gladness or social festivity, and the rite of eating at the sanctuary loses the character of an exceptional sacrament, and means no more than that men are invited to feast and be merry at the table of their god, or that no feast is complete in which the god has not his share." [379] This is the stage reached by the Hebrews in the time of Samuel, as described by Professor Robertson Smith, and it bears much resemblance to that of the lower Hindu castes and the Gonds at the present time. They too, when they can afford to kill a goat or a pig, cows being prohibited in deference to Hindu susceptibility, take it to the shrine of some village deity and offer it there prior to feasting on it with their friends. At intervals of a year or more many of the lower castes sacrifice a goat to Dulha Deo, the bridegroom-god, and Thakur Deo, the corn-god, and eat the body as a sacrificial meal within the house, burying the bones and other remnants beneath the floor of the house. [380] Among the Kafirs of the Hindu Kush, when a man wishes to become a Jast, apparently a revered elder or senator, he must give a series of feasts to the whole community, so expensive that many men utterly ruin themselves in becoming Jast. The initiatory proceedings are sacrifices of bulls and male goats to Gish, the war-god, at the village shrine. The animals are examined with jealous eyes by the spectators, to see that they come up to the prescribed standard of excellence. After the sacrifice the meat is divided among the people, who carry it to their homes. These special sacrifices at the shrine recur at intervals; but the great slaughterings are at the feast-giver's own house, where he entertains sometimes the Jast exclusively and sometimes the whole tribe, as already mentioned. [381] Even in the latter case, however, after a big distribution at the giver's house one or two goats are offered to the war-god at his shrine; and while the animals are being killed at the house offerings are made on a sacrificial fire, and as each goat is slain a handful of its blood is taken and thrown on the fire. [382] The Kafirs would therefore appear to be in the stage when it is still usual to kill domestic animals as a sacrifice to the god, but no longer obligatory.

21. Animal fights.

Finally animals are recognised for what they are, all sanctity ceases to attach to them, and they are killed for food in an ordinary manner. Possibly, however, such customs as roasting an ox whole, and the sports of bull-baiting and bull-fighting, may be relics of the ancient sacrifice. Formerly the buffaloes sacrificed at the shrine of the goddess Rankini or Kali in Dalbhum zamindari of Chota Nagpur were made to fight. "Two male buffaloes are driven into a small enclosure and on a raised stage adjoining and overlooking it the Raja and his suite take up their position. After some ceremonies the Raja and his family priest discharge arrows at the buffaloes, others follow their example, and the tormented and enraged beasts fall to and gore each other whilst arrow after arrow is discharged. When the animals are past doing very much mischief, the people rush in and hack at them with battle-axes till they are dead." [383]

22. The sacrificial method of killing.

Muhammadans however cannot eat the flesh of an animal unless its throat is cut and the blood allowed to flow before it dies. At the time of cutting the throat a sacred text or invocation must be repeated. It has been seen that in former times the blood of the animal was offered to the god and scattered on the altar or collected in a pit at its foot. It may be suggested that the method of killing which still survives was that formerly practised in offering the sacrifice, and that the necessity of allowing the blood to flow is a relic of the blood offering. When it no longer became necessary to sacrifice every animal at a shrine the sacrificial method of slaughter and the invocation to the god might be retained as removing the impiety of the act. At present it is said that unless an animal's blood flows it is a murda or corpse, and hence not suitable for food. But this idea may have grown up to account for the custom when its original meaning had been forgotten. The Gonds, when sacrificing a fowl, hold it over the sacred post or stone, which represents the god, and let the blood drop upon it. And when sacrificing a pig they first cut its tongue and let the blood fall upon the symbol of the god. In Chhattisgarh, when a Hindu is ill he makes a vow of the affected limb to the god; then on recovering he goes to the temple, and cutting this limb, lets the blood fall on to the symbol of the god as an offering. Similarly the Sikhs are forbidden to eat flesh unless the animal has been killed by jatka or cutting off the head with one stroke, and the same rule is observed by some of the lower Hindu castes. In Hindu sacrifices it is often customary that the head of the animal should be made over to the officiating priest as his share, and so in killing the animal he would naturally cut off its head. The above rule may therefore be of the same character as the rite of halal among the Muhammadans, and here also the sacrificial method of killing an animal may be retained to legalise its slaughter after the sacrifice itself has fallen into desuetude. In Berar some time ago the Mullah or Muhammadan priest was a village servant and the Hindus paid him dues. In return he was accustomed to kill the goats and sheep which they wished to sacrifice at temples, or in their fields to propitiate the deities presiding over them. He also killed animals for the Khatik or mutton-butcher and the latter exposed them for sale. The Mullah was entitled to the heart of the animal killed as his perquisite and a fee of two pice. Some of the Marathas were unmindful of the ceremony, but in general they professed not to eat flesh unless the sacred verse had been pronounced either by the Mullah or some Muhammadan capable of rendering it halal or lawful to be eaten. [384] Hence it would appear that the Hindus, unprovided by their own religion with any sacrificial mode of legalising the slaughter of animals, adopted the ritual of a foreign faith in order to make animal sacrifices acceptable to their own deities. The belief that it is sinful to kill a domestic animal except with some religious sanction is thus clearly shown in full force.

23. Animal sacrifices in Indian ritual.

Among high-caste Hindus also sacrifices, including the killing of cows, were at one time legal. This is shown by several legends, [385] and is also a historical fact. One of Asoka's royal edicts prohibited at the capital the celebration of animal sacrifices and merry-makings involving the use of meat, but in the provinces apparently they continued to be lawful. [386] This indicates that prior to the rise of Buddhism such sacrifices had been customary, and also that when a feast was to be given, involving the consumption of meat, the animal was offered as a sacrifice. It is noteworthy that Asoka's rules do not forbid the slaughter of cows. [387] In ancient times also the most important royal sacrifice was that of the horse. The development of religious belief and practice in connection with the killing of domestic animals has thus proceeded on exactly opposite lines in India as compared with most of the world. Domestic animals have become more instead of less sacred and several of them cannot be killed at all. The reason usually given to account for this is the belief in the transmigration of souls, leading to the conclusion that the bodies of animals might be tenanted by human souls. Probably also Buddhism left powerful traces of its influence on the Hindu view of the sanctity of animal life even after it had ceased to be the state religion. Perhaps the Brahmans desired to make their faith more popular and took advantage of the favourite reverence of all cultivators for the cow to exalt her into one of their most powerful deities, and at the same time to extend the local cult of Krishna, the divine cowherd, thus following exactly the contrary course to that taken by Moses with the golden calf. Generally the growth of political and national feeling has mainly operated to limit the influence of the priesthood, and the spread of education and development of reasoned criticism and discussion have softened the strictness of religious observance and ritual. Both these factors have been almost entirely wanting in Hindu society, and this perhaps explains the continued sanctity attaching to the lives of domestic animals as well as the unabated power of the caste system.

Kasar

1. Distribution and origin of the caste.

Kasar, Kasera, Kansari, Bharewa. [388]--The professional caste of makers and sellers of brass and copper vessels. In 1911 the Kasars numbered 20,000 persons in the Central Provinces and Berar, and were distributed over all Districts, except in the Jubbulpore division, where they are scarcely found outside Mandla. Their place in the other Districts of this division is taken by the Tameras. In Mandla the Kasars are represented by the inferior Bharewa group. The name of the caste is derived from kansa, a term now applied to bell-metal. The kindred caste of Tameras take their name from tamba, copper, but both castes work in this metal indifferently, and in Saugor, Damoh and Jubbulpore no distinction exists between the Kasars and Tameras, the same caste being known by both names. A similar confusion exists in northern India in the use of the corresponding terms Kasera and Thathera. [389] In Wardha the Kasars are no longer artificers, but only dealers, employing Panchals to make the vessels which they retail in their shops. And the same is the case with the Maratha and Deshkar subcastes in Nagpur. The Kasars are a respectable caste, ranking next to the Sunars among the urban craftsmen.

According to a legend given by Mr. Sadasheo Jairam they trace their origin from Dharampal, the son of Sahasra Arjun or Arjun of the Thousand Arms. Arjun was the greatgrandson of Ekshvaku, who was born in the forests of Kalinga, from the union of a mare and a snake. On this account the Kasars of the Maratha country say that they all belong to the Ahihaya clan (Ahi, a snake; and Haya, a mare). Arjun was killed by Parasurama during the slaughter of the Kshatriyas and Dharampal's mother escaped with three other pregnant women. According to another version all the four women were the wives of the king of the Somvansi Rajputs who stole the sacred cow Kamdhenu. Their four sons on growing up wished to avenge their father and prayed to the Goddess Kali for weapons. But unfortunately in their prayer, instead of saying ban, arrow, they said van, which means pot, and hence brass pots were given to them instead of arrows. They set out to sell the pots, but got involved in a quarrel with a Raja, who killed three of them, but was defeated by the fourth, to whom he afterwards gave his daughter and half his kingdom; and this hero became the ancestor of the Kasars. In some localities the Kasars say that Dharampal, the Rajput founder of their caste, was the ancestor of the Haihaya Rajput kings of Ratanpur; and it is noticeable that the Thatheras of the United Provinces state that their original home was a place called Ratanpur, in the Deccan. [390] Both Ratanpur and Mandla, which are very old towns, have important brass and bell-metal industries, their bell-metal wares being especially well known on account of the brilliant polish which is imparted to them. And the story of the Kasars may well indicate, as suggested by Mr. Hira Lal, that Ratanpur was a very early centre of the brass-working industry, from which it has spread to other localities in this part of India.

2. Internal structure.

The caste have a number of subdivisions, mainly of a territorial nature. Among these are the Maratha Kasars; the Deshkar, who also belong to the Maratha country; the Pardeshi or foreigners, the Jhade or residents of the forest country of the Central Provinces, and the Audhia or Ajudhiabasi who are immigrants from Oudh. Another subdivision, the Bharewas, are of a distinctly lower status than the body of the caste, and have non-Aryan customs, such as the eating of pork. They make the heavy brass ornaments which the Gonds and other tribes wear on their legs, and are probably an occupational offshoot from one of these tribes. In Chanda some of the Bharewas serve as grooms and are looked down upon by the others. They have totemistic septs, named after animals and plants, some of which are Gond words; and among them the bride goes to the bridegroom's house to be married, which is a Gond custom. The Bharewas may more properly be considered as a separate caste of lower status. As previously stated, the Maratha and Deshkar subcastes of the Maratha country no longer make vessels, but only keep them for sale. One subcaste, the Otaris, make vessels from moulds, while the remainder cut and hammer into shape the imported sheets of brass. Lastly comes a group comprising those members of the caste who are of doubtful or illegitimate descent, and these are known either as Takle ('Thrown out' in Marathi), Bidur, 'Bastard,' or Laondi Bachcha, 'Issue of a kept wife.' In the Maratha country the Kasars, as already seen, say that they all belong to one gotra, the Ahihaya. They have, however, collections of families distinguished by different surnames, and persons having the same surname are forbidden to marry. In the northern Districts they have the usual collection of exogamous septs, usually named after villages.

3. Social customs.

The marriages of first cousins are generally forbidden, as well as of members of the same sept. Divorce and the remarriage of widows are permitted. Devi or Bhawani is the principal deity of the caste, as of so many Hindus. At her festival of Mando Amawas or the day of the new moon of Phagun (February), every Kasar must return to the community of which he is a member and celebrate the feast with them. And in default of this he will be expelled from caste until the next Amawas of Phagun comes round. They close their shops and worship the implements of their trade on this day and also on the Pola day. The Kasars, as already stated, rank next to the Sunars among the artisan castes, and the Audhia Sunars, who make ornaments of bell-metal, form a connecting link between the two groups. The social status of the Kasars varies in different localities. In some places Brahmans take water from them but not in others. Some Kasars now invest boys with the sacred thread at their weddings, and thereafter it is regularly worn.

4. Occupation.

The caste make eating and drinking vessels, ornaments and ornamental figures from brass, copper and bell-metal. Brass is the metal most in favour for utensils, and it is usually imported in sheets from Bombay, but in places it is manufactured from a mixture of three parts of copper and two of zinc. This is considered the best brass, though it is not so hard as the inferior kinds, in which the proportion of zinc is increased. Ornaments of a grey colour, intended to resemble silver, are made from a mixture of four parts of copper with five of zinc. Bell-metal is an alloy of copper and tin, and in Chanda is made of four parts of copper to one part tin or tinfoil, the tin being the more expensive metal. Bells of fairly good size and excellent tone are moulded from this amalgam, and plates or saucers in which anything acid in the way of food is to be kept are also made of it, since acids do not corrode this metal as they do brass and copper. But bell-metal vessels are fragile and sometimes break when dropped. They cannot also be heated in the fire to clean them, and therefore cannot be lent to persons outside the family; while brass vessels may be lent to friends of other castes, and on being received back pollution is removed by heating them in the fire or placing hot ashes in them. Brahmans make a small fire of grass for this purpose and pass the vessels through the flame. Copper cooking-pots are commonly used by Muhammadans but not by Hindus, as they have to be coated with tin; the Hindus consider that tin is an inferior metal whose application to copper degrades the latter. Pots made of brass with a copper rim are called 'Ganga Jamni' after the confluence of the dark water of the Jumna with the muddy stream of the Ganges, whose union they are supposed to symbolise. Small figures of the deities or idols are also made of brass, but some Kasars will not attempt this work, because they are afraid of the displeasure of the god in case the figure should not be well or symmetrically shaped.

KASBI

List of Paragraphs

1. General notice. 2. Girls dedicated to temples. 3. Music and dancing. 4. Education of courtesans. 5. Caste customs. 6. First pregnancy. 7. Different classes of women. 8. Dancing and singing.

1. General notice.

Kasbi, [391] Tawaif, Devadasi.--The caste of dancing-girls and prostitutes. The name Kasbi is derived from the Arabic kasab, prostitution, and signifies rather a profession than a caste. In India practically all female dancers and singers are prostitutes, the Hindus being still in that stage of the development of intersexual relations when it is considered impossible that a woman should perform before the public and yet retain her modesty. It is not so long that this idea has been abandoned by Western nations, and the fashion of employing women actors is perhaps not more than two or three centuries old in England. The gradual disappearance of the distinctive influence of sex in the public and social conduct of women is presumably a sign of advancing civilisation, and is greatest in the West, the old standards retaining more and more vitality as we proceed Eastward. Among the Anglo-Saxon races women are almost entirely emancipated from any handicap due to their sex, and direct their lives with the same freedom and independence as men. Among the Latin races many people still object to girls walking out alone in towns, and in Italy the number of women to be seen in the streets is so small that it must be considered improper for a young and respectable woman to go about alone. Here also survives the mariage de convenance or arrangement of matches by the parents; the underlying reason for this custom, which also partly accounts for the institution of infant-marriage, appears to be that it is not considered safe to permit a young girl to frequent the society of unmarried men with sufficient freedom to be able to make her own choice. And, finally, on arrival in Egypt and Turkey we find the seclusion of women still practised, and only now beginning to weaken before the influence of Western ideas. But again in the lowest scale of civilisation, among the Gonds and other primitive tribes, women are found to enjoy great freedom of social intercourse. This is partly no doubt because their lives are too hard and rude to permit of any seclusion of women, but also partly because they do not yet consider it an obligatory feature of the institution of marriage that a girl should enter upon it in the condition of a virgin.

2. Girls dedicated to temples.

In the Deccan girls dedicated to temples are called Devadasis or 'Hand-maidens of the gods.' They are thus described by Marco Polo: "In this country," he says, "there are certain abbeys in which are gods and goddesses, and here fathers and mothers often consecrate their daughters to the service of the deity. When the priests desire to feast their god they send for those damsels, who serve the god with meats and other goods, and then sing and dance before him for about as long as a great baron would be eating his dinner. Then they say that the god has devoured the essence of the food, and fall to and eat it themselves." [392] Mr. Francis writes of the Devadasis as follows:1 "It is one of the many inconsistences of the Hindu religion that though their profession is repeatedly and vehemently condemned by the Shastras it has always received the countenance of the church. The rise of the caste and its euphemistic name seem both of them to date from the ninth and tenth centuries of our era, during which much activity prevailed in southern India in the matter of building temples and elaborating the services held in them. The dancing-girls' duties then as now were to fan the idol with chamaras or Thibetan ox-tails, to hold the sacred light called Kumbarti and to sing and dance before the god when he was carried in procession. Inscriptions show that in A.D. 1004 the great temple of the Chola king Rajaraja at Tanjore had attached to it 400 women of the temple who lived in free quarters in the surrounding streets, and were given a grant of land from the endowment. Other temples had similar arrangements. At the beginning of last century there were a hundred dancing-girls attached to the temple at Conjeeveram, and at Madura, Conjeeveram and Tanjore there are still numbers of them who receive allowances from the endowments of the big temples at those places. In former days the profession was countenanced not only by the church but by the state. Abdur Razak, a Turkish ambassador to the court of Vijayanagar in the fifteenth century, describes women of this class as living in state-controlled institutions, the revenue of which went towards the upkeep of the police."

The dedication of girls to temples and religious prostitution was by no means confined to India but is a common feature of ancient civilisation. The subject has been mentioned by Dr. Westermarck in The Origin and Development of the Moral Ideas, and fully discussed by Sir James Frazer in Attis, Adonis, Osiris. The best known and most peculiar instance is that of the temple of Istar in Babylonia. "Herodotus says that every woman born in that country was obliged once in her life to go and sit down in the precinct of Aphrodite and there consort with a stranger. A woman who had once taken her seat was not allowed to return home till one of the strangers threw a silver coin into her lap and took her with him beyond the holy ground. The silver coin could not be refused because, since once thrown, it was sacred. The woman went with the first man who threw her money, rejecting no one. When she had gone with him and so satisfied the goddess, she returned home, and from that time forth no gift, however great, would prevail with her. In the Canaanitish cults there were women called kedeshoth, who were consecrated to the deity with whose temple they were associated, and who at the same time acted as prostitutes." [393] Other instances are given from Africa, Egypt and ancient Greece. The principal explanation of these practices was that the act of intercourse, according to the principle of sympathetic magic, produced fertility, usually of the crops, though in the Babylonian case, Dr. Westermarck thinks, of the woman herself. Several instances have been recorded of people who perform the sexual act as a preliminary or accompaniment to sowing the crops, [394] and there seems little doubt that this explanation is correct. A secondary idea of religious prostitution may have been to afford to the god the same sexual pleasures as delighted an earthly king. Thus the Skanda Purana relates that Kartikeya, the Hindu god of war, was sent by his father to frustrate the sacrifice of Daksha, and at the instigation of the latter was delayed on his way by beautiful damsels, who entertained him with song and dance. Hence it is the practice still for dancing-girls who serve in the pagodas to be betrothed and married to him, after which they may prostitute themselves but cannot marry a man. [395] Similarly the Murlis or dancing-girls in Maratha temples are married to Khandoba, the Maratha god of war. Sometimes the practice of prostitution might begin by the priests of the temple as representatives of the god having intercourse with the women. This is stated to have been the custom at the temple of Jagannath in Orissa, where the officiating Brahmans had adulterous connection with the women who danced and sang before the god. [396]

3. Music and dancing.

Both music and dancing, like others of the arts, probably originated as part of a religious or magical service or ritual, and hence would come to be practised by the women attached to temples. And it would soon be realised what potent attractions these arts possessed when displayed by women, and in course of time they would be valued as accomplishments in themselves, and either acquired independently by other courtesans or divorced from a sole application to religious ritual. In this manner music, singing and dancing may have grown to be considered as the regular attractions of the courtesan and hence immoral in themselves, and not suitable for display by respectable women. The Emperor Shah Jahan is said to have delighted in the performances of the Tawaif or Muhammadan singing and dancing girls, who at that time lived in bands and occupied mansions as large as palaces. [397] Aurangzeb ordered them all to be married or banished from his dominions, but they did not submit without a protest; and one morning as the Emperor was going to the mosque he saw a vast crowd of mourners marching in file behind a bier, and filling the air with screams and lamentations. He asked what it meant, and was told that they were going to bury Music; their mother had been executed, and they were weeping over her loss. 'Bury her deep,' the Emperor cried, 'she must never rise again.'

4. Education of courtesans.

The possession of these attractions naturally gave the courtesan an advantage over ordinary women who lacked them, and her society was much sought after, as shown in the following description of a native court: [398] "Nor is the courtesan excluded, she of the smart saying, famed for the much-valued cleverness which is gained in 'the world,' who when the learned fail is ever ready to cut the Gordian knot of solemn question with the sharp blade of her repartee, for--The sight of foreign lands; the possession of a Pandit for a friend; a courtesan; access to the royal court; patient study of the Shastras; the roots of cleverness are these five." Mr. Crooke also remarks on the tolerance extended to this class of women: "The curious point about Indian prostitutes is the tolerance with which they are received into even respectable houses, and the absence of that strong social disfavour in which this class is held in European countries. This feeling has prevailed for a lengthened period. We read in the Buddhist histories of Ambapata, the famous courtesan, and the price of her favours fixed at two thousand masurans. The same feeling appears in the folk-tales and early records of Indian courts." [399] It may be remarked, however, that the social ostracism of such women has not always been the rule in Europe, while as regards conjugal morality Indian society would probably appear to great advantage beside that of Europe in the Middle Ages. But when the courtesan is alone possessed of the feminine accomplishments, and also sees much of society and can converse with point and intelligence on public affairs, her company must necessarily be more attractive than that of the women of the family, secluded and uneducated, and able to talk about nothing but the petty details of household management. Education so far as women were concerned was to a large extent confined to courtesans, who were taught all the feminine attainments on account of the large return to be obtained in the practice of their profession. This is well brought out in the following passage from a Hindu work in which the mother speaks: [400] "Worthy Sir, this daughter of mine would make it appear that I am to blame, but indeed I have done my duty, and have carefully prepared her for that profession for which by birth she was intended. From earliest childhood I have bestowed the greatest care upon her, doing everything in my power to promote her health and beauty. As soon as she was old enough I had her carefully instructed in the arts of dancing, acting, playing on musical instruments, singing, painting, preparing perfumes and flowers, in writing and conversation, and even to some extent in grammar, logic and philosophy. She was taught to play various games with skill and dexterity, how to dress well and show herself off to the greatest advantage in public; yet after all the time, trouble and money which I have spent upon her, just when I was beginning to reap the fruit of my labours, the ungrateful girl has fallen in love with a stranger, a young Brahman without property, and wishes to marry him and give up her profession (of a prostitute), notwithstanding all my entreaties and representations of the poverty and distress to which all her family will be reduced if she persists in her purpose; and because I oppose this marriage, she declares that she will renounce the world and become a devotee." Similarly the education of another dancing-girl is thus described: [401] "Gauhar Jan did her duty by the child according to her lights. She engaged the best 'Gawayyas' to teach her music, the best 'Kathaks' to teach her dancing, the best 'Ustads' to teach her elocution and deportment, and the best of Munshis to ground her in Urdu and Persian belles lettres; so that when Imtiazan reached her fifteenth year her accomplishments were noised abroad in the bazar." It is still said to be the custom for the Hindus in large towns, as among the Greeks of the time of Pericles, to frequent the society of courtesans for the charm of their witty and pointed conversation. Betel-nut is provided at such receptions, and at the time of departure each person is expected to deposit a rupee in the tray. Of course it is in no way meant to assert that the custom is at all generally prevalent among educated men, as this would be quite untrue.

The association of all feminine charms and intellectual attainments with public women led to the belief that they were incompatible with feminine modesty; and this was even extended to certain ornamental articles of clothing such as shoes. The Abbé Dubois remarks: [402] "The courtesans are the only women in India who enjoy the privilege of learning to read, to dance and to sing. A well-bred respectable woman would for this reason blush to acquire any one of these accomplishments." Buchanan says: [403] "The higher classes of Hindu women consider every approach to wearing shoes as quite indecent; so that their use is confined to Muhammadans, camp trulls and Europeans, and most of the Muhammadans have adopted the Hindu notion on this subject; women of low rank wear sandals." And again: [404] "A woman who appears clean in public on ordinary occasions may pretty confidently be taken for a prostitute; such care of her person would indeed be considered by her husband as totally incompatible with modesty." And as regards accomplishments: [405] "It is considered very disgraceful for a modest woman to sing or play on any musical instrument; the only time when such a practice is permitted is among the Muhammadans at the Muharram, when women are allowed to join in the praises of Fatima and her son." And a current saying is: "A woman who sings in the house as she goes about her work and one who is fond of music can never be a Sati"; a term which is here used as an equivalent for a virtuous woman. Buchanan wrote a hundred years ago, and things have no doubt improved since his time, but this feeling appears to be principally responsible for much of the prejudice against female education, which has hitherto been so strong even among the literate classes of Hindus; and is only now beginning to break down as the highly cultivated young men of the present day have learned to appreciate and demand a greater measure of intelligence from their wives.

5. Caste customs.

Among the better class of Kasbis a certain caste feeling and organisation exists. When a girl attains adolescence her mother makes a bargain with some rich man to be her first consort. Oil and turmeric are rubbed on her body for five days as in the case of a bride. A feast is given to the caste and the girl is married to a dagger, walking seven times round the sacred post with it. Her human consort then marks her forehead with vermilion and covers her head with her head-cloth seven times. In the evening she goes to live with him for as long as he likes to maintain her, and afterwards takes up the practice of her profession. In this case it is necessary that the man should be an outsider and not a member of the Kasbi caste, because the quasi-marriage is the formal commencement on the part of the woman of her hereditary trade. As already seen, the feeling of shame and degradation attaching to this profession in Europe appears to be somewhat attenuated in India, and it is counterbalanced by that acquiescence in and attachment to the caste-calling which is the principal feature of Hindu society. And no doubt the life of the dancing-girl has, at any rate during youth, its attractions as compared with that of a respectable married woman. Tavernier tells the story [406] of a Shah of Persia who, desiring to punish a dancing-girl for having boxed the ears of one of her companions within his hearing (it being clearly not the effect of the operation on the patient which annoyed his majesty) made an order that she should be married. And a more curious instance still is the following from a recent review: [407] "The natives of India are by instinct and custom the most conservative race in the world. When I was stationed at Aurangabad--fifty years ago it is true, but that is but a week in regard to this question--a case occurred within my own knowledge which shows the strength of hereditary feeling. An elderly wealthy native adopted two baby girls, whose mother and family had died during a local famine. The children grew up with his own girls and were in all respects satisfactory, and apparently quite happy until they arrived at the usual age for marriage. They then asked to see their papa by adoption, and said to him, 'We are very grateful to you for your care of us, but we are now grown up. We are told our mother was a Kasbi (prostitute), and we must insist on our rights, go out into the world, and do as our mother did.'"

6. First pregnancy.

In the fifth or seventh month of the first pregnancy of a Kasbi woman 108 fried wafers of flour and sugar, known as gujahs, are prepared, and are eaten by her as well as distributed to friends and relatives who are invited to the house. After this they in return prepare similar wafers and send them to the pregnant woman. Some little time before the birth the mother washes her head with gram flour, puts on new clothes and jewels, and invites all her friends to the house, feasting them with rice boiled in milk, cakes and sweetmeats.

7. Different classes of women.

Though the better-class Kasbis appear to have a sort of caste union, this is naturally quite indefinite, inasmuch as marriage, at present the essential bond of caste-organisation, is absent. The sons of Kasbis take up any profession that they choose; and many of them marry and live respectably with their wives. Others become musicians and assist at the performances of the dancing-girls, as the Bhadua who beats the cymbals and sings in chorus and also acts as a pimp, and the Sarangia, one who performs on the sarangi or fiddle. The girls themselves are of different classes, as the Kasbi or Gayan who are Hindus, the Tawaif who are Muhammadans, and the Bogam or Telugu dancing-girls. Gond women are known as Deogarhni, and are supposed to have come from Deogarh in Chhindwara, formerly the headquarters of a Gond dynasty. The Sarangias or fiddlers are now a separate caste. In the northern Districts the dancing-girls are usually women of the Beria caste and are known as Berni. After the spring harvest the village headman hires one or two of these girls, who dance and do acrobatic feats by torchlight. They will continue all through the night, stimulated by draughts of liquor, and it is said that one woman will drink two or three bottles of the country spirit. The young men of the village beat the drum to accompany her dancing, and take turns to see how long they can go on doing so without breaking down. After the performance each cultivator gives the woman one or two pice (farthings) and the headman gives her a rupee. Such a celebration is known as Rai, and is distinctive of Bundelkhand.

In Bengal this class of women often become religious mendicants and join the Vaishnava or Bairagi community, as stated by Sir H. Risley: [408] "The mendicant members of the Vaishnava community are of evil repute, their ranks being recruited by those who have no relatives, by widows, by individuals too idle or depraved to lead a steady working life, and by prostitutes. Vaishnavi, or Baishtabi according to the vulgar pronunciation, has come to mean a courtesan. A few undoubtedly join from sincere and worthy motives, but their numbers are too small to produce any appreciable effect on the behaviour of their comrades. The habits of these beggars are very unsettled. They wander from village to village and from one akhara (monastery) to another, fleecing the frugal and industrious peasantry on the plea of religion, and singing songs in praise of Hari beneath the village tree or shrine. Members of both sexes smoke Indian hemp (ganja), and although living as brothers and sisters are notorious for licentiousness. There is every reason for suspecting that infanticide is common, as children are never seen. In the course of their wanderings they entice away unmarried girls, widows, and even married women on the pretence of visiting Sri Kshetra (Jagannath) Brindaban or Benares, for which reason they are shunned by all respectable natives, who gladly give charity to be rid of them."

In large towns prostitutes belong to all castes. An old list obtained by Rai Bahadur Hira Lal of registered prostitutes in Jubbulpore showed the following numbers of different castes: Barai six, Dhimar four, and Nai, Khangar, Kachhi, Gond, Teli, Brahman, Rajput and Bania three each. Each woman usually has one or two girls in training if she can obtain them, with a view to support herself by their earnings in the same method of livelihood when her own attractions have waned. Fatherless and orphan girls run a risk of falling into this mode of life, partly because their marriages cannot conveniently be arranged, and also from the absence of strict paternal supervision. For it is to be feared that a girl who is allowed to run about at her will in the bazar has little chance of retaining her chastity even up to the period of her arrival at adolescence. This is no doubt one of the principal considerations in favour of early marriage. The caste-people often subscribe for the marriage of a girl who is left without support, and it is said that in former times an unmarried orphan girl might go and sit dharna, or starving herself, at the king's gate until he arranged for her wedding. Formerly the practice of obtaining young girls was carried on to a much greater extent than at present. Malcolm remarks: [409] "Slavery in Malwa and the adjoining provinces is chiefly limited to females; but there is perhaps no part of India where there are so many slaves of this sex. The dancing-girls are all purchased, when young, by the Nakins or heads of the different sets or companies, who often lay out large sums in these speculations, obtaining advances from the bankers on interest like other classes." But the attractions of the profession and the numbers of those who engage in it have now largely declined.

8. Dancing and singing.

The better class of Kasbi women, when seen in public, are conspicuous by their wealth of jewellery and their shoes of patent leather or other good material. Women of other castes do not commonly wear shoes in the streets. The Kasbis are always well and completely clothed, and it has been noticed elsewhere that the Indian courtesan is more modestly dressed than most women. No doubt in this matter she knows her business. A well-to-do dancing-girl has a dress of coloured muslin or gauze trimmed with tinsel lace, with a short waist, long straight sleeves, and skirts which reach a little below the knee, a shawl falling from the head over the shoulders and wrapped round the body, and a pair of tight satin trousers, reaching to the ankles. The feet are bare, and strings of small bells are tied round them. They usually dance and sing to the accompaniment of the tabla, sarangi and majira. The tabla or drum is made of two half-bowls--one brass or clay for the bass, and the other of wood for the treble. They are covered with goat-skin and played together. The sarangi is a fiddle. The majira (cymbals) consist of two metallic cups slung together and used for beating time. Before a dancing-girl begins her performance she often invokes the aid of Saraswati, the goddess of music. She then pulls her ear as a sign of remembrance of Tansen, India's greatest musician, and a confession to his spirit of the imperfection of her own sense of music. The movements of the feet are accompanied by a continual opening and closing of henna-dyed hands; and at intervals the girl kneels at the feet of one or other of the audience. On the festival of Basant Panchmi or the commencement of spring these girls worship their dancing-dress and musical instruments with offerings of rice, flowers and a cocoanut.

Katia

1. General notice.

Katia, Katwa, Katua.--An occupational caste of cotton-spinners and village watchmen belonging to the Satpura Districts and the Nerbudda valley. In 1911 they numbered 41,000 persons and were returned mainly from the Hoshangabad, Seoni and Chhindwara Districts. The caste is almost confined to the Central Provinces. The name is derived from the Hindi katna, to spin thread, and the Katias are an occupational group probably recruited from the Mahars and Koris. They have a tradition, Mr. Crooke states, [410] that they were originally Bais Rajputs, whose ancestors, having been imprisoned for resistance to authority, were released on the promise that they would follow a woman's occupation of spinning thread. In the Central Provinces they are sometimes called Renhta Rajputs or Knights of the Spinning Wheel. The tradition of Rajput descent need not of course be taken seriously. The drudgery of spinning thread was naturally imposed on any widow in the household, and hence the saying, 'It is always moving, like a widow's spinning-wheel.' [411]

2. Subcastes and exogamous groups.

The Katias have several subcastes, with names generally derived from places in the Central Provinces, as Pathari from a village in the Chhindwara District, Mandilwar from Mandla, Gadhewal from Garha, near Jubbulpore, and so on. The Dulbuha group consist of those who were formerly palanquin-bearers (from doli, a litter). They have also more than fifty exogamous septs, with names of the usual low-caste type, derived from places, animals or plants, or natural objects. Some of the septs are subdivided. Thus the Nagotia sept, named after the cobra, is split up into the Nagotia, Dirat [412] Nag, Bharowar [413] Nag, Kosam Karia and Hazari [414] Nag groups. It is said that the different groups do not intermarry; but it is probable that they do, as otherwise there seems to be no object in the subdivision. The Kosam Karias worship a cobra at their weddings, but not the others. The Singhotia sept, from singh, a horn, is divided into the Bakaria (goat) and Ghagar-bharia (one who fills an earthen vessel) subsepts. The Bakarias offer goats to their gods; and the Ghagar-bharias on the Akti [415] festival, just before the breaking of the rains, fill an earthen vessel and worship it, and consider it sacred for that day. Next day it is brought into ordinary use. The Dongaria sept, from dongar, a hill, revere the chheola tree. [416] They choose any tree of this species outside the village, and say that it is placed on a hill, and go and worship it once a year. In this case it would appear that a hill was first venerated as an animate being and the ancestor of the sept. When hills were no longer so regarded, a chheola tree growing on a hill was substituted; and now the tree only is revered, probably a good deal for form's sake, and so far as the hill is concerned, the mere pretence that it is growing on a hill is sufficient.

3. Marriage customs.

A man must not take a wife from his own sept nor from that of his mother or grandmother. Girls are commonly married between eight and twelve years of age; and a customary payment of Rs. 9 is made to the father of the bride, double this amount being given by a widower. An unmarried girl seduced by a man of the caste is united to him by the ceremony used for a widow, and a fine is imposed on her parents; if she goes wrong with an outsider she is expelled from the community. In the marriage ceremony the customary ritual of the northern Districts is followed, [417] and the binding portion of it consists in the bride and bridegroom walking seven times around the bhanwar or sacred pole. While she does this it is essential that the bride should wear a string of black beads round her neck and brass anklets on her feet. After the ceremony the bride's mother and other women dance before the company. Whether the bride be a child or young woman she always returns home after a stay of a few days at her husband's house, and at her subsequent final departure the Gauna or going-away ceremony is performed. If the bridegroom dies after the wedding and before the Gauna, his younger brother or cousin or anybody else may come and take away the bride after performing this ceremony, and she will be considered as fully married to him. She is known as a Gonhyai wife, as distinguished from a Byahta or one married in the ordinary manner, and a Karta or widow married a second time. But the children of all three inherit equally. A widow may marry again, and take any one she pleases for her second husband. Widow-marriages must not be celebrated in the rainy months of Shrawan, Bhadon and Kunwar. No music is allowed at them, and the husband must present a fee of a rupee and a cocoanut to the malguzar (proprietor) of the village and four annas to the kotwar or watchman. A bachelor who is to marry a widow first goes through a formal ceremony with a cotton plant. Divorce is permitted for mutual disagreement. The couple stand before the caste committee and each takes a stick, breaks it in two halves, and throws them apart, saying, "I have no further connection with my husband (or wife), and I break my marriage with him (or her) as I break this stick."

4. Funeral rites.

The dead may be either buried or burnt, as convenient, and mourning is always observed for three days. Before the corpse is removed a new earthen pot filled with rice is placed on the bier. The chief mourner raises it, and addressing the deceased informs him that after a certain period he will be united to the sainted dead, and until that day his spirit should abide happily in the pot and not trouble his family. The mouth of the pot is then covered, and after the funeral the mourners take it home with them. When the day appointed for the final ceremony has come, a miniature platform is made from sticks tied together, and garlands and offerings of cakes are hung on to it. A small heap of rice is made on the platform, and just above it a clove is suspended from a thread. Songs are sung, and the principal relative opens the pot in which the spirit of the deceased has been enclosed. The spirit is called upon to join the sacred company of the dead, and the party continue to sing and to adjure it with all their force. The thread from which the clove is suspended begins to swing backwards and forwards over the rice; and a pig and two or three chickens are crushed to death as offerings to the soul of the deceased. Finally the clove touches the rice, and it is believed that the spirit of the dead man has departed to join the sainted dead. The Katias consider that after this he requires nothing more from the living, and so they do not make the annual offerings to the souls of the departed.

5. Social rules.

The caste sometimes employ a Brahman for the marriage ceremony; but generally his services are limited to fixing an auspicious date, and the functions of a priest are undertaken by members of the family. They invite a Brahman to give a name to a boy, and call him by this name. They think that if they changed the name they would not be able to get a wife for the child. They will eat any kind of flesh, including pork and fowls, but they are not considered to be impure. They are generally illiterate, and dirty in appearance. Unmarried girls wear glass bangles on both hands, but married women wear metal bracelets on the right hand and glass on the left. Girls are twice tattooed: first in childhood, and a second time after marriage. The proper avocations of the Katias were the spinning of cotton thread and the weaving of the finer kinds of cloth; but most of them have had to abandon their ancestral calling from want of custom, and they are now either village watchmen or cultivators and labourers. A few of them own villages. The Katias think themselves rather knowing; but this opinion is not shared by their neighbours, who say ironically of them, "A Katia is eight times as wise as an ordinary man, and a Kayasth thirteen times. Any one who pretends to be wiser than these must be an idiot."

KAWAR [418]

List of Paragraphs

1. Tribal legend. 2. Tribal subdivisions. 3. Exogamous groups. 4. Betrothal and marriage. 5. Other customs connected with marriage. 6. Childbirth. 7. Disposal of the dead. 8. Laying spirits. 9. Religion. 10. Magic and witchcraft. 11. Dress. 12. Occupation and social rules.

1. Tribal legend.

Kawar, Kanwar, Kaur (honorific title, Sirdar).--A primitive tribe living in the hills of the Chhattisgarh Districts north of the Mahanadi. The hill-country comprised in the northern zamindari estates of Bilaspur and the adjoining Feudatory States of Jashpur, Udaipur, Sarguja, Chang Bhakar and Korea is the home of the Kawars, and is sometimes known after them as the Kamran. Eight of the Bilaspur zamindars are of the Kawar tribe. The total numbers of the tribe are nearly 200,000, practically all of whom belong to the Central Provinces. In Bilaspur the name is always pronounced with a nasal as Kanwar. The Kawars trace their origin from the Kauravas of the Mahabharata, who were defeated by the Pandavas at the great battle of Hastinapur. They say that only two pregnant women survived and fled to the hills of Central India, where they took refuge in the houses of a Rawat (grazier) and a Dhobi (washerman) respectively, and the boy and girl children who were born to them became the ancestors of the Kawar tribe. Consequently, the Kawars will take food from the hands of Rawats, especially those of the Kauria subcaste, who are in all probability descended from Kawars. And when a Kawar is put out of caste for having maggots in a wound, a Dhobi is always employed to readmit him to social intercourse. These facts show that the tribe have some close ancestral connection with the Rawats and Dhobis, though the legend of descent from the Kauravas is, of course, a myth based on the similarity of the names. The tribe have lost their own language, if they ever had one, and now speak a corrupt form of the Chhattisgarhi dialect of Hindi. It is probable that they belong to the Dravidian tribal family.

2. Tribal subdivisions.

The Kawars have the following eight endogamous divisions: Tanwar, Kamalbansi, Paikara, Dudh-Kawar, Rathia, Chanti, Cherwa and Rautia. The Tanwar group, also known as Umrao, is that to which the zamindars belong, and they now claim to be Tomara Rajputs, and wear the sacred thread. They prohibit widow-remarriage, and do not eat fowls or drink liquor; but they have not yet induced Brahmans to take water from them or Rajputs to accept their daughters in marriage. The name Tanwar is not improbably simply a corruption of Kawar, and they are also altering their sept names to make them resemble those of eponymous Brahmanical gotras. Thus Dhangur, the name of a sept, has been altered to Dhananjaya, and Sarvaria to Sandilya. Telasi is the name of a sept to which four zamindars belong, and is on this account sometimes returned as their caste by other Kawars, who consider it as a distinction. The zamindari families have now, however, changed the name Telasi to Kairava. The Paikaras are the most numerous subtribe, being three-fifths of the total. They derive their name from Paik, a foot-soldier, and formerly followed this occupation, being employed in the armies of the Haihaivansi Rajas of Ratanpur. They still worship a two-edged sword, known as the Jhagra Khand, or 'Sword of Strife,' on the day of Dasahra. The Kamalbansi, or 'Stock of the Lotus,' may be so called as being the oldest subdivision; for the lotus is sometimes considered the root of all things, on account of the belief that Brahma, the creator of the world, was himself born from this flower. In Bilaspur the Kamalbansis are considered to rank next after the Tanwars or zamindars' group. Colonel Dalton states that the term Dudh or 'Milk' Kawar has the signification of 'Cream of the Kawars,' and he considered this subcaste to be the highest. The Rathias are a territorial group, being immigrants from Rath, a wild tract of the Raigarh State. The Rautias are probably the descendants of Kawar fathers and mothers of the Rawat (herdsman) caste. The traditional connection of the Kawars with a Rawat has already been mentioned, and even now if a Kawar marries a Rawat girl she will be admitted into the tribe, and the children will become full Kawars. Similarly, the Rawats have a Kauria subcaste, who are also probably the offspring of mixed marriages; and if a Kawar girl is seduced by a Kauria Rawat, she is not expelled from the tribe, as she would be for a liaison with any other man who was not a Kawar. This connection is no doubt due to the fact that until recently the Kawars and Rawats, who are themselves a very mixed caste, were accustomed to intermarry. At the census persons returned as Rautia were included in the Kol tribe, which has a subdivision of that name. But Mr. Hira Lal's inquiries establish the fact that in Chhattisgarh they are undoubtedly Kawars. The Cherwas are probably another hybrid group descended from connections formed by Kawars with girls of the Chero tribe of Chota Nagpur. The Chanti, who derive their name from the ant, are considered to be the lowest group, as that insect is the most insignificant of living things. Of the above subcastes the Tanwars are naturally the highest, while the Chanti, Cherwa and Rautia, who keep pigs, are considered as the lowest. The others occupy an intermediate position. None of the subcastes will eat together, except at the houses of their zamindars, from whom they will all take food. But the Kawars of the Chhuri estate no longer attend the feasts of their zamindar, for the following curious reason. One of the latter's village thekadars or farmers had got the hide taken off a dead buffalo so as to keep it for his own use, instead of making the body over to a Chamar (tanner). The caste-fellows saw no harm in this act, but it offended the zamindar's more orthodox Hindu conscience. Soon afterwards, at some marriage-feast of his family, when the Kawars of his zamindari attended in accordance with the usual custom, he remarked, 'Here come our Chamars,' or words to that effect. The Chhuri Kawars were insulted, and the more so because the Pendra zamindar and other outsiders were present. So they declined to take food any longer from their zamindar. They continued to accept it, however, from the other zamindars, until their master of Chhuri represented to them that this would result in a slur being put upon his standing among his fellows. So they have now given up taking food from any zamindar.

3. Exogamous groups.

The tribe have a large number of exogamous septs, which are generally totemistic or named after plants and animals. The names of 117 septs have been recorded, and there are probably even more. The following list gives a selection of the names:

Andil Born from an egg. Bagh Tiger. Bichhi Scorpion. Bilwa Wild cat. Bokra Goat. Chandrama Moon. Chanwar A whisk. Chita Leopard. Chuva A well. Champa A sweet-scented flower. Dhenki A pounding-lever. Darpan A mirror. Gobira A dung insect. Hundar A wolf. Janta Grinding-mill. Kothi A store-house. Khumari A leaf-umbrella. Lodha A wild dog. Mama Maternal uncle. Mahadeo The deity. Nunmutaria A packet of salt. Sendur Vermilion. Sua A parrot. Telasi Oily. Thath Murra Pressed in a sugarcane press.

Generally it may be said that every common animal or bird and even articles of food or dress and household implements have given their names to a sept. In the Paikara subcaste a figure of the plant or animal after which the sept is named is made by each party at the time of marriage. Thus a bridegroom of the Bagh or tiger sept prepares a small image of a tiger with flour and bakes it in oil; this he shows to the bride's family to represent, as it were, his pedigree, or prove his legitimacy; while she on her part, assuming that she is, say, of the Bilwa or cat sept, will bring a similar image of a cat with her in proof of her origin. The Andil sept make a representation of a hen sitting on eggs. They do not worship the totem animal or plant, but when they learn of the death of one of the species, they throw away an earthen cooking-pot as a sign of mourning. They generally think themselves descended from the totem animal or plant, but when the sept is called after some inanimate object, such as a grinding-mill or pounding-lever, they repudiate the idea of descent from it, and are at a loss to account for the origin of the name. Those whose septs are named after plants or animals usually abstain from injuring or cutting them, but where this rule would cause too much inconvenience it is transgressed: thus the members of the Karsayal or deer sept find it too hard for them to abjure the flesh of that animal, nor can those of the Bokra sept abstain from eating goats. In some cases new septs have been formed by a conjunction of the names of two others, as Bagh-Daharia, Gauriya-Sonwani, and so on. These may possibly be analogous to the use of double names in English, a family of one sept when it has contracted a marriage with another of better position adding the latter's name to its own as a slight distinction. But it may also simply arise from the constant tendency to increase the number of septs in order to remove difficulties from the arrangement of matches.

4. Betrothal and marriage.

Marriage within the same sept is prohibited and also between the children of brothers and sisters. A man may not marry his wife's elder sister but he can take her younger one in her lifetime. Marriage is usually adult and, contrary to the Hindu rule, the proposal for a match always comes from the boy's father, as a man would think it undignified to try and find a husband for his daughter. The Kawar says, 'Shall my daughter leap over the wall to get a husband.' In consequence of this girls not infrequently remain unmarried until a comparatively late age, especially in the zamindari families where the provision of a husband of suitable rank may be difficult. Having selected a bride for his son the boy's father sends some friends to her village, and they address a friend of the girl's family, saying, "So-and-so (giving his name and village) would like to have a cup of pej (boiled rice-water) from you; what do you say?" The proposal is communicated to the girl's family, and if they approve of it they commence preparing the rice-water, which is partaken of by the

## parties and their friends. If the bride's people do not begin cooking

the pej, it is understood that the proposal is rejected. The ceremony of betrothal comes next, when the boy's party go to the girl's house with a present of bangles, clothes, and fried cakes of rice and urad carried by a Kaurai Rawat. They also take with them the bride-price, known as Suk, which is made up of cash, husked or unhusked rice, pulses and oil. It is a fixed amount, but differs for each subcaste, and the average value is about Rs. 25. To this is added three or four goats to be consumed at the wedding. If a widower marries a girl, a larger bride-price is exacted. The wedding follows, and in many respects conforms to the ordinary Hindu ritual, but Brahmans are not employed. The bridegroom's party is accompanied by tomtom-players on its way to the wedding, and as each village is approached plenty of noise is made, so that the residents may come out and admire the dresses, a great part of whose merit consists in their antiquity, while the wearer delights in recounting to any who will listen the history of his garb and of his distinguished ancestors who have worn it. The marriage is performed by walking round the sacred pole, six times on one day and once on the following day. After the marriage the bride's parents wash the feet of the couple in milk, and then drink it in atonement for the sin committed in bringing their daughter into the world. The couple then return home to the bridegroom's house, where all the ceremonies are repeated, as it is said that otherwise his courtyard would remain unmarried. On the following day the couple go and bathe in a tank, where each throws five pots full of water over the other. And on their return the bridegroom shoots arrows at seven straw images of deer over his wife's shoulder, and after each shot she puts a little sugar in his mouth. This is a common ceremony among the forest tribes, and symbolises the idea that the man will support himself and his wife by hunting. On the fourth day the bride returns to her father's house. She visits her husband for two or three months in the following month of Asarh (June-July), but again goes home to play what is known as 'The game of Gauri,' Gauri being the name of Siva's consort. The young men and girls of the village assemble round her in the evening, and the girls sing songs while the men play on drums. An obscene representation of Gauri is made, and some of them pretend to be possessed by the deity, while the men beat the girls with ropes of grass. After she has enjoyed this amusement with her mates for some three months, the bride finally goes to her husband's house.

5. Other customs connected with marriage.

The wedding expenses come to about seventy rupees on the bridegroom's

## part in an ordinary marriage, while the bride's family spend the

amount of the bride-price and a few rupees more. If the parties are poor the ceremony can be curtailed so far as to provide food for only five guests. It is permissible for two families to effect an exchange of girls in lieu of payment of the bride-price, this practice being known as Gunrawat. Or a prospective bridegroom may give his services for three or four years instead of a price. The system of serving for a wife is known as Gharjian, and is generally resorted to by widows having daughters. A girl going wrong with a Kawar or with a Kaurai Rawat before marriage may be pardoned with the exaction of a feast from her parents. For a liaison with any other outsider she is finally expelled, and the exception of the Kaurai Rawats shows that they are recognised as in reality Kawars. Widow-remarriage is permitted except in the Tanwar subcaste. New bangles and clothes are given to the widow, and the pair then stand under the eaves of the house; the bridegroom touches the woman's ear or puts a rolled mango-leaf into it, and she becomes his wife. If a widower marries a girl for his third wife it is considered unlucky for her. An earthen image of a woman is therefore made, and he goes through the marriage ceremony with it; he then throws the image to the ground so that it is broken, when it is considered to be dead and its funeral ceremony is performed. After this the widower may marry the girl, who becomes his fourth wife. Such cases are naturally very rare. If a widow marries her deceased husband's younger brother, which is considered the most suitable match, the children by her first husband rank equally with those of the second. If she marries outside the family her children and property remain with her first husband's relatives.

Dalton [419] records that the Kawars of Sarguja had adopted the practice of sati: "I found that the Kawars of Sarguja encouraged widows to become Satis and greatly venerated those who did so. Sati shrines are not uncommon in the Tributary Mahals. Between Partabpur and Jhilmili in Sarguja I encamped in a grove sacred to a Kauraini Sati. Several generations have elapsed since the self-sacrifice that led to her canonisation, but she is now the principal object of worship in the village and neighbourhood, and I was informed that every year a fowl was sacrificed to her, and every third year a black goat. The Hindus with me were intensely amused at the idea of offering fowls to a Sati!" Polygamy is permitted, but is not common. Members of the Tanwar subtribe, when they have occasion to do so, will take the daughters of Kawars of other groups for wives, though they will not give their daughters to them. Such marriages are generally made clandestinely, and it has become doubtful as to whether some families are true Tanwars. The zamindars have therefore introduced a rule that no family can be recognised as a Tanwar for purposes of marriage unless it has a certificate to that effect signed by the zamindar. Some of the zamindars charge considerable sums for these certificates, and all cannot afford them; but in that case they are usually unable to get husbands for their daughters, who remain unwed. Divorce is permitted for serious disagreement or bad conduct on the part of the wife.

6. Childbirth.

During childbirth the mother sits on the ground with her legs apart, and her back against the wall or supported by another woman. The umbilical cord is cut by the midwife: if the parents wish the boy to become eloquent she buries it in the village Council-place; or if they wish him to be a good trader, in the market; or if they desire him to be pious, before some shrine; in the case of a girl the cord is usually buried in a dung-heap, which is regarded as an emblem of fertility. As is usual in Chhattisgarh, the mother receives no food or water for three days after the birth of a child. On the fifth day she is given regular food and on that day the house is purified. Five months after birth the lips of the child are touched with rice and milk and it is named. When twins are born a metal vessel is broken to sever the connection between them, as it is believed that otherwise they must die at the same time. If a boy is born after three girls he is called titura, and a girl after three boys, tituri. There is a saying that 'A titura child either fills the storehouse or empties it'; that is, his parents either become rich or penniless. To avert ill-luck in this case oil and salt are thrown away, and the mother gives one of her bangles to the midwife.

7. Disposal of the dead.

The dead are usually buried, though well-to-do families have adopted cremation. The corpse is laid on its side in the grave, with head to the north and face to the east. A little til, cotton, urad and rice are thrown on the grave to serve as seed-grain for the dead man's cultivation in the other world. A dish, a drinking vessel and a cooking-pot are placed on the grave with the same idea, but are afterwards taken away by the Dhobi (washerman). They observe mourning for ten days for a man, nine days for a woman, and three days for children under three years old. During the period of mourning the chief mourner keeps a knife beside him, so that the iron may ward off the attacks of evil spirits, to which he is believed to be peculiarly exposed. The ordinary rules of abstinence and retirement are observed during mourning. In the case of cremation the ceremonies are very elaborate and generally resemble those of the Hindus. When the corpse is half burnt, all the men present throw five pieces of wood on to the pyre, and a number of pieces are carried in a winnowing fan to the dead man's house, where they are touched by the women and then brought back and thrown on to the fire. After the funeral the mourners bathe and return home walking one behind the other in Indian file. When they come to a cross-road, the foremost man picks up a pebble with his left foot, and it is passed from hand to hand down the line of men until the hindmost throws it away. This is supposed to sever their connection with the spirit of the deceased and prevent it from following them home. On the third day they return to the cremation ground to collect the ashes and bones. A Brahman is called who cooks a preparation of milk and rice at the head of the corpse, boils urad pulse at its feet, and bakes eight wheaten chapatis at the sides. This food is placed in leaf-cups at two corners of the ground. The mourners sprinkle cow's urine and milk over the bones, and picking them up with a palas (Butea frondosa) stick, wash them in milk and deposit them in a new earthen pot until such time as they can be carried to the Ganges. The bodies of men dying of smallpox must never be burnt, because that would be equivalent to destroying the goddess, incarnate in the body. The corpses of cholera patients are buried in order to dispose of them at once, and are sometimes exhumed subsequently within a period of six months and cremated. In such a case the Kawars spread a layer of unhusked rice in the grave, and address a prayer to the earth-goddess stating that the body has been placed with her on deposit, and asking that she will give it back intact when they call upon her for it. They believe that in such cases the process of decay is arrested for six months.

8. Laying spirits.

When a man has been killed by a tiger they have a ceremony called 'Breaking the string,' or the connection which they believe the animal establishes with a family on having tasted its blood. Otherwise they think that the tiger would gradually kill off all the remaining members of the family of his victim, and when he had finished with them would proceed to other families in the same village. This curious belief is no doubt confirmed by the tiger's habit of frequenting the locality of a village from which it has once obtained a victim, in the natural expectation that others may be forthcoming from the same source. In this ceremony the village Baiga or medicine-man is painted with red ochre and soot to represent the tiger, and proceeds to the place where the victim was carried off. Having picked up some of the blood-stained earth in his mouth, he tries to run away to the jungle, but the spectators hold him back until he spits out the earth. This represents the tiger being forced to give up his victim. The Baiga then ties a string round all the members of the dead man's family standing together; he places some grain before a fowl saying, 'If my charm has worked, eat of this'; and as soon as the fowl has eaten some grain the Baiga states that his efforts have been successful and the attraction of the man-eater has been broken; he then breaks the string and all the party return to the village. A similar ceremony is performed when a man has died of snake-bite.

9. Religion.

The religion of the Kawars is entirely of an animistic character. They have a vague idea of a supreme deity whom they call Bhagwan and identify with the sun. They bow to him in reverence, but do no more as he does not interfere with men's concerns. They also have a host of local and tribal deities, of whom the principal is the Jhagra Khand or two-edged sword, already mentioned. The tiger is deified as Bagharra Deo and worshipped in every village for the protection of cattle from wild animals. They are also in great fear of a mythical snake with a red crest on its head, the mere sight of which is believed to cause death. It lives in deep pools in the forest which are known as Shesk Kund, and when it moves the grass along its track takes fire. If a man crosses its track his colour turns to black and he suffers excruciating pains which end in death, unless he is relieved by the Baiga. In one village where the snake was said to have recently appeared, the proprietor was so afraid of it that he never went out to his field without first offering a chicken. They have various local deities, of which the Mandwa Rani or goddess of the Mandwa hill in Korba zamindari may be noticed as an example. She is a mild-hearted maiden who puts people right when they have gone astray in the forest, or provides them with food for the night and guides them to the water-springs on her hill. Recently a wayfarer had lost his path when she appeared and, guiding him into it, gave him a basket of brinjals. [420] As the traveller proceeded he felt his burden growing heavier and heavier on his head, and finally on inspecting it found that the goddess had played a little joke on him and the brinjals had turned into stones. The Kawars implicitly believe this story. Rivers are tenanted by a set of goddesses called the Sat Bahini or seven sisters. They delight in playing near waterfalls, holding up the water and suddenly letting it drop. Trees are believed to be harmless sentient beings, except when occasionally possessed by evil spirits, such as the ghosts of man-eating tigers. Sometimes a tree catches hold of a cow's tail as the animal passes by and winds it up over a branch, and many cattle have lost their tails in this way. Every tank in which the lotus grows is tenanted by Purainha, the godling who tends this plant. The sword, the gun, the axe, the spear have each a special deity, and, in fact, in the Bangawan, the tract where the wilder Kawars dwell, it is believed that every article of household furniture is the residence of a spirit, and that if any one steals or injures it without the owner's leave, the spirit will bring some misfortune on him in revenge. Theft is said to be unknown among them, partly on this account and partly, perhaps, because no one has much property worth stealing. Instances of deified human beings are Kolin Sati, a Kol concubine of a zamindar of Pendra who died during pregnancy, and Sarangarhni, a Ghasia woman who was believed to have been the mistress of a Raja of Sarangarh and was murdered. Both are now Kawar deities. Thakur Deo is the deity of agriculture, and is worshipped by the whole village in concert at the commencement of the rains. Rice is brought by each cultivator and offered to the god, a little being sown at his shrine and the remainder taken home and mixed with the seed-grain to give it fertility. Two bachelors carry water round the village and sprinkle it on the brass plates of the cultivators or the roofs of their houses in imitation of rain.

10. Magic and witchcraft.

The belief in witchcraft is universal and every village has its tonhi or witch, to whom epidemic diseases, sudden illnesses and other calamities are ascribed. The witch is nearly always some unpopular old woman, and several instances are known of the murder of these unfortunate creatures, after their crimes had been proclaimed by the Baiga or medicine-man. In the famine of 1900 an old woman from another village came and joined one of the famine-kitchens. A few days afterwards the village watchman got ill, and when the Baiga was called in he said the old woman was a witch who had vowed the lives of twenty children to her goddess, and had joined the kitchen to kill them. The woman was threatened with a beating with castor-oil plants if she did not leave the village, and as the kitchen officer refused to supply her with food, she had to go. The Baiga takes action to stop and keep off epidemics by the methods common in Chhattisgarh villages. When a woman asks him to procure her offspring, the Baiga sits dharna in front of Devi's shrine and fasts until the goddess, wearied by his importunity, descends on him and causes him to prophesy the birth of a child. They have the usual belief in imitative and sympathetic magic. If a person is wounded by an axe he throws it first into fire and then into cold water. By the first operation he thinks to dry up the wound and prevent its festering, and by the second to keep it cool. Thin and lean children are weighed in a balance against moist cowdung with the idea that they will swell out as the dung dries up. In order to make a bullock's hump grow, a large grain-measure is placed over it. If cattle go astray an iron implement is placed in a pitcher of water, and it is believed that this will keep wild animals off the cattle, though the connection of ideas is obscure. To cure intermittent fever a man walks through a narrow passage between two houses. If the children in a family die, the Baiga takes the parents outside the village and breaks the stem of some plant in their presence. After this they never again touch that particular plant, and it is believed that their children will not die. Tuesday is considered the best day for weddings, Thursday and Monday for beginning field-work and Saturday for worshipping the gods. To have bats in one's granary is considered to be fortunate, and there is a large harmless snake which, they say, produces fertility when it makes its home in a field. If a crow caws on the house-top they consider that the arrival of a guest is portended. A snake or a cat crossing the road in front and a man sneezing are bad omens.

11. Dress.

The dress of the Kawars presents no special features calling for remark. Women wear pewter ornaments on the feet, and silver or pewter rings on the neck. They decorate the ears with silver pendants, but as a rule do not wear nose-rings. Women are tattooed on the breast with a figure of Krishna, on the arms with that of a deer, and on the legs with miscellaneous patterns. The operation is carried out immediately after marriage in accordance with the usual custom in Chhattisgarh.

12. Occupation and social rules.

The tribe consider military service to be their traditional occupation, but the bulk of them are now cultivators and labourers. Many of them are farmers of villages in the zamindaris. Rautias weave ropes and make sleeping-cots, but the other Kawars consider such work to be degrading. They have the ordinary Hindu rules of inheritance, but a son claiming partition in his father's lifetime is entitled to two bullocks and nothing more. When the property is divided on the death of the father, the eldest son receives an allowance known as jithai over and above his share, this being a common custom in the Chhattisgarh country where the Kawars reside. The tribe do not admit outsiders with the exception of Kaurai Rawat girls married to Kawars. They have a tribal panchayat or committee, the head of which is known as Pardhan. Its proceedings are generally very deliberate, and this has led to the saying: "The Ganda's panchayat always ends in a quarrel; the Gond's panchayat cares only for the feast; and the Kawar's panchayat takes a year to make up its mind." But when the Kawars have decided, they act with vigour. They require numerous goats as fines for the caste feast, and these, with fried urad, form the regular provision. Liquor, however, is only sparingly consumed. Temporary exclusion from caste is imposed for the usual offences, which include going to jail, getting the ears split, or getting maggots in a wound. The last is the most serious offence, and when the culprit is readmitted to social intercourse the Dhobi (washerman) is employed to eat with him first from five different plates, thus taking upon himself any risk of contagion from the impurity which may still remain. The Kawar eats flesh, fowls and pork, but abjures beef, crocodiles, monkeys and reptiles. From birds he selects the parrot, dove, pigeon, quail and partridge as fit for food. He will not eat meat sold in market because he considers it halali or killed in the Muhammadan fashion, and therefore impure. He also refuses a particular species of fish called rechha, which is black and fleshy and has been nicknamed 'The Teli's bullock.' The higher subtribes have now given up eating pork and the Tanwars abstain from fowls also. The Kawars will take food only from a Gond or a Kaurai Rawat, and Gonds will also take food from them. In appearance and manners they greatly resemble the Gonds, from whom they are hardly distinguished by the Hindus. Dalton [421] described them as "A dark, coarse-featured, broad-nosed, wide-mouthed and thick-lipped race, decidedly ugly, but taller and better set up than most of the other tribes. I have also found them a clean, well-to-do, industrious people, living in comfortable, carefully-constructed and healthily-kept houses and well dressed."

Of their method of dancing Ball [422] writes as follows: "In the evening some of the villagers--Kaurs they were I believe--entertained us with a dance, which was very different from anything seen among the Santals or Kols. A number of men performed a kind of ladies' chain, striking together as they passed one another's pronged sticks which they carried in their hands. By foot, hand and voice the time given by a tom-tom is most admirably kept."

KAYASTH

List of Paragraphs

1. General notice and legend of origin. 2. The origin of the caste. 3. The rise of the Kayasths under foreign rulers. 4. The original profession of the Kayasths. 5. The caste an offshoot from Brahmans. 6. The success of the Kayasths and their present position. 7. Subcastes. 8. Exogamy. 9. Marriage customs. 10. Marriage songs. 11. Social rules. 12. Birth Customs. 13. Religion. 14. Social customs. 15. Occupation.

1. General notice and legend of origin.

Kayasth, [423] Kaith, Lala.--The caste of writers and village accountants. The Kayasths numbered 34,000 persons in 1911 and were found over the whole Province, but they are most numerous in the Saugor, Damoh, Jubbulpore and Narsinghpur Districts. In the Maratha country their place is to some extent taken by the Prabhus, the Maratha writer caste, and also by the Vidurs. No probable derivation of the name Kayasth appears to have been suggested. The earliest reference to Kayasths appears in an inscription in Malwa dated A.D. 738-739. The inscription is of a Maurya king, and the term Kayasth is used there as a proper noun to mean a writer. Another dated A.D. 987 is written by a Kayasth named Kanchana. An inscription on the Delhi Siwalik pillar dated A.D. 1164 is stated to have been written by a Kayasth named Sispati, the son of Mahava, by the king's command. The inscription adds that the Kayasth was of Gauda (Bengal) descent, and the term Kayasth is here used in the sense of a member of the Kayasth caste and not simply meaning a writer as in the Malwa inscription. [424] From the above account it seems possible that the caste was of comparatively late origin. According to their own legend the first progenitor of the Kayasths was Chitragupta, who was created by Brahma from his own body and given to Yama the king of the dead, to record the good and evil actions of all beings, and produce the result when they arrived in the kingdom of the dead. Chitragupta was called Kayastha, from kaya stha, existing in or incorporate in the body, because he was in the body of Brahma. Chitragupta was born of a dark complexion, and having a pen and ink-pot in his hand. He married two wives, the elder being the granddaughter of the sun, who bore him four sons, while the younger was the daughter of a Brahman Rishi, and by her he had eight sons. These sons were married to princesses of the Naga or snake race; the Nagas are supposed to have been the early nomad invaders from Central Asia, or Scythians. The twelve sons were entrusted with the government of different parts of India and the twelve subcastes of Kayasths are named after these localities.

2. The origin of the caste.

There has been much discussion on the origin of the Kayasth caste, which now occupies a high social position owing to the ability and industry of its members and their attainment of good positions in the public services. All indications, however, point to the fact that the caste has obtained within a comparatively recent period a great rise in social status, and formerly ranked much lower than it does now. Dr. Bhattacharya states: [425] "The Kayasths of Bengal are described in some of the Hindu sacred books as Kshatriyas, but the majority of the Kayasth clans do not wear the sacred thread, and admit their status as Sudra also by the observance of mourning for thirty days. But whether Kshatriya or Sudra, they belong to the upper layer of Hindu society, and though the higher classes of Brahmans neither perform their religious ceremonies nor enlist them among their disciples, yet the gifts of the Kayasths are usually accepted by the great Pandits of the country without hesitation." There is no doubt that a hundred years ago the Kayasths of Bengal and Bihar were commonly looked upon as Sudras. Dr. Buchanan, an excellent observer, states this several times. In Bihar he says that the Kayasths are the chief caste who are looked upon by all as pure Sudras and do not reject the appellation. [426] And again that "Pandits in Gorakhpur insist that Kayasths are mere Sudras, but on account of their influence included among gentry (Ashraf). All who have been long settled in the district live pure and endeavour to elevate themselves; but this has failed of success as kindred from other countries who still drink liquor and eat meat come and sit on the same mat with them." [427] Again he calls the Kayasths the highest Sudras next to Vaidyas. [428] And "In Bihar the penmen (Kayasthas) are placed next to the Kshatris and by the Brahmans are considered as illegitimate, to whom the rank of Sudras has been given, and in general they do not presume to be angry at this decision, which in Bengal would be highly offensive. [429] Colebrooke remarks of the caste: "Karana, from a Vaishya by a woman of the Sudra class, is an attendant on princes or secretary. The appellation of Kayastha is in general considered as synonymous with Karana; and accordingly the Karana tribe commonly assumes the name of Kayastha; but the Kayasthas of Bengal have pretensions to be considered as true Sudras, which the Jatimala seems to authorise, for the origin of the Kayastha is there mentioned before the subject of mixed castes is introduced, immediately after describing the Gopa as a true Sudra." [430] Similarly Colonel Dalton says: "I believe that in the present day the Kayasths arrogate to themselves the position of first among commoners, or first of the Sudras, but their origin is involved in some mystery. Intelligent Kayasths make no pretension to be other than Sudras." [431] In his Census Report of the United Provinces Mr. R. Burn discusses the subject as follows: [432] "On the authority of these Puranic accounts, and in view of the fact that the Kayasths observe certain of the Sanskars in the same method as is prescribed for Kshatriyas, the Pandits of several places have given formal opinions that the Kayasths are Kshatriyas. On the other hand, there is not the slightest doubt that the Kayasths are commonly regarded either as a mixed caste, with some relationship to two if not three of the twice-born castes, or as Sudras. This is openly stated in some of the reports, and not a single Hindu who was not a Kayasth of the many I have personally asked about the matter would admit privately that the Kayasths are twice-born, and the same opinion was expressed by Muhammadans, who were in a position to gauge the ordinary ideas held by Hindus, and are entirely free from prejudice in the matter. One of the most highly respected orthodox Brahmans in the Provinces wrote to me confirming this opinion, and at the same time asked that his name might not be published in connection with it. The matter has been very minutely examined in a paper sent up by a member of the Benares committee who came to the conclusion that while the Kayasths have been declared to be Kshatriyas in the Puranas, by Pandits, and in several judgments of subordinate courts, and to be Sudras by Manu and various commentators on him, by public opinion, and in a judgment of the High Court of Calcutta, they are really of Brahmanical origin. He holds that those who to-day follow literary occupations are the descendants of Chitragupta by his Brahman and Kshatriya wives, that the so-called Unaya Kayasths are descended from Vaishya mothers, and the tailors and cobblers from Sudra mothers. It is possible to trace to some extent points which have affected public opinion on this question. The Kayasths themselves admit that in the past their reputation as hard drinkers was not altogether unmerited, but they deserve the highest credit for the improvements which have been effected in this regard. There is also a widespread belief that the existing general observance by Kayasths of the ceremonies prescribed for the twice-born castes, especially in the matter of wearing the sacred thread, is comparatively recent. It is almost superfluous to add that notwithstanding the theoretical views held as to their origin and position, Kayasths undoubtedly rank high in the social scale. All European writers have borne testimony to their excellence and success in many walks of life, and even before the commencement of British power many Kayasths occupied high social positions and enjoyed the confidence of their rulers."

3. The rise of the Kayasths under foreign rulers.

It appears then a legitimate conclusion from the evidence that the claim of the Kayasths to be Kshatriyas is comparatively recent, and that a century ago they occupied a very much lower social position than they do now. We do not find them playing any prominent part in the early or mediæval Hindu kingdoms. There is considerable reason for supposing that their rise to importance took place under the foreign or non-Hindu governments in India. Thus a prominent Kayasth gentleman says of his own caste: [433] "The people of this caste were the first to learn Persian, the language of the Muhammadan invaders of India, and to obtain the posts of accountants and revenue collectors under Muhammadan kings. Their chief occupation is Government service, and if one of the caste adopts any other profession he is degraded in the estimation of his caste-fellows." Malcolm states: [434] "When the Muhammadans invaded Hindustan and conquered its Rajput princes, we may conclude that the Brahmans of that country who possessed knowledge or distinction fled from their intolerance and violence; but the conquerors found in the Kayastha or Kaith tribe more pliable and better instruments for the conduct of the details of their new Government. This tribe had few religious scruples, as they stand low in the scale of Hindus. They were, according to their own records, which there is no reason to question, qualified by their previous employment in all affairs of state; and to render themselves completely useful had only to add the language of their new masters to those with which they were already acquainted. The Muhammadans carried these Hindus into their southern conquests, and they spread over the countries of Central India and the Deccan; and some families who are Kanungos [435] of districts and patwaris of villages trace their settlement in this country from the earliest Muhammadan conquest." Similarly the Bombay Gazetteer states that under the arrangements made by the Emperor Akbar, the work of collecting the revenues of the twenty-eight Districts subordinate to Surat was entrusted to Kayasths. [436] And the Mathur Kayasths of Gujarat came from Mathura in the train of the Mughal viceroys as their clerks and interpreters. [437] Under the Muhammadans and for some time after the introduction of English rule, a knowledge of Persian was required in a Government clerk, and in this language most of the Kayasths were proficient, and some were excellent clerks. [438] Kayasths attained very high positions under the Muhammadan kings of Bengal and were in charge of the revenue department under the Nawabs of Murshidabad; while Rai Durlao Ram, prime minister of Ali Verdi Khan, was a Kayasth. The governors of Bihar in the period between the battle of Plassey and the removal of the exchequer to Calcutta were also Kayasths. [439] The Bhatnagar Kayasths, it is said, came to Bengal at the time of the Muhammadan conquest. [440] Under the Muhammadan kings of Oudh, too, numerous Kayasths occupied posts of high trust. [441] Similarly the Kayasths entered the service of the Gond kings of the Central Provinces. It is said that when the Gond ruler Bakht Buland of Deogarh in Chhindwara went to Delhi, he brought a number of Kayasths back with him and introduced them into the administration. One of these was appointed Bakshi or paymaster to the army of Bakht Buland. His descendant is a leading landholder in the Seoni District with an estate of eighty-four villages. Another Kayasth landholder of Jubbulpore and Mandla occupied some similar position in the service of the Gond kings of Garha-Mandla.

Finally in the English administration the Kayasths at first monopolised the ministerial service. In the United Provinces, Bengal and Bihar, it is stated that the number of Kayasths may perhaps even now exceed that of all other castes taken together. [442] And in Gujarat the Kayasths have lost in recent years the monopoly they once enjoyed as Government clerks. [443] The Mathura Kayasths of Gujarat are said to be declining in prosperity on account of the present keen competition for Government service, [444] of which it would thus appear they formerly had as large a share as they desired. The Prabhus, the writer-caste of western India corresponding to the Kayasths, were from the time of the earliest European settlements much trusted by English merchants, and when the British first became supreme in Gujarat they had almost a monopoly of the Government service as English writers. To such an extent was this the case that the word Prabhu or Purvu was the general term for a clerk who could write English, whether he was a Brahman, Sunar, Prabhu, Portuguese or of English descent. [445] Similarly the word Cranny was a name applied to a clerk writing English, and thence vulgarly applied in general to the East Indians or half-caste class from among whom English copyists were afterwards chiefly recruited. The original is the Hindi karani, kirani, which Wilson derives from the Sanskrit karan, a doer. Karana is also the name of the Orissa writer-caste, who are writers and accountants. It is probable that the name is derived from this caste, that is the Uriya Kayasths, who may have been chiefly employed as clerks before any considerable Eurasian community had come into existence. Writers' Buildings at Calcutta were recently still known to the natives as Karani ki Barik, and this supports the derivation from the Karans or Uriya Kayasths, the case thus being an exact parallel to that of the Prabhus in Bombay. [446]

4. The original profession of the Kayasths.

From the above argument it seems legitimate to deduce that the Kayasths formerly occupied a lower position in Hindu society. The Brahmans were no doubt jealous of them and, as Dr. Bhattacharya states, would not let them learn Sanskrit. [447] But when India became subject to foreign rulers the Kayasths readily entered their service, learning the language of their new employers in order to increase their efficiency. Thus they first learnt Persian and then English, and both by Muhammadans and English were employed largely, if not at first almost exclusively, as clerks in the public offices. It must be remembered that there were at this time practically only two other literate castes among Hindus, the Brahmans and the Banias. The Brahmans naturally would be for long reluctant to lower their dignity by taking service under foreign masters, whom they regarded as outcaste and impure; while the Banias down to within the last twenty years or so have never cared for education beyond the degree necessary for managing their business. Thus the Kayasths had at first almost a monopoly of public employment under foreign Governments. It has been seen also that it is only within about the last century that the status of the Kayasths has greatly risen, and it is a legitimate deduction that the improvement dates from the period when they began to earn distinction and importance under these governments. But they were always a literate caste, and the conclusion is that in former times they discharged duties to which literacy was essential in a comparatively humble sphere. "The earliest reference to the Kayasths as a distinct caste," Sir H. Risley states, "occurs in Yajnavalkya, who describes them as writers and village accountants, very exacting in their demands from the cultivators." The profession of patwari or village accountant appears to have been that formerly appertaining to the Kayasth caste, and it is one which they still largely follow. In Bengal it is now stated that Kayasths of good position object to marry their daughters in the families of those who have served as patwaris or village accountants. Patwaris, one of them said to Sir H. Risley, however rich they may be, are considered as socially lower than other Kayasths, e.g. Kanungo, Akhauri, Pande or Bakshi. Thus it appears that the old patwari Kayasths are looked down upon by those who have improved their position in more important branches of Government service. Kanungo, as explained, is a sort of head of the patwaris; and Bakshi, a post already noticed as held by a Kayasth in the Central Provinces, is the Muhammadan office of paymaster.

Similarly Mr. Crooke states that while the higher members of the caste stand well in general repute, the village Lala (or Kayasth), who is very often an accountant, is in evil odour for his astuteness and chicanery. In Central India, as already seen, they are Kanungos of Districts and patwaris of villages; and here again Malcolm states that these officials were the oldest settlers, and that the later comers, who held more important posts, did not intermarry with them. [448] In Gujarat the work of collecting the revenue in the Surat tract was entrusted to Kayasths. Till 1868, in the English villages, and up to the present time in the Baroda villages, the subdivisional accountants were mostly Kayasths. [449] In the Central Provinces the bulk of the patwaris in the northern Districts and a large proportion in other Districts outside the Maratha country are Kayasths. If the Kayasths were originally patwaris or village accountants, their former low status is fully explained. The village accountant would be a village servant, though an important one, and would be supported like the other village artisans by contributions of grain from the cultivators. This is the manner in which patwaris of the Central Provinces were formerly paid. His status would technically be lower than that of the cultivators, and he might be considered as a Sudra or a mixed caste.

5. The caste an offshoot from Brahmans.

As regards the origin of the Kayasths, the most probable hypothesis would seem to be that they were an offshoot of Brahmans of irregular descent. The reason for this is that the Kayasths must have learnt reading and writing from some outside source, and the Brahmans were the only class who could teach it them. The Brahmans were not disposed to spread the benefits of education, which was the main source of their power, with undue liberality, and when another literate class was required for the performance of duties which they disdained to discharge themselves, it would be natural that they should prefer to educate people closely connected with them and having claims on their support. In this connection the tradition recorded by Sir H. Risley may be noted to the effect that the ancestors of the Bengal Kayasths were five of the caste who came from Kanauj in attendance on five Brahmans who had been summoned by the king of Bengal to perform for him certain Vedic ceremonies. [450] It may be noted also that the Vidurs, another caste admittedly of irregular descent from Brahmans, occupy the position of patwaris and village accountants in the Maratha districts. The names of their subcastes indicate generally that the home of the Kayasths is the country of Hindustan, the United Provinces, and part of Bengal. This is also the place of origin of the northern Brahmans, as shown by the names of their most important groups. The Rajputs and Banias on the other hand belong mainly to Rajputana, Gujarat and Bundelkhand, and in most of this area the Kayasths are immigrants. It has been seen that they came to Malwa and Gujarat with the Muhammadans; the number of Kayasths returned from Rajputana at the census was quite small, and it is doubtful whether the Kayasths are so much as mentioned in Tod's Rajasthan. The hypothesis therefore of their being derived either from the Rajputs or Banias appears to be untenable. In the Punjab also the Kayasths are found only in small numbers and are immigrants. As stated by Sir H. Risley, both the physical type of the Kayasths and their remarkable intellectual attainments indicate that they possess Aryan blood; similarly Mr. Sherring remarks: "He nevertheless exhibits a family likeness to the Brahman; you may not know where to place him or how to designate him; but on looking at him and conversing with him you feel quite sure that you are in the presence of a Hindu of no mean order of intellect." [451] No doubt there was formerly much mixture of blood in the caste; some time ago the Kayasths were rather noted for keeping women of other castes, and Sir H. Risley gives instances of outsiders being admitted into the caste. Dr. Bhattacharya states [452] that, "There are many Kayasths in eastern Bengal who are called Ghulams or slaves. Some of them are still attached as domestic servants to the families of the local Brahmans, Vaidyas and aristocratic Kayasths. Some of the Ghulams have in recent times become rich landholders, and it is said that one of them has got the title of Rai Bahadur from Government. The marriage of a Ghulam generally takes place in his own class, but instances of Ghulams marrying into aristocratic Kayasth families are at present not very rare."

Further, the Dakshina Rarhi Kayasths affect the greatest veneration for the Brahmans and profess to believe in the legend that traces their descent from the five menial servants who accompanied the five Brahmans invited by king Adisur. The Uttara Rarhi Kayasths or those of northern Burdwan, on the other hand, do not profess the same veneration for Brahmans as the southerners, and deny the authenticity of the legend. It was this class which held some of the highest offices under the Muhammadan rulers of Bengal, and several leading zamindars or landholders at present belong to it. [453] It was probably in this capacity of village accountant that the Kayasth incurred the traditional hostility of one or two of the lower castes which still subsists in legend. [454] The influence which the patwari possesses at present, even under the most vigorous and careful supervision and with the liability to severe punishment for any abuse of his position, is a sufficient indication of what his power must have been when supervision and control were almost nominal. On this point Sir Henry Maine remarks in his description of the village community: "There is always a village accountant, an important personage among an unlettered population; so important indeed, and so conspicuous that, according to the reports current in India, the earliest English functionaries engaged in settlements of land were occasionally led, by their assumption that there must be a single proprietor somewhere, to mistake the accountant for the owner of the village, and to record him as such in the official register. [455] In Bihar Sir H. Risley shows that Kayasths have obtained proprietary right in a large area.

6. The success of the Kayasths and their present position.

It may be hoped that the leading members of the Kayasth caste will not take offence, because in the discussion of the origin of their caste, one of the most interesting problems of Indian ethnology, it has been necessary to put forward a hypothesis other than that which they hold themselves. It would be as unreasonable for a Kayasth to feel aggrieved at the suggestion that centuries ago their ancestors were to some extent the offspring of mixed unions as for an Englishman to be insulted by the statement that the English are of mixed descent from Saxons, Danes and Normans. If the Kayasths formerly had a comparatively humble status in Hindu society, then it is the more creditable to the whole community that they should have succeeded in raising themselves by their native industry and ability without adventitious advantages to the high position in which by general admission the caste now stands. At present the Kayasths are certainly the highest caste after Brahman, Rajput and Bania, and probably in Hindustan, Bengal and the Central Provinces they may be accounted as practically equal to Rajputs and Banias. Of the Bengal Kayasths Dr. Bhattacharya wrote: [456] "They generally prove equal to any position in which they are placed. They have been successful not only as clerks but in the very highest executive and judicial offices that have yet been thrown open to the natives of this country. The names of the Kayastha judges, Dwarka Nath Mitra, Ramesh Chandra Mitra and Chandra Madhava Ghose are well known and respected by all. In the executive services the Kayasths have attained the same kind of success. One of them, Mr. R. C. Dutt, is now the Commissioner of one of the most important divisions of Bengal. Another, named Kalika Das Datta, has been for several years employed as Prime Minister of the Kuch Bihar State, giving signal proofs of his ability as an administrator by the success with which he has been managing the affairs of the principality in his charge." In the Central Provinces, too, Kayasth gentlemen hold the most important positions in the administrative, judicial and public works departments, as well as being strongly represented in the Provincial and subordinate executive services. And in many Districts Kayasths form the backbone of the ministerial staff of the public offices, a class whose patient laboriousness and devotion to duty, with only the most remote prospects of advancement to encourage them to persevere, deserve high commendation.

7. Subcastes.

The northern India Kayasths are divided into the following twelve subcastes, which are mainly of a territorial character:

(a) Srivastab. (b) Saksena. (c) Bhatnagar. (d) Ambastha or Amisht. (e) Ashthana or Aithana. (f) Balmik or Valmiki. (g) Mathur. (h) Kulsreshtha. (i) Suryadhwaja. (k) Karan. (l) Gaur. (m) Nigum.

(a) The Srivastab subcaste take their name from the old town of Sravasti, now Sahet-Mahet, in the north of the United Provinces. They are by far the most numerous subcaste both there and here. In these Provinces nearly all the Kayasths are Srivastabs except a few Saksenas. They are divided into two sections, Khare and Dusre, which correspond to the Bisa and Dasa groups of the Banias. The Khare are those of pure descent, and the Dusre the offspring of remarried widows or other irregular alliances.

(b) The Saksena are named from the old town of Sankisa, in the Farukhabad District. They also have the Khare and Dusre groups, and a third section called Kharua, which is said to mean pure, and is perhaps the most aristocratic. A number of Saksena Kayasths are resident in Seoni District, where their ancestors were settled by Bakht Buland, the Gond Raja of Deogarh in Chhindwara. These constituted hitherto a separate endogamous group, marrying among themselves, but since the opening of the railway negotiations have been initiated with the Saksenas of northern India, with the result that intermarriage is to be resumed between the two sections.

(c) The Bhatnagar take their name from the old town of Bhatner, near Bikaner. They are divided into the Vaishya or Kadim, of pure descent, and the Gaur, who are apparently the offspring of intermarriage with the Gaur subcaste.

(d) Ambastha or Amisht. These are said to have settled on the Girnar hill, and to take their name from their worship of the goddess Ambaji or Amba Devi. Mr. Crooke suggests that they may be connected with the old Ambastha caste who were noted for their skill in medicine. The practice of surgery is the occupation of some Kayasths. [457] It is also supposed that the names may come from the Ameth pargana of Oudh. The Ambastha Kayasths are chiefly found in south Bihar, where they are numerous and influential. [458]

(e) Ashthana or Aithana. This is an Oudh subcaste. They have two groups, the Purabi or eastern, who are found in Jaunpur and its neighbourhood, and the Pachhauri or western, who live in or about Lucknow.

(f) Balmik or Valmiki. These are a subcaste of western India. Balmik or Valmik was the traditional author of the Ramayana, but they do not trace their descent from him. The name may have some territorial meaning. The Valmiki are divided into three endogamous groups according as they live in Bombay, Cutch or Surat.

(g) The Mathur subcaste are named after Mathura or Muttra. They are also split into the local groups Dihlawi of Delhi, Katchi of Cutch and Lachauli of Jodhpur.

(h) The Kulsreshtha or 'well-born' Kayasths belong chiefly to the districts of Agra and Etah. They are divided into the Barakhhera, or those of twelve villages, and the Chha Khera of six villages.

(i) The Suryadhwaja subcaste belong to Ballia, Ghazi-pur and Bijnor. Their origin is obscure. They profess excessive purity, and call themselves Sakadwipi or Scythian Brahmans.

(k) The Karan subcaste belong to Bihar, and have two local divisions, the Gayawale from Gaya, and the Tirhutia from Tirhut.

(l) The Gaur Kayasths, like the Gaur Brahmans and Rajputs, apparently take their name from Gaur or Lakhnauti, the old kingdom of Bengal. They have the Khare and Dusre subdivisions, and also three local groups named after Bengal, Delhi and Budaun.

(m) The Nigum subcaste, whose name is apparently the same as that of the Nikumbh Rajputs, are divided into two endogamous groups, the Kadim or old, and the Unaya, or those coming from Unao. Sometimes the Unaya are considered as a separate thirteenth subcaste of mixed descent.

8. Exogamy.

Educated Kayasths now follow the standard rule of exogamy, which prohibits marriage between persons within five degrees of affinity on the female side and seven on the male. That is, persons having a common grandparent on the female side cannot intermarry, while for those related through males the prohibition extends a generation further back. This is believed to be the meaning of the rule but it is not quite clear. In Damoh the Srivastab Kayasths still retain exogamous sections which are all named after places in the United Provinces, as Hamirpur ki baink (section), Lucknowbar, Kashi ki Pande (a wise man of Benares), Partabpuria, Cawnpore-bar, Sultanpuria and so on. They say that the ancestors of these sections were families who came from the above places in northern India, and settled in Damoh; here they came to be known by the places from which they had immigrated, and so founded new exogamous sections. A man cannot marry in his own section, or that of his mother or grandmother. In the Central Provinces a man may marry two sisters, but in northern India this is prohibited.

9. Marriage customs.

Marriage may be infant or adult, and, as in many places husbands are difficult to find, girls occasionally remain unmarried till nearly twenty, and may also be mated to boys younger than themselves. In northern India a substantial bridegroom-price is paid, which increases for a well-educated boy, but this custom is not so well established in the Central Provinces. However, in Damoh it is said that a sum of Rs. 200 is paid to the bridegroom's family. The marriage ceremony is performed according to the proper ritual for the highest or Brahma form of marriage recognised by Manu with Vedic texts. When the bridegroom arrives at the bride's house he is given sherbet to drink. It is said that he then stands on a pestle, and the bride's mother throws wheat-flour balls to the four points of the compass, and shows the bridegroom a miniature plough, a grinding pestle, a churning-staff and an arrow, and pulls his nose. The bridegroom's struggles to prevent his mother-in-law pulling his nose are the cause of much merriment, while the two parties afterwards have a fight for the footstool on which he stands. [459] An image of a cow in flour is then brought, and the bridegroom pierces its nostrils with a little stick of gold. Kayasths do not pierce the nostrils of bullocks themselves, but these rites perhaps recall their dependence on agriculture in their capacity of village accountants.

After the wedding the bridegroom's father takes various kinds of fruit, as almonds, dates and raisins, and fills the bride's lap with them four times, finally adding a cocoanut and a rupee. This is a ceremony to induce fertility, and the cocoanut perhaps represents a child.

10. Marriage songs.

The following are some specimens of songs sung at weddings. The first is about Rama's departure from Ajodhia when he went to the forests:

Now Hari (Rama) has driven his chariot forth to the jungle. His father and mother are weeping. Kaushilya [460] stood up and said, 'Now, whom shall I call my diamond and my ruby?' Dasrath went to the tower of his palace to see his son; As Rama's chariot set forth under the shade of the trees, he wished that he might die. Bharat ran after his brother with naked feet. He said, 'Oh brother, you are going to the forest, to whom do you give the kingdom of Oudh?' Rama said, 'When fourteen years have passed away I shall come back from the jungles. Till then I give the kingdom to you.'

The following is a love dialogue:

Make a beautiful garden for me to see my king. In that garden what flowers shall I set? Lemons, oranges, pomegranates, figs. In that garden what music shall there be? A tambourine, a fiddle, a guitar and a dancing girl. In that garden what attendants shall there be? A writer, a supervisor, a secretary for writing letters. [461]

The next is a love-song by a woman:

How has your countenance changed, my lord? Why speak you not to your slave? If I were a deer in the forest and you a famous warrior, would you not shoot me with your gun? If I were a fish in the water and you the son of a fisherman, would you not catch me with your drag-net? If I were a cuckoo in the garden and you the gardener's son, would you not trap me with your liming-stick?

The last is a dialogue between Radha and Krishna. Radha with her maidens was bathing in the river when Krishna stole all their clothes and climbed up a tree with them. Girdhari is a name of Krishna:

R. You and I cannot be friends, Girdhari; I am wearing a silk-embroidered cloth and you a black blanket.

You are the son of old Nand, the shepherd, and I am a princess of Mathura.

You have taken my clothes and climbed up a kadamb tree. I am naked in the river.

K. I will not give you your clothes till you come out of the water.

R. If I come out of the water the people will laugh and clap at me. All my companions seeing your beauty say, 'You have vanquished us; we are overcome.'

11. Social rules.

Polygamy is permitted but is seldom resorted to, except for the sake of offspring. Neither widow-marriage nor divorce are recognised, and either a girl or married woman is expelled from the caste if detected in a liaison. A man may keep a woman of another caste if he does not eat from her hand nor permit her to eat in the chauk or purified place where he and his family take their meals. The practice of keeping women was formerly common but has now been largely suppressed. Women of all castes were kept except Brahmans and Kayasths. Illegitimate children were known as Dogle or Surait and called Kayasths, ranking as an inferior group of the caste. And it is not unlikely that in the past the descendants of such irregular unions have been admitted to the Dusre or lower branch of the different subcastes.

12. Birth customs.

During the seventh month of a woman's pregnancy a dinner is given to the caste-fellows and songs are sung. After this occasion the woman must not go outside her own village, nor can she go to draw water from a well or to bathe in a tank. She can only go into the street or to another house in her own village.

On the sixth day after a birth a dinner is given to the caste and songs are sung. The women bring small silver coins or rupees and place them in the mother's lap. The occasion of the first appearance of the signs of maturity in a girl is not observed at all if she is in her father's house. But if she has gone to her father-in-law's house, she is dressed in new clothes, her hair after being washed is tied up, and she is seated in the chauk or purified space, while the women come and sing songs.

13. Religion.

The Kayasths venerate the ordinary Hindu deities. They worship Chitragupta, their divine ancestor, at weddings and at the Holi and Diwali festivals. Twice a year they venerate the pen and ink, the implements of their profession, to which they owe their great success. The patwaris in Hoshangabad formerly received small fees, known as diwat puja, from the cultivators for worshipping the ink-bottle on their behalf, presumably owing to the idea that, if neglected, it might make a malicious mistake in the record of their rights.

14. Social customs.

The dead are burnt, and the proper offerings are made on the anniversaries, according to the prescribed Hindu ritual. Kayasth names usually end in Prasad, Singh, Baksh, Sewak, and Lala in the Central Provinces. Lala, which is a term of endearment, is often employed as a synonym for the caste. Dada or uncle is a respectful term of address for Kayasths. Two names are usually given to a boy, one for ceremonial and the other for ordinary use.

The Kayasths will take food cooked with water from Brahmans, and that cooked without water (pakki) from Rajputs and Banias. Some Hindustani Brahmans, as well as Khatris and certain classes of Banias, will take pakki food from Kayasths. Kayasths of different subcastes will sometimes also take it from each other. They will give the huqqa with the reed in to members of their own subcaste, and without the reed to any Kayasth. The caste eat the flesh of goats, sheep, fish, and birds. They were formerly somewhat notorious for drinking freely, but a great reform has been effected in this respect by the community itself through the agency of their caste conference, and many are now total abstainers.

15. Occupation.

The occupations of the Kayasths have been treated in discussing the origin of the caste. They set the greatest store by their profession of writing and say that the son of a Kayasth should be either literate or dead. The following is the definition of a Lekhak or writer, a term said to be used for the Kayasths in Puranic literature:

"In all courts of justice he who is acquainted with the languages of all countries and conversant with all the Shastras, who can arrange his letters in writing in even and parallel lines, who is possessed of presence of mind, who knows the art of how and what to speak in order to carry out an object in view, who is well versed in all the Shastras, who can express much thought in short and pithy sentences, who is apt to understand the mind of one when one begins to speak, who knows the different divisions of countries and of time, [462] who is not a slave to his passions, and who is faithful to the king deserves the name and rank of a Lekhak or writer." [463]

Kewat

1. General notice.

Kewat, Khewat, Kaibartta. [464]--A caste of fishermen, boatmen, grain-parchers, and cultivators, chiefly found in the Chhattisgarh Districts of Drug, Raipur, and Bilaspur. They numbered 170,000 persons in 1911. The Kewats or Kaibarttas, as they are called in Bengal, are the modern representatives of the Kaivartas, a caste mentioned in Hindu classical literature. Sir H. Risley explains the origin of the name as follows: [465] "Concerning the origin of the name Kaibartta there has been considerable difference of opinion. Some derive it from ka, water, and vartta, livelihood; but Lassen says that the use of ka in this sense is extremely unusual in early Sanskrit, and that the true derivation is Kivarta, a corruption of Kimvarta, meaning a person following a low or degrading occupation. This, he adds, would be in keeping with the pedigree assigned to the caste in Manu, where the Kaivarta, also known as Margava or Dasa, is said to have been begotten by a Nishada father and an Ayogavi mother, and to subsist by his labour in boats. On the other hand, the Brahma-Vaivarta Purana gives the Kaibartta a Kshatriya father and a Vaishya mother, a far more distinguished parentage; for the Ayogavi having been born from a Sudra father and a Vaishya mother is classed as pratiloma, begotten against the hair, or in the inverse order of the precedence of the castes." The Kewats are a mixed caste. Mr. Crooke says that they merge on one side into the Mallahs and on the other into the Binds. In the Central Provinces their two principal subdivisions are the Laria and Uriya, or the residents of the Chhattisgarh and Sambalpur plains respectively. The Larias are further split up into the Larias proper, the Kosbonwas, who grow kosa or tasar silk cocoons, and the Binjhwars and Dhuris (grain-parchers). The Binjhwars are a Hinduised group of the Baiga tribe, and in Bhandara they have become a separate Hindu caste, dropping the first letter of the name, and being known as Injhwar. The Binjhwar Kewats are a group of the same nature. The Dhuris are grain-parchers, and there is a separate Dhuri caste; but as grain-parching is also a traditional occupation of the Kewats, the Dhuris may be an offshoot from them. The Kewats are so closely connected with the Dhimars that it is difficult to make any distinction; in Chhattisgarh it is said that the Dhimars will not act as ferrymen, while the Kewats will not grow or sell singara or water-nut. The Dhimars worship their fishing-nets on the Akti day, which the Kewats will not do. Both the Kewats and Dhimars are almost certainly derived from the primitive tribes. The Kewats say that formerly the Hindus would not take water from them; but on one occasion during his exile Rama came to them and asked them to ferry him across a river; before doing so they washed his feet and drank the water, and since that time the Hindus have considered them pure and take water from their hands. This story has no doubt been invented to explain the fact that Brahmans will take water from the non-Aryan Kewats, the custom having in reality been adopted as a convenience on account of their employment as palanquin-bearers and indoor servants. But in Saugor, where they are not employed as servants, and also grow san-hemp, their position is distinctly lower and no high caste will take water from them.

2. Exogamous divisions and marriage.

The caste have also a number of exogamous groups, generally named after plants or animals, or bearing some nickname given to the reputed founder. Instances of the first class are Tuma, a gourd, Karsayal, a deer, Bhalwa, a bear, Ghughu, an owl, and so on. Members of such a sept abstain from injuring the animal after which the sept is named or eating its flesh; those of the Tuma sept worship a gourd with offerings of milk and a cocoanut at the Holi festival. Instances of titular names are Garhtod, one who destroyed a fort, Jhagarha quarrelsome, Dehri priest, Kala black, and so on. One sept is named Rawat, its founder having probably belonged to the grazier caste. Members of this sept must not visit the temple of Mahadeo at Rajim during the annual fair, but give no explanation of the prohibition. Others are the Ahira, also from the Ahir (herdsman) caste; the Rautele, which is the name of a subdivision of Kols and other tribes; and the Sonwani or 'gold water' sept, which is often found among the primitive tribes. In some localities these three have now developed into separate subcastes, marrying among themselves; and if any of their members become Kabirpanthis, the others refuse to eat and intermarry with them. The marriage of members of the same sept is prohibited, and also the union of first cousins. Girls are generally married under ten years of age, but if a suitable husband cannot be found for a daughter, the parents will make her over to any member of the caste who offers himself on condition that he bears the expenses of the marriage. In Sambalpur she is married to a flower. Sir H. Risley notes [466] the curious fact that in Bihar it is deemed less material that the bridegroom should be older than the bride than that he should be taller. "This point is of the first importance, and is ascertained by actual measurement. If the boy shorter than the girl, or if his height is exactly the same as hers, it is believed that the union of the two would bring ill-luck, and the match is at once broken off." The marriage is celebrated in the customary manner by walking round the sacred pole, after which the bridegroom marks the forehead of the bride seven times with vermilion, parts her hair with a comb, and then draws her cloth over her head. The last act signifies that the bride has become a married woman, as a girl never covers her head. In Bengal [467] a drop of blood is drawn from the fingers of the bride and bridegroom and mixed with rice, and each eats the rice containing the blood of the other. The anointing with vermilion is probably a substitute for this. Widow-remarriage and divorce are permitted. In Sambalpur a girl who is left a widow under ten years of age is remarried with full rites as a virgin.

3. Social customs.

The Kewats worship the ordinary Hindu deities and believe that a special goddess, Chaurasi Devi, dwells in their boats and keeps them from sinking. She is propitiated at the beginning of the rains and in times of flood, and an image of her is painted on their boats. They bury the dead, laying the corpse with the feet to the south, while some clothes, cotton, til and salt are placed in the grave, apparently as a provision for the dead man's soul. They worship their ancestors at intervals on a Monday or a Saturday with an offering of a fowl. As is usual in Chhattisgarh, their rules as to food are very lax, and they will eat both fowls and pork. Nevertheless Brahmans will take water at their hands and eat the rice and gram which they have parched. The caste consider fishing to have been their original occupation, and tell a story to the effect that their ancestors saved the deity in their boat on the occasion of the Deluge, and in return were given the power of catching three or four times as many fish as ordinary persons in the same space of time. Some of them parch gram and rice, and others act as coolies and banghy-bearers. [468] Kewats are usually in poor circumstances, but they boast that the town of Bilaspur is named after Bilasa Keotin, a woman of their caste. She was married, but was sought after by the king of the country, so she held out her cloth to the sun, calling on him to set it on fire, and was burnt alive, preserving her virtue. Her husband burnt himself with her, and the pair ascended to heaven.

KHAIRWAR

[Authorities: Colonel Dalton's Ethnology of Bengal; Sir H. Risley's Tribes and Castes of Bengal; Mr. Crooke's Tribes and Castes of the N.-W.P. and Oudh.]

List of Paragraphs

1. Historical notice of the tribe. 2. Its origin. 3. Tribal subdivisions. 4. Exogamous septs. 5. Marriage. 6. Disposal of the dead. 7. Religion. 8. Inheritance. 9. The Khairwas of Damoh.

1. Historical notice of the tribe.

Khairwar, Kharwar, Khaira, Khairwa. [469]--A primitive tribe of the Chota Nagpur plateau and Bihar. Nearly 20,000 Khairwars are now under the jurisdiction of the Central Provinces, of whom two-thirds belong to the recently acquired Sarguja State, and the remainder to the adjoining States and the Bilaspur District. A few hundred Khairwars or Khairwas are also returned from the Damoh District in the Bundelkhand country. Colonel Dalton considers the Khairwars to be closely connected with the Cheros. He relates that the Cheros, once dominant in Gorakhpur and Shahabad, were expelled from these tracts many centuries ago by the Gorkhas and other tribes, and came into Palamau. "It is said that the Palamau population then consisted of Kharwars, Gonds, Mars, Korwas, Parheyas and Kisans. Of these the Kharwars were the people of most consideration. The Cheros conciliated them and allowed them to remain in peaceful possession of the hill tracts bordering on Sarguja; all the Cheros of note who assisted in the expedition obtained military service grants of land, which they still retain. It is popularly asserted that at the commencement of the Chero rule in Palamau they numbered twelve thousand families and the Kharwars eighteen thousand, and if an individual of one or the other is asked to what tribe he belongs, he will say not that he is a Chero or a Kharwar, but that he belongs to the twelve thousand or the eighteen thousand, as the case may be. Intermarriages between Chero and Kharwar families have taken place. A relative of the Palamau Raja married a sister of Maninath Singh, Raja of Ramgarh, and this is among themselves an admission of identity of origin, as both claiming to be Rajputs they could not intermarry till it was proved to the satisfaction of the family priest that the parties belonged to the same class.... The Rajas of Ramgarh and Jashpur are members of this tribe, who have nearly succeeded in obliterating their Turanian traits by successive intermarriages with Aryan families. The Jashpur Raja is wedded to a lady of pure Rajput blood, and by liberal dowries has succeeded in obtaining a similar union for three of his daughters. It is a costly ambition, but there is no doubt that the liberal infusion of fresh blood greatly improves the Kharwar physique." [470] This passage demonstrates the existence of a close connection between the Cheros and Khairwars. Elsewhere Colonel Dalton connects the Santals with the Khairwars as follows: [471] "A wild goose coming from the great ocean alighted at Ahiri Pipri and there laid two eggs. From these two eggs a male and female were produced, who were the parents of the Santal race. From Ahiri Pipri our (Santal) ancestors migrated to Hara Dutti, and there they greatly increased and multiplied and were called Kharwar." This also affords some reason for supposing that the Khairwars are an offshoot of the Cheros and Santals. Mr. Crooke remarks, "That in Mirzapur the people themselves derive their name either from their occupation as makers of catechu (khair) or on account of their emigration from some place called Khairagarh, regarding which there is a great difference of opinion. If the Santal tradition is to be accepted, Khairagarh is the place of that name in the Hazaribagh District; but the Mirzapur tradition seems to point to some locality in the south or west, in which case Khairagarh may be identified with the most important of the Chhattisgarh Feudatory States, or with the pargana of that name in the Allahabad District." [472] According to their own traditions in Chota Nagpur, Sir H. Risley states that, [473] "The Kharwars declare their original seat to have been the fort of Rohtas, so called as having been the chosen abode of Rohitaswa, son of Harischandra, of the family of the Sun. From this ancient house they also claim descent, calling themselves Surajvansis, and wearing the Janeo or caste thread distinguishing the Rajputs. A less flattering tradition makes them out to be the offspring of a marriage between a Kshatriya man and a Bhar woman contracted in the days of King Ben, when distinctions of caste were abolished and men might marry whom they would." A somewhat similar story of themselves is told by the tribe in the Bamra State. Here they say that their original ancestors were the Sun and a daughter of Lakshmi, the goddess of wealth, who lived in the town of Sara. She was very beautiful and the Sun desired her, and began blowing into a conch-shell to express his passion. While the girl was gaping at the sight and sound, a drop of the spittle fell into her mouth and impregnated her. Subsequently a son was born from her arm and a daughter from her thigh, who were known as Bhujbalrai and Janghrai. [474] Bhujbalrai was given great strength by the Sun, and he fought with the people of the country, and became king of Rathgarh. But in consequence of this he and his family grew proud, and Lakshmi determined to test them whether they were worthy of the riches she had given them. So she came in the guise of a beggar to the door, but was driven away without alms. On this she cursed them, and said that their descendants, the Khairwars, should always be poor, and should eke out a scanty subsistence from the forests. And in consequence the Khairwars have ever since been engaged in boiling wood for catechu. Mr. Hira Lal identifies the Rathgarh of this story with the tract of Rath in the north of the Raigarh State and the town of Sara, where Lakshmi's daughter lived and her children were born, with Saria in Sarangarh.

2. Its origin.

On the information available as to the past history of the tribe it seems probable that the Khairwars may, as suggested by Sir H. Risley, be an offshoot from some other group. The most probable derivation of the name seems to be from the khair or catechu tree (Acacia catechu); and it may be supposed that it was the adoption as a calling of the making of catechu which led to their differentiation. Mr. Crooke derives their name either from the khair tree or a place called Khairagarh; but this latter name almost certainly means 'The fort of the khair trees.' The Khairwas or Khairwars of the Kaimur hills, who are identified by Colonel Dalton and in the India Census of 1901 with the Khairwars of Chota Nagpur, are certainly named after the tree; they are generally recognised as being Gonds who have taken to the business of boiling catechu, and are hence distinguished, being a little looked down upon by other Gonds. Mr. Crooke describes them in Mirzapur as "Admittedly a compound of various jungle tribes who have taken to this special occupation; while according to another account they are the offspring of the Saharias or Saonrs, with whom their sept names are said to be identical." He also identifies them with the Kathkaris of Bombay, whose name means 'makers of katha or prepared catechu.' The Khairwars of Chota Nagpur have everywhere a subdivision which makes catechu, this being known as Khairchura in the Central Provinces, Khairi in Bengal and Khairaha in the United Provinces. This group is looked down upon by the other Khairwars, who consider their occupation to be disreputable and do not marry with them. Possibly the preparation of catechu, like basket- and mat-making, is despised as being a profession practised by primitive dwellers in forests, and so those Khairwars who have become more civilised are now anxious to disclaim it. Sir H. Risley has several times pointed out the indeterminate nature of the constitution of the Chota Nagpur tribes, between several of whom intermarriage is common. And it seems certain that the tribes as we know them now must have been differentiated from one or more common stocks much in the same fashion as castes, though rather by the influence of local settlement than by differences of occupation, and at a much earlier date. And on the above facts it seems likely that the Khairwars of Chota Nagpur are an occupational offshoot of the Cheros and Santals, as those of the Kaimur hills are of the Gonds and Savars.

3. Tribal subdivisions.

Colonel Dalton states that the tribe had four subdivisions, Bhogta, Mahto, Rawat and Manjhi. Of these Mahto simply means a village headman, and is used as a title by many castes and tribes; Rawat is a term meaning chief, and is in common use as a title; and Manjhi too is a title, being specially applied to boatmen, and also means a village headman among the Santals. These divisions, too, afford some reason for considering the tribe to be a mixed group. Other occupational subtribes are recorded by Sir H. Risley, and are found in the Central Provinces, but these apparently have grown up since Colonel Dalton's time.

The most important group in Bengal are the Bhogtas, who are found, says Colonel Dalton, "In the hills of Palamau, skirting Sarguja, in Tori and Bhanwar Pahar of Chota Nagpur and other places. They have always had an indifferent reputation. The head of the clan in Palamau was a notorious freebooter, who, after having been outlawed and successfully evaded every attempt to capture him, obtained a jagir [475] on his surrendering and promising to keep the peace. He kept to his engagement and died in fair repute, but his two sons could not resist the opportunity afforded by the disturbances of 1857-58. After giving much trouble they were captured; one was hanged, the other transported for life and the estate was confiscated." Mr. Crooke notes that the Khairwars since adopting Hinduism performed human sacrifices to Kali. Some of our people who fell into their hands during the Mutiny were so dealt with. [476]

In the Central Provinces there is a group known as Surajvansi or Descendants of the Sun, or Janeodhari, 'Those who wear the sacred thread.' This is the aristocratic division of the caste, to which the chiefs and zamindars belong, and according to the usual practice they have consolidated their higher position by marrying only among themselves. Other groups are the Dualbandhi, who say that they are so called because they make a livelihood by building the earthen diwals or walls for houses and yards; but in Mirzapur they derive the name from dual, a leather belt which is supposed to have been the uniform of their forefathers when serving as soldiers. [477] The Patbandhi or silk-makers, according to their own story, are thus named because their ancestors were once very rich and wore silk; but a more probable hypothesis is that they were rearers of tasar silk cocoons. The Beldar or Matkora work as navvies, and are also known as Kawarvansi or 'Descendants of the Kawars,' another tribe of the locality; and last come the Khairchura, who take their name from the khair tree and are catechu-makers.

4. Exogamous septs.

The tribe have a large number of exogamous groups named after plants and animals. Members of the mouse, tortoise, parrot, pig, monkey, vulture, banyan tree and date-palm septs worship their totem animal or tree, and when they find the dead body of the animal they throw away an earthen cooking-pot to purify themselves, as is done when a member of the family dies. Those of the Dhan (rice), Non (salt), Dila (plough) and Dhenki (rice pounding-lever) septs cannot dispense with the use of these objects, but make a preliminary obeisance before employing them. Those of the Kansi sept sprinkle water mixed with kans [478] grass over the bride and bridegroom at the marriage ceremony, and those of the Chandan or sandalwood sept apply sandal-paste to their foreheads. They cannot clearly explain the meaning of these observances, but some of them have a vague idea that they are descended from the totem object.

5. Marriage.

Marriage is either infant or adult, and in the latter case a girl is not disposed of without her consent. A bride-price varying from five to ten rupees is paid, and in the case of a girl given to a widower the amount is doubled. The Hindu ceremonial has been adopted for the wedding, and an auspicious day is fixed by a Brahman. In Bengal Sir H. Risley notes that "Remnants of non-Aryan usage may be discerned in the marriage ceremony itself. Both parties must first go through the form of marriage to a mango tree or at least a branch of the tree; and must exchange blood mixed with sindur, though in the final and binding act sindur alone is smeared by the bridegroom upon the bride's forehead and the parting of her hair." As has been pointed out by Mr. Crooke, the custom of smearing vermilion on the bride's forehead is a substitute for an earlier anointing with blood; just as the original idea underlying the offering of a cocoanut was that of substitution for a human head. In some cases blood alone is still used. Thus Sir H. Risley notes that among the Birhors the marriage rite is performed by drawing blood from the little fingers of the bride and bridegroom and smearing it on each of them. [479] The blood-covenant by which a bride was admitted to her husband's sept by being smeared with his blood is believed to have been a common rite among primitive tribes.

6. Disposal of the dead.

As a rule, the tribe bury the dead, though the Hindu custom of cremation is coming into fashion among the well-to-do. Before the interment they carry the corpse seven times round the grave, and it is buried with the feet pointing to the north. They observe mourning for ten days and abstain from animal food and liquor during that period. A curious custom is reported from the Bilaspur District, where it is said that children cut a small piece of flesh from the finger of a dead parent and swallow it, considering this as a requital for the labour of the mother in having carried the child for nine months in her womb. So in return they carry a piece of her flesh in their bodies. But the correct explanation as given by Sir J. G. Frazer is that they do it to prevent themselves from being haunted by the ghosts of their parents. "Thus Orestes, [480] after he had gone mad from murdering his mother, recovered his wits by biting off one of his own fingers; since his victim was his own mother it might be supposed that the tasting of his own blood was the same as hers; and the furies of his murdered mother, which had appeared black to him before, appeared white as soon as he had mutilated himself in this way. The Indians of Guiana believe that an avenger of blood who has slain his man must go mad unless he tastes the blood of his victim, the notion apparently being that the ghost drives him crazy. A similar custom was observed by the Maoris in battle. When a warrior had slain his foe in combat, he tasted his blood, believing that this preserved him from the avenging spirit (atua) of his victim; for they imagined that 'the moment a slayer had tasted the blood of the slain, the dead man became a part of his being and placed him under the protection of the atua or guardian-spirit of the deceased.' Some of the North American Indians also drank the blood of their enemies in battle. Strange as it may seem, this truly savage superstition exists apparently in Italy to this day. There is a widespread opinion in Calabria that if a murderer is to escape he must suck his victim's blood from the reeking blade of the dagger with which he did the deed."

7. Religion.

The religion of the tribe is of the usual animistic type. Colonel Dalton notes that they have, like the Kols, a village priest, known as Pahan or Baiga. He is always one of the impure tribes, a Bhuiya, a Kharwar or a Korwa, and he offers a great triennial sacrifice of a buffalo in the sacred grove, or on a rock near the village. The fact that the Khairwars employed members of the Korwa and Bhuiya tribes as their village priests may be taken to indicate that the latter are the earlier residents of the country, and are on this account employed by the Khairwars as later arrivals for the conciliation of the indigenous deities. Colonel Dalton states that the Khairwars made no prayers to any of the Hindu gods, but when in great trouble they appealed to the sun. In the Central Provinces the main body of the tribe, and particularly those who belong to the landholding class, profess the Hindu religion.

8. Inheritance.

The Khairwars have now also adopted the Hindu rule of inheritance, and have abandoned the tribal custom which Sir H. Risley records as existing in Bengal. "Here the eldest son of the senior wife, even if younger than one of the sons of the second wife, inherits the entire property, subject to the obligation of providing for all other legitimate children. If the inheritance consists of land, the heir is expected to create separate maintenance grants in favour of his younger brothers. Daughters can never inherit, but are entitled to live in the ancestral home till they are married." [481]

9. The Khairwas of Damoh.

The Khairwas or Khairwars of the Kaimur hills are derived, as already seen, from the Gonds and Savars, and therefore are ethnologically a distinct group from those of the Chota Nagpur plateau, who have been described above. But as nearly every caste is made up of diverse ethnological elements held together by the tie of a common occupation, it does not seem worth while to treat these groups separately. Colonel Dalton, who also identifies them with the main tribe, records an interesting notice of them at an earlier period: [482]

"There is in the seventh volume of the Asiatic Researches a notice of the Kharwars of the Kaimur hills in the Mirzapur District, to the north of the Son river, by Captain J. P. Blunt, who in his journey from Chunar to Ellora in A.D. 1794, met with them and describes them as a very primitive tribe. He visited one of their villages consisting of half a dozen poor huts, and though proceeding with the utmost caution, unattended, to prevent alarm, the inhabitants fled at his approach. The women were seen, assisted by the men, carrying off their children and moving with speed to hide themselves in the woods. It was observed that they were nearly naked, and the only articles of domestic use found in the deserted huts were a few gourds for water-vessels, some bows and arrows, and some fowls as wild as their masters. With great difficulty, by the employment of Kols as mediators, some of the men were induced to return. They were nearly naked, but armed with bows and arrows and a hatchet."

In Damoh the Khairwars are said to come from Panna State. During the working season they live in temporary sheds in the forest, and migrate from place to place as the supply of trees is exhausted. Having cut down a tree they strip off the bark and cut the inner and tender wood into small pieces, which are boiled for two or three days until a thick black paste is obtained. From this the water is allowed to drain off, and the residue is made into cakes and dried in the sun. It is eaten in small pieces with betel-leaf and areca-nut. Duty is levied by the Forest Department at the rate of a rupee per handi or pot in which boiling is carried on. In Bombay various superstitious observances are connected with the manufacture of catechu; and Mr. Crooke quoted the following description of them from the Bombay Gazetteer: [483] "Every year on the day after the Holi the chulha ceremony takes place. In a trench seven feet long by three, and about three deep, khair logs are carefully stacked and closely packed till they stand in a heap about three feet above ground. The pile is then set on fire and allowed to burn to the level of the ground. The village sweeper breaks a cocoanut, kills a couple of fowls and sprinkles a little liquor near the pile. Then, after washing their feet, the sweeper and the village headman walk barefoot hurriedly across the fire. After this strangers come to fulfil vows, and giving one anna and a half cocoanut to the sweeper, and the other half cocoanut to the headman, wash their feet, and turning to the left, walk over the pile. The fire seems to cause none of them any pain." The following description of the Kathkaris as hunters of monkeys is also taken by Mr. Crooke from the Bombay Gazetteer: [484] "The Kathkaris represent themselves as descended from the monkeys of Rama. Now that their legitimate occupation of preparing catechu (kath) has been interfered with, they subsist almost entirely by hunting, and habitually kill and eat monkeys, shooting them with bows and arrows. In order to approach within range they are obliged to have recourse to stratagems, as the monkeys at once recognise them in their ordinary costume. The ruse usually adopted is for one of the best shots to put on a woman's robe (sari), under the ample folds of which he conceals his murderous weapons. Approaching the tree in which the monkeys are seated, the sportsman affects the utmost unconcern, and busies himself with the innocent occupation of picking up twigs and leaves, and thus disarming suspicion he is enabled to get a sufficiently close shot to render success a certainty."

Khandait

Khandait, Khandayat.--The military caste of Orissa, the word Khandait meaning 'swordsman,' and being derived from the Uriya khanda, a sword. Sir H. Risley remarks of the Khandaits: [485] "The caste is for the most part, if not entirely, composed of Bhuiyas, whose true affinities have been disguised under a functional name, while their customs, their religion and in some cases even their complexion and features have been modified by long contact with Hindus of relatively pure Aryan descent. The ancient Rajas of Orissa kept up large armies and partitioned the land on strictly military tenures. These armies consisted of various castes and races, the upper ranks being officered by men of good Aryan descent, while the lower ones were recruited from the low castes alike of the hills and the plains. In the social system of Orissa, the Sresta or 'best' Khandaits rank next to the Rajputs, who have not the intimate connection with the land which has helped to raise the Khandaits to their present position." The Khandaits are thus like the Marathas, and the small body of Paiks in the northern Districts, a caste formed from military service; and though recruited for the most part originally from the Dravidian tribes, they have obtained a considerable rise in status owing to their occupation and the opportunity which has been afforded to many of them to become landholders. The best Khandaits now aspire to Rajput rank, while the bulk of them have the position of cultivators, from whom Brahmans will take water, or a much higher one than they are entitled to by descent. In [486] the Central Provinces the Khandaits have no subcastes, and only two gotras or clans, named after the Kachhap or tortoise and the Nagas or cobra respectively. These divisions appear, however, to be nominal, and do not regulate marriage, as to which the only rule observed is that persons whose descent can be traced from the same parent should not marry each other. Early marriage is usual, and if a girl arrives at adolescence without a husband having been found for her, she goes through the ceremony of wedlock with an arrow. Polygamy is permitted, but a person resorting to it is looked down on and nicknamed Maipkhia or wife-eater. The essential portion of the marriage ceremony is the bandan or tying of the hands of the bride and bridegroom together with kusha grass. The bridegroom must lift up the bride and walk seven times round the marriage altar carrying her. Widow-marriage and divorce are permitted in the Central Provinces, and Brahmans are employed for religious and ceremonial purposes.

KHANGAR

List of Paragraphs

1. Origin and traditions. 2. Caste subdivisions. 3. Marriage. 4. Religion. 5. Social status. 6. Occupation.

1. Origin and traditions.

Khangar, [487] called also Kotwal, Jemadar or Darbania (gatekeeper).--A low caste of village watchmen and field-labourers belonging to Bundelkhand, and found in the Saugor, Damoh, Narsinghpur and Jubbulpore Districts. They numbered nearly 13,000 in 1911. The Khangars are also numerous in the United Provinces. Hindu ingenuity has evolved various explanations of the word Khangar, such as 'khand,' a pit, and 'gar,' maker, digger, because the Khangar digs holes in other people's houses for the purposes of theft. The caste is, however, almost certainly of non-Aryan origin, and there is little doubt also that Bundelkhand was its original home. It may be noted that the Munda tribe have a division called Khangar with which the caste may have some connection. The Khangars themselves relate the following story of their origin. Their ancestors were formerly the rulers of the fort and territory of Kurar in Bundelkhand, when a Bundela Rajput came and settled there. The Bundela had a very pretty daughter whom the Khangar Raja demanded in marriage. The Bundela did not wish to give his daughter to the Khangar, but could not refuse the Raja outright, so he said that he would consent if all the Khangars would agree to adopt Bundela practices. This the Khangars readily agreed to do, and the Bundela thereupon invited them all to a wedding feast, and having summoned his companions and plied the Khangars with liquor until they were dead drunk, cut them all to pieces. One pregnant woman only escaped by hiding in a field of kusum or safflower, [488] and on this account the Khangars still venerate the kusum and will not wear cloths dyed with saffron. She fled to the house of a Muhammadan eunuch or Fakir, who gave her shelter and afterwards placed her with a Dangi landowner. The Bundelas followed her up and came to the house of the Dangi, who denied that the Khangar woman was with him. The Bundelas then asked him to make all the women in his house eat together to prove that none of them was the Khangarin, on which the Dangi five times distributed the maihar, a sacrificial cake which is only given to relations, to all the women of the household including the Khangarin, and thus convinced the Bundelas that she was not in the house. The woman who was thus saved became the ancestor of the whole Khangar caste, and in memory of this act the Khangars and Nadia Dangis are still each bidden to eat the maihar cake at the weddings of the other, or at least so it is said; while the Fakirs, in honour of this great occasion when one of their number acted as giver rather than receiver, do not beg for alms at the wedding of a Khangar, but on the contrary bring presents. The basis of the story, that the Khangars were the indigenous inhabitants of Bundelkhand and were driven out and slaughtered by the immigrant Bundelas, may not improbably be historically correct. It is also said that no Khangar is even now allowed to enter the fort of Kurar, and that the spirit of the murdered chief still haunts it; so that if a bed is placed there in the evening with a tooth-stick, the tooth-stick will be split in the morning as after use, and the bed will appear as if it had been slept in. [489]

2. Caste subdivisions.

The caste has four subdivisions, named Rai, Mirdha or Nakib, Karbal and Dahat. The Rai or royal Khangars are the highest group and practise hypergamy with families of the Mirdha and Karbal groups, taking daughters from them in marriage but not giving their daughters to them. The Mirdhas or Nakibs are so called because they act as mace-bearers and form the bodyguard of princes. Very few, if any, are to be found in the Central Provinces. The Karbal are supposed to be especially valorous. The Dahats have developed into a separate caste called Dahait, and are looked down on by all the other divisions as they keep pigs. The caste is also divided into numerous exogamous septs, all of which are totemistic; and the members of the sept usually show veneration to the object from which the sept takes its name. Some of the names of septs are as follows: Bachhiya from bachhra a calf; Barha from barah a pig, this sept worshipping the pig; Belgotia from the bel tree; Chandan from the sandalwood tree; Chirai from chiriya a bird, this sept revering sparrows; Ghurgotia from ghora a horse (members of this sept touch the feet of a horse before mounting it and do not ride on a horse in wedding processions); Guae from the iguana; Hanuman from the monkey god; Hathi from the elephant; Kasgotia from kansa bell-metal (members of this sept do not use vessels of bell-metal on ceremonial occasions nor sell them); Mahiyar from maihar fried cakes (members of this sept do not use ghi at their weddings and may not sell ghi by weight though they may sell it by measure); San after san-hemp (members of this sept place pieces of hemp near their family god); Sandgotia from sand a bullock; Tambagotia from tamba copper; and Vishnu from the god of that name, whom the sept worship. The names of 31 septs in all are reported and there are probably others. The fact that two or three septs are named after Hindu deities may be noticed as peculiar.

3. Marriage.

The marriage of members of the same sept is prohibited and also that of first cousins. Girls are usually married at about ten years of age, the parents of the girl having to undertake the duty of finding a husband. The ceremonial in vogue in the northern Districts is followed throughout, an astrologer being consulted to ascertain that the horoscopes of the pair are favourable, and a Brahman employed to draw up the lagan or auspicious paper fixing the date of the marriage. The bridegroom is dressed in a yellow gown and over-cloth, with trousers of red chintz, red shoes, and a marriage-crown of date-palm leaves. He has the silver ornaments usually worn by women on his neck, as the khangwari or silver ring, and the hamel or necklace of rupees. In order to avert the evil eye he carries a dagger or nutcracker, and a smudge of lampblack is made on his forehead to disfigure him and thus avert the evil eye, which it is thought would otherwise be too probably attracted by his exquisitely beautiful appearance in his wedding garments. The binding portion of the ceremony is the bhanwar or walking round the sacred post of the munga tree (Moringa pterygosperma). This is done six times by the couple, the bridegroom leading, and they then make a seventh turn round the bedi or sacrificial fire. If the bride is a child this seventh round is omitted at the marriage and performed at the Dusarta or going-away ceremony. After the marriage the haldi ceremony takes place, the father of the bridegroom being dressed in women's clothes; he then dances with the mother of the bride, while they throw turmeric mixed with water over each other. Widow-marriage is allowed, and the widow may marry anybody in the caste; the ceremony consists in the placing of bangles on her wrist, and is always performed at night, a Wednesday being usually selected. A feast must afterwards be given to the caste-fellows. Divorce is also permitted, and may be effected at the instance of either party in the presence of the caste panchayat or committee. When a husband divorces his wife he must give a feast.

4. Religion.

The Khangars worship the usual Hindu deities and especially venerate Dulha Deo, a favourite household godling in the northern Districts. Pachgara Deo is a deity who seems to have been created to commemorate the occasion when the Dangi distributed the marriage cakes five times to the fugitive ancestress of the caste. His cult is now on the decline, but some still consider him the most important deity of all, and it is said that no Khangar will tell an untruth after having sworn by this god. Children dying unmarried and persons dying of leprosy or smallpox are buried, while others are buried or burnt according as the family can afford the more expensive rite of cremation or not. As among other castes a corpse must not be burnt between sunset and sunrise, as it is believed that this would cause the soul to be born blind in the next birth. Nor must the corpse be wrapped in stitched clothes, as in that case the child in which it is reincarnated would be born with its arms and legs entangled. The corpse is laid on its back and some ghi, til, barley cakes and sandalwood, if available, are placed on the body. The soul of the deceased is believed to haunt the house for three days, and each night a lamp and a little water in an earthen pot are placed ready for it. When cremation takes place the ashes are collected on the third day and the burning ground is cleaned with cowdung and sprinkled with milk, mustard and salt, in order that a cow may lick over the place and the soul of the deceased may thus find more easy admission into Baikunth or heaven. Well-to-do persons take the bones of the dead to the Ganges, a few from the different parts of the body being selected and tied round the bearer's neck. Mourning is usually only observed for three days.

5. Social status.

The Khangars do not admit outsiders into the caste, except children born of a Khangar father and a mother belonging to one of the highest castes. A woman going wrong with a man of another caste is finally expelled, but liaisons within the caste may be atoned for by the usual penalty of a feast. The caste eat flesh and drink liquor but abjure fowls, pork and beef. They will take food cooked without water from Banias, Sunars and Tameras, but katchi roti only from the Brahmans who act as their priests. Such Brahmans are received on terms of equality by others of the caste. Khangars bathe daily, and their women take off their outer cloth to eat food, because this is not washed every day. Food cooked with water must be consumed in the chauka or place where it is prepared, and not carried outside the house. Men of the caste often have the suffix Singh after their names in imitation of the Rajputs. Although their social observances are thus in some respects strict, the status of the caste is low, and Brahmans do not take water from them.

6. Occupation.

The Khangars say that their ancestors were soldiers, but at present they are generally tenants, field-labourers and village watchmen. They were formerly noted thieves, and several proverbs remain in testimony to this. "The Khangar is strong only when he possesses a khunta (a pointed iron rod to break through the wall of a house)." 'The Sunar and the Khangar only flourish together'; because the Sunar acts as a receiver of the property stolen by the Khangar. They are said to have had different ways of breaking into a house, those who got through the roof being called chhappartor, while others who dug through the side walls were known as khonpaphor. They have now, however, generally relinquished their criminal practices and settled down to live as respectable citizens.

KHARIA

List of Paragraphs

1. General notice. 2. Legend of origin. 3. Subcastes. 4. Exogamy and totemism. 5. Marriage. 6. Taboos as to food. 7. Widow-marriage and divorce. 8. Religion. 9. Funeral rites. 10. Bringing back the souls of the dead. 11. Social customs. 12. Caste rules and organisation. 13. Occupation and character. 14. Language.

1. General notice.

Kharia. [490]--A primitive Kolarian tribe, of which about 900 persons were returned from the Central Provinces in 1911. They belong to the Bilaspur District and the Jashpur and Raigarh States. The Kharias are one of the most backward of the Kolarian tribes, and appear to be allied to the Mundas and Savars. Colonel Dalton says of them: "In the Chota Nagpur estate they are found in large communities, and the Kharias belonging to these communities are far more civilised than those who live apart. Their best settlements lie near the southern Koel river, which stream they venerate as the Santals do the Damudar, and into it they throw the ashes of their dead." Chota Nagpur is the home of the Kharias, and their total strength is over a lakh. They are found elsewhere only in Assam, where they have probably migrated to the tea-gardens.

2. Legend of origin.

The Kharia legend of origin resembles that of the Mundas, and tends to show that they are an elder branch of that tribe. They say that a child was born to a woman in the jungle, and she left it to fetch a basket in which to carry it home. On her return she saw a cobra spreading its hood over the child to protect it from the sun. On this account the child was called Nagvansi (of the race of the cobra), and became the ancestor of the Nagvansi Rajas of Chota Nagpur. The Kharias say this child had an elder brother, and the two brothers set out on a journey, the younger riding a horse and the elder carrying a kawar or banghy with their luggage. When they came to Chota Nagpur the younger was made king, on which the elder brother also asked for a share of the inheritance. The people then put two caskets before him and asked him to choose one. One of the caskets contained silver and the other only some earth. The elder brother chose that which contained earth, and on this he was told that the fate of himself and his descendants would be to till the soil, and carry banghys as he had been doing. The Kharias say that they are descended from the elder brother, while the younger was the ancestor of the Nagvansi Rajas, who are really Mundas. They say that they can never enter the house of the Nagvansi Rajas because they stand in the relation of elder brother-in-law to the Ranis, who are consequently prohibited from looking on the face of a Kharia. This story is exactly like that of the Parjas in connection with the Rajas of Bastar. And as the Parjas are probably an older branch of the Gonds, who were reduced to subjection by the subsequent Raj-Gond immigrants under the ancestors of the Bastar Rajas, so it seems a reasonable hypothesis that the Kharias stood in a similar relationship to the Mundas or Kols. This theory derives some support from the fact that, according to Sir H. Risley, the Mundas will take daughters in marriage from the Kharias, but will not give their daughters to them, and the Kharias speak of the Mundas as their elder brethren. [491] Mr. Hira Lal suggests that the name Kharia is derived from kharkhari, a palanquin or litter, and that the original name Kharkharia has been contracted into Kharia. He states that in the Uriya country Oraons, who carry litters, are also called Kharias. This derivation is in accordance with the tradition of the Kharias that their first ancestor carried a banghy, and with the fact that the Kols are the best professional dhoolie-bearers.

3. Subcastes.

In Raigarh the Kharias have only two subtribes, the Dudh, or milk Kharias, and the Delki. Of these the Delki are said to be of mixed origin. They take food from Brahmans, and explain that they do so because an ancestress went wrong with a Brahman. It seems likely that they may be descended from the offspring of immigrant Hindus in Chota Nagpur with Kharia women, like similar subdivisions in other tribes. The Delkis look down on the Dudh Kharias, saying that the latter eat the flesh of tigers and monkeys, from which the Delkis abstain. In Bengal the tribe have two other divisions, the Erenga and Munda Kharias.

4. Exogamy and totemism.

The tribe is divided, like others, into totemistic exogamous septs, which pay reverence to their totems. Thus members of the Kulu (tortoise), Kiro (tiger), Nag (cobra), Kankul (leopard) and Kuto (crocodile) septs abstain from killing their totem animal, fold their hands in obeisance when they meet it, and taking up some dust from the animal's track place it on their heads as a mark of veneration. Certain septs cannot wholly abstain from the consumption of their sept totem, so they make a compromise. Thus members of the Baa, or rice sept, cannot help eating rice, but they will not eat the scum which gathers over the rice as it is being boiled. Those of the Bilum or salt sept must not take up a little salt on one finger and suck it, but must always use two or more fingers for conveying salt to the mouth, presumably as a mark of respect. Members of the Suren or stone sept will not make ovens with stones but only with clods of earth. The tribe do not now think they are actually descended from their totems, but tell stories accounting for the connection. Thus the Katang Kondai or bamboo sept say that a girl in the family of their ancestors went to cut bamboos and never came back. Her parents went to search for her and heard a voice calling out from the bamboos, but could not find their daughter. Then they understood that the bamboo was of their own family and must not be cut by them. The supposition is apparently that the girl was transformed into a bamboo.

5. Marriage.

Marriage between members of the same sept is forbidden, but the rule is not always observed. A brother's daughter may marry a sister's son, but not vice versa. Marriage is always adult, and overtures come from the boy's father. The customary bride-price is twelve bullocks, but many families cannot afford this, and resort is then made to a fiction. The boy's party make twelve models of bullocks in earth, and placing each in a leaf-plate send them to the girl's party, who throw away two, saying that one has been eaten by a tiger, and the other has fallen into a pit and died. The remaining ten are returned to the bridegroom's party, who throw away two, saying that they have been sold to provide liquor for the Panch. For two of the eight now left real animals are substituted, and for the other six one rupee each, and the two cattle and six rupees are sent back to the bride's party as the real bride-price. Poor families, however, give four rupees instead of the two cattle, and ten rupees is among them considered as the proper price, though even this is reduced on occasion. The marriage party goes from the bride's to the bridegroom's house, and consists of women only. The men do not go, as they say that on one occasion all the men of a Kharia wedding procession were turned into stones, and they fear to undergo a similar fate. The real reason may probably be that the journey of the bride is a symbolic reminiscence of the time when she was carried off by force, and hence it would be derogatory for the men to accompany her. The bridegroom comes out to meet the bride riding on the shoulders of his brother-in-law or paternal aunt's husband, who is known as Dherha. He touches the bride, and both of them perform a dance. At the wedding the bridegroom stands on a plough-yoke, and the bride on a grinding-slab, and the Dherha walks seven times round them sprinkling water on them from a mango-leaf. The couple are shut up alone for the night, and next morning the girl goes to the river to wash her husband's clothes. On her return a fowl is killed, and the couple drink two drops of its blood in water mixed with turmeric, as a symbol of the mixing of their own blood. A goat is killed, and they step in its blood and enter their houses. The caste-people say to them, "Whenever a Kharia comes to your house, give him a cup of water and tobacco and food if you have it," and the wedding is over.

6. Taboos as to food.

After a girl is married her own mother will not eat food cooked by her, as no two Kharias will take food together unless they are of the same sept. When a married daughter goes back to the house of her parents she cooks her food separately, and does not enter their cook-room; if she did all the earthen pots would be defiled and would have to be thrown away. A similar taboo marks the relations of a woman towards her husband's elder brother, who is known as Kura Sasur. She must not enter his house nor sit on a cot or stool before him, nor touch him, nor cook food for him. If she touches him a fine of a fowl with liquor is imposed by the caste, and for his touching her a goat and liquor. This idea may perhaps have been established as a check on the custom of fraternal polyandry, when the idea of the eldest brother taking the father's place as head of the joint family became prevalent.

7. Widow-marriage and divorce.

Widow-marriage is permitted at the price of a feast to the caste, and the payment of a small sum to the woman's family. A widow must leave her children with her first husband's family if required to do so. If she takes them with her they become entitled to inherit her second husband's property, but receive only a half-share as against a full share taken by his children. Divorce is permitted by mutual agreement or for adultery of the woman. But the practice is not looked upon with favour, and a divorced man or woman rarely succeeds in obtaining another mate.

8. Religion.

The principal deity of the Kharias is a hero called Banda. They say that an Oraon had vowed to give his daughter to the man who would clear the kans [492] grass off a hillock. Several men tried, and at last Banda did it by cutting out the roots. He then demanded the girl's hand, but the Oraon refused, thinking that Banda had cleared the grass by magic. Then Banda went away and the girl died, and on learning of this Banda went and dug her out of her grave, when she came to life and they were married. Since then Banda has been worshipped. The tribe also venerate their ploughs and axes, and on the day of Dasahra they make offerings to the sun.

9. Funeral rites.

The tribe bury the dead, placing the head to the north. When the corpse is taken out of the house two grains of rice are thrown to each point of the compass to invite the ancestors of the family to the funeral. And on the way, where two roads meet, the corpse is set down and a little rice and cotton-seed sprinkled on the ground as a guiding-mark to the ancestors. Before burial the corpse is anointed with turmeric and oil, and carried seven times round the grave, probably as a symbol of marriage to it. Each relative puts a piece of cloth in the grave, and the dead man's cooking and drinking-pots, his axe, stick, pipe and other belongings, and a basketful of rice are buried with him. The mourners set three plants of orai or khas-khas grass on the grave over the dead man's head, middle and feet, and then they go to a tank and bathe, chewing the roots of this grass. It would appear that the orai grass may be an agent of purification or means of severance from the dead man's ghost, like the leaves of the sacred nim [493] tree.

10. Bringing back the souls of the dead.

On the third day they bathe and are shaved, and catch a fish, which is divided among all the relatives, however small it may be, and eaten raw with salt, turmeric and garlic. It seems likely that this fish may be considered to represent the dead man's spirit, and is eaten in order to avoid being haunted by his ghost or for some other object, and the fish may be eaten as a substitute for the dead man's body, itself consumed in former times. On the tenth night after the death the soul is called back, a lighted wick being set in a vessel at the cross-roads where the rice and cotton had been sprinkled. They call on the dead man, and when the flame of the lamp wavers in the wind they break the vessel holding the lamp, saying that his soul has come and joined them, and go home. On the following Dasahra festival, when ancestors are worshipped, the spirit of the deceased is mingled with the ancestors. A cock and hen are fed and let loose, and the headman of the sept calls on the soul to come and join the ancestors and give his protection to the family. When a man is killed by a tiger the remains are collected and burnt on the spot. A goat is sacrificed and eaten by the caste, and thereafter, when a wedding takes place in that man's family, a goat is offered to his spirit. The Kharias believe that the spirits of the dead are reborn in children, and on the Barhi day, a month after the child's birth, they ascertain which ancestor has been reborn by the usual method of divination with grains of rice in water.

11. Social customs.

The strict taboos practised by the tribe as regards food have already been mentioned. Men will take food from one another, but not women. Men will also accept food cooked without water from Brahmans, Rajputs and Bhuiyas. The Kharias will eat almost any kind of flesh, including crocodile, rat, pig, tiger and bear; they have now generally abandoned beef in deference to Hindu prejudice, and also monkeys, though they formerly ate these animals, the Topno sept especially being noted on this account.

12. Caste rules and organisation.

Temporary expulsion from caste is imposed for the usual offences, and also for getting shaved or having clothes washed by a barber or washerman other than a member of the caste. This rule seems to arise either from an ultra-strict desire for social purity or from a hostile reaction against the Hindus for the low estimation in which the Kharias are held. Again it is a caste offence to carry the palanquin of a Kayasth, a Muhammadan, a Koshta (weaver) or a Nai (barber), or to carry the tazias or representations of the tomb of Husain in the Muharram procession. The caste have a headman who has the title of Pardhan, with an assistant called Negi and a messenger who is known as Ganda. The headman must always be of the Samer sept, the Negi of the Suren sept, and the Ganda of the Bartha or messenger sept. The headman's duty is to give water for the first time to caste offenders on readmission, the Negi must make all arrangements for the caste feast, and the Ganda goes and summons the tribesmen. In addition to the penalty feast a cash fine is imposed on an erring member; of this rather more than half is given to the assembled tribesmen for the purpose of buying murra or fried grain on their way home on the following morning. The remaining sum is divided between the three officers, the Pardhan and Negi getting two shares each and the Ganda one share. But the division is only approximate, as the Kharias are unable to do the necessary calculation for an odd number of rupees. The men have their hair tied in a knot on the right side of the head, and women on the left. The women are tattooed, but not the men.

Colonel Dalton writes of the tribal dances: [494] "The nuptial dances of the Kharias are very wild, and the gestures of the dancers and the songs all bear more directly than delicately on what is evidently considered the main object of the festivities, the public recognition of the consummation of the marriage. The bride and bridegroom are carried through the dances seated on the hips of two of their companions. Dancing is an amusement to which the Kharias, like all Kolarians, are passionately devoted. The only noticeable difference in their style is that in the energy, vivacity and warmth of their movements they excel all their brethren."

13. Occupation and character.

The Kharias say that their original occupation is to carry dhoolies or litters, and this, as well as the social rules prohibiting them from carrying those of certain castes, is in favour of the derivation of the name from kharkhari, a litter. They are also cultivators, and collect forest produce. They are a wild and backward tribe, as shown in the following extracts from an account by Mr. Ball: [495] "The first Kharias I met with were encamped in the jungle at the foot of some hills. The hut was rudely made of a few sal branches, its occupants being one man, an old and two young women, besides three or four children. At the time of my visit they were taking their morning meal; and as they regarded my presence with the utmost indifference, without even turning round or ceasing from their occupations, I remained for some time watching them. They had evidently recently captured some small animal, but what it was, as they had already eaten the skin, I could not ascertain. As I looked on, the old woman distributed to the others, on plates of sal leaves, what appeared to be the entrails of the animal, and wrapping up her own portion between a couple of leaves threw it on the fire in order to give it a very primitive cooking. With regard to their ordinary food the Kharias chiefly depend on the jungle for a supply of fruits, leaves and roots.

"The Kharias never make iron themselves, but are altogether dependent on the neighbouring bazars for their supplies. Had they at any period possessed a knowledge of the art of making iron, conservative of their customs as such races are, it is scarcely likely that they would have forgotten it. It is therefore not unreasonable to suppose that there was a period prior to the advent of the Hindus when iron was quite unknown to them--when, owing to the absence of cultivation in the plains, they were even more dependent on the supply of jungle food than they are at present. In those times their axes and their implements for grubbing up roots were in all probability made of stone, and their arrows had tips of the same material.

"In their persons the Kharias are very dirty, seldom if ever washing themselves. Their features are decidedly of a low character, not unlike the Bhumij, but there seemed to me to be an absence of any strongly-marked type in their faces or build, such as enables one to know a Santal and even a Kurmi at a glance."

14. Language.

Of the Kharia dialect Sir George Grierson states that it is closely allied to Savara, and has also some similarity to Korku and Juang: [496] "Kharia grammar has all the characteristics of a language which is gradually dying out and being superseded by dialects of quite different families. The vocabulary is strongly Aryanised, and Aryan principles have pervaded the grammatical structure. Kharia is no longer a typical Munda language. It is like a palimpsest, the original writing on which can only be recognised with some difficulty." [497] An account of the Kharia dialect has been published in Mr. G. B. Banerjee's Introduction to the Kharia Language (Calcutta, 1894).

Khatik

Khatik.--A functional caste of Hindu mutton-butchers and vegetable sellers. They numbered nearly 13,000 persons in the Central Provinces and Berar in 1911, and are, as might be expected, principally returned from the Districts with a considerable urban population, Amraoti, Jubbulpore, Nagpur and Saugor. The name is derived from the Sanskrit Khattika, [498] a butcher or hunter. In northern India Mr. Crooke states that the caste are engaged in keeping and selling pigs and retailing vegetables and fruits, and does not specially mention that they slaughter animals, though in Agra one of their subcastes is named Buchar, a corruption of the English word butcher. In the Punjab Sir D. Ibbetson [499] says of them that, "They form a connecting link between the scavengers and the leather-workers, though they occupy a social position distinctly inferior to that of the latter. They are great keepers of pigs and poultry, which a Chamar would not keep. [500] At the same time many of them tan and dye leather and indeed are not seldom confused with the Chamrang. The Khatik is said sometimes to keep sheep and goats and twist their hair into waist-bands for sale." Sir H. Risley again describes the Khatiks of Bihar as a cultivating and vegetable-selling caste. [501] The differences in the principal occupations ascribed to the caste are thus somewhat remarkable. In the Central Provinces the Khatiks are primarily slaughterers of sheep and goats and mutton-butchers, though they also keep pigs, and some of them, who object to this trade, make their livelihood by selling vegetables. Both in the United Provinces and Punjab the Khatiks are considered to be connected with the Pasis and probably an offshoot of that caste. In the Central Provinces they are said to be an inferior branch of the Gadaria or shepherd caste. The Gadarias state that their old sheep were formerly allowed to die. Then they appointed some poor men of the community to kill them and sell the flesh, dividing the profits with the owner, and thus the Khatik caste arose. The Khatiks accept cooked food from the Gadarias, but the latter do not reciprocate.

The Khatiks are both Hindu and Muhammadan by religion, the latter being also known as Gai-Khatik or cow-killer; but these may more suitably be classed with the Kasais or Muhammadan butchers. In the Maratha Districts the Hindu Khatiks are divided into two subcastes, the Beraria or those from Berar, and the Jhadi or those of the forest country of the Wainganga valley. These will take food together, but do not intermarry. They have the usual set of exogamous clans or septs, many of which are of a totemistic nature, being named after plants, animals or natural objects. In Jubbulpore, owing to their habit of keeping pigs and the dirty state of their dwellings, one of their divisions is named Lendha, which signifies the excrement of swine. Here the sept is called ban, while in Wardha it is known as kul or adnam. Marriage within the sept is forbidden. When arranging a match they consider it essential that the boy should be taller than the girl, but do not insist on his being older. A bride-price is sometimes paid, especially if the parents of the girl are poor, but the practice is considered derogatory. In such a case the father is thought to sell his daughter and he is called Bad or Bhand. Marriages commonly take place on the fifth, seventh or ninth day after the Holi festival, or on the festival of Badsavitri, the third day of Baisakh (light fortnight). When the bridegroom leaves the house to set out for the wedding his mother or aunt waves a pestle and churning-stick round him, puts a piece of betel-vine in his mouth and gives him her breast to suck. He then steps on a little earthen lamp-saucer placed over an egg and breaks them, and leaves the house without looking back. These rites are common to many castes, but their exact significance is obscure. The pestle and churning-stick and egg may perhaps be emblems of fertility. At the wedding the fathers of the couple split some wood into shreds, and, placing it in a little pit with cotton, set a light to it. If it is all burnt up the ceremony has been properly performed, but if any is left, the people laugh and say that the corpses of the family's ancestors were not wholly consumed on the pyre. To effect a divorce the husband and wife break a stick in the presence of the caste panchayat or committee, and if a divorced woman or one who has deserted her husband marries again, the first husband has to give a feast to the caste on the tenth day after the wedding; this is perhaps in the nature of a funeral feast to signify that she is dead to him. The remarriage of widows is permitted. A girl who is seduced by a member of the caste, even though she may be delivered of a child, may be married to him by the maimed rites used for widows. But she cannot take part in auspicious ceremonies, and her feet are not washed by married women like those of a proper bride. Even if a girl be seduced by an outsider, except a Hindu of the impure castes or a Muhammadan, she may be taken back into the community and her child will be recognised as a member of it. But they say that if a Khatik keeps a woman of another caste he will be excommunicated until he has put her away, and his children will be known as Akre or bastard Khatiks, these being numerous in Berar. The caste burn or bury the dead as their means permit, and on the third day they place on the pyre some sugar, cakes, liquor, sweets and fruit for the use of the dead man's soul.

The occupation of the Khatik is of course horrible to Hindu ideas, and the social position of the caste is very low. In some localities they are considered impure, and high-caste Hindus who do not eat meat will wash themselves if forced to touch a Khatik. Elsewhere they rank just above the impure castes, but do not enter Hindu temples. These Khatiks slaughter sheep and goats and sell the flesh, but they do not cure the skins, which are generally exported to Madras. The Hindu Khatiks often refuse to slaughter animals themselves and employ a Muhammadan to do so by the rite of halal. The blood is sometimes sold to Gonds, who cook and eat it mixed with grain. Other members of the caste are engaged in cultivation, or retail vegetables and grain.

Khatri

1. Rajput origin.

Khatri.--A prominent mercantile caste of the Punjab, whose members to the number of about 5000 have settled in the Central Provinces and Berar, being distributed over most Districts. The Khatris claim to be derived from the Rajput caste, and say that their name is a corruption of Kshatriya. At the census of 1901 Sir Herbert Risley approved of their demand on the evidence laid before him by the leading representatives of the caste. This view is assented to by Mr. Crooke and Mr. Nesfield. In Gujarat also the caste are known as Brahma-Kshatris, and their Rajput origin is considered probable, while their appearance bears out the claim to be derived either from the Aryans or some later immigrants from Central Asia: "They are a handsome fair-skinned class, some of them with blue or grey eyes, in make and appearance like Vanias (Banias), only larger and more vigorous." [502] Mr. Crooke states that, "their women have a reputation for their beauty and fair complexion. The proverb runs, 'A Khatri woman would be fair without fine clothes or ornaments,' and, 'Only an albino is fairer than a Khatri woman.'" [503] Their legend of origin is as follows: "When Parasurama the Brahman was slaying the Kshatriyas in revenge for the theft of the sacred cow Kamdhenu and for the murder of his father, a pregnant Kshatriya woman took refuge in the hut of a Saraswat Brahman. When Parasurama came up he asked the Brahman who the woman was, and he said she was his daughter. Parasurama then told him to eat with her in order to prove it, and the Brahman ate out of the same leaf-plate as the woman. The child to whom she subsequently gave birth was the ancestor of the Khatris, and in memory of this Saraswat Brahmans will eat with Khatris to the present day." The Saraswat Brahman priests of the Khatris do as a matter of fact take katcha food or that cooked with water from them, and smoke from their huqqas, and this is another strong argument in favour of their origin either from Brahmans or Rajputs.

The classical account of the Khatris is that given in Sir George Campbell's Ethnology of India, and it may be reproduced here as in other descriptions of the caste:

2. Sir George Campbell's account of the Khatris.

"Trade is their main occupation; but in fact they have broader and more distinguishing features. Besides monopolising the trade of the Punjab and the greater part of Afghanistan, and doing a good deal beyond those limits, they are in the Punjab the chief civil administrators, and have almost all literate work in their hands. So far as the Sikhs have a priesthood, they are, moreover, the priests or gurus of the Sikhs. Both Nanak and Govind were, and the Sodis and Bedis of the present day are, Khatris. Thus then they are in fact in the Punjab, so far as a more energetic race will permit them, all that Mahratta Brahmins are in the Mahratta country, besides engrossing the trade which the Mahratta Brahmins have not. They are not usually military in their character, but are quite capable of using the sword when necessary. Diwan Sawan Mal, Governor of Multan, and his notorious successor Mulraj, and very many of Ranjit Singh's chief functionaries were Khatris.

"Even under Mahomedan rulers in the west they have risen to high administrative posts. There is a record of a Khatri Diwan of Badakshan or Kurdaz; and, I believe, of a Khatri Governor of Peshawar under the Afghans. The Emperor Akbar's famous minister, Todarmal, was a Khatri; and a relative of that man of undoubted energy, the great commissariat contractor of Agra, Joti Pershad, lately informed me that he also is a Khatri. Altogether, there can be no doubt that these Khatris are one of the most acute, energetic and remarkable races in India, though in fact, except locally in the Punjab, they are not much known to Europeans. The Khatris are staunch Hindus, and it is somewhat singular that, while giving a religion and priests to the Sikhs, they themselves are comparatively seldom Sikhs. The Khatris are a very fine, fair, handsome race, and, as may be gathered from what I have already said, they are very generally educated.

"There is a large subordinate class of Khatris, somewhat lower, but of equal mercantile energy, called Rors or Roras. The proper Khatris of higher grade will often deny all connection with them, or at least only admit that they have some sort of bastard kindred with Khatris, but I think there can be no doubt that they are ethnologically the same, and they are certainly mixed up with Khatris in their avocations. I shall treat the whole kindred as generically Khatris.

"Speaking of the Khatris then thus broadly, they have, as I have said, the whole trade of the Punjab and of most of Afghanistan. No village can get on without the Khatri who keeps the accounts, does the banking business, and buys and sells the grain. They seem, too, to get on with the people better than most traders and usurers of this kind. In Afghanistan, among a rough and alien people, the Khatris are as a rule confined to the position of humble dealers, shopkeepers and moneylenders; but in that capacity the Pathans seem to look on them as a kind of valuable animal, and a Pathan will steal another man's Khatri, not only for the sake of ransom, as is frequently done on the frontier of Peshawar and Hazara, but also as he might steal a milch-cow, or as Jews might, I dare say, be carried off in the Middle Ages with a view to render them profitable.

"I do not know the exact limits of Khatri occupation to the West, but certainly in all Eastern Afghanistan they seem to be just as much a part of the established community as they are in the Punjab. They find their way far into Central Asia, but the further they get the more depressed and humiliating is their position. In Turkistan, Vambéry speaks of them with great contempt, as yellow-faced Hindus of a cowardly and sneaking character. Under Turcoman rule they could hardly be otherwise. They are the only Hindus known in Central Asia. In the Punjab they are so numerous that they cannot all be rich and mercantile; and many of them hold land, cultivate, take service, and follow various avocations."

3. Higher and lower groups.

The Khatris have a very complicated system of subdivisions, which it is not necessary to detail here in view of their small strength in the Province. As a rule they marry only one wife, though a second may be taken for the purpose of getting offspring. But parents are very reluctant to give their daughters to a man who is already married. The remarriage of widows is forbidden and divorce also is not recognised, but an unfaithful wife may be turned out of the house and expelled from the caste. Though they practise monogamy, however, the Khatris place no restrictions on the keeping of concubines, and from the offspring of such women inferior branches of the caste have grown up. In Gujarat these are known as the Dasa and Pancha groups, and they may not eat or intermarry with proper Khatris. [504] The name Khatri seems there to be restricted to these inferior groups, while the caste proper is called Brahma-Kshatri. There is also a marked distinction in their occupation, for, while the Brahma-Kshatris are hereditary District officials, pleaders, bankers and Government servants, the Khatris are engaged in weaving, and formerly prepared the fine cotton cloth of Surat and Broach, while they also make gold and silver thread, and the lace used for embroidery. [505] As a class they are said to be thriftless and idle, and at least the Khatris of Surat to be excessively fond of strong drink. The Khatris of Nimar in the Central Provinces are also weavers, and it seems not unlikely that they may be a branch of these Gujarat Khatris of the inferior class, and that the well-known gold and silver lace and embroidery industry of Burhanpur may have been introduced by them from Surat. The Khatris of Narsinghpur are dyers, and may not improbably be connected with the Nimar weavers. The other Khatris scattered here and there over the Provinces may belong to the higher branch of the caste.

4. Marriage and funeral customs.

In conclusion some extracts may be given from the interesting account of the marriage and funeral customs of the Brahma-Kshatris in Gujarat: [506] "On the wedding-day shortly before the marriage hour the bridegroom, his face covered with flower-garlands and wearing a long tunic and a yellow silk waistcloth, escorted by the women of his family, goes to the bride's house on horseback in procession.... Before the bridegroom's party arrive the bride, dressed in a head-cloth, bodice, a red robe, and loose yellow Muhammadan trousers, is seated in a closed palanquin or balai set in front of the house. The bridegroom on dismounting walks seven times round the palanquin, the bride's brother at each turn giving him a cut with an oleander twig, and the women of the family throwing showers of cake from the windows. He retires, and while mounting his horse, and before he is in the saddle, the bride's father comes out, and, giving him a present, leads him into the marriage-hall.... The girl keeps her eyes closed throughout the whole day, not opening them until the bridegroom is ushered into the marriage-booth, so that the first object she sees is her intended husband. On the first Monday, Thursday or Friday after the marriage the bride is hid either in her own or in a neighbour's house. The bridegroom comes in state, and with the point of his sword touches the outer doors of seven houses, and then begins to search for his wife. The time is one of much fun and merriment, the women of the house bantering and taunting the bridegroom, especially when he is long in finding his wife's hiding-place. When she is found the bridegroom leads the bride to the marriage-hall, and they sit there combing each other's hair."

In connection with their funeral ceremonies Mr. Bhimbhai Kirparam gives the following particulars of the custom of beating the breasts: [507] "Contrary to the Gujarat practice of beating only the breast, the Brahma-Kshatri women beat the forehead, breast and knees. For thirteen days after a death women weep and beat their breasts thrice a day, at morning, noon and evening. Afterwards they weep and beat their breasts every evening till a year has passed, not even excepting Sundays, Tuesdays or Hindu holidays. During this year of mourning the female relations of the deceased used to eat nothing but millet-bread and pulse; but this custom is gradually being given up."

Khojah

Khojah. [508]--A small Muhammadan sect of traders belonging to Gujarat, who retain some Hindu practices. They reside in Wardha, Nagpur and the Berar Districts, and numbered about 500 persons in 1911 as against 300 in 1901. The Khojahs are Muhammadans of the Shia sect, and their ancestors were converted Hindus of the Lohana trading caste of Sind, who are probably akin to the Khatris. As shown in the article on Cutchi, the Cutchi or Meman traders are also converted Lohanas. The name Khojah is a corruption of the Turkish Khwajah, Lord, and this is supposed to be a Muhammadan equivalent for the title Thakur or Thakkar applied to the Lohanas. The Khojahs belong to the Nazarian branch of the Egyptian Ismailia sect, and the founder of this sect in Persia was Hasan Sabah, who lived at the beginning of the eleventh century and founded the order of the Fidawis or devotees, who were the Assassins of the Crusades. Hasan subsequently threw off his allegiance to the Egyptian Caliph and made himself the head of his own sect with the title of Shaikh-ul-Jabal or Lord. He was known to the Crusaders as the 'Old Man of the Mountain.' His third successor Hasan (A.D. 1163) declared himself to be the unrevealed Imam and preached that no action of a believer in him could be a sin. It is through this Hasan that His Highness the Aga Khan traces his descent from Ali. Subsequently emissaries of the sect came to India, and one Pir Sadr-ud-din converted the Lohanas. According to one account this man was a Hindu slave of Imam Hasan. Sadr-ud-din preached that his master Hasan was the Nishkalanki or tenth incarnation of Vishnu. The Adam of the Semitic story of the creation was identified with the Hindu deity Vishnu, the Prophet Muhammad with Siva, and the first five Imams of Ismailia with the five Pandava brothers. By this means the new faith was made more acceptable to the Lohanas. In 1845 Aga Shah Hasan Ali, the Ismailia unrevealed Imam, came and settled in India, and his successor is His Highness the Aga Khan.

The Khojahs retain some Hindu customs. Boys have their ears bored and a lock of hair is left on a child's head to be shaved and offered at some shrine. Circumcision and the wearing of a beard are optional. They do not have mosques, but meet to pray at a lodge called the Jama'at Khana. They repeat the names of their Pirs or saints on a rosary made of 101 beads of clay from Karbala, the scene of the death of Hasan and Husain. At their marriages, deaths and on every new-moon day, contributions are levied which are sent to His Highness the Aga Khan. "A remarkable feature at a Khojah's death," Mr. Faridi states, "is the samarchhanta or Holy Drop. The Jama'at officer asks the dying Khojah whether he wishes for the Holy Drop, and if the latter agrees he must bequeath Rs. 5 to Rs. 500 to the Jama'at. The officer dilutes a cake of Karbala clay in water and moistens the lips of the dying man with it, sprinkling the remainder over his face, neck and chest. The touch of the Holy Drop is believed to save the departing soul from the temptation of the Arch-Fiend, and to remove the death-agony as completely as among the Sunnis does the recital at a death-bed of the chapter of the Koran known as the Surah-i-Ya-sin. If the dead man is old and grey-haired the hair after death is dyed with henna. A garland of cakes of Karbala clay is tied round the neck of the corpse. If the body is to be buried locally two small circular patches of silk cloth cut from the covering of Husain's tomb, called chashmah or spectacles, are laid over the eyes. Those Khojahs who can afford it have their bodies placed in air-tight coffins and transported to the field of Karbala in Persia to be buried there. The bodies are taken by steamer to Baghdad, and thence by camel to Karbala.

"The Khojahs are keen and enterprising traders, and are great travellers by land and sea, visiting and settling in distant countries for purposes of trade. They have business connections with Ceylon, Burma, Singapore, China and Japan, and with ports of the Persian Gulf, Arabia and East Africa. Khojah boys go as apprentices in foreign Khojah firms on salaries of Rs. 200 to Rs. 2000 a year with board and lodging."

KHOND [509]

[The principal authorities on the Khonds are Sir H. Risley's Tribes and Castes of Bengal, Major-General Campbell's Wild Tribes of Khondistan, and Major MacPherson's Report on the Khonds of the Districts of Ganjam and Cuttack (Reprint, Madras Scottish United Press, 1863). When the inquiries leading up to these volumes were undertaken, the Central Provinces contained a large body of the tribe, but the bulk of these have passed to Bihar and Orissa with the transfer of the Kalahandi and Patna States and the Sambalpur District. Nevertheless, as information of interest had been collected, it has been thought desirable to reproduce it, and Sir James Frazer's description of the human sacrifices formerly in vogue has been added. Much of the original information contained in this article was furnished by Mr. Panda Baijnath, Extra Assistant Commissioner, when Diwan of Patna State. Papers were also contributed by Rai Sahib Dinbandhu Patnaik, Diwan of Sonpur, Mr. Mian Bhai, Extra Assistant Commissioner, Sambalpur, and Mr. Charu Chandra Ghose, Deputy Inspector of Schools, Kalahandi.]

List of Paragraphs

1. Traditions of the tribe. 2. Tribal divisions. 3. Exogamous septs. 4. Marriage. 5. Customs at birth. 6. Disposal of the dead. 7. Occupation. 8. A Khond combat. 9. Social customs. 10. Festivals. 11. Religion. 12. Human sacrifice. 13. Last human sacrifices. 14. Khond rising in 1882. 15. Language.

1. Traditions of the tribe.

Khond, Kandh.1--A Dravidian tribe found in the Uriya-speaking tract of the Sambalpur District and the adjoining Feudatory States of Patna and Kalahandi, which up to 1905 were included in the Central Provinces, but now belong to Bihar and Orissa. The Province formerly contained 168,000 Khonds, but the number has been reduced to about 10,000, residing mainly in the Khariar zamindari to the south-east of the Raipur District and the Sarangarh State. The tract inhabited by the Khonds was known generally as the Kondhan. The tribe call themselves Kuiloka, or Kuienju, which may possibly be derived from ko or ku, a Telugu word for a mountain. [510] Their own traditions as to their origin are of little historical value, but they were almost certainly at one time the rulers of the country in which they now reside. It was the custom until recently for the Raja of Kalahandi to sit on the lap of a Khond on his accession while he received the oaths of fealty. The man who held the Raja was the eldest member of a particular family, residing in the village of Gugsai Patna, and had the title of Patnaji. The coronation of a new Raja took place in this village, to which all the chiefs repaired. The Patnaji would be seated on a large rock, richly dressed, with a cloth over his knees on which the Raja sat. The Diwan or minister then tied the turban of state on the Raja's head, while all the other chiefs present held the ends of the cloth. The ceremony fell into abeyance when Raghu Kesari Deo was made Raja on the deposition of his predecessor for misconduct, as the Patnaji refused to install a second Raja, while one previously consecrated by him was still living. The Raja was also accustomed to marry a Khond girl as one of his wives, though latterly he did not allow her to live in the palace. These customs have lately been abandoned; they may probably be interpreted as a recognition that the Rajas of Kalahandi derived their rights from the Khonds. Many of the zamindari estates of Kalahandi and Sonpur are still held by members of the tribe.

2. Tribal divisions.

There is no strict endogamy within the Khond tribe. It has two main divisions: the Kutia Khonds who are hillmen and retain their primitive tribal customs, and the plain-dwelling Khonds who have acquired a tincture of Hinduism. The Kutia or hill Khonds are said to be so called because they break the skulls of animals when they kill them for food; the word kutia meaning one who breaks or smashes. The plain-dwelling Khonds have a number of subdivisions which are supposed to be endogamous, though the rule is not strictly observed. Among these the Raj Khonds are the highest, and are usually landed proprietors. A man, however, is not considered to be a Raj Khond unless he possesses some land, and if a Raj Khond takes a bride from another group he descends to it. A similar rule applies among some of the other groups, a man being relegated to his wife's division when he marries into one which is lower than his own. The Dal Khonds may probably have been soldiers, the word dal meaning an army. They are also known as Adi Kandh or the superior Khonds, and as Balusudia or 'Shaven.' At present they usually hold the honourable position of village priest, and have to a certain extent adopted Hindu usages, refusing to eat fowls or buffaloes, and offering the leaves of the tulsi (basil) to their deities. The Kandhanas are so called because they grow turmeric, which is considered rather a low thing to do, and the Pakhia because they eat the flesh of the por or buffalo. The Gauria are graziers, and the Nagla or naked ones apparently take their name from their paucity of clothing. The Utar or Satbhuiyan are a degraded group, probably of illegitimate descent; for the other Khonds will take daughters from them, but will not give their daughters to them.

3. Exogamous septs.

Traditionally the Khonds have thirty-two exogamous septs, but the number has now increased. All the members of one sept live in the same locality about some central village. Thus the Tupa sept are collected round the village of Teplagarh in the Patna State, the Loa sept round Sindhekala, the Borga sept round Bangomunda, and so on. The names of the septs are derived either from the names of villages or from titles or nicknames. Each sept is further divided into a number of subsepts whose names are of a totemistic nature, being derived from animals, plants or natural objects. Instances of these are Bachhas calf, Chhatra umbrella, Hikoka horse, Kelka the kingfisher, Konjaka the monkey, Mandinga an earthen pot, and so on. It is a very curious fact that while the names of the septs appear to belong to the Khond language, those of the subsepts are all Uriya words, and this affords some ground for the supposition that they are more recent than the septs, an opinion to which Sir H. Risley inclines. On the other hand, the fact that the subsepts have totemistic names appears difficult of explanation under this hypothesis. Members of the subsept regard the animal or plant after which it is named as sacred. Those of the Kadam group will not stand under the tree of that name. Those of the Narsingha [511] sept will not kill a tiger or eat the meat of any animal wounded or killed by this animal. The same subsept will be found in several different septs, and a man may not marry a woman belonging either to the same sept or subsept as his own. But kinship through females is disregarded, and he may take his maternal uncle's daughter to wife, and in Kalahandi is not debarred from wedding his mother's sister. [512]

4. Marriage.

Marriage is adult and a large price, varying from 12 to 20 head of cattle, was formerly demanded for the bride. This has now, however, been reduced in some localities to two or three animals and a rupee each in lieu of the others, or cattle may be entirely dispensed with and some grain given. If a man cannot afford to purchase a bride he may serve his father-in-law for seven years as the condition of obtaining her. A proposal for marriage is made by placing a brass cup and three arrows at the door of the girl's father. He will remove these once to show his reluctance, and they will be again replaced. If he removes them a second time, it signifies his definite refusal of the match, but if he allows them to remain, the bridegroom's friends go to him and say, 'We have noticed a beautiful flower in passing through your village and desire to pluck it.' The wedding procession goes from the bride's to the bridegroom's house as among the Gonds; this custom, as remarked by Mr. Bell, is not improbably a survival of marriage by capture, when the husband carried off his wife and married her at his own house. At the marriage the bride and bridegroom come out, each sitting on the shoulders of one of their relatives. The bridegroom pulls the bride to his side, when a piece of cloth is thrown over them, and they are tied together with a string of new yarn wound round them seven times. A cock is sacrificed, and the cheeks of the couple are singed with burnt bread. They pass the night in a veranda, and next day are taken to a tank, the bridegroom being armed with a bow and arrows. He shoots one through each of seven cowdung cakes, the bride after each shot washing his forehead and giving him a green twig for a tooth-brush and some sweets. This is symbolical of their future course of life, when the husband will procure food by hunting, while the wife will wait on him and prepare his food. Sexual intercourse before marriage between a man and girl of the tribe is condoned so long as they are not within the prohibited degrees of relationship, and in Kalahandi such liaisons are a matter of ordinary occurrence. If a girl is seduced by one man and subsequently married to another, the first lover usually pays the husband a sum of seven to twelve rupees as compensation. In Sambalpur a girl may choose her own husband, and the couple commonly form an intimacy while engaged in agricultural work. Such unions are known as Udhlia or 'Love in the fields.' If the parents raise any objection to the match the couple elope and return as man and wife, when they have to give a feast to the caste, and if the girl was previously betrothed to another man the husband must pay him compensation. In the last case the union is called Paisa moli or marriage by purchase. A trace of fraternal polyandry survives in the custom by which the younger brothers are allowed access to the elder brother's wife till the time of their own marriage. Widow-marriage and divorce are recognised.

5. Customs at birth.

For one day after a child has been born the mother is allowed no food. On the sixth day she herself shaves the child's head and bites his nails short with her teeth, after which she takes a bow and arrows and stands with the child facing successively to the four points of the compass. The idea of this is to make the child a skilful hunter when he grows up. Children are named in their fifth or sixth year. Names are sometimes given after some personal peculiarity, as Lammudia, long-headed, or Khanja, one having six fingers; or after some circumstance of the birth, as Ghosian, in compliment to the Ghasia (grass-cutter) woman who acts as midwife; Jugi, because some holy mendicant (Yogi) was halting in the village when the child was born; or a child may be named after the day of the week or month on which it was born. The tribe believe that the souls of the departed are born again as children, and boys have on occasion been named Majhian Budhi or the old head-woman, whom they suppose to have been born again with a change of sex. Major Macpherson observed the same belief: [513] "To determine the best name for the child, the priest drops grains of rice into a cup of water, naming with each grain a deceased ancestor. He pronounces, from the movements of the seed in the fluid, and from observations made on the person of the infant, which of his progenitors has reappeared in him, and the child generally, but not uniformly, receives the name of that ancestor." When the children are named, they are made to ride a goat or a pig, as a mark of respect, it is said, to the ancestor who has been reborn in them. Names usually recur after the third generation.

6. Disposal of the dead.

The dead are buried as a rule, but the practice of cremating the bodies of adults is increasing. When a body is buried a rupee or a copper coin is tied in the sheet, so that the deceased may not go penniless to the other world. Sometimes the dead man's clothes and bows and arrows are buried with him. On the tenth day the soul is brought back. Outside the village, where two roads meet, rice is offered to a cock, and if it eats, this is a sign that the soul has come. The soul is then asked to ride on a bowstick covered with cloth, and is brought to the house and placed in a corner with those of other relatives. The souls are fed annually with rice on the harvest and Dasahra festivals. In Sambalpur a ball of powdered rice is placed under a tree with a lamp near it, and the first insect that settles on the ball is taken to be the soul, and is brought home and worshipped. The souls of infants who die before the umbilical cord has dropped are not brought back, because they are considered to have scarcely come into existence; and Sir E. Gait records that one of the causes of female infanticide was the belief that the souls of girl-children thus killed would not be born again, and hence the number of future female births would decrease. This belief partially conflicts with that of the change of sex on rebirth mentioned above; but the two might very well exist together. The souls of women who die during pregnancy or after a miscarriage, or during the monthly period of impurity are also not brought back, no doubt because they are held to be malignant spirits.

7. Occupation.

The Khond traditionally despises all occupations except those of husbandry, hunting and war. "In Orissa," Sir H. Risky states, "they claim full rights of property in the soil in virtue of having cleared the jungle and prepared the land for cultivation. In some villages individual ownership is unknown, and the land is cultivated on a system of temporary occupation subject to periodical redistribution under the orders of the headman or malik." Like the other forest tribes they are improvident and fond of drink.

Macpherson [514] described the Khonds as faithful to friends, devoted to their chiefs, resolute, brave, hospitable and laborious; but these high qualities meet with no recognition among the Uriya Hindus, who regard their stupidity as the salient attribute of the Khonds and have various tales in derision of them, like those told of the weavers. They consider the Khonds as only a little superior to the impure Doms (musicians and sweepers), and say, 'Kandh ghare Domna Mantri,' or 'In a Kandh house the Dom is Prime Minister.' This is paralleled by the similar relation between the Gonds and Pardhans. The arms of the Khonds were a light, long-handled sword with a blade very curiously carved, the bow and arrow and the sling--no shields being used. The axe also was used with both hands, to strike and guard, its handle being partly defended by brass plates and wire for the latter purpose. The following description of a battle between rival Khond clans was recorded by Major Macpherson as having been given to him by an eye-witness, and may be reproduced for its intrinsic interest; the fight was between the hostile tribes of Bora Muta and Bora Des in the Gumsur territory:

8. A Khond combat.

"At about 12 o'clock in the day the people of Bora Des began to advance in a mass across the Salki river, the boundary between the Districts, into the plain of Kurmingia, where a much smaller force was arrayed to oppose them. The combatants were protected from the neck to the loins by skins, and cloth was wound round their legs down to the heel, but the arms were quite bare. Round the heads of many, too, cloth was wound, and for distinction the people of Bora Muta wore peacock's feathers in their hair, while those of Bora Des had cock's tail plumes. They advanced with horns blowing, and the gongs beat when they passed a village. The women followed behind carrying pots of water and food for refreshments, and the old men who were past bearing arms were there, giving advice and encouragement. As the adverse parties approached, showers of stones, handed by the women, flew from slings from either side, and when they came within range arrows came in flights and many fell back wounded. At length single combats sprang up betwixt individuals who advanced before the rest, and when the first man fell all rushed to dip their axes in his blood, and hacked the body to pieces. The first man who himself unwounded slew his opponent, struck off the latter's right arm and rushed with it to the priest in the rear, who bore it off as an offering to Loha Pennu (the Iron God or the God of Arms) in his grove. The right arms of the rest who fell were cut off in like manner and heaped in the rear beside the women, and to them the wounded were carried for care, and the fatigued men constantly retired for water. The conflict was at length general. All were engaged hand-to-hand, and now fought fiercely, now paused by common consent for a moment's breathing. In the end the men of Bora Des, although superior in numbers, began to give way, and before four o'clock they were driven across the Salki, leaving sixty men dead on the field, while the killed on the side of the Bora Muta did not exceed thirty. And from the entire ignorance of the Khonds of the simplest healing processes, at least an equal number of the wounded died after the battle. The right hands of the slain were hung up by both parties on the trees of the villages and the dead were carried off to be burned. The people of Bora Des the next morning flung a piece of bloody cloth on the field of battle, a challenge to renew the conflict which was quickly accepted, and so the contest was kept up for three days." The above account could, of course, find no place in a description of the Khonds of this generation, but has been thought worthy of quotation, as detailed descriptions of the manner of fighting of these tribes, now weaned from war by the British Government, are so rarely to be found.

9. Social customs.

The Khonds will admit into the community a male orphan child of any superior caste, including the Binjhwars and Gonds. A virgin of any age of one of these castes will also be admitted. A Gond man who takes a Khond girl to wife can become a Khond by giving a feast. As might be expected the tribe are closely connected with the Gaurs or Uriya shepherds, whose business leads them to frequent the forests. Either a man or woman of the Gaurs can be taken into the community on marrying a Khond, and if a Khond girl marries a Gaur her children, though not herself, can become members of that caste. The Khonds will eat all kinds of animals, including rats, snakes and lizards, but with the exception of the Kutia Khonds they have now given up beef. In Kalahandi social delinquencies are punished by a fine of so many field-mice, which the Khond considers a great delicacy. The catching of twenty to forty field-mice to liquidate the fine imposes on the culprit a large amount of trouble and labour, and when his task is completed his friends and neighbours fry the mice and have a feast with plenty of liquor, but he himself is not allowed to participate. Khond women are profusely tattooed with figures of trees, flowers, fishes, crocodiles, lizards and scorpions on the calf of the leg and the arms, hands and chest, but seldom on the face. This is done for purposes of ornament. Husband and wife do not mention each other's names, and a woman may not speak the names of any of her husband's younger brothers, as, if left a widow, she might subsequently have to marry one of them. A paternal or maternal aunt may not name her nephew, nor a man his younger brother's wife.

10. Festivals.

The tribe have three principal festivals, known as the Semi Jatra, the Mahul Jatra and the Chawal Dhuba Jatra. The Semi Jatra is held on the tenth day of the waning moon of Aghan (November) when the new semi or country beans are roasted, a goat or fowl is sacrificed, and some milk or water is offered to the earth god. From this day the tribe commence eating the new crop of beans. Similarly the Mahul Jatra is held on the tenth of the waning moon of Chait (March), and until this date a Khond may eat boiled mahua flowers, but not roasted ones. The principal festival is the Dasahra or Chawal Dhuba (boiled rice) on the tenth day of the waning moon of Kunwar (September), which, in the case of the Khonds, marks the rice-harvest. The new rice is washed and boiled and offered to the earth god with the same accompaniment as in the case of the Semi Jatra, and until this date the Khond may not clean the new rice by washing it before being boiled, though he apparently may partake of it so long as it is not washed or cleaned, this rule and that regarding the mahua flowers being so made as concessions to convenience.

11. Religion.

The Khond pantheon consists of eighty-four gods, of whom Dharni Deota, the earth god, is the chief. In former times the earth goddess was apparently female and was known as Tari Pennu or Bera Pennu. To her were offered the terrible human sacrifices presently to be described. There is nothing surprising in the change of sex of the divine being, for which parallels are forthcoming. Thus in Chhattisgarh the deity of the earth, who also received human sacrifices, is either Thakur Deo, a god, or Thakurani Mai, a goddess. Deota is an Aryan term, and the proper Khond name for a god is Pennu. The earth god is usually accompanied by Bhatbarsi Deota, the god of hunting. Dharni Deota is represented by a rectangular peg of wood driven into the ground, while Bhatbarsi has a place at his feet in the shape of a piece of conglomerate stone covered with circular granules. Once in four or five years a buffalo is offered to the earth god, in lieu of the human sacrifice which was formerly in vogue. The animal is predestined for sacrifice from its birth, and is allowed to wander loose and graze on the crops at its will. The stone representing Bhatbarsi is examined periodically, and when the granules on it appear to have increased, it is decided that the time has come for the sacrifice. In Kalahandi a lamb is sacrificed every year, and strips of its flesh distributed to all the villagers, who bury it in their fields as a divine agent of fertilisation, in the same way as the flesh of the human victim was formerly buried. The Khond worships his bow and arrows before he goes out hunting, and believes that every hill and valley has its separate deity, who must be propitiated with the promise of a sacrifice before his territory is entered, or he will hide the animals within it from the hunter, and enable them to escape when wounded. These deities are closely related to each other, and it is important when arranging for an expedition to know the connection between them all; this information can be obtained from any one on whom the divine afflatus from time to time descends.

12. Human sacrifice.

The following account of the well-known system of human sacrifice, formerly in vogue among the Khonds, is contained in Sir James Frazer's Golden Bough, having been compiled by him from the accounts of Major Macpherson and Major-General John Campbell, two of the officers deputed to suppress it:

"The best known case of human sacrifices systematically offered to ensure good crops is supplied by the Khonds or Kandhs, another Dravidian race in Bengal. Our knowledge of them is derived from the accounts written by British officers who, forty or fifty years ago, were engaged in putting them down. The sacrifices were offered to the Earth-Goddess, Tari Pennu or Bera Pennu, and were believed to ensure good crops and immunity from all disease and accidents. In particular they were considered necessary in the cultivation of turmeric, the Khonds arguing that the turmeric could not have a deep red colour without the shedding of blood. The victim or Meriah was acceptable to the goddess only if he had been purchased, or had been born a victim--that is the son of a victim father--or had been devoted as a child by his father or guardian. Khonds in distress often sold their children for victims, 'considering the beatification of their souls certain, and their death, for the benefit of mankind, the most honourable possible.' A man of the Panua (Pan) tribe was once seen to load a Khond with curses, and finally to spit in his face, because the Khond had sold for a victim his own child, whom the Panua had wished to marry. A party of Khonds, who saw this, immediately pressed forward to comfort the seller of his child, saying, 'Your child has died that all the world may live, and the Earth-Goddess herself will wipe that spittle from your face.' The victims were often kept for years before they were sacrificed. Being regarded as consecrated beings, they were treated with extreme affection, mingled with deference, and were welcomed wherever they went. A Meriah youth, on attaining maturity, was generally given a wife, who was herself usually a Meriah or victim, and with her he received a portion of land and farm-stock. Their offspring were also victims. Human sacrifices were offered to the Earth-Goddess by tribes, branches of tribes, or villages, both at periodical festivals and on extraordinary occasions. The periodical sacrifices were generally so arranged by tribes and divisions of tribes that each head of a family was enabled, at least once a year, to procure a shred of flesh for his fields, generally about the time when his chief crop was laid down. The mode of performing these tribal sacrifices was as follows. Ten or twelve days before the sacrifice, the victim was devoted by cutting off his hair, which, until then, had been kept unshorn. Crowds of men and women assembled to witness the sacrifice; none might be excluded, since the sacrifice was declared to be for all mankind. It was preceded by several days of wild revelry and gross debauchery. On the day before the sacrifice the victim, dressed in a new garment, was led forth from the village in solemn procession, with music and dancing, to the Meriah grove, a clump of high forest trees standing a little way from the village and untouched by the axe. Here they tied him to a post, which was sometimes placed between two plants of the sankissar shrub. He was then anointed with oil, ghee and turmeric, and adorned with flowers; and 'a species of reverence, which it is not easy to distinguish from adoration,' was paid to him throughout the day. A great struggle now arose to obtain the smallest relic from his person; a particle of the turmeric paste with which he was smeared, or a drop of his spittle, was esteemed of sovereign virtue, especially by the women. The crowd danced round the post to music, and addressing the Earth said, 'O God, we offer this sacrifice to you; give us good crops, seasons, and health.'

"On the last morning the orgies, which had been scarcely interrupted during the night, were resumed and continued till noon, when they ceased, and the assembly proceeded to consummate the sacrifice. The victim was again anointed with oil, and each person touched the anointed part, and wiped the oil on his own head. In some places they took the victim in procession round the village, from door to door, where some plucked hair from his head, and others begged for a drop of his spittle, with which they anointed their heads. As the victim might not be bound nor make any show of resistance, the bones of his arms and, if necessary, his legs were broken; but often this precaution was rendered unnecessary by stupefying him with opium. The mode of putting him to death varied in different places. One of the commonest modes seems to have been strangulation, or squeezing to death. The branch of a green tree was cleft several feet down the middle; the victim's neck (in other places, his chest) was inserted in the cleft, which the priest, aided by his assistants, strove with all his force to close. Then he wounded the victim slightly with his axe, whereupon the crowd rushed at the wretch and cut the flesh from the bones, leaving the head and bowels untouched. Sometimes he was cut up alive. In Chinna Kimedy he was dragged along the fields, surrounded by the crowd, who, avoiding his head and intestines, hacked the flesh from his body with their knives till he died. Another very common mode of sacrifice in the same district was to fasten the victim to the proboscis of a wooden elephant, which revolved on a stout post, and, as it whirled round, the crowd cut the flesh from the victim while life remained. In some villages Major Campbell found as many as fourteen of these wooden elephants, which had been used at sacrifices. [515] In one district the victim was put to death slowly by fire. A low stage was formed, sloping on either side like a roof; upon it they laid the victim, his limbs wound round with cords to confine his struggles. Fires were then lighted and hot brands applied, to make him roll up and down the slopes of the stage as long as possible; for the more tears he shed the more abundant would be the supply of rain. Next day the body was cut to pieces.

"The flesh cut from the victim was instantly taken home by the persons who had been deputed by each village to bring it. To secure its rapid arrival it was sometimes forwarded by relays of men, and conveyed with postal fleetness fifty or sixty miles. In each village all who stayed at home fasted rigidly until the flesh arrived. The bearer deposited it in the place of public assembly, where it was received by the priest and the heads of families. The priest divided it into two portions, one of which he offered to the Earth-Goddess by burying it in a hole in the ground with his back turned, and without looking. Then each man added a little earth to bury it, and the priest poured water on the spot from a hill gourd. The other portion of flesh he divided into as many shares as there were heads of houses present. Each head of a house rolled his shred of flesh in leaves and buried it in his favourite field, placing it in the earth behind his back without looking. In some places each man carried his portion of flesh to the stream which watered his fields, and there hung it on a pole. For three days thereafter no house was swept; and, in one district, strict silence was observed, no fire might be given out, no wood cut, and no strangers received. The remains of the human victim (namely, the head, bowels and bones) were watched by strong parties the night after the sacrifice, and next morning they were burned along with a whole sheep, on a funeral pile. The ashes were scattered over the fields, laid as paste over the houses and granaries, or mixed with the new corn to preserve it from insects. Sometimes, however, the head and bones were buried, not burnt. After the suppression of the human sacrifices, inferior victims were substituted in some places; for instance, in the capital of Chinna Kimedy a goat took the place of a human victim.

"In these Khond sacrifices the Meriahs are represented by our authorities as victims offered to propitiate the Earth-Goddess. But from the treatment of the victims both before and after death it appears that the custom cannot be explained as merely a propitiatory sacrifice. A part of the flesh certainly was offered to the Earth-Goddess, but the rest of the flesh was buried by each householder in his fields, and the ashes of the other parts of the body were scattered over the fields, laid as paste on the granaries, or mixed with the new corn. These latter customs imply that to the body of the Meriah there was ascribed a direct or intrinsic power of making the crops to grow, quite independent of the indirect efficacy which it might have as an offering to secure the good-will of the deity. In other words, the flesh and ashes of the victim were believed to be endowed with a magical or physical power of fertilising the land. The same intrinsic power was ascribed to the blood and tears of the Meriah, his blood causing the redness of the turmeric, and his tears producing rain; for it can hardly be doubted that, originally at least, the tears were supposed to bring down the rain, not merely to prognosticate it. Similarly the custom of pouring water on the buried flesh of the Meriah was no doubt a rain-charm. Again, magical power as an attribute of the Meriah appears in the sovereign virtue believed to reside in anything that came from his person, as his hair or spittle. The ascription of such power to the Meriah indicates that he was much more than a mere man sacrificed to propitiate a deity. Once more, the extreme reverence paid him points to the same conclusion. Major Campbell speaks of the Meriah as 'being regarded as something more than mortal,' and Major Macpherson says: 'A species of reverence, which it is not easy to distinguish from adoration, is paid to him.' In short, the Meriah appears to have been regarded as divine. As such, he may originally have represented the Earth-Goddess, or perhaps a deity of vegetation, though in later times he came to be regarded rather as a victim offered to a deity than as himself an incarnate god. This later view of the Meriah as a victim rather than a divinity may perhaps have received undue emphasis from the European writers who have described the Khond religion. Habituated to the later idea of sacrifice as an offering made to a god for the purpose of conciliating his favour, European observers are apt to interpret all religious slaughter in this sense, and to suppose that wherever such slaughter takes place, there must necessarily be a deity to whom the carnage is believed by the slayers to be acceptable. Thus their preconceived ideas unconsciously colour and warp their descriptions of savage rites." [516]

13. Last human sacrifices.

In his Ethnographic Notes in Southern India Mr. Thurston states: [517] "The last recorded Meriah sacrifice in the Ganjam Maliahs occurred in 1852, and there are still Khonds alive who were present at it. Twenty-five descendants of persons who were reserved for sacrifice, but were rescued by Government officers, returned themselves as Meriah at the Census of 1901. The Khonds have now substituted a buffalo for a human being. The animal is hewn to pieces while alive, and the villagers rush home to their villages to bury the flesh in the soil, and so secure prosperous crops. The sacrifice is not unaccompanied by risk to the performers, as the buffalo, before dying, frequently kills one or more of its tormentors. It was stated by the officers of the Maliah Agency that there was reason to believe that the Raja of Jaipur (Madras), when he was installed at his father's decease in 1860-61, sacrificed a girl thirteen years of age at the shrine of the Goddess Durga in the town of Jaipur. The last attempted human sacrifice (which was nearly successful) in the Vizagapatam District, among the Kutia Khonds, was, I believe, in 1880. But the memory of the abandoned practice is kept green by one of the Khond songs, for a translation of which we are indebted to Mr. J. E. Friend-Pereira: [518]

At the time of the great Kiabon (Campbell) Sahib's coming, the country was in darkness; it was enveloped in mist. Having sent paiks to collect the people of the land, they, having surrounded them, caught the Meriah sacrificers. Having caught the Meriah sacrificers, they brought them; and again they went and seized the evil councillors. Having seen the chains and shackles, the people were afraid; murder and bloodshed were quelled. Then the land became beautiful; and a certain Mokodella (Macpherson) Sahib came. He destroyed the lairs of the tigers and bears in the hills and rocks, and taught wisdom to the people. After the lapse of a month he built bungalows and schools; and he advised them to learn reading and law. They learnt wisdom and reading; they acquired silver and gold. Then all the people became wealthy.

14. Khond rising in 1882.

In 1882 an armed rising of the Khonds of the Kalahandi State occurred as a result of agrarian trouble. The Feudatory Chief had encouraged the settlement in the State of members of the Kolta caste who are excellent cultivators and keenly acquisitive of land. They soon got the Khonds heavily indebted to them for loans of food and seed-grain, and began to oust them from their villages. The Khonds, recognising with some justice that this process was likely to end in their total expropriation from the soil, concerted a conspiracy, and in May 1882 rose and murdered the Koltas of a number of villages. The signal for the outbreak was given by passing a knotted string from village to village; other signals were a bent arrow and a branch of a mahua tree. When the Khond leaders were assembled an axe was thrown on to the ground and each of them grasping it in turn swore to join in the rising and support his fellows. The taint of cruelty in the tribe is shown by the fact that the Kutia Khonds, on being requested to join in the rising, replied that if plunder was the only object they would not do so, but if the Koltas were to be murdered they agreed. Some of the murdered Koltas were anointed with turmeric and offered at temples, the Khonds calling them their goats, and in one case a Kolta is believed to have been made a Meriah sacrifice to the earth god. The Khonds appeared before the police, who were protecting a body of refugees at the village of Norla, with the hair and scalps of their murdered victims tied to their bows. To the Political Officer, who was sent to suppress the rising, the Khonds complained that the Koltas had degraded them from the position of lords of the soil to that of servants, and justified their plundering of the Koltas on the ground that they were merely taking back the produce of their own land, which the Koltas had stolen from them. They said that if they were not to have back their land Government might either drive them out of the country or exterminate them, and that Koltas and Khonds could no more live together than tigers and goats. Another grievance was that a new Raja of Kalahandi had been installed without their consent having been obtained. The Political Officer, Mr. Berry, hanged seven of the Khond ringleaders and effected a settlement of their grievances. Peace was restored and has not since been broken. At a later date in the same year, 1882, and independently of the rising, a Khond landholder was convicted and executed for having offered a five-year-old girl as a Meriah sacrifice.

15. Language.

The Khond or Kandh language, called Kui by the Khonds themselves, is spoken by rather more than half of the total body of the tribe. It is much more nearly related to Telugu than is Gondi and has no written character. [519]

Kir

1. Origin and Traditions.

Kir. [520]--A cultivating caste found principally in the Hoshangabad District. They numbered about 7000 persons in 1911. The Kirs claim to have come from the Jaipur State, and this is borne out by the fact that they still retain a dialect of Marwari, though they have been living among the Hindi-speaking population of Hoshangabad for several generations. According to their traditions they immigrated into the Central Provinces when Raja Man was ruling at Jaipur. He was a contemporary of Akbar's and died in A.D. 1615. [521] This story tallies with Colonel Sleeman's statement that the first important influx of Hindus into the Nerbudda valley took place in the time of Akbar. [522] The Kirs are akin to the Kirars, and at the India Census of 1901 were amalgamated with them. Like the Kirars they claim to be descended from the mythical Raja Karan of Jaipur. Their story is that on a summer day Mahadeo and Parvati created a melon-garden, and Mahadeo made a man and a woman out of a piece of kusha grass (Eragrostis cynosuroides) to tend the garden. From these the Kirs are descended. The name may possibly be a corruption of karar, a river-bank.

2. Marriage.

The Kirs have no endogamous divisions. For the purpose of marriage the caste is divided into 12 1/2 gotras or sections. A man must not marry within his own gotra or in that to which his mother belonged. The names of the 12 gotras are as follows: Namchuria, Daima, Bania, Baman, Nayar, Jat, Huwad, Gadri, Loharia, Hekdya, Mochi and Mali, while the half-gotra contains the Bhats or genealogists of the caste, who are not allowed to marry with the other subdivisions and have now formed one of their own. Of the twelve names of gotras at least seven--Baman (Brahman), Bania, Mali, Mochi, Gadri (Gadaria), Loharia and Jat--are derived from other castes, and this fact is sufficient to show that the origin of the Kirs is occupational, and that they are made up of recruits from different castes. Infant-marriage is customary, but no penalty is incurred if a girl remains unmarried after puberty. Only the poorest members of the caste, however, fail to marry their daughters at an early age. For the marriage of girls who are left unprovided for, a subscription is raised among the caste-fellows in accordance with the usual Hindu practice, the giving of money for this purpose being considered to be an especially pious act. At the time of the betrothal a bride-price called chari, varying between Rs. 14 and Rs. 20, is paid by the boy's father, and the deed of betrothal, called lagan, is then drawn up in the presence of the caste panchayat who are regaled with liquor purchased out of the bride-price. A peculiarity of the marriage ceremony is that the bridegroom is taken to the bride's house riding on a buffalo. This custom is noteworthy, since other Hindus will not usually ride on a buffalo, as being the animal on which Yama, the god of death, rides. After the marriage the bride returns to the bridegroom's house with the wedding party and stays there for eight days, during which period she worships the family gods of her father-in-law's house. The cost of the marriage is usually Rs. 60 for the boy's party and Rs. 40 for the girl's. But a widower on his remarriage has to spend double this sum. The ceremonies called Gauna and Rauna are both performed after the marriage. The former generally takes place within a year, the bride being dressed in special new clothes called bes, and sent with ceremony to her husband's house on an auspicious day fixed by a Brahman. She remains there for two months and the marriage is consummated, when she returns to her father's house. Four months afterwards the bridegroom again goes to fetch her and takes her away permanently, this being the Rauna ceremony. No social stigma attaches to polygamy, and divorce is allowed on the usual grounds. Widow-marriage is permitted, the ceremony consisting in giving new clothes and ornaments to the widow and feeding the Panch for a day.

3. Religion.

The caste worships especially Bhairon and Devi, and each section of it reveres a special incarnation of Devi, and the Bhairon of some

## particular village. Thus, for instance, the Namchurias worship the

goddess Parvati and the Bhairon of Jaria Gowara; the Bania, Nayar, Hekdya and Mochi septs worship Chamunda Mata and the Bhairon of Jaipur, and so on. Members of the caste get triangular, rectangular or round pieces of silver impressed with the images of these gods, and wear them suspended by a thread from their necks. A similar respect is paid to the Ahut or the spirit of a relative who has met with a violent death or died without progeny or as a bachelor, the spirits of such persons being always prone to trouble their living relatives. In order to appease them songs are sung in their praise on important festivals, the members of the family staying awake the whole night, and wearing their images on a silver piece round the neck. When they eat and drink they first touch the food with the image by way of offering it to the dead, so that their spirits may be appeased and refrain from harassing the living. Kirs revere and worship the cow and the pipal tree. No Kir may sell a cow to a butcher. A man who is about to die makes a present of a cow to a Brahman or a temple in order that by catching hold of the tail of this cow he may be able to cross the horrible river Vaitarni, the Styx of Hinduism, which bars the passage to the nether regions. The Kirs believe in magic, and some members of the caste profess to cure snake-bite. The poison-curer, when sent for, has a small space cleared and plastered with cowdung, on which he draws lines with wheat flour. A new earthen pot is then brought and placed over the drawing. On the pot the operator draws a figure of Hanuman in vermilion, and another figure on the nearest wall facing the pot. A brass plate is put over the pot and the person who has been bitten by the snake is brought near it. The snake-charmer then begins to name various gods and goddesses and to play upon the plate, which emits, it is said, a very melancholy sound. This performance is called bharni and is supposed to charm all beings, even gods and serpents. The snake who has inflicted the bite is then believed to appear in an invisible form to listen to the bharni, and to enter into the sufferer. The sufferer is questioned, being supposed to be possessed by the snake, and asked why the bite was inflicted and how the snake can be appeased. The replies are thought to be given by the snake, who explains that he was trampled on, or something to that effect, and asks that milk or some sweet-smelling article be placed at his hole. The offering is promised, and the snake is asked not to kill the sufferer, to which he agrees. The snake usually gives the history of his former human birth, stating his name and village and the cause of his transmigration into the body of a serpent. The Kirs believe that human beings who commit offences are re-born as snakes, and they think that snakes live for a thousand years. After giving this information the snake departs, and the person who has been bitten is supposed to recover. The chief festivals of the Kirs are Diwali and Sitala Athain. They worship their ancestors at Diwali, making offerings of cooked food, kusha grass and lamps made of dough at the river-side. The head of the family sprinkles water and throws the kusha grass into the river, lights the wicks placed in the lamps and burns a little food in them, calling on the names of his ancestors. The rest of the food he takes home and distributes to his caste-fellows. Sitala Athain is observed on the seventh day of the dark fortnight of Chait. Devi is worshipped at night with offerings of milk and whey, and on the next day no food is cooked, the remains of that of the previous day being eaten cold, and the whole day is devoted to singing the praises of the goddess.

4. Birth and death ceremonies.

The Kirs usually burn their dead, but children under twelve are buried. The ashes and bones are either sent to the Ganges or consigned to the nearest river or lake. Children have only one name, which is given on the seventh day after birth by a Brahman. During the birth ceremony the husband's younger brother catches hold of the skirt of the child's mother, who on this pays him a few pice and pulls away her cloth. If this custom has any meaning it is apparently in symbolical memory of polyandry, the women bribing her husband's younger brother so that he may not claim the child as his own.

5. Food, dress and occupation.

The Kirs do not take food from any caste except the Dadharia Brahmans, who are Marwaris, and act as their family priests. Brahmans and other high castes will drink water brought in a brass vessel by a Kir. The Kirs eat no meat except goats' flesh and fish, but are much addicted to liquor, which is always conspicuous at their feasts and festivals. They have a caste panchayat, which deals with the ordinary offences. Temporary excommunication is removed by the offender giving three feasts, on which an amount varying with his social position and means must be expended. The first of these is eaten on a river-bank, the second in a garden, and the third, which confers complete readmission to caste intercourse, in the offender's house. The Kirs live along river-banks, where they grow melons in the sand and castor and vegetables in alluvial soil. They are considered very skilful at raising these crops, and fully appreciate the use of manure. For their own consumption they usually grow bajra and arhar, being, like all Marwaris, very fond of bajra. The members of the caste are easily distinguished by their dress, the men wearing a white mirzai or short coat, a dhoti reaching to the knees, and a head-cloth placed in a crooked position on the head, so as to leave the hair of the scalp uncovered. They wear necklaces of black wooden beads, besides the images of Bhairon and Devi. The women wear Jaipur chunris or over-cloths and ghanghras or skirts. They have red lac bangles on their wrists and arms above the elbow, and ornaments called ramjhul on their legs. The women have a gait like that of men. The speech of the Kirs sounds like Marwari, and they are peculiar in their preference for riding on buffaloes.

Kirar

1. Origin and traditions.

Kirar [523] or Kirad.--A cultivating caste found in the Narsinghpur, Hoshangabad, Betul, Seoni, Chhindwara and Nagpur Districts. They numbered 48,000 persons in 1911. The Kirars claim to be Dhakar or bastard Rajputs, and in 1891 more than half of them returned themselves under this designation. About a thousand persons who were returned as Dhakar Rajputs from Hoshangabad in 1901 are probably Kirars. The caste say that they immigrated from Gwalior, and this statement seems to be correct, as about 66,000 of them are found in that State. They claim to have left Gwalior as early as Samvat 1525 or A.D. 1468, when Alru and Dalru, the leaders of the migration into the Central Provinces, abandoned their native village, Doderi Kheda in Gwalior, and settled in Chandon, a village in the Sohagpur tahsil of Hoshangabad. But according to the story related to Mr. (Sir Charles) Elliott, the migration took place in A.D. 1650 or at the beginning of Aurangzeb's reign. [524] He quotes the names of the leaders as Alrawat and Dalrawat, and says that the migration took place from the Dholpur country, but this is probably a mistake, as none of the caste are now found in Dholpur. Elliott stated that he could find no traces of any cultivating caste having settled in Hoshangabad as far back as Akbar's time, though Sir W. Sleeman was of opinion that the first great migration into the Nerbudda valley took place in that reign. The truth is probably that the valley began to be regularly colonised by Hindus during the years that Aurangzeb spent at Burhanpur and in the Deccan, and the immigration of the Kirars may most reasonably be attributed to this period. The Kirars, Gujars, and Raghuvansis apparently entered the Central Provinces together, and the fact that they still smoke from the same huqqa and take water from each other's drinking vessels may be a reminiscence of this bond of fellowship. All these castes claim, and probably with truth, to be degraded Rajputs. The Kirars' version is that they took to widow-marriage and were consequently degraded. According to another story they were driven from their native place by a Muhammadan invasion. Mr. J. D. Cunningham says that the word Kirar in Central India literally means dalesmen or foresters, but during the lapse of centuries has become the name of a caste. [525] Another derivation is from Kirar, a corn-chandler, an occupation which they may originally have followed in combination with agriculture. In the Punjab the name Kirar appears to be given to all the western or Punjabi traders as distinct from a Bania of Hindustan, and is so used even in the Kangra hills, but the Arora, who is the trader par excellence of the south-west of the Punjab, is the person to whom the term is most commonly applied. [526] As a curiosity of folk-etymology it may be stated that some derive the caste-name from the fact that a holy sage's wife, who was about to be delivered of a child, was being pursued by a Rakshas or demon, and fell over the steep bank (karar) of a river and was thereupon delivered. The child was consequently called Karar and became the ancestor of the Kirar caste. The name may in fact be derived from the habit which the Kirars have in some localities of cultivating on the banks of rivers, like the Kirs, who are probably a branch of the same caste.

2. Marriage.

In the Central Provinces the Kirars have no regular subcastes. In Chhindwara a subdivision is in course of formation from the illegitimate offspring of male Kirars, who are known as Vidur or Saoneria. The Dhakar Kirars do not marry or eat with Saonerias. The section-names of the Kirars are not eponymous, as might be anticipated from their claim to Rajput descent, but they are generally territorial. Instances are Bankhedi, from Bankhedi, a village in Hoshangabad; Garhya, from Garha, near Jubbulpore; and Teharia, from Tehri, a State in Bundelkhand. Other section-names are Chaudharia, from Chaudhari, headman; Khandait or swordsman, and Banda, or tailless. Some gotras are derived from the names of other castes or subcastes, or of Rajput septs, as Loharia, from Lohar (blacksmith); Chauria, a subcaste of Kurmis; Lilorhia, a subcaste of Gujars; and Solanki and Chauhan, the names of Rajput septs. These names may probably be taken to indicate the mixed origin of the caste, and record the admission of families from other castes. A man cannot marry in his own gotra nor in the families of his grandmother, paternal uncle or maternal aunt to three degrees of consanguinity. Boys and girls are usually married between the ages of five and twelve. Marriages take place so long as the planet Venus or Shukra is visible at nights, i.e. between the months of Aghan (November) and Asarh (June). The proposal for marriage proceeds from the boy's father, who ascertains the wishes of the girl's father through a barber. If the latter is willing, the Sagai or betrothal ceremony is performed at the girl's house. The boy's father proceeds there with a rupee, two pice and a cocoanut-core, which he presents to the girl, taking her into his lap. The fathers of the boy and girl embrace, and this seals the compact of betrothal. The date of the marriage is usually fixed in consultation with a Brahman, who computes an auspicious day from the ceremonial names of the couple. But if it is desired to perform the marriage at once, it may take place on Akhatij, or the third day of the bright fortnight of Baisakh (April-May), which is always auspicious. The lagan or paper containing the date of the marriage is drawn up ceremonially by a Brahman of the girl's house, and he also writes another, giving the names of the relatives who are selected to officiate at the ceremony. The first ceremony at the marriage is that of Mangar Mati, or bringing earth for ovens, the earth being worshipped by a burnt offering of butter and sugar, and then dug up by the Sawasin or girl's attendant for the marriage, and carried home by several women in baskets. This is done in the morning, and in the evening the boy and girl in their respective houses are anointed with oil and turmeric, a little being first thrown on the ground for the family gods. This ceremony is repeated every evening for some three to fifteen days. The mandwa or marriage-shed is then erected at both houses, under which the ceremony of tel or touching the feet, knees, shoulders and forehead of the boy and the girl with oil is performed. Next day the kham or marriage-post is placed in the mandwa, a little rice, turmeric and two pice being put in the hole in which it is fixed, and the shed is covered with leaves. The bridegroom, clad in a blanket and with date-leaves tied on his head, is taken out for the binaiki or the marriage procession on horseback. Before mounting, he bows to Mata or Devi, Mahabir, Hardaul Lala, and Patel Deo, the spirit of the deceased malguzar of the village. He is taken round to the houses of friends and relatives, who present him with a few pice. On his return he bathes and puts on the marriage dress, which consists of a red or yellow jama or gown, a pair of trousers, a pagri, a maur or marriage crown and a cloth about his waist. A few women's ornaments are put on his neck, and he is furnished with a katar or dagger, and in its absence a nutcracker or knife. He then comes out of the house and the parchhan ceremony is performed, the boy's mother putting her nipple in his mouth and giving him a little ghi and sugar to eat as a symbol of the termination of his infancy. The Barat or marriage procession then sets out for the girl's village, being met on its outskirts by the bride's father, and the forehead of the bridegroom is marked with sandalwood paste. The bridegroom touches the Mandwa with his hand or throws a bamboo fan over it and returns with his followers to the Janwasa or lodging given to the Barat. Next morning the ceremony of Chadhao or decorating the bride is performed, and the bridegroom's party give her the clothes and ornaments which they have brought for her, these being first offered to an image of Ganesh made of cowdung. The bride is then mounted on a horse provided by the bridegroom's party and goes round to the houses of the friends of the family, accompanied by music and the women of her party, and receives small presents. The Bhanwar ceremony is performed during the night, the couple being seated near the marriage-post with their backs to the house. A ball of kneaded flour is put in the girl's right hand, which is then placed on the right hand of the bridegroom, and the bride's brother pours water over their hands. The bride's maternal uncle and aunt, with the skirts of their clothes tied together, step forward and wash the feet of the couple and give them presents. The other relatives follow suit, and this completes the ceremony of Paon Pakhurai or Daija, that is giving the dowry. The couple then go round the marriage-post seven times, the girl leading for the first four rounds and the boy for the last three. This is the Bhanwar ceremony or binding portion of the marriage, and the polar star is called on to make it inviolable. The bridegroom's party are then feasted, the women meantime singing obscene songs. The bride goes back to the bridegroom's house and stays there for a few days, after which she returns to her parents' house and does not leave it again until the gauna ceremony is performed. On this occasion the bridegroom's party go to the girl's house with a present of sweets and clothes which they present to her parents, and they then take away the girl. Even after this she is again sent back to her parents' house, and the bridegroom comes a second time to fetch her, on which occasion the parents of the bride have to make a present in return for the sweets and clothes previously given to them. The marriage expenses are said to average between Rs. 50 and Rs. 100, but the extravagance of Kirars is notorious. Sir R. Craddock says [527] that they are much given to display, the richer members of the caste being heavily weighted with jewellery, while a well-to-do Kirar will think nothing of spending Rs. 1000 on his house, or if he is a landowner Rs. 5000. Extravagance ruins a great many of the Kirar community. This statement, however, perhaps applies to those of the Nagpur District rather than to their comrades of the Nerbudda valley and Satpura highlands. The remarriage of widows is permitted, and the widow may marry either her husband's younger brother or any other member of the caste at her choice. The ceremony takes place at night, the woman being brought to her husband's house by the back door and given a new cloth and bangles. Turmeric is then applied to her body, and the clothes of the couple are tied together. When a bachelor marries a widow, he must first be married to an akau plant (swallow-wort). Divorce may be effected for infidelity on the part of the wife or for serious disagreement. A divorced woman may marry again. Polygamy is allowed, and in Chhindwara is said to be restricted to three wives, all living within the District, but elsewhere no such limitation is enforced. A man seldom, however, takes more than one wife, except for the sake of children.

3. Religion.

They worship the ordinary Hindu gods and especially Devi, to whom they offer female kids. During the months of Baisakh and Jeth (April-June) those living in Betul and Chhindwara make a pilgrimage to the Nag Deo or cobra god, who is supposed to have his seat somewhere on the border of the two Districts. Every third year they also take their cattle outside the village, and turning their faces in the direction of the Nag Deo sprinkle a little water and kill goats and fowls. They worship the Patel Deo or spirit of the deceased malguzar of the village only on the occasion of marriages. They consider the service of the village headman to be their traditional occupation besides agriculture, and they therefore probably pay this special compliment to the spirit of their employer. They worship their implements of husbandry on some convenient day, which must be a Wednesday or a Sunday, after they have sown the spring crops. Those who grow sugarcane offer a goat or a cocoanut to the crop before it is cut, and a similar offering is made to the stock of grain after harvest, so that its bulk may not decrease. They observe the ordinary festivals, and like other Hindus cease to observe one on which a death has occurred in the family, until some happy event such as the birth of a child, or even of a calf, supervenes on the same day. Unmarried children under seven and persons dying of smallpox, snake-bite or cholera are buried, and others are either buried or burnt according to the convenience of the family. Males are placed on the pyre or in the grave on their faces and females on their backs, with their feet pointing to the south in each case. In some places the corpse is buried stark naked, and in others with a piece of cloth wrapped round it, and two pice are usually placed in the grave to buy the site. When a corpse is burnt the head is touched with a bamboo before it is laid on the funeral pyre, by way of breaking it in and allowing the soul to escape if it has not already done so. For three days the mourners place food, water and tobacco in cups for the disembodied soul. Mourning is observed for children for three days and for adults from seven to ten days. During this period the mourners refrain from luxurious food such as flesh, turmeric, vegetables, milk and sweets; they do not wear shoes, nor change their clothes, and males are not shaved until the last day of mourning. Balls of rice are then offered to the dead, and the caste people are feasted. Oblations of water are offered to ancestors in the month of Kunwar (September-October).

4. Social customs.

The caste do not admit outsiders. In the matter of food they eat flesh and fish, but abstain from liquor and from eating fowls, except in the Maratha country. They will take pakka food or that cooked without water from Gujars, Raghuvansis and Lodhis. In the Nagpur country, where the difference between katcha and pakka food is not usually observed, they will not take it from any but Maratha Brahmans. Abirs and Dhimars are said to eat with them, and the northern Brahmans will take water from them. They have a caste panchayat or committee with a hereditary president called Sethia, whose business it is to eat first when admitting a person who has been put out of caste. Killing a cat or a squirrel, selling a cow to a butcher, growing hemp or selling shoes are offences which entail temporary excommunication from caste. A woman who commits adultery with a man of another caste is permanently excluded. The Kirars are tall in stature and well and stoutly built. They have regular features and are generally of a fair colour. They are regarded as quarrelsome and untruthful, and as tyrannical landlords. As agriculturists they are supposed to be of encroaching tendencies, and the proverbial prayer attributed to them is, "O God, give me two bullocks, and I shall plough up the common way." Another proverb quoted in Mr. Standen's Betul Settlement Report, in illustration of their avarice, is "If you put a rupee between two Kirars, they become like mast buffaloes in Kunwar." The men always wear turbans, while the women may be distinguished in the Maratha country by their adherence to the dress of the northern Districts. Girls are tattooed on the back of their hands before they begin to live with their husbands. A woman may not name her husband's elder brother or even touch his clothes or the vessels in which he has eaten food. They are not distinguished for cleanliness.

5. Occupation.

Agriculture and the service of the village headman are the traditional occupations of Kirars. In Nagpur they are considered to be very good cultivators, but they have no special reputation in the northern Districts. About a thousand of them are landowners, and the large majority are tenants. They grow garden crops and sugarcane, but abstain from the cultivation of hemp.

Kohli

1. General notice.

Kohli.--A small caste of cultivators found in the Marathi-speaking tracts of the Wainganga Valley, comprised in the Bhandara and Chanda Districts. They numbered about 26,000 persons in 1911. The Kohlis are a notable caste as being the builders of the great irrigation reservoirs or tanks, for which the Wainganga Valley is celebrated. The water is used for irrigating rice and sugarcane, the latter being the favourite crop of the Kohlis. The origin of the caste is somewhat doubtful. The name closely resembles that of the Koiri caste of market-gardeners in northern India; and the terms Kohiri and Kohli are used there as variations of the caste name Koiri. The caste themselves have a tradition that they were brought to Bhandara from Benares by one of the Gond kings of Chanda on his return from a visit to that place; [528] and the Kohlis of Bhandara say that their first settlement in the Central Provinces was at Lanji, which lies north of Bhandara in Balaghat. But on the other hand all that is known of their language, customs, and sept or family names points to a purely Maratha origin, the caste being in all these respects closely analogous to the Kunbis. The Settlement Officer of Chanda, Colonel Lucie Smith, stated that they thought their forefathers came from the south. They tie their head-cloths in a similar fashion to the Gandlis, who are oilmen from the Telugu country. If they belonged to the south of India they might be an offshoot from the well-known Koli tribe of Bombay, and this hypothesis appears the more probable. As a general rule castes from northern India settling in the Maratha country have not completely abandoned their ancestral language and customs even after a residence of several centuries. In the case of such castes as the Panwars and Bhoyars their foreign extraction can be detected at once; and if the Kohlis had come from Hindustan the rule would probably hold good with them. On the other hand the Kolis have in some parts of Bombay now taken to cultivation and closely resemble the Kunbis. In Satara it is said [529] that they associate and occasionally eat with Kunbis, and their social and religious customs resemble those of the Kunbi caste. They are quiet, orderly, settled and hard-working. Besides fishing they work ferries along the Krishna, are employed in villages as water-carriers, and grow melons in river-beds with much skill. The Kolis of Bombay are presumably the same tribe as the Kols of Chota Nagpur, and they probably migrated to Gujarat along the Vindhyan plateau, where they are found in considerable numbers, and over the hills of Rajputana and Central India. The Kols are one of the most adaptive of all the non-Aryan tribes, and when they reached the sea they may have become fishermen and boatmen, and practised these callings also in rivers. From plying on rivers they might take to cultivating melons and garden-crops on the stretches of silt left uncovered in their beds in the dry season, which is the common custom of the boating and fishing castes. And from this, as seen in Satara, some of them attained to regular cultivation and, modelling themselves on the Kunbis, came to have nearly the same status. They may thus have migrated to Chanda and Bhandara with the Kunbis, as their language and customs would indicate, and retaining their preference for irrigated and garden-crops have become expert growers of sugarcane. The description which has been received of the Kohlis of Bhandara would be rather favourable than otherwise to the hypothesis of their ultimate origin from the Kol tribe, allowing for their having acquired the Maratha language and customs from a lengthened residence in Bombay. It has been mentioned above that the Kohlis have a legend of their ancestors having come from Benares, but this story appears to be not infrequently devised as a means of obtaining increased social estimation, Benares being the principal centre of orthodox Hinduism. Thus the Dangris, a small caste of vegetable- and melon-growers who are certainly an offshoot of the Kunbis, and therefore of Maratha extraction, have the same story. As regards the tradition of the Bhandara Kohlis that their first settlement was at Lanji, this may well have been the case even though they came from the south, as Lanji was an important place and a centre of administration under the Marathas. It is probable, however, that they first came to Chanda and from here spread north to Lanji, as, if they had entered Bhandara through Wardha and Nagpur, some of them would probably have remained in these Districts.

2. Marriage and other customs.

The Kohlis have no subcastes. They are divided into the usual exogamous groups or septs with the object of preventing marriages between relations, and these have Marathi names of the territorial or titular type. Among them may be mentioned Handifode (one who breaks a cooking vessel), Sahre (from shahar, a town), Nagpure (from Nagpur), Shende (from shend, cowdung), Parwate (from parwat, mountain), Hatwade (an obstinate man), Mungus-mare (one who killed a mongoose), Pustode (one who broke a bullock's tail), and so on. Marriage within the sept is prohibited. A brother's daughter may be married to his sister's son, but not vice versa. Girls are usually wedded before arriving at adolescence, more especially as there is a great demand for brides. Like other castes engaged in spade cultivation, the Kohlis marry two or more wives when they can afford it, a wife being a more willing servant than a hired labourer, apart from the other advantages. If his wives do not get on together, the Kohli gives them separate huts in his courtyard, where each lives and cooks her meals for herself. He will also allot them separate tasks, assigning to one the care of his household affairs, to another the watching of his sugarcane plot, and so on. If he does this successfully the wives are kept well at work and have not time to quarrel. It is said that whenever a Kohli has a bountiful harvest he looks out for another wife. This naturally leads to a scarcity of women and the payment of a substantial bride-price. The recognised amount is Rs. 30, but this is only formal, and from Rs. 50 to Rs. 150 may be given according to the attractions of the girl, the largest sum being paid for a woman of full age who can go and live with her husband at once. As a consequence of this state of things poor men are sometimes unable to get wives at all. Though they pay highly for their wives the Kohlis are averse to extravagant expenditure on weddings, and all marriages in a village are generally celebrated on the same day once a year, the number of guests at each being thus necessarily restricted. The officiating Brahman ascends the roof of a house and, after beating a brass dish to warn the parties, repeats the marriage texts as the sun goes down. At this moment all the couples place garlands of flowers on each other's shoulders, each bridegroom ties the mangal-sutram or necklace of black beads round his bride's neck, and the weddings are completed. The bride's brother winds a thread round the marriage crowns of the couple and is given two rupees for untying it. The services of a Brahman are not indispensable, and an elder of the caste may officiate as priest. Next day the barber and washerman take the bridegroom and bride in their arms and dance, holding them, to the accompaniment of music, while the women throw red rose-powder over the couple. At their weddings the Kohlis make models in wood of a Chamar's rampi or knife and khurpa or scraper, this custom perhaps indicating some connection with the Chamars; or it may have arisen simply on account of the important assistance rendered by the Chamar to the cultivation of sugarcane, in supplying the mot or leather bag for raising water from the well. After the wedding is over a string of hemp from a cot is tied round the necks of the pair, and their maternal uncles then run and offer it at the shrine of Marai Mata, the goddess of cholera. Widows with any remains of youth or personal attractions always marry again, the ceremony being held at midnight according to the customary ritual of the Maratha Districts. [530] Sometimes the husband does not attend at all, and the widow is united to a sword or dagger as representing him. Otherwise the widow may be conducted to her new husband's house by five other widows, and in this case they halt at a stream by the way and the bangles and beads are broken from off her neck and wrists. On account, perhaps, of the utility of their wives, and the social temptations which beset them from being continually abroad at work, the Kohlis are lenient to conjugal offences, and a woman going wrong even with an outsider will be taken back by her husband and only a trifling punishment imposed by the caste. A Kohli can also keep a woman of any other caste, except of those regarded as impure, without incurring any censure. Divorce is very seldom resorted to and involves severe penalties to both

## parties. As among the Panwars, a wife retains any property she may

bring to her husband and her wedding gifts at her own disposal, this separate portion being known as khamora. The caste burn their dead when they can afford it, placing the head of the corpse to the north on the pyre. The bodies of those who have died from cholera or smallpox are buried. Like the Panwars it is the custom of the Kohlis on bathing after a funeral to have a meal of cakes and sugar on the river-bank, a practice which is looked down on by orthodox Hindus. After a month or so the deceased person is considered to be united to the ancestors, and when he was the head of the family his successor is inducted to the position by the presentation of a new head-cloth and a silver bangle. The bereaved family are then formally escorted to the weekly market and are considered to have resumed their regular social relations. The Kohlis revere the ordinary Hindu deities, and on the day of Dasahra they worship their axe, sickle and ploughshare by washing them and making an offering of rice, flowers and turmeric. The axe is no doubt included because it serves to cut the wood for fencing the sugarcane garden.

3. The Kohlis as tank-builders.

The Kohlis were the builders of the great tanks of the Bhandara District. The most important of these are Nawegaon with an area of five square miles and a circumference of seventeen, and Seoni, over seven miles round, while smaller tanks are counted by thousands. Though the largest are the work of the Kohlis, many of the others have been constructed by the Panwars of this tract, who have also much aptitude for irrigation. Built as they were without technical engineering knowledge, the tanks form an enduring monument to the native ability and industry of these enterprising cultivators. "Working," Mr. Danks remarks, [531] "without instruments, unable even to take a level, finding out their mistakes by the destruction of the works they had built, ever repairing, reconstructing, altering, they have raised in every village a testimony to their wisdom, their industry and their perseverance." Although Nawegaon tank has a water area of seven square miles, the combined length of the two artificial embankments is only 760 yards, and this demonstrates the great skill with which the site has been selected. At some of the tanks men are stationed day and night during the rainy season to see if the embankment is anywhere weakened by the action of the water, and in that case to give the alarm to the village by beating a drum. The Nawegaon tank is said to have been built at the commencement of the eighteenth century by one Kolu Patel Kohli. As might be expected, Kolu Patel has been deified as Kolasur Deo, and his shrine is on one of the peaks surrounding the tank. Seven other peaks are known as the Sat Bahini or 'Seven Sisters,' and it is said that these deities assisted Kolu in building the tank, by coming and working on the embankment at night when the labourers had left. Some whitish-yellow stones on Kolasur's hill are said to be the baskets of the Seven Sisters in which they carried earth. "The Kohli," Mr. Napier states, [532] "sacrifices all to his sugarcane, his one ambition and his one extravagance being to build a large reservoir which will contain water for the irrigation of his sugarcane during the long, hot months." Each rates the other according to the size of his tank and the strength of its embankment. Under the Gond kings a man who built a tank received a grant of the fields lying below it either free of revenue or on a very light assessment. Such grants were known as Tukm, and were probably a considerable incentive to tank-building. Unfortunately sugarcane, formerly a most profitable crop, has been undersold by the canal- and tank-irrigated product of northern India, and at present scarcely repays cultivation.

4. Agricultural customs.

The Kohli villages are managed on a somewhat patriarchal system, and the dealings between proprietors and cultivators are regulated by their own custom without much regard to the rules imposed by Government. Mr. Napier says of them: [533] "The Kohlis are very good landlords as a general rule; but in their dealings with their tenants and their labourers follow their own customs, while the provisions of the Tenancy Act often remain in abeyance. They admit no tenant right in land capable of being irrigated for sugarcane, and change the tenants as they please; and in many villages a large number of the labourers are practically serfs, being fed, clothed and married by their employers, for whom they and their children work all their lives without any fixed wages. These customs are acquiesced in by all

## parties, and, so far as I could learn, there was no discontent. They

have a splendid caste discipline, and their quarrels are settled expeditiously by their panchayats or committees without reference to courts of law."

5. General characteristics.

In appearance and character the Kohlis cannot be said to show much trace of distinction. The men wear a short white bandi or coat, and a small head-cloth only three feet long. This is often scarcely more than a handkerchief which tightly covers the crown, and terminates in knots, inelegant and cheap. The women wear glass bangles only on the left hand and brass or silver ones on the right, no doubt because glass ornaments would interfere with their work and get broken. Their cloth is drawn over the left shoulder instead of the right, a custom which they share with Gonds, Kapewars and Buruds. In appearance the caste are generally dirty. They are ignorant themselves and do not care that their children should be educated. Their custom of polygamy leads to family quarrels and excessive subdivision of property; thus in one village, Ashti, the proprietary right is divided into 192 shares. On this account they are seldom well-to-do. Their countenances are of a somewhat inferior type and generally dark in colour. In character they are peaceful and amenable, and have the reputation of being very respectful to Government officials, who as a consequence look on them with favour. 'Their heart is good,' a tahsildar [534] of the Bhandara District remarked. If a guest comes to a Kohli, the host himself offers to wash his feet, and if the guest be a Brahman, will insist on doing so. They eat flesh and fowls, but abstain from liquor. In social status they are on a level with the Malis and a little below the regular cultivating castes.

KOL

[This article is based mainly on Colonel Dalton's classical description of the Mundas and Hos in the Ethnology of Bengal and on Sir H. Risley's article on Munda in The Tribes and Castes of Bengal. Extracts have also been made from Mr. Sarat Chandra Roy's exhaustive account in The Mundas and their Country (Calcutta, 1912). Information on the Mundas and Kols of the Central Provinces has been collected by Mr. Hira Lal in Raigarh and by the author in Mandla, and a monograph has been furnished by Mr. B. C. Mazumdar, Pleader, Sambalpur. It should be mentioned that most of the Kols of the Central Provinces have abandoned the old tribal customs and religion described by Colonel Dalton, and are rapidly coming to resemble an ordinary low Hindu caste.]

List of Paragraphs

1. General notice. Strength of the Kols in India. 2. Names of the tribe. 3. Origin of the Kolarian tribes. 4. The Kolarians and Dravidians. 5. Date of the Dravidian immigration. 6. Strength of the Kols in the Central Provinces. 7. Legend of origin. 8. Tribal subdivisions. 9. Totemism. 10. Marriage customs. 11. Divorce and widow-marriage. 12. Religion. 13. Witchcraft. 14. Funeral rites. 15. Inheritance. 16. Physical appearance. 17. Dances. 18. Social rules and offences. 19. The caste panchayat. 20. Names. 21. Occupation. 22. Language.

1. General notice. Strength of the Kols in India.

Kol, Munda, Ho.--A great tribe of Chota Nagpur, which has given its name to the Kolarian family of tribes and languages. A part of the District of Singhbhum near Chaibasa is named the Kolhan as being the special home of the Larka Kols, but they are distributed all over Chota Nagpur, whence they have spread to the United Provinces, Central Provinces and Central India. It seems probable also that the Koli tribe of Gujarat may be an offshoot of the Kols, who migrated there by way of Central India. If the total of the Kols, Mundas and Hos or Larka Kols be taken together they number about a million persons in India. The real strength of the tribe is, however, much greater than this. As shown in the article on that tribe, the Santals are a branch of the Kols, who have broken off from the parent stock and been given a separate designation by the Hindus. They numbered two millions in 1911. The Bhumij (400,000) are also probably a section of the tribe. Sir H. Risley [535] states that they are closely allied to if not identical with the Mundas. In some localities they intermarry with the Mundas and are known as Bhumij Munda. [536] If the Kolis also be taken as an offshoot of the Kol tribe, a further addition of nearly three millions is made to the tribes whose parentage can be traced to this stock. There is little doubt also that other Kolarian tribes, as the Kharias, Khairwars, Korwas and Korkus, whose tribal languages closely approximate to Mundari, were originally one with the Mundas, but have been separated for so long a period that their direct connection can no longer be proved. The disintegrating causes, which have split up what was originally one into a number of distinct tribes, are probably no more than distance and settlement in different parts of the country, leading to cessation of intermarriage and social intercourse. The tribes have then obtained some variation in the original name or been given separate territorial or occupational designations by the Hindus and their former identity has gradually been forgotten.

2. Names of the tribe.

"The word Kol is probably the Santali har, a man. This word is used under various forms, such as har, hara, ho and koro by most Munda tribes in order to denote themselves. The change of r to l is familiar and does not give rise to any difficulty." [537] The word Korku is simply a corruption of Kodaku, young men, and there is every probability that the Hindus, hearing the Kol tribe call themselves hor or horo, may have corrupted the name to a form more familiar to themselves. An alternative derivation from the Sanskrit word kola, a pig, is improbable. But it is possible, as suggested by Sir G. Grierson, that after the name had been given, its Sanskrit meaning of pig may have added zest to its employment by the Hindus. The word Munda, Sir H. Risley states, is the common term employed by the Kols for the headman of a village, and has come into general use as an honorific title, as the Santals call themselves Manjhi, the Gonds Bhoi, and the Bhangis and other sweepers Mehtar. Munda, like Mehtar, originally a title, has become a popular alternative name for the caste. In Chota Nagpur those Kols who have partly adopted Hinduism and become to some degree civilised are commonly known as Munda, while the name Ho or Larka Kol is reserved for the branch of the tribe in Singhbhum who, as stated by Colonel Dalton, "From their jealous isolation for so many years, their independence, their long occupation of one territory, and their contempt for all other classes that come in contact with them, especially the Hindus, probably furnish the best illustration, not of the Mundaris in their present state, but of what, if left to themselves and permanently located, they were likely to become. Even at the present day the exclusiveness of the old Hos is remarkable. They will not allow aliens to hold land near their villages; and indeed if it were left to them no strangers would be permitted to settle in the Kolhan."

It is this branch of the tribe whose members have come several times into contact with British troops, and on account of their bravery and warlike disposition they are called the Larka or fighting Kols. The Mundas on the other hand appear now to be a very mixed group. The list of their subcastes given [538] by Sir H. Risley includes the Khangar, Kharia, Mahali, Oraon and Savar Mundas, all of which are the names of separate tribes, now considered as distinct, though with the exception of the Oraons they were perhaps originally offshoots of the Kols or akin to them; while the Bhuinhar or landholders and Nagvansi or Mundas of the royal house are apparently the aristocracy of the original tribe. It would appear possible from the list of sub-tribes already given that the village headmen of other tribes, having adopted the designation of Munda and intermarried with other headmen so as to make a superior group, have in some cases been admitted into the Munda tribe, which may enjoy a higher rank than other tribes as the Raja of Chota Nagpur belongs to it; but it is also quite likely that these groups may have simply arisen from the intermarriages of Mundas with other tribes, alliances of this sort being common. The Kols of the Central Provinces probably belong to the Munda tribe of Chota Nagpur, and not to the Hos or Larka Kols, as the latter would be less likely to emigrate. But quite a separate set of subcastes is found here, which will be given later.

3. Origin of the Kolarian tribes.

The Munda languages have been shown by Sir G. Grierson to have originated from the same source as those spoken in the Indo-Pacific islands and the Malay Peninsula. "The Mundas, the Mon-Khmer, the wild tribes of the Malay Peninsula and the Nicobarese all use forms of speech which can be traced back to a common source though they mutually differ widely from each other." [539] It would appear therefore that the Mundas, the oldest known inhabitants of India, perhaps came originally from the south-east, the islands of the Indian Archipelago and the Malay Peninsula, unless India was their original home and these countries were colonised from it.

Sir E. Gait states: "Geologists tell us that the Indian Peninsula was formerly cut off from the north of Asia by sea, while a land connection existed on the one side with Madagascar and on the other with the Malay Archipelago; and though there is nothing to show that India was then inhabited we know that it was so in palaeolithic times, when communication was probably still easier with the countries to the north-east and south-west than with those beyond the Himalayas." [540] In the south of India, however, no traces of Munda languages remain at present, and it seems therefore necessary to conclude that the Mundas of the Central Provinces and Chota Nagpur have been separated from the tribes of Malaysia who speak cognate languages for an indefinitely long period, or else that they did not come through southern India to these countries, but by way of Assam and Bengal or by sea through Orissa. There is good reason to believe from the names of places and from local tradition that the Munda tribes were once spread over Bihar and parts of the Ganges valley; and if the Kolis are an offshoot of the Kols, as is supposed, they also penetrated across Central India to the sea in Gujarat and the hills of the Western Ghats. It is presumed that the advance of the Aryans or Hindus drove the Mundas from the open country to the seclusion of the hills and forests. The Munda and Dravidian languages are shown by Sir G. Grierson to be distinct groups without any real connection.

4. The Kolarians and Dravidians.

Though the physical characteristics of the two sets of tribes display no marked points of difference, it has been generally held by ethnologists who know them that they represent two distinct waves of immigration, and the absence of connection between their languages bears out this view. It has always been supposed that the Mundas were in the country of Chota Nagpur and the Central Provinces first, and that the Dravidians, the Gonds, Khonds and Oraons came afterwards. The grounds for this view are the more advanced culture of the Dravidians; the fact that where the two sets of tribes are in contact those of the Munda group have been ousted from the more open and fertile country, of which according to tradition they were formerly in possession; and the practice of the Gonds and other Dravidian tribes of employing the Baigas, Bhuiyas and other Munda tribes for their village priests, which is an acknowledgment that the latter as the earlier residents have a more familiar acquaintance with the local deities, and can solicit their favour and protection with more prospect of success. Such a belief is the more easily understood when it is remembered that these deities are not infrequently either the human ancestors of the earliest residents or the local animals and plants from which they supposed themselves to be descended.

5. Date of the Dravidian immigration.

The Dravidian languages, Gondi, Kurukh and Khond, are of one family with Tamil, Telugu, Malayalam and Canarese, and their home is the south of India. As stated [541] by Sir E. Gait, there is at present no evidence to show that the Dravidians came to southern India from any other part of the world, and for anything that is known to the contrary the languages may have originated there. The existence of the small Brahui tribe in Baluchistan, who speak a Dravidian language but have no physical resemblance to other Dravidian races, cannot be satisfactorily explained, but as he points out this is no reason for holding that the whole body of speakers of Dravidian languages entered India from the north-west, and, with the exception of this small group of Brahuis, penetrated to the south of India and settled there without leaving any traces of their passage.

The Dravidian languages occupy a large area in Madras, Mysore and Hyderabad, and they extend north into the Central Provinces and Chota Nagpur, where they die out, practically not being found west and north of this tract. As the languages are more highly developed and the culture of their speakers is far more advanced in the south, it is justifiable to suppose, pending evidence to the contrary, that the south is their home and that they have spread thence as far north as the Central Provinces. The Gonds and Oraons too have stories to the effect that they came from the south. It has hitherto been believed, at least in the Central Provinces, that both the Gonds and Baigas have been settled in this territory for an indefinite period, that is, from prior to any Aryan or Hindu immigration. Mr. H. A. Crump, however, has questioned this assumption. He points out that the Baiga tribe have entirely lost their own language and speak a dialect of Chhattisgarhi Hindi in Mandla, while half the Gonds still speak Gondi. If the Baigas and Gonds were settled here together before the arrival of any Hindus, how is it that the Baigas do not speak Gondi instead of Hindi? A comparison of the caste and language tables of the census of 1901 shows that several of the Munda tribes have entirely lost their own language, among these being the Binjhwar, Baiga, Bhaina, Bhuiya, Bhumij, Chero and Khairwar, and the Bhils and Kolis if these are held to be Munda tribes. None of these tribes have adopted a Dravidian language, but all speak corrupt forms of the current Aryan vernaculars derived from Sanskrit. The Mundas and Hos themselves with the Kharias, Santals and Korkus retain Munda languages. On the other hand a half of the Gonds, nearly all the Oraons and three-fourths of the Khonds still preserve their own Dravidian speech. It would therefore seem that the Munda tribes who speak Aryan vernaculars must have been in close contact with Hindu peoples at the time they lost their own language and not with Gonds or Oraons. In the Central Provinces it is known that Rajput dynasties were ruling in Jubbulpore from the sixth to the twelfth century, in Seoni about the sixth century and in Bhandak near Chanda from an early period as well as at Ratanpur in Chhattisgarh. From about the twelfth century these disappear and there is a blank till the fourteenth century or later, when Gond kingdoms are found established at Kherla in Betul, at Deogarh in Chhindwara, at Garha-Mandla [542] including the Jubbulpore country, and at Chanda fourteen miles from Bhandak. It seems clear then that the Hindu dynasties were subverted by the Gonds after the Muhammadan invasions of northern India had weakened or destroyed the central powers of the Hindus and prevented any assistance being afforded to the outlying settlements. But it seems prima facie more likely that the Hindu kingdoms of the Central Provinces should have been destroyed by an invasion of barbarians from without rather than by successful risings of their own subjects once thoroughly subdued. The Haihaya Rajput dynasty of Ratanpur was the only one which survived, all the others being supplanted by Gond states. If then the Gond incursion was subsequent to the establishment of the old Hindu kingdoms, its probable date may be placed from the ninth to the thirteenth centuries, the subjugation of the greater part of the Province being no doubt a gradual affair. In favour of this it may be noted that some recollection still exists of the settlement of the Oraons in Chota Nagpur being later than that of the Mundas, while if it had taken place long before this time all tradition of it would probably have been forgotten. In Chhindwara the legend still remains that the founder of the Deogarh Gond dynasty, Jatba, slew and supplanted the Gaoli kings Ransur and Ghansur, who were previously ruling on the plateau. And the Bastar Raj-Gond Rajas have a story that they came from Warangal in the south so late as the fourteenth century, accompanied by the ancestors of some of the existing Bastar tribes. Jadu Rai, the founder of the Gond-Rajput dynasty of Garha-Mandla, is supposed to have lived near the Godavari. A large section of the Gonds of the Central Provinces are known as Rawanvansi or of the race of Rawan, the demon king of Ceylon, who was conquered by Rama. The Oraons also claim to be descended from Rawan. [543] This name and story must clearly have been given to the tribes by the Hindus, and the explanation appears to be that the Hindus considered the Dravidian Gonds and Oraons to have been the enemy encountered in the Aryan expedition to southern India and Ceylon, which is dimly recorded in the legend of Rama. On the other hand the Bhuiyas, a Munda tribe, call themselves Pawan-ka-put or Children of the Wind, that is of the race of Hanuman, who was the Son of the Wind; and this name would appear to show, as suggested by Colonel Dalton, that the Munda tribes gave assistance to the Aryan expedition and accompanied it, an alliance which has been preserved in the tale of the exploits of Hanuman and his army of apes. Similarly the name of the Ramosi caste of Berar is a corruption of Ramvansi or of the race of Rama; and the Ramosis appear to be an offshoot of the Bhils or Kolis, both of whom are not improbably Munda tribes. A Hindu writer compared the Bhil auxiliaries in the camp of the famous Chalukya Rajput king Sidhraj of Gujarat to Hanuman and his apes, on account of their agility. [544] These instances seem to be in favour of the idea that the Munda tribes assisted the Aryans, and if this were the case it would appear to be a legitimate inference that at the same period the Dravidian tribes were still in southern India and not mixed up with the Munda tribes in the Central Provinces and Chota Nagpur as at present. Though the evidence is perhaps not very strong, the hypothesis, as suggested by Mr. Crump, that the settlement of the Gonds in the Central Provinces is comparatively recent and subsequent to the early Rajput dynasties, is well worth putting forward.

6. Strength of the Kols in the Central Provinces.

In the Central Provinces the Kols and Mundas numbered 85,000 persons in 1911. The name Kol is in general use except in the Chota Nagpur States, but it seems probable that the Kols who have immigrated here really belong to the Munda tribe of Chota Nagpur. About 52,000 Kols, or nearly a third of the total number, reside in the Jubbulpore District, and the remainder are scattered over all Districts and States of the Province.

7. Legend of origin.

The Kol legend of origin is that Sing-Bonga or the Sun created a boy and a girl and put them together in a cave to people the world; but finding them to be too innocent to give hope of progeny he instructed them in the art of making rice-beer, which inflames the passions, and in course of time they had twelve sons and twelve daughters. The divine origin ascribed by the Kols, in common with other peoples, to their favourite liquor may be noticed. The children were divided into pairs, and Sing-Bonga set before them various kinds of food to choose for their sustenance before starting out into the world; and the fate of their descendants depended on their choice. Thus the first and second pairs took the flesh of bullocks and buffaloes, and from them are descended the Kols and Bhumij; one pair took shell-fish and became Bhuiyas, two pairs took pigs and were the ancestors of the Santals, one pair took vegetables only and originated the Brahman and Rajput castes, and other pairs took goats and fish, from whom the various Sudra castes are sprung. One pair got nothing, and seeing this the Kol pair gave them of their superfluity and the descendants of these became the Ghasias, who are menials in Kol villages and supported by the cultivators. The Larka Kols attribute their strength and fine physique to the fact that they eat beef. When they first met English soldiers in the beginning of the nineteenth century the Kols were quickly impressed by their wonderful fighting powers, and finding that the English too ate the flesh of bullocks, paid them the high compliment of assigning to them the same pair of ancestors as themselves. The Nagvansi Rajas of Chota Nagpur say that their original ancestor was a snake-god who assumed human form and married a Brahman's daughter. But, like Lohengrin, the condition of his remaining a man was that he should not disclose his origin, and when he was finally brought to satisfy the incessant curiosity of his wife, he reverted to his first shape, and she burned herself from remorse. Their child was found by some wood-cutters lying in the forest beneath a cobra's extended hood, and was brought up in their family. He subsequently became king, and his seven elder brothers attended him as banghy-bearers when he rode abroad. The Mundas are said to be descended from the seven brothers, and their sign-manual is a kawar or banghy. [545] Hence the Rajas of Chota Nagpur regard the Mundas as their elder brothers, and the Ranis veil their faces when they meet a Munda as to a husband's elder brother. The probable explanation of the story is that the Hos or Mundas, from whom the kings are sprung, were a separate section of the tribe who subdued the older Mundas. In memory of their progenitor the Nagvansi Rajas wear a turban folded to resemble the coils of a snake with a projection over the brow for its head. [546]

8. Tribal subdivisions.

The subcastes of the Kols in the Central Provinces differ entirely from those in Chota Nagpur. Of the important subcastes here the Rautia and Rautele take their name from Rawat, a prince, and appear to be a military or landholding group. In Chota Nagpur the Rautias are a separate caste, holding land. The Rautia Kols practise hypergamy with the Rauteles, taking their daughters in marriage but not giving daughters. They will eat with Rauteles at wedding feasts only and not on any other occasion. The Thakuria, from thakur, a lord, are said to be the progeny of Rajput fathers and Kol mothers; and the Kagwaria to be named from kagwar, an offering made to ancestors in the month of Kunwar. The Desaha, from desh, native country, belong principally to Rewah. In some localities Bharias, Savars and Khairwars are found who call themselves Kols and appear to be included in the tribe. The Bharias may be an offshoot of the Bhar tribe of northern India. It has already been seen that several groups of other tribes have been amalgamated with the Mundas of Chota Nagpur, probably in a great measure from intermarriage, and a similar fusion seems to have occurred in the Central Provinces. Intermarriage between the different subtribes, though nominally prohibited, not infrequently takes place, and a girl forming a liaison with a man of another division may be married to him and received into it. The Rautias, however, say that they forbid this practice.

9. Totemism.

The Mandla Kols have a number of totemistic septs. The Bargaiyan are really called after a village Bargaon, but they connect their name with the bar or banyan tree, and revere it. At their weddings a branch of this tree is laid on the roof of the marriage-shed, and the wedding-cakes are cooked in a fire made of the wood of the banyan tree and served to all the relations of the sept on its leaves. At other times they will not pluck a leaf or a branch from a banyan tree or even go beneath its shade. The Kathotia sept is named after kathota, a bowl, but they revere the tiger. Bagheshwar Deo, the tiger-god, resides on a little platform in their verandas. They may not join in a tiger-beat nor sit up for a tiger over a kill. In the latter case they think that the tiger would not come and would be deprived of his food, and all the members of their family would get ill. If a tiger takes one of their cattle, they think there has been some neglect in their worship of him. They say that if one of them meets a tiger in the forest he will fold his hands and say, 'Maharaj, let me pass,' and the tiger will then get out of his way. If a tiger is killed within the limits of his village a Kathotia Kol will throw away his earthen pots as in mourning for a relative, have his head shaved and feed a few men of his sept. The Katharia sept take their name from kathri, a mattress. A member of this sept must never have a mattress in his house nor wear clothes sewn in crosspieces as mattresses are sewn. The word kathri should never be mentioned before him as he thinks some great misfortune would thereby happen to his family, but this belief is falling into abeyance. The name of the Mudia or Mudrundia sept is said to mean shaven head, but they apparently revere the white kumhra or gourd, perhaps because it has some resemblance to a shaven head. They give a white gourd to a woman on the third day after she has borne a child, and her family then do not eat this vegetable for three years. At the expiration of the period the head of the family offers a chicken to Dulha Deo, frying it with the feathers left on the head, and eating the head and feet himself. Women may not join in this sacrifice. The Kumraya sept revere the brown kumhra or gourd. They grow this vegetable on the thatch of their house-roof, and from the time of planting it until the fruits have been plucked they do not touch it. The Bhuwar sept are named after bhu or bhumi, the earth. They must always sleep on the earth and not on cots. Other septs are Nathunia, a nose-ring; Karpatia, a kind of grass; and Binjhwar, from the tribe of that name. From Raigarh a separate group of septs is reported, the names of which further demonstrate the mixed nature of the tribe. Among these are Bandi, a slave; Kawar, Gond, Dhanuhar, Birjhia, all of which are the names of distinct tribes; Sonwani, gold-water; Keriari, or bridle; Khunta, a peg; and Kapat, a shutter.

10. Marriage customs.

Marriage within the sept is prohibited, but violations of this rule are not infrequent. Outside the sept a man may marry any woman except the sisters of his mother or stepmother. Where, as in some localities, the septs have been forgotten, marriage is forbidden between those relatives to whom the sacramental cakes are distributed at a wedding. Among the Mundas, before a father sets out to seek a bride for his son, he invites three or four relatives, and at midnight taking a bottle of liquor pours a little over the household god as a libation and drinks the rest with them. They go to the girl's village, and addressing her father say that they have come to hunt. He asks them in what jungle they wish to hunt, and they name the sarna or sacred grove in which the bones of his ancestors are buried. If the girl's father is satisfied with the match, he then agrees to it. A bride-price of Rs. 10-8 is paid in the Central Provinces. Among the Hos of Chota Nagpur so large a number of cattle was formerly demanded in exchange for a bride that many girls were never married. Afterwards it was reduced to ten head of cattle, and it was decided that one pair of bullocks, one cow and seven rupees should be equivalent to ten head, while for poor families Rs. 7 was to be the whole price. [547] Among the Mundas of Raigarh the price is three or four bullocks, but poor men may give Rs. 12 or Rs. 18 in substitution. Here weddings may only be held in the three months of Aghan, Magh and Phagun, [548] and preferably in Magh. Their marriage ceremony is very simple, the bridegroom simply smearing vermilion on the bride's forehead, after which water is poured over the heads of the pair. Two pots of liquor are placed beside them during the ceremony. It is also a good marriage if a girl of her own accord goes and lives in a man's house and he shows his acceptance by dabbing vermilion on her. But her offspring are of inferior status to those of a regular marriage. The Kols of Jubbulpore and Mandla have adopted the regular Hindu ceremony.

11. Divorce and widow-marriage.

Divorce and widow-marriage are permitted. In Raigarh the widow is bound to marry her deceased husband's younger brother, but not elsewhere. Among these Mundas, if divorce is effected by mutual consent, the husband must give his wife a pair of loin-cloths and provisions for six months. Polygamy is seldom practised, as women can earn their own living, and if a wife is superseded she will often run away home or set up in a house by herself. In Mandla a divorce can be obtained by either party, the person in fault having to pay a fee of Rs. 1-4 to the panchayat; the woman then breaks her bangles and the divorce is complete.

12. Religion.

At the head of the Munda pantheon, Sir H. Risley states, [549] stands Sing-Bonga or the sun, a beneficent but ineffective deity who concerns himself but little with human affairs. But he may be invoked to avert sickness or calamity, and to this end sacrifices of white goats or white cocks are offered to him. Next to him comes Marang Buru, the mountain god, who resides on the summit of the most prominent hill in the neighbourhood. Animals are sacrificed to him here, and the heads left and appropriated by the priest. He controls the rainfall, and is appealed to in time of drought and when epidemic sickness is abroad. Other deities preside over rivers, tanks, wells and springs, and it is believed that when offended they cause people who bathe in the water to be attacked by leprosy and skin diseases. Even the low swampy rice-fields are haunted by separate spirits. Deswali is the god of the village, and he lives with his wife in the Sarna or sacred grove, a patch of the primeval forest left intact to afford a refuge for the forest gods. Every village has its own Deswali, who is held responsible for the crops, and receives an offering of a buffalo at the agricultural festival. The Jubbulpore Kols have entirely abandoned their tribal gods and now worship Hindu deities. Devi is their favourite goddess, and they carry her iron tridents about with them wherever they go. Twice in the year, when the baskets of wheat or Gardens of Adonis are sown in the name of Devi, she descends on some of her worshippers, and they become possessed and pierce their cheeks with the trident, sometimes leaving it in the face for hours, with one or two men standing beside to support it. When the trident is taken out a quid of betel is given to the wounded man, and the

## part is believed to heal up at once. These Kols also employ Brahmans

for their ceremonies. Before sowing their fields they say--

Thuiya, Bhuiya, [550] Dharti Mata, Thakur Deo, Bhainsa Sur; khub paida kariye Maharaj;

that is, they invoke Mother Earth, Thakur Deo, the corn-god, and Bhainsasur, the buffalo demon, to give them good crops; and as they say this they throw a handful of grain in the air in the name of each god.

13. Witchcraft.

"Among the Hos," Colonel Dalton states, "all disease in men or animals is attributed to one of two causes--the wrath of some evil spirit who has to be appeased, or the spell of some witch or sorcerer who should be destroyed or driven out of the land. In the latter case a sokha or witch-finder is employed to ascertain who has cast the spell, and various methods of divination are resorted to. In former times the person denounced and all his family were put to death in the belief that witches breed witches and sorcerers. The taint is in the blood. When, during the Mutiny, Singhbhum District was left for a short time without officers, a terrible raid was made against all who had been suspected for years of dealing with the evil one, and the most atrocious murders were committed. Young men were told off for the duty by the elders; neither age nor sex were spared. When order was restored, these crimes were brought to light, and the actual perpetrators punished; and since then we have not only had no recurrence of witch murders, but the superstition itself is dying out in the Kolhan." Mr. H. C. Streatfeild states that among the Mundas witches used to be hung head downwards from a pipal tree over a slow fire, the whole village dancing as they were gradually roasted, but whether this ceremony was purely vindictive or had any other significance there is nothing to show. [551]

14. Funeral rites.

The Hos of Chota Nagpur were accustomed to place large slabs of stone as tombstones over their graves, and a collection of these massive gravestones indelibly marks the site of every Ho or Mundari village, being still found in parts of the country where there have been no Kols for ages. In addition to this slab, a megalithic monument is set up to the deceased in some conspicuous spot outside the village; the pillars vary in height from five or six to fifteen feet, and apparently fragments of rock of the most fantastic shape are most favoured. All the clothes, ornaments and agricultural implements of the dead man were buried with the body. The funeral rites were of a somewhat touching character: [552] "When all is ready, a funeral party collects in front of the deceased's house, three or four men with very deep-toned drums, and a group of about eight young girls. The chief mourner comes forth, carrying the bones exposed on a decorated tray, and behind him the girls form two rows, carrying empty or broken pitchers or battered brass vessels, while the men with drums bring up the rear. The procession advances with a ghostly dancing movement, slow and solemn as a minuet, in time to the beat of the deep-toned drums, not straight forward, but mysteriously gliding--now right, now left, now marking time, all in the same mournful cadence. In this manner the remains are taken to the house of every friend and relative of the deceased within a circle of a few miles, and to every house in the village. As the procession approaches each house in the manner described, the inmates all come out, and the tray having been placed on the ground at their door, they kneel over it and mourn. The bones are also thus conveyed to all his favourite haunts, the fields he cultivated, the grove he planted, the tank he excavated, the threshing-floor where he worked with his people, the Akhara or dancing-arena where he made merry with them, and each spot which is hallowed with reminiscences of the deceased draws forth fresh tears." In Sambalpur [553] the dead body of a Munda is washed in wine before interment, and a mark of vermilion is made on the forehead. The mourners drink wine sitting by the grave. They then bathe, and catch a small fish and roast it on a fire, smearing their hands with oil and warming them at the fire. It would appear that this last rite is a purification of the hands after contact with the dead body, but whether the fish is meant to represent the deceased and the roasting of it is a substitute for the rite of cremation is not clear. During the eight days of mourning the relatives abstain from flesh-meat, but they eat fish. The Kols of Jubbulpore now bury or burn the dead, and observe mourning exactly like ordinary Hindus.

15. Inheritance.

Succession among the Mundas passes to sons only. Failing these, the property goes to the father or brothers if any. At partition the eldest son as a rule gets a slightly larger share than the other sons, a piece of land, and in well-to-do families a yoke of plough cattle, or only a bullock or a goat, and sometimes a bundle of paddy weighing from 10 to 16 maunds. [554] Partition cannot usually be made till the youngest son is of age. Daughters get no share in the inheritance, and are allotted among the sons just like live-stock. Thus if a man dies leaving three sons and three daughters and thirty head of cattle, on a division each son would get ten head of cattle and one sister; but should there be only one sister, they wait till she marries and divide the bride-price. A father may, however, in his lifetime make presents of cash or movables to a daughter, though not of land. It is doubtful whether these rules still obtain among the Hinduised Kols.

16. Physical appearance.

"The Mundas," Colonel Dalton states, "are one of the finest of the aboriginal tribes. The men average something like 5 feet 6 inches, and many of them are remarkably well developed and muscular. Their skin is of the darkest brown, almost black in many cases, and their features coarse, with broad flat noses, low foreheads and thick lips, presenting as a rule a by no means prepossessing appearance. The women are often more pleasing, the coarseness of the features being less accentuated or less noticeable on account of the extreme good-nature and happy carelessness that seldom fail to mark their countenance. They are fond of ornament, and a group of men and girls fully decked out for a festival makes a fine show. Every ornament in the shape of bead necklace, silver collar, bracelet, armlet and anklet would seem to have been brought out for the occasion. The head-dress is the crowning point of the turn-out. The long black hair is gathered up in a big coil, most often artificially enlarged, the whole being fastened at the right-hand side of the back of the head just on a level with and touching the right ear. In this knot are fastened all sorts of ornaments of brass and silver, and surmounting it, stuck in every available space, are gay plumes of feathers that nod and wave bravely with the movements of the dance. The ears are distorted almost beyond recognition by huge earrings that pierce the lobe and smaller ones that ornament them all round." In Mandla women are tattooed with the figure of a man or a man on horseback, and on the legs behind also with the figure of a man. They are not tattooed on the face. Men are never tattooed.

17. Dances.

"Dancing is the inevitable accompaniment of every gathering, and they have a great variety suitable to the special times and seasons. The motion is slow and graceful, a monotonous sing-song being kept up all through. The steps are in perfect time and the action wonderfully even and regular. This is particularly noticeable in some of the variations of the dances representing the different seasons and the necessary acts of cultivation that each brings with it. In one the dancers bending down make a motion with their hands as though they were sowing the grain, keeping step with their feet all the time. Then come the reaping of the crop and the binding of the sheaves, all done in perfect time and rhythm, and making with the continuous droning of the voices a quaint and picturesque performance." In the Central Provinces the Kols now dance the Karma dance of the Gonds, but they dance it in more lively fashion. The step consists simply in advancing or withdrawing one foot and bringing the other up or back beside it. The men and women stand opposite each other in two lines, holding hands, and the musicians alternately face each line and advance and retreat with them. Then the lines move round in a circle with the musicians in the centre.

18. Social rules and offences.

Munda boys are allowed to eat food cooked by other castes, except the very lowest, until they are married, and girls until they let their hair grow long, which is usually at the age of six or seven. After this they do not take food as a tribe from any other caste, even a Brahman, though some subtribes accept it from certain castes as the Telis (oil-pressers) and Sundis or liquor-vendors. In Jubbulpore the Kols take food from Kurmis, Dhimars and Ahirs. The Mundas will eat almost all kinds of flesh, including tigers and pigs, while in Raigarh they consider monkey as a delicacy, hunting these animals with dogs. In the Central Provinces they have generally abjured beef, in deference to Hindu prejudice, and sometimes refuse field-mice, to which the Khonds and Gonds are very partial. Neither Kols nor Mundas are, however, considered impure and the barber and washerman will work for them. In Sambalpur a woman is finally expelled from caste for a liaison with one of the impure Gandas, Ghasias or Doms, and a man is expelled for taking food from a woman of these castes, but adultery with her may be expiated by a big feast. Other offences are much the same as among the Hindus. A woman who gets her ear torn through where it is pierced is put out of caste for six months or a year and has to give two feasts on readmission.

19. The caste panchayat.

In Mandla the head of the panchayat is known as Gaontia, a name for a village headman, and he is always of the Bargaiya sept, the office being usually hereditary. When a serious offence is committed the Gaontia fixes a period of six months to a year for the readmission of the culprit, or the latter begs for reinstatement when he has obtained the materials for the penalty feast. A feast for the whole Rautele subcaste will entail 500 seers or nearly 9 cwt. of kodon, costing perhaps Rs. 30, and they say there would not be enough left for a cold breakfast for the offender's family in the morning. When a man has a petition to make to the Gaontia, he folds his turban round his neck, leaving the head bare, takes a piece of grass in his mouth, and with four prominent elders to support him goes to the Gaontia and falls at his feet. The others stand on one leg behind him and the Gaontia asks them for their recommendation. Their reverence for the caste panchayat is shown by their solemn form of oath, 'Sing-Bonga on high and the Panch on earth.' [555] The Kols of Jubbulpore and Mandla are now completely conforming to Hindu usage and employ Brahmans for their ceremonies. They are most anxious to be considered as good Hindus and ape every high-caste custom they get hold of. On one occasion I was being carried on a litter by Kol coolies and accompanied by a Rajput chuprassie and was talking to the Kols, who eagerly proclaimed their rigid Hindu observances. Finally the chuprassie said that Brahmans and Rajputs must have three separate brushes of date-palm fibre for their houses, one to sweep the cook-room which is especially sacred, one for the rest of the house, and one for the yard. Lying gallantly the Kols said that they also kept three palm brushes for cleaning their houses, and when it was pointed out that there were no date-palms within several miles of their village, they said they sent periodical expeditions to the adjoining District to bring back fibre for brushes.

20. Names.

Colonel Dalton notes that the Kols, like the Gonds, give names to their children after officers visiting the village when they are born. Thus Captain, Major, Doctor are common names in the Kolhan. Mr. Mazumdar gives an instance of a Kol servant of the Raja of Bamra who greatly admired some English lamp-chimneys sent for by the Raja and called his daughter 'Chimney.' They do not address any relative or caste-man by his name if he is older than themselves, but use the term of relationship to a relative and to others the honorific title of Gaontia.

21. Occupation.

The Mundari language has no words for the village trades nor for the implements of cultivation, and so it may be concluded that prior to their contact with the Hindus the Mundas lived on the fruits and roots of the forests and the pursuit of game and fish. Now, however, they have taken kindly to several kinds of labour. They are much in request on the Assam tea-gardens owing to their good physique and muscular power, and they make the best bearers of dhoolies or palanquins. Kol bearers will carry a dhoolie four miles an hour as against the best Gond pace of about three, and they shake the occupant less. They also make excellent masons and navvies, and are generally more honest workers than the other jungle tribes. A Munda seldom comes into a criminal court.

22. Language.

The Kols of the Central Provinces have practically abandoned their own language, Mundari being retained only by about 1000 persons in 1911. The Kols and Mundas now speak the Hindu vernacular current in the tracts where they reside. Mundari, Santali, Korwa and Bhumij are practically all forms of one language which Sir G. Grierson designates as Kherwari. [556]

KOLAM

List of Paragraphs

1. General notice of the tribe. 2. Marriage. 3. Disposal of the dead. 4. Religion and superstitions. 5. Social position. 6. Miscellaneous customs.

1. General notice of the tribe.

Kolam. [557]--A Dravidian tribe residing principally in the Wun taluk of the Yeotmal District. They number altogether about 25,000 persons, of whom 23,000 belong to Wun and the remainder to the adjoining tracts of Wardha and Hyderabad. They are not found elsewhere. The tribe are generally considered to be akin to the Gonds [558] on the authority of Mr. Hislop. He wrote of them: "The Kolams extend all along the Kandi Konda or Pindi Hills on the south of the Wardha river and along the table-land stretching east and north of Manikgad and thence south to Dantanpalli, running parallel to the western bank of the Pranhita. The Kolams and the common Gonds do not intermarry, but they are present at each other's nuptials and eat from each other's hand. Their dress is similar, but the Kolam women wear fewer ornaments, being generally content with a few black beads of glass round their neck. Among their deities, which are the usual objects of Gond adoration, Bhimsen is chiefly honoured." Mr. Hislop was, however, not always of this opinion, because he first excluded the Kolams from the Gond tribes and afterwards included them. [559] In Wardha they are usually distinguished from the Gonds. They have a language of their own, called after them Kolami. Sir G. Grierson [560] describes it as, "A minor dialect of Berar and the Central Provinces which occupies a position like that of Gondi between Canarese, Tamil and Telugu. The so-called Kolami, the Bhili spoken in the Pusad taluk of Basim and the so-called Naiki of Chanda agree in so many particulars that they can almost be considered as one and the same dialect. They are closely related to Gondi. The points in which they differ from that language are, however, of sufficient importance to make it necessary to separate them from that form of speech. The Kolami dialect differs widely from the language of the neighbouring Gonds. In some points it agrees with Telugu, in other characteristics with Canarese and connected forms of speech. There are also some interesting points of analogy with the Toda dialect of the Nilgiris, and the Kolams must, from a philological point of view, be considered as the remnants of an old Dravidian tribe who have not been involved in the development of the principal Dravidian languages, or of a tribe who have not originally spoken a Dravidian form of speech."

The family names of the tribe also are not Gondi, but resemble those of Maratha castes. Out of fifty sept names recorded, only one, Tekam, is found among the Gonds. "All their songs and ballads," Colonel Mackenzie says, "are borrowed from the Marathas: even their women when grinding corn sing Marathi songs." In Wun their dress and appearance resembles that of the Kunbis, but in some respects they retain very primitive customs. Colonel Mackenzie states that until recently in Berar they had the practice of capturing husbands for women who would otherwise have gone unwedded, this being apparently a survival of the matriarchate. It does not appear that the husbands so captured were ever unphilosophical enough to rebel under the old regime, though British enlightenment has taught them otherwise. Widows and widowers were exempt from capture and debarred from capturing. In view of the connection mentioned by Sir G. Grierson between the Kolami dialect and that of the Todas of the Nilgiri hills who are a small remnant of an ancient tribe and still practise polyandry, Mr. Hira Lal suggests that the Kolams may be connected with the Kolas, a tribe akin to the Todas [561] and as low in the scale of civilisation, who regard the Kolamallai hills as their original home. [562] He further notes that the name of the era by which the calendar is reckoned on the Malabar coast is Kolamba. In view of Sir G. Grierson's statement that the Kolami dialect is the same as that of the Naik Gonds of Chanda it may be noted that the headman of a Kolam village is known as Naik, and it is possible that the Kolams may be connected with the so-called Naik Gonds.

2. Marriage.

The Kolams have no subtribes, but are divided for purposes of marriage into a number of exogamous groups. The names of these are in the Marathi form, but the tribe do not know their meaning. Marriage between members of the same group is forbidden, and a man may not marry two sisters. Marriage is usually adult, and neither a betrothal nor a marriage can be concluded in the month of Poush (December), because in this month ancestors are worshipped. Colonel Mackenzie states that marriages should be celebrated on Wednesdays and Saturdays at sundown, and Monday is considered a peculiarly inauspicious day. If a betrothal, once contracted, is broken, a fine of five or ten rupees must be paid to the caste-fellows together with a quantity of liquor. Formerly, as stated above, the tribe sometimes captured husbands, and they still have a curious method of seizing a wife when the father cannot procure a mate for his son. The latter attended by his comrades resorts to the jungle where his wife-elect is working in company with her female relations and friends. It is a custom of the tribe that the sexes should, as a rule, work in separate parties. On catching sight of her the bridegroom pursues her, and unless he touches her hand before she gets back to her village, his friends will afford him no assistance. If he can lay hold of the girl a struggle ensues between the two parties for her possession, the girl being sometimes only protected by women, while on other occasions her male relatives hear of the fray and come to her assistance. In the latter case a fight ensues with sticks, in which, however, no combatant may hit another on the head. If the girl is captured the marriage is subsequently performed, and even if she is rescued the matter is often arranged by the payment of a few rupees to the girl's father. Nowadays the whole affair tends to degenerate into a pretence and is often arranged beforehand by the

## parties. The marriage ceremony resembles that of the Kunbis except

that the bridegroom takes the bride on his lap and their clothes are tied together in two places. After the ceremony each of the guests takes a few grains of rice, and after touching the feet, knees and shoulders of the bridal couple with the rice, throws it over his own back. The idea may be to remove any contagion of misfortune or evil spirits who may be hovering about them. A widow can remarry only with her parents' consent, but if she takes a fancy to a man and chooses to enter his house with a pot of water on her head he cannot turn her out. A man cannot marry a widow unless he has been regularly wedded once to a girl, and once having espoused a widow by what is known as the pat ceremony, he cannot again go through a proper marriage. A couple who wish to be divorced must go before the caste panchayat or committee with a pot of liquor. Over this is laid a dry stick and the couple each hold an end of it. The husband then addresses his wife as sister in the presence of the caste-fellows, and the wife her husband as brother; they break the stick and the divorce is complete.

3. Disposal of the dead.

The tribe bury their dead, and observe mourning for one to five days in different localities. The spirits of deceased ancestors are worshipped on any Monday in the month of Poush. The mourner goes and dips his head into a tank or stream, and afterwards sacrifices a fowl on the bank, and gives a meal to the caste-fellows. He then has the hair of his face and head shaved. Sons inherit equally, and if there are no sons the property devolves on daughters.

4. Religion and superstitions.

The Kolams, Colonel Mackenzie states, recognise no god as a principle of beneficence in the world; their principal deities are Sita, to whom the first-fruits of the harvest are offered, and Devi who is the guardian of the village, and is propitiated with offerings of goats and fowls to preserve it from harm. She is represented by two stones set up in the centre of the village when it is founded. They worship their implements of agriculture on the last day of Chait (April), applying turmeric and vermilion to them. In May they collect the stumps of juari from a field, and, burning them to ashes, make an offering of the same articles. They have a curious ceremony for protecting the village from disease. All the men go outside the village and on the boundary at the four points pointing north-east, north-west and opposite place four stones known as bandi, burying a fowl beneath each stone. The Naik or headman then sacrifices a goat and other fowls to Sita, and placing four men by the stones, proceeds to sprinkle salt all along the boundary line, except across one path on which he lays his stick. He then calls out to the men that the village is closed and that they must enter it only by that path. This rule remains in force throughout the year, and if any stranger enters the village by any other than the appointed route, they consider that he should pay the expenses of drawing the boundary circuit again. But the rule is often applied only to carts, and relaxed in favour of travellers on foot. The line marked with salt is called bandesh, and it is believed that wild animals cannot cross it, while they are prevented from coming into the village along the only open road by the stick of the Naik. Diseases also cannot cross the line. Women during their monthly impurity are made to live in a hut in the fields outside the boundary line. The open road does not lead across the village, but terminates at the chauri or meeting-house.

5. Social position.

Though the Kolams retain some very primitive customs, those of Yeotmal, as already stated, are hardly distinguishable from the Kunbis or Hindu cultivators. Colonel Mackenzie notes that they are held to be lower than the Gonds, because a Kolam will take food from a Gond, but the latter will not return the compliment. They will eat the flesh of rats, tigers, snakes, squirrels and of almost any animals except dogs, donkeys and jackals. In another respect they are on a level with the lowest aborigines, as some of them do not use water to clean their bodies after performing natural functions, but only leaves. Yet they are not considered as impure by the Hindus, are permitted to enter Hindu temples, and hold themselves to be defiled by the touch of a Mahar or a Mang. A Kolam is forbidden to beg by the rules of the tribe, and he looks down on the Mahars and Mangs, who are often professional beggars. In Wardha, too, the Kolams will not collect dead-wood for sale as fuel.

6. Miscellaneous customs.

Here their houses contain only a single room with a small store-house, and all the family sleep together without privacy. Consequently there is no opportunity at night for conjugal intimacy, and husband and wife seek the solitude of the forest in the daytime. Colonel Mackenzie states: "All Kolams are great smokers, but they are not allowed to smoke in their own houses, but only at the chauri or meeting-house, where pipes and fire are kept; and this rule is enforced so that the Naik or headman can keep an eye on all male members of the community; if these do not appear at least once a day, satisfactory reasons are demanded for their absence, and from this rule only the sick and infirm are exempt. The Kolams have two musical instruments: the tapate or drum, and the wass or flute, the name of which is probably derived from the Sanskrit waunsh, meaning bamboo (of which the instrument is made). In old times all Kolams could read and write, and it is probably only poverty which prevents them from having all their children educated now." This last statement must, however, be accepted with reserve in the absence of intimation of the evidence on which it is based. At present they are, as a rule, quite illiterate. The Naik or headman formerly had considerable powers, being entrusted with the distribution of land among the cultivators, and exercising civil and criminal jurisdiction with the assistance of the panchayat. His own land was ploughed for him by the villagers. Even now they seldom enter a court of justice and their disputes are settled by the panchayat. A strong feeling of clannishness exists among them, and the village unites to avenge an injury done to one of its members. Excommunication from caste is imposed for the usual offences, and the ceremony of readmission is as follows: The offender dips his head in a river or stream and the village barber shaves his head and moustaches. He then sits beside a lighted pile of wood, being held to be purified by the proximity of the holy element, and afterwards bathes, and drinks some water into which the caste-fellows have dipped their toes. A woman has to undergo the same ceremony and have her head shaved. If an unmarried girl becomes with child by a member of the caste, she is married to him by the simple rite used for widow-remarriage. A Kolam must not swear by a dog or cat, and is expelled from caste for killing either of these two animals. A Kolam does not visit a friend's house in the evening, as he would be suspected in such an event of having designs upon his wife's virtue. The tribe are cultivators and labourers. They have not a very good reputation for honesty, and are said to be addicted to stealing the ripe cotton from the bolls. They never wear shoes, and the soles of their feet become nearly invulnerable and capable of traversing the most thorny ground without injury. They have an excellent knowledge of the medicinal and other uses of all trees, shrubs and herbs.

KOLHATI

[Bibliography: Mr. Kitts' Berar Census Report (1881); Major Gunthorpe's Criminal Tribes of Bombay, Berar and the Central Provinces (Times Press, Bombay).]

List of Paragraphs

1. Introductory notice. 2. Internal structure. 3. Marriage. 4. Funeral rites. 5. Other customs. 6. Occupation.

1. Introductory notice.

Kolhati, Dandewala, Bansberia, Kabutari. [563]--The name by which the Beria caste of Northern and Central India is known in Berar. The Berias themselves, in Central India at any rate, are a branch of the Sansias, a vagrant and criminal class, whose traditional occupation was that of acting as bards and genealogists to the Jat caste. The main difference between the Sansias and Berias is that the latter prostitute their women, or those of them who are not married. [564] The Kolhatis of Berar, who also do this, appear to be a branch of the Beria caste who have settled in the Deccan and now have customs differing in several respects from those of the parent caste. It is therefore desirable to reproduce briefly the main heads of the information given about them in the works cited above. In 1901 the Kolhatis numbered 1300 persons in Berar. In the Central Provinces they were not shown separately, but were included with the Nats. But in 1891 a total of 250 Kolhatis were returned. The word Kolhati is said to be derived from the long bamboo poles which they use for jumping, known as Kolhat. The other names, Dandewala and Bansberia, meaning those who perform feats with a stick or bamboo, also have reference to this pole. Kabutari as applied to the women signifies that their dancing resembles the flight of a pigeon (kabutar). They say that once on a time a demon had captured some Kunbis and shut them up in a cavern. But the Kunbis besought Mahadeo to save them, and he created a man and a woman who danced before the demon and so pleased him that he promised them whatever they should ask; and they thus obtained the freedom of the Kunbis. The man and woman were named Kabutar and Kabutari on account of their skilful dancing, and were the ancestors of the Kolhatis. The Kolhatis of the Central Provinces appear to differ in several respects from those of Berar, with whom the following article is mainly concerned.

2. Internal structure.

The caste has two main divisions in Berar, the Dukar Kolhatis and the Kham or Pal Kolhatis. The name of the former is derived from dukar, hog, because they are accustomed to hunt the wild pig with dogs and spears when these animals become too numerous and damage the crops of the villagers. They also labour for themselves by cultivating land and taking service as village watchmen; and they are daring criminals and commit dacoity, burglary and theft; but they do not steal cattle. The Kham Kolhatis, on the other hand, are a lazy, good-for-nothing class of men, who, beyond making a few combs and shuttles of bone, will set their hands to no kind of labour, but subsist mainly by the immoral pursuits of their women. At every large fair may be seen some of the portable huts of this tribe, made of rusa grass, [565] the women decked in jewels and gaudy attire sitting at each door, while the men are lounging lazily at the back. The Dukar Kolhati women, Mr. Kitts states, also resort to the same mode of life, but take up their abode in villages instead of attending fairs. Among the Dukar Kolhatis the subdivisions have Rajput names; and just as a Chauhan Rajput may not marry another Chauhan so also a Chauhan Dukar Kolhati may not marry a person of his own clan. In Bilaspur they are said to have four subcastes, the Marethi or those coming from the Maratha country, the Bansberia or pole-jumpers, the Suarwale or hunters of the wild pig, and the Muhammadan Kolhatis, none of whom marry or take food with each other. Each group is further subdivided into the Asal and Kamsal (Kam-asal), or the pure and mixed Kolhatis, who marry among themselves, outsiders being admitted to the Kamsal or mixed group.

3. Marriage.

The marriage ceremony in Berar [566] consists simply in a feast at which the bride and bridegroom, dressed in new clothes, preside. Much liquor is consumed and the dancing-girls of the tribe dance before them, and the happy couple are considered duly married according to Kolhati rites. Married women do not perform in public and are no less moral and faithful than those of other castes, while those brought up as dancing-girls do not marry at all. In Bilaspur weddings are arranged through the headman of the village, who receives a fee for his services, and the ceremony includes some of the ordinary Hindu rites. Here a widow is compelled to marry her late husband's younger brother on pain of exclusion from caste. People of almost any caste may become Kolhatis. When an outsider is admitted he must have a sponsor into whose clan he is adopted. A feast is given to the caste, and the applicant catches the right little finger of his sponsor before the assembly. Great numbers of Rajputs and Muhammadans join them, and on the other hand a large proportion of the fair but frail Kolhatis embrace the Muhammadan faith. [567]

4. Funeral rites.

The bodies of children are buried, and those of the adult dead may be either buried or cremated. Mr. Kitts states that on the third day, if they can afford the ceremony, they bring back the skull and placing it on a bed offer to it powder, dates and betel-leaves; and after a feast lasting for three days it is again buried. According to Major Gunthorpe the proceedings are more elaborate: "Each division of the caste has its own burial-ground in some special spot, to which it is the heart's desire of every Kolhati to carry, when he can afford it, the bones of his deceased relatives. After the cremation of an adult the bones are collected and buried pending such time as they can be conveyed to the appointed cemetery, if this be at a distance. When the time comes, that is, when means can be found for the removal, the bones are disinterred and placed in two saddle-bags on a donkey, the skull and upper bones in the right bag and the leg and lower bones in the left. The ass is then led to the deceased's house, where the bags of bones are placed under a canopy made ready for their reception. High festival, as for a marriage, is held for three days, and at the end of this time the bags are replaced on the donkey, and with tom-toms beating and dancing-girls of the tribe dancing in front, the animal is led off to the cemetery. On arrival, the bags, with the bones in them, are laid in a circular hole, and over it a stone is placed to mark the spot, and covered with oil and vermilion; and the spirit of the deceased is then considered to be appeased." They believe that the spirits of dead ancestors enter the bodies of the living and work evil to them, unless they are appeased with offerings. The Dukar Kolhatis offer a boar to the spirits of male ancestors and a sow to females. An offering of a boar is also made to Bhagwan (Vishnu), who is the principal deity of the caste and is worshipped with great ceremony every second year. [568]

5. Other customs.

Although of low caste the Kolhatis refrain from eating the flesh of the cow and other animals of the same tribe. The wild cat, mongoose, wild and tame pig and jackal are considered as delicacies. The caste have the same ordeals as are described in the article on the Sansias. As might be expected in a class which makes a living by immoral practices the women considerably outnumber the men. No one is permanently expelled from caste, and temporary exclusion is imposed only for a few offences, such as an intrigue with or being touched by a member of an impure caste. The offender gives a feast, and in the case of a man the moustache is shaved, while a woman has five hairs of her head cut off. The women have names meant to indicate their attractions, as Panna emerald, Munga coral, Mehtab dazzling, Gulti a flower, Moti a pearl, and Kesar saffron. If a girl is detected in an intrigue with a caste-fellow they are fined seven rupees and must give a feast to the caste, and are then married. When, however, a girl is suspected of unchastity and no man will take the responsibility on himself, she is put to an ordeal. She fasts all night, and next morning is dressed in a white cloth, and water is poured over her head from a new earthen pot. A piece of iron is heated red hot between cowdung cakes, and she must take up this in her hand and walk five steps with it, also applying it to the tip of her tongue. If she is burnt her unchastity is considered to be proved, and the idea is therefore apparently that if she is innocent the deity will intervene to save her.

6. Occupation.

The Dukar Kolhati males, Major Gunthorpe states, are a fine manly set of fellows. They hunt the wild boar with dogs, the men armed with spears following on foot. They show much pluck in attacking the boar, and there is hardly a man of years who does not bear scars received in fights with these animals. The villagers send long distances for a gang to come and rid them of the wild pig, which play havoc with the crops, and pay them in grain for doing so. But they are also much addicted to crime, and when they have decided on a dacoity or house-breaking they have a good drinking-bout and start off with their dogs as if to hunt the boar. And if they are successful they bury the spoil, and return with the body of a pig or a hare as evidence of what they have been doing. Stolen property is either buried at some distance from their homes or made over to the safe keeping of men with whom the women of the caste may be living. Such men, who become intimate with the Kolhatis through their women, are often headmen of villages or hold other respectable positions, and are thus enabled to escape suspicion. Boys who are to become acrobats are taught to jump from early youth. The acrobats and dancing-girls go about to fairs and other gatherings and make a platform on a cart, which serves as a stage for their performances. The dancing-girl is assisted by her admirers, who accompany her with music. Some of them are said now to have obtained European instruments, as harmoniums or gramophones. They do not give their performances on Thursdays and Mondays, which are considered to be unlucky days. In Bombay they are said to make a practice of kidnapping girls, preferably of high caste, whom they sell or bring up as prostitutes. [569]

KOLI

List of Paragraphs

1. General notice of the caste. 2. Subdivisions. 3. Exogamous divisions. 4. Widow-marriage or divorce. 5. Religion. 6. Disposal of the dead. 7. Social rules.

1. General notice of the caste.

Koli.--A primitive tribe akin to the Bhils, who are residents of the western Satpura hills. They have the honorific title of Naik. They numbered 36,000 persons in 1911, nearly all of whom belong to Berar, with the exception of some 2000 odd, who live in the Nimar District. These have hitherto been confused with the Kori caste. The Koris or weavers are also known as Koli, but in Nimar they have the designation of Khangar Koli to distinguish them from the tribe of the same name. The Kolis proper are found in the Burhanpur tahsil, where most villages are said to possess one or two families, and on the southern Satpura hills adjoining Berar. They are usually village servants, their duties being to wait on Government officers, cleaning their cooking-vessels and collecting carts and provisions. The duties of village watchman or kotwar were formerly divided between two officials, and while the Koli did the most respectable part of the work, the Mahar or Balahi carried baggage, sent messages, and made the prescribed reports to the police. In Berar the Kolis acted for a time as guardians of the hill passes. A chain of outposts or watch towers ran along the Satpura hills to the north of Berar, and these were held by Kolis and Bhils, whose duties were to restrain the predatory inroads of their own tribesmen, in the same manner as the Khyber Rifles now guard the passes on the North-West Frontier. And again along the Ajanta hills to the south of the Berar valley a tribe of Kolis under their Naiks had charge of the ghats or gates of the ridge, and acted as a kind of local militia paid by assignments of land in the villages. [570] In Nimar the Kolis, like the Bhils, made a trade of plunder and dacoity during the unsettled times of the eighteenth century, and the phrase 'Nahal, Bhil, Koli' is commonly used in old Marathi documents to designate the hill-robbers as a class. The priest of a Muhammadan tomb in Burhanpur still exhibits an imperial Parwana or intimation from Delhi announcing the dispatch of a force for the suppression of the Kolis, dated A.D. 1637. In the Bombay Presidency, so late as 1804, Colonel Walker wrote: "Most Kolis are thieves by profession, and embrace every opportunity of plundering either public or private property." [571] The tribe are important in Bombay, where their numbers amount to more than 1 1/2 million. It is supposed that the common term 'coolie' is a corruption of Koli, [572] because the Kolis were usually employed as porters and carriers in western India, as 'slave' comes from Slav. The tribe have also given their name to Colaba. [573] Various derivations have been given of the meaning of the word Koli, [574] and according to one account the Kolis and Mairs were originally the same tribe and came from Sind, while the Mairs were the same as the Meyds or Mihiras who entered India in the fifth century as one of the branches of the great White Hun horde. "Again, since the settlement of the Mairs in Gujarat," the writer of the Gujarat Gazetteer continues, "reverses of fortune, especially the depression of the Rajputs under the yoke of the Muhammadans in the fourteenth century, did much to draw close the bond between the higher and middle grades of the warrior class. Then many Rajputs sought shelter among the Kolis and married with them, leaving descendants who still claim a Rajput descent and bear the names of Rajput families. Apart from this, and probably as the result of an original sameness of race, in some parts of Gujarat and Kathiawar intermarriage goes on between the daughters of Talabda Kolis and the sons of Rajputs." Thus the Thakur of Talpuri Mahi Kantha in Bombay calls himself a Pramara Koli, and explains the term by saying that his ancestor, who was a Pramara or Panwar Rajput, took water at a Koli's house. [575] As regards the origin of the Kolis, however, whom the author of the Gujarat Gazetteer derives from the White Huns, stating them to be immigrants from Sind, another and perhaps more probable theory is that they are simply a western outpost of the great Kol or Munda tribe, to which the Korkus and Nahals and perhaps the Bhils may also belong. Mr. Hira Lal suggests that it is a common custom in Marathi to add or alter so as to make names end in i. Thus Halbi for Halba, Koshti for Koshta, Patwi for Patwa, Wanjari for Banjara, Gowari for Goala; and in the same manner Koli from Kol. This supposition appears a very reasonable one, though there is little direct evidence. The Nimar Kolis have no tradition of their origin beyond the saying--

Siva ki jholi Us men ka Koli,

or 'The Koli was born from Siva's wallet.'

2. Subdivisions.

In the Central Provinces the tribe have the five subdivisions of Surajvansi, Malhar, Bhilaophod, Singade, and the Muhammadan Kolis. The Surajvansi or 'descendants of the sun' claim to be Rajputs. The Malhar or Panbhari subtribe are named from their deity Malhari Deo, while the alternative name of Panbhari means water-carrier. The Bhilaophod extract the oil from bhilwa [576] nuts like the Nahals, and the Singade (sing, horn, and gadna, to bury) are so called because when their buffaloes die they bury the horns in their compounds. As with several other castes in Burhanpur and Berar, a number of Kolis embraced Islam at the time of the Muhammadan domination and form a separate subcaste.

In Berar the principal group is that of the Mahadeo Kolis, whose name may be derived from the Mahadeo or Pachmarhi hills. This would tend to connect them with the Korkus, and through them with the Kols. They are divided into the Bhas or pure and the Akaramase or impure Kolis. [577] In Akola most of the Kolis are stated to belong to the Kshatriya group, while other divisions are the Naiks or soldiers, the begging Kolis, and the Watandars who are probably hereditary holders of the post of village watchman. [578]

3. Exogamous divisions.

The tribe have exogamous septs of the usual nature, but they have forgotten the meaning of the names, and they cannot be explained. In Bombay their family names are the same as the Maratha surnames, and the writer of the Ahmadnagar Gazetteer [579] considers that some connection exists between the two classes. A man must not marry a girl of his own sept nor the daughter of his maternal uncle. Girls are usually married at an early age. A Brahman is employed to conduct the marriage ceremony, which takes place at sunset: a cloth is held between the couple, and as the sun disappears it is removed and they join hands amid the clapping of the assembled guests. Afterwards they march seven times round a stone slab surrounded by four plough-yokes. Among the Rewa Kantha Kolis the boy's father must not proceed on his journey to find a bride for his son until on leaving his house he sees a small bird called devi on his right hand; and consequently he is sometimes kept waiting for weeks, or even for months. When the betrothal is arranged the bridegroom and his father are invited to a feast at the bride's house, and on leaving the father must stumble over the threshold of the girl's door; without this omen no wedding can prosper. [580]

4. Widow-marriage or divorce.

The remarriage of widows is permitted, and the ceremony consists simply in tying a knot in the clothes of the couple; in Ahmadabad all they need do is to sit on the ground while the bridegroom's father knocks their heads together. [581] Divorce is allowed for a wife's misconduct, and if she marries her fellow delinquent he must repay to the husband the expenses incurred by him on his wedding. Otherwise the caste committee may inflict a fine of Rs. 100 on him and put him out of caste for twelve years in default of payment, and order one side of his moustache to be shaved. In Gujarat a married woman who has an intrigue with another man is called savasan, and it is said that a practice exists, or did exist, for her lover to pay her husband a price for the woman and marry her, though it is held neither respectable nor safe. [582] In Ahmadabad, if one Koli runs away with another's wife, leaving his own wife behind him, the caste committee sometimes order the offender's relatives to supply the bereaved husband with a fresh wife. They produce one or more women, and he selects one and is quite content with her. [583]

5. Religion.

The Kolis of Nimar chiefly revere the goddess Bhawani, and almost every family has a silver image of her. An important shrine of the goddess is situated in Ichhapur, ten or twelve miles from Burhanpur, and here members of the tribe were accustomed to perform the hook-swinging rite in honour of the goddess. Since this has been forbidden they have an imitation ceremony of swinging a bundle of bamboos covered with cloth in lieu of a human being.

6. Disposal of the dead.

The Kolis both bury and burn the dead, but the former practice is more common. They place the body in the grave with head to the south and face to the north. On the third day after the funeral they perform the ceremony called Kandhe kanchhna or 'rubbing the shoulder.' The four bearers of the corpse come to the house of the deceased and stand as if they were carrying the bier. His widow smears a little ghi (butter) on each man's shoulder and rubs the place with a small cake which she afterwards gives to him. The men go to a river or tank and throw the cakes into it, afterwards bathing in the water. This ceremony is clearly designed to sever the connection established by the contact of the bier with their shoulders, which they imagine might otherwise render them likely to require the use of a bier themselves. On the eleventh day a Brahman is called in, who seats eleven friends of the deceased in a row and applies sandal-paste to their foreheads. All the women whose husbands are alive then have turmeric rubbed on their foreheads, and a caste feast follows.

7. Social rules.

The Kolis eat flesh, including fowls and pork, and drink liquor. They will not eat beef, but have no special reverence for the cow. They will not remove the carcase of a dead cow or a dead horse. The social status of the tribe is low, but they are not considered as impure, and Gujars, Kunbis, and even some Rajputs will take water from them. Children are named on the twelfth day after birth. Their hair is shaved in the month of Magh following the birth, and on the first day of the next month, Phagun, a little oil is applied to the child's ear, after which it may be pierced at any time that is convenient.

Kolta

1. Origin and traditions.

Kolta, [584] Kolita, Kulta.--An agricultural caste of the Sambalpur District and the adjoining Uriya States. In 1901 the Central Provinces contained 127,000 Koltas out of 132,000 in India, but since the transfer of Sambalpur the headquarters of the caste belong to Bihar and Orissa, and only 36,000 remain in the Central Provinces. In Assam more than two lakhs of persons were enumerated under the caste name of Kalita in 1901, but in spite of the resemblance of the name the Kalitas apparently have no connection with the Uriya country, while the Koltas know nothing of a section of their caste in Assam. The Koltas of Sambalpur say that they immigrated from Baud State, which they regard as their ancestral home, and a member of their caste formerly held the position of Diwan of the State. According to one of their legends their first ancestors were born from the leavings of food of the legendary Raja Janak of Mithila or Tirhut, whose daughter Sita married King Rama of Ajodhya, the hero of the Ramayana. Some Koltas went with Sita to Ajodhya and were employed as water-bearers in the royal household. When Rama was banished they accompanied him in his wanderings, and were permitted to settle in the Uriya country at the request of the Raghunathia Brahmans, who wanted cultivators to till the soil. Another legend is that once upon a time, when Rama was wandering in the forests of Sambalpur, he met three brothers and asked them to draw water for him. The first brought water in a clean brass pot, and was called Sudh (good-mannered). The second made a cup of leaves and drew water from a well with a rope; he was called Dumal, from dori-mal, a coil of rope. The third brought water only in a hollow gourd, and he was named Kolta, from ku-rita, bad-mannered. This story serves to show that the Koltas, Sudhs and Dumals acknowledge some connection, and in the Sambalpur District they will take food together at festivals. But this degree of intimacy may simply have arisen from their common calling of agriculture, and may be noticed among the cultivating castes elsewhere, as the Kirars, Gujars and Raghuvansis in Hoshangabad. The most probable theory of the origin of the Koltas is that they are an offshoot of the great Chasa caste, the principal cultivating caste of the Uriya country, corresponding to the Kurmis and Kunbis in Hindustan and the Deccan. Several of their family names are identical with those of the Chasas, and there is actually a subcaste of Kolita Chasas. Mr. Hira Lal conjectures that the Koltas may be those Chasas who took to growing kultha (Dolichos uniflorus), a favourite pulse in Sambalpur; just as the Santora Kurmis are so named from their growing san-hemp, and the Alia Banias and Kunbis from the al or Indian madder. This hypothesis derives some support from the fact that the Koltas have no subcastes, and the formation of the caste may therefore be supposed to have occurred at a comparatively recent period.

2. Exogamous groups.

The Koltas have both family names or gotras and exogamous sections or bargas. The gotras are generally named after animals or other objects, as Dip (lamp), Bachhas (calf), Hasti (elephant), Bharadwaj (blue-jay), and so on. Members of the Bachhas gotra must not yoke a young bullock to the plough for the first time, but must get this done by somebody else. The names of the bargas are generally derived from villages or from offices or titles. In one or two cases they show the admission of members of other castes; thus the Rawat barga are the descendants of a Rawat (herdsman) who was in the service of the Raja of Sambalpur. The Raja had brought him up from infancy, and, wishing to make him a Kolta, married him to a Kolta girl, despite the protests of the caste. The ancestor of the Hinmiya Bhoi barga had a mistress of the Khond tribe, who left him some property, and is still worshipped in the family. The number of gotras is smaller than that of the bargas, and some gotras, as the Nag or cobra, the tortoise and the pipal tree, are common to many bargas. Marriage is forbidden between members of the same barga, and between first cousins on the father's side. To have the same gotra is no bar to marriage.

3. Marriage

Girls should be wedded before maturity, as among most of the Uriya castes, and if no suitable husband is forthcoming a nominal marriage is sometimes arranged with an old man, and the girl is afterwards disposed of as a widow. The boy's father makes the proposal for the marriage, and if this is accepted the following formal ceremony takes place. He goes to the girl's village, accompanied by some friends, and taking a quantity of gur (raw sugar), and staying at some other house, sends a messenger known as Jalangia to the girl's father, intimating that he has a request to make. The girl's father pretends not to know what it is, and replies that if he has anything to say the elders of the village should be called to hear it. These assemble, and the girl's father informs them that a stranger from another village has come to ask something of him, and as he is ignorant of its purport, he has asked them to do him the favour of being present. The boy's father then opens a parable, saying that he was carried down a river in flood, and saved himself by grasping a tree on the bank. The girl's father replies that the roots of a riverside tree are weak, and he fears that the tree itself would go down in the flood. The boy's father replies that in that case he would be content to perish with the tree. Thereupon the caste priest places a nut and some sacred rice cooked at Jagannath's temple in the hands of the parties, who stand together facing the company, and the girl's father says he has no objection to giving his daughter in marriage, provided that she may not be abandoned if she should subsequently become disfigured. The nut is broken and distributed to all present in ratification of the agreement. After this, other visits and a formal interchange of presents take place prior to the marriage proper. This is performed with the customary ceremonial of the Uriya castes. The marriage altar is made of earth brought from outside the village by seven married women. Branches of the mahua tree are placed on the altar, and after the conclusion of the ceremony are thrown into a tank. The women also take a jar of water to a tank and, emptying it, fill the jar with the tank water. They go round to seven houses, and at each empty and refill the jar with water from the house. The water finally brought back is used for bathing the bride and bridegroom, and is believed to protect them from all supernatural dangers. An image of the family totem made from powdered rice is anointed with oil and turmeric, and worshipped daily while the marriage is in progress. If the boy or girl is the eldest child, the parents go through a mock marriage ceremony which the child is not allowed to see. When the couple are brought into the marriage-shed, they throw seven handfuls of rice mixed with mung [585] and salt on each other. The priest ties the hands of the couple with thread spun by virgins, and the relatives then pour water over the knot. The bride's brother comes up and unties the knot, and gives the bridegroom a blow on the back. This is meant to show his anger at being deprived of his sister. He is given a piece of cloth and goes away. Presents are made to the pair, and the women throw rice on them. They are then taken inside the house and set to gamble with cowries. If the bridegroom wins he promises an ornament to the bride. If she wins she promises to serve him. The boy then asks her to sit with him on a bench, and she at first refuses, and agrees when he promises her other presents. Next day the bride's mother singes the cheeks of the bridegroom with betel-leaves heated over a lamp, and throws cowdung and rice over the couple to protect them from evil. The party takes its departure for the bridegroom's village, and on arrival there his sisters hold a cloth over the door of the house and will not let the couple in till they are given a present. The bridegroom then shoots an arrow at an image of a monkey or a deer, made of powdered rice, which is brought back, cooked and eaten. The bride goes home in a day or two, and the Bandapana ceremony is performed when she finally departs to live with her husband on arrival at maturity. The Koltas allow widow-marriage, but the husband has to pay a sum of about Rs. 100 to the caste-people, the bulk of which is expended in feasting. Divorce may be effected in the presence of the caste committee.

4. Religion.

The caste worship the goddess Ramchandi, whose principal shrine is at Sarsara in Baud State. In order to establish a local Ramchandi, a handful of earth must be brought from her shrine at Sarsara and made into a representation of the goddess. Some consider that Ramchandi is the personification of Mother Earth, and the Koltas will not swear by the earth. They worship the plough in the month of Shrawan, washing it with water and milk, and applying sandal-paste with offerings of flowers and food. The Puajiuntia festival is observed in Kunwar for the well-being of a son. On this occasion barren women try to ascertain whether they will get a son. A hole is made in the ground and filled with water, and a living fish is placed in it. The woman sits by the hole holding her cloth spread out, and if the fish in struggling jumps into her cloth, it is held to prognosticate the birth of a son. The caste worship their family gods and totems on the 10th day of Asarh, Bhadon, Kartik and Magh, which are called the pure months. They employ Brahmans for religious ceremonies. Every man has a guru who is a Bairagi, and he must be initiated by his guru before he is allowed to marry. The caste both burn and bury the dead. They eat flesh and fish, but generally abstain from liquor and the flesh of unclean animals, though in some places they are known to eat rats and crocodiles, and also the leavings of Brahmans. Brahmans will take water from Koltas, and their social standing is equal to that of the good agricultural castes.

5. Occupation.

The Koltas are skilful cultivators and have the usual characteristics belonging to the cultivating castes, of frugality, industry, hunger for land, and readiness to resort to any degree of litigation rather than relinquish a supposed right to it. They strongly appreciate the advantages of irrigation and show considerable public spirit in constructing tanks which will benefit the lands of their tenants as well as their own. Nevertheless they are not popular, probably because they are generally more prosperous than their neighbours. The rising of the Khonds of Kalahandi in 1882 was caused by their discontent at being ousted from their lands by the Koltas. The Raja of Kalahandi had imported a number of Kolta cultivators, and these speedily got the Khond headmen and ryots into their debt, and possessed themselves of all the best land in the Khond villages. In May 1882 the Khonds rose and slaughtered more than 80 Koltas, while 300 more were besieged in the village of Norla, the Khonds appearing with portions of the scalp and hair of the murdered victims hanging to their bows. On the arrival of a body of police which had been summoned from Vizagapatam, they dispersed, and the outbreak was soon afterwards suppressed, seven of the ringleaders being arrested, tried and hanged by the Political Officer. A settlement was made of the grievances of the Khonds and tranquillity was restored.

Komti

Komti, Komati.--The Madras caste of traders corresponding to Banias. In 1911 they numbered 11,000 persons in the Central Provinces, principally in the Chanda and Yeotmal Districts. The Komtis claim to be of the same status as Banias and to belong to the Vaishya division of the Aryans, but this is a very doubtful pretension. Mr. Francis remarks of them: [586] "Three points which show them to be of Dravidian origin are their adherence to the custom of obliging a boy to marry his paternal uncle's daughter, however unattractive she may be, a practice which is condemned by Manu; their use of the Puranic or lower ritual instead of the Vedic rites in their ceremonies; and the fact that none of the 102 gotras into which the caste is divided are those of the twice-born, while some at any rate seem to be totemistic as they are the names of trees and plants, and the members of each gotra abstain from touching or using the plant or tree after which their gotra is called." They are also of noticeably dark complexion. Komati is said to be a corruption of Gomati, a tender of cows. [587] The caste have, however, a great reputation for cunning and astuteness, and hence have arisen the popular derivations of ko-mati, fox-minded, and go-mati, cow-minded. The real meaning of the word is obscure. In Mysore the caste have the title of Setti or Chetty, which is a corruption of the Sanskrit Sreshtha, good, and in the Central Provinces their names often terminate with Appa.

The Komtis have the following story about themselves: Long ago, in the Kaliyuga era, there lived a Rajput king of Rajahmundry, who on his travels saw a beautiful Vaishya girl and fell in love with her. Her father refused him, saying that they were of different castes. But the king persisted and would not be denied. On which the maiden determined to sacrifice herself to save her honour, and her clansmen resolved to die with her. So she told the king that she would marry him if he would agree to the hom sacrifice being performed at the ceremony. When the fire was kindled the girl threw herself on it and perished, followed by a hundred and two of her kinsmen. But the others were cowardly and fled from the fire. Before she died the girl cursed the king and her caste-fellows who had fled, and they and their families were cut off from the earth. But from those who died the hundred and two clans of the Komtis are descended, and they worship the maiden as Kanika Devi. She is considered to have been an incarnation of Parvati and is the heroine of the Kanikya Puran. It is also said that she ordained that henceforth all Komtis should be black, so that none of their women might come to harm by being desired for their beauty as she had been. It is said that the caste look out for a specially dark girl as a bride, and think that she will bring luck to her husband and cause him to make money. Another explanation of their dark colour is that they originally lived in Ceylon, and when the island was set on fire by Rama their faces were blackened in the smoke. The hundred and two clans have each a particular kind of flower or tree which they do not grow, eat, touch or burn, and the explanation they give of this custom is that their ancestors who went into the fire were transformed into these trees and plants. The names of the plants revered by each clan in the Central Provinces appear to be the same as in Mysore. They include the brinjal, the mango, the cotton-plant, wheat, linseed and others.

The caste have several subcastes, among which are the Yajna, or those whose ancestors went into the fire; the Patti, who are apparently thread-sellers; the Jaina, or those who follow the Jain faith; and the Vidurs, a half-caste section, who are the offspring of a Yajna father and a mother of some low caste. There is a scarcity of girls, and a bride-price of Rs. 200 to Rs. 500 is often paid. Perhaps for the same reason the obligation to give a daughter to a sister's son is strictly enforced, and a man who refuses to do this is temporarily put out of caste. The gotras of the mothers of the bride and bridegroom should not be the same, and there should be no 'Turning back of the creeper,' as they say, that is, when a girl has married into a family, the latter cannot give a girl in marriage to that girl's family ever afterwards. Before the regular betrothal when a girl has been selected, they appoint a day and the bridegroom's party proceed outside the village to take the omens. If a bad omen occurs, they give up the idea of the match and choose another girl. When the bridegroom has arrived at the bride's village, before the marriage takes place, he performs the Kashi-Yatra or Going to Benares. He is dressed as for a journey and carries a small handful of rice and other provisions tied up in packages in his upper garment. Thus accoutred, he sets out with a stick and umbrella on a pretended visit to Benares, for the purpose of devoting his life to study. The parents of the bride meet him and beg him to give up the journey, promising him their daughter in marriage. [588] The binding function of the marriage is the tying of the mangal-sutram or piece of gold strung on a thread round the bride's neck by the bridegroom. This gold piece is called pushti and must never be taken off. If a woman loses it, she should hide herself from everybody until it is replaced. On the way to her husband's house, the bride should upset with her foot a measure of rice kept on purpose in the way, perhaps with the idea of showing that there will be so much grain in her household that she can afford to waste it. [589] The Komtis did not eat in kitchens in the famines, but accepted dry rations of food with great reluctance. They wear the sacred thread and have caste-marks on their foreheads. They usually rub powdered turmeric on their face and hands, and this lends an unpleasant greenish tinge to the skin.

Kori

1. Description of the caste.

Kori.--The Hindu weaving caste of northern India, as distinct from the Julahas or Momins who are Muhammadans. In 1911 the Koris numbered 35,000 persons, and resided mainly in Jubbulpore, Saugor and Damoh. Mr. Crooke states that their name has been derived from that of the Kol caste, of whom they have by some been assumed to be an offshoot. [590] The Koris themselves trace their origin from Kabir, the apostle of the weaving castes. He, they say, met a Brahman girl on the bank of a tank, and, being saluted by her, replied, 'May God give you a son.' She objected that she was a virgin and unmarried, but Kabir answered that his word could not fail; and a boy was born out of her hand, whom she left on the bank of the tank. He was suckled by a heifer and subsequently adopted by a weaver and was the ancestor of the Koris. Therefore the caste say of themselves: "He was born of an undefiled vessel, and free from passion; he lowered his body and entered the ocean of existence." This legend is a mere perversion of the story of Kabir himself, designed to give the Koris a distinguished pedigree. In the Central Provinces the caste appears to be almost entirely a functional group, made up of members of other castes who were either expelled from their own community or of their own accord adopted the profession of weaving. The principal subdivision is the Ahirwar, taking its name from the old town of Ahar in the Bulandshahr District. Among the others are Kushta (Koshta), Chadar, Katia, Mehra, Dhimar and Kotwar, all of which, except the last, are the names of distinct castes; while the Kotwars represent members of the caste who became village watchmen, and considering themselves somewhat superior to the others, have formed a separate subcaste. None of the subcastes will eat together or intermarry, and this fact is in favour of the supposition that they are distinct groups amalgamated into a caste by their common profession of weaving. The caste seem to have a fairly close connection with Chamars in some localities. A number of Koris belong to the sect of Rohidas, and some of their family names are the same, while a Chamar will often call himself a Kori to conceal his identity. For the purposes of marriage they are divided into a number of bainks or septs, the names of which are territorial or totemistic. Among the latter may be mentioned the Kulhariya from kulhari, an axe, and the Barmaiya from the bar or banyan tree; members of these septs pay reverence to an axe and a banyan tree respectively at weddings.

2. Marriages

The marriage of persons belonging to the same sept and also that of first cousins is prohibited, while a family will not, if they can help it, marry a daughter into the sept from which a son has taken a wife. The rule of exogamy is thus rather wide in its action, as is often found to be the case among the lowest and most primitive castes. At the betrothal the father of the girl produces a red cloth folded up, and on this the boy's father lays a rupee. This is passed round to five members of the caste who cry, 'So-and-so's daughter and So-and-so's son, Har bolo (In the name of Vishnu).' This completes the betrothal, the father of the boy giving three rupees for a feast to the caste-fellows. A girl who is made pregnant by a man of the caste or any higher caste may be disposed of in marriage as a widow, but if the man is of a lower caste than the Koris she is finally expelled. The lagan or paper fixing the date of the marriage is written by a Brahman and must not be shown to the bridegroom in the interval, lest he should grow as thin as the paper bearing his name. While he is being anointed and rubbed with turmeric the bridegroom is wrapped in a black blanket, and his bridal dress consists of a yellow shirt, pyjamas of red cloth, and red shoes, while he carries in his hand a dagger, nut-cracker or knife. As he leaves his house to proceed to the bride's village he steps on two clay lamp-saucers, crushing them with his foot. When the party arrives the fathers of the bride and bridegroom sit together with a pot full of curds between them and give each other to drink from it as a mark of amity. The binding portion of the marriage consists in walking round the sacred pole and the other ceremonies customary in the northern Districts are performed. The bride does not return with her husband unless she is adult; otherwise the usual gauna ceremony is held subsequently. When she arrives at her husband's house she makes prints of her hands smeared with turmeric on the wall before entering it for the first time. The remarriage of widows is freely permitted; the second husband takes the widow to his house after sunset, and here she is washed by the barber's wife and puts on glass bangles again, and new jewellery and clothes, if any are provided. No married woman may see her as she enters the house. The husband must give a feast to the caste-fellows, or at least to the panchayat or committee. Divorce is freely permitted on payment of a fine to the panchayat. When a man takes a second wife a sot or silver image of the deceased first wife is hung round her neck when she enters his house, and is worshipped on ceremonial occasions.

3. Customs at birth and death.

A child is named on the day after its birth by some woman of the caste; a Brahman is asked whether the day is auspicious, and he also chooses the name. If this is the same as that of any living relation or one recently dead, another name is given for ordinary use. A daughter-in-law is usually given a new name when she goes to her husband's house, such as Badi (elder), Manjhli (second son's wife), Bari (innocent or simple), Jabalpurwali (belonging to Jubbulpore), and so on. If a woman has borne only female children, the umbilical cord is sometimes put in a small earthen pot and buried at a place where three cross-roads meet, and it is supposed that the birth of a male child will follow. Children whose shaving ceremony has not been performed, and adults dying from snake-bite, cholera, smallpox or leprosy, are buried, while others are burnt. Children are carried to the grave in their parents' arms. On the return of a funeral party, liquor, provided by the relatives of the family, is drunk at the house of the deceased.

4. Religion.

The Koris worship the ordinary Hindu deities and especially Devi. They become inspired by this goddess at the Jawara festival and pierce their cheeks with iron needles and tridents. Every family has a household god or Kul-Deo to whom a small platform is erected; offerings other than animal sacrifices are made to him on festivals and on the celebration of a marriage.

5. Occupation and social status.

Those of the caste who are Kabirpanthis abstain from animal food, but the others eat the flesh of most animals except tame pig, and also drink liquor. Their social status is very low, but they are not usually considered as impure. Their women are tattooed on the right arm before marriage, and on the left after arrival at their husband's house. Like several other low castes, they do not wear nose-rings. The principal occupation of the caste is the weaving of coarse country cloth, but as the trade of the hand-weaver is nowadays precarious and unprofitable many of them have forsaken it and taken to cultivation or daily labour. Mr. Nesfield says of them: "The material used by the Kori is the thread supplied by the Dhunia (Bahna); and thus the weaver caste has risen imperceptibly out of that of the cotton-carder, in the same way as the cobbler caste has risen out of the tanner. The art of weaving and plaiting threads is very much the same process as that of plaiting osiers, reeds and grass, and converting them into baskets and mats. This circumstance explains the puzzle why the weaver caste in India stands at such a low social level. He, however, ranks several degrees above the Chamar or tanner; as, among Hindus, herbs and their products (cotton being of course included) are invariably considered pure, while the hides of dead animals are regarded as a pollution." This argument is part of Mr. Nesfield's theory that the rank of each caste depends on the period of civilisation at which its occupation came into being, which is scarcely tenable. The reason why the weavers rank so low may, perhaps, be that the Aryans when they settled in villages in northern India despised all handicrafts as derogatory to their dignity. These were left to the subject tribes, and as a large number of weavers would be required, the industry would necessarily be embraced by the bulk of those who formed the lowest stratum of the population, and has ever since remained in their hands. If cloth was first woven from the tree-cotton plant growing wild, the business of picking and weaving it would naturally have fallen to the non-Aryan jungle tribes, who afterwards became the impure menial and labouring castes of the villages.

The weaver is the proverbial butt of Hindu ridicule, like the tailor in England. 'One Gadaria will account for ten weavers'; 'Four weavers will spoil any business.' The following story also illustrates their stupidity: Twenty weavers got into a field of kans grass. They thought it was a tank and began swimming. When they got out they said, "Let us all count and see how many we are, in case anybody has been left in the tank." They counted and each left out himself, so that they all made out nineteen. Just then a Sowar came by, and they cried, to him, 'Oh, Sir, we were twenty, and one of us has been drowned in this tank.' The Sowar seeing that there was only a field of grass, counted them and found there were twenty; so he said, 'What will you give me if I find the twentieth?' They promised him a piece of cloth, on which the Sowar, taking his whip, lashed each of the weavers across the shoulders, counting as he did so. When he had counted twenty he took the cloth and rode away. Another story is that a weaver bought a buffalo for twenty rupees. His brother then came to him and wanted a share in the buffalo. They did not know how he should be given a share until at last the weaver said, "You go and pay the man who sold me the buffalo twenty rupees; and then you will have given as much as I have and will be half-owner of the buffalo." Which was done. The ridicule attaching to the weaver's occupation is due to its being considered proper for a woman rather than a man, and similar jests were current at the tailor's expense in England. In India the weaver probably takes the tailor's place because woven and not sewn clothes have hitherto been generally worn, as explained in the article on Darzi.

KORKU

List of Paragraphs

1. Distribution and origin. 2. Tribal legends. 3. Tribal subdivisions. 4. Marriage. Betrothal. 5. The marriage ceremony. 6. Religion. 7. The Bhumka. 8. Magical practices. 9. Funeral rites. 10. Appearance and social customs. 11. Character. 12. Inheritance. 13. Occupation. 14. Language.

1. Distribution and origin.

Korku. [591]--A Munda or a Kolarian tribe akin to the Korwas, with whom they have been identified in the India Census of 1901. They number about 150,000 persons in the Central Provinces and Berar, and belong to the west of the Satpura plateau, residing only in the Hoshangabad, Nimar, Betul and Chhindwara Districts. About 30,000 Korkus dwell in the Berar plain adjoining the Satpuras, and a few thousand belong to Bhopal. The word Korku means simply 'men' or 'tribesmen,' koru being their term for a man and ku a plural termination. The tribe have a language of their own, which resembles that of the Kols of Chota Nagpur. The language of the Korwas, another Munda tribe found in Chota Nagpur, is also known as Koraku or Korku, and one of their subcastes has the same name. [592] Some Korkus or Mowasis are found in Chota Nagpur, and Colonel Dalton considered them a branch of the Korwas. Another argument may be adduced from the sept names of the Korkus which are in many cases identical with those of the Kols and Korwas. There is little reason to doubt then that the Korkus are the same tribe as the Korwas, and both of these may be taken to be offshoots of the great Kol or Munda tribe. The Korkus have come much further west than their kinsmen, and between their residence on the Mahadeo or western Satpura hills and the Korwas and Kols, there lies a large expanse mainly peopled by the Gonds and other Dravidian tribes, though with a considerable sprinkling of Kols in Mandla, Jubbulpore and Bilaspur. These latter may have immigrated in comparatively recent times, but the Kolis of Bombay may not improbably be another offshoot of the Kols, who with the Korkus came west at a period before the commencement of authentic history. [593] One of the largest subdivisions of the Korkus is termed Mowasi, and this name is sometimes applied to the whole tribe, while the tract of country where they dwell was formerly known as the Mowas. Numerous derivations of this term have been given, and the one commonly accepted is that it signifies 'The troubled country,' and was applied to the hills at the time when bands of Koli or Korku freebooters, often led by dispossessed Rajput chieftains, harried the rich lowlands of Berar from their hill forts on the Satpuras, exacting from the Marathas, with poetical justice, the payments known as 'Tankha Mowasi' for the ransom of the settled and peaceful villages of the plains. The fact, however, that the Korkus found in Chota Nagpur are also known as Mowasi militates against this supposition, for if the name was applied only to the Korkus of the Satpura plateau it would hardly have travelled as far east as Chota Nagpur. Mr. Hislop derived it from the mahua tree. But at any rate Mowasi meant a robber to Maratha ears, and the forests of Kalibhit and Melghat are known as the Mowas.

2. Tribal legends.

According to their own traditions the Korkus like so many other early people were born from the soil. They state that Rawan, the demon king of Ceylon, observed that the Vindhyan and Satpura ranges were uninhabited and besought Mahadeo [594] to populate them. Mahadeo despatched his messenger, the crow Kageshwar, to find for him an ant-hill made of red earth, and the crow discovered such an ant-hill between the Saoligarh and Bhanwargarh ranges of Betul. Mahadeo went to the place, and, taking a handful of red earth, made images in the form of a man and a woman, but immediately two fiery horses sent by Indra rose from the earth and trampled the images to dust. For two days Mahadeo persisted in his attempts, but as often as the images were made they were destroyed in a similar manner. But at length the god made an image of a dog and breathed into it the breath of life, and this dog kept off the horses of Indra. Mahadeo then made again his two images of a man and woman, and giving them human life, called them Mula and Mulai with the surname of Pothre, and these two became the ancestors of the Korku tribe. Mahadeo then created various plants for their use, the mahul [595] from whose strong and fibrous leaves they could make aprons and head-coverings, the wild plantain whose leaves would afford other clothing, and the mahua, the chironji, the sewan and kullu [596] to provide them with food. Time went on and Mula and Mulai had children, and being dissatisfied with their condition as compared with that of their neighbours, besought Mahadeo to visit them once more. When he appeared Mula asked the god to give him grain to eat such as he had heard of elsewhere on the earth. Mahadeo sent the crow Kageshwar to look for grain, and he found it stored in the house of a Mang named Japre who lived at some distance within the hills. Japre on hearing what was required besought the honour of a visit from the god himself. Mahadeo went, and Japre laid before him an offering of 12 khandis [597] of grain, 12 goats and 12 buckets of water, and invited Mahadeo to eat and drink. The god was pleased with the offering and unwilling to reject it, but considered that he could not eat food defiled by the touch of the outcaste Mang, so Parvati created the giant Bhimsen and bade him eat up the food offered to Mahadeo. When Bhimsen had finished the offering, however, it occurred to him that he also had been defiled by taking food from a Mang, and in revenge he destroyed Japre's house and covered the site of it with débris and dirt. Japre then complained to Mahadeo of this sorry requital of his offering and prayed to have his house restored to him. Bhimsen was ordered to do this, and agreed to comply on condition that Mula should pay to him the same honour and worship as he accorded to Rawan, the demon king. Mula promised to do so, and Bhimsen then sent the crow Kageshwar to the tank Daldal, bidding him bring thence the pig Buddu, who being brought was ordered to eat up all the dirt that covered Japre's house. Buddu demurred except on condition that he also should be worshipped by Mula and his descendants for ever. Mula agreed to pay worship to him every third year, whereupon Buddu ate up all the dirt, and dying from the effects received the name of Mahabissum, under which he is worshipped to the present day. Mahadeo then took some seed from the Mang and planted it for Mula's use, and from it sprang the seven grains--kodon, kutki, gurgi, mandgi, barai, rala and dhan [598] which the Korkus principally cultivate. It may be noticed that the story ingeniously accounts for and sheds as it were an orthodox sanction on the custom of the Korkus of worshipping the pig and the local demon Bhimsen, who is placed on a sort of level with Rawan, the opponent of Rama. After recounting the above story Mr. Crosthwaite remarks: "This legend given by the Korkus of their creation bears a curious analogy to our own belief as set forth in the Old Testament. They even give the tradition of a flood, in which a crow plays the part of Noah's dove. There is a most curious similarity between their belief in this respect and that found in such distant and widely separated parts as Otaheite and Siberia. Remembering our own name 'Adam,' which I believe means in Hebrew 'made of red earth,' it is curious to observe the stress that is laid in the legend on the necessity for finding red earth for the making of man." Another story told by the Korkus with the object of providing themselves with Rajput ancestry is to the effect that their forefathers dwelt in the city of Dharanagar, the modern Dhar. It happened one day that they were out hunting and followed a sambhar stag, which fled on and on until it finally came to the Mahadeo or Pachmarhi hills and entered a cave. The hunters remained at the mouth waiting for the stag to come out, when a hermit appeared and gave them a handful of rice. This they at once cooked and ate as they were hungry from their long journey, and they found to their surprise that the rice sufficed for the whole party to eat their fill. The hermit then told them that he was the god Mahadeo, and had assumed the form of a stag in order to lead them to these hills, where they were to settle and worship him. They obeyed the command of the god, and a Korku zamindar is still the hereditary guardian of Mahadeo's shrine at Pachmarhi. This story has of course no historical value, and the Korkus have simply stolen the city of Dharanagar for their ancestral home from their neighbours the Bhoyars and Panwars. These castes relate similar stories, which may in their case be founded on fact.

3. Tribal subdivisions.

As is usual among the forest tribes the Korkus formerly had a subdivision called Raj-Korku, who were made up of landowning members of the caste and were admitted to rank among those from whom a Brahman would take water, while in some cases a spurious Rajput ancestry was devised for them, as in the story given above. The remainder of the tribe were called Potharia, or those to whom a certain dirty habit is imputed. These main divisions have, however, become more or less obsolete, and have been supplanted by four subcastes with territorial names, Mowasi, Bawaria, Ruma and Bondoya. The meaning of the term Mowasi has already been given, and this subcaste ranks as the highest, probably owing to the gentlemanly calling of armed robbery formerly practised by its members. The Bawarias are the dwellers in the Bhanwargarh tract of Betul, the Rumas those who belong to Basim and Gangra in the Amraoti District, and the Bondoyas the residents of the Jitgarh and Pachmarhi tract. These last are also called Bhovadaya and Bhopa, and this name has been corrupted into Bopchi in the Wardha District, a few hundred Bondoya Korkus who live there being known as Bopchi and considered a distinct caste. Except among the Mowasis, who usually marry in their own subcaste, the rule of endogamy is not strictly observed. The above description refers to Betul and Nimar, but in Hoshangabad, Mr. Crosthwaite says: "Four-fifths of the Korkus have been so affected by the spread of Brahmanical influence as to have ceased to differ in any marked way from the Hindu element in the population, and the Korku has become so civilised as to have learnt to be ashamed of being a Korku." Each subcaste has traditionally 36 exogamous septs, but the numbers have now increased. The sept names are generally taken from those of plants and animals. These were no doubt originally totemistic, but the Korkus now say that the names are derived from trees and other articles in or behind which the ancestors of each sept took refuge after being defeated in a great battle. Thus the ancestor of the Atkul sept hid in a gorge, that of the Bhuri Rana sept behind a dove's nest, that of the Dewda sept behind a rice plant, that of the Jambu sept behind a jamun tree, [599] that of the Kasada sept in the bed of a river, that of the Takhar sept behind a cucumber plant, that of the Sakum sept behind a teak tree, and so on. Other names are Banku or a forest-dweller; Bhurswa or Bhoyar, perhaps from the caste of that name; Basam or Baoria, the god of beehives; and Marskola or Mawasi, which the Korkus take to mean a field flooded by rain. One sept has the name Killibhasam, and its ancestor is said to have eaten the flesh of a heifer half-devoured by a tiger and parched by a forest fire. In Hoshangabad the legend of the battle is not known, and among the names given by Mr. Crosthwaite are Akandi, the benighted one; Tandil, a rat; and Chuthar, the flying black-bug. In a few cases the names of septs are Hindi or Marathi words, these perhaps affording a trace of the foundation of separate families by members of other castes. No totemistic usages are followed as a rule, but one curious instance may be given. One sept has the name lobo, which means a piece of cloth. But the word lobo also signifies 'to leak.' If a person says a sentence containing the word lobo in either signification before a member of the sept while he is eating, he will throw away the food before him as if it were contaminated and prepare a meal afresh. Ten of the septs [600] consider the regular marriage of girls to be inauspicious, and the members of these simply give away their daughters without performing a ceremony.

4. Marriage Betrothal.

Marriage between members of the same sept is prohibited and also the union of first cousins. The preliminaries to a marriage commence with the bali-dudna or arrangement of the match. The boy's father having selected a suitable bride for his son sends two elders of the caste to propose the match to her father, who as a matter of etiquette invariably declines it, swearing with great oaths that he will not allow his daughter to get married or that he will have a son-in-law who will serve for her. The messengers depart, but return again and again until the father's obduracy is overcome, which may take from six months to two years, while from nine to twelve months is considered a respectable period. When his consent is finally obtained the residents of the girl's village are called to hear it, and the compact is sealed with large potations of liquor. A ceremony of betrothal follows at which the daij or dowry is arranged, this signifying among the Korkus the compensation to be paid to the girl's father for the loss of her services. It is computed by a curious system of symbolic higgling. The women of the girl's party take two plates and place on them two heaps containing respectively ten and fifty seeds of a sort used for reckoning. The ten seeds on the first plate represent five rupees for the panchayat and five cloths for the mother, brother, paternal aunt and paternal and maternal uncles of the girl. The heap of fifty seeds indicates that Rs. 50 must be paid to the girl's father. When the plates are received by the boy's party they take away forty-five of the seeds from the larger heap and return the plate, to indicate that they will only pay five rupees to the girl's father. The women add twenty-five seeds and send back the plate again. The men then take away fifteen, thus advancing the bride-price to fifteen rupees. The women again add twenty-five seeds and send back the plate, and the men again take away twenty, and returning the remaining twenty which are taken as the sum agreed upon, in addition to the five cloths and five rupees for the panchayat. The total amount paid averages about Rs. 60. Wealthy men sometimes refuse this payment or exchange a bride for a bridegroom. The dowry should be paid before the wedding, and in default of this the bridegroom's father is made not a little uncomfortable at that festival. Should a betrothed girl die before marriage, the dowry does not abate and the parents of the girl have a right to stop her burial until it is paid. But if a father shows himself hard to please and refuses eligible offers, or if a daughter has fallen in love, as sometimes happens, she will leave her home quietly some morning and betake herself to the house of the man of her choice. If her young affections have not been engaged, she may select of her own accord a protector whose circumstances and position make him attractive, and preferably one whose mother is dead. Occasionally a girl will install herself in the house of a man who does not want her, and his position then is truly pitiable. He dare not turn her out as he would be punished by the caste for his want of gallantry, and his only course is to vacate his own house and leave her in possession. After a time his relations represent to her that the man she wants has gone on a journey and will not be back for a long time, and induce her to return to the paternal abode. But such a case is very rare.

5. The marriage ceremony.

The marriage ceremony resembles that of the Hindus but has one or two special features. After the customary cleaning of the house which should be performed on a Tuesday, the bridegroom is carried to the heap of stones which represents Mutua Deo, and there the Bhumka or priest invokes the various sylvan deities, offering to them the blood of chickens. Again when he is dressed for the wedding the boy is given a knife or dagger carrying a pierced lemon on the blade, and he and his parents and relatives proceed to a ber [601] or wild plum tree. The boy and his parents sit at the foot of the tree and are tied to it with a thread, while the Bhumka again spills the blood of a fowl on the roots of the tree and invokes the sun and moon, whom the Korkus consider to be their ultimate ancestors. The ber fruit may perhaps be selected as symbolising the red orb of the setting sun. The party then dance round the tree. When the wedding procession is formed the following ceremony takes place: A blanket is spread in the yard of the house and the bridegroom and his elder brother's wife are made to stand on it and embrace each other seven times. This may probably be a survival of the modified system of polyandry still practised by the Khonds, under which the younger brothers are allowed access to the elder brother's wife until their own marriage. The ceremony would then typify the cessation of this intercourse at the wedding of the boy. The procession must reach the bride's village on a Monday, a Wednesday or a Friday, a breach of this rule entailing a fine of Rs. 8 on the boy's father. On arrival at the bride's village its progress is barred by a rope stretched across the road by the bride's relatives, who must be given two pice each before it is removed. The bridegroom touches the marriage-shed with a bamboo fan. Next day the couple are seated in the shed and covered with a blanket on to which water is poured to symbolise the fertilising influence of rain. The groom ties a necklace of beads to the girl's neck, and the couple are then lifted up by the relatives and carried three times round the yard of the house, while they throw yellow-coloured rice at each other. Their clothes are tied together and they proceed to make an offering to Mutua Deo. In Hoshangabad, Mr. Crosthwaite states, the marriage ceremony is presided over by the bridegroom's aunt or other collateral female relative. The bride is hidden in her father's house. The aunt then enters carrying the bridegroom and searches for the bride. When the bride is found the brother-in-law of the bridegroom takes her up, and bride and bridegroom are then seated under a sheet. The rings worn on the little finger of the right hand are exchanged under the sheet and the clothes of the couple are knotted together. Then follow the sapta padi or seven steps round the post, and the ceremony concludes with a dance, a feast and an orgy of drunkenness. A priest takes no part in a Korku marriage ceremony, which is a purely social affair. If a man has only one daughter, or if he requires an assistant for his cultivation, he often makes his prospective son-in-law serve for his wife for a period varying from five to twelve years, the marriage being then celebrated at the father-in-law's expense. If the boy runs away with the girl before the end of his service, his parents have to pay to the girl's father five rupees for each year of the unexpired term. Marriage is usually adult, girls being wedded between the ages of ten and sixteen and boys at about twenty. Polygamy is freely practised by those who are well enough off to afford it, and instances are known of a man having as many as twelve wives living. A man must not marry his wife's younger sister if she is the widow of a member of his own sept nor his elder brother's widow if she is his wife's elder sister. Widow-marriage is allowed, and divorce may be effected by a simple proclamation of the fact to the panchayat in a caste assembly.

6. Religion.

The Korkus consider themselves as Hindus, and are held to have a better claim to a place in the social structure of Hinduism than most of the other forest tribes, as they worship the sun and moon which are Hindu deities and also Mahadeo. In truth, however, their religion, like that of many low Hindu castes, is almost purely animistic. The sun and moon are their principal deities, the name for these luminaries in their language being Gomaj, which is also the term for god or a god. The head of each family offers a white she-goat and a white fowl to the sun every third year, and the Korkus stand with the face to the sun when beginning to sow, and perform other ceremonies with the face turned to the east. The moon has no special observances, but as she is a female deity she is probably considered to participate in those paid to the sun. These gods are, however, scarcely expected to interest themselves in the happenings of a Korku's daily life, and the local godlings who are believed to regulate these are therefore propitiated with greater fervour. The three most important village deities are Dongar Deo, the god of the hills, who resides on the nearest hill outside the village and is worshipped at Dasahra with offerings of cocoanuts, limes, dates, vermilion and a goat; Mutua Deo, who is represented by a heap of stones within the village and receives a pig for a sacrifice, besides special oblations when disease and sickness are prevalent; and Mata, the goddess of smallpox, to whom cocoanuts and sweetmeats, but no animal sacrifices, are offered.

7. The Bhumka.

The priests of the Korkus are of two kinds--Parihars and Bhumkas. The Parihar may be any man who is visited with the divine afflatus or selected as a mouthpiece by the deity; that is to say, a man of hysterical disposition or one subject to epileptic fits. He is more a prophet than a priest, and is consulted only on special occasions. Parihars are also rare, but every village has its Bhumka, who performs the regular sacrifices to the village gods and the special ones entailed by disease or other calamities. On him devolves the dangerous duty of keeping tigers out of the boundaries. When a tiger visits the village the Bhumka repairs to Bagh Deo [602] and makes an offering to the god, promising to repeat it for so many years on condition that the tiger does not appear for that time. The tiger on his part never fails to fulfil the contract thus silently made, for he is pre-eminently an honourable upright beast, not faithless and treacherous like the leopard whom no contract can bind. Some Bhumkas, however, masters of the most powerful spells, are not obliged to rely on the traditional honour of the tiger, but compel his attendance before Bagh Deo; and such a Bhumka has been seen as a very Daniel among tigers muttering his incantations over two or three at a time as they crouched before him. Of one Bhumka in Kalibhit it is related that he had a fine large saj tree, into which, when he uttered his spells, he would drive a nail, and on this the tiger came and ratified the compact with his enormous paw, with which he deeply scored the bark. In this way some have lost their lives, victims of misplaced confidence in their own powers. [603] If a man is sick and it is desired to ascertain what god or spirit of an ancestor has sent the malady, a handful of grain is waved over the sick man and then carried to the Bhumka. He makes a heap of it on the floor, and, sitting over it, swings a lighted lamp suspended by four strings from his fingers. He then repeats slowly the name of the village deities and the sick man's ancestors, pausing between each, and the name at which the lamp stops swinging is that of the offended one. He then inquires in a similar manner whether the propitiation shall be a pig, a chicken, a goat, a cocoanut and so on. The office of Bhumka is usually, but not necessarily, hereditary, and a new one is frequently chosen by lot, this being also done when a new village is founded. All the villagers then sit in a line before the shrine of Mutua Deo, to whom a black and a white chicken are offered. The Parihar, or, if none be available, the oldest man present, then sets a pai [604] rolling before the line of men, and the person before whom it stops is marked out by this intervention of the deity as the new Bhumka. When a new village is to be founded a pai measure is filled with grain to a level with the brim, but with no head (this being known as a mundi or bald pai), and is placed before Mutua Deo in the evening and watched all night. In the morning the grain is poured out and again replaced in the measure; if it now fills this and also leaves enough for a head, and still more if it brims and runs over, it is a sign that the village will be very prosperous and that every cultivator's granaries will run over in the same way. But it is an evil omen if the grain does not fill up to the level of the rim of the measure. The explanation of the difference in bulk may be that the grains increase or decrease slightly in size according as the atmosphere is moist or dry, or perhaps the Bhumka works the oracle. The Bhumka usually receives contributions in grain from all the houses in the village; but occasionally each cultivator gives him a day's ploughing, a day's weeding and a day's wood-cutting free. The Bhumka is also employed in Hindu villages for the service of the village gods. But the belief in the powers of these deities is decaying, and with it the tribute paid to the Bhumka for securing their favour. Whereas formerly he received substantial contributions of grain on the same scale as a village menial, the cultivator will now often put him off with a basketful or even a handful, and say, 'I cannot spare you any more, Bhumka; you must make all the gods content with that.' In curing diseases the Parihar resorts to swindling tricks. He will tell the sick man that a sacrifice is necessary, asking for a goat if the patient can afford one. He will say it must be of a

## particular colour, as all black, white or red, so that the sick man's

family may have much trouble in finding one, and they naturally think the sacrifice is more efficacious in proportion to the difficulty they experience in arranging for it. If they cannot afford a goat the Parihar tells them to sacrifice a cock, and requires one whose feathers curl backwards, as they occasionally do. If the family is very poor any chicken which has come out of the shell, so long as it has a beak, will do duty for a cock. If a man has a pain in his body the Parihar will suck the place and produce small pieces of bone from his mouth, stained with vermilion to imitate blood, and say that he has extracted them from the patient's body. Perhaps the idea may be that the bones have been caused to enter his body and make him ill by the practice of magic. Formerly the Parihar had to prove his supernatural powers by whipping himself on the back with a rope into which the ends of nails were twisted, and to continue this ordeal for a period long enough to satisfy the villagers that he could not have borne it without some divine assistance. But this salutary custom has fallen into abeyance.

8. Magical practices.

The Korkus have the same belief in the efficacy of imitative and sympathetic magic as other primitive peoples. [605] Thus to injure an enemy, a clay image of him is made and pierced with a knife, in the belief that the real person will suffer in the same manner. If the clay can be taken from a place where his foot has made an impression in walking, or the image wrapped round with his hair, the charm is more efficacious. Or an image may be made with charcoal on some stolen portion of his apparel, and similarly wrapped in his hair; it is then burnt in the belief that the real person will be attacked by fever. Sometimes the image is buried in a place where it is likely that the victim will walk over it, when the same result is hoped for. In order to produce rain, a frog, as the animal delighting in the element of water, is caught and slung on a stick; the boys and girls then carry it from house to house and the householders pour water over it. If it is desired to stop rain a frog is caught and buried alive, this being done by a naked boy. Another device for producing rain is to yoke two naked women to a plough, who are then driven across a field like bullocks and goaded by a third naked woman. This device may possibly be intended to cause the gods to send rain, by showing how the natural order of the world is upset and reversed by the continued drought. In order to stop rain an unmarried youth collects water in a new earthen pot from the eaves and buries it below the hearth so that the water may disappear by evaporation and the rain may cease in the same manner. Another method is to send a man belonging to the Kasada sept--Kasada meaning slime--to bring a plough from the field and place it in his house. He also stops bathing or washing for the period for which a break in the rains is required, and the idea is perhaps that as the man whose name and nature are mud or slime is dry so the mud on the earth will dry up; and as the plough is dry, the ploughed fields which have been in contact with it will also become dry. In order to produce a quarrel the quills of a porcupine are smoked with the burnt parings of an enemy's nails and deposited in the eaves of his house. And as the fretful porcupine raises his quills when angry with an enemy, these will have the effect of causing strife among the members of the household. If a person wishes to transfer his sickness to another, he obtains the latter's cloth and draws on it with lamp-black two effigies, one upright and the other upside down. As soon as the owner puts on the cloth, he will fall a victim to the ailment of the person who drew the effigies. In order to obtain children the hair of a woman who has borne several is secured by a barren woman and buried below her bathing-stone, when the quality of fertility will be transferred to her from the owner of the hair. In order to facilitate child-birth a twisted thread is untwined before the eyes of the pregnant woman with the idea that the delivery will thus be made direct and easy; or she is given water to drink in which her husband's left leg, a gun-barrel, a pestle, or a thunder-bolt has been washed; it being supposed that as each of these articles has the quality of direct and powerful propulsion, this quality will be conveyed to the woman and enable her to propel the child from her womb. The Korkus also trust largely to omens. It is inauspicious when starting out on some business to see a black-faced monkey or a hare passing either on the left or right, or a snake crossing in front. A person seeing any of these will usually return and postpone his business to a more favourable occasion. It is a bad omen for a hen to cackle or lay eggs at night. One sneeze is a bad omen, but two neutralise the effect and are favourable. An empty pot is a bad omen and a full one good. To break a pot when commencing any business is fatal, and shows that the work will come to naught. Thursdays and Fridays are favourable days for working, and Mondays and Tuesdays for propitiating one's ancestors. Odd numbers are lucky. In order to lay to rest the spirit of a dead person, who it is feared may trouble the living, five pieces of bamboo are taken as representing the bones of the dead man, and these with five crab's legs, five grains of rice and other articles are put into a basket and thrust into a crab's hole under water. The occasion is made an excuse for much feasting and drinking, and the son or other representative who lays the spirit works himself up into a state of drunken excitement before he enters the water to search for a suitable hole. The fat of a tiger is considered to be an excellent medicine for rheumatism and sprains, and much store is set by it. The tiger's tongue is also supposed to be a very powerful tonic or strengthening medicine for weakly children. It is cooked, pounded up, and a small quantity administered in milk or water. When a tiger has been killed the Gonds and Korkus will singe off his whiskers, as they think this will prevent the tiger's spirit from haunting them. Another idea is that the whiskers if chopped up and mixed in the food of an enemy will poison him. They frequently object to touch a man who has been injured or mauled by a tiger, as they think that to do so would bring down the tiger's vengeance on them. And in some places any Gond or Korku who touches a man mauled by a tiger is put temporarily out of caste and has to be purified and give a feast on readmission.

9. Funeral rites.

The dead are usually buried, two pice being first thrown into the grave to buy the site. The body is laid on its back, naked and with the head pointing to the south. The earth is mixed with briars and thorns while being filled in so as to keep off hyenas, and stones are placed over the grave. No fixed period of mourning is observed, but after the lapse of some days, the deceased's family or relatives go to the burial-place, taking with them a piece of turmeric. This they cut into strips, and, placing them in a leaf-cup, pour water over them. As the water falls on the tomb, a god is called to witness that this day the dead man's spirit has been sent to live with the ancestors. The pieces of turmeric are then tied in a cloth which, after receiving an oblation of fowl's blood, is suspended from the main beam of the house, this being considered the dwelling-place of the departed. This ceremony, called Pitar Miloni, is the first rite for the admission of the deceased with the spirits of his ancestors, and is preliminary to the final ceremony of Sedoli which may be performed at any time between four months and fifteen years after the death. But until it is complete the spirit of the deceased has not been laid finally to rest and has the power of sending aches and pains to molest the bodies of its living relatives. Each sept has a place in which the Sedoli rites must be performed, and however far the Korku may have wandered from the original centre of his tribe, he must return there to set his father's spirit at rest and enable it to join the ancestral ghosts. When the Sedoli is to be performed an unblemished teak or salai [606] tree is selected and wrapped round with a thread, while seven circuits of it are made and a bottle of liquor and two pice are offered as purchase money. It is then cut down and brought home, and from it a smooth stake called munda is fashioned, 24 to 30 inches high, and squared or pointed at the top, often being arrow-headed. On it are carved representations of the sun and moon, a spider and a human ear, and below these a figure representing the principal person in whose honour the stake is erected, on horseback with weapons in his hand. The proper method is to have one munda for each ancestor, but poor persons make one do for several and their figures are then carved below. But care must be taken that the total number of figures representing the dead does not exceed that of the members of the family who have died during the period for which the Sedoli is performed. For in that case another person is likely to die for each extra figure. The little bags of turmeric representing the ancestors are then taken from the main beam of the house and carried with the munda to the burial-place. There a goat is sacrificed and these articles are besmeared with its blood, after which a feast is held accompanied by singing and dancing. Next day the party again go to the burial-place and plant the munda in it, placing two pice in the hole beneath it. They then proceed to the riverside, and, making a little ball from the flesh of the sacrificed animal, place it together with the bags of turmeric on a leaf platter, and throw the whole into the river saying, 'Ancestors, find your home.' If the ball sinks at once they consider that the ancestors have been successful, but if any delay takes place, they attribute it to the difficulty experienced by the ancestors in the selection of a home and throw in two pice to assist them. The pith of a bamboo may be substituted for turmeric to represent the bones. The dead are supposed to inhabit a village of their own similar to that in which they dwelt on earth and to lead there a colourless existence devoid alike of pleasure and of pain.

10. Appearance and social customs.

The following description of the Korkus is given by Major Forsyth in the Nimar Settlement Report of 1868-69, with the addition of some remarks made by other observers. The Korkus are well built and muscular. The average Korku has a round face, a nose rather wide but not flat like a negro's, prominent cheek-bones, a scanty moustache and his head shaved after the Hindu fashion. They are slightly taller than the Gond, a shade darker and a good many shades dirtier. In the wilder parts one may come across some quite too awful Korkus, from whom an intervening space of fifty yards is an insufficient protection, though strange to say there are no less than six words in their language which mean 'to wash'; one to wash the whole body, one the limbs, one for the face, one for the mouth, one for the hair and one for the clothes, besides a word for scouring the body with a stone and another word for bathing in a stream. Their habitations on the other hand present quite a contrast to their individual want of cleanliness. They build their villages of a close bamboo wattle-work and with almost Swisslike neatness, a picturesque site being usually chosen, and the plan being one long street with a wide open roadway, or several such parallel with each other. The villages are kept remarkably clean, in striking contrast to the habitations of other aboriginal tribes. The average village contains about twenty huts, and it is the custom to bind these so closely together that forest fires often sweep through a whole village before a hut can be removed to check their course. The average hut is about fifteen feet square with a rather flat roof covered with loose grass over a layer of leaves and pressed down by outside poles. No nails are required as the posts are bound firmly together with bamboo or creeper fibre. The inmates generally sleep on the ground, and a few low stools carved from teak wood serve them for pillows. Every village has a few pigs and fowls running about, both of which are eaten after being sacrificed. The Korku is an adept in the crude process of distillation in which the only apparatus required consists of two gharas or earthen pots, a hollow bamboo, some mahua flowers, water and a fire. By this means the Korku manages to produce liquor upon which he can effectually get drunk. They are by no means particular about what they eat. Fowls, pork, fish, crabs and tortoise are all consumed, and beef and rats are eaten in some localities but not in others. The Ruma and Bondoya Korkus eat buffaloes, and the latter add monkeys to an already comprehensive dietary. The lowest caste with whom they are said to eat are Kolis. They do not eat with Gonds. Gonds, Mangs, Basors and a few other low castes take food from them and also, it is said, Bhils. The Korkus will freely admit members of the higher castes into the community, and a woman incurs no social penalty for a liaison with a member of any caste from which a Korku can take food. But if she goes wrong with a low-caste man she is permanently expelled and a fine of Rs. 40 is exacted from the parents before they are readmitted to social intercourse. In the case of adultery with a member of the caste, if the husband does not wish to keep his wife, the offending parties have a lock of hair cut off and give a dinner, and are then considered to be married. But if the husband does not turn his wife away, he, on his wife's account, and the seducer must give a joint dinner to the caste. They have a tribal council or panchayat which inflicts the usual penalties for social offences, while in very serious cases, such as intercourse with a low caste, it causes the offender to be born again. He is placed inside a large earthen pot which is sealed up, and when taken out of this he is said to be born again from his mother's womb. He is then buried in sand and comes out as a fresh incarnation from the earth, placed in a grass hut which is fired, and from within which he runs out as it is burning, immersed in water, and finally has a tuft cut from his scalp-lock and is fined two and a half rupees. The Korkus as a race are very poor, and a poor Korku manages to exist with even less clothing than a poor Gond. A loincloth of the scantiest and a wisp of turban coiled on the top of the head and leaving the centre of the skull uncovered form his complete costume for dry weather. Sometimes a large brass chain is worn in the turban or attached to the waist, and to it are suspended a flint and steel and a small dry gourd full of cotton--the implements for obtaining fire. It is also common to wear a large brass ring in one ear. A special habit of the Korku in Nimar, Major Forsyth states, is to carry a small bamboo flute behind the ear like a pen, from which he discourses a not unpleasant strain, chiefly when drunk or engaged in propitiating Bagh Deo, Devi or any other dread power whom he reverences. The women as a rule wear only a dirty white sari and are loaded with cheap ornaments. Necklaces of beads are worn on the neck, covering the chest, while the arms and legs are weighed down with brass and iron.

11. Character.

Like most hill tribes the Korkus are remarkably honest and truthful, slow at calculation and very indignant at being cheated. They are very improvident and great drunkards, and it is the latter habit which has aggravated the obstacles to their improvement.

12. Inheritance.

The Korku law of inheritance differs somewhat from that of the Hindus. Among them a grandson does not inherit the property of his grandfather unless it is openly and clearly granted to him during the latter's lifetime. A married son living separately from his father has no right of succession to the paternal property, but if he is unmarried, he receives half the share of a son who is living with his father. A daughter or a daughter's son does not inherit the father's property unless it is granted to either of them by a deed of gift. The sons and mother share equally.

13. Occupation.

The Korkus formerly lived principally by hunting, and practised the shifting cultivation in the forests which is now forbidden. Very few of them are landowners, but some large zamindari estates in Hoshangabad and Chhindwara are held by Korku proprietors, who are protected by the prohibition of alienation. Though too improvident and lazy to be good cultivators, they are in great request as farmservants and ploughmen, being too honest to defraud their master of labour or material. A remarkable change has thus taken place from their former character of notorious robbers. They cultivate mainly in the hilly tracts and grow light grains, though some have colonised the waste lands of the upper Tapti valley in Nimar and raise good crops of wheat. They do not as a rule keep cattle other than the few oxen required for cultivating the soil and hauling out timber. Game of all kinds is caught by means of heavy log traps for the larger varieties such as sambhar, bear and spotted deer and even leopard; while hares, jungle-fowl and the smaller sort of game are caught under heavy stones held up by nicely adjusted strings. Occasionally, when in search of meat, a whole village will sally out into the forest. The shikari has generally a matchlock concealed in some hiding-place in the jungle, and once he is posted the others beat towards him and any animal that turns up is shot at. In the hot weather the water-hole and the bow and arrow play no small

## part in helping to fill the Korku larder. Another method of catching

birds is to spread the pounded fruit of a certain parasitic airplant on a rock. A thick shining gum exudes which so entangles the feet of the smaller birds as to prevent their escape. Fish dams are built when the water subsides after the rains, and a cylindrical basket six or eight feet in length being adjusted at the outlet, the fish are driven into this from above. During the hot season the fruit of the ghetu is thrown into the pools, and this stupefies the fish and causes them to float on the surface of the water, where they are easily caught.

14. Language.

The Korkus have a language of their own which belongs to the Kolarian or Munda sub-family. Dr. Grierson says of it: "The Munda, sometimes called the Kolarian family, is probably the older branch of the Dravido-Munda languages. It exhibits the characteristics of an agglutinative language to an extraordinarily complete degree." In the Central Provinces nearly 90 per cent of Korkus were returned as speaking their own language in 1911. Mr. Crosthwaite remarks: "The language is in a state of decay and transition, and Hindi and Marathi terms have crept into its vocabulary. But very few Gondi words have been adopted. A grammar of the Korku language by Drake has been printed at the Baptist Mission Press, Calcutta."

KORWA

List of Paragraphs

1. General notice. 2. Physical appearance. 3. Subdivisions. 4. Marriage customs. 5. Funeral rites. 6. Religion. 7. Social customs. 8. Dancing. 9. Occupation. 10. Dacoity. 11. Folk-tales.

1. General notice.

Korwa. [607]--A Kolarian tribe of the Chota Nagpur plateau. In 1911 about 34,000 Korwas were returned in the Central Provinces, the great bulk of whom belong to the Sarguja and Jashpur States and a few to the Bilaspur District. The Korwas are one of the wildest tribes. Colonel Dalton writes of them: [608] "Mixed up with the Asuras and not greatly differing from them, except that they are more cultivators of the soil than smelters, we first meet the Korwas, a few stragglers of the tribe which under that name take up the dropped links of the Kolarian chain, and carry it on west, over the Sarguja, Jashpur and Palamau highlands till it reaches another cognate tribe, the Kurs (Korkus) or Muasis of Rewah and the Central Provinces, and passes from the Vindhyan to the Satpura range.

"In the fertile valleys that skirt and wind among the plateaus other tribes are now found intermixed with the Korwas, but all admit that the latter were first in the field and were at one time masters of the whole; and we have good confirmatory proof of their being the first settlers in the fact that for the propitiation of the local spirits Korwa Baigas are always selected. There were in existence within the last twenty years, as highland chiefs and holders of manors, four Korwa notables, two in Sarguja and two in Jashpur; all four estates were valuable, as they comprised substantial villages in the fertile plains held by industrious cultivators, and great tracts of hill country on which were scattered the hamlets of their more savage followers. The Sarguja Korwa chiefs were, however, continually at strife with the Sarguja Raja, and for various acts of rebellion against the Lord Paramount lost manor after manor till to each but one or two villages remained. The two Jashpur thanes conducted themselves right loyally at the crucial period of the Mutiny and they are now prosperous gentlemen in full enjoyment of their estates, the only Korwa families left that keep up any appearance of respectability. One of them is the hereditary Diwan of Jashpur, lord of the mountain tract of Khuria and Maini, and chief of perhaps two-thirds of the whole tribe of Korwas. The other holds an estate called Kakia comprising twenty-two villages.

2. Physical appearance.

"The hill Korwas are the most savage-looking of all the Kolarian tribes. They are frightfully wild and uncouth in their appearance, and have good-humouredly accepted the following singular tradition to account for it. They say that the first human beings that settled in Sarguja, being very much troubled by the depredations of wild beasts on their crops, put up scarecrows in their fields, figures made of bamboos dangling in the air, the most hideous caricatures of humanity that they could devise to frighten the animals. When the great spirit saw the scarecrow he hit on an expedient to save his votaries the trouble of reconstructing them. He animated the dangling figures, thus bringing into existence creatures ugly enough to frighten all the birds and beasts in creation, and they were the ancestors of the wild Korwas."

This legend is not peculiar to the Korwas but is also told by the Halbas, Lodhis and other castes, and is a favourite Brahmanical device for accounting for the existence of the autochthonous tribes.

"The Korwas," Dalton continues, "are short of stature and dark brown in complexion, strongly built and active, with good muscular development, but, as appeared to me, disproportionately short-legged. The average height of twenty Sarguja Korwas that I measured was 5 feet 3 inches and of their women 4 feet 9 inches only. Notwithstanding the scarecrow tradition the Korwas are, as a rule, better-looking than the Gonds and Oraons. The males, I noticed, were more hirsute than the generality of their cognates, many of them cultivating beards or rather not interfering with their spontaneous growth, for in truth in their toilets there is nothing like cultivation. They are as utterly ungroomed as the wildest animals. The neglected back hair grows in matted tails which fall behind like badly-frayed ropes, or is massed in a chignon of gigantic proportions, as preposterous as any that the present tasteless period has produced; sticking out behind sometimes a foot from the back of the head.

"The women appear ground down by the hard work imposed on them, stunted in growth, black, ugly, and wretchedly clad, some having only a few dirty rags tied round their persons, and in other respects untidy and unclean."

It is noticeable that the Korwas have a subtribe called Koraku, and like the Korkus of the Satpura range they are called Muasi, a term having the meaning of raider or robber. Mr. Crooke thinks that the Korwas and Korkus are probably branches of the same tribe, but Sir G. Grierson dissents from this opinion. He states that the Korwa dialect is most closely related to Asuri and resembles Mundari and Santali. The Korwas have the honorific title of Manjhi, also used by the Santals. The Korba zamindari in Bilaspur is probably named after the Korwas.

3. Subdivisions.

The principal subdivisions of the tribe are the Diharia or Kisan Korwas, those who live in villages (dih) and cultivate, and the Paharia Korwas of the hills, who are also called Benwaria from their practising bewar or shifting cultivation. Two minor groups are the Koraku or young men, from kora, a young man, and the Birjias, who are probably the descendants of mixed marriages between Korwas and the tribe of that name, themselves an offshoot of the Baigas. The tribe is also divided into totemistic exogamous septs.

4. Marriage customs.

Marriage within the sept is forbidden, but this appears to be the only restriction. In Korba the Paharia Korwas are said to marry their own sisters on occasion. The ordinary bride-price is Rs. 12. In Bilaspur there is reported to be no regular marriage feast, but the people dance together round a big earthen drum, called mandhar, which is played in the centre. This is bound with strips of leather along the sides and leather faces at the ends to be played on by the hands. They dance in a circle taking hands, men and women being placed alternately. Among the Paharia Korwas of Sarguja, Mr. Kunte states, the consent of the parents is not required, and boys and girls arrange their own weddings. Men who can afford the bride-price have a number of wives, sometimes as many as eight or ten. After she has had a child each wife lives and cooks her food separately, but gives a part of it to her husband. The women bring roots and herbs from the forest and feed their husbands, so that the man with several wives enjoys a larger share of creature comforts. Among these people adultery is said to be very rare, but if a woman is detected in adultery she is at once made over to the partner of her act and becomes his wife. Divorce and the remarriage of widows are permitted, and a widow usually marries her late husband's younger brother, though she is not obliged to do so. A husband divorcing his wife is obliged to feed the caste for five days.

5. Funeral rites.

The tribe bury the dead, placing the corpse in the grave with the head to the south. A little rice is buried with the corpse. In Bilaspur the dead are buried in the forest, and the graves of old men are covered with branches of the sal [609] tree. Then they go to a little distance and make a fire, and pour ghi and incense on it as an offering to the ancestors, and when they hear a noise in the forest they take it to be the voice of the dead man. When a man dies his hut is broken down and they do not live in it again. The bodies of children under five are buried either in the house or under the shade of a banyan tree, probably with the idea that the spirit will come back and be born again. They say that a banyan tree is chosen because it lives longest of all trees and is evergreen, and hence it is supposed that the child's spirit will also live out its proper span instead of being untimely cut off in its next birth.

6. Religion.

The Korwas worship Dulha Deo, the bridegroom god of the Gonds, and in Sarguja their principal deity is Khuria Rani, the tutelary goddess of the Khuria plateau. She is a bloodthirsty goddess and requires animal sacrifices; formerly at special sacrifices 30 or 40 buffaloes were slaughtered as well as an unlimited number of goats. [610] Thakur Deo, who is usually considered a corn-god, dwells in a sacred grove, of which no tree or branch may be cut or broken. The penalty for breach of the rules is a goat, but an exception is allowed if an animal has to be pursued and killed in the grove. Thakur Deo protects the village from epidemic disease such as cholera and smallpox. The Korwas have three festivals: the Deothan is observed on the full moon day of Pus (December), and all their gods are worshipped; the Nawanna or harvest festival falls in Kunwar (September), when the new grain is eaten; and the Faguwa or Holi is the common celebration of the spring and the new vegetation.

7. Social customs.

The Korwas do not admit outsiders into the tribe. They will take food from a Gond or Kawar, but not from a Brahman. A man is permanently expelled from caste for a liaison with a woman of the impure Ganda and Ghasia castes, and a woman for adultery with any person other than a Korwa. Women are tattooed with patterns of dots on the arms, breasts and feet, and a girl must have this operation done before she can be married. Neither men nor women ever cut their hair.

8. Dancing.

Of their appearance at a dance Colonel Dalton states: [611] "Forming a huge circle, or rather coil, they hooked on to each other and wildly danced. In their hands they sternly grasped their weapons, the long stiff bow and arrows with bright, broad, barbed heads and spirally-feathered reed shafts in the left hand, and the gleaming battle-axe in the right. Some of the men accompanied the singing on deep-toned drums and all sang. A few scantily-clad females formed the inner curl of the coil, but in the centre was the Choragus who played on a stringed instrument, promoting by his grotesque motions unbounded hilarity, and keeping up the spirit of the dancers by his unflagging energy. Their matted back hair was either massed into a chignon, sticking out from the back of the head like a handle, from which spare arrows depended hanging by the bands, or was divided into clusters of long matted tails, each supporting a spare arrow, which, flinging about as they sprang to the lively movements of the dance, added greatly to the dramatic effect and the wildness of their appearance. The women were very diminutive creatures, on the average a foot shorter than their lords, clothed in scanty rags, and with no ornaments except a few tufts of cotton dyed red taking the place of flowers in the hair, a common practice also with the Santal girls. Both tribes are fond of the flower of the cockscomb for this purpose, and when that is not procurable, use the red cotton."

They dance the karma dance in the autumn, thinking that it will procure them good crops, the dance being a kind of ritual or service and accompanied by songs in praise of the gods. If the rains fail they dance every night in the belief that the gods will be propitiated and send rain.

9. Occupation.

Of their occupation Colonel Dalton states: "The Korwas cultivate newly cleared ground, changing their homesteads every two or three years to have command of virgin soil. They sow rice that ripens in the summer, vetches, millets, pumpkins, cucumbers--some of gigantic size--sweet potatoes, yams and chillies. They also grow and prepare arrowroot and have a wild kind which they use and sell. They have as keen a knowledge of what is edible among the spontaneous products of the jungle as have monkeys, and have often to use this knowledge for self-preservation, as they are frequently subjected to failure of crops, while even in favourable seasons some of them do not raise sufficient for the year's consumption; but the best of this description of food is neither palatable nor wholesome. They brought to me nine different kinds of edible roots, and descanted so earnestly on the delicate flavour and nutritive qualities of some of them, that I was induced to have two or three varieties cooked under their instructions and served up, but the result was far from pleasant; my civilised stomach indignantly repelled the savage food, and was not pacified till it had made me suffer for some hours from cold sweat, sickness and giddiness." [612]

10. Dacoity.

The Korwas in the Tributary States have other resources than these. They are expert hunters, and to kill a bird flying or an animal running is their greatest delight. They do not care to kill their game without rousing it first. They are also very fond of dacoity and often proceed on expeditions, their victims being usually travellers, or the Ahirs who bring large herds of cattle to graze in the Sarguja forests. These cattle do much damage to the village crops, and hence the Korwas have a standing feud with the herdsmen. They think nothing of murder, and when asked why he committed a murder, a Korwa will reply, 'I did it for my pleasure'; but they despise both house-breaking and theft as cowardly offences, and are seldom or never guilty of them. The women are also of an adventurous disposition and often accompany their husbands on raids. Before starting they take the omens. They throw some rice before a chicken, and if the bird picks up large solid grains first they think that a substantial booty is intended, but if it chooses the thin and withered grains that the expedition will have poor results. One of their bad omens is that a child should begin to cry before the expedition starts; and Mr. Kunte, who has furnished the above account, relates that on one occasion when a Korwa was about to start on a looting expedition his two-year-old child began to cry. He was enraged at the omen, and picking up the child by the feet dashed its brains out against a stone.

11. Folk-tales.

Before going out hunting the Korwas tell each other hunting tales, and they think that the effect of doing this is to bring them success in the chase. A specimen of one of these tales is as follows: There were seven brothers and they went out hunting. The youngest brother's name was Chilhra. They had a beat, and four of them lay in ambush with their bows and arrows. A deer came past Chilhra and he shot an arrow at it, but missed. Then all the brothers were very angry with Chilhra and they said to him, "We have been wandering about hungry for the whole day, and you have let our prey escape." Then the brothers got a lot of mahul [613] fibre and twisted it into rope, and from the rope they wove a bag. And they forced Chilhra into this bag, and tied up the mouth and threw it into the river where there was a whirlpool. Then they went home. Now Chilhra's bag was spinning round and round in the whirlpool when suddenly a sambhar stag came out of the forest and walked down to the river to drink opposite the pool. Chilhra cried out to the sambhar to pull his bag ashore and save him. The sambhar took pity on him, and seizing the bag in his teeth pulled it out of the water on to the bank. Chilhra then asked the sambhar after he had quenched his thirst to free him from the bag. The sambhar drank and then came and bit through the mahul ropes till Chilhra could get out. He then proposed to the sambhar to try and get into the bag to see if it would hold him. The sambhar agreed, but no sooner had he got inside than Chilhra tied up the bag, threw it over his shoulder and went home. When the brothers saw him they were greatly astonished, and asked him how he had got out of the bag and caught a sambhar, and Chilhra told them. Then they killed and ate the sambhar. Then all the brothers said to Chilhra that he should tie them up in bags as he had been tied and throw them into the river, so that they might each catch and bring home a sambhar. So they made six bags and went to the river, and Chilhra tied them up securely and threw them into the river, when they were all quickly drowned. But Chilhra went home and lived happily ever afterwards.

In this story we observe the low standard of moral feeling noticeable among many primitive races, in the fact that the ingratitude displayed by Chilhra in deceiving and killing the sambhar who had saved his life conveys no shock to the moral sense of the Korwas. If the episode had been considered discreditable to the hero Chilhra, it would not have found a place in the tale.

The following is another folk-tale of the characteristic type of fairy story found all over the world. This as well as the last has been furnished by Mr. Narbad Dhanu Sao, Assistant Manager, Uprora:

A certain rich man, a banker and moneylender (Sahu), had twelve sons. He got them all married and they went out on a journey to trade. There came a holy mendicant to the house of the rich man and asked for alms. The banker was giving him alms, but the saint said he would only take them from his son or son's wife. As his sons were away the rich man called his daughter-in-law, and she began to give alms to the saint. But he caught her up and carried her off. Then her father-in-law went to search for her, saying that he would not return until he had found her. He came to the saint's house upon a mountain and said to him, 'Why did you carry off my son's wife?' The saint said to him, 'What can you do?' and turned him into stone by waving his hand. Then all the other brothers went in turn to search for her down to the youngest, and all were turned into stone. At last the youngest brother set out to search but he did not go to the saint, but travelled across the sea and sat under a tree on the other side. In that tree was the nest with young of the Raigidan and Jatagidan [614] birds. A snake was climbing up the tree to eat the nestlings, and the youngest brother saw the snake and killed it. When the parent birds returned the young birds said, "We will not eat or drink till you have rewarded this boy who killed the snake which was climbing the tree to devour us." Then the parent birds said to the boy, 'Ask of us whatever you will and we will give it to you.' And the boy said,' I want only a gold parrot in a gold cage.' Then the parent birds said, "You have asked nothing of us, ask for something more; but if you will accept only a gold parrot in a gold cage wait here a little and we will fly across the sea and get it for you." So they brought the parrot and cage, and the youngest brother took them and went home. Immediately the saint came to him and asked him for the gold parrot and cage because the saint's soul was in that parrot. Then the youngest brother told him to dance and he would give him the parrot; and the saint danced, and his legs and arms were broken one after the other, as often as he asked for the parrot and cage. Then the youngest brother buried the saint's body and went to his house and passed his hands before all the stone images and they all came to life again.

KOSHTI

List of Paragraphs

1. General notice. 2. Subdivisions. 3. Marriage. 4. Funeral customs. 5. Religion. 6. Superstitions. 7. Clothes, etc. 8. Social rules and status. 9. Occupation.

1. General notice.

Koshti, Koshta, Salewar. [615]--The Maratha and Telugu caste of weavers of silk and fine cotton cloth. They belong principally to the Nagpur and Chhattisgarh Divisions of the Central Provinces, where they totalled 157,000 persons in 1901, while 1300 were returned from Berar. Koshti is the Marathi and Salewar the Telugu name. Koshti may perhaps have something to do with kosa or tasar silk; Salewar is said to be from the Sanskrit Salika, a weaver, [616] and to be connected with the common word sari, the name for a woman's cloth; while the English 'shawl' may be a derivative from the same root. The caste suppose themselves to be descended from the famous Saint Markandi Rishi, who, they say, first wove cloth from the fibres of the lotus flower to clothe the nakedness of the gods. In reward for this he was married to the daughter of Surya, the sun, and received with her as dowry a giant named Bhavani and a tiger. But the giant was disobedient, and so Markandi killed him, and from his bones fashioned the first weaver's loom. [617] The tiger remained obedient to Markandi, and the Koshtis think that he still respects them as his descendants; so that if a Koshti should meet a tiger in the forest and say the name of Markandi, the tiger will pass by and not molest him; and they say that no Koshti has ever been killed by a tiger. On their side they will not kill or injure a tiger, and at their weddings the Bhat or genealogist brings a picture of a tiger attached to his sacred scroll, known as Padgia, and the Koshtis worship the picture. A Koshti will not join in a beat for tiger for the same reason; and other Hindus say that if he did the tiger would single him out and kill him, presumably in revenge for his breaking the pact of peace between them. They also worship the Singhwahini Devi, or Devi riding on a tiger, from which it may probably be deduced that the tiger itself was formerly the deity, and has now developed into an anthropomorphic goddess.

2. Subdivisions.

The caste have several subdivisions of different types. The Halbis appear to be an offshoot of the primitive Halba tribe, who have taken to weaving; the Lad Koshtis come from Gujarat, the Gadhewal from Garha or Jubbulpore, the Deshkar and Martha from the Maratha country, while the Dewangan probably take their name from the old town of that name on the Wardha river. The Patwis are dyers, and colour the silk thread which the weavers use to border their cotton cloth. It is usually dyed red with lac. They also make braid and sew silk thread on ornaments like the separate Patwa caste. And the Onkule are the offspring of illegitimate unions. In Berar there is a separate subcaste named Hatghar, which may be a branch of the Dhangar or shepherd caste. Berar also has a group known as Jain Koshtis, who may formerly have professed the Jain religion, but are now strict Sivites. [618] The Salewars are said to be divided into the Sutsale or thread-weavers, the Padmasale or those who originally wove the lotus flower and the Sagunsale, a group of illegitimate descent. The above names show that the caste is of mixed origin, containing a large Telugu element, while a body of the primitive Halbas has been incorporated into it. Many of the Maratha Koshtis are probably Kunbis (cultivators) who have taken up weaving. The caste has also a number of exogamous divisions of the usual type which serve to prevent the marriage of near relatives.

3. Marriage.

At a Koshti wedding in Nagpur, the bride and bridegroom with their parents sit in a circle, and round them a long hempen rope is drawn seven times; the bride's mother then holds a lamp, while the bridegroom's mother pours water from a vessel on to the floor. The Salewars perform the wedding ceremony at the bridegroom's house, to which the bride is brought at midnight for this purpose. A display of fireworks is held and the thun or log of wood belonging to the loom is laid on the ground between the couple and covered with a black blanket. The bridegroom stands facing the east and places his right foot on the thun, and the bride stands opposite to him with her left foot upon it. A Brahman holds a curtain between them and they throw rice upon each other's heads five times and then sit on the log. The bride's father washes the feet of the bridegroom and gives him a cloth and bows down before him. The wedding party then proceed with music and a display of fireworks to the bridegroom's house and a round of feasts is given continuously for five days.

The remarriage of widows is freely permitted. In Chanda if the widow is living with her father he receives Rs. 40 from the second husband, but if with her father-in-law no price is given. On the day fixed for the wedding he fills her lap with nuts, cocoanuts, dates and rice, and applies vermilion to her forehead. During the night she proceeds to her new husband's house, and, emptying the fruit from her lap into a dish which he holds, falls at his feet. The wedding is completed the next day by a feast to the caste-fellows. The procedure appears to have some symbolical idea of transferring the fruit of her womb to her new husband. Divorce is allowed, but is very rare, a wife being too valuable a helper in the Koshti's industry to be put away except as a last resort. For a Koshti who is in business on his own account it is essential to have a number of women to assist in sizing the thread and fixing it on the loom. A wife is really a factory-hand and a well-to-do Koshti will buy or occasionally steal as many women as he can. In Bhandara a recent case is known where a man bought a girl and married her to his son and eight months afterwards sold her to another family for an increased price. In another case a man mortgaged his wife as security for a debt and in lieu of interest, and she lived with his creditor until he paid off the principal. Quarrels over women not infrequently result in cases of assault and riot.

4. Funeral customs.

Members of the Lingayat and Kabirpanthi sects bury their dead and the others cremate them. With the Tirmendar Koshtis on the fifth day the Ayawar priest goes to the cremation-ground accompanied by the deceased's family and worships the image of Vishnu and the Tulsi or basil upon the grave; and after this the whole party take their food at the place. Mourning is observed during five days for married and three for unmarried persons; and when a woman has lost her husband she is taken on the fifth day to the bank of some river or tank and her bangles are broken, her bead necklace is taken off, the vermilion is rubbed off her forehead, and her foot ornaments are removed; and these things she must not wear again while she is a widow. On the fourth day the Panch or caste elders come and place a new turban on the head of the chief mourner or deceased's heir; they then take him round the bazar and seat him at his loom, where he weaves a little. After this he goes and sits with the Panch and they take food together. This ceremony indicates that the impurity caused by the death is removed, and the mourners return to common life. The caste do not perform the shraddh ceremony, but on the Akhatij day or commencement of the agricultural year a family which has lost a male member will invite a man from some other family of the caste, and one which has lost a female member a woman, and will feed the guest with good food in the name of the dead. In Chhindwara during the fortnight of Pitripaksh or the worship of ancestors, a Koshti family will have a feast and invite guests of the caste. Then the host stands in the doorway with a pestle and as the guest comes he bars his entrance, saying: 'Are you one of my ancestors; this feast is for my ancestors?' To which the guest will reply: 'Yes, I am your great-grandfather; take away the pestle.' By this ingenious device the resourceful Koshti combines the difficult filial duty of the feeding of his ancestors with the entertainment of his friends.

5. Religion.

The principal deity of the Koshtis is Gajanand or Ganpati, whom they revere on the festival of Ganesh Chathurthi or the fourth day of the month of Bhadon (August). They clean all their weaving implements and worship them and make an image of Ganpati in cowdung to which they make offerings of flowers, rice and turmeric. On this day they do not work and fast till evening, when the image of Ganpati is thrown into a tank and they return home and eat delicacies. Some of them observe the Tij or third day of every month as a fast for Ganpati, and when the moon of the fourth day rises they eat cakes of dough roasted on a cowdung fire and mixed with butter and sugar, and offer these to Ganpati. Some of the Salewars are Vaishnavas and others Lingayats: the former employ Ayawars for their gurus or spiritual preceptors and are sometimes known as Tirmendar; while the Lingayats, who are also called Woheda, have Jangams as their priests. In Balaghat and Chhattisgarh many of the Koshtis belong to the Kabirpanthi sect, and these revere the special priests of the sect and abstain from the use of flesh and liquor. They are also known as Ghatibandhia, from the ghat or string of beads of basil-wool (tulsi) which they tie round their necks. In Mandla the Kabirpanthi Koshtis eat flesh and will intermarry with the others, who are known distinctively as Saktaha. The Gurmukhis are a special sect of the Nagpur country and are the followers of a saint named Koliba Baba, who lived at Dhapewara near Kalmeshwar. He is said to have fed five hundred persons with food which was sufficient for ten and to have raised a Brahman from the dead in Umrer. Some Brahmans wished to test him and told him to perform a miracle, so he had a lot of brass pots filled with water and put a cloth over them, and when he withdrew it the water had changed into curded milk. The Gurmukhis have a descendant of Koliba Baba for their preceptor, and each of them keeps a cocoanut in his house, which may represent Koliba Baba or else the unseen deity. To this he makes offerings of sandalwood, rice and flowers. The Gurmukhis are forbidden to venerate any of the ordinary Hindu deities, but they cannot refrain from making offerings to Mata Mai when smallpox breaks out, and if any person has the disease in his house they refrain from worshipping the cocoanut so long as it lasts, because they think that this would be to offer a slight to the smallpox goddess who is sojourning with them. Another sect is that of the Matwales who worship Vishnu as Narayan, as well as Siva and Sakti. They are so called because they drink liquor at their religious feasts. They have a small platform on which fresh cowdung is spread every day, and they bow to this before taking their food. Once in four or five years after a wedding offerings are made to Narayan Deo on the bank of a tank outside the village; chickens and goats are killed and the more extreme of them sacrifice a pig, but the majority will not join with these. Offerings of liquor are also made and must be drunk by the worshippers. Mehras and other low castes also belong to this sect, but the Koshtis will not eat with them. But in Chhindwara it is said that on the day after the Pola festival in August, when insects are prevalent and the season of disease begins, the Koshtis and Mangs go out together to look for the narbod shrub, [619] and here they break a small piece of bread and eat it together. In Bhandara the Koshtis worship the spirit of one Kadu, patel or headman of the village of Mohali, who was imprisoned in the fort of Ambagarh under an accusation of sorcery in Maratha times and died there. He is known as Ambagarhia Deo, and the people offer goats and fowls to him in order to be cured of diseases. The above notice indicates that the caste are somewhat especially inclined to religious feeling and readily welcome reformers striving against Hindu polytheism and Brahman supremacy. This is probably due in part to the social stigma which attaches to the weaving industry among the Hindus and is resented as an injustice by the Koshtis, and in part also to the nature of their calling, which leaves the mind free for thought during long hours while the fingers are playing on the loom; and with the uneducated serious reflection must almost necessarily be of a religious character. In this respect the Koshti may be said to resemble his fellow-weavers of Thrums. In Nagpur District the Koshtis observe the Muharram festival, and many of them go out begging on the first day with a green thread tied round their body and a beggar's wallet. They cook the grain which is given to them on the tenth day of the festival, giving a little to the Muhammadan priest and eating the rest. This observance of a Muhammadan rite is no doubt due to their long association with followers of that religion in Berar.

6. Superstitions.

Before beginning work for the day the Salewar makes obeisance to his loom and implements, nor may he touch them without having washed his face and hands. A woman must not approach the loom during her periodical impurity, and if anybody sneezes as work is about to be begun, they wait a little time to let the ill luck pass off. In Nagpur they believe that the posts to which the ends of the loom are fastened have magical powers, and if any one touches them with his leg he will get ulcers up to the knee. If a woman steps on the kuchi or loom-brush she is put out of caste and a feast has to be given to the community before she is readmitted. To cure inflammation in the eyes they take a piece of plaited grass and wrap it round with cotton soaked in oil. Then it is held before the sufferer's eyes and set on fire and the drops of oil are allowed to fall into water, and as they get cold and congeal the inflammation is believed to abate. Among some classes of Koshtis the killing of a cat is a very serious offence, almost equivalent to killing a cow. Even if a man touches a dead cat he has to give two feasts and be fully purified. The sanctity of the cat among Hindus is sometimes explained on the ground that it kills rats, which attract snakes into the house. But the real reason is probably that primitive people regard all domestic animals as sacred. The Koshti also reveres the dog and jackal.

7. Clothes, etc.

The Salewars of the Godavari tract wrap a short rectangular piece of cloth round their head as a turban. Formerly, Mr. Raghunath Waman states, the caste had a distinctive form of turban by which it could be recognised, but under British administration these rules of dress are falling into abeyance. A few of the Salewars put on the sacred thread, but it is not generally worn. Salewar women have a device representing a half-moon tattooed on the forehead between the ends of the eyebrows; the cheeks are marked with a small dot and the arms adorned with a representation of the sacred tulsi or basil.

8. Social rules and status.

The caste eat flesh and fish and drink liquor, and in the Maratha Districts they will eat chickens like most castes of this country. In Mandla they have recently prohibited the keeping of fowls, under pain of temporary expulsion. Those who took food in charity-kitchens during the famine of 1900 were readmitted to the community with the penalty of shaving the beard and moustaches in the case of a man, and cutting a few hairs from the head in that of a woman. In Berar the Lad, Jain and Katghar Koshtis are all strict vegetarians. The Koshtis employ Brahmans for their ceremonies, but their social status is about on a level with the village menials, below the cultivating castes. This, however, is a very good position for weavers, as most of the weaving castes are stigmatised as impure. But the Koshtis live in towns and not in villages and weave the finer kinds of cloth for which considerable skill is required, while in former times their work also yielded a good remuneration. These facts probably account for their higher status; similarly the Tantis or weavers of Bengal who produce the fine muslins of Dacca, so famous in Mughal times, have obtained such a high rank there that Brahmans will take water from their hands; [620] while the few Tantis who are found in the Central Provinces are regarded as impure and are not touched. The caste are of a turbulent disposition, perhaps on account of their comparatively light work, which does not tire their bodies like cultivation and other manual labour. One or two serious riots have been caused by the Koshtis in recent years.

9. Occupation.

The standard occupation of the caste is the weaving of the fine silk-bordered cloths which are universally worn on the body by Brahmans and other well-to-do persons of the Maratha country. The cloth is usually white with borders of red silk. They dye their own thread with lac or the flowers of the palas tree (Butea frondosa). The price of a pair of loin-cloths of this kind is Rs. 14, and of a pair of dupattas or shoulder-cloths Rs. 10, while women's saris also are made. Each colony of Koshtis in a separate town usually only weave one kind of cloth of the size for which their looms are made. The silk-bordered loin-cloths of Umrer and Pauni are well known and are sent all over India. The export of hand-woven cloth from all towns of the Nagpur plain has been estimated at Rs. 5 lakhs a year. The rich sometimes have the cloths made with gold lace borders. The following account of the caste is given in Sir R. Craddock's Nagpur Settlement Report: "The Koshti is an inveterate grumbler, and indeed from his point of view he has a great deal to complain of. On the one hand the price of raw cotton and the cost of his living have increased very largely; on the other hand, the product of his loom commands no higher price than it did before, and he cannot rely on selling it when the market is slack. He cannot adapt himself to the altered environment and clings to his loom. He dislikes rough manual labour and alleges, no doubt with truth, that it deprives him of the delicacy of touch needed in weaving the finer cloths. If prices rise he is the first to be distressed, and on relief works he cannot perform the requisite task and has to be treated with special indulgence. The mills have been established many years in Nagpur, but very few of the older weavers have sought employment there. They have begun to send their children, but work at home themselves, though they really all use machine-spun yarn. The Koshtis are quarrelsome and addicted to drink, and they have generally been the chief instigators of grain riots when prices rise. They often marry several wives and their houses swarm with a proportionate number of children. But although the poorer members of the community are in struggling circumstances and are put to great straits when prices of food rise, those who turn out the fine silk-bordered work are fairly prosperous in ordinary times."

END OF VOL. III

NOTES

[1] This article is based on information collected by Mr. Hira Lal in Jubbulpore, and the author in Mandla.

[2] The word Dishai really means direction or cardinal point, but as the goddess dwells in the sheep-pen it is probable that she was originally the sheep itself.

[3] The following particulars are taken from the Central Provinces Monograph on Woollen Industries, by Mr. J. T. Marten.

[4] A Naturalist on the Prowl, 3rd ed., p. 219. In the quotation the Hindustani word kammal, commonly used in the Central Provinces, is substituted for the Marathi word kambli.

[5] This article is compiled from an excellent monograph contributed by Surgeon-Major Mitchell of Bastar State, with extracts from Colonel Glasfurd's Report on Bastar (Selections from the Records of the Government of India in the Foreign Department, No. 39 of 1863).

[6] India Census Report (1901), p. 283.

[7] Madras Census Report (1891), p. 253.

[8] Ethnographic Notes in Southern India, p. 22.

[9] Madras Census Report (1891), p. 253.

[10] Report on the Dependency of Bastar, p. 37.

[11] Report on the Dependency of Bastar, p. 37.

[12] Ethnographic Notes in Southern India, p. 270.

[13] Risley, Tribes and Castes of Bengal, art. Pan.

[14] The human sacrifices of the Khonds were suppressed about 1860. See the article on that tribe.

[15] This article is compiled from papers by Mr. Jhanjhan Rai, Tahsildar, Sarangarh, and Satyabadi Misra of the Sambalpur Census office.

[16] Mund-jhulana, to swing the head.

[17] Based on notes taken by Mr. Hira Lal at Chanda and the notices of the Garpagari in the District Gazetteers.

[18] Village watchman.

[19] Dr. Jevons, Introduction to the History of Religion, p. 171.

[20] The Golden Bough, 2nd ed. vol. i. p. 68, quoting from French authorities.

[21] This article is based on papers by Mr. Jeorakhan Lal, Deputy Inspector of Schools, Bilaspur, and Bhagwan Singh, Court of Wards Clerk, Bilaspur.

[22] The Celestial Physician.

[23] This article is compiled partly from papers by Munshis Pyare Lal Misra and Kanhya Lal of the Gazetteer Office.

[24] Tribes and Castes of Bengal, art. Ghasi.

[25] Central Provinces Gazetteer (1871), p. 273.

[26] Descriptive Ethnology of Bengal, p. 325.

[27] Ficus glomerata.

[28] Cynodon dactylon.

[29] Tribes and Castes of Bengal, art. Ghasi.

[30] This article is based partly on a paper by Khan Bahadur Imdad Ali, Pleader, Damoh.

[31] Punjab Census Report (1881), para. 272.

[32] Crooke's Tribes and Castes, art. Ghosi.

[33] From a note by Mr. Hira Lal.

[34] This article is compiled from papers by Kanhya Lal of the Gazetteer Office, and Madho Rao, Deputy Inspector of Schools, Balaghat.

[35] Balaghat District Gazetteer (C. E. Low), p. 80.

[36] Linguistic Survey of India, vol. iv. Dravidian Language, p. 386.

[37] The country of Gondwana properly included the Satpura plateau and a section of the Nagpur plain and Nerbudda valley to the south and west.

[38] Early History of India, 3rd ed. p. 337.

[39] Art. Gondwana.

[40] Linguistic Survey, Munda and Dravidian Languages, iv. p. 285.

[41] Notes, p. 15.

[42] Garha is six miles from Jubbulpore.

[43] See article on Kol.

[44] Mr. Standen's Betul Settlement Report.

[45] The argument in this section will be followed more easily if read after the legend in the following paragraphs.

[46] Highlands of Central India (Chapman & Hall).

[47] Deo-khulla or threshing-floor of the gods. See section on Religion.

[48] Passage from Mr. Hislop's version.

[49] Dhupgarh in Pachmarhi might be indicated, which has a steep summit.

[50] Terminalia arjuna.

[51] This extract is reproduced by permission of the publishers, Messrs. Chapman & Hall, London.

[52] Tekam the teak tree, Markam the mango tree, and Telengam the Telugu. These are the names of well-known exogamous septs.

[53] See section on Religion.

[54] See also art. Kahar.

[55] The theory is stated and explained in vol. iv. of Exogamy and Totemism.

[56] See para. 15.

[57] Boswellia serrata.

[58] Semecarpus anacardium.

[59] Anogeissus latifolia.

[60] Diosypyros tomentosa.

[61] One rupee = 1s. 4d.

[62] From Mr. Langhorne's monograph.

[63] The above rite has some resemblance to the test required of the suitors of Penelope in the Odyssey of bending the bow of Odysseus and shooting an arrow through the axes, which they could not perform.

[64] The information on child-birth is obtained from papers by Mr. Durga Prasad Pande, Extra Assistant Commissioner, and the Rev. Mr. Franzen of Chhindwara, and from notes taken in Mandla.

[65] See articles on Kunbi, Kurmi, and Mehtar.

[66] Boswellia serrata.

[67] The following examples of names were furnished by the Rev. Mr. Franzen and Mr. D. P. Pande.

[68] See article on Kurmi.

[69] Boswellia serrata.

[70] Deputy-Commissioner, Chhindwara. The note was contributed to the Central Provinces Census Report for 1881 (Mr. Drysdale).

[71] Ghora, a horse.

[72] Diospyros tomentosa.

[73] Cassia fistula.

[74] This is incorrect, at present at any rate, as the Karma is danced during the harvest period. But it is probable that the ritual observances for communal fishing and hunting have now fallen into abeyance.

[75] C. P. Gazetteer (1871), Introduction, p. 130.

[76] This section contains some information furnished by R. B. Hira Lal.

[77] Notes on the Gonds, pp. 15, 16.

[78] Indian Caste, i. p. 325.

[79] See article Birhor.

[80] See article Bhunjia.

[81] Notes, p. 1.

[82] Highlands of Central India, p. 156.

[83] Report on Bastar Dependency, p. 41.

[84] Assessment of revenue for land.

[85] Quoted in C.P. Gazetteer (1871), Introduction, p. 113.

[86] Chhindwara Settlement Report.

[87] Report on Bastar Dependency, p. 43.

[88] Ind. Ant. (1876), p. 359.

[89] See para. 65, Tattooing.

[90] See para. 41, Religion.

[91] Balaghat District Gazetteer, p. 87.

[92] Rawan was the demon king of Ceylon who fought against Rama, and from whom the Gonds are supposed to be descended. Hence this song may perhaps refer to a Gond revolt against the Hindus.

[93] The amaltas or Cassia fistula, which has flowers like a laburnum. The idea is perhaps that its leaves are too small to make a proper leaf-cup, and she will not take the trouble to get suitable leaves.

[94] Hislop, Notes, p. 2.

[95] Chhindwara Settlement Report.

[96] This article is based on a paper by Pandit Pyare Lal Misra.

[97] This article is compiled from papers by Mr. Kesho Rao Joshi, Headmaster, City School, Nagpur, and Pyare Lal Misra, Ethnographic Clerk.

[98] Page 67.

[99] In the Maratha Districts the term Ganges sometimes signifies the Wainganga.

[100] Dam apparently here means life or breath.

[101] Gunthorpe, p. 91.

[102] This article contains material from Mr. J. C. Oman's Mystics, Ascetics and Saints of India, Sir E. Maclagan's Punjab Census Report, 1891, and Dr. J. N. Bhattacharya's Hindu Castes and Sects (Calcutta, Messrs. Thacker, Spink and Co.).

[103] Elaeocarpus.

[104] Mr. Marten's C.P. Census Report (1911), p. 79.

[105] Orphéus, p. 137.

[106] Oman, Mystics, Ascetics and Saints, p. 269.

[107] Bhattacharya, Hindu Castes and Sects, p. 380.

[108] Bhattacharya, ibidem, and Oman, Mystics, Ascetics and Saints, pp. 160, 161.

[109] Buchanan, Eastern India, i. pp. 197, 198.

[110] Nesfield, Brief View of the Caste System, p. 86.

[111] J. C. Oman, Cults, Customs and Superstitions of India (London, T. Fisher Unwin), p. 11.

[112] Mystics, Ascetics and Saints of India, pp. 156, 157.

[113] Sir E. Maclagan, Punjab Census Report (1891), p. 112.

[114] This article is based on notes by Mr. Percival, Assistant Conservator of Forests, and Rai Bahadur Hira Lal.

[115] For further details see article on Gond Gowari.

[116] See article on Kunbi.

[117] Early History of India, 3rd ed. pp. 409, 411.

[118] Mr. Smith ascribes this discovery to Messrs. A. M. T. Jackson (Bombay Gazetteer, vol. i.