The Tribes and Castes of the Central Provinces of India Volume I (of IV)

R >> R.V. Russell >> The Tribes and Castes of the Central Provinces of India Volume I (of IV)

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Again, the rite of initiation or investiture with the sacred thread
appears to be the occasion of the admission of a boy to the caste
community. Before this he is not really a member of the caste and may
eat any kind of food. The initiation is called by the Brahmans the
second birth, and appears to be the birth of the soul or spirit. After
it the boy will eat the sacrificial food at the caste feasts and be
united with the members of the caste and their god. The bodies of
children who have not been initiated are buried and not burnt. The
reason seems to be that their spirits will not go to the god nor
be united with the ancestors, but will be born again. Formerly such
children were often buried in the house or courtyard so that their
spirits might be born again in the same family. The lower castes
sometimes consider the rite of ear-piercing as the initiation and
sometimes marriage. Among the Panwar Rajputs a child is initiated when
about two years old by being given cooked rice and milk to eat. The
initiation cannot for some reason be performed by the natural father,
but must be done by a _guru_ or spiritual father, who should thereafter
be regarded with a reverence equal to or even exceeding that paid to
the natural father.

84. Penalty feasts.

When a man is readmitted to caste after exclusion for some offence,
the principal feature of the rite is a feast at which he is again
permitted to eat with his fellows. There are commonly two feasts, one
known as the _Maili Roti_ or impure meal, and the other as _Chokhi_
or pure, both being at the cost of the offender. The former is eaten
by the side of a stream or elsewhere on neutral ground, and by it
the offender is considered to be partly purified; the latter is in
his own house, and by eating there the castemen demonstrate that no
impurity attaches to him, and he is again a full member. Some castes,
as the Dhobas, have three feasts: the first is eaten at the bank
of a stream, and at this the offender's hair is shaved and thrown
into the stream; the second is in his yard; and the third in his
house. The offender is not allowed to partake of the first two meals
himself, but he joins in the third, and before it begins the head
of the _panchayat_ gives him water to drink in which gold has been
dipped as a purificatory rite. Among the Gonds the flesh of goats is
provided at the first meal, but at the second only grain cooked with
water, which they now, in imitation of the Hindus, consider as the
sacred sacrificial food. Frequently the view obtains that the head
of the caste _panchayat_ takes the offender's sins upon himself by
commencing to eat, and in return for this a present of some rupees
is deposited beneath his plate. Similarly among some castes, as the
Bahnas, exclusion from caste is known as the stopping of food and
water. The Gowaris readmit offenders by the joint drinking of opium and
water. One member is especially charged with the preparation of this,
and if there should not be enough for all the castemen to partake of
it, he is severely punished. Opium was also considered sacred by the
Rajputs, and the chief and his kinsmen were accustomed to drink it
together as a pledge of amity. [208]

85. Sanctity of grain-food.

Grain cooked with water is considered as sacred food by the
Hindus. It should be eaten only on a space within the house called
_chauka_ purified with cowdung, and sometimes marked out with white
quartz-powder or flour. Before taking his meal a member of the higher
castes should bathe and worship the household gods. At the meal he
should wear no sewn clothes, but only a waist-cloth made of silk or
wool, and not of cotton. The lower castes will take food cooked with
water outside the house in the fields, and are looked down upon for
doing this, so that those who aspire to raise their social position
abandon the practice, or at least pretend to do so. Sir J.G. Frazer
quotes a passage showing that the ancient Brahmans considered the
sacrificial rice-cakes cooked with water to be transformed into human
bodies. [209] The Urdu word _bali_ means a sacrifice or offering,
and is applied to the portion of the daily meal which is offered to
the gods and to the hearth-fire. Thus all grain cooked with water is
apparently looked upon as sacred or sacramental food, and it is for
this reason that it can only be eaten after the purificatory rites
already described. The grain is venerated as the chief means of
subsistence, and the communal eating of it seems to be analogous to
the sacrificial eating of the domestic animals, such as the camel,
horse, ox and sheep, which is described above and in the article on
Kasai. Just as in the hunting stage the eating of the totem-animal,
which furnished the chief means of subsistence, was the tie which
united the totem-clan: and in the pastoral stage the domestic animal
which afforded to the tribe its principal support, not usually as
an article of food, but through its milk and its use as a means of
transport, was yet eaten sacrificially owing to the persistence of the
belief that the essential bond which united the tribe was the communal
eating of the flesh of the animal from which the tribe obtained its
subsistence: so when the community reaches the agricultural stage
the old communal feast is retained as the bond of union, but it now
consists of grain, which is the principal support of life.

86. The corn-sprit.

The totem-animal was regarded as a kinsman, and the domestic
animal often as a god. [210] But in both these cases the life of
the kinsman and god was sacrificed in order that the community
might be bound together by eating the body and assimilating the
life. Consequently, when grain came to be the sacrificial food, it
was often held that an animal or human being must be sacrificed in
the character of the corn-god or spirit, whether his own flesh was
eaten or the sacred grain was imagined to be his flesh. Numerous
instances of the sacrifice of the corn-spirit have been adduced by
Sir J.G. Frazer in _The Golden Bough_, and it was he who brought
this custom prominently to notice. One of the most important cases
in India was the Meriah-sacrifice of the Khonds, which is described
in the article on that tribe.

Two features of the Khond sacrifice of a human victim as a corn-spirit
appear to indicate its derivation from the sacrifice of the domestic
animal and the eating of the totem-animal, the ties uniting the clan
and tribe: first, that the flesh was cut from the living victim, and,
second, that the sacrifice was communal. When the Meriah-victim was
bound the Khonds hacked at him with their knives while life remained,
leaving only the head and bowels untouched, so that each man might
secure a strip of flesh. This rite appears to recall the earliest
period when the members of the primitive group or clan tore their prey
to pieces and ate and drank the raw flesh and blood. The reason for
its survival was apparently that it was the actual life of the divine
victim, existing in concrete form in the flesh and blood which they
desired to obtain, and they thought that this end was more certainly
achieved by cutting the flesh off him while he was still alive. In
the sacrifice of the camel in Arabia the same procedure was followed;
the camel was bound on an altar and the tribesmen cut the flesh from
the body with their knives and swallowed it raw and bleeding. [211]
M. Salomon Reinach shows how the memory of similar sacrifices in Greece
has been preserved in legend: [212] "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 food 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. 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." All such sacrifices in which the
flesh was taken from the living victim may thus perhaps be derived
from the common origin of totemism. The second point about the Khond
sacrifice is that it was communal; every householder desired a piece
of the flesh, and for those who could not be present at the sacrifice
relays of messengers were posted to carry it to them while it was
still fresh and might be supposed to retain the life. They did not
eat the strips of flesh, but each householder buried his piece in his
field, which they believed would thereby be fertilised and caused to
produce the grain which they would eat. The death of the victim was
considered essential to the life of the tribe, which would be renewed
and strengthened by it as in the case of the sacrifice of the domestic
animal. Lord Avebury gives in _The Origin of Civilisation_ [213] an
almost exact parallel to the Khond sacrifice in which the flesh of the
victim actually was eaten. This occurred among the Marimos, a tribe of
South Africa much resembling the Bechuanas. The ceremony was called
'the boiling of the corn.' A young man, stout but of small stature,
was usually selected and secured by violence or by intoxicating him
with _yaala_. "They then lead him into the fields, and sacrifice him in
the fields, according to their own expression, _for seed_. His blood,
after having been coagulated by the rays of the sun, is burned along
with the frontal bone, the flesh attached to it and the brain. The
ashes are then scattered over the fields to fertilise them and the
remainder of the body is eaten." In other cases quoted by the same
author an image only was made of flour and eaten instead of a human
being: [214] "In Mexico at a certain period of the year the priest of
Quetzalcoatl made an image of the Deity, of meal mixed with infants'
blood, and then, after many impressive ceremonies, killed the image
by shooting it with an arrow, and tore out the heart, which was eaten
by the king, while the rest of the body was distributed among the
people, every one of whom was anxious to procure a piece to eat,
however small." Here the communal sacrificial meal, the remaining
link necessary to connect the sacrifice of the corn-spirit with that
of the domestic animal and clan totem, is present. Among cases of
animals sacrificed as the corn-spirit in India that of the buffalo
at the Dasahra festival is the most important. The rite extends
over most of India, and a full and interesting account of it has
recently been published by Mr. W. Crooke. [215] The buffalo is
probably considered as the corn-spirit because it was the animal
which mainly damaged the crops in past times. Where the sacrifice
still survives the proprietor of the village usually makes the first
cut in the buffalo and it is then killed and eaten by the inferior
castes, as Hindus cannot now touch the flesh. In the Deccan after
the buffalo is killed the Mahars rush on the carcase and each one
secures a piece of the flesh. This done they go in procession round
the walls, calling on the spirits and demons, and asking them to
accept the pieces of meat as offerings, which are then thrown to them
backwards over the wall. [216] The buffalo is now looked upon in the
light of a scape-goat, but the procedure described above cannot be
satisfactorily explained on the scape-goat theory, and would appear
clearly to have been substituted for the former eating of the flesh. In
the Maratha Districts the lower castes have a periodical sacrifice of
a pig to the sun; they eat the flesh of the pig together, and even
the Panwar Rajputs of the Waringanga Valley join in the sacrifice
and will allow the impure caste of Mahars to enter their houses and
eat of this sacrifice with them, though at other times the entry of
a Mahar would defile a Panwar's house. [217] The pig is sacrificed
either as the animal which now mainly injures the crops or because
it was the principal sacrificial animal of the non-Aryan tribes,
or from a combination of both reasons. Probably it may be regarded
as the corn-spirit because pigs are sacrificed to Bhanisasur or the
buffalo demon for the protection of the crops.

87. The king.

When the community reached the national or agricultural stage some
central executive authority became necessary for its preservation. This
authority usually fell into the hands of the priest who performed
the sacrifice, and he became a king. Since the priest killed the
sacrificial animal in which the common life of the community was
held to be centred, it was thought that the life passed to him and
centred in his person. For the idea of the extinction of life was not
properly understood, and the life of a human being or animal might
pass by contact, according to primitive ideas, to the person or even
the weapon which killed it, just as it could pass by assimilation
to those who ate the flesh. In most of the city-states of Greece
and Italy the primary function of the kings was the performance of
the communal or national sacrifices. Through this act they obtained
political power as representing the common life of the people, and
its performance was sometimes left to them after their political
power had been taken away. [218] After the expulsion of the kings
from Rome the duty of performing the city sacrifices devolved on
the consuls. In India also the kings performed sacrifices. When a
king desired to be paramount over his neighbours he sent a horse to
march through their territories. If it passed through them without
being captured they became subordinate to the king who owned the
horse. Finally the horse was sacrificed at the Ashva-medha, the
king paramount making the sacrifice, while the other kings performed
subordinate parts at it. [219] Similarly the Raja of Nagpur killed
the sacrificial buffalo at the Dasahra festival. But the common life
of the people was sometimes conveyed from the domestic animal to the
king by other methods than the performance of a sacrifice. The king
of Unyoro in Africa might never eat vegetable food but must subsist
on milk and beef. Mutton he might not touch, though he could drink
beer after partaking of meat. A sacred herd was kept for the king's
use, and nine cows, neither more nor less, were daily brought to the
royal enclosure to be milked for his majesty. The boy who brought
the cows from the pasture to the royal enclosure must be a member of
a particular clan and under the age of puberty, and was subject to
other restrictions. The milk for the king was drawn into a sacred
pot which neither the milkman nor anybody else might touch. The
king drank the milk, sitting on a sacred stool, three times a day,
and any which was left over must be drunk by the boy who brought the
cows from pasture. Numerous other rules and restrictions are detailed
by Sir J.G. Frazer, and it may be suggested that their object was to
ensure that the life of the domestic animal and with it the life of
the people should be conveyed pure and undefiled to the king through
the milk. The kings of Unyoro had to take their own lives while their
bodily vigour was still unimpaired. When the period for his death
arrived the king asked his wife for a cup of poison and drank it. "The
public announcement of the death was made by the chief milkman. Taking
a pot of the sacred milk in his hands he mounted the house-top and
cried, 'Who will drink the milk?' With these words he dashed the pot
on the roof; it rolled off and falling to the ground was broken in
pieces. That was the signal for war to the death between the princes
who aspired to the throne. They fought till only one was left alive. He
was the king." [220] After completing the above account, of which
only the principal points have been stated, Sir J.G. Frazer remarks:
"The rule which obliged the kings of Unyoro to kill themselves or be
killed before their strength of mind and body began to fail through
disease or age is only a particular example of a custom which appears
to have prevailed widely among barbarous tribes in Africa and to some
extent elsewhere. Apparently this curious practice rests on a belief
that the welfare of the people is sympathetically bound up with the
welfare of their king, and that to suffer him to fall into bodily or
mental decay would be to involve the whole kingdom in ruin." [221]
Other instances connecting the life of the king with the ox or other
domestic animal are given in _Totemism and Exogamy_ and _The Golden
Bough_ [222] Among the Hereros the body of a dead chief was wrapped
up in the hide of an ox before being buried. [223] In the Vedic
horse-sacrifice in India the horse was stifled in robes. The chief
queen approached him; a cloak having been thrown over them both,
she performed a repulsively obscene act symbolising the transmission
to her of his fructifying powers. [224] In other cases the king was
identified with the corn-spirit, and in this manner he also, it may
be suggested, represented the common life of the people.

The belief that the king was the incarnation of the common life of the
people led to the most absurd restrictions on his liberty and conduct,
a few instances of which from the large collection in _The Golden
Bough_ have been quoted in the article on Nai. Thus in an old account
of the daily life of the Mikado it is stated: "In ancient times he
was obliged to sit on the throne for some hours every morning, with
the imperial crown on his head, but to sit altogether like a statue,
without stirring either hands or feet, head or eyes, nor indeed any
part of his body, because, by this means, it was thought that he could
preserve peace and tranquillity in his empire; for if, unfortunately,
he turned himself on one side or the other, or if he looked a good
while towards any part of his dominions, it was apprehended that war,
famine, fire or some great misfortune was near at hand to desolate
the country." [225] Here it would appear that by sitting absolutely
immobile the king conferred the quality of tranquillity on the common
life of his people incarnate in his person; but by looking too long in
any one direction he would cause a severe disturbance of the common
life in the part to which he looked. And when the Israelites were
fighting with the Amalekites, so long as Moses held up his hands
the Israelites prevailed; but when his hands hung down they gave
way before the enemy. Here apparently the common life was held to
be centred in Moses, and when he held his arms up it was vigorous,
but declined as he let them down. Similarly it was often thought that
the king should be killed as soon as his bodily strength showed signs
of waning, so that the common life might be renewed and saved from a
similar decay. Even the appearance of grey hair or the loss of a tooth
were sometimes considered sufficient reasons for putting the king
to death in Africa. [226] Another view was that any one who killed
the king was entitled to succeed him, because the life of the king,
and with it the common life of the people, passed to the slayer,
just as it had previously passed from the domestic animal to the
priest-king who sacrificed it. One or two instances of succession by
killing the king are given in the article on Bhil. Sometimes the view
was that the king should be sacrificed annually, or at other intervals,
like the corn-spirit or domestic animal, for the renewal of the common
life. And this practice, as shown by Sir J.G. Frazer, tended to result
in the substitution of a victim, usually a criminal or slave, who was
identified with the king by being given royal honours for a short time
before his death. Sometimes the king's son or daughter was offered as
a substitute for him, and such a sacrifice was occasionally made in
time of peril, apparently as a means of strengthening or preserving
the common life. When Chitor, the home of the Sesodia clan of Rajputs,
was besieged by the Muhammadans, the tradition is that the goddess
of their house appeared and demanded the sacrifice of twelve chiefs
as a condition of its preservation. Eleven of the chiefs sons were
in turn crowned as king, and each ruled for three days, while on the
fourth he sallied out and fell in battle. Lastly, the Rana offered
himself in order that his favourite son, Ajeysi, might be spared and
might perpetuate the clan. In reality the chief and his sons seem
to have devoted themselves in the hope that the sacrifice of the
king might bring strength and victory to the clan. The sacrifice of
Iphigenia and possibly of Jephthah's daughter appear to be parallel
instances. The story of Alcestis may be an instance of the substitution
of the king's wife. The position of the king in early society and the
peculiar practices and beliefs attaching to it were brought to notice
and fully illustrated by Sir J.G. Frazer. The argument as to the clan
and the veneration of the domestic animal follows that outlined by
the late Professor Robertson Smith in _The Religion of the Semites_.

88. Other instances of the common meal as a sacrificial rite.

Some other instances of the communal eating of grain or other
food as a sacramental rite and bond of union have been given in the
articles. Thus at a Kabirpanthi Chauka or religious service the priest
breaks a cocoanut on a stone, and the flesh is cut up and distributed
to the worshippers with betel-leaf and sugar. Each receives it on his
knees, taking the greatest care that none falls on the ground. The
cocoanut is commonly regarded by the Hindus as a substituted offering
for a human head. The betel-leaves which are distributed have been
specially consecrated by the head priest of the sect, and are held
to represent the body of Kabir. [227]

Similarly, Guru Govind Singh instituted a _prasad_ or communion among
the Sikhs, in which cakes of flour, butter and sugar are made and
consecrated with certain ceremonies while the communicants sit round in
prayer, and are then distributed equally to all the faithful present,
to whatever caste they may belong. At a Guru-Mata or great council of
the Sikhs, which was held at any great crisis in the affairs of the
state, these cakes were laid before the Sikh scriptures and then eaten
by all present, who swore on the scriptures to forget their internal
dissensions and be united. Among the Rajputs the test of legitimacy
of a member of the chief's family was held to depend on whether
he had eaten of the chief's food. The rice cooked at the temple of
Jagannath in Orissa may be eaten there by all castes together, and,
when partaken of by two men together, is held to establish a bond of
indissoluble friendship between them.

Members of several low castes of mixed origin will only take food
with their relatives, and not with other families of the caste with
whom they intermarry. [228] The Chaukhutia Bhunjias will not eat food
cooked by other members of the same community, and will not take it
from their own daughters after the latter are married. At a feast
among the Dewars uncooked food is distributed to the guests, who
cook it for themselves; parents will not accept cooked food either
from married sons or daughters, and each family with its children
forms a separate commensal group. Thus the taking of food together
is a more important and sacred tie than intermarriage. In most Hindu
castes a man is not put out of caste for committing adultery with a
woman of low caste, but for taking cooked food from her hands; though
it is assumed that if he lives with her openly he must necessarily
have accepted cooked food from her. Opium and alcoholic liquor or
wine, being venerated on account of their intoxicating qualities,
were sometimes regarded as substitutes for the sacrificial food and
partaken of sacramentally. [229]

89. Funeral feasts.

An important class of communal meals remaining for discussion
consists in the funeral feasts. The funeral feast seems a peculiar
and unseasonable observance, but several circumstances point to
the conclusion that it was originally held in the dead man's own
interest. He or his spirit was indeed held to participate in the
feast, and it seems to have been further thought that unless he did
so and ate the sacred food, his soul would not proceed to the heaven
or god, but would wander about as an unquiet spirit or meet with
some other fate. Many of the lower Hindu castes, such as the Kohlis
and Bishnois, take food after a funeral, seated by the side of the
grave. This custom is now considered somewhat derogatory, perhaps in
consequence of a truer realisation of the fact of death. At a Baiga
funeral the mourners take one white and one black fowl to a stream and
kill and eat them there, setting aside a portion for the dead man. The
Gonds also take their food and drink liquor at the grave. The Lohars
think that the spirit of the dead man returns to join in the funeral
feast. Among the Telugu Koshtis the funeral party go to the grave
on the fifth day, and after the priest has worshipped the image of
Vishnu on the grave, the whole party take their food there. After a
Panka funeral the mourners bathe and then break a cocoanut over the
grave and distribute it among themselves. On the tenth day they go
again and break a cocoanut, and each man buries a little piece of it
in the earth over the grave. Among the Tameras, at the feast with
which mourning is concluded, a leaf-plate containing a portion for
the deceased is placed outside the house with a pot of water and a
burning lamp to guide his spirit to the food. On the third day after
death the Kolhatis sometimes bring back the skull of a corpse and,
placing it on the bed, offer to it powder, dates and betel-leaves, and
after a feast lasting for three days it is again buried. It is said
that the members of the Lingayat sect formerly set up the corpse in
their midst at the funeral feast and sat round it, taking their food,
but the custom is not known to exist at present. Among the Bangalas,
an African negro tribe, at a great funeral feast lasting for three
days in honour of the chief's son, the corpse was present at the
festivities tied in a chair. [230]