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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31. Status of the village menials.

The castes of village and household menials form a large group between
the cultivators on the one hand and the impure and servile labourers
on the other. Their status is not exactly the same. On the one hand,
the Nai or barber, the Kahar and Dhimar or watermen, the household
servants, the Bari, Ahir, and others, some of the village priests and
the gardening castes, are considered ceremonially pure and Brahmans
will take water from them. But this is a matter of convenience, as,
if they were not so held pure, they would be quite useless in the
household. Several of these castes, as the Dhimars, Baris and others,
are derived from the primitive tribes. Sir H. Risley considered the
Baris of Bengal as probably an offshoot from the Bhuiya or Musahar
tribe: "He still associates with the Bhuiyas at times, and if the
demand for leaf-plates and cups is greater than he can cope with
himself, he gets them secretly made up by his ruder kinsfolk and
passes them off as his own production. Instances of this sort, in
which a non-Aryan or mixed group is promoted on grounds of necessity
or convenience to a higher status than their antecedents would
entitle them to claim, are not unknown in other castes, and must
have occurred frequently in outlying parts of the country, where
the Aryan settlements were scanty and imperfectly supplied with the
social apparatus demanded by the theory of ceremonial purity. Thus
the undoubtedly non-Aryan Bhuiyas have in parts of Chota Nagpur been
recognised as Jal-Acharani (able to give water to the higher castes)
and it may be conjectured that the Kahars themselves only attained this
privilege in virtue of their employment as palanquin-bearers." [67]
The fact that Brahmans will take water from these castes does not in
any way place them on a level with the cultivators; they remain menial
servants, ranking, if anything, below such castes as Lohar, Teli and
Kalar, from whom Brahmans will not take water; but these latter are,
as corporate bodies, more important and prosperous than the household
menial castes, because their occupation confers a greater dignity
and independence.

On the other hand, one or two of the village menials, such as the
Dhobi or washerman, are considered to some extent impure. This is
due to specially degrading incidents attaching to their occupation,
as in the case of the Dhobi, the washing of the clothes of women in
childbirth. [68] And the Sungaria subcaste of Kumhars, who keep pigs,
are not touched, because the impurity of the animal is necessarily
communicated to its owner's house and person. Still, in the village
society there is little real difference between the position of these
castes and those of the other village menials.

32. Origin of their status

The status of the village menial castes appears to be fixed by their
dependent position on the cultivators. The latter are their patrons and
superiors, to whom they look for a livelihood. Before the introduction
of a currency in the rural tracts (an event of the last fifty to a
hundred years) the village artisans and menials were supported by
contributions of grain from the cultivators. They still all receive
presents, consisting of a sowing-basketful of grain at seed-time and
one or two sheaves at harvest. The former is known as _Bij phutni_, or
'The breaking of the seed,' and the latter as _Khanvar,_ or 'That which
is left' Sometimes, after threshing, the menials are each given as much
grain as will fill a winnowing-fan. When the peasant has harvested his
grain, all come and beg from him. The Dhimar brings some water-nut,
the Kachhi or market-gardener some chillies, the Barai betel-leaf,
the Teli oil and tobacco, the Kalar liquor (if he drinks it), the
Bania some sugar, and all receive grain in excess of the value of
their gifts. The Joshi or village priest, the Nat or acrobat, the
Gosain or religious mendicant and the Fakir or Muhammadan beggar
solicit alms. On that day the cultivator is said to be like a little
king in his fields, and the village menials constitute his court. In
purely agricultural communities grain is the principal source of
wealth, and though the average Hindu villager may appear to us to
be typical of poverty rather than wealth, such standards are purely
relative. The cultivator was thus the patron and supporter of the
village artisans and menials, and his social position was naturally
superior to theirs. Among the Hindus it is considered derogatory to
accept a gift from another person, the recipient being thereby placed
in a position of inferiority to the donor. Some exception to this
rule is made in the case of Brahmans, though even with them it partly
applies. Generally the acceptance of a gift of any value among Hindus
is looked upon in the same manner as the taking of money in England,
being held to indicate that the recipient is in an inferior social
position to the giver. And the existence of this feeling seems to
afford strong support to the reason suggested here for the relative
status of the cultivating and village menial castes.

The group of village menial and artisan castes comes between the good
cultivating castes who hold the status of the Vaishyas or body of
the Aryans, and the impure castes, the subjected aborigines. The most
reasonable theory of their status seems to be that it originated in
mixed descent. As has already been seen, it was the common practice of
members of the higher classes to take lower-caste women either as wives
or concubines, and a large mixed class would naturally result. Such
children, born and brought up in the households of their fathers,
would not be full members of the family, but would not be regarded as
impure. They would naturally be put to the performance of the menial
household duties, for which the servile castes were rendered unsuitable
through their impure status. This would correspond with the tradition
of the large number of castes originating in mixed descent, which is
given in the Hindu sacred books. It has been seen that where menial
castes are employed in the household, classes of mixed descent do as a
matter of fact arise. And there are traces of a relationship between
the cultivators and the menial castes, which would be best explained
by such an origin. At a betrothal in the great Kunbi cultivating
caste of the Marathas, the services of the barber and washerman must
be requisitioned. The barber washes the feet of the boy and girl and
places vermilion on the foreheads of the guests; the washerman spreads
a sheet on the ground on which the boy and girl sit. At the end of
the ceremony the barber and washerman take the bride and bridegroom
on their shoulders and dance to music in the marriage-shed, for which
they receive small presents. After a death has occurred at a Kunbi's
house, the impurity is not removed until the barber and washerman have
eaten in it. At a Kunbi's wedding the Gurao or village priest brings
the leafy branches of five trees and deposits them at Maroti's [69]
temple, whence they are removed by the parents of the bride. Before
a wedding, again, a Kunbi bride must go to the potter's house and be
seated on his wheel, while it is turned round seven times for good
luck. Similarly at a wedding among the Hindustani cultivating castes
the bride visits the potter's house and is seated on his wheel; and
the washerman's wife applies vermilion to her forehead. The barber's
wife puts red paint on her feet, the gardener's wife presents her with
a garland of flowers and the carpenter's wife gives her a new wooden
doll. At the wedding feast the barber, the washerman and the Bari or
personal servant also eat with the guests, though sitting apart from
them. Sometimes members of the menial and serving castes are invited
to the funeral feast as if they belonged to the dead man's caste. In
Madras the barber and his wife, and the washerman and his wife, are
known as the son and daughter of the village. And among the families
of ruling Rajput chiefs, when a daughter of the house is married,
it was customary to send with her a number of handmaidens taken from
the menial and serving castes. These became the concubines of the
bridegroom and it seems clear that their progeny would be employed
in similar capacities about the household and would follow the castes
of their mothers. The Tamera caste of coppersmiths trace their origin
from the girls so sent with the bride of Dharam-Pal, the Haihaya Rajput
Raja of Ratanpur, through the progeny of these girls by the Raja.

33. Other castes who rank with the village menials.

Many other castes belong to the group of those from whom a Brahman
cannot take water, but who are not impure. Among these are several
of the lower cultivating castes, some of them growers of special
products, as the Kachhis and Mowars or market-gardeners, the
Dangris or melon-growers, and the Kohlis and Bhoyars who plant
sugarcane. These subsidiary kinds of agriculture were looked down
upon by the cultivators proper; they were probably carried out on the
beds and banks of streams and other areas not included in the regular
holdings of the village, and were taken up by labourers and other
landless persons. The callings of these are allied to, or developed
from, that of the Mali or gardener, and they rank on a level with
him, or perhaps a little below, as no element of sanctity attaches
to their products. Certain castes which were formerly labourers,
but have now sometimes obtained possession of the land, are also in
this group, such as the Rajbhars, Kirs, Manas, and various Madras
castes of cultivators. Probably these were once not allowed to hold
land, but were afterwards admitted to do so. The distinction between
their position and that of the hereditary cultivators of the village
community was perhaps the original basis of the different kinds of
tenant-right recognised by our revenue law, though these now, of
course, depend solely on length of tenure and other incidents, and
make no distinction of castes. The shepherd castes who tend sheep
and goats (the Gadarias, Dhangars and Kuramwars) also fall into
this group. Little sanctity attached to these animals as compared
with the cow, and the business of rearing them would be left to
the labouring castes and non-Aryan tribes. The names of all three
castes denote their functional origin, Gadaria being from _gadar_,
a sheep, Dhangar from _dhan_ or small-stock, the word signifying a
flock of sheep or goats and also wealth; and Kuramwar from _kurri_,
the Telugu word for sheep. Others belonging to this group are the
digging and earth-working castes, the Beldars, Murhas, Nunias and so
on, practically all derived from the indigenous tribes, who wander
about seeking employment from the cultivators in the construction
and repair of field embankments and excavation of wells and tanks;
and various fishing and boating castes, as the Injhwars, Naodas,
Murhas and Kewats, who rank as equal to the Dhimars, though they may
not be employed in household or village service. Such castes, almost
entirely derived from the non-Aryan tribes, may have come gradually
into existence as the wants of society developed and new functions
were specialised; they would naturally be given the social status
already attaching to the village menial castes.

34. The non-Aryan tribes.

The fourth group in the scheme of precedence comprises the non-Aryan
or indigenous tribes, who are really outside the caste system when
this is considered as the social organisation of the Hindus, so
long at least as they continue to worship their own tribal deities,
and show no respect for Brahmans nor for the cow. These tribes have,
however, entered the Hindu polity in various positions. The leaders
of some of them who were dominant in the early period were admitted
to the Kshatriya or Rajput caste, and the origin of a few of the
Rajput clans can be traced to the old Bhar and other tribes. Again,
the aristocratic or landholding sections of several existing tribes
are at present, as has been seen, permitted to rank with the good
Hindu cultivating castes. In a few cases, as the Andhs, Halbas and
Manas, the tribe as a whole has become a Hindu caste, when it retained
possession of the land in the centre of a Hindu population. These have
now the same or a slightly higher position than the village menial
castes. On the other hand, those tribes which were subjugated and
permitted to live with a servile status in the Hindu villages have
developed into the existing impure castes of labourers, weavers,
tanners and others, who form the lowest social group. The tribes
which still retain their distinctive existence were not enslaved
in this manner, but lived apart in their own villages in the forest
tracts and kept possession of the land. This seems to be the reason
why they rank somewhat higher than the impure castes, even though
they may utterly defile themselves according to Hindu ideas by eating
cow's flesh. Some tribes, such as the Gonds, Binjhwars and Kawars,
counted amongst them the owners of large estates or even kingdoms,
and consequently had many Hindu cultivators for their subjects. And,
as the Hindus themselves say, they could not regard the Gonds as
impure when they had a Gond king. Nevertheless, the Gond labourers
in Hindu villages in the plains are more despised than the Gonds who
live in their own villages in the hill country. And the conversion
of the tribes as a whole to Hinduism goes steadily forward. At each
census the question arises which of them should be classed as Hindus,
and which as Animists or worshippers of their own tribal gods, and
though the classification is necessarily very arbitrary, the process
can be clearly observed. Thus the Andhs, Kolis, Rautias and Halbas
are now all Hindus, and the same remark applies to the Kols, Bhils
and Korkus in several Districts. By strict abstention from beef,
the adoption of Hindu rites, and to some extent of child-marriage,
they get admission to the third group of castes from whom a Brahman
cannot take water. It will be desirable here to digress from the
main argument by noticing briefly the origin and affinities of the
principal forest tribes of the Central Provinces.

35. The Kolarians and Dravidians.

These tribes are divided into two families, the Munda or Kolarian,
named after the Kol tribe, and the Dravidian, of which the former are
generally held to be the older and more primitive. 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
presents no difficulty." [70] The word is also found in the alternative
name Ho for the Kol tribe, and in the names of the cognate Korwa and
Korku tribes. The word Munda is a Sanskrit derivative meaning a head,
and, as stated by Sir H. Risley, is the common term employed by the
Kols for the headman of a village, whence it has been adopted as an
honorific title for the tribe. In Chota Nagpur those Kols who have
partly adopted Hinduism and become to some degree civilised are called
Munda, while the name Ho or Larka (fighting) Kol is reserved for the
wilder section of the tribe.

36. Kolarian tribes.

The principal tribes of the Munda or Kolarian family in the Central
Provinces are shown below:

Kol, Munda, Ho.
Bhumij.
Santal.
Kharia.
Korwa.
Korku.
Nahal
Savar or Saonr.
Mal, Male.
Gadba.
Khairwar.
Baiga.
Bhuiya.
Bhaina.
Bhunjia.
Binjhwar.
_Probable_: Bhar, Koli, Bhil, Chero.

One large group includes the Kol, Munda or Ho tribe itself and the
Bhumij and Santals, who appear to be local branches of the Kols
called by separate names by the Hindus. The Kharias seem to be the
earliest Kol settlers in Chota Nagpur, who were subjugated by the
later comers. The name Kol, as already seen, is probably a form of
the Santali _har_, a man. Similarly the name of the Korku tribe
is simply a corruption of _Koraku_, young men, and that of the
Korwa tribe is from the same root. The dialects of the Korku and
Korwa tribes closely approximate to Mundari. Hence it would seem
that they were originally one tribe with the Kols, 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 names or been
given separate territorial or occupational designations by the Hindus,
and their former identity has gradually been forgotten. Both the Korwas
of the Chota Nagpur plateau and the Korkus of the Satpura hills were
known as Muasi, a term having the meaning of robber or raider. The
Korwas have also a subtribe called Koraku, and Mr. Crooke thinks that
they were originally the same tribe. Sir G. Grierson states that the
Korwa dialect is closely allied to Kharia. Similarly the resemblance
of the name raises a presumption that the great Koli tribe of Gujarat
and western India may be a branch of the Kols who penetrated to the
western coast along the Satpulra and Central India hill ranges. The
Kolis and Bhils are tribes of the same country and are commonly spoken
of together. Both have entirely lost their own language and cannot
therefore be classified definitely either as Kolarian or Dravidian,
but there is a probability that they are of the Kolarian family. The
Nahals, another tribe of the western Satpura range, are an offshoot
of the Korkus. They are coupled with the Bhils and Kolis in old
Hindu accounts.

The Savars, Sawaras or Saonrs are also a widely distributed tribe,
being found as far west as Bundelkhand and east in Orissa and
Ganjam. In the Central Provinces they have lost their own language and
speak Hindi or Uriya, but in Madras they still retain their original
speech, which is classified by Sir G. Grierson with Gadba as a Munda
or Kolarian dialect. The name occurs in Vedic literature, and the
tribe is probably of great antiquity. In the classical stories of
their origin the first ancestor of the Savars is sometimes described
as a Bhil. The wide extension of the Savar tribe east and west is
favourable to the hypothesis of the identity of the Kols and Kolis,
who have a somewhat similar distribution. The Gadbas of Ganjam, and
the Mal or Male Paharia tribe of Chota Nagpur seem to be offshoots
of the Savars. The Khairwars or Kharwars are an important tribe of
Mirzapur and Chota Nagpur. There is some reason for supposing that
they are an occupational offshoot of the Kols and Cheros, who have
become a distinct group through taking to the manufacture of edible
catechu from the wood of the _khair_ tree. [71]

Another great branch of the Kolarian family is that represented by the
Bhuiya and Baiga tribes and their offshoots, the Bhunjias, Bhainas and
Binjhwars. The Kolarian origin of the Bhuiyas has been discussed in the
article on that tribe, and it has also been suggested that the Baiga
tribe of the Central Provinces are an offshoot of the Bhuiyas. These
tribes have all abandoned their own languages and adopted the local
Aryan vernaculars. The name Bhuiya is a Sanskrit derivative from _bhu_,
earth, and signifies 'belonging to the soil.' Bhumij, applied to a
branch of the Kol tribe, has the same origin. Baiga is used in the
sense of a village priest or a sorcerer in Chota Nagpur, and the office
is commonly held by members of the Bhuiya tribe in that locality,
as being the oldest residents. Thus the section of the tribe in the
Central Provinces appears to have adopted, or been given, the name of
the office. The Bharias or Bharia-Bhumias of Jubbulpore seem to belong
to the great Bhar tribe, once dominant over large areas of the United
Provinces. They also hold the office of village priest, which is there
known as Bhumia, and in some tracts are scarcely distinguished from
the Baigas. Again, in Sambalpur the Bhuiyas are known as Bhumia Kol,
and are commonly regarded as a branch of the Kol tribe. Thus it would
seem that two separate settlements of the Kolarian races may have
occurred; the earlier one would be represented by the Bhars, Bhuiyas,
Baigas and kindred tribes who have entirely lost their own languages
and identity, and have names given to them by the Hindus; and a later
one of the Kols or Mundas and their related tribes, whose languages
and tribal religion and organisation, though in a decaying state, can
be fully recognised and recorded. And the Dravidian immigration would
be subsequent to both of them. To judge from the cases in which the
fissure or subdivision of single tribes into two or more distinct ones
can still be observed, it seems quite a plausible hypothesis that the
original immigrants may have consisted only of a single tribe on each
occasion, and that the formation of new ones may have occurred after
settlement. But the evidence does not warrant any definite assertion.

37. Dravidian tribes.

The principal Dravidian tribes are the Gonds, Khonds and Oraons. The
Gonds were once dominant over the greater part of the Central
Provinces, which was called Gondwana after them. The above three
names have in each case been given to the tribes by the Hindus. The
following tribes are found in the Province:

Gond, Oraon or Kurukh, Khond, Kolam, Parja, Kamar. _Tribal Castes_:
Bhatra, Halba, Dhoba. _Doubtful_: Kawar, Dhanwar.

The Gonds and Khonds call themselves Koi or Koitur, a word which
seems to mean man or hillman. The Oraon tribe call themselves Kurukh,
which has also been supposed to be connected with the Kolarian _horo_,
man. The name Oraon, given to them by the Hindus, may mean farmservant,
while Dhangar, an alternative name for the tribe, has certainly this
signification.

There seems good reason to suppose that the Gonds and Khonds were
originally one tribe divided through migration. [72] The Kolams are
a small tribe of the Wardha Valley, whose dialect resembles those of
the Gonds and Khonds. They may have split off from the parent tribe
in southern India and come northwards separately. The Parjas appear to
represent the earliest Gond settlers in Bastar, who were subjugated by
later Gond and Raj-Gond immigrants. The Halbas and Bhatras are mixed
tribes or tribal castes, descended from the unions of Gonds and Hindus.

38. 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." [73] 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 Edward 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." [74]
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. The presumption is
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.

Though the physical characteristics of the two sets of tribes display
no marked points of difference, the opinion 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.