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

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46. Occupational subcastes.

Many subcastes are also formed from slight differences of occupation,
which are not of sufficient importance to create new castes. Some
instances of subcastes formed from growing special plants or crops have
been given. Audhia Sunars (goldsmiths) work in brass and bell-metal,
which is less respectable than the sacred metal, gold. The Ekbeile
Telis harness one bullock only to the oil-press and the Dobeile two
bullocks. As it is thought sinful to use the sacred ox in this manner
and to cover his eyes as the Telis do, it may be slightly more sinful
to use two bullocks than one. The Udia Ghasias (grass-cutters) cure
raw hides and do scavengers' work, and are hence looked down upon
by the others; the Dingkuchia Ghasias castrate cattle and horses,
and the Dolboha carry dhoolies and palanquins. The Mangya Chamars are
beggars and rank below all other subcastes, from whom they will accept
cooked food. Frequently, however, subcastes are formed from a slight
distinction of occupation, which connotes no real difference in social
status. The Hathgarhia Kumhars (potters) are those who used to fashion
the clay with their own hands, and the Chakarias those who turned it
on a wheel. And though the practice of hand pottery is now abandoned,
the divisions remain. The Shikari or sportsmen Pardhis (hunters)
are those who use firearms, though far from being sportsmen in our
sense of the term; the Phanse Pardhis hunt with traps and snares;
the Chitewale use a tame leopard to run down deer, and the Gayake
stalk their prey behind a bullock. Among the subcastes of Dhimars
(fishermen and watermen) are the Singaria, who cultivate the _singara_
or water-nut in tanks, the Tankiwalas or sharpeners of grindstones,
the Jhingars or prawn-catchers, the Bansias and Saraias or anglers
(from _bansi_ or _sarai_, a bamboo fishing-rod), the Kasdhonias
who wash the sands of the sacred rivers to find the coins thrown
or dropped into them by pious pilgrims, and the Sonjharas who wash
the sands of auriferous streams for their particles of gold. [89]
The Gariwan Dangris have adopted the comparatively novel occupation
of driving carts (_gari_) for a livelihood, and the Panibhar are
water-carriers, while the ordinary occupation of the Dangris is to grow
melons in river-beds. It is unnecessary to multiply instances; here,
as in the case of territorial subcastes, the practice of subdivision
appears to have been extended from motives of convenience, and the
slight difference of occupation is adopted as a distinguishing badge.

47. Subcastes formed from social or religious differences, or from
mixed descent.

Subcastes are also occasionally formed from differences of social
practice which produce some slight gain or loss of status. Thus
the Biyahut or 'Married' Kalars prohibit the remarriage of widows,
saying that a woman is married once for all, and hence rank a little
higher than the others. The Dosar Banias, on the other hand, are said
to take their name from _dusra_, second, because they allow a widow
to marry a second time and are hence looked upon by the others as a
second-class lot. The Khedawal Brahmans are divided into the 'outer'
and 'inner': the inner subdivision being said to exist of those who
accepted presents from the Raja of Kaira and remained in his town,
while the outer refused the presents, quitted the town and dwelt
outside. The latter rank a little higher than the former. The Suvarha
Dhimars keep pigs and the Gadhewale donkeys, and are considered to
partake of the impure nature of these animals. The Gobardhua Chamars
wash out and eat the undigested grain from the droppings of cattle
on the threshing-floors. The Chungia group of the Satnami Chamars
are those who smoke the _chongi_ or leaf-pipe, though smoking is
prohibited to the Satnamis. The Nagle or 'naked' Khonds have only
a negligible amount of clothing and are looked down upon by the
others. The Makaria Kamars eat monkeys and are similarly despised.

Subcastes are also formed from mixed descent. The Dauwa Ahirs are held
to be the offspring of Ahir women who were employed as wet-nurses in
the houses of Bundela Rajputs and bore children to their masters. The
Halbas and Rautias are divided into subcastes known as Purait or
'pure,' and Surait or of 'mixed' descent. Many castes have a subcaste
to which the progeny of illicit unions is relegated, such as the Dogle
Kayasths, and the Lahuri Sen subcaste of Barais, Banias and other
castes. Illegitimate children in the Kasar (brass-worker) caste form
a subcaste known as Takle or 'thrown out,' Vidur or 'illegitimate,'
or Laondi Bachcha, the issue of a kept wife. In Berar the Mahadeo
Kolis, called after the Mahadeo or Pachmarhi hills, are divided into
the Khas, or 'pure,' and the Akaramase or 'mixed'; this latter word
means gold or silver composed of eleven parts pure metal and one part
alloy. Many subcastes of Bania have subcastes known as Bisa or Dasa,
that is 'Twenty' or 'Ten' groups, the former being of pure descent or
twenty-carat, as it were, and the latter the offspring of remarried
widows or other illicit unions. In the course of some generations
such mixed groups frequently regain full status in the caste.

Subcastes are also formed from members of other castes who have taken
to the occupation of the caste in question and become amalgamated
with it; thus the Korchamars are Koris (weavers) adopted into the
Chamar (tanner) caste; Khatri Chhipas are Khatris who have become
dyers and printers; the small Dangri caste has subcastes called Teli,
Kalar and Kunbi, apparently consisting of members of those castes who
have become Dangris; the Baman Darzis or tailors will not take food
from any one except Brahmans and may perhaps be derived from them,
and the Kaith Darzis may be Kayasths; and so on.

Occasionally subcastes may be formed from differences of religious
belief or sectarian practice. In northern India even such leading Hindu
castes as Rajputs and Jats have large Muhammadan branches, who as a
rule do not intermarry with Hindus. The ordinary Hindu sects seldom,
however, operate as a bar to marriage, Hinduism being tolerant of
all forms of religious belief. Those Chamars of Chhattisgarh who have
embraced the doctrines of the Satnami reforming sect form a separate
endogamous subcaste, and sometimes the members of the Kabirpanthi
sect within a caste marry among themselves.

Statistics of the subcastes are not available, but their numbers are
very extensive in proportion to the population, and even in the same
subcaste the members living within a comparatively small local area
often marry among themselves and attend exclusively at their own
caste feasts, though in the case of educated and well-to-do Hindus
the construction of railways has modified this rule and connections
are kept up between distant groups of relatives. Clearly therefore
differences of occupation or social status are not primarily
responsible for the subcastes, because in the majority of cases
no such differences really exist. I think the real reason for their
multiplication was the necessity that the members of a subcaste should
attend at the caste feasts on the occasion of marriages, deaths
and readmission of offenders, these feasts being of the nature of
a sacrificial or religious meal. The grounds for this view will be
given subsequently.

48. Exogamous groups.

The caste or subcaste forms the outer circle within which a man must
marry. Inside it are a set of further subdivisions which prohibit the
marriage of persons related through males. These are called exogamous
groups or clans, and their name among the higher castes is _gotra_. The
theory is that all persons belonging to the same _gotra_ are descended
from the same male ancestor, and so related. The relationship in the
_gotra_ now only goes by the father's side; when a woman marries
she is taken into the clan of her husband and her children belong
to it. Marriage is not allowed within the clan and in the course of
a few generations the marriage of persons related through males or
agnates is prohibited within a very wide circle. But on the mother's
side the _gotra_ does not serve as a bar to marriage and the union
of first cousins would be possible, other than the children of two
brothers. According to Hindu law, intermarriage is prohibited within
four degrees between persons related through females. But generally
the children of first cousins are allowed to marry, when related
partly through females. And several castes allow the intermarriage of
first cousins, that of a brother's daughter to a sister's son and in a
less degree of a brother's son to a sister's daughter being specially
favoured. One or two Madras castes allow a man to marry his niece,
and the small Dhoba caste of Mandla permit the union of children of
the same mother but different fathers.

Sir Herbert Risley classed the names of exogamous divisions as
eponymous, territorial or local, titular and totemistic. In the body of
this work the word clan is usually applied only to the large exogamous
groups of the Rajputs and one or two other military castes. The small
local or titular groups of ordinary Hindu castes are called 'section,'
and the totemic groups of the primitive tribes 'sept.' But perhaps
it is simpler to use the word 'clan' throughout according to the
practice of Sir J.G. Frazer. The vernacular designations of the clans
or sections are _gotra_, which originally meant a stall or cow-pen;
_khero_, a village; _dih_, a village site; _baink_, a title; _mul_
or _mur_, literally a root, hence an origin; and _kul_ or _kuri_, a
family. The sections called eponymous are named after Rishis or saints
mentioned in the Vedas and other scriptures and are found among the
Brahmans and a few of the higher castes, such as Vasishta, Garga,
Bharadwaj, Vishvamitra, Kashyap and so on. A few Rajput clans are
named after kings or heroes, as the Raghuvansis from king Raghu of
Ajodhia and the Tilokchandi Bais from a famous king of that name. The
titular class of names comprise names of offices supposed to have
been held by the founder of the clan, or titles and names referring
to a personal defect or quality, and nicknames. Instances of the
former are Kotwar (village watchman), Chaudhri, Meher or Mahto (caste
headman), Bhagat (saint), Thakuria and Rawat (lord or prince), Vaidya
(physician); and of titular names and nicknames: Kuldip (lamp of the
family), Mohjaria (one with a burnt mouth), Jachak (beggar), Garkata
(cut-throat), Bhatpagar (one serving on a pittance of boiled rice),
Kangali (poor), Chikat (dirty), Petdukh (stomach-ache), Ghunnere
(worm-eater) and so on. A special class of names are those of offices
held at the caste feasts; thus the clans of the Chitrakathi caste are
the Atak or Mankari, who furnish the headman of the caste _panchayat_
or committee; the Bhojin who serve the food at marriages and other
ceremonies; the Kakra who arrange for the lighting; the Gotharya
who keep the provisions, and the Ghorerao (_ghora_, a horse) who
have the duty of looking after the horses and bullock-carts of the
caste-men who assemble. Similarly the five principal clans of the
small Turi caste are named after the five sons of Singhbonga or the
sun: the eldest son was called Mailuar and his descendants are the
leaders or headmen of the caste; the descendants of the second son,
Chardhagia, purify and readmit offenders to caste intercourse; those
of the third son, Suremar, conduct the ceremonial shaving of such
offenders, and those of the fourth son bring water for the ceremony
and are called Tirkuar. The youngest brother, Hasdagia, is said
to have committed some caste offence, and the four other brothers
took the parts which are still played by their descendants in his
ceremony of purification. In many cases exogamous clans are named
after other castes or subcastes. Many low castes have adopted the
names of the Rajput clans, either from simple vanity as people may
take an aristocratic surname, or because they were in the service of
Rajputs, and have adopted the names of their masters or are partly
descended from them. Other names of castes found among exogamous
groups probably indicate that an ancestor belonging to that caste was
taken into the one in which the group is found. The Bhaina tribe have
clans named after the Dhobi, Ahir, Gond, Mali and Panka castes. The
members of such clans pay respect to any man belonging to the caste
after which they are named and avoid picking a quarrel with him;
they also worship the family gods of the caste.

Territorial names are very common, and are taken from that of some
town or village in which the ancestor of the clan or the members of the
clan themselves resided. [90] The names are frequently distorted, and
it seems probable that the majority of the large number of clan names
for which no meaning can be discovered were those of villages. These
unknown names are probably more numerous than the total of all those
classes of names to which a meaning can be assigned.

49. Totemistic clans.

The last class of exogamous divisions are those called totemistic,
when the clan is named after a plant or animal or other natural
object. These are almost universal among the non-Aryan or primitive
tribes, but occur also in most Hindu castes, including some of the
highest. The commonest totem names are those of the prominent animals,
including several which are held sacred by the Hindus, as _bagh_
or _nahar_, the tiger; _bachas_, the calf; _morkuria_, the peacock;
_kachhwaha_ or _limuan_, the tortoise; _nagas_, the cobra; _hasti_, the
elephant; _bandar_, the monkey; _bhainsa_, the buffalo; _richharia_,
the bear; _kuliha_, the jackal; _kukura_, the dog; _karsayal_,
the deer; _heran_, the black-buck, and so on. The utmost variety
of names is found, and numerous trees, as well as rice, kodon and
other crops, salt, sandalwood, cucumber, pepper, and some household
implements, such as the pestle and rolling-slab, serve as names of
clans. Names which may be held to have a totemistic origin occur
even in the highest castes. Thus among the names of eponymous Rishis
or saints, Bharadwaj means a lark, Kaushik may be from the _kusha_
grass, Agastya from the _agasti_ flower, Kashyap from _kachhap_,
a tortoise; Taittiri from _titar_, a partridge, and so on. Similarly
the origin of other Rishis is attributed to animals, as Rishishringa
to an antelope, Mandavya to a frog, and Kanada to an owl. [91] An
inferior Rajput clan, Meshbansi, signifies descendants of the sheep,
while the name of the Baghel clan is derived from the tiger (bagh),
that of the Kachhwaha clan perhaps from _kachhap_, a tortoise, of
the Haihaivansi from the horse, of the Nagvansi from the cobra, and
of the Tomara clan from _tomar_, a club. The Karan or writer caste
of Orissa, similarly, have clans derived from the cobra, tortoise
and calf, and most of the cultivating and other middle castes have
clans with totemistic names. The usual characteristics of totemism,
in its later and more common form at any rate, are that members of a
clan regard themselves as related to, or descended from, the animal
or tree from which the clan takes its name, and abstain from killing
or eating it. This was perhaps not the original relation of the clan
to its clan totem in the hunting stage, but it is the one commonly
found in India, where the settled agricultural stage has long been
reached. The Bhaina tribe have among their totems the cobra, tiger,
leopard, vulture, hawk, monkey, wild dog, quail, black ant, and so
on. Members of a clan will not injure the animal after which it is
named, and if they see the corpse of the animal or hear of its death
they throw away an earthen cooking-pot, and bathe and shave themselves
as for one of the family. At a wedding the bride's father makes an
image in clay of the bird or animal of the groom's sept and places it
beside the marriage-post. The bridegroom worships the image, lighting
a sacrificial fire before it, and offers to it the vermilion which
he afterwards smears on the forehead of the bride. Women are often
tattooed with representations of their totem animal, and men swear
by it as their most sacred oath. A similar respect is paid to the
inanimate objects after which certain septs are named. Thus members
of the Gawad or cowdung clan will not burn cowdung cakes for fuel;
and those of the Mircha clan do not use chillies. One clan is named
after the sun, and when an eclipse occurs they perform the same formal
rites of mourning as others do on the death of their totem animal. The
Baghani clan of Majhwars, named after the tiger, think that a tiger
will not attack any member of their clan unless he has committed an
offence entailing temporary excommunication from caste. Until this
offence has been expiated his relationship with the tiger as head of
the clan is in abeyance, and the tiger will eat him as he would any
other stranger. If a tiger meets a member of the clan who is free from
sin, he will run away. Members of the Khoba or peg clan will not make a
peg nor drive one into the ground. Those of the Dumar or fig-tree clan
say that their first ancestor was born under this tree. They consider
the tree to be sacred and never eat its fruit, and worship it once a
year. Sometimes the members of the clan do not revere the object after
which it is named but some other important animal or plant. Thus the
Markam clan of Gonds, named after the mango-tree, venerate the tortoise
and do not kill it. The Kathotia clan of Kols 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. The
Katharia clan 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 name of the Mudia or
Mudmudia clan 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 day after she
has borne a child, and her family then do not eat this vegetable for
three years. 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 till the fruits have been plucked they do not touch it,
though of course they afterwards eat the fruits. The Bhuwar sept
are named after _bhu_ or _bhumi_, the earth. They must always
sleep on the earth and not on cots. The Nun (salt) and Dhan (rice)
clans of Oraons cannot dispense with eating their totems or titular
ancestors. But the Dhan Oraons content themselves with refusing to
consume the scum which thickens on the surface of the boiled rice,
and the Nun sept will not lick a plate in which salt and water have
been mixed. At the weddings of the Vulture clan of the small Bhona
caste one member of the clan kills a small chicken by biting off the
head and then eats it in imitation of a vulture. Definite instances
of the sacrificial eating of the totem animal have not been found,
but it is said that the tiger and snake clans of the Bhatra tribe
formerly ate their totems at a sacrificial meal. The Gonds also
worship the cobra as a household god, and once a year they eat the
flesh of the snake and think that by doing so they will be immune
from snake-bite throughout the year. On the festival of Nag-Panchmi
the Mahars make an image of a snake with flour and sugar and eat
it. It is reported that the Singrore Dhimars who work on rivers and
tanks must eat the flesh of a crocodile at their weddings, while the
Sonjharas who wash the sands of rivers for gold should catch a live
crocodile for the occasion of the wedding and afterwards put it back
into the river. These latter customs may probably have fallen into
abeyance owing to the difficulty of catching a crocodile, and in any
case the animals are tribal gods rather than totems.

50. Terms of relationship.

Exogamy and totemism are found not only in India, but are the
characteristics of primitive social groups over the greater part
of the world. Totemism establishes a relation of kinship between
persons belonging to one clan who are not related by blood, and
exogamy prescribes that the persons held to be so related shall not
intermarry. Further, when terms of relationship come into existence it
is found that they are applied not to members of one family, but to
all the persons of the clan who might have stood in each particular
relationship to the person addressing them. Thus a man will address
as mother not only his own mother, but all the women of his clan who
might have stood to him in the relation of mother. Similarly he will
address all the old men and women as grandfather or grandmother or
aunt, and the boys and girls of his own generation as brother and
sister, and so on. With the development of the recognition of the
consanguineous family, the use of terms of relationship tends to
be restricted to persons who have actual kinship; thus a boy will
address only his father's brothers as father, and his cousins as
brothers and sisters; but sufficient traces of the older system of
clan kinship remain to attest its former existence. But it seems also
clear that some, at least, of the terms of relationship were first
used between persons really related; thus the word for mother must
have been taught by mothers to their own babies beginning to speak,
as it is a paramount necessity for a small child to have a name by
which to call its mother when it is wholly dependent on her; if the
period of infancy is got over without the use of this term of address
there is no reason why it should be introduced in later life, when
in the primitive clan the child quickly ceased to be dependent on its
mother or to retain any strong affection for her. Similarly, as shown
by Sir J.G. Frazer in _Totemism and Exogamy_, there is often a special
name for the mother's brother when other uncles or aunts are addressed
simply as father or mother. This name must therefore have been brought
into existence to distinguish the mother's brother at the time when,
under the system of female descent, he stood in the relation of a
protector and parent to the child. Where the names for grandfather and
grandmother are a form of duplication of those for father and mother
as in English, they would appear to imply a definite recognition of
the idea of family descent. The majority of the special names for
other relatives, such as fraternal and maternal uncles and aunts,
must also have been devised to designate those relatives in particular,
and hence there is a probability that the terms for father and brother
and sister, which on _a priori_ grounds may be considered doubtful,
were also first applied to real or putative fathers and brothers and
sisters. But, as already seen, under the classificatory system of
relationship these same terms are addressed to members of the same
clan who might by age and sex have stood in such a relationship to
the person addressing them, but are not actually akin to him at
all. And hence it seems a valid and necessary conclusion that at
the time when the family terms of relationship came into existence,
the clan sentiment of kinship was stronger than the family sentiment;
that is, a boy was taught or made to feel that all the women of the
clan of about the same age as his mother were as nearly akin to him
as his own mother, and that he should regard them all in the same
relation. And similarly he looked on all the men of the clan of an age
enabling them to be his fathers in the same light as his own father,
and all the children of or about his own age as his brothers and
sisters. The above seems a necessary conclusion from the existence
of the classificatory system of relationship, which is very widely
spread among savages, and if admitted, it follows that the sentiment of
kinship within the clan was already established when the family terms
of relationship were devised, and therefore that the clan was prior
to the family as a social unit. This conclusion is fortified by the
rule of exogamy which prohibits marriage between persons of the same
clan between whom no blood-relationship can be traced, and therefore
shows that some kind of kinship was believed to exist between them,
independent of and stronger than the link of consanguinity. Further,
Mr. Hartland shows in _Primitive Paternity_ [92] that during the period
of female descent when physical paternity has been recognised, but the
father and mother belong to different clans, the children, being of
the mother's clan, will avenge a blood-feud of their clan upon their
own father; and this custom seems to show clearly that the sentiment
of clan-kinship was prior to and stronger than that of family kinship.