The Tribes and Castes of the Central Provinces of India Volume IV of IV

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

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Mannewar

_Mannewar._ [197]--A small tribe belonging to the south or
Telugu-speaking portion of the Chanda District, where they mustered
about 1600 persons in 1911. The home of the tribe is the Hyderabad
State, where it numbers 22,000 persons, and the Mannewars are said
to have once been dominant over a part of that territory. The name
is derived from a Telugu word _mannem_, meaning forest, while _war_
is the plural termination in Telugu, Mannewar thus signifying 'the
people of the forest.' The tribe appear to be the inferior branch
of the Koya Gonds, and they are commonly called Mannewar Koyas as
opposed to the Koya Doras or the superior branch, Dora meaning 'lord'
or master. The Koya Doras thus correspond to the Raj-Gonds of the
north of the Province and the Mannewar Koyas to the Dhur or 'dust'
Gonds. [198] The tribe is divided into three exogamous groups: the
Nalugu Velpulu worshipping four gods, the Ayidu Velpulu worshipping
five, and the Anu Velpulu six. A man must marry a woman of one of
the divisions worshipping a different number of gods from his own,
but the Mannewars do not appear to know the names of these gods, and
consequently no veneration can be paid to them at present, and they
survive solely for the purpose of regulating marriage. When a betrothal
is made a day is fixed for taking an omen. In the early morning the
boy who is to be married has his face washed and turmeric smeared
on his feet, and is seated on a wooden seat inside the house. The
elders of the village then proceed outside it towards the rising
sun and watch for any omen given by an animal or bird crossing their
path. If this is good the marriage is celebrated, and if bad the match
is broken off. In the former case five of the elders take their food on
returning from the search for the omen and immediately proceed to the
bride's village. Here they are met by the Pesamuda or village priest,
and stay for three days, when the amount of the dowry is settled and
a date fixed for the wedding. The marriage ceremony resembles that
of the low Telugu castes. The couple are seated on a plough-yoke,
and coloured rice is thrown on to their heads, and the bridegroom
ties the _mangalya_ or bead necklace, which is the sign of marriage,
round the neck of the bride. If a girl is deformed, or has some other
drawback which prevents her from being sought in marriage, she is
given away with her sister to a first cousin [199] or some other near
relative, the two sisters being married to him together. A widow may
marry any man of the tribe except her first husband's brothers. If
a man takes a widow to his house without marrying her he is fined
three rupees, while for adultery with a married woman the penalty is
twenty rupees. A divorce can always be obtained, but if the husband
demands it he is mulcted of twenty rupees by the caste committee,
while a wife who seeks a divorce must pay ten rupees. The Mannewars
make an offering of a fowl and some liquor to the ploughshare on the
festival of Ganesh Chaturthi. After the picking of the flowers of
the mahua [200] they worship that tree, offering to it some of the
liquor distilled from the new flowers, with a fowl and a goat. This
is known as the Burri festival. At the Holi feast the Mannewars make
two human figures to represent Kami and Rati, or the god of love and
his wife. The male figure is then thrown on to the Holi fire with a
live chicken or an egg. This may be a reminiscence of a former human
sacrifice, which was a common custom in many parts of the world at the
spring festival. The caste usually bury the dead, but are beginning
to adopt cremation. They do not employ Brahmans for their ceremonies
and eat all kinds of food, including the flesh of pigs, fowls and
crocodiles, but in view of their having nominally adopted Hinduism,
they abstain from beef.

Maratha

List of Paragraphs

1. _Numerical statistics_.
2. _Double meaning of the term Maratha_.
3. _Origin and position of the caste_.
4. _Exogamous clans_.
5. _Other subdivisions_.
6. _Social customs_.
7. _Religion_.
8. _Present position of the caste_.
9. _Nature of the Maratha insurrection_.
10. _Maratha women in past times_.
11. _The Maratha horseman_.
12. _Cavalry in the field_.
13. _Military administration_.
14. _Sitting Dharna_.
15. _The infantry_.
16. _Character of the Maratha armies_.

1. Numerical statistics

_Maratha, Mahratta._--The military caste of southern India which manned
the armies of Sivaji, and of the Peshwa and other princes of the
Maratha confederacy. In the Central Provinces the Marathas numbered
34,000 persons in 1911, of whom Nagpur contained 9000 and Wardha
8000, while the remainder were distributed over Raipur, Hoshangabad
and Nimar. In Berar their strength was 60,000 persons, the total for
the combined province being thus 94,000. The caste is found in large
numbers in Bombay and Hyderabad, and in 1901 the India Census tables
show a total of not less than five million persons belonging to it.

2. Double meaning of the term Maratha

It is difficult to avoid confusion in the use of the term Maratha,
which signifies both an inhabitant of the area in which the
Marathi language is spoken, and a member of the caste to which
the general name has in view of their historical importance been
specifically applied. The native name for the Marathi-speaking
country is Maharashtra, which has been variously interpreted as
'The great country' or 'The country of the Mahars.' [201] A third
explanation of the name is from the Rashtrakuta dynasty which was
dominant in this area for some centuries after A.D. 750. The name
Rashtrakuta was contracted into Rattha, and with the prefix of Maha
or Great might evolve into the term Maratha. The Rashtrakutas have
been conjecturally identified with the Rathor Rajputs. The _Nasik
Gazetteer_ [202] states that in 246 B.C. Maharatta is mentioned as
one of the places to which Asoka sent an embassy, and Maharashtraka
is recorded in a Chalukyan inscription of A.D. 580 as including three
provinces and 99,000 villages. Several other references are given
in Sir J. Campbell's erudite note, and the name is therefore without
doubt ancient. But the Marathas as a people do not seem to be mentioned
before the thirteenth or fourteenth century. [203] The antiquity of
the name would appear to militate against the derivation from the
Rashtrakuta dynasty, which did not become prominent till much later,
and the most probable meaning of Maharashtra would therefore seem to
be 'The country of the Mahars.' Maharatta and Maratha are presumably
derivatives from Maharashtra.

3. Origin and position of the caste

The Marathas are a caste formed from military service, and it seems
probable that they sprang mainly from the peasant population of Kunbis,
though at what period they were formed into a separate caste has not
yet been determined. Grant-Duff mentions several of their leading
families as holding offices under the Muhammadan rulers of Bijapur and
Ahmadnagar in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, as the Nimbhalkar,
Gharpure and Bhonsla; [204] and presumably their clansmen served in the
armies of those states. But whether or no the designation of Maratha
had been previously used by them, it first became prominent during the
period of Sivaji's guerilla warfare against Aurangzeb. The Marathas
claim a Rajput origin, and several of their clans have the names of
Rajput tribes, as Chauhan, Panwar, Solanki and Suryavansi. In 1836
Mr. Enthoven states, [205] the Sesodia Rana of Udaipur, the head of
the purest Rajput house, was satisfied from inquiries conducted by an
agent that the Bhonslas and certain other families had a right to be
recognised as Rajputs. Colonel Tod states that Sivaji was descended
from a Rajput prince Sujunsi, who was expelled from Mewar to avoid
a dispute about the succession about A.D. 1300. Sivaji is shown as
13th in descent from Sujunsi. Similarly the Bhonslas of Nagpur were
said to derive their origin from one Bunbir, who was expelled from
Udaipur about 1541, having attempted to usurp the kingdom. [206]
As Rajput dynasties ruled in the Deccan for some centuries before
the Muhammadan conquest, it seems reasonable to suppose that a Rajput
aristocracy may have taken root there. This was Colonel Tod's opinion,
who wrote: "These kingdoms of the south as well as the north were
held by Rajput sovereigns, whose offspring, blending with the original
population, produced that mixed race of Marathas inheriting with the
names the warlike propensities of their ancestors, but who assume the
names of their abodes as titles, as the Nimalkars, the Phalkias, the
Patunkars, instead of their tribes of Jadon, Tuear, Puear, etc." [207]
This statement would, however, apply only to the leading houses and
not to the bulk of the Maratha caste, who appear to be mainly derived
from the Kunbis. In Sholapur the Marathas and Kunbis eat together,
and the Kunbis are said to be bastard Marathas. [208] In Satara the
Kunbis have the same division into 96 clans as the Marathas have, and
many of the same surnames. [209] The writer of the _Satara Gazetteer_
says: [210] "The census of 1851 included the Marathas with the Kunbis,
from whom they do not form a separate caste. Some Maratha families
may have a larger strain of northern or Rajput blood than the Kunbis,
but this is not always the case. The distinction between Kunbis
and Marathas is almost entirely social, the Marathas as a rule being
better off, and preferring even service as a constable or messenger to
husbandry." Exactly the same state of affairs prevails in the Central
Provinces and Berar, where the body of the caste are commonly known
as Maratha Kunbis. In Bombay the Marathas will take daughters from
the Kunbis in marriage for their sons, though they will not give
their daughters in return. But a Kunbi who has got on in the world
and become wealthy may by sufficient payment get his sons married into
Maratha families, and even be adopted as a member of the caste. [211]
In 1798 Colonel Tone, who commanded a regiment of the Peshwa's army,
wrote [212] of the Marathas: "The three great tribes which compose the
Maratha caste are the Kunbi or farmer, the Dhangar or shepherd, and the
Goala or cowherd; to this original cause may perhaps be ascribed that
great simplicity of manner which distinguishes the Maratha people."

It seems then most probable that, as already stated, the Maratha
caste was of purely military origin, constituted from the various
castes of Maharashtra who adopted military service, though some of
the leading families may have had Rajputs for their ancestors. Sir
D. Ibbetson thought that a similar relation existed in past times
between the Rajputs and Jats, the landed aristocracy of the Jat caste
being gradually admitted to Rajput rank. The Khandaits or swordsmen of
Orissa are a caste formed in the same manner from military service. In
the _Imperial Gazetteer_ Sir H. Risley suggests that the Maratha
people were of Scythian origin:

"The physical type of the people of this region accords fairly
well with this theory, while the arguments derived from language
and religion do not seem to conflict with it.... On this view the
wide-ranging forays of the Marathas, their guerilla methods of warfare,
their unscrupulous dealings with friend and foe, their genius for
intrigue and their consequent failure to build up an enduring dominion,
might well be regarded as inherited from their Scythian ancestors."

4. Exogamous clans

In the Central Provinces the Marathas are divided into 96 exogamous
clans, known as the Chhanava Kule, which marry with one another. During
the period when the Bhonsla family were rulers of Nagpur they
constituted a sort of inner circle, consisting of seven of the
leading clans, with whom alone they intermarried; these are known
as the Satghare or Seven Houses, and consist of the Bhonsla, Gujar,
Ahirrao, Mahadik, Sirke, Palke and Mohte clans. These houses at one
time formed an endogamous group, marrying only among themselves, but
recently the restriction has been relaxed, and they have arranged
marriages with other Maratha families. It may be noted that the
present representatives of the Bhonsla family are of the Gujar clan
to which the last Raja of Nagpur, Raghuji III., belonged prior to
his adoption. Several of the clans, as already noted, have Rajput
sept names; and some are considered to be derived from those of
former ruling dynasties; as Chalke, from the Chalukya Rajput kings
of the Deccan and Carnatic; More, who may represent a branch of the
great Maurya dynasty of northern India; Salunke, perhaps derived
from the Solanki kings of Gujarat; and Yadav, the name of the kings
of Deogiri or Daulatabad. [213] Others appear to be named after
animals or natural objects, as Sinde from _sindi_ the date-palm tree,
Ghorpade from _ghorpad_ the iguana; or to be of a titular nature, as
Kale black, Pandhre white, Bhagore a renegade, Jagthap renowned, and
so on. The More, Nimbhalkar, Ghatge, Mane, Ghorpade, Dafle, Jadav and
Bhonsla clans are the oldest, and held prominent positions in the old
Muhammadan kingdoms of Bijapur and Ahmadnagar. The Nimbhalkar family
were formerly Panwar Rajputs, and took the name of Nimbhalkar from
their ancestral village Nimbalik. The Ghorpade family are an offshoot
of the Bhonslas, and obtained their present name from the exploit of
one of their ancestors, who scaled a fort in the Konkan, previously
deemed impregnable, by passing a cord round the body of a _ghorpad_
or iguana. [214] A noticeable trait of these Maratha houses is the
fondness with which they clung to the small estates or villages in
the Deccan in which they had originally held the office of a patel or
village headman as a _watan_ or hereditary right, even after they had
carved out for themselves principalities and states in other parts
of India. The present Bhonsla Raja takes his title from the village
of Deor in the Poona country. In former times we read of the Raja of
Satara clinging to the _watans_ he had inherited from Sivaji after
he had lost his crown in all but the name; Sindhia was always termed
patel or village headman in the revenue accounts of the villages he
acquired in Nimar; while it is said that Holkar and the Panwar of Dhar
fought desperately after the British conquest to recover the _pateli_
rights of Deccan villages which had belonged to their ancestors. [215]

5. Other subdivisions

Besides the 96 clans there are now in the Central Provinces some local
subcastes who occupy a lower position and do not intermarry with the
Marathas proper. Among these are the Deshkar or 'Residents of the
country'; the Waindesha or those of Berar and Khandesh; the Gangthade
or those dwelling on the banks of the Godavari and Wainganga; and the
Ghatmathe or residents of the Mahadeo plateau in Berar. It is also
stated that the Marathas are divided into the _Khasi_ or 'pure' and
the _Kharchi_ or the descendants of handmaids. In Bombay the latter
are known as the Akarmashes or 11 _mashas_, meaning that as twelve
_mashas_ make a tola, a twelfth part of them is alloy.

6. Social customs

A man must not marry in his own clan or that of his mother. A
sister's son may be married to a brother's daughter, but not vice
versa. Girls are commonly married between five and twelve years of age,
and the ceremony resembles that of the Kunbis. The bridegroom goes
to the bride's house riding on horseback and covered with a black
blanket When a girl first becomes mature, usually after marriage,
the Marathas perform the Shantik ceremony. The girl is secluded for
four days, after which she is bathed and puts on new clothes and
dresses her hair and a feast is given to the caste-fellows. Sometimes
the bridegroom comes and is asked whether he has visited his wife
before she became mature, and if he confesses that he has done so a
small fine is imposed on him. Such cases are, however, believed to
be rare. The Marathas proper forbid widow-marriage, but the lower
groups allow it. If a maiden is seduced by one of the caste she may
be married to him as if she were a widow, a fine being imposed on
her family; but if she goes wrong with an outsider she is finally
expelled. Divorce is not ostensibly allowed but may be concluded by
agreement between the parties. A wife who commits adultery is cast off
and expelled from the caste. The caste burn their dead when they can
afford it and perform the _shraddh_ ceremony in the month of _Kunwar_
(September), when oblations are offered to the dead and a feast is
given to the caste-fellows. Sometimes a tomb is erected as a memorial
to the dead, but without his name, and is surmounted usually by an
image of Mahadeo. The caste eat the flesh of clean animals and of
fowls and wild pig, and drink liquor. Their rules about food are
liberal like those of the Rajputs, a too great stringency being no
doubt in both cases incompatible with the exigencies of military
service. They make no difference between food cooked with or without
water, and will accept either from a Brahman, Rajput, Tirole Kunbi,
Lingayat Bania or Phulmali.

The Marathas proper observe the _parda_ system with regard to their
women, and will go to the well and draw water themselves rather than
permit their wives to do so. The women wear ornaments only of gold
or glass and not of silver or any baser metal. They are not permitted
to spin cotton as being an occupation of the lower classes. The women
are tattooed in the centre of the forehead with a device resembling a
trident. The men commonly wear a turban made of many folds of cloth
twisted into a narrow rope and large gold rings with pearls in the
upper part of the ear. Like the Rajputs they often have their hair
long and wear beards and whiskers. They assume the sacred thread and
invest a boy with it when he is seven or eight years old or on his
marriage. Till then they let the hair grow on the front of his head,
and when the thread ceremony is performed they cut this off and let
the _choti_ or scalp-lock grow at the back. In appearance the men
are often tall and well-built and of a light wheat-coloured complexion.

7. Religion

The principal deity of the Marathas is Khandoba, a warrior incarnation
of Mahadeo. He is supposed to have been born in a field of millet
near Poona and to have led the people against the Muhammadans in
early times. He had a watch-dog who warned him of the approach of
his enemies, and he is named after the _khanda_ or sword which he
always carried. In Bombay [216] he is represented on horseback with
two women, one of the Bania caste, his wedded wife, in front of him,
and another, a Dhangarin, his kept mistress, behind. He is considered
the tutelary deity of the Maratha country, and his symbol is a bag
of turmeric powder known as _bhandar_. The caste worship Khandoba on
Sundays with rice, flowers and incense, and also on the 21st day of
Magh (January), which is called _Champa Sashthi_ and is his special
festival. On this day they will catch hold of any dog, and after
adorning him with flowers and turmeric give him a good feed and let
him go again. The Marathas are generally kind to dogs and will not
injure them. At the Dasahra festival the caste worship their horses
and swords and go out into the field to see a blue-jay in memory of
the fact that the Maratha marauding expeditions started on Dasahra. On
coming back they distribute to each other leaves of the _shami_ tree
(_Bauhinia racemosa_) as a substitute for gold. It was formerly held
to be fitting among the Hindus that the warrior should ride a horse
(geldings being unknown) and the zamindar or landowner a mare, as more
suitable to a man of peace. The warriors celebrated their Dasahra,
and worshipped their horses on the tenth day of the light fortnight
of _Kunwar_ (September), while the cultivators held their festival
and worshipped their mares on the ninth day. It is recorded that the
great Raghuji Bhonsla, the first Raja of Nagpur, held his Dasahra on
the ninth day, in order to proclaim the fact that he was by family
an agriculturist and only incidentally a man of arms. [217]

8. Present position of the caste

The Marathas present the somewhat melancholy spectacle of an
impoverished aristocratic class attempting to maintain some semblance
of their former position, though they no longer have the means
to do so. They flourished during two or three centuries of almost
continuous war, and became a wealthy and powerful caste, but they
find a difficulty in turning their hands to the arts of peace. Sir
R. Craddock writes of them in Nagpur:

"Among the Marathas a large number represent connections of the Bhonsla
family, related by marriage or by illegitimate descent to that house. A
considerable proportion of the Government political pensioners are
Marathas. Many of them own villages or hold tenant land, but as a
rule they are extravagant in their living; and several of the old
Maratha nobility have fallen very much in the world. Pensions diminish
with each generation, but the expenditure shows no corresponding
decrease. The sons are brought up to no employment and the daughters
are married with lavish pomp and show. The native army does not much
attract them, and but few are educated well enough for the dignified
posts in the civil employ of Government. It is a question whether
their pride of race will give way before the necessity of earning
their livelihood soon enough for them to maintain or regain some of
their former position. Otherwise those with the largest landed estates
may be saved by the intervention of Government, but the rest must
gradually deteriorate till the dignities of their class have become
a mere memory. The humbler members of the caste find their employment
as petty contractors or traders, private servants, Government peons,
_sowars_ and hangers-on in the retinue of the more important families.

"What [218] little display his means afford a Maratha still tries to
maintain. Though he may be clad in rags at home, he has a spare dress
which he himself washes and keeps with great care and puts on when he
goes to pay a visit. He will hire a boy to attend him with a lantern
at night, or to take care of his shoes when he goes to a friend's
house and hold them before him when he comes out. Well-to-do Marathas
have usually in their service a Brahman clerk known as _divanji_ or
minister, who often takes advantage of his master's want of education
to defraud him. A Maratha seldom rises early or goes out in the
morning. He will get up at seven or eight o'clock, a late hour for
a Hindu, and attend to business if he has any or simply idle about
chewing or smoking tobacco and talking till ten o'clock. He will
then bathe and dress in a freshly-washed cloth and bow before the
family gods which the priest has already worshipped. He will dine,
chew betel and smoke tobacco and enjoy a short midday rest. Rising at
three, he will play cards, dice or chess, and in the evening will go
out walking or riding or pay a visit to a friend. He will come back
at eight or nine and go to bed at ten or eleven. But Marathas who
have estates to manage lead regular, fairly busy lives."

9. Nature of the Maratha insurrection

Sir D. Ibbetson drew attention to the fact that the rising of the
Marathas against the Muhammadans was almost the only instance in
Indian history of what might correctly be called a really national
movement. In other cases, as that of the Sikhs, though the essential
motive was perhaps of the same nature, it was obscured by the fact
that its ostensible tendency was religious. The _gurus_ of the Sikhs
did not call on their followers to fight for their country but for a
new religion. This was only in accordance with the Hindu intellect,
to which the idea of nationality has hitherto been foreign, while its
protests against both alien and domestic tyrannies tend to take the
shape of a religious revolt. A similar tendency is observable even in
the case of the Marathas, for the rising was from its inception largely
engineered by the Maratha Brahmans, who on its success hastened to
annex for themselves a leading position in the new Poona state. And it
has been recorded that in calling his countrymen to arms, Sivaji did
not ask them to defend their hearths and homes or wives and children,
but to rally for the protection of the sacred persons of Brahmans
and cows.

10. Maratha women in past times

Although the Marathas have now in imitation of the Rajputs and
Muhammadans adopted the _parda_ system, this is not a native custom,
and women have played quite an important part in their history. The
women of the household have also exercised a considerable influence
and their opinions are treated with respect by the men. Several
instances occur in which women of high rank have successfully acted
as governors and administrators. In the Bhonsla family the Princess
Baka Bai, widow of Raghuji II., is a conspicuous instance, while the
famous or notorious Rani of Jhansi is another case of a Maratha lady
who led her troops in person, and was called the best man on the
native side in the Mutiny.