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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Mochi [276]

List of Paragraphs

1. _General notice_.
2. _Legends of origin_.
3. _Art among the Hindus_.
4. _Antagonism of Mochis and Chamars_.
5. _Exogamous groups_.
6. _Social customs_.
7. _Shoes_.

1. General notice

_Mochi, Muchi, Jingar, Jirayat, Jildgar, Chitrakar, Chitevari,
Musabir._--The occupational caste of saddlers and cobblers. In 1911
about 4000 Mochis and 2000 Jingars were returned from the Central
Provinces and Berar, the former residing principally in the Hindustani
and the latter in the Marathi-speaking Districts. The name is derived
from the Sanskrit _mochika_ and the Hindustani _mojna_, to fold, and
the common name _mojah_ for socks and stockings is from the same root
(Platts). By origin the Mochis are no doubt an offshoot of the Chamar
caste, but they now generally disclaim the connection. Mr. Nesfield
observes [277] that, "The industry of tanning is preparatory to and
lower than that of cobblery, and hence the caste of Chamar ranks
decidedly below that of Mochi. The ordinary Hindu does not consider
the touch of a Mochi so impure as that of the Chamar, and there is a
Hindu proverb to the effect that 'Dried or prepared hide is the same
thing as cloth,' whereas the touch of the raw hide before it has been
tanned by the Chamar is considered a pollution. The Mochi does not
eat carrion like the Chamar, nor does he eat swine's flesh; nor does
his wife ever practise the much-loathed art of midwifery." In the
Central Provinces, as in northern India, the caste may be considered
to have two branches, the lower one consisting of the Mochis who
make and cobble shoes and are admittedly descended from Chamars;
while the better-class men either make saddles and harness, when they
are known as Jingar; or bind books, when they are called Jildgar; or
paint and make clay idols, when they are given the designation either
of Chitrakar, Chitevari or Murtikar. In Berar some Jingars have taken
up the finer kinds of iron-work, such as mending guns, and are known
as Jirayat. All these are at great pains to dissociate themselves
from the Chamar caste. They call themselves Thakur or Rajput and have
exogamous sections the names of which are identical with those of the
Rajput septs. The same people have assumed the name of Rishi in Bengal,
and, according to a story related by Sir H. Risley, claim to be debased
Brahmans; while in the United Provinces Mr. Crooke considers them to
be connected with the Srivastab Kayasths, with whom they intermarry
and agree in manners and customs. The fact that in the three Provinces
these workers in leather claim descent from three separate high castes
is an interesting instance of the trouble which the lower-class Hindus
will take to obtain a slight increase in social consideration; but
the very diversity of the accounts given induces the belief that all
Mochis were originally sprung from the Chamars. In Bombay, again,
Mr. Enthoven [278] writes that the caste prefers to style itself
Arya Somavansi Kshatriya or Aryan Kshatriyas of the Moon division;
while they have all the regular Brahmanical _gotras_ as Bharadwaja,
Vasishtha, Gautam and so on.

2. Legends of origin

The following interesting legends as to the origin of the caste adduced
by them in support of their Brahmanical descent are related [279] by
Sir H. Risley: "One of the Praja-pati, or mind-born sons of Brahma,
was in the habit of providing the flesh of cows and clarified butter as
a burnt-offering (_Ahuti_) to the gods. It was then the custom to eat
a portion of the sacrifice, restore the victim to life, and drive it
into the forest. On one occasion the Praja-pati failed to resuscitate
the sacrificial animal, owing to his wife, who was pregnant at the
time, having clandestinely made away with a portion. Alarmed at this
he summoned all the other Praja-patis, and they sought by divination
to discover the cause of the failure. At last they ascertained what
had occurred, and as a punishment the wife was cursed and expelled
from their society. The child which she bore was the first Mochi or
tanner, and from that time forth, mankind being deprived of the power
of reanimating cattle slaughtered for food, the pious abandoned the
practice of killing kine altogether. Another story is that Muchiram,
the ancestor of the caste, was born from the sweat of Brahma while
dancing. He chanced to offend the irritable sage Durvasa, who sent a
pretty Brahman widow to allure him into a breach of chastity. Muchiram
accosted the widow as mother, and refused to have anything to do
with her; but Durvasa used the miraculous power he had acquired by
penance to render the widow pregnant so that the innocent Muchiram
was made an outcaste on suspicion. From her two sons are descended
the two main branches of the caste in Bengal."

3. Art among the Hindus

In the Central Provinces the term Mochi is often used for the whole
caste in the northern Districts, and Jingar in the Maratha country;
while the Chitrakars or painters form a separate group. Though the
trades of cobbler and book-binder are now widely separated in civilised
countries, the connection between them is apparent since both work
in leather. It is not at first sight clear why the painter should
be of the same caste, but the reason is perhaps that his brushes are
made of the hair of animals, and this is also regarded as impure, as
being a part of the hide. If such be the case a senseless caste rule
of ceremonial impurity has prevented the art of painting from being
cultivated by the Hindus; and the comparatively poor development of
their music may perhaps be ascribed to the same cause, since the use
of the sinews of animals for stringed instruments would also prevent
the educated classes from learning to play them. Thus no stringed
instruments are permitted to be used in temples, but only the gong,
cymbal, horn and conch-shell. And this rule would greatly discourage
the cultivation of music, which art, like all the others, has usually
served in its early period as an appanage to religious services. It
has been held that instruments were originally employed at temples and
shrines in order to scare away evil spirits by their noise while the
god was being fed or worshipped, and not for the purpose of calling
the worshippers together; since noise is a recognised means of driving
away spirits, probably in consequence of its effect in frightening wild
animals. It is for the same end that music is essential at weddings,
especially during the night when the spirits are more potent; and
this is the primary object of the continuous discordant din which
the Hindus consider a necessary accompaniment to a wedding.

Except for this ceremonial strictness Hinduism should have been
favourable to the development of both painting and sculpture, as being
a polytheistic religion. In the early stages of society religion and
art are intimately connected, as is shown by the fact that images and
paintings are at first nearly always of deities or sacred persons or
animals, and it is only after a considerable period of development
that secular subjects are treated. Similarly architecture is in its
commencement found to be applied solely to sacred buildings, as temples
and churches, and is only gradually diverted to secular buildings. The
figures sculptured by the Mochis are usually images for temples,
and those who practise this art are called Murtikar, from _murti_,
an image or idol; and the pictures of the Chitrakars were until
recently all of deities or divine animals, though secular paintings
may now occasionally be met with. And the uneducated believers in a
polytheistic religion regularly take the image for the deity himself,
at first scarcely conceiving of the one apart from the other. Thus
some Bharewas or brass-workers say that they dare not make metal
images of the gods, because they are afraid that the badness of their
handiwork might arouse the wrath of the gods and move them to take
revenge. The surmise might in fact be almost justifiable that the end
to which figures of men and animals were first drawn or painted, or
modelled in clay or metal was that they might be worshipped as images
of the deities, the savage mind not distinguishing at all between an
image of the god and the god himself. For this reason monotheistic
religions would be severely antagonistic to the arts, and such is in
fact the case. Thus the Muhammadan commentary, the Hadith, has a verse:
"Woe to him who has painted a living creature! At the day of the last
judgment the persons represented by him will come out of the tomb
and join themselves to him to demand of him a soul. Then that man,
unable to give life to his work, will burn in eternal flames." And
in Judaism the familiar prohibition of the Second Commandment appears
to be directed to the same end.

Hindu sculpture has indeed been fairly prolific, but is not generally
considered to have attained to any degree of artistic merit. Since
sculpture is mainly concerned with the human form it seems clear that
an appreciation of the beauty of muscular strength and the symmetrical
development of the limbs is an essential preliminary to success in
this art; and such a feeling can only arise among a people who set
much store on feats of bodily strength and agility. This has never
been the character of the Hindus, whose religion encourages asceticism
and mortification of the body, and points to mental self-absorption
and detachment from worldly cares and exercises as the highest type
of virtue.

4. Antagonism of Mochis and Chamars

As a natural result of the pretensions to nobility made by the Mochis,
there is no love lost between them and the Chamars; and the latter
allege that the Mochis have stolen their _rampi_, the knife with
which they cut leather. On this account the Chamars will neither take
water to drink from the Mochis nor mend their shoes, and will not
even permit them to try on a new pair of shoes until they have paid
the price set on them; for they say that the Mochis are half-bred
Chamars and therefore cannot be permitted to defile the shoes of
a true Chamar by trying them on; but when they have been paid for,
the maker has severed connection with them, and the use to which they
may be put no longer affects him.

5. Exogamous groups

In the Central Provinces the Mochis are said to have forty
exogamous sections or _gotras_, of which the bulk are named after
all the well-known Rajput clans, while two agree with those of the
Chamars. And they have also an equal number of _kheras_ or groups named
after villages. The limits of the two groups seem to be identical;
thus members of the sept named after the Kachhwaha Rajputs say that
their _khera_ or village name is Mungavali in Gwalior; those of the
Ghangere sept give Chanderi as their _khera_, the Sitawat sept Dhamoni
in Saugor, the Didoria Chhatarpur, the Narele Narwar, and so on. The
names of the village groups have now been generally forgotten and
they are said to have no influence on marriage, which is regulated
by the Rajput sept names; but it seems probable that the _kheras_
were the original divisions and the Rajput _gotras_ have been more
recently adopted in support of the claims already noticed.

6. Social customs

The Mochis have adopted the customs of the higher Hindu castes. A
man may not take a wife from his own _gotra_, his mother's _gotra_ or
from a family into which a girl from his own family has married. They
usually marry their daughters in childhood and employ Brahmans in
their ceremonies, and no degradation attaches to these latter for
serving as their priests. In minor domestic ceremonies for which the
Brahman is not engaged his place is taken by a relative, who is called
_sawasa_, and is either the sister's husband, daughter's husband,
or father's sister's husband, of the head of the family. They permit
widow-remarriage and divorce, and in the southern Districts effect
a divorce by laying a pestle between the wife and husband. They burn
their dead and observe mourning for the usual period. After a death
they will not again put on a coloured head-cloth until some relative
sets it on their heads for the first time on the expiry of the period
of mourning. They revere the ordinary Hindu deities, and like the
Chamars they have a family god, known as Mair, whose representation
in the shape of a lump of clay is enshrined within the house and
worshipped at marriages and deaths. In Saugor he is said to be the
collective representative of the spirits of their ancestors. In some
localities they eat flesh and drink liquor, but in others abstain from
both. Among the Hindus the Mochis rank considerably higher than the
Chamars; their touch does not defile and they are permitted to enter
temples and take part in religious ceremonies. The name of a Saugor
Mochi is remembered who became a good drawer and painter and was
held in much esteem at the Peshwa's court. In northern India about
half the Mochis are Muhammadans, but in the Central Provinces they
are all Hindus.

7. Shoes

In view of the fact that many of the Mochis were Muhammadans and that
slippers are mainly a Muhammadan article of attire Buchanan thought
it probable that they were brought into India by the invaders, the
Hindus having previously been content with sandals and wooden shoes. He
wrote: "Many Hindus now use leather slippers, but some adhere to the
proper custom of wearing sandals, which have wooden soles, a strap
of leather to pass over the instep, and a wooden or horn peg with a
button on its top. The foot is passed through the strap and the peg
is placed between two of the toes." [280] It is certain, however,
that leather shoes and slippers were known to the Hindus from a fairly
early period: "The episode related in the Ramayana of Bharata placing
on the vacant throne of Ajodhya a pair of Rama's slippers, which he
worshipped during the latter's protracted exile, shows that shoes
were important articles of wear and worthy of attention. In Manu and
the Mahabharata slippers are also mentioned and the time and mode of
putting them on pointed out. The Vishnu Purana enjoins all who wish
to protect their persons never to be without leather shoes. Manu
in one place expresses great repugnance to stepping into another's
shoes and peremptorily forbids it, and the Puranas recommend the
use of shoes when walking out of the house, particularly in thorny
places and on hot sand." [281] Thus shoes were certainly worn by the
Hindus before Muhammadan times, though loose slippers may have been
brought into fashion by the latter. And it seems possible that the
Mochis may have adopted Islam, partly to obtain the patronage of the
followers of the new religion, and also to escape from the degraded
position to which their profession of leather-working was relegated
by Hinduism and to dissociate themselves from the Chamars.

Mowar

_Mowar._--A small caste of cultivators found in the Chhattisgarh
country, in the Raipur and Bilaspur Districts and the Raigarh
State. They numbered 2500 persons in 1901. The derivation of the name
is obscure, but they themselves say that it is derived from Mow or
Mowagarh, a town in the Jhansi District of the United Provinces, and
they also call themselves Mahuwar or the inhabitants of Mow. They
say that the Raja of Mowagarh, under whom they were serving,
desired to marry the daughter of one of their Sirdars (headmen),
because she was extremely beautiful, but her father refused, and
when the Raja persisted in his desire they left the place in a body
and came to Ratanpur in the time of Raja Bimbaji, in A.D. 1770. A
Bilaspur writer states that the Mowars are an offshoot from the
Rajwar Rajputs of Sarguja State. Colonel Dalton writes [282] of the
Rajwar Rajputs of Sarguja and other adjoining States that they are
peaceably disposed cultivators, who declare themselves to be fallen
Kshatriyas; but he remarks later that they are probably aborigines,
as they do not conform to Hindu customs, and they are skilled in a
dance called Chailo, which he considers to be of Dravidian origin. In
another place he remarks that the Rajwars of Bengal admit that they
are derived from the miscegenation of Kurmis and Kols. The fact that
the Mowars of Sarangarh make a representation of a bow and arrow on
their documents, instead of signing their names, affords some support
to the theory that they are probably a branch of one of the aboriginal
tribes. The name may be derived from _mowa_, a radish, as the Mowars
of Bilaspur are engaged principally in garden cultivation.

The Mowars have no subcastes, but are divided into a number of
exogamous groups, principally of a totemistic nature. Those of the
Surajha or sun sept throw away their earthen pots on the occasion of an
eclipse, and those of the Hataia or elephant sept will not ride on an
elephant and worship that animal at the Dasahra festival. Members of
other septs named after the cobra, the crow, the monkey and the tiger
will not kill their totem animal, and when they see the dead body of
one of its species they throw away their earthen cooking-pots as a
sign of mourning. The marriage of persons belonging to the same sept
and also that of first cousins is prohibited. If an unmarried girl is
seduced by a man of the caste she becomes his wife and is not expelled,
but the caste will not eat food cooked by her. But a girl going wrong
with an outsider is finally cast out. The marriage and other social
customs resemble those of the Kurmis. The caste employ Brahmans at
their ceremonies and have a great regard for them. Their _gurus_ or
spiritual preceptors are Bairagis and Gosains. They eat the flesh
of clean animals and a few drink liquor, but most of them abstain
from it. Their women are tattooed on the arms and hands with figures
intended to represent deer, flies and other animals and insects. The
caste say that they were formerly employed as soldiers under the
native chiefs, but they are now all cultivators. They grow all kinds
of grain and vegetables, except turmeric and onions. A few of them
are landowners, and the majority tenants. Very few are constrained
to labour for hire. In appearance the men are generally strong and
healthy, and of a dark complexion.

Murha

1. Origin of the caste

_Murha._--A Dravidian, caste of navvies and labourers found in
Jubbulpore and the adjoining Districts, to the number of about
1500 persons. The name Murha has been held to show that the caste
are connected with the Munda tribe. The Murhas, however, call
themselves also Khare Bind Kewat and Lunia or Nunia (salt-maker),
and in Jubbulpore they give these two names as subdivisions of the
caste. And these names indicate that the caste are an offshoot of
the large Bind tribe of Bengal and northern India, though in parts
of the Central Provinces they have probably been recruited from the
Kols or Mundas. Sir H. Risley [283] records a story related by the
Binds to the effect that they and the Nunias were formerly one, and
that the existing Nunias are descended from a Bind who consented to
dig a grave for a Muhammadan king and was put out of caste for doing
so. And he remarks that the Binds may be a true primitive tribe and
the Nunias a functional group differentiated from them by taking to
the manufacture of earth salt. This explanation of the relationship
of the Binds and Nunias seems almost certainly correct. In the United
Provinces the Binds are divided into the Khare and Dhusia or first and
second subcastes, and the Khare Binds also call themselves Kewat. [284]
And the Murhas of Narsinghpur call themselves Khare Bind Kewats, though
the other Kewats repudiate all connection with them. There seems thus
to be no doubt that the Murhas of these Provinces are another offshoot
of the Bind tribe like the Nunias, who have taken up the profession of
navvies and earthworkers and thus become a separate caste. Mr. Hira
Lal notes that the Narsinghpur District contains a village Nonia,
which is inhabited solely by Murhas who call themselves Khare Bind
Kewat. As the village is no doubt named Nonia or Nunia after them,
we thus have an instance of all the three designations being applied
to the same set of persons. The Murhas say that they came into
Narsinghpur from Rewah, and they still speak the Bagheli dialect,
though the current vernacular of the locality is Bundeli. The Binds
themselves derive their name from the Vindhya (Bindhya) hills. [285]
They relate that a traveller passing by the Vindhya hills heard a
strange flute-like sound coming out of a clump of bamboos. He cut
a shoot and took from it a fleshy substance, which afterwards grew
into a man, the supposed ancestor of the Binds. In Mandla the Murhas
say that the difference between themselves and the Nunias is that the
latter make field-embankments and other earthwork, while the Murhas
work in stone and build bridges. According to their own story they
were brought to Mandla from their home in Eastern Oudh more than ten
generations ago by a Gond king of the Garha-Mandla dynasty for the
purpose of building his fort or castle. He gave them two villages
for their maintenance which they have now lost. The caste has,
however, probably received some local accretions and in Mandla some
Murhas appear to be Kols; members of this tribe are generally above
the average in bodily strength and are in considerable request for
employment on earth- and stone-work.

2. Marriage customs

In Narsinghpur the Murhas appear to have no regular exogamous
divisions. Some of them remember the names of their _kheros_ or
ancestral villages and do not marry with families belonging to the
same _khero_, but this is not a regular rule of the caste. Generally
speaking, persons descended through males from a common ancestor do not
intermarry so long as they remember the relationship. In Mandla they
have five divisions, of which the highest is Purbia. The name Purbia
(Eastern) is commonly applied in the Central Provinces to persons
coming from Oudh, and in this case the Purbia Murhas are probably
the latest immigrants from home and have a superior status on this
account. Up till recently they practised hypergamy with the other
groups, taking daughters from them in marriage, but not giving their
daughters to them. This rule is now, however, breaking down on account
of the difficulty they find in getting their daughters married. The
children of brothers and sisters may marry in some places, but in
others neither they nor their children may marry with each other. Anta
Santa or the exchange of girls between two families is permitted. The
bridegroom's father has to pay from five to twenty rupees as a _chari_
or bride-price to the girl's father, which sum is regarded as the
remuneration of the latter for having brought up his daughter. In
the case of the daughter of a headman the bride-price is sometimes as
high as Rs. 150. In Damoh a curious survival of marriage by capture
remains. The bridegroom's party give a ram or he-goat to the bride's
party and these take it to their shed, cut its head off and hang it
by the side of the _kham_ or marriage-pole. The brother-in-law of the
bridegroom or of his father then sallies forth to bring back the head
of the animal, but is opposed by the women of the bride's party, who
belabour him and his friends with sticks, brooms and rolling-pins. But
in the end the head is always taken away. The binding portion of the
marriage is the _bhanwar_ or walking round the sacred post. When the
bride is leaving for her husband's house the women of her party take
seven balls of flour with burning wicks thrust into them, and place
them in a winnowing-fan. They wave this round the bride's head and
then throw the balls and after them the fan over the litter in which
the bride is seated. The bridegroom's party must catch the fan, and
if they let it fall to the ground they are much laughed at for their
clumsiness. When the pair arrive at the bridegroom's house, the fan is
again waved over their heads; and a cloth is spread before the house,
on which seven burning wicks are placed like the previous ones. The
bride walks quickly over the cloth to the house and the bridegroom
must keep pace with her, picking up the burning flour balls as he
goes. When the pair arrive at the house the bridegroom's sister shuts
the door and will not open it until she is given a present. Divorce
and the remarriage of widows are permitted.

3. Funeral rites

The caste worship the ordinary Hindu deities. Well-to-do members
burn their dead and the poorer ones bury them. The corpse is usually
placed with the head to the south as is the custom among the primitive
tribes, but in some localities the Hindu fashion of laying the head to
the north has been adopted. Two pice are thrown down by the grave or
burning-_ghat_ to buy the site, and these are taken by the sweeper. The
ashes are collected on the third day and thrown into a river. The usual
period of mourning is only three days, but it is sometimes extended to
nine days when the chief mourner is unable to feed the caste-fellows
on the third day, and the feast may in case of necessity be postponed
to any time within six months of the death. The chief mourner puts
on a new white cloth and eats nothing but rice and pulse without salt.