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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12. Ornaments worn as amulets

The above account of the ornaments of a Hindu woman is sufficient to
show that her profuse display of them is not to be attributed, as
is often supposed, to the mere desire for adornment. Each ornament
originally played its part in protecting some limb or feature from
various dangers of the seen or unseen world. And though the reasons
which led to their adoption have now been to a large extent forgotten
and the ornaments are valued for themselves, the shape and character
remain to show their real significance. Women as being weaker and
less accustomed to mix in society are naturally more superstitious and
fearful of the machinations of spirits. And the same argument applies
in greater degree to children. The Hindus have probably recognised
that children are very delicate and succumb easily to disease, and
they could scarcely fail to have done so when statistics show that
about a quarter of all the babies born in India die in the first year
of age. But they do not attribute the mortality to its real causes
of congenital weakness arising from the immaturity of the parents,
insanitary treatment at and after birth, unsuitable food, and the
general frailty of the undeveloped organism. They ascribe the loss
of their offspring solely to the machinations of jealous deities and
evil spirits, and the envy and admiration of other people, especially
childless women and witches, who cast the evil eye upon them. And
in order to guard against these dangers their bodies are decorated
with amulets and ornaments as a means of protection. But the result
is quite other than that intended, and the ornaments which are meant
to protect the children from the imaginary terrors of the evil eye,
in reality merely serve as a whet to illicit cupidity, and expose them
a rich, defenceless prey to the violence of the murderer and the thief.

13. Audhia Sunars

The Audhia Sunars usually work in bell-metal, an alloy of copper or tin
and pewter. When used for ornaments the proportion of tin or pewter
is increased so as to make them of a light colour, resembling silver
as far as may be. Women of the higher castes may wear bell-metal
ornaments only on their ankles and feet, and Maratha and Khedawal
Brahmans may not wear them at all. In consequence of having adopted
this derogatory occupation, as it is considered, the Audhia Sunars
are looked down on by the rest of the caste. They travel about to
the different village markets carrying their wares on ponies; among
these, perhaps, the favourite ornament is the _kara_ or curved bar
anklets, which the Audhia works on to the purchaser's feet for her,
forcing them over the heels with a piece of iron like a shoe-horn. The
process takes time and is often painful, the skin being rasped by the
iron. The woman is supported by a friend as her foot is held up behind,
and is sometimes reduced to cries and tears. High-caste women do not
much affect the _kara_ as they object to having their foot grasped
by the Sunar. They wear instead a chain anklet which they can work on
themselves. The Sunars set precious stones in ornaments, and this is
also done by a class of persons called Jadia, who do not appear to
be a caste. Another body of persons accessory to the trade are the
Niarias, who take the ashes and sweepings from the goldsmith's shop,
paying a sum of ten or twenty rupees annually for them. [655] They
wash away the refuse and separate the grains of gold and silver,
which they sell back to the Sunars. Niaria also appears to be an
occupational term, and not a caste.

14. The Sunar as money-changer

Formerly Sunars were employed for counting and testing money in the
public treasuries, and in this capacity they were designated as Potdar
and Saraf or Shroff. Before the introduction of the standard English
coinage the money-changer's business was important and profitable,
as the rupee varied over different parts of the country exactly
as grain measures do now. Thus the Pondicherry rupee was worth 26
annas, while the Gujarat rupee would not fetch 12 1/2 annas in the
bazar. In Bengal, [656] at the beginning of the nineteenth century,
people who wished to make purchases had first to exchange their
rupees for cowries. The Potdar carried his cowries to market in
the morning on a bullock, and gave 5760 cowries for a new _kaldar_
or English rupee, while he took 5920 cowries in exchange for a rupee
when his customers wanted silver back in the evening to take away with
them. The profit on the _kaldar_ rupee was thus one thirty-sixth on
the two transactions, while all old rupees, and every kind of rupee
but the _kaldar_, paid various rates of exchange or _batta_, according
to the will of the money-changers, who made a higher profit on all
other kinds of money than the _kaldar_. They therefore resisted the
general introduction of these rupees as long as possible, and when
this failed they hit on a device of marking the rupees with a stamp,
under pretext of ascertaining whether they were true or false; after
which the rupee was not exchangeable without paying an additional
_batta_, and became as valuable to the money-changers as if it were
foreign coin. As justification for their action they pretended to
the people that the marks would enable those who had received the
rupees to have them changed should any other dealer refuse them, and
the necessities of the poor compelled them to agree to any _batta_
or exchange rather than suffer delay. This was apparently the origin
of the 'Shroff-marked rupees,' familiar to readers of the _Treasury
Manual_; and the line in a Bhat song, 'The English have made current
the _kaldar_ (milled) rupee,' is thus seen to be no empty praise.

15. Malpractices of lower-class Sumars

As the bulk of the capital of the poorer classes is hoarded in the
shape of gold and silver ornaments, these are regularly pledged when
ready money is needed, and the Sunar often acts as a pawnbroker. In
this capacity he too often degenerates into a receiver of stolen
property, and Mr. Nunn suggested that his proceedings should be
supervised by license. Generally, the Sunar is suspected of making
an illicit profit by mixing alloy with the metal entrusted to him by
his customers, and some bitter sayings are current about him. One of
his customs is to filch a little gold from his mother and sister on
the last day of Shrawan (July) and make it into a luck-penny. [657]
This has given rise to the saying, 'The Sunar will not respect even
his mother's gold'; but the implication appears to be unjust. Another
saying is: _'Sona Sunar ka, abharan sansar ka,'_ or, 'The ornament
is the customer's, but the gold remains with the Sunar.' [658] Gold
is usually melted in the employer's presence, who, to guard against
fraud, keeps a small piece of the metal called _chasni_ or _maslo_,
that is a sample, and when the ornament is ready sends it with the
sample to an assayer or _Chokshi_ who, by rubbing them on a touchstone,
tells whether the gold in the sample and the ornament is of the same
quality. Further, the employer either himself sits near the Sunar while
the ornament is being made or sends one of his family to watch. In
spite of these precautions the Sunar seldom fails to filch some of the
gold while the spy's attention is distracted by the prattling of the
parrot, by the coquetting of a handsomely dressed young woman of the
family or by some organised mishap in the inner rooms among the women
of the house. [659] One of his favourite practices is to substitute
copper for gold in the interior, and this he has the best chance of
doing with the marriage ornaments, as many people consider it unlucky
to weigh or test the quality of these. [660] The account must, however,
be taken to apply only to the small artisans, and well-to-do reputable
Sunars would be above such practices.

The goldsmith's industry has hitherto not been affected to any serious
extent by the competition of imported goods, and except during periods
of agricultural depression the Sunar continues to prosper.

A Persian couplet said by a lover to his mistress is, 'Gold has no
scent and in the scent of flowers there is no gold; but thou both
art gold and hast scent.'

_Sundi, Sundhi, Sunri or Sondhi._ [661]--The liquor-distilling
caste of the Uriya country. The transfer of Sambalpur and the Uriya
States to Bihar and Orissa has reduced their strength in the Central
Provinces to about 5000, found in the Raipur District and the Bastar
and Chota Nagpur Feudatory States. The caste is an important one
in Bengal, numbering more than six lakhs of persons and being found
in western Bengal and Bihar as well as in Orissa. The word Sundi is
derived from the Sanskrit Shaundik, a spirit-seller. The caste has
various genealogies of differing degrees of respectability, tracing
their origin to cross unions between other castes born of Brahmans,
Kshatriyas, and Vaishyas. The following story is told of them in
Madras. [662] In ancient times a certain Brahman was famous for his
magical attainments. The king of the country sent for him one day
and asked him to cause the water in a tank to burn. The Brahman saw
no way of doing this, and returned homewards uneasy in his mind. On
the way he met a distiller who asked him to explain what troubled
him. When the Brahman told his story the distiller promised to cause
the water to burn on condition that the Brahman gave him his daughter
in marriage. This the Brahman agreed to do, and the distiller, after
surreptitiously pouring large quantities of liquor into the tank,
set fire to it in the presence of the king. In accordance with the
agreement he married the daughter of the Brahman and the pair became
the ancestors of the Sundi caste. In confirmation of the story it is
alleged that up to the present day the women of the caste maintain the
recollection of their Brahman ancestors by refusing to eat fowls or
the remains of their husbands' meals. Nor will they take food from the
hands of any other caste. Sir H. Risley relates the following stories
current about the caste in Bengal, where its status is very low:
"According to Hindu ideas, distillers and sellers of strong drink
rank among the most degraded castes, and a curious story in the
Vaivarta Purana keeps alive the memory of their degradation. It is
said that when Sani, the Hindu Saturn, failed to adapt an elephant's
head to the mutilated trunk of Ganesh who had been accidentally
slain by Siva, Viswakarma, the celestial artificer, was sent for,
and by careful dissection and manipulation he fitted the incongruous
parts together, and made a man called Kedara Sena from the slices
cut off in fashioning his work. This Kedara Sena was ordered to
fetch a drink of water for Bhagavati, weary and athirst. Finding
on the river's bank a shell full of water he presented it to her,
without noticing that a few grains of rice left in it by a parrot had
fermented and formed an intoxicating liquid. Bhagavati, as soon as
she had drunk, became aware of the fact, and in her anger condemned
the offender to the vile and servile occupation of making spirituous
liquors for mankind." Like other castes in Sambalpur the Sundis have
two subcastes, the Jharua and the Utkal or Uriya, of whom the Jharuas
probably immigrated from Orissa at an earlier period and adopted some
of the customs of the indigenous tribes; for this reason they are
looked down on by the more orthodox Utkalis. The caste say that they
belong to the Nagas or snake gotra, because they consider themselves
to be descended from Basuki, the serpent with a thousand heads who
formed a canopy for Vishnu. They also have _bargas_ or family titles,
but these at present exercise no influence on marriage. The Sundis
have in fact outgrown the system of exogamy and regulate their
marriages by a table of prohibited degrees in the ordinary manner,
the unions of _sapindas_ or persons who observe mourning together at
a death being prohibited. The prohibition does not extend to cognatic
relationship, but a man must not marry into the family of his paternal
aunt. The fact that the old _bargas_ or exogamous groups are still in
existence is interesting, and an intermediate step in the process of
their abandonment may be recognised in the fact that some of them are
subdivided. Thus the Sahu (lord) group has split into the Gaj Sahu
(lord of the elephant), Dhavila Sahu (white lord), and Amila Sahu
sub-groups, and it need not be doubted that this was a convenient
method adopted for splitting up the Sahu group when it became so large
as to include persons so distantly connected with each other that the
prohibition of marriage between them was obviously ridiculous. As
the number of Sundis in the Central Provinces is now insignificant
no detailed description of their customs need be given, but one or
two interesting points may be noted. Their method of observing the
_pitripaksh_ or worship of ancestors is as follows: A human figure
is made of _kusha_ grass and placed under a miniature straw hut. A
lamp is kept burning before it for ten days, and every day a twig for
cleaning the teeth is placed before it, and it is supplied with fried
rice in the morning and rice, pulse and vegetables in the evening. On
the tenth day the priest comes, and after bathing the figure seven
times, places boiled rice before it for the last meal, and then sets
fire to the hut and burns it, while repeating sacred verses. On the
eleventh day after a death, when presents for the use of the deceased
are made to a priest as his representative, the priest lies down in
the new bed which is given to him, and the members of the family rub
his feet and attend on him as if he were the dead man. He is also
given a present sufficient to purchase food for him for a year. The
Sundis worship Suradevi or the goddess of wine, whom they consider
as their mother, and they refuse to drink liquor, saying that this
would be to enjoy their own mother. They worship the still and all
articles used in distillation at the rice-harvest and when the new
mango crop appears. Large numbers of them have taken to cultivation.

Tamera

1. The Tamera and Kasar

_Tamera, Tambatkar_. [663]--The professional caste of coppersmiths,
the name being derived from _tamba_, copper. The Tameras, however,
like the Kasars or brass-workers, use copper, brass and bell-metal
indifferently, and in the northern Districts the castes are not
really distinguished, Tamera and Kasar being almost interchangeable
terms. In the Maratha country, however, and other localities they
are considered as distinct castes. Copper is a sacred metal, and the
copper-smith's calling would be considered somewhat more respectable
than that of the worker in brass or bell-metal, just as the Sunar
or goldsmith ranks above both; and probably, therefore, the Tameras
may consider themselves a little better than the Kasars. As brass
is an alloy made from copper and zinc, it seems likely that vessels
were made from copper before they were made from brass. But copper
being a comparatively rare and expensive metal, utensils made from
it could scarcely have ever been generally used, and it is therefore
not necessary to suppose that either the Tamera or Kasar caste came
into being before the adoption of brass as a convenient material for
the household pots and pans.

2. Social traditions and customs

In 1911 the Tameras numbered about 5000 persons in the Central
Provinces and Berar. They tell the same story of their origin which has
already been related in the article on the Kasar caste, and trace their
descent from the Haihaya Rajput dynasty of Ratanpur. They say that
when the king Dharampal, the first ancestor of the caste, was married,
a bevy of 119 girls were sent with his bride in accordance with the
practice still occasionally obtaining among royal Hindu families,
and these, as usual, became the concubines of the husband or, as the
Tameras say, his wives: and from the bride and her companions the 120
exogamous sections of the caste are sprung. As a fact, however, many
of the sections are named after villages or natural objects. A man is
not permitted to marry any one belonging to his own section or that
of his mother, the union of first cousins being thus prohibited. The
caste also do not favour _Anta santa_ or the practice of exchanging
girls between families, the reason alleged being that after the bride's
father has acknowledged the superiority of the bridegroom's father by
washing his feet, it is absurd to require the latter to do the same,
that is, to wash the feet of his inferior. So they may not take a
girl from a family to which they have given one of their own. The real
reason for the rule lies possibly in an extension of the principle of
exogamy, whether based on a real fear of carrying too far the practice
of intermarriage between families or an unfounded superstition that
intermarriage between families already connected may have the same
evil results on the offspring as the union of blood-relations. When
the wedding procession is about to start, after the bridegroom has
been bathed and before he puts on the _kankan_ or iron wristlet which
is to protect him from evil spirits, he is seated on a stool while
all the male members of the household come up with their _choti_ or
scalp-lock untied and rub it against that of the bridegroom. Again,
after the wedding ceremonies are over and the bridegroom has, according
to rule, untied one of the fastenings of the marriage-shed, he also
turns over a tile of the roof of the house. The meaning of the latter
ceremony is not clear; the significance attaching to the _choti_
has been discussed in the article on Nai.

3. Disposal of the dead

The caste burn their dead except children, who can be buried, and
observe mourning for ten days in the case of an adult and for three
days for a child. A cake of flour containing two pice (farthings)
is buried or burnt with the corpse. When a death takes place among
the community all the members of it stop making vessels for that day,
though they will transact retail sales. When mourning is over, a feast
is given to the caste-fellows and to seven members of the menial and
serving castes. These are known as the 'Sattiho Jat' or Seven Castes,
and it may be conjectured that in former times they were the menials of
the village and were given a meal in much the same spirit as prompts
an English landlord to give his tenants a dinner on occasions of
ceremony. Instances of a similar custom are noted among the Kunbis
and other castes. Before food is served to the guests a leaf-plate
containing a portion for the deceased is placed outside the house with
a pot of water, and a burning lamp to guide his spirit to the food.

4. Religion

The caste worship the goddess Singhbahani. or Devi riding on a
tiger. They make an image of her in the most expensive metal they can
afford, and worship it daily. They will on no account swear by this
goddess. They worship their trade implements on the day of the new
moon in Chait (March) and Bhadon (August). A trident, as a symbol of
Devi, is then drawn with powdered rice and vermilion on the furnace
for casting metal. A lamp is waved over the furnace and a cocoanut is
broken and distributed to the caste-fellows, no outsider being allowed
to be present. They quench their furnace on the new moon day of every
month, the Ramnaomi and Durgapuja or nine days' fasts in the months
of Chait and Kunwar, and for the two days following the Diwali and
Holi festivals. On these days they will not prepare any new vessels,
but will sell those which they have ready. The Tameras have Kanaujia
Brahmans for their priests, and the Brahmans will take food from
them which has been cooked without water and salt. On this account
other Kanaujia Brahmans require a heavy payment before they will
marry with the priests of the Tameras. The caste abstain from liquor,
and some of them have abjured all flesh food while others partake of
it. They usually wear the sacred thread. Brahmans will take water
from their hands, and the menial castes will eat food which they
have touched. They work in brass, copper and bell-metal in exactly
the same manner as the Kasars, and have an equivalent social position.

Taonla

_Taonla_.--A small non-Aryan caste of the Uriya States. They reside
principally in Bamra and Sonpur, and numbered about 2000 persons in
1901, but since the transfer of these States to Bengal are not found
in the Central Provinces. The name is said to be derived from Talmul,
a village in the Angul District of Orissa, and they came to Bamra
and Sonpur during the Orissa famine of 1866. The Taonlas appear to
be a low occupational caste of mixed origin, but derived principally
from the Khond tribe. Formerly their profession was military service,
and it is probable that like the Khandaits and Paiks they formed the
levies of some of the Uriya Rajas, and gradually became a caste. They
have three subdivisions, of which the first consists of the Taonlas
whose ancestors were soldiers. These consider themselves superior to
the others, and their family names as Naik (leader), Padhan (chief),
Khandait (swordsman), and Behra (master of the kitchen) indicate
their ancestral profession. The other subcastes are called Dangua and
Khond; the Danguas, who are hill-dwellers, are more primitive than the
military Taonlas, and the Khonds are apparently members of that tribe
of comparatively pure descent who marry among themselves and not with
other Taonlas. In Orissa Dr. Hunter says that the Taonlas are allied
to the Savaras, and that they will admit a member of any caste, from
whose hands they can take water, into the community. This is also the
case in Bamra. The candidate has simply to worship Kalapat, the god
of the Taonlas, and after drinking some water in which basil leaves
have been dipped, to touch the food prepared for a caste feast, and
his initiation is complete. As usual among the mixed castes, female
morality is very lax, and a Taonla woman may have a _liaison_ with a
man of her own or any other caste from whom a Taonla can take water
without incurring any penalty whatsoever. A man committing a similar
offence must give a feast to the caste. In Sonpur the Taonlas admit a
close connection with Chasas, and say that some of their families are
descended from the union of Chasa men and Taonla women. They will eat
the leavings of Chasas. The custom may be accounted for by the fact
that the Taonlas are now generally farmservants and field-labourers,
and the Chasas, as cultivators, would be their employers. A similar
close connection is observable among other castes standing in the
same position towards each other as the Panwars and Gonds and the
Rajbhars and Lodhis.

The Taonlas have no exogamous divisions as they all belong to the
same _gotra_, that of the Nag or cobra. Their marriages are therefore
regulated by relationship in the ordinary manner. If two families
find that they have no common ancestor up to the third generation they
consider it lawful to intermarry. The marriage ritual is of the usual
Uriya form. After the marriage the bride and the bridegroom have a
ceremony of throwing a mahua branch into a river together. Divorce and
widow remarriage are permitted. When a woman is divorced she returns
her bangles to her husband, and receives from him a _chhor-chitthi_ or
letter severing connection. Then she goes before the caste _panchayat_
and pronounces her husband's name aloud. This shows that she is no
longer his wife, since so long as she continued to be so, she would
never mention his name.

The tutelary deity of the caste is Kalapat, who resides at Talmul in
Angul District. They offer him a goat at the festival of Nawakhai
when the new rice is first eaten. On this day they also worship a
cattle-goad as the symbol of their vocation. They revere the cobra,
and will not wear wooden sandals because they think that the marks on
a cobra's head are in the form of a sandal. They believe in re-birth,
and when a child is born they proceed to ascertain what ancestor has
become reincarnate by dropping rice grains coloured with turmeric
into a pot of water. As each one is dropped they repeat the name of
an ancestor, and when the first grain floats conclude that the one
named has been born again. The dead are both buried and burnt. At
the head of a grave they plant a bough of the _jamun_ tree (_Eugenia
jambolana_) so that the departed spirit may dwell under this cool
and shady tree in the other world or in his next birth. They have
also a ceremony for bringing back the soul. An earthen pot is placed
upside down on four legs outside the village, and on the eleventh day
after a death they proceed to the place, ringing a bell suspended to
an iron rod. A cloth is spread before the spot on which the spirit
of the deceased is supposed to be sitting, and they wait till an
insect alights on it. This is taken to be the soul of the dead
person, and it is carefully wrapped up in the cloth and carried to
the house. There the cloth is unfolded and the insect allowed to go,
while they proceed to inspect some rice-flour which has been spread
on the ground under another pot in the house. If any mark is found
on the surface of the flour they think that the dead man's spirit
has returned to the house. The carrying back of the insect is thus
an act calculated to assist their belief, by the simple performance
of which they are able to suppose more easily that the invisible
spirit has returned to the house. As already stated, the Taonlas are
now generally farmservants and labourers, and their social position
is low, though they rank above the impure castes and the forest tribes.