The Tribes and Castes of the Central Provinces of India Volume II Part 37

If tiger's claws are used for an amulet, the points must be turned outwards. If any one intends to wish luck to a child, he says, '_Tori balayan leun_,' and waves his hands round the child's head several times to signify that he takes upon himself all the misfortunes which are to happen to the child. Then he presses the knuckles of his hands against the sides of his own head till they crack, which is a lucky omen, averting calamity. If the knuckles do not crack at the first attempt, it is repeated two or three times. When a man sneezes he will say 'Chatrapati,' which is considered to be a name of Devi, but is only used on this occasion. But some say nothing. After yawning they snap their fingers, the object of which, they say, is to drive away sleep, as otherwise the desire will become infectious and attack others present. But if a child yawns they sometimes hold one of their hands in front of his mouth, and it is probable that the original meaning of the custom was to prevent evil spirits from entering through the widely opened mouth, or the yawner's own soul or spirit from escaping; and the habit of holding the hand before the mouth from politeness when yawning inadvertently may be a reminiscence of this.

5. Cradle-songs.

The following are some cradle-songs taken down from a Chitrakar, but probably used by most of the lower Hindu castes:

1. Mother, rock the cradle of your pretty child. What is the cradle made of, and what are its ta.s.sels made of?

The cradle is made of sandalwood, its ta.s.sels are of silk.

Some Gaolin (milkwoman) has overlooked the child, he vomits up his milk.

Dasoda [475] shall wave salt and mustard round his head, and he shall play in my lap.

My baby is making little steps. O Sunar, bring him tinkling anklets!

The Sunar shall bring anklets for him, and my child will go to the garden and there we will eat oranges and lemons.

2. My Krishna's ta.s.sel is lost, Tell me, some one, where it is. My child is angry and will not come into my arms.

The tears are falling from his eyes like blossoms from the _bela_ [476] flower.

He has bangles on his wrists and anklets on his feet, on his head a golden crown and round his waist a silver chain.

The _jhumri_ or ta.s.sel referred to above is a ta.s.sel adorned with cowries and hung from the top of the cradle so that the child may keep his eyes on it while the cradle is being rocked.

3. Sleep, sleep, my little baby; I will wave my hands round your head [477] on the banks of the Jumna. I have cooked hot cakes for you and put b.u.t.ter in them; all the night you lay awake, now take your fill of sleep.

The little mangoes are hanging on the tree; the rope is in the well; sleep thou till I go and come back with water.

I will hang your cradle on the banyan tree, and its rope to the pipal tree; I will rock my darling gently so that the rope shall never break.

The last song may be given in the vernacular as a specimen:

4. Ram ki Chireya, Ram ko khet.

Khaori Chireya, bhar, bhar pet.

Tan munaiyan kha lao khet, Agao, labra, gali det; Kahe ko, labra, gali de; Apni bhuntia gin, gin le.

or--

The field is Rama's, the little birds are Rama's; O birds, eat your fill; the little birds have eaten up the corn.

The surly farmer has come to the field and scolds them; the little birds say, 'O farmer, why do you scold us? count your ears of maize, they are all there.'

This song commemorates a favourite incident in the life of Tulsi Das, the author of the Ramayana, who when he was a little boy was once sent by his _guru_ to watch the crop. But after some time the _guru_ came and found the field full of birds eating the corn and Tulsi Das watching them. When asked why he did not scare them away, he said, 'Are they not as much the creatures of Rama as I am? how should I deprive them of food?'

6. Occupation.

The Chitaris pursue their old trade, princ.i.p.ally in Nagpur city, where the taste for wall-paintings still survives; and they decorate the walls of houses with their crude red and blue colours. But they have now a number of other avocations. They paint pictures on paper, making their colours from the tins of imported aniline dyeing-powders which are sold in the bazar; but there is little demand for these. They make small pictures of the deities which the people hang on their walls for a day and then throw away. They also paint the bodies of the men who pretend to be tigers at the Muharram festival, for which they charge a rupee. They make the clay paper-covered masks of monkeys and demons worn by actors who play the Ramlila or story of Rama on the Ramnaomi festival in Chait (March); they also make the _tazias_ or representations of the tomb of Hussain and paper figures of human beings with small clay heads, which are carried in the Muharram procession. They make marriage crowns; the frames of these are of conical shape with a half-moon at the top, made from strips of bamboo; they are covered with red paper picked out with yellow and green and with tinfoil, and are ornamented with borders of date-palm leaves. The crowns cost from four annas to a rupee each. They make the artificial flowers used at weddings; these are stuck on a bamboo stick and at the arrival and departure of the bridegroom are scrambled for by the guests, who take them home as keepsakes or give them to their children for playthings. The flowers copied are the lotus, rose and chrysanthemum, and the imitations are quite good. Sometimes the bridegroom is surrounded by trays or boxes of flowers, carried in procession and arranged so as to look as if they were planted in beds. Other articles made by the Chitrakar are paper fans, paper globes for hanging to the roofs of houses, Chinese lanterns made either of paper or of mica covered with paper, and small caps of velvet embroidered with gold lace. At the Akti festival [478] they make pairs of little clay dolls, dressing them as male and female, and sell them in red lacquered bamboo baskets, and the girls take them to the jungle and pretend that they are married. Formerly the Chitrakars made clay idols for temples, but these have been supplanted by marble images imported from Jaipur. The Jingars make the cloth saddles on which natives ride, and some of them bind books, the leather for which is made from goat-skin, and is not considered so impure as that made from the hides of cattle. But one cla.s.s of them, who are considered inferior, make leather harness from cow-hide and buffalo-hide.

Chitrakathi

_Chitrakathi, Hardas._ [479]--A small caste of religious mendicants and picture showmen in the Maratha Districts. In 1901 they numbered 200 persons in the Central Provinces and 1500 in Berar, being princ.i.p.ally found in the Amraoti District. The name, Mr. Enthoven writes, [480]

is derived from _chitra,_ a picture, and _katha_, a story, and the professional occupation of the caste is to travel about exhibiting pictures of heroes and G.o.ds, and telling stories about them. The community is probably of mixed functional origin, for in Bombay they have exogamous section-names taken from those of the Marathas, as Jadhow, More, Powar and so on, while in the Central Provinces and Berar an entirely different set is found. Here several sections appear to be named after certain offices held or functions performed by their members at the caste feasts. Thus the Atak section are the caste headmen; the Mankari appear to be a sort of subst.i.tute for the Atak or their grand viziers, the word Mankar being primarily a t.i.tle applied to Maratha n.o.blemen, who held an official position at court; the Bhojni section serve the food at marriage and other ceremonies; the Kakra arrange for the lighting; the Kotharya are store-keepers; and the Ghoderao (from _ghoda_, a horse) have the duty of looking after the horses and bullock-carts of the castemen who a.s.semble. The Chitrakathis are really no doubt the same caste as the Chitaris or Chitrakars (painters) of the Central Provinces, and, like them, a branch of the Mochis (tanners), and originally derived from the Chamars. But as the Berar Chitrakathis are migratory instead of settled, and in other respects differ from the Chitaris, they are treated in a separate article. Marriage within the section is forbidden, and, besides this, members of the Atak and Mankari sections cannot intermarry as they are considered to be related, being divisions of one original section. The social customs of the caste resemble those of the Kunbis, but they bury their dead in a sitting posture, with the face to the east, and on the eighth day erect a platform over the grave. At the festival of Akhatij (3rd of light Baisakh) [481] they worship a vessel of water in honour of their dead ancestors, and in Kunwar (September) they offer oblations to them. Though not impure, the caste occupy a low social position, and are said to prost.i.tute their married women and tolerate s.e.xual licence on the part of unmarried girls. Mr. Kitts [482] describes them as "Wandering mendicants, sometimes suspected of a.s.sociating with Kaikaris for purposes of crime; but they seem nevertheless to be a comparatively harmless people. They travel about in little huts like those used by the Waddars; the men occasionally sell buffaloes and milk; the women beg, singing and accompanying themselves on the _thali_. The old men also beg, carrying a flag in their hand, and shouting the name of their G.o.d, Hari Vithal (from which they derive their name of Hardas). They are fond of spirits, and, when drunk, become pot-valiant and troublesome." The _thali_ or plate on which their women play is also known as _sarthada_, and consists of a small bra.s.s dish coated with wax in the centre; this is held on the thigh and a pointed stick is moved in a circle so as to produce a droning sound. The men sometimes paint their own pictures, and in Bombay they have a caste rule that every Chitrakathi must have in his house a complete set of sacred pictures; this usually includes forty representations of Rama's life, thirty-five of that of the sons of Arjun, forty of the Pandavas, forty of Sita and Rawan, and forty of Harishchandra. The men also have sets of puppets representing the above and other deities, and enact scenes with them like a Punch and Judy show, sometimes aided by ventriloquism.

Cutchi

1. General notice.

_Cutchi_ or _Meman, Kachhi, Muamin._--A cla.s.s of Muhammadan merchants who come every year from Gujarat and Cutch to trade in the towns of the Central Provinces, where they reside for eight months, returning to their houses during the four months of the rainy season. In 1911 they numbered about 2000 persons, of whom five-sixths were men, this fact indicating the temporary nature of their settlements. Nevertheless a large proportion of the trade of the Province is in their hands. The caste is fully and excellently described by Khan Bahadur Fazalullah Lutfullah Faridi, a.s.sistant Collector of Customs, Bombay, in the _Bombay Gazetteer_. [483] He remarks of them: "As shopkeepers and miscellaneous dealers Cutchis are considered to be the most successful of Muhammadans. They owe their success in commerce to their freedom from display and their close and personal attention to and keen interest in business. The richest Meman merchant does not disdain to do what a Parsi in his position would leave to his clerks. Their hope and courage are also excellent endowments. They engage without fear in any promising new branch of trade and are daring in their ventures, a trait partly inherited from their Lohana ancestors, and partly due to their faith in the luck which the favour of their saints secures them." Another great advantage arises from their method of trading in small corporations or companies of a number of persons either relations or friends. Some of these will have shops in the great centres of trade, Bombay and Calcutta, and others in different places in the interior. Each member then acts as correspondent and agent for all the others, and puts what business he can in their way. Many are also employed as a.s.sistants and servants in the shops; but at the end of the season, when all return to their native Gujarat, the profits from the different shops are pooled and divided among the members in varying proportion. By this method they obtain all the advantages which are recognised as attaching to co-operative trading.

2. Origin of the caste.

According to Mr. Faridi, from whose description the remainder of this article is mainly taken, the Memans or more correctly Muamins or 'Believers' are converts from the Hindu caste of Lohanas of Sind. They venerate especially Maulana Abdul Kadir Gilani who died at Baghdad in A.D. 1165. His sixth descendant, Syed Yusufuddin Kordiri, was in 1421 instructed in a dream to proceed to Sind and guide its people into the way of Islam. On his arrival he was received with honour by the local king, who was converted, and the ruler's example was followed by one Manikji, the head of one of the _nukhs_ or clans of the Lohana community. He with his three sons and seven hundred families of the caste embraced Islam, and on their conversion the t.i.tle of Muamin or 'Believer' was conferred on them by the saint. It may be noted that Colonel Tod derives the Lohanas from the Rajputs, remarking of them: [484] "This tribe is numerous both in Dhat and Talpura; formerly they were Rajputs, but betaking themselves to commerce have fallen into the third cla.s.s. They are scribes and shopkeepers, and object to no occupation that will bring a subsistence; and as to food, to use the expressive idiom of this region where hunger spurns at law, 'Excepting their cats and their cows they will eat anything.'" In his account of Sind, Postans says of the Lohanas: "The Hindu merchants and bankers have agents in the most remote parts of Central Asia and could negotiate bills upon Candahar, Khelat, Cabul, Khiva, Herat, Bokhara or any other marts of that country. These agents, in the pursuit of their calling, leave Sind for many years, quitting their families to locate themselves among the most savage and intolerant tribes." This account could equally apply to the Khatris, who also travel over Central Asia, as shown in the article on that caste; and if, as seems not improbable, the Lohanas and Khatris are connected, the hypothesis that the former, like the latter, are derived from Rajputs would receive some support.

The present Pir or head of the community is Sayyid Jafir Shah, who is nineteenth in descent from Yusufuddin and lives partly in Bombay and partly in Mundra of South Cutch. "At an uncertain date," Mr. Faridi continues, "the Lohana or Cutchi Memans pa.s.sed from Cutch south through Kathiawar to Gujarat. They are said to have been strong and wealthy in Surat during the period of its prosperity (1580-1680). As Surat sank the Cutchi Memans moved to Bombay. Outside Cutch and Kathiawar, which may be considered their homes, the Memans are scattered over the cities of north and south Gujarat and other Districts of Bombay. Beyond that Presidency they have spread as traders and merchants and formed settlements in Calcutta, Madras, the Malabar Coast, South Burma, Siam, Singapore and Java; in the ports of the Arabian Peninsula, except Muscat, where they have been ousted by the Khojas; and in Mozambique, Zanzibar and the East African Coast." [485] They have two divisions in Bombay, known as Cutchi or Kachhi and Halai.

3. Social customs.

Cutchis and Memans retain some non-Muhammadan usages. The princ.i.p.al of these is that they do not allow their daughters and widows to inherit according to the rule of Muhammadan law. [486] They conduct their weddings by the Nikah form and the _mehar_ or dowry is always the same sum of a hundred and twenty-five rupees, whatever may be the position of the parties and in the case of widows also. They say that either party may be divorced by the other for conjugal infidelity, but the _mehar_ or dowry must always be paid to the wife in the case of a divorce. The caste eat flesh and fowls and abstain from liquor. Most of them also decline to eat beef as a consequence of their Hindu ancestry and they will not take food from Hindus of low caste.