The Tribes and Castes of the Central Provinces of India Volume III Part 3

Their septs are of the usual low-caste type, being named after animals, inanimate objects or nicknames of ancestors. One of them is Panch-biha or 'He who had five wives,' and another Kul-dip or 'The sept of the lamp.' Members of this sept will stop eating if a lamp goes out. The Janta Ragda take their name from the mill for grinding corn and will not have a grinding-mill in their houses. They say that a female ancestor was delivered of a child when sitting near a grinding-mill and this gave the sept its name. Three septs are named after other castes: k.u.mharbans, descended from a potter; Gandbans, from a Ganda; and Luha, from a Lohar or blacksmith, and which names indicate that members of these castes have been admitted into the community.

4. Marriage.

Marriage is forbidden within the sept, but is permitted between the children of brothers and sisters. Those members of the caste who have become Kabirpanthis may also marry with the others. Marriages may be infant or adult. A girl who is seduced by a member of the caste is married to him by a simple ceremony, the couple standing before a twig of the umar [27] tree, while some women sprinkle turmeric over them. If a girl goes wrong with an outsider she is permanently expelled and a feast is exacted from her parents. The boy and his relatives go to the girl's house for the betrothal, and a present of various articles of food and dress is made to her family, apparently as a sort of repayment for their expenditure in feeding and clothing her. A gift of clothes is also made to her mother, called dudh-sari, and is regarded as the price of the milk with which the mother nourished the girl in her infancy. A goat, which forms part of the bride-price, is killed and eaten by the parties and their relatives. The binding portion of the marriage is the bhanwar ceremony, at which the couple walk seven times round the marriage-post, holding each other by the little fingers. When they return to the bridegroom's house, a c.o.c.k or a goat is killed and the head buried before the door; the foreheads of the couple are marked with its blood and they go inside the house. If the bride is not adult, she goes home after a stay of two days, and the gauna or going-away ceremony is performed when she finally leaves her parents' house. The remarriage of widows is permitted, no restriction being imposed on the widow in her choice of a second husband. Divorce is permitted for infidelity on the part of the wife.

5. Religion and superst.i.tions.

Children are named on the sixth day after birth, special names being given to avert ill-luck, while they sometimes go through the ceremony of selling a baby for five cowries in order to disarm the jealousy of the G.o.dlings who are hostile to children. They will not call any person by name when they think an owl is within hearing, as they believe that the owl will go on repeating the name and that this will cause the death of the person bearing it. The caste generally revere Dulha Deo, the bridegroom G.o.d, whose altar stands near the cooking place, and the G.o.ddess Devi. Once in three years they offer a white goat to Bura Deo, the great G.o.d of the Gonds. They worship the sickle, the implement of their trade, at Dasahra, and offer cocoanuts and liquor to Ghasi Sadhak, a G.o.dling who lives by the peg to which horses are tied in the stable. He is supposed to protect the horse from all kinds of diseases. At Dasahra they also worship the horse. Their princ.i.p.al festival is called Karma and falls on the eleventh day of the second half of Bhadon (August). On this day they bring a branch of a tree from the forest and worship it with betel, areca-nut and other offerings. All through the day and night the men and women drink and dance together. They both burn and bury the dead, throwing the ashes into water. For the first three days after a death they set out rice and pulse and water in a leaf cup for the departed spirit. They believe that the ghosts of the dead haunt the living, and to cure a person possessed in this manner they beat him with shoes and then bury an effigy of the ghost outside the village.

6. Occupation.

The Ghasias usually work as gra.s.s-cutters and grooms to horses, and some of them make loom-combs for weavers. These last are looked down upon and called Madarchawa. They make the kunch or brushes for the loom, like the Kuchbandhias, from the root of the babai or khas-khas gra.s.s, and the rachh or comb for arranging the threads on the loom from the stalks of the bharru gra.s.s. Other Ghasias make ordinary hair combs from the kathai, a gra.s.s which grows densely on the borders of streams and springs. The frame of the comb is of bamboo and the teeth are fixed in either by thread or wire, the price being one pice (farthing) in the former case and two in the latter.

7. Social customs.

The caste admit outsiders by a disgusting ceremony in which the candidate is shaved with urine and forced to eat a mixture of cowdung, basil leaves, dub [28] gra.s.s and water in which a piece of silver or gold has been dipped. The women do not wear the choli or breast-cloth nor the nose-ring, and in some localities they do not have spangles on the forehead. Women are tattooed on various parts of the body before marriage with the idea of enhancing their beauty, and sometimes tattooing is resorted to for curing a pain in some joint or for rheumatism. A man who is temporarily put out of caste is shaved on readmission, and in the case of a woman a lock of her hair is cut. To touch a dead cow is one of the offences entailing temporary excommunication. They employ a Brahman only to fix the dates of their marriages. The position of the caste is very low and in some places they are considered as impure. The Ghasias are very poor, and a saying about them is 'Ghasia ki jindagi hasia', or 'The Ghasia is supported by his sickle,' the implement used for cutting gra.s.s. The Ghasias are perhaps the only caste in the Central Provinces outside those commonly returning themselves as Mehtar, who consent to do scavenger's work in some localities.

8. Ghasias and Kayasths.

The caste have a peculiar aversion to Kayasths and will not take food or water from them nor touch a Kayasth's bedding or clothing. They say that they would not serve a Kayasth as horse-keeper, but if by any chance one of them was reduced to doing so, he at any rate would not hold his master's stirrup for him to mount. To account for this hereditary enmity they tell the following story:

On one occasion the son of the Kayasth minister of the Raja of Ratanpur went out for a ride followed by a Ghasia sais (groom). The boy was wearing costly ornaments, and the Ghasia's cupidity being excited, he attacked and murdered the child, stripped him of his ornaments and threw the body down a well. The murder was discovered and in revenge the minister killed every Ghasia, man, woman or child that he could lay his hands on. The only ones who escaped were two pregnant women who took refuge in the hut of a Ganda and were sheltered by him. To them were born a boy and a girl and the present Ghasias are descended from the pair. Therefore a Ghasia will eat even the leavings of a Ganda but will accept nothing from the hands of a Kayasth.

This story is an instance of the process which has been called the transplantation of myth. Sir H. Risley tells a similar legend of the Ghasias of Orissa, [29] but in their case it was a young Kayasth bridegroom who was killed, and before dying he got leave from his murderers to write a letter to his relatives informing them of his death, on condition that he said nothing as to its manner. But in the letter he disclosed the murder, and the Ghasias, who could not read, were duly brought to justice. In the Ratanpur story as reported from Bilaspur it was stated that "Somehow, even from down the well, the minister's son managed to get a letter sent to his father telling him of the murder." And this sentence seems sufficient to establish the fact that the Central Provinces story has merely been imported from Orissa and slightly altered to give it local colour. The real reason for the traditional aversion felt by the Ghasias and other low castes for the Kayasths will be discussed in the article on that caste.

Ghosi

Ghosi. [30]--A caste of herdsmen belonging to northern India and found in the Central Provinces in Saugor and other Districts of the Jubbulpore and Nerbudda Divisions. In 1911 they numbered 10,000 persons in this Province out of a strength of about 60,000 in India. The name is said to be derived from the Sanskrit root ghush, to shout, the word ghosha meaning one who shouts as he herds his cattle. A noticeable fact about the caste is that, while in Upper India they are all Muhammadans--and it is considered to be partly on account of the difference in religion that they have become differentiated into a separate caste from the Ahirs--in the Central Provinces they are nearly all Hindus and show no trace of Muhammadan practices. A few Muhammadan Ghosis are found in Nimar and some Muhammadans who call themselves Gaddi in Mandla are believed to be Ghosis. And as the Ghosis of the northern Districts of the Central Provinces must in common with the bulk of the population be descended from immigrants from northern India, it would appear that they must have changed their religion, or rather abandoned one to which their ancestors had only been imperfectly proselytised, when it was no longer the dominant faith of the locality in which they lived. Sir D. Ibbetson says that in the Punjab the name Ghosi is used only for Muhammadans, and is often applied to any cowherd or milkman of that religion, whether Gujar, Ahir or of any other caste, just as Goala is used for a Hindu cowherd. It is said that Hindus will buy pure milk from the Musalman Ghosi, but will reject it if there is any suspicion of its having been watered by the latter, as they must not drink water at his hands. [31] But in Berar Brahmans will now buy milk and curds from Muhammadan milkmen. Mr. Crooke remarks that most of the Ghosis are Ahirs who have been converted to Islam. To the east of the United Provinces they claim a Gujar origin, and here they will not eat beef themselves nor take food with any Muhammadans who consume it. They employ Brahmans to fix the auspicious times for marriage and other ceremonies. The Ghosis of Lucknow have no other employment but the keeping of milch cattle, chiefly buffaloes of all kinds, and they breed buffaloes. [32] This is the case also in Saugor, where the Ghosis are said to rank below ordinary Ahirs because they breed and tend buffaloes instead of cows. Those of Narsinghpur, however, are generally not herdsmen at all but ordinary cultivators. In northern India, owing to the large number of Muhammadans who, other things being equal, would prefer to buy their milk and ghi from co-religionists, there would be an opening for milkmen professing this faith, and on the facts stated above it may perhaps be surmised that the Ghosi caste came into existence to fill the position. Or they may have been forcibly converted as a number of Ahirs in Berar were forcibly converted to Islam, and still call themselves Muhammadans, though they can scarcely repeat the Kalma and only go to mosque once a year. [33]

But when some of the Ghosis migrated into the Central Provinces, they would find, in the absence of a Musalman clientele, that their religion, instead of being an advantage, was a positive drawback to them, as Hindus would be reluctant to buy milk from a Muhammadan who might be suspected of having mixed it with water; and it would appear that they have relapsed naturally into Hinduism, all traces of their profession of Islam being lost. Even so, however, in Narsinghpur they have had to abandon their old calling and become ordinary cultivators, while in Saugor, perhaps on account of their doubtful status, they are restricted to keeping buffaloes. If this suggestion turned out to be well founded, it would be an interesting instance of a religion being changed to secure a professional advantage. But it can only be considered as a guess. A parallel to the disadvantage of being unable to water their milk without rendering it impure, which attaches to the Ghosis of the Punjab, may be adduced in the case of the Telis of the small town of Multai in Betul District. Here the dairyman's business is for some reason in the hands of Telis (oilmen) and it is stated that from every Teli who engages in it a solemn oath is exacted that he will not put water in the milk, and any violation of this would be punished by expulsion from caste. Because if the Hindus once found that they had been rendered impure by drinking water touched by so low a caste as the Telis, they would decline any longer to purchase milk from them. It is curious that the strict rule of ceremonial purity which obtains in the case of water has apparently no application to milk.

In the Central Provinces the Ghosis have two subcastes, the Havelia or those living in open wheat country, and the Birchheya or residents of jungle tracts. In Saugor they have another set of divisions borrowed from the Ahirs, and here the Muhammadan Ghosis are said to be a separate subcaste, though practically none were returned at the census. They have the usual system of exogamous groups with territorial names derived from those of villages. At their marriages the couple walk six times round the sacred post, reserving the seventh round, if the bride is a child, to be performed subsequently when she goes to her husband. But if she is adult, the full number may be completed, the ceremony known as lot pata coming between the sixth and seventh rounds. In this the bride sits first on the right of her husband and then changes seats so as to be on his left; and she is thus considered to become joined to her husband as the left part of his body, which the Hindus consider the wife to be, holding the same belief as that expressed in Genesis. After this the bride takes some child of the household into her lap and then makes it over to the bridegroom saying, 'Take care of the baby while I go and do the household work.' This ceremony, which has been recorded also of the Kapus in Chanda, is obviously designed as an auspicious omen that the marriage may be blessed with children. Like other castes of their standing, the Ghosis permit polygamy, divorce and the remarriage of widows, but the practice of taking two wives is rare. The dead are burnt, with the exception that the bodies of young children whose ears have not been pierced and of persons dying of smallpox are buried. Children usually have their ears pierced when they are three or four years old. A corpse must not be taken to the pyre at night, as it is thought that in that case it would be born blind in the next birth. The caste have bards and genealogists of their own who are known as Patia. In Damoh the Ghosis are mainly cart-drivers and cultivators and very few of them sell milk. In Nimar there are some Muhammadan Ghosis who deal in milk. Their women are not secluded and may be known by the number of little rings worn in the ear after the Muhammadan custom. Like the Ahirs, the Ghosis are considered to be somewhat stupid. They call themselves Ghosi Thakur, as they claim to be Rajputs, and outsiders also sometimes address them as Thakur. But in Sangor and Damoh these aspirations to Kshatriya rank are so widespread that when one person asks another his caste the usual form of the question is 'What Thakur are you?' The questioner thus politely a.s.sumes that his companion must be a Rajput of some sort and leaves it to him to admit or deny the soft impeachment. Another form of this question is to say 'What dudh, or milk, are you?'

Golar

Golar, [34] Gollam, Golla, Gola, Golkar.--The great shepherd caste of the Telugu country, which numbers nearly 1 1/2 million of persons in Madras and Hyderabad. In the Central Provinces there were under 3000 Golars in 1901, and they were returned princ.i.p.ally from the Balaghat and Seoni Districts. But 2500 Golkars, who belonged to Chanda and were cla.s.sified under Ahirs in 1901, may, in view of the information now available, be considered to belong to the Golar caste. Some 2000 Golars were enumerated in Berar. They are a nomadic people and frequent Balaghat, owing to the large area of grazing land found in the District. The caste come from the south and speak a dialect of Canarese. Hindus liken the conversation of two Golars to two c.o.c.ks crowing at each other. [35] They seem to have no subcastes except that in Chanda the Yera and Nana, or black and white Golkars, are distinguished. Marriage is regulated by the ordinary system of exogamous groups, but no meaning can be a.s.signed to the names of these. In Seoni they say that their group-names are the same as those of the Gonds, and that they are related to this great tribe; but though both are no doubt of the same Dravidian stock, there is no reason for supposing any closer affinity to exist, and the statement may be explained by the fact that Golars frequently reside in Gond villages in the forest; and in accordance with a practice commonly found among village communities the fiction of relationship has grown up. The children of brothers and sisters are allowed to marry, but not those of two sisters, the reason stated for this prohibition being that during the absence of the mother her sister nurses her children; the children of sisters are therefore often foster brothers and sisters, and this is considered as equivalent to the real relationship. But the marriage of a brother's son to a sister's daughter is held, as among the Gonds, to be a most suitable union. The adult marriage of girls involves no stigma, and the practice of serving for a wife is sometimes followed. Weddings may not be held during the months of Shrawan, Bhadon, Kunwar and Pus. The marriage altar is made of dried cowdung plastered over with mud, in honour perhaps of the animal which affords the Golars their livelihood. The clothes of the bridegroom and bride are knotted together and they walk five times round the altar. In Bhandara the marriages of Golars are celebrated both at the bride's house and the bridegroom's. The bridegroom rides on a horse, and on arrival at the marriage-shed is presented by his future mother-in-law with a cup of milk. The bride and bridegroom sit on a platform together, and each gets up and sits down nine times, whoever accomplishes this first being considered to have won. The bridegroom then takes the bride's little finger in his hand and they walk nine times round the platform. He afterwards falls at the girl's feet, and standing up carries her inside the house, where they eat together out of one dish. After three days the party proceeds to the bridegroom's house, where the same ceremonies are gone through. Here the family barbers of the bride and bridegroom take the couple up in their arms and dance, holding them, and all the party dance too. The remarriage of widows is permitted, a sum of Rs. 25 being usually paid to the parents of the woman by her second husband. Divorce may be effected at the option of either party, and doc.u.ments are usually drawn up on both sides. The Golars worship Mahadeo and have a special deity, Hularia, who protects their cattle from disease and wild beasts. A clay image of Hularia is erected outside the village every five or ten years and goats are offered to it. Each head of a family is supposed to offer on the first occasion two goats, and on the second and subsequent ones, five, seven, nine and twelve goats respectively. But when a man dies his son starts afresh with an offering of two. The flesh of the animals offered is consumed by the caste-fellows. The name Hularia Deo has some connection with the Holias, a low Telugu caste of leather-workers to whom the Golars appear to be related, as they have the same family names. When a Golar dies a plate of cooked rice is laid on his body and then carried to the burning-ghat. The Holias belonging to the same section go with it, and before arrival the plate of rice is laid on the ground and the Holias eat it. The Golars have various superst.i.tions, and on Sat.u.r.days, Sundays and Mondays they will not give salt, fire, milk or water to any one. They usually burn the dead, the corpse being laid with the head to the south, though in some localities the Hindu custom of placing the head to the north has been adopted. They employ Brahmans for religious and ceremonial purposes. The occupation of the caste is to breed and tend buffaloes and cattle, and they also deal in live-stock, and sell milk, curds and ghi. They were formerly addicted to dacoity and cattle-theft. They have a caste panchayat, the head of which is designated as Mokasi. Formerly the Mokasi received Rs. 15 on the marriage of a widow, and Rs. 5 when a person temporarily outcasted was readmitted to social intercourse, but these payments are now only occasionally made. The caste drink liquor and eat flesh, including pigs and fowls, but not beef. They employ Brahmans for ceremonial purposes, but their social status is low and they are practically on a level with the Dravidian tribes. The dialect of Canarese spoken by the Golars is known as Golari, Holia or Komtau, and is closely related to the form which that language a.s.sumes in Bij.a.pur; [36] but to outsiders they now speak Hindi.

GOND

[Bibliography.--The most important account of the Gond tribe is that contained in the Rev. Stephen Hislop's Papers on the Aboriginal Tribes of the Central Provinces, published after his death by Sir R. Temple in 1866. Mr. Hislop recorded the legend of Lingo, of which an abstract has been reproduced. Other notices of the Gonds are contained in the ninth volume of General Cunningham's Archaeological Survey Reports, Sir C. Grant's Central Provinces Gazetteer of 1871 (Introduction), Colonel Ward's Mandla Settlement Report (1868), Colonel Lucie Smith's Chanda Settlement Report (1870), and Mr. C. W. Montgomerie's Chhindwara Settlement Report (1900). An excellent monograph on the Bastar Gonds was contributed by Rai Bahadur Panda Baijnath, Superintendent of the State, and other monographs by Mr. A. E. Nelson, C.S., Mandla; Mr. Ganga Prasad Khatri, Forest Divisional Officer, Betul; Mr. J. Langhorne, Manager, Ahiri zamindari, Chanda; Mr. R. S. Thakur, tahsildar, Balaghat; and Mr. Din Dayal, Deputy Inspector of Schools, Nandgaon State. Papers were also furnished by the Rev. A. Wood of Chanda; the Rev. H. J. Molony, Mandla; and Major W. D. Sutherland, I.M.S., Saugor. Notes were also collected by the writer in Mandla. Owing to the inclusion of many small details from the different papers it has not been possible to acknowledge them separately.]

List of Paragraphs

(a) Origin and History

1. Numbers and distribution.

2. Gondwana.

3. Derivation of name and origin of the Gonds.

4. History of the Gonds.

5. Mythical traditions. Story of Lingo.

6. Legend of the creation.

7. Creation of the Gonds and their imprisonment by Mahadeo.

8. The birth and history of Lingo.

9. Death and resurrection of Lingo.

10. He releases the Gonds shut up in the cave and const.i.tutes the tribe.

(b) Tribal Subdivisions

11. Subcastes.

12. Exogamy.

13. Totemism.

14. Connection of totemism with the G.o.ds.

(c) Marriage Customs

15. Prohibitions on intermarriage, and unions of relations.

16. Irregular marriages.

17. Marriage. Arrangement of matches.

18. The marriage ceremony.