The Tribes and Castes of the Central Provinces of India Volume III Part 7

The next episode is taken from a slightly different local version:

And while they were cooking their food at the river a great flood came up, but all the Gonds crossed safely except the four G.o.ds, Tekam, Markam, Pusam and Telengam. [52] These were delayed because they had cooked their food with ghi which they had looted from the Hindu deities. Then they stood on the bank and cried out,

O G.o.d of the crossing, O Boundary G.o.d!

Should you be here, Come take us across.

Hearing this, the tortoise and crocodile came up to them, and offered to take them across the river. So Markam and Tekam sat on the back of the crocodile and Pusam and Telengam on the back of the tortoise, and before starting the G.o.ds made the crocodile and tortoise swear that they would not eat or drown them in the sea. But when they got to the middle of the river the tortoise and crocodile began to sink, with the idea that they would drown the Gonds and feed their young with them. Then the Gonds cried out, and the Raigidhni or vulture heard them. This bird appears to be the same as the Bindo, as it fed its young with elephants. The Raigidhni flew to the Gonds and took them up on its back and flew ash.o.r.e with them. And in its anger it picked out the tongue of the crocodile and crushed the neck of the tortoise. And this is why the crocodile is still tongueless and the tortoise has a broken neck, which is sometimes inside and sometimes outside its sh.e.l.l. Both animals also have the marks of string on their backs where the Gond G.o.ds tied their necks together when they were ferried across. Thus all the Gonds were happily reunited and Lingo took them into the forest, and they founded a town there, which grew and prospered. And Lingo divided all the Gonds into clans and made the oldest man a Pardhan or priest and founded the rule of exogamy. He also made the Gond G.o.ds, subsequently described, [53]

and worshipped them with offerings of a calf and liquor, and danced before them. He also prescribed the ceremonies of marriage which are still observed, and after all this was done Lingo went to the G.o.ds.

(b) Tribal Subdivisions

11. Subcastes.

Out of the Gond tribe, which, as it gave its name to a province, may be considered as almost a people, a number of separate castes have naturally developed. Among them are several occupational castes such as the Agarias or iron-workers, the Ojhas or soothsayers, Pardhans or priests and minstrels, Solahas or carpenters, and Koilabhutis or dancers or prost.i.tutes. These are princ.i.p.ally sprung from the Gonds, though no doubt with an admixture of other low tribes or castes. The Parjas of Bastar, now cla.s.sed as a separate tribe, appear to represent the oldest Gond settlers, who were subdued by later immigrants of the race; while the Bhatras and Jhadi Telengas are of mixed descent from Gonds and Hindus. Similarly the Gowari caste of cattle-graziers originated from the alliances of Gond and Ahir graziers. The Mannewars and Kolams are other tribes allied to the Gonds. Many Hindu castes and also non-Aryan tribes living in contact with the Gonds have a large Gond element; of the former cla.s.s the Ahirs, Basors, Barhais and Lohars, and of the latter the Baigas, Bhunjias and Khairwars are instances.

Among the Gonds proper there are two aristocratic subdivisions, the Raj-Gonds and Khatolas. According to Forsyth the Raj-Gonds are in many cases the descendants of alliances between Rajput adventurers and Gonds. But the term practically comprises the landholding subdivision of the Gonds, and any proprietor who was willing to pay for the privilege could probably get his family admitted into the Raj-Gond group. The Raj-Gonds rank with the Hindu cultivating castes, and Brahmans will take water from them. They sometimes wear the sacred thread. In the Telugu country the Raj-Gond is known as Durla or Durlasattam. In some localities Raj-Gonds will intermarry with ordinary Gonds, but not in others. The Khatola Gonds take their name from the Khatola state in Bundelkhand, which is said to have once been governed by a Gond ruler, but is no longer in existence. In Saugor they rank about equal with the Raj-Gonds and intermarry with them, but in Chhindwara it is said that ordinary Gonds despise them and will not marry with them or eat with them on account of their mixed descent from Gonds and Hindus. The ordinary Gonds in most Districts form one endogamous group, and are known as the Dhur or 'dust' Gonds, that is the common people. An alternative name conferred on them by the Hindus is Rawanvansi or of the race of Rawan, the demon king of Ceylon, who was the opponent of Rama. The inference from this name is that the Hindus consider the Gonds to have been among the people of southern India who opposed the Aryan expedition to Ceylon, which is preserved in the legend of Rama; and the name therefore favours the hypothesis that the Gonds came from the south and that their migration northward was sufficiently recent in date to permit of its being still remembered in tradition. There are several other small local subdivisions. The Koya Gonds live on the border of the Telugu country, and their name is apparently a corruption of Koi or Koitur, which the Gonds call themselves. The Gaita are another Chanda subcaste, the word Gaite or Gaita really meaning a village priest or headman. Gattu or Gotte is said to be a name given to the hill Gonds of Chanda, and is not a real subcaste. The Darwe or Naik Gonds of Chanda were formerly employed as soldiers, and hence obtained the name of Naik or leader. Other local groups are being formed such as the Larhia or those of Chhattisgarh, the Mandlaha of Mandla, the Lanjiha from Lanji and so on. These are probably in course of becoming endogamous. The Gonds of Bastar are divided into two groups, the Maria and the Muria. The Maria are the wilder, and are apparently named after the Mad, as the hilly country of Bastar is called. Mr. Hira Lal suggests the derivation of Muria from mur, the palas tree, which is common in the plains of Bastar, or from mur, a root. Both derivations must be considered as conjectural. The Murias are the Gonds who live in the plains and are more civilised than the Marias. The descendants of the Raja of Deogarh Bakht Buland, who turned Muhammadan, still profess that religion, but intermarry freely with the Hindu Gonds. The term Bhoi, which literally means a bearer in Telugu, is used as a synonym for the Gonds and also as an honorific t.i.tle. In Chhindwara it is said that only a village proprietor is addressed as Bhoi. It appears that the Gonds were used as palanquin-bearers, and considered it an honour to belong to the Kahar or bearer caste, which has a fairly good status. [54]

12. Exogamy.

The Gond rules of exogamy appear to preserve traces of the system found in Australia, by which the whole tribe is split into two or four main divisions, and every man in one or two of them must marry a woman in the other one or two. This is considered by Sir J. G. Frazer to be the beginning of exogamy, by which marriage was prohibited, first, between brothers and sisters, and then between parents and children, by the arrangement of these main divisions. [55]

Among the Gonds, however, the subdivision into small exogamous septs has been also carried out, and the cla.s.s system, if the surmise that it once existed be correct, remains only in the form of a survival, prohibiting marriage between agnates, like an ordinary sept. In one part of Bastar all the septs of the Maria Gonds are divided into two great cla.s.ses. There are ninety septs in A Cla.s.s and sixty-nine in B Cla.s.s, though the list may be incomplete. All the septs of A Cla.s.s say that they are Bhaiband or Dadabhai to each other, that is in the relation of brothers, or cousins being the sons of brothers. No man of Cla.s.s A can marry a woman of any sept in Cla.s.s A. The septs of Cla.s.s A stand in relation of Mamabhai or Akomama to those of Cla.s.s B. Mamabhai means a maternal uncle's son, and Akomama apparently signifies having the same maternal grandfather. Any man of a sept in Cla.s.s A can marry any woman of a sept in Cla.s.s B. It will thus be seen that the smaller septs seem to serve no purpose for regulating marriage, and are no more than family names. The tribe might just as well be divided into two great exogamous clans only. Marriage is prohibited between persons related only through males; but according to the exogamous arrangement there is no other prohibition, and a man could marry any maternal relative. Separate rules, however, prohibit his marriage with certain female relatives, and these will be given subsequently. [56] It is possible that the small septs may serve some purpose which has not been elicited, though the inquiry made by Rai Bahadur Panda Baijnath was most careful and painstaking.

In another part of Bastar there were found to be five cla.s.ses, and each cla.s.s had a small number of septs in it. The people who supplied this information could not give the names of many septs. Thus Cla.s.s A had six septs, Cla.s.s B five, Cla.s.ses C and D one each, Cla.s.s E four, and Cla.s.s F two. A man could not marry a woman of any sept belonging to his own cla.s.s.

The Muria Gonds of Bastar have a few large exogamous septs or clans named in Hindi after animals, and each of these clans contains several subsepts with Gondi names. Thus the Bakaravans or Goat race contains the Garde, Kunjami, Karrami and Vadde septs. The Kachhimvans or Tortoise race has the Netami, Kawachi, Usendi and Tekami septs; the Nagvans or Cobra race includes the Maravi, Potari, Karanga, Nurethi, Dhurwa and others. Other exogamous races are the Sodi (or tiger), Behainsa (buffalo), Netam (dog in Gondi), Chamchidai (bat) and one or two more. In this case the exogamous clans with Hindi names would appear to be a late division, and have perhaps been adopted because the meaning of the old Gondi names had been forgotten, or the septs were too numerous to be remembered.

In Chanda a cla.s.sification according to the number of G.o.ds worshipped is found. There are four main groups worshipping seven, six, five and four G.o.ds respectively, and each group contains ten to fifteen septs. A man cannot marry a woman of any sept which worships the same number of G.o.ds as himself. Each group has a sacred animal which the members revere, that of the seven-G.o.d worshippers being a porcupine, of the six-G.o.d worshippers a tiger, of the five-G.o.d worshippers the saras crane, and of the four-G.o.d worshippers a tortoise. As a rule the members of the different groups do not know the names of their G.o.ds, and in practice it is doubtful whether they restrict themselves to the proper number of G.o.ds of their own group. Formerly there were three-, two- and one-G.o.d worshippers, but in each of these cla.s.ses it is said that there were only one or two septs, and they found that they were much inconvenienced by the paucity of their numbers, perhaps for purposes of communal worship and feasting, and hence they got themselves enrolled in the larger groups. In reality it would appear that the cla.s.sification according to the number of G.o.ds worshipped is being forgotten, and the three lowest groups have disappeared. This conjecture is borne out by the fact that in Chhindwara and other localities only two large cla.s.ses remain who worship six and seven G.o.ds respectively, and marry with each other, the union of a man with a woman worshipping the same number of G.o.ds as himself being prohibited. Here, again, the small septs included in the groups appear to serve no purpose for regulating marriages. In Mandla the division according to the number of G.o.ds worshipped exists as in Chanda; but many Gonds have forgotten all particulars as to the G.o.ds, and say only that those septs which worship the same number of G.o.ds are bhaiband, or related to each other, and therefore cannot intermarry. In Betul the division by numbers of G.o.ds appears to be wholly in abeyance. Here certain large septs, especially the Uika and Dhurwa, are subdivided into a number of subsepts, within each of which marriage is prohibited.

13. Totemism.

Many of the septs are named after animals and plants. Among the commonest septs in all Districts are Markam, the mango tree; Tekam, the teak tree; Netam, the dog; Irpachi, the mahua tree; Tumrachi, the tendu tree; Warkara, the wild cat, and so on. Generally the members of a sept do not kill or injure their totem animals, but the rule is not always observed, and in some cases they now have some other object of veneration, possibly because they have forgotten the meaning of the sept name, or the object after which it is named has ceased to be sacred. Thus the Markam sept, though named after the mango, now venerate the tortoise, and this is also the case with the Netam sept in Bastar, though named after the dog. In Bastar a man revering the tortoise, though he will not catch the animal himself, will get one of his friends to catch it, and one revering the goat, if he wishes to kill a goat for a feast, will kill it not at his own house but at a friend's. The meaning of the important sept names Marabi, Dhurwa and Uika has not been ascertained, and the members of the sept do not know it. In Mandla the Marabi sept are divided into the Eti Marabi and Padi Marabi, named after the goat and pig. The Eti or goat Marabi will not touch a goat nor sacrifice one to Bura Deo. They say that once their ancestors stole a goat and were caught by the owner, when they put a basket over it and prayed Bura Deo to change it into a pig, which he did. Therefore they sacrifice only pigs to Bura Deo, but apparently the Padi Marabi also both sacrifice and eat pigs. The Dhurwa sept are divided into the Tumrachi and Nabalia Dhurwa, named after the tendu tree and the dwarf date-palm. The Nabalia Dhurwas will not cut a dwarf date-palm nor eat its fruit. They worship Bura Deo in this tree instead of in the saj tree, making an iron doll to represent him and covering it with palm-leaves. The Uika sept in Mandla say that they revere no animal or plant, and can eat any animal or cut down any plant except the saj tree, [57] the tree of Bura Deo; but in Betul they are divided into several subsepts, each of which has a totem. The Parteti sept revere the crocodile. When a marriage is finished they make a sacrifice to the crocodile, and if they see one lying dead they break their earthen pots in token of mourning. The Warkara sept revere the wild cat; they also will not touch a village cat nor keep one in their house, and if a cat comes in they drive it out at once. The Kunjam sept revere the rat and do not kill it.

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

In Betul the Gonds explain the totemistic names of their septs by saying that some incident connected with the animal, tree or other object occurred to the ancestor or priest of the sept while they were worshipping at the Deo-khulla or G.o.d's place or threshing-floor. Mr. Ganga Prasad Khatri has made an interesting collection of these. The reason why these stories have been devised may be that the totem animals or plants have ceased to be revered on their own merits as ancestors or kinsmen of the sept, and it was therefore felt necessary to explain the sept name or sanct.i.ty attaching to the totem by a.s.sociating it with the G.o.ds. If this were correct the process would be a.n.a.logous to that by which an animal or plant is first held sacred of itself, and, when this feeling begins to decay with some recognition of its true nature, it is a.s.sociated with an anthropomorphic G.o.d in order to preserve its sanct.i.ty. The following are some examples recorded by Mr. Ganga Prasad Khatri. Some of the examples are not a.s.sociated with the G.o.ds.

Gajjami, subsept of Dhurwa sept. From gaj, an arrow. Their first ancestor killed a tiger with an arrow.

Gouribans Dhurwa. Their first ancestor worshipped his G.o.ds in a bamboo clump.

Kusadya Dhurwa. (Kosa, tasar silk coc.o.o.n.) The first ancestor found a silk coc.o.o.n on the tree in which he worshipped his G.o.ds.

Kohkapath. Kohka is the fruit of the bhilawa [58] or marking-nut tree, and path, a kid. The first ancestor worshipped his G.o.ds in a bhilawa tree and offered a kid to them. Members of this sept do not eat the fruit or flowers of the bhilawa tree.

Jaglya. One who keeps awake, or the awakener. The first ancestor stayed awake the whole night in the Deo-khulla, or G.o.d's threshing-floor.

Sariyam. (Sarri, a path.) The first ancestor swept the path to the Deo-khulla.

Guddam. Gudda is a place where a hen lays her eggs. The first ancestor's hen laid eggs in the Deo-khulla.

Irpachi. The mahua tree. A mahua tree grew in the Deo-khulla or worshipping-place of this sept.

Admachi. The dhaura tree. [59] The first ancestor worshipped his G.o.ds under a dhaura tree. Members of the sept do not cut this tree nor burn its wood.

Sarati Dhurwa. (Sarati, a whip.) The first ancestor whipped the priest of the G.o.ds.

Suibadiwa. (Sui, a porcupine.) The first ancestor's wife had a porcupine which went and ate the crop of an old man's field. He tried to catch it, but it went back to her. He asked the name of her sept, and not being able to find it out called it Suibadiwa.

Watka. (A stone.) Members of this sept worship five stones for their G.o.ds. Some say that the first ancestors were young boys who forgot where the Deo-khulla was and therefore set up five stones and offered a chicken to them. As they did not offer the usual sacrifice of a goat, members of this sept abstain from eating goats.

Tumrecha Uika. (The tendu tree. [60]) It is said that the original ancestor of this sept was walking in the forest with his pregnant wife. She saw some tendu fruit and longed for it and he gave it to her to eat. Perhaps the original idea may have been that she conceived through swallowing a tendu fruit. Members of this sept eat the fruit of the tendu tree, but do not cut the tree nor make any use of its leaves or branches.

Tumdan Uika. Tumdan is a kind of pumpkin or gourd. They say that this plant grows in their Deo-khulla. The members drink water out of this gourd in the house, but do not carry it out of the house.

Kadfa-chor Uika. (Stealer of the kadfa.) Kadfa is the sheaf of grain left standing in the field for the G.o.ds when the crop is cut. The first ancestor stole the kadfa and offered it to his G.o.ds.

Gadhamar Uika. (Donkey-slayer.) Some say that the G.o.ds of the sept came to the Deo-khulla riding on donkeys, and others that the first ancestor killed a donkey in the Deo-khulla.

Eti-k.u.mra. Eti is a goat. The ancestors of the sept used to sacrifice a Brahman boy to their G.o.ds. Once they were caught in the act by the parents of the boy they had stolen, and they prayed to the G.o.ds to save them, and the boy was turned into a goat. They do not kill a goat nor eat its flesh, nor sacrifice it to the G.o.ds.

Ahke. This word means 'on the other side of a river.' They say that a man of the Dhurwa sept abducted a girl of the Uika sept from the other side of a river and founded this sept.

Tirgam. The word means fire. They say that their ancestor's hand was burnt in the Deo-khulla while cooking the sacrifice.

Tekam. (The teak tree.) The ancestor of the sept had his G.o.ds in this tree. Members of the sept will not eat food off teak leaves, but they will use them for thatching, and also cut the tree.

Manapa. In Gondi mani is a son and apa a father. They say that their ancestors sacrificed a Brahman father and son to their G.o.ds and were saved by their being turned into goats like the Eti-k.u.mra sept. Members of the sept do not kill or eat a goat.

Korpachi. The droppings of a hen. The ancestors of the sept offered these to his G.o.ds.

Mandani. The female organ of generation. The ancestor of the sept slept with his wife in the Deo-khulla.