The Tribes and Castes of the Central Provinces of India Volume III Part 16

The Gowaris have exogamous sections of the t.i.tular and totemistic types, such as Chachania from chachan, a bird, Lohar from loha iron, Ambadare a mango-branch, Kohria from the Kohri or Kohli caste, Sarwaina a Gond sept, and Rawat the name of the Ahir caste in Chhattisgarh. Some septs do not permit intermarriage between their members, saying that they are Dudh-Bhais or foster-brothers, born from the same mother. Thus the Chachania, Kohria, Senwaria, Sendua (vermilion) and Wagare (tiger) septs cannot intermarry. They say that their fathers were different, but their mothers were related or one and the same. This is apparently a relic of polyandry, and it is possible that in some cases the Gonds may have allowed Ahirs sojourning in the forest to have access to their wives during the period of their stay. If this was permitted to Ahirs of different sections coming to the same Gond village in successive years, the offspring might be the ancestors of sections who consider themselves to be related to each other in the manner of the Gowari sections.

Marriage is prohibited within the same section or kur, and between sections related to each other as Dudh-Bhais in the manner explained above. A man can marry his daughter to his sister's son, but cannot take her daughter for his son. The children of two sisters cannot be married.

4. Marriage customs.

Girls are usually married after attaining maturity, and a bride-price is paid which is normally two khandis (800 lbs.) of grain, Rs. 16 to 20 in cash, and a piece of cloth. The auspicious date of the wedding is calculated by a Mahar Mohturia or soothsayer. Brahmans are not employed, the ceremony being performed by the bhanya or sister's son of either the girl's father or the boy's father. If he is not available, any one whom either the girl's father or the boy's father addresses as bhanja or nephew in the village, according to the common custom of addressing each other by terms of relationship, even though he may be no relative and belong to another caste, may be subst.i.tuted; and if no such person is available a son-in-law of either of the parties. The peculiar importance thus attached to the sister's son as a relation is probably a relic of the matriarchate, when a man's sister's son was his heir. The subst.i.tution of a son-in-law who might inherit in the absence of a sister's son perhaps strengthens this view. The wedding is held mainly according to the Maratha ritual. [116] The procession goes to the girl's house, and the bridegroom is wrapped in a blanket and carries a spear, in the absence of which the wedding cannot be held. A spear is also essential among the Gonds. The ancestors of the caste are invited to the wedding by beating a drum and calling on them to attend. The original ancestors are said to be Kode Kodwan, the names of two Gond G.o.ds, Baghoba (the tiger-G.o.d), and Meghnath, son of Rawan, the demon king of Ceylon, after whom the Gonds are called Rawanvansi, or descendants of Rawan. The wedding costs about Rs. 50, all of which is spent by the boy's father. The girl's father only gives a feast to the caste out of the amount which he receives as bride-price. Divorce and the remarriage of widows are permitted.

5. Funeral rites.

The dead are either buried or burnt, burial being more common. The corpse is laid with head to the south and feet to the north. On returning from the funeral they go and drink at the liquor-shop, and then kill a c.o.c.k on the spot where the deceased died, and offer some meat to his spirit, placing it outside the house. The caste-fellows sit and wait until a crow comes and pecks at the food, when they think that the deceased has enjoyed it, and begin to eat themselves. If no crow comes before night the food may be given to a cow, and the party can then begin to eat. When the next wedding is held in the family, the deceased is brought down from the skies and enshrined among the deified ancestors.

6. Religion.

The princ.i.p.al deities of the Gowaris are the Kode Kodwan or deified ancestors. They are worshipped at the annual festivals, and also at weddings. When a man or woman dies without children their spirits are known as Dhal, and are worshipped in the families to which they belonged. A male Dhal is represented by a stick of bamboo with one cross-piece at the top, and a female Dhal by a stick with two others crossing each other lashed to it at the top. These sticks are worshipped at the Diwali festival, and carried in procession. Dudhera is a G.o.dling worshipped for the protection of cattle. He is represented by a clay horse placed near a white ant-hill. If a cow stops giving milk her udder is smoked with the burning wood of a tree called sanwal, and this is supposed to drive away the spirits who drink the milk from the udder. All Gowaris revere the haryal, or green pigeon. They say that it gives a sound like a Gowari calling his cows, and that it is a kinsman. They would on no account kill this bird. They say that the cows will go to a tree from which green pigeons are cooing, and that on one occasion when a thief was driving away their cows a green pigeon cooed from a tree, and the cows turned round and came back again. This is like the story of the sacred geese at Rome, who gave warning of the attack of the Goths.

7. Caste rules and the panchayat.

The head of the caste committee is known as Shendia, from shendi, a scalp-lock or pig-tail, perhaps because he is at the top of the caste as the scalp-lock is at the top of the head. The Shendia is elected, and holds office for life. He has to readmit offenders into caste by being the first to eat and drink with them, thus taking their sins on himself. On such occasions it is necessary to have a little opium, which is mixed with sugar and water, and distributed to all members of the caste. If the quant.i.ty is insufficient for every one to drink, the man responsible for preparing it is fined, and this mixture, especially the opium, is indispensable on all such occasions. The custom indicates that a sacred or sacrificial character is attributed to the opium, as the drinking of the mixture together is the sign of the readmission of a temporary outcaste into the community. After this has been drunk he becomes a member of the caste, even though he may not give the penalty feast for some time afterwards. The Ahirs and Sunars of the Maratha country have the same rite of purification by the common drinking of opium and water. A caste penalty is incurred for the removal of bital or impurity arising from the usual offences, and among others for touching the corpse of a man of any other caste, or of a buffalo, horse, cow, cat or dog, for using abusive language to a casteman at any meeting or feast, and for getting up from a caste feast without permission from the headman. For touching the corpse of a prohibited animal and for going to jail a man has to get his head, beard and whiskers shaved. If a woman becomes with child by a man of another caste, she is temporarily expelled, but can be readmitted after the child has been born and she has disposed of it to somebody else. Such children are often made over for a few rupees to Muhammadans, who bring them up as menial servants in their families, or, if they have no child of their own, sometimes adopt them. On readmission a lock of the woman's hair is cut off. In the same case, if no child is born of the liaison, the woman is taken back with the simple penalty of a feast. Permanent expulsion is imposed for taking food from, or having an intrigue with a member of an impure caste as Madgi, Mehtar, Pardhan, Mahar and Mang.

8. Social customs.

The Gowaris eat pork, fowls, rats, lizards and peac.o.c.ks, and abstain only from beef and the flesh of monkeys, crocodiles and jackals. They will take food from a Mana, Marar or Kohli, and water from a Gond. Kunbis will take water from them, and Gonds, Dhimars and Dhobis will accept cooked food. All Gowari men are tattooed with a straight vertical line on the forehead, and many of them have the figures of a peac.o.c.k, deer or horse on the right shoulder or on both shoulders. A man without the mark on the forehead will scarcely be admitted to be a true Gowari, and would have to prove his birth before he was allowed to join a caste feast. Women are tattooed with a pattern of straight and crooked lines on the right arm below the elbow, which they call Sita's arm. They have a vertical line standing on a horizontal one on the forehead, and dots on the temples.

GUJAR

List of Paragraphs

1. Historical notice of the caste.

2. The Gujars and the Khazars.

3. Predatory character of the Gujars in Northern India.

4. Subdivisions.

5. Marriage.

6. Disposal of the dead.

7. Religion.

8. Character.

1. Historical notice of the caste.

Gujar.--A great historical caste who have given their name to the Gujarat District and the town of Gujaranwala in the Punjab, the peninsula of Gujarat or Kathiawar and the tract known as Gujargarh in Gwalior. In the Central Provinces the Gujars numbered 56,000 persons in 1911, of whom the great majority belonged to the Hoshangabad and Nimar Districts. In these Provinces the caste is thus practically confined to the Nerbudda Valley, and they appear to have come here from Gwalior probably in the middle of the sixteenth century, to which period the first important influx of Hindus into this area has been ascribed. But some of the Nimar Gujars are immigrants from Gujarat. Owing to their distinctive appearance and character and their exploits as cattle-raiders, the origin of the Gujars has been the subject of much discussion. General Cunningham identified them with the Yueh-chi or Tochari, the tribe of Indo-Scythians who invaded India in the first century of the Christian era. The king Kadphises I. and his successors belonged to the Kushan section of the Yueh-chi tribe, and their rule extended over north-western India down to Gujarat in the period 45-225 A.D. Mr. V. A. Smith, however, discards this theory and considers the Gujars or Gurjaras to have been a branch of the white Huns who invaded India in the fifth and sixth centuries. He writes: [117] "The earliest foreign immigration within the limits of the historical period which can be verified is that of the Sakas in the second century B.C.; and the next is that of the Yueh-chi and Kushans in the first century A.D. Probably none of the existing Rajput clans can carry back their genuine pedigrees so far. The third recorded great irruption of foreign barbarians occurred during the fifth century and the early part of the sixth. There are indications that the immigration from Central Asia continued during the third century, but, if it did, no distinct record of the event has been preserved, and, so far as positive knowledge goes, only three certain irruptions of foreigners on a large scale through the northern and north-western pa.s.ses can be proved to have taken place within the historical period anterior to the Muhammadan invasions of the tenth and eleventh centuries. The first and second, as above observed, were those of the Sakas and Yueh-chi respectively, and the third was that of the Hunas or white Huns. It seems to be clearly established that the Hun group of tribes or hordes made their princ.i.p.al permanent settlements in the Punjab and Rajputana. The most important element in the group after the Huns themselves was that of the Gurjaras, whose name still survives in the spoken form Gujar as the designation of a widely diffused middle-cla.s.s caste in north-western India. The prominent position occupied by Gurjara kingdoms in early mediaeval times is a recent discovery. The existence of a small Gurjara princ.i.p.ality in Bharoch (Broach), and of a larger state in Rajputana, has been known to archaeologists for many years, but the recognition of the fact that Bhoja and the other kings of the powerful Kanauj dynasty in the ninth, tenth and eleventh centuries were Gurjaras is of very recent date and is not yet general. Certain misreadings of epigraphic dates obscured the true history of that dynasty, and the correct readings have been established only within the last two or three years. It is now definitely proved that Bhoja (circ. A.D. 840-890), his predecessors and successors belonged to the Pratihara (Parihar) clan of the Gurjara tribe or caste, and, consequently, that the well-known clan of Parihar Rajputs is a branch of the Gurjara or Gujar stock." [118]

2. The Gujars and the Khazars.

Sir J. Campbell identified the Gujars with the Khazar tribe of Central Asia: [119] "What is known of the early history of the Gujaras in India points to their arrival during the last quarter of the fifth or the first quarter of the sixth century (A.D. 470-520). That is the Gujaras seem to have formed part of the great horde of which the Juan-Juan or Avars, and the Ephthalites, Yetas or White Hunas were leading elements. The question remains: How far does the arrival of the Gujara in India, during the early sixth century, agree with what is known of the history of the Khazar? The name Khazar appears under the following forms: Among Chinese as Kosa, among Russians as Khwalisses, among Byzantines as Chozars or Chazars, among Armenians as Khazirs and among Arabs as Khozar. Other variations come closer to Gujara. These are Gazar, the form Kazar takes to the north of the sea of Asof; Ghysar, the name for Khazars who have become Jews; and Ghusar, the form of Khazar in use among the Lesghians of the Caucasus. Howarth and the writer in the Encyclopaedia Britannica follow Klaproth in holding that the Khazars are the same as the White Hunas....

"Admitting that the Khazar and White Huna are one, it must also be the case that the Khazars included two distinct elements, a fair or Ak-Khazar, the Akatziroi or Khazaroi of Byzantine historians, and a dark or Kara Khazar. The Kara Khazar was short, ugly and as black as an Indian. He was the Ughrian nomad of the steppes, who formed the rank and file of the army. The White Khazar or White Huna was fair-skinned, black-haired and beautiful, their women (in the ninth and tenth centuries) being sought after in the bazars of Baghdad and Byzantium. According to Klaproth, a view adopted by the writer in the Encyclopaedia Britannica, the White Khazar represented the white race which, since before Christ has been settled round the Caspian. As White Hunas, Ephthalites, [120] White Ughrians and White Bulgars, this white race were the carriers between Europe and East Asia; they were also the bearers of the brunt of the Tartar inroads. A trace both of the beautiful and coa.r.s.e clans seems to survive in the complimentary Marwar proverb, 'Handsome as a Huna,' and in the abusive Gujarat proverb, 'Yellow and short as a Huna's beard.' Under its Hindu form Gurjara, Khazar appears to have become the name by which the great bulk of the sixth-century horde was known." Sir J. Campbell was of opinion that the Sesodia or Gahlot Rajputs, the most ill.u.s.trious of all the clans, were of Gujar stock, as well as the Parihar, Chauhan, and Chalukya or Solanki; these last were three of the Agnikula clans or those created from the firepit, [121] and a Solanki dynasty ruled in Gujarat. He also considered the Nagar Brahmans of Gujarat to be derived from the Gujars and considerable sections of the Ahir and Kunbi castes. The Badgujar (great Gujar) clan of Rajputs is no doubt also an aristocratic branch of the caste. In Ajmere it is said that though all Gujars are not Rajputs, no Rajput becomes a hero unless he is suckled by a Gujar woman. Gujarika dudh, nahari ka dudh; or 'Gujar's milk is tiger's milk.' A Rajput who has not been suckled by a Gujar woman is a gidar or jackal. [122]

3. Predatory character of the Gujars in northern India.

The fact of the White Huns being tall and of fine features, in contrast to the horde which invaded Europe under Attila, accounts for these characteristics being found among the highest Rajput clans, who, as has been seen, are probably derived from them. The Gujar caste generally is now, however, no doubt of mixed and impure blood. They were distinguished in the past as vagrant and predatory marauders, and must have a.s.similated various foreign elements. Mr. Crooke writes of them: [123] "The Gujars as a tribe have always been noted for their turbulence and habit of cattle-stealing. Babar in his Memoirs describes how the commander of the rearguard captured a few Gujar ruffians who followed the camp, decapitated them and sent their heads to the Emperor. The Gujars of Pali and Pahal became exceedingly audacious while Sher Shah was fortifying Delhi, and he marched to the hills and expelled them so that not a vestige of their habitations was left. Jahangir remarks that the Gujars live chiefly on milk and curds and seldom cultivate land; and Babar says: 'Every time I entered Hindustan the Jats and Gujars have regularly poured down in prodigious numbers from the hills and wilds to carry off oxen and buffaloes. These were the wretches that really inflicted the chief hardships and were guilty of the chief oppression in the country.' They maintained their old reputation in the Mutiny when they perpetrated numerous outrages and seriously impeded the operations of the British Army before Delhi." In northern India the Gujars are a pastoral caste. The saying about them is--

Ahir, Gadaria, Gujar, E tinon taken ujar,

or, 'The Ahir, Gadaria and Gujar want waste land'; that is for grazing their flocks. In Kangra the Gujars generally keep buffaloes. Here they are described as "A fine, manly race with peculiar and handsome features. They are mild and inoffensive in manner, and in these hills are not distinguished by the bad pre-eminence which attaches to their race in the plains." [124] Sir D. Ibbetson had a very unfavourable opinion of the Gujars of the plains, of whom he wrote as follows: [125] "The Gujar is a fine stalwart fellow, of precisely the same physical type as the Jat; and the theory of aboriginal descent which has been propounded is to my mind conclusively negatived by his cast of countenance. He is of the same social standing as the Jat, or perhaps slightly inferior; but the two eat and drink in common without any scruple, and the proverb says: 'The Jat, Gujar, Ahir and Gola are all hail fellow well met.' But he is far inferior in both personal character and repute to the Jat. He is lazy to a degree, and a wretched cultivator; his women, though not secluded, will not do field-work save of the lightest kind; while his fondness for cattle extends to those of other people. The difference between a Gujar and a Rajput cattle-thief was once explained to me thus by a Jat: 'The Rajput will steal your buffalo. But he will not send his old father to say he knows where it is and will get it back for Rs. 20, and then keep the Rs. 20 and the buffalo too. The Gujar will.'"

4. Subdivisions.

The Gujars of the Central Provinces have, however, entirely given up the predatory habits of their brethren in northern India and have developed into excellent cultivators and respectable law-abiding citizens. In Hoshangabad they have three subcastes, Lekha, Mundle and Jadam. The Mundle or 'Shaven' are so called because they take off their turbans when they eat and expose their crowns bare of hair, while the Lekha eat with their turbans on. The Mundle are also known as Rewe, from the Rewa or Nerbudda, near which they reside. The Jadam are probably an offshoot from the cultivating caste of Hoshangabad of that name, Jadam being a corruption of Jadubansi, a tribe of Rajputs. The Badgujars, who belong to Nimar, consider themselves the highest, deriving their name from bara or 'great' Gujar. As already seen, there is a Badgujar clan of Rajputs. The Nimar Badgujars, however, were formerly engaged in the somewhat humble calling of clearing cotton of its seeds, and on this account they are also known as Ludhare, the word lodhna meaning to work the hand-ginning machine (charkhi). It seems possible that the small caste of Lorhas of the Hoshangabad District, whose special avocation is to grow san-hemp, may be derived from these Ludhare Gujars. The Kekre or Kanwe subcaste are the lowest and are of illegitimate descent. They are known as Kekre or 'Crabs,' but prefer their other name. They will take food from the other subcastes, but these do not return the compliment. Another group in the Sohagpur Tahsil of Hoshangabad are the Lilorhia Gujars. They say that their ancestors were grazing calves when some of them with their herdsmen were stolen by Brahma. Then Krishna created fresh cowherds and the Lilorhias were made from the sweat of his forehead (lilat). Afterwards Brahma restored the original cowherds, who were known as Murelia, because they were the first players on the murli or flute. [126] The Badgujars or highest branch of the clan are descendants of these Murelias. The caste have also a set of exogamous groups, several of which bear the names of Rajput clans, while others are called after villages, t.i.tles or nicknames or natural objects. A man is not permitted to marry any one belonging either to his own sept or that of his mother or grandmother.

5. Marriage.

At a Gujar wedding four plough-yokes are laid out to form a square under the marriage booth, with a copper pot full of water in the centre. At the auspicious moment the bride's hand is placed on that of the bridegroom, and the two walk seven times round the pot, the bridegroom leading for the first four rounds and the bride for the last three. Widows are allowed to remarry, and, as girls are rather scarce in the caste, a large price is often paid for the widow to her father or guardian, though this is not willingly admitted. As much as Rs. 3000 is recorded to have been paid. A widow marriage is known as Natra or Pat. A woman is forbidden to marry any relative of her first husband. When the marriage of a widow is to take place a fee of Rs. 1-4 must be paid to the village proprietor to obtain his consent. The Gujars of the Bulandshahr District of the United Provinces furnish, Mr. Crooke says, [127] perhaps the only well-established instance of polyandry among the Hindus of the plains. Owing to the scarcity of women in the caste it was customary for the wife of one brother, usually the eldest, to be occasionally at the disposal of other unmarried brothers living in the house. The custom arose owing to the lack of women caused by the prevalence of female infanticide, and now that this has been stopped it is rapidly dying out, while no trace of it is believed to exist in the Central Provinces.