The Tribes and Castes of the Central Provinces of India Volume IV Part 22

Hindu sculpture has indeed been fairly prolific, but is not generally considered to have attained to any degree of artistic merit. Since sculpture is mainly concerned with the human form it seems clear that an appreciation of the beauty of muscular strength and the symmetrical development of the limbs is an essential preliminary to success in this art; and such a feeling can only arise among a people who set much store on feats of bodily strength and agility. This has never been the character of the Hindus, whose religion encourages asceticism and mortification of the body, and points to mental self-absorption and detachment from worldly cares and exercises as the highest type of virtue.

4. Antagonism of Mochis and Chamars

As a natural result of the pretensions to n.o.bility made by the Mochis, there is no love lost between them and the Chamars; and the latter allege that the Mochis have stolen their _rampi_, the knife with which they cut leather. On this account the Chamars will neither take water to drink from the Mochis nor mend their shoes, and will not even permit them to try on a new pair of shoes until they have paid the price set on them; for they say that the Mochis are half-bred Chamars and therefore cannot be permitted to defile the shoes of a true Chamar by trying them on; but when they have been paid for, the maker has severed connection with them, and the use to which they may be put no longer affects him.

5. Exogamous groups

In the Central Provinces the Mochis are said to have forty exogamous sections or _gotras_, of which the bulk are named after all the well-known Rajput clans, while two agree with those of the Chamars. And they have also an equal number of _kheras_ or groups named after villages. The limits of the two groups seem to be identical; thus members of the sept named after the Kachhwaha Rajputs say that their _khera_ or village name is Mungavali in Gwalior; those of the Ghangere sept give Chanderi as their _khera_, the Sitawat sept Dhamoni in Saugor, the Didoria Chhatarpur, the Narele Narwar, and so on. The names of the village groups have now been generally forgotten and they are said to have no influence on marriage, which is regulated by the Rajput sept names; but it seems probable that the _kheras_ were the original divisions and the Rajput _gotras_ have been more recently adopted in support of the claims already noticed.

6. Social customs

The Mochis have adopted the customs of the higher Hindu castes. A man may not take a wife from his own _gotra_, his mother's _gotra_ or from a family into which a girl from his own family has married. They usually marry their daughters in childhood and employ Brahmans in their ceremonies, and no degradation attaches to these latter for serving as their priests. In minor domestic ceremonies for which the Brahman is not engaged his place is taken by a relative, who is called _sawasa_, and is either the sister's husband, daughter's husband, or father's sister's husband, of the head of the family. They permit widow-remarriage and divorce, and in the southern Districts effect a divorce by laying a pestle between the wife and husband. They burn their dead and observe mourning for the usual period. After a death they will not again put on a coloured head-cloth until some relative sets it on their heads for the first time on the expiry of the period of mourning. They revere the ordinary Hindu deities, and like the Chamars they have a family G.o.d, known as Mair, whose representation in the shape of a lump of clay is enshrined within the house and worshipped at marriages and deaths. In Saugor he is said to be the collective representative of the spirits of their ancestors. In some localities they eat flesh and drink liquor, but in others abstain from both. Among the Hindus the Mochis rank considerably higher than the Chamars; their touch does not defile and they are permitted to enter temples and take part in religious ceremonies. The name of a Saugor Mochi is remembered who became a good drawer and painter and was held in much esteem at the Peshwa's court. In northern India about half the Mochis are Muhammadans, but in the Central Provinces they are all Hindus.

7. Shoes

In view of the fact that many of the Mochis were Muhammadans and that slippers are mainly a Muhammadan article of attire Buchanan thought it probable that they were brought into India by the invaders, the Hindus having previously been content with sandals and wooden shoes. He wrote: "Many Hindus now use leather slippers, but some adhere to the proper custom of wearing sandals, which have wooden soles, a strap of leather to pa.s.s over the instep, and a wooden or horn peg with a b.u.t.ton on its top. The foot is pa.s.sed through the strap and the peg is placed between two of the toes." [280] It is certain, however, that leather shoes and slippers were known to the Hindus from a fairly early period: "The episode related in the Ramayana of Bharata placing on the vacant throne of Ajodhya a pair of Rama's slippers, which he worshipped during the latter's protracted exile, shows that shoes were important articles of wear and worthy of attention. In Manu and the Mahabharata slippers are also mentioned and the time and mode of putting them on pointed out. The Vishnu Purana enjoins all who wish to protect their persons never to be without leather shoes. Manu in one place expresses great repugnance to stepping into another's shoes and peremptorily forbids it, and the Puranas recommend the use of shoes when walking out of the house, particularly in th.o.r.n.y places and on hot sand." [281] Thus shoes were certainly worn by the Hindus before Muhammadan times, though loose slippers may have been brought into fashion by the latter. And it seems possible that the Mochis may have adopted Islam, partly to obtain the patronage of the followers of the new religion, and also to escape from the degraded position to which their profession of leather-working was relegated by Hinduism and to dissociate themselves from the Chamars.

Mowar

_Mowar._--A small caste of cultivators found in the Chhattisgarh country, in the Raipur and Bilaspur Districts and the Raigarh State. They numbered 2500 persons in 1901. The derivation of the name is obscure, but they themselves say that it is derived from Mow or Mowagarh, a town in the Jhansi District of the United Provinces, and they also call themselves Mahuwar or the inhabitants of Mow. They say that the Raja of Mowagarh, under whom they were serving, desired to marry the daughter of one of their Sirdars (headmen), because she was extremely beautiful, but her father refused, and when the Raja persisted in his desire they left the place in a body and came to Ratanpur in the time of Raja Bimbaji, in A.D. 1770. A Bilaspur writer states that the Mowars are an offshoot from the Rajwar Rajputs of Sarguja State. Colonel Dalton writes [282] of the Rajwar Rajputs of Sarguja and other adjoining States that they are peaceably disposed cultivators, who declare themselves to be fallen Kshatriyas; but he remarks later that they are probably aborigines, as they do not conform to Hindu customs, and they are skilled in a dance called Chailo, which he considers to be of Dravidian origin. In another place he remarks that the Rajwars of Bengal admit that they are derived from the miscegenation of Kurmis and Kols. The fact that the Mowars of Sarangarh make a representation of a bow and arrow on their doc.u.ments, instead of signing their names, affords some support to the theory that they are probably a branch of one of the aboriginal tribes. The name may be derived from _mowa_, a radish, as the Mowars of Bilaspur are engaged princ.i.p.ally in garden cultivation.

The Mowars have no subcastes, but are divided into a number of exogamous groups, princ.i.p.ally of a totemistic nature. Those of the Surajha or sun sept throw away their earthen pots on the occasion of an eclipse, and those of the Hataia or elephant sept will not ride on an elephant and worship that animal at the Dasahra festival. Members of other septs named after the cobra, the crow, the monkey and the tiger will not kill their totem animal, and when they see the dead body of one of its species they throw away their earthen cooking-pots as a sign of mourning. The marriage of persons belonging to the same sept and also that of first cousins is prohibited. If an unmarried girl is seduced by a man of the caste she becomes his wife and is not expelled, but the caste will not eat food cooked by her. But a girl going wrong with an outsider is finally cast out. The marriage and other social customs resemble those of the Kurmis. The caste employ Brahmans at their ceremonies and have a great regard for them. Their _gurus_ or spiritual preceptors are Bairagis and Gosains. They eat the flesh of clean animals and a few drink liquor, but most of them abstain from it. Their women are tattooed on the arms and hands with figures intended to represent deer, flies and other animals and insects. The caste say that they were formerly employed as soldiers under the native chiefs, but they are now all cultivators. They grow all kinds of grain and vegetables, except turmeric and onions. A few of them are landowners, and the majority tenants. Very few are constrained to labour for hire. In appearance the men are generally strong and healthy, and of a dark complexion.

Murha

1. Origin of the caste

_Murha._--A Dravidian, caste of navvies and labourers found in Jubbulpore and the adjoining Districts, to the number of about 1500 persons. The name Murha has been held to show that the caste are connected with the Munda tribe. The Murhas, however, call themselves also Khare Bind Kewat and Lunia or Nunia (salt-maker), and in Jubbulpore they give these two names as subdivisions of the caste. And these names indicate that the caste are an offshoot of the large Bind tribe of Bengal and northern India, though in parts of the Central Provinces they have probably been recruited from the Kols or Mundas. Sir H. Risley [283] records a story related by the Binds to the effect that they and the Nunias were formerly one, and that the existing Nunias are descended from a Bind who consented to dig a grave for a Muhammadan king and was put out of caste for doing so. And he remarks that the Binds may be a true primitive tribe and the Nunias a functional group differentiated from them by taking to the manufacture of earth salt. This explanation of the relationship of the Binds and Nunias seems almost certainly correct. In the United Provinces the Binds are divided into the Khare and Dhusia or first and second subcastes, and the Khare Binds also call themselves Kewat. [284]

And the Murhas of Narsinghpur call themselves Khare Bind Kewats, though the other Kewats repudiate all connection with them. There seems thus to be no doubt that the Murhas of these Provinces are another offshoot of the Bind tribe like the Nunias, who have taken up the profession of navvies and earthworkers and thus become a separate caste. Mr. Hira Lal notes that the Narsinghpur District contains a village Nonia, which is inhabited solely by Murhas who call themselves Khare Bind Kewat. As the village is no doubt named Nonia or Nunia after them, we thus have an instance of all the three designations being applied to the same set of persons. The Murhas say that they came into Narsinghpur from Rewah, and they still speak the Bagheli dialect, though the current vernacular of the locality is Bundeli. The Binds themselves derive their name from the Vindhya (Bindhya) hills. [285]

They relate that a traveller pa.s.sing by the Vindhya hills heard a strange flute-like sound coming out of a clump of bamboos. He cut a shoot and took from it a fleshy substance, which afterwards grew into a man, the supposed ancestor of the Binds. In Mandla the Murhas say that the difference between themselves and the Nunias is that the latter make field-embankments and other earthwork, while the Murhas work in stone and build bridges. According to their own story they were brought to Mandla from their home in Eastern Oudh more than ten generations ago by a Gond king of the Garha-Mandla dynasty for the purpose of building his fort or castle. He gave them two villages for their maintenance which they have now lost. The caste has, however, probably received some local accretions and in Mandla some Murhas appear to be Kols; members of this tribe are generally above the average in bodily strength and are in considerable request for employment on earth- and stone-work.

2. Marriage customs

In Narsinghpur the Murhas appear to have no regular exogamous divisions. Some of them remember the names of their _kheros_ or ancestral villages and do not marry with families belonging to the same _khero_, but this is not a regular rule of the caste. Generally speaking, persons descended through males from a common ancestor do not intermarry so long as they remember the relationship. In Mandla they have five divisions, of which the highest is Purbia. The name Purbia (Eastern) is commonly applied in the Central Provinces to persons coming from Oudh, and in this case the Purbia Murhas are probably the latest immigrants from home and have a superior status on this account. Up till recently they practised hypergamy with the other groups, taking daughters from them in marriage, but not giving their daughters to them. This rule is now, however, breaking down on account of the difficulty they find in getting their daughters married. The children of brothers and sisters may marry in some places, but in others neither they nor their children may marry with each other. Anta Santa or the exchange of girls between two families is permitted. The bridegroom's father has to pay from five to twenty rupees as a _chari_ or bride-price to the girl's father, which sum is regarded as the remuneration of the latter for having brought up his daughter. In the case of the daughter of a headman the bride-price is sometimes as high as Rs. 150. In Damoh a curious survival of marriage by capture remains. The bridegroom's party give a ram or he-goat to the bride's party and these take it to their shed, cut its head off and hang it by the side of the _kham_ or marriage-pole. The brother-in-law of the bridegroom or of his father then sallies forth to bring back the head of the animal, but is opposed by the women of the bride's party, who belabour him and his friends with sticks, brooms and rolling-pins. But in the end the head is always taken away. The binding portion of the marriage is the _bhanwar_ or walking round the sacred post. When the bride is leaving for her husband's house the women of her party take seven b.a.l.l.s of flour with burning wicks thrust into them, and place them in a winnowing-fan. They wave this round the bride's head and then throw the b.a.l.l.s and after them the fan over the litter in which the bride is seated. The bridegroom's party must catch the fan, and if they let it fall to the ground they are much laughed at for their clumsiness. When the pair arrive at the bridegroom's house, the fan is again waved over their heads; and a cloth is spread before the house, on which seven burning wicks are placed like the previous ones. The bride walks quickly over the cloth to the house and the bridegroom must keep pace with her, picking up the burning flour b.a.l.l.s as he goes. When the pair arrive at the house the bridegroom's sister shuts the door and will not open it until she is given a present. Divorce and the remarriage of widows are permitted.

3. Funeral rites

The caste worship the ordinary Hindu deities. Well-to-do members burn their dead and the poorer ones bury them. The corpse is usually placed with the head to the south as is the custom among the primitive tribes, but in some localities the Hindu fashion of laying the head to the north has been adopted. Two pice are thrown down by the grave or burning-_ghat_ to buy the site, and these are taken by the sweeper. The ashes are collected on the third day and thrown into a river. The usual period of mourning is only three days, but it is sometimes extended to nine days when the chief mourner is unable to feed the caste-fellows on the third day, and the feast may in case of necessity be postponed to any time within six months of the death. The chief mourner puts on a new white cloth and eats nothing but rice and pulse without salt.

4. Occupation

The caste are employed on all kinds of earthwork, such as building walls, excavating trenches, and making embankments in fields. Their trade implements consist of a pickaxe, a basket, and a thin wooden hod to fill the earth into the basket. The Murha invokes these as follows: "Oh! my lord the basket, my lord the pickaxe shaped like a snake, and my lady the hod, come and eat up those who do not pay me for my work!" The Murhas are strict in their rules about food and will not accept cooked food even from a Brahman, but notwithstanding this, their social position is so low that not even a sweeper would take food from them. The caste eat flesh and drink liquor, but abstain from fowls, pork and beef. They engage Brahmans on the occasion of births and marriages, but not usually for funerals. The women tattoo their bodies after marriage, and the charge for this should always be paid by the maternal uncle's wife, the paternal aunt, or some other similar relation of the girl. The fact that among most Hindus a girl must be tattooed before leaving for her husband's house, and that the cost of the operation must always be paid for by her own family, seems to indicate that tattooing was formerly a rite of p.u.b.erty for the female s.e.x. A wife must not mention the name of her husband or of any person who stands in the relation of father, mother, uncle or aunt to him. Parents do not call their eldest son by his proper name, but by some pet name. Women are impure for five days during menstruation and are not allowed to cook for that period. The Murhas have a caste _panchayat_ or committee, the head of which is known as Patel or Mukhia, the office being hereditary. He receives a part of all fines levied for the commission of social offences. In appearance the caste are dark and short of stature, and have some resemblance to the Kols.

5. Women's song

In conclusion, I reproduce one of the songs which the women sing as they are carrying the basketfuls of earth or stones at their work; in the original each line consists of two parts, the last words of which sometimes rhyme with each other:

Our mother Nerbudda is very kind; blow, wind, we are hot with labour.

He said to the Maina: Go, carry my message to my love.

The red ants climb up the mango-tree; and the daughter follows her mother's way.

I have no money to give her even lime and tobacco; I am poor, so how can I tell her of my love.

The boat has gone down on the flood of the Nerbudda; the fisherwoman is weeping for her husband.

She has no bangles on her arm nor necklace on her neck; she has no beauty, but seeks her lovers throughout the village.

Bread from the girdle, curry from the _lota_; let us go, beloved, the moon is shining.

The leaves of gram have been plucked from the plants; I think much on Dadaria, but she does not come.

The love of a stranger is as a dream; think not of him, beloved, he cannot be yours.

Twelve has struck and it is thirteen time (past the time of labour); oh, overseer, let your poor labourers go.

The betel-leaf is pressed in the mouth (and gives pleasure); attractive eyes delight the heart.

Catechu, areca and black cloves; my heart's secret troubles me in my dreams.

The Nerbudda came and swept away the rubbish (from the works); fly away, bees, do not perch on my cloth.

The colour does not come on the wheat; her youth is pa.s.sing, but she cannot yet drape her cloth on her body.

Like the sight of rain-drops splashing on the ground; so beautiful is she to look upon.

It rains and the hidden streams in the woodland are filled (and come to view); hide as long as you may, some day you must be seen.

The mahua flowers are falling from the trees on the hill; leave me your cloth so that I may know you will return.

He went to the bazar and brought back a cocoanut; it is green without, but insects are eating the core.

He went to the hill and cut strings of bamboo; you cannot drape your cloth, you have wound it round your body.

The coral necklace hangs on the peg; if you become the second wife of my husband I shall give you clothes.