The Tribes and Castes of the Central Provinces of India Volume IV Part 47

1. The Tamera and Kasar

_Tamera, Tambatkar_. [663]--The professional caste of coppersmiths, the name being derived from _tamba_, copper. The Tameras, however, like the Kasars or bra.s.s-workers, use copper, bra.s.s and bell-metal indifferently, and in the northern Districts the castes are not really distinguished, Tamera and Kasar being almost interchangeable terms. In the Maratha country, however, and other localities they are considered as distinct castes. Copper is a sacred metal, and the copper-smith's calling would be considered somewhat more respectable than that of the worker in bra.s.s or bell-metal, just as the Sunar or goldsmith ranks above both; and probably, therefore, the Tameras may consider themselves a little better than the Kasars. As bra.s.s is an alloy made from copper and zinc, it seems likely that vessels were made from copper before they were made from bra.s.s. But copper being a comparatively rare and expensive metal, utensils made from it could scarcely have ever been generally used, and it is therefore not necessary to suppose that either the Tamera or Kasar caste came into being before the adoption of bra.s.s as a convenient material for the household pots and pans.

2. Social traditions and customs

In 1911 the Tameras numbered about 5000 persons in the Central Provinces and Berar. They tell the same story of their origin which has already been related in the article on the Kasar caste, and trace their descent from the Haihaya Rajput dynasty of Ratanpur. They say that when the king Dharampal, the first ancestor of the caste, was married, a bevy of 119 girls were sent with his bride in accordance with the practice still occasionally obtaining among royal Hindu families, and these, as usual, became the concubines of the husband or, as the Tameras say, his wives: and from the bride and her companions the 120 exogamous sections of the caste are sprung. As a fact, however, many of the sections are named after villages or natural objects. A man is not permitted to marry any one belonging to his own section or that of his mother, the union of first cousins being thus prohibited. The caste also do not favour _Anta santa_ or the practice of exchanging girls between families, the reason alleged being that after the bride's father has acknowledged the superiority of the bridegroom's father by washing his feet, it is absurd to require the latter to do the same, that is, to wash the feet of his inferior. So they may not take a girl from a family to which they have given one of their own. The real reason for the rule lies possibly in an extension of the principle of exogamy, whether based on a real fear of carrying too far the practice of intermarriage between families or an unfounded superst.i.tion that intermarriage between families already connected may have the same evil results on the offspring as the union of blood-relations. When the wedding procession is about to start, after the bridegroom has been bathed and before he puts on the _kankan_ or iron wristlet which is to protect him from evil spirits, he is seated on a stool while all the male members of the household come up with their _choti_ or scalp-lock untied and rub it against that of the bridegroom. Again, after the wedding ceremonies are over and the bridegroom has, according to rule, untied one of the fastenings of the marriage-shed, he also turns over a tile of the roof of the house. The meaning of the latter ceremony is not clear; the significance attaching to the _choti_ has been discussed in the article on Nai.

3. Disposal of the dead

The caste burn their dead except children, who can be buried, and observe mourning for ten days in the case of an adult and for three days for a child. A cake of flour containing two pice (farthings) is buried or burnt with the corpse. When a death takes place among the community all the members of it stop making vessels for that day, though they will transact retail sales. When mourning is over, a feast is given to the caste-fellows and to seven members of the menial and serving castes. These are known as the 'Sattiho Jat' or Seven Castes, and it may be conjectured that in former times they were the menials of the village and were given a meal in much the same spirit as prompts an English landlord to give his tenants a dinner on occasions of ceremony. Instances of a similar custom are noted among the Kunbis and other castes. Before food is served to the guests a leaf-plate containing a portion for the deceased is placed outside the house with a pot of water, and a burning lamp to guide his spirit to the food.

4. Religion

The caste worship the G.o.ddess Singhbahani. or Devi riding on a tiger. They make an image of her in the most expensive metal they can afford, and worship it daily. They will on no account swear by this G.o.ddess. They worship their trade implements on the day of the new moon in Chait (March) and Bhadon (August). A trident, as a symbol of Devi, is then drawn with powdered rice and vermilion on the furnace for casting metal. A lamp is waved over the furnace and a cocoanut is broken and distributed to the caste-fellows, no outsider being allowed to be present. They quench their furnace on the new moon day of every month, the Ramnaomi and Durgapuja or nine days' fasts in the months of Chait and Kunwar, and for the two days following the Diwali and Holi festivals. On these days they will not prepare any new vessels, but will sell those which they have ready. The Tameras have Kanaujia Brahmans for their priests, and the Brahmans will take food from them which has been cooked without water and salt. On this account other Kanaujia Brahmans require a heavy payment before they will marry with the priests of the Tameras. The caste abstain from liquor, and some of them have abjured all flesh food while others partake of it. They usually wear the sacred thread. Brahmans will take water from their hands, and the menial castes will eat food which they have touched. They work in bra.s.s, copper and bell-metal in exactly the same manner as the Kasars, and have an equivalent social position.

Taonla

_Taonla_.--A small non-Aryan caste of the Uriya States. They reside princ.i.p.ally in Bamra and Sonpur, and numbered about 2000 persons in 1901, but since the transfer of these States to Bengal are not found in the Central Provinces. The name is said to be derived from Talmul, a village in the Angul District of Orissa, and they came to Bamra and Sonpur during the Orissa famine of 1866. The Taonlas appear to be a low occupational caste of mixed origin, but derived princ.i.p.ally from the Khond tribe. Formerly their profession was military service, and it is probable that like the Khandaits and Paiks they formed the levies of some of the Uriya Rajas, and gradually became a caste. They have three subdivisions, of which the first consists of the Taonlas whose ancestors were soldiers. These consider themselves superior to the others, and their family names as Naik (leader), Padhan (chief), Khandait (swordsman), and Behra (master of the kitchen) indicate their ancestral profession. The other subcastes are called Dangua and Khond; the Danguas, who are hill-dwellers, are more primitive than the military Taonlas, and the Khonds are apparently members of that tribe of comparatively pure descent who marry among themselves and not with other Taonlas. In Orissa Dr. Hunter says that the Taonlas are allied to the Savaras, and that they will admit a member of any caste, from whose hands they can take water, into the community. This is also the case in Bamra. The candidate has simply to worship Kalapat, the G.o.d of the Taonlas, and after drinking some water in which basil leaves have been dipped, to touch the food prepared for a caste feast, and his initiation is complete. As usual among the mixed castes, female morality is very lax, and a Taonla woman may have a _liaison_ with a man of her own or any other caste from whom a Taonla can take water without incurring any penalty whatsoever. A man committing a similar offence must give a feast to the caste. In Sonpur the Taonlas admit a close connection with Chasas, and say that some of their families are descended from the union of Chasa men and Taonla women. They will eat the leavings of Chasas. The custom may be accounted for by the fact that the Taonlas are now generally farmservants and field-labourers, and the Chasas, as cultivators, would be their employers. A similar close connection is observable among other castes standing in the same position towards each other as the Panwars and Gonds and the Rajbhars and Lodhis.

The Taonlas have no exogamous divisions as they all belong to the same _gotra_, that of the Nag or cobra. Their marriages are therefore regulated by relationship in the ordinary manner. If two families find that they have no common ancestor up to the third generation they consider it lawful to intermarry. The marriage ritual is of the usual Uriya form. After the marriage the bride and the bridegroom have a ceremony of throwing a mahua branch into a river together. Divorce and widow remarriage are permitted. When a woman is divorced she returns her bangles to her husband, and receives from him a _chhor-chitthi_ or letter severing connection. Then she goes before the caste _panchayat_ and p.r.o.nounces her husband's name aloud. This shows that she is no longer his wife, since so long as she continued to be so, she would never mention his name.

The tutelary deity of the caste is Kalapat, who resides at Talmul in Angul District. They offer him a goat at the festival of Nawakhai when the new rice is first eaten. On this day they also worship a cattle-goad as the symbol of their vocation. They revere the cobra, and will not wear wooden sandals because they think that the marks on a cobra's head are in the form of a sandal. They believe in re-birth, and when a child is born they proceed to ascertain what ancestor has become reincarnate by dropping rice grains coloured with turmeric into a pot of water. As each one is dropped they repeat the name of an ancestor, and when the first grain floats conclude that the one named has been born again. The dead are both buried and burnt. At the head of a grave they plant a bough of the _jamun_ tree (_Eugenia jambolana_) so that the departed spirit may dwell under this cool and shady tree in the other world or in his next birth. They have also a ceremony for bringing back the soul. An earthen pot is placed upside down on four legs outside the village, and on the eleventh day after a death they proceed to the place, ringing a bell suspended to an iron rod. A cloth is spread before the spot on which the spirit of the deceased is supposed to be sitting, and they wait till an insect alights on it. This is taken to be the soul of the dead person, and it is carefully wrapped up in the cloth and carried to the house. There the cloth is unfolded and the insect allowed to go, while they proceed to inspect some rice-flour which has been spread on the ground under another pot in the house. If any mark is found on the surface of the flour they think that the dead man's spirit has returned to the house. The carrying back of the insect is thus an act calculated to a.s.sist their belief, by the simple performance of which they are able to suppose more easily that the invisible spirit has returned to the house. As already stated, the Taonlas are now generally farmservants and labourers, and their social position is low, though they rank above the impure castes and the forest tribes.

Teli

List of Paragraphs

1. _Strength and distribution of the caste._ 2. _Origin and traditions._ 3. _Endogamous subcastes._ 4. _Exogamous divisions._ 5. _Marriage customs._ 6. _Widow-remarriage._ 7. _Religion. Caste deities._ 8. _Driving out evil._ 9. _Customs at birth and death._ 10. _Social status._ 11. _Social customs and caste penalties._ 12. _The Rathor Telis._ 13. _Gujarati Telis of Nimar._ 14. _The Teli an unlucky caste._ 15. _Occupation. Oil-pressing._ 16. _Trade and agriculture._ 17. _Teli beneficence._

1. Strength and distribution of the caste

_Teli._ [664]--The occupational caste of oil-pressers and sellers. The Telis numbered nearly 900,000 persons in 1911, being the fifth caste in the Province in point of population. They are numerous in the Chhattisgarh and Nagpur Divisions, nearly 400,000 belonging to the former and 200,000 to the latter tract; while in Berar and the north of the Province they are spa.r.s.ely represented. The reason for such a distribution of the caste is somewhat obscure. Vegetable oil is more largely used for food in the south and east than in the north, but while this custom might explain the preponderance of Telis in Nagpur and Chhattisgarh it gives no reason to account for their small numbers in Berar. In Chhattisgarh again nearly all the Telis are cultivators, and it may be supposed that, like the Chamars, they have found opportunity here to get possession of the land owing to its not being already taken up by the cultivating castes proper; but in the Nagpur Division, with the exception of part of Wardha, the Telis have had no such opening and are not large landholders. Their distribution thus remains a somewhat curious problem. But all over the Province the Telis have generally abandoned their hereditary trade of pressing oil, and have taken to trade and agriculture, the number of those returned as oil-pressers being only about seven per cent of the total strength of the caste. The name comes from the Sanskrit _tailika_ or _taila_, oil, and this word, is derived from the _tilli_ or sesamum plant.

2. Origin and traditions

The caste have few traditions of origin. Their usual story is that during Siva's absence the G.o.ddess Parvati felt nervous because she had no doorkeeper to her palace, and therefore she made the G.o.d Ganesh from the sweat of her body and set him to guard the southern gate. But when Siva returned Ganesh did not know him and refused to let him enter; on which Siva was so enraged that he cut off the head of Ganesh with a stroke of his sword. He then entered the palace, and Parvati, observing the blood on his sword, asked him what had happened, and reproached him bitterly for having slain her son. Siva was distressed, but said that he could not replace the head as it was already reduced to ashes. But he said that if any animal could be found looking towards the south he could put its head on Ganesh and bring him to life. As it happened a trader was then resting outside the palace and had with him an elephant, which was seated with its head to the south. So Siva quickly struck off the head of the elephant and placed it on the body of Ganesh and brought him to life again, and thus Ganesh got his elephant's head. But the trader made loud lamentation about the loss of his elephant, so to pacify him Siva made a pestle and mortar, utensils till then unknown, and showed him how to pound oil-seeds in them and express the oil, and enjoined him to earn a livelihood in future by this calling, and his descendants after him; and so the merchant became the first Teli. And the pestle was considered to be Siva and the mortar Parvati. This last statement affords some support to Mr. Marten's suggestion [665]

that a certain veneration attaching to the pestle and mortar and their use in marriage ceremonies may be due to the idea of their typifying the male and female organs. The fact that Ganesh was set to guard the southern gate, and that the animal whose head could be placed on his body must be looking to the south, probably hinges in some way on the south being the abode of Yama, the G.o.d of death, but the connection has been forgotten by the teller of the story; it may also be noted that if the palace was in the Himalayas, the site of Kailas or Siva's heaven, the whole of India would be to the south. Another story related by Mr. Crooke [666] from Mirzapur is that a certain man had three sons and owned fifty-two mahua [667] trees. When he became aged and infirm he told his sons to divide the trees, but after some discussion they decided to divide not the trees themselves but their produce. One of them fell to picking up the leaves, and he was the ancestor of the Bharbhunjas or grain-parchers, who still use leaves in their ovens; the second collected the flowers and corollas, and having distilled liquor from them became a Kalar; while the third took the kernels or fruit and crushed the oil out of them, and was the founder of the Teli caste. The country spirit generally drunk is distilled from the flowers of the mahua tree, and a cheap vegetable oil in common use is obtained from its seeds. The Telis and Kalars are also castes of about the same status and have other points of resemblance; and the legend connecting them is therefore of some interest Some groups of Telis who have become landed proprietors or prospered in trade have stories giving them a more exalted origin. Thus the landholding Rathor Telis of Mandla say that they were Rathor Rajputs who fled from the Muhammadans and threw away their swords and sacred threads; and the Telis of Nimar, several of whom are wealthy merchants, give out that their ancestors were Modh Banias from Gujarat who had to take to oil-pressing for a livelihood under Muhammadan rule. But these legends may perhaps be considered a natural result of their rise in the world.

3. Endogamous subcastes

The caste has a large number of subdivisions. The princ.i.p.al groups in Chhattisgarh are the Halia, Jharia and Ekbahia Telis. The Halias, who perhaps take their name from _hal_, a plough, are considered to be the best cultivators, and are said to have immigrated from Mandla some generations ago. Probably the bulk of the Hindu population of Chhattisgarh came from this direction. The name Jharia means jungly or savage, and is commonly applied to the oldest residents, but the Jharia Telis are the highest local subcaste. They require the presence of a Brahman at their weddings, and abstain generally from liquor, fowls and pork, to which the Halias are not averse. They also bathe the corpse before it is burnt or buried, an observance omitted by the Halias. The Jharias yoke only one bullock to the oil-press, and the Halias two, a distinction which is elsewhere sufficient of itself to produce separate subcastes. The Ekbahia (one-armed) Telis are so called because their women wear gla.s.s bangles only on the right hand and metal ones on the left. This is a custom of several castes whose women do manual labour, and the reason appears to be one of convenience, as gla.s.s bangles on the working arm would be continually getting broken. Among the Ekbahia Telis it is said that a woman considers it a point of honour to have these metal bangles as numerous and heavy as her arm can bear; and at a wedding a present of three bracelets from the bridegroom to the bride is held to be indispensable. The Madpotwa are a small subcaste living near the hills, who in former times distilled liquor; they keep pigs and poultry, and rank below the others. Other groups are the Kosarias, who are called after Kosala, the old name of Chhattisgarh, and the Chhote or Little Telis, who are of illegitimate descent. Children born out of wedlock are relegated to this group.

In the Nagpur country the princ.i.p.al subdivisions are the Ekbaile and Dobaile, so called because they yoke one and two bullocks respectively to the oil-press; the distinction is still maintained, the Dobaile being also known as Tarane. This seems a trivial reason for barring intermarriage, but it must be remembered that the yoking of the bullock to the oil-press, coupled as it is with the necessity of blindfolding the animal, is considered a great sin on the Teli's part and a degrading incident of his profession; the Teli's worst fear is that after death his soul will pa.s.s into one of his own bullocks. The Yerande Telis are so called because they formerly pressed only the _erandi_ or castor-oil seed, but the rule is no longer maintained. The Yerande women leave off wearing the _choli_ or breast-cloth after they have had one child, and have nothing under the _sari_ or body-cloth, but they wear this folded double. The Ruthia group are said to be so called from the noise _rut, rut_ made by the oil-mill in turning. They say they are descended from the Nag or cobra. They salute the snake when they see it and refrain from killing it, and they will not make any drawing or sign having the semblance of a snake or use any article which may be supposed to be like it. The Sao Telis are the highest group in Wardha, and have eschewed the pressing of oil. The word Sao or Sahu is the t.i.tle of a moneylender, but they are usually cultivators or village proprietors. A Brahman will enter a Sao Teli's house, but not the houses of any other subcaste. Their women wear silver bangles on the right hand and gla.s.s ones on the left. The Batri subcaste are said to be so called from their growing the _batar_, a kind of pea, and the Hardia from raising the _haldi_ or turmeric. The Teli-Kalars appear to be a mixed group of Kalars who have taken to the oilman's profession, and the Teli-Banias are Telis who have become shopkeepers, and may be expected in the course of time to develop either into a plebeian group of Banias or an aristocratic one of Telis. In Nimar the Gujarati Telis, who have now grown wealthy and prosperous, claim, as already seen, to be Modh Banias, and the same pretension is put forward by their fellow-castemen in Gujarat itself. "The large cla.s.s of oilmen known in Gujarat as Modh-Ghanelis were originally Modh Banias, who by taking to making and selling oil lost their position as Banias"; [668] it seems doubtful, however, whether the reverse process has not really taken place. The Umre Telis also have the name of a subcaste of Banias. The landholding Rathor Telis of Mandla, who now claim to be Rathor Rajputs, will be more fully noticed later. There are also several local subcastes, as the Mattha or Maratha Telis, who say they came from Patan in Gujarat, the Sirwas from the ancient city of Sravasti in Gonda District, and the Kanaujia from Oudh.

4. Exogamous divisions

Each subcaste is divided into a number of exogamous groups for the regulation of marriages. The names of the groups appear to be taken either from villages or t.i.tles or nicknames. Most of them cannot be recognised, but the following are a few: Baghmare, a tiger-killer; Deshmukh, a village officer; Vaidya, a physician; Baw.a.n.kule, the fifty-two septs; Badwaik, the great ones; Satpute, seven sons; Bhajikhaya, an eater of vegetables; Satapaise, seven pice; Gh.o.r.emadia, a horse-killer; Chaudhri, a caste headman; Ardona, a kind of gram; Malghati, a valley; Chandan-malagar, one who presented sandalwood; and Sanichara, born on Sat.u.r.day. Three septs, Dhurwa, Besram, a hawk, and Sonwani, gold-water, belong to the Gonds or other tribes. The clans of the Rathor Telis of Mandla are said to be named after villages in Jubbulpore and Maihar State.

5. Marriage customs

The marriage of persons of the same sept and of first cousins is usually forbidden. A man may marry his wife's younger sister while she herself is alive, but never her elder sister. An unmarried girl becoming pregnant by a man of the caste is married to him by the ceremony used for a widow, and she may be readmitted even after a _liaison_ with an outsider among most Telis. In Chanda the parents of a girl who is not married before p.u.b.erty are fined. The proposal comes from the boy's side and a bride-price is usually paid, though not of large amount. The Halia Telis of Chhattisgarh, like other agricultural castes, sometimes betroth their children when they are five or six months old, but as a rule no penalty attaches to the breaking of the betrothal. The betrothal is celebrated by the distribution of one or two rupees' worth of liquor to the neighbours of the caste. As among other low castes, on the day before the wedding procession starts, the bridegroom goes round to all the houses in the village and his sister dances round him with her head bent, and all the people give him presents. This is known as the Binaiki or Farewell, and the bride does the same in her village. Among the Jharia Telis the women go and worship the marriage-post at the carpenter's house while it is being made. In this subcaste the bridegroom goes to the wedding in a cart and not on horseback or in a litter as among some castes. The rule may perhaps be a recognition of their humble station. The Halia subcaste can dispense with the presence of a Brahman at the wedding, but not the Jharias. In Wardha the bridegroom's head is covered with a blanket, over which is placed the marriage-crown. On the arrival of the bridegroom's party they are regaled with _sherbet_ or sugar and water by the bride's relatives, and sometimes red pepper is mixed with this by way of a joke. At a wedding of the Gujarati Tells in Nimar the caste-priest carries the tutelary G.o.ddess Kali in procession, and in front of her a pot filled with burning cotton-seeds and oil. A cloth is held over the pot, and it is believed that the power of the G.o.ddess prevents the cloth from taking fire. If this should happen some great calamity would be portended. Rathor Teli girls, whether married or unmarried, go with their heads bare, and a woman draws her cloth over her head for the first time when she begins to live in her husband's house.

6. Widow-remarriage

Divorce and widow-marriage are permitted. In Chhattisgarh a widow is always kept in the family if possible, and if her late husband's brother be only a boy she is sometimes induced to put on the bangles and wait for him. If a _barandi_ widow, that is one who has been married but has not lived with her husband, desires to marry again out of his family, the second husband must repay to them the amount spent on her first marriage. In Chanda, on the other hand, some Telis do not permit a widow to marry her late husband's younger brother at all, and others only when he is a bachelor or a widower. Here the minimum period for which a widow must remain single after her husband's death is one month. The engagement with a widow is arranged by the suitor's female relatives, and they pay her a rupee as earnest money. On the day fixed she goes with one or two other widows to the bridegroom's house, and from there to the bazar, where she buys two pairs of bell-metal rings, to be worn on the second toe of each foot, and some gla.s.s bangles. She remains sitting in the bazar till well after dark, when some widow goes to fetch her on behalf of her suitor. They bring her to his house, where the couple sit together, and red powder is applied to their foreheads. They then bathe and present their clothes to the washerman, putting on new clothes. The idea in all this is clearly to sever the widow as completely as possible from her old home and prevent her from being accompanied to the new one by the first husband's spirit. In some localities when a Teli widow remarries it is considered most unlucky for any one to see the face of the bride or bridegroom for twenty-four hours, or as some say for three days after the wedding. The ceremony is therefore held at night, and for this period the couple either remain shut up in the house or retire to the jungle.

7. Religion: Caste deities

The caste especially revere Mahadeo or Siva, who gave them the oil-mill. In the Nagpur country they do not work the mill on Monday, because it is Mahadeo's day, he having the moon on his forehead. They revere the oil-mill, and when the trunk is brought to be set up in the house, if there is difficulty in moving it they make offerings to it of a goat or wheat-cakes or cocoanuts, after which it moves easily. When a Teli first sets the trunk-socket of the oil-press in the ground he buries beneath it five pieces of turmeric, some cowries and an areca-nut In the northern Districts the Telis worship Masan Baba, who is supposed to be the ghost of a Teli boy. He is a boy about three feet in height, black-coloured, with a long black scalp-lock. Some Telis have Masan Baba in their possession, and when they are turning the oil-press they set him on top of it, and he makes the bullocks keep on working, so that the master can go away and leave the press. But in order to prevent him from getting into mischief a cake of flour mixed with human hair must be placed in front of the press; he will eat this, but will first pick out all the hairs one by one, and this will occupy him the whole night; but if no cake is put for him he will eat all the food in the house. A Teli who has not got Masan must go to one who has and hire him for Rs. 1-4 a night. They then both go to the owner's oil-press, and the hirer says, 'I have hired you to-night,' and the owner says, 'Yes, I have let you for to-night'; and then the hirer goes away, and Masan Baba follows him and will turn the oil-mill all night. A Teli who has not got Masan Baba puts a stone on the oil-mill, and then the bullock thinks that his master Masan is sitting on it, and will go on turning the press; but this is not so good as having Masan Baba. Some say that he will repay his hirer the sum of Rs. 1-4 by stealing something during the year and giving it to him. Masan may perhaps be considered as a divine personification of the oil-press, and as being the Teli's explanation of the fact that the bullock goes on turning the press without being driven, which he does not attribute simply to the animal's docility. In Chhattisgarh Dulha Deo is the household G.o.d of the caste, and he is said not to have any visible image or symbol, but is considered to reside in a cupboard in the house. When any member of the family falls ill it is thought that Dulha Deo is angry, and a goat is offered to appease him. Like the other low castes the Telis of the Nagpur country make the sacrifice of a pig to Narayan Deo or the Sun at intervals.