Kitabı oku: «The Tribes and Castes of the Central Provinces of India, Volume 3», sayfa 37

8. Dancing and singing

The better class of Kasbi women, when seen in public, are conspicuous by their wealth of jewellery and their shoes of patent leather or other good material. Women of other castes do not commonly wear shoes in the streets. The Kasbis are always well and completely clothed, and it has been noticed elsewhere that the Indian courtesan is more modestly dressed than most women. No doubt in this matter she knows her business. A well-to-do dancing-girl has a dress of coloured muslin or gauze trimmed with tinsel lace, with a short waist, long straight sleeves, and skirts which reach a little below the knee, a shawl falling from the head over the shoulders and wrapped round the body, and a pair of tight satin trousers, reaching to the ankles. The feet are bare, and strings of small bells are tied round them. They usually dance and sing to the accompaniment of the tabla, sārangi and majīra. The tabla or drum is made of two half-bowls—one brass or clay for the bass, and the other of wood for the treble. They are covered with goat-skin and played together. The sārangi is a fiddle. The majīra (cymbals) consist of two metallic cups slung together and used for beating time. Before a dancing-girl begins her performance she often invokes the aid of Sāraswati, the goddess of music. She then pulls her ear as a sign of remembrance of Tānsen, India’s greatest musician, and a confession to his spirit of the imperfection of her own sense of music. The movements of the feet are accompanied by a continual opening and closing of henna-dyed hands; and at intervals the girl kneels at the feet of one or other of the audience. On the festival of Basant Panchmi or the commencement of spring these girls worship their dancing-dress and musical instruments with offerings of rice, flowers and a cocoanut.

2 Madras Census Report (1901), p. 151, quoting from South Indian Inscriptions, Buchanan’s Mysore, Canara and Malabar, and Elliot’s History of India.

Katia

1. General notice

Katia, Katwa, Katua.—An occupational caste of cotton-spinners and village watchmen belonging to the Satpūra Districts and the Nerbudda valley. In 1911 they numbered 41,000 persons and were returned mainly from the Hoshangābād, Seoni and Chhindwāra Districts. The caste is almost confined to the Central Provinces. The name is derived from the Hindi kātna, to spin thread, and the Katias are an occupational group probably recruited from the Mahārs and Koris. They have a tradition, Mr. Crooke states,⁴⁰⁹ that they were originally Bais Rājpūts, whose ancestors, having been imprisoned for resistance to authority, were released on the promise that they would follow a woman’s occupation of spinning thread. In the Central Provinces they are sometimes called Renhta Rājpūts or Knights of the Spinning Wheel. The tradition of Rājpūt descent need not of course be taken seriously. The drudgery of spinning thread was naturally imposed on any widow in the household, and hence the saying, ‘It is always moving, like a widow’s spinning-wheel.’⁴¹⁰

2. Subcastes and exogamous groups

The Katias have several subcastes, with names generally derived from places in the Central Provinces, as Pathāri from a village in the Chhindwāra District, Mandilwār from Mandla, Gadhewāl from Garha, near Jubbulpore, and so on. The Dulbuha group consist of those who were formerly palanquin-bearers (from doli, a litter). They have also more than fifty exogamous septs, with names of the usual low-caste type, derived from places, animals or plants, or natural objects. Some of the septs are subdivided. Thus the Nāgotia sept, named after the cobra, is split up into the Nāgotia, Dirat⁴¹¹ Nāg, Bhārowar⁴¹² Nāg, Kosam Karia and Hazāri⁴¹³ Nāg groups. It is said that the different groups do not intermarry; but it is probable that they do, as otherwise there seems to be no object in the subdivision. The Kosam Karias worship a cobra at their weddings, but not the others. The Singhotia sept, from singh, a horn, is divided into the Bakaria (goat) and Ghāgar-bharia (one who fills an earthen vessel) subsepts. The Bakarias offer goats to their gods; and the Ghāgar-bharias on the Akti⁴¹⁴ festival, just before the breaking of the rains, fill an earthen vessel and worship it, and consider it sacred for that day. Next day it is brought into ordinary use. The Dongaria sept, from dongar, a hill, revere the chheola tree.⁴¹⁵ They choose any tree of this species outside the village, and say that it is placed on a hill, and go and worship it once a year. In this case it would appear that a hill was first venerated as an animate being and the ancestor of the sept. When hills were no longer so regarded, a chheola tree growing on a hill was substituted; and now the tree only is revered, probably a good deal for form’s sake, and so far as the hill is concerned, the mere pretence that it is growing on a hill is sufficient.

3. Marriage customs

A man must not take a wife from his own sept nor from that of his mother or grandmother. Girls are commonly married between eight and twelve years of age; and a customary payment of Rs. 9 is made to the father of the bride, double this amount being given by a widower. An unmarried girl seduced by a man of the caste is united to him by the ceremony used for a widow, and a fine is imposed on her parents; if she goes wrong with an outsider she is expelled from the community. In the marriage ceremony the customary ritual of the northern Districts is followed,⁴¹⁶ and the binding portion of it consists in the bride and bridegroom walking seven times around the bhānwar or sacred pole. While she does this it is essential that the bride should wear a string of black beads round her neck and brass anklets on her feet. After the ceremony the bride’s mother and other women dance before the company. Whether the bride be a child or young woman she always returns home after a stay of a few days at her husband’s house, and at her subsequent final departure the Gauna or going-away ceremony is performed. If the bridegroom dies after the wedding and before the Gauna, his younger brother or cousin or anybody else may come and take away the bride after performing this ceremony, and she will be considered as fully married to him. She is known as a Gonhyai wife, as distinguished from a Byāhta or one married in the ordinary manner, and a Karta or widow married a second time. But the children of all three inherit equally. A widow may marry again, and take any one she pleases for her second husband. Widow-marriages must not be celebrated in the rainy months of Shrāwan, Bhādon and Kunwār. No music is allowed at them, and the husband must present a fee of a rupee and a cocoanut to the mālguzār (proprietor) of the village and four annas to the kotwār or watchman. A bachelor who is to marry a widow first goes through a formal ceremony with a cotton plant. Divorce is permitted for mutual disagreement. The couple stand before the caste committee and each takes a stick, breaks it in two halves, and throws them apart, saying, “I have no further connection with my husband (or wife), and I break my marriage with him (or her) as I break this stick.”

4. Funeral rites

The dead may be either buried or burnt, as convenient, and mourning is always observed for three days. Before the corpse is removed a new earthen pot filled with rice is placed on the bier. The chief mourner raises it, and addressing the deceased informs him that after a certain period he will be united to the sainted dead, and until that day his spirit should abide happily in the pot and not trouble his family. The mouth of the pot is then covered, and after the funeral the mourners take it home with them. When the day appointed for the final ceremony has come, a miniature platform is made from sticks tied together, and garlands and offerings of cakes are hung on to it. A small heap of rice is made on the platform, and just above it a clove is suspended from a thread. Songs are sung, and the principal relative opens the pot in which the spirit of the deceased has been enclosed. The spirit is called upon to join the sacred company of the dead, and the party continue to sing and to adjure it with all their force. The thread from which the clove is suspended begins to swing backwards and forwards over the rice; and a pig and two or three chickens are crushed to death as offerings to the soul of the deceased. Finally the clove touches the rice, and it is believed that the spirit of the dead man has departed to join the sainted dead. The Katias consider that after this he requires nothing more from the living, and so they do not make the annual offerings to the souls of the departed.

5. Social rules

The caste sometimes employ a Brāhman for the marriage ceremony; but generally his services are limited to fixing an auspicious date, and the functions of a priest are undertaken by members of the family. They invite a Brāhman to give a name to a boy, and call him by this name. They think that if they changed the name they would not be able to get a wife for the child. They will eat any kind of flesh, including pork and fowls, but they are not considered to be impure. They are generally illiterate, and dirty in appearance. Unmarried girls wear glass bangles on both hands, but married women wear metal bracelets on the right hand and glass on the left. Girls are twice tattooed: first in childhood, and a second time after marriage. The proper avocations of the Katias were the spinning of cotton thread and the weaving of the finer kinds of cloth; but most of them have had to abandon their ancestral calling from want of custom, and they are now either village watchmen or cultivators and labourers. A few of them own villages. The Katias think themselves rather knowing; but this opinion is not shared by their neighbours, who say ironically of them, “A Katia is eight times as wise as an ordinary man, and a Kāyasth thirteen times. Any one who pretends to be wiser than these must be an idiot.”

Kawar⁴¹⁷

1. Tribal legend

Kawar, Kanwar, Kaur (honorific title, Sirdār).—A primitive tribe living in the hills of the Chhattīsgarh Districts north of the Mahānadi. The hill-country comprised in the northern zamīndāri estates of Bilāspur and the adjoining Feudatory States of Jashpur, Udaipur, Sargūja, Chāng Bhakār and Korea is the home of the Kawars, and is sometimes known after them as the Kamrān. Eight of the Bilāspur zamīndārs are of the Kawar tribe. The total numbers of the tribe are nearly 200,000, practically all of whom belong to the Central Provinces. In Bilāspur the name is always pronounced with a nasal as Kanwar. The Kawars trace their origin from the Kauravas of the Mahābhārata, who were defeated by the Pāndavas at the great battle of Hastināpur. They say that only two pregnant women survived and fled to the hills of Central India, where they took refuge in the houses of a Rāwat (grazier) and a Dhobi (washerman) respectively, and the boy and girl children who were born to them became the ancestors of the Kawar tribe. Consequently, the Kawars will take food from the hands of Rāwats, especially those of the Kauria subcaste, who are in all probability descended from Kawars. And when a Kawar is put out of caste for having maggots in a wound, a Dhobi is always employed to readmit him to social intercourse. These facts show that the tribe have some close ancestral connection with the Rāwats and Dhobis, though the legend of descent from the Kauravas is, of course, a myth based on the similarity of the names. The tribe have lost their own language, if they ever had one, and now speak a corrupt form of the Chhattīsgarhi dialect of Hindi. It is probable that they belong to the Dravidian tribal family.

2. Tribal subdivisions

The Kawars have the following eight endogamous divisions: Tanwar, Kamalbansi, Paikara, Dūdh-Kawar, Rathia, Chānti, Cherwa and Rautia. The Tanwar group, also known as Umrao, is that to which the zamīndārs belong, and they now claim to be Tomara Rājpūts, and wear the sacred thread. They prohibit widow-remarriage, and do not eat fowls or drink liquor; but they have not yet induced Brāhmans to take water from them or Rājpūts to accept their daughters in marriage. The name Tanwar is not improbably simply a corruption of Kawar, and they are also altering their sept names to make them resemble those of eponymous Brāhmanical gotras. Thus Dhangur, the name of a sept, has been altered to Dhananjaya, and Sarvaria to Sāndilya. Telāsi is the name of a sept to which four zamīndārs belong, and is on this account sometimes returned as their caste by other Kawars, who consider it as a distinction. The zamīndāri families have now, however, changed the name Telāsi to Kairava. The Paikaras are the most numerous subtribe, being three-fifths of the total. They derive their name from Pāik, a foot-soldier, and formerly followed this occupation, being employed in the armies of the Haihaivansi Rājas of Ratanpur. They still worship a two-edged sword, known as the Jhagra Khand, or ‘Sword of Strife,’ on the day of Dasahra. The Kamalbansi, or ‘Stock of the Lotus,’ may be so called as being the oldest subdivision; for the lotus is sometimes considered the root of all things, on account of the belief that Brahma, the creator of the world, was himself born from this flower. In Bilāspur the Kamalbansis are considered to rank next after the Tanwars or zamīndārs’ group. Colonel Dalton states that the term Dūdh or ‘Milk’ Kawar has the signification of ‘Cream of the Kawars,’ and he considered this subcaste to be the highest. The Rathias are a territorial group, being immigrants from Rāth, a wild tract of the Raigarh State. The Rautias are probably the descendants of Kawar fathers and mothers of the Rāwat (herdsman) caste. The traditional connection of the Kawars with a Rāwat has already been mentioned, and even now if a Kawar marries a Rāwat girl she will be admitted into the tribe, and the children will become full Kawars. Similarly, the Rāwats have a Kauria subcaste, who are also probably the offspring of mixed marriages; and if a Kawar girl is seduced by a Kauria Rāwat, she is not expelled from the tribe, as she would be for a liaison with any other man who was not a Kawar. This connection is no doubt due to the fact that until recently the Kawars and Rāwats, who are themselves a very mixed caste, were accustomed to intermarry. At the census persons returned as Rautia were included in the Kol tribe, which has a subdivision of that name. But Mr. Hīra Lāl’s inquiries establish the fact that in Chhattīsgarh they are undoubtedly Kawars. The Cherwas are probably another hybrid group descended from connections formed by Kawars with girls of the Chero tribe of Chota Nāgpur. The Chānti, who derive their name from the ant, are considered to be the lowest group, as that insect is the most insignificant of living things. Of the above subcastes the Tanwars are naturally the highest, while the Chānti, Cherwa and Rautia, who keep pigs, are considered as the lowest. The others occupy an intermediate position. None of the subcastes will eat together, except at the houses of their zamīndārs, from whom they will all take food. But the Kawars of the Chhuri estate no longer attend the feasts of their zamīndār, for the following curious reason. One of the latter’s village thekādārs or farmers had got the hide taken off a dead buffalo so as to keep it for his own use, instead of making the body over to a Chamār (tanner). The caste-fellows saw no harm in this act, but it offended the zamīndār’s more orthodox Hindu conscience. Soon afterwards, at some marriage-feast of his family, when the Kawars of his zamīndāri attended in accordance with the usual custom, he remarked, ‘Here come our Chamārs,’ or words to that effect. The Chhuri Kawars were insulted, and the more so because the Pendra zamīndār and other outsiders were present. So they declined to take food any longer from their zamīndār. They continued to accept it, however, from the other zamīndārs, until their master of Chhuri represented to them that this would result in a slur being put upon his standing among his fellows. So they have now given up taking food from any zamīndār.

3. Exogamous groups

The tribe have a large number of exogamous septs, which are generally totemistic or named after plants and animals. The names of 117 septs have been recorded, and there are probably even more. The following list gives a selection of the names:

Generally it may be said that every common animal or bird and even articles of food or dress and household implements have given their names to a sept. In the Paikara subcaste a figure of the plant or animal after which the sept is named is made by each party at the time of marriage. Thus a bridegroom of the Bāgh or tiger sept prepares a small image of a tiger with flour and bakes it in oil; this he shows to the bride’s family to represent, as it were, his pedigree, or prove his legitimacy; while she on her part, assuming that she is, say, of the Bilwa or cat sept, will bring a similar image of a cat with her in proof of her origin. The Andīl sept make a representation of a hen sitting on eggs. They do not worship the totem animal or plant, but when they learn of the death of one of the species, they throw away an earthen cooking-pot as a sign of mourning. They generally think themselves descended from the totem animal or plant, but when the sept is called after some inanimate object, such as a grinding-mill or pounding-lever, they repudiate the idea of descent from it, and are at a loss to account for the origin of the name. Those whose septs are named after plants or animals usually abstain from injuring or cutting them, but where this rule would cause too much inconvenience it is transgressed: thus the members of the Karsāyal or deer sept find it too hard for them to abjure the flesh of that animal, nor can those of the Bokra sept abstain from eating goats. In some cases new septs have been formed by a conjunction of the names of two others, as Bāgh-Daharia, Gauriya-Sonwāni, and so on. These may possibly be analogous to the use of double names in English, a family of one sept when it has contracted a marriage with another of better position adding the latter’s name to its own as a slight distinction. But it may also simply arise from the constant tendency to increase the number of septs in order to remove difficulties from the arrangement of matches.

4. Betrothal and marriage

Marriage within the same sept is prohibited and also between the children of brothers and sisters. A man may not marry his wife’s elder sister but he can take her younger one in her lifetime. Marriage is usually adult and, contrary to the Hindu rule, the proposal for a match always comes from the boy’s father, as a man would think it undignified to try and find a husband for his daughter. The Kawar says, ‘Shall my daughter leap over the wall to get a husband.’ In consequence of this girls not infrequently remain unmarried until a comparatively late age, especially in the zamīndāri families where the provision of a husband of suitable rank may be difficult. Having selected a bride for his son the boy’s father sends some friends to her village, and they address a friend of the girl’s family, saying, “So-and-so (giving his name and village) would like to have a cup of pej (boiled rice-water) from you; what do you say?” The proposal is communicated to the girl’s family, and if they approve of it they commence preparing the rice-water, which is partaken of by the parties and their friends. If the bride’s people do not begin cooking the pej, it is understood that the proposal is rejected. The ceremony of betrothal comes next, when the boy’s party go to the girl’s house with a present of bangles, clothes, and fried cakes of rice and urad carried by a Kaurai Rāwat. They also take with them the bride-price, known as Suk, which is made up of cash, husked or unhusked rice, pulses and oil. It is a fixed amount, but differs for each subcaste, and the average value is about Rs. 25. To this is added three or four goats to be consumed at the wedding. If a widower marries a girl, a larger bride-price is exacted. The wedding follows, and in many respects conforms to the ordinary Hindu ritual, but Brāhmans are not employed. The bridegroom’s party is accompanied by tomtom-players on its way to the wedding, and as each village is approached plenty of noise is made, so that the residents may come out and admire the dresses, a great part of whose merit consists in their antiquity, while the wearer delights in recounting to any who will listen the history of his garb and of his distinguished ancestors who have worn it. The marriage is performed by walking round the sacred pole, six times on one day and once on the following day. After the marriage the bride’s parents wash the feet of the couple in milk, and then drink it in atonement for the sin committed in bringing their daughter into the world. The couple then return home to the bridegroom’s house, where all the ceremonies are repeated, as it is said that otherwise his courtyard would remain unmarried. On the following day the couple go and bathe in a tank, where each throws five pots full of water over the other. And on their return the bridegroom shoots arrows at seven straw images of deer over his wife’s shoulder, and after each shot she puts a little sugar in his mouth. This is a common ceremony among the forest tribes, and symbolises the idea that the man will support himself and his wife by hunting. On the fourth day the bride returns to her father’s house. She visits her husband for two or three months in the following month of Asārh (June–July), but again goes home to play what is known as ‘The game of Gauri,’ Gauri being the name of Siva’s consort. The young men and girls of the village assemble round her in the evening, and the girls sing songs while the men play on drums. An obscene representation of Gauri is made, and some of them pretend to be possessed by the deity, while the men beat the girls with ropes of grass. After she has enjoyed this amusement with her mates for some three months, the bride finally goes to her husband’s house.