Kitabı oku: «The Tribes and Castes of the Central Provinces of India, Volume 3», sayfa 38

5. Other customs connected with marriage

The wedding expenses come to about seventy rupees on the bridegroom’s part in an ordinary marriage, while the bride’s family spend the amount of the bride-price and a few rupees more. If the parties are poor the ceremony can be curtailed so far as to provide food for only five guests. It is permissible for two families to effect an exchange of girls in lieu of payment of the bride-price, this practice being known as Gunrāwat. Or a prospective bridegroom may give his services for three or four years instead of a price. The system of serving for a wife is known as Gharjiān, and is generally resorted to by widows having daughters. A girl going wrong with a Kawar or with a Kaurai Rāwat before marriage may be pardoned with the exaction of a feast from her parents. For a liaison with any other outsider she is finally expelled, and the exception of the Kaurai Rāwats shows that they are recognised as in reality Kawars. Widow-remarriage is permitted except in the Tanwar subcaste. New bangles and clothes are given to the widow, and the pair then stand under the eaves of the house; the bridegroom touches the woman’s ear or puts a rolled mango-leaf into it, and she becomes his wife. If a widower marries a girl for his third wife it is considered unlucky for her. An earthen image of a woman is therefore made, and he goes through the marriage ceremony with it; he then throws the image to the ground so that it is broken, when it is considered to be dead and its funeral ceremony is performed. After this the widower may marry the girl, who becomes his fourth wife. Such cases are naturally very rare. If a widow marries her deceased husband’s younger brother, which is considered the most suitable match, the children by her first husband rank equally with those of the second. If she marries outside the family her children and property remain with her first husband’s relatives.

Dalton⁴¹⁸ records that the Kawars of Sargūja had adopted the practice of sati: “I found that the Kawars of Sargūja encouraged widows to become Satis and greatly venerated those who did so. Sati shrines are not uncommon in the Tributary Mahāls. Between Partābpur and Jhilmili in Sargūja I encamped in a grove sacred to a Kauraini Sati. Several generations have elapsed since the self-sacrifice that led to her canonisation, but she is now the principal object of worship in the village and neighbourhood, and I was informed that every year a fowl was sacrificed to her, and every third year a black goat. The Hindus with me were intensely amused at the idea of offering fowls to a Sati!” Polygamy is permitted, but is not common. Members of the Tanwar subtribe, when they have occasion to do so, will take the daughters of Kawars of other groups for wives, though they will not give their daughters to them. Such marriages are generally made clandestinely, and it has become doubtful as to whether some families are true Tanwars. The zamīndārs have therefore introduced a rule that no family can be recognised as a Tanwar for purposes of marriage unless it has a certificate to that effect signed by the zamīndār. Some of the zamīndārs charge considerable sums for these certificates, and all cannot afford them; but in that case they are usually unable to get husbands for their daughters, who remain unwed. Divorce is permitted for serious disagreement or bad conduct on the part of the wife.

6. Childbirth

During childbirth the mother sits on the ground with her legs apart, and her back against the wall or supported by another woman. The umbilical cord is cut by the midwife: if the parents wish the boy to become eloquent she buries it in the village Council-place; or if they wish him to be a good trader, in the market; or if they desire him to be pious, before some shrine; in the case of a girl the cord is usually buried in a dung-heap, which is regarded as an emblem of fertility. As is usual in Chhattīsgarh, the mother receives no food or water for three days after the birth of a child. On the fifth day she is given regular food and on that day the house is purified. Five months after birth the lips of the child are touched with rice and milk and it is named. When twins are born a metal vessel is broken to sever the connection between them, as it is believed that otherwise they must die at the same time. If a boy is born after three girls he is called titura, and a girl after three boys, tituri. There is a saying that ‘A titura child either fills the storehouse or empties it’; that is, his parents either become rich or penniless. To avert ill-luck in this case oil and salt are thrown away, and the mother gives one of her bangles to the midwife.

7. Disposal of the dead

The dead are usually buried, though well-to-do families have adopted cremation. The corpse is laid on its side in the grave, with head to the north and face to the east. A little til, cotton, urad and rice are thrown on the grave to serve as seed-grain for the dead man’s cultivation in the other world. A dish, a drinking vessel and a cooking-pot are placed on the grave with the same idea, but are afterwards taken away by the Dhobi (washerman). They observe mourning for ten days for a man, nine days for a woman, and three days for children under three years old. During the period of mourning the chief mourner keeps a knife beside him, so that the iron may ward off the attacks of evil spirits, to which he is believed to be peculiarly exposed. The ordinary rules of abstinence and retirement are observed during mourning. In the case of cremation the ceremonies are very elaborate and generally resemble those of the Hindus. When the corpse is half burnt, all the men present throw five pieces of wood on to the pyre, and a number of pieces are carried in a winnowing fan to the dead man’s house, where they are touched by the women and then brought back and thrown on to the fire. After the funeral the mourners bathe and return home walking one behind the other in Indian file. When they come to a cross-road, the foremost man picks up a pebble with his left foot, and it is passed from hand to hand down the line of men until the hindmost throws it away. This is supposed to sever their connection with the spirit of the deceased and prevent it from following them home. On the third day they return to the cremation ground to collect the ashes and bones. A Brāhman is called who cooks a preparation of milk and rice at the head of the corpse, boils urad pulse at its feet, and bakes eight wheaten chapātis at the sides. This food is placed in leaf-cups at two corners of the ground. The mourners sprinkle cow’s urine and milk over the bones, and picking them up with a palās (Butea frondosa) stick, wash them in milk and deposit them in a new earthen pot until such time as they can be carried to the Ganges. The bodies of men dying of smallpox must never be burnt, because that would be equivalent to destroying the goddess, incarnate in the body. The corpses of cholera patients are buried in order to dispose of them at once, and are sometimes exhumed subsequently within a period of six months and cremated. In such a case the Kawars spread a layer of unhusked rice in the grave, and address a prayer to the earth-goddess stating that the body has been placed with her on deposit, and asking that she will give it back intact when they call upon her for it. They believe that in such cases the process of decay is arrested for six months.

8. Laying spirits

When a man has been killed by a tiger they have a ceremony called ‘Breaking the string,’ or the connection which they believe the animal establishes with a family on having tasted its blood. Otherwise they think that the tiger would gradually kill off all the remaining members of the family of his victim, and when he had finished with them would proceed to other families in the same village. This curious belief is no doubt confirmed by the tiger’s habit of frequenting the locality of a village from which it has once obtained a victim, in the natural expectation that others may be forthcoming from the same source. In this ceremony the village Baiga or medicine-man is painted with red ochre and soot to represent the tiger, and proceeds to the place where the victim was carried off. Having picked up some of the blood-stained earth in his mouth, he tries to run away to the jungle, but the spectators hold him back until he spits out the earth. This represents the tiger being forced to give up his victim. The Baiga then ties a string round all the members of the dead man’s family standing together; he places some grain before a fowl saying, ‘If my charm has worked, eat of this’; and as soon as the fowl has eaten some grain the Baiga states that his efforts have been successful and the attraction of the man-eater has been broken; he then breaks the string and all the party return to the village. A similar ceremony is performed when a man has died of snake-bite.

9. Religion

The religion of the Kawars is entirely of an animistic character. They have a vague idea of a supreme deity whom they call Bhagwān and identify with the sun. They bow to him in reverence, but do no more as he does not interfere with men’s concerns. They also have a host of local and tribal deities, of whom the principal is the Jhagra Khand or two-edged sword, already mentioned. The tiger is deified as Bagharra Deo and worshipped in every village for the protection of cattle from wild animals. They are also in great fear of a mythical snake with a red crest on its head, the mere sight of which is believed to cause death. It lives in deep pools in the forest which are known as Shesk Kund, and when it moves the grass along its track takes fire. If a man crosses its track his colour turns to black and he suffers excruciating pains which end in death, unless he is relieved by the Baiga. In one village where the snake was said to have recently appeared, the proprietor was so afraid of it that he never went out to his field without first offering a chicken. They have various local deities, of which the Mandwa Rāni or goddess of the Mandwa hill in Korba zamīndāri may be noticed as an example. She is a mild-hearted maiden who puts people right when they have gone astray in the forest, or provides them with food for the night and guides them to the water-springs on her hill. Recently a wayfarer had lost his path when she appeared and, guiding him into it, gave him a basket of brinjāls.⁴¹⁹ As the traveller proceeded he felt his burden growing heavier and heavier on his head, and finally on inspecting it found that the goddess had played a little joke on him and the brinjāls had turned into stones. The Kawars implicitly believe this story. Rivers are tenanted by a set of goddesses called the Sat Bahini or seven sisters. They delight in playing near waterfalls, holding up the water and suddenly letting it drop. Trees are believed to be harmless sentient beings, except when occasionally possessed by evil spirits, such as the ghosts of man-eating tigers. Sometimes a tree catches hold of a cow’s tail as the animal passes by and winds it up over a branch, and many cattle have lost their tails in this way. Every tank in which the lotus grows is tenanted by Purainha, the godling who tends this plant. The sword, the gun, the axe, the spear have each a special deity, and, in fact, in the Bangawān, the tract where the wilder Kawars dwell, it is believed that every article of household furniture is the residence of a spirit, and that if any one steals or injures it without the owner’s leave, the spirit will bring some misfortune on him in revenge. Theft is said to be unknown among them, partly on this account and partly, perhaps, because no one has much property worth stealing. Instances of deified human beings are Kolin Sati, a Kol concubine of a zamīndār of Pendra who died during pregnancy, and Sārangarhni, a Ghasia woman who was believed to have been the mistress of a Rāja of Sārangarh and was murdered. Both are now Kawar deities. Thākur Deo is the deity of agriculture, and is worshipped by the whole village in concert at the commencement of the rains. Rice is brought by each cultivator and offered to the god, a little being sown at his shrine and the remainder taken home and mixed with the seed-grain to give it fertility. Two bachelors carry water round the village and sprinkle it on the brass plates of the cultivators or the roofs of their houses in imitation of rain.

10. Magic and witchcraft

The belief in witchcraft is universal and every village has its tonhi or witch, to whom epidemic diseases, sudden illnesses and other calamities are ascribed. The witch is nearly always some unpopular old woman, and several instances are known of the murder of these unfortunate creatures, after their crimes had been proclaimed by the Baiga or medicine-man. In the famine of 1900 an old woman from another village came and joined one of the famine-kitchens. A few days afterwards the village watchman got ill, and when the Baiga was called in he said the old woman was a witch who had vowed the lives of twenty children to her goddess, and had joined the kitchen to kill them. The woman was threatened with a beating with castor-oil plants if she did not leave the village, and as the kitchen officer refused to supply her with food, she had to go. The Baiga takes action to stop and keep off epidemics by the methods common in Chhattīsgarh villages. When a woman asks him to procure her offspring, the Baiga sits dharna in front of Devi’s shrine and fasts until the goddess, wearied by his importunity, descends on him and causes him to prophesy the birth of a child. They have the usual belief in imitative and sympathetic magic. If a person is wounded by an axe he throws it first into fire and then into cold water. By the first operation he thinks to dry up the wound and prevent its festering, and by the second to keep it cool. Thin and lean children are weighed in a balance against moist cowdung with the idea that they will swell out as the dung dries up. In order to make a bullock’s hump grow, a large grain-measure is placed over it. If cattle go astray an iron implement is placed in a pitcher of water, and it is believed that this will keep wild animals off the cattle, though the connection of ideas is obscure. To cure intermittent fever a man walks through a narrow passage between two houses. If the children in a family die, the Baiga takes the parents outside the village and breaks the stem of some plant in their presence. After this they never again touch that particular plant, and it is believed that their children will not die. Tuesday is considered the best day for weddings, Thursday and Monday for beginning field-work and Saturday for worshipping the gods. To have bats in one’s granary is considered to be fortunate, and there is a large harmless snake which, they say, produces fertility when it makes its home in a field. If a crow caws on the house-top they consider that the arrival of a guest is portended. A snake or a cat crossing the road in front and a man sneezing are bad omens.

11. Dress

The dress of the Kawars presents no special features calling for remark. Women wear pewter ornaments on the feet, and silver or pewter rings on the neck. They decorate the ears with silver pendants, but as a rule do not wear nose-rings. Women are tattooed on the breast with a figure of Krishna, on the arms with that of a deer, and on the legs with miscellaneous patterns. The operation is carried out immediately after marriage in accordance with the usual custom in Chhattīsgarh.

12. Occupation and social rules

The tribe consider military service to be their traditional occupation, but the bulk of them are now cultivators and labourers. Many of them are farmers of villages in the zamīndāris. Rautias weave ropes and make sleeping-cots, but the other Kawars consider such work to be degrading. They have the ordinary Hindu rules of inheritance, but a son claiming partition in his father’s lifetime is entitled to two bullocks and nothing more. When the property is divided on the death of the father, the eldest son receives an allowance known as jithai over and above his share, this being a common custom in the Chhattīsgarh country where the Kawars reside. The tribe do not admit outsiders with the exception of Kaurai Rāwat girls married to Kawars. They have a tribal panchāyat or committee, the head of which is known as Pardhān. Its proceedings are generally very deliberate, and this has led to the saying: “The Ganda’s panchāyat always ends in a quarrel; the Gond’s panchāyat cares only for the feast; and the Kawar’s panchāyat takes a year to make up its mind.” But when the Kawars have decided, they act with vigour. They require numerous goats as fines for the caste feast, and these, with fried urad, form the regular provision. Liquor, however, is only sparingly consumed. Temporary exclusion from caste is imposed for the usual offences, which include going to jail, getting the ears split, or getting maggots in a wound. The last is the most serious offence, and when the culprit is readmitted to social intercourse the Dhobi (washerman) is employed to eat with him first from five different plates, thus taking upon himself any risk of contagion from the impurity which may still remain. The Kawar eats flesh, fowls and pork, but abjures beef, crocodiles, monkeys and reptiles. From birds he selects the parrot, dove, pigeon, quail and partridge as fit for food. He will not eat meat sold in market because he considers it halāli or killed in the Muhammadan fashion, and therefore impure. He also refuses a particular species of fish called rechha, which is black and fleshy and has been nicknamed ‘The Telī’s bullock.’ The higher subtribes have now given up eating pork and the Tanwars abstain from fowls also. The Kawars will take food only from a Gond or a Kaurai Rāwat, and Gonds will also take food from them. In appearance and manners they greatly resemble the Gonds, from whom they are hardly distinguished by the Hindus. Dalton⁴²⁰ described them as “A dark, coarse-featured, broad-nosed, wide-mouthed and thick-lipped race, decidedly ugly, but taller and better set up than most of the other tribes. I have also found them a clean, well-to-do, industrious people, living in comfortable, carefully-constructed and healthily-kept houses and well dressed.”

Of their method of dancing Ball⁴²¹ writes as follows: “In the evening some of the villagers—Kaurs they were I believe—entertained us with a dance, which was very different from anything seen among the Santāls or Kols. A number of men performed a kind of ladies’ chain, striking together as they passed one another’s pronged sticks which they carried in their hands. By foot, hand and voice the time given by a tom-tom is most admirably kept.”

Kāyasth

1. General notice and legend of origin

Kāyasth,⁴²² Kaith, Lāla.—The caste of writers and village accountants. The Kāyasths numbered 34,000 persons in 1911 and were found over the whole Province, but they are most numerous in the Saugor, Damoh, Jubbulpore and Narsinghpur Districts. In the Marātha country their place is to some extent taken by the Prabhus, the Marātha writer caste, and also by the Vidūrs. No probable derivation of the name Kāyasth appears to have been suggested. The earliest reference to Kāyasths appears in an inscription in Mālwa dated A.D. 738–739. The inscription is of a Maurya king, and the term Kāyasth is used there as a proper noun to mean a writer. Another dated A.D. 987 is written by a Kāyasth named Kānchana. An inscription on the Delhi Siwālik pillar dated A.D. 1164 is stated to have been written by a Kāyasth named Sispati, the son of Māhava, by the king’s command. The inscription adds that the Kāyasth was of Gauda (Bengal) descent, and the term Kāyasth is here used in the sense of a member of the Kāyasth caste and not simply meaning a writer as in the Mālwa inscription.⁴²³ From the above account it seems possible that the caste was of comparatively late origin. According to their own legend the first progenitor of the Kāyasths was Chitragupta, who was created by Brahma from his own body and given to Yama the king of the dead, to record the good and evil actions of all beings, and produce the result when they arrived in the kingdom of the dead. Chitragupta was called Kāyastha, from kaya stha, existing in or incorporate in the body, because he was in the body of Brahma. Chitragupta was born of a dark complexion, and having a pen and ink-pot in his hand. He married two wives, the elder being the granddaughter of the sun, who bore him four sons, while the younger was the daughter of a Brāhman Rishi, and by her he had eight sons. These sons were married to princesses of the Nāga or snake race; the Nāgas are supposed to have been the early nomad invaders from Central Asia, or Scythians. The twelve sons were entrusted with the government of different parts of India and the twelve subcastes of Kāyasths are named after these localities.