List Group 5

Bhumij - Bhumij - Bhunjia - Biloch (Baloch, Biluch) - Bind (Bin, Bhind, Bindu) - Binds - Bírhâr - Birhor - Birhor - Bonthuk - Bot - Budubdikids - Budubudiké (Budubududala) - Bukekari - Bukka - Chabel - Châi (Châin, Châini) - Chain (Châin, Châi, Barchâin) - Chamar - Champa (Changpa) - Changars - Chapparband - Chapparbands - Charan - Charau - Chetti - Chisaris - Chitrakathi (Hardas) - Chitrakathi - Chunaris - Cutchi (Meman, Kachhi Muamim) - Chunkar - Dafalis - Dakots - Dandasis - Darveshis - Dâsari - Dasari - Dasnami - Dewâr - Dewar Pardhan - Dhadi

Bhumij: -Bhumij, a non-Aryan tribe of Manbhum, Singbhum [1], and Western Bengal, classed by Dalton and others, mainly on linguistic grounds, as Kolarian. There can be no doubt that the Bhumij are closely, allied to, if not identical with, the Mundas; but there is little to show that they ever had a distinct language of their own. In 1850 Hodgson published a short vocabulary [2] prepared by Captain Haughton, then in political charge of Singbhum; but most of the words in this appear to be merely Ho. The most recent observer, 3 Herr Nottrott, of Gossner's Mission, says [3] that the Bhumij resemble the Mundas most closely in speech and manners, but gives no specimens of their language, and does not say whether it differs sufficiently from Mundâri to be regarded as a separate dialect.

Origin.

I am inclined myself to believe that the Bhumij are nothing more than a branch of the Mundas, who have spread to the east, mingled with the Hindus, and thus for the most part severed their connexion with the parent tribe. This hypothesis seems on the whole to be borne out by the facts observable at the present day. The Bhumij of Western Manbhum are beyond doubt pure Mundas. They inhabit the tract of the country which lies on both sides of the Subarnarakhâ river, bounded on the west by the edge of the Chota Nagpur plateau, on the east by the hill range of which Ajodhyâ is the crowning peak, on the south by the Singbhum hills, and on the north by the hills forming the boundary between Lohardagâ, Hazaribagh, and Manbhum districts. This region contains an enormous number of Mundâri graveyards, and may fairly be considered one of the very earliest settlements of the Munda race. The present inhabitants use the Mundâri language, call themselves Mundas, and observe all the customs current among their brethren on the plateau of Chota Nagpur proper. Thus, like all the Kolarians, they build no temples, but worship Buru in the form of a stone smeared with vermillion. A sarna is invariably composed of purely jungle trees, such as sâl and others, and can therefore be recognised with certainly as a fragment of the primeval forest, left standing to form an abiding place for the aboriginal deities. They observe the sarhul festival at the same time and in the same way as their kindred in Lohardagâ and Singbhum, and the lâyâ or priest is a recognised village official. Marriages take place when both parties are of mature age, and the betrothal of children is unknown. Like the Mundas of the plateau, they first burn their dead and then bury the remains under gravestones, some of which are of enormous size. On certain feast days small supplies of food and money are placed under these big stones to regale the dead, and are extracted early the next morning by low-caste Hindus.

On the eastern side of the Ajodhya range, which forms a complete barrier to ordinary communication, all is changed. Both the Mundâri and the title of Munda have dropped out of use, and the aborigines of this eastern tract call themselves Bhumij or Sardâr, and talk Bengali. The physical characteristics of the race, however, remain the same; and although they have adopted Hindu customs and are fast becoming Hindus, there can be no doubt that they are the descendants of the Mundas who first settled in the country, and were given the name of Bhumij (autochthon) by the Hindu immigrants who found them in possession of the soil. 4 The early history of the tribe and its general characteristics are sketched by Colonel Dalton [4] in the following passages:

[1] See Risley.

[2] Bengal Journal, vol. xviii, part II, p. 967; Essays, vol. ii, p. 97.

[3] Grammatik der Kolh-Sprache, p. 4.

[4] Ethnology of Bengal, p. 174.

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Early History.

The Bhîmij of the Jungle Mahâls were once, under the nickname of chuâr (robbers), the terror of the surrounding districts, and their various outbreaks were called chuâris.

On several occasions since they came under the British rule they have shown how readily a chuâri may be improvised on very slight provocation. I do not know that on any occasion they rose, like the Mundâris, simply to redress their own wrongs. It was sometimes in support of a turbulent chief ambitious of obtaining power to which, according to the courts of law, he was not entitled; and it was sometimes to oppose the Government in a policy which they did not approve, though they may have had very little personal interest in the matter. Thus, in the year A.D. 1798, when the Pânchet estate was sold for arrears of revenue, they rose and violently disturbed the peace of the country till the sale was cancelled. After hostilities had continued for some time, in reply to a very pacific message sent to them by the officer commanding the troops, they asked if the Government of any one of the Bhîmij Jungle Mahâls was effected without a fight. In Dhalbhîm the Râjâ resisted the interference of the British power, and the Government set up a rival; but after various failures to establish authority they set him aside and negotiated terms with the rebel. In Barâbhîm there was at one time a disputed succession. The courts decided that the eldest born of Râjâ Vivikâ Nârâyan, though the son of the second wife, should succeed in preference to the son of the first wife, the Pât, Râní. The Bhîmij did not approve of the decision, and it was found necessary to send a military force to carry it out. This was the origin of the last disturbance, known as Gangâ Nârâyan's rebellion, which broke out in 1832. Laksman, the son of the Pât Râní alluded to above, continuing to oppose his brother, was arrested, and died in jail, leaving a son, Gangâ Nârâyan. On the death of Râjâ Raghunâth Sinh he also was succeeded by the son of his second Râní, who was declared by the Supreme Court to be heir, in opposition to a claim again set up by Mâdhab Sinh, the younger son, but the son of the Pât Râní; but failing in his suit, Mâdhab Sinh resigned himself to his fate, and was consoled by being appointed díuân, or prime minister, to his brother. In this capacity he made himself thoroughly unpopular, more especially an usurious money-lender and extortionate grain-dealer, and soon Gangâ Nârâyan found that, in opposing a man so detested, a majority of the people would side with him. Accordingly, in the month of April 1832 he, at the head of a large force of ghâtwâls, made an attack on Mâdhab Sinh and slew him. This foul crime was committed with great deliberation, cunning, and cruelty. Mâdhab was seized and carred off to the hills to be sacrificed. Gangâ Nârâyan himself first smote him with his battle-axe, then each sardâr ghâtwâl was compelled to discharge an arrow at him, and thus all the leading ghâtuâls became implicated in the plot. A system of plundering was then commenced, which soon drew to his standard all the chuârs -that is, all the Bhîmij of Barâbhîm and adjoining estates. He attacked Barâbâzâr, where the Râjâ lived, burned the Munsif's kâchâri and the police station, from which the police had fled, but three unfortunate peons (runners) of the Munsif's court were caught and killed. The officials and the police fell back on Bardwan, and for some time Gangâ Nârâyan had the country at his mercy. He sacked every place worth plundering; but in November following a force was collected, consisting of three regiments of Native Infantry and eight guns, and military operations against the insurgents commenced. They were soon driven to take refuge in the hills, but being pressed there also Gangâ Nârâyan fled into Singbhîm, and endeavoured to enlist in his favour the reputed invincible and irrepressible Larkâs. They were just then at issue with one of the chiefs, who claimed supremacy over a portion of them, the Thâkur of Kharsâwân; and though they were not unwilling to join in the row, they wished, before they committed themselves to Gangâ Nârâyan's leadership, to test his capacity to lead. They therefore demanded that he should in the first place make an attack on the fort of the Thâkur of Kharsâwân. In complying with this request he was killed, and the Thâkur had the pleasure of sending his head to Captain Wilkinson with a letter quite in the style of Falstaff.

"I have not been able to discover that the Bhîmij possess any independent traditions of migrations. Those who live in proximity to Chutiâ Nâgpur recognise no distinction between themselves and the Mundas. They intermarry and associate and coalesce in all matters indicating identity of race; for, though it may be said that they are not much troubled with caste prejudices, there is no portion of the old Indian population which is quite free from it. The Bhîmij farther east have become too Hinduised to acknowledge the caste attitudes, and

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will not admit that they are in any way connected with the Mundas, Hos, or Santâls. It is pretty certain that the zamindârs of all these estates are of the same race as their people, though the only man among them whom I found sensible enough to acknowledge this was the Râjâ of Bâghmîndí; the others all call themselves Kshattriyas or Rajputs, but they are not acknowledged as such by any true scion of that illustrious stock. In claiming to be Rajputs they do not attempt to connect themselves with any of the recognised of miraculous production. The family legend of the Râjâ of Barâbhîm may be given as a specimen of their skill in making pedigrees:-"Nath Varâha and Kes Varâha, two brothers, quarrelled with their father, the Râjâ of Virât, of Virât, and settled at the Court of Vikramâditya. (This has some connection with the tradition of the adjoining estate of Pâtkum, the Râjâ of which claims descent from Vikramaditya.) Kes, the younger brother, was sawn into two pieces; and with his blood Vikram gave a tikâ or mark on the forehead to the elder brother, and a pair of umbrellas, and told him that all the country he could ride round in a day night should be his. Nath mounted his steed and accomplished a circuit of eight yojanas within the time specified in what is now Barâbhîm; and this must be all true, as the prints of his horse's hoofs are still visible. All the ghâtuâls (captains of the border and their men) of the Bhîmij part of Mânbhîm and Singbhîm districts are Bhîmij, which is a sure indication of their being the earliest settlers. They were the people (like the Mundârí Bhîinhârs in Chutiâ Nâgpur, the Bhuiyâs in Bonâi, Gângpur, Keunjhar, Keunjhar, etc., and Gonds in Sargîjâ and Udaipur) to whom the defence of the country was entrusted. The Bhîmij ghâtuâls in Mânbhîm have now, after all their escapades, settled down steadily to work as guardians of the peace. The Râjâ of the extensive zamindâri of Dhalbhîm is no doubt of Bhîmij extraction, but for him the Heralds' College of the period failed to manipulate a Râjput descent. His ancestor was a washerman, who afforded refuge to the goddess Kâlí when, as Rankíní, she fled from a demon in Pânchet. The goddess, in gratitude, gave the washerman a young Brâhmaní, a ward of her own to wife, and the Râjâs of Dhalbhîm are the descendants of this union. The origin of the story appears to be that a Bhîmij chief of Dhalbhîm, probably at the instigation of a Brâhman, stole from its shrine in Pânchet an image of was abstracted is shown at the village of Pârâ, near Puruliâ in Mânbhîm, and it became the popular object of worship in Dhalbhîm for all classes of people there. Rankíní especially rejoiced in human sacrifices. It is freely admitted that in former years children were frequently kidnapped and sacrificed at her shrine; and it cannot be very positively asserted that the practice of offering such victim has long been discontinued. At the shrine of this goddess a very cruel scene was enacted every year till 1865, when, with the concurrence of the zamíndâr , it was put a stop to. It was called the Bindaparab; and Gangâ Nârâyan probably had it in his mind when he so cruelly disposed of Mâdhab Sinh. At this parab two male buffaloes are driven into a small enclosure, and on a raised stage adjoining and overlooking it the Râjâ and suite take up their position. After some ceremonies the Râjâ and his purohit or family priest discharge arrows at the buffaloes, others follow their example, and the tormented and enraged beasts fall to and gore each other, whilst arrow after arrow is discharged. When he animals are past doing very much mischief, the people rush in and hack at them with battle-axes till they are dead. The Santâls and wild Kharriâs, it is said, took delight in this festival; but I have not heard a murmur at its discontinuance and this shows it had no great hold on the minds of the people. Many of the Bhîmij tribe are well off. Some of them, who are sardâr ghâtwâls, are in virtue of their proprietors of estates, comprising each from one to twenty manors; but as the most substantial tenants under them are also hereditary ghâtwâls rendering service and paying besides but a very low fixed rent, these ghâtwâlí estates are not so valuable to the proprietor as villages on the ordinary tenure would be. The Bhîmij live in commondious, well-built houses, and have all about them the comforts to which the better class of cultivators in Bengal are accustomed. Those who live quite amongst the Bengalis have retained few of their ancient customs; none, perhaps, except the great notional amusement, the gay meetings for dance and song both at their villages and jâtras, which are characteristic of all Kols. In appearance they are inferior to the Hos of Singbhîm and to the best of the Mundas of Chutiâ Nâgpur. They are short of stature, but strongly built, and, like the Santâls, rather inclined to fleshiness. In complexion they are variable, like the Mundas, ranging from a dark chocolate

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to a light brown colour; they observe many of the Hindu festivals, but retain their sacred groves, in which they still sacrifice to the old gods. They have generally left off eating cow's flesh, in which their unreformed brethren in Singbhîm and Chutia Nâgpur indulge, but eat fowls. The Bhîmij have in a great degree lost the simplicity and truthfulness of character for which their cognates are generally distinguished. They have acquired from the Bengalí Hindus the propensity to lie, but they have not same assurance or powers of invention; and their lies are so transparent that they are easily detected."

Internal Structure.

The internal structure of the Bhumij tribe is shown in Appendix I. The sub-tribes are numerous, and vary greatly in different districts. With the possible exception of the iron-smelting Shelo in Manbhum, the names of these groups seem to have reference to their supposed original settlements. It deserves notice that the tendency to form endogamous divisions seems to be stronger in outlying districts than it is at the recognised head-quarters of the tribe. Thus in Manbhum and Singbhum we find only one sub-tribe Shelo, which obviously got detached from the parent group by reason of its members adopting, or perhaps declining to abandon, the comparatively degraded occupation of iron-smelting. In Midnapur, or the other hand, the Bhumij settlements are of comparatively functional group of Shelo. The reason seems to be that when the stream of emigration is not absolutely continuous, successive sections of immigrants into distant parts of the country are affected in various degrees by the novel social influences to which they are exposed. Some groups become more rapidly Hinduised than others, and thus there arise divergences of usage in matters of food and drink, which constitute a bar to intermarriage, and in time lead to the formation of sub-tribes. these divisions often outlast the differences of custom and ritual from which they took their origin, and in some cases the prohibition of intermarriage comes to be withdrawn, and the names alone remain to show that such a prohibition was once on force. The exogamous divisions of the tribe are totemistic, and closely resemble those met with among the Mundas. The rule of exogamy is simple.

Marriage.

A man may not marry a woman of his own sept, nor a woman who comes within the standard formula for reckoning prohibited degrees, calculated as a rule to three generations in the descending line, but sometimes extended to five where bhaiyâdi or mutual recognition of kinship has been maintained between the families. The aboriginal usage of adult-marriage still holds its ground among the Bhumij, though the wealthier members of the tribe prefer to marry their daughters as infants. The extreme view of the urgent necessity of early marriage is unknown among them, and it is thought no shame for a man to have a grown-up daughter unmarried in his house. Sexual intercourse before marriage is more or less recognised, it being understood that if a girl becomes pregnant arrangements will at once be made to marry her to the father of her child. Brides are bought for a price ranging usually from Rs. 3 to Rs. 12, and the wedding may take place, according to arrangement, at the house of either party. When, as is more usual, it is celebrated at the bride's house, a square space (marua ) is prepared in the courtyard (angan ) by daubing the ground with rice-water. In the centre of this space branches of mahuâ and sidha trees are planted, bound together with five cowrie shells (Cyproea moneta ) and five pieces of turmeric, and at the corners are set four earthen water-vessels connected by a cotton thread, which marks the boundary of the square. Each vessel is half filled with pulse, and covered with a concave lid, in which a small lamp burns. On the arrival of the bridegroom with his following of friends, he is led at once to the marwa and made to the sit on a bit of board (pira ). The bride is then brought in and given a similar seat on his left hand. A sort of mimic resistance to the introduction of the bride is often offered by her more distant female relatives and friends, who receive trifling presents for allowing her to pass.

After the bride has taken her seat and certain mantras or mystic formulae have been pronounced by the priest, usually a Bengal Brahman, the bridegroom proceeds to light the

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lamps at the corners of the square. As fast as each lamp is lighted the bride blows it out, and this is repeated three, five, or seven times, as the case may be. The couple then return to their seats, and the bride is formally given to the bridegroom, appropriate mantras being recited at the time, and their right hands joined together by the officiating priest. Last of all, the bridegroom smears vermilion on the bride's forehead, and his clothes are knotted to hers, the knot being kept intact for three, four, five, or ten days, according to the custom of the family. At the end of that time they must rub themselves with turmeric and bathe, and the knot solemnly untied in the presence of the bridegroom's relations. No priest is present on this occasion. The Bhumij recognise polygamy, and in theory at least impose no limitation on the number of wives a man may have. The tribe, however, are for the most part poor, and their meagre standard of living proves an effectual bar to excessive indulgence in the luxury of polygamy. When a man has no children by his first wife, he usually marriages again if he can afford to do so; and it frequently happens that the second wife is a young widow, whom he marriages by the sanga ritual, paying a nominal bride-price and incurring far less expenditure than would be necessary in the event of his marrying a virgin.

Widow-marriage.

Widow-marriage is freely permitted by the sanga ritual, in which a widow smears on the bride's forehead vermilion which the bridegroom has previously touched with his great toe. It is deemed right for a widow to marry her late husband's younger brother or cousin, if such an arrangement be feasible; and in the event of her marrying an outsider, she forfeits all claim to a share in her late husband's property and to the custody of any children she had with the first husband. The aversion to the practice of widow-marriages may perhaps be discerned in the fact that the children of widows by their second husbands experience some difficulty in getting married, and tend rather to form a class by themselves.

Divorce.

The Bhumij of Manbhum allow divorce only when a woman has been guilty of adultery. A council of relations is called, who hear the evidence and determine whether the charge has been proved. If their finding is against the woman, her husband solemnly takes from her wrist the iron ring which is the visible sign of wedlock. Water is then poured on a sâl leaf, and the husband tears the wet leaf in two to symbolise separation. This ceremony is called pât pâni chirâ, 'the wet leaf rent,' and besides making the divorce absolute, relieves the husband from any claim by the wife for maintenance. He is himself socially impure after the ceremony until he has shaved and performed certain expiatory rites, the most important of which appears to be giving a feast to the relatives who came together to adjudicate on the case. A woman has no right to divorce her husband; and if neglected or ill-treated her only remedy is to run away with another man. Divorced wives may marry again by the sanga ritual, but their offspring by their second husband are at the same social disadvantage in respect of marriage as has been noticed above in referring to the children of widows. In both cases the sentiment is unquestionably due to the influence of Hinduism in modifying the original usages of the tribe.

Succession.

In matters of inheritance ad succession the tribe usually affect to follow the school of Hindu law in vogue in their neighbourhood, and hardly any vestiges of special tribal custom can now be traced. Almost all Bhumij, however, give the eldest son an extra share (jethangs or bara angs ) when the property is divided; and the ghatuâli members of the tribe follow the local custom of primogeniture, the younger sons being provided for by small maintenance grants. If a man leaves no children, his widow takes a life-interest on the property.

Religion.

The religion of the Bhumij ia flexible within certain limits, according to the social position and territorial status of the individuals concerned. Zamindars and well-to-do tenure-holders

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employ Brahmans as their family priests, and offer sacrifices to Kali or Mahâmâyâ. The mass of the people revere the sun under the names of Sing-Bonga and Dharm, as the giver of harvests to men and the cause of all changes of seasons affecting their agricultural fortunes.

They also worship a host of minor gods, among whom the following deserve special mention: (1) Jâhir-Buru, worshipped in the sacred grove of the village (jâhir-thân ) with offerings of goats, rice, and ghee at the Sarhul festival in the months of Baisakh (April-May) and Phâlgun (January-February). The lâyâ presides at the sacrifice, and the offerings are divided between him and the worshippers. Jâhir-Buru is supposed to be capable of blasting the crops if not duly propitiated, and her worship is a necessary preliminary to the commencement of the agricultural operations of the year. (2) Kârâkâtâ, (Kârâ = 'buffalo,' and Kâtâ = 'to cut') another agricultural deity, to whom buffaloes and goats are offered towards the commencement of the rains. The skin of the buffalo is taken by the worshippers; the horns form the perquisite of the lâyâ; while the Doms, who make music at the sacrifice, are allowed to carry off the flesh. In the case of goats, the lâyâ's share is one-third of the flesh. If Kârâkâtâ is neglected, it is believed there will be a failure of the rains. The cult of this deity, however, is not so universal as that of Jâhir-Buru.

(3) Bâghut or Bâgh-Bhut, who protects his votaries from tigers, is worshipped in Kartick, (October-November) on the night of the Amâbasyâ or the day preceding it. The offerings are goats, fowls, ghee, rice, etc., which may be presented either in the homestead or on the high land (tânr ) close to the village. In the former case the head of the family officiates as priest; in the latter the lâyâ's services are enlisted, and he can claim a share of the offerings.

(4) Grâm-Deota and Deoshâli, gods of village life, who ward off sickness and watch over the supply of water for drinking and irrigation of the crops. They are propitiated in Áshâr (July-August) with offerings of goats, fowls, and rice, at which lâyâs preside.

(5) Buru, a mountain deity associated with many different hills throughout the Bhumij country, and worshipped for recovery from sickness and general prosperity on the first or second Mâgh. The head of the family or a lâyâ serves as priest.

(6) Kudra and Bisaychandi are malignant ghosts of cannibalistic propensities, whom the lâyâs propitiate in the interests of the community. Private individuals do not worship them.

(7) Pânchbahini and Bâradelâ are local deities worshipped by the Bankura Bhumij in much the same fashion as Jahir-Buru, the chief difference being that the offerings to Pânchbahini are she-goats and a kind of scent called mâthâghashâ, while only fowls are presented to Bâradelâ.

Festival

With the Bhumij, as with only other non-Aryan tribes of Chota Nagpur, the Karam festival, Colonel Dalton's description of which is quoted in the article Oraon, seems to be especially popular. The Bhumij of Bankura district celebrate this feast in the latter half of the month Bhâdra corresponding roughly to the first half of September. A branch of the karam-tree (Nauclea parvifolia ) is planted by the lâyâ in the centre of the village dancing ground (âkhrâ ). At the foot of this, on the day of the festival, the unmarried girls of the villages throw various kinds of seed grain. These are carefully tended and watered from time to time so as to germinate by the Sankrânti or last day of the month, when the girls give the sprouting blades to each other, and wear them in their hair at the dance, which usually lasts the whole of the night.

Priests.

The sacerdotal arrangements of the tribe have already been incidentally referred to. The upper classes employ Brahmans of their own, and ignore the cult of the earlier gods; while the mass of the tribe are guided in their regular observances by the teachings of the lâyâs or priests of the forest gods, and only call in the assistance of Brahmans on the comparatively rare occasions when it is deemed necessary to propitiate one of the standard Hindu deities. But the Brahman who serves the Bhumij zamindar or tenure-holder as a family priest takes a higher place in the local community of Brahmans than the casual Brahman who ministers to the spiritual needs of the ordinary cultivator. The former will call himself a Rarhi Kulin, and will be received on equal terms by all other members of the sacred order; while the latter belongs to a much lower class, and associates with the comparatively degraded Brahmans who work for Kurmis and Dhobas.

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Disposal of he dead.

The funeral rites of he Bhumij are characteristic of, and lend strong support to the opinion that the tribe is merely a branch of the Mundas. On the death of a Bhumij his body is laid with the head to the south. The pyre is set well alight, the males go home, and the wife, sister, or other female relative of the deceased comes to the burning-place, carrying an earthen vessel of water. There she waits till the fire has burned down, quenches the ashes with water, and picks out and places in the vessel the fragments of bone left unconsumed. Some of these fragments are interred at the foot of a tulsi plant (Ocymum sanctum ) in the courtyard of the dead man's house, others are taken in the vessel to the original cemetery of his family. [1]There a hole is dug and the vessel of bones placed inside, supported by three stones. The earth is then filled in, and a large flat stone over all, on which a fowl is sacrificed to ensure the repose of the dead. The spirits of those whose bones rest in the same place are solemnly informed that another has been added to their number, and are enjoined not to quarrel, but to abide peacefully in the land of the dead. The survivors then partake of a feast of rice dâl, and other vegetables prepared by the more distant relatives of the deceased. This strictly non-Aryan ritual has of late years been to some extent overlaid by observances borrowed from the regular Hindu srâddh. On the tenth day the mourners are shaved, and on the eleventh balls (pinda ) of rice, sesamum, molasses, and plantain are offered to ancestors under the supervision of a Brahman, who receives such presents as the means of the family permit them to give. A more primitive mode of appeasing the departed spirit is met with among the Shelo Bhumij. On the eleventh day after death the chief mourner beats a metal drinking-vessel with a stick, while another relation, standing by his side, calls loudly on the name of the dead. After a while a third man, unconnected with the family, and often a lâyâ, comes forward to impersonate the deceased, by whose name he is addressed, and asked what he wants to eat. Acting thus as the dead man's proxy, he mentions various articles of food, which are put before him. After making a regular meal he goes away, and the spirit of the deceased is believed to go with him. The relatives then finish the food prepared for the occasion.

Mention is made in the article on the Mundas of the custom by which the graves of the bhuinhârs, or representatives of these who first cleared the soil and founded the village, are marked by an upright stone pillar in addition to the horizontal slab which covers the bones of an ordinary man not descended from one of these pioneer families. Precisely the same distinction is made among the Bhumij ghatuâls of Manbhum between village sardârs, or holders of entire ghatwâli tenures, and the tâbidârs, or rural constables, who make up the rank and file of the ghatuâli force. The graves of the former are invariably distinguished by an upright monolith.

Police service.

This singular correspondence of funeral usage, coupled with the fact that many of the Manbhum ghatwâls call themselves by the title bhuinhâr or bhuinyâ, suggests the conjecture that the ghatuâli tenures in the south of that district are a survival under different names and changed conditions of the ancient tribal holdings known in Lohardagâ as bhuinhâri. Personal service of various kinds is one of the oldest incidents of the bhuinhâri tenure, and it is not difficult to see how in a border district like Manbhum the character of this

[1] The theory is that the bones should be taken to the village in which the ancestors of the deceased had the deceased had the status of bhuinhârs or first clearers of the soil; but this is not invariably acted up to and the rule is held to be sufficiently have been settled for a tolerably long time. It deserves notice that the Tamârhiâ Bhumij of Midnapur transport the bones of their dead to the great Munda cemetery at Chokahatu, the place of the burning in pargana Tamârh of Lohardagâ. No stronger proof could well be given of the identity of the Bhumij with the Mundas. The Desi Bhumij of Midnapur go to Kuchong, is Singbhum, and some of the Singbhum Bhumij to Suisa, in Bagmundi of Manbhum.

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service might gradually be changed in accordance with local necessities until it came to take the form of the petty police functions which the ghatuâls perform, or are supposed to perform, at the present day.

Their duties, it is true, are now discharged under the orders of Government, and not at the will of the zamindar, but this change has been brought about gradually, and is due partly to local disturbances, in which the Bhumij took the lead, and partly to the fact that the zamindars of Barabhum, originally the heads of the Bhumij community, have within the last hundred years assumed the style of Rajputs, and have spared no effort to sever their connexion with their own tribe. The antagonism thus set up between the chief and his retainers showed itself on his side by constant endeavours to resume their privileged tenures, and on theirs by steady resistance to his authority and assertion of their direct subordination to the Magistrate of the district. Thus in course of time it has come about that a number of very ancient tenures, representing in their inception the tribal rights of the first clearers of the soil, have been transformed into police jâgirs, and have recently been surveyed and demarcated at the cost of Government in the interest of the executive administration of the Manbhum district.

Occupation.

The original occupation of the Manbhum Bhumij is believed by themselves to have been military service, and there can be little doubt that the bands of Chuârs or plunderers, who repeatedly overran the Midnapur district towards the end of last century, were largely recruited from this tribe. The circumstance, however, that they took a more or less prominent part in a series of marauding attacks on an unarmed and unwarlike population affords no ground for a belief in the existence among them of any real military instinct; and in fact they are conspicuous for the dislike of discipline, which is one of the prominent characteristics of the Kolarian races. For many years agriculture has been the sole profession of all the sub tribes except the iron-smelting Shelo. A few have engaged in petty trade, and some have emigrated to the tea districts of Assam. Their relations to the land are various. The zamindars of Barabhum, Dhalbhum, Manbhum, Patkum, and Bagmundi probably belong to the Bhumij tribe, though they now call themselves Rajputs. Next to them rank the sardar ghatwals of the large service-tenures known in Manbhum as tarafs. Three of these admit themselves to be Bhumij, while the fourth, Manmohan Singh, of Taraf Satarakhâni, now claims to be a Rajput, regardless of the fact that a few years ago his grandfather wrote an illustration of the facility with which brevet rank as a self-made Rajput may be obtained. Manmohan Singh keeps a Brahman to support his pretensions, and professes to be very particular in all matters of ceremonial observance. His descendants will doubtless obtain unquestioning recognition as local Rajputs, and will intermarry with families who have undergone the same process of transformation as themselves. The great bulk of the Bhumij, who are simple cultivators and labourers, stand on a far lower social level that the landholding members of the tribe. They rank somewhat below the Kurmi, and members of the higher castes will not take water from their hands. In their turn the Bhumij, though eating fowls and drinking spirituous liquors, look down upon Bauris, Bagdis, Doms, and Ghasis as more unclean feeders then themselves.

Bhumij.: -A dialect which is almost identical with Mundârí is also spoken by the Bhumij tribe [1] of Singbhum and neighbourhood. According to Mr. Risley, the Bhumij are probably 'nothing more than a branch of the Mundâs who have spread to the east, mingled with the Hindîs, and thus for the most part severed their connection with the parent tribe.' According to information collected for the purposes of this survey they speak a separate dialect in the west of Singbhum, in the Orissa Tributary States, and in the Chota Nagpur Tributary States. At the last Census of 1901, speakers have also been returned from

[1] Linguistic Survey of India

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mindnapore and Manbhum, and, in small numbers, also from some other distracts of the Bengal Presidency. No information is available regarding the dialect of the Bhumij of Midnapore. It is probably Santâlí, and it is spoken in the west of the district. In Manbhum they are found in the west, and, according to Mr. Risley, speak Mundârí. The Bhumij on the eastern side of the Ajodhya range speak Bengali. The Tamariâs are a sub-tribe of the Bhumij, who were originally settled in Pargana Tamar of Ranchi. Their dialect does not differ from that of the Bhumij proper. Other Tamariâs speak a dialect of Magahí. See Vol. v, Part ii, pp. 166 and ff. The number of speakers of Bhumij has been estimated for the purposes of this Survey as follows:-

Orissa Tributary States- Morbhanj 39,693

Nayagarh 1,681

Nilgiri 321

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41,695 Total (a)

Singbhum 30,000 Total (b)

Chota Nagpur Tributary States-

Sarai Kala 5,900

Bonai 75

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5,975 Total (c)

Total (a+b+c) = 77,660

Forty-three out of the 75 speakers in the Bonai State have been reported to speak Ku rmi Bhumij. No specimens have been forwarded from the State. It is, however, not probable that the different denomination connotes a difference of dialect. With regard to the Ku rmi caste compare Dr. Grierson's paper On the Kurmís of Bihâr , chutiâ Nâgpur , and Orissa . Journal of the Asiatic Society of Bengal, Vol. lxvii, Part iii, 1893, pp. 110 and f. The following are the revised figures for the so-called Tamariâ Bhumij as estimated of this Survey:

Orissa Tributary States-Morbhanj 832

Nilgiri 586

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Total 1,418

By adding these figures to those given above for Bhumij proper we arrive at the following total as estimated for this Survey:-

Bhumij proper 77,660

Tamariâ Bhumij 1,418

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Total 79,078

The number of speakers returned at the Census of 1901 was follows:-

Midnapore 23,272

Hoogly 7

24-Parganas 963

Jalpaiguri 7

Pabna 206

Sonthal Parganas 1

Balasore 356

Manbhum 2,340

Singbhum 25,624

Orissa Tributary States 53,120

Chota Nagpur Tributary States 5,314

Assam 94

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Total 111,304

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This total includes the figures returned under the head of Tamariâ Bhumij, viz .:-

Singbhum 4,016

Orissa Tributary States 2,705

Chota Nagpur Tributary States 799

Assam 52

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Total 7,572

It will be seen that Bhumij has been returned from several districts where the information collected for the purposes of the Linguistic Survey does not make any mention of such a dialect. The obvious reason is that Bhumij is not the name of a dialect but of a tribe, and it has not formerly been separately returned in districts where the Bhumij speak the same dialect as their neighbours. In the Orissa Tributary States, Singbhum, and the Chota Nagpur Tributary States, on the other hand, the principal Mundâ languages are Santâlí and Hó, while the members of the Bhumij tribe mostly speak a dialect which is almost identical with Mundârí. Some of them, however, apparently use the current Mundâ language of their district. Thus the Bhumij vocabulary published by Hodgson in 1850 and prepared by Captain Haughton in Singbhum, is mainly Hó. The figures given above are therefore far from being certain, as in other similar cases when the name of a tribe has been used as the denomination of a dialect.

Bhunjia: -A small Dravidian tribe residing in the Bindrânawâgarh and Khariâr zamíndâris of the Raipur District, and numbering about 7000 persons [1] . The tribe was not returned outside this area in 1911, but Sherring mentions them in a list of the hill tribes of the Jaipur zamíndâri of Vizagapatam, which touches the extreme south of Bindrânawâgarh. The Bhunjias are divided into two branches, Chaukhutia and Chinda, and the former have the following legend of their origin. On one occasion a Bhatra Gond named Bâchar cast a net into the Pairi river and brought out a stone. He threw the stone back into the river and cast his net again, but a second and yet a third time the stone came out. So he laid the stone on the bank of the river and went back to his house, and that night he dreamt that the stone was Bura Deo, the great God of the Gonds. So he said: 'If this dream be true let me draw in a deer in my net to -morrow for a sign,; and the next day the body of a deer appeared in his net. The stone then called upon the Gond to worship him as Bura Deo, but the Gond demurred to doing so himself, and said he would provide a substitute as a devotee. To this Bura Deo agreed, but said that B¡âchar, the Gond, must marry his daughter to the substituted worshipper. The Gond then set out to search for somebody, and in the village of Lafandi he found a Halba of the name of Konda, who was a cripple, deaf and dumb, blind, and a leper. He brought Konda to the stone, and on reaching it he was miraculously cured of all his ailments and gladly began to worship Bura Deo. He afterwards married the Gond's daughter and they had a son called Chaukhutia Bhunjia, who was the ancestor of the Chaukhutia division of the tribe. Now the term Chaukhutia in Chhattísgarhi signifies a bastard, and the story related above is obviously intended to signify that the Chaukhutia Bhunjias are of mixed descent form the Gonds and Halbas.

[1] See Russel. This article is based on papers by Mr. Híra Lâl, Mr. Gokul Prasâd, Tahsíldâr, Dhamtarí, Mr. Pyâre Lâl Misra of the Gazetteer office, and Munshi Ganpati Gíri, Superintendent, Bindrânawâgarh estate.

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It is clearly with this end in view that the Gond is made to decline to worship the stone himself and promise to find a substitute, an incident which is wholly unnatural and is simply dragged in to meet the case. The Chaukhutia subtribe especially worship Bura Deo, and sing a song relating to the finding of the stone in their marriage ceremony as follows:

Johâr, Jhâr Thâkur Deota , Tumko lâgon ,

Do matia ghar men díne tumhâre nâm .

Johâr , johâr Konda , Tumko lâgon ,

Do matia ghar men , etc .

Johâr , johâr Bâchar jhâkar Tumko lâgon , etc .

Johâr , johâr Bîdha Râja Tumko lâgon , etc .

Johâr , johâr Lafandi Mâti Tumko lâgon , etc .

Johâr , johâr Ánand Mâti Tumko lâgon , etc .

which may be rendered:

I make obeisance to thee, O Thâkur Deo, I bow down to thee !

In thy name have I placed two pots in my house (as a Mark of respect).

I make obeisance to thee, O Konda Pujâri , I bow down to thee ¡

In thy name have I placed two pots in my house.

I make obeisance to thee, O Bâchar Jhâkar !

In thy name have I placed two pots in my house.

I make obeisance to thee, O Bîdha Râja !

In thy name have I placed two pots in my house.

I make obeisance to thee, O Soil of Lafandi !

In thy name have I placed two pots in my house.

I make obeisance to thee, O Happy to thee, O Happy Spot !

In thy name have I placed two pots in my house.

The song refers to the incidents in the story. Thâkur Deo is the title given to the divine stone, Konda is the Halba priest, and Bâchar the Gond who cast the net. Bîdha Râja, otherwise Singh Sei, is the Chief who was ruling in Bindrânawâgarh at the time. Lafandi the village where Konda Halba was found, and the Ánand Mâti or Happy Spot is that where the stone was taken out of the river. The majority of the sept-names returned are of Gond origin, and there seems no doubt that the Chaukhutias are, as the story says, of mixed descent form the Halbas and Gonds. It is noticeable, however, that the Bhunjias, though surrounded by Gonds on all sides, do not speak Gondi but a dialect of Hindi, which Sir G. Grierson considers to resemble that of the Halbas, and also describes as "A form of Chhattísgarhi which is practically the same as Baigâni. It is a jargon spoken by Binjhwârs, Bhumias and Bhunjias of Raipur, Raigarh, Sârangarh and Patna in the Central Provinces." [1] The Binjhwârs also belong to the country of the Bhunjias, and one or two estates close to Bindrânawâgarh are held by members of this tribe. The Chinda division of the Bhunjias have a saying about themselves: 'Chinda Râja Bhunjia Pâik'; and they say that there was originally a Kamâr ruler of Bindrânawâgarh who was dispossessed by Chinda. The Kamârs are a small and very primitive tribe of the same locality. Pâik means a foot-soldier, and it seems therefore that the Bhunjias formed the levies of this Chinda, who may very probably have been one of themselves. The term Bhunjia may perhaps signify one who lives on the soil, from bhîm, the earth, and jia, dependent on. The word Birjia, a synonym for Binjhwâr, is similarly a corruption of bewar jia , and means one who is dependent on dahia or patch cultivation. Sir H. Risley gives Birjia, Binjhia and Binjhwâr [2] as synonymous terms, and Bhunjia may be another corruption of the same sort. The Binjhwârs are a Hinduist offshoot of the ancient Baiga tribe, who may probably have been in possession of the hills bordering the Chhattísgarh plain as well as of the Satpîra range before the advent of the Gonds, as the term Baiga is employed for a village priest over a large part of this area.

[1] From the Index of Languages and Dialects , furnished by Sir G. Grierson for the census.

[2]Tribes and Castes of Bengal , art. Binjhia.

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It thus seems not improbable that the Chinda Bhunjias may have been derived from the Binjhwârs, and this would account for the fact that the tribe speaks a dialect of Hindi and not Gondi. As already seen, the Chaukhutia subcaste appear to be of mixed origin from the Gonds and Halbas, and as the Chindas are probably descended from the Baigas, the Bhunjias may be considered to be an offshoot from these three important tribes.

Subdivisions.

Of the two subtribes already mentioned, the Chaukhutia are recognised to be of illegitimate descent. As a consequence of this they strive to obtain increased social estimation by a ridiculously strict observance of the rules of ceremonial purity. If any man not of his own caste touches the hut where a Chaukhutia cooks his food, it is entirely abandoned and a fresh one built. At the time of the census they threatened to kill the enumerator if he touched their huts to affix the census number. Pegs had therefore to be planted in the ground a little in front of the huts and marked with their numbers. The Chaukhutia will not eat food cooked by other members of his own community, and this is a restriction found only among those of bastard descent, where man is suspicious of his neighbour's parentage. He will not take food from the hands of his own daughter after she is married; as soon as the ceremony is over her belongings are at once removed from the hut, and even the floor beneath the seat of the bride and bridegroom during the marriage ceremony is dug up and the surface earth thrown away to avoid any risk of defilement. Only when it is remembered that these rules are observed by people who do not wash themselves from one week's end to the other, and wear the same wisp of cloth about their loins until it comes to pieces, can the full absurdity of such customs as the above be appreciated. But the tendency appears to be of the same kind as the intense desire for respectability so often noticed among the lower classes in England. The Chindas, whose pedigree is more reliable, are far less particular about their social purity.

Marriage.

As already stated, the exogamous divisions of the Bhunjias are derived from those of the Gonds. Among the Chaukhutias it is considered a great sin if the signs of puberty appear in a girl before she is married, and to avoid this, if no husband has been found for her, they perform a Kând Byâh. or 'Arrow Marriage': the girl walks seven times round an arrow fixed in the ground, and is given away without ceremony to the man who by previous arrangement has brought the arrow. If a girl of the Chinda group goes wrong with an outsider before marriage and becomes pregnant, the matter is hushed up, but she is a Chaukhutia, and it is said that she is finally expelled from the community, the same severe course being adopted even when she is not pregnant, if there is reason to suppose that the offence has been committed. A proposal for marriage among the Chaukhutias is made on the boy's behalf by two men who are known as Mahâlia and Jangâlia, and are supposed to represent a Nai (barber) and Dhímar (water-carrier), though they do not actually belong to these castes. As among the Gonda, the marriage takes place at the bridegroom's village, and the Mahâlia and Jangâlia act as stewards of the ceremony, and are entrusted with the rice, pulse, salt, oil and other provisions, the bridegroom's family having no function in the matter except to pay for them. The provisions are all stored in a separate hut, and when the time for the feast has come they are distributed raw to all the guests, each family of whom cook for themselves. The reason for this is, as already explained, that each one is afraid of losing status by eating with other members of the tribe. The marriage is solemnised by walking round the sacred post, and the ceremony is conducted by a hereditary priest known as Dânwâri, a member of the tribe, whose line it is believed will never become extinct. Among the Chinda Bhunjias the bride goes away with her husband, and in a short time returns with him to her parent's house for a few days, to make an offering to the deities. But the Chaukhutias will not allow her, after she has lived in her father-in-law's house, to return to her home. In future if she goes to visit her parents she must stay outside the house and cook her food separately. Widow-marriage and divorce are permitted, but a husband will often overlook transgressions on the part of his wife and only put her away when her conduct has

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become an open scandal. In such a case he will either quietly leave house and wife and settle alone in another village, or have his wife informed by means of a neighbour that if she does not leave the village he will do so. It is not the custom to bring cases before the tribal committee or to claim damages. A special tie exists between a man and his sister's children. The marriage of a brother's son or daughter to a sister's daughter or son is considered the most suitable. A man will not allow his sister's children to eat the leavings of food on his plate, though his own children may do so. This is a special token of respect to his sister's children. He will not chastise his sister's children, even though they deserve it. And it is considered especially meritorious for a man to pay for the wedding ceremony of his sister's son or daughter.

Religion.

Every third year in the month of Chait (March) the tribe offers a goat and a cocoanut to Mâta, the deity of cholera and smallpox. They bow daily to the sun with folded hands, and believe that he is of special assistance to them in the liquidation of debt, which the Bhunjias consider a primary obligation. When a debt has been paid off they offer a cocoanut to the sun as a mark of gratitude for his assistance. They also pay great reverence to the tortoise. They call the tortoise the footstool (pídha ) of God, and have adopted the Hindu theory that the earth is supported by a tortoise swimming in the midst of the ocean. Professor Tylor explains as follows how this belief arose: [1]"To man in the lower levels of science the earth is a flat plain over which the sky is placed like a dome as the arched upper shell of the tortoise stands upon the flat plate below, and this is why the tortoise is the symbol or representative of the world." It is said that Bhunjia women are never allowed to sit either on a footstool or a bed-cot, because these are considered to be the seats of the deities. They consider it disrespectful to walk across the shadow of any elderly person, or to step over the body of any human being or revered object on the ground. If they do this inadvertently, they apologise to the person or thing. If a man falls from a tree he will offer a chicken to the tree-spirit.

Social Rules.

The tribe will eat pork, but abstain from beef and the flesh of monkeys. Notwithstanding their strictness of social observance, they rank lower than the Gonds, and only the Kamârs will accept food from their hands. A man who has got maggots in a wound is purified by being given to drink water mixed with powdered turmeric, in which silver and copper rings have been dipped. Women are secluded during the menstrual period for as long as eight days, and during this time they may not enter the dwelling-hut nor touch any article belonging to it. The Bhunjias take their food on plates of leaves, and often a whole family will have only one brass vessel, which will be reserved for production on the visit of a guest. But no strangers can be admitted to the house, and a separate hut is kept in the village for their use. Here they are given uncooked grain and pulse, which they prepare for themselves. When the women go out to work they do not leave their babies in the house, but carry them tied up in a small rag under the arm. They have no knowledge of medicine and are too timid to enter a Government dispensary. Their panacea for most diseases is branding the skin with a hot iron, which is employed indifferently for headache, pains in the stomach and rheumatism. Mr. Pyâre Lâl notes that one of his informants had recently been branded for rheumatism on both knees and said that he felt much relief. The Bhunjia also live in Maharashtra where their population is 1940 (1981 census).

Biloch: -Baloch, Biluch. [2] - Identified by Professor Max Müller with the Sanskrit mlechchha, "a foreigner, outcaste, non Aryan." The enumeration at the Census has failed to

[1] Early History of Mankind , p. 341

[2] See Crooke.

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discriminate between two different though probably originally-allied races: the ordinary Biloch and the predatory Biloch or Rind of the Districts of the Upper Duâb. Another theory of the origin of he name is given by Colonel Möckler in a paper published in the Proceedings of the Asiatic Society of Bengal for 1893: "This paper is mainly concerned with the Rind, one of the tribes or clans inhabiting Balochistân. Their name signifies 'a turbulent, reckless, daring man.' They have never acknowledged the authority of any ruler in the country. The claim to be the true Baloch, and assert that they originally came from 'Alaf,' which is supposed by themselves and most other people to be Haleb or Aleppo, in Syria. They say that they are Arabs of the tribe of Quraish, and were driven out from Alaf by Yezid I., for assisting Husain, the martyr nephew of the Prophet Muhammad in 61 Hijrah. It is much more probable that they are the descendants of a certain Al Harith Al Alafi, that is, of Harith of the Alafi tribe, and of the Kahtauic stock of Arabs. He was the father of men, who, according to Tabary, in a blood feud killed an officer who had been appointed by Al Hajjâj, the Governor of Irâq, to take charge of Makran, in 65 Hijrah. They had come from Uman, and the murder took possession of Makran. Subsequently, about 86 Hijrah, they retired before a punitive force of All Hajjâj into Sindh, where their name is conspicuous in the annals of the country for the next 200 years or so. This, and other facts show that the Rinds really are of Arab descent, but that they did not come from Aleppo, but are descended from a man of the Alafi tribe who came from Uman; and that they are not of the Quraish but the Kahtan stock. On account of their undoubted Arab descent, the Rinds are held in very high respect by the other clans of Baluchistân who, therefore, all claim to be related to them, through one Jalâl Khân, an ancestor of the Rinds. With regard to the name Baloch, colonel Möckler suggests its identity with the Gedrosii of the Greeks. He says that the Baloch themselves explain their name by the phrase 'Baloch Badroch' (or Badrosh ). Here bad means 'evil,' and roch or rosh means 'day.' In Pahlavi or Zend qad is synonymous with bad; therefore Badrosh= gadrosh or gadros, whence the Greek Gedrosii. By the interchange of the liquids r and l, badroch would become badloch, out of which the d must naturally drop leaving the Baloch = the Gadrosii, or on the other hand, the proverbial expression (Badroch Baloch) may have been current in the time of the Greeks in the form of Baloch Gadrosh, and the Greeks confused the epithet with the name.

The latter would then be derived from Belus, King of Babylon, a derivation which is adopted by Professor Rawlinson."

The Ordinary Biloch.

Of the ordinary Biloch Mr. Ibbetson writes :[1] "The Biloch presents in many respects a very strong contrast with his neighbour, the Pathân. The political organisation of each is tribal: but while the one yields a very large measure of obedience to a chief who is a sort of limited monarch, the other récognises no authority save that of a council of the tribe. Both have most of the virtues and many of the vices peculiar to a wild and semi-civilized life. To both hospitality is a sacred duty and the safety of the guest inviolable; both look upon the exaction of blood as the first duty of man; both strictly follow a code of honour of their own, though one very different from that of modern Europe; both believe in one God whose name is Allâh, and whose Prophet is Muhammad. But the one attacks his enemy from the front, the other behind; the one is bound by his promise, the other by his interests; in short the Biloch is less turbulent, less treacherous, less blood-thirsty, and less fanatical than the Pathân; he has less of God in his creed, and less of the devil in his nature. His frame is shorter and more spare and wiry than that of his neighbour to the north, though generations of independence have given to him a bold and manly bearing. Frank and open in his manners and without servility, fairly truthful when not corrupted by our looking upon courage as the highest virtue, the true Biloch of the Derajât frontier is one of the pleasantest men we have to deal with in the Panjâb. As a revenue-payer he is not so satisfactory, his want of industry and the pride at which he looks upon manual labour as degrading, making him a poor husbandman.

[1] Panjab Ethnography , 193.

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He is an expert rider; horse-racing is his national amusement, and the Biloch breed of horses is celebrated through-out Northern India. He is a thief by tradition and descent; but he has become much more honest under the civilising influences of our rule.

"His face is long and oval, his features finely cut, and his nose aquiline; he wears his hair long and usually in oily curls, and lets his bread and whiskers grow, and he is very filthy in person, considering cleanliness as a mark of effeminacy. He usually carries a sword, knife and shield, he wears a smock frock reaching to his heels and pleated about the waist, loose drawers and a long cotton scarf: and all these must be as white or as near it as possible, insomuch that he will not enter our army because he would there be obliged to wear a coloured uniform. His wife wears a sheet over her head, a long sort of nightgown reaching to her ankles, and wide drawers; her clothes may be red or white; and she plaits her hair in a long queue. As the true Biloch is nomad in his habits, he does not seclude his women, but he is extremely jealous of female honour. In cases of detected adultery the man is killed, and the woman hangs herself by order. Even on the war trail the women and children of his enemy are safe from him. The Biloch of the Hills lives in huts or temporary camps, and wanders with his herds from place to place. In the plains he has settled in small villages; but the houses are of the poorest possible description. When a male child is born to him, ass's dung in water, symbolical of pertinacity, is dropped from the point of a sword into his mouth before he is given the breast. A tally of lives is kept between the various tribes or families; but when the account grows complicated it can be settled by betrothals, or even by payment of cattle. The rules of inheritance do not follow the Islâmic law, but tend to keep the property in the family by confining succession to agnates. The tribes of the frontier they claim to be Quraishi Arabs by origin, while some hold them to be of Turkomân stock: their customs are said to support the latter theory; their features certainly favour the former."

The Criminal Biloch Of The North-Western Provinces.

In the Muzaffarnagar District they are also known as Rind. "They originally emigrated from the Panjâb; that they are professional thieves of a dangerous character is now well established. They depart on their predatory tours assuming the character of faqírs, physicians, and teachers of he Qurân, and carry on their depredations at great distances as far southward as Ajmere and westward as Lahore. Some few in the Muzaffarnagar District have acquired landed property; but the rest may be said to have no ostensible means of livelihood and to be habitually absent. Their mode of robbery is not by violence, but by picking locks with needles. One thief makes an entry, receiving two-thirds of the property as his share, while his confederate, who sits outside to watch, receives one-third." [1] The same people there called Biloch are found in Ambâla and Karnâl. "During the rainy season the whole country is inundated for months. A more suitable strong-hold for a criminal tribe could not be imagined. They are almost certainly of true Biloch origin, and still give their tribal names as Rind, Lashari, Jatoi, and Korai. But they are by their habits quite distinct from both the land-owing Biloch and the camel-driver who is so commonly called Biloch simply because he is a camel-driver. They are described as coarse-looking men of a dark colour, living in a separate quarter, and with nothing to distinguish them from the scavenger caste except a profusion of stolen ornaments and similar property. They say that their ancestors once lived beyound Kasîr, in the Lahore District, but still keep camels and cultivate a little land as their ostensible occupation; but during a great part of the year they leave the women, who are strictly secluded at home, and wander about disguised as Fakirs or as butchers in search of sheep for sale, extending their excursions to great distances, and apparently to almost all parts of India." [2]

[1] Report, Inspector-General of Police, North-Western Provinces, 1867 page 94 sq.

[2] Ibbetson, loc. cit., para. 583.

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Bind: -Bind, Bin, Bhind, Bindu, a large non-Aryan caste of Behar in Upper India [1], employed in agriculture, earthwork, fishing, hunting, making saltpetre, and collecting indigenous drugs. Traditions current among the caste profess to trace their origin to the Vindhya Hills of Central India; and one of these legends tells how a traveller passing by the foot of the 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. They myth seems to be of a totemistic character, but other traces of totemism are not forthcoming. Another story says that the Binda and Nuniâs were formerly all Binds, and that the present Nuniâs are the descendants of a Bind who consented to dig a grave for a Mahomedan king and was outcasted for doing so. Mr. Sherring treats the Binds as a branch of the Nuniâs; others regard the Nuniâs as a sub-caste of the Binds. The two castes are probably related in some way, but the evidence at present available does not enable us to determine with any approach to certainty which should be considered the parent group. It seems not improbable that the Binds may be a true aboriginal tribe, and the Nuniâs a functional group differentiated by taking to the manufacture of earth-salt. But this is mainly conjecture.

Marriage.

The Binds of Behar are divided into two sub-castes-Khariât and Gondh. These again broken up into the mula or sections shown in the Appendix. The sections go by the male side, and the rule which forbids a man to marry a woman of his own section is supplemented by the standard formula mamerâ, chacherâ, etc., prohibiting intermarriage within certain degrees of collateral relationship. Binds admit both infant and adult-marriage, but the former is deemed more respectable, and all who can afford to do so endeavour to get their daughters married before they attain the age of puberty. Polygamy is permitted, but only to the limited extent that a man may marry a second wife in the event of the first proving barren. A widow is allowed to marry again, by the sagai form, but is expected to marry her deceased husband's younger brother or younger cousin, should such a relative exist. Under no circumstances may she marry her late husband's elder brother or elder cousin. For the rest she is subject to the same table of prohibited degrees that would have regulated her marriage as a virgin. Divorce is not allowed. If a woman goes wrong with a man of another caste, she is summarily turned adrift and becomes a prostitute, turns Mahomedan, or joins some religious sect of dubious morality. Indiscretions within the caste are, however, more leniently dealt with, and may be atoned for by certain modes of penance. In such cases the woman, after having made amends for her offence, returns to her husband. It should be added that the morals of the Bind woman are said to be by no means above reproach.

The marriage ceremony of the Binds presents no features of special interest, and has obviously been modelled in most points on the orthodox Hindu ritual. After the first negotiations have passed between the parents of the bride and bridegroom, the headman (manjan ) and the caste council (panchâyat) are consulted on the important question of prohibited degrees. This being settled, the next step is ghardekhi, an exchange of visits, at which the bridegroom's people see the bride, and vice versâ. In the course of the ghardekhi a date is fixed for tilak, when the bride's relatives come to the bridegroom's house and present to him a rupee, a new cloth, some cooking utensils, some betel leaves and areca-nut, and fix in the presence of the headman and some representatives of the caste council an auspicious date for the celebration of the marriage. The ceremony itself is substantially the same as hat described by Mr. Grierson at pages 362 seq, of Bihâr Peasant Life.

Religion. The religion of the Binds, so far as it is concerned with the greater gods of the Hindu pantheon, is equally wanting in individual character, and differs in no material particulars from the vulgar Hinduism of the lower castes of Behar.

[1] See Risley.

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The external observances of Brahmanism have been copied more of less accurately, while the esoteric doctrine, on which the whole body of symbolism depends, is entirely unknown to the votaries of the popular religion. Brahmans of the Maithil sub-caste preside at the worship of Siva as Bhagavat and of his consort as Jagadamba. Hanumân and the Narsingh avatâr of Vishnu are also held in reverence. But these greater gods are worshipped at comparatively rare intervals, and far greater attention is paid to rural godlings, such as Bandi, Sokhâ and Goraiyâ, to whom goats, boiled rice, cakes, and sweetmeats of various kinds are offered every Wednesday by the men of each household; the offerings being eaten afterwards by the members of the family and the deodi relatives who are connected with the family by reason of their sharing the same domestic worship. On Mondays and Fridays, in the months of Baisakh and Asâr, the earth-god Bhuia is appeased with sacrifices of goats, sheep, and rice boiled in milk. In Srâvan the Pânch Pir receive cakes and rice from the men, women, and children of the caste. Widows, however, may take no part in this rite. Mirâ Sâhib, a Mahomedan saint, and Lukmâyi, a vengeful goddess, who burns men's houses with fire, are also worshipped in due season. Twice a year the entire caste make offerings to Tarturwârâ of achchhat rice, flowers, betel leaves, and sweetmeats, which are afterwards divided among the caste brethren. The kul devatâ, or patron deity of all Binds is Kâsi Bâba, about whom the following story is told: A mysterious epidemic was carrying off the herds on the banks of the Ganges, and the ordinary expiatory sacrifices were ineffectual. One evening a clownish Ahir on going to the river saw a figure rinsing its mouth from time to time and making an unearthly sound with a conch shell. The lout, concluding that this must be the demon causing he epidemic, crept up and clubbed the unsuspecting bather. Kâsí Nâth was the name of the murdered Brahman; and as the cessation of the murrain coincided with his death, the low Hindustani caste have ever since regarded Kâsi Bâba as the maleficent spirit that sends disease among their cattle. Nowadays he is propitiated by the following curious ceremony: as soon as an infectious disease breaks forth, the village cattle are massed together and cotton seed sprinkled over them. The fattest and sleekest animal being singled out is severely beaten with rods. The herd, scared by the noise, scamper off to the nearest shelter, followed by the scape bull; and by this means it is thought the murrain is stayed. In ordinary times the Binds worship Kâsi Bâba in a simper fashion, each man in his own house, by presenting flowers, perfumes, and sweetmeats. The latter, after having done duty before the god, are eaten by his votary. Kâsi Bâba no doubt was a actual person who came by his end, if not exactly as told in the legend, at least in some tragic fashion which led to his being elevated to the rank of a god. In some of the other objects of the rural worship we may perhaps see survivals of the primitive animism which formed the religion of the aborigines of India before their insensible conversion to Brahmanism. Some of the tribal deities were, as we know, promoted to seats in the Hindu pantheon; others, whose position was less prominent and whose hold on the mind of the people was weaker, got thrust into the background as patrons of various rural events.

Occupation.

Some of the Binds in Behar possess occupancy holdings, but for the most part they are non-occupancy raiyats or landless day-labourers paid in cash or kind. Fishing, well-sinking, building mud walls, mat and basket-making, preparing saltpetre, and doing earthwork on roads and tanks, are among their chief occupations. A few of the more enterprising members of the caste have risen to be traders, and visit Bengal during the cold season with boat-loads of wheat, pulse, and gram. Binds, or Râwats as they are commonly addressed, rank socially with Koiris, Gangotas, etc., and have Maithil Brahmans for their priests. In Ghazipur, says Dr. Wise, they are considered a pure caste, and in Shâhâbâd they are employed by Brahmans as water-carriers. Their status, however, in relation to Brahmans as regards water and pakki articles of food seems to vary in different districts. In Champâran and Chota Nagpur, for example, I am informed that Brahmans will take water and sweetmeats from the hands of Bind, while in Shâhâbâd and Gya this appears not to be the case. In view of the fact that Binds freely indulge in spirit-drinking, eat crocodiles and field-rats like the Musahars, and are very fond of pork when they can get it, I think it likely that the rule is for them to be deemed impure.

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Binds in Eastern Bengal.

Scattered colonies of Binds are also found along the great rivers of Central and Eastern Bengal. In Dacca they recognise three subdivisions-Jutaut Binds, Nîn Binds, and Bin. The first is the most aristocratic, while those belonging to the second are degraded from working as palanquin-bearers, manufactures of salt (nîn), diggers, and, it is said, grave-diggers. Representatives of the Bin division are rarely met with, and I am inclined to doubt its existence. These settlers, who are distinguished by the title Chaudhri, lead an irregular life, eating pork and drinking spirits freely. Being debarred by reason of having settled in Bengal from intermarriage with the Binds of Behar and Upper India, they often find it difficult to procure wives from the small expatriated communities along the Padma. Some cultivate the soil, others kill mullet with the harpoon or catch them with sirki screens , like the beruâ. Another occupation is cutting tamarisk (jhâu ) on the sandbanks to the Padma and selling it for fire wood. By Binds, too, are made the best mud brasiers or chîlhâs, used on board all native boats for cooking. Many are cunning sportsmen, and during December and January net great numbers of wild fowl and snipe. After the rice harvest the Binds wander about the country, digging up the stores of rice accumulated by field-rats in their burrows. From four to six pounds of grain are usually found, but even this quantity is sometimes exceeded. It is said that the Binds feast on the rats; but this they deny, explaining that to do so would be to reduce the next year's find of grain. A Dasnâmi Gosâin periodically visits the Dacca Binds, acting as their Guru, while a degraded Kanaujia Brahman officiates as purohit. Many of the Bengali Binds belong to the Panch Piriya sect, others worship Siva, and at the Mahâbalí festival sacrifice ram instead of the usual he-goat. At the Ganga Pîja a swine is offered to Jalka Devi, the popular goddess of the Chamârs. Kârâmat Ali and the Farazí Maulavís have of late years converted many of these outcaste Binds, but the village Muhammadans will not as yet associate with them. These converts are usually styled by the peasantry Chayli, from the Bengali word for the berâ, or fish-trap.

Binds: -They live in the North of India. They are considered a pre-Aryan caste. They work as agricultural casual labour, fishermen and basket-makers.

Bírhâr: -literally means 'Forest-man.' [1] According to Mr. Risley, they are 'a small Draviπian tribe of Chota Nagpur who live in the jungle in tiny huts made of branches of trees and leaves, and out a miserable living by snaring hares and monkeys, and collecting jungle products, especially the bark of the chob creeper (Bauhinia scandens), from which a coarse kind of rope is made. They claim to be of the same race as the Kharwars.' According to information collected for the purpose of this survey, a dialect called Bírhâ r was spoken in Hazaribagh, Ranchi, and Singbhum. Two hundred speakers were also returned from Palamau, but they have since left the district. No estimates of the number of speakers were forwarded from Hazaribagh and Singbhum, and the Census figures for the tribe have, therefore, been taken instead. It was also stated that the dialect was spoken by 500 individuals in the Jashpur State. The specimen forwarded from that State has, however, turned out to be written in Kha riâ, and the Bírhâr dialect of Jashpur will therefore be dealt with in connexion with that form of speech. At the last Census of 1901, some speakers of Bírhâ r were also returned from Manbhum. The numbers are everywhere small.

[1] See Linguistic Survey of India.

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Hazaribagh 717

Ranchi 504

Singbhum 13

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Total 1,234

The corresponding figures at the Census of 1901 were as follows:

Hazaribagh 180

Ranchi 129

Manbhum 44

Singbhum 173

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Total 526

Some few Bírhâ rs are also found in other districts, such as the Sonthal Parganas, but no estimates are available, and their number is unimportant. The dialect of the Bírhâ rs is not the same in all places. In Ranchi it does not differ much from Mundârí; in the Sonthal Parganas it has come under the influence of Santâlí and its sub-dialects. On the whole, however, Bírhâ r is more closely connected with Mundârí than with Santâlí. The tribe has probably been more numerous in former days than it is now, and it is probably only a question of time when the Bírhâ r dialect will cease to exist.

Pronunciation.

The cerebral g is commonly changed to r in the Sonthal Parganas; thus, Har man; órak ', house; dîrîp ', sit. Compare Kârmâlí and Mâhlé.

Inflexional system.

The declension of nouns and pronouns is the same as in Mundârí. The suffix of the dual is kín; thus, âpót-kín, 'two fathers.' The inanimate form of the genitive suffix is sometimes used when the governing noun denotes an animate being, and vice versâ . Thus, míat ' hâ râ -ak ' bâreâ kó râ (hapan-kíntâhi-ken-â-kín , 'one of two male children were.' Note also the suffix riních ' in the list; tímín din-riních ', 'of how many days?' 'how old ?' íñ-riních , (and íñ-iních '), 'my.' It is formed from the locative suffix ré by adding n and ích '. In Santâlí the suffix rinich has got the special meaning of 'wife'; thus, Paªndu-rinich ', Pandu's wife. The conjugation of verbs is mainly the same as in Mundârí. The copula or verb substantive is tan and kan in Ranchi, and kan in the Sonthal Parganas. The present tense of finite verbs is given in the list only; thus, rî-y-atâ-e , he strikes. In the specimen we find forms such as πubâo-até-e , he wasted; mo†râ-atâ-e , he gathered. The suffix is atâ , corresponding to Santâlí aka . The suffix of the past tense is et ', passive en and len . Thus, rî-y-et'-â-ñ , I struck; sén-en-â-ñ , I went; sén-len-â-ñ , I had gone. The corresponding suffixes in the specimen are ed , ad , passive en, ân , and yan . Thus, nam-ed-e-â-e , he found him; his-âd¡¡-kin-â-e , he divided to them; âd-en , lost; ringe-ân-â , a famine arose; khisâo-yan-â-e , he got angry. The suffixes ed and ad correspond to Santâlí et' and at '. Ad is, however, occasionally also used before what we would call a direct object. Thus, nam-ruâ r-ad-e-â-bu , we found him again. In a similar way the suffix ked is sometimes used in cases where we would say that there is an indirect and not a direct object. Thus, kahí-kích'-â-e , he said to him. Other forms of the past tense are kul-tach'-â-e , he sent him; âyum-la ( k ')-é , he herd; torâyâ , he went; chaba-âkad-chí , having finished; mo†hâo-âkan , fatted, and so forth. The negative particle is kâ as in Mundârí.

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Birhor: -In the past they were nomads of the jungle. Now they live in Bihar, Madiya Prodesh, Orissa and West Bengal. See Birhar.

Birhor.: -Birhor, 'wood-man,' a small Dravidian tribe of Chota Nagpur [1], who live in the jungle in tiny huts made of branches of trees and leaves, and eke out a miserable living by snaring hares and monkeys, and collecting jungle products, especially the bark of the chob creeper (Banhinia scandens), from which a coarse kind of rope is made.

Origins

They claim to be of the same race as the Kharwârs, and to come from Khairagarh in the Kaimur hills, but this legend, like similar stories told by the Santâls and Oraons, can hardly be deemed to possess any historical value, and probably refers to a migration of comparatively recent date. A list of the Birhor septs is given in Appendix I. Two at least are totemistic; the others appear to be local or territorial. One of them, Hemrom, is found also among the Santâls, but with them it means a horse, while the Birhors say it is a king of fish.

Marriage.

Primitive as the habits of the Birhors are, they seem to have been to some extent affected by the influence of Hindu ideas. Marriage is a case in point. The free courtship in vogue among the compact Dravidian tribes has fallen into disuse, and parents arrange the marriage of their daughter at an early age. Three rupees is the standard bride-price. The tribe does not employ Brahmans, nor have they any special priests of their own. The marriage ceremony is therefore very simple, its essential and binding portion consisting in the process of drawing blood from the little fingers of the bride and bridegroom and smearing it on each of them. The bride stays two days in her husband's hut, and then goes back to her father's until she is grown up.

Religion.

The Birhor religion is, as might be expected, a mixture of Animism and Hinduism. If questioned on the subject, the Birhors themselves will endeavour in their replies to give prominence to the Hindu elements, and to make themselves out more orthodox than they are, and with singular ingenuity they seek to harmonize the two systems by assigning to Devi the chief place in their Pantheon, and making out the animistic godlings, to borrow Mr. Ibbetson's expressive word, to be her daughters and granddaughters. Thus, according to Colonel Dalton, an oblong piece of wood, painted red, stands, for Mahâ Mâyâ, Devi's daughter; a small piece of white stone daubed with vermilion for her granddaughter, Buria Mâi, and an arrow head for Dudha Mâi, Buriâ's daughter. A trident, painted red, represents Hanumân, who carried out Devi's orders. the minor gods, whose animistic character has not as yet been disguised by any veneer of Hinduism, are Biru Bhut, worshipped in the form of a raised semi-globe of earth, and Darhâ, a Mundâri-Oraon deity, represented by a piece of split bamboo some three feet high, stuck slantwise in the ground. The latter is also known as the sipahi or sentry, a term not uncommonly applied to minor gods of this type, and is supposed to be the immediate guardian of the place. A small round piece of wood about a foot long, with the upper part painted red, is called Banhi, goddess of the jungles. Another similar emblem stands for Sugu, a big hill in the south of the Hazaribagh district. Sets of these symbols are placed on either side of their huts to scare off evil spirits, snakes, tigers, and misfortune generally. When a Birhor dies, his body is burned and the remains thrown, as Birhors say, into the Ganges, but really into any stream that may happen to be handy. For ten days the relatives show their grief by not shaving. On the eleventh they shave and have a feast. Birhors have been accused of eating their dead relations, but the evidence on this point is not convincing, and Colonel Dalton says he has no faith in story.

[1] SeeRisley.

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Bonthuk: -The Bonthuks or Bonthuk Savaras are scattered about the Kistna and Gungîr districts, and lead a nomad life , [1] carrying their small dwelling-huts with them as they shift from place to place. They are called Bonthuk Savaras to distinguish them from the Pothra (stone) Savaras, who dwell further north. By Telugu people they are called Chenchu or Bontha Chenchu, though they have no connection with the Chenchus who inhabit the hills in Kurnool, and other parts of the Telugu country. The Bonthuks, however, like the Chenchus, claim Ahobila Narasimha as their tribal deity. The Bonthuks speak the Oriya language, and they have a Mongoloid type of features, such as are possessed by the Savaras of Ganjam and Vizagapatam. Their house-names, or intipéralu, however, are Telugu. These consititute exogamous septs, and seem to be as follows: Pasupuretti, Simhâdri (the god at Simhachalam near Vizagapatam). Konéti, Dâsaparti, Gédala (buffaloes), Kudumala (cakes), Ákula (leaves), Sunkara, and Tóta (garden). At marriages, individuals of the Pasupuretti sept officiate as priests, and members of the Konéti sept as drummers and musicians. Men belonging to the Gédalu sept are considered as equivalent to shepherds.

The Bonthuks have a very interesting way of naming their children. If a child is born when an official or person of some distinction happens to be near their encampment, it is named after him. Thus such names as Collector, Tahsildar, Kolnol (Colonel), Governor, Innes, Superintendent, and Acharlu (after one Sukracharlu) are met with. Sometimes children are named after a town or village, either because they were born there, or in the performance of a vow to some place of pilgrimage. In this way, such names as Hyderabad, Channapatam (Madras), Bandar (Masulipatam), Nellore, and Tirupati arise. A boy was named Tuyya (parrot), because a parrot was brought into the settlement at the time of his birth. Another child was called Beni because, at its birth, a bamboo flute (beni) was played.

Every settlement is said to have a headman, called Bichâdi, who, in consultation with several elders of the tribe, settles disputes and various affairs affecting the community. If an individual has been fined, and does not accept the punishment, he may appeal to another Bichâdi, who may enhance the fine. Sometimes those who do not agree to abide by the decision of the Bichâdi have to undergo a trial by ordeal, by taking out an areca nut from a pot of boiling cowdung water. The dimensions of the pot, in height and breadth, should not exceed the span of the hand, and the height of the cowdung water in the pot should be that of the middle finger from the base to the tip. If, in removing the nut from the pot, the hand is injured, the guilt of the individual is proved. Before the trial by ordeal, a sum of ten rupees is deposited by both complainant and accused with the Bichâdi, and the person under trial may not live in his dwelling-hut. He lives in a grove or in the forest, watched by two members of the Pasupuretti sept. The Bonthuks are engaged in collecting bamboos, and selling them after straightening them by heating them in the fire. Before the bamboos are placed in carts, for conveyance to the settlement, a goat and fowls are sacrificed to Satyamma, Dodlamma, Muthyalamma, and Pothurâju, who are represented by stones. Girls are married before puberty, and, if a girl happens to be mated only after she has reached maturity, there is no marriage ceremonial. The marriage rites last over five days, on the first of which a brass vessel, with a thread tied round its neck, and containing turmeric water and the oyila takka or tonko (bride's money), is carried in procession to the bride's hut on the head of a married girl belonging to a sept other than those of the contracting couple. She has on her head a hood decorated with little bells, and the vessel is supported on a cloth pad. When the hut is reached, the bride's money is handed over to the Bichâdi, and the tumeric water is poured on the ground.

[1] See Thurston.

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The bride's money is divided between her parents and maternal uncle, the Bichâdi, and the caste men. A pig is purchased, and carried by two men on a pole to the scene of the marriage. The caste people, and the married girl carrying a brass vessel, go round the animal, to the accompaniment of music. The girl, as she goes round, pours water from the vessel on the ground. A thread is tied round the neck of the pig, which is taken to the bridegroom's hut, and cut up into two portions, for the parties of the bridegroom and bride, of which the former is cooked and eaten on the same day. At the homes of the bride and bridegroom, a pandal (booth) and dais are erected. The materials for the former are brought by seven women, and for the latter by nine men. The pandal is usually decorated with mango and Eugenia Arnottiana leaves. After supper, some relations of the contracting couple go to an open space, where the Bichâdi, who has by him two pots and two bashingams (chaplets) of arka (Calotropis gigantea ) flowers, is seated with a few man. The fathers of the bride and bridegroom ask the Bichâdi to give them the bashingams, and this he does after receiving an assurance that the wedding will not be attended by quarrelling. The bride and bridegroom take their seats on the dais at the home of the latter, and the officiating priest ties the bashingams on their foreheads. Nine men and seven women stand near the dais, and a thread is passed round them seven times. This thread is cut up by the priest, and used for the kankanams (wrist threads) of the bride and bridegroom. These are removed at the close of the marriage festivities, on the fifth day.

When a girl attains maturity, she is under pollution for nine days, at the conclusion of which the Bichâdi receives a small present of money from her parents. Her husband, and his agnates (people of his sept) also have to observe pollution, and, on the ninth day, the cooking pots which they have used are thrown away, and they proceed to the Bichâdi, to whom they make a present of money, as they have probably broken the tribal rule that smoking is forbidden when under pollution. On the ninth day, the girl and her husband throw water over each other, and the marriage is consummated.

Death Rites The dead are usually buried, lying on the left side. On the second day, food is offered to crows and Brâhmani kites. On the eleventh day, a mat is spread on the floor of the hut, and covered with a clean sheet, on which balls of food are placed. The dead person is invoked by name, as the various people deposit the food offering. The food is finally put into a winnowing basket, and taken to the bank of a tank (pond). A small hut is made there, and the food is placed therein on two leaves, one of which represents the Yama Dutas (servants of the god of death), the other the deceased.

Bot: -See Bhot

Budubdikids: -They live in Maharashtra. They are religious beggars and fortune-tellers.

Budubudiké: -The Budubudiké or Budubududala [1] are described in the Mysore Census Report as being "gipsy beggars and fortune-tellers from the Marâta country, who pretend to consult birds and reptiles to predict future events. They are found in every district of Mysore, but only in small numbers. They use a small kind of double-headed drum, which is sounded by means of the knotted ends of strings attached to each side of it. The operator turns it deftly and quickly from side to side, when a sharp and weird sound is emitted, having a rude resemblance to the warbling of birds.

[1] See Thurston

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This is done in the mornings, when the charlatan soothsayer pretends to have divined the future fate of the householder by means of the chirping of birds, etc., in the early dawn. They are generally worsippers of Hanumantha." The name Budubudiké is derived from the hour-glass shaped drum, or budbudki.

For the following account of the Budubudukalas, I am indebted to a recent article [1] :- A huge partly-coloured turban, surmounted by a bunch of feathers, a pair of ragged trousers, a loose long coat, which is very often out at the elbows, and a capacious wallet underneath his arm, ordinarily constitute the Budubudukala's dress. Occasionally, if he can afford it, he indulges in the luxury of wearing a tiger or cheetah (leopard) skin, which hangs down his back, and contributes to the dignity of his calling. Add to this an odd assortment of clothes suspended on his left forearm, and the picture is as grotesque as it can be. He is regarded as being able to predict the future of human beings by the flight and notes of birds. His predictions are couched in the chant which he recites. The burden of the chant is invariably stereotyped, and purports to have been gleaned from the warble of the feathered songsters of the forest. It prognosticates peace, plenty and prosperity to the house, the birth of a son to the fair, lotus-eyed house-wife, and worldly advancement to the master, whose virtues are as countless as the stars, and have the power to annihilate his enemies. It also holds out a tempting prospect of coming joy in an unknown shape from an unknown quarter, and concludes with an appeal for a cloth. If the appeal is successful, well and good. If not, the Budubudukala has the patience and perseverance to repeat his visit the next day, the day after that, and so on until, in sheer disgust, the householder parts with a cloth. The drum, which has been referred to above as having given the Budubudukala his name, is not devoid of interest. In appearance it is an instrument of diminutive size, and is shaped like an hour-glass, to the middle of which is attached a string with a knot at the end, which serves as the percutient. Its origin is enveloped in a myth of which the Budubudukala is naturally very proud, for it tells him of his divine descent, and invests his vocation with the halo of sanctity. According to the legend, the primitive Budubudukala who first adorned the face of the earth was a belated product of the world's creation. When he was born or rather evolved, the rest of humankind was already in the field, struggling for existence. Practically the whole scheme was complete, and, in the economy of the universe, the Budubudukala found himself one too many. In this quandary, he appealed to his goddess mother Amba Bhavani, who took pity upon him, and presented him with her husband the god Parameswara's drum with the blessing 'My son, there is nothing else for you but this. Take it and beg, and you will prosper.' Among beggars, the Budubudukala has constituted himself a superior beggar, to whom the handful of rice usually doled out is not acceptable. His demand, in which more often that not he succeeds, is for clothes of any description, good, bad or indifferent, new or old, torn or whole. For, in the plenitude of his wisdom, he has realised that a cloth is a marketable commodity, which, when exchanged for money, fetches more than the handful of rice. The Budubudukala is continually on the move, and regulates his movements according to the seasons of the year. As a rule, he pays his visit to the rural parts after the harvest is gathered, for it is then that the villagers are at their best, and in a position to handsomely remunerate him for his pains. But, in whatever corner of the province he may be, as the Dusserah approaches, he turns his face towards Vellore in the North Arcot district, where the annual festival in honour of the tribal deity Amba Bhavani is celebrated." The insignia of the Budubudiké, as recorded at Conjeeveram, is said [2] to be a pearl-oyster. The Oriya equivalent of Budubudiké is stated [3]to be Dubaduba.

[1] Madras Mail, 1907.

[2] J. S. F. Mackenzie, Ind. Ant., IV, 1875.

[3] Madras Census Report, 1901.

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Bukekari: -See Ateri.

Bukka: -Described [1] , in the Madras Census Report of 1901 as a "sub-caste of Balija. They are sellers of saffron (turmeric), red powder, combs, etc., and are supposed to have been originally Kómatis." They are described by the Rev. J. Cain as travelling about selling turmeric, opium, and other goods. According to the legend, when Kanyakamma threw herself into the fire-pit (see Komâti), they, instead of following her example, presented to her bukka powder, turmeric, and kunkuma. She directed that they should live apart from the faithful Kómatis, and live by the sale of the articles which they offered to her.

Chabel: -See Jabel

Châi: -Châin, Châini. [2] -- A cultivating, fishing, and thieving caste found in Oudh and the Eastern Districts. Nothing certain is known as to the origin of the name. It has been 3 suggested that they are the representatives of the Chârya,[3] a degraded Vaisya class, or that the word is totemistic (meaning the seed of a tamarind; Sanskrit, Chârmika, "leather"). Mr. Risley [4] writes of them: "They are probably an offshoot from some non-Aryan tribe. They are found in Oudh, where Mr. Nesfield connects them with the Thâru, Râji, Nat, and other broken and gypsy-like tribes inhabiting the base of the Himâlayas, and traces in their physiognomy features peculiar to Mongolian races. Mr. Sherring, again, in one place speaks of them as a sub-caste of Mallâhs; in another as a class of jugglers, thimble riggers, and adventurers, who attend fairs and other festivals like men of the same profession in England. A sub-caste of the Nuniyas bears the Name Châin, but the Nuniyas do not admit any affinity. Mr. C.F. Magrath, in his Memorandum on the Tribes and Castes of Bihâr, published in the Bengal Census Report of 1872, says they closely resemble Binds in their occupation, being chiefly boatman, who also engage in fishing. Châins are thickest south of the Ganges, while Binds are most numerous in North Bihâr. Mr. Magrath adds that their reputation as thieves, impostors, and swindlers, is in his experience not altogether deserved, as the men whom the common people, and even the police of Bihâr, describe as Châins, usually turn out on enquiry to be Maghaiya Doms, Nats, or Rajwârs." Their customs, according to Mr. Risley's account, do not differ from those of Mallâhs.

In Oudh, according to Mr. Carnegy, [5] They live chiefly by fishing, cultivation, and making reed mats. They smoke with but do not eat with Mallâhs. They frequent the neighbourhood of lakes and rivers, and are divided into the Eastern and Western branches, which do not intermarry. In January they go to the hills to collect catechu (khair). They worship the monkey-god Mahâbír, Satnârâyan, and Devi Pâtan: to the first they offer rice-milk (khir) in October; to the second a mixture of cooked rice and vetch (urad), called phâra; to the third, cakes (pîri); and new rice, coriander, and molasses to Mahâbír. They eat pork and drink spirits. A woman who sins with one of her own tribe may be absolved by feeding the brethren; but not so if her paramour is of another caste. They are thimble-riggers, ornament-snatchers, swindlers, and impostors. According to Mr. Risley they rank with Binds, Nuniyas, and Pâsis, but nowhere do they rise to the distinction which Binds and Nuniyas sometimes attain, of giving water and certain kinds of sweetmeats to Brâhmans.

[1] See Thurston.

[2] See Crooke. From enquiries at Mirzapur and a note by Bâbu Badri Nâth, Deputy Collector, Kheri.

[3] Manu, Institutes, X, 23.

[4] Tribes and Castes, I, 166.

[5] Notes, 15.

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In Kheri the rule of exogamy bars the line of the maternal uncle and father's sister. They can marry two sisters in succession, but polygamy is forbidden. Infidelity, even intertribal, is reprobated. Marriage takes place at the age of ten or twelve, and is settled by the caste Chaudhari. No money is paid by the relations of either party. Widow-marriage is prohibited; but they can live with a man of the tribe, the phrase used being ghar-baithna. The children of such connections are recognised as legitimate, but they are not admitted to full caste privileges. The levirate on the usual terms is permitted. There is no custom of adoption or initiation into caste. Betrothals are made in infancy, and the marriage ceremony is of the standard type, the bhanwari or walking round the sacred fire being the binding portion of it. They worship Mahâdeva, Sîrajnârâyan, and Kâli, who receive sacrifices of goats and rams on a Monday. They will not take any food or water from, or smoke with, any other caste. They have given up their occupation of mat-making, and now live by fishing and thieving at fairs. In the returns of the last Census they are classed as a subcaste of Mallâh. The Châin is what is known as an Uchakka, Uthaigíra, or Jebkatra: one who picks pockets and cuts with a little knife or sharp piece of glass the knots in their cloths in which natives tie up their valuables. They frequent fairs and bathing places, and the boys are put on to steal, while the men act as "fences" and engage the attention of the victim, or facilitate the escape of the thief.

Chain.: -Chain, Châi, Barchâin, a cultivating and fishing caste of Behar and Central Bengal, [1] probably an offshoot from some non-Aryan tribe. The Châins are found in Oudh, where Mr. Carnegy connects them with Thâru, Raji, Nat, and other broken and gypsy-like tribes inhabiting the base of the Himalayas, and traces in their physiognomy features peculiar to Mongolian races. Mr. Sherring, again, in one place speaks of them as a sub-caste of Mallâhs, in another as a class of 'jugglers, thimble-riggers, and adventurers, who attend fairs and other festivals like men of the same profession in England.' A sub-caste of the Nunias bears the name Chain, but the Nunias do not admit any affinity. Mr. G.F. Magrath, in his Memorandum on the Tribes and Castes of Behar, published in the Bengal Census Report of 1872, says they closely resemble Binds in their occupations, being chiefly boatmen, who also engage in fishing. Châins are thickest south of the Ganges, while Binds are most numerous in North Behar. Mr. Magrath adds that their reputation as thieves, impostors, and swindlers is in his experience not altogether deserved, as the men whom the common people, and even the police of Behar, describe as Châins usually turned out on inquiry to be Maghayâ Doms, Nats, or Rajwârs. The term Châi-panâ, however, is a common expression for stealing among Hindi-speaking natives, while throughout Bengal individuals belonging to the caste are watched with great suspicion.

Internal Structure And Marriage.

The muls or exogamous sections of the Châins in Behar throw no light on the origin of the caste, as with one exception they appear to have been borrowed from the Brahmanical. Châins practise adult as well as infant-marriage, but the latter is considered more respectable. Polygamy is permitted if the first wife is barren, and widows may marry again. Through not compelled to marry her deceased husband's younger brother, it is deemed right and proper for her to do so if such a relative exists. The standard of female morality appears to be lax, and sexual indiscretions are leniently dealt with, provided that they occur within the limit of the caste. If a woman gives rise to scandal by an intrigue with a member of the caste, she may either obtain absolution by giving a feast to the brethren, or her husband may apply to the caste council for a divorce. In the latter case she may marry her lover. For offences outside the circle of the caste, no mode of atonement is appointed; and a woman who goes wrong with a member of either a higher or a lower caste is turned out of the Châin community, and generally becomes a public prostitute.

[1] See Risley

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Religion.

As among other impure castes, a Dasnami Gosain acts as guru, a degraded Maithil Brahman as purohit. In Oudh the Châins worship Mahâbira, the monkey-god, Sat Narâyana, and Devi Pâtan, while they drink spirits and feast on pork. Those whom we find in Behar, like other fisher tribes, are followers of the Pânch Piriya creed, while the Bengal members of the caste worship Koila Bâba. Both freely indulge in spirits whenever a favourable opportunity presents itself.

Social Status And Occupation.

In point of social standing Châins rank with Binds, Nuniâs, and Pasis; but nowhere do they rise to the distinction, which Binds and Nuniâs sometimes attain, of giving water and certain kinds of sweetmeats to Brahmans. In Behar and Central Bengal they are cultivators holding lands as occupancy or, more frequently, non-occupancy raiyats. Others, again, are landless day-labourers or boatmen and fishermen, catching mullet with weirs of sirki mat, as the Binds do. In Oudh and the North-Western Provinces they are cultivators, and prepare khair or catechu. In Eastern Bengal they appear as traders in grain and pulse.

Chamar: -Chamâr, the tanner caste of Behar and Upper India [1] , found also in all parts of Bengal as tanners Châmâr, or Charmakâr. According to the Purânas, the Chamârs are descended from a boatman and a Chandâl woman; but if we are to identify them with the Kârâvara or leather-worker mentioned in the tenth chapter of Manu, the father of the caste was a Nishâda and the mother a Vaideha. The Nishâda, again, is said to be the offspring of a Brâhman and Sîdra mother, and the Vaideha of a Vaisya father and Brâhman mother. In one place, indeed, Mr. Sherring seems to take his mythical genealogy seriously, and argues that the "rigidity and exclusiveness of caste prejudices among the Chamârs are highly favourable to the supposition" that Manu's account of them is the true one, and consequently that the Chamârs being "one-half of Brahmanical, one-fourth of Vaisya, and one-fourth of Sîdra descent," may "hold up their heads boldly in the presence of the superior castes." States in this form, the argument verges on the grotesque; but it appears from other passages that Mr. Sherring was strongly impressed with the high-caste appearance of the Chamâr caste, and thought it possible that in this particular instance the traditional pedigree might contain an element of historical truth-similar testimony to the good looks of the Chamârs in certain parts of India comes to us from the Central Provinces, where they are said to be lighter in colour than the members of other cultivating castes, while some of the men and many of the women are remarkably handsome. In Eastern Bengal, again, Dr. Wise describes the caste as less swarthy that the average Chandâl, and infinitely fairer, with a more delicate and intellectual cast of features than many Srotriya Brâhmans. On the other hand, Sir Henry Elliot, writing of the North-West Provinces, says: "Chamârs are reputed to be a dark race, and a fair Chamâr is said to be as rare an object as a black Brâhman.

Kariâ Brahman ger Chamâr

Inke sâth na vtariye pâr.

-that is, do not cross a river in the same boat with a black Brâhman or a fair Chamâr; both objects being considered of evil omen." Mr. Nesfield thinks the Chamâr "may have sprung out of several different tribes, like the Dom, Kanjar, Habura Cheru, etc., the last remains of whom are still outside the pale of Hindu society. Originally he appears to have been an impressed labourer or begâr, who was made to hold the plough for his master and received in return space for building his mud hovel near the village, a fixed allowance of grain for every working day, the free use of wood and grass on the village lands, and the skins and bodies of all the animals that died. This is very much the status of the Chamâr at the present day.

[1] See Risley.

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He is still the field slave, the grass-cutter, the remover of dead animals, the hide-skinner, and the carrion-eater of the Indian villages." Lastly, it should be observed that Mr. Hewitt, whose report on the settlement of the Râipur district is the locus classicus for the Chamârs of the Central Provinces, clearly regards them as to some extent an exceptional type, and lays stress to the fact that they present the same degraded appearance as their brethren in other parts of India.

Origin

Chamârs trace their own pedigree of Ravi Dâs, the famous disciple of Râmânanda at the end of the fourteenth century, and whenever Chamâr is asked what he is, he replies a Ravi Dâs, Another tradition current among them alleges that their original ancestor was the youngest of four Brâhman brethren who went to bathe in a river and found a cow struggling in a quicksand. They sent the youngest brother in to rescue the animal, but before he could get to the spot it had been drowned. He was compelled therefore by his brothers to remove the carcass, and after he had done this they turned him out of their caste and gave him the name of Chamâr. Looking at the evidence as a whole, and allowing that there are points in it which seem to favour the conjecture that the Chamârs may be in part a degraded section of a higher race, I do not consider these indications clear enough to override the presumption that a caste engaged in a filthy and menial occupation must on the whole have been recruited from among the non-Aryan races. It may be urged, indeed, that the early Aryans were well acquainted with the use of leather, and were free from those prejudices which lead the modern Hindu to condemn the art of the tanner as unclean. The degradation of the Chârmamnâ of Vedic times into the outcaste Chamâr of to-day may thus have been a slow process, carried out gradually as Brahmanical ideas gained strength, and the 'fair Chamâr' whom the proverb warns men to beware of may be simply an instance of reversion to an earlier Aryan type, which at one time formed an appreciable proportion of the caste. All this, however, is pure conjecture, and counts for little in face of the fact that the average Chamâr is hardly distinguishable in point of features, stature, and complexion from the members of those non-Aryan races from whose ranks we should prima facie expect the profession of leather-dresser to be filled. Occasional deviations from this standard type may be due either to liaisons with members of the higher castes or to some cause which cannot now be traced.

Internal structure.

Like all large castes, the Chamârs are broken up into a number of endogamous groups. These are shown in Appendix I, but I am doubtful whether the enumeration is complete. The Dhusiâ sub-caste alone appears to have exogamous divisions of the territorial or local type, while in the other sub-castes marriages are regulated by the usual formula for reckoning prohibited degrees calculated to seven generations in the descending line. Chamârs profess to marry their daughters as infants; but in practice the age at which a girl is married depends mainly upon the ability of her parents to defray the expenses of the wedding, and no social penalty is inflicted upon a man who allows his daughter to grow up unmarried. Polygamy is permitted, and no limit appears to be set to the number of wives a man may have.

Marriage.

Like the Doms, and unlike most other castes, Chamârs forbid the marriage of two sisters to the same husband. In the marriage ceremony an elder of the caste presides, but a Brahman is usually consulted to fix an auspicious day for the event. The father of the bride receives a sum of money for his daughter, but this is usually insufficient to meet the expenses of the wedding. During the marriage service the bridegroom sits on the knee of the bride's father, and the bridegroom's father receives a few ornaments and a cup of spirits, after which each of the guests is offered a cup. No marua or wedding bower is made, but a barber prepares and whitewashes a chauk, within which the couple sit. He also stains the feet of the bride an bridegroom with cotton soaked in lac dye (âlta), and is held responsible that all the relative and friends are invited to the marriage.

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The caste elder, who officiates as priest, binds mango leaves on the wrists of the wedded pair, and chants mantras or mystic verses; while the bridegroom performs sindurdân by smearing vermilion on the bride's forehead and the parting of her hair. This is deemed the valid and binding portion of the ceremony. Widows are permitted to marry again. Usually when an elder brother dies childless the younger brother must marry the widow within a year or eighteen months, unless they mutually agree not to do so, in which ease she returns to her father's house, where she is free to remarry with anyone. If there are children by the first marriage, it is deemed the more incumbent on the widow to marry. T˙e custody of the children, however, remains with their paternal uncle, and the widow forfeits all claim to share in her late husband's estate. On her remarriage the family of her first husband cannot claim any compensation for the bride-price which they paid for her on her marriage. Before a widow marries again her relatives go through the form of consulting the panchâyat, with the object, it is said, of deciding whether the marriage is well-timed or not. Divorce is permitted with the sanction of the panchâyat of the caste. Divorced wives may marry again.

Religion in Bengal.

By far the most interesting features of the Chamâr caste, says Dr. Wise, are their religious and social customs. They have no purohit; their religious ceremonies, like those of the Doms, being directed by one of the elders of the caste. But gurus, who give mantras to children, are found, and a Hindustani Brahman is often consulted regarding a lucky day for a wedding. Chamârs have always exhibited a remarkable dislike to Brahman and Hindu ritual. They nevertheless observe many rites popularly supposed to be of Hindu origin, but which are more probably survivals of the worship paid to the village gods for ages before the Aryan invasion. The large majority of Bengali Chamârs profess the deistic Sri-Nârâyani creed. Sants, or professed devotees, are common among them, and the Mahant of that sect is always regarded as the religious head of the whole tribe. A few Dacca Chamârs belong to the Kabir-Panth, but none have joined any of the Vaishnava sects.

Festivals.

The principal annual festival of the Chamârs is the Srípanchamí, celebrated on the fifth day of the lunar month of Mâgh (January-February), when they abstain from work for two days, spending them in alternate devotion at the Dhâmghar, or conventicle of the Sri-Nârâyani sect, and in intoxication at home. The Dhâmghar is usually a thatched house consisting of one large room with verandahs on all sides. At one end is a raised earthen platform, on which the open Grantha [1] garlanded with flowers is laid, and before this each disciple makes obeisance as he enters. The congregation squats all round the room, the women in one corner, listening to a few musicians chanting religious hymns and smoking tobacco and gânja, indifferent to the heat, smoke, and stench of the crowded room. The Mahant, escorted by the Sants carrying their parwânas or certificates of membership, enters about 1 A.M., when the service begins. It is of the simplest form. The Mahant, after reading a few sentences in Nâgarí, unintelligible to most listeners, receives offerings of money and fruit. The congregation then disperses, but the majority seat themselves in the verandahs and drink spirits. If the physical endurance of the worshippers be not exhausted, similar services are held as held on several successive nights, but the ordinary one only lasts two nights.

On the "Nauamí," or ninth lunar day of Aswin (September-October), the day preceding the Dasharâ, the worship of Deví is observed, and offerings of swine, goats, and spirits made to the dread goddess.

[1] The Grantha or scriptures of the Sri-Nârâyani or siva-Nârâyani sect are believed by them to have existed for eleven hundred and forty-five years, but to have been unintelligible until Sítala, na inspired Sannyâsí, translated it in compliance with a divine command. The translation, consisting of several works in the Devanâgarí character, is the undoubted composition of the Rajput Sivanârâyana of Ghazípîr, who wrote it about A. d. 1735. The most important of these works are the Guru-nyâsa and Sânta-vilâsa. The former, compiled from the Purânas, gives an account of the ten Avatârs of Vishnu, or Narâyana, and is subdivided into fourteen chapters, of which the first six treat of the author, of faith, of the punishment of sinners, of virtue, of a future state, and of discipline. the latter is a treaties on moral sentiments. The opening lines are,-"The love of God, and His knowledge is the only true understanding."

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On this day the old Dravidian system of demonolatry, or Shamanism, is exhibited, when one of their numbers, working himself up into a frenzy, becomes possessed by the demon and reveals the future. The Chamârs place great value on the answers given, and vary few are so contented with their lot in life as not to desire an insight into the future. A few days before the Dasharâ the Châmaíns perambulate the streets, playing and singing, with a pot of water in the left hand, a spring of ním of the right, soliciting alms for the approaching Deví festival. Money or grain must be got by begging, for they believe the worship would be ineffectual if the offerings had to be paid for. Another of their festivals is the Râmanauamí, or birth-day of Râma, held on the ninth lunar day of Chaitra (March-April), when they offer flowers, betel-nut, and sweetmeats to their ancestor, Ravi Dâs. When sickness or epidemic diseases invade their homes, the women fasten a piece of plantain leaf round their necks and go worship Deví, Sítalâ, or Jalka Deví, at a piece of ground marked off and smeared with cowdung. A fire being lighted, and ghí and spirits thrown on it, the worshipper makes obeisance, bowing her forehead to the ground and muttering certain incantations. A swine is then sacrificed, and the bones and offal being buried, the flesh is roasted and eaten, but no one must take home with him any scrap of the victim. Jalka Deví seems identical with the Rakshyâ Kâlí of Bengal villages, and is said to have sisters, who are worshipped on special occasions.

Religion in Behar.

The Chamârs of Behar are more orthodox in matters of religion than their brethren of Eastern Bengal, and appear to conform in the main to the popular Hinduism practised by their neighbours. Some of them indeed have advanced so far in this directions as to employ Maithil Brahmans for the worship of the regular Hindu gods, while others content themselves with priests of their own caste. In the Santâl Parganas such priests go by the name of puri, and the story is that they are Kanaujia Brahmans, who were somehow degraded to be Chamârs, Lokesari, Rakat Mâlâ, Mansarâm, Lâlâ, Kâru Dânâ, Masnâ, Mamiâ, and Jalpait are the special minor gods of the caste, but Bandi, Goraiyâ, and Kâli are also held in reverence. Some hold that Ravi Dâs ranks highest of all, but he seems to be looked upon as a sort of deity, and not as the preacher of a deistic religion. The offerings to all of these gods consist of sheep, goats, milk, fruit, and sweetmeats, of which the members of the household afterwards partake. According to Mr. Nesfield, the caste also worship the râpi, or tanner's knife, at the Diwâli festival. It is a curious circumstance, illustrating the queer reputation borne by the Chamârs, that throughout Hindustan parents frighten naughty children by telling them that Nona Chamâín will carry them off. This redoubtable old witch is said by the Chamârs to have been the mother or grandmother of Raví Dâs; but why she acquired such unenviable notoriety is unknown. In Bengal her name is never heard of, but a domestic bogey haunts each household. In one it is the Burhí, or old woman; in another, Bhîta, a ghost; in a third, Pretní, a witch; and in a fourth, Galâ-Kâfir, literally, the 'infidel with his throat gashed.'

Funerals.

In Behar the dead are burned in the ordinary fashion; and srâddh performed on the tenth or, according to some, the thirteenth day after death. Libations of water (tarpan) and balls of rice (pinda) are offered to the spirit of ancestors in general in the month of Áswin. Sants of the Sri-Nârâyani sect are objects of special reverence, and whenever one dies in a strange place the Sants on the spot subscribe and bury him. The funeral procession is impressive, but very noisy. The corpse, wrapped in a sheet with a roll of cloth wound round the head, is deposited on a covered litter. Red flags flutter from the four corners, and a white cloth acts as a pall. With discordant music the body is carried to the grave, dug in some waste place, where it is laid flat, not sitting as with the Jugis.

Social status.

By virtue if his occupation, his habits, and his traditional descent, the Chamâr stands condemned to rank at the very bottom of the Hindu social system; and even the non-Aryan tribes who have of recent years sought admission into the Hindu communion are speedily promoted over his head.

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His ideas on the subject of diet are in keeping with his degraded position. He eats beef, pork, and fowls, all unclean to the average Hindu, and, like the gypsies of Europe, has no repugnance to cooking the flesh of animals which have died a natural death. Some say that they only eat animals which have died a natural death, but this may be merely a device to avert the suspicion of killing cattle poison, which naturally attaches to people who deal in hides and horns. Despised, however, as he is by all classes of orthodox Hindus, the Chamâr is proud and punctilious on certain special points, never touching the leaving of a Brahman's meal, nor eating anything cooked by a Bengali Brahman, though he has no objection to take food from a Brahman of Hindustan. Chamars are, says Dr. Wise, inconceivably dirty in their habits, and offend others besides the Hindu by their neglect of all sanitary norms. Large droves of pigs are bred by them, and it is no uncommon sight to witness children and pigs wallowing together in the mire. Hides in various stages of preparation hang about their huts, yet, strange to say, the women are very prolific, and, except in a fisher settlement, nowhere are so many healthy-looking children to be seen as in a filthy Chamâr village. Mr. Beames, however, mentions in a note to his edition of Sir Henry Elliot's Glossary that Chamârs, from their dirty habits, are peculiarly liable to leprosy, and that the name of the Kori or Korhi sub-caste probably refers to this fact.

Occupation.

Chamârs are employed in tanning leather, making shoes and saddlery, and grooming horses. In Eastern Bengal the Chamrâ-farosh hire them to preserve hides, but there is such bitter enmity between them and the allied caste to Muchi or Rishí, that they are rarely engaged to skin animals, lest the perquisites of the latter group should seem to have been interfered with. To some extent the distinctions between the various sub-castes seem to be based upon differences of occupation. Thus the Dhusia sub-caste adhere to the original occupation of leather-dressing, and also make shoes and serve as musicians at wedding and other domestic festivities, their favourite instruments being the dhol or drum, the cymbals (jhânjh), the harp (ektâra), and the tambourine (khanjari). Most of these occupations are also followed by the Dhârh, who besides carry palanquins and eat the flesh of animals that have died a natural death, except only the horse. The Guria are cultivators; some few holding occupancy rights, and others being landless day-labourers, who wander about and work for hire at harvest time. The Jaiswâra work as syces; the Dohar are cobblers, using only leather string, and not cotton thread, to mend rents; the Sikhariâ are cultivators and shoemakers; the Chamâr Tanti work as weavers, and will not touch carrion; and the Sârki, many of whom have emigrated from Nepal into Chumparan, are both butchers and hide-dressers. Some Chamârs burn lime, but this occupation has not become the badge of a sub-caste, though those who follow it call themselves Chunihârâ. In Behar the Chamâr is a village functionary like the Chaukidar or Gorait. He holds a small portion of village land, and is invariably called to post up official notices, and to go round with his drum proclaiming public announcements.

Châmar Women

The Chamâíns, or female Châmars, says Dr, Wise, are distinguished throughout Bengal by their huge inelegant anklets (pâírí) and bracelets (bangrí), made of bell-metal. The former often weigh from eight to ten pounds, the latter from two to four, and both closely resemble the corresponding ornaments worn by Santâl women. They also wear the tikli, or spangle, on the forehead, although in Bengal it is regarded as a tawdry ornament of the lowest and most immoral women. Chamâíns consider it a great attraction to have their bodies tattooed; consequently their chests, foreheads, arms, and legs are disfigured with patterns of fantastic shape. In Hindustan the Natní is the great tattooer; but as members of this caste are seldom met with in Eastern Bengal, the Chamâíns are often put to great straits, being frequently obliged to pay a visit to their original homes for the purpose of having the fashionable decoration indelibly stained on their bodies. Chamârs women are ceremonially unclean for ten days subsequent to childbirth, when after bathing, casting away all old cooking utensils, and buying new ones, a feast, called Bârahiya, is celebrated, upon which she resumes her usual household duties.

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They still observe the pleasing custom of Bhâíphotâ on the last day of the Hindu year, when sisters present their brothers with a new suit of clothes and sweetmeats, and make with a paste of red sandal wood a dot on their foreheads; a similar usage, known as Bhrâtrí-dvitíyâ, is practised by Bengalis on the second day after the new moon of Kârtik.

Chamâíns are the midwives of India, and are generally believed, though erroneously, to be skilled in all the mysteries of parturition. The have no scruples about cutting the navel string, as other Hindus have; but in the villages of the interior, where no Chamâíus reside, the females of the Bhîinmâlí, Chandâl, and Ghulâm Kâyath caste act as midwives, and are equally unscrupulous. It is a proverbial saying among Hindus that a household becomes unclean if a Chamâr woman has not attended at the birth of any child belonging to it.

Champa: -Changpa. They live in Jammu Kashmir. Their language belongs to the Bhotia group. They are shepherds. The wool they sell to the government co-operatives is by far the best in the world.

Changars: -Originally they are a vagrant tribe from Jammu. They use to wander near the cities in search of work. They speak their own dialect.

Chapparband: - The Chapparbands [1] are manufacturers of spurious coin, who hail from the Bombay Presidency, and are watched for by the police. It is noted, in the Police Report, 1904, that good work was done in Ganjam in tracing certain gangs of these coiners, and bringing them to justice.

For the following note I am indebted to a report [2] by Mr. H.N.Alexander of the Bombay Police Department. The name Chapparband refers to their calling, chapa meaning an impression or stamp. "Among themselves they are known as Bhadoos, but in Hindustan, and among Thugs and cheats generally, they are known as Khoolsurrya, i.e., false coiners. while in their villages, they cultivate that fields, rear poultry and breed sheep, and the women make quilts which the men sell while on their tours. But the real business of this class is to make and pass off false coin. Laying aside their ordinary Muhammadan dress, they assume the dress and appearance of fakirs of the Muddar section, Muddar being their Pir, and, unaccompanied by their women, wander from village to village. Marathi is their language, and in addition, they have a peculiar slang of their own. Like all people of this class, they are superstitious, and will not proceed on an expedition unless a favourable omen is obtained. The following account is given, showing how the false coin is manufactured. A mould serves only once, a new one being required for every rupee or other coin. It is made of unslaked lime and a kind of yellow earth called shedoo, finely powdered and sifted, and patiently kneaded with water to about the consistency of putty. One of the coins to be imitated is then pressed with some of the preparation, and covered over, and, being cut all round, is placed in some embers. After becoming hardened, it is carefully laid open with a knife, and, the coin being taken out, its impression remains. The upper and lower pieces are then joined together with a kind of gum, and, a small hole being made on one side, molten tin is poured in and thus an imitation of the coin is obtained, and it only remains to rub it over with dirt to give it the appearance of old money. The tin is purchased in any bazaar, and the false money is prepared on the road as the gang travels along. Chapparbands adopt several ways of getting rid of their false coin. They enter shops and make purchases, showing true rupees in the first instance, and substituting false ones at the time of payment.

[1] See Thurston. 2 . Madras Pelice Gazette, 1092.

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They change false rupees for copper money, and also in exchange for good rupees of other currencies. Naturally, they look out for women and simple people, though the manner of passing off the base coin is clever, being done by sleight of hand. The false money is kept in pockets formed within the folds of their langutis (loincloths), and also hidden in the private parts."

The following additional information concerning Chapparbands is contained in the Illustrated Criminal Investigation and Law Digest [1] :--"They travel generally in small gangs, and their women never follow them. They consult omens before leaving their villages. They do not leave their villages dressed as fakirs. They generally visit some place far away from their residence, and there disguise themselves as Madari fakirs, adding Shah to their names. They also add the title Sahib, and imitate the Sawals, a sing-song begging tone of their class. Their leader, Khagda, is implicitly obeyed. He is the treasurer of the gangs, and keeps with him the instruments used in coining, and the necessary metal pieces. But the leader rarely keeps the coins with him. The duty of passing the false coins belongs to the Bhondars. A boy generally accompanies a gang. He is called Handiwal. He acts as a handy chokra (youngster), and also as a watch over the camp when the false coins are being prepared. They generally camp on high ground in close vicinity to water, which serves to receive the false coins and implements, should danger be apprehended. When moving from one camp to another, the Khagda and his chokra travel alone, the former generally riding a small pony. The rest of the gang keep busy passing the coins in the neighbourhood, and eventually join the pair in the pre-arranged place. If the place be found inconvenient for their purpose, another is selected by the Khagda, but sufficient indication is given to the rest that the rendezvous might be found out. This is done by making a mark on the chief pathway leading to the place settled first, at a spot where another pathway leads from it in the direction he is going. The mark consists of a mud heap on the side of the road, a foot in length, six inches in breadth, and six in height, with an arrow mark pointing in the direction taken. The Khagda generally makes three of these marks at intervals of a hundred yards, to avoid the chance of any being effaced. Moulds are made of Multâni or some sticky clay. Gopichandan and badap are also used. The clay, after being powdered and sifted, is mixed with a little water and oil, and well kneaded. The two halves of the mould are then roughly shaped with the hand, and a genuine coin is pressed between them, so as to obtain the obverse on one half and the reverse impression in the other. The whole is then hardened in an extempore oven, and the hole to admit the metal is bored. The halves are then separated, and the genuine rupee is tilted out; the molten alloy of tin or pewter is poured in, and allowed to cool. According to the other method, badap clay brought from their own country is considered the most suitable for the moulds, though Multâni clay may be used when they run out of badap. Two discs are made from clay kneaded with water. These discs are then highly polished on the inner surface with the top of a jvari stalk called danthal. A rupee, slightly oiled, is then placed between the discs, which are firmly pressed over it. The whole is then thoroughly hardened in the fire. The alloy used in these moulds differs from that used in the others, and consists of an alloy of lead and copper. In both cases, the milling is done by hand with a knife or a piece of shell. The Chapperbands select their victims carefully. They seem to be fairly clever judges of persons from their physiognomy. They easily find out the duffer and the gull in both sexes, and take care to avoid persons likely to prove too sharp for them. They give preference to women over men. The most common method is for the Bhondar to show a quantity of copper collected by him in his character of beggar, and ask for silver in its place. The dupe produces a rupee, which he looks at. He then shakes his head sadly, and hands back a counterfeit coin, saying that such coins. are not current in his country, and moves on to try the same trick elsewhere. Their dexterity in changing the rupees is very great, the result of long practice when a Handiwal."

[1] I. No. 4. 1908, Vellore.

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Further information in connection with the Chapparbands has recently been published by Mr. M.Paupa Rao Naidu, from whose account [1] the following extract is taken. "Chapperbands, as their name implies, are by profession builders of roofs, or in a more general term, builders of huts. They are Sheikh Muhammadans, and originally belonged to the Punjab. During the Moghul invasion of the Carnatic, as far back as 1687-88, a large number of them followed the great Moghul army as builders of huts for the men. They appear to have followed the Moghul army to Aurangabad, Ahmednagar, and Seringapatam until the year 1714, when Bijapur passed into the hands of the Peshwas. The Chapperbands then formed part of the Peshwa's army in the same capacity, and remained as such till the advent of the British in the year 1818, when it would appear a majority of them, finding their peculiar profession not much in demand, returned to the north. A part of those who remained behind passed into the Nizam's territory, while a part settled down in the Province of Talikota. A legendary tale, narrated before the Superintendent of Police, Raipur, in 1904, by an intelligent Chapperband, shows that they learnt this art of manufacturing coins during the Moghul period. He said 'In the time of the Moghul Empire, Chapperbands settled in the Bijapur district. At that time, a fakir named Pir Bhai Pir Makhan lived in the same district. One of the Chapperbands went to this fakir, and asked him to intercede with God, in order that Chapperbands might be directed to take up some profession or other. The fakir gave the man a rupee, and asked him to take it to his house quickly, and not to look backwards as he proceeded on his way. As the man ran home, some one called him, and he turned round to see who it was. When he reached his house, found the rupee had turned into a false one. The man returned to the fakir, and complained that the rupee was a false one. The fakir was much enraged at the man's account of having looked back as he ran, but afterwards said that Chapperbands would make a living in future by becoming coiners of false money.' On every Sunday, they collect all their false rupee moulds, and other implements, and, placing these in front of them, they worship Pir Makhan, also called Pir Madar. They sacrifice a fowl to him, take out its eyes and tail, and fix them on three thorns of the trees bâbul, bir, and thalmakana; and, after the worship is over, they throw them in the direction in which they intend to start. The Chapperbands conceal a large number of rupees in the rectum, long misusage often forming a cavity capable of containing ten to twenty rupees. So also cavities are formed in the month below the tongue." In a case recorded by Mr. M.Kennedy,[2] "when a Chapperband was arrested on suspicion, on his person being examined by the Civil Surgeon, no less than seven rupees were found concealed in a cavity in his rectum. The Civil Surgeon was of opinion that it must have taken some considerable time to form such a cavity." A similar case came before the Sessions Judge in South Canara a few years ago.

Chapparbands.: -Many of them tend to refer to Bijapur as their district of origin, but they move all over the Indian country. Originally they are from Punjab. They specialise in the forgery of metals and have criminal inclinations. They also trade forged coins and are, thus, called Fakir coiners.

Charan: -A section of a grop of Bards. They are singers of sacred prayers and hymns. They are known under different names.

[1] Criminal Tribes of India, No III, 1907.

[2] Criminal Classes in the Bombay Presidency.

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Charau: -Charau is the name of a caste analogous to, or identical with, the Bhât [1], following the profession of bards, heralds, and genealogists, and held in like estimation; so that their personal security is considered sufficient for engagements of the most important description, the breach of which involves the death of the guarantor or of some of his family. They also subsist by carrying grain, salt, groceries, and the like.

Chetti: -It is noted [2] in the Census Report of 1891, that "the name Chetti is used both to denote a distinct caste, and also a title, and people bearing this title describe themselves loosely as belonging to the Chetti caste, in the same way as a Vellâla will say that he is a Mudali. This use of Chetti has caused some confusion in the returns, for the sub-divisions

show that many other castes have been included as well as Chetti proper." Again, in the Census Report of 1901, it is recorded that "Chetti means trader, and is one of those titular or occupational terms, which are often loosely employed as caste names. The weavers, oilpressers, and others use it as a title, and many more tack it on to their names, to denote that trade is their occupation. Strictly employed, it is nevertheless the name of a true caste." The Chettis are so numerous, and so widely distributed, that their many subdivisions differ verygreatly in their ways. The best known of them are the Béri Chettis and the Nagarattu Chettis. Of these, the Béri and Nâttukóttai Chettis are dealt with in special articles. The following divisions of Chettis, inhabiting the Madura district, are recorded in my notes:-

(a) Men with head clean-shaven:-

Ilavagai or Karnakudi. Thedakóttai.

Sundaraththan. Periyakóttai-vellân.

Ariyîr. Puliyangudi.

Malampatti. Vallam or Tiruvappîr.

Pâlayapattu. Kurungalîr.

(b) Men with kudumi (hair knot):-

Puvaththukudi or Mannagudi. Mârayakkâra.

Kiramangalam. Pandukudi or Manjapaththu.

Vallanâttu.

Of these, the Puvaththukudi Chettis, who receive their name from a village in the Tanjore district, are mostly itinerant petty traders and money-lenders, who travel about the country. They carry on their shoulders a bag containing their personal effects, except when they are cooking and sleeping. I am informed that the Puvaththukudi women engage women, presumably with a flow of appropriate language ready for the occasion, to abuse those with whom they have a quarrel. Among the Puvaththukudi Chettis, marriages are, for reasons of economy, only celebrated at intervals of many years. Concerning this custom, a member of the community writes to me as follows. "In our village, marriages are performed only once in ten or fifteen years. My own marriage was celebrated in the year Nandana (1892-93). Then seventy or eighty marriages took place. Since that time, marriages have only taken place in the present year (1906). The god at Avadaiyar kóvil (temple) is our caste god. For marriages, we must receive from that temple garlands, sandal, and palanquins. We pay to the temple thirty-five rupees for every bridegroom through our Nagaraththar (village headmen). The expenses incurred in connection with the employment of washermen, barbers, nâgasaram (musical instrument) players, talayâris, (watchmen), carpenters, potters, blacksmiths, gurukkals (priests), and garland-makers, are borne collectively and shared by the families in which marriages are to take place." Another Chetti writes that this system of Puvaththukudi and Mannagudi, and that the marriages of all girls of about seven years of age and upwards are celebrated. The marriages are performed in batches, and the marriage season lasts over several months.

[1] See Risley.

[2] See Thurston

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Palayasengadam in the Trichinopoly district is the head-quarters of a section of the Chettis called the Pannirendâm (twelfth) Chettis. "These are supposed to be descended from eleven youths who escaped long ago from Kâvéripatnam, a ruined city in Tanjore. A Chola king, says the legend, wanted to marry a Chetti; whereupon the caste set fire to the town, and only these eleven boys escaped. They rested on the Ratnagiri hill to divide their property; but however they arranged it, it always divided itself into twelve shares instead of eleven. The god of Ratnagiri then appeared, and asked them to give him one share in exchange for a part of his litter. They did so, and they now call themselves the twelfth Chettis from the number of the shares, and at their marriages they carry the bridegroom round in a litter. They are said to be common in Coimbatore district." [1]

At the census, 1871, some of the less fortunate traders themselves as "bankrupt Chettis." The following castes and tribes are recorded as having assumed the title Chetti, or its equivalent Setti:

Balija. Telugu trading caste.

Bant. Tulu cultivating caste.

Bilimagga, Dévânga, Patnîlkârân, Sâliyan, Sédan, Seniyan. All weaving classes.

Dhóbi. Oriya washermen.

Gâniga. Oil pressers.

Gamalla. Telugu toddy-drawers.

Gauda. Canarese cultivators.

Gudigar. Canarese wood-carvers.

Jain.

Janappan. Said to have been originally a section of the Balijas, and manufactures of gunny-bags.

Kavarai. Tamil equivalent of Balija.

Kómati. Telugu traders.

Koracha. A nomad tribe.

Kudumi. A Travancore caste, which does service in the houses of Konkani Brâhmans.

Mandâdan Chetti.

Médara. Telugu become splitters and mat makers.

Nâyar. Occupational title of some Nâyars of Malabar.

Pattanavan. Tamil fishermen.

Pattapu. Fishermen in the Telugu country.

Sénaikkudaiyân. Tamil betel-vine growers of the Tamil country.

Sonar. Goldmiths.

Toreya. Canarese fishermen.

Uppiliyan. Salt-workers. Some style themselves Karpura (camphor) Chetti, because they used to manufacture camphor.

Vâniyan. Tamil oil-pressers.

Wynaadan Chetti.

Of proverbs relating to Chettis, [2] the following may be quoted:

He who thinks before he acts is a Chetti, but he who acts without thinking is a fool.

When the Chetti dies, his affairs will become public.

She keeps house like a merchant caste woman, i.e., economically.

Though ruined, a Chetti is a Chetti, and, though torn, silk is still silk.

The Chetti reduced the amount of advance, and the weaver the quantity of silk in the border of the cloth.

From his birth a Chetti is at enmity with agriculture.

[1] Gazetteer of the Trichinopoly district.

[2] Rev. h. Jensen, Classified Collection or Tamil proverbs, 1897.

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In a note on secret trade languages Mr. C. Hayavadana Rao writes as follows:[1] "The most interesting of these, perhaps, is that spoken by petty shopkeepers and cloth merchants of Madras, who are mostly Moodellys and Chettis by caste. Their business mostly consists in ready-money transactions, and so we find that they have a regular table of numerals. Numbers one to ten have been given definite names, and they have been so long in use that most of them do not understand the meaning of the terms they use. Thus madi (mind) stands for one, mind being always represented in the Hindu shastras as a single thing. Vené (act or deed) stands for two, for vené is of two kinds only, nalvené and thivené or good and bad acts. Konam (quality) stands for three, since three different sorts of qualities are recognised in Hindu metaphysics. These are râjasam, thâmasam, and sâthmíkam. Shuruthi stands for four, for the Srutis or Védas are four in numbers. Sara (arrow) stands for five, after Panchasara, the five-arrowed, a well known name of Manmatha, the Indian Cupid. Matha represents six, after the shan mathams or six systems of Hindu philosophy. Théré stands for seven, after the seven oceans recognised by the Sanskrit geographers. Giri (mountain) represents eight, since it stands for ashtagiri or the eight mountains of the Hindus. Mani stands for nine, after navamani, the nine different sorts of precious stones recognised by the Hindus. Thisai represents ten, from the ten points of the compass. The common name for rupee is vellé or the white thing. Thangâm vellé stands for half a rupee, pinji vellé for a quarter of a rupee, and pî vellé for an eighth of a rupee. A fanam (or 1²/₄ annas) is known as shulai. The 4 principal objects with which those who use this language have to deal with are padi or measure, vellé or rupee, and madi anâ, one anna, so that madi padi means one measure, madi vellé one rupee, and madi anâ, one anna. Similarly with the rest of the numerals. The merchants of Trichinopoly have nearly the same table of numerals, but the names for the fractions of a rupee vary considerably. Mîndri anâ is, with them, one anna; é anâ is two annas; pî anâ is four annas; pani anâ is eight annas and mîna anâ is twelve annas. Among them also vellé stands for a rupee. They have besides another table of numerals in use, which is curious as being formed by certain letters of the Tamil alphabet. Thus pína stands for one, lâna for two, laina for three, yâna for four, lína for five, mâna for six, vâna for seven, nâna for eight, thína for nine, and thuna for ten. These letters have been strung into the mnemonic phrase Pillayalam Vanthathu, which literally means 'the children have come.' This table is also used in connection with measures, rupees, and annas. Dealers in coarse country-made cloths all over Madras and the Chingleput district have a table of their own. It is a very complete one from one pie to a thousand rupees. Occasionally Hindu merchants are found using a secret language based on Hindustani. This is the case in one part of Madras city. With them pâv khâné stands for one anna, ada khâné for two annas, pâvak ruppé for one rupee, and so on. Brokers have terms of their own. The Tamil phrase padiya par, when used by them, means ask less or say less, according to how it is addressed to the purchaser or seller. Similarly, mudukka par means ask a higher price. When a broker says Sivan thâmtram, it is to be inferred that the price given out by the seller includes his own brokerage. Telugu brokers have similar terms. Among them, the phrase Malasu vakkâdu and Nâsi vakkâdu respectively increase the rate, and decrease the rate stated."

Chisaris: -They are blacksmiths using their own technology which is quite superior to the technology of village blacksmiths. They move around Punjab, Gujarat and Karnataka. Their language is kin to Gujarati.

[1] Madras Mail, 1904.

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Chitrakathi.: -Hardas [1] - A small caste of religious mendicants and picture showmen in the Marâtha Districts. In 1901 they numbered 200 persons in the Central Provinces and 1500 in Berâr, being principally found in the Amraoti District. The name, Mr. Enthover writes [2] is derived from chitra, a picture, an katha, a story, and the professional occupation of the caste is to travel about exhibiting pictures of heroes and gods, and telling stories about them. The community is probably of mixed functional origin, for in Bombay them have exogamous section-names taken from those of the Marâthas, as Jâdhow, More, Powâr and so on, while in the Central Provinces and Berâr an entirely different set is found. Here several sections appear to be named after certain offices held or functions performed by their members at the caste feasts. Thus the Atak section are the caste headmen; the Mânkari appear to be sort of substitute for the Atak or their grand viziers, the word Mânkar being primarily a title applied to Marâtha noblemen, who held an official position at court, the Bhojin section serve the food at marriage and other ceremonies; the Kâkra arrange for the lighting; the Kothârya are store-keepers; and the Ghoderao (from ghoda, a horse) have the duty of looking after the horses and bullock-carts of the castemen who assemble. The Chitrakathis are really no doubt the same caste as the Chitâris or Chitrakârs (painters) of the Central Provinces, and like them, a branch of the Mochis (tanners), and originally derived from the Chamârs. But as the Berâr Chitrakathis are migratory instead of settled, and in other respects differ from the Chitâris, they are treated in a separate article. Marriage within the section is forbidden, and, besides this, members of the Atak and Mânkari sections cannot intermarry as they are considered to be related, being divisions of one original section. The social customs of the caste resemble those of the Kunbis, but they bury their dead in a sitting posture, with the face to the east, and on the eighth day erect a platform over the grave. At the festival of Akhatíj (3rd of light Baisâkh) [3] they worship a vessel of water in honour of their dead ancestors, and in Kunwâr (September) they offer oblations to them. Though not impure, the caste occupy a low social position, and are said to prostitute their married women and tolerate sexual licence on the part of unmarried girls. Mr. kitts [4] describes them as "Wandering mendicants, sometimes suspected of associating with Kaikâris for purposes of crime; but they seem nevertheless to be a comparatively harmless people. They travel about in little huts like those used by the Waddars; the men occasionally sell buffaloes and milk; the women beg, singing and accompanying themselves on the thâli. The old men also beg, carrying a flag in their hand, and shouting the name of their god, Hari Vithal (from Which they derive their name of Hardâs). They are fond of spirits and, when drunk, become troublesome." The thâli or plate on which their women play is also known as sarthâda, and consists of a small brass dish coated with wax in the centre; this is held on the thigh and a pointed stick is move in a circle so as to produce a droning sound. The men sometimes paint their own pictures, and in Bombay they have a caste rule that every Chitrakathi must have in his house a complete set of sacred pictures; this usually includes forty representations of Râma's life, thirty-five of that of the soons of Arjun, forty of the Pândavas, forty of Síta and Râwan, and forty of Harishchandra. The men also have sets of puppets representing the above and other deities, and enact scenes with them like a Punch and Judy show, sometimes aided by ventriloquism.

[1] See Russell. This article is partly based on a paper by Mr. Bijai Bahadur, Naib Tahsíldâr, Bâlâghât

[2] Bombay Ethnographic Survey, draft article on Chitrakathi.

[3] May- June, The Akhatíj is the beginning of the agricultural year.

[4] Berâr Census Report (1881), paragraph 206. The passage is slightly altered and abridged in reproduction.

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Chitrakathi: -It is a group similar to the Bhopa. They mainly perform in Maharashtra.

Chunaris: - They are a sub-section of the Binds. See Binds.

Chunkar: -See Od.

Cutchi: -Meman, Kachhi Muamim.[1] - A class of Muhammadan merchants who come every year from Gujarât and Cutch to trade in the towns of the Central Provinces, where they reside for eight months, returning to their houses during the four months of the rainy season. In 1911 they numbered about 2000 persons, of whom five-sixths were men, this fact indicating the temporary nature of their settlements. Nevertheless, a large proportion of the trade of the Province is in their hands. The caste is fully and excellently described by Khân Bahâdur Fazalullah Lutfullah Farídi, Assistant collector of Customs, Bombay, in the Bombay, Gazetteer.[2] He remarks of them: "As shopkeepers and miscellaneous dealers Cutchis are considered to be the most successful of Muhammadans. They owe their success in commerce to their freedom from display and their close and personal attention to and keen interest in business. The richest Meman merchant does not disdain to do what Pârsi in his position would leave to his clerks. Their hope and courage are also excellent endowments. They engage without fear in any promising new branch of trade and are daring in their ventures, a trait partly inherited from their Lohâna ancestors, and partly due to their faith in the luck which the favour of their saints secures them." Another great advantage arises form their method of trading in small corporations or companies of a number of persons either relations or friends. Some of these will have shops in the great centres of trade, Bombay and Calcutta, and others in different places in the interior. Each member then acts as correspondent and agent for all the others, and puts what business he can in their way. Many are also employed as assistants and servants in the shops; but at the end of the season, when all return to their native Gujarât, the profits from the different shops are pooled and divided among the members in varying proportion. By this method they obtain all the advantages which are recognised as attaching to co-operative trading.

According to Mr. Farídi, from whose description the remainder of this article is mainly taken, the Memans or more correctly Muamins or 'Believers' are converts from the Hindu caste of Lohânas of Sind. They venerate especially Maulâna Abdul Kâdir Gílâni who died at Baghdâd in A.D. 1165. His sixth descendant, Syed Yîsufuddín Kordiri, was in 1421 instructed in a dream to proceed to Sind and guide its people into the way of Islâm. On his arrival he was received with honour by the local king, who was converted, and the ruler's example was followed by one Mânikji, the head of one of the nukhs or clans of the Lohâna community. He with his three sons and seven hundred families of the caste embraced Islâm, and on their conversion the title of Muamin or 'Believer' was conferred on them by the saint. It may be noted that Colonel Tod derives the Lohânas from the Râjpîrs, remarking of them:[3] "This tribe is numerous both in Dhât and Talpîra; formerly they were Râjpîts, but betaking themselves to commerce have fallen into the third class. They are scribes and shopkeepers, and object to no occupation that will bring a subsistence; and as to food, to use the expressive idiom of this region where hunger spurns at law, 'Excepting their cats and their cows they will eat anything." In his account of Sind, Postans says of the Lohânas: "The Hindu merchants and bankers have agents in the most remote parts of Central Asia and could negotiate bills upon Candahâr, Khelât, Câbul, Khiva, Herât, Bokhâra or any other parts of that country.

[1] See Russell.

[2] Vol. ix. part. ii. Muhammadans of Gujarât, p. 57.

[3] Râjasthân. ii. p. 292.

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These agents, in the pursuit of their calling, leave Sind for many years, quitting their families to locate themselves among the most savage and intolerant tribes." This account could equally apply to the Khatris, who also travel over Central Asia, as shown in the article on that caste; and if, as seems not improbable, the Lohânas and Khatris are connected, the hypothesis that the former, like the latter, are derived from Râjpîts would receive some support.

The present Pír, or head of the community, is Sayyid Jâfir Shâh, who is nineteenth in descent from Yîsufuddíd and lives partly in Bombay and partly in Mundra of South Cutch. "At an uncertain date," Mr. Farídi continues, "the Lohâna or Cutchi Memans passed from Cutch south through Kâthiâwâr to Gujarât. They are said to have been strong and wealthy in Surat during the period of its prosperity (1580-1680). As Surat sank the Cutchi Memans moved to Bombay. outside Cutch and Kâthiâwâr, which may be considered their homes, the Memans are scattered over the cities of north and south Gujarât and other Districts of Bombay. Beyond that Presidency they have spread as traders and merchants and formed settlements in Calcutta, Madras, the Malabar Coast, South Burma, Siam, Singapore and Java; in the ports of the Arabian Peninsula, except Muscat, where they have been ousted by the Khojas; in Mozambique, Zanzibar and the East African Coast." [1]They have two divisions in Bombay, known as Cutchi or Kachhi and Halai.

Cutchis and Memans retain some non-Muhammadan usages. The principal of these is that they do not allow their daughters and widows to inherit according to the rule of Muhammadan law.[2] They conduct their weddings by the Nikâh form and the mehar or dowry is always the same sum of a hundred and twenty-five rupees, whatever may be the position of the parties and in the case of widows also. They say that either party may be divorced by the other for conjugal infidelity, but the mehar or dowry must always be paid to the wife in the case of a divorce. The caste eat flesh and fowls and abstain from liquor. Most of them also decline to eat beef as a consequence of their Hindu ancestry, and they will not take food from Hindus of low caste.

Dafalis: -They exorcise evil spirits with music. They live in North India. See Nagarchis.

Dakots: - They are a begging caste of Rajasthan.

Dandasis: In the past robbery, probably, was their main occupation. They have many stories of gods and goddesses to explain their name. But in fact Danda means a %man with a stick’ and normally thieves move around with sticks. They live in Orissa and other regions.

[1] Bombay Gazetteer, l.c.

[2] In recording this point Mr. Rarídi gives the following note: "In 1847 a case occurred which shows how firmly the Memans cling to their original tribal customs. The widow of Hâji Nîr Muhammad of the Lakariya family demanded a share of her deceased husband's property according to Muhammadan law. The jamâ-at or community decided that a widow had no claim to share her husband's estates under the Hindu law. Before the High Court, in spite of the ridicule of other Sunnis, the elders of the Cutchi Memans declared that their cast rules denied the widow's claim, The matter caused and is still (1896) causing agitation, as the doctors of the Sunni law at Mecca have decided that as the law of inheritance is laid down by the holy Korân, a wilful departure from it is little short of apostasy. The Memans are contemplating a change, but so far they have not found themselves able to depart from their tribal practices."

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Darveshis: - A wandering group. They put up shows with bears and tigers. They are Sunni Muslim.

Dâsari: - "Dâsari to Tâdan," [1] Mr. H.A. Stuart writes,[2] "is a mendicant caste of Vaishnavas, the reputed descendants of a wealthy Sîdra of one of the northern districts, who, being devoid of offspring, vowed that, should he be blessed with children, he would devote one to the service of his god. He subsequently had many sons, one of whom he named Dâsan(servant), and placed entirely at the service of the deity. Dâsan forfeited all claim to participate in his father's estate, and his offspring are therefore all beggars.

"The caste, like that of the Sâtânis, is reinforced by idle members of the lower Sîdra classes, who, being branded by the gurus of Tirupati and other shrines, become Dâsaris thereby. They usually wander about, singing hymns to a monotonous accompaniment upon a leather instrument called tappai (tabret). Some Sîdra castes engage them thus to chant in front of the corpse at funerals, and many, accompanying bands of pilgrims travelling to Tirupati, stimulate their religious excitement by singing sacred songs. A few, called Yerudândis, (q.v.) take possession of young bulls that have been devoted to a swâmi, and teach them to perform tricks very cleverly. The bulls appear to understand what is said to them, and go through various antics at the word of command. Some Dâsaris exhibit what is called the Panda Sérvai performance, which consists in affecting to be possessed by the spirit of the deity, and beating themselves all over the body with a flaming torch, after covering it probably with some protecting substance. In such modes do they wander about and receive alms, each wearing as a distinction a garland of beads made of tulasi (Ocimum sanctum) wood. Every Dâsari is a Tengalai. They have six sub-divisions, called Balija, Janappa, Palli, Valluva, Gangeddula, and Golla Dâsaris, which neither eat together nor intermarry. As these are the names of existing and distinct castes, it is probable that the Dâsaris were formerly members of those classes, who, through their vagabond tastes, have taken to a mendicant life. Beyond prohibiting widow remarriage, they have no social restrictions."

Concerning the mendicants of Anantapur, Mr. W. Francis [3] writes that "the beggars who are most in evidence are the Dâsaris. This community is recruited from several castes, such as the Kâpus, Balijas, Kurubas, Bóyas, and Mâlas, and members of it who belong to the last two of these(which are low in the social scale) are not allowed to dine with the others. All Dâsaris are Vaishnavites, and admission to the community is obtained by being branded by some Vaishnavite guru. Thence-forward the novice becomes a Dâsari, and lives by begging from door to door. The profession is almost hereditary in some families. The five insignia of a Dâsari are the conch shell, which he blows to announce his arrival; the gong which he strikes as he goes his round; the tall iron lamp (with a cocoanut to hold the oil for replenishing it) which he keeps lighted as he begs; the brass or copper vessel (sometimes with the nâmam painted on it) suspended from his shoulder, in which he places the alms received; and the small metal image of Hanumân, which he hangs round his neck. Of these, the iron lamp is at once the most conspicuous and the most indispensable. Is said to represent Venkatésa, and it must be burning, as an unlighted lamp is inauspicious. Dâsaris also subsist by doing pîja (worship) at ceremonial and festival occasions for certain of the Hindu castes. "In the Kurnool district, when a girl is dedicated as a Basavi (dedicated prostitute), she is not, as in some other parts of the country, married to an idol, but tied by means of a garland of flowers to the tall standard lamp (garudakambham) of a Dâsari, and released by the man who is to receive her first favours, or by her maternal uncle."

[1] See Thurston.

[2] Manual of the North Arcot district.

[3] Gazetteer of the Anantapur district.

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The Dâsaris in Mysore are described in the Mysore Census Report of 1901, as "mendicants belonging to different classes of Sîdras. They become Dâsas or servants dedicated to the God at Tirupati by virtue of a peculiar vow, made either by themselves or their relatives, at some moment of anxiety or danger, and live by begging in His name. Dâsaris are always Vaishnavites, as the vows are taken only by those castes which are worshippers of that deity. Dâsaris are invited by Sîdras on ceremonial days, and feasted. Properly speaking, Dâsari is not a caste, but simply an occupational division. Among certain castes, the custom of taking a vow to become a Dâsari prevails. In fulfilment of that vow the person becomes a Dâsari, and his eldest son is bound to follow suit, the others taking to other walks of life. The following castes take the vow of becoming Dâsari: Telugu Banajiga, Holeya, Tigala, and Vakkaliga. The duty of a Dâsari requires that he should daily bathe his head, and take care that, while eating with the profane, their victuals do not get mixed with his. Every Saturday, after bathing and praying for some hours, he must cook his own food in a clean pot. They go about the streets singing some Hari Keerthanams, with a gong and conch to relieve the dull monotony of their mumblings." 1

Concerning the synonym Tâdan, this is stated [1] to be "a corruption of the Sanskrit dâsa which, with the Tamil termination an, stands for dâsan. The word is often used in this form, but often as Dâsari. The word is applied to Vaishnava mendicants. They go out every morning, begging for alms of uncooked rice, and singing ballads or hymns. They play on a small drum with their fingers, and often carry a conch shell, which they blow. They are given to drinking." In the Nellore Manual, the Dâsrivandlu are summed up as scissor-theft." The mendicant Dâsaris, who are dealt with in the present note, are stated by Mr. S. M. Natesa Sastri [2] to be called Gudi Dâsari, as the gudi or temple is their home and to be a set of quiet, innocent and simple people, leading a most idle and stupid life. "Quite opposed." he adds, "to the Gudi Dâsaris in every way are the Donga Dâsaris or thieving Dâsaris. They are the most dreaded of the criminal classes in the Bellary district. These Donga Dâsaris are only Dâsaris in name." (See Donga Dâsari)

Some Dâsaris are servants under Vaishnave Brâhmans, who act as gurus to various castes. It is their duty to act as messengers to the guru, and carry the news of his arrival to his disciples. At the time of worship, and when the guru approaches a village, the Dâsari has to blow a long brass trumpet (târai). As the Brâhman may not approach or touch his Paraiyan disciples, it is the Dâsari who gives them the holy water (thirtham). When a Paraiyan is to be branded, the Brâhman heats the instruments bearing the devices of the chank and chakaram, and hands them to the Dâsari, who performs the operation of branding. For councils, settlement of marriage, and the decision of other social matters, the Dâsaris meet, at times of festivals, at well-known places such as Tirutani, Tirupati or Tiruvallîr.

At the annual festival at the temple at Kâramadi in the Coimbatore district, which is visited by very large numbers, belonging for the most part to the lower orders, various vows are fulfilled. These include the giving of kavalam to Dâsaris. Kavalam consists of plantain fruits cut up into small slices, and mixed with sugar, jaggery (crude sugar), fried grain, or beaten rice. The Dâsaris are attached to the temple, and wear short drawers, with strings of small brass bells tied to their wrists and ankles. They appear to be possessed, and move wildly about to the beating of drums. As they go about, the devotee puts some of the kavalam into their mouths. The Dâsaris eat a little, and spit out the remainder into the hands of the devotees, who eat it. This is believed to cure all diseases, and to give children to those who partake of it. In addition to kavalam, some put betel leaves into the mouths of the Dâsaris, who, after chewing them, spit them into the mouths of the Devotees. At night the Dâsaris carry large torches made of rags, on which the devotees pour ghí (clarified butter).

[1] Manual of the Tanjore district.

[2] Calcutta Review, 1905.

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Some say that, many years ago, barren women used to take a vow to visit temple at the festival time, and, after offering kavalam, have sexual intercourse with the Dâsaris. The temple authorities, however, profess ignorance of this practice.

When proceeding on a pilgrimage to the temple of Subramanya Swâmi at Palni, some devotees pierce their cheeks with a long silver skewer, which traverses the mouth cavity; pierce the tongue with a silver arrow, which is protruded vertically through the protruded organ; and place a silver shield (mouth-lock) in front of the mouth. Some Dâsaris have permanent holes in their cheeks, into which they insert skewers when they go about the country in pursuit of their profession.

For the following note on Dâsaris in the Vizagapatam district, I am indebted to Mr. C. Hayavadana Rao. The caste is an endogamous unit, the members calling themselves Sankhu (or conch-blowing) Dâsaris, and is divided into numerous exogamous septs. The ménarikam custom, according to which a man should marry his maternal uncle's daughter, is followed. The remarriage of widows is permitted, but divorce is forbidden. The dead are cremated, and the chinna (small day) and pedda rózu (big day) death ceremonies are observed. These Dâsaris profess the Tengalai form of Vaishnavism, and get themselves branded. The caste is more secular, and less religious than in the southern districts. A Dâsaris of the North Arcot or Anantapur type, with conch-shell, metal going, iron lamp, copper vessel, and metal image of Hanumân on his neck, is scarcely met with. The Vizagapatam Dâsaris are the most popular among ballad-singers, and sing songs about heroes and heroines, of which the following are the most appreciated:-

1. Bobbilipâta, which describes the siege and conquest of Bobbili by Bussy in 1757.

2. Ammi Nâyudupâta, which describes the tyrannical behaviour of one Ammi Nâyudu, a village headman in the Pâlkonda tâluk, who was eventually murdered, to the great relief of those subject to him, by one of his dependents.

3. Lakshmammapâta, which relates the life and death of Lakshmamma, a Velama woman, who went against the ménarikam custom of the caste, and was put to death by her husband.

4. Yerakammapérantâla-pâta, which recounts the story of one Yerakamma, who committed sati.

Yerakamma is the local goddess at Srungavarapukóta in the Vizagapatam district. The ballads sung about her say that she was the child of Dâsaris parents, and that her birth was foretold by a Yerukala woman (whence her name), who prophesied that she would have the gift of second sight. She eventually married, and one day she begged her husband not to go to his field, as she was sure he would be killed by a tiger if he did. Her husband went notwithstanding, and was slain as she had foreseen. She committed sati on the spot where her shrine still stands, and at this there is a festival at Sivarâtri.

As ballad-singers, two Dâsaris generally travel about together, begging from house to house, or at the weekly market, one singing, while the other plays, and joins in the chorus. The titles of these Dâsaris are Anna and Ayya. Dâsari has been recorded as an exogamous sept of the Koravas, Mâlas, and Yerukalas.

Dasari: - See also the Satanis

Dasnami: - See Gasain and Gosain

Dewâr: (Derived from Devi, whom they worship, or from Diâbâr, 'One who lights a lamp,' because they always practise magic with a lighted lamp) [1]. A Dravidian caste of beggars and musicians. They numbered about 2500 persons in 1911 and are residents of the Chhattísgarh plain. The Dewârs themselves trace their origin from a Binjhia named Gopâl Rai, who accompanied Râja Kalyân Sai of Ratanpur on a visit to the Court of Delhi in Akbâr's time. Gopâl Rai was a great wrestler, and while at Delhi he seized and held a mast elephant belonging to the Emperor. When the latter heard of it he ordered a wrestling match to be arranged between Gopâl Rai and his own champion wrestler. Gopâl Rai defeated and killed his opponent, and Kalyân Sai ordered him to compose a triumphal song and sing it in honour of the occasion. He composed his song in favour of Devi Maha Mai, or Devi the Great Mother, and the composition and recitation of similar songs has ever since been the profession of his descendants the Dewârs.

The caste is, as is shown by the names of its sections, of mixed origin, and its members are the descendants of Gonds and Kawars reinforced probably by persons who have been expelled from their own caste and have become Dewârs. They will still admit persons of any caste except the very lowest. The caste has two principal divisions according to locality, named Raipîria and Ratanpîria, Raipur and Ratanpur having been formerly the two principal towns of Chhattísgarh. Within these are several other local subdivision, e.g. Navâgarhia or those belonging to Nawâgarh in Bilâspur, Sonâkhania from Sonâkhân south of the Mahânadi, Châtarrâjiha from Châter Râj, in Raipur, and Sârangarhia from Sârangarh State. Some other divisions are either occupational or social; thus the Baghurra Dewârs are those who tame tigers and usually live in the direction of Bastar, the Baipâri Dewârs are petty traders in brass or pewter ornaments which they sell to Banjâra women, and the Lohâr and Jogi Dewârs may be so called either because their ancestors belonged to these castes, or because they have adopted the profession of blacksmiths and beggars respectively. Probably both reasons are partly applicable. These subdivisions are not strictly endogamous, but show a tendency to become so. The two main subcastes, Raipîria and Ratanpîria, are distinguished by the musical instruments which they play on while begging. That of the Raipîrias is a sort of rude fiddle called sârangi, which has a cocoanut shell as a resonator with horsehair strings, and is played with a bow. The Ratanpîrias have an instrument called dhungru, which consists of a piece of bamboo about three feet long with a hollow gourd as a resonator and catgut strings. In the latter the resonator is held uppermost and rests against the shoulder of the player, while in the former it is at the lower end and is placed against his waist. The section names of the Dewârs are almost all of Dravidian origin. Sonwânia, Markâm, Marai, Dhurwa, Ojha, Netâm, Salâm, Katlâm, and Jagat are the names of well-known Gond septs which are also possessed by the Dewârs, and Telâsi Karsayal, Son-Mungir and others are Kawar septs which they have adopted. They admit that their ancestors were members of these septs among the Gonds and Kawars. Where the name of the ancestor has a meaning which they understand, some totemistic observances survive. Thus the members of the Karsayal sept will not kill or eat a deer. The septs are exogamous, but there is no other restriction on marriage and the union of first cousins is permissible.

Marriage Customs

Adult marriage is usual, and if a husband cannot be found for a girl who has reached maturity she is given to her sister's husband as a second wife, or to any other married person who will take her and give a feast to the caste. In some localities the boy who is to be married is sent with a few relatives to the girl's house. On arrival he places a pot of wine and a nut before the girl's father, who, if he is willing to carry out the marriage, orders the nut to be pounded up. This is always done by a member of the Sonwâni sept, a similar respect being paid to this sept among some of the Dravidian tribes.

[1] See Russell. This artic is partly based on a note By Mr> Gokul Parsâd. Tahsíldâr. Dhamtri.

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The foreheads of the betrothed couple are smeared with the nut and with some yellow-coloured rice and they bow low to the elders of the caste. Usually a bride-price of Rs. 5 or 10 is then paid to the parents of the girl, together with two pieces of cloth intended for their use. A feast follows, which consists merely of the distribution of uncooked food, as the Dewârs, like some other low castes, will not take cooked food from each other. Pork and wine are essential ingredients in the feast or the ceremony cannot be completed. If liquor is not available, water from the house of a Kalâr (distiller) will do instead, but there is no substitute for pork. This, however, is as a rule easily kept as nearly all the Dewârs keep pigs, which are retailed to the Gonds for their sacrifices. The marriage ceremony is performed within three or four months at most after the betrothal. Before entering the Mandwa or marriage shed the bridegroom must place a jar of liquor in front of his prospective father-in-law. The bridegroom must also place a ring on the little finger of the bride's right hand, while she resists him as much as she can, her hand having previously been smeared with castor oil in order to make the task more difficult. Before taking the bride away the new husband must pay her father Rs. 20, and if he cannot do this, and in default of arrangements for remission which are sometimes made, must remain domiciled in his house for a certain period. As the bride is usually adult, there is no necessity for a gauna ceremony, and she leaves for her husband's house once and for all. Thereafter when she visits the house of her parents she does so as a stranger, and they will not accept cooked food at her hands nor she at theirs. Neither will her husband's parents accept food from her, and each couple with their unmarried children form an exclusive group in this respect. Such a practice is found only among the low castes of mixed origin where nobody is certain of his neighbour's standing. If a woman has gone wrong before marriage, most of the ceremonies are omitted. In such a case the bridegroom catches hold of the bride by the hair and gives her a blow by way of punishment for her sin, and they then walk seven times round the sacred pole, the whole ceremony taking less than a hour. The bride-price is under these circumstances reduced to Rs. 15. Widow-marriage is permitted, and while in some localities the new husband need give nothing, in others he must pay as much as Rs. 50 to the relatives of the deceased husband. If a woman runs away from her husband to another man, the latter must pay to the husband double the ordinary amount payable for a widow. If he cannot afford this, he must return the woman with Rs. 10 as compensation for the wrong he has done. The Dewârs are also reported to have the practice of mortgaging their wives or making them over temporarily to a creditor in return for a loan. Divorce is allowed for the usual causes and by mutual consent. The husband must give a feast to the caste, which is looked on as the funeral ceremony of the woman so far as he is concerned; thereafter she is dead to him and he cannot marry her again on pain of the permanent exclusion of both from the caste. But a divorced woman can marry any other Dewâr. Polygamy is freely allowed.

Religious Rites

The Dewârs especially worship Devi Maha Mai and Dîlha Deo. To the former they offer a she-goat and to the latter a he-goat which must be of a dark colour. They worship their dhungru or musical instrument on the day of Dasahra. They consider the sun and the moon to be brother and sister, and both to be manifestations of their deity. They bury their dead, but those who are in good circumstances dig up the bones after a year or two and burn them, taking the ashes to a sacred river. Mourning lasts for seven or ten days according as the deceased is unmarried or married, and during this time they abjure flesh and oil. Their social rules are peculiar. Though considered impure by the higher castes, they will not take cooked food from a Brâhman, whom they call a Kumhâti Kída, or an insect which effects the metamorphosis of others into his own form, and who will therefore change them into his own caste. Nor will they take cooked food from members of their own caste, but they accept it from several of the lower castes including Gonds, whose leftovers they will eat. This is probably because they beg from Gonds and attend their weddings. They keep pigs and pork is their favourite food, but they do not eat beef. They have a tribal council with a headman called Gaontia or Jemâdar, who always belongs either to the Sonwâni or Telâsi section. Among offences for which a man is temporarily put out of caste is that of naming his younger brother's wife. He must also abstain from going into her room or touching her clothers. This rule does not apply to an elder brother's wife.

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The Dewârs are professional beggars, and play on the musical instruments called dhungru and sârangi which have already been described. The Ratanpîrias usually celebrate in an exaggerated style the praise of Gopâl Rai, their mythical ancestor. One of his exploits was to sever with a single sword-stroke the stalk of a plantain inside which the Emperor of Delhi had caused a solid bar of iron to be placed. The Raípîrias prefer a song, called Gujrígít, about curds and milk. They also sing various songs relating how a woman is beloved by a Râja who tries to seduce her, but her chastity is miraculously saved by some curious combination of circumstances. They exorcise ghosts, train monkeys, bears and tigers for exhibition, and sell ornaments of base metal. In Raipur the men take about performing monkeys and the women do tattooing, for which they usually receive payment in the shape of an old or new cloth. A few have settled down to cultivation, but as a rule they are wanderers, carrying from place to place their scanty outfit of a small tent and mattress, both made of old rags, and a few vessels. They meet at central villages during the Holi festival. The family is restricted to the parents and unmarried children, separation usually taking place on marriage.

Dewar Pardhan: - A section of Bards. They were genealogists. Nowadays they move around playing musical instruments. They are also snake charmers and perform with tamed monkeys.

Dhadi: - They live in North India. They are actors, musicians, singers and dancers. In the past they used to sing songs for the Army.