The Tribes and Castes of the Central Provinces of India Volume III Part 2

1. Origin of the caste.

Garpagari. [17]--A caste of village menials whose function it is to avert hailstorms from the crops. They are found princ.i.p.ally in the Maratha Districts of the Nagpur country and Berar, and numbered 9000 persons in 1911. The name is derived from the Marathi gar, hail. The Garpagaris are really Naths or Jogis who have taken to this calling and become a separate caste. They wear clothes coloured with red ochre, and a garland of rudraksha beads, and bury their dead in a sitting posture. According to their tradition the first Garpagari was one Raut, a Jogi, who accompanied a Kunbi malguzar on a visit to Benares, and while there he prophesied that on a certain day all the crops of their village would be destroyed by a hailstorm. The Kunbi then besought him to save the crops if he could, and he answered that by his magic he could draw off the hail from the rest of the village and concentrate it in his own field, and he agreed to do this if the cultivators would recompense him for his loss. When the two came home to their village they found that there had been a severe hailstorm, but it had all fallen in the Jogi's field. His loss was made good to him and he adopted this calling as a profession, becoming the first Garpagari, and being paid by contributions from the proprietor and tenants. There are no subcastes except that the Kharchi Garpagari are a b.a.s.t.a.r.d group, with whom the others refuse to intermarry.

2. Marriage.

Marriage is regulated by exogamous groups, two of which, Watari from the Otari or bra.s.s-worker, and Dhankar from the Dhangar or shepherds, are named after other castes. Some are derived from the names of animals, as Harnya from the black-buck, and Wagh from the tiger. The Diunde group take their name from diundi, the kotwar's [18] drum. They say that their ancestor was so named because he killed his brother, and was proclaimed as an outlaw by beat of drum. The marriage of members of the same group is forbidden and also that of the children of two sisters, so long as the relations.h.i.+p between them is remembered. The caste usually celebrate their weddings after those of the Kunbis, on whom they depend for contributions to their expenses. Widow-marriage is permitted, but the widow sometimes refuses to marry again, and, becoming a Bhagat or devotee, performs long pilgrimages in male attire. Divorce is permitted, but as women are scarce, is rarely resorted to. The Garpagaris say, "If one would not throw away a vegetable worth a damri (one-eighth of a pice or farthing), how shall one throw away a wife who is 3 1/2 cubits long." A divorced wife is allowed to marry again.

3. Religion.

The caste wors.h.i.+p Mahadeo or Siva and Mahabir or Hanuman, and do not usually distinguish them. Their princ.i.p.al festival is called Mahi and takes place on the first day of Poush (December), this being the day from which hailstorms may be expected to occur; and next to this Mando Amawas, or the first day of Chait (March), after which hailstorms need not be feared. They offer goats to Mahadeo in his terrible form of Kal Bhairava, and during the ceremony the Kunbis beat the daheka, a small drum with bells, to enhance the effect of the sacrifice, so that their crops may be saved. When a man is at the point of death he is placed in the sitting posture in which he is to be buried, for fear that after death his limbs may become so stiff that they cannot be made to a.s.sume it. The corpse is carried to the grave in a cloth coloured with red ochre. A gourd containing pulse and rice, a pice coin, and a small quant.i.ty of any drug to which the deceased may have been addicted in life are placed in the hands, and the grave is filled in with earth and salt. A lamp is lighted on the place where the death occurred, for one night, and on the third day a cocoanut is broken there, after which mourning ends and the house is cleaned. A stone brought from the bed of a river is plastered down on to the grave with clay, and this may perhaps represent the dead man's spirit.

4. Occupation.

The occupation of the Garpagari is to avert hailstorms, and he was formerly remunerated by a customary contribution of rice from each cultivator in the village. He received the usual presents at seed-time and harvest, and two pice from each tenant on the Basant-Panchmi festival. When the sky is of mixed red and black at night like smoke and flame, the Garpagari knows that a hailstorm is coming. Then, taking a sword in his hand, he goes and stands before Mahabir, and begs him to disperse the clouds. When entreaties fail, he proceeds to threats, saying that he will kill himself, and throws off his clothes. Sometimes his wife and children go and stand with him before Mahabir's shrine and he threatens to kill them. Formerly he would cut and slash himself, so it is said, if Mahabir was obdurate, but now the utmost he does is to draw some blood from a finger. He would also threaten to sacrifice his son, and instances are known of his actually having done so.

Two ideas appear to be involved in these sacrifices of the Garpagari. One is the familiar principle of atonement, the blood being offered to appease the G.o.d as a subst.i.tute for the crops which he seems about to destroy. But when the Garpagari threatened to kill himself, and actually killed his son, it was not merely as an atonement, because in that case the threats would have had no meaning. His intention seems rather to have been to lay the guilt of homicide upon the G.o.d by slaying somebody in front of his shrine, in case nothing less would move him from his purpose of destroying the crops. The idea is the same as that with which people committed suicide in order that their ghosts might haunt those who had driven them to the act. As late as about the year 1905 a Gond Bhumka or village priest was hanged in Chhindwara for killing his two children. He owed a debt of Rs. 25 and the creditor was pressing him and he had nothing to pay. So he flew into a rage and exclaimed that the G.o.ds would do nothing for him even though he was a Bhumka, and he seized his two children and cut off their heads and laid them before the G.o.d. In this it would appear that the Bhumka's intention was partly to take revenge on his master for the neglect shown to him, the G.o.d's special servant. The Garpagari diverts the hail by throwing a handful of grain in the direction in which he wishes it to go. When the storm begins he will pick up some hailstones, smear them with his blood and throw them away, telling them to rain over rivers, hills, forests and barren ground. When caterpillars or locusts attack the crops he catches one or two and offers them at Mahabir's shrine, afterwards throwing them up in the air. Or he buries one alive and this is supposed to stay the plague. When rust appears in the crops, one or two blades are in like manner offered to Mahabir, and it is believed that the disease will be stayed. Or if the rice plants do not come into ear a few of them are plucked and offered, and fresh fertile blades then come up. He also has various incantations which are believed to divert the storm or to cause the hailstones to melt into water. In some localities, when the buffalo is slaughtered at the Dasahra festival, the Garpagari takes seven different kinds of spring-crop seeds and dips them in its blood. He buries them in a spot beside his hearth, and it is believed that when a hailstorm threatens the grains move about and give out a humming sound like water boiling. Thus the Garpagari has warning of the storm. If the Garpagari is absent and a storm comes his wife will go and stand naked before Mahabir's shrine. The wives know the incantations, but they must not learn them from their husbands, because in that case the husband would be in the position of a guru or spiritual preceptor to his wife and the conjugal relation could no longer continue. No other caste will learn the incantations, for to make the hailstones melt is regarded as equivalent to causing an abortion, and as a sin for which heavy retribution would be incurred in a future life.

In Chhattisgarh the Baiga or village priest of the aboriginal tribes averts hailstorms in the same manner as the Garpagari, and elsewhere the Barais or betel-vine growers perform this function, which is especially important to them because their vines are so liable to be injured by hailstorms. In ancient Greece there existed a village functionary, the Chalazo phulax, who kept off hailstorms in exactly the same manner as the Garpagari. He would offer a victim, and if he had none would draw blood from his own fingers to appease the storm. [19]

The same power has even been imputed to Christian priests as recorded by Sir James Frazer: "In many villages of Provence the priest is still required to possess the faculty of averting storms. It is not every priest who enjoys this reputation; and in some villages when a change of pastors takes place, the paris.h.i.+oners are eager to learn whether the new inc.u.mbent has the power (pouder) as they call it. At the first sign of a heavy storm they put him to the proof by inviting him to exorcise the threatening clouds; and if the result answers to their hopes, the new shepherd is a.s.sured of the sympathy and respect of his flock. In some parishes where the reputation of the curate in this respect stood higher than that of the rector, the relations between the two have been so strained in consequence that the bishop has had to translate the rector to another benefice." [20]

Of late years an unavoidable scepticism as to the Garpagari's efficiency has led to a reduction of his earnings, and the cultivators now frequently decline to give him anything, or only a sheaf of corn at harvest. Some members of the caste have taken to weaving newar or broad tape for beds, and others have become cultivators.

5. Social status.

The Garpagaris eat flesh and drink liquor. They will take cooked food from a Kunbi, though the Kunbis will not take even water from them. They are a village menial caste and rank with others of the same position, though on a somewhat lower level because they beg and accept cooked food at the weddings of Kunbis. Their names usually end in nath, as Ramnath, Kisannath and so on.

Gauria

Gauria. [21]--A small caste of snake-charmers and jugglers who are an offshoot of the Gond tribe. They number about 500 persons and are found only in Chhattisgarh. They have the same exogamous septs as the Gonds, as Markam, Marai, Netam, Chhedaiha, Jagat, Purteti, Chichura and others. But they are no doubt of very mixed origin, as is shown by the fact that they do not eat together at their feasts, but the guests all cook their own food and eat it separately. And after a daughter has been married her own family even will not take food from her hand because they are doubtful of her husband's status. It is said that the Gaurias were accustomed formerly to beg only from the Kewat caste, though this restriction is no longer maintained. The fact may indicate that they are partly descended from the unions of Kewats with Gond women.

Adult marriage is the general rule of the caste and a fixed bride-price of sixteen rupees is paid. The couple go away together at once and six months afterwards return to visit the bride's parents, when they are treated as outsiders and not allowed to touch the food cooked for the family, while they reciprocally insist on preparing their own. Male Gaurias will take food from any of the higher castes, but the women will eat only from Gaurias. They will admit outsiders belonging to any caste from whom they can take food into the community. And if a Gauria woman goes wrong with a member of any of these castes they overlook the matter and inflict only a feast as a penalty.

Their marriage ceremony consists merely in the placing of bangles on the woman's wrists, which is the form by which a widow is married among other castes. If a widow marries a man other than her husband's younger brother, the new husband must pay twelve rupees to her first husband's family, or to her parents if she has returned to them. If she takes with her a child born of her first husband with permission to keep it, the second husband must pay eight rupees to the first husband's family as the price of the child. But if the child is to be returned as soon as it is able to s.h.i.+ft for itself the second husband receives eight rupees instead of paying it, as remuneration for his trouble in rearing the baby. The caste bury their dead with the feet to the south, like the Hindus. The princ.i.p.al business of the Gaurias is to catch and exhibit snakes, and they carry a damru or rattle in the shape of an hour-gla.s.s, which is considered to be a distinctive badge of the caste. If a Gauria saw an Ojha snake-charmer carrying a damru he would consider himself ent.i.tled to take it from the Ojha forcibly if he could. A Gauria is forbidden to exhibit monkeys under penalty of being put out of caste. Their princ.i.p.al festival is the Nag-Panchmi, when the cobra is wors.h.i.+pped. They also profess to know charms for curing persons bitten by snakes. The following incantation is cried by a Gauria snake-doctor three times into the ears of his patient in a loud voice:

"The bel tree and the bel leaves are on the other side of the river. All the Gaurias are drowned in it. The breast of the koil; over it is a net. Eight snakes went to the forest. They tamed rats on the green tree. The snakes are flying, causing the parrots to fly. They want to play, but who can make them play? After finis.h.i.+ng their play they stood up; arise thou also, thou sword. I am waking you (the patient) up by crying in your ear, I conjure you by the name of Dhanvantari [22] to rise carefully."

Similar meaningless charms are employed for curing the bites of scorpions and for exorcising bad spirits and the influence of the evil eye.

The Gaurias will eat almost all kinds of flesh, including pigs, rats, fowls and jackals, but they abstain from beef. Their social status is so low that practically no caste will take food or water from them, but they are not considered as impure. They are great drunkards, and are easily known by their damrus or rattles and the baskets in which they carry their snakes.

GHASIA

List of Paragraphs

1. Description of the caste.

2. Subcastes.

3. Exogamous sections.

4. Marriage.

5. Religion and superst.i.tions.

6. Occupation.

7. Social customs.

8. Ghasias and Kayasths.

1. Description of the caste.

Ghasia, Sais. [23]--A low Dravidian caste of Orissa and Central India who cut gra.s.s, tend horses and act as village musicians at festivals. In the Central Provinces they numbered 43,000 in 1911, residing princ.i.p.ally in the Chhattisgarh Division and the adjoining Feudatory States. The word Ghasia is derived from ghas (gra.s.s) and means a gra.s.s-cutter. Sir H. Risley states that they are a fis.h.i.+ng and cultivating caste of Chota Nagpur and Central India, who attend as musicians at weddings and festivals and also perform menial offices of all kinds. [24] In Bastar they are described as an inferior caste who serve as horse-keepers and also make and mend bra.s.s vessels. They dress like the Maria Gonds and subsist partly by cultivation and partly by labour. [25] Dr. Ball describes them in Singhbhum as gold-washers and musicians. Colonel Dalton speaks of them as "An extraordinary tribe, foul parasites of the Central Indian hill tribes and submitting to be degraded even by them. If the Chandals of the Puranas, though descended from the union of a Brahmini and a Sudra, are the lowest of the low, the Ghasias are Chandals and the people further south who are called Pariahs are no doubt of the same distinguished lineage." [26]

2. Subcastes.

The Ghasias generally, however, appear now to be a harmless caste of labourers without any specially degrading or repulsive traits. In Mandla their social position and customs are much on a par with those of the Gonds, from whom a considerable section of the caste seems to be derived. In other localities they have probably immigrated into the Central Provinces from Bundelkhand and Orissa. Among their subdivisions the following may be mentioned: the Udia, who cure raw hides and do the work of sweepers and are generally looked down on; the Dingkuchia, who castrate cattle and ponies; the Dolboha, who carry dhoolies or palanquins; the Nagarchi, who derive their name from the nakkara or kettle-drum and are village musicians; the Khaltaha or those from Raipur; the Laria, belonging to Chhattisgarh, and the Uria of the Uriya country; the Ramgarhia, who take their name from Ramgarh in the Mandla District, and the Mahobia from Mahoba in Bundelkhand. Those members of the caste who work as grooms have become a separate group and call themselves Sais, dropping the name of Ghasia. They rank higher than the others and marry among themselves, and some of them have become cultivators or work as village watchmen. They are also called Thanwar by the Gonds, the word meaning stable or stall. In Chota Nagpur a number of Ghasias have become tailors and are tending to form a separate subcaste under the name of Darzi.

3. Exogamous sections.