The Tribes and Castes of the Central Provinces of India Volume III Part 48

For one day after a child has been born the mother is allowed no food. On the sixth day she herself shaves the child's head and bites his nails short with her teeth, after which she takes a bow and arrows and stands with the child facing successively to the four points of the compa.s.s. The idea of this is to make the child a skilful hunter when he grows up. Children are named in their fifth or sixth year. Names are sometimes given after some personal peculiarity, as Lammudia, long-headed, or Khanja, one having six fingers; or after some circ.u.mstance of the birth, as Ghosian, in compliment to the Ghasia (gra.s.s-cutter) woman who acts as midwife; Jugi, because some holy mendicant (Yogi) was halting in the village when the child was born; or a child may be named after the day of the week or month on which it was born. The tribe believe that the souls of the departed are born again as children, and boys have on occasion been named Majhian Budhi or the old head-woman, whom they suppose to have been born again with a change of s.e.x. Major Macpherson observed the same belief: [513] "To determine the best name for the child, the priest drops grains of rice into a cup of water, naming with each grain a deceased ancestor. He p.r.o.nounces, from the movements of the seed in the fluid, and from observations made on the person of the infant, which of his progenitors has reappeared in him, and the child generally, but not uniformly, receives the name of that ancestor." When the children are named, they are made to ride a goat or a pig, as a mark of respect, it is said, to the ancestor who has been reborn in them. Names usually recur after the third generation.

6. Disposal of the dead.

The dead are buried as a rule, but the practice of cremating the bodies of adults is increasing. When a body is buried a rupee or a copper coin is tied in the sheet, so that the deceased may not go penniless to the other world. Sometimes the dead man's clothes and bows and arrows are buried with him. On the tenth day the soul is brought back. Outside the village, where two roads meet, rice is offered to a c.o.c.k, and if it eats, this is a sign that the soul has come. The soul is then asked to ride on a bowstick covered with cloth, and is brought to the house and placed in a corner with those of other relatives. The souls are fed annually with rice on the harvest and Dasahra festivals. In Sambalpur a ball of powdered rice is placed under a tree with a lamp near it, and the first insect that settles on the ball is taken to be the soul, and is brought home and wors.h.i.+pped. The souls of infants who die before the umbilical cord has dropped are not brought back, because they are considered to have scarcely come into existence; and Sir E. Gait records that one of the causes of female infanticide was the belief that the souls of girl-children thus killed would not be born again, and hence the number of future female births would decrease. This belief partially conflicts with that of the change of s.e.x on rebirth mentioned above; but the two might very well exist together. The souls of women who die during pregnancy or after a miscarriage, or during the monthly period of impurity are also not brought back, no doubt because they are held to be malignant spirits.

7. Occupation.

The Khond traditionally despises all occupations except those of husbandry, hunting and war. "In Orissa," Sir H. Risky states, "they claim full rights of property in the soil in virtue of having cleared the jungle and prepared the land for cultivation. In some villages individual owners.h.i.+p is unknown, and the land is cultivated on a system of temporary occupation subject to periodical redistribution under the orders of the headman or malik." Like the other forest tribes they are improvident and fond of drink.

Macpherson [514] described the Khonds as faithful to friends, devoted to their chiefs, resolute, brave, hospitable and laborious; but these high qualities meet with no recognition among the Uriya Hindus, who regard their stupidity as the salient attribute of the Khonds and have various tales in derision of them, like those told of the weavers. They consider the Khonds as only a little superior to the impure Doms (musicians and sweepers), and say, 'Kandh ghare Domna Mantri,' or 'In a Kandh house the Dom is Prime Minister.' This is paralleled by the similar relation between the Gonds and Pardhans. The arms of the Khonds were a light, long-handled sword with a blade very curiously carved, the bow and arrow and the sling--no s.h.i.+elds being used. The axe also was used with both hands, to strike and guard, its handle being partly defended by bra.s.s plates and wire for the latter purpose. The following description of a battle between rival Khond clans was recorded by Major Macpherson as having been given to him by an eye-witness, and may be reproduced for its intrinsic interest; the fight was between the hostile tribes of Bora Muta and Bora Des in the Gumsur territory:

8. A Khond combat.

"At about 12 o'clock in the day the people of Bora Des began to advance in a ma.s.s across the Salki river, the boundary between the Districts, into the plain of Kurmingia, where a much smaller force was arrayed to oppose them. The combatants were protected from the neck to the loins by skins, and cloth was wound round their legs down to the heel, but the arms were quite bare. Round the heads of many, too, cloth was wound, and for distinction the people of Bora Muta wore peac.o.c.k's feathers in their hair, while those of Bora Des had c.o.c.k's tail plumes. They advanced with horns blowing, and the gongs beat when they pa.s.sed a village. The women followed behind carrying pots of water and food for refreshments, and the old men who were past bearing arms were there, giving advice and encouragement. As the adverse parties approached, showers of stones, handed by the women, flew from slings from either side, and when they came within range arrows came in flights and many fell back wounded. At length single combats sprang up betwixt individuals who advanced before the rest, and when the first man fell all rushed to dip their axes in his blood, and hacked the body to pieces. The first man who himself unwounded slew his opponent, struck off the latter's right arm and rushed with it to the priest in the rear, who bore it off as an offering to Loha Pennu (the Iron G.o.d or the G.o.d of Arms) in his grove. The right arms of the rest who fell were cut off in like manner and heaped in the rear beside the women, and to them the wounded were carried for care, and the fatigued men constantly retired for water. The conflict was at length general. All were engaged hand-to-hand, and now fought fiercely, now paused by common consent for a moment's breathing. In the end the men of Bora Des, although superior in numbers, began to give way, and before four o'clock they were driven across the Salki, leaving sixty men dead on the field, while the killed on the side of the Bora Muta did not exceed thirty. And from the entire ignorance of the Khonds of the simplest healing processes, at least an equal number of the wounded died after the battle. The right hands of the slain were hung up by both parties on the trees of the villages and the dead were carried off to be burned. The people of Bora Des the next morning flung a piece of b.l.o.o.d.y cloth on the field of battle, a challenge to renew the conflict which was quickly accepted, and so the contest was kept up for three days." The above account could, of course, find no place in a description of the Khonds of this generation, but has been thought worthy of quotation, as detailed descriptions of the manner of fighting of these tribes, now weaned from war by the British Government, are so rarely to be found.

9. Social customs.

The Khonds will admit into the community a male orphan child of any superior caste, including the Binjhwars and Gonds. A virgin of any age of one of these castes will also be admitted. A Gond man who takes a Khond girl to wife can become a Khond by giving a feast. As might be expected the tribe are closely connected with the Gaurs or Uriya shepherds, whose business leads them to frequent the forests. Either a man or woman of the Gaurs can be taken into the community on marrying a Khond, and if a Khond girl marries a Gaur her children, though not herself, can become members of that caste. The Khonds will eat all kinds of animals, including rats, snakes and lizards, but with the exception of the Kutia Khonds they have now given up beef. In Kalahandi social delinquencies are punished by a fine of so many field-mice, which the Khond considers a great delicacy. The catching of twenty to forty field-mice to liquidate the fine imposes on the culprit a large amount of trouble and labour, and when his task is completed his friends and neighbours fry the mice and have a feast with plenty of liquor, but he himself is not allowed to partic.i.p.ate. Khond women are profusely tattooed with figures of trees, flowers, fishes, crocodiles, lizards and scorpions on the calf of the leg and the arms, hands and chest, but seldom on the face. This is done for purposes of ornament. Husband and wife do not mention each other's names, and a woman may not speak the names of any of her husband's younger brothers, as, if left a widow, she might subsequently have to marry one of them. A paternal or maternal aunt may not name her nephew, nor a man his younger brother's wife.

10. Festivals.

The tribe have three princ.i.p.al festivals, known as the Semi Jatra, the Mahul Jatra and the Chawal Dhuba Jatra. The Semi Jatra is held on the tenth day of the waning moon of Aghan (November) when the new semi or country beans are roasted, a goat or fowl is sacrificed, and some milk or water is offered to the earth G.o.d. From this day the tribe commence eating the new crop of beans. Similarly the Mahul Jatra is held on the tenth of the waning moon of Chait (March), and until this date a Khond may eat boiled mahua flowers, but not roasted ones. The princ.i.p.al festival is the Dasahra or Chawal Dhuba (boiled rice) on the tenth day of the waning moon of Kunwar (September), which, in the case of the Khonds, marks the rice-harvest. The new rice is washed and boiled and offered to the earth G.o.d with the same accompaniment as in the case of the Semi Jatra, and until this date the Khond may not clean the new rice by was.h.i.+ng it before being boiled, though he apparently may partake of it so long as it is not washed or cleaned, this rule and that regarding the mahua flowers being so made as concessions to convenience.

11. Religion.

The Khond pantheon consists of eighty-four G.o.ds, of whom Dharni Deota, the earth G.o.d, is the chief. In former times the earth G.o.ddess was apparently female and was known as Tari Pennu or Bera Pennu. To her were offered the terrible human sacrifices presently to be described. There is nothing surprising in the change of s.e.x of the divine being, for which parallels are forthcoming. Thus in Chhattisgarh the deity of the earth, who also received human sacrifices, is either Thakur Deo, a G.o.d, or Thakurani Mai, a G.o.ddess. Deota is an Aryan term, and the proper Khond name for a G.o.d is Pennu. The earth G.o.d is usually accompanied by Bhatbarsi Deota, the G.o.d of hunting. Dharni Deota is represented by a rectangular peg of wood driven into the ground, while Bhatbarsi has a place at his feet in the shape of a piece of conglomerate stone covered with circular granules. Once in four or five years a buffalo is offered to the earth G.o.d, in lieu of the human sacrifice which was formerly in vogue. The animal is predestined for sacrifice from its birth, and is allowed to wander loose and graze on the crops at its will. The stone representing Bhatbarsi is examined periodically, and when the granules on it appear to have increased, it is decided that the time has come for the sacrifice. In Kalahandi a lamb is sacrificed every year, and strips of its flesh distributed to all the villagers, who bury it in their fields as a divine agent of fertilisation, in the same way as the flesh of the human victim was formerly buried. The Khond wors.h.i.+ps his bow and arrows before he goes out hunting, and believes that every hill and valley has its separate deity, who must be propitiated with the promise of a sacrifice before his territory is entered, or he will hide the animals within it from the hunter, and enable them to escape when wounded. These deities are closely related to each other, and it is important when arranging for an expedition to know the connection between them all; this information can be obtained from any one on whom the divine afflatus from time to time descends.

12. Human sacrifice.

The following account of the well-known system of human sacrifice, formerly in vogue among the Khonds, is contained in Sir James Frazer's Golden Bough, having been compiled by him from the accounts of Major Macpherson and Major-General John Campbell, two of the officers deputed to suppress it:

"The best known case of human sacrifices systematically offered to ensure good crops is supplied by the Khonds or Kandhs, another Dravidian race in Bengal. Our knowledge of them is derived from the accounts written by British officers who, forty or fifty years ago, were engaged in putting them down. The sacrifices were offered to the Earth-G.o.ddess, Tari Pennu or Bera Pennu, and were believed to ensure good crops and immunity from all disease and accidents. In particular they were considered necessary in the cultivation of turmeric, the Khonds arguing that the turmeric could not have a deep red colour without the shedding of blood. The victim or Meriah was acceptable to the G.o.ddess only if he had been purchased, or had been born a victim--that is the son of a victim father--or had been devoted as a child by his father or guardian. Khonds in distress often sold their children for victims, 'considering the beatification of their souls certain, and their death, for the benefit of mankind, the most honourable possible.' A man of the Panua (Pan) tribe was once seen to load a Khond with curses, and finally to spit in his face, because the Khond had sold for a victim his own child, whom the Panua had wished to marry. A party of Khonds, who saw this, immediately pressed forward to comfort the seller of his child, saying, 'Your child has died that all the world may live, and the Earth-G.o.ddess herself will wipe that spittle from your face.' The victims were often kept for years before they were sacrificed. Being regarded as consecrated beings, they were treated with extreme affection, mingled with deference, and were welcomed wherever they went. A Meriah youth, on attaining maturity, was generally given a wife, who was herself usually a Meriah or victim, and with her he received a portion of land and farm-stock. Their offspring were also victims. Human sacrifices were offered to the Earth-G.o.ddess by tribes, branches of tribes, or villages, both at periodical festivals and on extraordinary occasions. The periodical sacrifices were generally so arranged by tribes and divisions of tribes that each head of a family was enabled, at least once a year, to procure a shred of flesh for his fields, generally about the time when his chief crop was laid down. The mode of performing these tribal sacrifices was as follows. Ten or twelve days before the sacrifice, the victim was devoted by cutting off his hair, which, until then, had been kept unshorn. Crowds of men and women a.s.sembled to witness the sacrifice; none might be excluded, since the sacrifice was declared to be for all mankind. It was preceded by several days of wild revelry and gross debauchery. On the day before the sacrifice the victim, dressed in a new garment, was led forth from the village in solemn procession, with music and dancing, to the Meriah grove, a clump of high forest trees standing a little way from the village and untouched by the axe. Here they tied him to a post, which was sometimes placed between two plants of the sankissar shrub. He was then anointed with oil, ghee and turmeric, and adorned with flowers; and 'a species of reverence, which it is not easy to distinguish from adoration,' was paid to him throughout the day. A great struggle now arose to obtain the smallest relic from his person; a particle of the turmeric paste with which he was smeared, or a drop of his spittle, was esteemed of sovereign virtue, especially by the women. The crowd danced round the post to music, and addressing the Earth said, 'O G.o.d, we offer this sacrifice to you; give us good crops, seasons, and health.'

"On the last morning the orgies, which had been scarcely interrupted during the night, were resumed and continued till noon, when they ceased, and the a.s.sembly proceeded to consummate the sacrifice. The victim was again anointed with oil, and each person touched the anointed part, and wiped the oil on his own head. In some places they took the victim in procession round the village, from door to door, where some plucked hair from his head, and others begged for a drop of his spittle, with which they anointed their heads. As the victim might not be bound nor make any show of resistance, the bones of his arms and, if necessary, his legs were broken; but often this precaution was rendered unnecessary by stupefying him with opium. The mode of putting him to death varied in different places. One of the commonest modes seems to have been strangulation, or squeezing to death. The branch of a green tree was cleft several feet down the middle; the victim's neck (in other places, his chest) was inserted in the cleft, which the priest, aided by his a.s.sistants, strove with all his force to close. Then he wounded the victim slightly with his axe, whereupon the crowd rushed at the wretch and cut the flesh from the bones, leaving the head and bowels untouched. Sometimes he was cut up alive. In Chinna Kimedy he was dragged along the fields, surrounded by the crowd, who, avoiding his head and intestines, hacked the flesh from his body with their knives till he died. Another very common mode of sacrifice in the same district was to fasten the victim to the proboscis of a wooden elephant, which revolved on a stout post, and, as it whirled round, the crowd cut the flesh from the victim while life remained. In some villages Major Campbell found as many as fourteen of these wooden elephants, which had been used at sacrifices. [515] In one district the victim was put to death slowly by fire. A low stage was formed, sloping on either side like a roof; upon it they laid the victim, his limbs wound round with cords to confine his struggles. Fires were then lighted and hot brands applied, to make him roll up and down the slopes of the stage as long as possible; for the more tears he shed the more abundant would be the supply of rain. Next day the body was cut to pieces.

"The flesh cut from the victim was instantly taken home by the persons who had been deputed by each village to bring it. To secure its rapid arrival it was sometimes forwarded by relays of men, and conveyed with postal fleetness fifty or sixty miles. In each village all who stayed at home fasted rigidly until the flesh arrived. The bearer deposited it in the place of public a.s.sembly, where it was received by the priest and the heads of families. The priest divided it into two portions, one of which he offered to the Earth-G.o.ddess by burying it in a hole in the ground with his back turned, and without looking. Then each man added a little earth to bury it, and the priest poured water on the spot from a hill gourd. The other portion of flesh he divided into as many shares as there were heads of houses present. Each head of a house rolled his shred of flesh in leaves and buried it in his favourite field, placing it in the earth behind his back without looking. In some places each man carried his portion of flesh to the stream which watered his fields, and there hung it on a pole. For three days thereafter no house was swept; and, in one district, strict silence was observed, no fire might be given out, no wood cut, and no strangers received. The remains of the human victim (namely, the head, bowels and bones) were watched by strong parties the night after the sacrifice, and next morning they were burned along with a whole sheep, on a funeral pile. The ashes were scattered over the fields, laid as paste over the houses and granaries, or mixed with the new corn to preserve it from insects. Sometimes, however, the head and bones were buried, not burnt. After the suppression of the human sacrifices, inferior victims were subst.i.tuted in some places; for instance, in the capital of Chinna Kimedy a goat took the place of a human victim.

"In these Khond sacrifices the Meriahs are represented by our authorities as victims offered to propitiate the Earth-G.o.ddess. But from the treatment of the victims both before and after death it appears that the custom cannot be explained as merely a propitiatory sacrifice. A part of the flesh certainly was offered to the Earth-G.o.ddess, but the rest of the flesh was buried by each householder in his fields, and the ashes of the other parts of the body were scattered over the fields, laid as paste on the granaries, or mixed with the new corn. These latter customs imply that to the body of the Meriah there was ascribed a direct or intrinsic power of making the crops to grow, quite independent of the indirect efficacy which it might have as an offering to secure the good-will of the deity. In other words, the flesh and ashes of the victim were believed to be endowed with a magical or physical power of fertilising the land. The same intrinsic power was ascribed to the blood and tears of the Meriah, his blood causing the redness of the turmeric, and his tears producing rain; for it can hardly be doubted that, originally at least, the tears were supposed to bring down the rain, not merely to prognosticate it. Similarly the custom of pouring water on the buried flesh of the Meriah was no doubt a rain-charm. Again, magical power as an attribute of the Meriah appears in the sovereign virtue believed to reside in anything that came from his person, as his hair or spittle. The ascription of such power to the Meriah indicates that he was much more than a mere man sacrificed to propitiate a deity. Once more, the extreme reverence paid him points to the same conclusion. Major Campbell speaks of the Meriah as 'being regarded as something more than mortal,' and Major Macpherson says: 'A species of reverence, which it is not easy to distinguish from adoration, is paid to him.' In short, the Meriah appears to have been regarded as divine. As such, he may originally have represented the Earth-G.o.ddess, or perhaps a deity of vegetation, though in later times he came to be regarded rather as a victim offered to a deity than as himself an incarnate G.o.d. This later view of the Meriah as a victim rather than a divinity may perhaps have received undue emphasis from the European writers who have described the Khond religion. Habituated to the later idea of sacrifice as an offering made to a G.o.d for the purpose of conciliating his favour, European observers are apt to interpret all religious slaughter in this sense, and to suppose that wherever such slaughter takes place, there must necessarily be a deity to whom the carnage is believed by the slayers to be acceptable. Thus their preconceived ideas unconsciously colour and warp their descriptions of savage rites." [516]

13. Last human sacrifices.

In his Ethnographic Notes in Southern India Mr. Thurston states: [517] "The last recorded Meriah sacrifice in the Ganjam Maliahs occurred in 1852, and there are still Khonds alive who were present at it. Twenty-five descendants of persons who were reserved for sacrifice, but were rescued by Government officers, returned themselves as Meriah at the Census of 1901. The Khonds have now subst.i.tuted a buffalo for a human being. The animal is hewn to pieces while alive, and the villagers rush home to their villages to bury the flesh in the soil, and so secure prosperous crops. The sacrifice is not unaccompanied by risk to the performers, as the buffalo, before dying, frequently kills one or more of its tormentors. It was stated by the officers of the Maliah Agency that there was reason to believe that the Raja of Jaipur (Madras), when he was installed at his father's decease in 1860-61, sacrificed a girl thirteen years of age at the shrine of the G.o.ddess Durga in the town of Jaipur. The last attempted human sacrifice (which was nearly successful) in the Vizagapatam District, among the Kutia Khonds, was, I believe, in 1880. But the memory of the abandoned practice is kept green by one of the Khond songs, for a translation of which we are indebted to Mr. J. E. Friend-Pereira: [518]

At the time of the great Kiabon (Campbell) Sahib's coming, the country was in darkness; it was enveloped in mist.

Having sent paiks to collect the people of the land, they, having surrounded them, caught the Meriah sacrificers.

Having caught the Meriah sacrificers, they brought them; and again they went and seized the evil councillors.

Having seen the chains and shackles, the people were afraid; murder and bloodshed were quelled.

Then the land became beautiful; and a certain Mokodella (Macpherson) Sahib came.

He destroyed the lairs of the tigers and bears in the hills and rocks, and taught wisdom to the people.

After the lapse of a month he built bungalows and schools; and he advised them to learn reading and law.

They learnt wisdom and reading; they acquired silver and gold. Then all the people became wealthy.

14. Khond rising in 1882.

In 1882 an armed rising of the Khonds of the Kalahandi State occurred as a result of agrarian trouble. The Feudatory Chief had encouraged the settlement in the State of members of the Kolta caste who are excellent cultivators and keenly acquisitive of land. They soon got the Khonds heavily indebted to them for loans of food and seed-grain, and began to oust them from their villages. The Khonds, recognising with some justice that this process was likely to end in their total expropriation from the soil, concerted a conspiracy, and in May 1882 rose and murdered the Koltas of a number of villages. The signal for the outbreak was given by pa.s.sing a knotted string from village to village; other signals were a bent arrow and a branch of a mahua tree. When the Khond leaders were a.s.sembled an axe was thrown on to the ground and each of them grasping it in turn swore to join in the rising and support his fellows. The taint of cruelty in the tribe is shown by the fact that the Kutia Khonds, on being requested to join in the rising, replied that if plunder was the only object they would not do so, but if the Koltas were to be murdered they agreed. Some of the murdered Koltas were anointed with turmeric and offered at temples, the Khonds calling them their goats, and in one case a Kolta is believed to have been made a Meriah sacrifice to the earth G.o.d. The Khonds appeared before the police, who were protecting a body of refugees at the village of Norla, with the hair and scalps of their murdered victims tied to their bows. To the Political Officer, who was sent to suppress the rising, the Khonds complained that the Koltas had degraded them from the position of lords of the soil to that of servants, and justified their plundering of the Koltas on the ground that they were merely taking back the produce of their own land, which the Koltas had stolen from them. They said that if they were not to have back their land Government might either drive them out of the country or exterminate them, and that Koltas and Khonds could no more live together than tigers and goats. Another grievance was that a new Raja of Kalahandi had been installed without their consent having been obtained. The Political Officer, Mr. Berry, hanged seven of the Khond ringleaders and effected a settlement of their grievances. Peace was restored and has not since been broken. At a later date in the same year, 1882, and independently of the rising, a Khond landholder was convicted and executed for having offered a five-year-old girl as a Meriah sacrifice.

15. Language.

The Khond or Kandh language, called Kui by the Khonds themselves, is spoken by rather more than half of the total body of the tribe. It is much more nearly related to Telugu than is Gondi and has no written character. [519]

Kir