The Tribes and Castes of the Central Provinces of India Volume IV Part 11

6. The gauna ceremoney. Fertility rites

When the girl becomes mature the Gauna or going-away ceremony is performed. In Chhattisgarh before leaving her home the bride goes out with her sister and wors.h.i.+ps a _palas_ tree. [97] Her sister waves a lighted lamp seven times over it, and the bride goes seven times round it in imitation of the marriage ceremony. At her husband's house seven pictures of the family G.o.ds are drawn on a wall inside the house and the bride wors.h.i.+ps these, placing a little sugar and bread on the mouth of each and bowing before them. She is then seated before the family G.o.d while an old woman brings a stone rolling-pin [98] wrapped up in a piece of cloth, which is supposed to be a baby, and the old woman imitates a baby crying. She puts the roller in the bride's lap saying, 'Take this and give it milk.' The bride is abashed and throws it aside. The old woman picks it up and shows it to the a.s.sembled women saying, 'The bride has just had a baby,'

amid loud laughter. Then she gives the stone to the bridegroom who also throws it aside. This ceremony is meant to induce fertility, and it is supposed that by making believe that the bride has had a baby she will quickly have one.

7. Widow-marriage and p.u.b.erty rite

The higher clans of Lodhis in Damoh and Saugor prohibit the remarriage of widows, but instances of it occur. It is said that a man who marries a widow is relegated to the Mahalodhi subcaste or the Lahuri Sen, an illegitimate group, and the Lodhis of his clan no longer acknowledge his family. But if a girl's husband dies before she has lived with him she may marry again. The other Lodhis freely permit widow-marriage and divorce. When a girl first becomes mature she is secluded, and though she may stay in the house cannot enter the cook-room. At the end of the period she is dressed in red cloth, and a present of cocoanuts stripped of their sh.e.l.ls, sweetmeats, and a little money, is placed in her lap, while a few women are invited to a feast. This rite is also meant to induce fertility, the kernel of the cocoanut being held to resemble an unborn baby.

8. Mourning impurity

The higher clans consider themselves impure for a period of 12 days after a birth, and if the birth falls in the Mul asterism or Nakshatra, for 27 days. After death they observe mourning for 10 days; on the 10th day they offer ten _pindas_ or funeral cakes, and on the 11th day make one large _pinda_ or cake and divide it into eleven parts; on the 12th day they make sixteen _pindas_ and unite the spirit of the dead man with the ancestors; and on the 13th day they give a feast and feed Brahmans and are clean. The lower subcastes only observe impurity for three days after a birth and a death. Their funeral rites are the same as those of the Kurmis.

9. Social customs

The caste employ Brahmans for weddings, but not necessarily for birth and death ceremonies. They eat flesh and fish, and the bulk of the caste eat fowls and drink liquor, but the landowning section abjures these practices. They will take food cooked with water from Brahmans, and that cooked without water also from Rajputs, Kayasths and Sunars. In Narsinghpur they also accept cooked food from such a low caste as Rajjahrs, [99] probably because the Rajjhars are commonly employed by them as farmservants, and hence have been accustomed to carry their master's food. A similar relation has been found to exist between the Panwar Rajputs and their Gond farmservants. The higher cla.s.s Lodhis make an inordinate show of hospitality at their weddings. The plates of the guests are piled up profusely with food, and these latter think it a point of honour never to refuse it or say enough. When melted b.u.t.ter is poured out into their cups the stream must never be broken as it pa.s.ses from one guest to the other, or it is said that they will all get up and leave the feast. Apparently a lot of b.u.t.ter must be wasted on the ground. The higher clans seclude their women, and these when they go out must wear long clothes covering the head and reaching to the feet. The women are not allowed to wear ornaments of a cheaper metal than silver, except of course their gla.s.s bangles. The Mahalodhis will eat food cooked with water in the cook-room and carried to the fields, which the higher clans will not do. Their women wear the _sari_ drawn through the legs and knotted behind according to the Maratha fas.h.i.+on, but whenever they meet their husband's elder brother or any other elder of the family they must undo the knot and let the cloth hang down round their legs as a mark of respect. They wear no breast-cloth. Girls are tattooed before adolescence with dots on the chin and forehead, and marks on one hand. Before she is tattooed the girl is given sweets to eat, and during the process the operator sings songs in order that her attention may be diverted and she may not feel the pain. After she has finished the operator mutters a charm to prevent evil spirits from troubling the girl and causing her pain.

10. Greetings and method of address

The caste have some strict taboos on names and on conversation between the s.e.xes. A man will only address his wife, sister, daughter, paternal aunt or niece directly. If he has occasion to speak to some other woman he will take his daughter or other female relative with him and do his business through her. He will not speak even to his own women before a crowd. A woman will similarly only speak to her father, son or nephew, and father-, son- or younger brother-in-law. She will not speak to her elder brother-in-law, and she will not address her husband in the presence of his father, elder brother or any other relative whom he reveres. A wife will never call her husband by his name, but always address him as father of her son, and, if she has no son, will sometimes speak to him through his younger brother. Neither the father nor mother will call their eldest son by his name, but will use some other name. Similarly a daughter-in-law is given a fresh name on coming into the house, and on her arrival her mother-in-law looks at her for the first time through a _guna_ or ring of baked gram-flour. A man meeting his father or elder brother will touch his feet in silence. One meeting his sister's husband, sister's son or son-in-law, will touch his feet and say, '_Sahib, salaam_.'

11. Sacred thread and social status

The higher clans invest boys with the sacred thread either when they are initiated by a Guru or spiritual preceptor, or when they are married. The thread is made by a Brahman and has five knots. Recently a large landholder in Mandla, a Jarha Lodhi, has a.s.sumed the sacred thread himself for the first time and sent round a circular to his caste-men enjoining them also to wear it. His family priest has produced a legend of the usual type showing how the Jarha Lodhis are Rajputs whose ancestors threw away their sacred threads in order to escape the vengeance of Parasurama. Generally in social position the Lodhis may be considered to rank with, but slightly above, the ordinary cultivating castes, such as the Kurmis. This superiority in no way arises from their origin, since, as already seen, they are a very low caste in their home in northern India, but from the fact that they have become large landholders in the Central Provinces and in former times their leaders exercised quasi-sovereign powers. Many Lodhis are fine-looking men and have still some appearance of having been soldiers. They are pa.s.sionate and quarrelsome, especially in the Jubbulpore District. This is put forcibly in the saying that 'A Lodhi's temper is as crooked as the stream of a bullock's urine.' They are generally cultivators, but the bulk of them are not very prosperous as they are inclined to extravagance and display at weddings and on other ceremonial occasions.

Lohar

1. Legends of the caste

_Lohar_, _Khati_, _Ghantra_, _Ghisari_, _Panchal._--The occupational caste of blacksmiths. The name is derived from the Sanskrit _Lauha-kara>_, a worker in iron. In the Central Provinces the Loharhas in the past frequently combined the occupations of carpenter and blacksmith, and in such a capacity he is known as Khati. The honorific designations applied to the caste are Karigar, which means skilful, and Mistri, a corruption of the English 'Master' or 'Mister.' In 1911 the Lohars numbered about 180,000 persons in the Central Provinces and Berar. The Lohar is indispensable to the village economy, and the caste is found over the whole rural area of the Province.

"Practically all the Lohars," Mr. Crooke writes [100], "trace their origin to Visvakarma, who is the later representative of the Vedic Twashtri, the architect and handicraftsman of the G.o.ds, 'The fas.h.i.+oner of all ornaments, the most eminent of artisans, who formed the celestial chariots of the deities, on whose craft men subsist, and whom, a great and immortal G.o.d, they continually wors.h.i.+p,' One [101] tradition tells that Visvakarma was a Brahman and married the daughter of an Ahir, who in her previous birth had been a dancing-girl of the G.o.ds. By her he had nine sons, who became the ancestors of various artisan castes, such as the Lohar, Barhai, Sunar, and Kasera."

The Lohars of the Uriya country in the Central Provinces tell a similar story, according to which Kamar, the celestial architect, had twelve sons. The eldest son was accustomed to propitiate the family G.o.d with wine, and one day he drank some of the wine, thinking that it could not be sinful to do so as it was offered to the deity. But for this act his other brothers refused to live with him and left their home, adopting various professions; but the eldest brother became a worker in iron and laid a curse upon the others that they should not be able to practise their calling except with the implements which he had made. The second brother thus became a woodcutter (Barhai), the third a painter (Maharana), the fourth learnt the science of vaccination and medicine and became a vaccinator (Suthiar), the fifth a goldsmith, the sixth a bra.s.s-smith, the seventh a coppersmith, and the eighth a carpenter, while the ninth brother was weak in the head and married his eldest sister, on account of which fact his descendants are known as Ghantra. [102] The Ghantras are an inferior cla.s.s of blacksmiths, probably an offshoot from some of the forest tribes, who are looked down on by the others. It is said that even to the present day the Ghantra Lohars have no objection to eating the leavings of food of their wives, whom they regard as their eldest sisters.

2. Social position of the Lohar

The above story is noticeable as indicating that the social position of the Lohar is somewhat below that of the other artisan castes, or at least of those who work in metals. This fact has been recorded in other localities, and has been explained by some stigma arising from his occupation, as in the following pa.s.sage: "His social position is low even for a menial, and he is cla.s.sed as an impure caste, in so far that Jats and others of similar standing will have no social communion with him, though not as an outcast like the scavenger. His impurity, like that of the barber, washerman and dyer, springs solely from the nature of his employment; perhaps because it is a dirty one, but more probably because black is a colour of evil omen. It is not improbable that the necessity under which he labours of using bellows made of cowhide may have something to do with his impurity," [103]

Mr. Nesfield also says: "It is owing to the ubiquitous industry of the Lohar that the stone knives, arrow-heads and hatchets of the indigenous tribes of Upper India have been so entirely superseded by iron-ores. The memory of the stone age has not survived even in tradition. In consequence of the evil a.s.sociations which Hinduism has attached to the colour of black, the caste of Lohar has not been able to raise itself to the same social level as the three metallurgic castes which follow." The following saying also indicates that the Lohar is of evil omen:

Ar, Dhar, Chuchkar In tinon se bachawe Kartar.

Here _Ar_ means an iron goad and signifies the Lohar; _Dhar_ represents the sound of the oil falling from the press and means a Teli or oilman; _Chuchkar_ is an imitation of the sound of clothes being beaten against a stone and denotes the Dhobi or washerman; and the phrase thus runs, 'My Friend, beware of the Lohar, Teli, and Dhobi, for they are of evil omen.' It is not quite clear why this disrepute should attach to the Lohar, because iron itself is lucky, though its colour, black, may be of bad omen. But the low status of the Lohar may partly arise from the fact of his being a village menial and a servant of the cultivators; whereas the trades of the goldsmith, bra.s.s-smith and carpenter are of later origin than the blacksmith's, and are urban rather than rural industries; and thus these artisans do not commonly occupy the position of village menials. Another important consideration is that the iron industry is a.s.sociated with the primitive tribes, who furnished the whole supply of the metal prior to its importation from Europe: and it is hence probable that the Lohar caste was originally const.i.tuted from these and would thus naturally be looked down upon by the Hindus. In Bengal, where few or no traces of the village community remain, the Lohar ranks as the equal of Koiris and Kurmis, and Brahmans will take water from his hands; [104] and this somewhat favours the argument that his lower status elsewhere is not due to incidents of his occupation.

3. Caste subdivisions

The const.i.tution of the Lohar caste is of a heterogeneous nature. In some localities Gonds who work as blacksmiths are considered to belong to the caste and are known as Gondi Lohars. But Hindus who work in Gond villages also sometimes bear this designation. Another subdivision returned consists of the Agarias, also an offshoot of the Gonds, who collect and smelt iron-ore in the Vindhyan and Satpura hills. The Panchals are a cla.s.s of itinerant smiths in Berar. The Ghantras or inferior blacksmiths of the Uriya country have already been noticed. The Ghisaris are a similar low cla.s.s of smiths in the southern Districts who do rough work only, but sometimes claim Rajput origin. Other subcastes are of the usual local or territorial type, as Mahulia, from Mahul in Berar; Jhade or Jhadia, those living in the jungles; Ojha, or those professing a Brahmanical origin; Maratha, Kanaujia, Mathuria, and so on.

4. Marriage and other customs

Infant-marriage is the custom of the caste, and the ceremony is that prevalent among the agricultural castes of the locality. The remarriage of widows is permitted, and they have the privilege of selecting their own husbands, or at least of refusing to accept any proposed suitor. A widow is always married from her father's house, and never from that of her deceased husband. The first husband's property is taken by his relatives, if there be any, and they also a.s.sume the custody of his children as soon as they are old enough to dispense with a mother's care. The dead are both buried and burnt, and in the eastern Districts some water and a tooth-stick are daily placed at a cross-road for the use of the departed spirit during the customary period of mourning, which extends to ten days. On the eleventh day the relatives go and bathe, and the chief mourner puts on a new loin-cloth. Some rice is taken and seven persons pa.s.s it from hand to hand. They then pound the rice, and making from it a figure to represent a human being, they place some grain in its mouth and say to it, 'Go and become incarnate in some human being,' and throw the image into the water. After this the impurity caused by the death is removed, and they go home and feast with their friends. In the evening they make cakes of rice, and place them seven times on the shoulder of each person who has carried the corpse to the cemetery or pyre, to remove the impurity contracted from touching it. It is also said that if this be not done the shoulder will feel the weight of the coffin for a period of six months. The caste endeavour to ascertain whether the spirit of the dead person returns to join in the funeral feast, and in what shape it will be born again. For this purpose rice-flour is spread on the floor of the cooking-room and covered with a bra.s.s plate. The women retire and sit in an adjoining room while the chief mourner with a few companions goes outside the village, and sprinkles some more rice-flour on the ground. They call to the deceased person by name, saying, 'Come, come,' and then wait patiently till some worm or insect crawls on to the floor. Some dough is then applied to this and it is carried home and let loose in the house. The flour under the bra.s.s plate is examined, and it is said that they usually see the footprints of a person or animal, indicating the corporeal ent.i.ty in which the deceased soul has found a resting-place. During the period of mourning members of the bereaved family do not follow their ordinary business, nor eat flesh, sweets or other delicate food. They may not make offerings to their deities nor touch any persons outside the family, nor wear head-cloths or shoes. In the eastern Districts the princ.i.p.al deities of the Lohars are Dulha Deo and Somlai or Devi, the former being represented by a knife set in the ground inside the house, and the latter by the painting of a woman on the wall. Both deities are kept in the cooking-room, and here the head of the family offers to them rice soaked in milk, with sandal-paste, flowers, vermilion and lamp-black. He burns some melted b.u.t.ter in an earthen lamp and places incense upon it. If a man has been affected by the evil eye an exorcist will place some salt on his hand and burn it, muttering spells, and the evil influence is removed. They believe that a spell can be cast on a man by giving him to eat the bones of an owl, when he will become an idiot.

5. Occupation

In the rural area of the Province the Lohar is still a village menial, making and mending the iron implements of agriculture, such as the ploughshare, axe, sickle, goad and other articles. For doing this he is paid in Saugor a yearly contribution of twenty pounds of grain per plough of land [105] held by each cultivator, together with a handful of grain at sowing-time and a sheaf at harvest from both the autumn and spring crops. In Wardha he gets fifty pounds of grain per plough of four bullocks or forty acres. For making new implements the Lohar is sometimes paid separately and is always supplied with the iron and charcoal. The hand-smelting iron industry has practically died out in the Province and the imported metal is used for nearly all purposes. The village Lohars are usually very poor, their income seldom exceeding that of an unskilled labourer. In the towns, owing to the rapid extension of milling and factory industries, blacksmiths readily find employment and some of them earn very high wages. In the manufacture of cutlery, nails and other articles the capital is often found by a Bhatia or Bohra merchant, who acts as the capitalist and employs the Lohars as his workmen. The women help their husbands by blowing the bellows and dragging the hot iron from the furnace, while the men wield the hammer. The Panchals of Berar are described as a wandering caste of smiths, living in gra.s.s mat-huts and using as fuel the roots of thorn bushes, which they batter out of the ground with the back of a short-handled axe peculiar to themselves. They move from place to place with buffaloes, donkeys and ponies to carry their kit. [106] Another cla.s.s of wandering smiths, the Ghisaris, are described by Mr. Crooke as follows: "Occasional camps of these most interesting people are to be met with in the Districts of the Meerut Division. They wander about with small carts and pack-animals, and, being more expert than the ordinary village Lohar, their services are in demand for the making of tools for carpenters, weavers and other craftsmen. They are known in the Punjab as Gadiya or those who have carts (_gadi, gari_). Sir D. Ibbetson [107] says that they come up from Rajputana and the North-Western Provinces, but their real country is the Deccan. In the Punjab they travel about with their families and implements in carts from village to village, doing the finer kinds of iron-work, which are beyond the capacity of the village artisan. In the Deccan [108] this cla.s.s of wandering blacksmiths are called Saiqalgar, or knife-grinders, or Ghisara, or grinders (Hindi, _ghisana_ 'to rub'). They wander about grinding knives and tools."

Lorha

_Lorha._ [109]--A small caste of cultivators in the Hoshangabad and Nimar Districts, whose distinctive occupation is to grow _san_-hemp (_Crotalaria juncea_) and to make sacking and gunny-bags from the fibre. A very strong prejudice against this crop exists among the Hindus, and those who grow it are usually cut off from their parent caste and become a separate community. Thus we have the castes known as k.u.mrawat, Patbina and Dangur in different parts of the Province, who are probably offshoots from the Kurmis and Kunbis, but now rank below them because they grow this crop; and in the Kurmi caste itself a subcaste of Santora (hemp-picking) Kurmis has grown up. In Bilaspur the Patharia Kurmis will grow _san_-hemp and ret it, but will not spin or weave the fibre; while the Atharia Kurmis will not grow the crop, but will spin the fibre and make sacking. The Saugor Kewats grow this fibre, and here Brahmans and other high castes will not take water from Kewats, though in the eastern Districts they will do so. The Narsinghpur Mallahs, a branch of the Kewats, have also adopted the cultivation of _san_-hemp as a regular profession. The basis of the prejudice against the _san_-hemp plant is not altogether clear. The Lorhas themselves say that they are looked down upon because they use wheat-starch (_lapsi_) for smoothing the fibre, and that their name is somehow derived from this fact. But the explanation does not seem satisfactory. Many of the country people appear to think that there is something uncanny about the plant because it grows so quickly, and they say that on one occasion a cultivator went out to sow hemp in the morning, and his wife was very late in bringing his dinner to the field. He grew hungry and angry, and at last the shoots of the hemp-seeds which he had sown in the morning began to appear above the ground. At this he was so enraged that when his wife finally came he said she had kept him waiting so long that the crop had come up in the meantime, and murdered her. Since then the Hindus have been forbidden to grow _san_-hemp lest they should lose their tempers in the same manner. This story makes a somewhat excessive demand on the hearer's credulity. One probable cause of the taboo seems to be that the process of soaking and retting the stalks of the plant pollutes the water, and if carried on in a tank or in the pools of a stream might destroy the village supply of drinking-water. In former times it may have been thought that the desecration of their sacred element was an insult to the deities of rivers and streams, which would bring down retribution on the offender. It is also the case that the proper separation of the fibres requires a considerable degree of dexterity which can only be acquired by practice. Owing to the recent increase in the price of the fibre and the large profits which can now be obtained from hemp cultivation, the prejudice against it is gradually breaking down, and the Gonds, Korkus and lower Hindu castes have waived their religious scruples and are glad to turn an honest penny by sowing hemp either on their own account or for hire. Other partially tabooed crops are turmeric and _al_ or Indian madder (_Morinda citrifolia_), while onions and garlic are generally eschewed by Hindu cultivators. For growing turmeric and _al_ special subcastes have been formed, as the Alia Kunbis and the Hardia Malis and Kachhis (from _haldi_, turmeric), just as in the case of _san_-hemp. The objection to these two crops is believed to lie in the fact that the roots which yield the commercial product have to be boiled, and by this process a number of insects contained in them are destroyed. But the preparation of the hemp-fibre does not seem to involve any such sacrifice of insect life. The Lorhas appear to be a mixed group, with a certain amount of Rajput blood in them, perhaps an offshoot of the Kirars, with whose social customs their own are said to be identical. According to another account, they are a lower or illegitimate branch of the Lodha caste of cultivators, of whose name their own is said to be a corruption. The Nimar Gujars have a subcaste named Lorha, and the Lorhas of Hoshangabad may be connected with these. They live in the Seoni and Harda tahsils of Hoshangabad, the _san_-hemp crop being a favourite one in villages adjoining the forests, because it is not subject to the depredations of wild animals. Cultivators are often glad to sublet their fields for the purpose of having a crop of hemp grown upon them, because the stalks are left for manure and fertilise the ground. String and sacking are also made from the hemp-fibre by vagrant and criminal castes like the Banjaras and Bhamtas, who formerly required the bags for carrying their goods and possessions about with them.