The Tribes and Castes of the Central Provinces of India Volume IV Part 45

At child-birth they make a little separate hut for the mother near the river where they are encamped, and she remains in it for two days and a half. During this time her husband does no work; he stays a few paces distant from his wife's hut and prepares her food but does not go to the hut or touch her, and he kindles a fire between them. During the first two days the woman gets three handfuls of rice boiled thin in water, and on the third day she receives nothing until the evening, when the Sendia or head of the sept takes a little cowdung, gold and silver in his hand, and pouring water over this gives her of it to drink as many times as the number of G.o.ds wors.h.i.+pped by her family up to seven. Then she is pure. On this day the father sacrifices a chicken and gives a meal with liquor to the caste and names the child, calling it after one of his ancestors who is dead. Then an old woman beats on a bra.s.s plate and calls out the name which has been given in a loud voice to the whole camp so that they may all know the child's name. In Bilaspur the Sonjharas observe the custom of the Couvade, and for six days after the birth of a child the husband lies p.r.o.ne in his house, while the wife gets up and goes to work, coming home to give suck to the child when necessary. The man takes no food for three days and on the fourth is given ginger and raw sugar, thus undergoing the ordinary treatment of a woman after childbirth. This is supposed by them to be a sort of compensation for the labours sustained by the woman in bearing the child. The custom obtains among some other primitive races, but is now rapidly being abandoned by the Sonjharas.

5. Funeral rites

The bodies of the old are cremated as a special honour, and those of other persons are buried. No one other than a member of the dead man's family may touch his corpse under a penalty of five rupees. A relative will remove the body and bury it with the feet pointing to the river or burn it by the water's edge. They mourn a child for one day and an adult for four days, and at the end the mourner is shaved and provides liquor for the community. If there be no relative, since no other man can touch the corpse, they fire the hut over it and burn it as it is lying or bury hut and body under a high mound of sand.

6. Religion

Their princ.i.p.al deities are Dulha Deo, the boy bridegroom, Nira his servant, and Kauria a form of Devi. Nira lives under an _umar_ [633] tree and he and Dulha Deo his master are wors.h.i.+pped every third year in the month of Magh (January). Kauria is also wors.h.i.+pped once in three years on a Sunday in the month of Magh with an offering of a cocoanut, and in her honour they never sit on a cot nor sleep on a stool because they think that the G.o.ddess has her seat on these articles. The real reason, however, is probably that the Sonjharas consider the use of such furniture an indication of a settled life and permanent residence, and therefore abjure it as being wanderers. Some a.n.a.logous customs have been recorded of the Banjaras. They also revere the spirit of one of their female ancestors who became a Sati. They sacrifice a goat to the _genius loci_ or spirit haunting the spot where they decide to start work; and they will leave it for fear of angering this spirit, which is said to appear in the form of a tiger, should they make a particularly good find. [634] They never keep dogs, and it is said that they are defiled by the touch of a dog and will throw away their food if one comes near them during their meal. The same rule applies to a cat, and they will throw away an earthen vessel touched by either of these animals. On the Diwali day they wash their implements, and setting them up near the huts wors.h.i.+p them with offerings of a cocoanut and vermilion.

7. Social customs

Their rule is always to camp outside a village at a distance of not less than a mile. In the rains they make huts with a roof of bamboos sloping from a central ridge and walls of matting. The huts are built in one line and do not touch each other, at least a cubit's distance being left between each. Each hut has one door facing the east. As a rule they avoid the water of village wells and tanks, though it is not absolutely forbidden. Each man digs a shallow well in the sand behind his hut and drinks the water from it, and no man may drink the water of his neighbour's well; if he should do so or if any water from his well gets into his neighbour's, the latter is abandoned and a fresh one made. If the ground is too swampy for wells they collect the water in their wooden was.h.i.+ng-tray and fill their vessels from it. In the cold weather they make little leaf-huts on the sand or simply camp out in the open, but they must never sleep under a tree. When living in the open each family makes two fires and sleeps together between them. Some of them have their stomachs burned and blackened from sleeping too near the fire. The Sonjharas will not take cooked food from the hands of any other caste, but their social status is very low, about equivalent to that of the parent Gond tribe. They have no fear of wild animals, not even the children. Perhaps they think that as fellow-denizens of the jungle these animals are kin to them and will not injure them.

8. Occupation

The traditional occupation of the caste is to wash gold from the sandy beds of streams, while they formerly also washed for diamonds at Hirakud on the Mahanadi near Sambalpur and at Wairagarh in Chanda. The industry is decaying, and in 1901 only a quarter of the total number of Sonjharas were still employed In it. Some have become cultivators and fishermen, while others earn their livelihood by sweeping up the refuse dirt of the workshops of goldsmiths and bra.s.s-workers; they wash out the particles of metal from this and sell it back to the Sunars. The Mahanadi and Jonk rivers in Sambalpur, the Banjar In Mandla, the Son and other rivers in Balaghat, and the Wainganga and the eastern streams of Chanda contain minute particles of gold. The washers earn a miserable and uncertain livelihood, and indeed appear not to desire anything beyond a bare subsistence. In Bhandara [635] it is said that they avoid any spot where they have previously been lucky, while in Chanda they have a superst.i.tion that a person making a good find of gold will be childless, and hence many dread the search. [636]

When they set out to look for gold they wash three small trayfuls at three places about five cubits apart. If they find no appreciable quant.i.ty of gold they go on for one or two hundred yards and wash three more trayfuls, and proceed thus until they find a profitable place where they will halt for two or three days. A spot [637]

in the dry river-bed is usually selected at the outside of a bend, where the finer sediment is likely to be found; after removing the stones and pebbles from above, the sand below is washed several times in circular wooden cradles, shaped like the top of an umbrella, of diminis.h.i.+ng sizes, until all the clay is removed and fine particles of sand mixed with gold are visible. A large wooden spoon is used to stir up the sediment, which is washed and rubbed by hand to separate the gold more completely from the sand, and a blackish residue is left, containing particles of gold and mercury coloured black with oxide of iron. Mercury is used to pick up the gold with which it forms an amalgam. This is evaporated in a clay cupel called a _ghariya_ by which the mercury is got rid of and the gold left behind.

Sudh

_Sudh, [638] Sudha, Sudho, Suda_.--A cultivating caste in the Uriya country. Since the transfer of Sambalpur to Bengal only a few Sudhs remain in the Central Provinces. They are divided into four subcastes--the Bada or high Sudhs, the Dehri or wors.h.i.+ppers, the Kabat-konia or those holding the corners of the gate, and the Butka. These last are the most primitive and think that Rairakhol is their first home. They relate that they were born of the Pandava hero Bhimsen and the female demon Hedembiki, and were originally occupied in supplying leaves for the funeral ceremonies of the Pandava brothers, from which business they obtained their name of Butka or 'one who brings leaves.' They are practically a forest tribe and carry on s.h.i.+fting cultivation like the Khonds. According to their own story the ancestors of the Butka Sudhs once ruled In Rairakhol and reclaimed the land from the forest, that is so far as it has been reclaimed. The following story connects them with the ruling family of Rairakhol. In former times there was constant war between Bamra and Rairakhol, and on one occasion the whole of the Rairakhol royal family was destroyed with the exception of one boy who was hidden by a Butka Sudh woman. She placed him in a cradle supported on four uprights, and when the Bamra Raja's soldiers came to seek for him the Sudhs swore, "If we have kept him either in heaven or earth may our G.o.d destroy us." The Bamra people were satisfied with this reply and the child was saved, and on coming to manhood he won back his kingdom. He received the name of Janamani or 'Jewel among men,' which the family still bear. In consequence of this incident, the Butka Sudhs are considered by the Rairakhol house as relations on their mother's side; they have several villages allotted to them and perform sacrifices for the ruling family. In some of these villages n.o.body may sleep on a cot or sit on a high chair, so as to be between heaven and earth in the position in which the child was saved. The Bada Sudhs are the most numerous subdivision and have generally adopted Hindu customs, so that the higher castes will take water from their hands. They neither drink liquor nor eat fowls, but the other subcastes do both. The Sudhs have totemistic _gotras_ as Bhalluka (bear), Bagh (tiger), Ulluka (owl), and others. They also have _bargas_ or family names as Thakur (lord), Danaik, Amayat and Bis.h.i.+. The Thakur clan say that they used to hold the Baud kings in their lap for their coronation, and the Danaik used to tie the king's turban. The Bis.h.i.+ were so named because of their skill in arms, and the Amayat collected materials for the wors.h.i.+p of the Panch Khanda or five swords. The _bargas_ are much more numerous than the totemistic septs, and marriage either within the _barga_ or within the sept is forbidden. Girls must be married before adolescence; and in the absence of a suitable husband, the girl is married to an old man who divorces her immediately afterwards, and she may then take a second husband at any time by the form for widow-remarriage. A betrothal is sealed by tying an areca-nut in a knot made from the clothes of a relative of each party and pounding it seven times with a pestle. After the marriage a silver ring is placed in a pot of water, over the mouth of which a leaf-plate is bound. The bridegroom pierces the leaf-plate with a knife, and the bride then thrusts her hand through the hole, picks out the ring and puts it on. The couple then go inside the house and sit down to a meal. The bridegroom, after eating part of his food, throws the leavings on to the bride's plate. She stops eating in displeasure, whereupon the bridegroom promises her some ornaments, and she relents and eats his leavings. It is customary for a Hindu wife to eat the leavings of food of her husband as a mark of her veneration for him. Divorce and the remarriage of widows are permitted. The Sudhs wors.h.i.+p the Panch Khanda or five swords, and in the Central Provinces they say that these are a representation of the five Pandava brothers, in whose service their first ancestors were engaged. Their tutelary G.o.ddess is Khambeshwari, represented by a wooden peg (_khamba_). She dwells in the wilds of the Baud State and is supposed to fulfil all the desires of the Sudhs. Liquor, goats, buffaloes, vermilion and swallow-wort flowers are offered to her, the last two being in representation of blood. The Dehri Sudhs wors.h.i.+p a G.o.ddess called Kandrapat who dwells always on the summits of hills. It is believed that whenever wors.h.i.+p is concluded the roar of her tiger is heard, and the wors.h.i.+ppers then leave the place and allow the tiger to come and take the offerings. The G.o.ddess would therefore appear to be the deified tiger. The Bada Sudhs rank with the cultivating castes of Sambalpur, but the other three subcastes have a lower position.

Sunar

List of Paragraphs

1. _General notice of the caste_.

2. _Internal structure_.

3. _Marriage and other customs_.

4. _Religion_.

5. _Social position_.

6. _Manufacture of ornaments_.

7. _The sanct.i.ty of gold_.

8. _Ornaments. The marriage ornaments_.

9. _Beads and other ornaments_.

10. _Ear-piercing._ 11. _Origin of ear-piercing._ 12. _Ornaments worn as amulets_.

13. _Audhia Sunars_.

14. _The Sunar as money-changer._ 15. _Malpractices of lower-cla.s.s Sunars_.

1. General notice of the caste

Sunar, [639] Sonar, Soni, Hon-Potdar, Saraf.--The occupational caste of goldsmiths and silversmiths. The name is derived from the Sanskrit _Suvarna kar_, a worker in gold. In 1911 the Sunars numbered 96,000 persons in the Central Provinces and 30,000 in Berar. They live all over the Province and are most numerous in the large towns. The caste appears to be a functional one of comparatively recent formation, and there is nothing on record as to its origin, except a collection of Brahmanical legends of the usual type. The most interesting of these as related by Sir H. Risley is as follows: [640]

"In the beginning of time, when the G.o.ddess Devi was busy with the construction of mankind, a giant called Sonwa-Daitya, whose body consisted entirely of gold, devoured her creations as fast as she made them. To baffle this monster the G.o.ddess created a goldsmith, furnished him with the tools of his art, and instructed him how to proceed. When the giant proposed to eat him, the goldsmith suggested to him that if his body were polished his appearance would be vastly improved, and asked to be allowed to undertake the job. With the characteristic stupidity of his tribe the giant fell into the trap, and having had one finger polished was so pleased with the result that he agreed to be polished all over. For this purpose, like Aetes in the Greek legend of Medea, he had to be melted down, and the goldsmith, who was to get the body as his perquisite, giving the head only to Devi, took care not to put him together again. The goldsmith, however, overreached himself. Not content with his legitimate earnings, he must needs steal a part of the head, and being detected in this by Devi, he and his descendants were condemned to be for ever poor." The Sunars also have a story that they are the descendants of one of two Rajput brothers, who were saved as boys by a Saraswat Brahman from the wrath of Parasurama when he was destroying the Kshatriyas. The descendants of the other brother were the Khatris. This is the same story as is told by the Khatris of their own origin, but they do not acknowledge the connection with Sunars, nor can the Sunars allege that Saraswat Brahmans eat with them as they do with Khatris. In Gujarat they have a similar legend connecting them with Banias. In Bombay they also claim to be Brahmans, and in the Central Provinces a caste of goldsmiths akin to the Sunars call themselves Vishwa Brahmans. On the other hand, before and during the time of the Peshwas, Sunars were not allowed to wear the sacred thread, and they were forbidden to hold their marriages in public, as it was considered unlucky to see a Sunar bridegroom. Sunar bridegrooms were not allowed to see the state umbrella or to ride in a palanquin, and had to be married at night and in secluded places, being subject to restrictions and annoyances from which even Mahars were free. [641] Their _raison d'etre_ may possibly be found in the fact that the Brahmans, all-powerful in the Poona state, were jealous of the pretensions of the Sunars, and devised these rules as a means of suppressing them. It may be suggested that the Sunars, being workers at an important urban industry, profitable in itself and sanctified by its a.s.sociation with the sacred metal gold, aspired to rank above the other artisans, and put forward the pretensions already mentioned, because they felt that their position was not commensurate with their deserts. But the Sunar is included in Grant-Duff's list of the twenty-four village menials of a Maratha village, and consequently he would in past times have ranked below the cultivators, from whom he must have accepted the annual presents of grain.

2. Internal structure

The caste have a number of subdivisions, nearly all of which are of the territorial cla.s.s and indicate the various localities from which it has been recruited in these Provinces. The most important subcastes are the Audhia from Ajodhia or Oudh; the Purania or old settlers; the Bundelkhandi from Bundelkhand; the Malwi from Malwa; the Lad from Lat, the old name for the southern portion of Gujarat; and the Mair, who appear to have been the first immigrants from Upper India and are named after Mair, the original ancestor, who melted down the golden demon. Other small groups are the Patkars, so called because they allow _pat_ or widow-marriage, though, as a matter of fact, it is permitted by the great majority of the caste; the Pandhare or 'White Sunars'; and the Ahir Sunars, whose ancestors must presumably have belonged to the caste whose name they bear. The caste have also numerous _bainks_ or exogamous septs, which differ entirely from the long lists given for Bengal and the United Provinces, and show, as Mr. Crooke remarks, the extreme fertility with which sections of this kind spring up. In the Central Provinces the names are of a t.i.tular or territorial nature. Examples of the former kind, that is, a t.i.tle or nickname supposed to have been borne by the sept's founder, are: Dantele, one who has projecting teeth; Kale, black; Munde, bald; Kolhimare, a killer of jackals; and Ladaiya, a jackal or a quarrelsome person. Among the territorial names are Narwaria from Narwar; Bhilsainyan from Bhilsa; Kanaujia from Kanauj; Dilliwal from Delhi; Kalpiwal from Kalpi. Besides the _bainks_ or septs by which marriage is regulated, they have adopted the Brahmanical eponymous _gotra_-names as Kashyap, Garg, Sandilya, and so on. These are employed on ceremonial occasions as when a gift is made for the purpose of obtaining religious merit, and the _gotra-_ name of the owner is recorded, but they do not influence marriage. The use of them is a harmless vanity a.n.a.logous to the a.s.sumption of distinguished surnames by people who were not born to them.

3. Marriage and other customs

Marriage is forbidden within the sept. In some localities persons descended from a common ancestor may not intermarry for five generations, but in others a brother's daughter may be wedded to a sister's son. A man is forbidden to marry two sisters while both are alive, and after his wife's death he may espouse her younger sister, but not her elder one. Girls are usually wedded at a tender age, but some Sunars have hitherto had a rule that neither a girl nor a boy should be married until they had had smallpox, the idea being that there can be no satisfactory basis for a contract of marriage while either party is still exposed to such a danger to life and personal appearance; just as it might be considered more prudent not to buy a young dog until it had had distemper. But with the spread of vaccination the Sunars are giving up this custom. The marriage ceremony follows the Hindustani or Maratha ritual according to locality. [642]

In Betul the mother of the bride ties the mother of the bridegroom to a pole with the ropes used for tethering buffaloes and beats her with a piece of twisted cloth, until the bridegroom's mother gives her a present of money or cloth and is released. The ceremony may be designed to express the annoyance of the bride's mother at being deprived of her daughter. Polygamy is permitted, but people will not give their daughter to a married man if they can find a bachelor husband for her. Well-to-do Sunars who desire increased social distinction prohibit the marriage of widows, but the caste generally allow it.

4. Religion

The caste venerate the ordinary Hindu deities, and many of them have sects and return themselves as Vaishnavas, Saivas or Saktas. In some places they are said to make a daily offering to their melting-furnace so that it may bring them in a profit. When a child has been born they make a sacrifice of a goat to Dulha Deo, the marriage-G.o.d, on the following Dasahra festival, and the body of this must be eaten by the family only, no outsider being allowed to partic.i.p.ate. In Hoshangabad it is stated that on the night before the Dasahra festival all the Sunars a.s.semble beside a river and hold a feast. Each of them is then believed to take an oath that he will not during the coming year disclose the amount of the alloy which a fellow-craftsman may mix with the precious metals. Any Sunar who violates this agreement is put out of caste. On the 15th day of Jeth (May) the village Sunar stops work for five days and wors.h.i.+ps his implements after was.h.i.+ng them. He draws pictures of the G.o.ddess Devi on a piece of paper and goes round the village to affix them to the doors of his clients, receiving in return a small present.

The caste usually burn their dead and take the ashes to the Nerbudda or Ganges; those living to the south of the Nerbudda always stop at this river, because they think that if they crossed it to go to the Ganges, the Nerbudda would be offended at their not considering it good enough. If a man meets with a violent death and his body is lost, they construct a small image of him and burn this with all the proper ceremonies. Mourning is observed for ten or thirteen days, and the _shraddh_ ceremony is performed on the anniversary of a death, while the usual oblations are offered to the ancestors during the fortnight of Pitr Paksh in Kunwar (September).

5. Social position