The Tribes and Castes of the Central Provinces of India Volume I Part 9

Dr. Westermarck's view that the origin of exogamy lay in the feeling against the marriage of persons who lived together, receives support from the fact that a feeling of kins.h.i.+p still subsists between Hindus living in the same village, even though they may belong to different castes and clans. It is commonly found that all the households of a village believe themselves in a manner related. A man will address all the men of the generation above his own as uncle, though they may be of different castes, and the children of the generation below his own as niece and nephew. When a girl is married, all the old men of the village call her husband 'son-in-law.' This extends even to the impure castes who cannot be touched. Yet owing to the fact that they live together they are considered by fiction to be related. The Gowari caste do not employ Brahmans for their weddings, but the ceremony is performed by the _bhanja_ or sister's son either of the girl's father or the boy's father. If he is not available, any one whom either the girl's father or the boy's father addresses as _bhanja_ or nephew in the village, even though he may be no relation and may belong to another caste, may perform the ceremony as a subst.i.tute. Among the Oraons and other tribes prenuptial intercourse between boys and girls of the same village is regularly allowed. It is not considered right, however, that these unions should end in marriage, for which partners should be sought from other villages. [176] In the Maratha country the villagers have a communal feast on the occasion of the Dasahra festival, the Kunbis or cultivators eating first and the members of the menial and labouring castes afterwards.

74. The large exogamous clans of the Brahmans and Rajputs. The Sapindas, the _gens_ and the g'enoc.

The Brahmans and Rajputs, however, and one or two other military castes, as the Marathas and Lodhis, do not have the small exogamous clans (which probably, as has been seen, represented the persons who lived together in a village), but large ones. Thus the Rajputs were divided into thirty-six royal races, and theoretically all these should have been exogamous, marrying with each other. Each great clan was afterwards, as a rule, split into a number of branches, and it is probable that these became exogamous; while in cases where a community of Rajputs have settled on the land and become ordinary cultivators, they have developed into an endogamous subcaste containing small clans of the ordinary type. It seems likely that the Rajput clan originally consisted of those who followed the chief to battle and fought together, and hence considered themselves to be related. This was, as a matter of fact, the case. Colonel Tod states that the great Rathor clan, who said that they could muster a hundred thousand swords, spoke of themselves as the sons of one father. The members of the Scotch clans considered themselves related in the same manner, and they were probably of similar character to the Rajput clans. [177]

I do not know, however, that there is any definite evidence as to the exogamy of the Scotch clans, which would have disappeared with their conversion to Christianity. The original Rajput clan may perhaps have lived round the chiefs castle or headquarters and been supported by the produce of his private fief or demesne. The regular Brahman _gotras_ are also few in number, possibly because they were limited by the paucity of eponymous saints of the first rank. The word _gotra_ means a stall or cow-pen, and would thus originally signify those who lived together in one place like a herd of cattle. But the _gotras_ are now exceedingly large, the same ones being found in most or all of the Brahman subcastes, and it is believed that they do not regulate marriage as a rule. Sometimes ordinary surnames have taken the place of clan names, and persons with the same surname consider themselves related and do not marry. But usually Brahmans prohibit marriage between Sapindas or persons related to each other within seven degrees from a common ancestor. The word Sapinda signifies those who partake together of the _pindas_ or funeral cakes offered to the dead. The Sapindas are also a man's heirs in the absence of closer relations; the group of the Sapindas is thus an exact replica within the _gotra_ of the primitive totem clan which was exogamous and const.i.tuted by the tie of living and eating together. Similarly marriage at Rome was prohibited to seven degrees of relations.h.i.+p through males within the _gens_, [178] and this exogamous group of kinsmen appear to have been the body of agnatic kinsmen within the _gens_ who are referred to by Sir H. Maine as a man's ultimate heirs. [179] At Athens, when a contest arose upon a question of inheritance, the proper legal evidence to establish kins.h.i.+p was the proof that the alleged ancestor and the alleged heir observed a common wors.h.i.+p and shared in the same repast in honour of the dead. [180] The distant heirs were thus a group within the Athenian g'enoc corresponding to the Sapindas and bound by the same tie of eating together. Professor Hearn states that there is no certain evidence that the Roman _gens_ and Greek g'enoc were originally exogamous, but we find that of the Roman matrons whose names are known to us none married a husband with her own Gentile name; and further, that Plutarch, in writing of the Romans, says that in former days men did not marry women of their own blood or, as in the preceding sentence he calls them, kinswomen suggen'idac, just as in his own day they did not marry their aunts or sisters; and he adds that it was long before they consented to wed with cousins. [181]

Professor Hearn's opinion was that the Hindu _gotra_, the Roman _gens_ and the Greek g'enoc were originally the same inst.i.tution, the exogamous clan with male descent, and all the evidence available, as well as the close correspondence in other respects of early Hindu inst.i.tutions with those of the Greek and Latin cities would tend to support this view.

75. Comparison of Hindu society with that of Greece and Rome. The _gens_.

In the admirable account of the early const.i.tution of the city-states of Greece and Italy contained in the work of M. Fustel de Coulanges, _La Cite Antique_, a close resemblance may be traced with the main strata of Hindu society given earlier in this essay. The Roman state was composed of a number of _gentes_ or clans, each _gens_ tracing its descent from a common ancestor, whose name it usually bore. The termination of the Gentile name in _ius_ signified descendant, as Claudius, Fabius, and so on. Similarly the names of the Athenian g'enh or clans ended in _ides_ or _ades_, as Butades, Phytalides, which had the same signification. [182] The Gentile or clan name was the _nomen_ or princ.i.p.al name, just as the personal names of the members of the totem-clans were at first connected with the totems. The members of the _gens_ lived together on a section of the city land and cultivated it under the control of the head of the _gens_. The original _ager Roma.n.u.s_ is held to have been 115 square miles or about 74,000 acres, [183] and this was divided up among the clans. The heads of clans originally lived on their estates and went in to Rome for the periodical feasts and other duties. The princ.i.p.al family or eldest branch of the _gens_ in the descent from a common ancestor ranked above the others, and its head held the position of a petty king in the territory of the _gens_. In Greece he was called >'anax or basile'uc. [184] Originally the Roman Senate consisted solely of the heads of _gentes,_ and the consuls, flamens and augurs were also chosen exclusively from them; they were known as _patres_; after the expulsion of the kings, fresh senators were added from the junior branches of the _gentes_, of which there were at this period 160, and these were known as _patres conscripti_ [185]. The distinction between the eldest and junior branches of the _gentes_ may have corresponded to the distinction between the Kshatriyas and Vaishyas, though as practically nothing is known of the const.i.tution of the original Kshatriyas, this can only be hypothetical.

76. The clients.

Within the _gens_, and living in the household or households of its members, there existed a body of slaves, and also another cla.s.s of persons called clients. [186] The client was a servant and dependant; he might be a.s.signed a plot of land by his patron, but at first could not transmit it nor hold it against his patron. It is probable that originally he had no right of property of his own, but he gradually acquired it. First he obtained a right of occupancy in his land and of its devolution to his son if he had one. Finally he was given the power of making a will. But he was still obliged to contribute to such expenses of the patron as ransom in war, fines imposed by the courts, or the dowry of a daughter. [187] The client was considered as a member of the family and bore its name. [188] But he was not a proper member of the family or _gens_, because his pedigree never ascended to a _pater_ or the head of a _gens_. [189] It was inc.u.mbent on the patron to protect the client, and guard his interests both in peace and war. The client partic.i.p.ated in the household and Gentile sacrifices and wors.h.i.+pped the G.o.ds of the _gens_. [190] At first the people of Rome consisted of three cla.s.ses, the patricians, the clients and the plebeians. In course of time, as the rights and privileges of the plebeians increased after the appointment of tribunes, their position, from having originally been much inferior, became superior to that of the clients, and the latter preferred to throw off the tie uniting them to their patrons and become merged in the plebeians. In this manner the intermediate cla.s.s of clients at length entirely disappeared. [191]

These clients must not be confused with the subsequent cla.s.s of the same name, who are found during the later period of the republic and the empire, and were the voluntary supporters or hangers-on of rich men. It would appear that these early clients corresponded very closely to the household servants of the Indian cultivators, from whom the village menial castes were developed. The Roman client was sometimes a freed slave, but this would not have made him a member of the family, even in a subordinate position. Apparently the cla.s.s of clients may have to a great extent originated in mixed descent, as the Indian household and village menials probably did. This view would account satisfactorily for the client's position as a member of the family but not a proper one. From the fact that they were considered one of the three princ.i.p.al divisions of the people it is clear that the clients must at one time have been numerous and important.

77. The plebeians.

Below the clients came the plebeians, whose position, as M. Fustel de Coulanges himself points out, corresponded very closely to that of the Sudras. The plebeians had no religion and no ancestors; they did not belong to a family or a _gens_. [192] They were a despised and abject cla.s.s, who lived like beasts outside the proper boundary of the city. The touch of the plebeian was impure. [193]

"When tribunes were created a special law was necessary to protect their life and liberty, and it was promulgated as follows: 'It is forbidden to strike or kill a tribune, as if he was an ordinary plebeian.' It would appear then that a patrician had the right to strike or kill an ordinary plebeian, or at least that he was amenable to no legal punishment for doing so." [194] Similarly in the ancient Greek cities the citizens were known as >agajo'i or good, and the plebeians as kako'i or bad. This latter cla.s.s is described by the poet Theognis as having had aforetime neither tribunals nor laws; they were not allowed even to enter the town, but lived outside like wild beasts. They had no part in the religious feasts and could not intermarry with the proper citizens. [195]

This position corresponds exactly with that of the Sudras and the existing impure castes, who have to live outside the village and cannot enter or even approach Hindu temples.

M. de Coulanges considers that the plebeians were to a large extent made up of conquered and subjected peoples. An asylum was also established at Rome for broken men and outlaws from other cities, with a view to increasing the population and strength of the state. Subsequently the cla.s.s of clients became absorbed among the plebeians.

78. The binding social tie in the city-states.

Thus the gradation of society in the city-states of Greece and Italy, the account given above being typical of them all, is seen to correspond fairly closely with that of the Hindus, as exemplified in the Hindu cla.s.sics and the microcosm of Hindu society, the village community. It is desirable, therefore, to inquire what was the tie which united the members of the _gens_, the _curia_ or _phratry_, and the city, and which distinguished the patricians from the plebeians. On this point M. Fustel de Coulanges leaves us in no doubt at all. The bond of union among all these bodies was a common sacrifice or sacrificial meal, at which all the members had to be present. "The princ.i.p.al ceremony of the religion of the household was a meal, which was called a sacrifice. To eat a meal prepared on an altar was, according to all appearance, the first form of religious wors.h.i.+p." [196] "The princ.i.p.al ceremony of the religion of the city was also a public feast; it had to be partaken of communally by all the citizens in honour of the tutelary deities. The custom of holding these public feasts was universal in Greece; and it was believed that the safety of the city depended on their accomplishment." [197]

M. de Coulanges quotes from the _Odyssey_ an account of one of these sacred feasts at which nine long tables were set out for the people of Pylos; five hundred citizens were seated and nine bulls were slaughtered for each table. When Orestes arrived at Athens after the murder of his mother, he found the people, a.s.sembled round their king, about to hold the sacred feast. Similar feasts were held and numerous victims were slaughtered in Xenophon's time. [198] At these meals the guests were crowned with garlands and the vessels were of a special form and material, such as copper or earthenware, no doubt dating from the antique past. [199] As regards the importance and necessity of being present at the Gentile sacrificial feast, the same author states: "The Capitol was blockaded by the Gauls; but Fabius left it and pa.s.sed through the hostile lines, clad in religious garb, and carrying in his hand the sacred objects; he was going to offer a sacrifice on the altar of his _gens_ which was situated on the Quirinal. In the second Punic war another Fabius, he who was called the buckler of Rome, was holding Hannibal in check; it was a.s.suredly of the greatest importance to the Republic that he should not leave his army; he left it, however, in the hands of the imprudent Minucius; it was because the anniversary day of the sacrifice of his _gens_ had come and it was necessary that he should hasten to Rome to perform the sacred rite." In Greece the members of the _gens_ were known by the fact that they performed communal sacrifices together from a remote period. [200] As already seen, a communal sacrifice meant the eating together of the sacred food, whether the flesh of a victim or grain.

79. The Suovetaurilia.

The Roman city sacrifice of the Suovetaurilia, as described by M. de Coulanges, is of the greatest interest. The magistrate whose duty it was to accomplish it, that is in the first place the king, after him the consul, and after him the censor, had first to take the auspices and ascertain that the G.o.ds were favourable. Then he summoned the people through a herald by a consecrated form of words. On the appointed day all the citizens a.s.sembled outside the walls; and while they stood silent the magistrate proceeded three times round the a.s.sembly, driving before him three victims--a pig, a ram and a bull. The combination of these three victims const.i.tuted with the Greeks as well as the Romans an expiatory sacrifice. Priests and attendants followed the procession: when the third round had been accomplished, the magistrate p.r.o.nounced a prayer and slaughtered the victims. From this moment all sins were expiated, and neglect of religious duties effaced, and the city was at peace with its G.o.ds.

There were two essential features of this ceremony: the first, that no stranger should be present at it; and the second, that no citizen should be absent from it. In the latter case the whole city might not have been freed from impurity. The Suovetaurilia was therefore preceded by a census, which was conducted with the greatest care both at Rome and Athens. The citizen who was not enrolled and was not present at the sacrifice could no longer be a member of the city. He could be beaten and sold as a slave, this rule being relaxed only in the last two centuries of the Republic. Only male citizens were present at the sacrifice, but they gave a list of their families and belongings to the censor, and these were considered to be purified through the head of the family. [201]

This sacrifice was called a _l.u.s.tratio_ or purification, and in the historical period was considered to be expiatory. But it does not seem probable that this was its original significance. For there would not in that case have been the paramount necessity for every citizen to be present. All females and children under power were purified through the list given to the censor, and there seems no reason why absent citizens could not have been purified in the same manner. But partic.i.p.ation in this sacrifice was itself the very test and essence of citizens.h.i.+p. And it has been seen that a public meal was the princ.i.p.al religious rite of the city. The conclusion therefore seems reasonable that the Suovetaurilia was originally also a sacrificial meal of which each citizen partook, and that the eating of the deified domestic animals in common was the essence of the rite and the act which conferred the privilege of citizens.h.i.+p. The driving of the sacrificial animals round the citizens three times might well be a subst.i.tute for the previous communal meal, if for any reason, such as the large number of citizens, the practice of eating them had fallen into abeyance. The original ground for the taking of a census was to ensure that all the citizens were present at the communal sacrifice; and it was by the place which a man occupied on this day that his rank in the city was determined till the next sacrifice. If the censor counted him among the senators, he remained a senator; if among the equites, he remained a knight; if as a simple member of a tribe, he belonged henceforward to the tribe in which he was counted. If the censor refused to enumerate him, he was no longer a citizen. [202] Such was the vital importance of the act of partic.i.p.ation in the sacrifice.

80. The sacrifice of the domestic animal.

The Roman sacrifice of the Suovetaurilia was in no way peculiar, similar rites being found in other Greek and Latin cities. Some instances are recorded in the article on Kasai, and in _Themis_ [203] Miss Jane Harrison gives an account of a sacrifice at Magnesia in which a bull, ram and he- and she-goats were sacrificed to the G.o.ds and partaken of communally by the citizens. As already seen, the act of partic.i.p.ation in the sacrifice conferred the status of citizens.h.i.+p. The domestic animals were not as a rule eaten, but their milk was drunk, and they were used for transport, and clothes were perhaps sometimes made from their hair and skins. Hence they were the princ.i.p.al source of life of the tribe, as the totem had been of the clan, and were venerated and deified. One common life was held to run through all the members of the tribe and all the domestic animals of the species which was its princ.i.p.al means of support. In the totem or hunting stage the clan had necessarily been small, because a large collection of persons could not subsist together by hunting and the consumption of roots and fruits. When an additional means of support was afforded by the domestication of an important animal, a much larger number of persons could live together, and apparently several clans became amalgamated into a tribe. The sanct.i.ty of the domestic animals was much greater than that of the totem because they lived with man and partook of his food, which was the strongest tie of kins.h.i.+p; and since he still endowed them with self-consciousness and volition, he thought they had come voluntarily to aid him in sustaining life. Both on this account and for fear of injuring the common life they were not usually killed. But it was necessary to primitive man that the tie should take a concrete form and that he should actually a.s.similate the life of the sacred animal by eating its flesh, and this was accordingly done at a ceremonial sacrifice, which was held annually, and often in the spring, the season of the renewal and increase of life. Since this renewal of the communal life was the concrete tie which bound the tribe together, any one who was absent from it could no longer be a member of the tribe. The whole of this rite and the intense importance attached to it are inexplicable except on the supposition that the tie which had originally const.i.tuted the totem-clan was the eating of the totem-animal, and that this tie was perpetuated in the tribe by the communal eating of the domestic animal. The communal sacrifice of the domestic animal was, as already seen, typical of society in the tribal or pastoral stage. But one very important case, in addition to those given above and in the article on Kasai, remains for notice. The Id-ul-Zoha or Bakr-Id festival of the Muhammadans is such a rite. In pre-Islamic times this sacrifice was held at Mecca and all the Arab tribes went to Mecca to celebrate it. The month in which the sacrifice was held was one of those of truce, when the feuds between the different clans were in abeyance so that they could meet at Mecca. Muhammad continued the sacrifice of the Id-ul-Zoha and it is this sacrifice which a good Muhammadan takes the pilgrimage to Mecca to perform. He must be at Mecca on the tenth day of the month of Z'ul Hijjah and perform the sacrifice there, and unless he does this there is no special merit in making the journey to Mecca. It is inc.u.mbent on every Muhammadan who can afford it to make the pilgrimage to Mecca or the Hajj once in his life and perform the sacrifice there; and though as a matter of fact only a very small minority of Muhammadans now carry out the rule, the pilgrimage and sacrifice may yet be looked upon as the central and princ.i.p.al rite of the Muhammadan religion. All Muhammadans who cannot go to Mecca nevertheless celebrate the sacrifice at home at the Indian festival of the Id-ul-Zoha and the Turkish and Egyptian Idu-Bairam. At the Id-ul-Zoha any one of four domestic animals, the camel, the cow, the sheep or the goat, may be sacrificed; and this rule makes it a connecting link between the two great Semitic sacrifices described in the article on Kasai, the camel sacrifice of the Arabs in pre-Islamic times and the Pa.s.sover of the Jews. At the present time one-third of the flesh of the sacrificial animal should be given to the poor, one-third to relations, and the remainder to the sacrificer's own family. [204] Though it has now become a household sacrifice, the communal character thus still partly survives.

81. Sacrifices of the _gens_ and phratry.

Both in Athens and Rome there was a division known as phratry or _curia_. This apparently consisted of a collection of _gentes_, g'enh, or clans, and would correspond roughly to a Hindu subcaste. The evidence does not show, however, that it was endogamous. The bond which united the phratry or _curia_ was precisely the same as that of the _gens_ or clan and the city. It consisted also in a common meal, which was prepared on the altar, and was eaten with the recitation of prayers, a part being offered to the G.o.d, who was held to be present. At Athens on feast-days the members of the phratry a.s.sembled round their altar. A victim was sacrificed and its flesh cooked on the altar, and divided among the members of the phratry, great care being taken that no stranger should be present. A young Athenian was presented to the phratry by his father, who swore that the boy was his son. A victim was sacrificed and cooked on the altar in the presence of all the members of the phratry; if they were doubtful of the boy's legitimacy, and hence wished to refuse him admittance, as they had the right to do, they refused to remove the flesh from the altar. If they did not do this, but divided and partook of the flesh with the candidate, he was finally and irrevocably admitted to the phratry. The explanation of this custom, M. de Coulanges states, is that food prepared on an altar and eaten by a number of persons together, was believed to establish between them a sacred tie which endured through life. [205] Even a slave was to a certain degree admitted into the family by the same tie of common eating of food. At Athens he was made to approach the hearth; he was purified by pouring water on his head, and ate some cakes and fruit with the members of the family. This ceremony was a.n.a.logous to those of marriage and adoption. It signified that the new arrival, hitherto a stranger, was henceforth a member of the family and partic.i.p.ated in the family wors.h.i.+p. [206]

82. The Hindu caste-feasts.

The a.n.a.logy of Greece and Rome would suggest the probability that the tie uniting the members of the Indian caste or subcaste is also partic.i.p.ation in a common sacrificial meal, and there is a considerable amount of evidence to support this view. The Confarreatio or eating together of the bride and bridegroom finds a close parallel in the family sacrament of the _Meher_ or marriage cakes, which has already been described. This would appear formerly to have been a clan rite, and to have marked the admission of the bride to the bridegroom's clan. It is obligatory on relations of the families to attend a wedding and they proceed from great distances to do so, and clerks and other officials are much aggrieved if the exigencies of Government business prevent them from obtaining leave. The obligation seems to be of the same character as that which caused Fabius to leave the army in order to attend his Gentile sacrifice at Rome. If he did not attend the Gentile sacrifice he was not a member of the _gens_, and if a Hindu did not attend the feast of his clan in past times perhaps he did not remain a member of the clan. Among the Maratha Brahmans the girl-bride eats with her husband's relations on this day only to mark her admission into their clan, and among the Bengali Brahmans, when the wedding guests are collected, the bride comes and puts a little sugar on each of their leaf-plates, which they eat in token of their recognition of her in her new status of married woman. The members of the caste or subcaste also a.s.semble and eat together on three occasions: at a marriage, which will have the effect of bringing new life into the community; at a death, when a life is lost; and at the initiation of a new member or the readmission of an offender temporarily put out of caste. It is a general rule of the caste feasts that all members of the subcaste in the locality must be invited, and if any considerable number of them do not attend, the host's position in the community is impugned. For this reason he has to incur lavish expenditure on the feast, so as to avoid criticism or dissatisfaction among his guests. These consider themselves at liberty to comment freely on the character and quality of the provisions offered to them. In most castes the feast cannot begin until all the guests have a.s.sembled; the Maheshri Banias and one or two other castes are distinguished by the fact that they allow the guests at the _pangat_ or caste feast to begin eating as they arrive. Those who bear the host a grudge purposely stay away, and he has to run to their houses and beg them to come, so that his feast can begin. When the feast has begun it was formerly considered a great calamity if any accident should necessitate the rising of the guests before its conclusion. Even if a dog or other impure animal should enter the a.s.sembly they would not rise. The explanation of this rule was that it would be disrespectful to Um Deo, the food-G.o.d, to interrupt the feast. At the feast each man sits with his bare crossed knees actually touching those of the men on each side of him, to show that they are one brotherhood and one body. If a man sat even a few inches apart from his fellows, people would say he was out of caste; and in recent times, since those out of caste have been allowed to attend the feasts, they sit a little apart in this manner. The Gowaris fine a man who uses abusive language to a fellow-casteman at a caste feast, and also one who gets up and leaves the feast without the permission of the caste headman. The Hatkars have as the names of two exogamous groups _Wakmar_, or one who left the Pangat or caste feast while his fellows were eating; and _Polya_, or one who did not take off his turban at the feast. It has been seen also [207] that in one or two castes the exogamous sections are named after the offices which their members hold or the duties they perform at the caste feast. Among the Halbas the illegitimate subcaste Surait is also known as Chhoti Pangat or the inferior feast, with the implication that its members cannot be admitted to the proper feast of the caste, but have an inferior one of their own.

83. Taking food at initiation.

When an outsider is admitted to the caste the rite is usually connected with food. A man who is to be admitted to the Dahait caste must clean his house, break his earthen cooking-vessels and buy new ones, and give a feast to the caste-fellows in his house. He sits and takes food with them, and when the meal is over he takes a grain of rice from the leaf-plate of each guest and eats it, and drinks a drop of water from his leaf-cup. After this he cannot be readmitted to his own caste. A new Mehtar or sweeper gives water to and takes bread from each casteman. In Mandla a new convert to the Panka caste vacates his house and the caste _panchayat_ or committee go and live in it, in order to purify it. He gives them a feast inside the house, while he himself stays outside. Finally he is permitted to eat with the _panchayat_ in his own house in order to mark his admission into the caste. A candidate for admission in the Mahli caste has to eat a little of the leavings of the food of each of the castemen at a feast. The community of robbers known as Badhak or Baoria formerly dwelt in the Oudh forests. They were accustomed to take omens from the cry of the jackal, and they may probably have venerated it as representing the spirit of the forest and as a fellow-hunter. They were called jackal-eaters, and it was said that when an outsider was admitted to one of their bands he was given jackal's flesh to eat.

Again, the rite of initiation or invest.i.ture with the sacred thread appears to be the occasion of the admission of a boy to the caste community. Before this he is not really a member of the caste and may eat any kind of food. The initiation is called by the Brahmans the second birth, and appears to be the birth of the soul or spirit. After it the boy will eat the sacrificial food at the caste feasts and be united with the members of the caste and their G.o.d. The bodies of children who have not been initiated are buried and not burnt. The reason seems to be that their spirits will not go to the G.o.d nor be united with the ancestors, but will be born again. Formerly such children were often buried in the house or courtyard so that their spirits might be born again in the same family. The lower castes sometimes consider the rite of ear-piercing as the initiation and sometimes marriage. Among the Panwar Rajputs a child is initiated when about two years old by being given cooked rice and milk to eat. The initiation cannot for some reason be performed by the natural father, but must be done by a _guru_ or spiritual father, who should thereafter be regarded with a reverence equal to or even exceeding that paid to the natural father.

84. Penalty feasts.

When a man is readmitted to caste after exclusion for some offence, the princ.i.p.al feature of the rite is a feast at which he is again permitted to eat with his fellows. There are commonly two feasts, one known as the _Maili Roti_ or impure meal, and the other as _Chokhi_ or pure, both being at the cost of the offender. The former is eaten by the side of a stream or elsewhere on neutral ground, and by it the offender is considered to be partly purified; the latter is in his own house, and by eating there the castemen demonstrate that no impurity attaches to him, and he is again a full member. Some castes, as the Dhobas, have three feasts: the first is eaten at the bank of a stream, and at this the offender's hair is shaved and thrown into the stream; the second is in his yard; and the third in his house. The offender is not allowed to partake of the first two meals himself, but he joins in the third, and before it begins the head of the _panchayat_ gives him water to drink in which gold has been dipped as a purificatory rite. Among the Gonds the flesh of goats is provided at the first meal, but at the second only grain cooked with water, which they now, in imitation of the Hindus, consider as the sacred sacrificial food. Frequently the view obtains that the head of the caste _panchayat_ takes the offender's sins upon himself by commencing to eat, and in return for this a present of some rupees is deposited beneath his plate. Similarly among some castes, as the Bahnas, exclusion from caste is known as the stopping of food and water. The Gowaris readmit offenders by the joint drinking of opium and water. One member is especially charged with the preparation of this, and if there should not be enough for all the castemen to partake of it, he is severely punished. Opium was also considered sacred by the Rajputs, and the chief and his kinsmen were accustomed to drink it together as a pledge of amity. [208]

85. Sanct.i.ty of grain-food.

Grain cooked with water is considered as sacred food by the Hindus. It should be eaten only on a s.p.a.ce within the house called _chauka_ purified with cowdung, and sometimes marked out with white quartz-powder or flour. Before taking his meal a member of the higher castes should bathe and wors.h.i.+p the household G.o.ds. At the meal he should wear no sewn clothes, but only a waist-cloth made of silk or wool, and not of cotton. The lower castes will take food cooked with water outside the house in the fields, and are looked down upon for doing this, so that those who aspire to raise their social position abandon the practice, or at least pretend to do so. Sir J.G. Frazer quotes a pa.s.sage showing that the ancient Brahmans considered the sacrificial rice-cakes cooked with water to be transformed into human bodies. [209] The Urdu word _bali_ means a sacrifice or offering, and is applied to the portion of the daily meal which is offered to the G.o.ds and to the hearth-fire. Thus all grain cooked with water is apparently looked upon as sacred or sacramental food, and it is for this reason that it can only be eaten after the purificatory rites already described. The grain is venerated as the chief means of subsistence, and the communal eating of it seems to be a.n.a.logous to the sacrificial eating of the domestic animals, such as the camel, horse, ox and sheep, which is described above and in the article on Kasai. Just as in the hunting stage the eating of the totem-animal, which furnished the chief means of subsistence, was the tie which united the totem-clan: and in the pastoral stage the domestic animal which afforded to the tribe its princ.i.p.al support, not usually as an article of food, but through its milk and its use as a means of transport, was yet eaten sacrificially owing to the persistence of the belief that the essential bond which united the tribe was the communal eating of the flesh of the animal from which the tribe obtained its subsistence: so when the community reaches the agricultural stage the old communal feast is retained as the bond of union, but it now consists of grain, which is the princ.i.p.al support of life.