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The Tribes and Castes of the Central Provinces of India, Volume 3
“Proceeding along the bed of the valley I came upon two colonies of a wild race of people called Kamārs by their neighbours. They were regular Troglodytes in their habits, dwelling in caves and existing chiefly on roots and fish. It is singular to observe how little the people of these wild races do to protect themselves from the inclemency of the weather. In one of these caves the sole protection from the air was a lean-to of loosely placed branches. The people seemed to be very timid, hiding themselves on our approach. I did not therefore like to attempt an examination of their dwellings. After some calling on our part one man was induced to make his appearance. He was a most wretched-looking, leprous object, having lost several fingers and toes. He could give no very definite explanation as to his means of subsistence. All he could say was that he lived ‘by picking up odds and ends here and there.’ However, he seemed to be able to afford himself the solace of tobacco. A few cocks and hens at one of the caves, and a goat at the other, were the only domestic animals which I saw.”
13. Their skill with bows and arrows
The tribe are of small stature. They are very fond of hunting, and are expert at using their bows and arrows, with which they have killed even bison. Mr. W. E. Ley, C.S., relates the following particulars of a recent murder by a Kamār in Raipur: Two Hindus went to a Kamār’s house in the jungle to dun him for a debt. He could not pay the debt, but invited them to take food in his house. At the meal the creditor’s companion said the food was bad, and a quarrel thereupon ensuing, slapped the Kamār in the face. The latter started up, snatched up his bow and arrow and axe, and ran away into the jungle. The Hindus then set out for home, and as they were afraid of being attacked by the Kamār, they took his brother with them as a protection. Nevertheless the Kamār shot one of them through the side, the arrow passing through the arm and penetrating the lung. He then shot the other through the chest, and running in, mutilated his body in a shocking manner. When charged with the murders he confessed them freely, saying that he was a wild man of the woods and knew no better.
Kanjar
[Bibliography: Mr. J. C. Nesfield’s The Kanjars of Upper India, Calcutta Review, vol. lxxvii., 1883; Mr. Crooke’s Castes and Tribes, art. Kanjar; Major Gunthorpe’s Criminal Tribes; Mr. Kitts’ Berār Census Report (1881); Mr. Gayer’s Lectures on Criminal Tribes of the Central Provinces.]
1. Derivation of the Kanjars from the Doms
Kanjar.—A name applied somewhat loosely to various small communities of a gipsy character who wander about the country. In 1911 about 1000 Kūchbandhia Kanjars were returned in the Province. In Berār the Kanjars seem to be practically identical with the Sānsias; Major Gunthorpe301 gives Kanjar and Sānsia as alternative names of the same caste of criminals, and this is also done by Mr. Kennedy in Bombay.302 Mr. Kitts writes of them:303 “The Deccani and Mārwāri Kanjars were originally Bhāts (bards) of the Jāt tribe; and as they generally give themselves out to be Bhāts are probably not included at all among the Kanjars returned at the census. They are a vagrant people, living in tents and addicted to crime. The women are good-looking; some are noted for their obscene songs, filthy alike in word and gesture; while others, whose husbands play on the sārangi, lead a life of immorality. The men are often skilful acrobats.” And in another passage:304 “The Sānsia family or the ‘Long Firm’ of India includes two principal divisions represented in Berār by the Kanjars and Kolhātis respectively. They will eat, drink and smoke together, and occasionally join in committing dacoity. They eat all kinds of meat and drink all liquors; they are lax of morals and loose of life.” Now in northern India the business of acting as bards to the Jāts and begging from them is the traditional function of the Sānsias; and we may therefore conclude that so far as Berār and the Marātha Districts are concerned the Kanjars are identical with the Sānsias, while the Kolhātis mentioned by Mr. Kitts are the same people as the Berias, as shown in the article on Kolhāti, and the Berias themselves are another branch of the Sānsias.305 There seems some reason to suppose that these four closely allied groups, the Kanjar or Sānsia, and the Kolhāti or Beria, may have their origin from the great Dom caste of menials and scavengers in Hindustān and Bengal. In the Punjab the Doms are the regular bards and genealogists of the lower castes, being known also as Mirāsi: “The two words are used throughout the Province as absolutely synonymous. The word Mirāsi is derived from the Arabic mirās or inheritance; and the Mirāsi is to the inferior agricultural castes and the outcaste tribes what the Bhāt is to the Rājpūts.”306 In the article on Sānsia it is shown that the primary calling of the Sānsias was to act as bards and genealogists of the Jāts; and this common occupation is to some extent in favour of the original identity of the two castes Dom and Sānsia, though Sir D. Ibbetson was not of this opinion.307 In the United Provinces Mr. Crooke gives the Jallād or executioners as one of the main divisions of the Kanjars;308 and the Jallāds of Umballa are said to be the descendants of a Kanjar family who were attached to the Delhi Court as executioners.309 But the Jallād or sūpwāla is also a name of the Doms. “The term Jallād, which is an Arabic name for ‘A public flogger,’ is more especially applied to those Doms who are employed in cities to kill ownerless dogs and to act as public executioners.”310 Mr. Gayer states that as the result of special inquiries made by an experienced police-officer it would appear that these Jallād Kanjars are really Doms.311 In Gujarāt the Mīrs or Mirāsis are also known as Dom after the tribe of that name; they were originally of two classes, one the descendants of Gujarāt Bhāts or bards, the other from northern India, partly of Bhāt descent and partly connected with the Doms.312 And the Sānsias and Berias in Bombay when accompanied by their families usually pass themselves off as Gujarāti Bhāts, that is, bards of the Jāt caste from Mārwār or of the Kolis from Gujarāt.313 Major Gunthorpe states that the Kolhātis or Berias of Berār appear to be the same as the Domras of Bengal;314 and Mr. Kitts that the Khām Kolhātis are the Domarus of Telingāna.315 In writing of the Kanjar bards Sherring also says: “These are the Kanjars of Gondwāna, the Sānsis of northern India; they are the most desperate of all dacoits and wander about the country as though belonging to the Gujarāti Domtaris or showmen.” The above evidence seems sufficient to establish a prima facie case in favour of the Dom origin of these gipsy castes. It may be noticed further that the Jallād Kanjars of the United Provinces are also known as Sūpwāla or makers of sieves and winnowing-fans, a calling which belongs specially to the Doms, Bhangis, and other sweeper castes. Both Doms and Bhangis have divisions known as Bānsphor or ‘breaker of bamboos,’ a name which has the same signification as Sūpwāla. Again, the deity of the criminal Doms of Bengal is known as Sānsari Mai.316
Kanjars making ropes
2. The Kanjars and the Gipsies
The Kanjars and Berias are the typical gipsy castes of India, and have been supposed to be the parents of the European gipsies. On this point Mr. Nesfield writes: “The commonly received legend is that multitudes of Kanjars were driven out of India by the oppressions of Tamerlane, and it is inferred that the gipsies of Europe are their direct descendants by blood, because they speak like them a form of the Hindi language.”317 Sir G. Grierson states:318 “According to the Shāh-nāma, the Persian monarch Bahrām Gaur received in the fifth century from an Indian king 12,000 musicians who were known as Lūris, and the Lūris or Lūlis, that is gipsies, of modern Persia are the descendants of these.” These people were also called Lutt, and hence it was supposed that they were the Indian Jāts. Sir G. Grierson, however, shows it to be highly improbable that the Jāts, one of the highest castes of cultivators, could ever have furnished a huge band of professional singers and dancers. He on the contrary derives the gipsies from the Dom tribe:319 “Mr. Leland has made a happy suggestion that the original gipsies may have been Doms of India. He points out that Romany is almost letter for letter the same as Domni
In the above it must be remembered that the verbal terminations of the gipsy text are English and not gipsy.”
Sir G. Grierson also adds (in the passage first quoted): “I may note here a word which lends a singular confirmation to the theory. It is the gipsy term for bread, which is mānrō or manro. This is usually connected either with the Gaudian mānr ‘rice-gruel’ or with manrua, the millet (Eleusine coracana). Neither of these agrees with the idea of bread, but in the Magadhi dialect of Bihāri, spoken south of the Ganges in the native land of these Maghiya Doms, there is a peculiar word mānda or mānra which means wheat, whence the transition to the gipsy mānrō, bread, is eminently natural.”
The above argument renders it probable that the gipsies are derived from the Doms; and as Mr. Nesfield gives it as a common legend that they originated from the Kanjars, this is perhaps another connecting link between the Doms and Kanjars. The word gipsy is probably an abbreviation of ‘Egyptian,’ the country assigned as the home of the gipsies in mediaeval times. It has already been seen that the Doms are the bards and minstrels of the lower castes in the Punjab, and that the Kanjars and Sānsias, originally identical or very closely connected, were in particular the bards of the Jāts. It is a possible speculation that they may have been mixed up with the lower classes of Jāts or have taken their name, and that this has led to the confusion between the Jāts and gipsies. Some support is afforded to this suggestion by the fact that the Kanjars of Jubbulpore say that they have three divisions, the Jāt, Multāni and Kūchbandia. The Jāt Kanjars are, no doubt, those who acted as bards to the Jāts, and hence took the name; and if the ancestors of these people emigrated from India they may have given themselves out as Jāt.
3. The Thugs derived from the Kanjars
In the article on Thug it is suggested that a large, if not the principal, section of the Thugs were derived from the Kanjars. At the Thug marriages an old matron would sometimes repeat, “Here’s to the spirits of those who once led bears and monkeys; to those who drove bullocks and marked with the godini (tattooing-needle); and those who made baskets for the head.” And these are the occupations of the Kanjars and Berias. The Goyandas of Jubbulpore, descendants of Thug approvers, are considered to be a class of gipsy Muhammadans, akin to or identical with the Kanjars, of whom the Multāni subdivision are also Muhammadans. Like the Kanjar women the Goyandas make articles of net and string. There is also a colony of Berias in Jubbulpore, and these are admittedly the descendants of Thugs who were located there. If the above argument is well founded, we are led to the interesting conclusion that four of the most important vagrant and criminal castes of India, as well as the Mirāsis or low-class Hindu bards, the gipsies, and a large section of the Thugs, are all derived from the great Dom caste.
4. The Doms
The Doms appear to be one of the chief aboriginal tribes of northern India, who were reduced to servitude like the Mahārs and Chamārs. Sir H. M. Elliot considered them to be “One of the original tribes of India. Tradition fixes their residence to the north of the Ghāgra, touching the Bhars on the east in the vicinity of the Rohini. Several old forts testify to their former importance, and still retain the names of their founders, as, for instance, Domdiha and Domingarh in the Gorakhpur district. Rāmgarh and Sahukot on the Rohini are also Dom forts.”321 Sir G. Grierson quotes Dr. Fleet as follows: “In a south Indian inscription a king Rudradeva is said to have subdued a certain Domma, whose strength evidently lay in his cavalry. No clue is given as to who this Domma was, but he may have been the leader of some aboriginal tribe which had not then lost all its power”; and suggests that this Domma may have been a leader of the Doms, who would then be shown to have been dominant in southern India. As already seen there is a Domāru caste of Telingāna, with whom Mr. Kitts identified the Berias or Kolhātis. In northern India the Doms were reduced to a more degraded condition than the other pre-Aryan tribes as they furnished a large section of the sweeper caste. As has been seen also they were employed as public executioners like the Māngs. This brief mention of the Doms has been made in view of the interest attaching to them on account of the above suggestions, and because there will be no separate article on the caste.
5. The criminal Kanjars
In Berār two main divisions of the Kanjars may be recognised, the Kūnchbandhia or those who make weavers’ brooms and are comparatively honest, and the other or criminal Kanjars.322 The criminal Kanjars may again be divided into the Mārwāri and Deccani groups. They were probably once the same, but the Deccanis, owing to their settlement in the south, have adopted some Marātha or Gujarāti fashions, and speak the Marāthi language; their women wear the angia or Marātha breast-cloth fastening behind, and have a gold ornament shaped like a flower in the nose;323 while the Mārwāri Kanjars have no breast-cloth and may not wear gold ornaments at all. The Deccani Kanjars are fond of stealing donkeys, their habit being either to mix their own herds with those of the village and drive them all off together, or, if they catch the donkeys unattended, to secrete them in some water-course, tying their legs together, and if they remain undiscovered to remove them at nightfall. The animals are at once driven away for a long distance before any attempt is made to dispose of them. The Mārwāri Kanjars consider it derogatory to keep donkeys and therefore do not steal these animals. They are preeminently cattle-lifters and sheep-stealers, and their encampments may be recognised by the numbers of bullocks and cows about them. Their women wear the short Mārwāri petticoat reaching half-way between the knees and ankles. Their hair is plaited over the forehead and cowrie shells and brass ornaments like buttons are often attached in it. Bead necklaces are much worn by the women and bead and horse-hair necklets by the men. A peculiarity about the women is that they are confirmed snuff-takers and consume great quantities of the weed in this form. The women go into the towns and villages and give exhibitions of singing and dancing; and picking up any information they can acquire about the location of property, impart this to the men. Sometimes they take service, and a case was known in Jubbulpore of Kanjar women hiring themselves out as pankha-pullers, with the result that the houses in which they were employed were subsequently robbed.324 It is said, however, that they do not regularly break into houses, but confine themselves to lurking theft. I have thought it desirable to record here the above particulars of the criminal Kanjars, taken from Major Gunthorpe’s account; for, though the caste is, as already stated, identical with the Sānsias, their customs in Berār differ considerably from those of the Sānsias of Central India, who are treated of in the article on that caste.
6. The Kūnchband Kanjars
We come, finally, to the Kūnchband Kanjars, the most representative section of the caste, who as a body are not criminals, or at any rate less so than the others. The name Kūnchband or Kūchband, by which they are sometimes known, is derived from their trade of making brushes (kūnch) of the roots of khas-khas grass, which are used by weavers for cleaning the threads entangled on the looms. This has given rise to the proverb ‘Kori ka bigāri Kūnchbandhia’ or ‘The Kūnchbandhia must look to the Kori (weaver) as his patron’; the point being that the Kori is himself no better than a casual labourer, and a man who is dependent on him must be in a poor way indeed. The Kūnchbandhias are also known in northern India as Sankat or Patharkat, because they make and sharpen the household grinding-stones, this being the calling of the Tākankār Pārdhis in the Marātha Districts, and as Goher because they catch and eat the goh, the large lizard or iguana.325 Other divisions are the Dhobibans or washerman’s race, the Lakarhār or wood-cutters, and the Untwār or camelmen.
7. Marriage and religion
In the Central Provinces there are other divisions, as the Jāt and Multāni Kanjars. They say they have two exogamous divisions, Kalkha and Malha, and a member of either of these must take a wife from the other division. Both the Kalkhas and Malhas are further divided into kuls or sections, but the influence of these on marriage is not clear. At a Kanjar marriage, Mr. Crooke states, the gadela or spade with which they dig out the khas-khas grass and kill wolves or vermin, is placed in the marriage pavilion during the ceremony. The bridegroom swears that he will not drive away nor divorce his wife, and sometimes a mehar or dowry is also fixed for the bride. The father-in-law usually, however, remits a part or the whole of this subsequently, when the bridegroom goes to take food at his house on festival occasions. Mr. Nesfield states that the principal deity of the Kanjars is the man-god Māna, who was not only the teacher and guide, but also the founder and ancestor of the tribe. He is buried, as some Kanjars relate, at Kara in the Allahābād District, not far from the Ganges and facing the old city of Mānikpur on the opposite bank. Māna is worshipped with special ceremony in the rainy season, when the tribe is less migratory than in the dry months of the year. On such occasions, if sufficient notice is circulated, several encampments unite temporarily to pay honour to their common ancestor. The worshippers collect near a tree under which they sacrifice a pig, a goat, a sheep, or a fowl, and make an offering of roasted flesh and spirituous liquor. Formerly, it is said, they used to sacrifice a child, having first made it insensible with fermented palm-juice or toddy.326 They dance round the tree in honour of Māna, and sing the customary songs in commemoration of his wisdom and deeds of valour.
8. Social customs
The dead are usually buried, both male and female corpses being laid on their faces with the feet pointing to the south. Kanjars who become Muhammadans may be readmitted to the community after the following ceremony. A pit is dug and the convert sits in it and each Kanjar throws a little curds on to his body. He then goes and bathes in a river, his tongue is touched or branded with heated gold and he gives a feast to the community. A Kanjar woman who has lived in concubinage with a Brāhman, Rājpūt, Agarwāl Bania, Kurmi, Ahīr or Lodhi may be taken back into the caste after the same ceremony; but not one who has lived with a Kāyasth, Sunār or Lohār or any lower caste. A Kanjar is not put out of caste for being imprisoned, nor for being beaten by an outsider, nor for selling shoes. If a man touches his daughter-in-law even accidentally he is fined the sum of Rs. 2–8.
9. Industrial arts
The following account of the industries of the vagrant Kanjars was written by Mr. Nesfield in 1883. In the Central Provinces many of them are now more civilised, and some are employed in Government service. Their women also make and retail string-net purses, balls and other articles.
“Among the arts of the Kanjar are making mats of the sirki reed, baskets of wattled cane, fans of palm-leaves and rattles of plaited straw: these last are now sold to Hindu children as toys, though originally they may have been used by the Kanjars themselves (if we are to trust to the analogy of other backward races) as sacred and mysterious implements. From the stalks of the munj grass and from the roots of the palās327 tree they make ropes which are sold or bartered to villagers in exchange for grain and milk. They prepare the skins of which drums are made and sell them to Hindu musicians; though, probably, as in the case of the rattle, the drum was originally used by the Kanjars themselves and worshipped as a fetish; for even the Aryan tribes, who are said to have been far more advanced than the indigenous races, sang hymns in honour of the drum or dundubhi as if it were something sacred. They make plates of broad leaves which are ingeniously stitched together by their stalks; and plates of this kind are very widely used by the inferior Indian castes and by confectioners and sellers of sweetmeats. The mats of sirki reed with which they cover their own movable leaf huts are models of neatness and simplicity and many of these are sold to cart-drivers. The toddy or juice of the palm tree, which they extract and ferment by methods of their own and partly for their own use, finds a ready sale among low-caste Hindus in villages and market towns. They are among the chief stone-cutters in Upper India, especially in the manufacture of the grinding-mill which is very widely used. This consists of two circular stones of equal diameter; the upper one, which is the thicker and heavier, revolves on a wooden pivot fixed in the centre of the lower one and is propelled by two women, each holding the same handle. But it is also not less frequent for one woman to grind alone.” It is perhaps not realised what this business of grinding her own grain instead of buying flour means to the Indian woman. She rises before daybreak to commence the work, and it takes her perhaps two or three hours to complete the day’s provision. Grain-grinding for hire is an occupation pursued by poor women. The pisanhāri, as she is called, receives an anna (penny) for grinding 16 lbs. of grain, and can get through 30 lbs. a day. In several localities temples are shown supposed to have been built by some pious pisanhāri from her earnings. “The Kanjars,” Mr. Nesfield continues, “also gather the white wool-like fibre which grows in the pods of the semal or Indian cotton tree and twist it into thread for the use of weavers.328 In the manufacture of brushes for the cleaning of cotton-yarn the Kanjars enjoy almost a complete monopoly. In these brushes a stiff mass of horsehair is attached to a wooden handle by sinews and strips of hide; and the workmanship is remarkably neat and durable.329 Another complete or almost complete monopoly enjoyed by Kanjars is the collection and sale of sweet-scented roots of the khas-khas grass, which are afterward made up by the Chhaparbands and others into door-screens, and through being continually watered cool the hot air which passes through them. The roots of this wild grass, which grows in most abundance on the outskirts of forests or near the banks of rivers, are dug out of the earth by an instrument called khunti. This has a handle three feet long, and a blade about a foot long resembling that of a knife. The same implement serves as a dagger or short spear for killing wolves or jackals, as a tool for carving a secret entrance through the clay wall of a villager’s hut in which a burglary is meditated, as a spade or hoe for digging snakes, field-rats, and lizards out of their holes, and edible roots out of the earth, and as a hatchet for chopping wood.”
