The Tribes and Castes of the Central Provinces of India, Volume 3

9. Funeral rites

The dead are usually buried, two pice being first thrown into the grave to buy the site. The body is laid on its back, naked and with the head pointing to the south. The earth is mixed with briars and thorns while being filled in so as to keep off hyenas, and stones are placed over the grave. No fixed period of mourning is observed, but after the lapse of some days, the deceased’s family or relatives go to the burial-place, taking with them a piece of turmeric. This they cut into strips, and, placing them in a leaf-cup, pour water over them. As the water falls on the tomb, a god is called to witness that this day the dead man’s spirit has been sent to live with the ancestors. The pieces of turmeric are then tied in a cloth which, after receiving an oblation of fowl’s blood, is suspended from the main beam of the house, this being considered the dwelling-place of the departed. This ceremony, called Pitar Miloni, is the first rite for the admission of the deceased with the spirits of his ancestors, and is preliminary to the final ceremony of Sedoli which may be performed at any time between four months and fifteen years after the death. But until it is complete the spirit of the deceased has not been laid finally to rest and has the power of sending aches and pains to molest the bodies of its living relatives. Each sept has a place in which the Sedoli rites must be performed, and however far the Korku may have wandered from the original centre of his tribe, he must return there to set his father’s spirit at rest and enable it to join the ancestral ghosts. When the Sedoli is to be performed an unblemished teak or salai606 tree is selected and wrapped round with a thread, while seven circuits of it are made and a bottle of liquor and two pice are offered as purchase money. It is then cut down and brought home, and from it a smooth stake called mūnda is fashioned, 24 to 30 inches high, and squared or pointed at the top, often being arrow-headed. On it are carved representations of the sun and moon, a spider and a human ear, and below these a figure representing the principal person in whose honour the stake is erected, on horseback with weapons in his hand. The proper method is to have one mūnda for each ancestor, but poor persons make one do for several and their figures are then carved below. But care must be taken that the total number of figures representing the dead does not exceed that of the members of the family who have died during the period for which the Sedoli is performed. For in that case another person is likely to die for each extra figure. The little bags of turmeric representing the ancestors are then taken from the main beam of the house and carried with the mūnda to the burial-place. There a goat is sacrificed and these articles are besmeared with its blood, after which a feast is held accompanied by singing and dancing. Next day the party again go to the burial-place and plant the mūnda in it, placing two pice in the hole beneath it. They then proceed to the riverside, and, making a little ball from the flesh of the sacrificed animal, place it together with the bags of turmeric on a leaf platter, and throw the whole into the river saying, ‘Ancestors, find your home.’ If the ball sinks at once they consider that the ancestors have been successful, but if any delay takes place, they attribute it to the difficulty experienced by the ancestors in the selection of a home and throw in two pice to assist them. The pith of a bamboo may be substituted for turmeric to represent the bones. The dead are supposed to inhabit a village of their own similar to that in which they dwelt on earth and to lead there a colourless existence devoid alike of pleasure and of pain.

10. Appearance and social customs

The following description of the Korkus is given by Major Forsyth in the Nimār Settlement Report of 1868–69, with the addition of some remarks made by other observers. The Korkus are well built and muscular. The average Korku has a round face, a nose rather wide but not flat like a negro’s, prominent cheek-bones, a scanty moustache and his head shaved after the Hindu fashion. They are slightly taller than the Gond, a shade darker and a good many shades dirtier. In the wilder parts one may come across some quite too awful Korkus, from whom an intervening space of fifty yards is an insufficient protection, though strange to say there are no less than six words in their language which mean ‘to wash’; one to wash the whole body, one the limbs, one for the face, one for the mouth, one for the hair and one for the clothes, besides a word for scouring the body with a stone and another word for bathing in a stream. Their habitations on the other hand present quite a contrast to their individual want of cleanliness. They build their villages of a close bamboo wattle-work and with almost Swisslike neatness, a picturesque site being usually chosen, and the plan being one long street with a wide open roadway, or several such parallel with each other. The villages are kept remarkably clean, in striking contrast to the habitations of other aboriginal tribes. The average village contains about twenty huts, and it is the custom to bind these so closely together that forest fires often sweep through a whole village before a hut can be removed to check their course. The average hut is about fifteen feet square with a rather flat roof covered with loose grass over a layer of leaves and pressed down by outside poles. No nails are required as the posts are bound firmly together with bamboo or creeper fibre. The inmates generally sleep on the ground, and a few low stools carved from teak wood serve them for pillows. Every village has a few pigs and fowls running about, both of which are eaten after being sacrificed. The Korku is an adept in the crude process of distillation in which the only apparatus required consists of two gharas or earthen pots, a hollow bamboo, some mahua flowers, water and a fire. By this means the Korku manages to produce liquor upon which he can effectually get drunk. They are by no means particular about what they eat. Fowls, pork, fish, crabs and tortoise are all consumed, and beef and rats are eaten in some localities but not in others. The Rūma and Bondoya Korkus eat buffaloes, and the latter add monkeys to an already comprehensive dietary. The lowest caste with whom they are said to eat are Kolis. They do not eat with Gonds. Gonds, Māngs, Basors and a few other low castes take food from them and also, it is said, Bhīls. The Korkus will freely admit members of the higher castes into the community, and a woman incurs no social penalty for a liaison with a member of any caste from which a Korku can take food. But if she goes wrong with a low-caste man she is permanently expelled and a fine of Rs. 40 is exacted from the parents before they are readmitted to social intercourse. In the case of adultery with a member of the caste, if the husband does not wish to keep his wife, the offending parties have a lock of hair cut off and give a dinner, and are then considered to be married. But if the husband does not turn his wife away, he, on his wife’s account, and the seducer must give a joint dinner to the caste. They have a tribal council or panchāyat which inflicts the usual penalties for social offences, while in very serious cases, such as intercourse with a low caste, it causes the offender to be born again. He is placed inside a large earthen pot which is sealed up, and when taken out of this he is said to be born again from his mother’s womb. He is then buried in sand and comes out as a fresh incarnation from the earth, placed in a grass hut which is fired, and from within which he runs out as it is burning, immersed in water, and finally has a tuft cut from his scalp-lock and is fined two and a half rupees. The Korkus as a race are very poor, and a poor Korku manages to exist with even less clothing than a poor Gond. A loincloth of the scantiest and a wisp of turban coiled on the top of the head and leaving the centre of the skull uncovered form his complete costume for dry weather. Sometimes a large brass chain is worn in the turban or attached to the waist, and to it are suspended a flint and steel and a small dry gourd full of cotton—the implements for obtaining fire. It is also common to wear a large brass ring in one ear. A special habit of the Korku in Nimār, Major Forsyth states, is to carry a small bamboo flute behind the ear like a pen, from which he discourses a not unpleasant strain, chiefly when drunk or engaged in propitiating Bāgh Deo, Devi or any other dread power whom he reverences. The women as a rule wear only a dirty white sāri and are loaded with cheap ornaments. Necklaces of beads are worn on the neck, covering the chest, while the arms and legs are weighed down with brass and iron.

11. Character

Like most hill tribes the Korkus are remarkably honest and truthful, slow at calculation and very indignant at being cheated. They are very improvident and great drunkards, and it is the latter habit which has aggravated the obstacles to their improvement.

12. Inheritance

The Korku law of inheritance differs somewhat from that of the Hindus. Among them a grandson does not inherit the property of his grandfather unless it is openly and clearly granted to him during the latter’s lifetime. A married son living separately from his father has no right of succession to the paternal property, but if he is unmarried, he receives half the share of a son who is living with his father. A daughter or a daughter’s son does not inherit the father’s property unless it is granted to either of them by a deed of gift. The sons and mother share equally.

13. Occupation

The Korkus formerly lived principally by hunting, and practised the shifting cultivation in the forests which is now forbidden. Very few of them are landowners, but some large zamīndāri estates in Hoshangābād and Chhindwāra are held by Korku proprietors, who are protected by the prohibition of alienation. Though too improvident and lazy to be good cultivators, they are in great request as farmservants and ploughmen, being too honest to defraud their master of labour or material. A remarkable change has thus taken place from their former character of notorious robbers. They cultivate mainly in the hilly tracts and grow light grains, though some have colonised the waste lands of the upper Tapti valley in Nimār and raise good crops of wheat. They do not as a rule keep cattle other than the few oxen required for cultivating the soil and hauling out timber. Game of all kinds is caught by means of heavy log traps for the larger varieties such as sāmbhar, bear and spotted deer and even leopard; while hares, jungle-fowl and the smaller sort of game are caught under heavy stones held up by nicely adjusted strings. Occasionally, when in search of meat, a whole village will sally out into the forest. The shikāri has generally a matchlock concealed in some hiding-place in the jungle, and once he is posted the others beat towards him and any animal that turns up is shot at. In the hot weather the water-hole and the bow and arrow play no small part in helping to fill the Korku larder. Another method of catching birds is to spread the pounded fruit of a certain parasitic airplant on a rock. A thick shining gum exudes which so entangles the feet of the smaller birds as to prevent their escape. Fish dams are built when the water subsides after the rains, and a cylindrical basket six or eight feet in length being adjusted at the outlet, the fish are driven into this from above. During the hot season the fruit of the ghetu is thrown into the pools, and this stupefies the fish and causes them to float on the surface of the water, where they are easily caught.

14. Language

The Korkus have a language of their own which belongs to the Kolarian or Munda sub-family. Dr. Grierson says of it: “The Munda, sometimes called the Kolarian family, is probably the older branch of the Dravido-Munda languages. It exhibits the characteristics of an agglutinative language to an extraordinarily complete degree.” In the Central Provinces nearly 90 per cent of Korkus were returned as speaking their own language in 1911. Mr. Crosthwaite remarks: “The language is in a state of decay and transition, and Hindi and Marāthi terms have crept into its vocabulary. But very few Gondi words have been adopted. A grammar of the Korku language by Drake has been printed at the Baptist Mission Press, Calcutta.”

Korwa

1. General notice

Korwa. 607—A Kolarian tribe of the Chota Nāgpur plateau. In 1911 about 34,000 Korwas were returned in the Central Provinces, the great bulk of whom belong to the Sargūja and Jashpur States and a few to the Bilāspur District. The Korwas are one of the wildest tribes. Colonel Dalton writes of them:608 “Mixed up with the Asuras and not greatly differing from them, except that they are more cultivators of the soil than smelters, we first meet the Korwas, a few stragglers of the tribe which under that name take up the dropped links of the Kolarian chain, and carry it on west, over the Sargūja, Jashpur and Palāmau highlands till it reaches another cognate tribe, the Kūrs (Korkus) or Muāsis of Rewah and the Central Provinces, and passes from the Vindhyan to the Satpūra range.

“In the fertile valleys that skirt and wind among the plateaus other tribes are now found intermixed with the Korwas, but all admit that the latter were first in the field and were at one time masters of the whole; and we have good confirmatory proof of their being the first settlers in the fact that for the propitiation of the local spirits Korwa Baigas are always selected. There were in existence within the last twenty years, as highland chiefs and holders of manors, four Korwa notables, two in Sargūja and two in Jashpur; all four estates were valuable, as they comprised substantial villages in the fertile plains held by industrious cultivators, and great tracts of hill country on which were scattered the hamlets of their more savage followers. The Sargūja Korwa chiefs were, however, continually at strife with the Sargūja Rāja, and for various acts of rebellion against the Lord Paramount lost manor after manor till to each but one or two villages remained. The two Jashpur thanes conducted themselves right loyally at the crucial period of the Mutiny and they are now prosperous gentlemen in full enjoyment of their estates, the only Korwa families left that keep up any appearance of respectability. One of them is the hereditary Diwān of Jashpur, lord of the mountain tract of Khūria and Maini, and chief of perhaps two-thirds of the whole tribe of Korwas. The other holds an estate called Kakia comprising twenty-two villages.

2. Physical appearance

“The hill Korwas are the most savage-looking of all the Kolarian tribes. They are frightfully wild and uncouth in their appearance, and have good-humouredly accepted the following singular tradition to account for it. They say that the first human beings that settled in Sargūja, being very much troubled by the depredations of wild beasts on their crops, put up scarecrows in their fields, figures made of bamboos dangling in the air, the most hideous caricatures of humanity that they could devise to frighten the animals. When the great spirit saw the scarecrow he hit on an expedient to save his votaries the trouble of reconstructing them. He animated the dangling figures, thus bringing into existence creatures ugly enough to frighten all the birds and beasts in creation, and they were the ancestors of the wild Korwas.”

This legend is not peculiar to the Korwas but is also told by the Halbas, Lodhis and other castes, and is a favourite Brāhmanical device for accounting for the existence of the autochthonous tribes.

“The Korwas,” Dalton continues, “are short of stature and dark brown in complexion, strongly built and active, with good muscular development, but, as appeared to me, disproportionately short-legged. The average height of twenty Sargūja Korwas that I measured was 5 feet 3 inches and of their women 4 feet 9 inches only. Notwithstanding the scarecrow tradition the Korwas are, as a rule, better-looking than the Gonds and Oraons. The males, I noticed, were more hirsute than the generality of their cognates, many of them cultivating beards or rather not interfering with their spontaneous growth, for in truth in their toilets there is nothing like cultivation. They are as utterly ungroomed as the wildest animals. The neglected back hair grows in matted tails which fall behind like badly-frayed ropes, or is massed in a chignon of gigantic proportions, as preposterous as any that the present tasteless period has produced; sticking out behind sometimes a foot from the back of the head.

“The women appear ground down by the hard work imposed on them, stunted in growth, black, ugly, and wretchedly clad, some having only a few dirty rags tied round their persons, and in other respects untidy and unclean.”

It is noticeable that the Korwas have a subtribe called Korāku, and like the Korkus of the Satpūra range they are called Muāsi, a term having the meaning of raider or robber. Mr. Crooke thinks that the Korwas and Korkus are probably branches of the same tribe, but Sir G. Grierson dissents from this opinion. He states that the Korwa dialect is most closely related to Asuri and resembles Mundāri and Santāli. The Korwas have the honorific title of Mānjhi, also used by the Santāls. The Korba zamīndāri in Bilāspur is probably named after the Korwas.

3. Subdivisions

The principal subdivisions of the tribe are the Diharia or Kisān Korwas, those who live in villages (dih) and cultivate, and the Pahāria Korwas of the hills, who are also called Benwaria from their practising bewar or shifting cultivation. Two minor groups are the Korāku or young men, from kora, a young man, and the Birjias, who are probably the descendants of mixed marriages between Korwas and the tribe of that name, themselves an offshoot of the Baigas. The tribe is also divided into totemistic exogamous septs.

4. Marriage customs

Marriage within the sept is forbidden, but this appears to be the only restriction. In Korba the Pahāria Korwas are said to marry their own sisters on occasion. The ordinary bride-price is Rs. 12. In Bilāspur there is reported to be no regular marriage feast, but the people dance together round a big earthen drum, called māndhar, which is played in the centre. This is bound with strips of leather along the sides and leather faces at the ends to be played on by the hands. They dance in a circle taking hands, men and women being placed alternately. Among the Pahāria Korwas of Sargūja, Mr. Kunte states, the consent of the parents is not required, and boys and girls arrange their own weddings. Men who can afford the bride-price have a number of wives, sometimes as many as eight or ten. After she has had a child each wife lives and cooks her food separately, but gives a part of it to her husband. The women bring roots and herbs from the forest and feed their husbands, so that the man with several wives enjoys a larger share of creature comforts. Among these people adultery is said to be very rare, but if a woman is detected in adultery she is at once made over to the partner of her act and becomes his wife. Divorce and the remarriage of widows are permitted, and a widow usually marries her late husband’s younger brother, though she is not obliged to do so. A husband divorcing his wife is obliged to feed the caste for five days.

5. Funeral rites

The tribe bury the dead, placing the corpse in the grave with the head to the south. A little rice is buried with the corpse. In Bilāspur the dead are buried in the forest, and the graves of old men are covered with branches of the sāl609 tree. Then they go to a little distance and make a fire, and pour ghī and incense on it as an offering to the ancestors, and when they hear a noise in the forest they take it to be the voice of the dead man. When a man dies his hut is broken down and they do not live in it again. The bodies of children under five are buried either in the house or under the shade of a banyan tree, probably with the idea that the spirit will come back and be born again. They say that a banyan tree is chosen because it lives longest of all trees and is evergreen, and hence it is supposed that the child’s spirit will also live out its proper span instead of being untimely cut off in its next birth.

6. Religion

The Korwas worship Dūlha Deo, the bridegroom god of the Gonds, and in Sargūja their principal deity is Khuria Rāni, the tutelary goddess of the Khuria plateau. She is a bloodthirsty goddess and requires animal sacrifices; formerly at special sacrifices 30 or 40 buffaloes were slaughtered as well as an unlimited number of goats.610 Thākur Deo, who is usually considered a corn-god, dwells in a sacred grove, of which no tree or branch may be cut or broken. The penalty for breach of the rules is a goat, but an exception is allowed if an animal has to be pursued and killed in the grove. Thākur Deo protects the village from epidemic disease such as cholera and smallpox. The Korwas have three festivals: the Deothān is observed on the full moon day of Pūs (December), and all their gods are worshipped; the Nawanna or harvest festival falls in Kunwār (September), when the new grain is eaten; and the Faguwa or Holi is the common celebration of the spring and the new vegetation.

7. Social customs

The Korwas do not admit outsiders into the tribe. They will take food from a Gond or Kawar, but not from a Brāhman. A man is permanently expelled from caste for a liaison with a woman of the impure Gānda and Ghasia castes, and a woman for adultery with any person other than a Korwa. Women are tattooed with patterns of dots on the arms, breasts and feet, and a girl must have this operation done before she can be married. Neither men nor women ever cut their hair.

8. Dancing

Of their appearance at a dance Colonel Dalton states:611 “Forming a huge circle, or rather coil, they hooked on to each other and wildly danced. In their hands they sternly grasped their weapons, the long stiff bow and arrows with bright, broad, barbed heads and spirally-feathered reed shafts in the left hand, and the gleaming battle-axe in the right. Some of the men accompanied the singing on deep-toned drums and all sang. A few scantily-clad females formed the inner curl of the coil, but in the centre was the Choragus who played on a stringed instrument, promoting by his grotesque motions unbounded hilarity, and keeping up the spirit of the dancers by his unflagging energy. Their matted back hair was either massed into a chignon, sticking out from the back of the head like a handle, from which spare arrows depended hanging by the bands, or was divided into clusters of long matted tails, each supporting a spare arrow, which, flinging about as they sprang to the lively movements of the dance, added greatly to the dramatic effect and the wildness of their appearance. The women were very diminutive creatures, on the average a foot shorter than their lords, clothed in scanty rags, and with no ornaments except a few tufts of cotton dyed red taking the place of flowers in the hair, a common practice also with the Santāl girls. Both tribes are fond of the flower of the cockscomb for this purpose, and when that is not procurable, use the red cotton.”

They dance the karma dance in the autumn, thinking that it will procure them good crops, the dance being a kind of ritual or service and accompanied by songs in praise of the gods. If the rains fail they dance every night in the belief that the gods will be propitiated and send rain.

9. Occupation

Of their occupation Colonel Dalton states: “The Korwas cultivate newly cleared ground, changing their homesteads every two or three years to have command of virgin soil. They sow rice that ripens in the summer, vetches, millets, pumpkins, cucumbers—some of gigantic size—sweet potatoes, yams and chillies. They also grow and prepare arrowroot and have a wild kind which they use and sell. They have as keen a knowledge of what is edible among the spontaneous products of the jungle as have monkeys, and have often to use this knowledge for self-preservation, as they are frequently subjected to failure of crops, while even in favourable seasons some of them do not raise sufficient for the year’s consumption; but the best of this description of food is neither palatable nor wholesome. They brought to me nine different kinds of edible roots, and descanted so earnestly on the delicate flavour and nutritive qualities of some of them, that I was induced to have two or three varieties cooked under their instructions and served up, but the result was far from pleasant; my civilised stomach indignantly repelled the savage food, and was not pacified till it had made me suffer for some hours from cold sweat, sickness and giddiness.”612