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

10. Dacoity

The Korwas in the Tributary States have other resources than these. They are expert hunters, and to kill a bird flying or an animal running is their greatest delight. They do not care to kill their game without rousing it first. They are also very fond of dacoity and often proceed on expeditions, their victims being usually travellers, or the Ahīrs who bring large herds of cattle to graze in the Sargūja forests. These cattle do much damage to the village crops, and hence the Korwas have a standing feud with the herdsmen. They think nothing of murder, and when asked why he committed a murder, a Korwa will reply, ‘I did it for my pleasure’; but they despise both house-breaking and theft as cowardly offences, and are seldom or never guilty of them. The women are also of an adventurous disposition and often accompany their husbands on raids. Before starting they take the omens. They throw some rice before a chicken, and if the bird picks up large solid grains first they think that a substantial booty is intended, but if it chooses the thin and withered grains that the expedition will have poor results. One of their bad omens is that a child should begin to cry before the expedition starts; and Mr. Kunte, who has furnished the above account, relates that on one occasion when a Korwa was about to start on a looting expedition his two-year-old child began to cry. He was enraged at the omen, and picking up the child by the feet dashed its brains out against a stone.

11. Folk-tales

Before going out hunting the Korwas tell each other hunting tales, and they think that the effect of doing this is to bring them success in the chase. A specimen of one of these tales is as follows: There were seven brothers and they went out hunting. The youngest brother’s name was Chilhra. They had a beat, and four of them lay in ambush with their bows and arrows. A deer came past Chilhra and he shot an arrow at it, but missed. Then all the brothers were very angry with Chilhra and they said to him, “We have been wandering about hungry for the whole day, and you have let our prey escape.” Then the brothers got a lot of māhul613 fibre and twisted it into rope, and from the rope they wove a bag. And they forced Chilhra into this bag, and tied up the mouth and threw it into the river where there was a whirlpool. Then they went home. Now Chilhra’s bag was spinning round and round in the whirlpool when suddenly a sāmbhar stag came out of the forest and walked down to the river to drink opposite the pool. Chilhra cried out to the sāmbhar to pull his bag ashore and save him. The sāmbhar took pity on him, and seizing the bag in his teeth pulled it out of the water on to the bank. Chilhra then asked the sāmbhar after he had quenched his thirst to free him from the bag. The sāmbhar drank and then came and bit through the māhul ropes till Chilhra could get out. He then proposed to the sāmbhar to try and get into the bag to see if it would hold him. The sāmbhar agreed, but no sooner had he got inside than Chilhra tied up the bag, threw it over his shoulder and went home. When the brothers saw him they were greatly astonished, and asked him how he had got out of the bag and caught a sāmbhar, and Chilhra told them. Then they killed and ate the sāmbhar. Then all the brothers said to Chilhra that he should tie them up in bags as he had been tied and throw them into the river, so that they might each catch and bring home a sāmbhar. So they made six bags and went to the river, and Chilhra tied them up securely and threw them into the river, when they were all quickly drowned. But Chilhra went home and lived happily ever afterwards.

In this story we observe the low standard of moral feeling noticeable among many primitive races, in the fact that the ingratitude displayed by Chilhra in deceiving and killing the sāmbhar who had saved his life conveys no shock to the moral sense of the Korwas. If the episode had been considered discreditable to the hero Chilhra, it would not have found a place in the tale.

The following is another folk-tale of the characteristic type of fairy story found all over the world. This as well as the last has been furnished by Mr. Narbad Dhanu Sao, Assistant Manager, Uprora:

A certain rich man, a banker and moneylender (Sāhu), had twelve sons. He got them all married and they went out on a journey to trade. There came a holy mendicant to the house of the rich man and asked for alms. The banker was giving him alms, but the saint said he would only take them from his son or son’s wife. As his sons were away the rich man called his daughter-in-law, and she began to give alms to the saint. But he caught her up and carried her off. Then her father-in-law went to search for her, saying that he would not return until he had found her. He came to the saint’s house upon a mountain and said to him, ‘Why did you carry off my son’s wife?’ The saint said to him, ‘What can you do?’ and turned him into stone by waving his hand. Then all the other brothers went in turn to search for her down to the youngest, and all were turned into stone. At last the youngest brother set out to search but he did not go to the saint, but travelled across the sea and sat under a tree on the other side. In that tree was the nest with young of the Raigidan and Jatagidan614 birds. A snake was climbing up the tree to eat the nestlings, and the youngest brother saw the snake and killed it. When the parent birds returned the young birds said, “We will not eat or drink till you have rewarded this boy who killed the snake which was climbing the tree to devour us.” Then the parent birds said to the boy, ‘Ask of us whatever you will and we will give it to you.’ And the boy said,’ I want only a gold parrot in a gold cage.’ Then the parent birds said, “You have asked nothing of us, ask for something more; but if you will accept only a gold parrot in a gold cage wait here a little and we will fly across the sea and get it for you.” So they brought the parrot and cage, and the youngest brother took them and went home. Immediately the saint came to him and asked him for the gold parrot and cage because the saint’s soul was in that parrot. Then the youngest brother told him to dance and he would give him the parrot; and the saint danced, and his legs and arms were broken one after the other, as often as he asked for the parrot and cage. Then the youngest brother buried the saint’s body and went to his house and passed his hands before all the stone images and they all came to life again.

Koshti

1. General notice

Koshti, Koshta, Sālewār.615—The Marātha and Telugu caste of weavers of silk and fine cotton cloth. They belong principally to the Nāgpur and Chhattīsgarh Divisions of the Central Provinces, where they totalled 157,000 persons in 1901, while 1300 were returned from Berār. Koshti is the Marāthi and Sālewār the Telugu name. Koshti may perhaps have something to do with kosa or tasar silk; Sālewār is said to be from the Sanskrit Sālika, a weaver,616 and to be connected with the common word sāri, the name for a woman’s cloth; while the English ‘shawl’ may be a derivative from the same root. The caste suppose themselves to be descended from the famous Saint Mārkandi Rishi, who, they say, first wove cloth from the fibres of the lotus flower to clothe the nakedness of the gods. In reward for this he was married to the daughter of Sūrya, the sun, and received with her as dowry a giant named Bhavāni and a tiger. But the giant was disobedient, and so Mārkandi killed him, and from his bones fashioned the first weaver’s loom.617 The tiger remained obedient to Mārkandi, and the Koshtis think that he still respects them as his descendants; so that if a Koshti should meet a tiger in the forest and say the name of Mārkandi, the tiger will pass by and not molest him; and they say that no Koshti has ever been killed by a tiger. On their side they will not kill or injure a tiger, and at their weddings the Bhāt or genealogist brings a picture of a tiger attached to his sacred scroll, known as Padgia, and the Koshtis worship the picture. A Koshti will not join in a beat for tiger for the same reason; and other Hindus say that if he did the tiger would single him out and kill him, presumably in revenge for his breaking the pact of peace between them. They also worship the Singhwāhini Devi, or Devi riding on a tiger, from which it may probably be deduced that the tiger itself was formerly the deity, and has now developed into an anthropomorphic goddess.

Koshti men dancing a figure, holding strings and beating sticks

2. Subdivisions

The caste have several subdivisions of different types. The Halbis appear to be an offshoot of the primitive Halba tribe, who have taken to weaving; the Lād Koshtis come from Gujarāt, the Gadhewāl from Garha or Jubbulpore, the Deshkar and Martha from the Marātha country, while the Dewangān probably take their name from the old town of that name on the Wardha river. The Patwis are dyers, and colour the silk thread which the weavers use to border their cotton cloth. It is usually dyed red with lac. They also make braid and sew silk thread on ornaments like the separate Patwa caste. And the Onkule are the offspring of illegitimate unions. In Berār there is a separate subcaste named Hatghar, which may be a branch of the Dhangar or shepherd caste. Berār also has a group known as Jain Koshtis, who may formerly have professed the Jain religion, but are now strict Sivites.618 The Sālewārs are said to be divided into the Sūtsāle or thread-weavers, the Padmasāle or those who originally wove the lotus flower and the Sagunsāle, a group of illegitimate descent. The above names show that the caste is of mixed origin, containing a large Telugu element, while a body of the primitive Halbas has been incorporated into it. Many of the Marātha Koshtis are probably Kunbis (cultivators) who have taken up weaving. The caste has also a number of exogamous divisions of the usual type which serve to prevent the marriage of near relatives.

3. Marriage

At a Koshti wedding in Nāgpur, the bride and bridegroom with their parents sit in a circle, and round them a long hempen rope is drawn seven times; the bride’s mother then holds a lamp, while the bridegroom’s mother pours water from a vessel on to the floor. The Sālewārs perform the wedding ceremony at the bridegroom’s house, to which the bride is brought at midnight for this purpose. A display of fireworks is held and the thūn or log of wood belonging to the loom is laid on the ground between the couple and covered with a black blanket. The bridegroom stands facing the east and places his right foot on the thūn, and the bride stands opposite to him with her left foot upon it. A Brāhman holds a curtain between them and they throw rice upon each other’s heads five times and then sit on the log. The bride’s father washes the feet of the bridegroom and gives him a cloth and bows down before him. The wedding party then proceed with music and a display of fireworks to the bridegroom’s house and a round of feasts is given continuously for five days.

The remarriage of widows is freely permitted. In Chānda if the widow is living with her father he receives Rs. 40 from the second husband, but if with her father-in-law no price is given. On the day fixed for the wedding he fills her lap with nuts, cocoanuts, dates and rice, and applies vermilion to her forehead. During the night she proceeds to her new husband’s house, and, emptying the fruit from her lap into a dish which he holds, falls at his feet. The wedding is completed the next day by a feast to the caste-fellows. The procedure appears to have some symbolical idea of transferring the fruit of her womb to her new husband. Divorce is allowed, but is very rare, a wife being too valuable a helper in the Koshti’s industry to be put away except as a last resort. For a Koshti who is in business on his own account it is essential to have a number of women to assist in sizing the thread and fixing it on the loom. A wife is really a factory-hand and a well-to-do Koshti will buy or occasionally steal as many women as he can. In Bhandāra a recent case is known where a man bought a girl and married her to his son and eight months afterwards sold her to another family for an increased price. In another case a man mortgaged his wife as security for a debt and in lieu of interest, and she lived with his creditor until he paid off the principal. Quarrels over women not infrequently result in cases of assault and riot.

4. Funeral customs

Members of the Lingāyat and Kabīrpanthi sects bury their dead and the others cremate them. With the Tirmendār Koshtis on the fifth day the Ayawār priest goes to the cremation-ground accompanied by the deceased’s family and worships the image of Vishnu and the Tulsi or basil upon the grave; and after this the whole party take their food at the place. Mourning is observed during five days for married and three for unmarried persons; and when a woman has lost her husband she is taken on the fifth day to the bank of some river or tank and her bangles are broken, her bead necklace is taken off, the vermilion is rubbed off her forehead, and her foot ornaments are removed; and these things she must not wear again while she is a widow. On the fourth day the Panch or caste elders come and place a new turban on the head of the chief mourner or deceased’s heir; they then take him round the bazār and seat him at his loom, where he weaves a little. After this he goes and sits with the Panch and they take food together. This ceremony indicates that the impurity caused by the death is removed, and the mourners return to common life. The caste do not perform the shrāddh ceremony, but on the Akhātīj day or commencement of the agricultural year a family which has lost a male member will invite a man from some other family of the caste, and one which has lost a female member a woman, and will feed the guest with good food in the name of the dead. In Chhindwāra during the fortnight of Pitripaksh or the worship of ancestors, a Koshti family will have a feast and invite guests of the caste. Then the host stands in the doorway with a pestle and as the guest comes he bars his entrance, saying: ‘Are you one of my ancestors; this feast is for my ancestors?’ To which the guest will reply: ‘Yes, I am your great-grandfather; take away the pestle.’ By this ingenious device the resourceful Koshti combines the difficult filial duty of the feeding of his ancestors with the entertainment of his friends.

5. Religion

The principal deity of the Koshtis is Gajānand or Ganpati, whom they revere on the festival of Ganesh Chathurthi or the fourth day of the month of Bhādon (August). They clean all their weaving implements and worship them and make an image of Ganpati in cowdung to which they make offerings of flowers, rice and turmeric. On this day they do not work and fast till evening, when the image of Ganpati is thrown into a tank and they return home and eat delicacies. Some of them observe the Tīj or third day of every month as a fast for Ganpati, and when the moon of the fourth day rises they eat cakes of dough roasted on a cowdung fire and mixed with butter and sugar, and offer these to Ganpati. Some of the Sālewārs are Vaishnavas and others Lingāyats: the former employ Ayawārs for their gurus or spiritual preceptors and are sometimes known as Tirmendār; while the Lingāyats, who are also called Woheda, have Jangams as their priests. In Bālāghāt and Chhattīsgarh many of the Koshtis belong to the Kabīrpanthi sect, and these revere the special priests of the sect and abstain from the use of flesh and liquor. They are also known as Ghātibandhia, from the ghāt or string of beads of basil-wool (tulsi) which they tie round their necks. In Mandla the Kabīrpanthi Koshtis eat flesh and will intermarry with the others, who are known distinctively as Saktaha. The Gurmukhis are a special sect of the Nāgpur country and are the followers of a saint named Koliba Bāba, who lived at Dhāpewāra near Kalmeshwar. He is said to have fed five hundred persons with food which was sufficient for ten and to have raised a Brāhman from the dead in Umrer. Some Brāhmans wished to test him and told him to perform a miracle, so he had a lot of brass pots filled with water and put a cloth over them, and when he withdrew it the water had changed into curded milk. The Gurmukhis have a descendant of Koliba Bāba for their preceptor, and each of them keeps a cocoanut in his house, which may represent Koliba Bāba or else the unseen deity. To this he makes offerings of sandalwood, rice and flowers. The Gurmukhis are forbidden to venerate any of the ordinary Hindu deities, but they cannot refrain from making offerings to Māta Mai when smallpox breaks out, and if any person has the disease in his house they refrain from worshipping the cocoanut so long as it lasts, because they think that this would be to offer a slight to the smallpox goddess who is sojourning with them. Another sect is that of the Matwāles who worship Vishnu as Nārāyan, as well as Siva and Sakti. They are so called because they drink liquor at their religious feasts. They have a small platform on which fresh cowdung is spread every day, and they bow to this before taking their food. Once in four or five years after a wedding offerings are made to Nārāyan Deo on the bank of a tank outside the village; chickens and goats are killed and the more extreme of them sacrifice a pig, but the majority will not join with these. Offerings of liquor are also made and must be drunk by the worshippers. Mehras and other low castes also belong to this sect, but the Koshtis will not eat with them. But in Chhindwāra it is said that on the day after the Pola festival in August, when insects are prevalent and the season of disease begins, the Koshtis and Māngs go out together to look for the nārbod shrub,619 and here they break a small piece of bread and eat it together. In Bhandāra the Koshtis worship the spirit of one Kadu, patel or headman of the village of Mohali, who was imprisoned in the fort of Ambāgarh under an accusation of sorcery in Marātha times and died there. He is known as Ambagarhia Deo, and the people offer goats and fowls to him in order to be cured of diseases. The above notice indicates that the caste are somewhat especially inclined to religious feeling and readily welcome reformers striving against Hindu polytheism and Brāhman supremacy. This is probably due in part to the social stigma which attaches to the weaving industry among the Hindus and is resented as an injustice by the Koshtis, and in part also to the nature of their calling, which leaves the mind free for thought during long hours while the fingers are playing on the loom; and with the uneducated serious reflection must almost necessarily be of a religious character. In this respect the Koshti may be said to resemble his fellow-weavers of Thrums. In Nāgpur District the Koshtis observe the Muharram festival, and many of them go out begging on the first day with a green thread tied round their body and a beggar’s wallet. They cook the grain which is given to them on the tenth day of the festival, giving a little to the Muhammadan priest and eating the rest. This observance of a Muhammadan rite is no doubt due to their long association with followers of that religion in Berār.

6. Superstitions

Before beginning work for the day the Sālewār makes obeisance to his loom and implements, nor may he touch them without having washed his face and hands. A woman must not approach the loom during her periodical impurity, and if anybody sneezes as work is about to be begun, they wait a little time to let the ill luck pass off. In Nāgpur they believe that the posts to which the ends of the loom are fastened have magical powers, and if any one touches them with his leg he will get ulcers up to the knee. If a woman steps on the kūchi or loom-brush she is put out of caste and a feast has to be given to the community before she is readmitted. To cure inflammation in the eyes they take a piece of plaited grass and wrap it round with cotton soaked in oil. Then it is held before the sufferer’s eyes and set on fire and the drops of oil are allowed to fall into water, and as they get cold and congeal the inflammation is believed to abate. Among some classes of Koshtis the killing of a cat is a very serious offence, almost equivalent to killing a cow. Even if a man touches a dead cat he has to give two feasts and be fully purified. The sanctity of the cat among Hindus is sometimes explained on the ground that it kills rats, which attract snakes into the house. But the real reason is probably that primitive people regard all domestic animals as sacred. The Koshti also reveres the dog and jackal.

7. Clothes, etc

The Sālewārs of the Godāvari tract wrap a short rectangular piece of cloth round their head as a turban. Formerly, Mr. Raghunāth Wāman states, the caste had a distinctive form of turban by which it could be recognised, but under British administration these rules of dress are falling into abeyance. A few of the Sālewārs put on the sacred thread, but it is not generally worn. Sālewār women have a device representing a half-moon tattooed on the forehead between the ends of the eyebrows; the cheeks are marked with a small dot and the arms adorned with a representation of the sacred tulsi or basil.

8. Social rules and status

The caste eat flesh and fish and drink liquor, and in the Marātha Districts they will eat chickens like most castes of this country. In Mandla they have recently prohibited the keeping of fowls, under pain of temporary expulsion. Those who took food in charity-kitchens during the famine of 1900 were readmitted to the community with the penalty of shaving the beard and moustaches in the case of a man, and cutting a few hairs from the head in that of a woman. In Berār the Lād, Jain and Katghar Koshtis are all strict vegetarians. The Koshtis employ Brāhmans for their ceremonies, but their social status is about on a level with the village menials, below the cultivating castes. This, however, is a very good position for weavers, as most of the weaving castes are stigmatised as impure. But the Koshtis live in towns and not in villages and weave the finer kinds of cloth for which considerable skill is required, while in former times their work also yielded a good remuneration. These facts probably account for their higher status; similarly the Tāntis or weavers of Bengal who produce the fine muslins of Dacca, so famous in Mughal times, have obtained such a high rank there that Brāhmans will take water from their hands;620 while the few Tāntis who are found in the Central Provinces are regarded as impure and are not touched. The caste are of a turbulent disposition, perhaps on account of their comparatively light work, which does not tire their bodies like cultivation and other manual labour. One or two serious riots have been caused by the Koshtis in recent years.

9. Occupation

The standard occupation of the caste is the weaving of the fine silk-bordered cloths which are universally worn on the body by Brāhmans and other well-to-do persons of the Marātha country. The cloth is usually white with borders of red silk. They dye their own thread with lac or the flowers of the palās tree (Butea frondosa). The price of a pair of loin-cloths of this kind is Rs. 14, and of a pair of dupattas or shoulder-cloths Rs. 10, while women’s sāris also are made. Each colony of Koshtis in a separate town usually only weave one kind of cloth of the size for which their looms are made. The silk-bordered loin-cloths of Umrer and Pauni are well known and are sent all over India. The export of hand-woven cloth from all towns of the Nāgpur plain has been estimated at Rs. 5 lakhs a year. The rich sometimes have the cloths made with gold lace borders. The following account of the caste is given in Sir R. Craddock’s Nāgpur Settlement Report: “The Koshti is an inveterate grumbler, and indeed from his point of view he has a great deal to complain of. On the one hand the price of raw cotton and the cost of his living have increased very largely; on the other hand, the product of his loom commands no higher price than it did before, and he cannot rely on selling it when the market is slack. He cannot adapt himself to the altered environment and clings to his loom. He dislikes rough manual labour and alleges, no doubt with truth, that it deprives him of the delicacy of touch needed in weaving the finer cloths. If prices rise he is the first to be distressed, and on relief works he cannot perform the requisite task and has to be treated with special indulgence. The mills have been established many years in Nāgpur, but very few of the older weavers have sought employment there. They have begun to send their children, but work at home themselves, though they really all use machine-spun yarn. The Koshtis are quarrelsome and addicted to drink, and they have generally been the chief instigators of grain riots when prices rise. They often marry several wives and their houses swarm with a proportionate number of children. But although the poorer members of the community are in struggling circumstances and are put to great straits when prices of food rise, those who turn out the fine silk-bordered work are fairly prosperous in ordinary times.”