The Tribes and Castes of the Central Provinces of India, Volume 4

Finally, it may be suggested as a possibility that the Roundheads cut their hair short as a protest against the superstition that a soldier’s hair must be long, which originated in the idea that strength is located in the hair and may have still been current in their time. We know that the Puritans strove vainly against the veneration of the Maypole as the spirit of the new vegetation,335 and against the old nature-rites observed at Christmas, the veneration of fire as the preserver of life against cold, and the veneration of the evergreen plants, the fir tree, the holly, and the mistletoe, which retained their foliage through the long night of the northern winter, and were thus a pledge to man of the return of warmth and the renewal of vegetation in the spring. And it therefore seems not altogether improbable that the Puritans may have similarly contended against the superstition as to the wearing of long hair.

Naoda

Naoda. 336—A small caste found in the Nimār District and in Central India. The name means a rower and is derived from nao, a boat. The caste are closely connected with the Mallāhs or Kewats, but have a slightly distinctive position, as they are employed to row pilgrims over the Nerbudda at the great fair held at Siva’s temple on the island of Mandhāta. They say that their ancestors were Rājpūts, and some of their family names, as Solanki, Rāwat and Mori, are derived from those of Rājpūt septs. But these have probably been adopted in imitation of their Kshatriya overlords. The caste is an occupational one. They have a tradition that in former times a Naoda boatman recovered the corpse of a king’s daughter, who had drowned herself in the river wearing costly jewels, and the king as a reward granted them the right of ferrying pilgrims at Mandhāta, which they still continue to enjoy, keeping their earnings for themselves. They have a division of impure blood called the Gāte or bastard Naodas, who marry among themselves, and any girl who reaches the age of puberty without being married is relegated to this. In the case of a caste whose numbers are so small, irregular connections with outsiders must probably be not infrequent. Another report states that adult unmarried girls are not expelled but are married to a pīpal tree. But girls are sought after, and it is customary to pay a bride-price, the average amount of which is Rs. 25. Before the bridegroom starts for his wedding his mother takes and passes in front of him, successively from his head to his feet, a pestle, some stalks of rūsa grass, a churning rod and a winnowing-fan. This is done with the object of keeping off evil spirits, and it is said that by her action she threatens to pound the spirits with the pestle, to tie them up with the grass, to churn and mash them with the churning-rod, and to scatter them to the winds with the winnowing-fan. When a man wishes to divorce his wife he simply turns her out of the house in the presence of four or five respectable men of the caste. The marriage of a widow is celebrated on a Sunday or Tuesday, the clothes of the couple being tied together by another widow at night. The following day they spend together in a garden, and in the evening are escorted home by their relatives with torches and music. Next morning the woman goes to the well and draws water, and her husband, accompanying her, helps her to lift the water-pots on to her shoulder.

The caste worship the ordinary Hindu deities and especially Bhairon, the guardian of the gate of Mahādeo’s temple. They have a nail driven into the bow of their boat which is called ‘Bhairon’s nail,’ and at the Dasahra festival they offer to this a white pumpkin with cocoanuts, vermilion, incense and liquor. The caste hold in special reverence the cow, the dog and the tamarind tree. The dog is sacred as being the animal on which Bhairava rides, and their most solemn oaths are sworn by a dog or a cow. They will on no account cut or burn the tamarind tree, and the women veil their faces before it. They cannot explain this sentiment, which is probably due to some forgotten belief of the nature of totemism. To kill a cow or a cat intentionally involves permanent exclusion from the caste, while the slaughter of a squirrel, dog, horse, buffalo or monkey is punished by temporary exclusion, it being equally sinful to allow any of these animals to die with a rope round its neck. The Naodas eat the flesh of pigs and fowls, but they occupy a fairly good social position and Brāhmans will take water from their hands.

Nat

1. The Nats not a proper caste

Nat, 337 Bādi, Dang-Charha, Karnati, Bāzigar, Sapera.—The term Nat (Sanskrit Nata—a dancer) appears to be applied indefinitely to a number of groups of vagrant acrobats and showmen, especially those who make it their business to do feats on the tight-rope or with poles, and those who train and exhibit snakes. Bādi and Bāzigar mean a rope-walker, Dang-Charha a rope-climber, and Sapera a snake-charmer. In the Central Provinces the Garūdis or snake-charmers, and the Kolhātis, a class of gipsy acrobats akin to the Berias, are also known as Nat, and these are treated in separate articles. It is almost certain that a considerable section, if not the majority, of the Nats really belong to the Kanjar or Beria gipsy castes, who themselves maybe sprung from the Doms.338 Sir D. Ibbetson says: “They wander about with their families, settling for a few days or weeks at a time in the vicinity of large villages or towns, and constructing temporary shelters of grass. In addition to practising acrobatic feats and conjuring of a low class, they make articles of grass, straw and reeds for sale; and in the centre of the Punjab are said to act as Mirāsis, though this is perhaps doubtful. They often practise surgery and physic in a small way and are not free from suspicion of sorcery.”339 This account would just as well apply to the Kanjar gipsies, and the Nat women sometimes do tattooing like Kanjar or Beria women. In Jubbulpore also the caste is known as Nat Beria, indicating that the Nats there are probably derived from the Beria caste. Similarly Sir H. Risley gives Bāzigar and Kabūtari as groups of the Berias of Bengal, and states that these are closely akin to the Nats and Kanjars of Hindustān.340 An old account of the Nats or Bāzigars341 would equally well apply to the Kanjars; and in Mr. Crooke’s detailed article on the Nats several connecting links are noticed. The Nat women are sometimes known as Kabūtari or pigeon, either because their acrobatic feats are like the flight of the tumbler pigeon, or on account of the flirting manner with which they attract their male customers.342 In the Central Provinces the women of the small Gopāl caste of acrobats are called Kabūtari, and this further supports the hypothesis that Nat is rather an occupational term than the name of a distinct caste, though it is quite likely that there may be Nats who have no other caste. The Bādi or rope-dancer group again is an offshoot of the Gond tribe, at least in the tracts adjoining the Central Provinces. They have Gond septs as Marai, Netām, Wīka,343 and they have the damru or drum used by the Gaurias or snake-charmers and jugglers of Chhattīsgarh, who are also derived from the Gonds. The Chhattīsgarhi Dang-Charhas are Gonds who say they formerly belonged to Panna State and were supported by Rāja Amān Singh of Panna, a great patron of their art. They sing a song lamenting his death in the flower of his youth. The Karnatis or Karnataks are a class of Nats who are supposed to have come from the Carnatic. Mr. Crooke notes that they will eat the leavings of all high castes, and are hence known as Khushhāliya or ‘Those in prosperous circumstances.’344

2. Muhammadan Nats

One division of the Nats are Muhammadans and seem to be to some extent a distinctive group. They have seven gotras—Chicharia, Damaria, Dhalbalki, Pūrbia, Dhondabalki, Karimki and Kalasia. They worship two Birs or spirits, Halaila Bir and Sheikh Saddu, to whom they sacrifice fowls in the months of Bhādon (August) and Baisākh (April). Hindus of any caste are freely admitted into their community, and they can marry Hindu girls.

3. Social customs of the Nats. Their low status

Generally the customs of the Nats show them to be the dregs of the population. There is no offence which entails permanent expulsion from caste. They will eat any kind of food including snakes, crocodiles and rats, and also take food from the hands of any caste, even it is said from sweepers. It is not reported that they prostitute their women, but there is little doubt that this is the case; in the Punjab345 when a Nat woman marries, the first child is either given to the grandmother as compensation for the loss of the mother’s gains as a prostitute, or is redeemed by a payment of Rs. 30. Among the Chhattīsgarhi Dang-Charhas a bride-price of Rs. 40 is paid, of which the girl’s father only keeps ten, and the remaining sum of Rs. 30 is expended on a feast to the caste. Some of the Nats have taken to cultivation and become much more respectable, eschewing the flesh of unclean animals. Another group of the caste keep trained dogs and hunt the wild pig with spears like the Kolhātis of Berār. The villagers readily pay for their services in order to get the pig destroyed, and they sell the flesh to the Gonds and lower castes of Hindus. Others hunt jackals with dogs in the same manner. They eat the flesh of the jackals and dispose of any surplus to the Gonds, who also eat it. The Nats worship Devi and also Hanumān, the monkey god, on account of the acrobatic powers of monkeys. But in Bombay they say that their favourite and only living gods are their bread-winners and averters of hunger, the drum, the rope and the balancing-pole.346

4. Acrobatic performances

The tight-rope is stretched between two pairs of bamboos, each pair being fixed obliquely in the ground and crossing each other at the top so as to form a socket over which the rope passes. The ends of the rope are taken over the crossed bamboos and firmly secured to the ground by heavy pegs. The performer takes another balancing-pole in his hands and walks along the rope between the poles which are about 12 feet high. Another man beats a drum, and a third stands under the rope singing the performer’s praises and giving him encouragement. After this the performer ties two sets of cow or buffalo horns to his feet, which are secured to the back of the skulls so that the flat front between the horns rests on the rope, and with these he walks over the rope, holding the balancing-rod in his hands and descends again. Finally he takes a brass plate and a cloth and again ascends the rope. He places the plate on the rope and folds the cloth over it to make a pad. He then stands on his head on the pad with his feet in the air and holds the balancing-rod in his hands; two strings are tied to the end of this rod and the other ends of the strings are held by the man underneath. With the assistance of the balancing-rod the performer then jerks the plate along the rope with his head, his feet being in the air, until he arrives at the end and finally descends again. This usually concludes the performance, which demands a high degree of skill. Women occasionally, though rarely, do the same feats. Another class of Nats walk on high stilts and the women show their confidence by dancing and singing under them. A saying about the Nats is: Nat ka bachcha to kalābazi hi karega; or ‘The rope-dancer’s son is always turning somersaults.’347

5. Sliding or walking on ropes as a charm for the crops

The feats of the Nats as tight-rope walkers used apparently to make a considerable impression on the minds of the people, as it is not uncommon to find a deified Nat, called Nat Bāba or Father Nat, as a village god. A Natni or Nat woman is also sometimes worshipped, and where two sharp peaks of hills are situated close to each other, it is related that in former times there was a Natni, very skilful on the tight-rope, who performed before the king; and he promised her that if she would stretch a rope from the peak of one hill to that of the other and walk across it he would marry her and make her wealthy. Accordingly the rope was stretched, but the queen from jealousy went and cut it half through in the night, and when the Natni started to walk the rope broke and she fell down and was killed. She was therefore deified and worshipped. It is probable that this legend recalls some rite in which the Nat was employed to walk on a tight-rope for the benefit of the crops, and, if he failed, was killed as a sacrifice; for the following passage taken from Traill’s account of Kumaon348 seems clearly to refer to some such rite:

“Drought, want of fertility in the soil, murrain in cattle, and other calamities incident to husbandry are here invariably ascribed to the wrath of particular gods, to appease which recourse is had to various ceremonies. In the Kumaon District offerings and singing and dancing are resorted to on such occasions. In Garhwāl the measures pursued with the same view are of a peculiar nature, deserving of more particular notice. In villages dedicated to the protection of Mahādeva propitiatory festivals are held in his honour. At these Bādis or rope-dancers are engaged to perform on the tight-rope, and slide down an inclined rope stretched from the summit of a cliff to the valley beneath and made fast to posts driven into the ground. The Bādi sits astride on a wooden saddle, to which he is tied by thongs; the saddle is similarly secured to the bast or sliding cable, along which it runs, by means of a deep groove; sandbags are tied to the Bādi’s feet sufficient to secure his balance, and he is then, after various ceremonies and the sacrifice of a kid, started off; the velocity of his descent is very great, and the saddle, however well greased, emits a volume of smoke throughout the greater part of his progress. The length and inclination of the bast necessarily vary with the nature of the cliff, but as the Bādi is remunerated at the rate of a rupee for every hundred cubits, hence termed a tola, a correct measurement always takes place; the longest bast which has fallen within my observation has been twenty-one tolas, or 2100 cubits in length. From the precautions taken as above mentioned the only danger to be apprehended by the Bādi is from breaking of the rope, to provide against which the latter, commonly from one and a half to two inches in diameter, is made wholly by his own hand; the material used is the bhābar grass. Formerly, if a Bādi fell to the ground in his course, he was immediately despatched with a sword by the surrounding spectators, but this practice is now, of course, prohibited. No fatal accident has occurred from the performance of this ceremony since 1815, though it is probably celebrated at not less than fifty villages in each year. After the completion of the sliding, the bast or rope is cut up and distributed among the inhabitants of the village, who hang the pieces as charms on the eaves of their houses. The hair of the Bādi is also taken and preserved as possessing similar virtues. He being thus made the organ to obtain fertility for the lands of others, the Bādi is supposed to entail sterility on his own; and it is firmly believed that no grain sown with his hand can ever vegetate. Each District has its hereditary Bādi, who is supported by annual contributions of grain from the inhabitants.” It is not improbable that the performance of the Nat is a reminiscence of a period when human victims were sacrificed for the crops, this being a common practice among primitive peoples, as shown by Sir J.G. Frazer in Attis, Adonis, Osiris. Similarly the spirits of Nats which are revered in the Central Provinces may really be those of victims killed during the performance of some charm for the good of the crops, akin to that still prevalent in the Himalayas. The custom of making the Nat slide down a rope is of the same character as that of swinging a man in the air by a hook secured in his flesh, which was formerly common in these Provinces. But in both cases the meaning of the rite is obscure.

6. Snake-charmers

The groups who practise snake-charming are known as Sapera or Garūdi and in the Marātha Districts as Madāri. Another name for them is Nāg-Nathi, or one who seizes a cobra. They keep cobras, pythons, scorpions, and the iguana or large lizard, which they consider to be poisonous. Some of them when engaged with their snakes wear two pieces of tiger-skin on their back and chest, and a cap of tiger-skin in which they fix the eyes of various birds. They have a hollow gourd on which they produce a kind of music and this is supposed to charm the snakes. When catching a cobra they pin its head to the ground with a stick and then seize it in a cleft bamboo and prick out the poison-fangs with a large needle. They think that the teeth of the iguana are also poisonous and they knock them out with a stick, and if fresh teeth afterwards grow they believe them not to contain poison. The python is called Ajgar, which is said to mean eater of goats. In captivity the pythons will not eat of themselves, and the snake-charmers chop up pieces of meat and fowls and placing the food in the reptile’s mouth massage it down the body. They feed the pythons only once in four or five days. They have antidotes for snake-bite, the root of a creeper called kalipār and the bark of the karheya tree. When a patient is brought to them they give him a little pepper, and if he tastes the pungent flavour they think that he has not been affected by snake-poison, but if it seems tasteless that he has been bitten. Then they give him small pieces of the two antidotes already mentioned with tobacco and 2½ leaves of the nīm tree349 which is sacred to Devi. On the festival of Nāg-Panchmi (Cobra’s Fifth) they worship their cobras and give them milk to drink and then take them round the town or village and the people also worship and feed the snakes and give a present of a few annas to the Sapera. In towns much frequented by cobras, a special adoration is paid to them. Thus in Hatta in the Damoh District a stone image of a snake, known as Nāg-Bāba or Father Cobra is worshipped for a month before the festival of Nāg-Panchmi. During this period one man from every house in the village must go to Nāg-Bāba’s shrine outside and take food there and come back. And on Nāg-Panchmi the whole town goes out in a body to pay him reverence, and it is thought that if any one is absent the cobras will harass him for the whole year. But others say that cobras will only bite men of low caste. The Saperas will not kill a snake as a rule, but occasionally it is said that they kill one and cut off the head and eat the body, this being possibly an instance of eating the divine animal at a sacrificial meal. The following is an old account of the performances of snake-charmers in Bengal:350

Snake-charmer with cobras

“Hence, on many occasions throughout the year, the dread Manasa Devi, the queen of snakes, is propitiated by presents, vows and religious rites. In the month of Shrābana the worship of the snake goddess is celebrated with great éclat. An image of the goddess, seated on a water-lily, encircled with serpents, or a branch of the snake-tree (a species of Euphorbia), or a pot of water, with images of serpents made of clay, forms the object of worship. Men, women and children, all offer presents to avert from themselves the wrath of the terrific deity. The Māls or snake-catchers signalise themselves on this occasion. Temporary scaffolds of bamboo work are set up in the presence of the goddess. Vessels filled with all sorts of snakes are brought in. The Māls, often reeling with intoxication, mount the scaffolds, take out serpents from the vessels, and allow them to bite their arms. Bite after bite succeeds; the arms run with blood; and the Māls go on with their pranks, amid the deafening plaudits of the spectators. Now and then they fall off from the scaffold and pretend to feel the effects of poison, and cure themselves by their incantations. But all is mere pretence. The serpents displayed on the occasion and challenged to do their worst, have passed through a preparatory state. Their fangs have been carefully extracted from their jaws. But most of the vulgar spectators easily persuade themselves to believe that the Māls are the chosen servants of Siva and the favourites of Manasa. Although their supernatural pretensions are ridiculous, yet it must be confessed that the Māls have made snakes the subject of their peculiar study. They are thoroughly acquainted with their qualities, their dispositions, and their habits. They will run down a snake into its hole, and bring it out thence by main force. Even the terrible cobra is cowed down by the controlling influence of a Māl. When in the act of bringing out snakes from their subterranean holes, the Māls are in the habit of muttering charms, in which the names of Manasa and Mahādeva frequently occur; superstition alone can clothe these unmeaning words with supernatural potency. But it is not inconsistent with the soundest philosophy to suppose that there may be some plants whose roots are disagreeable to serpents, and from which they instinctively turn away. All snake-catchers of Bengal are provided with a bundle of the roots of some plant which they carefully carry along with them, when they set out on their serpent-hunting expeditions. When a serpent, disturbed in its hole, comes out furiously hissing with rage, with its body coiled, and its head lifted up, the Māl has only to present before it the bundle of roots above alluded to, at the sight of which it becomes spiritless as an eel. This we have ourselves witnessed more than once.”

These Māls appear to have been members of the aboriginal Māle or Māle Pahāria tribe of Bengal.

Nunia

Nunia, Lunia. 351—A mixed occupational caste of salt-makers and earth-workers, made up of recruits from the different non-Aryan tribes of northern India. The word non means salt, and is a corruption of the Sanskrit lavana, ‘the moist,’ which first occurs as a name for sea-salt in the Atharva Veda.352 In the oldest prose writings salt is known as Saindhava or ‘that which is brought from the Indus,’ this perhaps being Punjab rock-salt. The Nunias are a fairly large caste in Bengal and northern India, numbering 800,000 persons, but the Central Provinces and Berār contain only 3000, who are immigrants from Upper India. Here they are navvies and masons, a calling which they have generally adopted since the Government monopoly has interfered with their proper business of salt-refining. The mixed origin of the caste is shown by the list of their subdivisions in the United Provinces, which includes the names Mallāh, Kewat, Kūchbandhia, Bind, Musahār, Bhuinhār and Lodha, all of which are distinct castes, besides a number of territorial subcastes. A list of nearly thirty subcastes is given by Mr. Crooke, and this is an instance of the tendency of migratory castes to split up into small groups for the purpose of arranging marriages, owing to the difficulty of ascertaining the status and respectability of each other’s families, and the unwillingness to contract alliances with those whose social position may turn out to be not wholly satisfactory. “The internal structure of the caste,” Mr. Crooke remarks, “is far from clear; it would appear that they are still in a state of transition, and the different endogamous subcastes are not as yet fully recognised.” In Bilāspur the Nunias have three local subcastes, the Bandhaiya, the Ratanpuria and the Kharodhia. The two last, deriving their names from the towns of Ratanpur and Kharod in Bilāspur, are said to have been employed in former times in the construction of the temples and other buildings which abound in these localities, and have thus acquired a considerable degree of professional skill in masonry work; while the Bandhaiya, who take their name from Bāndhogarh, confine themselves to the excavation of tanks and wells. The exogamous divisions of the caste are also by no means clearly defined; in Mīrzāpur they have a system of local subdivisions called dīh, each subdivision being named after the village which is supposed to be its home. The word dīh itself means a site or village. Those who have a common dīh do not intermarry.353 This fact is interesting as being an instance of the direct derivation of the exogamous clan from residence in a parent village and not from any heroic or supposititious ancestor.