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

“A short distance to the west of the Regent’s (Kotāh) camp is the Pindāri-ka-chhaoni, where the sons of Karīm Khān, the chief leader of those hordes, resided; for in those days of strife the old Regent would have allied himself with Satan, if he had led a horde of plunderers. I was greatly amused to see in this camp the commencement of an Id-Gāh or place of prayer; for the villains, while they robbed and murdered even defenceless women, prayed five times a day!”445

8. The existing Pindāris

While the freebooting Pindāris had no regular caste organisation, their descendants have now become more or less of a caste in accordance with the usual tendency of a distinctive occupation, producing a difference in status, to form a fresh caste. The existing Pindāris in the Central Provinces are both Muhammadans and Hindus, the Muhammadans, as already stated, having been originally the children of Hindus who were kidnapped and converted. It is one of the very few merits of the Pindāris that they did not sell their captives to slavery. Their numerous prisoners of all ages and both sexes were employed as servants, made over to the chiefs or held to ransom from their relatives, but the Pindāris did not carry on like the Banjāras a traffic in slaves.446 The Muhammadan Pindāris were said some time ago to have no religion, but with the diffusion of knowledge they have now adopted the rites of Islam and observe its rules and restrictions. In Bhandāra the Hindu Pindāris are Garoris or Gowāris, They say that the ancestors of the Pindāris and Gowāris were two brothers, the business of the Pindāri brother being to tend buffaloes and that of the Gowāri brother to herd cows. These Pindāris will beg from the owners of buffaloes for the above reason. They revere the dog and will not kill it, and also worship snakes and tigers, believing that these animals never do them injury. They carry their dead to the grave in a sitting posture, seated in a jholi or wallet, and bury them in the same position. They wear their beards and do not shave. Some of these Pindāris are personal servants, others cultivators and labourers, and others snake-charmers and jugglers.

9. Attractions of a Pindāri’s life

The freebooting life of the Pindāris, unmitigated scoundrels though they were, no doubt had great charms, and must often have been recalled with regret by those who settled down to the quiet humdrum existence of a cultivator. This feeling has been admirably depicted in Sir Alfred Lyall’s well-known poem, of which it will be permissible to quote a short extract:

When I rode a Dekhani charger with the saddle-cloth gold-laced,And a Persian sword and a twelve-foot spear and a pistol at my waist.It’s many a year gone by now; and yet I often dreamOf a long dark march to the Jumna, of splashing across the stream,Of the waning moon on the water and the spears in the dim starlightAs I rode in front of my mother447 and wondered at all the sight.Then the streak of the pearly dawn—the flash of a sentinel’s gun,The gallop and glint of horsemen who wheeled in the level sun,The shots in the clear still morning, the white smoke’s eddying wreath,Is this the same land that I live in, the dull dank air that I breathe?And if I were forty years younger, with my life before me to choose,I wouldn’t be lectured by Kafirs or bullied by fat Hindoos;But I’d go to some far-off country where Musalmāns still are men,Or take to the jungle like Chetoo, and die in the tiger’s den.

Prabhu

1. Historical notice

Prabhu, Parbhu.—The Marātha caste of clerks, accountants and patwāris corresponding to the Kāyasths. They numbered about 1400 persons in the southern Districts of the Central Provinces and Berār in 1911. The Prabhus, like the Kāyasths, claim to be descendants of a child of Chandra Sena, a Kshatriya king and himself a son of Arjun, one of the five Pāndava brothers. Chandra Sena was slain by Parasurāma, the Brāhman destroyer of the Kshatriyas, but the child was saved by a Rishi, who promised that he should be brought up as a clerk. The boy was named Somrāj and was married to the daughter of Chitra Gupta, the recorder of the dead. The caste thus claim Kshatriya origin. The name Prabhu signifies ‘lord,’ but the Brāhmans pretend that the real name of the caste was Parbhu, meaning one of irregular birth. The Prabhus say that Parbhu is a colloquial corruption used by the uneducated. The gotras of the Prabhus are eponymous, the names being the same as those of Brāhmans. In the Central Provinces many of them have the surname of Chitnavīs or Secretary. Child-marriage is in vogue and widow-remarriage is forbidden. The wedding ceremony resembles that of the Brāhmans.

Little girls playing

In his Description of a Prabhu marriage448 Rai Bahādur B.A. Gupte shows how the old customs are being broken through among the educated classes under the influence of modern ideas. Marriages are no longer arranged without regard to the wishes of the couple, which are thus ascertained: “The next step449 is to find out the inclination of the hero of the tale. His friends and equals do that easily enough. They begin talking of the family and the girl, and are soon able to fathom his mind. They leave on his desk all the photographs of the girls offered and watch his movements. If he is sensible he quietly drops or returns all the likenesses except the one he prefers, and keeps this in his drawer. He dare not display it, for it is immodest to do so. The news of the approval by the boy soon reaches the parents of the girl.” Similarly in her case: “The girl has no direct voice, but her likes and dislikes are carefully fathomed through her girl friends. If she says, ‘Why is papa in such a hurry to get rid of me,’ or turns her face and goes away as soon as the proposed family is mentioned, a sensible father drops the case and turns his attention to some other boy. This is the direct result of higher education under British rule, but among the masses the girl has absolutely no voice, and the boy has very little unless he revolts and disobediently declines to accept a girl already selected.” Similarly the educated Prabhus are beginning to dispense with the astrologer’s calculations showing the agreement of the horoscopes of the couple, which are too often made a cloak for the extortion of large presents. “It very often happens that everything is amicably settled except the greed of the priest, and he manages to find out some disagreement between the horoscopes of the marriageable parties to vent his anger. This trick has been sufficiently exposed, and the educated portion of this ultra-literary caste have in most cases discarded horoscopes and planetary conjunctions altogether. Under these restrictions the only thing the council of astrologers have to do is to draw up two documents giving diagrams based on the names of the parties—for names are presumably selected according to the conjunctions of the stars at birth. But they are often not, and depend on the liking of the father for a family god, a mythological hero, a patron or a celebrated ancestor in the case of the boy. In that of the girl the favourite deity or a character in the most recent fable or drama the father has just read.”

According to custom the bridegroom should go to the bride’s house to be married, but if it is more convenient to have the wedding at the bridegroom’s town, the bride goes there to a temporary house taken by her father, and then the bridegroom proceeds to a temple with his party and is welcomed as if he had arrived on completion of a journey. Mr. Gupte thus describes the reception of the bride when she has come to be married: “But there comes an urgent telegram. The bride and her mother are expected and information is given to the bridegroom’s father. In all haste preparations are made to give her a grand and suitable reception. Oh, the flutter among the girls assembled in the house of the bridegroom from all quarters. Every one is dressed in her best and is trying to be the foremost in welcoming the new bride, the Goddess Lakshmi. The numerous maidservants of the house want to prostrate themselves before their future queen on the Sūna or borderland of the city, which is of course the railway station. Musicians have been already despatched and the platform is full of gaily dressed girls. The train arrives, the party assemble at the waiting-room, a maidservant waves rice and water to ‘take off’ the effects of evil eyes and they start amid admiring eyes of the passengers and onlookers. As soon as the bride reaches her father’s temporary residence another girl waves rice and water and throws it away. The girls of the bridegroom’s house run home and come back again with a Kalash (water-pot) full of water, with its mouth covered with mango-leaves and topped over with a cocoanut and a large tray of sugar. This is called Sakhar pāni, sugar and water, the first to wash the mouth with and the second to sweeten it. The girls have by this time all gathered round the bride and are busy cheering her up with encouraging remarks: ‘Oh, she is a Rati, the goddess of beauty,’ says one, and another, ‘How delicate,’ ‘What a fine nose’ from a third, and ‘Look at her eyes’ from a fourth. All complimentary and comforting. ‘We are glad it is our house you are coming to,’ says a sister-in-law in prospect. ‘We are happy you are going to be our mālikin (mistress),’ adds a maidservant. As soon as the elder ladies have completed their courteous inquiries pān-supāri and attar are distributed and the party returns home. But on arrival the girls gather round the bridegroom to tease him. ‘Oh, you Sudhārak (reformer),’ ‘Oh, you Sāhib (European), you have selected your bride.’ ‘You have seen her before marriage. You have broken the rule of the society. You ought to be excommunicated.’ ‘But,’ says another, ‘he will now have no time to speak to us. His Rati (goddess of beauty) and he! The Sāhib and the Memsāhib! We shall all be forgotten now. Who cares for sisters and cousins in these days of civilisation?’ But all these little jokes of the little girls are meant as congratulations to him for having secured a good girl.” At a wedding among the highest families such as is described here, the bridegroom is presented with drinking cups and plates, trays for holding sandalwood paste, betel-leaf and an incense-burner, all in solid silver to the value of about Rs. 1000; water-pots and cooking vessels and a small bath in German silver costing Rs. 300 to Rs. 400; and a set of brass vessels.450

Gujarati girls doing figures with strings and sticks

2. General Customs

The Prabhus wear the sacred thread. In Bombay boys receive it a short time before their marriage without the ceremonies which form part of the regular Brāhman investiture. On the fifth day after the birth of a child, the sword and also pens, paper and ink are worshipped, the sword being the symbol of their Kshatriya origin and the pens, paper and ink of their present occupation of clerks.451 The funeral ceremonies, Mr. Enthoven writes, are performed during the first thirteen days after death. Oblations of rice are offered every day, in consequence of which the soul of the dead attains a spiritual body, limb by limb, till on the thirteenth day it is enabled to start on its journey. In twelve months the journey ends, and a shrāddh ceremony is performed on an extensive scale on the anniversary of the death. Most of the Prabhus are in Government service and others are landowners. In the Bombay Presidency452 they had at first almost a monopoly of Government service as English writers, and the term Prabhu was commonly employed to denote a clerk of any caste who could write English. Both men and women of the caste are generally of a fair complexion, resembling the Marātha Brāhmans. The taste of the women in dress is proverbial, and when a Sunār, Sutār or Kasār woman has dressed herself in her best for some family festival, she will ask her friends, ‘Prabhuin disto,’ or ‘Do I look like a Prabhu?’

Rāghuvansi

1. Historical notice

Rāghuvansi, Rāghvi.—A class of Rājpūts of impure descent, who have now developed in the Central Provinces into a caste of cultivators, marrying among themselves. Their first settlement here was in the Nerbudda Valley, and Sir C. Elliott wrote of them:453 “They are a queer class, all professing to be Rājpūts from Ajodhia, though on cross-examination they are obliged to confess that they did not come here straight from Ajodhia, but stopped in Bundelkhand and the Gwalior territory by the way. They are obviously of impure blood as they marry only among themselves; but when they get wealthy and influential they assume the sacred thread, stop all familiarity with Gūjars and Kirārs (with whom they are accustomed to smoke the huqqa and to take water) and profess to be very high-caste Rājpūts indeed.” From Hoshangābād they have spread to Betūl, Chhindwāra and Nāgpur and now number 24,000 persons in all in the Central Provinces. Chhindwāra, on the Satpūra plateau, is supposed to have been founded by one Ratan Rāghuvansi, who built the first house on the site, burying a goat alive under the foundations. The goat is still worshipped as the tutelary deity of the town. The name Rāghuvansi is derived from Rāja Rāghu, king of Ajodhia and ancestor of the great Rāma, the hero of the Rāmāyana. In Nāgpur the name has been shortened to Rāghvi, and the branch of the caste settled here is somewhat looked down upon by their fellows in Hoshangābād. Sir R. Craddock454 states that their religion is unorthodox and they have gurus or priests of their own caste, discarding Brāhmans. Their names end in Deo. Their origin, however, is still plainly discernible in their height, strength of body and fair complexion. The notice continues: “Whatever may happen to other classes the Rāghvi will never give way to the moneylender. Though he is fond of comfort he combines a good deal of thrift with it, and the clannish spirit of the caste would prevent any oppression of Rāghvi tenants by a landlord or moneylender of their own body.” In Chhindwāra, Mr. Montgomerie states,455 they rank among the best cultivators, and formerly lived in clans, holding villages on bhaiachāri or communal tenure. As mālguzārs or village proprietors, they are very prone to absorb tenant land into their home-farms.

2. Social customs

The Rāghuvansis have now a set of exogamous groups of the usual low-caste type, designated after titles, nicknames or natural objects. They sometimes invest their sons with the sacred thread at the time of marriage instead of performing the proper thread ceremony. Some discard the cord after the wedding is over. At a marriage the Rāghuvansis of Chhindwara and Nāgpur combine the Hindustāni custom of walking round the sacred pole with the Marātha one of throwing coloured rice on the bridal couple. Sometimes they have what is known as a gānkar wedding. At this, flour, sugar and ghī456 are the only kinds of food permissible, large cakes of flour and sugar being boiled in pitchers full of ghī, and everybody being given as much of this as he can eat. The guests generally over-eat themselves, and as weddings are celebrated in the hot weather, one or two may occasionally die of repletion. The neighbours of Rāghuvansis say that the host considers such an occurrence as evidence of the complete success of his party, but this is probably a libel. Such a wedding feast may cost two or three thousand rupees. After the wedding the women of the bride’s party attack those of the bridegroom’s with bamboo sticks, while these retaliate by throwing red powder on them. The remarriage of widows is freely permitted, but a widow must be taken from the house of her own parents or relatives, and not from that of her first husband or his parents. In fact, if any members of the dead husband’s family meet the second husband on the night of the wedding they will attack him and a serious affray may follow. On reaching her new house the woman enters it by a back door, after bathing and changing all her clothes. The old clothes are given away to a barber or washerman, and the presentation of new clothes by the second husband is the only essential ceremony. No wife will look on a widow’s face on the night of her second marriage, for fear lest by doing so she should come to the same position. The majority of the caste abstain from liquor, and they eat flesh in some localities, but not in others. The men commonly wear beards divided by a shaven patch in the centre of the chin; and the women have two body-cloths, one worn like a skirt according to the northern custom. Mr. Crooke states457 that “in northern India a tradition exists among them that the cultivation of sugar is fatal to the farmer, and that the tiling of a house brings down divine displeasure upon the owner; hence to this day no sugar is grown and not a tiled house is to be seen in their estates.” These superstitions do not appear to be known at all in the Central Provinces.

Rājjhar

1. General notice

Rājjhar, Rājbhar, Lajjhar.—A caste of farmservants found in the northern Districts. In 1911 they numbered about 8000 persons in the Central Provinces, being returned principally from the Districts of the Satpūra plateau. The names Rājjhar and Rājbhar appear to be applied indiscriminately to the same caste, who are an offshoot of the great Bhar tribe of northern India. The original name appears to have been Rāj Bhar, which signifies a landowning Bhar, like Rāj-Gond, Rāj-Korku and so on. In Mandla all the members of the caste were shown as Rājbhar in 1891, and Rājjhar in 1901, and the two names seem to be used interchangeably in other Districts in the same manner. Some section or family names, such as Bamhania, Patela, Barhele and others, are common to people calling themselves Rājjhar and Rājbhar. But, though practically the same caste, the Rājjhars seem, in some localities, to be more backward and primitive than the Rājbhars. This is also the case in Berār, where they are commonly known as Lajjhar and are said to be akin to the Gonds. A Gond will there take food from a Lajjhar, but not a Lajjhar from a Gond. They are more Hinduised than the Gonds and have prohibited the killing or injuring of cows by some caste penalties.458

2. Origin and subdivisions

The caste appears to be in part of mixed origin arising from the unions of Hindu fathers with women of the Bhar tribe. Several of their family names are derived from those of other castes, as Bamhania (from Brāhman), Sunārya (from Sunār), Baksaria (a Rājpūt sept), Ahīriya (an Ahīr or cowherd), and Bisātia from Bisāti (a hawker). Other names are after plants or animals, as Baslya from the bāns or bamboo, Mohanya from the mohin tree, Chhitkaria from the sītaphal or custard-apple tree, Hardaya from the banyan tree, Rīchhya from the bear, and Dukhania from the buffalo. Members of this last sept will not drink buffalo’s milk or wear black cloth, because this is the colour of their totem animal. Members of septs named after other castes have also adopted some natural object as a sept totem; thus those of the Sunārya sept worship gold as being the metal with which the Sunār is associated. Those of the Bamhania sept revere the banyan and pipal trees, as these are held sacred by Brāhmans. The Bakraria or Bagsaria sept believe their name to be derived from that of the bāgh or tiger, and they worship this animal’s footprints by tying a thread round them.

3. Marriage

The marriage of members of the same sept, and also that of first cousins, is forbidden. The caste do not employ Brāhmans at their marriage and other ceremonies, and they account for this somewhat quaintly by saying that their ancestors were at one time accustomed to rely on the calculations of Brāhman priests; but many marriages which the Brāhman foretold as auspicious turned out very much the reverse; and on this account they have discarded the Brāhman, and now determine the suitability or otherwise of a projected union by the common primitive custom of throwing two grains of rice into a vessel of water and seeing whether they will meet. The truth is probably that they are too backward ever to have had recourse to the Brāhman priest, but now, though they still apparently have no desire for his services, they recognise the fact to be somewhat discreditable to themselves, and desire to explain it away by the story already given. In Hoshangābād the bride still goes to the bridegroom’s house to be married as among the Gonds. A bride-price is paid, which consists of four rupees, a khandi459 of juāri or wheat, and two pieces of cloth. This is received by the bride’s father, who, however, has in turn to pay seven rupees eight annas and a goat to the caste panchāyat or committee for the arrangement and sanction of the match. This last payment is known as Skarāb-ka-rupaya or liquor-money, and with the goat furnishes the wherewithal for a sumptuous feast to the caste. The marriage-shed must be made of freshly-cut timber, which should not be allowed to fall to the ground, but must be supported and carried off on men’s shoulders as it is cut. When the bridegroom arrives at the marriage-shed he is met by the bride’s mother and conducted by her to an inner room of the house, where he finds the bride standing. He seizes her fist, which she holds clenched, and opens her fingers by force. The couple then walk five times round the chauk or sacred space made with lines of flour on the floor, the bridegroom holding the bride by her little finger. They are preceded by some relative of the bride, who walks round the post carrying a pot of water, with seven holes in it; the water spouts from these holes on to the ground, and the couple must tread in it as they go round the post. This forms the essential and binding portion of the marriage. That night the couple sleep in the same room with a woman lying between them. Next day they return to the bridegroom’s house, and on arriving at his door the boy’s mother meets him and touches his head, breast and knees with a churning-stick, a winnowing-fan and a pestle, with the object of exorcising any evil spirits who may be accompanying the bridal couple. As the pair enter the marriage-shed erected before the bridegroom’s house they are drenched with water by a man sitting on the roof, and when they come to the door of the house the bridegroom’s younger brother, or some other boy, sits across it with his legs stretched out to prevent the bride from entering. The girl pushes his legs aside and goes into the house, where she stays for three months with her husband, and then returns to her parents for a year. After this she is sent to her husband with a basket of fried cakes and a piece of cloth, and takes up her residence with him. When a widow is to be married, the couple pour turmeric and water over each other, and then walk seven times round in a circle in an empty space, holding each other by the hand. A widow commonly marries her deceased husband’s younger brother, but is not compelled to do so. Divorce is permitted for adultery on the part of the wife.

4. Social Customs

The caste bury their dead with the head pointing to the west. This practice is peculiar, and is also followed, Colonel Dalton states, by the hill Bhuiyas of Bengal, who in so doing honour the quarter of the setting sun. When a burial takes place, all the mourners who accompany the corpse throw a little earth into the grave. On the same day some food and liquor are taken to the grave and offered to the dead man’s spirit, and a feast is given to the caste-fellows. This concludes the ceremonies of mourning, and the next day the relatives go about their business. The caste are usually petty cultivators and labourers, while they also collect grass and fuel for sale, and propagate the lac insect. In Seoni they have a special relation with the Ahīrs, from whom they will take cooked food, while they say that the Ahīrs will also eat from their hands. In Narsinghpur a similar connection has been observed between the Rājjhars and the Lodhi caste. This probably arises from the fact that the former have worked for several generations as the farm-servants of Lodhi or Ahīr employers, and have been accustomed to live in their houses and partake of their meals, so that caste rules have been abandoned for the sake of convenience. A similar intimacy has been observed between the Panwārs and Gonds, and other castes who stand in this relation to each other. The Rājjhars will also eat katcha food (cooked with water) from Kunbis and Kahārs. But in Hoshangābād some of them will not take food from any caste, even from Brāhmans. Their women wear glass bangles only on the right hand, and a brass ornament known as māthi on the left wrist. They wear no ornaments in the nose or ears, and have no breast-cloth. They are tattooed with dots on the face and patterns of animals on the right arm, but not on the left arm or legs. A liaison between a youth and maiden of the caste is considered a trifling matter, being punished only with a fine of two to four annas or pence. A married woman detected in an intrigue is mulcted in a sum of four or five rupees, and if her partner be a man of another caste a lock of her hair is cut off. The caste are generally ignorant and dirty, and are not much better than the Gonds and other forest tribes.