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

Teli

1. Strength and distribution of the caste

Teli. 664—The occupational caste of oil-pressers and sellers. The Telis numbered nearly 900,000 persons in 1911, being the fifth caste in the Province in point of population. They are numerous in the Chhattīsgarh and Nāgpur Divisions, nearly 400,000 belonging to the former and 200,000 to the latter tract; while in Berār and the north of the Province they are sparsely represented. The reason for such a distribution of the caste is somewhat obscure. Vegetable oil is more largely used for food in the south and east than in the north, but while this custom might explain the preponderance of Telis in Nāgpur and Chhattīsgarh it gives no reason to account for their small numbers in Berār. In Chhattīsgarh again nearly all the Telis are cultivators, and it may be supposed that, like the Chamārs, they have found opportunity here to get possession of the land owing to its not being already taken up by the cultivating castes proper; but in the Nāgpur Division, with the exception of part of Wardha, the Telis have had no such opening and are not large landholders. Their distribution thus remains a somewhat curious problem. But all over the Province the Telis have generally abandoned their hereditary trade of pressing oil, and have taken to trade and agriculture, the number of those returned as oil-pressers being only about seven per cent of the total strength of the caste. The name comes from the Sanskrit tailika or taila, oil, and this word, is derived from the tilli or sesamum plant.

2. Origin and traditions

The caste have few traditions of origin. Their usual story is that during Siva’s absence the goddess Pārvati felt nervous because she had no doorkeeper to her palace, and therefore she made the god Ganesh from the sweat of her body and set him to guard the southern gate. But when Siva returned Ganesh did not know him and refused to let him enter; on which Siva was so enraged that he cut off the head of Ganesh with a stroke of his sword. He then entered the palace, and Pārvati, observing the blood on his sword, asked him what had happened, and reproached him bitterly for having slain her son. Siva was distressed, but said that he could not replace the head as it was already reduced to ashes. But he said that if any animal could be found looking towards the south he could put its head on Ganesh and bring him to life. As it happened a trader was then resting outside the palace and had with him an elephant, which was seated with its head to the south. So Siva quickly struck off the head of the elephant and placed it on the body of Ganesh and brought him to life again, and thus Ganesh got his elephant’s head. But the trader made loud lamentation about the loss of his elephant, so to pacify him Siva made a pestle and mortar, utensils till then unknown, and showed him how to pound oil-seeds in them and express the oil, and enjoined him to earn a livelihood in future by this calling, and his descendants after him; and so the merchant became the first Teli. And the pestle was considered to be Siva and the mortar Pārvati. This last statement affords some support to Mr. Marten’s suggestion665 that a certain veneration attaching to the pestle and mortar and their use in marriage ceremonies may be due to the idea of their typifying the male and female organs. The fact that Ganesh was set to guard the southern gate, and that the animal whose head could be placed on his body must be looking to the south, probably hinges in some way on the south being the abode of Yama, the god of death, but the connection has been forgotten by the teller of the story; it may also be noted that if the palace was in the Himalayas, the site of Kailās or Siva’s heaven, the whole of India would be to the south. Another story related by Mr. Crooke666 from Mīrzāpur is that a certain man had three sons and owned fifty-two mahua667 trees. When he became aged and infirm he told his sons to divide the trees, but after some discussion they decided to divide not the trees themselves but their produce. One of them fell to picking up the leaves, and he was the ancestor of the Bharbhūnjas or grain-parchers, who still use leaves in their ovens; the second collected the flowers and corollas, and having distilled liquor from them became a Kalār; while the third took the kernels or fruit and crushed the oil out of them, and was the founder of the Teli caste. The country spirit generally drunk is distilled from the flowers of the mahua tree, and a cheap vegetable oil in common use is obtained from its seeds. The Telis and Kalārs are also castes of about the same status and have other points of resemblance; and the legend connecting them is therefore of some interest Some groups of Telis who have become landed proprietors or prospered in trade have stories giving them a more exalted origin. Thus the landholding Rāthor Telis of Mandla say that they were Rāthor Rājpūts who fled from the Muhammadans and threw away their swords and sacred threads; and the Telis of Nimār, several of whom are wealthy merchants, give out that their ancestors were Modh Banias from Gujarāt who had to take to oil-pressing for a livelihood under Muhammadan rule. But these legends may perhaps be considered a natural result of their rise in the world.

Teli’s oil-press

3. Endogamous subcastes

The caste has a large number of subdivisions. The principal groups in Chhattīsgarh are the Halia, Jharia and Ekbahia Telis. The Halias, who perhaps take their name from hal, a plough, are considered to be the best cultivators, and are said to have immigrated from Mandla some generations ago. Probably the bulk of the Hindu population of Chhattīsgarh came from this direction. The name Jharia means jungly or savage, and is commonly applied to the oldest residents, but the Jharia Telis are the highest local subcaste. They require the presence of a Brāhman at their weddings, and abstain generally from liquor, fowls and pork, to which the Halias are not averse. They also bathe the corpse before it is burnt or buried, an observance omitted by the Halias. The Jharias yoke only one bullock to the oil-press, and the Halias two, a distinction which is elsewhere sufficient of itself to produce separate subcastes. The Ekbahia (one-armed) Telis are so called because their women wear glass bangles only on the right hand and metal ones on the left. This is a custom of several castes whose women do manual labour, and the reason appears to be one of convenience, as glass bangles on the working arm would be continually getting broken. Among the Ekbahia Telis it is said that a woman considers it a point of honour to have these metal bangles as numerous and heavy as her arm can bear; and at a wedding a present of three bracelets from the bridegroom to the bride is held to be indispensable. The Madpotwa are a small subcaste living near the hills, who in former times distilled liquor; they keep pigs and poultry, and rank below the others. Other groups are the Kosarias, who are called after Kosala, the old name of Chhattīsgarh, and the Chhote or Little Telis, who are of illegitimate descent. Children born out of wedlock are relegated to this group.

In the Nāgpur country the principal subdivisions are the Ekbaile and Dobaile, so called because they yoke one and two bullocks respectively to the oil-press; the distinction is still maintained, the Dobaile being also known as Tarāne. This seems a trivial reason for barring intermarriage, but it must be remembered that the yoking of the bullock to the oil-press, coupled as it is with the necessity of blindfolding the animal, is considered a great sin on the Teli’s part and a degrading incident of his profession; the Teli’s worst fear is that after death his soul will pass into one of his own bullocks. The Yerande Telis are so called because they formerly pressed only the erandi or castor-oil seed, but the rule is no longer maintained. The Yerande women leave off wearing the choli or breast-cloth after they have had one child, and have nothing under the sāri or body-cloth, but they wear this folded double. The Ruthia group are said to be so called from the noise rut, rut made by the oil-mill in turning. They say they are descended from the Nāg or cobra. They salute the snake when they see it and refrain from killing it, and they will not make any drawing or sign having the semblance of a snake or use any article which may be supposed to be like it. The Sao Telis are the highest group in Wardha, and have eschewed the pressing of oil. The word Sao or Sāhu is the title of a moneylender, but they are usually cultivators or village proprietors. A Brāhman will enter a Sao Teli’s house, but not the houses of any other subcaste. Their women wear silver bangles on the right hand and glass ones on the left. The Batri subcaste are said to be so called from their growing the batar, a kind of pea, and the Hardia from raising the haldi or turmeric. The Teli-Kalārs appear to be a mixed group of Kalārs who have taken to the oilman’s profession, and the Teli-Banias are Telis who have become shopkeepers, and may be expected in the course of time to develop either into a plebeian group of Banias or an aristocratic one of Telis. In Nimār the Gujarāti Telis, who have now grown wealthy and prosperous, claim, as already seen, to be Modh Banias, and the same pretension is put forward by their fellow-castemen in Gujarāt itself. “The large class of oilmen known in Gujarāt as Modh-Ghanelis were originally Modh Banias, who by taking to making and selling oil lost their position as Banias”;668 it seems doubtful, however, whether the reverse process has not really taken place. The Umre Telis also have the name of a subcaste of Banias. The landholding Rāthor Telis of Mandla, who now claim to be Rāthor Rājpūts, will be more fully noticed later. There are also several local subcastes, as the Mattha or Marātha Telis, who say they came from Pātan in Gujarāt, the Sirwas from the ancient city of Srāvasti in Gonda District, and the Kanaujia from Oudh.

4. Exogamous divisions

Each subcaste is divided into a number of exogamous groups for the regulation of marriages. The names of the groups appear to be taken either from villages or titles or nicknames. Most of them cannot be recognised, but the following are a few: Bāghmāre, a tiger-killer; Deshmukh, a village officer; Vaidya, a physician; Bāwankule, the fifty-two septs; Badwāik, the great ones; Satpute, seven sons; Bhājikhāya, an eater of vegetables; Satapaise, seven pice; Ghoremādia, a horse-killer; Chaudhri, a caste headman; Ardona, a kind of gram; Malghāti, a valley; Chandan-malāgar, one who presented sandalwood; and Sanichara, born on Saturday. Three septs, Dhurwa, Besrām, a hawk, and Sonwāni, gold-water, belong to the Gonds or other tribes. The clans of the Rāthor Telis of Mandla are said to be named after villages in Jubbulpore and Maihar State.

5. Marriage customs

The marriage of persons of the same sept and of first cousins is usually forbidden. A man may marry his wife’s younger sister while she herself is alive, but never her elder sister. An unmarried girl becoming pregnant by a man of the caste is married to him by the ceremony used for a widow, and she may be readmitted even after a liaison with an outsider among most Telis. In Chānda the parents of a girl who is not married before puberty are fined. The proposal comes from the boy’s side and a bride-price is usually paid, though not of large amount. The Halia Telis of Chhattīsgarh, like other agricultural castes, sometimes betroth their children when they are five or six months old, but as a rule no penalty attaches to the breaking of the betrothal. The betrothal is celebrated by the distribution of one or two rupees’ worth of liquor to the neighbours of the caste. As among other low castes, on the day before the wedding procession starts, the bridegroom goes round to all the houses in the village and his sister dances round him with her head bent, and all the people give him presents. This is known as the Binaiki or Farewell, and the bride does the same in her village. Among the Jharia Telis the women go and worship the marriage-post at the carpenter’s house while it is being made. In this subcaste the bridegroom goes to the wedding in a cart and not on horseback or in a litter as among some castes. The rule may perhaps be a recognition of their humble station. The Halia subcaste can dispense with the presence of a Brāhman at the wedding, but not the Jharias. In Wardha the bridegroom’s head is covered with a blanket, over which is placed the marriage-crown. On the arrival of the bridegroom’s party they are regaled with sherbet or sugar and water by the bride’s relatives, and sometimes red pepper is mixed with this by way of a joke. At a wedding of the Gujarāti Tells in Nimār the caste-priest carries the tutelary goddess Kāli in procession, and in front of her a pot filled with burning cotton-seeds and oil. A cloth is held over the pot, and it is believed that the power of the goddess prevents the cloth from taking fire. If this should happen some great calamity would be portended. Rāthor Teli girls, whether married or unmarried, go with their heads bare, and a woman draws her cloth over her head for the first time when she begins to live in her husband’s house.

6. Widow-remarriage

Divorce and widow-marriage are permitted. In Chhattīsgarh a widow is always kept in the family if possible, and if her late husband’s brother be only a boy she is sometimes induced to put on the bangles and wait for him. If a barandi widow, that is one who has been married but has not lived with her husband, desires to marry again out of his family, the second husband must repay to them the amount spent on her first marriage. In Chānda, on the other hand, some Telis do not permit a widow to marry her late husband’s younger brother at all, and others only when he is a bachelor or a widower. Here the minimum period for which a widow must remain single after her husband’s death is one month. The engagement with a widow is arranged by the suitor’s female relatives, and they pay her a rupee as earnest money. On the day fixed she goes with one or two other widows to the bridegroom’s house, and from there to the bazār, where she buys two pairs of bell-metal rings, to be worn on the second toe of each foot, and some glass bangles. She remains sitting in the bazār till well after dark, when some widow goes to fetch her on behalf of her suitor. They bring her to his house, where the couple sit together, and red powder is applied to their foreheads. They then bathe and present their clothes to the washerman, putting on new clothes. The idea in all this is clearly to sever the widow as completely as possible from her old home and prevent her from being accompanied to the new one by the first husband’s spirit. In some localities when a Teli widow remarries it is considered most unlucky for any one to see the face of the bride or bridegroom for twenty-four hours, or as some say for three days after the wedding. The ceremony is therefore held at night, and for this period the couple either remain shut up in the house or retire to the jungle.

7. Religion: Caste deities

The caste especially revere Mahādeo or Siva, who gave them the oil-mill. In the Nāgpur country they do not work the mill on Monday, because it is Mahādeo’s day, he having the moon on his forehead. They revere the oil-mill, and when the trunk is brought to be set up in the house, if there is difficulty in moving it they make offerings to it of a goat or wheat-cakes or cocoanuts, after which it moves easily. When a Teli first sets the trunk-socket of the oil-press in the ground he buries beneath it five pieces of turmeric, some cowries and an areca-nut In the northern Districts the Telis worship Masān Bāba, who is supposed to be the ghost of a Teli boy. He is a boy about three feet in height, black-coloured, with a long black scalp-lock. Some Telis have Masān Bāba in their possession, and when they are turning the oil-press they set him on top of it, and he makes the bullocks keep on working, so that the master can go away and leave the press. But in order to prevent him from getting into mischief a cake of flour mixed with human hair must be placed in front of the press; he will eat this, but will first pick out all the hairs one by one, and this will occupy him the whole night; but if no cake is put for him he will eat all the food in the house. A Teli who has not got Māsan must go to one who has and hire him for Rs. 1–4 a night. They then both go to the owner’s oil-press, and the hirer says, ‘I have hired you to-night,’ and the owner says, ‘Yes, I have let you for to-night’; and then the hirer goes away, and Masān Bāba follows him and will turn the oil-mill all night. A Teli who has not got Masān Bāba puts a stone on the oil-mill, and then the bullock thinks that his master Masān is sitting on it, and will go on turning the press; but this is not so good as having Masān Bāba. Some say that he will repay his hirer the sum of Rs. 1–4 by stealing something during the year and giving it to him. Masān may perhaps be considered as a divine personification of the oil-press, and as being the Teli’s explanation of the fact that the bullock goes on turning the press without being driven, which he does not attribute simply to the animal’s docility. In Chhattīsgarh Dūlha Deo is the household god of the caste, and he is said not to have any visible image or symbol, but is considered to reside in a cupboard in the house. When any member of the family falls ill it is thought that Dūlha Deo is angry, and a goat is offered to appease him. Like the other low castes the Telis of the Nāgpur country make the sacrifice of a pig to Nārāyan Deo or the Sun at intervals.

8. Driving out evil

Here on the third day after the Pola festival in the rains the women of the caste bring the branches of a thorny creeper, with very small leaves, and call it Mārbod, and sweep out the whole house with it, saying:

‘Ira, pīra, khātka, khatkīra,Khānsi, kokhala, rai, rog,Murkuto gheunja ga Mārbod,’

or, ‘Oh Mārbod! sweep away all diseases, pains, coughs, bugs, flies and mosquitoes.’ And then they take the pot of sweepings and throw it outside the village. Mārbod is the deity represented by the branch of the creeper. This rite takes place in the middle of the rainy season, when all kinds of insects infest the house, and colds and fever are prevalent Mr. H.R. Crosthwaite sends the following explanation given by a Teli cultivator of an eclipse of the sun: “The Sun is indebted to a sweeper. The sweeper has gone to collect the debt and the Sun has refused to pay. The sweeper is in need of the money and is sitting dharna at the Sun’s door; you can see his shadow across the Sun’s threshold. Presently the debt will be paid and the sweeper will go away.” The Telis of Nimār observe various Muhammadan practices. They fast during the month of Ramazān, taking their food in the morning before sunrise; and at Id they eat the vermicelli and dates which the Muhammadans eat in memory of the time when their forefathers lived on this food in the Arabian desert. Such customs are a relic of the long period of Muhammadan dominance in Nimār, when the Hindus conformed partly to the religion of their masters. Many Telis are also members of the Swāmi-Nārāyan reforming sect, which may have attracted them by its disregard of the distinctions of caste and of the low status which attaches to them under Hinduism.

9. Customs at birth and death

In Patna State a pregnant woman must not cross a river nor eat any fruit or vegetables of red colour, nor wear any black cloth. These taboos preserve her health and that of her unborn child. After the birth of a child a woman is impure for seven or nine days in Chhattīsgarh, and is then permitted to cook. The dead are either buried or burnt, cremation being an honour reserved for the old. The body is placed in both cases with the head to the north and face downwards or upwards for a male or female respectively.

10. Social status

The social status of the Telis is low, in the group of castes from which Brāhmans will not take water, and below such menials as the blacksmith and carpenter. Manu classes them with butchers and liquor-vendors: “From a king not born in the military class let a Brāhman accept no gift nor from such as keep a slaughter-house, or an oil-press, or put out a vintner’s flag or subsist by the gains of prostitutes.” This is much about the position which the Telis have occupied till recently. Brāhmans will not usually enter their houses, though they have begun to do so in the case of the landholding subcastes. It is noticeable that the Teli has a much better position in Bengal than elsewhere. Sir H. Risley says: “Their original profession was probably oil-pressing, and the caste may be regarded as a functional group recruited from the respectable middle class of Hindu society. Oil is used by all Hindus for domestic and ceremonial purposes, and its manufacture could only be carried on by men whose social purity was beyond dispute.” This is, however, quite exceptional, and Mr. Crooke, Mr. Nesfield and Sir D. Ibbetson are agreed as to his inferior, if not partly impure, status. This is only one of several instances, such as those of the barber, the potter and the weaver, of menial castes which in Bengal have now obtained a position above the agricultural castes. It may be suggested in explanation that the old fabric of Hindu society, that is the village community, has long decayed in Bengal owing to Muhammadan dominance, the concentration of estates in the hands of large proprietors and the weakening or lapse of the customary rights of tenants. Coupled with this has been the growth of an important urban population, in which the castes mentioned have raised themselves from their menial position in the villages and attained wealth and influence, just as the Gujarāti Telis are now doing in Burhānpur, while the agricultural castes of Bengal have been comparatively depressed. Hence the urban industrial castes have obtained a great rise in status. Sir H. Risley’s emphasis of the importance of oil in Hindu domestic ceremonial is no doubt quite true, though it is perhaps little used in sacrifices, butter being generally preferred as a product of the sacred cow. But the inference does not seem necessarily to follow that the producer of any article shares exactly in the estimation attaching to the thing itself. Turmeric, for instance, is a sacred plant and indispensable at every wedding; but those who grow turmeric always incur a certain stigma and loss in social position. The reason for the impurity of the Teli’s calling seems somewhat doubtful. That generally given is his sinful conduct in harnessing the sacred ox and blindfolding the animal’s eyes to make it work continuously on the tread-mill. The labour is said to be very severe, and the bullocks often die after two or three years. As already seen, the Teli fears that after death his soul may pass into one of his own bullocks in retribution for his treatment of them during life. Another reason which may be suggested is that the crushing of oil-seeds must involve a large destruction of insect life, many of the seeds being at times infested with insects. The Teli’s occupation would naturally rank with the other village industries, that is below agriculture; and prior to the introduction of cash coinage he must have received contributions of grain from the tenants for supplying them with oil like the other village menials. He still takes his oil to the fields at harvest-time and gets his sheaf of grain from each holding.

11. Social customs and caste penalties

The Telis will take cooked food from Kurmis and Kunbis, and in some localities from a Lohār or Barhai. Dhīmars are the highest caste which will take food from them. In Mandla if a man does not attend the meeting of the panchāyat when summoned for some special purpose, he is fined. In Chānda a Teli beaten with a shoe by any other caste has to have his head shaved and pay a rupee or two to the priest. In Mandla the Telis have made it a rule that not less than four puris or wheat-cakes fried in butter669 must be given to each guest at a caste-feast, besides rice and pulse. But if an offender is poor only four or five men go to his feast, while if he is rich the whole caste go.