Kunjra
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From The Tribes And Castes Of The Central Provinces Of India
By R. V. Russell
Of The Indian Civil Service
Superintendent Of Ethnography, Central Provinces
Assisted By Rai Bahadur Hira Lal, Extra Assistant Commissioner
Macmillan And Co., Limited, London, 1916.
NOTE 1: The 'Central Provinces' have since been renamed Madhya Pradesh.
NOTE 2: While reading please keep in mind that all articles in this series have been scanned from the original book. Therefore, footnotes have got inserted into the main text of the article, interrupting the flow. Readers who spot these footnotes gone astray might like to shift them to their correct place.
Kunjra
A caste of greengrocers, who sell country vegetables and fruit and are classed as Muhammadans. Mr, Crooke derives the name from the Sanskrit kimj\ ' a bower or arbour.' They numbered about 1600 persons in the Central Provinces in 191 1, principally in the Jubbulpore Division. The customs of the Kunjras appear to combine Hindu and Muhammadan rites in an indiscriminate medley. It is reported that marriage is barred only between real brothers and sisters and foster brothers and sisters, the latter rule being known as Dudh bachdna^ or ' Observing the tie of the milk.'
At their betrothal presents are given to the parties, and after this a powder of henna leaves is sent to the boy, who rubs it on his fingers and returns it to the girl that she may do the same. As among the Hindus, the bodies of the bridal couple are anointed with oil and turmeric at their respective houses before the wedding. A marriage-shed is made and the bridegroom goes to the bride's house wearing a cotton quilt and riding on a bullock.
The barber holds the umbrella over his head and must be given a present before he will fold it, but the wedding is performed by the Kazi according to the Nikah ceremony by the repetition of verses from the Koran. The wedding is held at four o'clock in the morning, and as a preliminary to it the bride is pre- sented with some money by the boy's father, which is known as the Meher or dowry.
On its conclusion a cup of sherbet is given to the bridegroom, of which he drinks 1 This article is partly based on Rao, Headmaster, Middle School, papers by Nanhe Khan, Sub-Inspector Seoni-Chhapara. of I'olicc, Khurai, Saugor, and Kesho
half and hands the remainder to the bride. The gift of the Meher is considered to seal the marriage contract. When a widow is married the Kazi is also employed, and he simply recites the Kalama or Muhammadan profession of belief, and the ceremony is completed by the distribution of dates to the elders of the caste. Divorce is permitted and is known as taldq. The caste observe the Muhammadan festivals, and have some favourite saints of their own to whom they make offerings of gulgula, a kind of pudding, with sacrifices of goats and fowls. Participation in these rites is confined to members of the family.
Children are named on the day of their birth, the Muhammadan Kazi or a Hindu Brahman being employed indifferently to select the name. If the parents lose one or more children, in order to preserve the lives of those subsequently born, they will allow the cJioti or scalp-lock to grow on their heads in the Hindu fashion, dedicating it to one of their Muham- madan saints. Others will put a hasli or silver circlet round the neck of the child and add a ring to this every year ; a strip of leather is sometimes also tied round the neck. When the child reaches the age of twelve years the scalp-lock is shaved, the leather band thrown into a river and the silver necklet sold. Offerings are made to the saints and a feast is given to the friends of the family.
The dead are buried, camphor and attar of roses being applied to the corpse. On the Tija and Chdlisa, or third and fortieth days after a death, a feast is given to the caste-fellow.'^, but no mourning is observed, neither do the mourners bathe nor perform ceremonies of purification. On the Tija the Koran is also read and fried grain is distributed to children. For the death of a child the ordinary feasts need not be given, but prayers are offered for their souls with those of the other dead once a \-ear on the night of Shab-i-Barat or the fifteenth day of the month Shaban,^ which is observed as a vigil with prayer, feasts ' Literally ' The Month of Separa- perform during the year ; and all the tion.
' It is the eighth month of the children of men who are to be born and Muhammadan year and is said to be die in the year are recorded. Though so called because in this month the properly a fast, it is generally observed AraV)s broke up their encampments and with rejoicings and a display of fire- scattered in search of water. On the works. Hughes' Dictionary of Islam, night of Shab-i-Barat God registers all p. 570. the actions of men which they are to
and illuminations and offerings to the ancestors. Kunjra men are usually clean-shaven with the exception of the beard, which is allowed to grow long below the chin. Their women are not tattooed. In the cities, Mr. Crooke remarks,^ their women have an equivocal reputation, as the better- looking girls who sit in the shops are said to use consider- able freedom of manners to attract customers. They are also very quarrelsome and abusive when bargaining for the sale of their wares or arguing with each other.
This is so much the case that men who become very abusive are said to be behaving like Kunjras ; while in Dacca Sir H. Risley states '^ that the word Kunjra has become a term of abuse, so that the caste are ashamed to be known by it, and call themselves Mewa-farosh, Sabzi-farosh or Bepari. When two women are having an altercation, their husbands and other male relatives are forbidden to interfere on pain of social degradation. The women never sit on the ground, but on small wooden stools ox pirhis. The Kunjras belong chiefly to the north of the Province, and in the south their place is taken by the Marars and Malis who carry their own produce for sale to the markets. The Kunjras sell sugarcane, pota- toes, onions and all kinds of vegetables, and others deal in the dried fruits imported by Kabuli merchants. KuramwaP.^—-The shepherd caste of southern India, who are identical with the Tamil Kurumba and the Telugu Kuruba. The caste is an important one in Madras, but in the Central Provinces is confined to the Chanda District where it numbered some 4000 persons in 1 9 1 i . The Kuram- wars are considered to be the modern representatives of the ancient Pallava tribe whose kings were powerful in southern India in the seventh century.^
The marriage rules of the Kuramwars are interesting. If a girl reaches adolescence while still single, she is finally expelled from the caste, her parents being also subjected to a penalty for readmission. Formerly it is said that such a girl was sacrificed to the river-goddess by being placed in a small hut on the river-bank till a flood came and swept
- Trihe:^ and Castes of the N. IV. P., taken by Mr. Hira Lai and by Pyare art. Kunjra. Lai Misra, Ethnographic clerk. 2 Tribes and Castes of Bengal, ibidem. * North Arcot Manual, vol. i. p. ^ This article is compiled from notes 220.
u KURAMWAR 53 her away. Now she is taken to the river and kept in a hut, while offerings are made to the river-goddess, and she may then return and live in the village though she is out of caste. In Madras, as a preliminary to the marriage, the bridegroom's father observes certain marks or ' curls ' on the head or hair of the bride proposed. Some of these are believed to forecast prosperity and others misery to the family into which she enters.
They are therefore very cautious in selecting only such girls as possess curls {snli) of good fortune. The writer of the North Arcot Manual^ after recording the above particulars, remarks : " This curious custom obtaining among this primitive tribe is observed by others only in the case of the purchase of cows, bulls and horses." In the Central Provinces, however, at least one parallel instance can be given from the northern Districts where any mark resembling the V on the head of a cobra is considered to be very inauspicious. And it is told that a girl who married into one well-known family bore it, and to this fact the remarkable succession of misfortunes which has attended the family is locally attributed.
Among the Kuramwars marriages can be celebrated only on four days in the year, the fifth day of both fortnights of Phagun (February), the tenth day of the second fortnight of the same month and the third day of Baisakh (April). At the marriage the bride and bridegroom are seated together under the canopy, with the shuttle which is used for weaving blankets between them, and they throw coloured rice at each other.
After this a miniature swing is put up and a doll is placed in it in imitation of a child and swung to and fro. The bride then takes the doll out and gives it to the bride- groom, saying : ' Here, take care of it, I am now going to cook food ' ; while after a time the boy returns the doll to the girl, saying, ' I must now weave the blanket and go to tend the flock.' The proceeding seems a symbolic enact- ment of the cares of married life and the joint tending of the baby, this sort of symbolism being particularly noticeable in the marriage ceremonies of the people of Madras. Divorce is not permitted even though the wife be guilty of adultery, and if she runs away to her father's house her husband cannot use force to bring her back if she refuses to
return to him. The Kuramwars worship the implements of their caUing at the festival of Ganesh Chaturthi, and if any family fails to do this it is put out of caste. They also revere annually Mallana Deva and Mallani Devi who guard their flocks respectively from attacks of tigers and epidemics of murrain. The shrines of these deities are generally built under a banyan tree and open to the east. The caste are shepherds and graziers and also make blankets.
They are poor and ignorant, and the Abbe Dubois ^ says of them : " Being confined to the society of their woolly charge, they seem to have contracted the stupid nature of the animal, and from the rudeness of their nature they are as much beneath the other castes of Hindus as the sheep by their simplicity and imperfect instruction are beneath the other quadrupeds." Hence the proverbial comparison ' As stupid as a Kuramwar.' When out of doors the Kuramwar retains the most primitive method of eating and drinking ; he takes his food in a leaf and licks it up with his tongue, and sucks up water from a tank or river with his mouth. They justify this custom by saying that on one occasion their god had taken his food out of the house on a leaf-plate and was pro- ceeding to eat it with his hands when his sheep ran away and he had to go and fetch them back. In the meantime a crow came and pecked at the food and so spoilt it.
It was therefore ordained that all the caste should eat their food straight off the leaf, in order to do which they would have to take it from the cooking-pot in small quantities and there would be no chance of leaving any for the crows to spoil. The story is interesting as showing how very completely the deity of the Kuramwars is imagined on the principle that god made man in his own image. Or, as a Frenchman has expressed the idea, "" Dieu a fait Vhomnie d son image, mais riionime le lui a bie?t rendu! The caste are dark in colour and may be distinguished by their caps made from pieces of blankets, and by their wearing a woollen cord round the waist over the loin-cloth. They speak a dialect of Canarese. ' Hindu Planners, Customs and Cerc/nonies,
Kunjra
(From People of India/ National Series Volume VIII. Readers who wish to share additional information/ photographs may please send them as messages to the Facebook community, Indpaedia.com. All information used will be gratefully acknowledged in your name.)
Jamiat: Ru Rafen, Raie, Sabzi Farosh [West Bengal]
- Sub-divisions: Baghwan, Bhuinhari, Chauhan, Gorakh
puri, Jaiswara, Kabariya, Kalkadya, Kashmiri, Kolapuri, Lodhi, Mehtariya, Mewa, Farosh, Mirzapuriya, Purabiya, Raj put, Sabzi Farosh Sarwariya, Tambakuwala, Uttaraha [W. Crooke] Surnames: Siddique [Madhya Pradesh and/or Chhattisgarh] Haque, Miya, Mosemat [West Bengal]
Notes
This is the correct name for a Muhammadan fruiterer, but in Dacca it is used as a term of abuse, and the fruit sellers call themselves Mewa-farosh, Sabzi-farosh, or simply Bepari. They import fruits from other districts, oranges from Silhet, mangoes from Maldah, and sell citrons, limes, and plantains, but never vegetables. The Hindu Kunjra, who may belong to any low Sudra caste, deals in vegetables and fruits grown in the suburbs of the city.
The real Mewa-farosh, however, is the wandering Kabuli trader, who penetrates into the most remote corners of Bengal, and offers for sale grapes, apples, pomegranates, pistachio nuts, and occasionally the luscious musk melon (Sarda).
Fruit grown in Eastern Bengal is very inferior to that of Hindustan. The plantains, especially the richly flavoured "Amrita sagar," are, however, unsurpassed by those of any other country. Mangoes still suffer from the curse of a holy man, and no one is able to prevent their being tunnelled through and through by a small weevil.
The insipid Makhanna (Euryale ferox), dry, tasteless melons, and sour plums, are eaten in enormous quantities by the lower classes.
