Mannewar

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This article was written in 1916 when conditions were different. Even in 1916 its contents related only to Central India and did not claim to be true of all of India. It has been archived for its historical value as well as for the insights it gives into British colonial writing about the various communities of India. Indpaedia neither agrees nor disagrees with the contents of this article. Readers who wish to add fresh information can create a Part II of this article. The general rule is that if we have nothing nice to say about communities other than our own it is best to say nothing at all. Readers will be able to edit existing articles and post new articles directly on their online archival encyclopædia only after its formal launch. See examples and a tutorial.

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.

Mannewar

' This article is based on a note - From a glossary published by Mr. furnished by Mr. M. Aziz, Officiating Gupta, Assistant Director of Ethnology Naib-Tahsildar, Sironcha. for India.

A small tribe belonging to the south or Telugu-speaking portion of the Chanda District, where they mustered about 1600 persons in 191 1. The home of the tribe is the Hyderabad State, where it numbers 22,000 persons, and the Mannewars are said to have once been dominant over a part of that territory.

The name is derived from a Telugu word inannem^ meaning forest, while war is the plural termination in Telugu, Mannewar thus signifying ' the people of the forest.' The tribe appear to be the inferior branch of the Koya Gonds, and they are commonly called Mannewar Koyas as opposed to the Koya Doras or the superior branch, Dora meaning ' lord ' or master.

The Koya Doras thus correspond to the Raj- Gonds of the north of the Province and the Mannewar Koyas to the Dhur or ' dust ' Gonds." The tribe is divided into three exogamous groups : the Nalugu Velpulu worshipping four gods, the Ayidu Velpulu worshipping five, and the Anu Velpulu six.

A man must marry a woman of one of the divisions worshipping a different number of gods from his part own, but the Mannevvars do not appear to know the names of these gods, and consequently no veneration can be paid to them at present, and they survive solely for the purpose of regulating marriage. When a betrothal is made a day is fixed for taking an omen. In the early morning the boy who is to be married has his face washed and turmeric smeared on his feet, and is seated on a wooden seat inside the house.

The elders of the village then proceed outside it towards the rising sun and watch for any omen given by an animal or bird crossing their path. If this is good the marriage is celebrated, and if bad the match is broken off. In the former case five of the elders take their food on returning from the search for the omen and immediately proceed to the bride's village. Here they are met by the Pesamuda or village priest, and stay for three days, when the amount of the dowry is settled and a date fixed for the wedding.

The marriage ceremony resembles that of the low Telugu castes. The couple are seated on a ploughyoke, and coloured rice is thrown on to their heads, and the bridegroom ties the mangalya or bead necklace, which is the sign of marriage, round the neck of the bride. If a girl is deformed, or has some other drawback which prevents her from being sought in marriage, she is given away with her sister to a first cousin ^ or some other near relative, the two sisters being married to him together.

A widow may marry any man of the tribe except her first husband's brothers. If a man takes a widow to his house without marrying her he is fined three rupees, while for adultery with a married woman the penalty is twenty rupees. A divorce can always be obtained, but if the husband demands it he is mulcted of twenty rupees by the caste committee, while a wife who seeks a divorce must pay ten rupees. The Mannewars make an offering of a fowl and some liquor to the ploughshare on the festival of Ganesh Chaturthi.

After the picking of the flowers of the mahua ^ they worship that tree, offering to it some of the liquor distilled from the new flowers, with a fowl and a goat. This is known as the Burri festival. At the Holi feast the Mannewars make two human figures to represent Kami and Rati, or the god of 1 Generally the paternal aunt's son. ^ Bassia latifolia.

love and his wife. The male figure is then thrown on to the Holi fire with a live chicken or an egg. This may be a reminiscence of a former human sacrifice, which was a common custom in many parts of the world at the spring festival. The caste usually bury the dead, but are beginning to adopt cremation. They do not employ Brahmans for their ceremonies and eat all kinds of food, including the flesh of pigs, fowls and crocodiles, but in view of their having nominally adopted Hinduism, they abstain from beef.