Musician caste: Sholapur
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Musician caste Sholapur
This is an extract from a British Raj gazetteer pertaining to Sholapur that seems |
Musicians
Musicians include three castes with a strength of 7519 or 12 per cent of the Hindu population. Of these 254 (males 121, females 133) were Ghadshis; 3583 (males 1803, females 1870) Guravs, and 3682 (males 1837, females 1845) Holars.
Ghadshis
Ghadshis, or Musicians, are returned as numbering 254 and as found in towns and large villages. They are a dark people and look like cultivating Marathas. They speak and dress like Marathas, and have the same customs. They are musicians songsters and beggars. They act the part of Bhats and Bahurupis, and imitate half-naked Gosavis and Bairagia. If they hear of the arrival of a well-to-do person, they dress in a big newly coloured turban with its gold ends dangling by their sides, a silk-bordered shouldercloth, a broadcloth or fresh-washed cotton coat, and a coloured waistcoat, waistcloth, and shoes, and demand the present of a shawl or of a new turban. They refuse copper or small silver coins saying they have abundance of silver in their houses and, if the stranger likes, will send him some cartloads full. They stand for hours talking and demanding a present, and will not leave till they get a turban or a shawl, or at least a coat or waistcoat. They send their boys to school, have a caste council, and are a falling people.
Guravs
Guravs, or Priests, are returned as numbering 3583 and as found in small numbers all over the district. They are divided into Khatavni and Nakhatavni, who neither eat together nor intermarry. They speak Marathi, live in ordinary flat roofed houses or in thatched huts, have metal and earthen vessels, and keep cattle and ponies. They neither eat fish or flesh, nor drink liquor, and their staple food is jvari, pulse, and vegetables. Their feasts of pulse cakes cost them £1 10s. (Rs.15) the hundred guests. They are clean in their habits, hardworking, even-tempered, and hospitable. They serve at the-shrines of the village gods and live on the village offerings of food and grain. They make leaf cups and plates and are excellent musicians. The men dress in a waistcloth, coat, and turban, and the women in the ordinary Maratha robe and bodice. They wear the sacred thread, and their chief gods are Ambabai, Khandoba, Mahadev, and Maruti. Their priests are ordinary Maratha Brahmans, whom they show great respect. Their women are impure for ten days after childbirth. They worship the goddess Satvai on the fifth day and name the child on the twelfth. They shave the child's head for the first time when it is two months old, and, at the age of nine, gird their boys with the sacred thread. Their guardian or devak is the leaves of the vad or banyan tree which they tie to a post of the marriage hall and worship. The boy and girl are married standing face to face and a cloth is held between them. When the Brahman priest has finished the marriage verses, and the guests have thrown rice over their heads, they are husband and wife. Feasts are exchanged on both sides, and the boy walks with his bride to his village. They burn their dead, dressing the body in a green robe and bodice if the deceased is a married woman. Their social disputes are settled by their headman without calling a caste meeting. They do not send their boys to school and are a poor people.
Holars
Hola'rs apparently meaning Field Men or Sons of the Soil, are returned as numbering 8682 and as found over the whole district. They are divided into Ayavle, Birlinge, Garode, Gijge, Gulik, Javir, Kamle, Karde, Halmane, Namdase, Parsha, and Vagar, who all eat together but do not intermarry. They are like Mangs, dark tall and strong, and like them the men wear the top-knot and moustache but not the beard. They speak Marathi both at home and abroad and live in straw huts with thatched roofs, and use earthen pots and pans. They have no servants, but some keep cattle and goats. In food and dress they are the same as Mangs, and are hardworking, dirty, and, when they can afford it, drunken. They are shoe and sandal makers, leather dressers, tillers, musicians, and day labourers. The women help the men in their work and the children herd cattle. They keep no birthday ceremony, and their women remain impure for twelve days. They worship a grindstone on the fifth in honour of the goddess Satvai whom they greatly fear, and name the child on the twelfth the name being given by the village Brahman who is told the day and the hour when the child was born. They clip the child's hair if it is a boy between its second and its seventh or eighth years. Betrothal takes place before marriage, and they generally marry their girls between five and fifteen and their boys between twelve and twenty. They have a great fondness for child marriage but their poverty often prevents them satisfying their and their women's wishes. They allow widow marriage, but the ceremony is always held in dark nights, and no one will look at the newly married couple's face till the sun has been up four or five hours. They bury their dead, but say they would burn them if they could afford it. In religion they are the same as Mangs, worshipping all Hindu gods and goddesses, especially Bahiroba, Damrai, Janai, Jokhai, Khandoba, and Satvai. Their priests are the ordinary village Brahmans whom they greatly respect. They have a caste council and their social disputes are settled at caste meetings. They do not send their boys to school and are a poor class.
