Panjab Castes: 07-Marriage and intermarriage between tribes
This article is an extract from PANJAB CASTES SIR DENZIL CHARLES JELF IBBETSON, K.C. S.I. Being a reprint of the chapter on Lahore : Printed by the Superintendent, Government Printing, Punjab, 1916. |
Marriage and intermarriage between tribes
The restrictions upon intermarriage will be given in some detail in Part 11 of Chapter V11 in
Mr. Douie notes that the members of all the villages included in the thapa make offering once a year at the Satti of the tika village. (See paragraph 220 supra.) treating of civil condition ; and it is unnecessary to repeat the information here. The custom as to intermarriage in the hills will be found described in the sections on Rajputs of the eastern hills; Rathis and Rawats^ and Kolis and [P- 184] Dagis ; while the curious rule against talcing a bride from a village marching with ones own has already been discussed in section 136. The marriage customs of the people of Karnal will be found minutely described at pages 127 to 134 of my settlement report on that district. A brief notice of some curious customs will be found in the present chapter under the head of Jats of the western sub-montane. The subject is one of great interest and value^ and sadly needs more detailed inquiry. Customs of this sort are of all others the most persistent, and often throw most valuable light upon the origin and affinities of the tribes. The reason why I allude to the subject in this place is, because I wish to point out how obviously the rules and customs regulating marriage point to the former existence of marriage by capture and, perhaps less obviously, of an intermediate stage when the capture had become fictiti ous, but the fiction was enacted with greater verisimilitude than now-a-days. Some of the suggestions I am about to make may very probably be fanciful ; but the general tendency of the facts is beyond the possibility of a doubt. The strict rule of tribal exogamy which still binds all classes both Hindu and Musalman throughout the Eastern Plains, excepting however the priests and traders who observe only the prohibitions of the Sanskut scriptures ; especially the rule against marrying from a neighb0uring village ; the formal nature of the wedding procession, Avlueh must be as far as possible mounted on horses, and in which only males niay take part ; the breparatory oiling of the bride groom, the similar treatment of the bride being perhaps a later institution ; all point to marriage by capture. So does the use of the mark of the bloody hand at both villages. The marking all the turnings from the village gate to the bride's house may be a survival of a very common intermediate stage, where the bridegroom visits the Inside by stealth. The rule that the pro cession must reach the girl's village after midday, and must not enter the village, but remain outside in a place allotted to them; the fight between the girls and boy's parties at the door of the bride's house ; the rule that the girl shall wear nothing belonging to herself ; the hiding of the girl from the boy's people at the wedding ceremony ; all joint to marriage by capture. So do the rule Ijy which the boy's party must not accept food at the hands of the girl's people after the wedding, and must \)^y them for what they eat on the succeeding night, and the fiction by which the girl's father is compelled to ignore all payment of money by the bridegroom's friends. The bloody hand stamped on the shoulder of the boy's father by the girl's mother as he departs, and the custom AA'hieh directs the girl to go off bewailing some one of her male relatives who has lately died, saying Oh my fa ther is dead,or Oh my brother is dead,are very marked ; as is the fight with sticks between the bride and bridegroom. Finally we have the rule that after the ceremonial goings and comings are over, the wife must never visit her father's house without his special leave; and the fact that—
the village into wLieli his chniglitcv is married is utterly tabooed for her father, her elder brother, and all near older relatives. They niny )iot go into it or even drink water from a well in that village, for it is shamerul to tnke anything from one's daughter or her belongings. Even her more distant elder relations will not eat or drink from the house into which the girl is married, though they do not taboo the whole village. The boy's father can go to the girl's village by leave of her father, but not without. Similarly all words denoting male relations by marriage are commonly used as terms of abuse ; a,s, for instance; susra, sdla, bahnoi, jaiodi, or father in-law, wife's brother, sister's husband, and daughter's husband. Of these the first two are considered so offensive, that they are seldom used in their ordi nary sense.'
Social intercourse between castes
The rules regulating social inter course between different castes as they exist in the Jamna districts are given in the following quotation from the Karnal Settlement Report.
Broadly speaking. no superior tribe will eat or drink from tbc liauds or vessels of an inferior one, or smoke it pipes. But the reputed puril yiug influence.-; of fire especially as exercised upon ghi and sugar, and the superior cleanliness of metal over oarthen vessels, are the foundation of a broad distinction. .\U food is divided into palcJci roU, or fried 'Iry with gltl, and Icachcluroti, or '■ not so treated. 'Rlms, among the Hindus a Clujrati Hralnnan will eat paJeJci, bvxt not kach'chi
- '0^', from a Gaur. a Gnur from a Taga, any Brahman or Taga from a lla.jput, any Brahmau,
Taga or Rajput from a .lat, Gujar, or Kor. Excepting Brahmans and Tagas, each caste will drink water from a metal vessel if previously scoured with earth (nidnjna), and will smoke from a pipe with a brass bowl, taking out the stem and using the hand with the fingers closed instead, from the same people with whom they will eat pakJci bread ; but they will not drink or smoke from earthen vessels, or use the same pipe-stem, except with those whose kachchi bread they can eat. Jats, Gujars, Rors, Rahbaris and Ahi^rs eat and drink in common without any scruples. These again will eat a goldsmith's paJcM bread, Uut not in his house ; and they used to smoke with carpeTiters, but arc ceasing to do so. Musalmans have lately become much less strict about these rules as governing their intercourse among themselves, and many of them now eat from any respectable Musalman's hand, especially in the cities. And, subject strictly to the above rules, any ilusalmau will eat and drink without scruple from a Hindu ; but no Hindu will touch either palJci or kaclichi from any Musalman, and will often throw it auay if only a Musalman's shadow falls upon it, partly perhaps because Musalmans eat from earthen vessels, which no Hindu can do unless the vessel has never been used before. This affords an easy mode of telling whether a deserted site has been held by Musalmans or Hindus. If the latter, there will be numbers of little earthen saucers (rilcdlis) found on the spot. Brahmans and Rajputs will not eat from any one below a Jat, Gujar, or Ror, while these three tribes themselves do not as a rule eat or drink with any of the menial castes ; and the following castes are absolutely impure owing to their occupation and liabits, ami their mere touch defiles food ; leather-maker, washer •' man, barber, blacksmith, dyer {chJumpi), sweeper, clum, ami dhdnah. The potter is also looked upon as of doubtful piu-ity. The pipes of a village, being often left about in the common rooms and fields, are generally distinguished by a piece of something tied round the stem— blue rag for a Musalman, red for a Hindu, leather for a Chamdr, string for a sweeper, and so forth ; so that a friend wLslung for a smoke may not defile himself by mistake.
Qur and most sweetmeats can be eaten from almost anybody's hand, even from that of a leather-worker or sweeper ; but in this case they must be whole, not broken.
The extraordinary state of matters in the hills is described under the heads Hill Menials, and Kolis and Dagis. In the west of the Province, where all caste restrictions are so \2l\, any Musalman will eat from the hands of anv respectable member of the same faith, while even Hindus are raueh less strict than in the east. So in the Sikh tract also; but here the rule against a Hindu eating from the hand of a Musalman seems to be even more strict than in the east. In all parts of the Province and among all classes any sort of intercourse Mith the impure castes, Avhcther polluted by their occupatum or bv the nature of their food, is scrupulously avoided.
Community of food is formally used as an outward and visiltle token of
community of Idood ; and any ceremony in which the tribe, clan, or other
agnatic group takes a part as such, generally includes some sort of formal
1 Mr. Wilson writes : There is a very general rule agaiust speaking of one's wife's father aa 'father-in-law' [siUra^. The Musalmans of Sirsa call him 'uncle' (fdt/a or chdcha) ; the Brahmans of Gurgaon, • Pandit .Ji ' or ' Misr Ji ; ' the Kayaths, ' Rai Sahib ; ' The Banyns, ' Lala '• Sahib ' or ' Sah .li ; ' the Meos, ' Chaudhri ' or ' Muqaddam ' or— a specially ^leo usage — dokra or 'old man' ^sce Fallon) ; insomuch that if you call a Mco woman dohri, she will fly at you with ' Do you call me your mother-in-law !'; while if you address her as burhj/i, which really
- ' means exactly the same thing, she will reply ' Very well, my son ! Very well ! '
eating together or confarreatio, more especially when the object of the cer« mony is to admit a new member into the group, as at adoption or maruage.^
