The Kanet
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. |
Caste No. 20
The Kanets are the low-caste cultivat ing class of all the eastern Himalayas of the Panjab and the hills at their base, as far west as Kulu and the eastern portion of the Kangra district, throughout which tract they form a very large proportion of the total popula tion. Beyond this tract, in Kangra proper, their place is filled by Ghiraths. The country they inhabit is held or governed by Hill Rajputs of prehistoric ancestry, the greater part of whom are far too proud to cultivate with their own hands, and who employ the Kanets as husbandmen. The Kanets claim to be of impure Rajput origin, but there is little doubt that they are really of aboriginal stock. At the same time it is most difficult to separate them from Rathis {q. v., page 251 1), and in Chamba both have been included under the latter head. The whole question of their origin is elaborately discussed by General Cunningham at pages 135 to 135 of Vol. XIV of his Arehaeological Reports. He identifies them with the Kunindas or Kulindas of the Sanskrit classics and of Ptolemy, and is of opinion that they belong to that great Khasa race which, before the Aryan invasion, occupied the whole Sub Himalayan tract from the Indus to the Brahmaputra, and which, driven up into the hills by the advancing wave of immigration, now separates the Ai-yans of India from the Turanians of Tibet.
But the Kanets are divided into two great tribes, the Khasia and the Rao, and it is probable that the Khasias are really descendedfromintercom-se between the Aryan immigrants and the women of the hills. The process by which the great Khas tribe of Nepal thus grew up is admirably described by Mr. Hodgson in his Essay in the Military tribes of that country, which is quoted at some length by General Cunningham, and, less fully, by me at page 236* mpra. The *P. 131, distinction between Khasia and Rao is still sufficiently well marked. A Khasia observes the period of impurity after the death of a relation prescribed for a twice-born man ; the Rao that prescribed for an outcast. The Khasia wears the janeo or sacred thread, while the Rao does not. But the dis tinction is apparently breaking down, at least in Kulu where the two tribes freely eat together and intermarry, though the Khasia, if asked, will deny the fact.
Mr. Lyall thus describes the Kanets of Kulu
The Kanets are often classed by other Hindus as on a par with the Rathis of Kangra. Just as the fiat his claim to be Rajputs who have lost grade by taking to the plough, or the offspring of Rajputs by Sudra women, so the Kanets say that they are the children of women of the hills by Rajputs who came up from the plains. By one story both Kanets and Dagis were originally of the same stock. Two sons of the demi-god, Bhim Sen pandab, had each a son by the daughter of a Kulu rakhas or demon, One of these sons married a Bhotanti, or woman of Tibet, who fed him with yak's flesh, so he and his children by her became Dagis. The other son was ancestor of the Kanets.
Both of these stories perhaps point to the conclusion that the Kanets and Dagis are of mixed Mughal and Hindu race. General Cunningham says as much of the Kanets of Kanawar, and connects the caste name with the word Karana, wlnch implies mixed blood. The Kanets are divided into Kassiyas and Raos. The Raos say that the origin of this division was that a Raja of Kulu ordered the Kanets to reform their loose practices, and conform altogether to Hinduism ; those wlio obeyed were called Kassiyas, and those who stuck to their old ways Raos. It is a fact that at the present day the former are more Hindu in all observances than the latter, and the story is otherwise probable, as one can see that the foreign priests round the Rajas were always striving to make the Kulu people more orthodox Hindus, greater respecters of Brahmins, and less devoted to the worship of their local divinities. The Kassiyas wear the janeo, and pretend to some superiority, which, however, is not admitted by the Raos. They intermarry and eat and drink together out of the same cooking pot, but not oi^t of the same dish or plate.
He adds that they are not tall,, but strong and active, and generally have handsome figures. Some are hardly darker than Spaniards in complexion, with a ruddy colour showing in their cheeks ; others are as dark as the ordi nary Panjabi. Of the so called Kanets of Lahul he writes that they are a mixed race, but the Mongolian element predominates over the Indian. Many of those who live in the lower valley are no doubt descendants of Kanet settlers from Kulu and Bangahal ; the rest are pure Tibetan, or nearly so.In Lahul the Kanets, like all other classes of the peojile, will eat cows and bullocks which have died a natural death. They never wear the sacred thread. The social status of the Kanet appears to be very low. A Sunar will marry a Kanet woman, but he will not give his daughter to a Kanet, nor will he eat from the hand of a Kanet, though his Avife will do so. In Lahul even a Brahman or Thakar will take a Kanet woman as a second-class wife, and the offspring of the latter, who are known as Gam, will in a few generations rank as Thakar. Those of the former however can never rise to full
equality with the pure Brahman, though they are commonly known as Brahmans. The fathers will not eat from the hands of sons begotten in this manner, but will smoke with them.
General Cunningham says that the Kanets have three principal clans — Mangal, Chauhan, and Rao. The Chauhan will almost certainly be Khasia. With respect to the Mangal I have no information, nor do I find it in my
papers, unless Pangalana be a misreading for Mangalana or Mangal. The principal Kanet divisions returned in our papers are shown in the margin. More than half the Kasib are in Bashahr. The name belongs to a Brahmini cal gotra, and is probably no tribe at all and only returned because the heading of the schedule was misunderstood. The Chauhan are principally returned from Mandi, Suket, Nahan, Keonthal, and Jubbal ; the Khasia from Bashahr and Kangra ; the Pangalana from Suket; and the Punwar from Nahan. General Cunning ham assigns the upper valley of the Pabar to the Chauhan, the lower Pabar_, the Rnpin, and the Tons valleys to the Rao and the tract west of the Pabar basin to the Mangal. Mr. Anderson notes that the Khasia are more common in Kulu proper, and the Rao in Seoraj.
