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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 a book. During scanning some errors are bound to occur. Some letters get garbled. Footnotes get inserted into the main text of the article, interrupting the flow. Readers who spot errors might like to correct them, and shift footnotes gone astray to their rightful place.

Turi

A iioH- Aryan caste of cultivators, workers in of the bamboo, and basket- makers, belonginsr to the Chota Nagpur plateau. They number about 4000 persons in Raigarh, Sarangarh and the States recently transferred from Bengal. The physical type of the Turis, Sir H. Risley states, their language, and their religion place it beyond doubt that they are a Hinduised offshoot of the Munda tribe. They still speak a dialect derived from Mundari, and their principal deity is Singbonga or the sun, the great god of the Mundas :

" In Lohardaga, where the caste is most numerous, it is divided into four subcastes—Turi or Kisan- Turi, Or, Dom, and Domra—distinguished by the particular modes of basket and bamboo-work which they practise. Thus the Turi or Kisan-Turi, who are also cultivators and hold bhuinhdri land, make the sup, a winnowing sieve made of sirki, the upper joint of Saccharinn proceriim ; the tokri or tokiya, a large open basket of split bamboo twigs woven up with the fibre of the leaves of the tdl palm ; the sair and nadua, used for catching fish.

The Ors are said to take their name from the oriya basket used by the sower, and made of split bamboo, sometimes helped out with tdl fibre. They also make umbrellas, and the chhota dali or ddla, a flat basket with vertical sides used for handling grain in small quantities. Doms make the Jiarka and scale-pans {tardj'u). Domras make the peti and fans. Turis frequently reckon in as a fifth subcaste the Birhors, who 5S8

cut bamboos and make the sikas used for carrying loads slung on a shoulder-yoke {bhangi), and a kind of basket called phanda. Doms and Domras speak Hindi ; Turis, Ors and Birhors use among themselves a dialect of Mundari." ^ In Raigarh and Sarangarh of the Central Provinces the 2. Subabovc subcastes are not found, and there are no distinct

cndogamous groups ; but the more Hinduised members of the caste have begun to marry among themselves and call themselves Turia, while they look down on the others to whom they restrict the designation Turi.

The names of subcastes given by Sir H. Risley appear to indicate that the Turis are an offshoot from the Mundas, with an admixture of Doms and other low Uriya castes. Among themselves the caste is also known as Husil, a term which signifies a worker in bamboo. The caste say that their original ancestor was created by Singbonga, the sun, and had five sons, one of whom found a wooden image of their deity in the Baranda forest, near the Barpahari hill in Chota Nagpur. This image was adopted as their family deity, and is revered to the present day as Barpahari Deo. The deity is thus called after the hill, of which it is clear that he is the personified representative.

From the five sons are descended the five main septs of the Turis. The eldest was called Mailuar, and his descendants are the leaders or headmen of the caste. The group sprung from the second son are known as Chardhagia, and it is their business to purify and readmit offenders to caste intercourse.

The descendants of the third son conduct the ceremonial shaving of such offenders, and are known as Surennar, while those of the fourth son bring water for the ceremony and are called Tirkuar. The fifth group is known as Hasdagia, and it is said that they are the offspring of the youngest brother, who committed some offence, and the four other brothers took the parts which are still played by their descendants in his ceremony of purification.

Traces of similar divisions appear to be found in Bengal, as Sir H. Risley states that before a marriage can be celebrated the consent of the heads of the Madalwar and Surinwar sections, who are known respectively as Raja and Thakur, is obtained, while Tribes and Castes of Bengal, art. Turi.

the head of the Charchagiya section officiates as priest. The above names are clearly only variants of those found in the Central Provinces. But besides the above groups the Turis have a large number of exogamous septs of a totemistic nature, some of which are identical with those of the Mundas.

3. Mar- Marriage is adult, and the bride and bridegroom are nage. usually about the same age ; but girls are scarce in the caste, and betrothals are usually effected at an early age, so that the fathers of boys may obtain brides for their sons. A contract of betrothal, once made, cannot be broken without incurring social disgrace, and compensation in money is also exacted.

A small bride-price of three or four rupees and a piece of cloth is payable to the girl's father. As in the case of some other Uriya castes the proposal for a marriage is couched in poetic phraseology, the Turi bridegroom's ambassador announcing his business with the phrase : ' I hear that a sweet-scented flower has blossomed in your house and I have come to gather it ' to which the bride's father, if the match be acceptable, replies :

' You may take away my flower if you will not throw it away when its sweet scent has gone.' The girl then appears, and the boy's father gives her a piece of cloth and throws a little liquor over her feet. He then takes her on his- lap and gives her an anna to buy a ring for herself, and sometimes kisses her and says, ' You will preserve my lineage.' He washes the feet of her relatives, and the contract of betrothal is thus completed, and its violation by either party is a serious matter.

The wedding is performed according to the ritual commonly practised by the Uriya castes. The binding portion of it consists in the perambulation of the sacred pole five or seven times. After each circle the bridegroom takes hold of the bride's toe and makes her kick away a small heap of rice on which a nut and a pice coin are placed. After this a cloth is held over the couple and each rubs vermilion on the other's forehead. At this moment the bride's brother appears, and gives the bridegroom a blow on the back. This is probably in token of his wrath at being deprived of his sister.

A meal of rice and fowls is set before the brideII

groom, but he feigns displeasure, and refuses to eat them. The bride's parents then present him with a pickaxe and a crooked knife, saying that these are the implements of their trade, and will suffice him for a livelihood. The bridegroom, however, continues obdurate until they promise him a cow or a bullock, when he consents to eat.

The bride's family usually spend some twenty or more rupees on her wedding, and the bridegroom's family about fifty rupees. A widow is expected to marry her Dewar or deceased husband's younger brother, and if she takes somebody else he must repay to the Dewar the expenditure incurred by the lattcr's family on her first marriage. Divorce is permitted for misconduct on the part of the wife or for incompatibility of temper.

The caste bury the dead, placing the head to the north. 4. Funeral They make libations to the spirits of their ancestors on the "'^^' last day of Phagun (February), and not during the fortnight of Pitripaksh in Kunwar (September) like other Hindu castes. They believe that the spirits of ancestors are reborn in children, and when a baby is born they put a grain of rice into a pot of water and then five other grains in the names of ancestors recently deceased. When one of these meets the grain representing the child they hold that the ancestor in question has been born again.

The principal deity of ,the caste is Singbonga, the sun, and according to one of their stories the sun is female. They say that the sun and moon were two sisters, both of whom had children, but when the sun gave out great heat the moon was afraid that her children would be burnt up, so she hid them in a Jiandi or earthen pot. When the sun missed her sister's children she asked her where they were, and the moon replied that she had eaten them up ; on which the sun also ate up her own children. But when night came the moon took her children out of the earthen pot and they spread out in the sky and became the stars.

And when the sun saw this she was greatly angered and vowed that she would never look on the moon's face again. And it is on this account that the moon is not seen in the daytime, and as the sun ate up all her children there are no stars during the day.

5. Occupation. 6. Social status. The caste make and sell all kinds of articles manufactured from the wood of the bamboo, and the following list of their wares will give an idea of the variety of purposes for which this product is utilised : " Tukfia, an ordinary basket ; dauri, a basket for washing rice in a stream; lodhar, a large basket for carrying grain on carts ; clmki, a small basket for measuring grain ; garni and sikosi, a. small basket for holding betel-leaf and a box for carrying it in the pocket; dhitori, a fish-basket ; dholi, a large bamboo shed for storing grain ; glmrki and paili, grain measures ; chhanni, a sieve ; taji, a balance ; pankha and bijna, fans ; pelna, a triangular frame for a fishing-net ; choniya, a cage for catching fish ; chatai, matting ; chhdta, an umbrella ; chhitori, a leaf hat for protecting the body from rain ; pi7ijra, a cage ; kJmnkhiina, a rattle ; and guna, a muzzle for bullocks.

Most of them are very poor, and they say that when Singbonga made their ancestors he told them to fetch something in which to carry away the grain which he would give them for their support ; but the Turis brought a bamboo sieve, and when Singbonga poured the grain into the sieve nearly the whole of it ran out. So he reproved them for their foolishness, and said, ' Khasar, khasar, tin pasar,' which meant that, however hard they should work, they would never earn more than three handfuls of grain a day.

The social status of the Turis is .very low, and their touch is regarded as impure. They must live outside the village and may not draw water from the common well ; the village barber will not shave them nor the washerman wash their clothes. They will eat all kinds of food, including the flesh of rats and other vermin, but not beef. The rules regarding social impurity are more strictly observed in the Uriya country than elsewhere, owing to the predominant influence of the Brahmans, and this is probably the reason why the Turis are so severely ostracised.

Their code of social morality is not strict, and a girl who is seduced by a man of the caste is simply made over to him as his wife, the ordinary bride-price being exacted from him. He must also feed the caste-fellows, and any money which is received by the girl's father is expended in the same manner. Members of Hindu castes and Gonds may be admitted into the comII the Munda tribes, such as the Mundas themselves and the Kharias and Korwas ; and this, though the Turis, as has been seen, are themselves an offshoot of the Munda tribe.

The fact indicates that in Chota Nagpur the tribes of the Munda family occupy a lower social position than the Gonds and others belonging to the Dravidian family. When an offender of either sex is to be readmitted into caste after having been temporarily expelled for some offence he or she is given water to drink and has a lock of hair cut off. Their women are tattooed on the arms, breast and feet, and say that this is the only ornament which they can carry to the grave.