Labana
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. Indpaedia is an archive. It neither agrees nor disagrees |
The Labana
Caste No. 52
These men are generally associated with the caste just discussed. With the exception of Muzaffargarh and Bahawal pur, which will he discussed presently, they are almost wholly confined to the hill and sub-montane districts. They are the carriers and hawkers of the hills, and are merely the Panjabi representatives of that class of Banjaras already alluded to who inhabit the sub-montane tracts east of the Ganges. The Labanas of Gujrat are thus described By Captain Mackenzie : —
The lialifinas are also a peculiar people. Their status aniongst Sikhs is much the same as that of the Mahtams. They correspond to the Banjaras of Hindustan, carrying on an extensive trade hy means of large herds of laden bullocks. Latterly they have taken to agriculture, but as an additional means of livelihood, not as a substitute for trade. As a section of the com munity they deserve every consideration and ecouragement. They are generally fine substan tially built people. They also possess much spirit. In anarehical times when the freaks or feuds of petty Governors would drive the Jats or Gujars to seek a temporary abiding place away from their ancestral village, the Labanas would stand their ground, and peihaps improve the opportunity by extending their grasp over the best lauds in the village, in which their shoiterighted and less provident lords of the Manor had, in some former period, permitted them to take up their ahode for purposes ol commerce.
Several cases of this nature came to light during settlement, and in most of them the strength and spirit of progress were as apparent in the Labanas as were the opposite qualities conspicuous in their Gujar opponents Their principal village is Tanda (which means a large caravan of laden bullocks) and is an instance of what I have above alluded to. Allowed to reside by the Gujar proprietorS of Mota, they got possession of the soil, built a kasba, and in every point of importance swamped the original proprietors. They have been recognized as pr.'prietors, but feudal ory to their former landlords the Gujars of Mota, paying to them annually in recognition thereof, a svim equal to one-tenth of the Govern ment demand.
There is a curious colony of Labanas on the lower Indus who are said to have settled there under the Sikh rtile, and who are almost all Mnnna Sikhs or followers of Bnba Nanak, though many of them are returned in the Baha walpur tallies as Hindus. These men have almost entirely given up traffic and trade, and settled on the banks of the river where they lead a sort of semi savage life, hunting and making ropes and grass mats for sale. They hardly cultivate at all. Their numbers are much under-stated in Abstract No. 94, Abstract No. 7~ (page 224t) shows that 4,.317 of the Bahawalpur Labanas were returned as Jats. The Labanas of Jhang are said to have come from Jaipur and Jodhpur, and to be the same as the Mahtams of Montgomery. On the whole the Labanas appear to be by origin closely allied with, if not actually belonging to, the vugrant and probably aboriginal tribes whom we shall discuss in the next part of this chapter ; and it may be that at least some sections of the Labanas are of the same stock as they. (See further under Mahtam, section 495 svpro.) About 30 per cent, of the Labanas are returned as Sikhs and almost all the rest as Hindus, there being only some 1,500 Musalmans among them. Little is known of the sub-divisions of the caste. The largest seems to be the Ajrawat with 4,100 souls, chiefly in Gujrat and Lahore; the Dntla with 4,173 souls, chiefly in Lahore ; the Maliaua with 2,537 and the Bhagiana with 2,015 persons, both in the Amritsar and Lahore divisions ; and the Gahri with 1,925 persons along the whole foot of the hills. But the greater part of the caste have returned no large divisions.
