Bhil

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This article was written in 1916 when conditions were different. Even in 1916 its contents related only to Central India and did not claim to be true of all of India. It has been archived for its historical value as well as for the insights it gives into British colonial writing about the various communities of India. Indpaedia neither agrees nor disagrees with the contents of this article. Readers who wish to add fresh information can create a Part II of this article. The general rule is that if we have nothing nice to say about communities other than our own it is best to say nothing at all. Readers will be able to edit existing articles and post new articles directly on their online archival encyclopædia only after its formal launch. See examples and a tutorial.

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 the original book. Therefore, footnotes have got inserted into the main text of the article, interrupting the flow. Readers who spot these footnotes gone astray might like to shift them to their correct place.

Bhil

LIST OF PARAGRAPHS 1. General notice. The Bhils a 7. Kolarian tribe. 2. Rajputs deriving their title to 8. the landfrom the Bhils. 9. 3. Historical notice. 10. 4. General Outram and the 11. Khdndesh Bhtl Corps. 12. 5 . Siibdivisio7is. 6. Exogamy and marriage ciis- 13. to)ns. 1 4. Widoiv-marriage, divorce and polygamy. Religion. Witchcraft and amulets. Funeral rites. Social custojns. Appeara7ice and character- istics. Occupation. Language. I. General notice. The Bhils a Kolarian tribe.

Bhll

An indigenous or non-Aryan tribe which has been much in contact with the Hindus and is consequently- well known. The home of the Bhils is the country com- prised in the hill ranges of Khandesh, Central India and Rajputana, west from the Satpuras to the sea in Gujarat. The total number of Bhils in India exceeds a million and a half, of which the great bulk belong to Bombay, Rajputana and Central India. The Central Provinces have only about 28,000, practically all of whom reside in the Nimar district, on the hills forming the western end of the Satpura range and adjoining the Rajpipla hills of Khandesh. As the southern slopes of these hills lie in Berar, a few Bhils are also found there.

The name Bhil seems to occur for the first time about A.D. 600. It is supposed to be derived from the Dravidian word for a bow, which is the characteristic weapon of the tribe. It has been suggested that the Bhils ^ The principal authorities on the Bhils are : An Account of the Alewdr Bhils, by Major P. 11. Hendley, f.A.S.B. vol. xliv., 1875, PP- 347-385 ; the Bombay Gazetteer, vol. ix., Hindus of Gujarat ; and notices in Colonel Tod's Rcyasthdn, Mr. A. L. Forbes's Rdsmala, and The Khandesh Bhil Corps, by Mr. A. H. A. Simcox, C.S. ^78

PA in II RAJPUTS AND THEIR TII'LE TO T//J-: LAND 279 are the Pygmies referred to by Ktesias (400 H.c.) and the Phylhtae of Ptolemy (a.u. 150). The Bhils are recognised as the oldest inhabitants of southern Rajputana and parts of Gujarat, and are usually spoken of in conjunction witli the Kolis, who inhabit the adjoining tracts of Gujarat. The most probable hypotheilsis of the origin of the Kolis is that they are a western branch of the Kol or Munda tribe who have spread from Chota Nagpur, through Mandla and Jubbulpore, Central India and Rajputana to Gujarat and the sea. If this is correct the Kolis would be a Kolarian tribe.

The Bhils have lost their own language, so that it cannot be ascertained whether it was Kolarian or Dravidian. But there is nothing against its being Kolarian in Sir G. Grierson's opinion ; and in view of the length of residence of the tribe, the fact that they have abandoned their own language and their association with the Kolis, this view may be taken as generally probable. The Dravidian tribes have not penetrated so far west as Central India and Gujarat in appreciable numbers. The Rajputs still recognise the Bhils as the former 2. Rajputs residents and occupiers of the land by the fact that some their'"^ Rajput chiefs must be marked on the brow with a Bhll's title to the ,,, . iz-rf 1 1- T-j l^"d from blood on accession to the Gaddi or regal cushion. 1 od ^^^^ ghOs. relates how Goha,^ the eponymous ancestor of the Sesodia Rajputs, took the state of Idar in Gujarat from a Bhil :

" At this period Idar was governed by a chief of the savage race of Bhils. The young Goha frequented the forests in company with the Bhils, whose habits better assimilated with his daring nature than those of the Brah- mans. He became a favourite with these vena-putras or sons of the forest, who resigned to him Idar with its woods and mountains. The Bhils having determined in sport to elect a king, their choice fell on Goha ; and one of the young savages, cutting his finger, applied the blood as the badge {tikd) of sovereignty to his forehead. What was done in sport was confirmed by the old forest chief. The sequel fixes on Goha the stain of ingratitude, for he slew his 1 The old name of the Sesodia clan, for a notice of the real origin of the Gahlot, is held to be derived from this clan. Goha. See the article Rajput Sesodia 28o BHIL PART benefactor, and no motive is assigned in the legend for the deed." ^ The legend is of course a euphemism for the fact that the Rajputs conquered and dispossessed the Bhils of Idar. But it is interesting as an indication that they did not consider themselves to derive a proper title to the land merely from the conquest, but wished also to show that it passed to them by the designation and free consent of the Bhils. The explanation is perhaps that they considered the gods of the Bhils to be the tutelary guardians and owners of the land, whom they must conciliate before they could hope to enjoy it in quiet and prosperity.

This token of the devolution of the land from its previous holders, the Bhils, was till recently repeated on the occasion of each succession of a Sesodia chief " The Bhil landholders of Oguna and Undri still claim the privilege of performing the tlka for the Sesodias. The Oguna Bhil makes the mark of sovereignty on the chief's forehead with blood drawn from his own thumb, and then takes the chief by the arm and seats him on the throne, while the Undri Bhil holds the salver of spices and sacred grains of rice used in making the badge." ^ The story that Goha killed the old Bhil chief, his benefactor, who had adopted him as heir and successor, which fits in very badly with the rest of the legend, is probably based on another superstition.

Sir J. G. Frazer has shown in The Golden Bough that in ancient times it was a common superstition that any one who killed the king had a right to succeed him. The belief was that the king was the god of the country, on whose health, strength and efficiency its prosperity depended. When the king grew old and weak it was time for a successor, and he who could kill the king proved in this manner that the divine power and strength inherent in the late king had descended to him, and he was therefore the fit person to be king.^ An almost similar story is told of the way in which the Kachhwaha Rajputs took the territory of Amber State from the Mina tribe. The infant Rajput prince had been deprived of Narwar by ' RajastJidii, i. p. 184. Golden Botigh for the full explana- ^ Ibidem, p. 1S6. tion and illustration of this super- 3 Reference may be made to The stition.

his uncle, and his mother wandered forth carryinc^ him in a basket, till she came to the capital of the Minas, where she first obtained employment in the chiefs kitchen. But owing to her good cooking she attracted his wife's notice and ultimately disclosed her identity and told her story. The Mina chief then adopted her as his sister and the boy as his nephew. This boy, Dhola Rai, on growing up obtained a (cw Rajput adherents and slaughtered all the Minas while they were bathing at the feast of Diwali, after which he usurped their country.

^ The repetition both of the adoption and the ungrateful murder shows the import- ance attached by the Rajputs to both beliefs as necessary to the validity of their succession and occupation of the land. The position of the- Bhlls as the earliest residents of the country was also recognised by their employment in the capacity of village watchmen. One of the duties of this official is to know the village boundaries and keep watch and ward over them, and it was supposed that the oldest class of residents would know them best. The Bhlls worked in the office of Mankar, the superior village watch- man, in Nimar and also in Berar. Grant Duff states " that the Ramosi or Bhil was emplo)'ed as village guard by the Marathas, and the Ramosis were a professional caste of village policemen, probably derived from the Bhlls or from the Bhlls and Kolis.

The Rajputs seem at first to have treated the Bhlls 3. Histori- leniently. Intermarriage was frequent, especially in the families of BhIl chieftains, and a new caste called Bhilala ^ has arisen, which is composed of the descendants of mixed Rajput and Bhil marriages. Chiefs and landholders in the Bhll country now belong to this caste, and it is possible that some pure Bhll families may have been admitted to it. The Bhilalas rank above the Bhlls, on a level with the cultivating castes. Instances occasionally occurred in which the children of a Rajput by a Bhll wife became Rajputs. When Colonel Tod wrote, Rajputs would still take food with Ujla Bhlls or those of pure aboriginal descent, and all castes would take water from them."* But 1 RSjasthan, ii. pp. 320, 321. 3 gee article. "^History of the Alardihas, i. p. 28. "* Rajasthan, ii. p. 466.

as Hinduism came to be more orthodox in Rajputana, the Bhils sank to the position of outcastes. Their custom of eating beef had always caused them to be much despised.

A tradition is related that one day the god Mahadeo or Siva, sick and unhappy, was reclining in a shady forest when a beautiful woman appeared, the first sight of whom effected a cure of all his complaints. An intercourse between the god and the strange female was established, the result of which was many children ; one of whom, from infancy distinguished alike by his ugliness and vice, slew the favourite bull of Mahadeo, for which crime he was expelled to the woods and mountains, and his descendants have ever since been stigmatised by the names of Bhil and Nishada.^ Nishada is a term of contempt applied to the lowest out- castes. Major Hendley, writing in 1875, states: "Some time since a Thakur (chief) cut off the legs of two Bhils, eaters of the sacred cow, and plunged the stumps into boiling oil." ^ When the Marathas began to occupy Central India they treated the Bhils with great cruelty.

A BhIl caught in a disturbed part of the country was without inquiry flogged and hanged. Hundreds were thrown over high cliffs, and large bodies of them, assembled under promise of pardon, were beheaded or blown from guns. Their women were mutilated or smothered by smoke, and their children smashed to death against the stones.^ This treatment may to some extent have been deserved owing to the predatory habits and cruelty of the Bhils, but its result was to make them utter savages with their hand against every man, as they believed that every one's was against them. From their strongholds in the hills they laid waste the plain country, holding villages and towns to ransom and driving off cattle ; nor did any travellers pass with impunity through the hills except in convoys too large to be attacked. In Khandesh, during the disturbed period of the wars of Sindhia and Holkar, about A.D. I 800, the Bhils betook themselves to highway robbery and lived in bands either in mountains or in villages im- mediately beneath them. The revenue contractors were 1 Malcolm, Memoir of Central (1875), p. 369. India, i. p. 518. ^ Hyderabad Census Report (1891), "^ An Account of the Bhils, J.A.S.B. p. 218.

Bemrose, Collo., Derby. TANTIA BHTL, a FAMOUS DACOIT.

II HISTORICAL NOTICE 283 unable or unwilling to spend money in the maintenance of soldiers to protect the country, and the Bhils in a very short time became so bold as to appear in bands of hundreds and attack towns, carrying off either cattle or hostages, for whom they demanded handsome ransoms.

^ In Gujarat another writer described the Bhils and Kolis as hereditary and professional plunderers —' Soldiers of the night,' as they themselves said they were." Malcolm said of them, after peace had been restored to Central India :^ "Measures are in progress that will, it is expected, soon complete the re- formation of a class of men who, believing themselves doomed to be thieves and plunderers, have been confirmed in their destiny by the oppression and cruelty of neighbouring govern- ments, increased by an avowed contempt for them as out- casts. The feeling this system of degradation has produced must be changed ; and no effort has been left untried to restore this race of men to a better sense of their condition than that which they at present entertain. The common answer of a Bhil when charged with theft or robbery is, ' I am not to blame ; I am the thief of Mahadeo ' ; in other words, ' My destiny as a thief has been fixed by God.

" The Bhil chiefs, who were known as Bhumia, exercised the most absolute power, and their orders to commit the most atrocious crimes were obeyed by their ignorant but attached subjects without a conception on the part of the latter that they had an option when he whom they termed their Dhunni (Lord) issued the mandates.'* firearms and swords were only used by the chiefs and headmen of the tribe, and their national weapon was the bamboo bow having the bowstring made from a thin strip of its elastic bark. The quiver was a piece of strong bamboo matting, and would contain sixty barbed arrows a yard long, and tipped with an iron spike either flattened and sharpened like a knife or rounded like a nail ; other arrows, used for knocking over birds, had knob- like heads. Thus armed, the Bhils would lie in wait in some deep ravine by the roadside, and an infernal yell announced their attack to the unwary traveller.^ Major Hendley states ^ The Kliandesh Bhil Corps, by Mr ^ Metnoir of Central India, i. pp. A. H. A. Simcox. 525, 526. * Ibidem, i. p. 550. 2 Forbes, RdsmCxla, i. p. 104. " Hobson-Jobson, art, Bhil.

that according to tradition in the Mahabharata the god Krishna was killed by a Bhll's arrow, when he was fighting against them in Gujarat with the Yadavas ; and on this account it was ordained that the Bhil should never again be able to draw the bow with the forefinger of the right hand. " Times have changed since then, but I noticed in examining their hands that few could move the forefinger without the second finger ; indeed the fingers appeared useless as in- dependent members of the hands.

In connection with this may be mentioned their apparent inability to distinguish colours or count numbers, due alone to their want of words to express themselves." ^ The reclamation and pacification of the Bhlls is insepar- ably associated with the name of Lieutenant, afterwards Sir James, Outram. The Khandesh BhIl Corps was first raised by him in 1825, when Bhil robber bands were being hunted down by small parties of troops, and those who were willing to surrender were granted a free pardon for past offences, and given grants of land for cultivation and advances for the purchase of seed and bullocks.

When the first attempts to raise the corps were made, the Bhlls believed that the object was to link them in line like galley-slaves with a view to extirpate the race, that blood was in high demand as a medicine in the country of their foreign masters, and so on. Indulging the wild men with feasts and entertainments, and delighting them with his matchless urbanity. Captain Outram at length contrived to draw over to the cause nine recruits, one of whom was a notorious plunderer who had a short time before successfully robbed the officer commanding a detachment sent against him.

This infant corps soon became strongly attached to the person of their new chief and entirely devoted to his wishes ; their goodwill had been won by his kind and conciliatory manners, while their ad- miration and respect had been thoroughly roused and excited by his prowess and valour in the chase. On one occasion, it is recorded, word was brought to Outram of the presence of a panther in some prickly-pear shrubs on the side of a hill near his station. He went to shoot it with a friend, Outram being on foot and his friend on horseback searching ' An Accoimt of the Bhlls, p. 369. II SUBDIVISIONS 285 through the bushes. When close on the animal, Outrain's friend fired and missed, on which the panther sprang forward roaring and seized Outram, and they rolled down the hill together. Being released from the claws of the furious beast for a moment, Outram with great presence of mind drew a pistol which he had with him, and shot the panther dead. The IMills, on seeing that he had been injured, were one and all loud in their grief and expressions of regret, when Outram quieted them with the remark, ' What do I care for the clawing of a cat ? ' and this saying long re- mained a proverb among the Bhlls.^ By his kindness and sympathy, listening freely to all that each single man in the corps had to say to him, Outram at length won their con- fidence, convinced them of his good faith and dissipated their fears of treachery. Soon the ranks of the corps became full, and for every vacant place there were numbers of applicants.

The Bhils freely hunted down and captured their friends and relations who continued to create disturbances, and brought them in for punishment. Outram managed to check their propensity for liquor by paying them every day just sufificient for their food, and giving them the balance of their pay at the end of the month, when some might have a drinking bout, but many preferred to spend the money on ornaments and articles of finery. With the assistance of the corps the marauding tendencies of the hill Bhils were suppressed and tranquillity restored to Khandesh, which rapidly became one of the most fertile parts of India. During the Mutiny the Bhil corps remained loyal, and did good service in checking the local outbursts which occurred in Khandesh. A second battalion was raised at this time, but was disbanded three years afterwards. After this the corps had little or nothing to do, and as the absence of fighting and the higher wages which could be obtained by ordinary labour ceased to render it attractive to the Bhils, it was finally converted into police in 1891.

The Bhils of the Central Provinces have now only two 5- Sub- subdivisions, the Muhammadan Bhils, who were forcibly con- verted to Islam during the time of Aurangzeb, and the remainder, who though retaining many animistic beliefs and ^ The Khandesh Bhll Corps, p. 71. ^ Ibidem, p. 275. 286 BHiL PART superstitions, have practically become Hindus. The Muhammadan Bhils only number about 3000 out of 28,000. They are known as Tadvi, a name which was formerly applied to a Bhil headman, and is said to be derived from tad, meaning a separate branch or section. These Bhlls marry among themselves and not with any other Muham- madans. They retain many Hindu and animistic usages, and are scarcely Muhammadan in more than name. Both classes are divided into groups or septs, generally named after plants or animals to which they still show reverence. Thus the Jamania sept, named after the jdman tree,^ will not cut or burn any part of this tree, and at their weddings the dresses of the bride and bridegroom are taken and rubbed against the tree before being worn.

Similarly the Rohini sept worship the r'o/iau" tree, the Avalia sept the aonla ^ tree, the Meheda sept the baJicra ^ tree, and so on. The Mori sept worship the peacock. They go into the jungle and look for the tracks of a peacock, and spreading a piece of red cloth before the footprint, lay their offerings of grain upon it. Members of this sept may not be tattooed, because they think the splashes of colour on the peacock's feathers are tattoo-marks. Their women must veil them- selves if they see a peacock, and they think that if any member of the sept irreverently treads on a peacock's foot- prints he will fall ill. The Ghodmarya (Horse-killer) sept may not tame a horse nor ride one. The Masrya sept will not kill or eat fish. The Sanyan or cat sept have a tradition that one of their ancestors was once chasing a cat, which ran for protection under a cover which had been put over the stone figure of their goddess. The goddess turned the cat into stone and sat on it, and since then members of the sept will not touch a cat except to save it from harm, and they will not eat anything which has been touched by a cat.

The Ghattaya sept worship the grinding mill at their wed- dings and also on festival days. The Solia sept, whose name is apparently derived from the sun, are split up into four subsepts : the Ada Solia, who hold their weddings at sunrise ; the Japa Solia, who hold them at sunset ; the Taria Solia, 1 Eugenia jainbolana. ^ Phyllanthus et?iblica. 2 Soymidafebrifuga. * Terinmalia belerica.

who hold them when stars have become visible after sunset ; and the Tar Solia, who believe their name is connected with cotton thread and wrap several skeins of raw thread round tlie bride and bridegroom at the wedding ceremony. The Moharia sept worship the local goddess at the village of Moharia in Indore State, who is known as the Moharia Mata ; at their weddings they apply turmeric and oil to the fingers of the goddess before rubbing them on the bride and bridegroom. The Maoli sept worship a goddess of that name in Barwani town. Her shrine is considered to be in the shape of a kind of grain-basket known as kilia, and members of the sept may never make or use baskets of this shape, nor may they be tattooed with representations of it. Women of the sept are not allowed to visit the shrine of the goddess, but may worship her at home. Several septs have the names of Rajpiit clans, as Sesodia, Panwar, Mori, and appear to have originated in mixed unions between Rajputs and Bhils. A man must not marry in his own sept nor in the 6. Exo- families of his mothers and grandmothers. The union of niTrriage first cousins is thus prohibited, nor can girls be exchanged customs, in marriage between two families. A wife's sister may also not be married during the wife's lifetime.

The Muham- madan Bhils permit a man to marry his maternal uncle's daughter, and though he cannot marry his wife's sister he may keep her as a concubine. Marriages may be infant or adult, but the former practice is becoming prevalent and girls are often wedded before they are eleven. Matches are arranged by the parents of the parties in consultation with the caste pancJidyat ; but in Bombay girls may select their own husbands, and they have also a recognised custom of elopement at the Tosina fair in the month of the Mahi Kantha. If a Bhil can persuade a girl to cross the river there with him he may claim her as his wife ; but if they are caught before getting across he is liable to be punished by the bride's father.^ The betrothal and wedding cere- monies now follow the ordinary ritual of the middle and lower castes in the Maratha country." The bride must be 1 Bombay Gazetteer, Hindus of Gujarat, p. 309. '^ See article Kunbi.

younger than the bridegroom except in the case of a widow.

A bride-price is paid which may vary from Rs. 9 to 20 ; in the case of Muhammadan Bhils the bridegroom is said to give a dowry of Rs. 20 to 25. When the ovens are made with the sacred earth they roast some of the large millet juari ^ for the family feast, calling this Juari Mata or the grain goddess. Offerings of this are made to the family gods, and it is partaken of only by the members of the bride's and bridegroom's septs respectively at their houses. No outsider may even see this food being eaten. The leavings of food, with the leaf-plates on which it was eaten, are buried inside the house, as it is believed that if they should fall into the hands of any outsider the death or blindness of one of the family will ensue. When the bride- groom reaches the bride's house he strikes the marriage-shed with a dagger or other sharp instrument.

A goat is killed and he steps in its blood as he enters the shed. A day for the wedding is selected by the priest, but it may also take place on any Sunday in the eight fine months. If the wed- ding takes place on the eleventh day of Kartik, that is on the expiration of the four rainy months when marriages are forbidden, they make a little hut of eleven stalks of juari with their cobs in the shape of a cone, and the bride and bridegroom walk round this.

The services of a Brahman are not required for such a wedding. Sometimes the bride- groom is simply seated in a grain basket and the bride in a winnowing- fan ; then their hands are joined as the sun is half set, and the marriage is completed. The bridegroom takes the basket and fan home with him. On the return of the wedding couple, their kankans or wristbands are taken off at Hanuman's temple. The Muhammadan BhIls perform the same ceremonies as the Hindus, but at the end they call in the Kazi or registrar, who repeats the Muhammadan prayers and records the dowry agreed upon. The practice of the bridegroom serving for his wife is in force among both classes of Bhils. 7. Widow- The remarriage of widows is permitted, but the widow marriage, ^ ^^^ marry any relative of her first husband. She divorce and ' ' ' polygamy, rctums to her father's house, and on her remarriage they ' Sorghian vulgare.

obtain a bride -price of Rs. 40 or 50, a quarter of which goes in a feast to the tribesmen. The wedding of a widow is held on the Amawas or last day of the dark fortnight of the month, or on a Sunday. A wife may be divorced for adultery without consulting the pmichdyat. It is said that a wife cannot otherwise be divorced on any account, nor can a woman divorce her husband, but she may desert him and go and live with a man. In this case all that is necessary is that the second husband should repay to the first as com- pensation the amount expended by the latter on his marriage with the woman. Polygamy is permitted, and a second wife is sometimes taken in order to obtain children, but this number is seldom if ever exceeded. It is stated that the Bhil married women are generally chaste and faithful to their husbands, and any attempt to tamper with their virtue on the part of an outsider is strongly resented by the man.

The Bhlls worship the ordinary Hindu deities and the 8. Reii village godlings of the locality. The favourite both with ^'°"' Hindu and Muhammadan Bhlls is Khande Rao or Khandoba, the war-god of the Marathas, who is often represented by a sword. The Muhammadans and the Hindu Bhlls also to a less extent worship the Pirs or spirits of Muhammadan saints at their tombs, of which there are a number in Nimar. Major Hendley states that in Mewar the seats or sthdns of the Bhil gods are on the summits of high hills, and are represented by heaps of stones, solid or hollowed out in the centre, or mere platforms, in or near which are found numbers of clay or mud images of horses.^ In some places clay lamps are burnt in front of the images of horses, from which it may be concluded that the horse itself is or was worshipped as a god. Colonel Tod states that the Bhlls will eat of nothing white in colour, as a white sheep or goat ; and their grand adjuration is ' By the white ram.' ^ Sir A. Lyall ^ says that their principal oath is by the dog. The Bhil sepoys told Major Hendley that they considered it of little use to go on worshipping their own gods, as the power of these had declined since the English became supreme. They thought the strong English gods were too much for ^ Loc. cit. p. 347. - Western India. ^ Asiatic Studies, ist series, p. 174. VOL. II U craft and amulets

the weak deities of their country, hence they were desirous of embracing Brahmanism, which would also raise them in the social scale and give them a better chance of promotion in regiments where there were Brahman officers. 9. Witch- They wear charms and amulets to keep off evil spirits ; the charms are generally pieces of blue string with seven knots in them, which their witch- finder or Badwa ties, reciting an incantation on each ; the knots were sometimes covered with metal to keep them undefiled and the charms were tied on at the Holi, Dasahra or some other festival.

In Bombay the Bhlls still believe in witches as the agents of any misfortunes that may befall them. If a man was sick and thought some woman had bewitched him, the suspected woman was thrown into a stream or swung from a tree. If the branch broke and the woman fell and suffered serious injury, or if she could not swim across the stream and sank, she was considered to be innocent and efforts were made to save her. But if she escaped without injury she was held to be a witch, and it frequently happened that the woman would admit herself to be one either from fear of the infliction of a harder ordeal, or to keep up the belief in her powers as a witch, which often secured her a free supper of milk and chickens. She would then admit that she had really bewitched the sick man and undertake to cure him on some sacrifice being made. If he recovered, the animal named by the witch was sacrificed and its blood given her to drink while still warm ; either from fear or in order to keep up the character she would drink it, and would be permitted to stay on in the village. If, on the other hand, the sick person died, the witch would often be driven into the forest to die of hunger or to be devoured by wild animals.

These practices have now disappeared in the Central Provinces, though occasionally murders of suspected witches may still occur. The BhTls are firm believers in omens, the nature of which is much the same as among the Hindus. When a Bhil is persistently unlucky in hunting, he sometimes says ' Nat laga,' meaning that some bad spirit is causing his ill-success. Then he will ' Asiatic Studies , 1st series, p. 352. 2 Bombay Gazetteer, Hindus of Gujarat, p. 302.

make an image of a man in the sand or dust of the road, or sometimes two images of a man and woman, and throw- ing straw or grass over the images set it ah'ght, and pound it down on them with a stick with abusive yells. This he calls killing his bad luck.^ Major Hendley notes that the men danced before the different festivals and before battles. The men danced in a ring holding sticks and striking them against each other, much like the Baiga dance. Before battle they had a war-dance in which the performers were armed and imitated a combat. To be carried on the shoulders of one of the combatants was a great honour, perhaps because it symbolised being on horseback. The dance was probably in the nature of a magical rite, designed to obtain success in battle by going through an imitation of it beforehand. The priests are the chief physicians among the Bhils, though most old men were supposed to know something about medicine.

The dead are usually buried lying on the back, with the 10. Funeral head pointing to the south. Cooked food is placed on the "^^^' bier and deposited on the ground half-way to the cemetery. On return each family of the sept brings a wheaten cake to the mourners and these are eaten. On the third day they place on the grave a thick cake of wheaten flour, water in an earthen pot and tobacco or any other stimulant which the deceased was in the habit of using in his life. The Hindu Bhlls say that they do not admit outsiders "• Social into the caste, but the Muhammadans will admit a man of any but the impure castes.

The neophyte must be shaved and circumcised, and the Kazi gives him some holy water to drink and teaches him the profession of belief in Islam. If a man is not circumcised, the Tadvi or Muhammadan Bhils will not bury his body. Both classes of Bhils employ Brahmans at their ceremonies. The tribe eat almost all kinds of flesh and drink liquor, but the Hindus now abjure beef and the Muhammadans pork. Some Bhils now refuse to take the skins off dead cattle, but others will do so. The Bhils will take food from any caste except the impure ones, and none except these castes will now take food from ' Bombay Gazetteer, vol. xii. p. 87. 2 An Account of the Bhlls, pp. 362, 363. BHIL

12. Ap- pearance and char- acteristics. 13. Occu- pation. them. Temporary or permanent exclusion from caste is imposed for the same offences as among the Hindus. The t}-pical Bhil is small, dark, broad-nosed and ugly, but well built and active. The average height of 128 men measured by Major Hendley was 5 feet 6.4 inches. The hands are somewhat small and the legs fairly developed, those of the women being the best. " The Bhil is an excellent woodsman, knows the shortest cuts over the hills, can walk the roughest paths and climb the steepest crags without slipping or feeling distressed. He is often called in old Sanskrit works Venaputra, ' child of the forest,' or Pal Indra, ' lord of the pass.

These names well describe his character. His country is approached through narrow defiles (/'c?/), and through these none could pass without his permission. In former days he always levied rakhivdli or blackmail, and even now native travellers find him quite ready to assert what he deems his just rights. The Bhil is a capital huntsman, tracking and marking down tigers, panthers and bears, knowing all their haunts, the best places to shoot them, the paths they take and all those points so essential to success in big-game shooting ; they will remember for years the spots where tigers have been disposed of, and all the circumstances connected with their deaths. The Bhil will himself attack a leopard, and with his sword, aided by his friends, cut him to pieces." ^ Their agility impressed the Hindus, and an old writer says

" Some Bhil chieftains who attended the camp of Sidhraj, king of Gujarat, astonished him with their feats of activity ; in his army they seemed as the followers of Hanuman in attendance upon Ram." ^ effects, and their indiscriminate slaughter of game. Many of them live in the open country and have become farmservants and field- labourers.

A certain proportion are tenants, but very few- own villages. Some of the Tadvi Bhils, however, still retain villages which were originally granted free of revenue on The Bhils have now had to abandon their free use of the forests, which was highl)'- destructive in its condition of their keeping the hill-passes of the Satpijras ' Account of the Mewar Bhils, pp. 357, 3 5 8. ^ Forbes, Rdsmdla, i. p. 113.

open and safe for travellers. These are known as Hattiwala. lihils also serve as village watchmen in Nimar and the adjoining tracts of the Berar Districts. Captain Forsyth, writing- in 1868, described the Bhils as follows: "The Muhammadan Bhils are with few exceptions a miserable lot, idle and thriftless, and steeped in the deadly vice of opium- eating.

The unconverted Bhils are held to be tolerably reliable. When they borrow money or stock for cultivation they seldom abscond fraudulently from their creditors, and this simple honesty of theirs tends, I fear, to keep numbers of them still in a state little above serfdom." ^ The Bhils have now entirely abandoned their own m- Langu language and speak a corrupt dialect based on the Aryan ^^^' vernaculars current around them. The Bhil dialect is mainly derived from Gujarati, but it is influenced by Marwari and Marathi ; in Nimar especially it becomes a corrupt form of Marathi. Bhili, as this dialect is called, contains a number of non-Aryan words, some of which appear to come from the Mundari, and others from the Dravidian languages ; but these are insufficient to form any basis for a deduction as to whether the Bhils belonged to the Kolarian or Dravidian race.

Bhilala

A small caste found in the Nimar and i- General Hoshangabad Districts of the Central Provinces and in "°^^^- Central India. The total strength of the Bhilalas is about 150,000 persons, most of whom reside in the Bhopawar Agency, adjoining Nimar. Only 15,000 were returned from the Central Provinces in 191 1. The Bhilalas are commonly considered, and the general belief may in their case be accepted as correct, to be a mixed caste sprung from the alliances of immigrant Rajputs with the Bhils of the Central India hills. The original term was not improbably Bhilwala, and may have been applied to those Rajput chiefs, a numerous body, who acquired small estates in the Bhil country, or to those who took the daughters of Bhil chieftains to wife, the second course being often no 1 Niindr Settlement Report, i^y^. 2\(}, ^ fhis article is based mainly on 247. Captain Forsyth's Nimar Settlement '^ Sir G. Grierson, Linguistic Survey Report, and a paper by Mr. T. T. of India, vol. ix. part iii. pp. 6-9. Korke, Pleader, Khandwa.

doubt a necessary preliminary to the first. Several Bhilala families hold estates in Nimar and Indore, and their chiefs now claim to be pure Rajputs. The principal Bhilala houses, as those of Bhamgarh, Selani and Mandhata, do not inter- marry with the rest of the caste, but only among themselves and with other families of the same standing in Malwa and Holkar's Nimar. On succession to the Gaddi or headship of the house, representatives of these families are marked with a tlka or badge on the forehead and sometimes presented with a sword, and the investiture may be carried out by custom by the head of another house. Bhilala landholders usually have the title of Rao or Rawat. They do not admit that a Bhilala can now spring from intermarriage between a Rajput and a Bhil. The local Brahmans will take water from them and they are occasionally invested with the sacred thread at the time of marriage.

The Bhilala Rao of Mandhata is hereditary custodian of the great shrine of Siva at Onkar Mandhata on an island in the Nerbudda. According to the traditions of the family, their ancestor, Bharat Singh, was a Chauhan Rajpiit, who took Mandhata from Nathu Bhil in A.D. I 165, and restored the worship of Siva to the island, which had been made inaccessible to pilgrims by the terrible deities, Kali and Bhairava, devourers of human flesh. In such legends may be recognised the propagation of Hinduism by the Rajpiit adventurers and the reconsecration of the aboriginal shrines to its deities.

Bharat Singh is said to have killed Nathu Bhil, but it is more probable that he only married his daughter and founded a Bhilala family. Similar alliances have taken place among other tribes, as the Korku chiefs of the Gawilgarh and Mahadeo hills, and the Gond princes of Garha Mandla. The Bhilalas generally resemble other Hindus in appearance, showing no marked signs of aboriginal descent. Very probably they have all an infusion of Rajput blood, as the Rajputs settled in the Bhil country in some strength at an early period of history. The caste have, however, totemistic group names ; they will eat fowls and drink liquor ; and they bury their dead with the feet to the north, all these customs indicating a Dravidian origin. Their subordinate position in past times is shown by the fact that they will accept cooked food from a Kunbi

or a Gujar ; and indeed the status of all except the chiefs families would naturally have been a low one, as they were practically the offspring of kept women.

As already stated, the landowning families usually arrange alliances among themselves. Below these comes the body of the caste and below them is a group known as the Chhoti Tad or bastard Bhilalas, to which are relegated the progeny of irregular unions and persons expelled from the caste for social offences. The caste, for the purpose of avoiding marriages between 2. Mar- relations, are also divided into exogamous groups called "^^^' kul or kuri, several of the names of which are of totemistic origin or derived from those of animals and plants. Members of the Jamra kuri will not cut or burn XhQjdviun ^ tree ; those of the Saniyar kuri will not grow sa7i-\\ers\\y, while the Astaryas revere the sona '"^ tree and the Pipaladya, the pipal tree. Some of the kuris have Rajput sept names, as Mori, Baghel and Solanki.

A man is forbidden to take a wife from within his own sept or that of his mother, and the union of first cousins is also prohibited. The customs of the Bhilalas resemble those of the Kunbis and other cultivating castes. At their weddings four cart-yokes are arranged in a square, and inside this are placed two copper vessels filled with water and considered to represent the Ganges and Jumna. When the sun is half set, the bride and the bride- groom clasp hands and then walk seven times round the square of cart-yokes. The water of the pots is mixed and this is considered to represent the mingling of the bride's and bridegroom's personalities as the Ganges and Jumna meet at Allahabad. A sum of about Rs. 60 is usually paid by the parents of the bridegroom to those of the bride and is expended on the ceremony.

The ordinary Bhilalas have, Mr. Korke states, a simple form of wedding which may be gone through without consulting a Brahman on the Ekadashi or eleventh of Kartik (October) ; this is the day on which the gods awake from sleep and marks the commencement of the marriage season. A cone is erected of eleven plants of juari, roots and all, and the couple simply walk round this seven times at night, when the marriage is complete. The ^ Eugenia Jambolatia. 2 Bmihint a raceniosa.

remarriage of widows is permitted. The woman's forehead is marked with cowdung by another widow, probably as a rite of purification, and the cloths of the couple are tied together. The caste commonly bury the dead and erect memorial stones at the heads of graves which they worship in the month of Chait (April), smearing them with vermilion and making an offering of flowers. This may either be a Dravidian usage or have been adopted by imitation from the Muhammadans. The caste worship the ordinary Hindu deities, but each family has a Kul-devi or household god, Mr. Korke remarks, to which they pay special reverence. The offerings made to the Kul-devi must be consumed by the family alone, but married daughters are allowed to participate. They employ Nimari Brahmans as their priests, and also have gurus or spiritual preceptors, who are Gosains or Bairagis.

They will take food cooked with water from Brahmans, Rajputs, Munda Gujars and Tirole Kunbis. The last two groups are principal agricultural castes of the locality and the Bhilalas are probably employed by them as farmservants, and hence accept cooked food from their masters in accordance with a common custom.

The local Brahmans of the Nagar, Naramdeo, Balsa and other subcastes will take water from the hand of a Bhilala. Temporary ex- communication from caste is imposed for the usual offences, such as going to jail, getting maggots in a wound, killing a cow, a dog or a squirrel, committing homicide, being beaten by a man of low caste, selling shoes at a profit, committing adultery, and allowing a cow to die with a rope round its neck ; and further, for touching the corpses of a cow, cat or horse, or a Barhai (carpenter) or Chamar (tanner). They will not swear by a dog, a cat or a squirrel, and if either of the first two animals dies in a house, it is considered to be impure for a month and a quarter. The head of the caste committee has the designation of Mandloi, which is a territorial title borne by several families in Nimar. He receives a share of the fine levied for the Sarni or purification ceremony, when a person temporarily expelled is readmitted into caste. Under the Mandloi is the Kotwal whose business is to summon the members to the caste

assemblies ; he also is paid out of the fines and his office is hereditary. The caste are cultivators, farmservants and field-labourers, 4. Occupa- and a Bhilala also usually held the office of Mankar, a ch"rrcter. superior kind of Kotwar or village watchman. The Mankar did no dirty work and would not touch hides, but attended on any officer who came to the village and acted as a guide. Where there was a village sarai or rest-house, it was in charge of the Mankar, who was frequently also known as zamindar.

This may have been a recognition of the ancient rights of the Bhilalas and Bhils to the country. Captain Forsyth, Settlement Officer of Nimar, had a 5. Char- very unfavourable opinion of the Bhilalas, whom he described as proverbial for dishonesty in agricultural engagements and worse drunkards than any of the indigenous tribes.^ This judgment was probably somewhat too severe, but they are poor cultivators, and a Bhilala's field may often be recognised by its slovenly appearance.

A century ago Sir J. Malcolm also wrote very severely of the Bhilalas : " The Bhilala and Lundi chiefs were the only robbers in Malwa whom under no circumstances travellers could trust. There are oaths of a sacred but obscure kind among those that are Rajputs or who boast their blood, which are almost a disgrace to take, but which, they assert, the basest was never known to break before Mandrup Singh, a Bhilala, and some of his associates, plunderers on the Nerbudda, showed the example. The vanity of this race has lately been flattered by their having risen into such power and consideration that neighbouring Rajput chiefs found it their interest to forget their prejudices and to condescend so far as to eat and drink with them.

Hatti Singh, Grassia chief of Nowlana, a Khichi Rajput, and several others in the vicinity cultivated the friendship of Nadir, the late formidable Bhilala robber-chief of the Vindhya range ; and among other sacrifices made by the Rajputs, was eating and drinking with him. On seeing this take place in my camp, I asked Hatti Singh whether he was not degraded by doing so ; he said no, but that Nadir was elevated." " 1 Settlement Report (1869), para. 7ncnt Report. 411. •'* Memoir of Central India, ii. p. ^ Mr. Montgomerie's Ninidr Settle- 156. 298 BHISHTI PART Bhishti.—A small Muhammadan caste of water-bearers. Only 26 Bhishtis were shown in the Central Provinces in 1 90 1 and 278 in 1891. The tendency of the lower Muhammadan castes, as they obtain some education, is to return themselves simply as Muhammadans, the caste name being considered derogatory. The Bhishtis are, however, a regular caste numbering over a lakh of persons in India, the bulk of whom belong to the United Provinces. Many of them are converts from Hinduism, and they combine Hindu and Muhammadan practices. They have gotras or exogamous sections, the names of which indicate the Hindu origin of their members, as Huseni Brahman, Samri Chauhan, Bahmangour and others.

They prohibit marriage within the section and within two degrees of relationship on the mother's side. Marriages are performed by the Muham- madan ritual or Nikah, but a Brahman is sometimes asked to fix the auspicious day, and they erect a marriage-shed. The bridegroom goes to the bride's house riding on a horse, and when he arrives drops Rs. 1-4 into a pot of water held by a woman. The bride whips the bridegroom's horse with a switch made of flowers. During the marriage the bride sits inside the house and the bridegroom in the shed outside.

An agent or Vakil with two witnesses goes to the bride and asks her whether she consents to marry the bridegroom, and when she gives her consent, as she always does, they go out and formally communi- cate it to the Kazi. The dowry is then settled, and the bond of marriage is sealed. But when the parents of the bride are poor they receive a bride -price of Rs. "i^o^ from which they pay the dowry.

The Bhishtis worship their leather bag {inashk) as a sort of fetish, and burn incense before it on Fridays.^ The traditional occupation of the Bhishti is to supply water, and he is still engaged in this and other kinds of domestic service. The name is said to be derived from the Persian bihisht, 'paradise,' and to have been given to them on account of the relief which their ministrations afforded to the thirsty soldiery." Perhaps, too, the grandiloquent name was applied partly in derision, ' Crooke's Tribes and Castes, art. Bhishti. ^ Elliott's Metnoi7-s of Ihe Noflh-PVestern Provinces, i. p. 191. II nmsfrri 299 like similar titles given to other menial servants. 'I'hey are also known as Mashki o/ Pakliali, after their leathern water-bag. The leather bag is a distinctive sign of the Bhishti, but when he puts it away he may be recognised from the piece of red cloth which he usually wears round his waist.

There is an interesting legend to the effect that the Bhishti who saved the Emperor Humayun's life at Chausa, and was rewarded by the tenure of the Imperial throne for half a day, employed his short lease of power by providing for his family and friends, and caused his leather bag to be cut up into rupees, which were gilded and stamped with the record of his date and reign in order to perpetuate its memory.

The story of the Bhishti obtaining his name on account of the solace which he afforded to the Muhammadan soldiery finds a parallel in the case of the English army : The uniform 'e wore Was nothin' much before, An' rather less than 'arf o' that be'ind, For a piece o' twisty rag An' a goatskin water-bag Was all the field-equipment 'e could find. With 'is mussick on 'is back, 'E would skip with our attack. An' watch us till the bugles made ' Retire,' An' for all 'is dirty 'ide 'E was white, clear white, inside When 'e went to tend the wounded under fire.'-^ An excellent description of the Bhishti as a household servant is contained in Eha's Behind the Bungalow'^ from which the following extract is taken : " If you ask : Who is the Bhishti ? I will tell you. Bihisht in the Persian tongue means Paradise, and a Bihishtee is therefore an inhabitant of Paradise, a cherub, a seraph, an angel of mercy. He has no wings ; the painters have misconceived him ; but his back is bowed down with the burden of a great goat-skin swollen to bursting with the elixir of life. He walks the land when the heaven above him is brass and the earth iron, when the trees and shrubs are languishing and the last blade ^ Crooke's Tribes atid Castes, ii. p. Ballads, ' Gunga Din.' 100.

Thacker and Co., London. " Kudyard Kipling, Barrack- Roooi 300 BHISHTI PART of grass has given up the struggle for life, when the very roses smell only of dust, and all day long the roaming dust- devils waltz about the fields, whirling leaf and grass and corn- stalk round and round and up and away into the regions of the sky ; and he unties a leather thong which chokes the throat of his goat-skin just where the head of the poor old goat was cut off, and straightway, with a life- reviving gurgle, the stream called thandha pdni gushes forth, and plant and shrub lift up their heads and the garden smiles again.

The dust also on the roads is laid, and a grateful incense rises from the ground, the sides of the water chatti grow dark and moist and cool themselves in the hot air, and through the dripping interstices of the khaskJias tattie a chilly fragrance creeps into the room, causing the mercury in the thermometer to retreat from its proud place. I like the Bhishti and respect him. As a man he is temperate and contented, eating bdjri bread and slaking his thirst with his own element. And as a servant he is laborious and faithful, rarely shirking his work, seeking it out rather. For example, we had a bottle-shaped filter of porous stoneware, standing in a bucket of water which it was his duty to fill daily ; but the good man, not content with doing his bare duty, took the plug out of the filter and filled it too.

And all the station knows how assiduously he fills the rain-gauge." With the con- struction of water -works in large stations the Bhishti is losing his occupation, and he is a far less familiar figure to the present generation of Anglo-Indians than to their pre- decessors. Origin Bhoyar/ Bhoir (Honorific titles, Mahajan and Patel). A cultivating caste numbering nearly 60,000 persons in 191 1, and residing principally in the Betul and Chhindwara Districts. The Bhoyars are not found outside the Central Provinces, They claim to be the descendants of a band of Panwar Rajputs, who were defending the town of Dharanagri or Dhar in Central India when it was besieged by Aurangzeb. Their post was on the western part of the wall, but they gave way and fled into the town as the sun was rising, and it ' This article is mainly compiled man Bakre, pleader, Betul, and Munshi from papers by Mr. Pandurang Laksh- Pyare Lai, ethnographic clerk. and traditions.

shone on their faces. Hence they were called lihoyar from a word blior meaning morning, because they were seen running away in the morning. They were put out of caste by the other Rajputs, and fled to the Central Provinces. The name may also be a variant of that of the Bhagore Rajputs. And another derivation is from bhora, a simpleton or timid person. Their claim to be immigrants from Central India is borne out by the fact that they still speak a corrupt form of the Malvvi dialect of Rajputana, which is called after them Bhoyari, and their Bhats or genealogists come from Malwa. But they have now entirely lost their position as Rajputs. The Bhoyars are divided into the Panwari, Dholewar, 2. Suh- Chaurasia and Daharia subcastes. The Panwars are the '^^^'^^ ^^^ sections. most numerous and the highest, as claiming to be directly descended from Panwar Rajputs. They sometimes called themselves Jagdeo Panwars, Jagdeo being the name of the king under whom they served in Dharanagri.

The Dholewars take their name from Dhola, a place in Malwa, or from dJioL, a drum. They are the lowest subcaste, and some of them keep pigs. It is probable that these subcastes immigrated with the Malwa Rajas in the fifteenth century, the Dholewars being the earlier arrivals, and having from the first intermarried with the local Dravidian tribes. The Daharias take their name from Dahar, the old name of the Jubbulpore country, and may be a relic of the domination of the Chedi kings of Tewar. The name of the Chaurasias is probably derived from the Chaurasi or tract of eighty-four villages formerly held by the Betul Korku family of Chandu. The last two subdivisions are numerically unimportant. The Bhoyars have over a hundred kuls or exogamous sections.

The names of most of these are titular, but some are territorial and a few totemistic. Instances of such names are Onkar (the god Siva), Deshmukh and Chaudhari, headman, Hazari (a leader of 1000 horse). Gore (fair-coloured), Dongardiya (a lamp on a hill), Pinjara (a cotton -cleaner), Gadria (a shepherd), Khaparia (a tyler), Khawasi (a barber), Chiknya (a sycophant), Kinkar (a slave), Dukhi (penurious), Suplya toplya (a basket and fan maker), Kasai (a butcher), Gohattya (a cow -killer), and Kalebhut (black devil). Among the territorial sections may be mentioned Sonpuria, from Sonpur,

and Patharia, from the hill country.

The name Badnagrya is also really territorial, being derived from the town of Badnagar, but the members of the section connect it with the bad or banyan tree, the leaves of which they refrain from eating. Two other totemistic gotras are the Baranga and Baignya, derived from the bdraiig plant {Kydia calycind) and from the brinjal respectively. Some sections have the names of Rajput septs, as Chauhan, Parihar and Panwar. This curiously mixed list of family names appears to indicate that the Bhoyars originate from a small band of Rajputs who must have settled in the District about the fifteenth century as military colonists, and taken their wives from the people of the country.

They may have subsequently been recruited by fresh bands of immigrants who have preserved a slightly higher status. They have abandoned their old high position, and now rank below the ordinary cultivating castes like Kunbis and Kurmis who arrived later ; while the caste has probably in times past also been recruited to a considerable extent by the admission of families of outsiders. 3. Mar- Marriage within the kid or family group is forbidden, as also the union of first cousins. Girls are usually married young, and sometimes infants of one or two months are given in wedlock, while contracts of betrothal are made for unborn children if they should be of the proper sex, the mother's womb being touched with kunku or red powder to seal the agreement.

A small dej or price is usually paid for the bride, amounting to Rs. 5 with 240 lbs. of grain, and 8 seers of ght and oil. At the betrothal the Joshi or astrologer is consulted to see whether the names of the couple make an auspicious conjunction. He asks for the names of the bride and bridegroom, and if these are found to be inimical another set of names is given, and the experiment is continued until a union is obtained which is astrologically auspicious. In order to provide for this contingency some Bhoyars give their children ten or twelve names at birth. If all the names fail, the Joshi invents new ones of his own, and in some way brings about the auspicious union to the satisfaction of both parties, who consider it no business of theirs to pry into the Joshi's calculations or to question his methods. After the marriage-shed is erected nage.

the family god must be invoked to be present at the ceremony. He is asked to come and take his seat in an earthen pot containing a h'ghted wick, the pot being sup- ported on a toy chariot made of sticks. A thread is coiled round the neck of the jar, and the Bhoyars then place it in the middle of the house, confident that the god has entered it, and will ward off all calamities during the marriage. This is performed by the bJidtnvar ceremony, seven earthen pots being placed in a row, while the bride and bridegroom walk round in a circle holding a basket with a lighted lamp in it. As each circle is completed, one pot is removed. This always takes place at night.

The Dholewars do not perform the hJiCunvar ceremony, and simply throw sacred rice on the couple, and this is also done in Wardha. Sometimes the Bhoyars dispense with the presence of the Brahman and merely get some rice and juari consecrated by him beforehand, which they throw on the heads of the couple, and thereupon consider the marriage complete. Weddings are generally held in the bright fortnight of Baisakh (April—May), and sometimes can be completed in a single day. Widow-marriage is allowed, but it is considered that the widow should marry a widower and not a bachelor.

The regular occupation of the Bhoyars is agriculture, 4. Occupa- and they are good cultivators, growing much sugar-cane °"- with well - irrigation. They are industrious, and their holdings on the rocky soils of the plateau Districts are often cleared of stones at the cost of much labour. Their women work in the fields. In Betijl they have the reputation of being much addicted to drink. They do not now admit outsiders, but their family 5. Social names show that at one time they probably did so, and this ^^-'^tus. laxity of feeling survives in the toleration with which they readmit into caste a woman who has gone wrong with an outsider. They eat flesh and fowls, and the Dholewars eat pork, while as already stated they are fond of liquor. To have a shoe thrown on his house by a caste-fellow is a serious degradation for a Bhoyar, and he must break his earthen pots, clean his house and give a feast. To be beaten with a shoe by a low caste like Mahar entails shaving the moustaches and paying a heavy fine, which is spent on a

feast.

The Bhoyars do not take food from any caste but Brahmans, but no caste higher than Kunbis and Mails will take water from them. In social status they rank somewhat below Kunbis. In appearance they are well built, and often of a fair complexion. Unmarried girls generally wear skirts instead of sdj'is or cloths folding between the legs ; they also must not wear toe-rings. Women of the Panwar subcaste wear glass bangles on the left hand, and brass ones on the right. All women are tattooed. They both burn and bury the dead, placing the corpse on the pyre with its head to the south or west, and in Wardha to the north. Here they have a peculiar custom as regards mourning, which is observed only till the next Monday or Thursday whichever falls first. Thus the period of mourning may extend from one to four days.

The Bhoyars are considered in Wardha to be more than ordinarily timid, and also to be considerable simpletons, while they stand in much awe of Government officials, and consider it a great misfortune to be brought into a court of justice. Very few of them can read and write. tribe and its name. BHUIYA LIST OF PARAGRAPHS 1 . The tribe and its fiame. 7 . Tribal subdivisions. 2. Distribution of t/ie tribe. 8. E.xogamous septs. 3. Example 0/ the position 0/ the 9. Marriage customs. aborigines in Hi7idu society. i o. Widow-marriage and divorce. 4. The Bhuiyas a Kolarian tribe. 1 1 . Religion. 5. The Baigas and the Bhuiyas. 12. Religious dancing. Chhattisgarh the home of the 1 3. Funeral rites and inheritance. Baigas. 14. Physical appearatice atid occu- 6. The Baigas a branch of the paiion. Bhuiyas. i 5. Social customs. Bhuiya, Bhuinhar, Bhumia/—The name of a very i. The important tribe of Chota Nagpur, Bengal and Orissa. The Bhuiyas numbered more than 22,000 persons in the Central Provinces in 1911, being mainly found in the Sarguja and Jashpur States. In Bengal and Bihar the Bhuiyas proper count about half a million persons, while the Musahar and Khandait castes, both of whom are mainly derived from the Bhuiyas, total together well over a million. The name Bhuiya means ' Lord of the soil,' or * Belong- ing to the soil,' and is a Sanskrit derivative.

The tribe have completely forgotten their original name, and adopted this designation conferred on them by the immigrant Aryans. The term Bhuiya, however, is also employed by other tribes and by some Hindus as a title for landholders, being practically equivalent to zamindar. And hence a certain confusion arises, and classes or individuals may have the name of Bhuiya without belonging to the tribe at all.

" In most ^ This article is compiled partly from furnished by Mr. B. C. Mazumdar, Colonel Dalton's Ethnology of Bengal pleader, Sambalpur, and papers by and Sir H. Risley's Tribes and Castes of Mr. A. B. Napier, Deputy Commis- Bengal ; a monograph has also been sioner, Raipur, and Mr. Hira Lai. VOL. II 305 X

parts of Chota Nagpur," Sir H. Risley says, " there is a well- known distinction between a Bhuiya by tribe and a Bhuiya by title. The Bhuiyas of Bonai and Keonjhar described by Colonel Dalton belong to the former category ; the Bhuiya Mundas and Oraons to the latter. The distinction will be made somewhat clearer if it is explained that every ' tribal Bhuiya ' will as a matter of course describe himself as Bhuiya, while a member of another tribe will only do so if he is speaking with reference to a question of land, or desires for some special reason to lay stress on his status as a land- holder or agriculturist." We further find in Bengal and Benares a caste of land- holders known as Bhuinhar or Babhan, who are generally considered as a somewhat mixed and inferior group of Brahman and Rajput origin. Both Sir H. Risley and Mr. Crooke adopt this view and deny any connection between the Bhuinhars and the Bhuiya tribes.

Babhan appears to be a corrupt form of Brahman. Mr. Mazumdar, however, states that Bhuiya is never used in Bengali as an equivalent for zamlndar or landholder, and he considers that the Bhuinhars and also the Barah Bhuiyas, a well-known group of twelve landholders of Eastern Bengal and Assam, belonged to the Bhuiya tribe. He adduces from Sir E. Gait's History of Assa})i the fact that the Chutias and Bhuiyas were dominant in that country prior to its conquest by the Ahoms in the thirteenth century, and considers that these Chutias gave their name to Chutia or Chota Nagpur.

I am unable to express any opinion on Mr. Mazumdar's argument, and it is also unnecessary as the question does not concern the Central Provinces. Distribu- The principal home of the Bhuiya tribe proper is the south of the Chota Nagpur plateau, comprised in the Gang- pur, Bonai, Keonjhar and Bamra States. " The chiefs of these States," Colonel Dalton says, " now call themselves Rajputs ; if they be so, they are strangely isolated families of Rajputs. The country for the most part belongs to the Bhuiya sub-proprietors. They are a privileged class, holding as hereditaments the principal offices of the State, and are organised as a body of militia. The chiefs have no right to exercise any authority till they have received the tilak or tion of the tribe

token of invcstituic from their powerful Bhuiya vassals.

Their position altogether renders their claim to be con- sidered Rajputs extremely doublful, and the stcjries told to account for their acquisition of the dignity are palpable fables. They were no doubt all Bhuiyas originally ; they certainly do not look like Rajputs." Members of the tribe are the household servants of the Bamra Raja's family, and it is said that the first Raja of Bamra was a child of the Patna house, who was stolen from his home and anointed king of Bamra by the Bhuiyas and Khonds. Similarly Colonel Dalton records the legend that the Bhuiyas twenty- seven generations ago stole a child of the Moharbhanj Raja's famil)', brought it up amongst them and made it their Raja. He was freely admitted to intercourse with Bhuiya girls, and the children of this intimacy are the progenitors of the Rajkuli branch of the tribe. But they are not considered first among Bhuiyas because they are not of pure Bhuiya descent.

Again the Raja of Keonjhar is always installed by the Bhuiyas. These facts indicate that the Bhuiyas were once the rulers of Chota Nagpur and are recognised as the oldest inhabitants of the country. From this centre they have spread north through Lohardaga and Hazaribagh and into southern Bihar, where large numbers of Bhuiyas are encountered on whom the opprobrious designation of Musahar or 'rat-eater' has been conferred by their Hindu neighbours. Others of the tribe who travelled south from Chota Nagpur experienced more favourable conditions, and here the tendency has been for the Bhuiyas to rise rather than to decline in social status. " Some of their leading families," Sir H. Risley states, " have come to be chiefs of the petty States of Orissa, and have now sunk the Bhuiya in the Khandait or swordsman, a caste of admitted respectability in Orissa and likely in course of time to transform itself into some variety of Rajput." The ^varying status of the Bhuiyas in Bihar, Chota 3. Example Nagpur and Orissa is a good instance of the different ways ^q^Ij^qj^ of in which the primitive tribes have fared in contact with the the abori- immigrant Aryans. Where the country has been completely fi^ndu" colonised and populated by Hindus, as in Bihar, the aboriginal society, residents have commonly become transformed into village

drudges, relegated to the meanest occupations, and despised as impure by the Hindu cultivators, like the Chamars of northern India and the Mahars of the Maratha Districts. Where the Hindu immigration has only been partial and the forests have not been cleared, as in Chota Nagpur and the Central Provinces, they may keep their old villages and tribal organisation and be admitted as a body into the hierarchy of caste, ranking above the impure castes but below the Hindu cultivators.

This is the position of the Gonds, Baigas and other tribes in these tracts. While, if the Hindus come only as colonists and not as rulers, the indigenous residents may retain the overlordship of the soil and the landed proprietors among them may be formed into a caste ranking with the good cultivating castes of the Aryans. Instances of such are the Khandaits of Orissa, the Binjhwars of Chhattlsgarh and the Bhilalas of Nimar and Indore. 4. The The Bhuiyas have now entirely forgotten their own Bhuiyas a lancruage and speak Hindi, Uriya and Bengali, according as Kolanan fc> & r > ^ t-? 1 • 1 1 tribe. each is the dommant vernacular of their Hmdu neighbours. They cannot therefore on the evidence of language be classified as a Munda or Kolarian or as a Dravidian tribe. Colonel Dalton was inclined to consider them as Dravidian : ^ " Mr. Stirling in his account of Orissa classes them among the Kols ; but there are no grounds that I know of for so connecting them.

As I have said above, they appear to me to be linked with the Dravidian rather than with the Kolarian tribes." His account, however, does not appear to contain any further evidence in support of this view ; and, on the other hand, he identifies the Bhuiyas with the Savars or Saonrs. Speaking of the Bendkars or Savars of Keonjhar, he says : " It is difficult to regard them otherwise than as members of the great Bhuiya family, and thus connecting them we link the Bhuiyas and Savaras and give support to the conjecture that the former are Dravidian." But it is now shown in the Linguistic Survey that the Savars have a Munda dialect.

In Chota Nagpur this has been forgotten, and the tribe speak Hindi or Uriya like the Bhuiyas, but it remains in the hilly tracts of Ganjam and 1 Ethnology of Bengal, p. 140. II THE BHUIYAS A KGLAR/AN TRIBE 309 Vizagapatam.' Savara is closely related to Kharia and Juang, the dialects of two of the most primitive Munda tribes. The Savars must therefore be classed as a Munda or Kolarian tribe, and since Colonel Dalton identified the Bhuiyas with the Savars of Chota Nagpur, his evidence appears really to be in favour of the Kolarian origin of the Bhuiyas.

He notes further that the ceremony of naming children among the Bhuiyas is identical with that of the Mundas and Hos." Mr. Mazumdar writes : " Judging from the external appearance and general physical type one would be sure to mistake a Bhuiya for a Munda. Their habits and customs are essentially Mundari. The Bhuiyas who live in and around the District of Manbhum are not much ashamed to admit that they are Kol people ; and Bhumia Kol is the name that has been given them there by the Hindus.

The Mundas and Larka-Kols of Chota Nagpur tell us that they first established themselves there by driving out the Bhuiyas ; and it seems likely that the Bhuiyas formed the first batch of the Munda immigrants in Chota Nagpur and became greatly Hinduised there, and on that account were not recognised by the Mundas as people of their kin." If the tradition of the Mundas and Kols that they came to Chota Nagpur after the Bhuiyas be accepted, and tradition on the point of priority of immigration is often trustworthy, then it follows that the Bhuiyas must be a Munda tribe.

For the main distinction other than that of language between the Munda and Dravidian tribes is that the former were the earlier and the latter subsequent immigrants. The claim of the Bhuiyas to be the earliest residents of Chota Nagpur is supported by the fact that they officiate as priests in certain temples. Because in primitive religion the jurisdiction of the gods is entirely local, and foreigners bringing their own gods with them are ignorant of the character and qualities of the local deities, with which the indigenous residents are, on the other hand, well acquainted. Hence the tendency of later comers to employ these latter in the capacity of priests of the godlings of the earth, corn, forests and hills. Colonel Dalton writes : ^ 1 Linguistic Survey, vol. xiv. Mtnida and Dravidian Languages, p. 217. 2 Page 142. 3 Ibidem, p. 141. 3 TO BHUIYA PART " It is strange that these Hinduised Bhuiyas retain in their own hands the priestly duties of certain old shrines to the exclusion of Brahmans.

This custom has no doubt descended in Bhuiya families from the time when Brahmans were not, or had obtained no footing amongst them, and when the religion of the land and the temples were not Hindu ; they are now indeed dedicated to Hindu deities, but there are evidences of the temples having been originally occupied by other images. At some of these shrines human sacrifices were offered every third year and this continued till the country came under British rule." And again of the Pauri Bhuiyas of Keonjhar :

" The Pauris dispute with the Juangs the claim to be the first settlers in Keonjhar, and boldly aver that the country belongs to them. They assert that the Raja is of their creation and that the prero- gative of installing every new Raja on his accession is theirs, and theirs alone. The Hindu population of Keonjhar is in excess of the Bhuiya and it comprises Gonds and Kols, but the claim of the Pauris to the dominion they arrogate is admitted by all ; even Brahmans and Rajputs respectfully acknowledge it, and the former by the addition of Brah- manical rites to the wild ceremonies of the Bhuiyas affirm and sanctify their installation." In view of this evidence it seems a probable hypothesis that the Bhuiyas are the earliest residents of these parts of Chota Nagpur and that they are a Kolarian tribe.

There appears to be considerable reason for supposing that the Baiga tribe of the Central Provinces are really a branch of the Bhuiyas. Though the Baigas are now mainly returned from Mandla and Balaghat, it seems likely that these Districts were not their original home, and that they emigrated from Chhattlsgarh into the Satpura hills on the western borders of the plain. The hill country of Mandla and the Maikal range of Balaghat form one of the wildest and most inhospitable tracts in the Province, and it is unlikely that the Baigas would have made their first settlements here and spread thence into the fertile plain of Chhattlsgarh.

Migration in the opposite direction would be more natural and probable. But it is fairly certain that the Baiga tribe were among the earliest if not the earliest

residents of the ChhattTsii^arh plain and the hills north and east of it. The IMiaina, Bhunjia and Binjhwar tribes who still reside in this country can all be recognised as offshoots of the Raigas. In the article on Bhaina it is shown that some of the oldest forts in Bilaspur are attributed to the Bhainas and a chief of this tribe is remembered as having ruled in Bilaigarh south of the Mahfinadi, They arc said to have been dominant in Pendra where they arc still most numerous, and to have been expelled from Phuljhar in Raipur by the Gonds.

The Binjhwars or Binjhals again are an aristocratic subdivision of the Baigas, belonging to the hills east of Chhattlsgarh and the Uriya plain country of Sambalpur beyond them.

The zamlndfirs of Bodasamar, Rampur, Bhatgaon and other estates to the south and east of the Chhattlsgarh plain are members of this tribe. Both the Bhainas and Binjhwars are frequently employed as priests of the village deities all over this area, and may therefore be considered as older residents than the Gond and Kawar tribes and the Hindus. Sir G. Grierson also states that the language of the Baigas of Mandla and Balaghat is a form of Chhattisgarhi, and this is fairly con- clusive evidence of their first having belonged to Chhat- tlsgarh.

It seems not unlikely that the Baigas retreated into the hills round Chhattlsgarh after the Hindu invasion and establishment of the Haihaya Rajput dynasty of Ratan- pur, which is now assigned to the ninth century of the Christian era

just as the Gonds retired from the Nerbudda valley and the Nagpur plain before the Hindus several centuries later. Sir H. Risley states that the Binjhias or Binjhwars of Chota Nagpur say that their ancestors came from Ratanpur twenty generations ago." But the Chhattlsgarh plain and the hills north and east 6. The of it are adjacent to and belong to the same tract of country branch ^ as the Chota Nagpur States, which are the home of the of the Bhuiyas, Sir H. Risley gives Baiga as a name for a "'^^^' sorcerer, and as a synonym or title of the Khairwar tribe in Chota Nagpur, possibly having reference to the idea that 1 In the article on Binjhwar, it was But the evidence adduced ahove appears supposed that the Baigas migrated east to show that this view is incorrect, from the Satpura hills into Chhattlsgarh. '-' Tribes and Castes, zx\.. Binjhia.

they, being among the original inhabitants of the country, are best qualified to play the part of sorcerer and propitiate the local gods. It has been suggested in the article on Khairvvar that that tribe are a mongrel offshoot of the Santals and Cheros, but the point to be noticed here is the use of the term Baiga in Chota Nagpur for a sorcerer ; and a sorcerer may be taken as practically equivalent for a priest of the indigenous deities, all tribes who act in this capacity being considered as sorcerers by the Hindus. If the Bhuiyas of Chota Nagpur had the title of Baiga, it is possible that it may have been substituted for the proper tribal name on their migration to the Central Provinces. Mr. Crooke distinguishes two tribes in Mirzapur whom he calls the Bhuiyas and Bhuiyars.

The Bhuiyas of Mirzapur seem to be clearly a branch of the Bhuiya tribe of Chota Nagpur, with whom their section -names establish their identity.^ Mr. Crooke states that the Bhuiyas are dis- tinguished with very great difficulty from the Bhuiyars with whom they are doubtless very closely connected.^ Of the Bhuiyars ^ he writes that the tribe is also known as Baiga, because large numbers of the aboriginal local priests are derived from this caste.

He also states that " Most Bhuiyars are Baigas and officiate in their own as well as allied tribes ; in fact, as already stated, one general name for the tribe is Baiga." ^ It seems not unlikely that these Bhuiyars are the Baigas of the Central Provinces and that they went to Mirzapur from here with the Gonds. Their original name may have been preserved or revived there, while it has dropped out of use in this Province. The name Baiga in the Central Provinces is sometimes applied to members of other tribes who serve as village priests, and, as has already been seen, it is used in the same sense in Chota Nagpur. The Baigas of Mandla are also known as Bhumia, which is only a variant of Bhuiya, having the same meaning of lord of the soil or belonging to the soil. Both Bhuiya and Bhumia are in fact nearly equivalent to our word ' aboriginal,' and both are names given to the tribe by the ^ Crooke, l^ribes and Castes, art. ' Ibidem, ail. Bhuiyar, para. i. Bhuiya, para. 4. - Ibidem, para. 3. < Ibid£in, para. 16.

Hindus and not originally tiiat by which its members called themselves. It would be quite natural that a branch of the Bhuiyas, who settled in the Central Provinces and were commonly employed as village priests by the Hindus and Gonds should have adopted the name of the office, Baiga, as their tribal designation

just as the title of Munda or village headman has become the name of one branch of the Kol tribe, and Bhumij, another term equivalent to Bhuiya, of a second branch. Mr. A. F. Hewitt, Settlement Officer of Raipur, considered that the Buniyas of that District were the same tribe as the Bhuiyas of the Garhjiit States.^ By Buniya he must apparently have meant the Bhunjia tribe of Raipur, who as already stated are an offshoot of the Baigas. Colonel Dalton describes the dances of the Bhuiyas of Chota Nagpur as follows : ^ " The men have each a wide kind of tambourine. They march round in a circle, beating these and singing a ver}^ simple melody in a minor key on four notes. The women dance opposite to them with their heads covered and bodies much inclined, touching each other like soldiers in line, but not holding hands or wreathing arms like the Kols." This account applies very closely to the Sela and Rina dances of the Baigas. The Sela dance is danced by men only w^io similarly march round in a circle, though they do not carry tambourines in the Central Provinces. Here, however, they sometimes carry sticks and march round in opposite directions, passing in and out and hitting their sticks against each other as they meet, the movement being exactly like the grand chain in the Lancers.

Similarly the Baiga women dance the Rina dance by themselves, standing close to each other and bending forward, but not holding each other by the hands and arms, just as described by Colonel Dalton. The Gonds now also have the Sela and Rina dances, but admit that they are derived from the Baigas. Another point of some importance is that the Bhuiyas of Chota Nagpur and the Baigas and the tribes derived from them in the Central Provinces have all com- pletely abandoned their own language and speak a broken form of that of their Hindu neighbours. As has been seen, too, the Bhuiyas are commonly employed as priests in Chota ' Dalton, p. 147. - Page 142. su BHUIYA 7. Tribal sub- di\isions. Xagpur, and there seems therefore to be a strong case for the original identity of the two tribes.^ Both the Baigas and Bhuiyas, however, have now become greatly mixed with the surrounding tribes, the Baigas of Mandla and Balaghat having a strong Gond element. In Singhbhum the Bhuiyas call themselves Pdivan-bans or ' The Children of the Wind,' and in connection with Hanuman's title of Pdivan-ka-pTit or ' The Son of the Wind,' are held to be the veritable apes of the Ramayana who, under the leadership of Hanuman, the monkey-god, assisted the Aryan hero Rama on his expedition to Ceylon.

This may be compared with the name given to the Gonds of the Central Provinces of Rawanbansi, or descendants of Rawan, the idea being that their ancestors were the subjects of Rawan, the demon king of Ceylon, who was conquered by Rama. " All Bhuiyas," Sir H. Risley states, " affect great reverence for the memory of Rikhmun or Rikhiasan, whom they regard, some as a patron deity, others as a mythical ancestor, whose name distinguishes one of the divisions of the tribe. It seems probable that in the earliest stage of belief Rikhmun v\-as the bear-totem of a sept of the tribe, that later on he was transformed into an ancestral hero, and finally promoted to the rank of a tribal god." The Rikhiasan Mahatwar subtribe of the Bhuiyas in the Central Provinces are named after this hero Rikhmun ; the designation of Mahatwar signifies that they are the Mahtos or leaders of the Bhuiyas. The Khandaits or Paiks are another subcaste formed from those who became soldiers ; in Orissa they are now, as already stated, a separate caste of fairly high rank. The Parja or ' subject people ' are the ordinary Bhuiyas, probably those living in Hindu tracts. The Dhur or ' dust

Gonds, and the Parja Gonds of Bastar may be noted as a parallel in nomenclature.

The Rautadi are a territorial group, taking their name from a place called Raotal. The Khandaits practise hypergamy with the Rautadi, taking daughters from them, but not giving their daughters to them. The Pabudia or Madhai are the hill Bhuiyas, and are the 1 The question of the relation of the Baiga tribe to Mr. Crooke's Bhuiyars was first raised by Mr. E. A. H. Blunt, Census Superintendent, United Pro- II TRIBAL SUBDIVISIONS 315 most wild and backward portion of the tribe. Dalton writes of them in Keonjhar : " They arc not bound to fi;4ht for the Raja, though they occasionally take up arms against him. Their duty is to attend on him and carry his loads when he travels about, and so long as they are satisfied with his person and his rule, no more willing or devoted subjects could be found. They arc then in Keonjhar, as in Bonai, a race whom you cannot help liking and taking an interest in from the primitive simplicity of their customs, their amena- bility and their anxiety to oblige ; but unsophisticated as they are they wield an extraordinary power in Keonjhar, and when they take it into their heads to use that power, the country may be said to be governed by an oligarchy composed of the sixty chiefs of the Pawri Desh, the Bhuiya Highlands.

A knotted string passed from village to village in the name of the sixty chiefs throws the entire country into commotion, and the order verbally communicated in connec- tion with it is as implicitly obeyed as if it emanated from the most potent despot." This knotted string is known as GnntJii. The Pabudias say that their ancestors were twelve brothers belonging to Keonjhar, of whom eight went to an unknown country, while the remaining four divided among themselves all the territory of which they had knowledge, this being comprised in the four existing states of Keonjhar, Bamra, Palahara and Bonai. Any Pabudia who takes up his residence permanently beyond the boundaries of these four states is considered to lose his caste, like Hindus in former times who went to dwell in the foreign country beyond the Indus.^ But if the wandering Pabudia returns in two years, and proves that he has not drunk water from any other caste, he is taken back into the fold. Other subdivisions are the Kati or Khatti and the Bathudia, these last being an inferior group who are said to be looked down on because they have taken food from other low castes. No doubt they are really the offspring of irregular unions. In Raigarh the Bhuiyas appear to have no exogamous s. Exo- divisions. When they wish to arrange a marriage they ^^^^ compare the family gods of the parties, and if these are not identical and there is no recollection of a common ancestor 1 Mr. Mazunidar's monograph.

for three generations, the union is permitted. In Sambalpur, however, Mr. Mazumdar states, all Bhuiyas are divided into the following twelve septs : Thakur, or the clan of royal blood ; Saont, from sdmanta, a viceroy ; Padhan, a village headman ; Naik, a military leader ; Kalo, a wizard or priest

Dehri, also a priest ; Chatria, one who carried the royal umbrella ; Sahu, a moneylender ; Majhi, a headman ; Behra, manager of the household ; Amata, counsellor ; and Dand- sena, a police official. The Dehrin sept still worship the village gods on behalf of the tribe.

Marriage is adult, but the more civilised Bhuiyas are gradually adopting Hindu usages, and parents arrange matches for their children while they are still young. Among the Pabudias some primitive customs survive. They have the same system as the Oraons, by which all the bachelors of the village sleep in one large dormitory ; this is known as Dhangarbasa, dhdngar meaning a farmservant or young man, or Mandarghar, the house of the drums, because these instruments are kept in it. " Some villages," Colonel Dalton states, " have a Dhangaria basa, or house for maidens, which, strange to say, they are allowed to occupy without any one to look after them.

They appear to have very great liberty, and slips of morality, so long as they are confined to the tribe, are not much heeded." This intimacy between boys and girls of the same village does not, however, commonly end in marriage, for which a partner should be sought from another village. For this purpose the girls go in a body, taking with them some ground rice decorated with flowers. They lay this before the elders of the village they have entered, saying, ' Keep this or throw it into the water, as you prefer.' The old men pick up the flowers, placing them behind their ears. In the evening all the boys of the village come and dance with the girls, with intervals for courtship, half the total number of couples dancing and sitting out alternately. This goes on all night, and in the morning any couples who have come to an understanding run away together for a day or two. The boy's father niust present a rupee and a piece of cloth to the girl's mother, and the marriage is considered to be completed. Among the Pabudia or Madhai Bhuiyas the bride-price

consists of two bullocks or cows, one of which is given to the girl's father and the other to her brother. The boy's father makes the proposal for marriage, and the consent of the girl is necessary. At the wedding turmeric and rice are offered to the sun ; some rice is then placed on the girl's head and turmeric rubbed on her body, and a brass ring is placed on her finger.

The bridegroom's father says to him, " This girl is ours now : if in future she becomes one-eyed, lame or deaf, she will still be ours." The ceremony concludes with the usual feast and drinking bout. If the boy's father cannot afford the bride-price the couple sometimes run away from home for two or three days, when^ their parents go in search of them and they are brought back and married in the boy's house. A widow is often taken by the younger brother of the 10. Widow- deceased husband, though no compulsion is exerted over ^rid"^^^ her. But the match is common because the Bhuiyas have divorce, the survival of fraternal polyandry, which consists in allow- ing unmarried younger brothers to have access to an elder brother's wife during his lifetime.^ Divorce is allowed for misconduct on the part of the wife or mutual disagreement.

The Bhuiyas commonly take as their principal deity the n. Reii- spirit of the nearest mountain overlooking their village, and S'°"' make offerings to it of butter, rice and fowls. In April they present the first-fruits of the mango harvest. They venerate the sun as Dharam Deota, but no offerings are made to him. Nearly all Bhuiyas worship the cobra, and some of them call it their mother and think they are descended from it. They will not touch or kill a cobra, and do not swear by it. In Rairakhol they venerate a goddess, Rambha Devi, who may be a corn-goddess, as the practice of burning down successive patches of jungle and sowing seed on each for two or three years is here known as rambha. They think that the sun and moon are sentient beings, and that fire and lightning are the children of the sun, and the stars the children of the moon. One day the moon invited the sun to dinner and gave him very nice food, so that the sun asked what it was. The moon said she had cooked her own children, and on this the sun went home and cooked all ^ From Mr. Mazumdar's monograph.

his children and ate them, and this is the reason why there are no stars during the day. But his eldest son, fire, went and hid in a rengal tree, and his daughter, the lightning, darted hither and thither so that the sun could not catch her. And when night came again, and the stars came out, the sun saw how the moon had deceived him and cursed her, saying that she should die for fifteen days in every month. And this is the reason for the waxing and waning of the moon. Ever since this event fire has remained hidden in a rengal tree, and when the Bhuiyas want him they rub two pieces of its wood together and he comes out.

This is the Bhuiya explanation of the production of fire from the friction of wood. In the month of Kartik (October), or the next month, they bring from the forest a branch of the karin tree and venerate it and perform the karma dance in front of it.

They think that this worship and dance will cause the karma tree, the mango, the jack-fruit and the mahua to bear a full crop of fruit. Monday, Wednesday and Friday are considered the proper days for worshipping the deities, and children are often named on a Friday. The dead are either buried or burnt, the corpse being placed always with the feet pointing to its native village. On the tenth day the soul of the dead person is called back to the house. But if a man is killed by a tiger or by falling from a tree no mourning is observed for him, and his soul is not brought back. To perish from snake-bite is considered a natural death, and in such cases the usual obsequies are awarded. This is probably because they revere the cobra as their first mother.

The Pabudia Bhuiyas throw four to eight annas' worth of copper on to the pyre or into the grave, and if the deceased had a cow some ghi or melted butter. No division of property can take place during the lifetime of either parent, but when both have died the children divide the inheritance, the eldest son taking two shares and the others one equal share each. 14. Physi- Colonel Dalton describes the Bhuiyas as, " A dark- cai appear- bfown, well -proportioned race, with black, straight hair, ance and > 1 x o occupation, plentiful on the head, but scant on the face, of middle height, figures well knit and capable of enduring great fatigue, but

li^ht-fnimcd likt> the lUiulu rather tliaii i)re.seiitiiii^ the usual muscuhir development of the hillman." Their dress is scanty, and in the Tributary States Dalton says that the men and women all wear dresses of brown cotton cloth.

This may be because white is a very conspicuous colour in the forests. They wear ornaments and beads, and are dis- tinctive in that neither men nor women practise tattooini^, though in some localities this rule is not observed by the women. To keep themselves warm at night they kindle two fires and sleep between them, and this custom has given rise to the saying, ' Wherever you see a Bhuiya he always has a fire.' In Bamra the Bhuiyas still practise shifting cultivation, for which they burn the forest growth from the hillsides and sow oilseeds in the fresh soil. This method of agriculture is called locally Khasrathumi. They obtain their lands free from the Raja in return for acting as luggage porters and coolies. In Bamra they will not serve as farm- servants or labourers for hire, but elsewhere they are more docile.

A woman divorced for adultery is not again admitted '^S- Social TT 11 1 • -11 customs. to caste mtercourse. Her parents take her to their village, where she has to live in a separate hut and earn her own livelihood. If any Bhuiya steals from a Kol, Ganda or Ghasia he is permanently put out of caste, while for killing a cow the period of expulsion is twelve years. The emblem of the Bhuiyas is a sword, in reference to their employment as soldiers, and this they affix to documents in place of their signature, Bhulia,^ Bholia, Bhoriya, Bholwa, Mihir, Mehar.— A caste of weavers in the Uriya country. In 1901 the Bhulias numbered 26,000 persons, but with the transfer of Sambalpur and the Uriya States to Bengal this figure has been reduced to 5000. A curious fact about the caste is that though solely domiciled in the Uriya territories, many families belonging to it talk Hindi in their own houses. According to one of their traditions they immigrated to this part of the country with the first Chauhan Raja of Patna, and it may be that they are members of some ^ This article is compiled from a paper taken by Mr. Hira Lai at Sonpur.

northern caste who have forgotten their origin and taken to a fresh calling in the land of their adoption. The Koshtas of Chhattisgarh have a subcaste called Bhoriya, and possibly the Bhulias have some connection with these. The caste sometimes call themselves Devang, and Devang or Devangan is the name of another subcaste of Koshtis. Various local derivations of the name are current, generally connecting it with bhiilna, to forget. The Bhulias occupy a higher rank than the ordinary weavers, corresponding with that of the Koshtis elsewhere, and this is to some extent considered to be an unwarranted pretension.

Thus one saying has it : " Formerly a son was born from a Chandal woman ; at that time none were aware of his descent or rank, and so he was called Bhulia (one who is forgotten). He took the loom in his hands and became the brother-in-law of the Ganda." The object here is obviously to relegate the Bhulia to the same impure status as the Ganda. Again the Bhulias affect the honorific title of Meher, and another saying addresses them thus : " Why do you call yourself Meher ? You make a hole in the ground and put your legs into it and are like a cow with foot-and-mouth disease struggling in the mud." The allusion here is to the habit of the weaver of hollowing out a hole for his feet as he sits before the loom, while cattle with foot-and-mouth disease are made to stand in mud to cool and cleanse the feet.

The caste have no subcastes, except that in Kalahandi a degraded section is recognised who are called Sanpara Bhulias, and with whom the others refuse to intermarry. These are, there is little reason to doubt, the progeny of illicit unions. They say that they have two gotras, Nagas from the cobra and Kachhap from the tortoise. But these have only been adopted for the sake of respectability, and exercise no influence on marriage, which is regulated by a number of exogamous groups called vansa. The names of the vansas are usually either derived from villages or are titles or nicknames. Two of them, Bagh (tiger) and Kimir (crocodile), are totemistic, while two more, Kumhar (potter) and Dhuba (washerman), are the names of other castes. Examples of titular names are Bankra (crooked).

Ranjujha (warrior), Kodjit (one who has conquered a score of people) and others. The territorial names arc derived from those of villages where the caste reside at present. Marriage within the vansa is forbidden, but some of the vansas have been divided into bad and san, or great and small, and members of these may marry with each other, the subdivision having been adopted when the original group became so large as to include persons who were practically not relations. The binding portion of the wedding ceremony is that the bridegroom should carry the bride in a basket seven times round the honi or sacrificial fire. If he cannot do this, the girl's grandfather carries them both. After the ceremony the pair return to the bridegroom's village, and are made to sleep on the same bed, some elder woman of the family lying between them. After a few days the girl goes back to her parents and does not rejoin her husband until she attains maturity.

The remarriage of widows is permitted, and in Native States is not less costly to the bridegroom than the regular ceremony. In Sonpur the suitor must proceed to the Raja and pay him twenty rupees for his permission, which is given in the shape of a present of rice and nuts. Similar sums are paid to the caste -fellows and the parents of the girl, and the Raja's rice and nuts are then placed on the heads of the couple, who become man and wife. Divorce may be effected at the instance of the husband or the wife's parents on the mere ground of incompatibility of temper. The position of the caste corresponds to that of the Koshtas ; that is, they rank below the good cultivating castes, but above the menial and servile classes. They eat fowls and the flesh of wild pig, and drink liquor. A liaison with one of the impure castes is the only offence entailing permanent expulsion from social intercourse. A curious rule is that in the case of a woman going wrong with a man of the caste, the man only is temporarily outcasted and forced to pay a fine on read mission, while the woman escapes without penalty. They employ Brahmans for ceremonial purposes. They are considered proverbially stupid, like the Koris in the northern Districts, but very laborious. One saying about them is : " The Kewat catches fish but himself eats crabs, VOL. II Y

and the BhuHa weaves loin-cloths but himself wears only a rag " ; and another : " A BhuHa who is idle is as useless as a confectioner's son who eats sweetmeats, or a money- lender's son with a generous disposition, or a cultivator's son who is extravagant." I. Origin Bhuiljia.^—A small Dravidian tribe residing in the traditions. Bindranawagarh and Khariar zamindaris of the Raipur District, and numbering about 7000 persons. The tribe was not returned outside this area in 191 1, but Sherring mentions them in a list of the hill tribes of the Jaipur zamlndari of Vizagapatam, which touches the extreme south of Bindranawagarh.

The Bhunjias are divided into two branches, Chaukhutia and Chinda, and the former have the following legend of their origin. On one occasion a Bhatra Gond named Bachar cast a net into the Pairi river and brought out a stone. He threw the stone back into the river and cast his net again, but a second and yet a third time the stone came out. So he laid the stone on the bank of the river and went back to his house, and that night he dreamt that the stone was Bura Deo, the great God of the Gonds. So he said : ' If this dream be true let me draw in a deer in my net to-morrow for a sign ' ; and the next day the body of a deer appeared in his net. The stone then called upon the Gond to worship him as Bura Deo, but the Gond demurred to doing so himself, and said he would provide a substitute as a devotee. To this Bura Deo agreed, but said that Bachar, the Gond, must marry his daughter to the substituted worshipper.

The Gond then set out to search for somebody, and in the village of Lafandi he found a Halba of the name of Konda, who was a cripple, deaf and dumb, blind, and a leper. He brought Konda to the stone, and on reaching it he was miraculously cured of all his ailments and gladly began to worship Bura Deo. He afterwards married the Gond's daughter and they had a son called Chaukhutia Bhunjia, who was the ancestor of the Chaukhutia division of the tribe. Now the term Chaukhutia in ^ This article is based on papers by Misra of the Gazetteer office, and Mr. Hira Lai, Mr. Gokul Prasad, Munshi Ganpati Giri, Superintendent, Tahsildar, Dhamtari, Mr. Pyare L^l Bindranawagarh estate. II ORTGIN AND TKAP/TIONS 323 Chhattisc^arhi sit^nifics a bastard, and the story related above is obviously intended to signify that the Chaukhutia J^hunjias are of mixed descent from the Gonds and Halbas. It is clearly with this end in view that the Gond is made to decline to worship the stone himself and promise to find a substitute, an incident which is wholly unnatural and is simply dragged in to meet the case. The Chaukhutia sub- tribe especially worship Bura Deo, and sing a song relating to the finding of the stone in their marriage ceremony as follows :

Johdr, johar Thdkur Dcota, Tiiniko Idgon, Do 7natia ghar men dine tumhdre nam. Johdr, johdr Konda, Tumko Idgon, Do ntatia ghar men, etc. Johdr, johdr Bdchar Jhdkar Tumko Idgoji, etc. Johdr, johdr Bftdha Kdja Tumko Idgon, etc. Johdr, johdr Lafandi Mdti Tumko Idgon, etc. Johdr, johdr Anand Mdti Tumko Idgon, etc. which may be rendered :

I make obeisance to thee, O Thakur Deo, I bow down to thee ! In thy name have I placed two pots in my house (as a mark of respect). I make obeisance to thee, O Konda Pujari, I bow down to thee ! In thy name have I placed two pots in my house. I make obeisance to thee, O Bachar Jhakar ! In thy name have I placed two pots in my house. I make obeisance to thee, O Biadha Raja ! In thy name have I placed two pots in my house. I make obeisance to thee, O Soil of Lafandi ! In thy name have I placed two pots in my house. I make obeisance to thee, O Happy Spot ! In thy name have I placed two pots in my house. The song refers to the incidents in the story. Thakur Deo is the title given to the divine stone, Konda is the Halba priest, and Bachar the Gond who cast the net.

Budha Raja, otherwise Singh Sei, is the Chief who was ruling in Bindranawagarh at the time, Lafandi the village where Konda Halba was found, and the Anand Mati or Happy Spot is that where the stone was taken out of the river. The majority of the sept-names returned are of Gond origin, and there seems no doubt that the Chaukhutias are, as the story says, of mixed descent from the Halbas and Goods. It is

noticeable, however, that the Bhunjias, though surrounded by Gonds on all sides, do not speak Gondi but a dialect of Hindi, which Sir G. Grierson considers to resemble that of the Halbas, and also describes as " A form of Chhattlsgarhi which is practically the same as Baigani. It is a jargon spoken by Binjhwars, Bhumias and Bhunjias of Raipur, Raigarh, Sarangarh and Patna in the Central Provinces." ^ The Binjhwars also belong to the country of the Bhunjias, and one or two estates close to Bindranawagarh are held by members of this tribe. The Chinda division of the Bhunjias have a saying about themselves: ' Chinda Raja, BJiunjia Pdik^ ; and they say that there was originally a Kamar ruler of Bindranawagarh who was dispossessed by Chinda. The Kamars are a small and very primitive tribe of the same locality.

Pdik means a foot-soldier, and it seems therefore that the Bhunjias formed the levies of this Chinda, who may very probably have been one of themselves. The term Bhunjia may perhaps signify one who lives on the soil, from bhuni, the earth, and jia, dependent on. The word Birjia, a synonym for Binjhwar, is similarly a corruption of bewar jia, and means one who is dependent on dahia or patch cultivation. Sir H. Risley gives Birjia, Binjhia and Binjhwar ^ as synonymous terms, and Bhunjia may be another corruption of the same sort.

The Binjhwars are a Hinduised offshoot of the ancient Baiga tribe, who may probably have been in possession of the hills bordering the Chhattlsgarh plain as well as of the Satpura range before the advent of the Gonds, as the term Baiga is employed for a village priest over a large part of this area. It thus seems not improbable that the Chinda Bhunjias may have been derived from the Binjhwars, and this would account for the fact that the tribe speaks a dialect of Hindi and not Gondi. As already seen, the Chaukhutia subcaste appear to be of mixed origin from the Gonds and Halbas, and as the Chindas are probably descended from the Baigas, the Bhunjias may be considered to be an offshoot from these three important tribes, 2. Sub- Of the two subtribes already mentioned the Chaukhutia divisions. ' P'rom the Index of Languages and - Tribes and Castes of Bengal, art. Dialects, furnished by Sir G. Grierson Binjhia. for the census.

are recognised to be of illegitimate descent. As a consequence of this they strive to obtain increased social estimation by a ridiculously strict observance of the rules of ceremonial purity. If any man not of his own caste touches the hut where a Chaukhutia cooks his food, it is entirely abandoned and a fresh one built. At the time of the census they threatened to kill the enumerator if he touched their huts to affix the census number.

Pegs had therefore to be planted in the ground a little in front of the huts and marked with their numbers. The Chaukhutia will not eat food cooked by other members of his own community, and this is a restriction found only among those of bastard descent, where every man is suspicious of his neighbour's parentage. He will not take food from the hands of his own daughter after she is married ; as soon as the ceremony is over her belongings are at once removed from the hut, and even the floor beneath the seat of the bride and bridegroom during the marriage ceremony is dug up and the surface earth thrown away to avoid any risk of defilement. Only when it is remembered that these rules are observed by people who do not wash themselves from one week's end to the other, and wear the same wisp of cloth about their loins until it comes to pieces, can the full absurdity of such customs as the above be appreciated. But the tendency appears to be of the same kind as the intense desire for respectability so often noticed among the lower classes in England.

The Chindas, whose pedigree is more reliable, are far less particular about their social purity. As already stated, the exogamous divisions of the 3- i^^ar- Bhunjias are derived from those of the Gonds. Among '"^ the Chaukhutias it is considered a great sin if the signs of puberty appear in a girl before she is married, and to avoid this, if no husband has been found for her, they perform a ' Kand Byah ' or ' Arrow Marriage ' : the girl walks seven times round an arrow fixed in the ground, and is given away without ceremony to the man who by previous arrangement has brought the arrow. If a girl of the Chinda group goes wrong with an outsider before marriage and becomes pregnant, the matter is hushed up, but if she is a Chaukhutia it is said that she is finally expelled from the community,

the same severe course being adopted even when she is not pregnant if there is reason to suppose that the offence has been committed. A proposal for marriage among the Chaukhutias is made on the boy's behalf by two men who are known as Mahalia and Jangalia, and are supposed to represent a Nai (barber) and Dhlmar (water-carrier), though they do not actually belong to these castes. As among the Gonds, the marriage takes place at the bridegroom's village, and the Mahalia and Jangalia act as stewards of the cere- mony, and are entrusted with the rice, pulse, salt, oil and other provisions, the bridegroom's family having no function in the matter except to pay for them. The provisions are all stored in a separate hut, and when the time for the feast has come they are distributed raw to all the guests, each family of whom cook for themselves. The reason for this is, as already explained, that each one is afraid of losing status by eating with other members of the tribe.

The marriage is solemnised by walking round the sacred post, and the ceremony is conducted by a hereditary priest known as Dinwari, a member of the tribe, whose line it is believed will never become extinct. Among the Chinda Bhunjias the bride goes away with her husband, and in a short time returns with him to her parents' house for a few days, to make an offering to the deities. But the Chaukhutias will not allow her, after she has lived in her father-in-law's house, to return to her home. In future if she goes to visit her parents she must stay outside the house and cook her food separately. Widow-marriage and divorce are permitted, but a husband will often overlook transgressions on the part of his wife and only put her away when her conduct has become an open scandal. In such a case he will either quietly leave house and wife and settle alone in another village, or have his wife informed by means of a neighbour that if she does not leave the village he will do so. It is not the custom to bring cases before the tribal committee or to claim damages. A special tie exists between a man and his sister's children.

The marriage of a brother's son or daughter to a sister's daughter or son is considered the most suitable. A man will not allow his sister's children .to eat the leavings of food on his plate,

though his own children may do so. This is a special token of respect to his sister's children. He will not chastise his sister's children, even though they deserve it. And it is considered especially meritorious for a man to pay for the wedding ceremony of his sister's son or daughter. Every third year in the month of Chait (March) the 4- Reii- tribe offer a goat and a cocoanut to Mata, the deity of ^' cholera and smallpox. They bow daily to the sun with folded hands, and believe that he is of special assistance to them in the liquidation of debt, which the Bhunjias consider a primary obligation. When a debt has been paid off they offer a cocoanut to the sun as a mark of gratitude for his assistance. They also pay great reverence to the tortoise. They call the tortoise the footstool (jpidha) of God, and have adopted the Hindu theory that the earth is supported by a tortoise swimming in the midst of the ocean. Professor Tylor explains as follows how this belief arose : ^ " To man in the lower levels of science the earth is a flat plain over which the sky is placed like a dome as the arched upper shell of the tortoise stands upon the flat plate below, and this is why the tortoise is the symbol or representative of the world," It is said that Bhunjia women are never allowed to sit either on a footstool or a bed -cot, because these are considered to be the seats of the deities.

They consider it disrespectful to walk across the shadow of any elderly person, or to step over the body of any human being or revered object on the ground. If they do this inadvert- ently, they apologise to the person or thing. If a man falls from a tree he will offer a chicken to the tree-spirit. The tribe will eat pork, but abstain from beef and the s- Social flesh of monkeys. Notwithstanding their strictness of social observance, they rank lower than the Gonds, and only the Kamars will accept food from their hands. A man who has got maggots in a wound is purified by being given to drink water, mixed with powdered turmeric, in which silver and copper rings have been dipped. Women are secluded during the menstrual period for as long as eight days, and during this time they may not enter the dwelling-hut nor touch any article belonging to it.

The Bhunjias take their ^ Early History of J\Iaiiki)id, p. 341. 328 BHUNJIA PART II food on plates of leaves, and often a whole family will have only one brass vessel, which will be reserved for production on the visit of a guest. But no strangers can be admitted to the house, and a separate hut is kept in the village for their use. Here they are given uncooked grain and pulse, which they prepare for themselves. When the women go out to work they do not leave their babies in the house, but carry them tied up in a small rag under the arm. They have no knowledge of medicine and are too timid to enter a Government dispensary. Their panacea for most dis- eases is branding the skin with a hot iron, which is employed indifferently for headache, pains in the stomach and rheumatism. Mr. Pyare Lai notes that one of his informants had recently been branded for rheumatism on both knees and said that he felt much relief.

list of paragraphs 1. Orlghi and tradition. 5. Sexual morality. 2. Tribal subdivisions. 6. Disposal of the dead. 3. Marriage. 7. Religiofi. 4. The marriage ceremojiy. 8. Festivals. 9. Social customs. Binjhwar,Binjhal.^—A comparatively civilised Dravidian i. Origin tribe, or caste formed from a tribe, found in the Raipur and ^j'^jitjo^ Bilaspur Districts and the adjoining Uriya country. In 191 1 the Binjhwars numbered 60,000 persons in the Central Provinces. There is little or no doubt that the Binjhwars are an offshoot of the primitive Baiga tribe of Mandla and Balaghat, who occupy the Satpura or Maikal hills to the north of the Chhattlsgarh plain.

In these Districts a Binjhwar subdivision of the Baigas exists ; it is the most civilised and occupies the highest rank in the tribe. In Bhandara is found the Injhwar caste who are boatmen and cultivators. This caste is derived from the Binjhwar subdivision of the Baigas, and the name Injhwar is simply a corruption of Binjhwar. Neither the Binjhwars nor the Baigas are found except in the territories above mentioned, and it seems clear that the Binjhwars are a comparatively civilised section of the Baigas, who have become a distinct caste. They are in fact the landholding section of the Baigas, like the Raj-Gonds among the Gonds and the Bhilalas among Bhils. The zamlndars of Bodasamar, Rampur, Bhatgaon and other estates to the south and east of the Chhattlsgarh plain belong to this tribe. But owing 1 This article is based on a paper by Mr. Mian Bhai Abdul Hussain, Extra Assistant Commissioner, Sambalpur.

to the change of name their connection with the parent Baigas has now been forgotten. The name Binjhwar is derived from the Vindhya hills, and the tribe still worship the goddess Vindhyabasini of these hills as their tutelary deity. They say that their ancestors migrated from Binjha- kop to Lampa, which may be either Lamta in Balaghat or Laphagarh in Bilaspur. The hills of Mandla, the home of perhaps the most primitive Baigas, are quite close to the Vindhya range. The tribe say that their original ancestors were Bdrah bhai betkdr, or the twelve Brother Archers.

They were the sons of the goddess Vindhyabasini. One day they were out shooting and let off their arrows, which flew to the door of the great temple at Puri and stuck in it. Nobody in the place was able to pull them out, not even when the king's elephants were brought and harnessed to them ; till at length the brothers arrived and drew them forth quite easily with their hands, and the king was so pleased with their feat that he gave them the several estates which their descendants now hold. The story recalls that of Arthur and the magic sword.

According to another legend the mother of the first Raja of Patna, a Chauhan Rajput, had fled from northern India to Sambalpur after her husband and relations had been killed in battle. She took refuge in a Binjhwar's hut and bore a son who became Raja of Patna ; and in reward for the protection afforded to his mother he gave the Binjhwar the Bodasamar estate, requiring only of him and his descendants the tribute of a silk cloth on accession to the zamindari ; and this has been rendered ever since by the zamlndars of Bodasamar to the Rajas of Patna as a mark of fealty. It is further stated that the twelve archers when they fired the memor- able arrows in the forest were in pursuit of a wild boar ; and the landholding class of Binjhwars are called Bariha from bdrdh, a boar. As is only fitting, the Binjhwars have taken the arrow as their tribal symbol or mark ; their cattle are branded with it, and illiterate Binjhwars sign it in place of their name. If a husband cannot be found for a girl she is sometimes married to an arrow. At a Binjhwar wedding an arrow is laid on the trunk of mahua ^ which forms the 1 Bassia latifolia.

marriage-post, and honours are paid to it as representing the bridegroom. The tribe have four subdivisions, the Binjhwars proper, a. Tribal the Sonjharas, the Birjhias and the Binjhias. The Sonjharas jl^j'sions consist of those who took to washing for gold in the sands of the Mahanadi, and it may be noted that a separate caste of Sonjharas is also in existence in this locality besides the Binjhwar group. The Birjhias are those who practised bezvar or shifting cultivation in the forests, the name being derived from beivarjia, one living by bewar-^o'wmg. Binjhia is simply a diminutive form of Binjhwar, but in Bilaspur it is sometimes regarded as a separate caste.

The zamlndar of Bhatgaon belongs to this group. The tribe have also exogamous divisions, the names of which are of a diverse character, and on being scrutinised show a mixture of foreign blood. Among totemistic names are Bagh, a tiger ; Pod, a buffalo ; Kamalia, the lotus flower ; Panknali, the water- crow ; Tar, the date-palm ; Jal, a net, and others. Some of the sections are nicknames, as Udhar, a debtor ; Marai Meli Bagh, one who carried a dead tiger ; Ultum, a talker ; Jalia, a liar ; Kessal, one who has shaved a man, and so on. Several are the names of other castes, as Lobar, Dudh Kawaria, Bhil, Banka and Majhi, indicating that members of these castes have become Binjhwars and have founded families.

The sept names also differ in different localities ; the Birjhia subtribe who live in the same country as the Mundas have several Munda names among their septs, as Munna, Son, Solai ; while the Binjhwars who are neighbours of the Gonds have Gond sept names, as Tekam, Sonwani, and others. This indicates that there has been a considerable amount of intermarriage with the surrounding tribes, as is the case generally among the lower classes of the population in Chhattlsgarh. Even now if a woman of any caste from whom the Binjhwars will take water to drink forms a con- nection with a man of the tribe, though she herself must remain in an irregular position, her children will be considered as full members of it.

The Barhias or landowning group have now adopted names of Sanskrit formation, as Gajendra, an elephant, Rameswar, the god Rama, and Nageshwar, the cobra deity. Two of their septs are named Lobar (black- 332 BINJHWAR part smith) and Kumhar (potter), and may be derived from members of these castes who became Binjhvvars or from Binjhwars who took up the occupations. At a Binjhwar wedding the presence of a person belonging to each of the Lobar and Kumhar septs is essential, the reason being probably the estimation in which the two handicrafts were held when the Binjhwars first learnt them from their Hindu neighbours. 3. Mar- In Sambalpur there appears to be no system of riage. exogamous groups, and marriage is determined simply by relationship. The union of agnates is avoided as long as the connection can be traced between them, but on the mother's side all except first cousins may marry. Marriage is usually adult, and girls are sometimes allowed to choose their own husbands.

A bride-price of about eight kJiandis (1400 lbs.) of unhusked rice is paid. The ceremony is performed at the bridegroom's house, to which the bride proceeds after bidding farewell to her family and friends in a fit of weeping. Weddings are avoided during the four months of the rainy season, and in Chait (March) because it is inauspicious, Jeth (May) because it is too hot, and Pus (December) because it is the last month of the year among the Binjhwars. The marriage ceremony should begin on a Sunday, when the guests are welcomed and their feet washed. On Monday the formal reception of the bride takes place, the Gandsan or scenting ceremony follows on Tuesday, and on Wednesday is the actual wedding. At the scenting ceremony seven married girls dressed in new clothes dyed yellow with turmeric conduct the bridegroom round the central post ; one holds a dish containing rice, mango leaves, myrobalans and betel-nuts, and a second sprinkles water from a small pot. At each round the bridegroom is made to throw some of the condiments from the dish on to the wedding-post, and after the seven rounds he is seated and is rubbed with oil and turmeric.

4. The Among the Birjhias a trunk of mahua with two branches marriage jg ercctcd in the marriacre-shed, and on this a dagger is ceremony. ° _ '^^ placed in a winnowing-fan filled with rice, the former repre- senting the bridegroom and the latter the bride. The bride first goes round the post seven times alone, and then the bridegroom, and after this they go round it together. A

ploui^h is brou;^ht and they stand upon the yoke, and seven cups of water havini^ been collected from seven different houses, four arc poured over the brider,froom and three over the bride. Some men climb on to the top of the shed and pour pots of water down on to the couple. This is now said to be done only as a joke. Next morninj^ two strong men take the bridegroom and bride, who are usually grown up, on their backs, and the parties pelt each other with unhusked rice. Then the bridegroom holds the bride in his arms from behind and they stand facing the sun, while some old man ties round their feet a thread specially spun by a virgin.

The couple stand for some time and then fall to the ground as if dazzled by his rays, when water is again poured over their bodies to revive them. Lastly, an old man takes the arrow from the top of the marriage-post and draws three lines with it on the ground to represent the Hindu trinity, Brahma, Vishnu and Siva, and the bridegroom jumps over these holding the bride in his arms. The couple go to bathe in a river or tank, and on the way home the bridegroom shoots seven arrows at an image of a sambhar deer made with straw. At the seventh shot the bride's brother takes the arrow, and running away and hiding it in his cloth lies down at the entrance of the bridegroom's house. The couple go up to him, and the bridegroom examines his body with suspicion, pretending to think that he is dead. He draws the arrow out of his cloth and points to some blood which has been previously sprinkled on the ground. After a time the boy gets up and receives some liquor as a reward. This procedure may perhaps be a symbolic survival of marriage by capture, the bridegroom killing the bride's brother before carrying her off, or more probably, perhaps, the boy may represent a dead deer.

In some of the wilder tracts the man actually waylays and seizes the girl before the wedding, the occasion being previously determined, and the women of her family trying to prevent him. If he succeeds in carrying her off they stay for three or four days in the forest and then return and are married. If a Binjhwar girl is seduced and rendered pregnant by 5. Sexual a man of the tribe, the people exact a feast and compel '"°'"^iy- them to join their hands in an informal manner before the

caste committee, the tie thus formed being considered as indissoluble as a formal marriage. Polygamy is permitted ; a Binjhvvar zamindar marries a new wife, who is known as Pat Rani, to celebrate his accession to his estates, even though he may have five or six already. Divorce is recognised but is not very common, and a married woman having an intrigue with another Binjhwar is often simply made over to him and they live as husband and wife.

If this man does not wish to take her she can live with any other, conjugal morality being very loose in Sambalpur. In Bodasamar a fine of from one to ten rupees is payable to the zamindar in the case of each divorce, and a feast must also be given to the caste-fellows. 6. Disposal The tribe usually bury the dead, and on the third day of the they place on the grave some uncooked rice and a lighted lamp. As soon as an insect flies to the lamp they catch it, and placing it in a cake of flour carry this to a stream, where it is worshipped with an offering of coloured rice.

It is then thrust into the sand or mud in the bed of the stream with a grass broom. This ceremony is called Kharpani or ' Grass and Water,' and appears to be a method of disposing of the dead man's spirit. It is not performed at all for young children, while, on the other hand, in the case of respected elders a second ceremony is carried out of the same nature, being known as Badapani or ' Great Water.' On this occasion the jivn or soul is worshipped with greater pomp. Except in the case of wicked souls, who are supposed to become malignant ghosts, the Binjhwars do not seem to have any definite belief in a future life. They say, ^ Je maris te saris', or ' That which is dead is rotten and gone.' 7. Reii- The tribe worship the common village deities of Chhat- gioti. tlsgarh, and extend their veneration to Bura Deo, the principal god of the Gonds. They venerate their daggers, spears and arrows on the day of Dasahra, and every third year their tutelary goddess Vindhyabasini is carried in pro- cession from village to village. Mr. Mian Bhai gives the following list of precepts as forming the Binjhwar's moral code :

—Not to commit adultery outside the caste ; not to eat beef ; not to murder ; not to steal ; not to swear falsely before the caste committee. The tribe have gurus or ir spiritual preceptors, whom he describes as the most itinerant Bairagis, very Httle better than impostors. When a b(jy or girl grows up the Bairagi comes and whispers the Karn mnntra or spell in his ear, also hanging a necklace of iulsi (basil) beads round his neck ; for this the guru receives a cloth, a cocoanut and a cash payment of four annas to a rupee. Thereafter he visits his disciples annually at harvest time and receives a present of grain from them. On the iith of Bhadon (August) the tribe celebrate 8. Festi- the karma festival, which is something like May-Day or a ^^^' harvest feast. The youths and maidens go to the forest and bring home a young karma tree, singing, dancing and beating drums.

Offerings are made to the tree, and then the whole village, young and old, drink and dance round it all through the night. Next morning the tree is taken to the nearest stream or tank and consigned to it. After this the young girls of five or six villages make up a party and go about to the different villages accompanied by drummers and Ganda musicians. They are entertained for the night, and next morning dance for five or six hours in the village and then go on to another. The tribe are indiscriminate in their diet, which includes 9. Social pork, snakes, rats, and even carnivorous animals, as panthers. ^'^'^'°'^^- They refuse only beef, monkeys and the leavings of others. The wilder Binjhwars of the forests will not accept cooked food from any other caste, but those who live in association with Hindus will take it when cooked without water from a few of the higher ones. The tribe are not considered as impure.

Their dress is very simple, consisting as a rule only of one dirty white piece of cloth in the case of both men and women. Their hair is unkempt, and they neither oil nor comb it. A genuine Binjhwar of the hills wears long frizzled hair with long beard and moustaches, but in the open country they cut their hair and shave the chin. Every Binjhwar woman is tattooed either before, or just after her marriage, when she has attained to the age of adolescence. A man will not touch or accept food from a woman who is not tattooed on the feet. The expenses must be paid either by the woman's parents or her brothers and not by her husband. The practice is carried to an extreme, and many

women have the upper part of the chest, the arms from shoulder to wrist, and the feet and legs up to the knee covered with devices. On the chest and arms the patterns are in the shape of flowers and leaves, while along the leg a succession of zigzag lines are pricked. The Binjhwars are usually cultivators and labourers, while, as already stated, several zamlndari and other estates are owned by members of the tribe. Binjhwars also commonly hold the office of Jhankar or priest of the village gods in the Sambalpur District, as the Baigas do in Mandla and Balaghat. In Sambalpur the Jhankar or village priest is a universal and recognised village servant of fairly high status.

His business is to conduct the worship of the local deities of the soil, crops, forests and hills, and he generally has a substantial holding, rent free, containing some of the best land in the village. It is said locally that the Jhankar is looked on as the founder of the village, and the representative of the old owners who were ousted by the Hindus. He worships on their behalf the indigenous deities, with whom he naturally possesses a more intimate acquaintance than the later immi- grants ;

while the gods of these latter cannot be relied on to exercise a sufficient control over the works of nature in the foreign land to which they have been imported, or to ensure that the earth and the seasons will regularly perform their necessary functions in producing sustenance for mankind.