Lorha
This article was written in 1916 when conditions were different. Even in Readers will be able to edit existing articles and post new articles directly |
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.
Lorha
A small caste of cultivators in the Hoshangabad and Nimar Districts, whose distinctive occupation is to grow san-heva^^ {Crotalaria junced) and to make sacking and gunny-bags from the fibre. A very strong prejudice against this crop exists among the Hindus, and those who grow it are usually cut off from their parent caste and become a separate community. Thus we have the castes known as Kumrawat, Patblna and Dangur in different parts of the Province, who are probably offshoots from the Kurmis and Kunbis, but now rank below them because they grow this crop ; and in the Kurmi caste itself a subcaste of Santora (hemp -picking) Kurmis has grown up.
In Bilaspur the 1 Berdr Census Report, \'i>'i\{yj\\.i'A). * This article is partly based on „ , . , ^ , , , papers by Mr. P. B. Telancr, Muiisiff ' Piwidb Eilnio'jraphy. i^ara. 624. J, ,.-, , i>, -.vt- ,, •^ .s y ^» 1 t Seoul- Malwa, and Mr. Wanian Kao ^ Bombay Gazetteer^ xvi. 82. Mandloi, naib-tahslldar, Harda.
Patharia Kurmis will grow J^^^w-hemp and ret it, but will not spin or weave the fibre ; while the Atharia Kurmis will not grow the crop, but will spin the fibre and make sacking. The Saugor Kewats grow this fibre, and here Brahmans and other high castes will not take water from Kewats, though in the eastern Districts they will do so.
The Narsinghpur Mallahs, a branch of the Kewats, have also adopted the cultivation of j-crw-hemp as a regular profession. The basis of the prejudice against the Jcz//-hemp plant is not altogether clear. The Lorhas themselves say that they are looked down upon because they use wheat-starch {lapsi) for smooth- ing the fibre, and that their name is somehow derived from this fact. But the explanation does not seem satisfactory. Many of the country people appear to think that there is something uncanny about the plant because it grows so quickly, and they say that on one occasion a cultivator went out to sow hemp in the morning, and his wife was very late in bringing his dinner to the field.
He grew hungry and angry, and at last the shoots of the hemp-seeds which he had sown in the morning began to appear above the ground. At this he was so enraged that when his wife finally came he said she had kept him waiting so long that the crop had come up in the meantime, and murdered her. Since then the Hindus have been forbidden to grow j'rt;/-hemp lest they should lose their tempers in the same manner.
This story makes a somewhat excessive demand on the hearer's credulity. One probable cause of the taboo seems to be that the process of soaking and retting the stalks of the plant pollutes the water, and if carried on in a tank or in the pools of a stream might destroy the village supply of drinking-water. In former times it may have been thought that the desecration of their sacred element was an insult to the deities of rivers and streams, which would bring down retribution on the offender. It is also the case that the proper separation of the fibres requires a considerable degree of dexterity which can only be acquired by practice. Owing to the recent increase in the price of the fibre and the large profits which can now be obtained from hemp cultivation, the prejudice against it is gradually breaking down, and the Gonds, Korkus and lower Hindu castes have waived their religious scruples
and are glad to turn an honest penny by sowing hemp either on their own account or for hire. Other partially tabooed crops are turmeric and dl or Indian madder {Morinda citri- folia), while onions and garlic are generally eschewed by Hindu cultivators. For growing turmeric and dl special subcastes have been formed, as the Alia Kunbis and the Hardia Malis and Kachhis (from Jialdi, turmeric), just as in the case of j'<a:;z-hemp. The objection to these two crops is believed to lie in the fact that the roots which yield the commercial product have to be boiled, and by this process a number of insects contained in them are destroyed.
But the preparation of the hemp-fibre does not seem to involve any such sacrifice of insect life. The Lorhas appear to be a mixed group, with a certain amount of Rajput blood in them, perhaps an offshoot of the Kirars, with whose social customs their own are said to be identical. According to another account, they are a lower or illegitimate branch of the Lodha caste of cultivators, of whose name their own is said to be a corruption. The Nimar Gujars have a subcaste named Lorha, and the Lorhas of Hoshangabad may be connected with these.
They live in the Seoni and Harda tahslls of Hoshangabad, the j-(^;2-hemp crop being a favourite one in villages adjoining the forests, because it is not subject to the depredations of wild animals. Cultivators are often glad to sublet their fields for the purpose of having a crop of hemp grown upon them, because the stalks are left for manure and fertilise the ground. String and sacking are also made from the hemp -fibre by vagrant and criminal castes like the Banjaras and Bhamtas, who formerly required the bags for carrying their goods and possessions about with them.
