Husbandmen castes: Sholapur
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Husbandmen castes: Sholapur
This is an extract from a British Raj gazetteer pertaining to Sholapur that seems |
Husbandmen
Husbandmen include three classes with a strength of 204,273. Of these 1437 (males 746, females 6.91) were Hatkars, 178,938 (males 89,978, females 88,960) Maratha Kunbis, and 23,898 (males 12,093, females 11,805) Malis.
Hatkars
Ha'tkars are returned as numbering 1437 and as found over the whole district. They say they came from Bijapur about a hundred and twenty-fire years ago. Their surnames are Bhusvar, Jarvar, Karvar, Sadgar, and Yarngar, who eat together and intermarry except with families bearing the same surname. They speak Marathi and eat the flesh of goats, sheep, hare, and deer, and drink liquor, A family of five spends 8s. to 12s. (Rs. 4-6) a month on food and a feast costs £2 to £3 (Rs. 20-30). The women do not eat fish or flesh, and men who have eaten flesh are held impure and are not touched till the next morning. Flesh is not cooked or eaten in a house where women live and flesh feasts are held in out-of-the-way places. In house and dress they do not differ from Marathas. They are landholders, potters, messengers, house servants, shepherds, and a few moneychangers. Their family deities are Bhavani, Durga, Khandoba, and Sidoba, and their priests are ordinary Maratha Brahmans. Their women are impure for twelve days after childbirth, they worship Satvai on the fifth, and name girls on the twelfth and boys on the thirteenth. They cut the child's hair any time between its first and its fourteenth years. The hair-cutting is later with them than with other castes, as before cutting the hair they have to offer seven sheep to seven different Satvais and hold feasts. They have betrothals. Patils are paid £5 to £10 (Rs. 50-100) when their boys are married, in other cases the boy's father has to pay the girl's father £5 to £50 (Rs. 50-500). Except that they tie two marriage ornaments one over the other on the boy's and girl's brows, their marriage ceremonies do not differ from those of Marathas. Their marriage guardians are the panch palvis or five tree-leaves in whose honour they feast five married women, seven in honour of the goddess Satvai, five in honour of Jukerya the water goddess, seven in honour of the goddess Ashar, and three in honour of Gadjivan. They either bury or burn the dead. The chief mourner shaves his moustache on the thirteenth day after death and feasts his caste. They have two headmen each of whom they term gauda the Kanarese for headman. They send their boys to school and are steady people.
Maratha Kunbis
Marathas [Details are given in the Poona Statistical Account.] are returned as numbering about 180,000 and as found over the whole district. According to local accounts the Marathas came to Sholapur from Karhad, Satara, and the western Deccan after the great Durgadevi famine at the close of the fourteenth century. After their coming they are said to have degenerated into Kunbis. A Maratha proper keeps no spinning wheel or bell-metal pot in his house, allows no widow marriage, and never owns a particoloured quilt or vakal. A Kunbi allows widow marriage and keeps the wheel and the quilt, and eats and drinks from bellmetal vessels. Kunbis are said to be bastards or akarmashe Marathas the offspring of a Maratha by a Maratha woman not his wife. The Marathas and Kunbis eat together but do not intermarry. Maratha Kunbis vary greatly in appearance. Some of the gentry, the village headmen, and other large landholders are strongly built occasionally fair with good features and a martial air. The bulk of the caste, though as a rule stalwart and well made, are dark and coarse featured hardly to be distinguished from Dhangars and Mhars. All the men wear the top-knot and among the Kunbis some wear ear tufts. All wear the moustache, some the whiskers, and some both whiskers and beards. Marathas both at home and abroad speak a somewhat coarsely and broadly pronounced Marathi. [The leading local peculiarities are emphasising the last syllable of a word if it is long and lengthening it if it is short and at the same time shortening and flattening the last syllable but one. Thus boltat they say becomes boltete;jatat, they go, jatete; kartat, they do, kartete. Nasals are also much rarer than in Poona.]Rich Marathas live in houses of the better sort generally one storey high with mud walk and flat or tiled roofs. Of the old mud walled forts or gaddis, which, in the hands of the Maratha gentry or deshmukhs, sometimes held out against an army, examples remain in Kashegaon, Gurhal, and Mohol. The furniture in Maratha houses includes metal and earthen vessels, bedsteads, and field tools. Most of them have cattle and ponies but few keep house servants. A servant's yearly wages vary from £2 to £2 10s. (Rs. 20-25) with food; the monthly keep of a cow costs about 8s. (Rs. 4) and of a she-buffalo 10s. to 12s. (Rs. 5-6). Kunbis generally live in untidy, ill-cared for mud-walled flat-roofed houses which would cost about £15 (Rs. 150) to build and 8s. to 12s. (Rs. 4 - 6) a year to rent. Their staple food includes millet, pulse, and vegetables. They eat the flesh of sheep, goats, hare, deer, fowls, the wild hog, and eggs, and drink liquor. They are great eaters. The Marathi saying is If grain is not life then of what use is life. [The Marathi runs: Annamev pran nahi tar kay upayogache.] Their holiday dishes include wheat and gram cakes fried in oil, wheat cakes, vegetables, fowls, and mutton and liquor. Animal food is too dear to be often used. Those who have become varkariaor keepers of holy times profess to leave off fish flesh and liquor. But many of them still eat flesh and drink liquor on the sly after hanging their tulsi bead necklace to a peg. Maratha men dress in a loincloth, a waistcloth, or a pair of short drawers reaching the knee. The well-to-do use silk-bordered waistcloths and gaily dyed tight-fitting well folded Maratha turbans. Their women wear the backed short-sleeved bodice and the full robe with or without passing the skirt back between the feet. When going out women of the higher Maratha families cover themselves from head to foot with a broad white sheet which prevents any part of the body being seen. This is commonly known as the Maratha mola or Maratha practice. They do not work out of doors, the water being brought home by servants or by the men of the house. An upper class Maratha woman on no account shows her face before strangers. The wives of Kunbis work in the fields and appear with their faces uncovered in public. Women wear glass bracelets, and pearl gold and silver nose, ear, neck, hand and foot ornaments, as well as the black glass bead necklace the mangal-sutra or lucky thread. The ordinary dress of a Kunbi man does not cost more than six or eight shillings (Rs. 3-4) and of a woman 12s. to 14s. (Rs. 6-7) a year. They keep in stock a silk-bordered waistcloth worth 6s. to 10s. (Rs.3-5), and a turban worth 12s. to 14s. (Rs.6-7). A robe for special occasions costs 10s. to 12s. (Rs. 5-6) and a bodice 1s. to 1s. 3d. (8-10 as.). They are hardworking, hospitable, and frugal in ordinary life, but wanting in forethought and extravagant on great occasions. Most are husbandmen. Of the husbandmen many are landholders, many under holders, and many field labourers with no interest in the crop beyond their wages. The women help the men in the field. The field labourers are generally paid in grain and during the harvest seasons make good profits. Landholders have generally some stock of farm cattle.
The position of Maratha Kunbis in the local caste list is rather uncertain. Well-to-do Marathas claim connection with the old Maratha aristocracy and consider themselves Rajputs and Kshatriyas, claim to rank immediately after Brahmans, and say they eat from Brahmans only. The Kunbis consider themselves Shudras and eat from Brahmans, Kshatriyas, and Vaishyas. The Kunbis' busy season begins in May when they start making ready their fields for the next season. They work from sunrise to sunset with a short midday rest. Their slack season begins about February or March after the cold-weather crops are in. Besides minding the house the women help the men in the field. Their children take cattle to graze, and a few go to school They worship Jotiba near Ratnagiri, Khandoba of Jejuri, Mahadev of Singnapur, and Vithoba of Pandharpur. Their priests are Deshasth Brahmans. They go on pilgrimage to Pandharpur, Tuljapur, and sometimes to Benares. Within the last few years the worship of Vithoba of Pandharpur has greatly risen in favour. The feeling, partly perhaps from motives of economy, has been gaining ground that it is the place Pandharpur quite as much as the image of Vithoba that is holy. To see the pinnacle of the temple spire is as good as to touch the god. The men who hold these views belong to the Varkaripanth or season-keeping sect, whose leaders are hereditary married teachers orgurus. Each guru has five to six thousand followers who visit all the chief shrines and gather money to get up large feasts or bhandaras. The followers of these teachers are known by wearing a necklace of tulsi beads. The gurus try to gain new followers by preaching their views. Those that are not Varkaris worship local deities. The Maratha holidays are the same as those of other Hindus. The husbandman's chief holiday is the Pola, or Ox Day, which falls on the last day of Shravan in July-August. In Malsiras the Ox Day is known as Bendur and falls on the last day of Bhadrapad or August-September. On Ox Day the Marathas deck their bullocks and feed them on sweetmeats. At births, among the well-to-do, betel packets are distributed among kinspeople and friends. After childbirth a Kunbi woman is held impure for ten days during which neither is she touched nor are her house gods worshipped. On the fifth evening, to the grindstone or pata, fruit, cakes, and sweetmeats are offered. A sword or a common house knife or vila is laid near the grindstone and a dry millet stump which they call an arrow or tir. The goddess Satvai is believed to come on that night to guard the mother and her infant from evil, A blank sheet of paper, a pen and an ink-pot are set near the stone to enable her to write the child's destiny. They name their girls on the twelfth and their boys on the thirteenth. On the naming day kinswomen and friends are called, and present the child with new clothes, and cradle and name the child the name being chosen by the village astrologer. The guests retire with a handful of wet gram or wheat. A year after, on a lucky day, the child if it is a boy is seated on its maternal uncle's lap and its hair is clipped. The barber is given a few coppers, some grain, and the clothes which the child has on at the time, and, in the evening, kinspeople and friends are feasted on flesh and cakes. Before a marriage can be fixed, the boy's father must ascertain that the boy and girl are not of the same clan, have different surnames, and have a different devak that is guardian or crest. The Kunbi marriage is preceded by a betrothal. The marriage may take place immediately after the betrothal and in no case should more than a year pass between the two. On the betrothal day the boy's relations bring a bodice, a robe, and an ornament or two to the girl's house and present them to her. The village astrologer is asked to fix a lucky day for marrying the boy and girl, and at their houses the boy and girl are rubbed with turmeric first by the village washerwoman and then by five married women. On the marriage morning the guardian or devak is brought and tied to a post in the marriage porch, In the evening the boy is taken to the girl's in procession on bullock or horseback with music and a band of kinspeople. At the girl's the boy and girl are made to stand on a blanket facing each other and a cloth is held between them. While the priest repeats verses one of the party goes on the roof of the house or mounts a tree to see the sun go down. When the sun is set the verses cease, the cloth held between the boy and girl is pulled on one side, and they are husband and wife. Cotton thread is passed ten times round the boy and girl, and the threads are cut in two and tied round the wrists of the boy and girl. Next comes the girl-giving orkanyadan when butter is poured over the hands of the boy and girl. The girl's parents wash the boy's feet in a metal plate with water and the ceremony is over. The boy and girl are seated on a blanket and fed with milk and rice. Brahmans are presented with money and retire. Either on that or on the next day the boy steals an image from the girl's family god house and goes in procession to his village. Marthas allow widow marriage but hold the ceremony only on dark nights. No married woman or girl attends the ceremony and the faces of the newly married couple are not seen for a couple of days. When a girl comes of age she is seated by herself for four days and her lap is filled with rice or wheat, dry cocoa-kernel, and dates. Marathas, as a rule burn their dead, and the Kunbis either burn or bury. The dead body is washed, laid on a bier, and redpowder and betel leaves are thrown over it. The chief mourner walks before the body, carrying a firepot hanging from a string. They mourn ten days and offer a rice flour ball on the eleventh. They feast bearers and kinspeople on the twelfth and thirteenth. They are bound together by a strong caste feeling, and settle social disputes at caste meetings under the village patil or headman. Some of them send their boys to school but keep them at school only for a short time. They suffered severely during the 1876-77 famine, and though they have since improved considerably they are still as a class poor and in debt. Many of them have taken service as messengers and constables or work as day labourers either locally or wherever they hear of well paid employment. They stay away until they can bring back a score or two, ekvisa or donvisa, of rupees.
Malis
Malis, or Gardeners, are returned as numbering about 24,000 and as found over the whole district. They are divided into Khirsagar Malis and Rant Malis. Their home tongue is Marathi, and they look and dress like cultivating Marathas except that the women wear shoes like men's shoes. Their houses do not differ from Kunbi houses and they keep servants, cattle, ponies, and sheep and goats. They eat fish and flesh and drink liquor, and their feasts of the cakes called puran polis and telchis cost them £1 8s. to £2 (Rs. 14 - 20) for every hundred guests. Malis are a hardworking orderly and contented people. They earn their living as husbandmen gardeners and labourers, and their women and children help in selling vegetables and flowers. They worship Ambai, Bhavani, Janai, Khandoba, Mahadev, Tukai, and Vithoba; and their priests are ordinary Maratha Brahmans to whom they pay great respect. Except that at the marriage time their boys and girls are rubbed with turmeric at their house by washerwomen, their customs are the same as those of Marathas. They either bury or burn their dead, hold caste councils, send their boys to school, and are a steady class. CRAFTSMEN.
