Mallah
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From The Tribes And Castes Of The Central Provinces Of India
By R. V. Russell
Of The Indian Civil Service
Superintendent Of Ethnography, Central Provinces
Assisted By Rai Bahadur Hira Lal, Extra Assistant Commissioner
Macmillan And Co., Limited, London, 1916.
NOTE 1: The 'Central Provinces' have since been renamed Madhya Pradesh.
NOTE 2: While reading please keep in mind that all articles in this series have been scanned from 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.
Mallah
A small caste of boatmen and fishermen in the Jubbulporc and Narsinghpur Districts, which numbered about 5000 persons in 191 1. It is scarcely correct to designate the Mallahs as a distinct caste, as in both these Districts it appears from inquiry that the term is synonymous with Kewat.
Apparently, however, the Mallahs do form a separate endogamous group, and owing to many of them having adopted the profession of growing hemp, a crop which respectable Hindu castes usually refuse to cultivate, it is probable that they would not be allowed to intermarry with the Kewats of other Districts. In the United Provinces Mr. Crooke states that the Mallahs, though, as their Arabic name indicates, of recent origin, have matured into a definite social group, including a number of endogamous tribes.
The term Mallah has nothing to do with the Mulla or Muhammadan priest among the frontier tribes, but comes from an Arabic word meaning ' to be salt,' or, according to another derivation, ' to move the wings as a bird.' " The Mallahs of the Central Provinces are also, in spite of their Arabic name, a purely Hindu caste. In Narsinghpur they say that their original ancestor was one Bali or Baliram, who was a boatman and was so strong that he could carry his boat to the river and back under his armpit.
On one occasion he ferried Rama across the Ganges in Benares, and it is said ^ This article is based on papers Misra, Ethnographic clerk, by Mr. Shyamacharan, B.A., B. L., - Crooke's Tribes and Castes of the Pleader, Narsinghpur, and Pyare Lai N.W.P. and OuJh, art. Mallah.
that Rama gave him a horse to show his gratitude ; but BaHram was so ignorant that he placed the bridle on the horse's tail instead of the head. And from this act of Baliram's arose the custom of having the rudder of a boat at the stern instead of at the bow. The Mallahs in the Central Provinces appear from their family names to be immigrants from Bundelkhand.
Their customs resemble those of lower-class Hindus. Girls are usually married under the age of twelve years, and the remarriage of widows is permitted, while divorce may be effected in the presence of the panchdyat or caste committee by the husband and wife breaking a straw between them. They are scantily clothed and are generally poor. A proverb about them says : Jahdn betJicjt Malao Tahan luge alao, or, ' Where Mallahs sit, there is always a fire.' This refers to their custom of kindling fires on the river-bank to protect themselves from cold.
In Narsinghpur the Mallahs have found a profitable opening in the cultivation of hemp, a crop which other Hindu castes until recently tabooed on account probably of the dirty nature of the process of cleaning out the fibre and the pollution necessarily caused to the water-supply. They sow and cut hemp on Sundays and Wednesdays, which are regarded as auspicious days. They also grow melons, and will not enter a melon-field with their shoes on or allow a woman during her periodical impurity to approach it. The Mallahs are poor and illiterate, but rank with Dhlmars and Kewats, and Brahmans will take water from their hands.
Mallah
(From People of India/ National Series Volume VIII. Readers who wish to share additional information/ photographs may please send them as messages to the Facebook community, Indpaedia.com. All information used will be gratefully acknowledged in your name.)
Synonyms: Gonrhi, Mandal [Bihar and/or Jharkhand]
- Endogamous subtribes: Agarwal, Badhariya, Balliya, Bathawa, Bathma, Bharmare, Bhok, Bhontiya, Chain,
Chaudhariya, Dhar, Dhelphora, Gonriya, Goriya, Guri ya, Jalchhatri, Jarya, Kalwant, Kharautiya, Khas Ku lwant, Muriya, Nathu, Sonhar, Sorahiya, Tiyar, Turaiha [W. Crooke] Groups/subgroups: Dhoar, Guria, Khulwant, Pandubi, Parbati Kuria, Sauria, Sawria, Semari [Bihar and/or Jharkhand] Subcastes: Bin, Chain or Chai, Chaini, Guriya, Kewat, Kulwant or Kulwat, Muria or Muriari, Pandubi, Su raya, Tiar, Bathawa or Badhariya [H.H. Risley] Titles: Baduria, Ghatwal [H.H. Risley] Surnames: Biswas, Choudhry, Das, Mandal, Parasar [B ihar and/or Jharkhand] Exogamous units/clans: Bairagi, Banaila, Bhingraj, Khajuraha, Richhitio, Richiniya [Madhya Pradesh and /or Chhattisgarh] Gotra: Kashyap [Bihar and/or Jharkhand]
Notes
The exact bearing to one another of the different fisher and boating tribes along the Ganges has always been a puzzle. Little information can be derived from the men themselves, for an enquiry of this nature has no interest for them, and as a rule they are neither intelligent nor communicative. Buchanan1 enumerates five tribes under the generic term Mallahs, namely, the Gongrhri, Suriya, Mariyari, Banpar, and Kewat; Sherring distinguishes ten clans; and Mr. Beverley is doubtful whether the Banpar, Surahiya, and Mariyari should be considered as subordinate tribes, or as kindred to the Mallahs.
The Arabic term for a boatman, Mallah, has undoubtedly been adopted as the name of a caste of Upper India and Bihar; but it has probably been assumed by, or given to, various fisher tribes.
In Eastern Bengal the following are frequently met with:�
Small colonies of these tribes are scattered throughout the Eastern-districts; but it is as traders, bringing the produce of Bihar and Tirhut to Dacca, and other Bengal cities, that they are chiefly known.
All Hindustani boatmen are, as they say, descended from one Nikhad, or Nishad, who ferried Rama-Chandra across the Ganges at Allahabad; but there is little doubt that all are of aboriginal descent, and not of pure Hindu blood. If we enquire what are the religious rites performed by them, we find that ceremonials more aboriginal than Hindu predominate. The majority of Mallahs belong to the Panch Piriya creed, an excrescence of Muhammadanism, and worshippers of a water god, called Koila-Baba, described as an old grey-bearded person like Father Neptune, who, as "Ganga Ji ka Beldar," saps and swallows up whatever opposes the sacred stream. Before casting a new net, or starting on a commercial venture, offerings of molasses, and seven kinds of grain, kneaded into balls, are offered to him, and at the end of the ceremony one of the balls is placed on the edge of the water, another on the bow of the boat.1
Another rite common to many, if not to all, fisher races is the Barwaria or Barahi Pujah, when a subscription is made, and in the absence of a Brahman, a swine is sacrificed on a plain or in a garden.
There is a much closer connection between certain of these tribes than others. Thus the Chain and Surahiya are more social and more nearly on an equality than, for instance, the Chain and Banpar, and, as among the Sudra castes, while one is considered clean, another is pronounced unclean. With our present imperfect knowledge of these tribes we cannot account for such capricious distinctions, but the causes were probably the same as those now creating divisions among recognised Hindu castes.
All Hindustani boatmen call themselves Chaudharis; but Bengalis have one contemptuous phrase, Manrua-badi,2 or Manrua eaters, for all foreigners from Upper India. He would, however, be a rash man who used this epithet in their hearing, for it is the one term of abuse most warmly resented.
The custom with all Hindustani boatmen engaged in trade, is for the net profits to be divided into shares of which the Manjhi, or shipper, receives one-third, the crew two-thirds.
1 This ceremony is called by them Deothan; see Elliots "Supplementary Glossary," i, 245.
2 Manrus is the Eleusine Corocana, the Ragi, of the coast Muhammadans, one of the most productive of grains.
