The Tribes and Castes of the Central Provinces of India
Chapter 295 : Generally the customs of the Nats show them to be the dregs of the population. There i

Generally the customs of the Nats show them to be the dregs of the population. There is no offence which entails permanent expulsion from caste. They will eat any kind of food including snakes, crocodiles and rats, and also take food from the hands of any caste, even it is said from sweepers. It is not reported that they prost.i.tute their women, but there is little doubt that this is the case; in the Punjab [345] when a Nat woman marries, the first child is either given to the grandmother as compensation for the loss of the mother's gains as a prost.i.tute, or is redeemed by a payment of Rs. 30. Among the Chhattisgarhi Dang-Charhas a bride-price of Rs. 40 is paid, of which the girl's father only keeps ten, and the remaining sum of Rs. 30 is expended on a feast to the caste. Some of the Nats have taken to cultivation and become much more respectable, eschewing the flesh of unclean animals. Another group of the caste keep trained dogs and hunt the wild pig with spears like the Kolhatis of Berar. The villagers readily pay for their services in order to get the pig destroyed, and they sell the flesh to the Gonds and lower castes of Hindus. Others hunt jackals with dogs in the same manner. They eat the flesh of the jackals and dispose of any surplus to the Gonds, who also eat it. The Nats wors.h.i.+p Devi and also Hanuman, the monkey G.o.d, on account of the acrobatic powers of monkeys. But in Bombay they say that their favourite and only living G.o.ds are their bread-winners and averters of hunger, the drum, the rope and the balancing-pole. [346]

4. Acrobatic performances

The tight-rope is stretched between two pairs of bamboos, each pair being fixed obliquely in the ground and crossing each other at the top so as to form a socket over which the rope pa.s.ses. The ends of the rope are taken over the crossed bamboos and firmly secured to the ground by heavy pegs. The performer takes another balancing-pole in his hands and walks along the rope between the poles which are about 12 feet high. Another man beats a drum, and a third stands under the rope singing the performer's praises and giving him encouragement. After this the performer ties two sets of cow or buffalo horns to his feet, which are secured to the back of the skulls so that the flat front between the horns rests on the rope, and with these he walks over the rope, holding the balancing-rod in his hands and descends again. Finally he takes a bra.s.s plate and a cloth and again ascends the rope. He places the plate on the rope and folds the cloth over it to make a pad. He then stands on his head on the pad with his feet in the air and holds the balancing-rod in his hands; two strings are tied to the end of this rod and the other ends of the strings are held by the man underneath. With the a.s.sistance of the balancing-rod the performer then jerks the plate along the rope with his head, his feet being in the air, until he arrives at the end and finally descends again. This usually concludes the performance, which demands a high degree of skill. Women occasionally, though rarely, do the same feats. Another cla.s.s of Nats walk on high stilts and the women show their confidence by dancing and singing under them. A saying about the Nats is: _Nat ka bachcha to kalabazi hi karega_; or 'The rope-dancer's son is always turning somersaults.' [347]

5. Sliding or walking on ropes as a charm for the crops

The feats of the Nats as tight-rope walkers used apparently to make a considerable impression on the minds of the people, as it is not uncommon to find a deified Nat, called Nat Baba or Father Nat, as a village G.o.d. A Natni or Nat woman is also sometimes wors.h.i.+pped, and where two sharp peaks of hills are situated close to each other, it is related that in former times there was a Natni, very skilful on the tight-rope, who performed before the king; and he promised her that if she would stretch a rope from the peak of one hill to that of the other and walk across it he would marry her and make her wealthy. Accordingly the rope was stretched, but the queen from jealousy went and cut it half through in the night, and when the Natni started to walk the rope broke and she fell down and was killed. She was therefore deified and wors.h.i.+pped. It is probable that this legend recalls some rite in which the Nat was employed to walk on a tight-rope for the benefit of the crops, and, if he failed, was killed as a sacrifice; for the following pa.s.sage taken from Traill's account of k.u.maon [348] seems clearly to refer to some such rite:

"Drought, want of fertility in the soil, murrain in cattle, and other calamities incident to husbandry are here invariably ascribed to the wrath of particular G.o.ds, to appease which recourse is had to various ceremonies. In the k.u.maon District offerings and singing and dancing are resorted to on such occasions. In Garhwal the measures pursued with the same view are of a peculiar nature, deserving of more particular notice. In villages dedicated to the protection of Mahadeva propitiatory festivals are held in his honour. At these Badis or rope-dancers are engaged to perform on the tight-rope, and slide down an inclined rope stretched from the summit of a cliff to the valley beneath and made fast to posts driven into the ground. The Badi sits astride on a wooden saddle, to which he is tied by thongs; the saddle is similarly secured to the _bast_ or sliding cable, along which it runs, by means of a deep groove; sandbags are tied to the Badi's feet sufficient to secure his balance, and he is then, after various ceremonies and the sacrifice of a kid, started off; the velocity of his descent is very great, and the saddle, however well greased, emits a volume of smoke throughout the greater part of his progress. The length and inclination of the _bast_ necessarily vary with the nature of the cliff, but as the Badi is remunerated at the rate of a rupee for every hundred cubits, hence termed a tola, a correct measurement always takes place; the longest _bast_ which has fallen within my observation has been twenty-one tolas, or 2100 cubits in length. From the precautions taken as above mentioned the only danger to be apprehended by the Badi is from breaking of the rope, to provide against which the latter, commonly from one and a half to two inches in diameter, is made wholly by his own hand; the material used is the _bhabar_ gra.s.s. Formerly, if a Badi fell to the ground in his course, he was immediately despatched with a sword by the surrounding spectators, but this practice is now, of course, prohibited. No fatal accident has occurred from the performance of this ceremony since 1815, though it is probably celebrated at not less than fifty villages in each year. After the completion of the sliding, the _bast_ or rope is cut up and distributed among the inhabitants of the village, who hang the pieces as charms on the eaves of their houses. The hair of the Badi is also taken and preserved as possessing similar virtues. He being thus made the organ to obtain fertility for the lands of others, the Badi is supposed to entail sterility on his own; and it is firmly believed that no grain sown with his hand can ever vegetate. Each District has its hereditary Badi, who is supported by annual contributions of grain from the inhabitants." It is not improbable that the performance of the Nat is a reminiscence of a period when human victims were sacrificed for the crops, this being a common practice among primitive peoples, as shown by Sir J.G. Frazer in _Attis, Adonis, Osiris_. Similarly the spirits of Nats which are revered in the Central Provinces may really be those of victims killed during the performance of some charm for the good of the crops, akin to that still prevalent in the Himalayas. The custom of making the Nat slide down a rope is of the same character as that of swinging a man in the air by a hook secured in his flesh, which was formerly common in these Provinces. But in both cases the meaning of the rite is obscure.

6. Snake-charmers

The groups who practise snake-charming are known as Sapera or Garudi and in the Maratha Districts as Madari. Another name for them is Nag-Nathi, or one who seizes a cobra. They keep cobras, pythons, scorpions, and the iguana or large lizard, which they consider to be poisonous. Some of them when engaged with their snakes wear two pieces of tiger-skin on their back and chest, and a cap of tiger-skin in which they fix the eyes of various birds. They have a hollow gourd on which they produce a kind of music and this is supposed to charm the snakes. When catching a cobra they pin its head to the ground with a stick and then seize it in a cleft bamboo and p.r.i.c.k out the poison-fangs with a large needle. They think that the teeth of the iguana are also poisonous and they knock them out with a stick, and if fresh teeth afterwards grow they believe them not to contain poison. The python is called Ajgar, which is said to mean eater of goats. In captivity the pythons will not eat of themselves, and the snake-charmers chop up pieces of meat and fowls and placing the food in the reptile's mouth ma.s.sage it down the body. They feed the pythons only once in four or five days. They have antidotes for snake-bite, the root of a creeper called _kalipar_ and the bark of the _karheya_ tree. When a patient is brought to them they give him a little pepper, and if he tastes the pungent flavour they think that he has not been affected by snake-poison, but if it seems tasteless that he has been bitten. Then they give him small pieces of the two antidotes already mentioned with tobacco and 2 1/2 leaves of the _nim_ tree [349] which is sacred to Devi. On the festival of Nag-Panchmi (Cobra's Fifth) they wors.h.i.+p their cobras and give them milk to drink and then take them round the town or village and the people also wors.h.i.+p and feed the snakes and give a present of a few annas to the Sapera. In towns much frequented by cobras, a special adoration is paid to them. Thus in Hatta in the Damoh District a stone image of a snake, known as Nag-Baba or Father Cobra is wors.h.i.+pped for a month before the festival of Nag-Panchmi. During this period one man from every house in the village must go to Nag-Baba's shrine outside and take food there and come back. And on Nag-Panchmi the whole town goes out in a body to pay him reverence, and it is thought that if any one is absent the cobras will hara.s.s him for the whole year. But others say that cobras will only bite men of low caste. The Saperas will not kill a snake as a rule, but occasionally it is said that they kill one and cut off the head and eat the body, this being possibly an instance of eating the divine animal at a sacrificial meal. The following is an old account of the performances of snake-charmers in Bengal: [350]

"Hence, on many occasions throughout the year, the dread Manasa Devi, the queen of snakes, is propitiated by presents, vows and religious rites. In the month of Shrabana the wors.h.i.+p of the snake G.o.ddess is celebrated with great eclat. An image of the G.o.ddess, seated on a water-lily, encircled with serpents, or a branch of the snake-tree (a species of Euphorbia), or a pot of water, with images of serpents made of clay, forms the object of wors.h.i.+p. Men, women and children, all offer presents to avert from themselves the wrath of the terrific deity. The Mals or snake-catchers signalise themselves on this occasion. Temporary scaffolds of bamboo work are set up in the presence of the G.o.ddess. Vessels filled with all sorts of snakes are brought in. The Mals, often reeling with intoxication, mount the scaffolds, take out serpents from the vessels, and allow them to bite their arms. Bite after bite succeeds; the arms run with blood; and the Mals go on with their pranks, amid the deafening plaudits of the spectators. Now and then they fall off from the scaffold and pretend to feel the effects of poison, and cure themselves by their incantations. But all is mere pretence. The serpents displayed on the occasion and challenged to do their worst, have pa.s.sed through a preparatory state. Their fangs have been carefully extracted from their jaws. But most of the vulgar spectators easily persuade themselves to believe that the Mals are the chosen servants of Siva and the favourites of Manasa. Although their supernatural pretensions are ridiculous, yet it must be confessed that the Mals have made snakes the subject of their peculiar study. They are thoroughly acquainted with their qualities, their dispositions, and their habits. They will run down a snake into its hole, and bring it out thence by main force. Even the terrible cobra is cowed down by the controlling influence of a Mal. When in the act of bringing out snakes from their subterranean holes, the Mals are in the habit of muttering charms, in which the names of Manasa and Mahadeva frequently occur; superst.i.tion alone can clothe these unmeaning words with supernatural potency. But it is not inconsistent with the soundest philosophy to suppose that there may be some plants whose roots are disagreeable to serpents, and from which they instinctively turn away. All snake-catchers of Bengal are provided with a bundle of the roots of some plant which they carefully carry along with them, when they set out on their serpent-hunting expeditions. When a serpent, disturbed in its hole, comes out furiously hissing with rage, with its body coiled, and its head lifted up, the Mal has only to present before it the bundle of roots above alluded to, at the sight of which it becomes spiritless as an eel. This we have ourselves witnessed more than once."

These Mals appear to have been members of the aboriginal Male or Male Paharia tribe of Bengal.

Nunia

_Nunia, Lunia._ [351]--A mixed occupational caste of salt-makers and earth-workers, made up of recruits from the different non-Aryan tribes of northern India. The word _non_ means salt, and is a corruption of the Sanskrit _lavana_, 'the moist,' which first occurs as a name for sea-salt in the Atharva Veda. [352] In the oldest prose writings salt is known as Saindhava or 'that which is brought from the Indus,' this perhaps being Punjab rock-salt. The Nunias are a fairly large caste in Bengal and northern India, numbering 800,000 persons, but the Central Provinces and Berar contain only 3000, who are immigrants from Upper India. Here they are navvies and masons, a calling which they have generally adopted since the Government monopoly has interfered with their proper business of salt-refining. The mixed origin of the caste is shown by the list of their subdivisions in the United Provinces, which includes the names Mallah, Kewat, Kuchbandhia, Bind, Musahar, Bhuinhar and Lodha, all of which are distinct castes, besides a number of territorial subcastes. A list of nearly thirty subcastes is given by Mr. Crooke, and this is an instance of the tendency of migratory castes to split up into small groups for the purpose of arranging marriages, owing to the difficulty of ascertaining the status and respectability of each other's families, and the unwillingness to contract alliances with those whose social position may turn out to be not wholly satisfactory. "The internal structure of the caste,"

Mr. Crooke remarks, "is far from clear; it would appear that they are still in a state of transition, and the different endogamous subcastes are not as yet fully recognised." In Bilaspur the Nunias have three local subcastes, the Bandhaiya, the Ratanpuria and the Kharodhia. The two last, deriving their names from the towns of Ratanpur and Kharod in Bilaspur, are said to have been employed in former times in the construction of the temples and other buildings which abound in these localities, and have thus acquired a considerable degree of professional skill in masonry work; while the Bandhaiya, who take their name from Bandhogarh, confine themselves to the excavation of tanks and wells. The exogamous divisions of the caste are also by no means clearly defined; in Mirzapur they have a system of local subdivisions called _dih_, each subdivision being named after the village which is supposed to be its home. The word _dih_ itself means a site or village. Those who have a common _dih_ do not intermarry. [353] This fact is interesting as being an instance of the direct derivation of the exogamous clan from residence in a parent village and not from any heroic or supposit.i.tious ancestor.

The caste have a legend which shows their mixed origin. Some centuries ago, they say, a marriage procession consisting of Brahmans, Rajputs, Banias and Gosains went to a place near Ajodhya. After the ceremony was over the bride, on being taken to the bridegroom's lodging, sc.r.a.ped up a little earth with her fingers and put it in her mouth. She found it had a saltish taste, and spat it out on the ground, and this enraged the tutelary G.o.ddess of the village, who considered herself insulted, and swore that all the bride's descendants should excavate salt in atonement; and thus the caste arose.

In Bilaspur the caste permit a girl to be married to a boy younger than herself. A price of five rupees has to be paid for the bride, unless her family give a girl in exchange. The bridegroom is taken to the wedding in a palanquin borne by Mahars. After its conclusion the couple are carried back in the litter for some distance, after which the bridegroom gets out and walks or rides. When he goes to fetch his wife on her coming of age the bridegroom wears white clothes, which is rather peculiar, as white is not a lucky colour among the Hindus. The Nunias employ Brahmans at their ceremonies, and they have a caste _panchayat_ or committee, whose headman is known as Kurha. The Bilaspur section of the caste has two Kurhas. Here Brahmans take water from them, but not in all places. They consider their traditional occupation to have been the extraction of salt and saltpetre from saline earth. At present they are generally employed in the excavation of tanks and the embankment of fields, and they also sink wells, build and erect houses, and undertake all kinds of agricultural labour.

Ojha

_Ojha._--The community of soothsayers and minstrels of the Gonds. The Ojhas may now be considered a distinct subtribe, as they are looked down upon by the Gonds and marry among themselves. They derive their name from the word _ojh_ meaning 'entrail,' their original duty having been, like that of the Roman augurs, to examine the entrails of the victim immediately after it had been slain as an offering to the G.o.ds. In 1911 the Ojhas numbered about 5000 persons distributed over all Districts of the Central Provinces. At present the bulk of the community subsist by beggary. The word Ojha is of Sanskrit and not of Gond origin and is applied by the Hindus to the seers or magicians of several of the primitive tribes, while there is also a cla.s.s of Ojha Brahmans who practise magic and divination. The Gond Ojhas, who are the subject of this article, originally served the Gonds and begged from them alone, but in some parts of the western Satpuras they are also the minstrels of the Korkus. Those who beg from the Korkus play on a kind of drum called _dhank_ while the Gond Ojhas use the _kingri_ or lyre. Some of them also catch birds and are therefore known as Moghia. Mr. Hislop [354] remarks of them: "The Ojhas follow the two occupations of bard and fowler. They lead a wandering life and when pa.s.sing through villages they sing from house to house the praises of their heroes, dancing with castanets in their hands, bells at their ankles and long feathers of jungle birds in their turbans. They sell live quails and the skins of a species of Buceros named Dhan-chiria; these are used for making caps and for hanging up in houses in order to secure wealth (_dhan_), while the thigh-bones of the same bird when fastened round the waists of children are deemed an infallible preservative against the a.s.saults of devils and other such calamities. Their wives tattoo the arms of Hindu and Gond women. Among them there is a subdivision known as the Mana Ojhas, who rank higher than the others. Laying claim to unusual sanct.i.ty, they refuse to eat with any one, Gonds, Rajputs or even Brahmans, and devote themselves to the manufacture of rings and bells which are in request among their own race, and even of _lingas_ (phallic emblems) and _nandis_ (bull images), which they sell to all ranks of the Hindu community. Their wives are distinguished by wearing the cloth of the upper part of the body over the right shoulder, whereas those of the common Ojhas and of all the other Gonds wear it over the left."

Mr. Tawney wrote of the Ojhas as follows: [355] "The Ojha women do not dance. It is only men who do so, and when thus engaged they put on special attire and wear anklets with bells. The Ojhas like the Gonds are divided into six or seven G.o.d _gots_ (cla.s.ses or septs), and those with the same number of G.o.ds cannot intermarry. They wors.h.i.+p at the same Deokhala (G.o.d's thres.h.i.+ng-floor) as the Gonds, but being regarded as an inferior caste they are not allowed so near the sacred presence. Like the Gonds they incorporate the spirits of the dead with the G.o.ds, but their manner of doing so is somewhat different, as they make an image of bra.s.s to represent the soul of the deceased and keep this with the household G.o.ds. As with the Gonds, if a household G.o.d makes himself too objectionable he is quietly buried to keep him out of mischief and a new G.o.d is introduced into the family. The latter should properly bear the same name as his degraded predecessor, but very often does not. The Ojhas are too poor to indulge in the luxury of burning their deceased friends and therefore invariably bury them."

The customs of the Ojhas resemble those of the Gonds. They take the bride to the bridegroom's house to be married, and a widow among them is expected, though not obliged, to wed her late husband's younger brother. They eat the flesh of fowls, pigs, and even oxen, but abstain from that of monkeys, crocodiles and jackals. They will not touch an a.s.s, a cat or a dog, and consider it sinful to kill animals which bark or bray.

They will take food from the hands of all except the most impure castes, and will admit into the community any man who has taken an Ojha woman to live with him, even though he be a sweeper, provided that he will submit to the prescribed test of begging from the houses of five Gonds and eating the leavings of food of the other Ojhas. They will pardon the transgression of one of their women with an outsider of any caste whatever, if she is able and willing to provide the usual penalty feast. They have no _sutak_ or period of impurity after a death, but merely take a mouthful of liquor and consider themselves clean. In physical appearance the Ojhas resemble the Gonds but are less robust. They rank below the Gonds and are considered as impure by the Hindu castes. In 1865, an Ojha held a village in Hoshangabad District which he had obtained as follows: [356] "He was singing and dancing before Raja Raghuji, when the Raja said he would give a rent-free village to any one who would pick up and chew a quid of betel-leaf which he (the Raja) had had in his mouth and had spat out. The Ojha did this and got the village."

The Maithil or Tirhut Brahmans who are especially learned in Tantric magic are also sometimes known as Ojha, and a family bearing this t.i.tle were formerly in the service of the Gond kings of Mandla. They do not now admit that they acted as augurs or soothsayers, but state that their business was to pray continuously for the king's success when he was engaged in any battle, and to sit outside the rooms of sick persons repeating the sacred Gayatri verse for their recovery. This is often repeated ten times, counting by a special method on the joints of the fingers and is then known as _j.a.p_. When it is repeated a larger number of times, as 54 or 108, a rosary is used.

Oraon

[_Authorities_: The most complete account of the Oraons is a monograph ent.i.tled, _The Religion and Customs of the Oraons_, by the late Rev. Father P. Dehon, published in 1906 in the _Memoirs of the Asiatic Society of Bengal_, vol. i. No. 9. The tribe is also described at length by Colonel Dalton in _The Ethnography of Bengal_, and an article on it is included in Mr. (Sir H.) Risley's _Tribes and Castes of Bengal_. References to the Oraons are contained in Mr. Bradley-Birt's _Chota Nagpur_, and Mr. Ball's _Jungle Life in India_. The Kurukh language is treated by Dr. Grierson in the volume of the Linguistic Survey on _Munda and Dravidian Languages_. The following article is princ.i.p.ally made up of extracts from the accounts of Father Dehon and Colonel Dalton. Papers have also been received from Mr. Hira Lal, Mr. Balaram Nand, Deputy Inspector of Schools, Sambalpur, Mr. Jeorakhan Lal, Deputy Inspector of Schools, Bilaspur, and Muns.h.i.+ Kanhya Lal of the Gazetteer Office.]

List of Paragraphs

1. _General notice_.

2. _Settlement in Chota Nagpur_.

3. _Subdivisions_.

4. _Pre-nuptial licence_.

5. _Betrothal_.

6. _Marriage ceremony_.

7. _Special customs_.

8. _Widow-remarriage and divorce_.

9. _Customs at birth_.

10. _Naming a child_.

11. _Branding and tattooing_.

12. _Dormitory discipline_.

13. _Disposal of the dead_.

14. _Wors.h.i.+p of ancestors_.

15. _Religion_. _The supreme deity_.

16. _Minor G.o.dlings_.

17. _Human sacrifice_.

18. _Christianity_.

19. _Festivals_. _The Karma or May-day_.

20. _The Sal flower festival_.

21. _The harvest festival_.

22. _Fast for the crops_.

23. _Physical appearance and costume of the Oraons_.

24. _Dress of women_.

25. _Dances_.

26. _Social customs_.

27. _Social rules_.

28. _Character_.

29. _Language_.

1. General notice