The Tribes and Castes of the Central Provinces of India
Chapter 272 : An ordinary Kunbi village [38] contains between 70 and 80 houses or some 400 souls. Th

An ordinary Kunbi village [38] contains between 70 and 80 houses or some 400 souls. The village generally lies on a slight eminence near a _nullah_ or stream, and is often nicely planted with tamarind or pipal trees. The houses are now generally tiled for fear of fire, and their red roofs may be seen from a distance forming a little cl.u.s.ter on high lying ground, an elevated site being selected so as to keep the roads fairly dry, as the surface tracks in black-soil country become almost impa.s.sable sloughs of mud as soon as the rains have broken. The better houses stand round an old mud fort, a relic of the Pindari raids, when, on the first alarm of the approach of these marauding bands, the whole population hurried within its walls. The village proprietor's house is now often built inside the fort. It is an oblong building surrounded by a compound wall of unbaked bricks, and with a gateway through which a cart can drive. Adjoining the entrance on each side are rooms for the reception of guests, in which constables, chupra.s.sies and others are lodged when they stay at night in the village. _Kothas_ or sheds for keeping cattle and grain stand against the walls, and the dwelling-house is at the back. Substantial tenants have a house like the proprietor's, of well-laid mud, whitewashed and with tiled roof; but the ordinary cultivator's house is one-roomed, with an _angan_ or small yard in front and a little s.p.a.ce for a garden behind, in which vegetables are grown during the rains. The walls are of bamboo matting plastered over with mud. The married couples sleep inside, the room being part.i.tioned off if there are two or more in the family, and the older persons sleep in the verandahs. In the middle of the village by the biggest temple will be an old pipal tree, the trunk encircled by an earthen or stone platform, which answers to the village club. The respectable inhabitants will meet here while the lower cla.s.ses go to the liquor-shop nearly every night to smoke and chat. The blacksmith's and carpenter's shops are also places of common resort for the cultivators. Hither they wend in the morning and evening, often taking with them some implement which has to be mended, and stay to talk. The blacksmith in particular is said to be a great gossip, and will often waste much of his customer's time, plying him for news and retailing it, before he repairs and hands back the tool brought to him. The village is sure to contain two or three little temples of Maroti or Mahadeo. The stones which do duty for the images are daily oiled with b.u.t.ter or _ghi_, and a miscellaneous store of offerings will acc.u.mulate round the buildings. Outside the village will be a temple of Devi or Mata Mai (Smallpox G.o.ddess) with a heap of little earthen horses and a string of hens' feet and feathers hung up on the wall. The little platforms which are the shrines of the other village G.o.ds will be found in the fields or near groves. In the evening the elders often meet at Maroti's temple and pay their respects to the deity, bowing or prostrating themselves before him. A lamp before the temple is fed by contributions of oil from the women, and is kept burning usually up to midnight. Once a year in the month, of Shrawan (July) the villagers subscribe and have a feast, the Kunbis eating first and the menial and labouring castes after them. In this month also all the village deities are wors.h.i.+pped by the Jos.h.i.+ or priest and the villagers. In summer the cultivators usually live in their fields, where they erect temporary sheds of bamboo matting roofed with juari stalks. In these most of the household furniture is stored, while at a little distance in another funnel-shaped erection of bamboo matting is kept the owner's grain. This system of camping out is mainly adopted for fear of fire in the village, when the cultivator's whole stock of grain and his household goods might be destroyed in a few minutes without possibility of saving them. The women stay in the village, and the men and boys go there for their midday and evening meals.

20. Furniture

Ordinary cultivators have earthen pots for cooking purposes and bra.s.s ones for eating from, while the well-to-do have all their vessels of bra.s.s. The furniture consists of a few stools and cots. No Kunbi will lie on the ground, probably because a dying man is always laid on the ground to breathe his last; and so every one has a cot consisting of a wooden frame with a bed made of hempen string or of the root-fibres of the _palas_ tree (_Butea frondosa_). These cots are always too short for a man to lie on them at full length, and are in consequence supremely uncomfortable. The reason may perhaps be found in the belief that a man should always lie on a bed a little shorter than himself so that his feet project over the end. Because if the bed is longer than he is, it resembles a bier, and if he lies on a bier once he may soon die and lie on it a second time. For bathing they make a little enclosure in the compound with mats, and place two or three flat stones in it. Hot water is generally used and they rub the perspiration off their bodies with a flat stone called Jhawar. Most Kunbis bathe daily. On days when they are shaved they plaster the head with soft black earth, and then wash it off and rub their bodies with a little linseed or sesamum oil, or, if they can afford it, with cocoanut oil.

21. Food

The Kunbis eat three times a day, at about eight in the morning, at midday and after dark. The morning meal is commonly eaten in the field and the two others at home. At midday the cultivator comes home from work, bathes and takes his meal, having a rest for about two hours in all. After finis.h.i.+ng work he again comes home and has his evening meal, and then, after a rest, at about ten o'clock he goes again to the fields, if the crops are on the ground, and sleeps on the _mara_ or small elevated platform erected in the field to protect the grain from birds and wild animals; occasionally waking and emitting long-drawn howls or pulling the strings which connect with clappers in various parts of the field. Thus for nearly eight months of the year the Kunbi sleeps in his fields, and only during the remaining period at home. Juari is the staple food of the caste, and is eaten both raw and cooked. The raw pods of juari were the provision carried with them on their saddles by the marauding Maratha hors.e.m.e.n, and the description of Sivaji getting his sustenance from gnawing at one of these as he rode along is said to have struck fear into the heart of the Nizam. It is a common custom among well-to-do tenants and proprietors to invite their friends to a picnic in the fields when the crop is ripe to eat _hurda_ or the pods of juari roasted in hot ashes. For cooking purposes juari is ground in an ordinary handmill and then pa.s.sed through a sieve, which separates the finer from the coa.r.s.er particles. The finer flour is made into dough with hot water and baked into thick flat _chapatis_ or cakes, weighing more than half a pound each; while the coa.r.s.e flour is boiled in water like rice. The boiled pulse of _arhar_ (_Caja.n.u.s indicus_) is commonly eaten with juari, and the _chapatis_ are either dipped into cold linseed oil or consumed dry. The sameness of this diet is varied by a number of green vegetables, generally with very little savour to a European palate. These are usually boiled and then mixed into a salad with linseed or sesamum oil and flavoured with salt or powdered chillies, these last being the Kunbi's indispensable condiment. He is also very fond of onions and garlic, which are either chopped and boiled, or eaten raw. b.u.t.ter-milk when available is mixed with the boiled juari after it is cooked, while wheat and rice, b.u.t.ter and sugar are delicacies reserved for festivals. As a rule only water is drunk, but the caste indulge in country liquor on festive occasions. Tobacco is commonly chewed after each meal or smoked in leaf cigarettes, or in _chilams_ or clay pipe-bowls without a stem. Men also take snuff, and a few women chew tobacco and take snuff, though they do not smoke. It is noticeable that different subdivisions of the caste will commonly take food from each other in Berar, whereas in the Central Provinces they refuse to do so. The more liberal usage in Berar is possibly another case of Muhammadan influence. Small children eat with their father and brothers, but the women always wait on the men, and take their own food afterwards. Among the Dalia Kunbis of Nimar, however, women eat before men at caste feasts in opposition to the usual practice. It is stated in explanation that on one occasion when the men had finished their meal first and gone home, the women on returning were waylaid in the dark and robbed of their ornaments. And hence it was decided that they should always eat first and go home before nightfall. The Kunbi is fairly liberal in the matter of food. He will eat the flesh of goats, sheep and deer, all kinds of fish and fowls, and will drink liquor. In Hoshangabad and Nimar the higher subcastes abstain from flesh and wine. The caste will take food cooked without water from Brahmans, Banias and Sunars, and that mixed with water only from Maratha Brahmans. All castes except Maratha Brahmans will take water from the hands of a Kunbi.

22. Clothes and ornaments

The dress of the ordinary cultivator is most common-place and consists only of a loin-cloth, another cloth thrown over the shoulders and upper part of the body, which except for this is often bare, and a third rough cloth wound loosely round the head. All these, originally white, soon a.s.sume a very dingy hue. There is thus no colour in a man's everyday attire, but the gala dress for holidays consists of a red _pagri_ or turban, a black, coloured or white coat, and a white loin-cloth with red silk borders if he can afford it. The Kunbi is seldom or never seen with his head bare; this being considered a bad omen because every one bares his head when a death occurs. Women wear _lugras_, or a single long cloth of red, blue or black cotton, and under this the _choli_, or small breast-cloth. They have one silk-bordered cloth for special occasions. A woman having a husband alive must not wear a white cloth with no colour in it, as this is the dress of widows. A white cloth with a coloured border may be worn. The men generally wear shoes which are open at the back of the heel, and clatter as they move along. Women do not, as a rule, wear shoes unless these are necessary for field work, or if they go out just after their confinement. But they have now begun to do so in towns. Women have the usual collection of ornaments on all parts of the person. The head ornaments should be of gold when this metal can be afforded. On the finger they have a miniature mirror set in a ring; as a rule not more than one ring is worn, so that the hands may be free for work. For a similar reason gla.s.s bangles, being fragile, are worn only on the left wrist and metal ones on the right. But the Dhanoje Kunbis, as already stated, have cocoanut sh.e.l.l bangles on both wrists. They smear a mark of red powder on the forehead or have a spangle there. Girls are generally tattooed in childhood when the skin is tender, and the operation is consequently less painful. They usually have a small crescent and circle between the brows, small circles or dots on each temple and on the nose, cheeks and chin, and five small marks on the back of the hands to represent flies. Some of the Deshmukh families have now adopted the sacred thread; they also put caste marks on the forehead, and wear the shape of _pagri_ or turban formerly distinctive of Maratha Brahmans.

23. The Kunbi as cultivator

The Kunbi has the stolidity, conservative instincts, dulness and patience of the typical agriculturist. Sir R. Craddock describes him as follows [39]: "Of the purely agricultural cla.s.ses the Kunbis claim first notice. They are divided into several sections or cla.s.ses, and are of Maratha origin, the Jhari Kunbis (the Kunbis of the wild country) being the oldest settlers, and the Deshkar (the Kunbis from the Deccan) the most recent. The Kunbi is certainly a most plodding, patient mortal, with a cat-like affection for his land, and the proprietary and cultivating communities, of both of which Kunbis are the most numerous members, are unlikely to fail so long as he keeps these characteristics. Some of the more intelligent and affluent of the caste, who have risen to be among the most prosperous members of the community, are as shrewd men of business in their way as any section of the people, though lacking in education. I remember one of these, a member of the Local Board, who believed that the land revenue of the country was remitted to England annually to form part of the private purse of the Queen Empress. But of the general body of the Kunbi caste it is true to say that in the matter of enterprise, capacity to hold their own with the moneylender, determination to improve their standard of comfort, or their style of agriculture, they lag far behind such cultivating cla.s.ses as the Kirar, the Raghvi and the Lodhi. While, however, the Kunbi yields to these cla.s.ses in some of the more showy attributes which lead to success in life, he is much their superior in endurance under adversity, he is more law-abiding, and he commands, both by reason of his character and his caste, greater social respect among the people at large. The wealthy Kunbi proprietor is occasionally rather spoilt by good fortune, or, if he continues a keen cultivator, is apt to be too fond of land-grabbing. But these are the exceptional cases, and there is generally no such pleasing spectacle as that afforded by a village in which the cultivators and the proprietors are all Kunbis living in harmony together." The feeling [40] of the Kunbi towards agricultural improvements has. .h.i.therto probably been something the same as that of the Suss.e.x farmer who said, 'Our old land, it likes our old ploughs'

to the agent who was vainly trying to demonstrate to him the advantages of the modern two-horse iron plough over the great wooden local tool; and the emblem ascribed to old Suss.e.x--a pig couchant with the motto 'I wun't be druv'--would suit the Kunbi equally well. But the Kunbi, too, though he could not express it, knows something of the pleasure of the simple outdoor life, the fresh smell of the soil after rain, the joy of the yearly miracle when the earth is again carpeted with green from the bursting into life of the seed which he has sown, and the pleasure of watching the harvest of his labours come to fruition. He, too, as has been seen, feels something corresponding to "That inarticulate love of the English farmer for his land, his mute enjoyment of the furrow crumbling from the ploughshare or the elastic tread of his best pastures under his heel, his ever-fresh satisfaction at the sight of the bullocks stretching themselves as they rise from the soft gra.s.s."

24. Social and moral characteristics

Some characteristics of the Maratha people are noticed by Sir R. Jenkins as follows [41]: "The most remarkable feature perhaps in the character of the Marathas of all descriptions is the little regard they pay to show or ceremony in the common intercourse of life. A peasant or mechanic of the lowest order, appearing before his superiors, will sit down of his own accord, tell his story without ceremony, and converse more like an equal than an inferior; and if he has a pet.i.tion he talks in a loud and boisterous tone and fearlessly sets forth his claims. Both the peasantry and the better cla.s.ses are often coa.r.s.e and indelicate in their language, and many of the proverbs, which they are fond of introducing into conversation, are extremely gross. In general the Marathas, and particularly the cultivators, are not possessed of much activity or energy of character, but they have quick perception of their own interest, though their ignorance of writing and accounts often renders them the dupes of the artful Brahmans." "The Kunbi," Mr. Forbes remarks, [42] "though frequently all submission and prostration when he makes his appearance in a revenue office, is st.u.r.dy and bold enough among his own people. He is fond of a.s.serting his independence and the helplessness of others without his aid, on which subject he has several proverbs, as: 'Wherever it thunders there the Kunbi is a landholder,' and 'Tens of millions are dependent on the Kunbi, but the Kunbi depends on no man.'" This sense of his own importance, which has also been noticed among the Jats, may perhaps be ascribed to the Kunbi's ancient status as a free and full member of the village community. "The Kunbi and his bullocks are inseparable, and in speaking of the one it is difficult to dissociate the other. His pride in these animals is excusable, for they are most admirably suited to the circ.u.mstances in which nature has placed them, and possess a very wide-extended fame. But the Kunbi frequently exhibits his fondness for them in the somewhat peculiar form of unmeasured abuse. 'May the Kathis [43] seize you!' is his objurgation if in the peninsula of Surat; if in the Idar district or among the mountains it is there 'May the tiger kill you!' and all over Gujarat, 'May your master die!' However, he means by this the animal's former owner, not himself; and when more than usually cautious he will word his chiding thus--'May the fellow that sold you to me perish.'" But now the Kathis raid no more and the tiger, though still taking good toll of cattle in the Central Provinces, is not the ever-present terror that once he was. But the bullock himself is no longer so sacrosanct in the Kunbi's eyes, and cannot look forward with the same certainty to an old age of idleness, threatened only by starvation in the hot weather or death by surfeit of the new moist gra.s.s in the rains; and when therefore the Kunbi's patience is exhausted by these aggravating animals, his favourite threat at present is, 'I will sell you to the Kasais' (butchers); and not so very infrequently he ends by doing so. It may be noted that with the development of the cotton industry the Kunbi of Wardha is becoming much sharper and more capable of protecting his own interests, while with the a.s.sistance and teaching which he now receives from the Agricultural Department, a rapid and decided improvement is taking place in his skill as a cultivator.

Kunjra

_Kunjra_. [44]--A caste of greengrocers, who sell country vegetables and fruit and are cla.s.sed as Muhammadans. Mr. Crooke derives the name from the Sanskrit _kunj_, 'a bower or arbour.' They numbered about 1600 persons in the Central Provinces in 1911, princ.i.p.ally in the Jubbulpore Division. The customs of the Kunjras appear to combine Hindu and Muhammadan rites in an indiscriminate medley. It is reported that marriage is barred only between real brothers and sisters and foster brothers and sisters, the latter rule being known as _Dudh bachana_, or 'Observing the tie of the milk.' At their betrothal presents are given to the parties, and after this a powder of henna leaves is sent to the boy, who rubs it on his fingers and returns it to the girl that she may do the same. As among the Hindus, the bodies of the bridal couple are anointed with oil and turmeric at their respective houses before the wedding. A marriage-shed is made and the bridegroom goes to the bride's house wearing a cotton quilt and riding on a bullock. The barber holds the umbrella over his head and must be given a present before he will fold it, but the wedding is performed by the Kazi according to the Nikah ceremony by the repet.i.tion of verses from the Koran. The wedding is held at four o'clock in the morning, and as a preliminary to it the bride is presented with some money by the boy's father, which is known as the Meher or dowry. On its conclusion a cup of sherbet is given to the bridegroom, of which he drinks half and hands the remainder to the bride. The gift of the Meher is considered to seal the marriage contract. When a widow is married the Kazi is also employed, and he simply recites the Kalama or Muhammadan profession of belief, and the ceremony is completed by the distribution of dates to the elders of the caste. Divorce is permitted and is known as _talaq_. The caste observe the Muhammadan festivals, and have some favourite saints of their own to whom they make offerings of _gulgula_ a kind of pudding, with sacrifices of goats and fowls. Partic.i.p.ation in these rites is confined to members of the family. Children are named on the day of their birth, the Muhammadan Kazi or a Hindu Brahman being employed indifferently to select the name. If the parents lose one or more children, in order to preserve the lives of those subsequently born, they will allow the _choti_ or scalp-lock to grow on their heads in the Hindu fas.h.i.+on, dedicating it to one of their Muhammadan saints. Others will put a _hasli_ or silver circlet round the neck of the child and add a ring to this every year; a strip of leather is sometimes also tied round the neck. When the child reaches the age of twelve years the scalp-lock is shaved, the leather band thrown into a river and the silver necklet sold. Offerings are made to the saints and a feast is given to the friends of the family. The dead are buried, camphor and attar of roses being applied to the corpse. On the _Tija_ and _Chalisa_, or third and fortieth days after a death, a feast is given to the caste-fellows, but no mourning is observed, neither do the mourners bathe nor perform ceremonies of purification. On the _Tija_ the Koran is also read and fried grain is distributed to children. For the death of a child the ordinary feasts need not be given, but prayers are offered for their souls with those of the other dead once a year on the night of Shab-i-Barat or the fifteenth day of the month Shaban, [45] which is observed as a vigil with prayer, feasts and illuminations and offerings to the ancestors. Kunjra men are usually clean-shaven with the exception of the beard, which is allowed to grow long below the chin. Their women are not tattooed. In the cities, Mr. Crooke remarks, [46] their women have an equivocal reputation, as the better-looking girls who sit in the shops are said to use considerable freedom of manners to attract customers. They are also very quarrelsome and abusive when bargaining for the sale of their wares or arguing with each other. This is so much the case that men who become very abusive are said to be behaving like Kunjras; while in Dacca Sir H. Risley states [47] that the word Kunjra has become a term of abuse, so that the caste are ashamed to be known by it, and call themselves Mewa-farosh, Sabzi-farosh or Bepari. When two women are having an altercation, their husbands and other male relatives are forbidden to interfere on pain of social degradation. The women never sit on the ground, but on small wooden stools or _pirhis_. The Kunjras belong chiefly to the north of the Province, and in the south their place is taken by the Marars and Malis who carry their own produce for sale to the markets. The Kunjras sell sugarcane, potatoes, onions and all kinds of vegetables, and others deal in the dried fruits imported by Kabuli merchants.

Kuramwar

_Kuramwar_. [48]--The shepherd caste of southern India, who are identical with the Tamil Kurumba and the Telugu Kuruba. The caste is an important one in Madras, but in the Central Provinces is confined to the Chanda District where it numbered some 4000 persons in 1911. The Kuramwars are considered to be the modern representatives of the ancient Pallava tribe whose kings were powerful in southern India in the seventh century. [49]

The marriage rules of the Kuramwars are interesting. If a girl reaches adolescence while still single, she is finally expelled from the caste, her parents being also subjected to a penalty for readmission. Formerly it is said that such a girl was sacrificed to the river-G.o.ddess by being placed in a small hut on the river-bank till a flood came and swept her away. Now she is taken to the river and kept in a hut, while offerings are made to the river-G.o.ddess, and she may then return and live in the village though she is out of caste. In Madras, as a preliminary to the marriage, the bridegroom's father observes certain marks or 'curls' on the head or hair of the bride proposed. Some of these are believed to forecast prosperity and others misery to the family into which she enters. They are therefore very cautious in selecting only such girls as possess curls (_suli_) of good fortune. The writer of the _North Arcot Manual_ [50]

after recording the above particulars, remarks: "This curious custom obtaining among this primitive tribe is observed by others only in the case of the purchase of cows, bulls and horses." In the Central Provinces, however, at least one parallel instance can be given from the northern Districts where any mark resembling the V on the head of a cobra is considered to be very inauspicious. And it is told that a girl who married into one well-known family bore it, and to this fact the remarkable succession of misfortunes which has attended the family is locally attributed. Among the Kuramwars marriages can be celebrated only on four days in the year, the fifth day of both fortnights of Phagun (February), the tenth day of the second fortnight of the same month and the third day of Baisakh (April). At the marriage the bride and bridegroom are seated together under the canopy, with the shuttle which is used for weaving blankets between them, and they throw coloured rice at each other. After this a miniature swing is put up and a doll is placed in it in imitation of a child and swung to and fro. The bride then takes the doll out and gives it to the bridegroom, saying: 'Here, take care of it, I am now going to cook food'; while after a time the boy returns the doll to the girl, saying, 'I must now weave the blanket and go to tend the flock.' The proceeding seems a symbolic enactment of the cares of married life and the joint tending of the baby, this sort of symbolism being particularly noticeable in the marriage ceremonies of the people of Madras. Divorce is not permitted even though the wife be guilty of adultery, and if she runs away to her father's house her husband cannot use force to bring her back if she refuses to return to him. The Kuramwars wors.h.i.+p the implements of their calling at the festival of Ganesh Chaturthi, and if any family fails to do this it is put out of caste. They also revere annually Mallana Deva and Mallani Devi who guard their flocks respectively from attacks of tigers and epidemics of murrain. The shrines of these deities are generally built under a banyan tree and open to the east. The caste are shepherds and graziers and also make blankets. They are poor and ignorant, and the Abbe Dubois [51]

says of them: "Being confined to the society of their woolly charge, they seem to have contracted the stupid nature of the animal, and from the rudeness of their nature they are as much beneath the other castes of Hindus as the sheep by their simplicity and imperfect instruction are beneath the other quadrupeds." Hence the proverbial comparison 'As stupid as a Kuramwar.' When out of doors the Kuramwar retains the most primitive method of eating and drinking; he takes his food in a leaf and licks it up with his tongue, and sucks up water from a tank or river with his mouth. They justify this custom by saying that on one occasion their G.o.d had taken his food out of the house on a leaf-plate and was proceeding to eat it with his hands when his sheep ran away and he had to go and fetch them back. In the meantime a crow came and pecked at the food and so spoilt it. It was therefore ordained that all the caste should eat their food straight off the leaf, in order to do which they would have to take it from the cooking-pot in small quant.i.ties and there would be no chance of leaving any for the crows to spoil. The story is interesting as showing how very completely the deity of the Kuramwars is imagined on the principle that G.o.d made man in his own image. Or, as a Frenchman has expressed the idea, '_Dieu a fait l'homme a son image, mais l'homme le lui a bein rendu._'

The caste are dark in colour and may be distinguished by their caps made from pieces of blankets, and by their wearing a woollen cord round the waist over the loin-cloth. They speak a dialect of Canarese.

Kurmi

List of Paragraphs

1. _Numbers and derivation of name._ 2. _Functional character of the caste._ 3. _Sub castes._ 4. _Exogamous groups._ 5. _Marriage rules. Betrothal_.

6. _The marriage-shed or pavillion._ 7. _The marriage cakes_.

8. _Customs at the wedding_.

9. _Walking round the sacred post_.

10. _Other ceremonies_.

11. _Polygamy, widow-marriage and divorce_.

12. _Impurity of women_.

13. _Pregnancy rites_.

14. _Earth-eating._ 15. _Customs at birth_.

16. _Treatment of mother and child_.

17. _Ceremonies after birth_.

18. _Suckling children_.

19. _Beliefs about twins_.

20. _Disposal of the dead_.

21. _Funeral rites_.

22. _Burning the dead_.

23. _Burial_.

24. _Return of the soul_.

25. _Mourning_.

26. _Shaving, and presents to Brahmans_.

27. _End of mourning_.

28. _Anniversaries of the dead_.

29. _Beliefs in the hereafter_.

30. _Religion. Village G.o.ds_.

31. _Sowing the Jawaras or gardens of Adonis_.

32. _Rites connected with the crops. Customs of cultivation_.

33. _Agricultural superst.i.tions_.

34. _Houses_.

35. _Superst.i.tions about houses_.

36. _Furniture._ 37. _Clothes_.

38. _Women's clothes_.

39. _Bathing_.

40. _Food_.

41. _Caste feasts_.

42. _Hospitality_.

43. _Social customs. Tattooing_.