The Tribes and Castes of the Central Provinces of India
Chapter 176 : 10. Occupation.The curing and tanning of hides is the primary occupation of the Chamar

10. Occupation.

The curing and tanning of hides is the primary occupation of the Chamar, but in 1911 only 80,000 persons, or about a seventh of the actual workers of the caste, were engaged in it, and by Satnamis the trade has been entirely eschewed. The majority of the Chhattisgarhi Chamars are cultivators with tenant right, and a number of them have obtained villages. In the northern Districts, however, the caste are as a rule miserably poor, and none of them own villages. A very few are tenants, and the vast majority despised and bullied helots. The condition of the leather-working Chamars is described by Mr. Trench as lamentable. [459] Chief among the causes of their ruin has been the recently established trade in raw hides. Formerly the bodies of all cattle dying within the precincts of the village necessarily became the property of the Chamars, as the Hindu owners could not touch them without loss of caste. But since the rise of the cattle-slaughtering industry the cultivator has put his religious scruples in his pocket, and sells his old and worn-out animals to the butchers for a respectable sum. "For a mere walking skeleton of a cow or bullock from two to four rupees may be had for the asking, and so long as he does not actually see or stipulate for the slaughter of the sacred animal, the cultivator's scruples remain dormant. No one laments this lapse from orthodoxy more sincerely than the outcaste Chamar. His situation may be compared with that of the Cornish pilchard-fishers, for whom the growing laxity on the part of continental Roman Catholic countries in the observance of Lent is already more than an omen of coming disaster." [460]

11. The tanning process.

When a hide is to be cured the inside is first cleaned with the _rampi_, a chisel-like implement with a short blade four inches broad and a thick short handle. It is then soaked in a mixture of water and lime for ten or twelve days, and at intervals sc.r.a.ped clean of flesh and hair with the _rampi_. "The skill of a good tanner appears in the absence of superfluous inner skin, fat or flesh, remaining to be removed after the hide is finally taken out of the lime-pit. Next the hard berries of the _ghont_ [461] tree are poured into a large earthen vessel sunk in the ground, and water added till the mixture is so thick as to become barely liquid. In this the folded hide is dipped three or four times a day, undergoing meanwhile a vigorous rubbing and kneading. The average duration of this process is eight days, and it is followed by what is according to European ideas the real tanning. Using as thread the roots of the ubiquitous _palas_ [462] tree, the Chamar sews the hide up into a mussack-shaped bag open at the neck. The sewing is admirably executed, and when drawn tight the seams are nearly, but purposely not quite, water-tight. The hide is then hung on low stout scaffolding over a pit and filled with a decoction of the dried and semi-powdered leaves of the _dhaura_ [463] tree mixed with water. As the decoction trickles slowly through the seams below, more is poured on from above, and from time to time the position of the hide is reversed in such a way that the tanning permeates each part in turn. Sometimes only one reversal of the hide takes place half-way through the process, which occupies as a rule some eight days. But energetic Chamars continually turn and refill the skin until satisfied that it is thoroughly saturated with the tanning. After a was.h.i.+ng in clean water the hide is now considered to be tanned." [464]

12. Shoes.

In return for receiving the hides of the village cattle the Chamar had to supply the village proprietor and his family with a pair of shoes each free of payment once a year, and sometimes also the village accountant and watchman; but the cultivators had usually to pay for them, though nowadays they also often insist on shoes in exchange for their hides. Shoes are usually worn in the wheat and cotton growing areas, but are less common in the rice country, where they would continually stick in the mud of the fields. The Saugor or Bundelkhandi shoe is a striking specimen of footgear. The sole is formed of as many as three layers of stout hide, and may be nearly an inch thick. The uppers in a typical shoe are of black soft leather, inlaid with a simple pattern in silver thread. These are covered by flaps of stamped yellow goat-skin cut in triangular and half-moon patterns, the interstices between the flaps being filled with red cloth. The heel-piece is continued more than half-way up the calf behind. The toe is pointed, curled tightly over backwards and surmounted by a bra.s.s k.n.o.b. The high frontal s.h.i.+eld protects the instep from mud and spear-gra.s.s, and the heel-piece ensures the retention of the shoe in the deepest quagmire. Such shoes cost one or two rupees a pair. [465] In the rice Districts sandals are often worn on the road, and laid aside when the cultivator enters his fields. Women go bare-footed as a rule, but sometimes have sandals. Up till recently only prost.i.tutes wore shoes in public, and no respectable woman would dare to do so. In towns boots and shoes made in the English fas.h.i.+on at Cawnpore and other centres have now been generally adopted, and with these socks are worn. The Mochis and Jingars, who are offshoots from the Chamar caste, have adopted the distinctive occupations of making shoes and horse furniture with prepared leather, and no longer cure hides. They have thus developed into a separate caste, and consider themselves greatly superior to the Chamars.

13. Other articles made of leather.

Other articles made of leather are the thongs and nose-strings for bullocks, the buckets for irrigation wells, rude country saddlery, and _mussacks_ and _pakhals_ for carrying water. These last are simply hides sewn into a bag and provided with an orifice. To make a pair of bellows a goat-skin is taken with all four legs attached, and wetted and filled with sand. It is then dried in the sun, the sand shaken out, the sticks fitted at the hind-quarters for blowing, and the pair of bellows is complete.

14. Customs connected with shoes.

The shoe, as everybody in India knows, is a symbol of the greatest degradation and impurity. This is partly on account of its manufacture from the impure leather or hide, and also perhaps because it is worn and trodden under foot. All the hides of tame animals are polluted and impure, but those of certain wild animals, such as the deer and tiger, are not so, being on the contrary to some extent sacred. This last feeling may be due to the fact that the old anchorites of the forests were accustomed to cover themselves with the skins of wild animals, and to use them for sitting and kneeling to pray. A Bairagi or Vaishnava religious mendicant much likes to carry a tiger-skin on his body if he can afford one; and a Brahman will have the skin of a black-buck spread in the room where he performs his devotions. Possibly the sin involved in killing tame animals has been partly responsible for the impurity attaching to their hides, to the obtaining of which the death of the animal must be a preliminary. Every Hindu removes his shoes before entering a house, though with the adoption of English boots a breach is being made in this custom. So far as the houses of Europeans are concerned, the retention of shoes is not, as might be imagined, of recent origin, but was noticed by Buchanan a hundred years ago: "Men of rank and their attendants continue to wear their shoes loose for the purpose of throwing them off whenever they enter a room, which they still continue to do everywhere except in the houses of Europeans, in which all natives of rank now imitate our example." In this connection it must be remembered that a Hindu house is always sacred as the shrine of the household G.o.d, and shoes are removed before stepping across the threshold on to the hallowed ground. This consideration does not apply to European houses, and affords ground for dispensing with the removal of laced shoes and boots.

To be beaten or sometimes even touched with a shoe by a man of low caste entails temporary social excommunication to most Hindus, and must be expiated by a formal purification and caste feast. The outcaste Mahars punish a member of their community in the same manner even if somebody should throw a shoe on to the roof of his house, and the Pharasaical absurdities of the caste system surely find their culminating point in this rule. Similarly if a man touches his shoe with his hand and says 'I have beaten you,' to a member of any of the lower castes in Seoni, the person so addressed is considered as temporarily out of caste. If he then immediately goes and informs his caste-fellows he is reinstated with a nominal fine of grain worth one or two pice. But if he goes back to his house and takes food, and the incident is subsequently discovered, a penalty of a goat is levied. A curious exception recognised is that of the _Sirkari juta_, or shoe belonging to a Government servant, and to be beaten with this shoe does not entail social punishment.

15. The Chamar as general village drudge.

In return for his perquisite of the hides of cattle the Chamar has to act as the general village drudge in the northern Districts and is always selected for the performance of _bigar_ or forced labour. When a Government officer visits the village the Chamar must look after him, fetch what gra.s.s or fuel he requires, and accompany him as far as the next village to point out the road. He is also the bearer of official letters and messages sent to the village. The special Chamar on whom these duties are imposed usually receives a plot of land rent-free from the village proprietor. Another of the functions of the Chamar is the castration of the young bullocks, which task the cultivators will not do for themselves. His method is most primitive, the s.c.r.o.t.u.m being held in a cleft bamboo or a pair of iron pincers, while the t.e.s.t.i.c.l.es are bruised and rubbed to pulp with a stone. The animal remains ill for a week or a fortnight and is not worked for two months, but the operation is rarely or never fatal. In the northern Districts the Chamars are said to be very strong and to make the best farmservants and coolies for earthwork. It is a proverb that 'The Chamar has half a rib more than other men.' Notwithstanding his strength, however, he is a great coward, this characteristic having probably been acquired through centuries of oppression. Many Chamar women act as midwives. In Raipur the cultivators give her five annas at the birth of a boy and four annas for a girl, while well-to-do people pay a rupee. When the first child of a rich man is born, the midwife, barber and washerman go round to all his friends and relations to announce the event and obtain presents. It is a regular function of the Chamars to remove the carcases of dead cattle, which they eat without regard to the disease from which the animal may have died. But a Chamar will not touch the corpse of a pony, camel, cat, dog, squirrel or monkey, and to remove the bodies of such animals a Mehtar (sweeper) or a Gond must be requisitioned. In Raipur it is said that the Chamars will eat only the flesh of four-legged animals, avoiding presumably birds and fish. When acting as a porter the Chamar usually carries a load on his head, whereas the Kahar bears it on his shoulders, and this distinction is proverbial. In Raipur the Chamars have become retail cattle-dealers and are known as Kochias. They purchase cattle at the large central markets of Baloda and Bamnidih and retail them at the small village bazars. It is said that this trade could only flourish in Chhattisgarh, where the cultivators are too lazy to go and buy their cattle for themselves. Many Chamars have emigrated from Chhattisgarh to the a.s.sam tea-gardens, and others have gone to Calcutta and to the railway workshops at Kharagpur and Chakardharpur. Many of them work as porters on the railway. It is probable that their taste for emigration is due to the resentment felt at their despised position in Chhattisgarh.

16. Social status.

The Chamar ranks at the very bottom of the social scale, and contact with his person is considered to be a defilement to high-caste Hindus. He cannot draw water from the common well and usually lives in a hamlet somewhat removed from the main village. But in several localities the rule is not so strict, and in Saugor a Chamar may go into all parts of the house except the cooking and eating rooms. This is almost necessary when he is so commonly employed as a farmservant. Here the village barber will shave Chamars and the washerman will wash their clothes. And the Chamar himself will not touch the corpse of a horse, a dog or any animal whose feet are uncloven; and he will not kill a cow though he eats its flesh. It is stated indeed that a Chamar who once killed a calf accidentally had to go to the Ganges to purify himself. The crime of cattle-poisoning is thus rare in Saugor and the other northern Districts, but in the east of the Provinces it is a common practice of the Chamars. As is usual with the low castes, many Chamars are in some repute as Gunias or sorcerers, and in this capacity they are frequently invited to enter the houses of Hindus to heal persons possessed of evil spirits. When children fall ill one of them is called in and he waves a branch of the _nim_ [466] tree over the child and taking ashes in his hand blows them at it; he is also consulted for hysterical women. When a Chamar has had something stolen and wishes to detect the thief, he takes the wooden-handled needle used for st.i.tching leather and sticks the spike into the sole of a shoe. Then two persons standing in the relation of maternal uncle and nephew hold the needle and shoe up by placing their forefingers under the wooden handle. The names of all suspected persons are p.r.o.nounced, and he at whose name the shoe turns on the needle is taken to be the thief.

The caste do not employ Brahmans for their ceremonies, but consult them for the selection of auspicious days, as this business can be performed by the Brahman at home and he need not enter the Chamar's house. But poor and despised as the Chamars are they have a pride of their own. When the Dohar and Maratha Chamars sell shoes to a Mahar they will only allow him to try on one of them and not both, and this, too, he must do in a sitting posture, as an indication of humility. The Harale or Maratha Chamars of Berar [467] do not eat beef nor work with untanned leather, and they will not work for the lowest castes, as Mahars, Mangs, Basors and Kolis. If one of these buys a pair of shoes from the Chamar the seller asks no indiscreet questions; but he will not mend the pair as he would for a man of higher caste. The Satnamis of Chhattisgarh have openly revolted against the degraded position to which they are relegated by Hinduism and are at permanent feud with the Hindus; some of them have even adopted the sacred thread. But this interesting movement is separately discussed in the article on Satnami.

17. Character.

In Chhattisgarh the Chamars are the most criminal cla.s.s of the population, and have made a regular practice of poisoning cattle with a.r.s.enic in order to obtain the hides and flesh. They either mix the poison with mahua flowers strewn on the grazing-ground, or make it into a ball with b.u.t.ter and insert it into the a.n.u.s of the animal when the herdsman is absent. They also commit cattle-theft and frequently appear at the whipping-post before the court-house. The estimation in which they are held by their neighbours is reflected in the proverb, 'Hemp, rice and a Chamar; the more they are pounded the better they are.' "The caste," Mr. Trench writes, "are illiterate to a man, and their intellectual development is reflected in their style of living. A visit to a hamlet of tanning Chamars induces doubt as to whence the appalling smells of the place proceed--from the hides or from the tanners. Were this squalor invariably, as it is occasionally, accompanied by a sufficiency of the necessaries of life, victuals and clothing, the Chamar would not be badly off, but the truth is that in the northern Districts at all events the Chamar, except in years of good harvest, does not get enough to eat. This fact is sufficiently indicated by a glance at the perquisites of the village Chamar, who is almost invariably the shoemaker and leather-worker for his little community. In one District the undigested grain left by the gorged bullocks on the thres.h.i.+ng-floor is his portion, and a portion for which he will sometimes fight. Everywhere he is a carrion-eater, paying little or no regard to the disease from which the animal may have died." The custom above mentioned of was.h.i.+ng grain from the dung of cattle is not so repugnant to the Hindus, owing to the sacred character of the cow, as it is to us. It is even sometimes considered holy food:--"The zamindar of Idar, who is named Naron Das, lives with such austerity that his only food is grain which has pa.s.sed through oxen and has been separated from their dung; and this kind of aliment the Brahmans consider pure in the highest degree." [468]

Old-fas.h.i.+oned cultivators do not muzzle the bullocks treading out the corn, and the animals eat it the whole time, so that much pa.s.ses through their bodies undigested. The Chamar will make several maunds (80 lbs.) of grain in this way, and to a cultivator who does not muzzle his bullocks he will give a pair of shoes and a plough-rein and yoke-string. Another duty of the Chamar is to look after the _banda_ or large underground masonry chamber in which grain is kept. After the grain has been stored, a conical roof is built and plastered over with mud to keep out water. The Chamar looks after the repairs of the mud plaster and in return receives a small quant.i.ty of grain, which usually goes bad on the floor of the store-chamber. They prepare the thres.h.i.+ng-floors for the cultivators, making the surface of the soil level and beating it down to a smooth and hard surface. In return for this they receive the grain mixed with earth which remains on the thres.h.i.+ng-floor after the crop is removed.

Like all other village artisans the Chamar is considered by the cultivators to be faithless and dilatory in his dealings with them; and they vent their spleen in sayings such as the following:--"The Kori, the Chamar and the Ahir, these are the three biggest liars that ever were known. For if you ask the Chamar whether he has mended your shoes he says, 'I am at the last st.i.tch,' when he has not begun them; if you ask the Ahir whether he has brought back your cow from the jungle he says, 'It has come, it has come,' without knowing or caring whether it has come or not; and if you ask the Kori whether he has made your cloth he says, 'It is on the loom,' when he has not so much as bought the thread." Another proverb conveying the same sense is, 'The Mochi's to-morrow never comes.' But no doubt the uncertainty and delay in payment account for much of this conduct.

Chasa

1. Origin and traditions.

_Chasa_, [469] _Tasa_ (also called Alia in the Sonpur and Patna States).--The chief cultivating caste of Orissa. In 1901 more than 21,000 Chasas were enumerated in Sambalpur and the adjoining Feudatory States, but nearly all these pa.s.sed in 1905 to Bengal. The Chasas are said [470] by Sir H. Risley to be for the most part of non-Aryan descent, the loose organisation of the caste system among the Uriyas making it possible on the one hand for outsiders to be admitted into the caste, and on the other for wealthy Chasas who gave up ploughing with their own hands and a.s.sumed the respectable t.i.tle of Mahanti to raise themselves to members.h.i.+p among the lower cla.s.ses of Kayasths. This pa.s.sage indicates that the term Mahanti is or was a broader one than Karan or Uriya Kayasth, and was applied to educated persons of other castes who apparently aspired to admission among the Karans, in the same manner as leading members of the warlike and landholding castes lay claim to rank as Rajputs. For this reason probably the Uriya Kayasths prefer the name of Karan to that of Mahanti, and the Uriya saying, 'He who has no caste is called a Mahanti,' supports this view. The word Chasa has the generic meaning of 'a cultivator,' and the Chasas may in Sambalpur be merely an occupational group recruited from other castes. This theory is supported by the names of their subdivisions, three of which, Kolta, Khandait and Ud or Orh are the names of distinct castes, while the fourth, Benatia, is found as a subdivision of several other castes.

2. Exogamous divisions.

Each family has a _got_ or sept and a _varga_ or family name. The _vargas_ are much more numerous than the _gots_, and marriages are arranged according to them, unions of members of the same _varga_ only being forbidden. The sept names are totemistic and the family names territorial or t.i.tular. Among the former are _bachhas_ (calf), _nagas_ (cobra), _hasti_ or _gaj_ (elephant), _harin_ (deer), _mahumachhi_ (bee), _dipas_ (lamp), and others; while instances of the _varga_ names are Pitmundia, Hulbulsingia, Giringia and Dumania, all names of villages in Angul State; and Nayak (headman), Mahanti (writer), Dehri (wors.h.i.+pper), Behera (cook), Kandra (bamboo-worker), and others. The different _gots_ or septs revere their totems by drawing figures of them on their houses, and abstaining from injuring them in any way. If they find the footprints of the animal which they wors.h.i.+p, they bow to the marks and obliterate them with the hand, perhaps with the view of affording protection to the totem animal from hunters or of preventing the marks from being trampled on by others. They believe that if they injured the totem animal they would be attacked by leprosy and their line would die out. Members of the _dipas_ sept will not eat if a lamp is put out at night, and will not touch a lamp with unclean hands. Those of the _mahumachhi_ or bee sept will not take honey from a comb or eat it. Those of the _gaj_ sept will not join an elephant kheddah. Some of the septs have an Ishta Devata or tutelary Hindu deity to whom wors.h.i.+p is paid. Thus the elephant sept wors.h.i.+p Ganesh, the elephant-headed G.o.d, and also do not kill rats because Ganesh rides on this animal. Similarly the _harin_ or deer sept have Pawan, the G.o.d of the wind, as their Ishta Devata, because a deer is considered to be as swift as the wind. It would appear then that the septs, each having its totem, were the original divisions for the restriction of marriage, but as these increased in size they were felt to debar the union of persons who had no real relations.h.i.+p and hence the smaller family groups were subst.i.tuted for them; while in the case of the old septs, the subst.i.tution of the Hindu G.o.d representing the animal wors.h.i.+pped by the sept for the animal itself as the object of veneration is an instance of the process of abandoning totem or animal wors.h.i.+p and conforming to Hinduism. In one or two cases the _vargas_ themselves have been further subdivided for the purpose of marriage. Thus certain families of the Padhan (leader, chief) _varga_ were entrusted with the duty of readmitting persons temporarily put out of caste to social intercourse, for which they received the remuneration of a rupee and a piece of cloth in each case. These families were called the Parichha or 'Scrutinisers' and have now become a separate _varga_, so that a Parichha Padhan may marry another Padhan. This is a further instance of the process of subdivision of exogamous groups which must take place as the groups increase in size and numbers, and the original idea of the common ancestry of the group vanishes. Until finally the primitive system of exogamy disappears and is replaced by the modern and convenient method of prohibition of marriage within certain degrees of relations.h.i.+p.

3. Status and customs of the caste.

The Chasas do not marry within the same _varga,_ but a man may usually take a wife from his mother's _varga_. A girl must always be wedded before arriving at adolescence, the penalty for breach of this rule being the driving out of the girl to seclusion in the forest for a day and a half, and a feast to the caste-fellows. If no husband is available she may be married to an arrow or a flower, or she goes through the form of marriage with any man in the caste, and when a suitable partner is subsequently found, is united with him by the form of widow-marriage. Widows may marry again and divorce is also allowed. The dead are usually buried if unmarried, and burnt when married. The Chasas wors.h.i.+p the Hindu deities and also the village G.o.d Gramsiri, who is represented by a stone outside the village. At festivals they offer animal sacrifices to their agricultural implements, as hoes and hatchets. They employ Brahmans for religious ceremonies. They have an aversion to objects of a black colour, and will not use black umbrellas or clothes woven with black thread. They do not usually wear shoes or ride horses, even when they can afford these latter. Cultivation is the traditional occupation of the caste, and they are tenants, farmservants and field-labourers. They take food from Rajputs and Brahmans, and sometimes from Koltas and Sudhs. They eat flesh and fish, but abjure liquor, beef, pork and fowls. Their social position is a little below that of the good agricultural castes, and they are considered somewhat stupid, as shown by the proverb:

Chasa, ki jane pasar katha, Padili bolai dons;

or 'What does the Chasa know of the dice? At every throw he calls out "twenty."'