The Tribes and Castes of the Central Provinces of India
Chapter 165 : The Rajputs seem at first to have treated the Bhils leniently. Intermarriage was frequ

The Rajputs seem at first to have treated the Bhils leniently. Intermarriage was frequent, especially in the families of Bhil chieftains, and a new caste called Bhilala [317] has arisen, which is composed of the descendants of mixed Rajput and Bhil marriages. Chiefs and landholders in the Bhil country now belong to this caste, and it is possible that some pure Bhil families may have been admitted to it. The Bhilalas rank above the Bhils, on a level with the cultivating castes. Instances occasionally occurred in which the children of Rajput by a Bhil wife became Rajputs. When Colonel Tod wrote, Rajputs would still take food with Ujla Bhils or those of pure aboriginal descent, and all castes would take water from them. [318]

But as Hinduism came to be more orthodox in Rajputana, the Bhils sank to the position of outcastes. Their custom of eating beef had always caused them to be much despised. A tradition is related that one day the G.o.d Mahadeo or Siva, sick and unhappy, was reclining in a shady forest when a beautiful woman appeared, the first sight of whom effected a cure of all his complaints. An intercourse between the G.o.d and the strange female was established, the result of which was many children; one of whom, from infancy distinguished alike by his ugliness and vice, slew the favourite bull of Mahadeo, for which crime he was expelled to the woods and mountains, and his descendants have ever since been stigmatised by the names of Bhil and Nishada. [319]

Nishada is a term of contempt applied to the lowest outcastes. Major Hendley, writing in 1875, states: "Some time since a Thakur (chief) cut off the legs of two Bhils, eaters of the sacred cow, and plunged the stumps into boiling oil." [320] When the Marathas began to occupy Central India they treated the Bhils with great cruelty. A Bhil caught in a disturbed part of the country was without inquiry flogged and hanged. Hundreds were thrown over high cliffs, and large bodies of them, a.s.sembled under promise of pardon, were beheaded or blown from guns. Their women were mutilated or smothered by smoke, and their children smashed to death against the stones. [321] This treatment may to some extent have been deserved owing to the predatory habits and cruelty of the Bhils, but its result was to make them utter savages with their hand against every man, as they believed that every one's was against them. From their strongholds in the hills they laid waste the plain country, holding villages and towns to ransom and driving off cattle; nor did any travellers pa.s.s with impunity through the hills except in convoys too large to be attacked. In Khandesh, during the disturbed period of the wars of Sindhia and Holkar, about A.D. 1800, the Bhils betook themselves to highway robbery and lived in bands either in mountains or in villages immediately beneath them. The revenue contractors were unable or unwilling to spend money in the maintenance of soldiers to protect the country, and the Bhils in a very short time became so bold as to appear in bands of hundreds and attack towns, carrying off either cattle or hostages, for whom they demanded handsome ransoms. [322] In Gujarat another writer described the Bhils and Kolis as hereditary and professional plunderers--'Soldiers of the night,' as they themselves said they were. [323] Malcolm said of them, after peace had been restored to Central India: [324]

"Measures are in progress that will, it is expected, soon complete the reformation of a cla.s.s of men who, believing themselves doomed to be thieves and plunderers, have been confirmed in their destiny by the oppression and cruelty of neighbouring governments, increased by an avowed contempt for them as outcasts. The feeling this system of degradation has produced must be changed; and no effort has been left untried to restore this race of men to a better sense of their condition than that which they at present entertain. The common answer of a Bhil when charged with theft or robbery is, 'I am not to blame; I am the thief of Mahadeo'; in other words, 'My destiny as a thief has been fixed by G.o.d.'" The Bhil chiefs, who were known as Bhumia, exercised the most absolute power, and their orders to commit the most atrocious crimes were obeyed by their ignorant but attached subjects without a conception on the part of the latter that they had an option when he whom they termed their Dhunni (Lord) issued the mandates. [325] Firearms and swords were only used by the chiefs and headmen of the tribe, and their national weapon was the bamboo bow having the bowstring made from a thin strip of its elastic bark. The quiver was a piece of strong bamboo matting, and would contain sixty barbed arrows a yard long, and tipped with an iron spike either flattened and sharpened like a knife or rounded like a nail; other arrows, used for knocking over birds, had k.n.o.b-like heads. Thus armed, the Bhils would lie in wait in some deep ravine by the roadside, and an infernal yell announced their attack to the unwary traveller. [326]

Major Hendley states that according to tradition in the Mahabharata the G.o.d Krishna was killed by a Bhil's arrow, when he was fighting against them in Gujarat with the Yadavas; and on this account it was ordained that the Bhil should never again be able to draw the bow with the forefinger of the right hand. "Times have changed since then, but I noticed in examining their hands that few could move the forefinger without the second finger; indeed the fingers appeared useless as independent members of the hands. In connection with this may be mentioned their apparent inability to distinguish colours or count numbers, due alone to their want of words to express themselves." [327]

4. General Outram and the Khandesh Bhil Corps.

The reclamation and pacification of the Bhils is inseparably a.s.sociated with the name of Lieutenant, afterwards Sir James, Outram. The Khandesh Bhil Corps was first raised by him in 1825, when Bhil robber bands were being hunted down by small parties of troops, and those who were willing to surrender were granted a free pardon for past offences, and given grants of land for cultivation and advances for the purchase of seed and bullocks. When the first attempts to raise the corps were made, the Bhils believed that the object was to link them in line like galley-slaves with a view to extirpate the race, that blood was in high demand as a medicine in the country of their foreign masters, and so on. Indulging the wild men with feasts and entertainments, and delighting them with his matchless urbanity, Captain Outram at length contrived to draw over to the cause nine recruits, one of whom was a notorious plunderer who had a short time before successfully robbed the officer commanding a detachment sent against him. This infant corps soon became strongly attached to the person of their new chief and entirely devoted to his wishes; their goodwill had been won by his kind and conciliatory manners, while their admiration and respect had been thoroughly roused and excited by his prowess and valour in the chase. On one occasion, it is recorded, word was brought to Outram of the presence of a panther in some p.r.i.c.kly-pear shrubs on the side of a hill near his station. He went to shoot it with a friend, Outram being on foot and his friend on horseback searching through the bushes. When close on the animal, Outram's friend fired and missed, on which the panther sprang forward roaring and seized Outram, and they rolled down the hill together. Being released from the claws of the furious beast for a moment, Outram with great presence of mind drew a pistol which he had with him, and shot the panther dead. The Bhils, on seeing that he had been injured, were one and all loud in their grief and expressions of regret, when Outram quieted them with the remark, 'What do I care for the clawing of a cat?' and this saying long remained a proverb among the Bhils. [328] By his kindness and sympathy, listening freely to all that each single man in the corps had to say to him, Outram at length won their confidence, convinced them of his good faith and dissipated their fears of treachery. Soon the ranks of the corps became full, and for every vacant place there were numbers of applicants. The Bhils freely hunted down and captured their friends and relations who continued to create disturbances, and brought them in for punishment. Outram managed to check their propensity for liquor by paying them every day just sufficient for their food, and giving them the balance of their pay at the end of the month, when some might have a drinking bout, but many preferred to spend the money on ornaments and articles of finery. With the a.s.sistance of the corps the marauding tendencies of the hill Bhils were suppressed and tranquillity restored to Khandesh, which rapidly became one of the most fertile parts of India. During the Mutiny the Bhil corps remained loyal, and did good service in checking the local outbursts which occurred in Khandesh. A second battalion was raised at this time, but was disbanded three years afterwards. After this the corps had little or nothing to do, and as the absence of fighting and the higher wages which could be obtained by ordinary labour ceased to render it attractive to the Bhils, it was finally converted into police in 1891. [329]

5. Subdivisions.

The Bhils of the Central Provinces have now only two subdivisions, the Muhammadan Bhils, who were forcibly converted to Islam during the time of Aurangzeb, and the remainder, who though retaining many animistic beliefs and superst.i.tions, have practically become Hindus. The Muhammadan Bhils only number about 3000 out of 28,000. They are known as Tadvi, a name which was formerly applied to a Bhil headman, and is said to be derived from _tad_, meaning a separate branch or section. These Bhils marry among themselves and not with any other Muhammadans. They retain many Hindu and animistic usages, and are scarcely Muhammadan in more than name. Both cla.s.ses are divided into groups or septs, generally named after plants or animals to which they still show reverence. Thus the Jamania sept, named after the _jaman_ tree, [330] will not cut or burn any part of this tree, and at their weddings the dresses of the bride and bridegroom are taken and rubbed against the tree before being worn. Similarly the Rohini sept wors.h.i.+p the _rohan_ [331] tree, the Avalia sept the _aonla_ [332] tree, the Meheda sept the _bahera_ [333] tree, and so on. The Mori sept wors.h.i.+p the peac.o.c.k. They go into the jungle and look for the tracks of a peac.o.c.k, and spreading a piece of red cloth before the footprint, lay their offerings of grain upon it. Members of this sept may not be tattooed, because they think the splashes of colour on the peac.o.c.k's feathers are tattoo-marks. Their women must veil themselves if they see a peac.o.c.k, and they think that if any member of the sept irreverently treads on a peac.o.c.k's footprints he will fall ill. The Ghodmarya (Horse-killer) sept may not tame a horse nor ride one. The Masrya sept will not kill or eat fish. The Sanyan or cat sept have a tradition that one of their ancestors was once chasing a cat, which ran for protection under a cover which had been put over the stone figure of their G.o.ddess. The G.o.ddess turned the cat into stone and sat on it, and since then members of the sept will not touch a cat except to save it from harm, and they will not eat anything which has been touched by a cat. The Ghattaya sept wors.h.i.+p the grinding mill at their weddings and also on festival days. The Solia sept, whose name is apparently derived from the sun, are split up into four subsepts: the Ada Solia, who hold their weddings at sunrise; the j.a.pa Solia, who hold them at sunset; the Taria Solia, who hold them when stars have become visible after sunset; and the Tar Solia, who believe their name is connected with cotton thread and wrap several skeins of raw thread round the bride and bridegroom at the wedding ceremony. The Moharia sept wors.h.i.+p the local G.o.ddess at the village of Moharia in Indore State, who is known as the Moharia Mata; at their weddings they apply turmeric and oil to the fingers of the G.o.ddess before rubbing them on the bride and bridegroom. The Maoli sept wors.h.i.+p a G.o.ddess of that name in Barwani town. Her shrine is considered to be in the shape of a kind of grain-basket known as _kilia_, and members of the sept may never make or use baskets of this shape, nor may they be tattooed with representations of it. Women of the sept are not allowed to visit the shrine of the G.o.ddess, but may wors.h.i.+p her at home. Several septs have the names of Rajput clans, as Sesodia, Panwar, Mori, and appear to have originated in mixed unions between Rajputs and Bhils.

6. Exogamy and marriage customs.

A man must not marry in his own sept nor in the families of his mothers and grandmothers. The union of first cousins is thus prohibited, nor can girls be exchanged in marriage between two families. A wife's sister may also not be married during the wife's lifetime. The Muhammadan Bhils permit a man to marry his maternal uncle's daughter, and though he cannot marry his wife's sister he may keep her as a concubine. Marriages may be infant or adult, but the former practice is becoming prevalent and girls are often wedded before they are eleven. Matches are arranged by the parents of the parties in consultation with the caste _panchayat_; but in Bombay girls may select their own husbands, and they have also a recognised custom of elopement at the Tosina fair in the month of the Mahi Kantha. If a Bhil can persuade a girl to cross the river there with him he may claim her as his wife; but if they are caught before getting across he is liable to be punished by the bride's father. [334]

The betrothal and wedding ceremonies now follow the ordinary ritual of the middle and lower castes in the Maratha country. [335] The bride must be younger than the bridegroom except in the case of a widow. A bride-price is paid which may vary from Rs. 9 to 20; in the case of Muhammadan Bhils the bridegroom is said to give a dowry of Rs. 20 to 25. When the ovens are made with the sacred earth they roast some of the large millet juari [336] for the family feast, calling this Juari Mata or the grain G.o.ddess. Offerings of this are made to the family G.o.ds, and it is partaken of only by the members of the bride's and bridegroom's septs respectively at their houses. No outsider may even see this food being eaten. The leavings of food, with the leaf-plates on which it was eaten, are buried inside the house, as it is believed that if they should fall into the hands of any outsider the death or blindness of one of the family will ensue. When the bridegroom reaches the bride's house he strikes the marriage-shed with a dagger or other sharp instrument. A goat is killed and he steps in its blood as he enters the shed. A day for the wedding is selected by the priest, but it may also take place on any Sunday in the eight fine months. If the wedding takes place on the eleventh day of Kartik, that is on the expiration of the four rainy months when marriages are forbidden, they make a little hut of eleven stalks of juari with their cobs in the shape of a cone, and the bride and bridegroom walk round this. The services of a Brahman are not required for such a wedding. Sometimes the bridegroom is simply seated in a grain basket and the bride in a winnowing-fan; then their hands are joined as the sun is half set, and the marriage is completed. The bridegroom takes the basket and fan home with him. On the return of the wedding couple, their _kankans_ or wristbands are taken off at Hanuman's temple. The Muhammadan Bhils perform the same ceremonies as the Hindus, but at the end they call in the Kazi or registrar, who repeats the Muhammadan prayers and records the dowry agreed upon. The practice of the bridegroom serving for his wife is in force among both cla.s.ses of Bhils.

7. Widow--marriage, divorce and polygamy.

The remarriage of widows is permitted, but the widow may not marry any relative of her first husband. She returns to her father's house, and on her remarriage they obtain a bride-price of Rs. 40 or 50, a quarter of which goes in a feast to the tribesmen. The wedding of a widow is held on the Amawas or last day of the dark fortnight of the month, or on a Sunday. A wife may be divorced for adultery without consulting the _panchayat_. It is said that a wife cannot otherwise be divorced on any account, nor can a woman divorce her husband, but she may desert him and go and live with a man. In this case all that is necessary is that the second husband should repay to the first as compensation the amount expended by the latter on his marriage with the woman. Polygamy is permitted, and a second wife is sometimes taken in order to obtain children, but this number is seldom if ever exceeded. It is stated that the Bhil married women are generally chaste and faithful to their husbands, and any attempt to tamper with their virtue on the part of an outsider is strongly resented by the man.

8. Religion.

The Bhils wors.h.i.+p the ordinary Hindu deities and the village G.o.dlings of the locality. The favourite both with Hindu and Muhammadan Bhils is Khande Rao or Khandoba, the war-G.o.d of the Marathas, who is often represented by a sword. The Muhammadans and the Hindu Bhils also to a less extent wors.h.i.+p the Pirs or spirits of Muhammadan saints at their tombs, of which there are a number in Nimar. Major Hendley states that in Mewar the seats or _sthans_ of the Bhil G.o.ds are on the summits of high hills, and are represented by heaps of stones, solid or hollowed out in the centre, or mere platforms, in or near which are found numbers of clay or mud images of horses. [337] In some places clay lamps are burnt in front of the images of horses, from which it may be concluded that the horse itself is or was wors.h.i.+pped as a G.o.d. Colonel Tod states that the Bhils will eat of nothing white in colour, as a white sheep or goat; and their grand adjuration is 'By the white ram.' [338] Sir A. Lyall [339] says that their princ.i.p.al oath is by the dog. The Bhil sepoys told Major Hendley that they considered it of little use to go on wors.h.i.+pping their own G.o.ds, as the power of these had declined since the English became supreme. They thought the strong English G.o.ds were too much for the weak deities of their country, hence they were desirous of embracing Brahmanism, which would also raise them in the social scale and give them a better chance of promotion in regiments where there were Brahman officers.

9. Witchcraft and amulets.

They wear charms and amulets to keep off evil spirits; the charms are generally pieces of blue string with seven knots in them, which their witch-finder or Badwa ties, reciting an incantation on each; the knots were sometimes covered with metal to keep them undefiled and the charms were tied on at the Holi, Dasahra or some other festival. [340]

In Bombay the Bhils still believe in witches as the agents of any misfortunes that may befall them. If a man was sick and thought some woman had bewitched him, the suspected woman was thrown into a stream or swung from a tree. If the branch broke and the woman fell and suffered serious injury, or if she could not swim across the stream and sank, she was considered to be innocent and efforts were made to save her. But if she escaped without injury she was held to be a witch, and it frequently happened that the woman would admit herself to be one either from fear of the infliction of a harder ordeal, or to keep up the belief in her powers as a witch, which often secured her a free supper of milk and chickens. She would then admit that she had really bewitched the sick man and undertake to cure him on some sacrifice being made. If he recovered, the animal named by the witch was sacrificed and its blood given her to drink while still warm; either from fear or in order to keep up the character she would drink it, and would be permitted to stay on in the village. If, on the other hand, the sick person died, the witch would often be driven into the forest to die of hunger or to be devoured by wild animals. [341]

These practices have now disappeared in the Central Provinces, though occasionally murders of suspected witches may still occur. The Bhils are firm believers in omens, the nature of which is much the same as among the Hindus. When a Bhil is persistently unlucky in hunting, he sometimes says '_Nat laga_,' meaning that some bad spirit is causing his ill-success. Then he will make an image of a man in the sand or dust of the road, or sometimes two images of a man and woman, and throwing straw or gra.s.s over the images set it alight, and pound it down on them with a stick with abusive yells. This he calls killing his bad luck. [342] Major Hendley notes that the men danced before the different festivals and before battles. The men danced in a ring holding sticks and striking them against each other, much like the Baiga dance. Before battle they had a war-dance in which the performers were armed and imitated a combat. To be carried on the shoulders of one of the combatants was a great honour, perhaps because it symbolised being on horseback. The dance was probably in the nature of a magical rite, designed to obtain success in battle by going through an imitation of it beforehand. The priests are the chief physicians among the Bhils, though most old men were supposed to know something about medicine. [343]

10. Funeral rites.

The dead are usually buried lying on the back, with the head pointing to the south. Cooked food is placed on the bier and deposited on the ground half-way to the cemetery. On return each family of the sept brings a wheaten cake to the mourners and these are eaten. On the third day they place on the grave a thick cake of wheaten flour, water in an earthen pot and tobacco or any other stimulant which the deceased was in the habit of using in his life.

11. Social customs.

The Hindu Bhils say that they do not admit outsiders into the caste, but the Muhammadans will admit a man of any but the impure castes. The neophyte must be shaved and circ.u.mcised, and the Kazi gives him some holy water to drink and teaches him the profession of belief in Islam. If a man is not circ.u.mcised, the Tadvi or Muhammadan Bhils will not bury his body. Both cla.s.ses of Bhils employ Brahmans at their ceremonies. The tribe eat almost all kinds of flesh and drink liquor, but the Hindus now abjure beef and the Muhammadans pork. Some Bhils now refuse to take the skins off dead cattle, but others will do so. The Bhils will take food from any caste except the impure ones, and none except these castes will now take food from them. Temporary or permanent exclusion from caste is imposed for the same offences as among the Hindus.

12. Appearance and characteristics.

The typical Bhil is small, dark, broad-nosed and ugly, but well built and active. The average height of 128 men measured by Major Hendley was 5 feet 6.4 inches. The hands are somewhat small and the legs fairly developed, those of the women being the best. "The Bhil is an excellent woodsman, knows the shortest cuts over the hills, can walk the roughest paths and climb the steepest crags without slipping or feeling distressed. He is often called in old Sanskrit works Venaputra, 'child of the forest,' or Pal Indra, 'lord of the pa.s.s.' These names well describe his character. His country is approached through narrow defiles (_pal_), and through these none could pa.s.s without his permission. In former days he always levied _rakhwali_ or blackmail, and even now native travellers find him quite ready to a.s.sert what he deems his just rights. The Bhil is a capital huntsman, tracking and marking down tigers, panthers and bears, knowing all their haunts, the best places to shoot them, the paths they take and all those points so essential to success in big-game shooting; they will remember for years the spots where tigers have been disposed of, and all the circ.u.mstances connected with their deaths. The Bhil will himself attack a leopard, and with his sword, aided by his friends, cut him to pieces." [344]

Their agility impressed the Hindus, and an old writer says: "Some Bhil chieftains who attended the camp of Sidhraj, king of Gujarat, astonished him with their feats of activity; in his army they seemed as the followers of Hanuman in attendance upon Ram." [345]

13. Occupation.

The Bhils have now had to abandon their free use of the forests, which was highly destructive in its effects, and their indiscriminate slaughter of game. Many of them live in the open country and have become farmservants and field-labourers. A certain proportion are tenants, but very few own villages. Some of the Tadvi Bhils, however, still retain villages which were originally granted free of revenue on condition of their keeping the hill-pa.s.ses of the Satpuras open and safe for travellers. These are known as Hattiwala. Bhils also serve as village watchmen in Nimar and the adjoining tracts of the Berar Districts. Captain Forsyth, writing in 1868, described the Bhils as follows: "The Muhammadan Bhils are with few exceptions a miserable lot, idle and thriftless, and steeped in the deadly vice of opium-eating. The unconverted Bhils are held to be tolerably reliable. When they borrow money or stock for cultivation they seldom abscond fraudulently from their creditors, and this simple honesty of theirs tends, I fear, to keep numbers of them still in a state little above serfdom." [346]

14. Language.

The Bhils have now entirely abandoned their own language and speak a corrupt dialect based on the Aryan vernaculars current around them. The Bhil dialect is mainly derived from Gujarati, but it is influenced by Marwari and Marathi; in Nimar especially it becomes a corrupt form of Marathi. Bhili, as this dialect is called, contains a number of non-Aryan words, some of which appear to come from the Mundari, and others from the Dravidian languages; but these are insufficient to form any basis for a deduction as to whether the Bhils belonged to the Kolarian or Dravidian race. [347]

Bhilala

1. General notice.

_Bhilala_, [348]--A small caste found in the Nimar and Hoshangabad Districts of the Central Provinces and in Central India. The total strength of the Bhilalas is about 150,000 persons, most of whom reside in the Bhopawar Agency, adjoining Nimar. Only 15,000 were returned from the Central Provinces in 1911. The Bhilalas are commonly considered, and the general belief may in their case be accepted as correct, to be a mixed caste sprung from the alliances of immigrant Rajputs with the Bhils of the Central India hills. The original term was not improbably Bhilwala, and may have been applied to those Rajput chiefs, a numerous body, who acquired small estates in the Bhil country, or to those who took the daughters of Bhil chieftains to wife, the second course being often no doubt a necessary preliminary to the first. Several Bhilala families hold estates in Nimar and Indore, and their chiefs now claim to be pure Rajputs. The princ.i.p.al Bhilala houses, as those of Bhamgarh, Selani and Mandhata, do not intermarry with the rest of the caste, but only among themselves and with other families of the same standing in Malwa and Holkar's Nimar. On succession to the _Gaddi_ or heads.h.i.+p of the house, representatives of these families are marked with a _tika_ or badge on the forehead and sometimes presented with a sword, and the invest.i.ture may be carried out by custom by the head of another house. Bhilala landholders usually have the t.i.tle of Rao or Rawat. They do not admit that a Bhilala can now spring from intermarriage between a Rajput and a Bhil. The local Brahmans will take water from them and they are occasionally invested with the sacred thread at the time of marriage. The Bhilala Rao of Mandhata is hereditary custodian of the great shrine of Siva at Onkar Mandhata on an island in the Nerbudda. According to the traditions of the family, their ancestor, Bharat Singh, was a Chauhan Rajput, who took Mandhata from Nathu Bhil in A.D. 1165, and restored the wors.h.i.+p of Siva to the island, which had been made inaccessible to pilgrims by the terrible deities, Kali and Bhairava, devourers of human flesh. In such legends may be recognised the propagation of Hinduism by the Rajput adventurers and the reconsecration of the aboriginal shrines to its deities. Bharat Singh is said to have killed Nathu Bhil, but it is more probable that he only married his daughter and founded a Bhilala family. Similar alliances have taken place among other tribes, as the Korku chiefs of the Gawilgarh and Mahadeo hills, and the Gond princes of Garha Mandla. The Bhilalas generally resemble other Hindus in appearance, showing no marked signs of aboriginal descent. Very probably they have all an infusion of Rajput blood, as the Rajputs settled in the Bhil country in some strength at an early period of history. The caste have, however, totemistic group names; they will eat fowls and drink liquor; and they bury their dead with the feet to the north, all these customs indicating a Dravidian origin. Their subordinate position in past times is shown by the fact that they will accept cooked food from a Kunbi or a Gujar; and indeed the status of all except the chief's families would naturally have been a low one, as they were practically the offspring of kept women. As already stated, the landowning families usually arrange alliances among themselves. Below these comes the body of the caste and below them is a group known as the Chhoti Tad or b.a.s.t.a.r.d Bhilalas, to which are relegated the progeny of irregular unions and persons expelled from the caste for social offences.