The Tribes and Castes of the Central Provinces of India
Chapter 66 : 37. Dravidian tribes.The princ.i.p.al Dravidian tribes are the Gonds, Khonds and Oraons

37. Dravidian tribes.

The princ.i.p.al Dravidian tribes are the Gonds, Khonds and Oraons. The Gonds were once dominant over the greater part of the Central Provinces, which was called Gondwana after them. The above three names have in each case been given to the tribes by the Hindus. The following tribes are found in the Province:

Gond, Oraon or Kurukh, Khond, Kolam, Parja, Kamar. _Tribal Castes_: Bhatra, Halba, Dhoba. _Doubtful_: Kawar, Dhanwar.

The Gonds and Khonds call themselves Koi or Koitur, a word which seems to mean man or hillman. The Oraon tribe call themselves Kurukh, which has also been supposed to be connected with the Kolarian _horo_, man. The name Oraon, given to them by the Hindus, may mean farmservant, while Dhangar, an alternative name for the tribe, has certainly this signification.

There seems good reason to suppose that the Gonds and Khonds were originally one tribe divided through migration. [72] The Kolams are a small tribe of the Wardha Valley, whose dialect resembles those of the Gonds and Khonds. They may have split off from the parent tribe in southern India and come northwards separately. The Parjas appear to represent the earliest Gond settlers in Bastar, who were subjugated by later Gond and Raj-Gond immigrants. The Halbas and Bhatras are mixed tribes or tribal castes, descended from the unions of Gonds and Hindus.

38. Origin of the Kolarian tribes

The Munda languages have been shown by Sir G. Grierson to have originated from the same source as those spoken in the Indo-Pacific islands and the Malay Peninsula. "The Mundas, the Mon-Khmer, the wild tribes of the Malay Peninsula and the Nicobarese all use forms of speech which can be traced back to a common source though they mutually differ widely from each other." [73] It would appear, therefore, that the Mundas, the oldest known inhabitants of India, perhaps came originally from the south-east, the islands of the Indian Archipelago and the Malay Peninsula, unless India was their original home and these countries were colonised from it.

Sir Edward Gait states: "Geologists tell us that the Indian Peninsula was formerly cut off from the north of Asia by sea, while a land connection existed on the one side with Madagascar and on the other with the Malay Archipelago; and though there is nothing to show that India was then inhabited, we know that it was so in palaeolithic times, when communication was probably still easier with the countries to the north-east and south-west than with those beyond the Himalayas." [74]

In the south of India, however, no traces of Munda languages remain at present, and it seems therefore necessary to conclude that the Mundas of the Central Provinces and Chota Nagpur have been separated from the tribes of Malaysia who speak cognate languages for an indefinitely long period; or else that they did not come through southern India to these countries but by way of a.s.sam and Bengal or by sea through Orissa. There is good reason to believe from the names of places and from local tradition that the Munda tribes were once spread over Bihar and parts of the Ganges Valley; and if the Kolis are an offshoot of the Kols, as is supposed, they also penetrated across Central India to the sea in Gujarat and the hills of the western Ghats. The presumption is that the advance of the Aryans or Hindus drove the Mundas from the open country to the seclusion of the hills and forests. The Munda and Dravidian languages are shown by Sir G. Grierson to be distinct groups without any real connection.

Though the physical characteristics of the two sets of tribes display no marked points of difference, the opinion has been generally held by ethnologists who know them that they represent two distinct waves of immigration, and the absence of connection between their languages bears out this view. It has always been supposed that the Mundas were in the country of Chota Nagpur and the Central Provinces first, and that the Dravidians, the Gonds, Khonds and Oraons came afterwards. The grounds for this view are the more advanced culture of the Dravidians; the fact that where the two sets of tribes are in contact those of the Munda group have been ousted from the more open and fertile country, of which, according to tradition, they were formerly in possession; and the practice of the Gonds and other Dravidian tribes of employing the Baigas, Bhuiyas and other Munda tribes for their village priests, which is an acknowledgment that the latter as the earlier residents have a more familiar acquaintance with the local deities, and can solicit their favour and protection with more prospect of success. Such a belief is the more easily understood when it is remembered that these deities are not infrequently either the human ancestors of the earliest residents or the local animals and plants from which they supposed themselves to be descended.

39. Of the Dravidian tribes.

The Dravidian languages, Gondi, Kurukh and Khond, are of one family with Tamil, Telugu, Malayalam and Canarese, and their home is the south of India. The word Dravida comes from an older form Damila or Dramila, and was used in ancient Pali and Jain literature as a name for the people of the Tamil country. [75] Afterwards it came to signify generally the people of southern India as opposed to Gaur or northern India.

As stated by Sir Edward Gait there is at present no evidence to show that the Dravidians came to southern India from any other part of the world, and for anything that is known to the contrary the languages may have originated there. The existence of the small Brahui tribe in Baluchistan who speak a Dravidian language but have no physical resemblance to other Dravidian races cannot be satisfactorily explained, but, as he points out, this is no reason for holding that the whole body of speakers of Dravidian languages entered India from the north-west, and, with the exception of this small group of Brahuis, penetrated to the south and settled there without leaving any traces of their pa.s.sage.

The Dravidian languages occupy a large area in Madras, Mysore and Hyderabad, and they extend north into the Central Provinces and Chota Nagpur where they die out, practically not being found west and north of this tract. As the languages are more highly developed and the culture of their speakers is far more advanced in the south, it is justifiable to suppose, pending evidence to the contrary, that the south is their home and that they have spread thence as far north as the Central Provinces. The Gonds and Oraons, too, have stories to the effect that they came from the south. The belief has. .h.i.therto been, at least in the Central Provinces, that both the Gonds and Baigas have been settled in this territory for an indefinite period, that is, from prior to any Aryan or Hindu immigration. Mr. H.A. Crump, C.S., has however pointed out that if this was the case the Munda or Kolarian tribes, which have lost their own languages, should have adopted Dravidian and not Hindu forms of speech. As already seen, numerous Kolarian tribes, as the Binjhwar, Bhaina, Bhuiya, Baiga, Bhumij, Chero, Khairwar and the Kols themselves in the Central Provinces have entirely lost their own languages, as well as the Bhils and Kolis, if these are held to be Kolarian tribes. None of them have adopted a Dravidian language, but all speak corrupt forms of the ancient Aryan vernaculars derived from Sanskrit. The fact seems to indicate that at the time when they abandoned their own languages these tribes were in contact with Hindus, and were not surrounded by Gonds, as several of them are at present. The history of the Central Provinces affords considerable support to the view that the Gond immigration occurred at a comparatively late period, perhaps in the ninth or tenth century, or even later, after a considerable part of the Province had been governed for some centuries by Rajput dynasties. [76] The Gonds and Oraons still have well-defined legends about their immigration, which would scarcely be the case if it had occurred twenty centuries or more ago.

Any further evidence or argument as to the date of the Dravidian immigration would be of considerable interest.

40. Origin of the impure castes.

The fifth or lowest group in the scheme of precedence is that of the impure castes who cannot be touched. If a high-caste Hindu touches one of them he should bathe and have his clothes washed. These castes are not usually allowed to live inside a Hindu village, but have a hamlet to themselves adjoining it. The village barber will not shave them, nor the washerman wash their clothes. They usually have a separate well a.s.signed to them from which to draw water, and if the village has only one well, one side of it is allotted to them and the Hindus take water from the other side. Formerly they were subjected to more humiliating restrictions. In Bombay a Mahar might not spit on the ground lest a Hindu should be polluted by touching it with his foot, but had to hang an earthen pot round his neck to hold his spittle. He was made to drag a th.o.r.n.y branch with him to brush out his footsteps, and when a Brahman came by had to lie at a distance on his face lest his shadow might fall on the Brahman. [77] Even if the shadow of a Mahar or Mang fell on a Brahman he was polluted and dare not taste food and water until he had bathed and washed the impurity away. In Madras a Paraiyan or Pariah pollutes a high-caste Hindu by approaching within a distance of 64 feet of him. [78] The debased and servile position of the impure castes corresponds to that which, as already seen, attached to the Sudras of the cla.s.sical period. The castes usually regarded as impure are the tanners, bamboo-workers, sweepers, hunters and fowlers, gipsies and vagrants, village musicians and village weavers. These castes, the Chamars, Basors, Mahars, Koris, Gandas and others are usually also employed as agricultural and casual labourers. Formerly, as already seen, they were not allowed to hold land. There is no reason to doubt that the status of impurity, like that of the Sudra, was originally the mark of a subjugated and inferior race, and was practically equivalent to slavery. This was the position of the indigenous Indians who were subjugated by the Aryan invaders and remained in the country occupied by them. Though they were of different races, and the distinction was marked and brought home to themselves by the contrast in the colour of their skins, it seems probable that the real basis for their antagonism was not social so much as religious. The Indians were hated and despised by the immigrants as the wors.h.i.+ppers of a hostile G.o.d. They could not join in the sacrifices by which the Aryans held communion with their G.o.ds, and the sacrifice itself could not even be held, in theory at least, except in those parts of India which were thoroughly subdued and held to have become the dwelling-place of the Aryan G.o.ds. The proper course prescribed by religion towards the indigenous residents was to exterminate them, as the Israelites should have exterminated the inhabitants of Canaan. But as this could not be done, because their numbers were too great or the conquerors not sufficiently ruthless, they were reduced to the servile condition of impurity and made the serfs of their masters like the Amalekites and the plebeians and helots.

If the whole of India had been thoroughly subjugated and settled like the Punjab and Hindustan, it may be supposed that the same status of impurity would have been imposed upon all the indigenous races; but this was very far from being the case. In central and southern India the Aryans or subsequent immigrants from Central Asia came at first at any rate only in small parties, and though they may have established territorial states, did not regularly occupy the land nor reduce the indigenous population to a condition of servitude. Thus large bodies of these must have retained a free position, and on their acceptance of the new religion and the development of the caste system, became enrolled in it with a caste status on the basis of their occupation. Their leaders were sometimes admitted to rank as Kshatriyas or Rajputs, as has been stated.

Subsequently, as the racial distinction disappeared, the impure status came to attach to certain despised occupations and to customs abhorrent to Hinduism, such as that of eating beef. But, as already seen, the tribes which have continued to live apart from the Hindus are not usually regarded as impure, though they may eat beef and even skin animals. The Dhimars, who keep pigs, still have a higher status than the impure castes because they are employed as water-bearers and household servants. It is at least doubtful whether at the time when the stigma of impurity was first attached to the Sudras the Hindus themselves did not sacrifice cows and eat beef. [79] The castes noted below are usually regarded as impure in the Central Provinces.

The Dhobi (washerman) and k.u.mhar (potter) are sometimes included among the impure castes, but, as already noted, their status is higher than that of the castes in this list.

Audhelia: Labouring caste of mixed descent who keep pigs.

Balahi: Weavers and village messengers and watchmen.

Basor: Bamboo basket-makers and village musicians.

Chamar: Tanners and labourers.

Ganda: Weavers and village musicians.

Ghasia: Gra.s.s-cutters, labourers and sweepers.

Kaikari: Vagrant basket-makers.

Kanjar, Beria, Sansia: Gipsies and thieves.

Katia: Cotton-spinners.

Kori: Weavers and labourers.

Madgi: Telugu tanners and hide-curriers.

Mahar: Weavers and labourers.

Mala: Telugu weavers and labourers.

Mang: Broom- and mat-makers and village musicians. They also castrate cattle.

Mehtar: Sweepers and scavengers.

Certain occupations, those of skinning cattle and curing hides, weaving the coa.r.s.e country cloth worn by the villagers, making baskets from the rind of the bamboo, playing on drums and tom-toms, and scavenging generally are relegated to the lowest and impure castes. The hides of domestic animals are exceedingly impure; a Hindu is defiled even by touching their dead bodies and far more so by removing the skins. Drums and tom-toms made from the hides of animals are also impure. But in the case of weaving and basket-making the calling itself entails no defilement, and it would appear simply that they were despised by the cultivators, and as a considerable number of workers were required to satisfy the demand for baskets and cloth, were adopted by the servile and labouring castes. Basket- and mat-making are callings naturally suited to the primitive tribes who would obtain the bamboos from the forests, but weaving would not be a.s.sociated with them unless cloth was first woven of tree-cotton. The weavers of the finer cotton and silk cloths, who live in towns, rank much higher than the village weavers, as in the case of the Koshtis and Tantis, the latter of whom made the famous fine cotton cloth, known as _abrawan_, or 'running water,' which was supplied to the imperial Zenana at Delhi. On one occasion a daughter of Aurangzeb was reproached on entering the room for her immodest attire and excused herself by the plea that she had on seven folds of cloth over her body. [80] In Bengal Brahmans will take water from Tantis, and it seems clear that their higher status is a consequence of the lucrative and important nature of their occupation.

The Katias are a caste of cotton-spinners, the name being derived from _katna_, to cut or spin. But hand-spinning is now practically an extinct industry and the Katias have taken to weaving or ordinary manual labour for a subsistence. The Kanjars and Berias are the gipsy castes of India. They are accustomed to wander about carrying their gra.s.s-matting huts with them. Many of them live by petty thieving and cheating. Their women practise palmistry and retail charms for the cure of sickness and for exorcising evil spirits, and love-philtres. They do cupping and tattooing and also make reed mats, cane baskets, palm-leaf mats and fans, ropes from gra.s.s- and tree-fibre, brushes for the cotton-loom, string-net purses and b.a.l.l.s, and so on; and the women commonly dance and act as prost.i.tutes. There is good reason for thinking that the Kanjars are the parents of the European gipsies, while the Thugs who formerly infested the high-roads of India, murdering solitary travellers and small parties by strangulation, may also have been largely derived from this caste. [81]

41. Derivation of the impure castes from the indigenous tribes.

It can only be definitely shown in a few instances that the existing impure occupational castes were directly derived from the indigenous tribes. The Chamar and Kori, and the Chuhra and Bhangi, or sweepers and scavengers of the Punjab and United Provinces, are now purely occupational castes and their original tribal affinities have entirely disappeared. The Chamars and Mehtars or sweepers are in some places of a superior physical type, of comparatively good stature and light complexion; [82] this may perhaps be due to a large admixture of Hindu blood through their women, during a social contact with the Hindus extending over many centuries, and also to the fact that they eat flesh when they can obtain it, including carrion. Such types are, however, exceptional among the impure castes, and there is no reason to doubt their general origin from the non-Aryan tribes, which in a few instances can be directly traced. Thus it seems likely that the Kanjars, Berias, Sansias and other gipsy groups, as well as the Mirasis, the vagrant bards and genealogists of the lower cla.s.ses of Hindus, are derived from the Dom caste or tribe of Bengal, who are largely employed as sweepers and scavengers as well as on ordinary labour. The evidence for the origin of the above groups from the Doms is given in the article on Kanjar. Sir H.M. Elliot considered the Doms to be one of the original tribes of India. Again, there is no doubt that the impure Ganda caste, who are weavers, labourers and village musicians in the Uriya country and Chhattisgarh Districts of the Central Provinces, are derived from the Pan tribe of Chota Nagpur. The Pans or Pabs are a regular forest tribe, and are sometimes called Ganda, while the Gandas may be alternatively known as Pan. But the section of the tribe who live among the Hindus and are regarded as impure have now become a distinct caste with a separate name. The Bhuiya tribe were once the rulers of Chota Nagpur; they still install the Raja of Keonjhar, and have a traditional relation to other ruling families. But in parts of Chota Nagpur and southern Bihar the Bhuiyas living in Hindu villages have become a separate impure caste with the opprobrious designation of Musahar or rat-eater. The great Mahar caste of the Maratha country or Bombay are weavers and labourers, and formerly cured hides, like the Chamars and Koris of northern India. They are regarded as impure and were the serfs or villeins of the Kunbis, attached to the land. An alternative name for them is Dher, and this is supposed to be a corruption of Dharada a hillman, a name applied in Manu to all the indigenous races of India. Though the connection cannot be traced in all cases, there is thus no reason to doubt that the existing impure castes represent the subjected or enslaved section of the primitive non-Aryan tribes.

42. Occupation the basis of the caste system.

It has been seen that the old Aryan polity comprised four cla.s.ses: the Brahmans and Kshatriyas or priestly and military aristocracy; the Vaishyas or body of the Aryans, who were ceremonially pure and could join in sacrifices; and the Sudras or servile and impure cla.s.s of labourers. The Vaishyas became cultivators and herdsmen, and their status of ceremonial purity was gradually transferred to the cultivating members of the village community, because land was the main source of wealth. Between the last two there arose another cla.s.s of village menials and craftsmen, originating princ.i.p.ally from the offspring of fathers of the Aryan cla.s.ses and Sudra women, to whom was left the practice of the village industries, despised by the cultivators. In spite of the almost complete fusion of races which the intercourse of centuries has effected, and the multiplication and rearrangement of castes produced by the diversity of occupation and other social factors, the divisions of the village community can still be recognised in the existing social gradation.

It has been seen also that occupation is the real basis of the division and social precedence of castes in India, as in all communities which have made any substantial progress in civilisation and social development. Distinctions of race, religion and family gradually disappear, and are merged in the gradation according to wealth or profession. The enormous majority of castes are occupational and their social position depends on their caste calling. Thus in the case of an important industry like weaving, there are separate castes who weave the finer kinds of cloth, as the Tantis and Koshtis, while one subcaste of Koshtis, the Salewars, are distinguished as silk-weavers, and a separate caste of Patwas embroider silk and braid on cloth; other castes, as the Mahars, Gandas and Koris, weave coa.r.s.e cloth, and a distinct caste of Katias existed for the spinning of thread, and the Muhammadan caste of Bahnas for cleaning cotton. The workers in each kind of metal have formed a separate caste, as the Lohars or blacksmiths, the Kasars or bra.s.s-workers, the Tameras or coppersmiths, and the Sunars or gold- and silversmiths, while the Audhia subcaste of Sunars [83] and the Bharewas, an inferior branch of the Kasars, work in bell-metal. Each of these castes makes ornaments of its own metal, while the Kachera caste [84] make gla.s.s bangles, and the Lakheras make bangles from lac and clay. In the case of agriculture, as has been seen, there is usually a functional cultivating caste for each main tract of country, as the Jats in the Punjab, the Kurmis in Hindustan, the Kunbis in the Deccan, the Chasas in Orissa, the Kapus in the Telugu country and the Vellalas in the Tamil country. Except the Jats, who were perhaps originally a racial caste, the above castes appear to include a number of heterogeneous groups which have been welded into a single body through the acquisition of land and the status which it confers. Various other cultivating castes also exist, whose origin can be traced to different sources; on obtaining possession of the land they have acquired the cultivating status, but retained their separate caste organisation and name. Other agricultural castes have been formed for the growing of special products. Thus the Malis are gardeners, and within the caste there exist such separate groups as the Phulmalis who grow flowers, the Jire Malis c.u.min and the Halde Malis turmeric. [85] Hindus generally object to cultivate _san_-hemp, [86] and some special castes have been formed from those who grew it and thus underwent some loss of status; such are the Lorhas and k.u.mrawats and Pathinas, and the Santora subcaste of Kurmis. The _al_ [87] or Indian madder-dye is another plant to which objection is felt, and the Alia subcastes of Kachhis and Banias consist of those who grow and sell it. The Dangris and Kachhis are growers of melons and other vegetables on the sandy stretches in the beds of rivers and the alluvial land on their borders which is submerged in the monsoon floods. The Barais are the growers and sellers of the betel-vine.

Several castes have been formed from military service, as the Marathas, Khandaits, Rautias, Taonlas and Paiks. All of these, except the Marathas, are mainly derived from the non-Aryan tribes; since they have abandoned military service and taken as a rule to agriculture, their rank depends roughly on their position as regards the land. Thus the Marathas and Khandaits became landowners, receiving grants of property as a reward for, or on condition of, military service like the old feudal tenures; they rank with, but somewhat above, the cultivating castes. The same is the case, though to a less degree, with the Rautias of Chota Nagpur, a military caste mainly formed from the Kol tribe. On the other hand, the Paiks or foot-soldiers and Taonlas have not become landholders and rank below the cultivating castes. The Hatkars are a caste formed from Dhangars or shepherds who entered the Maratha armies. They are now called Bangi Dhangars or shepherds with the spears, and rank a little above other Dhangars.