The Tribes and Castes of the Central Provinces of India, Volume 2

Barhai

1. Strength and local distribution.

Barhai, Sutār, Kharādi, Mistri.—The occupational caste of carpenters. The Barhais numbered nearly 110,000 persons in the Central Provinces and Berār in 1911, or about 1 in 150 persons. The caste is most numerous in Districts with large towns, and few carpenters are to be found in villages except in the richer and more advanced Districts. Hitherto such woodwork as the villagers wanted for agriculture has been made by the Lohār or blacksmith, while the country cots, the only wooden article of furniture in their houses, could be fashioned by their own hands or by the Gond woodcutter. In the Mandla District the Barhai caste counts only 300 persons, and about the same in Bālāghāt, in Drūg only 47 persons, and in the fourteen Chhattīsgarh Feudatory States, with a population of more than two millions, only some 800 persons. The name Barhai is said to be from the Sanskrit Vardhika and the root vardh, to cut. Sutār is a common name of the caste in the Marātha Districts, and is from Sūtra-kara, one who works by string, or a maker of string. The allusion may be to the Barhai’s use of string in planing or measuring timber, or it may possibly indicate a transfer of occupation, the Sutārs having first been mainly string-makers and afterwards abandoned this calling for that of the carpenter. The first wooden implements and articles of furniture may have been held together by string before nails came into use. Kharādi is literally a turner, one who turns woodwork on a lathe, from kharāt, a lathe. Mistri, a corruption of the English Mister, is an honorific title for master carpenters.

2. Internal structure.

The comparatively recent growth of the caste in these Provinces is shown by its subdivisions. The principal subcastes of the Hindustāni Districts are the Pardeshi or foreigners, immigrants from northern India, and the Pūrbia or eastern, coming from Oudh; other subcastes are the Sri Gaur Mālas or immigrants from Mālwa, the Berādi from Berār, and the Māhure from Hyderābād. We find also subcastes of Jāt and Teli Barhais, consisting of Jāts and Telis (oil-pressers) who have taken to carpentering. Two other caste-groups, the Chamār Barhais and Gondi Barhais, are returned, but these are not at present included in the Barhai caste, and consist merely of Chamārs and Gonds who work as carpenters but remain in their own castes. In the course of some generations, however, if the cohesive social force of the caste system continues unabated, these groups may probably find admission into the Barhai caste. Colonel Tod notes that the progeny of one Makūr, a prince of the Jādon Rājpūt house of Jaisalmer, became carpenters, and were known centuries after as Makūr Sutārs. They were apparently considered illegitimate, as he states: “Illegitimate children can never overcome this natural defect among the Rājpūts. Thus we find among all classes of artisans in India some of royal but spurious descent.”²⁴⁰ The internal structure of the caste seems therefore to indicate that it is largely of foreign origin and to a certain degree of recent formation in these Provinces.

3. Marriage customs.

The caste are also divided into exogamous septs named after villages. In some localities it is said that they have no septs, but only surnames, and that people of the same surname cannot intermarry. Well-to-do persons marry their daughters before puberty and others when they can afford the expense of the ceremony. Brāhman priests are employed at weddings, though on other occasions their services are occasionally dispensed with. The wedding ceremony is of the type prevalent in the locality. When the wedding procession reaches the bride’s village it halts near the temple of Māroti or Hanumān. Among the Panchāl Barhais the bridegroom does not wear a marriage crown but ties a bunch of flowers to his turban. The bridegroom’s party is entertained for five days. Divorce and the remarriage of widows are permitted. In most localities it is said that a widow is forbidden to marry her first husband’s younger as well as his elder brother. Among the Pardeshi Barhais of Betūl if a bachelor desires to marry a widow he must first go through the ceremony with a branch or twig of the gūlar tree.²⁴¹

4. Religion.

The caste worship Viswakarma, the celestial architect, and venerate their trade implements on the Dasahra festival. They consider the sight of a mongoose and of a light-grey pigeon or dove as lucky omens. They burn the dead and throw the ashes into a river or tank, employing a Mahā-Brāhman to receive the gifts for the dead.

5. Social position.

In social status the Barhais rank with the higher artisan castes. Brāhmans take water from them in some localities, perhaps more especially in towns. In Betūl for instance Hindustāni Brāhmans do not accept water from the rural Barhais. In Damoh where both the Barhai and Lohār are village menials, their status is said to be the same, and Brahmans do not take water from Lohārs. Mr. Nesfield says that the Barhai is a village servant and ranks with the Kurmi, with whom his interests are so closely allied. But there seems no special reason why the interests of the carpenter should be more closely allied with the cultivator than those of any other village menial, and it may be offered as a surmise that carpentering as a distinct trade is of comparatively late origin, and was adopted by Kurmis, to which fact the connection noticed by Mr. Nesfield might be attributed; hence the position of the Barhai among the castes from whom a Brāhman will take water. In some localities well-to-do members of the caste have begun to wear the sacred thread.

6. Occupation.

In the northern Districts and the cotton tract the Barhai works as a village menial. He makes and mends the plough and harrow (bakhar) and other wooden implements of agriculture, and makes new ones when supplied with the wood. In Wardha he receives an annual contribution of 100 lbs. of grain from each cultivator. In Betūl he gets 67 lbs. of grain and other perquisites for each plough of four bullocks. For making carts and building or repairing houses he must be separately paid. At weddings the Barhai often supplies the sacred marriage-post and is given from four annas to a rupee. At the Diwāli festival he prepares a wooden peg about six inches long, and drives it into the cultivator’s house inside the threshold, and receives half a pound to a pound of grain.

In cities the carpenters are rapidly acquiring an increased degree of skill as the demand for a better class of houses and furniture becomes continually greater and more extensive. The carpenters have been taught to make English furniture by such institutions as the Friends’ Mission of Hoshangābād and other missionaries; and a Government technical school has now been opened at Nāgpur, in which boys from all over the Province are trained in the profession. Very little wood-carving with any pretensions to excellence has hitherto been done in the Central Provinces, but the Jain temples at Saugor and Khurai contain some fair woodwork. A good carpenter in towns can earn from 12 annas to Rs. 1–8 a day, and both his earnings and prospects have greatly improved within recent years. Sherring remarks of the Barhais: “As artisans they exhibit little or no inventive powers: but in imitating the workmanship of others they are perhaps unsurpassed in the whole world. They are equally clever in working from designs and models.”²⁴²

Bāri

Bāri.—A caste of household servants and makers of leaf-plates, belonging to northern India. The Bāris numbered 1200 persons in the Central Provinces in 1911, residing mainly in Jubbulpore and Mandla. Sir H. Risley remarks of the caste:²⁴³ “Mr. Nesfield regards the Bāri as merely an offshoot from a semi-savage tribe known as Banmānush and Musāhār. He is said still to associate with them at times, and if the demand for leaf-plates and cups, owing to some temporary cause, such as a local fair or an unusual multitude of marriages, happens to become larger than he can at once supply, he gets them secretly made by his ruder kinsfolk and retails them at a higher rate, passing them off as his own production. The strictest Brāhmans, those at least who aspire to imitate the self-denying life of the ancient Indian hermit, never eat off any other plates than those made of leaves.” “If the above view is correct,” Sir H. Risley remarks, “the Bāris are a branch of a non-Aryan tribe who have been given a fairly respectable position in the social system in consequence of the demand for leaf-plates, which are largely used by the highest as well as the lowest castes. Instances of this sort, in which a non-Aryan or mixed group is promoted on grounds of necessity or convenience to a higher status than their antecedents would entitle them to claim, are not unknown in other castes, and must have occurred frequently in outlying parts of the country, where the Aryan settlements were scanty and imperfectly supplied with the social apparatus demanded by the theory of ceremonial purity.” There is no reason why the origin of the Bāri from the Banmānush (wild man of the woods) or Musāhār (mouse-eater), a forest tribe, as suggested by Mr. Nesfield from his observation of their mutual connection, should be questioned. The making of leaf-plates is an avocation which may be considered naturally to pertain to the tribes frequenting jungles from which the leaves are gathered; and in the Central Provinces, though in the north the Nai or barber ostensibly supplies the leaf-plates, probably buying the leaves and getting them made up by Gonds and others, in the Marātha Districts the Gond himself does so, and many Gonds make their living by this trade. The people of the Marātha country are apparently less strict than those of northern India, and do not object to eat off plates avowedly the handiwork of Gonds. The fact that the Bāri has been raised to the position of a pure caste, so that Brāhmans will take water from his hands, is one among several instances of this elevation of the rank of the serving castes for purposes of convenience. The caste themselves have the following legend of their origin: Once upon a time Parmeshwar²⁴⁴ was offering rice milk to the spirits of his ancestors. In the course of this ceremony the performer has to present a gift known as Vikraya Dān, which cannot be accepted by others without loss of position. Parmeshwar offered the gift to various Brāhmans, but they all refused it. So he made a man of clay, and blew upon the image and gave it life, and the god then asked the man whom he had created to accept the gift which the Brāhmans had refused. This man, who was the first Bāri, agreed on condition that all men should drink with him and recognise his purity of caste. Parmeshwar then told him to bring water in a cup, and drank of it in the presence of all the castes. And in consequence of this all the Hindus will take water from the hands of a Bāri. They also say that their first ancestor was named Sundar on account of his personal beauty; but if so, he failed to bequeath this quality to his descendants. The proper avocation of the Bāris is, as already stated, the manufacture of the leaf-cups and plates used by all Hindus at festivals. In the Central Provinces these are made from the large leaves of the māhul creeper (Bauhinia Vahlii), or from the palās (Butea frondosa). The caste also act as personal servants, handing round water, lighting and carrying torches at marriages and other entertainments and on journeys, and performing other functions. Some of them have taken to agriculture. Their women act as maids to high-caste Hindu ladies, and as they are always about the zenāna, are liable to lose their virtue. A curious custom prevails in Mārwār on the birth of an heir to the throne. An impression of the child’s foot is taken by a Bāri on cloth covered with saffron, and is exhibited to the native chiefs, who make him rich presents.²⁴⁵ The Bāris have the reputation of great fidelity to their employers, and a saying about them is, ‘The Bāri will die fighting for his master.’

Basdewa

Basdewa, ²⁴⁶ Wasudeo, Harbola, Kaparia, Jaga, Kapdi.—A wandering beggar caste of mixed origin, who also call themselves Sanādhya or Sanaurhia Brāhmans. The Basdewas trace their origin to Wasudeo, the father of Krishna, and the term Basdewa is a corruption of Wasudeo or Wasudeva. Kaparia is the name they bear in the Anterved or country between the Ganges and Jumna, whence they claim to have come. Kaparia has been derived from kapra, cloth, owing to the custom of the Basdewas of having several dresses, which they change rapidly like the Bahrūpia, making themselves up in different characters as a show. Harbola is an occupational term, applied to a class of Basdewas who climb trees in the early morning and thence vociferate praises of the deity in a loud voice. The name is derived from Har, God, and bolna, to speak. As the Harbolas wake people up in the morning they are also called Jaga or Awakener. The number of Basdewas in the Central Provinces and Berār in 1911 was 2500, and they are found principally in the northern Districts and in Chhattīsgarh. They have several territorial subcastes, as Gangāputri or those who dwell on the banks of the Ganges; Khaltia or Deswāri, those who belong to the Central Provinces; Parauha, from para, a male buffalo calf, being the dealers in buffaloes; Harbola or those who climb trees and sing the praises of God; and Wasudeo, the dwellers in the Marātha Districts who marry only among themselves. The names of the exogamous divisions are very varied, some being taken from Brāhman gotras and Rājpūt septs, while others are the names of villages, or nicknames, or derived from animals and plants. It may be concluded from these names that the Basdewas are a mixed occupational group recruited from high and low castes, though they themselves say that they do not admit any outsiders except Brāhmans into the community. In Bombay²⁴⁷ the Wasudevas have a special connection with Kumhārs or potters, whom they address by the term of kāka or paternal uncle, and at whose houses they lodge on their travels, presenting their host with the two halves of a cocoanut. The caste do not observe celibacy. A price of Rs. 25 has usually to be given for a bride, and a Brāhman is employed to perform the ceremony. At the conclusion of this the Brāhman invests the bridegroom with a sacred thread, which he thereafter continues to wear. Widow marriage is permitted, and widows are commonly married to widowers. Divorce is also permitted. When a man’s wife dies he shaves his moustache and beard, if any, in mourning and a father likewise for a daughter-in-law; this is somewhat peculiar, as other Hindus do not shave the moustache for a wife or daughter-in-law. The Basdewas are wandering mendicants. In the Marātha Districts they wear a plume of peacock’s feathers, which they say was given to them as a badge by Krishna. In Saugor and Damoh instead of this they carry during the period from Dasahra to the end of Māgh or from September to January a brass vessel called matuk bound on their heads. It is surmounted by a brass cone and adorned with mango-leaves, cowries and a piece of red cloth, and with figures of Rāma and Lakshman. Their stock-in-trade for begging consists of two kartāls or wooden clappers which are struck against each other; ghungrus or jingling ornaments for the feet, worn when dancing; and a paijna or kind of rattle, consisting of two semicircular iron wires bound at each end to a piece of wood with rings slung on to them; this is simply shaken in the hand and gives out a sound from the movement of the rings against the wires. They worship all these implements as well as their beggar’s wallet on the Janam-Ashtami or Krishna’s birthday, the Dasahra, and the full moon of Māgh (January). They rise early and beg only in the morning from about four till eight, and sing songs in praise of Sarwan and Karan. Sarwan was a son renowned for his filial piety; he maintained and did service to his old blind parents to the end of their lives, much against the will of his wife, and was proof against all her machinations to induce him to abandon them. Karan was a proverbially charitable king, and all his family had the same virtue. His wife gave away daily rice and pulse to those who required it, his daughter gave them clothes, his son distributed cows as alms and his daughter-in-law cocoanuts. The king himself gave only gold, and it is related of him that he was accustomed to expend a maund and a quarter²⁴⁸ weight of gold in alms-giving before he washed himself and paid his morning devotions. Therefore the Basdewas sing that he who gives early in the morning acquires the merit of Karan; and their presence at this time affords the requisite opportunity to anybody who may be desirous of emulating the king. At the end of every couplet they cry ‘Jai Ganga’ or ‘Har Ganga,’ invoking the Ganges.

The Harbolas have each a beat of a certain number of villages which must not be infringed by the others. Their method is to ascertain the name of some well-to-do person in the village. This done, they climb a tree in the early morning before sunrise, and continue chanting his praises in a loud voice until he is sufficiently flattered by their eulogies or wearied by their importunity to throw down a present of a few pice under the tree, which the Harbola, descending, appropriates. The Basdewas of the northern Districts are now commonly engaged in the trade of buying and selling buffaloes. They take the young male calves from Saugor and Damoh to Chhattīsgarh, and there retail them at a profit for rice cultivation, driving them in large herds along the road. For the capital which they have to borrow to make their purchases, they are charged very high rates of interest. The Basdewas have here a special veneration for the buffalo as the animal from which they make their livelihood, and they object strongly to the calves being taken to be tied out as baits for tiger, refusing, it is said, to accept payment if the calf should be killed. Their social status is not high, and none but the lowest castes will take food from their hands. They eat flesh and drink liquor, but abstain from pork, fowls and beef. Some of the caste have given up animal food.

Basor

1. Numbers and distribution.

Basor, ²⁴⁹ Bansphor, Dhulia, Burud.—The occupational caste of bamboo-workers, the two first names being Hindi and the last the term used in the Marātha Districts. The cognate Uriya caste is called Kandra and the Telugu one Medara. The Basors numbered 53,000 persons in the Central Provinces and Berār in 1911. About half the total number reside in the Saugor, Damoh and Jubbulpore Districts. The word Basor is a corruption of Bānsphor, ‘a breaker of bamboos.’ Dhulia, from dholi, a drum, means a musician.

2. Caste traditions.

The caste trace their origin from Raja Benu or Venu who ruled at Singorgarh in Damoh. It is related of him that he was so pious that he raised no taxes from his subjects, but earned his livelihood by making and selling bamboo fans. He could of course keep no army, but he knew magic, and when he broke his fan the army of the enemy broke up in unison. Venu is a Sanskrit word meaning bamboo. But a mythological Sanskrit king called Vena is mentioned in the Purānas, from whom for his sins was born the first Nishāda, the lowest of human beings, and Manu²⁵⁰ states that the bamboo-worker is the issue of a Nishāda or Chandāl father and a Vaideha²⁵¹ mother. So that the local story may be a corruption of the Brāhmanical tradition. Another legend relates that in the beginning there were no bamboos, and the first Basor took the serpent which Siva wore round his neck and going to a hill planted it with its head in the ground. A bamboo at once sprang up on the spot, and from this the Basor made the first winnowing fan. And the snake-like root of the bamboo, which no doubt suggested the story to its composer, is now adduced in proof of it.

3. Subdivisions.

The Basors of the northern Districts are divided into a number of subcastes, the principal of which are: the Purānia or Juthia, who perhaps represent the oldest section, Purānia being from purāna old; they are called Juthia because they eat the leavings of others; the Barmaiya or Malaiya, apparently a territorial group; the Deshwāri or Bundelkhandi who reside in the desh or native place of Bundelkhand; the Gūdha or Gūrha, the name being derived by some from gūda a pigsty; the Dumar or Dom Basors; the Dhubela, perhaps from the Dhobi caste; and the Dharkār. Two or three of the above names appear to be those of other low castes from which the Basor caste may have been recruited, perhaps at times when a strong demand existed for bamboo-workers. The Buruds do not appear to be sufficiently numerous to have subcastes. But they include a few Telenga Buruds who are really Medaras, and the caste proper are therefore sometimes known as Marātha Buruds to distinguish them from these. The caste has numerous bainks or exogamous groups or septs, the names of which may chiefly be classified as territorial and totemistic. Among the former are Mahobia, from the town of Mahoba; Sirmaiya, from Sirmau; Orahia, from Orai, the battlefield of the Banāphar generals, Alha and Udal; Tikarahia from Tikāri, and so on. The totemistic septs include the Sānpero from sānp a snake, the Mangrelo from mangra a crocodile, the Morya from mor a peacock, the Titya from the titehri bird and the Sarkia from sarki or red ochre, all of which worship their respective totems. The Katarya or ‘dagger’ sept worship a real or painted dagger at their marriage, and the Kemia, a branch of the kem tree (Stephegyne parvifolia). The Bandrelo, from bandar, worship a painted monkey. One or two groups are named after castes, as Bamhnelo from Brāhman and Bargujaria from Bargūjar Rājpūt, thus indicating that members of these castes became Basors and founded families. One sept is called Marha from Marhai, the goddess of cholera, and the members worship a picture of the goddess drawn in black. The name of the Kulhāntia sept means somersault, and these turn a somersault before worshipping their gods. So strong is the totemistic idea that some of the territorial groups worship objects with similar names. Thus the Mahobia group, whose name is undoubtedly derived from the town of Mahoba, have adopted the mahua tree as their totem, and digging a small hole in the ground place in it a little water and the liquor made from mahua flowers, and worship it. This represents the process of distillation of country liquor. Similarly, the Orahia group, who derive their name from the town of Orai, now worship the urai or khaskhas grass, and the Tikarahia from Tikāri worship a tikli or glass spangle.

Basors making baskets of bamboo.

4. Marriage.

The marriage of persons belonging to the same baink or sept and also that of first cousins is forbidden. The age of marriage is settled by convenience, and no stigma attaches to its postponement beyond adolescence. Intrigues of unmarried girls with men of their own or any higher caste are usually overlooked. The ceremony follows the standard Hindi and Marāthi forms, and presents no special features. A bride-price called chāri, amounting to seven or eight rupees, is usually paid. In Betul the practice of lamjhana or serving the father-in-law for a term of years before marrying his daughter, is sometimes followed. Widow-marriage is permitted, and the widow is expected to wed her late husband’s younger brother. The Basors are musicians by profession, but in Betūl the narsingha, a peculiar kind of crooked trumpet, is the only implement which may be played at the marriage of a widow. A woman marrying a second time forfeits all interest in the property of her late husband, unless she is without issue and there are no near relatives of her husband to take it. Divorce is effected by the breaking of the woman’s bangles in public. If obtained by the wife, she must repay to her first husband the expenditure incurred by him for her marriage when she takes a second. But the acceptance of this payment is considered derogatory and the husband refuses it unless he is poor.

5. Religion and social status.

The Basors worship the ordinary Hindu deities and also ghosts and spirits. Like the other low castes they entertain a special veneration for Devi. They profess to exorcise evil spirits and the evil eye, and to cure other disorders and diseases through the agency of their incantations and the goblins who do their bidding. They burn their dead when they can afford it and otherwise bury them, placing the corpse in the grave with its head to the north. The body of a woman is wrapped in a red shroud and that of a man in a white one. They observe mourning for a period of three to ten days, but in Jubbulpore it always ends with the fortnight in which the death takes place; so that a person dying on the 15th or 30th of the month is mourned only for one day. They eat almost every kind of food, including beef, pork, fowls, liquor and the leavings of others, but abjure crocodiles, monkeys, snakes and rats. Many of them have now given up eating cow’s flesh in deference to Hindu feeling. They will take food from almost any caste except sweepers, and one or two others, as Joshi and Jasondhi, towards whom for some unexplained reason they entertain a special aversion. They will admit outsiders belonging to any caste from whom they can take food into the community. They are generally considered as impure, and live outside the village, and their touch conveys pollution, more especially in the Marātha Districts. The ordinary village menials, as the barber and washerman, will not work for them, and services of this nature are performed by men of their own community. As, however, their occupation is not in itself unclean, they rank above sweepers, Chamārs and Dhobis. Temporary exclusion from caste is imposed for the usual offences, and the almost invariable penalty for readmission is a feast to the caste-fellows. A person, male or female, who has been convicted of adultery must have the head shaved, and is then seated in the centre of the caste-fellows and pelted by them with the leavings of their food. Basor women are not permitted to wear nose-rings on pain of exclusion from caste.

6. Occupation.

The trade of the Basors is a very essential one to the agricultural community. They make numerous kinds of baskets, among which may be mentioned the chunka, a very small one, the tokni, a basket of middle size, and the tokna, a very large one. The dauri is a special basket with a lining of matting for washing rice in a stream. The jhānpi is a round basket with a cover for holding clothes; the tipanna a small one in which girls keep dolls; and the bilahra a still smaller one for holding betel-leaf. Other articles made from bamboo-bark are the chalni or sieve, the khunkhuna or rattle, the bānsuri or wooden flute, the bijna or fan, and the sūpa or winnowing-fan. All grain is cleaned with the help of the sūpa both on the threshing-floor and in the house before consumption, and a child is always laid in one as soon as it is born. In towns the Basors make the bamboo matting which is so much used. The only implement they employ is the bānka, a heavy curved knife, with which all the above articles are made. The bānka is duly worshipped at the Diwāli festival. The Basors are also the village musicians, and a band of three or four of them play at weddings and on other festive occasions. Some of them work as pig-breeders and others are village watchmen. The women often act as midwives. One subcaste, the Dumār, will do scavenger’s work, but they never take employment as saises, because the touch of horse-dung is considered as a pollution, entailing temporary excommunication from caste.