The Tribes and Castes of the Central Provinces of India, Volume 3

2. The Kanjars and the Gipsies

The Kanjars and Berias are the typical gipsy castes of India, and have been supposed to be the parents of the European gipsies. On this point Mr. Nesfield writes: “The commonly received legend is that multitudes of Kanjars were driven out of India by the oppressions of Tamerlane, and it is inferred that the gipsies of Europe are their direct descendants by blood, because they speak like them a form of the Hindi language.”³¹⁷ Sir G. Grierson states:³¹⁸ “According to the Shāh-nāma, the Persian monarch Bahrām Gaur received in the fifth century from an Indian king 12,000 musicians who were known as Lūris, and the Lūris or Lūlis, that is gipsies, of modern Persia are the descendants of these.” These people were also called Lutt, and hence it was supposed that they were the Indian Jāts. Sir G. Grierson, however, shows it to be highly improbable that the Jāts, one of the highest castes of cultivators, could ever have furnished a huge band of professional singers and dancers. He on the contrary derives the gipsies from the Dom tribe:³¹⁹ “Mr. Leland has made a happy suggestion that the original gipsies may have been Doms of India. He points out that Romany is almost letter for letter the same as Domni the plural of Dom. Domni is the plural form in the Bhojpuri dialect of the Bihāri language. It was originally a genitive plural; so that Romany-Rye, ‘A gipsy gentleman,’ may be well compared with the Bhojpuri Domni Rai, ‘A king of the Doms.’ The Bhojpuri-speaking Doms are a famous race, and they have many points of resemblance with the gipsies of Europe. Thus they are darker in complexion than the surrounding Bihāris, are great thieves, live by hunting, dancing and telling fortunes, their women have a reputation for making love-philtres and medicines to procure abortion, they keep fowls (which no orthodox Hindu will do), and are said to eat carrion. They are also great musicians and horsemen. The gipsy grammar is closely connected with Bhojpuri, and the following mongrel, half-gipsy, half-English rhyme will show the extraordinary similarity of the two vocabularies:³²⁰

In the above it must be remembered that the verbal terminations of the gipsy text are English and not gipsy.”

Sir G. Grierson also adds (in the passage first quoted): “I may note here a word which lends a singular confirmation to the theory. It is the gipsy term for bread, which is mānrō or manro. This is usually connected either with the Gaudian mānr ‘rice-gruel’ or with manrua, the millet (Eleusine coracana). Neither of these agrees with the idea of bread, but in the Magadhi dialect of Bihāri, spoken south of the Ganges in the native land of these Maghiya Doms, there is a peculiar word mānda or mānra which means wheat, whence the transition to the gipsy mānrō, bread, is eminently natural.”

The above argument renders it probable that the gipsies are derived from the Doms; and as Mr. Nesfield gives it as a common legend that they originated from the Kanjars, this is perhaps another connecting link between the Doms and Kanjars. The word gipsy is probably an abbreviation of ‘Egyptian,’ the country assigned as the home of the gipsies in mediaeval times. It has already been seen that the Doms are the bards and minstrels of the lower castes in the Punjab, and that the Kanjars and Sānsias, originally identical or very closely connected, were in particular the bards of the Jāts. It is a possible speculation that they may have been mixed up with the lower classes of Jāts or have taken their name, and that this has led to the confusion between the Jāts and gipsies. Some support is afforded to this suggestion by the fact that the Kanjars of Jubbulpore say that they have three divisions, the Jāt, Multāni and Kūchbandia. The Jāt Kanjars are, no doubt, those who acted as bards to the Jāts, and hence took the name; and if the ancestors of these people emigrated from India they may have given themselves out as Jāt.

3. The Thugs derived from the Kanjars

In the article on Thug it is suggested that a large, if not the principal, section of the Thugs were derived from the Kanjars. At the Thug marriages an old matron would sometimes repeat, “Here’s to the spirits of those who once led bears and monkeys; to those who drove bullocks and marked with the godini (tattooing-needle); and those who made baskets for the head.” And these are the occupations of the Kanjars and Berias. The Goyandas of Jubbulpore, descendants of Thug approvers, are considered to be a class of gipsy Muhammadans, akin to or identical with the Kanjars, of whom the Multāni subdivision are also Muhammadans. Like the Kanjar women the Goyandas make articles of net and string. There is also a colony of Berias in Jubbulpore, and these are admittedly the descendants of Thugs who were located there. If the above argument is well founded, we are led to the interesting conclusion that four of the most important vagrant and criminal castes of India, as well as the Mirāsis or low-class Hindu bards, the gipsies, and a large section of the Thugs, are all derived from the great Dom caste.

4. The Doms

The Doms appear to be one of the chief aboriginal tribes of northern India, who were reduced to servitude like the Mahārs and Chamārs. Sir H. M. Elliot considered them to be “One of the original tribes of India. Tradition fixes their residence to the north of the Ghāgra, touching the Bhars on the east in the vicinity of the Rohini. Several old forts testify to their former importance, and still retain the names of their founders, as, for instance, Domdiha and Domingarh in the Gorakhpur district. Rāmgarh and Sahukot on the Rohini are also Dom forts.”³²¹ Sir G. Grierson quotes Dr. Fleet as follows: “In a south Indian inscription a king Rudradeva is said to have subdued a certain Domma, whose strength evidently lay in his cavalry. No clue is given as to who this Domma was, but he may have been the leader of some aboriginal tribe which had not then lost all its power”; and suggests that this Domma may have been a leader of the Doms, who would then be shown to have been dominant in southern India. As already seen there is a Domāru caste of Telingāna, with whom Mr. Kitts identified the Berias or Kolhātis. In northern India the Doms were reduced to a more degraded condition than the other pre-Aryan tribes as they furnished a large section of the sweeper caste. As has been seen also they were employed as public executioners like the Māngs. This brief mention of the Doms has been made in view of the interest attaching to them on account of the above suggestions, and because there will be no separate article on the caste.

5. The criminal Kanjars

In Berār two main divisions of the Kanjars may be recognised, the Kūnchbandhia or those who make weavers’ brooms and are comparatively honest, and the other or criminal Kanjars.³²² The criminal Kanjars may again be divided into the Mārwāri and Deccani groups. They were probably once the same, but the Deccanis, owing to their settlement in the south, have adopted some Marātha or Gujarāti fashions, and speak the Marāthi language; their women wear the angia or Marātha breast-cloth fastening behind, and have a gold ornament shaped like a flower in the nose;³²³ while the Mārwāri Kanjars have no breast-cloth and may not wear gold ornaments at all. The Deccani Kanjars are fond of stealing donkeys, their habit being either to mix their own herds with those of the village and drive them all off together, or, if they catch the donkeys unattended, to secrete them in some water-course, tying their legs together, and if they remain undiscovered to remove them at nightfall. The animals are at once driven away for a long distance before any attempt is made to dispose of them. The Mārwāri Kanjars consider it derogatory to keep donkeys and therefore do not steal these animals. They are preeminently cattle-lifters and sheep-stealers, and their encampments may be recognised by the numbers of bullocks and cows about them. Their women wear the short Mārwāri petticoat reaching half-way between the knees and ankles. Their hair is plaited over the forehead and cowrie shells and brass ornaments like buttons are often attached in it. Bead necklaces are much worn by the women and bead and horse-hair necklets by the men. A peculiarity about the women is that they are confirmed snuff-takers and consume great quantities of the weed in this form. The women go into the towns and villages and give exhibitions of singing and dancing; and picking up any information they can acquire about the location of property, impart this to the men. Sometimes they take service, and a case was known in Jubbulpore of Kanjar women hiring themselves out as pankha-pullers, with the result that the houses in which they were employed were subsequently robbed.³²⁴ It is said, however, that they do not regularly break into houses, but confine themselves to lurking theft. I have thought it desirable to record here the above particulars of the criminal Kanjars, taken from Major Gunthorpe’s account; for, though the caste is, as already stated, identical with the Sānsias, their customs in Berār differ considerably from those of the Sānsias of Central India, who are treated of in the article on that caste.

6. The Kūnchband Kanjars

We come, finally, to the Kūnchband Kanjars, the most representative section of the caste, who as a body are not criminals, or at any rate less so than the others. The name Kūnchband or Kūchband, by which they are sometimes known, is derived from their trade of making brushes (kūnch) of the roots of khas-khas grass, which are used by weavers for cleaning the threads entangled on the looms. This has given rise to the proverb ‘Kori ka bigāri Kūnchbandhia’ or ‘The Kūnchbandhia must look to the Kori (weaver) as his patron’; the point being that the Kori is himself no better than a casual labourer, and a man who is dependent on him must be in a poor way indeed. The Kūnchbandhias are also known in northern India as Sankat or Patharkat, because they make and sharpen the household grinding-stones, this being the calling of the Tākankār Pārdhis in the Marātha Districts, and as Goher because they catch and eat the goh, the large lizard or iguana.³²⁵ Other divisions are the Dhobibans or washerman’s race, the Lakarhār or wood-cutters, and the Untwār or camelmen.

7. Marriage and religion

In the Central Provinces there are other divisions, as the Jāt and Multāni Kanjars. They say they have two exogamous divisions, Kalkha and Malha, and a member of either of these must take a wife from the other division. Both the Kalkhas and Malhas are further divided into kuls or sections, but the influence of these on marriage is not clear. At a Kanjar marriage, Mr. Crooke states, the gadela or spade with which they dig out the khas-khas grass and kill wolves or vermin, is placed in the marriage pavilion during the ceremony. The bridegroom swears that he will not drive away nor divorce his wife, and sometimes a mehar or dowry is also fixed for the bride. The father-in-law usually, however, remits a part or the whole of this subsequently, when the bridegroom goes to take food at his house on festival occasions. Mr. Nesfield states that the principal deity of the Kanjars is the man-god Māna, who was not only the teacher and guide, but also the founder and ancestor of the tribe. He is buried, as some Kanjars relate, at Kara in the Allahābād District, not far from the Ganges and facing the old city of Mānikpur on the opposite bank. Māna is worshipped with special ceremony in the rainy season, when the tribe is less migratory than in the dry months of the year. On such occasions, if sufficient notice is circulated, several encampments unite temporarily to pay honour to their common ancestor. The worshippers collect near a tree under which they sacrifice a pig, a goat, a sheep, or a fowl, and make an offering of roasted flesh and spirituous liquor. Formerly, it is said, they used to sacrifice a child, having first made it insensible with fermented palm-juice or toddy.³²⁶ They dance round the tree in honour of Māna, and sing the customary songs in commemoration of his wisdom and deeds of valour.

8. Social customs

The dead are usually buried, both male and female corpses being laid on their faces with the feet pointing to the south. Kanjars who become Muhammadans may be readmitted to the community after the following ceremony. A pit is dug and the convert sits in it and each Kanjar throws a little curds on to his body. He then goes and bathes in a river, his tongue is touched or branded with heated gold and he gives a feast to the community. A Kanjar woman who has lived in concubinage with a Brāhman, Rājpūt, Agarwāl Bania, Kurmi, Ahīr or Lodhi may be taken back into the caste after the same ceremony; but not one who has lived with a Kāyasth, Sunār or Lohār or any lower caste. A Kanjar is not put out of caste for being imprisoned, nor for being beaten by an outsider, nor for selling shoes. If a man touches his daughter-in-law even accidentally he is fined the sum of Rs. 2–8.

9. Industrial arts

The following account of the industries of the vagrant Kanjars was written by Mr. Nesfield in 1883. In the Central Provinces many of them are now more civilised, and some are employed in Government service. Their women also make and retail string-net purses, balls and other articles.

“Among the arts of the Kanjar are making mats of the sirki reed, baskets of wattled cane, fans of palm-leaves and rattles of plaited straw: these last are now sold to Hindu children as toys, though originally they may have been used by the Kanjars themselves (if we are to trust to the analogy of other backward races) as sacred and mysterious implements. From the stalks of the munj grass and from the roots of the palās³²⁷ tree they make ropes which are sold or bartered to villagers in exchange for grain and milk. They prepare the skins of which drums are made and sell them to Hindu musicians; though, probably, as in the case of the rattle, the drum was originally used by the Kanjars themselves and worshipped as a fetish; for even the Aryan tribes, who are said to have been far more advanced than the indigenous races, sang hymns in honour of the drum or dundubhi as if it were something sacred. They make plates of broad leaves which are ingeniously stitched together by their stalks; and plates of this kind are very widely used by the inferior Indian castes and by confectioners and sellers of sweetmeats. The mats of sirki reed with which they cover their own movable leaf huts are models of neatness and simplicity and many of these are sold to cart-drivers. The toddy or juice of the palm tree, which they extract and ferment by methods of their own and partly for their own use, finds a ready sale among low-caste Hindus in villages and market towns. They are among the chief stone-cutters in Upper India, especially in the manufacture of the grinding-mill which is very widely used. This consists of two circular stones of equal diameter; the upper one, which is the thicker and heavier, revolves on a wooden pivot fixed in the centre of the lower one and is propelled by two women, each holding the same handle. But it is also not less frequent for one woman to grind alone.” It is perhaps not realised what this business of grinding her own grain instead of buying flour means to the Indian woman. She rises before daybreak to commence the work, and it takes her perhaps two or three hours to complete the day’s provision. Grain-grinding for hire is an occupation pursued by poor women. The pisanhāri, as she is called, receives an anna (penny) for grinding 16 lbs. of grain, and can get through 30 lbs. a day. In several localities temples are shown supposed to have been built by some pious pisanhāri from her earnings. “The Kanjars,” Mr. Nesfield continues, “also gather the white wool-like fibre which grows in the pods of the semal or Indian cotton tree and twist it into thread for the use of weavers.³²⁸ In the manufacture of brushes for the cleaning of cotton-yarn the Kanjars enjoy almost a complete monopoly. In these brushes a stiff mass of horsehair is attached to a wooden handle by sinews and strips of hide; and the workmanship is remarkably neat and durable.³²⁹ Another complete or almost complete monopoly enjoyed by Kanjars is the collection and sale of sweet-scented roots of the khas-khas grass, which are afterward made up by the Chhaparbands and others into door-screens, and through being continually watered cool the hot air which passes through them. The roots of this wild grass, which grows in most abundance on the outskirts of forests or near the banks of rivers, are dug out of the earth by an instrument called khunti. This has a handle three feet long, and a blade about a foot long resembling that of a knife. The same implement serves as a dagger or short spear for killing wolves or jackals, as a tool for carving a secret entrance through the clay wall of a villager’s hut in which a burglary is meditated, as a spade or hoe for digging snakes, field-rats, and lizards out of their holes, and edible roots out of the earth, and as a hatchet for chopping wood.”

Kāpewār

Kāpewār,³³⁰ Munurwār.—A great cultivating caste of the Telugu country, where they are known as Kāpu or Reddi, and correspond to the Kurmi in Hindustān and the Kunbi in the Marātha Districts. In the Central Provinces about 18,000 persons of the caste were enumerated in the Chānda District and Berār in 1911. The term Kāpu means a watchman, and Reddi is considered to be a corruption of Rāthor or Rāshtrakūta, meaning a king, or more properly the headman of a village. Kāpewār is simply the plural form of Kāpu, and Munurwār, in reality the name of a subcaste of Kāpewārs, is used as a synonym for the main caste in Chānda. They are divided into various occupational subcastes, as the Upparwars or earth-diggers, from uppar, earth; the Gone, who make gonas or hemp gunny-bags; the Elmas, who are household servants; the Gollewārs, who sell milk; and the Gamadis or masons. The Kunte or lame Kāpewārs, the lowest group, say that their ancestor was born lame; they are also called Bhiksha Kunte or lame beggars and serve as the bards of the caste besides begging from them. They are considered to be of illegitimate origin. No detailed account of the caste need be given here, but one or two interesting customs reported from Chānda may be noted. Girls must be married before they are ten years old, and in default of this the parents are temporarily put out of caste and have to pay a penalty for readmission. But if they take the girl to some sacred place on the Godāvari river and marry her there the penalty is avoided. Contrary to the usual custom the bride goes to the bridegroom’s house to be married. On the fourth night of the marriage ceremony the bridegroom takes with him all the parts of a plough as if he was going out to the field, and walks up the marriage-shed to the further end followed by the bride, who carries on her head some cooked food tied up in a cloth. The skirts of the couple are knotted together. On reaching the end of the shed the bridegroom makes five drills in the ground with a bullock-goad and sows cotton and juāri seeds mixed together. Then the cooked food is eaten by all who are present, the bridal couple commencing first, and the seed is irrigated by washing their hands over it. This performance is a symbolical portrayal of the future life of the couple, which will be spent in cultivation. In Chānda a number of Kāpewārs are stone-masons, and are considered the most proficient workers at this trade in the locality. Major Lucie Smith, the author of the Chānda Settlement Report of 1869, thought that the ancestors of the caste had been originally brought to Chānda to build the fine walls with ramparts and bastions which stretch for a length of six or seven miles round the town. The caste are sometimes known as Telugu Kunbis. Men may be distinguished by the single dot which is always tattooed on the forehead during their infancy. Men of the Gowāri caste have a similar mark.