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

1. Origin of the caste.

Dahāit, Dahāyat.—A mixed caste of village watchmen of the Jubbulpore and Mandla Districts, who are derived from the cognate caste of Khangārs and from several of the forest tribes. In 1911 the Dahāits numbered about 15,000 persons in the Central Provinces, of whom the large majority were found in the Jubbulpore District and the remainder in Bilāspur, Damoh and Seoni. Outside the Province they reside only in Bundelkhand. According to one story the Dahāits and Khangārs had a common ancestor, and in Mandla again they say that their ancestors were the door-keepers of the Rājas of Mahoba, and were known as Chhadīdar or Darwān; and they came to Mandla about 200 years ago, during the time of Rāja Nizām Shāh of the Rāj-Gond dynasty of that place. In Mandla the names of their subdivisions are given as Rawatia or Rautia, Kol, Mawāsi, Sonwāni and Rajwāria. Of these Kol and Rajwār are the names of separate tribes; Mawāsi is commonly used as a synonym for Korku, another tribe; Sonwāni is the name of a sept found among several of the primitive tribes; while Rāwat is a title borne by the Saonrs and Gonds. The names Rautia and Rajwāria are found as subdivisions of the Kol tribe in Mīrzāpur,2 and it is not improbable that the Dahāits are principally derived from this tribe. The actual name Dahāit is also given by Mr. Crooke as a subdivision of the Kols, and he states it to have the meaning of ‘villager,’ from dehāt, a village. The Dahāits were a class of personal attendants on the chief or Rāja, as will be seen subsequently. They stood behind the royal cushion and fanned him, ran in front of his chariot or litter to clear the way, and acted as door-keepers and ushers. Service of this kind is of a menial nature and, further, demands a considerable degree of physical robustness; and hence members of the non-Aryan forest tribes would naturally be selected for it. And it would appear that these menial servants gradually formed themselves into a caste in Bundelkhand and became the Dahāits. They obtained a certain rise in status, and now rank in the position of village menials above their parent tribes. In the Central Provinces the Dahāits have commonly been employed as village watchmen, a post analogous to that of door-keeper or porter. The caste are also known as Bhāldār or spearmen, and Kotwār or village watchmen.

2. Internal structure: totemism.

The subcastes returned from the Mandla District have already been mentioned. In Bilāspur they have quite different ones, of which two, Joharia and Pailagia, are derived from methods of greeting. Johār is the salutation which a Rājpūt prince sends to a vassal or chief of inferior rank, and Pailagi or ‘I fall at your feet’ is that with which a member of a lower caste accosts a Brāhman. How such names came to be adopted as subcastes cannot be explained. The caste have a number of exogamous groups named after plants and animals. Members of the Bel,3 Rusallo and Chheola4 septs revere the trees after which these septs are named. They will not cut or injure the tree, and at the time of marriage they go and invite it to be present at the ceremony. They offer to the tree the maihar cake, which is given only to the members of the family and the husbands and children of daughters. Those belonging to the Nagotia sept5 will not kill a snake, and at the time of marriage they deposit the maihar cake at a snake-hole. Members of the Singh (lion) and Bāgh (tiger) septs will not kill a tiger, and at their weddings they draw his image on a wall and offer the cake to it, being well aware that if they approached the animal himself, he would probably repudiate the relationship and might not be satisfied with the cake for his meal.

3. Marriage and other customs.

Prior to a marriage a bride-price, known as sukh or chāri, and consisting of six rupees with some sugar, turmeric and sesamum oil, must be paid by the parents of the bridegroom to those of the bride; and in the absence of this they will decline to perform the ceremony. At the wedding the couple go round the sacred post, and then the bridegroom mingles the flames of two burning lamps and pierces the nose of the image of a bullock made in flour. This rite is performed by several castes, and is said to be in commemoration of Krishna’s having done so on different occasions. It is probably meant to excuse or legitimise the real operation, which should properly be considered as sinful in view of the sacred character of the animal. And it may be mentioned here that the people of the Vindhyan or Bundelkhand Districts where the Dahāits live do not perforate the nostrils of bullocks, and drive them simply by a rope tied round the mouth. In consequence they have little control over them and are quite unable to stop a cart going downhill, which simply proceeds at the will of the animals until it reaches the level or bangs up against some obstacle. In Bilāspur a widow is expected to remain single for five years after her husband’s death, and if she marries within that time she is put out of caste. Divorce is permitted, but is not of frequent occurrence. The caste will excuse a married woman caught in adultery once, but on a second offence she must be expelled. If a woman leaves her husband and goes to live with another man, the latter must repay to her husband the amount expended on his marriage. But in such a case, if the woman was already a widow or kari aurat,6 no penalty is incurred by a man who takes her from her second husband. A man of any good cultivating caste who has a liaison with a Dahāit woman will be admitted into the community. An outsider who desires to become a member of the caste must clean his house, break his earthen cooking-pots and buy new ones, and give a meal to the caste-fellows at his house. He sits and takes food with them, and when the meal is over he takes a grain of rice from the leaf-plate of each guest and eats it, and drinks a drop of water from his leaf-cup. This act is equivalent to eating the leavings of food, and after it he cannot re-enter his own caste. On such occasions a rupee and a piece of cloth must be given to the headman of the caste, and a piece of cloth to each member of the panchāyat or committee. The headman is known as Mirdhān, and a member of the committee as Diwān, the offices of both being hereditary. The caste worship the Hindu and village gods of the locality. They have a curious belief that the skull of a man of the Kāyasth (writer) caste cannot be burnt in fire, and that if it is placed in a dwelling-house the inmates will quarrel. A child’s first teeth, if found, are thrown into a sacred river or on to the roof of a house with a few grains of rice, in order that the second teeth may grow white and pointed like the rice. The Jhālar or first hair of a boy or girl is cut between two and ten years of age and is wrapped in a piece of dough and thrown into a sacred river. Women are tattooed on the back of the hands, and also sometimes on the shoulder and the arms above the elbow, but not on the feet or face.

4. Social position.

The Dahāits are now commonly employed as village watchmen and as guards or porters (chaukidār) of houses. In Bilāspur they also carry litters and work as navvies and stonebreakers like the Kols. Here they will eat pork, but in Jubbulpore greater regard is paid to Hindu prejudice, and they have given up pork and fowls and begun to employ Brāhmans for their ceremonies. The men of the caste will accept cooked food from any man of the higher castes or those cultivators from whom a Brāhman will take water, but the women are more strict and will only accept it from a Brāhman, Bania, Lodhi or Kurmi.

5. Former occupations: door-keeper and mace-bearer.

In past times the Dahāits were the personal attendants on the king. They fanned him with the chaur or yak-tail whisk when he sat in state on the royal cushion. This implement is held sacred and is also used by Brāhmans to fan the deities. On ordinary occasions the Rāja was fanned by a pankha made of khaskhas grass and wetted, but not so that the water fell on his head. They also acted as gate-keepers of the palace, and had the title of Darwān. The gate-keeper’s post was a responsible one, as it lay on him to see that no one with evil intentions or carrying secret arms was admitted to the palace. Whenever a chief or noble came to visit the king he deposited his arms with the porter or door-keeper. The necessity of a faithful door-keeper is shown in the proverb: “With these five you must never quarrel: your Guru, your wife, your gate-keeper, your doctor and your cook.” The reasons for the inclusion of the others are fairly clear. On the other hand the gate-porter had usually to be propitiated before access was obtained to his master, like the modern chuprāssie; and the resentment felt at his rapacity is shown in the proverb: “The broker, the octroi moharrir, the door-keeper and the bard: these four will surely go to hell.” The Darwān or door-keeper would be given the right to collect dues, equivalent to those of a village watchman, from forty or fifty villages. The Dahāits also carried the chob or silver mace before the king. This was about five feet long with a knob at the upper end as thick as a man’s wrist. The mace-bearer was known as Chobdār, and it was his duty to carry messages and announce visitors; this latter function he performed with a degree of pomposity truly Asiatic, dwelling with open mouth very audibly on some of the most sounding and emphatic syllables in a way that appeared to strangers almost ludicrous,7 as shown in the following instance: “On advancing, the Chobdārs or heralds proclaimed the titles of this princely cow-keeper in the usual hyperbolical style. One of the most insignificant-looking men I ever saw then became the destroyer of nations, the leveller of mountains, the exhauster of the ocean. After commanding every inferior mortal to make way for this exalted prince, the heralds called aloud to the animal creation, ‘Retire, ye serpents; fly, ye locusts; approach not, iguanas, lizards and reptiles, while your lord and master condescends to set his foot on the earth.’”8 The Dahāits ran before the Rāja’s chariot or litter to clear the way for him and announce his coming; and it was also a principal business of the caste to carry the royal umbrella above the head of the king.

6. The umbrella.

The umbrella was the essential symbol of sovereignty in Asia like the crown in Europe. “Among the ancient Egyptians the umbrella carried with it a mark of distinction, and persons of quality alone could use it. The Assyrians reserved it for royal personages only. The umbrella or parasol, says Layard, that emblem of royalty so universally adopted by Eastern nations, was generally carried over the king in time of peace and sometimes even in war. In shape it resembled very closely those now in common use; but it is always seen open in the sculptures. It was edged with tassels and usually decorated at the top by a flower or some other ornament. The Greeks used it as a mystic symbol in some of their sacred festivals, and the Romans introduced the custom of hanging an umbrella in the basilican churches as a part of the insignia of office of the judge sitting in the basilica. It is said that on the judgment hall being turned into a church the umbrella remained, and in fact occupied the place of the canopy over thrones and the like; and Beatian, an Italian herald, says that a vermilion umbrella in a field argent symbolises dominion. It is also believed that the cardinal’s hat is a modification of the umbrella in the basilican churches. The king of Burma is proud to call himself The Lord of Twenty-four Umbrellas, and the Emperor of China carries that number even to the hunting-field.”9 In Buddhist architecture the ‘Wheel of Light’ symbolising Buddha is overshadowed by an umbrella, itself adorned with garlands. At Sānchi we find sculptured representations of two and even three umbrellas placed one above the other over the temples, the double and triple canopies of which appear to be fixed to the same handle or staff as in the modern state umbrellas of China and Burma. Thus we have the primary idea of the accumulated honour of stone or metal discs which subsequently became such a prominent feature of Buddhist architecture, culminating in the many-storied pagodas of China and Japan.10 Similarly in Hindu temples the pinnacle often stands on a circular stone base, probably representing an umbrella.

The umbrella of state was apparently not black like its successor of commerce, but of white or another colour, though the colour is seldom recorded. Sometimes it was of peacock’s feathers, the symbol of the Indian war-god, and as seen above, in Italy it was of red, the royal colour. It has been suggested that the halo originally represented an umbrella, and there is no reason to doubt that the umbrella was the parent of the state canopy.

7. Significance of the umbrella.

It has been supposed that the reason for carrying the umbrella above the king’s head was to veil his eyes from his subjects, and prevent them from being injured by the magical power of his glance.11 But its appearance on temples perhaps rather militates against this view. Possibly it may have merely served as a protection or covering to the king’s head, the head being considered especially sacred as the seat of life. The same idea is perhaps at the root of the objection felt by Hindus to being seen abroad without a covering on the head. It seems likely that the umbrella may have been held to be a representation of the sky or firmament. The Muhammadans conjoined with it an aftāda or sun-symbol; this was an imitation of the sun, embroidered in gold upon crimson velvet and fixed on a circular framework which was borne aloft upon a gold or silver staff.12 Both were carried over the head of any royal personage, and the association favours the idea that the umbrella represents the sky, while the king’s head might be considered analogous to the sun. When one of the early Indian monarchs made extensive conquests, the annexed territories were described as being brought under his umbrella; of the king Harsha-Vardhana (606–648 A.D.) it is recorded that he prosecuted a methodical scheme of conquest with the deliberate object of bringing all India under one umbrella, that is, of constituting it into one state. This phrase seems to support the idea that the umbrella symbolised the firmament. Similarly, when Visvāmitra sent beautiful maidens to tempt the good king Harischandra he instructed them to try and induce the king to marry them, and if he would not do this, to ask him for the Puchukra Undi or State Umbrella, which was the emblem of the king’s protecting power over his kingdom, with the idea that that power would be destroyed by its loss. Chhatrapati or Lord of the Umbrella was the proudest title of an Indian king. When Sivaji was enthroned in 1674 he proclaimed himself as Pinnacle of the Kshatriya race and Lord of the Royal Umbrella. All these instances seem to indicate that some powerful significance, such as that already suggested, attached to the umbrella. Several tribes, as the Gonds and Mundas, have a legend that their earliest king was born of poor parents, and that one day his mother, having left the child under some tree while she went to her work, returned to find a cobra spreading its hood over him. The future royal destiny of the boy was thus predicted. It is commonly said that the cobra spread its hood over the child to guard it from the heat of the sun, but such protection would perhaps scarcely seem very important to such a people as the Gonds, and the mother would naturally also leave the child in the shade. It seems a possible hypothesis that the cobra’s hood really symbolised the umbrella, the principal emblem of royal rank, and it was in this way that the child’s great destiny was predicted. In this connection it may be noticed that one of the Jain Tirthakārs, Pārasnāth, is represented in sculpture with an umbrella over his head; but some Jains say that the carving above the saint’s head is not an umbrella but a cobra’s hood. Even after it had ceased to be the exclusive appanage of the king, the umbrella was a sign of noble rank, and not permitted to the commonalty.

The old Anglo-Indian term for an umbrella was ‘roundel,’ an early English word, applied to a variety of circular objects, as a mat under a dish, or a target, and in its form of ‘arundel’ to the conical handguard on a lance.13 An old Indian writer says: “Roundels are in these warm climates very necessary to keep the sun from scorching a man, they may also be serviceable to keep the rain off; most men of account maintain one, two or three roundeliers, whose office is only to attend their master’s motion; they are very light but of exceeding stiffness, being for the most part made of rhinoceros hide, very decently painted and guilded with what flowers they best admire. Exactly in the midst thereof is fixed a smooth handle made of wood, by which the Roundelier doth carry it, holding it a foot or more above his master’s head, directing the centre thereof as opposite to the sun as possibly he may. Any man whatever that will go to the charge of it, which is no great matter, may have one or more Katysols to attend him but not a Roundel; unless he be a Governor or one of the Council. The same custom the English hold good amongst their own people, whereby they may be distinguished by the natives.”14 The Katysol was a Chinese paper and bamboo sunshade, and the use of them was not prohibited. It was derived from the Portuguese quito-sol, or that which keeps off the sun.15 An extract from the Madras Standing Orders, 1677–78, prescribed: “That except by the members of this Council, those that have formerly been in that quality, Chiefs of Factories, Commanders of Ships out of England, and the Chaplains, Rundells shall not be worn by any men in this town, and by no woman below the degree of Factors’ Wives and Ensigns’ Wives, except by such as the Governor shall permit.”16 Another writer in 1754 states: “Some years before our arrival in the country, they (the E. I. Co.) found such sumptuary laws so absolutely necessary, that they gave the strictest orders that none of these young gentlemen should be allowed even to hire a Roundel boy, whose business it is to walk by his master and defend him with his Roundel or umbrella from the heat of the sun. A young fellow of humour, upon this last order coming over, altered the form of his Umbrella from a round to a square, called it a Squaredel instead of a Roundel, and insisted that no order yet in force forbade him the use of it.”17 The fact that the Anglo-Indians called the umbrella a roundel and regarded it as a symbol of sovereignty or nobility indicates that it was not yet used in England; and this Mr. Skeat shows to be correct. “The first umbrella used in England by a man in the open street for protection against rain is usually said to have been that carried by Jonas Hanway, a great traveller, who introduced it on his return from Paris about 1750, some thirty years before it was generally adopted.

“Some kind of umbrella was, however, occasionally used by ladies at least so far back as 1709; and a fact not generally known is that from about the year 1717 onwards, a ‘parish’ umbrella, resembling the more recent ‘family’ umbrella of the nineteenth century, was employed by the priest at open-air funerals, as the church accounts of many places testify.”18 This ecclesiastical use of the umbrella may have been derived from its employment as a symbol in Italian churches, as seen above. The word umbrella is derived through the Italian from the Latin umbra, shade, and in mediaeval times a state umbrella was carried over the Doge or Duke at Venice on the occasion of any great ceremony.19

Even recently it is said that in Saugor no Bania dare go past a Bundela Rājpūt’s house without getting down from his pony and folding up his umbrella. In Hindu slang a ‘Chhatawāli’ or carrier of an umbrella was a term for a smart young man; as in the line, ‘An umbrella has two kinds of ribs; two women are quarrelling for the love of him who carries it.’ Now that the umbrella is free to all, and may be bought for a rupee or less in the bazār, the prestige which once attached to it has practically disappeared. But some flavour of its old associations may still cling to it in the minds of the sais and ayah who proudly parade to a festival carrying umbrellas spread over them to shade their dusky features from the sun; though the Rāja, in obedience to the dictates of fashion, has discarded the umbrella for a sola-topi.

1. Origin and traditions.

Daharia.1—A caste of degraded Rājpūts found in Bilāspur and Raipur, and numbering about 2000 persons. The Daharias were originally a clan of Rājpūts but, like several others in the Central Provinces, they have now developed into a caste and marry among themselves, thus transgressing the first rule of Rājpūt exogamy. Colonel Tod included the Daharias among the thirty-six royal races of Rājasthān.2 Their name is derived from Dāhar or Dāhal, the classical term for the Jubbulpore country at the period when it formed the dominion of the Haihaya or Kālachuri Rājpūt kings of Tripura or Tewar near Jubbulpore. This dynasty had an era of their own, commencing in A.D. 248, and their line continued until the tenth or eleventh century. The Arabian geographer Alberuni (born a.d. 973) mentions the country of Dāhal and its king Gāngeya Deva. His son Karna Daharia is still remembered as the builder of temples in Karanbel and Bilahri in Jubbulpore, and it is from him that the Daharia Rājpūts take their name. The Haihaya dynasty of Ratanpur were related to the Kālachuri kings of Tewar, and under them the ancestors of the Daharia Rājpūts probably migrated from Jubbulpore into Chhattīsgarh. But they themselves have forgotten their illustrious origin, and tell a different story to account for their name. They say that they came from Baghelkhand or Rewah, which may well be correct, as Rewah lies between Chhattīsgarh and Jubbulpore, and a large colony of Kālachuri Rājpūts may still be found about ten miles north-east of Rewah town. The Daharias relate that when Parasurāma, the great Brāhman warrior, was slaying the Kshatriyas, a few of them escaped towards Ratanpur and were camping in the forest by the wayside. Parasurāma came up and asked them who they were, and they said they were Daharias or wayfarers, from dāhar the Chhattīsgarhi term for a road or path; and thus they successfully escaped the vengeance of Parasurāma. This futile fiction only demonstrates the real ignorance of their Brāhman priests, who, if they had known a little history, need not have had recourse to their invention to furnish the Daharias with a distinguished pedigree. A third derivation is from a word dahri or gate, and they say that the name of Dahria or Daharia was conferred on them by Bimbaji Bhonsla, because of the bravery with which they held the gates of Ratanpur against his attack. But history is against them here, as it records that Ratanpur capitulated to the Marāthas without striking a blow.

2. Sept and subsept.

As already stated, the Daharias were originally a clan of Rājpūts, whose members must take wives or husbands from other clans. They have now become a caste and marry among themselves, but within the caste they still have exogamous groups or septs, several of which are named after Rājpūt clans as Bais, Chandel, Baghel, Bundela, Mainpuri Chauhān, Parihār, Rāthor and several others. Certain names are not of Rājpūt origin, and probably record the admission of outsiders into the caste. Like the Rājpūts, within the sept they have also subsepts, some of which are taken from the Brāhmans, as Parāsar, Bhāradwāj, Sāndilya, while others are nicknames, as Kachariha (one who does not care about a beating), Atariha, Hiyās and others. The divisions of the septs and subsepts are very confused, and seem to indicate that at different times various foreign elements have been received into the community, including Rājpūts of many different clans. According to rule, a man should not take a wife whose sept or subsept are the same as his own, but this is not adhered to; and in some cases the Daharias, on account of the paucity of their numbers and the difficulty of arranging matches, have been driven to permit the marriage of first cousins, which among proper Rājpūts is forbidden. They also practise hypergamy, as members of the Mainpuri Chauhān, Hiyās, Bisen, Surkhi and Bais septs or subsepts will take girls in marriage from families of other septs, but will not give their daughters to them. This practice leads to polygamy among the five higher septs, whose daughters are all married in their own circle, while in addition they receive girls from the other groups. Members of these latter also consider it an honour to marry a daughter into one of the higher septs, and are willing to pay a considerable price for such a distinction. It seems probable that the small Daraiha caste of Bilāspur are an inferior branch of the Daharias.

3. Social customs.

The Daharias, in theory at any rate, observe the same rules in regard to their women as Brāhmans and Rājpūts. Neither divorce nor the marriage of widows is permitted, and a woman who goes wrong is finally expelled from the caste. Their social customs resemble those of the higher Hindustāni castes. When the bridegroom starts for the wedding he is dressed in a long white gown reaching to the ankles, with new shoes, and he takes with him a dagger; this serves the double purpose of warding off evil spirits, always prone to attack the bridal party, and also of being a substitute for the bridegroom himself, as in case he should for some unforeseen reason be rendered unable to appear at the ceremony, the bride could be married to the dagger as his representative. It may also be mentioned that, before the bridegroom starts for the wedding, after he has been rubbed with oil and turmeric for five days he is seated on a wooden plank over a hole dug in the courtyard and bathed. He then changes his clothes, and the women bring twenty-one small chukias or cups full of water and empty them over him. His head is then covered with a piece of new cloth, and a thread wound round it seven times by a Brāhman. The thread is afterwards removed, and tied round an iron ring with some mango leaves, and this ring forms the kankan which is tied to the bridegroom’s wrist, a similar one being worn by the bride. Before the wedding the bride goes round to the houses of her friends, accompanied by the women of her party singing songs, and by musicians. At each house the mistress appears with her forehead and the parting of her hair profusely smeared with vermilion. She rubs her forehead against the bride’s so as to colour it also with vermilion, which is now considered the symbol of a long and happy married life. The barber’s wife applies red paint to the bride’s feet, the gardener’s wife presents her with a garland of flowers, and the carpenter’s wife gives her a new wooden doll. She must also visit the potter’s and washerman’s wives, whose benisons are essential; they give her a new pot and a little rice respectively. When the bridegroom comes to touch the marriage-shed with his dagger he is resisted by the bride’s sister, to whom he must give a rupee as a present. The binding portion of the marriage consists in the couple walking seven times round the marriage-post. At each turn the bridegroom seizes the bride’s right toe and with it upsets one of seven little cups of rice placed near the marriage-post. This is probably a symbol of fertility. After it they worship seven pairs of little wooden boxes smeared with vermilion and called singhora and singhori as if they were male and female. The bridegroom’s father brings two little dough images of Mahādeo and Pārvati as the ideal married pair, and gives them to the couple. The new husband applies vermilion to his wife’s forehead, and covers and uncovers her head seven times, to signify to her that, having become a wife, she should henceforth be veiled when she goes abroad. The bride’s maid now washes her face, which probably requires it, and the wedding is complete. The Daharias usually have a guru or spiritual preceptor, but husband and wife must not have the same one, as in that case they would be in the anomalous position of brother and sister, a guru’s disciples being looked upon as his children. The Daharias were formerly warriors in the service of the Ratanpur kings, and many families still possess an old sword which they worship on the day of Dasahra. Their names usually end in Singh or Lāl. They are now engaged in cultivation, and many of them are proprietors of villages, and tenants. Some of them are employed as constables and chuprāssies, but few are labourers, as they may not touch the plough with their own hands. They eat the flesh of clean animals, but do not drink liquor, and avoid onions and tomatoes. They have good features and fair complexions, the traces of their Rājpūt blood being quite evident. Brāhmans will take water from them, but they now rank below Rājpūts, on a level with the good cultivating castes.

1. Origin and traditions.

Dāngi.—A cultivating caste found almost exclusively in the Saugor District, which contained 23,000 persons out of a total of 24,000 of the caste in the Central Provinces in 1911. There are also considerable numbers of them in Rājputāna and Central India, from which localities they probably immigrated into the Saugor District during the eleventh century. The Dāngis were formerly dominant in Saugor, a part of which was called Dāngiwāra after them. The kings of Garhpahra or old Saugor were Dāngis, and their family still remains at the village of Bilehra, which with a few other villages they hold as a revenue-free grant. The name of the caste is variously derived. The traditional story is that the Rājpūt king of Garhpahra detained the palanquins of twenty-two married women of different castes and kept them as his wives. The issue of the illicit intercourse were named Dāngis, and there are thus twenty-two subdivisions of the caste, besides three other subdivisions who are held to be descended from pure Rājpūts. The name is said to be derived from dāng, fraud, on account of the above deception. A more plausible derivation is from the Persian dāng, a hill, the Dāngis being thus hillmen; and they may not improbably have been a set of robbers and freebooters in the Vindhyan Hills, like the Gūjars and Mewātis in northern India, naturally recruiting their band from all classes of the population, as is shown by ingenious implication in this story itself. ‘Khet men bāmi, gaon men Dāngi,’ or ‘A Dāngi in the village is like the hole of a snake in one’s field’ is a proverb which shows the estimation in which they were formerly held. The three higher septs may have been their leaders and may well have been Rājpūts. Since they have settled down as respectable cultivators and enjoy a good repute among their neighbours, the Dāngis have disowned the above story, and now say that they are descended from Rāja Dāng, a Kachhwāha Rājpūt king of Narwar in Central India. Nothing is known of Rāja Dāng except a rude couplet which records how he was cheated by a horse-dealer:

‘The mare bolted to the seller again, leaving in Dāng’s hand nothing except the reins.’

The Dāngis have a more heroic version of this story to the effect that the mare was a fairy of Indra’s court, who for some reason had been transformed into this shape and was captured by Rāja Dāng. He refused to give her up to Indra and a battle was about to ensue, when the mare besought them to place her on a pyre and sacrifice her instead of fighting. They agreed to do this, and out of the flames of the pyre the fairy emerged and floated up to heaven, leaving only the reins and bridle of the mare in Rāja Dāng’s hand. Yet a third story is that their original ancestor was Rāja Nipāl Singh of Narwar, and when he was fighting with Indra over the fairy, Krishna came to Indra’s assistance. But Nipāl Singh refused to bow down to Krishna, and being annoyed at this and wishing to teach him a lesson the god summoned him to his court. At the gate through which Nipāl Singh had to pass, Krishna fixed a sword at the height of a man’s neck, so that he must bend or have his head cut off. But Nipāl Singh saw the trick, and, sitting down, propelled himself through the doorway with his head erect. The outwitted god remarked, ‘Tum bare dāndi ho,’ or ‘You are very cunning,’ and the name Dāndi stuck to Nipāl Singh and was afterwards corrupted to Dāngi. There can be little doubt that the caste are an offshoot of Rājpūts of impure blood, and with a large admixture of other classes of the population. Some of their sept names indicate their mixed descent, as Rakhya, born of a potter woman, Dhoniya, born of a washerwoman, and Pavniya, born of a weaver woman. In past times the Dāngis served in the Rājpūt and Marātha armies, and a small isolated colony of them is found in one village of Indora in the Nāgpur District, the descendants of Dāngis who engaged in military service under the Bhonsla kings.

2. Caste subdivisions.

The Dāngis have no subcastes distinguished by separate names, but they are divided into three classes, among whom the principle of hypergamy prevails. As already seen, there were formerly twenty-five clans, of whom the three highest, the Nahonias, Bhadonias and Nadias, claimed to be pure Rājpūts. The other twenty-two clans are known as Baīsa (22) or Prithwipat Dāngis, after the king who is supposed to have been the ancestor of all the clans. Each of his twenty-two wives is said to have been given a village for her maintenance, and the clans are named after these villages. But there are now only thirteen of these local clans left, and below them is a miscellaneous group of clans, representing apparently later accretions to the caste. Some of them are named from the places from which they came, as Mahobia, from Mahoba, Narwaria, from Narwar, and so on. The Solakhia sept is named after the Solanki Rājpūts, of whom they may be the partly illegitimate descendants. The Parnāmi sept are apparently those who have the creed of the Dhāmis, the followers of Prānnāth of Panna. And as already seen, some are named from women of low caste, from whom by Dāngi fathers they are supposed to be descended. The whole number of septs is thus divided into three groups, the highest containing the three quasi-Rājpūt septs already mentioned, the next highest the thirteen septs of Prithwipat Dāngis, and the lowest all the other septs. Pure Rājpūts will take daughters in marriage from the highest group, and this in turn takes girls of the Prithwipat Dāngis of the thirteen clans, though neither will give daughters in return; and the Prithwipat Dāngis will similarly accept the daughters of the miscellaneous septs below them in marriage with their sons. Matches are, however, not generally arranged according to the above system of hypergamy, but each group marries among its own members. Girls who are married into a higher group have to be given a larger dowry, the fathers often being willing to pay Rs. 500 or Rs. 1000 for the social distinction which such an alliance confers on the family. Among the highest septs there is a further difference between those whose ancestors accepted food from Rāja Jai Singh, the founder of Jaisinghnagar, and those who refused it. The former are called Sakrodia or those who ate the leavings of others, and the latter Deotaon ki sansār, or the divine Dāngis. Pure Rājpūts will take daughters only from the members of the latter group in each sept. Marriage within the sept or baink is prohibited, and as a rule a man does not marry a wife belonging to the same sept as his mother or grandmother. Marriage by exchange also is not allowed, that is, a girl cannot be married into the same family as that in which her brother has married.

3. Marriage.

Girls are generally married between seven and twelve and boys between ten and twenty, but no stigma attaches to a family allowing an unmarried girl to exceed the age of puberty. The bridegroom should always be older than the bride. Matches are arranged by the parents, the horoscopes of the children being compared among the well-to-do. The zodiacal sign of the boy’s horoscope should be stronger than that of the girl’s, so that she may be submissive to him in after-life. Thus a girl whose zodiac sign is the lion should not be married to a boy whose sign is the ram, because in that case the wife would dominate the husband. There is no special rule as to the time of the betrothal, and the ceremony is very simple, consisting in the presentation of a cocoanut by the bride’s father to the bridegroom’s father, and the distribution of sweets to the caste-fellows. The betrothal is not considered to have any particularly binding force and either party may break through it. Among the Dāngis a bridegroom-price is usually paid, which varies according to the social respectability of the boy’s sept, as much as Rs. 2000 having been given for a bridegroom of higher class according to the rule of hypergamy already described. But no value is placed on educational qualifications, as is the case among Brāhmans and Kāyasths. The marriage ceremony is conducted according to the ritual prevalent in the northern Districts, and presents no special features. Two feasts are given by the bride’s father to the caste-fellows, one consisting of katchi food or that which is cooked with water, and another of pakki food cooked with ghī (butter). If the bride is of marriageable age the gauna or sending away ceremony is performed at once, otherwise it takes place in the third or fifth year after marriage. At the gauna ceremony the bride’s cloth is tied to that of the bridegroom, and they change seats. Widow-marriage is not fashionable, and the caste say that it is not permitted, but several instances are known of its having occurred. Divorce is not allowed, and a woman who goes wrong is finally expelled from the caste. Polygamy is allowed, and many well-to-do persons have more than one wife.

4. Religious and social customs.

The Dāngis pay special reverence to the goddess Durga or Devi as the presiding deity of war. They worship her during the months of Kunwār (September) and Chait (March), and at the same time pay reverence to their weapons of war, their swords and guns, or if they have not got these, to knives and spears. They burn their dead, but children are usually buried. They observe mourning for three days for a child and for ten days for an adult, and on the 13th day the caste-fellows are feasted. Their family priests, who are Jijhotia Brāhmans, used formerly to shave the head and beard when a death occurred among their clients as if they belonged to the family, but this practice was considered derogatory by other Brāhmans, and they have now stopped it. The Dāngis perform the shrādhh ceremony in the month of Kunwār. The caste wear the sacred thread, but it is said that they were formerly not allowed to do so in Bundelkhand. They eat fish and flesh, including that of wild boars, but not fowls or beef, and they do not drink liquor. They take pakki food or that cooked without water from Kāyasths and Gahoi Banias, and katchi food, cooked with water, from Jijhotia and Sanādhya Brāhmans. Jijhotia Brāhmans formerly took pakki food from Dāngis, but have now ceased to do so. The Dāngis require the services of Brāhmans at all ceremonies. They have a caste panchāyat or committee. A person who changes his religion or eats with a low caste is permanently expelled, while temporary exclusion is awarded for the usual delinquencies. In the case of the more serious offences, as murder or killing of a cow, the culprit must purify himself by a pilgrimage to a sacred river.

5. Occupation and character.

The Dāngis were formerly, as already stated, of a quarrelsome temperament, but they have now settled down and, though spirited, are of a good disposition, and hard-working cultivators. They rank slightly above the representative cultivating castes owing to their former dominant position, and are still considered to have a good conceit of themselves, according to the saying:

or ‘Though he belong neither to the three septs nor the thirteen septs, yet the Dāngi blows his own trumpet in his own house.’ They are still, too, of a fiery disposition, and it is said that the favourite dish of gram-flour cooked with curds, which is known as karhi, is never served at their weddings. Because the word karhi also signifies the coming out of a sword from its sheath, and when addressed to another man has the equivalent of the English word ‘Draw’ in the duelling days. So if one Dāngi said it to another, meaning to ask him for the dish, it might result in a fight. They are very backward in respect of education and set no store by it. They consider their traditional occupation to be military service, but nearly all of them are now engaged in agriculture. At the census of 1901 over 2000 were returned as supported by the ownership of land and 3000 as labourers and farmservants. Practically all the remainder are tenants. They are industrious, and their women work in the fields. The only crops which they object to grow are kusum or safflower and san-hemp. The Nahonia Dāngis, being the highest subcaste, refuse to sell milk or ghī. The men usually have Singh as a termination to their names, like Rājpūts. Their dress and ornaments are of the type common in the northern Districts. The women tattoo their bodies.