Bhulia,1 Bholia, Bhoriya, Bholwa, Mihir, Mehar.—A caste of weavers in the Uriya country. In 1901 the Bhulias numbered 26,000 persons, but with the transfer of Sambalpur and the Uriya States to Bengal this figure has been reduced to 5000. A curious fact about the caste is that though solely domiciled in the Uriya territories, many families belonging to it talk Hindi in their own houses. According to one of their traditions they immigrated to this part of the country with the first Chauhān Rāja of Patna, and it may be that they are members of some northern caste who have forgotten their origin and taken to a fresh calling in the land of their adoption. The Koshtas of Chhattīsgarh have a subcaste called Bhoriya, and possibly the Bhulias have some connection with these. The caste sometimes call themselves Devāng, and Devāng or Devāngan is the name of another subcaste of Koshtis. Various local derivations of the name are current, generally connecting it with bhūlna, to forget. The Bhulias occupy a higher rank than the ordinary weavers, corresponding with that of the Koshtis elsewhere, and this is to some extent considered to be an unwarranted pretension. Thus one saying has it: “Formerly a son was born from a Chandāl woman; at that time none were aware of his descent or rank, and so he was called Bhulia (one who is forgotten). He took the loom in his hands and became the brother-in-law of the Gānda.” The object here is obviously to relegate the Bhulia to the same impure status as the Gānda. Again the Bhulias affect the honorific title of Meher, and another saying addresses them thus: “Why do you call yourself Meher? You make a hole in the ground and put your legs into it and are like a cow with foot-and-mouth disease struggling in the mud.” The allusion here is to the habit of the weaver of hollowing out a hole for his feet as he sits before the loom, while cattle with foot-and-mouth disease are made to stand in mud to cool and cleanse the feet.
The caste have no subcastes, except that in Kālāhandi a degraded section is recognised who are called Sānpāra Bhulias, and with whom the others refuse to intermarry. These are, there is little reason to doubt, the progeny of illicit unions. They say that they have two gotras, Nāgas from the cobra and Kachhap from the tortoise. But these have only been adopted for the sake of respectability, and exercise no influence on marriage, which is regulated by a number of exogamous groups called vansa. The names of the vansas are usually either derived from villages or are titles or nicknames. Two of them, Bāgh (tiger) and Kimir (crocodile), are totemistic, while two more, Kumhār (potter) and Dhuba (washerman), are the names of other castes. Examples of titular names are Bānkra (crooked), Ranjūjha (warrior), Kodjit (one who has conquered a score of people) and others. The territorial names are derived from those of villages where the caste reside at present. Marriage within the vansa is forbidden, but some of the vansas have been divided into bad and sān, or great and small, and members of these may marry with each other, the subdivision having been adopted when the original group became so large as to include persons who were practically not relations. The binding portion of the wedding ceremony is that the bridegroom should carry the bride in a basket seven times round the hom or sacrificial fire. If he cannot do this, the girl’s grandfather carries them both. After the ceremony the pair return to the bridegroom’s village, and are made to sleep on the same bed, some elder woman of the family lying between them. After a few days the girl goes back to her parents and does not rejoin her husband until she attains maturity. The remarriage of widows is permitted, and in Native States is not less costly to the bridegroom than the regular ceremony. In Sonpur the suitor must proceed to the Rāja and pay him twenty rupees for his permission, which is given in the shape of a present of rice and nuts. Similar sums are paid to the caste-fellows and the parents of the girl, and the Rāja’s rice and nuts are then placed on the heads of the couple, who become man and wife. Divorce may be effected at the instance of the husband or the wife’s parents on the mere ground of incompatibility of temper. The position of the caste corresponds to that of the Koshtas; that is, they rank below the good cultivating castes, but above the menial and servile classes. They eat fowls and the flesh of wild pig, and drink liquor. A liaison with one of the impure castes is the only offence entailing permanent expulsion from social intercourse. A curious rule is that in the case of a woman going wrong with a man of the caste, the man only is temporarily outcasted and forced to pay a fine on readmission, while the woman escapes without penalty. They employ Brāhmans for ceremonial purposes. They are considered proverbially stupid, like the Koris in the northern Districts, but very laborious. One saying about them is: “The Kewat catches fish but himself eats crabs, and the Bhulia weaves loin-cloths but himself wears only a rag”; and another: “A Bhulia who is idle is as useless as a confectioner’s son who eats sweetmeats, or a moneylender’s son with a generous disposition, or a cultivator’s son who is extravagant.”
1 This article is compiled from a paper taken by Mr. Hīra Lāl at Sonpur.
Bhunjia.1—A small Dravidian tribe residing in the Bindrānawāgarh and Khariār zamīndāris of the Raipur District, and numbering about 7000 persons. The tribe was not returned outside this area in 1911, but Sherring mentions them in a list of the hill tribes of the Jaipur zamīndāri of Vizagapatam, which touches the extreme south of Bindrānawāgarh. The Bhunjias are divided into two branches, Chaukhutia and Chinda, and the former have the following legend of their origin. On one occasion a Bhatra Gond named Bāchar cast a net into the Pairi river and brought out a stone. He threw the stone back into the river and cast his net again, but a second and yet a third time the stone came out. So he laid the stone on the bank of the river and went back to his house, and that night he dreamt that the stone was Bura Deo, the great God of the Gonds. So he said: ‘If this dream be true let me draw in a deer in my net to-morrow for a sign’; and the next day the body of a deer appeared in his net. The stone then called upon the Gond to worship him as Bura Deo, but the Gond demurred to doing so himself, and said he would provide a substitute as a devotee. To this Bura Deo agreed, but said that Bāchar, the Gond, must marry his daughter to the substituted worshipper. The Gond then set out to search for somebody, and in the village of Lafandi he found a Halba of the name of Konda, who was a cripple, deaf and dumb, blind, and a leper. He brought Konda to the stone, and on reaching it he was miraculously cured of all his ailments and gladly began to worship Bura Deo. He afterwards married the Gond’s daughter and they had a son called Chaukhutia Bhunjia, who was the ancestor of the Chaukhutia division of the tribe. Now the term Chaukhutia in Chhattīsgarhi signifies a bastard, and the story related above is obviously intended to signify that the Chaukhutia Bhunjias are of mixed descent from the Gonds and Halbas. It is clearly with this end in view that the Gond is made to decline to worship the stone himself and promise to find a substitute, an incident which is wholly unnatural and is simply dragged in to meet the case. The Chaukhutia subtribe especially worship Bura Deo, and sing a song relating to the finding of the stone in their marriage ceremony as follows:
Johār, johār Thākur Deota, Tumko lāgon,
Do matia ghar men dīne tumhāre nām.
Johār, johār Konda, Tumko lāgon,
Do matia ghar men, etc.
Johār, johār Bāchar Jhākar Tumko lāgon, etc.
Johār, johār Būdha Rāja Tumko lāgon, etc.
Johār, johār Lafandi Māti Tumko lāgon, etc.
Johār, johār Ānand Māti Tumko lāgon, etc.
which may be rendered:
I make obeisance to thee, O Thākur Deo, I bow down to thee!
In thy name have I placed two pots in my house (as a mark of respect).
I make obeisance to thee, O Konda Pujāri, I bow down to thee!
In thy name have I placed two pots in my house.
I make obeisance to thee, O Bāchar Jhākar!
In thy name have I placed two pots in my house.
I make obeisance to thee, O Būdha Rāja!
In thy name have I placed two pots in my house.
I make obeisance to thee, O Soil of Lafandi!
In thy name have I placed two pots in my house.
I make obeisance to thee, O Happy Spot!
In thy name have I placed two pots in my house.
The song refers to the incidents in the story. Thākur Deo is the title given to the divine stone, Konda is the Halba priest, and Bāchar the Gond who cast the net. Būdha Rāja, otherwise Singh Sei, is the Chief who was ruling in Bindrānawāgarh at the time, Lafandi the village where Konda Halba was found, and the Ānand Māti or Happy Spot is that where the stone was taken out of the river. The majority of the sept-names returned are of Gond origin, and there seems no doubt that the Chaukhutias are, as the story says, of mixed descent from the Halbas and Gonds. It is noticeable, however, that the Bhunjias, though surrounded by Gonds on all sides, do not speak Gondi but a dialect of Hindi, which Sir G. Grierson considers to resemble that of the Halbas, and also describes as “A form of Chhattīsgarhi which is practically the same as Baigāni. It is a jargon spoken by Binjhwārs, Bhumias and Bhunjias of Raipur, Raigarh, Sārangarh and Patna in the Central Provinces.”2 The Binjhwārs also belong to the country of the Bhunjias, and one or two estates close to Bindrānawāgarh are held by members of this tribe. The Chinda division of the Bhunjias have a saying about themselves: ‘Chinda Rāja, Bhunjia Pāik’; and they say that there was originally a Kamār ruler of Bindrānawāgarh who was dispossessed by Chinda. The Kamārs are a small and very primitive tribe of the same locality. Pāik means a foot-soldier, and it seems therefore that the Bhunjias formed the levies of this Chinda, who may very probably have been one of themselves. The term Bhunjia may perhaps signify one who lives on the soil, from bhūm, the earth, and jia, dependent on. The word Birjia, a synonym for Binjhwār, is similarly a corruption of bewar jia, and means one who is dependent on dahia or patch cultivation. Sir H. Risley gives Birjia, Binjhia and Binjhwār3 as synonymous terms, and Bhunjia may be another corruption of the same sort. The Binjhwārs are a Hinduised offshoot of the ancient Baiga tribe, who may probably have been in possession of the hills bordering the Chhattīsgarh plain as well as of the Satpūra range before the advent of the Gonds, as the term Baiga is employed for a village priest over a large part of this area. It thus seems not improbable that the Chinda Bhunjias may have been derived from the Binjhwārs, and this would account for the fact that the tribe speaks a dialect of Hindi and not Gondi. As already seen, the Chaukhutia subcaste appear to be of mixed origin from the Gonds and Halbas, and as the Chindas are probably descended from the Baigas, the Bhunjias may be considered to be an offshoot from these three important tribes.
Of the two subtribes already mentioned the Chaukhutia are recognised to be of illegitimate descent. As a consequence of this they strive to obtain increased social estimation by a ridiculously strict observance of the rules of ceremonial purity. If any man not of his own caste touches the hut where a Chaukhutia cooks his food, it is entirely abandoned and a fresh one built. At the time of the census they threatened to kill the enumerator if he touched their huts to affix the census number. Pegs had therefore to be planted in the ground a little in front of the huts and marked with their numbers. The Chaukhutia will not eat food cooked by other members of his own community, and this is a restriction found only among those of bastard descent, where every man is suspicious of his neighbour’s parentage. He will not take food from the hands of his own daughter after she is married; as soon as the ceremony is over her belongings are at once removed from the hut, and even the floor beneath the seat of the bride and bridegroom during the marriage ceremony is dug up and the surface earth thrown away to avoid any risk of defilement. Only when it is remembered that these rules are observed by people who do not wash themselves from one week’s end to the other, and wear the same wisp of cloth about their loins until it comes to pieces, can the full absurdity of such customs as the above be appreciated. But the tendency appears to be of the same kind as the intense desire for respectability so often noticed among the lower classes in England. The Chindas, whose pedigree is more reliable, are far less particular about their social purity.
As already stated, the exogamous divisions of the Bhunjias are derived from those of the Gonds. Among the Chaukhutias it is considered a great sin if the signs of puberty appear in a girl before she is married, and to avoid this, if no husband has been found for her, they perform a ‘Kānd Byāh’ or ‘Arrow Marriage’: the girl walks seven times round an arrow fixed in the ground, and is given away without ceremony to the man who by previous arrangement has brought the arrow. If a girl of the Chinda group goes wrong with an outsider before marriage and becomes pregnant, the matter is hushed up, but if she is a Chaukhutia it is said that she is finally expelled from the community, the same severe course being adopted even when she is not pregnant if there is reason to suppose that the offence has been committed. A proposal for marriage among the Chaukhutias is made on the boy’s behalf by two men who are known as Mahālia and Jangālia, and are supposed to represent a Nai (barber) and Dhīmar (water-carrier), though they do not actually belong to these castes. As among the Gonds, the marriage takes place at the bridegroom’s village, and the Mahālia and Jangālia act as stewards of the ceremony, and are entrusted with the rice, pulse, salt, oil and other provisions, the bridegroom’s family having no function in the matter except to pay for them. The provisions are all stored in a separate hut, and when the time for the feast has come they are distributed raw to all the guests, each family of whom cook for themselves. The reason for this is, as already explained, that each one is afraid of losing status by eating with other members of the tribe. The marriage is solemnised by walking round the sacred post, and the ceremony is conducted by a hereditary priest known as Dīnwāri, a member of the tribe, whose line it is believed will never become extinct. Among the Chinda Bhunjias the bride goes away with her husband, and in a short time returns with him to her parents’ house for a few days, to make an offering to the deities. But the Chaukhutias will not allow her, after she has lived in her father-in-law’s house, to return to her home. In future if she goes to visit her parents she must stay outside the house and cook her food separately. Widow-marriage and divorce are permitted, but a husband will often overlook transgressions on the part of his wife and only put her away when her conduct has become an open scandal. In such a case he will either quietly leave house and wife and settle alone in another village, or have his wife informed by means of a neighbour that if she does not leave the village he will do so. It is not the custom to bring cases before the tribal committee or to claim damages. A special tie exists between a man and his sister’s children. The marriage of a brother’s son or daughter to a sister’s daughter or son is considered the most suitable. A man will not allow his sister’s children to eat the leavings of food on his plate, though his own children may do so. This is a special token of respect to his sister’s children. He will not chastise his sister’s children, even though they deserve it. And it is considered especially meritorious for a man to pay for the wedding ceremony of his sister’s son or daughter.
Every third year in the month of Chait (March) the tribe offer a goat and a cocoanut to Māta, the deity of cholera and smallpox. They bow daily to the sun with folded hands, and believe that he is of special assistance to them in the liquidation of debt, which the Bhunjias consider a primary obligation. When a debt has been paid off they offer a cocoanut to the sun as a mark of gratitude for his assistance. They also pay great reverence to the tortoise. They call the tortoise the footstool (pīdha) of God, and have adopted the Hindu theory that the earth is supported by a tortoise swimming in the midst of the ocean. Professor Tylor explains as follows how this belief arose:4 “To man in the lower levels of science the earth is a flat plain over which the sky is placed like a dome as the arched upper shell of the tortoise stands upon the flat plate below, and this is why the tortoise is the symbol or representative of the world.” It is said that Bhunjia women are never allowed to sit either on a footstool or a bed-cot, because these are considered to be the seats of the deities. They consider it disrespectful to walk across the shadow of any elderly person, or to step over the body of any human being or revered object on the ground. If they do this inadvertently, they apologise to the person or thing. If a man falls from a tree he will offer a chicken to the tree-spirit.
The tribe will eat pork, but abstain from beef and the flesh of monkeys. Notwithstanding their strictness of social observance, they rank lower than the Gonds, and only the Kamārs will accept food from their hands. A man who has got maggots in a wound is purified by being given to drink water, mixed with powdered turmeric, in which silver and copper rings have been dipped. Women are secluded during the menstrual period for as long as eight days, and during this time they may not enter the dwelling-hut nor touch any article belonging to it. The Bhunjias take their food on plates of leaves, and often a whole family will have only one brass vessel, which will be reserved for production on the visit of a guest. But no strangers can be admitted to the house, and a separate hut is kept in the village for their use. Here they are given uncooked grain and pulse, which they prepare for themselves. When the women go out to work they do not leave their babies in the house, but carry them tied up in a small rag under the arm. They have no knowledge of medicine and are too timid to enter a Government dispensary. Their panacea for most diseases is branding the skin with a hot iron, which is employed indifferently for headache, pains in the stomach and rheumatism. Mr. Pyāre Lāl notes that one of his informants had recently been branded for rheumatism on both knees and said that he felt much relief.
1 This article is based on papers by Mr. Hīra Lāl, Mr. Gokul Prasād, Tahsīldār, Dhamtarī, Mr. Pyāre Lāl Misra of the Gazetteer office, and Munshi Ganpati Giri, Superintendent, Bindrānawāgarh estate.
2 From the Index of Languages and Dialects, furnished by Sir G. Grierson for the census.
3 Tribes and Castes of Bengal, art. Binjhia.
4 Early History of Mankind, p. 341.
Binjhwār, Binjhāl.1—A comparatively civilised Dravidian tribe, or caste formed from a tribe, found in the Raipur and Bilāspur Districts and the adjoining Uriya country. In 1911 the Binjhwārs numbered 60,000 persons in the Central Provinces. There is little or no doubt that the Binjhwārs are an offshoot of the primitive Baiga tribe of Mandla and Bālāghāt, who occupy the Satpūra or Maikal hills to the north of the Chhattīsgarh plain. In these Districts a Binjhwār subdivision of the Baigas exists; it is the most civilised and occupies the highest rank in the tribe. In Bhandāra is found the Injhwār caste who are boatmen and cultivators. This caste is derived from the Binjhwār subdivision of the Baigas, and the name Injhwār is simply a corruption of Binjhwār. Neither the Binjhwārs nor the Baigas are found except in the territories above mentioned, and it seems clear that the Binjhwārs are a comparatively civilised section of the Baigas, who have become a distinct caste. They are in fact the landholding section of the Baigas, like the Rāj-Gonds among the Gonds and the Bhilālas among Bhīls. The zamīndārs of Bodāsāmar, Rāmpur, Bhatgāon and other estates to the south and east of the Chhattlsgarh plain belong to this tribe. But owing to the change of name their connection with the parent Baigas has now been forgotten. The name Binjhwār is derived from the Vindhya hills, and the tribe still worship the goddess Vindhyabāsini of these hills as their tutelary deity. They say that their ancestors migrated from Binjhakop to Lāmpa, which may be either Lāmta in Bālāghāt or Lāphāgarh in Bilāspur. The hills of Mandla, the home of perhaps the most primitive Baigas, are quite close to the Vindhya range. The tribe say that their original ancestors were Bārah bhai betkār, or the twelve Brother Archers. They were the sons of the goddess Vindhyabāsini. One day they were out shooting and let off their arrows, which flew to the door of the great temple at Puri and stuck in it. Nobody in the place was able to pull them out, not even when the king’s elephants were brought and harnessed to them; till at length the brothers arrived and drew them forth quite easily with their hands, and the king was so pleased with their feat that he gave them the several estates which their descendants now hold. The story recalls that of Arthur and the magic sword. According to another legend the mother of the first Rāja of Patna, a Chauhān Rājpūt, had fled from northern India to Sambalpur after her husband and relations had been killed in battle. She took refuge in a Binjhwār’s hut and bore a son who became Rāja of Patna; and in reward for the protection afforded to his mother he gave the Binjhwār the Bodāsāmar estate, requiring only of him and his descendants the tribute of a silk cloth on accession to the zamīndāri; and this has been rendered ever since by the zamīndārs of Bodāsāmar to the Rājas of Patna as a mark of fealty. It is further stated that the twelve archers when they fired the memorable arrows in the forest were in pursuit of a wild boar; and the landholding class of Binjhwārs are called Bāriha from bārāh, a boar. As is only fitting, the Binjhwārs have taken the arrow as their tribal symbol or mark; their cattle are branded with it, and illiterate Binjhwārs sign it in place of their name. If a husband cannot be found for a girl she is sometimes married to an arrow. At a Binjhwār wedding an arrow is laid on the trunk of mahua2 which forms the marriage-post, and honours are paid to it as representing the bridegroom.
The tribe have four subdivisions, the Binjhwārs proper, the Sonjharas, the Birjhias and the Binjhias. The Sonjharas consist of those who took to washing for gold in the sands of the Mahānadi, and it may be noted that a separate caste of Sonjharas is also in existence in this locality besides the Binjhwār group. The Birjhias are those who practised bewar or shifting cultivation in the forests, the name being derived from bewarjia, one living by bewar-sowing. Binjhia is simply a diminutive form of Binjhwār, but in Bilāspur it is sometimes regarded as a separate caste. The zamīndār of Bhatgaon belongs to this group. The tribe have also exogamous divisions, the names of which are of a diverse character, and on being scrutinised show a mixture of foreign blood. Among totemistic names are Bāgh, a tiger; Pod, a buffalo; Kamalia, the lotus flower; Panknāli, the water-crow; Tār, the date-palm; Jāl, a net, and others. Some of the sections are nicknames, as Udhār, a debtor; Marai Meli Bāgh, one who carried a dead tiger; Ultum, a talker; Jālia, a liar; Kessal, one who has shaved a man, and so on. Several are the names of other castes, as Lohār, Dūdh Kawaria, Bhīl, Bānka and Mājhi, indicating that members of these castes have become Binjhwārs and have founded families. The sept names also differ in different localities; the Birjhia subtribe who live in the same country as the Mundas have several Munda names among their septs, as Munna, Son, Solai; while the Binjhwārs who are neighbours of the Gonds have Gond sept names, as Tekām, Sonwāni, and others. This indicates that there has been a considerable amount of intermarriage with the surrounding tribes, as is the case generally among the lower classes of the population in Chhattīsgarh. Even now if a woman of any caste from whom the Binjhwārs will take water to drink forms a connection with a man of the tribe, though she herself must remain in an irregular position, her children will be considered as full members of it. The Bārhias or landowning group have now adopted names of Sanskrit formation, as Gajendra, an elephant, Rāmeswar, the god Rāma, and Nāgeshwar, the cobra deity. Two of their septs are named Lohār (blacksmith) and Kumhār (potter), and may be derived from members of these castes who became Binjhwārs or from Binjhwārs who took up the occupations. At a Binjhwār wedding the presence of a person belonging to each of the Lohār and Kumhār septs is essential, the reason being probably the estimation in which the two handicrafts were held when the Binjhwārs first learnt them from their Hindu neighbours.
In Sambalpur there appears to be no system of exogamous groups, and marriage is determined simply by relationship. The union of agnates is avoided as long as the connection can be traced between them, but on the mother’s side all except first cousins may marry. Marriage is usually adult, and girls are sometimes allowed to choose their own husbands. A bride-price of about eight khandis (1400 lbs.) of unhusked rice is paid. The ceremony is performed at the bridegroom’s house, to which the bride proceeds after bidding farewell to her family and friends in a fit of weeping. Weddings are avoided during the four months of the rainy season, and in Chait (March) because it is inauspicious, Jeth (May) because it is too hot, and Pūs (December) because it is the last month of the year among the Binjhwārs. The marriage ceremony should begin on a Sunday, when the guests are welcomed and their feet washed. On Monday the formal reception of the bride takes place, the Gandsān or scenting ceremony follows on Tuesday, and on Wednesday is the actual wedding. At the scenting ceremony seven married girls dressed in new clothes dyed yellow with turmeric conduct the bridegroom round the central post; one holds a dish containing rice, mango leaves, myrobalans and betel-nuts, and a second sprinkles water from a small pot. At each round the bridegroom is made to throw some of the condiments from the dish on to the wedding-post, and after the seven rounds he is seated and is rubbed with oil and turmeric.
Among the Birjhias a trunk of mahua with two branches is erected in the marriage-shed, and on this a dagger is placed in a winnowing-fan filled with rice, the former representing the bridegroom and the latter the bride. The bride first goes round the post seven times alone, and then the bridegroom, and after this they go round it together. A plough is brought and they stand upon the yoke, and seven cups of water having been collected from seven different houses, four are poured over the bridegroom and three over the bride. Some men climb on to the top of the shed and pour pots of water down on to the couple. This is now said to be done only as a joke. Next morning two strong men take the bridegroom and bride, who are usually grown up, on their backs, and the parties pelt each other with unhusked rice. Then the bridegroom holds the bride in his arms from behind and they stand facing the sun, while some old man ties round their feet a thread specially spun by a virgin. The couple stand for some time and then fall to the ground as if dazzled by his rays, when water is again poured over their bodies to revive them. Lastly, an old man takes the arrow from the top of the marriage-post and draws three lines with it on the ground to represent the Hindu trinity, Brahma, Vishnu and Siva, and the bridegroom jumps over these holding the bride in his arms. The couple go to bathe in a river or tank, and on the way home the bridegroom shoots seven arrows at an image of a sāmbhar deer made with straw. At the seventh shot the bride’s brother takes the arrow, and running away and hiding it in his cloth lies down at the entrance of the bridegroom’s house. The couple go up to him, and the bridegroom examines his body with suspicion, pretending to think that he is dead. He draws the arrow out of his cloth and points to some blood which has been previously sprinkled on the ground. After a time the boy gets up and receives some liquor as a reward. This procedure may perhaps be a symbolic survival of marriage by capture, the bridegroom killing the bride’s brother before carrying her off, or more probably, perhaps, the boy may represent a dead deer. In some of the wilder tracts the man actually waylays and seizes the girl before the wedding, the occasion being previously determined, and the women of her family trying to prevent him. If he succeeds in carrying her off they stay for three or four days in the forest and then return and are married.
If a Binjhwār girl is seduced and rendered pregnant by a man of the tribe, the people exact a feast and compel them to join their hands in an informal manner before the caste committee, the tie thus formed being considered as indissoluble as a formal marriage. Polygamy is permitted; a Binjhwār zamīndār marries a new wife, who is known as Pāt Rāni, to celebrate his accession to his estates, even though he may have five or six already.
Divorce is recognised but is not very common, and a married woman having an intrigue with another Binjhwār is often simply made over to him and they live as husband and wife. If this man does not wish to take her she can live with any other, conjugal morality being very loose in Sambalpur. In Bodāsāmar a fine of from one to ten rupees is payable to the zamīndār in the case of each divorce, and a feast must also be given to the caste-fellows.
The tribe usually bury the dead, and on the third day they place on the grave some uncooked rice and a lighted lamp. As soon as an insect flies to the lamp they catch it, and placing it in a cake of flour carry this to a stream, where it is worshipped with an offering of coloured rice. It is then thrust into the sand or mud in the bed of the stream with a grass broom. This ceremony is called Khārpāni or ‘Grass and Water,’ and appears to be a method of disposing of the dead man’s spirit. It is not performed at all for young children, while, on the other hand, in the case of respected elders a second ceremony is carried out of the same nature, being known as Badāpāni or ‘Great Water.’ On this occasion the jīva or soul is worshipped with greater pomp. Except in the case of wicked souls, who are supposed to become malignant ghosts, the Binjhwārs do not seem to have any definite belief in a future life. They say, ‘Je maris te saris,’ or ‘That which is dead is rotten and gone.’
The tribe worship the common village deities of Chhattīsgarh, and extend their veneration to Bura Deo, the principal god of the Gonds. They venerate their daggers, spears and arrows on the day of Dasahra, and every third year their tutelary goddess Vindhyabāsini is carried in procession from village to village. Mr. Miān Bhai gives the following list of precepts as forming the Binjhwār’s moral code:—Not to commit adultery outside the caste; not to eat beef; not to murder; not to steal; not to swear falsely before the caste committee. The tribe have gurus or spiritual preceptors, whom he describes as the most ignorant Bairāgis, very little better than impostors. When a boy or girl grows up the Bairāgi comes and whispers the Karn mantra or spell in his ear, also hanging a necklace of tulsi (basil) beads round his neck; for this the guru receives a cloth, a cocoanut and a cash payment of four annas to a rupee. Thereafter he visits his disciples annually at harvest time and receives a present of grain from them.
On the 11th of Bhādon (August) the tribe celebrate the karma festival, which is something like May-Day or a harvest feast. The youths and maidens go to the forest and bring home a young karma tree, singing, dancing and beating drums. Offerings are made to the tree, and then the whole village, young and old, drink and dance round it all through the night. Next morning the tree is taken to the nearest stream or tank and consigned to it. After this the young girls of five or six villages make up a party and go about to the different villages accompanied by drummers and Gānda musicians. They are entertained for the night, and next morning dance for five or six hours in the village and then go on to another.
The tribe are indiscriminate in their diet, which includes pork, snakes, rats, and even carnivorous animals, as panthers. They refuse only beef, monkeys and the leavings of others. The wilder Binjhwārs of the forests will not accept cooked food from any other caste, but those who live in association with Hindus will take it when cooked without water from a few of the higher ones. The tribe are not considered as impure. Their dress is very simple, consisting as a rule only of one dirty white piece of cloth in the case of both men and women. Their hair is unkempt, and they neither oil nor comb it. A genuine Binjhwār of the hills wears long frizzled hair with long beard and moustaches, but in the open country they cut their hair and shave the chin. Every Binjhwār woman is tattooed either before or just after her marriage, when she has attained to the age of adolescence. A man will not touch or accept food from a woman who is not tattooed on the feet. The expenses must be paid either by the woman’s parents or her brothers and not by her husband. The practice is carried to an extreme, and many women have the upper part of the chest, the arms from shoulder to wrist, and the feet and legs up to the knee covered with devices. On the chest and arms the patterns are in the shape of flowers and leaves, while along the leg a succession of zigzag lines are pricked. The Binjhwārs are usually cultivators and labourers, while, as already stated, several zamīndāri and other estates are owned by members of the tribe. Binjhwārs also commonly hold the office of Jhānkar or priest of the village gods in the Sambalpur District, as the Baigas do in Mandla and Bālāghāt. In Sambalpur the Jhānkar or village priest is a universal and recognised village servant of fairly high status. His business is to conduct the worship of the local deities of the soil, crops, forests and hills, and he generally has a substantial holding, rent free, containing some of the best land in the village. It is said locally that the Jhānkar is looked on as the founder of the village, and the representative of the old owners who were ousted by the Hindus. He worships on their behalf the indigenous deities, with whom he naturally possesses a more intimate acquaintance than the later immigrants; while the gods of these latter cannot be relied on to exercise a sufficient control over the works of nature in the foreign land to which they have been imported, or to ensure that the earth and the seasons will regularly perform their necessary functions in producing sustenance for mankind.
Bishnoi.1—A Hindu sect which has now developed into a caste. The sect was founded in the Punjab, and the Bishnois are immigrants from northern India. In the Central Provinces they numbered about 1100 persons in 1911, nearly all of whom belonged to the Hoshangābād District. The best description of the sect is contained in Mr. Wilson’s Sirsa Settlement Report (quoted in Sir E. Maclagan’s Census Report of the Punjab for 1891), from which the following details are taken: “The name Bishnoi means a worshipper of Vishnu. The founder of the sect was a Panwār Rājpūt named Jhāmbāji, who was born in a village of Bikaner State in A.D. 1451. His father had hitherto remained childless, and being greatly oppressed by this misfortune had been promised a son by a Muhammadan Fakīr. After nine months Jhāmbāji was born and showed his miraculous origin in various ways, such as producing sweets from nothing for the delectation of his companions. Until he was thirty-four years old he spoke no word and was employed in tending his father’s cattle. At this time a Brāhman was sent for to get him to speak, and on confessing his failure, Jhāmbāji showed his power by lighting a lamp with a snap of his fingers and spoke his first word. He adopted the life of a teacher and went to reside on a sandhill some thirty miles south of Bikaner. In 1485 a fearful famine desolated the country, and Jhāmbāji gained an enormous number of disciples by providing food for all who would declare their belief in him. He is said to have died on his sandhill at the good old age of eighty-four, and to have been buried at a spot about a mile distant from it. A further account says that his body remained suspended for six months in the bier without decomposing. His name Jhāmbāji was a contraction of Achambha (The Wonder), with the honorific suffix ji.
“The sayings (shabd) of Jhāmbāji, to the number of one hundred and twenty, were recorded by his disciples, and have been handed down in a book (pothi) which is written in the Nāgari character, and in a Hindu dialect similar to Bāgri and therefore probably a dialect of Rājasthāni. The following is a translation of the twenty-nine precepts given by him for the guidance of his followers: ‘For thirty days after childbirth and five days after a menstrual discharge a woman must not cook food. Bathe in the morning. Commit no adultery. Be content. Be abstemious and pure. Strain your drinking-water. Be careful of your speech. Examine your fuel in case any living creature be burnt with it. Show pity to living creatures. Keep duty present to your mind as the teacher bade. Do not steal. Do not speak evil of others. Do not tell lies. Never quarrel. Avoid opium, tobacco, bhāng and blue clothing. Flee from spirits and flesh. See that your goats are kept alive (not sold to Musalmāns, who will kill them for food). Do not plough with bullocks. Keep a fast on the day before the new moon. Do not cut green trees. Sacrifice with fire. Say prayers; meditate. Perform worship and attain heaven.’ And the last of the twenty-nine duties prescribed by the teacher: ‘Baptise your children if you would be called a true Bishnoi.’2
“Some of these precepts are not strictly obeyed. For instance, though ordinarily they allow no blue in their clothing, yet a Bishnoi, if he is a police constable, is allowed to wear a blue uniform; and Bishnois do use bullocks, though most of their farming is done with camels. They also seem to be generally quarrelsome (in words) and given to use bad language. But they abstain from tobacco, drugs and spirits, and are noted for their regard for animal life, which is such that not only will they not themselves kill any living creature, but they do their utmost to prevent others from doing so. Consequently their villages are generally swarming with antelope and other animals, and they forbid their Musalmān neighbours to kill them, and try to dissuade European sportsmen from interfering with them. They wanted to make it a condition of their settlement that no one should be allowed to shoot on their land, but at the same time they asked that they might be assessed at lower rates than their neighbours, on the ground that the antelope, being thus left undisturbed, did more damage to their crops; but I told them that this would lessen the merit (pun) of their actions in protecting the animals, and they must be treated just as the surrounding villages were. They consider it a good deed to scatter grain to pigeons and other birds, and often have a large number of half-tame birds about their villages. The day before the new moon (Amāwas) they observe as a Sabbath and fast-day, doing no work in the fields or in the house. They bathe and pray three times a day, in the morning, afternoon and evening, saying ‘Bishnu! Bishnu!’ instead of the ordinary Hindu ‘Rām! Rām.’ Their clothing is the same as that of other Bāgris, except that their women do not allow the waist to be seen, and are fond of wearing black woollen clothing. They are more particular about ceremonial purity than ordinary Hindus are, and it is a common saying that if a Bishnoi’s food is on the first of a string of twenty camels and a man of another caste touches the last camel of the string, the Bishnoi would consider his food defiled and throw it away.”
The ceremony of initiation is as follows: “A number of representative Bishnois assemble, and before them a Sādh or Bishnoi priest, after lighting a sacrificial fire (hom), instructs the novice in the duties of the faith. He then takes some water in a new earthen vessel, over which he prays in a set form (Bishno gāyatri), stirring it the while with his string of beads (māla), and after asking the consent of the assembled Bishnois he pours the water three times into the hands of the novice, who drinks it off. The novice’s scalp-lock (choti) is then cut off and his head shaved, for the Bishnois shave the whole head and do not leave a scalp-lock like the Hindus, but they allow the beard to grow, only shaving the chin on the father’s death. Infant baptism is also practised, and thirty days after birth the child, whether boy or girl, is baptised by the priest (Sādh) in much the same way as an adult; only the set form of prayer is different, and the priest pours a few drops of water into the child’s mouth, and gives the child’s relatives each three handfuls of the consecrated water to drink; at the same time the barber clips off the child’s hair. The baptismal ceremony has the effect of purifying the house, which has been made impure by the birth (sūtak).
“The Bishnois do not revere Brāhmans, but have priests of their own known as Sādh, who are chosen from among the laity. The priests are a hereditary class, and do not intermarry with other Bishnois, from whom, like Brāhmans, they receive food and offerings. The Bishnois do not burn their dead, but bury them below the cattle-shed or in some place like a pen frequented by cattle. They make pilgrimages to the place where Jhāmbāji is buried to the south of Bikaner; here a tomb and temple have been erected to his memory, and gatherings are held twice a year. The sect observe the Holi in a different way from other Hindus. After sunset on that day they fast till the next forenoon when, after hearing read the account of how Prahlād was tortured by his infidel father, Hrianya Kasipu, for believing in the god Vishnu, until he was delivered by the god himself in his incarnation of Narsingh, the Man-lion, and mourning over Prahlād’s sufferings, they light a sacrificial fire and partake of consecrated water, and after distributing sugar (gur) in commemoration of Prahlād’s delivery from the fire into which he was thrown, they break their fast.”
The above interesting account of the Bishnois by Mr. Wilson shows that Jhāmbāji was a religious reformer, who attempted to break loose from the debased Hindu polytheism and arrogant supremacy of the Brāhmans by choosing one god, Vishnu, out of the Hindu pantheon and exalting him into the sole and supreme deity. In his method he thus differed from Kabīr and other reformers, who went outside Hinduism altogether, preaching a monotheistic faith with one unseen and nameless deity. The case of the Mānbhaos, whose unknown founder made Krishna the one god, discarding the Vedas and the rest of Hinduism, is analogous to Jhāmbāji’s movement. His creed much resembles that of the other Hindu reformers and founders of the Vaishnavite sects. The extreme tenderness for animal life is a characteristic of most of them, and would be fostered by the Hindu belief in the transmigration of souls. The prohibition of liquor is another common feature, to which Jhāmbāji added that of all kinds of drugs. His mind, like those of Kabīr and Nānak, was probably influenced by the spectacle of the comparatively liberal creed of Islām, which had now taken root in northern India. Mr. Crooke remarks that the Bishnois of Bijnor appear to differ from those of the Punjab in using the Muhammadan form of salutation, Salām alaikum, and the title of Shaikhji. They account for this by saying they murdered a Muhammadan Kāzi, who prevented them from burning a widow, and were glad to compound the offence by pretending to adopt Islām. But it seems possible that on their first rupture with Hinduism they were to some extent drawn towards the Muhammadans, and adopted practices of which, on tending again to conform to their old religion, they have subsequently become ashamed.
In northern India the members of different castes who have become Bishnois have formed separate endogamous groups, of which Mr. Crooke gives nine; among these are the Brāhman, Bania, Jāt, Sunār, Ahīr and Nai Bishnois. Only members of comparatively good castes appear to have been admitted into the community, and in the Punjab they are nearly all Jāts and Banias. In the Central Provinces the caste forms only one endogamous group. They have gotras or exogamous sections, the names of which appear to be of the titular or territorial type. Some of the gotras, Jhuria, Ajna, Sain and Ahīr,3 are considered to be lower than the others, and though they are not debarred from intermarriage, a connection with them is looked upon as something of a mésalliance. They are not consulted in the settlement of tribal disputes. No explanation of the comparatively degraded position of these septs is forthcoming, but it may probably be attributed to some blot in their ancestral escutcheon. The Bishnois celebrate their marriages at any period of the year, and place no reliance on astrology. According to their saying, “Every day is as good as Sankrānt,4 every day is as good as Amāwas.5 The Ganges flows every day, and he whose preceptor has taught him the most truth will get the most good from bathing in it.”
Before a wedding the bride’s father sends, by the barber, a cocoanut and a silver ring tied round it with a yellow thread. On the thread are seven, nine, eleven or thirteen knots, signifying the number of days to elapse before the ceremony. The barber on his arrival stands outside the door of the house, and the bridegroom’s father sends round to all the families of his caste. The men go to the house and the women come singing to the barber, and rub turmeric on the boy. A married woman touches the cocoanut and waves a lighted lamp seven times round the bridegroom’s head. This is meant to scare off evil spirits. On arrival at the bride’s village the bridegroom touches the marriage-shed with the branch of a ber or wild plum tree. The mother of the bride gives him some sugar, rubs lamp-black on his eyes and twists his nose. The bride and bridegroom are seated side by side on wooden boards, and after the caste priest (Sādh) has chanted some sacred verses, water is poured nine times on to the palms of the bridegroom, and he drinks it. They do not perform the ceremony of walking round the sacred pole. Girls are usually married at a very early age, sometimes when they are only a few months old. Subsequently, when the bridegroom comes to take his bride, her family present her with clothing and a spinning-wheel, this implement being still in favour among the Bishnois. When a widow is to be married again she is taken to her new husband’s house at night, and there grinds a flour-mill five times, being afterwards presented with lac bangles.
The dead are never burnt, but their bodies are weighted with sand-bags and thrown into a stream. The practice which formerly prevailed among the Bishnois of burying their dead in the courtyard of the house by the cattle-stalls has now fallen into desuetude as being insanitary. A red cloth is spread over the body of a woman, and if her maternal relatives are present each of them places a piece of cloth on the bier. After the funeral the mourning party proceed to a river to bathe, and then cook and eat their food on the bank. This custom is also followed by the Panwār Rājpūts of the Wainganga Valley, but is forbidden by most of the good Hindu castes. No period of impurity is observed after a death, but on some day between the fourth and tenth days afterwards a feast is given to the caste-fellows.
The Bishnois of the Central Provinces are gradually becoming an ordinary Hindu caste, a fate which has several times befallen the adherents of Hindu reformers. Many of the precepts of Jhāmbāji are neglected. They still usually strain their water and examine their fuel before burning it to remove insects, and they scatter flour to feed the ants and grain for peacocks and pigeons. The wearing of blue cloth is avoided by most, blue being for an obscure reason a somewhat unlucky colour among the Hindus. But they now use bullocks for ploughing, and cut green trees except on the Amāwas day. Many of them, especially the younger generation, have begun to grow the Hindu choti or scalp-lock. They go on pilgrimage to all the Hindu sacred places, and no doubt make presents there to Brāhman priests. They offer pindas or sacrificial cakes to the spirits of their deceased ancestors. They observe some of the ordinary Hindu festivals, as the Anant Chaturthi, and some of them employ Brāhmans to read the Satya Nārāyan Katha, the favourite Hindu sacred book. They still retain their special observance of the Holi. The admission of proselytes has practically ceased, and they marry among themselves like an ordinary Hindu caste, in which light they are gradually coming to be regarded. The Bishnois are usually cultivators or moneylenders by calling.
1 This article is compiled from Mr. Wilson’s account of the Bishnois as reproduced in Mr. Crooke’s Tribes and Castes, and from notes taken by Mr. Adurām Chaudhri in the Hoshangābād District.
2 The total number of precepts as given above is only twenty-five, but can be raised to twenty-nine by counting the prohibition of opium, tobacco, bhāng, blue clothing, spirits and flesh separately.
3 Jhuria may be Jharia, jungly; Sain is a term applied to beggars; the Ahīr or herdsman sept may be descended from a man of this caste who became a Bishnoi.
4 The day when the sun passes from one zodiacal sign into another.
5 The New Moon day or the day before.