The Tribes and Castes of the Central Provinces of India, Volume 1. Robert Vane Russell
sometimes has the same signification. The large majority of subcastes are of the local or territorial type.
46. Occupational subcastes
Many subcastes are also formed from slight differences of occupation, which are not of sufficient importance to create new castes. Some instances of subcastes formed from growing special plants or crops have been given. Audhia Sunārs (goldsmiths) work in brass and bell-metal, which is less respectable than the sacred metal, gold. The Ekbeile Telis harness one bullock only to the oil-press and the Dobeile two bullocks. As it is thought sinful to use the sacred ox in this manner and to cover his eyes as the Telis do, it may be slightly more sinful to use two bullocks than one. The Udia Ghasias (grass-cutters) cure raw hides and do scavengers’ work, and are hence looked down upon by the others; the Dingkuchia Ghasias castrate cattle and horses, and the Dolboha carry dhoolies and palanquins. The Māngya Chamārs are beggars and rank below all other subcastes, from whom they will accept cooked food. Frequently, however, subcastes are formed from a slight distinction of occupation, which connotes no real difference in social status. The Hathgarhia Kumhārs (potters) are those who used to fashion the clay with their own hands, and the Chakarias those who turned it on a wheel. And though the practice of hand pottery is now abandoned, the divisions remain. The Shikāri or sportsmen Pardhis (hunters) are those who use firearms, though far from being sportsmen in our sense of the term; the Phanse Pardhis hunt with traps and snares; the Chitewale use a tame leopard to run down deer, and the Gayake stalk their prey behind a bullock. Among the subcastes of Dhīmars (fishermen and watermen) are the Singaria, who cultivate the singāra or water-nut in tanks, the Tānkiwālas or sharpeners of grindstones, the Jhīngars or prawn-catchers, the Bansias and Saraias or anglers (from bansi or sarai, a bamboo fishing-rod), the Kasdhonias who wash the sands of the sacred rivers to find the coins thrown or dropped into them by pious pilgrims, and the Sonjharas who wash the sands of auriferous streams for their particles of gold.89 The Gāriwān Dangris have adopted the comparatively novel occupation of driving carts (gāri) for a livelihood, and the Pānibhar are water-carriers, while the ordinary occupation of the Dāngris is to grow melons in river-beds. It is unnecessary to multiply instances; here, as in the case of territorial subcastes, the practice of subdivision appears to have been extended from motives of convenience, and the slight difference of occupation is adopted as a distinguishing badge.
47. Subcastes formed from social or religious differences, or from mixed descent
Subcastes are also occasionally formed from differences of social practice which produce some slight gain or loss of status. Thus the Biyāhut or ‘Married’ Kalārs prohibit the remarriage of widows, saying that a woman is married once for all, and hence rank a little higher than the others. The Dosar Banias, on the other hand, are said to take their name from dūsra, second, because they allow a widow to marry a second time and are hence looked upon by the others as a second-class lot. The Khedāwāl Brāhmans are divided into the ‘outer’ and ‘inner’: the inner subdivision being said to exist of those who accepted presents from the Rāja of Kaira and remained in his town, while the outer refused the presents, quitted the town and dwelt outside. The latter rank a little higher than the former. The Suvarha Dhīmars keep pigs and the Gadhewāle donkeys, and are considered to partake of the impure nature of these animals. The Gobardhua Chamārs wash out and eat the undigested grain from the droppings of cattle on the threshing-floors. The Chungia group of the Satnāmi Chamārs are those who smoke the chongi or leaf-pipe, though smoking is prohibited to the Satnāmis. The Nāgle or ‘naked’ Khonds have only a negligible amount of clothing and are looked down upon by the others. The Makaria Kamārs eat monkeys and are similarly despised.
Subcastes are also formed from mixed descent. The Dauwa Ahīrs are held to be the offspring of Ahīr women who were employed as wet-nurses in the houses of Bundela Rājpūts and bore children to their masters. The Halbas and Rautias are divided into subcastes known as Puraīt or ‘pure,’ and Surāit or of ‘mixed’ descent. Many castes have a subcaste to which the progeny of illicit unions is relegated, such as the Dogle Kāyasths, and the Lahuri Sen subcaste of Barais, Banias and other castes. Illegitimate children in the Kasār (brass-worker) caste form a subcaste known as Tākle or ‘thrown out,’ Vidur or ‘illegitimate,’ or Laondi Bachcha, the issue of a kept wife. In Berār the Mahādeo Kolis, called after the Mahādeo or Pachmarhi hills, are divided into the Khas, or ‘pure,’ and the Akarāmāse or ‘mixed’; this latter word means gold or silver composed of eleven parts pure metal and one part alloy. Many subcastes of Bania have subcastes known as Bīsa or Dasa, that is ‘Twenty’ or ‘Ten’ groups, the former being of pure descent or twenty-carat, as it were, and the latter the offspring of remarried widows or other illicit unions. In the course of some generations such mixed groups frequently regain full status in the caste.
Subcastes are also formed from members of other castes who have taken to the occupation of the caste in question and become amalgamated with it; thus the Korchamārs are Koris (weavers) adopted into the Chamār (tanner) caste; Khatri Chhīpas are Khatris who have become dyers and printers; the small Dāngri caste has subcastes called Teli, Kalār and Kunbi, apparently consisting of members of those castes who have become Dāngris; the Bāman Darzis or tailors will not take food from any one except Brāhmans and may perhaps be derived from them, and the Kaith Darzis may be Kāyasths; and so on.
Occasionally subcastes may be formed from differences of religious belief or sectarian practice. In northern India even such leading Hindu castes as Rājpūts and Jāts have large Muhammadan branches, who as a rule do not intermarry with Hindus. The ordinary Hindu sects seldom, however, operate as a bar to marriage, Hinduism being tolerant of all forms of religious belief. Those Chamārs of Chhattīsgarh who have embraced the doctrines of the Satnāmi reforming sect form a separate endogamous subcaste, and sometimes the members of the Kabīrpanthi sect within a caste marry among themselves.
Statistics of the subcastes are not available, but their numbers are very extensive in proportion to the population, and even in the same subcaste the members living within a comparatively small local area often marry among themselves and attend exclusively at their own caste feasts, though in the case of educated and well-to-do Hindus the construction of railways has modified this rule and connections are kept up between distant groups of relatives. Clearly therefore differences of occupation or social status are not primarily responsible for the subcastes, because in the majority of cases no such differences really exist. I think the real reason for their multiplication was the necessity that the members of a subcaste should attend at the caste feasts on the occasion of marriages, deaths and readmission of offenders, these feasts being of the nature of a sacrificial or religious meal. The grounds for this view will be given subsequently.
48. Exogamous groups
The caste or subcaste forms the outer circle within which a man must marry. Inside it are a set of further subdivisions which prohibit the marriage of persons related through males. These are called exogamous groups or clans, and their name among the higher castes is gotra. The theory is that all persons belonging to the same gotra are descended from the same male ancestor, and so related. The relationship in the gotra now only goes by the father’s side; when a woman marries she is taken into the clan of her husband and her children belong to it. Marriage is not allowed within the clan and in the course of a few generations the marriage of persons related through males or agnates is prohibited within a very wide circle. But on the mother’s side the gotra does not serve as a bar to marriage and the union of first cousins would be possible, other than the children of two brothers. According to Hindu law, intermarriage is prohibited within four degrees between persons related through females. But generally the children of first cousins are allowed to marry, when related partly through females. And several castes allow the intermarriage of first cousins, that of a brother’s daughter to a sister’s son and in a less degree of a brother’s son to a sister’s daughter being specially favoured. One or two Madras castes allow a man to marry his niece, and the small Dhoba caste of Mandla permit the union of children of the same mother but different fathers.
Sir Herbert Risley classed the names of exogamous divisions as eponymous, territorial or local, titular and totemistic. In the body of this work
Sonjhara is a separate caste as well as a subcaste of Dhīmar.