The Tribes and Castes of the Central Provinces of India, Volume 2. Robert Vane Russell
the Mughal that he proceeded to attack the Gond kingdom. The story indicates that cotton-carding is considered a Muhammadan profession, and also that it is held in contempt.
5. Proverbs about Bahnas.
Various sayings show that the Bahna is not considered a proper Muhammadan, as
Turuk to Turuk
Aur Bahna Turuk,
or ‘A Muhammadan (Turk) is a Muhammadan and the Bahna is also a Muhammadan’; and again—
Achera,84 Kachera, Pinjāra,
Muhammad se dūr, Dīn se niyāra,
or ‘The Kachera and Pinjāra are lost to Muhammad and far from the faith’; and again—
Adho Hindu adho Musalmān
Tinkhon kahen Dhunak Pathān,
or ‘Half a Hindu and half a Muhammadan, that is he who is a Dhunak Pathān.’ They have a grotesque imitation of the Muhammadan rite of halāl, or causing an animal’s blood to flow on to the ground with the repetition of the kalma or invocation; thus it is said that when a Bahna is about to kill a fowl he addresses it somewhat as follows:
Kāhe karkarāt hai?
Kāhe barbarāt hai?
Kāhe jai jai logon ka dāna khāt hāi?
Tor kiāmat mor niāmat,
Bismillāh hai tuch,
or “Why do you cackle? Why do you crow? Why do you eat other people’s grain? Your death is my feast; I touch you in the name of God.” And saying this he puts a knife to the fowl’s throat. The vernacular verse is a good imitation of the cackling of a fowl. And again, they slice off the top of an egg as if they were killing an animal and repeat the formula, “White dome, full of moisture, I know not if there is a male or female within; in the name of God I kill you.” A person whose memory is not good enough to retain these texts will take a knife and proceed to one who knows them. Such a man will repeat the texts over the knife, blowing on it as he does so, and the Bahna considers that the knife has been sanctified and retains its virtue for a week. Others do not think this necessary, but have a special knife, which having once been consecrated is always kept for killing animals, and descends as an heirloom in the family, the use of this sacred knife being considered to make the repetition of the kalma unnecessary. These customs are, however, practised only by the ignorant members of the caste in Raipur and Bilāspur, and are unknown in the more civilised tracts, where the Bahnas are rapidly conforming to ordinary Muhammadan usage. Such primitive Bahnas perform their marriages by walking round the sacred post, keep the Hindu festivals, and feed Brāhmans on the tenth day after a death. They have a priest whom they call their Kāzi, but elect him themselves. In some places when a Bahna goes to the well to draw water he first washes the parapet of the well to make it ceremonially clean, and then draws his water. This custom can only be compared with that of the Rāj-Gonds who wash the firewood with which they are about to cook their food, in order to make it more pure. Respectable Muhammadans naturally look down on the Bahnas, and they retaliate by refusing to take food or water from any Muhammadan who is not a Bahna. By such strictness the more ignorant think that they will enhance their ceremonial purity and hence their social consideration; but the intelligent members of the caste know better and are glad to improve themselves by learning from educated Muhammadans. The other menial artisan castes among the Muhammadans have similar ideas, and it is reported that a Rangrez boy who took food in the house of one of the highest Muhammadan officers of Government in the Province was temporarily put out of caste. Another saying about the Bahnas is—
Sheikhon kī Sheikhi,
Pathānon kī tarr,
Turkon kī Turkshāhi,
Bahnon kī bharrr …
or ‘Proud as a Sheikh, obstinate as a Pathān, royal as a Turk, buzzing like a Bahna.’ This refers to the noise of the cotton-cleaning bow, the twang of which as it is struck by the club is like a quail flying; and at the same time to the Bahna’s loquacity. Another story is that a Bahna was once going through the forest with his cotton-cleaning bow and club or mallet, when a jackal met him on the path. The jackal was afraid that the Bahna would knock him on the head, so he said, “With thy bow on thy shoulder and thine arrow in thy hand, whither goest thou, O King of Delhi?” The Bahna was exceedingly pleased at this and replied, ‘King of the forest, eater of wild plums, only the great can recognise the great.’ But when the jackal had got to a safe distance he turned round and shouted, “With your cotton-bow on your shoulder and your club in your hand, there you go, you sorry Bahna.” It is said also that although the Bahnas as good Muhammadans wear beards, they do not cultivate them very successfully, and many of them only have a growth of hair below the chin and none on the under-lip, in the fashion known as a goat’s beard. This kind of beard is thus proverbially described as ‘Bahna kaisi dārhi’ or ‘A Bahna’s beard.’ It may be repeated in conclusion that much of the ridicule attaching to the Bahnas arises simply from the fact that they follow what is considered a feminine occupation, and the remainder because in their ignorance they parody the rites of Islām. It may seem ill-natured to record the sayings in which they are lampooned, but the Bahnas cannot read English, and these have an interest as specimens of popular wit.
Baiga
1. The tribe and its offshoots.
Baiga. 85—A primitive Dravidian tribe whose home is on the eastern Satpūra hills in the Mandla, Bālāghāt and Bilāspur Districts. The number of the Baigas proper was only 30,000 in 1911. But the Binjhāls or Binjhwārs, a fairly numerous caste in the Chhattīsgarh Division, and especially in the Sambalpur District, appear to have been originally Baigas, though they have dropped the original caste name, become Hinduised, and now disclaim connection with the parent tribe. A reason for this may be found in the fact that Sambalpur contains several Binjhwār zamīndārs, or large landowners, whose families would naturally desire a more respectable pedigree than one giving them the wild Baigas of the Satpūras for their forefathers. And the evolution of the Binjhwār caste is a similar phenomenon to the constitution of the Rāj-Gonds, the Rāj-Korkus, and other aristocratic subdivisions among the forest tribes, who have been admitted to a respectable position in the Hindu social community. The Binjhwārs, however, have been so successful as to cut themselves off almost completely from connection with the original tribe, owing to their adoption of another name. But in Bālāghāt and Mandla the Binjhwār subtribe is still recognised as the most civilised subdivision of the Baigas. The Bhainas, a small tribe in Bilāspur, are probably another offshoot, Kath-Bhaina being the name of a subtribe of Baigas in that District, and Rai-Bhaina in Bālāghāt, though the Bhainas too no longer admit identity with the Baigas. A feature common to all three branches is that they have forgotten their original tongue, and now speak a more or less corrupt form of the Indo-Aryan vernaculars current around them. Finally, the term Bhumia or ‘Lord of the soil’ is used sometimes as the name of a separate tribe and sometimes as a synonym for Baiga. The fact is that in the Central Provinces86 Bhumia is the name of an office, that of the priest of the village and local deities, which is held by one of the forest tribes. In the tract where the Baigas live, they, as the most ancient residents, are usually the priests of the indigenous gods; but in Jubbulpore the same office is held by another tribe, the Bharias. The name of the office often attaches itself to members of the tribe, who consider it as somewhat more respectable than their own, and it is therefore generally true to say that the people known as Bhumias in Jubbulpore are really Bharias, but in Mandla and Bilāspur they are Baigas.
In Mandla there is also found a group called Bharia-Baigas. These are employed as village priests by Hindus, and worship certain Hindu deities and not the Gond gods. They may perhaps be members of the Bharia tribe of Jubbulpore, originally derived from the Bhars, who have obtained the designation of Baiga, owing to their employment as village priests. But they now consider themselves a part of the Baiga tribe and
The word Achera is merely a jingle put in to make the rhyme complete. Kachera is a maker of glass bangles.
This article is based largely on a monograph by the Rev. J. Lampard, missionary, Baihar, and also on papers by Muhammad Hanīf Siddīqi, forest ranger, Bilāspur, and Mr. Muhammad Ali Haqqāni, B.A., Tahsīldār, Dindori. Some extracts have been made from Colonel Ward’s
In Bengal the Bhumia or Bhumīj are an important tribe.