Chapter XII: Part 12

In Narsinghpur the Murhas appear to have no regular exogamous divisions. Some of them remember the names of their _kheros_ or ancestral villages and do not marry with families belonging to the same _khero_, but this is not a regular rule of the caste. Generally speaking, persons descended through males from a common ancestor do not intermarry so long as they remember the relationship. In Mandla they have five divisions, of which the highest is Purbia. The name Purbia (Eastern) is commonly applied in the Central Provinces to persons coming from Oudh, and in this case the Purbia Murhas are probably the latest immigrants from home and have a superior status on this account. Up till recently they practised hypergamy with the other groups, taking daughters from them in marriage, but not giving their daughters to them. This rule is now, however, breaking down on account of the difficulty they find in getting their daughters married. The children of brothers and sisters may marry in some places, but in others neither they nor their children may marry with each other. Anta Santa or the exchange of girls between two families is permitted. The bridegroom's father has to pay from five to twenty rupees as a _chari_ or bride-price to the girl's father, which sum is regarded as the remuneration of the latter for having brought up his daughter. In the case of the daughter of a headman the bride-price is sometimes as high as Rs. 150. In Damoh a curious survival of marriage by capture remains. The bridegroom's party give a ram or he-goat to the bride's party and these take it to their shed, cut its head off and hang it by the side of the _kham_ or marriage-pole. The brother-in-law of the bridegroom or of his father then sallies forth to bring back the head of the animal, but is opposed by the women of the bride's party, who belabour him and his friends with sticks, brooms and rolling-pins. But in the end the head is always taken away. The binding portion of the marriage is the _bhanwar_ or walking round the sacred post. When the bride is leaving for her husband's house the women of her party take seven balls of flour with burning wicks thrust into them, and place them in a winnowing-fan. They wave this round the bride's head and then throw the balls and after them the fan over the litter in which the bride is seated. The bridegroom's party must catch the fan, and if they let it fall to the ground they are much laughed at for their clumsiness. When the pair arrive at the bridegroom's house, the fan is again waved over their heads; and a cloth is spread before the house, on which seven burning wicks are placed like the previous ones. The bride walks quickly over the cloth to the house and the bridegroom must keep pace with her, picking up the burning flour balls as he goes. When the pair arrive at the house the bridegroom's sister shuts the door and will not open it until she is given a present. Divorce and the remarriage of widows are permitted.

3. Funeral rites

The caste worship the ordinary Hindu deities. Well-to-do members burn their dead and the poorer ones bury them. The corpse is usually placed with the head to the south as is the custom among the primitive tribes, but in some localities the Hindu fashion of laying the head to the north has been adopted. Two pice are thrown down by the grave or burning-_ghat_ to buy the site, and these are taken by the sweeper. The ashes are collected on the third day and thrown into a river. The usual period of mourning is only three days, but it is sometimes extended to nine days when the chief mourner is unable to feed the caste-fellows on the third day, and the feast may in case of necessity be postponed to any time within six months of the death. The chief mourner puts on a new white cloth and eats nothing but rice and pulse without salt.

4. Occupation

The caste are employed on all kinds of earthwork, such as building walls, excavating trenches, and making embankments in fields. Their trade implements consist of a pickaxe, a basket, and a thin wooden hod to fill the earth into the basket. The Murha invokes these as follows: "Oh! my lord the basket, my lord the pickaxe shaped like a snake, and my lady the hod, come and eat up those who do not pay me for my work!" The Murhas are strict in their rules about food and will not accept cooked food even from a Brahman, but notwithstanding this, their social position is so low that not even a sweeper would take food from them. The caste eat flesh and drink liquor, but abstain from fowls, pork and beef. They engage Brahmans on the occasion of births and marriages, but not usually for funerals. The women tattoo their bodies after marriage, and the charge for this should always be paid by the maternal uncle's wife, the paternal aunt, or some other similar relation of the girl. The fact that among most Hindus a girl must be tattooed before leaving for her husband's house, and that the cost of the operation must always be paid for by her own family, seems to indicate that tattooing was formerly a rite of puberty for the female sex. A wife must not mention the name of her husband or of any person who stands in the relation of father, mother, uncle or aunt to him. Parents do not call their eldest son by his proper name, but by some pet name. Women are impure for five days during menstruation and are not allowed to cook for that period. The Murhas have a caste _panchayat_ or committee, the head of which is known as Patel or Mukhia, the office being hereditary. He receives a part of all fines levied for the commission of social offences. In appearance the caste are dark and short of stature, and have some resemblance to the Kols.

5. Women's song

In conclusion, I reproduce one of the songs which the women sing as they are carrying the basketfuls of earth or stones at their work; in the original each line consists of two parts, the last words of which sometimes rhyme with each other:

Our mother Nerbudda is very kind; blow, wind, we are hot with
labour.
He said to the Maina: Go, carry my message to my love.
The red ants climb up the mango-tree; and the daughter follows
her mother's way.
I have no money to give her even lime and tobacco; I am poor,
so how can I tell her of my love.
The boat has gone down on the flood of the Nerbudda; the
fisherwoman is weeping for her husband.
She has no bangles on her arm nor necklace on her neck; she has
no beauty, but seeks her lovers throughout the village.
Bread from the girdle, curry from the _lota_; let us go, beloved,
the moon is shining.
The leaves of gram have been plucked from the plants; I think
much on Dadaria, but she does not come.
The love of a stranger is as a dream; think not of him, beloved,
he cannot be yours.
Twelve has struck and it is thirteen time (past the time of
labour); oh, overseer, let your poor labourers go.
The betel-leaf is pressed in the mouth (and gives pleasure);
attractive eyes delight the heart.
Catechu, areca and black cloves; my heart's secret troubles me
in my dreams.
The Nerbudda came and swept away the rubbish (from the works);
fly away, bees, do not perch on my cloth.
The colour does not come on the wheat; her youth is passing,
but she cannot yet drape her cloth on her body.
Like the sight of rain-drops splashing on the ground; so beautiful
is she to look upon.
It rains and the hidden streams in the woodland are filled (and
come to view); hide as long as you may, some day you must be seen.
The mahua flowers are falling from the trees on the hill; leave
me your cloth so that I may know you will return.
He went to the bazar and brought back a cocoanut; it is green
without, but insects are eating the core.
He went to the hill and cut strings of bamboo; you cannot drape
your cloth, you have wound it round your body.
The coral necklace hangs on the peg; if you become the second
wife of my husband I shall give you clothes.
She put on her clothes and went to the forest; she met her lover
and said you are welcome to me.
He went to the bazar and bought potatoes; but if he had loved me
he would have brought me liquor.
The fish in the river are on the look-out; the Brahman's daughter
is bathing with her hair down.
The arhar-stumps stand in the field; I loved one of another caste,
but must give him up.
He ate betel and coloured his teeth; his beloved came from without
and knew him.
The ploughmen are gone to the field; my clever writer is gone to
the court-house.
The Nerbudda flows like a bent bow; a beautiful youth is standing
in court. [286]
The broken areca-nuts lie in the forest; when a man comes to
misfortune no one will help him.
The broken areca-nuts cannot be mended; and two hearts which are
sundered cannot be joined.
Ask me for five rupees and I will give you twenty-five; but I
will not give my lover for the whole world.
I will put bangles on my arm; when the other wife sees me she
will die of jealousy.
Break the bangles which your husband gave you; and put others on
your wrists in my name.
O my lover, give me bangles; make me armlets, for I am content
with you.
My lover went to the bazar at Lakhanpur; but he has not brought
me even a _choli_ [287] that I liked.
I had gone to the bazar and bought fish; she is so ugly that the
flies would not settle on her.

Nagasia

_Nagasia, Naksia._--A primitive tribe found principally in the Chota Nagpur States. They now number 16,000 persons in the Central Provinces, being returned almost entirely from Jashpur and Sarguja. The census returns are, however, liable to be inaccurate as the Nagasias frequently call themselves Kisan, a term which is also applied to the Oraons. The Nagasias say that they are the true Kisans whereas the Oraons are only so by occupation. The Oraons, on the other hand, call the Nagasias Kisada. The tribe derive their name from the Nag or cobra, and they say that somebody left an infant in the forest of Setambu and a cobra came and spread its hood over the child to protect him from the rays of the sun. Some Mundas happened to pass by and on seeing this curious sight they thought the child must be destined to greatness, so they took him home and made him their king, calling him Nagasia, and from him the tribe are descended. The episode of the snake is, of course, a stock legend related by many tribes, but the story appears to indicate that the Nagasias are an offshoot of the Mundas; and this hypothesis is strengthened by the fact that Nagbasia is often used as an alternative name for the Mundas by their Hindu neighbours. The term Nagbasia is supposed to mean the original settlers (_basia_) in Nag (Chota Nagpur).

The tribe are divided into the Telha, Dhuria and Senduria groups. The Telhas are so called because at the marriage ceremony they mark the forehead of the bride with _tel_ (oil), while the Dhurias instead of oil use dust (_dhur_) taken from the sole of the bridegroom's foot, and the Sendurias like most Hindu castes employ vermilion (_sendur_) for this purpose. The Telhas and Dhurias marry with each other, but not with the Sendurias, who consider themselves to be superior to the others and use the term Nagbansia or 'Descendants of the Snake' as their tribal name. The Telha and Dhuria women do not wear glass bangles on their arms but only bracelets of brass, while the Sendurias wear glass bangles and also armlets above the elbow. Telha women do not wear nose-rings or tattoo their bodies, while the Sendurias do both. The Telhas say that the tattooing needle and vermilion, which they formerly employed in their marriages, were stolen from them by Wagdeo or the tiger god. So they hit upon sesamum oil as a substitute, which must be pressed for ceremonial purposes in a bamboo basket by unmarried boys using a plough-yoke. This is probably, Mr. Hira Lal remarks, merely the primitive method of extracting oil, prior to the invention of the Teli's _ghani_ or oil-press; and the practice is an instance of the common rule that articles employed in ceremonial and religious rites should be prepared by the ancient and primitive methods which for ordinary purposes have been superseded by more recent labour-saving inventions.

Nahal

1. The tribe and its subdivisions

_Nahal, Nihal._ [288]--A forest tribe who are probably a mixture of Bhils and Korkus. In 1911 they numbered 12,000 persons, of whom 8000 belonged to the Hoshangabad, Nimar and Betul Districts, and nearly 4000 to Berar. They were classed at the census as a subtribe of Korkus. According to one story they are descended from a Bhil father and a Korku mother, and the writer of the _Khandesh Gazetteer_ calls them the most savage of the Bhils. But in the Central Provinces their family or sept names are the same as those of the Korkus, and they speak the Korku language. Mr. Kitts [289] says that the Korkus who first went to Berar found the Nahals in possession of the Melghat hills. Gradually the latter caste lost their power and became the village drudges of the former. He adds that the Nahals were fast losing their language, and the younger generation spoke only Korku. The two tribes were very friendly, and the Nahals acknowledged the superior position of the Korkus. This, if it accurately represents the state of things prevailing for a long period, and was not merely an incidental feature of their relative position at the time Mr. Kitts' observations were made, would tend to show that the Nahals were the older tribe and had been subjected by the Korkus, just as the Korkus themselves and the Baigas have given way to the Gonds. Mr. Crosthwaite also states that the Nahal is the drudge of the Korku and belongs to a race which is supposed to have been glorious before the Korku star arose, and which is now fast dying out. In any case there is no doubt that the Nahals are a very mixed tribe, as they will even now admit into the community Gonds, Korkus and nearly all the Hindu castes, though in some localities they will not eat from the other tribes and the lower Hindu castes and therefore refuse to admit them. There are, moreover, two subdivisions of the caste called Korku and Marathi Nahals respectively. The latter are more Hinduised than the former and disclaim any connection with the Korkus. The Nahals have totemistic exogamous septs. Those of the Kasa sept worship a tortoise and also a bell-metal plate, which is their family god. They never eat off a bell-metal plate except on one day in the month of Magh (January), when they worship it. The members of the Nagbel sept worship the betel-vine or 'snake-creeper,' and refrain from chewing betel-leaves, and they also worship the Nag or cobra and do not kill it, thus having a sort of double totem. The Bhawaria sept, named after the _bhaunr_ or black bee, do not eat honey, and if they see a person taking the honey-comb from a nest they will run away. The Khadia sept worship the spirits of their ancestors enshrined in a heap of stones (_khad_), or according to another account they worship a snake which sits on a heap of pebbles. The Surja sept worship Surya or the sun by offering him a fowl in the month of Pus (December-January), and some members of the sept keep a fast every Sunday. The Saoner sept worship the _san_ or flax plant.

2. Marriage

Marriage is prohibited between members of the same sept, but there are no other restrictions and first cousins may marry. Both sexes usually marry when adult, and sexual license before wedlock is tolerated. A Brahman is employed only for fixing the date of the ceremony. The principal part of the marriage is the knotting together of the bride's and bridegroom's clothes on two successive days. They also gamble with tamarind seeds, and it is considered a lucky union if the bridegroom wins. A bride-price is usually paid consisting of Rs. 1-4 to Rs. 5 in cash, some grain and a piece of cloth for the bride's mother. The remarriage of widows is allowed, and the couple go five times round a bamboo stick which is held up to represent a spear, the ceremony being called _barchhi se bhanwar phirna_ or the marriage of the spear.

3. Religion

The Nahals worship the forest god called Jharkhandi in the month of Chait, and until this rite has been performed they do not use the leaves or fruits of the _palas_, [290] _aonla_ [291] or mango trees. When the god is worshipped they collect branches and leaves of these trees and offer cooked food to them and thereafter commence using the new leaves, and the fruit and timber. They also worship the ordinary village godlings. The dead are buried, except in the case of members of the Surja or sun sept, whose corpses are burnt. Cooked food is offered at the grave for four days after the death.

4. Occupation

The Nahals were formerly a community of hill-robbers, 'Nahal, Bhil, Koli' being the phrase generally used in old documents to designate the marauding bands of the western Satpura hills. The Raja of Jitgarh and Mohkot in Nimar has a long account in his genealogy of a treacherous massacre of a whole tribe of Nahals by his ancestor in Akbar's time, in recognition of which the Jitgarh pargana was granted to the family. Mr. Kitts speaks of the Nahals of Berar as having once been much addicted to cattle-lifting, and this propensity still exists in a minor degree in the Central Provinces, accentuated probably by the fact that a considerable number of Nahals follow the occupation of graziers. Some of them are also village watchmen, and another special avocation of theirs is the collection of the oil of the marking-nut tree (_Semecarpus anacardium_). This is to some extent a dangerous trade, as the oil causes swellings on the body, besides staining the skin and leaving a peculiar odour. The workers wrap a fourfold layer of cloth round their fingers with ashes between each fold, while the rest of the body is also protected by cloth when gathering the nuts and pounding them to extract the oil. At the end of the day's work powdered tamarind and _ghi_ are rubbed on the whole body. The oil is a stimulant, and is given to women after delivery and to persons suffering from rheumatism.

5. Social status

The social status of the Nahals is very low and they eat the flesh of almost all animals, while those who graze cattle eat beef. Cow-killing is not regarded as an offence. They are also dirty and do not bathe for weeks together. To get maggots in a wound is, however, regarded as a grave offence, and the sufferer is put out of the village and has to live alone until he recovers.

Nai

List of Paragraphs

1. _Structure of the caste_.
2. _Marriage and other customs_.
3. _Occupation_.
4. _Other services_.
5. _Duties at weddings_.
6. _The barber-surgeon._
7. _A barber at the court of Oudh_.
8. _Character and position of the barber_.
9. _Beliefs about hair_.
10. _Hair of kings and priests_.
11. _The beard_.
12. _Significance of removal of the hair and shaving the head_.
13. _Shaving the head by mourners_.
14. _Hair offerings_.
15. _Keeping hair unshorn during a vow_.
16. _Disposal of cut hair and nails_.
17. _Superstitions about shaving the hair_.
18. _Reasons why the hair was considered the source of strength._

1. Structure of the caste

_Nai, Nao, Mhali, Hajjam, Bhanari, Mangala_. [292]--The occupational caste of barbers. The name is said to be derived from the Sanskrit _napita_ according to some a corruption of _snapitri_, one who bathes. In Bundelkhand he is also known as Khawas, which was a title for the attendant on a grandee; and Birtiya, or 'He that gets his maintenance (_vritti_) from his constituents.' [293] Mhali is the Marathi name for the caste, Bhandari the Uriya name and Mangala the Telugu name. The caste numbered nearly 190,000 persons in the Central Provinces in 1911, being distributed over all Districts. Various legends of the usual type are related of its origin, but, as Sir. H. Risley observes, it is no doubt wholly of a functional character. The subcastes in the Central Provinces entirely bear out this view, as they are very numerous and principally of the territorial type: Telange of the Telugu country, Marathe, Pardeshi or northerners, Jharia or those of the forest country of the Wainganga Valley, Bandhaiya or those of Bandhogarh, Barade of Berar, Bundelkhandi, Marwari, Mathuria from Mathura, Gadhwaria from Garha near Jubbulpore, Lanjia from Lanji in Balaghat, Malwi from Malwa, Nimari from Nimar, Deccane, Gujarati, and so on. Twenty-six divisions in all are given. The exogamous groups are also of different types, some of them being named after Brahman saints, as Gautam, Kashyap, Kosil, Sandil and Bharadwaj; others after Rajput clans as Surajvansi, Jaduvansi, Solanki and Panwar; while others are titular or totemistic, as Naik, leader; Seth, banker; Rawat, chief; Nagesh, cobra; Bagh, a tiger; Bhadrawa, a fish.

2. Marriage and other customs

The exogamous groups are known as _khero_ or _kul_, and marriage between members of the same group is prohibited. Girls are usually wedded between the ages of eight and twelve and boys between fifteen and twenty. A girl who goes wrong before marriage is finally expelled from the caste. The wedding ceremony follows the ritual prevalent in the locality as described in the articles on Kurmi and Kunbi. At an ordinary wedding the expenses on the girl's side amount to about Rs. 150, and on the boy's to Rs. 200. The remarriage of widows is permitted. In the northern Districts the widow may wed the younger brother of her deceased husband, but in the Maratha country she may not be married to any of his relatives. Divorce may be effected at the instance of the husband before the caste committee, and a divorced woman is at liberty to marry again. The Nais worship all the ordinary Hindu deities. On the Dasahra and Diwali festivals they wash and revere their implements, the razor, scissors and nail-pruners. They pay regard to omens. It is unpropitious to sneeze or hear the report of a gun when about to commence any business; and when a man is starting on a journey, if a cat, a squirrel, a hare or a snake should cross the road in front of him he will give it up and return home. The bodies of the dead are usually burnt. In Chhattisgarh the poor throw the corpses of their dead into the Mahanadi, and the bodies of children dying under one year of age were until recently buried in the courtyard of the house. The period of mourning for adults is ten days and for children three days. The chief mourner must take only one meal a day, which he cooks himself until the ceremony of the tenth day is performed.

3. Occupation

"The barber's trade," Mr. Crooke states, [294] "is undoubtedly of great antiquity. In the Veda we read, 'Sharpen us like the razor in the hands of the barber'; and again, 'Driven by the wind, Agni shaves the hair of the earth like the barber shaving a beard.'" In early times they must have enjoyed considerable dignity; Upali the barber was the first propounder of the law of the Buddhist church. The village barber's leather bag contains a small mirror (_arsi_), a pair of iron pincers (_chimta_), a leather strap, a comb (_kanghi_), a piece of cloth about a yard square and some oil in a phial. He shaves the faces, heads and armpits of his customers, and cuts the nails of both their hands and feet. He uses cold water in summer and hot in winter, but no soap, though this has now been introduced in towns. For the poorer cultivators he does a rapid scrape, and this process is called '_asudhal_' or a 'tearful shave,' because the person undergoing it is often constrained to weep. The barber acquires the knowledge of his art by practice on the more obliging of his customers, hence the proverb, 'The barber's son learns his trade on the heads of fools.' The village barber is usually paid by a contribution of grain from the cultivators, calculated in some cases according to the number of ploughs of land possessed by each, in others according to the number of adult males in the family. In Saugor he receives 20 lbs. of grain annually for each adult male or 22 1/2 lbs. per plough of land, besides presents of a basket of grain at seed-time and a sheaf at harvest. Cultivators are usually shaved about once a fortnight. In towns the barber's fee may vary from a pice to two annas for a shave, which is, as has been seen, a much more protracted operation with a Hindu than with a European. It is said that Berar is now so rich that even ordinary cultivators can afford to pay the barber two annas (2d.) for a single shave, or the same price as in the suburbs of London.

4. Other services

After he has shaved a client the barber pinches and rubs his arms, presses his fingers together and cracks the joints of each finger, this last action being perhaps meant to avert evil spirits. He also does massage, a very favourite method of treatment in India, and also inexpensive as compared with Europe. For one rupee a month in towns the barber will come and rub a man's legs five or ten minutes every day. Cultivators have their legs rubbed in the sowing season, when the labour is intensely hard owing to the necessity of sowing all the land in a short period. If a man is well-to-do he may have his whole head and body rubbed with scented oil. Landowners have often a barber as a family servant, the office descending from father to son. Such a man will light his master's _chilam_ (pipe-bowl) or huqqa (water-pipe), clean and light lamps, prepare his bed, tell his master stories to send him to sleep, act as escort for the women of the family when they go on a journey and arrange matches for the children. The barber's wife attends on women in child-birth after the days of pollution are over, and rubs oil on the bodies of her clients, pares their nails and paints their feet with red dye at marriages and on other festival occasions.

5. Duties at weddings

The barber has also numerous and important duties [295] in connection with marriages and other festival occasions. He acts as the Brahman's assistant, and to the lower castes, who cannot employ a Brahman, he is himself the matrimonial priest. The important part which he plays in marriage ceremonies has led to his becoming the matchmaker among all respectable castes. He searches for a suitable bride or bridegroom, and is often sent to inspect the other party to a match and report his or her defects to his clients. He may arrange the price or dowry, distribute the invitations and carry the presents from one house to the other. He supplies the leaf-plates and cups which are used at weddings, as the family's stock of metal vessels is usually quite inadequate for the number of guests. The price of these is about 4 annas (4d.) a hundred. He also provides the _torans_ or strings of leaves which are hung over the door of the house and round the marriage-shed. At the feast the barber is present to hand to the guests water, betel-leaf and pipes as they may desire. He also partakes of the food, seated at a short distance from the guests, in the intervals of his service. He lights the lamps and carries the torches during the ceremony. Hence he was known as Masalchi or torch-bearer, a name now applied by Europeans to a menial servant who lights and cleans the lamps and washes the plates after meals. The barber and his wife act as prompters to the bride and bridegroom, and guide them through the complicated ritual of the wedding ceremony, taking the couple on their knees if they are children, and otherwise sitting behind them. The barber has a prescriptive right to receive the clothes in which the bridegroom goes to the bride's house, as on the latter's arrival he is always presented with new clothes by the bride's father. As the bridegroom's clothes may be an ancestral heirloom, a compact is often made to buy them back from the barber, and he may receive as much as Rs. 50 in lieu of them. When the first son is born in a family the barber takes a long bamboo stick, wraps it round with cloth and puts an earthen pot over it and carries this round to the relatives, telling them the good news. He receives a small present from each household.

6. The barber-surgeon

The barber also cleans the ears of his clients and cuts their nails, and is the village surgeon in a small way. He cups and bleeds his patients, applies leeches, takes out teeth and lances boils. In this capacity he is the counterpart of the barber-surgeon of mediaeval Europe. The Hindu physicians are called Baid, and are, as a rule, a class of Brahmans. They derive their knowledge from ancient Sanskrit treatises on medicine, which are considered to have divine authority. Consequently they think it unnecessary to acquire fresh knowledge by experiment and observation, as they suppose the perfect science of medicine to be contained in their sacred books. As these books probably do not describe surgical operations, of which little or nothing was known at the time when they were written, and as surgery involves contact with blood and other impure substances, the Baids do not practise it, and the villagers are left to get on as best they can with the ministrations of the barber. It is interesting to note that a similar state of things appears to have prevailed in Europe. The monks were the early practitioners of medicine and were forbidden to practise surgery, which was thus left to the barber-chirurgeon. The status of the surgeon was thus for long much below that of the physician. [296] The mediaeval barber of Europe kept a bottle of blood in his window, to indicate that he undertook bleeding and the application of leeches, and the coloured bottles in the chemist's window may have been derived from this. It is also said that the barber's pole originally served as a support for the patient to lean on while he was being bled, and those barbers who did the work of bleeding patients painted their poles in variegated red and white stripes to show it.

7. A barber at the court of Oudh

Perhaps the most successful barber known to Indian history was not a Hindu at all, but a Peninsular and Oriental Company's cabin-boy, who became the barber of one of the last kings of Oudh, Nasir-ud-Din, in the early part of the nineteenth century, and rose to the position of a favourite courtier. He was entrusted with the supply of every European article used at court, and by degrees became a regular guest at the royal table, and sat down to take dinner with the king as a matter of right; nor would his majesty taste a bottle of wine opened by any other hands than the barber's. [297] This was, however, a wise precaution as it turned out, since after he had finally been forced to part with the barber the king was poisoned by his own relatives. The barber was also made keeper of the royal menagerie, for which he supplied the animals and their food, and made enormous profits. The following is an account of the presentation of the barber's monthly bill of expenses: [298] "It was after tiffin, or lunch, when we usually retired from the palace until dinner-time at nine o'clock, that the favourite entered with a roll of paper in his hand. In India, long documents, legal and commercial, are usually written, not in books or on successive sheets, but on a long roll, strip being joined to strip for that purpose, and the whole rolled up like a map.

"'Ha, Khan!' said the king, observing him; 'the monthly bill, is it?'

"'It is, your majesty,' was the smiling reply.

"'Come, out with it; let us see the extent. Unroll it, Khan.'

"The king was in a playful humour; and the barber was always in the same mood as the king. He held the end of the roll in his hand, and threw the rest along the floor, allowing it to unroll itself as it retreated. It reached to the other side of the long apartment--a goodly array of items and figures, closely written too. The king wanted it measured. A measure was brought and the bill was found to be four yards and a half long. I glanced at the amount; it was upwards of Rs. 90,000, or £9000!"

The barber, however, encouraged the king in every form of dissipation and excess, until the state of the Oudh court became such a scandal that the king was forced by the British Government to dismiss him. [299] He retired, it was said, with a fortune of £240,000.

8. Character and position of the barber

The barber is also, Mr. Low writes, [300] the scandal-bearer and gossip-monger of the village. His cunning is proverbial, and he is known as _Chhattisa_ from the saying--

Nai hai chhattisa
Khai an ka pisa,

or 'A barber has thirty-six talents by which he eats at the expense of others.' His loquacity is shown in the proverb, 'As the crow among birds so the barber among men.' The barber and the professional Brahman are considered to be jealous of their perquisites and unwilling to share with their caste-fellows, and this is exemplified in the proverb, "The barber, the dog and the Brahman, these three snarl at meeting one of their own kind." The joint association of the Brahman priest and the barber with marriages and other ceremonies has led to the saying, "As there are always reeds in a river so there is always a barber with a Brahman." The barber's astuteness is alluded to in the saying, 'Nine barbers are equal to seventy-two tailors.' The fact that it is the barber's duty to carry the lights in marriage processions has led to the proverb, "At the barber's wedding all are gentlemen and it is awkward to have to ask somebody to carry the torch." The point of this is clear, though no English equivalent occurs to the mind. And a similar idea is expressed by 'The barber washes the feet of others but is ashamed to wash his own.' It would appear from these proverbs that the Nai is considered to enjoy a social position somewhat above his deserts. Owing to the nature of his duties, which make him a familiar inmate of the household and bring him into contact with the persons of his high-caste clients, the caste of the Nai is necessarily considered to be a pure one and Brahmans will take water from his hands. But, on the other hand, his calling is that of a village menial and has also some elements of impurity, as in cupping which involves contact with blood, and in cutting the nails and hair of the corpse before cremation. He is thus looked down upon as a menial and also considered as to some extent impure. No member of a cultivating caste would salute a barber first or look upon him as an equal, though Brahmans put them on the same level of ceremonial purity by taking water from both. The barber's loquacity and assurance have been made famous by the _Arabian Nights_, but they have perhaps been affected by the more strenuous character of life, and his conversation does not flow so freely as it did. Often he now confines himself to approving and adding emphasis to any remarks of the patron and greeting any of his little witticisms with bursts of obsequious laughter. In Madras, Mr. Pandian states, the village barber, like the washerman, is known as the son of the village. If a customer does not pay him his dues, he lies low, and when he has begun to shave the defaulter, engages him in a dispute and says something to excite his anger. The latter will then become abusive to the barber, whom he regards as a menial, and perhaps strike him, and this gives the barber an opportunity to stop shaving him and rush off to lay a complaint at the village court-house, leaving his enemy to proceed home with half his head shaved and thus exposed to general ridicule. [301]

9. Beliefs about hair

Numerous customs appear to indicate that the hair was regarded as the special seat of bodily strength. The Rajput warriors formerly wore their hair long and never cut it, but trained it in locks over their shoulders. Similarly the Maratha soldiers wore their hair long. The Hatkars, a class of Maratha spearmen, might never cut their hair while engaged on military service. A Sikh writer states of Guru Govind, the founder of the militant Sikh confederacy: "He appeared as the tenth Avatar (incarnation of Vishnu). He established the Khalsa, his own sect, and by exhibiting singular energy, leaving the hair on his head, and seizing the scimitar, he smote every wicked person." [302] As is well known, no Sikh may cut his hair, and one of the five marks of the Sikh is the _kanga_ or comb, which he must always carry in order to keep his hair in proper order. A proverb states that 'The origin of a Sikh is in his hair.' [303] The following story, related by Sir J. Malcolm, shows the vital importance attached by the Sikh to his hair and beard: "Three inferior agents of Sikh chiefs were one day in my tent. I was laughing and joking with one of them, a Khalsa Sikh, who said he had been ordered to attend me to Calcutta. Among other subjects of our mirth I rallied him on trusting himself so much in my power. 'Why, what is the worst,' he said, 'that you can do to me?' I passed my hand across my chin, imitating the act of shaving. The man's face was in an instant distorted with rage and his sword half-drawn. 'You are ignorant,' he said to me, 'of the offence you have given; I cannot strike you who are above me, and the friend of my master and the state; but no power,' he added, indicating the Khalsa Sikhs, 'shall save these fellows who dared to smile at your action.' It was with the greatest difficulty and only by the good offices of some Sikh Chiefs that I was able to pacify his wounded honour." [304] These instances appear to show clearly that the Sikhs considered their hair of vital importance; and as fighting was their object in life, it seems most probable that they thought their strength in war was bound up in it. Similarly when the ancient Spartans were on a military expedition purple garments were worn and their hair was carefully decked with wreaths, a thing which was never done at home. [305] And when Leonidas and his three hundred were holding the pass of Thermopylae, and Xerxes sent scouts to ascertain what the Greeks were doing in their camp, the report was that some of them were engaged in gymnastics and warlike exercises, while others were merely sitting and combing their long hair. If the hypothesis already suggested is correct, the Spartan youths so engaged were perhaps not merely adorning themselves for death, but, as they thought, obtaining their full strength for battle. "The custom of keeping the hair unshorn during a dangerous expedition appears to have been observed, at least occasionally, by the Romans. Achilles kept unshorn his yellow hair, because his father had vowed to offer it to the river Sperchius if ever his son came home from the wars beyond the sea." [306]

When the Bhils turned out to fight they let down their long hair prior to beginning the conflict with their bows and arrows. [307] The pirates of Surat, before boarding a ship, drank _bhang_ and hemp-liquor, and when they wore their long hair loose they gave no quarter. [308] The Mundas appear to have formerly worn their hair long and some still do. Those who are converted to Christianity must cut their hair, but a non-Christian Munda must always keep the _chundi_ or pigtail. If the _chundi_ is very long it is sometimes tied up in a knot. [309] Similarly the Oraons wore their hair long like women, gathered in a knot behind, with a wooden or iron comb in it. Those who are Christians can be recognised by the fact that they have cut off their pigtails. A man of the low Pardhi caste of hunters must never have his hair touched by a razor after he has once killed a deer. As already seen, every orthodox Hindu wore till recently a _choti_ or scalp-lock, which should theoretically be as long as a cow's tail. Perhaps the idea was that for those who were not warriors it was sufficient to retain this and have the rest of the head shaved. The _choti_ was never shaved off in mourning for any one but a father. The lower castes of Muhammadans, if they have lost several children, will allow the scalp-lock to grow on the heads of those subsequently born, dedicating it to one of their Muhammadan saints. The Kanjars relate of their heroic ancestor Mana that after he had plunged a bow so deeply into the ground that no one could withdraw it, he was set by the Emperor of Delhi to wrestle against the two most famous Imperial wrestlers. These could not overcome him fairly, so they made a stratagem, and while one provoked him in front the other secretly took hold of his _choti_ behind. When Mana started forward his _choti_ was thus left in the wrestler's hands, and though he conquered the other wrestler, showing him the sky as it is said, the loss of his _choti_ deprived him for ever after of his virtue as a Hindu and in no small degree of his renown as an ancestor. [310] Thus it seems clear that a special virtue attaches to the _choti_. Before every warlike expedition the people of Minahassa in Celebes used to take the locks of hair of a slain foe and dabble them in boiling water to extract the courage; this infusion of bravery was then drunk by the warriors. [311] In a modern Greek folk-tale a man's strength lies in three golden hairs on his head. When his mother plucks them out, he grows weak and timid and is slain by his enemies. [312] The Red Indian custom of taking the scalp, of a slain enemy and sometimes wearing the scalps at the waist-belt may be due to the same relief.

In Ceram the hair might not be cut because it was the seat of a man's strength; and the Gaboon negroes for the same reason would not allow any of their hair to pass into the possession of a stranger. [313]

10. Hair of kings and priests

If the hair was considered to be the special source of strength and hence frequently of life, that of the kings and priests, in whose existence the primitive tribe believed its own communal life to be bound up, would naturally be a matter of peculiar concern. That it was so has been shown in the _Golden Bough_. Two hundred years ago the hair and nails of the Mikado of Japan could only be cut when he was asleep. [314] The hair of the Flamen Dialis at Rome could be cut only by a freeman and with a bronze knife, and his hair and nails when cut had to be buried under a lucky tree. [315] The Frankish kings were never allowed to crop their hair; from their childhood upwards they had to keep it unshorn. The hair of the Aztec priests hung down to their hams so that the weight of it became very troublesome; for they might never crop it so long as they lived, or at least till they had been relieved from their office on the score of old age. [316] In the Male Paharia tribe from the time that any one devoted himself to the profession of priest and augur his hair was allowed to grow like that of a Nazarite; his power of divination entirely disappeared if he cut it. [317] Among the Bawarias of India the Bhuva or priest of Devi may not cut or shave his hair under penalty of a fine of Rs. 10. A Parsi priest or Mobed must never be bare-headed and never shave his head or face. [318] Professor Robertson Smith states: "As a diadem is in its origin nothing more than a fillet to confine hair that is worn long, I apprehend that in old times the hair of Hebrew princes like that of a Maori chief, was taboo, and that Absalom's long locks (2 Sam. xiv. 26) were the mark of his political pretensions and not of his vanity. When the hair of a Maori chief was cut, it was collected and buried in a sacred place or hung on a tree; and it is noteworthy that Absalom's hair was cut annually at the end of the year, in the sacred season of pilgrimage, and that it was collected and weighed." [319]

11. The beard

The importance attached by other races to the hair of the head seems among the Muhammadans to have been concentrated specially in the beard. The veneration displayed for the beard in this community is well known. The Prophet ordained that the minimum length of the beard should be the breadth of five fingers. When the beard is turning grey they usually dye it with henna and sometimes with indigo; it may be thought that a grey beard is a sign of weakness. The Prophet said, 'Change the whiteness of your hair, but not with anything black.' It is not clear why black was prohibited. It is said that the first Caliph Abu Bakar was accustomed to dye his beard red with henna, and hence this practice has been adopted by Muhammadans. [320] The custom of shaving the chin is now being adopted by young Muhammadans, but as they get older they still let the beard grow. A very favourite Muhammadan oath is, 'By the beard of the Prophet'; and in Persia if a man thinks another is mocking him he says, 'Do you laugh at my beard?' Neither Hindus nor Muhammadans have any objection to becoming bald, as the head is always covered by the turban in society. But when a man wishes to grow a beard it is a serious drawback if he is unable to do it; and he will then sometimes pluck the young wheat-ears and rub the juice over his cheeks and chin so that he may grow bearded like the wheat. Among the Hindus, Rajputs and Marathas, as well as the Sikhs, commonly wore beards, all of these being military castes. Both the beard and hair were considered to impart an aspect of ferocity to the countenance, and when the Rajputs and Muhammadans were going into battle they combed the hair and trained the beard to project sideways from the face. When a Muhammadan wears a beard he must have hair in the centre of his chin, whereas a Hindu shaves this part. A Muhammadan must have his moustache short so that it may not touch and defile food entering the mouth. It is related that a certain Kazi had a small head and a very long beard; and he had a dream that a man with a small head and a long beard must be a fool. When he woke up he thought this was applicable to himself. As he could not make his head larger he decided to make his beard smaller, and looked for scissors to cut part of it off. But he could not find any scissors, and being in a hurry to shorten his beard he decided to burn away part of it, and set it alight. But the fire consumed the whole of his beard before he could put it out, and he then realised the truth of the dream.

12. Significance of removal of the hair and shaving the head