The tribes and castes of the North-Western Provinces and Oudh, Volume 2 (of 4)

Chapter V: Front Matter (5)

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[Religion.] 16. They call themselves Hindus. Their tribal god is called Sewanriya and appears originally to be a deity of boundaries (sewâna). Some worship Dharti or Mother-earth, and some Mahâdeva. They have a vague idea of a place of torment after death, a pit full of snakes and scorpions known as kîragarh or the “worm pit;” but it is doubtful how far this may not be some vague reminiscence of missionary teaching. [104] In the month of Aghan, when they worship the sainted dead, they offer to these deities liquor, fowls, and goats. They believe that this worship protects children and cattle from disease, and prevents the latter from straying. This worship is not shared in by the women and children, and is done by the headman of the family, if a Baiga. They have nothing to say to Brâhmans, for whom they entertain contempt. [105] The Brâhmans, they say, were the drummers of Râma’s army in his campaign against Râwana. As they were crossing the sea their drums (mândar) which, like the aboriginal drums of the present time, were made of baked earth, melted away in the water, and the strings which supported them became the Brâhmans’ sacred cord (janeû). They do not keep priests of any other tribe; and have no regular temple. As already stated, the ancestor worship is done by the head of the family, who if, as is usually the case, he is a Baiga, does the worship to Sewanriya, Dharti, and Mahâdeva. Most Bhuiyârs are Baigas, and officiate in their own as well as allied tribes; in fact, as already stated, one general name for the tribe is Baiga. The tribal gods are usually worshipped under a pîpal tree, where a piece of stone represents all the deities collectively. The flesh of the offerings is eaten by the worshippers, except the head, which is the perquisite of the Baiga.

[Festivals.] 17. They have two special holidays on the tenth of the light half of Kuâr, and the Phagua or Holi at the full moon of Phâlgun, but they do not burn the Holi fire, although they will attend if Hindus in the neighbourhood celebrate the festival. On both these festivals they offer a fire sacrifice (hom), and worship the sainted dead with an offering of fowls and liquor, which they drink freely on these occasions. In order to provide for the dead in the next world they throw on the pyre with the corpse some iron implement, usually an axe, and when they bury the dead, they throw it into the grave. It is not broken; with women they place a sickle (hansua) and when they collect the ashes they throw some kodo and sâwân millet over the place as food for the dead. They so far follow Hindu practice as to have a ceremony (barsi) on the anniversary of a death. In the house worship a mud platform or stone is the dwelling place of the ghosts of the dead. Sewanriya is regarded as a jungle deity, and abides in any tree which is selected for the purpose. They never go on pilgrimages to Gaya, and have nothing analogous to the Hindu srâddha.

[Superstitions.] 18. They have a great respect for iron above all other metals. They hold the bhânja or sister’s son in great honour, and make periodical presents to him as Hindus do to a Brâhman. [106] These presents always include some iron article.

[Appearance, clothes, tattooing.] 19. Of the tribe whom he calls Bhuînhârs Colonel Dalton says:—“They are about the lowest type of human beings I have ever come across in my wanderings, and I have had more opportunities than most people of seeing varieties of race. They are very dark, (41, about the average), faces, or rather heads, altogether round as bullets, projecting jaws and lips, scarcely any prominence of nose, pig’s eyes, large bodies, and small limbs, no muscular development, very short of stature, not one of them more than five feet, very filthy in their persons, with diseased skins and sore eyes. One creature, an adult male of a group which appeared before me at Moheri, in Sarguja, looked to me like a disgustingly superannuated black baby. Baby-like, his round head rolled about his shoulders on a very short and unnaturally weak neck. You could imagine his proper place to be bundled up in a cloth slung from the shoulders of his black mother, his head helplessly rolling about after the manner of native infants thus supported. They speak Hindi plainly enough, but appear as devoid of ideas as they are of beauty. They adore the sun and their ancestors, but they have no notion that the latter are now spirits, or that there are spirits or ghosts or anything. They have no veneration for a tiger, but regard him as a dangerous enemy, whom it is their interest to slay whenever they have the opportunity. They were asked to dance, and did so; but it was a singularly feeble, motiveless performance. Men and women were scantily clothed, and appeared to take no thought for their personal appearance. The hair, uncared-for, was matted and rusty coloured. The Bhuînhârs in Palamau are said to be good cultivators; but I believe this means they are very docile farm labourers and beasts of burden. They appear to have no independence of character, and are for the most part in servitude or bondage, and content so to remain. If we have now in existence the descendants of human beings of the stone age, here I would say are specimens. They remind me much of the specimens I have seen of the Andamanese.” [107] These are certainly in every way a more degraded race than the Bhuiyârs of Mirzapur who in appearance do not seem to differ much from the other Dravidian tribes by whom they are surrounded. They rather resemble the people whom Colonel Dalton calls Boyars. “In complexion,” he says, “I found the Boyars generally of a dark brown colour, fairly proportioned, and averaging upwards of five feet in height. The features were characterised by great breadth across the cheek bones, very narrow forehead, nose broad, nostrils wide apart, but the nasal bone more prominent than in the types previously described; the mouth so wide as nearly to equal the space occupied by both eyes, lips protuberant, chin receding, but not so the brow. There was more appearance of hair on the face than is generally found amongst the tribes of this class.” [108] The Mirzapur people are also much better dressed than their Bengal kinsmen. The men wear a small loin cloth, generally have an upper sheet and a cloth wrapped round the head, the hair of which is allowed to hang down uncut and unkempt behind. The women wear the single white cotton cloth (dhoti) wrapped round the waist and brought over the shoulders. A few wear a small boddice. The women tattoo themselves in the manner common to all these aboriginal tribes. [109] There is no tribal tattoo, and the pattern employed is according to the taste of the wearer. Tattooing is invested with some religious significance; if a woman is not tattooed Paramesar pitches her down from heaven when she dies. The women wear on their arms brass rings (mâthi, bahunta), anklets (pairi), in the ears palm leaf ornaments (tarki), with beads made of clay round the neck. The men have small brass earrings.

[Omens, oaths, witchcraft, Evil Eye.] 20. Their lucky omens are the tiger and the elephant. They have not the Hindu prejudice against the south as an unlucky quarter. They swear on their sons’ heads, and if they forswear themselves their sons die. These oaths are used in enquiries into tribal matters. They are much witch-ridden. The Baigas hate people with a reputation for witchcraft (tonaya), and expel them, if possible, from their villages. Disease is usually caused by the attacks of ghosts (bhût): these are identified by the Ojha, who places some rice (achhat) before him. Then he and the patient get into an ecstacy, and the Ojha asks the bhût:—“What worship (pûja) do you require to let this man go?” Whatever he announces must be done. Dreams never mean anything except that one of the sainted dead needs propitiation. The meaning is interpreted by some old woman in the family. They believe in the Evil Eye. Anyone born on a Saturday has the power of casting it. Cases of this kind are made over to the Baiga, who sacrifices a victim and secures relief.

[Social customs.] 21. They will not touch a Dhobi, a Chamâr, Dharkâr, Dom, or Ghasiya: nor the wife of the younger brother, the wife’s elder sister, paternal uncle’s wife, and a female connection through the marriage of children (samdhin). They eat beef, but in secret they will in fact eat any meat except that of the ass, the horse, the camel, snake, lizard, rat, and jackal. Women do not eat pork, [110] and they will not cook it in the cook-house where the sainted dead are worshipped. Men and women eat apart; first the children eat, then the men, of whom the head of the family eats last, and last of all the women. They always eat in leaf vessels. They all chew tobacco: even children five and six years old may be seen chewing. All drink liquor, but drunkenness is considered discreditable. They do not use opium or the drugs bhang and gânja.

[Salutation and social status.] 22. Among themselves they salute in the form known as pâêlagi. If the husband is any time absent, on his return his wife touches his feet with her hands. Chamârs are the highest caste who will eat food touched by them. They carry their contempt for Brâhmans so far that they will not eat food touched by them, and if a Brâhman handle one of their water vessels they will pitch it out of the house. Their usual business is cutting wood and bamboos, and collecting silk cocoons, lac, dyes, and other jungle produce. It is only quite recently that they have taken to eating anything but jungle fruits. Now some of them cultivate, and as their name shows they are fond of the dahya form of cultivation, cutting and burning the jungle. They have a field goddess, Khetiyâr Devi, whom they propitiate with the offering of goat or a fowl. The women are reputed chaste in married life as far as intercourse with strangers to the caste is concerned, but there is certainly a very considerable amount of intertribal immorality. They have a fairly strong local organization which embraces some three or four villages, and is known as “the unity” (eka). The members meet occasionally to discuss matters of general interest. Its influence is said now to be decreasing. They are notorious for their laziness in field work, and for their readiness to abscond and leave their village on the first signs of scarcity.

23. The Bhuiyârs do not appear to have been separately recorded at the last Census. They have apparently been confused with the Brâhman Râjput Bhuînhârs of the Gangetic valley.

Bhurtiya.—A small tribe found, according to the last Census, only in Allahâbâd, but there are some certainly in the hill country of Mirzapur. The origin of the name is very uncertain. Mr. Nesfield without much probability derives it from bharti karna, “to lend money for short periods.” They say themselves that it comes from bhurti, which is the same as phurti, “quickness,” because one of their ancestors was once in such a hurry to go to an entertainment that she put her ornaments on all awry, and her descendants have been called Bhurtiya ever since. They claim to be an offshoot of the Ahîrs, whom they closely resemble in appearance and customs. They are very respectable, industrious people, and make their livelihood by cultivation and rearing cattle.

DISTRIBUTION OF THE BHURTIYAS ACCORDING TO THE CENSUS OF 1891.

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District. | Number.
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Allahâbâd | 423
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Bidua.—A functional division of Brâhmans, the consecrator of images and idols, wells, tanks, and mango orchards. “His name seems a corruption of Vidya, an ancient synonym for Veda. The idol intended for consecration undergoes various forms of ablution: first in water from some sacred river, then in panchamrita or ‘five drinks of immortality’—milk, cream, melted butter, honey, and sugar dissolved in holy water. No one is allowed to bathe in a tank, drink water from a well, or eat the fruit of an orchard until the above liquids have been thrown into them. Brâhmans are also fed, and the homa sacrifice performed. At such times seven places are assigned,—(a) for the navagraha, the nine planets including the sun and moon; (b) the asterisms (nakshatra); (c) the seven saints (Sapta Rishi); (d) the three hundred and thirty millions of deities of the Hindu pantheon; (e) the ancestral ghosts (pitri); (f) the deities of the quarters (dikpati, dikpâla); (g) the sacred rivers of India and of the celestial firmament.” [111]

Bihishti.—(Usually derived from Persian bihisht, Sanskrit vasishtha, “Paradise;” but Major Temple points out [112] that bihishti in Persian does not mean waterman, and suggests a derivation from the Sanskrit vish, to sprinkle.)—The Musalmân water-carrier class, also known as Saqqa, from the Arabic saqqi, “to give to drink.” The caste does not admit outsiders, and has a large number of exogamous sections, of which one hundred and twenty-six are returned in the lists of the last Census. Many of these are well-known Muhammadan sub-divisions, such as the Abbâsi, Bahlîmi, Bangash, Begi, Fârûqi, Ghori, Hanafi, Khurâsâni, Quraishi, Mughal, Pathân, Shaikh, Sadîqi, Sayyid, Turki, and Turkomân, to which none of the caste can have any real claim. Many are the names of Hindu tribes, as Bais, Banjâra, Bhatti, Chauhân, Gaur, Gûjar, Guâl, Jâdon, Janghâra, Jât, Katheriya, Mewâti, Mukeri, Panwâr, and Tomar. Others, again, are local, as Dilliwâl, Gangapâri, and Kanaujiya. These sections appear, however, to have little or no effect on marriage.

[Marriage.] 2. Their marriages are regulated by the standard Muhammadan exogamic formula, and performed by the regular ritual. The levirate is permitted, but is not compulsory. Divorce is permitted in the cause of proved infidelity on the part of the wife, established to the satisfaction of the tribal council.

[Religion.] 3. To the east of the Province they worship the Pânchonpîr with a sacrifice of a fowl, gram pulse, and ordinary food. They bury their dead according to the standard Muhammadan rules, and offer food to the spirits of ancestors at the festival of the Shab-i-barât. They are Musalmâns of the Sunni sect. They worship their leathern water bag (mashk) as a sort of fetish, and burn incense (ubân) before it on Fridays. They conform to Muhammadan rules regarding food. They will eat food prepared by high class Hindus, but not by menials like Chamârs or Mehtars.

[Occupation.] 4. Their occupation is acting as domestic servants and supplying water on payment to Muhammadans and Christians,—a duty which for Hindus is performed by the Kahâr. The trade must be a very ancient one, as the leather bag is mentioned in the Veda and Manu. [113] There is a legend that the Bihishti who saved Humâyun’s life at Chausa, and was rewarded by sitting on the Imperial throne for half a day, employed his short tenure of power in providing for his family and friends, and caused his leather bag to be cut up into rupees, which were gilt and stamped with his name and the date of his reign. The Bihishti is very seldom before the Courts, and enjoys with the Kharâdi or turner the reputation of never being sent to jail.

DISTRIBUTION OF BIHISHTIS ACCORDING TO THE CENSUS OF 1891.

Biloch, Baloch, Biluch.—Identified by Professor Max Müller [114] with the Sanskrit mlechchha, “a foreigner, outcast, non-Aryan.”—The enumeration at the last Census has failed to discriminate between two different though probably originally-allied races—the ordinary Biloch and the predatory Biloch or Rind of the Districts of the Upper Duâb. Another theory of the origin of the name is given by Colonel Möckler in a paper published in the Proceedings of the Asiatic Society of Bengal for 1893:—

“This paper is mainly concerned with the Rind, one of the tribes or clans inhabiting Balochistân. Their name signifies ‘a turbulent, reckless, daring man.’ They have never acknowledged the authority of any ruler in the country. They claim to be the true Baloch, and assert that they originally came from ‘Alaf,’ which is supposed by themselves and most other people to be Haleb or Aleppo, in Syria. They say that they are Arabs of the tribe of Quraish, and were driven out from Alaf by Yezîd I., for assisting Husain, the martyr nephew of the Prophet Muhammad in 61 Hijrah. The author shows, however, from some Arab authorities that the Baloch were established in Makran more than a century before the commencement of the Muhammadan era, certainly so if, as Firdusi relates, Naushirwân punished them in Makran in 550 A.D., and still more certainly that they were located there within 22 years after its commencement, and that therefore, if the Rinds left Aleppo in the time of Yezîd I., about 61 H., the Baloch were in Makran before that date. But it is doubtful whether the Rinds ever came from Aleppo, or that they are Baloch at all. It is much more probable that they are the descendants of a certain Al Harith Al ‘Alafi, that is of Harith of the ‘Alafi tribe, and of the Kahtanic stock of Arabs. He was the father of two men, who, according to Tabary, in a blood feud killed an officer who had been appointed by Al Hajjâj, the Governor of Irâq, to the charge of Makran, in 65 Hijrah. They had come from ‘Uman, and after the murder took possession of Makran. Subsequently, about 86 Hijrah, they retired before a punitive force of Al Hajjâj into Sindh, where their name is conspicuous in the annals of the country for the next 200 years or so. This, and other facts, show that the Rinds really are of Arab descent, but that they did not come from Aleppo, but are descended from a man of the ‘Alafi tribe who came from ‘Uman; and that they are not of the Quraish but the Kahtan stock. On account of their undoubted Arab descent, the Rinds are held in very high respect by the other clans of Baluchistân who, therefore, all claim to be related to them, through one Jalâl Khân, an ancestor of the Rinds. Among the sons of this Jalâl, Makran is said to have been divided after the death of Al Hajjâj. With regard to the name Baloch, Colonel Möckler suggests its identity with the Gedrosii of the Greeks. He says that the Baloch themselves explain their name by the phrase ‘Baloch Badroch’ (or Badrosh). Here bad means ‘evil,’ and roch or rosh means ‘day.’ In Pahlavi or Zend gad is synonymous with bad; therefore Badrosh = gadrosh or gadros, whence the Greek Gedrosii. By the interchange of the liquids r and l, badroch would become badloch, out of which the d must naturally drop leaving the Baloch = the Gadrosii, or on the other hand, the proverbial expression (Badroch Baloch) may have been current in the time of the Greeks in the form of Baloch Gadrosh, and the Greeks confused the epithet with the name.

“The latter would then be derived from Belus, King of Babylon, a derivation which is adopted by Professor Rawlinson.”

[The ordinary Biloch.] 2. Of the ordinary Biloch Mr. Ibbetson writes [115]:—“The Biloch presents in many respects a very strong contrast with his neighbour, the Pathân. The political organisation of each is tribal: but while the one yields a very large measure of obedience to a chief who is a sort of limited monarch, the other recognises no authority save that of a council of the tribe. Both have most of the virtues and many of the vices peculiar to a wild and semi-civilized life. To both hospitality is a sacred duty and the safety of the guest inviolable; both look upon the exaction of blood for blood as the first duty of man; both strictly follow a code of honour of their own, though one very different from that of modern Europe; both believe in one God whose name is Allâh, and whose Prophet is Muhammad. But the one attacks his enemy from in front, the other from behind; the one is bound by his promise, the other by his interests; in short the Biloch is less turbulent, less treacherous, less blood-thirsty, and less fanatical than the Pathân; he has less of God in his creed, and less of the devil in his nature. His frame is shorter and more spare and wiry than that of his neighbour to the north, though generations of independence have given to him a bold and manly bearing. Frank and open in his manners and without servility, fairly truthful when not corrupted by our Courts, faithful to his word, temperate and enduring, and looking upon courage as the highest virtue, the true Biloch of the Derajât frontier is one of the pleasantest men we have to deal with in the Panjâb. As a revenue-payer he is not so satisfactory, his want of industry and the pride which looks upon manual labour as degrading, making him but a poor husbandman. He is an expert rider; horse-racing is his national amusement, and the Biloch breed of horses is celebrated throughout Northern India. He is a thief by tradition and descent; but he has become much more honest under the civilising influences of our rule.

3. “His face is long and oval, his features finely cut, and his nose aquiline; he wears his hair long and usually in oily curls, and lets his beard and whiskers grow, and he is very filthy in person, considering cleanliness as a mark of effeminacy. He usually carries a sword, knife and shield, he wears a smock frock reaching to his heels and pleated about the waist, loose drawers and a long cotton scarf: and all these must be as white or as near it as dirt will allow of, insomuch that he will not enter our army because he would there be obliged to wear a coloured uniform. His wife wears a sheet over her head, a long sort of nightgown reaching to her ankles, and wide drawers; her clothes may be red or white; and she plaits her hair in a long queue. As the true Biloch is nomad in his habits, he does not seclude his women, but he is extremely jealous of female honour. In cases of detected adultery the man is killed, and the woman hangs herself by order. Even on the war trail the women and children of his enemy are safe from him. The Biloch of the Hills lives in huts or temporary camps, and wanders with his herds from place to place. In the plains he has settled in small villages; but the houses are of the poorest possible description. When a male child is born to him, ass’s dung in water, symbolical of pertinacity, is dropped from the point of a sword into his mouth before he is given the breast. A tally of lives is kept between the various tribes or families; but when the account grows complicated it can be settled by betrothals, or even by payment of cattle. The rules of inheritance do not follow the Islâmic law, but tend to keep the property in the family by confining succession to agnates; though some of the more leading and educated men are said to be trying to introduce the Muhammadan laws of inheritance into their tribes. The Biloch are nominally Musalmân, but singularly ignorant of their religion and neglectful of its rites and observances; and though they once called themselves, and were called by old historians ‘friends of Ali,’ and though, if their account of their rejection from Arabia be true, they must have been originally Shiahs, they now belong, almost without exception, to the Sunni sect. Like many other Musalmân tribes of the frontier they claim to be Quraishi Arabs by origin, while some hold them to be of Turkomân stock: their customs are said to support the latter theory; their features certainly favour the former.”

[The criminal Biloch of the North-Western Provinces.] 4. In the Muzaffarnagar District they are also known as Rind. “They originally emigrated from the Panjâb; that they are professional thieves of a dangerous character is now well established. They depart on their predatory tours assuming the character of faqîrs, physicians, and teachers of the Qurân, and carry on their depredations at great distances as far southward as Ajmere and westward as Lahore. Some few in the Muzaffarnagar District have acquired landed property; but the rest may be said to have no ostensible means of livelihood and to be habitual absentees. Their mode of robbery is not by violence, but by picking locks with needles. One thief makes an entry, receiving two-thirds of the property as his share, while his confederate, who sits outside to watch, receives one-third.” [116] The same people there called Biloch are found in Ambâla and Karnâl. “During the rainy season the whole country is inundated for months. A more suitable stronghold for a criminal tribe could not be imagined. They are almost certainly of true Biloch origin, and still give their tribal names as Rind, Lashari, Jatoi, and Korai. But they are by their habits quite distinct from both the land-owning Biloch and the camel-driver, who is so commonly called Biloch simply because he is a camel-driver. They are described as coarse-looking men of a dark colour, living in a separate quarter, and with nothing to distinguish them from the scavenger caste except a profusion of stolen ornaments and similar property. They say that their ancestors once lived beyond Kasûr, in the Lahore District, but were driven out on account of their marauding habits. The men still keep camels and cultivate a little land as their ostensible occupation; but during a great part of the year they leave the women, who are strictly secluded at home, and wander about disguised as Fakîrs or as butchers in search of sheep for sale, extending their excursions to great distances, and apparently to almost all parts of India.” [117]

DISTRIBUTION OF THE BILOCH ACCORDING TO THE CENSUS OF 1891.

Bind.—A non-Aryan tribe in the Eastern Districts of the Division, and with scattered colonies elsewhere. The name is said to be derived from the Vindhya [118] hills of Central India. One legend quoted by Mr. Risley [119] tells “how a traveller passing by the foot of the hills heard a strange flute-like sound coming out of a clump of bamboos. He cut a shoot and took from it a fleshy substance, which afterwards grew into a man, the supposed ancestor of the Binds. The myth seems to be of a totemistic character, but other traces of totemism are not forthcoming.” One account in Mirzapur makes Bind, Kewat, Mallâh, Luniya, Paskewata, Kuchbandhiya, and Musahar the descendants of Nikhâd, who was produced by the Rishis from the thigh of Râja Vena. Another Mirzapur legend tells how, in the beginning of all things, Mahâdeva made a lump of earth and endued it with life. The creature thus produced asked Mahâdeva what he should eat. The god pointed to a tank and told him to eat the fish and the wild rice (tinni) which grew near the banks. Since then this is the food of the Binds. They have no traditions of emigration from any other part of the country. The exact position of the Binds is not easily determined. About Mirzapur there are two sub-castes, Kharê and Dhusiya, the latter of whom probably take their name from Jhusi, an old town on the Ganges, in the Allahâbâd District. [120] The Kharê Binds call themselves Kewat, and there seems little doubt that they intermarry with other Kewats. Another story says Binds and Luniyas were formerly all Binds, and that the present Luniyas are descendants of a Bind who consented to dig a grave for a Muhammadan king, and was outcasted for doing so. Others, again, make out the Bind to be a sub-division of both the Bhar and Luniya. [121] There is, again, in Mirzapur, another division of them which is partly religious and partly local. The sub-caste of Kharê Binds has three septs, the Nârâyaniha, Pânchopiriha, and Maiwarha. The Nârâyaniha are worshippers of the orthodox Hindu gods, Mahâdeva, Pârvati, Mahâbîr, or Hanumân, and, in particular, Satya Nârâyan or Vishnu. The Pânchopiriha are worshippers of the five saints of Islâm, who should, according to orthodox belief, be Muhammad, ‘Ali, Bîbî Fatima, Hasan, and Husain. But most Binds name them (if they can name them at all), as Ghâzi Miyân, Rajab Sâlâr, Subhân, Parihâr, and Barahma or Barahna, who apparently represents Ibrahîm or Abraham. The Maiwarha themselves derive their name from the town of Mau in the Azamgarh District.

[Internal structure.] 2. The last Census Returns show sixty-seven sub-castes. The progress attained in the Hinduising of the tribe is shown by the use of Brâhmanical terms, like Garga, Kasipgotra, and Joshi. Chain, Kewat, Mallâh and Kharwâr are side by side with Chauhân, Gûjara, Jât, Maunas, and Râwat. The most numerous sub-castes are the Jethwant or “Senior,” and the Kasipgotra. The Kharê Binds are very strong in Benares, Mirzapur, and Ghâzipur; while the Kharwâr, Kanaujiya, and Maunas are found in some strength in Ghâzipur, Ballia, and Gorakhpur, respectively.

[Tribal organisation.] 3. They have a tribal council (panchâyat) which may be summoned by any man with whom his castemen refuse to eat on the ground of adultery, prostitution, or eating with a prohibited tribesman. It is presided over by a permanent president (mukhiya) who consults the members as assessors, but has the sole right of giving the final order, which consists, in case of conviction, of a sentence to give a certain number of feasts to the brethren. When a man seduces an unmarried girl, he and the father of his mistress give a joint feast, and the parties are then married. If a man commit adultery with a woman of a caste so respectable that high caste Hindus will drink water from their hands, he is not excommunicated, but has to give a feast. If his mistress be of a caste from whose hands high caste Hindus will not drink, he is permanently expelled.

[Marriage rules.] 4. In Mirzapur the Nârâyaniha and Pânchopiriha septs are exogamous, and intermarry on equal terms: they so far practise hypergamy that they give daughters to the Maiwarha, but do not take their daughters in return. This rule of exogamy is reinforced by the prohibition against marrying a daughter into a family into which a son has been already married; and it seems to be a general condition that marriage does not take place between families connected within the period of recollection of relationship, which is five or six generations. The two great sub-castes, Kharê and Dhusiya, are endogamous, and do not intermarry or eat together. The Mirzapur branch have now adopted adult marriages, which take place at the age of ten or twelve. [122] Polygamy is permitted, but the tendency seems to be to restrict it to the case when the first wife becomes barren. Marriages are arranged by some of the seniors of the tribe, and the parties have no power of selection. No bride-price is paid, and the giving of a dowry, though permitted and approved, is not compulsory. Polyandry and concubinage with a woman not of the tribe are prohibited. Widows are remarried by the sagâi form only to widowers, the match being arranged by the father or brother of the widow. The man goes to the house of the widow on an auspicious day, taking with him a yellow sheet and one or two articles of jewelry. These the bride puts on, and this is the binding part of the ceremony. Her new husband then eats with the relations of his wife, takes her home next day, and feeds his clansmen. Children by such a marriage are considered legitimate, and succeed on an equality with children of a regular marriage. The levirate is permitted on the usual condition, that the younger brother of the deceased husband can claim the widow: if he declines the match she can marry a stranger, and in the latter case the property of the deceased husband with his children remains in the charge of their father’s brother, who rears them and makes the property over to the sons when they attain puberty. They pretend to have a regular system of adoption like that of the higher castes: as a matter of practice, however, a sonless man can adopt only the son of his brother, and in preference of his elder brother. There is nothing peculiar about the rules of succession. Beena marriage (gharjanwai) is recognised in the case of poor people when the son-in-law lives some time on probation in the house of his father-in-law. Intertribal infidelity on the part of husband and wife is thought little of, and divorce is practically unknown, except when ill-usage of an aggravated form accompanies adultery on the part of the husband. A married woman detected in an intrigue with a man of another tribe is permanently expelled. She usually turns Muhammadan or becomes a prostitute.

[Birth ceremonies.] 5 There is no ceremony during pregnancy. The woman is delivered sitting on the ground facing any direction except the south, the region of death. She is attended by a Chamâin midwife, who cuts the cord, buries it in the room, and lights a fire over the place, which is kept burning till the twelfth day. They have the usual extreme fear of pollution from the secretions after delivery or menstruation. The midwife attends till the sixth day, when the usual chhathi ceremony is done, and the woman is kept secluded till the twelfth day (barahi) in charge of the barber’s wife, when mother and child are bathed, all the family clothes washed, the house plastered, and the earthen vessels replaced. The mother then cooks for the family, and is pure. Her husband does not cohabit with her again for two months after her confinement.

[Puberty ceremony.] 6. The ceremony which marks the reception of the child into caste after which he or she must conform to tribal rules of eating and drinking is the ear-boring, which is done in the fifth or sixth year. The occasion is marked by the use of choice food.

7. Marriage is conducted with some pretence of observing the orthodox Hindu ritual. The girl’s father commences the negotiations, and when the question of prohibited degrees is settled, then comes what corresponds to the Hindu tilak, which is called “the day for drinking water” (pânî pînê kâ din). The bride’s father visits the house of the bridegroom, and sitting on a square (chauk) in the court-yard, eats curds and treacle, which settles the match. All present are then feasted. Five days before the wedding day the ceremony of “the lucky earth” (matmangara) is done in both families in the usual way. The drum of the Chamâr, who leads the procession, is worshipped, marked with red lead and oil, and on it are placed some betel nuts and a quarter ser of poppy-seed, which are the Chamâr’s perquisite. The earth is dug by some old female relative, who brings it home and places it in the marriage shed (mânro), in the centre of which is a ploughshare (haris), and a water jar (kalsa). After this commences the anointing of the bride and bridegroom with oil and turmeric, which is started by the Pandit sprinkling it over them five times with a bunch of dûb grass. The anointing should, if possible, be done by five unmarried girls. A day previous to the wedding is the bhatwân, when the clansmen are feasted. As the procession starts the boy’s mother waves (parachhan karna) over his head a rice pounder (mûsar), or a water jar (kalsa), for good luck. When the procession arrives at the bride’s house the women of the neighbourhood receive them with a shower of rice. The bridegroom then worships Gauri and Ganesa; and the bride meanwhile bathes and puts on the clothes which the father of her future husband sends her. She then retires into an inner room, into which the bridegroom forces his way after a mimic struggle, a survival of marriage by capture, and brings her under the shed, where her father washes the feet of the bridegroom. He then marks the ploughshare with red lead, while the Pandit recites texts (mantra), and the father taking some kusa grass in his hand solemnly makes over his daughter to her husband. Then follow the usual five perambulations round the ploughshare, while at each revolution the bride’s brother pours parched rice into a winnowing fan (sûp) held by the bridegroom, who scatters it on the ground. Bride and bridegroom then go into the retiring room (kohabar), where the women play jokes on the bridegroom, and he seizes the garment of his mother-in-law and refuses to release her till she gives him a present. The wedding feast follows, and the bridegroom takes his bride home next day, after his father has first shaken one of the poles of the marriage shed, for which he receives a present (mânro hilâi) from the bride’s father. This done, the friends embrace all round and the procession starts for home. Four days after the wedding festoons (bandanwâr), and the water jug (kalsa), are taken to a neighbouring stream. The festoons are thrown into the water by the married pair, and the jar is filled with water, which is used by the bridegroom in plastering a place in front of the shrine of the local gods (dih), where he offers a fire offering (hom) with treacle and butter.

[Death ceremonies.] 8. The dead are cremated in the usual way. After the burning the relatives chew leaves of the bitter nîm tree, and then eat some treacle; next day the widow goes to a stream and washes the red lead out of the parting of her hair. Poorer people merely throw the body into a stream (prabâh), and young children are buried. For persons who die at a distance they do the nârâyani bal. They make an image of wheat flour, with a cocoanut representing his head; seeds of safflower (kusum) represent the nails and teeth; the hair of a blanket represents the hairs on the body; cowries for the eyes; some ground drug the blood, birch bark (bhojpâtra) for the skin. These are covered with three hundred and sixty palâsa leaves, and all is burnt. On the third day they shave and are pure. The Mahâpâtra is dismissed on the eleventh day, and on the twelfth the soul is admitted to the company of the sainted dead. In the case of a person dying at home, on the tenth day the chief mourner offers the balls (pinda), ten in number, in honour of the dead, and daily, during the period of death pollution, lays out a platter (dauna) filled with food along the road by which the corpse was taken to the burning ground. On the tenth day the ceremony of pouring water (tarpan) on the ground in honour of the sun is done, and the clothes of the deceased, with his other personal effects, are given to the Mahâbrâhman, who passes them on for his use in the world of the dead. The funeral feast is known as dûdh ka bhât, because on this occasion milk is mixed with the pulse, and the rice is eaten unwashed. It is only on this occasion that milk is ever cooked with pulse. The Mirzapur Binds perform a ceremony of propitiation for the dead at the village of Râmgaya, near Bindhâchal, in the month of Kuâr.

[Religion.] 9. Binds more or less follow the Brâhmanical ritual, while the esoteric doctrine, on which the whole body of symbolism depends, is entirely unknown to the votaries of the popular religion. [123] In Mirzapur their favourite deity is Mahâdeva, and they make annual pilgrimages to Baijnâth (Baidyanâth), in Shahâbâd, where they pour Ganges water over the lingam. Members of the Maiwarha sept act as special priests of the Pânchonpîr. These five saints and the local deities (dih) are generally worshipped. On the eighth day of the dark half of Kuâr, the Jiutiya, women fast. Those who belong to Nârâyaniha sub-division worship at Mau at the Sivarâtri in the month of Phâlgun, Mahâdeva, Pârvati, Mahâbîr and Satya Nârâyan or Vishnu, with offerings of cakes. Their priests are a class of low Brâhmans of Sikari, in Mirzapur. “The patron deity (kuladevata) of all Binds is Kâshi Bâba, about whom the following story is told:—A mysterious epidemic was carrying off the herds on the banks of the Ganges, and the ordinary expiatory sacrifices were ineffectual. One evening a clownish Ahîr, on going to the river, saw a figure rinsing its mouth from time to time, and making an unearthly sound with a conch shell. The lout, concluding that this must be the demon causing the epidemic, crept up and clubbed the unsuspecting bather. Kâshi Nâth was the name of the murdered Brâhman, and as the cessation of the murrain coincided with his death, the low Hindustâni castes have ever since regarded Kâshi Bâba as the maleficent spirit that sends disease among their cattle. Now-a-days he is propitiated by the following curious ceremony. As soon as an infectious disease breaks out, the village cattle are massed together, and cotton seed scattered over them. The fattest and sleekest animal being singled out, is severely beaten with rods. The herd, scared by the noise, scamper off to the nearest shelter, followed by the scape bull, and by this means it is thought the murrain is stayed. In ordinary times the Binds worship Kâshi Bâba in a simpler fashion, each man in his own house, by presenting flowers, perfumes and sweetmeats. The latter, after having done duty before the god, are eaten by the votary. Kâshi Bâba, no doubt, was an actual person, who came by his end, if not exactly as told in the legend, at least in some tragic fashion, which led to his being elevated to the rank of a god. In some of the other objects of the rural worship we may, perhaps, see survivals of the primitive animism which formed the religion of the aborigines of India before their insensible conversion to Brâhmanism. Some of the tribal deities were, as we know, promoted to seats in the Hindu pantheon: others, whose position was less prominent and whose hold on the mind of the people was weaker, got thrust into the background as patrons of various rural events.” [124]

[Festivals.] 10. In Mirzapur the Bind festivals are the Pachainiyân, Tîj, and Kajari. The last is the women’s saturnalia in the rainy season, when women get drunk, dance, sing obscene songs, and indulge in rude debauchery, which on this occasion only is condoned by their husbands.

[Social rules.] 11. They believe in the usual omens and demonology, and practice sorcery through the Ojha. The women wear palm leaf ornaments (tarki) in the ears, nose-rings, wristlets (dharkauwa), anklets (pairi). They tattoo themselves on the breast and arms, and it is believed that if they do not come into the next world with these marks, Bhagwân will pitch them out of heaven. They give children two names, one fixed by the Pandit, and the other selected by the parents. They will not touch a Chamâr, Dom, or Dharkâr, nor the wife of the younger brother, nor the mother-in-law of their children. They will not mention by name the dead, nor their wives, nor their religious preceptors (guru). After the close of the agricultural year they worship Hariyâri Devi, “the goddess of greenness,” with an offering of sweetmeats. In Bihâr the Binds eat crocodiles and field rats like the Musahars, and are very fond of pork when they can get it. [125] In Mirzapur they certainly eat field rats, but not the crocodile, at least publicly; and they pretend to have given up pork and fowls. They now do not eat beef, and rank higher in the social scale than Chamârs for this reason. They use fish largely except in the fortnight (pitri paksha) sacred to the dead in the month of Kuâr. They are certainly higher in the social grade than the Binds of Bihâr, as described by Mr. Risley, and it appears that even Brâhmans and Chhatris will drink water from their hands. They will not eat food cooked in water (kachchi) except from Brâhmans. According to another account they will not eat kachchi or pakki cooked by any other caste but their own. They salute in the pâêlagi form, and receive in return the blessing (asîs) from strangers. They salute the father-in-law of their sons or daughters in the form Râm! Râm! Women are fairly well treated, but hard worked. When a stranger comes into the house the wife falls on his feet and gives him tobacco. This is known as bhentna.

[Occupation.] 12. Some are non-occupancy tenants; many are hired ploughmen (halwâha). The usual wages are two-and-a-half sers of grain in the local weight per diem, and a special ration (sîdha) on holidays. They work, as in Bihâr, at fishing, well sinking, building mud walls, mat and basket-making, preparing saltpetre, doing earthwork on tanks and roads, watching fields and villages. But in some places they have an indifferent reputation, particularly in Gorakhpur. [126]

DISTRIBUTION OF BINDS ACCORDING TO THE CENSUS OF 1891.

==============+===========+=============+==========+=========
| Sub-castes. |
District. +~~~~~~~~~~~+~~~~~~~~~~~~~+~~~~~~~~~~+ Total.
| Jethwant. | Kasipgotra. | Others. |
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~+~~~~~~~~~~~+~~~~~~~~~~~~~+~~~~~~~~~~+~~~~~~~~~
Mathura | | | 24 | 24
Hamîrpur | | | 1 | 1
Allahâbâd | | | 25 | 25
Benares | | | 12,499 | 12,499
Mirzapur | | | 10,807 | 10,807
Ghâzipur | 2,242 | 53 | 30,178 | 32,473
Ballia | 5,910 | 30 | 465 | 6,405
Gorakhpur | 10,317 | 957 | 2,767 | 14,041
Basti | | | 552 | 552
Azamgarh | | | 8 | 8
Lucknow | | | 13 | 13
Faizâbâd | | | 1 | 1
Sultânpur | | | 137 | 137
+~~~~~~~~~~~+~~~~~~~~~~~~~+~~~~~~~~~~+~~~~~~~~~
Total | 18,469 | 1,040 | 57,477 | 76,986
==============+===========+=============+==========+=========

Bisâti—(Bisât “goods spread out for sale”; Sanskrit, visrita “extended”).—A small pedlar, hawker, or huckster, who sells petty goods of European manufacture, such as needles and pins, tape, buttons, stationery, hardware, etc. They are a purely occupational caste, and nearly all Muhammadans. According to the Census Returns they have a curious list of sectional names—Banjâra, Mughal, Râjput, and Shaikh. The Bisâti sells much the same class of goods as the Boxwâla (“the man of the box”), who hawks small ware at European houses.

DISTRIBUTION OF THE BISÂTIS ACCORDING TO THE CENSUS OF 1891.

==============+=========+==============+========
District. | Hindus. | Muhammadans. | Total.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~+~~~~~~~~~+~~~~~~~~~~~~~~+~~~~~~~~
Sahâranpur | 7 | 233 | 240
Muzaffarnagar | | 33 | 33
Meerut | 34 | 134 | 168
Bulandshahr | | 3 | 3
Aligarh | | 6 | 6
Mathura | | 7 | 7
Agra | | 11 | 11
Farrukhâbâd | | 11 | 11
Mainpuri | | 6 | 6
Bareilly | | 1 | 1
Bijnor | | 54 | 54
Budâun | | 37 | 37
Morâdâbâd | 66 | 26 | 92
Shâhjahânpur | | 2 | 2
Pilibhît | | 17 | 17
Cawnpur | | 7 | 7
Fatehpur | | 6 | 6
Hamîrpur | | 10 | 10
Allahâbâd | | 10 | 10
Jâlaun | | 32 | 32
Ballia | | 29 | 29
Gorakhpur | | 6 | 6
Tarâi | | 112 | 112
Lucknow | | 1 | 1
Râê Bareli | | 17 | 17
Sîtapur | | 1 | 1
Sultânpur | | 13 | 13
Bârabanki | | 27 | 27
+~~~~~~~~~+~~~~~~~~~~~~~~+~~~~~~~~
Total | 107 | 852 | 959
==============+=========+==============+========

Bisen.—A powerful sept of Râjputs found in considerable numbers in the Allahâbâd, Benares, Gorakhpur, and Faizâbâd Divisions. The head of the sept is the Râja of Majhauli, in Pargana Salempur Majhauli, of Gorakhpur. They as well as the Donwâr (q.v.) claim descent from one Mayûra Bhatta, who is said to have been a descendant of Jamadagni Rishi of the race of Bhrigu. Regarding this personage the local tradition is very vague. Some say he came from Hastinapur and was the son of one Aswathâma; others that he was an emigrant from Mahârâshtra or the Marhatta country. He read Sanskrit for a while at Benares, and became a proficient in astrology. Quitting that city at last under a divine impulse he settled at Kakradih, a village in Pargana Sikandarpur, of Azamgarh. The whole of that Pargana came gradually under his authority. His domestic arrangements illustrate a period when the bonds of caste, as we know them, were unknown. He is said to have had three wives,—first a Brâhmani named Nâgseni; the second Sûrajprabha, a Sûrajbans Râjputni; the third Haikumâri, a Gautam Bhuînhârin. By his wife Sûrajprabha he had a son, Biswa or Bissu Sen, who was the ancestor of the Bisen sept of Chhatris; by Haikumâri, Balkal or Bagmar Sahi, the ancestor of the Bhuînhâr families of Kuwâri and Tamkûhi; by Nâgseni, Nages, Nagesar or Nâgsen; and by a Kurmin concubine Indradawwan Mal, from whom sprang the Mals of Azamgarh, of whom a separate account will be given. He expelled the Bhars, and finally went on a pilgrimage to the Himâlaya, where he died. There are thus a family of Misr Brâhmans, and a large half Kurmi clan which claim common descent with the Majhauli Bisen family.

[The Gonda branch.] 2. “In the reign of Akbar and with the fall of the Kalhans rule, the Bisens, who subsequently, under the Râjas of Gonda, took a leading position among the trans-Ghâgra powers appear for the first time on the stage of history. The clan is one of the most numerous in Eastern Oudh, and is scattered in clusters of small Zamîndâri communities throughout the Districts of Gonda, Faizâbâd, and Partâbgarh, with the river Kuâno for its northern and the Ganges for its southern limit. Its principal seat is beyond the boundaries of Oudh at Majhauli, in Gorakhpur, and its members differ from those of many of the other ruling clans in having no recollection of a departure from some distant home in the West, and being unable to connect their countless houses by any intelligible pedigree. They admit that they are Bhûmiya Thâkurs, or indigenous, as far as they can ascertain, in their present territory. It is true that they assert their descent from a common ancestor, Mayûra Rishi; and in thus deriving themselves from a mythical religious character outside the distinctions of caste, agree with others of the less aristocratic among the local Chhatri families who are unable to claim any connection with the heroes of the Solar and Lunar races. The ties of common clanship are very vaguely recognised, and I believe that the Bisen of Majhauli has always declined to confirm them by eating with even the great homonymous chieftains of Gonda and Râmpur, in Faizâbâd. Those settled in Oudh were all of them before the time of Akbar in the position of ordinary village zamîndârs, dividing their inheritance among all the males on the ordinary coparcenary principles, and it was not till later that the title and position of Râja were acquired by a few fortunate houses to the extreme north and extreme south of their settlements. At the centre, in Faizâbâd, they always remained in a subordinate position.” [127]

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The tribes and castes of the North-Western Provinces and Oudh, Volume 2 (of 4)Chapter V: Front Matter (5)

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