Chapter 30

But the Chhattisgarh plain and the hills north and east of it are adjacent to and belong to the same tract of country as the Chota Nagpur States, which are the home of the Bhuiyas. Sir H. Risley gives Baiga as a name for a sorcerer, and as a synonym or title of the Khairwar tribe in Chota Nagpur, possibly having reference to the idea that they, being among the original inhabitants of the country, are best qualified to play the part of sorcerer and propitiate the local gods. It has been suggested in the article on Khairwar that that tribe are a mongrel offshoot of the Santals and Cheros, but the point to be noticed here is the use of the term Baiga in Chota Nagpur for a sorcerer; and a sorcerer may be taken as practically equivalent for a priest of the indigenous deities, all tribes who act in this capacity being considered as sorcerers by the Hindus. If the Bhuiyas of Chota Nagpur had the title of Baiga, it is possible that it may have been substituted for the proper tribal name on their migration to the Central Provinces. Mr. Crooke distinguishes two tribes in Mirzapur whom he calls the Bhuiyas and Bhuiyars. The Bhuiyas of Mirzapur seem to be clearly a branch of the Bhuiya tribe of Chota Nagpur, with whom their section-names establish their identity. [367] Mr. Crooke states that the Bhuiyas are distinguished with very great difficulty from the Bhuiyars with whom they are doubtless very closely connected. [368] Of the Bhuiyars [369] he writes that the tribe is also known as Baiga, because large numbers of the aboriginal local priests are derived from this caste. He also states that "Most Bhuiyars 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." [370] It seems not unlikely that these Bhuiyars are the Baigas of the Central Provinces and that they went to Mirzapur from here with the Gonds. Their original name may have been preserved or revived there, while it has dropped out of use in this Province. The name Baiga in the Central Provinces is sometimes applied to members of other tribes who serve as village priests, and, as has already been seen, it is used in the same sense in Chota Nagpur. The Baigas of Mandla are also known as Bhumia, which is only a variant of Bhuiya, having the same meaning of lord of the soil or belonging to the soil. Both Bhuiya and Bhumia are in fact nearly equivalent to our word 'aboriginal,' and both are names given to the tribe by the Hindus and not originally that by which its members called themselves. It would be quite natural that a branch of the Bhuiyas, who settled in the Central Provinces and were commonly employed as village priests by the Hindus and Gonds should have adopted the name of the office, Baiga, as their tribal designation; just as the title of Munda or village headman has become the name of one branch of the Kol tribe, and Bhumij, another term equivalent to Bhuiya, of a second branch. Mr. A. F. Hewitt, Settlement Officer of Raipur, considered that the Buniyas of that District were the same tribe as the Bhuiyas of the Garhjat States. [371] By Buniya he must apparently have meant the Bhunjia tribe of Raipur, who as already stated are an offshoot of the Baigas. Colonel Dalton describes the dances of the Bhuiyas of Chota Nagpur as follows: [372] "The men have each a wide kind of tambourine. They march round in a circle, beating these and singing a very simple melody in a minor key on four notes. The women dance opposite to them with their heads covered and bodies much inclined, touching each other like soldiers in line, but not holding hands or wreathing arms like the Kols." This account applies very closely to the Sela and Rina dances of the Baigas. The Sela dance is danced by men only who similarly march round in a circle, though they do not carry tambourines in the Central Provinces. Here, however, they sometimes carry sticks and march round in opposite directions, passing in and out and hitting their sticks against each other as they meet, the movement being exactly like the grand chain in the Lancers. Similarly the Baiga women dance the Rina dance by themselves, standing close to each other and bending forward, but not holding each other by the hands and arms, just as described by Colonel Dalton. The Gonds now also have the Sela and Rina dances, but admit that they are derived from the Baigas. Another point of some importance is that the Bhuiyas of Chota Nagpur and the Baigas and the tribes derived from them in the Central Provinces have all completely abandoned their own language and speak a broken form of that of their Hindu neighbours. As has been seen, too, the Bhuiyas are commonly employed as priests in Chota Nagpur, and there seems therefore to be a strong case for the original identity of the two tribes. [373] Both the Baigas and Bhuiyas, however, have now become greatly mixed with the surrounding tribes, the Baigas of Mandla and Balaghat having a strong Gond element.

7. Tribal sub-divisions.

In Singhbhum the Bhuiyas call themselves _Pawan-bans_ or 'The Children of the Wind,' and in connection with Hanuman's title of _Pawan-ka-put_ or 'The Son of the Wind,' are held to be the veritable apes of the Ramayana who, under the leadership of Hanuman, the monkey-god, assisted the Aryan hero Rama on his expedition to Ceylon. This may be compared with the name given to the Gonds of the Central Provinces of Rawanbansi, or descendants of Rawan, the idea being that their ancestors were the subjects of Rawan, the demon king of Ceylon, who was conquered by Rama. "All Bhuiyas," Sir H. Risley states, "affect great reverence for the memory of Rikhmun or Rikhiasan, whom they regard, some as a patron deity, others as a mythical ancestor, whose name distinguishes one of the divisions of the tribe. It seems probable that in the earliest stage of belief Rikhmun was the bear-totem of a sept of the tribe, that later on he was transformed into an ancestral hero, and finally promoted to the rank of a tribal god." The Rikhiasan Mahatwar subtribe of the Bhuiyas in the Central Provinces are named after this hero Rikhmun; the designation of Mahatwar signifies that they are the Mahtos or leaders of the Bhuiyas. The Khandaits or Paiks are another subcaste formed from those who became soldiers; in Orissa they are now, as already stated, a separate caste of fairly high rank. The Parja or 'subject people' are the ordinary Bhuiyas, probably those living in Hindu tracts. The Dhur or 'dust' Gonds, and the Parja Gonds of Bastar may be noted as a parallel in nomenclature. The Rautadi are a territorial group, taking their name from a place called Raotal. The Khandaits practise hypergamy with the Rautadi, taking daughters from them, but not giving their daughters to them. The Pabudia or Madhai are the hill Bhuiyas, and are the most wild and backward portion of the tribe. Dalton writes of them in Keonjhar: "They are not bound to fight for the Raja, though they occasionally take up arms against him. Their duty is to attend on him and carry his loads when he travels about, and so long as they are satisfied with his person and his rule, no more willing or devoted subjects could be found. They are then in Keonjhar, as in Bonai, a race whom you cannot help liking and taking an interest in from the primitive simplicity of their customs, their amenability and their anxiety to oblige; but unsophisticated as they are they wield an extraordinary power in Keonjhar, and when they take it into their heads to use that power, the country may be said to be governed by an oligarchy composed of the sixty chiefs of the Pawri Desh, the Bhuiya Highlands. A knotted string passed from village to village in the name of the sixty chiefs throws the entire country into commotion, and the order verbally communicated in connection with it is as implicitly obeyed as if it emanated from the most potent despot." This knotted string is known as _Ganthi_. The Pabudias say that their ancestors were twelve brothers belonging to Keonjhar, of whom eight went to an unknown country, while the remaining four divided among themselves all the territory of which they had knowledge, this being comprised in the four existing states of Keonjhar, Bamra, Palahara and Bonai. Any Pabudia who takes up his residence permanently beyond the boundaries of these four states is considered to lose his caste, like Hindus in former times who went to dwell in the foreign country beyond the Indus. [374] But if the wandering Pabudia returns in two years, and proves that he has not drunk water from any other caste, he is taken back into the fold. Other subdivisions are the Kati or Khatti and the Bathudia, these last being an inferior group who are said to be looked down on because they have taken food from other low castes. No doubt they are really the offspring of irregular unions.

8. Exogamus septs.

In Raigarh the Bhuiyas appear to have no exogamous divisions. When they wish to arrange a marriage they compare the family gods of the parties, and if these are not identical and there is no recollection of a common ancestor for three generations, the union is permitted. In Sambalpur, however, Mr. Mazumdar states, all Bhuiyas are divided into the following twelve septs: Thakur, or the clan of royal blood; Saont, from _samanta_, a viceroy; Padhan, a village headman; Naik, a military leader; Kalo, a wizard or priest; Dehri, also a priest; Chatria, one who carried the royal umbrella; Sahu, a moneylender; Majhi, a headman; Behra, manager of the household; Amata, counsellor; and Dandsena, a police official. The Dehrin sept still worship the village gods on behalf of the tribe.

9. Marriage customs.

Marriage is adult, but the more civilised Bhuiyas are gradually adopting Hindu usages, and parents arrange matches for their children while they are still young. Among the Pabudias some primitive customs survive. They have the same system as the Oraons, by which all the bachelors of the village sleep in one large dormitory; this is known as Dhangarbasa, _dhangar_ meaning a farmservant or young man, or Mandarghar, the house of the drums, because these instruments are kept in it. "Some villages," Colonel Dalton states, "have a Dhangaria basa, or house for maidens, which, strange to say, they are allowed to occupy without any one to look after them. They appear to have very great liberty, and slips of morality, so long as they are confined to the tribe, are not much heeded." This intimacy between boys and girls of the same village does not, however, commonly end in marriage, for which a partner should be sought from another village. For this purpose the girls go in a body, taking with them some ground rice decorated with flowers. They lay this before the elders of the village they have entered, saying, 'Keep this or throw it into the water, as you prefer.' The old men pick up the flowers, placing them behind their ears. In the evening all the boys of the village come and dance with the girls, with intervals for courtship, half the total number of couples dancing and sitting out alternately. This goes on all night, and in the morning any couples who have come to an understanding run away together for a day or two. The boy's father must present a rupee and a piece of cloth to the girl's mother, and the marriage is considered to be completed.

Among the Pabudia or Madhai Bhuiyas the bride-price consists of two bullocks or cows, one of which is given to the girl's father and the other to her brother. The boy's father makes the proposal for marriage, and the consent of the girl is necessary. At the wedding turmeric and rice are offered to the sun; some rice is then placed on the girl's head and turmeric rubbed on her body, and a brass ring is placed on her finger. The bridegroom's father says to him, "This girl is ours now: if in future she becomes one-eyed, lame or deaf, she will still be ours." The ceremony concludes with the usual feast and drinking bout. If the boy's father cannot afford the bride-price the couple sometimes run away from home for two or three days, when their parents go in search of them and they are brought back and married in the boy's house.

10. Widow-marriage and divorce.

A widow is often taken by the younger brother of the deceased husband, though no compulsion is exerted over her. But the match is common because the Bhuiyas have the survival of fraternal polyandry, which consists in allowing unmarried younger brothers to have access to an elder brother's wife during his lifetime. [375] Divorce is allowed for misconduct on the part of the wife or mutual disagreement.

11. Religion.

The Bhuiyas commonly take as their principal deity the spirit of the nearest mountain overlooking their village, and make offerings to it of butter, rice and fowls. In April they present the first-fruits of the mango harvest. They venerate the sun as Dharam Deota, but no offerings are made to him. Nearly all Bhuiyas worship the cobra, and some of them call it their mother and think they are descended from it. They will not touch or kill a cobra, and do not swear by it. In Rairakhol they venerate a goddess, Rambha Devi, who may be a corn-goddess, as the practice of burning down successive patches of jungle and sowing seed on each for two or three years is here known as _rambha_. They think that the sun and moon are sentient beings, and that fire and lightning are the children of the sun, and the stars the children of the moon. One day the moon invited the sun to dinner and gave him very nice food, so that the sun asked what it was. The moon said she had cooked her own children, and on this the sun went home and cooked all his children and ate them, and this is the reason why there are no stars during the day. But his eldest son, fire, went and hid in a _rengal_ tree, and his daughter, the lightning, darted hither and thither so that the sun could not catch her. And when night came again, and the stars came out, the sun saw how the moon had deceived him and cursed her, saying that she should die for fifteen days in every month. And this is the reason for the waxing and waning of the moon. Ever since this event fire has remained hidden in a _rengal_ tree, and when the Bhuiyas want him they rub two pieces of its wood together and he comes out. This is the Bhuiya explanation of the production of fire from the friction of wood.

12. Religious dancing.

In the month of Kartik (October), or the next month, they bring from the forest a branch of the _karm_ tree and venerate it and perform the _karma_ dance in front of it. They think that this worship and dance will cause the _karma_ tree, the mango, the jack-fruit and the mahua to bear a full crop of fruit. Monday, Wednesday and Friday are considered the proper days for worshipping the deities, and children are often named on a Friday.

13. Funeral rites and inheritance.

The dead are either buried or burnt, the corpse being placed always with the feet pointing to its native village. On the tenth day the soul of the dead person is called back to the house. But if a man is killed by a tiger or by falling from a tree no mourning is observed for him, and his soul is not brought back. To perish from snake-bite is considered a natural death, and in such cases the usual obsequies are awarded. This is probably because they revere the cobra as their first mother. The Pabudia Bhuiyas throw four to eight annas' worth of copper on to the pyre or into the grave, and if the deceased had a cow some _ghi_ or melted butter. No division of property can take place during the lifetime of either parent, but when both have died the children divide the inheritance, the eldest son taking two shares and the others one equal share each.

14. Physical appearance and occupation.

Colonel Dalton describes the Bhuiyas as, "A dark-brown, well-proportioned race, with black, straight hair, plentiful on the head, but scant on the face, of middle height, figures well knit and capable of enduring great fatigue, but light-framed like the Hindu rather than presenting the usual muscular development of the hillman." Their dress is scanty, and in the Tributary States Dalton says that the men and women all wear dresses of brown cotton cloth. This may be because white is a very conspicuous colour in the forests. They wear ornaments and beads, and are distinctive in that neither men nor women practise tattooing, though in some localities this rule is not observed by the women. To keep themselves warm at night they kindle two fires and sleep between them, and this custom has given rise to the saying, 'Wherever you see a Bhuiya he always has a fire.' In Bamra the Bhuiyas still practise shifting cultivation, for which they burn the forest growth from the hillsides and sow oilseeds in the fresh soil. This method of agriculture is called locally Khasrathumi. They obtain their lands free from the Raja in return for acting as luggage porters and coolies. In Bamra they will not serve as farm-servants or labourers for hire, but elsewhere they are more docile.

15. Social customs.

A woman divorced for adultery is not again admitted to caste intercourse. Her parents take her to their village, where she has to live in a separate hut and earn her own livelihood. If any Bhuiya steals from a Kol, Ganda or Ghasia he is permanently put out of caste, while for killing a cow the period of expulsion is twelve years. The emblem of the Bhuiyas is a sword, in reference to their employment as soldiers, and this they affix to documents in place of their signature.

Bhulia

_Bhulia, [376] Bholia, Bhoriya, Bholwa, Mihir, Mehar._--A caste of weavers in the Uriya country. In 1901 the Bhulias numbered 26,000 persons, but with the transfer of Sambalpur and the Uriya States to Bengal this figure has been reduced to 5000. A curious fact about the caste is that though solely domiciled in the Uriya territories, many families belonging to it talk Hindi in their own houses. According to one of their traditions they immigrated to this part of the country with the first Chauhan Raja of Patna, and it may be that they are members of some northern caste who have forgotten their origin and taken to a fresh calling in the land of their adoption. The Koshtas of Chhattisgarh have a subcaste called Bhoriya, and possibly the Bhulias have some connection with these. The caste sometimes call themselves Devang, and Devang or Devangan is the name of another subcaste of Koshtis. Various local derivations of the name are current, generally connecting it with _bhulna_, to forget. The Bhulias occupy a higher rank than the ordinary weavers, corresponding with that of the Koshtis elsewhere, and this is to some extent considered to be an unwarranted pretension. Thus one saying has it: "Formerly a son was born from a Chandal woman; at that time none were aware of his descent or rank, and so he was called Bhulia (one who is forgotten). He took the loom in his hands and became the brother-in-law of the Ganda." The object here is obviously to relegate the Bhulia to the same impure status as the Ganda. Again the Bhulias affect the honorific title of Meher, and another saying addresses them thus: "Why do you call yourself Meher? You make a hole in the ground and put your legs into it and are like a cow with foot-and-mouth disease struggling in the mud." The allusion here is to the habit of the weaver of hollowing out a hole for his feet as he sits before the loom, while cattle with foot-and-mouth disease are made to stand in mud to cool and cleanse the feet.

The caste have no subcastes, except that in Kalahandi a degraded section is recognised who are called Sanpara Bhulias, and with whom the others refuse to intermarry. These are, there is little reason to doubt, the progeny of illicit unions. They say that they have two _gotras_, Nagas from the cobra and Kachhap from the tortoise. But these have only been adopted for the sake of respectability, and exercise no influence on marriage, which is regulated by a number of exogamous groups called _vansa_. The names of the _vansas_ are usually either derived from villages or are titles or nicknames. Two of them, Bagh (tiger) and Kimir (crocodile), are totemistic, while two more, Kumhar (potter) and Dhuba (washerman), are the names of other castes. Examples of titular names are Bankra (crooked), Ranjujha (warrior), Kodjit (one who has conquered a score of people) and others. The territorial names are derived from those of villages where the caste reside at present. Marriage within the _vansa_ is forbidden, but some of the _vansas_ have been divided into _bad_ and _san_, or great and small, and members of these may marry with each other, the subdivision having been adopted when the original group became so large as to include persons who were practically not relations. The binding portion of the wedding ceremony is that the bridegroom should carry the bride in a basket seven times round the _hom_ or sacrificial fire. If he cannot do this, the girl's grandfather carries them both. After the ceremony the pair return to the bridegroom's village, and are made to sleep on the same bed, some elder woman of the family lying between them. After a few days the girl goes back to her parents and does not rejoin her husband until she attains maturity. The remarriage of widows is permitted, and in Native States is not less costly to the bridegroom than the regular ceremony. In Sonpur the suitor must proceed to the Raja and pay him twenty rupees for his permission, which is given in the shape of a present of rice and nuts. Similar sums are paid to the caste-fellows and the parents of the girl, and the Raja's rice and nuts are then placed on the heads of the couple, who become man and wife. Divorce may be effected at the instance of the husband or the wife's parents on the mere ground of incompatibility of temper. The position of the caste corresponds to that of the Koshtas; that is, they rank below the good cultivating castes, but above the menial and servile classes. They eat fowls and the flesh of wild pig, and drink liquor. A _liaison_ with one of the impure castes is the only offence entailing permanent expulsion from social intercourse. A curious rule is that in the case of a woman going wrong with a man of the caste, the man only is temporarily outcasted and forced to pay a fine on readmission, while the woman escapes without penalty. They employ Brahmans for ceremonial purposes. They are considered proverbially stupid, like the Koris in the northern Districts, but very laborious. One saying about them is: "The Kewat catches fish but himself eats crabs, and the Bhulia weaves loin-cloths but himself wears only a rag"; and another: "A Bhulia who is idle is as useless as a confectioner's son who eats sweetmeats, or a moneylender's son with a generous disposition, or a cultivator's son who is extravagant."

Bhunjia

1. Origin and traditions.