Chapter 44

_Dangri._ [508]--A small caste of melon and vegetable growers, whose name is derived from _dangar_ or _dangra_, a water-melon. They reside in the Wardha and Bhandara Districts, and numbered about 1800 persons in 1911. The caste is a mixed one of functional origin, and appears to be an offshoot from the Kunbis with additions from other sources. In Wardha they say that their ancestor was one of two brothers to whom Mahadeo gave the seeds of a juari plant and a water-melon respectively for sowing. The former became the ancestor of the Kunbis and the latter of the Dangris. On one occasion when Mahadeo, assuming the guise of a beggar, asked the Dangri brother for a water-melon, he refused to give it, and on this account his descendants were condemned to perpetual poverty. In fact, the Dangris, like the other market-gardening castes, are badly off, possibly on account of their common habit of marrying a number of wives, whom they utilise as labourers in their vegetable gardens; for though a wife is better than a hired labourer for their particular method of cultivation, where supervision is difficult and the master may be put to serious loss from bad work and petty pilfering, while there is also much scope for women workers; yet on the other hand polygamy tends to the breeding of family quarrels and to excessive subdivision of property. The close personal supervision which is requisite perhaps also renders it especially difficult to carry on the business of market-gardening on a large scale. In any case the agricultural holdings of the Malis and Dangris are as a rule very small. The conclusion indicated by the above story that the Dangris are an offshoot from the Kunbi caste of cultivators appears to be correct; and it is supported by the fact that they will accept food cooked with water from the Baone Kunbis. But their subcastes show that even this small body is of very heterogeneous composition; for they are divided into the Teli, the Kalar, the Kunbi and the Gadiwan Dangris, thus showing that the caste has received recruits from the Telis or oilmen and the Kalars or liquor-sellers. The Gadiwan, as their name denotes, are a separate section who have adopted the comparatively novel occupation of cart-driving for a livelihood. In Wardha there is also a small class of Panibhar or waterman Dangris who are employed as water-bearers, this occupation arising not unnaturally from that of growing melons and other crops in river-beds. And a few members of the caste have taken to working in iron. The bulk of the Dangris, however, grow melons, chillies and brinjals on the banks or in the beds of rivers; but as the melon crop is raised in a period of six weeks during the hot season, they can also undertake some ordinary cultivation. When the melons ripen the first fruits are offered to Mahadeo and given to a Brahman to ensure the success of the crop. When the melon plants are in flower, a woman must not enter the field during the period of her monthly impurity, as it is believed that she would cause the crop to wither. While it may safely be assumed that the Dangris originated from the great Kunbi caste, it may be noted that some of them tell a story to the effect that their original home was Benares, and that they came from there into the Central Provinces; hence they call themselves Kashi Dangri, Kashi being the classical name for Benares. This legend appears to be entirely without foundation, as their family names, speech and customs are alike of purely Marathi origin. But it is found among other castes also that they like to pretend that they came from Benares, the most sacred centre of Hinduism. The social customs of the Dangris resemble those of the Kunbis, and it is unnecessary to describe them in detail. Before their weddings they have a curious ceremony known as Dewat Puja. The father of the bridegroom, with an axe over his shoulder and accompanied by his wife, goes to a well or a stream. Here they clean a small space with cow-dung and make an offering of rice, flowers, turmeric and incense, after which the man, breaking his bangle from off his wrist, throws it into the water, apparently as a propitiatory offering for the success of the marriage. It is not stated what the bangle is made of, but it may be assumed that a valuable one would not thus be thrown away. As among some of the other Maratha castes, the bridegroom must be wrapped in a blanket on his journey to the bride's village. If a bachelor desires to espouse a widow he must first go through the ceremony of marriage with a swallow-wort plant. Polygamy is freely permitted, and some Dangris are known to have as many as five wives. As already stated, wives are of great assistance in gardening work, which demands much hand-labour. Divorce and the remarriage of widows are allowed. The Dangris commonly bury the dead, and they place cotton leaves over the eyes and ears of the corpse. In Bhandara they say that this is done when it is believed the dead person was possessed by an evil spirit, and there is possibly some idea of preventing the escape of the spirit from the body. In Wardha the Dangris have rather a bad reputation, and a saying current about them is '_Dangri beta puha chor_,' or 'A Dangri will steal even a shred of cotton'; but this may be a libel.

Darzi

List of Paragraphs

1. _General notice._ 2. _Subdivisions._ 3. _Sewn clothes not formerly worn._ 4. _Occupation._ 5. _Religion._

1. General notice.

_Darzi, Shimpi, Chhipi, Suji._--The occupational caste of tailors. In 1911 a total of 51,000 persons were returned as belonging to the caste in the Central Provinces and Berar. The Darzis are an urban caste and are most numerous in Districts with large towns. Mr. Crooke derives the word Darzi from the Persian _darz_, meaning a seam. The name Suji from _sui_, a needle, was formerly more common. Shimpi is the Maratha name, and Chhipi, from Chhipa a calico-printer or dyer, is another name used for the caste, probably because it is largely recruited from the Chhipas. In Bombay they say that when Parasurama was destroying the Kshatriyas, two Rajput brothers hid themselves in a temple and were protected by the priest, who set one of them to sew dresses for the idol and the other to dye and stamp them. The first brother was called Chhipi and from him the Darzis are descended, the name being corrupted to Shimpi, and the second was called Chhipa and was the ancestor of the dyers. The common title of the Darzis is Khalifa, an Arabic word meaning 'The Successor of the Prophet.' Colonel Temple says that it is not confined to them but is also used by barbers, cooks and monitors in schools. [509] The caste is of comparatively recent formation. In fact Sir D. Ibbetson wrote [510] that "Darzi, or its Hindi equivalent Suji, is purely an occupational term, and though there is a Darzi guild in every town, there is no Darzi caste in the proper acceptation of the word. The greater number of Darzis belong perhaps to the Dhobi and Chhimba castes, more especially to the latter."

2. Subdivisions.

The Darzis, however, are now recognised as a distinct caste, but their mixed origin is shown by the names of their subcastes and exogamous sections. Thus they have a Baman subdivision named after the Brahman caste. These will not take food from any other caste except Brahmans and are probably an offshoot from them. They are considered to be the highest subdivision, and next to them come the Rai or Raj Darzis. Another subcaste is named Kaithia, after the Kayasths, and a third Srivastab, which is the name of a well-known subcaste of Kayasths derived from the town of Sravasti, now Sahet Mahet in the Gonda District. [511] In Betul the Srivastab Darzis are reported to forbid the remarriage of widows, thus showing that they desire to live up to their distinguished ancestry. A third subcaste is known as Chamarua and appears to be derived from the Chamars. Other subcastes are of the territorial type as Malwi, Khandeshi, Chhattisgarhi, Mathuria and so on, and the section or family names are usually taken from villages. Among them, however, we find Jugia from Jogi, Thakur or Rajput, Gujar, Khawas or barber, and Baroni, the title of a female Dhimar. Mr. Crooke gives several other names.

3. Sewn clothes not formerly worn.

It may thus reasonably be concluded that the Darzis are a caste of comparatively recent origin, and the explanation is probably that the use of the needle and thread in making clothes is a new fashion. Buchanan remarks: "The needle indeed seems to have been totally unknown to the Hindus, and I have not been able to learn any Hindi word for sewing except that used to express passing the shuttle in the act of weaving...." "Cloth composed of several pieces sewn together is an abomination to the Hindus, so that every woman of rank when she eats, cooks or prays, must lay aside her petticoat and retain only the wrapper made without the use of scissors or needle"; and again, "The dress of the Hindu men of rank has become nearly the same with that of the Muhammadans [512] who did not allow any officer employed by them to appear at their _levées_ (Durbars) except in proper dress. At home, however, the Hindu men, and on all occasions their women, retain almost entirely their native dress, which consists of various pieces of cloth wrapped round them without having been sewn together in any form, and only kept in their place by having their ends thrust under the folds." And elsewhere he states: "The flowering of cotton cloth with the needle has given a good deal of employment to the Muhammadan women of Maldeh as the needle has never been used by the Hindus." [513] Darzi, as has been seen, is a Persian word, and in northern India many tailors are Muhammadans. And it seems, therefore, a possible hypothesis that the needle and the art of sewing were brought into general use by the Moslem invaders. It is true that in his _Indo-Aryans_ [514] Mr. Rajendra Lal Mitra combats this hypothesis and demonstrates that made-up clothes were known to the Aryans of the Rig-Veda and are found in early statuary. But he admits that the instances are not numerous, and it seems likely that the use of such clothes may have been confined to royal and aristocratic families. It is possible also that the Scythian invasions of the fifth century brought about a partial relapse from civilisation, during which certain arts and industries, and among them that of cutting and sewing cloth, were partially or completely lost. The tailor is not the familiar figure in Hindu social life that he is, for example, in England. Here he is traditionally an object or butt for ridicule as in the saying, 'Nine tailors make a man,' and so on; and his weakness is no doubt supposed to be due to the fact that he pursues a sedentary indoor occupation and one more adapted to women than men, the needle being essentially a feminine implement. A similar ridicule, based no doubt on exactly the same grounds, attaches in India to the village weaver, as is evidenced by the proverbs given in the articles on Bhulia, Kori, and Jolaha. No reason exists probably for the contempt in which the weaver class is held other than that their work is considered to be more fitting for women than men. Thus in India the weaver appears to take the place of the tailor, and this leads to the conclusion that woven and not sewn clothes have always been commonly worn.

In the Central Provinces, at least, the Darzi caste is practically confined to the towns, and though cotton jackets are worn even by labourers and shirts by the better-to-do, these are usually bought ready-made at the more important markets. Women, more conservative in their dress than men, have only one garment prepared with the needle, the small bodice known as _choli_ or _angia_. And in Chhattisgarh, a landlocked tract very backward in civilisation, the _choli_ has hitherto not been worn and is only now being introduced. Though he first copied the Muhammadan and now shows a partiality for the English style of dress for outdoor use, the Hindu when indoors still reverts to the one cloth round the waist and a second over the shoulders, which was probably once the regular garb of his countrymen. For meals the latter is discarded, and this costume, so strange to English ideas, while partly based on considerations of ceremonial purity, may also be due to a conservative adherence to the ancient fashion, when sewn clothes were not worn. It is noticeable also that high-caste Hindus, though they may wear a coat of cloth or tasar silk and cotton trousers, copying the English, still often carry the _dupatta_ or shoulder-cloth hanging round the neck. This now appears a useless encumbrance, but may be the relic of the old body-cloth and therefore interesting as a survival in dress, like the buttons on the back of our tail-coats to which the flaps were once hooked up for riding, or the seams on the backs of gloves, a relic of the time when the glove consisted simply of finger-lengths sewn together. [515] More recently the _dupatta_ has been made to fulfil the function of a pocket-handkerchief, while the educated are now discarding the _dupatta_ and carry their handkerchiefs in their pockets. The old dress of ceremony for landowners is the _angarkha_, a long coat reaching to the knees and with flaps folding over the breast and tied with strings. This is worn with pyjamas and is probably the Muhammadan ceremonial costume as remarked by Buchanan. In its correct form, at, least it has no buttons, and recalls the time when a similar state of things prevailed in English dress and the 'trussing of his points' was a laborious daily task for every English gentleman. The _ghundis_ or small pieces of cloth made up into a ball, which were the precursors of the button, may still be seen on the cotton coats of rustics in the rural area.

The substitution of clothes cut and sewn to fit the body for draped clothes is a matter of regret from an artistic or picturesque point of view, as the latter have usually a more graceful appearance. This is shown by the difficulty of reproducing modern clothes in statuary, trousers being usually the despair of the sculptor. But sewn clothes, when once introduced, must always prevail from considerations of comfort. When a Hindu pulls his _dhoti_ or loin-cloth up his legs and tucks it in round his hips in order to run or play a game he presumably performs the act described in the Bible as 'girding up his loins.'

4. Occupation.

The social customs of the Darzis present no features of special interest and resemble those of the lower castes in their locality. They rank below the cultivating castes, and Brahmans will not take water from their hands. Though not often employed by the Hindu villager the Darzi is to Europeans one of the best known of all castes. He is on the whole a capable workman and especially good at copying from a pattern. His proficiency in this respect attracted notice so long ago as 1689, as shown in an interesting quotation in the _Bombay Gazetteer_ referring to the tailors of Surat: [516] "The tailors here fashion clothes for the Europeans, either men or women, according to every mode that prevails, and fit up the commodes and towering head-dresses for the women with as much skill as if they had been an Indian fashion, or themselves had been apprenticed at the Royal Exchange. (The commode was a wire structure to raise the cap and hair.)" Since then the Darzi has no doubt copied in turn all the changes of English fashions. He is a familiar figure in the veranda of the houses of Europeans, and his idiosyncrasies have been delightfully described by Eha in _Behind the Bungalow_. His needles and pins are stuck into the folds of his turban, and Eha says that he is bandy-legged because of the position in which he squats on his feet while sewing. In Gujarat the tailor is often employed in native households. "Though even in well-to-do families," Mr. Bhimbhai Kirparam writes, [517] "women sew their bodices and young children's clothes for everyday wear, every family has its own tailor. As a rule tailors sew in their own houses, and in the tailor's shop may be seen workmen squatting in rows on a palm-leaf mat or on cotton-stuffed quilts. The wives and sons' wives of the head of the establishment sit and work in the shop along with the men. Their busy time is during the marriage season from November to June. A village tailor is paid either in cash or grain and is not infrequently a member of the village establishment. During the rains, the tailor's slack season, he supplements his earnings by tillage, holding land which Government has continued to him on payment of one-half the ordinary rental. In south Gujarat, in the absence of Brahmans, a Darzi officiates at Bhawad marriages, and in some Brahman marriages a Darzi is called with some ceremony to sew a bodice for the bride. On the other hand, in the Panch Mahals and Rewa Kantha, besides tailoring Darzis blow trumpets at marriage and other processions and hold so low a position that even Dhedas object to eat their food." It seems clear that in Gujarat the Darzi caste is of older standing than in northern India, and it is possible that the art of sewing may have been acquired through the sea trade which was carried on between the western coast and Arabia and the Persian Gulf. Here the Darzi has become a village menial, which he is not recorded as being in any other part of India.

5. Religion.

Like the weaver, the Darzi is of a somewhat religious turn of mind, probably on account of his sedentary calling which gives him plenty of time for reflection. Many of them belong to the Namdeo sect, originated by a Chhipa or dyer, Namdeo Sadhu. Namdeo is said to have been a contemporary of Kabir and to have flourished in the twelfth or thirteenth century. He was a great worshipper of the god Vithoba of Pandharpur and is considered by the Marathas to be their oldest writer, being the author of many Abhangs, or sacred hymns. [518] He preached the unity of God, recognising apparently Vithoba or Vishnu as the one deity, and the uselessness of ceremonial. His followers are mainly Dhobis and Chhipas, the two principal castes from whom the Darzis have originated. [519] Namdeo's sect was thus apparently a protest on the part of the Chhipas and Dhobis against their inferior position in the caste system and the tyranny of the Brahmans, and resembled the spiritual revolt of the weavers under Kabir and of the Chamars under Ghasi Das and Jagjiwan Das.

In Berar it is stated [520] that "the Simpi caste has twelve and a half divisions; of these the chief are known as the Jain, Marathi and Telugu Simpis. The Jain Simpis claim the hero Riminath as a caste-fellow, while the Marathas are often Lingayats and the Telugu division generally Vaishnavas." Before beginning work in the morning the Darzi bows to his scissors or needle and prays to them for his livelihood for that day.

The Darzi's occupation, Mr. Crooke remarks, is a poor one and held rather in contempt. The village proverb runs, '_Darzi ka put jab tak jita tab tak sita_,' 'The tailor's boy will do nothing but sew all his life long.' Another somewhat more complimentary saying is, '_Tanak si suiya tak tak kare aur lakh taka ko banj kare_,' or 'The tiny needle goes _tuk tuk_, and makes merchandise worth a lakh of rupees.' The Hindustani version of both proverbs is obviously intended to give the sound of a needle passing through cloth, and it is possible that our word 'tuck' has the same origin.

Dewar

1. General notice.

_Dewar._ [521]--(Derived from Devi, whom they worship, or from Diabar, 'One who lights a lamp,' because they always practise magic with a lighted lamp.) A Dravidian caste of beggars and musicians. They numbered about 2500 persons in 1911 and are residents of the Chhattisgarh plain. The Dewars themselves trace their origin from a Binjhia named Gopal Rai, who accompanied Raja Kalyan Sai of Ratanpur on a visit to the Court of Delhi in Akbar's time. Gopal Rai was a great wrestler, and while at Delhi he seized and held a _mast_ elephant belonging to the Emperor. When the latter heard of it he ordered a wrestling match to be arranged between Gopal Rai and his own champion wrestler. Gopal Rai defeated and killed his opponent, and Kalyan Sai ordered him to compose a triumphal song and sing it in honour of the occasion. He composed his song in favour of Devi Maha Mai, or Devi the Great Mother, and the composition and recitation of similar songs has ever since been the profession of his descendants the Dewars. The caste is, as is shown by the names of its sections, of mixed origin, and its members are the descendants of Gonds and Kawars reinforced probably by persons who have been expelled from their own caste and have become Dewars. They will still admit persons of any caste except the very lowest.

2. Subdivisions.

The caste has two principal divisions according to locality, named Raipuria and Ratanpuria, Raipur and Ratanpur having been formerly the two principal towns of Chhattisgarh. Within these are several other local subdivisions, _e.g._ Navagarhia or those belonging to Nawagarh in Bilaspur, Sonakhania from Sonakhan south of the Mahanadi, Chatarrajiha from Chater Raj, in Raipur, and Sarangarhia from Sarangarh State. Some other divisions are either occupational or social; thus the Baghurra Dewars are those who tame tigers and usually live in the direction of Bastar, the Baipari Dewars are petty traders in brass or pewter ornaments which they sell to Banjara women, and the Lohar and Jogi Dewars may be so called either because their ancestors belonged to these castes, or because they have adopted the profession of blacksmiths and beggars respectively. Probably both reasons are partly applicable. These subdivisions are not strictly endogamous, but show a tendency to become so. The two main subcastes, Raipuria and Ratanpuria, are distinguished by the musical instruments which they play on while begging. That of the Raipurias is a sort of rude fiddle called _sarangi_, which has a cocoanut shell as a resonator with horsehair strings, and is played with a bow. The Ratanpurias have an instrument called _dhungru_, which consists of a piece of bamboo about three feet long with a hollow gourd as a resonator and catgut strings. In the latter the resonator is held uppermost and rests against the shoulder of the player, while in the former it is at the lower end and is placed against his waist. The section names of the Dewars are almost all of Dravidian origin. Sonwania, Markam, Marai, Dhurwa, Ojha, Netam, Salam, Katlam and Jagat are the names of well-known Gond septs which are also possessed by the Dewars, and Telasi, Karsayal, Son-Mungir and others are Kawar septs which they have adopted. They admit that their ancestors were members of these septs among the Gonds and Kawars. Where the name of the ancestor has a meaning which they understand, some totemistic observances survive. Thus the members of the Karsayal sept will not kill or eat a deer. The septs are exogamous, but there is no other restriction on marriage and the union of first cousins is permissible.

3. Marriage customs.