Part 2

Gadba, Gadaba. [5]--A primitive tribe classified as Mundari or Kolarian on linguistic grounds. The word Gadba, Surgeon-Major Mitchell states, signifies a person who carries loads on his shoulders. The tribe call themselves Guthau. They belong to the Vizagapatam District of Madras, and in the Central Provinces are found only in the Bastar State, into which they have immigrated to the number of some 700 persons. They speak a Mundari dialect, called Gadba, after their tribal name, and are one of the two Mundari tribes found so far south as Vizagapatam, the other being the Savars. [6] Their tribal organisation is not very strict, and a Bhatra, a Parja, a Muria, or a member of any superior caste may become a Gadba at an expenditure of two or three rupees. The ceremony consists of shaving the body of the novice, irrespective of sex, clean of hair, after which he or she is given to eat rice cooked in the water of the Ganges. This is followed by a feast to the tribe in which a pig must be killed. The Gadbas have totemistic exogamous septs, usually named after animals, as gutal dog, angwan bear, dungra tortoise, surangai tiger, gumal snake, and so on. Members of each sept abstain from killing or injuring the animal or plant after which it is named, but they have no scruple in procuring others to do this. Thus if a snake enters the hut of a person belonging to the Gumal sept, he will call a neighbour of another sept to kill it. He may not touch its carcase with his bare hand, but if he holds it through a piece of rag no sin is incurred.

2. Marriage.

Marriage is adult, but the rule existing in Madras that a girl is not permitted to marry until she can weave her own cloth does not obtain in the Central Provinces. [7] As a rule the parents of the couple arrange the match, but the wishes of the girl are sometimes consulted and various irregular methods of union are recognised. Thus a man is permitted with the help of his friends to go and carry off a girl and keep her as his wife, more especially if she is a relation on the maternal side more distant than a first cousin. Another form is the Paisa Mundi, by which a married or unmarried woman may enter the house of a man of her caste other than her husband and become his wife; and the Upaliya, when a married woman elopes with a lover. The marriage ceremony is simple. The bridegroom's party go to the girl's house, leaving the parents behind, and before they reach it are met and stopped by a bevy of young girls and men in their best clothes from the bride's village. A girl comes forward and demands a ring, which one of the men of the wedding party places on her finger, and they then proceed to the bride's house, where the bridegroom's presents, consisting of victuals, liquor, a cloth, and two rupees, are opened and carefully examined. If any deficiency is found, it must at once be made good. The pair eat a little food together, coloured rice is applied to their foreheads, and on the second day a new grass shed is erected, in which some rice is cooked by an unmarried girl. The bride and bridegroom are shut up in this, and two pots of water are poured over them from the roof, the marriage being then consummated. If the girl is not adult this ceremony is omitted. Widow-marriage is permitted by what is called the tika form, by which a few grains of rice coloured with turmeric are placed on the foreheads of the pair and they are considered as man and wife. There is no regular divorce, but if a married woman misbehaves with a man of the caste, the husband goes to him with a few friends and asks whether the story is true, and if the accusation is admitted demands a pig and liquor for himself and his friends as compensation. If these are given he does not turn his wife out of his house. A liaison of a Gadba woman with a man of a superior caste is also said to involve no penalty, but if her paramour is a low-caste man she is excommunicated for ever. In spite of these lax rules, however, Major Mitchell states that the women are usually very devoted to their husbands. Mr. Thurston [8] notes that among the Bonda Gadabas a young man and a maid retire to the jungle and light a fire. Then the maid, taking a burning stick, places it on the man's skin. If he cries out he is unworthy of her, and she remains a maid. If he does not, the marriage is at once consummated. The application of the brand is probably light or severe according to the girl's feelings towards the young man.

3. Religious beliefs and festivals.

The Gadbas worship Burhi Mata or Thakurani Mata, who is the goddess of smallpox and rinderpest. They offer to her flowers and incense when these diseases are prevalent among men or cattle, but if the epidemic does not abate after a time, they abuse the goddess and tell her to do her worst, suspending the offerings. They offer a white cock to the sun and a red one to the moon, and various other deities exercise special functions, Bhandarin being the goddess of agriculture and Dharni of good health, while Bharwan is the protector of cattle and Dand Devi of men from the attacks of wild beasts. They have vague notions of a heaven and hell where the sinful will be punished, and also believe in re-birth. But these ideas appear to be borrowed from their Hindu neighbours. When the new rice crop is ripe, the first-fruits are cooked and served to the cattle in new bamboo baskets, and are then partaken of by men. The ripening of the mango crop is also an important festival. In the bright fortnight of Chait (March) the men go out hunting, and on their return cook the game before Matideo, the god of hunting, who lives in a tree. In Madras the whole male population turn out to hunt, and if they come back without success the women pelt them with cowdung on their return. If successful, however, they have their revenge on the women in another way. [9] On festival days men and women dance together to the music of a pipe and drum. Sometimes they form a circle, holding long poles, and jump backwards and forwards to and from the centre by means of the pole; or the women dance singly or in pairs, their hands resting on each other's waists. A man and woman will then step out of the crowd and sing at each other, the woman reflecting on the man's ungainly appearance and want of skill as a cultivator or huntsman, while the man retorts by reproaching her with her ugliness and slatternly habits. [10]

4. Disposal of the dead.

The dead are buried with their feet to the west, ready to start for the region of the setting sun. On their return from the funeral the mourners stop on the way, and a fish is boiled and offered to the dead. An egg is cut in half and placed on the ground, and pieces of mango bark are laid beside it on which the mourners tread. The women accompany the corpse, and in the meantime the house of the dead person is cleaned with cowdung by the children left behind. On the first day food is supplied to the mourners by their relatives, and in the evening some cooked rice and vegetables are offered to the dead. The mourning lasts for nine days, and on the last day a cow or bullock is killed with the blunt head of an axe, the performance of this function being hereditary in certain families of the caste. Some blood from the animal and some cooked rice are put in leaf-cups and placed on the grave by the head of the corpse. The animal is cooked and eaten by the grave, and they then return to the cooking shed and place its jawbone under a stick supported on two others, blood and cooked rice being again offered. The old men and women bathe in warm water, and all return to the place where the dead man breathed his last. Here they drink and have another meal of rice and beef, which is repeated on the following day, and the business of committing the dead to the ancestors is complete. Liquor is offered to the ancestors on feast days.

5. Occupation and mode of living.

The caste are cultivators and labourers, while some are employed as village watchmen, and others are hereditary palki-bearers to the Raja of Bastar, enjoying a free grant of land. They practise shifting cultivation, cleaning a space by indiscriminate felling in the forest, and roughly ploughing the ground for a single broad-cast crop of rice; in the following year the clearing is usually abandoned. Their dress is simple, though they now wear ordinary cloth. Forty years ago it is said that they wore coverings made from the bark of the kuring tree and painted with horizontal bands of red, yellow and blue. [11] A girdle of the thickness of a man's arm made from fine strips of bark is still worn and is a distinguishing feature of the Gadba women. They also carry a circlet round their forehead of the seeds of kusa grass threaded on a string. Both men and women wear enormous earrings, the men having three in each ear. The Gadbas are almost omnivorous, and eat flesh, fish, fowls, pork, buffaloes, crocodiles, non-poisonous snakes, large lizards, frogs, sparrows, crows and large red ants. They abstain only from the flesh of monkeys, horses and asses. A Gadba must not ride on a horse under penalty of being put out of caste. Mr. Thurston [12] gives the following reason for this prejudice:--"The Gadbas of Vizagapatam will not touch a horse, as they are palanquin-bearers, and have the same objection to a rival animal as a cart-driver has to a motor-car." They will eat the leavings of other castes and take food from all except the impure ones, but like the Mehtars and Ghasias elsewhere they will not take food or water from a Kayasth. Only the lowest castes will eat with Gadbas, but they are not considered as impure, and are allowed to enter temples and take part in religious ceremonies.

Ganda

1. Distribution and origin.

Ganda.--A servile and impure caste of Chota Nagpur and the Uriya Districts. They numbered 278,000 persons in 1901, resident largely in Sambalpur and the Uriya States, but since the transfer of this territory to Bengal, only about 150,000 Gandas remain in the Central Provinces in Raipur, Bilaspur and Raigarh. In this Province the Gandas have become a servile caste of village drudges, acting as watchmen, weavers of coarse cloth and musicians. They are looked on as an impure caste, and are practically in the same position as the Mehras and Chamars of other Districts. In Chota Nagpur, however, they are still in some places recognised as a primitive tribe, [13] being generally known here as Pan, Pab or Chik. Sir H. Risley suggests that the name of Ganda may be derived from Gond, and that the Pans may originally have been an offshoot of that tribe, but no connection between the Gandas and Gonds has been established in the Central Provinces.

2. Caste subdivisions.

The subcastes reported differ entirely from those recorded in Orissa. In the Central Provinces they are mainly occupational. Thus the Bajna or Bajgari are those who act as musicians at feasts and marriages; the Mang or Mangia make screens and mats, while their women serve as midwives; the Dholias make baskets; the Doms skin cattle and the Nagarchis play on nakkaras or drums. Panka is also returned as a subcaste of Ganda, but in the Central Provinces the Pankas are now practically a separate caste, and consist of those Gandas who have adopted Kabirpanthism and have thereby obtained some slight rise in status. In Bengal Sir H. Risley mentions a group called Patradias, or slaves and menials of the Khonds, and discusses the Patradias as follows:--"The group seems also to include the descendants of Pans, who sold themselves as slaves or were sold as Merias or victims to the Khonds. We know that an extensive traffic in children destined for human sacrifice used to go on in the Khond country, and that the Pans were the agents who sometimes purchased, but more frequently kidnapped, the children, whom they sold to the Khonds, and were so debased that they occasionally sold their own offspring, though they knew of course the fate that awaited them. [14] Moreover, apart from the demand for sacrificial purposes, the practice of selling men as agricultural labourers was until a few years ago by no means uncommon in the wilder parts of the Chota Nagpur Division, where labour is scarce and cash payments are almost unknown. Numbers of formal bonds have come before me, whereby men sold themselves for a lump sum to enable them to marry." The above quotation is inserted merely as an interesting historical reminiscence of the Pans or Gandas.

3. Marriage.

The Gandas have exogamous groups or septs of the usual low-caste type, named after plants, animals or other inanimate objects. Marriage is prohibited within the sept, and between the children of two sisters, though the children of brothers and sisters may marry. If a girl arrives at maturity without a husband having been found for her, she is wedded to a spear stuck up in the courtyard of the house, and then given away to anybody who wishes to take her. A girl going wrong with a man of the caste is married to him by the ceremony employed in the case of widows, while her parents have to feed the caste. But a girl seduced by an outsider is permanently expelled. The betrothal is marked by a present of various articles to the father of the bride. Marriages must not be celebrated during the three rainy months of Shrawan, Bhadon or Kunwar, nor during the dark fortnight of the month, nor on a Saturday or Tuesday. The marriage-post is of the wood of the mahua tree, and beneath it are placed seven cowries and seven pieces of turmeric. An elderly male member of the caste known as the Sethia conducts the ceremony, and the couple go five times round the sacred pole in the morning and thrice in the evening. When the bride and bridegroom return home after the wedding, an image of a deer is made with grass and placed behind the ear of the bride. The bridegroom then throws a toy arrow at it made of grass or thin bamboo, and is allowed seven shots. If he fails to knock it out of her ear after these the bride's brother takes it and runs away and the bridegroom must follow and catch him. This is clearly a symbolic process representing the chase, of the sort practised by the Khonds and other primitive tribes, and may be taken as a reminiscence among the Gandas of their former life in the forests. The remarriage of widows is permitted, and the younger brother of the deceased husband takes his widow if he wishes to do so. Otherwise she may marry whom she pleases. A husband may divorce his wife for adultery before the caste committee, and if she marries her lover he must repay to the husband the expenses incurred by the latter on his wedding.

4. Religion.

The Gandas principally worship Dulha Deo, the young bridegroom who was carried off by a tiger, and they offer a goat to him at their weddings. They observe the Hindu fasts and festivals, and at Dasahra worship their musical instruments and the weaver's loom. Being impure, they do not revere the tulsi plant nor the banyan or pipal trees. Children are named on the sixth day after birth without any special ceremony. The dead are generally buried from motives of economy, as with most families the fuel required for cremation would be a serious item of expenditure. A man is laid on his face in the grave and a woman on her back. Mourning is observed for three days, except in the case of children under three years old, whose deaths entail no special observances. On the fourth day a feast is given, and when all have been served, the chief mourner takes a little food from the plate of each guest and puts it in a leaf-cup. He takes another leaf-cup full of water and places the two outside the house, saying 'Here is food for you' to the spirit of the departed.

5. Occupation and social status.

The Gandas are generally employed either in weaving coarse cloth or as village musicians. They sing and dance to the accompaniment of their instruments, the dancers generally being two young boys dressed as women. They have long hair and put on skirts and half-sleeved jackets, with hollow anklets round their feet filled with stones to make them tinkle. On their right shoulders are attached some peacocks' feathers, and coloured cloths hang from their back and arms and wave about when they dance. Among their musical instruments is the sing-baja, a single drum made of iron with ox-hide leather stretched over it; two horns project from the sides for purposes of decoration and give the instrument its name, and it is beaten with thick leather thongs. The dafla is a wooden drum open on one side and covered with a goat-skin on the other, beaten with a cane and a bamboo stick. The timki is a single hemispherical drum of earthenware; and the sahnai is a sort of bamboo flute. The Gandas of Sambalpur have strong criminal tendencies which have recently called for special measures of repression. Nevertheless they are usually employed as village watchmen in accordance with long-standing custom. They are considered as impure and, though not compelled actually to live apart from the village, have usually a separate quarter and are not permitted to draw water from the village well or to enter Hindu temples. Their touch defiles, and a Hindu will not give anything into the hands of one of the caste while holding it himself, but will throw it down in front of the Ganda, and will take anything from him in the same manner. They will admit outsiders of higher rank into the caste, taking from them one or two feasts. And it is reported that in Raipur a Brahman recently entered the caste for love of a Ganda girl.

Gandhmali

Gandhmali, [15] Thanapati.--The caste of village priests of the temples of Siva or Mahadeo in Sambalpur and the Uriya States. They numbered about 700 persons in the Central Provinces in 1911. The caste appears to be an offshoot of the Malis or gardeners, differentiated from them by their special occupation of temple attendants. In Hindustan the priests of Siva's temples in villages are often Malis, and in the Maratha country they are Guraos, another special caste, or Phulmalis. Some members of the caste in Sambalpur, however, aspire to Rajput origin and wear the sacred thread. These prefer the designation of Thanapati or 'Master of the sacred place,' and call the others who do not wear the thread Gandhmalis. Gandh means incense. The Thanapatis say that on one occasion a Rajput prince from Jaipur made a pilgrimage to the temple of Jagannath at Puri, and on his return stopped at the celebrated temple of Mahadeo at Huma near Sambalpur. Mahadeo appeared before the prince and asked him to become his priest; the Rajput asked to be excused as he was old, but Mahadeo promised him three sons, which he duly obtained and in gratitude dedicated them to the service of the god. From these sons the Thanapatis say that they are descended, but the claim is no doubt quite illusory. The truth is, probably, that the Thanapatis are priests of the temples situated in towns and large villages, and owing to their calling have obtained considerable social estimation, which they desire to justify and place on an enduring basis by their claim to Rajput ancestry; while the Gandhmalis are village priests, more or less in the position of village menials and below the cultivating castes, and any such pretensions would therefore in their case be quite untenable. There are signs of the cessation of intermarriage between the two groups, but this has not been brought about as yet, probably owing to the paucity of members in the caste and the difficulty of arranging matches. Three functional subdivisions also appear to be in process of formation, the Pujaris or priests of Mahadeo's temples, the Bandhadias or those who worship him on the banks of tanks, and the Mundjhulas [16] or devotees of the goddess Somlai in Sambalpur, on whom the inspiration of the goddess descends, making them shake and roll their heads. When in this state they are believed to drink the blood flowing from goats sacrificed in the temple. For the purposes of marriage the caste is divided into exogamous groups or bargas, the names of which are usually titles or designations of offices. Marriage within the barga is prohibited. When the bride is brought to the altar in the marriage ceremony, she throws a garland of jasmine flowers on the neck of the bridegroom. This custom resembles the old Swayamwara form of marriage, in which a girl chose her own husband by throwing a garland of flowers round his neck. But it probably has no connection with this and merely denotes the fact that the caste are gardeners by profession, similar ceremonies typifying the caste calling being commonly performed at marriages, especially among the Telugu castes. Girls should be married before adolescence and, as is usual among the Uriya castes, if no suitable husband is forthcoming a symbolic marriage is celebrated; the Thanapatis make her go through the form with her maternal grandfather or sister's husband, and in default of them with a tree. She is then immediately divorced and disposed of as a widow. Divorce and the remarriage of widows are permitted. A bachelor marrying a widow must first go through the ceremony with a flower. The Gandhmalis, as the priests of Mahadeo, are generally Saivas and wear red clothes covered with ochre. They consider that their ultimate ancestor is the Nag or cobra and especially observe the festival of Nag-Panchmi, abstaining from any cooked food on that day. They both burn and bury the dead and perform the shraddh ceremony or the offering of sacrificial cakes. They eat flesh but do not drink liquor. Their social position is fairly good and Brahmans will take water from their hands. Many of them hold free grants of land in return for their services at the temples. A few are ordinary cultivators.

Garpagari

1. Origin of the caste.

Garpagari. [17]--A caste of village menials whose function it is to avert hailstorms from the crops. They are found principally in the Maratha Districts of the Nagpur country and Berar, and numbered 9000 persons in 1911. The name is derived from the Marathi gar, hail. The Garpagaris are really Naths or Jogis who have taken to this calling and become a separate caste. They wear clothes coloured with red ochre, and a garland of rudraksha beads, and bury their dead in a sitting posture. According to their tradition the first Garpagari was one Raut, a Jogi, who accompanied a Kunbi malguzar on a visit to Benares, and while there he prophesied that on a certain day all the crops of their village would be destroyed by a hailstorm. The Kunbi then besought him to save the crops if he could, and he answered that by his magic he could draw off the hail from the rest of the village and concentrate it in his own field, and he agreed to do this if the cultivators would recompense him for his loss. When the two came home to their village they found that there had been a severe hailstorm, but it had all fallen in the Jogi's field. His loss was made good to him and he adopted this calling as a profession, becoming the first Garpagari, and being paid by contributions from the proprietor and tenants. There are no subcastes except that the Kharchi Garpagari are a bastard group, with whom the others refuse to intermarry.

2. Marriage.