Part 21

"The Hebrew conception of homosexual love to some extent affected Muhammadanism, and passed into Christianity. The notion that it is a form of sacrilege was here strengthened by the habits of the Gentiles. St. Paul found the abominations of Sodom prevalent among nations who had 'changed the truth of God into a lie, and worshipped and served the creature more than the creator.' During the Middle Ages heretics were accused of unnatural vice as a matter of course. Indeed, so closely was sodomy associated with heresy that the same name was applied to both. In La Coutume de Touraine-Anjou the word hérite, which is the ancient form of hérétique, seems to be used in the sense of 'sodomite'; and the French bougre (from the Latin Bulgarus, Bulgarian), as also its English synonym, was originally a name given to a sect of heretics who came from Bulgaria in the eleventh century and was afterwards applied to other heretics, but at the same time it became the regular expression for a person guilty of unnatural intercourse. In mediaeval laws sodomy was also repeatedly mentioned together with heresy, and the punishment was the same for both. It thus remained a religious offence of the first order. It was not only a 'vitium nefandum et super omnia detestandum,' but it was one of the four 'clamantia peccata,' or crying sins, a 'crime de Majestie, vers le Roy celestre.' Very naturally, therefore, it has come to be regarded with somewhat greater leniency by law and public opinion in proportion as they have emancipated themselves from theological doctrines. And the fresh light which the scientific study of the sexual impulse has lately thrown upon the subject of homosexuality must also necessarily influence the moral ideas relating to it, in so far as no scrutinising judge can fail to take into account the pressure which a powerful non-volitional desire exercises upon an agent's will."

Holia

Holia. [167]--A low caste of drummers and leather-workers who claim to be degraded Golars or Telugu Ahirs, under which caste most of the Holias seem to have returned themselves in 1901. [168] The Holias relate the following story of their origin. Once upon a time two brothers, Golar by caste, set out in search of service, having with them a bullock. On the way the elder brother went to worship his tutelary deity Holiari Deva; but while he was doing so the bullock accidentally died, and the ceremony could not be proceeded with until the carcase was removed. Neither a Chamar nor anybody else could be got to do this, so at length the younger brother was prevailed upon by the elder one to take away the body. When he returned, the elder brother would not touch him, saying that he had lost his caste. The younger brother resigned himself to his fate and called himself Holu, after the god whom he had been worshipping at the time he lost his caste. His descendants were named Holias. But he prayed to the god to avenge him for the treachery of his brother, and from that moment misfortunes commenced to shower upon the Golar until he repented and made what reparation he could; and in memory of this, whenever a Golar dies, the Holias are feasted by the other Golars to the present day. The story indicates a connection between the castes, and it is highly probable that the Holias are a degraded class of Golars who took to the trade of tanning and leather-working. When a Holia goes to a Golar's house he must be asked to come in and sit down or the Golar will be put out of caste; and when a Golar dies the house must be purified by a Holia. The caste is a very numerous one in Madras. Here the Holia is superior only to the Madiga or Chamar. [169] In the Central Provinces they are held to be impure and to rank below the Mahars, and they live on the outskirts of the village. Their caste customs resemble generally those of the Golars. They believe their traditional occupation to be the playing of leathern drums, and they still follow this trade, and also make slippers and leather thongs for agricultural purposes. But they must not make or mend shoes on pain of excommunication from caste. They are of middle stature, dark in colour, and very dirty in their person and habits. Like the Golars, the Holias speak a dialect of Canarese, which is known as Golari, Holia or Komtau. Mr. Thurston gives the following interesting particulars about the Holias: [170] "If a man of another caste enters the house of a Mysore Holia, the owner takes care to tear the intruder's cloth, and turn him out. This will avert any evil which might have befallen him. It is said that Brahmans consider great luck will wait upon them if they can manage to pass through a Holia village unmolested. Should a Brahman attempt to enter their quarters, the Holias turn him out, and slipper him, in former times it is said to death."

Injhwar

1. Origin of the caste.

Injhwar. [171]--A caste of agricultural labourers and fishermen found in the Maratha tract of the Wainganga Valley, comprised in the Bhandara and Balaghat Districts. In 1901 they numbered 8500 persons as against 11,000 in 1891. The name Injhwar is simply a Marathi corruption of Binjhwar, as is for bis (twenty) and Ithoba for Bithoba or Vithoba. In his Census Report of 1891 Sir Benjamin Robertson remarked that the name was often entered in the census books as Vinjhwar, and in Marathi B and V are practically interchangeable. The Injhwars are thus a caste formed from the Binjhwars or highest subdivision of the Baiga tribe of Balaghat; they have adopted the social customs of the Marathi-speaking people among whom they live, and have been formed into a separate caste through a corruption of their name. They still worship Injha or Vindhya Devi, the tutelary deity of the Vindhyan hills, from which the name of the Binjhwars is derived. The Injhwars have also some connection with the Gowari or cowherd caste of the Maratha country. They are sometimes known as Dudh-Gowari, and say that this is because an Injhwar woman was a wet-nurse of the first-born Gowari. The Gowaris themselves, as a low caste of herdsmen frequenting the jungles, would naturally be brought into close connection with both the Baigas and Gonds. Their alliances with the Gonds have produced the distinct caste of Gond-Gowari, and it is not improbable that one fact operating to separate the Injhwars from their parent tribe of the Baigas was an admixture of Gowari blood. But they rank higher than the Gond-Gowaris, who are regarded as impure; this is probably on account of the superior position of the Binjhwars, who form the aristocracy of the Baiga tribe, and, living in the forests, were never reduced to the menial and servile condition imposed on the Gond residents in Hindu villages. The Injhwars, however, admit the superiority of the Gowaris by taking food from their hands, a favour which the latter will not reciprocate. Several of the sept or family names of the caste are also taken from the Gonds, and this shows an admixture of Gond blood; the Injhwars are thus probably a mixed group of Gonds, Gowaris, and Binjhwars or Baigas.

2. Subdivisions.

The Injhwars have four subcastes, three of the territorial and one of the occupational class. These are the Lanjiwar, or those living round Lanji in Balaghat; the Korre, or those of the Korai hill tract in Seoni; the Chandewar or Maratha Injhwars who belong to Chanda, and are distinguished by holding their weddings only in the evening after the Maratha custom, while other Injhwars will perform the ceremony at any time of day; and the Sonjharias, or those who have taken to washing for gold in the beds of streams. Of their sept or family names some, as already stated, are taken from the Gonds, as Mesram, Tekam, Marai, Ukya. [172] Three names, Bhoyar, Kawara and Kohrya (from Kohli), are the names of other castes or tribes, and indicate that members of these became Injhwars and founded families; and others are of the territorial, titular and totemistic types. Among them may be mentioned the Pithvalyas, from pith, flour; all families of this sept should steal a little rice from somebody else's field as soon as it is ripe, husband and wife making a joint expedition for the purpose. They must not speak a word to each other from the time they start until they have brought back the rice, pounded and cooked it, offered it to the god and made their meal. The Paunpats, named after the lotus, will not touch the flowers or leaves of the lotus plants, or even drink water from a tank in which the lotus grows. The Dobokria Rawats are so named because they make an offering of two goats to their gods. Some of the septs are subdivided. Thus the Sonwani or gold-water sept, whose members readmit social culprits, is divided into the Paunpat or lotus Sonwanis; the Gurhiwal, who revere a brass vessel tied to a bamboo on the first day of the year; the Sati Sonwani, who worship the spirit of a sati woman ancestor; and the Mungphatia Sonwanis, whose token is the broken mung pulse. At present these subsepts cannot intermarry, the union of any two Sonwanis being forbidden, but it seems likely that intermarriage may be permitted in the course of time.

3. Marriage and other customs.

The social customs of the Injhwars resemble those of the lower Maratha castes. [173] Marriage is forbidden between members of the same sept and first cousins, and a man should also not take a wife from the sept of his brother or sister-in-law. This rule prevents the marriage of two brothers to two sisters, to which there is of course no objection on the ground of affinity. Girls are usually not married until they are grown up; but in places where they have been much subjected to Hindu influences, the Injhwars will sometimes wed an adult girl to a basil plant in order to avoid the stigma of keeping her in the house unmarried. The boy's father goes to make a proposal of marriage, and the girl's father, if he approves it, intimates his consent by washing his visitor's feet. A bride-price of about Rs. 20 is usually paid, which is increased somewhat if the bridegroom is a widower, and decreased if the bride has been seduced before marriage. The marriage is performed by throwing coloured rice over the couple. Divorce and the remarriage of widows are permitted. A bachelor who marries a widow must first go through the ceremony with an arka or swallow-wort plant, this being considered his real marriage. The Injhwars usually bury the dead, and in accordance with Dravidian custom place the corpse in the grave with the feet to the north. When the body is that of a young girl, the face is left exposed as it is carried to the grave. The regular ceremonies are performed for the welfare of the deceased's soul, and they try to ascertain its fate in the next incarnation by spreading flour on the ground overnight and looking in the morning for anything resembling the foot-mark of a human being, animal or bird. On the festival of Akhatij and in the month of Kartik (October) they offer libations to the dead, setting out a large pitcher of water for a male and a small one for a female. On the former they paint five lines of sandalwood to represent a man's caste-mark, and on the latter five splashes of kunku or the red powder which women rub on their foreheads. A burning lamp is placed before the pitchers, and they feed a male Mali or gardener as representative of a dead man and a female for a woman.

4. Occupation and social status.

The Injhwars are generally labourers and cultivators, while the Sonjharias wash for gold. The women of the Maratha or Chandewar subcaste serve as midwives. Their social status is low, and in the forest tracts they will eat snakes and crocodiles, and in fact almost anything except beef. They will admit members of the Brahman, Dhimar (waterman), Mali and Gowari castes into the community on payment of a premium of five to fifteen rupees and a dinner to the caste-fellows. The candidate for admission, whether male or female, must have his head shaved clean. Both men and women can obtain pardon for a liaison with an outsider belonging to any except the most impure castes by giving a feast to the community. To be beaten with a shoe involves temporary excommunication from caste, unless the striker be a Government official, when no penalty is inflicted. If a man kills a cat, he is required to have an image of it made in silver, which, after being worshipped, is presented to a temple or thrown into a river.

Jadam

Jadam. [174]--A branch of the well-known Yadu or Yadava sept of Rajputs which has now developed into a caste in the Nerbudda valley. Colonel Tod describes the Yadu as the most illustrious of all the tribes of India, this name having been borne by the descendants of Buddha, progenitor of the Lunar race. The Yadavas were the herdsmen of Mathura, and Krishna was born in this tribe. His son was Bharat, from whom the classical name of Bharatavarsha for India is held to be derived. It is related that when Krishna was about to ascend to heaven, he reflected that the Yadavas had multiplied exceedingly and would probably cause trouble to the world after he had left it. So he decided to reduce their numbers, and one day he persuaded one of his companions to dress up as a pregnant woman in jest, and they took him to the hermitage of the saint Durvasa and asked the saint to what the woman would give birth. Durvasa, who was of a very irascible temper, divined that he was being trifled with, and replied that a rice-pestle would be born by which the Yadavas would be destroyed. On the return of the party they found to their astonishment that a pestle had actually, as it were, been born from the man. So they were alarmed at the words of the saint and tried to destroy the pestle by rubbing it on a stone. But as the sawdust of the pestle fell on the ground there sprang up from it the shoots of the Gondla or Elephant grass, which grows taller than the head of a man on horseback. And some time afterwards a quarrel arose among the Yadavas, and they tore up the stalks of this grass and slew each other with it. Only one woman escaped, whose son was afterwards the King of Mathura and the ancestor of the existing tribe. Another body, however, with whom was Krishna, fled to Gujarat, and on the coast there built the great temple of Dwarka, in the place known as Jagat Khant, or the World's End. The story has some resemblance to that of the sowing of the dragon's teeth by Cadmus at Thebes. The principal branches of the Yadavas are the Yaduvansi chiefs of Karauli, in Rajputana, and the Bhatti chiefs of Jaisalmer. The Jadams of Hoshangabad say that they immigrated from Karauli State about 700 years ago, having come to the country on a foray for plunder and afterwards settled here. They have now developed into a caste, marrying among themselves. In Hoshangabad the caste has two subdivisions, the Kachhotia who belong principally to the Sohagpur tahsil, and the Adhodias who live in Seoni and Harda. These two groups are endogamous and do not marry with each other. The Kachhotia are the offspring of irregular unions and are looked down upon by the others. They say that they have fifty-two exogamous groups or sections, but this number is used locally as an expression of indefinite magnitude. All the sections appear to be named after villages where their ancestors once lived, but the preference for totemism has led some of the groups to connect their names with natural objects. Thus the designation of the Semaria section may be held to be derived from a village of that name, both on account of its form, and because the other known section-names are taken from villages. But the Semaria Jadams have adopted the semar or cotton-tree as their totem and pay reverence to this. [175]

Infant-marriage is favoured in the caste, and polygamy is also prevalent. This is often the case among the agricultural castes, where a man will marry several wives in order to obtain their assistance in his cultivation, a wife being a more industrious and reliable worker than a hired servant. No penalty is, however, imposed for allowing a girl to reach adolescence before marriage, and this not infrequently happens. If a girl becomes with child through a man of the caste she is united to him by a simple rite known as gunda, in which she merely gives him a ring or throws a garland of flowers over his neck. A caste feast is also exacted, and the couple are then considered to be married. The remarriage of widows is permitted, but it is known by the opprobrious name of Kukar-gauna or 'dog-marriage,' signifying that it is held to be little or no better than a simple illicit connection. Divorce is also somewhat common in the caste, notwithstanding that the person who occupies the position of co-respondent must repay to the husband the expenses incurred by him on the marriage ceremony. Some women are known to have had ten or twelve husbands.

The Jadams are proprietors, tenants and labourers, and are reckoned to be efficient cultivators; they plough with their own hands and allow their women to work in the fields. They will also eat food cooked with water in the field, which is against the practice of the higher castes. They eat flesh, including that of the wild pig, and fish, but abstain from liquor, and will take food cooked with water only from Jijhotia or Sanadhya Brahmans who are their family priests. A Brahman will take water from the hands of a Jadam in a metal, but not in an earthen, vessel. Boys are invested with the sacred thread at the time of their wedding, a common practice among the higher agricultural castes, and one pointing to the hypothesis suggested in the article on Gurao that the investiture with the sacred thread was in its origin a rite of puberty. The women wear a peculiar dress know as sawang, consisting of a small skirt of about six feet of cloth and a long body-cloth wrapped round the waist and over the shoulders. They also have larger spangles on the forehead than other women. The women of the caste are emancipated to an unusual degree, and it is stated that they commonly accompany their husbands to market for shopping, to prevent them from being cheated. Dr. Hunter describes the Jadam as a brave soldier, but a bad agriculturist; but in the Central Provinces his courage is rated less highly, and a proverb quoted about him is: 'Patta khatka, Jadam satka,' or 'The Jadam trembles at the rustle of a leaf.'

Jadua

Jadua-, Jaduah-Brahman. [176]--This is the name of a class of swindlers, who make money by pretending to turn other metals into gold or finding buried treasure. They are believed to have originated from the caste of Bhadris or Jyotishis, the astrologers of western India. The Jyotishi or Joshi astrologers are probably an offshoot of the Brahman caste. The name Jadua is derived from jadu, magic. The Bhadris or Jyotishis were in former times, Mr. Knyvett writes, attached to the courts of all important rajas in western India, where they told fortunes and prophesied future events from their computations of the stars, often obtaining great influence and being consulted as oracles. Readers of Quentin Durward will not need to be reminded that an exactly similar state of things obtained in Europe. And both the European and Indian astrologers were continually searching for the philosopher's stone and endeavouring by the practice of alchemy to discover the secret of changing silver and other metals into gold. It is easy to understand how the more dishonest members of the community would come to make a livelihood by the pretence of being possessed of this power. The Jaduas belong principally to Bihar, and Mr. Knyvett's account of them is based on inquiries in that Province. But it is probable that, like the Bhadris, travelling parties of Jaduas occasionally visit the Central Provinces. Their method of procedure is somewhat as follows. They start out in parties of three or four and make inquiries for the whereabouts of some likely dupe, in the shape of an ignorant and superstitious person possessed of property. Sometimes they settle temporarily in a village and open a small grain-shop in order to facilitate their search. When the victim has been selected one of them proceeds to his village in the disguise of a Sadhu or anchorite, being usually accompanied by another as his chela or disciple. Soon afterwards the others come, one of them perhaps posing as a considerable landholder, and go about inquiring if a very holy Brahman has been seen. They go to the house of their intended dupe, who naturally asks why they are seeking the Brahman; they reply that they have come to do homage to him as he had turned their silver and brass ornaments into gold. The dupe at once goes with them in search of the Brahman, and is greatly impressed by seeing the landholder worship him with profound respect and make him presents of cloth, money and cattle. He at once falls into the trap and says that he too has a quantity of silver which he would like to have turned into gold. The Brahman pretends reluctance, but eventually yields to the dupe's entreaties and allows himself to be led to the latter's house, where with his chela he takes up his quarters in an inner room, dark and with a mud floor. A variety of tricks are now resorted to, to impress the dupe with the magic powers of the swindlers. Sometimes he is directed to place a rupee on his forehead and go to the door and look at the sun for five minutes, being assured that when he returns the Brahman will have disappeared by magic. Having looked at the sun for five minutes he can naturally see nothing on returning to a dark room and expresses wonder at the Brahman's disappearance and gradual reappearance as his eyes get accustomed to the darkness. Or if the trick to be practised is the production of buried treasure, a rupee may be buried in the ground and after various incantations two rupees are produced from the same spot by sleight of hand. Or by some trickery the victim is shown the mouth of an earthen vessel containing silver or gold coins in a hole dug in the ground. He is told that the treasure cannot be obtained until more treasure has been added to it and religious rites have been performed. Sometimes the victim is made to visit a secluded spot, where he is informed that after repeating certain incantations Sivaji will appear before him. A confederate, dressed in tinsel and paint, appears before the victim posing as Sivaji, and informs him that there is treasure buried in his house, and it is only necessary to follow the instructions of the holy Brahman in order to obtain it. The silver ornaments, all that can be collected, are then made over to the Brahman, who pretends to tie them in a cloth or place them in an earthen pot and bury them in the floor of the room. If buried treasure is to be found the Brahman explains that it is first necessary to bury more treasure in order to obtain it, and if the ornaments are to be turned into gold they are buried for the purpose of transmutation. During the process the victim is induced on some pretence to leave the room or cover himself with a sheet, when a bundle containing mud or stones is substituted for the treasure. The Brahman calls for ghi, oil and incense, and lights a fire over the place where the ornaments are supposed to be buried, bidding his victim watch over it for some hours or days until his return. The Brahman and his disciple, with the silver concealed about them, then leave the house, join their confederates and make their escape. The duped villager patiently watches the fire until he becomes tired of waiting for the Brahman's return, when he digs up the earth and finds nothing in the cloth but stones and rubbish.

Jangam